TarValon Talks Episode 4: Shaoman
General
Hosts:
Guest:
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
