Of War and Ruin by Ryan Cahill: Episode Four

Ch. 64-End. 

The blood moon is here, and it's time for a family reunion! Jk, time to head off to depression island to light the dragon bat signal. Jk, time for an absolute ripper of a climactic battle. We have dragon fights, tears in the taint, and wheelchair warriors -- oh my! 

This behemoth of a book is sadly at its end, but we loved the journey along the way. We'll see you on The Ice shortly, right after we head back in time to chat with John Homer about a boat. 

Send us literally anything on your mind at booktwoisbetter@gmail.com or on Reddit/Discord @booktwoisbetter! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:20

I cannot believe that there's a full-size statue of a Blackthorn war horse outside of the PF Chanks in Century City. It's actually the size of a small wyvern. There's a wyvern-sized horse outside of this PF Changs. Blew my mind.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

The Blackthorn.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

They're coming to feed us dumplings. The traditional Voltarian lettuce wraps.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

I haven't ripped a good PF Changs in a while.

unknown 0:52

P.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Changs or Peiwei? Gun to your head.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

PF Changs, all day. Really? It's a different price point.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

That's why I'd pick Peiwei, because it's I would I would air casual. You know me.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

You ever eat some spare ribs at the bar of the spare rooms at the bar of the downtown Austin PF Changs, man?

SPEAKER_03 1:11

That's that's We did get drinks in Vegas. We got to go drinks from PF Chanks. That was a mistake.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Was it? It was like a lukewarm beer that took 10 minutes to get away. Yeah, it was terrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

And it took forever. And I had to stare at the slot machine that stole some hundreds of dollars from me.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Yeah, you and the slots don't go together. Slot demon.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Slot demon is in my brain.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

I've been playing the lottery this week. Went from never having done it to buying lottery tickets four nights in a row.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Like the Powerball type thing. I I feel like we've even discussed this on the podcast. Everyone should be buying a lottery ticket every day. There's no reason not to.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

There's so many reasons not to.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Why? It's like a dollar.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

It's well, yeah, but it adds up.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Does it? I mean it does, of course. Like if you can't afford a dollar a day, don't buy the lotto. But if you can, could be the best dollar you ever spent.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

The question is, should I pick the same numbers every time or different numbers every time?

SPEAKER_03 2:17

I think like mathematically it doesn't fucking matter, right? I don't think it matters whatsoever. I know people do their birthdays, but I don't like mine because my birthday is entirely ones and nines, which is very cool, but that ain't never gonna happen on the Powerball. 1119. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_04 2:36

Oh well.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Okay. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

But I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a millionaire pretty soon, and then I'm gonna quit the stupid pod.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

I'm gonna be able to hold me to this podcast. That would be so funny. We're we hate these books, man. We're just doing this to keep the lights on.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

God, this is my full-time income.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yeah. Never $40 a month. Um we always do announcements at the hour 30 mark. Yeah. You mind if I change that?

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah, maybe we should uh hook our listeners in with something.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Okay. Um next week we will be releasing our bang bang double featured dinner in a movie Odyssey episode. Um it's fantasy. It matches the show. Sue us. No, it's real. It's I mean, all the casting disputes, you could it's very real. Okay. It's true. So it's you know. Um, anyways, we're gonna be doing the movie, we're gonna be doing the poem, um, and some other funny games. So I'm very excited about that after the uh success of our I don't know if it was successful. We went kind of viral with the Project Hail Mary summary on TikTok. We had one TikTok that did well. It did. It did. I I had a call, I looked at it right after I posted it and no one had watched it, and then I logged back on. Thousands of people had watched it. Yeah, can't wait for them all to subscribe. Oh yeah. And if um you like the summaries, they we do have a uh TikTok at book two is better. We are slowly getting them up there.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

Um we also have a YouTube if you ever want to watch our faces, which not many people do, but it's there.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

No, the algorithm, I don't know. We don't know what to do with it, but it's there if that's your preferred way of consuming it.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

We'll put in very little link in show notes, yeah. But feel free to look at our faces. Um we're also gonna be reading the ice after the Odyssey. So we're we're continuing on with Cahill. We're gonna bang through the series here. The Valeris? Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Yeah, in a way. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we're okay. Odyssey, the ice book. Empires and Dust question mark? Yep. Of Empires and Dust. Of Empires and Dust. Which uh by my count is substantially shorter than this book. This book was long. This is a chunky man.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

It's I mean, we did four full episodes. We could have done five or six because this is it's it's a beast. Probably anyone who read this whole book.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

This and Stormlight are the only books that I've had where I'm like, this is physically uncomfortable to read. Your book. I love a physical copy, but the book cube is horrible. I have to prop it up on a pillow so I didn't have to support its tremendous girth. I love a girthy book. I do like a girthy book though. Like being on page 20 of the book cube is so fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

I'm thinking since I've read all the series on um Kindle because it's significantly cheaper just on a per book basis. True. However, I really like Cahill and I like the series, so I might invest in a nice, you know, leather bound or hard copy series.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Yeah, those are all coming out. Get it get it signed. Honestly, yeah. Um okay. Well very little funny games here. I feel because it's a very business. It's because we're recording in the middle of the work today.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

It is. We were both online actively. This is a shareholder meeting. And Jam Boss, if you're listening, have fun on vacation.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

I'm gonna check my email real quick. Okay, nothing urgent. We're good. Um, well, we did it, we finished it. Thoughts on the ending?

SPEAKER_04 6:14

The ending was fantastic. It brought back vintage Sanderlanch feelings for me of just kind of pure page-ripping excitement. And it's a solid like hundred plus pages of climax.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yeah. Very well earned. So great having everyone more or less in the same place doing the same kinds of things. Yeah. It was great. What a wonderful fight.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

Um the fight was fun. I thought he did a really good job just converging storylines. There were a couple twists and turns that were very surprising, but I think were laid out with a really strong foundation to make it believable.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Underscores uh the importance of the novellas. Like the novellas is. Like as compared to the Stormlight novellas, I think these are sort of pitching. Or Sun Eater, which we read zero of. We read enough Sun Eater, my friend. Oh, speaking of, um, if any of you are in the DC area, um, Travis is going to be going to Christopher Rocchio's keynote speech at the Catholic University of America in a couple months. It's actually the lay keynote, right after the clergy keynote. He's yeah, he's not a man of the cloth. Yeah. So, you know, they can't give him that full spot. Uh, what is he speaking about?

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Um I believe it was like an ode to the intellectual nerdism of building like Catholicism or Christian culture as the culture. Fancy as religious propaganda. And that has word vomit. Let me be clear, no criticism of religion itself here. Criticism of the way his panel description was written. It was hot garbage. That's not very nice of you to say.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

I'm saying it anyway. Okay. Lakeena, Christopher Rocchio baptizing the it's called Baptizing the Imagination, a letter to the nerds. What role has speculative fiction to play in building not a parallel Christian culture, but a Christian place in the culture? All caps the Tolkien instilled the Christian ethos in many non-Christian readers. Did he? And what the house is saying, spot the lie. How might we, his intellectual and fanish descendants, continue this accidental apostolate not by rote evan evangelism or naked preachments? That can't be a word, but by living the gospels in the world we are called to witness to. By tracing Tolkien's impact on the broader culture and in his own life, Christopher hopes to show how we as Christian nerds might be a light in dark places when all other lights go out. I don't know if he wrote this, man. That's now that you've read it again.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Yeah, it might be about him. So that's on the organizer.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

I mean, say what you will about Rocchio. That boy writes a good sentence. I don't think he put it on. I don't know if this is his. It's got some of the words he would use, but just it doesn't have the flow.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Um I'm also not sure what the through line is, but what does it mean to instill the Christian ethos in non-Christian readers? What is the Christian? Just read some Tolkien and find out. I have a trad wife. So I guess it did happen.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

You have you also have the opposite of a trad wife. There's some evidence to suggest I do not have a trad wife. Whatever.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Kathy loves her job more than she loves anything else in this movie. Maybe that's the new angle. It's like, yeah, a woman can be a trad wife and a physicist. You can be a trad wife and soul bread runner and a scientist. That's fine. Um trad wife's a state of mind, man. Okay. That's true. We got to get back to the book. We're reading, by the way, chapter 64 to the end. Of War and Ruin. Of War and Ruin. Do you want to do more wheel spinning or do you just want to summarize this bad boy?

SPEAKER_04 10:34

Well, all the stuff I want to do, like good and bad and highlights, requires a summary first. So I think you should just rip it.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Okay. This is record time, only 10 minutes of fluff. It's funny because I felt so sidetracked there. And this is normally the time when we start talking about the book. Again, shareholders meeting. Someone's keeping the minutes in the back.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Man, I was really offended when I went to edit our last episode. The Riverside is the platform we use, and it has an AI editing feature that sometimes I just see what it has to say about it. So I was like, can you identify the fluff or like any parts that we need to edit? They said, I've removed the first 16 minutes of the show.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Low quality rambling, incoherent, not about the book. I was like, undo, please. That is crucial. The uh the AI it doesn't understand the vision. No, it's not. That's like I can't make art, baby. Um okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

It also, oh my god, I forgot to tell you. It also said we tried to cut some of our wagons segment. It's like the joke ran on a little bit too long.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

It didn't run on long enough. And we're gonna bring the joke back up in this episode. It's Widow Weed wagon time. For those of you who didn't get to the hour 20 mark, it's a half dragon, half wyvern. It's a wagon. Okay. Damn it. I can't start the summary in this mindset here. I gotta deep breath. Deep breath. Okay. Summary of chapters 64 through the end of War and Ruin. We braved the sewers of Dicka Dicka. We staved off madness in the burned lands, and in our greatest feat, we read 50,000 pages of this goddamn book. But all's well that ends well. And folks, this ending is a goddamn banger. Alina is crowned queen of Voltara, and her loyal subjects meet her with offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh! Those pesky Voltarans couldn't revolt their way out of a Lorian speeding ticket, but goddamn are they good at revolting against their own people. When the dust settles, Dan and Alina have lost a substantial portion of their army and a substantial amount of the faith they had in the people who stayed. But Dan and Belina are finally reunited, so who cares about all that? Our favorite autistic battle scholar Wist is still with the Lorian army, and they're making ready for an occult ritual during the Blood Moon that involves a bunch of blood and human sacrifice and Urax and the color red, which, if he were better at reading social cues, would probably have told him that he has now aligned himself with the god of death and pain. Back in Rivendell, Kalen is getting dragon lessons from Paralympic Dragon Guard when, surprise, Ella shows up. And unfortunately for Asen, Ella immediately blows up his spot by asking Kalen if he got any of the hundreds of letters and mind messages she sent to Asen. Kalen throws an Almighty Temper Tantrum and flies off to Depression Island to meet with the reclusive member of the Dragon Guard. He gets her account of the Fall of the Order, which, to be fair to Aeson, was exactly the same as his account of the Fall of the Order, and Kalen returns to Elphendom just in time for the Blood Moon and the arrival of the Lorian Army. The end of the book sees a war playing out on two fronts, the Lorian Army versus the forces gathered in Rivendell, and Fane and Co versus like Thirty Knights of Acheron. And if you've paid attention to any of the exploits of the KOA, you know exactly how this plays out. They puddle jump into the middle of Fane's ritual, rugby punt a couple horses, get themselves killed, and puddle jump away. I guess some credit is due because they cut the ritual short, and Urak split the Urak splitter, which is actually kind of sad because Magnus never got the chance to smash. Notwithstanding the KOA's intervention, Fane is able to summon the chosen soldiers of Faltier into the Mortal Plain, which, according to Wrist, is really gonna be great for the Continent of Ephuria. In the Darkwood, Kalen and Ko decide to take the fight to the Lorians rather than wait to be chicken shormed by the Dragon Guard on the city walls. The plan is to use the Lorians as human shields against the Dragon Guard, but that only works if you're fighting against people who don't think death is actually a good thing. Just when all seems lost and teeny tiny Valeris is about to get munched by three full-grown dragons, Ella has the bright idea to meet puppet the blind, depressed dragons of the Rekina. She gets most of the dragons killed, but they do send the Dragon Guard packing, so I guess it was worth it. Finally, Kalen ends the fight by puking dragon fire on what remains of the Lorian army. Hooray! The book ends with a cryptic chapter on the Stew God himself, Raka, who might be an actual god, and a quick check-in with the elven queen Vandrian, who's got weather druids and plans for conquest on the mind. I was kind of hoping for a faint chapter, but whatever. The book was long enough. The end. Grats. Well done. Murd. Judas.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Judas.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

So we did it. As I was getting to that, I was like, I don't know if I can deliver this line. I felt like I had to. You pulled it off. Murder. And I knew where you were going, which was impressive. Yeah, I figured you would. We're pretty we're pretty coached up on vines, I think. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Put up a certain Voltara.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Yeah. Voltara's a weird. That's kind of how it feels. I'm like, all I want to do is talk about Cora air airbending her way through a wheelchair fight, but not going to fucking talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Yeah, it's truly much bigger run.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

This is like doing push-ups before like a beach party.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

I don't know. Should we do another horrible comparison? Yeah. This is like eating ass before getting your ass ate. Man. That was the worst one of all. That's a fourth one. What are you talking about? That's comedy one. That's for jokes. AI's gonna say to cut that. Yeah, AI's like, the joke was not that funny. Okay. Queen Alina, all hail. All hail. Why is she so pouty all the time? She sucks, dude. Fuck her. And segment over. Yeah, all she wants to do is kill and whine.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

Well, it's just weird that like starts, they phone, lie, hot chip. The main scene that she has at the beginning of the section, she's literally just being like a pouty teenager. And so they make her queen. Like that's the consequence of her throwing a hissy fit. Is they literally just pause the conversation and say, What if we just made you queen too?

SPEAKER_03 17:00

I guess that gets you know, squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? Who complains more than the people who have all the power and money in the world? That's true. Yeah. Um I just, dude, I just don't fucking like these people, man. They got no Riz, they got no yucks, there's nothing. Thank God Bellino's with them now.

SPEAKER_04 17:16

Belino's gonna make it a lot better. Dane, Dane's like manipulation of the rebels was kind of cool for a little while, though. I'll I'll give him that. But yeah, there's it was also really short-sighted because what happens when you kill a guy's dad in front of him? They rebel.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

It all probably be pissed off, especially when we've heard throughout the book like all these warring factions, but now we're together. All these minor houses. Old habits die hard, my friends. Um they're like, look at this beautiful flag we made of a unified Voltara. And like all the shit we got from Alina about like our final stand, we all die. I was like, okay, well, knowing what we know about the Voltarans, they're probably not gonna be down for that. No. Um not all down to die.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

My one prediction reading this that absolutely didn't come true was that Mira was gonna die. I thought for sure she was gonna die in the rebellion and it was gonna trigger. And he was gonna go on like a war path. But um, instead it's Marlon, who I really liked.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

I know. It's just like a wait, who's the guy who died in Dickka Dicka? Ivan. It's another Ivan and and Theramon. We know his fucking days are numbered. Like all the wise old mentors are cooked.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

I know. But Marlon was like a genuine good he was like the Alfred Pennyworth of House of Terries, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Is that Lego Batman? Yeah. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

I've been getting served a lot of uh YouTube shorts of Justice League animated series content. So I'm feeling really up on my robin. Yeah. It's pretty solid. It's pretty solid.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

I think I dude, I don't know why. Obviously, my parents, as you know, kind of people who were in a cult didn't let me watch a lot, but Batman was off the list. I wasn't allowed to watch Batman growing up. I don't know why. Is it because he was a foster child? Yeah, yeah. I guess they didn't want me knowing about like well, I was gonna say divorce, but his parents in a way they got divorced. They got divorced from the world. The marriage their marriage was annulled through death, I think. I don't know. Because my parents were always like classic Americans. They're like violence, good, kissing, evil. Yeah. Um classic TV. Yeah. Whatever.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Um, question though. Since when can Dane whip out a Nithrol? That was new, right? Well, I was I made the assumption that something happened between the exile and current day Dane. Yeah. Where he killed more people and learned how to make one. But that was new for us. I wonder if Theron taught him.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

Yeah, that was new for us. It's also like because of the way Voltarians see the spark, he hasn't really had a chance to flex his his full capability. So hopefully now that they've seen him make a magic sword, he can just kind of stunt on some people. Yeah, keep doing that.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

I don't think he needs to hold back now that half his friends and family are dead, you know. And most of his army's deserted.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Yeah. Probably time to show my. Oh, well, he's Belina with him, though. No, she's worth an army. And I like that the once again, Ryan Cahill, king of self-awareness. When Belina sees Dane, she's like, You're gonna love this guy. He's exactly like you.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

It's like, ah, so they are just the same, right? It's so good. I actually, when uh when she first appeared, I was like, wait, I haven't thought this through. Like, how is Mira gonna react, his girlfriend lover, to like this hot assassin lady that he spent years with just coming into the picture? Like a little jealousy could be in store, but then she immediately flirts with Alina and it's like I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Yeah, I was like she's trying to bang everybody. I think she'll feel not threatened because I think so. Belina's gonna be trying to hook up with her, not Dane. Yeah, it was great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Um that's uh Voltara in a nutshell. Where is that going? Um they're probably gonna unite with another army or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Yeah. It just feels like yeah, they don't have like a purpose right now on their own, other than being a force that can join Ace and force later.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

I just think now that we know Ella and her druidic power, you know, spoiler alert, Ella and her druidic powers can control dragons. I'm ready for her to control an army of wyvern.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Wagons. Wagons. Yeah, I still think that's a great prediction. And let's get her over there. Cool. You wanna do some Ella Arda? Oh yeah. So this We get I don't even know how to describe this. It's like if you got together with all of your exes. You got Tanner and Farda, and then if they're going to see ASAM, this is just uh social anxiety times a million. This is rough, man.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

You gotta you got a lot to answer for. It's people he's betrayed over hundreds of years all together in one room.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Why was Tanner's GF slash wife slash whatever cool with him leaving? That didn't make sense to me. Yeah, it was a little strange. I feel like she'd been so angry about him doing all this stuff for Ella, and she's like, well, he can take care of himself. He's a big strong boy.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

She.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

Yeah. That's a character that's I think gonna fade away in importance.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

I wonder if it's one of those, like, if it's a Fritz or like, she ain't going nowhere, man. I'm sorry. Oh, poor Fritz.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Wow, Fritz was like, Fritz had his one, his two chapters of glory after a two-book gap. Poor guy. What was his glory?

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Trying to kill Kaylin again? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Getting just getting his head ripped off by Eric. Yeah.

unknown 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Eric is. Okay. Question is Eric the most underdeveloped character in this entire series.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Dude, but like in a sad way. Yeah. Where I know Eric is so much cooler than Dalin. He came in so hot, too.

SPEAKER_04 23:23

He was the cool guy in the bar and the axe throwing contest. That scene's look, 4,000 pages of the series, and that scene still sticks out to me from book one.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Yeah, and character assassination. The only shit we really got from him was him losing his absolute mind in the burnt lands. I keep thinking the burnt lands. Is it burned or burnt? It is, but I'm thinking burnt peanut. Burnt peanut. Yeah. Peanut. The burnt lands. Um yeah, Eric sad, missed opportunity. Also, hold on. Can we go to can we go to can we go to gay corner? Yeah. Gay corner. Gay corner. Wow. Hold on. This is AI is gonna say that it's not good podcasting to have me scroll through my Kindle. Typically it's lower corner, not gay cornered. I swe okay. I I'm gonna preface it by saying, I swear there have been comments like this in this series before. It's Eric and Tarman. Tarman speaking. I'll strangle you while you sleep, Tarman said, dropping back onto his arse. Is that a promise or a threat? Eric gave Tarman a wink, then slapped him playfully on the back of the head. You're always trying to get into my bed. You'd be so lucky, little shit.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

That's just some classic guy humor right there.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Is it locker room talk?

SPEAKER_04 24:45

I think it's two dudes who've been on the march for about a year together talk. Yeah. But I'd actually love it if I was actually the I ship that couple. I stan. I stan.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Wait, hold on. Tarman. Tarman, was he from Belduar or did he predate Belduar? He was the head of the world. Okay, so they met in Belduvoir. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I didn't know if he like came from Eric land. No, of course not.

SPEAKER_04 25:13

No. No, he was he's a knight without a home, but he found his home in Eric.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Hedge knight.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

Literally.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Literally. There you go. Well back to a totally different part of the story. Put a pin in that. So anyway, Ella and Farda were hanging out. They're hanging out. You know what I didn't remember? That Farda killed Ella's mom and didn't tell her. Yeah, what the fuck? Did he know though? Did he knew that he lit their house on fire?

SPEAKER_04 25:43

He had to because they were like chasing the Drollid. They were chasing Kaylin back home.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

But I wonder from his perspective, he's like, I lit half the buildings in that town on fire, dude. I had no fucking clue your mom was in there. Maybe he did.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

I think he had to assume that the two people kneeling and begging for Kaylin's life were probably his parents.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Did he this is a dumb question? Did he tell her that he killed her dad? No.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

Because he didn't. Rindall killed his her dad. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yeah, okay, cool. So I didn't kill you.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Rindall and Farda.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

I only killed your mom.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

He's like, I just burned the rest of the village. I don't want to kill her. It feels like a pretty consequential thing to leave out, given that he gives her this whole like sob story. He gives her the whole backstory, the story of the coin, the story of how he felt after the fall. That he like doesn't he doesn't hurt so much when he's around her. But what did you think was going to happen when she found out you killed her mom?

SPEAKER_03 26:47

That's tough. Is it a deal breaker if your crush kills your mom? Clearly it was for Ella because she wanted to murder him. Okay. We'll get we'll get there. We should go to Farta's backstory. Again, best character in the book. Loved it. This was so great. Um and the origin, so correct me if I get anything wrong here. The origin of the coin was they were in a deathly battle with Asen and some other people. Um, and I think they sort of reached like a stalemate, and they could have either just flown off or try to really nails in the coffin, go get them. Flips the and he they decide to do a coin flip, him and another dragon rider. He flips it and the coin says, just go away. Yeah. And Farda says, fuck this coin. Let's go kill, let's go kill these people. Doesn't work out.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

No, it doesn't. And Asen murders like three other Dragon Bound. What I want to, I'm excited for the ice or whatever, because we're gonna get some scenes of how Asen is just stabbing dragons and then he keeps sticking his sword into dragons' heads, which seems unbelievable given every dragon fight we've seen. Yeah, it seems truly outrageous that he's able to pick off and assassinate Dragon Bound. Um after that moment and after all the the tragedy that comes after, including losing his dragon, he basically says, I'm gonna follow this coin no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah. Can't feel any pain, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

But there was the backstory thing that we didn't get answered. I'm curious if you caught it, was um what made him rebel in the first place during the fall. Because he said something about the dragon bound took something from him that was like unacceptable, but they never actually say what they took from him. And this was pre-fall, so I'm wondering if we're gonna get that at any point.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

I'm trying to think what it could be, but I think family, wife, I don't know. Yeah, because we just haven't really heard anything about Farta's life other than his dragon, right? Like wife, kids, whatever. We'll see. We'll see. Maybe he's Garamond's kid. Oh, no way. Yeah, we know that's not true because Garamond and Farta interacted.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

And also Guerrimon, we get the confirmation that Garamond had to kill his kid in front of fans.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Yeah, it was horrible.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah, damn.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Oh, Guerrimon's a real one. Shit. Uh but yeah. Anyway, so the group that we're in, which is now larger and then immediately smaller, is Tanner and Yana and Hala and Ilyane and Farda and Ella, which are a lot of names that sound the exact same.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Yeah, I've committed myself to knowing Ilyane, Tanner. Um, shout out Belina for being like Alina and Belina? We can't hang out like this. Again, self-awareness king. So good. Where's the Dan and Dalin and Damon version of that comment? Get out of here. I'm waiting for it. But um we're heading to Aravel to Rivendell. We're going to the yeah, very cool. Through the glamour. Um a really well, I guess, a very nice reunion between Caitlin and Ella. Yeah. Um, but an awkward one given Farda's existence.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

So Yeah, this is a big positive for Ella in life to walk into a place and find both your brothers. That's what a come-up.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

That's a huge come-up. Yeah. See the dragon boy, Ham is alive. Wow. Um it's tough to immediately follow that with your boyfriend killed your mom.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Pretty terrible. And also Dan making fun of you for having a broken nose. That's ugly.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Yeah. That's the bad. Can I can I lodge a prediction? Yeah. Yeah, Dan and Ella forever, dude. Why not?

SPEAKER_04 30:46

It's it makes so much sense. They would be so good.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Why not?

SPEAKER_04 30:49

Because Dan is going to be pursued by uh the surviving elf lady from the battle.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Yeah. Lyrie.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Yeah. Well, your sister got burnt to a crisp, so guess that just leaves two of us. I like my girls a little medium rare, not well done. Bazoinga. Bazoingas. Okay. So she also. So what's been going on at Aravel Rivendell before Ella gets here?

SPEAKER_03 31:24

I think we gotta back it up a little bit. Yeah, we really do. Okay. So Kaelin is getting trained by the depressed, burnt-out Rukina people. Who are really mean during the training. They're really mean. And I don't think the training is safe. I'm gonna throw that out there. I don't think the training did anything. Let me be clear with that. I was really waiting for like a Remember earlier in the book when we saw Risk do learn Dragon's Maw and then they did Dragon's Maw?

unknown 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

I thought he was gonna learn a cool technique and then use it.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I guess he learned some flying techniques that he ended up using, but it really felt by this was a six-month training arc, and when they got attacked, it did not feel like they knew what they were doing. They were in pure panic mode.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

That was not good. Did they just not think Dwaggins was coming?

SPEAKER_04 32:14

You gotta think the city you've lived in for 400, 600 years, somebody knows where it is. Well, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yeah, that's crazy. Like why? Yeah, the plan can't just be like our glamour that does nothing to protect us other than hide us. Like, that can't be the plan.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

We also just sent messages to hundreds of people inviting them to come parlay with us. Including Caster Kai, who's I don't think is a real character, but can I can I add a a weird note about Tanner?

SPEAKER_03 32:49

Yeah. He sees one of the fades and calls it one of the what's the what's Fane's term for them? Like the Exalted or some shit? Does he really?

SPEAKER_04 32:59

Yeah. Oh well he's a Lorien soldier.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

I that's that was my thought.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

It's like he's just in that milieu. Well, he was a Lorien like lieutenant. Like he was uh high up at the city capital or at the the country capital.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

I have no evidence to suggest he's a traitor to our cause, but I just thought that was funny that he used the the like Lorien Empire approved term for the It's funny.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

I didn't catch that, but I mean it makes sense. Like he he spent most of his career in enemy gate behind enemy gates, you know?

SPEAKER_03 33:32

If he calls Ephelter the savior, then I will have more questions. But as of now, I'll let it be. I'll let it pass.

SPEAKER_04 33:38

He's like, the blood moon is finished, the savior has arrived.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Great news, guys. Fane did it, he pulled it off. Weren't we all rooting for that? Okay. Dragon training arc. I don't know. I don't care. What do I have to say about this? Nothing.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Yeah, uh Rakina Summer Camp on the quad was kind of entertaining where they're all just like loafing around on grass, just I guess crippled and sad.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

I don't know. I mean, not nearly as cool as Kookie Dragon Armor Man from The Exile. Vaaldron? He's so cool. Love him. I love him. Uh he was really sizing up Kalen, as it turns out. He was sizing him up for a fitting.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

He really is scary. Yeah. He really did a good job of active listening. Like, yeah, nobody's ever listened to Kalen like that.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Um big fan of him. I hope this isn't the last we see of him, but uh, he's got a rare talent to make rune stuff.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Yeah, that's gonna come in handy because he he basically replicates the sentinel armor on his first go with no instructions.

SPEAKER_03 34:45

Yeah. Is there anything special about Dan's bow? The white's bow. Yeah. I kind of thought he was gonna shoot it and be like, holy fuck, it's a laser arrow. He needs something, man.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Give him the power. Come on, Kyle. Dan's our boy. Yeah. I mean, he's good.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

He's a very good archer. Like he's good. He's kind of badass in this section. I'm gonna throw that out there. He's very brave. No, he did really well.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

But do you what do you think? He's like gonna be like a Legolas kind of guy, you know, just really good at archery.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

There's gotta be something with the bow, dude. There's no way he just made him like this. Is it just a fine bow, but it's white. Yeah. It's gotta have some sauce to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Um I did like when Dan got to ride the dragon and it just made his ass hurt.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

That's very good. Oh man. Was this the section where we got the let's go have my horse meet your dragon? Yeah. That's that was my horse. Yeah, the boys are back in town, man.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

Yeah. Yeah. You know there's not there's not one of the boys anymore, though. Who? A wrist?

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

Dead sister scheme with Farron doesn't go well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

God damn if it ain't the consequences of my own actions.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

It was the wrong ASAN in the hole for him.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Oh, okay. I see what you did there. Here's the thing though. He'd probably do it again.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

I mean, he said that later. He said it to Kalen. He's like, You would have left, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:24

He's like, Yeah, when they confront Kalen's like, absolutely, I would have flown off like a crazy person. Okay, well. Sorry, bro. Yeah. Okay. To briefly recap, Asen did not let Kalen know that Ella was on the way because he was like, oh my God, she's gonna fly out. He's gonna fly out, try to capture her, save her, and he's probably gonna die in the process, which was correct.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Yeah. Um he inscripted Theron to join him in the deception, who immediately narked him out at first opportunity. I felt bad about it. I wouldn't have done it, but Ace and I do love hopping in and being like, you didn't get the hundreds of letters we sent.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

That's just yeah, Theron must have been sick to his stomach when that happened. Oh my god. Okay. Uh because we're gonna go to Depression Island. I do want to skip ahead in time briefly. I did think it was really nice when Kalen comes back, Dan and Ella give him a little dressing down. Okay, motherfucker, I know you're mad, but like we just got back. What are you doing flying off like a crazy person? He deserved that. It was a selfish move. He's got a temper. Does Kalen have a temper issue, or is he soul bonded to a creature of wrath?

SPEAKER_04 37:40

He is he is a matter of triple bonded to a creature of infinite anger. I'm made by the gods to hate.

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Should we just lodge our Kalen complaints now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

Um, this was a big highlight for me, though, is uh him forgetting where Aravel was when he tried to come back. And he almost gets killed. So relatable, honestly. Just like, oh fuck, where'd I put that invisible city? Where's the yeah, there's the glank.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Flayers, can you smell the glamour? It's like losing the Batmobile when it's shrouded, you know? Yeah. That's I mean, that's me with my sense of direction. Yeah, it's true. Two turns, I'm in a whole new city. Um okay. Dragon Depression Island. He goes out because the one dragon guard told him that it's there, light the beacon, and he can learn lore. So it's a pretty loose.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

Yeah, it's a loose reason to leave for five days. Fuck you, Acent.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

I'm gonna go to lore corner. Um yeah, it doesn't actually make that much sense if you squint at it, but it was fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

What'd you think of the cradle of fire?

SPEAKER_03 38:53

What did you think of uh Depression Island and our our tenth retelling of the fall?

SPEAKER_04 38:59

Well, it was nice. I like the Tavar lady. She always seems nice, and it was nice when she gave him a hug. You know, you don't know what you're gonna expect from an ancient person that's supposed to be wanting to kill you.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

That's yeah, and has been having a mental breakdown for 400 years.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

It's tough that all of the people Kalen's talked to who are Dragon Mound have been really nice to him, like Pelinor and Tavar. And all the other people he's interacted with have tried to kill him. You want someone in Frothman Frothman? I'm waiting for him to talk to El Twar, like frankly, like somebody who's kind of neutral, yeah. But um inevitable. Backstory of the fall. You know, I wrote a whole notes section ready to get a brand new set of lore, but it was exactly the same retelling. It and in a way, I think that's right. I think that was the right decision by Cahill to be like, yeah, just because you're mad at Asen doesn't rewrite history, and there's no like secret version of this necessarily.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

I I think, yeah, it didn't I mean it didn't change the story of the fall, but I do think like we had talked a little bit about how it felt a little odd that these guys just kind of went off the handle and killed all their friends because they're like, we don't want to be told what to do. It did give I think it filled in some of the logic gaps there for me at least. Like, you know, they start out as this protective force after the blood bar, but then things settle down and they kind of just become beholden to whoever has the most money or power at any given time, and then they sort of became like mercenaries, like in a way, they were just like working for cash. Um, and and then that leads to killing all your all your homies.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

It did feel like a very human downfall. But yeah, you just kind of get complacent, and then some people get corrupt, and then when everybody's in disagreement, this one really charismatic guy came in and rizzed up half the side. Yeah. Got him real fired up.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Yeah. And they did talk a little bit about like Iltuar was the key recruit here. Like, no El Tawar, no fall. Like everyone kinda fell in line after he committed to Fain. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

But very important that she endorses Asen, though, at the end of it. He's like, you know what, he's he's a good fucking dude.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

That felt like it got Kalen over the hump. Or he's like I don't like how I've been treated by Asen, but at least I know, like at core, good guy. So Yeah. And he extends her a friendly invitation. Yeah. Don't be bite to the death if she's yeah. If she's not uh too chicken.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

Well, okay. One last question about Depression Island. Um did 473 unhatched dragons feel like too many? It's an unbelievable number.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

That's too many dragon eggs. Entirely too many dragon eggs. We just had a conflict with at first four and then like nine or ten, and it felt like chaos, dude. We can't have and just for the sake of the world, we cannot have 463 creatures of wrath flying around. There'll be nothing left.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

I it made me really want to the fall to be the first thing adapted into the into the screen. Like more than the actual like core series itself. The fall would be an awesome like one-hour show or movie.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah, if they did a 10-episode season, episode one, the fall.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

And it's just Dragonfight Central. Episode two, Calebing Mead. Erdhart Hammersmith. Can I launch another dude? I'm really in my prediction bag right now. Yeah, get in there. Erdhart Hammersmith is a god.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

No, he's the next he's well, yeah, he's either the god of um crafting harder.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Yeah, he's Uriah. I like how we had the same god in mind. Um well, it's the only one we know the name of. Shit. Besides Acheron and Ephial Tier.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Well, that's three gods. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

Okay, but what are the other eight? There's a Poseidon one. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

I think there was eight. Yeah. And then there's five druidic gods or something. But yeah. Um well, they're in the middle of their little, I don't know, dragon bonding session in the cave, and all of a sudden, blood moon time, baby. Oh shit. What did you think about this? I didn't know it was a month long.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

The time skip thing. I know that they like you get a time skip, right? Like at the top of the chapter, it says like the date. It's like, okay, we've moved forward in time. But when it was actually blood moon time, I was like, wait, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 43:49

Now It was weird the way they skipped through the year 3081 after Doom. Yeah. Like really from mid-spring straight into Late fall winter, like immediately.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

It's just I think you know, maybe it's my fault as a reader, because goddamn if they weren't talking about the blood moon being pretty soon, but it's just like I didn't think it would be two chapters from now, and then all of a sudden it was here. Like I reread that section where Kalen sees the blood moon rise like four or five times. I was like, surely this is not what I'm seeing right now.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Right. And for me, like the Fane skip was actually kind of harder and harsher because the last time we had seen Barona and Fane and all those folks, like Kalen had just broken through the Inquisition jail and stolen, like they killed some of his main lieutenants. And I thought there was gonna be maybe something going on there, but then we see Fane just hanging out with Garamon being like, oh yeah, they took a couple people from jail, but whatever. It's blood moon. No bakey.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

Which is by the way.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Operation letter off. Yeah. It's true. There's no no communication happening anywhere. And you know who has some thoughts about letters? Suman Suzan. Uh yes. Author of The Art of War. Do you want to go on your Art of War rant? I don't know if you even have a rant, or are you just I'm tired of him quoting the Art of War?

SPEAKER_04 45:20

I'd like him to pick any other book. It would have been a funny bit if he picked a couple of books that he got to do.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

The subtle art of not giving a fuck.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Right. Maybe that's a little too sunny to read ask of us to have some more literary references in a book. Enjoy in theaters. Dude, just pick. We don't need five Sun Tzu quotes in the series, single book alone.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Wrist finds a book called Wealthy Father, Impoverished Father.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Wealthy man, beggar man. That's how that's how Dan is gonna learn how to govern when he somehow becomes the king of one of these lands. Like Mary's an elf.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

Oh good.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

Rich Dan, poor Dan.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Yeah. Ryan, if you haven't gotten too far into book five, there's an idea for you. I know you listen.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Yeah. But anyway, the the line itself, just to quote it, is um Garamon and Fane talking to each other. Uh Fane being asked, you know, why are we keeping wrist around so much? Like, why are we putting so much emphasis on this teenage boy? And he says, There's a saying by Sumara Tuzan that states, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And then he says, I've always felt there's something missing from that saying in the friends and your enemies closest. Uh oh.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Kyle. Rewriting history. Sumar Tuzan, move over. Van Mortem's here.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Well, I hate sand. I hate sand. Which is great because just like Donkey Balls in the last section, I hate sand was like one page after that. Hard cut, duh. Yeah. Who says that? Was it Nira? It's Anakin.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

Yes, correct. It's um Anila Ruck Splitter. Oh, okay. Yeah, we get the I Hate Sand, which just has to be an Anakin quote, right? Like knowing Kyle. Of course. Which I love because I say that all the time. And then Magnus. Magnus. I'm gonna throw it out there. HR liability, dude. He's alleged. You can't be acting like this in the workplace. Oh, he's wild. He keeps propositioning an Ill Urac splitter.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

I assume, by the way, we're over to uh wrist. Now we've transitioned. What were we doing before?

SPEAKER_03 47:48

I don't know what we were doing before. This is like a this is like a fish jam, man. We just smoothly sagged into the next. Listener, you didn't even know when we transitioned. Well, are we in Madison Square Garden right now? God, we're peaking. In a way. Um yeah. Wrist at the ritual. Yeah. What a stupid fuck. Dude.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

Wrist wrist is disappointing me. The moral lessons that he's buying don't match up with the intellect of his character. And that's my problem. Like last section, it was guns don't kill people, people kill people with blood blood magic. This section is Garamond somehow convincing him that, well, you're gonna kill people anyway in life. You may as well get something from it. Yeah. Which is the same argument of looting a corpse.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Like I loot. Well, you I'm not supposed to loot corpses and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 48:42

Which is what you do in every game.

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Yes, okay. I will say the applied version of the lesson I I thought was okay. Like when he's in that horrendous battle and he has to fight for his life and kill, I could see that version being like, listen, you're fighting for your life. You got something out of that you wouldn't otherwise. That version makes sense. But there have been other versions that are that don't hold quite as much water or blood.

SPEAKER_04 49:11

Um but he's gotta know he's on the bad side now. You're you're watching a guy sacrifice.

SPEAKER_03 49:19

I made a joke about it in the smart like just carving fucking runes into people's skin. Everything is red, you're in the fucking evil desert. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

Since when have the good guys ever worn black and red in any any series ever.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

And I gotta, I know I'm gonna forget to say this. I don't think this is the best place for Fane to do his ritual. In the middle of the burnt lands? I think he should have done it in like a bunker instead of a perimeter. Not just like in the middle of an open field uh where people with sentinel armor and portals could perhaps drop right in the To his defense though, he did try to play the shell game with the he was spreading taint all across the continent. Ooh, taint here, taint here. What are you gonna get? There's nothing in a disguise the amount of taint that was showing up there. So he was in whatever place was destroyed in the fall. Yeah, Ilnine. Ilnane. Is that the place that Calen heard like calling to him in the desert and he needs to go?

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Yes, and it's also what I think the lost city refers to in the Raqqa fable, but that's my guess.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Yeah, I I I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Um But it is a good symbol. No, that was just our that was just our assumption.

SPEAKER_03 50:40

Um I figure there's a reason he had to be there, something about the amount of taint. They've talked about how weird it is that like the chain is just settled on that place. So yeah, it seemed like the thinnest part of the veil, maybe, but yeah. Um we get some harrowing stuff about carving these runes into people.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Dude, it's really first of all, yeah. Shout out Exile for giving us some really powerful backstory for this of just what happens when uh people who aren't true believers get carved up with runes. Yeah. Um but it's still pretty brutal, even for the people that want to be there.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

Yeah, that's yeah, very cool connection because we saw that at the end of the exile. Like, well, I don't know what to do with this, but it seems bad. So now we know it's like the way of summoning the chosen at the altar's finest. Um yeah, it's very painful. And uh if you lose faith after being fucking stabbed over and over by a crazy guy, then you just die. So um is this like fraternity hazing gone wrong?

SPEAKER_04 51:44

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

Have you seen that photo of when cops busted up a hazing event and it's like 50 men in their boxers in a basement?

SPEAKER_04 51:52

The Friday Beers guys did a really good parody of that.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Oh, did they really? That seems right up their alley. That's that's pretty that's pretty man. I can't wait to when you play Baldur's Gate. Is that winter? You got that slot for Rocket. Okay, I can't wait this winter. There's a scene in that that reminds me of this scene. Ooh, okay. Let's check in hour 85 to 90 of Baldur's Gate.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Is that what happens after you punt the squirrel and then everything goes wrong?

SPEAKER_03 52:21

It happens like 80 hours after you punt the squirrel or more. And in a way, it sets off a chain of events that leads to something sort of like this.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Um yeah, this is uh this is a crazy scene. They got 80,000 sold soldiers assembled for the Lorien Empire. Unbelievable number. A hundred thousand Urax are coming at them.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

And then they're doing their Ephialters game. You know? He wants the ritual to happen. Can't he tell the Urax to not do this?

SPEAKER_04 52:54

Well, it seems like they're competing. So that's the interesting part that I forget who is talking about this at some point, but they're like, well, last time they were working together, the Urax and Fane. Right. They were all trying to get Ephialtier, but now they're actually racing to try to get his blessing first, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

To get inside the taint.

SPEAKER_04 53:12

Yeah. Yeah. I I'm I'm not happy that I'm taint aware. I I'd like to not be taint-aware.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

Your third yeah. Your third taint is open. Sometimes you don't want to get taint pilled. It's better to it's better to live in a taint-free world.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Rist is taint-pilled right now, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

God damn, he's gobbling it up.

SPEAKER_04 53:35

Oh my god. Uh talk about worst job in the empire, being a priest of Fial tier.

SPEAKER_03 53:41

Yeah, you get neutered and you don't get to kiss anybody, and you probably get sacrificed.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

Sucks. Another thing Ris should probably be looking at and thinking it feels really bad. Okay, welcome back. We had a quick bio break. Um, and I think we're talking ritual.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

Sacrifice.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

My sacrifice. Can you take meh?

SPEAKER_04 54:12

And that's you know, that is kind of what he's trying to do. He is just they're they're getting lifted, lifting these bodies into the sky by their runes.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Yeah. Getting chill. Tearing the veil. The KOA show up, my friend. They they sense the deepest pulse in the taint. One of them shoulders a horse and sends a crying, which is just fucking awesome. Love that. You know what I thought was gonna happen, dude? But couldn't happen. I thought Wrist was gonna kill Kaylin's brother, and I still think he might do that at some point.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

It's it's I'm waiting for someone to betray someone in this larger group, you know?

SPEAKER_03 54:51

There's Rist is gonna do something real well, he already did something really, really bad, but he's gonna do something really bad on a personal level. Is Rist irredeemable?

SPEAKER_04 55:04

No. You think you think there's you think he hasn't gone too far yet?

SPEAKER_03 55:10

I mean, I think he was misled, you know? Like everyone has autonomy or whatever, but like I I would point more to the top, to the Germans and Fanes of the world.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

I I'm curious if Cahill writes it as a redemption to the good, or if Wrist actually goes full goes full villain.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

It would be really cool if he just sticks it out.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

I think it'd be fun, man.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

You're waiting for the glade review. No, it would be very cool. Or I do want it to be challenging. I don't want it to be like the first time he sees Kalen. He's like, oh, these guys are bad. No, really? I'll switch over. Yeah. No, it should be pretty hard-earned, like if they went in back. Um yeah, but this, yeah, the whole wrist stuff continues to be, though it's frustrating watching our boy fuck up, there's some rich drama here. Very much so.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

Um, also loved the pump-up speech from Calinvar. Just made me want to slay some taint.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Yeah, he's good at that. He's good at that. Fame before pleasure. Um, but they get kind of they get kind of railed in this fight. It's a tough fight for them, to be fair. We love joking about the KOA. I don't know. I think it's Acheron's fault, dude. You can't just have a hundred knights to like stave off every calamity.

SPEAKER_04 56:32

That's all pulling that's as many suits of armor as he could make with his body. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

He's so busy. He's got a level one crafting table. It takes forever. Um I will, man. I was really frustrated with wrist when he's fighting the Knights of Acheron. Yeah. Um, and Magnus like getting one. I was like, motherfucker. It it hurt.

SPEAKER_04 56:56

It hurt to see characters you like kill other characters you like.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

Yeah. The Urak splitter got split at herself. Yeah. Yeah. It's there's there were so I don't know, like gauging my own emotions, there were funny things that happened. Like one, when Kaelin and Ella turned on Farda, I did realize that I like Farda more than them. And I was like, do not touch my sweet boy. He's been through a lot.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

The sweet prince. My mom killing Prince.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

Yeah. But like when this was happening, I was like, fuck you, wrist, and Magnus, all of you people. I had that gut reaction. True.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Because the the knights are good. Like they can be dumb. But very good. But they're so pure at heart. And it's yeah, it's like killing a I don't know, man. It's like killing Lenny and a mouse and men. Of mouse and men. Of mice and men. Of mouse and man.

SPEAKER_03 57:49

Of mouse and men. There were too many mice, too many men. Um wait, what was he gonna say? You know, remember when we had this whole uh plot line four million pages ago about the Knights of Akron wanting to become more politically involved and have allies and stuff? Yeah. They didn't do any of that. No. Would have been would have been helpful if you're gonna parachute into uh 80,000 soldiers.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

Aaron Powell That's kind of my problem again with the time skip. Not to dwell on it. I don't think we have to, but in this six-month period, which is a pretty large period for the overall series, nothing consequential feels like it really happened.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Yeah, they should have been burning the midnight oil to get ready, right?

SPEAKER_04 58:30

Like Yeah. Brings can only knights go through the rift?

SPEAKER_03 58:34

Yes. You have to have sentinel armor to go through the rift.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

That answers one of my questions about this. Like even if they had allies, they can't just port them on, you know.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

Yeah, and you can't put them in every possible location or something.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

I just want them to put a dragon through the rift, bro.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Juston shouldn't make his rifts have these strict sets of conditions. Well, technically dragons are made by another god, so they probably don't get along. I'm saying just alter the rules of the rift so other people can go through, because then you would your knights would be more helpful. Seems like it wouldn't be. Yeah. A certain Sanderson series.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

But even though they do get kind of beat to shit, they are helping limit the chaos of the rift opening. They kill some of the chosen, which is like uh hitting a pinata in the air, which I found to be pretty funny. Yeah, they fall from a little string. It's just him running around slashing dudes in midair. Um and then we get a little uh showdown with Fane that is inconsequential. Fane's just standing there, I guess, not doing anything.

SPEAKER_03 59:44

Yeah, he like stops Calinbar from stabbing the the rift, but then the next guy stabs it. So I guess it doesn't, whatever. They got it done.

SPEAKER_04 59:53

Um we get the reveal of the chosen, though.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

What did you think of them? I kind of want more. I'm I'm ready for more chosen. Yeah. I want to see them talk, I want to see them fight more, I want I want the whole shtick. They're like liquid metal.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

Is that yeah, the like molten metal steel covers them and they're like silver, but they have red soul blades. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:15

Is this gonna be like uh Dr. Frankenstein, what have I wrought kind of thing with Fane where he's like, I thought I was in charge.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

Now it feels like the chosen are in charge. Are they gonna listen to Fane or to the Urak Shaman? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

I don't think they're listening to Fane, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:31

I'm gonna throw it out there. You think Fane Yeah, orders from a higher higher power. This might end up being a thing where Fane has to ally with like the the Kalen group to stop a greater evil at some point.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

It's like you are fucked up. Yeah, you can have El Twar. Yeah. And Garamon. Geramon, I got your kid. Just help me out, brother. Did we did we fully cover the death of Garamond's kid?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:59

Yeah, it turns out Garamond's kid was feeding information to the enemy, so Garamon had to slaughter him.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

Yeah. The crazy thing was we we learned this from Fane's perspective, and he's like, Garamond's a very by the books guy. There's no question he's gonna kill his own kid, but you know, I did stand with him on the hanging block. I did follow him there and watch him do it. Yeah. It's a very nice thing, I suppose. Sure. Sure. There's there's something human there. Yeah. So that's the fight. That's what we get. Like most of the people we care about survive. A few more.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:34

And there's probably an equal number of chosen now as Knights of Acheron, which I would guess, yeah. It feels like maybe they are the foil of each other to a certain degree. Dudes with fancy armor that have soul blades, green version of the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

I wonder, it's just like a weird power scaling thing because it's like the knights do struggle to kill the fades, and these guys are supposed to be more badass than the fades.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

So Yeah, I was wondering they do kill some of the chosen, uh, but it's hard to tell whether they were like fully formed or not. Um I was a little let down. We had gotten this hype up from Akron that worse things were gonna be coming through the rift. I thought we were gonna get some like giants or some.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Yeah. It is one of those things that makes you think about the page count of the book and what we spent our time doing. Yeah. Um I could I mean, give me as much of this as you got. Right. And give me a little bit less carathlin and knack-naka and nerd guy, or whatever the fuck they are.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:39

I saw them in the uh glossary at the end and I was like, fuck these little things.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Let's hope they are not in the next glossary.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:45

Yeah. Okay. Well, if we want to stop. Yeah, let's go to the giant battle climax.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yeah. Hard to fight in a forest. Wartime. Hard to fight dragons, so they hatch a plan. Guerrilla we can. I think it makes total sense. I also like it. You can't just stand on the walls.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:04

Dude, I love that nobody asks Kalen for his input on the plan. That was actually really refreshing, having read like Sun Eater and stuff. Like everyone's like, this guy's not smart. He's angry and has a dragon, but he's very strong, but he has no thought about what a good battle is.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

Yeah. We split them up.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Yeah, they do get it. They're gonna split up the Lorien army, flank them, ambush them, and then draw them in back to the spirit warriors that guard the city. Uh that's pretty much the whole plan. And it's it's a pretty good plan.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

And it I mean, it basically works, but like the hitch is that they thought they wouldn't unleash dragon fire on their own people. That was not correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

Yeah, they don't care.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:59

No dragon bound do not give a shit. They're here to win. Yeah, we're here to kill you guys, and if we die too, well, so be it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:06

So But in the in the Chaos of the Forest sequence is probably my I think that's my favorite part of all the book so far. It's such a fun fight.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:18

It's I I was even loving the prelude to it where like Dan is sneaking through the woods, he insists on wearing his white cloak, and we get he's still flirting with everyone. Yeah. But I also love like when characters like Dan show that they are sneaky, actually brave, and competent. Like he's going out there, no issues. Like he really is a badass in his own right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

He's and he's a great archer. Yeah, great. He kills dozens of people out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:45

Yeah. Um God, awesome. Ella is completely frightening, but very useful. She's feral, but whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

There's so many good highlights. Ella's great. Uh the Nithhrondir reveal was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:58

Yeah, what the fuck were those guys?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:00

Giant blue axe spirit warriors. God, that was sick.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Like statuesque, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:06

Like Odyssey.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

Like the uh Luminorians or whatever they like. Like an Orions. Yeah, shut up. Spoiler for next episode. Wait, can we talk about when Valeris sent uh Fanier flying when they showed back up? Oh yeah. We had a dog fee dragon fight that went horribly for dog. I love that Faneer wants to fight the fan. That's another moment where the heart doesn't lie. I was like, dude, kill Faneer. Yeah. Fanier's, I just are supposed to be lovable animals in this series, are so angry. Fanier lost a lot of subtlety, yeah. I don't like them. They should be cute more often. Yeah. They're just like, yeah, they're get get some Robin Hob if you want that, though, you know. Yeah. They're man, they are no night eyes, I'll tell you that. Okay. Um Battlegroes to shit, but it's Calin time, baby. I think that's is that kind of where we are now? I want to talk about cool things that happen in the battle. Okay, let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:06

Uh Baldon bites through a Blackthorn war horse.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:10

Munch. Quote Dan, I fucking love Balden. And so do we.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

I fucking love Baldon. The Angen stag, his homie, is just impaling people with its giant antlers.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

Yeah. We were joking last episode about how we didn't think the Angen or Buff, but Yo, they're but they buff. Clearly, they're very buff.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

Unfortunately, they both die. Those two common mentions. But so does one of the Jotnar giants. Very sad. That was really sad. Only a hundred left.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

We got the callback to book one when they're talking about sharing their fires or what happened. Yeah, man. That's horrible. And yeah, we already talked about Dan's elf crush, but like, you know, no main characters bowing out here, but like some very lovable side characters.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:52

Um Calen Burns, a mage out of Spark. He spark burns him out of his body pretty brilliantly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:59

That was yeah, his eyes like bubbled and turned black. That was fucked up. Indiana Jones ending. Dan does his absolute best to kill a fade. Really good job. He gives a good go of it. I mean. Talk about being brave. Yeah. He just there's there's no way to you have to cut its head off.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

I think it's you need a couple more soul blades for this army, I gotta say. Nithhrallis? I'm waiting for Calen to know how to use a Nithhrall, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:26

Yeah, that's weird. He doesn't have one yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:28

In six months of training, they didn't work on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:31

Does Ana knows how to do it? Right. Wouldn't he? Yeah. I feel like he's done it. I don't know. Whatever. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

Yeah, they should be they should be working on that. And and then my final highlight was uh wheelchair Cora.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

Is that is that Bob Burnquist out there?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:51

Oh is that a fakey 360?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:54

He just did a fucking fishtail Ollie in the middle of the Dragon Queen. Little Christ air. Yeah, that I cannot believe that that sort of comedy action landed for me, but I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

That was so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

That wheelchair type thing I'd hate. But yeah, she makes a ramp, fucking pushes herself with threads of air. Yeah, that's a hell yeah, brother moment if there ever was one.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

Hell yeah, brother. Anyway, this was an absolute cinema scene. This was this was yeah, this was just so so good. And it's only part one, because then we get the dragons.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

Yeah, yeah. It's like everything's going well, everything's going bad. And then I think the the focus really shifts to Kalen. Wagons. Um three dragons, unfortunately, none of the friendly riders, um, which makes sense. These are the pure evil ones that we have referenced before. He was warned about them. Um I mean Valeris gives it a good show. I don't think I they said in this section that Valeris is like 70 feet long or something now. Yeah. He's still like half the size of these full grown dragons.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:00

And Helios, when they eventually meet, is like three or four times the size of Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

So this is like an impossible task. Like all they have is the element of surprise when he launches his initial attack.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:14

It kind of now makes sense why the Rekina were so mean to him about this whole plan of like fighting the dragon guard, because it's like you get into the fight and you realize Valeris has never fought a dragon. Valeris has never met a dragon that isn't crippled and blind. Like, yeah. It really is like entering a doch and into a dog fight. Yeah. And so it goes to kill the first dragon. The surprise attack works pretty well, but then it's like, oh man, we we got nothing here.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:40

They're more or less just on the run. Yeah. But fortunately, Ella's on the ground. She got a plan, baby. She enters her little well, she was kind of knocked out of the fight, right? Like she's being carried away.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:57

She tells him to carry, because she knows she's gonna go like limp or whatever. Yeah. So she tells him. I think to like carry me. K me, bro. And uh she enters the sea of spirits.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

Mm-hmm. Yes. And she can see all the glowing souls, and she finds the souls of our fucked up dragon friends who are blind and can't fly or don't fire. Um they were pretty hyped to come hang out. They were. They like hadn't she tried to possess a dragon or some shit before I know. It was the Elven ones. And Elvin was like, get the fuck out of here. Yeah, she got smacked around, but these ones like let her in. Yeah. Um They're lonely. I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do in war. I felt really bad for the dragons that most of them just got immediately ripped apart. It was really sad. Like, I thought they'd put up a better effort, but they're gonna be like watered. We thought these dragons were done for? No. We didn't have a way to use them. No. No, we've got a way to use one of them now. Um Helmanicor, whatever the big ass stupid name dragon is. Yeah, the Norse dragon was kicking ass.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:09

He like rips one of their heads off immediately and throws the other one against the rocks. It's like, oh man. And from the top rope. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:16

Depression island. Depression island. Shows right back up. With a pretty, very pretty dragon. Pretty pretty. Purple dragon. I love that. It's like Barney. And um, she doesn't actually accomplish anything either. No. But she did show up. Twill nights of acron appearance from her. What if I came in and just got fucking killed?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:38

And then I guess what like I was struggling with this a little bit because they're already pretty beat up. Does Kasen just Asen just Jesus Kate Kalen and Valeris? Do they just go goblin mode on Hrothmander? Yeah. Like after the dragons have been dispatched? No, no, they have to kill Hrothmander, who's been beating them up the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:01

Yeah, yeah, they do, because it's been that dragon had been like wounded by um the fucked up dragons, and they're just like, they can just go for it. Oh, there's a horrible description where one of the like blind dragons got its like jaw ripped like downwards and off.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:20

Uh I don't want to think about it. They were so nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:23

Yeah. That's horrible. That's just a variation of like the Cahill always talking about people's teeth getting broken. Yeah. Stop with the mouth stuff, man. Yeah. No more mouth stuff. More taint. Yeah. Um, and then whatever. When the when the Dragon Guard have been dispatched, one more task to do. Burnanate. Burn a billion soldiers. Um, which we don't get to see, which I think is a nice authorial choice, I thought.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:50

It is. And I think two things will come of this. One, Kalen is not going to be loved by the Lorien army, uh, who he just slaughtered in mass. And two, I think this is gonna fuck Kalen up a little bit. The all the killing he just did?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

Killing 10,000 dudes. Dude. Okay. Yeah, from the author who had Dan think, I've only Well, hold on. This point I was gonna make doesn't make any sense. Did you catch the line where Dan was like, we've only killed eight people? Yeah. It's like that's a lot. It's eight more than I've killed. Well, to be fair, Dane is walking around being like 873, 874. I think in the context of the story, it's not that many. And given who who Dan's been hanging out with. But yeah, I feel like it would seem very uncahil if he doesn't check in on Kalen psychologically after this. Yeah, Kalen's gonna be a little messed up. Yep. How do we feel about him having to be like, you are my beloved, you are my soul, before he does any dragon maneuver.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:52

It's getting really old for me, to be honest. I'm too much student. I understand the old language, but it's the same phrase every time. And you don't need a little check-in nose boop every time you like take a left turn.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

You know that Valeris knows you love him, and Valeris loves you. You can leave it at that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:13

This is a toxic relationship.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:16

I'm anti-Kalen and Valeris. Like I get, you know, whatever they need to do, let's do it. But afterwards, I think they should be put to put to pasture.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:26

They need some independence, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:29

Do they?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:32

Oh with a relationship. Yeah. They need a brain, they need some boundaries. Like I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:38

I also think that in the in the peaceful world to come, I don't know if Calen of Lair should be in it, man. It does feel like there's not a lot of point of the dragon unless it's killing. Yeah. Yeah. I that would be really interesting to see if like Cahill goes down the road of a post-dragon world, the end of all this.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

Yeah, it's like very intentional to Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:05

And even like Fane and Garamond talk about this. Like, people think our god's bad. He didn't make fucking dragons. Like um. So it feels like that's all on purpose. That these these dragons are made to be very scary and kind of fucked up. And we'll see what happens with them.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:22

And also we don't quite know what the gods' intentions are at this point. Like once these guys get more involved, like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

Someone has a very an interesting line about, you know, Efieltier is trying to exert more influence on this world, but someone says, like, the other gods like kind of don't care what's going on. Yeah. Um, will they start to care? And what are Efieltier's larger plans? Will they make the other gods care?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:50

Speaking of this, Rokah is seemingly exterminating the dragons. Yep. He's a god, dude. Two more dragon guard. All the pieces are falling into place. Two more dragon guard were dead. Only six remain now, though one dwelled in Carvos and another in Arden. He would have them seen too shortly. There was no reason to leave loose ends untied. Do you think Raka is the dragon god? Like the druidic god of dragons.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:20

And he's like, I shouldn't have made these guys. I don't. That would be really interesting. I don't think gods do like takebacks. Like I in my divine knowledge, I messed up. Um but he's gotta be some I'm listening we got like four epilogues here. That's the one that jumped out to me. Yes. I love Stu Man, and man, I hope we get more of him in the next book.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:48

We have to. This reminded me of in um Stormlight, where we get the like tattooed dude and like part of the what are the sleepless reveal? That was really fun. Yeah. As the epilogue.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:03

I think the sleepless is like the dividing line between hardcore Stormlight fans and normal people. Because I think if a normal person reads Stormlight and you're like, what did you think of the sleepless? Like, that wasn't in the book. You don't remember uh Witt speaking to a cricket?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:21

A man a man in a robe full of rats? Yeah. Okay. Um yeah. Anything so the other epilogues, just quickly, we get a declaration from the Rakina that they're gonna stand with Kaylin and go to war. That's cool. Cool. Ella seems kind of fucked up. Ella's fucked up. She's fragmented.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

Yeah, so I kind of assume she'll still be like that when we pick up with our next book. Dickka Dicka Intrigue. Oh I don't even know what to say, dude. Yeah. Kira's not on the gun. He's like, here's a king. I think he's been in this book before. Um and he kills a bunch of people and takes Kyra the hostage. Well, it's a framing. They're framing again. No, I know. But he like doesn't kill her because he needs her, and I just don't fucking care at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:25

That's negative. It's not it's it's a little too negative for me, but you care a little bit? I care a little bit. I'm intrigued.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

I'm just saying, like, yeah, I get that the political situation is intriguing. We have no characters we know or care about in in Dika Dika anymore.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:44

Yeah, I think he was maybe relying on us caring on caring about Kira from her brief parts a little too much. Couldn't care less. The problem I have at a certain point in the series is like not every single kingdom needs palace intrigue. Like we need one straightforward kingdom, just like with one ruler, with a personality, but now every single kingdom has a fragmented leadership structure with a bunch of people who I don't care about and I don't know the.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

Except for the Lorien Empire. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Yeah, which is simple.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:18

I was thinking of you when we learn in the battle that one of the three elven kings gets killed, and they're like, Well, we still got two. So yeah. I was like, cool. So it's checkmate to you. That's why you have three kings. You can lose one, and it's really no issue. Yeah, you see what happened when Arthur died, you know, everything went to shit. Yeah, exactly. You end up in Dickka Dika. Yeah. These guys are fine. And then we get the uh the check-in with the uh bloodthirsty Elven lady. Um Solara Ethan. She kills one of Effie Altier's prophets. She does her favorite trick, which is like 1v1 me. This guy takes her up on it and loses horribly. I see there's a die. I was wondering, I was like, what if she just dies like an idiot? That'd be really funny. It would be really funny. Just like complete luck.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:07

He he like throws the axe and it, you know. Or again, like Indiana Jones, where he just shoots the guy with the scimitar.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:14

Yes, exactly. Um she's got uh weather druids on her side, and they may or may not be slaves.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:23

Which I wanted to look back at the druidic power scaling that they talked about at a certain point. Man, I can't remember where this is.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:33

But um Druids, a magic lost.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:36

It is, it is in Druids and Magic Lost. Ah man. Oh yes. The seer druids are the puppeteers, the all druids are the warriors, the sky druids are the instruments of change, and the aether druids are the movers. It's interesting. So Ella is a seer druid. They have assumedly a sky druid with them, with the elves.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:01

Yeah. And I think based on what we've seen from Ella, I don't think Druids A Magic Lost gives a sense of how cool or powerful the druidic magic is. Because it was like, you can be a rat. It's like, okay, well, it's it's a lot more than that. So I'm assuming the weather stuff is going to be nuts.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:19

So I think it's funny, especially I was thinking back to the scene where um Ella walks into the Elven leadership council and gives her a war plan, and the guy's like, Who the fuck are you? And Balden's like, She's a druid and the daughter of the chainbreaker. And like, oh, my bad, my bad queen. All right, go off. Shut the fuck up.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:37

Yeah, Balden has her bed. The man, goddamn, do they love the chainbreaker. But the druid, you get a little respect when you're a druid, though. Yeah. If they're if or you get or someone tries to kill you. True. Two options. So that's it, my friend.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

That's of War and Ruin. What a journey, man. It feels like this was a year of my life. The single book.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:03

This too long. This felt every one of its 10 million pages. It's a little too long for me, if I'm reflecting. I I know I went on my little rant last time about how I was coaching myself and being like, enjoy the journey, man. You know, that's fantasy. You're there for a long time, not a good time. Um, it was a little too long. A little too long. I do, I do I don't know. I'm thinking about like the things that are jumping out to me are extended Burn Land sequence, extended dicka-dicca. Yep. Like, I don't know if we needed Damon and his flowers and stuff, you know. I think it's sort of like the Stormlight books where it's like it's it doesn't need to be half the length. It's probably a hundred pages, you know. Yeah. And then this feels totally fine. But I will say the ending kind of made up for whatever shortcomings. Like it was pretty sick. I I'm now like ready to immediately start the next book. I won't because of the Odyssey, but like, when I finished reading yesterday, I immediately bought the ice.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:18

Like that's yeah. So yeah, I have no complaints generally. It was just a little it's it's also it's hard to read a 1400-page book in the middle of a full-time job sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:30

Yeah, they're just nights where like it's nothing against Cahill, but it's like when I log off from work, like I don't want to go to the burned lands. I just want to like go on a walk or play golf or play a game or something. Uh and it's just a lot of pages of Cahill in a row. So it's like yeah, it's just so hard to separate from like the timing and circumstances of your life, like your feelings about a book.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:57

Um again, if we win the lottery, we don't have to be slaves to this podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:05

That we do entirely for fun. Yeah, that we've never made a penny on, never will. Um I don't know. All in all, a good time, a little long. Um, but the world's getting bigger. We got more magic. Um I think next book is about gods. I think gods are gonna be heavy. I'm excited about you know, Kyle said that like three felt like of a piece with the first two, and then four is a real big change up, a little bit of a slowdown. Yeah. And I think I'll like that because when people say slow down, I think they mean less fighting. And that's what dragged this book a little bit for me, was probably too many fight scenes.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:50

Yeah, you're the strange fantasy reader that that really doesn't love fight scenes.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:55

Yeah, no. Like this this ending fight scene, 10 out of 10, fantastic, loved it. But like Karathlin fights like I could do without them.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:05

Uh that really ruined you. That one like two-chapter segment of book two really fucked you up.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:10

It's become like my stock example of a fight scene that we didn't need that went on a little too long.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:18

It's similar, like the Gwen series had too many like ambushes in the trees, you know, from the case. Unnamed soldiers in forest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:24

Yeah. But I don't know. I just think there's so much character drama waiting to happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:32

We haven't even unlocked half this universe, man, with all the the different druidic gods and like a ri uh whatever planet we're on, gods.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:41

Yeah. And just fun shit with like Garamon and Wrist and Asen and Farda, like all those people. Stuff's gonna happen. And there's I can't wait to see. I'm truly invested the soap opera side of it. Like it's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:55

And I'm truly invested in a plethora of characters. Like there are a lot of people that I'm interested in. And that's cool. That's pretty unique to be able to draw that much interest this this deep in a series.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:06

It's pretty interesting, too, like how low Kaelin is on my list of characters who I want to read about right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:13

Yeah. Who's your number one?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:14

Who would you want most to kick off book four with? At this point, I'm most excited reading about Far Done Wrist. Nice. What about you? Roka. Okay. Yeah, well, genuinely that would be number one because I'm dying to know who he is. But I think we just don't get that much wrist, and whenever we do, like his proximity to Fane is wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:39

Yeah, Fane figuring out what's up with Fane post taint opening is um is very high on my list.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:48

Yeah. Yeah. Um okay, and then any final predictions.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:54

I I think the prediction that Fane opened Pandora's box is is a good one. Like he's in a little over his head, he was a little overconfident here. Um and I yeah, I I'm just waiting for it, but someone's gonna kill someone. Like, so you know, wrist is gonna kill Haym, or you know, Ella's gonna kill like somebody's gonna kill somebody who's very important to a main character and it's gonna cause a massive fracture.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

Wrist killing Haim would be the spiciest version of it, but I think there's a a slightly there's a one chili pepper version, which is goddamn, are there a lot of job openings at the KOA? Yeah. Someone like Eric goes into the Knights of Akron and and wrist kills one of them, you know, would probably have a similar effect, but wouldn't be quite as dramatic. I'm excited to see if anyone we know gets drafted into the Knights of Akron. True, very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:48

I mean, besides Erdhard Hammersmith, but um Well, he's a good one. We also have a lost, uh not dead sibling to think about with Voltara that hasn't been tied up. Oh, yeah, the nephew plot. Yep. Baron and the nephew. Yep. Curious how that plays out. And we've got that other random guy, Viking guy, who's leading his rebellion.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:10

In uh Drafane.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:12

And Drafane and Whiskey boy. So there's there's some good ones.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:17

I'm gonna hold my breath on them showing back up, but I I think they will.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:22

It would be sad if they didn't, but we have two whole books left in the series. Two like two thousand pages.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:28

That is kind of nuts to think like we just crossed the halfway point like a couple hundred pages ago. And I assume book five is gonna be this length, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:42

We're a long way from the glade, brother.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:46

Yeah, fuck. How does this all end, man?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:49

I don't know, but I'm excited. I'm excited to find out. Um, but yeah, tune in soon. We got the Odyssey as a little little break, a nice little fun interlude next week. Yeah. And then we've got the ice coming up pretty shortly after that because it's a short book.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:05

Yeah. I think like over the next two weeks you'll get those episodes. And then I think we're probably just going straight into Empires of Dust.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:13

Yeah, it might take us a bit because we're all both traveling and we'll be in Chicago together. Oh wow. Wow, so soon going to a rave against my will.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:24

It's great. Yeah. Alright, well, friends, draw late now cheer, blah blah blah. I hate sand. I hate sand, I hate flowers. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:36

Please still lie out on the sand and let the sun drive.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:40

I don't like sand. I wish that I could just wish away my feelings. But I can. I don't like sand. I don't like sand. Sand. I did something I know I cannot do.