Onyx Storm: Loose Ends! - Warrick's Journal Entry, Jack F****** Barlowe, Andarna's Scales, and more!

0:17 We're having people over tonight to make pizza because last night I learned that two blocks away from our apartment is a like Napolitano, like a Napoleon pizza establishment. Incredible. So good. I've lived here a year. It's been 2 blocks away the entire time. I've never been. So how does that translate into you making pizza?

0:37 Well, we had. Pizza last night. Now I'm like I need it again. OK, OK, OK, OK. Yeah, so now we're going to make our own. So, Derek. And I make pizza and I'm saying Derek and I, but really it's mostly Derek. Probably about once a week in the oven on our pizza stone. I absolutely like. I shut it down from May to September, so I'm like, I'm not. Getting a carbon hot.

0:59 To 550°. It's just not. Fucking happening. Yeah. Yeah. So I know we will do that today, which is a bummer. And we do have a pizza stone because Connor went from the pizza stone isn't for a thing. Yeah, as of you. I apologize for nothing. I think everyone should have a pizza stone. I think everyone should make pizza at home.

1:17 It's great. I love doing it. It's like pretty easy at the end of the time, especially if you buy the dough. It's a good thing to it's a good, it's a good party trick, you know, and it's good for dinner parties. You just. You just. Throw it out. It's low effort too, and it's fun for other people to participate instead of me just being in the kitchen and sweating and dying and everybody else is over there enjoying themselves, you know? Pizzas and a big salad.

1:42 Great dinner party. Great dinner party. I like how we've basically started every episode talking about or beverages. Yeah, it is kind of the center of my life, honestly. It's a very big part of mine, for sure. All right. Hi. Hi. I'm Abby. And I'm Ronnie and. This is Dragons of the Details, where we pick apart our favorite fan of the series over the course of an undetermined number of episodes. This is our 20th episode.

2:15 I don't know how that's possible. Which is unhealthy. I know, I think we're talking about this book a little too much. We're going to switch to a new one very soon. This season, we are focused on the Imperial Series by Rebecca Yaros. If you have not finished all three books in the Imperial series, stop.

2:30 Go no further. This is your spoiler warning. This will be the last spoiler warning that you will get. Also, because I think almost everyone has, if you're going to read them, I feel like you've read them by now. And we cover all three books in the series. We everyone of our episodes spans all three books.

2:45 We don't do the chapter by chapter thing, but no shade to the people who do the chapter by chapter thing. It's all great. Disclaimer Other disclaimer because of the contents of this podcast and the contents of these books, this podcast is rated R. We do curse a lot and these books are sometimes spicy books.

2:59 So this podcast is rated R. Each week we'll dive into a specific topic in depth. This week we're not doing that. I've just lied to you. I'm terribly sorry. This is a loose ends episode. So basically what this is, I kind of push this idea to Ronnie is this is all the things about Onyx Storm that we couldn't fit into a different episode, but we still have thoughts on possibly keeping us up at night.

3:21 Some of them are from you guys like, so it is kind of a little bit of a mailbag, but a lot of them are just stuff that we think about that we either think we deserve answers to in the next book or maybe we've already been given the answers, but we haven't quite put them all together yet. And so this is our loose ends episode.

3:37 We come with receipts as per usual. We have quotes to back up our theory. So you might not agree with them, but we at least have quotes to back them up. If you don't agree with them, that's fine, tell us. But you should also come with receipts so that we know what you're talking about. Do you want to do announcements, Ron?

3:53 Sure. So same announcements as last week. For the most part, we we'll be covering A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass in season 2, the full series. So if you are interested in doing a reread of books one through 5 of A Court of Thorns and Roses, we encourage you to start if you have not already started, We'll be picking that up soon.

4:15 We're super excited for it and we, like, I think the rest of the world who's read these books, are eagerly awaiting an announcement on book six that quite frankly, it feels like it will never come. But we're still here, waiting and hoping. Dying for it, man. We are on discord, we have a discord server, it's called Dragons in the details pod. There is a link to it in all of our social BIOS and so you should join the fun.

4:41 It's really like it's an active, fun little community. We have started to talk through. We created a channel for a guitar spoilers as well. If you want to start contributing ideas or things that you want to hear about when we do cover a guitar for everyone here who's not yet read a guitar, there's no reason not to join still.

4:59 Just go ahead and mute that Channel and then you won't get any notifications that give you spoilers that you don't want. But it's super funny. You should join. Forgot. I'm sorry, I should have done this in the last announcement to one of our wonderful Discord members has put together there a a bit of a TBR.

5:14 So it's a Google spreadsheet. We will link to it in our Discord and also throw it on our link tree. It's a form that you can fill out or you can just go straight to the spreadsheet and it's kind of a list of recommended books. And so I've put some on there. Ronnie, I don't know if you put some on there yet, but basically it's like from our community, which is really awesome. So we will link to that as well.

5:31 I've tried to put some good ones on there. Yeah. And that was really awesome. I should look up their name so I can shout them out. One second please. Right. So their name is Swan 8920. So thank you. A Swan. We thank you a swan. We're excited. Corrections. Omissions. Social media shoutouts? Did we have any? I have one from a user I think called Ashlyn and it was on our clip from a while ago about our admittedly crazy kind of off the wall theory that maybe Brennan's not Brennan because he doesn't know things that we expect him to know. And she commented a fair call out, which is I think if Brennan was Naolan or like sort of Naolan or whatever, we would have seen a reaction to him seeing Taryn, like something subtle, like he looks shocked

6:18 when he first sees Violet with Taryn. So I just want to talk about this because I do think it's a, it's a valid call up, but I think this is a common frustration of mine. We are in Violet's head, so we miss a lot as far as Brennan was concerned. Like we miss his reaction to when she first bonded Taran because he found out while he was in Arisha before Violet even knew that he was still alive, right?

6:41 So he's finding all of this out kind of secondhand. He also first saw Taran like laid eyes on Taran again when Violet was borderline unconscious from the venom poison. So we also missed that reaction. So I think it's totally fair call out. We don't know. Like we don't know what Brennan thinks of Taryn or what Taryn thinks of Brennan because we missed it all because we are confined to Violet's brain and she refuses to ask questions and also is unconscious for a lot of things. And that's a bummer.

7:08 I just think that urges over everything related to Brennan and Taryn and libel and Arisha and just things that go on to Risha generally is we just don't know. We're in Violet's head. Yeah. And I think the other key piece of this is if of Naolin's soul is in Brennan's body, which I think is what we're saying here, then that happened five years ago and Taryn has been missing for five years and presumably Taryn already knows, right?

7:34 Again, I'm not saying that this is a solid theory, like this is definitely one of our more out there theories, but I don't think that they're not being a reaction from Taryn means. Anything necessarily, Yeah. I mean, Taryn's like the best liar in this entire book, which is saying something because Zaden is a really good liar. Like tearing it so tight cuz he's full of secrets. I've said it once.

7:55 I'll say it again. Yeah, yeah. But I liked the call out. Thank you Ashlyn. Agree, and that's why I also. Love the name Ashlyn. So thank you. Ashlyn. Yeah. Thanks. All right, I had an omission I alluded it to. I alluded to it in last week's episode. So when they need to fire the Orisha Wardstone for the first time, when they fail, Violet believes they need to select the six most powerful writers in residence at Orisha.

8:25 One of the people that they pick Imogen, Garrick and Bodie are all there, right? Like they've defected from best guy. If they're all there, they pick Bodie. They don't pick Imogen or Garrick, they pick Bodie. Yeah, which I thought was kind of wild. And this is only an omission because we talked in our in our Marked Ones fantasy draft about who we thought the most powerful writer is.

8:43 And I guess the answer is Bodie. I guess we both missed it. Neither one of us said Bodie. Or maybe I did say Bodie, but not because I don't remember. I don't remember who we said. But I said Garrick. But if the most powerful in residence is tied to political power, I believe that it could be Bodie. Well, it was interesting because it was Zaden and Bodie. And this gets back to the possibility of Fen having another son, right?

9:05 It was Zaden and Bodie, and then it was Violet and Brennan were four of the people that they had picked. And then I think they picked Surrey and maybe Felix. I don't remember the other two were, and so on. What makes a comment about bloodlines? Like, I guess there's something to be said for bloodlines.

9:18 Yeah, which I think we should think about. But I just thought it was interesting that Bodie was who they picked, because I think I did have Bodie, but he was my second pick behind Garrick. I was like, there's no way Bodie's more powerful than Garrick. But Zaden, who knows Garrick's second signet, was picking Bodie here. Yeah, which?

9:37 I think is interesting. Interesting too that like Violet never, I mean, no, we like literally went through all of the journal entries for this episode. Like there is nothing explicitly that we hear from work or Lear's journal that it's the six most powerful in residence or that it's the six most powerful in general.

9:56 They're just working off of the six because it was the 6th at that time, like there were six. So like, what does the six really mean? It's not a specific epigraph, but she does. It's not a specific epigraph. The second time they're going back to the Ward Stone chamber because then she has to comment about it being more political power rather than. Yeah, right.

10:15 But we don't know what exactly was said or whether that was an extrapolation by Bible. Exactly. We don't know exactly what was said. Yeah, that was my omissions. OK, cool. Cool. All right. Do we want to dive? Dive in. Let's dive into it. All right, so this actually did come. This was an e-mail from one of our readers. I apologize I don't remember who it was from, but hopefully I said readers, listeners, this is a podcast. I apologize I don't have it written down, but hopefully you're listening to this episode. And I thought this was a great e-mail and a great point. We know Violet does not have a very strong command of old Luceris as a language, and that Dane seems to be the one who's much better at it.

10:56 We also get in epigraphs throughout Onyx Storm and Iron Flame. 6 epigraphs in total from Warwick's Journal. 4 of I just went. 4/4 of are translated by Violet alone, two of which are translated with Dane. So the question was, what could Violet have gotten wrong within those four other epigraphs? Yeah. So the ones that we have from Dane and Violet that we know are correct translations are the breath of life of the six and the one combined and set the stone ablaze in an iron flame. So we know that that's not correct in terms of lighting award stone, but that is the correct translation from war external.

11:37 And then we have the combined hatching grounds at Baz Gaia is our generations greatest asset and our greatest liability. I stupidly don't have all four of the epigraphs written down here. You. Want me to read them? OK, you want to read them? Yeah, so the ones that are only translated by Violet like Dane did not contribute to them. Our first.

11:54 With all we've sacrificed for this Kingdom, we'd better be able to defend it. That was Violet alone. Then we have the incorrect version of what you just read, right? The blood of life of the six and the one combined and set the stone ablaze in an iron rain. That was Violet alone. Tis tis Violet Ashker would be very sad. That was your old who Saris translation then. We have was never our continent.

12:17 From the very beginning it was theirs and we were simply allowed to live here. That was Violet alone. And then the last one that was actually both Violet and Dane as well, is nothing kills powerful, unshakable love faster than opposing ideologies. Yeah, cool. All right, so we have three that are translated by Violet and Dane, and we have really just two that are translated by Violet alone. So those two again, are with always sacrifice for this Kingdom.

12:40 We'd better be able to defend it. And then it was never our continent from the very beginning, it was theirs and we were simply allowed to live here. I really only focus on the first one because I went into such a really. Focus on the second one. Great. This is perfect. I love when things work out like this. All right.

12:58 And by the first one, I mean with always sacrifice for this Kingdom, we better be able to defend it. The thing that kind of stood out to me with this one is the word sacrifice. And we have posited that sacrifice here means the combined hatching grounds at Baz Gaiath. And the reason that we think that is because there is another book called The Sacrifice of Dragon Kind that talks about the sacrifice that the Dragons made and that is about the combined hatch and grounds of bats guy.

13:23 So we kind of like took a little, took some some leaps, but we said, OK, this sacrifice probably refers to the Hatch and grounds. We better be able to defend the hatchet grounds. That's kind of how we read this at first. Oh, and the reason why I thought this one might be a little wrong is because we have this other quote that is translated by Damon Violet.

13:42 The combined hatch and grounds at bats guy is our generations greatest asset, greatest liability. So I'm like, OK, it's kind of weird, weird that we would get 2 quotes about hatching grounds from this journal. Like it seems like one, we've already kind of covered the hatching grounds aspect of it, so that doesn't seem quite right. And he describes it as an asset as and a liability. Would he also describe it as a sacrifice? I don't know.

14:03 That kind of seemed weird to me. So I went back and I was like, OK, how many times is the word sacrificed like incorrectly used in this book? And there actually is a moment when Violet is in The Cave with Cat in iron flames. So it's Cat, Sloane and Vivid Vizia, who's the other flyer. There is a moment where Cat hands Vizia a torch, and Violet misinterprets the moment as a sacrifice.

14:26 So the quote is Cat glances between the three of us with an uncertain and unhappy tense set to her mouth, then hands the torch to Vizia in what looks like a painful sacrifice. And then Violet says, no, not a sacrifice, a gesture of trust. Right? So we've got the word sacrifice that's been misinterpreted and she realizes it's actually supposed to be a gesture of trust.

14:47 Sorry, I should have prefaced this, but this is a really fucking out there theory for me. But it was a fun exercise. I don't know that this is really at all kind of like any basis in reality. Yeah, but let's say that this is Rebecca saying, okay, hey, the word sacrifice here is actually supposed to be gesture of trust. What this kind of turns into now is like with this gesture of trust that we've been given, we better be able to defend this country.

15:11 And then I thought, well, we've kind of talked about before how Warwick is a little cryptic with his journal, but he's not actually denying the existence of the ear. It's right like he's saying the six and the 1. So it's not like he's just saying the six like he did put the. One separating out the ear in for whatever reason he deems fit.

15:29 And a gesture of trust sounds a lot to me like the ward stone, right? Like the gesture of trust is we're going to fire this ward stone, and then we're going to see what humanity does with it, right? Like, we're going to trust you guys to build a Society of peace. And we'll see if you do that, right? Yeah.

15:48 So my mind was kind of like, all right, So what if what if it's not that Warwick? So what if Warwick understood that, right? So it's not OK. We better be able to defend it. Like with war. What if it's more like we better be able to live up to the expectations that the irids have set here? And War called it the Six and the One.

16:07 We've talked about so many Times Now, all these extra things that irids seem to be able to do, That's not what normal Dragons can do. What if he calls it the Six and the One? Not to be cryptic, but because he understood better than anyone that irids are actually a different species, right? So he wasn't trying to mislead.

16:24 He was trying to honor this gesture of trust and kind of build on it. I don't know that we have enough. That was like obviously crazy walk down conspiracy lane. I don't know that we have enough to go off of there. But we don't really have any first hand accounts of Warrick's bad character. Like what we have is Lilith telling Violet that Asher said that Warrick didn't want anyone else to like flourish behind the words, right? And maybe that was true, but maybe that's because the ear is wanted it, right?

16:56 We don't know what his motivations for that were. Yeah. And then we have that epigraph from Lyra that's like in in Orisha, like, if the others ever return, everyone will be able to flourish behind the words in Orisha. But doesn't it seem so weird that the eras would leave before firing that word stone or like, make it so that Aunt Dharna was supposed to fire that word stone because that's what she says. She says is her whole purpose was to fire that word stone. Kind of like if this experiment worked out. Like it's just so it's just so fucking weird. I don't know.

17:25 That was a lot of word vomit, but that was kind of my. No, I mean, I don't think it's far off. Like we we have like gone down the path and like I think posted a clip about like the fact that work didn't lie. Like he very much knew that earrids were different. And I don't think it's crazy to interpret sacrifice as a gesture of trust from the earrids because they clearly don't want any part of the human world, but they still gave the part of it that they needed to so that Dragons could experiment with humans. And they left behind the criterion. I guess.

17:59 Like where where I think it's interesting that we didn't go with this quote is like even if it was a gesture of trust, if it was also a sacrifice, then like what do we think they gave to the Irids in return for what the Irids gave them? Because they gave them firing the word stone and they left behind one of their own, which is huge.

18:18 Like it's a huge thing for them to have given up 6. Dragon eggs, perhaps? Perhaps, perhaps, yeah. But I think, I think that work works like mistakes were only mistakes before we knew that Adarna wasn't Irid. Like I don't know that right Violet would have had the same challenges after she found out. Cuz Violet finds out that Anderna is an eared at that moment when she needs someone to fire refire the disguise of Hordstown.

18:43 So we might be dealing with some more character assassination here unfairly. Totally. The other thing that you brought up that I hadn't as an omission, but I decided to not, I decided to omit it, but I want to talk about it now. We have talked about how and Dharna and Leothan are of the same debt, right?

19:00 That means there are multiple Irid dents. So is it and Dharna and Leothans den specifically that can fire the word stone or can any Irid fire the word stone? And are there different hatching grounds for these dents for the ear? It's the same way that there are for Basgaya or there are for the. I don't know why I said that. Well, yeah, no, that makes sense. The same way there are for the Dragons and Navarre of different dents, right?

19:23 Like, are there different hatching grounds? Yeah. What the fuck happens if the venom find those hatching grounds? Those seem like magic H bombs, basically. Yeah, Like what? What happens then? Those are my thoughts. Maybe they're underwater. Baby, they're underwater. That would be fun. And that's why the water is so blue.

19:40 Yeah, okay, I had two thoughts and 1 turned into my precog corner theory. So I all shared the second one and I focused on the other one that only Violet had translated, which is the IT was never our continent from the very beginning. It was theirs and we were simply allowed to live here. And my question about this passage was not necessarily within the passage itself because they don't actually mention the subject, right?

20:04 Like they don't mention who there's is. But it had me thinking about the time that this was written in the language that it was written in. And like, were there words that were different for Dragons, earids and venom? At that time, like Dragons and venin, like you could probably assume, I would hope that you could tell the difference, but Violet and Danes certainly wouldn't know the word for venin, right?

20:27 Like, because they didn't learn it when they were learning old Lucerish, because Venin were erased. And so who was Warwick writing about in this journal? Is it the Dragon's world? Like did they translate it that way? Because that's what Violet and and Dane learned when they were brought up. Or could it be then in her ear it could it have been their continent 1 of theirs? Because Violet and Violet and Dane, excuse me, never would have learned either of those words when they were learning old Lucerish.

20:55 And there's the moment where Violet has to sign out Wyvern to Justinia because there is no word for Wyvern. It's not only ancient languages, right? It's like, Oh my God. And like, how fucking oppressive and ableist is that? So therefore they're just not to be a. Word for no word and Jacini is like trying to spell it out with or Violet spells it out with letters, right? Yeah, that's really fucked up.

21:17 I think what's also interesting here is this is another it, right? It was never our continent, not this was never our continent. It was never our continent. Maybe not as cryptic as the IT at the end of Onyx Storm. Yeah, I think it's probably the continent that works, probably the continent, but I think that theirs is super up in the air.

21:37 I love when we're talking languages. I really enjoy that. Yeah, it's. Was there a word for for venom or irid? And even if there was violin and you said which? I think was really interesting is were they separate words? Were they separate words? Yeah, great question. Dragon and Irid I would like, I don't know, it depends on what you think Warrick knows, right? Like in Lira's journal, Dragon and Irid were probably used interchangeably based on the way that she wrote in works journal. They could have been different words, different words like what of Venon?

22:09 Yeah, I don't know. But I think such a good point. Big questions as to what Violet and Dane are actually reading about in these journals it. Needs to think about that, right? How would because Violet and Dane would not have learned the words for irid or venom. Or venom. Yeah. They didn't even know what those words were.

22:26 I mean, Violet did, but, like, she wasn't looking for them in old lucerish texts, right? Intriguing. Yeah. Cool. So I feel like we're gonna go back to them because we still have those journals. We still have those journals. We still have the journals. And I know that everyone thinks liras is the important one, but I'm starting to think works is the important. One seems like work knew more.

22:47 So the next question we had. We have two bracelets in this story, one that Mirror wears and one that Violet gives to Zayden's. What do these two bracelets mean? Do you want to start? Do you want me to start? I can start. I feel like you probably arrived somewhere more solid, so I'll just start with the context because I love context.

23:02 It's my favorite thing. Yeah. So Mirrors and Zayden's bracelets are similar in that they're both black, and that's like about where they're similar and sort of. So Mira has a beaded bracelet of black tourmaline on her wrist. And the most interesting thing about this bracelet to me is Violet's reaction to it.

23:19 She says that the knotwork tickles something in the back of her brain, and she swears she can smell parchment for the smallest of seconds before she looks away. We found out that this bracelet is Niaris because Brennan recognizes it. Kind of odd that he recognizes it, in my opinion. He was really, really young the last time that he saw his grandmother, but he recognizes the bracelet as and I have some like hypotheses about why Violet reacts the way that she does. We know that Zayden gave Violet a book about tearish knots and then it like basically never came up again. I think Violet recognizes the tearish knots consciously or subconsciously because of that book and because like, we've just not heard anything else

23:57 about it. So I feel like it has to come into play at some point. And the small parchment to me was a little bit weirder because it makes me think we think, right, that Neora is Asher's mother and was a scribe as well. Yeah, we think she's Colonel Daxton. Yeah, yeah. We think she's Colonel Daxton.

24:11 We think she was ascribed. And it almost seems like Violet is like associating that bracelet with like a memory unconsciously. And this is a bit of a leap, but it kind of gave me a vibe of like a memory that's been erased or just like barely surfaced because she's actually smells the parchment for a second. Does she recognize it as a time that she was sitting with Niara in a library or learning how to write with her grandmother? That's like a sweet image.

24:37 And maybe she lost that memory for some reason because we know her parents also stopped talking to her grandmother after Violet was partially dedicated or was touched. And then the only other note is I have that black tourmaline is actually a crystal that's typically used for protection in like the current world. So that was where he went from.

24:55 Here is bracelet. Yeah, I had basically that, but a slightly different flavor. So I had something about it's the knot work specifically, right? It's not the bracelet. Violet specifically says it's the knot work that makes her smell parchment. I took that as Asher. I don't really think it matters if it's Asher or Niara, but like, obviously something about the knot work of this reminds her of her father and her father's family, right? As you've talked about, the only knots we've really seen are tearish knots.

25:24 It does come back a little the book, because Zaden leaves the Violeth a book and three strips of fabric. And then she learns about runes. And she was basically like, is this why you wanted to teach me, me to learn about tearish knots? And he says, I wanted you to have a head start, which I thought was interesting because it's like, OK, are tearish knots actually the same patterns as runes?

25:45 Like that would be really interesting. And I want to talk about violets daggers, right? So the the daggers that Violet gives Aiden violets daggers from Zaden are engraved with tearish knots. That's how they're described. She later refers to them as rooms, right? So she says it's beautiful with a solid black hill engraved with tearish knots, old mythical ruins of intricate swirls and ties.

26:10 So like these two things are like knotted ha ha ha. But like there seems to be very little distinction between a shape of a tearish knot and a shape of a ruin. So I'm like, okay, is mirrors bracelet actually ruined? Are there actually ruins on it? And why does Niara have that if if they're not from Tyrandor, right?

26:28 They're from Lucerus, I think. Is that where she goes? Mira goes to visit her in Lucerus, yes, right. So why does Niara have? Once again, it's a question a connection of the Daxton family to Tyrandor and Tyrus. Schnotz. Yeah, the other thing. So I dug, I dug a little deeper into Tourmaline and I ended up on some very woo woo new age websites.

26:50 So I'm very curious to see what my ads are going to be. So yes, it is used as a protection. It is a gemstone. We know that gemstones typically come from peromial. I don't know that that's that word. But most importantly, it is apparently a psychic protection stone, right? So obviously this immediately made me think of dream walking and Berwyn, right? So.

27:11 I thought of Arc. All of it, all of it. I mean, I thought of Berwyn specifically because we've postulated that Zeta that Berwyn and Asher might have like. Asher might have tussled. Yeah, tussled with. Berwyn psychically, yeah, but that was my thinking. Is this a protection bracelet against like, psychic attacks, basically? And does that mean Dr. knows about Berwyn too? Yeah, and Asher knew about Berwyn. Which might be .4 Asher got killed in his sleep. Interesting.

27:44 That's what I thought was interesting and that is from energyimbalance.com dot AU if you're looking for a story. The Aussies, where you at? I mean, I think we have to see Niara in this next book. Like we have to meet her and figure out what she knows, especially if she is giving Mira things to protect. I guess where I went when you just said it protects from likes abilities is made.

28:11 Does she now basically have a rebellion relic that maybe works against everybody that can see any path, right? Yes. Especially if there's friends on it. Melgren, right. Yeah. The original question that you had here that didn't make the cut because we didn't have an stuff on it. Asher ruined his books like he he ruined the book shut and Violet needed to get the answers to his riddles right in order to unlock the rune.

28:36 I know that Asher was a scribe and so like the likelihood that he knew what runes were is obviously very high, but like that was something that was well known to have been lost in the bizgayeth education. So like why did he know how to use runes like and? Who? Who? Ruined them. Right. He couldn't have ruined them himself. He could not have ruined them himself. Yeah, which like did Lilith.

28:58 And the earliest one is before him and Lilith were married. Well, he could have ruined them afterwards, but yeah. He could have ruined them afterwards. Yeah, right. But in theory. Like, Lilith knew all of it. So I know that I obviously have a lot of questions in this episode that we don't have answers to. So I feel, Yeah.

29:13 But that is we do not have the answer to that one. But like, who ruined them? Why did Asher ruin his books? Why does he know how to do that? Who did it? Yeah. And well, OK, and here's here's the other thing. We get a line from Violet about what's in the books, right? And it's like migratory patterns of birds. It's about the flora and fauna of the Isles. Like she says.

29:35 There's not much in there. Really. Yeah. But that cannot be true given how much protection is on these books, right? They are passcode locked. And they are built to literally destroy themselves if you get the passcode wrong, Right. So like, that does not match up with flora and fauna. So what is violent? Like Violet has.

29:53 Clearly missed something in these books is my thinking. It's missing a lot of things and I have words with her about that, but yeah, I totally agree. OK. Zaden also has a black metal wrist cuff from Violet made of Onyx. It has a piece of the turret from the top of Ryerson House mounted inside of it.

30:16 Notably, Violet gives him this bracelet wrapped in parchment with a letter which has the same scent of what Violet smelled when she saw it. Niara's bracelet. Weird. I think that was maybe just like Rebecca choosing to use similar words where maybe it shouldn't have happened, but she gave him the risk of in parchment with a letter. We didn't find out what was in that letter, but we know she wrote him a bunch of letters over the course of that book, so that's not that weird.

30:41 Things that happened on the roof of Ryerson asked right? He didn't tell Violet. I used to sit up on that roof waiting for my dad to come home and tell me that it's over. And Violet finds Zayden up there after they find out that the Venom took Pavis. And she gives him some chocolate cake. He eats the chocolate cake.

30:56 And we learned that Segal blocks Taran out of the Tavis battle, and now they're fighting. And this is when Zayden says, like, we're 50 years too late. Basically. Onyx is also known in our world to have grounding and protective properties. And it's also the metal, metal, stone, stone, gemstone, whatever.

31:14 It's the ward stone. Like stone. Yeah, it's the word. It's used in Word stones. Yeah. I think this ends up being some sort of mini word for Satan, but I have very little to go off of. Yeah, I mean, and what I found too is, yes, Onyx believed to offer protection, grounding and enhanced willpower, right.

31:33 So like that sounds to me like Zetan's control not slipping. Obviously, it does slip at the end of Onyx Storm, but maybe this helps him moving forward. And then the only other piece of this that I was thinking about is like, we know that writers need a physical place to help ground them with their magic.

31:51 Zadan's is not the roof of Rearson House. It's like the valley above Rearson House, which I guess is what becomes the hashing grounds. But that's a different loose end. Could this be a way for Zadan to kind of like, ground himself? And so he doesn't like, lose himself, like, lose his his soul completely? Yeah.

32:08 And I'm curious too, whether we're going to find out that the roof of Ryerson House is made of something important, or whether it's truly just symbolic. Yeah, Palladium, Palladium roof. Palladium roof. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the only other thing I had is that the reason we're able to get a piece, Violet's able to get a piece of Ryerson roof, is because the roof needs repairs. So.

32:30 Violet asks Brennan. Brennan to keep a. Piece for this bracelet. So Brennan is also kind of involved in this. Could Brennan have done something to this bracelet too? We don't know. Yeah, Brennan's cropping up in a lot of places. OK, who are the three Dragons that have died because their writer's bonds were so strong? So this is something that we've gotten a lot of comments on. And I said, who are the three Dragons? But really the question is, there's a theory, a lot of theories going around that this is Segal town and Dharna. I don't think it is.

32:58 No. Are they already dead? Aren't they right? Well, that's the theory that passed right? Though That's the theory that this book is written after the events of Onyx Storm, because we know this whole book is written after the correspondence. Yeah, yeah. OK, Yeah, right. So this quote is in the six centuries of recorded history and dragon rider, there have been hundreds of known cases where a dragon simply cannot emotionally recover from the loss of their bonded rider. This happens when the bond is particularly strong and in three documented cases has even caused the untimely death of the dragon.

33:32 Here's why I don't think this is Segal Tanner no Darna. This quote is from Navarre and Unedited History. My favorite joke title by Colonel Louis Markup, Right? Yeah. So. And says 6 centuries and it's 634. And it's 634, right? So there are 6 epigraphs in this series from this book, one of which covers the Tears rebellion. So we know that this book was written recently, but it still has the Venning cover up in it, right? And like it still says it talks about Fenry Orson's like death and him accusing King Tari of a conspiracy. Seriously so vast and so unspeakable. The scribe dare not mention it, right. So like, if this book still exists and it's like still a reputable source after the

34:14 ending of this series, they've completely failed. Everything has failed. And I don't think that's the way this goes right. So like it's not Sigel Tanner Nandarna. These are other Dragons. These are other writers that were that were bonded and the bonds were so strong that the that the Dragons died.

34:28 Also, it can't be Sigel Tanner Nandarna because they're scared about it happening to Taryn at the beginning of 4th wing. So it has to have happened in the past, right? So yeah, I don't think it's Sigal Tanner and Dharna personally. And I don't know who it is. I don't know who the Dragons are, but.

34:43 Yeah. So the only thing that comes to mind is Zaydn at some point, I don't have the exact quote, but Zaydn at some point says Taryn's bonds to his writers are so powerful because he is so powerful. And so I think if this isn't about Terence Segill and Andrna, which I don't think it is because also because like Zadan's venom now, so like killing whatever.

35:07 Good point. No, that's a great point. I don't think that. Yeah. I just don't think that it's them. And also like, Zadan and Sigal's bond is obviously suspect at the moment. So like, would it kill Sigal if Satan died? I kind of doubt it. But it does make me think about, like, who are the most powerful writers in history? Like when I was taking notes on this question, I was like, maybe it was 3 of the original 6 or something like that. Because the power of the bonds is actually not about. It's about two things.

35:32 It's about age, and it's about power of the dragon. So you want somebody who's been bonded for a really long time, and that dragon is super powerful. It's said that's why Taran almost died when Naolan died. This just occurred to me too. We don't know that and Dharna and Violet are bonded at the end of.

35:48 Honesty. Did that just occur to you? Because I have a whole thing in this episode about that. Great. Great. It's our next question and I have great thoughts on it. All right. So OK. What do the different colors of the bonds between Zaden, Violet, Segal, Tan, and Andarna mean? And why isn't Zaden bonded to Andarn? Yeah.

36:09 OK. So let me recap the the characteristics of the bonds and then you tell you correct me on that because I think you did more work on that and then I'll talk about what I think they mean. So Violet perceives Zaden as like shadowy Onyx for the most part, and that transitions to ice. Kind of not really. OK Zadan is OK.

36:28 People are always like oh and dharna is shimmering and dharna is shimmering. Violet always describes and dharna is shimmering. Zadan Zadan is always described as shimmering almost exclusively. Yeah, I have exact quotes here. We can get to it later. But Zadan Zadan's bond is shimmering Onyx for the most part, so keep going. Yeah, So Zadan's bond is shimmering Onyx. I'm just going to, for the sake of drawing parallels here, flip and say in Zadan's POV, Taryn is Onyx to Zadan. Taryn presents his Onyx to Zadan. Segal presents to Zadan as hard sapphire. Violet presents to Zadan as silver, shimmering silver. And then and dharna presents to Violet as gold until she matures.

37:10 And then it's just kind of not gold, it's just shimmering. It's pearlescent. I think it's the word that's described. At one point in Onyx Storm she describes it as golden anger, but she specifically calls out an iron flame that the bond is still shimmering but no longer golden. Yeah, and then she calls it proescent later, which makes sense with with yours.

37:30 Yeah. For sure. And then Taryn, I actually really struggled to find exactly how Taryn's bond presents to Violet. She just calls it a bond and she just refers to him as like the archive door a lot. But we don't have a ton of characteristics, at least that I could find, on what Taryn's bond looks like to Violet. She does not actually give it a color or a character. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

37:50 She like throws open the archive door often. She shouts down the bond often. But like Taryn is just kind of her from what I understand, which is which makes sense in terms of how we understand these bonds to function within Violet. But it's interesting because Segal gets a color to Zayden, yes? Yeah.

38:08 So I'll jump to the part about Andarna and Zadan being not bonded, and then we can jump back to like everything else that's implied here because I think there's a lot. So Zadan can't see Andarna at all, right? And we know this because in his POV chapters, he notes all of the bonds that he sees, and Andarna is not one of them.

38:23 To me, this means one of two things. One, Andarna is not bonded to Terran and she's only bonded to Violet, which is true. And therefore because Zaden is connected to Terran through Segal, he only connects to Terran's bonded. And then Darna is not Terran's bonded. I think that's a simple, reasonable explanation. The other less likely option is that and Dharna doesn't really have a bond with Violet at all.

38:47 She loves Violet, she speaks into Violet's mind, she gives Violet power, but there is no bond necessarily. The way that these other bonds exist, that is of meaningful consequence. The reason that I think that's even a possibility is because we see other Irids doing all sorts of stuff, speaking into other people's minds, and there just seemed to be no limits. Like, and Dharna can still gift power, do things, can like basically function as a third member of their little bond without actually necessarily being permanently bonded at all. And I think the most interesting evidence that people will probably use for and against this theory is when she leaves, yes, Violet is devastated, but she's fine. She's fine.

39:31 She just needs to breathe so. And and leosin has like no concept of a bond, right? Like, and Dharna says you trivialize the bond. Yeah. I mean, the argument. Yeah. The argument against it is that the other earrings need that slide whistle noise to get into Violet's head. And Dharna does not need that. Doesn't mean that that's not true. Doesn't mean that earrings don't bond the way that other writers bond.

39:59 Yeah. Yeah. No, I right. Because. Right. Cuz Violet, cuz then Darna comes back and it's just like, oh, great. And Darna's back. You know, like it's. Yeah, like Violet doesn't notice. Like there's no additional wave of power. There's no like moment where Indarna starts channeling even though she's giving gifts. Like the moment that channeling starts, we know it's from Taryn. Like Violet is like suddenly I'm getting power from Taryn. And I think Rebecca specifically did that because we start to feel Taryn fucking scale, like right after that happened. So we know that it's Taryn.

40:30 We did not feel it happen with Indarna. We did not feel it. Restart with Indarna. Right. Like and Theophany runs into Andarna in the shadow, and Theophany has no idea that Andarna is there, but neither does Violet, right? Yeah. So I think both are totally viable. Like I could completely reason that Zayden couldn't see Andarna because Zayden sees Taryn's bonded and Taryn and Andarna are not bonded, and Darna has bonded to Violet and Taryn is bonded to Violet.

40:56 But I do think there's enough to think about whether they have a bond in the 1st place. And does this mean that Andarna's talking to other people? Like, I don't know. Yeah, are. She's clearly talking to Eric. Yeah, I think, I don't know if it's super clear because everything that she acts on is because Eric has said it out loud, but she clearly that's true. She can recognize segments, so she can recognize. Segments That's true.

41:21 So I think a couple things. It also means that so we also know that and Darna and Zaden are not bonded because when Zaden brings so this was funny. Zaden brings Violet to the veil so he can talk to Taryn, right? And that's when and Darna starts talking and Violet realizes that Zaden can't hear him.

41:37 So like they don't have the bond, right. But then we find out during threshing that Zaden and Taryn can talk mind to mind, right? Or sorry, it's not during threshing. It's during Zaden's POV chapter at Montsera when Taryn is coming in to pick up Violet because they're being attacked by Weiber, right And Taryn and Taryn and Zayden are coordinating Taryn's like, I'm going to have to pick her up. It's not going to be pretty.

41:58 You need to keep her on the roof. Why the fuck did they need to go all the way to the veil for Zayden and Taryn to talk when they could always communicate mind to mind? I think that was just a newb. See anyway. Yeah, I think. It proves it either proves one of two things what you just said that that Violet and Adarna are not truly mated.

42:15 It also might prove that there is no mating bond between Violet and Zaden the way there is between Taryn and Segal. Right, because if there were, why are we saying mating Violet and darn are not mated? No, no. But remember when Taryn refers to Zaden as Violets? Meet as violets meet, yeah. And people have speculated that they have their own mating bond and like, but that this means that that's not the case. Because then he would be able to talk to Aunt Dharna through the transitive property of equality the same way he's able to talk to Violet.

42:44 Yeah, good point. Good point. Yeah, agree. And I think that's that feels right. Zayden can read minds and Violet can speak in that. Like, I think that's what's actually going to end up happening. Yeah, maybe. But we'll see. I mean, another story with mates would be OK, Sure. All right. The thing that I thought was interesting, people are all like, oh, why is Zayden's bond to Terran Onyx like, and, and Zayed and Violet's bond to Zayden is Onyx like. That's so interesting.

43:10 Kind of, I don't have that much to say about that. What I do have a lot to say about is Zayden and and Darna's bonds to Violet both being shimmering. And once again, we're getting these Zayden and Andarna parallels. Yeah. So again, I think this might point towards, and I don't think it's happened yet, but it might foreshadow if we think Antarna can actually bond, it might foreshadow a bond between Zaden and Antarna. Yeah, but I don't think it's happened yet. I mean unless it happened at the end of Onyx Storm. But yeah, something's going to happen with Satan and Arna with respect to Zayn and Taryn both presenting as sonics in different ways.

43:44 Like Zayn and Taryn just are kind of similar figures in Violet's life. Like they are symbolically ruthless, authoritative, but love Violet and would literally die for her. Like they are a similar archetype of person and Violet and and Arna are for more similar to each other than they are to anyone else.

44:02 Unfortunately Seagal is kind of on an island for Seagal. But yeah, I think the fact that Zayden and Adarna are both shimmering is much more interesting than Zayden and Taran being Onyx. Like they're Onyx just cuz like Taran is black dragon. That's what they are like. And and what color? Do you want?

44:18 Sapphire like of course Taran is Onyx, right? And. What do you want Zayden to be like fucking green? Like. No, he's he's a shadow daddy. Sorry. Yeah, exactly. A shimmering shadow. Daddy, you heard it here first. Yeah. Cool. All right, that was a fun one. More fun than I thought it was going to be.

44:39 All right, what does it mean that Violet is Zaden's leash slash tether? So we have a lot of string slash thread imagery around Venon and their souls specifically. So just the tether thing first, like the tether is used a lot in Fourth Wing. Violet says her life is tethered to Zaden. She reminds him of that a couple of times during Onyx Store when he's all like, oh, woe is me, I'm going to go be a Venon. She's like, what happens?

45:03 We're tethered. Like, what happens to me when you're a Venom? Yeah. So it's really used to describe the fact that if Violet dies, Zaden dies too. So. So they are tethered together. At the beginning of Onyx Storm, Jack says the Venom might let Violet live to keep Zaden on a leash. So the exact quote is you could deliver her yourself or you could let me out and we'll do it together. Who knows, they might let her live just to keep you on a leash until you turn Asim and forget all about her. So it kind of implies they'd keep Violet alive as like kind of like a tortured thing.

45:36 I don't know. Like we'll keep her alive and like, you could do, like you'll do what you say, and then once you don't care about her anymore, we'll kill her. So it could be what the leash means. Theophany also calls Violet a leash, which I thought was interesting. She says you I'm curious about.

45:51 I'll even admit to wanting, considering all that power, not to mention being an effective leash. Yeah, but there's other thread imagery. So question on that one. Yeah. So do you think that Theophany could have been talking about Elise Randarna at that moment, or do you think it was obvious that it was about Zayden? Because Theophany has shown no interest in Zayden. Honestly, she doesn't give a fuck about Zayden. She certainly cares about Andarna. And ears have this like bottomless well of power seemingly.

46:20 I think that's a great point, OK. Because I don't think we've appropriately answered the question of like, who did the venom actually want and why? Like Berwyn clearly wants Zayden, but he also wants Zayden to turn in Violet and they talk about, you know, Violet being a leash for Zayden, but Theophony just has always had her sights on Violet and Antarna. And Antarna?

46:43 Yeah. Yeah, well, it's curious what's going on. What Theophony says in this scene is you I'm curious about, I'll even admit to wanting, considering all that power. Like she doesn't even care about Violet. She's really just after Antarna and then by the end of the book it's you're a once in a century opportunity, right? You know what do they want?

47:03 And why? I don't know. We're not gonna answer that here. But the leash point calls it into question, right? Like leash for who? And why? I think that's fair. All right, a couple other string imageries here. Theophany says going back to temple would sever the very thing that's kept her untouchable for all these years. Sever, you know, cut in a thread. It's kind of what I think about severing. I guess you also sever A lint.

47:25 I don't know. I still think it's thread imagery. And then Zayden describes Violet Love as the silken thread that prevents his soul from leading his body completely. So that's some more string imageries. Again, this is a loose ends episode. The theories here are loosey goosey get best, but I'm kind of wondering if every venom has a leash slash tether that kind of holds them to their humanity, right? Like this is the like kind of the last piece of humanity that you have and what the venom are like aiming to do is destroy that, right?

47:59 That last piece of humanity is like once you destroy that, then you become a full asylum, right? Then then you are fully bent and then there's no saving you. But kind of as long as that tether exists, then you're still, then you can then you can be cured basically, right? Then you might still want to be cured. You can be cured.

48:16 And the other reason I'm saying this, I have a couple things. So first, we've talked about this quote before. Jack says maybe you see it as a loss of our soul, but we aren't burdened by conscious or weakened by emotional attachment, which we know is a lie, right? We know that Zayden does feel conscious.

48:32 He does feel emotional attachment, like he's very much still in love with Violet. Theophany says we're excellent actors, but our kind doesn't feel what you call love. We we also know that's a lie, right? Both of those are a lie. Zaynon definitely feels love. So we also have that random woman, that random Venom woman in Breivik who didn't destroy her house, right?

48:53 And we talked about this a lot in our Violet or event an episode, I don't remember. But it's like the idea that as long as the venom, as long as the venom still has that one thing that they can kind of hold on to, maybe they're not a completely lost cause. Maybe it can be OK, OK. And for Zayden, it's Violet. For that Vandom Venom woman, it was her house. We also get that quote in the same chapter with that abergraph that Violet notices a pattern.

49:19 She says that makes 3. So maybe this is 3 leashes. And I thought it would be really, really great if that had happened before she gave Zayden that Violet that bracelet, and the bracelet might have been like his leashes together back to his home. But she gives him the bracelet before that, so it doesn't work. So I don't know.

49:38 That's kind of my idea. Interesting. Anything else said no. I like my great. I like it. I just don't have anything to pile on with. Yeah, OK, so the next loose end is why did Jack hate Violet so much? Even before Parapet, this guy was just an absolutely horrible human being that had it out for Violet and seemingly everybody from so, so early on. And we actually got this question a couple times in our comments, which is why it's in this episode is like, what is Jack's deal?

50:10 My simple response to this is I think that Jack was one of the riders that came in knowing that he wanted to turn. Like I think he somehow already knew about Vennon and has just wanted to be that the entire time. I had the exact. Opposite answer, I think Jack's just a bully. You think he's just mean?

50:27 Yeah, I think he's just a bully. We know there's not enough to. Come in knowing things, and like who tells him he knows? About the earrings. He knows about the earrings. He knows about Dragons being gatekeepers. Like, who's mentoring him? I know that Berwyn can walk into his dreams, but like, is that what's happening here?

50:46 He also says right before parapet, let's go. Some of us had things to do on the other side, right? What do you have to do, Jack? He had a plan, OK? I think he I think he was sent in as a plant. He knew he needed to bond a dragon, to kill that dragon over the ward stone, to bring it down. I think he's been a venom plant the whole time.

51:05 Why he targets Violet, I don't know as much. Like, I don't know what Lilith did. Maybe well, back to her battle with Theophony, like, I don't know. That's kind of what I mean. Like I don't think everyone's like, why does he have it out for? OK, I will concede that maybe Jack was a venom plant. I do know Rebecca been asked this question straight up and I think she said no, but obviously I'm going to have to go back and listen.

51:25 She might have just laughed and said you guys are crazy. Well, also like, she's not going to tell us. Sorry, she's not going to tell us. Exactly. I don't think that Jack specifically has it out for Violet any more than anyone else until they cross the parapet and she holds her dagger at his balls. And then I think he has it out for Violet, right. But like, I don't necessarily think he's like he kills other other cadets or I guess they're candidates at that point on the mat.

51:49 Like it's not like he's specifically gunning for Violet until she gives him a reason to do so. Yeah but yes, sketchy things about Jack. We might have talked about this on the pod, I don't remember. He is given a third floor room when everyone else has to just sleep in the general dormitory, which is sketchy.

52:07 My loose end about Jack is still why he lets he saves Violet's life in Iron Flame when she's hanging off the roof. Yeah, I don't think that makes much sense. I think the Vennon had a perfect opportunity to kill her. We know Theophany is willing to kill her. I mean, he says he doesn't know it was her, outright says I didn't. Know he could still throw her off the. Roof.

52:24 I know, I know, I know. Yeah, I think there's some merit to it. I think he's a venom plant. That's my vote. OK, so the next loose end that I had was from chapter 13 of Onyx Storm's epigraph. Upon failure of three exams, Justinia Neil Wert has been removed from the Adept path and stripped of all its responsibilities and sacred privileges as of January 15th.

52:49 Under protest, I transfer her command to Professor Grady at his over authoritative request. Yeah. So I understand that there's an obvious explanation for why this happens. And it seems like from this epigraph that it was basically schemed so that just any it would fail these tests and fail out of the adept path and then be transferred to Grady. The reason that I want to talk about it is because Grady is a writer, and in no other situation is a professor from another quadrant over full authority of somebody from another quadrant.

53:22 Like yeah, Markham is a visitor in classes. Justinia gives us a reason for this as I've been giving one assignment which they know I with which they know I can be trusted helping you with research. Well, officially under Grady, but it's really you. So her job is to help Quest squad. With research, but I wonder if this is how Justinia ended up also the scribe of the rider squadron.

53:42 Like the scribe that records all of the events that happen in the Riders quadrant. This marks a transition of her line of authority to be like a scribe of the riders. Yeah, that's why she's transcribed everything from here on out. I guess she transcribed things before now too. But but she. Doesn't go with them to the aisles.

54:02 She doesn't. And they're supposed to bring a scribe everywhere. That's what we've been told, right? Yeah. So this is. That's clearly not. Actually happening, yeah. But I think this is interesting. Someone brought this up that like, because we were talking about who might die and a lot of people are like, oh, Ree's clearly going to die. And then someone brought up he can't die. She has a POV chapter.

54:22 How would she have a POV chapter? How would she tell Justin what happened if she was dead? Which I think was an interesting point. I think maybe Violet Signet, because I had, I had hypothesized that the way Justinia knows how everything happened is through Violet Signet, right? Violet projects it into her head and then Justinia writes it down. I think that becomes harder when you have multiple POV chapters. I don't think it's impossible though. Like Violet could get, I don't know. I don't know.

54:48 But I think the idea of people being dead and also writing POV chapters, if we believe Rebecca's really going to be a stickler about this just any. Transcribing. Transcribing everything, yeah. Gets a little trickier, Gets a little harder. Yeah, I mean I don't hate that because it means both re and image and live, which I'm not.

55:05 Gonna it means Violet and Zayden live. Yeah, cool. OK, the next question I had is about Kat and Serena's parents. This is intentionally or unintentionally just like a black hole. So let's just talk what we know of Family Tree for a second. So context right? Takaris, formerly Viscount Takaris, now King Takaris used to rule in Cordon and now he ruled the province of Krova, right?

55:30 And now he's the king of Peromial. He succeeded Mariah when she died. Cat and Serena are the nieces of Takaris and their last names are Cordella and we know that Serena is first in line after Takaris for the throne. Cat is second in line. They have a cousin also with the last name Cordella named Drake, who seemingly is not ahead of that in line Chow.

55:53 Says he was born on the wrong side of the family. Yeah. So he's paternally related to Cat and Serena, I assume because they have the same last name. And so then I assume that Takaris is maternally related. But like, we know that last names are not really tied to a specific gender here. So either way, Drake is probably not blood relative of Takaris. My point here is we don't know Takaris last name and I don't know where Kat and Serena's parents are, who they are, where they are, what they are.

56:24 They're clearly dead. Yeah, they're. Dead. They're dead or are they venom? Like, is that going to be another big shocker is that Cats and Serena's parents were taken in some, you know, venom uprising or they turned themselves. Everybody else, we kind of have an explanation for why they're in line for the throne. Yeah.

56:45 Cat and Serena, like, who are the parents? Why are Zacaris's Zacaris's sibling nowhere to to be found? Well, we know the name is usually tied to the title, right? So yeah, if Takaris, Takaris probably is a Cordella. But then why wouldn't Drake be in line if he's their cousin as well? It would have to be a cousin on the other side of the family.

57:03 No bloodline, right? Then he shouldn't be a Cordella. I have no idea. I need to draw a map, a diagram. I have a diagram in my head. Yeah. OK, So loose. And we don't know who cats and Serena's parents are. All right. This makes my blood boil. Why? Why did we never try anything while and Dharna was changing her scales? Why we need to talk about this like I'm going insane. So in Iron Flame there's a battle and Dharna jumps out from being disguised as a boulder and I'm paraphrasing the passage but basically a shape moves in the Cliff and it's described as a boulder with slivers of golden eyes. It springs forward from the Cliff like a projectile, expanding, changing colors, sprouting wings and claws and black scales.

57:51 Side note this to me literally looks like and Dana is shape shifting like sprouting wings and claws and black scales like holy shit. But she's probably just changing scale colors and Darna I think. It's like she was invisible, like she was in Deverelli, and then she becomes black, so it looks like she's appearing out of nothing.

58:10 Right so, and Darna lands directly in front of the venom, opens her mouth and breathes fire down upon him, roasting the dark wielder before she snaps her jaws down and rips his head straight off his body. I fall into the melting at the same time, same time his corpse does, and then an Onyx storm when Violet and then Darna are talking about how they could possibly cure Zaden, and Darna says magic feels different when I change color. Maybe my use of power in that moment altered the Vennon, weakened her enough to blister.

58:40 Which is interesting because she did say her and I'm 99% sure the Vennon was killed was him. But that's not that important I guess. Yeah, I do think you're right. Yeah. So maybe in oopsie. Not sure we're. Gonna have to go back and check that. One, yeah, but yeah, like, so she fully acknowledges that magic felt different when her scales were changing. Her fire after this does not burn venom, but she's also not trying to burn them when she's changing the colors of her scales.

59:08 And this happens at the beginning of Onyx Storm. They have this discussion and then we just never do anything about. It but there's really only one other time that and Darna even changes the color of her scales and that's on Devorelli, right. The rest of the time she's just, she's just black. Depending on who you think is at the end of Onyx Storm, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, sometimes she's like black and invisible, but yes.

59:30 So she tries to burn Theophany. It doesn't work. Yeah. Why weren't we changing and Darna's scales more and seeing what she could burn? That was the whole reason that we pursued the earrings. Yeah. Over to the islands. And no one ever brought it up. No one ever said to them, hey, just so you know. Well, I guess Andarna did tell them the story of her burning that venom.

59:51 Yeah. They were like, we don't wanna help you. And we were like, OK. And we just left what? I feel like we have 90% of an answer here for at least how to change the nature of a venom right? Because she could actually injure. The venom with her flames so that like she symbolizes a a level of humanity that she's changed them to. She's not saying the fire killed the venom because that's not what happened, right?

1:00:17 Hitting its head is what killed the venom, but it changed her, the venom, enough to weaken him or her. We're not sure on the venom's gender. Yeah, I don't have an explanation. Plot armor. We have to drag this out for 5 bucks so we're gonna I guess. Yeah. I mean, maybe this was like when we were gonna be 3 books and then last minute pivot. Except that she put this in Onyx Storm. So like this quote is from Onyx Storm I. Don't know.

1:00:40 It makes me livid. And it also makes me wonder whether like at some point we don't have like a rune that protects from injury of fire and then we just like fire event and holding that rune and maybe that makes them more human. I don't know. I. Don't know. I don't know. I think the venom still have a lot of questions to answer, much like terror. All right, I do have a bonus question. So the question is, and we've seen this question a lot, a lot of people ask this question, what was the first room that Violet and Sawyer and Riddick and Bree got rid of when they were manipulating the Ward stone? So we know what happens is they go to the Ward Stone day, Sawyer pulls out one of the runes and

1:01:26 nothing happens. And then he does it again into the second line of runes and Marin can channel and Riddick makes a comment. It's like, I really want to know what protections we just got rid of. Yeah. So we have, I'm going to shout out to District of the Hair is their username on Discord. A lot of this theory comes from them, which was really awesome.

1:01:44 They have a theory that the diamond pattern on the ward stone, which we know is the only differentiator between the Arishan and the Basgayeth ward stone, actually came after the ward stone was fired, right? So we know it's not what prevents the Flyers from channeling, right? Because because changing that war stone did not see.

1:02:04 So whatever it is in the war stone that prevents the Flyers from channeling, it is not this diamond pattern. So the question is, and we know the diamond pattern is what they, I mean, I believe it's kind of very cryptic, but I believe the diamond pattern is what Sawyer is breaking the first time because it's referred to as the first line of ruins is what they're what they're breaking.

1:02:23 And all the other ruins are in like a circular pattern. So I think it's this diamond pattern. The exact quote was the top line of runes differentiating Navarre's word word stone from Orisha's. And that diamond pattern is what differentiates Navarre's word stone from Orisha's, right? So the question is, what was this diamond pattern trying to prevent?

1:02:42 If it wasn't the Flyers channeling, what was it trying to prevent? So we went back district of the hair and I, but both of us not not together, but we both went back and did some digging. So we know we've talked about how it's rare that the Navarre peronial war doesn't start until 200 years after the great unification because the Griffin can't Griffins can't channel from day one, right?

1:03:03 So from day one it's like, fuck you Griffins. So what's weird is that it's 200 years later, we also find out that dedication to the gods was outlawed in Navarre in the two hundreds, right. So those events are actually kind of similar. Violet says, Of course, my parents didn't dedicate me. That practice was outlawed in the difference. Brennan also says that's an illegal since the two hundreds, so that so the start of the Navarre peromial war and the gods being outlawed, the dedication to the gods being outlawed in the two hundreds, that seems to line up a bit more.

1:03:35 So what if that what if that diamond pattern was actually to prevent the quote UN quote power of the gods? And what if the Navarre peromial war actually had something to do with that more than more than the Griffins and the not being able to channel within Navarre? It's kind of out there kind of a precog theory. We also have been told that dedication to the gods was banned even prior to that in peromial. So this might not work at all, but it seems interesting that those two events happened so closely and that this diamond pattern doesn't have anything to do with the Flyers channel. I guess my question if that were true is like why would like wouldn't the temple attendants and like high priestesses like kind of take issue an offence

1:04:18 with that? Like that's basically shutting down their power within the wards. So they're what? Just like. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they think that gods have forsaken. Wipes. Yeah, yeah, maybe. And we know that the priestesses in Arisha can't turn their hair silver. Right. Yeah, they dyed their hair.

1:04:36 And the word stone in Arisha does not have a diamond pattern, so never. Forget it. So never. So that doesn't work. I guess I didn't read into this myself, so I'm happy for you to tell me to just shut it down. But like did we did that big venom attack to bust Jack Barlow out of his cell happen before or after they changed the word stone before?

1:04:56 I like the power of the gods idea the most. It kind of like it then kind of kills everything that we ever thought about Dragons or irids having powers from the power of the God. Like having powers from the gods cuz then it's it wouldn't work. There's hold. On I just had a thought about the ward stones that I think proves that Zayden can't be an Arisha.

1:05:16 OK, Theophany is clearly within the wards at Bazgaya at the beginning of Onyx Storm and she channels because she disappears. Right. Yeah, but during she runs, but that's because she runs. But that's because they couldn't. They would have no powers like once they can't channel. They would have no powers.

1:05:36 They can't channel, but they could be there, they just can't channel. So they would get killed immediately. So of course you ran. But they can channel within the basgayeth words clear correct? Yes, clearly. I'm leaning more and more towards Zaid and can't be in Arisha, but yeah, OK, yeah. Sorry, why? Why do you think he can't just be there and not wield any magic?

1:05:56 I guess he still could maybe wield seagales. Yeah, he could still wield seagales, but he can't wield seagales after the battle because she's spent, right? That's the whole reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the same reason is because people would see him and kill him. Correct. Yeah. So that was the whole like point of him like it not making complete sense.

1:06:17 Like it's not like he couldn't, but would he really put himself in that position where like Violet and Terrance Dragons are both spent? He would have no powers and Violet would also be there and vulnerable because she's like literally marrying him, who literally has like red branches on his face at this point. So there's really no hiding what he's done. I think it's risk.

1:06:37 From a just pure common sense perspective, it makes very little sense. From a physical feasibility of it, I can see it, sure. Anyway, sorry, we're all all over us today, guys. It's OK. It's a loose ends episode. Yeah. So maybe it's the power of the gods, Maybe it's not. Maybe it doesn't work. I don't.

1:06:56 Know I I mean of all of the powers were to say like what are the realistically what are the options of powers we have to disable that might be different powers Irid powers that didn't happen dragon powers that didn't happen Griffin powers that didn't happen Vennon powers that already had happened because they can channel from the inside the wards already and power of the guts. Those are the only options that we are aware of. Which makes you wonder what the difference is between the orisha and besgai of wardstones that Griffin Flyers can channel with an Orisha.

1:07:26 Because Violet says the pattern, she says some contradictory things. I feel like maybe it's just an oopsie. She says that the pattern in Warwick's journal doesn't match exactly what's on the wardstone. But she also says the only different the orisha wardstone. But she also says the only differentiator between the Orisha and Besgai Triath is that diamond, so I don't know.

1:07:45 So maybe it is. Yeah, Venom related. Anyway, I feel like I'm losing the. Plus at this point did the venom channel within the words after that? After they break the diamond pattern. Yeah, if you believe that there are high-ranking vennon who are hiding out in Basgaya, then yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But all of the high-ranking Vennon within Basgaya would have Dragons.

1:08:13 Unless they're a scribe. Unless they're a scribe. Yeah. OK, OK. This is going nowhere. I like it, I like it, I just don't know what to do with it. What's that person's username again? I'll go read it. District of district. Of the hair, you got a cute cat in your pic. Okay, my precode corner theory is short and it's off the wall, and I know that you're gonna disagree. With it already.

1:08:33 But I'm just gonna go for it, okay? The thing that made me think about this was actually a comment from a really long time ago that I just disproved in my head. But then when you prompted us to go back to reread Warwicks journals epigraphs, I thought about it a little more and I was like, maybe, Maybe it's worth calling out. OK, so this dates back to when we talked about Warrick not necessarily being a liar because the whole the whole shtick with Violet thinking that Warrick was lying was the fact that he said 6 instead of 7 and Lyra said 7.

1:09:06 So she was like, OK, like it's 7 Dragons. Like I need the seven Dragons to stand around and breathe fire onto the word stone. But Warrick didn't say 6, he said the six and the one. And so we interpret that to mean that the one is the Eurid, right? So the six are the six dragon dens, and the one is the Eurid.

1:09:23 And the exact translation right by Violet and Dane is the breath of life of the six and the one combined and set the stone ablaze in an iron flame. The six and the one combined. It's just something in my brain, right? Because combined here is used as a verb. But what if it's an adjective? I've gone down this train of thought. What if it's an adjective?

1:09:45 What if it doesn't work grammatically? I know grammatically, but you asked about mistranslations. Like, what if they mistranslated it? No, I have translated this. They did not know that Irids existed. They didn't know that there was a dragon that could have all of the other colors of all of the other Dragons. And maybe work didn't have a word for it either. And so he said the one combined.

1:10:08 We need to find Lyra's. She says the seven, the breath of the life of the seven combined and set the stone ablaze. So she also says combined. Yeah, so maybe it's nothing. I also absolutely thing like makes me think that really like there was probably no word for Irid, so he was trying to describe an Irid and he just said the one combined because he was like.

1:10:27 I yeah, I absolutely had that thought the first time I read it too. Like irids are all of them. And it makes sense because they can change colors, right? But I don't quite think it works because Lira also uses combined. But I think it's really interesting. I think what's also interesting is the breath of life, right?

1:10:45 Like dragon fire is death. Like it is clearly death. Yeah. So why would it be called the breath of life? Yeah, I hear you on the combined thing, though. I also definitely had that. Thought the first time, I mean the when I first read the comment, I was so excited about it. And then I went back and read it and I was like, oh, combined is the verb. It is not the adjective, so it cannot be this. But then we started talking about mistranslations and then we started talking about words that may or may not have existed in old Lucerish.

1:11:10 And I thought it was worth calling out. That's it. It's kind of interesting though, if you think about it, because the word for iriad in this case is the one, right? Isn't that still interesting? Yeah. If it's if it's actually the word for irid, yeah. Very matrix style. There's a lot of interesting things she could do with language here if she wants to I. Don't know.

1:11:31 I want her to. It's my it's probably my favorite thing. Between that and the fact that the runes also seem like their language, I'm like, I'm here for what is the what is the phrase etymology? What is the word? Etymology. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here for that. I'm ready. I have one more precog corner if we want to do it now we get a little out there.

1:11:48 All right, So this I'm going to summarize it really, really quickly. There's kind of two pieces of this one someone on Instagram brought to my attention. I'm sorry I can't find your username. There is a concept of an astral plane in these books, so Quinn says and quote. Then I managed to take a walk as Violet and Rhiannon. My mouth drops and I nearly stumble. You projected looking like someone else. She nods.

1:12:09 I can distort my own features a little, but it's way easier in the astral plane. And I was like, holy fuck, there's an astral plane out here. That's fucking wild. Astral planes. Typically I look this up on Wikipedia, so if you have issues with it, go ahead at the Wikipedia page. Typically a plane of existence believed to be populated by angels, spirits, or other immaterial beings.

1:12:28 It is also sometimes believed to be where people go after they die and live out their spiritual life. So like we've been talking about with Malik, like if someone goes and meets Malik, maybe they're on the astral plane. I also thought there was an interesting thing going on with the phrase walkers, right? So when Theophany meets Garrick, she calls him a Walker, right? Yeah, and Violet is called a dream Walker. But the person who coins that phrase is Berwyn. So we now have two Vennon who are referring to signets as walking right?

1:13:00 Like Garrett's signet by the riders is called distance wielding, but the often calls him a Walker. What if I'm not saying this works for all signets because Berwyn still calls Zaden a shadow wielder, but what if the Vennon view some signet as ways to traverse planes, Right. So we have the astral plane, we have the physical plane, we have the dream world plane. Maybe we have other planes too.

1:13:22 I don't know. But what if the Venin are kind of on another level of consciousness here, which would be really crazy. And they they see they think of things as walking these planes instead of wielding magics. It's where it's what like world you can access. Yeah, interesting. That's a really out there, right? Well, I think it it works for the signets that it works for and then for the ones it doesn't, it just like very obviously.

1:13:47 But if you think about OK, so like astral projection, yes, that works. Dream walking works. It doesn't work for shadow wielding. Right, like shadow wielding. I don't think it's all signets. I don't think it's all signets, but I don't know. I think it's an interesting idea. I don't think there's enough to quite say yes, this is definite.

1:14:02 I just think it's really interesting that the two phrases of signets we've gotten are Walkers Walker and Dream Walker. Like, I don't think Theophany ever calls herself a storm wielder, right? She says that Lilith the answer to me, but she never says I'm a storm wielder. Yeah, I just have a thought. It could be nothing.

1:14:21 It could go nowhere. Do we think that the gods, the powers of the gods like, have their own form of manifestation? Because in Unreal it's Thunder and lightning and Theophany is a storm wielder. She just wielding the power of Dune like sacrilegiously. And if so, like, what do we think? The other we could take, we could table this. We could talk about that for a while, I think. That's a whole, that's a whole episode. Probably won't record anytime soon. Yeah.

1:14:46 All right. What are you reading? Besides, I reading, I, I mean a guitar like I, I'm reading a guitar in my e-mail inbox right now. I will never get sick of a chord of mist and fury. I will also never get sick of a chord of silver flames. And I think that's it. Like I think I'm just, I'm never going to be tired of it. But anyways, that will be probably my next three. What are you readings?

1:15:05 I am still like I'll open one dark window when I have a second, but my schedule has been such that I've been mostly focused on a guitar and I love it. What are you reading? So I am reading, I also talked about this book a couple weeks ago. I've I read this book probably 10 years ago and I loved it and I picked it back up. It's popular on Book Talk.

1:15:25 It's called Song of Achilles. Have you heard of it? No, I've never heard of it. OK, It's a retelling of the Trojan War from Patrick Kliss's view. Patrick Kliss's Achilles. He's not really his cousin, but like in the Trojan War, he's his cousin. And it's a gay love story between them. Like they're in love is the Yeah.

1:15:40 And I remember loving it. I remember reading it like I fucking love this book and I am finding it so boring. Like I fall asleep within a paragraph. I don't know. And I don't know if it's going to get better or if I've just been living in Sarah J Mass's world for the past six months. And it's like, if you're not rich with emotion and detail and world building, I can't handle it. I don't know.

1:16:05 Yeah, I will say the way that because I know that you're also on a court of Mist and period, the way that Sarah J Maas writes the characters in that book, literally to use her words, crack my heart wide, fucking up. Like. So like, actually emotionally stimulating. I can't imagine reading anything that's like a little bit simpler. Yeah, it's such, that book is such a warm blanket, which is crazy because it starts in such a dark fucking place and then it just becomes this beautiful, beautiful book. It's just beautiful.

1:16:35 Yeah, we have. We had one of our listeners DM me. She's like, I don't know, should I start ACUTAR? I was like, yeah. Yes, you should start at. Not only because I want you to keep listening to our. Podcast, but like you. Owe it to yourself to read Acutar, and I truly believe that. And then you owe it to yourself to reread Acutar. After you've read everything else, yeah. The more I reread, the more I process that. So when I first read at Qatar, it was first. And so I remember finishing it and thinking like, OK, that was like really like heartwarming to read, but not a great world building like plot line because there's a bunch of holes. And now I'm just like processing kind of that the series isn't over.

1:17:18 And obviously there's a bunch of other books that like are adjacent. And I'm like, I don't think these are holes at all. I think this is potentially potentially holes, potentially genius. It is possible that this story has not even actually begun, is how I'm feeling about it at this point in time, yeah.

1:17:32 Like correct, I agree with you. I feel like there's again. War that's holistic of. Potentially genius like if this is the if this is the prequel of I love the story Genia. We'll see. We'll see what happens. We're still waiting on that 6th book. Yeah, and we'll talk more about that next season. Obviously. We're just trying to whet all your appetites and get everyone very excited for ACUTAR.

1:17:51 If you haven't read it, if you if you are like me and you started with Onyx Storm and that was kind of your first foray into that genre, I cannot recommend enough reading ACUTAR. Like it's it's heavier on the romance. It is seemingly less heavy on the world building, as Ronnie just mentioned, but like, it's there.

1:18:08 You just have to pay attention for it. And there's a lot of puzzles, I think. Yeah, especially when you get into the Expanded Universe, which I know everyone's like all Marveled out, and I hate Marvel too, but these are books and they're fucking great books, so it's OK. Yeah, I think it honestly helps too if you just think of them all as one like web that.

1:18:27 Helps, and that's what it is. Yeah, yeah. It just helps me like cope with the holes a little bit more. But yeah, we'll obviously talk more about it. I'm curious though, for the listeners, did you, since a lot of people maybe hopefully are rereading now, how do you feel about the order that you took the series is in?

1:18:44 Yeah, if you've gotten to this point in the episode #1 thank you #2 we're giving you some homework. Tell us what you think. All right, so in conclusion, we are on social media drags in the details pod on Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. We are drags in the details pod@gmail.com. Please e-mail us your theories.

1:19:00 If you have any other loose ends, let us know. We can't promise we'll pod about them anymore, but we might. We're always happy to answer emails though, and we're on Discord. And as you can tell, a lot of the inspirations for this episode came from Discord, so if you're not on it, you should join.

1:19:12 It's a super fun place. It's like a little book club where we all read the same books and we all like them the same amount. It's really great. I think that's it. Anything else? No, thanks for listening. All right. Love you, bye. Love you. Bye.