House of R - ‘Ahsoka’ Episode 6 Deep Dive

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

If you miss the idea of the deep dive, wait no longer! Mal and Jo are back to dive into the latest episode of ‘Ahsoka’ (08:58). They dive into the riveting plot points of this pivotal episode that brings Thrawn into the world of live-action ‘Star Wars’ (12:16). Later, Ben joins to discuss the magic-based area of ‘Star Wars’ lore (02:58:51) and so much more. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Ben Lindbergh Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who won the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify for free, by the way. So make sure to follow the rewatchables on Spotify.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors.

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Where is Ezra? Ah, yes. The desire to be reunited with your long-lost friend. How that singular focus will reshape our galaxy. And welcome to House of Ar, the Ringerverse podcast, on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you, not only back to Peridia,

but also to join us on our new House of Our podcast feed. Joining me today, announcing that what was first just a dream has become a frightening reality for those who may oppose us. It's my House of our... Eminent. Permanent. Title.

Co-host, Joanna Robinson. Grand Admiral Robinson, What's Up? What's up? What's up? bad babies. It's Friday.

It's Asoka Day. Do you know what else it is today? It is September 22nd. That is Frodo and Bilbo's birthday. So happy Hobbit Day to you, Mallory Rubin. Happy Habit Day to you. And we're going to get to be. wish you a happy birthday on the pod in just a couple weeks.

And you just had a birthday. So it's, you know. Tis the season. Tis the season. Beautiful. Joe, we are, of course, here to dive a deep. Deep, deep, deep into the sixth episode of Assoca. But before we begin teaching history of the galaxy parts one, two, and three, some quick programming reminders.

As you know by now, House of R is twice a week. That means we will be with you. twice next week, just as we were with you, twice this week and we'll be with you twice all the time. We will have our deep dive into the penultimate episode of Asoka. That is Asoka Part 7 next Friday. Joe, what will we have for everybody on Tuesday? You know, as we enter this mysterious, mystical, magical realm of Peridia,

we will have a tropes course on Tuesday. That is something to do with the Mistrial. to go on the magical. Do I know specific what it is? No, but I'll figure it out. We're going to figure it out. Yeah. The thing we know for sure is that it's not going to be the next Doctor Who. It's not House of Who. But that's coming soon. Fear not. That is coming soon. Next month. You have a little bit more time to catch up on Capaldi listeners before we get there in October. And just so folks know, you know, this is our new house of our feed. our entire house of our archive will be moving over into this feed from the ring or verse over here.

So you'll have, if you are the kind of maniac who likes to relisten to episodes of Rings of Power or House of the Dragon or whatever it is, you'll find it all here on the House of Our Feed. That should be happening sometime next week. You may get some notifications about that. And for that, we do apologize. We cannot prevent it. Yeah. Know that we know and in the end it will result in something we all want, which is easy access to content in one place. This is great.

Yeah. Yes. It'll be wonderful whether you want to wait for the archive to move or just do it now. You can give us those five stars. That would be lovely. We love them. I'm just going to keep asking for them. They've been so wonderful.

When those notifications come rolling and think of us finally, just immediately. Immediately give us us. a five-star after you get a hundred and, I don't know, 70, 80 push notifications at once. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. It's also going to be an active week over on the ringerverse. Our sister feed. The Midnight Boys.

Poo-Pew! Yeah. There we go. That was a good Poo-Pew today. I loved it. Well, once again, be with you on Tuesday night. They're watching a. soak alive. They're potting right after. You have a piping hot pod before you go to bed on

Tuesday night. And if you're in a different time zone, then right when you wake up Wednesday morning, great stuff. Also, at the end of next week, Junior Mints, assemble, it's Mint Edition time. The crew, Steve, Jomi, Jess, they're breaking down the premiere of Gen V. It's already somehow next week, Gen V time. Wow. That felt very far away. It did. And now it is next week.

Tis here. Because that is how time works. Wow. Yeah. Joanna, that's a lot. How can everyone follow along? Also, in case you missed it, good old Lindy himself,

Ben Lindberg gave you the foundation content you've been clamoring for. So, listen, I'm so glad you asked. Yeah. Harrison needs you do. Yeah. Follow us. social at ring reverse.

Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Facebook. That's a great way to do it. But even more simply, why don't you just subscribe to all the podcasts? And, you know, then you'll get hundreds of notifications next week. Do it in time to get a hundred of notifications. Hurry. Don't wait. Yeah.

Act now. Okay. So follow Rearverse, follow House of R. Also, and I know I don't need to remind you of this because we are getting hundreds upon hundreds of them every week now, you can email us, Hoppits and Dragons at gmail.com. I'm just going to hit you with two highlights right now, Mallory. First of all, Dylan emailed us to let us know that when we were on our mailback episode earlier this week,

when we were trying to come up with a name for what our, like, F1 pod racing show would be called. Yeah. He suggests, now this is pod racing. Right? Okay. Yeah. That's great. It's great.

Who doesn't love to quote the Phantom Menace. Okay. And then. I love it. Yeah. crucially weighing in on the most important topic of our time. Anthony wrote in to say, I'm a professional chef for 20-something years.

So my apple opinion weighs heavier than others. Granny Smith apples rule. Baking with apples rules. So, yeah. Both. Both. I love baking that features Granny Smith apples. That's how smart canon.

But Granny Smith apples also rule. Grady Smith apples rule full stop. Because they are a useful ingredient for chef. That's not what he said. It's not what he said. It's a grace with apples rule, period. That's Joanna's stance. Baking with apples rules, period.

That's Mallory's stance. So this guy has been doing his way through the subject. Beautiful. Great. Let's go with that. I love it. Unity and harmony. And end, and now I'm salivating.

And I'm thinking of an apple pie. I'm hungry. When are you not? I love you. All right. That's it. Okay. We did it.

That's a wrap for the pod. Thanks for listening. Keep your, keep a lookout for those notifications next week. And, uh, yeah. Last programming reminder, as always, it's the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. And as you, as you might have guessed, today's podcast will in fact feature plot details from the episode of television that you are here to listen to us discuss. That is, Asoka, part six, far, far away. anything that's ever happened in Star Wars,

whether it's official canon, legends canon, if it happened in rebels, if it happened to Asoka, if it happened to Thrawn, if it happened in the original trilogy prequels, it's all on the table today, okay?

Joe, Enoch would tell us to die well, but I think it's time to pod well. Let's go. Opening snapshot, Joanna Robinson. What are your quick overall thoughts on Part 6 far, far away? I think there's a lot to get excited about and love in this episode.

And I really love how Dave Floney is just like unashamedly. Like, yeah, this is my nerdy mythology season of television. Come along, you D&D nerds. Hold my hand. So that is joyful. A lot of critters to talk about, obviously. That's really fun. I have some notes.

I have some notes for Thrawn, and I will be giving them later. And that's my opening session. Ample wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM coming today. And grease paint watch also. Yes, absolutely. Did you give Steve heads up that you would need a new sound effect for grease paint? Yeah. Is Steve prepared?

My goodness. Steve is always prepared. Let's make that clear. He is. He's the best. He's the best. We're so lucky. Steve, you're great.

You are great. Thank you. You're welcome. I loved this episode. I had a blast. I was just absolutely thrilled to be with Thron again, to be with Ezra again. I thought the choice to only include Asoka in the opening scene and then give us a lot of time with characters who either had not entered the live action yet or had been off our screen for the prior installment was a, bold, but I thought

sensible and sound, and I love this run we're in. Episodes four, five, and six. Not only have I enjoyed all of them, not only have I thought that they were all strong installments, it feels to me like a pitcher. This is a timely comp for you, Joanna Robinson, a recently converted baseball enthusiast.

It feels like a pitcher. showing off different pitches in the arsenal, different grips, different speeds. The ball is moving in different ways across the plate. So we don't know what we're going to get every week, but every pitch is effective in this run we're in. And making sure to get it in under the clock. Look at you. Yeah. Look at you. Yeah, yeah.

Just drop in pace of play, pitch clock initiative references. Correct. Here on the House of Our, what a time. What a time to be alive. We have a lot to get to. This was a meaty episode. This was 48 minutes. We've got a lot to cover today. We, of course, going to go chronologically through the entire episode.

Ben Lindberg will be joining us later today for a lore look on the Night Sisters. I love the way you said that. Night sisters. I think every time today that we talk about the Night Sisters, Steve should introduce some sort of distortion and echo effect to make it seem like we are also the great mothers in the fates. Steve is like, okay, cool. like many hours of content edit. Let me just get right on top of that. All right, Joe, nothing can prevent our journey. It's time to dive deep. I will never not do it for me. What a time. What the time. All right, let's start with the opening scene of the episode.

Traveling with the Travelers. This is what our wonderful pod of Pergel is called. We got to, we got to hear travelers uttered later in the episode. We also get some story time with Hu Yang, Joe. this was an exciting thing. You were very excited to text me about this off of the mailbag where Hu Yang's story time was a big part of the mailbag premise.

Before we're with Hu Yang, before we're with Asoka, before we're in the cockpit of the T6 shuttle, we are out there in hyperspace with our pergul pals. We get to hear this warble, this song over the flashing, the flashing,

flashing heads in the intro, and I love the way they're doing that, this little specific sonic note to open each episode. It's been really fun and cool. And then we get this utterly visually distinct hyperspace lane for intergalactic travel. It's this like candy-coated, exploding skittal bag. It had to me like a very fractured timeline at the end of season one of Loki, Citadel at the end of time, kind of look to it. And it had to me, like a very fractured timeline at the end of time kind of look to it. And I thought in general that look of the hyperspace lean and the movement and undulations of the pergul, it felt really animated. And I mean that to be clear, not in a like, it didn't look good visually way. I mean the opposite. I thought it felt like a very deliberate

opening note for what was, I think, easily the most rebelsy episode of Asoka yet to say like right from the jump, we are connecting to our animated roots here. And it really felt like that from the jump. I really love that there was a distinct look for this. It's like, now this is pod racing. Like, yeah, this is hyperspace jumping. I thought it looked absolutely gorgeous. And I think to echo sort of what we talked about last week in terms of how they really

nailed the wonder, the awe of the experience. Now, to be clear, Assook and Huying are not experiencing the beautiful Skittlesback. journey through time and space, they are hanging in the with the tonsils and the and the unbrushed back molars of the pericle. So yeah. They are resting, resting comfortably nestled in the belly of the of the space well still. Seems like a great way to catch a ride. I don't know. I'm a little worried. How how like smellproof is the, you know, is the ship that they're in? Our listener taught, just, Just quick shoutout crossover with our Doctor Who rewatches.

Todd said the first line of the episode, the first one of the episode, intergalactic travel within a star whale. Now I really have done it all from Hu Yang in David Tennant's beautiful accent. Tarah, what a line from the doctor. He's tangled with the devil, snogged Madame de Pompadour, gone from one end of time to the other, and now a star whale with Asoka. And that's just a little brief advert. go watch Doctor Who and listen to our House of Who pods.

They're delightful and you should be doing that with this. But having a blast. I had sort of the opposite read from Todd. I was like, the doctor has, in fact, and an up close and personal experience. With a different face. Yes. With a, yeah, with a space well, different face. I mean, that was 11.

But like, I guess the memory bank doesn't account for that particular moment in Hot David Tenet Summer. and hot Matt Smith fall, you know? That's fine. That's what we're here for. And that's what Todd is here for. What is it so? Do you see my Tardis over my shoulder? I love that it's there.

I think the first time you've gotten to see it. Well, I saw a photo of it, but in its glory. So to be clear, the top shelf of your bookcase is Boatatant's helmet, the Tardis, Molnir, Ghost. Yeah, that's right. Two funco pops that are too small for me to identify. Osaka and Obi-1, yeah. Great.

And then Grokes himself. Yeah. And then there's a ton of other merch that my head and shoulders and torso are blocking. And then obviously just astonishing amount of merch elsewhere that you never get to see it all. You got to come visit. I see it sometimes you take photos of your TV and send it to me and I see your merch in the edges of the frame. This is compelling podcasting. What people want most is when...

Joanna describes my... We just describe some objects that are sort of possible to spot over each other's shoulders. I would now like to describe the color of your drapes. Sort of like a seasick green, I think. No. Oh, no. I was going to say like a nice like a like a maze. Makes me think of like fall corn.

Oh. Like a corn husker. A tonal. Love it. Yeah. Okay. Great. Meanwhile.

Steve, you have your first few minutes that you can cut. Back in the pergill. back in the pergill, back in the T6, Osoka immediately sets one of the episode's main focuses on the agenda for us. The role of story. We have a few through lines in this episode, and the role of story, the role of lore is one of them. The idea of fate is another very central thesis across this episode.

We're going to talk about all of that a lot as we go today. Here, in this opening moment, when Asoka says, I remember them, meaning the perkle, from the stories you would tell us when we were younglings back at the temple. And Hu Yang says, ah, yes, history of the galaxies part one, two, and three. And I immediately list like, who was Hu Yang's TA? I need to know everything. I need to know everything. One being the best, of course, Asoka said. And this idea of story that shapes our connection to history, how we understand history, what we learn and when, shaping what we pass down across time, shaping what we consider to be truth

and what we consider to be myth, which is very present in this episode. We're going to come back to that for sure, yeah. We absolutely are. Baylon had, of course, mentioned something similar. We've heard this idea from a few characters already, right? Baylon had mentioned back in episode two when Peridia first came up, this idea of Jedi stories, the Jedi archives.

Puyang mentioned that archives knowledge about the migration pathways in episode three. So we've been primed all season not only for disarival at Peridia. and parsing these myths in tangible concrete form, but also for that idea of the connection, this is something we've been tracking, all pot, all season, between Peridia and Jedi lore in history in particular. And that remains really fascinating to me.

One of the things we're going to talk about a lot as we go today is like, what has happened here, what power is at play that is preventing an exodus that we know it was possible once upon a time because the Knights Sisters made it from here to Dathamere. I think that this goes back,

I know we already mentioned Hobbits, but like get your goblet out. If Tolkien references our drinking game on the pod today, this is your first sip. What we talked about earlier about this idea of ruins, like walking through the ruins of a previous civilization and feeling the history of it and something that Tolkien did so well

and something that Filoni has been doing a lot since a very first frame of a story. Asoka. Also, I just, I, this is my last Doctor Who reference, I promise, probably. But Steve, will you play first Hu Yang saying, oh, yes? And then David Tennant is the doctor saying, oh, yes. Oh, yes. I mean, it's an iconic David Tenant Huism to go, ah yes.

And they let Hu Yang do it. So that, you know. When do you think we'll start to be treated to the Hu Yang? well experience. We're not, we can't do it. Steve has a pretty good. Yeah, Steve, will you do the David Turner well? Steve has it pretty good.

Well, um, I mean, we know that Dave Faloni is a Dr. Who fan, like the cast Tom Baker is Bendu, and he, he talks about him as the fourth doctor. Like, Filoni is a who guy. So this feels very intentional to me. I love it. Love a reference. Love an Easter egg.

A Hooster egg. A hooster egg. A hooster egg. How wonderful. Yeah. Oh, fabulous. Hu Yang asks, Asoka, would you like to hear

one of these stories right now? We've got time. Who knows if anyone made a playlist, our podcast set in the queue? Unclear, right? Instead, she says something to him. I didn't like it. When I did my psychometry stuff on the Star Map,

I found out something that I did not share with Hara, but we'll share with you right now, which is that Sabine went with, quote, the enemy willingly, Joe. We have an enemy tracker entry for you here. Back on the menu, boys. She says enemy, and then she says

she could have ended this on Thron, no Thron, no war. Yes. And who Yang says, and no Ezra. Yes. You know, and after he issued a Luke Skywalker-esque, that's not true.

That's important. Whenever anyone is Star Wars as impossible. It just feels like it should be off the table after Luke. And yet every time we get it, I'm glad. I think, like, we were talking last week about, like, how we were hoping that this transformation for Osoka, that she experienced the war between worlds, had really, like, landed for people who weren't necessarily tracking the, like, grade of white binary. They'd get off the white.

We're like, we would really want to see a real true evolution of her demeanor. demeanor of her outlook. All of this stuff to me felt like something we would have heard from her before she went into the World Between Worlds. This was one of my questions for you. If this felt like both, you know, this and then something that we'll hear in the quote we're going to play in a minute about the idea of fear, like if it felt like, because you had made this point last week about, okay, what feels like a progression that we can clearly

track and when does it feel like we're maybe like seesawing or moving in and out of that in a way that's a little less of a clear continuity. And I was wondering if it felt that way to you in this scene or if there were parts of this that felt, because I guess the counterpoint would be, I actually, I don't disagree with you, but I think I also wouldn't want Asoka to come out of last week's episode with her new white, white knit poncho

and, like, not think about any of this stuff at all anymore that had felt like really central to her character. So it's a tricky balance to strike. I'm not saying don't think about it at all. But, like, I just don't see any difference between the way she's talking about it here and the way she would have talked about it before she went in the ocean. Yeah. And I feel like it's really important.

We talked about this last week. It's really important that if, like, someone goes through something like that, that they be demonstrably different on the other side of it. Yeah. But if this is just like, if this is just John Snow's haircut again, I'm not thrilled about it. The she could have ended this no-thron-no-war part. Actually, Steve, let's hear the clip, and we can, we can, consider the context of what she says next as well.

She was faded to make that choice. There wasn't enough time to prepare her to make the right one. The force provides you with insight, but it does not give one all the answers. Meaning. Perhaps for Sabine, it was the only choice. A choice she made for herself. That is your fear. So this was another interesting.

example of like she's, it felt like she was not maybe lamenting or Sabine's failure or blaming Sabine as actively as she might have previously taking that culpability on herself for falling short as a t-shirt. But of course, that is also something that she was wrestling with before. Is like, am I adequately prepared? Can I trust my judgment? Can I trust myself to. I think what I'm, what I've learned. What I'm really trying to understand in this episode is like, who should I think is right? And I'm actually struggling against thinking that Asoka is right here. I kind of, I'm on like, and that's what's so funny is like when you watch something like,

take a step, Lord of the Rings, and Gandalf says things. Gandalf is like always right. And so I know when Gandalf says something, I'm like, that's the true. That's the true, true to quote Cloud Atlas. And like, I think that here I'm like, is As Soca right? She doesn't feel right? Is Thron right? I don't know. He doesn't really feel right to me. Is Bailen right? I don't know. He doesn't really feel right to me. And that's maybe a more interesting place to be in a bit more moral uncertainty. But like everyone is so convinced it's a being made the wrong choice. And I'm bumping on that. I'll talk about that a little bit later. But I'm bumping on that a little bit. So yeah. Yeah. I do think it's an interesting place to be if we are unsure who we're supposed to align with at a given moment in time or whether people are able to see the board clearly. I think generally that kind of tension and the fact that we are occasionally in

to root for the nominal opponent or foe, the antagonist, and also occasionally frustrated with the limitations of our nominal heroes, I like that complexity and messiness. It is more than like, for me, what was the white poncho representing then? That's the thing I'm hung up on more so than the... I actually like the fact that it's not a very clear, easy. Asoka's always right and Theron and Baylon are always wrong. No, that's part of it. That's part of it. But I agree largely, it's like, what is the white poncho for?

Maybe she just wanted another outfit. It's pretty nice. She didn't, folks. It's as we've chronicled, this is a very intentional Gandalf comp. In this quote that we just heard, this idea of fate, one of the other central tenants of this episode. So, Asoka, Balin, the great mothers, number of characters in this episode are very focused on fate. And Asoka's speaking differently here about fate than they are, not as this like spun thread or as a unbroken wheel. I can't wait to talk about breaking the wheel later.

But as like her limitation, that fear and doubt still coloring what she's saying. And I liked what Hu Yang's response was, this line that he had about the limits of the force because it feels to me, I'm curious what your interpretation of what he said here is, feels to me like a little bit of a rejection of all of this like threads of fate and I am inevitable or this was inevitable talk in this episode and the idea that like actually not everything is knowable just because you are mighty or powerful or have access to the force and like people like Sabine in this case still make choices. And so not everything is fixed and set in time.

I think challenging emotion that it is is important. The concept of the loose thread is so key in this episode. And that is what to me makes me a lie, I think mostly with Hu Yang. Like,

I think Hu Yang throughout the series has been the person who has the clear sight, you know, like stay together. They never listen. Like all this sort of stuff. Like he seems like he has the clear sight on what is right and what is wrong. And so for him to be like,

that is your face. fear, you know, to Asoka. It's just interesting because, like, I like Asoka. I don't mind a flawed character. I don't mind that part of Asoka that is, like, the fuckup that we talked about before. I just think it's really interesting to cast her into this, like, wise wizard who has experienced this, like, changing, life-changing, you know, poncho color altering experience. And then have her be so what I think is incorrect. So, so soon thereafter.

So, you know, we'll be talking about it. I'm curious to see what it feels like next episode when we presumably get a little bit more time with her, because I am kind of torn on it. I partially agree. I think if it constantly feels like we're not clear on where the progression is, that's not going to be ultimately a merit or credit for the season. But I am, like, bumping against what would have maybe felt like

too radical of a repositioning of her outlook. So maybe this is like another little bit of a bridge. I think your Hu Yang point is an interesting one, and it connects again to the way that, like, the idea of story is deployed in the episode. because what is the thing that is true about him is that he is this like this this container, this font of wisdom and keeper of knowledge. Yeah.

Like he's got, much like Brand Joe, you know, he has the, he has all of the knowledge and thus all of the perspective about everything that has ever happened. And it's all, thank you for invoking the one true king. You're welcome.

I know you love when I bring up brand. I think that there's a difference between learning all the stories and living through all the stories. Yes. And so Hu Yang is a kind of character we've encountered. I mean, R2 and C3PO are like this, et cetera, but like, well, not C3PO. It says memory wipes. Who can't remember a fucking thing. But the immortal.

The immortal. The burden of being the immortal. I remember a few minutes ago when you said you were like a minute. Lied. The doctor lies and so do I. But the burden of having lived through the thing and seeing it firsthand. And so you know the story as truth. You don't know the story as legend, right? You can retell the truth as a legend, but you lived it as truth. And so you saw all the choices that people made over the years.

And that's why I think he, you know, and that's the role that Gandalf serves in Tolkien or these various wizard figures. they usually have lived a lot longer than your other characters that are running about the joint. And so they have the perspective of that. I think that's good context to lay down ahead of talking about some of the Baylon lines in this episode because there is that interesting tension of how he tends to characterize fairy tales, folk tales, and then what has crystallized for him as he is standing there on the story. ground observing these things with his own eyes and ears and we'll talk about all the various aspects of what might be a foot there. Asoka, hearing this from Hu Yang, she's not like I'm

like ready to dive into Pod Prep yet, you know? She says, let me hear a story after all. And then Yu Yang says it's not Thursday night yet. He says, very well, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And the score kicks in and then we go to the title card. What did you think of this? Because the guys on Midnight Boys talked about how they didn't like this

and thought it was like too meta. I'm curious what you think. It won't surprise you to hear that I loved it. I'm excited to tell you why. Tell me, did this work for you or not? Well, I think, I honestly think if this had been in like a solo,

a Star Wars story, I would have bumped on it. Um, uh, hashtag make solo two happen. When Han is like, I'm traveling solo or, you know, like whatever.

Like it's just like... A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, they hashtag made solo two happen? Um, what a tragedy. Have you ever heard of the tragedy of making Han Solo to happen?

Um, but it's Faloni who has put in so much time and so I feel like he's kind of earned the right to put this into his story. And then I think what's also true is that even though it's been in plain sight since the franchise began a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,

putting it here in the juxtaposition of this episode more than I ever have before, I've seen people connect a long time ago in a galaxy far far away to once upon a time in a kingdom far away. Like that that's not something necessarily a natural connection that people have gone back, like gone straight to in the past,

but putting it here in this myths, legends, dreams, madness, storytelling episode. And seriously, I mean, I really did do the Leo pointing meme when he was like, I'm the storyteller. I was like, we did not know that was going to happen when we recorded that guy.

I know. Wild. Long-time internet fodder, of course, from George Lucas about the idea of R2 being the narrator of Star Wars. Hu Yang really on the R2 corner here? Wild stuff. But yeah, God, just an absolutely prophetic

mailbag showing, Joe. I just really, I don't know. I thought this was like, I'm not usually this pure of heart. And like, I just thought this was really sweet. And like, there's a storytelling aspect of it that I like, which is the idea that this peridious galaxy, this other galaxy and the other end of the pathway for Hu Yang. and Asoka and the characters in our galaxy, the galaxy that we think of as our galaxy,

because we watch some of Star Wars. It's not our galaxy. That they talk about this other galaxy, the way we talk about their galaxy. Like, that's a really fun thing. And it made me think of, Stop Us, if you've heard this before, Lord of the Rings. It made me think of one of our favorite passages from the two towers

when Sam and Frodo are talking and Sam says, why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still. It's going on. Don't the great tales never end? No, they never end as tales, said Frodo. But the people in them come and go when their parts ended. Our part will end later or sooner. This idea and this moment that we're all part of the same tale

and like this is a moment like that for Hu Yang and connecting to another galaxy and another place and another group of people with their own history. and their own tales. Like, I just thought that was a nice way to make it feel like we were all part of this storytelling tradition that the characters are talking about in the episode. I love it. I dog it.

You know, I always love when you quote, uh, Sam, further to me. Sweet Sam wise. On the, like, travel front, because we're about to leave Asoka for the rest of the episode, as you already mentioned. We did get, I just want to shout out our listener, Adam. Do you remember all the debates that we used to have, uh, of, I know you do about travel time in Game of Thrones, the later seasons of Game of Thrones. Of course.

Just hearing you ask that question, I can see right now, Gendry running toward Eastwatch, et cetera. Do you ever, like, sit up in a sweat in the middle of the night and think about it? Anyway. Sometimes, actually, yeah. Adam points out, and I agree. Like, we watched Team One take off of Peridia at the end of, like, two episodes ago. And splitting the story this way, and now we're watching Asoka do it. And then she's going to be gone for the rest of the episode.

Just like it gives us a sense of travel time, right? Mm-hmm. Like while she was drowning in the water, they were making their Skittles way across the galaxy. And there's that line later about when they're talking about needing to get the cargo. We'll talk about what the cargo might be per throne's agreement with the great mothers. And Morgan says there'll be three rotations. It's like, okay, an actual time frame. Like, are the pergul?

and Asoka are going to make it inside three rotations, we will have a sense of literally how much time has passed based on when she arrives and whether they're still there. That's kind of fun. I like that. Let's go to Peridia. Let's do it. Peace out Osoka.

Peace out Hu Yang. We'll see you in episode seven. What if we just didn't? Can you imagine? That would be weird. Why is the show called Asoka if we don't have enough Asoka in it? We cut to Sabine. She's cuffed in her cell, and we're just poured it back to so many Star Wars memories.

Sweet little Grogo in his brink cuffs. The myriad times Ezra wound up in a cell, Leah, et cetera, et cetera, of course. And there's Baylon on the other side of the little like triangle vent. And she offers her verbal Yelp review, Joe, and it is, it's one star. She's not thrilled with the accommodations. I was hoping for a room with a view, she says. She's like, I didn't get to experience the multicoled journey through the between galaxies. I might as a little bit in the mouth of a pergul.

God. So I can see how many of my friends and allies you sent cascading into each other with your energy pulse. Balin's amused by this. A little balin chuckle. Love a bail and chuckle. You found your situation confining a bit. I would think this would be an opportunity for reflection, he says, to which she replies, I try to avoid that.

I really like that. And this is, of course, something we know to be true for Sabine. We can feel it at the end of the episode when she reunites with Ezra. And he's like, tell me everything. And she's just trying to buy as much time as she can before she has to face and tell him what she did. What she did and what that means and what the consequences of that are going to be. But in general, like some of our most meaningful moments with Sabine, trials of the Dark Sabre, an episode we've mentioned 5,000 times, etc. Or when she does have to stop.

But she always gets pushed to that. Like, yes, exactly. And it's like somebody has like made her cease resisting this introspection. And so I'm like fascinated to see how that manifests here. Does she choose of her own accord to open up to Ezra? or does this urgent necessity of the moment force this big reveal? And that might be, you know, the Canaan, when in Rebels and talking about her, said that she's blocked, right?

And so that idea of like breaking through that blockage might be what actually finally we've gotten a few little force user teases here. And I would be surprised if we get through the rest of the season without her actually getting to break through and use the force. Yeah. I love the fake out in this episode, but you're right. It's pretty good. We're building toward something consequential happening. It certainly feels like it.

Did this, one of the things that we chatted about in our episode four pod with this, this Baylon pitch to Sabine was like, well, what is he trying to rebuild, right? And what role might she have in it? Obviously, like, accounting for everything that happens in this episode with Thrawn's instruction and Baylon and shouldn't setting out, et cetera. Who knows where that will actually go? But did it feel to you here, like Baylon was actually... deliberately trying to, like, reach and teach her.

You know, there's a moment right after this, after he goes back to the bridge and tells very dubious Morgan and Shin that Sabine is impatient, very, like, anti-Jedai kind of language there, but that he believes she can, quote, still be of some use to us. He says her focus to find that Ezra Bridger blinds her. Use how as, like, a tool, or as a teammate? What are you reading from Baylon here in terms of how he's thinking of Sabine?

I know you, I think you want him to want to train her, and I am not seeing it, but I support you and your wish for this. But I, given that he's like... I'm mostly just not ready to say goodbye to Baylon yet. And so I'm like holding onto a desperate hope that there is some common ground because so many of the actual beliefs are aligned, it's just the, you know, the path and perspectives. There is, there is fertile ground for him to flip on. Thrawn in this episode, for sure. I just don't know that he's like actually thinking about her as a student.

I mean, she's part of the new class of Jedi. We have a new name for. We'll talk about later. The Boken Jedi that he basically like handwaves in full. They're pretty bullshit. It seems like he's not that interested that she's a means to an end, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Also a lot of focus across different characters in the same. episode on the idea of like myopia as a limit, you know, singular focus as a limit, but they all have slightly different reasons for thinking why, which I like. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more.

Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Joe, what did it feel like to, in an episode called Far Far Far Away actually arrive at last at this far, far away galaxy and see that the thing that we had talked about for episodes was happening, that Star Wars had been cracked open and that we were in this new place where we could have access to all of these new stories? Like, what is your, what is your excitement level right now? Break out a little mini-height meter here. Very high. Yeah.

I will say this is a little like dreary than I was hoping for like, you know, the, the purple carcasses was like not quite what I expected. You were like, wow, a beautiful gray version of Saturn. And then you realize that the rings were made of bones. The hollowed rib cages of former majestic stars. The fact that the ring on the star map was like literal pergill bodies and not Not like where I thought it was going to be their breeding ground. It's like where they go to frolic and fuck.

But no, it's where they go to die. That's, you know, and then we should say that when they come out of the Skittles Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow Tunnel, there's, like, crackles of force lightning. That was awesome. And also, like, some damage to the ship. So that even though they, like, got all these warp engines and they have the, like, correct coordinates, stuff like that. We're talking about that in a second. This took a total, like, it was not an easy journey for. for the ring.

Got to get inside a pergol's mouth. Well, but I think that's going to be the point because your question earlier about like, why haven't the witch has been able to leave? I mean, it's possible that all the pergels left and they only come back to die, so it's no longer like a two-way sort of thing. It does seem because of what Baylon says about, yeah, this being the end of their migration. But even so, like we have that other line from the great mothers about how,

From Morgan, excuse me, about how her people became like, were among the first to harness and ride the creature. So it seems like something has changed, right? That's what I was going to say. It's like maybe once they came back and forth and now they just come back to die. Or what's also possible is that once upon a time, the death of Mary had like a more wholesome connection to nature and that it has been tainted, corrupted, and the pearls are no longer like,

you're not allowed to ride me anymore. You can't hop a ride anymore. Yeah. I like that. Your flame is a spooky green. Yeah. And that is where we don't. on it.

Too much dark side energy and too much magic spelled in a way that it frankly should not be spelled. Why is the K doing there at the end of the magic? From the burgle. So, yeah, so, so, Morgan says, that is Peridia, ancient homeworld, my ancestors, that Dathomiri. I love, Dathomiri is just, like, wonderful. Trippingly off the tongue. And as you mentioned, battle will be back later to talk. Nice, sisters.

Laura with us. But I do want to talk a little... Wow, amazing. I do want to talk a little bit about some Peridian inspo. Hit me. If you do not mind. We will just get the Tolkien out of the way,

but it is not the bulk of what I'm here to talk about. So the Tolkien stuff is, like, quite obvious. You see these huge looming statues that look, to quote Vega Mordenson, like, The Arkarnoff. You know, you see the, like... Like a castle built into a cliff edge that looks like Minnis Teerath. We get shots that make Baylon and Shin look like ring wraiths.

It's just here. It's just the text. We'll talk about the crab hobbits later. Like, it's just here. But there's a more interesting comp that I want to talk, more interesting to me right now, comp that I want to talk about for a little bit, which our listener, a listener, Stacey emailed the idea in, and it just sent me down a wormhole.

of like a childhood obsession of mine. So Stacey wanted to talk about Avalon, which is a place from Arthurian legend. I know you know. A place from Arthurian legend, very closely associated with both Arthur and Morgan Lafay. Morgan, our character here, clearly named after Morgan Lefei.

So I want to talk about Avalon for a second. First and foremost, I want to say that most of what I know from Avalon, like that is baked into my bones, comes from the 1982 novel, The Miss of Avalon by Marianne Zimmer Bradley. Mary and Zimmer Bradley, I want to say up the top, is one of the most problematic, cancelable authors that has ever existed. If you don't want to have your enjoyment of that novel Shattered, do not Google her name. It is bad stuff.

That being said, I reread this book a million times as a kid, so it's just sort of like already inside my brain. So I am going to talk about it, but I acknowledge, I'm not recommending this book to people, actually, at the end of the day. But it is the story of, Mist of Avalon is the story of Arthur told from the perspective of the women that circle Arthurian legends or Morgaine, Guinevere, Vivienne, Morghose, Egrane, etc., etc. The place of Avalon, which is this mystical island where way back in Arthurian legend, way before Mary and Zimmer Bradley got her problematic hands on it, this is like the place where according to some legends, Excalibur was forged.

This is the place where Arthur's broken body is transported at the end of his life. Either to die, in some versions of the legend, he is transported there

by a bunch of women, including Morgan, dies on, and laid on a golden, like, bed. There's a lot of golds in all of this, Thrawn, Morgan's stuff,

laid on a golden bed where Morgan sits vigil and, like, watches him to this day. day on the mystical Isle of Avalon. Or there's other versions of it where they heal him on Avalon and we're all waiting for King Arthur to return because he never actually died. So those are the two things. If you want to get a visual of Avalon, you should just, especially like the misty, dreary version because it is often described sort of more like Rivendell, which is like beautiful and verdant and like waterfalls everywhere.

But you're like, what does that have to do with, you know, dead whale carcass, fogtown? Google image search, Glastonbury, fog, and you will get a sense of like what Avalon in its like mistiest sense can look like. The main conflict at the center of Miss of Avalon, which is sort of what caught, has caught my mind here, is this battle between these women and their sense of spirituality,

which is more earth-based, more polytheistic, blah, blah, and the encroaching Christian church in England. And so I was just thinking about how that would apply to the Dathamiri, these witches, we are thinking of them as villainous. I'm not saying they're heroes at all. But, like, their magic is a different way to access the force than that sort of like light side, dark side binary that we've come to know so.

well in the original Star Wars. This one involves a lot more corpse reanimation. You know, for better for worse. I want to read a very quick passage from Miss of Avalon where he says it had this idea of one side of viewing the force, let's say, versus another way of viewing the force. It had to do with the knowledge that the world was as it was because of what men believed it was, year by year, these past three or four generations, the minds of men had been hardened to believing that there was one God, one world, one way of describing reality, and that all things

which intruded on the realm of that great oneness must be evil and of the fiends, and that the sound of the bells and the shadow of their holy places would keep the evil afar. And as more and more people believe this, it was so an Avalon, no more than a dream, adrift in an almost inaccessible other world. So that idea of Avalon becomes as, it's sometimes like, clap, if you believe in fairies, like, as fewer people believe in Avalon, it becomes physically harder to find it in the mists and becomes almost this, like, fairy realm that doesn't exist anymore. And I think that idea of, like, no direct path to a place, which we talk about when we talk about a lot of places, the island and lost, You have to have your direct bearings or you can't get there.

Neverland, second to the right, straight on until morning. Like if you don't have the correct bearings, the undying lands, like if you don't know, it's a physical place that exists. But if you don't know exactly how to get there, I know you're like, well, that's literally how anything works. But this is in a more like sort of mystical sense. If you don't know the direct pact there. There's another quote for Miss of Avalon where she says, Avalon will always be there for all men to find if they can seek the way. thither throughout all the ages past the ages. If they cannot find the way to Avalon,

it is a sign perhaps that they are not ready. Right. So I just like really like this as a, it's a physical destination on this journey for all of our heroes here, for Ezra, for Thron, for Asoka, for Sabine, for Hu Yang. But it also is a sort of, the way we're talking about the world between worlds, it's also a journey of their sense. spirit or their readiness or their heroic evolution of like it's time now to go to avil and it's time now to go to peridia uh it's time now every time we say peridia i think of the bridge of terribithia and the bridge of terribithia uh which is the first book that ever broke my heart um is about two kids who trying to escape like you know their bad home lives or whatever invent this

magical kingdom that they go off and find and i pulled this quote from the bridge of Terribithia, again, this is a shorty quote, but the boy talking about the girl who first introduced him to the idea of terabithia. And he says, it was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be?

Now it occurred to him that perhaps Tarabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted after you stayed for a while and grew strong, you had to move on. And so I like this idea of like Ezra going to Peridia as part of like a trial, a knighthood, a something like, you know, he comes out the other side. We're going to talk about meeting him and how he feels the same and different at the same time. But you don't stay in Peridia. You come back. You leave. You don't stay in Avalon.

You come back. And I just, I think that like this idea of. an almost Atlantis-esque kingdom, this island in the mist. And especially if Faloni, I was looking back to, because I know we've been talking about Arthurian connections because of Morgan, because of Maruk, because of all this stuff that we've been saying. But I was trying to figure out, like,

felonie connections to Arthurian lunch. Like, when he's talked about it explicitly in interviews. And interestingly, the most I've heard him see him talk about it has to do with Ezra. He talks about when we meet Ezra, Ezra is more of a like, speaking of Arthurian stories, like a wart, you know, a young boy with an affinity of nature and stuff like that. But the adventures of a young boy and how the tenor of the Arthurian story has to change as Ezra grows. So just the tone of rebels have to grow because you meet young Arthur, you know, and he is just gallivanting around with Merlin and woodland animals.

And then it's like war later. So I just thought that was quite interesting. That is not all I have to say about Avalon, but that is all I have to say now about Avalon. And I just thought I would say it to you, Mallory. I love that. That's awesome. Yeah, the point you made earlier about the perhaps violation of attempting to reach Peridia in the eye of cyan in that fashion to breach something that you're not intended to and contrasting that with. you know, Ezra

not only achieving that connection with the Pergill, but one that activated this pathway allowed him to travel along it right on the heels of this trial. This is another trial, but of a trial

that he went through in the War Between Worlds, which of course is also then when Asoka is able to do this. You know, we talked last week was one of the things that we were a little hung up on, right? It's like, well, why the wait?

And maybe it's like because of the readiness that the characters needed to possess before it's not just, oh, literally, did you think about the pergul? It's like, well, what would have happened if you had, you know? I like that about that. Would the pergill have responded to you? Would the pergill have identified you as someone who was ready?

On the Neverland front, I just want to shout out our listener, Chris, who wrote in talking about the Neverland vibes of Paridia, right? Saying that as Ezra's Peter, Thrawn is Captain Hook, the Cameras, the Jolly Roger, and they're all trapped in Peridia, which is Neverland. It's on a one-to-one comparison. Obviously, Thrawn, like Hook wants to escape, but unlike Peter, Ezra wants to leave as well. And Ezra's nomadic friends don't seem as scrappy in a fight as the lost boys,

but maybe they'll surprise us. P.S. Chris says Gray Smith and Petey Butter all day, baby. So I just wanted to say, if you want to register yourself selection here. Register yourself as pro-Grady Smith. Perhaps that will help you in the email for it. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. Yep.

They love this. A lot of, a lot of connections. Dave Flonny, much like Hu Yang, a lover of story, Joe. Much like Hu Yang and much like Tyrion. A lover of story. A lover of story, but like I was, when I was trying to find like these Foloni quotes about Arthurian legend or whatever, I found this great Tumblr post. I regret that I don't have it in front of me.

But someone wrote this about like Mando season one. And they were like the absolute sexual tension between John Favreau wanting to write a Western And Dave Faloni, giving us a character who's like literally a paladin who like slays a dragon, like just wants to write a like, you know, an Arthurian fantasy. And how those two combined to make the magic of Mando season 1 and 2 and how maybe separate, you know, those, you know, the parts are not as equal to the combo. I mean, right there from the jump for Star Wars as a blend of all of these, all of these influences, you know, are Arthurian. legend and the Western, probably two at the top three, along with the samurai tale for George Lucas from the jump. So it's like poetry it rhymes. It does from a certain point of view. Joe, there's a lovely, you mentioned just how lovely it sounded when Morgan said Dathamiri

in this, in this introduction that connects our sense of the Knights Sisters to this place and our understanding of why Morgan would have been the one receiving the call and the communication from that mysterious voice from this place. Okay, this is all trash. Just this other, like, beautiful line. The language from Morgan in this episode was really lovely. When she's talking, this is what we mentioned a few minutes ago, about the connection between the Knight Sisters and the Purgle, she says, among the first to harness and ride the creatures,

in the days before time was counted. And like, what a, not only what a deft turn of phrase there, but one that unlocks a lot of interesting theorizing and speculation and wonder for us. Like the days before time was counted, so is this the origin of the force? Is this the root of magic, the root of a certain power in the universe, the root of stories? Like, when you follow the eye of cyan through this, we called it a bone belt in the outline, and you got a kick out of that through the... this bone belt, as horrifying as a pergola of, or deeply distressing.

I like to think that they achieved all that they had sought out to achieve before that moment. It's impossible as you are in this space where history and death are given this physical form to not think about the end of things. But so much of this episode, days before time was counted, what Baylon will talk about later at the beginning, is about the start of something. And so thinking inside of the same space about beginnings and ends, origins and caps, cycles and repetition, can you escape? Do you want to? Do you have to lure somebody in to help you?

That was one of the really neat mythological aspects of this episode, I thought. Absolutely. And I think we'll talk about this a little bit more in theory corner in terms of like the root of the force and the power that Baylon seeks and stuff like that. It's going to be a rough one for James Angle. if they're just like, actually, this was how the, this was the beautiful. That was just pretty brutal. Rural, we talked to him and he was so generous and lovely with his time. It was, like, part of the reason I was really drawn to this idea is because I wouldn't be at all boxed in.

I'm paraphrasing, of course, by, like, ours. But they had to, they would have to tell him this if he's like, hey, I want to do this. But, like, also, we've already covered, like, in the Clone Wars, there's the wellspring of life. Like, there is theory of the origins of the, yeah. I've already done the origin of the forest. Are we doing it again? Is it a different origin of the force? I don't know.

Is it a different flavor of force? Like, what are we doing? Is this lime flavor? I do feel like the, we'll talk about the, the Knight's sister response to the idea of the Jedi in a few scenes across this episode, but there's such a strong anti-Jedai bent from the great mothers in this episode that's like, it just is one of the many data points that starts to heighten this sense that the Jedi order maybe started here. and they have this awareness of what it used to be from this place.

Fascinating stuff. I would like you to glare along with me at Sabine and Shin. Some of the most intense side eye and lingering stairs between these two as they hop the shuttle to head down to the surface of Peridia. When are you expecting the next showdown between these two? Finale? Next week? Probably finale. And I'm worried for House Hoddy.

but I have to say, because I got to give Sabina win eventually, like in theory. I don't know. There is 9,000 times more heat between Shin and Sabine than there is between fucking Sabine and Ezra. I just have to say.

It's true. It is so true. Like, Sabine and Ezra are extremely hot individuals. Like, that is true. There is, like, Sabine is super hot. She's got her smoky eye, is intact. despite everything.

Like the eyeliner is stayed. She brisked herself with setting spray and it is not going anywhere. Like she looks great. The purple in her hair is not faded. She looks incredible. Ezra, as you and I both texted, and Steve and I both texted.

Extremely hot. Incredible stuff. Yeah. And very important to all of us. There was no heat coming off that hug. That was... I don't agree. I thought that there was like the looks

that passed between them. They have that kind of... Maybe it's not... I was like, yeat. But there is a... There's affection. Sure. Genuine.

Sure. Pull to another person. They're like petting each other. But I just think that Ezra is incredibly palpable. I am a 30 year old space virgin energy. And so that's like part of it, right? That was a listener question we got, which is Ezra virgin. I have to assume we got 500 is Ezra Virgin emails because it's impossible not to not to think about it.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. No, of course not. Like, I think that... I mean, what's you gonna do is stick his dick into a crab claw? Like... Oh, yeah. What's gonna do? Stick his dick into a crab claw?

Big one. Where's our bad babies, Steve? Can you just finish out the trilogy? I'm not acknowledging that one, no. Oh, boy. But I just think that... I think that shin and... Star Wars.

I think, shh. I think Shannon Sabine are like... Yeah, they have... I'm fucking each other. They have a crackling chemistry. But I remain... When the no-de-year-all, they're clapping and watching Ezra and Sabine hug,

I believe that in their native tongue, they are shouting, fuck. And I was right there with them. Fuck! Fuck! No? You're not feeling... That's okay. I just think they're extremely hot

and they probably should fuck, but I just felt like... They've won you over with the very weird brother and sister. I thought it was sweet. I was like, well, this is sweet. But I guess I expected, this is one of my notes for the episode, we're way out of order. But this is one of my notes for the episodes.

I expected way more from I haven't seen you in years and years and years and years. In fact, I haven't seen a non-witchy woman in years and years and years. And I was just like, I got time to lean and quip. A lean and a quip. I mean, it's like, it's just, it's if Damon Targaryen could be here, you know? Oh, my God. But Damon, Damon would have been on her so fast. You're like, brother and sister?

Thank you, Steve. Uncle and niece, no problem. Let's go. In fact, it is our way. It is the way of our people. Anyway. Oh, my goodness. What a podcast.

Let's meet the great mothers. What is he going to do? Stick his dick and a crabclaw. I mean, you know, I don't know if he's like a port noise complaint. I fucked my family's dinner fan, but it's. Okay. First of all, impeccable port noise complaint reference. As you know, I love little of prop.

Secondly, is stick and dick in a crab claw like a Baltimoreism that I should know? I know it's not, but I'm just saying like I'm just making fun of your people and I might start calling them crab fuckers if I choose to. Crack cakes in football. It's what Maryland does. This is my spin on it, you know? Crab claws and a decade plus of masturbation. It's what Ezra does. That's my twist. Don't try this at home, folks. I would not actually recommend it. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. I'd like to formally apologize to anyone who's listening to this with their children. They know what this is.

No, yeah. Yeah, you're right. I retract the apology. House of Arc contains adult content. Ring reverse after dark, even if it's the dawn of day. I would like to apologize as a, as a well-bred California and I would never say something like stick-in-dick in a crap claw. But my uncouth Baltimoreian co-host, you know, who should come? Again, you know, it's the lunch hour.

I think that has a lot to do with it. It's a factor. It's a factor. It's a factor. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

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Interesting shots. You mentioned some of the rings comps here with the visuals. When we fly past as we're down entering atmosphere, getting ready to land, fly past these statues with those carved faces. It's like, okay, so these are the faces from the temple in episode one? Except they're screaming. From far away, we get that cool wide shot later with the howlers on the left on the cliff. these stone statues, they almost looked like those prongs on Malacore. And I thought, like, they could have shaped these anyway.

So was that an intentional bit of direction from Faloni to invoke a place that we associate with the dark side and dark energy? And long ago wars with ashen and encased battlefields waiting somewhere below, maybe. They land eventually on this, what appears to be basically the twin reflex point to our reflex point over on C2s. And at the center of the stones stand three red-robed figures with tattooed faces and they are holding glowing orbs that have red energy beams passing between them almost like this physical manifestation of the idea of the threads of fate. They are unmistakably night sisters from everything we know about Knight Sisters from Star Wars Canon. they are also Joanna Robinson first of your name the fates from Greek mythology here they are just as you anticipated they would be

how you feeling? Feeling pretty good we talked about if you missed it I mean right down to the name comps here for the characters yeah so Faloni went ahead and named these three which is like very close to the names of the Greek names for the fates the mother made in Cron.

And we talked about this in when? Episode one of this Asoka podcast. We were on the Fate Beat. So, yeah. We love the Power 3. We love three witchy women. I have some notes. I think their makeup looks absolutely terrible.

I think they're cool. Their performances are cool. I think their costumes are really cool. And obviously, they're trying to make them look like the animated version of the Knight Sisters who are based on a design for the Sith from episode one or whatever. Like, it's a line. I'm just saying, like, and we know this to be true. When you're adapting an animated character to live action, it can't be a one-to-one comp.

You have to make some changes. And I would just say that I would say the face paint looks like Spirit Halloween to me. It does not look like cool, spooky the way that it does in animation. And so I just, I found it. really distracting, to be honest with you. But presumably not the most distracting face paint in the episode. Correct. Okay, here's the thing about face paint.

Because, like, obviously, it can be done beautifully. Like, a lot of people this week were talking about, like, Drax and Gamora and Guardians and how, like, you can full body paint someone and make it look like their skin. You need some translucent powder on top of it to take the shininess down. Like, I don't understand why. And this is kind of true of Hara, too. Like, I don't understand why they're grease painting these actors and not powdering them down.

Bad baby, you know? I don't know any, like, of the words you're saying, like, grease paint and powder. This is, like, so beyond my realm of understanding. But I appreciate the insights. I will say, I'm finding two things to be true. One, that I'm acclimating on repeat viewing to how the characters look. Like, I thought when we saw. for the first time, it was jarring.

And then you sort of get used to it. But I think it is true that, like you're saying, the overtly faithful visual adaptation isn't totally working across the board in the show. And, like, there are ways to tweak the look from animation that still honors it. Honor and reflect what the characters intended to look like, but also just, you know,

just track and click in live action. So, yeah, that's been interesting. That's been interesting across the series. I would agree. I don't know what Greece is, though. As well, yeah. But did you find,

I mean, we'll talk about Thron later, but did you find that you got any more comfortable on repeat viewings with Thrawn even just inside this episode or no? I will save my thought. Save it. Save it.

Okay. Save it. Yeah. Hold your thoughts. Okay. Okay. Would you have preferred that the great mothers be knitting with yarn in front of a fruit stand, like when we get to see the fates in Percy Jackson? Just another way to remind people that we recently read the first Percy Jackson book.

We sure did. Please clap. We read a book. Look at us. I mean, I do like, we don't get any physical thread with them, but I do like that we get the red beams of light between the, the balls that they ensnare around Sabine. So, like, the thread imagery is there, even though there is no literal. And when we first seen them, they're each holding the orb and there's the connection.

The connection, which was very cool. So when they speak to Morgan, they've got that distorted voice, much like the mysterious voice that we heard back in episode two. And here's the exchange show. You heard our call to you in the dream? And then Morgan replies, your vision's guided me. across the galaxy. And my response to this is the same one

that Shin had. Now she literally just turned to us like, more witches, but I was like, I am alarmed. I am concerned. And,

you know, we've been talking the whole season about this kind of like dweller in darkness in Shang Chi Comp or the Beast and Dr.

Hu. This, this, you are called, you are lord by a force that needs you to escape.

There were a couple moments later with some of the things that Bailen says that gave me like really strong Dweller and Darkness comp vibes. And I'm having a difficult time not being really anxious about this outcome, that the thing that our characters are seeking to find or to escape want to use them in some way. Are you saying, but they were all of them deceived? I love it. Or if you want to hit me with some Moncolmari. It's a trap. Yeah, I'll probably drop it. It's a trap on you later.

Did you enjoy Dave Filoni fucking with us for a second when we got the Wears Throne? You shall wait. He is coming. Yes. Good stuff. It's just having fun. Good stuff. Like we are the ball of thread and he is the giant cat just batting us around.

Canonical cat guy Grandmother sniffs the air and offers this, I thought, very charming and welcoming assessment for the newly arrived guests of Pyridia. It reeks of Jedi. Now, there's a great moment where we cut first to Sabine's face

and she's like, don't look at me. I can't use the force. I've been talking about it all season. And then we cut to Bailin and he's kind of like, oh boy. Can she smell me? Oh no.

Is it me? Can she smell me? Fun moment to think about, as we always like to think about, like, who does the term Jedi apply to? What does it really convey and mean? Who is embracing it? Who is actively rejecting it?

Who is seeking to deploy it, etc.? I just think it's fascinating to say it reeks of Jedi. Yes, not fans, clearly. Well, yes, but also we've heard this phrase before. We hear this phrase a lot, I think, in fantasy storytelling, you'll hear like, it reeks of magic, right?

Whatever this is, it reeks of magic. It's just pouring off of it in waves. And like, it reeks a Jedi for Sabine who can't move a cup, to your point, she, like, Natasha Luberdizzo, like, raises her eyebrow like, me. I'm sorry, I was busy reapplying my eye shadow. I don't know what you're talking about. But, like, I think that, like, so are they able to access a huge well of forceiness that is inside of her that is currently blocked that we're going to see, you know, come pouring out before the season's over? or is it, you know, sort of like a cat, like Assoca sort of like rubbed her essence. Wow, that's, I retract.

I retract everything I just said. Fully retracted. Oh, my God. As her proximity. Oh, my God. To the powerful entity that is Asoka. Given her, her rickitude. Or do you think they're smelling Baylon?

And he's like continually trying to disobey him. himself from this thing that he is still a part of. You know what? They do seem very surprised later. Second guess a witch. They seem surprised later, though, when Thrawn's like, General Bail and Skull of the fucking Jedi order? And they're like, we didn't have that in the prep doc.

He is, I can't even catch a whiff of Jedi on him. I mean, everyone, everyone, they didn't come via Pergall, as you noted, but everyone must smell like shit. Just, you know, no outfit changes. No shit. Oh, God. And Sabine, I mean, has been under a helmet at some point and no shower between. The old Dinsharen. What did you think of the great mother referring to Sabine as it?

I love it. It is dangerous. It will wait in solitude. This, like, dehumanizing positioning of Sabine is a representation of an idea, not as a person. But A, I loved it, but also I like, it's dangerous, reeks a Jedi. Like, this is like, they are respecting the threat that is Sabine. And I like that because even if we haven't necessarily in this show seen her be a massive threat, I like the idea that like that potentiality is lingering her and they're picking up on that. So, yeah. Love it.

Let's reflect at the reflex point. Sabine is orb lassoed by these little balls. The great mothers have been watching the expanded Yellowstone universe and they know exactly what to do here. This is where we get that really cool

wide shot of the landscape as I know we see a shuttle departing. And Chin and Balin remain. They stay. And Shin can sense her master's anxiety. He says, this is a land of

dreams and madness. Children's stories come to life. Shin replies, I know no such stories. And he's like smiling almost a little sadly, but maybe gladly as he says you weren't raised at the temple. Stories of the galaxy, stories of this galaxy are considered folk tales. Some ancient past, long forgotten. And Shin says with good reason, sometimes stories are just stories. So here we go again with the story's emphasis. Now we recall in episode two, when Bailin's response to hearing learning of the pathway to Peridia was the children at the Jedi Temple called it that.

It comes from old stories, fairy tales. And Morgan said, tales which are based on truths. And Bailin said, you're certain of this. I feel the path is clouded. And then later said, you speak of dreams,

vague and fractured hopes. And we talked at the time about this very, like, Voldemort Tale of the Three Brothers kind of energy from Bailin and this like, seeming a dismissal of things like children's tales. And I want to talk more about that when we hear another quote from Baylon,

this like possible dissonance at play in his character here and how we're reconciling that. I'm really interested in that. What did you think of this line from him here at the score? Yeah. I'm again, I'm having faith in Dave Filoni that it is intentional, but I'm having trouble tracking Bailen's relationship with the occult. You know, like, is he heeding the call of some unknown voice on this witch planet and seeking

a massive power source? Or is he like fairy tale stories, you know. This is my question. How are we reconciling this right now? And obviously later we'll hear him, you know, he talks about the beginning. He talks about the power. Is it that it is, it is a. Beware!

Is it that he can no longer deny the truth that fueled these legends? Because he's standing here? But if that were the case, then I would want a little bit more, like, a little bit more, like, wonder and sort of, like, reality-breaking revelation for him. Like, the Jedi, they were real, like, something like that, you know. He says lands of dreams and madness, which is such an evocative. phrase and our listener Josh wrote in to remind me that the kingdom of dreams and madness is the name of a Miyazaki documentary. And Faloni's a huge Miyazaki fan.

And I was looking up the phrase dreams and madness to see if I could find it like elsewhere in Shakespeare or something like that. But no, it seems to be, this seems to be a core source of that phrase, dreams and madness. Yeah. So, but I like, I mean, that's always fun to. talk about is like the border between dreaming and madness. And we're, of course, in deep dark Macbeth territory with the Witches three. Oh, yes. With the Witches three. With the Witches three. So, you know, that is especially a place where dreams and madness are oozing into each other. We're potting as we stir our cauldrons here. What did you think of this line from Shin at the end with good reasons, sometimes stories?

or just stories because I love this. We are... If they knew that they had it with these characters, they must have felt confident that we would be like magnetically drawn to them at this point,

right? To Bealin and Shin both. And I'm interested that what Shin says here feels to me like the kind of anti-old Nan, which is always my preferred example over Tyrion,

finale quote about stories, which I still cannot forgive in the context of the end of Game of Thrones. I'm considering that a double brand invocation. I'm honestly, I'm sorry. I would like to apologize to you. Three brands. Three brands in your app. Okay, well, I am about to mention brand again. But this is a context you like because this is early brand.

This is a Game of Thrones brand. This is Nan brand. This is book brand. Yeah, yeah. Possibly the passage from text that I've read more than any of. other in the history of my podcasting. But when Nan says in a Game of Thrones, there are two different lines about stories, my stories, no, my little Lord, not mine. The stories are before me and after me, before you two. And then she tells Bran, stories await my little Lord. And when you come back to

them, why there they are. And those to me have always felt like the best and most beautiful and meaningful encapsulation of why we love these stories in the first place, why we spent so much of our time consuming them and talking about them with each other and wanting to inhabit these universes. And so when Shin says sometimes stories are just stories, she's not embracing that possibility. She's not embracing what Star Wars say means for the people who consume it. And so like, we are often hearing things from Baylon, I think in particular, that compel us. But I thought that this to me felt like it was deployed to remind us that that Shin's perspective, that House Hadi's perspective is not necessarily the one we should be comfortable. As you know.

As you know. I am a loyal, loyal, loyal. Bannerman of House Hoddy, absolutely. We are Legion by now, by the way. And growing. It's true. That is actually true. I mean, being she's wrong.

Yeah. I know. She's wrong. Yes. And like, I think Faloni thinks she's wrong. Yeah. You know? Like.

I like that we got that. Sometimes you're being compelled by them, you know? But what I like about that, sometimes stories are just stories. I mean, what we're watching is a master and an apprentice, right? She's still learning. So for her to say sometimes stories are just, or just stories, no. Babe, you are so hot. Your bangs look great.

You have a lot to learn. So there's always some truth in stories. Well, she has more to learn about Baylon's own history right along with us. We get some backstory that we've been waiting for here. Steve, can we hear this clip? And I was a bit older than you are now. I watched everything. I knew Byrne.

The Jedi Temple? Couldn't make sense of it at the time. As you get older. Look at history. You realize it's all inevitable. Rise of the Empire. It repeats again and again and again. And isn't it our turn now?

Won our alliance with Throne finally? Bring us into power. That sort of power is fleeting. What I seek. So I may finally bring this cycle to an end. And that beginning is here. If the old stories are true. Remember in our...

Get ready for a doctor who reference. Remember our doctor who Matt Smith, Dr. Huapal, we were talking about like the background noises on the sound clips. I don't know. That's had some real minotaur grunting level of background noise on that. That was beautiful. Mesmerizing. Absolutely beautiful. So we've already talked about the Baylon story dissonance aspect of this, which is obviously at play here too.

I guess you could say maybe like does he think the order passed down a sanitized, glorified version of a event? and that's a failure in the way that the order was a large, maybe. But let's talk about fate. Let's talk about failure. What was more top of mind for you? I'm not going to stop the wheel. I'm going to break the wheel from DeNaris Targaryen. Or all of this has happened before,

all of this will happen again from Battlestar Galactica. Which of these pop culture touchstones was more of the overt reference? I'm always thinking about DeNaris in the earlier seasons. this one's on top, then that one's on top. On odd and on it spins, crushing those on the ground. We did have a listener. We must to break the wheel, Joe. Yeah, he's not going to.

Spoiler. I guess we've seen. We've seen the sequel trilogy. We've seen the sequel trilogy. That's bad news for bailing. He did not achieve the wheel breaking before the sequel trilogy. Tough one. I'm going to shout out our listener Mario and everyone listening, be grateful who has

been wanting some wheel of time content from us. Here it comes. Mario says at the beginning of the wheel of time books, and I think his implication is that at the beginning of every single wheel of time book has this phrase. The wheel of time turns and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth. And even myth is long forgotten when the age that gave it birth comes again. So.

Beautiful. Or just thinking about that Freddie Prince Jr. rant about the force that we played in one of our prep pods, you know, in the site, you know, like George Lucas saying it's like poetry it rhymes, but Friday Prince Jr. talking about like in order to achieve, and if you've never watched or listened to it, if you didn't listen to our prep pod, what are you doing with your life? Please go watch Friday Prince Jr. yell in a microphone about stars. It's so delightful. But he's talking about the pendulum swinging between the dark side and the light or between a rebellion and a suffocating empire or first order. This is a big critique. This is a big critique.

of what JJ did with the Force Awakens. When JJ, like, when JJ wanted to make... Force Awakens a movie I really like. When JJ wanted to make the Force Awakens and he wanted to make it set up a scenario where he could sort of replay the hits of, you know, a new hope, which a lot of people complain about, I actually quite enjoy, so whatever.

But in order to achieve that, he had to make it so the rebellion failed, first order rises, you know, and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, because they're like, we've fought so hard to give rid of the emperor. Why is the first order here? And this is the question we're continuing to answer with these TV shows. But if Faloni...

Also, please put more security measures in place that you're planet killer. Yeah. I also love the Force Awakens. But if Faloni... Yes. Who really likes... I know he really likes The Last Jedi. I think he likes the First Awakens too.

I have not entertained his opinions on the Rise of Skywalker. The Last Jedi, Let the Past Die, kill it if you have to, where Kylo is basically reading Bailen Cliff Notes. Correct. That's the one. I think that he's sort of, what he's sort of saying here is that it's not a bug as a feature. This idea that, like, JJ did this and everyone's like, oh, it's so boring. He's just repeating the story, you know. And what Faloni and Lucas and Freddie Prince Jr., if you watch that rant are saying, is like, that's,

That's the cycle. We're just on a cycle. And in order to achieve balance of the force, darkness has to rise, then the light side has to rise, and then darkness will rise, and the light side will rise, and that's just the journey that we're on.

And it's never going to be any other way. Or at least Baylon's not going to make it any other way, you know? Yeah. As you know, I really bump on this because, like, or I do. I bump on it, but what I'm eager for, is examinations inside of that of how our choices matter then. So, like, you take a character like Baylon, who is saying these things and thinking these things

and talking about these repetitions of these cycles and seeking this beginning where he can break the wheel and eliminate the cycle from existence. We think about things like his lines in episode four where, you know, is that a note of fear in your voice? Experience. What did he say to Osoka? How inevitable.

Like, if everything is inevitable, then do the decisions that we make matter? And I think part of why we latch on to stories like Star Wars and to the characters who worked their way into our hearts is because, you know, again, we could go back to the same Sam Frodo Exchange we talked about earlier. Like, you remember the characters who do something hard.

And so, like, this does make me think of, like, the closing passage of the horror crook this chapter of half-blood prints where you're where there this engagement with this idea in the context of a prophecy, right? And that he understood at last

opening of that final paragraph it was he thought the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people perhaps would say that there was little to choose between the two ways but Dumbledore knew

and so do I thought Harry with a fierce rush with a rush with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents, that there was all the difference in the world. Osoka Season 1 is not an Alex Garland story. This isn't devs. We're not like every minute of every scene interrogating whether we're on the tram lines or not.

But I think, like, it's, this is just my personal relationship to this stuff. I'm not trying to, like, impose this on other people. I think that, like, these characters who shape the course of, of history and galactic events and like something like Ezra deciding to port thrown away in the first place

and save Lafall, the decision that Sabine made here, that line we got from Huang in the T6 and the Pergla at the beginning of this episode, those choices have to matter because the characters made them, not just because of the threads that the great mothers are spinning, right? Yeah, I agree with you,

but this is the constant question of destiny and faith. which we sort of tried to delineate the difference between those two words and a different podcast. But like what is your level of free will inside of a story that contains concepts of destiny? Or, you know, because like even as Soka says, like, Sabina was fated to make this choice. What's interesting about her saying even Sabine was Sabine was Fated to make this choice, she makes it contingent on like, because I didn't train her any other way. You know what I mean?

So it's not like, it's not like the fates decided she would make this choice. It's like, of course she would do this. I didn't teach her any other way. So it's a little less like it was foretold. And so I think it's really interesting that she uses the word fate there. This is the concept, this idea of like free will inside of any kind of story with prophecy, with all of that is a constant struggle, I think. But I agree with you. Yeah, it's like causal determinism is a whole school.

philosophy for a reason, right? There's just like a very rich world here. I think the choices do have to matter. And I think that's why something as a phrase like a loose thread is so enticing for Sabine. Right. That's why I like the way that Faloni is playing with it here. And with much love and respect to Freddie Prince Jr. I've never liked the way that he framed it there. I know you, I know you don't. But like that is an absolutely iconic sound like. I know you don't. But I what I find myself agreeing with is that I do think it's cyclical and inevitable. I think that's more of a commentary on human nature, though. Sure, but why does that make that something we wouldn't apply to Star Wars?

No, it is something we would apply to Star Wars, but that's what I mean. It's like people fall into the same patterns and make the same mistakes or manage the same achievements because people are inherently people, not because these witches read their threats. I agree with that. I agree with you. I guess my interpretation of the, I'm sorry that we're invoking, Freddie Prince, Jr. so much. But my- Big pod for Freddie.

My funny interpretation, a good old FPJ, Jr., is that, like, these things are cyclical. How they happen is up to us. And Sam has a quote about that in Lord of the Rings as well. It's like, the path is there. Right. Whether or not you choose to walk it or the pace you choose to walk it or all that sort of stuff is up to you. The light side will rise, the dark side will fall and all of this will happen again inevitably.

How it does, when it does, and who you love that you can protect in all of that. That is down to individual choice. I agree. We landed in the same place. Great. Love that for us. What is he going to do? Stick his dick in a crap.

These are, uh... Sorry, crap claw. That was on the same episode as the last 10 minutes. Wild stuff. How far? Anything else on Baylon and Shannon in this exchange? No, I think we did it. Then I have a question for you.

Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. Joe Thron's here. He's in live action. I'm excited. Just as you wanted. Talk about.

Oh, it happened. last. It happened at last. How do we get Thron? We get him, of course, via ship. Sabine is down in her cell. This is where she's whispering Asoka's name. This was very sad. I have been loving and very amused by the Midnight Boys commentary on whether Subpoena is spending enough time thinking about Asoka and asking about Assoca. We got a little utterance of Asoka's name here. And Sabine tries to use the force. Do you like the theory that that's what Asoka hears when she gets pulled out of the water at the end of last week's episode, she hears Asoka. Like, do you think that Sabine whispering via the, like, death of murian amplifier?

Maybe. That would be nice. Yeah. Why not? Just a fun theory. Why not? Yeah. Sabine is the swimmies?

Remember our swimmies floaties debate? I, I, I, oh, when you sent me that. that photo of the Orioles with wearing swimis and floaties I almost dressed up as Mr. I almost

opened it back up with you but I decided it wasn't the time Thank you You're in the full flower of your Orioles fandom It isn't time to flight about

Not only did you not do that You did not say Because it was definitely 1.30 in the morning Why are you awake? Oh boy So we get this great fake out So being trying to use

the force to break out of her out of herself and there's dust falling from the walls. We're like, holy shit, it's happening. But no. Everyone looks up. Sabine looks through the slit in her cell. And it is the chimera.

Grand Admiral Thrawn's fabled ship. And here, the way it enters the screen, it is like this hulking, menacing ghost ship. I was thrilled. I'm going to speak on behalf of all the bad babies here. and ask you how you felt about the imagery

of this ship docking with the large tower I have this is to this to me when we're like penetrated the Cameras

the the Paduan of Star Wars Jedi Master George Lucas I'm like yeah this is a guy who grew up

thinking about the Sarlac pit as of vagina that's great this is the continuation of a Browse. Storytelling tradition.

I just needed you to do that for your fans. Oh, boy. Were you hyped? Were you hyped to see this fabled Star Destroyer? Still floating, Joe. Still flying. Did you have any questions about this? I was fascinated by the repair job on it, right?

There's all this, like, gold patchwork on it. And, you know, I always love the underbelly of a star. destroyer and I, that it has this distinctive patterning on it was very exciting. Yeah. So I don't know that I would join you and that it was like a thrill of my lifetime to see it, but I was very excited to see it. I was wondering how the ship was still able to achieve flight. That was interesting.

Like what is the fuel source here? But also if they are able to achieve flight, because a lot of what we're talking about with the power that might be able to achieve flight. Because a lot of what we're talking about with the power that might be at play that is keeping people here, preventing them from leaving, absent something like this, like, rescue attempt. Can they go to other planets? Could they seek out other tech? Or is the ship not able to travel anywhere but 10 feet above a platform? I mean, like, is it being held aloft by the dark magic?

This is one of my questions. Yeah, it's like, are the night, are they? Are they empowering? That was that was giving Van. That was a van sort of delivery of night sisters. Ben is going to be so confused when he comes on, you know, seven hours later than he was expecting to

and we are just saying Night Sisters that way the entire time and he has absolutely no idea why. Joanna, we go into the hangar. Yeah. Where legions of night troopers are lined up to announce Thron. And I would like you to please describe, You mentioned the repairs to the ship. Oh, yeah.

You repair on this trooper armor. Okay. So they look amazing. The armor is all, you know, as opposed to like, thank you. As opposed to the gleaming white. Joe. Pristine Storm Trooper armor that we're used to. This is battered, broken, reformed with seams of gold.

I'll talk about it a second. and then wrapped in strips of red cloth. So the Kinsugi, which if you have Googled one thing about this show, you have probably, this episode you've probably heard someone talk to you about Kinsugi. This is not our first rodeo, by the way, with Kansugi as it applies to Star Wars. It was part of Rise of Skywalker. Kylo Ren's helmet was passed back together. The Loki season one finale.

Yes, you can tell at the end of time, yeah. He remains like that whole place was threaded with gold, you know, seeming up the cracks. And here's the thing about Kinsugi, which is a Japanese art form. And it's like the concept is this. If you break a bowl, you could throw it away, consider it broken in trash. Or you could repair it and not repair it to make it look like it was never broken in the first place, but rather use these fairly obvious seams of gold in the cracks to form something new. And I want to, I think this is an important, like, it's not just that, oh, we're evoking Kansuki.

Like, what is that concept trying to tell us about these troopers? Our listener Estella wrote in with a couple quotes, I actually don't know where she pulled them from, but they're in quotation marks. So I'll acknowledge that she pulled them from somewhere. The Katsuki philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise. the art is a metaphor for healing and accepting cracks and breakage as a valuable part of life. Kansugi teaches that with time, attention, and patience, cracks can be mended. When dusted with gold, the cracks become a beautiful part of your history. So love that.

Amazing stuff. I want to yes and all the Kansugi conversation to talk about the red strips of cloth that are wound around these troopers. Obviously, it's invoking like the Knight Sisters, right? and the implication that these knights sisters were involved somehow in the reparation, the repairing of these troopers, whether or not they're dead, which is Mallory considers to be very true. We'll be talking about this in Theory Corner later today. Whether it undermines the beautiful thematic potency that you just outlined or fits perfectly with that, we can discuss. I don't think it does, but I did, but anytime I, I will just say this, anytime I see,

these are broad strips of red cloth, but, but anytime I see like a red string, I have to think about the red string of, the red thread of fate, which is another, another Japanese concept for lovers of anime, it might be like quite familiar with it, but it goes way back into Japanese mythology, but this, this idea of the red thread of fate is tied more directly to like romantic love in that it's like, it has to do with soulmates. this idea of like, again, to quote the prophet, Taylor Swift, an invisible string tying you to me, is like this red thread that was wrapped around you and connects you to the person you are destined to be with. I don't know that that's necessarily what they're trying to evoke here, but, I mean, it's called the red thread of fate.

And we're talking about threads of fate. And we're talking about the Knight Sisters. And we're talking about Sabine's singular focus and connection to Ezra. something that like drew her across the into another galaxy entirely. So I just, I mean, design-wise, it looks cool. It's brimming with potential meeting and metaphor. And I think, oh, yes. And I think it's great.

Oh, yeah. Our listener, Wesley made a comp that I really loved. When they're sitting there going, Ron, standing there. Sorry, going, Thron, Throne, Throne. Wesley says the immediately iconic introduction of this cult of stoic lunatics evokes our introduction to the Sardachar in the 2021 Dune movie, except no pouring down rain, but otherwise very similar. Not unlike how their leader marching through his troops in formation tells the Harcunin and Envoy that they are, quote, the Emperor's Blades, those who stand against us fall. And then what is Thrawn say? He says, though who may oppose us.

Like, it's similar language as well. Anyway, so. Yeah. Thron. Thrawn. Thrawn. Throne. Yeah.

Colty. Colty. Yes. The, like, fascist horde tingeed with horror was quite a, quite a captivating thing here. I was getting less army of a night trooper guards and more zombie zealots. And we'll talk again about the zombie part later in theory. and whether this is, in fact, or reanimated by

Night's Sister Magic Army of the Dead and whether Marook's entire purpose in the story was to prep us for that. Which I think seems not unlikely. But this deployment of Thrawn, a character,

whether you read the legends novels, the new canon novels, saw him on rebels, whatever the case may be, we think of as this tactician, and we talk of him in these terms.

This was giving me Peridian Messiah. sensations. And thinking about, we have some other places today where we're going to talk about maybe what has changed for Thron and you would expect something

to change for him in this amount of time and in this circumstance, but this is like... Ezra... Is this an army of the dead worshipping him? Ezra grew and maintained beautifully a whole beard, a whole beard and made himself a, like, much...

He's got like a methril shirt, too. Grogo's not the only one, you know? With the Miethrush... We're going to talk about... We're going to talk about the word enemy in a second, again, because I always want to talk about the word enemy. Is this where you want to talk about the word Enoch and the biblical invoking again in terms of the, is this an army of undead? What do you want to say about Enoch in the Bible for people who don't know? That was it.

That's, I have nothing to add beyond what I just said. You know, the never died, right? So that seems relevant. What about the golden harpie mask here, Joe? What did you think of this? This is where I'm going to punch the word enemy and say, do you know my biggest enemy? It's a goddamn helmet. And while it is possible, it makes you think of Marine.

It is possible that all of these suits are just bags of gas, a la Maruk. I don't know why you cast West Chatham an actor we really like in that role. certain for many podcasts and many months will be playing Eli Vanto on the show. Though, of course, I started to let go that once we realized Thrawn was going to be in a completely different galaxy because how would Eli have gotten there?

But yeah, the dream died, Joe. Sad. But it's not even that. It's just like, so Wes, if you don't watch The Expans, like, Wes, like, the fact that he was going to be on the show was really exciting for fans of the Expans. And I just don't know why you cast him

and slap that. Very spooky. Great. But I need the helmet to come off. be the first time in Star Wars that they had cast somebody beloved and charismatic and beautiful, and then we never got to see their face. Justice for Gwendo and Christy. I just think it's a waste, but a waste.

Helmets are my enemy forever. You know, you hate a helmet. You love a wig watch, but you hate a helmet. You love an Oshavista, but you hate a crevice. I can contain many multiple tears. No. Stop making crevice. Bad.

Pro that kind of crevice. It depends. Joe, the Night Trooper sees part and Thron enters live action at last. We get this kind of amazing dissonance where the voice is, of course, so familiar and riveting because it is the voice of Thrawn. Lars Miklesen voices the character and rebels. We get to hear and voice the character again. And then we get to see a very different painted face. and wig. You talked about the face paint earlier. What would you like to say about our first

exposure to live action thron in particular? I don't know. Stop me. You've heard this one before. Mallory. I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand. Are you at war with yourself? I am. Conflict inside the human heart. Would you say it's the only thing worth writing about? I would. I would. Yeah. I think that I think that the idea of Thron having slightly gone to seed because there's like fraying on his jacket. He is not the like, you know, in fighting trim the way he was when we left him, etc., etc. Like, that is interesting to me in a certain regard.

But I actually think it might have been even more powerful given, you know, I have no problem with the sort of like lion and winter kind of physique. that he has, if you give him like a corresponding, you know, because like, Logan Roy is intimidating as fuck, you know what I mean? Like, you can be an older man and like be very scary. But I would almost like, I mean, I don't mean to like spoil wig watch, I would have given him a very different wig. I would not have given him the short millage. I would have given him like long, like, this is a man who's like gone.

It's gotten kind of wild out there. there and he's like dealing he's entertaining witches and he's like doing all this sort of stuff you know what I mean like I were talking like like an Ezra wave or like a yeah yeah thanks and castaway like no no lancing teeth with the the ice skates but just sort of like give me give me the full like lion in winter you know but make a chis kind of look and that would be more intimidating to me because I think it makes him look a little foolish. But don't you think that's part of the commentary that he is insisting on maintaining something

that for 10 to 12 years they've had in essence no reason to maintain? Mallory, I would say yes, we're not for the fact that Theron is supposed to be our bad guy for like five more TV shows on a movie. You know what I mean? Like, we're supposed to be scared of him and intimidated by him and overwhelmed by him.

And I think the idea of making him look like a little silly for having tried to hold on his old uniform when it doesn't really A fit anymore, be like, you know, it's got holes in it and stuff like that. I just think that that isn't giving me, I'm scared of him. That's giving me like, oh, that's a little pathetic, you know? And I think there's a way to, without changing a thing with keeping Lars in the role, like all that sort of stuff, like there's a way to design him to make him much more

intimidating than I found him in this presentation. And we got a lot. I'm not going to read all of them at all because we'd be here all day. We got so many hashtag not my Thron emails from people. Because people have been, as you said, like, and as Van has talked about eloquently, like people have had, like, strong, strong love and connection for Thron since back in the legends novels days. And I think it is completely fine for Thron to be different, as you outlined. He's been stranded on this planet.

I think that's fine. I think there are some inherent qualities to him that some of his devotees who would stand in a shipyard and chant Thrawn, if they could, are missing in him. So I don't know. I just don't know that this whole presentation of Thrawn is the serve that they want it to be.

Because, again, if this were just like someone who's, oh, he's our antagonist for the rest of the season or whatever, but A, he's Thrawn with so much history and B, he's Thrawn with so much future for Faloni's plans that, like, I really feel like they needed to nail this And, like, if you asked me to pick right now, we're going to spend the next few episodes with Thron as the antagonist's the center of it, or Bailen and Shin as the antagonist, I would follow, you know, House Hoddy off a cliff. So I just, I don't know. I mean, that's my main critique of the episode is, like, they really needed to deliver on Thron.

For me and for many people, I don't think they quite got there. It sounds like they did for you. And I think, you know, that's, we're all allowed to have. different. Yeah. I mean, I thought obviously the actual, like,

face paint and red eyes and a wig of it all was a little bit jarring and took some, uh, took some time to begin to adjust to, certainly. But I think in terms of like the,

not that every single thing is, is perfect with Thron. I'm, I'm thinking about, like, the way that he would have changed over time and how the context of his circumstances

would have sparked that change. But like, thinking about what you just outlined as like an alternate possibility. I honestly think if I had seen Thron and he had like that kind of like long hair and it's sort of been like driven to the brink by his circumstances, I would have found that much harder to believe than this, which is like a character that we associate with order above emotion and routine and precision as as necessary guardrails against the encroach of chaos. And like,

Like, what would he look to do in a circumstance where it was almost impossible to achieve those things? Like the things that are the guiding centers and buttresses of his life. Like, what can you do? You can keep your haircut, right? What can you do? You can make sure that your night troopers chant your name and line up, even if there's no opposing force that's entering your chimeraan hangar. So, like, that part made sense to me. some of the stuff that we'll talk about later with like,

what is his relationship to dark magic and what compromises is he willing to make? I'm really interested in talking about how that maybe feels like something that is an evolution based on his circumstances, but also very inextricable from and connected to the character that we know. I don't think I would want the throne we got this much later after a decade plus of exile in a galaxy further and further away

to feel exactly the same. I want him to feel recognizable and true to form. And I think he, for me, he did here. I think if he didn't for other people, that's obviously fine. But for me, he broadly did. I think if you want to, if you want to present what you're proposing, then I think it has to be a recast. I don't think that Lars is the right person for exactly what you're talking about here. But, you know, sounds great.

We get to hear him speaking. He's amazing. It's amazing. What was first just a dream has become a frightening reality for those who may oppose us. What did you want to say about the particular language here? I mean, those who may oppose us, this is, we've been tracking enemy watch. Balin says enemy, Asoka is still freaking saying enemy despite my hope that she would drop it. Thron is saying those who may oppose us.

And this is the thing about Thron and always has been, to your point about like the similarities of like someone who has almost an appreciation for the people on the other side of a conflict for me. him. His admiration, his fascination for those who may oppose him is a hallmark of his character. And so I was just delighted to find someone who's not just saying enemy left and right, you know, personally. Sabine, Harrah, some of the characters that that earned that admiration from him in rebels, Esron Canaan less so, which we'll chat about with some of his still present, a Jedi critiques later on. But yeah, like right away that first line in addition to being kind of like a nice little meadow wake to us felt like this is like, this is how Thron talks. This is what we'd expect to hear. And it just felt, it just felt really cool to have Thrawn in the show at long last. I was really excited. It's really excited. It's really awesome. It's great stuff, man. I also was interested in, you know,

he salutes the great mothers. He thanks Morgan. He speaks of the end of his exile. This feels like a very like deliberate word choice in terms of the plot of the first new canon. Timothy's on Thron novel titled Throne. Throne. I won't go into all the details. It's not, it would take you long to go through all of that because like part of the point is that it's a,

as is often the case with Thrawn, you know, a long con. There's a game of foot, and you were only glimpsing part of it over time. But this initial introduction or reintroduction to him through the idea of exile and what is false about that and what is true and how that idea of exile would unlock something for him in terms of his pursuit and the multiple allegiances that he is either maintaining or building over time, just like a word that brings a lot of the character's history to mine there, so I enjoyed that. then he brings up that cargo says that Enoch is going to begin the cargo transfer as per my agreement with the great mothers and we see that cargo later Joanna and they definitely looked like coffins to me

or is the cargo just a bunch of dead guys. Yeah, I'm going to say this with a theory pointer. Okay. I'm going to say it, I mean, definitely coffins. It doesn't have to be the troopers because per my agreement with the great mothers, maybe it's going to be knight sisters and they just happen to have these nice imperial

totally Dereola sarcophical area yeah I'll say my comment for a theory corner okay the great mother's informed throne of a prisoner Joanna

and he's a little thrown by this he's a little thrown by this we would not call him flustered he recovers too quickly but there's that beat and that pause and there are a couple moments in the episode where he takes a beat and processes before he says

whatever's next you never spoke of this we did not see it. It is a loose thread. This is what we talked about earlier. That lovely idea of Sabine is a loose thread outside of the great mother's ability to control and crucially to predict.

Like a character you can't anticipate, particularly for Thrawn, because that's the whole thing, right? Study you, and this is his history with Sabine, collected her art, studying her art. I've recognized this image here, so I know that you think that's a bounty hunter and that's Ezra Bridger.

This is a specter right here, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Repositioning Sabine, an object of Thron, in particular, of his study and care and deliberation over time, as somebody outside of the set of knowable things is just like really cool. And I love it. I love it whenever you have like a prophecy or visions or whatever, something that the prophesier cannot see. An unknown, unseeable, untrackable factor. Perhaps in this case, Sabine's force blockage is to her advantage here. She cannot be seen as moving through the force because...

Great stuff. Sabine, she's really working through it. Speaking of Jedi in the Jedi Order, Baylon explains why I brought the prisoner and Thrawn recognizes his name and ideas him immediately as General Baylon's goal of the Jedi Order. I parted ways with the Jedi Order. long ago, Bailen says, you would not be the first, Thron replies.

And we'll just take like a quick beat here to note, we'll probably cite more examples over the next couple weeks when Asoka and Thrawn and other characters come into direct conflict with each other, but just just like a quick primer, and we've mentioned this on some other pods before. There's a long history and legends and canon alike of Thrawn's

thoughts and feelings and perspective on the Jedi. If you go back to Erd to the Empire and the original Thrawn story and how Throne relates to a character like Joris or the way that he uses the Salamere. Never know if that's how that's pronounced. With a Y in front of it. Yeah.

To dampen force power and the way that he is always mindful of and considerate of that power, but also thinks it's something that he can outmaneuver. And then like, you know, we talked about this on our episode, on the watch list primer episode that we did. Well, we were talking about Ezra and Thrawn in their history, but there's that great exchange near the end of rebels where Thrawn says, you chose to be a Jedi, predictable. You follow a long history written by the Jedi where they chose what they believed to be morally correct instead of what is strategically sound. And then later says, I must admit the mysteries of the force are an enigabund of me. Very rare thing for Throne to say about anything.

But for all those abilities, all the power, the Jedi lacked the vision for how to. to wield it, to which Ezra, of course, beautifully replies the force isn't a weapon, but you'll never understand that. And that is part of why he is able to beat Thron. So Thron, not, he's an admirer of art, and an admirer of Sabine Reds,

not an admirer of Ezra Bridgers. But it's what's so interesting to me, I mean, this is skipping ahead a little bit, but like, it seems like he doesn't rate Ezra as a massive threat to him. Like, that seems to be the best explanation first as to why he's sort of just letting him hang out with some crabs in the wilderness.

I was going to ask you if you thought it was bad or if he might have like a use for him. I thinks he might need him. She says to kill them, right? Doesn't he? Yeah. But like did he need him to remain alive for this long so that he could be bait? You know, so that like there would be a reason for people to still come search and potentially, not that they have any way. Why would they know whether he was alive or not?

But maybe he doesn't, because he's establishing a connection, you know, via Knight's sister. Maybe he thinks that somebody else, maybe he's at least considering the possibility that somebody else would have some insight too. I just think possibly that seems like a stretch to me. But, like, I think the best explanation we can have for why he didn't make Ezra a priority is that he doesn't consider him a threat. But I think that's so stupid when Ezra is the reason he's out there in the first place. You know, like, he didn't consider Ezra a threat before Ezra yanked him into another galaxy. But once someone yanks you into another galaxy via the space whales that they have called and have under their command, you would think that that person would then be a threat to you, you know? It's another version of it.

And Sabine has not transported Theron via Pergul to a decade plus of exile like Ezra has. but I had a similar thought when in this next scene that we're about to discuss after Throne and Sabine are reunited and have a great exchange that we heard at the top of the episode when they hand Sabine back her lightsaber

and her blasters and give her a mount and send her on her way like the Die Well line from Enick it's like this is hubris of the highest order to not even consider whether you would regret arming

it's bizarre your opponent No, so we'd seek to oppose you, if you prefer. I do want to shout up before we roll on to Sabine and Thron. And I do love, I mean, I love Thron smiling when he hears that Sabine and saying, now there's a familiar name. Quite right. She'll be of great use to us.

Like, all of that's great. Great stuff. The little biographical details about Baylon that we got in this episode, the fact that he was a general. So we can, we are already, based on his age, could tell that he was like an adult, but like he was a general. You know, wasn't like a Padawan. He wasn't, you know, when when the order fell. And that he was raised in the temple, which we could have intuitive. But like, you know, I just like the little like gentle timeline exposition drops that we get in, um, in this episode around our favorite mysterious bad

abey, bailant's goal. He is great. That couldn't make sense of it, line. Yeah. The general thing does like to be on the front lines of that war and then have to confront the way that you are used. Yeah. So we heard this initial exchange between Throne and Sabina and at the top of the episode. We won't repeat it in full. But that line, the desire to be reunited with your long lost friend, how that singular focus will reshape our galaxy.

I'm so excited to talk about this. There's like so much here. And then there's a related exchange. in a few minutes that we'll hit, that this is just like chills. Give me all your thoughts. Okay, so reshipper galaxy, you have it here in our notes as like a harbinger that is damning. And as you say, and as we already said, we know how this, we know things are not going to go well for the New Republic back in our galaxy near and nearer, like that they, that the first order

will rise and we can probably expect that Thrawn is somehow connected to that opportunity. For me, what it's giving, and again, this is where I want Hu Yang to like come in here and say, well, that's just your opinion, man, because like, it invokes one of my most frequently read Lord of the Rings passages between Frodo and Gandalf when Frodo says a pity, Bilbo didn't kill Ghalm when he had the chance. And Gandalf says, pitchy, it was a pity, stayed to Bilbo's end. even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gallum has some part to play in it for good or evil before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring, in which case you were also meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought. So we're all – and maybe I'm just being too defensive of Sabine, who's not even like a ride-or-die-caracter for me necessarily. but like this idea that everyone's like, Sabina's made this huge fucking mistake that's going to bring down the world. And I'm like, but if she did it,

if her motivation was like, love, how can that be wrong? I agree with you completely. Yeah, I think that, I feel the same way. I think, okay, so I have a couple thoughts on this. A beautiful, beautiful passage to read one of our faves. So, okay, I want to hit that Sabine. I want to pick up the Sabine point you made,

but on the Thron front first quickly. this connects to the initial throne discussion we were having. I agree with you that when he says this, I'm like, this is not, surely this cannot, it's not just that short of a distance between two points and that directive a line. It can't be. And I like that he's misreading this because I think we have to remember that this thron, a throne that is new to many people, but for many people has been this like, often above reproach, achiever of incredible.

things. Our introduction to him here is on the heels of the greatest failure of his life. Yeah. And so, like, he is coming into this story as a character who airs and miscalculates. And crucially, who not just does he underestimate people and is he capable of underestimating people despite the boast that we would offer and that he would probably offer being that he sees the board clearly and that he studies with care. and intent, he misses this specific aspect. He always thinks that this is a bug instead of a feature. This is how Ezra beat him.

This exact thing. So when he's saying singular focus, like, Ezra beat him because he had a singular focus to save his friends and to save Lethal. And he won, right? So, like, I'm agreeing with you ultimately because I think that, like... I know you're agreeing with me, and I think we're on the same page about, like, Thron's relationship to rationality versus emotionality and the opportunity

that the show has to examine the weaknesses and failures in that. I guess, and we have said in previous weeks, like, it's always okay to have to relearn a lesson. I guess it's frustrating to me that, like, for Thron, who is so brilliant, to not be cottoning onto the very thing that just kicked him in the ass

in the last time we saw him. But doesn't it feel as likely that he would say, here they are again, just thinking they can win with their hearts and I'm ready for them this time? Like, perhaps. But then also, I guess what is also sort of causing some disconnected me outside of the Thron of it all is that Asoka agrees with Throne

that Sabine has made this massive selfish mistake. And that's where I'm like, my guy Hu Yang is the only one who's like, or was it? Well, and like when we talked about this in episode four, you know I came down pretty firmly on Sabine's side and I think like

we both had a lot of empathy for her and don't feel the way that Thrawn and Asoka feel about it and I think that like it's different the particulars are different

but thinking about this aspect of it reminded me a little bit of our conversation this was actually I will say this made me a little bit scared the point I'm about to make it reminded me a little bit

of our conversations throughout Mando's season three about the way and rejecting the creed and how we felt so sure that part of Dyn's mark was a rejection of some of those mantras, right? And this feels like of a piece to me, not the same, but of a piece, like, where I'm kind of like, okay, is this show really going to calm down on the anti-attachment, don't lead with your heart

side when, for all the reasons you already mentioned, but also like, who are the drivers of the story? Their characters like Asoka, their characters like Baylon, if we go back to our first pod on the series, this great through line of all of the figures on the show, they have their different goals and different methods. But the thing they share is that they rejected and lamented this strict, rigid limitation of the Jedi Order. So for them to, you can make the mistakes that you see in other people and then learn from that and you can reflect. But if that's ultimately where they, if it's a thing they have to work through, okay. If it's where, if it's the end point, I will be really disappointed in that. And I will think that is actively strange. And kind of contrary to what I sort of think is the mission of the season.

So I completely agree. And I think this idea that Thron is not paying attention to, as are underestiming, Ezra, underestimating Sabine ties into, we got an email from John. And I'm just going to read the title of the email because I think it sums it all up. the title of his email is when evil masterminds overlook the qualities of little folk with stout hearts, right? Because we're in Hobbit territory, right? This is what Saran does with the Hobbits. We've talked a lot about Voldemort and like his inability to recognize certain things. This is like a common recurring idea. So I like this as maybe a blind spot for Thron.

I really wish it hadn't just also been his blind spot at the end of his tenure in rebels. But I like this. But we got this other email that I really. really love from Chris that I think engages in what we want, what we want. And Van said this thing on the podcast on Wednesday. You know, I love Van. He's one of my favorite people on planet. But he says something about like, don't write the show. I, with love and respect, I reject that entirely. Because I think when you are actively engaging in an ongoing story, you can't help but sort of like put your hopes and expectations and whatever. Again, like a theory, hold it loosely. But like, You know, and we were definitely burned with our Mando three thoughts.

Anyway, Chris wrote, and I thought it was really brilliant. I'm eager to see if how Asoka addresses attachment, capital A, love capital L, and the light side of the force moving forward. I find it curious that, for the most part, love is portrayed as an opposing, quote, force rather than something that could enhance your connection to the force. Sure, love is the death of duty, but at the risk of writing the show by quoting. another, I hope Asoka minds the emotional connections, Asoka, Sabine, and Ezra have to each other as a strength and Asoka and Anakin to an extent, as much as any connection to the force, where the sequel trilogies failed to truly capitalize

on the emotional aspects of the Ray Ben and Ray Finn relationships. I think there's a real opportunity for Star Wars force-sensitive characters to forge unique bonds to not just the force, but to one another. They can be greater than the sum of their parts, as well as the old Jedi way by embracing their attachments. One can hope that love will survive in galaxies far, far away.

This is something, you know, we've talked at length, at length about the nuances of this concept of attachment and how it's not simply don't love anything ever, but it's like don't love things in that sort of possessive fearful way.

So there's definitely nuances at play here, but I just, I really don't, I will find it to your, I'll use your words. Like, very odd if Sabine's choice is presented as a sin as a massive mistake. Yeah, it feels like the lesson that Osco was on her way to learning is that you don't have to fear that connection. And that you can find a way to go fight for the people you love without worrying about the rapid encroachment of war. I yeah that's we've got two episodes left so hopefully we'll work through some of that but oh man

Thrawn he's here can you believe it I can't believe it oh man let's listen to this other clip actually because this this this applies to some of the other stuff we want to hit here you should know though that once my starship departs You'll be strategy forever. It's also quite possible that your friend is death. If you survived, I'm sure he's doing just fine. You've gambled the fate of your galaxy on that belief.

You wouldn't understand. You've gambled the fate of your galaxy on that belief. I love how you can hear not only the intense musical chords there, but as you could feel when he's walking toward. Yeah, the thumb of the boot. So this is on the heels of him saying that you help my cause, no, I shall help yours. And that's very throny, right?

It's not just going to shoot you out of the sky. He's going to play the long game. He's going to weaponize your tendencies against you. And then this indictment. Can you gamble fate? I'm so interested in this language and this phrasing. What was your read on this show? Well, what's funny is that she is right, right?

You gamble the fate of your galaxy on that belief brackets that Ezra is still alive. And Ezra is still alive. So, you know, she was right. Can you gamble fate? I feel like that's parsing that a little bit heavier than Pheloni meant you to parse it. Maybe. You know, I'm almost never the one to parse it. say we're parsing too closely.

Too heavily. This is, this is. The word forever certainly seems deliberate. No prospect of escape. That is, that is emphasized a number of times here. Yes. This most definitively. If they miss their ride, yeah, are certain.

There is no other way out. Yeah. But also, I don't know if you remember this, but just a couple episodes ago when Baylon took a lightsaber to the map. He's like, no one will ever follow us ever. And then Assoca's like, I got to white poncho now, though, bitch. So watch me. Yeah, I mean, I would not be surprised as someone gets stranded at the end of the season.

The way that they're hammering this. Yeah. I feel like someone's going to be left behind. And it might be Asoka, honestly, because we've been talking about needing certain players off the board for, you know, things that are to come. that would be very, very sad. It would also perhaps feel quite fitting. A spinoff featuring Asoka and the Little Hermit Crabs. And Jude Law and the Scalotlandon.

Who says no? We talked about a lot of the aspects of this quote already, that singular focus idea and the everything we already discussed with Ezra and the parallels. What else do you want to hit here? Can I just say one of the thing? Maybe it's, maybe if we do consider Sabine giving the map over to Baylon us, if we're meant to consider it a sin, maybe she gets left behind. And that's her punishment for what she did. I don't like it.

I hope that's not what happens. I also hope that's not what happens. Baylon and Shin, house honi. Devastating. Cherishing every second that we have with them while they're here. Should we depart on our haller? Should we mount a howler? let's do it

I will say Sabine is like remarkably poised Sabine is so composed in this exchange with Thrawn and very like reminiscent and I'll just stick with the baseball

comps reliever brought in bases are loaded nobody's out and the biggest powerhead around the other team is up and she's like bottom of the what

Where's my ride? Bottom of the what? Well, let's say it's here. I think we're in... We're in the bottom of the eighth. You'd be inclined to say like bottom of the ninth, the classic stage situation. No, I would say high leverage.

It's the analytics era. Yeah. The bottom of the ninth isn't always the highest lever situation. Seventh would work too. Seventh would work too. Very, very soothing. You know, you're heading into a wasteland. The nomads try to kill each other all the time.

die well. DiWal. Pep Talk from Enoch. Coach Eric Taylor, he is not. Clear eyes, full hearts, die well. Die well. Did this strike you

is an incredibly Throne-Zian image when Sabine is mounted, poised to leave, and this looks like when John is waiting to ride out from Castle Black and from the wall,

beyond the wall? Not only John, but like the very opening of Thrones. Yeah. Yeah, it does look like Nice Watch, we're ready to head out. Are the Nody the Free Folk in that case? No, you never fucked a bear.

Oh, Sheila. Eagrit, saying that to tormentious historic. It's great stuff. Yeah, no, it's a hero's journey out. It looks like Prince Philip leaving Maleficent's castle. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's a very heroic framing. The howlers look great.

It's my understanding that this is some like puppetry on top of horses plus CG, and I think the whole combined effect is fantastic. Wonderful stuff. I have some notes coming for Sabine on her behavior with our new sweet boba here in a bit, but the look of the howler was just incredible. I would like to ask your opinion on Theron revealing his plan. to bailin and chin, follow her, honor your word, let her find and reunite with Ezra,

and then kill them both. Throw them a later, say to Morgan. It doesn't matter if they kill them or they get stranded. Doesn't matter if your mercenaries make it back either. Our primary objective is to get out of here. What happens to them is of no consequence. But from the Baylon perspective, he didn't just say to Sabine,

come with me and you'll find him. He literally said to her, no harm will come to you. And we know, because he went out of his way, say like unlike her master, I intend to keep my word. I'm going to keep the promise. Yeah. Yeah. That he does not think of himself as a liar.

So, well, I'm hoping. I'm hoping this is a very like snow weight and the huntsman thing that like when he finds her, he's not going to kill her. Yes. Right? Because he wants to teach her. Sure. Or is he just going to roll up to like wherever the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

have set their trailer park and been like, and go like, fuck, fuck, fuck. like with the rest of them about. No, he's, when he gets to meet Ezra crab feeder, he's going to do the full daemon. Prince Drehaal! Prince Ezra! Crabt feeder, remember that? I do.

Remember when we spent the first three weeks to Mouse of the Dragon talking about the crab feeder? What a time that was. Great stuff. And then he does, and Chris is like, that's it? I feel like when the, remember how Chris told us that he like read all the wikies so that he could know what was coming in the season? I feel like it was the crab feeder that broke him.

Like what happened with the crab feeder, he's like, that's it. I will not be fooled again. I must know. I will not be fooled by another gray scale covered sociopath whose canonically infected blood did not turn Damon Targaryen into a stone person. That's just for another podcast. Did we mention we're bringing over the archive? We'll see you in 2024.

Bandits attack Sabine and the howler uses the Mando gadgetry at first the weapons, grappling hooks, blasters, etc., and then brings out the lightsaber embracing all aspects of herself. What did you think? I thought it was great. I thought they looked fantastic.

Like their samurai inspired, obviously, armor. I thought that looked really cool. One instance where I'm not anti-helmet. Yeah. I mean, we like seeing a character except all sides of themselves. Yes, absolutely. This is the message of last week, Asoka wrapping herself around the concept of both Anakin and Darth Vader, right?

She seemed increasingly comfortable with that saber. I'm wondering if she's going to offer it back to Ezra if you will reject it. Definitely. A little John offering long claw to Jora. And he's like, don't worry, I made my own. And he's like, did you offer it to Leano? Did you? He's like, don't worry. I made one out of turtle shells. Crabshells. Crab shells. Crabshell Saber. Have you heard of it.

Crabbshell Saber is what we were talking about earlier. That's what that movie's called. Steve's not even giving us the bad babies anymore. He's given up on us today. Burn him out. Yeah. This is the stretch where we get the during this exile, our numbers have dwindled. So no, two squads will suffice refusal from Thron to heed Morgan's suggestion to maybe send more troops. Again, we'll come back to the Are They the Army of the Dead and Theory Corner? Anything you want to say on this here in this context?

Well, I guess my question is the idea that if like Maruk, if you bust open the Katsugi shell and the gas emerges, you can't regass it? Because to me, to me this seems like during our, this XR our numbers have dwindle. like, I mean, is the answer, they're all gas bags in that uniform. So, like, he lost every single one of his men, and it's just him and a bunch of bags of gas. Okay. But then who's in the coffin? And if in the coffin, sorry, I know I said I'd say this with Theory Corner, but, like, if in the coffin, it's not other troopers, it's knight sisters and brothers.

Yeah. Are we waiting to raise them back? them, but why aren't they resurrecting them? Does it seem more efficient to travel with them on their own to resurrected feet? Maybe something here is too great of a threat to them. And that's why there's that like exchange about why, you know, do they want to flee this power? And it's like a power too great for them, right? So maybe they don't.

I just kind of feel like, I kind of feel like if my men were made of gas, I would send them everywhere because they're not actually human. Honestly, this is a great note. I'd be like, take 20 gas bags. I don't care. Oh, man. It's a great point. It's a great point. I wonder if Theron is remotely as attached to gasbag Enoch as to prior human Enoch.

Great point. Joanna. Yeah. This is where I have my note for Sabine. Because our sweet howler, when the, the blasterfire initially came in, he bounced. He was scared. I would have been two. And then he makes his way back.

And he's apologetic. and he's working through a lot of feelings. And Sabine says, you abandoned me, should have known you were a coward. I stuck with Sabine Wren through handing that StarMap to Bailen's School. You're like, and this is how you were baby? This tested me in a way that candidly that did not.

I was like, frankly, how dare you? This was so cute because the Haller doesn't want to go. She points, he turns away, comes back, and then she agrees to give him another chance. I just thought this was so precious. What a great creature. And he catches the same. She thinks initially it's just

like you were thirsty, you wanted water. But then he starts nosing and licking or lock. Real like the camouflage of an elven cloak work from these shells. It's a rock you're embarrassing yourself, Sabine says. Add this to the list of characters

who are wrong about things in this episode. Sabine. The Haler did not embarrass himself. He was right. A sweet little note he pops. up and says, what's up bad babies? So cute. I love these little fellas.

Okay. On this September 22nd, Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, I would just like to note that one of our listeners, Keegan has named this character, Bilbo Cravens, which... I have no notes. No notes. Also, I do want to note, I do want to note,

Bilbo Cravens, I do want to note, that on his little vest, Yeah. He has little fasteners. Yeah. Like button like fasteners. And there's this whole history of like no, there are some buttons in Star Wars. But there's supposed to be like no buttons in Star Wars.

It's a whole thing that like Lucas had. So like that's why, for example, if you were like, why does Assoca's beautiful, woven white poncho seem like it's fastened with Velcro? Blame George Lucas because he wanted everything fastened without buttons. Again, there are a few buttons did sneak. past George. But this is mandate. But I love, we're in a different galaxy now, baby. We have buttons here. They seem to be made of teeth. And that's cool. But welcome to Star Wars buttons. This is why people are here. Two and a half hours into this spot. I love it. Google buttons in

Star Wars. I'm not making this up. I know you're not. You know who told me about this? I mean, I know it's the thing that people know. I'm not the first talk about it. But like, actually, it was at the rogue one junk at Riz Ahmed was like, oh yeah, because there's no, there's no buttons in Star Wars. And I was like, what do you mean? There's no buttons in Star Wars. And he was like, Joanna, there's no, well, he doesn't know my name. Random person who's interviewing me.

There's no buttons in Star Wars. And I had this whole moment. Anyway. Incredible. But, you know, it's a cool way to give your, a subtle way to give your property an otherworldly kind of look. Anyway. Yes.

the buttons are not the only thing present. This sweet little nody has a Rebel Alliance sigil pendant and spots this crest on Sabine's paldron and is very excited, very animated, and Sabine correctly deduces that they must have gotten that. From Ezra, know where Ezra is, a handful of other sweet little notie pop up. You want to come to our village.

Guess what they do. But before we see Hot-bearded Ezra, We get the Boken Jedi conversation. Bailen and Shinn are on their trail. Come across the bandit slaughter site. I liked the way that Shin phrased her question about whether Bailen knows Ezra as does you know, the one she seeks so desperately. That's great.

Bridger? No, he's too young. Comes from a breed of Bokin Jedi trained in the wild after the temple fell. Like me? No. He was trained as a Jedi. you, I trained to be something more. Oh, what's that?

I'm invested. I know. This is really good. And this is new. I mean, this is like a new terminology. It's a new way of thinking of the post-order 66 characters who increasingly come into the story. What does you make of this?

First of all, let's talk about what that, again, that term, Bokin means, that idea of, like, the training sword, the wooden sword. Bailin thinking of this entire group as trainees, as all the different Ilken caliber. And less than. And less than while simultaneously positioning Shin, a person he is training in this same era, as more than. And that kind of classic Asoka, I am no Jedi. Did Boken Jedi make you think of Hedge Knight?

I don't know. It's just like similar sort of vibe. Yes. Yeah. To go back to John's email titled, When Evil Masterminds Overlook, the Quality is a Little Focused Out Hearts. It seems like a big mistake. Anyway, everyone is wrong about everything.

It seems like a big mistake for Baylon to brush Ezra off as a boken Jedi, right? Our listener, Leslie wrote in to say, a bocun sword is still deadly and capable hands. This brings to mind the legendary story of Miyamoto Musashi's duel with Sasaki Kojiro. Musashi defeated Kojiro by using a Boken that he carved from an oar on the way to the duel because he overslept, dare I say, relatable. Musashi is all over manga and movies and video games and such. I think his legend is particularly relevant here, not just for the Boken victory, but also because Musashi was a Ronan slash wanderer, renowned for his use of dual blades. Is that Assocato's music?

What does Bailen think gives him and Shin legitimacy or superiority? over the Boken Jedi trained in the wild and embrace the dark side, cynicism for the Jedi order, a more holistic view of the force through an understanding of the rise and fall of repeat balance that Mallory hates. I can't wait to see where Balin's DeNaris I'm going to break the wheel quest leads. Yeah. I love this. And I think that's, to that, like, what makes his method superior thing, I think that I do think

that's really interesting because, again, there's this, like much like we've talked about with Balin and Asoka as characters who could have been a lot. had the circumstances been different. Yeah. Ezra in, now was Ezra trained by a former Jedi Paduan? Yes, but Canaan never completed his training. Canaan carried regret and remorse and fear and his entire arc as a master is struggling every day about what aspects of the past and the Jedi Order to embrace and what new

Pat he and Ezra need to forge together. That is, like, definitionally what Asoka's arc is. So he's making a mistake and presuming that every person who's being trained post-order 66 is trying to pass along this thing that they all think failed them or that some of them think failed them. It's not the case. And so, like, he's issuing this diminishment where if things were a little bit different, he might look at Ezra and see these same aspects as something to praise.

I think that's fascinating. It is fascinating. Oh, man. I'm really upset that we only have a few more episodes with Ray Stevenson is Bailin. Absolutely tremendous performance. Tremendous. Joanne, let's talk about The Last Jedi for a minute. Please.

Shin asks if Bailen misses the order and he says, I miss the idea of it, but not the truth, the weakness. There was no future there. We both thought of the exact same moment from prior Star Wars installment. Please share with us what it was. Luke says to Ray. Lesson two, now that they're extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified.

I love the way that Mark Campbell says that. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris. Then he goes on in that speech to talk about how he thought he could train Ben, my nephew with that mighty skywark. blood. In my hubris,

I thought I could train him, that I could pass on my strength. It was me. I failed because I was Luke Skywalker, Jedi master, a legend. And I just like this idea of like legends and truths

and stories. And Star Wars starts with Obi-Wan Kenobi telling Luke a story that is true from a certain point of view about his father. The story of Anakin Skywalker has passed into legend, right?

or when Ray goes looking for Luke Skywalker, he has passed into legend. And these stories, we have the joy of getting to experience these, whether or not their Freddie Prince Junior's cycle or not, these trilogies over and over again throughout our lifetimes. You know, like when I was born, there was just the original trilogy and then came the prequel trilogy and then comes a sequel trilogy. And all of a sudden, these things that are presented to us as like, this is the story, then becomes that was the story.

The Hobbit, the journey of Bilbo Baggins becomes that was the story to Frodo as he sets out on his adventure. And I think that, like, there was a doctor who quote came up. I did lie. A doctor who quote came up to me where a Matt Smith's doctor 11

says, we're all stories in the end, just make it a good one, right? And then a listener, Tim said in this quote from the 12th doctor, who you have not gotten to enjoy yet, But he says, stories are where memories go when this is like to the old road to Avalon. It depends on your own will and your own thoughts, whether the road will take you. And so perhaps the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury and the road to Avalon lost forever in the mists of the summer sea.

I just, I love this idea of like, we become stories. But this goes back to what you were saying about old man, our fave. like I think it is stories have value stories have meaning stories however they are become embellished always have to like it's the pearl that forms around the grit of sand inside the oyster the grit of sand is the truth and then this pearl grows around it but you have to start with that grain of truth before you get there and I just I just like love the way that we all value story how very, Faloni value stories and myth and legend and how he's actively engaging with that in this Tolkienian, or I don't want to spoil your word that you're going to drop on us later,

but like exploration of this ruined landscape of above a bygone civilization and a character who was both afraid of myth and legend and story and drawn to some element of it because he's seeking some power, you know? I love the grain of Sam Pearl Point. That is beautifully put. And you feel that when we hear Baylon talk about this poll, and we think about that dissonance we were discussing earlier and how do we reconcile his rebuke or lack of consideration

for a thing with this now very tangible quest. And this search for the grain of sand. sand, that's what he's trying to seek, is like, what was the heart of this? What was the truth? What is the origin? What is the truth inside of the folk tale? That's a really helpful way to think about it. Steve, can we hear this, this baling quote as we, uh, so we chat about this?

In this wasteland? I see what once was the great witch kingdom of the Dathmiri. Existence of the great mothers confirms this. I'm eager to leave this place. Maybe we should too. perhaps they flee a power greater than their own something calls to me

something stirs here can't you see it this is just an incredible performance this is an all like instant all time character but both of them I mean obviously Bainland is just like

this is just sensational uh which kingdom I mean the you don't get it rings than that, Joe? Ringsie, you say?

Ringsie? You're allowing, this is so this official update to the house of our Ringsie. Contract, which is you are allowing Ringsie. Yeah. Loder no more. Loder no more.

Ringsie forever. Yeah. Ringsie forever. Clear eyes, full hearts. Die well, Ringsie forever. Yeah, Ringsie in. Something called... We've talked a lot about this idea

of power greater than their own and the Knights Sisters and fleeing and seeking. Something calls to me, can't you hear it? Something stirs here. Can't you see it? I mentioned the Dweller in darkness earlier.

This is just like, this feels very akin to when we're hearing the call of his dead wife and thinking, breaching that divide would be restoring the person he loved and had lost rather than unleashing a new evil

into the world. I can make a buffy comp also, but it seems like a spoiler to me, and someday I'm going to make you watch it. Okay. I mean, we'll skip it. But I love that you're talking about Shang-chi in the Year of Our Lord 2023.

I feel like we don't do that enough. That's a great movie. A great movie. Shin sees some bandits. And I had to pause and take a moment to say, is she seeing bandits or she's seeing the Knight King and White Walkers perched on horseback at top? cliff at Hardhome because this is again such a like, such a clear visual comp. And of course,

when we see that shot in Hardholm, we think of like the horseman of the apocalypse. So this is just all, but pretends plenty. Much, much ringsy, such thronesy. So good. For folks who don't know who aren't like as deep into rings as perpetual rewatchers and rereaders, Mallory and I are, there is like the head of the of the Nazgal the creepy ring race is called the witch king of Angmar. So to say the witch kingdom of Dathamir. You just don't put that in here unless you're intentionally. You just simply don't. Yep.

Much as you do not have a soak of migrate from a gray cloak into a white one unless you're. Oh boy. Man, I can't wait to do my rings rewatch this year. Simply cannot wait. Joe, it's time to talk about Ez. We talked about a lot in this scene already. We actually might not have like that much new to say here. But let's hear this moment between Ezra and Sabine when she has made her way to the charming little village.

It's reminded me a lot, even though the creatures look different of the Lerman in Clone Wars and their like little seed pod, passivist hideaway. Yeah. Steve, can we hear this? I knew I could count on you. No. it took you long now well you didn't exactly tell any of us where you were going

that's because I didn't know where I was going typical always a plan never a good one hey it worked didn't it didn't it I would like to talk about the absolute despair of that second didn't it

and needing to think about Ezra alone with his crab pals for more than a decade wondering if the sacrifice he had made had actually borne fruit and achieved what he saw it. But I do need, I have to tell you something. I almost texted you as Steve last night. I was like, I'm just going to reveal this on the pod. I just need you know before you hit me with this.

And I'm so excited to hear it that you have now forever tainted the phrase alone with his crab pals. Like, doing what? I mean, you got to fill the time somehow, you know, as long as they're into it. No judgment here. It's not just filling the time, if you know what I mean. All right. Wow. Okay. So that count on you, right? That count on you callback. Of course, we're thinking of his rebels, hollow farewell, the hollow, the extra hollow message that he had left to Sabine in episode one of Osoka. Sabine's epilogue farewell in rebels where she talks about what Ezra was counting on her to do. Protects with all note, right, this new quest. I wanted to get the exact quote from episode one of this other message. she had left her. And I went into our Google

doc and I was searching, counting on you. Like, Control F, counting you. Couldn't find it. I was like, why can I not find this? I knew this was in this episode. I know this was in here. So I was just scrolling. And I just spotted the quote. I don't know if it's a Freudian slip for one. I had typed coming on you instead of counting on you. And if you go in the Google Doc, you'll see it there.

So it's just like preserved in the history of it. And no one noticed. You makes a few typos ever that I just don't even like look for them because I just assume you're perfect in every way. It's like, wow. That's a thing I wrote in a Google talk. I knew I, I'm coming on you, Sabine. It's so much sense. Yeah, and now I won't be there to help you. But I'm coming on you to see this through.

May the horse me. I'm coming on you to see this through. Great. Oh, God. Joanna, what else would you like to say about being back with Ezra, this reunion, seeing Ezra again, the wardrobe, the beard, the hair, perhaps the contact lenses, which we have a note about. We could do contact lens corner here because I actually have a rebuttal to this. So I put it down into wig watch, TM, but we'll move up here. contact

contact watch TM with Matt TM for our listener Matt. And he says, we have to talk about the contact lenses used by the actors this week. Throns looks a little too much like he was hanging out in the dorm room with Cheech and Chong poster

on the door, if you catch my drift. But the real problems are the ones used by Imanus Fandi. Up until he showed up, I thought Enoch was the most unnerving thing to ever grace a Star War. But those blue contacts really look so unnatural. I get it that cartoon Ezra had blue eyes.

But maybe take a page of the Harry Potter playbook and dish the canonical accurate color and live action when it looks so wrong. I, with love and respect to Matt, because I embrace the spirit of this, wildly disagree. Yeah. Contacts look great. I think for all the notes I had about the Thron thing, no, 10 out of 10 no notes on Ezra and his like, soda can't pull tab mythreal and like everything that he's wearing, he looks like. Again, if Thron is a god king, despot, whatever, like, this is our John the Baptist in the wilderness type of Messiah, right? And the blue eyes to me gave me Paul Atreides. Like, that's what it, you know, spicy, spicy blue eyes.

And it's a very duney episode in a lot of ways. And that was... Maudeb. Maldib, got the ill communication. Yeah, I think Aser looks great. Is that a story that has anything on its mind in terms of the role of prophecy and destiny and choice? And riding magical creatures and maybe not being chosen by those magical creatures worthy to ride them anymore? Yeah, I think as, I mean, I did want like a little bit more tears, excitement, let's go fuck, whatever the case may be.

from Ezra and Sabine, but I think this casting's great. I really like him. As many, many people pointed out, the design makes him look like the image of his father that shows up in the Rebel's cartoon.

Like, he looks like Azra's father. And I just, I think he looks great. I think he looks phenomenal. Fantastic. And both you and Steve texted me. Ezra's hot. Like, Steve was live texting. texting me. I believe Steve said something, nothing matters now. Ezra is hot or something like

that. Great stuff from Steve. And you sent me almost the same thing, word for word. And I said, and I'll stand by it, that Ezra speaking, crab is hot. Because I love a polyglot. So, you know, yeah, Ezra, great stuff. No nuts. Wonderful. He has, quote, so many questions, as he should. And Sabina's not ready to answer them, as we have discussed. Ezra's willing to be patient. I'm anticipating this conversation next week, next episode. And what will Ezra think about this? I'm so curious to see how he responds to what he learns

because I think a huge part of his evolution has been about finding grace in his heart for other people. Will that be more dominant or will his desire to forgive and understand stability? Bean being motivated by the same thing that he was motivated by, which is protecting people you love, or will he say, my sacrifice is now undone? That would be disappointing. I hope that's, I hope it's not the last one of those. I don't think it will be. I don't think it will be. And hopefully that will be a breakthrough for Sabine when she receives his, his grace in that moment. We'll see. The notie are, you know, Hobbit-coated. Yes. Harfoot's here, though. Very hard-footy.

specifically Harfoot-coated. If you did not watch rings of power or you're not a Tolkien scholar, Harfoots are a predecessor to Hobbits who are nomadic. Do you think they sin wandering day? Yeah. As they travel? As they pack up camp and go?

In their crabbling language. Yeah, I do. Love these little space crabs. Love their little homes that, like, definitely, like, their little trailers have, like, radial antenna on, like, it looks like a little trailer. park. Definitely.

But make it Star War. So precious. Absolutely wonderful. Like the little baby in the hammock. I did see, because they sound, there's a little coup and like, there's a bit of a Grogu sound effect. And then I saw the little baby in the hammock and I was like, Grogu would want to eat that, would want to eat that baby.

Well, Grogu would have to break his little teeth on the shell. What do you not? I think you'd just scoop out the, oh. Miss that little gum. drop. Joe, Ezra says Sabine, thanks for coming. I'm sorry, you were in the midst of saying scoop, scoop the baby's body out of the shell. And then you're like, oh, miss you.

We're working through a lot today, you know? Ezra, thanks Sabine for coming. I assume that they will say that to each other again later after they have some more private. Bad baby. Bad baby. Bad baby. Oh, man. He's like, wow. Thank you. I can't believe I pulled that off.

Did you say pull that off? I haven't pulled you off. Oh, yeah. That was for the UK audience. All right. And then he says, I can't wait to go home. And this just like melted my heart. It really did.

Really did. There are two kinds of personalities in the world. One personality is if you get stranded on a bone planet, you create an army of gas bag zealids. And the other personality is you settle down in the trailer park with some jolly old space crabs. Which kind are you? Oh, man. I think I'm Team Ezra here, for sure.

What about you? Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. There was a Thrawn-esque beat of hesitation there before you answered. I was trying to make some sort of Bone Planet joke, but I couldn't get there. It was different. When as soon as you said, Bone Planet,

I was thinking of Ezran Sabine fucking through the night. Yeah, I was with you. You didn't have to say it. We all knew. Welcome to Bone Town. All right. Last scene of the episode, Joe.

Yeah. Not the last segment of the pie, the last scene of the episode. We're calling this, I started hearing whispers of So Gantano's return as heir to the Jedi. Back of the ship,

the Great Mother's Telfthron, We have an update for you. The threat of fate has spoken to us. Another comes a Jedi. They ride the travelers. Thrawn is like, this is unwelcome news. And he has some feedback for Morgan on her certainty that Osoko was dead.

Great and very scintillating line here. I thought it was beyond you to underestimate a Jedi. After all, death and resurrection are common deceptions played out by both Knight's Sister and Jedi. This made me think about our Theory Corner today. but also a lot of what you were sharing last week about this question of like Asoka and Gandalf passing through death, right?

But I thought it was beyond you to underestimate a Jedi. Meanwhile, Thron's like Ezra, don't worry about it. Sabine or he's a Jedi, don't worry about it. Yeah. Physician, he'll say, yeah, he doesn't take answer seriously despite having lost. This is a wild thing. I'm fascinated to learn more about this.

When, I mean, on this very note, when Morgan says Baylon assured me of her death, what is the answer's response? He says, and yet he was once a Jedi. So we must regard him as flawed. He is incredibly nervous about Asoko's arrival

while dismissing Jedi, their power, and tutelage overall. Fascinating brew of emotions and feelings here. Very interesting that he asks for basically her full CV. Background, history, homeworld, her master, everything. He orders some to destroy approaching

Pergall with prejudice, which was very upsetting. I don't want any more Pergill to die. But this is a moment that sparks in our memory that Asoka exits rebels at the end of season two and Thrawn arrives at the beginning of season three and they did not overlap. This was like a helpful reminder of that. That said,

Thrawn has a lot of history with Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. And as we chat about with Ben on another episode about another Star Wars show, he's actually one of very few people, who's able to deduce that Vader is Anakin. That's how well he knows them both and how much time he spends with him both.

So when he learns that Anakin was Asokos master, like, what is he going to do with this information? The fact that Thron was able to deduce that Vader was Anakin and when no one else could figure it out just makes you really wish we could see Thron walk into the Daily Planet and be like, Why is Supermaring glasses? Are you trying to pull?

Yeah, I'm really excited to see the conversations he has with Assook about Anakin. I think we're going to get more Hayden in some form. What do you think? I guess maybe I could do one episode with Hayden. But like, I don't know. That would be great. I'm not sure. I mean, me too.

Me too. That would be wonderful. We're going to get more dark magic. We know that because he says, Great Mother's, they shall once again require the aid of your dark magic and they reply the threat of destiny demands it, Grand Admiral.

Once again. So we know that he had them use the pathway to contact Morgan. It could be just that. Is it something with the troopers? What else has he been tapping into the dark magic for? Inflate these troopersuits with gas? I've got some hollowed shells.

I have such... Let's wrap some Knight Sister bandages around them and fill them with gas. We're not going to see it. But you know how Pearls love to eat gas? Wouldn't they just love a crunchy little snack of gas on storm troopers? Like to just like bite down on the crunch of the shell and then just this nice like a gusher. I was just going to say like a gusher. Dude, I loved gusers.

I was a kid. And then the gas will just like... Explode into their little pergill mouths. I want this for them. I don't think they're going to get them. But if it were me, if I were in charge, I would feed those gassy troopers to the pergul. I was going to say it's been a very pro-creature season.

And then I remembered that we're still waiting for word on sweep-up of the loath cat. So who can say. We talked about the episode. We did it. We're at the three-hour mark. It's time to talk to Ben about the night sisters. The night sister. Ben, that's time.

Ben. Can wait, can I ask Ben a question? Sure. Not that we're running along in time. You know how I started calling you this new name in my head and I haven't tried it out on you? So I just want to see. You know, like how they called Charles Lindberg, Lindy? Like, do you like Lindy?

Do you like Lindy, do you hate Lindy? I have been called Lindy Bear, Lindberg baby. Yeah. I've heard them all. I'll probably leave off the bear and the baby and just stick with like Lindy, like the Lindy hop. I think that would be best. My new thing. I like Lindy bear.

I've always been partial little I think that would be best. That's my favorite. Yeah. Ben is also very good. Very good. Great stuff. Ben,

welcome to the party, man. Thank you. We've been ranger for three hours. I'm shocked. We would like to chat with you today about the night sisters. The Dathamiri, a magic. Tell us everything we need to know. I will.

And in fact, it is nighttime now where I am. at least since you have been recording for quite some time. So that makes you the Knight Sisters, at least in the Eastern Time Zone. There we go. That's always been my head canon name for this podcast. Nothing against House of Ard. We had a lot of Knight Sisters. And Bloodsisters adjacent recommendations in the early days.

Well, working title. We'll see. All right. For the second lore segment in a row, we're actually going back to Dave Wolverton's 1994 novel, The Courtship of Princess Leia, suddenly relevant. Last time, it was for the origin of psychometry, Asoka's echo-sensing power. And this time, we're going back to courtship because that's where Dathimir and the Knight's sisters started.

Wolverton wanted to add some powerful female characters to Star Wars, so he came up with witches. They then joined the current canon in the third season of the Clone Wars, went on to be in a bunch of episodes of that show and also played a prominent part in Jedi Fallen Order, among many other books and comics. In courtship, they were supposedly descended from a Jedi who was exiled to Dathimir, but their origins in the current canon are pretty murky, which is convenient because it means this new Pridia origin story doesn't require any retconning, so that's great. At this point, it seems the Knight Sisters or their ancestors hitched a ride from Pridia on the Pergul,

and settled down on Dathamere, why we don't know. Maybe they were whale riding for fun. Maybe they were exploring. Maybe they were fleeing from something. But maybe their extra galactic origins explain why their force powers are so strange, because the Night Sisters are the most famous of the force users aside from the Jedi or Sith, though technically what they wield is magic, magic with a K at the end after the sea, which is an aspect of the force.

that sort of spans the light and dark sides. So the way they describe it, it more or less sounds like the force in that it emanates from living things. But it also emanates from this substance in the depths of Dathamere, a greenish mist that makes them more powerful when they're on the planet. So they can ride rancors. They can transform people into ghostly apparitions. And they can bring back the dead. Shout out to Moroc. Their powers are definitely dark.

side adjase, but the way they tap into them keeps them from being corrupted, Sith-style, and wanting to take over the galaxy. So that's good. It's definitely a pathway to many abilities, some consider to be unnatural, but they don't have to let the hate flow through them to get anything done. And maybe that's why they get along so well with Ron. They can all just be sinister together without losing their temper. They don't get along so well with Jedi or Sith or anyone in between, as we saw in the scene where Sabine gets imprisoned. You have a few different flavors of force users there, and you might expect someone to say, hey, we're all at least a little force sensitive here. Can't we all get along? Obviously not. As their name suggests, the

Knights Sisters have a matriarchal society, and their leaders are called Mother, though there are male members, naturally Knight Brothers, who serve the Knight Sisters. The Knight's leader during the Clone Warriors era was Mother Talzin, who was Darth Mal's mom, Mama Mall. And Dathamarians, yeah, Dathamarians or Dathamarian Zabrax are kind of confusing because the men and women look a lot different. You have the Dathamurian women who look like the great mothers from Asoka or Asage Ventrish from the Clone Wars or Marin from the Jedi games, very pale, like me, some tattoos, unlike me. And then the dudes...

Still tracking for me. The dudes, though, look like Maul with the headhorns and the dark skin and the stripes and tattoos. And then to make matters more confusing, Morgan Elspeth is human.

So you don't have to be Dathamerian to be a knight sister. Anyway, Mother Talzin was sort of in league with Darth Sidious, which never really ends well for anyone. And eventually he betrayed her and took Maul to train

as his apprentice. Later, Assange Ventris was apprenticed to Count Duku, but she became powerful enough that Sidious was like, Count, need I remind you of the rule of two. A second Sith Lord is company, three's a crowd. So Duku betrayed Ventris, who went back to Dathimir to ask the knight sisters

to help her get revenge. So now Duku and Sidious have both had enough of these witches, which is bad news for the knight sisters. Duku sends General Grievous to destroy them. He wipes almost all of them. out. Towson and Ventris live for a while, but later, Grievous kills Talsun after she restores her son to his metal-legged form. And Duku kills Ventris, which leaves only a handful of survivors, or so we thought, until we met the mothers this week. And now who knows, if you'd had me on to

talk about the Knights Sisters a week ago, I would have been all wrong about their origins. So I'm glad we waited. This is what's exciting, right? We have a lot. We have a lot of this like deep connection to a lot of prior story, but all of these new possibilities, new things that we've already learned, new places we might go. And we're going to go right into our next segment to talk about some of those new places we might go because the Knights Sisters are inextricable from Theory Corner this week. This is the way. This is the way. We want to talk about whether the night troopers are an army of the dead reanimated by the Knights Sisters. We want to talk about why nobody can leave this place. We want to talk about what

this beginning and power greater than their own is that Baylon is searching for and the great mothers are fleeing. We've been talking about this a lot as we go today, Ben. Give us your quick stance on all of those theories. Okay. Yes, I think that the night troopers are dead, or at least some of them are. I don't know about Enoch, but... Interesting. Interesting. That's what I'm saying. Take the helmet off. Yeah. Show me the West's face. Do you think that's why he has the space? special masks so that like everyone knows this whole living being and not just a move of gas underneath.

It's safe to remove this mask. Yeah. Why would you cast West Chatham if he was just going to be a green cloud under there, right? That's what I said. This is what Joe was saying. But my, I don't disagree, but my counter is like they have had so many amazing performers cast and stars and we never see their face. That's true.

She mentioned her reality. Wendley Christy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel Craig, right? But the princes. Yeah, I mean, also, I guess did you go over the biblical roots of Enoch and the fact that there's...

Yeah, but you love the Bible. Oh, yeah. Big, big Bible guy over here. Lindy loves his Bible. Yeah, yeah. Lindy bear loves the Bible. Casting my mind back to Sunday school, which I never attended. No, I, from my reading, I gather that Enoch,

Okay, Connor Roy. Just bypassed death. He did not pass go. He skipped straight to heaven, right? So maybe that would suggest that he has not died yet if that's an intentional name, which you would think it would be. Follone's intentional about a lot of things. And Enoch is not a common name. But could it also account for like a life in another form?

Maybe. Not really dead if you get to continue. A gase is like. Right. Gas poppin of the Ninth Sisters? Could be. I don't know. Can't rule that out.

But yeah, I'm going to go with. I don't know what the creator's views on souls and, like, you know, chemistry and different states are, but. Yeah, plasma, is that still? Here's my question for you, Ben. If they resurrected all these troopers as bags of gas in their gold-veined shells, who's in the coffins? And if in the coffins are other knights-sitters and brothers, why wouldn't they just resurrect them there on the planet

and have them walk themselves onto the ship rather than float them on in coffins? That's a great question. There are chants involved with the resurrections and talismans. I don't know whether you need to have a corpse somewhere too. Maybe they need to carry the corpses around in order to project the gas clouds. that's one possible theory.

Oh. Yeah, like you can't separate the clouds from their original vessel, perhaps. So where's Marouc? Great question. Moldering somewhere on Citos, basically. Just a rotting corpse somewhere in the woods. Yeah, they're just carrying around his bones like a relic somewhere. That's such a cumbersome gas bag army if you're.

have to like for every gassy, truth really women the utility. Yeah. Or maybe they're spares. They haven't yet been converted into green gas form. So he's just holding them in reserve. I guess the question is if they are all dead, why? What happened to them?

Is it the dark something that's stirring on this planet? It doesn't seem like it would be the nomads, the bandits. I don't know that they're capable of killing all. of these guys, although I guess it's been a while, so maybe they've had time to pick them off. Or maybe Thron did something really ruthless, and he said, hey, we can save on provisions and rations here if everyone's just green gas. Gas? Because it does look like he's been eating well, so possibly he's decided.

What if he had to make a trade? Like, the, the Knights Sisters would help. I don't actually think this is true. I just to be clear, but like the Knights Sisters would help him and would use his magic to establish contact, but he had to give them his army. Because, like, even the way he says shall begin, that tells him to begin the transfer, as per my agreement with the great mothers, like, they're the ones who want the cargo, not him.

And that seems to that. And that's why it seems like they're knights sisters and brothers in the boxes, possibly. If, as we expect, Asoka and Sabine and possibly Ezra with his crab shell saber that he has crafted for himself, if they are going to go up against gas troopers, is it going to be like the best game of like, is it cake?

Like you cut into a trooper and it's like, is it gas? Or is it that a person? This one's gas. Mine's gas. They're all gas. You know what I mean? And then Enoch's like,

guess who motherfucker? I don't know. Anyway, we're ready to show now for gas. Do they need to do the Kinsugi style filling in of the cracks? because if they don't fill in the cracks, they'll just leak out gradually. Yeah.

Is that what we'll have? Yeah. And it does seem like the, we talked about this earlier, but like that the choice to have the red Knight sister cloth around them is like linking them to their magic in some way, right? With that little visual.

Maybe there's just a lot of red cloth around. It could be as simple as that. Yeah. And where are they called night troopers? If there's no connection here, I'm a night trooper. Yeah. I'm nocturnal.

But I don't know that that's their deal. It seems like. Yeah, there are night troopers because the knight sisters reanimated them to be an army of gas-agged. Certainly seems likely, yes. Great show that I'm really having fun with week to week. Ben, what about the power? It's easy power.

Yeah. The beginning that Baylon is seeking. This power greater than their own idea that he frames around the knight sister's fear. What do you, is this the origin of the force? Is this a dweller in darkness style deception? someone or something waiting for Baylon or someone to loose it into the world. What do you think this is somehow Snoke returned?

Yeah, I don't know. This is very intriguing. I have a few theories and possibilities here. So there is a passage in a book called Aftermath Empire's End. And this is... I have this very passage in front of me. Of course, I read it too. Likewise, guys.

What do you need me for? Thanks for bringing me on anyway. But this talks about how Halpy is sensing something, something that's calling to him in the unknown regions, to be fair, not in another galaxy. But maybe his radar is not so precise. So it says the emperor was convinced that something waited for him out there. Some origin of the force, some dark presence formed of malevolent substance. He said he could feel the waves of it radiating out now that the way was clear. the emperor called it a signal, conveniently one that only he could hear.

Even his greatest enforcer, Vader seemed oblivious to it, and Vader also claimed mastery over the dark force, did he not? So no one's really ever specified, clarified exactly what this was referring to. I think people have retrospectively assumed that maybe this was exigal that he was sensing here. But I guess we could now retcon it into maybe he's sensing whatever Baylor. is sensing here potentially. But I think there are a few possibilities because Baylon says if the old stories are true, maybe that's a meta reference to legend stories. There's always a bit of truth in legends.

Maybe there's something here that Filoni is resurrecting like a night trooper. So I guess it could be. Maybe the most far-fetched possibility that some people have put out there is that this is abeloth, a being known as Abeloth. from the fate of the Jedi books that were published just before Disney decanoninized them. So thanks for completing the series. None of this is canon anymore. But this is connected to the mortis gods, the one, the ones.

So Abeloth is basically like a Lovecraftian, Altrich sort of horror, who started as a servant of the ones and then became mother that goes along with father and daughter and son. son, right? The Mortis Trinity. And mother wants to be immortal like the rest of her mortis family and shows she drinks from some forbidden potion tries to become immortal. She chose unwisely. And it makes her into some horrible, evil distorted being the bringer of chaos called Abeloth. So it could be this, which would make sense because, A, we've got the mother connection. We got great mothers. Here's another mother. We know that Asoka is connected to the mortis gods, that she is a connection to the daughter.

Obviously, Foloni is interested in those beings. I guess one impediment is, this is a pretty big swing with two episodes left in this season. This is one of those where just our knowledge of where we are in the production and how much the live action audience is aware of this. being and how hard it would be to explain all of that makes me think that it's a little unlikely, even though on the surface it seems to make some sense. What if we've been talking about these like Dweller and Darkness kind of comps, we get enough in this season to bolster the theory that an Abilov-like power, works, but we don't actually go all in yet.

So it's like planting the seed. We kind of glimpse, but we don't spend half of one of the final two episodes in building out mythology for something at the end of a story with like a number of compelling characters. Like going all the way down the mind and rings the power to show us a ballrog. Right. Yes. Exactly like that. Yeah.

Yeah, the idea that it's like a critter of some kind, be it a critter is too diminutive, a massive hidden lurking beast of some kind. Just a little. A hulking mass of evil or another force neutral figure like Bendu, et cetera. Yeah, bizarreo bendu. Just an evil bendu. Or maybe it's that creepy critter from the depths, the ruins of Mandelaar that tin runs into. Oh, nice. Yeah.

But, like, I think that a popular theory from the beginning has been that he's, like, seeking the world between worlds or he's seeking the left or a portal to the world between worlds that is or is not on the chimera or whatever. I just, that seems incorrect to me. I don't know why it just does not seem right to me. Like, that, but technically that would be a tremendous amount of power, right? that you could fuck with. And it could also be sort of he thinks that this is going to grant him the power and in fact it's going to bring chaos, right?

That kind of, you know, this will be... This isn't going to go the way you think. And he also says he seeks the beginning, right? Which sounds between worldsie, that he wants to... Timey, timey, whiny all the way back. Right? And prevent the Jedi and Sith from ever being formed

potentially something along those lines. lines. Plus, we've already sort of introduced the concept of the world between worlds in this show. So it would mean a little less exposition potentially. Yeah. It's like the version of gas back. Right. Yeah. We play into this scene. Watch it, watch it bloom. Sure. Okay. Okay. This is sparking a question. Okay. This is really, I'm, I don't, this is, my mind is racing. Okay. So one of the things that Joe and I have been talking about for a long time today is, we won't reopen all this, but like how Thrawn

seems to be making some of the same mistakes again, underestimating some of the same people and this for the same reasons, etc. Now, Thron obviously is in cahoots with the great mothers. It's asking to you third dark magic again, has some sense of what they're doing, but is it possible that he doesn't know

what they are running from? And the reason I ask that is because if part of his plot to escape this exile and return to the other galaxy, if in doing that he is in part responsible, because it was the quest to find him that brought Baylon here and maybe Baylon is the one who unleashes Abilith or an equivalent in the story into the world, the thing that sparked that is that idea of chaos,

like to hear the bringer of chaos label and think about that. Like, I think chaos is one of the most central ideas for how we understand Thrawn's character, right? like certainly the empire is corrupt. No government totally escapes the plague. Certainly it is tyrannical. But quick and utter ruthlessness is necessary when the galaxy is continually threatened by chaos.

That's from the first new canon, Zon-Thron novel. Like this idea of chaos is the true foe to the extent that he is willing to make all of these other decisions and arrangements, what if he's partially responsible for unleashing this kind of chaos? A galaxy destroying one? when that's the whole thing he wants to avoid and protect. Yeah, that could be.

You'd still have to explain who happened to two episodes. But I like that idea of like that chaotic force. Yeah, right. Although I guess when Filoni has talked about the world between worlds, he's talked about that causing chaos if you do try to change something in the past, right? I think he even used that word. So potentially, again, maybe Baylon. But Anne, I think narratively, like I think when he has talked about the limits of the world between worlds,

He's like, I don't want to do the multiverse. Like, I don't want to open this up as a possibility. So I just don't see the idea. I could be so wrong. I'm often wrong about Star Wars theories. But, like, I don't see the idea of Baylon being, like, entering the world between worlds. And, like, the future is we monkey with time or something like that. You know, like it just doesn't seem right to me.

So. What's this show's Ballerog feels way more important. Right. Yeah. Although, if there is some Abeloth, like. being in addition to the difficulty of describing what that is and how that works and what its powers are. We just introduced Thron finally after all that buildup. The big bad is finally here. That's true. That's why we're going to introduce an even bigger bad. It's, uh, okay. I agree with you.

I don't disagree with you. But I what about this as a potential counterpoint? Isn't part of what's compelling about Thron that we, part of the reason we love watching him and reading his stories is that we don't think we're like so complicit. We don't think of him as the villain when we're reading those novels, right? Even though he is objectively the photo. But I mean, this is why so many people, so many of our listeners wrote in saying hashtag, not my Thron. They're like, I'm used to thinking

of Thron as like a Holmesian, you know, like, yeah, he's the villain, but he's so charming and so interested in his, those who may oppose him, that I'm interested in all of his moves. And like, the Thron we meet who's, you know,

letting bags of gas follow him around and chant his name, like, that's just seems like a different, a different guy. But what choice does he have right now? Go live amongst people. Seems lovely. Yeah. There are a couple precedents I just wanted to mention.

So in the second Knights of the Old Republic game, there's a character called Craya, who's one of the most beloved characters from that game and from that series, who has sort of similar goals to Baylon in that she's sort of sick of. sick of the endless cycle of Jedi and Sith. And her goal is essentially to turn off the force to try to find some way to take that ability away from everyone, which is tough because, again, it's in all living things and rocks and trees and everything. So, but that's what she wants to do.

And I don't know whether Baylon, it doesn't seem to me that he's sick of the force necessarily so much as the way that people have used the force and twisted the force and built themselves up and torn themselves down. So I don't know if he wants to sort of turn off the spigot at the source here or whether there would be any way to do that. But that's at least one comp that's come up. And then some people have mentioned maybe this is some sort of alien invader race, the Yuzon Vang or the Grisk or the Zepho, some ancient race here. Again, I don't know. Would that be a malevolence that he would feel? Maybe. But are we really going to introduce a whole invasion of the galaxy while we're trying to explain? the first orders rise and are they going to invade and then be conquered and then disappear and then no one mentions them in the sequel trilogy. It just seems like a lot of pieces to stick in here somehow. So I don't know that I find that convincing. And then I guess the last possibility is that maybe this has some kind of connection to James Mangold's movie, if James Mangold's movie is ever, in fact, made in that it's supposed to be about the dawn of the Jedi and 25,000 years ago and

the fact that we have Hu Yang in this series who dates back to that time, maybe that gives you some kind of continuity. Maybe it turns out that Peridia is some wellspring of the force or at least some aspect of the force. And maybe it's not just the origin of the origin of the origin of every force user. Who knows how deep this goes? I mean, since we mentioned earlier that we've already been to a wellspring of the force, which we thought was the wellspring of the force, but the a wellspring of the voice force in

the Clone Wars. So, yeah, is it possible that this is like its dark counterpart, you know? Because, so, Baylon says, they flee a power greater

than their own, something calls me, can't you hear it? Something stirs here. Can't you see it? So, like, is that a critter? Is it

the nothing? Is it, you know what I mean? Like, is it a gashous something? Like, I don't know. It's really interesting. But,

but I think bottom line, we all agree that with only two episodes left, what we don't want them to do is try to just cram too much into you know, we know that like, this is not the last Asoka story

Faloni wants to tell in live action. We know he wants to do more Thrawn stories. You know, we know that skeleton crew is coming and that's going to intersect somehow. Maybe the malevolent, maybe the power stirring is Jude law in his tremendously dashing code. The skeleton crew is the corpses they're carrying around so that they can have the gas.

bags, night troopers. Putting the skeleton and the skeleton crew. Yeah, I don't know. Theory Corner. What a chaotic. Yeah. Can't wait to find out how wrong we were. Hold it loosely.

Remember when we spent like 45 minutes? I'm wondering if the spies are our hands. I still say it's axe. It still is axe. It's the long con. Oh, boy. All right, Ben. You're the bass.

Thank you. Okay, we've talked about a lot of our Easterags already today. Joe kind of did an in real-time wigwashed a couple crucial moments in the episode. And so that brings us already, too, the Netflix subtitle award. Joe, what is your pick for this episode? An episode that had actually a lot of great subtitles

that were a part of the official episode. We got howl our snarls gently and little nody wimpers. Precious. We almost don't have to make up our own this week. Those were so cute. I got beloved expanse actor stomps and sneers gaseously. We're in the same headspace. I have night troopers move morocally.

Okay. It's our final segment of the pod. We are here to discuss our past. How many days since? See, that's what I like about you, Mando. That big smile of yours lets you get away with anything. Set that clock. Oh, my God.

I go through the same. I go through the same experience every single time. I, like, travel off into space smiling blissfully when I hear Cobbman's voice. And then I, like, my face contorts in, like, joy and tenderness for the Loithcat. Anyway, it has been 590 fucking days since I've seen Cobb Van. Brutal. It's been 31 days since I have seen Sabine's Lothcat, Sweet Bubba. And I feel sure now that we've gotten our howler and our noity that we're not,

we're not seeing sweep up again this season. And I am despondent, frankly. But we do want to offer congratulations to Lauren. Lauren was headed to the segment last week with a count that is over. Lauren had to wait 2,000 in 26 days to be reunited with animated boyfriend, Grand Admiral Throne. So Lauren's corner in this segment has ended. but so has her wash. So.

All right, pals, we were hoping for a room with a view, but we got a three and a half hour podcast instead. Thank you to our favorite force-wielders, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Arjuna Ram Gapal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomi Adanaron for his work on the social for this episode.

Remember, head back into the ringer verse. Next week, Midnight Boys instant reaction to episode seven on Tuesday night. Pugh, Pue, Bue! Mint Edition breakdown of

the Gen V premiere on Friday. Over here, on the House of R, we will be with you twice. Next installment of the Troops course

coming to you Tuesday. And then our episode seven deep dive on Friday. Until then, something calls to us. Can't you hear it?

Goodness. We have a rare Halo podcast appearance because I left the door up and hyperball. You want to come say hi he left he'll be back i know it he'll be back hi bobo you want to oh he left oh my sweet bobo he'll be back i'm sure of it