Book Two is Better

Strength of the Few by James Islington: Episode Three (Finale)

• Season 3 • Episode 6

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SOTF Finale: Part 3, Ch. LVIII - LXXX. Islington heard our metal triangle-shaped prayers (but not our publicity emails) and answered them with some hot hot heat for the finale of Strength of the Few! 

Vis (Wis, Human) refuses to be limited by his single POV and covers some serious ground in this section. He scales pyramids, becomes a bionic man, and decides to run for political office to represent a new electorate: ZOMBIES. 

We end the story with some serious cliffhangers. What kind of man is Ka? How long can exoskeleton legs really last? Is anyone ever truly dead in these books? We can't wait to RAFO for Book 3. 

Thanks for joining us in this journey, and please tune in for our next series coming up soon! As always, reach out at booktwoisbetter@gmail.com and on Reddit @booktwoisbetter. <3 

SPEAKER_00

Breaking news on book two is better. Dee-dee-dee, dee dee dee, dee-dee-dee. Did you see that Trump and Shapiro are staging an all-white um performance of Hamilton on the White House lawn? Is it an intermission as the UFC fight?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. It's yeah, Jake Paul commentating a UFC fight. I love seeing a coked out Jake Paul sweating through his actual blazer in a press conference.

SPEAKER_00

Man, it's so fucking wild. There's so much stuff like that that I see online and then I have to re-google to make sure it's not a meme.

SPEAKER_03

Well, or make sure it's not AI. I keep getting caught in AI. AI traps. Okay, old man. It's true. But the best is now I've I turned into an ultimate I almost turned into a Trumper by accident because I denied a real news story to Angela that was that I was like, that has to be AI. There's no shot. And I was proven wrong. It was when um it was when people kept throwing snowballs at cops and sit in like Bryant Park.

SPEAKER_00

Did you see the famous video a few years back when someone decked Michael Rappaport in the face with a snowball? Yes. Oh my god. That was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03

The Rappaport family, man. What a what an interesting group of people. Yeah, big tr- yeah. Um would you take an offer from Barstool Podcast Network if they gave us a cash offer to buy the pod? For sure.

SPEAKER_02

You're such a sellout.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, if you'd picked like something really heinous, but just uh, you know, a dog whistly kind of potentially sexist uh podcast network. But we could fix we could fix it. We could fix it. We could fix it. Bring in the Bernie bros. I could I could fit some of those guys. Some of them I couldn't, you know. You think you can make them change? My theory on bar cat bar stool boys, sort of like both the employees and the type of boy who loves Barstool is that they don't have thoughts. They don't have like maybe they lean right based on vibes, but they've never really thought about anything. It's all like cultural affiliations. And I can we can win those people over.

SPEAKER_03

There is a type of person who has just been laughing at jokes for the majority of their life and never really thought about them, but thinks they're funny, and at some point gets. You know what usually happens? That person ends up dating like a hipster lib girl and has to confront their their past prejudices and overcome them.

SPEAKER_00

At least that's what the rom coms would show. Yo, just learned about sexism. That shit sucks.

SPEAKER_03

Yo, did you know women used to not be able to vote?

SPEAKER_00

That shit cray. That shit sucks, man. Shit booty. Oh, to be clear, the uh there's no all-white adaptation of Hamilton. I just wanted to see if you'd go for the go for the bit, much like you call for AI.

SPEAKER_03

That's pretty cute. Wait, did you believe it? You know, I kind of like not really, but kind of like, but that's how every day is. Like I saw I woke up this morning and saw that um Erica Kirk has been appointed to the the leadership for the Air Force. And it's like, you know what? Has she? Yes. What the fuck, man? Like, you know what? Yeah, sure. Whatever. Like, yeah, uh whatever at this point.

SPEAKER_00

I'll take it. We might be on Obitium. Yeah. It's starting to look more and more like it every day. Um what's that? Is that enough? Or do you wanna I've heard you I heard you've been addicted to a brand new drug called Slay the Spire 2 beta version.

SPEAKER_03

Yo, dude. I didn't know how much that was gonna take away from my life in the past week.

SPEAKER_00

Did you slay the first spire?

SPEAKER_03

I've never slayed a spire. Um, but I have a couple of good friends who, you know, have been OGs and and keep playing it. And um what a great little roguelike card builder, if that's the right way to describe it.

SPEAKER_02

Deck builder.

SPEAKER_03

Deck builder, there you go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's awesome. Um yeah, I made the mistake of like downloading the mobile version over Christmas, and there was a lot of time sitting with my in-laws where I was just up swiping that iPhone when everyone else was talking.

SPEAKER_03

That's that's brutal. Yeah, I mean it's it's great. I texted you this week that like I'd be between meetings and just saying, oh, let me just start a quick run. And it's like, oh god, I just lost some of the things.

SPEAKER_00

What's wrong with this? But no, that the game rocks. Um meanwhile, I'm building the world's most beautiful Pokemon village in Pocopia.

SPEAKER_03

Pocopia. All I can think of is uh Tyler the Creator, Chromacopia. Chromacopia.

SPEAKER_00

Extremely different vibes. But room for a crossover, I think. Maybe he does like a Fortnite concert type thing.

SPEAKER_03

Can I tell you the bad crossover that I was late night coming off of a little hallucinogens post-concert last night thinking through this pod? Uh I tried to get AI to pull all of the Maya Mortal text from the Harry Potter fanfic and rewrite part three of Strength of the Few.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's I guess it would have been kind of funny. It wasn't in the style of Bloody Wrist 666. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

The problem is like it just can't capture the pure unadulterated like buffoonery of that fanfic. Like there's just no way. There's no way to replicate it.

SPEAKER_00

AI's not advanced enough. Yeah, the teenage emo mind is is somehow the most complex of all human minds. It really is. It really is. Maybe we'll maybe we'll make a little photo of Viz in a good Charlotte shirt or something.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, when we launch our um YouTube version of the podcast, which we need to do soon.

SPEAKER_00

Soon come. Soon come. Soon come. Although anyone who's listening to this probably doesn't care about a YouTube version, but you know, some people do. Um okay. Let's pod. It's enough of that bullshit.

SPEAKER_03

The people have been clamoring because we're also a week late. Sorry for anybody who actually really cares about us. Um hey, life happened. Yo, a lot of life happened. We're gonna have some good life updates next episode to share.

SPEAKER_00

Both subject to strict NDAs. Yeah. Legitimately. The term of those expires next episode. I can't wait to tell everyone what's going on in our lives. Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Yay!

SPEAKER_00

Cancer. Um okay. So I didn't do a summary. Neither of us did.

SPEAKER_03

And I know actually the summaries might be the best part of our podcast, but um, we're we're just gonna work through it today.

SPEAKER_00

But we're gonna play the music and we're gonna do it in the style of free jazz. We're gonna trade solos. We've done this once before and it went horribly. Um But are you are you cool? Are you ready mentally? I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm doing my best, and then we'll get to our thoughts about this, our complicated thoughts about this uh third book.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, two, three, four. Part three of The Strength of the Few by James Eilington. And for reasons that are unknown to the listener, I'm gonna start with Rez.

SPEAKER_03

Vies is covered in blood and iron triangles, and he's on the run in the middle of a war zone. Diago is a killing machine.

SPEAKER_00

His best friend Aiden is caught behind enemy lines.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

And his dad wants Viz to do something about it. And he does.

SPEAKER_03

Iqua, one of our one of our fastest growing and favorite characters, is squished like a bug. In response, Vis builds himself a human exoskeleton and conducts a prison break for his family.

SPEAKER_00

You might wonder why Iqua's head was squished like a bug. Well, we do too. And we're gonna get into that. Well, in a scene that is bizarrely off-screen, uh, Viz's whole family gets thrown in prison. No. As part of the war that we see none of. Yes. And he's gotta break those, he's gotta break those bad boys out. He breaks half of them out, leaves one behind. YOLO. Yeah, because one of them may be a terrorist. But she's not his real mom. Yeah, first of all, not my real mom. Second of all, might be a terrorist.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Later on, Diago, dog, takes a spear and a bullet for Aiden, saving his life for no particular reason.

SPEAKER_00

Important note. Aiden was gonna take a bullet for Viz. Diago took a bullet for Aiden. They were like a big bullet sandwich. Get down, Mr. President. It's a club sandwich, and the spear was the little toothpick. Oh, that's a really good visual metaphor. And then Viz uses his uh giant metal triangles to form a big stupid beacon to call down the god of chaos, and um it works.

SPEAKER_03

Certainly does. Here's a little air. I'm hiding in the middle of a war zone. Here's a nice little convenient arrow in the sky.

SPEAKER_00

I like that cause, probably just like a bum. Yeah. I've just been kicking it and okay. Anyways, eventually, this section ends with Viz becoming the head of a brand new 80,000-person zombie army, and Aiden, once a conscientious subjector for three paragraphs, is kind of fine with it.

SPEAKER_03

Please don't activate the zombie army. Oh, it's okay. Still love you. Still love you. Everyone does things we don't like. Um small, one small note, his entire family's not dead. Who cares? Nothing matters. Who cares?

SPEAKER_00

And on Lucium, Papa has returned.

SPEAKER_03

Papa, tell me about the three worlds, please.

SPEAKER_00

Unfortunately, Papa kind of alive, but kind of not. He's a zombie being kept alive.

SPEAKER_03

Is it a convenient way to write a book where everybody's a living zombie and never actually dies? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

It is. But it is justified in world. So why are you being rude, Travis? True. It's true. Next up.

SPEAKER_03

Vision quest, Fornax edition.

SPEAKER_00

As I thought, the name Fornax is weird, and the place is weird. It's a giant underwater city that rises up for yet another challenge, slash, test, slash, trial, that Islington seems to be incapable of not riding.

SPEAKER_03

Luckily, he befriends a statue, merges himself to it, and gets carried out away from all the scary monsters that are trying to kill him. An arm. A silver arm and harmonic will imbuing powers.

SPEAKER_00

That he doesn't discover, even though he discovered it through science earlier.

SPEAKER_03

Another nameless druid gets stabbed in front of him. I've lost track of who they are at this point. He is dead set on not having a druid mentor. Certainly not. Keeps killing them. Galchabar is a bit of a dick and uh takes him captive.

SPEAKER_02

Nice guy.

SPEAKER_03

Thankfully, Tara immediately breaks him out of prison.

SPEAKER_00

Another prison break.

SPEAKER_03

Prison break. And instead of running like 400 more feet to her entire family and a defended castle, uh decides to duel Galchabar in the middle of a field and loses.

SPEAKER_00

And per the terms of that duel, Galchabar gets Viz and Tara, and then because he's a fucking lunatic, doesn't really respect the terms of that deal, ends up killing the king.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

Um which feels obvious in retrospect. Um and Vs get Viz gets tummy stabbed, which is really painful. And yeeted to the bottom of the lake with his arm, his his beautiful trophy arm as ballast. Fortunately, who comes moonwalking across the bottom of the lake? But his dead dad.

SPEAKER_03

What?

SPEAKER_00

Some of them here.

SPEAKER_03

I've been hiding in the lake all along.

SPEAKER_00

Ugh, in an act of noble sacrifice, he takes off his zombie amulet and puts it on Viz.

SPEAKER_03

One might call it a farcifal aquatic ceremony. What the fuck are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

I wish you understood that Monty Python quote.

SPEAKER_00

I'm really disappointed right now. Damn. Sorry. My parents wouldn't let me. Uh too many atheist themes. Oh. And Viz emerges from the water like a um some sort of ancient titan slash Moses slash Jesus and kills Galchabar with his new very strong, very scary metal arm that he could control over.

SPEAKER_03

Silver hand. Silver hand. And single-handly wins the war. Um one last reveal King Roark, the bad guy, is really C-Roar, who says, I'm really a good guy, I promise. And that's the end of this part.

SPEAKER_00

Have been trying to kill you, but trust me, I'm good. It's all good. Not gonna try to kill you anymore. And finally, on Obitium. Egypt. Welcome to Egypt. If you weren't sure, you should be now. Viz tries to just bomb his way into the Temple of Ka, um, makes a critical mistake by uh destroying a bridge he's standing on, uh, falls into the slime river, conveniently washes up at the feet of Netocret, who um finally has an actual plan to get him into the temple, which is to sacrifice her zombie daughter because she ain't coming back inside the temple of Ka. Do we expect resistance? Yes. Do we get it? Fucking not really. All it involves is climbing about a mile of stairs, stepping up to a pedestal, and stabbing a sleeping man in the chest, and thus ends the strength of the few. I keep wanting to say the will of the many, but it's the strength of the few. Wow. What an ending. Here we are. What a journey. Sorry for taking Obitium by the horns. I felt the coffee kicked in.

SPEAKER_03

I was ready. That was good. I mean, truly, that's everything that happened to Obidium. So 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, two sentences.

SPEAKER_03

Well, how'd you feel, bud? You know, a little disappointed. I would be lying if I kept it fully positive and said that I wouldn't have to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna keep it a buck with you, fam.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna keep it a buck, a buck fitty, maybe. That I was really hyped coming into this book. I thought part one was actually pretty strong. And I think the ending was fairly weak, and I feel a little dissatisfied.

SPEAKER_00

The start of the book was like a delicious bowl of queso that gets brought out before your meal. And then the rest was like if my wife ordered for me and she just got me three hard shell tacos at a Tex-Mex restaurant, which we have thought about before. Not an acceptable order. Three vegetable hard shell tacos with just like the little green roasted green peppers and the on the menu and saying like you can't order three hard shell tacos is crazy because they make them, but like absolutely not. Come around. I mean, that's a Taco Bell order. That's not a that's not a Matsell Rancho order. I would argue it's not even a Taco Bell order. If it comes like as a side, you know, if you get a meal and it's like we'll throw in a hard taco for free. Chow down.

SPEAKER_03

I saw a YouTube short the other day that was like um, you know, one of those like weight loss advice hacks, and they were trying to convince you that Doritos Locos Taco Bell tacos were a great use of your caloric intake for the day.

SPEAKER_00

It's very Jared from Subway Corps. Yeah. I had foot-long meatball subs for four years every day. I couldn't shit for weeks.

SPEAKER_03

Helped me lose a lot of weight. Man.

SPEAKER_00

Unfortunately, it made me a pedophile.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Jared didn't talk like that at all. No poor Jared. Not poor Jared. Or Jared Victims. That's what I meant to say. We Okay, we got sidetracked. We were trying to talk about the book.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, okay. I didn't feel great. I think I think I'm struggling a little bit generally with the limitations of single POV fantasy at this point. I'm gonna be honest. We've read about 9,000 straight pages of single POV, and I'm I'm flat sick of it, Avery.

SPEAKER_00

I I fe I'm trying to think, like in all my time reading series that are single POV, the only one that I've read that I felt like wouldn't have been improved by changing it is Farsier trilogy. I was literally thinking the same thing. Like and and I think like because she's such a uniquely talented writer and is like able to make characters so quickly from a single person it's it's not even it's like you shouldn't take that advice and be like Robin Hobb did it. It's like Robin Hobb did it because she's fucking unbelievable, and maybe you should consider whether you have her talents or not. Like it's I don't know. Like she's just a very uniquely gifted writer. But like for the most part, yeah. Like all of this stuff I think would have been more interesting if we've gotten in other people's heads.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. There's also just like an accelerated version of the Hadrian issue with secondary characters and his friends where they like they get built up, but they come and go so jarringly and irregularly that like you're just kind of burnt out by the end. Like I got so pumped for part one C-Roar relationship. He just disappeared. Like Iqua unbelievable thing is obviously a good twist, like the Iqua thing, but like also come on, man. You know, what did that actually serve?

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna save my I'm gonna save my gripes for that when we get to the when we get to the res. But yeah, it's like uh I don't know who we got closer to in this book. That's that's what I mean. I mean Terra, maybe like yeah, but Tara's new, so you know, that's good, but like Aiden, I feel a lot less attached to than I did before. Emisssa was barely in this book. Right. Equal got her head squished. Olkisscore barely in this book.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think Okisscor had a speaking line until the last like 30 pages.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I guess that yeah, I mean I mean I guess like Ostius took a step forward as opposed to being unnamed villainous man with scar, like sure. Um but he's intriguing. Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But like we only know his basic backstory and not even much about motivations or anything else. So yeah, I'm not so harp on it because we're gonna talk through all this, but yeah. And then the other thing I think just from a large thematic perspective that I'm struggling with is like the power scaling feels completely out the window. Where in some sections you have to like study and learn the art of the blade, and harmonic imbuing is like a theoretical and scientific process. And in other sections, you just touch a statue and you have the power and vibes, man. Yeah, it it feels really um, it ri feels really inconsistent.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, it is odd because like if you go back to the very start of the will of the many, like you get a pretty tidy breakdown of the will system. And then we get like the scene where Olkis Goris explaining, you know, how does a transfect work, how much will it take, how can it be done efficiently. It feels like it's gonna be this sort of mathematical scientific thing, which I don't know how I feel about, but it was at least interesting. But it hasn't actually like played out in that way throughout the series. Like it's become squishier and squishier, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I mean it started out, he it felt like he was trying to develop a hard magic system, like a Sanderson misborn vibe, and then it became whose line is it anyway, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Once you once you start introducing a a zombie army with cascading in like exponentially increasingly efficient will or whatever, like anything's possible, man. That's shit that shit. OP. Did I just break the game? Oh use this hack to control 80,000 zombies and Pocopia.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They need a hot fix in this in this world, dude. I LinkedIn push a patch note, man. Um my other just like high-level thought is I guess this is building on the character stuff, but I sometimes feel like this book was strangled by its own plot. Yeah. Um and it's not I don't know. I was trying to think through some sort of mini essay about where this has gone wrong. You cut me off this if this isn't interesting. I'm gonna try to give these thoughts now. Okay. I'm ready. This is what I want. Okay. Highlington is like a Sanderson acolyte. We we know that. And how familiar familiar are you with like Sanderson's Laws of Magic? Me? Yeah. Pretty pretty intimately.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, really? Well, yeah. We talked about it.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I thought you were saying that sarcastically.

SPEAKER_03

Now I believe you.

SPEAKER_00

I just the way you said it, maybe okay. Well, I feel like I I feel like my boss was like a Interrogating me there for a second. No, no, sorry. It's just your tone. I was like, I thought you were like, of course, like now it's a lot of things. That was a rhetorical question. Um anyways, uh I won't get into like what all of them are, but at least my sense of them is that it's sort of a way of avoiding Deus Ex Machina problems. Like when you introduce magic, how can you actually have conflict in a story, right? Like if you give someone godlike power, then it always ends up like, well, why didn't you just blow this guy's head off with a ball of lightning or something? Like, so I think the rules are in place to like put limitations on the magic so that the story still has tension and you know, you don't get that reader reaction, like, why the fuck didn't he do that earlier? Um, Hyllington is like obeying these rules for the most part, but it's still leaving me with that same feeling, which is like, well, where did the fuck did this come from? Well, like when his dad is rocking to him on the bottom of a lake, it still gets me to that same bad place, which is I'm not buying this, even though it's like all justified and foreshadowed. And I'm having a hard time figuring out why it feels that way, other than the plot is too mechanical and there's too much happening, and it needs to breathe and feel more like real life, not like bullet points that you've been labing laboring over.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I mean, part of it is that it feels like he's abusing his own framework. Um, right. Like, you know, you one of them is like birthright on rest, right? Which just immediately doesn't matter, but like you created this whole framework that's supposed to be a moral underpinning of society. Um it's weird that he introduces a framework and then ignores it or creates a plot to avoid the actual implementation of the framework in any interesting way. Like if birthright was actually enforced at any point in the two books, it would actually be really interesting. Like, yeah, but it never has. It's brought up all the time. But like we've never seen a punitive measure for anybody breaking it. And I think similarly with like the Junctus and the whole idea that when they seed back to the person, they're seeding more energy than they cost. So it's like a you know, it's it's a self-perpetuating machine in that sense. That rule makes sense, but then it feels so abused by the end of this book where it's like, and now you have a full like nuclear power system arsenal that's been hiding under the the rocks for a hundred years. Like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_00

I was thinking I was gonna say something along similar lines, but it's way stupider. I think the gist of it is like foreshadowing something doesn't make it justified or not dumb. And I was gonna point to the uh the old Aloopy problem. Early in the Will of the Mini, someone has a throwaway line that says like they're a loopy on these islands, isn't that nuts? But that doesn't make it feel less dumb when I run into an Aloopy. I'm still like, why the fuck do I have a pet wolf? I know that it's foreshadowed, I know that it's justified by the text, it still feels bad.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, or like on that exact same line. Oh, a loopy might have feelings and a bit of intelligence we don't understand, and then it's fucking taken a bullet for Aiden. He's not dead, right? Diago? No, no, he seemed weirdly alive. That was how we left it. He's like, oh, I guess he's more fine than I thought he'd be. If you look down at his little paw, there's a healing amulet.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, enough enough meta. That's enough non-specific talk about the book, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, let's pick out some fun. We've done the summary, so we've covered a lot, but we should pick out some fun parts to talk about from each of these sections.

SPEAKER_00

I think I'm gonna propose our uh our machete order here. I'm gonna propose Viking Land, then Obitium, then Res. What do you think? Because I don't think we can discuss Death of Ka last. I think that has to come before Rez.

SPEAKER_03

I agree. Um but I would also like to preface our entire discussion with a little bit of Latin corner. Um hold on. I'm gonna do King Tut corner a little bit. You get the King Tut corner. Also, uh Welsh corner is Viking land, which is exciting. I did look up.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you could I know I'd been saying Gaelic, and I knew in the back of my mind that there was a good chance I was wrong.

SPEAKER_03

It's clear uh it seems like a Gaelic-Welsh mix. And I was reading online, some native speakers are able to understand it. A lot of the Smyrian Smyrian Chimerian or whatever, Smyrian. Umrian. Symrian, yeah. And uh Wait, the Aiden's Place? Yep. Aiden's place slash Lucium uh Lyceum. And it's uh it's interesting. So shout out to that for at least trying, you know. Um my funny thing is that uh in in Latin pronunciation, V's are commonly actually pronounced as W's in our common language. So the instead of Vs for this entire book, we really should be calling him Whis. We've and I just think that's fantastic. We know Whis. Yeah, Rotting Gods, Whis. So anyway, Transwecht. Transwecht. Transwecht Stupid. Oh, that's good. Oh my god. Um, all right, anyway, on to onto Viking Land. Um Papa's back, man. Papa's totally back.

SPEAKER_02

Uh hey, something nice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice to see his back back with his dad.

SPEAKER_03

I thought this was fun. He's just a kid. This this was a good start to me, actually. Like, Tara is a hottie. I like her. Uh his farm family he thinks is dead, but obviously comes back later, which, you know, I don't know. Felt important.

SPEAKER_00

But his dad may never die.

SPEAKER_03

He gets a nice little lore dump to which his response is like, oh, which I thought was funny.

SPEAKER_02

No?

SPEAKER_03

Not either.

SPEAKER_00

Um I wonder if my other selves are jacking off right now. Yeah. I kind of feel it.

SPEAKER_03

Uh the one thing that I do think is funny is um he kind of asks, like, why don't we reveal the hierarchy's secret? Uh and the argument is like basically the same as the chantry in Sun Eater, where it's like, nobody would ever believe us. It's have you tried?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Another flavor of that is when they're talking to um, god damn, I'm a dumb idiot. What's the principal's name? Viridius. Viridius. They're talking to Viridius. They're like, hey, why are you working on this like completely in isolation, not with anyone? He's like, man, the politics of it would be fucked. Yeah. Too much groupthink. But these three 18-year-olds, man, they're they're gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_03

Hate bureaucracy, love teenagers. Uh the Republican conservative motto right there.

SPEAKER_00

I know I was gonna say that that feels a little too close to home, but I know.

SPEAKER_03

I know. Okay, man. Um anywho, so part of this mission here on his way to war is to go to Fornax, the secret city, which is pulled physically out of a lake, which is actually pretty badass. And uh very visually cool. I got to give him that. Yep. Loved it, really enjoyed it. Um, I also loved walking in, like hundreds of imbued statues. They're all creepy, obsidian, classic labyrinth vibes. Um what did you think of the pool full of weapons challenge?

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, it was just like a million night bloods from Stormlight, except they all hate him. They're unworthy. Unworthy. Okay, I'm worthy of something. Can I have like a pair of scissors? I love I love talking swords, man. I fucking adorable. This is like a classic Islington set piece, a la chariot race, where when it started, it was like, you gotta be fucking kidding me, man. Another test. But then when I started reading it, it was pretty fun. It was fun, you know.

SPEAKER_03

I thought the scene was actually a lot of fun. And it also made sense, like he already had his imbued weapon, which was outside, and like kind of makes sense why none of the weapons liked him in in that sense. Like, yeah, I don't know. I actually enjoyed the like bonding with a weapon thing until the weapon just got destroyed later on for no reason and it then it became uncool again.

SPEAKER_00

Um and the whole like essentially the alarm bells going off when it's discovered that he's synchronous was fascinating and pretty scary.

SPEAKER_03

Can we talk about how lame it is to build up a whole plot that he inherited a warrior spirit through a spear or a staff, and then the we're just never gonna talk about that again.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, he set up two humble druid mentors and killed both of them. I think it's just a flavor of that. Nothing that just happened before is going to matter.

SPEAKER_03

It's true.

SPEAKER_00

But the big fun part of really dumb, dude. I wanted him to harness the power of that fucking dead guy.

SPEAKER_03

Right. Or like learn, or I don't know. Like what a weird Humble ghost mentor. Think about that. Part of me is just like, why include that? No, I hadn't thought about it much as I was reading that, but now I'm like, why why would you Why do anything, man?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Why write a book?

SPEAKER_03

What's the point of the book? Why do I wake up? Okay, and just because it's 7 a.m. where you are.

SPEAKER_00

For me, it's to spread the gospel. The goodopia.

SPEAKER_03

Chromopacopia.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So he makes it out of Fournex with silver arm. I feel like it's very dog-like. I found a bone.

SPEAKER_02

Look at me.

SPEAKER_00

Look at me. Yeah. Um, I think uh I think the general feeling from Lear as he makes it out is uh, damn, it's not really supposed to be that hard. Yeah, he's like, whoa, wait. I know it's tough, but Jesus, I think you got a different test.

SPEAKER_03

It's like I I had to play foundation. The immune statues just fucking did a hip hip array with me and carried me through. Getting carried out was such a vibe. Um but we're not we're not really able to celebrate the Four Knox achievement because Lear is just immediately murdered.

SPEAKER_00

Do we want to discuss him uh just like snap intuitively discovering mind control when C-ROR had been working on it for a fucking six years?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, let's talk about just touching things and making them do your bidding.

SPEAKER_00

Now that's that's not Sanderson's laws.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's punishable by I don't know, community service under Sanderson's laws.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Not to go back to the whole meta thing here, but two problems I have. One is the inconsistent application of learning will across these worlds, which is embodied here. The other is it felt like he was trying to set up like a point about morals where each each vice goes to a different world and has like a different experience with how they think about like death and their actions, and like you know, Obidium Vice has to like kill people and stab people to get things done, and then like Ris, he's all about like, oh, I've never killed anyone, and just like Lucium's all about honor and like Viking spirit, but then all of it just gets so fucking muddled, and he's just in all three worlds, he's just murdering everything, and it doesn't matter anymore. I don't know. That's another thing that I had a problem. I thought he was actually gonna set up a nice like nature v nurture thing where each vice turns into a different person, but it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00

It's I think if you can squint at it and maybe go very high level with it, I would say like the Lucium viz would be the viz that wants to disengage from conflict. Though I don't question whether that stands at the end of this book, but yeah, I feel like the farming arc is like sort of representative of his time there. Yeah. I would assume Res is sort of like the viz who's going to try to work within the system to change things, and then the Obitium is gonna be the uh Punisher Viz, Vigilante Justice, I'm gonna do this shit myself and score 83.

SPEAKER_03

Um And maybe the point is they all end up in the same place. Like maybe that is the point, and I missed it. Um but there's also a point on rest where like work within the system, I've never murdered anyone. He just casually like kills three people in one sentence, and that becomes no longer the case.

SPEAKER_00

And picks up a zombie army that I would imagine is gonna do a whole lot more killing. Anyway. But not skipping ahead too much, um back on back on Viking land. Our favorite villain, Golchabar, who's very well developed, just really nuanced. Yeah. He's got a lot of he's got a lot of thoughts and stuff. He's not just a sick freak who likes stabbing.

SPEAKER_03

I'm big and strong and I want to be powerful.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, anyways, prisoner time, Lear dies. Very sad. I was shocked when Lear died. I thought he actually was too. Yeah. About as shocked as when the unnamed first druid died, but whatever. I liked Lear. Sad to see him go.

SPEAKER_03

I know. He was a nice guy.

SPEAKER_00

Well, at least we get to see him again later on the spirit plane.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00

That's I mean, talking about something that is justified, I a hundred percent buy that Tara's fucking crossing the heaven and earth to get to Biz. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Tara's the best. She's my favorite.

SPEAKER_00

She really is uh an A plus addition to the cast. Big fan, badass, cute. Maybe down.

SPEAKER_03

But flawed. Not eligible for leadership in this world.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, sorry, not cute, flawed. Which, okay, to be fair, I made fun of that in the last section, but they actually have a good point about why that's the case, is that that was cool. That was a very cool reveal. If you cross through the portal between worlds, you have to lose you have to become physically blemished, like lose an arm, you know, have a face scar, lose an ear, whatever. And that is their uh proxy for not letting off-worlders rule. Which I thought was smart.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's very cool. Good good lore, Islington. That's a fun one. Except King Ruork, who is C-ROAR.

SPEAKER_03

Spoiler! Whoa. Anywho, uh, Tara breaks them out, they run back to the castle. For some reason, don't continue running to the castle, and she's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02

Um What did you think of the fight scene?

SPEAKER_03

I thought the fight scene was well written. I wish Tara would have won. I think it would have been more fun, but it wouldn't serve won. Silver hand plot.

SPEAKER_00

But I guess it makes sense. Like Gelchabar is a bit of a badass, and I think he has like 150 pounds on her. That's tough. She did she did great.

SPEAKER_03

She did great, but uh realistically, yeah. It's like, okay, it's a teenage girl fighting a the the main warrior of the kingdom, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That's actu that is like a that's almost hold on, let me back up. One, we've both been feeling like this series is a little more YA than we initially thought. Yes. Two, kind of inversion of a YA trope that like a small teenager in fact cannot beat the strongest warrior in the land. Like I kind of like that reversion to the meme there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you could see him teetering. Like there were parts of the fight where you're like, maybe she's gonna win. And then okay, okay, good. We didn't we didn't really jump the shark there. We just wanted to jump the shark in five more minutes when he comes back to life.

SPEAKER_00

There's a shark that's gonna get jumped, but it's not here.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So she loses, tough shit. And the king, her father, who uh in fact does love her, even though he sent her off to warrior camp, um, decides to like uh trade himself in in exchange for the life of his daughter. And was that a good was that a good decision? No. No. Never yeah, never into her con enter into a contract with a crazy person, but they will break it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Also, just like I don't know. There's something about sacrificing your whole kingdom for one person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean Tara didn't want him to do it, but she has she has a real sense of duty. She's a warrior spirit. But anyway, he does. Yeah, pretty quickly. We get stabbed in the tummy and thrown in a lake. Yeah. Real mobster style.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Just going to sleep with the fishes. But you know who's with the fishes? Papa. His dad.

SPEAKER_03

Just walking across the mossy lake bed. Let me give you my zombie life force for you to live, is what happens. Was this epic for you, or is this like, oh, come on? The latter. Why are we filled with such hate? I know. I'm I'm just jaded. But I did I love just like, I'm back to fight, baby. I am become a god. My silver hand is a big thing. With a fucking mech mech arm. Yeah. It's so cinematic. It's so like silly. I don't know. I love it. Like coming out, and he's like, he beats the shit out of Galchabar and he's like, flee, flee or die with dishonor, you coward. Like so.

SPEAKER_00

And so he can't skip over his like brief visit to the spirit plane where he talks to Lear and is like Lear tells him about the old ways and is like, hey, if you say exactly these words, um, everyone will stop and you can actually just have a straight-up duel. Yeah. And it works. And goddamn, was he right. And it wins the whole war. It's nice to see that some people still respect the old ways. As an old way respecter myself. Obviously. Yeah. Um but that's pretty much it. I wonder if he's gonna become some sort of a cult Jesus figure on this world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Uh probably. But um yeah, the only other thing to talk about is the C-ROAR conversation, which honestly we don't learn a lot, just that C-Roar is like, there's there's more here than meets the eye. Like, don't discount what I have to say, don't destroy the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Any thoughts on the old uh necklace he tries to put on Viz?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, he loves crushing he loves crushing magic torques from interdimensional travelers. That's the theme of this book.

SPEAKER_00

Um strong as hell. Yeah, what interesting. I couldn't cr yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03

That's cool. I could I I bet he can rip a phone book in half, you know? Dude.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god, are you ready for childhood lore? Yes. Whoa, okay. There was, man, fuck. I wish I could remember the name of this group. But basically, there was a group of Christian strongmen who used to travel around Texas and probably nationally, and their whole bit was they would rip phone books. A few of them were really good at spinning plates and basketballs. Like they could do that thing where they would like lie down kind of on their ass with all, you know, their hands extended, their feet up, and they could spin a ball on each appendage. That whole thing. So they would come and put on a show, and then at the end they would give you a big like, and that's why you need to accept Jesus. Which I was like, you know what? I'm buying it. I'm bad. I'm pretty impressed with what you just did. That's fun. You can just go to the show. It actually was like Did you watch Righteous Gemstones? No, it's been on my list. There's a plot line where they're where they're parodying these guys. Kelvin, the guy who is in workaholics, um, ends up starting a Christian strongman group. I love that. That's which I'm sure a lot of people who watch that show were like, that's absurd. Oh no, my friends, it was real. It's well reading. I did I did attend. Ripping a phone book. So funny, man.

SPEAKER_03

That's amazing. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Good lore.

SPEAKER_03

Good lore corner.

SPEAKER_00

Christian lore corner. Bro, we could do a whole episode on that. Every time I think I've told you all my stories, I haven't. No, it's it's a pretty inexhaustible list. That one was funny though. That's a good that's like only positive vibes. The the moths and spanking from last episode was a little more troubling. Yeah. Maybe a little bit. Okay. What were we talking about? Do we have anything more to say about Lucian?

SPEAKER_03

No, but do you want to hear the um My Immortal quote that I picked for this particular section? I would love to. Reminder to the Wait, are we gonna remind the listener what My Immortal is? Uh Harry Potter fanfic written in emo style. Written by an angsty gothic teen whose favorite band is Good Charlotte. It's horrific. I actually looked through more of it, and there's some like really problematic aspects. Just want to throw that out there. But parts of it are fucking hilarious to look at. Yeah. One of the funnier things I've read. Apparently, also problematic. So be warned. Very well, Dumbledore said angrily. But we cannot do this. We can't close the school. There's only one person who is capable of killing Voldemort, and she's in the school. And her name is Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Wet.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, important note for the listener. Ebony darkness. Darkness is spelt It's D apostrophe arcness. Just the funniest shit. It's so mad.

SPEAKER_03

But that's how I felt when he that's how I felt when he came out of the water. Like there's only one man who can kill Galchabar.

SPEAKER_00

And his name is Dementia.

SPEAKER_03

His name is Whis.

SPEAKER_00

Whis.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Let's go to Egypt. Take me to Egypt, baby. We are in the pyramids, baby, ripped straight from Egyptian terminology. Duat. Duat, the Egyptian underworld. This one is instead of I will become a god with a silver arm, it's I will become a god immune to acid. Because basically, let me sum up the first, like, I don't know, 80 pages of this section, jumps in acid, swims through acid, finds out water is made through people's stomachs. That was gross. That was really gross. And then says Vec or Rotting Gods every third sentence.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we did we did a quick number crunch, and there, I can't remember the exact number, but it's between 110 and 120 uses of Vec and 40-ish uses of rotting gods, which comes out to you're getting one of those every four pages.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Can you are you control Fing right now? Yeah, there's 110 vecks. Every other curse word. Does he say shit one time? Let's see.

SPEAKER_02

Uh zero results for shit.

SPEAKER_03

Can I get a fuck? Um obviously you can get a fuck. Uh we're looking at zero results. A fuck. Did I even look up crazy?

SPEAKER_00

Oh no, no, no, no. Because he's got riding gods damn dragon gods. Yeah, okay. What about crap? What about good old crap?

SPEAKER_03

You don't need to bring that up, man. No, there's no craps either. Yeah, he really he really just controlled F. But there's there's some funny sections where it's like the way he's using it, our equivalent would be like fuck fuckity fuck iting fuck fuck. And it was it is funny to read it.

SPEAKER_00

God damn motherfucker.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Oh, did you did you see that we got rated explicit on Spotify? What? Because it probably because we just said fuckity fuck fuck.

SPEAKER_00

That's crazy. This is kid-friendly show.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What about the kneecap the kneecap song as our outro and then test a lot?

SPEAKER_02

This is fucking censorship. Alright, let's get into this.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Egypt. Honestly, man, I don't have a lot to say about this.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, let me let me just slime testing arc.

SPEAKER_00

He discovers a magic sarcophagus full of golden weapons, a crook and a flail, which the magical door he like had a PTSD freak out with earlier. He goes back, now a brave boy, and inside is very much a fucking mummy. The description of that sarcophagus is like king tut ass Egypt bullshit. It's like, oh, it had like a gold and blue striped headband with a snake on it. Oh my lord, come on. Um and then two mystical weapons.

SPEAKER_03

Which, if he bleeds on, can just explode whatever they do. That's nuts. He's just got two little fucking guided missiles, and also it doesn't hurt him, obviously.

SPEAKER_00

That is very funny. He's like, I've been thinking about it, and there's something fucky going on with blood. Should I try that?

SPEAKER_03

Should I bleed on this thing? It's the classic Vs, just inferring from a random thing he learned. I wish he'd tried other stuff.

SPEAKER_00

It's like, all right, I'm gonna puke on this thing. Let me spit. Let me spit on that thing. I miss the look away.

SPEAKER_03

I'm about to piss on this crook. Oh my god. But the then he just starts nuking everything in town.

SPEAKER_00

If it actually was spit, he's like, get ready to die, motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_03

Hunk to dude, the best would be because Obitium's so like hot and arid that like half the plot would be him trying to find water to spit. And he's like in the middle of a fight, but he has cotton mouth. Uh he pulls out a glacial chair gator head. So good. Now you're done for. Oh my god. But yeah, he just goes, he runs all over town punching cleaners and exploding them, which I thought was hilarious. Bad day to be a gooner, my friend. Touches them with this little, you know, stick, basically, and they fucking very buttery. The best was his whole plan, because we wondered from part two, what's his plan with the bridge? He kept looking at this bridge, and his plan is to walk to the middle of it and chop out the bridge from underneath his feet.

SPEAKER_00

Easily the most loony tan-ass shit that has happened in this book is the classic uh standing on a tree limb and cutting the side that's connected to the tree.

SPEAKER_03

How funny was that scene, man?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. He he cuts one part of it and is like, well, fuck, the bridge didn't fall. I guess I'll cut another.

SPEAKER_03

Oh. And I guess it works. I mean, I don't know. He falls in a an acid river and kills half the gleaners that fell with him. Um even though they can fly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's my question. Why aren't they flying?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. They're they're super underpowered at this point because in part one, we were terrified of them and we would like hide for hours if one was in there yet. And at this point, he's inviting dozens of them to one shot.

SPEAKER_00

Remember how ominous C-Roar's descriptions of the gleaners were? He's like, tell me if you see anything. It's like, what do we do if we see one? He's like, pray. Like, okay, well, he just fucking ran into a cloud of 30 of them and won by cutting a bridge out from his under his own feet.

SPEAKER_03

Just gonna call out my issue with power scaling in this book here. I think this is a good portion of it that he just has superpowers now and it doesn't make sense. Stop neutering the gleaners. But give them a little respect. Come on, man. They're supposed to be cool. They just look like dumb robots that he can one tap, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Dude, calling them gooners now feels appropriate. Gooners. Yeah, smash. So the bridge goes out, he follows into the slime river, which uh is a little tingly, but ultimately uh does him no harm. And who finds him but Netakura? He did he had to tell her to wait for him, so yeah, no issues there.

SPEAKER_03

Uh I mean I think this was actually a it was melodramatic, but it was also an emotional bow on the story of Netroket and Kia Kaya of just like I can't save my daughter. No, I didn't mind it. I can't save my daughter. I have to sacrifice her to save, you know, you and get you into the temple.

SPEAKER_00

I don't totally understand what she did or why it was a uh kind of the end of her.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I guess she's like still.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she sort short circuited the security system. But I guess that alerts the larger system and they're gonna shut her down, something like that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. It's like I guess there's a f uh the thinking was that there's like a uh a kill switch in the brains of anyone that's connected to it that helps control them. And one of the goals of Netrica is to like save her and get that make sure that thing can get taken out, and she figured out it can't. So might as well use it for good.

SPEAKER_00

Was Viz's plan all along to do his like fucking battle entrance and then return and have them shut off the security thing, or was the plan to like, I'm gonna try to blast my way in. Shit, this didn't work. Let's try something else.

SPEAKER_03

Seems like the latter. I don't think he really had much of a plan besides let's start blasting.

SPEAKER_00

Dude, it's such a it's just like if you zoom out and think about everything he did here, it's so weird. Well, you spend it. Like the dance arc where fucking nothing happened. Then he just tries to bull rush it and that doesn't work because it's like a whole army. And then And it's like you can see the way that it worked in the outline, because it's like, okay, we had to do the dance arc to figure out that we couldn't save the kid so that we could do this. But then it feels a little too contrived. Well, it's like, okay, just because there aren't plot holes doesn't mean it's a good That's exactly what I was trying to say before, is like it can all be justified and still feel bad.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Like logically, yes, all of the conditions exist for his entrance into the temple. Yeah. But it's not satisfying to me. Um Are you telling me this is more of an art than a science? Yeah, a little bit. Okay. Okay, but the funny part here is I want to pick this out. This is about my moral thing. He's asking Netricut how to prepare to kill someone. He's like, I if I have to kill Kyle, like how do I do it? How do I become the person to kill someone? It's like, brother, you just exploded like 45. During the scene, he's like covered in gore. He's he's head to toe in blood and acid from exploding.

SPEAKER_00

Let me stop you there, Viz. You have a you have a bone shard in your hair and some guts in your eyes.

SPEAKER_03

I thought that I thought that was absurd. I just had to call that out.

SPEAKER_00

But um it's well, they're gooners, dude.

SPEAKER_03

They're not people, they're not people, even though Amhos was getting turned into a gooner and getting the game. Who, by the way, he's a complete dick to in this section. He's like gives a really rude eulogy to him, basically.

SPEAKER_00

And he wasn't my friend, but we did, we were roommates.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's crazy. Uh anyway, yeah. Wrapping this up, he gets in through Kia's sacrifice. He climbs uh over an hour of stairs.

SPEAKER_00

Unbelievable amount of stairs. How long does it take to climb the Empire State Building? Can you keep talking while I Google this?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you Google that. And then he uh once again uses his blood to bleed on the door, which opens it. Um walks into like a normal dude's library. It looks like, you know, you think it's gonna be the evil villain lair, but it's just some books and like coffee mugs, like a well-lived in living room, which I thought was cute.

SPEAKER_00

Turns out Kyle kind of chill. Um Ky's just snoozing and gets stabbed. I have an update on our number crunch. Yeah. Actually, how long do you think it takes a quote moderately fit person to climb up? To be clear, it's to the 86th floor observation deck.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna just go with like 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_00

Bingo. 30 to 45 minutes. Okay. So I'm just saying Viz more than moderately fit. Two, going much faster than person walking. This is well over a hundred floors.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's crazy that this pyramid is big. I mean, because like the temples that we know in Egypt are tall, but like I don't know what. Thirty floors? Thirty stories, I would guess. This is good podcast, baby. Listen to us Google slowly.

SPEAKER_00

So it's about four hundred and fifty feet.

SPEAKER_03

So for forty-five stories, thirty to forty five.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, this is misleading. Okay, it's it's twelve hundred and fifty feet to its to its roof. So then we're talking about excluding the pinnacle and and antenna.

SPEAKER_03

So roughly we're talking pyramids that are four to five times taller than the pyramids we know.

SPEAKER_00

Three times.

SPEAKER_03

Well, because then it's taller.

SPEAKER_02

The the Duat's temple is taller than the Empire State Building. I don't know. What is it? You're probably right.

SPEAKER_00

That's a big fucking pyramid, my friend. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03

Also, what's so funny is that it's that big of a temple, and then he walks in, and the first room has the sleeping ruler in it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what's going on in the thing? What's underneath? It's it's all completely bricked in, like a weird Minecraft construction. There's just one room inside.

SPEAKER_03

To be fair, the only way he could open the door at the top was because he has synchronous blood. So, like, yeah, okay. Fine.

SPEAKER_00

That blood do be handy. Uh that's it. Let's move on. So, um It was sort of a cool anti-climax because he shows up, he's like, well, there's a sleeping fellow here. Feels like ha stab. Um it's sort of interesting in that it's like so fucking different than what I expected.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I actually thought there'd be a long section of converse, you know, villain conversation justification. That would have been consistent with how we've seen other villain reveals of like Viridius or C-ROAR or whatever. Yeah. This one is just I actually kind of liked it. Where it's like, you know what? Uh before I ask any questions, I'm gonna stab this dude.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And speaking of things being justified, like this guy is imbued out the ass, controlling such a fucking wide network of zombies and what it sort of makes sense that he would be in like some kind of stasis, just like observing his kingdom through all of the people that he's controlling. It's very interesting. I don't know. Like it was cool, but it it does feel like one of those things, like we'll have to read book three to know if it worked or not, but I'll remember it for a while.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I do think what's interesting is it feels consequential. Like it we get in rest, which we'll transition into here, um in the conversation with Ka that like Ka's no longer synchronous. Like Visa's the only synchronous person. Uh so he he did kill him. Like it's not like a cliffhanger where he stabs it. Well, we'll see in book three, but it does not feel like a cliffhanger where he stabs him and he's like, I'm immortal.

SPEAKER_00

That was yeah, that was my first thought. Is like, no way this guy dead. But yeah, turns out by all indications dead. Yeah. Has that stopped people from not being dead in this book? No. No, but doesn't matter. Let's hope he doesn't have on a uh viterium or whatever the fuck they're called. Um, and now we go to Rome, baby.

SPEAKER_03

I don't even know what I want to talk about in here. Can we just skip straight to the prison?

SPEAKER_00

The depiction what about the depiction of the war?

SPEAKER_03

Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_00

There was no depiction of the war. It was a trick.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Here's the quote that I pulled from it. Uh the horror of what I'm seeing, the ache of my legs, the agony of what happened to Iqua only a few hours ago, it all recedes into a dull thumping constant, an oddly detached concern when compared to the need to stay alive and find Aiden. The way that he's describing that is how this section felt to me. Like I understand there's a big thump in war with like will missiles being launched, which I thought were fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_00

Uh that is fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But it it like bleeds into the background. Like it doesn't feel visceral, it doesn't feel emotional. I don't know. I struggled with that.

SPEAKER_00

It's we just haven't spent enough time dealing with like the various factions to give a fuck about the war. And Islington obviously knows that because he doesn't really show it, but also everything was building up to this war. And so it does feel a little strange that like we're not it's not even possible for us to care about it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um and I think he wants to kind of like shock you with the gristle of it into feeling the effects, but it it doesn't work that well.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. And it's just like in a book of this length, like this probably is an issue that could have been resolved by reallocating 50 to 100 pages.

SPEAKER_03

And I mean, I could find 50 to 100 pages to the chariot race and fucking dance arc or um a little bit of Viking Warrior school, or I mean just like of all the things to like chop down in your editing, you know, the the depiction of war is as long as the chariot race depiction.

SPEAKER_00

That's wild. That really is wild to think about because yeah, chariot was multiple chapters. And it also does feel like a little bit of a missed opportunity because I'm skipping a little bit to the end, but it's suggesting that we're getting into like Viz working within the system and going politics arc next, and we haven't really learned that much about who the important players are. Um, like it's still just sort of hand-wavy saying, like, well, we got religion and military and governance, and they don't like each other.

SPEAKER_03

It's like well, but now everybody's fighting and it's even more confusing. And I I don't really understand who anyone is. Like, there's guys named Tertius Decimus, which literally just means 13.

SPEAKER_00

Man. Yeah. I don't know. I like I'm assuming this would be corrected in book three. Like, we're gonna get a whole new cast of characters and whatever the Senate is. And ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Here's my my last piece of disappointment is I I remember the Namachia feeling, you know, when like it's this shocking piece of violence where everybody, you know, that first scene in book one. Yeah. I was really hoping we'd get something more like that. Like, I don't know. I felt like that was such a good, a good way to introduce a violent act like that. And this just doesn't feel the same.

SPEAKER_00

That is sort of interesting that like he's so fond of these big action set pieces, but when he has war, he just skipped it entirely. It's like we're doing dancing and four nacks and chariot race and a machia, but the giant civil war that's tearing apart the empire couldn't be fucked to Red Obama. Um okay.

SPEAKER_02

So Prison Arc. Yes. Linistia's in there, his mom's in there, his bitch mom, and his dad.

SPEAKER_00

So, gotta go get him. Linistia. Wait, how am I Iqua agrees to go along for the ride, but who is waiting for them? But Iroh's angry dad. Oh, yes. The character uh the character I think about all the time. Oh yes. Remember how Iroh was mad that Viz didn't save his sister? Well, his dad is real mad. Also, Iro's dead. Yeah, that kind of pushed him over the edge.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um also the we have to note that the prison break does it well, purportedly, I guess, served a purpose that they were gonna just murder everyone in sappers, which I think is kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00

That was interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because it takes away the willpower of the faction they want to defeat.

SPEAKER_00

That's yeah, that's actually something that's pretty metal. We didn't discuss last episode, which I thought was really cool, which was when we got the famous bench fight. Yeah. When those people die, all of their will cascades back down to the people who seeded it. So there's like some sextus somewhere is like, I feel good. Woo! Which is very funny. Uh but that's like a very cool mechanic, like going back to like the heart, the the hard magic of will. Um, yeah, that will doesn't disappear, it just goes back to whoever gave it. So um, yeah, actually kind of a badass plan just to get off the sappers.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, pretty crazy. I mean, it's metal as fuck. Uh yeah. But you know, that's that's the war. Um but yeah, so he he pulls his dad out, he pulls Lenistia out. He does not pull his mama out, which I thought was Are we not gonna talk about Iqua? Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Come on. Sorry, I got too ahead of myself. I'm insistent on this because this to me was the low point of the book.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Talk me through it. Why I thought it was the low point?

SPEAKER_03

Nah, just the just the you know what Okay, Iroh's dad mad.

SPEAKER_00

What happens? Iro's dad is pissed. Why is he pissed? Because his daughter was at the Namachia where thousands of people died in a shocking act of terrorism, which Viz stopped when everyone else was running away crying like a baby. Viz goes in, fucking stops it, thrum thrum, gets PTSD. Iroh's dad is pissed because he didn't save his daughter specifically, who Viz did not know, in a crowd of thousands of people. Yep. That is like getting mad at the firefighters in 9-11 because they pulled one body out of the rubble but not another. It's dumber than that. It's dumber than that, yeah. This is I don't mind Iqua dying. Like, I honestly, because I don't care about her that much. Like, she's charming, she's smart, but like the justification here was so thin and so divorced from like any feeling that a real person would have, especially a person who's supposed to be like smart. I just I just kind of can't believe like we knew that this was dumb when it was Iroh feeling this way. And it was he's 18. And now it's persisted through two books, and it's an adult feeling it. Like, this is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03

Can I add my one extra layer of this, which I make think makes it even sillier, which is that this guy is a senior senator who's involved in like secret discussions about the back end of up, you know, political dealings? We know at this point that there are senators that paid for the Nalmachia to happen. Yeah. Like that's public, like that was part of the confessions that they signed. Like that's part of the cause of this war. Like, what a displaced anger. Like, why isn't he like vendettaing every senator that was ever involved in paying the Anguido attack in the first place?

SPEAKER_00

Why didn't you save my kit from my coworker's inside job?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

It's crazy. Anyway, but yeah, he squishes her like a bug. Or no, sorry, snaps. Oh yeah. Squishes her head and then snaps Visa's legs like twigs.

SPEAKER_00

And you think that would be trouble for Viz.

SPEAKER_03

You'd be wrong. You'd be wrong, because this man has iron triangles.

SPEAKER_00

Have you heard of an exoskeleton? Do you like nanobots? Well, first he first he just snaps his leggies back into place. Ouch. Which sure, why not? You know, field medicine. Then comes up with a contraption that I f simply cannot visualize that braces his legs and keeps them in place, and he's able to walk on his bloody stumps for well, a whole war sequence for multiple days. And keeps he keeps bleeding, and everyone's like, this is bleeding, bud.

SPEAKER_03

That's okay. I'm not gonna question it, man. He builds himself a bug exoskeleton, and we're gonna be happy about it.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Well, long story short, Linistia out, great.

SPEAKER_02

Relucia in potentially great, but I do feel a little bad for her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, she does she have noble intentions?

SPEAKER_03

Um She's kind of like uh we we are hurt, so we're gonna make them hurt so f people in the future don't get hurt as bad. So I mean she has her own version of a moral compass with she has she has intentions positively about society. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But um methods the methods aren't, yeah. Namakiya feels pretty bad, yeah. Yeah, um that would be a good idea. Um an old kiss score. Yeah, good, really just because all the uh anyone military affiliated was in big trouble in the city, so they all got locked up. Uh and they make it out.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. And then side quest number two, find Aiden, convince him to betray his own military. Yep. And to go on the run with with Whis. And uh yeah, that goes fine.

SPEAKER_00

Honestly, it goes pretty fine. Yeah. Aiden listens to listens to reason, listens to the message from his estranged dad. And uh it's only one thing to do at that point, light the beacons of Gondor, throw those metal triangles up in the sky, and wait for Ka to appear.

SPEAKER_03

The most fucking ridiculous right after the dog takes a bullet for Aiden, of course.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot about dog.

SPEAKER_03

So the the plan I've I was trying to like write down the them figuring out Visa's plan, which is like ditch the battle, find Ka, negotiate with him, cede to him, become the princeps of military. All right.

SPEAKER_00

Aiden, I'm kind of cooking on something right now. Listen up. We ally with the enemy. I become I become president, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And then we figure it out. It's I'm gonna become president. That is so funny.

SPEAKER_00

It's like, hey, there's an opening at the Princeps position. I feel like I'm a good candidate. I'm 18, I don't got an arm, and uh, I'm an orphan.

SPEAKER_03

It's so good. It'd be me. It's so fucking good. But anyway, that all works. His little beacon to Gondor does, in fact, bring Ka, or at least uh what a yumptus representing Ka shows up.

SPEAKER_00

I'm pissed off, dude. I thought we were gonna get a Ka reveal. Yeah, it was not.

SPEAKER_03

I can't believe it. That's annoying, right? You think Ka would come to the middle of the fight himself? No way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, why not show up and be like, you killed the other me? This is not good.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that would be more reasonable, but you know, instead we're gonna follow another zombie.

SPEAKER_00

Um, do you feel like Ka is someone we've met before? I know I've asked this, but now we have more info.

SPEAKER_03

I do think I think it's gonna be someone somewhat familiar, uh, but I I'm not sure about that. Like I was thinking through all the characters we know, and like we've crossed off the um, you know, Visa's dad reveal. Like, you know, we've crossed off some of the main ones. And also because he stabs the ca and Obitium and doesn't recognize him. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. If it is someone we know, at this point it would also it'd be weird because it would probably be like a very tertiary character who I would have to control F in the previous books to figure out who they are. Um and it's not gonna be like Viridius or someone, I feel like I'm pretty confident.

SPEAKER_03

No, and more likely than not, if they're controlling all these umti as well, it's a guy sitting in like a house somewhere, like hiding. Yeah, you know. Yeah. Same as same as Obidium, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. We go to the catacombs, my friend.

SPEAKER_02

Lower corner.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know, take take me that. I don't even have the can you do this part?

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so oh, this is so good. Um, first of all, Ka argues, genocide good. Uh, cataclysms are a sacrifice to save the one in ten and prevent the obliteration of two worlds and the enslavement of whichever remains. So basically, he is a necessary sacrifice, and he is he's doing the Lord's work to save the world. Um, the concurrence is not a who, it's a what. That a computer. That what is Oh my god, it's a goddamn computer! It's fucking AI again. AI is the enemy again, just like the series we just read. I actually didn't see this coming. I hate it. A self-contained lattice work of Yunkee. I want there to be an evil guy. I don't want them to fight a computer. No, this sucks, man. Fighting like a a you know, thoughtless conglomeration of dead bodies, man, that's somehow super powerful and smart.

SPEAKER_00

God damn it.

SPEAKER_03

The remnants of a rogue system which once controlled the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the world before the rending. Um anywho, uh, there are hundreds of thousands of bodies in these dozens of chambers under the necropolis. Uh coffin flop. Coffin flop. They are kept preserved so that leaders of RES can access their memories and ask them things. That's the reason that is stated in the book. Um at the top of each room, there are three special corpses in triangles that if you abuse them, if you imbues them, they wake everybody up. Uh and because a Travis, is there a special term for this? I'm getting there. And because a junctist concede far more than it takes to wake them, and that one of the primary strengths of synchronic will is the ability to perform what is called a cascade. So basically, if he wakes if he wakes these three yungti up at the front of each of these chambers, all of the hundreds of thousands of other ones will wake up and follow his lead. So he basically now has control over a million zombies. Are there any notable figures among those zombies? It might be his entire dead family and his dead best friend. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh man. Did you want emotional resonance of character beloved characters actually being dead? This ain't the book for you.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't want that. I want Caladus back, and I want Fizz to send him into battle.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Caludus is about to be the zombie advisor to Vis. Welcome back, sister. I have a bit of a quest for you. God, this is gonna be good. Um so basically we're left with I I think the open question for me is uh is Whis gonna actually commit genocide to save the world, or is he gonna find a better way?

SPEAKER_02

Rafa, I guess. Yeah, that's that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00

Man, I I had a fear that this was gonna get a little mist-borny and be like, I in fact was staving off the true calamity. Um and shit, goddamn, is that the case.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that there's always there's a middle manager bad guy who's saving the world from the worst bad guy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then I was it didn't hit me quite right, but then I was thinking like if someone hasn't read certain books by Sanderson, this probably hits a lot better. And I like don't even know if it's fair to criticize it because I have read that book and it has a similar plot beat. I don't know. It's still interesting. And then I was thinking about like if the uh if all these cataclysms are necessary and we know that they spare children something to do with the Aurora columni, like people you know, limiting the world to the people who can't seed yet. Is it that sort of thing? Um I bet it's something to do with that. But yeah, who knows? Yeah. So I'm excited. I I assume Ka will officially come onto stage next book. Right. I think we're gonna have some conversations with Ka.

SPEAKER_03

I think that uh I do think that the the different visas are gonna have conflict. I think that's inevitable. They have different motivations, they know different things, they have different powers.

SPEAKER_02

Um Is C-ROAR a Yunctus? No.

SPEAKER_00

There's definitely a lot of interest in that theory online.

SPEAKER_02

Which which C-Roar? L or O?

SPEAKER_03

Obidium.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, O O C Roar, maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's I mean I think people are are deriving a lot from the fact that he was pretty interested in the Kill Kaw mission. And is he like a weapon of the concurrence, you know, sending uh Viz on this potentially foolish quest to go? So we'll see. We'll see. Um if that's the case, I bet there are a lot of hints that will show up on a reread once book three is out. So knowing this, knowing Islington.

SPEAKER_03

Um prediction, I think we're gonna get our first proper romance arc in book three with Tara.

SPEAKER_02

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03

I like that. And I think if we get a time skip greater than two years between book two and book three, uh Elvis.

SPEAKER_00

Ooh, I yes, time skip I think would make a lot of sense. I think time skip is fun. Ingratiate himself with like the Senate. Maybe we show up and he's already become princeps or something.

SPEAKER_03

So that's what I think. I think it's a two-year time skip. I think he is the princeps in Ress.

SPEAKER_00

I think in Obitium maybe he's like oh yeah, what the fuck is he doing in Obitium?

SPEAKER_03

I think he's like going, you know how there's all the self-contained cities? There's multiple. I think he's going like city to city, kind of replicating the process of killing no.

SPEAKER_00

He's got to track zero back down.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um and then in L in Lyceum, I think he is the king uh taking over Ronan's spot, and I think he has a baby with Tara.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Can I I'm gonna give I'm gonna give an alternate set of predictions that are just like kind of the opposite of what you said. Good. Okay. One on Rez, it picks up pretty much immediately, and there's some sort of big secret trial or quest that he has to do to become princeps, a la chariot race. And there's like a crazy action sequence, some sort of uh secret rites he has to go through. Um and obviously he does those just fine. On Obitium, he just immediately goes back to C-Roar and they follow your plot. And in Lucium, he gets sent to his third school, which is Druid School. That's that's fun.

SPEAKER_03

Here's an alternate take. It's a time skip, but we spend the first hundred pages of him telling a story to someone that tells us everything that happened in the time skip. His kid? I don't know. I was just thinking about Adrian.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god. No, don't do that to me.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway, Tony Cut the War, Papa.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, we we obviously shit on a lot of this particular section of the book. Speak for yourself. I'm still happy that we're reading it. I'm still excited to actually see what happens. I think that there are improvements that I would like to happen. Yeah. But, you know, we still read it. It was it made good things to talk about.

SPEAKER_00

To end on a positive note, one, a lot of interesting questions still being asked, and I'm excited to see where it goes. Like, I don't have any question that I'm gonna pick up book three when it comes out. Yeah. And two, like it's very easy to imagine a a book three that is awesome. Like I know he has it in him. And like the world is cool. I think he's a talented writer. Like it's just like some of the overplotting and maybe some of the character issues, and yeah, just those things. Like, but it it feels like just fixing those things at the margins. Like, this guy does have a banger in him in this series for sure. So um, I'll be there. I'll be reading.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, we will be. And um for fans of the pod, thank you for making it through another series with us. Um, we have fun things on the way where we actually we have a couple good options. I I think people are gonna be pleasantly surprised with what comes out of here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay. So I think we've got it, we've got a couple things on the table. One is um per reader suggestion and per my suggestion, a long time ago, I think we're looking at doing the Ryan Cahill series. Yes. Which I believe is the bound and the broken.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm. It's four books.

SPEAKER_00

And oh, from what I've heard, it's a it's a real book two is better situation. So um, yeah, like a slightly tropey book one, but then it comes into its own later. Um two, we're thinking about doing a going to the cinema and a little project Hail Mary double feature. Read the book, watch the movie, discuss. Who didn't like that? Three, go back to Discworld because those are the best books in the world, and why wouldn't we be reading them? Thinking about doing Small Gods, Sanderson's favorite Discworld.

SPEAKER_03

Four, throwing it out there, we had a very nice Australian author reach out to us. Crikey. Crikey. Um, not James Islington. He's continues to ignore us.

SPEAKER_00

Uh then listen to this episode.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, yo, this very nice author sent us a couple copies of his books. And uh I read the first one and I had a lot of fun with it. So we might end up reading that and then hopefully having that author on the show, which would be a really fun experiment for us.

SPEAKER_00

That would be a ton of fun, and I'm sure we'd learn a lot and probably make the show better to have an author on, because we're getting out of hand here. We need to be interesting as people.

SPEAKER_03

Um one of those four sets of things is gonna happen over the next month, and please join us for a lot of fun. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and as always, thank you for listening. If you like this, uh send it to a friend who's also read these books or would just want to listen to it anyways, if there's uh a person like that out there. Um and yeah, we'll be back in I don't know, a week or two, something like that. Our usual our usual timing. Excellent. Okay. Well, I love you. I miss you.

Contributor

Avery

Host
Contributor

Travis Fox

Host