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Episode 4: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Episode 4 already!?! We can't believe it either! This week we're talking subverting your government, assassin schools, terrible mothers, and rape culture in Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes. An Ember in the Ashes was fact paced, violent, and exceptionally amazing!
Content Warning for discussions of rape and child death.
Full transcript below or access the PDF version of the episode transcript
https://www.thelibrarycoven.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Episode-4-An-Ember-in-the-Ashes-edit-2.mp3
The Library Coven is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wea (Jessie)
The Library Coven {fka JK, It's Magic}
transition [00:00:12] [upbeat flute and string music plays].
kelly [00:00:12] Hello! And welcome to J.K. It's Magic. A bi weekly podcast in which two bookish besties read YA fantasy through a critical lens. Why? Because critique is our fangirl love language. And because talking about books is pretty magical. I'm Kelly.
jessie [00:00:25] And I'm Jessie.
jessie [00:00:26] And today we'll be discussing An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. The story of Laia, who unexpectedly becomes a spy for the resistance in order to save her brother and Elias, a member of the Empire's training school who's fighting to become the next emperor without becoming his mother.
transition [00:00:41] [jaunty string music plays]
jessie [00:00:46] Initial reactions.
kelly [00:00:48] I couldn't put this book down. I took a few, maybe a chapter two or two for me to get interested in it, but then I finished this book and started the second book A Torch Against the Night, and I finished that one pretty quick to, like, ignored my partner all day one weekend. [laughs] And I have A Reaper at the Gates, so I'm probably going to finish that. Also, in addition to the other books that we're reading for this podcast.
jessie [00:01:14] So you won't remember any of the books. But I'm going to get there [laughs].
kelly [00:01:18] I need to take notes. Yeah.
jessie [00:01:19] Yeah. Um
kelly [00:01:21] Can't stop. Won't stop.
jessie [00:01:22] Yeah. Despite how violent this was, it started out a little slow for me, even though we start the book with a child being beaten to death. Um, but I had trouble putting it down once it got started. Uh, there was a lot happening. I really fell in love with the characters. I cannot wait to read the next one. And I stayed up way too late finishing the book because I had to know what was happening [laughs].
kelly [00:01:48] Just like old times.
jessie [00:01:49] Just like old times. Like staying up all night to finish Harry Potter.
kelly [00:01:53] Exactly.
jessie [00:01:59] Let's start by discussing world building in Through the wardrobe. So I thought that it was a little weird that they used the empire in the resistance. I thought it was very Star Wars esque or Star Wars-y. um And at first it was kind of off-putting. But once I got into the book, it was fine. But that plus Laia's name was really like what?
kelly [00:02:24] It's not Leia.
jessie [00:02:26] It's not Leia, but it looks like "Leia" every time I read it and when I read it, I read it as Leia [both laugh].
kelly [00:02:32] I think it's interesting that the author took these loaded terms and employed them in the novel and clearly on purpose, like why it definitely was on purpose. And I think it's sort of an intellectual shorthand for the readers, too, because they can think of stories like Star Wars and then bring that background knowledge to the book. But then. But they think of the way those specifically Star Wars is a lot less complicated and that the empire is purely evil, the resistance is good, that sort of dynamic Tahir complicates that in the story, because we see that the resistance also uses people and that there are people affiliated with the empire who aren't entirely evil.
jessie [00:03:13] Yeah. Or they're really trying to change that like they don't want to be that thing. Um, and I really liked it wasn't it didn't feel like Star Wars when I was reading it, but those terms brought that to my mind like immediately. It's what I first thought of, even though I don't really like Star Wars. [laughs].
kelly [00:03:31] I fell asleep every time.
jessie [00:03:33] Yeah. Especially the Empire resistance ones. I've never I don't remember.
kelly [00:03:37] We don't know anything about Star Wars, listeners.
jessie [00:03:40] No, except for Kylo Ren [laughs]. [both laugh]
transition [00:03:47] [spellcasting sound].
kelly [00:03:47] The worldbuilding came across as very connected to the Roman Empire for me, and not just in the sense of this need to constantly expand and conquer and dominate. I also saw some connections in the more detailed aspects of the world building, like the names of the different groups and how they interact with each other. And bear with me because I'm going to do a little listicle. So we have the marshals who are the ruling group, ethnic group, questionmark. We'll talk about that in, um, one does not. Simply put, the marshals are divided into royal families, which are called the Illustrians, and then the plebeians, which I think the name speaks for itself. The the lower classes.
jessie [00:04:21] Yeah.
kelly [00:04:21] And the familiar names and snippets of culturally significant words that we hear are Latin or Latin derived like Gens Aquilla. I think that's how you pronounce that.
jessie [00:04:31] It's what I assumed.
kelly [00:04:32] Pater and Mater for each family figurehead Antioch is the capital city. The last name sounded like Latin derived. And then we have the scholars who are supposedly obsessed with knowledge. Their land is located to the south. They seem to be darker skinned. And that reminded me of the sort of Northern Africa Library of Alexandria sort of society. And the barbarians are to the north, which is also depicted as cold, and this is what the Germanic tribes were called for, the Roman Empire. And then even the Wildman further north and east, which could be like maybe the Celtic people from the British Isles because the Roman Empire also expanded that far. And I'm not saying this to like simply graft on empirical history onto the story, but I just thought it was– it made me nerd out. I thought it was fun to see the different connections.
jessie [00:05:23] I didn't know any of that stuff to you till you wrote it in the show notes. And I was like, oh, wow. Kelly really did. She did lots of research. And she knows I guess you already probably knew all these things a little bit because I didn't think of any of those things. [laughs]
kelly [00:05:37] I thought of it immediately when when I was like all the Mater and Pater the I Gens like, oh, maybe it comes from all the romance languages I speak, which are that's Latin derived.
jessie [00:05:47] Right. Because I was like gens. I don't know what that means.
kelly [00:05:50] Like gente is the word for people in Spanish.
jessie [00:05:53] Oooh.
kelly [00:05:53] So it's like a lot of different Latin roots. And I was like, oh, I see it
jessie [00:05:58] [laughs] Your study of language has come in handy.
kelly [00:06:00] It has.
jessie [00:06:01] Um. I thought this world did a lot of nature versus nurture, um, with Elias and Laia. As they deal with the legacy of their parents, Elias is trying to figure out like, is he going to be a, I'm going to say bad person, but is he going to become his mother because he's born from her or does having grown up with the tribesmen– and does that change like who he'll become as an adult? And then we see it with Laia with her parents. For some reason, she identifies more with her mother than her father, and she thinks it's important to be brave, like her mother, um,.
kelly [00:06:40] Who is called the lioness.
jessie [00:06:42] Yeah. And she wasn't raised by her mother for most of her life. So she she's also kind of struggling with, um, like who she'll be as a person, as a descendent of her mother. So I thought this book dealt a lot with the question of are we destined to become our parents? And what shame, if any, should we have for their actions? Because we see both of them dealing with the good and the bad things that their parents did and whether or not they bear any responsibility for that.
kelly [00:07:10] Yeah. And whose responsibility it is then moving forward, like as far as healing, I don't know if anyone's thing about healing. They're probably just thinking about overthrowing the empire at this point. But yeah. Who has. I guess like looking forward, who's going to be the main force turning the wheel, like who's actually going to be in charge,.
jessie [00:07:28] Which is interesting because it's so opposite of Children of Blood and Bone [by Tomi Adeyemi] where they're trying to deal with, like, are the children the ones responsible for the healing that their parents caused? This book seems to the deal with it a little differently in that the children are directly taking on that healing process a little bit.
kelly [00:07:49] So I think there's more of it in children. But in bone, I think there is an identification, at least with Zelie and identification with the like her mom who died and wanting to be like her. And same with Laia.
jessie [00:08:00] Right.
kelly [00:08:00] She also identifies with her mother who died and wants to be like her mom. Versus Inan is trying like thinks he wants to be like his father and then things he doesn't want to be like his father. And then ends up going back to the dark side, to continue the Star Wars metafors. [jessie laughs].
kelly [00:08:14] And then Elias is trying super hard not to be like his mother. So we do have a similar tension about like who who are the aspirational figures in our lives and how are we going to determine how is that going to determine how we act?
jessie [00:08:25] Right. Yeah, your parents don't have to be who you want to become. And I guess we see that with Elias. He does not like that is his goal in life is not to become his mother, which is also kind of sad that he has such a bad mom.
kelly [00:08:40] She hates him a lot
jessie [00:08:41] She does hate him. She's awful. We'll talk about her in villans. [laughs].
transition [00:08:44] [spellcasting sound]
jessie [00:08:47] Speaking of his mother being awful, this book was so, so violent.
kelly [00:08:55] There are three exclamation points,.
jessie [00:08:58] [laughs] Yeah, it could really give Game of Thrones a run for its money, I think, which is saying a lot. And as a as a YA book, I am more and more surprised as time goes on how much more violent and sexual they become. I'm not sure it's a bad thing. It's just mature for an audience that ranges from like 13 to, I guess we'll say 19. but the end of your teenage years
kelly [00:09:25] Yeah, I would say that I have seen that kind of recently. It's sort of. This tendency towards more overt sexual content and more overt graphic depictions of violence, and I think that that's actually it might be a result or partially a result of more diverse authors now publishing Y.A., because those sorts of things are happening to people. It's just like, oh, no, because you like people who have more like white people have more privilege and that people who are traditionally the make up of white authors aren't dealing as much with those things on a systemic level as people from other communities. So as far as like. Young women experiencing violence, that happens all the time.
kelly [00:10:07] And also young people having sex happens all the time. [laughs]
jessie [00:10:13] Yeah, I think it maybe started for me reading Sarah J Maas. Um, and I was surprised, like A Court of Mist and Fury. I won't give anything away. Well, I guess the A Court of Thorns and Roses, too– just how much sex was in them and their violent throwing of glass is violent. There's a lot of sex in that. Do it later on in the story. Yeah, that's true. I don't remember that one as well. But, um, I think it's just surprising to me a little bit because this is a very, very violent world.
kelly [00:10:43] I didn't– the violence and strike me as gratuitous in the same way that Game of Thrones is. I don't know what you thought about that.
jessie [00:10:51] No, I don't think so the problem– so I only read the first Game of Thrones book and then I have watched the TV show and the show is very violent, but often for no reason. And in this book, none of the violence, there was never not a reason for it, like.
kelly [00:11:11] I mean, we are in a school for assassins. So…
kelly [00:11:15] number one.
jessie [00:11:15] Yeah. So I don't really expect much less.
kelly [00:11:20] And it didn't strike me. It seemed like it made sense with the world building, I guess, in An Ember in the Ashes. So what I was thinking and then it certainly plays out this human tendency to equate violence with power and vice versa. To use violence for power.
jessie [00:11:33] Yeah, I think maybe Game of Thrones doesn't do as well with this because. I don't I don't know, there's something about it that the violence just seems or even sometimes like there's a lot there's a lot of rape in Game of Thrones seems unnecessary, like it doesn't move your plot forward. So why did you need to do that? You know?
kelly [00:11:57] Maybe part of it is the visual medium too of the show, because I had a similar, like, experience watching Outlander.
jessie [00:12:03] MmHmm.
kelly [00:12:04] This is a lot of– apparently the only interesting thing, the conflict that can happen to a woman is like, sexual assault.
jessie [00:12:10] Yeah, and I think I think I think sometimes those shows and books get away with that because they set them in one fantasy world or two in worlds that are so long ago that people have the excuse of like, "oh, well, that's what I was like." It's like, well, was it? One. And two, how does this matter to your plot? How does this move the story forward? And if it doesn't, then it's probably not necessary.
kelly [00:12:35] Yeah, and I didn't have that as much of that impression with An Ember in the Ashes, it seemed quite justified,.
jessie [00:12:40] I think, especially maybe because Elias is dealing a lot with, um, trying not to be as violent. Like he's really trying to rein in his anger and fury about, I mean, everything really, um, so we see someone grappling with how violent the world is. And I think maybe that makes a lot of a difference.
kelly [00:13:00] Yeah for sure.
jessie and kelly [00:13:06] Wands out!
kelly [00:13:07] This is a segment where we discuss all things magic.
jessie [00:13:11] I think the magic in this book was more subtle than what we've read in previous books, um, we get some mythical and magical creatures like the Wraiths and the efrits and the djinn. And Helene's singing slash healing power. Um, maybe we'll see more magic in future books, but I kind of thought it was cool. I was I think I was looking for there to be more magic. I think I expected more as a fantasy novel, but I liked it.
kelly [00:13:42] I really liked how the magic in An Ember in the Ashes isn't centered around humans. I like that it's something that humans don't possess necessarily or something they can, but only with the influence of these other magical beings. The magic is much more otherworldly. It gives you like this beyond the veil. Sounds like it's both of this world and not of this world. I think it created a sort of like, ethereal vibe.
jessie [00:14:03] Right. How do you think Helene got her healing power then?
kelly [00:14:07] Did they not say that in the first book?
jessie [00:14:09] No I have no idea.
kelly [00:14:11] I think I know how, but I think I know because of the second book.
jessie [00:14:15] oh, ok.
kelly [00:14:17] Uh, the Augurs might be an exception to what I just said, what we just said about the magic not being human or not directly connected to humans, because they can see futures plural being important. And they basically have legillimency– because they can read people's minds. They say it's not reading, but it basically is.
jessie [00:14:35] I mean, isn't that what Snape says and Harry Potter to it's not mind reading, but I mean, that's what you're doing.
kelly [00:14:41] But you're in there and you know what people are thinking,.
jessie [00:14:44] you're Looking around in there, you're basically reading it, um, which is I thought was it really interesting, the story of the Augurs and how they stole their powers. So they're immortal because they stole knowledge from the djinn. Um, but I guess you know more than me.
kelly [00:15:01] is that how they got their powers?
jessie [00:15:02] I think that's what they said. There's like a whole story where, um. I think,.
kelly [00:15:08] Oh, no, this is the scholars.
jessie [00:15:12] Oh, yeah.
kelly [00:15:13] and They're in their thing against the djinn.
jessie [00:15:15] Yeah, you're right, maybe now I don't know.
kelly [00:15:18] That's what I thought. The Augurs are interesting is because I didn't get the sense that they got their powers from other worldly beings. They like are all of a sudden just immortal.
kelly [00:15:28] And they just are omnipotent. And so it struck me as like a little bit of an outlier, at least in the magical system as far as we see it in the first book. Um, and the Augur's language nerd note again, language nerd note, Agruio is the Spanish word for omen. So the acronym being derived from the same root makes total sense. Also, thanks to the Internet, I learned that Augurs are priest-like figures who actually existed during Roman times and they practiced augury, which is interpreting the future based on birds' flight, flight patterns like what kind of bird is flying, how many birds are flying, what direction are they flying? Are they making noises while they're flying? This is called reading the auspices. So if something's auspicious, that's where the term comes from. And then the augury in fantastic beasts. by J.K. Rowling is a bird that sings when it's going to rain.
jessie and kelly [00:16:23] wands away!
jessie [00:16:28] Now we're going to talk about conflict, villains and good and evil in our segment called Get Me Kylo Ren. Um, so the commandant.
kelly [00:16:38] Dot, dot, dot.
jessie [00:16:40] She is just all around evil, bad person, bad mother, like.
kelly [00:16:48] So dark and twisty.
jessie [00:16:49] Yeah, I mean, I do have like the smallest amount of empathy for her because she didn't want to have she didn't want to have Elias and she did everything she could to try and get rid of him. But. I don't know how he was like, can you imagine just like leaving a baby? I mean, I guess the story he knows wasn't true, like she didn't leave him to die. All that that one that was like hard,.
kelly [00:17:17] Very conflicted about motherhood in general.
kelly [00:17:20] And then, I mean, I guess it's. Tough to think about, but why access to safe legal abortion is important.
jessie [00:17:29] Right. Well, and that's the crazy thing for like that's the strange thing for this book, is that she did all the things that were possible for her to try and abort the baby. And none of it worked. I guess it's because I'm guessing Elias is the one who was foretold or whatever, so maybe, maybe fate intervened and she can't.
kelly [00:17:51] Yeah, that could be. I don't know if she is the epitome of a villain, though.
jessie [00:17:58] Yeah, like like I said, my my empathy for her is like the tiniest amount because really she's awful. she's an awful person.
kelly [00:18:06] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she certainly acts that way. I find myself wanting to know more about her back story, I'm a sucker for a villain back story. I love them.
jessie [00:18:16] I also want to know who Elias's father is.
kelly [00:18:18] Yeah, that would be interesting.
jessie [00:18:20] Do you think he's a tribesperson?
kelly [00:18:23] I'm not sure.
jessie [00:18:25] OK.
kelly [00:18:26] There's a thing that happens at the end of the second book that you'll have to wait for.
jessie [00:18:29] [laughs] OK. This is why you don't read ahead.
kelly [00:18:33] I'm Sorry, I couldn't stop.
jessie [00:18:35] I get it. I get it. Um. OK, well, he seems to fit in well with the tribespeople, so my guess is that his father was a tribesperson.
kelly [00:18:49] I'm not sure if I have any hope for Keris Venturia as far as, like falling in love and like, I don't know. I think it was just a tryst,.
jessie [00:19:00] Yeah, when once I start to hate a villain, I really hate them and I'm like, OK, I'm ready for her to die now. And I hope Elias does it.
kelly [00:19:09] I mean, or it could be Helene. I would be surprised. I don't know. Helene and Keris seem like not exactly foils for one another, but they do seem–.
jessie [00:19:21] –Foil adjacent.
kelly [00:19:22] Exactly. Yeah, they are connected. I don't know. I see like Helene could be could turn into Keris. But I'm not sure that she will.
jessie [00:19:33] I think that's what we're supposed to see, like she between her and Laia, she is the person who is most likely to turn into. Keris, and she's going to have to make a choice about that, but it's hard because from where I'm standing, she has to follow all of Marcus's commands or Elias will die.
jessie [00:19:54] Yeah, she's in a tough spot.
kelly [00:19:58] You have to talk about black cliff and how it's a boarding school that kills half of its students.
jessie [00:20:06] It's funny because I feel like we get a lot of books in why that are assassin schools or they're like training people to be soldiers. Um, we'll see this a little bit once we read when we read The Mortal Instruments, which Kelly has not read yet. [laughs]
kelly [00:20:23] Nope, it's coming up, listeners.
jessie [00:20:27] But when you think about it more literally, like they're teaching people how to murder people.
kelly [00:20:33] Like children, how to murder people, they're murdering children and then teaching children how to murder other people.
kelly [00:20:41] This is this is quite problematic.
jessie [00:20:43] It's a real harsh environment too. Laia thinks that Elias's room is a cell like a jail cell, which is that's really bad and really it's just a sad place to be.
kelly [00:20:57] Well, for him, it basically is. That's why he, like, digs the tunnel behind it.
jessie [00:21:01] Yeah, that's true. But I imagine, like, everyone's room looks similar and she's in like. In a small like a cubbord, basically, and she still thinks like his room is a cell, which is it's just. Just telling of how bleak it must be there. It makes me feel so bad for allies, I'm not sure I'm supposed to feel bad for him as I do, but I'm just like like I can't imagine being, like, taken from the only home, you know, and you love to be forced to become the person you hate.
kelly [00:21:35] And also, these children are six when they're taken.
jessie [00:21:39] And like, rounded up into a pen of other children and they said, like half of them die.
kelly [00:21:44] And if they survive, then they get to go to Black Cliff and then potentially, like, then face death basically every single day,.
kelly [00:21:52] Until graduation.
jessie [00:21:53] In what world is this OK? You know?
kelly [00:21:57] It's like that sort of preserving the empire at all costs sort of logic.
jessie [00:22:01] Yeah, I guess I don't know how someone's government becomes so important to them that they think, let's just start killing kids. You know?
kelly [00:22:10] I don't know. That's just that's a lot. It's really far down a very dark path.
kelly [00:22:17] Speaking of the empire.
jessie [00:22:19] Yeah, the empire, um, chooses to oppress the scholars by taking away their ability to read so they're not allowed to teach next generations how to read. And obviously, they're doing it in secret because Laia knows how to read. Her grandparents taught her how. I mean, her parents. Um,.
kelly [00:22:37] I'm curious. I didn't get a sense for how long that had been going on, but because it seemed to be very common knowledge among the marshals that the scholars couldn't read, they just assume that none of the scholars can read. So I get the sense that it's been going on for generations at least.
jessie [00:22:52] Yeah, because Laia's parents are in the resistance, I assume they are not supposed to read either. Um. But it's kind of a little confusing because Laia's grandfather is a doctor, so you would assume like he would have to know how to read. So maybe her parents' generation, I don't know.
kelly [00:23:14] I'm not sure either.
jessie [00:23:14] But I thought it was an interesting. Way to oppress a group of people, because what you're essentially doing is taking away their ability to, um, gain knowledge and, um, their ability to move up in the world.
kelly [00:23:30] Mm hmm. I think that's why a lot of more oppressive regimes specifically crack down on universities, um, because when you gain more knowledge, then you're more likely to see other ways of other, you know, possibilities for living in the world. And then that leads to revolt and revolution.
jessie [00:23:50] Because I think learning leads to you questioning authority figures, which means questioning your government. Um, so it makes sense that they would take that away. But also, obviously, it's not working at all.
kelly [00:24:04] And what's interesting then is that the empire also took the knowledge of their, um, steelmaking because the superior weapons are the key to the empire's dominance. And it's Sarin Steel. That's what we keep hearing. Right. Um. And so this is stolen knowledge that they're using Scholar created. And I don't know, I just thought that that was an interesting point about how they took the knowledge from them and then imposed ignorance on those people in order to stay dominant, probably because they're severely threatened.
jessie [00:24:40] Right. Especially, um, if the scholars could figure out a way to make Seric Steel, they can probably figure out a way to make something better.
kelly [00:24:49] Which is a whole reason that Derren is– Laia's brother Darren is and has been captured.
jessie [00:24:55] Right. Oh, right, yeah
kelly [00:24:57] It's because of his connection to the to Seric Steel, to the Telemann Telemann. Um, blacksmith,.
kelly [00:25:06] I another thing I want to talk about in the villains and get me kylo ren is the resistance not being purely good. So supposedly we learn from so we learned from Laia that they the resistance supposedly lives by this cold cut code of honor called Izzat, which again, thanks to the Internet, is a real thing from northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. That translates across Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions. But the cook's perspective shows Laia and the readers that the resistance is far from perfect. They use people just like the Empire does. And that sent me down memory lane thinking about grad school and reading Emmanuel Kan's writings on morality [jessie laughs] and which is capsulized. It encapsulated in this thing called the categorical imperative, where he says that, you know, it's immoral to use people as means they should only be ends. And that's basically two competing ideologies, but I'm just not sure how. I think if you're really trying for revolution, it's inevitable that people get used as means.
jessie [00:26:11] Right. The problem is for a resistance is that I think it's hard to create a revolution without anyone getting hurt and without using people. We see this with Mason. He the hard part is I'm not sure that mesons, not the one who is the traitor, um, of. Laia's parents, your smile tells me that you know who it is.
kelly [00:26:35] [laguhs] I'm sorry.
jessie [00:26:36] Don't tell me. Anyways. I'll just pretend that you don't know because he everything he does with liar is is a lie like he. I don't know what he really wants from her. And obviously, you can't say, because you probably know,.
kelly [00:26:55] I think I read the second book too fast to really remember the details. [both laugh] True confessions,.
jessie [00:27:02] True confession.[laugsh] Um, yeah, the resistance.There's a lot of bad people out there. And I think Mason is the one because I think Laia thinks that maybe the cook is the traitor for a little bit, um, because she says he or she's the only one that remembers her parents. But I think she forgets about Mason in that equation and how when her parents were gone he took over and maybe that's what he wanted all along.
kelly [00:27:32] Yeah, the struggle for power within the resistance could certainly turn out to be a storyline that we see going forward.
kelly [00:27:40] I don't– we don't know that much about its makeup and its and what they were– I mean, we know what they were striving for, but we don't really know how it operated. We just get tiny glimpses here and there.
jessie [00:27:51] Right, and I'm not 100 percent convinced that is not working with Keris, the commandant. And, um,.
kelly [00:27:57] I think Keris is so smart. She's probably just using everyone.
jessie [00:28:01] She probably is. But if he was the trader and if he's the reason she knows when they have a spy, I wouldn't be surprised. He seems like a bad dude.
kelly [00:28:11] Shady.
jessie [00:28:12] Yeah, super shady.
kelly [00:28:16] I have a question for you.
kelly [00:28:17] Are the Augurs villans?
jessie [00:28:21] I struggled with them for a bit because because they know the future, but they're not willing to change it. I don't know if they're bad or if they are like for some reason not allowed to change the series of events. I think that everything they do has led to bad things for the most part, and I think– I think they're straddling that line between villain and not hero, but just villain and not villain. And if you know these things are going to happen, why not just tell Laia that she can she she's going to have to save Elias like it was frustrating.
kelly [00:29:04] Yeah, I found them super frustrating. And I think that's the point. Right. I think as readers are supposed to find them frustrating,.
jessie [00:29:10] Our characters find that frustrating!
kelly [00:29:12] Yeah, that too. But I was also struggling with it. And then I just had this light bulb go off one time and I'm like, wait, they are one hundred million percent invested in furthering the project of this like genocidal colonial power. So villains by–
jessie [00:29:32] Yeah, they're complicit. They're not doing anything to stop it, even though they know what's going on, because they're so concerned with making sure that the future that they see is the one that happens in the end. But they don't care about the people who get hurt in the process because–
kelly [00:29:48] No, they're actively manipulating. So that happens.
jessie [00:29:50] And they can't die. So I think the consequences are too low for them to care what happens to anyone else.
kelly [00:29:59] They're definitely using people as means. Kant would not approve.
transition [00:30:08] [jaunty string music plays].
kelly [00:30:08] Jessie, did you know that one does not simply read fantasy without talking about representations of race, class and gender? This is our segment on power bodies and how they relate. There is such an obvious rape culture in this world, it was honestly hard for me to read. Sometimes it's in the language they say son of a whore a lot. They it's incredibly prevalent, prevalent in the everyday social interactions, like the students at Black Cliff raping slaves. And that's just common knowledge. It was– there's a lot of rape or the suggestion that it could happen.
jessie [00:30:44] I wonder, um, about the author's choice to have so much of this in there. And maybe maybe she's making a statement about how prevalent rape is in our culture, even though it doesn't seem like it on a day to day basis. Um, because I also don't think we normally get YA books with so much rape in them.
kelly [00:31:07] Yeah, that's a good I hadn't thought about that. I think there's definitely a statement here, but I'm just not quite 100 percent sure what it is.
jessie [00:31:13] Yeah, but I guess I guess it kind of makes sense because when we think about our culture, there's a lot of slut shaming in our culture. We say son of a bitch, which is also not a–.
kelly [00:31:25] It's the same thing [laughs].
jessie [00:31:26] basically the same thing. I wonder if she's just making it more obvious by making the words sound worse because they're not the ones we normally use.
kelly [00:31:37] Totally. Yeah, they're not the normalized terms that they're going to be more impactful for us as contemporary readers.
jessie [00:31:42] Right. Um.
kelly [00:31:44] I think that's a really good point.
jessie [00:31:45] Yeah. And I think we see less, um, at least in the United States because one. We don't have slaves in the traditional sense of the word, so we don't really see as many people being used in the same way as we do in this book.
kelly [00:32:04] It's not state sanctioned, besides the prison system.
jessie [00:32:07] Yeah, that's not in the traditional sense of the word.
kelly [00:32:12] But this is like the slaves don't even have names. I don't know.
jessie [00:32:16] I wonder if that's all slaves or just the ones who work for Keris.
kelly [00:32:20] That's a good question. I don't really.
jessie [00:32:22] I don't know the answer. We don't really interact with any other slaves. And the commandment slash Keris, is that a position she holds?
kelly [00:32:31] Yeah, it's the head of the army.
jessie [00:32:33] OK, um, she is seen as being particularly like the slave or even talks about how often she kills her slave. So I do wonder if she makes her slaves kill themselves or she like took the eye of a five year old with Izzy. So I wonder if some of those things are made worse because she's in charge.
kelly [00:32:53] Speaking of the command, there's only one woman allowed at Black Cliff in each generation. This really struck me.
jessie [00:32:58] I was really surprised. And I wonder why. I wonder if the Augurs know something about a woman who's going to be at black cliff. And that's why there's only one a lot of the time.
kelly [00:33:12] I'm not sure I think it's pretty easy for people to just fall into the way things have always been and then just not change things.
kelly [00:33:20] But it's frustrating because, I mean, not that I want them to train more small girls [Jessie laughs] in the art of murder.
kelly [00:33:30] But I don't think it was why, one? I just wasn't understanding the logic, I guess.
jessie [00:33:36] Yeah, I don't know why it's only one. It's a weird thing to do. And then the one woman from obviously the generation before she becomes she's in charge of Black Cliff. So that's also surprising in a society that seems so misogynistic that they would let her be in charge of the school.
kelly [00:33:54] Yeah, I guess your point about it being misogynistic and it's a patriarchal system that's not invested in over in like changing the status quo at all, because that would mean relinquishing power and privilege.
kelly [00:34:04] So they put one in there, one woman. They probably are. Don't want fraternizing to happen, but it's OK if they go down to the docks to have sex with the people who are enslaved.
jessie [00:34:18] Or just rape them.
kelly [00:34:19] Or rape the slaves at blacklist.
jessie [00:34:21] The interesting thing about Keris is that they call her sir. And I want to say they don't see gender because they obviously do. But I wonder if they don't want those distinctions to be made, even with the one woman who's in the school.
kelly [00:34:34] –Not allowed to actually be feminine.
jessie [00:34:37] Woman. Yeah, maybe that's why we see some of the things with Helene that we do.
kelly [00:34:42] Well, I'm not sure, though, like in our military, are people called, sir, if they're, you know, identified as women and their officers, superior officers? I don't know how it works.
jessie [00:34:52] I think they're ma'am. But I'm not I'm not 100 percent sure.
kelly [00:34:55] Listeners, if you know.
kelly [00:34:57] Let us know.
jessie [00:34:57] Yeah, I have no idea. That's a good question. I bet it's ma'am, we're so obsessed with gender binaries in our society. [laughs]
kelly [00:35:05] Could very well be. [laughs].
jessie [00:35:09] I really like how Keris and Laia are seen as like very opposite depictions of women, even though Keris is an abomination as a person, I thought it was amazing to show a wide range of who women are and can be. Um, because Laia is like very maternal. She wants to take care of Izzy, she's trying to take care of her brother and Keris is like, I don't care who you have to kill. Like, whatever I want is what's going to happen.
kelly [00:35:37] Yeah. We don't really know what her motivations are at this point, Keris. I mean, but Laia's are very clear. She's got this protective instinct, and I totally agree with you. There are a lot of strong female characters, not necessarily good ones. But in addition to Laia and the commandant we also have, Helene is Izzy and Cook that we see pretty prominent. And then we have the echoes of Laia's mother. Right. Also,.
jessie [00:36:01] I kind of like that they made Keris the villain because we also don't often get blood thirsty women villains. So I thought that was also an interesting choice to make since we don't see it very often.
kelly [00:36:14] Yeah, I liked how I flip the script.
jessie [00:36:16] Yeah, for sure. We also see I think I think some of this is Helene, maybe because she has been around from the time she was six, like all men. But she has a real hatred of people who are sex workers. Now, I'm not 100 percent sure that the prostitutes who work in the docks are slaves or if they're well, they mentioned brothels. Um, so I'm guessing it's a choice they've made.
kelly [00:36:42] I don't know. But then they said that I remember when Laia is getting is in with the slaver and he's talking about like, oh, I could buy you and you'd like what, you don't want to go work in a brothel. I got the feeling that because slavery is so prevalent that the majority of them would be are sex slaves.
jessie [00:37:01] Yeah that's true. But it's surprising that Helene would draw the line between like a sex slave and a regular slave, a working slave, not a working slave. You know what I mean? She has like this severe hatred for the prostitutes. And she it's it's mentioned in passing, but she has no feelings about slaves who do work,.
kelly [00:37:26] Who do other kinds of work that's not sex work. She she doesn't have a problem with slavery. Clearly, she talks to Laia and it's like she's a slave. When talking about Laia, it's like she's a slave, like, are you serious?
kelly [00:37:36] But she just hates other women for having sex with men and has no critical thinking whatsoever about whether those women are enslaved or whether like they're actually if they're doing it consensually.
jessie [00:37:48] Right. Right.
kelly [00:37:49] She doesn't even care. She just hates that transaction, I guess.
jessie [00:37:53] Yeah. And part of it I guess might be because she likes Elias. So she doesn't want him like having sex with other people. I also thought it was interesting because Helene wants to be equal to the other masks, but she is unconcerned with the rights of anyone else, a.k.a. white feminism. So she doesn't care about anyone if it's not part of her group.
kelly [00:38:14] That's such a.. A prescient observation that I didn't even put that connection together. But I think you're so right.
jessie [00:38:21] Like, she doesn't care about women in general.
kelly [00:38:25] No.
jessie [00:38:25] She just cares about herself and the women, I'm guessing, who might come to Black Cliff like she wants them to be treated well, but like Laia is being beaten and she's like, "just leave her. It's fine."
kelly [00:38:38] She cares about her own family.
kelly [00:38:40] And possibly other women at Black Cliff, but also kind of more men.
kelly [00:38:47] The men at Black Cliff who are her friends.
jessie [00:38:48] Yeah. And even when she sees that and it's interesting because it's really obvious when we look at, um, her relationship with Marcus, because Marcus is like holding things that Marcus is going to rape Laia and she does not care,.
kelly [00:39:05] Even though Helene herself is scared that Marcus rape her like that was her first trial as having to watch.
jessie [00:39:12] Exactly!
kelly [00:39:12] Like, how fucked up is that?
jessie [00:39:13] Those trials are– that's the part where I'm like the authors are villains.
kelly [00:39:16] Totally, um, but that she had to, like, experience that in, like a semi dream state.
kelly [00:39:23] And then Marcus is like attacks her, iis like super aggressive. And it's that that was really disturbing. So it's I think she's a really complex character and kudos to the author for that because she's dealing with all this thing, the trauma and this worry and paranoia herself. But at the same time, you can't say she's not an advocate for other people who aren't like her.
jessie [00:39:50] And it's frustrating, too, because the author did such a good job making her that a super bad ass like character, like she is very strong, like she's taking down these men, like, no problem. But at the same time, she's like an awful person.
kelly [00:40:06] Elias's grandfather.
jessie [00:40:07] Yeah, he's super badass, like strong elderly man, which I don't think we get depictions of very often. Um, like the other like the younger men are scared of him, which was surprising to me. Um. Even though he's he's pretty bad,.
kelly [00:40:24] He's a fucking misogynist,.
jessie [00:40:25] yeah he is.
kelly [00:40:26] the things he says to Elias about Helene, like around the graduation ceremony time,.
kelly [00:40:30] He's like, why you've been messing around with her? Women shouldn't be in the army in the first place. And Elias doesn't even try that hard to push back, and that particularly bothered me, I think, because I like Elias's character so much and he he's even I think he said something wishy washy, like it's not like that, but he's not actually standing up for it. And I just am like, fuck that rolling over bullshit. You didn't say something. You're complicit. Like with how much privilege and power you have you're not afraid of what your grandfather is going to do to you. You're like the best assassin that's ever lived.
jessie [00:41:02] Yeah, I think he's like it's hard because I feel bad for Elias because I think, like, it's it's only like a loving parental figure he has. So he doesn't want to push him away. But that I mean, challenge your parents even if you love them, you know?
kelly [00:41:21] And Cook is really a badass.
jessie [00:41:27] I wanna know more… Well, no, don't tell me I really want to know more about her–
kelly [00:41:31] So do I.
jessie [00:41:32] –backstory.
kelly [00:41:32] Well, we hear about, like, her torture, her experience being tortured and. Oh, my gosh, that was that was difficult to read.
jessie [00:41:39] Do you think Izzy is her daughter?
kelly [00:41:42] No. Cook was older when Izzy came.
jessie [00:41:44] oh OK.
kelly [00:41:45] They said that there– Izzy says that she got taken from somewhere or something. I can remember when she mentions that when she's talking about her back story.
jessie [00:41:51] Laia mentioned a couple of times how similar they look. And I wonder it makes them like, but why?
kelly [00:41:59] Well, they've certainly developed this super close relationship. So they might she might as cook, might as well be– is definitely like a parental figure to Izzy.
jessie [00:42:07] Maybe more nature versus nurture. Kind of. Yeah, because Izzy turns out to be pretty strong as well. Like she is not afraid, which is surprising because she's so afraid of Keris, rightfully so. But she's like, yeah, let's just like scale this side of a mountain to get to this moon festival [laughs]
kelly [00:42:24] yeah and Elias was like yeah I tried that one time and almost died.
jessie [00:42:29] Yeah. And she's just like, no, it's not that bad.
kelly [00:42:31] And these two girls with no equipment and no training, whatever, we'll do it.
jessie [00:42:35] Yeah. So Izzy's a pretty impressive character and I was glad to see her come out of her shell and I'm glad she got saved. Fingers crossed that all works out. Don't tell me [chuckles].
jessie [00:42:46] moving on to race. Um, I didn't think that we got a lot of descriptions of race in this book was pretty limited, um. Similar to other YA novels, we got descriptions of body types, color of hair and eye color. But the two people we kind of get descriptions of, like skin color are Keris who is very pale. Um, and then Elias is described as having, um, golden skin. And I think they do that to set him apart from characters. But I'm also like, what does this mean in all capital letters? Like, can you just tell us what people look like? Is Elias supposed to be mixed race? Like I, I was frustrated.
kelly [00:43:37] I think that's what the novel's implying.
kelly [00:43:39] Um, because it says it, it focuses on his character description from what I if I remember correctly focuses on juxtaposing his eyes which are supposedly Keris's eyes. But then when Laia actually when you actually look at him, they're not like they're like a different tone and they're not.
jessie [00:43:55] And she has little blond hair and he has black hair. She's pale. He has golden skin. Just don't know.
kelly [00:44:02] I don't know what Golden skin means. [laughs]
jessie [00:44:04] I don't either. [laughs]
kelly [00:44:05] And I think you make a really good point because there I couldn't quite tell. It seems like the even within the marshals themselves, it seems like you could differentiate on like. With phenotypes like phenotypic traits, the difference between Illustrians and plebeians, that's what it sounded like also at different points in the novel, the like, the Illustrians can tell them it's not just like doesn't seem to just be class markers. They can tell race-wise.
kelly [00:44:37] Or at least ethnic group wise, I don't know. So I was confused about that. And then also the scholars seem to be pretty distinct. It seems like you can distinguish people based on their phenotypes in this book, but I'm just not clear what the people look like. And I think the only reason I have a picture of Laia in my head as a more as like super like darker as a person of color, like no questions asked is because of the cover of my book. I think it's um. I think that's definitely influenced how I imagined her while I was reading.
jessie [00:45:08] and my cover doesn't have a person on it. I had no idea what she was supposed to look like and like she has dark hair, brown eyes like that could be a lot of different kinds of people. And as I've mentioned lots of times before, I find that really frustrating when they don't just say what people look like.
kelly [00:45:29] You mentioned we mentioned Elias before. And I think it's particularly interesting this like golden skin ambiguity because he grew up with the tribespeople and which are an itinerant people that live in caravans and they're known for storytelling. So was getting some like Bedouin… Maybe possibly like Roma.
kelly [00:45:47] Um, vibes or like possible influences. And Elias isn't even his real name. His real name is Ilyas.
kelly [00:45:55] And they make his name whiter.
kelly [00:45:58] When they take him to Black. Cliff, did you look up the name Ilyas?
kelly [00:46:01] I did not.
jessie [00:46:01] Oh OK. [laughs]
jessie [00:46:04] Um, yeah. I thought that was really interesting too. And like the tribes people are kind of looked down on because they're the ones who believe there's like this distinction between the scholars who believe in like, you know, books and things that are written down and then the tribes people who have the story of the wraiths, the ifrits and the djinn and they're like, it's kind of like this distinction between knowledge and the supernatural, which I thought was really interesting, because we do see that kind of even in our society with like, well, this is science and like science and religion,.
kelly [00:46:38] The tribes people. That makes me think that the tribespeople parallel more indigenous groups and traditions like representations of indigenous groups because they're more connected to spirituality.
jessie [00:46:47] They have an oral tradition.
kelly [00:46:49] Exactly. And they're not like they're nomadic, like some of the, um, tribes from the U.S. or not from the US from before it was the United States.
jessie [00:46:59] Yeah,.
kelly [00:46:59] Because colonialism.
kelly [00:47:02] The Native American tribes and or, you know, elsewhere, indigenous tribes elsewhere. But also they are. Yeah. The oral tradition this. I guess the fact that they're called tribes, yeah, that's obviously very connected to and that's how the make up of indigenous peoples is articulated oftentimes.
jessie [00:47:25] You know, tribes like, does that mean that they travel inherently like that word?
kelly [00:47:30] No, I think they can be like in one place, too.
jessie [00:47:34] I think I've also like the tribes of Israel because they were traveling from Egypt.
kelly [00:47:38] Mm hmm. I don't know. But that's interesting about the tribes people. I didn't think about it that way, even though it's kind of super obvious with the name to make that just to make that connection.
jessie [00:47:49] Because Keris left Elias with the tribes people was the other reason I thought, well, maybe his dad was a tribes person.
kelly [00:47:55] You could even take this to the forcible removal of indigenous children and putting them in white schools.
jessie [00:48:01] That's so true. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. It also makes me a little concerned, um, because there's also like this, the story of indigenous people raping white women. And I worry about how that will move forward with Keris's story. I really hope it doesn't go down that road. I hope it doesn't either. But now I'm like kind of worried it will.
kelly [00:48:23] I don't know. I don't think so.
jessie [00:48:24] Or you already know.
kelly [00:48:26] I might know. [laughs] I don't think I do, though.
kelly [00:48:31] Class distinctions.
jessie [00:48:31] Yeah, so there's a pretty obvious class distinction in this book or multiple class distinctions, but it seems to be based on the group's role in society. So like the scholars, the Illustrians, the tribespeople, like, they all seem to have like their place within the society that the empire has created post like.
kelly [00:48:55] with the colonial expansion, I guess.
jessie [00:48:57] Yeah, yeah, exactly.
kelly [00:48:58] What you say about the hierarchy. I think really highlights the fact that race and class are so, so intricately tied in this particular system.
jessie [00:49:08] I think when I was reading it at first, I didn't realize that each group of people looked different as well as had different roles in their society. But it turns out like. Each group of people looks a certain way and they have that role in society, which is pretty interesting, but also goes back.
kelly [00:49:25] Yeah, and they're also culturally distinct. And we have this collapse almost or we are collapsing race and ethnicity also.
jessie [00:49:36] Question time, Kelly. [laughs] Do you think any of the groups can be sold into slavery?
kelly [00:49:42] I think any non Illustrian People, yes. So basically, if you don't have class privilege with and you're not the equivalent of white, essentially you're not a marshal, then I would say yes, because we see a lot of scholar slaves. And that's the group that Laia and Izzy I get the sense belong to. I don't really know.
jessie [00:50:07] That's why I wasn't sure, because we see a lot of scholar slaves, but I wasn't sure what Cook and Izzy were are all of the resistance scholars?
kelly [00:50:16] I think it's the scholar resistance because they're the people being oppressed right in that particular region in Serra, which is where Black Cliff is. But then I also I think as he mentions, that she's from Antium, which is the capital and that's further north. So she might just be she might be a marshal, but might be part of the plebian lower class and sold into slavery.
jessie [00:50:36] Yeah. I wonder if there are different. Different levels of class, even within each group, like even within the scholars of the marshals,.
kelly [00:50:43] Probably. Well within the marshals, Yes, because it's the Illustrians and the Plebians.
jessie [00:50:48] Oh, right. Yeah, exactly.
kelly [00:50:50] But within the scholars, I mean, probably, you know, it seems like the tribe people are kind of the only group that we don't get a sense that they're as stratified, I guess.
jessie [00:51:01] I think I remember at one point them mentioning that Elias looks different than the other, um, masks. I wonder if he had like difficulties in in black cliff because he looked different.
kelly [00:51:16] I got the sense that he looked different because his mask wasn't molded into his face.
kelly [00:51:20] And that's because he hates it and he takes it off. Whereas everyone else lets that become their identity. They, like, get themselves erased.
jessie [00:51:26] Right. But doesn't like if he if Keris is pale and he's like golden skinned, whatever that means. Do the does the rest of the masks look more like keris?
kelly [00:51:38] I would say probably.
jessie [00:51:40] So. I wonder if he stands out in that group.
kelly [00:51:43] You know, that's a good point. I didn't think about that.
jessie [00:51:45] It's hard to say he's like the best of the masks. So, like, what are they going to do? It's going to be like fight me and they'll be like, no, thanks. [laughs].
kelly [00:51:56] Finally, it's time for Shipwrecked, a segment about asexuality, sexuality, sex, romance and relationships, and sometimes we take liberties and do some shipping of our own.
jessie [00:52:05] I like to say that this story has a love square instead of a love triangle, um, because we see Keenan and Laia up here together, but then also Laia and Elias and so Elias and Helene and I kind of like that. We didn't get a typical love triangle.
kelly [00:52:27] I like that, too, and I like all the history Elias and Helene had made, their relationship makes a lot of sense,.
kelly [00:52:35] But I think he's choosing to be a different person.
jessie [00:52:39] I was a little it was like really hard reading that one part where he's like, I don't love you. I can't love you that way to. And I was like, ooh That had to hurt real bad.
kelly [00:52:50] Yeah.
jessie [00:52:51] Can you imagine?
kelly [00:52:52] It's kind of one of those moments where he could have chosen to be with her, but he didn't. I think that's kind of a symptom of what his larger transformation that he's going through as a character.
jessie [00:53:03] He's always making a choice not to be with her, but he's obviously sexually attracted to her because he mentions like feelings. But–
kelly [00:53:12] Whatever that means [laughs].
jessie [00:53:14] Whatever whatever you want it to mean.
kelly [00:53:19] I think Keenan is a red herring.
jessie [00:53:24] Do you say that with knowledge? [laughs] No. Don't tell me!
kelly [00:53:28] No, that was my impression reading the book,.
kelly [00:53:32] I mean, I gotta like it was super like Sparky, like they had that moment at the Moon Festival. And there's just like she talks about how they smell. Sarah J Maas does this talk about, like how that's.
jessie [00:53:44] Because boys smell nice.
kelly [00:53:46] When they were people, people in general and they have like they're different Colognes that they wear apparently. I just like the citrus and the I don't know, it was like, do they?
jessie [00:53:57] Sometimes I wonder where authors come up with these like smell descriptions. I'm like citrus. Like who smells like citrus?
kelly [00:54:03] Spicy. I guess.
jessie [00:54:04] Yeah. I think is like spicy. [laughing] That's how men smell. Spicy, I think.
kelly [00:54:11] I just shipped Laia and Keenan from the very beginning. Not them. Freudian slip, I shipped Laia and Elias from the very beginning that just like the connection, the look and my God, the look. The first look.
jessie [00:54:24] Yeah! Like that. There's like so much sexual tension between the two of them. And I hope they get sexy times in the next book. Like I want that for them. Um, but I really liked them getting to know each other, like in the scene where, uh, Laia I think she's like, I don't know what she thinks is going to happen. She's going to be tortured or whatever.
kelly [00:54:42] Or raped.
jessie [00:54:42] Well, yeah, probably that. But she's just with Elias and I like talking. I was like, that's real sweet.
kelly [00:54:47] They're just talking.
jessie [00:54:50] Like this is such like a high school romance.
kelly [00:54:52] This is sweet.
jessie [00:54:53] It was sweet.
kelly [00:54:54] In the context of, like.
jessie [00:54:57] She's being forced, like she couldn't leave if she wanted to.
kelly [00:54:59] and Elias's trial to the death. Basically, they're both sealed together in the room. Yeah, but it was they made the most. They made the most out of a shitty situation. Yeah.
jessie [00:55:09] I ship them and hard. Yeah. I feel bad for Keenan though, because I really do like him because he really has like a good character arc throughout the story where he comes back around and realizes the resistance might not be doing the best things. Maybe they'll pair him with like Izzy or something.
kelly [00:55:26] Oh yeah. Because they're going to end up like Laia sends Izzy to take her spot to freedom, basically,
kelly [00:55:34] There are no sexy times.
jessie [00:55:36] No there's not. Just lots of sexual tension,.
kelly [00:55:38] So much tension. One kiss.
jessie [00:55:40] I'm so tense.
kelly [00:55:44] I'm so tense [laughs].
jessie [00:55:45] Just Yeah. It'll be OK maybe next time? I guess you know. Are there sexy times in the next book?
kelly [00:55:50] You don't want to know.
jessie [00:55:52] You're right. I don't want to know.
kelly [00:55:58] Now is a segment that is not show us your fics. Instead. We're doing drum roll, please.
jessie [00:56:07] Segment we have no name for. [kelly laughs] I don't know what you call.
kelly [00:56:11] A segment has no name. [laughs]
jessie [00:56:15] That's a good segment name!
kelly [00:56:17] And it's sorting the love square in Hogwarts houses.
jessie [00:56:21] All right. Let's start with Laia. What house do you think she would be in?
kelly [00:56:25] Hufflepuff
jessie [00:56:26] Oh, really.
kelly [00:56:27] Super loyal to Darren. She literally sells herself into slavery, put herself through torture. All on the hopes of maybe possibly one day. Potentially maybe seeing her brother again.
jessie [00:56:46] OK, that's a good point. I wanted to put her in Gryffindor because I feel like she's like a Neville, like Gryffindor, where we think she's, like, frail and weak, but really she's like, very brave.
kelly [00:56:56] And I think that's more Izzy.
jessie [00:56:59] But she, like, runs away, you know? I guess and, like it stands up to people, I don't know.
kelly [00:57:06] Laia is a hufflepuff for me.
jessie [00:57:07] Well, she's a Gryffindor for me.
kelly [00:57:09] She can choose. [laughs]
jessie [00:57:12] All right, Elias.
kelly [00:57:14] What do you think?
jessie [00:57:16] Elias is a hard one, I would put him. I would I think, Elias, because I would say that all the bad people, most of the bad people end up in Slytherin. I know he turns out to be good, but I think he would be in Slytherin by default because everyone he knows is in Slytherin around and he would just join that house. Like he would be like Snape if Snape were a good person.
kelly [00:57:42] I'm not sure anyone in Black Cliff would like– that there's the potential that they even open up the potential for it being developed into anything besides a villain. Like they try and stamp it out of you and they try and stamp any goodness out of you.
jessie [00:57:55] And that's why I think all of Black Cliff, like everyone there would be a Slytherin and Elias would be there, but he should probably be.
kelly [00:58:02] But I don't like that collapsing Slytherin and into just villains.
jessie [00:58:06] Oh, no, it's awful. Who's a good Slytherin?
kelly [00:58:10] Regulus Black?
jessie [00:58:13] no but he joins the dark side first. He's like Elias.
kelly [00:58:16] True. Snape's just…
jessie [00:58:20] I don't care what people say, he's a bad person.
kelly [00:58:22] Yeah, I'm with Witch, Please [the podcast].
jessie [00:58:24] Yeah, he's shitty. And he tortures his students and.
kelly [00:58:29] I don't know. I don't know where he would be. I just don't think that he's ambitious.
jessie [00:58:35] No But he's cunning.
kelly [00:58:37] Probably to survive, I don't know if that's more how I think Helene sees the world, I think she's more like a me going to bring back white feminism again, like just trying to make it through the institutions that exist. And has high aspirations.
jessie [00:58:53] So where do you see where do you sort Elias?
kelly [00:58:56] Gryffindor, questionmark?
jessie [00:58:58] He probably I mean, that's the problem, I think he is a Slytherin and he should have been a Gryffindor. Like Dumbledore thinks that Snape should've– like we sort too soon. Snape should've have been a Gryffindor, even though I think Dumbledore. You're wrong. He belonged in Slytherin.
kelly [00:59:14] I think I would say that, yes, but not also to trash people I don't know, I don't like that. I don't like how I don't like how it's always collapsed into slytherin = bad people.
kelly [00:59:24] Like, come on. Come on. Not you. Like just J.K. Rowling, basically.
jessie [00:59:30] Right. She needs some good slytherins.
jessie [00:59:34] maybe We'll get some in the fantastic beasts [movie] maybe.
kelly [00:59:37] Oh yeah. Newt Scamander's person is a Slytherin I think.
jessie [00:59:42] But isn't she related to the Lestrange's?
kelly [00:59:45] Yeah. Yes, she is.
jessie [00:59:48] Which is surprising, I don't know,.
kelly [00:59:50] I like how it complicates the makes it less black and white or green and blue, yellow, red. Where do you think Keenan fits?
jessie [01:00:03] Hmm. Keenan's a hard one. I think. Oh, I don't know. What do you think?
kelly [01:00:09] That's not fair. I asked you first. [laughs].
jessie [01:00:12] I know. Um, I just want all the good people to be in Gryffindor, so I want to put them in.
kelly [01:00:17] You are so biased.[laughs].
jessie [01:00:19] I like you! You're a Ravenclaw.
kelly [01:00:21] You like one Ravenclaw. the one You know,.
jessie [01:00:24] The one that I know.
kelly [01:00:25] I think Keenan. He strikes me as literally any just because he's trying to work his way up the ranks of the resistance.
jessie [01:00:32] Oh, do you think that's what he's trying to do?
kelly [01:00:35] I don't know. He positioned that we got that. I kind of got that vibe at the very beginning when Laia was first picked up by the resistance after she's wandering around in the catacombs.
jessie [01:00:43] Yeah. I guess I didn't think that. I think I think of his end like character arc a little more and some like. He decided to yeah, I guess he probably is a Slytherin. [laughs].
kelly [01:01:01] Now we're going to talk about writing style, narration, characterization, plot structure, and basically whatever else comes to mind in the segment called Kill Your Darlings.
jessie [01:01:09] I really like the multiple point of views. Each point of view sounded very different. Um, they tell us at the beginning of the chapter who it is, but we definitely didn't need that. Um. And every time a chapter ended because some some books with multiple POV, they'll do a couple of chapters with a character. And every time we ended a chapter with one character and went to the other, I was like, oh, can we just stay with them for a little longer? I want to know what's going to happen!
kelly [01:01:36] Sabaa Tahir with her cliffhangers. It was basically every chapter was a cliffhanger.
jessie [01:01:39] Which is why I stayed up till like 2:00 in the morning reading because, like, the Elias is literally on a chopping block about to die. And I was like, I gotta find out what happens. I know it's 2:00 in the morning, but like, I got to know!!
kelly [01:01:51] It doesn't matter.
jessie [01:01:51] It didn't matter. I just. Well, it was so good. So good.
kelly [01:01:56] So fast paced. I wanted to keep reading for sure.
jessie [01:01:59] Those chapter cliffhangers.
jessie [01:02:02] That's what it was.
kelly [01:02:03] I see what you're doing. OK, I see you.
jessie [01:02:04] Keep me reading. She did good. I thought, I thought it was great.
kelly [01:02:09] I appreciated the character development even for villains like Keris.
kelly [01:02:15] I think you got to see the the depths of the darkness rather than just telling you she's bad.
kelly [01:02:21] she shows you how bad she is.
jessie [01:02:23] writers, show, Don't tell.
jessie [01:02:26] The golden rule in writing.
kelly [01:02:27] And Helene, who you could easily just see as a villain because you're so rooting for Elias and Laia.
jessie [01:02:32] Right. But the characters were really well developed in this story and I think. I think we get good character arcs with the even like the smaller characters like Izzy or Keenan like. They're important to the story, but their roles are much smaller. I don't think we always see side characters get story arcs, and I really, really like that.
kelly [01:02:52] Yeah, I appreciate that, though. It's not just focused on like you're one chosen one.
jessie [01:02:55] Yeah, exactly. Two chosen ones.
kelly [01:02:58] two chosen ones [laughs].
jessie [01:03:00] two chosen ones.
kelly [01:03:01] I think having multiple protagonists is fun. I really enjoy the multiple POV, YA multiple POV.
jessie [01:03:06] I do too. It's like one of my favorites unless it's poorly written and then I'm like.
kelly [01:03:11] I'm excited for you to read Six of Crows then.
jessie [01:03:16] Recommend, if you like, I think if you like this book, you like Throne of Glass, probably Game of Thrones.
kelly [01:03:25] Any assassin school book.
jessie [01:03:27] Yeah, I can't think of a good assassin school book at the moment.
kelly [01:03:31] I mean, Throne of Glass is kind of that.
jessie [01:03:33] Yeah, it is kind of that. Although I haven't read Assassin's Blade still.
kelly [01:03:36] Neither have I.
jessie [01:03:37] Oh OK. Good.
kelly [01:03:38] It's on the list.
jessie [01:03:39] Yeah I have it. It's in a pile of books over there. Um yeah. And strong female characters.
kelly [01:03:46] So many of them.
jessie [01:03:47] Yeah. Even the ones who start off as seem like more meek or mild like Laia they become so strong in the end and I really, really like that.
kelly [01:03:56] I appreciate a good good character arc.
jessie [01:03:59] You'll get a strong female character the whole way through Throne of Glass, though. Just a warning.
kelly [01:04:04] Mm hmm. Love it.
kelly [01:04:09] Thanks for listening to JK, it's magic. We'll be back in two weeks for discussion of Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo, the second book in the Grishaverse series. And watch out for more, mini-sodes about a range of fantasy adjacent topics.
jessie [01:04:21] You can find us on Instagram and Twitter at JK Magic Pod Post or tweet about the show using the hashtag critically reading. Do you have an idea for a book we should add to our TBR? Email us at Jk Magic Pod at Gmail dot com. We'd love to hear your suggestions.
kelly [01:04:37] Know A friend who would enjoy the podcast? Please spread the word. You can subscribe to Jk, its magic on Apple podcasts, Google Play and podcasts and Stitcher. We'd really appreciate if you would write and review the show. JK It's Magic is recorded on lands traditionally belonging to the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho Native Peoples. See you in a fortnight!
transition [01:04:55] [upbeat harpsichord and flute music plays]
An Ember in the Ashesbooksdiverse booksFantasyownvoicesSabaa Tahirya fantasyyoung adult
BONUS! Great British Bake Off (8) Dessert Week
Episode 32: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
Episode 71: Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor
Episode 50: A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir – The Library Coven
Episode 53: Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart – The Library Coven
Episode 54: We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal – The Library Coven
Episode 56: A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer – The Library Coven


text:
Vera Blanc is an Italian mystery visual novel video game series for the Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows platforms, with art in the comic style. The games were developed and published by Winter Wolves. The first game Vera Blanc: Full Moon was released on June 30, 2010 and the sequel Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle on September 1, 2010. There are currently no plans for another sequel of the series.

The first game was ported for iOS on October 13, 2010 and for Android on February 2, 2011. The second game was ported for iOS on November 30, 2010. The first game was ported and published to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One by Ratalaika Games. The console versions were released in November 2020.

Gameplay
The player reads through the story and makes decisions at some points. Furthermore, the player has to solve some mysteries with minigames; the protagonist, Vera, for example can sometimes read the minds of other characters, so the player has to guess letters in the style of Hangman to complete the thoughts of them. The player can also disable the minigames and just read the story without them.

Plot

Vera Blanc: Full Moon
Vera Blanc, the daughter of Emmanuel Blanc, can read other people's minds. She leaves her life of luxury to use her powers to work alongside paranormal detective Brandon Mackey. Vera travels to a mysterious town in Germany deep in the Black Forest. A serial killer is on the loose, and all leads point to a werewolf as the culprit.

Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle
Vera travels to a small village in central Italy. The town's legendary ghost seems like nothing more than a quaint story, but a string of murders and suicides all point to the castle's ghost, and locals are getting scared.

Reception
The first game got 4 out of 5 stars on Gamezebo with reviewer Mike Rose writing: "Vera Blanc: Full Moon is well worth a play, and will keep you hooked right through to the end."

It also got a score of  91/100 on Technologytell with reviewer Jenni Lada writing: "Overall, Vera Blanc: Full Moon is an appealing new mystery visual novel. It stands out due to its unorthodox presentation and its supernatural mystery. While the character of Vera may seem a bit too good to be true, the story that players get to investigate is quite intriguing, especially since your choices effect what kind of ending and result you'll find."

The second game got 3,5 out of 5 stars on Gamezebo with reviewer Mike Rose writing: "Vera Blanc: Ghost in the Castle isn't as well produced as the original, but there's still plenty of fun to be had, and those who played Full Moon will no doubt want to see how Vera's story progresses."

References

External links
 Official Game Page

2010 video games
Android (operating system) games
IOS games
Linux games
PlayStation 4 games
Nintendo Switch games
Xbox One games
MacOS games
Visual novels
Windows games
Adventure games
Indie video games
Video games developed in Italy
Ren'Py games

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Budget Lodgings at Spiritual Centers
6/4/2005 — By Barbara S. Wysocki
Sleep with the saints in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco
Though they are normally pictured as Gothic castles on rural hills, America's spiritual centers (with in-house accommodations) are also found smack-dab in the center of some of our biggest and most heavily visited cities. And there they provide some of the most suitable budget lodgings in all the nation for travelers in search of both frugality and propriety. Here, if you'll excuse the alliteration, is cost-conscious comfort in contemplative surroundings.
Even the most enthusiastic tourists can find New York's high pressure a bit daunting. Here, by contrast, is serenity - on a budget.
The Leo House (332 W. 23rd St., 212/929-1010, fax 212/366-6801) was already a 100-year-long mainstay when its surrounding Chelsea district recently became a trendy center of chic restaurants, art galleries, nightspots, and the performing arts (don't miss the Joyce dance theater). Self-styled as "A Heart in New York," it has a wood-paneled breakfast room that today is filled with multilingual chatter as guests enjoy a $6 buffet, complete with home-baked breads. The emphasis here is on the quiet and clean. But it has all the creature comforts you'd want, including cable television and telephones, although in compact rooms. Some units have private baths; others share a shower, but all have a sink and toilet. Singles start at $62 and doubles at $70, with a few larger rooms for families.
St. Hilda's House (621 W. 113th St., 212/932-8098, ext. 345, outpourings@chssisters.org) is a big leap uptown, just steps from Riverside Church and the giant Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (a don't-miss sightseeing attraction). It is a retreat house of the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit, consisting of three converted brownstones in which neat single rooms rent from $65 a night (there are three doubles, which cost $130 a night), and most guests share a bathroom. The nuns center their lives around daily prayer services, and anyone who spends the night is invited to join them.
Landmark Guest Rooms (3041 Broadway, 212/280-1313, tcabrera@uts.colum bia.edu) of the Union Theological Seminary near the Upper West Side's Columbia University, with its English Gothic architecture and tree-filled quad, is like a time machine transporting you to the past. And yet its recently redecorated rooms all have air-conditioning, cable television, a mini-fridge, and private bath. With continental breakfast included, single rooms start at $150, making this one of the priciest of our properties.
The House of the Redeemer (7 E. 95th St., 212/289-0399, fax 212/410-7899, info@redeem.org), on the elegant Upper East Side of Manhattan near Museum Mile (Metropolitan, Guggenheim, Frick), is a retreat where guests in the third- and fourth-floor rooms sleep under the same roof that once housed Edith Shepard Fabbri, Cornelius Vanderbilt's great-granddaughter. Ms. Fabbri donated the house to be used as "a place apart," and it's often filled with quiet groups. When it's not, others can enjoy its splendid fifteenth-century Italian library and newly redesigned chapel that overlooks Central Park. Rooms in this peaceful bit of paradise start at $60 for a single with a shared bath.
Carl Sandburg called Chicago "Hog Butcher," "Tool Maker," and "Stacker of Wheat," but obviously he never stayed at one of the city's ultragenteel guesthouses.
Urban Meditation Retreat Center (1710 W. Cornelia Ave., 773/528-8685, fax 773/528-9909, buddha@enteract. com) is a quiet beacon for those with busy lives, particularly blessed by its pleasant sunroom and open deck devoted to restful reflection. At this Zen Buddhist temple, visitors attend early morning meditation and stay on the fourth floor, which has been fitted out with single or dormitory-style rooms with access to kitchen facilities. Located only 15 minutes from downtown by bus or elevated train, it attracts young professionals with accommodations priced at only $45 a night.
Imani House (1340 E. 72nd St., 773/643-0359), whose name means "faith" in Swahili, is a rambling building that over the years has served as both a Catholic rectory and a convent, and is now a lodgings place for transient visitors when people on formal retreats are not in residence. Up to 35 guests can choose rooms that range from singles to triples, and the kitchen, dining room, and sitting rooms make it feel like home. Somewhat off the beaten track, this South Shore facility varies prices to match group size and season, but in general the charge is $15 per person per night.
Bethlehem House (1125 North La Salle Blvd., 312/642-3638) is next door to the Convent of St. Anne, in the heart of Chicago, and both buildings date from the late nineteenth century. The guesthouse, which once served as a butler's residence, has five single rooms with a shared bath. Its quiet convenience costs just $25 a night.
Benedictine Bed and Breakfast (3111 S. Aberdeen St., 888/539-4261, fax 773/927-5734, porter@chicagomonk.org) is a two-bedroom loft apartment operated by monks dedicated to their order's long tradition of caring for travelers. They offer far more than the usual B&B amenities, including a dataport in each bedroom, a fax machine, and secure, off-street parking. With a complete kitchen, dining area, and study, there's plenty of space for up to four guests. Rates range from $145 to $185 per night with breakfast treats such as pineapple topped with Wisconsin maple syrup, delivered to the door with a morning newspaper. It's even possible to make reservations via their Web site at www.chicagomonk.org.
It's been a long time since San Francisco was founded by Spanish missionaries (as Yerba Buena, on the Bay of San Francisco), but there are still open doors for those seeking a spiritual connection in the "City by the Bay."
San Damiano Friary (573 Dolores St., 415/861-1372, fax 415/861-7952) is just two blocks from the historic Mission San Francisco de Assisi, the city's oldest structure. Both it and its neighbor, St. Francis House (see below), are run by orders associated with the city's namesake. Visitors to San Damiano stay in simple single rooms with a shared bath, for a self-determined donation. Despite the brothers' busy schedules, which include work in health care, teaching, and the arts, their hospitality includes sharing their evening meal.
St. Francis House (3743 Cesar Chavez St., 415/824-0288, fax 415/826-7569) is also in the area known as the Mission District. The nuns here welcome visitors to a small guest apartment that sleeps three and comes with a complete kitchen. Set off from the street, it also has a garden that is ideal for quiet reflection. The donation is $30 a night.
Incarnation Priory (1601 Oxford St., Berkeley, 510/548-3406, ohcmonks@ohcmonks.org.), just a 20-minute ride on the BART train system from San Francisco proper, is a short walk up the hill from the BART station and right on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus, near coffee bars and bookstores. Don't be put off by the apartment-house exterior; this is a real Anglican priory with a complete guest apartment (housing as many as four) on the second floor. The priory asks $40 per night for the entire apartment.
Incarnation Monastery (1369 La Loma Ave., Berkeley, 510/548-0965) will require a bus or taxi, but it's well worth the trip. The monastery is built on the side of a hill with a sweeping view that includes the Golden Gate Bridge and the mountains beyond. The $45-per-night guest rooms share bathrooms, but breakfast is included. And the splendor of the setting is enhanced by the stillness of the monastery.
The San Francisco Zen Center (300 Page St., 415/863-3136, ccoffice@sfzc.org), just a block from very hip Haight Street, refers to its guest facility simply as the "City Center." Here guests will find single and double rooms, some with private baths, renting from $55 to $93. While those rates do not include meals, vegetarian fare is plentiful and available at the Center for under $8 a big plate. This elegant building was designed by Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan; its impressive courtyard invites introspection and relaxation.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


INSPIRE Beyond SG50 features a collection of anecdotes by 55 CIOs and business leaders. The stories give a peek into how the CIO play an integral and pivotal role in helping businesses and organisations to meet challenges and realise their vision.
INSPIRE Beyond SG50 is a book for the CIO written by CIOs. It captures their insights, perspectives and real experiences through seven core pillars: Integrity, New (Innovation), Strategy, People, Implementation, Relationship and Excellence.
This pillar is led by Mr Lee Kee Siang focusing on the need for CIOs to demonstrate high level of professionalism to act and lead with integrity despite the heavy responsibility of CIOs to oversee the deployment of technologies in an innovative manner to enhance an organisation's competitive business edge.
This section highlights the need for CIOs to uphold high integrity to do what is right and be prepared to account for their actions and decisions. This leadership quality is essential to help CIOs remain intact even when facing challenges and crisis.
Under the Integrity pillar in this volume, eight senior Information Technology (IT) professionals from diverse backgrounds spanning public, private and non-profit organisations have contributed their experiences and perspectives on different aspects of Integrity. Beyond personal perspectives, they also share real life cases where Integrity was compromised, their analyses of the damage caused, and suggestions on how appropriate governance can be put in place to avoid such pitfalls. They also share insights on good practices for motivating staff so as to inculcate healthy work environments and promote a collaborative workforce that focuses on shared goals.
One's honesty, fairness, objectivity and ability to "walk the talk" will help to create trust, build relationships and create the basis for teamwork and collaboration.
Integrity calls for humility in acknowledging that we don't always the answers, and need to keep "sharpening the saw" rather than pretend that we know everything.
It is imperative for leaders to "walk the talk" – the values they impart are evinced through their words and actions.
One of the most challenging aspects of a CIO's job is to look ahead for opportunities and drive innovation initiatives while managing the day-to- day 'whirlwind' of business/IT operations and customer support. This requires leadership ambidexterity, a trait found in the writers and contributors to this "New" section.
This pillar is led by Mr Alvin Ong to focus on Change and Innovation. One of the most challenging aspects of a CIO's job is to look ahead and drive innovation initiatives while supporting day-to-day operations. Innovation is also fraught with risks and frequently impeded by organisational inertia and status quo. In this pillar, CIOs will share their war stories and practical wisdom gleaned from their transformation journey.
Innovation involves aligning people's mindsets, giving them opportunities to grow and creating ways for them to push their boundaries.
"New Guy in the Hot Seat" by Oon Jin GeeAs you read each segment, you will find themes such as 'understand the business', 'have the courage to take risks and innovate','innovate for future success and survival', 'innovation must bring business value', and 'embracing diversity in teams to spur innovation'. The overarching theme is that the ability to lead innovation should be a key skill and defensive capability in the future CIO's arsenal.
It is undisputed that CIOs need to have a better understanding of their businesses' technology needs, both in the short as well as long term.
They are also called upon to be more effective at driving partnerships and shared accountability with the business.
This pillar is led by Mr Don Yeo on Strategic IT.
The sections in this pillar capture the experience and wisdom of our contributors who are senior IT leaders. Alex Siow introduces the primary role of the CIO while Alvin Tan goes on to describe more specifically the "underbelly" of IT strategy development. Clara Lee then tackles the very current challenge of how IT leaders can effectively tackle digital transformation in their organizations, while I in turn provide my perspectives as a non-technical CIO leading an IT organization and Vijay K Sharma concludes by issuing a challenge for IT leaders to go beyond engagement to business intimacy.
IT strategies should incorporate the means for adapting and adjusting to future changes in the IT and business landscape.
This pillar, led by Mr Koh Kok Tian, focuses on people who form the basis of leading capabilities necessary to drive any business transformations, such as digital.
Most CIOs will tap on the talents, creativity and ingenuity of their IT resources to leverage technologies in creating competitive differentiation fortheirbusinesses. Today's accelerated pace of change is non-linear, punctuated by disruptive technologies that create gaps between IT competencies to the right application of technologies. Beyond capabilities,'People' is a multi-faceted subject. The contributed segments from CIO practitioners here offer unique perspectives based on their professional and personal insights on 'People'.
In this section, Glen Francis offers an interesting account from his early career years of how his mentor taught him the importance of respect. Respect forms the basis of sustained relationships and while one focuses on technology, it is important to not neglect the human aspects.
Ng Tiong Gee discusses the managing of people, how CIOs need to understand the differences of A versus B personalities across cultures and nationalities and how each type requires different management approaches in order to be effective.
Tony Yeoh highlights the need for CIOs themselves to transform and manage the paradoxical aspects of Core Purpose, Charisma, Capability and Competency juxtaposed with Reputation, Relationships, Recruitment and Relevance.
Lau Kai Cheong brings back us back to the importance of setting a clear vision and mission, and devise strategies that can be successfully delivered with the right people, right processes and right technology.
This pillar is led by Mr Lim Kuo Siong. It focuses on the need for CIOs to build up a key survival skill with the ability to manage relationship with various stakeholders as a way to influence business strategies. No longer are the days when IT can just focus on keeping the lights on. Differentiating a good technology achievement with that of a great business value delivery.
The authors argue that CIOs are in a position to connect the dots, paint the big picture and thus foster collaboration among various stakeholders.
They should realize the value of building and leveraging relationships that can enable them to deliver on commitments and organisational expectations. As part of their multifaceted roles, CIOs should embrace the relationship dimension which may require them to tap on extended networks to build a strong ecosystem in IT and beyond.
In this way, the CIO's role calls for a complex yet appreciative view of relationships. Relationships based on loose linkages or superficial ties are like a single thread that will break easily under the least strain. But if we build a web of relationships based on mutual trust, support and integrity, they will be resilient and better able to withstand hard times or future shocks such as technological, economic or business disruptions.
This pillar is led by Paolo Miranda about exceeding each and every expectation extraordinarily. The authors argue that excellence improves performance to greatly surpass normal standards in achieving a continuously moving target. The original and creative use of technology plays an important part in every organization's pursuit of excellence for a better world.
For IT professionals, excellence is like a never-ending list of project implementations and enhancements to improve systems and technology for businesses. There can always be better ways to perform or make something especially in the realm of Information Technology where new inventions and innovations are developed faster than ever before.
CIO Academy Asia would like to thank those who were involved with the book. With special mention to the core team made up of the 7 Pillar Leaders; Lee Kee Siang, Alvin Ong, Don Yeo, Koh Kok Tian, Ramesh Narayanaswamy, Lim Kuo Siong and Paolo Miranda, and especially Candice Poh, who came onboard as Chairperson for this project and Catherine Goh whose vast experience and meticulous leadership was invaluable especially during the final phase of this project.
Chief Information Officer at Maybank Singapore.
"With 55 great minds writing 58 articles, these IT leaders are generously sharing their valuable wisdom and interesting perspectives on 7 hot topics that have been confronting all of us in the world of managing technology and driving innovation. We may not fully apprehend some of the issues advocated but I am certain that we are all becoming wiser with new senses after reading their thoughtful and inspiring articles and stories. For me, I am enlightened.


Here at Mytchett Athletic Football Club, we aim to provide a safe and enjoyable environment, in which to allow children and young adults to play football.
We encourage participation by both girls and boys, and we are looking forward to having our first girls' league teams very soon. We already have girls who play within our younger age groups.
We at Mytchett wish you to know that child safety is paramount; a few children have died as a result of unsafe goals falling on them. At Mytchett, we only use the portable plastic style "Samba" goal, which is securely fastened down using a minimum of four ground spikes. On full size pitches we use the normal ground sunk football goals.
We also encourage partnership schemes with local schools and our coaches are available to give advice and support.
All our age groups have at least one FA qualified coach and First Aider, but we encourage more. The club also has a Child Protection and Ethical Standards Officer.
The "Goal" of Mytchett Athletic Football Club is: To provide the club members with the best possible facilities, coaching, equipment and child safety at the best possible value for money.


text:
The Tesla Semi is Elon Musk's Understated Multi-Billion Dollar Industry Disruptor
By Claribelle Deveza
The Tesla Semi may not make it to the news as much as the electric car maker's mainstream vehicles like the Model 3 and the Model Y, but the all-electric Class 8 truck has the potential to give Tesla billions upon billions worth of revenue. This is because, from a strictly objective point of view, there are very few reasons why businesses would not purchase a Tesla Semi.
Tesla's all-electric truck is equipped with a lot of compelling features that make it a preferable alternative to traditional diesel and gas-powered freighters. Its environmental impact is no joke considering that petrol-powered long-haul trucks account for a significant part of the transportation sector's emissions. Even if the Semi's environmental impact were ignored, the all-electric freighters' would still likely attract businesses with its robust suite of features and low operating costs.
Operating a fleet of long haul trucks is an expensive endeavor, from fuel costs to the vehicles' maintenance needs. Parts such as brake pads also need replacement regularly. These expenses pile up over the years as each petrol truck gets deployed. Operating expenses on the Tesla Semi are far lower. Even if the trucks themselves are generally more expensive than diesel and gas trailers at about $150,000-$180,000 per unit, Tesla estimates that the vehicle will give owners about $200,000 in savings from fuel costs alone. This means that the payback period of the Semi could be as short as two years.
Credit: Tesla
But its cost-efficiency is just one of its advantages. The Semi is filled to the brim with features, from its standard Autopilot system to its proprietary Convoy Mode, which would allow multiple trucks to travel as a group semi-autonomously. Very little is known about Convoy Mode since Elon Musk mentioned the feature during the Semi's unveiling, but concept videos shared by the company feature one manned truck leading two unmanned vehicles on a route. This could be a game-changer, and it could only result in even more cost savings for fleet operators.
As noted by Tesla enthusiast and retail investor Steve Mark Ryan of YouTube's Solving the Money Problem, these savings and advantages make the Semi very attractive to businesses. In the world of trucking, optimization is king, and the company that can operate at the lowest costs wins. Ryan estimates that if Tesla sells about 100,000 Semis a year at an average price of $165,000 per vehicle--which would be the "short-range" 300-mile variant with options--the company would have around $16.5 billion in revenue from the truck alone.
If Tesla can sell 200,000 Semis a year--which is feasible if the truck becomes a success--the company can see $33 billion of revenue from the vehicle alone. That's more than Tesla's entire revenue in 2019 from the Model S, Model X, and Model 3. The Semi is something that is rarely addressed today, but the Semi is huge, and it can very well be Tesla's biggest disruptor. Perhaps this is the reason why, even in the depths of Twitter in the TSLAQ sphere, the Semi is mostly ignored or denied altogether, with bears insisting that the truck will never be produced. But the Semi is coming, and if recent messages from Tesla are any indication, it will likely start limited production later this year.
Featured Image Credit: Tesla/Youtube
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Claribelle Deveza
Longtime writer and news/book editor. Writing about Tesla allows me to contribute something good to the world, while doing something I love.
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A case started in the US yesteday involving Jay Z (Jigaa Whaaaaaat) and Timbaland! They are being sued by an Egyptian musician who claims that they ripped off this song in creating Big Pimpin.
Now, to be fair, the rap lads are asserting that the first thought the sample was royalty free, and that they subsequently paid for it, so it's not a question of are they similar or anything. It's acknowledged that they did use the sample, but that they were entitled to.
Here's some extra reading on it!


Lawrence Hazen Joseph Gauvin has moved on and is back with the love of his life, Sheila Maria Valencia Gauvin (July 4, 1933 – Dec. 31, 2007). They are once again enjoying each other's smiles, laughter and company and dancing the nights away, just as they did on their first date.
Larry's life was rich in family, friends and Habs memorabilia (the Montreal Canadiens have lost one dedicated fan).
He was (according to himself) a direct descendant of the famous Jean Paul Gauvin, who came to Canada from France in 1662. He was born in Mintro, New Brunswick to Elsie and Larry Gauvin, but was raised by his grandparents, with whom he later moved to B.C.
Larry joined the Canadian Air Force early in life, but also spent some time working in high class hotels in Montreal as well as a program boy at the Montreal Forum, where he learned to love those Canadiens.
Although hockey was his passion, Larry met his true love in New Westminster, when she caught his eye at the Army and Navy Club. Larry even asked Sheila's dad if he could dance with her, and like many, her father couldn't say no to him.
They were married in 1960 with a ready-made family of three – Sheila's children Larry, Darlene (Dyck) and Valerie. Together, they produced two more children – Cindy (Clark) and Gordon.
Larry's career path led him from working as a prison guard to cooking in camps, running his own janitorial business to working at Phipps Manufacturing and acting as the Tax Man for the government.
Larry also volunteered considerable time and energy, along with Sheila, with the Royal Canadian Legion in Chilliwack and Penticton (two of the towns his family called home).
After retiring in the 1980s he and Sheila enjoyed their golden years by travelling with fifth wheel in tow. Arizona was a hot spot where many new friends were made and they also ventured across Canada to reconnect with eastern relatives.
The loving couple finally settled down on a little piece of paradise in Anglemont, B.C., where Larry (with the help of his grandson) built their home with his own hands.
Now Larry is back in paradise with his love and together they can watch over their families. They include his siblings Gordon and Rolla, sister-in-law Sherin, grandchildren Tanya, Jason and Jennifer, great grandchildren Madison, Skila, Johanna and another on the way, and many loving nieces, nephews and cousins.
A memorial service will be held in the summer, with details to be announced.
Memorial donations may be made to the Royal Canadian Legion.