Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN 35: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 1 & 2

October 11, 2020 7:10 PM

The Witch in the Glass; a play in Five Acts  Act 1: Perseverance, or the Sage House Act 2: Contentment, or the Community at Chorus Island Act 3: The Single Star, or the View She Sees of Poppies Spread Act 4: Attention, or the Snow in Summer Act 5: The Present Day, or the Adversary

The Witch in the Glass
By Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

“MY mother says I must not pass
Too near that glass;
She is afraid that I will see
A little witch that looks like me,
With a red, red mouth to whisper low
The very thing I should not know!”

“Alack for all your mother’s care!
A bird of the air,
A wistful wind, or (I suppose
Sent by some hapless boy) a rose,
With breath too sweet, will whisper low
The very thing you should not know!”


Thisbe gets a tattoo
Broun thinks about their career
Sovereign Immunity/Si has his mouth sign checks that his ass can't cash
Clemintine founds a cult that's only mostly about herself
Exeter is having a great time
Milli receives a job offer
Bismuth lurks around all spooky-like


Austin, Janine, Ali, Art, Jack, Keith, Sylvi, Andrew

posted by fomhar (4 comments total)

I kind of wish they'd telegraphed Clem surviving a little more at the end of the kingdom game, but I understand why they didn't.

Love the Gur Sevraq bit at the end of part two.

As I said several years ago, I would like to buy a copy of Tower.
posted by fomhar at 7:12 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

wait FUCK

better episode description should include:
Gur Sevraq is jack's smirking revenge
or Gur Sevraq learns about calvinball
or Gur Sevraq adheres to the first rule of fight club
posted by fomhar at 7:20 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

The Gur Sevraq reveal made me feel a little better about the whole thing, but I agree it was very awkward to give Clem a satisfying conclusion and then bring her back for some kinda weird epilogue that nobody in particular wanted. I would have been happier if the Witch in Glass had been Clem's body but repurposed to Perennial's ends.

One interesting thing is right before Valence self-destructed he reached out to Gur Sevraq and made contact, but I'm pretty sure the room he saw Gur in was one with russian sage, and not the Stel Nideo room we saw in the video. So I guess it's literally Gur's ghost that lives in Clem's mind rent-free and not just a recreation of Gur in Clem's mind. Stel Nideo got Gur's body and Clem got Gur's soul.

The friends tried really hard, but they could not resist the siren call of fantasy space magic. That's fine, I think, I've finished listening to Heiron recently and I think their fantasy ideas are more interesting than their sci-fi ones. I wish more of the fantasy novels I've read were in settings as fascinating as Heiron. N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth series and Ann Leckie's Raven Tower are the only two I've read that even come close to the worldbuilding of Heiron.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:36 PM on October 11, 2020

P.S. I feel like Jack and Austin should go ahead and bring in an editor to organize their Tower document. It seems like what it needs more than anything else is another set of eyes to point out weak areas and arrange what they have written into a presentable order. After so many years of pecking away at it they're probably incapable of separating their own internalized understanding of the game and what is actually written down. I'm sure it'd be well worth the money to hire someone to do that.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:39 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]