[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Cosmere Corner, a recap and analysis of the works of Brandon Sanderson.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm John.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Aaron.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Richard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is going to be our coverage of the prologue from Mistborn, the final empire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today we are going to be introducing the world of schedule and a nigma of a character and some of the broad power dynamics that are happening in this first chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you want to support the show or get bonus content, we're going to be doing a monthly spoilery episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go to the link between the show notes and go to our Patreon subscribe.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is an early bird special at about three bucks a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're watching this when it comes out, it's probably still available.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that brings us to our spoiler warning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are going to be talking full spoilers for only the content we've covered so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this week, that means just the prologue of Ms. Born the final empire.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't have to read much, just read one chapter and you're caught up with us or hang out with us and get the whole plot and analysis without reading it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's your choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So everybody, we are here doing our first substantive episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did our preview last week and that was super fun, but now we're ready to get into the need.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did everybody think of that Richard?
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this prologue, but I'm going to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Overall, this is my hot take I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my least favorite in the Cosmere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he started off great, but he just got better as a writer with every book that he's written in the sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did and didn't you like about it just generally?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought, I liked the world building elements in the prologue, but I felt like they were a little heavy for a 12 page prologue, 15, something along those lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: It, you know, with all these printing types, I read on an e-reader, I know a lot of people do the audio, the links are just never gonna add up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever you wanna say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something around there on the audiobooks, almost 40 minutes,
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I guess it depends on your medium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, Aaron, you feel better or worse?
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel a lot better about this one than Richard did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to be honest, I think that this is a lot more manageable of of start to a Cosmere book than some of the other ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it might be a little bit less substantive in terms of what it's giving you, but I think that it manages to pack a lot into a very short
[SPEAKER_01]: number of pages.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's really impressive that it does that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that it sparked my interest in quite a few things that we're going to talk about a little bit down the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: But other than that, this initial episode really made me dislike our point of view character just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think he has some tunnel vision issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's probably right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll get to Kelsey here and all of his shenanigans.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say, good shenanigans, bad shenanigans, but we'll talk about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to point out, you know, for this chapter, I really liked it better on this reread that I did the first time I read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was little like, what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where are we going with this?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's obviously got some brutal elements to it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to give a trigger warning for everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are elements of,
[SPEAKER_02]: implied sexual assault in this chapter and I don't want to end of course elements of slavery to I don't want to you know make anybody uncomfortable with that so it's something that you know will come up again in this book But never this heavily, I think at least on the sexual assault point so trigger warning for that
[SPEAKER_02]: Overall though, I think that this is a great prologue because it does really well one of the Brandon's Anderson signature techniques, which is a very video gamey thing and I know there are criticisms of that and there are praises of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Brandon is really good at his prologue being a showcase of a high level magic user in that magic system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and maybe they don't do that directly in this chapter, but this is showing just how powerful somebody can be in this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we're going to back up once we get to chapter one and we're going to go back to tutorial mode.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really like that because that, you know, as a gamer myself and I know you two are into video games too.
[SPEAKER_02]: That really feels like home to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something that was not super common in fantasy when he wrote this and now it is becoming increasingly more common, probably because these books blew up so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really liked the way that does showcase a good amount of the magic system before we really get into the meat and potatoes of the book without like over explaining it for where we're at, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: He also does a really good job of giving a broad view of all the politics of, you know, teasing the lords and the nobility versus the sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of these distinctions that are will feel more natural as we go through, but right now we're just getting a taste of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really cool to see them in action.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's why I like a better hungry read because I understand this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious if people want to write in.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do that at CosmereAtthalorhounds.com or you can go to the Lorhounds.com, contact entry form or go to our discord.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to hear from people who are reading this the first time, how did you feel about this, knowing nothing else going in?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because to me, I remember being a little bit overwhelmed, but on reread, I'm like, this is a beggar.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really, I'm really into this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they throw a lot of terms that you very quickly and it's hard to keep up with what's
[SPEAKER_01]: definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't we get into the book itself?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is Miss Born?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be our background section, which we'll do at the beginning of each of these books.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to you know, keep harping on it, but this is our first chapter in Miss Born.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was originally published in 2006, July 17th.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is one of the earliest entries in the Cosmere, and I believe one of the first intentional entries into the Cosmere, because Landlantris came first,
[SPEAKER_02]: right away intended to be, you know, a shard-based magic system, and we'll get into exactly what that means.
[SPEAKER_02]: Without spoilers, I just want to say this is a heist novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love that about this novel, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, this is just a straight up heist.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brandon meant it to be that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: It, it executes that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it, it's, it's, it's very, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: Star Wars a new hope to me, you know, let's get into the Death Star and figure out what's going on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, uh, I really like it for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited to get deeper into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that this was a really fun way to start it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a very cool magic system.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to tease it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of in tease by Kels here, being able to just, you know, mop the floor with every guard in this building.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we will learn a lot more of that about that in other episodes as we go forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Richard, do you want to tell us a little bit about where we are?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we are on the planet of Skadriel, which is one of the most important kind of like focused planets in the Cosmere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few things that are just important to keep in mind, there's a red sun, the mist's come out at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are all important.
[SPEAKER_00]: things to keep in mind, given that we are going to be going to a different planet for every series pretty much and they all have different magic systems and y'all will learn why that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gets hinted at here and there throughout the series, but Earth throughout the trilogy.
[SPEAKER_00]: we will have a more concrete definition as to why later on?
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want to go too deep into like, oh, we'll get to that later.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's something that, you know, we've previously done on the lower-downs network a bunch of Tolkien stuff and, you know, going through this some really, and I'm like, oh, we'll get to that later.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know that can be frustrating going through some in the first time, but Brandon does such a good job of doing that layered reveal.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... a lot of people call it the sanderlands at the end of his books where everything just comes together in this really cool way so i don't want to take away from that that's why we're being kind of withholding here i will say the payoff of this of this book sanderlands is probably one of my favorites so if you're having any doubts just read the book trust it's amazing
[SPEAKER_02]: It really does get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It gets you there at the end and I'm excited to get through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you touched on this a little bit Richard on the setting, ashes falling from the sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the first line of the pros part of the novel, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Ash falls from the sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great tone setting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a great quote that I saw on Brandon's FAQ on his website.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to pass this to Aaron to read.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is about how he came up with the setting.
[SPEAKER_01]: One more of the ideas for the Mistborn series happened when I was driving home to see my mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: She lives in Idaho Falls and after passing Tremonten, sorry I have no idea how to say the name of that sound.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the I-15, I just went through this fog bank driving at 70 miles an hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though my car was actually driving into the fog, it looked like the mist was moving around me instead of moving through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just this great image that I wrote down in my notebook years before I ended up writing Ms. Born.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just such a great encapsulation of the visuals in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I first heard that this was gonna be like sort of adapted into a live action project or whatever they're gonna end up doing with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sounds like it's gonna be a feature like movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm just so excited to see those principles that Brandon is talking about here brought to the big screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do want to apologize because I'm going to toss a dollar into the Tolkien jar already.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, heard us on the other Lord Hounds pod.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were saying, I got to institute a Tolkien jar rule.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've already done it too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I'm already going
[SPEAKER_01]: remind me so much of Mordor and just this idea of the sun being blocked out and at the people on the ground having to suffer through this almost like nuclear winter but not more like volcano induced type of
[SPEAKER_01]: as she atmosphere, I just think that visual is so cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is cool, and it's also horrifying because this is the whole world, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what the climate is on this planet now, and crops barely grow.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a feudal slavery system.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really like a brutal regime, a brutal world, and Brandon wants you to know that right away, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants you to see the people at the lowest level of society.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this is the majority of the population lie in that classification of scar, and it's really the power imbalance is terrifying.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is based largely off of real-life feudalism and the
[SPEAKER_01]: surfdom system that existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he draws a lot from real life governments and history and social institutions and manages to pick pieces apart and put them back together to make this crazy mosaic that becomes his world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a really good point, you know, I mentioned the trigger warning up front for sexual assault and slavery, there are elements of that, both of those things that he really makes feel visceral because they were parts of history, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: These are things that he's pulling for mysteries, not making them up.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not showing brutality for brutality's sake.
[SPEAKER_02]: they're all there for a reason it's to show you what these characters are up against.
[SPEAKER_02]: The emotional toll it takes on these people, how broken they feel, especially the contrast between menace and calts here.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be a really a big focal point later.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as I was doing my research for this chapter this week, I was perusing the internet for any quotes I could find about the creation of this chapter why he chose to start the story this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, this is a common thing the Brennan does, you know, sort of zoom out, show a powerful magic user and then give us a more grounded POV character.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he did have actually annotations on Ms. Born that somebody catalogued on the internet somewhere I found.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the first part of the annotations about the prologue.
[SPEAKER_02]: This initial section with trusting and the obligator was added during one of the last drafts of the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had some trouble starting this novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really liked the Kelsey or section of the prologue which was originally the first chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, before I got to Kelsey here, I wanted to have a kind of seeing setting omniscient description of the Scott working.
[SPEAKER_02]: The important part of this zoom out would have been to show them all with their headbows, heads bowed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, show Kelsey your look up and smile.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried several drafts of this and eventually settled on something that was okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Later on, however, I decided that it was just too much of a viewpoint error to have an omniscient section in one of my books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially since it was the first section of the novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I decided to set the scene from Tresting's viewpoint.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I ask Richard, what do you think about this whole, you know, starting with Tresting's viewpoint?
[SPEAKER_00]: there's I have actually have a few thoughts on this uh I think it's great to see how the nobles think about the scar, kind of kind of gets you worn to the setting of like Aaron said earlier that like medieval surfdom feudalism vibe um you know how he views them as just kind of things instead of people like that's obviously horrifying but it
[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely paints a picture and then Calsear, I mean, we get him standing up smiling looking the slave master in the eye and then he disappears and it gives you a good insight into how or into who Calsear is on top of this world that Brandon has started to build up for us, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's right, the thing that really highlights an important aspect of the society to me is that trusting also lives in fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not empathizing with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy is awful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just got right.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's literally assaulting women.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is having the Scott Beaton for no reason, basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's more concerned about his personal ambition than anything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's really fascinating about this viewpoint is that he fears the obligators and inquisitors and the Lord ruler, and he fears the scob become an rebellious, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The just a smile from Kelsey here is the most terrifying thing to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He just can't believe it's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I know that Brandon considered making this omniscient, but I'm so glad he didn't
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just found the note about the obligators, there are some of the most interesting pieces of the government in the final empire to me at least.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just this whole class of people who are kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: part bureaucrat, part priest, and also notary publics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, are they lawyers or are they not who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're just part of this system that's constantly there to remind that the nobility that they're not untouchable.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's so important to understanding the dynamic between the nobles and between the Lord ruler is this idea that they're constantly being surveyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even in this sort of low technology, medieval type of setting, I would say slightly post medieval, I don't think that we're, it's quite that far back in terms of technology, but somewhere along those lines, and so you can't set up cameras to watch people, you can't do that type of thing, but there are other ways
[SPEAKER_01]: for you to be unsafe if you want to go against the government.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just like a little side note about the obligator specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do really like the whole, the tattoos being significant to their ranking and their job in the government.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I like tattoos.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a sleeve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got some other stuff here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really like the inclusion of that because obviously he could have just said, oh, it's just the normal dude with no discerning stuff other than like his clothing, but that extra layer of world building to me, at least really, I don't even know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it just beefed it up a little more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's also this extra level of devotion that the Lord rulers servants are forced to sort of undergo to really show how dedicated they are to the cause.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to literally modify your body if you want to be in his inner circle or in his bureaucracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking about not for myself, but like the idea of getting a tattoo on your face,
[SPEAKER_00]: My arm was enough like I could never do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really does make it hard to do a mid career Pivot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean what are you gonna do after you're an applicator?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can't rule out the circus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Circus is always an option for anybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to paraphrase the last part of Brennan's adaptation here, which is that he also used it as an opportunity to introduce a bunch of the world elements, like obligators and visitors, ash, nobility, the Lord ruler, and to have that Kelsey you're looking up moment and smiling.
[SPEAKER_02]: and so that's that's what brand I want you to get out of this he wants you to know who the major power structures are i guess you don't have to fully remember it but it's good to sort of get a sense of that and then we get calciers badass smile i i think that's a great way to uh to hook you on to the series
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely, and just as a side note, even though I'm a little bit hard on Kelsey here, I do have a survivor of Hathson sticker on my laptop.
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't worry, I'm not a complete anti-Celcier person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did Kelsey or do nothing wrong find out after the break?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's talk about this chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to be in on the conversation, you can always send an email to Cosmere at theLoreHounds.com, where you can add to the Discord server linked in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also join our Fable Book Club, but where you can for free, keep up on exactly where we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: There will be a schedule for the book that we're currently on, and there will be forums with chapters segregated, so that if you are only reading chapters one through five, like you are gonna be next week.
[SPEAKER_02]: You will only see spoilers for chapters one through five or that's who should be posting so Let's get into it
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron, can you tell us about Lord Tresting?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Straff Venture, a noble from Lufadel, has sent an obligator to conduct due diligence on the scop plantation of run by Lord Tresting.
[SPEAKER_01]: The obligator notes that Venture will be pleased by the report of a beautiful scour.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, there was some concern about Tresting's use of scour women that concern was
[SPEAKER_01]: As trusting daydreams about moving to Lufadel, he notices a scar looking up at him with a defiance mile before he can order him punished.
[SPEAKER_01]: The scar disappears.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trusting punishes the surrounding scar anyways.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there you have it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got your you're set up here with a feudal state.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a bunch of different groups
[SPEAKER_02]: introduced here we have the the Lord ruler named dropped you know he's got his logo I feel like should I put the logo up on the screen right now as we're doing at the Lord ruler Enterprises he is the big boss of this world perhaps the big bad he is the immortal absolute dictator of this world
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we feel about absolute dictators?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are they usually a good thing in a story?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it depends on who you ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ask the nobles, what ruler?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's a little scary, but he's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's nice to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives them stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: They give him stuff, but they get to live in peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the really interesting thing that I think we learn here is that the Skah are slaves, but they're owned by the Lord ruler, and so the nobles lease them, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't actually own them, and that gives the Lord ruler control over both populations.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, I, you know, I'm going to name drop Howard Zins people's history of the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in that, in that book, which I know has a lot of issues, you know, a lot of people use it a bias.
[SPEAKER_02]: He kind of accuses himself with bias.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a fair way to do history.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, he talks about how, you know, in colonial times, a lot of the ways that they would divide the lower classes was to give white indentured servants just slightly more rights.
[SPEAKER_02]: than the black slaves to make sure that they felt superior and they wouldn't work together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, obviously, the nobles have quite a lot more rights than the sky and this.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just wanted to point out that the Lord ruler is keeping control over both populations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if one is significantly more pertliced on the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is, and I think that another really big piece of this that we saw a little bit of a glimpse into, we're going to see a lot more later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But
[SPEAKER_01]: The final empire, as much as it's run like a nation, it's also kind of run like a business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord ruler is constantly fostering this environment where the nobles are competing against each other for contracts and business dealings and all of this other kind of stuff, which is a really interesting marriage between business aspects and typical feudal obligations.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's somewhere in the middle between capitalism
[SPEAKER_02]: When do you think we get the Lord rulers' video trying his burger from a restaurant?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, we're recording this in Marks.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's probably going to be such a dated reference by the time this comes out in June.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm sorry, but I had to make photos of yours for a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, totally.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we also have the obligators here.
[SPEAKER_02]: the obligators we talked about before, you know, sort of the clerks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was putting it as, but you guys were bringing in that they are kind of part priest kind of part bureaucrat.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've got a lot of a lot of different roles here, but there are, you know, different levels of them, like there would be in a real government, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And they are there to keep an eye on these nobles.
[SPEAKER_02]: But of course, this obligator says, hey, if there was any real concern about your behavior, we'd send in the stealing
[SPEAKER_02]: Any, any thoughts on the silly Quisitors without getting into spoilers here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you need to be terrified.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're on the page, someone's dying.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter who they don't really even care who sometimes it's someone's going to die.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they're also really creepy in like the description of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, for later, we'll keep it spoiler free for now.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... i'm looking forward to talking about them because they are a whole vibe that's gonna be a really cool thing in the in the movie too i know we're all looking forward to seeing that depiction uh... and and trusting is terrified right and when he hears a burning quizzard he's like oh my god thank god that didn't happen thank the lord ruler thank the lord ruler right he's he's perhaps divine perhaps uh... not who knows
[SPEAKER_02]: Luther Dell is, of course, the center of the universe here.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the main cultural hub for all the nobles.
[SPEAKER_02]: The nobles, of course, being a biologically separate species in the sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just want to make that clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are not just different populations.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are biologically different species of humanoids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that could have something to do with why Lord trusting has to kill off the women he does horrible stuff with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Kelsey or says that later.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's not even the spoiler.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that was verbatim in the prologue or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Kelsey or says there's a strict prohibition on interbreeding sky nobles because the quote, half reads could manifest powers.
[SPEAKER_02]: They shouldn't know exist.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why there is this big, like, hey, nobody, you know, you have your fun, of course abuse, but you know, you do what you want with your scab, but if there is a half, scab, half noble baby, we're gonna have big problems here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and just a quick note on Lufadel that it's not only like a cultural center, it's not only the capital, but it's also the geographic center of the final empire.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's if you look at the map in the beginning of the novel or whatever you are reading on, it will just be smack dab in the middle, which I think is an interesting choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any other thoughts on this section of the chapter?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all out.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well then let's move on to later that night, the scuff, fearing the mist, enter their hovels to wake out the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kelsey or enters, shocking them by coming in from the mist.
[SPEAKER_02]: They reluctantly invite him in and accept his gift of food stolen from Tresting's larders.
[SPEAKER_02]: More importantly, he brings news from the outside world.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are supposedly lands in the north where the Lord ruler's influence is lesser.
[SPEAKER_02]: has ordered his task masters to stop unauthorized beatings, and may even be paying wages to his scotch, he got.
[SPEAKER_02]: The leader of this hovelteper doubts Kelsir story, but Kelsir wins some points with the elderly menace, who notices the severe scars on Kelsir from the pits of Hatsut.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big name drop here, huh?
[SPEAKER_00]: Richard?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god insane name drops.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we've got got Lord Renew as it's starting the audio book Kelsey is Some sort some mythical seeming survivor from the pits of Hath sin, which What could those be?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean crazy stuff
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, pace of hats didn't aim dropped.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, brutal place, the only other person that menis has seen those scars on was dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, how do you calculate survive?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is this guy?
[SPEAKER_02]: And why is he smiling so much?
[UNKNOWN]: Ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's as good as that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that Kelsir, if I took anything away from this and I really have tried to put myself back in the mindset of me a year ago having not read any of this, I think that my primary take away the first time I read this was Kelsir is a man who wants people to know who he is, he's trying to build a legend.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his main thing right now because he did not have very much regard for how what he was
[SPEAKER_01]: but he wanted to do it anyways because it he knew that it would bring him some notoriety.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got to be seen, you know, people have heard of this guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's sent in this chapter too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like people like people talk about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll see here is not humble.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not a humble guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he's pretty pretty ego-tystical.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also might take away from this.
[SPEAKER_00]: first little glimpse we see of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he was kind of crazy and I'm not the only one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think throughout the series he gets called crazy by probably everyone he ever talks to at least once.
[SPEAKER_02]: definitely and it doesn't help when menace goes why why do you smile and he replies which I think this is a banger quote here you ask why I smile good men menace well the Lord ruler thinks he has claimed laughter and joy for himself I'm disinclined to let him do so this is one battle that doesn't take much effort to fight and this happy warrior persona I think is a you know a really cool introduction to Kelsey here and what he can do for the world
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do like just in general that trope too of like, I'm fighting in a war or Rebellion or whatever's going on in whatever story and I want to have a good attitude about it and keep a smile on my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that is a good sentiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it in any form of media every time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Aaron, how are you feeling about Kelsey here?
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed his whole smiling thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's one of my favorite parts about his character is this attitude that he has of just always trying to, I don't know if stay positive is really the right way to put it because I don't think he's a super positive up and at him type of guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he has a lot of darkness underneath the surface.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just let out word image
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a very image-oriented guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's constantly thinking about how others are perceiving him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a whole big part of his image is the smile.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really interesting point.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you can draw a distinction in him between positivity and joy, and I think he does manifest joy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He finds joy in simple things, in relationships, in good food, from the Lorders of Lords.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in sharing news with people, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: In sort of, he loves the show, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He loves the, ah, they'll be talking about how I went into the myths and all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's such a, he's a complicated character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brandon Sanderson does this thing where he's not really, you know, lingering on flowery prose, like somebody like George R. Martin would do.
[SPEAKER_02]: He lingers quite a lot, so we know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He never writes his books.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, he doesn't linger on these flowery prose points, but he will go really deep into a character's motivations and really, really does a great job of painting those character motivations in a complicated and rich way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I will give Brandon Sanderson that is that all of his characters feel like they could be real people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big accomplishment, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I feel more in the Stormlight, but also, definitely a lot in Missborn, both Air 1 and 2, they're very relatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least I feel like obviously not the whole
[SPEAKER_00]: having magical powers or fighting in a war.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they speak for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're real people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have magical powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish, man, it would be awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, do some stuff that people in the Cosmere can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even want to say what they can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Editing a podcast for YouTube is definitely a special power in my heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to, you know, I can't even say what I had to do to get powers because that's that's a spoiler for further in the Cosmere.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't get that far.
[SPEAKER_02]: Head, you know, we, you mentioned Richard that Lord Renew, now that you've told me how to pronounce it, was named dropped.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was Lord Venture in the last
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're learning that there are factions here, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We might get some houses kind of thing going on like we get in.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll have time, give my thrones, all those kinds of more political intrigue type of fantasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Sanderson definitely doesn't focus on the political intrigue, but it's it's there and it's it's really well done It's just not as deep as you would get from game of thrones wheel of time even I don't think you've read it John.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Aaron hasn't but son-eater has some really good political intrigue in it if that's what you guys are interested in But Sanderson does do still a great job with what's in those books
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he does a great job of doing the political moves without doing so much of the verbal sparring that we think of when we think of this like political type of fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think he knows his blind spots as a writer and he knows what to kind of steer clear from.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and he's gotten better at a lot of his, you know, weaker points too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think the humor in his more recent books has been significantly better than his early humor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's he's gotten there, he's gotten there with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And overall, like, there's a reason we're doing this podcast, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We all really love these stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not here to just, you know, hate on these books.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to mention,
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to mention one more quote from Kelskir here when you know good man menace is like you know we're not unified or he goes you're already fighting you're just losing horribly I I got that perspective shift there Yeah, and I mean
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not layers, but there's two layers to it, because there's the war against the nobles, and unscheduled, like this is a horrible, even a horrible, but a pretty bad planet to live on, compared to Earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a struggle to survive for these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's talk about Kelsey here in action here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got a nice scene of Kelsey here getting spurred into action so that we could see a power user, at least the effect of a power user in this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron, could you read the scene?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before Kelsey here can finish giving news to the scotch, he hears a scream.
[SPEAKER_01]: A scotch from another hovel named Jess is pleading to keep her daughter with her, but Lord trusting has demanded her presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: everyone knows what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone does nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the horror of everyone in the hovel, Kelsey exits into the mists and takes off towards Tresting's manner.
[SPEAKER_01]: They expect him to die in the fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next morning, menace wakes up to find Tresting's manner, set ablaze, and Jess's daughter being comforted.
[SPEAKER_01]: She tells them that Kelsier killed everyone else in a manner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Menus knows he can't avoid the fight anymore and takes charge of the other Skah and begins leading them to the caves in the east.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, this is just another great example.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I was talking about before where Kelsier, even though he's doing the right thing, he's got noble intentions.
[SPEAKER_01]: is willing to put other people in that risk.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's willing to put them into a tough situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they already were in a tough situation, but he's kind of turned them into fugitives and refugees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I mean, say one of those steel inquisitors shows up, even based off of what we've gotten so far, we know that they wouldn't ask questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would most likely murder all of the scab because what also they're going to do with the evidence they have,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and, you know, there's this whole conversation in the night before about with menace and I almost keep saying Dennis because it's so close.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's just, it's just Dennis with the, and right, like we could have done a little better with that one Brandon, it's throwing me off here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We won't blame you if you say Dennis, but, you know, he's he's complacent, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he basically says like, I have to be complacent to survive in this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kelsey or Ed Mitz, that he's a trouble maker, you know, menace goes, you know, he's, this other guy, Tepper, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's, he's probably right that your trouble maker.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I didn't correct them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a trouble maker.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm here to cause some trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: term that has gone around activist groups, called good trouble, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, make good trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kelsey, you know, I understand that like he is making things short, term harder for these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we should critique him for taking away the agency of people to decide whether to enter the fight or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, forcing them to get in on the fight,
[SPEAKER_02]: does make it more likely for these people to have better lives in the end, and that's what I really like about the chapter is that there there is an argument for end-again skills here as actions, right there he is
[SPEAKER_02]: doing a long-term good thing maybe if he succeeds he's taking a gamble with other people's lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: But short-term he's definitely making their lives worse, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's forcing them to confront some of their terrified of which are the myths.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is something that's made very clear here.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on with the myths?
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody have an idea that has no spoilers in it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I know we this is where I wish we had a first son reader with us right now, so I want to hear
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, you know, next feedback up so we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking forward to hearing what people think because I, I got nothing for, for the miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm too far gone into the Cosmere lore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, they, they seemed really like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ethereum is, I think the best word I would use to describe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, like the first time I read through, but other than that, I really can't say anything because I just, I know too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: it's tough because we know a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say I don't remember a lot of this because I haven't re-readed it a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember what is and is not threatening about the mess.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm going to be rediscovery, Matt, for the first time, in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do know there is a potential threat in the mist so and that is a mist-raith.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is something that at least they fear, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I now Kelsey or didn't mention it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was mentioned by the people who have a what he thinks a rational fear of the mist.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see if this pans out, if this is a real thing, if this is going to be a problem for people, but they're going to be in the mist anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess maybe we'll find out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they talked about the mist rates a little bit, I think that they the scar brought up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe whatever person is outside right now has been taken over by a mystery.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're had their form consumed or subsumed something along those lines.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that that idea of a mystery taking on a human form is going to be interesting because that is a core scob belief and one of the driving things behind their fear of the mist.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that was just his daughter, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That was just his daughter who was taken by Lord Trusting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they had her.
[SPEAKER_02]: They had to make sure she could be in the sunlight before they would believe a word she said, which is, is honestly like, scrolls have been through a lot, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, she was taken.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was narrowly escaped a sexual assault.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had to walk through a bunch of dead bodies with a guy she didn't know who had just murdered everybody in that building.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then she comes back and her family is like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold on, we don't know if you're a monster or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we're moving to a cave.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're moving to a cave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's worse places to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the plantation was probably worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't knock the cave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sponsored Bob and Patrick are going to rock bottom.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's, you know, this is most of it tie up to Kelsey's arc of this chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like a mini-sanderland, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we have this whole buildup of who is Kelsey here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he's just like, gone, gone in the wind, forcing menace to take over, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because Teper can't handle his own people anymore, because he's just, Teper was the company man, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Teper was ready to,
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... to the line to make sure everybody was behaving enough to not get hit at least extra and uh... manages like all right i'm old but i seem to have more of an understanding of this than anybody else so everybody follow me to the caves yeah i really like the dynamic that they introduce here and they do it a couple of more times throughout this book and i think throughout the rest of the series where they have
[SPEAKER_01]: just, you know, every day, Scott, who have an opinion on things and who think differently from one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you get this range of people who either agree with what's happening or disagree with what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that those perspectives add a lot of richness to the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron, any other thoughts on this section of the chapter?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just that I really enjoyed the way that Sanderson was able to characterize everyone and everyone's thoughts on each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the nobles pretty much dehumanizing the Scott completely calling them creatures.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the Scott just barely fighting to survive another day if they're that lucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that he did a great job of it showing us the class dynamics and the power relations
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really good point that he sort of, he shows you perspectives from each power level, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have the free sky, the enslaved sky, the sky, and the noble, all looking at this from different angles.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, good point there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Richard, you got anything?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I really enjoyed how this kind of, how else you're served as a catalyst for the sky to actually start doing something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we said earlier, it is obviously probably better for them to keep their heads down in the situations so that their entire lives don't get uprooted and made worse in the short term.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, long-term effects are going to be huge for the sky if it succeeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the important part of this is that they're trying for something better after this run into with Calsear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can kind of get based on the fact that they keep referring to other sky that travel between plantations.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can get kind of an idea that he might be going around to all sorts of different plantations and sewing the seeds of this, hey, the Lord Brewer, there's not so great sewing the seeds of rebellion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess is what I'm trying to get to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this what you're talking about here reminds me of Hannah R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R.
[SPEAKER_02]: the sky just saying I need to survive another day I can't worry about rebellion right now especially under the brutal regime where you know I think pressing says at one point he had run away at first but then he started killing all their families after they left and that stopped so can you blame people no I don't think you can blame the scoffer for
[SPEAKER_02]: but where they're at, with not wanting to rebel.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you see Kelsey's point, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Of if no one's going to make the next step, this is all we'll ever have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think you bring up a really important point about the people in the middle, the bureaucrats, that all of these people are contributing to this really evil system.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that I was interested in the first time I read this was,
[SPEAKER_01]: We got an idea of what the scoff think about the nobles and about the system, but we didn't hear directly what do they think about the Lord ruler himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was interested at first to know if there's a different perspective on this person who's meant to be their emperor and their god if they think differently about him than they do about the nobles who are the ones actually inflicting the pain on them on a daily basis.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right doesn't mean it's swear by the Lord ruler at one point, like he uses him as a god.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you're right on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, obviously this is more than just your average dictator, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is something bigger and we'll get into all that as we get further.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, for now, I think that's probably about all there is in the chapter, but any other final thoughts on this chapter as a whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that I have talked myself out of talking points.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with Aaron on that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, well, we'll be back next week with chapters one through five.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what we were going to be doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The final empire chapters one through five.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's about 70 pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can follow along on Fable on the book club.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is linked in the show notes as is the discord server.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as is our Patreon on our Patreon.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have an early bird special of $3 a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Normally it'll be five, but the first number of subscribers will get a $3 a month price for life.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you'll be able to get bonus episodes once a month where we talk full spoilers about the whole cosmic and we make connections between other books we talk about for shadowing leader in the book from the readings we've done that month and I think that's going to be a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll also get worm fuzzy feelings for supporting an independent podcast that's covering books you like.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're here for free we're happy to have you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'd love to see you in our discord
[SPEAKER_02]: and we'll be back next week with chapters one through five.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody, thank you very much for being here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron Richard, we'll see you then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's been a fun time.