Hey everybody and welcome back to another Wheel of Time video. In today's video we're going to dive into one of the strangest sections of the books, the time spent in the town of Hinderstab. I want to tell you this video is brought to you by one of my top tier patrons, the Herc. The Herc is one of my top tier patrons, which basically means he gets to sponsor a video as part of his reward tier. This is his selection and I have to say it's actually a really interesting topic. I know my first time reading through this section I kinda had a, hmm, as that whole series of events unfolded so hopefully we'll be able to give a little clarity to you today. Also, I know many of you are currently either in the middle of or planning to start a reread of the series and the lead up to the new show. I wanted to let you all know that I will be putting together some really cool visual summaries of the books here in the near future and I'm pretty excited about it. I've been doing a lot of work to get ready for this behind the scenes and I'm excited to get all this stuff out to you all. If you are one of those folks that are planning on doing a reread of the series and you haven't checked out the audio books yet, I highly recommend that. As some of you have seen on my channel before, audible.com has been one of my major supporters on the channel and the trial offer that they give to my viewers is pretty cool for a lot of you. If you want to check out the audio books but you're not sure if that format is right for you, you're not sure if you like listening to a book. There's a perfect way to check it out and not pay a dime. Just head to www.audibletrial.com forward slash naveless and sign up for a one month free trial. You'll get a free audio book so just start with the eye of the world and you can keep the book regardless of whether you want to keep the service or not. And the best part is you're really helping me grow the channel a lot just by doing that. So let's throw up a spoiler warning for the video. I am making a slight tweak to the spoiler rating system. Instead of just a color, I'm going to give you the spoiler warning color and the book title that it'll spoil. So that way if the video is going to have spoilers through a certain book, you'll be able to tell if that video is for you. Today's video will carry a spoiler rating of red through a memory of light. If you haven't finished the books completely, this video will certainly spoil some content for you. So the topic for today's video is exploring Hinderstap and it's a very unusual town in the story. So before breaking down how this fits into the story and what actually happened there, let's give a little bit of background on the town. Hinderstap is a fair-sized town just south of the Andoran border in Mournty. It sits in a small valley between some mountainous hills. The area around the town was once a part of the Great Nation of Coromanda, which was one of the ten nations during the compact right after the breaking of the world. There are ruins in the surrounding mountains of fortifications and castles from the long past. Matt actually has memories of this place from one of his past lives, which gives him a really uneasy feeling as they're approaching the town and he and Tom are pointing out the ruins. The town is not extremely large, but it is a fair-sized town. Matt thinks that it is just smaller than Bairlon, which is a medium-sized mining town in Andoran. The town has three ends, a normal end for travelers in the eastern part of the city off the main road, a very fine end for the wealthy merchants that sits off the main road in the city, and then an end for the common folk that sits a number of streets off the main part of the road. The economy of the area is known for its fine goat's cheese and mutton. There is an old road that was once a part of a great highway system from the long past. That road runs past the city and north into Andoran. So what's so special about this otherwise normal small town? Well, Matt in the band approached the town as they escaped from the Sean Chain lands to the south. Matt heads into town to try and get some supplies with Tom Honas, Jolene Edacina and Tesslin, their three waters, Tom Merlin, and then five of the band of the Red Hand. As they enter the town, they notice that the villagers are repairing buildings which strikes Matt as odd. They meet with the mayor of the town and some townsfolk, and the mayor, a man named Barledon, informs the party that they may stay until sundown, but after that, they got to leave. Matt heads to the cedar of the three ends to try to gamble and get some food for the band. Tom heads off to that normal end to just to gather information by being a gleamon and the isodai, being isodai, head to the fine end just to take a bath. While in the end, Matt manages to win a large amount of food from the villagers. As he is about to collect his winnings, the mayor warns him to leave immediately, but it is too late. As Matt and Tesslin honest, prepare to leave the end with their food. They are attacked by the villagers outside, and a very bloody fight takes place, with he and Tom honest being forced to kill the villagers, as they basically come at them relentlessly. They manage to fight their way with a few of the Red Arms, and Tom joins up with them with his knives, you know, throwing them around. Tom also had to fight his way from that other end all the way to them. So the party makes its way to the higher end end, where the isodai had been taking their baths, and they find the isodai just basically throwing fireballs down the stairwell, trying to protect themselves while in the end. The isodai had incapacitated a few of the serving women, that had attacked them, and they insist on taking them with them as they all escaped the town. Once in the safety of the hills, they discuss what the heck just happened. A bubble of evil had plagued the city, causing the inhabitants to kill each other every night. When Matt returns to the town the next morning, he notices that all the people that he had killed the night before are alive again. And the mayor approaches him and explains that this has been happening every night for the past few weeks. They are unable to escape it. They turn violent every evening, and then they start killing each other. But wake the next morning in their beds without anything other than knowledge of a bad dream that had happened the night before. If an outsider is killed in their town, they become a part of it, and they wake up in a bed in the end. So after leaving the town, Matt speculates that although this was a bubble of evil, the pattern was trying to fix itself, so the village would start over every morning. The inhabitants of Hinderstaff make another appearance in the last battle. Matt, the tactical genius that he is, sees the forces of the shadow led by Daemon Dread would want to dam the River Mora at the Battle of Merilor. He sees the spot that would make the most sense to do this, and he places the people of Hinderstaff here to defend the area. He had to make the armies of the shadow think that he meant to have it defended, and that the forces would be completely eradicated there. When the shadow and the dreadwords killed them and dam the River Mora, they had thought that they had won. But the inhabitants of Hinderstaff returned with Ashamen the next day, surprised the dread lords, retook the area, and broke the dam. The River returning killed most of the Trollic forces. Matt had chosen the people of Hinderstaff for this task because he knew that the force would be killed, and that he would be sending them to their deaths. But he knew that they would die and then come back to life and fight again. So I find Hinderstaff extremely interesting primarily because of how it fits in the whole story. He was entirely a brand in Sanderson creation, and he addresses it in his retrospective piece about writing the gathering storm in his blog. Harriet wanted him to write a more horrifying bubble of evil, and he wanted to get Matt in a few scenes in that book. So this is what he came up with, and it plays out like a one-off horror show. I actually hope they adapt this and put it in the show, because it certainly has horror elements to it, and I think it would be fun to watch on screen. I will say though that this does feel a little out of place in the books, just because we don't see other events like it. This was one of the more extreme bubbles of evil we come across, and the resetting mechanic is kind of new to the series. I do like how Brandon incorporated them into the last battle though, so it feels a little less like a random one-off event in the books. But what did you all think of Hinderstaff? Did you like this part of Matt's story? Did you feel like it felt like a part of the Wheel of Time, and would you like to see them adapt this for the television show? Please let me know what you think in the comments below. Also, please like the video as it helps the videos get promoted by the YouTube algorithm, and subscribe to the channel to see when I release new content. I have a bunch of fun stuff planned for you all that I'm pretty excited about. Thanks again so much to the Herc for sponsoring this video over on Patreon. You can check out how you can sponsor your own video by checking out my Patreon page. The link to that is in the description below as well. Thanks again to everyone supporting what I do here. You guys are all super appreciated. I love y'all. Hey guys, until next time, peace out. Tinker in the kitchen with a Java work to do. Mistress up above, slipping on the Rover Blue. She branches down the staircase, her fancy us a free cry. And Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Tinker as the mistress, don't you got a labour man? Yes, but she replied, he lacks your talent and your hands. And I can tell you got the skill to hit the spots you see. So Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Tinker said her neighbour poor can probably get it done. He's far too inexperienced, I never go that young. I'm sure he can be broken in or top, but he's too sweet. So Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? The mistress has the tinker, can you help me move the chairs? They're just a bit too heavy and they need to go upstairs. She bats her eyes, the tinker size, and picks them up with ease. So Tinker, manly tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? The mistress told the tinker, there's a problem with me bed. It's rough and full of lumps, the thought of sleep fills me with dread. I'm sure if we just roll around, I cry aloud and glee. So Tinker, handsome tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Tinker in his small clothes while he's underneath the sheets. When the sound of footstuffs in the kitchen, start to creak. He's unaware, don't use this day or you'll get caught and beat. So Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Come on, I got used to when don't need for him to see. So Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Tinker, oh, did Tinker, won't you mend a pot for me? Hey!