#wbn spoilers

[kaoticrequiem]

Episode #25 "The Retinue"

After a couple of dedicated listens, this is now one of my favorite episodes because of how lovely and subtle it is, building upon a lot that has come before and setting us up for even more huge swings in the future. I can't praise the quintet enough; Brennan, Aabria, Lou, Erika, and Taylor are creating something truly special.

There's so much to say about the nature of magic in this world all in this episode. The first half is Eursulon's exit from his family and path back to his friends at the north pole. There's a little bit more lovely storytelling here and some lore drops. Brennan voicing Ro-Ro is so adorable, he was born to play families. From the magic perspective, we learn a lot of stuff: 1) There's some sort of deeper enchantment on Eursulon's shield. 2) Kalaya was never wayshadowed! It makes sense in the context of Adi's disagreement with Dulhan and Mahara, but it was still surprising to hear. 3) Much more about conjuration and spirit magic and travel; Kalaya's pocket dimension, Eursulon's running along the periphery of the spirit world.

The reuniting with Orima was perfect, and I am thrilled that we got to meet Holymund! What's a knight without a steed? I'm certain that the Stranger would have given a mount to Eursulon as well, but fortunately we didn't have to go down that road... (the road might still find us, tho')

The second half is so rich with magic and personal relations. Suvi meets Ame, and I feel like I could write a full on essay about the importance of names and magic in this section. Of particular significance to me is the interactions around Ame's inviting of Sky into the conclave. In trying to untie the magical knot, Ame tries to impress upon Indri that Suvi is her friend, and is only here in that capacity and not as part of the Citadel (which is not at all true, but let's set that aside for now). Indri replies that Ame should invite her friend, the Wizard Sky, to the conclave. I think here that Ame is trying to bridge the gap between Indri and Sky in a social way, but fails to realize it needs to be done in a magical way. Of course, Indri does not hear the name Suvi, but Ame seems not to notice the importance of the name. This is a really lovely bit of subtle storytelling where Erika (either subconsciously or consciously) mostly has Ame refer to Suvi by the name she loves, instead of the name Sky presents and is magically recognized as. It then gets compounded when Indri asks Ame to name the other wizards in the entourage as guests, but literally can't because she doesn't know them. I assume Erika is making these small mistakes intentionally for storytelling purposes, and they tease out so much about the magic of Umora and witches. Celtic and Japanese myth is loaded with the importance of hospitality, of being a good guest and a good host. Here, Indri wants to ensure that her guests will behave. She does not need to know their true names to do so, but she does need to know a name to call them by, to ensure that they are known to her in some way. And when she can't get their names, she gets a promise from the wizard Sky, sealed with a kiss upon a ring. Names and roads are a constant throughline in WBN, and I can't stop thinking about them, but there is so, so, so much more to unpack from this episode. So looking forward to the history of the station of the World's Heart. I haven't even touched on all the musical elements, Aabria's amazing character choices, the way that both Aabria and Brennan have, for three episodes, reinforced the notion that Sky is unable to separate herself from the Citadel. It's gonna be an amazing arc.

[thebardbullseye]

“To the North” | Original Fan Song

Music by TheBardBullseye Lyrics inspired by Episodes 24 and 25 of “The Wizard the Witch and the Wild One” (spoilers)

I am thoroughly enjoying arc 3, and am yet again inspired by @worldsbeyondpod! Here's a song I wrote from the perspectives of Grandmother Wren, Steel, and Kalaya, offering (nondiegetic) advice to each of the protagonists ahead of their journeys “To the North”.

Lyrics: (Grandmother Wren): Keep your candle burning bright Don’t let the wind blow out your light Keep it going in your care Don’t let it flicker in the air

Cold wind blows, swirling snow Darkness encroaches to snuff out the light Frost pierces through your cloak Keep your heart warm or lest you be smoke

(Steel): Keep your star light gleaming bright Don’t let the storm block out your light Incandescent in the Sky Be a beacon of the night

Cold wind blows, swirling snow The northern lights shimmering bright Magic and wonder compel you to go Follow your instincts to save your soul

(Kalaya): Keep your family in your heart Don’t let the wind blow them apart Stick to familiar paths you know Ride like the wind to ice and snow

Cold wind blows, swirling snow Footsteps thudding and drumming below Honor and duty bid you toward Keep your breath steady and ready your sword

Lyric Video on my YouTube channel as well (same as here @TheBardBullseye)

[thelockedhour]

This WBN episode u can really tell that Suvi was raised with peers and friends, and Ame lived with one (1) witchy old lady in the wood.

Suvi does a lot to meet Ame with trust and communication even though she's pissed. Asking if Ame's ok and what she needs from Suvi. She's even providing small (pointy ouch) openings to talk abt what happened. There's anger, yes... but also communication and care. She wants Ame to know shes still here to support her, but that shes hurt and Goth now.

Ame on the other hand is acting like she's a kid in trouble with Suvi. She's avoidant and scrambling. She dosent ask if Suvi is okay or try to explain what she was going through... She flees into her connection with the fox. Shes in her feelings and self-pitying. She asks Suvi to yell at her (''just tell it to me'') but dosen't defend herself or offer words back.

There's no perfect way to deal with the heartache of friend fights, but Ame's tactic just seems very passive and so so lonely. For both of them.

[stardustedknuckles]

I cannot listen to any section of Eursulon's family scenes without just crying from the sheer love and soft joy that comes with it. Like God damn it Brennan I'm trying to clean and I can't see.

[thewizardsleep]

Something that is sitting with me right now is the fact that when Ame, Eursolon, and the fox left the citadel they did so in a way that probably was terrifying to the community of wizards who lived through the last age of conjurative excellence.

Because we know that it used to be a common tactic for sorcerers to teleport in, fuck shit up, kill a bunch of people and dip.

So by hijacking a common teleportation hub in a bout of magical fire that could have killed many, many wizards, I'm sure a couple of confused wizards thought they were under attack again. Thought that the horrors of twenty odd years ago were coming back.

Ame is a deeply community-motivated person, but when you are so in touch with communities, like any gift, it goes both ways. The same Ame who led a song in Port Talon is capable of reigniting the fears of a generation.

And I'm really interested in seeing if that societal fear is ever examined in this season

[katiefratie]

The ice melts??? To reveal first witch if worlds heart things???? Oh that's Awesome that rules so much what if we didn't end and instead kept going, what then

[tin-tweezers]

And now, some meta about the witches of Umora

I’m mulling over how the witches’ mission statement is to serve as mediator between powerful entities with conflicting needs to prevent disaster.

Right now, the powerful entities in questions are exclusively identified as Spirits. But by definition, mediation is not one sided — in fact, the witches are called in to mediate because the mortals in Umora are a significant power unto themselves.

This skillset is not limited to working with Spirits with a capital “S”. In fact, the witches are well equipped to take up mediation between powerful entities beyond the world of spirits at all.

Consider:

On the scale of unfathomable power, destructiveness and exquisite grace, the Citadel might as well be a Great Spirit of Umora - perhaps a vassal of a greater entity in the Empire, perhaps its own independent creature.How about the others? We haven’t seen much of Ruhv or Gaothmai yet, but we know they’re powerful - powerful enough that the war has lasted decades.

Moreover: the entity of a state lives on even as individual members of it dies. They don’t live forever but they have the capacity to live for a long ass time- so too with spirits. And it goes without saying that the firepower controlled by just one of these factions outstrips the power a single mortal commands by unfathomable orders of magnitude.

So: the Citadel drops bombs and commits genocide because it values power above human life. Orima stands poised to destroy an entire city (an entire region) in revenge of her husband. I don’t think those motivations are equivalent, BUT both entities prioritize what THEY want over the wellbeing of the communities they act upon. Worth noting that there are spirits who act by nature in ways that are extremely evil by our value system, far less justified than Orima— let us not forget that Pomeroy is not the only one of his kind, and certainly not the most powerful.

So, independent of my personal beliefs about the empire (death first to tyrants and imperialists), the witches BY THEIR STATED ROLE must find balance between hostile parties and not to pick one side to fight for over the other. The most important lesson Grandmother Wren taught Ame is that witches must not force people to change just because you don’t like how they act.

Right now: we don’t know precisely what the other witches want. But if they join the war on the side of any faction? They’re hypocrites.

Witches are so quick to pass judgement on the arrogance of wizards. It bothers me.

More to follow, but that’s something I’m thinking about right now.

[maybe-itll-be-someday]

I will be a Suvi defender until I die

Aabria has played Suvi with such a nuance that feels too close to how I would react in real life. The faces I made during her interaction with Ame, to feel the walls that she's built up around her heart after watching her friends take advantage of the place that she loves, no matter how problematic or privileged that position might be, hits so close to home. We cannot choose the upbringings that we have, but to share your home, that part of your heart to your friends and watch them disrespect it is truly heartbreaking.

Yes, I am aware of how problematic the Citadel and wizards are supposed to be, but that doesn't discount the fact that the Citadel is Suvi's home. The only home she's known all her life and has only started to recently venture out into the greater world. And everyone is entitled to their opinion, but to see everyone immediately discredit Suvi's feelings because Citadel = bad just doesn't seem right to me. All of us carry marks from the place we were raised, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and Aabria just plays it all with such a brilliance that leaves my face looking like this during the tense interaction between them in the palace:

Anyways, this is all because I love Aabria and think she truly is such a genius in choosing this storyline to pursue for Suvi. As someone who once came from a position of privilege, who knows the power and journey of unlearning what you've known your entire life, I am so excited to see how Suvi's story unfolds.

[hoarding-stories]

Quietly hoping Indri is taken at least partially by surprise at Ame's retinue suddenly gaining another member

[oh-shes-lit]

I've been firmly anti-citadel in my thoughts (their long-war strategy of slowly gathering information and weaponising it in every way possible, taking human lives and turning them into machines, taking human behaviour and weaponising that in every way they can)

Which also inevitably means being anti wizard because the citadel and wizardry are Very difficult to separate. Every time suvi has aligned herself with the citadel it sets alarm bells off, the way the suvi seems to disappear and the sky salutes and marches to the drum of their standing orders, it feels wrong and is frightening to see it happen.

When suvi gets mad at ame and eursulon it's because they've taken upon the graces of her house and proceeded to throw paint on the walls and set fire to the kitchen. But they also tend not to recognise that the kitchen wanted to eat eursulon and if the walls got the chance they might be the ones staining ame's clothes with citadel paint. The citadel is an institution with motives and (to us the audience) pretty clear goals.

(control it's control they want to control everything all of the time which is why it lines up with wizardry because that Requires bringing control to the chaos of umora's magic)

That being said.

I am starting to recognise how this doesn't go one way only. Suvi is justified in feeling how she feels and, more importantly, ame is also the child and product of an institution.

The institution of The Coven of Witches seems to wield unfathomable power that is divided in far, far greater pieces to its members. One (one!!!) slight from suvi and ame can ruin her life 100 years from now??? Ame (semi-unwittingly) committed some casual terrorist acts and gets off with a social reprimanding from suvi because suvi went out of her way to Make That Happen

The rules of witchery are esoteric and complex, to suvi and us the audience - much in the same way the rules of the citadel are esoteric and complex to ame and eursulon. There's certainly some commentary here about how i can recognise and call out most of the political mistakes ame makes in the citadel and yet would be lost entering the domain of a witch

I'm so glad we're getting to see more of all of the witches because it's actually highlighting how much power they wield. Seeing indri ask if ame knows the names of suvi's entourage is just as terrifying as watching the suvi be questioned at the gallothopter (ornithopter? Heli-boat.)

We The Audience know that the coven seems to have access to the power to End Wizardry which is frankly, rather insane to think about. Imagine if 7 people had the power to just turn off the internet and 6 of them were random strangers that live at the most intense extremes of nature and the 7th was Doris who makes cool clockwork watches at the summer fair - oh but she died so her adoptive granddaughter (no living relatives) that she trained for a decade gets to do it instead. 20-ish is old enough for a key to a nuclear button, right?

...maybe that was too much metaphor but you can see how insane it feels when you actually give it some context. It's heartbreaking to watch it tear them apart but if they're able to start recognising where their lines are drawn then they might actually be able to use their rocket powered institutions to fly instead of just staying afloat in the ocean.

Anyway, I think I'm getting on the -goes both ways- train for how suvi has been treated. I still think she fails to recognise why her institution causes her true friends to act the way they do but i now also think that ame fails to see the same for her own institution. In the end, they're both victims atop their own Situations which are themselves 16 situations deep, this is either gonna be a beautiful story or a beautiful tragedy and it's going to take a hell of a lot of finesse if they want to survive.

[blog-of-frontiers]

the fucking reckoning of a True Friends witch-wizard odd couple is upon us yet all tension is dropped when their mutual Best Boy arrives on the scene and everything gets good again for a minute, I love them so much

[theclockistickingwrite]

Suvi YES hold on to that anger you’re CORRECT

[whoopseydaisy]

Suvi [Aabria]

“Anything you need, Witch of the World’s Heart”

[embraceweird]

I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS ARC!!

I am such a glutton for battles of words and wit.

I love watching the dance all the characters do to avoid the social traps laid out for them.

The smirks of triumph, the glimmers of respect, It's. SO. Good.

[katiefratie]

Bro holy shit Suvi so much more mad at Ame than Eursulon, like she obviously isn't Happy with him but never forgiving Ame if something happened to him is wow that's big

[plutohollow]

It felt simultaneously SO GOOD and SO PAINFUL to hear Suvi speak her truth! So good because it’s out there, no confusion, no misunderstanding, just truth. But also painful because it hurts to hear admonishment (which has everything to do with me and my trauma).

LET 👏 IT 👏 OUT 👏 QUEEN 👏