ACOTAR: Amarantha Deep Dive - A Backstory that Makes no Sense, Unleashing Tamlin's Rage, and a HUGE Maasverse Reveal

0:19 We're recording. Have we been recording this whole time? No, no, we just started. Oh, that's weird, I didn't get the countdown all right. Are we going from here? I mean, we're already talking and we're. Live. We're live. All right, I wanted to read you a nice message. Hold on, let me pull it up.

0:34 Now I have to fucking open up Instagram. No, it's great. Yeah, but my live reactions are not always what we want. OK, I'm here. I got this Instagram DM yesterday for our listeners. Sometimes Ronnie has a hard job. I think you guys know that Ronnie has a hard job and sometimes she needs a little pick me up in the middle of the week.

0:53 So if we get a really nice message, I will send her a screenshot of the message. Because and I need them. Yeah, I need them every time I. Needed this, but this one was really nice so I thought and I got it yesterday so obviously it's not the middle of the work week so I thought I would just read it out to you. So this is from Cameron Lamont.

1:11 Tanya, you say your last name. I'm. So sorry Cameron, I. Thought it was lamontage and now I'm seeing an extra N in here and I'm not sure. I thought it was Spanish. I'm thinking maybe it's French now, Not sure sorry. Anyway, Cameron L she raised Hey y'all, I'm a day one fan of the pod. Found she says y'all so I'm assuming she's southern.

1:30 Hey y'all, I'm a day one fan of the pod. I found Y'all when I picked up 4th Wing and then Y'all inspired me to read a guitar. Now starting the TOG tandem read Strong Arm. I love how Y'all don't go chapter right chapter and can't thank you enough for helping me find a new passion for reading. Thanks for making my Mondays exciting. And then she does the party emoji. The party face emoji That's so sweet. Thank you.

1:54 We're so happy that we did that for you. That's actually more than we ever expected to do. It warms my heart. It really worked We also I don't know if you saw the e-mail. Do you want me to read the e-mail we got? We got an e-mail. We got a great e-mail. Okay, this is just gonna be great. This is actually just.

2:09 Therapy for Ronnie, apparently, is that we're starting this podcast I. Saw saw a post on Instagram that's like, I'm I'm the oldest. Ronnie is also the oldest guys. And it's like, hey oldest children, how's your praise kink going in your mid 30s? I'm like oh fuck, God damn it. That's what this is. Wait, praise.

2:29 Kink praise. Kink. Yeah, PRAISE. Yeah, like you get off on people praising you. Oh, OK, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which perfect, I mean not wrong. It's going great. Thank you for asking. All right, so this is another e-mail to to support our praise kink. This is an e-mail we got three hours ago, three hours ago from Germany, from Charlotte.

2:51 I'm not even going to, I'm not going to try to pronounce your last name. Charlotte. Thank you for writing it, says Dear Abby. Dear Ronnie, I just want to say hi and tell you how much I truly love your podcast. I'm saving every week's episode from my long runs to keep me company as I'm training for my second-half marathon at the moment.

3:07 Charlotte. We're so long run podcast. We're also runners. We totally get it. You need a good podcast to get you through the long run. I've touched that. You've chosen ours. That's amazing, she says. You make the kilometers fly by. Also, I'm really excited for Season 2 and your discussions about Acatar. Because of your podcast, I finally picked up Throne and Glass.

3:24 This is now two people who are reading one of class Because of Us. Wow. And I'm currently starting Queen of Shadows, so hopefully I won't have to miss out on your mass first theories for too long. Thank you both for creating something so fun, thoughtful, and full of energy. It really brightens my week.

3:37 Sending lots of love and best wishes from Cologne, Germany. Charlotte Parentheses. Germany. PS If you're ever in Germany, I would love to say hi in person, Charlotte. If we're ever in. Cologne, We would love to say hi in person too. We might just go to Germany and just make the story at this point. I actually like I have started running to podcasts. I don't think podcasts were as much of a thing when we were one when we were in college running, we would have to run together and so we would just talk to each other. But then like even when I was running solo in preseason, like I or before preseason rather, I don't think podcasts were like AI didn't consider them an option in my head. But like now, there's such a

4:20 great option for long. I totally agree. I totally agree. If you're not long running with people, which sometimes you just want a nice solo long run. Yeah, I totally buy the podcast. I will tell you. OK, guys, I think you figured this out by now. Ronnie and I, like, have a lot of friends from running because we ran in college, right? So like, we have running friends in DC and I, you know, I was not really running for a while.

4:42 So when I was running, I would run with music or podcasts. And I was telling them the other day I was like, yeah, I've been actually getting really into running. Just what do they fucking call it? Oh my God. What's it called When? What is it called when dudes fly? And raw dudes fly. When they fly and they don't like, read anything or watch any TV, they call it raw dogging the flights, right? I was like, I know it's something really, really vile. So I was like, I've been raw dogging my runs. Like I haven't been listening to music or going with anyone. And they were just like, like, yeah, like, aren't you a runner? And I was like fuck off guys, fuck. Yeah, I do remember.

5:18 And obviously now I don't subscribe to this, but I remember like when I was more serious, I was like, why would you ever distract yourself during a run? Like you need to be like in the run. People who run with music are not serious. And now I exclusively run with music or podcast, usually a podcast. The I mean that, yeah, I, yeah, I, I enjoy. I will tell you, I went for a run yesterday and my precog theory came from that run yesterday because the brain does just weird synapse things when you're running. Absolutely.

5:45 Yeah. No shame, for I love running with a podcast. So thank you, Charlotte. We support you in your thank you Charlotte journey. Tell us how it goes. We're excited to hear how it goes. Very proud of you. Good job. And thank you for your emails. Lovely. Thank you. It's our praise, King. Our praise king.

6:01 Yeah. Wow. I'm like probably never going to forget that. As soon as the phrase entered my brain I was like, oh shit, that's me. Doesn't everyone have a praise kink though? Like the whole point of praise is to make you feel good. Of course it makes you feel good, right? Who's like, I don't care. Like, fuck, I don't care if you say nice things to me.

6:21 Like, no, that's not real. Yeah, I don't know. It is going to. It is going to mess me up for a while though. Anyways, hi everyone. Hello. I'm Ronnie. I'm Abby. And this is Dragons in the Details, where we pick apart our favorite fantasy series over the course of an undetermined number of episodes.

6:40 We've got a new season going. So if you if you were with us for season 1, we covered the Empyrean. This is season 2. We are covering the Series A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas. We're super excited. We've done a few episodes now. I'm nowhere near losing the energy for this one. Like there's still so much to talk about.

6:59 God, we haven't even. Begun like we have, in fact, begun. In fact, I was reading re reading a part of something and I was like, I think I need to make my own wiki. Like I think I need to make my own Wikipedia in notion of like all of these things because I've I literally like there's too much where I'm like, pay attention, remember this and then it just poof.

7:21 Or I like annotate it and then it I will never remember to go back to it. So. What's your breakfast here? Open our we have a, we have a shared figma. Everyone. If you don't know what figment is, it's like a white boarding software. I don't know if you've opened it recently, but I have lost my fucking mind on there.

7:37 Like I'm literally categorizing everyone by like what abilities they have. I'm making these crazy family trees. I'm like, I'm just going off the deep end here. I don't know. I just need to follow up note in my phone for like, because I will read and then, like be somewhere else. And so I just like, write it on my phone so that I remember how to go back to it. It's no longer just like a brief follow up note. It's now he's just in pages of like stuff. And I'm like, what is this?

8:04 What is that? And then sometimes we find out what it is and then I'm like, cross that out. We know what it is. Confirmed. Yeah. So this one could go on for a while, guys. But as always, undetermined number of episodes. You don't know. We don't know. We all don't know. We'll be here until there's nothing more talk about.

8:20 That's the way it was for the Imperian. That's the way it will be here. Disclaimer These episodes contain spoilers for the entire ACOTAR series, the entire A Court of Thorns and Roses series, all 5 published books. We are recording this in August of 2025. Those five published books are Cord of Thorns and Roses, A Cord of Mist and Fury, A Cord of Wings and Ruin, a Cord of Frost and Starlight, and a Cord of Silver Flames.

8:44 We will announce any other Mass verse spoilers ahead of time and we'll keep them to the end. So if you've been with us for a few episodes, you know that we get to a point in an episode we're like, this is we are now going to talk about mass first spoilers first means Crescent City spoilers. Throne of Glass spoilers as well.

9:02 Also disclaimer, this podcast is rated R. Do not listen to it with your children. We've forgotten that a few times. We mark it as explicit on the appropriate channel. So that's implied, but we curse, and these are books with curses and other explicit items in them. So please don't listen to it with your children.

9:17 Each week we dive into a specific topic in depth. This week we are digging into the worst redhead in the series, and there are a disproportionately high number of redheads in the series compared to other series I've read. There's a lot, but we're digging into the worst redhead of them all. Amaranth them. I had two thoughts when I saw this note. First I thought, no, Baron is the worst redhead. And then I thought, no, he's not a not a redhead. He's not a redhead.

9:40 How is that everyone? How is that possible? Note it. But then like, yeah, what? What redhead hurt Sarah J Mass is what I want to know. Because like, they're pretty terrible. They're pretty terrible. There's. Gwynn which? And we don't have any reason to have a problem with Gwynn at this point. And Lucian is kind of a toss up. I don't know.

10:00 We don't know about Lucian. If you don't know about Lucian either, maybe go listen to our Lucian episode. A top tier episode. It was a good one I did. Now that we are back like from another week, I did listen to it. It is good. It's good, it's good. We come with receipts, so we have quotes to back up any theories so you can follow along if you're skeptical. The more we learn about where you guys listen to this podcast though, the less I think that you're doing that on runs or at work.

10:26 So far. I'm like, are you actually like, let me go look this up now, But I get that it adds integrity, so we will continue doing it. Yes, we are big fans of quotes here. We love quotes, all right? Announcements, Abby. All right. Ronnie mentioned, I think at this point you guys get how we're structuring it, but basically first part ACOTAR only second part of the episode, mass verse heavy.

10:50 I did mention I think last episode that some episodes are going to be heavier on the mass verse and some are going to be less heavy on the mass verse. I think at least for me, this is one of those episodes that's heavier on the mass first. We'll see how it plays out. Yeah, I agree. Apologies if you haven't read The Firm full mass first, but that's a choice that you made. You will get a spoiler wording before we get into the mass first section.

11:10 Also, how we're structuring episodes this season, I think you guys have kind of gotten this by now, but instead of doing like necessarily a character by character deep dive or a topic deep dive, which is kind of what we focused on in the Empyrean, we're really diving into specific event specific topics. So I know it seems like these first couple episodes have been maybe focused on the first book more than others. Not really how it's going to continue. We're going to change it up a lot, but we do always pull in all of the ACOTAR universe into these episodes. So even though the first couple episodes are covering events, characters, etcetera that we talked about in the first book, we are still doing the holistic

11:45 view of the whole season. Last announcement, you're going to hear some deep dive music this episode. And if you've been listening this whole season, you have heard our new deep dive music for season 2 that is brought to you by Schwoodley. That is SCHWOODLEY. You should check him out on Spotify.

12:00 He. Check him out. Check him out. Shout out to Schwoodley. Shout out Schwoodley. All right, corrections, omissions, social, social media shout outs. Abby, do you have any to share with the class? I have an omission. We haven't really gotten there yet with the social media. We're we're a couple weeks ahead. So I feel like I haven't gotten great comments yet, but if you comment, typically we will, We will always try to respond. If you have a great theory, we will read it on this episode. So if you want to get your theories read, commenting is a great way to do it.

12:28 I did have one omission and this honestly also gets into the heart of this episode. I think it is about the idea of Tamlin's wind power coming from Highburn, which we talked about in the Tamlin episode, and we talked about the idea of Tamlin perhaps being subjected to experiments, magic spells, etcetera, at the hands of the king of Hybrid when he was a child. I actually forgot about this quote when I said this, but I went obviously, and we're out there and Tamlin are very closely tied.

12:57 So I was going back through, and this is an Akatar chapter 32. There's a quote from Farah that said Tamlin had once said to me that he would fight to protect someone's freedom, that he would never allow slavery had it been solely because of shame for his own legacy or because he'd come to somehow know what it was to be enslaved. And she says this right after Ellis tells her that, like, Tamlin had been brought to Highburn as a child. So I really think we're getting set up for this. I'm like, I didn't think it at all the first time I read it. But now that we keep going through and going back on this, I think this is going to be Tamlin's redemption arc that we find out that like, he's not

13:30 really responsible for maybe like all the terrible things that he's done, which I don't know how I feel about it, but like, I feel like we're being set up for Tamlin was like experimented on, tortured as a child, etcetera. And that is why he is kind of the way that he is. I don't know. Again, I don't know that I love it. I'm not really making a judgement call on that. I'm just telling you that's where I think the way that's the way I think the story is going.

13:51 Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I do remember that line. And I remember being like, enslaved is a really strong word to use in that context. And at the time that I read it, the only connection I could really draw was like Amarantha and Reese's relationship. And I was like, oh, was he subjected to something similar? But then that doesn't really work because I believe in the order of that story.

14:14 Amaranthus starting to lust after Tamlin happened later. And so, yeah, I, I don't know, like what that connection didn't really work. OK, I have a couple social media shout outs we are getting already kind of some some engaged folks, some comments, mostly dissenters. But you know, that's the fandom for you.

14:31 That's this fandom. Yes, this fandom is much more strongly opinionated, which we're good with. So the first shout out I have is kind of a few comments that I thought were interesting. On one of our posts we posted about Abby, you talking about Tamlin being potentially De Mati, and you guys had a few interesting comments.

14:49 One comment was from Is my Dog Invited? Love the username and the example that we had provided that that person thought maybe like maybe Lucian was involved. And I think after a Lucian episode, we agree that that's a distinct possibility. However, that was one of several instances where we think Tamlin read Feyer's mind right.

15:10 The most obvious and like kind of hard to argue with example was when she was falling asleep under the sleeping Willow and she was, she thought he was exactly as I dreamed he would be. And Tamlin just answers her out loud. Like if you were with us for Imperion, that's a classic sign of someone's reading their mind and just responding to it out loud.

15:28 Your scalp prickles. You should pay attention to that. Yeah, yeah. Another comment from a user named Fontan said that maybe Tamlin just talked to the stereo. If you're hereby we think that's possible, you should listen to the episode, is my feedback on that comment. The clips are kind of harder to make this season so far because everything is so intertwined. It's like hard to have like a one off theory, but it's OK. Yeah, we'll figure.

15:57 It out it's OK though and then the last one that I actually wanted to talk about was a comment from a user named Mac Flurry Mcflurry. I don't know Mac space Flurry called out another time that we saw Tamlin read fair's mine, which was that example in the Meadow and that person commented we know that mates can read each other's minds.

16:14 I want to talk about this because I think it's important we don't know that and it's not our fault that we're confused as readers. I don't think it's our fault they recent fair use the term shout down the bond often. We've not seen any other mates in the series. And admittedly really we really have one example, which is Cassie and Anesta. We think that Miriam and Drake on are probably Damati as well. So Cassie and Anesta do not communicate mind to mind. And so this mating bond, at least from what we've seen in the series, does not seem to be something that allows a psychological connection.

16:44 We know that there are other books in other series where that is the case, but so far in A Court of Thorns and Roses that has not been a law by any means. And so I think we probably put a pin in this for now. But I do want to open the just discussion and maybe set the precedent that like right now we don't have reason to believe that the mating bond is a psychic connection, like can allow somebody to talk mind to mind. And as far as like why Reese and fair use the term shout down the bond, I don't have a great rationale for it. I think it's just like it might be something that allows them to communicate over longer distances because they're. Damati So yeah, I would agree.

17:17 I I we don't Cassie and Ernesto, we never see communicate mind to mind, right. And he he goes off for a while. And I mean, even she goes off, right. She's on Ramiel. And at no point is she like, hey, by the way, I'm OK, right? So I don't think it's a mate thing. Yeah, and so I think people are probably going to start using this to debate Cassie and Anesta's legitimacy as mates. Not on this podcast.

17:40 I don't like it. I don't like it. No, they're not. But I think we can talk more about its connection to other series later. OK. And then my last social media shout out was actually on the on today's in podcast time today's post, which was about the theory that Tamlin could be the mercenary. I'm gonna call out this person's username cuz I'm trying to be better about that Goatee Ghost.

18:03 Goatee ghost pointed out that the mercenary actually helped Nesta like Nesta hire the mercenary to find the wall and try to bring her back as well. And so I thought it was a good point. Like I don't think it necessarily negates the fact that he could have been because we don't have a clear timeline for when that happened and when Tamlin was away versus present. I think there are a few things that have kind of made that a bit of a harder case that we've uncovered in the last couple weeks, right?

18:28 Like that Tamlin knew that Anders was Anders was skin because Farrah told him. We have this now case of the mercenary kind of being hired to help Nesta back and failing, whether that was intentional or unintentional, like the mercenary and Nesta could not find the rift in the wall. And so good point, good call out.

18:46 We're calling that out here. Maybe it was an omission on our part. Yes, the mercenary does reappear and fails to help Nesta come back to the wall. Yeah, for sure. That was a theory we came up with on the spot, on the spot. I did not have that prepped. Yeah, yeah, definitely could be wrong. I definitely am starting to like the we actually did get a call out about loose and potentially being the Lucian being the mercenary or something. And I was like, actually, I, I'm starting to learn more and more towards that, that actually Lucian was more involved in this than we previously knew.

19:17 You know, I love that theory. I don't know about Nesta hiring the mercenary being the, like, nail in the coffin, though, because, like, yeah, Talon is gone for a while and Nesta specifically does not find her way back, right? So this could be, like, Tamlet's way of, like, keeping Nesta off the trail if he knows his glamour didn't work.

19:36 But that would be, yeah, I'm. I'm saying it, right? Like, that's crazy. That would be crazy. If that's how it works. It would be crazy. But sometimes crazy things happen. Also, we know. Or at least I feel like the likelihood that we ever find out whether that was true probably pretty low. Pretty far from that, but.

19:51 We'll see, yes. But like, we're going to get Tamlin's story at some point, right? She said she was going to write it. So I do think we're going to get a lot of reveals about things that we previously thought we understood. This is like her whole fucking thing, right? You think you know what happens, especially in this series, and then it's like you don't. You don't.

20:08 All right, cool. Our fun question this week is Abby, what do you think about Amarantha I? Love her. I mean, I hate her, but like, I think she's a really great villain. So First off, as I was doing my prep for this episode, I don't know how you prep, but I start just by like I go on literally the Kindle for PC and I just put in Amarantha, right?

20:27 I got 514 hits on Amarantha across this entire series when I do when I did the same thing with King of Highburn 119, right? Like she is such a large presence in this series even after she dies, right? All of book 2 and even parts of book 3 is basically like recovering from Amarantha, right? So it's like her importance to this, even though she's like not on the page for that long, I feel like her importance to this series, like kind of can't be overstated.

20:55 Like I feel like she's fundamental and pivotal to all this. She has a lot more personality. We would get a lot more screen time with her, screen time, page time with her, then with the King of Highborn to like she's just like, she's just fun and she's out here being evil. And I think when you start to again, this is one of those episodes where I was like, Oh yeah, I know who Amarath is.

21:15 I get her deal. And then we started to read more and more. I'm like, wait, maybe I don't get her deal. Maybe I don't really understand what's going on here. Like the whole jury in Clithia story. I'm like, this feels like like a story that is not true. This feels like a story that we have not gotten the full picture of.

21:30 And we'll get into that more, but it like almost doesn't make sense. Again, we'll get into it more, but I like her. I again, I don't think we are because I think we're going to get Tamlin's story. I don't think we're done with her kind of chapter. Even though she's obviously dead, I don't think she's coming back. Nothing like that.

21:46 But I do feel like there will be potentially more reveals about her character to come. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think she has like more, she has more character impact after she's dead than when she's. Alive. I personally find her like as a character, I find her pretty boring, like as a as a like villain with like, you know, the way that she acted on the page and the way that she like she was pretty one-dimensional. She was she was just evil.

22:13 But I think the web that's around her as far as like her time before she took over Prythian and like the impact that she had on people following everybody getting their powers back is super interesting. I've liked villains more than her, honestly. But I'm down for some Amarantha chat. I I enjoy by the web that she's woven that's. But have you enjoyed villains in this series more than her? It's a good point.

22:41 No, I think she's probably the best villain in the series. I mean, we haven't talked about death gods yet and whether they are or are not villains. So I'm willing to like, I guess I'm not willing to say that Amarantha is my favorite villain in this series because of that. I think that's fair. But we still have to decide whether they're villains or not villains. So yeah, I guess.

22:58 But if we're counting villains as her and the King of Hybrid, yes I definitely like her Brie. Alice. Isn't that her name? Oh, Brie Allen Briellen. She's just, she sucks. Like I think she's. Yeah. OK, fine. If I'm stack ranking Amarantha King of Hyburn Briellen. So yeah, I'm putting the King of Hyburn above Brielle.

23:17 Yeah, Brianna's just like she's greedy and she wants youth, and then she doesn't get in. Then she makes it everyone's problem like OK. Totally, totally. But I was about to say, and this is not a spoiler. We know, I feel like we know that Sarah J Maas can write a great villain. I feel like we have a great fucking villain in a different. Series or coming?

23:37 I think there's a great villain coming in A Court of Thorns and Roses. Like I'm I think we haven't seen them yet. OK either way we know she can write a great villain and it never quite happens for this series like. Right. Yeah, and there are a lot of. Parallels. Amarantha is almost that, but I don't think she quite gets there. Whatever.

23:56 I don't want to spoil anything. We'll stop. Yeah, I think she's a far cry from Sarah J Maas's best villain. Sorry. Maybe we're starting off on let's. Pick this up Let's pick this back up in the master section because I do want to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shall we deep dive? Shall we deep dive? Let's deep dive.

24:17 OK, all right. So we'll start with some some context and kind of recap on what we know about about Amaranth and then we'll dive into our usual crazy, crazy shit. OK, so I'll recap and you call out anything that I missed. So Amarantha is from Highburn. She was friends with Tamlin's father, who was described as a vicious and fickle high Lord. We don't know anything really about the context of their friendship other than that Tamlin's father went to Highburn.

24:47 I'm with Tamlin to visit them. So Tamlin had visited Highburn and Amarantha with his father often. It's described as often. And Amarantha eventually found herself lusting after Tamlin. So we're told by Alice, right? A lot of what we know about Amarantha is from Alice's kind of monologue to Farrah when she's finally free to speak about her. Amarantha fought on the loyalist side of the war alongside Highburn and had a younger sister named Klithia. Klithia fell in love with Jurian, who was a general for the humans.

25:18 He commanded the humans and so they're on opposing sides of the war. Klithia and Jurian and Jurian basically played Klithia for information about the Fay and then killed her, butchered her. He was in love with another woman named Miriam. And so there's this whole sob story. Klithea is like basically lusting after this enemy general and then that enemy general turns on her. Amarantha then makes it her life's mission to destroy Jurian.

25:42 And that whole part, I don't know how you feel about it, but that whole part like doesn't quite click for me. Like she was supposed to. She wanted to kill Jurian when Klithea was alive, but she didn't kill Jurian. And then like Klithea died and then the king was like, don't kill Jurian. But then she eventually did, right? Like she finds conflict with him in another way and keeps his eye and his finger bone and his eye is encased in a ring, probably using the King of Hybrid spellbook. But I don't think we ever get firm confirmation that she used the spellbook to encase his eye and kind of keep him alive. Let's jump in about the Clithia thoughts now and then I'll just, I'll pick it up afterwards.

26:18 Yeah, the Clithia plot line doesn't make sense, and I can't tell whether it's badly written or whether it's something. It makes no sense. OK so so the quote is Clithia who is Faye who is a Faye loyalist from Highburn who fucking hates humans and thinks humans should be slaves right? The line is Klithio loved him with a unrelenting madness.

26:40 That is the. Quote and didn't realize that Jurian was using her for information. How is that possible? I just can't wrap my mind around that idea that a Faye warrior who hates humans would fall in love with an opposing general. I'm going to caveat that without some kind of magical interference, basically, yeah.

26:59 I just, I just don't see how this could possibly be that. This is what I was talking about in our intro, right? I don't see how this could possibly be the full story here, because it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah, but it would have to be magic that's benefiting the humans, right? Like that it would need to be magic in favor. But we get we get references to humans that can wield magic, right.

27:19 But back to magic. Yeah, yeah, right. So I'm wondering if Jurian kind of like and we might do a Jurian episode. So I don't want to get too deep into it, but like I am wondering of Jurian is more than meets the eye here, probably because everyone is. Well, I also don't really even think that it doesn't need to be a special human. They just need to have books, right? Like that's how it's presented to us. And for context for everyone who's may be trying to keep up right now, like Reese tells Pharah, at some point when they're talking about libraries, that the libraries were burned. The libraries in the human lands were burned because the fae wanted to make sure that humans didn't have access to magic. And Pharaoh was like, well do

27:57 humans have access to magic? And Reese like, well, some who have special lineage, but sometimes it's just in the words and the magic in like the air. Sometimes it's literally just the spell that is able to invoke magic regardless of who's invoking it. So I don't even think that during necessarily needs to be special for something that has been pulled off here. Get like no fucking follow up on that. That is just like a line that is dropped and then left. So if there is going to be a follow up on it, I think this could be a place where it is followed up on. And then the whole, oh, Klythia Jurian, Miriam Drake on fucking nonsense.

28:30 I'm like, this is true, but I personally did not want that. I'm like, I cannot keep track of who was sleeping with who and what's going on here. Where did Drake on come from? Is Miriam a human? Is she a fae? I get that she's called and made what is happening here. I felt like that part really. Like it's just a big group of two timers. Well, actually it's just the humans that are two timers, yeah.

28:50 But she's half fae. They just scary. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. That's not what this episode is about, but that. It's not what this episode is about but let's lay it out because I forgot after like when I read so. So Clythia is in love with Jurian. Jurian is in love with Miriam. Miriam ends up mated to Dracon, who is. Fat a seraphim, yes, yeah, Miriam dies. Miriam dies.

29:15 Dracon resurrects her. We don't know with what, not with the cauldron, but with some cauldron made item we do not know with what. And then Miriam is made, whatever the fuck made means, because we'll get into that because, because I think there's conflicting things on what made means. Yeah. And and all of this goes back to Amarantha, because Klithia is Amarantha's sister. So it's all a fucking mess.

29:36 So what I'm saying? So we're unclear on how Klithia could just love Jurian and also have no idea that he's not in love with her. It just, it just doesn't seem likely. It just doesn't seem likely, but who knows? Yeah, yeah. And then he just he just like butchers Cliffia, a high Fay, I don't know, a general like, yeah, he.

29:58 Crucifies her, He crucifies her. Yeah, yeah, well, he crucifies her and then and then butchers. Her and then bushes her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crucifies her with ash so that she can't do anything about it. Fucking brutal. Fucking. Terrible, honestly. Brutal, Yeah. And like, I know we don't know much about Clithia, but like, regardless of whether she's being influenced or not, got to feel her in that in that moment, like. I understand Amarantha's anger at jury in here, like it's totally fucking justifiable.

30:26 I know there's I know that the phrase all's fair in love and war exists, but like that is brutal. And we even come to, in this series, view Jury and as like a good guy, like an ally. But like, I know that is, yeah. So. So following that, it's rather understandable that Amarantha then made it her life's mission to destroy Jurian. We have some strange direction here from the King of Hybrid, which is the King of Hybrid doesn't want her to kill him, probably for the sake of peace.

30:54 But like, we know that the King of Hybrid doesn't actually want peace long term. Anyways, She eventually meets him in conflict. I feel like that was also kind of vague and kept his eye, kept a finger bone encased in a ring. Amarantha then embarks on this like PR campaign for herself where she sort of tries to atone for her sins and uses Clithia's death as something that changed her.

31:16 Which I also find interesting because Clithia's death, in my opinion, gives her massive reason to hate humans and continue hating them. Yeah, it makes no sense. But like either you're a bad liar. Well, in in both cases, right? Like you're a bad liar, but also like high Lords. What do you mean? Like what do you mean? So she goes on this campaign and kind of charms all of these high Lords.

31:38 And it's like, I mean no harm. Lithia's death changed me. And they call her the never fading flower, which is such an interesting word for even just the way that this woman is described to look, right, which is not particularly beautiful, but nice looking with like red hair and black eyes, right.

31:54 So for 50 years she goes from court to court, charming everyone but not joining anyone, not allying with anyone court. And then all the while behind the King's back, she had trade ships bringing over her own forces and decides that she wants to use Prythian as which remember on our map, like Prythian is an aisle, effectively like it's an aisle Kingdom. So she wants to use it as a launching point to fully destroy the human lands.

32:19 There's a slice of human lands on Prythian, but the bulk of the human lands are actually across the water on the continent. So she wants to use Prythian as kind of a launching point to just destroy the human lands and used high burns quote unholy spellbook to create a potion that when the High Lords drank it with their wine, their hearts turned to stone and their magic was significantly dampened. She then continues with her campaign for Tamlin, but Tamlin, having seen everything that happened, doesn't want her. And so Lucian is sent as emissary to treat for peace. And that's when she carves out Lucian's eye. She hosts a.

32:52 Sorry, fingernail using a fingernail. Using a fingernail, which is so gross, also independent of independent of the implications. Sure. So you know how it's like very in to have very long fingernails right now? This is not a guitar related guys. It's total fucking tension. Yeah, Cynthia Revo during Wicked had like those.

33:13 Really. Long. Oh yeah, claws. Yeah, yeah, Derek goes. Whenever I see long nails like that, I think there must be so much poop in that because, like, how do they wipe their asses? God, you're fucking. Just I couldn't live my entire life without thinking about that. Derek, what the heck? Okay, anyway we can edit that out if we want. I just had to get.

33:35 It on No, I think it's relevant. It's relevant. We don't know how long amaranthus fingernails were to be. Quick, we don't know how long her nails were. But they were probably pretty long if she could carve out Lucian's eye with one. Yeah. And so then she carves out Lucian's eye. That's obviously terrible.

33:51 Tamlin is distraught. The phrase that's uses that he vomits like he's brought to sickness to see his friend in the state that he returned to the Supreme Court in. And so Amarantha in like classic, like this woman apologizes with the craziest methods I've ever seen. Like she does 50 years of courting.

34:08 And now her next method of apology is hosting, hosting a masquerade ball so that Lucian could wear a mask and cover up kind of the scarring and the gore. And so there's this masquerade ball. The whole spring court comes with masquerade attire on. And Tamlin basically embarrasses her at this party by saying he'd rather marry a human than her. So she do you want to add something here? You this is.

34:31 Just Tamlin is so dumb part too. Tamlin's so dumb he's. So dumb. I'm sorry, this woman has already thrown a ball. She's already thrown a party and she stole all your fucking powers at that party and now she's going to throw another party. What do you think is going to happen? Literally what do you think is going to happen also?

34:48 I feel like I didn't think enough about the fact that these were two fully separate events. Like there are two curses different. Yeah, there are two curses. This is really important. I actually think this is really important. There are two curses. It is two different events. It is two different parties.

35:00 You would think maybe they would figure out that the second one is not one they should attend, but alas, no. Alas, they did not. Yeah, but important, right? There are two curses. The first curse turned the High Lord's hearts to stone and dampen their power. And the second party, they all show up.

35:13 Tamela's like I'd marry a human over you. She basically says do it. You won't. And gave him a way to bring break this spell. She basically offers him a way to break the spell that is dampening his power. But it's with another curse, right? So this deal was that in 7 * 7 years, so 49 years, he needed to find a human girl with ice in her heart willing to kill a fairy.

35:37 One of his men specifically had to be one of his men. And then and that human girl needs to be willing to marry him. The human needed to say that she loves him and mean it. And so Amarantha then also uses the High Lord's powers to bind everyone to their lands. I don't think she could use the High Lord's powers.

35:54 I know. I'm confused because she didn't really seem to be able to use them otherwise, but apparently uses the High Lord's powers to bind everyone to their lands to lessen the odds of rebellion. I don't know. And then? Tamlin, I'm going to be our court. What does that mean? She binds them to their lands. What does that mean?

36:14 So I don't actually have any evidence to support this, but I thought that binding them to their lands was basically like immobilizing armies so that like your armies are bound to your court, so you can't like collectively try and. Overthrow her, maybe. OK, could be. I just literally, I was like, I don't know what this line means.

36:33 I don't know what this means, but you could be right, yeah. I don't know the whole thing. This whole thing is kind of tough, yeah. I need to get this off my chest. I love this book. I do. This fucking curse is so convoluted. It is so convoluted, so dumb. I'm sorry. It's also like, we don't, I don't feel like I know what Amarantha's powers actually are. I think she got into it, uses these spells and finds like dampens high Lord's power.

37:01 She seems like she can maybe use them in certain contexts, but I don't see anything else that she does. I don't really think she's that powerful. Without these stuff, and they they say that right? Like they, they pretty much say outright like she could have never beat them when it comes to combat, like the high Lord's power is nowhere near what she's capable of.

37:20 But I also don't know what what she's capable of at all, honestly. Yeah, we'll. Get into that. I think we'll get into that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, more questions than answers, honestly, in the context, why were Amaranth and Tamlin's father such good friends? Like, other than them just being evil, I don't feel like we have a great reason why 7 by 7 years.

37:40 Seems like it's important. Seems like it will be important. And then nothing ever comes of it. And I'm like, OK, I mean, there's 7 high Lords. There's lots of sevens. There's lots of, there's lots of sevens. Yeah. And like, we know that all fantasy authors of this day and age are likely just massive Harry Potter fans.

37:56 And so maybe it's just a nod to that and that's fine. That's the game. I respect that. But anything that you would add to context recap? Yeah, One thing you, I I have a slightly different understanding of what happened with Jurian. OK, maybe it is the same understanding. You were saying like the high Lord, the king gave her an order to not kill Jurian.

38:16 It's not only that, right? She literally disobeyed the King's orders to kill Jurian. She literally like the king called on her to to fight in this war and she was like, no, I have to kill this motherfucker, right? So she has a real rebellious streak. I'm not really sure why if you're the king of Hybrid and you would send her to Prithian at all for a second time.

38:39 Yeah. So I had that. Let me see. We did not mention she also captures Reese in the war. When he was like a like a kid, basically, yeah. When he was like a very basically commander of a legion. Yeah, and she does not recognize him when she comes back to Prythian, the flower thing. So I do think it's interesting that they call her a flower.

39:01 So Amarantha, Amarantha, the word I don't know what language means unfading or everlasting. And then amaranth is a flower. So when it's never fading flower, I think it's just a play on her name. I literally have written down here what are what are her powers? I don't know. Yeah. Something far more violent than lightning to break Fairer's body. And then she has a blast of white light to knock back Reese. And she's clearly not a de Madi because she didn't know that Reese was planning to overthrow her. She's nowhere near as powerful as Tamlin. She literally pleads for her life. Like, I don't really know.

39:34 I don't really know what her powers are other than this spellbook. So. All right, Abby, tell me, why does Reese need Tamlin to kill Amaran? So there's two things I think that are going on here. So the first, and this is kind of what we talked about before, there are actually 2 curses here, right? There's a curse on Tamlin, there's a curse on High Lords that is holding all their power back. The bargain that Farrah makes with Amarantha is to break Tamlin's curse, right?

40:00 And the curse on his court. So the, the is I want his curse broken too? I blurted. She raised her brow, her smile growing, revealing far too many of these white teeth of those white teeth. I complete all three of your tasks. And his curse is broken and we and all of his court can leave here and remain free forever. So Reese's.

40:18 This curse is never going to be broken unless and then Amorantha throws in the Riddle, right? But like Reese's curse is not going to be broken. He even says at one point I have it on here already, but you're talking about. You're talking about 3 separate events now. I agree with you, I just think it's important to know.

40:34 Right. Like there's Tamlin's first curse is to get him out of his the original curse, him specifically out of the original curse, and then when that doesn't pan out fair makes that bargain, which is to again still only break Tamlin's curse. But Tamlin's curse now being his full curse, or I don't even his full curse.

40:54 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, his full curse, yeah. His full curse, which is mask and Heart of Stone. All right, so that's kind of the first thing here, that Pharaoh's bargain will not break Reese's curse. So Reese needs someone else to kill Tamlin or kill him. Oh man, we are having a loopy episode today. All right. On the other hand, on the other hand, there is this idea, and I didn't pick up on this on my first read or my second read, so who knows, this might be a kooky idea. There is this idea that both Reese and Amarantha are trying to unleash Tamlin, right?

41:26 So like something about Tamlin specifically needs unleashing. We get this with Reese. We get this a couple times with Reese, right? So like he says he makes the bargain with Farah and Farah is like, why would you try to save Tamlin? And he's like, like, yeah, isn't that the question? Don't you want to know?

41:41 We know that everything that Reese is doing is to kind of rile up Tamlin and make him angry and that Reese is betting that Tamlin's first move when he's free will be to kill Amarantha rather than kill Reese. And that will give when Amarantha dies, that will give Reese enough time. Guess he's planning to winnow out of the mountain. I don't really know.

41:57 But he he's basically betting that Tamlin's rage Amarantha will be so great that she will kill Amarantha and that and that Reese himself will be free. But I think Amarantha is also trying to use to her advantage. So we have a couple quotes here. Chapter 41. This is the adder talking to some kind of pig creature from hybrid and we'll get into that later. He says my lady makes no bargains that are not advantageous to her.

42:21 She lets them claw it hope, but once it is shattered, they are her beautifully broken minion. So this is about Amarantha basically playing with Pharah. And this pig feature is like, hey, the king of hybrid is not happy that this is happening. Like this sounds pretty fucking similar to what happened with Jurian and she totally blew him off.

42:36 So like he's not happy that this is happening. And the adder is basically saying here, don't worry, there's a larger plan in play, right? So I was thinking about this. I'm like, she lets them Claude hope. Who is she letting Claude hope? Because it's not Pharah. She's she's not trying to break Pharah, right? Like she specifically is like, I will kill you. I you don't matter to me.

42:56 You're human. She tries to kill Pharah after well, she does kill Pharah, right? She kills Pharah after the curse is broken. So this is not about manipulating, not about manipulating Pharah and letting her Claude hope. It's about manipulating Tamlin. I think it's Tamlin. I think it's Tamlin specifically.

43:12 And I'll get into why later because she says I'll get into why now this conversation. The adder says like no, all of the armies of the of Hiburn are like all of the armies of high Lawrence will be ready to March for Hiburn. And we know Reese tells us like whatever Amaranthus says they have to do, right? They have to do it, but they don't have to do it willingly. So like, basically, if Amaranthus says, hey, there's a war coming, you guys need to ready your armies, you're going to fight for me.

43:39 They are, for whatever reason, with this Velba, completely powerless to fight that. But I think I still think there's this idea of Tamlin not being like fully unleashed, right? Because she's doing all these trials to kind of get Tamlin to that point where he's going to be so angry that like something will be like, and I don't know what it is, but like something will be unleashed, unlocked from within him, and he'll just go fucking berserk on the battlefield or something. I don't know.

44:05 But like, this sentence, this clawing hope sentence makes me think that this is actually about Tamlin and his rage and harnessing that for whatever reason. Yeah, I mean maybe just to get him to fuck her, but that seems pretty short sighted. No, surely not. Surely not. Surely not my thoughts on actually our next question could get into why she might be bottling up Tamlin's rage, honestly.

44:29 But I totally agree with you that like, she definitely sees him as an asset and why like she, she doesn't seem like somebody who's genuinely capable of love. And the word love is never used to describe like her feelings for him. It's lust. And so like she clearly just wants him at her side for some reason. Like what is the reason?

44:48 I think that ties into where you're going. So there's this quote in Chapter 42. Tamler might refuse to be her lover, but she keeps him at her side out of the hopes that she'll break him, dominate him as she loves to do with our kind, right? So it's not about right. It's not about that being in a relationship, obviously, like that's obviously not what she's after. She wants.

45:09 She would probably have to take a different tack. Yeah, right. She wants to dominate him, and the question is kind of why. Yeah. So that then I have the quote from Reese. Her biggest weapon is that she keeps our powers contained, but she can't access them. Not wholly. So she can't access their powers.

45:24 That's what Reese is saying, right? Yeah. It's why I've never been able to shatter her mind. Why she's not dead already. The moment you break Amaranthus cursed, Hamlin's wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering her on the walls. I just think we're getting led to some kind of tamly reveal here.

45:42 Like I really feel like this whole book is setting us up, no? Force in the world, no force is aware. Reece is aware of a lot of things as we know about this world and like gods who have been in it and like other creatures who have been in it. And no force in this world will keep Tamlyn from from killing Amarantha.

46:02 That's crazy claim. I just right. So like, so like in this Amarantha deep dive, I'm like, oh, shit, we should have done this before the Tamlin deep dive because now I have a totally. I don't know, all my theories end up at Tamlin doorstep, but yeah, I just keep going. Let me see if I have any more quotes here.

46:18 Yeah. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool's bargain with Amaranth, that was one thing. But when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm, oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.

46:31 And then Reese also seems to know that like, there's just there's just something here because Reese says Tamlin won't. Like, Tamlin basically won't be able to stop killing once he starts, right? He says favorite for cauldron's sake. I drug you, but don't you wonder why I never touch you beyond your waist or arm or arms?

46:47 It's the only claim I have to innocence, the only thing that will make Tamlin think twice before entering into a battle with me that would cause a catastrophic loss of innocent life. We've talked about this with Tamlin before where he says like, I won't be able to control myself, right? And I took it as him being a toxic male and it's still a toxic male thing.

47:05 But like, I really starting to think there is something there is like some kind of unnatural magical thing that happened to him where like it's a switch and when it gets flipped on, he just like can't stop it for whatever reason. I don't know, that's kind of where I'm going towards, but maybe I'm looking for things that aren't there.

47:22 Which is so interesting, right? Because of what it brings me to is the High Lords meeting when like Reese has no problem leashing Tamlin. Like what about Tamlin and Reese at this point yields a different result than like the potential implications of that. Like I I guess and it doesn't it doesn't need to come into play here, but I feel like following this book, like from when we start a court of Mr. Fury onwards, we're basically set with the precedent that like Reese is more powerful than all of them, all of them.

47:53 Like no contest, not an issue. They all meet as high Lords and Reese's clearly the most powerful. Tells Tamler to fuck off like no problem. Literally mutes him no problem. That said like they didn't engage in hand to hand combat so And that is Tamlin strong suit so maybe that's it. And Reese, if Tamlin has some kind of like kill switch like this, Reese knows, right?

48:14 Because they were right. So couple thoughts on that. Like one, yeah. Reese is not in his full power here, right. So like we know, right? Like when Reese gets to his full power, yeah, like maybe Tamlin is still no matter. And yeah, it's like a different kind of fighting. Like it's yeah, but I agree.

48:31 It's like, it's like she's going down this path and then. Like. And then she goes in a different. Direction, right? Yeah, Here you're making me think like, oh, Tamlin and Reese are equals. And like, this goes back to what we, like, have hypothesized about where like, maybe Reese and Tamlin were both experimented on, that's why they're so crazy powerful. But then that doesn't really play out later in the series. So I don't know, maybe he's just broken in the series so far and we need to see him come back.

48:55 I don't know. I don't know. I think you're right. I mean, I all this groundwork has laid and then, like, seemingly nothing comes from it. But we are still maybe getting Tamlin's story, so I don't know how it's going to play out. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then the other, just the other point I had is, yeah, she like when Tamlin's curse is broken, Amarantha is fucking terrified. She begs for her life.

49:17 She says please. Right. So like, she knows she knows it's over. Like she knows there's no escaping. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she's like, what a gamble. What a gamble to make by Amarantha, right? Crazy gamble for Amarantha to make because, like, she knew that she was riling him up, right? Like, she she, as you mentioned, references several times where she's like Tamlin's powerful.

49:37 Tamlin needs to be on my side. She has been turning him against her throughout the trials. Like these have all been things that will piss Tamlin off. And yet she gambles on and out for him at the same time she's. Trying to break him, right? She's trying to give him hope and then break him. And I think that's exactly what what she's doing.

49:57 She, she hates humans, right? In her mind, there is no way Fava is getting through these trials. She does not think Fava is smart enough. She does not think Fava will kill these Faye, right? Like in her mind, she's giving Tamlin hope, and then he's going to watch his love die in front of him and he's going to be enslaved to Amarantha. Forever.

50:14 Yeah, tough look for Amarantham. All right. Anything else on this one? My my like main thesis for this one was just yeah like the curse can only be. The curse was always only going to be broken on Tamlin. Every other Faye and High Lord in that court were counting on Tamlin taking out Amarantha. Yeah, that's the straightforward answer. This kill switch thing could be something, could be nothing. No, I think it's important.

50:38 Like, I think we're fed plenty that, yeah, that Tamlin has. Something some like intense, potentially magic to anger issue. Yeah, so 100%. All right. Yeah, Ronnie, why was Amarantha called the Deceiver? I love this question. OK. So we hear about Amarantha being called the Deceiver with a capital D twice in A Court of Thorns and Roses, the book, the first, actually, I'm not going to talk about the first first. I'm going to talk about the second First, Alice mentions it to Pharah that Amarantha was called the Deceiver. And so she sort of loosely ties it when she speaks about it to Amaranth's deceit of the High Lords. And so that quote is now they call her the Deceiver, she who trapped the seven High Lords and

51:21 built her palace beneath the sacred mountain in the heart of our land. So the Deceiver who trapped the High Lords deceit of the high Lords. But when the serial tells Pharah that Amaranth that well, he actually doesn't say Amaranth. But when the serial tells Pharah about the deceiver, he ties it to the deceit against the king of highborn and in doing so actually points out that hybrid had a broader plan and a strategy to conquer humans.

51:45 And Amaranth was only one piece of that puzzle. But she went off and started doing her own thing. And so that quote is. And so, 100 years ago, he dispatched his most trusted and loyal commanders, his deadliest warriors, remnants of the ancient armies that he once sailed to the continent to wage such a brutal war against you humans, all of them as hungry and vile as he, as spies and courtiers and lovers. They infiltrated the various high fake courts and kingdoms and empires around the world for 50 years. And when they had gathered enough information, he made his plan.

52:18 But nearly 5 decades ago, one of his commanders disobeyed him. The Deceiver. And then the surreal is cut off, right? This is super interesting one, because I want to talk about the Amarantha part of it, like she clearly deceived him. But two, this is more groundwork that hasn't been played out, right?

52:33 Like they highborns commanders have been infiltrating other high fee courts that are not Prythian, other kingdoms, other empires, gathering information, breaking them. Like where else is this happening that we've not been exposed to? We've we've got the continent that's like a possibility, but really the only other territories we know of in the series so far are besides the continent territories are Highburn and Cria, which is hidden and kind of nearby Prythian.

53:01 So like kind of flashing sirens going off here. Like, is there other stuff that's going to come back into play in the series related to other commanders of Highburn going other places and infiltrating other courts? But here Amarantha is tied to deceit of Highburn and we find out right That she's been ferrying over her horses on these trade ships. I think, and maybe this is obvious and maybe it's not worth pointing out, but I didn't really process it until the 2nd read.

53:27 I think she was trying to raise a rival army. Like I think she was attempting to completely control the high Lords eventually and figure out how to actually use their power, not necessarily just kill humans. And to me, her going behind Hybrid's back like one, what was she doing behind Hyburn's back? I think she was trying to actually completely control these high Lords and figure out how to use their powers and achieve an end that was not just killing humans and conquering. Like I think she had a different agenda from Hyburn, which Hyburn's agenda was conquering humans. I agree.

53:59 That's not what I got into in this. I got more into like the well, it was really more the talent stuff. My answers to these two go for it were pretty similar. No, I mean, we already talked about it. I agree. So there's that conversation. There's that conversation that Farah overhears with Newala and Sarah Dwynn.

54:15 I'm sure I said their names wrong, right? Where the lackey from hybrid comes over and I have it written here. So Farah is being escorted by the race and she overhears a conversation between the adder and creature that she can't see. But for that Pharah swear she overhears snorts like a pig. Yes, the adder was saying.

54:32 Good, she'll be most pleased to hear that they're ready at last. They, I believe, being hybrids forces. Right, but will the High Lords contribute their forces? The guttural voice replied. I could have sworn it snorted like a pig. The High Lords will do as she tells them. The adder gloated and its tail slowed and slashed across the floor.

54:50 Right. So like, the High Lords have to do what she says, which I think is kind of fucking wild, but like, yeah, at this point, and no one ever talks about this, right? If Faber had not freed them from being under the mountain, they're. The humans are done, right? Like, the humans are fucking toast because all of the High Lord's armies would have had to March for Highburn, right? Yeah.

55:07 I heard talk from soldiers in Highburn that the High King is not pleased regarding the situation with the girl. Amarantha made a fool's bargain. She cost him the war the last time. Yeah, right. So, like, Amarantha going after Jurian cost Hybrin the war the last time, right? Like, tell me why the fuck this woman is still employed or alive?

55:28 Yeah, right, alive. Yeah, all right. She caused the war last time because of her madness with Jury, and if she turns her back on him again, he will not be so willing to forgive her. Stealing his spells and taking a territory for her own is one thing. Failure to aid in his cause a second time is another.

55:45 There was a loud hiss and I trembled as the adder snapped his jawed. Its companion, my lady, makes no bargains that are not advantageous to her. She lets some clawed hope, but once it is shattered, they are her beautiful book. They are her beautifully broken minions. So This is why I thought for some reason, Amarantha thought it was so important to break Tamlin's. Yeah.

56:03 Yeah. But I think you're totally right. Like she has no loyalty to Hybrid like she is. Yeah, she's out here for her own agenda. I even. And I don't have any quotes to back this up. Like do you feel like she might have been in love with Jurian because like, the way she hates him? Yeah, is crazy. Yeah, like, and I said at the beginning of the episode that she is justified like Jurian does crucified. Jurian did a terrible thing to her sister. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

56:28 But this is like 5. 100 years of race. Yeah. And I guess it just begs the question, like, what's the difference in their agendas, really, right. Because I think we're we're basically explicitly told by a reliable source, which is the surreal, that Amarantha is going against the King of Hyburn's wishes. And then we overhear the adder arguing with that agent from Hyburn about what she's doing.

56:51 Right. And So what, like if she hates humans and wants them to die in vengeance? Like that definitely would not be a super big deviation from what we're told that the King of Hyburn wants to do, which is just conquer all humans, right? So like, why are they? Why does she feel the need to go against his orders?

57:09 I don't think we have a great answer to that right now, but I. Unless, unless it's classic, you know, she wants to be queen. She doesn't want to have to deal with the fucking king of highborn. She just wants it for herself, you know? Yeah, I mean, the mad Queen narrative is not is not one that wouldn't work for Amor at the rate like she's literally got jury and suspended as an eyeball just watching everything forever.

57:33 Yeah. So maybe it is just like her drive, her mad drive to avenge her sister. Yeah, and she stole the King's spellbook. How did she fucking do that? Anyway, I guess we'll get into it. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know if there's more to say here. I like she. I do not think she was out here.

57:52 I totally agree with you that I, it would be fucking hilarious if we get set up five books later that oh, there's hybrid generals everywhere, right? Like, but I know there are the same, like, where are they? What happens then? The fuck? I know I go on rants about maps, but the fucking maps in this book piss me off so much because like we talk about like Jian, we talk about Sangrava.

58:14 Like where are these places? Are they on this continent? Are they on a different continent? Where are they right like? The fact that we're not given Sangrava actually really pisses me off. And like the just in general, the temples, I'm like, where are you? We're giving a couple. And then they start to expose things on the continent, like as we learn about them. Well, yeah, so more has gone to these places on the continent. So like she could be setting up to meet up with some of Hybrid's generals for sure.

58:39 It just feels like a line that's going to come back that has not come back yet. And we're, this was book 1 and we're going to book 6, you know? Yeah, we took a big detour into like, literally other species just forgot about hybrid. Yeah, but like all that happened is that their king and one of their generals died. Yeah, I don't know.

58:58 I don't know what she's going to do. I don't know. We don't know, OK anything else on that question? Sometimes I crack myself up when I read my notes. So this was the this was the question when I was going to make my argument that this is all about Tamlin, but I made in the last argument. My last note is even when favorite completes all three trials and Marantha is desperate to get her to say she doesn't love Tamlin to break him and make him angry.

59:25 And I, and I wrote the quote is say that you don't truly love him. And Marantha spat and my body twisted, breaking bit by bit. Admit to your inconstant heart, right? And I wrote like, is this really about a boy? Are we really that petty? Is that really what we're doing? Here. Literally, yeah. Yeah, I don't know, maybe.

59:43 Yeah, I know. It's like she's. Yeah, it's like, so it could be so beautiful if it were just like a little bit, a little bit clearer, right? Because she's basically putting Tamlin through the torture that that Cliffia would have felt had someone been doing that to Jurian. Cliffia's human. Object of affection. Right.

1:00:05 Yeah, right. It's like all of this is trying to prove to Tamlin that humans cannot love Faye, right? But like. Yeah, I don't like, I guess fully can. They fully can. And I don't buy that this is all just so that she can fuck Tamlin. Like it just goes away. Really. Yeah. No way. I think it's, I think it's what you're saying here. I think she wants Tamlin for her own army pet thing. So that.

1:00:32 I mean, maybe Tamlin can kill the King of Highborn. But I mean, whatever. Elaine and Nesta kill the King of Highborn. It's not that hard, it turns out. I don't know. With a magic dagger after they were dipped into the cauldron. Like, I don't know if Talon has the same powers as a magic dagger and two women who were made by the source of all power itself. Like, that's still pretty big.

1:00:53 Still big? Yeah. Yeah, it just feels like we've gotten set up for, I know I said this like 5 times, but it feels like we were getting set up for so much in this book and then she just was like, forget it. Different direction, which is fine. I like the direction it went. I like it too. I like it too. All right, cool.

1:01:09 So now we're going to head into our mass Verse spoilers section. So if you have not read all of Crescent City and all of Throne of Glass, we strongly suggest that you leave because you were about to be spoiled. Please leave unless you don't care. Some people, I've learned that some people genuinely don't care about being spoiled.

1:01:28 But if you care about being spoiled. Do you recommend you leave if you genuinely don't care? I'll say this. If you're a person who's like, I want to have a better understanding of Acatar, but I'm never going to read Crescent City or Throne of Glass, and you know that about yourself, That's fine.

1:01:40 Stay. We welcome you. Yep. You won't. You'll be lost. But like, that's fine. All right. Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye. OK, for all who are still here, my notes for this section are triple the link of my. Notes Yeah, there's a lot more to talk about here and I'm no clearer to an answer. I want to be clear, I'm not really closer to an answer, but I have a lot of thoughts.

1:02:03 That's his whole Yeah. We've got thoughts. We've got thoughts. All right, Abby, how does Amarantha turn the High Lord's hearts to stone and harness their power? OK, so I feel like that answer is here and I have to start here if that works. OK, When we meet Amarantha, her eyes are black. We've talked about this in other episodes, right?

1:02:24 That is typically, and I double checked Throne of Glass. I believe the 1st, 4th Throne of Glass books were out at the time that 1/4 of thousands and roses were written. So Valve exist. Valve very much exist. Amarantha's eyes are black. The King of Hybrid's eyes are black. We think this is a big neon sign that Amarantha is a Valk, right? Amarantha has pincers.

1:02:48 We'll get there. Yeah, I agree. With you so if you need a refresher from throne of blast Valg are a parasitic race that can possess humans or fae. Their natural form does not look like fae, but they can possess them right and there's there's different types of Valg and they can take on different types of forms.

1:03:03 So and the only real sign that someone is being possessed by a Valg is that their eyes are black and they bleed black right and they're described as having this oily kind of substance about them. When we meet Amarantha, her eyes are described varyingly as Ebony, Onyx, etcetera, right? So her eyes are black. This is a synonym for black.

1:03:21 Vogue also delight in physical and emotional pain. They like to cause people pain. That also sounds like very Amarantha when I wrote it here. Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, Assassin's Blade, and Air of Fire all came out before Acatar. Air of Fire is the one where we get the Vogue Princess possessing the bodies, right?

1:03:39 So it's completely possible that Amarantha was written to be Vogue, was intended to be Vogue is Valk, right? On the other hand, we do not know the color of her blood. She's like Sarah J Maas never says that Amarantha is bleeding black. We never get that oily Ness about her that comes from other vogue.

1:03:56 She never. There's a distinct moment in Throne of Glass where where Aylan meets the kind of Valk. I don't even remember if they're Princess, but she meets the Valk, the fae possessed by Valk or maybe they're humans possessed by Valk for the first time and she feels this despair, she feels this darkness, like she'll never feel happy, feel happy again. That never happens.

1:04:15 That does not happen, right? So she could be Val, she could not be Val. I don't. I'm not sold on this idea that Amarantha is specifically. That Farrah does say that if she were to paint her, she would be driven to madness. I think that. She does say that. Flag for this woman is something is deeply, deeply evil about her, right?

1:04:37 So let's talk about the stiggy and spider thing, right? So you brought this up in the last episode for those for a refresher, Stiggy and spiders in the Throne of Glass world are basically Maeve's handmaidens, right? So they are actually Val. They're they're not possessing a body. They are Valg from the Valcombe world that have come through a portal and are living in the in Aralia in the Throne of Glass world, right?

1:05:02 So they are not possessing a body at all. Ronnie has hypothesized, other people have hypothesized, I am now hypothesizing that Amarantha could potentially be a sticky and spider, which you might be saying, hey, that doesn't work. Then she would look like a spider. However, we meet in Throne of Glass world, there's a sticky and spider named Serene who can shift into human form in Kingdom of Ash. The reason why Serene can shift into a human form is because she makes a bargain with a shifter.

1:05:28 For the shifter wants her spider silk, right? So she takes 20 years off his life in exchange for the spider silk. When she takes those 20 years, she gets his shifting power. Who do we know with shifting power? Tam Tam and. We know that Tamlin and Amarantha's father were close, right? So I'm not saying it's Tamlin, but powers are typically hereditary in this world, right?

1:05:50 So if Tamlin has the shifting power, I could see a scenario where Tamlin's father also has the shifting power and Amarantha make some kind of bargain. There are some other similarities between Serene and Amarantha, right? So Amarantha clearly has a thing about bargains, right? She's making bargains left and right with Farrah.

1:06:09 When the spider shifts into a woman, she has black eyes. The way that this is described is not pretty, but with a deadly, ancient sort of allure that even a new hide couldn't conceal. When Feyra meets Amarantha, she says something sucked at her beauty, some kind of permanence near to her features that made her allure seem contrived and cold. So it's the same thing about an allure, but it's like kind of deadly, right?

1:06:32 So she's using similar words there. You mentioned the line where Amarantha has pincers, right? There's a line about Serene having pincers scowling at her bare feet in the snow. Serene's hands twisted her sides and echo of the pincer she'd born moments before. So there's similarities here, right?

1:06:51 I think if Amarantha is Val, she has to be the spider because she's not wearing a collar, she's not wearing a ring. Unless she is literally being possessed by a Valc Prince and has a stone heart, which we'll get to, right? I think she has to be a spider. Yeah, OK, I'm like here now in the theory. What do you want?

1:07:09 Do you want to react to that or you want me to keep going? No, I like it. I think you should keep going. All right so then we get to the idea of the stone hearts and turning the high Lords hearts to stone. So in Throne of Glass there is a scene where we see that instead of using a ring or collar to possess a body, the Valk have figured out a way to replace human hearts with word stone heart so that they can possess an entire body.

1:07:32 And we see this in I forgot the name of the city, but it's on the coast. Aylan sees her old overseer from the salt mines and she kills him and she finds like his body has been is just blackness inside. It's been completely overtaken by a word stone heart. And she sees Oh my God, I got his name, the Thou King's eyes, Erawan Erawan, which always makes me think of that fucking grocery store in LA by.

1:07:56 The way, Erawan. Yes. Yeah, does sound very similar. All right, so obviously that happens in Throne of Glass and then the high Lords have hearts of stone and everyone's like, Oh my God, their word stone hearts. I do not think that is what's happening here for one very specific reason, the word stone hearts.

1:08:16 Well, a couple specific reasons. The word stone heart very much beats right. It is like very, very much beating out of this guy's chest. So he says, Alan lifted her head. She burned off his clothes but not touched the skin. And pulsing against his ribs as if it were a fist punching through was his heart.

1:08:34 It slammed into his skin, stretching bone and flesh. And that is the word stone heart, right? Talons heart, famously not beating, not beating, right? That's kind of the whole thing. So maybe Amarantha is a sticky and spider. I could buy that. But I do not think these are word stone hearts. And these high Lords are clearly not possessed by thou, right?

1:08:56 Like they are of their own mind. They're of their own volition. I don't really think this is that unless this was an early prototype, right? Unless this was like an experiment that the King of Byron and Amarantha were running to kind of get to the word stone. And we know the word stone hearts are made of a combination of word stone and iron. I got the sense that this was like true stone conclusion. Maybe a stiggy and spider.

1:09:17 I'm not buying the word stone heart theory. Is this, is this the answer to how does she turn the high Lord's hearts to stone? Yeah. How does she do? It well, she does it with the spell book. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I so I went down the word stone hearts route. So I I agree with you. Amarantha does not have the classic valve like I've always envisioned her as a Stiggy and spider as I mentioned in her Tamlin episode.

1:09:42 Like I think that's what she is. My thought here, and it's admittedly a little woo woo, like it's probably should be a precog theory, but we asked the question and so we're going to answer the question is we talked about Amarantha having different motivations from the king of hybrid and potentially going through kind of this different plan.

1:09:59 She's clearly doing things that are deceiving the king of hybrid, but we don't really know what they are because like everything that she's doing is going down the path of conquering humans. And that's the same path of the king of hybrid is is going down. So like what is what is different? What is she doing behind his back? I don't think we it really panned out right, because she died.

1:10:16 So we don't know. I had the thought right. We obviously don't know how that single word stone heart instance in Throne of Glass with the chief overseer of and OB was created. But I had the thought that if she was somehow like, and we'll get to this when we talk about the spellbook, if she was somehow creating space for Valg, right? Like space for Valg in these high Lords and had a plan for Valg to eventually possess these high Lords word stone hearts that are not beating because there's no Valg in them yet. Like they're not Valg possessed.

1:10:50 The stone is just there. Then that could give her an opportunity that maybe the king of hybrid does not currently have right where you've got 7 high Lords, they've all got hearts of stone. She's going to bring in Valg or OfferUp those kind of high Lords with word stone hearts and say, OK, this is my plan for power is I control these 7 high Lords with this spell book. They've all got word stone hearts and they're all Valg. Then she has this ability to go a totally different direction from hybrid.

1:11:17 And I think we're given and an interesting parallel in the plot of Throne of Glass, right, and that Maeve is a villain, but she has a totally she doesn't want the same things that everyone wants. She wants to just be free and escape like she doesn't want she doesn't want part of his agenda. And I don't think that fully works for Amarantha because she clearly has like a lot of hate in her heart.

1:11:36 She just doesn't want she doesn't want peace. She wants control, but maybe she also wants freedom. And so maybe she's going behind the King of Hybrids back to try and create word stone hearts that Val can possess so that she can have her own army and go her own way and not be part of the King of Hybrids agenda. Maybe she's just a classic classic use trying to usurp the throne.

1:11:55 So I just had a wild thought. I love this. I like this idea a lot and it gets into a valgan. Asteria are the same things, but let's still park that for a second, right? We need to park that. That's too big. We. Can't do that, right? I know it's definitely too big, right? But like we have 7 High Lords, we have 7 Asteri, right? Well, we have 6 Asteri, but maybe at this point in time we had seven, maybe a Polygon hadn't killed the last one, right?

1:12:18 Like, and we know the Asteri are trying to get back to Prithean specifically right there. It's not just this world. Like they want to get back to Prithean, they want to get back to well, I don't know, but they're trying to get back to this world, right? Like. Yeah, this world that they lost. But then we know they.

1:12:33 Lost. The Osteria are the Daglin. Like we know that they are the Daglin. No, I know, I know, I know. I'm just calling them osteria because that's the more familiar term. Yeah, yeah. But. I'm what I'm saying is, is she was she somehow like working with the Osteria because it's seven and seven? And was this like a first step except that they never find no, forget it, cut all of this because they never find the same home world. They're so, well, everything I'm saying is nonsense. Right.

1:12:57 Where were you going? I was going to say. Like is is she teaming up with the Asteri? Are the are the seven things she's waiting for the Asteri? Because we know the Asteri you're trying to get back, but the Asteri don't find the fae hold unless she's like a fanatic and waiting for them or something.

1:13:13 You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Because are there 7 stiggy and spiders I don't remember there being a firm number on. I don't. Yeah. I also, I thought they were plentiful. Maybe there were seven in Throne of Glass, but I thought they were like their own. No, I think there's many. I think there's many, but there's seven history, right? I don't know.

1:13:31 Yeah, so, yeah. So maybe she's preparing something with her sisters, like, hey, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna take this one, Tamlin. He's gonna be my my partner here. And then you guys can choose amongst yourselves for the rest. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I like that's why I think the word stone heart has has merit. It's obviously like their hearts are stone are not occupied and so like the magic and the rest of the high Lords body is just keeping them.

1:13:57 Kind of then, but maybe it was a. Preparation. Well, that even points me more towards the Osteria, right? Because in theory, the Valgar already here. True. Yeah. But the asteri don't need to. The asteri don't need to occupy. We don't know. They don't need to occupy on Midgard, but, right, Ridgilis is a fae, right? And he's clearly not actually a fae. I'm still reworking through Crescent City, but I don't think we know for sure.

1:14:23 Yeah. Like the Asteri appear as angels in Midgard, right? Like, I don't think, I don't know that that's their actual form, except for Ridgilis who appears as a fae youth, right? Yeah, true. I don't know. I need to. I haven't reread Crescent City yet, but I think my official stance based on what I know right now is preparative word stone hearts for Amarantha to do something that was not just follow the king of Hybrids agenda, but the word stone hearts were not occupied. And that's it.

1:14:50 And. My official stance is maybe it's nothing and not VAG at all. Maybe she's a crazy fanatic awaiting the return of the asteroid. Who knows? Yeah, I got to go reread the Stiggian Spider section of that and it's like in Tower of Dawn or something too. The Stiggian Spider Tower of Dawn, but the saline part is in Kingdom of Ash.

1:15:11 Yeah, right. All right. Anything else on that one? I have a kind of tangent. There is this golden light that shines around Tamlin when he kills Amarantha. The quote is Amarantha backed away, away from my corpse. She only whispered please before golden light exploded. And then Amarantha screeched, kicking at Tamlin, lashing at him with her dark magic.

1:15:33 So dark magic that is Valk. But a wall of gold encompassed his fur like a second skin. She couldn't touch him. Yeah, we do see this in Gabriel in Throne of Glass. Yeah. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because it's kind of not clear what Gabrielle's power is, but it's kind of implied that he has healing power.

1:15:56 But it's different than Irene's healing power because Irene's healing power is obviously white. Yeah. A lot of people think that Tamlin might be an offspring of Adian and Lee Sander, right? We don't think that, but people think that if he is and if he if he has this kind of gold version of this healing power, we know that may have kept her owls close, right?

1:16:16 In case Arrow on came back, right. Is that what Amaranth is trying to do with Tamlin here? Is like him close because she knows he has this power, yet another power that we don't really know about. But like, does he have a power that could defeat the Valk? But like, then again, none of this ever comes fruition.

1:16:32 Nothing ever happens here, so I don't know. Yeah. Or it hasn't yet. Yeah, I like the Gabriel connection. I honestly, the way that I interpreted that is like we always are shown like Reese's power is like Ebony. I thought that Tamlin's power was just gold. I know. That was just the color of his power. Well, it was the wall of gold encompassing his fur like a second skin.

1:16:55 Gabrielle does that to Fenris when he's healing him in the tent in Maze camp in Dorno. Yeah, right. So it's like, I don't know. I don't know. Interesting. I like it. I do think that the I think the Amaranthus story has to it feels Maeve ask in some regard, but this is what. We were talking about before, right When we were talking about comparing her to the best villain in the surgery mass world, right? I like Maeve much better as a villain, like I just do, but I do think yeah, they could have interesting parallels and we just didn't get to learn as much of Amaranthus story yet. But I agree with you, it's like Amarantha is like an echo of of Maeve.

1:17:35 Yeah, yeah. With like which would make sense if she's a stiggy and spider. Yeah, right. With motives that make her her so much angry and so much nastier, right. Like she is avenging her sister, like Mavis just trying to escape. Like an arranged marriage. I know. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. All right. Ronnie, what is the spell book that Amarantha? Uses, Yeah.

1:17:59 OK, so I'll start off by saying I spent two hours reading about the books across these series and I still don't feel like I'm done. I think we need we might need a books episode. Like it's entirely possible, but I think we've got enough years. And Marantha stole a book of spells from the King of Hyburn and used it to turn these high Lord's hearts to stone, effectively dampening all power in both the high Lords and their land, which I feel like we didn't really talk about yet. But like, that is a clear signal that the high Lords power, we know it's tied to the land because of Kalami, but like it's also tied to everything else.

1:18:35 Like they are this like Mecca of power for each of their courts. And so when their powers are diminished, everybody else's powers also seem to be diminished, which I think is interesting. And it resides in their hearts, too. Yeah, it's in. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't have more to say about it, but.

1:18:52 When Amarantha died, no one grabbed this book. Like no one. No one grabbed it. And so it was returned to the King of Hyburn. And then the King of Hyburn uses it a few more times throughout the series. I have a list actually of the times I thought it might have been used that wasn't confirmed. But the most notable were to contain the inner circles power in Highburn when they try to nullify the cauldron and then to chain Elaine inside of his camp when Nestra scribes for the cauldron. And then Nesta and Azrael come in to to rescue Elaine. Those are two like clearly documented times when he uses the spellbook again.

1:19:24 We've talked about Amarantha and her ties to potentially being a sticky and spider. We've also talked about the King of Highburn in a prior episode, seemingly also potentially being occupied by Valk hosts. They both have black eyes. They both die of beheading. There is another important spellbook in this universe that is tied to the Valk, and it's called The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is a book in Aderlin that Selena uses to learn how to use spells, word marks, understand word gates, a bunch of stuff.

1:19:58 She mostly uses it like to unlock doors and learn about things, but notes that it has like irresponsibly powerful spells that could be used to raise the dead, to torture, to summon demons. And yeah, so. So The Walking Dead has a lot of potential. We see it briefly in Throne of Glass, and we know that somehow it ends up in I'm Hopping books here.

1:20:20 Now in Jezebel Rogue, it's called out by name. Alongside the book of breathings in Jezebarrogas library. So I suspect that in the middle it was probably in the great library of Parthos, which was built by humans and later destroyed. We know the Jezebarrogas books largely come rescued from this kind of burning library.

1:20:41 My primary theory here is that the spell book that Amaranthus stole from the king of Highburn is The Walking Dead. There are some. I can't I can't stress enough how many books there are in this series. We've got the book of breathings. We've got like a bunch of other books that are called out, but The Walking Dead is tied to, if our other theories hold right, tied to word stones, tied to word marks.

1:21:03 It's a valg book, right? It has it's, it's in the universe of, I'm sorry, it's in the Kingdom of Aderlin where a valid king is currently ruling, right? And so I think that it's I think that it's The Walking Dead that Amarantha is using. But what do you think? Unsurprisingly, don't be mad at me. I took a bit of a tangent here. I also agree it's probably The Walking Dead. It came down to me there were three possible books it could be.

1:21:26 I did not spend 2 hours, but there are four books that are called out in Jezebel's library, right? The first one being The Walking Dead as you just mentioned. Next one is the Book of Breathings we know. It's not the book, it's. Not the Book of Breathings, right? Yeah, on the divine number. This feels related to hell. However, when you Google divine numbers, the numbers you get are three and seven.

1:21:45 So I hear your Harry Potter call out, but I think the reason we keep seeing 7 is because it has something to do. I think this is. Divine numbers. Yeah, and divine numbers, right? Yeah, I mean there are 7 circles, yeah. There are 7 circles of hell. There are 7 Princess of hell. We'll get to it. The Queen with Many Faces is the last book and this feels like it's related to the mother or the three faced goddess.

1:22:07 So I think I agree with you. It's probably The Walking Dead. I'm more interested in this question of why does she need to rely so heavily on the spell book. It seems like she has no powers of her own. So we get another quote, I think again from this pig lackey from the King of Hyburn. Oh, and there are other things that this king of Hyburn does with this spellbook.

1:22:28 Just real quick. He creates the words around his castles. You mentioned that he breaks the wards around the library, right? So when the King's Ravens show up, he says he must have like uses a one time spell from his spellbook or something. He makes himself appear on the ship at Summer Court when he's actually in Highburn, right?

1:22:45 So he's like fucking astral projecting out here with this small book. And he can track Reese's power with it, which we never really see again. But somehow whenever Reese uses his powers, he can track it. So it seems like this book grants you a lot of power that Faye don't typically have, right.

1:23:02 So we have a quote from one of the king of hybrids lackeys. It says I am here on a condition of immunity from the king. This also twice the idea that the King and Amarantha are not getting along right. I'm here on the condition of immunity, like the King has granted me leave to come talk to you. I'm here on the condition of immunity from the king. If your lady thinks she's above the king because she rules this wretched land, she'll soon remember who can strip her powers away without spells and potions. Right?

1:23:28 Like this to me sounds like Amarantha cannot really put up a fight against the King without his spell book. And Reece even says like she she couldn't really do anything without the spellbook, right? Like the only reason that I haven't wiped her mind is because of her of her potions over me. The thing she does with this spellbook are trap the high Lord's power trap Jurian's consciousness and make the high Lords have to obey her right.

1:23:52 Let's talk about this. I I know we talked about Amarantha being Valg. I'm wondering if she's actually a witch, right, because Moore's definition in 1/4 Silver Flames, Nesta asked Moore. What is the difference between a fairy and a witch? Moore says. Which is a mass power beyond their natural reserve.

1:24:09 They use spells and archaic tools to harness more power to them than the cauldron allotted and use it for whatever they desire. Good or I'll right. So that seems to be the definition of which in this Acatar world, obviously in Throne of Glass, we have a different a different definition of which.

1:24:28 But we know that those witches in Throne of Glass also don't really have any power, right? Like the only only power they have is the yielding when they die, right? So they are these magical beings, but they don't really have any power on their own. And as we started this, I was so talking about she carves out Lucian's eye with her fingernail, but her fingernail, right.

1:24:47 So make her iron teeth should make her an iron tooth. Iron teeth, which I always she. Didn't have a yielding. Iron teeth was she did not have a wielding but I think the yielding is a choice right? So I just think this is like I'm not. I didn't put too much thought into this but I just wanted to raise this as an option.

1:25:04 This would explain why she doesn't seem to have very much power. The Blackbee clan also has Manon has gold eyes, but everyone else has black eyes flecked with. Gold. Yeah, right. Yeah. And Manon Maratha has guns, so. Right. And Maratha has black eyes, right? So I'm just throwing this idea. I'm just throwing this idea out there.

1:25:20 Like, yeah, there's a lot of evidence that she's valid, but like, we could be getting set up for a witch reveal too. And I don't know what the fuck a witch in the ACOTAR universe is is versus a witch in Throne of Glass versus a witch in Crescent City, Right? Like they all seem to be slightly different. Maybe the witches in Crescent City and Throne of Glass are the same, but.

1:25:38 I think if, I mean if you're stacking reasons, we might think Amarantha is a Stiggy and Spider versus a witch. I think we have way more for Stiggy and Spider, but I like the idea. I actually think the witches come up elsewhere in Avatar, and I don't wanna, like, spoil future episodes, but I think we probably think the same thing's there. Yeah, I think there's also 2.

1:25:58 Places where the Stiggy and Spider comes up. And I think there's two places where the witch, like the Stiggy and Spider, she has pincers. Yeah. And she has black eyes. The witch, she has black eyes. And she tears out Lucian's eye with her fingernail. Yeah, she died of her throat being ripped. She did die of her throat being ripped out, but a witch would die from that too. Yeah, maybe she's not just tossing out ideas. This is just free.

1:26:22 Association I'm good with it. I'm willing to roll with it. All right, She's maybe black beak ask another note that I had here on the spell book and the specifically the spells that were in it. I have a whole list of the times that I thought then she that the spell book might be used not by her, but specifically. Do you remember when Lucian said she gave a little bit more of Lucian's power back?

1:26:45 How did she give just his power back like just that one piece and does? He have a hard look, Ron. I think the answer by why are were this episode still all over the place is because it's just not. There's just not much here. Like, it's possible that this is just not. Yeah, that she just has a spell book and it's fine. Well, I think it's possible that this was the first book in a series of that this villain was perhaps not as well thought out as some other villains, but because we've written, it was like, after Glass.

1:27:14 Yeah. I don't know, Like when she ties. Everything in Throne of Glass together within an inch of its life like that book is a tight, tight plot. It's big, but it's tight. There's one last thing on with respect to this question, and we can probably talk about this now that I've spoken into the universe that we might do a books episode.

1:27:31 But there's this common thread of protecting books in all three series that I think is like one of our signals to like pay attention to the ties between these worlds. ACOTAR, we learned that after the wall went up, the fae burned the humans libraries rather than let the humans have access to books with magic. This happened roughly 500 years before the events of Akadar, right?

1:27:53 Call it 550. And Reese specifically says most scholars had enough time to evacuate and winnow the books out. So again, like these, these people rescuing books, these Fey that are sympathizing with humans rescuing books. But if they didn't have time or the brute power, they had burned the libraries rather than let the humans access their precious information.

1:28:10 And that's kind of where we learned that sometimes just the words of these spells are enough, right? And then in Crescent City we have the Library of Parthos obviously, which was destroyed by the hysteria and the veneer. And Jessica protects the books that she can and escapes via that ship called the Griffin and she founds Griffin Antiquities.

1:28:27 This happens 15,000 years before the events of Crescent City. And then in Throne of Glass too, like more subtle, but there are these purging fires that burned all books with magic 10 years before the events of the series. So there's this like continued thread of this like burning and protecting of books and words.

1:28:45 And they all happen with like within varying timelines of their own universes. And I wonder whether that's relevant. I don't think we're going to talk about it here, but I just, I think it's interesting. Yeah, so interesting. So thread to pull out for sure. Cool. OK cool Abby, last question, why is Amaranthus Sigil a dragon? All right, I'm going to be honest with you. I took most of this from a Reddit thread called SJM Plus Dragons because I was kind of at a loss here. So Amaranthus Sigil is a sleeping dragon. We'd find this because we find this out because Lucian goes to help Pharah in her cell and he gives her a cloak that he took off the guards and the sigil on the cloak is a sleeping dragon. And you're like, hey, what the

1:29:27 hell, There's no Dragons in this world. This doesn't make any sense. There's a couple a couple instances where we see Dragons throughout the mass first. So the first one is in Throne of Glass and Kingdom of Ash. We have a quote from Maeve. I have seen many wars, sent my warriors to fight in them and them I have seen how destructive they are. The very glass you lay on comes from one of those wars. You know this is when she's making ale and fucking kneel in the glass.

1:29:52 Terrible from the glass mountains in the South. They were once sand dunes. But Dragons burn them to glass during an ancient and bloody conflict. Some claim it's the hardest glass in the world, the most unyielding. I thought given your own fire breathing heritage you might appreciate its origin.

1:30:07 So confirmed there used to be Dragons in Aralia may have simply continued. The Dragons didn't survive that war, and they never rose again. Her lips curved, and Aylan knew Maeve had ensured it. Other fire wielders haunted and killed. She didn't know why she felt it then. The shred of sorrow for creatures that had not existed for untold centuries.

1:30:26 So may have haunted down all of all of the Dragons with the idea that the dragon fire. We know that the valve don't like fire, right? So like, yeah, haunted down the dragon so that the fire wielders would not come after her. In Crescent City, we have Ariadne, who I completely forgot about, but thank you for reminding me.

1:30:43 Ariadne, who is a dragon, she's not a shifter. She is a dragon. She is a dragon shift in human form, but she can't do it at will. So she just is a dragon who has a human form. Also get at one point, I forget what book it is, Bryce gets a report about Dragons and it says dragon fire is one of the few substances proven to harm the Princess of hell.

1:31:04 So there's proven dragon fire in this world. There are carvings of faith slaying Dragons in Avalon, which might mean that this was actually in Prytheon, right? Because Avalon has all these ties to Prytheon. It's like kind of very closely tied with the Fay homeworld. And in one of the Crescent City bonus chapters, Randall and Amber refer to Cassian and Azrael's wings as dragon wings, right? So those are kind of the dragon references we get in the larger world.

1:31:29 And then in Acatar we have obviously Amaranthus coat of arms. The other interesting thing is the Middingard worm. The way that worm is spelled WYRM, that is actually typically considered a type of dragon rather than a worm, right? So like in I think it's like Welsh tradition or something Like a worm WYRM is a flightless dragon. I have no idea what any of this has to do with Amarantha. I'm fucking stuffed.

1:31:55 I don't know. Do you have a theory like? I have some interesting thoughts. I do my best to tie them all together. I could talk through the connections that I like. I think you've named almost all of the connections that I found and I just organically did it. So I might be totally off, but we'll see. So the first was the Throne of Glass connection. I don't think you brought this up, but there are Dragons on the library in Aderland.

1:32:21 And the quote is they're walking towards library Selena and Kale and Selena suddenly halt. She says what is that? And she points at this 20 foot, the 20 foot oak doors, her eyes widening at the Dragons that grew out of either side of the Stonewall. 4 legged Dragons, not waiverings like those on the royal seal. It's the library.

1:32:40 And so this is another point to is that book The Walking Dead, right? Because that's where we find it is in the library in Aderlin. And that to me could tie Amarantha and really like this, this coat of arms is Amaranthus coat of arms. But is it Amaranthus or is it hybrids like we don't actually know, right?

1:32:55 Either way, like, this could tie them to the valid king that was, yeah, you know, ruling Aderlin at that time. You also mentioned you mentioned Maeve. And then there's I like this way less. This one would upset me if it's a connection. But there's dragon imagery when it comes to Aylan, right? She wears this dress with this dragon.

1:33:13 Of course, that kind of creeps up the back. And so I hate that because Amaranth is evil. But like, we do get dragon imagery when it comes to to Maeve as well. And Rowan is like, enthralled with it, right? And so could this be a connection to what's that land Doornail? Yeah, Doornail, which is also where where Maeve ruled SO2 Valg ruled locations at that time. And then we have the Crescent City connection, which you mentioned Ariadne, she is enslaved by the astronomer and kept in a ring, which is so interesting, right? Because that is what Amarantha does to Jurian's eye. Like I don't think I don't feel like we've gotten anything so far that would mean that Amarantha could be like descended from Dragons or like

1:33:58 maybe Dragons were her army like at one point, I don't know. But like Ariadne has she's like very dark coloring. Her eyes are Crimson, not black, I think, although I think at one point when she's like at rest, when she doesn't have like power quaking in her, she has dark eyes. But one another thing that I thought was interesting is Ariadne is also the name of the daughter of King Minos of Crete who helps Theseus escape the Minotaur.

1:34:22 So you brought up Theseus with respect to that labyrinth that Amyranthus set up. And so like King Ninos is abandoned on Naxos by Theseus after King Ninos helps him. So there's some ill will potentially with Ninos and Ariadne against Theseus. And so that could pull on this kind of labyrinth connection as well.

1:34:45 Like Crete, right? Like Crete and Creteia and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't think about that, that part, but that's interesting and how she like how Miriam and and Dracon kind of ran off to there. I think the connection I like the best of those is the one to the library and kind of linking her to the king of Aderlin.

1:35:04 And that's also the world in which we see sticky and spiders, right? So it just like feels a little bit better if that's the thread that we're pulling, but I don't think we can. Maybe it's just Sarah J Maas being cute. But like the ring thing seems like a little bit of a flashlight, like a little bit of a signal, like, hey, look over here.

1:35:20 But now she's dead, so who knows? I hate this whole episode of like. But now she's dead. Yeah, maybe we should have done it, but whatever, it was fun. It was fun. Yeah, I mean, so this is my This is why I was saying I don't know why this would be a Maratha signal, because if she is Valg, why the fuck would she want to be around Dragons, right?

1:35:39 She she would hate Dragons. This does not work for her. But I guess the Valg army does build a wiver an army, so maybe I'm mistaken. Yeah, wait, can the? Wiver and breathe fire. I don't remember them actually ever doing that. Recently enough to say I don't know. I don't know, maybe they remember them ripping stuff apart with their chest and on?

1:35:59 Well, they're basically meant to replace the brooms. I don't know. That they can breathe fire. Yeah, All right, we'll figure it out. I don't know. It was a fun little rumination though. Amaranthus Sigil, Yeah. Being a dragon, I like the Maeve connection too. Yeah. Well, if she is a sticky and spider, is she not Maeve's handmaiden?

1:36:18 Maybe she is, and maybe she's. Are they all Maeve's handmaidens? I don't remember. I honestly don't remember. I don't remember either. The ones in Aralea certainly are, but yeah, then she's like getting pointers from Maeve maybe. Yeah, or maybe she's trying. Right, because Maeve can't. Maeve is desperately trying to not talk to other worlds.

1:36:39 Yeah, unless she's like priming, trying to prime Prithean as a destination, but that wouldn't work because Valgar already. I like how I'm saying Valgar already. There is. If there's no possibility that the King of Hybrid is not Valg, maybe none of them are Valg except for Amaranth as a stinking spider and they're just preparing for Maeve to come to that world because everyone's fucking up her day. Have you heard the theory that the King of Hybrid is Dorian's little brother?

1:37:02 I've not, but that's interesting. Do we think that Dorian's little brother is for sure occupied though? I know he was terrible but like Dorian wasn't. Occupied automatically? Then I would think no. Right. So then like I guess is the theory just that he like grew up and then. I don't. I think the theory is he just grew up and became.

1:37:22 I don't think it's that the king of Hyrin is Valk at all. I think the theory is oh, it's just the king of Hyrin is. Dorian's brother. Dorian's little brother. Yeah, like he wandered through worlds and ended up in Prithian. Sure could be. Why not? This is at the very least a personality episode. I'm not sure we got anything here.

1:37:41 I mean, Amaranth is a stick in. Spider Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. All right. What is your precut corner theory? All right, my, I think our last two, I definitely did an Amarantha theory last precard corner. So I decided to not do an Amarantha theory this Precard corner, even though it's an Amaranth episode, but it is relevant to what we've been talking to.

1:38:00 All right, so I just mentioned in the Wise Amaranthus Sigil, a sleeping dragon question that one of the things that Bryce finds out is that dragon fire is one of the few substances proven to harm the Princess of Hell. We have a man, an Illyrian warrior in Prithean that many people think is a Prince of Hell or a son of a Prince of Hell. I'm of course referring to Azrael, who has very, very burnt hands, right?

1:38:29 He has scars on his hands. Favorite remarks that it must have been something terrible to leave scars like that. We have not gotten the story of what that is and we are not getting into right now whether or not we think he's a Prince of hell. My precog theory and I this is totally out there is that Azrael's hands were burned by dragon fire somehow. I don't know how, but like we get this tidbit in Crescent City.

1:38:51 We have the theory that Azrael is a Prince of hell. We know that whatever burned him must have been really, really terrible so that's my theory. It's not my. Best. I mean I feel like this whole episode was kind of off the wall so I feel like it's fine. Interesting but and I didn't reread this part so shame on me.

1:39:08 Except I didn't think I would have to. Aren't we told exactly like how and in what manner as real is tortured? I think we're told his brothers like held him down while they burnt his hands but like we're not given the story from his point of view. I kind of assume if we haven't gotten the story from a first person point of view, like it's up for grabs.

1:39:28 Yeah, I agree with that. Right. So like, we know that his brothers like held him down, but I don't think we know the exact mechanism. I don't think we know the exact mechanisms of all that. I can go back and check. I also did not go back and check this because this was the theory that came to me during my run.

1:39:43 And I was like, let me just jot it down real quick. I like the I like the that the burning was connected to something because we don't have, I mean, and we we wouldn't because we haven't gotten this book yet. But like, we don't have much to exactly why he was like imprisoned and tortured other than just like, you know, his parents didn't know what to make of the fact that he was a shadow singer. Like, yeah, yeah.

1:40:03 But could they have known that he was? At least hell adjacent and wanted to like prove it or disprove it. Well, that's interesting. I didn't even go there, but yeah, I mean, that'd be interesting. Yeah. To be clear, I don't think this dragon fire necessarily needs to have, like, come from a Dragon's mouth.

1:40:19 Like. Yeah, I think I agree. Like, there are other things in other fantasy worlds where you can, like, capture dragon fire, right. So like, I think it could have been something like that. Yeah. But yeah, what's your pre cut corner theory? You know what, now that I think about it, this dragon sigil, I think you're right.

1:40:34 I think it's just meant to make us think of Alan honestly and show us that Amarantha is like from that world. That's what that's all I think it is, yeah. But I also really like, I don't know, now I'm kind of stuck on the Ariadne connection like what if this is, this is crazy. So maybe it's appropriate that we're talking about it in this segment. But like, what if Amarantha is like, we don't know timelines in any of these, right?

1:41:00 Like, yeah, we have more modern worlds and we have less modern worlds, but like, we had aliens surfacing within a guitar. And so who knows whether time and space is even, like, whether time is actually a continuous thread between these worlds or whether you can just kind of move in and out of them across planes of time. What if Amaranth is somehow related to Ariadne, and Ariadne maybe goes on to be some important character in Crescent City, and then she has this legacy, the fact that she was imprisoned in a ring and broke out, and so now Amarantha is like, I'm going to imprison the human in a ring. Fuck the human.

1:41:34 I don't know, that's a crazy theory. It's probably not true. You know what? I you know, I just popped into my brain. That would be an even crazier theory, but that I could see, given everything we've talked about. I have nothing to back this up. I have nothing to back this up. I want to be so clear. What if Jurian becomes the astronomer? Yeah, like, like that.

1:41:53 Yeah. And you're, that's like the flip, right is like jury is like, all right, fuck you, Amarantha. Like I remember you and your dragon sigil and I'm going to imprison this dragon in a ring. I don't. Know I get I have nothing to back that up. Do not come for me. Yeah, nor do I, I have anything to back up the opposite for Amaranth. But yeah, I mean, my precot corner theory originally was the word stone hearts.

1:42:13 And then I was like, there's no way we're not gonna end up talking about the word stone hearts when we talk about the hearts of stone precot corner. For those who are new, is theories that are so crazy that we don't even know if we really believe ourselves are true. But you mentioned earlier, so this throws out the idea of Amarantha being a sticky and spider, right? You mentioned earlier in the episode that Amarantha captures Reese super early on during the Great War and holds Reese and tortures him.

1:42:38 And it's like a big like it's an intentional thing. She's captured the son of the high Lord of the night Court. It's I mean, he is him. He's an Illyrian. Like he looks like Reese. And then she doesn't recognize him later, even though she's literally sleeping with him for 50 years. And so my precar quarter theory is what if this was pre the Amarantha occupation?

1:42:57 Like she was still terrible, she was still evil, but she was different person. And then a Valga occupied her after the fact. And that is why the the Amarantha that's speaking in A Court of Thorns and Roses does not remember Reese, because it's not the same person speaking. Yeah, yes. Well, OK, I thought, well, I thought through this whole thing because This is why I went back and forth. Like, is she Val?

1:43:18 Is she not Val? She doesn't. There's no mention of a ring. There's no mention of a collar. She does wear a crown I think, but like typically when well. We don't know. Typically in Throne of Glass. Exactly, exactly. She would have to have her heart have been replaced. Yeah. In which case? Which she clearly knows how to do. Yeah, I mean, I guess it does fit. I guess it does fit.

1:43:38 I don't know. We're all over the fucking place. Whatever, whatever. What are you reading? What are you reading? Right, none of it matters. I'm just reading Crescent City like I was last week, which I've realized something funny about myself and I totally own up to this. The first time I read a book, I just read it for the spice.

1:43:55 I'm willing to admit that said about myself like I missed so much in the first half of. Crescent City, there was so little spice. I mean, I missed so much in the first half of Crescent City because I was like, are these motherfuckers going to have sex or what? Like, what is going on here? Yeah.

1:44:13 So I just kind of, like, tore through these chapters and like, now that I know when everything happens, I'm like, all right, I can read it for real this time. But yeah, so I'm. I'm getting way more. I'm like absorbing way more. Yeah, I need to do a Crescent City reread. I've only read it once. I did read it slower than you.

1:44:31 I feel like I picked up maybe a little bit more than you, because I wasn't. I don't. Know because you remember that there was a dragon in Crescent City and I said, what are you talking about? Yeah, but I will acknowledge and I feel OK going on record and acknowledging it. There is. If I wasn't me, I would think there's way too much in Crescent City. Like Crescent City is like an 1800 page lore dump basically just like hop, like here's a literal encyclopedias worth of information that you have to keep track of and remember. I don't remember 70% of it, I guarantee you. Why are everyone's name so similar? Why are there so many species?

1:45:13 I don't even remember what species aligned to which house. I need to write it all. Why are there so much information? The houses do not fucking matter at all. Not as far as I can tell. Why are there vampires like it's the same thing where she has all these like threads that she starts and like doesn't really go anywhere with. I feel that way, that Throne of Glass, if I'm being honest with you, I really is way too fucking long with way too many threads, but we'll get.

1:45:40 There throne glass has more distinct plot lines but I feel like less world to absorb overall. Like there is so much world in Crescent City, like species. Yeah. Cities like people so much like throughout of Glass there's like there's a pretty defined set of characters from like halfway through the series through the end, except for you just have a random villain come.

1:46:04 Out and then like a lead shows up. I'm like who the fuck is this bitch? OK, but they show up like I guess the lead. When does the lead show up? I. Feel like books 5 or 6 I don't know. Sure, but there's 8 so like. Yeah, here's this. And I'd hate to keep harping on the same point, but I feel like it matters for both. Throne of Glass, she has a map and she pretty much sticks to that map except for book 7 when we get a new map, right? And like Crescent City, the map is only the city. And like I don't know why I just need this map to like ground me in the world like.

1:46:42 Yeah. I didn't realize until this read that Valbera and Pangera are different continents, right? I just like that. Just completely went over my head and I'm like, yeah, why are we doing? Why? Just draw me a map. Just draw me a fucking map. Yeah, anyway. I also just wonder because I do this often and every time I do it, I'm like, I don't know why I did this because like she clearly isn't going to give us that much, but I'll like hold all the maps up and see whether anything like looks like it could be the same shape or like continuous into each other.

1:47:11 And I feel like maybe it's that's why she's so vague about her fucking maps. You think this is all the same world? I don't think it's all the same world, I think it's different realms, but I don't think that that means that they can't be different planes of the same geometry necessarily, specifically Aurilia and Prythian. Tell me more like why do you think that I? Don't want to right now.

1:47:33 I don't want to right now. Let's end this episode. This is true. I can't do this without. We'll do this later. Anyways. Ronnie, what are you reading? I am finishing finishing silver flames still. Great. Yeah, Sorry, I did totally forget to ask you that question. I'm sorry. How are you liking Silver Flames? Again, I mean, great.

1:47:55 There's also like a bunch of stuff that I forgot about, like the Wild Hunt and like all of these. Oh my God, I know. I'm just. Like, oh, there was a whole actually era where death gods were just hunting down say. Well, is Lanthus a desk? A death God. Well, I don't know. Why does he want Nesta to be his queen?

1:48:16 We'll get into it, He. Was a deaf God, he might not need her. I know it's so sad. I really genuinely, it's the same with all these books. Oh my God, I just read these horny as a motherfucker and I just read for the spice and then I miss the entire fucking plot until I read it on 2nd read. It's so sad, but I know it about myself now. Yeah, so.

1:48:34 You're facing it head on so. I'm facing it head on. I'm going to have to reread. I'm going to finish Crescent City while we're doing this, and I'm probably just going to start throwing of glass all over again. But like Throne of Glass, you would think I would have absorbed more because like, it's not.

1:48:47 Spicy. It's not spicy. Yeah. Yeah, it was hard to spice. It's the romance. It's the year, yeah, yeah, it's the slow burn and they're very much is still a slow burn and throwing a glass. So, yeah, all right, we are on socialmediawearedragonsinthedetailspod@gmail.com and our handle on all social media, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, Dragons in the details pod. Please e-mail us with various questions, comment on our posts. We do social media shout outs at the beginning of these. We've also done like kind of listener focused episodes before.

1:49:20 And so we love to hear from you. We love to get your questions and theories and your theories make ours better. So please do reach out like comment, subscribe or really helps us out. Leave a review on Spotify or or whatever podcasting platform you listen on if you feel so inclined. And we appreciate you listening.

1:49:36 Love you. Bye. Oh, love you. Bye.