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Matt and Joe debate the philosophical implications of how the Light affects free will, its relation to the Void, and its influence on prominent lore characters like Anduin Wrynn.
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to lore watch Round Table freeform discussion about lore and our favorite media I'm your host Joe
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Perez one of several lore Focus folks from blizzard watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today Matt Rossy how you doing today Matt
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groon that like Groot but not oh grun is complicated uh I will explain you
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sometime when we have like literally an hour and a half for me to talk about it dly noted but that's not what we're here to talk about today and today we are
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going to be answering you our wonderful listeners questions uh if you have
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questions for this or any of our podcast be sure to send those in you can send us to an email at podcast blizzardwatch
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outcom specify the show that it is for in the subject line and any special pronunciations of your name inside of
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that email if you want to hit us on Discord we have the Q and podcast questions Channel which is open for
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everyone same rules apply if you are a patreon subscriber you can also put
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those into our patreon q and podcast questions Channel we tend to look there first as a way of saying thank you to
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our wonderful listeners and if you are a patreon subscriber you can also hit us up on patreon uh those questions will be
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filtered to us from our wonderful uh master of all things backend Dan uh but
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without further Ado let's get into it our first question comes from octos
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uh what does light forging actually do it doesn't inhibit using oppositional Cosmic forces I know it's ceremonial and
1:38
all that and that there's a trial in the case of the army of light but with the lightbound forcibly doing so as Zara
1:44
attempted to do to idin it seems unclear what light forging even means so my hot
1:51
take on is it definitely does something because terellian is still alive um but
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what it does is not really specified I don't think in any capacity so
2:03
everything I think we're going to talk about is going to be speculation so Matt do you have thoughts on what light
2:10
forging does I mean no and because of what you just said like literally
2:16
they've told us practically nothing uh we do know that it seems to Grant extended life uh which is interesting
2:24
because I keep wondering this we don't know how long Dr I live naturally like there's Dr
2:30
that that remember when they left the you know they left Argus that's the
2:36
25,000 years ago and they remember it why are they still alive uh they're not
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light forged um I can't remember the new name of the NPC uh they changed his name when when Jesse McCree was with Leo uh I
2:49
don't remember what they changed it to I'm sorry but he talks about like you know when he was living there and and
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it's like you so what's you're not special in any way I can like not he's not unspecial he's just not light forged
3:04
or anything what's what's the deal and we really don't know uh we also don't know if the lightbound go through the
3:10
same process as light forged uh for one thing light forged doesn't seem to be
3:16
forced I mean zara tried to force something on illin but we don't know she was trying to light Forge him she might have been trying something a lot more
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significant maybe what she was trying to do was light bound was being becoming one of the lightbound and maybe there's
3:28
a difference that's again something we don't know I could probably spend more
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time here talking about all the things we don't know about the process uh we do know however that under it terion as as
3:40
Joe pointed out seems to have lived a very long time uh we know that they could do it to loxion and yet it still
3:47
seems like he might be reporting back uh to his other dreadlord friends or you
3:53
know denarrius himself um there's at least some evidence that somebody is reporting on the light
4:00
to the naism when you're in shadowlands there's there's like a you call them luxion do you mean lothraxion luxian
4:07
sorry yeah yeah okay I was confused for a moment sorry dude I'm not gonna remember all these names there's so many
4:12
freaking names uh but seriously like I there's there's a lot of potential
4:18
evidence that whatever light forging does doesn't affect your mind to the point where you could theoretically even
4:24
be a double agent Like These people aren't drones they're not controlled uh
4:30
and it certainly seems like lethian does not if he is the Spy which we don't know for sure I mean certainly it seems very
4:37
likely but we don't know for sure but if he is the Spy clearly he kept his loyalty to danus even after becoming
4:44
light forged and we know that the light really affects uh the beings from uh
4:49
revendreth we know that like one Naru burned a swath through that place so we
4:55
know that there's it's quite possible to really do damage to D and his children
5:01
with the light so the fact that theion is light something I mean I don't know
5:06
if he's considered light for or not but he's clearly infused with the light he doesn't if he is the Spy he does not
5:12
seem to be bothered by that so whatever it is it does not seem to control minds and we don't know that light the
5:18
lightbound their minds have been controlled we don't even know that they might just agree um we don't
5:25
know why Zarah thought forcing it on illin would change his mind like clearly she she either she didn't think that he
5:32
really meant what he was saying or she was convinced that once he'd been exposed to the light in this manner he'd
5:39
fall in a line I don't know why she thought that we we don't have any real insight into her thought process and to
5:45
some degree she's a giant crystal Alien made out of like kind of like crystallized light and Shadow I don't
5:53
know that we could really understand Zara's thought processes so yeah I mean
6:00
if you if you honestly believe there's just one true path then maybe you believe that once you've illuminated it
6:06
it's obvious and everybody will follow it I I don't know I I I can't even answer that question so yeah there's a
6:13
lot of I can't tell you to this they have they've done very little to explain what this thing does yeah I mean the
6:20
really the only thing that we know about it is that it is at least a similar infusion of energy into the way that the
6:27
void elves uh basically take it take that element into themselves although we
6:32
know a little bit more about the void elf process than we do actual light forging we've seen the light we've seen
6:38
the void elves do things with the void yes I haven't seen a light Forge do anything with the light that's
6:43
particularly special like I they don't they don't teleport through it that you know just they're just light forged yeah
6:51
I think the only the only thing that we uh possibly even get is uh again going
6:58
back to tr right with a thousand years of war um basically it's the only the
7:07
only uh like Glimpse that we have that it gives you some form of I don't want
7:13
to say extra Vitality but I really don't know how else to really describe it um that it definitely changes you in some
7:19
way but the question is does it actually change you or are you just being imbued with the light which is an eternal uh
7:26
sort of element right yeah I mean also this we we can try to use some stuff in
7:31
game in terms of if you roll a light forged um the racial ability is basically an AOE light bomb you hit one
7:39
guy with it and then a few seconds later he explodes and hits everybody around it I mean so that's some kind of smite
7:45
thing you could argue that they that that's you could just say okay it's in gameplay it doesn't necessarily mean
7:51
that light Forge can all do this but it's it's we've got evidence that it's at least thought of but like what does
7:58
that entail like are you are you forcing the late to do something or are you just asking it to or is it just instinctive
8:04
like you know again just so many questions we don't really have answers to do think the the fact that now Tan's
8:11
not just still alive he's a thousand years old well over a thousand years old yeah but he doesn't he his hair is white
8:18
but otherwise he doesn't he hasn't physically changed yeah I was gonna say his hair his hair turning his hair
8:23
turning white was part of that process I think yeah I mean it could have just been bleached yeah by the by the power of the light through him yeah it's just
8:30
it is really hard to come up with anything in Spec I mean he was a paladin before so he was already doing stuff
8:37
with the light it it's very hard to to to nail anything down here yeah and I mean I don't know if they'll ever
8:43
actually talk about it because it's one of those things that it was convenient
8:48
at the time and I don't know uh I hate to say it like this I don't know that
8:54
we're going to have a purpose to revisit it anytime soon um the only thing we
8:59
know know as far as like in-game mechanic wise that even give any sort of uh inkling that you know regular folks
9:06
can call upon the lighten ways that you know paladins were and Priests were doing already uh is that in the the
9:12
racial abilities that are given in game so light forged has uh lights judgment which lets them call down a holy a Holy
9:19
Light Strike um basically essentially just summoning like almost like a lightning bolt of holy energy uh they
9:26
can summon a forge of Light which enables blacksmithing uh so literally they can bring down a uh a like just a
9:34
basic Forge yeah yeah they the light Forge yeah and then as uh Matt said when
9:40
one it's stricken down that it explodes from you like a bomb uh with lights Reckoning and then you take less light
9:46
damage because well you're already partially made of light or have light inside of you it's it's interesting because one of the ways that I've been
9:52
thinking about this is there seems to be a lot of similarities to this and kind
9:58
of what happened with the demon Hunters at least in terms of ingesting power and
10:04
again because I think of it in the same way like when when talking about the void elves and some of the other entities like ingesting fell like we saw
10:10
some warlocks doing some other entities it it becomes a fuel source for you but
10:17
it not necessarily is always harmonious and we don't know that those that are
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light forged like it is a harmonious relationship because the light doesn't
10:28
necessarily have a will I mean it kind it does and doesn't we've talked about this uh a lot like beings that are
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comprised of the light seem to be able to have a will but the light itself doesn't really seem to care um Matt's
10:42
brought this up before with uh celc right selic is a great example he is an
10:47
undead Abomination uh a member of The Scourge that was raised and now you know
10:52
resides in uh NAX Ramis doing the bidding of evil agents but he can still call upon the light though it hurts him
10:58
forsaken priest we used to talk about it where it was like it was in Canon that they would
11:04
like cauterize themselves or burn themselves while calling upon the light but they could still call upon the light
11:10
um you would think that the light wouldn't if it had a will of its own it wouldn't be called upon for them we know
11:17
that uh was it was it alonsus fou uh or was it Benedictus I can't remember it was Benedictus it was Benedictus I'll
11:24
never betrayed the light thank you uh but Benedictus when he betrayed the light was still able to call upon light
11:30
right like part of that encounter is him still wielding the light uh so the light
11:35
doesn't really seem to do anything aside from be able to be called upon and I
11:42
started looking at this I'm like but it seems kind of like demon Hunters right so when a Demon Hunter is going through
11:48
that process they essentially fight a demon and consume the demon and the demon is inside of them their Essence uh
11:54
where they can draw upon that power to fuel their demon hunteress um it's always at odds with them and it's always
11:59
in danger of consuming them uh should they ever lose control of it void elves do the same thing they take the void
12:06
into themselves the difference between uh the light and like the demon hunters and the void elves is the void talks to
12:13
them it opens up Visions it it's calls to sympathetic energies we see this in
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the war within as ayria is chasing after zotth uh there are several moments where
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like zala like oh I can feel it inside of you I can call upon it you are nothing to me because you are me type
12:31
thing um and there's definitely an element of that the light could probably do the same thing to the light Forge if it wanted to for all we know Zara did we
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we don't know a lot about the Zara's interaction with the light Forge pre us
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kind of getting involved like we have some bits and Bobs of History we know that she could be uh a tyrant but we
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don't know if what the light fors were choosing to do were they were doing willfully or if she was exerting some
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form of contr because of the light inside of them um because remember when Alyria got imprisoned right terellian
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didn't exactly oppose it he thought it was for a really good idea and it feels like if he was really thinking clearly
13:13
or his thoughts were his own uh that he would probably be against his wife being imprisoned uh you know somebody who he
13:20
loved and fought for and and did all these things with uh it would be absolutely wild to assume that uh you
13:28
know the light doesn't have a a a possible effect but again going to what Matt said the light Forge definitely
13:35
seem to have a thought pattern or or at least their own mind intact right um so
13:43
yeah I think that does it for the that this from my end is there anything else you want to add uh I think you're
13:49
completely wrong about the light in so many different ways that I it's going to take me a while to get through all of it first off I think you're ignoring the
13:56
metaphorical aspects of light versus void or shadow um the void is all about
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you know since it hides things it's all about potential it's all about you know this could be true uh or this could be
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true you don't know because you can't you can't perspect it uh you can't see it you can't sense it the light is all
14:15
about Revelation literally Revelation it reveals things uh the light believes
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that when it reveals things there is an obvious true path there is one way
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you're supposed to go and I illuminate that um you definitely see that the
14:33
light there's there's a thing that uh Fen says when he's dealing with the the
14:38
Crusader BR Brad thing and also when he's talking to the broken ones in in the swamps uh he says the light does not
14:45
abandon its Champions but it does not work unopposed in this world realm and
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what I've always believed he meant by that although there's not a lot to specifically talk about here is that the
14:56
light doesn't have the voids tens of thousands upon infinite perspectives on
15:02
things uh the light has one perspective and it doesn't light doesn't choose
15:09
anything if you look at the way light works in the real world if you turn on a light the light turns on if you light
15:15
something on fire the light is just shed light just goes it explo it expands to
15:21
fill a space it explores the area it makes Revelations it doesn't tell bad
15:27
people they can't see things that's not the point the whole point of revealing
15:32
through light is to give people the proper perspective to make the proper choice and yeah but the well hold on the
15:39
proper the proper perspective based off of their interpretation of it yeah exactly but that's that's we're talking
15:45
about its perspective we're not talking about whether or not its perspective matches up with reality um I'm what I'm
15:51
saying is that the light does seem to have a will it's just that that will isn't about what you do with it it's
15:58
about what you learn from it you're supposed to uh zelc is a really good
16:04
example because zelc knows what he's doing is wrong he just can't stop
16:10
himself he is fully under the control of the Lich King at the time when we fight him uh he has he does not have his own
16:16
free will but he still has his faith um and it's interesting that under the domination power of the Lich King and
16:23
specifically the Helm of domination the the zelc can still reach out and and call the light he still sees things as
16:31
they are he understands I am not in control of myself the first thing he does is beg you to leave he begs you to
16:38
leave he's not like ha I will destroy you with the light he's like no please I don't want to do this he knows that he's
16:45
compromised he's fully aware of it he is most scorge don't go around complaining that the Lich King is telling them what
16:51
to do but zelc spends the entire fight complaining about the fact that the Lich King is controlling him it's that weird
16:59
dichotomy where the void doesn't the void doesn't show you anything but it
17:04
promises you everything everything you want is possible everything is possible because we have no idea what this is you
17:11
can't you don't know the Thousand truths are thousand truths because nothing can confirm them there that's the whole
17:17
point the void doesn't want actuality it wants possibility but when you get into
17:23
actuality when you create a thing you close off other things when you reveal
17:30
what's actually here all the things that might have been there aren't there anymore if you you want to use uh modern
17:36
science as example it's kind of like an uncertainty box once you open the box is the cat dead now you know up until you
17:43
open the box cat could be alive cat could be dead you don't know what state it's in and I think you also have to
17:49
keep in mind that other aspect of observation is that observation doesn't just exist it changes things once you've
17:57
you know again using quantum physics an example once you know the position of a particle you've changed something about
18:04
where that particle can be and what you can determine about it uh it's not clear if the particle is actually changed or
18:10
if you're just getting better at understanding it but in the case of the light in in wow it seems very clear that
18:18
every time we see the light used the light just lets people use it it lets
18:24
people come to it it lets people draw on it it doesn't judge any is being unworthy in much the same way that light
18:31
will just shine on anything because its purpose in the game appears to be Revelation it's about revealing things
18:38
and revealing things isn't always nice like think about you know you come home
18:44
and you find out that something you really care about has been destroyed you know it you had to you know learning
18:50
that it's the truth you now know that it's the truth this thing that you loved and cared for is gone that's not good it
18:56
doesn't feel good nobody wants to have that but is it better to like have the
19:01
void telling you oh no they're still alive maybe they've done this maybe they've done that and you just hunt down
19:07
all these possibilities and you never know the truth it from the lights perspective that's Madness from the
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void's perspective trying to figure out in this Cosmos of insanity one true path
19:19
is madness do you know what I'm saying here like does this make sense like I feel like there's a there's a I don't
19:25
think that the light is without will I think the light is without judgement like it it does not care about what it
19:32
shows you no whatever is there is there that's the thing that's real and I think
19:37
that's I feel like there's a kind of apocalyptic it's kind of like in its own way just as horrible because the light
19:43
doesn't care about possibility like I I really think back to the noroan fight
19:48
remember the noran fight when we're going up against the the Sha of uh sha Pride right yes yeah the the it reminds
19:56
me of that whole bit where norish 's like in this can't be done but okay there's a complete people who are too
20:02
inflexible in the light don't understand that you can decide to change what
20:09
you're going to do yeah and see and but that's that's the part that I have a hard time reconciling and we don't have
20:14
to spend a whole lot of time on this oh we do you're you're done man we're not getting anything else I'm kidding but
20:21
it's a it might happen it might happen but the the part that I have trouble reconciling is when I say that it
20:26
doesn't have a will it's not necessarily A doesn't have a purpose because I don't necessarily equate the two and what
20:33
you're saying to me is sort of a thought of this is the purpose of the light and
20:38
like you said it doesn't have judgment it doesn't have anything like that yeah well I don't know that it doesn't I just
20:43
want I just want to say that I don't know that it doesn't I just feel like that's what we see in the game fair but
20:49
I and I but I think you're right on that it doesn't have judgment um but the the other thing is like when I say that it
20:55
doesn't have a will of its own forces that have a will at least as they've been portrayed in Warcraft uh they have
21:03
influence they exert a certain amount of influence um it could be argued that Zer
21:09
is a force of will because Zer tries to influence and and and dictate but Zer is
21:14
not the light Zer is a creature of the light which is two very distinct different things right um but that's
21:22
where I have a hard time reconciling that it has any necessary will because
21:28
again we just went through this whole thing with anduin and sort of maybe to talk about this a little bit we've talked about this in previous stuff so
21:34
it's not really a spoiler at this point I apologize if you haven't gotten to the point where anduin got his mojo back um
21:41
that was one of the whole things that you learn about there is that the the light isn't not coming to you because it
21:47
doesn't want to it doesn't care it's waiting for you to reach out for it like
21:54
you have to accept it you are the block that is keeping you from being able to to do this thing that you've been doing
22:00
not the light has abandoned you because that's the whole thing is the light doesn't abandon but that also is where I
22:06
have a hard time reconcile because like if it had a will why wouldn't it abandon certain things but its purpose like you
22:13
said is to illuminate it doesn't care it doesn't have a a a sort of defining
22:19
thing of what it will show you it will just show you right whereas the void
22:24
shows you it wants to show you but it feels like it has a sort of like an intellect or a malice about it in some
22:31
capacity like it overwhelms you and maybe I'm wrong maybe the void also doesn't necessarily have a will and that
22:38
it is uh by my own argument that it is being of the void that uh you know are
22:44
the ones that are trying to exert that will through it like we see that with with zotth so like I could see both
22:51
arguments but that's that's the part that I have a hard time sort of like you know reconciling because even when you
22:58
get light Elementals right because we do know that they they canonically exist the light Elementals don't do their own
23:05
bidding they do the bidding of what of who or what conjured them into existence and there is no back and forth
23:13
give and take and then you look at warlocks who get their power from that fell energy and very clearly are making
23:19
deals or subjugating uh intell intelligent beings whether it's imp or
23:24
psych not subjugating the the all fell though they're sub individual being so by your own argument it's the same deal
23:31
which which again I'm getting to that I think that and maybe maybe my own argument applies to all this as well because fell itself I don't know
23:38
necessarily has an intellectual design right it's not it's not a being of of
23:44
thing it's a cosmic force that Cosmic Force just is it doesn't necessarily
23:50
have an intent behind it it has a purpose it does what it does but it
23:56
doesn't necessarily say well everything that can assumes my power is going to act this exact way so maybe by my own
24:02
argument none of these Primal forces have any will behind them and everything really just breaks down to those who are
24:07
wielding it uh or those who have high like high levels of influence over it
24:13
like the zeros like the void Lords like zotth um maybe that's the argument to
24:19
have I don't know but well plus there's also the idea quite simply that uh you're trying to Define an entity that
24:26
is far beyond The Limited perspective of of a moral being sure and saying it
24:33
doesn't seem to have a will it doesn't have a will the same way a tree doesn't have a will or an ocean doesn't have a
24:40
will um there there's very hard to to argue that something that doesn't ever
24:46
deviate can have a will in that regard uh the void I always thought this with
24:52
the void I don't think the void is trying to do anything I don't think it's malevolent I think the void Lord
24:58
I could see that the void Lords are are malevolent sure because they want to do something that the void doesn't
25:05
necessarily care about one way the other they want to undo existence but the void
25:10
existence is one possibility why would the void care if it if it's manifested you know doesn't mean the other
25:15
possibilities are all gone some are but in in an infinite situation you can
25:21
subtract an Infinity from infinity and still have an Infinity like and like we we've banished
25:28
all prime numbers into non-existence okay the set of possible numbers is
25:33
smaller but it's still infinite so it's not actually smaller it can't be smaller
25:39
or larger that's the problem with infinity and I think I think a lot of the stuff we we view the quote unquote
25:46
good of the light the evil of the Void the you know other kind of evil of fell
25:52
it's because mortal beings interacting with these forces are pushed in direct
25:59
that aren't natural to them or are more accurately stated they're natural to
26:04
them but normally they're involved in a lattice like you have like let's look
26:10
let's use you know human just a random human person as an example you have things you're you know you care about
26:16
these things you care about these people uh you might generally be a generous person who wants to help others who
26:22
feels empathy but you can be pushed into anger right anybody can you can get
26:27
angry you can your temper it's the whole basis of like the uh the The Joker thing
26:33
with uh you know all it takes is one bad day and I'm GNA make sure that Batman has a really bad day so that he becomes
26:39
me because I had one a bad day once right it's that whole that whole argument you know the whole thing where you're like you dude you're ignoring the
26:45
fact that the whole reason he's Batman is because of the one bad day exactly but regardless but it's it's it's an
26:50
idea right getting back to it though like left to your own devices in a world
26:56
where these things are just con Concepts and they don't actually show up when you call on them you're you're going to find
27:02
your own path through this you're going to decide for yourself when will I be selfish when will I be caring and giving
27:09
when will I do this and sometimes you know as people pointed out sometimes you have to be selfish it's like I'd like to
27:15
help you but I have literally nothing left if I give you what little I have left I'm going to fall and then who's
27:21
going to help you you know the whole idea is you can't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm uh but these
27:27
forces don't care I think at a fundamental level they don't care because they're not trying to do
27:34
anything to you the light is a revelatory force that embodies all these
27:40
aspects that we've come to associate with light the void is the exact same thing but for darkness and confusion and
27:48
you know impossibility being possible it the two of them are access points on a
27:54
Continuum neither of them really actually needs to care and I think they
27:59
might they might actually have a will but it would be practically impossible to explain what the heck it was because
28:06
we're sitting here and I think this is one of the reasons why Mortals in the warcraft universe exist and it goes back
28:13
to that whole idea uh that we' we've talked about it before when when uh oh
28:18
bloody heck uh algalon when algalon shows up and says you know you know you can't possibly win you can't beat me I'm
28:26
going to destroy this planet now you should make peace with that because it's about to happen and you're like no and
28:32
you beat him even though it's not possible when we fight Argus the exact
28:37
same thing happens we beat Argus we kill Argus and that's impossible it can't
28:45
happen but it did and that's as much because we have a little bit of that
28:50
void looking for possibility in us and we have a little bit of that fell that
28:55
let you just change and do weird things that are just they don't make sense
29:01
they're not logical but we also have the little bit that little spark of light in us that lets us see things and
29:08
understand oh okay if I do this then this this is the the void cannot give you a consequences response like that
29:15
that what's that all saying you know you know you can make you can make a decision but you have to live with the consequence of your decision the void
29:21
doesn't that's not the void's deal but the light is all about that so
29:26
if you combine the two you can see multiple points of view and understand that there will be consequences to
29:31
pursuing any of them and with Fel you have the ability to make decisions that that are just you know you can change
29:39
yourself I mean if we look at what the fell does to beings that in that like take it in whether it's demon hunters or
29:45
what have you it changes things on a fundamental level it it Alters things
29:50
and then you have like life as a force in this setting and life as a force is
29:56
like the exact inverse a fell where it's it's still just as wild and chaotic and
30:02
Untamed but it's not about forcing you to change no matter what it's about
30:07
using change to bring about its own existence these things all I think that
30:13
we've talked about this before and I know we're I'm going way off here but we've talked about it before in the idea that maybe the reason that Azeroth is so
30:20
important is because everything comes here and I think it's not even just a question of everything comes here it's
30:26
that when the universe was created by the first ones it was basically for lack
30:31
of an word it was a simpler universe that did not have these kind of contradictory arguments yeah the the
30:38
other thing that I think is interesting about it and I think I've I've sort of talked myself into my own my own
30:44
argument here of just none of these things have a will um more or less just
30:49
because even looking at like the the first ones and looking at the Titans and things like that the first ones exerted
30:55
will on these Cosmic forces that already exist existed in some capacity like we know that much they seem to have tied
31:02
them into something yeah absolutely it's almost like the first ones brought them together yes and I think that's and I
31:07
think that's it where whereas maybe perhaps that these forces were maybe not in perfect balance but they were at
31:14
least balanced against each other uh in a in a a natural way and then via the
31:19
ordering via the the uh you know manipulations therein um you sort of
31:25
create your own monstrosities as it were I don't know if that makes sense but like beings like the void Lords didn't
31:31
necessarily exist already and then they did because of how the universe was fundamentally changed and then beings
31:38
like you know the Titans didn't exist or the pantheon of death because they weren't natural creations of the
31:45
universe they were engineered and then by then they essentially ascribe a level
31:51
of uh control or um I don't want to again purpose is not the right word but
31:56
they influen these forces in our universe like we talk about Titans being
32:02
you know plugged in with the natural order or uh whether it's Arcane or
32:07
whatever their their particular elements are but those elements just kind of exist right like it even even Elementals
32:17
sort of exist because that's where spirit is right like on a world Soul or on a planet where there's a ton of
32:22
spirit the Elementals feed on that and gain a level of sentience but if what if you're on a planet that doesn't have any spirit what if you're on a plane that
32:29
doesn't necessarily have them do Elementals still exist do they still have a will of their own uh or are they
32:36
just natural elements that that sort of just are there like there's a certain level of we like something messed with
32:44
the universe and these things have have entities that can now sort of like
32:50
monkey with them that maybe didn't necessarily exist before does that make sense yeah because it makes me think of
32:55
this um what is Spirit what is Ana we never really have a full definition
33:00
aside from the fact that it is a collection of of our Essence that makes us us right where did it come from did
33:07
it exist beforehand was it did it exist in the universe that the first ones inhabited which we don't know much about
33:14
because the we exist in the universe that they effectively created did is it like is Spirit like
33:22
one of the things that you see when you look at Shamanism is that spirit is effectively treated like an element that is composed of all the other El
33:28
it's like Spirit isn't something you call upon by itself no it's like an intersection but it's the way everything
33:35
is called upon it's the way all Elementals even exist as you pointed out the Elementals who don't have Spirit on
33:40
a world they you know we know that as the spirit level decreases the Elementals begin fighting uh when so
33:46
when there's a a uh Titan Soul inside a world devouring Spirit energy the
33:51
Elementals begin to fight amongst each other because there's less of it for them and then they start doing things
33:56
like eating each other like we've we know that that's what ragnaros did to thunderon he ate him he he and some of
34:04
his student his uh cronies ripped ripped him apart and consumed him because he
34:09
was an elemental being that's not enough to really get rid of him but it's effectively a way to take his spirit and
34:16
break it up amongst others and they do that like that up until the uh coming of the old gods they were fully engaged in
34:23
that process they they did it for countless Millennia so then we go back to where do what is spirit what Isa Isa
34:31
its own unique thing that is just individual and which everything else kind of rests on like is it like a an
34:38
like an ocean that these icebergs of other forces float on is it a combination of all of them is it like
34:45
every little bit of of all these intersecting forces is it to these Cosmic forces what it also is to the
34:53
Elementals because we've seen that the elements are very dependent on it and I
34:58
still remember this I don't know if you if you read you must yeah know I know you read lord of the Clans but you
35:04
remember this section where th is talking um to guy from alter Valley
35:09
whose name I'm not getting for some reason guy you know Dre thar thank you he's talking to Drear and Drear tells
35:15
him look there this beyond the four there is spirit and it is it is the
35:21
Lynch pin of this and it's the reason that Orcs have their orcish shamans talk
35:26
to to ancestors they talk to ancestors because ancestors are like holding themselves in the
35:32
spirit to pass their knowledge on to their their descendants before they
35:37
leave because and do they know that the Kon are going to try to wipe their minds like are they aware that there's a
35:44
possibility they could lose that and that's why they hold on until they can pass it on to their their descendants
35:50
they can tell the children and grandchildren no here's everything I learned when I was alive and is that
35:56
process think about that that process for a second of like a shamanic thing where you you envision your ancestor and
36:02
they they say here's everything I learned when I was alive that is exactly what the creation of the universe by the
36:08
first ones is trying to do it's trying to get information that otherwise is lost on death and pass it on and death
36:17
itself as it exists in that setting exists as essentially a way to redo it
36:25
in other words Ard Arden wield is the only as ECT of the shadowlands that is necessary because they have to go back
36:32
things have to go back and do it again because that's iteration and that's how this Cosmos
36:39
seems to be set up it's set up so yes all that Spirit energy all that Ana goes
36:44
to the shadowlands where everything is powered but look at what happened when the drought happened the drought was
36:50
happening to all the Realms in mald draxis it just made them fight each other more uh in Bastion it just made
36:56
them like you know what's going on we can't even run our robots but in ardan wield it squeezed everything to a stop
37:05
and what is Arden wields business the return of entities to life like revend
37:10
revend was the only one that wasn't hurt by any of it because the revend literally hadal batteries they literally had people that
37:17
they were squeezing foral like you know like oranges on a on a hot day and we
37:23
saw with G Gage that if you fought the process you actually made the process
37:29
work better the older lables are the ones who don't let you take all their anima they won't change for you and if
37:36
Thea is literally every like the the sum total of everything you learned in your life what does that say about the people
37:43
who who fight to keep it who won't let it go they won't play along with the
37:48
process right so there's a lot of thoughts to this that that come back to like the whole what's the light what's
37:53
the void like do what do they do they have a will do they have a purpose is that the same thing is it different I
37:59
find myself wondering if creation exists to do this strange dance to try and
38:04
prepare an existence that can survive whatever is coming then in the will of
38:10
all of the forces in it is to execute that purpose right or more accurately
38:15
stated the per the will isn't theirs the will is those that made this thing and
38:21
they're not the light in and of itself the first ones didn't create any of those forces so the will that's involved
38:29
is it might not be do they have a will it might be what is Will to them yeah
38:34
and I mean and then the comes to the existential question of you know if a being is created and programmed is
38:41
programming will or is programming just executing uh you know a predefined set
38:48
of of uh instructions uh this is where Fel comes in because if
38:55
you have programming and you can't deviate from it then no you don't have will but if you can decide not to do
39:03
something even though your program to do it if you can say no I I don't think
39:08
this is right this doesn't work for me I'm not going to do this that's will
39:13
will is the ability to say no to yourself and we've seen it and we we've
39:18
seen it in so many different ways zelc is a perfect example of somebody who doesn't successfully say no to himself
39:25
he can't he's being forced to by domination magic which is why domination magic in in this idea it's why
39:31
domination magic is so bad because it prevents you from being you in order to
39:38
have a you in order to be a you and not somebody else you have to have your own
39:43
will and it's just I I think that you you you said this one a long time ago and that I've been thinking about it
39:49
since and I haven't come up with anything for it but you talked about how Anakin not Anakin oh my God anduin sorry
39:54
Anakin we're different Pro different thing guys but you not too far off yeah talked about how andwin was basically
40:01
perfect for the the jailer's purposes because he could channel the light he was a perfect vessel trained but what
40:07
does that say like if you rely too much on any one force are you compromising
40:14
yourself when you have andwin in uh Hollow it's Hollow fall and he he
40:20
finally reconnects with the light he reconnects to the light through somebody else yeah but the way that he does it is
40:27
I I understand that but the way that he does it I think is important because of the lesson that he's taught there yeah
40:33
and that's what I'm getting at is we none of us by ourselves can can see the
40:39
whole picture andin needed faren to be there not she didn't she didn't heal him
40:45
and she didn't instruct him she simply demonstrated something and he saw it and
40:51
realized wait a minute I I understand what I'm seeing I feel this I know yeah
40:57
such a there's such a interesting dichotomy in he when he takes himself out of himself when he is no longer
41:03
thinking about himself he can more easily Touch the Light well I think there's another layer to that too that
41:09
ties in with some of the original point that we were making about like will um one of the things anduin like in that
41:15
whole exchange is like trying to you know talk with faren about is the light
41:21
has abandoned him the light doesn't you know I've done bad and the light is making me pay for it and Fen is the one
41:28
that's like no it's not the light doesn't care the light shouldn't say she
41:34
never said she doesn't care I'm paraphrasing I'm paraphrasing I think because the thing is when we say that the light doesn't care that implies
41:41
something about the light that I don't think is accurate yeah I don't think I don't think it has the capacity to care or not care it just is right let's jump
41:49
for a second to Tyrion foring okay a council of paladins declared him
41:54
anathema and exiled him and stripped of the light and it did nothing the light
42:00
it wasn't even a blip the light just kept coming to him anyway yeah the light doesn't judge the light the light doesn't have like and that I think
42:06
that's the sort of the point is that andwin had been and to the was the one judging himself right and I think that's
42:13
the point that anduin missed in his training because and I think this is I think this is important for for some of
42:19
the stuff in game is that for a lot of a long period of Time characters in the
42:24
game thought that the light was for well some of this is roots and we'll talk
42:29
about you were right we not getting into another question um I'm laughing you just couldn't hear because I my button
42:35
pushed yeah the we we talked about this before so part of the original World of Warcraft lore or at least the original
42:42
Warcraft lore was not necessarily that the light was this big thing it
42:47
originally started with like essentially their version of Catholicism uh there was a god there was a high being one
42:53
above all type stuff um and that's where a lot of the religion started like being
42:59
based off of the the human religions um that's where demons came from it was very very similar to that it's often
43:05
forgot about but if you go back and and read the original Warcraft manual the one that you know the lore bits were
43:11
written by uh you know bill rooper before uh before the you know Metson
43:17
really got his hooks in it um and set it down it was just really much like a a
43:22
church of light uh but more akin to Catholicism than it is you know its own
43:28
entity its own thing let be up front here it was a nicer Diablo it was a very it was a much more nicer Diablo um there
43:36
we could talk about that another day which is why when the Diablo lore got done and blizzard North took over of Diablo I why a lot of that stuff carried
43:42
over and went a little bit shade darker because Bill roer was working on that team but that's a that's a topic for another day um but the light sort of
43:51
became its own thing in Warcraft 3 really uh where they started moving away
43:57
from any vestages of like angels and demons and uh demons became their own entity that existed in the the twisty
44:04
nether uh etc etc but Warcraft 3 really solidified the light as a thing paladins
44:11
calling upon the light as its own thing not necessarily uh in the way that they were
44:17
originally conceived of in Warcraft 1 um and I think that anduin's teachings from
44:24
the NPCs were sort of an artifact of that time you were taught to become a
44:30
perfect vessel for the light if you were a paladin if you were a uh priest you
44:36
you opened yourself to the light and let it work through you and then you fast forward to what happened with andu him
44:43
losing his ability to touch the light because of was self-imposed judgment um but then meeting Fen Fen basically tells
44:50
him the and again I'm not saying that the light doesn't have you know it doesn't judge or doesn't have feelings
44:56
but the light isn't judg judging you you're judging yourself and the light doesn't necessarily have a design for
45:03
you you call upon it yourself you wield it you call upon it to Aid you not it
45:12
enters you to take control of you and that's something that you can see that he didn't really he didn't really
45:17
reconcile until that moment and again I'm paraphrasing this a lot deeper and we don't have time I just wanted to say
45:23
that it's interesting that since it's faren who does this for him Fen is the arrai mhm and the arrai clearly have a
45:30
perspective where they view it more like fire yes and fire fire literally doesn't
45:36
care um fire can be very helpful uh if you have like a cold house you can build
45:41
fire and now you're your your cave is now warm and Aug is Happy um if you keep
45:47
it contained you can use it to cook food which makes it much easier to digest humans don't have the kind of teeth that
45:53
other animals do to to really get you know they they they need help with some of the processes of a digestion
45:59
especially for meat because we're not natural omnivores this is something people don't actually necessarily know
46:05
our our whole digestive system is really good at specific things but it's not
46:10
great at meat that's one of the reasons why cooking meat is so helpful for us because it does some of the work of
46:16
breaking down the chemicals uh bonds that make it digestible for us uh so
46:22
there that's another good thing about about fire fire can be used to create things we can you know use it to like
46:29
you know weaken and soften Metals so that we can combine it into other metals and make alloys uh to hammer things into
46:35
shape to weld things together there's a lot of good uses for fire but left
46:40
uncontrolled fire will burn down a whole village yeah fire will wipe out a forest
46:46
fire isn't like just this happy thing that does all the good things we want
46:51
fire is a force and it is threatening as well as it is helpful it's funny you
46:57
mention that because then that sort of goes into a lot of the shamanistic teachings as well like not necessarily
47:03
that fire like just you made me think of this because of the whole burning of of oramar and stuff like that the fire
47:10
itself is a destructive force that just does what it does and while Elementals
47:16
may have a personality and purpose fire just does what it does and has to be
47:21
guided and controlled and you have to essentially you know contain it and
47:27
watch it and Foster it um and as much comes down to respect not but not just
47:32
respect you have to feed it and care for it as well right like fire is a really good example here because left un
47:38
unchecked it will either smother itself because it'll run out of fuel or it will
47:44
consume everything around it if it's overly if it's not contained and the light is kind of in that same vein where
47:52
it it just does what it does right it spread it wants to go everywhere it well
47:57
I I wouldn't say it wants to spread it wants to illuminate I think is spreading it's it's the same thing it's just
48:03
different in terms of its mechanic but ultimately the light wants to go everywhere it can go and it wants to for
48:12
lack of it a word it wants to destroy all the other possibilities much as a forest fire will burn everything and
48:18
you'll have burned trees like that's what you have left now you don't have any nests in those trees you don't have
48:25
any and you know the life that comes back will come back to it and break it down but that life wasn't there anymore
48:31
when the when it was burning that's an aspect of the light the light it's the reason that the void doesn't like it
48:37
because to the void the light is doing something anical it's it's painful for
48:43
it you're willing away possibilities and from the lights perspective that's what the void is doing something painful to
48:49
it it's being snuffed yeah and from Illuminating but all that comes back to
48:54
anduin learning that the light isn't cut off from him he's cutting himself off
49:00
from the light it doesn't seem to choose people that way and and that and that he
49:06
had basically broken himself I guess would be the best way to put it when you talk about the trauma that he uh that he
49:14
succumbed to and let's make no mistake it was trauma the the Jailer let him the Jailer let him see everything that was
49:20
happening through the windows of his eyes um but he didn't fight the control
49:27
as much as he could because or should have and I think that's what kills him a little bit inside because subconsciously
49:34
even before faren talks to him he kind of already understood that but he had been trained for so much of his life
49:40
just to become a vessel just to let things work through him not to command
49:46
and control him CU look at look at when he did command and control the light look at the Miracles that he worked look
49:52
at the siege of unders City like what did anduin do during that event yeah he
49:58
basically resed half the Army he he not only did he Mass res that that spherical
50:04
bubble that sphere of protection that he that Dome how large was it name another light wielder that was able to like you
50:10
know manipulate it to that extent even ven who you know while the the light talks to him and gives him uh prophetic
50:17
visions and is arguably one of the the most lauded wielders of the light I think outside of like terellian uh or or
50:25
like insert other Paladin here maybe and he's certainly got more experience than any of them he's got more years than
50:30
more experience um but like even that P like it makes him look like he doesn't
50:37
know what he's doing compared to it but then andwin just sort of thought that that's what the light was doing not realizing that it was him intreating
50:44
upon the light to do this that this thing he wanted to do well actually that's really
50:50
interesting because by bringing in Von here you've basically pointed out the end of of Legion and what ill done was
50:57
trying to tell Von go for it because illin the whole time he's like you know it doesn't matter what the light wants
51:04
it doesn't you know it's not important what's important is what we do this is
51:09
you know we're it's our fight if we just let the light or anything else control
51:15
us to tell us what to do we're going to lose because the light is predictable
51:21
even the void is predictable even fell is predictable it's only when you get
51:26
beings that aren't tied to anyone Viewpoint that aren't forced along a channel that you can surprise people and
51:34
it was like there's that whole bit where you know he and illin and Von are standing there and at the end he's like
51:40
you know Von's like you know 's like I'm gonna stay here I'm gonna fight him and you know he valin V basically goes you
51:47
know what difference does it make with they want with what anyone else does wants you know we did this and it's like
51:53
and that that's a lesson that took ven 25,000 years to learn and it seems like andwin just inherently knew it because
52:00
he was a human and humans never accept anything like you tell a human there's no way we can do this they will come up
52:06
with 16 different ways to try to do it will they work probably not but hey we might find one we're not going to figure
52:12
this out if we don't throw everything we can think of and I think again it comes back to that idea that this is the world
52:18
where all forces touch this is the world where you will sit there and you will try to think of as many crazy ideas as
52:23
you can and then you will say okay what happens if I do that because the void cannot figure out what happens when you
52:30
do that because they're busy jumping to the next possibility but they they don't do the consequences the light's all
52:36
about the consequences fell is all about changing life is all about adapting and
52:41
the other forces death is all about you know essentially death and rebirth are the same thing they're they're part of a
52:47
cycle together there's just a lot of this order versus chaos it it's all kind of entwined in this little ball of of
52:54
world so I don't like we talk about what the light forging does because let's try to round this somewhere towards where we
53:00
were we talk about what the light forging does if anything L forging just seems to give you a more direct
53:07
connection to the light yeah I mean it and there is definitely like an effect like we said like there's definitely
53:12
some some physiological changes but that might not be because of the light forg in process that might might just because
53:18
somebody in touch with a light can decide I have too much to do yeah exactly right like in going back to it
53:24
where the light doesn't necessarily have a it just is that might be a huge part
53:29
of it where like trellian is like I'm not allowed to die so the lights says okay we're just going to keep
53:34
regenerating you that's what you're asking for that's what you're asking of us even if you don't think so so sure
53:41
why not it might not even be that's what you're asking it might be what you need yeah or straight up like you you men
53:47
already anduin told the light to make that giant bubble and res everybody he didn't ask it to do that yeah he told it
53:55
to do that the light will be be fine with people telling it what to do because the light does not have the same
54:03
level of desires that we do the light is a force it's not a person there's no like you can't go to the realm of light
54:09
and have a conversation with the light any you could stand on a on a cliff and talk to the ocean but the ocean there's
54:16
no ocean there to come up and go hi like an individual Spirit might come up but it's not the whole ocean the ocean
54:22
transcends that now does the ocean destroy boats absolutely all the time but it's not destroying the
54:29
boats because it hates boats it's destroying the boats because it's a gigantic body of water and those boats are just not going to be able to survive
54:34
every possible encounter with it you know and and I do think that the problem with this and the problem I have with it
54:41
EAS enough as I'm arguing it is I do wonder if this is me anti-
54:47
anthropomorphizing the light like am I cutting away something that the light has yeah but I don't know that we've
54:52
ever been shown anything to indicate otherwise because again going back to it and like I said I think I've argued
54:59
myself into the the the the argument of of that these forces don't have a will
55:05
uh inherent to them is that every time we've seen anything subscribed to like a will or a demand or anything like that
55:12
it's not the force itself but something that wields the force that is doing it
55:18
right like it's whether it's the Titans or whether it's uh you know the void Lords or whether it's Zara uh these are
55:26
are all entities that are essentially wielding that force and ascribing to it
55:32
a a a thing like a will or a a purpose that may not be what if it had any say
55:39
in it that it would do and we've never seen or talk to the pure void we've never seen or talk to uh the pure light
55:47
and I don't know that we ever will because as you've pointed out earlier and I think this is ridiculously
55:53
accurate these are forces Beyond our mind's comprehension even as player
55:59
characters even as the heroes that we are and as much as we've done these are unknowable unknowable entities or things
56:07
even if if they're not entities they're just forces beyond our Reckoning and
56:13
they may have also been forces beyond the Reckoning of beings like the first ones yeah it's it's it could very well
56:20
be that what you're looking at is just a means to try and use these forces to
56:25
create something new it doesn't mean that the forces themselves like the light or the void we we Aspire hostility
56:31
to them but we don't know that they're actually hostile to each other they're just an anical to each other anathema
56:38
yeah I can't say this anathema or antithetical yeah antithetical thank you antithetical what I was looking for
56:43
they're they're inherently opposite by their nature which means that they interact in specific ways but that's
56:49
like saying an electron hates a proton no the electron doesn't hate the proton they electrons have a negative
56:55
electrical charge and they do this and protons have a positive electrical charge and they sit in the center and
57:01
you know that's how matter works and then you have anti you know that this is how the the fundamental building blocks
57:06
of this universe are these forces and they work as they work and it means that
57:12
does it mean that demons are horrible yes but the demons aren't the Fel Fel is
57:17
astonishingly dangerous yes it destroys Souls it scars flesh it is powerful like
57:24
like a like an it's powerful a nuclear bomb or Fallout or radiation would be but radiation isn't evil it's just
57:32
dangerous you know you you you don't mess with this know what you're doing respect it understand it and don't try
57:39
to make it do things that it's not going to do because that's not what it's there for in Warcraft however mortal beings
57:48
can can force things to happen because they can they can want it bad enough and
57:53
we also we also in World of Warcraft and in real life and I think this cannot be overstated have a tendency to
57:59
anthropomorphize everything we ascribe feelings and and things that maybe don't
58:05
exist but align with what we want from it or you know what we believe like you
58:10
said before andwin couldn't talk to light because he believed he couldn't if it's very possible like um
58:17
zotth might be doing all this because zotth believes that it's what the void want and since valath is actually a
58:24
being of void much closer to the void than us who's only fairly recently gained kind of a mortal perspective
58:30
zotth has no problem getting the void to do all sorts of things but that doesn't mean that zotth actually understands the
58:35
void any more than we do I mean in case in point we still don't even know zel's
58:40
origin we we have not 100% sure what her plan is yeah but we don't know what her
58:45
plan is we don't know uh where she comes from what her motivations would be uh we know that she was gathering void power
58:52
and dumping it somewhere um because it definitely was not all uh that she had gathered was in that
58:58
that that thing when we shattered it let's be uh pretty honest about that that was a pretty weak showing of of
59:04
what would have been in there otherwise the fact it didn't explode and like tear the entire room
59:10
apart um so it's definitely somewhere it's being used for some thing but we
59:15
don't know what that thing is uh so yeah there's there's a lot here we could probably talk again for like another two
59:22
three hours about Cosmic forces um but I don't think uh either of us have time
59:27
for that today no not today U so I'm going to call it there I
59:32
think if you're good with that one Matt yeah I mean like you said could keep going forever all right well friends I
59:38
do want to remind you that blizzard watch is made possible due to the generous contributions at patreon.com blizzardwatch your continued support
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podcast better J your question answered on our podcast with the que and and answer reset experience again if you have questions for this or any of our
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on patreon uh and Dan will make sure that we do get those into our hands but with that folks we'll see you next week
1:00:28
[Music]