geopolitical hegemony

geopolitical hegemony

oh brother

Brandon heard some excellent cover songs. Collin is recovered from flooring. Ender faces a battle.

• Food truck-y deal

• Some excellent cover songs…and others not so much

• Things song needs a keyboard

• Brandon is on his own summer reading program

• Other random sci-fi books

• geopolitical hegemony 

• Monroe Doctrine: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/monroe-doctrine 

• Chapters 7, 8, 9 of Ender’s Game

• Brandon’s Haiku

• A row of marquees

• Scents blending enticingly

• How is one to choose

Check out our other episodes: ohbrotherpodcast.com

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

Collin 0:04

Welcome to Oh Brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts Brandon and Collin on this week's show. Geopolitical hegemony. Ahoy, ahoy! What's new? What's going on? Not

Brandon 0:23

too much, really. I've been kind of slacking off. I'm really done. I know, surprise, surprise. Wait, no, no one's surprised by this. It's

Collin 0:34

totally,

Brandon 0:39

yeah. So, let's see, what have I done since last time we talked. Oh, we had food truck day thing.

Collin 0:45

Oh, nice.

Brandon 0:46

That was good. Something with some friends to the food truckie deal. Now this time we had it was weird because it was like themed. I don't really know how I feel about this. Well, it was themed in that the fly like, so the big one, this is one of the big ones they do, and it's like they have like live music and stuff. Okay, and this time the it was like themed live music, so there were. I think I can't, I wasn't looking at the stage, I was sitting at a table, and my back was to the stage, like kind of I was perpendicular to the plane of the stage, right, so like the I was sitting, they, they block all the roads off, and so there's all these picnic tables that are sitting on the road, and then in the pavilion facing parallel to the road is the band, but I was sitting with my back to them, so like I was, I guess, parallel to them, but I don't know. Anyway, I couldn't see them, so I couldn't tell if it was like different bands or the same band playing many different sets, but they were like

Collin 2:03

decade-themed cover band, yeah, right. So

Brandon 2:07

they did like the first set, or perhaps group confirmed, was only playing music from the early 2000s

Collin 2:21

right,

Brandon 2:22

and the second band slash set was only playing music from the 90s, right? You see what's happening here, and then the final one was the 80s cover band section. Oh man, there we go. I don't think we stayed for that part. I think we were everyone's still.. I don't know. I was tired, and I was like, okay, I'm very full, and I'm ready to go home now. So, like, and what I really learned is that there are.. and this was like all genres of music from said decade as well, so it was not just the rockets they're playing, although perhaps it ought to have been, because I can't really think of any examples off top my head right now, which is going to kind of defeat part of my argument, but I did learn that there are songs that make excellent cover songs, and there are songs that boy do they not right, like, oh, that's that one's rough. Maybe it was just like how they were doing it, and there was a couple times where you're like, they need a keyboard player that really just makes this better, like, oh, wow, that's what, because I think it, I think it well, I mean, there was just not enough instruments to fill out the parts, right? So I think, again, not paying 100% attention, but I think it was just a three piece band and a singer, right? I don't even think there were two guitarists.

Collin 4:11

Oh,

Brandon 4:12

so there was definitely a couple times where you're like, "Nah, there needs to be another layer somewhere, like just for something like a

Collin 4:26

whole lot more, but like

Speaker 1 4:29

yeah, but like a bit, like there's

Brandon 4:31

a couple songs where I was like song needs a keyboard, right, like just gotta fill in something in the background, right, and there's a couple times where you're like, oh man, that song's pretty cool, like that's a good one, that I like that arrangement, and there was a couple other times where we were like that's a miss, that is a miss, I don't know,

Collin 4:56

really reaching for that one, try to make it work, try. I

Brandon 5:00

tried. I don't, I don't really know, like, yeah. It was, it was weird. So, I, it was all right. It was overall, it was K. I saw, like, a billion people I knew, which is weird, because I didn't think I knew anybody. So, like, I was awkward,

Collin 5:17

popular. Yeah,

Brandon 5:18

I was like, I know all these. How do we know these people? What the heck, what's going on. So it's pretty good, it's pretty good for reference. Just I know you're really curious about this. So what did I eat at this food truck thing?

Collin 5:34

Yes,

Brandon 5:35

Collin, they have this time lots and lots of options, right? Lots of great stuff. Okay, they have a grilled cheese truck that has like just super massive like grilled cheese sandwiches, amazing. Yeah, it's just like

Collin 5:51

their thing.

Brandon 5:52

Yeah, they have like lots different kinds, like normal. There's like a buffalo chicken one, there's like a pizza, it's like a grilled cheese, but with just like pepperoni and stuff on it,

Collin 6:02

fascinating.

Brandon 6:03

Absolutely, come on, that's what you got. So that's what I went for. We went for the grilled cheese food truck. I love

Collin 6:09

that,

Brandon 6:10

because, like, one of the.. there's like the, you know, you feel kind of bad because some of them are like trucks, they're here all the time, but you're like, I go to you all the time, so like I want to grocery these trucks. Sorry, taco truck guy, but I can see you any day I want to, and I do want to. So I will see you later. Don't worry about, you

Collin 6:29

know, that's that is that is tough. Of the, oh, this is actually a favorite of mine, but the, it's the access to that really changes the calculation, the calculus on whether, yeah, dive in or not,

Brandon 6:43

that is the real thing, that is the real, the real important variable here, because, like, grilled cheese truck, it's not from here, right? I can't remember where it's from, but, like, it's from, like, maybe Northern Arkansas, I don't know. Oh,

Collin 6:54

wow,

Brandon 6:55

I looked it up at some point, but I can't remember, but, like, they go all over the place, right? They, they're one, they're one of those people that go to like all the like craft things, and they go to like the farmers markets and stuff like that, right? Which, you know, yes. Why would you not do that? That's literally what's your point of the food truck, right? Yeah, so you can go to all the things, but they're not often here, you know, whereas like one of the taco trucks is here all the time. This, they didn't, the other one that's always there. I don't even know if they were there this time, because they're always here too. So, they're sometimes they're like, I don't even need to go to the thing, because

Speaker 1 7:30

I'm here. So, like, whatever.

Collin 7:34

Yeah, that kind of makes it hard, for sure.

Brandon 7:36

Yeah, but it was good. It was fun times. Hung out, listen to I lots of music in various stages of quality.

Collin 7:49

Were you pleasant? Were you ever.. how am I gonna say this? Were you like, oh, I'm glad they're playing that song? Did you ever have one of those? Yeah, there

Brandon 7:58

was a couple that you're like, oh, that's not one that you hear people cover a lot of, right? Yeah,

Collin 8:03

so

Brandon 8:03

that was fun. It was cool. And there's a couple were like, "You're playing that song. Do you know what the lyrics of the song are like? Are you

Collin 8:12

have the ones where you're like, "There's a reason we don't hear that one. We don't even hear that actual version a lot.

Brandon 8:20

Yeah, like it's kind of weird, like it's a weird choice, but most of them, I think they were self-edited. I think they played the radio edit version live, right? Like, oh, I think the, because the bank puts it on, I think they might be like, bro, there's like a billion children here, so maybe

Collin 8:42

here's

Brandon 8:42

when you're playing your green day covers, maybe just put in all the efforts, maybe don't do that right, like I don't know if that's.. I don't know if that's stipulated in the contract, not 100% sure I was imagining it might be probably

Collin 9:03

I have a suspicion that that is doing that. Yes,

Brandon 9:09

I'd imagine so. But yeah, so yeah, so that's what we're doing.

Collin 9:13

Oh,

Brandon 9:14

right. I talked to one of my friends, is it a well, the one of the people that we were with there, what he is a former English teacher, and she is teaching English next year. So, boom, we were talking about my sci-fi reading problem, and he also has the same problem. Okay, so we were discussing the sci-fi reading, because that's what he always does. She listens to our show a lot, but he always asked me every time he sees me. He's like, "So, what are you reading for the show? Yeah, what's going on?

Collin 9:50

Oh, well, hello everyone. Yeah, he's

Brandon 9:55

actually, actually, shout out, because you don't know this, but if. Weeks ago she was here in the house. This is the first non-family member that I know of. Oh, that was there was live,

Collin 10:09

genuinely terrifying live, right? She poked her head

Brandon 10:13

in and waved at me. So

Collin 10:15

everything, and I was like,

Brandon 10:17

"Ah, what are you doing here?

Collin 10:18

You're not supposed to be here. Also,

Brandon 10:21

don't look at my pile of laundry. Uh, that's loud right now.

Collin 10:25

It's weird. Okay, sure. We can just do that, but just jump in. Had

Brandon 10:30

a live pop in, right? So, shout out Misty, shout out big fan. So, did that hung out, did some stuff, so I said some of that to tell you I have been, I'm on Collin, I'm on my own summer reading program, I am attempting to read other random sci-fi books that I discover, and at the end of the summer time, I'm going to give you top five lists of other books that I read this summer,

Collin 11:03

other, and see if they're

Brandon 11:05

any good. Right, I will give you the rundown of other sci-fi books that I have attempted to read to attempt to expose myself to this genre that I don't know anything about.

Collin 11:17

Fair, it's a fair thing to do. Yeah,

Brandon 11:22

so I got looking forward to that coming soon.

Collin 11:25

Yes, coming

Speaker 1 11:26

soon. Okay,

Collin 11:27

well, that's a lot there. My goodness, I like this a lot.

Brandon 11:32

Yeah, so we'll see how many actually get through to that's going to be the other determining factor.

Collin 11:37

Well, so you say other random ones. How, how are you selecting your?

Brandon 11:43

I'm looking at lists of books, I'm seeing which ones sound relatively interesting, and that are short. So, no, no space operas, no like 700 page monstrosities will be appearing in this list, so that's the other key deciding feature, is the length of the book, because I'm not going to read, like I said, I'm not reading 800 pages of space opera for this, because no,

Speaker 1 12:22

no, I cannot. I cannot deal with that.

Collin 12:25

That's, that's, that's fair. That's probably that's a healthy choice, is what I'm going to say. Yeah, good on you for that.

Brandon 12:32

We're gonna alternate them, right? I have some other books just sitting here in my pile of books I want to read, and so we're gonna alternate. I'll read one of those, and then I'll see if I look about this sci-fi situation, so we're going back, we're going back and forth, we're spread them out a little bit, so I don't over saturate myself and burn out, mostly burn out on something

Collin 12:54

incredibly easy to do, given this.

Brandon 12:57

Yeah, I have also discovered just about when I was looking at potential candidates for said list, right. When I was doing some research about this, I discovered all the books that I think are interesting are not taking place in space, so they're like they're like subgenre e bookerinos, they're not space cadetti stuff, which is interesting.

Collin 13:29

Yeah, yeah,

Brandon 13:30

weird. I think possibly because a lot of those books are giant, right? So they're like, oh yeah, well, you want space. How about this? This is 793 pages. Like, no thanks.

Collin 13:49

Thank you very much. I'm sure

Brandon 13:50

it's good, but like it's a bit intimidating, right? Like, just want to dive into that. So, yeah, that is what's going on. Yeah, exactly right, like. like you know, so yeah, just that's what's going on in the background here. The other other thing that I did this week was go to the dentist, all man's

Collin 14:14

favorite, who

Brandon 14:15

actually it was like super chill, I just had like one tiny cavity, and they're like, all right, it was like 20 minutes, like seriously.

Collin 14:24

Oh, well, that's exactly what you want.

Brandon 14:27

Yeah, I mean, like maybe 30, because you had to sit there and wait for the thing to get like numb, you know.

Speaker 2 14:31

Sure, sure, sure,

Brandon 14:32

you know. Although the funny part is, they had it, it was like it's way in the back right of the what side is this, the right side, right? It was way back there, one of my molars, I guess, and so it was kind of hard to get to, so you guys sit there with your mouth like jacked open for forever, but they, they forgot to take out a piece of the gauze that they stuck in my go, no, right, and I couldn't feel it, because I couldn't feel my face for hours,

Speaker 2 14:57

sure,

Brandon 14:58

right, and so I didn't notice it at. All until I started eating a little bit, and then I was like,

Collin 15:02

oh no, what the heck? Oh geez,

Brandon 15:10

I was like, what is that? Ah, that was still in there. I was like, I can't feel it, so I guess it was, I don't know,

Collin 15:21

didn't swallow it, so we're fine.

Brandon 15:24

Swallow, I mean, it was like a, you'd like roll it up and then like shove it down in there, that's where it was, but I couldn't feel it, so like I didn't know it was there. I guess they just forgot to pull it out, they pulled out all the rest of it, just not that one.

Collin 15:37

So you don't have an extra souvenir, yeah,

Brandon 15:41

it's in the trash now, but that was really funny. I was just like, what the

Collin 15:48

okay, all coming together. I don't know. I was just telling somebody, who was I talking to? Who they like their grandma or somebody had just had surgery, and it was one of those horrifying ones where they got home and was like uncomfortable and couldn't figure out why, and they went back and they found the like the sponge, the sponge, you know, that kind of stuff, and I'm just every time I'm like, I don't like any of this at all. No, thank you.

Brandon 16:30

Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, yeah, that's no good. I mean, that's better than what happened to Susan when they, we took her back, and they're like, oh, actually, you're still bleeding internally. Uh, hold on.

Collin 16:40

Oh, well, gosh golly, would you look at that? Yeah, wow, wow, wow. Hey, you should have that checked out. Yeah,

Speaker 1 16:49

yeah, yuli.

Brandon 16:50

So that's what has Collin been up to. Oh, other than forgetting to book all of his stuff, and get Rick,

Collin 17:04

I

Brandon 17:05

making slideshows, presumably

Collin 17:07

that's all I've been doing. Assuming

Brandon 17:10

I'm assuming that's why you're going. I never asked why these things last time. You just, we just talked about that you were going places, and I never stopped to think about why. I just thought, like, oh, more Skyline and building architecture review coming up,

Collin 17:23

coming right. Unfortunately, so this one coming up, it's one of them you've

Brandon 17:29

already done, though. Yes, I did

Collin 17:32

the fear-free talk last time. Yeah, think I was preparing for.. I

Brandon 17:37

meant architecture review. Oh, yes,

Collin 17:40

yeah, we'll continue. You're in North

Brandon 17:42

Carolina, before I think we already got the North Carolina skyline. Well, you know, sometimes the

Collin 17:46

second pass is needed with fresh. That's true. There's the update time, update how things are going, angle, you know, yeah, yep. This, this trip also going back to North Carolina. This is more just like a retreaty kind of thing, of like, hey, let's get some other people together, come on, like, hang out, talk, that kind of stuff. So it's not this isn't an intensive, like, okay, summit or conference. I'm doing nothing, I'm just there to attend. There's a ball, hey,

Brandon 18:20

all right,

Collin 18:21

there's a boat ride, and I said, 'Sure, I'm in. You'll be all

Brandon 18:25

prepared. You can drive. We're going to Lake soon, so it's almost time for Lake episode.

Collin 18:30

I know I'm very excited for the Lake episode. Lake is.. oh,

Brandon 18:34

yeah.

Collin 18:34

No, maybe Wrangle Aaron

Brandon 18:37

again.

Collin 18:38

Catch him early. Speaking of which, I have to remember to, I'm craning my neck over to the left. I'm really sorry if the audio is weird. I have to remember to bring my tripod. The last, like, I forgot last year it was packed. Not sorry, it was sitting on the floor of my office, and they walked out, and I did not have my tripod for a big family photo, and I'm very angry by that. So, that has to happen.

Brandon 19:01

Did we take one anyway?

Collin 19:03

Ah, I think we ended up doing.. I had to, yeah.

Speaker 1 19:07

Put it on a rock at night, clean it up, get..

Collin 19:11

yes, yeah. So I've got to remember that. So I am.. I'm packing. We're going to a lake. It's supposed to be kind of more of a relaxing thing, right? Just like a hey hang out, we'll talk. The business is gonna be taught, because it's other business owners, and that kind of thing. I am, I was told by, here's, here's the thing, I was told by some of the attendees, they said we have bets on whether you're gonna be like a dad or if you're gonna like be involved with the the extracurricular activities and stuff. I'm like,

Brandon 19:48

I know what I'm betting on.

Collin 19:50

I know, I know, I know what I'm betting on too. You can't

Brandon 19:56

bet, Pete Rose, come on now. Tell me how

Collin 19:58

that works, I. Um, exactly how they work, so yes, I do. We, I know they were like, yeah, just we want to know, like, how early we need to go to bed, and I was like, very early, everyone needs to be a bed by nine, please, for the love of everybody. Nine, so tired, so tired, that's not going to happen. Obviously, I'm not going to be a stick in the mud. Everything's going to be fine, but I will probably be more datitude come with all of this up. It's fine. Yes, we're doing that one, the one in August. Wait, what am I? What am I leaving again? June, July, August. Yes, it's not August. It is August, because that's when I'm going to Florida. Yeah, that one I am doing a presentation, and also am emcee for that one. What is my talk on that one? Oh, it's about the changing industry and the more relevance of niching down than ever, as opposed to having a broad everything kind of bucket business, which most of us have, so that is what I'm presenting on with that one, which will be interesting, and then I'm being the emcee, and then the one in later in the year that I don't have flights booked for yet, right? Yes, that one, that one I am also MC for, so that's the only reason I'm not presenting. I don't really, you know, Megan and I talked about this, of like, I don't know, I do enjoy it, but I have this problem where I was reflecting on this yesterday. I, everyone who goes and presents, they have like their shtick, right? They have the thing that they present on. If you go to conferences, it's like this is the hiring person, and this is the motivational guy, and this is the lady who does whatever I,

Brandon 22:04

but we all know that Collin does not give the same presentation twice.

Collin 22:08

I never give the presentation the same presentation twice, and so this is it's always a lot of work for me to do a present. I enjoy it, I enjoy it, but the concept, the idea of just like, no, literally just change the date and to whom you're presenting on this, and sometimes, sometimes a lot of these guys and gals who usually presenting, who they're just tired from being on the roadside,

Brandon 22:35

haven't changed the date at all, they did

Collin 22:37

not, they did not, and I loved the part where they get to the slideshow where they tried to update it. This is my favorite. They were, they have updated like one slide, and they look at it, and you can tell they have no idea what is going on. Yes, and yeah, that, and they click it, move on to the next thing. So you

Brandon 23:09

have so many now in your little library, surely you can start like cycling through a couple, like pull one out that you did, like, couple years ago, yeah, and like polish it up a little bit. Well, like spit it back out, you know what I mean, like, yeah.

Collin 23:22

And I think to start

Brandon 23:23

100% over, you know, yeah,

Collin 23:25

there is one where I think my very first talk that I gave, as like the industry level, was about identity, and there's a, like, as a business owner in this industry, and whatever, whatever, there's a weird metaphor in there that I tried to present about liminal space and the emptiness between us and where we're headed, and how there's no set path to get from one to the other. I feel

Brandon 23:52

like that probably went over a lot of people's heads.

Collin 23:54

It, I had a picture showing if you

Brandon 23:57

say the word liminal space in like just an average room,

Collin 24:02

yeah,

Brandon 24:03

that's gonna be rough. I'm not gonna,

Collin 24:06

yeah, so I definitely know that that is not that didn't go over the best, and I think more what I would do now. I have these, I'm like, okay, I could go back and talk on that, but I would actually couch, like in my talk, the liminal space section, which again it's like it was about transition, about like stepping over this threshold, like that was a portion of the talk, I would just make that the entire envelope that the talk was presented in, it's like that would just be everything, and it's like, whenever I had the idea for going after the whale, and, like, the, you know, the Melinda May story, it was like, oh, like, I have it, I have the framing for how this is going to be, that this, that talk from four five years ago, at this point, I just, I know that's how I would talk about. I didn't. It would be nothing, but that it wouldn't be all the other random stuff that didn't work, whatever. So, yeah, I do

Brandon 25:09

love a good extended metaphor where you just keep going back to the same thing over and over, right? Masses like that, right? Yeah, yeah.

Collin 25:18

And this, this is what I have, so I have to get water. It's so hot, it's so hot. And my coaster,

Speaker 2 25:29

Collin, hold on, Missouri time. It's not the heat that gets you. Well, I

Collin 25:35

mean, also, yes, it's been

Brandon 25:36

raining like buckets every day. So

Collin 25:39

my coaster, so it's both, which my coaster is a piece of the original mahogany sub floor of my house. When they have, oh, fancy,

Brandon 25:53

Nancy, look at that.

Collin 25:54

I have taken my tongue and groove mahogany sub floor and turned it into a little coaster that I'm putting my cup on now, haha. How about that? No, I have this thing where I love to.. I've been getting more into this, like I'm going to have a metaphor, and it is.. I will not deviate from it now. This is.. this is good in that it has a really strong through line, but what's bad is that sometimes as you're exploring that metaphor, you find areas where you're like, oh, this doesn't work over there at all, like that's true, that is

Brandon 26:32

true, you have to stick with general references, like, you know, the C, that's a good

Collin 26:38

one,

Brandon 26:40

right, like you can't get too niche with the metaphors or starts getting weird.

Collin 26:46

Okay, so you can't start

Brandon 26:47

talking about like guinea fowl or something, and then you'd be like, wait, I don't actually know. Well,

Collin 26:54

so I

Brandon 26:57

like a tree, you know, with that. Yeah,

Collin 27:01

I have as part of the new thing that I picked up this year, I this, this retreats that are going, it's for this fake coaching program, or whatever. One of my roles with it is I'm the emcee at the conference, but also I'm the MC for the whole year, it's an online program, and so, oh yeah, wanted somebody who could be like a central focal point to talk about the, like, here's what's going on, here are things going, but part of this, this, this, my, I was originally tasked, part of my job description with this, this is my first, like, job, each job in several years, part of this was Collin is to write a weekly, it was, it started out as like a weekly wrap up for the week of like what's going on. Well, I can only say things like well, if you know, and we, the presentation on Tuesday was on this, and there was this, and this, and and I had these grand ideas that I was going to be watch, I was going to watch all of the content, and I was going to pull this through line through, and I would be on the group calls, and then the office hours, like I was gonna be really in there. I mean,

Brandon 28:14

that would be good if you didn't have a full-time job as a business owner,

Collin 28:19

yeah, that thing, or like a life,

Brandon 28:24

yeah, and children, everything

Collin 28:27

else. So I quickly pivoted to what if I just write like a weekly article on something, generally something. It's vaguely, yeah, very vague. vaguely or tangentially connected to tangentially

Speaker 1 28:47

relevant, right? Like, what's

Collin 28:48

going on? And this has been like, I have really enjoyed this challenge of it's a weekly article that comes out about something, and I will be perfectly honest, there are most times this I have to publish it Friday mornings, okay? Most of these get written Friday morning or Thursday at 10pm

Brandon 29:16

you know, it happens sometimes. Sometimes, Collin, you just have to record a podcast episode at 1030 and Sunday night, and it gets released Monday morning. It's just a thing that's just the

Collin 29:26

thing that happens, happens to you. These things do happen. Oh my gosh, so we talked about those things that happen in your mind, where you hear a phrase and then you just have to say the rest of the phrase that you're connected to do. Okay, in the movie Phantom of the Opera, the lead singer lady, after something collapses during practice, and the guy comes up, and he goes, "These things happen. The lady says, "These things do happen. If these things keep happening, this thing, and she points to herself, "will not happen, and she walks off. "Will not happen. Not happen, I love it so much. So, yes, I've

Brandon 30:03

had two during this conversation. It's been very hard for me to not break out the song. When you say what's going on, I want to be like I said, hey, and every time you, every time you say MC, I think about which is three MCs and one DJ from the Beast boys, right? That's what I guess.

Collin 30:21

Oh my goodness, great. No, it's fantastic. Yeah, sorry. No, I, my, my, my article.. I won't do too much naval gazing here, because we have a lot to work through in our book. This will be the last thing I talk about. My boy, no, my my article this week was about I started telling the story of taking my ornithology class in college, and how, yeah, it was, I loved going to it, but I sucked at identifying birds because they didn't stand still, and I was really frustrated by that, but why did I keep going back? Who is my professor? My professor, who's fantastic.. blah blah blah. He made it contagious. He made us want to engage, and he really brought out curiosity in everybody around him, which is something that we need to do as a business owner who's building a culture of people who want to be engaged, and blah blah blah blah blah. And then this was on my mind because Noah had gone birding with a group of people because we had a native prairie conference in our little town where people from all over the state came and gave presentations and talks throughout the day, and they also did field excursions, but Noah had gone and done this, and he loved it. He absolutely loved being out there. Now he didn't see anything, and it was rainy, and he walked through a field in flip flops, because we weren't prepared for a hike through a prairie. We thought we were just going to like stand there, and so it was.. it was, why was he? Why was he excited? Well, it wasn't like backing this up, it wasn't just that the people there were excited because they were, they were picked because they were excited, it was because somebody took the time to organize the space to be excited, so that could be contagious for other people, and that's our role as business owners, building a team and monitoring our culture, and this was that was my whole loop of starting with mall, went to culture building, touched on Noah, and ended with what we're supposed to do. That's the kind of thing that I'm more trying to contain, right? Yes, my container, that's a

Brandon 32:40

wondery. Yeah,

Collin 32:42

yeah. And I don't know, I.. I.. anyway, I typically have, like, when I sit down to write what I have to do. I don't know. I don't know. Are you like this, where it's like, before I write anything, I have to have the title? Am I.. am I weird like that?

Brandon 32:56

Oh no, I usually.. I save the title for me later, because sometimes my title is related to what something I said later on, so like I used to, I don't write things like that anymore, but I used to do like, like, like a working right, just so that I would know what it is, but I would save the title for later. I do usually do the title last, because I like, do the whole thing, or even when I do presentations, right? Like, I do the whole thing, and then I like get the vibe, and then I think about what the title should be after it's done.

Collin 33:34

Yeah, I don't know, I tend to be like the title is going to be some weird, vague reference that you will make complete sense once you read the entire article. That's why you

Brandon 33:50

do it after.

Collin 33:51

No, no, because then I have to tie it in

Brandon 33:56

comes to you that way. There's not pressure too, because then if you like, oh, just title something random, you're just like, oh, it's blah blah, like it's fine, it doesn't matter.

Collin 34:07

No, no, I had an article that I titled board meeting, but it was B O R E D meeting, and

Brandon 34:18

was it about flooring by any chance?

Collin 34:19

No, no, it was not. It was not. Unfortunately, it was. It was actually about scheduling down and nothing time in your day to have a to be entire board, but I start off with Megan's and my board meetings, B O A R D, where it's like we're meeting to discuss business, and they're intense, and they last a long time, and it's very like, but to also schedule the board meeting, so that's. Like, yeah, a lot of my stuff

Brandon 35:02

usually, if I'm working on it, it just says it's like, insert title here, or like, sure, working title, like it's what it says. This will change later.

Collin 35:10

Oh,

Brandon 35:11

yeah, so sometimes I put something, but like, like I said, sometimes it's just for, like, so I can remember what it's about, like, oh, okay, it's this, but yeah, I usually wait till the end. Hey, you know what? Speaking, I wonder if Orson waited till the end. Yeah,

Collin 35:30

okay, I wonder

Brandon 35:32

if Orson started with a title or not.

Collin 35:34

I know, so thinking about this title Ender's Game, is this making more sense to you, or like, are you used to getting clarity on titles coming from?

Brandon 35:46

Definitely,

Collin 35:47

yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not just, it's not just that, like, he is playing a game, but, but, but, no, but the world

Brandon 35:55

peace in the game,

Collin 35:56

he is a piece in the game, but also it's a game that he is playing, because it's endures apostrophe, it's possessive. Yeah, he's it's the weird

Brandon 36:06

fantasy game thing.

Collin 36:08

Oh my goodness. And

Brandon 36:09

then, yeah, okay, this, this book, like, took a turn, like hardcore, like we were going for, like clipped, really short little chapters to

Collin 36:20

yes,

Brandon 36:21

giant slog fests like

Collin 36:26

this month. Oh,

Brandon 36:26

it took me so long.

Collin 36:31

I was recently not ready for this. I was so not ready for this level of, like, okay, we're really sitting here, aren't we? Wow, yeah.

Brandon 36:44

Well, I mean, chapter seven was okay, right? The salamander chapter. This chapter flowed well to me. It made sense, you know. Mostly, it's a little bit long. Only had slight casual racism here, like, just like, oh, we're just gonna take all these stereotypes, just ramp them way up, right? Like, oh

Collin 37:07

well, they get better, I think. So

Brandon 37:09

he's like, that's true, it gets worse in chapter eight, but go in hard there, chapter seven, we just have some casual, like, he is Spanish, he is a fiery disposition, you see, like

Collin 37:21

lots of passion. Haha, yes, he's a very passionate man. Okay.

Brandon 37:29

Also, why is everyone naked all the time? What's happening? Why are we just.. why? What's going on? This was a bit of weird

Collin 37:35

information that was suddenly like, oh, that's just a thing, I guess. Okay, yeah, we're

Brandon 37:40

just naked, just hanging out.

Collin 37:42

Yeah, yep.

Brandon 37:43

Okay, anyway, yeah. So,

Collin 37:48

well, so we find out that Ender gets.. oh, well, first of the start. Transferred,

Collin 37:56

well, because Ale A wants the security code, because he's getting, he's seeing people get picked on, but he can't act. He tries to hack Ender, surprisingly, but can't, and like, show me. And so Ender's like, yeah, I'll show you, but they go back, and he can't get into his little desk booth thingy. Yeah, because, because he's confused, and LA is like, oh, you, you sat on this note, just like, yeah, transfer, okay, sure,

Brandon 38:29

yes. So he's being transferred up to a battle group, right, because, well, you know, because they're playing a game with Ender, so he's going up to the Salamander Army, right? So this is a battle group in the battle games thing, and they're just kind of like they are, they are winning games based on, let's just like sheer will, right?

Collin 39:00

They are

Brandon 39:02

brute forcing it, yeah. They're not really innovating, right? Is what Indra notices when he's watching them later on. They're not innovating anything, they're not doing anything remarkable, right? They are sticking squarely to like three tactics, and they are only doing those, and they are getting some wins here and there, right. They're just kind of consistent, right. They don't do anything crazy, they're just consistently doing the same thing, and they're just good enough, like individual soldiers or whatever, that like they're getting results from that. But it's not groundbreaking. Ender watches them play a few times, and he's like, "Okay, this is boring. I don't.. you guys suck, like,

Collin 39:44

yeah. And well, and he also runs into.. well, anyway.. Oh, oh, we completely skipped over. He returns to Heartland. This is hard.

Brandon 40:00

Parse all of there's so much,

Collin 40:02

so much going into feel like

Brandon 40:03

next week maybe we should read two chapters, like

Collin 40:06

yeah, we did not look ahead on this, your listener, so pardon us if we're, yeah, but before he gets this transfer, he's sad and mopey, a lay like says salaam or salaim, whatever to him, and Salam,

Brandon 40:21

he's peace, right? He's saying, like, peace, yeah. He's.. I don't know why they did my whole thing, right? I don't know why he didn't say Assalamu alaikum, right? Whatever. Well, because he's trying to be brief, because

Collin 40:32

it was.. because we're getting religious out here, so he's.. he's opening up a bit of himself, and there's confused in. so he returns to the game where he's attacked by wolf children on teeter totters. That's this part, is

Brandon 40:48

that this part

Collin 40:49

that is this part. Oh yeah, where he can't like get away, he can't play everything that he falls through. So he walks away, the wolf show up, but they've got the face of the children, and then he climbed, he has to

Brandon 41:05

kill the wolf children, like,

Collin 41:07

yes, yeah, oh, but he doesn't just kill them, is this it?

Brandon 41:11

No, no, he killed him as children, so they don't turn into wolves,

Collin 41:13

yes, yes, he does. Well, later I think we come back to, anyway, yeah, there, he doesn't kill

Brandon 41:20

them, he like

Collin 41:21

he has to drown them in the river. Is that this time he like

Brandon 41:24

leads them around, like there's a part of the monkey bar thing they like fall through. Yeah, and so he, there's like a hole and they can't like get over it, and so he just like he doesn't like physically harm them, like he doesn't like whack them with anything. No, he just keeps leading them like lemmings, and they just keep dropping through this hole and die,

Collin 41:43

but no, because then, then he, because they start reviving, so what he has to do, yeah, this time, as soon as the child hits, oh, is that okay? Oh, because he couldn't do it

Brandon 41:52

fast enough,

Collin 41:53

right? He dragged the body to the brook and pulled it in, and then it like sizzled away, and then he just, that's what he did, and I'm like, what? Because

Brandon 42:03

in video games, many - it's well-known video game thing, Collin, that a lot of characters can't swim, and they just instantly die.

Collin 42:09

Yes, because programming

Brandon 42:10

the avatar to swim is difficult, so they just die, right? Like, like,

Collin 42:17

but he can't. No swimming

Speaker 1 42:20

for you, John Marson.

Collin 42:23

He can't stay doing swim lessons for too long because he gets a report around the desk saying you're late, come quickly. And now he does, he has to go to the now he gets to the salamanders, and he meets who's the guy. Yeah, it's, it's Bonzo, right? Yeah, yes,

Brandon 42:46

he's the leader guy here.

Collin 42:47

Yes, he is. He is, and he also meets the girl, whoever she is, I forget who she is,

Brandon 42:55

Petra,

Collin 42:56

Petra, yes, Petra. So, so this is interesting, because we were wondering how they would handle the neck, like another female character, women's woman, whatever those are, yeah, like, okay, yes,

Brandon 43:13

so she's like the gun sharp shooter, she's like the shooter, yeah, she's like the best sharpshooter in the thing, so like there's a very weird thing here. We get introduced, mr. Bonzo is like super strict, right? Like super or bonso, sorry, bone, so he's like super rigid, right? Like, he's that's his, like, thing, right? Like, he's, he's all about order, and we learned he, like, to the detriment of, like, literally everything else, right? Just like, very rank and file, super strict, right? Petra is the gun, the he decides that he is going to take gunning lessons from her, because Bonzo is mad that he's there. He won't let him participate in the battles, right? He was like, you have to wait so many seconds, then you come in the door and you stay by the door, and you don't do anything, because you don't know our system, and we don't have time to teach you to plan, and we don't have time to teach you how to do anything, so you just stay over there in the corner, and we'll do the entire thing without you.

Collin 44:30

Yes,

Speaker 1 44:31

Andrew's like, whatever, I don't.

Collin 44:34

Okay. Well, and this leads to him later going well, if I can't practice like, and he's also picking up like how the tactics are bad and the loopholes, because

Brandon 44:50

he's watching them, he's

Collin 44:51

watching and he's learning, and he decides, well, I have to get better, so I need to go. I need to go practice, right?

Brandon 45:04

Yeah, is

Collin 45:05

that.. it's that, my goodness, yeah. I don't.. there's a lot that happens here where he's practicing, yeah, and

Brandon 45:11

that's here. Well, we'll just go for it. So he starts practicing with the launch crew people, yes, because there's a free time, right? There's like a.. there's a whole section of the day that's like free day,

Collin 45:22

yes.

Brandon 45:23

And Ender's like, well, I, they're not letting me practice with them, and he's like the most old, he's like most older groups don't mix with the launches, he's like, but that's not like an actual rule, it's not written anywhere. Yeah, nobody says I can't do that, and I'm basically one of them anyway, because I literally just left three hours ago. So I am gonna practice with them. He's like, I'm gonna go practice with them instead. So he goes, and he gets, he talks to Ali and Shin and some other people, and he's like, "Hey, I will, I want to practice with you because I'm watching some stuff, so I'll teach you what I'm seeing there, and then we can like workshop some stuff, right? We'll just mess around with it and see what we can figure out based on what I'm looking at. That's what they decide

Collin 46:22

to do, yeah.

Brandon 46:23

And a lot of the other groups don't like this plan.

Collin 46:26

No,

Brandon 46:26

his leader, Bonzo, is super mad, and he's like, "Bro, you can't tell me to not do it, you know, whatever. He's like, "I'm gonna do it anyway. So they have like a whole conversation in the hallway, he's like, he's like, "Yo, look, bud, you're gonna look like a moron, and I'm gonna do this anyway. So, as

Collin 46:50

he realizes that his, his toon leader here has overstepped his bounds and authority by making the stupid rule that, that so, so Ender like tells him, "Hey, here's how we can save face with this. Yeah, right. And so Ender has to look dejected, so he's learning how to preserve, play the

Brandon 47:13

game,

Collin 47:14

play the game. He's giving the guy an out to be like, "Yeah, how about you? Just how about instead of trying to enforce this, you say that you changed your mind, okay? And then, but I still look like sad, and he's like,

Brandon 47:31

I'll pretend you won this argument, but you're gonna change your mind tomorrow. He's like, because you cannot control my free time, it's not allowed, and I will turn you in for that. He's like, I'll take lots of stuff. I will not allow you to control my free time. I'll listen to you every other time, except for when he doesn't. But

Collin 47:53

yes,

Brandon 47:53

that's coming later. He's like, I'll listen to you every other time, but you cannot control my free time.

Collin 48:00

Yep, yep, and and he's like, okay, but he has one rule, he said, you, when you're in the battlefield, you cannot draw your gun, and this is a weird one, where this, I do have to touch on this, because it comes back in the subsequent chapters of Ender, somehow, I guess, like stumbles upon, will attack the enemy feet first. Yeah,

Brandon 48:26

so what's happening here is because he, what he's doing is, whenever you get shot with a gun, it freezes your limb, right? But you're not out, that's why, that's why you hold your arm straight out with the gun, because even if your arm gets frozen, you could still turn, and you could still fire at stuff.

Collin 48:44

Yeah,

Brandon 48:45

right. That's why they tell him to do that. So, what he's doing is he's, he's like kicking off the wall, and then he's like flipping around, so he's going feet first, but he's like scrunching his feet, he's kind of like balling up,

Collin 49:00

yes,

Brandon 49:01

right. So he's using his legs as a shield,

Collin 49:05

yes,

Brandon 49:05

right. So they shoot him in the leg, he's like tucking his legs up, kind of like in a crouch, almost. And then he's firing, like he's, he's like he's like at a sitting position, like if you're sitting on the floor, almost,

Collin 49:17

yes,

Brandon 49:18

right, kind of. And he's got his legs in front of him, so he's moving around like that, because if they shoot him in the legs, oh well,

Collin 49:26

yeah, right, he's like, I

Brandon 49:27

don't care,

Collin 49:29

yeah,

Brandon 49:30

I can still shoot you,

Collin 49:32

yes,

Brandon 49:32

so he's, he's going feet first to like use his own body as a defense, because he's not out unless they hit him in the chest, so by tucking his legs up and kind of hiding behind them, they, he's making the target small, and they can't hit him in the chest and get him out.

Collin 49:50

Yeah, right. So this

Brandon 49:51

is his like iteration on this plan. Yes.

Collin 49:53

Now, now, this leads to an interesting fact in that during this first skirmish he gets. Hit in the legs in this frozen, and then he just decides to drift, because he's like, well, I'm not gonna pull my gun, and the Condors end up winning, but because of a weird.. he's not,

Brandon 50:12

yeah,

Collin 50:14

because he survived the scoring

Brandon 50:15

system,

Collin 50:16

in the scoring system he gets like put all the way to the top of the leaderboard for whatever, whatever, and this, well,

Brandon 50:23

it's like his, like, kill, like injury ratio, or whatever. Yes, he didn't fire any shots, but he also didn't get out, so like he's at 100% right.

Collin 50:32

There we go,

Brandon 50:35

and so yeah, the leader is really mad at that, and he's like that, whatever, he's like, he told me not to, you know, whatever, he's like, I could have done it, it's fine, you know, it's whatever, um, so that leads us to this next one. Also, Ender has turned seven, by the way, that just happened randomly, as is this the one where he's.. I can't remember.

Collin 51:14

Oh, this is the one where he actually fires, because he basically. for whatever. okay,

Brandon 51:21

yeah, that's what happened here.

Collin 51:22

Yeah, he's climbing the ranks of, and he's sitting way up there. None of the other team pays any attention to him, for whatever reason. I don't know, because

Brandon 51:30

he's just sitting in the corner, not doing,

Collin 51:31

yeah, he's not sitting. You would think, at least, like, go try and, like, hunt him down for this, so that he would stop climbing. Yeah, whatever, that's what it's what. So now he actually, I think it's also

Brandon 51:40

because there's like no, there's no like visual distinction that he's out, right? There's not like a flag, right? There's no like marker on him that says you're out, so if he's just like sitting there, not moving, floating, they're just like, oh, he's out, right?

Collin 51:56

Yeah,

Brandon 51:57

so he's like, they're losing like really bad, and then they're going, the other team is going to, you have to like go through a gate on the other side to win, right, to like capture the point, or whatever, and so there you have to apparently there's like a square, and in order to win the game, you have to touch every corner of the square, so you need at least four people alive, or then one person to go through the square. So, yeah, I need five people alive. Fine game,

Collin 52:30

I think,

Brandon 52:30

is what happens. So, it's like a big square, it's like a big door. And so Ender's like floating across the room, and they're lining up to push the thing, and he just is like screw it, bat, bat, he just starts firing at him, yeah, and he hits like three,

Collin 52:46

yeah, he froze through the shoulders,

Brandon 52:48

and so they can't open the door, so it's a draw, so like nobody wins,

Collin 52:54

yep,

Brandon 52:54

but you know they didn't lose, and his commander dude is so mad,

Collin 53:01

well, and what's interesting, because he

Brandon 53:03

didn't follow the order,

Collin 53:04

he didn't follow the order, he didn't

Brandon 53:05

follow the order,

Collin 53:06

but also Ender notes that nobody knows that Bonzo would gave him this order, so everyone thinks, yeah, it was like a tactical, like genius move on his, yeah, like he was

Brandon 53:21

playing like lame, like a lame duck, right? Like,

Collin 53:24

yes,

Brandon 53:25

yeah. So, so everybody thought it was cool, but Bonzo knows, and he was so mad, like, you know, and he's like, they start like arguing about stuff, and he's like, I like the part where he's talking to himself, he's like, "What if I learned for you, anyway? How to fail? Meh, that's all you know, Bonzo. How to fail with style? What have I learned? Nothing. Yeah. Oh, he's like, "I learned how to use my legs as a shield, right? Oh, and he learned that a small reserve held back until the end of the game can be decisive, boom, and soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given,

Collin 54:08

boom.

Brandon 54:09

I think this is a thing that happens in a lot of novels, right? In wartime scenarios, because, like, the orders are coming from somewhere far away, and the people on the ground, have like more up to the second intel, right. We saw some of this in, in our Hemingway novel, right, where he talked about this a little bit. He's like, these people have no idea what's going on because they're not here, they're not looking, seeing what's happening, you know, they're just saying, like, attack a mountain, haha, no,

Collin 54:40

you and what army, and yeah,

Brandon 54:43

it's a little bit of that, right? I kind of made me think about that a little bit.

Collin 54:46

Well, even after this, he gets traded. What Bonzo had been wanting to do all along was trade Ender, and yeah, weirdly, man. Us like on his way out he like beats up Ender for disobeying and he tries to basically say he's saying it loudly he's punching him and Ender was basically going you fool you have destroyed what you've built here because I helped us win, and you're punishing me, and you're punishing me. What do you think this is gonna do to rest it? But, but he goes, 'Whatever, I'm out. So that's that's.. we're all good.

Brandon 55:29

Yeah, he's like, 'I don't care, I'm leaving. Oh, do whatever you want doesn't matter to me anymore. So we get a.. we get a big compare and contrast, right? Because now we go to the Rat Squad, which is their commander guy is just like the exact opposite of Bonzo, right? He just sits there and he's like, yeah, whatever, like the place is a mess, right? There's really no, or people doing whatever they want, right? They're just kind of all over the place, right. Well,

Collin 56:10

a portion, so right.

Brandon 56:13

Oh, that's true, except for this other guy, Mink, right? His name, oh, Dink,

Collin 56:19

Dinker, Dinker,

Brandon 56:21

that's why he's there, so one of the.. he's like the lieutenant, or whatever, I don't even know, but like he is a little more with it, and so Ender has been assigned to him,

Collin 56:36

yes,

Brandon 56:36

right, inside to him, that is after about three paragraphs of like crazy Jewish stereotypes and strange things here, which is weird, but whatever.

Collin 56:50

Rose the nose, Rose the nose. Yeah,

Brandon 56:53

yeah, his name is literally Rose the nose.

Collin 56:56

Why would they have that name for a Jewish character? I couldn't possibly. Yeah, I don't know why. So we weird, so can't imagine,

Brandon 57:07

yeah, so weird. Anyway, enough of that

Collin 57:13

horrible, but basically Dink is like Dink, he sees the brilliance, and he's like, yeah, I wanted you on my team, so you know I know you're not going to be the best, but let's, let's work together.

Brandon 57:28

Yeah, he's like, I'm willing to risk it to do something new, because he's like, he's basically like, I'm not going to be the boss, boss, right? He's like, that's not really my thing, but like, I can try to do this, right? So they try to teach Ender tries to teach everybody in Dinkel squad the feet first attack maneuver, right, and they're all like, we're gonna learn from some launchy blah, this is lame. And then, so Dink, like, makes them practice it, and they hate it at first, and then they're like, actually, they kind of get the hang of it, and they're like, "Oh, okay, it's not bad, right? It's fine, you know. And it's also harder to shoot. They also learned it didn't really click for them when they were attacking, but it was when they were defending against it. They were like, "Oh, I get it now, right? Because they were like, well, it's really hard to shoot them when they're like this, and he's like, aha, yes, see, that's what I'm saying to you.

Collin 58:28

Everything clicked, yeah,

Brandon 58:30

it did a little bit. That's when they, that thought was interesting, like that. They didn't really understand the plan whenever they were attacking, they were trying to attack that way, and they didn't really get it, and they didn't really figure it out. It wasn't until they saw it from the other direction, when they were being attacked like that, that they were like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I see what's going on here. They had to, like, look at it from a different point of view, right? So, so that was that, and then they still practicing with the

Collin 59:03

launches, any other

Brandon 59:04

people, right? And then we get, I don't remember why this happened. Oh, now the Ender is like involved in the battle, they're like, aren't you worried about your score going down? He's like, no, I don't care about the score, that's not important. I don't care what that, I don't care about the leaderboard. That's dumb, right? So, so they do this, and then there is, why does he do this, right? I don't remember why he does this. He, like, makes him just like go out first, right? He's

Collin 59:45

trying to punish Ender, basically being like, why don't you get out of the way, we'll get you out first, and it's a.. it's.. I think it's just a.. to humiliate Ender, like, whatever, we'll just get you out right away, as opposed to the. Bonzo's idea of making him sit in the

Brandon 1:00:02

corner, right?

Collin 1:00:03

It's a what gets you out of the way, so, so, but the intent is, oh, Ender says, yeah, and I'll shoot towards the direction they're coming, and he's like, yeah, you're not going to last at all, and he gets, he goes out there,

Brandon 1:00:20

yeah, and so he does that. Yeah, that's.. I couldn't remember why. I was trying to find the part why it doesn't. And so he just like, instead of because what normally happens is everybody comes out, they get set up, they get in their spot, and then they start shooting.

Collin 1:00:33

Yeah,

Brandon 1:00:34

right. So Ender just goes, 'Oh, you're gonna make me go out first, huh? Okay, and he just want. he flings himself,

Collin 1:00:42

yes, as

Brandon 1:00:44

hard as he can at the enemy, and he just starts shooting, and they're coming out the door all slow, and he's just like, and he like slams into the wall, and he spins around, and he's already behind them all, where they're getting in their little formation, and he's just like takes out a bunch of them before they get, he froze three, disabled two, and damaged seven. Right, yeah. There was no more talk about insubordination. Yeah. Oh, it's about the desk, yeah, or whether Andrew could use his desk, right? Because he told

Collin 1:01:16

him to not do his schoolwork, basically the work he

Brandon 1:01:20

said, "Use your desk, and he's like, "I have to use my desk for school, and he's like, "I told you not to use your desk, and he's like, "Shut up, because,

Collin 1:01:28

because Dink was like, 'Oh, he only has much, as much power over you as you, as you give him, so don't give him any power.' He's

Brandon 1:01:37

like, "Oh, okay.

Collin 1:01:37

He's like, "Oh, yeah, I can do that, and so he just goes, yeah, whatever, and he quickly learns, oh no, you're right, I don't have to do what he tells me to do,

Brandon 1:01:48

yeah, because he doesn't care, really, he just wants to look like he's in charge, he doesn't actually do any in charge things, right, whereas the Bonzo, he was doing all the in charge things, but he didn't actually look like he was in charge, right, yeah, like, or he looked like he was in charge, but he wasn't really doing anything, and this guy doesn't,

Collin 1:02:05

yeah,

Brandon 1:02:06

really do anything, he just wants to look like it. So, but the end of that section is interesting. It's like more battles this time. Ender played the proper role within the tune, he made mistakes, skirmishes were lost, he dropped from first to second in the standings, and then to fourth, and then he made fewer mistakes and began to feel comfortable when his new framework and he went back up to third and then second and then first

Collin 1:02:27

took him a little while but there he was yeah

Brandon 1:02:32

well he figured it out right

Collin 1:02:33

yeah so

Brandon 1:02:34

then we have a little side with Dink and he's talking about like why don't you be commander he's like I did they ask me? I turned him down, because I don't care. Like, well, no, it's not

Collin 1:02:45

that. It's that he sees through the lies, man. He sees that all this is.. oh, that is true. We get that content is,

Brandon 1:02:54

though, that is true, right? He's like the real enemy here is the teachers. Oh, is this where we first start getting the, like, I don't even think there are any butters, man. I just think,

Collin 1:03:04

yes, no, is that where

Brandon 1:03:06

we are here? Yeah, he

Collin 1:03:06

says they're just using it for a power play, so that they can control us, because if, as soon as they learn, because the American hegemony, right? Okay, but like, I see where this is heading. Well, I mean,

Collin 1:03:23

basically, look at

Brandon 1:03:26

this current state of the geopolitical landscape of the world in 2026

Collin 1:03:35

Geopolitical hegemony is our title, anyway, kind of thing. It is, it is a thing, and, and basically, he's like, as soon as they discover that it's not real, they lose all that control, so they have to keep it up. And so, what's even the point? And, and then Ender's like, well, then why don't you go home? And he goes, what? Because I like this. I mean, it is

Brandon 1:04:00

the kind of dilemma, right? Like, this is the thing that happens when you soldier for a long time, right? Like,

Collin 1:04:09

yeah, it's all.. it's your..

Brandon 1:04:10

that's what you do, you are soldier, and then, like, when you leave the structure, it's very disorienting, right? Disorient, yeah, disorienting. So, like, even here he knows it's wrong. This is what I was talking about a little bit the other day. I was like, why do we not know what the buggers are doing? How come we don't know what's happening? Oh, maybe they're, yeah, like they're far away, nobody's here. Like, are they still there? We don't know. And so this has been so long ago that he started to think, like, there aren't they're not even there, like it's not even a real threat, like what is even happening, like we're just making up threats to get people all riled up, so that we can do things like give more power to the TSA. What, excuse me, like right? So, yeah, so that is his little take on this, so that, but that is his other problem. He's like, well, I don't want to stop because I don't know what else I would do, like he's invested so much of himself already,

Collin 1:05:12

yeah,

Brandon 1:05:12

into doing this that, like, well, what's he gonna do now? Like, if this is taken away from him, what's he have?

Collin 1:05:18

Yeah,

Brandon 1:05:18

you know exactly. So, like, 22

Collin 1:05:22

some status too, right? Like, at least up there,

Brandon 1:05:25

yeah. And then we have a, yeah, this is it. There's like people, there's some, some of the older boys don't like the evening free time practice that they're doing.

Collin 1:05:45

Yeah,

Brandon 1:05:45

that the hinder and the kids are doing, and so they're like starting to come and like yell at them and like make fun of them, and blah blah blah, harass

Collin 1:05:53

the line. So

Brandon 1:05:54

kids harass them, so that some of the kids aren't showing up anymore, and so. and there's like whatever, I don't care, and then they try to fight them, right.

Collin 1:06:05

Well, it's, it's because the older kids are launching some, or they're taunting the kids, and so the kids turn their taunts into like jingles, yeah, and they start

Brandon 1:06:16

like singing them back to them,

Collin 1:06:17

back to them, which goes over real well. Oh yeah, and they decide that they're coming after them, and this is not - this isn't playtime anymore. This, they mean them bodily harm, as put right there. He goes, some meant to break bones. Ah, okay. The

Brandon 1:06:38

suits were designed for wars fought with harmless light. They offer little protection and seriously hampered movement if it came to hand to hand fighting.

Collin 1:06:46

Yeah, right. So

Brandon 1:06:53

he, this part was interesting too. He said that half of the boys had been like hit, so they were, they couldn't fight back because they were frozen. He's like, but this stiffness actually made them potentially useful. Like, he grabbed one of the kids and used him as a missile and like flung him at this other kid in

Collin 1:07:15

the stomach with a frozen get, like it was great, fantastic,

Brandon 1:07:22

super funny. It was like the mockery was over. The older boys all launched themselves out there, and so they did some like crazy maneuver things, and there.. and there was like, okay, we're gonna lure him out to the middle, and then we're gonna zip around him and go to the door. Bye.

Collin 1:07:40

Yeah, he then, but this almost

Brandon 1:07:44

works,

Collin 1:07:46

but because he tried to do some maneuver, he instead gets launched himself over towards where the rest of the bigger guys are, and he's headed straight for them.

Brandon 1:07:55

Well, it's because he, like, he goes to the Q kid that he threw out there, the kid that he uses a missile, he goes over and he grabs that kid, and then he, when he hits him, he spins him around and flings him towards the door, right, and so that's how Ender ends up in kind of the wrong spot, because he miscalculated, uh, kind of where he was going to end up, right, his speed was not what he hoped it would be, and so he was like, "Dang, but luckily he just like they grabbed a hold of him, but he just reached out and kicked him super hard, and that,

Collin 1:08:38

yeah,

Brandon 1:08:39

threw him backwards hard enough that he could do that, so he scoffade through some very crazy stuff. Well,

Collin 1:08:51

yeah, but but so Ender, Ender has yet again used violence to solve a problem. Does he feel good about this? No, no, no, no. He's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm just.. again. He's just like, "Whom, Peter? He's just like, "Oh yeah,

Brandon 1:09:08

oh yeah,

Collin 1:09:09

coming back to.. he can't get.. oh yeah. And that's where

Brandon 1:09:12

we get, yes, because we get this driven into our skulls, because he goes back into this stupid game thing, and he goes.. he's at the end of the world, and he finds the castle, and he goes up there, and he's like, "Oh, well, I can get out of the castle, because if I just kill this snake, I can use it as a rope, and I could climb down. But when he kills a snake, he turns around, and then there's like a Peter in the mirror with blood dripping off of him, and snakes biting him. No, no,

Collin 1:09:39

there's like tail hanging out of Peter's mouth, and that's when he takes the.. he dies once, and then he takes the rug that turned into a snake, and then bashes that into the mirror. He throws it at the

Brandon 1:09:52

mirror. Yeah, yeah, he throws it at the mirror, and the mirror shattered. And then a dozen little snakes came out. Started biting into all over the place, and then he died again, and he was like, "Bam, turn off computer. That's weird. What the heck?

Collin 1:10:06

Aha. Oh, real quick, before we get to this, starting one of the things that Dink told him was that the enemy aren't the other kids, the enemy are the teachers, because they're trying to make us hate each other, and they're controlling everything. That's true. Yeah, and one of the things that happens after.. sorry, I just flipped a page and saw this, and I wanted to comment on this. I

Brandon 1:10:26

find

Collin 1:10:27

one of the things about the accident, or the attack in the battle room, is that later the report comes out to.. and what is explaining the injuries was quote accidental collision in null G and Enders, like, yeah. Well, that is obviously a lie. And, but then he thinks he goes, aren't they going to do anything, because, like, don't they? Don't they care about what goes on in this school? And he's starting to get that doubt, that seed, and he talked about that, yeah, once from what ink was talking about, and so from that we start getting into the snake, getting into the mirror, and he signs off, and anyway, I just, it was a very interesting transition of this, like they, what else is going on here, and then, of course, the imagery of a snake, and the imagery, yeah, and Peter

Brandon 1:11:22

again. He's like, I'm not Peter, I don't have murder in my heart. And then a worse fear that he was a killer, only better at it than Peter ever was.

Collin 1:11:32

Yes,

Brandon 1:11:33

and it was this very trait that pleased the teachers.

Collin 1:11:37

Yep, it's

Brandon 1:11:38

killers they needed for the bugger war. It's people who can grind the enemy's face into dust and splatter their blood all over space. He's like,

Collin 1:11:48

but and

Brandon 1:11:49

then,

Collin 1:11:50

well, but sorry, I was gonna say a weird thing is happening here, where the other commanders are seeing that this is going on, and they want their people to be practicing with Inder in this off time too, and so they send the their team to, oh yeah, at first to protect them, but then, like, nobody else shows up to combat them, and so they just now people from different groups are practicing together, is that right? Or is they, yeah, that's kind of

Brandon 1:12:22

what happened here at the free time. That's kind of what's going on here. And I think that that comes out a little bit more in one of the chapter nine is a holy, yeah. So that they do, they're they are practicing with other people, though. So that's nuts. Yeah. Chapter nine, we go back to Earth. We go outside.

Brandon 1:12:50

This chapter was long and drawn out and weird, right? Basically, in case you were wondering if Peter was still a sociopath, the answer is yes. Answer is yes. And how would we know this?

Collin 1:13:06

How do we know this? Because

Brandon 1:13:07

he's killing and murdering squirrels in the woods.

Collin 1:13:09

Yes,

Brandon 1:13:10

torturing squirrels by reading about Vlad the Impaler, apparently, and fileting alive the squirrels and watching them die slowly because he's a lunatic, but he is turning his attention not to harm people physically, but he wants to cause harm mentally and emotionally, right.

Collin 1:13:38

Well,

Brandon 1:13:39

Collin, Peter, Peter has been on the internet in 2026

Collin 1:13:43

He's been on Fortune somehow. He,

Brandon 1:13:46

that this is, that's what I was gonna say. I was like, Peter is a chan guy. Holy Peter, listen to like Nick Fuentes, right? He watched a bunch of Andrew Tate videos, okay? Now he's just like

Collin 1:14:04

ready, one of those

Brandon 1:14:05

crazy, insane, like right-wing, like extreme internet trolls, that's his. He's even doing, he's even invented a fake identity,

Collin 1:14:18

he has right, and he's dragged

Brandon 1:14:20

poor Valentine into all this because he needs somebody else to like combat with the internet space. Yes, and so he wants to control who that person is, and so he's forcing Valentine to do that. He's like making her say certain things, and he's just taking the opposite position, because he's saying, like, we can plant the seeds and just start saying these things, and then, like, like, uh, we can get other people to listen slowly over time, they'll agree with us, and we can change the world that way.

Collin 1:14:57

Well, because he's like, because you're like, right. Her and I'm, I'm such a whatever, I don't know, good

Brandon 1:15:06

manipulator,

Collin 1:15:07

yes, right, yeah, but,

Brandon 1:15:09

but, but, but Peter is just like red pill, like it's hardcore, right? We

Collin 1:15:16

also know he's not talking

Brandon 1:15:17

about, like, yeah, go ahead, he's

Collin 1:15:20

gonna say we also know this because he is tracking troop movements through watching the train system,

Brandon 1:15:27

yeah, yeah, a totally normal thing to do

Collin 1:15:31

with your

Brandon 1:15:32

totally normal people do every day, yeah, when you're 12 years

Collin 1:15:35

old,

Brandon 1:15:36

right, yeah, right, and so I think also in this chapter we find what was changed because he's talking about like the Warsaw Pact number two.

Collin 1:15:48

Oh my gosh, right.

Brandon 1:15:49

Apparently Russia, Russia controls all of Europe, right. Basically, that's what I learned here. So, like, basically what's going on here is Peter has arrived at the same conclusion that Dink did about there not being a bugger threat.

Collin 1:16:09

Yeah,

Brandon 1:16:10

right. And so Peter's like, "Hey, as soon as that threat's gone, he was like, "We'll have to, but Peter's like, "Hey, when that threat's gone, we'll just have to focus our war efforts somewhere else. Why not the Russians? So he's like, I'm just saying that this again, this is what intellectuals in 2026 say. Just ask, I don't know. Thanks, Orson Scott Card, for inventing this right for saying, like, I'm just saying that maybe we should think about this, like, come on, is that not every bad internet take you've ever heard in your entire life? Like, oh guys, I'm just saying, like, maybe it's blah blah blah, and there's like half of a good point in there somewhere, but then it extrapolates to something like so insane that you can't give credit to the good point, it was halfway there originally, because all valid, you can't endorse, you can't, you can't endorse the end point, right? It started good, but there's one true, you started okay, but we took a turn somewhere, ended terrible. I bet Peter believes in Tartaria, that's what I'm saying. Oh, 100%

Collin 1:17:22

Terry. Nobody

Brandon 1:17:23

does. Nobody believes in Tartaria. Like this chapter is insane. Like, Peter is nuts. Peter is a 2026 like extreme right-wing internet troll. Like, he is on chan, right? He is watching all these crazy dudes like say things on the internet, right? Like, you're like, "What are you talking about? Like, those aren't real words, like, "Stop. You know,

Collin 1:17:52

he's, you know, emotionally manipulating Valentine, and yeah, with the, like, is he really sad, or is he just doing this, and I love how they like have to now post under pseudonyms, which is fantastic, because they, they are now trying to spread the idea, Brandon, they are now taking their ideas to to the plebes and really telling them how it really is, don't you don't you know, well, yeah,

Brandon 1:18:23

and they, they get the traction, like he realizes he's getting some traction, because they're monitoring the nets,

Collin 1:18:31

yeah,

Brandon 1:18:31

right, but their dad, like, brings it up at some point, right, and he's like, yeah, that person agrees. I think they're right, and Valentine's like, oh God, what have we done?

Collin 1:18:48

Yeah, yeah, he's like hearing your own theories come back to you,

Brandon 1:18:54

yeah, like I can't even remember what it was now, but like, because then we like drop, we like cut back later to Ender for a bit, like he just like shows up somewhere, but like yeah, he's you know these phrases are coming back and we're hearing this stuff, and Dad says something about the Russians, right? right, it's like oh my gosh, what

Speaker 2 1:19:22

about how they should, they're not abiding by the rules set forth by the Second Warsaw Packet. I'm just saying that, you know, we got to make, we can trust them over there, you know, like,

Brandon 1:19:39

yeah. Father, Father started reading it and quoting from it at the table. Finally, a man with some sense. And then he quoted some of the passages Valentine hated works in her own work. It's fine to work with these hegemonic Russians with the buggers out there, but after we win, I can't see leaving half the civilized world as virtual surf. In the Russian Empire, can you, dear, again, please remember that this novel was written in the closing stages of the Cold War,

Collin 1:20:09

Cold War, Cold War people.

Brandon 1:20:11

This is exactly, is exactly the American Cold War mentality.

Collin 1:20:17

Yeah,

Brandon 1:20:18

right, like, oh, like, oh, we, we can work. This is literally what happened in World War Two, right? We're gonna work with the Russians, the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. Once the Nazis are defeated, I don't know if we can trust the Russian to do

Collin 1:20:36

something with them over there.

Brandon 1:20:39

Yeah, right. Oh, we can't let Vietnam become communist. No, we got to step in. That went well, right? Like, this is the American Cold War attitude. Now, I say cold war attitude. We sort of just replaced the nouns in this sentence, and like, still the American geopolitical attitude. Yes,

Collin 1:21:05

nothing, nothing has changed.

Brandon 1:21:09

You just.. it's this exact same attitude. You just replace a few nouns in the sentence, and that's it, right? Boom, this is actually American geopolitics, for at least.. oh dear, let's see..

Collin 1:21:27

I mean, one or two years.. let's see, let's see.. I

Brandon 1:21:31

see one.. let's see.. when was a Monroe Doctrine, right? Like, this is like, so the guy,

Collin 1:21:47

if people are wondering, in case you didn't know, Monroe Doctrine was, what, early 1800s 18, what is that? Yeah, no, it's a while back, it's a long, it's been there, been there a minute,

Brandon 1:22:01

yeah, when was he president? I don't even know

Collin 1:22:07

18,

Brandon 1:22:08

yeah, James. He was the fifth president of United States, right? This is 17, was born in 1758 So, yeah, he was president in 1817

Collin 1:22:18

yeah. So, yeah,

Brandon 1:22:22

yeah. yeah, so there you go. Yes, the Mino doctrine basically says no foreign, no well, it says opposes any foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere.

Collin 1:22:36

Yes, yeah,

Brandon 1:22:38

that's a weird thing to say, like

Collin 1:22:41

in 1823 if you're,

Brandon 1:22:43

yeah, yeah, in 1823 it's a weird thing to say, because America's like 25 years old, but like when you say no foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere, right, so if you're a Brazilian person, that's a weird sentence to hear, because

Collin 1:23:07

because you're looking around going, wait a minute, I'm also foreign,

Brandon 1:23:13

yeah, I'm in this hemisphere, but you are both foreign to Brazil, what do you mean?

Collin 1:23:21

So, how do we

Brandon 1:23:24

do you mean?

Collin 1:23:25

Do we rectify these things? The

Brandon 1:23:29

Monroe Doctrine is a whole problem. We know. Okay, we know you want

Collin 1:23:34

it to be a problem. Oh,

Brandon 1:23:35

it is right. It is. It's a big problem. We talk about, we talked later about your boy Ike doing bad things in Central America, but not right now, beyond the scope of Ender. So, yeah, anyway,

Collin 1:23:51

Ender's now what he is getting accolades, people are respected. We've also, we

Brandon 1:23:56

just had, there's like a random time jump here too, like all of a sudden he's it's like he's at least eight now. No, at the age number

Collin 1:24:04

nine, he was a yeah, he's

Brandon 1:24:06

just, yeah,

Collin 1:24:08

yeah, he was still leading the soldier in the standings, and no doubted, no one doubted that he deserved it. Now, at the age of nine, he was a toon leader in the Phoenix Army with Petra Arcanyon as his commander. So, Petra has re-entered the thing.

Brandon 1:24:22

Yes,

Collin 1:24:23

he's still doing evening practice sessions two years later, but there you go.

Brandon 1:24:30

Ali was a being leader in other army. Dink finally accepted the command somewhere else, or of the rats, because Rose got kicked out, right? Or like, got demoted. I don't know,

Collin 1:24:43

and he's frustrated that he has too much respect.

Brandon 1:24:48

Yeah, but there's a point where Shin and Ali like make a joke, and Ender is like right there, but they don't joke with him.

Collin 1:24:56

Yes, and they're

Brandon 1:24:57

joking about things that he was at. Like he was there for the thing, for they're talking about the the big space battle with the older boys that happened in the last chapter, but was like several years ago, they're referencing that, and they're joking and hamming up about it, but they're not joking with Ender,

Collin 1:25:15

yeah,

Brandon 1:25:16

and Ender is like, "Bro, I was there, I was, I was, I know the joke,

Collin 1:25:21

yeah, and he's, he's basically realizing that he is slowly starting to be seen as an outsider, as well,

Brandon 1:25:30

and Ender realized that in their laughter, in their friendship, it had not occurred to them that he could have been included, yeah, right, so he is like, he has been basically by default given this like supreme leadership role that he didn't ever want, right? He never asked for it. It just sort of happened, right, for all this stuff, and he's just like annoyed by it, and he like doesn't like it, and he still doesn't know how to deal with this stupid fantasy land game, and it's driving him crazy, because he still goes back every once a while, and he still doesn't know how to get past the snake mirror of death,

Collin 1:26:16

so that's the other thing, real quick,

Brandon 1:26:18

and also the adults don't know why Peter is in the game. I love it. We call it gloss over that part. They're like, they're like, at the beginning we have all those weird things about the teachers talking somebody, and they're like, how'd that get in there? He's like, I don't know, I thought you put it in there. He's like, I didn't put it there. Yeah,

Collin 1:26:34

where did this picture come? How did it

Brandon 1:26:36

get him? It's too recent.

Collin 1:26:37

We didn't ask for this, and they were like, well, you know, the game just goes and gets what the game needs. It doesn't need any authorization, and they're like, "That's magic. Yeah, it

Brandon 1:26:47

has access to all. Oh, yeah, it has access to just like all the government files, and so if it needed something, it just, it just automatically requisitioned to get it itself, and it didn't. And this is where

Collin 1:26:57

we learned that suddenly what we think was a pre-programmed game with certain things, even though it's kind of weird. It's now like, well, the child in the game are making it up as they go along, and we get a little some sort of

Brandon 1:27:10

like it's a little like AI, right? It's like programming a response to what he does,

Collin 1:27:18

yes, see

Brandon 1:27:19

how he handles it,

Collin 1:27:20

yeah, right. And Ender, even I don't

Brandon 1:27:22

think the adults knew that, because nobody's gotten this far before

Collin 1:27:26

they're shocked. They're shocked, no one's made it past. Where is he? He's off the beaten path. He's a maverick. He's at the

Brandon 1:27:32

end of the world, literally. That's what he is. He's at the tower at the end of the world,

Collin 1:27:35

and, and even, even Ender, it's a little like, I don't know what to do anymore, because it used to be all about fighting and overcoming, and now there's like no wars and nothing bad is happening, and like dwarves are building a castle out of the rib cage of the giant. Yeah, like, okay, sure, yeah. Well,

Brandon 1:27:58

I took, I took part of this, like, I was thinking about this, like, he's talking about there's nothing, like, he, like, you said, there's no one to fight anymore, so, like, this kind of maybe is slightly allegorical for, like, or at least this is what I thought about, like, what happens when a war is over,

Collin 1:28:19

yeah,

Brandon 1:28:20

right, like, once the war is done, or the war ends, what then?

Collin 1:28:28

Well, he says,

Brandon 1:28:29

like, what do..

Collin 1:28:31

so go ahead.

Brandon 1:28:33

No, that's it. Go ahead.

Collin 1:28:34

No. Where he says, I'm trapped under thought, trapped at the end of the world with no way out, and he knew at last the sour taste that had come to him, despite all his successes in the battle school. It was despair, because basically he's like, because what is the end? Basically, the end result of all of the success is I'm left in a world that I don't recognize anymore. I don't, that I'm being trained to battle and to game and to teach to tease your eyes and all this stuff, and if I'm successful, if that's actually works, there's nothing on the other side of that for me, because I've done it all, and it goes, this is very weird coming from a nine year old, but whatever, but this is what you see, this is what he sees, yeah, that, that emptiness

Brandon 1:29:17

again, this is a little bit farewell to RZ, right? Like, what's the point? Like, what do we get out once this is done? What do we do? How do we rebuild our lives? How do you go on? Actually, it's a little bit Lord of the Ringsy, too, right? Like, how do you go on after the world has changed so much?

Collin 1:29:38

Yes,

Brandon 1:29:38

right. This is what Frodo was dealing with in a much better articulated way, like, like, what? How do you go on after everything that you know has changed and is different? How do you deal with it? How do you rebuild when. The foundations of everything that you knew were gone, right. And this is what Tolkien and Hemingway were both wrestling with in their own way, right? Like, what? How do you cover from the ashes, right? And that's sort of what Ender is getting at here in a much weirder kind of way, you know, yeah, so that's weird. And then the other plot of this is they go, the army dudes go down to earth to talk, they talk to Valentine, right, because they're like, yo, we need your help with your brother, and she's like, "Oh, crap, they know about beer, and he's like, "Enders struggling, and she's like, "Whoa, whoa, hold on,

Collin 1:30:56

uh-huh, yep,

Brandon 1:30:58

and she doesn't really. she's first of all, she's like, well, I don't know how to help Ender, because I haven't even seen him in three years, and I've written to him about 7000 times, and you guys don't let him get my letters, I know that, because he would have written me back if he would have gotten one, so I can only assume that you didn't give me Blair, and she's like, she doesn't want to help them, because she's like, I actually hate you, Army guy, because you ruined my family, and you did everything, and you suck, and he's like, I need, you're not helping me, you're helping Ender, and he's like, what does it matter if it also helps us, you know? And he, he takes this

Collin 1:31:48

and does say, he's like, oh yeah, Valentine says, well, I don't like questions about my family, just leave my family out of this, and he's like, I'm trying to, you're the only one that he loves and trusts above all, and I'd rather not sequester your family or question Peter, probably because I'm terrified of him. I don't want to go through all that stuff, just if you.. this is not a trivial matter, and I won't just go away.

Brandon 1:32:15

Yeah, she does tell him about Peter, though, right? She's like, he's like, what is Ender afraid of? And she says of Peter, or of being like Peter,

Collin 1:32:25

being like Peter,

Brandon 1:32:25

right? Right, that's what he's most afraid of, right? And he's like, well, how is Peter, and she's like, 'Yo, you know how Peter is. Well, it's actually worse than you think, but like, she tells about the squirrel thing. you know, and then that's when she says, like, no matter, because she says, I would, you know, go out to feed them and help them, it made them easier for Peter to get, and she was like, that's the problem, no matter what you do, it always helps Peter, everything helps Peter, everything, you can't get away, no matter what, right? Like, is Peter a very bad person? Yes. Like, is he the worst person in the world? And she's like, well, I don't know about that, but he's the worst person I know. Yeah, fair, right? So that's when he says Ender's mostly just afraid of being like him. She tells him about how he would talk about killing them when they were kids, and she doesn't want to write this letter, but we assume that she wrote this letter because they were like, "Yo, you're gonna write it either way, like you can either write a letter or we can write a letter and say it was from you. So we get a letter, we're gonna assume for now it's from her, but we don't know that for a fact. So she writes a letter, and Ender is very suspicious of this letter, but he, he said obviously it's, it's written with full approval of the teachers, but it was definitely written by Val because she, like, intentionally meant she, like, spelled words a certain way, right, and used a certain word for Peter, right, like the epithet here of that, and then so the way that it's written and the words that he chose, he believes that it's from her, right, so and then he does question why would they let it in, though. Right, even if she wrote it in her own blood, it isn't real because they made her write it. She'd written before, and they didn't let any of those letters through.

Collin 1:34:59

So, why no?

Brandon 1:35:00

Might have been real I

Collin 1:35:47

Oh no, I think

Brandon 1:36:52

Hello, hi,

Collin 1:36:54

hi, that was weird.

Brandon 1:36:56

Now, internet blips.

Collin 1:36:57

Oh, that's okay.

Brandon 1:36:59

Right, whenever I was getting ready to turn it off, like, I, it was like loading, and I was going to close the window, and then that's right when he came back on, so I was freaking out. Good,

Collin 1:37:08

good. Yeah, he, he's really.. this has thrown him into quite the tizzy here, because he's like, they're using this, obviously, he's they're using this against me, they're not going to like, they wouldn't have sent this otherwise, and he starts crying in his bunk, and everyone in the room is like, what is going on?

Brandon 1:37:33

Yeah, and he doesn't even care that he's doing it out loud now, right? Right, like four, he will always try to like hide it,

Collin 1:37:39

yep,

Brandon 1:37:40

and like, you know, like, not sure he was crying quietly because he was crying about like other stuff, and this time he was like, 'Nah, I'm just going for it. He's like, 'I don't care, like, it doesn't matter. He's like, so distraught that he's, can't, he's not even bothering to do it, right?

Collin 1:37:58

Yep, and, and with this, he's like, he's like, yeah, this letter, he's trying to figure out why they sent this, he's like, yeah, they must have asked for that, they know about Peter in the mirror, they know about my fear of him, they know about all this now, and yet he goes, he said he wasn't. I love that. He says he had only one memory that was safe, one good thing, and those that blank had plowed it into him with the rest of the manure, and so he was finished. He wasn't going to play, and he goes back to the game.

Brandon 1:38:33

Yeah, but then he goes to play this game, weird,

Collin 1:38:36

and and he, like, he kisses the snake thing,

Brandon 1:38:43

yeah, and it turns into Valentine,

Collin 1:38:45

yep,

Brandon 1:38:47

right,

Collin 1:38:48

yeah,

Brandon 1:38:51

right, and he's a little upset because he's like the snake couldn't be her because he killed it too often for it to be his sister, right, Peter had devoured it too often for Ender to bear that it might have been her all along, right, but as she gets up off the floor, he just like grabs her hand, and they just like the mirror opens, yeah, right, they like start hugging, and the mirror opens, and they start walking down the stairs,

Collin 1:39:24

and they had escaped it, broken, broken free of the end of the world.

Brandon 1:39:30

Yeah, and because of the tears, they didn't miss that every member of the multitude wore Peter's face. He only knew that wherever he went in this world, Valentine was with, or Valentine was with him.

Collin 1:39:39

Yeah,

Brandon 1:39:40

so okay, and then apparently that's good, because she gets a super secret letter delivered to school, right, where it's like we would like to award. You, the star of the Order of the League of Humanity. First of all, that's too many ofs in a sentence, but he's like, unfortunately, due to the ongoing war and the high security, you will not actually get this or be acknowledged as having received this award until such a time as the war is concluded, but you know, so

Collin 1:40:25

that's the thing, isn't it?

Brandon 1:40:27

And then they like, yeah, and then they're like, this message will self-destruct at 30 seconds,

Collin 1:40:32

it's so she burns it, she does. Well, the

Brandon 1:40:35

teacher, those counselor lady,

Collin 1:40:37

there you go, condolations, and and she takes this very well because she realizes she's like I sold out my brother because she sold a deep dark secret of his and basically she's like and this is my I've been bribed now they've paid me off for it so she goes back and as domestic things I whatever dim off I was reading

Brandon 1:41:01

this with, like, an ancient Greek pronunciation. I don't know Demosthenes, right? I don't know. Yes,

Collin 1:41:06

she's like, you know what, everyone shows many kids in the world, and you know what, the best title that you'd call anybody is third. Third would be the best title that anyone could ever possibly have, because she's, oh yeah, like her

Brandon 1:41:19

super populate the world, and that way that the people can be sent to other worlds all over the universe, and no invasion could ever threaten the human race ever again.

Collin 1:41:33

Yep, so go everywhere, and she writes

Brandon 1:41:36

this out of like her own heart, and Peter is like, oh yeah, that was awesome. That

Collin 1:41:42

was totally rad. Take Peter, Peter, he's doing it. He's doing the thing. Everyone's the

Brandon 1:41:51

thing where he's being a loser again. So, yeah. Holy cannoli, that was a lot. Um, yeah.

Collin 1:41:59

What are the next? I haven't even looked. There was a lot to take. Are the next chapters like that long as well?

Brandon 1:42:06

11 is

Collin 1:42:07

okay. I'm looking at right

Brandon 1:42:09

now, I'm flicking. 11 is quite long.

Collin 1:42:11

Okay, maybe I think we should do 10 and 11 next week. I think that would be.. I think,

Brandon 1:42:15

yeah, 12 is also kind of big.

Collin 1:42:17

Okay, we're gonna do 10 and 11 next week, so I can really, and

Brandon 1:42:21

13, yeah, I feel like I feel like that's good. I feel like I think we need to slow it down a bit, because there's a lot, like, all of a sudden, so

Collin 1:42:28

much

Brandon 1:42:28

like

Collin 1:42:29

going on here. There's

Brandon 1:42:30

lots of little like, and especially if we're gonna be going back and forth between things right now,

Collin 1:42:35

that really changes it, doesn't it? So, yeah, I agree, yeah, yeah,

Brandon 1:42:41

yeah, okay, I'm good with that, yeah,

Collin 1:42:44

thanks. Oh man, yeah, this is definitely the game is to be played. And who is playing the game? And what game are they playing? That's where we find ourselves something, something.

Brandon 1:43:04

Indeed, well, to end this off on a perhaps more or less confusing note, right?

Collin 1:43:14

Do

Brandon 1:43:16

you have a haiku for you? Ah, right, because I love extended metaphors. This is circling back to the beginning of the episode.

Collin 1:43:25

Oh, we call that call. What's up? Done for professional go.

Brandon 1:43:28

You love a callback. It's one of the hallmarks of the show. We all know and love it, right? I do this in my every conversation, and people think it's weird that I do that, but they not weird, but they're like, like when we're hanging out with a bunch of friends, like we've been hanging out for like several hours, I will reference things that we said like two hours ago, and they're like, "Yo, I'm professional, what can I say?

Collin 1:43:50

We make this work,

Brandon 1:43:53

all right. Here we go, a row of our keys since blending enticingly, how is one to choose?

Collin 1:44:10

Yes, apparently, apparently by how much grilled cheese is around there. No kidding. Yeah,

Brandon 1:44:19

that's really, yeah, which grilled cheese you want, you know, it's like five, six choices, what

Collin 1:44:24

that is perfect.

Brandon 1:44:27

Also, also, I would.. this was a not.. I was unexpected. Also, mango lemonade,

Collin 1:44:34

yo, yo, oh, that's a sleeper,

Brandon 1:44:39

not expecting they had like the big giant, you know, big giant bucket thing, lemonade, they have those,

Collin 1:44:45

yeah,

Brandon 1:44:45

and you can put whatever flavors you want in there, mango lemonade, that was a Susan special, so I recommend try it out,

Collin 1:44:53

I'm a big fan of mango lassis from my favorite Indian restaurants, and so have you ever, oh yeah. Yeah, yes, so that sounds right up my alley. I every, we go to with a little Indian, not van food truck, and if you, here's, if you order a lot of food, they will, like, they're very kind, they'll give you like extras, so they're, you know, so if you have a big order, they'll be like, "Hey, go ahead and take a mango lassi, and, and you know, some of these other stuff, and so I always like, "Okay, gosh, man, I'll talk

Brandon 1:45:31

me into

Collin 1:45:33

it. Absolutely nice, very good. Well, we will see what happens to Ender or not. Oh

Brandon 1:45:43

boy,

Collin 1:45:43

next

Brandon 1:45:44

order. Yeah, who knows? Not me, that's for sure. Holy,

Collin 1:45:48

and we will go from there. Yeah, okay. And potentially

Brandon 1:45:53

also Valentine and Peter, so with yeah, in

Collin 1:45:56

their global takeover through blogging, yeah. I love it. Well, we will reconvene next time.

Brandon 1:46:07

Don't ride.

Collin 1:46:08

Okay. Love you. Love you too. Bye, bye, bye.