Tar Valon Library - User contributions [en]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-08T02:45:40Z

Adolla: /* Episode Guide */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al'Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Guest:'''
*[[Alexr al'Petros]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

00;00;34;28 - 00;00;35;10

'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;37;10

'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

00;00;37;15 - 00;00;38;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;05

'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

00;00;42;10 - 00;01;35;23

'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;38;05

'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

00;01;38;19 - 00;01;55;18

'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;57;20

'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;10;13

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

00;02;10;13 - 00;02;21;00

'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

00;02;21;00 - 00;02;23;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;55;12

'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

00;02;55;12 - 00;03;02;10

'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

00;03;02;28 - 00;03;13;01

'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

00;03;13;16 - 00;03;21;05

'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;22

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

00;03;45;01 - 00;03;46;00

'''Thad'''

As you do.

00;03;46;09 - 00;03;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yes.

00;03;48;19 - 00;03;49;17

'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

00;03;51;04 - 00;03;52;26

'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

00;03;52;26 - 00;04;26;18

'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;28;27

'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;45;21

'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

00;04;45;26 - 00;04;54;13

'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

00;04;54;13 - 00;04;57;25

'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;23

'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

00;04;59;23 - 00;05;06;13

'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

00;05;06;26 - 00;05;18;04

'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

00;05;18;07 - 00;05;55;19

'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

00;05;55;24 - 00;06;23;28

'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;34;00

'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

00;06;34;00 - 00;06;39;25

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;43;21

'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

00;06;43;29 - 00;07;05;04

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;08;23

'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

00;07;09;01 - 00;07;19;14

'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

00;07;19;25 - 00;08;17;19

'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

00;08;23;02 - 00;09;01;09

'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;02;12

'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

00;09;02;24 - 00;09;19;03

'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

00;09;19;03 - 00;09;20;03

'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

00;09;20;07 - 00;09;36;20

'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;38;12

'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

00;09;38;12 - 00;09;51;11

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;55;15

'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;00;06

'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;03;27

'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

00;10;03;29 - 00;10;09;02

'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;12;06

'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;16;00

'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

00;10;16;01 - 00;10;19;29

'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;21;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

00;10;21;19 - 00;10;27;08

'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;29;27

'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;33;21

'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

00;10;33;21 - 00;10;38;18

'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

00;10;38;27 - 00;10;44;08

'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

00;10;44;08 - 00;11;30;08

'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

00;11;30;28 - 00;11;32;14

'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

00;11;32;14 - 00;11;37;07

'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

00;11;37;18 - 00;11;45;10

'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;25;18

'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;27;21

'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;29;27

'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

00;12;30;10 - 00;12;32;02

'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

00;12;32;02 - 00;12;32;27

'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

00;12;33;09 - 00;12;34;24

'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

00;12;34;24 - 00;12;36;03

'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;38;07

'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;43;06

'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

00;12;43;06 - 00;12;57;13

'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

00;12;57;28 - 00;13;15;19

'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;18;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;27;15

'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

00;13;37;23 - 00;13;43;04

'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

00;13;49;04 - 00;13;50;06

'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

00;13;50;08 - 00;14;03;10

'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;10;12

'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

00;14;10;14 - 00;14;12;07

'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;13;13

'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;33;20

'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

==Episode Guide==

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

'''Previous Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-08T02:45:01Z

Adolla: /* Episode 4 Transcript */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al'Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Guest:'''
*[[Alexr al'Petros]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

00;00;34;28 - 00;00;35;10

'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;37;10

'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

00;00;37;15 - 00;00;38;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;05

'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

00;00;42;10 - 00;01;35;23

'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;38;05

'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

00;01;38;19 - 00;01;55;18

'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;57;20

'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;10;13

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

00;02;10;13 - 00;02;21;00

'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

00;02;21;00 - 00;02;23;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;55;12

'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

00;02;55;12 - 00;03;02;10

'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

00;03;02;28 - 00;03;13;01

'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

00;03;13;16 - 00;03;21;05

'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;22

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

00;03;45;01 - 00;03;46;00

'''Thad'''

As you do.

00;03;46;09 - 00;03;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yes.

00;03;48;19 - 00;03;49;17

'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

00;03;51;04 - 00;03;52;26

'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

00;03;52;26 - 00;04;26;18

'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;28;27

'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;45;21

'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

00;04;45;26 - 00;04;54;13

'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

00;04;54;13 - 00;04;57;25

'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;23

'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

00;04;59;23 - 00;05;06;13

'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

00;05;06;26 - 00;05;18;04

'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

00;05;18;07 - 00;05;55;19

'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

00;05;55;24 - 00;06;23;28

'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;34;00

'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

00;06;34;00 - 00;06;39;25

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;43;21

'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

00;06;43;29 - 00;07;05;04

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;08;23

'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

00;07;09;01 - 00;07;19;14

'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

00;07;19;25 - 00;08;17;19

'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

00;08;23;02 - 00;09;01;09

'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;02;12

'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

00;09;02;24 - 00;09;19;03

'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

00;09;19;03 - 00;09;20;03

'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

00;09;20;07 - 00;09;36;20

'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;38;12

'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

00;09;38;12 - 00;09;51;11

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;55;15

'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;00;06

'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;03;27

'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

00;10;03;29 - 00;10;09;02

'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;12;06

'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;16;00

'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

00;10;16;01 - 00;10;19;29

'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;21;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

00;10;21;19 - 00;10;27;08

'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;29;27

'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;33;21

'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

00;10;33;21 - 00;10;38;18

'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

00;10;38;27 - 00;10;44;08

'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

00;10;44;08 - 00;11;30;08

'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

00;11;30;28 - 00;11;32;14

'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

00;11;32;14 - 00;11;37;07

'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

00;11;37;18 - 00;11;45;10

'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;25;18

'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;27;21

'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;29;27

'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

00;12;30;10 - 00;12;32;02

'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

00;12;32;02 - 00;12;32;27

'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

00;12;33;09 - 00;12;34;24

'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

00;12;34;24 - 00;12;36;03

'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;38;07

'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;43;06

'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

00;12;43;06 - 00;12;57;13

'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

00;12;57;28 - 00;13;15;19

'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;18;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;27;15

'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

00;13;37;23 - 00;13;43;04

'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

00;13;49;04 - 00;13;50;06

'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

00;13;50;08 - 00;14;03;10

'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;10;12

'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

00;14;10;14 - 00;14;12;07

'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;13;13

'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;33;20

'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

==Episode Guide==

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

'''Previous Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-08T02:40:51Z

Adolla: /* General */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al'Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Guest:'''
*[[Alexr al'Petros]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

00;00;34;28 - 00;00;35;10

'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;37;10

'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

00;00;37;15 - 00;00;38;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;05

'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

00;00;42;10 - 00;01;35;23

'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;38;05

'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

00;01;38;19 - 00;01;55;18

'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;57;20

'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;10;13

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

00;02;10;13 - 00;02;21;00

'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

00;02;21;00 - 00;02;23;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;55;12

'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

00;02;55;12 - 00;03;02;10

'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

00;03;02;28 - 00;03;13;01

'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

00;03;13;16 - 00;03;21;05

'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;22

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

00;03;45;01 - 00;03;46;00

'''Thad'''

As you do.

00;03;46;09 - 00;03;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yes.

00;03;48;19 - 00;03;49;17

'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

00;03;51;04 - 00;03;52;26

'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

00;03;52;26 - 00;04;26;18

'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;28;27

'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;45;21

'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

00;04;45;26 - 00;04;54;13

'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

00;04;54;13 - 00;04;57;25

'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;23

'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

00;04;59;23 - 00;05;06;13

'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

00;05;06;26 - 00;05;18;04

'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

00;05;18;07 - 00;05;55;19

'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

00;05;55;24 - 00;06;23;28

'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;34;00

'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

00;06;34;00 - 00;06;39;25

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;43;21

'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

00;06;43;29 - 00;07;05;04

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;08;23

'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

00;07;09;01 - 00;07;19;14

'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

00;07;19;25 - 00;08;17;19

'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

00;08;23;02 - 00;09;01;09

'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;02;12

'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

00;09;02;24 - 00;09;19;03

'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

00;09;19;03 - 00;09;20;03

'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

00;09;20;07 - 00;09;36;20

'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;38;12

'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

00;09;38;12 - 00;09;51;11

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;55;15

'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;00;06

'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;03;27

'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

00;10;03;29 - 00;10;09;02

'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;12;06

'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;16;00

'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

00;10;16;01 - 00;10;19;29

'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;21;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

00;10;21;19 - 00;10;27;08

'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;29;27

'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;33;21

'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

00;10;33;21 - 00;10;38;18

'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

00;10;38;27 - 00;10;44;08

'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

00;10;44;08 - 00;11;30;08

'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

00;11;30;28 - 00;11;32;14

'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

00;11;32;14 - 00;11;37;07

'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

00;11;37;18 - 00;11;45;10

'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;25;18

'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;27;21

'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;29;27

'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

00;12;30;10 - 00;12;32;02

'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

00;12;32;02 - 00;12;32;27

'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

00;12;33;09 - 00;12;34;24

'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

00;12;34;24 - 00;12;36;03

'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;38;07

'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;43;06

'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

00;12;43;06 - 00;12;57;13

'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

00;12;57;28 - 00;13;15;19

'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;18;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;27;15

'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

00;13;37;23 - 00;13;43;04

'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

00;13;49;04 - 00;13;50;06

'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

00;13;50;08 - 00;14;03;10

'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;10;12

'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

00;14;10;14 - 00;14;12;07

'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;13;13

'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;33;20

'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

'''Previous Episode'''
[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-08T02:39:56Z

Adolla: /* General */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al’Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Guest:'''
*[[Alexr al'Petros]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

00;00;34;28 - 00;00;35;10

'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;37;10

'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

00;00;37;15 - 00;00;38;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;05

'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

00;00;42;10 - 00;01;35;23

'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;38;05

'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

00;01;38;19 - 00;01;55;18

'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;57;20

'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;10;13

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

00;02;10;13 - 00;02;21;00

'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

00;02;21;00 - 00;02;23;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;55;12

'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

00;02;55;12 - 00;03;02;10

'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

00;03;02;28 - 00;03;13;01

'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

00;03;13;16 - 00;03;21;05

'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;22

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

00;03;45;01 - 00;03;46;00

'''Thad'''

As you do.

00;03;46;09 - 00;03;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yes.

00;03;48;19 - 00;03;49;17

'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

00;03;51;04 - 00;03;52;26

'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

00;03;52;26 - 00;04;26;18

'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;28;27

'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;45;21

'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

00;04;45;26 - 00;04;54;13

'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

00;04;54;13 - 00;04;57;25

'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;23

'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

00;04;59;23 - 00;05;06;13

'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

00;05;06;26 - 00;05;18;04

'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

00;05;18;07 - 00;05;55;19

'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

00;05;55;24 - 00;06;23;28

'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;34;00

'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

00;06;34;00 - 00;06;39;25

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;43;21

'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

00;06;43;29 - 00;07;05;04

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;08;23

'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

00;07;09;01 - 00;07;19;14

'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

00;07;19;25 - 00;08;17;19

'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

00;08;23;02 - 00;09;01;09

'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;02;12

'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

00;09;02;24 - 00;09;19;03

'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

00;09;19;03 - 00;09;20;03

'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

00;09;20;07 - 00;09;36;20

'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;38;12

'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

00;09;38;12 - 00;09;51;11

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;55;15

'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;00;06

'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;03;27

'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

00;10;03;29 - 00;10;09;02

'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;12;06

'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;16;00

'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

00;10;16;01 - 00;10;19;29

'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;21;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

00;10;21;19 - 00;10;27;08

'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;29;27

'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;33;21

'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

00;10;33;21 - 00;10;38;18

'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

00;10;38;27 - 00;10;44;08

'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

00;10;44;08 - 00;11;30;08

'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

00;11;30;28 - 00;11;32;14

'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

00;11;32;14 - 00;11;37;07

'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

00;11;37;18 - 00;11;45;10

'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;25;18

'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;27;21

'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;29;27

'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

00;12;30;10 - 00;12;32;02

'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

00;12;32;02 - 00;12;32;27

'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

00;12;33;09 - 00;12;34;24

'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

00;12;34;24 - 00;12;36;03

'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;38;07

'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;43;06

'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

00;12;43;06 - 00;12;57;13

'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

00;12;57;28 - 00;13;15;19

'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;18;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;27;15

'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

00;13;37;23 - 00;13;43;04

'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

00;13;49;04 - 00;13;50;06

'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

00;13;50;08 - 00;14;03;10

'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;10;12

'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

00;14;10;14 - 00;14;12;07

'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;13;13

'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;33;20

'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

'''Previous Episode'''
[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog

2023-10-08T02:37:50Z

Adolla: /* General */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al'Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Release date:'''

*November 16th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In this episode our hosts Thad, Doll, and Fenya discuss the dreaded slog. What constitutes the slog, why is the slog so hard to read, and how does when you started reading the books affect how you feel about it.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;12;16 - 00;00;34;21

'''Thad'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. This is episode five. And this week we will be talking about the slog. And the slog is kind of an eponymous term that can be extremely subjective. And I say subjective and not objective because to different people it means different things. We could have three different viewpoints on this, this evening. So we're going to find out what's what.

00;00;34;29 - 00;00;38;08

'''Thad'''

So tonight I am joined by Doll and Fenya.

00;00;38;14 - 00;00;39;00

'''Doll'''

Hello.

00;00;39;04 - 00;00;39;21

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

00;00;39;25 - 00;00;41;22

'''Thad'''

So what does the slog mean to you?

00;00;42;07 - 00;00;51;15

'''Doll'''

So for me, the slog started shortly after Winter's heart. I'm really terrible with the order of the books, Winter's Heart and then Crossroads.

00;00;51;19 - 00;01;06;03

'''Thad'''

Crossroads of Twilight. Yes, technically the same book. I know we've talked about that before. It's all of the same events that happens across two different books. Yeah. So that, that is I think where a lot of people can agree.

00;01;06;03 - 00;01;21;18

'''Doll'''

Yeah. Yeah. Winter's heart was a little slow, but it really dragged in Crossroads of Twilight. But for me, Winter's Heart was the last book published when I started reading For Real, not the five or six times I started Eye of the World and put it down. When did it start for you?

00;01;22;01 - 00;02;31;11

'''Thad'''

For me? I started reading in the late nineties. I think 98 was when I started reading. So I think at about that time, Path of Daggers was the most recently published book, but I didn't get through all eight books in the first year, so arguably, maybe a little sooner than that because I was an angsty teen that wanted to see how cool Rand could be. And I didn't really want to deal with all of this worldbuilding and all of these other characters that I just honestly, on the first read didn't care too much about. I didn't care what the Aes Sedai in Salidar were doing. I really just wanted to see what the Dragon Reborn was doing. I wanted to see what Perrin was doing. I wanted to see what Mat was doing.

So when it got to probably about a Crown of Swords for me like post Dumai’s Wells, because that's like the coolest stuff. And then we hit this drag about what's going to happen next. That through Crossroads of Twilight for me generally tends to be the slog because now we kind of hit this slow pace of, “All right, all this stuff has happened. We're going to sit and stew on political stances between different countries for a couple of books.”

00;02;31;23 - 00;02;32;27

'''Doll'''

So, '''Fenya''', what do you think?

00;02;33;09 - 00;03;26;00

'''Fenya'''

Obviously I read the books after they had all been published. And when I started reading, Dianna was warning me like, “Oh, you're getting close to a slog. You're you're getting close to the slog.” And then I started book eight and I was like, “Oh, this is fine. I don't find this a slog at all.” And my definition of slog, I look back through my text messages to Diana, and I defined it as something that I can only get through if I pour myself a glass of wine.

So I found it okay, and then we get to Perrin and poor Perrin just does absolutely nothing. He sits around and thinks about how much he wants to do stuff, but he does not do anything. And I found that just intolerable. Like the stuff with Faile was really interesting. So. So everything that Perrin was involved with was interesting. But Perrin’s viewpoint in particular was just really tough for me to get through.

00;03;26;08 - 00;03;27;24

'''Doll'''

I think a lot of people agree with that.

00;03;28;08 - 00;03;53;15

'''Thad'''

Perrin is really hard because he is more or less the constant exposition because of his sense of smell we always get like the situation is going on and Perrin is kind of that removed third party of “Oh, I can smell her being angry at this guy”, but shows nothing of it when the conversation is going on between those two characters.

So he's our exposition, which is why I can see a lot of people having problems with him.

00;03;54;04 - 00;03;59;14

'''Fenya'''

It was just very, very slow. So when I got there I was like, okay, I get why people might say this is a slog.

00;04;00;08 - 00;04;15;06

'''Doll'''

He also like to sit there and whine about not being able to save his wife. Mm hmm. For how many books? It feels like it's a whole, like, multiple books, but it's really only like one full book and maybe part of two other books I can't really remember now.

00;04;15;06 - 00;04;37;25

'''Thad'''

It was definitely one of those things as the books were coming out and you know, there at the end before Robert Jordan passed away, it was like four years between each book. So it was just four years of stewing on, “oh my God, Faile is going to be forever captured” to us who were reading it at the time. It was like a ten year tenure of her being captured and you do a book a month or something like that. It's not that long.

00;04;38;00 - 00;04;47;29

'''Fenya'''

It was not quite that bad. So I was very grateful that I did have all of the books. And once I, you know, once I got through one book, I could just move on to the next. I didn't have a big gap in between.

00;04;48;08 - 00;04;54;11

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think that helped a lot. My theory was what you think the slog is depends entirely on when you started reading.

00;04;54;11 - 00;05;14;14

'''Thad'''

I have some friends that read probably the first five or six books and they're like the first three are the worst because it doesn't pick up till four. And I'm like, okay, that's that's an interesting viewpoint. I don't hear that one very often from people, but I've heard at least twice that specifically because the first three books are more Tolkien in nature before it really takes off.

00;05;14;24 - 00;05;20;07

'''Doll'''

Plot he proposed for the first book was supposed to end Dragon Reborn and it ended up being three books.

00;05;20;22 - 00;05;29;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah. I always remember hearing that he wanted it to be a trilogy and then it turned into a Quadrilogy, and then it just kind of kind of kept going from there.

00;05;29;05 - 00;05;40;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I can't imagine telling the story that he ended up telling in just three books. Like, there's so much to it. Like how how could you ever tell it in just three books?

00;05;40;28 - 00;05;41;19

'''Doll'''

I don't know.

00;05;41;22 - 00;05;43;17

'''Thad'''

Get rid of a lot of exposition.

00;05;43;17 - 00;05;47;11

'''Doll'''

A lot of exposition. You have to take away a lot of what made the books so unique.

00;05;47;17 - 00;06;33;10

'''Fenya'''

I mean, you would lose so much depth to it. I made my mother read the books after I finished the series, and when the TV show came out, I was like, Mom, you have to read these books. You'll really, really love them. I know it's kind of intimidating because there are so many books in the series, but you'll love all of the politicking. You'll absolutely adore it. And eventually I was able to convince her and she blazed through it.

When she was getting to like Book eight or nine, I was like, Oh, you know, you might be slowing down a little bit because she was reading these books in like one week. I mean, she was going really fast and she got there and was like, “No, this is no slog at all. Like, I'm, I'm still enjoying them just as much as I have been.” And she continued her pace until she finished the series.

00;06;33;28 - 00;06;34;24

'''Doll'''

That's impressive.

00;06;34;28 - 00;06;47;01

'''Thad'''

Probably the fastest I ever read them was when the final three were coming out and I would reread the other two like the month before it would come out. That was like a week, maybe two weeks for each book, and they're already pretty big boys.

00;06;47;04 - 00;07;08;06

'''Doll'''

When I was reading them first, it would take them a month or more to read through for me. I have binocular vision disorder and dyslexia. So really slow reader. I read big books, but I read them very very slowly so the last read through took me 18 months and that was right before A Memory of Light came out. I wanted to get through all of the books.

00;07;08;06 - 00;07;13;25

'''Thad'''

I think that's what everybody did too. Like, I don't know anybody that just picked up the last book and read it or something.

00;07;13;28 - 00;07;44;03

'''Doll'''

I realized when the first one that Brandon wrote came out I didn’t do a reread and I couldn't remember who everybody was, so I was like, you know, I realized I needed to do a reread. So I finished right before Towers of Midnight came out and I read it and then reread it right before A Memory Light came out, which was like what., a year or so later, year and a half. So I just reread that one instead of the whole series one more time, but that means I only read A Memory of Light once.

00;07;44;13 - 00;07;53;21

'''Thad'''

You know, it's wild about the slog, though, that if you go by the post crown of Swords through Crossroads of Twilight to Knife of Dreams, that means you generally have to include New Spring.

00;07;54;05 - 00;07;55;17

'''Doll'''

I don't think New Spring counts.

00;07;55;17 - 00;07;58;18

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I don't. I, I wouldn't count New Spring either.

00;07;59;09 - 00;08;01;12

'''Thad'''

They published around the same time as those.

00;08;01;12 - 00;08;07;06

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. If you're going by publication date but if you're going by like story chronology, it doesn't fit in the slog.

00;08;07;25 - 00;08;16;17

'''Thad'''

You know what I always say you technically should be reading this book after Crosswords of Twilight. So to me it would fall within the confines of the definition of the slog.

00;08;16;25 - 00;08;20;13

'''Doll'''

It was actually published twice. I can't remember when the first time it was published.

00;08;20;15 - 00;08;25;05

'''Thad'''

It came out and in, god…came out when I was in my first year in college, which was 2004.

00;08;25;07 - 00;08;28;13

'''Doll'''

And that's when the novel came out. The novella came out before that.

00;08;28;14 - 00;08;29;10

'''Thad'''

Oh, I see.

00;08;29;10 - 00;08;34;29

'''Fenya'''

I think it's really interesting that you say that it should be read after book ten. Is that the one that you’re saying?

00;08;35;14 - 00;08;37;21

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that's Crossroads of Twilight specifically.

00;08;37;21 - 00;08;56;04

'''Fenya'''

I know the book names. If you gave me a name, I can say yes, that's the Wheel of Time book, but I don't know what number they are. But I think it's really interesting that you say that it should be right after Crossroads of Twilight, because I feel you're much better served honestly by reading it once you finish the series.

00;08;56;22 - 00;09;11;08

'''Thad'''

I have heard that argument, but I've also heard from I want to say completely unsourced, that I have heard from Jordan himself that you should be reading it at about that time and not do one of those things of read it before you start the series, because it gives away a whole lot of stuff.

00;09;11;08 - 00;09;34;05

'''Fenya'''

I definitely don't think you should read it before you start the series for sure, because like you say, there's so much discussed in it that is just kind of spoilery for a whole bunch of the series. I think I read it after Book six because that's when Diana said that I should read it. I kind of regret it because at that point there was still context that I was missing and like I hadn't met Cadsuane for example.

00;09;34;19 - 00;09;38;08

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because she doesn't appear until halfway or later through Crown of Swords.

00;09;38;13 - 00;09;46;08

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. So I wish that I had read it later and I think that probably influences why I think you should read it at the end of the series.

00;09;47;01 - 00;10;04;08

'''Thad'''

Well I mean, the appearance of Cadsuane is kind of a..uh..in the sense the story she was this all powerful Aes Sedai that just disappeared and everybody thought she was dead. And then she is she's back and she's bigger than ever. And yeah, if you read New Spring before she returns, it kind of spoils the fact.

00;10;04;23 - 00;10;10;22

'''Doll'''

So I found the publish date, the short story was published in 1990.

00;10;10;27 - 00;10;12;24

'''Thad'''

Wow. 1990 something.

00;10;13;03 - 00;10;14;16

'''Doll'''

Oh, 1998.

00;10;14;26 - 00;10;16;14

'''Thad'''

Okay. That's when I started reading.

00;10;17;01 - 00;10;29;03

'''Doll'''

It came out in an anthology with a story from Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Terry Goodkind, Ann McCaffrey, Raymond E Feist, Orson Scott Card. It's a really good anthology. It had a really good..

00;10;29;03 - 00;10;31;29

'''Thad'''

Wow, that's the ‘S’ tier league right there.

00;10;32;06 - 00;10;39;16

'''Doll'''

It's like basically everybody that was big and this was actually, I think before Martin published A Game of Thrones. Ah, no, I guess not.

00;10;39;26 - 00;10;42;05

'''Thad'''

No, Game of Thrones is 96, right?

00;10;42;06 - 00;10;51;10

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It would have been right after he published it. So it would have been before it was huge but uh, Martin, Pratchett, Feist. Ursula K Le guin…

00;10;51;16 - 00;10;52;08

'''Thad'''

Jeez.

00;10;52;21 - 00;10;55;16

'''Doll'''

Robert Silverberg, Tad Williams.

00;10;55;19 - 00;10;57;18

'''Fenya'''

Those are big names for sure.

00;10;58;05 - 00;11;00;02

'''Thad'''

Like all of the….like every single one.

00;11;00;03 - 00;11;04;04

'''Doll'''

Basically everybody that was big in fantasy. I have a copy of it somewhere.

00;11;04;10 - 00;11;06;25

'''Thad'''

Boy, I'm going to have to hunt down a copy of that.

00;11;06;25 - 00;11;07;27

'''Doll'''

It's not easy to find.

00;11;08;06 - 00;11;09;16

'''Thad'''

Oh, of course it's not.

00;11;09;25 - 00;11;12;07

'''Doll'''

I happened to find it in a used bookstore years ago.

00;11;12;14 - 00;11;13;22

'''Fenya'''

That's a lucky find.

00;11;13;29 - 00;11;14;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;11;15;01 - 00;11;18;28

'''Thad'''

Mhm. It's like the time I found a signed Robert Jordan book and a used bookstore for like three bucks.

00;11;19;00 - 00;11;21;00

'''Doll'''

Wow, that's cool. That's really cool.

00;11;21;02 - 00;11;26;00

'''Thad'''

It's personalized to somebody. But it was years after his death and I was like, I'll take what I can get.

00;11;26;07 - 00;11;27;21

'''Fenya'''

That can be my name just for this book.

00;11;27;21 - 00;11;30;01

'''Thad'''

Yeah, my name is Sarah. My name is Sarah now.

00;11;30;07 - 00;11;35;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Hey, I mean, you could give it to me because my name actually is Sarah.

00;11;35;27 - 00;11;37;17

'''Doll'''

But yeah, that was just a novella.

00;11;37;20 - 00;11;40;12

'''Thad'''

Was it like an abridged version of what the final story came to be?

00;11;41;06 - 00;11;44;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he fleshed it out for the novel for release in 2004.

00;11;44;16 - 00;11;56;21

'''Thad'''

I will say that my one fun trivia fact about New Spring is that it is the only time in the entirety of the Wheel of Time story that you hear somebody mention a bathroom.

00;11;56;24 - 00;11;59;23

'''Doll'''

What about the baths that Elayne took for like.

00;12;00;05 - 00;12;03;26

'''Thad'''

No, no, no, no. Specifically going to use the bathroom.

00;12;03;26 - 00;12;05;22

'''Doll'''

Oh, the toilet.

00;12;05;22 - 00;12;19;13

'''Thad'''

I think it was someone asked where Moiraine was and one of the Malkieri fellows was just like, I think she went off to the privy and Lan was like, we don't talk about that. And that was like it. And it's kind of sticks with me.

00;12;20;00 - 00;12;21;04

'''Doll'''

I don't remember that.

00;12;21;10 - 00;12;26;25

'''Thad'''

I'm sure someone's going to fact check me on it and I'm probably a little bit wrong, but yeah, it does happen.

00;12;26;26 - 00;12;30;13

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I mean, I believe you. It's it's not something that stood out to me, I guess.

00;12;31;05 - 00;12;51;13

'''Thad'''

Well, because for me it was just like I have never heard because, you know, Jordan was more or less a very clean writer in terms of he really didn't like, you know, how some fantasy authors were getting down to the nitty gritty of the descriptions of some stuff? well, I mean, we don't really get that in Wheel of Time. It's all kind of just assumed.

00;12;52;11 - 00;12;55;29

'''Doll'''

You know, I don't really need to know that the Aes Sedai go to the bathroom.

00;12;56;05 - 00;12;57;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, right.

00;12;58;14 - 00;13;10;00

'''Doll'''

I can just assume that they did. Unless it's important to the plot, like the Chamber of Secrets hidden in the bathroom. I don't need to know anything about the bathroom. I certainly don't need five chapters of Elayne in there.

00;13;10;27 - 00;13;15;09

'''Fenya'''

I did find I have to admit, I did find a lot of Elayne’s plotline, a bit of a slog.

00;13;15;14 - 00;13;19;28

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think that's one. The intrigue was interesting, but it really dragged on.

00;13;20;03 - 00;13;32;10

'''Thad'''

I think for me it was in Winter's Heart when it felt like it took half the book to leave Ebou Dar. For me, that was the really big thing of, “Oh my God, is it really taking him 15 chapters to escape the city?”

00;13;32;17 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

I didn't mind that. It was just when she got pregnant and then suddenly her entire plotline was just her being pregnant. And that I found frustrating. But that's also not like I have no interest in pregnancy or reading about pregnancy. So that was. That was just not for me.

00;13;49;15 - 00;13;57;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I can't say that was my favorite point. Like she was also trying to secure her place for the throne. They thought her mother was dead and..

00;13;57;00 - 00;14;00;25

'''Fenya'''

If it had focused more on that, I would have liked it more.

00;14;01;00 - 00;14;03;18

'''Doll'''

But there were so many descriptions of her bath.

00;14;03;24 - 00;14;14;04

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. And like, her morning sickness. And I know that, you know, when you're pregnant, you have morning sickness. And it's great that that was included. But I didn't need to hear about it so often.

00;14;14;08 - 00;14;17;14

'''Doll'''

And it was a lot of how it affected her use the power, too.

00;14;17;15 - 00;14;17;25

'''Fenya'''

Yeah.

00;14;17;28 - 00;14;43;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah, that's right. They did specifically talk about that, how her power would fluctuate just because it's kind of the weirdest thing too, because it's like the first time we're hearing about it. I don't remember any other character in the series being like actively pregnant. That's like the only perspective that we get on a one power user in pregnancy. What is what is it? The baby feeds on the one power. That's why her power fluctuates? I don’t know..

00;14;43;06 - 00;14;54;07

'''Fenya'''

I mean, if you think about it, like it's a kind of interesting concept that pregnancy and affects their use of the one power. So from that standpoint, like I liked it, it just there was a lot of it.

00;14;54;11 - 00;15;04;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it really could have been condensed. like, one chapter. The other thing that really got to me in escaping Ebou Dar, a building fell on Mat and then we don't see them for a whole book.

00;15;05;18 - 00;15;06;18

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah that's right.

00;15;07;08 - 00;15;11;04

'''Doll'''

I got done with. Was it in the next book, was it in Path of Daggers or was it..

00;15;11;09 - 00;15;14;16

'''Thad'''

The next book after Crossroads of Twilight is Knife of Dreams.

00;15;14;24 - 00;15;18;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get Knife of Dreams and Path of Daggers mixed up because they're both knives.

00;15;18;23 - 00;15;20;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

00;15;20;12 - 00;15;28;28

'''Doll'''

But he doesn't show up again until Knife of Dreams. He's not..or is it Knife of Dreams the one he's not in? I can't remember.

00;15;29;00 - 00;15;47;03

'''Thad'''

He's in Crossroads of Twilight because that's his part of the story from Winter's Heart. I'm a little fuzzy on Knife of Dreams at this point. It's been so long since I've done a reread of it, but I believe we have most everybody in that book at that point since that kind of since the previous two books kind of sync everybody back up.

00;15;47;14 - 00;15;51;08

'''Doll'''

I just can't because I remember getting through and going, “What the hell happened to Mat?”

00;15;51;14 - 00;15;57;19

'''Fenya'''

That would have been a horrible cliffhanger to not have another book immediately afterwards.

00;15;58;04 - 00;15;58;21

'''Doll'''

It was.

00;15;59;03 - 00;16;08;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah. We lived with that for about four years because it was like it was like 2000, I think was Winter's Heart and 2001 was like, Crossroads of Twilight.

00;16;08;04 - 00;16;11;26

'''Doll'''

Winter's Heart was in 2000 because that's when I started reading.

00;16;12;04 - 00;16;14;17

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And The Knife of Dreams was 2004.

00;16;14;18 - 00;16;15;13

'''Doll'''

2005.

00;16;15;22 - 00;16;20;09

'''Thad'''

2005. And then we didn't get Gathering Storm until..bum bum bummm..

00;16;20;27 - 00;16;21;24

'''Doll'''

2009.

00;16;21;29 - 00;16;31;04

'''Thad'''

2009. So yeah, but after, after the passing of Jordan, everybody was just like, well, that's it. We're never going to find out what happens.

00;16;31;18 - 00;16;55;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah. Although if you had read the blogs when things were starting to look not good, he worked as long as he could. And then when he, you know, couldn’t get out of bed he called Wilson in and he's like, I want to tell you something. And he basically started dictating the end of the book and Wilson went “Hold on”. And he went out to Wal-Mart and bought like, I think he actually went out all over Charleston to find as many tapes as he could find the tape recorder.

00;16;55;15 - 00;17;02;15

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because we at least at the first JordanCon got to hear an audio dictation of the opening of Gathering Storm.

00;17;02;15 - 00;17;13;02

'''Doll'''

Yes, that was the that was the first tape he did. Like he basically dictated it word for word. It barely changed. And that will probably never see the light of day again.

00;17;13;22 - 00;17;17;21

'''Fenya'''

That's incredible, though, that it was played at JordanCon the first one.

00;17;17;25 - 00;17;22;18

'''Thad'''

Mm hmm. Yeah, they did, I believe, at the opening ceremonies. Either that or the closing.

00;17;22;20 - 00;17;24;27

'''Doll'''

And Harriet sort of surprised us with it.

00;17;25;13 - 00;17;31;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because we were all just like, whoa, whoa, wait a second, what is this? And that was like right before they also announced, oh, it's going to be three books instead of one.

00;17;31;23 - 00;17;42;12

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think it wasn't specifically opening ceremonies that were like we had a big panel with Brandon and Harriet on it talking about the books and we had to have everybody agree to not record.

00;17;42;18 - 00;17;50;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that was that was a big thing. I remember that. They were just like, please. It was like a heartfelt please don't do this. Please don't record this.

00;17;50;21 - 00;18;07;00

'''Doll'''

Please? It's like we're about to share something very special and very intimate and out of respect, please put your phones away and do not record and do not speak. And I never heard of more silence in the room. We had like 120 something people.

00;18;07;07 - 00;18;08;22

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it was. It was pretty small.

00;18;09;02 - 00;18;57;06

'''Doll'''

It was pretty small. And she starts playing the tape. Have you ever met Robert Jordan? He had this big, booming voice and he was very, very weak and very small, especially for him. And he basically read us what essentially is the prologue for a Gathering Storm. You could hear the, us, you know, a wind started in I forget where it starts, but you know, and it sweeps over everything.

And like after five or 10 minutes in it ends, you could hear a pin drop. And every now and then you'd hear sniffles and people crying. And it was just so moving and Harriet was like, Thank you for sharing that with us and that was the end of the panel. And everybody just left in quiet like there's not a dry eye in that room.

All right. Now I'm crying.

00;18;57;06 - 00;19;00;07

'''Fenya'''

I had chills just listening to you tell that story.

00;19;00;13 - 00;19;01;24

'''Doll'''

It was extremely special.

00;19;02;00 - 00;19;32;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it really was. Definitely glad to be a part of that. For me I didn't keep up with the Wheel of Time community at all because I didn't really participate in any online, so I knew Dragonmount existed. I would go there sometimes, but I wasn't a part of it. And I knew that Robert Jordan had his blog there, and I remember seeing some posts sometimes, but I never really paid attention to it. And I had no idea that he was having the problems he was having until basically the end.

00;19;32;17 - 00;20;00;18

'''Doll'''

He started blogging when he was diagnosed and he talked about how he was a fighter and he was going to be the five percent to beat it, and I really thought it was going to happen and towards the end Wilson started taking over. He's like, he's too weak, but he still fighting. And then at the very end it was like, well, he fought hard, but it was just too much.

It was interesting, especially getting to know Wilson through that because he became a part of the community as well and we actually just lost Wilson. So that was just another hard one.

00;20;01;02 - 00;20;01;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;20;01;23 - 00;20;03;01

'''Doll'''

Okay, I really am crying.

00;20;03;11 - 00;20;05;24

'''Thad'''

This episode brought to you by the emotion of sadness.

00;20;05;24 - 00;20;06;03

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;20;06;25 - 00;20;23;16

'''Thad'''

Going back to it now that we've all maybe not you '''Fenya''', but '''Doll''', you read the series more than once at this point. Would you say that on a second read, listen, whatever, however you process the media, would you say that it was a slog to you the second time around, third time around, fourth time around?

00;20;23;27 - 00;20;34;00

'''Doll'''

There was definitely a little bit of a slog, but I found it less be like whole books in more just certain chapters in particular, you know Perrin moping about Faile.

00;20;34;00 - 00;21;15;08

'''Thad'''

That's definitely a big thing for me as well. I find myself being less annoyed by “the slog” at this point. It would be specific character moments. Perrin is one of them. Because, you know, as I previously mentioned, his whole exposition on the feelings of everybody currently in the situation that he's engaged in. I'm in the middle of Crown of Swords right now, and I'm really wanting to see more of Nynaeve and Elayne's thing trying to find the Bowl of Winds in Ebou Dar like, I want to see them finding the Bowl of the Winds, but right now we're stuck with the process of Elayne…not Elayne, Egwene going through being the Amrylin and trying to get everybody's respect. And I'm just like…*sighs*

00;21;16;05 - 00;21;37;19

'''Fenya'''

See, I'm the opposite. Like I wanted to see more of Egwene and that process, like I didn't find that particularly a slog. I haven't reread the books though. I've read the series the once and I haven't had a chance to reread it yet, so I don't know if my feelings on the slow bits will change. It is interesting how different people find different aspects of the slog…a slog.

00;21;37;22 - 00;22;07;08

'''Thad'''

For me personally, it more or less comes down to the notion of I know what's going to happen to this character coming up. So it's just like, all right, this part is going to be slow because I know what's going to come and just having to go through the process with this again, it's like, all right, let's wrap it up and move forward because we know that this is just going to…this is just a little dip in the road kind of thing. You're going to be fine. So it's less of a “I'm annoyed with the character”. It's just I know what's going to happen, so let's just get to it.

00;22;07;27 - 00;22;09;04

'''Fenya'''

Get to the good bit..

00;22;09;10 - 00;22;13;12

'''Thad'''

Do either of you have any more insight on the Slog™?

00;22;13;29 - 00;22;21;15

'''Fenya'''

Well, it's not part of what is traditionally referred to as the slog, but honestly, I found a lot of the last book kind of a slog.

00;22;21;27 - 00;22;23;19

'''Thad'''

You found A Memory of Light a slog?

00;22;23;19 - 00;22;47;22

'''Fenya'''

Well, let me explain. Okay. So for like the last like 400 pages, but a lot of it, I found a slog because it was a lot of battles that were described as being really central and important and like the whole survival of the world hinged on them, except that, you know, that you still have another like 600 pages left.

So they can't be that important if you have another 600 pages left.

00;22;48;05 - 00;22;52;21

'''Thad'''

Well, I mean, what if the world had ended and we were kind of entering this world of desolation moment?

00;22;53;02 - 00;23;00;06

'''Fenya'''

I would have liked that a lot. Actually not to say that the book was not good. I did really enjoy the book.

00;23;00;12 - 00;23;01;25

'''Thad'''

Yeah. No, I get your perspective.

00;23;01;25 - 00;23;09;14

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I just had a hard time reading battle after battle after battle after battle, knowing that there was still another however many hundred pages left.

00;23;10;04 - 00;23;32;14

'''Thad'''

Here's another perspective for you, though, coming up on the last book and you're having to read through all these battles, ugh, Rand gathering the rest of the great generals,ugh, and stuff like that. I mean, for me, it was “all right we’re at the end of the series, who's going to start dying? Who's going to die first? Are we going to lose someone important in one of these early battles that could have potentially made the last battle easier?”

00;23;32;26 - 00;23;35;18

'''Thad'''

So I was kind of hinged more on some character development.

00;23;35;20 - 00;24;01;01

'''Fenya'''

And also, I mean, quite frankly, I think you both had spent a lot more time with the series than I had. So you're probably a little more invested in the characters than I was. I mean, like, I like them for sure. Otherwise I wouldn't have read however many books. But having only read the series once, there were a lot of names where I was like, I know that you have shown up before, but I can’t actually remember who you are and I'm not going to look it up on Wikipedia because I don't like spoilers.

00;24;01;13 - 00;24;03;07

'''Doll'''

That's true for me too.

00;24;03;26 - 00;24;31;02

'''Thad'''

So I'm on my nth reread of the series at this point, and even I when a “new name” pops up, I pull out my compendium to go, Who was this person? Okay, because there is no way anybody is going to remember all of these names because there is…there's like 200 unique points of view in this and for every, you know, every point of view, there's like, I swear, 50 named characters..so..

00;24;31;02 - 00;24;32;23

'''Fenya'''

It was a little overwhelming.

00;24;33;02 - 00;24;44;12

'''Thad'''

It's like when Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers for the first time and it goes, Oh, hey, here's all these Two Rivers people, and he names everybody. And you go, I'm not going to remember that. I'm not going to remember that. I'm not going to remember that.

00;24;44;12 - 00;24;47;13

'''Fenya'''

I had less trouble with the Two Rivers names and more trouble with Aes Sedai.

00;24;48;06 - 00;24;57;05

'''Thad'''

It's because they all start sounding samey after a while. That's wild. That's the first time I've heard somebody go, “I found the last book to be kind of a slog.”

00;24;58;01 - 00;24;59;26

'''Doll'''

I can't say I’ve ever heard that before.

00;25;00;10 - 00;25;04;11

'''Fenya'''

I mean, and like I said, this is not considered the slog at all.

00;25;04;27 - 00;25;10;07

'''Thad'''

Well, that's why I say the slog is subjective. It depends on who is reading it and when they read it.

00;25;10;08 - 00;25;16;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. And I also wouldn't consider it, I mean, I would consider it a slog, but not THE slog.

00;25;16;26 - 00;25;30;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I think we can agree that the slog generally tends to happen around Winter’s Heart. That generally tends to be where most people kind of space out because the pacing definitely slows down after they find the Bowl of the Winds in Crown of Swords.

00;25;31;07 - 00;25;41;09

'''Doll'''

At some point in time I hadn't seen like a timeline that showed us when everything happens in like the first five books take place within like a year. Like a year?

00;25;41;10 - 00;25;42;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, like one year.

00;25;42;24 - 00;25;47;12

'''Doll'''

And then those like next couple books take place in a couple of weeks and you're like, Oh.

00;25;47;25 - 00;26;05;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Because they specifically mention in book five or maybe book six that, Oh yeah, we've been gone from the Two Rivers for only like a year, a year and a half tops and look at everything that has happened. Look at how much Rand has changed kind of thing.

00;26;05;18 - 00;26;10;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And then like Crossroads and Twilight with only a couple of days, it's like five days.

00;26;10;27 - 00;26;17;13

'''Thad'''

That book took me like over a month to read the first time, and it was like, oh, not even a week passed.

00;26;17;13 - 00;26;33;29

'''Fenya'''

Actually, speaking of Rand, I found him kind of a slog at points too. When he starts getting his insistence that he has to be hard, I'm like, okay, I get where you're coming from, but like, just just give it up, please just give it up.

00;26;33;29 - 00;26;40;14

'''Thad'''

For me, it was always whenever he would be like, I can't let the women die. It's like, Oh, God, come on, man.

00;26;40;14 - 00;26;44;24

'''Fenya'''

Sometimes you just have to kill an evil villainess. Like, you just do sometimes.

00;26;45;12 - 00;26;49;27

'''Doll'''

And you know, women are going to die because that's just the nature of being alive.

00;26;50;06 - 00;27;05;02

'''Thad'''

Don't worry, when somebody is going to die, Min will tell us who and how. Even if it shows up as, Oh, this Aes Sedai has blood across her forehead. I wonder what that means. And then two books later, there it is.

00;27;05;11 - 00;27;14;11

'''Fenya'''

And that's something that I think is really cool and I'm looking forward to experiencing when I go back and reread and seeing how there are these layers of foreshadowing.

00;27;14;29 - 00;27;24;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, it is impressive, sometimes. I will be in the middle of book four and then something will get said and I'm like, Oh man, that doesn't happen for another three books.

00;27;24;06 - 00;27;37;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he was pretty good at layering the foreshadowing at least to some degree, not so much with the relationships as we talked about last time. I'm going to foreshadow something that's going to happen six books down the line, but I can't foreshadow this relationship. I'm going to reveal in the next book.

00;27;39;02 - 00;27;40;09

'''Fenya'''

Two different skill sets.

00;27;40;20 - 00;27;41;01

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;27;41;12 - 00;27;45;03

'''Thad'''

If anything, he was really good at writing a battle, but not so much a relationship.

00;27;45;20 - 00;28;03;17

'''Doll'''

He was a historian and he saw Battle. He told that story about being the machine gunner on a helicopter. And one time he saw a rocket coming towards him and he shot it down. I think something like that, something practically impossible to do and he just assumed that he was going to die.

00;28;03;24 - 00;28;04;25

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, that's intense.

00;28;05;01 - 00;28;09;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I don't know how how true that is. Or, you know, if it was a little bit of a tall tale.

00;28;10;00 - 00;28;27;15

'''Fenya'''

This is a little bit of a detour and it'll come back to your point. But I was reading Terry Pratchett's biography, which was just released, and it was his personal assistant who wrote it. And he says about some of the stories that Pratchett used to say, some of them were too good to check if it was true or not. And I feel like this is too good to check.

00;28;27;28 - 00;28;32;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it's one of those. It's a little too hard to check. We just believe it. I don't know how you could check it.

00;28;33;00 - 00;28;34;07

'''Thad'''

There's really no way to. Yeah.

00;28;34;22 - 00;28;44;15

'''Doll'''

The only other part that really slogged for me was and this is evidence of how many times it took me to start the whole series, but Eye of the World was very slow.

00;28;44;20 - 00;29;10;03

'''Thad'''

I won't lie. I had probably a good three or four false starts on Eye of the World before I got going because you read this fantastic prologue to it. A guy raises a mountain as he dies. Then you go to the first chapter and it's “I'm chilly and I'm walking down a dark, cold trail with my father while I'm carrying ale.” “And I think I see something in the distance and I knock my bow” and it's just like, all right, what?

00;29;10;13 - 00;29;12;12

'''Fenya'''

I loved Eye of the world.

00;29;13;02 - 00;29;24;01

'''Thad'''

Oh, I love it now. I love it now. But as a 13 year old kid who just read something really cool and then we're on something not really cool in the first chapter, it's like, Come on.

00;29;24;21 - 00;29;36;10

'''Fenya'''

I didn't have any trouble with that. But I also did read it older. when maybe I appreciated just the little things, the small things, an easy life where you're carrying ale down to your village.

00;29;36;21 - 00;29;37;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;29;37;26 - 00;30;07;12

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I started it a couple of times in high school and between having to read some, you know, stuff for school and just not being able to get into that beginning, it just ended up I'd have to take it back to the library or when Robert loaned it to me the first time, I think Winter's Heart was coming out and he took Eye of the world back so that he could read it.

So I didn't finish at that time. Yeah. So it wasn't until I was trapped in bed for a month that he was like, Here, you can finally read these.

00;30;07;22 - 00;30;11;11

'''Thad'''

You're going to read it and you're going to enjoy it.

00;30;11;11 - 00;30;23;07

'''Doll'''

But the more he would bring me books to read and I would complain because I'd finish them in a couple of hours or a day or two. And considering how slow I read that was, like, I need something longer. He's like, Well, here, this is longer.

00;30;23;11 - 00;30;26;17

'''Fenya'''

You got your wish.

00;30;26;17 - 00;30;32;15

'''Doll'''

I did. I didn’t know what I was asking. All right, and I think if we have anything else sloggy to talk about…

00;30;32;20 - 00;30;34;14

'''Thad'''

If you get any other comments, now's the time.

00;30;34;20 - 00;30;39;21

'''Fenya'''

I think I've aired all of my slog comments, pretty much. Controversial though some of them may be.

00;30;41;00 - 00;30;43;15

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I think a little. A touch, a scotch.

00;30;43;25 - 00;30;46;17

'''Doll'''

I’m not sure “controversial” is right. It's just unique.

00;30;46;28 - 00;30;49;14

'''Thad'''

Yeah, we'll go…we'll go with that. Unique.

—------------------------------------------------------------

00;30;49;14 - 00;30;50;28

'''Fenya'''

The kind that we’re putting in.

00;30;51;11 - 00;30;55;16

'''Doll'''

Now I'm curious if any other like, you know, readers thought the same thing.

00;30;56;11 - 00;31;08;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah because it as we previously defined it was based on publication date and kind of I don't know about either of you, but for me I didn't have any friends reading it, so I didn't have anybody to talk to about it.

00;31;08;07 - 00;31;09;18

'''Doll'''

That’s why I was on TarValon.

00;31;09;22 - 00;31;44;09

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I was not. I was part of the the WoT mania group when it was around, but I think it went defunct in like 2000 or 2001. It wasn't around very long, but I was in that group of people and they were definitely more on the role play side of everything. So I didn't have anybody in my real life to talk to about it.

So it kind of became this self-contained thing to where when I just got upset with the series, when it got too slow, it was like just I'd have to just bottle it up and shove it down because I didn't have anybody to complain about it with.

00;31;44;14 - 00;31;51;08

'''Fenya'''

I sent Dianna a lot of very angry messages. I mean, I'm not angry at her, but, like, angry at the book. Yeah.

00;31;51;24 - 00;31;55;01

'''Thad'''

Yeah. Because for me, social media didn't exist at the time either.

00;31;55;23 - 00;32;38;28

'''Doll'''

You know, when I got done with Winter’s Heart and wanted to talk about it, actually before I read Winter’s Heart before I went out and bought it I wanted to talk about it, and Robert was like *shrug*, I'm like, But you made me read these books. We're going to talk about it. These like, yeah. Mm hmm. I don't know. I don't talk about books.

I'm like, you spent all the years talking about these books, trying to get me to read them, and now you don't talk about them. So he never actually read Winter’s Heart, really. He did eventually get around to reading it. He would read my copies after I finished, but he's not read the last three books. He's like too long since he last did the full reread and he's like, It's too much now.

So the slog knocked him out. He didn't get past it.

00;32;39;16 - 00;32;58;09

'''Thad'''

I've never been able to convince anybody to read past like the first book. So everybody gets I mean, because you also once you read past the first book, you realize just how weird the first book can be comparatively. Yes. But everybody just gets that first book and they're just like, I don't know, man. There's 13 more books. And I'm like, well, 14, if you include the prequel.

00;32;59;05 - 00;33;00;15

'''Fenya'''

Really selling it there.

00;33;00;15 - 00;33;13;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I know. I've heard people who like Wheel of Time fans are so weird. They'll be like, You just got to get past the first three or four books and then there's a couple books in the middle. But if you can get past those, the last three books are really good.

00;33;13;08 - 00;33;25;24

'''Thad'''

See that's what I do to my friends who always tell me, you need to watch the first season of this show and it gets better in the second. I'm like, Why am I going to waste this time on this show? Like, if you read The Wheel of Time, I'll watch the show.

00;33;26;19 - 00;33;29;08

'''Doll'''

All these years later. Still talking about the same book series.

00;33;29;15 - 00;33;31;26

'''Thad'''

I could talk about Wheel of Time all day long. You have no idea.

00;33;31;26 - 00;33;33;19

'''Fenya'''

There's a lot to talk about.

00;33;37;22 - 00;33;53;23

'''Doll'''

In this segment our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may remain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

'''Thad''', I believe you are going to talk about your favorite scene.

00;33;53;23 - 00;33;56;24

'''Thad'''

Oh, yes. I even wrote a thing for this.

00;33;57;09 - 00;34;02;02

'''Fenya'''

I was very impressed when you said that you wrote a thing. That's way more effort than I put into it.

00;34;02;15 - 00;34;04;19

'''Doll'''

I know. I was like, I'm just going to talk about it.

00;34;04;27 - 00;37;58;15

'''Thad'''

So yeah, mine happens during the first book specifically. So after being separated from Thom at the White Bridge, when Thom stops the Myrddraal so Mat and Rand can get away. The boys spent their time moving eastwards towards Caemlyn after stealing eggs, sleeping in bushes, working at farms. They finally have a good day at Master Grinwell’s farm. After that, their luck seems to be improving.

They work their way through the villages, performing at inns and sleeping in real beds. The thoughts of the Myrddraal are fading fast as they get closer to Caemlyn, then they reach for kings. One of Rand’s immediate thoughts of the place was, “I don't know about this place. I don't like it. We should just move on.” To which Mat goads at him about wanting to sleep in the bushes again.

Rand remains doubtful about it, but he follows Mat as they search for an inn to perform at. The fourth inn that they come across, the Dancing Cartman is where they end up. The innkeeper is a bony man with long stringy hair, Saml Hake. His first impression is not great as he backhands a serving made for making a comment in front of Mat and Rand. You can see just what kind of person he is, but somehow that doesn't scare Rand and Mat away.

Rand and Mat eventually settle on the terms of employment for their time, and that night they begin to bring a crowd in to, up to this point, a nearly empty inn. It is also heavily threatening rain outside, this will all make sense soon. Rand keeps seeing Hake eyeing his heron-marked blade and Thom's gleeman instruments.

Rand mentions to Mat that he thinks they're going to rob them. They were unable to do anything at this point due to the common room being completely full as they played. Rand notices that that there is one man there that is different. He has a very expensive look to him which stood out against literally everybody else in the common room.

Hake keeps trying to run Mat and Rand to the bone on performances. It's begun pouring rain outside. Rand sneaks outside and Hake lets them go to eat and he sees a name on a merchant's cart outside that they saw earlier. It says “Howel Gode” He remembers seeing this cart at White Bridge. He immediately starts freaking out about this.

So he heads back into the inn and he tells Mat what he's seen. And at this point, Hake's bodyguard are watching Mat and Rand like eagles. Gode is hanging out in the common room watching the boys as well, things are getting very tense. After the evening passes, the common room clears out, Hake showing Rand and Mat to the rooms in the back. The hair on the back of their necks are starting to stand up at this point. Hake's bodyguards are on basically at their side the entire time. Rand basically knows at this point that they're going to rob them blind once they're asleep. So once they're in the room, they decide to block the door so that they can escape out the window, only to realize that the windows have iron bars over them. They're pretty much trapped in this room, thunder begins, rattling in the distance.

So using the thunder as cover, they try to break the iron bars from the window. Then they hear a voice. They think it's the innkeeper Hake that's come to rob them. But actually it's the voice of Howel Gode. He has come for the boys. He has basically outed himself as a dark friend, and he attempts to coerce them into giving themselves up to the Dark One. So he attempts to break into the room, demanding them to submit. Rand begins to absolutely freak out.

Thunder is roaring overhead at this point. Rand keeps muttering that they have to find a way out and light fills the room. The air is roared and burned and Rand felt himself getting thrown against the wall. Then he staggers to his feet and looks around him after regaining his vision. The wall where the iron barred window had been once was gone. Gode was nowhere to be seen. So Mat and Rand gather their belongings and escape through the giant hole in the wall into the rain, listening behind them, through the storm, for the sound of a pursuit.

So this has always been one of my favorite scenes in the book, because this is basically the first time that we see Rand channel without knowing that Rand channeled because he got pinned into a corner and basically destroyed the side of an inn with lightning to get himself out.

00;37;58;16 - 00;38;00;08

'''Doll'''

It's not the first time we see Rand channel.

00;38;00;14 - 00;38;01;01

'''Thad'''

Is it not?

00;38;01;13 - 00;38;03;03

'''Doll'''

It’s the most obvious one.

00;38;03;04 - 00;38;08;09

'''Thad'''

It's the, okay, well, it's the most obvious one that he absolutely did channel in this instance.

00;38;08;18 - 00;38;25;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah. There are a couple of places where he channels that aren't as obvious, one when they're leaving Two Rivers he channels to make Bela less tired. And then again, there's another place I can't remember right now, but you see him get sick every time he gets more sick each time. It's something I didn't catch the first time around.

00;38;26;23 - 00;38;29;06

'''Thad'''

I don't think I've ever caught that, to be honest.

00;38;29;20 - 00;38;36;23

'''Fenya'''

I was going to say that I did not notice that when I read it the first time. I didn't also notice the scene '''Thad''' that you were just describing.

00;38;36;26 - 00;38;39;22

'''Doll'''

Yeah, that one was obvious. I mean more obvious.

00;38;39;27 - 00;39;06;16

'''Thad'''

It's basically he's a rat pushed into a corner and he's got he's got, you know, a Darkfriend at the door going, “Come on, you know you want to submit, it'll be so much easier if you do it.” And it's kind of one of those things of he's pinned in a corner fight or flight mode. He fights by summoning lightning to destroy the inn wall and they just escape out into the rain.

And that's the end of the chapter is they are they are running in the rain.

00;39;06;24 - 00;39;19;09

'''Fenya'''

I vaguely remember the setup if not that specific scene, but I definitely, I don't think on my first read, on my only read through I don't think I necessarily at that point connected the dots that that was him channeling.

00;39;19;21 - 00;39;26;09

'''Thad'''

Oh I absolutely did not the first time either. It wasn't until like a couple of books later where I where I was like, Oh.

00;39;26;20 - 00;39;36;24

'''Doll'''

They sleep in the bushes after that. And he has a massive fever. It's channeling sickness, but that's the channeling sickness you get after having done it for a while, not the first time you do it.

00;39;37;05 - 00;39;43;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And we get that really awesome dream of seeing how Gode turning to ash and just dying in the wind.

00;39;44;17 - 00;40;01;06

'''Doll'''

They sort of mimic that in the TV show when they had him with the Darkfriend, the before Thom, Dana, Dana, couldn’t remember her name. When Dana had him in the room and she said it was Ironwood and you know, ten men couldn't knock it down and then he shouldered it open.

00;40;01;06 - 00;40;04;27

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that was basically that was basically this scene without being this scene.

00;40;05;00 - 00;40;24;02

'''Doll'''

And I'm surprised at how few people picked up that he channeled there like when they watched it. Cause the friends I was watching with, I was the only one that like, “He just channeled, didn’t he?” I'm like he had to have channeled. He wasn't big enough to have knocked that door down. That’s the only way he did it. When they reveal him as the Dragon, you see the weaves around him.

00;40;24;11 - 00;40;33;09

'''Thad'''

Like the first time I watched it, I was like, Yeah, that's the scene. And then on a rewatch I noticed that the name of the inn was specifically called The Four Kings.

00;40;34;00 - 00;40;39;12

'''Doll'''

Yep, it was called the Four Kings. There's a reference to that. Since they cut it out.

00;40;39;24 - 00;40;56;03

'''Thad'''

So yes, this is probably one of my favorite. There is a dozen, dozens and dozens of scenes, but I think this one will always remain one of my favorites, specifically just because of how tense the setup is to a very obvious like, Oh, Rand just channeled.

00;40;56;09 - 00;41;11;11

'''Fenya'''

It feels like a very cinematic scene. I mean, like, I'm really excited to go back and reread that scene now and I'm not going to do it anytime soon, probably because I just don't have the time. But when I when I do eventually go back and reread the first book, I'm going to keep an eye out.

00;41;11;24 - 00;41;49;29

'''Doll'''

Okay. So I just found a post on a forum recently talking about the times that Rand channeled in the Eye of the world. The first one was after fleeing on Winter's night, Rand used the power to refresh Bela.

“If Bela fell back, he would fall back too, whatever Moiraine and Lan had to say about it. Back where the Fade and the Trollocs were, back to where the Drakhar was. With all his heart and desperation, he silently shouted at Bela to run like the wind. Silently tried to will the strength into her, “Run”. His skin prickled and his bones felt as if they were freezing, ready to split open, “The light, help her run”. And Bella ran.

00;41;50;02 - 00;41;54;16

'''Thad'''

You see, that could easily be misconstrued as he is just anxiety Rand.

00;41;55;02 - 00;41;57;16

'''Fenya'''

I mean, that's how I construed it the first time.

00;41;57;16 - 00;42;50;18

'''Doll'''

For the first time I read it, I would have too. But when I went back, I'm like, he channeled. And then I think at some point someone mentioned like it was surprised that Bela was less tired than the other horses. It may have been Lan or Moiraine. And then again in Baerlon, after Mat plays a prank on the Whitecloaks:

“Rand moved to cover the sword, but instead swept his cloak back over his shoulder. In the back of his head was a frantic wonder at what he was doing, but it was a distant thought. “Accidents happen,” he said, “even to the children of the Light”. Bornhald asked some questions, a tingling thrill, ran along Rand’s arm and legs. He felt flushed and almost warm. The tingling fills Rand, the heat had grown into a fever. He went to laugh. It felt so good. A small voice in his head shouted that something was wrong. All he could think of was how full of energy he felt nearly bursting with it.”

00;42;50;26 - 00;42;54;02

'''Thad'''

So was that was that a very early glimpse at Lews Therin there?

00;42;54;02 - 00;42;57;07

'''Doll'''

That was a very early glimpse of him losing control of the Power.

00;42;57;08 - 00;42;58;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, I see.

00;42;58;15 - 00;43;04;24

'''Doll'''

I think even Egwene had talked about the thrill like that you've got the Power feeling you and you have this elation.

00;43;05;00 - 00;43;14;08

'''Fenya'''

I mean, once again, I think it's just incredible how much Jordan left for you to realize on a reread. Like, that's not something that every author can do very well.

00;43;14;15 - 00;43;23;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, there's so much in that first book that when you go back knowing that Rand's the Dragon, where you can see he's channeling that last one, is the one that's the most obvious.

00;43;23;20 - 00;43;34;14

'''Fenya'''

Or knowing what being the Dragon means because I mean, he knows that he's the Dragon from a very early on I feel. But you don't really internalize what that means until you read further.

00;43;34;14 - 00;43;48;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I guess that's when like you have a sense that there's something with Rand because you know that he's not Tam’s real son and so know that he's the one that Moiraine was looking for, but not so much why she was looking for him until they get to the Eye of the World.

00;43;49;02 - 00;44;31;19

'''Thad'''

So that'll be it for this episode of TarValon Talks. Thanks for joining us to talk about the slog and what it means to each and every one of us. If you have any questions about it, you can always shoot us an email at producer.tvt@gmail.com or drop in to us on the TarValon.Net forums and leave us a question in the thread under General. You can even join us in our newly created #tarvalon-talks-podcast topic thread inside of the TarValon.Net Discord channel, which you can join by going to tarvalon.net. Thanks for listening in and until next time, stay safe.

==Episode Guide==

'''Next Episode'''

*[[TarValon Talks Episode 6: Origins of the Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston]]

'''Previous Episode'''

*[[TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog

2023-10-08T02:37:11Z

Adolla: Created page with "==General== '''Hosts:''' *Fenya al’Caem *Thaddius al'Guy *Adolla Ceryia '''Release date:''' *November 16th, 2022 '''Synopsis:''' In this episode our ho..."

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Fenya al’Caem]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Release date:'''

*November 16th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In this episode our hosts Thad, Doll, and Fenya discuss the dreaded slog. What constitutes the slog, why is the slog so hard to read, and how does when you started reading the books affect how you feel about it.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;12;16 - 00;00;34;21

'''Thad'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. This is episode five. And this week we will be talking about the slog. And the slog is kind of an eponymous term that can be extremely subjective. And I say subjective and not objective because to different people it means different things. We could have three different viewpoints on this, this evening. So we're going to find out what's what.

00;00;34;29 - 00;00;38;08

'''Thad'''

So tonight I am joined by Doll and Fenya.

00;00;38;14 - 00;00;39;00

'''Doll'''

Hello.

00;00;39;04 - 00;00;39;21

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

00;00;39;25 - 00;00;41;22

'''Thad'''

So what does the slog mean to you?

00;00;42;07 - 00;00;51;15

'''Doll'''

So for me, the slog started shortly after Winter's heart. I'm really terrible with the order of the books, Winter's Heart and then Crossroads.

00;00;51;19 - 00;01;06;03

'''Thad'''

Crossroads of Twilight. Yes, technically the same book. I know we've talked about that before. It's all of the same events that happens across two different books. Yeah. So that, that is I think where a lot of people can agree.

00;01;06;03 - 00;01;21;18

'''Doll'''

Yeah. Yeah. Winter's heart was a little slow, but it really dragged in Crossroads of Twilight. But for me, Winter's Heart was the last book published when I started reading For Real, not the five or six times I started Eye of the World and put it down. When did it start for you?

00;01;22;01 - 00;02;31;11

'''Thad'''

For me? I started reading in the late nineties. I think 98 was when I started reading. So I think at about that time, Path of Daggers was the most recently published book, but I didn't get through all eight books in the first year, so arguably, maybe a little sooner than that because I was an angsty teen that wanted to see how cool Rand could be. And I didn't really want to deal with all of this worldbuilding and all of these other characters that I just honestly, on the first read didn't care too much about. I didn't care what the Aes Sedai in Salidar were doing. I really just wanted to see what the Dragon Reborn was doing. I wanted to see what Perrin was doing. I wanted to see what Mat was doing.

So when it got to probably about a Crown of Swords for me like post Dumai’s Wells, because that's like the coolest stuff. And then we hit this drag about what's going to happen next. That through Crossroads of Twilight for me generally tends to be the slog because now we kind of hit this slow pace of, “All right, all this stuff has happened. We're going to sit and stew on political stances between different countries for a couple of books.”

00;02;31;23 - 00;02;32;27

'''Doll'''

So, '''Fenya''', what do you think?

00;02;33;09 - 00;03;26;00

'''Fenya'''

Obviously I read the books after they had all been published. And when I started reading, Dianna was warning me like, “Oh, you're getting close to a slog. You're you're getting close to the slog.” And then I started book eight and I was like, “Oh, this is fine. I don't find this a slog at all.” And my definition of slog, I look back through my text messages to Diana, and I defined it as something that I can only get through if I pour myself a glass of wine.

So I found it okay, and then we get to Perrin and poor Perrin just does absolutely nothing. He sits around and thinks about how much he wants to do stuff, but he does not do anything. And I found that just intolerable. Like the stuff with Faile was really interesting. So. So everything that Perrin was involved with was interesting. But Perrin’s viewpoint in particular was just really tough for me to get through.

00;03;26;08 - 00;03;27;24

'''Doll'''

I think a lot of people agree with that.

00;03;28;08 - 00;03;53;15

'''Thad'''

Perrin is really hard because he is more or less the constant exposition because of his sense of smell we always get like the situation is going on and Perrin is kind of that removed third party of “Oh, I can smell her being angry at this guy”, but shows nothing of it when the conversation is going on between those two characters.

So he's our exposition, which is why I can see a lot of people having problems with him.

00;03;54;04 - 00;03;59;14

'''Fenya'''

It was just very, very slow. So when I got there I was like, okay, I get why people might say this is a slog.

00;04;00;08 - 00;04;15;06

'''Doll'''

He also like to sit there and whine about not being able to save his wife. Mm hmm. For how many books? It feels like it's a whole, like, multiple books, but it's really only like one full book and maybe part of two other books I can't really remember now.

00;04;15;06 - 00;04;37;25

'''Thad'''

It was definitely one of those things as the books were coming out and you know, there at the end before Robert Jordan passed away, it was like four years between each book. So it was just four years of stewing on, “oh my God, Faile is going to be forever captured” to us who were reading it at the time. It was like a ten year tenure of her being captured and you do a book a month or something like that. It's not that long.

00;04;38;00 - 00;04;47;29

'''Fenya'''

It was not quite that bad. So I was very grateful that I did have all of the books. And once I, you know, once I got through one book, I could just move on to the next. I didn't have a big gap in between.

00;04;48;08 - 00;04;54;11

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think that helped a lot. My theory was what you think the slog is depends entirely on when you started reading.

00;04;54;11 - 00;05;14;14

'''Thad'''

I have some friends that read probably the first five or six books and they're like the first three are the worst because it doesn't pick up till four. And I'm like, okay, that's that's an interesting viewpoint. I don't hear that one very often from people, but I've heard at least twice that specifically because the first three books are more Tolkien in nature before it really takes off.

00;05;14;24 - 00;05;20;07

'''Doll'''

Plot he proposed for the first book was supposed to end Dragon Reborn and it ended up being three books.

00;05;20;22 - 00;05;29;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah. I always remember hearing that he wanted it to be a trilogy and then it turned into a Quadrilogy, and then it just kind of kind of kept going from there.

00;05;29;05 - 00;05;40;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I can't imagine telling the story that he ended up telling in just three books. Like, there's so much to it. Like how how could you ever tell it in just three books?

00;05;40;28 - 00;05;41;19

'''Doll'''

I don't know.

00;05;41;22 - 00;05;43;17

'''Thad'''

Get rid of a lot of exposition.

00;05;43;17 - 00;05;47;11

'''Doll'''

A lot of exposition. You have to take away a lot of what made the books so unique.

00;05;47;17 - 00;06;33;10

'''Fenya'''

I mean, you would lose so much depth to it. I made my mother read the books after I finished the series, and when the TV show came out, I was like, Mom, you have to read these books. You'll really, really love them. I know it's kind of intimidating because there are so many books in the series, but you'll love all of the politicking. You'll absolutely adore it. And eventually I was able to convince her and she blazed through it.

When she was getting to like Book eight or nine, I was like, Oh, you know, you might be slowing down a little bit because she was reading these books in like one week. I mean, she was going really fast and she got there and was like, “No, this is no slog at all. Like, I'm, I'm still enjoying them just as much as I have been.” And she continued her pace until she finished the series.

00;06;33;28 - 00;06;34;24

'''Doll'''

That's impressive.

00;06;34;28 - 00;06;47;01

'''Thad'''

Probably the fastest I ever read them was when the final three were coming out and I would reread the other two like the month before it would come out. That was like a week, maybe two weeks for each book, and they're already pretty big boys.

00;06;47;04 - 00;07;08;06

'''Doll'''

When I was reading them first, it would take them a month or more to read through for me. I have binocular vision disorder and dyslexia. So really slow reader. I read big books, but I read them very very slowly so the last read through took me 18 months and that was right before A Memory of Light came out. I wanted to get through all of the books.

00;07;08;06 - 00;07;13;25

'''Thad'''

I think that's what everybody did too. Like, I don't know anybody that just picked up the last book and read it or something.

00;07;13;28 - 00;07;44;03

'''Doll'''

I realized when the first one that Brandon wrote came out I didn’t do a reread and I couldn't remember who everybody was, so I was like, you know, I realized I needed to do a reread. So I finished right before Towers of Midnight came out and I read it and then reread it right before A Memory Light came out, which was like what., a year or so later, year and a half. So I just reread that one instead of the whole series one more time, but that means I only read A Memory of Light once.

00;07;44;13 - 00;07;53;21

'''Thad'''

You know, it's wild about the slog, though, that if you go by the post crown of Swords through Crossroads of Twilight to Knife of Dreams, that means you generally have to include New Spring.

00;07;54;05 - 00;07;55;17

'''Doll'''

I don't think New Spring counts.

00;07;55;17 - 00;07;58;18

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I don't. I, I wouldn't count New Spring either.

00;07;59;09 - 00;08;01;12

'''Thad'''

They published around the same time as those.

00;08;01;12 - 00;08;07;06

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. If you're going by publication date but if you're going by like story chronology, it doesn't fit in the slog.

00;08;07;25 - 00;08;16;17

'''Thad'''

You know what I always say you technically should be reading this book after Crosswords of Twilight. So to me it would fall within the confines of the definition of the slog.

00;08;16;25 - 00;08;20;13

'''Doll'''

It was actually published twice. I can't remember when the first time it was published.

00;08;20;15 - 00;08;25;05

'''Thad'''

It came out and in, god…came out when I was in my first year in college, which was 2004.

00;08;25;07 - 00;08;28;13

'''Doll'''

And that's when the novel came out. The novella came out before that.

00;08;28;14 - 00;08;29;10

'''Thad'''

Oh, I see.

00;08;29;10 - 00;08;34;29

'''Fenya'''

I think it's really interesting that you say that it should be read after book ten. Is that the one that you’re saying?

00;08;35;14 - 00;08;37;21

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that's Crossroads of Twilight specifically.

00;08;37;21 - 00;08;56;04

'''Fenya'''

I know the book names. If you gave me a name, I can say yes, that's the Wheel of Time book, but I don't know what number they are. But I think it's really interesting that you say that it should be right after Crossroads of Twilight, because I feel you're much better served honestly by reading it once you finish the series.

00;08;56;22 - 00;09;11;08

'''Thad'''

I have heard that argument, but I've also heard from I want to say completely unsourced, that I have heard from Jordan himself that you should be reading it at about that time and not do one of those things of read it before you start the series, because it gives away a whole lot of stuff.

00;09;11;08 - 00;09;34;05

'''Fenya'''

I definitely don't think you should read it before you start the series for sure, because like you say, there's so much discussed in it that is just kind of spoilery for a whole bunch of the series. I think I read it after Book six because that's when Diana said that I should read it. I kind of regret it because at that point there was still context that I was missing and like I hadn't met Cadsuane for example.

00;09;34;19 - 00;09;38;08

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because she doesn't appear until halfway or later through Crown of Swords.

00;09;38;13 - 00;09;46;08

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. So I wish that I had read it later and I think that probably influences why I think you should read it at the end of the series.

00;09;47;01 - 00;10;04;08

'''Thad'''

Well I mean, the appearance of Cadsuane is kind of a..uh..in the sense the story she was this all powerful Aes Sedai that just disappeared and everybody thought she was dead. And then she is she's back and she's bigger than ever. And yeah, if you read New Spring before she returns, it kind of spoils the fact.

00;10;04;23 - 00;10;10;22

'''Doll'''

So I found the publish date, the short story was published in 1990.

00;10;10;27 - 00;10;12;24

'''Thad'''

Wow. 1990 something.

00;10;13;03 - 00;10;14;16

'''Doll'''

Oh, 1998.

00;10;14;26 - 00;10;16;14

'''Thad'''

Okay. That's when I started reading.

00;10;17;01 - 00;10;29;03

'''Doll'''

It came out in an anthology with a story from Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Terry Goodkind, Ann McCaffrey, Raymond E Feist, Orson Scott Card. It's a really good anthology. It had a really good..

00;10;29;03 - 00;10;31;29

'''Thad'''

Wow, that's the ‘S’ tier league right there.

00;10;32;06 - 00;10;39;16

'''Doll'''

It's like basically everybody that was big and this was actually, I think before Martin published A Game of Thrones. Ah, no, I guess not.

00;10;39;26 - 00;10;42;05

'''Thad'''

No, Game of Thrones is 96, right?

00;10;42;06 - 00;10;51;10

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It would have been right after he published it. So it would have been before it was huge but uh, Martin, Pratchett, Feist. Ursula K Le guin…

00;10;51;16 - 00;10;52;08

'''Thad'''

Jeez.

00;10;52;21 - 00;10;55;16

'''Doll'''

Robert Silverberg, Tad Williams.

00;10;55;19 - 00;10;57;18

'''Fenya'''

Those are big names for sure.

00;10;58;05 - 00;11;00;02

'''Thad'''

Like all of the….like every single one.

00;11;00;03 - 00;11;04;04

'''Doll'''

Basically everybody that was big in fantasy. I have a copy of it somewhere.

00;11;04;10 - 00;11;06;25

'''Thad'''

Boy, I'm going to have to hunt down a copy of that.

00;11;06;25 - 00;11;07;27

'''Doll'''

It's not easy to find.

00;11;08;06 - 00;11;09;16

'''Thad'''

Oh, of course it's not.

00;11;09;25 - 00;11;12;07

'''Doll'''

I happened to find it in a used bookstore years ago.

00;11;12;14 - 00;11;13;22

'''Fenya'''

That's a lucky find.

00;11;13;29 - 00;11;14;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;11;15;01 - 00;11;18;28

'''Thad'''

Mhm. It's like the time I found a signed Robert Jordan book and a used bookstore for like three bucks.

00;11;19;00 - 00;11;21;00

'''Doll'''

Wow, that's cool. That's really cool.

00;11;21;02 - 00;11;26;00

'''Thad'''

It's personalized to somebody. But it was years after his death and I was like, I'll take what I can get.

00;11;26;07 - 00;11;27;21

'''Fenya'''

That can be my name just for this book.

00;11;27;21 - 00;11;30;01

'''Thad'''

Yeah, my name is Sarah. My name is Sarah now.

00;11;30;07 - 00;11;35;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Hey, I mean, you could give it to me because my name actually is Sarah.

00;11;35;27 - 00;11;37;17

'''Doll'''

But yeah, that was just a novella.

00;11;37;20 - 00;11;40;12

'''Thad'''

Was it like an abridged version of what the final story came to be?

00;11;41;06 - 00;11;44;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he fleshed it out for the novel for release in 2004.

00;11;44;16 - 00;11;56;21

'''Thad'''

I will say that my one fun trivia fact about New Spring is that it is the only time in the entirety of the Wheel of Time story that you hear somebody mention a bathroom.

00;11;56;24 - 00;11;59;23

'''Doll'''

What about the baths that Elayne took for like.

00;12;00;05 - 00;12;03;26

'''Thad'''

No, no, no, no. Specifically going to use the bathroom.

00;12;03;26 - 00;12;05;22

'''Doll'''

Oh, the toilet.

00;12;05;22 - 00;12;19;13

'''Thad'''

I think it was someone asked where Moiraine was and one of the Malkieri fellows was just like, I think she went off to the privy and Lan was like, we don't talk about that. And that was like it. And it's kind of sticks with me.

00;12;20;00 - 00;12;21;04

'''Doll'''

I don't remember that.

00;12;21;10 - 00;12;26;25

'''Thad'''

I'm sure someone's going to fact check me on it and I'm probably a little bit wrong, but yeah, it does happen.

00;12;26;26 - 00;12;30;13

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I mean, I believe you. It's it's not something that stood out to me, I guess.

00;12;31;05 - 00;12;51;13

'''Thad'''

Well, because for me it was just like I have never heard because, you know, Jordan was more or less a very clean writer in terms of he really didn't like, you know, how some fantasy authors were getting down to the nitty gritty of the descriptions of some stuff? well, I mean, we don't really get that in Wheel of Time. It's all kind of just assumed.

00;12;52;11 - 00;12;55;29

'''Doll'''

You know, I don't really need to know that the Aes Sedai go to the bathroom.

00;12;56;05 - 00;12;57;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, right.

00;12;58;14 - 00;13;10;00

'''Doll'''

I can just assume that they did. Unless it's important to the plot, like the Chamber of Secrets hidden in the bathroom. I don't need to know anything about the bathroom. I certainly don't need five chapters of Elayne in there.

00;13;10;27 - 00;13;15;09

'''Fenya'''

I did find I have to admit, I did find a lot of Elayne’s plotline, a bit of a slog.

00;13;15;14 - 00;13;19;28

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think that's one. The intrigue was interesting, but it really dragged on.

00;13;20;03 - 00;13;32;10

'''Thad'''

I think for me it was in Winter's Heart when it felt like it took half the book to leave Ebou Dar. For me, that was the really big thing of, “Oh my God, is it really taking him 15 chapters to escape the city?”

00;13;32;17 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

I didn't mind that. It was just when she got pregnant and then suddenly her entire plotline was just her being pregnant. And that I found frustrating. But that's also not like I have no interest in pregnancy or reading about pregnancy. So that was. That was just not for me.

00;13;49;15 - 00;13;57;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I can't say that was my favorite point. Like she was also trying to secure her place for the throne. They thought her mother was dead and..

00;13;57;00 - 00;14;00;25

'''Fenya'''

If it had focused more on that, I would have liked it more.

00;14;01;00 - 00;14;03;18

'''Doll'''

But there were so many descriptions of her bath.

00;14;03;24 - 00;14;14;04

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. And like, her morning sickness. And I know that, you know, when you're pregnant, you have morning sickness. And it's great that that was included. But I didn't need to hear about it so often.

00;14;14;08 - 00;14;17;14

'''Doll'''

And it was a lot of how it affected her use the power, too.

00;14;17;15 - 00;14;17;25

'''Fenya'''

Yeah.

00;14;17;28 - 00;14;43;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah, that's right. They did specifically talk about that, how her power would fluctuate just because it's kind of the weirdest thing too, because it's like the first time we're hearing about it. I don't remember any other character in the series being like actively pregnant. That's like the only perspective that we get on a one power user in pregnancy. What is what is it? The baby feeds on the one power. That's why her power fluctuates? I don’t know..

00;14;43;06 - 00;14;54;07

'''Fenya'''

I mean, if you think about it, like it's a kind of interesting concept that pregnancy and affects their use of the one power. So from that standpoint, like I liked it, it just there was a lot of it.

00;14;54;11 - 00;15;04;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it really could have been condensed. like, one chapter. The other thing that really got to me in escaping Ebou Dar, a building fell on Mat and then we don't see them for a whole book.

00;15;05;18 - 00;15;06;18

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah that's right.

00;15;07;08 - 00;15;11;04

'''Doll'''

I got done with. Was it in the next book, was it in Path of Daggers or was it..

00;15;11;09 - 00;15;14;16

'''Thad'''

The next book after Crossroads of Twilight is Knife of Dreams.

00;15;14;24 - 00;15;18;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get Knife of Dreams and Path of Daggers mixed up because they're both knives.

00;15;18;23 - 00;15;20;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

00;15;20;12 - 00;15;28;28

'''Doll'''

But he doesn't show up again until Knife of Dreams. He's not..or is it Knife of Dreams the one he's not in? I can't remember.

00;15;29;00 - 00;15;47;03

'''Thad'''

He's in Crossroads of Twilight because that's his part of the story from Winter's Heart. I'm a little fuzzy on Knife of Dreams at this point. It's been so long since I've done a reread of it, but I believe we have most everybody in that book at that point since that kind of since the previous two books kind of sync everybody back up.

00;15;47;14 - 00;15;51;08

'''Doll'''

I just can't because I remember getting through and going, “What the hell happened to Mat?”

00;15;51;14 - 00;15;57;19

'''Fenya'''

That would have been a horrible cliffhanger to not have another book immediately afterwards.

00;15;58;04 - 00;15;58;21

'''Doll'''

It was.

00;15;59;03 - 00;16;08;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah. We lived with that for about four years because it was like it was like 2000, I think was Winter's Heart and 2001 was like, Crossroads of Twilight.

00;16;08;04 - 00;16;11;26

'''Doll'''

Winter's Heart was in 2000 because that's when I started reading.

00;16;12;04 - 00;16;14;17

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And The Knife of Dreams was 2004.

00;16;14;18 - 00;16;15;13

'''Doll'''

2005.

00;16;15;22 - 00;16;20;09

'''Thad'''

2005. And then we didn't get Gathering Storm until..bum bum bummm..

00;16;20;27 - 00;16;21;24

'''Doll'''

2009.

00;16;21;29 - 00;16;31;04

'''Thad'''

2009. So yeah, but after, after the passing of Jordan, everybody was just like, well, that's it. We're never going to find out what happens.

00;16;31;18 - 00;16;55;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah. Although if you had read the blogs when things were starting to look not good, he worked as long as he could. And then when he, you know, couldn’t get out of bed he called Wilson in and he's like, I want to tell you something. And he basically started dictating the end of the book and Wilson went “Hold on”. And he went out to Wal-Mart and bought like, I think he actually went out all over Charleston to find as many tapes as he could find the tape recorder.

00;16;55;15 - 00;17;02;15

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because we at least at the first JordanCon got to hear an audio dictation of the opening of Gathering Storm.

00;17;02;15 - 00;17;13;02

'''Doll'''

Yes, that was the that was the first tape he did. Like he basically dictated it word for word. It barely changed. And that will probably never see the light of day again.

00;17;13;22 - 00;17;17;21

'''Fenya'''

That's incredible, though, that it was played at JordanCon the first one.

00;17;17;25 - 00;17;22;18

'''Thad'''

Mm hmm. Yeah, they did, I believe, at the opening ceremonies. Either that or the closing.

00;17;22;20 - 00;17;24;27

'''Doll'''

And Harriet sort of surprised us with it.

00;17;25;13 - 00;17;31;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because we were all just like, whoa, whoa, wait a second, what is this? And that was like right before they also announced, oh, it's going to be three books instead of one.

00;17;31;23 - 00;17;42;12

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think it wasn't specifically opening ceremonies that were like we had a big panel with Brandon and Harriet on it talking about the books and we had to have everybody agree to not record.

00;17;42;18 - 00;17;50;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that was that was a big thing. I remember that. They were just like, please. It was like a heartfelt please don't do this. Please don't record this.

00;17;50;21 - 00;18;07;00

'''Doll'''

Please? It's like we're about to share something very special and very intimate and out of respect, please put your phones away and do not record and do not speak. And I never heard of more silence in the room. We had like 120 something people.

00;18;07;07 - 00;18;08;22

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it was. It was pretty small.

00;18;09;02 - 00;18;57;06

'''Doll'''

It was pretty small. And she starts playing the tape. Have you ever met Robert Jordan? He had this big, booming voice and he was very, very weak and very small, especially for him. And he basically read us what essentially is the prologue for a Gathering Storm. You could hear the, us, you know, a wind started in I forget where it starts, but you know, and it sweeps over everything.

And like after five or 10 minutes in it ends, you could hear a pin drop. And every now and then you'd hear sniffles and people crying. And it was just so moving and Harriet was like, Thank you for sharing that with us and that was the end of the panel. And everybody just left in quiet like there's not a dry eye in that room.

All right. Now I'm crying.

00;18;57;06 - 00;19;00;07

'''Fenya'''

I had chills just listening to you tell that story.

00;19;00;13 - 00;19;01;24

'''Doll'''

It was extremely special.

00;19;02;00 - 00;19;32;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it really was. Definitely glad to be a part of that. For me I didn't keep up with the Wheel of Time community at all because I didn't really participate in any online, so I knew Dragonmount existed. I would go there sometimes, but I wasn't a part of it. And I knew that Robert Jordan had his blog there, and I remember seeing some posts sometimes, but I never really paid attention to it. And I had no idea that he was having the problems he was having until basically the end.

00;19;32;17 - 00;20;00;18

'''Doll'''

He started blogging when he was diagnosed and he talked about how he was a fighter and he was going to be the five percent to beat it, and I really thought it was going to happen and towards the end Wilson started taking over. He's like, he's too weak, but he still fighting. And then at the very end it was like, well, he fought hard, but it was just too much.

It was interesting, especially getting to know Wilson through that because he became a part of the community as well and we actually just lost Wilson. So that was just another hard one.

00;20;01;02 - 00;20;01;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;20;01;23 - 00;20;03;01

'''Doll'''

Okay, I really am crying.

00;20;03;11 - 00;20;05;24

'''Thad'''

This episode brought to you by the emotion of sadness.

00;20;05;24 - 00;20;06;03

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;20;06;25 - 00;20;23;16

'''Thad'''

Going back to it now that we've all maybe not you '''Fenya''', but '''Doll''', you read the series more than once at this point. Would you say that on a second read, listen, whatever, however you process the media, would you say that it was a slog to you the second time around, third time around, fourth time around?

00;20;23;27 - 00;20;34;00

'''Doll'''

There was definitely a little bit of a slog, but I found it less be like whole books in more just certain chapters in particular, you know Perrin moping about Faile.

00;20;34;00 - 00;21;15;08

'''Thad'''

That's definitely a big thing for me as well. I find myself being less annoyed by “the slog” at this point. It would be specific character moments. Perrin is one of them. Because, you know, as I previously mentioned, his whole exposition on the feelings of everybody currently in the situation that he's engaged in. I'm in the middle of Crown of Swords right now, and I'm really wanting to see more of Nynaeve and Elayne's thing trying to find the Bowl of Winds in Ebou Dar like, I want to see them finding the Bowl of the Winds, but right now we're stuck with the process of Elayne…not Elayne, Egwene going through being the Amrylin and trying to get everybody's respect. And I'm just like…*sighs*

00;21;16;05 - 00;21;37;19

'''Fenya'''

See, I'm the opposite. Like I wanted to see more of Egwene and that process, like I didn't find that particularly a slog. I haven't reread the books though. I've read the series the once and I haven't had a chance to reread it yet, so I don't know if my feelings on the slow bits will change. It is interesting how different people find different aspects of the slog…a slog.

00;21;37;22 - 00;22;07;08

'''Thad'''

For me personally, it more or less comes down to the notion of I know what's going to happen to this character coming up. So it's just like, all right, this part is going to be slow because I know what's going to come and just having to go through the process with this again, it's like, all right, let's wrap it up and move forward because we know that this is just going to…this is just a little dip in the road kind of thing. You're going to be fine. So it's less of a “I'm annoyed with the character”. It's just I know what's going to happen, so let's just get to it.

00;22;07;27 - 00;22;09;04

'''Fenya'''

Get to the good bit..

00;22;09;10 - 00;22;13;12

'''Thad'''

Do either of you have any more insight on the Slog™?

00;22;13;29 - 00;22;21;15

'''Fenya'''

Well, it's not part of what is traditionally referred to as the slog, but honestly, I found a lot of the last book kind of a slog.

00;22;21;27 - 00;22;23;19

'''Thad'''

You found A Memory of Light a slog?

00;22;23;19 - 00;22;47;22

'''Fenya'''

Well, let me explain. Okay. So for like the last like 400 pages, but a lot of it, I found a slog because it was a lot of battles that were described as being really central and important and like the whole survival of the world hinged on them, except that, you know, that you still have another like 600 pages left.

So they can't be that important if you have another 600 pages left.

00;22;48;05 - 00;22;52;21

'''Thad'''

Well, I mean, what if the world had ended and we were kind of entering this world of desolation moment?

00;22;53;02 - 00;23;00;06

'''Fenya'''

I would have liked that a lot. Actually not to say that the book was not good. I did really enjoy the book.

00;23;00;12 - 00;23;01;25

'''Thad'''

Yeah. No, I get your perspective.

00;23;01;25 - 00;23;09;14

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I just had a hard time reading battle after battle after battle after battle, knowing that there was still another however many hundred pages left.

00;23;10;04 - 00;23;32;14

'''Thad'''

Here's another perspective for you, though, coming up on the last book and you're having to read through all these battles, ugh, Rand gathering the rest of the great generals,ugh, and stuff like that. I mean, for me, it was “all right we’re at the end of the series, who's going to start dying? Who's going to die first? Are we going to lose someone important in one of these early battles that could have potentially made the last battle easier?”

00;23;32;26 - 00;23;35;18

'''Thad'''

So I was kind of hinged more on some character development.

00;23;35;20 - 00;24;01;01

'''Fenya'''

And also, I mean, quite frankly, I think you both had spent a lot more time with the series than I had. So you're probably a little more invested in the characters than I was. I mean, like, I like them for sure. Otherwise I wouldn't have read however many books. But having only read the series once, there were a lot of names where I was like, I know that you have shown up before, but I can’t actually remember who you are and I'm not going to look it up on Wikipedia because I don't like spoilers.

00;24;01;13 - 00;24;03;07

'''Doll'''

That's true for me too.

00;24;03;26 - 00;24;31;02

'''Thad'''

So I'm on my nth reread of the series at this point, and even I when a “new name” pops up, I pull out my compendium to go, Who was this person? Okay, because there is no way anybody is going to remember all of these names because there is…there's like 200 unique points of view in this and for every, you know, every point of view, there's like, I swear, 50 named characters..so..

00;24;31;02 - 00;24;32;23

'''Fenya'''

It was a little overwhelming.

00;24;33;02 - 00;24;44;12

'''Thad'''

It's like when Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers for the first time and it goes, Oh, hey, here's all these Two Rivers people, and he names everybody. And you go, I'm not going to remember that. I'm not going to remember that. I'm not going to remember that.

00;24;44;12 - 00;24;47;13

'''Fenya'''

I had less trouble with the Two Rivers names and more trouble with Aes Sedai.

00;24;48;06 - 00;24;57;05

'''Thad'''

It's because they all start sounding samey after a while. That's wild. That's the first time I've heard somebody go, “I found the last book to be kind of a slog.”

00;24;58;01 - 00;24;59;26

'''Doll'''

I can't say I’ve ever heard that before.

00;25;00;10 - 00;25;04;11

'''Fenya'''

I mean, and like I said, this is not considered the slog at all.

00;25;04;27 - 00;25;10;07

'''Thad'''

Well, that's why I say the slog is subjective. It depends on who is reading it and when they read it.

00;25;10;08 - 00;25;16;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. And I also wouldn't consider it, I mean, I would consider it a slog, but not THE slog.

00;25;16;26 - 00;25;30;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I think we can agree that the slog generally tends to happen around Winter’s Heart. That generally tends to be where most people kind of space out because the pacing definitely slows down after they find the Bowl of the Winds in Crown of Swords.

00;25;31;07 - 00;25;41;09

'''Doll'''

At some point in time I hadn't seen like a timeline that showed us when everything happens in like the first five books take place within like a year. Like a year?

00;25;41;10 - 00;25;42;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, like one year.

00;25;42;24 - 00;25;47;12

'''Doll'''

And then those like next couple books take place in a couple of weeks and you're like, Oh.

00;25;47;25 - 00;26;05;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Because they specifically mention in book five or maybe book six that, Oh yeah, we've been gone from the Two Rivers for only like a year, a year and a half tops and look at everything that has happened. Look at how much Rand has changed kind of thing.

00;26;05;18 - 00;26;10;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And then like Crossroads and Twilight with only a couple of days, it's like five days.

00;26;10;27 - 00;26;17;13

'''Thad'''

That book took me like over a month to read the first time, and it was like, oh, not even a week passed.

00;26;17;13 - 00;26;33;29

'''Fenya'''

Actually, speaking of Rand, I found him kind of a slog at points too. When he starts getting his insistence that he has to be hard, I'm like, okay, I get where you're coming from, but like, just just give it up, please just give it up.

00;26;33;29 - 00;26;40;14

'''Thad'''

For me, it was always whenever he would be like, I can't let the women die. It's like, Oh, God, come on, man.

00;26;40;14 - 00;26;44;24

'''Fenya'''

Sometimes you just have to kill an evil villainess. Like, you just do sometimes.

00;26;45;12 - 00;26;49;27

'''Doll'''

And you know, women are going to die because that's just the nature of being alive.

00;26;50;06 - 00;27;05;02

'''Thad'''

Don't worry, when somebody is going to die, Min will tell us who and how. Even if it shows up as, Oh, this Aes Sedai has blood across her forehead. I wonder what that means. And then two books later, there it is.

00;27;05;11 - 00;27;14;11

'''Fenya'''

And that's something that I think is really cool and I'm looking forward to experiencing when I go back and reread and seeing how there are these layers of foreshadowing.

00;27;14;29 - 00;27;24;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, it is impressive, sometimes. I will be in the middle of book four and then something will get said and I'm like, Oh man, that doesn't happen for another three books.

00;27;24;06 - 00;27;37;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he was pretty good at layering the foreshadowing at least to some degree, not so much with the relationships as we talked about last time. I'm going to foreshadow something that's going to happen six books down the line, but I can't foreshadow this relationship. I'm going to reveal in the next book.

00;27;39;02 - 00;27;40;09

'''Fenya'''

Two different skill sets.

00;27;40;20 - 00;27;41;01

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;27;41;12 - 00;27;45;03

'''Thad'''

If anything, he was really good at writing a battle, but not so much a relationship.

00;27;45;20 - 00;28;03;17

'''Doll'''

He was a historian and he saw Battle. He told that story about being the machine gunner on a helicopter. And one time he saw a rocket coming towards him and he shot it down. I think something like that, something practically impossible to do and he just assumed that he was going to die.

00;28;03;24 - 00;28;04;25

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, that's intense.

00;28;05;01 - 00;28;09;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I don't know how how true that is. Or, you know, if it was a little bit of a tall tale.

00;28;10;00 - 00;28;27;15

'''Fenya'''

This is a little bit of a detour and it'll come back to your point. But I was reading Terry Pratchett's biography, which was just released, and it was his personal assistant who wrote it. And he says about some of the stories that Pratchett used to say, some of them were too good to check if it was true or not. And I feel like this is too good to check.

00;28;27;28 - 00;28;32;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it's one of those. It's a little too hard to check. We just believe it. I don't know how you could check it.

00;28;33;00 - 00;28;34;07

'''Thad'''

There's really no way to. Yeah.

00;28;34;22 - 00;28;44;15

'''Doll'''

The only other part that really slogged for me was and this is evidence of how many times it took me to start the whole series, but Eye of the World was very slow.

00;28;44;20 - 00;29;10;03

'''Thad'''

I won't lie. I had probably a good three or four false starts on Eye of the World before I got going because you read this fantastic prologue to it. A guy raises a mountain as he dies. Then you go to the first chapter and it's “I'm chilly and I'm walking down a dark, cold trail with my father while I'm carrying ale.” “And I think I see something in the distance and I knock my bow” and it's just like, all right, what?

00;29;10;13 - 00;29;12;12

'''Fenya'''

I loved Eye of the world.

00;29;13;02 - 00;29;24;01

'''Thad'''

Oh, I love it now. I love it now. But as a 13 year old kid who just read something really cool and then we're on something not really cool in the first chapter, it's like, Come on.

00;29;24;21 - 00;29;36;10

'''Fenya'''

I didn't have any trouble with that. But I also did read it older. when maybe I appreciated just the little things, the small things, an easy life where you're carrying ale down to your village.

00;29;36;21 - 00;29;37;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;29;37;26 - 00;30;07;12

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I started it a couple of times in high school and between having to read some, you know, stuff for school and just not being able to get into that beginning, it just ended up I'd have to take it back to the library or when Robert loaned it to me the first time, I think Winter's Heart was coming out and he took Eye of the world back so that he could read it.

So I didn't finish at that time. Yeah. So it wasn't until I was trapped in bed for a month that he was like, Here, you can finally read these.

00;30;07;22 - 00;30;11;11

'''Thad'''

You're going to read it and you're going to enjoy it.

00;30;11;11 - 00;30;23;07

'''Doll'''

But the more he would bring me books to read and I would complain because I'd finish them in a couple of hours or a day or two. And considering how slow I read that was, like, I need something longer. He's like, Well, here, this is longer.

00;30;23;11 - 00;30;26;17

'''Fenya'''

You got your wish.

00;30;26;17 - 00;30;32;15

'''Doll'''

I did. I didn’t know what I was asking. All right, and I think if we have anything else sloggy to talk about…

00;30;32;20 - 00;30;34;14

'''Thad'''

If you get any other comments, now's the time.

00;30;34;20 - 00;30;39;21

'''Fenya'''

I think I've aired all of my slog comments, pretty much. Controversial though some of them may be.

00;30;41;00 - 00;30;43;15

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I think a little. A touch, a scotch.

00;30;43;25 - 00;30;46;17

'''Doll'''

I’m not sure “controversial” is right. It's just unique.

00;30;46;28 - 00;30;49;14

'''Thad'''

Yeah, we'll go…we'll go with that. Unique.

—------------------------------------------------------------

00;30;49;14 - 00;30;50;28

'''Fenya'''

The kind that we’re putting in.

00;30;51;11 - 00;30;55;16

'''Doll'''

Now I'm curious if any other like, you know, readers thought the same thing.

00;30;56;11 - 00;31;08;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah because it as we previously defined it was based on publication date and kind of I don't know about either of you, but for me I didn't have any friends reading it, so I didn't have anybody to talk to about it.

00;31;08;07 - 00;31;09;18

'''Doll'''

That’s why I was on TarValon.

00;31;09;22 - 00;31;44;09

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I was not. I was part of the the WoT mania group when it was around, but I think it went defunct in like 2000 or 2001. It wasn't around very long, but I was in that group of people and they were definitely more on the role play side of everything. So I didn't have anybody in my real life to talk to about it.

So it kind of became this self-contained thing to where when I just got upset with the series, when it got too slow, it was like just I'd have to just bottle it up and shove it down because I didn't have anybody to complain about it with.

00;31;44;14 - 00;31;51;08

'''Fenya'''

I sent Dianna a lot of very angry messages. I mean, I'm not angry at her, but, like, angry at the book. Yeah.

00;31;51;24 - 00;31;55;01

'''Thad'''

Yeah. Because for me, social media didn't exist at the time either.

00;31;55;23 - 00;32;38;28

'''Doll'''

You know, when I got done with Winter’s Heart and wanted to talk about it, actually before I read Winter’s Heart before I went out and bought it I wanted to talk about it, and Robert was like *shrug*, I'm like, But you made me read these books. We're going to talk about it. These like, yeah. Mm hmm. I don't know. I don't talk about books.

I'm like, you spent all the years talking about these books, trying to get me to read them, and now you don't talk about them. So he never actually read Winter’s Heart, really. He did eventually get around to reading it. He would read my copies after I finished, but he's not read the last three books. He's like too long since he last did the full reread and he's like, It's too much now.

So the slog knocked him out. He didn't get past it.

00;32;39;16 - 00;32;58;09

'''Thad'''

I've never been able to convince anybody to read past like the first book. So everybody gets I mean, because you also once you read past the first book, you realize just how weird the first book can be comparatively. Yes. But everybody just gets that first book and they're just like, I don't know, man. There's 13 more books. And I'm like, well, 14, if you include the prequel.

00;32;59;05 - 00;33;00;15

'''Fenya'''

Really selling it there.

00;33;00;15 - 00;33;13;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I know. I've heard people who like Wheel of Time fans are so weird. They'll be like, You just got to get past the first three or four books and then there's a couple books in the middle. But if you can get past those, the last three books are really good.

00;33;13;08 - 00;33;25;24

'''Thad'''

See that's what I do to my friends who always tell me, you need to watch the first season of this show and it gets better in the second. I'm like, Why am I going to waste this time on this show? Like, if you read The Wheel of Time, I'll watch the show.

00;33;26;19 - 00;33;29;08

'''Doll'''

All these years later. Still talking about the same book series.

00;33;29;15 - 00;33;31;26

'''Thad'''

I could talk about Wheel of Time all day long. You have no idea.

00;33;31;26 - 00;33;33;19

'''Fenya'''

There's a lot to talk about.

00;33;37;22 - 00;33;53;23

'''Doll'''

In this segment our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may remain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

'''Thad''', I believe you are going to talk about your favorite scene.

00;33;53;23 - 00;33;56;24

'''Thad'''

Oh, yes. I even wrote a thing for this.

00;33;57;09 - 00;34;02;02

'''Fenya'''

I was very impressed when you said that you wrote a thing. That's way more effort than I put into it.

00;34;02;15 - 00;34;04;19

'''Doll'''

I know. I was like, I'm just going to talk about it.

00;34;04;27 - 00;37;58;15

'''Thad'''

So yeah, mine happens during the first book specifically. So after being separated from Thom at the White Bridge, when Thom stops the Myrddraal so Mat and Rand can get away. The boys spent their time moving eastwards towards Caemlyn after stealing eggs, sleeping in bushes, working at farms. They finally have a good day at Master Grinwell’s farm. After that, their luck seems to be improving.

They work their way through the villages, performing at inns and sleeping in real beds. The thoughts of the Myrddraal are fading fast as they get closer to Caemlyn, then they reach for kings. One of Rand’s immediate thoughts of the place was, “I don't know about this place. I don't like it. We should just move on.” To which Mat goads at him about wanting to sleep in the bushes again.

Rand remains doubtful about it, but he follows Mat as they search for an inn to perform at. The fourth inn that they come across, the Dancing Cartman is where they end up. The innkeeper is a bony man with long stringy hair, Saml Hake. His first impression is not great as he backhands a serving made for making a comment in front of Mat and Rand. You can see just what kind of person he is, but somehow that doesn't scare Rand and Mat away.

Rand and Mat eventually settle on the terms of employment for their time, and that night they begin to bring a crowd in to, up to this point, a nearly empty inn. It is also heavily threatening rain outside, this will all make sense soon. Rand keeps seeing Hake eyeing his heron-marked blade and Thom's gleeman instruments.

Rand mentions to Mat that he thinks they're going to rob them. They were unable to do anything at this point due to the common room being completely full as they played. Rand notices that that there is one man there that is different. He has a very expensive look to him which stood out against literally everybody else in the common room.

Hake keeps trying to run Mat and Rand to the bone on performances. It's begun pouring rain outside. Rand sneaks outside and Hake lets them go to eat and he sees a name on a merchant's cart outside that they saw earlier. It says “Howel Gode” He remembers seeing this cart at White Bridge. He immediately starts freaking out about this.

So he heads back into the inn and he tells Mat what he's seen. And at this point, Hake's bodyguard are watching Mat and Rand like eagles. Gode is hanging out in the common room watching the boys as well, things are getting very tense. After the evening passes, the common room clears out, Hake showing Rand and Mat to the rooms in the back. The hair on the back of their necks are starting to stand up at this point. Hake's bodyguards are on basically at their side the entire time. Rand basically knows at this point that they're going to rob them blind once they're asleep. So once they're in the room, they decide to block the door so that they can escape out the window, only to realize that the windows have iron bars over them. They're pretty much trapped in this room, thunder begins, rattling in the distance.

So using the thunder as cover, they try to break the iron bars from the window. Then they hear a voice. They think it's the innkeeper Hake that's come to rob them. But actually it's the voice of Howel Gode. He has come for the boys. He has basically outed himself as a dark friend, and he attempts to coerce them into giving themselves up to the Dark One. So he attempts to break into the room, demanding them to submit. Rand begins to absolutely freak out.

Thunder is roaring overhead at this point. Rand keeps muttering that they have to find a way out and light fills the room. The air is roared and burned and Rand felt himself getting thrown against the wall. Then he staggers to his feet and looks around him after regaining his vision. The wall where the iron barred window had been once was gone. Gode was nowhere to be seen. So Mat and Rand gather their belongings and escape through the giant hole in the wall into the rain, listening behind them, through the storm, for the sound of a pursuit.

So this has always been one of my favorite scenes in the book, because this is basically the first time that we see Rand channel without knowing that Rand channeled because he got pinned into a corner and basically destroyed the side of an inn with lightning to get himself out.

00;37;58;16 - 00;38;00;08

'''Doll'''

It's not the first time we see Rand channel.

00;38;00;14 - 00;38;01;01

'''Thad'''

Is it not?

00;38;01;13 - 00;38;03;03

'''Doll'''

It’s the most obvious one.

00;38;03;04 - 00;38;08;09

'''Thad'''

It's the, okay, well, it's the most obvious one that he absolutely did channel in this instance.

00;38;08;18 - 00;38;25;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah. There are a couple of places where he channels that aren't as obvious, one when they're leaving Two Rivers he channels to make Bela less tired. And then again, there's another place I can't remember right now, but you see him get sick every time he gets more sick each time. It's something I didn't catch the first time around.

00;38;26;23 - 00;38;29;06

'''Thad'''

I don't think I've ever caught that, to be honest.

00;38;29;20 - 00;38;36;23

'''Fenya'''

I was going to say that I did not notice that when I read it the first time. I didn't also notice the scene '''Thad''' that you were just describing.

00;38;36;26 - 00;38;39;22

'''Doll'''

Yeah, that one was obvious. I mean more obvious.

00;38;39;27 - 00;39;06;16

'''Thad'''

It's basically he's a rat pushed into a corner and he's got he's got, you know, a Darkfriend at the door going, “Come on, you know you want to submit, it'll be so much easier if you do it.” And it's kind of one of those things of he's pinned in a corner fight or flight mode. He fights by summoning lightning to destroy the inn wall and they just escape out into the rain.

And that's the end of the chapter is they are they are running in the rain.

00;39;06;24 - 00;39;19;09

'''Fenya'''

I vaguely remember the setup if not that specific scene, but I definitely, I don't think on my first read, on my only read through I don't think I necessarily at that point connected the dots that that was him channeling.

00;39;19;21 - 00;39;26;09

'''Thad'''

Oh I absolutely did not the first time either. It wasn't until like a couple of books later where I where I was like, Oh.

00;39;26;20 - 00;39;36;24

'''Doll'''

They sleep in the bushes after that. And he has a massive fever. It's channeling sickness, but that's the channeling sickness you get after having done it for a while, not the first time you do it.

00;39;37;05 - 00;39;43;23

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And we get that really awesome dream of seeing how Gode turning to ash and just dying in the wind.

00;39;44;17 - 00;40;01;06

'''Doll'''

They sort of mimic that in the TV show when they had him with the Darkfriend, the before Thom, Dana, Dana, couldn’t remember her name. When Dana had him in the room and she said it was Ironwood and you know, ten men couldn't knock it down and then he shouldered it open.

00;40;01;06 - 00;40;04;27

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that was basically that was basically this scene without being this scene.

00;40;05;00 - 00;40;24;02

'''Doll'''

And I'm surprised at how few people picked up that he channeled there like when they watched it. Cause the friends I was watching with, I was the only one that like, “He just channeled, didn’t he?” I'm like he had to have channeled. He wasn't big enough to have knocked that door down. That’s the only way he did it. When they reveal him as the Dragon, you see the weaves around him.

00;40;24;11 - 00;40;33;09

'''Thad'''

Like the first time I watched it, I was like, Yeah, that's the scene. And then on a rewatch I noticed that the name of the inn was specifically called The Four Kings.

00;40;34;00 - 00;40;39;12

'''Doll'''

Yep, it was called the Four Kings. There's a reference to that. Since they cut it out.

00;40;39;24 - 00;40;56;03

'''Thad'''

So yes, this is probably one of my favorite. There is a dozen, dozens and dozens of scenes, but I think this one will always remain one of my favorites, specifically just because of how tense the setup is to a very obvious like, Oh, Rand just channeled.

00;40;56;09 - 00;41;11;11

'''Fenya'''

It feels like a very cinematic scene. I mean, like, I'm really excited to go back and reread that scene now and I'm not going to do it anytime soon, probably because I just don't have the time. But when I when I do eventually go back and reread the first book, I'm going to keep an eye out.

00;41;11;24 - 00;41;49;29

'''Doll'''

Okay. So I just found a post on a forum recently talking about the times that Rand channeled in the Eye of the world. The first one was after fleeing on Winter's night, Rand used the power to refresh Bela.

“If Bela fell back, he would fall back too, whatever Moiraine and Lan had to say about it. Back where the Fade and the Trollocs were, back to where the Drakhar was. With all his heart and desperation, he silently shouted at Bela to run like the wind. Silently tried to will the strength into her, “Run”. His skin prickled and his bones felt as if they were freezing, ready to split open, “The light, help her run”. And Bella ran.

00;41;50;02 - 00;41;54;16

'''Thad'''

You see, that could easily be misconstrued as he is just anxiety Rand.

00;41;55;02 - 00;41;57;16

'''Fenya'''

I mean, that's how I construed it the first time.

00;41;57;16 - 00;42;50;18

'''Doll'''

For the first time I read it, I would have too. But when I went back, I'm like, he channeled. And then I think at some point someone mentioned like it was surprised that Bela was less tired than the other horses. It may have been Lan or Moiraine. And then again in Baerlon, after Mat plays a prank on the Whitecloaks:

“Rand moved to cover the sword, but instead swept his cloak back over his shoulder. In the back of his head was a frantic wonder at what he was doing, but it was a distant thought. “Accidents happen,” he said, “even to the children of the Light”. Bornhald asked some questions, a tingling thrill, ran along Rand’s arm and legs. He felt flushed and almost warm. The tingling fills Rand, the heat had grown into a fever. He went to laugh. It felt so good. A small voice in his head shouted that something was wrong. All he could think of was how full of energy he felt nearly bursting with it.”

00;42;50;26 - 00;42;54;02

'''Thad'''

So was that was that a very early glimpse at Lews Therin there?

00;42;54;02 - 00;42;57;07

'''Doll'''

That was a very early glimpse of him losing control of the Power.

00;42;57;08 - 00;42;58;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, I see.

00;42;58;15 - 00;43;04;24

'''Doll'''

I think even Egwene had talked about the thrill like that you've got the Power feeling you and you have this elation.

00;43;05;00 - 00;43;14;08

'''Fenya'''

I mean, once again, I think it's just incredible how much Jordan left for you to realize on a reread. Like, that's not something that every author can do very well.

00;43;14;15 - 00;43;23;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, there's so much in that first book that when you go back knowing that Rand's the Dragon, where you can see he's channeling that last one, is the one that's the most obvious.

00;43;23;20 - 00;43;34;14

'''Fenya'''

Or knowing what being the Dragon means because I mean, he knows that he's the Dragon from a very early on I feel. But you don't really internalize what that means until you read further.

00;43;34;14 - 00;43;48;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I guess that's when like you have a sense that there's something with Rand because you know that he's not Tam’s real son and so know that he's the one that Moiraine was looking for, but not so much why she was looking for him until they get to the Eye of the World.

00;43;49;02 - 00;44;31;19

'''Thad'''

So that'll be it for this episode of TarValon Talks. Thanks for joining us to talk about the slog and what it means to each and every one of us. If you have any questions about it, you can always shoot us an email at producer.tvt@gmail.com or drop in to us on the TarValon.Net forums and leave us a question in the thread under General. You can even join us in our newly created #tarvalon-talks-podcast topic thread inside of the TarValon.Net Discord channel, which you can join by going to tarvalon.net. Thanks for listening in and until next time, stay safe.

==Episode Guide==

'''Next Episode'''

*[[TarValon Talks Episode 6: Origins of the Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston]]

'''Previous Episode'''

*[[TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-07T08:49:20Z

Adolla: /* General */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Dianna Melear]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Guest:'''
*[[Alexr al'Petros]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

00;00;34;28 - 00;00;35;10

'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;37;10

'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

00;00;37;15 - 00;00;38;27

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;05

'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

00;00;42;10 - 00;01;35;23

'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;38;05

'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

00;01;38;19 - 00;01;55;18

'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

00;01;55;18 - 00;01;57;20

'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

00;01;57;26 - 00;02;10;13

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

00;02;10;13 - 00;02;21;00

'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

00;02;21;00 - 00;02;23;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;55;12

'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

00;02;55;12 - 00;03;02;10

'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

00;03;02;28 - 00;03;13;01

'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

00;03;13;16 - 00;03;21;05

'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

00;03;21;16 - 00;03;44;22

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

00;03;45;01 - 00;03;46;00

'''Thad'''

As you do.

00;03;46;09 - 00;03;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yes.

00;03;48;19 - 00;03;49;17

'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

00;03;51;04 - 00;03;52;26

'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

00;03;52;26 - 00;04;26;18

'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;28;27

'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;45;21

'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

00;04;45;26 - 00;04;54;13

'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

00;04;54;13 - 00;04;57;25

'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;23

'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

00;04;59;23 - 00;05;06;13

'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

00;05;06;26 - 00;05;18;04

'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

00;05;18;07 - 00;05;55;19

'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

00;05;55;24 - 00;06;23;28

'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

00;06;24;02 - 00;06;34;00

'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

00;06;34;00 - 00;06;39;25

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

00;06;39;25 - 00;06;43;21

'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

00;06;43;29 - 00;07;05;04

'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

00;07;05;11 - 00;07;08;23

'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

00;07;09;01 - 00;07;19;14

'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

00;07;19;25 - 00;08;17;19

'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

00;08;23;02 - 00;09;01;09

'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

00;09;01;14 - 00;09;02;12

'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

00;09;02;24 - 00;09;19;03

'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

00;09;19;03 - 00;09;20;03

'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

00;09;20;07 - 00;09;36;20

'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;38;12

'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

00;09;38;12 - 00;09;51;11

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;55;15

'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

00;09;56;01 - 00;10;00;06

'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;03;27

'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

00;10;03;29 - 00;10;09;02

'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;12;06

'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;16;00

'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

00;10;16;01 - 00;10;19;29

'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;21;06

'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

00;10;21;19 - 00;10;27;08

'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;29;27

'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;33;21

'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

00;10;33;21 - 00;10;38;18

'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

00;10;38;27 - 00;10;44;08

'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

00;10;44;08 - 00;11;30;08

'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

00;11;30;28 - 00;11;32;14

'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

00;11;32;14 - 00;11;37;07

'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

00;11;37;18 - 00;11;45;10

'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;25;18

'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;27;21

'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

00;12;28;12 - 00;12;29;27

'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

00;12;30;10 - 00;12;32;02

'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

00;12;32;02 - 00;12;32;27

'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

00;12;33;09 - 00;12;34;24

'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

00;12;34;24 - 00;12;36;03

'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;38;07

'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;43;06

'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

00;12;43;06 - 00;12;57;13

'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

00;12;57;28 - 00;13;15;19

'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

00;13;15;20 - 00;13;18;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;27;15

'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

00;13;37;23 - 00;13;43;04

'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;04

'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

00;13;49;04 - 00;13;50;06

'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

00;13;50;08 - 00;14;03;10

'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

00;14;03;14 - 00;14;10;12

'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

00;14;10;14 - 00;14;12;07

'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;13;13

'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;33;20

'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

'''Previous Episode'''
[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman

2023-10-07T08:47:49Z

Adolla: Created page with "==General== '''Hosts:''' *Dianna Melear *Thaddius al'Guy *Adolla Ceryia '''Release date:''' *October 19th, 2022 '''Synopsis:''' In Episode 3, the hosts D..."

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Dianna Melear]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 4 Transcript ==

00;00;02;13 - 00;00;22;20

'''Doll'''

Welcome to TarValon Talks. In this episode, we're going to discuss the holiday of Shaoman, its history at TarValon.Net and how we celebrate it. Also, we're joined by Alexr al’Petros from our Servant of All Committee to talk about our Servant of All focus for this month. And lastly, our new host, Fenya, joins us and gives us her favorite scene from the books. Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy our show.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;34;24

'''Doll'''

Hello and welcome to TarValon Talks. I'm Doll and I'm here with Thad and this time we have a new host Fenya.

'''Fenya'''

Hello.

'''Doll'''

Welcome to the show.

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'''Thad'''

Welcome.Welcome.

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'''Doll'''

Glad you could join us this time.

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'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

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'''Doll'''

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us how you got into Wheel of Time.

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'''Fenya'''

So my best friend Dianna, who has previously hosted on the show, actually is the one who got me into it. We were roommates in college and she was reading these books and she was like, '''Fenya''', you should read them. Like, I think you'll really enjoy them. And I sped through the first like two and a half and then stopped and never picked it up again for like ten years afterwards until finally the show was coming out. She was super excited about it. She was like, “I really want someone to talk about the show with because I don't like I don't really have any friends who are into it or who have read all of the way through, like, please, would you pick up the series again?” And so I did. I started from book one and read all the way through the end and loved it this time. Like, I didn't have any issues with losing interest. I was just totally, totally engrossed in the story. And that's how I discovered Wheel of Time.

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'''Doll'''

So how long have you been on TarValon.net?

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'''Fenya'''

Dianna and I joined at the same time right after JordanCon 2022. So like April, I think, and as expected, she was the one who jumped into TarValon.net and I was like, “okay, I might as well follow”. And it's been fun.

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'''Doll'''

Oh, that's great. I'm so happy to have you here.

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'''Fenya'''

Yeah, it's been great. Like joining the community and getting to know people. I mean, like, compared to a lot of people, I feel like I know very little about Wheel of Time, so I'll probably be the novice voice on this show and asking questions.

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'''Doll'''

Sometimes it's great to have a new perspective because I've been talking about this for 20 years now and I feel like I sometimes don't get the same perspective that somebody that just started reading has.

'''Fenya'''

Yeah

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'''Thad'''

Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you on that one, '''Doll'''.

00;02;23;25 - 00;02;53;00

'''Doll'''

Well, it is October and that means it's spooky season. So we're going to talk about the Wheel of Time's kind of spooky holiday. I believe that it is pronounced [Sa-ween] much like the Gaelic version, but it's spelled slightly different. Some people pronounce it [Shao-main]. We don't get a pronunciation guide. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it.

We don't actually know a lot about it. It is the 12th day of Chaldine, I don't actually know how to pronounce that either.

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'''Fenya'''

The twelfth day of some months.

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'''Doll'''

Yes, it's the 11th month of the Farede, that's another word I don't know how to pronounce either.

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'''Thad'''

It's one of those that you always kind of… you just kind of say it in your head and you've never really said it out loud until you're talking to somebody else. And you realize, I have no idea how to pronounce this.

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'''Doll'''

I don't even pronounce them for the longest time. Like when I got the Nynaeve’s name until I heard it pronounced, it was just [Mhm] when I read it.

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'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I feel like I do the same thing. A lot of the names and like titles and everything in the book I just kind of not mentally gloss over but like a little bit mentally gloss over because I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce that. I know we have a glossary, but I don't want to like distract myself by looking it up.

My eyes will read the letters, but my brain will not interpret anything.

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'''Thad'''

As you do.

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'''Fenya'''

Yes.

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'''Doll'''

My brain just went (mumbles).

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'''Thad'''

Yeah, [psuspusu] (mumbles).

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'''Doll'''

So, so yeah. Farede calendar which is slightly different than ours. They have like a 13 month calendar and this is the 11th month. But if you put it up against the Gregorian calendar, it sort of works out to be around mid to late October. So we know that in the Wheel of Time Shaoman is oriented towards children.”They get cosseted in praise and given gifts.” I'm reading from the glossary now. “In some places, groups of children go from house to house, singing songs and being rewarded with sweets. That's kind of like trick or treating.”

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'''Thad'''

It's kind of like caroling mixed with trick or treating.

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'''Doll'''

It is like caroling mixture and trick or treating. Or you have that little singsong-y rhyme, the “trick or treat smell my feet” or something like that. Yeah. So like I think it's sort of a mix of caroling and trick or treating since it falls in the October timeframe, it really does match up with our idea of Halloween.

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'''Fenya'''

I have a question which you may or may not know the answer to, where in the books do they talk about Shaoman?

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'''Doll'''

They don't really. I think we see it in the big white book.

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'''Thad'''

I think that's where I read it as well.

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'''Fenya'''

Because when you guys first brought it up, I was like, I have no idea what this is in relation to the series.

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'''Doll'''

There are several festivals mentioned that are only briefly brought up. I just got the big white book out. Okay, it is in the big white book. I found it and it's exactly what I just read. I don't know if it's in the glossary.

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'''Thad'''

I think it's in the glossary. It's just a few sentences of, you know, children getting praise, going house to house caroling. So, they probably just took the info from the big white book and put it into the glossary. So I guess the question is how did the site really get into celebrating Shaoman every year?

It's kind of tertiarily mentioned in the books. It's never really touched on. A character probably talked about it in passing once or twice or more than one character mentioned it because, you know, the entirety of the series only takes place over the course of a few years at best. So only like a couple of Shaoman pass or [sao-ween] however you say it.

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'''Doll'''

I don't know how we started celebrating on the site exactly. I don't know whose idea it was. I know that like very early on we started celebrating just as a chance to goof off and do things we wouldn't normally. And that became because it was so close to Halloween, it became our Halloween celebration where everybody was allowed to change their avatars.

And then we started doing competitions for themes. People would come up with games and stuff for people to play on the forums.

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'''Thad'''

That's been going on for a pretty long time. I think on the site it's been going on since I think the first or second year of inception of the site because according to our library it dates back as far as 2003.

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'''Doll'''

Yeah, I don't remember not doing it. It wasn't quite as big as it is now, not as organized.

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'''Fenya'''

And it sounds like nowadays it's a pretty big community building activity, right?

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'''Doll'''

Yeah. I think a lot of the various holidays and stuff become a chance to get people out of their shells and interact with other groups that they wouldn't normally interact with. And a little bit of friendly competition or maybe not so friendly…, Not talking is a Brown that gets very competitive at times.

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'''Fenya'''

So like what kind of competition is involved?

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'''Doll'''

So over the years there have been different things. There's like they'll have trivia competition, like in IRC days it was using a trivia bot in IRC, and I think they do it in discord now.

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'''Thad'''

Every community group will they'll make a thread in a special forum that is put forward to the public every year for Shaoman or Bel Tine or I don't think we do anything for Feast of Lights anymore. For example, last year there was a group theme contests or logic puzzles. There was a boasting contest, a clue game, a digital escape room, and a writing contest.

Every community group has their theme and everybody votes for the best group theme. You also get team with the most points. Someone will get the “spirit of Shaoman” and then I believe there is an award for the team because we also have a team that kind of organizes everything for everybody to do because it would be really hard to do if it was just kind of everybody on their own for this thing.

So we have our outreach team and people can apply to join up and help organize said event and help get all the community groups to do their themes and events and such. So they are the real rock stars.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;22;27

'''Doll'''

Yeah, they really are. And they do stuff all year to try and keep people engaged and they do a really good job of it.

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'''Thad'''

Let's just touch on last year's theme. It was, I believe, the Trolloc bands mash up kind of like a Trolloc Fist with a Twist and the group I was in, we did Tinker Trollocs.

Let's run through last year's themes. Usually it goes by community groups. So, you know, all of the Ajahs and all of the Companies. But I think for Shaoman, specifically, we just broke everybody up into four teams.

So in team one, we had the Bebak'gar Shen: Cute or Stealthy, Always Deadly. And then we had the Tralalalollocs. And then another one was Trollocs at the Disco and team four was Trolloc Zombies, the Nombies.

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'''Fenya'''

Those are all great.

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'''Thad'''

The team I was in, the Tinker Trollocs, we were the Tralalalollocs. Each team gets their own private forum that they can, you know, talk to each other and to organize. “Hey, here's what we're going to do.” Last year, I think two of us basically edited the avatars for everybody else in the group.

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'''Fenya'''

It sounds like a lot of work.

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'''Thad'''

It's not as much as you would think. It was like find a picture of a human-esque creature and we just kind of inverted some colors on it or or drew some stuff over it, you know, very simple stuff. But Trollocs at the Disco were the were the winners of the Shaoman 2021

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'''Doll'''

I didn't realize they had section people.

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'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. I think it was the first time that they did it because that Bel Tine earlier in the year, every community group was in their own thing. That's a whole different discussion now because Bel Tine is definitely way more celebrated than anything else on the site.

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'''Doll'''

Mm hmm. Yeah. Bel Tine’s the big festival, because it's the one we know the most about.

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'''Thad'''

Not just two sentences in the big white book and companion guide.

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'''Doll'''

So yeah, that. That's really cool. I hate that I missed it.

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'''Thad'''

We're gearing up right now for the new one, so be sure to get yourself involved.

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'''Fenya'''

Can you talk a little bit about what the theme for this year is, do you know?

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'''Thad'''

I don't know if they've technically announced it yet.

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'''Fenya'''

I think the team that I've been assigned to were saying something about Cryptids.

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'''Thad'''

Oh, yeah.

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'''Fenya'''

But I haven't actually been paying that much attention to the planning, I have to admit. So I'm a little bit behind.

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'''Doll'''

I think they're doing it by community group again.

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'''Thad'''

I think they're putting it out in teams again this year.

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'''Fenya'''

I think it's junior members and citizens, at least is one team.

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'''Thad'''

I only got assigned to one of the teams today and I think it's the unaffiliated.

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'''Doll'''

I think it's community groups. And then the people who aren’t in one of the Ajahs or something have been assigned to a group.

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

'''Doll'''

For anyone who is not familiar with TarValon.net. First you join as a guest and then you can apply to be a citizen of TarValon.net. Which gives you full membership. After you've been here a while and you find people that sponsor you to join the Tower where you can either go down the path to become an Aes Sedai, or you can become a Gaidin.

You go through the steps of being a novice or a recruit and then soldier or accepted. And then we have divided our Warders into four companies that we made up a long time ago just to give the people who don't want to be Aes Sedai a group to identify with and I'm not going to pronounce all the names. Maybe we'll go over that in another episode.

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'''Thad'''

That's probably a good idea.

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'''Doll'''

I can practice it. Yeah. Whenever we're talking about that. And that's what we mean by community groups.

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'''Thad'''

So it's the seven Ajahs and four company groups and then citizens, novices, recruits, accepted and soldiers.

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'''Doll'''

And unaffiliated senior members who've retired from their group or don't feel they fit in any of the others.

One year, the Browns, we always joke about how getting the Browns to do anything as a group is like herding cats. And I had just been raised the Head of Brown. It's like a 18 month term. So I was the cat wrangler and all the Browns dressed up as cats and just ran around doing whatever they wanted.

And I would go around trying to tell them to do things. It was hilarious. I'm pretty sure we won that year, but I had taken my avatar and somebody put a cowboy hat on it and I had put a lasso on it. And so I was just running around trying to wrangle the Browns and yeah, I didn't have a very good time of it.

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'''Thad'''

Sounds about right.

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'''Fenya'''

That sounds like a lot of fun.

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'''Thad'''

Except when it comes to the spam-a-thon.

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'''Doll'''

Oh gosh.

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'''Fenya'''

The spam-a-thon?

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'''Doll'''

Have they retired the spam-a-thon?

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'''Thad'''

It's been retired as far as I'm aware.

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'''Fenya'''

For the uninitiated, what is the spam-a-thon?

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'''Doll'''

It was a competition. It was to see who could post the most in a thread within like a 48 hour period or something like that. So like you would put two teams together and the winner advanced until you get to the last two teams that beat everybody else.

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'''Thad'''

Yeah, the rules were basically you couldn't post twice in a row. You personally couldn't post twice in a row. You would have to wait for anybody else to post after you. And there was a theme to every round, so you had to adhere to the theme of the round. Like every sentence must contain a rhyme or something like that.

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'''Doll'''

Yeah, it had to be like full sentences and stuff.

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'''Thad'''

And it couldn't be. Obviously you were going for low effort posts. One of the first spam-a-thons that I did, I don't think I got a lot of sleep that day.

00;13;28;26 - 00;13;37;17

'''Fenya'''

Okay, so that's actually a lot more involved than I was thinking. Like I was imagining you just spam the boards with like gifs, random gifs.

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'''Thad'''

Oh, if they, if they, if they allowed that, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

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'''Fenya'''

And yeah, I was a little surprised such a thing would happen because it would be very hard to keep track of.

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'''Thad'''

It was yeah.

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'''Doll'''

There's a reason there's all kinds of rules because people were posting like “one, two, three.” Like I said, the Browns have a tendency to get carried away. Yeah, we get carried away. We get very competitive when we're focused.

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'''Thad'''

The first one that I did, I had to count the Brown versus whoever it was thread and it was a nightmare.

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'''Doll'''

There were probably thousands of posts.

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'''Thad'''

There were thousands of posts.

00;14;13;13 - 00;14;25;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah. And of course, being Browns, we had developed a method so that we just basically could have like people posting constantly and it was not good.

00;14;25;00 - 00;14;26;15

'''Fenya'''

I take it you guys won then?

00;14;26;21 - 00;14;29;21

'''Thad'''

Yes, they won a lot. They won a lot.

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'''Doll'''

I don't I don't remember. Did somebody actually beat us one, one year?

00;14;33;20 - 00;14;38;25

'''Thad'''

One year I think so. But usually Brown was always the winner of the spam-a-thon.

00;14;39;01 - 00;14;49;26

'''Doll'''

When we participated. Only sometimes it was like, nobody has time. I'm not into it this year. And then thank God they retired it because I don't think I could do it again. It got really, it got really competitive.

00;14;50;04 - 00;14;57;00

'''Thad'''

I think one of the last years they did it, it was hitting like 300 pages. So just 20 times 300. And that's the amount of posts.

00;14;57;00 - 00;15;32;28

'''Doll'''

Another community group decided they were going to take us down and we were ….

So yeah, a quick editing note, since we recorded this, they have announced that they are doing spam-a-thon again this year. Good luck to everybody who decides to participate. I for one will be sitting it out this year

…and then another year. And I don't remember if this was for Shaoman or something else, but it was a pirate theme and they had a scavenger hunt.

We had to go around the different parts of the site and do pirate things, including one time we jumped into the IRC channel and had to get people, so many people to post like piratey stuff and then take a screenshot of it.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;41;00

'''Thad'''

I was looking through the library and one year they did an actual costume contest where you had to dress up in something and submit it.

00;15;41;01 - 00;15;42;15

'''Doll'''

Oh, I don't remember that one.

00;15;42;15 - 00;15;54;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, that one was from 2011. So there were actually four separate costume contests held that year. And there was a like a children's division, a cute division, a scary division and a wheel of time division.

00;15;54;17 - 00;16;02;11

'''Fenya'''

Are there still I'm assuming that like contestants posted these pictures somewhere, are they still up on the forum somewhere?

00;16;02;23 - 00;16;11;06

'''Thad'''

Yeah. If you go and look at the Shaoman 2011 wiki entry for the library, you can see the winners of each of the divisions.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;16;18

'''Fenya'''

Oh neat. Can you also see winners for other competitions like the spam-a-thon or?

00;16;16;26 - 00;16;23;10

'''Thad'''

Oh yeah. That stuff usually gets logged every year. They're pretty good about updating the library for that kind of stuff.

00;16;23;10 - 00;16;27;08

'''Doll'''

Yeah, the more recent years, yeah, I think the further back you get, the less detailed.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;34;07

'''Thad'''

Yeah. The, the less. But if you go with the last 5 to 7 years, there's going to be a litany of information for every year basically.

00;16;34;07 - 00;16;37;12

'''Fenya'''

I'll have to check it out and see what I'm getting myself into.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;12;08

'''Thad'''

It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of fun to do and it takes very little commitment from your half. Just show up once a day, do some stuff, have some fun, get to know other people on the site. That's really the crux of it, is just to get you to talk to other people, because as with any social club kind of aspect, you generally will tend to fall in with a circle of people and not really talk much outside of that.

So these bi yearly, tri yearly, however many we do now, we do Bel Tine, definitely we do Shaoman definitely I can't remember if we do any of the others anymore, but these are great ways to get to know other people in the community.

00;17;12;28 - 00;17;39;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that I've really enjoyed about participating in the TarValon.net community is like just how many opportunities there are to meet people outside of like the little circle of people that I interact with most. So it's not that that specific to the Shaoman celebrations necessarily, but that is another just aspect of it that as a newcomer to the site, I really appreciate it.

00;17;39;11 - 00;17;40;23

'''Doll'''

We're a friendly bunch.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;41;18

'''Fenya'''

You are, I love it.

00;17;42;20 - 00;17;49;08

'''Doll'''

We're all just a bunch of nerds and we're happy to have people who want to talk about the same things we've talked about for 20 years.

00;17;49;17 - 00;18;05;07

'''Thad'''

You know what? I will always say this. If you want to talk, Wheel of time I will sit down and talk Wheel of time with you. I'm always game to talk this. That's why I'm here.

00;18;05;07 - 00;18;27;16

'''Doll'''

Each month at tarvalon.net, we like to pick a focus for our Servant of All program. Today I'm joined by Alex al’Petros. He is a member of our Servant of All committee and he's going to tell us a little bit more about our Servant of All team and this month's focus.

Welcome Alexr. Can you tell us what the focus is for October and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the Servant of All committee?

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;34;19

'''Alexr'''

All right. I'll try and control my Marine saltiness and not swear too much. But you do have editing capability.

00;18;34;19 - 00;18;37;26

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I can edit that out.

00;18;37;26 - 00;19;45;10

'''Alexr'''

So how we kind of structure it. And of course, this is just us. It can be done any way possible, but normally whoever's doing it will collect up information and then each week do an info dump that's also reflected in the TarValon social media pages, or platforms. So if you're not on TarValon.net Instagram yet go out and do it, or their Facebook page. You can find the stuff there too.

And so once a week you'll get like four little dumps and four different focuses. In addition, we also try and do a movie somewhat related to it. This month we're doing Peanut Butter Falcon. I mean, it's a great movie. I'll be honest, as always, I haven't seen it. It's on my long list of movies that I want to see and the main character or one of the main characters in the movie has Down Syndrome.

And of course, then the movie explores a lot of the issues around Down Syndrome. So that's kind of the structure that we use: an info dump a week and then maybe a couple movies that somewhat reflect the theme through the month.

00;19;45;20 - 00;19;51;00

'''Doll'''

That's really cool. Is there anything specific about this month that you want to spread more awareness about?

00;19;51;02 - 00;23;24;14

'''Alexr'''

I can only speak from my experiences, and of course I'm a jarhead, so I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. You know, I like to eat crayons and that sort of stuff. And when I first had to deal with my nephew who has Down Syndrome, like, it was very uncomfortable for me. And I remember like he would come over and I'd be like, “Oh man, I don't want to have to deal with this.”

And she who must be obeyed a.k.a my gorgeous bride, you know, slapped me upside the head a couple of times as she is wont to do. And she said, “hey, you got to pull your head out of your back pocket and reconsider this.” And so it's funny, my so my nephew's name is Timothy and I actually don't call him Timothy. I call him Timmy, Tim, Tim. And so I was like, you know, I'm just kind of being a jerk. I need to open up my heart a little bit to this. And so I did, but I didn't know how to address him because they behave differently, they think differently, they react differently. And so it was like walking into a lion's den and I was like, “You know what? I'm going to do it.”

And so I started taking the time that every time I would see him, I would scream, “Timmy, Tim, Tim” and I would go up and I would get really close and pretend like I was going to hug him and wait for him to come to me. Right. Because sometimes they don't want the hugs.

And it was interesting because like he just totally like accepted me. And it was like he knew that I was uncomfortable but that I was trying to make the effort. At the time he was just an eight year old boy. I mean, I just treated him like that and I deal a lot with Scouts, so I'm used to working with young people.

And so that's what we did. And I would always take the time, whether it was to read a book or play Legos or just get on the ground with him. Anyway, cut the long story short, we developed this just beautiful relationship and he's actually developed right? Like surprise, surprise, like a normal human being. I hate to say it that way, but right.

Like we all grow up and we all develop and he has too and he's gained greater capabilities, greater articulation, greater mobility. And I just initially saw this handicapped person that I couldn't deal with and I didn't realize that this was a growing, changing human. And so I put up a video. If you get a chance, check it out. It's in the Servant of All forum in the October thread on TarValon. He came out and we live in the mountains. So I took him sledding and he loved sledding and then we took him out skiing. And you know, I'm not going to say it was easy, but, you know, I've got other children. Putting my five year old on skis was hard. As a parent, you have to be patient, right? Like you're like, oh, I want to go ski. You know, this is taking 4 hours to just get a ski boot on whatever. You know, you just relax. You go with it, you move at their pace. We got him on skis. Now he comes out. He's about 15 years old now and he skis. So there's a video of him and the video is pretty adorable. I haven't gotten an updated one, but it literally is the first time where we just let him go and he skied on his own. And if you watch the video, you know, he's just like all of us. I mean, the joy and the love that just billows just out of him. This is what we would want for all children. So it took me changing and less him changing.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;37;19

'''Doll'''

Yeah. It's normal to feel awkward when you meet somebody that's different from you, but in the end we have more in common than we have differences. And just try not to think too hard about our own awkwardness and move past it and grow.

00;23;37;19 - 00;24;04;05

'''Alexr'''

That's really well said.

'''Doll'''

Thank you

'''Alexr'''

And you have to give yourself time to grow, right? Like, you know, the first time I decided I'm going to engage with him, you know, I was still a jerk. Right? It took me time. And, you know, as I reflect back on it, I mean, that's kind of like every relationship, right? Like the first time you meet somebody, you kind of get to know each other, you get more comfortable. You know, next thing you know, you're doing tequila shots in Miami, right?

00;24;09;04 - 00;24;12;25

'''Doll'''

Maybe not with your 15 year old nephew.

00;24;12;25 - 00;24;36;24

'''Alexr'''

But it is cute. Because he is a 14, almost 15 year old boy. He does have girlfriends. So that's kind of cute to see how he's starting to deal with that because that's a lot of hormonal changes. Right. But the same thing happened with my son once I got past slapping a label that masked my fear, wow, a whole new world opened up. And I would encourage people to, you know, move past your fear and and find a way to the love.

00;24;43;13 - 00;24;45;13

'''Doll'''

That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.

00;24;45;18 - 00;24;47;07

'''Alexr'''

Of course. Can I make a plug?

00;24;47;18 - 00;24;48;11

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;24;48;11 - 00;25;38;24

'''Alexr'''

So. Hey, Servant of All Team is just one of the many teams that are at TarValon. About every six months the team will open up applications and I would encourage people to do it. It's fun to kind of put together not only the awareness months, we’ll be doing a blood drive at the beginning of the year. We do a fundraiser for TarValon.net, right? So it's kind of nice to have TarValon.net. So you know, somebody's got to help raise the money for that. So all that sort of stuff. And of course it's a team, it's not me. In fact, I got thrown to the lions because I'm like the baby on the team and there's other people on the team who are much better that could speak to this.

But, I would encourage folks when they see that application to sign up. And if you don't have the, my favorite new word, if you don't have the spoons. Right. I never knew about spoons before.

00;25;38;28 - 00;25;40;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, you've never heard of spoons theory?

00;25;40;15 - 00;26;21;24

'''Alexr'''

Well, it shows how old I am, but if you don't have the spoons to be on the team, I mean, we welcome one offs, like what Soro did, what Alora did, and Arinna, God bless her. I love her to death. She just posted something on thrombosis, and that stuff's really inspiring. And I get it. People don't like to talk about the inspiring stuff that they're doing because they feel like they may be bragging or something. I mean, so I get it. I get the reluctance, but please share your stories because you might just be inspiring somebody else who's running out of spoons and needs a little spoon lift from you. All right, that's my plug.

00;26;22;02 - 00;26;29;23

'''Doll'''

I love the spoon lift. That is a new phrase, I’ll have to use that. Well, thank you for joining us. And I really enjoyed talking with you.

00;26;29;24 - 00;26;52;09

'''Alexr'''

You bet. Next month, our theme is Veterans and Military Families. I'm looking forward to that because we certainly have some of those lurking within the halls of TarValon. And I'm not going to divulge it, but we do have something really special, a monthly awareness theme planned for December. So look to that, right? Look to the future. There's always hope.

00;26;52;17 - 00;26;53;02

'''Doll'''

Thank you so much.

00;26;53;02 - 00;26;56;07

'''Alexr'''

You bet. We'll see you.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;08;19

'''Doll'''

In this segment, our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers. If you have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;27;10;11 - 00;29;02;02

'''Fenya'''

So I had to think about my favorite scene a little bit. I was initially thinking of the scene where Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers. And then I thought, No, there's a scene that I thought for me had more of an emotional impact. Was more cinematic. Was more memorable in general for me, which is in Knife of Dreams, book 11. It's the end of Chapter 20, The Golden Crane. And in my addition of the book, the scene technically starts on page 453. But the the bit that I'm specifically thinking about comes a little later. And this is the scene where Lan wants to go to Tarwin's Gap and Nynaeve goes and musters up other like the Borderlanders to go and follow him.

And I just…for most of the book, we are told that Lan and Nynaeve are like madly in love, but this was the scene where I'm like, okay, yes. I really feel that emotion that she feels for Lan. And you really see what she's doing to protect him. Like, she can't go with him. You know? She can't. She can't really do much for him, but she can do this.

And the way that the jeweler responds to her in that scene where he is, like, crying and, you know, like, really gung ho to go and follow Lan. I just found that so moving. That's a scene that always makes me cry. I mean, I cry at the drop of a hat, to be honest. But that scene in particular, I find really emotional.

And I did when I was rereading the scene for this podcast, like I did start tearing up and I was like, oh Nynaeve and Lan.

00;29;02;23 - 00;29;13;16

'''Doll'''

You're so, so right though. Like when they got together and just seemed out of the blue for me, I didn't see it. I don't think it was shown in the book. It was just sort of oh, oh okay.

00;29;13;23 - 00;29;22;18

'''Thad'''

It was always talked about like it was. It was always mentioned like he's my one, he's my soul mate. But we never really see it until probably that moment.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;23;15

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;29;23;21 - 00;29;38;12

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. Like, I did, I have to say that when I was reading I did call that they were going to be together. Maybe…although on second thought, maybe that's just because I had read the first couple of books ten years previous. I didn't remember much about them, but maybe that stuck in my head.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;39;03

'''Thad'''

Subconsciously you remembered.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;11

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. But for. For most of the time, and I think this is true of Robert Jordan, all of the relationships that he writes like he is not great at writing relationships. You're really told more than like shown that people are in love and you're like, “Okay Robert Jordan, sure, If you say so.”

00;29;56;21 - 00;30;09;06

'''Thad'''

It's like the scene with him and Aviendha in the Seanchan outback basically when it was just like “and then the light's faded” and then you're just like, Oh yeah, they got it on. But that was all we got.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;32;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I definitely feel that Rand and Aviendha at least had some buildup. Unlike with Lan and Nynaeve or even with like Rand and the rest of the of the triad, quartet, the relationships just don't they don't do it for me in general. In this series, I love the series desperately, but I'm not reading it for the romance.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;36;23

'''Doll'''

No, it's not the romance, despite the cover. Was that Lord of Chaos?

00;30;36;25 - 00;30;43;02

'''Thad'''

Yes. The cover of Law of Chaos is basically Rand telling the Aes Sedai kneel or be knelt.

00;30;43;28 - 00;30;44;29

'''Doll'''

And his shirt.

00;30;45;12 - 00;30;46;28

'''Thad'''

It's not open though.

00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;23

'''Doll'''

It is.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;50;27

'''Thad'''

It's got a deep V yeah.

00;30;50;29 - 00;30;53;10

'''Doll'''

And you know, Paul Bielaczyc.

00;30;53;20 - 00;31;02;25

'''Thad'''

That was so good. At JordanCon this year. That was so good Because it was one of the things he told everybody, “close your eyes.’

00;31;02;25 - 00;31;03;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;12;02

'''Thad'''

And I close my eyes and I'm like, all right, what's what does he have in store for us this year? And then like after like 2 minutes of set up the best I think I've ever seen.

00;31;12;11 - 00;31;22;04

'''Doll'''

From a backstage point of view, it was hilarious just watching him and Kasey just scrambling to put it up and everybody in the audience is going.

00;31;22;17 - 00;31;28;01

'''Thad'''

I was one of them. I was like, You know what? He always has the wildest things for the costume contest.

00;31;28;15 - 00;31;33;01

'''Fenya'''

I'm really sad that Diana and I missed, like, the costume contest and missing.

00;31;33;01 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

That next year.

00;31;34;24 - 00;31;36;04

'''Fenya'''

Next year? Next year.

00;31;37;19 - 00;31;56;23

'''Thad'''

No, I'm surprised if you're not reading it for the romance. I'm surprised favorite scene isn't a little further on, and it's one of the Sanderson books. But when Rand makes the water explode around him and and Elaine and wash…, do you, '''Doll''', do you not remember the scene?

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;25

'''Doll'''

I don't remember the scene.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;13;11

'''Thad'''

He makes it. He basically, like turns the water into mist around him. And I believe it was Elaine and basically shower them while they're standing there making out and it turns into one of those scenes. And I'm just like, What am I reading?

00;32;13;22 - 00;32;15;16

'''Doll'''

I don't remember this at all.

00;32;15;23 - 00;32;18;25

'''Fenya'''

But that does sound vaguely familiar, now that you mention it.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;22;27

'''Thad'''

It might have been in Gathering Storm, but it could have been Towers of Midnight as well.

00;32;23;02 - 00;32;26;11

'''Doll'''

I don't read it for the romance.

00;32;26;11 - 00;32;30;04

'''Thad'''

I don't think anybody, if you're reading it for the romance, you're in the wrong book series.

00;32;31;04 - 00;32;31;28

'''Doll'''

Oh, yeah.

00;32;32;12 - 00;32;36;22

'''Thad'''

Go read. What is it? The those Sarah J Maas books.

00;32;37;09 - 00;32;44;14

'''Fenya'''

The Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. There are plenty of better romance books. If you want a romance book.

00;32;44;28 - 00;32;45;23

'''Thad'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;46;09

'''Doll'''

Not Wheel of Time.

00;32;48;12 - 00;33;01;26

'''Doll'''

But I do have to say, I do love the image of Nynaeve calling up all of these people. You know that lost their kingdom, even before they were born for some of them. And then the Tai’shar Malkier.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;08;25

'''Thad'''

Super powerful. Yeah. Like any, any time there's anything like that going on and just how she's able to just pull everybody together.

00;33;09;03 - 00;33;29;19

'''Fenya'''

Even talking about it right now. I'm getting chills. Yeah, it's honestly, I think for me, it's one of the best scenes in the entire series. I mean, of course, that's why I chose it as my favorite. But it it just it has so much power to it in a way that some of the rest of the books don't always get to.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;31;16

'''Fenya'''

It's a fantastic scene.

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;49;13

'''Doll'''

Like, you know, how hard it had to have been for her to let him go, knowing that it was almost certain death. And knowing that she wasn't going to be able to stop him. And in the way Nynaeve is with control. And she let that. But she wasn't going to let him go alone.

00;33;49;17 - 00;34;01;00

'''Fenya'''

And I think that's another thing that I really love, because you can see her kind of grapple with what she wants to do versus what she needs to do, what her duty is.

00;34;01;22 - 00;34;07;09

'''Doll'''

It's just more of her arc of being able to let go and trust.

00;34;07;18 - 00;34;11;16

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, like you can really see how she's matured from the start of the series.

00;34;12;04 - 00;34;37;24

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I think my first read through, I wasn't always the most kind in my opinion, of Nynaeve because I didn't recognize what her arc was. Being the very young woman took over a very large responsibility at a young age and the way that she held herself and tried to prove herself over and over again and finally being able to let go of it and just trust that she was going to be able to do the job that she was called to do.

00;34;37;25 - 00;34;50;18

'''Doll'''

And it didn't matter what anybody thought and just letting what is be such a powerful arc that in subsequent re-reads, I was like, okay, so maybe she's not as annoying as she was.

00;34;50;18 - 00;34;56;20

'''Thad'''

I would I would argue outside of Rand, she has probably one of the most important arcs of the entire series.

00;34;56;21 - 00;34;57;18

'''Doll'''

Absolutely.

00;34;57;25 - 00;34;59;15

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, I would agree with that statement.

00;34;59;18 - 00;35;13;27

'''Doll'''

Michael Livingston was saying in her interview with him about how Nynaeve was there from the beginning, like when that was just a spark in Robert Jordan's mind. Like Nynaeve was there. And she was so important to the arc. And I didn't always catch it the first time through.

00;35;14;01 - 00;35;20;21

'''Thad'''

But you can't help but get so frustrated with her in the middle books like, Oh.

00;35;21;04 - 00;35;25;19

'''Fenya'''

I mean, but you could say that about pretty much every single character. At all points.

00;35;25;28 - 00;35;27;06

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;35;27;20 - 00;35;30;04

'''Fenya'''

Nynaeve is not unique in that respect.

00;35;30;06 - 00;35;46;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, absolutely not. But there are some decisions that she makes that you're just like, Oh my God, what are you doing? But it comes from the perspective of I've read this series like a dozen times, so I know it's coming. But on that first reread, I think I was, you know, more accepting of it. But now I'm just like, Oh, my God, oh, my God.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;03;15

'''Fenya'''

For me, I felt like Nynaeve’s decisions, even if they were stupid, even if I was, like, “Nynaeve, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong decision to make entirely, do something else.” They at least were internally consistent with her character.

00;36;03;20 - 00;36;04;13

'''Thad'''

Yes, yes.

00;36;04;14 - 00;36;16;13

'''Fenya'''

And I could see how she got to that decision. And I can't always say that for all of the other characters. Like, you know, sometimes Rand is making decisions that I'm like, I don't know how you got here. This is this is just, you know.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;26;08

'''Thad'''

I can think of like a dozen different reasons why. And then for Egwene, it's always “what would Gawyn think?”

00;36;26;08 - 00;36;30;03

'''Doll'''

Well, for Rand, he's got multiple people in his head. So. Yeah.

00;36;30;20 - 00;36;46;24

'''Fenya'''

Yeah. I mean, so it's it's understandable basically for everyone. It's understandable.

For me personally, like for Nynaeve, I could respect the process that took her to that decision. Even if I disagreed with the decision more that I could in some other cases.

00;36;46;27 - 00;37;15;05

'''Doll'''

Yeah, yeah. I struggled with Mat for the longest time until I realized that he was the unreliable narrator, even within his own head. It wasn't until that I realized that I think it was in the last book. I'm like, Oh, he's saying these things. But he doesn't really believe them because I was just so convinced that he really thought these things and he did the opposite. I'm like, This is just so inconsistent. I don't get it. And it wasn't until I had that breakthrough that I was like, Oh, now I understand that.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Thad'''

You get it, you get it.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Doll'''

Oh, I get it now.

00;37;15;14 - 00;37;23;09

'''Fenya'''

Mat was honestly, he was like, the reason why I stopped reading the first time.

00;37;23;09 - 00;37;25;19

'''Thad'''

I totally get it. I totally get it.

00;37;25;19 - 00;37;26;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I get it.

00;37;26;06 - 00;37;32;17

'''Fenya'''

Diana kept saying he's my favorite character. Like, He's great. You'll love him, I promise. Just continue reading.

00;37;33;01 - 00;37;34;28

'''Thad'''

Was the snark too much for you.

00;37;35;01 - 00;37;55;13

'''Fenya'''

I love snark, but it was when he took the dagger. Like I got so frustrated by him taking the dagger. Like, I get, you know, shiny, pretty. But that was a decision where I just could not understand why he had done it. And I got so frustrated by it and by the consequences of those actions that I eventually stopped reading.

00;37;55;18 - 00;38;21;03

'''Fenya'''

Actually, that's something that I think that the TV show did well, is give him more of a motivation to take the dagger because he is trying to care for his sisters. And, you know, he's grown up really, really poor and that I could kind of understand whereas book Mat is just, hey, this is a pretty thing. I'm going to take it even though everyone has told me not to, and even though bad things are obviously going to happen when I do and...

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;28;01

'''Fenya'''

Yeah he's a twerp. Yeah. I mean, Diana was right. I did come to like him, but I had a really hard time with him in the beginning.

00;38;28;10 - 00;38;35;10

'''Doll'''

Me too. And you're right. I think that is one thing that the everybody's like, well, they change Mat so much. I'm like, good.

00;38;36;13 - 00;38;37;22

'''Fenya'''

He needed that change.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;51;19

'''Doll'''

He needed that cause otherwise he's just a dick. Like, okay, he's he's a dick, but he's a dick because he's hurting and he has duties back home. He want to take care of his people. That's more understandable than “shiny.”

00;38;51;19 - 00;38;53;03

'''Fenya'''

Yeah, 100%.

00;38;53;03 - 00;38;54;09

'''Doll'''

We got so off topic.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;01;02

'''Thad'''

I, I always imagined in the books compared to the TV show that he saw and he was just like, “it'll be fine.”

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;14;20

'''Doll'''

Yeah, “it'll be fine. I don't believe you.” Yeah that was the attitude that drove me nuts. And then in his head, he was like, Well, I'm not going to do these things. And then he does them. And I'm just like, Why are you doing it? I just want to strangle.

00;39;14;24 - 00;39;17;03

'''Thad'''

This is why Nynaeve is a powerful character.

00;39;17;03 - 00;39;17;15

'''Doll'''

Yes.

00;39;17;21 - 00;39;21;20

'''Fenya'''

Yes. Her decisions, her bad decisions make sense.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;27;22

'''Doll'''

She frustrated me, but I didn't hate her at any point. I just “stop tugging on your stupid braid.”

00;39;27;28 - 00;39;40;28

'''Fenya'''

I think that's some of the reason why Nynaeve is so jarring as a character is because we get so many tugging on her braids, because if you take that away, sure, she still has some frustrating aspects, but she's not that bad.

00;39;41;04 - 00;39;42;05

'''Thad'''

She's got sniffing.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;45;20

'''Fenya'''

Okay. So if you take away the sniffing too.

00;39;45;20 - 00;39;53;07

'''Doll'''

I think that just about wraps up everything we had for you this episode. I hope you have a very spooky Halloween or Samhain or Shaoman.

00;39;53;07 - 00;39;53;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;15

'''Fenya'''

However it's pronounced.

00;39;55;15 - 00;40;17;07

'''Doll'''

Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can join us in the general forum on the site in the TarValon Talks thread. Thank you again and we'll talk to you soon.

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories]]

'''Previous Episode'''
[[TarValon Talks Episode 5: The Slog]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories

2023-10-07T08:34:31Z

Adolla: /* Episode Guide */

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Dianna Melear]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 3 Transcript ==

00;00;10;03 - 00;00;14;05

'''Dianna'''

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode three of TarValon Talks. I'm Dianna.

'00;00;14;09 - 00;00;15;00

'''Doll'''

And I'm Doll.

00;00;15;04 - 00;00;16;06

'''Thad'''

And I'm Thad.

00;00;16;24 - 00;00;34;24

'''Dianna'''

And today we're going to talk about conspiracy theories in the Wheel of Time. I will say at the top that this entire episode is going to contain spoilers. So if you have not finished the series, turn us off, read all of the books and then come back and it will be a good discussion. That is your first and final warning.

00;00;35;02 - 00;00;42;14

'''Dianna'''

Let's kick us off with talking about some older conspiracy theories today. For starters, who killed as Asmodean?

00;00;42;14 - 00;00;58;24

'''Doll'''

And that was the big question when I first started reading the series, it’s like all anybody could ask about. There were so many wild theories. I thought it was Elaida for a long time because she was there in Caemlyn and I thought she was Black Ajah, but that was wrong. She was just really crazy.

00;00;58;28 - 00;01;33;01

'''Thad'''

That's an understatement. Really, really early on I thought it was Demandred because, you know, he had been playing hooky so far. I mean, you know, there are some Forsaken we don't even meet until book seven, book eight and stuff like that. But I think the fandom was talking about Demandred a lot at that time because he hadn't really made an appearance.Nobody really knew much about him. And I think at that point he had either in the Fires of Heaven or Lord of Chaos, he had that intro going to Shayol Ghul, and that was really the most that we had seen of him. So I was just like, I bet he did it. I bet he did it because it was either going to be him or Moridin.

00;01;33;01 - 00;01;56;16

'''Dianna'''

I also thought it was of Demandred, although I will be honest, when I first read these books, I was so young and moving so quickly and very distracted by Moiraine falling through the red arc at that point. Uh, the… Yeah, the red Gateway, but I honestly did not clock that Asmodean was dead the first time that I read the books. I was like, Rand. I was like, “Where did he go?”

00;01;57;00 - 00;02;05;21

'''Thad'''

Because it was very quick and it was like, Oh no, it's you. And then we never hear from him again. So you, I guess if you don't pick up on it, you wouldn't think he's dead.

00;02;05;21 - 00;02;20;07

'''Doll'''

I think I just assumed that we would find out where he went after that because it didn't read as being dead to me the first time I read it. I think Jordan actually confirmed that he was dead in interviews. Like, ” Oh, that, that was a death scene.”

00;02;20;18 - 00;02;36;00

'''Thad'''

I mean I totally can visualize the sequence of, you know, shot of him in a room. I think he's in the tent or something like that. And the flap opens and you just see a shadow cast across the floor. And he looks up and he goes, “Oh no, it's you.” And then, you know, cut to black. And it's just like, okay.

00;02;36;01 - 00;02;42;16

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it was a hallway in the castle in Caemlyn. He opens a door and goes, “It's you” and then fade to black.

00;02;42;16 - 00;02;43;20

'''Thad'''

Okay. That's right. Yeah.

00;02;43;29 - 00;03;39;06

'''Dianna'''

On rereading it, it's pretty clear that he's balefired just based on like context clues from other ways that balefire had been described. But at the time, it's like not obvious at all. And I only was like, “Oh, of course he was balefired” because I was looking for it.

So definitely. I mean, on first reread, I didn't even realize he was dead. So, you know, there's that. But like now looking at it, it's like, okay, so whoever killed him had to be able to channel, had to know how to do balefire. So that narrows it down a bunch as to who it could have been. And I think Jordan at one point said in interviews that it should have been obvious and that it couldn't have been anybody who wasn't previously introduced. So then that also narrows down the possibility of killers.

00;03;39;25 - 00;03;53;02

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because after that point, I started to look at, you know, shadowy presence. So it could have been someone like Moghedien because she likes to operate in the shadows. That was probably the next person I moved to if it wasn't going to be Demanded.

00;03;53;02 - 00;03;57;15

'''Doll'''

I think I thought it was Shadar Haran for the longest time. I don't know why.

00;03;57;22 - 00;04;03;20

'''Thad'''

I've heard that theory too, actually, that it was him that he just kind of moved in because, you know, “oh, no, it's, you.”

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;46;01

'''Doll'''

“Oh no, it's you” like you're coming to tell me. I thought I wasn't until I think Jordan said somebody had figured it out. He was going to give more clues. And then he found a blog where somebody figured it out. And so like everybody in the fandom, was scouring everybody's blog trying to find it because he said it included maps and diagrams.

There was a blog where somebody had taken and they’d drawn the locations of all the characters and Caemlyn and they had a diagram of how Graendal could have been walking down the hallway here, ducked into a closet after everybody else passed and came back out and then got back into the room. So when Asmodean came in, she was there waiting for him and I was like, “Oh, that's it, isn't it?”

Now I don't remember who it was or what site it was on.

00;04;46;14 - 00;04;48;06

'''Thad'''

Boy, I wish we could find that blog.

00;04;48;13 - 00;05;25;07

'''Dianna'''

If we can find that, we'll include it in the show notes, because I definitely want to look at that and doing some research. Saw someone be like “It's obviously Graendal” and then it was like, okay, cool, this person’s figured it out and then didn't read further. They. But yeah, we kind of buried the lead. It is mama Grandal who has murdered, who murders Asmodean and I have to say I love that for her. So Graendal is my favorite Forsaken far and away. And so the fact that she murderers Asmodean is just another check in her amazing box.

00;05;25;17 - 00;05;33;25

'''Doll'''

Going back to the whole idea of Demandred doing it. There were for the longest time when everybody thought Taim was Demandred.

00;05;33;25 - 00;05;51;27

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I guess it kind of kind of slid that way a little bit with me for a while because that would have been easy for him to get close to Asmodean and just do it so it kind of, it just kind of made sense in terms of logistics. Yeah. So it was the easiest thing to kind of go, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

00;05;52;00 - 00;06;13;18

'''Dianna'''

For a long time I assumed that Taim was Demandred and I actually was kind of annoyed when I learned that Robert Jordan was originally planning that. And then I and correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand the story, he was planning on it. Too many fans guessed it, he got miffed and he changed it?

00;06;14;01 - 00;06;30;13

'''Doll'''

I believe that is the common belief. I don't know if he ever confirmed that that was. He did say one time that was something that he thought was clever, that fans figured out. I don't know if he confirmed that it was Taim being Demandred or not, but everybody just assumes that's what he was talking about.

00;06;30;13 - 00;06;38;03

'''Thad'''

It's the easiest connection because just because of how he acted, everything that happened in the Black Tower later on.

00;06;38;03 - 00;06;39;23

'''Dianna'''

The way that Lews Therin reacts to him.

00;06;40;08 - 00;07;17;22

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And I mean, if you look at what happened with Demandred later on in the series where he just kind of pops up from Shara with all these Sharan warriors, there is absolutely zero lead up to this at all. They make a handful of mentions, the latter half of the series of well, not not even that like I think Deamndred like mentions Shara twice or something like that and reading back on it now it's like, okay, I guess that makes sense now, but reading it the first time you come into it and he just, he shows up with an army from the other side of the world and everybody's just like, okay.So it kind of feeds into that.

00;07;18;17 - 00;07;28;24

'''Doll'''

It really does. And without any context, it feels like he said, “I have to put him somewhere else now, where can that be? Oh, I know the other side. The world that we know nothing about.”

00;07;29;13 - 00;08;19;24

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, I only like that because, like, we also have Semirhage in Seanchan, just, like, messing up and murdering everybody in classic Semirhage fashion. But there was. And really, it's like, we had hints that that was going on in Seanchan actually is important in the rest of the series, otherwise I cannot stand the way that Demandred just shows up out of the blue screams for Lews Therin for 20 minutes, murder his, uh Gawyn, and also I don't like it because he is indirectly responsible for the death of Egwene, which makes me sad. And so I don't like that he shows up. Shouts, is irrelevant. Kills Gawyn, almost kills galad and then is killed by Lan. And that's like this was such a nothing burger like this is so weird.

00;08;20;27 - 00;08;24;17

'''Thad'''

But because of that, Lan gets the best line in the series by far.

00;08;24;18 - 00;08;25;25

'''Doll'''

You're going to have to refresh me.

00;08;26;00 - 00;08;29;13

'''Thad'''

Oh, he says.” I didn't come here to win. I came to kill you.”

00;08;29;13 - 00;09;05;21

'''Dianna'''

That is a very cool line. I have a quibble that that's the best line in the series, but we'll talk about that later in this episode. But I agree that that is a very cool line and it's a very cool Lan moment for sure. I wish we had just had Mazrim Taim be Demandred. Also, Mazrim Taim is the only person we see raised to be a Forsaken, which is kind of cool but also very random. And it's like, okay, so you wanted this guy to be a Forsaken so then you had to shoehorn a way for him to be one. It's just it's one of the few plot points in the series that I think is really poorly done.

00;09;05;25 - 00;09;21;29

'''Thad'''

I guess it kind of makes sense because he survived for like what, 15 years using the power without going mad. So I always assumed that he had protection from the taint, which is why he was able to survive so long because he showed like no signs of madness whatsoever.

00;09;22;12 - 00;09;28;09

'''Doll'''

And you also had with the death of Asmodean by balefire, the loss of a Forsaken.

00;09;28;17 - 00;09;36;05

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, but at that point they lost at least a couple like Moiraine balefires Be’lal in the third book just out of the blue.

00;09;36;08 - 00;09;44;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he's lost a few, so he's like, “I'm starting to get a little short on Forsaken here. I need to start building back up.”

00;09;45;04 - 00;09;51;08

'''Dianna'''

They can't all be Osan’gar and Aran’gar. I call them the Chaos Twins, even though they're not twins. But that's what they are in my head.

00;09;52;22 - 00;09;53;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah.

00;09;53;14 - 00;10;02;22

'''Doll'''

In a lot of ways they are twins. Brought back the same way at the same time.

Should we talk about newer conspiracy theories at the end of the series?

00;10;02;22 - 00;10;07;15

'''Dianna'''

Yes. Let's talk about the three unanswered questions. Let's start with Nakomi.

00;10;07;25 - 00;10;24;29

'''Doll'''

Nakomi shows up when Aviendha is outside of Rhuidean and we don't really get much information on her. She just sort of shows up at the fireside, boils some tea, cooks a meal out of nowhere, was it out of a magic box like a microwave and tells Aviendha she's got to take care of the Aiel .

00;10;24;29 - 00;10;31;12

'''Doll'''

And then we suspect she shows up again when Rand is leaving Shayol Ghul. Do we have a confirmation that that's actually her?

00;10;31;13 - 00;10;32;11

'''Thad'''

I don't think so.

00;10;32;11 - 00;10;34;25

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, I definitely assumed that that was Nakomi.

00;10;34;28 - 00;10;35;10

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;10;36;02 - 00;11;26;22

'''Doll'''

So we're pretty sure we've seen Nakomi twice. Everybody thinks she looks familiar, but nobody quite place who she is. She's done magical things, but nobody can sense her using the power and nobody knows where she came from. There have been a lot of theories about who she is over the years. I think Brandon has shot down the theory that it's Aviendha from the future in the world of dreams, like showing up in their dreams as they drifted off to sleep or something like that.

And I've heard a couple of other theories, but I sort of started speculating on my own theory after we talked to Michael Livingston. And I think it's it's very well, because of what we talked about in the way Robert Jordan did things.

She's obviously sort of outside the pattern and maybe not the avatar of the True Power, but not the true power, though.

00;11;26;23 - 00;11;27;09

'''Dianna'''

The One Power.

00;11;27;09 - 00;12;30;03

'''Doll'''

The One Power. Yes, yes. But not the Dark One. The One Power, the light, avatar of the light. But I think this is Robert Jordan's self insert. He has a tendency to gender swap everything. It's a wise woman that kind of knows everything and seems a little light hearted and clever. It very much sounds like a female version of Robert Jordan.A little bit older. Can't quite put a finger on why you know who she is and why she knows everything and why she can do things she shouldn't be able to do.

Well, if she's creating the series, then she's the one that's going to know what's going to happen in the future. And Robert Jordan's just like, “Hey, in the future, when I'm gone and you're telling these stories, these stories need to continue to treat these characters correctly because in the past we have done them wrong.”

Since the Aiel are very much Native Americans. Not totally. They're sort of Irish, sort of native Americans, but a more marginalized community. We need to do them correct in the future. And I don't know if that's on purpose, but it fits nicely in my head. I think Nakomi is Robert Jordan.

00;12;30;03 - 00;12;34;03

'''Thad'''

This just sprung to the top of my head. But if it's not Robert Jordan, what if it's Harriet?

00;12;34;06 - 00;12;36;12

'''Doll'''

Oh, God. I think you've just changed your mind.

00;12;36;12 - 00;12;41;02

'''Dianna'''

Either one of those theories is going to make me cry. I'll literally never be able to read a Nakomi scene again.

00;12;42;05 - 00;12;53;00

'''Doll'''

He's always said that every woman in the book is a little bit of Harriet. Or maybe this just is Harriet. Oh, God, I think you've just changed my mind entirely.

00;12;53;00 - 00;12;57;13

'''Dianna'''

Oh, my God. I'm, like, tearing up, you guys, literally look, right now.

00;12;57;27 - 00;13;05;19

'''Thad'''

Outside of these two wild theories, I have heard a couple of other things. One of them was like, what if it's Tel’aran’rhiod version of Verin?

00;13;06;00 - 00;13;08;19

'''Dianna'''

Would that mean that Verin is a hero for the horn?

00;13;08;20 - 00;13;09;24

'''Thad'''

Not necessarily.

00;13;09;27 - 00;13;11;19

'''Doll'''

Because she would have been dead.

00;13;11;26 - 00;13;17;20

'''Thad'''

Because this would be like the other way. Like, you know, Birgitte, it comes out later. She comes back as a Hero.

00;13;18;00 - 00;13;29;20

'''Doll'''

Birgitte was in the Tel’aran’rhiod because she's a Hero of the Horn. And that's where heroes go when they're waiting to be reborn. And the only way that Verin would be there after she died is if she was attached to the horn.

00;13;30;06 - 00;14;01;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And the only reason that I kind of entertain this a little bit is because the stuff that Nakomi talks about, Verin had a kind of somewhat similar conversation like way, way, way, way, way earlier in the series. So it kind of gives a little bit of credit to that theory. But at the same time, I think there was something I wish I would have wrote down a couple of notes on this, but I think Verin is still alive when Nakomi appears.

00;14;01;05 - 00;14;02;07

'''Doll'''

Not at Shayol Ghul.

00;14;02;10 - 00;14;03;07

'''Thad'''

Not in Shayol Ghul?

00;14;03;12 - 00;14;05;17

'''Doll'''

That would have been well after she died.

00;14;05;21 - 00;14;08;25

'''Dianna'''

Right, that's after the last battle. That's like at the very, very end.

00;14;08;25 - 00;14;27;03

'''Thad'''

So there's also the theory that I believe how the scene goes is Aviendha is, you know, at the fire or whatever. And she just kind of I think she closed her eyes for a second. So a lot of people think that she's actually just in the world of dreams and this is somebody from the world of dreams talking to her. That's not somebody that exists in Rand Land or whatever.

00;14;27;12 - 00;14;38;03

'''Doll'''

I think most people believe that this all happened outside of reality, if not in tel'aran'rhiod, in some other form of broken reality, broken pattern, that she slips into.

00;14;38;16 - 00;14;55;01

'''Thad'''

The only other one that I'm aware of, but only because Brandon Sanderson answered a question about this one. Someone asked if Nakomi me was Jenn Aiel and Brandon's response to that was,” You're sniffing under the right tree.” So I don't know what that means, to be honest.

00;14;55;07 - 00;15;01;01

'''Doll'''

I also think I read somewhere, he said that Nakomi is not a character we know.

00;15;01;11 - 00;15;15;10

'''Thad'''

Okay, so if that's the case, then that throws the whole Verin thing just right out the window. I like my theory, my new theory. I came up all by myself. It's Harriet. I'm going to laugh if it comes out. And it is, in fact, Harriet.

00;15;15;29 - 00;15;19;27

'''Dianna'''

I love that . Michael Livingston I'll be like, “They scooped me.”

00;15;19;27 - 00;15;23;25

'''Thad'''

That, that, or something like Maria or Alan or something like that. You know.

00;15;24;04 - 00;15;43;03

'''Dianna'''

I love that. I love those theories. I've always assumed that she was an avatar of the Creator, but I think Brandon Sanderson shot that down at one point, and then as soon as that got shot down, I was like, okay, I'll learn eventually.

So what about the body swap? How does Rand swap bodies with Moridin?

00;15;43;03 - 00;16;15;20

'''Thad'''

I've talked to a lot of people about this one over the years. And, you know, everybody seems confused by it, like they don't understand the logistics of how it worked. And I've I've read into it a lot in the past and, you know, over the last couple of days just to prep for this. And I feel like I've kind of reached a clarity with it that to me it just makes absolute crystal clear sense.But I could just be crazy.

But we know that when Rand is fighting Samael in Shadar Logoth Moridin and Rand, they both cast a beam of balefire. And those beams cross.

00;16;16;01 - 00;16;17;12

'''Doll'''

They cross the streams?

00;16;17;12 - 00;19;55;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah, they cross the streams. You never cross the streams. And at that point, their souls became intertwined because of how balefire works, basically. So that that is basically the answer to how the body swap happened, because after that, they could sense each other, you know, like a Warder to an Aes Sedai could. Moridin hated it so much. And you'll see a few more scenes throughout the series where Rand gets pulled under the dream spike where Moridin is. And they kind of have this back and forth conversation of, “how did you get here? Heck, if I know, I just kind of fell asleep and here I am, you know, in front of you.” So they have a nice, long conversation about it and they're just like, you know, something must have happened with the balefire, right?

So we move forward to the end of the series, and we're at the big climactic battle at Shayol Ghul. We all know that Moridin really just wants to die and the Dark One won't let him die. Ishamael gets put into the new body. He's Moridin now. He is so far gone. And they describe that he's so far gone because he's, you know, his his eyes are basically black at this point because of all the saa. Like he is just channeled so much so long that he is basically insane and he can't do anything to get away with it because the Dark One’s like, “Nah, I need you, you're my number one, you're my Nae’blis” without actually calling him that.

So when all that happens and he uses Moridin to kind of do his thing, to close the bore and everything, and Rand is pulling him out of the cave because… how did how do they do it? I'm trying to remember I haven't read the ending in a long time because I'm rereading the books right now. So I was I was trying not to read the whole battle at Shayol Ghul again. So I'm kind of going off a little bit of fuzzy memory here. So I think when Moridin tried to use Callandor to stop everyone Nynaeve exploited the flaw in Callandor to basically trap him in a link because that was the flaw of Callandor basically is that it's a really powerful sa’angreal, but you can basically force somebody into a link with it and that's what they did. And they kind of trapped him and they used his ability to channel the True Power without the ill effects, you know, the ill side effects of doing so. Right. And in doing so, that kind of merged them together a little bit more.

So we're here at the end. Rand is pulling Moridin's dying body out. He still has access to the true power. thanks to the link. We have heard in previous conversations with the Dark One or Shadar Haran. As long as a body has a… well, as long as a soul hasn't been balefired using the True Power, he can just take that soul and drop it to another empty vessel. Moridin wants nothing more than to die. His body is dying. Rand's body is basically a broken mess at this point, too. And as they're pulling himself out of Shayol Ghul Rand's like, “Oh yeah, I can totally do this thing.” And so what he does is use the True Power, and he swaps bodies because Moridin doesn't want to fight, he just wants to die, right? So he doesn't even attempt an effort at trying to fight Rand, pulling his soul out of his body and placing his own soul into that vessel instead.

So that's where the body swap happens. And basically that's how it it only happens because Moridin doesn't want to live anymore. And he's like, “I can finally just die.”

I've heard a lot of theories about it over the years that could have gone a dozen different ways of, it wasn't what Rand wanted. It just kind of happened as kind of a side effect to sealing the bore. It just kind of everything got jumbled up because of how they were linked together, and it just kind of threw them into each other's bodies and stuff like that. Not really a conspiracy theory. It's just, I think getting all of the pieces in order, that really makes it hard to understand.

00;19;55;08 - 00;20;15;18

'''Dianna'''

I definitely think Rand consented to it. I have always thought that it had something to do with how he lid the pipe, which we will talk about in a second. But I've completely forgotten that it's the true power that lets the dark one take somebody's soul and pop it into another body. So I really like that explanation a lot.I think that that makes a lot of sense.

00;20;15;18 - 00;20;39;14

'''Thad'''

And it only works because their souls were linked thanks to that balefire crossfire. Like, otherwise it wouldn't have worked. That is the only reason that it worked, because you got a single thread coming out that's kind of connecting them together. So he just goes, “I'm just going to slide along this line and move over here.” Wouldn't have worked if Moridin had put up a fight. If he had put up a fight, it probably wouldn't have worked and they would have both just died.

00;20;39;21 - 00;20;40;05

'''Dianna'''

I agree.

00;20;40;12 - 00;20;57;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because Rand really wanted to live and Moridin really wanted to die and Rand’s body was dying and Moridin's body was fine. So. And. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. Callandor also amplifies the True Power. So that really, really helped out his case. It's very, very powerful. Sa’angreal.

00;20;57;16 - 00;21;03;16

'''Dianna'''

What a wild sa’angreal that also amplifies the True Power, a power that I'm not even sure that they knew existed.

00;21;03;24 - 00;21;08;29

'''Doll'''

Well, I think that was what Lanfear was looking for when she bore the hole.

00;21;09;10 - 00;21;09;26

'''Dianna'''

That's true.

00;21;10;00 - 00;21;16;04

'''Thad'''

The thing is, is I don't think anybody knew that it amplified the true power until Moridinn picked it up. And he goes. “Ohhhhhh”

00;21;16;12 - 00;21;36;23

'''Doll'''

Because I think I went through some stuff on Callandor recently and I saw where Brandon was hinting at that before the last book came out, but he wouldn't say he just RAFO’ed it because he was like, “There's something more in Callandor that that I can't talk about it. You'll find out in the last book.”

00;21;37;02 - 00;21;50;28

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because that is definitely one of those things that has never before that scene mentioned at all. I guess the thing is, which is the flaw that you can force someone into a link or that the flaw is that it amplifies the true power because I would consider that a flaw.

00;21;51;02 - 00;21;59;06

'''Doll'''

I think that was the flaw. And I think the flaw may have been the Dark One reaching out in the manufacturing process through the hole in prison during the War of Power, right?

00;21;59;22 - 00;22;04;16

'''Thad'''

Yes. Yeah. It was made while male channelers were going mad so that would track.

00;22;04;16 - 00;22;21;11

'''Doll'''

And Robert Jordan said that Callandor was just one of hundreds, if not thousands of very similar sa’angreal that were created during the War of Power. And the only thing that was special about it was a certain flaw, he didn't say what the flaw was at that point.

00;22;23;00 - 00;22;28;10

'''Thad'''

So there you have it. The flaw is, according to us, no need to source, that it can amplify the troop.

00;22;28;12 - 00;22;31;17

'''Dianna'''

We only sort of check our sources on this podcast. I’m kidding.

00;22;31;27 - 00;22;47;08

'''Thad'''

So Rand used Callandor to channel so much of the True power through Moridin because he had the shield on it that even the dark one was just like I can't turn it off. And that's how the stuff was done.

00;22;47;12 - 00;22;53;28

'''Dianna'''

Is it a bug or a feature? It seems kind of like a feature if you use it to win the last battle.

00;22;53;28 - 00;22;56;16

'''Doll'''

You can turn any bug into a feature if you use it correctly.

00;22;56;27 - 00;22;58;19

'''Dianna'''

If you're Rand and you try hard enough.

00;22;58;27 - 00;23;21;00

'''Thad'''

I you know, I want to say it's conspiracy theory. For a long time I was kind of like in that kind of conspiracy camp of, you know, oh, it could have been this, it could have been that. But but when I really started to look into it, it was, oh, it was not really a conspiracy after all.

It's just a lot of people not connecting all of the dots, which admittedly are not, you know, one, two, three, four, five.

00;23;21;09 - 00;23;32;06

'''Doll'''

At this master level game of connect the dots. They're just going to say, like, it's not that just, you know, outlining a little sheep or something.

00;23;32;22 - 00;23;47;12

'''Thad'''

No. Because it's over the course of like five or six books and, you know, on your first time through, you know, you miss so much stuff. Like I, I want to meet the person who picks up on everything on their first read through because they if say they do I say they're reading the wiki now.

00;23;47;19 - 00;24;18;23

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. That's also consistent with how Robert Jordan built his mysteries where like they go over several books but there's little hints along the way and little bread crumbs that like once here it's very similar to the Graendal killed Asmodean conspiracy theory or mystery. So I like that a lot.

Do we know what Brandon has, uhm Brandon Sanderson, probably shouldn’t call him Brandon. I obviously do not know this man as a friend. Do we know what Brandon Sanderson has said on on how they did it?

00;24;19;05 - 00;24;31;22

'''Thad'''

He actually confirmed to somebody on Reddit that Moridin's soul and body got connected when their balefire crossed at Shadar Logoth. So when it came to the body swap, the soul that wanted to live went to the good body. The soul that wanted to die, went to the bad body. So, yes.

00;24;31;22 - 00;24;34;19

'''Doll'''

Okay. I didn’t know he had answered that one.

00;24;35;03 - 00;24;37;12

'''Dianna'''

I mean, that's not like that's not like an answer of how.

00;24;37;13 - 00;25;29;02

'''Thad'''

Well, I mean, it just kind of makes sense with Rand is still connected to the true power. Even after sealing the bore he has access to it just just because of the nature of Callandor and, you know, Shayol Ghul basically coming down around their heads. And he's like, “I've got this power and, you know, I'm dying, my body is dying.” And he sees Moridin basically passed out on the floor and he's just like, “I can feel that his body is fine.” And, you know, this is well, well, after the merging with Lews Therin that I think it's just one of those things of he you know whenever he remembers a weave that he doesn't know how to do it and he just immediately knows how to do it, I think it was just one of those situations of, “Oh, I can just take the one power and just move my soul.”

00;25;29;02 - 00;25;42;06

'''Dianna'''

I can't remember. Does that have anything to do with a very grumpy female channeler who's supposed to help him die? I can't remember her name. I think she's a former Seanchan. I think she's a former damane I think.

00;25;42;06 - 00;25;44;21

'''Thad'''

Oh, you're not talking about Alana?

00;25;44;26 - 00;25;54;07

'''Dianna'''

No, not Alana. I would never bring up Alana. I hate her. No, there's the former damane who is incredibly strong and she is prophesied to help Rand die.

00;25;54;14 - 00;26;26;22

'''Thad'''

I mean, I always saw that as, because, you know, after after the body swap happens, she's there with basically a survival pack of here you go now, go on your way. Like she helped him just get out of Dodge after all of that happened. So I feel like it's one of those, you know, she did help him die not by literally spilling his blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul.That's literally one of the lines of the prophecy. But she basically set him up to get him out of the situation. So she did help him die.

00;26;26;23 - 00;26;28;25

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, she certainly helped his body die.

00;26;29;03 - 00;26;30;21

'''Thad'''

I can't remember her name. I'm trying to remember.

00;26;30;21 - 00;26;33;19

'''Dianna'''

As we know names, me and names.

00;26;33;23 - 00;26;39;20

'''Thad'''

All I remember is that she is like a 400 year old damane or something like that. Like she is old.

00;26;39;22 - 00;26;48;02

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, she's super old. She's super strong and she is insanely grumpy. I remember she's so mean to everyone except Rand, but I'm like, okay.

00;26;48;18 - 00;27;05;07

'''Thad'''

Alivia. But it's not spelled as you think. It's Alivia. Yes, she helps him disappear. She helps him die. That's how I always inferred that. But with that body swap that happens, they're burning dead Moridin on the funeral pyre or whatever. In Rand's body.

We see something happen, don't we?

00;27;05;13 - 00;29;03;26

'''Dianna'''

Yep. He likes the pipe and he doesn't channel to do so. Sanderson has confirmed that he does not use the one power or the true power. The reason I was asking if Sanderson had said anything about the body swap is because when I was looking into this, I saw that, Sanderson said. He doesn't. He also doesn't know how Rand does thit, because this scene was written by Robert Jordan himself when he knew he wouldn't finish the series. He wrote it, gave it to Harriet and was like, “This is the final scene of the book, of the series.”

And so for this one, I am not sure if we're ever going to get an answer. Maybe Harriet knows genuinely unsure, but this one is one of my favorites to theorize on because this, it kind of feels a little bit cool, but obvious to me how he does it.

I think that in his fight with the dark line, in accessing the true power, using the one power that fight happens outside of the pattern and Rand had been already, I call him enlightened Rand, post-enlightenment essentially on Dragonmount, he'd already been very connected with the world. You can see that in his mood as his moods are darkening the world is kind of going to hell in a handbasket. And then once he becomes enlightened, the weather around him is a, like a clear, perfect circle. So he'd already been very tied to the world and tied to the pattern. And then I think in fighting the Dark One, I feel like he stepped outside of the pattern and had sort of a Neo in the Matrix moment. Now when Neo is in the Matrix, he can see all the ones and zeros. I feel like Rand now, post the final battle, post last battle, can see the weaves of the pattern and can modify them to suit his whims, which is wildly powerful. But he's Rand. He's just a sweet sheepherder who just wants to go and read books.

00;29;03;26 - 00;29;04;22

'''Doll'''

And smoke his pipe.

00;29;05;16 - 00;29;14;27

'''Dianna'''

And, be a sheepherder and smoke his pipe. And so rather than annihilating the world, he will just, you know, pick at the pattern just to light a pipe.

00;29;15;13 - 00;29;18;00

'''Thad'''

So what you're saying is he just turns air into fire.

00;29;18;00 - 00;29;30;08

'''Dianna'''

Basically, but not through any source of the power. Yeah, he just, he'll take a little strand of the pattern and he'll be like, you know, “this surely won't have a butterfly effect. It will just change that thread” and has himself a lit pipe.

00;29;30;09 - 00;29;36;05

'''Thad'''

Well, if he's enlightened Rand and he sees reality in a whole new way, I think he would be able to anticipate a butterfly effect.

00;29;36;05 - 00;29;36;19

'''Dianna'''

Right? Right.

00;29;36;24 - 00;29;37;11

'''Doll'''

You would think.

00;29;38;00 - 00;29;38;18

'''Dianna'''

You would think.

00;29;38;29 - 00;29;49;06

'''Thad'''

I like that idea a lot. I guess I thought of that in a, like a super rudimentary level what’s it say in the book - He just kind of wills it into existence. And I go,” Oh yeah, he can just change it.”

00;29;49;06 - 00;30;13;17

'''Dianna'''

Yep. He wills it into existence because he tweaks the pattern because he can modify the pattern now. I feel like at some point the Creator, even though he's very hands off, he's like one of those hands off deities ever seen in any fantasy book. I do feel like at some point probably would have stepped in. But he trusts Rand and the Dragon so much that he's like, “No, you just go, you live your life, you tweak the pattern, you pass on.”

00;30;13;25 - 00;30;15;21

'''Thad'''

Who's to say the Creator even noticed?

00;30;15;26 - 00;30;19;12

'''Dianna'''

True. Honestly, Rand's just been like, “I'm just gonna light a fire here and there.”

00;30;19;20 - 00;30;24;27

'''Thad'''

I mean, what I'm saying is how do we how do we know that the creator's even paying attention to the world? Right.

00;30;25;07 - 00;30;26;06

'''Dianna'''

We have no idea.

00;30;26;06 - 00;30;35;07

'''Doll'''

I mean, if he doesn't say anything about all the threads that were cut by all the balefire that was being thrown around, is he really going to say something about a couple of strands of fire?

00;30;36;07 - 00;31;04;27

'''Dianna'''

Or does he say something by way of Egwene and the way that she fixes all of that, he's like, and “I'm just going to drop this person here when they are necessary.” Give them this ability when they are necessary. I feel like the creator is paying attention, but is tweaking the pattern in such small ways as like this person relearned this weave at this time, this person gets access to that that he's like a very, very soft touch.

00;31;04;27 - 00;31;07;24

'''Doll'''

Maybe the flaw in Callandor wasn't the Dark One.

00;31;08;14 - 00;31;10;03

'''Dianna'''

Could have been the creator all along.

00;31;10;12 - 00;31;20;26

'''Thad'''

Does this kind of reach a level of the Creator and the Dark One are opposing equal forces and Rand is that kind of little teeter that just offsets that enough for everything to happen?

00;31;21;01 - 00;31;28;28

'''Dianna'''

It's so funny because I've never considered the Dark One and the Creator to be polar opposites because they never fight.

00;31;29;04 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

They never fight because they can't defeat each other, right? They're like ultimate equals.

00;31;34;10 - 00;31;35;29

'''Doll'''

Creation versus destruction.

00;31;36;19 - 00;31;40;02

'''Thad'''

Right. There's a whole trilogy of books on that called Mistborn , you should go read it.

00;31;40;05 - 00;31;44;17

'''Dianna'''

It's been a minute since I've read Mistborn, and really the only thing I remember is the magic system.

00;31;44;17 - 00;32;06;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I, I think it's kind of more or less that, you know, generally when there are cosmic like level entities like that that always seems to be the case of they exist in the they're kind of they can't do anything to each other, so they have to use stuff below them to offset it enough just to give them that kind of iota of power over the other one, just to give like a domino effect.

00;32;06;20 - 00;32;09;10

'''Thad'''

And I think that's what Rand was.

00;32;09;17 - 00;32;14;20

'''Dianna'''

Does the Dark One ever actually talked to Rand? Obviously, it's Ishamael in the first three books.

00;32;15;00 - 00;32;16;10

'''Thad'''

Does The Dark One talk to Rand?

00;32;17;04 - 00;32;19;17

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, like it's ishamael in the first three books.

00;32;19;17 - 00;32;21;08

'''Thad'''

At the end of the book, he's talking to them.

00;32;21;08 - 00;32;43;15

'''Dianna'''

At the end of the book, it's just like so it's such a strange dichotomy to me that this, like, massive evil entity would be like, “Hi little person, I'm going to speak to you,” but the Creator never does the same to like Moridin. Not that we get a lot of Moridin point of view. They interact with the world in such a different way that it's tough for me to wrap my brain around that being opposite the people.

00;32;43;15 - 00;32;59;28

'''Doll'''

In the same way that the Creator is creation and the Dark One is destruction, the Creator is also freewill and darkness is domination. So it's not really the Creator's path to force people to choose the right thing. It just gives them what they need to do it.

00;33;00;24 - 00;33;02;10

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it's kind of a very hands off thing.

00;33;02;10 - 00;33;19;19

'''Doll'''

That really goes back to how Jordan incorporates world religions, because there really is a theme in especially Eastern religions of a hands off creator who gives you the pieces that you need to do the right thing. And the destructor who tries to eff you up.

00;33;19;20 - 00;33;25;12

'''Dianna'''

That makes sense, since obviously the whole religion of Wheel of Time is based on a very eastern religious mindset.

00;33;25;20 - 00;33;29;13

'''Thad'''

So to answer your question, Rand can just change physics on the fly, right?

00;33;29;22 - 00;33;34;23

'''Dianna'''

But he does it in very small doses because he has a sweet boy, sweet little sheepherder.

00;33;34;29 - 00;33;39;14

'''Thad'''

He's he's done his job. He just wants to rest. And you know what? He has earned it.

00;33;39;22 - 00;33;43;19

'''Dianna'''

He’s so earned that let that man sleep without pain in his side.

00;33;43;26 - 00;33;45;19

'''Thad'''

Well he doesn't have that pain in his side anymore.

00;33;45;19 - 00;33;47;04

'''Doll'''

yeah , because that body’s gone.

00;33;48;11 - 00;33;52;04

'''Thad'''

Didn't mention that he still has the fleck in his eye from Moridin’s body.I forget.

00;33;52;04 - 00;33;59;27

'''Doll'''

They mention that they see a small fleck, but I don't know if it was the same as the saa.

00;33;59;27 - 00;34;01;10

'''Thad'''

See, that's that's another question.

00;34;01;10 - 00;34;19;07

'''Doll'''

I just don’t remember, it could be, been too long since I read that line. It's definitely there ,something is definitely there, even if it's just a little flicker that could also go back to the balance between creation and destruction. And there's a little bit of both in each side.

00;34;19;07 - 00;34;40;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because, you know, if you look at any time that they have the disc, it's always pure black and pure white was never the little fleck of white in the black and vice versa. They were basically equals and they couldn't really, you know, the light and dark couldn’t do anything to each other. So, you know, Moridinn was basically that speck of black in the white. And Rand was that speck of white in black, kind of thing.

00;34;40;26 - 00;34;43;26

'''Doll'''

And now Rand has that little speck of Moridin in him.

00;34;44;26 - 00;35;01;25

'''Dianna'''

I love that we get hints of the body swap before it happens, because when Aviendha sees her children, she has children who have black hair. And I was like, “Why would Aviendha have children with black hair?” And then like, I was like, “Oh, because she has kids with Moridin-Rand. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

00;35;02;29 - 00;35;03;23

'''Doll'''

Because she's not pregnant yet.

00;35;04;02 - 00;35;09;21

'''Dianna'''

She's not pregnant. She's and I don't think she and Rand other than sex-gloo, sex igloo.

00;35;10;12 - 00;35;12;19

'''Doll'''

Or the igloo in the middle of nowhere?

00;35;13;02 - 00;35;13;21

'''Thad'''

The middle of nowhere Seanchan.

00;35;13;21 - 00;35;21;05

'''Dianna'''

I’m pretty sure that they don't have sex before the last battle, so I've always assumed that Moridin-Rand gets her pregnant.

00;35;22;11 - 00;35;28;14

'''Thad'''

It's hard to remember when stuff like that happens, because Jordan was always very like offscreen with it.

00;35;28;14 - 00;35;32;11

'''Doll'''

It’s very PG 13, right? You see everything right up until the lights go off.

00;35;33;09 - 00;35;40;23

'''Thad'''

You know, funny. Funny that you do mention that, though, because I, I do remember reading that and going, huh. But they're both redheads.

00;35;40;23 - 00;35;58;13

'''Dianna'''

And they're both like, like Rand is half Aiel and his non-Aiel side as a redhead and Aviendha’s pure Aiel so yeah they should have red hair babies but I think she has I think it's two and two, that struck me as odd until we got the body swap scene and then I was like, my brain exploded.

00;35;58;13 - 00;36;02;04

'''Thad'''

Hey, you learn something new every day and look at that, learning something new.

00;36;02;27 - 00;36;04;12

'''Dianna'''

That’s what this podcast is for, we learn from each other.

00;36;05;00 - 00;36;10;06

'''Doll'''

I know I learn something new every time we talk.

00;36;10;06 - 00;36;12;09

'''Thad'''

And I've read these books, I don't know how many times.

00;36;12;12 - 00;36;16;14

'''Doll'''

I’ve only read the last one once because it was such a emotional rollercoaster.

00;36;17;04 - 00;36;23;00

'''Thad'''

It tears you apart, it tears you apart. I think the next day my face was just like puffy red.

00;36;23;00 - 00;36;33;20

'''Dianna'''

I’ve read the last book twice and every time, it's brutal. The last time I read the book, the last book was summer of 2020. So it was a dark time. Somehow it was very comforting.

00;36;35;19 - 00;36;38;17

'''Thad'''

Do we have any other small conspiracy theories?

00;36;39;00 - 00;36;49;18

'''Doll'''

One does wonder how a little shaggy horse from Two Rivers ends up traveling the entire world, only to die in the last battle.

00;36;50;14 - 00;36;51;09

'''Thad'''

And get revived in the Companion.

00;36;51;15 - 00;36;59;28

'''Dianna'''

I love that the Companion revives her, justice for Bella! I'm pretty sure I read that Harriet was the one who was like, “Bella must die.”

00;37;01;20 - 00;37;23;20

'''Doll'''

The way she tells it. Brandon wrote a scene in which it would have been impossible for Bella to survive. And she said,” You cannot do this. You know, it's okay. She can be there. But if you put her in this situation, she will die.” And Brandon’s like, “I can't do that.” So Harriet took her editorial copy and wrote in “comma and then died.” So Harriet did kill her.

00;37;25;05 - 00;37;27;13

'''Dianna'''

As an editor, I appreciate that.

00;37;28;18 - 00;37;39;14

'''Thad'''

I think the story also follows that after she did that, she felt bad enough about it that in the companion they reversed the decision, basically, I want to say I heard that at JordanCon one year.

00;37;39;21 - 00;37;49;20

'''Doll'''

I feel like that was said during, right after the book released, on the panel. She's like, “Then I felt bad because I love Bella.”

00;37;50;29 - 00;37;54;24

'''Thad'''

I mean, I remember several panels over the years just called “Is bella a dark friend?”

00;37;54;28 - 00;37;55;21

'''Dianna'''

No, Bela is the creator.

00;37;56;29 - 00;38;01;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, that's what the bumper stickers said. Did you ever see the bumper stickers they did?

00;38;01;00 - 00;38;04;25

'''Dianna'''

No. I saw them online. I've never seen them in person.

00;38;04;25 - 00;38;11;27

'''Doll'''

I have some home, but one of them is “Bella is a dark friend.” And there's another one that says,” I killed Asmodean.”

00;38;11;27 - 00;38;28;25

'''Dianna'''

Bella is the creator. Bella is the Avatar of the creator.

I don't think I have any more questions. Listeners, if you have more conspiracy theories or questions that you want us to answer, feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com.

00;38;30;01 - 00;38;37;25

'''Thad'''

Or leave us a comment on the thread for questions on the site.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;50;16

'''Doll'''

Our next segment is “Ask TarValon Talks.” If you have a question for us, please reach out to producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can post in our Ask TarValon Talks thread in the General forms on the boards.

00;38;52;07 - 00;39;19;28

'''Dianna'''

I apologize because I am going to butcher this name, but Novice Rhyin al'Hut. Sorry if I did not say that correctly. Says “First time caller, first time listener. I would love to hear your speculation on if/how Rand and the Dark One will be depicted, quote unquote, fighting in the sky or will Rafe potentially skip over such an awesome plot point? I would love to hear your thoughts.”

We have thoughts.

00;39;20;25 - 00;39;21;29

'''Doll'''

So many thoughts.

00;39;22;25 - 00;39;23;19

'''Thad'''

What are your thoughts?

00;39;23;23 - 00;39;30;09

'''Doll'''

I just I know that they have increased the budget for the CGI coming up, which is great to hear.

00;39;30;10 - 00;39;32;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, that. I didn't know that. That's thumbs up.

00;39;32;19 - 00;39;33;08

'''Dianna'''

I heard that as well.

00;39;33;08 - 00;39;54;03

'''Doll'''

I think I heard that. Rafe said it in one of the interviews at one point that they had to increase their budget after the first season came out so they would have better CGI, which makes me think that they are planning to do something a little more spectacular and we're going to see something. It may not be as epic as what's in our heads, but I think we'll see some.

00;39;54;03 - 00;42;19;13

'''Dianna'''

Yeah I think that it will depend very much on where Falme… and that's that's how I say it by the way I kind of skirt the middle ground between “May” and then having none… I think it'll very much depend on if the battle of Falme is episode, like in the midpoint of the series or the end of the series, or the season, not the series. Cause we're not that's not the end of the series. Midpoint of the season or the end of the season, because I don't think it makes sense to do it as a like there's no such thing as a midseason finale when you're streaming a show and it doesn't feel like it would make sense to put it and then have other major plot points come after it because it's so epic.

So if Falme is the final battle of season two, then I think we are going to get some version of it. I don't, I'm very I'll be very curious to see how they do it, because this is a scene that I did have to go back and reread because it had been so long and my understanding of the scene was completely incorrect. I thought that Rand and the Dark One’s battle was projected essentially onto the mists. I did not understand that for some reason the mist from the horn of valere take Rand into the sky. And that's where we Ishamael fights him, which is very strange. Never again. How does that happen? But sure, sure, horn of valere.

And so because of that, I was like, Oh, it's very interesting. And I, we know that we're going to be getting an on the ground look at the battle of Falme, which we don't get in the book. So I'm wondering if we'll see, like if we'll kind of cut back and forth like Rand and Ishamael fighting and then people on the ground seeing it. But again, I only think we're going to get that if it's episodes, I think we're only getting eight episodes again this season, so if it's either episode seven or eight.

I will say that I want it because when I first read the series way, way back when, the first thing of Wheel of Time merch I wanted was a one of those like scraps of cloth that have it painted. It's like, I want that and I want that. I want that show merch. Amazon Hear Me! If you do that in the sky, I want that show merch really, really badly. I think it would be amazing.

00;42;20;16 - 00;42;22;28

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I agree. I mean, Amazon, please listen.

00;42;23;07 - 00;43;14;00

'''Thad'''

I could see them running it mid-to-late season if not a season finale because they kind of have said that they're meshing thread lines together and you know, we kind of still don't know what that means, if anything, to go by on season one. You know, some things will change. Some things will stay the same. If they do the whole side thread with Masema, if they don't cut Masema out, it'll definitely need to happen. And I wouldn't believe that they would put it at the end of the season to lead into the third season because again, we don't know where they're going to go or what's going to happen because you can't go in expecting all the stuff that happened in book one. We've got Perrin hunting down Fain to get the dagger and the horn basically. So that thread line is open. I believe that them hunting for the horn happens leading up to, you know, the battle of Falme.

00;43;14;02 - 00;43;17;04

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. Correct. Because it's the hunt for the horn. Yeah. And the dagger.

00;43;18;19 - 00;43;51;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah. Cause the dagger’s with the, but we don't have, we don't have the urgency of we need the dagger because some something, you know, Mat needs it or whatever, because you know, we don't know what's going on with him. I'm sure we'll find out at the beginning of the season. So it's kind of kind of hard to guess. I thought, I honestly thought that it was probably going to happen midseason, like they were going to put it in and then some other stuff was going to happen and then like the end of season one, they're going to be like, All right, this stuff happened. Now here comes like the Seanchan again, right?

00;43;51;03 - 00;43;51;28

'''Dianna'''

I don't think. Because the Seanchan get driven out. So in the battle of Falme.

00;43;58;04 - 00;44;07;17

'''Thad'''

I'm sorry not them coming back but you know a situation like the Seanchan of you know, the next thing shows up at the end of season to you know, hook you into season three.

00;44;07;18 - 00;44;38;05

'''Dianna'''

If we did the battle of Falme in the middle of, you guys have me saying Falme now, of the middle of the season, I think we would end the season either, okay, sorry, I think we would end the season at Rhuidean and I think that we would skip Tear. I'm going back to my we skip to Tear theory because to do Falme and Tear in one season would be bananas plotline wise. it's, it would be too much escalation too quickly.

00;44;39;25 - 00;44;43;24

'''Thad'''

Well I mean what if they ended the season on sacking Tear?

00;44;44;01 - 00;44;53;14

'''Dianna'''

And then you start season three at the beggin…, with sacking Tear? I don't think that makes sense plotline wise. I don't think that makes sense from a show running perspective, like you typically would want...

00;44;54;10 - 00;45;00;05

'''Thad'''

Well, I'm not a showrunner, so full disclosure, I do not watch a lot of TV.

00;45;00;25 - 00;45;22;19

'''Dianna'''

I watch too much TV, way too much TV. But I don't think you would end on a battle and then have, what, a year and a half of no show? And then you pick it up with the battle again. That would just kind of be really unsatisfying for viewers. I think that they're going to end it somewhere else. I think that ending on Falme is, it makes a lot of sense.

00;45;23;19 - 00;45;26;11

'''Thad'''

Ending on the battle itself. Yeah, yeah. OK.

00;45;26;11 - 00;45;43;24

'''Dianna'''

There's also several things that happened in that battle that are super crucial to Rand's plotline. That's where he gets stabbed. That's where he gets the original injury from the dark one or from Ishamael. That's also where he gets branded the second time and they didn't do I don't remember when he gets branded the first time. Iis it in the end of the Eye of the world?

00;45;44;29 - 00;45;45;17

'''Doll'''

Yes. It is.

00;45;45;17 - 00;45;55;27

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. So we've skipped that branding so and I really want them to do the branding that is maybe my favorite part of the prophecy is that he's branded twice with a heron and then twice with the dragon.

00;45;57;00 - 00;46;02;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. So it was like, you know, once for him it was like once for something, two for confirmation.

00;46;02;24 - 00;46;11;22

'''Dianna'''

I thought that that language is beautiful and I love when it happens. I get chills every time I read it. And you know, we've had the I cannot say that cycle’s name correctly is it the Karaethon cycle?

00;46;12;13 - 00;46;13;23

'''Doll'''

Yes it’s Karaethon. Yes something close like that

00;46;14;06 - 00;46;35;07

'''Dianna'''

Yeah so I think we've had it mentioned it's in the show, they've talked about it. So because that's the book that Rand is reading in the library when he meets Loial. And so maybe at some point we'll actually hear the prophecy. And if we hear the prophecy, then I would assume that they would also then need to do the prophecy.

00;46;36;04 - 00;46;39;00

'''Thad'''

What if they open up Season two Episode one with the prophecy.

00;46;39;10 - 00;46;42;27

'''Dianna'''

I would love that, I would love to have Rosamund Pike reading the prophecy.

00;46;44;05 - 00;46;49;00

'''Thad'''

Did we get much of it at any in the first season? I don't remember any at all.

00;46;49;08 - 00;46;53;00

'''Doll'''

The part. The fact that it exists. Well, no, that was in the Origins episodes.

00;46;53;11 - 00;47;06;12

'''Thad'''

Oh, you're right. They were.

So I feel like we've kind of shifted hard away from the actual question, which was, is the battle of the sky going to happen?

So I think they will.

00;47;06;12 - 00;47;07;27

'''Dianna'''

I’m coming down on they will.

00;47;08;29 - 00;47;14;02

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I think they will. Only because that sets everything into motion.

00;47;14;13 - 00;47;19;13

'''Doll'''

It sets everything in motion. It says that Rand is the hero and it's just an epic scene and an epic image.

00;47;19;13 - 00;47;29;19

'''Dianna'''

It's also actually a comprehensible scene for all that I made fun of it earlier, unlike the end of the Eye of the World, which I read that and my head hurts. It doesn’t make sense.

00;47;29;19 - 00;47;30;27

'''Thad'''

That is a bonkers.

00;47;31;10 - 00;47;35;28

'''Dianna'''

Incomprehensible. I think I read that scene at least five times every time I read Eye of the World, I am like, what is happening?

00;47;37;11 - 00;47;39;12

'''Doll'''

In and out of the world of dreams and like oh hey Perrin.

00;47;39;12 - 00;47;53;21

'''Dianna'''

And then he's like teleporting everywhere I’m like what’s going on. He’s like randomly in Tarwin's Gap, it's it's nuts. It's nuts. The, the battle in the sky is a much cleaner scene and a cleaner visual.

00;47;54;19 - 00;47;55;13

'''Thad'''

And way cooler.

00;47;55;13 - 00;47;56;04

'''Doll'''

Way Cooler.

00;47;56;05 - 00;47;56;18

'''Dianna'''

Way Cooler.

00;47;57;15 - 00;48;16;17

'''Thad'''

Also with the battle at Falme we do well. I mean, she's earlier in the book, but we basically get confirmation of Lanfear at the end of the second book because you know, she's Selene up and through and we don't know it's Lanfear and then at the end of the second book, Lanfear is like, hey, Min take care of Rand because I'm coming back for him.

00;48;16;23 - 00;48;17;08

'''Dianna'''

So good.

00;48;18;07 - 00;48;31;06

'''Thad'''

Also, we do kind of need the battle in the sky. You mentioned Elaida. That's how she knows it's Rand because that's what everybody is talking about for basically the next book or two of hey, did you see that crazy thing in the sky, that red haired kid fighting the, you know, the Dark one.

00;48;31;06 - 00;48;34;01

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, it’s basically his coming out as the Dragon.

00;48;35;11 - 00;48;42;03

'''Doll'''

I'm sorry. I just had this image of Rand walking in a pride parade with this Dragon banner as he came out as the Dragon.

00;48;42;03 - 00;48;46;18

'''Thad'''

You just need Mazrim Taim walking by with his with his blue gold dragons.

00;48;46;28 - 00;49;22;23

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, yeah. He's more outed then like willingly comes out poor Rand. And if I go to a pride parade next year and someone is dressed in Rand al’Thor cosplay with a dragon banner behind them, my heart will soar , someone do this!

If you want us to answer any other questions or burning questions that you have about the Wheel of Time, feel free to reach out to us, to at producer.tvt@gmail.com or drop by tarvalon.net and ask us in the Ask TarValon Talks thread and drop your questions. We would love to see them.

00;49;26;15 - 00;49;41;14

'''Doll'''

In this segment our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers if. You have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;49;41;14 - 00;50;21;03

'''Dianna'''

So we're going to talk today about my favorite scene. As I have mentioned previously, my favorite character is Egwene. And as I have also mentioned on a previous episode, my least favorite character is Elaida. So it should come as no surprise that my favorite scene in the series is when Egwene absolutely roasts Elida with truly the most brutal insult in the entire series, which I'm going to read directly because I'm not going to try and paraphrase it, it’s so epic.

“I dare the truth, Elida, you are a coward and a tyrant. I'd name you a dark friend as well, but I suspect that the Dark One would perhaps be embarrassed to associate with you.”

It's so brutal.

00;50;22;02 - 00;50;27;10

'''Thad'''

That's pretty good. You are so awful that even the Dark One wants nothing to do with you.

00;50;27;10 - 00;50;41;00

'''Dianna'''

And the funniest thing about that it’s true because Alviarin cannot stand Elida. She thinks she's an idiot. I mean, Elaida is an idiot, Alviarin’s not wrong, but Alviarin’s like,” Nope, would never be a dark friend actually. To dumb.”

00;50;41;27 - 00;50;45;27

'''Thad'''

Do you think Elida would be as bad as she was if she never interacted with Fain?

00;50;46;05 - 00;50;52;10

'''Dianna'''

Yes, I think Elida is one of those deeply twisted people who thinks that she is justified in all of her horrible actions.

00;50;53;14 - 00;50;59;26

'''Doll'''

Trying to remember what did we see of her before Fain? They met that first scene in Caemlyn?

00;51;00;02 - 00;51;46;11

'''Thad'''

They met in Caemlyn. She had the foretelling about Rand and she basically goes back to the Tower of, you know, kind of we should probably do something about this kid because things aren't looking too hot, which, you know, at the time you think, oh, she's a red sister, she probably saw something about him channeling and wants to do something about it. I mean, we know that eventually he'll start channeling, actually. I mean, it's kind of a given because they tell you basically chapter one like, hey, it's you, you're the one that's going to save us all. And then she sees it.

I think the next we see of her is when the girls are already at the tower and she is, she basically kind of keeps dropping in on them because Elayne’s there and she likes Elayne and stuff like that because she spends a lot of her time trying to get Elayne back.

00;51;46;16 - 00;52;09;18

'''Dianna'''

She’s so vile in a New Spring. I mean, only a monster, cause she beats, she beats Moiraine in order to get Moiraine to channel better. And she's a horrible, horrible person to Moiraine and Siuan. And she's just, she's vile from start to finish. Like, just awful. I kind of hate Elaida.

00;52;10;28 - 00;52;17;04

'''Thad'''

A lot of people don't read New Spring until after the Winter’s Heart so at that point you already greatly dislike her.

00;52;17;09 - 00;52;18;11

'''Dianna'''

Just it does not change how she's written.

00;52;19;14 - 00;52;42;24

'''Thad'''

No, no it absolutely does not. And you are right. She's a vile, horrible person. But we don't really start to see that until they depose Siuan. A lot of the sisters are kind of having an ego because they can channel, you know, we see that in society of the Aes Sedai. If I can channel so I'm better than you is the headspace of a lot of sisters in Elaida’s got it extra bad.

00;52;42;24 - 00;53;39;06

'''Dianna'''

She’s an absolute megalomaniac. The other reason I love this scene is because it's really the culmination of like all of Egwene’s journey. She stays calm under being literally beaten with the One Power, which is she's absolutely learned from all of her training as a novice and then as an accepted and also from all the Wise ones. Gosh knows those Wise ones will beat you until you are black and blue if you do not do what they want you to do.

And then also it’s her, just like asserting, really asserting her power as Amyrlin. I definitely credit this scene with her being able to then unite the Tower and bring it back together and keep the Tower whole, more or less during the Seanchan attack that comes pretty shortly thereafter. And just like to see it's like I'm like, oh, the baby's all grown up. Look at her do her thing. It just makes me love. I love her already, but it made me love her all over again.

00;53;40;21 - 00;53;50;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah. That's like the moment she truly became Amylin. Not that she wasn't before then, but it's when she truly, truly started to act like Amyrlin and believe it.

00;53;51;08 - 00;54;23;28

'''Thad'''

I think the big growing up point for her, like right before she travels through Tel’aran’rhiod to get to Salidar in like the night is when she pays her toh back to the Wise ones when you know she goes, “Hey, I'm not a sister, I'm just a novice.” And they beat her , as you said, black and blue for hours. And I think that for her, I think that was a like character defining moment for her of All right, I got to put on the big boy pants now.

00;54;24;10 - 00;54;33;01

'''Doll'''

Yeah. She's like, I've got to make up for my the lies I've told. I can't call other people out on theirs until I have atoned for my own.

00;54;33;03 - 00;54;54;19

'''Dianna'''

This is one of those scenes where I'm like, doesn't have to be exactly like this in the show, but has to be in the show. Maybe that exact line, because that exact line so epic, this is, that is my favorite line in the whole series. Yeah. Also Rafe is a, as from what I understand, a massive Egwene fangirl so keeping my fingers crossed that he's going to do me right.

00;54;54;19 - 00;55;01;25

'''Thad'''

We already got that in the show when they're meeting Siuan and they go, “Here's the most powerful channeler in a thousand years.”

00;55;02;04 - 00;55;50;08

'''Dianna'''

Egwene is like me. She has such pick me girl energy. That scene is hilarious. I watch Egwene when I watch that scene every time because her body language, Madeleine I can't remember what her last name was, Madeleine Madden I think is her last name, her body language in that scene is so perfect. It's like, pick me, pick me, straightens up like this almost like does her hair and then just deflated looking at Nynaeve like Wait, you? and right before that they come in and Egwene bows to Siuan and Nynaeve doesn’t and Egwene looks at Nynaeve like “oh what do I do, do I bow, I don’t know.” It's so funny, I love that scene.

Those are all the topics we had to talk about today. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you enjoyed. Come back next time for our episode on Samhain.

00;55;50;08 - 00;55;51;17

'''Thad'''

Yes, Samhain. (pronounced “saa-ween”)

00;55;51;17 - 00;56;12;14

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. That festival, Samhain and the origins from the Wheel of Time and how we celebrate it here at TarValon.Net.

==Episode Guide==

'''Next Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman]]

'''Previous Episode'''

[[TarValon Talks Sounding of the Horn: NYCC 2022 Edition]]

[[Category: TarValon Talks]]

TarValon Talks Episode 3: Wheel of Time Conspiracy Theories

2023-10-07T07:31:51Z

Adolla: Created page with "==General== '''Hosts:''' *Dianna Melear *Thaddius al'Guy *Adolla Ceryia '''Release date:''' *October 19th, 2022 '''Synopsis:''' In Episode 3, the host..."

==General==

'''Hosts:'''

*[[Dianna Melear]]

*[[Thaddius al'Guy]]

*[[Adolla Ceryia]]

'''Release date:'''

*October 19th, 2022

'''Synopsis:'''

In Episode 3, the hosts Doll, Dianna, and Thad discuss “Conspiracy Theories” from the Wheel of Time from Who Killed Asmodean to who in the world Nakomi really is.

==Episode 3 Transcript ==

00;00;10;03 - 00;00;14;05

'''Dianna'''

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode three of TarValon Talks. I'm Dianna.

'00;00;14;09 - 00;00;15;00

'''Doll'''

And I'm Doll.

00;00;15;04 - 00;00;16;06

'''Thad'''

And I'm Thad.

00;00;16;24 - 00;00;34;24

'''Dianna'''

And today we're going to talk about conspiracy theories in the Wheel of Time. I will say at the top that this entire episode is going to contain spoilers. So if you have not finished the series, turn us off, read all of the books and then come back and it will be a good discussion. That is your first and final warning.

00;00;35;02 - 00;00;42;14

'''Dianna'''

Let's kick us off with talking about some older conspiracy theories today. For starters, who killed as Asmodean?

00;00;42;14 - 00;00;58;24

'''Doll'''

And that was the big question when I first started reading the series, it’s like all anybody could ask about. There were so many wild theories. I thought it was Elaida for a long time because she was there in Caemlyn and I thought she was Black Ajah, but that was wrong. She was just really crazy.

00;00;58;28 - 00;01;33;01

'''Thad'''

That's an understatement. Really, really early on I thought it was Demandred because, you know, he had been playing hooky so far. I mean, you know, there are some Forsaken we don't even meet until book seven, book eight and stuff like that. But I think the fandom was talking about Demandred a lot at that time because he hadn't really made an appearance.Nobody really knew much about him. And I think at that point he had either in the Fires of Heaven or Lord of Chaos, he had that intro going to Shayol Ghul, and that was really the most that we had seen of him. So I was just like, I bet he did it. I bet he did it because it was either going to be him or Moridin.

00;01;33;01 - 00;01;56;16

'''Dianna'''

I also thought it was of Demandred, although I will be honest, when I first read these books, I was so young and moving so quickly and very distracted by Moiraine falling through the red arc at that point. Uh, the… Yeah, the red Gateway, but I honestly did not clock that Asmodean was dead the first time that I read the books. I was like, Rand. I was like, “Where did he go?”

00;01;57;00 - 00;02;05;21

'''Thad'''

Because it was very quick and it was like, Oh no, it's you. And then we never hear from him again. So you, I guess if you don't pick up on it, you wouldn't think he's dead.

00;02;05;21 - 00;02;20;07

'''Doll'''

I think I just assumed that we would find out where he went after that because it didn't read as being dead to me the first time I read it. I think Jordan actually confirmed that he was dead in interviews. Like, ” Oh, that, that was a death scene.”

00;02;20;18 - 00;02;36;00

'''Thad'''

I mean I totally can visualize the sequence of, you know, shot of him in a room. I think he's in the tent or something like that. And the flap opens and you just see a shadow cast across the floor. And he looks up and he goes, “Oh no, it's you.” And then, you know, cut to black. And it's just like, okay.

00;02;36;01 - 00;02;42;16

'''Doll'''

Yeah, it was a hallway in the castle in Caemlyn. He opens a door and goes, “It's you” and then fade to black.

00;02;42;16 - 00;02;43;20

'''Thad'''

Okay. That's right. Yeah.

00;02;43;29 - 00;03;39;06

'''Dianna'''

On rereading it, it's pretty clear that he's balefired just based on like context clues from other ways that balefire had been described. But at the time, it's like not obvious at all. And I only was like, “Oh, of course he was balefired” because I was looking for it.

So definitely. I mean, on first reread, I didn't even realize he was dead. So, you know, there's that. But like now looking at it, it's like, okay, so whoever killed him had to be able to channel, had to know how to do balefire. So that narrows it down a bunch as to who it could have been. And I think Jordan at one point said in interviews that it should have been obvious and that it couldn't have been anybody who wasn't previously introduced. So then that also narrows down the possibility of killers.

00;03;39;25 - 00;03;53;02

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because after that point, I started to look at, you know, shadowy presence. So it could have been someone like Moghedien because she likes to operate in the shadows. That was probably the next person I moved to if it wasn't going to be Demanded.

00;03;53;02 - 00;03;57;15

'''Doll'''

I think I thought it was Shadar Haran for the longest time. I don't know why.

00;03;57;22 - 00;04;03;20

'''Thad'''

I've heard that theory too, actually, that it was him that he just kind of moved in because, you know, “oh, no, it's, you.”

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;46;01

'''Doll'''

“Oh no, it's you” like you're coming to tell me. I thought I wasn't until I think Jordan said somebody had figured it out. He was going to give more clues. And then he found a blog where somebody figured it out. And so like everybody in the fandom, was scouring everybody's blog trying to find it because he said it included maps and diagrams.

There was a blog where somebody had taken and they’d drawn the locations of all the characters and Caemlyn and they had a diagram of how Graendal could have been walking down the hallway here, ducked into a closet after everybody else passed and came back out and then got back into the room. So when Asmodean came in, she was there waiting for him and I was like, “Oh, that's it, isn't it?”

Now I don't remember who it was or what site it was on.

00;04;46;14 - 00;04;48;06

'''Thad'''

Boy, I wish we could find that blog.

00;04;48;13 - 00;05;25;07

'''Dianna'''

If we can find that, we'll include it in the show notes, because I definitely want to look at that and doing some research. Saw someone be like “It's obviously Graendal” and then it was like, okay, cool, this person’s figured it out and then didn't read further. They. But yeah, we kind of buried the lead. It is mama Grandal who has murdered, who murders Asmodean and I have to say I love that for her. So Graendal is my favorite Forsaken far and away. And so the fact that she murderers Asmodean is just another check in her amazing box.

00;05;25;17 - 00;05;33;25

'''Doll'''

Going back to the whole idea of Demandred doing it. There were for the longest time when everybody thought Taim was Demandred.

00;05;33;25 - 00;05;51;27

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I guess it kind of kind of slid that way a little bit with me for a while because that would have been easy for him to get close to Asmodean and just do it so it kind of, it just kind of made sense in terms of logistics. Yeah. So it was the easiest thing to kind of go, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

00;05;52;00 - 00;06;13;18

'''Dianna'''

For a long time I assumed that Taim was Demandred and I actually was kind of annoyed when I learned that Robert Jordan was originally planning that. And then I and correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand the story, he was planning on it. Too many fans guessed it, he got miffed and he changed it?

00;06;14;01 - 00;06;30;13

'''Doll'''

I believe that is the common belief. I don't know if he ever confirmed that that was. He did say one time that was something that he thought was clever, that fans figured out. I don't know if he confirmed that it was Taim being Demandred or not, but everybody just assumes that's what he was talking about.

00;06;30;13 - 00;06;38;03

'''Thad'''

It's the easiest connection because just because of how he acted, everything that happened in the Black Tower later on.

00;06;38;03 - 00;06;39;23

'''Dianna'''

The way that Lews Therin reacts to him.

00;06;40;08 - 00;07;17;22

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And I mean, if you look at what happened with Demandred later on in the series where he just kind of pops up from Shara with all these Sharan warriors, there is absolutely zero lead up to this at all. They make a handful of mentions, the latter half of the series of well, not not even that like I think Deamndred like mentions Shara twice or something like that and reading back on it now it's like, okay, I guess that makes sense now, but reading it the first time you come into it and he just, he shows up with an army from the other side of the world and everybody's just like, okay.So it kind of feeds into that.

00;07;18;17 - 00;07;28;24

'''Doll'''

It really does. And without any context, it feels like he said, “I have to put him somewhere else now, where can that be? Oh, I know the other side. The world that we know nothing about.”

00;07;29;13 - 00;08;19;24

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, I only like that because, like, we also have Semirhage in Seanchan, just, like, messing up and murdering everybody in classic Semirhage fashion. But there was. And really, it's like, we had hints that that was going on in Seanchan actually is important in the rest of the series, otherwise I cannot stand the way that Demandred just shows up out of the blue screams for Lews Therin for 20 minutes, murder his, uh Gawyn, and also I don't like it because he is indirectly responsible for the death of Egwene, which makes me sad. And so I don't like that he shows up. Shouts, is irrelevant. Kills Gawyn, almost kills galad and then is killed by Lan. And that's like this was such a nothing burger like this is so weird.

00;08;20;27 - 00;08;24;17

'''Thad'''

But because of that, Lan gets the best line in the series by far.

00;08;24;18 - 00;08;25;25

'''Doll'''

You're going to have to refresh me.

00;08;26;00 - 00;08;29;13

'''Thad'''

Oh, he says.” I didn't come here to win. I came to kill you.”

00;08;29;13 - 00;09;05;21

'''Dianna'''

That is a very cool line. I have a quibble that that's the best line in the series, but we'll talk about that later in this episode. But I agree that that is a very cool line and it's a very cool Lan moment for sure. I wish we had just had Mazrim Taim be Demandred. Also, Mazrim Taim is the only person we see raised to be a Forsaken, which is kind of cool but also very random. And it's like, okay, so you wanted this guy to be a Forsaken so then you had to shoehorn a way for him to be one. It's just it's one of the few plot points in the series that I think is really poorly done.

00;09;05;25 - 00;09;21;29

'''Thad'''

I guess it kind of makes sense because he survived for like what, 15 years using the power without going mad. So I always assumed that he had protection from the taint, which is why he was able to survive so long because he showed like no signs of madness whatsoever.

00;09;22;12 - 00;09;28;09

'''Doll'''

And you also had with the death of Asmodean by balefire, the loss of a Forsaken.

00;09;28;17 - 00;09;36;05

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, but at that point they lost at least a couple like Moiraine balefires Be’lal in the third book just out of the blue.

00;09;36;08 - 00;09;44;23

'''Doll'''

Yeah, he's lost a few, so he's like, “I'm starting to get a little short on Forsaken here. I need to start building back up.”

00;09;45;04 - 00;09;51;08

'''Dianna'''

They can't all be Osan’gar and Aran’gar. I call them the Chaos Twins, even though they're not twins. But that's what they are in my head.

00;09;52;22 - 00;09;53;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah, yeah.

00;09;53;14 - 00;10;02;22

'''Doll'''

In a lot of ways they are twins. Brought back the same way at the same time.

Should we talk about newer conspiracy theories at the end of the series?

00;10;02;22 - 00;10;07;15

'''Dianna'''

Yes. Let's talk about the three unanswered questions. Let's start with Nakomi.

00;10;07;25 - 00;10;24;29

'''Doll'''

Nakomi shows up when Aviendha is outside of Rhuidean and we don't really get much information on her. She just sort of shows up at the fireside, boils some tea, cooks a meal out of nowhere, was it out of a magic box like a microwave and tells Aviendha she's got to take care of the Aiel .

00;10;24;29 - 00;10;31;12

'''Doll'''

And then we suspect she shows up again when Rand is leaving Shayol Ghul. Do we have a confirmation that that's actually her?

00;10;31;13 - 00;10;32;11

'''Thad'''

I don't think so.

00;10;32;11 - 00;10;34;25

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, I definitely assumed that that was Nakomi.

00;10;34;28 - 00;10;35;10

'''Thad'''

Yeah.

00;10;36;02 - 00;11;26;22

'''Doll'''

So we're pretty sure we've seen Nakomi twice. Everybody thinks she looks familiar, but nobody quite place who she is. She's done magical things, but nobody can sense her using the power and nobody knows where she came from. There have been a lot of theories about who she is over the years. I think Brandon has shot down the theory that it's Aviendha from the future in the world of dreams, like showing up in their dreams as they drifted off to sleep or something like that.

And I've heard a couple of other theories, but I sort of started speculating on my own theory after we talked to Michael Livingston. And I think it's it's very well, because of what we talked about in the way Robert Jordan did things.

She's obviously sort of outside the pattern and maybe not the avatar of the True Power, but not the true power, though.

00;11;26;23 - 00;11;27;09

'''Dianna'''

The One Power.

00;11;27;09 - 00;12;30;03

'''Doll'''

The One Power. Yes, yes. But not the Dark One. The One Power, the light, avatar of the light. But I think this is Robert Jordan's self insert. He has a tendency to gender swap everything. It's a wise woman that kind of knows everything and seems a little light hearted and clever. It very much sounds like a female version of Robert Jordan.A little bit older. Can't quite put a finger on why you know who she is and why she knows everything and why she can do things she shouldn't be able to do.

Well, if she's creating the series, then she's the one that's going to know what's going to happen in the future. And Robert Jordan's just like, “Hey, in the future, when I'm gone and you're telling these stories, these stories need to continue to treat these characters correctly because in the past we have done them wrong.”

Since the Aiel are very much Native Americans. Not totally. They're sort of Irish, sort of native Americans, but a more marginalized community. We need to do them correct in the future. And I don't know if that's on purpose, but it fits nicely in my head. I think Nakomi is Robert Jordan.

00;12;30;03 - 00;12;34;03

'''Thad'''

This just sprung to the top of my head. But if it's not Robert Jordan, what if it's Harriet?

00;12;34;06 - 00;12;36;12

'''Doll'''

Oh, God. I think you've just changed your mind.

00;12;36;12 - 00;12;41;02

'''Dianna'''

Either one of those theories is going to make me cry. I'll literally never be able to read a Nakomi scene again.

00;12;42;05 - 00;12;53;00

'''Doll'''

He's always said that every woman in the book is a little bit of Harriet. Or maybe this just is Harriet. Oh, God, I think you've just changed my mind entirely.

00;12;53;00 - 00;12;57;13

'''Dianna'''

Oh, my God. I'm, like, tearing up, you guys, literally look, right now.

00;12;57;27 - 00;13;05;19

'''Thad'''

Outside of these two wild theories, I have heard a couple of other things. One of them was like, what if it's Tel’aran’rhiod version of Verin?

00;13;06;00 - 00;13;08;19

'''Dianna'''

Would that mean that Verin is a hero for the horn?

00;13;08;20 - 00;13;09;24

'''Thad'''

Not necessarily.

00;13;09;27 - 00;13;11;19

'''Doll'''

Because she would have been dead.

00;13;11;26 - 00;13;17;20

'''Thad'''

Because this would be like the other way. Like, you know, Birgitte, it comes out later. She comes back as a Hero.

00;13;18;00 - 00;13;29;20

'''Doll'''

Birgitte was in the Tel’aran’rhiod because she's a Hero of the Horn. And that's where heroes go when they're waiting to be reborn. And the only way that Verin would be there after she died is if she was attached to the horn.

00;13;30;06 - 00;14;01;05

'''Thad'''

Yeah. And the only reason that I kind of entertain this a little bit is because the stuff that Nakomi talks about, Verin had a kind of somewhat similar conversation like way, way, way, way, way earlier in the series. So it kind of gives a little bit of credit to that theory. But at the same time, I think there was something I wish I would have wrote down a couple of notes on this, but I think Verin is still alive when Nakomi appears.

00;14;01;05 - 00;14;02;07

'''Doll'''

Not at Shayol Ghul.

00;14;02;10 - 00;14;03;07

'''Thad'''

Not in Shayol Ghul?

00;14;03;12 - 00;14;05;17

'''Doll'''

That would have been well after she died.

00;14;05;21 - 00;14;08;25

'''Dianna'''

Right, that's after the last battle. That's like at the very, very end.

00;14;08;25 - 00;14;27;03

'''Thad'''

So there's also the theory that I believe how the scene goes is Aviendha is, you know, at the fire or whatever. And she just kind of I think she closed her eyes for a second. So a lot of people think that she's actually just in the world of dreams and this is somebody from the world of dreams talking to her. That's not somebody that exists in Rand Land or whatever.

00;14;27;12 - 00;14;38;03

'''Doll'''

I think most people believe that this all happened outside of reality, if not in tel'aran'rhiod, in some other form of broken reality, broken pattern, that she slips into.

00;14;38;16 - 00;14;55;01

'''Thad'''

The only other one that I'm aware of, but only because Brandon Sanderson answered a question about this one. Someone asked if Nakomi me was Jenn Aiel and Brandon's response to that was,” You're sniffing under the right tree.” So I don't know what that means, to be honest.

00;14;55;07 - 00;15;01;01

'''Doll'''

I also think I read somewhere, he said that Nakomi is not a character we know.

00;15;01;11 - 00;15;15;10

'''Thad'''

Okay, so if that's the case, then that throws the whole Verin thing just right out the window. I like my theory, my new theory. I came up all by myself. It's Harriet. I'm going to laugh if it comes out. And it is, in fact, Harriet.

00;15;15;29 - 00;15;19;27

'''Dianna'''

I love that . Michael Livingston I'll be like, “They scooped me.”

00;15;19;27 - 00;15;23;25

'''Thad'''

That, that, or something like Maria or Alan or something like that. You know.

00;15;24;04 - 00;15;43;03

'''Dianna'''

I love that. I love those theories. I've always assumed that she was an avatar of the Creator, but I think Brandon Sanderson shot that down at one point, and then as soon as that got shot down, I was like, okay, I'll learn eventually.

So what about the body swap? How does Rand swap bodies with Moridin?

00;15;43;03 - 00;16;15;20

'''Thad'''

I've talked to a lot of people about this one over the years. And, you know, everybody seems confused by it, like they don't understand the logistics of how it worked. And I've I've read into it a lot in the past and, you know, over the last couple of days just to prep for this. And I feel like I've kind of reached a clarity with it that to me it just makes absolute crystal clear sense.But I could just be crazy.

But we know that when Rand is fighting Samael in Shadar Logoth Moridin and Rand, they both cast a beam of balefire. And those beams cross.

00;16;16;01 - 00;16;17;12

'''Doll'''

They cross the streams?

00;16;17;12 - 00;19;55;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah, they cross the streams. You never cross the streams. And at that point, their souls became intertwined because of how balefire works, basically. So that that is basically the answer to how the body swap happened, because after that, they could sense each other, you know, like a Warder to an Aes Sedai could. Moridin hated it so much. And you'll see a few more scenes throughout the series where Rand gets pulled under the dream spike where Moridin is. And they kind of have this back and forth conversation of, “how did you get here? Heck, if I know, I just kind of fell asleep and here I am, you know, in front of you.” So they have a nice, long conversation about it and they're just like, you know, something must have happened with the balefire, right?

So we move forward to the end of the series, and we're at the big climactic battle at Shayol Ghul. We all know that Moridin really just wants to die and the Dark One won't let him die. Ishamael gets put into the new body. He's Moridin now. He is so far gone. And they describe that he's so far gone because he's, you know, his his eyes are basically black at this point because of all the saa. Like he is just channeled so much so long that he is basically insane and he can't do anything to get away with it because the Dark One’s like, “Nah, I need you, you're my number one, you're my Nae’blis” without actually calling him that.

So when all that happens and he uses Moridin to kind of do his thing, to close the bore and everything, and Rand is pulling him out of the cave because… how did how do they do it? I'm trying to remember I haven't read the ending in a long time because I'm rereading the books right now. So I was I was trying not to read the whole battle at Shayol Ghul again. So I'm kind of going off a little bit of fuzzy memory here. So I think when Moridin tried to use Callandor to stop everyone Nynaeve exploited the flaw in Callandor to basically trap him in a link because that was the flaw of Callandor basically is that it's a really powerful sa’angreal, but you can basically force somebody into a link with it and that's what they did. And they kind of trapped him and they used his ability to channel the True Power without the ill effects, you know, the ill side effects of doing so. Right. And in doing so, that kind of merged them together a little bit more.

So we're here at the end. Rand is pulling Moridin's dying body out. He still has access to the true power. thanks to the link. We have heard in previous conversations with the Dark One or Shadar Haran. As long as a body has a… well, as long as a soul hasn't been balefired using the True Power, he can just take that soul and drop it to another empty vessel. Moridin wants nothing more than to die. His body is dying. Rand's body is basically a broken mess at this point, too. And as they're pulling himself out of Shayol Ghul Rand's like, “Oh yeah, I can totally do this thing.” And so what he does is use the True Power, and he swaps bodies because Moridin doesn't want to fight, he just wants to die, right? So he doesn't even attempt an effort at trying to fight Rand, pulling his soul out of his body and placing his own soul into that vessel instead.

So that's where the body swap happens. And basically that's how it it only happens because Moridin doesn't want to live anymore. And he's like, “I can finally just die.”

I've heard a lot of theories about it over the years that could have gone a dozen different ways of, it wasn't what Rand wanted. It just kind of happened as kind of a side effect to sealing the bore. It just kind of everything got jumbled up because of how they were linked together, and it just kind of threw them into each other's bodies and stuff like that. Not really a conspiracy theory. It's just, I think getting all of the pieces in order, that really makes it hard to understand.

00;19;55;08 - 00;20;15;18

'''Dianna'''

I definitely think Rand consented to it. I have always thought that it had something to do with how he lid the pipe, which we will talk about in a second. But I've completely forgotten that it's the true power that lets the dark one take somebody's soul and pop it into another body. So I really like that explanation a lot.I think that that makes a lot of sense.

00;20;15;18 - 00;20;39;14

'''Thad'''

And it only works because their souls were linked thanks to that balefire crossfire. Like, otherwise it wouldn't have worked. That is the only reason that it worked, because you got a single thread coming out that's kind of connecting them together. So he just goes, “I'm just going to slide along this line and move over here.” Wouldn't have worked if Moridin had put up a fight. If he had put up a fight, it probably wouldn't have worked and they would have both just died.

00;20;39;21 - 00;20;40;05

'''Dianna'''

I agree.

00;20;40;12 - 00;20;57;16

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because Rand really wanted to live and Moridin really wanted to die and Rand’s body was dying and Moridin's body was fine. So. And. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. Callandor also amplifies the True Power. So that really, really helped out his case. It's very, very powerful. Sa’angreal.

00;20;57;16 - 00;21;03;16

'''Dianna'''

What a wild sa’angreal that also amplifies the True Power, a power that I'm not even sure that they knew existed.

00;21;03;24 - 00;21;08;29

'''Doll'''

Well, I think that was what Lanfear was looking for when she bore the hole.

00;21;09;10 - 00;21;09;26

'''Dianna'''

That's true.

00;21;10;00 - 00;21;16;04

'''Thad'''

The thing is, is I don't think anybody knew that it amplified the true power until Moridinn picked it up. And he goes. “Ohhhhhh”

00;21;16;12 - 00;21;36;23

'''Doll'''

Because I think I went through some stuff on Callandor recently and I saw where Brandon was hinting at that before the last book came out, but he wouldn't say he just RAFO’ed it because he was like, “There's something more in Callandor that that I can't talk about it. You'll find out in the last book.”

00;21;37;02 - 00;21;50;28

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because that is definitely one of those things that has never before that scene mentioned at all. I guess the thing is, which is the flaw that you can force someone into a link or that the flaw is that it amplifies the true power because I would consider that a flaw.

00;21;51;02 - 00;21;59;06

'''Doll'''

I think that was the flaw. And I think the flaw may have been the Dark One reaching out in the manufacturing process through the hole in prison during the War of Power, right?

00;21;59;22 - 00;22;04;16

'''Thad'''

Yes. Yeah. It was made while male channelers were going mad so that would track.

00;22;04;16 - 00;22;21;11

'''Doll'''

And Robert Jordan said that Callandor was just one of hundreds, if not thousands of very similar sa’angreal that were created during the War of Power. And the only thing that was special about it was a certain flaw, he didn't say what the flaw was at that point.

00;22;23;00 - 00;22;28;10

'''Thad'''

So there you have it. The flaw is, according to us, no need to source, that it can amplify the troop.

00;22;28;12 - 00;22;31;17

'''Dianna'''

We only sort of check our sources on this podcast. I’m kidding.

00;22;31;27 - 00;22;47;08

'''Thad'''

So Rand used Callandor to channel so much of the True power through Moridin because he had the shield on it that even the dark one was just like I can't turn it off. And that's how the stuff was done.

00;22;47;12 - 00;22;53;28

'''Dianna'''

Is it a bug or a feature? It seems kind of like a feature if you use it to win the last battle.

00;22;53;28 - 00;22;56;16

'''Doll'''

You can turn any bug into a feature if you use it correctly.

00;22;56;27 - 00;22;58;19

'''Dianna'''

If you're Rand and you try hard enough.

00;22;58;27 - 00;23;21;00

'''Thad'''

I you know, I want to say it's conspiracy theory. For a long time I was kind of like in that kind of conspiracy camp of, you know, oh, it could have been this, it could have been that. But but when I really started to look into it, it was, oh, it was not really a conspiracy after all.

It's just a lot of people not connecting all of the dots, which admittedly are not, you know, one, two, three, four, five.

00;23;21;09 - 00;23;32;06

'''Doll'''

At this master level game of connect the dots. They're just going to say, like, it's not that just, you know, outlining a little sheep or something.

00;23;32;22 - 00;23;47;12

'''Thad'''

No. Because it's over the course of like five or six books and, you know, on your first time through, you know, you miss so much stuff. Like I, I want to meet the person who picks up on everything on their first read through because they if say they do I say they're reading the wiki now.

00;23;47;19 - 00;24;18;23

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. That's also consistent with how Robert Jordan built his mysteries where like they go over several books but there's little hints along the way and little bread crumbs that like once here it's very similar to the Graendal killed Asmodean conspiracy theory or mystery. So I like that a lot.

Do we know what Brandon has, uhm Brandon Sanderson, probably shouldn’t call him Brandon. I obviously do not know this man as a friend. Do we know what Brandon Sanderson has said on on how they did it?

00;24;19;05 - 00;24;31;22

'''Thad'''

He actually confirmed to somebody on Reddit that Moridin's soul and body got connected when their balefire crossed at Shadar Logoth. So when it came to the body swap, the soul that wanted to live went to the good body. The soul that wanted to die, went to the bad body. So, yes.

00;24;31;22 - 00;24;34;19

'''Doll'''

Okay. I didn’t know he had answered that one.

00;24;35;03 - 00;24;37;12

'''Dianna'''

I mean, that's not like that's not like an answer of how.

00;24;37;13 - 00;25;29;02

'''Thad'''

Well, I mean, it just kind of makes sense with Rand is still connected to the true power. Even after sealing the bore he has access to it just just because of the nature of Callandor and, you know, Shayol Ghul basically coming down around their heads. And he's like, “I've got this power and, you know, I'm dying, my body is dying.” And he sees Moridin basically passed out on the floor and he's just like, “I can feel that his body is fine.” And, you know, this is well, well, after the merging with Lews Therin that I think it's just one of those things of he you know whenever he remembers a weave that he doesn't know how to do it and he just immediately knows how to do it, I think it was just one of those situations of, “Oh, I can just take the one power and just move my soul.”

00;25;29;02 - 00;25;42;06

'''Dianna'''

I can't remember. Does that have anything to do with a very grumpy female channeler who's supposed to help him die? I can't remember her name. I think she's a former Seanchan. I think she's a former damane I think.

00;25;42;06 - 00;25;44;21

'''Thad'''

Oh, you're not talking about Alana?

00;25;44;26 - 00;25;54;07

'''Dianna'''

No, not Alana. I would never bring up Alana. I hate her. No, there's the former damane who is incredibly strong and she is prophesied to help Rand die.

00;25;54;14 - 00;26;26;22

'''Thad'''

I mean, I always saw that as, because, you know, after after the body swap happens, she's there with basically a survival pack of here you go now, go on your way. Like she helped him just get out of Dodge after all of that happened. So I feel like it's one of those, you know, she did help him die not by literally spilling his blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul.That's literally one of the lines of the prophecy. But she basically set him up to get him out of the situation. So she did help him die.

00;26;26;23 - 00;26;28;25

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, she certainly helped his body die.

00;26;29;03 - 00;26;30;21

'''Thad'''

I can't remember her name. I'm trying to remember.

00;26;30;21 - 00;26;33;19

'''Dianna'''

As we know names, me and names.

00;26;33;23 - 00;26;39;20

'''Thad'''

All I remember is that she is like a 400 year old damane or something like that. Like she is old.

00;26;39;22 - 00;26;48;02

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, she's super old. She's super strong and she is insanely grumpy. I remember she's so mean to everyone except Rand, but I'm like, okay.

00;26;48;18 - 00;27;05;07

'''Thad'''

Alivia. But it's not spelled as you think. It's Alivia. Yes, she helps him disappear. She helps him die. That's how I always inferred that. But with that body swap that happens, they're burning dead Moridin on the funeral pyre or whatever. In Rand's body.

We see something happen, don't we?

00;27;05;13 - 00;29;03;26

'''Dianna'''

Yep. He likes the pipe and he doesn't channel to do so. Sanderson has confirmed that he does not use the one power or the true power. The reason I was asking if Sanderson had said anything about the body swap is because when I was looking into this, I saw that, Sanderson said. He doesn't. He also doesn't know how Rand does thit, because this scene was written by Robert Jordan himself when he knew he wouldn't finish the series. He wrote it, gave it to Harriet and was like, “This is the final scene of the book, of the series.”

And so for this one, I am not sure if we're ever going to get an answer. Maybe Harriet knows genuinely unsure, but this one is one of my favorites to theorize on because this, it kind of feels a little bit cool, but obvious to me how he does it.

I think that in his fight with the dark line, in accessing the true power, using the one power that fight happens outside of the pattern and Rand had been already, I call him enlightened Rand, post-enlightenment essentially on Dragonmount, he'd already been very connected with the world. You can see that in his mood as his moods are darkening the world is kind of going to hell in a handbasket. And then once he becomes enlightened, the weather around him is a, like a clear, perfect circle. So he'd already been very tied to the world and tied to the pattern. And then I think in fighting the Dark One, I feel like he stepped outside of the pattern and had sort of a Neo in the Matrix moment. Now when Neo is in the Matrix, he can see all the ones and zeros. I feel like Rand now, post the final battle, post last battle, can see the weaves of the pattern and can modify them to suit his whims, which is wildly powerful. But he's Rand. He's just a sweet sheepherder who just wants to go and read books.

00;29;03;26 - 00;29;04;22

'''Doll'''

And smoke his pipe.

00;29;05;16 - 00;29;14;27

'''Dianna'''

And, be a sheepherder and smoke his pipe. And so rather than annihilating the world, he will just, you know, pick at the pattern just to light a pipe.

00;29;15;13 - 00;29;18;00

'''Thad'''

So what you're saying is he just turns air into fire.

00;29;18;00 - 00;29;30;08

'''Dianna'''

Basically, but not through any source of the power. Yeah, he just, he'll take a little strand of the pattern and he'll be like, you know, “this surely won't have a butterfly effect. It will just change that thread” and has himself a lit pipe.

00;29;30;09 - 00;29;36;05

'''Thad'''

Well, if he's enlightened Rand and he sees reality in a whole new way, I think he would be able to anticipate a butterfly effect.

00;29;36;05 - 00;29;36;19

'''Dianna'''

Right? Right.

00;29;36;24 - 00;29;37;11

'''Doll'''

You would think.

00;29;38;00 - 00;29;38;18

'''Dianna'''

You would think.

00;29;38;29 - 00;29;49;06

'''Thad'''

I like that idea a lot. I guess I thought of that in a, like a super rudimentary level what’s it say in the book - He just kind of wills it into existence. And I go,” Oh yeah, he can just change it.”

00;29;49;06 - 00;30;13;17

'''Dianna'''

Yep. He wills it into existence because he tweaks the pattern because he can modify the pattern now. I feel like at some point the Creator, even though he's very hands off, he's like one of those hands off deities ever seen in any fantasy book. I do feel like at some point probably would have stepped in. But he trusts Rand and the Dragon so much that he's like, “No, you just go, you live your life, you tweak the pattern, you pass on.”

00;30;13;25 - 00;30;15;21

'''Thad'''

Who's to say the Creator even noticed?

00;30;15;26 - 00;30;19;12

'''Dianna'''

True. Honestly, Rand's just been like, “I'm just gonna light a fire here and there.”

00;30;19;20 - 00;30;24;27

'''Thad'''

I mean, what I'm saying is how do we how do we know that the creator's even paying attention to the world? Right.

00;30;25;07 - 00;30;26;06

'''Dianna'''

We have no idea.

00;30;26;06 - 00;30;35;07

'''Doll'''

I mean, if he doesn't say anything about all the threads that were cut by all the balefire that was being thrown around, is he really going to say something about a couple of strands of fire?

00;30;36;07 - 00;31;04;27

'''Dianna'''

Or does he say something by way of Egwene and the way that she fixes all of that, he's like, and “I'm just going to drop this person here when they are necessary.” Give them this ability when they are necessary. I feel like the creator is paying attention, but is tweaking the pattern in such small ways as like this person relearned this weave at this time, this person gets access to that that he's like a very, very soft touch.

00;31;04;27 - 00;31;07;24

'''Doll'''

Maybe the flaw in Callandor wasn't the Dark One.

00;31;08;14 - 00;31;10;03

'''Dianna'''

Could have been the creator all along.

00;31;10;12 - 00;31;20;26

'''Thad'''

Does this kind of reach a level of the Creator and the Dark One are opposing equal forces and Rand is that kind of little teeter that just offsets that enough for everything to happen?

00;31;21;01 - 00;31;28;28

'''Dianna'''

It's so funny because I've never considered the Dark One and the Creator to be polar opposites because they never fight.

00;31;29;04 - 00;31;34;03

'''Thad'''

They never fight because they can't defeat each other, right? They're like ultimate equals.

00;31;34;10 - 00;31;35;29

'''Doll'''

Creation versus destruction.

00;31;36;19 - 00;31;40;02

'''Thad'''

Right. There's a whole trilogy of books on that called Mistborn , you should go read it.

00;31;40;05 - 00;31;44;17

'''Dianna'''

It's been a minute since I've read Mistborn, and really the only thing I remember is the magic system.

00;31;44;17 - 00;32;06;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I, I think it's kind of more or less that, you know, generally when there are cosmic like level entities like that that always seems to be the case of they exist in the they're kind of they can't do anything to each other, so they have to use stuff below them to offset it enough just to give them that kind of iota of power over the other one, just to give like a domino effect.

00;32;06;20 - 00;32;09;10

'''Thad'''

And I think that's what Rand was.

00;32;09;17 - 00;32;14;20

'''Dianna'''

Does the Dark One ever actually talked to Rand? Obviously, it's Ishamael in the first three books.

00;32;15;00 - 00;32;16;10

'''Thad'''

Does The Dark One talk to Rand?

00;32;17;04 - 00;32;19;17

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, like it's ishamael in the first three books.

00;32;19;17 - 00;32;21;08

'''Thad'''

At the end of the book, he's talking to them.

00;32;21;08 - 00;32;43;15

'''Dianna'''

At the end of the book, it's just like so it's such a strange dichotomy to me that this, like, massive evil entity would be like, “Hi little person, I'm going to speak to you,” but the Creator never does the same to like Moridin. Not that we get a lot of Moridin point of view. They interact with the world in such a different way that it's tough for me to wrap my brain around that being opposite the people.

00;32;43;15 - 00;32;59;28

'''Doll'''

In the same way that the Creator is creation and the Dark One is destruction, the Creator is also freewill and darkness is domination. So it's not really the Creator's path to force people to choose the right thing. It just gives them what they need to do it.

00;33;00;24 - 00;33;02;10

'''Thad'''

Yeah, it's kind of a very hands off thing.

00;33;02;10 - 00;33;19;19

'''Doll'''

That really goes back to how Jordan incorporates world religions, because there really is a theme in especially Eastern religions of a hands off creator who gives you the pieces that you need to do the right thing. And the destructor who tries to eff you up.

00;33;19;20 - 00;33;25;12

'''Dianna'''

That makes sense, since obviously the whole religion of Wheel of Time is based on a very eastern religious mindset.

00;33;25;20 - 00;33;29;13

'''Thad'''

So to answer your question, Rand can just change physics on the fly, right?

00;33;29;22 - 00;33;34;23

'''Dianna'''

But he does it in very small doses because he has a sweet boy, sweet little sheepherder.

00;33;34;29 - 00;33;39;14

'''Thad'''

He's he's done his job. He just wants to rest. And you know what? He has earned it.

00;33;39;22 - 00;33;43;19

'''Dianna'''

He’s so earned that let that man sleep without pain in his side.

00;33;43;26 - 00;33;45;19

'''Thad'''

Well he doesn't have that pain in his side anymore.

00;33;45;19 - 00;33;47;04

'''Doll'''

yeah , because that body’s gone.

00;33;48;11 - 00;33;52;04

'''Thad'''

Didn't mention that he still has the fleck in his eye from Moridin’s body.I forget.

00;33;52;04 - 00;33;59;27

'''Doll'''

They mention that they see a small fleck, but I don't know if it was the same as the saa.

00;33;59;27 - 00;34;01;10

'''Thad'''

See, that's that's another question.

00;34;01;10 - 00;34;19;07

'''Doll'''

I just don’t remember, it could be, been too long since I read that line. It's definitely there ,something is definitely there, even if it's just a little flicker that could also go back to the balance between creation and destruction. And there's a little bit of both in each side.

00;34;19;07 - 00;34;40;20

'''Thad'''

Yeah, because, you know, if you look at any time that they have the disc, it's always pure black and pure white was never the little fleck of white in the black and vice versa. They were basically equals and they couldn't really, you know, the light and dark couldn’t do anything to each other. So, you know, Moridinn was basically that speck of black in the white. And Rand was that speck of white in black, kind of thing.

00;34;40;26 - 00;34;43;26

'''Doll'''

And now Rand has that little speck of Moridin in him.

00;34;44;26 - 00;35;01;25

'''Dianna'''

I love that we get hints of the body swap before it happens, because when Aviendha sees her children, she has children who have black hair. And I was like, “Why would Aviendha have children with black hair?” And then like, I was like, “Oh, because she has kids with Moridin-Rand. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

00;35;02;29 - 00;35;03;23

'''Doll'''

Because she's not pregnant yet.

00;35;04;02 - 00;35;09;21

'''Dianna'''

She's not pregnant. She's and I don't think she and Rand other than sex-gloo, sex igloo.

00;35;10;12 - 00;35;12;19

'''Doll'''

Or the igloo in the middle of nowhere?

00;35;13;02 - 00;35;13;21

'''Thad'''

The middle of nowhere Seanchan.

00;35;13;21 - 00;35;21;05

'''Dianna'''

I’m pretty sure that they don't have sex before the last battle, so I've always assumed that Moridin-Rand gets her pregnant.

00;35;22;11 - 00;35;28;14

'''Thad'''

It's hard to remember when stuff like that happens, because Jordan was always very like offscreen with it.

00;35;28;14 - 00;35;32;11

'''Doll'''

It’s very PG 13, right? You see everything right up until the lights go off.

00;35;33;09 - 00;35;40;23

'''Thad'''

You know, funny. Funny that you do mention that, though, because I, I do remember reading that and going, huh. But they're both redheads.

00;35;40;23 - 00;35;58;13

'''Dianna'''

And they're both like, like Rand is half Aiel and his non-Aiel side as a redhead and Aviendha’s pure Aiel so yeah they should have red hair babies but I think she has I think it's two and two, that struck me as odd until we got the body swap scene and then I was like, my brain exploded.

00;35;58;13 - 00;36;02;04

'''Thad'''

Hey, you learn something new every day and look at that, learning something new.

00;36;02;27 - 00;36;04;12

'''Dianna'''

That’s what this podcast is for, we learn from each other.

00;36;05;00 - 00;36;10;06

'''Doll'''

I know I learn something new every time we talk.

00;36;10;06 - 00;36;12;09

'''Thad'''

And I've read these books, I don't know how many times.

00;36;12;12 - 00;36;16;14

'''Doll'''

I’ve only read the last one once because it was such a emotional rollercoaster.

00;36;17;04 - 00;36;23;00

'''Thad'''

It tears you apart, it tears you apart. I think the next day my face was just like puffy red.

00;36;23;00 - 00;36;33;20

'''Dianna'''

I’ve read the last book twice and every time, it's brutal. The last time I read the book, the last book was summer of 2020. So it was a dark time. Somehow it was very comforting.

00;36;35;19 - 00;36;38;17

'''Thad'''

Do we have any other small conspiracy theories?

00;36;39;00 - 00;36;49;18

'''Doll'''

One does wonder how a little shaggy horse from Two Rivers ends up traveling the entire world, only to die in the last battle.

00;36;50;14 - 00;36;51;09

'''Thad'''

And get revived in the Companion.

00;36;51;15 - 00;36;59;28

'''Dianna'''

I love that the Companion revives her, justice for Bella! I'm pretty sure I read that Harriet was the one who was like, “Bella must die.”

00;37;01;20 - 00;37;23;20

'''Doll'''

The way she tells it. Brandon wrote a scene in which it would have been impossible for Bella to survive. And she said,” You cannot do this. You know, it's okay. She can be there. But if you put her in this situation, she will die.” And Brandon’s like, “I can't do that.” So Harriet took her editorial copy and wrote in “comma and then died.” So Harriet did kill her.

00;37;25;05 - 00;37;27;13

'''Dianna'''

As an editor, I appreciate that.

00;37;28;18 - 00;37;39;14

'''Thad'''

I think the story also follows that after she did that, she felt bad enough about it that in the companion they reversed the decision, basically, I want to say I heard that at JordanCon one year.

00;37;39;21 - 00;37;49;20

'''Doll'''

I feel like that was said during, right after the book released, on the panel. She's like, “Then I felt bad because I love Bella.”

00;37;50;29 - 00;37;54;24

'''Thad'''

I mean, I remember several panels over the years just called “Is bella a dark friend?”

00;37;54;28 - 00;37;55;21

'''Dianna'''

No, Bela is the creator.

00;37;56;29 - 00;38;01;00

'''Doll'''

Yeah, that's what the bumper stickers said. Did you ever see the bumper stickers they did?

00;38;01;00 - 00;38;04;25

'''Dianna'''

No. I saw them online. I've never seen them in person.

00;38;04;25 - 00;38;11;27

'''Doll'''

I have some home, but one of them is “Bella is a dark friend.” And there's another one that says,” I killed Asmodean.”

00;38;11;27 - 00;38;28;25

'''Dianna'''

Bella is the creator. Bella is the Avatar of the creator.

I don't think I have any more questions. Listeners, if you have more conspiracy theories or questions that you want us to answer, feel free to reach out to us at producer.tvt@gmail.com.

00;38;30;01 - 00;38;37;25

'''Thad'''

Or leave us a comment on the thread for questions on the site.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;50;16

'''Doll'''

Our next segment is “Ask TarValon Talks.” If you have a question for us, please reach out to producer.tvt@gmail.com or you can post in our Ask TarValon Talks thread in the General forms on the boards.

00;38;52;07 - 00;39;19;28

'''Dianna'''

I apologize because I am going to butcher this name, but Novice Rhyin al'Hut. Sorry if I did not say that correctly. Says “First time caller, first time listener. I would love to hear your speculation on if/how Rand and the Dark One will be depicted, quote unquote, fighting in the sky or will Rafe potentially skip over such an awesome plot point? I would love to hear your thoughts.”

We have thoughts.

00;39;20;25 - 00;39;21;29

'''Doll'''

So many thoughts.

00;39;22;25 - 00;39;23;19

'''Thad'''

What are your thoughts?

00;39;23;23 - 00;39;30;09

'''Doll'''

I just I know that they have increased the budget for the CGI coming up, which is great to hear.

00;39;30;10 - 00;39;32;11

'''Thad'''

Oh, that. I didn't know that. That's thumbs up.

00;39;32;19 - 00;39;33;08

'''Dianna'''

I heard that as well.

00;39;33;08 - 00;39;54;03

'''Doll'''

I think I heard that. Rafe said it in one of the interviews at one point that they had to increase their budget after the first season came out so they would have better CGI, which makes me think that they are planning to do something a little more spectacular and we're going to see something. It may not be as epic as what's in our heads, but I think we'll see some.

00;39;54;03 - 00;42;19;13

'''Dianna'''

Yeah I think that it will depend very much on where Falme… and that's that's how I say it by the way I kind of skirt the middle ground between “May” and then having none… I think it'll very much depend on if the battle of Falme is episode, like in the midpoint of the series or the end of the series, or the season, not the series. Cause we're not that's not the end of the series. Midpoint of the season or the end of the season, because I don't think it makes sense to do it as a like there's no such thing as a midseason finale when you're streaming a show and it doesn't feel like it would make sense to put it and then have other major plot points come after it because it's so epic.

So if Falme is the final battle of season two, then I think we are going to get some version of it. I don't, I'm very I'll be very curious to see how they do it, because this is a scene that I did have to go back and reread because it had been so long and my understanding of the scene was completely incorrect. I thought that Rand and the Dark One’s battle was projected essentially onto the mists. I did not understand that for some reason the mist from the horn of valere take Rand into the sky. And that's where we Ishamael fights him, which is very strange. Never again. How does that happen? But sure, sure, horn of valere.

And so because of that, I was like, Oh, it's very interesting. And I, we know that we're going to be getting an on the ground look at the battle of Falme, which we don't get in the book. So I'm wondering if we'll see, like if we'll kind of cut back and forth like Rand and Ishamael fighting and then people on the ground seeing it. But again, I only think we're going to get that if it's episodes, I think we're only getting eight episodes again this season, so if it's either episode seven or eight.

I will say that I want it because when I first read the series way, way back when, the first thing of Wheel of Time merch I wanted was a one of those like scraps of cloth that have it painted. It's like, I want that and I want that. I want that show merch. Amazon Hear Me! If you do that in the sky, I want that show merch really, really badly. I think it would be amazing.

00;42;20;16 - 00;42;22;28

'''Doll'''

Yeah, I agree. I mean, Amazon, please listen.

00;42;23;07 - 00;43;14;00

'''Thad'''

I could see them running it mid-to-late season if not a season finale because they kind of have said that they're meshing thread lines together and you know, we kind of still don't know what that means, if anything, to go by on season one. You know, some things will change. Some things will stay the same. If they do the whole side thread with Masema, if they don't cut Masema out, it'll definitely need to happen. And I wouldn't believe that they would put it at the end of the season to lead into the third season because again, we don't know where they're going to go or what's going to happen because you can't go in expecting all the stuff that happened in book one. We've got Perrin hunting down Fain to get the dagger and the horn basically. So that thread line is open. I believe that them hunting for the horn happens leading up to, you know, the battle of Falme.

00;43;14;02 - 00;43;17;04

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. Correct. Because it's the hunt for the horn. Yeah. And the dagger.

00;43;18;19 - 00;43;51;03

'''Thad'''

Yeah. Cause the dagger’s with the, but we don't have, we don't have the urgency of we need the dagger because some something, you know, Mat needs it or whatever, because you know, we don't know what's going on with him. I'm sure we'll find out at the beginning of the season. So it's kind of kind of hard to guess. I thought, I honestly thought that it was probably going to happen midseason, like they were going to put it in and then some other stuff was going to happen and then like the end of season one, they're going to be like, All right, this stuff happened. Now here comes like the Seanchan again, right?

00;43;51;03 - 00;43;51;28

'''Dianna'''

I don't think. Because the Seanchan get driven out. So in the battle of Falme.

00;43;58;04 - 00;44;07;17

'''Thad'''

I'm sorry not them coming back but you know a situation like the Seanchan of you know, the next thing shows up at the end of season to you know, hook you into season three.

00;44;07;18 - 00;44;38;05

'''Dianna'''

If we did the battle of Falme in the middle of, you guys have me saying Falme now, of the middle of the season, I think we would end the season either, okay, sorry, I think we would end the season at Rhuidean and I think that we would skip Tear. I'm going back to my we skip to Tear theory because to do Falme and Tear in one season would be bananas plotline wise. it's, it would be too much escalation too quickly.

00;44;39;25 - 00;44;43;24

'''Thad'''

Well I mean what if they ended the season on sacking Tear?

00;44;44;01 - 00;44;53;14

'''Dianna'''

And then you start season three at the beggin…, with sacking Tear? I don't think that makes sense plotline wise. I don't think that makes sense from a show running perspective, like you typically would want...

00;44;54;10 - 00;45;00;05

'''Thad'''

Well, I'm not a showrunner, so full disclosure, I do not watch a lot of TV.

00;45;00;25 - 00;45;22;19

'''Dianna'''

I watch too much TV, way too much TV. But I don't think you would end on a battle and then have, what, a year and a half of no show? And then you pick it up with the battle again. That would just kind of be really unsatisfying for viewers. I think that they're going to end it somewhere else. I think that ending on Falme is, it makes a lot of sense.

00;45;23;19 - 00;45;26;11

'''Thad'''

Ending on the battle itself. Yeah, yeah. OK.

00;45;26;11 - 00;45;43;24

'''Dianna'''

There's also several things that happened in that battle that are super crucial to Rand's plotline. That's where he gets stabbed. That's where he gets the original injury from the dark one or from Ishamael. That's also where he gets branded the second time and they didn't do I don't remember when he gets branded the first time. Iis it in the end of the Eye of the world?

00;45;44;29 - 00;45;45;17

'''Doll'''

Yes. It is.

00;45;45;17 - 00;45;55;27

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. So we've skipped that branding so and I really want them to do the branding that is maybe my favorite part of the prophecy is that he's branded twice with a heron and then twice with the dragon.

00;45;57;00 - 00;46;02;12

'''Thad'''

Yeah. So it was like, you know, once for him it was like once for something, two for confirmation.

00;46;02;24 - 00;46;11;22

'''Dianna'''

I thought that that language is beautiful and I love when it happens. I get chills every time I read it. And you know, we've had the I cannot say that cycle’s name correctly is it the Karaethon cycle?

00;46;12;13 - 00;46;13;23

'''Doll'''

Yes it’s Karaethon. Yes something close like that

00;46;14;06 - 00;46;35;07

'''Dianna'''

Yeah so I think we've had it mentioned it's in the show, they've talked about it. So because that's the book that Rand is reading in the library when he meets Loial. And so maybe at some point we'll actually hear the prophecy. And if we hear the prophecy, then I would assume that they would also then need to do the prophecy.

00;46;36;04 - 00;46;39;00

'''Thad'''

What if they open up Season two Episode one with the prophecy.

00;46;39;10 - 00;46;42;27

'''Dianna'''

I would love that, I would love to have Rosamund Pike reading the prophecy.

00;46;44;05 - 00;46;49;00

'''Thad'''

Did we get much of it at any in the first season? I don't remember any at all.

00;46;49;08 - 00;46;53;00

'''Doll'''

The part. The fact that it exists. Well, no, that was in the Origins episodes.

00;46;53;11 - 00;47;06;12

'''Thad'''

Oh, you're right. They were.

So I feel like we've kind of shifted hard away from the actual question, which was, is the battle of the sky going to happen?

So I think they will.

00;47;06;12 - 00;47;07;27

'''Dianna'''

I’m coming down on they will.

00;47;08;29 - 00;47;14;02

'''Thad'''

Yeah, I think they will. Only because that sets everything into motion.

00;47;14;13 - 00;47;19;13

'''Doll'''

It sets everything in motion. It says that Rand is the hero and it's just an epic scene and an epic image.

00;47;19;13 - 00;47;29;19

'''Dianna'''

It's also actually a comprehensible scene for all that I made fun of it earlier, unlike the end of the Eye of the World, which I read that and my head hurts. It doesn’t make sense.

00;47;29;19 - 00;47;30;27

'''Thad'''

That is a bonkers.

00;47;31;10 - 00;47;35;28

'''Dianna'''

Incomprehensible. I think I read that scene at least five times every time I read Eye of the World, I am like, what is happening?

00;47;37;11 - 00;47;39;12

'''Doll'''

In and out of the world of dreams and like oh hey Perrin.

00;47;39;12 - 00;47;53;21

'''Dianna'''

And then he's like teleporting everywhere I’m like what’s going on. He’s like randomly in Tarwin's Gap, it's it's nuts. It's nuts. The, the battle in the sky is a much cleaner scene and a cleaner visual.

00;47;54;19 - 00;47;55;13

'''Thad'''

And way cooler.

00;47;55;13 - 00;47;56;04

'''Doll'''

Way Cooler.

00;47;56;05 - 00;47;56;18

'''Dianna'''

Way Cooler.

00;47;57;15 - 00;48;16;17

'''Thad'''

Also with the battle at Falme we do well. I mean, she's earlier in the book, but we basically get confirmation of Lanfear at the end of the second book because you know, she's Selene up and through and we don't know it's Lanfear and then at the end of the second book, Lanfear is like, hey, Min take care of Rand because I'm coming back for him.

00;48;16;23 - 00;48;17;08

'''Dianna'''

So good.

00;48;18;07 - 00;48;31;06

'''Thad'''

Also, we do kind of need the battle in the sky. You mentioned Elaida. That's how she knows it's Rand because that's what everybody is talking about for basically the next book or two of hey, did you see that crazy thing in the sky, that red haired kid fighting the, you know, the Dark one.

00;48;31;06 - 00;48;34;01

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, it’s basically his coming out as the Dragon.

00;48;35;11 - 00;48;42;03

'''Doll'''

I'm sorry. I just had this image of Rand walking in a pride parade with this Dragon banner as he came out as the Dragon.

00;48;42;03 - 00;48;46;18

'''Thad'''

You just need Mazrim Taim walking by with his with his blue gold dragons.

00;48;46;28 - 00;49;22;23

'''Dianna'''

Yeah, yeah. He's more outed then like willingly comes out poor Rand. And if I go to a pride parade next year and someone is dressed in Rand al’Thor cosplay with a dragon banner behind them, my heart will soar , someone do this!

If you want us to answer any other questions or burning questions that you have about the Wheel of Time, feel free to reach out to us, to at producer.tvt@gmail.com or drop by tarvalon.net and ask us in the Ask TarValon Talks thread and drop your questions. We would love to see them.

00;49;26;15 - 00;49;41;14

'''Doll'''

In this segment our hosts will take turns telling us about their favorite moments from the books. Please be warned that this segment may contain spoilers if. You have not finished reading the books, I suggest you stop listening now and join us next time.

00;49;41;14 - 00;50;21;03

'''Dianna'''

So we're going to talk today about my favorite scene. As I have mentioned previously, my favorite character is Egwene. And as I have also mentioned on a previous episode, my least favorite character is Elaida. So it should come as no surprise that my favorite scene in the series is when Egwene absolutely roasts Elida with truly the most brutal insult in the entire series, which I'm going to read directly because I'm not going to try and paraphrase it, it’s so epic.

“I dare the truth, Elida, you are a coward and a tyrant. I'd name you a dark friend as well, but I suspect that the Dark One would perhaps be embarrassed to associate with you.”

It's so brutal.

00;50;22;02 - 00;50;27;10

'''Thad'''

That's pretty good. You are so awful that even the Dark One wants nothing to do with you.

00;50;27;10 - 00;50;41;00

'''Dianna'''

And the funniest thing about that it’s true because Alviarin cannot stand Elida. She thinks she's an idiot. I mean, Elaida is an idiot, Alviarin’s not wrong, but Alviarin’s like,” Nope, would never be a dark friend actually. To dumb.”

00;50;41;27 - 00;50;45;27

'''Thad'''

Do you think Elida would be as bad as she was if she never interacted with Fain?

00;50;46;05 - 00;50;52;10

'''Dianna'''

Yes, I think Elida is one of those deeply twisted people who thinks that she is justified in all of her horrible actions.

00;50;53;14 - 00;50;59;26

'''Doll'''

Trying to remember what did we see of her before Fain? They met that first scene in Caemlyn?

00;51;00;02 - 00;51;46;11

'''Thad'''

They met in Caemlyn. She had the foretelling about Rand and she basically goes back to the Tower of, you know, kind of we should probably do something about this kid because things aren't looking too hot, which, you know, at the time you think, oh, she's a red sister, she probably saw something about him channeling and wants to do something about it. I mean, we know that eventually he'll start channeling, actually. I mean, it's kind of a given because they tell you basically chapter one like, hey, it's you, you're the one that's going to save us all. And then she sees it.

I think the next we see of her is when the girls are already at the tower and she is, she basically kind of keeps dropping in on them because Elayne’s there and she likes Elayne and stuff like that because she spends a lot of her time trying to get Elayne back.

00;51;46;16 - 00;52;09;18

'''Dianna'''

She’s so vile in a New Spring. I mean, only a monster, cause she beats, she beats Moiraine in order to get Moiraine to channel better. And she's a horrible, horrible person to Moiraine and Siuan. And she's just, she's vile from start to finish. Like, just awful. I kind of hate Elaida.

00;52;10;28 - 00;52;17;04

'''Thad'''

A lot of people don't read New Spring until after the Winter’s Heart so at that point you already greatly dislike her.

00;52;17;09 - 00;52;18;11

'''Dianna'''

Just it does not change how she's written.

00;52;19;14 - 00;52;42;24

'''Thad'''

No, no it absolutely does not. And you are right. She's a vile, horrible person. But we don't really start to see that until they depose Siuan. A lot of the sisters are kind of having an ego because they can channel, you know, we see that in society of the Aes Sedai. If I can channel so I'm better than you is the headspace of a lot of sisters in Elaida’s got it extra bad.

00;52;42;24 - 00;53;39;06

'''Dianna'''

She’s an absolute megalomaniac. The other reason I love this scene is because it's really the culmination of like all of Egwene’s journey. She stays calm under being literally beaten with the One Power, which is she's absolutely learned from all of her training as a novice and then as an accepted and also from all the Wise ones. Gosh knows those Wise ones will beat you until you are black and blue if you do not do what they want you to do.

And then also it’s her, just like asserting, really asserting her power as Amyrlin. I definitely credit this scene with her being able to then unite the Tower and bring it back together and keep the Tower whole, more or less during the Seanchan attack that comes pretty shortly thereafter. And just like to see it's like I'm like, oh, the baby's all grown up. Look at her do her thing. It just makes me love. I love her already, but it made me love her all over again.

00;53;40;21 - 00;53;50;06

'''Doll'''

Yeah. That's like the moment she truly became Amylin. Not that she wasn't before then, but it's when she truly, truly started to act like Amyrlin and believe it.

00;53;51;08 - 00;54;23;28

'''Thad'''

I think the big growing up point for her, like right before she travels through Tel’aran’rhiod to get to Salidar in like the night is when she pays her toh back to the Wise ones when you know she goes, “Hey, I'm not a sister, I'm just a novice.” And they beat her , as you said, black and blue for hours. And I think that for her, I think that was a like character defining moment for her of All right, I got to put on the big boy pants now.

00;54;24;10 - 00;54;33;01

'''Doll'''

Yeah. She's like, I've got to make up for my the lies I've told. I can't call other people out on theirs until I have atoned for my own.

00;54;33;03 - 00;54;54;19

'''Dianna'''

This is one of those scenes where I'm like, doesn't have to be exactly like this in the show, but has to be in the show. Maybe that exact line, because that exact line so epic, this is, that is my favorite line in the whole series. Yeah. Also Rafe is a, as from what I understand, a massive Egwene fangirl so keeping my fingers crossed that he's going to do me right.

00;54;54;19 - 00;55;01;25

'''Thad'''

We already got that in the show when they're meeting Siuan and they go, “Here's the most powerful channeler in a thousand years.”

00;55;02;04 - 00;55;50;08

'''Dianna'''

Egwene is like me. She has such pick me girl energy. That scene is hilarious. I watch Egwene when I watch that scene every time because her body language, Madeleine I can't remember what her last name was, Madeleine Madden I think is her last name, her body language in that scene is so perfect. It's like, pick me, pick me, straightens up like this almost like does her hair and then just deflated looking at Nynaeve like Wait, you? and right before that they come in and Egwene bows to Siuan and Nynaeve doesn’t and Egwene looks at Nynaeve like “oh what do I do, do I bow, I don’t know.” It's so funny, I love that scene.

Those are all the topics we had to talk about today. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you enjoyed. Come back next time for our episode on Samhain.

00;55;50;08 - 00;55;51;17

'''Thad'''

Yes, Samhain. (pronounced “saa-ween”)

00;55;51;17 - 00;56;12;14

'''Dianna'''

Yeah. That festival, Samhain and the origins from the Wheel of Time and how we celebrate it here at TarValon.Net.

==Episode Guide==

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