ACOTAR: Feyre's Trials Deep Dive - Feyre's rebirth, Tamlin's secrets, and Amarantha's lies

0:17 This isn't a singing podcast, regardless of what you did in our last episode. I'm just trying to become as good a singer as Sarah Perrell. I think if I start now, maybe I'll get there when I die. Yeah, maybe when you die, although unfortunately I think your diaphragm just gets weaker with age. I know.

0:35 So the odds, maybe it's too late. It's too late. It's true. Although I actually saw an ad for vocal lessons and I had a moment where I was like, I have disposable income and why wouldn't you do that? Voice lessons? Yeah, you do that. I don't know. Time. Time is an illusion. To do it. You should do it.

0:53 I think you should do it. I'm. Yeah, I'm your friend and I'm telling you you should do it. OK, I'm going to do it. Yeah, you should do it. It's not been that long. You like singing? I will do it. I actually will. Have you heard of Neutrophil? The skin care stuff? It's like a supplement for hair growth.

1:08 Yeah, I started taking it and my hair is out of control like this. Hair is so. Long, not an advertisement. I like actually have stopped taking it because I'm like I can't keep up with the amount of hair growth that I am seeing. I didn't really have an issue. I was more taking it because I was like trying to combat like I've always had like a Widow's Peak type hairline and I just wanted like these areas to fill in a little bit and now I'm just like, it's too long, I can't keep up with it.

1:33 And make sure it's only the hair on your head that's growing. They don't. They don't. So it's all hair. It's all hair, yeah. You can't target specific hair follicles. OK, Yeah, all of your hair grows faster. But my eyebrows do grow faster as well, which I like. I appreciate. I have actually. Eyebrows. My eyebrows out because I see them on this podcast and I'm like, I think a couple months ago they were too thin. I think they feel that OK now, but. I'm I think they actually look really thick today, like on thank you that's.

2:04 Because I've stopped plucking them entirely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I do. You remember that one week when we recorded and I had just gotten my eyebrows done and they were like incredibly thick looking? I didn't say anything about it, but she definitely got her eyebrows. Yeah, they were really thick looking because my eyebrows are like blondish. I don't know, it's odd.

2:24 Like they clearly are fading into my face. You're looking very Galadriel coated at the moment. You're just looking very Elvin and very blonde. It's very lovely, you look. Great. So one thing about having big ears is I'm realizing I just look. Sort of very like when I pull my hair. All the time.

2:43 Even though Galadriel's an elf, they're basically the. Same. Well, only when I pull I don't usually have my hair so that you can see my ears. It's Yeah. I feel like the other thing. I do feel like Sarah has your hair color. I do see your hair color for Sarah. It's just like if you're natural blonde but then you grow up is Farrah's hair color, in my opinion, if you're not Nordic, like I feel like all natural blondes, when they're young, if they're not Scandinavian, grow into this, like golden brown like this, you know, light brown hair.

3:13 Yeah, yeah. That's good. These are good things. Too bad I don't have blue eyes. You have green eyes. I know you're. Not Farrah, yeah. I'm like Tamlin. Bummer. My God, I have to tell you how fucked up my brain is. I was going for a run. I was going to run with Derek yesterday morning. You're running behind this guy and he had long blonde hair, long blonde hair pulled up into a butt in my brain for a second went, oh, there's Tamlis. And then I was like, no, no.

3:45 This is reality. That's not Tamlin. And that is not Tamlin. Yeah. Yeah. But it's weird. I like, on occasion, I just have, like, a moment of absolute insanity. Like, I saw someone bleeding at one point and I was like, they're not that. And I need to relax. And this is when people are like, maybe you guys take this stuff too seriously.

4:05 Wholly possible, yeah. I told you we did get a comment. Someone commented on one of our imperial and they're like this is great but it's not that serious in all caps and I responded don't worry we're having fun in all caps. We are having fun. We're having fun. If we if this actually stresses that we would just stop doing it, there's no point to do it. Yeah.

4:27 And maybe like for avoidance of doubt, like absolutely no disrespect for anybody who does do this for a living, but like we do not. So like we do think about majority of the time not this. Other things. Yeah, yeah. Which makes this fun. We're balanced. Yeah, cuz obviously if we did this full time, my brain would break given how much I think about it. Like given how much my brain's already breaking. Well just like last episode is a perfect example. Like if if I thought about this full time like no one would be able to follow my thoughts like it would go too far. Same with you I think.

4:59 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Probably worse. Probably worse. I know you had some real Abby theories last episode. I was like fuck yes Ron, this is. Amazing. That was the most Leo comment ever. You had some real theories that reminded me of mine, and so I thought it was amazing. Yeah, I thought you did great. Leo was the best.

5:18 I can't help who I am. No. We're always trying to be better. All right? Anyway, Hi. I'm Abby. I'm a Leo. Hi, I'm Ronnie. I'm an Aries. Did you know actually Well, this is an Ecuador episode, but we never shared with the group that we have the same Zodiac signs as violin. Yeah, yeah, Ronnie texted me that. I forget what it was, but.

5:40 I had followed. I said, did you, Did you realize that we had Violet and Zadan Zodiac signs and you were like, I don't care if we know Violet and Zen Zodiac signs? And I was like, no, you and me, you and me have them. I thought you were saying we know when Violet and Zadens birthdays are so we know what their Zodiac sign was.

5:59 I was like. You and I, their Zodiac side. Yeah, no, I'm Zadan. You're Violet. And that makes sense with our colorings as well. Oh no, we're, I thought. The reverse. The reverse Satan's in Aries was. Zadan's in March. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Never mind Violet is there was some, we'll have to go back to our discord for some of that.

6:18 There was some great commentary on. I will get into it here. It was great. On our sides or on theirs? Oh, no, no. No on theirs, yes. Yeah, on their sides. If you are into astrology and romanticity, our discord is your corner of the Internet, let me tell you. Yeah, yeah. And in some days it's not my corner of the Internet because I don't know enough about the astrology stuff. But yeah, I'm enjoying it.

6:41 I'm here for it regardless. Yeah, all right, we love you our discord, all right. Yeah, anyways, I'm Ronnie and I'm an area this is. Drag is in the details where we pick apart our favorite fantasy series over the course of an undetermined number of episodes. Even though we've been talking about the Empyrean exclusively, we are doing Acatar this season.

7:01 Acatar the series, not Acatar the book. Obviously I could try the book is included with Acatar the series, but we're talking about all five books. Other mass versus spoilers, we will announce if we are getting into them. So we are doing most of our episode dedicated to ACOTAR only. We are there is a Mass first section at the end and we will announce if there's going to be a Mass first.

7:20 Spoiler. If you are new to this, Phantom Mass verse refers to all three of Sarah J Mass's series. So that is ACOTAR, Crescent City, and Throne of Glass. If you have not finished all of those books, same thing. If you just read the first book of Throne of Glass and you're like I'm good. No get the fuck out of here, sorry, come back when you're done.

7:36 You have to have read all of those books in order to continue with the Mass First section or you're going to get spoiled. Also, because of who we are as people, these podcasts are rated R. Do not listen to them with your children. Each week we are diving into a specific topic in depth. This week we are digging into Fair's trials Under the Mountain.

7:55 So I mentioned last episode we're doing kind of modules. We wrapped up our Spring Court module last episode with our Lucian deep dive, which is excellent. You should definitely listen to it if you haven't yet. And we are now studying our Under the Mountain module. I just want to tell you guys that in real time we've not even edited or listened to. That episode yet I don't care.

8:15 Finished it. It's so good. It's the. Best one we've ever done. I don't think it's the best one we've ever done. It's the best one you've ever done, But it's good. I think, if I'm being honest, History Part 2 of the Imperian. I think it's probably the best episode we've ever done. We both had great series on that one.

8:28 I don't even remember that one. That's a plug. Listen to it. That's a plug for History Part 2 on the Imperian episode. Yeah, yes. So this week we were talking about Ferris trials under the mountains. So that is beginning our under the mountain module. And as you guys can tell, we're kind of starting with the stuff we start in book one.

8:44 We're going to kind of abandoned that very quickly, but just this is how the series starts. So this is how we're starting our podcast. All right, Ron and it. Did I miss anything? Oh, we're coming. We come with receipts. So if you're skeptical, we have quotes. You can follow along. We always come with we're big on providing actual evidence for our quotes, unlike some reels that I see on social media sometimes. Anyway, Ron announcements you're so. Mad about that, I guess.

9:08 Announcements. So for the first few episodes of the season, we're just talking through kind of how we're structuring things. As Abby mentioned, we've got actor spoilers for the entire episode. You must have read all 5 published books in order to listen to the entirety of this this episode. But at a certain point, and we're pushing it all the way to the end, we will cover some kind of Mass verse spoilers.

9:29 And so for those who are new to the world of Sarah J Mass Mass versus A, a term that's used to describe spoilers for all three series that Sarah J Mass has written and published, Throne of Glass, Crescent City and A Court of Thorns and Roses. So the bulk of this episode, if you've read all 5A Court of Thorns and Roses books that are published, you are safe.

9:49 If you have not, please leave. And when we say that, come back, we will be here for you. That's the beautiful thing about podcasts. They're forever. And then as far as how we're structuring the season, we're still doing deep dives. So if you were with us through the Empyrean series, we're diving into specific topics in depth, as I've mentioned. But when it comes to exactly what those topics are, we are moving more towards specific events or things or as Abby mentioned, modules, rather than like a character deep dive that might take two to three parts.

10:18 For example, if we did a Reese deep dive and we focused on the entire world of Reese, that would take ages. So we might do a Reese. Well, we will do a Reese kind of family deep dive and then cover Reese kind of separately. So you'll see that theme as we release our episodes. Just a heads up, nothing for you guys to worry about.

10:35 We're just trying to have open and honest communication with our podcast listeners. Indeed. Yep. All right, back to you. All right. Corrections, omissions, social media shout outs. Did you have any? I have one. I had a social media shout out. It's truly just a shout out because I think this person, this person has a lot of followers to be clear.

10:52 So like they do not need me to shout them out. But I see very few like theory focused Acatar accounts like Empyrion had a whole host of them. Like people were so caught up in like the different theories and and the universe and all that. But I wanted to give a shout out to this book talker that I'm seeing more of and I really, really appreciate her name is Katie Quinlan.

11:12 If you're out there, if you're seeing this, your theories on Akatar and Sarah G Mass's works in general are some of my favorite. Her videos always get me thinking about my own theories, whether they hold. She's a really great follow. Again, she doesn't need my shout out because she has quite a few already.

11:26 But if you're here and you haven't checked her out, I don't know how you're listening to us and you haven't seen her, so I really recommend doing so. She's great. I'll have to figure out. I do try to avoid other theories because I don't want them to influence mine, but if they're good and if they make them better then.

11:41 Yeah, I found her cuz I like, I don't know, for social media, you guys probably know like you have to do like some work on the algorithm yourself and like interact with people and like, like things and everything so that you can kind of find the right corner of the Internet. And I found her that way.

11:54 And yeah, she really makes me think. So I appreciate her. Hopefully we make people think. I don't know, that's the hope. I had one correction, omission, social media shout out. So we were talking about Tamlin's ability to turn other people into other things, right? So he can turn his sentries into wolves.

12:14 We said we hadn't really seen that power anywhere else. Amarantha can also do this. So Amarantha turns the adder into Tamlin and Pharaoh's third trial, which I remembered when we were doing the prep for this episode. Not clear if it's a glamour or if she actually, well, you're giving me the look that I don't really know what I'm talking about. So.

12:33 Maybe I'm I'm just curious how we know it's specifically Amarantha? Who did it? Well, she. We'll get to this. All right. Great. Fuck yeah. Love it. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. But we did see that that's true. OK, we think we saw Amarantha turn the adder into Tamlin. Maybe we didn't. Yep. OK. All right.

12:52 All right, you want to ask me the fun question? Yeah, right. I have to ask you the fun question. All right, we're starting off with a fun question. Abby, how did you feel about the trials? I've said this before on this podcast. I think these trials make the first book basically kind of set the whole tone for the series, which I love. I think they're so great and how dark they get. I also think it's fun that they each kind of test a part of Favour's human life and also kind of turn the tropes of these types of trials in their head.

13:21 So right with the mid and guard worm with the labyrinth. Typically the trope for that is like the Minotaur in Greek mythology. And we get Theseus, who slays the Minotaur by, well, sorry, here's some Greek mythology for you for context. But basically there's a king, I don't remember his name, he builds A labyrinth to trap a minotaur, which is a creature with the head of a bull, legs of a man. I didn't do that much research on this guy's, sorry if I'm worrying about this, but basically there's a monster trapped in the labyrinth, which is what we get with Amarantha here, right?

13:51 The person who slays the Minotaur is named Theseus, and he fights the Minotaur head on, right? So like he just goes hand to hand combat. Like he like slays him with his sword. It's like kind of your typical Greek hero story. And that is like, not what Pharaoh does, right? Pharaoh has to play to her strengths, which I think is really interesting. So it's like, we have this true, but we're going to flip it on its head and make it work for our character. We'll get back to Theseus because there's more interesting stuff with Theseus we can talk about in the third trial. The Riddle.

14:20 This is very classic. You expect her to be able to solve the Riddle, right? Like this is a classic. Our girl is smart. Our heroine is smart. She's going to be able to solve the Riddle. She can't fucking read and. Riddles are also not her strong suit, even when she can't read. Sorry, she's given a Riddle that seems very obvious and she can't figure it out.

14:37 Right. So like Kira, we love you. Maybe you're not. It's not book smart. 19, You're only 19. It's OK. You're not book smart. It's OK. And then obviously, with the three Fey at the end, we talked about this in our first episode. You do not think she's going to kill these Faye, right? What you think is going to happen that she's going to refuse?

14:55 And Amarantha will see her refusal as proof that she actually could care for Faye, right? That's the trope you expect to be playing out here, right? She refuses to kill Faye. And Amarantha's like, OK, you really do love Faye. I believe you. Not. You won't kill them. Yeah. Nope. Nope. Not what happens, Right.

15:11 She. Just does, yeah. It's fun and it's like. I also put it's like it's a Faye retelling of the trolley problem, that trial, right? It's like how many Faye are worth killing to save other. Yeah, right. So I think it's fun in that she takes these tropes that we know, but she doesn't go in the direction that you think. She's gonna go with them, yeah.

15:32 So I'm a Sam, The trials. How did you feel about the trials? I mean, I love the trials. I think they woke up the first book for me. I was like, can we get more than 4 characters in this novel? Belief. I love them. I loved that they were said to be designed to test Pharaoh's love, but they were obviously designed for much, much more than that. I always love a little like what's going to be this? But it's actually that moment.

16:00 I loved that there were some really subtle some subtle pieces of them that I don't think you really pick up unless you spend time thinking about them and talking about them. Like there was 1 task every full moon, like phases of the moon. That's interesting and ties back in later. I mean, if she. Used to talk about with that.

16:19 For sure if she I mean just the context of the trials overall right? If she completes all three tasks she gets Tamlin. So this is all in theory to get Tamlin and Tamlin's curse broken and all of his court can leave under the mountain and remain free forever. I just find it interesting too that like every Faye in that room is rooting for them even though like only Tamlin's court is really set to benefit from this.

16:44 Now they they know. That everyone. I thought she was free. Everyone. It's all of his court and Tamlin but if Tamlin gets his power back then everyone knows that if Tamlin he will Tamlin full power will kill Amarantha. And Reese has known this the entire time as well. He's like that is My bet is that Tamlin gets really mad and then Tamlin is freed and then Tamlin kills Amarantha and then we're all free.

17:05 I love the Riddle. Love a Riddle, love a Riddle that breaks it. All right, Don't love that Farrah can't solve it. But yeah, they were the best part of the book hand down. And I also think that they served as a really important point of the plot line that we wouldn't have gotten necessarily otherwise in that Farrah as a human was very impressive, right?

17:22 She does all of this as a human. She did not need to be high fae to take a literal queen of the Fae. And so I think that to me, all of this fandom stuff about being overpowered and this female protagonist just got all of this power and now she's all powerful. Pharaoh was powerful before that, and I really like that we're given these trials as kind of an example of that.

17:44 I enjoyed them for that reason, yeah. I agree. So I think the trials are great. And I think the trials are kind of like make or break for you as a reader too. Like if you like the trials, you're gonna like the series. If you don't like the trials, probably not for. You. Yeah. And one thing about Sarah J Mass is she loves a trial. Loves a trial.

18:00 Loves a trial. She might not call it a trial, but she loves it. She does. Cool. I think it's fun too. I never picked up on this. Emma Ranson doesn't call them trial, she calls them tasks. Yeah, which always brings Hercules to mind. Yeah, 3 tasks. All right, deep dive time. Deep dive time. Oh, I forgot to shout this out. Our deep dive music is by Schwidley. You should check them out on Spotify if you like our deep dive music.

18:30 This is real music made by a real person. This is not AI generated. It's a real artist. His name is Schwidley. He's awesome. He's my boyfriend. You should check him out. Stop telling people he's my boyfriend so that they think they don't think it's this is just what's the word nepotism? It's not, I mean not really nepotism, but you know.

18:47 Not nepotism at all by any definition. Well, Olson's podcast is rated R. Oh yeah, and this. Podcast is rated R all right Ronnie, why did? Amarantha recognize and care about Phara's name. Yes, OK, you guys know me. Context is important. So Phara gives up her name to save Lucian from Reese and's wrath.

19:08 So Amarantha asks Pharah what her name is weirdly late in my opinion. Like they they fully meet then Pharah is taken away, then Pharah is brought back and then Amarantha wants to know her name. We know that Reese and gave Amarantha a false name because Pharah gave Reese and a false name and and he was protecting her and she gave she gave the name Claire better.

19:29 Claire better was then murdered. So Pharah is protective of her name. But Lucian Amarantha basically has Reese hold Lucian's mind and is about to shatter it. And you really would have shattered it. But Farah gives up her name in exchange. She's like, I'm Farrah. My name is Farrah. And Amarantha recognizes Farah name and I like I really like the director quote here actually.

19:49 She says Pharah testing her name, the taste of the two syllables on her tongue. And Amarantha says an old name from our earlier dialects. And then she asks no further questions. She doesn't ask for a last name, she doesn't ask for anything else. She just processes Pharah and that's it says it's from our earlier dialects. So we know of 2 old languages in this series. 1 is the lashon Hakadesh, which is the holy tongue which we learned from Amran as she looks at the book of breathings and recognizes it. We should talk about this later.

20:20 Cuz this is like the actual Hebrew term for the holy tongue and generally represents biblical Hebrew. Like that is just not that's not acatar world. That's like our world. Interesting. So everyone is out. And then the second language that we know in this series is the language of the ancient fae.

20:39 And so this is the language that the kelpie spoke to Nesta in the middle, the one that Reese recognized and was able to kind of pick up every second word. And Amaran was able to very easily translate. And so of these, like these two languages are interesting to think about. I tend to lean towards like, I think probably Amarantha was talking about the second one because it's specifically called our earlier dialect. So the language of the ancient fae would make more sense in this context.

21:02 So in Hebrew, Thea means fae. So not necessarily ruling out that the holy tongue could be in play here, but I think Farah could mean fairy like regardless of whether it's in the ancient language of the fae or whether it's in Hebrew. And I think Amarantha processing that like she's looking at a human who is named one from an ancient dialect of fae.

21:27 So like that's interesting. And two, if it means fairy, like she's a human. So like that is interesting. I think it tells us that Amarantha is quite old and likely knows about the languages of the ancient fae. Like how else would she know about these? She's from Hyburn. We know very little about what has happened in Hyburn, what was preserved, what their education is like. We only know that she's a general from Hyburn. I have another like sleeper hypothesis that's like probably not true.

21:54 I have a sleeper hypothesis so I wanna see if we went to the same place. This is a crazy theory for me. Keep like keep going. I don't. Know how crazy mine is? I think it's probably just wrong, but I think feyre could also mean liar in ancient Fey. Yeah, it certainly could, couldn't it? Yeah. So yeah, I think Amaranth do.

22:10 You wanna tell people why we. OK, sure, sure. So Farah becomes High Faye right when she accomplishes all these trials and dies and is brought back to life. And then she has to go through a series of finding made things. And one thing in particular is the Book of Breathings, which is keyed to the blood of another high Lord.

22:29 It's not only in this situation, but these made things call her liar. They they call her liar. Every time, Constantly, constantly by made things, yeah. By made things, and we think these made things, I think these made things are speaking to her in the language of the ancient Fae, and she can just understand them because she is also made.

22:48 So. I think fairer could mean liar. Fascinating. I didn't think that at all, but I I really like it. It is also fascinating to me that in our world, in the real world, there is an ancient Hebrew word for fairy that's wild. Phaea. Like yeah, it's not the same spelling as Pharah. FEYA is the word in Hebrew.

23:06 But it's also interesting that Hebrew is literally just like in this book. Yeah, that is really interesting. OK, so the way the reason I went with this, the only one piece of context I'll add that you didn't mention was it's not just that MRF is like, what's your name? She says. It's literally keeping me up at night. I can't sleep and I realize it's because I don't know what your name is.

23:25 She might be lying. Yeah, yeah. Good point. Kind of a crazy thing to say to a human. I don't know totally crazy direction with us. I'm going to say this right now but it's not my precoct theory. In Aqua war chapter 23 with the bone Carver, say her and Cassian have gone to the bone Carver to ask him to fight with them for the king of hybrid.

23:44 So they're talking to the bone Carver. The Carver is tracing 3 overlapping interlocked circles in the dirt, and he tells them about his siblings and about the quote UN quote long ago Fey warrior who tricked Striga into diminishing her power and becoming confined to the middle Coach Che 2 confined and found by his little lake on the continent. All before Prythian, before the Lamb was carved up and any high Lord was crowned.

24:08 So we have an ancient fae warrior who imprisoned Striga and Koste, right? So ancient fae. And we have Amarantha saying that Farrah is an old name from our earlier dialects. Then he tells her. He tells Farrah her bloodline is long gone now, though a trace still runs through some human lines. No one remembers her name, but I do.

24:29 She would have been my salvation had I not made my choice long before she walked the earth. So I think that her name was Pharah, and I think that the Archer ONS are probably her descendants. We will talk about that in another episode. But I thought it was interesting too. The bone cover says she would have been my salvation. Reese famously says to Pharah, you're my salvation, right? We're using the same word.

24:52 We know Pharah is an old name. We know this warrior lived before Prithean existed. Is this the name that that Amarantha recognizes? It kind of out of left field, but that's where my brain went. I like him right and actually like that. That bloodline running through human lines. No way it's not the arch runs, sorry. The arch rods.

25:10 There's no way. There's no way that all three of these women have crazy gifts and there is no bloodline related to that. So spoiler maybe for our next episode there's stuff in the arch. Runs. Yeah, I'm very excited to dig into it. Yeah, but I like, I like the idea that Feyra also means liar because that was also a big question I had. Like, everything calls her a liar. It can't just be because she pretends to be Tarkin. That's not interesting enough.

25:33 Right? Like she's constantly called liar by the Book of Breathings. There is something else. I can't remember what it is, but like, yeah, she's like constantly being called liar. OK. Very intriguing. Anything else on that one? Nothing for me, no. What did Alice mean when she said don't trust your senses? So I didn't have like a hardcore theory on this one, but I thought it was interesting.

25:58 Alice says don't trust your senses. And then there is literally it doesn't really, it doesn't really come up except for that one point when Amarantha turns the adder into Tamlin. Other than that, it's like we're led to believe that what Feyra is seeing is real, what she's feeling is real. Like this is all really happening. Like she kind of can trust her senses, except. Except with Reese, right?

26:19 Like everything that she is being told about Reese is basically a lie right? Like Reese is. Protecting a lot of Reese's own making. Yeah, yeah. Certainly, certainly, certainly. But it made me think that this is first of all, Sarah J Mass telling us, hey, I'm about to give you a long scene here and you should not believe it's not playing out the way you think.

26:40 It's playing out, right, Like it is her talking to the reader saying pay attention here because this is not what it seems like it is. And I'm going to kind of flip it on its head in the next book. And we know that that's basically what she was planning to do, right? She knew from the get go that Reese was really her love interest, not Tamlin. Yeah.

26:55 And it also made me think of Alice talking about how she knew servants under the mountain, who? And she said Reese and never mistreated her servants, right. So like did Alice on Sun level always know that Farrah and Tamlin were in it? You know that like and she I know, I know Alice says to Farrah, like you could have broken the curse, but like it's also kind of she tells her not to go. She's like don't do this, don't go. It's not you, you're not the one. I don't have a long answer for that one, but I just that line always comes back to me.

27:23 Don't trust your senses, because this whole first book is basically don't trust your senses, right? It's not. It's not playing out the way that you think it is. Yeah, yeah, I think Alice definitely has always. And I think it goes way back into Reese and's past because Alice's, Alice's nephews went to summer, I think, and Reese and has this like.

27:41 From summer there, no, there, yeah, there's some record originally, right? Oh yeah, maybe there are some record originally. So I think she knows Reese and from when he was a younger, more obviously better person. And so I think she's always like that even comes back when Pharah is like back and looks more well than she did before she had left. So I think Alice is always known because Reese has that connection to the Summer Court.

28:01 What I thought was interesting about this part was that Alice had three rules. Don't drink the wine, don't make deals with anyone unless your life depends on it, and don't trust a soul in there. And Pharah breaks every single one one of those rules handling. She drinks the wine obviously, like looks forward to the wine at a certain point.

28:20 She makes deals with Amarantha as soon as she arrives and Reese payroll. I mean, I know why like she would have she would have died otherwise. But Alice even says like don't make deals with anyone unless your life depends on it. And even then you should think about whether it will do more harm than good.

28:34 And she trusts Reese and. She does trust Reese, yeah. Yeah, she like event eventually has to and so I agree with you that I don't know that we like have much this amounts to. I think the simplest explanation here is Alice definitely knows that with Reece there and with Tamlin there, Reece is a Damati, a known Damati and Tamlin can shape shift him and others into anything. And so like, yeah, you you probably shouldn't trust your senses headed into headed into a situation like that where anyone could be anything, whether they were physically made to be something else or whether your mind is being tricked. And she was ultimately deceived by her own senses. She's she says so outright deceived by my own senses, my soul ripping further from me.

29:19 I turned back to Tam when there was only guilt and sorrow in his eyes. I think I agree with you that this is more of a Sarah J Maas like telling us, hey, pay attention to what's going on under the mountain. Like, it's not what it seems. And we'll talk about it more in the third trial. But I think it's interesting to think about, right? Like whether everything that Fayrah did see under the mountain was as it appeared, I don't know. I'm intrigued.

29:44 I'm intrigued by what you're about to tell me. It belongs in the third trial though, so we should move on, OK. Fayrah's first trial, Ron, let's talk about it. OK, so I'm going to dive into the first trial and then let's just riff throughout. Does that work? Yeah, For my listeners, we didn't really ask ourselves questions for this one.

30:00 We were just like, OK, let's just talk about each trial. So we don't have as structured questions, but I think. It's gonna be good. I mean, the trials, even just talking about them, are sick, so I have no problem with the structure. The first trial was a labyrinth, which if you're new here is Abby's favorite form of trial, a labyrinth of tunnels carved into mud and the midden guard worm.

30:22 And it was said by Amarantha to be designed to test her ability to hunt. She says Reese and tells me you're a huntress, hunt this. And so there are 20 foot deep trenches slick with mud that ran in a maze that could be viewed by the audience, but also had these pits and holes that led to these other underground tunnels. And so we learn later that there are underground tunnels that come from the middle into under the mountain. Those are probably these same tunnels. There's lots of underground tunnels here in this trial. The midden guard worm is this blind, horrific worm with basically an entire cross section of layered rings of teeth, and that's kind of its its head. And so Farah is faced with hunt

31:08 this and the way that I interpreted that as the beginning of the trial is like you die or it dies. There is no like, there is no end to this trial unless one of you is dead. This is not. This is not a maze. This is not a get out. Yeah, it's not a you have. To kill this. Yeah, exactly. So she uses her surroundings.

31:30 Well, she is a good huntress. She kept her family alive for many years. And the parts that I was impressed by, before we get into how she actually solves it, is like she was even looking to the audience to understand, kind of like where the worm went and what they were looking at, and uses contacts clues to deduce that the worm is blind.

31:46 No one tells her this. Things heat up when she falls into a pit that is full of bones. It is literally a death trap. Human Faye, animal bodies decaying, decomposing around her. It makes you wonder in my opinion. Like at this point I was like, is she the first person to undergo this trial? I think she is probably not, so Farrah then has to literally use the bones to escape the pit, plunges them into the mud to basically create these footholds for her to escape this death trap.

32:18 And then she uses those bones to create a trap for the worm, using those bones as Lance's to snare it. She rolls herself in mud to coat her scent. One thing that I loved about this part is in this trial, Farrah is being referred to primarily as an it by the audience. They're like, what's it doing?

32:37 What's it doing? Reese already refers to as her, her as a her. I just love that part of this. Like she, he says. She's making a trap. Everyone's like, what's it doing? What's it doing? It's anyone agree to me? Already thinks of her as someone who will matter like a human being. So she creates a trap for this worm. She rolls herself in mud decoder scent. And then she cuts herself and is waiting and Lucian saves her ass by warning her with three words screamed at her from the audience to your left.

33:06 Favorite assumes that Lucian swore an oath to Tamlin to protect her. He doesn't confirm or deny this. I don't think that's true. I think Lucian just saves her. Yeah, that would be wild. I don't even remember her saying that. It's after Lucian couldn't come to heal her afterwards because he was so brutalized by what Tamlin was forced to do to him for saving her like this.

33:29 And he he gets mad at her for making a bargain with Reese and she says it's done with. You needn't hold to whatever oath you swore to Tamlin to protect me or feel like you owe me anything for saving you from Amaranth. I would have done it. I would have done it anyways, basically. So Lucian saves her life.

33:45 Like Lucian stops this from ending very early on and we learned that Reese bet on her winning. So anyways to end the trial? Right didn't by the way, which means Lucian didn't bet on her winning. I had this thought. Reese is the only one. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. Awful. Yeah. So anyway, she sets the trap for the midden guard worm using these lances, and Lucian saves her. She kind of runs around, traps the midden guard worm on these bone lances, and the midden guard worm is then dead. She wins the trial.

34:17 She throws a bone at Amarantha's feet and that kind of caps the caps the trial. It was a great one. Other reactions from your side? I have a couple more things, but they're more just anecdotal. I had a couple thoughts on this one. So the first sentence of this whole series has the word labyrinth in it.

34:35 So it's the forest had become a labyrinth. We were always gonna get a labyrinth. Guess it was always leading towards a labyrinth. It was faded. It was faded. It was so great. I thought this trial was really interesting and really funny because it's it's like there's a moment where Farrah calls Amarantha A huntress, right?

34:52 And, and clearly, as you mentioned, this trial was designed to test Pharaoh's ability to hunt, but the way that Pharaoh refers to Amarantha as a huntress seems very different. It's more like she's hunting for prizes rather than she's hunting for survival. So the context is she finds out how Amarantha has killed Jurian and that he she's keeping his eye in a ring and she's keeping her his finger on her on a necklace.

35:19 So she says, I shuddered A huntress. She was little more than an immortal, cruel huntress, collecting trophies from her kills and conquest to gloat over through the ages, right? So we kind of have this parallel between Faber and Ararantha where they're both hunters, but the way that they hunt is very different, right?

35:37 So like, I kind of imagined when Amarantha was designing this trial, what Amarantha did to jury and was face him head on in battle, kill him or capture him and then torture him for days, right? Obviously, if Farah had done that with the worm, she wouldn't have walked away, right? The worm will always overpower her.

35:54 But instead she had to kind of like set a trap, wait for it, which we see Farah do twice in Thorns and Roses with the cereal and also when she catches Tamlin in that snare. So it's like pulling on her skills as a hunter instead of hunting the way we think Amarantha hunts to win this trial. Yeah.

36:15 And I like that because it seems like Amarantha designed the next trial to kind of test her intelligence. But what we're really seeing here, and you mentioned the moment where she's tracking the crowd to see where the worm is, like, this is the trial where Ferah's intelligence is really, like, coming to the forefront. Like she really beats the worm with her smarts, not with any type of brute strength or anything. Yeah, Ferah's form of intelligence, like unfortunately the second trials test of intelligence is not the form of intelligence that Phara possesses. Yeah, it's.

36:46 Not yeah, it's not her thing. I agree with you. Yeah. I mean, I also, like I wrote in my notes, like, this is kind of like, I know people talk about the butterfly effect with this book. Like, oh, what if Pharaoh's family hadn't been starving? She never would have killed Andres. None of this would have happened.

37:00 Yes. But also like, if Pharaoh had never learned how to hunt, obviously she wouldn't have survived this, right? And obviously this is an author who has control over all of these things, but it's like kind of something good coming out of something bad. And then what's the other thing? I I mean, this is kind of gross, but I don't have, like, a rebirth moment here.

37:17 When she squeezes between the walls, that's the maze and, like, comes out the other side. Like, that's when she starts not panicking. She's, like acting smart. She realizes the word must be blind. Like she goes through the walls of these, this maze, comes out the other side, and that's when she starts to kind of like, formulate a plan. Yeah.

37:36 I feel like that's her turning point under the button. Here is when she kind of realizes, OK, I can do this, I'm in control. I have one funny note, but do you want to say anything else? This trial was Ferris cup of tea is the way I would describe it. Other things that I really liked about it, we already talked about how Reese kind of has humanized her already. He also bet on her winning as we mentioned, and he after this trial healed her after the fact.

38:01 So the part that I didn't mention right, is that while she's trapping the worm, she gets this like bone Shard digging into her arm that she then doesn't get healed, has to live with, gets infected, almost dies. And this leads Reese to come heal her and also strike a bargain that resulted in him being able to save her later.

38:17 Like that bargain. And that healing and Reese betting on her, I think is like the he is the only person in this whole situation at this point that genuinely believes and works to convince Vera that she will live through this. Like everybody else is kind of just like, wait and see, hold your breath. Like, I don't really know if this girl's going to figure this out.

38:37 He has been betting on her since the very beginning, which I loved. I also think he might have helped design this trial. Right, I have the same thought because she specifically says Reese and told me you were a hunter, yes, or you were a hunter, which I don't remember how Reese and knows. I mean, I know he sees her dreams where she's hunting, but like, does Favor actually ever tell him that she's a hunter? I don't think so.

39:00 So he's it's because he sees her dreams. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I think Reese may have helped design this trial and had it play to favor strengths if if she was smart enough to figure it out. Yeah. Tell us that though, like that would have come out in chapter 54. Yeah, there were also other living things in that maze when she was in there, which we never saw, but I think is interesting that we never saw.

39:23 Right, So the fairies who are watching the worm were giggling and Pharah says I could only assume they've grown bored of me and decided to watch something else die. So like, what else was in that maze? That's intriguing. I thought it was just because they like set it an arm or something right? Yeah, I. Don't know.

39:39 Yeah, yeah. All right. I had one funny note at one point, Amarantha says Farah, I heard Amarantha's distance call. Distant call. You're ruining everyone's fun. She said it as if I was a lousy shuttle car shuttle, which the idea of her being shuttlecock in this world made me, LOL. That was like a pretty ridiculous line. I don't think, I don't think shuttlecock exists in this world, but I guess it does.

40:07 I guess it's Canon. Yeah, it was written, and so it is. I do think it was a nice way to visualize just how callous Amarantha is, basically talking to her like, I don't know, let's choose a more normal game, like a cornhole partner, like Farah. Yeah, you're ruining it. She's like dying. Well, she's living.

40:27 That's why she's ruining it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then so this is the trial you mentioned that ends with Farrah throwing the bone spear at Amarantha's feet. And that is the moment that Reese says he fell in love with her. He knew they were mates but that's when he fell in love with her, which I think is sweet. Yeah, it also, this isn't a spoiler, but the people who listen to us for the M period will maybe laugh at this. I thought of Aric in this moment. I was like Aric.

40:55 Why? Because he throws the axe. Yeah at yeah. Intriguing. I mean, it's a classic show of defiance. Just like, yeah, I'm gonna throw it at your feet, but know that I could have thrown it at you if I wanted to. Yeah. Why didn't she just throw it at her? I feel like would have been blocked. She was trying.

41:16 I don't know. Yeah. I don't think she was. I don't know. OK, tell us about Pharah's second trial. All right. Context is important. All right, So Pharah is placed in a pit that is surrounded on three sides by smooth walls so she can't climb up The other side of this pit is a grate through which she can see that Lucian is changed to the floor. She also sees that on one of the walls, there is a Riddle written with levers underneath it that say 1-2 and three. And as she's figuring this out, there are there's a plate lined. I mean, I she doesn't really get into it lined with hot metal spikes that slowly start descending on them. So basically the gist is Farrah has to figure out the answer to this Riddle before she gets

42:02 impaled on her and Lucian get impaled on a burning hot spike. So my first note on this, this is where Amaranth I think thinks she's testing Farrah's intelligence. She seems weirdly hung up on Farrah's kind of ability to read from the gecko and like ability to use words. So Amarantha mentioned that the they taught humans to read and write poetry, and she's disappointed in Pharaoh's word choice when she's like, oh, like, I like, why?

42:30 Why should I do this for you? And she's like, I love him and like, and we're at this kind of like, that's all you have to say. Like, that's not very poetic. And that's when she throws the Riddle in, whose answer is love to like, test Pharaoh's intelligence. So it's kind of weird to me that we have two trials with riddles that are basically both designed to test Pharaoh's ability to solve a Riddle. Like, that just is kind of weird. We also have Lucian's eye spinning out of control, right? So Farrah says that she looks at Lucian and his eye is spinning out of control.

43:03 Farrah thinks that Amarantha doesn't know that she can't read, but I'm betting that she does, which I realize is just total retcon because Amarantha is dead. We're never going to get confirmation. But, like, why would she set Lucian's eye spinning so that he can't read the wall, right? He can't see what the Riddle is.

43:19 Unless she knew that Farrah couldn't read and she didn't want Lucian to be able to, like, see the Riddle. Yeah. What the Riddle is, yeah. Right. So like that doesn't make sense. We also know that Amarantha like did her homework with the first trial and found out that Farrah was a hunter. Like Tamlin knows that am that Farrah can't read, right.

43:40 So like Amarantha could have been theory gotten that information either using Reese, which obviously would be terrible, or like just torture it out of Tamlin or something. Like it's not it's not 100% a secret that Farrah can't read, right. Yeah. So that's kind of my thinking that she might have like, always known Farrah could this was always meant to be a death trap and not really a trial, which also means that she had to have known that Favorite cheated somehow or that it was just dumb Lock, Right? Yeah.

44:07 And yeah, I I agree with you. I think it's to me, it's like surprising if she doesn't realize that Feyra can't read because she doesn't say the Riddle. No one talks about the Riddle. No one talks about the answer. Like, she's just as silent and chooses a number, right? Other confusing things about this trial.

44:26 To me, I find it really interesting and odd that Reese, like we're led to believe, right, that Reese makes her hand burn when she reaches for the wrong answer. He speaks into her mind right after this. Why didn't he just fucking Riddle? Why didn't he just speak into her mind? Like, why did her hand need to burn?

44:46 It arguably would have been cleaner and more believable if he was just talking to her. And it's not like he was unwilling to reveal that about himself because he did it literally directly afterwards when she was falling apart. Hopefully it wasn't Reece that made her hand burn. Like, I don't know. Yeah.

45:02 Like why did that happen? That doesn't really make any sense. All. Sloppy. The High Lord of Autumn Court and his lady were both not present, Right. But their son was on the chopping block. Or the lady of the Autumn Court's son was on the chopping block. Why weren't they? Were they revolution made to not be there?

45:20 Well, because he had he had saved her in the last trial. So I think Amarantha, like, acknowledged that they meant something to each other and was like, all right, we'll shove them in there. Yeah, that's my, like, easy answer. And that's the only person that has revealed themselves to care about Farrah.

45:35 That wasn't Tamlin, and she wasn't willing to give up Tamlin. She would never actually kill Tamlin. This trial would have been just as high stakes if there was no one in the pit with Farrah, right? It's not like she was like, shit. I have to say, Lucian, she's like, shit, I'm going to be spiked.

45:51 Like it's not really about saving Lucian for her. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe these trials are really just to torture Tamlin. Great point. Great fucking. Point which like that is the ultimate torture. Both his best friend and the woman he's in love with. Felony. He taught her how to read. Yeah, I can't even.

46:08 Yeah. Actually, I think that's a great point with this one, that this is just like showing Tamlin his own failures. Like, if you really loved her, you would have taught her how to read. Reese teaches her how to read immediately. He's like, we're doing this. I'm sure he actually clocked it as it was happening, like when I.

46:24 Get the bitch out. Of this she is learning how to read stat. This is a fucking. Problem, right? Yeah, but all of these, I mean, yeah, I guess you could, you could choose that as a theme. Like all of these could have destroyed Tamlin inside if gone poorly. So maybe this one was just an extra. They threw Lucian in there for an extra. Yeah.

46:47 I also think it could have been a test for if Amarantha did know. To your point, if if Amarantha didn't know that that Feyer couldn't read, then maybe this is a test to see who's helping her. But that doesn't really play out right cuz she dies and she doesn't really do anything about anybody else in that room.

47:01 Reese says that Amarantha realized that Reese was kind of helping her when he found her in the room with when Amarantha found them making out basically. Yeah, Yeah, right. Not after this trial. Not after this trial, Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, I think it could have been written a little bit better. Yeah, some stuff.

47:20 And like we never found it. Like all we have is 3 grasshoppers bouncing and I couldn't find anything on the Internet about 3 grasshoppers bouncing. So like maybe it was a math problem? I don't know. That's the closest I found that people think it's a math problem because the answer would be 1-2 or three. Yeah.

47:36 Yeah, I also think it's cute. It's so dumb that Favorite thinks the answer is 2, but that the answer is 3 because we're actually kind of getting a love triangle. I think is nice. Too. Yeah, my God, that's like 1 of favors. Toughest moments is like 2. Makes sense. Tamela and I are just two people.

47:53 Dumb, dumb, dumb girl. But I guess I, you know, she's panicking and it's in the moment, like I have to choose something, gotta shoot something. Yeah, yeah. I don't have much. To say about this one, except that it's fun that she cheats, it's fun. Yeah. And it was like a nice moment afterwards where she started to, like, fall apart, and you kind of got more of Reesan's true colors where he's like, Nope, pick it up.

48:15 Don't let her know that she won. Wait till you get back to your cell. I know. I think she actually controls her body in this one, which I don't really love. Like he, she says. She's like being picked up, not entirely of her own volition. Yeah, but I view it as like he's picking her up, not he's like.

48:31 Controlling her not. He's like Marionette. Yeah. Yeah. And we've never seen Reese use that power again, right? We've never seen him like bodily control someone as far as we know. Yeah, no, would be crazy if it weren't Reese, but I think it is. So no, it's definitely Reese, Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely Reese. I have one other thing.

48:51 Amarantha calls Farrah Farrah darling in this trial, which I fucking hate. Horrible. I hate it. But you get those words out of your mouth. Yeah, hate that. Hate that? I hate that. All right. Third trial. Third trial OK, so this trial, in my opinion, tested whether Pharaoh was willing to kill for Tamlin, basically whether she's willing to literally destroy her soul for him.

49:17 And the thing I liked about this trial, I don't think it was intended this way necessarily, but the thing I liked about it is that it would have been easy if she had truly held hate in her heart for the Fae. Like if she we're still human brainwashed, all fair evil, just kill him, then this would have just been like, all right, let's just one, two.

49:36 Well, not the third, you know, covered off the 1st 2:00. And that is easy. But she didn't actually hold hate in her heart. She had come to view these Faye just as humanely as she viewed kind of her fellow humans. And this was, in my opinion, another show of her actual intelligence in the way that Fair is intelligent, where she was clever enough to remember, Wait a second, Alice told me something, wait a second, I was allowed to eavesdrop.

50:00 Wait a second, Tamlin has a heart of stone. But I also ultimately just think that this is like this, to me solidified that these trials were not for Farrah to prove for love. They weren't against Tamlin. This was just Amarantha being really cruel because the way that she probably saw this whole thing ending was Farrah sees that it's Tamlin, refuses dies and that is the ultimate like chooses to die instead of stabbed Tamlin.

50:24 And so that is the ultimate like breaking of Tamlin and the hopes of all of those Faye in that moment. And Farrah even points this out. She points out like the craziness of it. Kill a fairy, fall in love with a fairy, and then be forced to kill a fairy to keep that love. Like that was a really nice way of summarizing this whole trial.

50:42 So to recap the trial, she, she first of all, she knew that the third trial would kill her before it started. Yeah. And she wasn't wrong. And it does. And it does. She was given her original clothes, her tunic and pants that she came in. And so Amarantha, again, this is just like cruelty, like she wanted her to feel the most like herself in this moment when she was forced to take these lives.

51:03 And at first thought, when Ferris is presented with the trial, which is to stab these three Faye in the heart with ash arrows and end their lives, she was like, I can't do it. Ash daggers. Yeah, sorry, ash daggers and end their lives. She was like, I can't do it. It would murder my soul. So the first victim, she kind of gets a couple different flavors of this, right?

51:20 I think intentionally the first victim was this like handsome, blue eyed high Faye youth. And he pleaded with her and asked her not to and hated her as she did it. Her hand also tingled with like a do it. And so we think that Reese and was maybe gently pushing her to do this, which is also awful. And I kind of wish this is just my like emotional reaction. I kind of wish like if he was going to do that just like do it instead of her so that she doesn't have to live with this guilt like.

51:49 Here's my thing. Here's my thing. We know Reece went into Claire's mind as she was dying and took her away from that place. Why doesn't Reece do it to these Faye? Like, yeah, Farrah has to kill, though I think we're all in acceptance of that. Why doesn't Reece take it away? Like, and he couldn't, he could still make them be saying what they're saying, right?

52:11 But like he never says in Chapter 54, it went into their minds. It was OK, you know, but not but it was OK. But like, I took away their pain. Yeah. Why doesn't he do that? Yeah, I don't know. And by the way, like we're ignoring the theory, which I think is a good one, that Tamlin is also Damati.

52:27 But if he is awful, like you could have been doing so much this whole time, like, yeah. What do you mean? Yeah, So. So he and he lightly interferes, but he doesn't take the burden off of her or the burden off of them, which I found sad, of course, like we never could. That could have happened. You know that he told Claire when to scream like but but to your point, like he never says so in in chapter 54 or to Farrah at any point.

52:51 And you would think that he would, given he knows how much this like, traumatized her and broke her. The second victim was a simple girl with gold brown hair and bronze eyes. She was different, right? She kind of was saying her final rite. She seemed to tell Pharaoh like, it's okay, just do it quickly, just make it end. She was kind of determined.

53:10 And Pharaoh found this worse than the male who was pleading. And then the third, of course, was Tamlin. And the Tamlin standing beside Amarantha transformed into the adder. I don't think we had seen anyone else transform or Glamour at this point besides Resand. And so you said that you thought this was Amarantha who had transformed the adder into Tamlin and flipped him back.

53:36 I don't know, like I think, I think Tamlin must that have had to have shifted the adder into looking like himself. I don't think anybody else has that power. I think it had to be Tamlin. And it's not unbelievable that it's Tamlin. If she forced him to do it, then it was done. But I think it, I think it could have been Tamlin. Well, I actually thought you were going to say it was Reese. No, I think it was Tamlin.

53:57 But couldn't have also been Reese? I mean, in theory, yeah. Like her. Her. She had no mental Shields at this point, so he could have made her see anything that he wanted. But he goes pale when this happens, right? He's he's described as no Reese and goes pale Reese and is so, so pale when this happens.

54:15 Like she looks over at him and he's like shocked that this occurred. And so I don't think it could have been Reese. No, so I think Tam, I think it was Tamlin and I, I think Tamlin could have been forced to transfigure, if you will, to shift the adder into himself. And I won't stay on that later. There's this whole thread that and we haven't gotten a Tamlin peeled me, so we don't know.

54:35 But there is this whole thread, this whole idea that Tamlin is actually being like tortured the way that Favorite kind of is too. Because if Famarantha did know that Favorite couldn't read in the second trial, how did she find that out? How did she get that information off Tamlin? Right? Tamlin's the only one who knows at this point.

54:52 Yeah. And yeah, if he's forced to turn the adder into himself, like, what is she doing to him to force that right? Is it? Is it just threatening to kill Farrah? I don't know. Yeah. If you don't do this, I'll kill Farrah, right? Yeah. So so then the third victim is Tamlin. Obviously Farrah then freaks out, but she thinks surprisingly clearly compared to what we've seen in other trial and remembers that Alice told her that there was one part of the curse that she didn't know yet and realized she actually attributes this all to Tamlin, which I think is potentially over crediting him.

55:26 But she's like, he made sure that I was there to eavesdrop and found this loophole where they could talk about the curse, like in some terms, right, where she wasn't there and they weren't telling her about it. They were talking to each other and she was allowed to eavesdrop. So there are two points where it's revealed, right?

55:44 And Feyra can over hear it that Tamlin has a heart of stone. Lucian says For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days. And then the adder also says, though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin, you certainly keep a host of fear inside it. So she realizes in this, like, I'm picturing a video montage moment in when this eventually makes it into film, like, oh, my gosh, Tamlin has a heart of stone. If I stab him, it will not kill him. And Tamlin kind of affirms this in his eyes, right? He realizes that she realizes he's looking at her. He's like bright, defiant eyes.

56:17 And he's like, yes. So she stabs him in the heart. He's smiling as she does it very faintly, and then the dagger's tip is damaged by his heart of stone. She pulls it out and he kind of starts to heal. And so then all hell breaks loose, right? Because Amarantha says she didn't specify when she would free them. She starts to kill Pharah.

56:35 Everything else ensues. Risa reveals himself as a traitor and trying to kill her, and Tamlin finally, finally begs for her life after all this time. Amarantha calls Pharah A vile beast and Pharah says the answer to her Riddle finally, which is love and then which? Is love, which is love. Right as Amarantha snaps her neck. Yeah, can I tell you something fucking hilarious? That I found, yeah.

56:59 And Mist and Fury chapter 16, Pharaoh is talking about Jurian and she says resurrecting the dead. She finds out king of the king of Hira's plan is to resurrect Jurian. She goes resurrecting the dead. What's sort of unholy power like she herself is not resurrected from the dead. Pharaoh, you fucking dummy.

57:19 I love you, but come on. Yeah, and also, wait, when did she? Oh, it was Mr. Fury. So it was pre pre Reese resurrection but post her own resurrection? Yeah. I'm like hello, hello. You happened to you. Yeah, yeah, I have a couple notes. I don't really have notes on anything. I did have one thing, one note I want.

57:41 You said in a way, this trial is also solving a Riddle, right? Like she has to put all the pieces together and she finally does. She finally does solve the Riddle, which is good for her. There is a moment where Amarantha references Miriam. She talks about someone else being made. She doesn't say, Miriam, we have to put this together later on. The fact the quote is, imagine all those years you were going to spend together suddenly alone. Tragic, really, though a few months ago you hated our kind enough to butcher us.

58:11 Surely you'll move on easily enough. She patted her ring. Shurian human lover did. Right, so we're talking about Miriam here. We're talking about Miriam and Drake on. Yeah, and we're talking about the only other person at this point in time who has been made into an immortal being. Yeah, and Tamlin's eyes, it says, still on his knees.

58:30 Tamlin's eyes turn so bright, defiant. And I'm wondering if in that moment he remembered that Miriam was made basically right. It's like cuz he and Reese were friends, so maybe he knew. It's kind of a little small detail. It might not matter. But the fact that his eyes turned defiant there, Like I feel like there's a back story there where Tamlin knows what's going on with Miriam and Dracam. And he's like, maybe, maybe I can get Feyre to be immortal with me.

58:57 Yeah, yeah, I like that. Which would be interesting. I also had a note that I'm definitely leaning towards your theory that Tamlin kind of orchestrated this whole thing. Because Fairer has a quote. There was such a thing as Fate. Because Fate had made sure that I was there to eavesdrop when they'd spoken in private. Because Fate had whispered to Tamlin that the cold, contrary girl he dragged to his home would be the one to break his spell.

59:19 Because Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I had been listening. Tamlin did that. Fate or Tamlin with a little help from the cereal, I don't know. Yeah, like, we know Tamlin orchestrated, but I know you just said we give him too much credit, but like, he did basically orchestrate her overhearing these things, right? So yeah, if he did that, did he not also do all these other things that she's attributing to fate? Yeah.

59:45 The other thing I wanted to talk about here, I referenced Theseus at the beginning of this, at the beginning of this episode. So the other thing that's, I mean maybe more than one thing. The other thing I know Theseus for is the ship of Theseus, right? So that is the the ship that and the idea is they rebuild the ship slowly.

1:00:03 So they take every piece of the ship off and then they replace it with a new piece of wood, right? And it's like, at what point is it not the original ship anymore? At what point is it if you replace? Every single piece of it. At what point are you an entirely new thing, not the thing that you were originally? And I thought this was really an interesting idea in relation to Farrah, right?

1:00:22 Like, she's human. And then obviously at the end of this, she becomes Faye. Is she still, we know she still has her human heart. And like, I don't know that we'll get a resolution to this question. Or maybe we already have because we kind of have the close of her story. But like, how much of her is still Farrah? And it's applies to Nest and Elaine too, right? Like, if you are remade, I feel like it's a question. We're constantly wrestling with this in this book. How much of you is still is still you if every part of you is something new now, you know.

1:00:49 Yeah. Yeah. So. And it's interesting too right? Because her her being made marks her change pre her dying. She was in love with Tamela post her dying and and coming back. A lot of other things happen but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think I want to do my precog theory before we get to our next question because it doesn't have any spoilers outside of actor and it's related to this. So we talked about Tamlin shifting or the adder shifting Tamlin.

1:01:19 The Tamlin next to Amarantha shifted into the adder as the Tamlin kneeling in front of Pharah came, was revealed, was revealed. And so we know that that Tamlin is the real Tamlin, right, Because he has a hardest stone and doesn't die when Pharah stabs him. And So what you said about someone being tortured, right?

1:01:36 What really struck me about this part is that Tamlin eyes were wholly different when the bag was taken off his head. He his eyes are sorrowful. His eyes turned defiant. He it shows expression. And so it got me thinking like, was it really Tamlin who was standing beside Amarantha the entire time? Or was Tamlin captive elsewhere, forced to shift other people to look like him?

1:02:01 The only time that we get like, his scent, a confirmation of like the scent of grass and rain that's associated with Tamlin is at the party when he pulls her into a closet and kisses her. So also like a break in that pattern. Facade. Yeah. And so I know we hate Tamlin. And I know we, we have been saying, like, he's expressionless and he doesn't help and he's terrible. And like, he.

1:02:24 And if this is all true, then he, if if this is if he is actually standing next to Amarantha, then all of that is true. And I just don't understand how he did any of that, any of that. Especially how he like, begs for Lucian's life multiple times throughout the trials but never once Pharaoh's. But what if he just wasn't?

1:02:41 But remember, Pharaoh asked Lucian. Like, what kind of spell is Tamara? Tamara. Yeah, he says he's. Not and like. It's a question would know, yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, Lucian can see glamours, but can he see whole shifts? There's a difference, right? I think there's a difference, yeah. Yeah, so I don't know, could be something, could be nothing. But like, suddenly his eyes are not blank. Yeah, at all.

1:03:05 Yeah, it's it's cure. And and like we said with Tamlin, like we haven't gotten his story yet. So like, yes, this happened in book one. Yes, this is assumed in open and shut chapter, but like we know we're getting some kind of Tamlin redemption arc. So like really everything is on the table. Yeah, and we have never been inside his head.

1:03:20 We've never been inside his head. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else I had to say really about about these books, about these many things to say about these books, but about the trials. I mean, the one thing we haven't touched on, right, is that all of this is stemming from Amaranthus hatred of Jurian.

1:03:39 Yeah, I don't know that that matters. But I think it's an interesting thing to keep in mind that she assumes that Feyra is going to not love Tamlin because Jurian didn't truly love Clithia. And like, all of this is because of one stupid man, Dewey. Stupid things, basically. Yeah, I guess is my point. Yeah, that's fair.

1:03:59 Yeah. And I wonder how much of that jury in, like, harbors after he comes back. I also think it is interesting that and Marantha calls Farrah A vile beast. Like, yes, it might just be, you know, like human racism, but she also is a beast. Yeah, I mean, once she turns Faye, we find. Once she turns Faye Robert. Burris Yeah, Yeah.

1:04:19 Well, this kind of gets back to the bone Carver thing that I was telling you about because, yeah, in this is the scene where the bone cover says no one remembers her name, right? This is the scene where he tasks Pharaoh with retrieving the Urobura. So if Amarantha recognizes Pharaoh's name, does she also recognize like what she is potentially? Yeah, and I mean a task per full moon. Like, that's Wolfie.

1:04:44 Let's chat about that later. It as well, yeah. But even in like, even in this context, right? Like and fair. Always calls herself a wolf. Yeah, lots of wolf imagery in this series, so OK. All right, Mass, first time, If you haven't read Crescent City or Throne of Glass, bye. We love you. Goodbye. Love you.

1:05:03 And you should, because the theories are juicy. The theories are juicy. I find this question hilarious in the way that you worded it. Abby, was this Pharaoh's ordeal? OK, I have to, I have to genuinely tell you I forgot about the quote that I'm pretty sure you're referencing. Like I did not know that this quote existed, but the answer is hardcore Yes because there is a quote in Crescent City which I completely forgot existed. Talking about ordeals And for context, if you don't remember Crescent City, all of the Faye in Crescent City go through an ordeal and all of them have to see the Oracle in order to become.

1:05:42 It's like their rite of passage to become an adult Faye. So I asked, was this Farrah's ordeal kind of just for fun? I forgot about this quote, but from Crescent City all say male and female made a visit to the city Oracle at age 13 as one of the two great rights to enter adulthood. First the Oracle and then the ordeal a few years or decades later. The ordeal itself vary depending on the person. For some it might be as simple as overcoming an illness or a bit of personal strife.

1:06:09 For others it might be slaying a worm or a demon. The greater the fae, the greater the ordeal. I did not know that quote existed when I asked this question, so I apologize for the leaking question. But like, pretty hardcore confirmation here. This is Fairer's ordeal, which gets back to the idea that there is a fae bloodline in the arch rods, right?

1:06:27 Like no matter what, they were always going to become like, they always had to go through this ordeal even though they seem to be human. I mentioned before that this is also when Reese falls in love with her, right? Is this first trial when she throws the bone at Amarantha? But like, I think it's also an interesting idea that if this is her ordeal, she is becoming a Fae woman basically, even though she's not yet. Like, she's kind of becoming a Fae woman in this ordeal. And then Reese is like, I love you. Like, yeah, we were mated.

1:06:56 But like, this is when I love you, when you kind of become fully fit. She also given so much other foreshadowing, by the way, like this could have this could have belonged in in the prior section. But like, there is a point where Lucian says she looks positively fae and she is fully human at that point, Yeah.

1:07:15 Sarah also clearly Vince the Oracle, right? Because she goes, she sees the serial. So we're getting that ordeal and Oracle imagery. I think it only matters because it speaks to the Archeron's being say, and it speaks to the idea that kind of all of them will go through this. Nesta certainly goes through ordeals and we can talk about if she sees the Oracle or not, but that's kind of why it's interesting to me.

1:07:37 Yeah, I think, I mean I think there's plenty of parallels that point this right. I think the only thing. So before I tack on, I think the Crescent City was published five years after Recorded Phones and Roses. So, so when while I think that Sarah J Maas had the idea of an ordeal kind of mirroring a phase power, I think that totally existed. I'm not sure her trials were fully based off like the Crescent City ordeal because it didn't exist yet. But I mean, Bryce's swimming back from her ordeal was certainly similar to Ferris swimming back. And Reese was her anchor in this ordeal. He was her anchor.

1:08:14 And if this is the case, as you mentioned, I think it's possible that Faye already already had immortal heritage which we'll talk about later. I think you can draw this parallel even though Crescent City was written way later to Throne of Glass as well. Like Aylan also has a drop after being captured by Maeve which she freed herself from which resulted in her actually losing power.

1:08:34 But it also happened pre her kind of settling into her immortality. So I think I think this or this like concept of an ordeal is something that whether consciously or unconsciously, Sarah J Masks I was woven into all of her great heroines. And I think it makes sense for this to have been Pharaohs. Aylan being captured by Maeve could have also been Aylan's ordeal.

1:08:53 Yeah, and Nesta. Nesta has three trials too, right? She has the mass, the harp and the crown. Those are her three trials, or those her ordeal. I actually think there's a more clear Nesta moment with the drop where Cassie and his is her anchor. We can get more into that in the Nest episode. Yeah, but yeah, Ultrons always gonna be Faye, we think. I won't limit myself to that.

1:09:18 Sure, they might be witches too. Yeah, they might be witches too. They might be witches too. But we have. The good news is we've got several mixed bloodlines to discuss. Between Faye witches, other stuff, shifters, stuff shifters, there's plenty to go around. I don't think anyone's a mirror. But I don't think, I don't think we got a mirror. Maybe Nesta, she goes into the water. You're right, one time she swims. All right, all right, the pre card corner, pre cog all. Right, you already did your pre cog. Yeah, All right.

1:09:48 So we talked about how all of these trials are on the full. So my I was told I was thinking about this. I was like, this is weird. There's this full moon we that later get the full moon like imagery with Pharaoh with her tattoo. I want to go back to that idea of the forgotten gods that we talked about in the last episode too, right. We're told they're a long forgotten gods. In Corinthian we talked about how the gods in Throne of Glass are actually just beings from another world who got trapped. Diana's symbol Deanna in Throne of Glass. She is a goddess and her symbols are hunting, which Amaranth is described as a huntress and the moon. Amarantha sets all of Pharaoh's trials on the full moon. My precoct corner theory is that

1:10:30 Amarantha, I don't think she's Deanna. I want to be clear about that I. Do I was going to be upset with you if you. Do not think she's Deanna. I think maybe at one point she was a priestess of Deanna, or perhaps possessed by Deanna the way that Aylan is possessed by Deanna in Throne of Glass. Because we know that I I.

1:10:54 Never got to. Ianthe gets her power from the sun, right? In theory, we don't really know where her power is, but she at least seems to think that she gets her power from the sun. I'm thinking of Amarantha is setting these trials on the full moon. That's also maybe when she's at her fullest power.

1:11:10 So there might be she might be getting kind of a power up if she's getting power from Deanna by being a priestess. Deanna also not good, not a good goddess. She is fucking evil. She sucks, so it would. Kind of make. Sense for Amarantha to be her priestess. She's Amarantha or Deanna is described as a spider who's been hunting ale in her whole life.

1:11:33 You pointed out that Amarantha is described as having pincers right? So that's some more imagery. Deanna also hated humans and had absolutely no regard for human life, which is kind of Amarantha's like whole fucking thing how much she hates humans. So lots of parallels between these characters. I do not think Amarantha is Deanna, to be clear. I don't think she's that important, but I think maybe there's a connection.

1:11:56 Yeah, her being like an agent of Deanna. Yeah, I like that. Amarantha is just like, it's helpful to think of her as multidimensional because one-dimensional, like she's just kind of boring, honestly. And she's dead, so maybe it's okay that she's boring, but. Zillions in this series are not great, like when you compare them to Maeve who I thought was a very good villain.

1:12:16 Yeah, yeah, cuz Maeve. I mean, Maeve was a good villain because we learned enough about her that we could, like, understand her. Whereas with Amaranth, I feel like we didn't. We she tried with like the whole, you know, Tamlin's father being friend, but it wasn't like, well explained and maybe that was intentional.

1:12:33 Well, the other thing I like about Maeve is that you don't know she's the villain. It's like she has a plan. Yeah, right. She's outsmarting. I mean, you don't like her to begin with, but you don't know that she's the big bad. Yeah, right. Right. You don't. Realize that it's her, unless you are smarter than I am.

1:12:50 But we don't have an equipment. We don't know, but we don't seem to have an equivalent that in ACUTAR. I don't think it'd be fun if we did. I think it'd be fun if we had more complex villains, and I'm not talking about Tamlin. To be clear, yeah, it seems like a Qatar is shaping up to be more of a realm based plot line.

1:13:07 Rather than a. Conqueror based. Plot line, yeah. Conqueror based plot line cuz like throne of glass was final boss, Crescent city had some final boss energy but really it was realms like. We don't know. Conqueror species. Yeah, it's not done, but like that's how we've shaped up so far is like we need to free our lands from this conquering race, right? It seems like Akatar is headed that way as well, potentially if Koche is making a make it.

1:13:37 I mean, I know this won't happen, but like, how fun would it be if it turned out someone was a secret asteri this whole time? Someone we knew. It's not Amaran. I don't think it's Amaran, OK. I mean, I think Amran was, but I think Amran has given up. I don't think Amran was in Asteri, but we can talk about that when we talk about. Well, it's interesting, right?

1:13:55 Cuz this isn't. I mean, this isn't really. Are we about to go on a huge stand? No, no, I mean like Sarah J Mas. Again, this was a long time ago, so I don't know what she was willing to say and wasn't willing to say, but Sarah J Mas is basically called Amran, Biblical Angel. Yeah. So the Asterian weren't out yet at that point, But yeah, it does make sense. Yeah, let's talk about it more.

1:14:16 We got more episodes, Yeah. More to come. All right, what are you reading? A Court of Silver Flame. I feel like I had something else entertainment wise to talk about on my list. I haven't started it yet, but this is a low effort enough thing that I think I will sooner than I've promised that I'm starting other books.

1:14:33 Work is crazy right now, guys. I'm working on it, I'm working through it, but Wednesday is back and I'm. So excited. I haven't started it cuz I want it and I want enough of it to come out but I could like actually catch up on a good amount of it and a weekend but I love Wednesday. Are they doing weekly releases?

1:14:51 I thought they were, are they not? I I truly don't know. They could be. They could be. Wednesday, season 2. Oh, they did a half and half situation, so they released four, and then they're releasing the next 4 the weekend after Labor Day or the week of Labor Day. I did have a romanticy serendipity that I wanted to put out into the universe. OK, if you don't know what I'm talking about, the 1990s ROM com serendipity starring Kate Beckinsale. And I want to say that British guy whose name I don't remember. Oh no, it's John Cusack.

1:15:22 It's John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. OK, haven't seen it. I know that there is a romanticy book out there exist that is called quaint. It's like it's like described as like comfort cottage court romanticy. It is about a woman who runs a bookstore. I don't think she's fae or anything. But then like some kind of magical creature walks in and it's described as very comfy and cozy. I know that I could just Google this book and figure out what it is.

1:15:47 However, I thought it would be fun if I just said it on this podcast and someone could tell me what the name of that book is. And if you tell me, I will read it. And if you don't, it's not meant to be. That's my thinking. All right, if you're still here, tell Abby what this book is, because I certainly can't. The sequel to it just came out too, like it's it's in the zeitgeist at the moment.

1:16:07 Yeah, but I don't remember what it's called, but I would like to read it. OK. All right. We are on social media. We are drags in the details pod on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Our full episodes are on YouTube, by the way, we get DMS about that sometimes. You can watch our full episodes on YouTube.

1:16:24 We are also on Discord Dragons in the Details pod server. We will link to all of our social media in the show notes. And if you have questions, comments, concerns, not really concerns, questions, comments, theories, e-mail us Dragons in the Details, pod@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you and we try to get back to you. We're kind of dropping the ball a little bit. We both are really busy.

1:16:42 We're sorry, but we will try to get back to you. We will do our best to do that. I think that's it. Thanks for listening, love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.