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World of Warcraft: Rise of the Horde - Part 2 ft. Afterthoughts
5 Plays1 year ago
Oh boy it's time for mooooore WARCRAFT Rise of the Hooooooorde. We are having a good time even though the book is bad.
Sam from Afterthoughts is here!
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Update
00:00:00
Speaker
You know what else could go in many number of directions?
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Pixel It!
00:00:09
Speaker
It's a podcast!
00:00:11
Speaker
It's, we're here!
00:00:12
Speaker
Hey, everybody!
00:00:14
Speaker
Sam's here again.
00:00:17
Speaker
Because Phil had, Phil had babies still.
00:00:20
Speaker
And you think I was only going to give him one week of paternity leave?
00:00:23
Speaker
You're wrong!
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm not, I'm not that kind of meanie.
00:00:29
Speaker
So Phil's going to be
Recap and Book Discussion: 'Rise of the Horde'
00:00:30
Speaker
out for a bit.
00:00:30
Speaker
Sam's here.
00:00:31
Speaker
We're still talking about World of Warcraft.
00:00:35
Speaker
Yeah!
00:00:35
Speaker
He better at least be reading the book.
00:00:38
Speaker
Of the Horde, yeah.
00:00:40
Speaker
He better read it so he can understand what we went through as we read this book.
00:00:50
Speaker
Oh boy, I never know how mean I'm supposed to be.
00:00:54
Speaker
I was having a time reading this book.
00:00:58
Speaker
I was having a tough time too.
00:01:00
Speaker
Because, you know, it just goes places.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:12
Speaker
So if you didn't listen to the first episode for whatever reason, yeah, we're reading World of Warcraft Rise of the Horde.
00:01:20
Speaker
And in the first episode, we talked about a bunch of things, including how to write a character that doesn't actually want to do anything but passively judge everybody.
00:01:33
Speaker
Oh boy, does that get worse.
00:01:37
Speaker
Wow, up until the end, I think I might still be maybe farther than you and wow.
00:01:43
Speaker
Oh no, I've finished the book.
00:01:45
Speaker
I just don't have all my notes written down yet.
00:01:47
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:01:52
Speaker
Right into the end.
00:01:56
Speaker
I feel like there was this little benefit of a doubt voice in my head while I was reading it that was like, we can all use stories about normal people who do horrible things.
00:02:10
Speaker
People who consider themselves to be fine.
00:02:13
Speaker
They're just taking care of their friends and family.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
They're just, you know, they get swept along into these horrible atrocities.
00:02:21
Speaker
Like, we have a need for those stories.
00:02:24
Speaker
But I really had to keep in mind, like,
00:02:28
Speaker
I had to keep that in mind the whole time while trying to empathize with Durotan as the main character because boy oh boy oh boy.
00:02:38
Speaker
He is like he is all time.
00:02:39
Speaker
You know and this might be a hot take but Durotan still would have been tried at Nuremberg.
00:02:49
Speaker
He's a bad person.
00:02:56
Speaker
Still, you know, not it.
00:02:57
Speaker
It still would have been on trial.
00:03:01
Speaker
It's like watching this character around who is just constantly thinking like, oof, I don't know about this.
00:03:10
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:11
Speaker
Oh, I don't know about this.
00:03:12
Speaker
I feel really bad.
00:03:13
Speaker
I feel bad about what's happening here.
00:03:14
Speaker
But he's not just like watching from the sidelines.
00:03:17
Speaker
He's participating.
00:03:18
Speaker
He's carrying his hammer into like pockets of like civilians.
00:03:25
Speaker
Smashing heads in while going, oh man, this isn't right at all.
00:03:29
Speaker
I feel terrible about this.
00:03:31
Speaker
Most of the time.
00:03:34
Speaker
Sometimes I get a little excited though.
00:03:37
Speaker
We left off chapter seven.
00:03:37
Speaker
In chapter seven, they basically...
00:03:53
Speaker
Okay, what happens here in Chapter 7?
00:03:58
Speaker
Drek'thar then manages to gaslight Durotan into believing that the night he stayed with the orcs was a bad thing.
00:04:03
Speaker
All right, we're in Chapter 8 now.
00:04:07
Speaker
Thrall writes something at the beginning of Chapter 8, which is very much along the lines of Thrall's version of the I Have a Dream speech to open the chapter.
00:04:16
Speaker
Very awkward.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then we get an orc training for war montage.
00:04:23
Speaker
Also, like, Thrall should be in, like, heavy disavowal territory.
00:04:32
Speaker
All of his letters should be
00:04:35
Speaker
I aspire to do everything that my dad could not do and did not have the courage to do.
00:04:42
Speaker
But all of his letters are like, golly, I hope I someday grow up to be so brave like my dad.
00:04:47
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:04:49
Speaker
He's like those people who are like, you know, you shouldn't judge Christopher Columbus for his decision.
00:04:58
Speaker
You're taking the wrong lesson from this.
00:05:02
Speaker
Oh, my dad was brave for thinking bad thoughts while he killed civilians.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:11
Speaker
He's a brave boy.
00:05:13
Speaker
Drakka, who is Mrs. I have a bad feeling about this, but what are you going to do?
00:05:22
Speaker
Drakka is Jorotan's wife, and she's like, it's a bummer that we're not leaving in peaceful times, but what are you going to do about it?
00:05:29
Speaker
She has an even worse feeling than her husband, but she's a woman.
00:05:37
Speaker
She's a woman.
00:05:38
Speaker
It doesn't really matter what she thinks.
00:05:41
Speaker
what are you gonna do it was funny how like they even said
Analyzing Conflict and Character Depth
00:05:47
Speaker
that in one of the chapters it was like man draka would really have made some better choices but you know you know she's just the wife she's the wife of the chief and she can't she can't do anything it would have been nice if she'd been in charge but she's not so she doesn't have it doesn't have it
00:06:10
Speaker
Rulkan is pestering Ner'zhul that the orcs are taking too long to train.
00:06:17
Speaker
She also hints that there are other types of magic and there is a force out there that may be ready to take them under their wing.
00:06:26
Speaker
Oh, I wonder who that is.
00:06:29
Speaker
Orgrim and the Blackrock clan are on the hunt for the most dangerous game, people.
00:06:38
Speaker
And he hides some, he has misgivings.
00:06:40
Speaker
So Orgrim has like a sliding scale of like, I feel bad about this.
00:06:45
Speaker
Like Draka feels the worst and then Durotan and Orgrim has misgivings, but he's still going to crack somebody's head in with a doom hammer, you know, given the chance.
00:06:56
Speaker
I feel like, yeah, if 10 is feeling bad enough to do anything differently, I'd maybe put Drakka at like a six.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:05
Speaker
Put Durotan at maybe like a four.
00:07:07
Speaker
I'd put Ogryn maybe, he's sitting in like a one, which is pretty good compared to everyone else.
00:07:14
Speaker
The rest of the orcs have somehow slipped into the negatives.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's properly explained that the orcs are on a quest to genocide all the Draenei who have been living there.
00:07:27
Speaker
The orcs have just been told by their ancestors, their ancestors, that, hey, go genocide the Draenei.
00:07:36
Speaker
They haven't done anything.
00:07:39
Speaker
but go kill them."
00:07:40
Speaker
And then the other orcs are like, you mean they haven't done anything yet?
00:07:45
Speaker
And the ancestors are like, sure, let's go with that.
00:07:54
Speaker
So the Blackrock clan just murders the shit out of a Draenei hunting party that was just minding their own business.
00:08:02
Speaker
And then Orgrim tastes their blood and thinks it's very sweet.
00:08:12
Speaker
Even just talking about this, I'm like, this episode needs like the fattest content warning.
00:08:18
Speaker
These are sensitive topics that have real world parallels.
00:08:25
Speaker
And it's very hard to talk about them sensitively when the book just kind of goes for it.
00:08:30
Speaker
Goes for it so hard.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:35
Speaker
Kil'jaeden appears to Ner'zhul in the wake of the slaughter for the first time and tells him, good job.
00:08:41
Speaker
And we get to chapter nine and Thrall recants out how everyone in the future is really bummed out by the past because they went and committed some war crimes.
00:08:53
Speaker
And now that Draen, I don't like them anymore.
00:08:55
Speaker
Draen, I don't like them anymore.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, for good reason.
00:09:00
Speaker
Restylant tells Velen that there's been another attack and Velen is like, yeah, saw that one.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
Sucks, right?
00:09:07
Speaker
I know everything.
00:09:11
Speaker
Velen, the most worthless prophet ever.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:13
Speaker
That's not helpful.
00:09:17
Speaker
Meanwhile, Kure seems to be dying, so I guess using the spaceship is out.
Timeline and Lore Consistency
00:09:23
Speaker
Velen says he's going to the spaceship, but that's the mountain.
00:09:28
Speaker
The orcs' mountain is also a spaceship.
00:09:32
Speaker
to check on Kure, which may antagonize the orcs, but he doesn't care.
00:09:37
Speaker
He needs to do it because he was told to make allies with our species.
00:09:42
Speaker
I was like, hold up.
00:09:44
Speaker
You've been here for 200 fucking years, Velen, and you didn't make allies with the orcs over that time.
00:09:52
Speaker
You just were over there in the shadows.
00:09:55
Speaker
Not victim-blaming, not victim-blaming at all, but you could have been a little bit faster.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's where things are a little bit confusing for me because presumably the orcs were hanging out on the planet before the Draenei got there.
00:10:12
Speaker
They seem to have a historic memory of the Draenei arriving.
00:10:17
Speaker
And so the spaceship arrives, becomes the sacred mountain,
00:10:23
Speaker
And that is what attracts the orc ancestors.
00:10:27
Speaker
Right.
00:10:28
Speaker
They were saying.
00:10:28
Speaker
And so did the... I don't know.
00:10:31
Speaker
You know what?
00:10:32
Speaker
It's okay.
00:10:32
Speaker
It's fine.
00:10:33
Speaker
It falls apart just a little bit.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
Because basically the mountain spaceship, space mountain ship, space mountain.
00:10:41
Speaker
It's space mountain.
00:10:42
Speaker
Space mountain.
00:10:45
Speaker
Attracts the ancestors because they really love roller coasters.
00:10:50
Speaker
And... I get it.
00:10:53
Speaker
So yeah, it kind of, it makes me wonder, because they say in the book, like the only reason the ancestors are drawn to that location is because of this being of light, because of this like, Naru.
00:11:03
Speaker
And so I'm like, oh, did like the orc, did the orcs not commune with their ancestors before the Duranai got there?
00:11:09
Speaker
Like, it seems like this is a pretty long standing tradition, but I guess it's not.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, and like his, like 200 years doesn't feel like long enough.
00:11:21
Speaker
To get a lot of ancestors.
00:11:24
Speaker
To get a lot of ancestors.
00:11:27
Speaker
200 years is a long time, but if we're talking generationally, there's people whose grandparents... I think there's a guy whose grandfather was in the Civil War or something like that.
00:11:41
Speaker
That was 160 years ago now.
00:11:50
Speaker
I was just looking up how long do orcs live?
00:11:53
Speaker
How long do orcs live?
00:11:55
Speaker
Well, so unexpectedly, they live to between the ages of 80 to 100 and they reach adulthood at age 18.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay, so just copy paste that human lifespan right onto them.
00:12:12
Speaker
I was like, oh, maybe they only live for like 40 years.
00:12:15
Speaker
And then that's a lot of that's a lot of ancestors.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, no, you could have a really old old orc who's like, yeah, my my grandfather was there when the men in black came.
00:12:29
Speaker
Right.
00:12:30
Speaker
Then, you know, that also leads to like the perpetual weirdness of like Thrall's chapters where he's like, wow, man, crazy how like we were all living in peace.
00:12:38
Speaker
And then we got, you know, enslaved by the demons and committed a genocide and destroyed a planet and came over to this one.
00:12:44
Speaker
And that was what my dad did.
00:12:45
Speaker
It's like, wow, that happened fast.
00:12:48
Speaker
Wow, that was, it's like, it's not like generations of, of, it's, it's more like seven years.
00:12:56
Speaker
It's seven.
00:12:57
Speaker
Well, that's the thing.
00:12:58
Speaker
I don't know how there, I don't under really know how long, like the way the book is written.
00:13:04
Speaker
It feels like this takes place over the course of a month.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, this is definitely the problem with like World of Warcraft wanting to do the comic books thing.
00:13:14
Speaker
It's like, yeah, if you like comic books lore, you will enjoy World of Warcraft lore because they just they just go wild with it.
00:13:24
Speaker
They want to keep the same characters around for the entire thing.
00:13:27
Speaker
So it's basically a story of like 20 people running around watching these cataclysmic events taking place over and over and over and over again.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:37
Speaker
That's a good parallel because when you think about it, like Peter Parker has 60 years of continuity, but in the comic books, he's like in his mid thirties.
00:13:49
Speaker
So you're somehow jamming 60 years worth of stuff into 20 years.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, he's been through a lot.
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:03
Speaker
Um, so continuing on, uh, yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
Uh, anyway, Ner'zhul, uh, really likes meeting with Kil'jaeden.
00:14:14
Speaker
He's slightly weirded out by the fact that his wife has suddenly stopped talking to him or appearing to him, his dead wife, but it's probably fine.
00:14:22
Speaker
Everything's probably fine.
00:14:24
Speaker
Um,
00:14:25
Speaker
A Draenei courier arrives, is killed, and the message is given to Ner'zhul, and it's a letter from Velen, imploring the orcs to chill the fuck out.
00:14:35
Speaker
Because why are they doing this?
00:14:38
Speaker
Anyway, I'm Velen, and I'm going to go visit the mountain.
00:14:42
Speaker
I'm just going to use this human person, or this living Draenei person, as an expendable commodity to deliver a message written on paper.
00:14:57
Speaker
The way they treat life in this book is like...
00:15:01
Speaker
Very disposable.
00:15:02
Speaker
Very disposable.
00:15:03
Speaker
You really feel that kill 100 boars philosophy.
00:15:07
Speaker
Very true.
00:15:10
Speaker
You got to get into the basement and kill all the rats.
00:15:13
Speaker
Cool.
00:15:16
Speaker
Gul'dan says Velen is arrogant for wanting to violate Oshagun.
00:15:21
Speaker
Kil'jaeden agrees.
00:15:23
Speaker
Ner'zhul is angry about the idea of killing unarmed people, but also says this trespass won't go unpunished.
00:15:30
Speaker
And he sends a message to Durotan to deal with it as the Frostwolf clan lives closest to the mountain.
00:15:39
Speaker
Chapter 10, Thrall frames the upcoming incident that gets talked about in this chapter as one where Durotan retained his honor.
00:15:51
Speaker
So he sure did that, I guess.
00:15:56
Speaker
It depends on your definition of honor.
00:15:59
Speaker
Draka tells Durotan that she doesn't trust Ner'Zul, but Durotan is like, but you know, I'm just following orders.
00:16:06
Speaker
He takes Draka's point, but says he's not going to shirk his duty.
00:16:11
Speaker
Ressalon tells Velen that the courier got killed and Velen was like, yes.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:18
Speaker
I know I am a prophet for the second time in two chapters.
00:16:22
Speaker
Stop telling me things.
00:16:24
Speaker
I know, I know it already.
00:16:27
Speaker
I already knew it.
00:16:28
Speaker
Why are you telling me?
00:16:30
Speaker
And Restylane's like, I don't know why I fucking talk to you, man.
00:16:33
Speaker
You've been a piece of shit for like 200 years now.
00:16:35
Speaker
Anyway.
00:16:37
Speaker
So, they also sent a letter back to the Draenei.
00:16:46
Speaker
We will meet, but we guarantee nothing.
00:16:50
Speaker
Durotan and Drek'thar and others go to the Sacred Spaceship Mountain.
00:16:55
Speaker
And Durotan has misgivings, but Drek'thar is like, they are evil because some ghost lady told us.
00:17:02
Speaker
They meet up with Velen, and Velen tries to explain why the mountain is important to the Draenei as well, and Drektar loses his shit.
00:17:10
Speaker
And then all the other orcs do as well.
00:17:12
Speaker
And they're like, it's a sacred mountain for us, but not for you.
00:17:17
Speaker
And the situation gets tense.
00:17:19
Speaker
And Velen's like, well, it's not sacred, it's a spaceship.
Orc Culture and Conflict Portrayals
00:17:23
Speaker
This is where I think that if there was going to be any room to make this a semi-justifiable conflict, you know, like, I don't know, just...
00:17:38
Speaker
Maybe make Valen a little bit more of a condescending asshole.
00:17:42
Speaker
He's, you know, many hundreds or thousands of years old.
00:17:46
Speaker
I feel like if he is super condescending in the way he talks to the orcs, like I can see that riling these guys up and, you know, him coming to their sacred site and being like, ah, you think your ancestors are, you know, really, we did that.
00:18:01
Speaker
Really?
00:18:02
Speaker
Really?
00:18:02
Speaker
What you think is happening, this really important sacred site, like that's not what's happening.
00:18:08
Speaker
It's a spaceship.
00:18:08
Speaker
It's our spaceship.
00:18:10
Speaker
It reminds me of those people on Twitter who are like, you know, your dog doesn't actually love you.
00:18:16
Speaker
It's just a chemical reaction in the brain.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I'm like, go fuck yourself.
00:18:20
Speaker
If Velen was like that Twitter guy, that's not a
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:26
Speaker
I feel like that would have been... It still obviously would not justify what happens.
00:18:32
Speaker
But I feel like, you know, you want to see this conflict between these two fantasy races that ends up spiraling out into a very long war.
00:18:45
Speaker
They're still on the opposite side of the...
00:18:48
Speaker
The Draenei and the Orcs are still on opposite sides of this war in World of Warcraft when Thrall is writing all of his lovely, nice notes about how he wishes we could all get along.
00:19:00
Speaker
Orcs and Draenei are still going at each other.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
It's, that's wild.
00:19:06
Speaker
Um, Draka is disappointed in, in her husband for not like silencing them.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it's so, so dumb.
00:19:15
Speaker
Durotan's like, I've already told them to hold their spears.
00:19:19
Speaker
I can't tell them to hold their tongue too.
00:19:20
Speaker
And we're like, you can, you can.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
Real bare minimum stuff.
00:19:27
Speaker
Real bare minimum stuff.
00:19:29
Speaker
Some magic gets flung back and forth and they take Val and prisoner.
00:19:35
Speaker
Durotan wrestles with his emotions, but continues to not really do anything.
00:19:41
Speaker
And then Durotan finally goes to speak with Velen in private later while Velen is all tied up.
00:19:48
Speaker
And Velen's like, what the fuck, dude?
00:19:53
Speaker
Didn't you like the dinner we gave you?
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:58
Speaker
Velen also mentions that this war has been entirely one-sided and there's no intent to attack the orcs from the Draenei side.
00:20:04
Speaker
Durotan wants to believe him, but the Force ghosts keep telling us, you're bad, so we got to believe him.
00:20:13
Speaker
Durotan is going to keep the stones that Velen had on him, the magic autoball crystal stones, but he's going to let Velen and the others go.
00:20:23
Speaker
And this is like the one time Durotan does a thing in this book.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:31
Speaker
He does.
00:20:34
Speaker
He does let Velen go.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
Seeing, yeah, seeing the way the Draen and I were like being treated when they were like taken prisoner.
00:20:44
Speaker
It's, I don't know, reading this book is just an experience.
00:20:46
Speaker
It is, it's a wild experience.
00:20:49
Speaker
Drek'thar's unhappy about Durotan's decision and Durotan's like, well, whatever, it's my decision.
00:20:56
Speaker
Velen does the sad Charlie Brown walk home.
00:21:00
Speaker
And when he gets home, he tells the other Draenei that they have to get ready for war.
00:21:06
Speaker
And then Koray is dying and screams.
00:21:09
Speaker
And the shamans are like, see Durotan, that's that's the mountain ancestors screaming because you let Velen go.
00:21:18
Speaker
Durotan's like, that's not not at all.
00:21:21
Speaker
That's not it.
00:21:23
Speaker
So, yeah, the Draenei are going to start fighting back.
00:21:25
Speaker
Whoopsie.
00:21:30
Speaker
Chapter 11, Thrall mentions that Ner'zhul and Gul'dan are two of the darkest names to ever sully the history of his people.
00:21:41
Speaker
Durotan... Just those two?
00:21:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, the Glick also really wants to have it both ways with the orcs because it mentions that they're a peaceful bunch.
00:21:57
Speaker
They just hanging out and bro-ing around.
00:21:59
Speaker
If only this all hadn't happened, they'd still just be bro-ing around out in the woods and enjoying the hunt.
00:22:06
Speaker
But then it'll occasionally also mention like, well, like all orcs, we love to revel in the joy of the slaughter.
00:22:16
Speaker
the glory of the of the kill and the the combat we just want to smear blood all over our faces and just grow out and be it's like wait which i don't know bro out commit war crimes that's that's that's really uh the way the orc lifestyle goes um
00:22:37
Speaker
Durotan is telling Ner'zhul he released Velen and Ner'zhul is not happy.
00:22:44
Speaker
But then he starts getting worried that like Ner'zhul, this like starts Ner'zhul to start thinking, wait a minute, maybe Kil'jaeden's not great.
00:22:55
Speaker
Maybe, maybe he's not great.
00:22:57
Speaker
Whatever, it's fine.
00:22:59
Speaker
Disregards that and he starts thinking about a horde, if you will.
00:23:04
Speaker
A horde, if you will.
00:23:07
Speaker
Oh boy, oh boy.
00:23:09
Speaker
Oh boy, if you will.
00:23:12
Speaker
A big gathering of orcs or a horde.
00:23:16
Speaker
If you will.
00:23:18
Speaker
If you will.
00:23:20
Speaker
Turtan gives Ner'zhul the stones and Ner'zhul has begun to doubt Gul'dan's motives.
00:23:28
Speaker
Later, Ner'zhul presents the stones to Kil'jaeden and Kil'jaeden is upset that they let Velen go, but he's fine now that he has the stones.
00:23:36
Speaker
That kind of softens the blow a little bit.
00:23:39
Speaker
Even later, Ner'zhul gets a letter from a clan
00:23:42
Speaker
that they have successfully slaughtered a Draenei town, murdering every man, woman, and child while they slept.
00:23:48
Speaker
And the orcs danced with blood on their faces and reveled.
00:23:53
Speaker
And they ate their fill and it was good.
00:23:57
Speaker
It was good and the orcs were happy.
00:24:00
Speaker
Because that's what they do, baby.
00:24:05
Speaker
Ner'zhul decides, all right, I'm going to go to the mountain and talk to the ancestors myself.
00:24:10
Speaker
And when he gets there, oh boy, are the ancestors mad.
00:24:15
Speaker
Whoops.
00:24:16
Speaker
You were never talking to the ancestors before Ner'zhul.
00:24:20
Speaker
I mean, you were at one point, but that's, uh-oh.
00:24:25
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:24:27
Speaker
They're like, you idiot.
00:24:29
Speaker
That wasn't us.
00:24:30
Speaker
We didn't tell you that.
00:24:32
Speaker
He's like, what can I do?
00:24:34
Speaker
And they're like, nothing.
00:24:35
Speaker
You're too fucking dumb to do anything about it.
00:24:40
Speaker
You got catfished, bro.
00:24:41
Speaker
You got catfished.
00:24:46
Speaker
His wife is like, what the fuck, man?
00:24:48
Speaker
Doesn't even look like me.
00:24:50
Speaker
Doesn't even look like me.
00:24:53
Speaker
It's like, got catfished on ghost Tinder.
00:25:00
Speaker
So, uh-oh, but Gul'dan has followed Ner'zhul and he sees what happens and he's going to tell Kil'jaeden that Ner'zhul isn't a Kil'jaeden stan anymore.
00:25:15
Speaker
Chapter 12 opens with another Thrall segment where he goes, sometimes the wise man is a fool.
00:25:22
Speaker
Thanks, Thrall.
00:25:23
Speaker
Good input.
00:25:25
Speaker
Good input.
00:25:26
Speaker
Good input.
00:25:28
Speaker
On the way back home, Kil'jaeden appears before Ner'zhul.
00:25:31
Speaker
Gul'dan has ratted him out.
00:25:34
Speaker
And Ner'zhul rebels against Kil'jaeden for like a hot second.
00:25:38
Speaker
And then Kil'jaeden's like, maybe you can regain my favor.
00:25:41
Speaker
And Ner'zhul refuses, but Kil'jaeden lets him live because plot armor, I guess.
00:25:47
Speaker
And Gul'dan is now in charge because reasons.
00:25:50
Speaker
Hmm.
00:25:53
Speaker
He's the baddest guy.
00:25:55
Speaker
He's the baddest guy.
00:25:58
Speaker
Meanwhile, the Frost Wolves get fucked up by a Draenei party because the Draenei are fighting back now.
00:26:04
Speaker
The Shamans, the Shamans have been cut off from their magic.
00:26:09
Speaker
Durotan nearly dies, but Restylane recognizes him and tells him that the Draenei, tells the Draenei to fall back and then tells Durotan, now we're even because Durotan had let Velen go.
00:26:24
Speaker
Durotan's furious and Drexar says he can't even feel the elements anymore.
00:26:29
Speaker
And Durotan's going to go confront Ner'zhul.
00:26:32
Speaker
And then, Chapter 13, Thrall opens up with, he's like, hey, how could they not see that they had the wool over their eyes?
00:26:45
Speaker
I don't know, Thrall, you're the one talking to them.
00:26:48
Speaker
Aren't you asking these people the questions?
00:26:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:26:53
Speaker
Goldin and Blackhand meet in the cover of night.
00:26:56
Speaker
He gives Blackhand a plan on what they're going to do next.
00:27:00
Speaker
They're going to unite the clans with an elected council.
00:27:04
Speaker
Behind that council will be a deep state that they will set up.
00:27:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:13
Speaker
To include- That also felt a little unnecessary.
00:27:18
Speaker
This book definitely suffers a lot from like, no weight is placed on any moment.
00:27:26
Speaker
Every single moment passes with the exact same pace, with the exact same tone.
00:27:33
Speaker
It all just feels like a parade of events that no one cares that much about.
00:27:41
Speaker
And man, if they'd just like sliced out some of these bits, take out the Shadow Council, take out everything that Thrall has ever said, and like just really focus on some of these moments so I don't just feel like I'm reading one of my history textbooks.
00:28:02
Speaker
Right.
00:28:05
Speaker
It's like, yeah, that's a scene that happened.
00:28:07
Speaker
All right.
00:28:07
Speaker
Here we go.
00:28:09
Speaker
And yeah, the shadow council is like, why do we need the shadow council?
00:28:14
Speaker
The orcs seem pretty in on this without an extra layer.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, they're facing no pushback at any point.
00:28:24
Speaker
Not even from the people who don't like them.
00:28:29
Speaker
The people who don't like them are not even making an effort.
00:28:32
Speaker
No.
00:28:33
Speaker
Come on.
00:28:33
Speaker
No, no, no, no.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what they're so worried about.
00:28:35
Speaker
It's like these two guys are not that excited about what we're doing, but they're still going to charge into battle.
Shadow Council and Political Intrigue
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, they're still going to do it.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
So, uh, the deep, the shadow council will include gold and black hand.
00:28:53
Speaker
And, uh, also shamans will shamans will be called warlocks now for the sake of their new powers.
00:29:01
Speaker
Hmm.
00:29:03
Speaker
Uh, Durotan calls a bunch of works together to talk to them about, uh, the shamans not feeling the elements anymore, but also gold Dan and Ner'zhul are there to talk about the new magic.
00:29:14
Speaker
This entire scene makes no fucking sense.
00:29:17
Speaker
Um,
00:29:19
Speaker
I don't know why you think that.
00:29:21
Speaker
Because it was like Duratan was the one who was like, yeah, everybody gets, get together.
00:29:26
Speaker
We're going to talk about this.
00:29:27
Speaker
The fact that the magic's fucked up.
00:29:29
Speaker
And then Gul'dan and Ner'zhul are like, but we're here also.
00:29:33
Speaker
And we have a demonstration for you.
00:29:35
Speaker
And they're like, but I thought Duratan was the one who called everybody together.
00:29:40
Speaker
How did, how is the, how is it?
00:29:42
Speaker
They just like stole the scene from him somehow.
00:29:47
Speaker
I have no memory of how that all happened.
00:29:52
Speaker
So they're like, like, let's go march down to the tents and show the warlock powers off and be like, so wait, you guys knew that he was going to call me.
00:30:04
Speaker
basically they go down to the Koshar festival field where it's going to be held for a demonstration of the new magic after Durotan's like ah we got no magic and the Black Rock Warlocks are there and they use their new magic they commit a war crime by using magic on a bunch of Duranai prisoners real bad magic just straight up torture magic
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, torture magic.
00:30:31
Speaker
They got like seven little demons and little demons suck life out of them.
00:30:36
Speaker
Durotan is having more thoughts about, hey, this is bad, but, you know, isn't going to do anything.
00:30:41
Speaker
He needs more info.
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah, he's going to wait and see.
00:30:48
Speaker
He's going to wait and see.
00:30:50
Speaker
Like, I'm going to keep my eye on this.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
He's doing the Elon Musk interesting response right now.
00:31:02
Speaker
I think that like, yeah, moments like this in the lore do kind of show up.
00:31:06
Speaker
What I like about like World of Warcraft, like I think it's cool that you have all these different character classes.
00:31:11
Speaker
Obviously shamans are one of them.
00:31:12
Speaker
Obviously warlocks are one of them.
00:31:15
Speaker
And hearing a little bit more about how all of these different character classes came to be and like the implications of their magic.
00:31:24
Speaker
Like I love the color that that adds to the world.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:31
Speaker
Color's always good.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:36
Speaker
There's a party that night and Durotan forbids the Frostwolf clan from taking part.
00:31:41
Speaker
Drekthar begs Durotan to use the new toys and Orgrim is like, hey, maybe it'll help us win.
00:31:47
Speaker
And Draka's like, the new magic is super weird and I don't like it.
00:31:54
Speaker
So we get a wide variety of reactions.
00:31:58
Speaker
Chapter 14, Durotan is one sad orc.
00:32:02
Speaker
Black Hand is chosen as the head of the chieftains and Durotan doesn't even try to object.
00:32:09
Speaker
And Black Hand leads a for the horde chant because I guess that's what we're being called now.
00:32:15
Speaker
Durotan and Draca go home dejected.
00:32:19
Speaker
The Shaman come back after training a few days later, super proud of their new magic.
00:32:25
Speaker
Later, a Warlock from Blackhand arrives.
00:32:28
Speaker
This is the most fucked up.
00:32:31
Speaker
Like the most fucked up, one of the most fucked up bits about this entire story.
00:32:35
Speaker
So this warlock from the black hand clan comes to Durotan is like, we need more people.
00:32:41
Speaker
We need more warriors.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:43
Speaker
And Durotan's like, okay, well, do you need us to like go make babies or something?
00:32:50
Speaker
And the warlocks now is like, no, we can't wait six years.
00:32:54
Speaker
And Durotan's like, I don't understand what you mean by that.
00:33:01
Speaker
And the warlock, Kirkul, is like, no, we're going to take your kids and we're going to age them up to adulthood.
00:33:08
Speaker
So see that six-year-old right there?
00:33:10
Speaker
Bam.
00:33:11
Speaker
We're going to make that six-year-old an adult.
00:33:15
Speaker
And Jorotan's like, what?
00:33:18
Speaker
I don't... What are you... What?
00:33:21
Speaker
What?
00:33:24
Speaker
Durotan grabs Kirkul and orders him to get the fuck out of there.
00:33:30
Speaker
But not before Kirkul goes and grabs a bunch of the kids together and ages them up to adulthood.
00:33:37
Speaker
They're crying in pain.
00:33:39
Speaker
When they're all done, they're just a bunch of 18-year-olds sitting there and crying like children, because they're still children-brained.
00:33:47
Speaker
They're just in adult bodies now.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, that was like another one of those things where it's like, I feel like I should feel a certain way about like any of the stuff that's happening, but it all just is kind of like this desensitizing, fast moving, like series of just like things.
00:34:06
Speaker
And it's like, just reading it, I was like, this should have way more weight than it is given, but it's given the exact same amount as like everything else.
00:34:17
Speaker
Literally every other moment of this story is treated the same.
00:34:21
Speaker
And this particular story, like in abstract, is so weird and fucked up and gross.
00:34:28
Speaker
But at the same time, yes, it's written in a way where I also don't care enough.
00:34:39
Speaker
No, it's like I should care so much about all of this, but I'm just kind of throwing up my hands the whole time.
00:34:47
Speaker
They did that, I guess.
00:34:48
Speaker
No Game of Thrones over here.
00:34:53
Speaker
Durotan gets a letter that's unsigned, but the handwriting is clearly from Orgrim and it's a warning that he's being watched and they're going to send a task out to him that he must complete.
00:35:06
Speaker
Um...
00:35:07
Speaker
The next day, a rider comes with another letter.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's from Blackhand, and it's ordering Durotan and the Frostwolf to join a raiding party on the Draenei city nearby.
00:35:20
Speaker
The courier waits for him to give an answer, and Durotan abides.
00:35:25
Speaker
The war party meets at the Frostwolf camp and continues into the forest and Durotan unfortunately remembers the exact route to the city.
00:35:32
Speaker
He's like, ah, God damn me and my perfect recall.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, dude, this like perfect example, like Durotan could stop this in his in in his tracks.
00:35:46
Speaker
Like they're all trusting him to remember how to get them into the city.
00:35:50
Speaker
And he could just be like, I forgot.
00:35:55
Speaker
I forgot.
00:35:55
Speaker
That's all he has to say.
00:35:57
Speaker
I forgot.
00:35:58
Speaker
Whoops.
00:35:58
Speaker
No.
00:35:59
Speaker
And it's like, even with the forest as overgrown as it's been in the years since, he still remembered.
00:36:06
Speaker
The writer gives him so many outs.
00:36:11
Speaker
Oh, his memory's just too big.
00:36:12
Speaker
Curse his perfect memory.
00:36:14
Speaker
Curse him.
00:36:15
Speaker
Why did he have to keep going, putting one foot in front of another?
00:36:21
Speaker
And it's like the first time we really get like, if this is something like if there had been a consistent character trait of like Durotan has two things, a perfect memory and an inability to lie.
00:36:38
Speaker
Had that been like established forever, then I would have been like, OK, I understand.
00:36:45
Speaker
Like, but we don't we don't get told that he has a perfect memory until this scene.
00:36:54
Speaker
So he's going along with it.
00:36:57
Speaker
And Orgrim's like, ah, buddy, I hope you've forgotten like I have.
00:37:01
Speaker
And Durotan's like, sorry, pal.
00:37:05
Speaker
Curses.
00:37:05
Speaker
Curses my perfect memory.
00:37:09
Speaker
And then Durotan finds the green stone that was hidden in the forest.
00:37:13
Speaker
And he's like, ah, my perfect memory is telling me the words.
00:37:16
Speaker
I remember the words, Restylance.
00:37:18
Speaker
I remember all the words.
00:37:19
Speaker
The closest thing to any resistance we get from him is he's like, hopefully the stone won't recognize my accent.
00:37:27
Speaker
It's like, just say the words wrong.
00:37:31
Speaker
Just say the words wrong, buddy.
00:37:36
Speaker
He's like, I hope that... Curses.
00:37:42
Speaker
And then it works.
00:37:44
Speaker
Oh, well, the portal opens.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
This book, what I said earlier was it's valuable to have stories about people who think they're doing good things swept up in something horrible.
00:38:00
Speaker
The book wants you to think that this is a good person.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
This is the problem.
00:38:06
Speaker
They want you.
00:38:07
Speaker
They they have a special contrived narrator to interrupt every single chapter to remind you that Durotan is the good guy.
00:38:16
Speaker
He's the good guy, by the way.
00:38:18
Speaker
Don't forget.
00:38:21
Speaker
So the last chapter we'll cover for today is chapter 15.
00:38:28
Speaker
Thrall talks about how Drek'thar talks about how bad shit got in Telmor, the Draenei city.
Draenei Vulnerability and Book Critique
00:38:35
Speaker
So the Draenei were not prepared for an attack.
00:38:37
Speaker
Why would they be?
00:38:38
Speaker
Their city is fucking invisible.
00:38:42
Speaker
Oh my god.
00:38:44
Speaker
Durotan duels with Restelon.
00:38:47
Speaker
So Restelon pulls Durotan off his wolf, has the upper hand, is about to kill him, but Durotan's wolf bites Restelon and starts ripping his arm off, and then Durotan kills Restelon.
00:39:01
Speaker
And he's sad about that.
00:39:02
Speaker
And then he looks over and Orgrim is just exploding heads like watermelons at a Gallagher concert.
00:39:10
Speaker
He is just killing people.
00:39:16
Speaker
And then Durotan sees a crying little girl and she starts hitting out his legs like, ah, you son of a bitch.
00:39:23
Speaker
And he's like, ah, I'm not gonna kill this little girl.
00:39:26
Speaker
And then another orc just puts a spear through her head.
00:39:30
Speaker
And the orc is like, you owe me Durotan.
00:39:33
Speaker
And Durotan's like, ah.
00:39:39
Speaker
I don't like this book.
00:39:41
Speaker
I don't like this book at all.
00:39:44
Speaker
Yeah, so it's an easy win and the orcs just start trying to break shit.
00:39:47
Speaker
They just start like breaking statues and Durotan's like, why don't we just tend to the wounded instead, you know, instead of just breaking shit?
00:39:56
Speaker
And the orcs are like, okay.
00:39:59
Speaker
And then Durantan, the good guy, orders the wholesale slaughter of any Draenei that they find alive.
00:40:06
Speaker
And then he's like, man, I wish Restalan had killed me.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so much of a coward that that's the only, like, I wish that someone took away my responsibility to do the right thing in any capacity.
00:40:28
Speaker
God damn it.
00:40:31
Speaker
So that's where we'll leave off for today.
00:40:33
Speaker
I wanted...
00:40:36
Speaker
I don't need to like the orcs.
00:40:38
Speaker
Like I'm an Alliance player.
00:40:41
Speaker
I'm not a fan of... Not a Horde fan.
00:40:45
Speaker
No, I, and you know, I don't need to love the orcs or think that they're doing good things to enjoy playing the game, to even enjoy playing like as, you know, any one of the like Horde characters.
00:40:58
Speaker
Like I don't need to think that they are the bestest guys.
00:41:02
Speaker
Like in the original Warcraft,
00:41:04
Speaker
The orcs just liked to murder some humans.
00:41:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
They just enjoyed it.
00:41:08
Speaker
They thought it was fun.
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:11
Speaker
You can't keep that energy, but then try to get me to be sympathetic toward them.
00:41:18
Speaker
Right.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:19
Speaker
Just let me think that they're a bunch of assholes.
00:41:25
Speaker
Right.
00:41:26
Speaker
And I'm like, no, they're, they're not bad.
00:41:28
Speaker
The only people who are bad are the Sargeras, uh, corrupted people, which the orcs are, but don't wait.
00:41:38
Speaker
No, not like that.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:43
Speaker
Like how far back do you have to pull it to be like, you know, kill Jaden is actually sympathetic.
00:41:50
Speaker
Oh man.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, you can always fall back on like, oh, well, the orcs got tricked.
00:41:58
Speaker
Like they wouldn't have been doing any of this if they hadn't been tricked, but I don't know.
00:42:05
Speaker
I feel like this book could have brought me along.
00:42:10
Speaker
Right.
00:42:10
Speaker
Rather than dragging me kicking and screaming through this narrative.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:16
Speaker
It had it.
00:42:17
Speaker
And like, if it was thoroughly from the orcs point of view too, and there was a better job of the trickery, not being so transparent.
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:28
Speaker
I think it would have made more like, oh, like that would have been like a stunning turn two thirds of the way through where it's like, oh my, like where they all have like the, oh, are we the baddies moment?
00:42:43
Speaker
Instead of Duratan being like, oh, are we the baddies right off the bat, but then never fucking doing anything about it.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yeah, I imagine some of the challenge of most of the people who are going to read this book are probably already familiar with what happens.
00:43:01
Speaker
We know that the orcs make it to Azeroth.
00:43:04
Speaker
We know that Velen survives because he is an NPC in World of Warcraft.
00:43:10
Speaker
All of these things.
00:43:10
Speaker
We know that the orcs were tricked by Kil'jaeden.
00:43:13
Speaker
We know these things.
00:43:15
Speaker
It almost feels like this book is constructed with that knowledge almost as a way to totally forego the concept of structure.
00:43:23
Speaker
Right.
00:43:25
Speaker
Like it.
00:43:26
Speaker
I agree with you.
00:43:27
Speaker
Like if we'd been reading this book and we didn't find out.
00:43:31
Speaker
that Kil'jaeden existed until the 70% mark, that would have been wild.
00:43:37
Speaker
Right.
00:43:38
Speaker
But no, we just read the entire thing with the orcs occasionally interjecting, ah, we're being goobers.
00:43:46
Speaker
Oh, well.
00:43:47
Speaker
I think we're being duped.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:50
Speaker
No, well, you just read it and the entire time you're just in the mindset of like, why the fuck is this happening?
00:43:56
Speaker
Why is this happening here?
00:43:58
Speaker
What are we doing here?
00:44:00
Speaker
What's going on?
00:44:01
Speaker
So that's that's part two of of of this book.
00:44:06
Speaker
It's it's in terms of my personal estimation and amongst all the books that we've read.
00:44:15
Speaker
I've finished it, and we'll get into it more when we wrap up in Part 3.
00:44:20
Speaker
Most books start in that vague middle area of the list.
00:44:23
Speaker
There's just a big cluster of books.
00:44:36
Speaker
it after I finished reading it, it just it just plummeted right out of that mid.
00:44:41
Speaker
It's in the it's in the bottom of the list.
00:44:45
Speaker
Not the worst book, but it's in that bottom section of the list because there's been some more stuff that we've we've we've read that ironically were better, better structured, just worse in terms of like just bad stories.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:07
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:45:08
Speaker
Maybe one day we'll we'll get into that.
00:45:10
Speaker
We'll we'll.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, we'll do that.
00:45:12
Speaker
But who knows, like this could in some ways just be a flaw in trying to translate Warcraft lore into a book because it is like comics like.
00:45:24
Speaker
Part of the joy of reading comics is experiencing this really phenomenal artwork and interacting with the expressions and the physicality.
00:45:33
Speaker
Same with Warcraft.
00:45:35
Speaker
When you're playing World of Warcraft, experiencing the lore as little tidbits.
00:45:39
Speaker
You just get dropped these little nuggets of like, wait, whoa, you guys did what?
00:45:45
Speaker
Okay, anyway, I'm going to go do this quest.
00:45:47
Speaker
Like, oh, hang on.
00:45:48
Speaker
This happened when?
00:45:50
Speaker
But when you're just reading it in book form, you just get the full exposure to how bonkers Warcraft lore is.
00:45:58
Speaker
Absolutely bonkers.
00:46:00
Speaker
And so this, some of this story is, did you watch the Warcraft movie?
00:46:06
Speaker
I have not, but- Of course I did.
00:46:08
Speaker
Of course you did.
00:46:09
Speaker
Of course I did.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually like not canon.
Comparing 'Warcraft' Book and Movie
00:46:13
Speaker
The Warcraft movie.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:15
Speaker
But I feel like, didn't the Warcraft movie pull from some of this time period?
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:23
Speaker
A good example is Orgrim.
00:46:26
Speaker
Orgrim in the Warcraft movie is Thrall's second in command.
00:46:30
Speaker
He's like a frost wolf.
00:46:32
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:46:33
Speaker
It's like they- Shuffled stuff around a little bit.
00:46:38
Speaker
He's gonna try.
00:46:39
Speaker
Keep track of all this.
00:46:46
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get it.
00:46:49
Speaker
We're also recording some episodes for a Warhammer 40K book, which is basically like Warhammer is like Warcraft is like Warhammer stuff, just like diluted a little bit.
00:47:10
Speaker
It's like a lot of the same vibes, but just like...
00:47:14
Speaker
you know, it's, it's Warhammer 40 K is there's just so too much.
00:47:20
Speaker
I've read three Warhammer 40 K books at this point.
00:47:24
Speaker
And I'm still, I still have no idea half the shit that's happening in this universe.
00:47:34
Speaker
I keep thinking, like, who's gonna, who's listening to this podcast and like, are you following along?
Gaming Activities and Upcoming Content
00:47:44
Speaker
it's hard it's a lot there's a lot going on all right well okay that's the book so we always get into uh one segment at the end and i have a feeling i know your answer yeah but i'm gonna ask you what are you playing
00:48:02
Speaker
The answer is the same.
00:48:04
Speaker
You're getting in that HOTS.
00:48:06
Speaker
I just play HOTS.
00:48:08
Speaker
I really like Heroes of the Storm.
00:48:09
Speaker
Everyone should go download it.
00:48:11
Speaker
Try to convince Microsoft, Blizzard, Activision, whoever owns who anymore.
00:48:17
Speaker
Try to convince them to not turn the servers down because I'll miss it.
00:48:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
Well, if, if, uh, as of recording, the FTC has filed another thing to stop that merger by the time this episode, by the time this episode goes live, I'm sure we'll have known the answer for a bit, but if you want more, uh, yeah, if you want more like interactions with the weirdness that is Warcraft, um, hot has you covered.
00:48:45
Speaker
There's,
00:48:46
Speaker
A lot of orcs hanging around.
00:48:49
Speaker
A lot of orcs.
00:48:50
Speaker
Commuting violence.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:54
Speaker
They do that.
00:48:54
Speaker
They're good at that.
00:48:57
Speaker
So I started playing The Lies of P. Oh.
00:49:05
Speaker
Which is the Pinocchio-themed, souls-like game.
00:49:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:14
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's also a little weird in that you can tell that it's like not a ton of budget was necessarily spent on on translation.
00:49:29
Speaker
Like the translation is fine, but then.
00:49:35
Speaker
Like when you open up the game, it says now shader loading.
00:49:39
Speaker
And I was like, all right, well, that doesn't sound right to my ear.
00:49:47
Speaker
Maybe shader now loading would work, but now shader loading just...
00:49:53
Speaker
You know, little stuff like that is just everywhere in the game.
00:49:57
Speaker
But yeah, it's also I like it, but it's also not quite linear.
00:50:03
Speaker
It's too linear for me for a souls like.
00:50:05
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:50:07
Speaker
The Lies of P is exactly what I would call like a grim, dark Pinocchio.
00:50:14
Speaker
It is.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty much that.
00:50:17
Speaker
It's set in Belle in the Belle Epoque era, which is like Moulin Rouge type.
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:28
Speaker
It's it's grim, dark Pinocchio post him becoming a real boy kind of sort of.
00:50:38
Speaker
And part of it is like you have to sometimes lie to not get killed or something.
00:50:46
Speaker
I don't know.
00:50:47
Speaker
And that is your that is the that is the thing that separates Pinocchio from every other puppet.
00:50:55
Speaker
is that he is the only one who's able to lie.
00:51:00
Speaker
Because it's also very... It's very much they took I Am Robot and turned it into a Pinocchio story because all the other puppets have to follow the... It's like the four laws of puppetry.
00:51:18
Speaker
The four laws of puppetry.
00:51:20
Speaker
Wow.
00:51:26
Speaker
oh god well um sounds cool i'll have to yeah who am i kidding i only play heroes who are you kidding you know you might even i have a feeling like next week next time it's going to be like you're like yeah actually i installed uh warcraft 3 and i'm playing dota 1. oh man well i mean
00:51:49
Speaker
This has me excited because I've got my sorry, my dog's excited about something I'm excited about.
00:51:56
Speaker
I've got like another Heroes of the Storm video coming up and I'm hoping to do another World of Warcraft video, funnily enough, about how difficult it is to have an ongoing narrative in an MMO that lasts years.
00:52:14
Speaker
And so, yeah, this has been a very exhilarating story.
00:52:19
Speaker
a little part of my research.
00:52:24
Speaker
History is reading.
00:52:25
Speaker
You know, it's funny is also, by the way, I I'll see like these lists of people recommending Warcraft books and we're like, yeah, go read these Warcraft books.
00:52:35
Speaker
And I was like, I haven't seen this book appear.
00:52:39
Speaker
On those lists.
00:52:42
Speaker
There are definitely some good stories in the Warcraft universe.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:47
Speaker
And probably something things that are more focused.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:52
Speaker
Well, yeah, I don't I don't know that this one would have translated very well.
00:52:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:58
Speaker
No matter what or what.
00:53:00
Speaker
Probably just shouldn't have been adapted writers.
00:53:02
Speaker
Give it a try.
00:53:05
Speaker
Come on.
00:53:08
Speaker
That's something that Phil and I have always talked about doing is if we ever got to a point where we did two episodes a week, we would do an episode on Wednesday and that is like our regular
Future Podcast Ideas and Patron Thanks
00:53:18
Speaker
stuff.
00:53:18
Speaker
And then Friday would be fanfic Friday.
00:53:21
Speaker
And we would just pick a fanfic story that's like an adaptation of a game, a fanfic about a game or whatever, and just just talk about it.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, straight up.
00:53:33
Speaker
Like, there are just some like, like real big brain fanfic writers.
00:53:38
Speaker
I've read some phenomenal fanfic.
00:53:41
Speaker
I bet.
00:53:42
Speaker
I bet.
00:53:43
Speaker
I would love to.
00:53:44
Speaker
I would love to go down that path and see what happens.
00:53:50
Speaker
So, Sam, do you have anything to plug before we go other than, you know, go watch your YouTube.
00:53:59
Speaker
I'm chilling.
00:54:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:01
Speaker
You have a great YouTube.
00:54:03
Speaker
It's over there.
00:54:04
Speaker
It's being awesome.
00:54:06
Speaker
If you want to check out my work on YouTube, you can find me under the channel name Afterthoughts.
00:54:12
Speaker
I've got a lot of stuff on games, got a lot of stuff on storytelling.
00:54:16
Speaker
Love both.
00:54:17
Speaker
So yeah, thanks for having me on to marry those two interests.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, anytime.
00:54:25
Speaker
Thank you for being on.
00:54:26
Speaker
And we, we got one more episode with you, uh, before, before you go.
00:54:31
Speaker
Um, thank you guys so much for listening.
00:54:33
Speaker
You can check out Sam's work on the YouTube channel after thoughts.
00:54:37
Speaker
She does amazing work there.
00:54:39
Speaker
I want to give a special shout out to the patrons at the geek scholar level, friendly friend, Jesus loves you and ruthless mutter.
00:54:47
Speaker
Uh, thank you so much for being our $10 patrons.
00:54:51
Speaker
Your support means the world to us.
00:54:55
Speaker
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00:54:58
Speaker
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00:54:59
Speaker
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00:55:00
Speaker
You can find us on Blue Sky at PixelitPod.
00:55:04
Speaker
Just put the name in there and you should be able to find us.
00:55:09
Speaker
Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, rate us five stars, all that fun stuff.
00:55:15
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening and have a good evening.
00:55:24
Speaker
Bye.