Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book three, The Dungeon Anarchists Cookbook,
chapters thirty three through the epilogue, and a little bit
of a little.
Speaker 2: Extra bit as well. In these chapters.
Speaker 1: I fucking knew that Grohl was gonna be the maestro.
I fucking knew it, this asshole. This is so embarrassing
for him. Yikes. Welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the
show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much to
Michael for commissioning this episode.
Speaker 2: All right, so guys.
Speaker 1: This last section is so frigging packed that I am
going to really have to keep it fucking moving, And honestly,
the fight is the least interesting part of it. So
I'm going to kind of jump through a lot of
this quickly because the conversations later are where I think
the juicy stuff is really living. So we pick up
where we had left off with Carl getting yanked through
the portal by his foot, and we hear what his
plan had been going to be, which I much had
put that together once I realized the way that he
was trying to make things happen. I was like, oh,
I see what he was tempting to do. But he
winds up going through the portal, almost getting got by
the mimic immediately, and then because everything like freezes in
order for the AI to do its like announcement thing,
this actually weirdly saves him because the mimic it hits.
You know what I said, I was going to do
this thing to in depth, and I absolutely am going
to skip all of this detail.
Speaker 2: I don't need this.
Speaker 1: So girl stands up and it is here, Piglet, piglet,
you can't get away from me this time.
Speaker 2: I've been waiting for this.
Speaker 1: It's fucking maestro. And of course Dona is coming to
save him. This motherfucker really thought I'm going to tell
her not to come. I'm going to tell her to
save herself.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to tell you this, Carl.
Speaker 1: That is not even close to how anybody is going
to play this. You've grown important to people. It's time
to let go of the idea that they are not
going to put themselves on the line for you. He
just doesn't fully understand. And it's like later I really appreciated,
because like, is it there is this thing that can happen.
Whenever you've got a main POV character who is heroic,
who is somebody who has been like out there putting
themselves on the line for everybody else, sometimes when they
see folks doing the same for them, they feel the
sense of responsibility for the choice those people are making
in a way that's like almost patronizing, you know, And
they'll feel like, well, I get to do that for them,
but they don't get to do that for me, And
there's almost like a resentment, you know, I can't be
responsible for what happens to you. And I was so
glad that that's not the conclusion he draws. Later on,
he's thinking to himself how incredible it was that everybody
threw in for him, and realizing that he needs other people.
And I just was so grateful, because sometimes it he
pushes a character in a different direction, and I find
that really tedious and arrogant in a way that used
to work for me and no longer really does. You know,
I think that a lot of that is just as
an American, we have pushed this idea of the strong
individual who can make it with no help so far,
and it has been so consistently repeatedly proven to be bullshit,
that the romance around that idea has just dispersed, and
I don't know that I can ever get it back.
So I am here for a person who wants to
be a lone wolf figuring out that's not how it works,
that that really can't happen. So anyway, this whole thing
with girl, he winds up taking a the uh drink
that prevents him from taking damage, or it doesn't prevent
him from taking damage. He takes it, but he heals
almost instantly, but also means that he can't take any
other potions for ten hours. And I'll tell you what, guys,
I literally said out loud when he drank it, Oh shit,
because no more potions for ten hours.
Speaker 2: When you're in this.
Speaker 1: Situation, it just felt like, I don't know, it was
just I was very, very very concerned. As it turns out, though,
like it was the right call because he gets smash
many times.
Speaker 2: And it's not even on purpose.
Speaker 1: He has thrown so many smoke bombs that girl is
stepping all over him and doesn't even realize it. And
that part cracked me up a little bit, that like
he's doing damage to Carl, but he's not even able
to enjoy it and feel like smug and sedition about
it because he's not seeing Carl. So, as I mentioned,
everybody winds up showing up. Katya runs in and she
has made herself look like Carl, and it's pretty convincing.
It's unclear whether or not Girl realizes that it's a dupe,
but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know. And Ellie is
here hitting him with fucking icicles and shit. And then
here's Lena Lee June, Donut Mango. I told you to
stay away, you're welcome. Donut said, well, what the hell
are we doing now? Then I saw the almost human
sized figure on the ground, struggling and wrapped in chains.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, what the hell? I said?
Speaker 1: But I understood then, Donut, I had nothing to do
with that. Lena shrugged, similar concept with what you did
with that? Nol. I had to waste a few healing
potions to keep him alive. Lee June looked ill, but
he said nothing. It was the second mantor, but only
his top torso and head. He'd been savagely ripped off.
His main lower body and his two top sets of
arms had also been lopped off. He's much easier to
handle this way, Lena said, matter of factly, and now
we can throw him into the portal instead of risking
another accident. Honestly brilliant, but terrifying. This is an example
of extreme practicality with a just ruthlessness that I just
don't think I would be able to quite manage. I
don't know, though I can weirdly kind of turn things
off if I know I have to, so maybe I
could manage it. It's just, you know, I don't know.
But it fucking works, you know. So it's very difficult
for me to be judging about this at all. All
I can say is think, godly no now was here
with her idea. I do not blame Lee June for
looking ill one little bit though.
Speaker 2: Yikes. Yikes.
Speaker 1: So he punches this guy and null fucking gets or
girl sorry, gets pulled into the other place. It is
honestly hilarious. There's not even a moment of girl kind
of realizing that he's being pulled away and yelling with frustration.
It's that he is pulled away before he knows what's happening.
So he's in the middle of this like huge attack
and yeah, suddenly the only sound was the chugging of
the Nightmare as it pulled up to stop. A few
tracks over and we jump then to chapter thirty four. This,
it says, with the death of the Mimic, even more
ghoul generators had exploded after the Maestro hit the Abyss.
We received reports of a few additional blown generators at
a few station seventy two's. Though I suspected and hoped
we could do better than that, my guess was the
Maestro had bailed on his sponsorship after getting teleported away,
thus creating less destruction in the pit than I hoped for,
which does make sense. In the middle of the enormous,
disgusting pile of dead mimic, a single object appeared on
the map. The Neighborhood Bosses dropped the neighborhood Map. The
borough Bosses dropped the field Guide. I already knew what
this was going to be, thanks to both the cookbook
and Mordecai. It was a little late to be useful now,
but I figured I might as well grab it anyway.
It was called the Map of the Stars, and it
added boss locations and descriptions to a large area of
the map. I zoomed out and saw nothing nearby except
few mantors who were moving in the opposite direction. This
is when he kind of taunts the what do you
call him, the Maestro by looking up and being like, wow,
that had to be really embarrassing. I bet even the
mom would have done a better job too, bed she
died instead of him, and Ellie says, sometimes.
Speaker 2: I think you're cheating, Carl. How do you know all
this stuff?
Speaker 1: It's like you have one of those teachers editions with
all the answers in the back he does. Donut says,
his name is Mordecai. I'm very grateful to you, Donut
for knowing what to say here. I mean, she doesn't
realize how she's covering for him, so.
Speaker 2: She may just be telling the truth. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's possible that Donah has begun to understand that, like
some of what Carl is managing to pull out of
his ass here is a little bit too consistently on point.
So then they get a system message a bounty has
been claimed, and a bunch of people check in with
them to make sure that they are okay, and then
we jump over to Firebrandy and her and Tis Quick
are going to stay on this train and die because
they have realized the way that they're being played. She
is saying to him, not anymore. They won't use me
like this ever again. But I'm not convinced that doing
this is going to keep her from being used again.
I don't really know how this works, but I was
assuming that, like you can just be regenerated, because you know,
I don't know. I may be wrong about this. So
then we get this moment.
Speaker 2: You guys.
Speaker 1: Zang climbed back into the cart and turned off the portal.
Lee June and Lee Na stood off to the side,
talking amongst themselves. I remained there, staring at the empty
space where the portal once was fire. Brandy had just
killed herself to save her from losing more children. 'tis
Quick had killed himself because his daughter had been a lie.
I thought of my own mother, who'd attempted to kill
my father and then herself as a goddamn birthday present
to me. She'd only half succeeded. I fucking thought that
the way she was talking sounded like she was trying
to kill his dad or herself.
Speaker 2: It being both sucks.
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious because he says she only managed
she only got it half way. I'm assuming she only
killed herself because the way he talked it was like
his dad is still alive and out there. I mean, look,
considering what his dad was like, I'm fine with killing him.
I'll just say it. I don't think you need to
kill yourself too, though, Girly, I'm sure that you think
that's the easiest way out. But historically many women have
killed their abusive husbands and not been caught. And I
think you probably could have managed it if you had
had a little thinesse. So I'm sort of judging you
on method here, and I think that you could have
done better, probably, But I don't know the ins and
outs of this. It's just really awful and it's so wild.
What a like, very brief throwaway line this is. Considering
the gravity of it and how easy to miss it
would be. I thought of everybody here with me. Now,
they'd all jumped into certain death just to save me me.
I couldn't have survived without them all my life. I'd
felt alone, and now at the edge of the apocalypse,
I finally realized how much I needed other people, and
I just really liked it. Then Bautista. You bastards did it.
We just felt the generator explode. We're going to move
in toward the stairwells now. Thank you, thank you so much.
Donut purred heavily in my ear.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have done that, Donut.
Speaker 1: You risked yourselves and you risked the cart. I wasn't
just going to abandon you.
Speaker 2: Karl.
Speaker 1: Who do you think I am? Miss Beatrice?
Speaker 2: No, you most definitely are not.
Speaker 1: This is the first time Donut has said anything negative
about Miss Beatrice. That was the very first time she's
ever taught shit. I just want it on record. She's like,
clearly had her feelings about things, but she's never really
said them. Even that moment where she's yelling at HECLA
about killing Kaccia and Carl realizes it's because she was
aware she was about to be traded. They don't ever
talk about that. There's no moment of conversation addressing it.
So I just thought that this was interesting, just her
actually saying it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Michael says, girl did know he was getting pulled away.
He presumably got a summoning notification when Carl proceeded to
summon That's why he stopped chasing Karktia and knew to
go after Carl. Oh, okay, I wasn't getting that at all.
It doesn't I believe you. Saraphim says, there's a reason
Heckla wanted access to Mordecai so badly. Definitely, Michael says, sadly,
depressed and desperate people don't think logically most times. True,
And Saraphim says, yeah, this was less don't want to
go to jail, more extreme gilt over not doing it
earlier and blaming herself for letting the abuse happen. And
I definitely get that, But leaving him with no parents,
it's just such a poor choice. Like, as Michael says,
depressed desperate people don't think logically. But it's it just,
you know, leaving the kid with nobody isn't better, lady, Like,
it really isn't. It's the kind of thing that like,
I mean, look, I can't say I've never been in
this situation. It's just very difficult to understand the thought
processes behind a lot of decisions when you aren't in
that situation and you aren't experienced experiencing the kind of
fear that somebody like his Dad would put in you.
You know, sometimes people can really create this illusion that
they like are able to see you every move you
make one step ahead, and keep you from making any
move at all by that illusion, you know. So then
we have the moment where we run into Agatha level eight.
She was human and hadn't yet chosen a class. I
am so excited that we have run into her. I
really do not understand what is happening here, and that's
fine for the record. I don't want I don't want answers.
If I'm being real with you guys, I don't I
want this weird mystery. And I enjoy very much the
fact that she is like defying all of the requirements
of these floors. Somehow she still got the pink flamingo
on her shopping cart, and Imani wants to follow her
and talk to her, and Carl says, don't. We'll talk later,
and we don't hear any more of that. But like
she obviously, based on what was in her inventory before,
had some weird knowledge of things. So I am extremely
interested if he talks to IMMANI later to see how
that conversation goes and what he tells her. This is
when Loita chimes in, and I was like, fuck, Zev
isn't here anymore.
Speaker 2: It's Loita, and we have at the end of this.
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: These poor bastards are just as much victims as we are,
not just the NPCs but the mobs too. That doesn't
mean don't kill them. Hell, I realize something today. Killing
them is actually the best thing we can do for them.
But you know what, I also realized all of you,
all twenty four of you have come before me, You've
all failed in one thing. If we're really going to
burn this place to the ground, we need to actually
do it and not just talk about it. We need
to start killing them, killing them too. I don't know
for sure how to do it yet, but I'll come
up with something. And this is very much giving hashtag
free Luigi vibes, and I am here for it personally.
Don't at me, Luigi did nothing wrong. So then we
go into the epilogue. This is awful. So first she's
really like, I want to use the word bossy, but
that's not really adequate. BOSSI is just telling you what
to do. There is a sort of uptight quality to
her telling them what to do. A very rule following quality.
That is, I cannot decide if this is coming from
Lloyd to herself being someone who believes in what she's doing,
or if it's coming from somebody who knows the consequences
of not being this way because she saw what happened
to Zev and has decided that she isn't going to
fucking end up like Zev. So even though she doesn't
agree with this, she's doing it because she has a
sense of survival. I am not really saying that one
of those is better than the other, but I do
think it's important to know how much a person really
believes in what they're doing, you know. I think that
it opens up different potential angles to come at them
with if you can tell how much they're buying into.
Speaker 2: Whatever ideology they are repping for.
Speaker 1: So she tells Uh Donut to put Mango away and
is able to open up their inventory for twenty seconds,
which I thought was interesting. I don't know if Zev
had this ability. Put that book away to Carl patchya
store the backpack, and they agree, but Carl says, fuck off,
so I can have something to read while we Waitlita
looked angry, but only for a moment she shrugged, suit yourself,
but you need to keep it in the green room.
It's what I always do, I said, where's Zev. Zev
is taking some much needed time off. She's had a
personal tragedy back home. She's been sent off to a
temporary re education retreat so she may reflect upon her
life and her personal philosophies.
Speaker 2: But do not worry.
Speaker 1: Such things never take long, especially on the weak minded.
When she returns, she will remain as your social media manager,
but I will be taking up primary duties as the
team's pr agent. I absolutely hate all of this. None
of what she has said could possibly be anything but awful.
She's had a personal tragedy back home and been sent
to a re education retreat, so they murdered her entire
family and have sent her off to be brainwashed. That's
what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: I do not want to see what Zev is like
when she comes back. I don't want it. I don't
want it. I would rather never see Zev again than
see Zev after this. Frankly just saying, and I know,
whoh we will we will see her again, Like that's
the whole point.
Speaker 2: But oh, I don't I don't want it.
Speaker 1: I don't like this at all. We are putting tighter
controls on the information crawlers are being fed through these
interviews in an attempt to make the crawl more equitable
toward those who aren't privileged enough to get a view
of the world outside the dungeon, which is very much
like somebody clocked they were getting info from Odette. Somebody knew,
and maybe Carl wasn't the only one, you know, Like,
whatever it is, they're locking it down. They aren't even
letting them have snacks because they were getting illegal buffs,
which like if you guys remember those buffs were like
plus five two, Like I.
Speaker 2: Don't even remember.
Speaker 1: It was like nothing. So the whole thing, Yeah, we
should have a say in who we work with. She's
our pr person z. I've always made sure there were snacks,
very professional. I don't like this one bit. So then
we cut to the interview and Katya is doing a
little bit better. She's just I think it's it's like
her feeling like she can be herself in general a
little bit more so. She's loosening up overall, and she
still has.
Speaker 2: A way to go.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's certainly better than last time. And
there's of course the bit with like there's a new
snack it turns out where it's Mango fucking the Maestro
now and Don't really finds out that she's like in
this one and wants to see it, and they won't
let them play it on the air, which Odette is
clearly irritated by. Let's see, I knew Mordecai would be pissed.
He didn't want us dealing with gods or factions, and
here we were, but we had so little, and goddamn
if it wasn't fund to needle at the prick. I
wish he'd had stayed dead, but I would settle for
humiliating him over and over. Speaking of the death challenge, Carl,
are you aware of the significance of what happened today?
It's a pop up gambling event where viewers in systems
where gambling is legal are given the option to bet
on multiple sets of outcomes, and they had bet fifty
to one against Carl, which Dona is very indignant about,
and eventually Carl is telling himself, don't say it, don't
say it. I hope it covered the amount you lost
sponsoring hecla Odette did not skip a beat. She waggled
her finger at me. Oh, we're not talking about that, buddy.
That was my husband, not me. He's still sleeping in
the skiff for that one. I don't run the finances
for the crab Branch, but I do want to talk
about that whole affair with Hecla. That really was something.
And later on, when first of all Donut is like,
how did you know that, he says crab Branch, which
I remember him seeing that, but I didn't put that
together myself at all, and he also she admits finally
after they are off the air, that yes, it was indeed.
Speaker 2: Her that was sponsoring Hecla.
Speaker 1: And she says something about how like she hopes to
one day be able to explain it, but clearly they're
not going to be allowed to talk very much here.
So her angle was money. It was always money and Mordecai,
but the specifics were beyond me. Maybe she was helping
us since she never gave them loop boxes, though I imagine
that was an expensive way to do it. Maybe she
was hedging her bets in case I died. I didn't
have all the information, but I did and would always
remember Odette's first piece of advice don't trust anybody until
you know their motivation. And then she says, what about
Eva her riding the front of the train, and almost
Odette suddenly went mute. Hang on, guys were informing Odette's
people to end this topic. I don't know what this is?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Because like, her riding the front of the train is
just about the thing that they went through with hecla, right,
this is something that they all know about, So why
are we ending this top? Odette gets censored here and muted,
and she's clearly irritated. But like the whole thing, it's
just uh sarahim, she says. She's telling them how Eva
escaped from him. Oh okay, I thought it was her
riding the front of the train, like you know, they
were all in the the conductor's cab, and I thought
that's what they meant, like the front of the train.
I see. So she's giving them info outside of what
they would have seen or be aware of, and they.
Speaker 2: Can't have that. I got it. I got it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about what we know regarding the next floor.
Here's the preview video Born released the studio darkened, but
the show was still on the air. We weren't visible
to the audience while the video played on the screen.
It was blurred and we couldn't see it. And this
is when Odette flips out about having been sense. Get
that goddamn slime covered fish stick in here, right fucking
now back on in forty seconds delay, I'm gonna need
at least sixty more to fry and batter this fucking darling.
Speaker 2: Lloyd.
Speaker 1: You're looking especially moist today. We did not agree on
this level of censorship. It's absolutely ridiculous. You know the
Syndicate's rules regarding a journalist's right to ask an answer
during interviews, and you don't enter the studio unless you've
been invited.
Speaker 2: It's rude.
Speaker 1: Well, sweet Odette, if you read the changes we amended
to the contract when we added crawler kotshit to her,
actually hang on a moment, She looked at us, waved once,
and they once again went mute. I turned to say
something to Donut, but I couldn't. No words came out.
The fact that he can't even talk to Donut right
there really is crossing a line to me.
Speaker 2: It's one thing if you don't.
Speaker 1: Want our people hearing stuff. I already don't like that,
but I accept it. But not letting them just talk
amongst themselves is very extra Like just let them chit
chat christ sakes, you know, and they scream at each
other and then it just ends, and Odette's like, we'll
have a lunch date later, and then the show continues
as if there was no interruption, and Odette says, like
the audience didn't really like the last layout. It was
a pretty split opinion, but a lot of people felt
that it was over complicated. They won't complain about this
floor being complicated, at least not the layout, though, I
dare say the possibilities are almost endless. I'm going to
miss all of you guys banning together like that. It
makes for some delicious combinations like that epic battle with
Grol with Prepotente and Miriam Dom losing out and killing
a province boss twice thanks to you guys and then
to Quan Chit. I don't know if I'm saying that right,
And of course the hilarious but ultimately tragic fight between
Lucy Mr Florin and Effecchi, not to mention the pop
Off brothers butting heads with Team Chimney, I do not
know if I'm saying that right. And then we have
those rising Stars, the min Maxing Team, Flamingo, so many
great stories, so many different ways to play, and I
am wondering. She says like, I'm not allowed to tell
you what is happening on the next floor, but I
can tell you I'm glad you will have all those
crafting tables. And then Loita comes on again. No giving
up secrets. I'm glad you have all those crafting tables.
Speaker 2: Is nothing, It's nothing.
Speaker 1: Enough already, but whatever, She's towing the line on purpose
to irritate Loita. At this point, I am here, like,
here's what I'm thinking, and I may be very wrong,
but I'm gonna just hazard this because you know, we're
all friends here, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't be mad.
Speaker 1: If the next floor were much more like a Minecraft
sort of thing, where you're like building shit from the
ground up and having to defend it.
Speaker 2: It would be different.
Speaker 1: You know, I've never played Minecraft for the record, but
I have watched my husband play it. It's not an
interesting game to watch people play, for the record, But
you know, uh, I I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So Odette ignores Llosa here she tells Donut that they
should keep Mango out, which Donut is like, I've been
fucking saying that. And this is when she admits that
it was her. Uh, you were right to call me out.
It plays well to your smoldering a personality, smart but dangerous.
And it's not like I warned them that Chris. Odette
went mute. That's it, Lloyd just said, sounding pissed. Everybody
to the green room. You're getting transferred back to the
dungeon in a few minutes. Chris, What about Chris, don't.
Speaker 2: I ask as we walked out.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's obviously something going on with him
that's been clear for a while. We'll have to be
careful until we figure it out. And Chris is Brandon's brother, right.
I am extremely curious because the fact that he killed Frank.
I had sort of like taken that as a statement
of like affinity for them. But I'm sort of wondering if,
like even if it is that might be dangerous coming
from somebody who seems to be a little bit.
Speaker 2: Unbalanced at this point. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Legend never returned to the green room. Instead, we got
a notification we were being transferred, and that was it.
There were four doors, one on each wall. These were
all one way portals. The valte implant worked, but the
information was limited. I couldn't pass any of the doorways,
and I couldn't take a screen shot. In the center
of the stark room was a pair of large round wheels,
similar to the Wheel of Fortune game from the casino.
Before you enter the fifth floor, you must choose your quadrant.
The result will be random. Your team leader will spin
the wheel. The four choices were land, Sea, air, and subterranean.
That's a bit worrying, got Sha mumbled, So Donut spins
and it lands on air, and then Doughnut says, maybe
I can pick a class that flies, which you know understandably,
carl Ankacia are a little bit worried that being in
the air quadrant might not be great for them to
our left. The door against the wall disappeared, revealing a
new room with four more doors. Razor, Fox, Kite, City, Dirigible, Gnome, Wasteland, Fortress,
Night Gaunt, Precipice, and the Great Dirt Island of the
wind Sirens. Choose your opponent. Oh I hope you get
the fox one. It'll be fun to kill foxes. I
held my breath, hoping for anything but the night gaunt choice.
My cloak's description specifically warned that night gaunts would be
enraged by the sight of my cloak, and I didn't
want to have to get rid of it. Your opponents
will be the Dirigible Gnomes. In order to pass this level,
you must storm their castle in the sky, known as
the Wasteland Fortress. One of the four distant doors disappeared,
revealing a dune swept desert landscape. Sand started to cascade
into the room from the open door. A harsh breeze
swept in, pelting grains into my face, stinging and hot.
I was half expecting the door to open and reveal
nothing but air.
Speaker 2: At least we were on the ground.
Speaker 1: It looks like a giant litter box out there, Donut said.
I must say, I'm very excited about this. Come on, team,
let's go kill some gnomes. And that is the end
of this main section. But I want to mention that
in the audiobook, you guys, I'm looking at the actual text,
and it's not here in the text at all. Oh,
I'm I am so bereft if you haven't read listened
to the audiobook. You guys, there is a joke that
comes at the end of the audio book and it
is the recording of Earth Beautiful, And I, personally I
found this very funny. So it's a it's a it's
a little it's a little inside joke from the author
to the audiobook narrator, and it's talking about how authors
are so underappreciated and how audiobook narrators are drowning and
pussy and are always like just basically, I really wish
that I could that I had the text in front
of me.
Speaker 2: But it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: That Carl is reading this for Earth Beautiful and finally
gets fed up reading it and quits and walks out
of the studio, and we are listening to the recording
of it, that the little gray who runs Earth Beautiful
is playing back for his boss.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I really.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a fun addition, And because I
often wonder what it's like the relationship between an author
and the audiobook narrator when they are so linked together.
Not every audio book has the same notoriety, you know
what I'm saying. And yeah, Michael is talking about Will
White and Cradle, and that's what it reminded me of
because there is a very strong relationship between Will White
and Travis Baldry, who did the narration for his audio books,
and thus there was like there's a whole thing now
with Cradle becoming an animated feature and Travis Baldry is
doing the voice.
Speaker 2: For the main character there.
Speaker 1: They have got a sort of partnership together, and I
often wonder about that because is like, I think part
of the reason that this happens is because an author
being self published, they once they get this the kind
of success that is happening here, the audiobook becomes like
a major factor in that, whereas in traditional publishing, a
lot of the time, if you are getting published officially,
the audiobook.
Speaker 2: Is incidental.
Speaker 1: I won't say that it's not important, but it's not
as much of a marketing tool as it is when
you are writing and self publishing and you are using
the name of an audiobook narrator and their extremely produced performance.
Because this book is produced a lot more than many
audiobooks are, you know, we have effects on the voices
a lot of the time. There are in the bit
at the end with like Earth Beautiful, we have occasional
sound effects and stuff. There's just a lot more production involved.
Speaker 2: And I just I find.
Speaker 1: It interesting as somebody who does podcasting, because the audio world,
the landscape has changed a lot in what people are consuming,
and audiobooks really feel like they're starting to overtake text
in certain spheres. And I would say especially with sort
of like action fantasy and sci fi like this, So
it makes sense approaching it where the audiobook is just
as important, if not more so, than the text. And
I maintain that like a lot of the jokes that
work in the audio book when I read that and
text are not as funny. It's the delivery that makes
them funny more than the actual you know, there's a
point and I was talking about this with my husband
because like a lot of the AI jokes are kind
of funny because they're not that funny, and it's very
like edge lordy in a way that I think normally
would just irritate me. But because it's the AI specifically,
I can attribute this douchey quality to the AI trolling
reddit for inspo and divorce that from the author himself.
So if this were handled in a different way, I
think I would have a lot my tolerance special would
be a lot lower. But it's a combo of like
the delivery and the effects they use on the AI
voice that separates it from everything in a way that
makes it work better to me.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Ooh?
Speaker 2: Sorry, so many others? So, uh did you do?
Speaker 1: Saraphim says, Then you have Butcher and Marsters, where Butcher
has admitted he enjoys trying to come up with phrases
that Marsters has trouble saying without slipping into his normal accent. Yeah,
there's also like forgive me because JK Rolling sucks balls.
But I remember her.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: There was an interview with Stephen Fry, who narrates the
audio books, and he said that he told her at
one point how difficult it was to say Harry pocketed it,
and she put it into every book thereafter, at least
twice after he complained about it to her. Michael says,
if he isn't doing Dross's voice too, it's an indictment
of the entire world. Regarding Cradle, I don't know. He
may be doing more than one voice. I only know
about Linden for sure, but that's it. Rob says there's
an interesting parallel to it with Baldery and Hayes, who
were both smallish fry before they hit their big success series.
The authors and the narrators seem to get along well too.
Business partners by luck, friends by destiny, question mark, this
is the question what happens if like, they do an
amazing job, but you hate their guts. You know, That's
always something that like, I worry about because I want
to like people, but I would rather you do a
good job mostly than that.
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 1: If you do a good job, if you're competent, I
can at least respect that. But if I really like
you and you fucking suck, I feel like.
Speaker 2: That, you know.
Speaker 1: Ah. Seraphim says, I know a few series where the
audiobook is actually the big thing, like Expeditionary Force.
Speaker 2: A lot of it comes down to who the narrator
is and how good they are at it.
Speaker 1: Michael says it reminds me of anime dubbing. Honestly, before
anime enjoyers would only watch subbed content because the importers
would hire people who weren't professional voice actors, says Shutters
in Four Kids, Yeah, you guys, I'm covering one piece,
and I eventually I switched over to the dub because
I felt like a lot of the jokes didn't really
make sense in the sub. It wasn't until the dub
where they really make an effort to like translate the
joke itself rather than just translate the literal words. But
I did get to like see some of the four
Kids stuff. They the people commissioning sent me clips and
it was so awful. Oh my god, Michael says. Now
voice actors are much more professional, so the dubbed anime
are much better. Same with video game voice acting. Video
game voice acting I find so fascinating because like it's
a wild gamut and it depends, of course on like
who they get and the circumstances of it. Like what's
the name of the guy who played Chandler on Friends?
He apparently played a pretty major character in I think
Fallout four, And my husband always laughs about it because
it is so clear the dude.
Speaker 2: Is phoning it in and doesn't.
Speaker 1: Give a shit and is just like he kind of
like sucks the energy out of the script. And even
though it sort of sucks, my husband found it amusing.
So it works in its own way. Rob says, as
generative AI continues to swallow the world whole authentically, amateur
voiceovers are the rare performances. Saraphim says, So, since we
have some time, predictions for the next book, thoughts on character, etc.
That you'd like to see, And Michael says, here, you
stupid piece of shit author.
Speaker 2: Emailing his book to the audiobook narrator. He hates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what I'm thinking, Like, I just, you know,
I it must be such a weird thing to work
with somebody who's great at their job, but you fucking
despise them. Like, I know that this must happen. So
much of the time people that I have hated it's
because they were bad at their job and they made
my job harder.
Speaker 2: You know, It's really rare.
Speaker 1: For me to hate somebody who is otherwise competent. But
I have to assume that that's out there. So okay, yeah,
I Before I talk about predictions, I just want to
back up and talk about this whole thing with Lota
because Zev the way that she was talking before she disappeared,
I got the sense that people were being like rounded up,
that there was shit going on, like that, so I
just didn't expect for Zev to disappear the way that
she did so quickly. I thought that might happen next book.
I think it's good that it happens this book to
sort of prep us.
Speaker 2: That things are changing.
Speaker 1: There is a very I think that if you're writing
a long series, and by long I mean anything that's
sort of more than three books, a great method for
instilling some dread in your readers is having there be
a kind of rhythm to everything that your readers get
used to for the first few books and then fuck
it up. And I felt this very strongly. Sorry to
bring a Perry Potter again, but I think it's the
beginning of book five, where you know, for the first
four books, it's been the usual, like we're going to
the station and getting on the train. Granted, the second
book there's the flying Ford Angli and everything, but still
it's clear everything otherwise is going on as normal, even
though our friends are having trouble. And then Hagrid meets
them at the station and takes them all over. And
then in the fifth book, it's all funky. Hagrid's not
at the station, people are missing, nobody's talking about it
or telling them what's really going on. And you've got
Umbridge showing up and like meddling in shit and being
really creepy, And it's just a really nice twist of
like we've gotten used to things for going by a
certain rhythm, and once you disrupt that, it's very unnerving
and disorienting. And I think this is going to be
a really effective tool because like we have grown used
to them going on Odette's show, Odette sort of being
on their side, even though really she's on Odette's side,
it's still like we know that she is going to
give them some insider info. We know that they're going
to be able to play the audience a certain way.
We know that this and that, And now all of
a sudden, Zev who felt like she was on their
side real way despite being the enemy. Her and Donut
had a sort of like genuine friendship, it felt like.
And now we've got Loita who is not just representing
the enemy but is actually enforcing the bullshit that the enemy.
Speaker 2: Is and.
Speaker 1: All allegedly to make the game more fair, but obviously
there's a sense of everybody being more overpowered than they
should be at this point because of the AI, and
I can't help but interpret a lot of this as
like we're trying to nip this in the bud, you know,
we're trying to even at the playing field because Carl,
like what Ellie says about I swear sometimes I.
Speaker 2: Think you're cheating.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some suspicions around
that Carl isn't going to like even though we can
see that Moredecai is giving them info, they've already had
a moment where Mordecai has been purposely baited so that
he is removed as a factor. And also Carl has
this book that's giving him info that he shouldn't otherwise have.
And I think it's only a matter of time until
somebody kind of clocks that. And I am not surprised
that they're starting to like really lock down any leaky
areas because they are beginning to feel like he is
surpassing other players in a way that doesn't fully make
sense or doesn't benefit the game overall. Sorry, Surferum says heck,
I just recently learned that Matt Mercer is the dub
voice of law. Damn, I don't know who that is
she said Loota was bloom, So yeah, she is all
in on the fishy fascism fishism if you will, Rob
says Mordecai. Disappearing and zeb going away really hits the
person with more knowledge disappears. Structural b a Llah Gandolf
the Gone and Dumbledore's death characters need to stand on
their own. In a Bill Dung's Roman, I do not
know what the fuck that means. Sorry about it, Rob
Michael says. Umbradge low key the most terrifying villain in
that series because she is ripped from real life. And
that's what I mean is like Umbradge doesn't actually believe
in that pure bloodshit, but she does believe in being
superior and in cruelty, so she'll hop on board whatever
gets her that power.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter to her, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the thing that I think is interesting,
is like, what is it that you can exploit about
a person regarding their motivation? And if we know that
Louita doesn't believe in this, but it's just about the
power for her, you could do something.
Speaker 2: With that potentially.
Speaker 1: Sarahim says, Luyda gives me huge Umbrage vibes now that
I consider it, Michael says, Umbrage had an almost chipper
attitude if I recall, at least from the movie. I
don't remember if there was any difference in depiction from
the books. Luita isn't chipper, but seems to have the
same dedication. Sarahim says, not quite the same falsely sweet personality,
but the same overall vibe for the type of person
they are. It's not just Karl. We've heard this as
a lot of things going on. Matt Mercer is a
critical role guy. Oh okay, I've never listened to that.
Rob says, no worries. Buildings. Roman is the literary term
for coming of age lit, which also encompasses story. Is
that cover incompetent to competent growth arcs? I have never
heard that.
Speaker 2: Bill Dung's Roman? Where is that? Why is that the
literary term? What is that?
Speaker 1: It sounds like nonsense, It sounds like a typo.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing the difference between Umbridge and Loita is that
Umbridge was meant to be the fascist coming in camouflaged
as an envoy, somebody who is meant to be a
sort of like it go between between the Ministry and
the school, and so she had to be a smiling face.
She had to be somebody who seemed very positive and upbeat.
Louta doesn't need to do that. You know, she's not
public facing, and so she can be as taciturn as
she wants and it doesn't That's the advantage of anything
of her is that, because she's purely behind the scenes,
she can just be a straight up bitch and it's
not going to negatively affect her job, because that is
her job. Whereas Umbridge hid how vicious she was up
until the point where she really got power and was
able to actually like torment people at the Ministry, and
then she had totally shifted gears and let that side
of her out and was being more genuine and open
about who she really was. But she had to wait
and play the long game there. Lita doesn't have to
do that. The term comes from the German word bill
dung formation or education and Roman novel. The term was
coined by philologist Johann Carl Simon Morgenstern in his university
lectures and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who
had demized it in eighteen seventy and popularized it in
nineteen oh five. Well, for the record, I reject all
of it. I hate it. We got to come up
with something else. Bill Dung's Roman is nonsense and sucks.
So everybody put your heads together, come up with something better,
because I can't. We can't be doing that.
Speaker 2: It's bad.
Speaker 1: Thumbs down. Saraphim says. Look, if you see a word
that looks like the result of two dictionaries being slammed together,
it's assume it's German. It's funny you say that, Saraphim,
because I straight up was like, is that German? In
my head? But I didn't say it out loud, and
it is, of course it is.
Speaker 2: It was the dung that gave it away. You got
a dung in there.
Speaker 1: I'm just figuring it's German. Rob says, progression fantasy is
what we usually call it nowadays on the low road. Yeah,
I guess that's true. I you know, Okay, So I'm
realizing that despite the fact that I had extra time,
I was going a little bit faster because I thought
that the bit at the end of the audiobook was
going to be in the text, and that I would
be able to like quote that, so I had more
time than I anticipated. But talking about predictions for the
next book, first of all, I just want to say
I fucking hate desert Like locales, I hate them. So
seeing all of the sand, instantly, I was just like, Oh,
what a drag. I might be really wrong about this,
but it's one sort of dreary to look at. Two,
they're only standing by the doorway and they're already getting
stung by the sand in their face. Fucking hate it.
If anybody out there has not been in a place
where sand is being whipped up and flung at you,
I promise you have no idea how fucking painful it is.
It is wild how much it can hurt. It's stupid.
Speaker 2: I hate it. Three.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes a major factor is like we have to find water,
we have to store water, we have to be able
to carry water, and that is often very tedious as well. Now,
the way that their inventories work, it will likely be
way less tedious in this than it.
Speaker 2: Would be otherwise.
Speaker 1: But this is something that I have run into with
other desert stories, and so I just wanted to mention it.
Three Also, the fact that, like your mission is that
you have to like storm somebody's fortress and take over.
It just sucks. These NPCs didn't ask for this, They
don't want to be here. This whole thing is just
you're being pitted against each other right from the start
in a way that's like just gross and sad and
overall my prediction is that there is going to have
to be some real weird shit going on to make
up for the fact that we aren't going to be
around other crawlers. Because the point, according to what was
said in that announcement at the end of the book,
is like, you guys were all working together and that's
really great, but we can't have that, so we're splitting
you all up. You're only going to be with your
own party and you're pretty much never going to encounter
one another. The fact that I was loving so very
much how interacting with everybody else was working out for
our people and that being taken away is like a
huge bummer on that front. But also it makes me
curious because that is a major part of the book
and you have to replace that in interactive quality with
something else, Like what is that going to be? There's also,
like I will admit to you guys that the next
book I have already downloaded and it is I haven't
listened to it, obviously, but it's called The Gate of
the Faral Gods, so I'm assuming that that has to
be you know, like partially what we're replacing the interaction
with people with is that there are gods in this scenario.
Speaker 2: But I don't even really know what.
Speaker 1: That would look like. Is the Maestro going to appear again,
because I have to assume he's going to have it
out for Carl even more, I kind of like, I
love the fact that the Maestro just gets sort of
cut off, but I wouldn't if we didn't see him
again for.
Speaker 2: A little while.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've got to be dole that out carefully,
you know. Seraphim says, Oh, also, next book has easily
my favorite cover of the series so far. I am
going to go look at it just out of curiosity.
I clicked on it and it just immediately was like, actually,
I shouldn't look at the cover. What am I thinking?
Because that'll often have like spoilers on it, So yeah,
I won't look at it.
Speaker 2: Never mind.
Speaker 1: Michael says, I think every audiobook has an ad at
the end.
Speaker 2: Of it now.
Speaker 1: If I recall, I actually don't remember there being an
AD at the end of this one, unless that little
thing was considered an AD, which maybe it was. But yeah,
so okay, I'm at time I'm going to wrap this up.
But I feel like we've got a pretty good sense
of dread. I feel like I am really particularly compelled
by Doughnut beginning to admit that be ain't shit. I
would love there to be a real conversation between her
and Carl about that they never actually really talk about
b and I want that to happen finally. And I
also want a little bit more about what happened with
his mom trying to kill her husband and then herself,
because you just dropped that in and then no details
pretty rude, in my opinion, I want a lot more.
I guess what it comes down to about the backstory
of both of them. I'm more interested in that than
I am in the game right now. That is something
that's like just very carefully dripped in, and I think
that was the right call. But I'm starting to feel
like you've got to give us something more now. You've
got to have there be a bit more of a
focus on it. Because evidently the audience knows quite a
lot about Carl based on the fact that like the
toolbox that was on offer in that you know, choose
your reward thing the motorcycle, Like, there's stuff from his
past that is obviously a known quantity to the audience
that we don't know about. And I feel like the
audience of the Krawl has an advantage over us there,
so I want more of that.
Speaker 2: That's what I'll say.
Speaker 1: All Right, So I'm gonna wrap, but thank you guys
again for hanging out, Thank you Michael for commissioning this.
Looking forward to the next book very much, and until
next time to the loom, motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled
Network podcast.