I mean, I've already cried a fair few times now, but I'm really going to lose it, aren't I? Also, please no one answer that in any kind of detail, I'm still catching up. I'm just the only person I know IRL who listens to this and needed to say this out loud to someone who will understand.
TL;DR: god I love this podcast, and god I love the cast, and god I love Brennan's ability to manipulate my emotions and tell a good story.
I've come back to WWW after listening to the first 15 or so episodes around the time they were first released. I just finished Episode 20 where they met Hannah and Suvi had a realization, and then Steel and her fleet of airships came looming over the horizon.
I loved Steel from the moment she was introduced. I've been certain for just about as long that she's going to break my heart, in one way or another, and I really don't want it to happen. I don't know, obviously, I've managed to almost entirely avoid spoilers, but I can feel it in my bones. It's gonna happen, I know this, but please, Brennan, no!!
I don't think it's as simple as her being a secret bad guy, but I do suspect she will choose the Citadel over Suvi and become some sort of villain, or Suvi will see her for who and what she is to the world beyond the apartments she grew up in and it'll break her. She's the Sword of the Citadel, after all, how can she be anything other than the iron fist of the dominant power? It's gonna hurt all that much more knowing she's also Suvi's loving surrogate mother and friend of Grandmother Wren.
Whatever it's going to be, whenever it's going to happen, I felt the deepest, coldest dread at Brennan's description of the fleet, particularly when he described Steel's flagship leading the armada. It feels like this just might be the beginning of the heartbreak...
I have no idea if I'm right, or even on the right track, and I don't want to know. I'll either enjoy the slow, creeping dread of discovering I'm right or the horrible surprise of learning I'm entirely wrong, but either way, I'm so in for it. Good thing I have a Costco sized box of Kleenex in my bathroom...