22. "The Road to the Spear" (The Wheel of Time S3E4)

[00:00:05] Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast. I'm Greg. And I'm Veronica. And this is The Wheel of Time Cast. This week we're covering The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 4, The Road to the Spear.

[00:00:34] And I'll tell you what a road it was. Yeah. This was a, in my opinion, this was a phenomenal hour of television. And while you couldn't necessarily go and watch it without ever having any of the context of the previous seasons, you wouldn't understand what was going on. But the emotional impact this episode had for people who care about these characters and care about what could happen,

[00:01:04] what might happen, whatever. This was, I will just say, I thought it was phenomenal. Same. And I also think, like, sort of along the lines of what you were just saying, that even if you didn't know anything that was going on, it was a really beautiful episode. It was sort of over the top. Like, I don't know, it just felt like a lot of artistry went into the making of this. And I just thought it was really cool. Like, anyone who loves sort of this fantasy genre, I think, could pop

[00:01:33] into this episode and just leave with an appreciation for the show and want to watch more. Yeah, it was really cool. This was a very, very memorable and almost like a hallmark chapter in one of the, like the, I'm going to say vintage, but like one of the, like the prime books. And like, in my opinion, I think

[00:01:58] I've said it before, but I think like the first six or seven are very, very well done. And then, you know, like eight, nine, 10 kind of meandering, start meandering a little bit. You get kind of caught in the details, but, but this is like prime chapter in one of the prime books. And you're just like, Oh my God, like this, what's, what's going to happen after this? It's just amazing.

[00:02:22] Sorry. Just surprising though, from the show and from someone who wasn't a book reader and didn't know what to expect. Like we started this season with an episode that just sort of felt huge, right? Like it felt as big or close to as big as like the season finale of the previous seasons. And so to open that strong with that big of an episode and then three episodes later also have

[00:02:51] an episode sort of that felt this large. Like I just feel more excited than ever about this show. That's awesome. And I'm almost positive that that's precisely what Rafe Judkins wanted everyone to feel after watching this episode. Yeah. How about you give us the, like a pretty reasonable Amazon summary? Yeah. Brief, but I think accurate. So it says Rand faces the forgotten history of his

[00:03:18] family as Moiraine learns the devastating truth of her future. And like, obviously way more happened than just that, but that, that's the theme of what happened. Like, okay, Amazon, I'll get, I'll let you get away with this one. I will say that like, I'm not even going to, I'm not even going to adjust it and I'm not going to adjust it specifically because, um, this was, I'll call it a bottle episode.

[00:03:44] It was only one storyline. It was only one group of people. And like, and I thought that this was like that. Yeah. I don't, I don't need any adjustment to that one. I think that was pretty good. Oh man. Yeah. I've been, I happened to wake up like 10 minutes before it released on Thursday morning and I've been chomping at the bit to talk about it. So I can't wait.

[00:04:09] Have you texted me by like noon that day? Like, have you watched it yet? And I'm like, no, I'm working. Yeah. I definitely, I was, I definitely, I was having conversations at, uh, I think before eight o'clock this, that morning with, with friends of mine. Um, but, uh, all right. So we're just going to take a real quick break and, uh, then we're going to get directly into our points. Cause man,

[00:04:35] can't wait. Okay. And we're back. Um, all right. So, uh, I only have like five, we'll, we'll call it points for this that we can talk about. Um, but, uh, obviously if you have something extra that you

[00:05:05] want to talk about by all means, um, how about you start? Yeah. So I feel like let's do start at the beginning. So like the few things that sort of happened leading up to them entering Ruidian. Um, and I'll just go ahead and say, and I'm thinking you're probably this similar thing. I have so many quotes written down from this episode that just felt not only just like fantastic

[00:05:34] writing, but really important things that they were saying that are like themes that have either come up or we expect to keep coming up. Oh, you know what we didn't do? We didn't do your questions. Oh, oh my gosh. Yes. So we actually, we should start with that. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I actually wrote three questions on my very first like brief watch through and I totally expected that like they might change. They didn't. So, um, these are my three

[00:06:01] questions. Okay. The first is, I just don't know if I fully understand what is actually killing people when they're in Ruidian. Like, is it just like, they have to be mentally strong enough. And if they're not, it, they just don't make it out. Do you mean like specifically in the rings or in the glass columns? I guess either. I mean, we saw the most dead people in the glass columns, but we knew

[00:06:30] it was a possibility that you don't leave the rings either. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, I would say, and this is kind of what, um, what I think it's Malayne said to Avienda before she sent her off. She said, uh, a strong heart and strong mind are, what are your weapons now? Like they're no longer

[00:06:52] spears. It's now your strong heart, strong mind. So basically, um, I'm going to say that the possibilities that are going through someone's head, uh, potentially drive them mad and kind of just kill their nervous system. It that's again, that's my guess. Um, and then I,

[00:07:16] that's what I would say in the, in the rings. Uh, but then I would say that the, uh, being broken by the truth, uh, again, back to strong heart, strong in your convictions, um, but willing to

[00:07:34] accept possibility of the possibility of your mind being changed or like, uh, what's so hard about this thing in particular? I think that hit it. I mean, there's one point where the ice at ice is, um, you have to be able to learn or you die. Right. And so I think that that's consistent with what you just said. I just didn't understand like if, if in the book, if there was something

[00:08:03] that made it more clear, like if, if not, or if it really is just like, you're not mentally and or even physically strong enough and you just sort of fall to the crushing. I mean, obviously the things they were seeing were emotional and crushing regardless of whether you were going through the rings or the glass columns. I think there was all, there's also a physical aspect of it. I mean, you could, you saw that, uh, Miradine and Rand were almost pushed to the ground by the

[00:08:32] wind and the like, and then like they said that they said that Rand was there in there for five days. So he was in the glass columns for five days. Like obviously no water, no food. Yeah. So you could also just like physically deteriorate. Yeah. If it took you too long to get through. Yeah. Um, and you couldn't accept it. Um, and you couldn't, couldn't take that next step. Um, like that's just,

[00:08:59] it's, it's, uh, yeah. Uh, how about number two? Number two is in the flash forward scene that we get of charn, charn, charn, cairn. Anyways, the very, like the oldest thing that we see of Rand's vision as things crack, there's basically like the death star in the sky. Is that supposed to be a moon? No, that was a ship man, a man-made thing. Like, yeah, I just didn't understand.

[00:09:29] That was floating above like, you know, maybe 60 feet above the earth. Okay. Like it was just floating up in the air and it was basically like a hovercraft or whatever, a hovering, uh, whatever. And let me be, again, be clear. Like this was not in the books. Like that was not in the books.

[00:09:53] The, yes, Rand's flashbacks were, but the, the, the time before the breaking, like it was all from his point of view. Like you didn't like the described things, but I don't ever remember anything like that. And it was amazing to be brought like to visualization and the, uh, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was, yes. So that's, so it was like, that was in our atmosphere.

[00:10:22] Yeah. It was like a ship or a car or a levitating platform or whatever. Uh, it was basically, yeah, like you said, it's kind of like a, a floating building because it was a bunch of different levels and then you saw it crash into the, into the ground. Okay. But I think there was a lot of things that I left unsatisfied with that. I just was like, okay, but I want to know more

[00:10:48] like to just get the little blips of things was hard. I hear you. Okay. I, this, this is what kind of, this is another aspect of what I was talking about last week. Like give me a prequel, give me more like, you know, Robert Jordan didn't write, uh, what's the Silmarillion appendices? He didn't, he didn't write a, he didn't write a, uh, an appendices or a series of appendices that go along this. Like you could probably fan fiction your way through it.

[00:11:18] Um, but like this totally made me want to want more of that time of the, of the world. Okay. Last question. What if the, I, maybe I missed it in a previous episode, but what's the deal with needing to have two wise ones? Does it have to be a two yeses to be able to enter Ruidian? And so if they disagree, if just one of them says, no, that's enough for you not to go,

[00:11:44] but you can't be approved by just one of them. You need two yeses. I will say that I, I w I mean, I don't know the answer for sure, but my interpretation is that basically, yes, that you need more than one person to say, okay, you can go to Ruidian, um, to go face the trials to be a clan chief. Um, and I think that that's the whole point, right? It's,

[00:12:13] it's checks and balances. It's, you can't, you can't get permission from just one person who said, yes, I'll go, or this person should go or whatever. Okay. Cool. Well, those are my three questions. I think I'm going to have a lot more as we go through, but those are the three that didn't like delve deep, deep into one of the storylines. So I gotcha. Okay. All right. So yeah. So you want to just move, you want to, rather than just kind of moving through points, we'll just, we'll kind of address these things. Cause I think each of these

[00:12:39] points kind of moves us through. So we'll just start with the first point, which is just their travel through the threefold land to get to Ruidian then. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, all we really saw here was just kind of little blips, right? Like we saw Lan and Rand, uh, sparring. Um, you know,

[00:13:02] we learned about the flame in the void, uh, which was a big thing in the book. Um, and, uh, and then we, you know, then we have Moiraine going to Rand and saying the one, she, I, her floppy hat really, uh, every time I see it, I'm going to think of you. I can't stand it, but you know what? We got another hat this episode that I loved that allowed me to just forget about Moiraine's hat. So. Okay. Uh, Savannah's?

[00:13:32] Oh, I love her. We better get more of her. She's so cool. Very excited about the large basket hat. I thought there were some good quotes, even just from those opening scenes, like when Rand and Lan are talking and Rand, like Lan asked him if he wants to be Aiel because he's sort of talking about

[00:13:58] how he is, but is it Aiel? And Rand just replies, there are so many things that I can't be. I just thought that was a good line and representative of how he's sort of recognizing that about himself and coming to terms with what his destiny is. And then I loved the sort of juxtaposition to that scene of Rand and Lan, which was Moiraine and Egwene sitting there and they're basically,

[00:14:25] Egwene says the, um, a watched pot never boils basically. And, uh, Moiraine replied, if only it were that easy to stop a pot from boiling, which I thought was a pretty good reply to that. Yeah. I, Moiraine was really, really cranky. Like she was super cranky this episode. And like, uh, and like even when she, when we get into, uh, where, um,

[00:14:51] she and Egwene and Malaine and Bear are talking like, oh, you're so forthcoming with answers that we don't care anything about. Thanks. I was just like, all right. Like I get that you are like which is rich coming from her. Right. Yeah, exactly. Like how many, what did Rand ask her to say? Like, Hey, you know, tell me that you won't. Like you just explicitly, yeah. Yeah. Just explicitly say it and she won't. Just tell me that you won't try to stop me

[00:15:21] from doing once something, once I decide to do it. I won't watch you throw your life away. Well, I, I will never do anything to, I will never do anything to hinder you from fulfilling your destiny. You know what? Those are wildly, wildly frustrating words. And if you are listening for a truth, none of that, even none of that rings. No. And there's things, even this episode that frustrated

[00:15:46] me, like there's no reason she couldn't have just told Rand, like what the wise ones told her, which was that like, Hey, I actually have to go into Ruidian. Cause he kept being like, you shouldn't be here. And why are you here? And stuff like, why not tell him that? I just, I don't know. It's like build a little bit of trust with him. I'm sure she has a reason, but.

[00:16:07] I think that she is so used to being the smartest one in the room or being the one who knows what's happening or whatever that she won. I think there's, it's hard for her to give that up. And two, I think that she very specifically, I think that she is afraid of losing usefulness to him.

[00:16:37] And, and if she just, now I agree with you, Hey, build a little bit of trust. But one of the things that I feel like she was always fearful of was that what if something that she says or something that she shares is something that tips him in the wrong direction? Or like if she showed up and said, yeah, my, you know, my uncle, you know, cut down this tree. And so that's why you were born

[00:17:04] on the slopes of Dragon Mount. Like when she first found out who he was, like, she told him that on the eye, on the, on the way to the eye of the world, be like, wait, what, what's happening? Yeah. Like this is all your fault. He wouldn't have understood. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he understood at this point anyway, but he, it, I guess being a mysterious character in whatever game that you're playing, game of life that you're playing, it makes it easier

[00:17:34] to hold, hold your cards close, cards close to your chest. And you won't let slip vulnerability if you don't explain things away. No, that makes sense. She just, she's annoyed me from the get go. I don't know why, but I just, her character rubs me the wrong way. I don't, I don't blame her. And it just drives me nuts. I get it.

[00:18:02] I, I agree with you. Like I really enjoyed all those like intro scenes and like, it was funny. All of that, again, all of that happened as the cold open. Yeah. Arriving. It was a long cold open. Oh, you know, the, the sparring, uh, Avienda being sent off. Um, they, you know, meeting with the wise ones, uh, Egwene and, and, and Moiraine meeting with the wise ones. Um, and

[00:18:29] then see, you know, getting to, uh, Karen Dyer. Can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Karen Dyer. I wrote it down. Something like that. Well, I wrote, I wrote down the way it's actually spelled, but it's difficult to kind of read it. For sure. I think, I think it's Karen Dyer. Dyer. Okay. Yeah. Um, and because when, when Avienda said it, I was like, oh, thank God I have

[00:18:56] subtitles on. Cause I would have had no idea what she was talking about. Um, but. We also found out that, um, every chief gets one of those marks of the dragon basically on his arm. If he goes through, but that the car car will end up with two. Yep. So like we found that out during their little walk over there. And then, yeah, we met Savannah with

[00:19:20] her basket hat. She's cool. Got an attitude. I'm sure I'm going to hate her soon, but so far But for the moment. Hopefully I'll love to hate her at the most, but love, love, love the ridiculous basket hat. I don't know if I've mentioned that yet. So we did meet some new characters, right? Uh, so we met, as you said, Savannah, um, who is a wise one of the Shido clan. Um, she's got some snarky words for Ruark and Bear. Um,

[00:19:50] um, we learned that, or we met, uh, Kuladin, which I thought Savannah's phrasing was weird. Not maybe not phrasing, but like, Oh, where's your husband? Oh, he's dead. My new husband, his son, Murad or Muradin. I was like, wait, his son. Yeah. It has to be his son from previous, a different woman.

[00:20:14] I was like, wait, I know I had to sit there like, wait, what? And then his brother Kuladin, uh, is the, the hotheaded guy from the, you know, the, the tried to take on, uh, take out Rand. And then we found out the wise ones can channel or at least Bear can, um, which Oh, right, right, right. May have been, um, you know, may, people may have assumed that,

[00:20:41] but, uh, I was, I was like, Oh, like, cause Moiraine looked like clocked it. And she was like, wait, what? Huh? Interesting. I didn't even, it didn't even strike me that we didn't know that. Like it didn't, I don't know. First, I told you there were going to be things I was sure that I didn't catch this episode. So here's number one. Um, yeah. So we found out

[00:21:06] that at least Bear can channel, there is a different way for both men and women to present themselves, uh, to go, you know, request to go to the Rodion. I'm curious what a man would look like going now. Like, do they get down on a knee? Do they only put down one arm? What the deal is? Um, I thought it was interesting during this scene when Rand was asking and he,

[00:21:32] uh, when Kuladin sort of goes after him and he says, my mother was Aiel. And, um, the older wise one replied, yeah, Bear, your father, yes, but your mother. And then just like, dot, dot, dot. Well, that was an interesting little tidbit. Absolutely. Well, and then the fact that we, so we thought that we saw her Aiel mother or his, his Aiel mother, like on the slopes of

[00:21:58] Dragon Mount. And now we say, well, who was his mother? Um, like we know, we know what character she was, but where was she from if she was not Aiel? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because I, that would be, that was what I have red hair or am I? She did. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. She had, well, that was kind of like, it was like when we saw it, it was like, Oh, the first time we saw a fight, a, a, a, a fighting and, you know, that why, why it's called the dance. And we saw more of amazing

[00:22:28] Aiel fighting this episode. And, uh, I thought it was great. I did think it was funny. Uh, Malaine needs to shut the fuck up. Like you should not have been told like bear had to say it. How many times has she, you should not have been told. Um, those who moved too much with too much knowledge of the future find disaster. I thought that was another one that was good one sort of around

[00:22:50] the, the idea of like not revealing too much of those visions to people. Cause you can really mess stuff up. And I feel like we've seen that theme throughout this series with things that men saw or that, you know, these different prophecies where a slightly different interpretation can really, uh, mean things play out very differently, but it can kind of mess up the way you're going about things. Cause you're basing it on your interpretation. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm just going to

[00:23:20] read the whole quote. Those who have, those who know, or those who have too much knowledge. Oh, no. Okay. I'm going to start that over again. Those who move with too much knowledge of the future find disaster, whether from complacency and what they think must come or in their efforts to change

[00:23:46] it. And that's like the opposite. It's basically the two sides of, uh, men, men and Elida, right? Elida. Oh, I know what's going to come. So I'm going to put myself in position to, you know, cause I know that the queendom of Andor is going to have a thing. And then men's like, Oh God, what can I do to prevent whatever's going to happen? Like she saw Matt stab Rand. Well, Matt did stab Rand,

[00:24:11] although it seemed like that almost needed to happen in order for, for things to occur. So I thought that, uh, I really liked that they keep tossing more things out that applied to previous episodes and like previous arcs. Um, I, I realized that I think it's well-written and well done. Yeah.

[00:24:34] Me too. Um, we find out that, uh, the Aiel are the people of the dragon. Um, like we talked about that, but now we like know why. Yeah. Um, so when the Shido showed up, uh, and even Savannah and versus, uh, our, our group, it was the typical white versus black, like good

[00:25:00] guys versus bad guys. Uh, so Savannah is wearing black, um, Kuladin was wearing dark colors. Um, and then bear and Malayne are wearing, we'll say, we'll say dust white. Um, but then we also saw what I assumed was a Shido in one of Rand's vision in the first of Rand's visions. Nope. Sorry. The second of Rand's visions, um, where when they first went to Ruidian and you saw

[00:25:30] the, the smoke. So in the fog, uh, Mandane who was Matt's ancestor. Nope, not Matt. Sorry. Rand's ancestor. Um, one of the other characters was wearing black and had like a big fang jewel or whatever on his, on his, uh, his, his head covering. Nice. Um, let me see what else. Oh,

[00:25:55] so one of the things I'm just going to say that the, the, the thing between Wayne and Rand, um, you know, she's like, like, uh, you know, Hey, are you, do you men or it means to enter where we're already in? And he just kind of stared. I think he just stares at her and he's like, I have to go. And then she's like, do you think you, do you think you know everything? Like some people

[00:26:21] wait on, you know, for weeks on the slopes and, and he's like, well, I have to go. Like, what do you, what do you mean? And she's like, well, she like turns around and walks away. And then basically hoping that he'll say he'll call her back for her counsel or whatever. And then she just can't help it. She just turns back around and goes back and talks to him again. It reminds me of like my mom, like, Hey, here's the guilt on you. I'm going to walk away. Oh,

[00:26:48] but you didn't, you didn't say, Oh no, I want to, so I got to come back and reemphasize it. It's like, Oh man. Um, But yeah, their dynamic is interesting. And I'm curious to see the next sort of chapter of their story. Cause it feels like this was a turning point having both gone through this. Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. Um, I did like that. Uh, we got what the, uh, what the

[00:27:17] Aiel battle dress was called the cotton sword. Uh, that's what, so that's what Avienda had to take off in order to enter Bruidian. Um, and then my, one of my, my favorite, uh, my favorite parts of this, are you ready? No, no. And then she just starts walking like, all right. But honest. Yeah. You're like, you know what? No, I'm not ready for this. What are you, what are you talking

[00:27:42] about? Um, then, uh, Egwene, I'm just going to say the last thing that I had like beforehand, Egwene was like, no, I'm going with him. Oh no, your paths do not align. Oh, it's really painful watching this. It sort of reminds me of like the high school sweethearts in that first year away at college when like they know their paths are diverging. They still care about each other, but it's painful really. I think watching this section of things for them

[00:28:10] and I'm, I don't know. I think I'll be excited if they sort of part ways and we see both of them doing better things. I just sort of hate this. I just feel sad for Egwene right now. I don't like that because she can be such a strong character. Yeah. I mean, but it's funny because she doesn't need him. Like she, she doesn't need him, but she wants to protect him. She wants to do what she needs to, to support him, which is, you know,

[00:28:39] it's hard to empathize with that with a character like that because you want that too. You want her to be able to help. Um, so that, I mean, then walking into Rodion was then the, the end of the cold open. So, uh, anything else you wanted to talk about, um, in that opening scene? I think that was it. All right. We'll take a quick break and we'll move into the next point.

[00:29:20] Okay. And we're back. Uh, I just want to, so now that we're getting into either Rand or Moiraine, depending on which one we want to do first. Um, I, the, the breakdown that, that Bear gave us before the cold open was that he will walk in his ancestors' shoes, right? He will live out, he will experience the lives of his ancestors and she

[00:29:49] will see a thousand, thousand turns of the wheel. And it very much like, so I make, what makes me wonder is does Avienda see where it all came from? And like, because they're not experiencing the same thing. So she's not necessarily seeing the history of the Aiel, but Bear and like all the wise ones

[00:30:15] happen to know about it. Um, so I wonder if my, my guess is that, Hey, you don't talk to anybody, you know, the, we do not talk about what happens in the city of the dead, except for the people who have visited. So my guess is that they would share at least some information, uh, between chiefs and wise

[00:30:36] ones, but it's not something that like the bear didn't see precisely this, but if Malay, Malayne and bear and the other wise ones that they spoke to were all talking and like, Hey, we saw this, this woman, this Aes Sedai who is sometimes going to show up and sometimes not. And they're like,

[00:31:02] um, so when I just assumed that as a standard, if you go through, if you're a man and you go through the columns that everyone is each step forward, a step back through time, but that if you're a woman, regardless of like, I didn't think Moiraine's thing was unique. I just assumed Avienda is seeing a thousand, thousand turns of her own future. Right. Um, and so, well, so when Rand came to

[00:31:31] Avienda afterwards, he's like, now I understand. And she's like, what are you talking about? Like, and I was like, Oh, like, she's, she's still being kind of a bitch, um, to him and like referring to him as wetlander. And, and I mean, no, she's not wrong. Like she, he is in fact a wetlander and, and that's fine. But anyway, we'll get to that. But I thought that the difference between the clan

[00:31:55] chief and the wise one path and what they were seeing, I thought was a really interesting contrast. One is seeing possible futures. One is seeing a definitive past. Um, I will say that yes, Rand absolutely needed to go to Rodian because his ancestors were vital in all of the

[00:32:20] the things. So, you know, it was almost, um, you know, it was almost, uh, fate that his, that he was going to be the dragon reborn because his ancestors were the ones who spoke with Mir and Sadai right before they broke in, the broke the pattern or broke through the pattern. Um, that he was, they, he was the one who had the, uh, Sakarnan handed to him to give into the,

[00:32:49] so like he was almost always fated to be the dragon reborn. Yeah. It's kind of funny because, you know, people talk about who could the dragon reborn be, but it was always fated to be him. Yeah. Kind of the same way that, the same way that they have Moiraine's, um, you know, Moiraine's, you know, Laman cutting it down at being connected to Moiraine. Well, when that all happened,

[00:33:16] Moiraine was at the tower, she had no, like, not when he cut it down, but at least when the Aiel came over the wall or over the spine, like it's all connected and it's all crazy. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that because I, you know, of all the stuff that I touched on, I obviously want to go on Rand's journey. Yes. I am so ready to go on Rand's journey. All right. So we have, you know, he, at least what the views that we saw,

[00:33:46] uh, and I'm just going to name them all and then we'll go through each one. Uh, Janduin, who was Rand's father. Um, and I'll tell you what, Jasha playing all of these parts or Yasha or how, like he, I thought I, the first one, like, uh, Janduin, I didn't even realize that it was him until, um, until I didn't realize that it was him playing every role until, um, until the next one,

[00:34:14] Mandane, Mandane, when he was talking to the, uh, Latra Sadai and he's like, what do you want from us? I said, I, and I was like, Oh, Oh God, it's, it's him. And the fact that he played all these roles is amazing. And he, you know, the, the differences in his voice and the differences in his affectations, like I thought he did a wonderful job at this. Um, anyway, so yeah, so, so Janduin, uh, Mandane,

[00:34:44] uh, Luwin, who was the, uh, absolutely got Hobbit vibes in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, and then, so Luwin's great, great grandfather, uh, Jonai, and then the, whoever the servant was, I don't think we ever got a name for the servant that was handed the Sikarnan. Roderick. Roderick?

[00:35:14] That's what I have written down. Okay. Uh, I, I went back and, and tried to, and maybe, maybe that, that was his name and I just didn't catch it. I would thought that maybe Latra Sadai would say it at one point, but then like his, his husband referred to him as love. Uh, and I was waiting for the name to show up, but I, I'm not sure. It's possible that I just got that off the internet and that it didn't actually, wasn't actually said in the episode. Okay. I mean, that's,

[00:35:39] I mean, and that's fine. I, I do know only because of the internet, uh, and one of the groups that I'm a part of that the farmer, you know, I just have farmer on here. His name was Charn in the book. Yeah. C-H-A-R-N. I had that too, but again, I, I had like a screenshot of someone who had put a picture of each of these with their names on it, which is where I got Roderick. And I think I just

[00:36:04] didn't even clock which ones they said clearly in the episode and which ones they didn't. Gotcha. Um, so Janduin, we, then again, there is the reason that we see the flash forward flashbacks in the past, like in the cold opens, um, about with Tam and, and his mother so that now we have context. And I feel like it was all building to this point where we could, they could reveal this

[00:36:30] to us. And now we're like, Oh, I know who that is. Oh, I know what's going on here. Oh, Oh my God. Where's the baby? Like, Oh, you know where the baby is, but, um, and then, uh, uh, so like that, I mean, I thought that that was another amazing fight scene. Um, uh, one thing I will, I'm, I'm going to kind of complain about, but they very specifically talk about keeping their

[00:36:57] veils up whenever they do violence. And Rand is the only Aiel who doesn't have his veil up at any given time when he does violence. So he, so he didn't have his, his veil up, uh, because he was, he found his wife. Um, and then, uh, Mandane never had his veil up just because he didn't, he wasn't doing violence. Uh, Lewin, they said, Oh, keep your dust veils up when they went into the camp. Um, but he

[00:37:27] didn't have his up, but, uh, uh, uh, Charlin and the other kid, I don't remember what his name is. Um, but like they had their veils up. Elijah. Elijah. Yeah. I think so. Um, interesting. Yeah. But yeah, so he's like, it's like, Oh no, we need to see that it's him, I guess, even though all the prosthetics and stuff, like it wasn't obvious to me, especially in Jan Dane or Janduin, uh,

[00:37:57] that it was, that it was him. I wasn't positive the first watch through. I, what I didn't realize every single iteration was him, um, you know, of Janduin, Mandane and Joe Nye, I guess. I mean, Lewin and Roderick and, and we're pretty obvious. We're all pretty obvious, but, um, then I realized on the second, like closer watch through the same, I thought another interesting, and of course like it

[00:38:25] made sense because part of what he was learning in here was the whole idea of like why they're oath breakers, but almost every iteration up until Roderick, someone gets called an oath breaker or they're talking about oaths. And it's actually not even always the same context because Janduin and the first one is talking about Moiraine's uncle and calling him the oath breaker because of what he had, you know, what we know he did with the tree. But, um, I tried to like note in each section where

[00:38:54] that like tagline came up. It was interesting. What, what I did enjoy about it was like the entire scenes before they step in, there were so many, there was so much exposition, like so much exposition, like they're like Moiraine talking about Laman Sen and, uh, you know, bear talking about what they're going to see in it. Like there's so much exposition and it's, it's interesting to us because we're looking to what this journey

[00:39:23] is going to be and all that. But then all of that exposition makes sense. It's not like it pays off in six episodes it, or the end of the season, it pays off literally in the episode, but as we're learning more things. And so we have that context and I just thought it was, again, thought it was very, very well done. And even though I was kind of like, Oh man, they just keep talking and I don't have an issue with talking about this stuff, but, uh, I can see where people might be like, Oh, they

[00:39:50] just told us what was going on so that we could explain it that it wasn't a hundred percent organic, but I thought it was, it was good enough. And then the payoff I think made it worth it. Yeah. And I think, I mean, some of the exposition, I felt like they got away with things like having the wise ones that are so kind of supposed to be always spouting, you know, that kind of stuff

[00:40:14] where it was less like out of place coming from them. And, um, it felt like, you know, we almost got little like blips into things that were happening over a couple of days journey. I felt like it didn't bother me that much. And then once we got to the actual flashbacks and things, there were so many things I was confused about that. I was like, give me some more exposition. Cause I need to understand.

[00:40:40] So I feel like I can forgive them. I mean, I get that. I thought it was really, um, heartbreaking in the Janduin storyline. Um, when he does find his wife and not only just that he found his wife dead and his baby missing, but sort of this moment where he's coming off this extreme high of just having accomplished what they set out to by killing, um, wearing his uncle. And, and he keeps,

[00:41:07] you know, shaking his wife and be like, no, like we won, like we won. And I think that was just so, so, so, so sad. Um, yeah, I don't know. It got me at least. And this was the only one where he woke up or not woke up, but I guess calling it woke up. I know he wasn't asleep where he came out of the dream state and looked down and his hands were bloody. It was the only one where he really seemed

[00:41:31] to carry something out of it with him. Well, I was wondering if that was actual, like if that was blood, like from the vision or if he was like clamping his, his nails into his, into his hands. Yeah. That would make more sense since none of the others like had a physical, like carry over like that. Right. Yeah. So, um, I will say that like the, I thought the Janduin one was done very,

[00:41:59] very well. And the fact, as you said, like the fact that he was trying to, um, that he was in the process of like, Hey, I just did exactly what we needed to and all that. And then it turns into, Oh wait, no, now we're like, now I've got this heartbreak on top of it. Like we, we did it. We did it. We did it. Oh, but like I've lost not only my wife, but my child as well. And it's,

[00:42:27] yeah, it was very, very tough. Um, but so then we move on to Mandane, um, who, which I think this was more for all of us as opposed to, uh, the people in the, in the episode. Like it's the, Oh, we watched Ruidian get all covered in mist and we became the cloud city. Right. And, um,

[00:42:53] and I thought it was, I thought it was great. I thought it was absolutely stunning. And, uh, uh, I was super excited to see it and yeah, so that's like, I liked Mandane. I loved his spear, uh, with the, the etchings on the, the blade and like the feather and like the black half. Um, and it was cool to see the very, what appeared to be the very first spear in what we saw,

[00:43:19] you know, a scene before, before they entered, before Moraine and Ran entered Meridian to see that his spear was kind of the first of all those spears that ended up being a circle around. I mean, his spear, I don't know. Do we know that he lived or died? We don't really know, but so maybe his spear could even still be out there, but I'm assuming he lived. I don't, I don't think I picked up that, that, that it was still there.

[00:43:46] Right. I just meant like, yeah, like his was the first sort of market, that first iteration of spears being left at the boundary, I guess. Gotcha. Okay. You know, I was, I was like, wait, did we see that? No, I don't. Like it'd be crazy. No, no, no, no, no. I kept wondering if we'd see like where Rand kept stepping on bodies. Bodies, right.

[00:44:10] I kept wondering, will there be some like tell that this is, um, you know, Mandane's body somehow still, you know, in some state of decay, even though it seems like it would be long, long gone. Um, but hopefully Mandane made it out. Yeah. I would imagine that he did. I mean, unless his wife was pregnant at that point.

[00:44:32] Well, he said when he, before he went in, he said, um, like, make sure my children continue to protect the sept if I don't come back out. So he established that he already had children. Already had a child. Yeah. Okay. So he could have died theoretically. Sure. Um, okay. Um, yeah. So that was Mandane. And I, like I said, I, I'd be, I'll be honest.

[00:44:59] I thought I was super smart for noticing that, um, it was Latris Sedai from the end of season one. Uh, and I was like, Oh, Latris Sedai. That's the, that was the Emerald seat from the, and then they showed her again later. And I was like, Oh, okay. Cause I would not have connected. Like, I didn't remember that we saw her before. Right. So she, is she who was talking to Swan and Moiraine? No, to the dragon. No, to the dragon. This is. I'm gonna have to go back.

[00:45:25] This was like the end of season. It was a cold open of season one. Uh, the season one finale. It was where we saw like the flying cars and the, or flying vehicles. And like the, it was before the breaking and. Oh, oh, oh, right, right, right. Okay. Yes. Yes. But I didn't remember her from it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she was the one in like the nursery where they were talking about how there was, it was Luz Theron and her arguing over, you know, trying to seal away the dark one.

[00:45:53] And to me, I thought it was an awesome throwback. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm so smart. And then, Oh wait, no, they showed it later. So, um, but I think it was definitely, like you said, that was definitely necessary to like have that kind of that touch point of this is literally thousands of years later after the breaking that she is maybe not thousands, but at least hundreds later that she has, you know, made it.

[00:46:21] She is now an old woman or at least she appears to be an old woman. And I said, I, you know, last a lot longer, a lot longer than, uh, uh, than people who don't use the power. Um, so yeah, the, uh, her, her utilizing the Sakarnan to raise the glass columns after seeing what had happened beforehand, seeing her, you know, cover the city in mist.

[00:46:48] Um, but I, I, I thought it was, I thought it was awesome. And she casually dropped the prophecy about the Karakarn. Yep. Uh, of the blood, but not raised by the blood, the Karakarn will come from Ruidian at dawn and tie you with bonds you cannot break. The Karakarn will take you back and destroy you. So the definitive prophecy from the Aes Sedai who created Ruidian or at least created the, the trials of Ruidian.

[00:47:19] And then the last thing we get right before the end of that is Mandine saying we are not oath breakers. I, I, you know, we, I am not an oath breaker and like, oh, that's heartbreaking to find, literally say that and then find that all, all the stuff out. Mm-hmm. Um.

[00:47:37] Cause I'm assuming Mandine probably from this point on when he went through the trials because he is Rian's direct blood ancestor, he probably also saw Luwin and Jonai and Roderick and Karakarn. Which is kind of cool. I hadn't really thought of that before. I mean, those are the, those are the important touch points, touch points of, uh, well, so that's kind of like where I'm kind of like, wait a minute. I see.

[00:48:02] If every other person who is not Rand's direct ancestor is not Rand or is not a direct ancestor, they are going to see their, their ancestors' viewpoints. But this stuff happened with Rand. Like Rand was the one who was, so like, uh, somebody else who goes through the, goes through the, the glass columns.

[00:48:26] He, they see one of the people who are just on, like being handed, he is handed the, the Sakarnan or, hey, we're out in the, in the, out in the field chopping down wheat. And there's not a conversation with one of the Aes Sedai, with Mir and Sedai. And, you know, then we just turn around and like, oh my God, there's a giant eye in the sky and what is happening?

[00:48:49] And so it's just kind of, it'd be interesting to see what, you know, Rourke saw going through, what Miradim was seeing when he went through. Because it may not make as much sense. It was almost like this trial was all built so that Rand could eventually come and live through his ancestors.

[00:49:14] But everybody else who came before him had to as well, without the context that we see. We don't see, maybe they don't see Lewin, you know, it's not the, this is some tinker in the, or some Aeel in the tinkerer wagons, right? In the tinker wagons. And they don't know it, oh, no, you cover your face. Because it's just some guy watching some other dude that I've known for however long. You know, oh, he did violence. He killed someone and now they are thrown away.

[00:49:45] Yeah, I mean, it's probably just other little blips of things. And they don't all need to know that the, you know, they, maybe not everyone needs to know some of the details that Rand did. But everyone's storyline probably has some explanation of them leaving in the carriages, right? And some explanation of that they used to follow the way of the leaf.

[00:50:08] And I can see a hundred iterations of families getting upset and breaking from the way of the leaf and breaking off. And why you only have a very select few that sort of stay true to it. Like probably Jonah and, and. Yeah, Aiden. Yeah. I did love the connective tissue. Just the little hat that little, the boy Aiden is wearing. And then you see it. I did. You literally just, no, I'm saying you literally just saw, you saw it on Luwin's grandfather.

[00:50:37] You saw it on the, on his head. And then old man Aiden's going to catch us if he does this. But then one scene back, Jonai is calling for Aiden and he's got that little knit hat on his head. I didn't notice the cap. I didn't notice the carry through of the cap. I caught the, you know, the names and things and was like, oh crap, this is his grandfather or great, great grandfather. But yeah.

[00:51:03] So, so Luwin, you know, we see, you know, we talked about a little bit already, but hey, you know, raise your faces or raise your veils. Not when you do violence, but just because we didn't want to be seen. Hide your face, stranger. Hide your face, you who would do violence. Oh, that's why we raise, that's why we cover our faces whenever we do violence. You know, we, and then, and this one, this one really got me. Well, what do we do now?

[00:51:32] We protect them. They can't do violence, but we can. And so we are, I mean, I'm literally getting chills just, just saying the lines again. Like, oh, so this is why our entire purpose is now to protect the true Aiel who are following the way of the leaf and are going to eventually make it to Ruidian and build this city and plant the Aventasora tree. And I thought, I thought that one was really, really old on.

[00:52:02] And then, like. A spear can put food in the pot, but a sword is basically only a weapon. I thought that was a good. Luwin's face when his mom was like, like, and he's just like, mom, mom, no, like, no, hide your face. And he's like, no, no, mom. I mean, to be, to be exiled like that. I mean, you saw how bad Maegren was messed up.

[00:52:32] Like, her face was, like, cut, like, diagonally. She looked like Tyrion Lannister. Like, she had a giant cut across her nose. And, like, they were beat to crap. And, like, no, no, like, you shouldn't have done violence being your Oathbreakers. Which, like, I can't blame him. And the fact that Maegren, like, continued, like, turned on, turned on him as well because her mother told her to. I was just like, like, that was, that was heartbreaking.

[00:53:00] Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to that sort of, like, blindly following. And I don't know. I mean, I know what's right or wrong. Like, they were blindly following this oath, this almost religious way of life. And there was a reason behind it, a real reason. Because them following that lifestyle is what was protecting this very, very important weapon, essentially. And so there was a reason behind it.

[00:53:29] But it also allowed a mother to look her son in the face and say that and send him away. And it was just, I don't know. It was really hard to watch and sad. And then, yeah, it went from, like, really heartbreaking and sad to then, like, this sort of, like, badass moment where, like, all right, well, we're just going to protect them and we'll do violence where they can't. Like you said, it was pretty cool.

[00:53:55] Yeah, it was, I thought it was, oh, yeah, that was, that was a, that was a big one. And, like, I just, I love the lore, like, the explanations of the lore and being able to visually see it. I think it's, it's phenomenal. But, like, my whole Hobbit thing, like, I'll tell you, him having his head under that tree and, like, under the sapling. And it was, it was right out of Lord of the Rings and the fireworks in Gandalf's truck.

[00:54:24] And they even threw out, you've been smoking too much, which is also a very Hobbit thing. Yeah, it was, it was awesome. I was just like, wait a minute. But then, did you notice that, like, all three boys were very tall? They were almost like. Oh, no, I didn't. Yeah, all three boys were, like, a foot and a half, you know, taller than all of the other. Because they've been smelling the tree, the end drop.

[00:54:45] Well, I don't, I don't know if they've been, I don't know if they've been, you know, struggling the tree, but, like, the fact that the Aiel, who, like, the modern day Aiel, are all tall. They're tall, they're red hair. Like, that's part of, well, if these were the original Aiel who went off and branched off, like, it would make sense that the tall, the tall jeans carried on throughout the lives. Okay, that one was a really, really hard one to watch, like you said.

[00:55:15] Um, and, like, uh, it was, is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Let me see if, I don't think we have any other notes on that one. I don't think so. I think the only things I sort of had in my notes were just, like, noting what had changed from the previous iteration of, like, the timeline of things. And so, what we've gone from is the time when Mandane was there, Ruidian had been built, to a time, you know, now where we're with Luan, this is pre-Ruidian being built. Right.

[00:55:43] Because they're still carting the tree around with them. Oh, and, did you notice that Rand, I mean, not Rand, Luan, I mean, he messed up that bandit. He sliced his face off. Oh, yeah. Like, literally sliced his face off. Like, that was pretty intense. So, just wanted to call it out. You not only did violence, you did some hardcore violence. It wasn't like you stabbed him. You, you effed him up.

[00:56:11] Yeah, my notes literally say, cuts dude's damn face right off. So, um, alright. So, then. Joni. Next is Joni. Um, so, Joni, again, I'm assuming they're getting hit by bandits. Uh, although there were a lot of people who were still there. Um, the.

[00:56:34] I don't know who Joni and Aiden found, or Aiden, or Aidan, or Aidan, or, yes, Aidan. Uh, found. But, like, they were the only two left in their, in their group, in their wagon. And so, I'm assuming that they found other people, not necessarily, uh, the Aiel, but they found more people. And that was another one that was hard. Like, no, my, my daughter saw it.

[00:57:01] She saw it in her visions, or in her dreams, that a city for the Aiel to, to live and be peaceful and be safe. Um, and, you know, without that belief in your daughter, like, I understand why other people wouldn't. Oh, hey, we're gonna go south. And we're gonna go do whatever. Who are the descendants of these people that were, did they go to, did they go to Terabon? Did they go to Tyr?

[00:57:28] Did they go to, like, I want to know where they went because, uh, and I'm trying to figure out if maybe there's something that I'm missing that, uh, that, hey, this was indicative of it. I mean, to me, I guess what I was seeing throughout all of these is basically, obviously, like you pointed out, this was the important storyline because this is the group that actually had the tree with the, um, what's it called? The, the, the, it's not, it's like, it's a, okay, it's a card.

[00:57:57] Um, but I just figured there was, you know, we see 10,000 carriages all leaving the city and I assume a lot of those split up and did not stay in groups. And so I assume there's hundreds of groups like Joe and I's small family sort of caravanning around together and probably a thousand different times, different attacks like this led to them splitting and maybe a few would stay and keep their oath.

[00:58:25] And those groups may come across each other and merge back. Those are probably all the ones that, you know, continued on and went over the, um, what's it called? The spear, the spine. Yep. And actually like followed sort of that. Sorry. I don't think it was just his daughter probably that had that dream prophecy. It was probably lots of daughters having that dream prophecy that sort of pushed the true

[00:58:49] Aiel still to like go back together, meet up in the desert and build Ruidian. Um, and so there's also probably a thousand iterations of Aiel that, that dropped off. And some of them, maybe, maybe Rand was one of the first that was like, we'll protect them. But there were probably a bunch of others that decided we're not going to keep our oaths, but doesn't mean we're going to be like terrible people. And maybe they sort of found each other. I don't know. Do you think?

[00:59:19] It, it, it really turns into the whole butterfly effect where it's like, you know, you see one thing happen and then you can only imagine what that happened all over somewhere else. Um, it feels like the pattern was protecting this particular cart, this particular, like that, that tree was going to be planted in Ruidian. That sapling with the Sakarnin was going to make it. And Jonai was almost protected by the pattern.

[00:59:47] He's, he's the reason that, you know, Aiden survived so that he could be taught by Jonai the way to not to break your oaths. And then eventually, eventually either Aiden or his, you know, his group eventually made it to Ruidian. So, um, and then we get anything else for, uh, Jonai? Like that was, that one, that one was also hard to watch. Yeah.

[01:00:14] I mean, I think it was just, especially in the iterative watches of it, kind of seeing young Aiden say outright, I won't break my oaths. And then seeing him grown and old and still parroting the words of his own grandfather, we bear our dead and we go on, what else is there? And then calling his own grandson an oath breaker, right? Um, oh yeah, all will be well also.

[01:00:41] Um, I just thought it was neat and interesting to sort of see that. And again, sort of going back to that idea of like, kind of almost at this point blindly following this, this history, this oath where they don't necessarily even remember why it's so important that they follow these things.

[01:01:04] Um, but passing it on to the younger generations in such a way that it's so tied to them that Jonai's daughter was able to disown her own son over it, you know? Aiden's daughter. Sorry. Yeah. Aiden's. And I, yeah. So, well, so we did get one more thing in this one. Do you remember the song? Oh. I do. I do. I do remember the song. And did you notice?

[01:01:31] So like, I don't know, I've seen stuff online and I know that's an important thing from the book, but did you notice? Cause then we hear the harvest song later, but in this scene, when they say that you just very subtly can start to hear that same song in the background of the music, just like chanting it out, which was pretty cool. No, I did not. On my like fourth watch. I caught it. No, I, like, and I, and to hear the song eventually was amazing.

[01:02:00] And like, I was, and okay. All right. Moving on. Right. Moving, moving on. I wanted to talk about the song. I don't want to belabor the points. No, no, don't apologize at all. All right. So now I guess Roderick, right? So Roderick goes to Lasha Sadai, the Amaralyn seat. And he, she says, okay. He says, yep. We have the tree, you know, 10,000 pots in 10,000 wagons or one pot for each wagon. And she says, okay, uh, I'm going to entrust this to you.

[01:02:28] And the argument to her fellow, I said, I is, well, if, if they can like Kalindor is like, if he, if men who are mad can find a woman who will help them can work with them. Like, I can't risk this being free. Kalindor is, is protected because that's what Luz Theron did. But if, if they can find a woman to, to help, like it's, it's horrible.

[01:02:55] You know, Lanfear was the one, or Ymir and Sadai was the one who punched through the, the, the, the, the prison and, you know, let all these free. Like what took the name Lanfear? Like I, what, what can I do except trust to peace? And it was just like, oh man, like that's, I understand the logic, but giving away a, a weapon of such power. Um, and you know, fortunately things worked out. The pattern protected it.

[01:03:21] It did eventually show up in Ruidian so she could make Ruidian for the, the Karakara to eventually come through. Um, but isn't this also, I mean, sorry to keep making, hopefully our fans, hopefully if you like Wheel of Time, you've had at least some interest in Lord of the Rings, but like what you just said, right? Just in me think of, they, you gave the one ring to a hobbit, you know, a peaceful, small,

[01:03:46] pretty defenseless creature who is not caught up in the fast moving pace of the rest of the world. And they're sort of the person you least suspect to have this, um, item of power and you send them off to, you know, do the important thing with it. Um, I think that's a cool parallel here of what we're seeing that. This was absolutely like Wheel of Time was a hundred percent inspired by Tolkien and, and

[01:04:14] I love the parallels that they have made. You know, the visuals that they've made. I thought it was amazing. Yeah. Um, maybe it was ripping off Peter Jackson or, or whatever, but like, I thought it was so, so many things that, that paralleled so well, not just in the author, but like in the films as well. It's just. Yeah. And we see them, we see them take the oath.

[01:04:37] We see them not only Roderick, but, uh, sort of a cohort of Aiel leaders, um, kneel by them. And I can't, I did not write down, I did not write, write down what they said, like what they're like by our blood and bones or something like that. Yeah. I wrote down what she said. She said, keep these oaths and your children, your grandchildren and all they're after. Keep the way of the leaf, swear it. And so he and his people kneel when they swear on their blood and their bones, but I didn't write down more.

[01:05:06] If this is Rand's blood ancestor, Hey, they're, they're gay. They're the, he has a husband and because you see their rings, he's got a husband and no big deal. But I was kind of like, how do they have kids? Like is, cause it's a blood ancestor. So. Okay. So I saw this on the internet with some people being like snarkier about it, but let's, there's like a hundred different possibilities.

[01:05:33] Um, one it's blood ancestor and never said you're like direct, direct ancestor. So one, this could have been an uncle to lots of gay people have children from previous heteronormative relationships. Okay. Three, this was a time in wheel of time history where they were living in a city with like flying cars and had advanced technology. And so I'm absolutely sure that there was surrogacy, that there was probably things like in vitro that we have now.

[01:06:02] Like, I think there was just like a million different ways. And I saw a lot of people on the internet just getting like almost like ridiculously kind of irritated at this. And I was just like, I think we need to calm down. It doesn't really matter. Oh no, I'm not, I'm not. I didn't, you weren't doing that at all. No, no. No, and I, I, I've seen some of the same, some of the same stuff I've really tried to avoid, not just negative, but like, I've really tried to avoid the, like the, the, we'll

[01:06:31] say the vitriol that comes with some of the stuff. But like this one in particular, like my thought process was surrogacy. Like I was like, okay, you know what? If they use a surrogate, you know, they went on the road, right? Always travel. And that's how we got the Chihuahuan, the traveling people always moving. And, and so like, that was, I was like, surrogacy's gotta be it. If it's his blood ancestry and to carry on the line, you know, it's just, this is common

[01:06:57] practice that we find a surrogate or we have a sister or not a sister. Or I mean, we've seen throuples in this series. Like, you know, like I just think like, yeah, there's probably a hundred different ways that it could still easily be both his direct, you know, descendant, or it could have been, you know, his direct descendant's brother. And it was more important to see his uncle's storyline than, you know, like it doesn't necessarily have to be.

[01:07:27] That's actually a really good point. Because it doesn't say it, I, on the watch there, I paid attention and it just says your blood ancestors. It doesn't say like. Your direct line. Yeah. No, Hey, I appreciate it. And I appreciate the, like the, all of the different possibilities, but I was, I was definitely like stuck in my head on direct blood ancestor or direct line ancestors. So no, that's, that's an excellent point. I think I had so many possibilities right now.

[01:07:57] Cause like I said, I saw like early on after like my first or second watch, I saw people just being kind of nasty about it. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's like a hundred different ways this could happen. We need to calm down. This is also, like you said, like a super crazy advanced society. Like there's like things could happen. Maybe they were growing babies in, you know, outside of womb at that point. Who knows? Yeah. No, that's a, that's a good point. And all right.

[01:08:25] So then we get back to the previous one, right? So charm. And this is only like, like you're talking maybe days or maybe a week before, like it couldn't be that right. It couldn't be that, that long between, Hey, this is when they broke through the dark ones prison and well, actually, no, sorry.

[01:08:52] So, so they broke through the dark ones prison and then, and then Mirren took on the name Lanphir. And she was definitely a, a dark friend for a while before you actually saw like before the, the, the breaking, like before Luz Theron tried to seal away the dark one and had the backlash of the power.

[01:09:19] So this is actually like a, this is actually, it does make more sense because I was thinking it was like, Oh, we went from one that was like a week later. It was, no, it wasn't a week later. It was possibly years or even generations later when they finally did the dragon did because these people are so long lived. That's what it gets. It throws me for a loop with the Aes Sedai look basically the same. Yeah.

[01:09:46] Because what we saw, what we saw at the beginning or the end of season one with Petra and I'm sorry, Latra and, and Luz Theron like that could have been well after Lanphir broke through the dark ones prison. So we, we just don't know. Um, we don't know if that was that, that wasn't the breaking per se. I don't think, but I think that was what kind of started to, I don't know if it started to cause the breaking. I don't know.

[01:10:14] So I feel like I was thinking the breaking the world was, was born from when Lanphir did what she did. I think it was the beginning of it. And I think that must've gone on for, again, I haven't, obviously everyone is well aware I have not read the books. So I, I can only go by my interpretation, but I sort of saw it as at least like, I don't know even like what constitutes a generation 20 years. Yeah.

[01:10:41] I would say at least a generation just because at the point that Roderick was going to meet with them to take the oath with Latra, like they were already sort of discussing, there'd already been quite a bit of battling going on. Like they were already had killed a lot of men, a lot. And I just assume that took a very, very long time.

[01:11:06] And then by Jonah's storyline, I think they mentioned they just killed the last man who could channel. And so I guess I just, I, I don't know, do the books give an idea of how long the history of those events took. Cause I, I think this must've been a very, very long war essentially and process and probably that first. Yeah. I don't know. Let's keep going though. No.

[01:11:36] Yeah, absolutely. Um, so then we do get to charm. Um, and this was, I mean, I thought that this was amazing. We heard the song, uh, we got Miran Sadai before she was Lanfear, like maybe a little bit ambitious, but not necessarily a bad person. Although I definitely like, it definitely entered into my head. Like, Oh, it's the thinnest part of the pattern. We're going to break through it and see what's on the other side. I'm just a scientist.

[01:12:05] I'm just trying to discover things. But did she have a suspicion, a suspicion because, Oh, a power that, you know, people can, um, that anybody can use, not just I said, I like you, you and your family, you wouldn't need to cut the wheat by hand. And, and then they kind of like move on from that. But so it makes me, it makes me go, she didn't know, maybe she didn't know what she

[01:12:32] was trying to do, but she said tomorrow everything will be different. And I was like, Oh, you are right. Tomorrow is going to be crazy different. I think she was probably smart enough to know there was a possibility that it was not all going to be good, but I think she was not necessarily a bad person, but too drawn to power. I think, I think ambition held a big part of that. Yeah.

[01:12:57] And I think, you know, we see, I think we even see how like seductive power is to her to me, the juxtaposition of chair care and however you say his name of his response of kind of like, but there's like beauty and harvesting the land by hand.

[01:13:19] Basically, he didn't say quite that, but that to me, that response, that reflection made her the thing she was saying seem that much more like power hungry. And so I think she just was going to be easily corrupted and quick to try to do some mental gymnastics that even if she saw some warning or caution signs that she was going to ignore

[01:13:48] them because it was, yeah, going to be worth it. I want, I want the credit to be mine. I want not even so much. I want this power that's on the other side, but like, I want to be the person to take the next step. I don't want somebody else to make that choice. I want to be, I want to control my destiny. I want to control my fate. I need to reach out and grab it myself so that I can, for the betterment of all people.

[01:14:16] Um, but obviously there was a little bit more seduction to it than that. I will say there was something really interesting and that made me curious about Mir and Sedai and eventually Lanfear, their history up to this point, because she says to him, there's nothing, nothing more important than holding on to the people you love. Like what made her say that in that moment?

[01:14:41] What does that tell us about the underlying like character of Lanfear? Is that her soft spot? Is it truly like, can that rival her lust for power? Like, it just seemed interesting that that was the line that she said in the midst of all this perseveration on, on the power.

[01:15:02] I wonder if this was after Luz Theron had spurned her and there's nothing more important than holding on to the people that you love. And she had already lost the person that she was trying to do anything she could in order to hold on to him. Or maybe it was, maybe it was before. Um, and then this like led Luz Theron to break off.

[01:15:28] Uh, but I think it was after, I think she, it, she was not involved with Luz Theron at this point because I think she was aiming for this power. Now that we're talking about it, I kind of like, it makes sense that she would want to be able to use the power in order to possibly hold on to him or, or win him back. Interesting. So, but when, when she said that I very specifically was like, oh, she's talking about Luz Theron.

[01:15:56] Um, I didn't think about the timeline of it, if it was pre or post their split. Yeah. I guess I thought it was pre. Cause I didn't think she was, I thought she was already land fear for some reason. Well, I mean, they didn't, they, what they have said in the past is that, I mean, or I guess in the future is that they've said on the show is that land fear didn't take her,

[01:16:26] you know, she took her dark oaths in order to win Luz Theron back or after, after he had spurned her. Um, but, and that's what makes me wonder if like, this was a matter of, did she know that it was the dark one behind that part of the pattern or not? Um, but can I just say how much the dark one's eye, like in the sky where charge is staring at it is why I'm like, this is like the eye of Sauron.

[01:16:53] He's, he's looking through, he's looking through the broken part of the pattern at, you know, Sauron's eye. And again, back to, okay, well now your ancestor is going to be the dragon reborn because you had the most contact to it. But this guy also had, you know, this, this character also had direct contact with Mirren Sedai.

[01:17:21] And it's just funny because she had this conversation with this person who happened to be the ancestor of the person that she's going to try to convince to love her as Luz Theron reborn. I will say this is the only of the timelines that I really felt critical of a bit as far as the storyline.

[01:17:45] Like it felt forced and weird and out of place that she would be having this conversation with him. And part of that is maybe that I didn't, I just didn't have a good understanding of why they were talking together because some things they said made me feel like they didn't really know each other and other things made it seem like they actually were quite familiar with each other and so familiar that she was willing to indulge all this information to him.

[01:18:15] And so that was interesting to me. There were definitely some lines in there that made me go, I'm not sure on if they are familiar with each other or not. So like, I do understand where you're coming from. It makes me wonder if maybe like the Aiel in general were almost like the, you know, the, to take something from our history, you know, the Jewish slaves that were, you know, they

[01:18:43] were, they were just, they were just people who served the, the ancient like Egyptian kings and whatnot. And like, they were just, they were always, this is just, they're going to be who they are. And they're never a true like peer or anything, but they're just going to be people for us to speak with. And we can be honest with them because. Because they're so insignificant. In our purview. No, it's interesting.

[01:19:10] I didn't really even pick up on the fact that they were like a servant class in that way. Until I was paying attention to the closed captioning and they called them Aiel servants as they show them singing in the fields, which then kind of framed things even more like in a different light for me. But I, did they ever actually say in the discourse?

[01:19:38] I don't think anything that would give away that their servants if I hadn't had closed captioning on, like I knew they were obviously out there harvesting, but I don't think I realized like, I don't know. Yeah, they were, I think, I think that these were a lower class of people who never, just like tinkers, right? In modern day. Yeah. Yeah. Like they, they are, they don't ever do anything, right? They all fall the way of the leaf. They don't do violence.

[01:20:06] They farm, they grow wheat, they cut it down, they, they, they harvest, but you aren't, don't have to be afraid of these, of these people. These are people that will never betray you. They are people who will never, you don't have to be wary of them because they are just there and constant. My, that was my take on it. Yeah, no, I think you're right.

[01:20:31] I, I, I feel like that helped me also just as conversation helped me feel less critical because I was just like, why would she be telling him this? But I had the same thought. That is like this common thing that we see often in these types of stories where, you know, someone who is at a high advantage confides in a servant because they're like, ah, you're so far removed from this. Like, who are you going to tell? What impact are you going to have? Like, I just want to say this to someone. So, okay.

[01:21:00] And, and then, oh, the impact is that you are the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great from the person that I'm going to be trying to convince to join the dark. Um, but yeah, so, so that was the end and I loved the visuals. I love seeing that pre-breaking world and like the technology and, and all that. I thought it was just one more step of awesome. Yep.

[01:21:26] Let me, I'm just going to say one thing with regard to this, um, in the book, the way that they describe the, the, the, the shift from one character to another is there is a word in italics that says flicker. And, and, and it, it took me a couple of shifts to notice it, but they put in a sound

[01:21:53] effect as they're flickering between Rand and whatever his ancestor is. And it's almost like a deck of cards being shuffled. And it was like, I like, I heard flicker. I, well, I didn't hear flicker, but like, I saw the word flicker as soon as I heard it and noted it. I was like, oh, that's awesome. Like, that is amazing. You know what that noise reminded me of is like when you have one of those old film reels and like click, click, clicks. Like, that's what I heard, which felt, yeah, but that's cool.

[01:22:22] I think they, yeah. Like I, I think I said this to you earlier. Yeah. Before it and like back and forth and back and forth. And at the very last one, he like almost had like a, a vision of sort of all of his, I actually wrote all his ancestors' lives, flip by and he awakes. I didn't say flick, but I said flip. But no, that's interesting. I mean, I've continued to see online, like the praise for the way this episode brought

[01:22:49] the book to life and that they did it in a really fairly faithful way, or at least in a way that felt authentic to fans. I will say that as a, like, this is one of the, like I said, this is one of like the landmark, obviously I remember Flickr, right? But this is one of the landmark, like stories. And, and one of the things that I am so impressed by, it seems like the characters, and I noted

[01:23:19] this with a friend of mine, I watched like the inside of the episode and it's Rosamund Beal, Beal, Rosamund Pike and Jaffe Redkins and, nope, Rafe Judkins and, and Joshua Stra, I can't remember his last name. But Rand. And, and the way that they talk about it and the way they discuss it and the way they talk about it coming to life, like this is made, like the, the show is made with like love and

[01:23:48] reverence for the stories. And, and it is so impressive and so wonderful to have people who not just believe in it being a job or a, like they, at least Rafe Judkins, like it, it is very specifically, and I've read a bunch of, you know, articles and interviews from him, but he wants this to be amazing.

[01:24:15] And that is, that's who you want to be your showrunner. Yeah. That's who you want to do it. Um, and he actually wrote this episode. Uh, and one of the, uh, the, the one article that I, that I, that I'm including a little bit later is an interview with him. And it's kind of funny how his description of it is. Um, but okay. Um, did you have anything else for Rand?

[01:24:43] That is everything I think I had in my notes. Um, we already touched on just sort of Avienda still kind of being rude to him as he comes out of things and comes across her. It did bother me though. Actually, I do want to say one thing about that is that it bothered me. He, he was so, I felt like humble in his response. I know enough to know I'll never fully understand, which showed how much he had learned, but it

[01:25:13] bothered me because at this point, and I think you kind of said this earlier, like he probably understands more deeply than Avienda does. And so like, good on him for still being so humble about it. And that, like, that does exemplify that he learned on this journey through the glass pillars, but it also made me feel like, did Avienda learn enough on her trip through the rings? Like, okay.

[01:25:39] No, I, I definitely like, I, I, I definitely was kind of like, you know, that was kind of what I was getting at earlier. I was like, did you like, did, yeah, I get that you went through and did your thing, but I mean, like, come on. Like I'm, I'm, I'm extending a peace branch here. I'm saying I'm, I didn't understand about this. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. I didn't understand. And I, and she just like slaps back. Yeah.

[01:26:07] I was just like, oh, you suck. One thing I did want to address, and this is something that I have kind of held onto for probably decades. Um, one of the things that Rand specifically says, like when we talked about earlier about Moiraine says that, that people will stay on the side of the mountain for weeks, you know, before entering Eruidian.

[01:26:30] Um, and then Coole Dean comes in and says like, oh, he'll, you know, Eruidian will kill you. And, and I think that in my opinion, Rand is actually better suited to take, to like survive specifically because it's not breaking him. He hasn't lived this way of life his entire life.

[01:26:57] And this isn't antithetical or is not antithetical to every fiber of his being. You saw Moiraine, you know, clawing his eyes out because he couldn't handle what, like, no, like we, we aren't, we aren't, the traveling people are so dishonorable. Like they're, they're the, the, the worst of the worst, the Tuathuan. Like we, we couldn't possibly come from Tuathuan.

[01:27:23] Like those, those are, those are dishonorable pieces of crap. And it also throws back to like, oh, who killed a Tuathuan, you know, the Tinker wagons or whatever the previous episode or yeah, previous episode, I think. Like, oh, well, if the Shido killed them and then you find out that, hey, we killed them. And now we find out that we were originally supposed to protect them. We just did the exact opposite.

[01:27:53] We are precisely the Oathbreakers. We are the ones murdering the descendants of the true ideal. And like that can break you mentally and emotionally. And I, I just thought like, I was like, okay, you know what? Rand is better suited to go through and lead the ideal specifically because he doesn't have this baked into every aspect of his being. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have the same level of shame over the failure. Yeah.

[01:28:22] Because he hasn't been living as an Oathbreaker per se, really. You know, like he, that's no, I'm really glad that you brought that point up because I think there are just some pieces because I didn't know all of the different names of the clan names. And like, I know they talked about the Shido two episodes ago, but I had not connected then that these were the Shido.

[01:28:48] Like, I knew we met the Shido, but I didn't remember what they were who had been mentioned as someone who would have been killed the Tinkers and stuff. An Aeel who could have killed the Tinkers. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so no, that's really interesting. And I think makes more sense. Like I didn't, I was just struggling with why, why it would be too hard to go through the histories, right?

[01:29:09] Like nothing Rand saw, like it was, there was lots of terrible things he saw, but nothing that felt like I could understand. But now putting that in perspective of the Shido and feeling shame at things maybe they did in their own lifetime themselves. How much? Yeah. No, that's really cool. How much do they talk about G at O obligation and honor or honor and obligation?

[01:29:36] You know, you, I do want to mention the, Oh, you have servants. I didn't know I had servants. No, no. Guy Shane, you know, or Guy Sean. They, you know, if you are touched, the most G is, honor is gained by touching someone without doing violence. Oh, that sounds a lot like a Tinker. Oh, I touched them. And so now you have to live as a Tinker, right? You're not as a Tinker, but like as someone who doesn't do violence, who isn't allowed to touch a weapon, who isn't, you know, it's all of that stuff ties back.

[01:30:05] So, and like, Hey, have I treated Guy Shane with, with disrespect in the past? The, they are acting as the way true Aiel are and that can break you. Yeah. Um, it'd be like, you know, finding out that your ancestors were, you know, in your German ancestors were the, the people who executed people and like, Oh, you know, I've been, I've lived as a, I've lived as a proponent for justice for these people.

[01:30:34] And then I find out that my ancestors were the ones who actually committed these atrocities and that I, maybe I perpetuated them by living the exact opposite of what my ancestors, what my, my ancestors swore oaths to uphold. Like it's, it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. I will, I will stop ranting, not ranting. No, I think this was really cool. Really good, uh, points and made me appreciate and understand it more. So thanks. All right.

[01:31:01] So I think that we've actually already talked about a Vendasora and Laman Sin and Moirin's connection and all that. I think that all kind of tied into Rand's point. Um, so all I have left to talk about is Moirin's journey and into the rings. All right. But first we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[01:31:47] So how about you start? Because, uh, I, I seen the copious amounts of notes that you've taken and, uh, I, I want to, I want to hear what you got. Yeah. So I think the first like really cool thing is actually before she even goes into the rings, right? That she approaches the tree of life. It opens up and gives her the, I keep just calling it a sangreal because I keep forgetting what it's called, but it's the most powerful one ever.

[01:32:13] We know it's basically if it's a twin is the, the sword. Yep. Calendar calendar. Um, and so that, you know, just made me excited for this big step forward in the storyline where now one of our heroes has half of the really powerful thing. And it was obviously her destiny. It was the reason she was supposed to go in to Ruidian was to get that I'm sure.

[01:32:43] And why it's important that they've, that their journey has played out the way that it has, that she's gone there. It's probably the reason why she would have died if she had not come there because she obviously is going to need this for some critical reason. And so super, super cool, um, to, to see that, um, basically given to her by the tree. So I was excited for that.

[01:33:09] And then, yeah, then she goes to the rings, which again, like just talking about the beautiful things about this episode. I thought that was really neat. The way the rings were done, the way they're kind of flipped around and upside down in the rings. And like the way, um, she found Avienda hanging there in the middle of the ring and then watching her jump in.

[01:33:34] And then the entire way we get all the turns of the wheel, I guess it's not even turn of the wheel, right? But it's like a thousand different iterations of what a turn of the wheel could look like or what her future could look like. And the way they kept flipping the screen the same way that you expect she's actually physically flipping in the ring. And that was really cool to me.

[01:33:57] I think this was a confusing series of things to watch just because it was iterations of the same things happening. And I was pausing a lot to look at stuff, but I, it was very cool the way it was flipping. And I feel like sometimes I'd be pausing and like have my head turned sideways, like trying to look at who's, who's this person in the background of this scene. Um, but so I just found it really fun the way that it played out.

[01:34:24] Um, and so I just went through and basically wrote down like all the different things that she saw. Yeah, me too. Um, it looked like the very first thing we saw opens. She's in a fishing hut. She has tattoos. We see someone walk into the doorway, someone with fluffy, like shoulder length hair. She says, what's wrong love? It's Swan, right? So this is another iteration of things where she and Swan actually did run away and go live in a fishing village together. Right. Okay.

[01:34:53] Um, but that's really all we get of that piece right there that quickly flips. And now we have Maureen as the Amarillo seat and Egwene is at her side in the same position, I guess, that Liane is for Swan. She would be the keeper. Yeah. Okay. Um, and they have Rand on the floor. He's wearing like a red and gold embroidered jacket. I couldn't tell if it was herons or dragons or both in the embroidery.

[01:35:18] Um, begging them for mercy right before Maureen slits his throat. And that's the first of many throat slittings that continue to flash across our screen. Then the next thing we get is what surprised me and also makes me wonder if this, if this is the path that, that will happen. It's the one that felt for some reason to me the most, like what I'm anticipating is going to happen next.

[01:35:48] Uh, or down the road, maybe not like next, next, but Maureen releases land from his bond and then Maureen bonds with Rand. Um, so that was really interesting. And then, I mean, from here on, like, it's hard to know if any of these things belong in the same storyline or if they're all slightly different versions of storylines. Cause the next thing we see is land burning.

[01:36:17] Maureen extinguishes him and shields him from someone. I thought I could hear a woman laugh and I thought it was land fear, but I, this was one of the ones where I had my head upside down looking at the TV as it was paused at just the right moment. And all I could guess it was land fear. Well, I want to say that I saw the shape of, uh, the actresses or actors knows, um, that I was like, okay, okay. So she extinguishes land and then protects him. And it looked like it was in the tower, uh, from here. Yeah.

[01:36:47] Thought definitely in the tower. Um, then we see Maureen as again, she's still the Emerald seat. Cause she's got her big like head dressing on, um, but she's holding Rand as he bleeds out there in the desert. I, there was a city in the background. I couldn't tell what that city was supposed to be. Could you? No, I did not. It was too quick, but this not a throat slit. He's been stabbed in the gut. Yeah.

[01:37:15] It's, I think it's the place that he got hit with the spear that Matt hit him with. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Um, then we see. Maureen as the Emerald seat still channeling. It looks like she has the, say the word again. Sakarnam. Yeah. She has that. And it appears that she's not only using her own power, but pulling power from Rand.

[01:37:44] That's just how the scene looked to me. I couldn't tell. I don't know if you felt the same. I don't know if you can even say, cause you may know things that not supposed to know about it, but also she had land at her side. Like he was obviously still bonded to her or at least helping to protect her. So she kills him with the power. Um, then suddenly we see her in a small town. She's got like a flowy dress on.

[01:38:11] She's swearing herself to the dragon reborn, bowing down in front of him. I mean, it looked like a town at least similar to the two rivers. I don't know if it was, um, that was a weird one. I didn't really understand the significance of that one or like why they're in this small town, why she was dressed that way. Do you have thoughts? You don't see any of this. Like I've never heard any of it.

[01:38:38] My, my assumption is that this is in this one, you know, they're in the village somewhere, somewhere post this. And she decides that the only way that she can do it is that she swears herself to, to the dragon. And like, this is, this is when she took this option. This is when she took this option. This is when she took this option. And, um, yeah, I, I think it's just a thing that happened. Cool. All right. So then the next one was my favorite of all of them.

[01:39:08] And there's some really awesome spots online that really gave you full insight into everyone's amazing costume design for this scene. But we have Moiraine with her hair shorn and she's in rags. And we have this badass gang of all of our heroes now, um, in like goth gear fighting beside land fear.

[01:39:35] It's Matt, it's Perrin, it's Rand, Egwene, Nynave, and Elaine, um, all on every side of land fear. And what do you know? Land fear cuts her throat. Oh, shocker. All right. But that, I mean, that was amazing. And the, again, I mean, this episode, they really did so much like that. We have all of this that I've already gone through with Moiraine in addition to all the things Rand, uh, went through with his line.

[01:40:04] I mean, the amount of time it probably went into just getting the costumes and the makeup for this scene for it to be less than 10 seconds. Not even, I would say not even five seconds. Yeah. I mean, crazy, crazy. Absolutely. Like, all of the money and all of the costuming and like, and they never reuse these costumes, at least not in this episode. I tell you, I want to see this turn of the wheel.

[01:40:30] I want to see this alternate storyline where they all are bad because it was cool. I really encourage everybody to go look at the pictures and just like appreciate for a moment, all of the design that went into this, um, scene. And, and also it just made me smile because I was thinking how fun it must've been for the characters to get to do, you know, this scene where they're all dressed that way and probably feel kind of badass. Like, I don't know. I thought it was cool.

[01:40:58] Do you mind if I take the rest? Oh my gosh, please. Okay. All right. So this one, that was a good, a good closing point because a lot of the rest are kind of the same. Yep. Um, all right. The next one, she is in bed with Rand. The one after that, she is in bed with Lanfear and then Lanfear starts to choke her. But, but was she, was this aggression? I don't know. Or kink. But, but no, that's the thing is that we also saw her do that with Rand when she was in bed with Rand.

[01:41:29] Um, and then, uh, Lorraine kills men or kills Moiraine in the tower. Then she kills her on a street. Then she kills her in the desert. Then in the desert. Then in the desert. Then in the desert. Then in the hall. And then two or three more just of the same thing. Like it was, and it feels like they almost like repeated a couple of the, the, the scenes from earlier. It was like desert, desert, desert, desert, desert, desert, desert. And then she comes out of it. And I was trying to decide if they repeated any of them.

[01:41:58] But when I was watching it the last time, like there are subtle differences in her outfit or whether she's standing or kneeling. But like some of them, she has a long dress. Some it's a long dress, but up a little bit with boots. Like even that I was sort of like impressed with that. It wasn't just like a complete, you know, like they could have just replayed almost the exact same thing. But they even took the time to like make a slight costume adjustment. I thought. Yeah. I mean, can you, I mean, okay.

[01:42:27] So I'm just going to say coming out of this way. Rain has got to be terrified of land fear. Like, I mean, like in practically every iteration of your life, you're going to be murdered by the same person. I mean, that's why I wrote, is there any iteration where land fear does not kill her? Like, I don't think she gets away from it. Like, I think she has to leave this.

[01:42:52] And now, no, she may get to do a lot of positive things, but she is going to end by land fear's blade. Like she cannot escape that. I don't think. And this very much reminded me of, of Dr. Strange in Avengers Infinity War, where he goes through, I saw 14 million possibility, you know, 1400, 14 million, 623,712. How many do we win?

[01:43:19] One is like, oh my God. Like you see a thousand thousand, right? That's a million. And so she did this for seven days. She lived out these, out these, these possibilities and like, and then she comes out, I mean, both of them, right? Rand and Moirin both are traumatized by what they have experienced and what they've seen.

[01:43:45] And I can't even fathom how, how insane that would have to make you. No, I mean, definitely. I think the actors did a great job with just a shell shocked face as they left. And that moment where they did make eye contact with someone else who at least had an idea of the trauma they'd just been through, even though it was very different. Yeah.

[01:44:12] Just that little moment at the end, I think really drove home how much this impacted them. So the, so he, he, he exits Ruidian. He comes from Ruidian at the dawn with Moirin in her arms. And then Egwene is trying to look him in the eye and he has eyes for no one but Moirin. Lan is trying to, you know, look at, you know, have Moirin focus on him.

[01:44:39] And she just can't take her eyes off of Ran. And, um, I, it was the, the music when it went to black, I like, it tried to go play something else or whatever. And I was like, stop. Like I need after this emotional rollercoaster and this just high emotion episode.

[01:45:03] I, every time I've watched it four times and I have turned off the auto move on feature because I needed to be like, listen to this solemn, calming music after every watch. It was almost like a soul cleanser. It was absolutely wonderful. You needed to sit under the tree of life. Yeah, absolutely. But I guess this gave you, that's enough. All they could give us was the music.

[01:45:32] But I, I, I do want to, before we move on, I think we've covered everything that I've got. I've highlighted everything in this extensive note, uh, note list. I want to, I want to bring up a comparison, right? In the White Tower, you have the three rings that they go through for accepted. Yeah. Here they had the three rings. Huh, yeah. Um, so, and I'm assuming it's a Terran Griel, um, very similar to the rings.

[01:45:59] Um, this one does not require channeling, nor does it require, you know, it doesn't even require someone who can channel it. This is just something that does stuff. Um, I did definitely, I didn't, I didn't connect, like, the three arches and the three rings, like the three. But I did definitely think a lot of that and how, like, you can die in the arches because you don't have the mental acuity or the strength of spirit, which is the exact same thing they needed in these trials.

[01:46:28] Um, it was cool. All right. Well, that was a lot. And I really enjoyed talking, talking my way through this. Um, okay. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll come out, come back with the little bit of news that we're going to do and some feedback, which we did get some feedback. It was awesome. Awesome.

[01:46:47] Hey, welcome back. Um, so let's jump into some news. You said you had an article pulled a piece of it for us, Craig? Yeah. Uh, so, so we, we talked about, I talked about Rafe Drogans, you know, being super excited and kind of this being a labor of love.

[01:47:12] Uh, and, and, uh, this, this is off of Screen Rant, uh, by Owen Danoff, uh, came out a couple of days ago. Uh, The Wheel of Time, season three, episode four, biggest twists explained by the showrunner. Everyone's blood, quote, everyone's brains exploded. Um, and we will include the, the link in the show notes. Um, but from the article, Screen Rant spoke with Judkins about The Wheel of Time, season three, episode four, and how he brought this aspect of Jordan's vision to life.

[01:47:42] Judkins shared the reasons why he had to be the one to write the episode, explained why he cached Josh Estrowski as all of the episode's primary characters, and more. Plus, did Judkins just tease The Wheel of Time, season four? I really hope so. That was me. Hmm. Uh, uh, so Judkins says, uh, it doesn't feel like it may be sometimes, but to pull off so many different eras, to have Josh in different makeup, to have him giving different performance, every single thing that we did through building this episode is really hard to do in television.

[01:48:12] Rave Judkins said when describing the ambition of the episode. One of the reasons I wrote the script is because of another writer on a show, if another writer on the show had done it, the network, the studio, and all the heads of department would have just said, no, we're not doing this. It's too fucking insane, he continued. But the showrunner had to have this moment in the series. I think it's one of the best things The Wheel of Time books do. This sort of trippy look at ourselves, our past, our futures, and the circularity of time.

[01:48:39] If we didn't pull off Ruidian, I would have felt like I failed as a showrunner. When I sent out the scripts, Judkins admitted, everyone's brain exploded and they all wanted to kill me because it's a huge production undertaking. You know what, I'll tell you what, you guys knocked it out of the park and it was visually phenomenal. It was absolutely amazing.

[01:49:03] And if you listen to some random podcast about your show, like, you killed it, man. Like, you absolutely killed it. It really was amazing. I mean, as a non-book reader, as just a lover of this genre, like I said earlier in the episode, I think it's an episode of the series that, like, if I wanted to convince someone to watch this, I'd be like, watch this one episode to see how good it is. And, yeah.

[01:49:33] I still am just sort of, like, dumbstruck at all that they did in this episode. It's crazy. Yeah, like, they've really come a long way to, like, just getting the denseness, like, just compiling all of this information, all of these characters and all of this everything. It's, I think, they just did a great job. Yep. All right. We've got some feedback. Do you want to, should we jump into it? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. Okay.

[01:50:01] The first comment comes from Tammy Barr. I've only just finished episode two. So glad the show is back and also so thankful for your podcast. The season one and two overview was concise and exactly what I needed before watching the exciting season three premiere. Most shows take the first episode to set things up. And while there were some setups, it was an explosive and eventful beginning. Also loving the dumb questions for people like me that didn't read the books. Thanks for all you do to make this a fun TV experience.

[01:50:31] Thanks, Tammy. I have to say it's, like, one of my favorite things on this podcast. Like, in real life, I'm a scientist. And my job is, like, 95% to just know things and answer questions. And it's so fun to get to come in and just be, like, hey, I'm the dummy today who knows nothing. And I'm just, like, here to enjoy the show and have Greg answer all my questions. Well, hopefully, I'm glad that you liked the review. I mean, I was kind of shocked that it was, like, 40 minutes long. I was like, oh, my gosh.

[01:51:01] No one's going to listen to this. But I'm glad it helped. As we said, like, there's so much that happens. And I'm glad that helped out. Thank you for the feedback, Tammy. Really appreciate it. So, Alan Mitchell-Jones. Season 3 is a huge step up from previous seasons. Locations are stunning. Great sets. Costumes, music, effects, acting, cinematography, etc. Importantly for some, it's far more closely aligned to the books, although some will never, ever be happy.

[01:51:30] Even the haters seem to be silent, at least for a while, until they have time to go through it frame by frame. After episode 4, with Rand going through the glass columns and Moir Rand going through the rings in Ruidian. More than book perfect, and Joshua was amazing in all the roles he played. Seven roles. I agree with you, Alan. We got the books. In addition, for the woke haters, this episode was 90% Rand, and not the power girls, so they need to start eating their words. Episode 4 was a 10+, but episodes 1 through 3 have been 9 of 10 as well.

[01:52:00] Cold open to episode 1 was amazing with the huge power battle, or one power battle against the Black Aja. Episodes 2 and 3 had so many Easter eggs for book readers to set up the rest of the season, including the quote-unquote fight between Matt versus Gwen and Goliath that 99.99% of readers were dying to see. A grin. Agree with you. They have knocked season 3 out of the park so far, and I've actually read the books many times since 1990. I have slash had nearly all original publications, and I'm now 65.

[01:52:28] A few have been displaced over the years, but I still have the original first five. Good for you, man. Most of mine have been ripped apart by the number of times that I either read them or have had to buy new copies. I have hardbacks now, so it's a little bit more difficult to destroy, but I'll tell you what. This season is making me want to go back and read the books again. Nice. You know, there's nothing I love more in the world than an old book that someone else has just loved to death or multiple people have.

[01:52:58] I feel like this is a book series where I'd love to find, like, a good morning used hardback set. I just feel like, you know, so many of the book readers that I've encountered are so deep in it and love it so much that it's like, I don't know, something about holding a book that someone else, you know, before you loved and got lost in the story. Like, I don't know, I feel like when I do finish the series and eventually get to sit down with the books, I'm going to look for some used ones like that.

[01:53:27] Maybe I'll find a long lost version of one of Alan's. Who knows? All right. Our next comment is from Sam Lowe. Hi, Sam. Hey, Sam. So many things. As a non-book reader, I had to do some spoiler-free research to figure out what was most of this stuff. Truly incredible acting by the guy who plays Rand as he took on several of his ancestors.

[01:53:54] It's always exciting for me to see the old, modern world and just how much the breaking took from everyone. Beautiful and stunning visuals. Lanfear is one of my favorite characters on the show, and it was great to see her interact as her genuine self and not fawning over Rand or guarded with the Forsaken. I agree. It was really cool and not something I had done a lot of thinking about of, like, the origins of Lanfear,

[01:54:20] and so getting to see her back in that original form was pretty cool. Yeah, absolutely. Like, seeing Mirren was, like, it was almost like, oh my gosh, it's Mirren! Because they just talked about her, you know, five minutes ago where she had just gone to the dark and, you know, punched through the prison, and then we saw it! It was amazing!

[01:54:45] But she seemed so, like, hopeful in that moment that it was, like, you see, like, the idealism, but also some of the ambition as well. Yeah. So it was definitely hard to watch knowing what was to come, even though we didn't necessarily know what was to come, and then seeing what she did, like, you know, like an hour after, half an hour after she just had that conversation. And it's just like, whoa, my God.

[01:55:14] Next is from a good friend of mine, Kristen Nimrick. One of the things I found interesting is after Rand and Avienda both came out of Ruidian, you could tell that Rand went through a lot more maturation during the experience because he came out saying he understood about the sword, and he understands enough to know he will never understand everything. Whereas Avienda, having seen the future she saw, just digs her heels in even more, and becomes more stubborn and petulant by continuing to call him Wetlander, even though she's seen her part in the future.

[01:55:42] And this scene of Rand and Charlyn and Under the Tree, this scene gave me Merry and Pippin vibes. Absolutely. There's so many the amount of times Lord of the Rings has trickled into this conversation. It is, it is, like, I completely agree, Kristen. You know, I guess one thing I hadn't considered until I was listening to you read this was that there's a strong chance Avienda saw a future where Rand is her destination,

[01:56:12] destruction, or the destruction of people that she loves. And that could explain her coming out and still having quite the attitude that she does towards Rand. Yeah, the animosity for him. Yeah. I hadn't really thought of that until just now. All right. The last comment we have is from Eric Emrick. So glad they did a good translation. I consider this the best chapter I've ever read in fantasy, and I thought they did a great job bringing it to the screen. Absolutely. Another great friend of mine, Eric.

[01:56:41] Eric Emrick, he and I would talk about this. He's one of the people that I talk to all the time about, and I think he actually guessed it on the podcast. I think he guessed it on the podcast either last season or season one. I can't remember when, but he remembers this stuff way better than I do. In other words, through the first few books, he probably remembers more than I do. But some of the things that they're bringing up have absolutely triggered memories for me.

[01:57:09] So it's been really, really good. All right. So we did get a voicemail from Renee on the first three episodes. Hey, Renee. Thank you so much for sending that in. Look forward to hearing what you think about episode four. But I'm just going to go ahead and play that now. Hi, guys. This is Renee calling in about the Wheel of Time O-N-G. When I tell you I am so stoked for the new season.

[01:57:36] If the three episodes are any indication of how the whole season is going to be, it's going to be a fun ride. I mean, it was all three episodes were so exciting. They were on the edge. They really delivered, and I'm happy that they did. I feel like Piriam, the wolf guy with the pretty eyes, and forgive me because I am going to mispronounce names. I'm glad that he went back home.

[01:58:04] And I'm trying to figure out why is the Aes Sedai, the one that lost her other ward, I think it's a ward or warder. Why is she there? Because I didn't quite understand why she was there. I guess they haven't revealed it yet. But the young lady that seems to be getting close to Piriam, again, forgive me for the name, I think that she may be a forsaken.

[01:58:29] That just, I thought that because when they showed the queen's husband, it's like, how the freak is he a forsaken? And wow, I thought he was going to be a nice, cool dude, but he ends up being a forsaken. And I don't understand the forsaken with the little bang, the one with the little puff in the hair. Like, who the hell is she, and what is she, and what is going on? I have so many questions, and I am totally confused. But all of the little babies have grew up, they have grown up to be adults now.

[01:58:59] They are so beautiful and so handsome. And I am so worried about them. I truly am worried about them. And once I get the names down pat, I'm going to really be able to elaborate and say how I feel. But right now, I'm trying to get all the names together. So I don't want to talk about anyone else because I didn't write anything down. But I cannot wait to listen to you guys' feedback because you all tend to break it down in layman terms. So I can really understand because, like I said, I have a thousand questions. Alrighty, I will talk to you guys later. Peace and love.

[01:59:29] Bye. Thanks, Renee. I can't wait for her to see episode four. Oh, yeah. I want to hear what she has. And feel free to, like, send in questions. If you have questions, I will do what I can to answer them. I will not, but I will support Greg as he answers them. Don't get me wrong. Like, I love to talk about stuff that I love to talk about.

[01:59:56] And if I can help elaborate on something or whatever. And maybe I won't be able to, but, like, yeah, by all means, send in questions and I will talk the hell out of it. But, all right. So thank you guys so much for listening. I know this is a long one. That's our show. If you'd like to write in or record a message, you can, you know, send in a recording like Renee.

[02:00:24] Or you can just record it right on our thing at podcastica.com. You can email it to talk at podcastica.com. Or you can check out our Facebook page at facebook.com slash podcastica. Greg tries to get comment posts up at least the day before or the day that we're recording. But you can also find us in that group and tag us in a message on the main page if you want to.

[02:00:53] And I think we even have, we have a lot of, like, chats that break out from the podcastica group. Do we have, is there a Wheel of Time chat? There is. Yep, there's a Wheel of Time chat. And it's not super active because I'm constantly checking it because I want to talk about stuff or whatever. But I also don't want to spoil because, like, once the podcast is out, then I'll talk up that one to the end.

[02:01:21] But I was going to say, the other awesome thing is, is if you're into Wheel of Time, I'm guessing you're probably into some other cool, like, nerd pop culture shows out. And so you should check out the podcastica page and just engage with a community of people that are all into a lot of these cool fantasy, sci-fi, apocalyptic, all of the exciting TV that's coming out right now. There's a broad range of things.

[02:01:49] And it's just a great community of people that want to fan out with other fans of things. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, right now, people, we've got podcasts just wrapping up Cobra Kai. Just, you know, we did, we talked about, talked about Lord of the Rings a lot. The Rings of Power was phenomenal. Like, on one, actually, like, it was, like, you know, somebody who went and gave tours out in New Zealand of the sets.

[02:02:17] And that's just another show where a podcast can really make the difference in enjoying and understanding and appreciating the lore around it. Because, again, similar to Wheel of Time, there's so much deep, broad history around Lord of the Rings. And so I find that listening to the Rings of Power podcast, like, really enhances how much I like that show.

[02:02:40] Oh, speaking of, like, there was, something definitely reminded me of, like, Lord of the Rings, another one, where when Moiraine just kept pulling out daggers. I feel like it was Gimli who was, like, pulling out weapons at Elvendar or whatever the elf city was. Lothlorian? Not Lothlorian. It was the one that they had their fellowship at. Oh, in Rivendell? Yeah, Rivendell. Like, oh, no, you can't, you have to leave your weapons here. You just keep pulling out weapons.

[02:03:08] Hey, hey, can we just notice that Greg didn't know the words and Veronica did? Hey, good on you. Like, as he said, like, my expertise lies in other places. But, yeah, so, yeah, check out podcasting.com. And it is a wide range of awesome shows and other past stuff, past shows that have been covered.

[02:03:37] But next time on this podcast, Wheel of Time, Season 3, Episode 5, I'm almost positive that the title's name is Teleron Riyadh or The Dream World. I'm glad you read that, not me, because I would not have known to say that. That's one of the reasons I did. I was like, I'm going to take this one because it is something that, it might be Riyadh, but I believe it's Teleron Riyadh or Teleron Riyadh. I remember saying Teleron Riyadh in my head forever, so.

[02:04:05] Awesome, well, I'm excited, but for now, that's our show. Let the dragon run again on the winds of time.