In my mind, RJ totally wrote the Lan-Nyn wedding, but after he handed it to Harriet her feedback was: "Robert, you can't spend 60 pages describing the dresses, the furniture and decorations of a single wedding". And RJ just became angry after that and just went: "Fine, if we can't have the dresses, then we won't have the wedding" and threw the chapter in the trash.

In regards to Aes Sedai experimenting with weaves... You need to remember that when you get Weaves wrong things can blow up. Which is why Novices are supposed to be kept from trying harder weaves until they are more practiced. Thus Aes Sedai don't normally experiment much... and as Clarus suggested, they normally keep things to themselves. The Aes Sedai 'current' healing is basically 'battle medic healing' using Water, Air and Spirit weaves that just uses the body's natural healing and speeds it up. Nynaeve though uses true healing weaves which incorporates all 5 (Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Spirit) in a much more complex way. This actually pulls the healing power from the power itself and can heal things that even your body's natural healing can't heal. She only does it this way because she was never told that this was dangerous and she learned to do it before she even knew that she was doing it... she more 'wished' people to get better and was channeling these complex weaves without even knowing she was using the power. The Aes Sedai trying to duplicate this when they fully believe that mixing up weaves the ways Nynaeve does could actually explode or set the patient on fire from the inside out. When Nynaeve finally started teaching the Yellows her way of healing (after she healed Stilling) they thought she was insane and almost ran away from her because they thought she was going to blow things up. And this type of healing also uses a LOT more power than most Aes Sedai can actually channel. And if you haven't noticed yet, strength of the power is also the ability to weave more complex weaves. The more power you can hold the more strands of the elements you can put into a weave at once and so weaker channelers can't do the complexity of the true Healing weaves unless they are linked or use an Angreal. Even if you only need a little power to do the Healing, you need the strength in order to make the complex weaves. This is the same with Traveling... these are complex weaves and so weaker channelers can't do them unless they Link or Angreal.

Yeah, Rand had a panic attack in the boat, the box has really affected him...Sulin also helped calming him down in that scene where he was faking being a prisoner, when he was wearing the hood.

If you think about the time when this book was written, Elaynes reaction to the Mat situation is actually very well written if you think about it.

Well, at least Matt lasted longer in the books than he did in the show.

@Nerdy Nightly I noticed The Eye of the World was published January 15th, 1990, and A Memory of Light was published January 13th, 2013. And ten years later, January 13th, 2023 is a Friday, so book club! You won't be finished the last book by then, but maybe you can mark the occasion in some way?

Nynaeve and Lan getting married is a perfect example of the kind of thing they can bring into the show.

About how little the Aes Sedai know, given how old they are. It reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Robot books, where he speculated that our current lifespan is ideal for making advances, because 60-80 years is long enough for a person to make significant progress on something, but too short to figure everything out by themselves. This encourages us to work with others, in order for us to see our passions come to fruition. Once people are able to live 200-300 years, it becomes feasible for a person to solve whatever problem they're working on by themselves, and if you don't have to share credit for your achievement with others, why would you? This means everyone is working on their particular passion projects by themselves, so the benefits of bouncing ideas off of others, of eliminating multiple people running down the same wrong paths because once they discover a dead end they share it with others, of people with different and complimentary strengths synergizing to go farther than either could on their own, all are lost. The Aes Sedai are an excellent example of these drawbacks of extended lifespans, and it's no accident that the people changing the world are relatively young, even Moiraine and Suian.

About the reds, there is one thing I think you might have missed, but brings things a little more into context. I don't think this is a spoiler, but if you want to save it for a re-read, then maybe don't read further. The duties of the reds isn't only to hunt men, but anyone who misuses the one power, including other aesadai. They are the towers equivalent of a police force.

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" Until right now the Aes Sedai have been the only game in town for 1000 years so they have never had to try and learn or improve. You can have 100 years of practice, but if you think you already know the best and only way to do something then why would the 100 years do anything other than make you really good at whatever that one weave is? The White Tower harshly discourages creativity and exploration through beatings and horror stories. The black Ajah has been forking with the AS for hundreds of years otherwise how do you explain there not being a yellow Ajah healing center in every major city, teaching people healthy living and learning herbs or other methods of healing as well as better ways to use the power to heal? How do you explain the green ajah sitting in the white tower with their collective thumbs tucked in their butts instead of all of them patrolling the blight border and learing to command armies and slaughtering trollocs? As I said in a comment on another post, the wondergirls are so powerful partly because they learned a little from the AS then got the fork out and started to learn for themselves. Flinn and the ashaman are learning from scratch. The Black Tower is forcing men to learn to do everything with the power, so every day men are being injured and blowing themselves up. Flinn was interested in healing before going to the black tower right? So maybe he was using saidin before he went the same as nynaeve was using the one power before she knew she was using the one power.

Thought I'd give my two cents on the AS lack of knowledge and lifespan. I understand Nerdy's point, but counter that that's always been what makes it believable. The AS organization had two major major traumas, opening the bore being an ikarus moment for the women and the sealing being hubris for the men. This created a generational trauma against careless use of the OP that lives on especially hard in AS because it's fewer generations for them to get over that trauma. The few AS that survived the breaking probably didn't do so long enough to properly train the next generation (it all took a couple hundred years), so the first generation out of the war were poorly trained, poorly organized, and hammered with their teachers' regrets and warnings. And then we have the darkfriends among them making it worse. Further, I interpret it as a comment on the problem with dogmatic "right answer" teaching in that a lot of the now AS are taught the basics of most weaves in a very rigid and unquestionable way so any experiments they do are along a narrow path. Here comes Flinn with a nack for healing, no presumptions, and daily horrific wounds due to the nature of Black Tower methods. So to me it doesn't feel that weird that the strong noobs that got the bare minimum (if any) of training, and thus less prejudice, and are constantly in a state of trial by fire without supervision keep on discovering new things. I don't know, this is my reasoning. Doesn't make perfect sense, for example traveling feels like it would never have died out as probably all Aes Sedai knew how to do it and it's just so massively practical. But maybe the breaking changed the world enough for traveling to be impossible for a few hundred years until the new Geography had been somewhat mapped? Sorry for the monologue, great show as usual =)

The love/hate for Cadsuane is a perfect example of balance, depicted by the ancient symbol for Aes Sedai, which is fitting because she is an ancient Aes Sedai

I actually like the bathing scene because the maidens are all just so genuinely happy to see Rand not being sad emoboi. They're almost giddy and it's pretty sweet.

One thing about Padan Fain that gets overlooked is how his “touch” on powerful people turned them against Rand, kind of like a counter to Rand’s taverenness. Niall may have never accepted Rand was the Dragon, or that the Dragon was in the Light, but I believe Fain twisted him so that - not only could he never accept Rand - but he would actively work against him. Just like Toram here. And I think the same with the Tower. I think Fain is why Elaida’s plan from the beginning was “kidnap him, but give him a chance to come willingly first”. I think more of Elaida’s later actions in the Tower beyond Rand are more evidence of Fain’s effect of corruption on her. And I’m not even sure he’s in control of this effect, or if it’s his Mordeth showing

The Legion of the Dragon are being armed, equipped and trained to fight on the "new battlefield" where channeling makes blocks of infantry in formation a death sentence. Those are weapons which can be carried and used in cover, foxholes, trenches, fortifications, and they are light for high mobility. It's a brilliant idea, and similar to what Mat is doing with The Band.

'I hate cadsuane and I'm happy with that' My feelings for the last 10 years

About the healing, I think the Aes Sedai are limited to what they learned in the White Tower and they were either strictly warned to not do anything else or that there is no other way to heal. If I remember correctly, they only use water and air. These rules get set as time goes on (especially if there are do work) so that they don't even try. Nynaeve and Flynn didn't have that limitation. Nynaeve's training was sporadic and so she went by instinct and what made sense to her in the moment. The Ashaman are still new and are teaching themselves so they don't have set ways for how to make different weaves and need to experiment and explore

Look, I never grew to like Cadswane but I did grow to respect her, a bit

I can’t decide if I would love or hate the book Nerdy talks about writing.

Daniel Greene said it best, Rand has so much internalized self hatred that he just automatically assumes he hurt her through the act of consensual sex. That she initiated as well.

IMHO the forsaken didn’t know stuff because they live in a world like today. One of them knew real healing, one knew mental healing, Ishmael and Lanfear were a research phds in high energy physics, some knew Dream world better than others. Besides for traveling, and convenient basics, they had cell phones, flying cars, power plants, terangreal that did so many things for them that they didn’t need to take care of everything themselves. As the top tier of the world class elite, they had access to the top healers, and experts in every field. These people are 1%ers. They usually an expert in one thing or more (except for Mesanna).

As to the White Tower and learning vs. longevity - try this on for size. I think of the tower as something like Cambridge University in the Victorian era. You have Bright Young Men being actively held back because the senior dons are not to be contradicted. New fields are not allowed to be studied because they have not been studied before and therefore are not worth studying. Add to that centuries of the black ajah actively throwing a monkey wrench into the works, deliberately making things as worse as possible. This is how I see things, more or less.

Haha I never blamed Rand for trying to hack his Taveren-ness. I would have methodically experimented with it in a way that none of the superboys do.

I was mad that the ending was designed to be inconclusive. It didn't make much of sense for Liah to survive there. If she was truely alive, why didn't she left the city, like they did in the first book? It seems the whole point she was put there was for Rand to get distracted at the right moment and not kill Sammael.

On the Aes Sedai "not knowing stuff" They know a lot, but much is limited by the 3 oaths (which are guided NOT by reality, but by the perception of the individual, so tower indoctrination will play a role there) It's also limited by arrogance. Why learn something new when what you have works? This is NOT an unreasonable or unbelievable position. One of the smartest men in known history is Isaac Newton. The man discovered and described entire branches of mathematics that take students today LONGER TO LEARN than he took to create the text book. But he ALSO stopped his investigations due to his cultural context. It took later generations standing on his shoulders to dig deeper. Same deal with Einstein's struggles with relativity later being built on with quantum mechanics. The idea that a new "culture" of magic users without learned bias would discover new and different methods and usages isn't just compelling writing, it's almost an inevitability. Coupled with the inherent differences between the two sides of the one power, and I always loved the shock that runs through Aes Sedai when they realised JUST how crippled their development and understanding has been. I'll even go a step towards criticism of Nerdy here. The way he's focused on "wisdom of age" but fails UTTERLY to appreciate what I BELIEVE Claruus is trying to explain means he may really need to drill down on some of his own stated philosophical ideals. Flynn doing things differently and discovering things due to his different cultural context, experience and materials (in his case, the male half of the power) is a fairly direct implication of the importance and benefits of diversity. "But these people have all this power and learning! What could diversity possibly teach them that they can't just learn for themselves!" is not a take I can get behind :P (and I'm OFTEN a critic of "woke" politics. I find much of it vapid and actively harmful to the underlying merits) I don't think this example is particularly subtle. It's a major theme of the entire series... One often used to excuse rather questionable decisions in the adaptation ^^

As far as Aes Sedai incompetence, I like to think of the white tower as a big corporate monopoly. They are set in their ways, have no competition pushing them to improve, and have become brittle and risk averse. The newer channelers are like up-start entrprenuers that have to become agile and innovative in order to compete.

The bridge thing should not be confusing- all bridges require support on both ends.

I guess the non-flying thing is that you can create a spiral staircase of air and walk around on it as it's in place just fine but you can't create a "magic carpet" (or nimbus from Dragon Ball... or a Nimbus 2000) out of air and fly around on it because that interrupts the weaves as there's like a mental disconnect... like... tying your shoelaces while jogging, I suppose?

Once you get past Rand's sadboi act, 32 is a great chapter, and one of my favorites (and not because of the ladies giving Rand a bath). Min does a great job of telling Rand when he's wrong, and letting the air out of his ego. The Mat/gholam fight is great. Mat finally becomes a hero. A taste of things to come.

Lan’s Wedding. I wouldn’t be shocked if Jordan tried to write the wedding and it didn’t come out good and after a couple of attempts he just gave up and submitted the copy to the publisher, they were waiting (as were all of us!).

The Aes Sedai Cadsuane interrogated didn't know all of the specifics of his torture.

Elayne did make a joke about Matt's situation. She told him to practice smiling in a mirror.

Have to watch this later tonight but here's an early comment for the algorithm God. You know you've got it bad when you see a book club get posted and say to yourself "huh. Only 3 hours this week?" Can't wait to dive in, should be a spirited one.

On the Black vs. White Tower innovation debate: The White Tower has been around 3000 years and knows a lot of stuff, but they’ve been seeing their numbers dwindle for 1000 years and are trying to preserve the existing Aes Sedai. Their goal is to survive long enough to fight in the Last Battle. So they don’t experiment with healing weaves or ter’angreals or anything that has a high risk level. The Black Tower is new and bringing in tons of new peeps. Their goal is to level up ASAP. Their death rate is super high, but that’s considered acceptable losses by Taim.

Age vs experience. Nynaeve throws something at a forsaken.

Mordor on the dance floor / you'd better not kill the groove

Oh man the cringe at convention questions is so real. They need to be more fully screened.

About Aviendha and the Tylin situation. The aiel likely aren't that great about asking men for consent. Like it's heavily implied if a wife wants a sister-wife the husband can't actually say no to the proposal, and the Maiden's Kiss game has some unpleasant vibes.

Cadsuane's Talent is Spanking.

Your opening discussion encapsulates my relationship with the whole series. It's an amazing story that I enjoy very much, but the technical aspect of the writing could have used a LOT of improvement. I usually just put it down to an object lesson in not using a family member as an editor.

THE BRIDGE - explanation... The bridge is just a ramp made out of hardened air. RAND isn't holding the bridge... one end is supported by the docks, the other by the ship.

Wow it took you 59 minutes to get on the dusty wheel. BEHOLD the power of the free market!

2:14:00 when the Aiel are sliced in half by the gateway, I always picture the first Resident Evil movie with the hall of lasers. If they do it like this in the show, it will be awesome.

I too am still eagerly awaiting Winds of Winter. Your thoughts on this book struggling to stand on its own are 100 percent valid

Rand thinks he forced Min because he's in a situation where he can, he's the most important and powerful person in the world, if he wants to do that, there's no one who could really stop him. That's why he thinks Min isn't really concentile at that moment.

Reckon more Accepted who are Darkfriends are steered towards the Red Ajah, both because of an established structure as well as because DFs among the AS would probably see it as their duty to try to gentle (and probably kill) the prophesied enemy of their master. Healing itself is a Talent-all Yellows have a Talent for Healing.

Another possibility about Sammael is that Moredith didn't save him, but he was turned into a servent of the misty thingy, like Padan Fain was.

Love it how Nerdy berates Cadsuane for going the wrong way about building trust with Rand. Whyever did you assume Cadsuane *wants* to build trust with Rand at this point? Her aims are completely different and you will learn them when you learn them. Assuming things about Cadsuane leads to embarrassment. :)

don't you think the Tylin/Mat encounters are bringing light to a lot of male/female stereotypes and interactions in a reverse role play?

Verin will forever be my favorite Aes Sedai.

Love the show as always! As a long time reader and officially an old man now, I forgot to comment a few videos ago on you both not knowing Alice in Chains as a 90s Seattle rock band?? If true, check out their Jar of Flies EP start to finish. Their style is pretty unique and they frequently use some weird but awesome 3 part harmony chords throughout entire songs.

I don't understand the problem about talents. Why not? I mean, it's a logic and normal thing being gifted in some aspects over others. It would be flat if the power depends only by strength and knowledge

Manfear just out here being the perfect example of positive masculinity

Please react to Daredevil. Charlie Cox is brilliant and just so so pretty.

I just LIKED the smash button. Great conversation today!

I would pronounce it more like a ghoul-lam but a little more gentle a pronunciation on the ghoul.

Aaah, yes. Another good length book club.

Channeling is somewhat analogous to lifting weights or something physical. Experience has very little bearing past a certain point.

Looking forward to seeing/hearing you on the dusty wheel again!!

Just saw Matt from The Dusty Wheel a few weeks ago at FanX in SLC. The panel he was hosting was great but love you guys more keep up the good work!

No spoilers, but the red Pavara is a very cool character. She is a good addition into the books. She constantly provide different perspective and attitude. I believe you will enjoy her arc/storyline. She is A or S tier for my character ranking...

I think Reds are just a really large Ajah, so they have a lot of Darkfrieds in them. Also if the one who is supposed to defeat the Dark One is a male Channeler, where better for a Darkfriend to go than the place that hunts them. Edit, also there are some pretty awesome Red Ajah members in the series.

The are so many WOT fans out there it's crazy that this pod cast doesn't more views.

Have you guys ever read the "Wild Cards" series?

The wise women vs the wise ones thing that you mentioned reminded me of the fact that there is a people in WOT called Damani and then there’s the sean Chan slaves that can channel that are called demani or something like that

Was “My Cabbages!” Guy in Avatar based on the Turnip Guy?

In Book one, when Min is whispering to Moiraine at the end of the hallway in Baerlon, she reveals something to Moiraine of immense importance. This information is not revealed in the books at all (as coming from a Min vision). It was only revealed by fan questions to RJ and Maria Simons. I want Nerdy and Claroos to speculate on this now, before it is a spoiler. What amazing off screen info did Min (canon) reveal to Moiraine in book one? The books never answer this...because it is utterly offscreen. In latter books....with more info, they might guess right more easily....but this info was only revealed off book in interviews. Please let them speculate...because the books never reveal this fact. Clearly Min's offscreen vision is true and means a lot throughout the books, but the vision is offscreen, so all actions taken as a result of this vision never make sense because her (Min's) vision is offscreen. I don't want to spoil the answer...just want to hear their theories on an offscreen vision that is major and canon that is never referenced in the books at any point. The final fact of the vision is a major surprise, but was canon since book one.

You're waiting for Song of Ice and Fire? /Bones voice/ He's dead, Jim. Cause of death - choked on a billion dollar bill.

@Nerdy if you liked dbz you are gonna love the abridged version. EDIT: Both of you should do a reaction video to dbz abridged. First timer + veteran is a great dynamic. Doooooooooooo it!!!!!1!!!!

It took me three times reading to understand Min's viewing So I can just say you read the beginning of it in this book

Come on Nerdy, u just said yourself Samitsu is the most powerful healer except Nynaeve, u accept that but not that a Asha Man can do the same? Nynaeve also havent channeled for a long time.

The Live Chat doesn't seem to be showing up when watching after the Live stream was over 😞

Maybe the marriage was left on the cutting room floor

As for Caraline; your sworn enemy, ruler of the kingdom you're in, who's rumored to be going horrifically mad, and has the power to level buildings with a finger-flick is suddenly in front of you. Would YOU be a dick? But yeah, narratively it could have been far more interesting.

Nerdy is reaching full WoT fan status. Also I need to acknowledge the fact that I comment 4 times on all these vids. Anyways fuck it.

Cadsuane is a great character. She is also the worst.

Ironic that thief looks down on taking other people's ideas

June of 2024... Where is the team Cadsuane shirt?

Personally I really enjoyed the book, for me the worst book was 8 and then 10 with 9 being only okay but being made up for by certain elements.

That was a fun WoT evening. Thanks, guys! So... next week's book recap stream with Wheel Takes as guests? ;)

since Birgitte is an actual real world name, you can look up pronunciations for it. in some languages it's pronounced with 2 syllables (bur-geet), but in other languages it's pronounced with 3 syllables (beer-geet-uh). so I'd be wary of thinking Michael and Kate are too crazy for their pronunciations.

Cadsuane hate is deep 😂

Wish I had $100 to get you to react to the Legend of Vox Machina.

People like Cadsuane because she is: highly capable, experienced, determined, willful, effective, and a very strong woman. People dislike Cadsuane because she is: a bully, an asshole, a self-righteous jerk, manipulative and dishonest, and an incredibly strong woman. Obviously not everyone dislikes that last thing, but this is the internet, after all. Wummin scary. Must ridicule and other to be Realman. Realman cannot be hurt.

I am not sure that I believe that you guys are actually upset about missing the wedding. You guys just wanted to read the wedding night! :-P

You're supposed to hate Cadsuane. That's likely to change. She eventually gets awesome, and that isn't soon. This Week, Smartest prediction Goes to Nerdy. .......Frustratingly incomplete spoiler.........Seanchan......Also.....Fertile.