Where Do I Even Start?

Published February 23, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Greetings, gentlemen,

You cannot imagine how ecstatic I was to hear my humble letter read out on your podcast. You have truly made my day/week/months 🙂

Now let me share some of my thoughts on Episode 7.

I don’t know about you, but I felt a little bit cheated by how out of the blue Brace confessed to James about what he’d done to Horace and how magically Lorna figured out that Winter had been killed by the EIC. Both reveals felt rather rushed and poorly introduced. They do show a rat sniffing around the house right before the scene of their conversation with James, but for me as a member of the audience that was not enough. It also seems very unlikely that Lorna could suspect a little boy of knowing more than we could imagine by simply running away from her – an overly friendly stranger whose intentions could be unclear to the child.

What I really liked (even though I was utterly devastated by it #Jalpha) is the way James treated Zilpha. What a classic dick move! It was so heartless, so merciless and felt so authentic and true to life I couldn’t believe my own eyes and ears. I know you, guys, believe that James did it only to protect his loved one from what was about to happen, but I’ll allow myself to be a pessimist on this. From all the visions James has had so far, it seems to me that he can communicate with the dead and stays in constant contact with his mother (how Oedipian!). She told him not to kick Lorna out, she showed him where she was kept, she told him to drop Zilpha (maybe even out of jealousy).

As for your question, I think James is not going to die. I believe that while being a slave or before becoming one, James did indeed die and was brought back to life. That’s why he can talk to the dead now. He joined them once and now finds himself somewhere in between our world and the world of the spirits. I also think Zilpha might kill herself ’cause what James did to her can break a person big time (sorry for being so grim).

As usual, thank you very much for your amazing podcast.

Tanya from Tokyo

P.S. Is Roger ok? I hope he is all right.

Subscribe Now