Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 100 - AFFC The Kraken's Daughter

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

GGC sails into another POV, beginning Asha. Raised to believe she is her father's daughter and father's heir to the Iron Islands, men at every turn try to dissuade her from pursuing the Seastone Chair by virtue of her sex.  --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, a song of ice and fire. Girls Gone Canon, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 100, The Kraken's Daughter in a Feast for Crows, our first Asha Greyjoy episode. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana. Wow. God. Wow. 100.

This is big. This is 100 episodes. To be clear. Yeah. Because we've also been doing His This is 100 episodes. To be clear. Because we've also been doing His Dark Materials episodes. Hit em. His dar. I would like to say that we are hitting

our 100th Aswath public episode. Not counting Patreon teasers also. I would like to put out there. We've really been cracking. Yeah. We truly have. Chloe's been making

this joke like she's already made it ten times tonight. We have been cracking. And it's like a hundred legs, right? A hundred legs. Squid legs of episodes? A hundred legs. Squid legs of episodes. No one needs that many legs.

That's a lot of ptero-larvae. Centipedes do. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to be here with you, with all of you listeners. I know you all are, I don't know, out at your job being wonderful and in person, which is very awesome if you're able to do that, or if you're braving that and being stuck on the front line. I am holed up in my quarantine hole and ready to talk about squids. That is how I'm feeling tonight. That is on the

100th Song of Ice and Fire public episode of Girls Gone Canon, how I'm feeling. Yes, it has been a century of Girls Gone Canon. Stop! I don't know why you all put up with us, and I also want to admit something big, a fault of ours. Everyone,

this is our hundredth episode, and we want to admit that we do not know how to count no one ever taught us it's honestly a really big issue here you might have caught this already but a few episodes ago i think it was like 97 we accidentally repeated we repeated an episode number um if you are a fan in of the canon you will that's awful i never want to say that again uh you'll be able to go back and count the episodes and realize our error i count for my day job so it's hard to keep counting for like 24 hours this is our 100th episode not our 97th 97th 98th 99th this is our 100th episode yes you know, I just don't believe in counting.

It's just not a thing I'm into. And, you know, I think Chloe just decided that we, as a podcast, we were going to lie about our age the way that I say that I'm 21 years old now. You know? Same thing. We were just doing it to stay in theme for my birthday. And this is it. We're 100 years old now.

So thank you, everyone. Not only is it our 100th episode of Girls Gone Candidate, we probably should have popped some bottles, but I'm recovering from illness because, you know, I'm 100 years old. And you know what? I did pop a can. Not a bottle, unfortunately.

You could catch me earlier cracking into a can of La Croix. La Croix. La Croix. The people's sparkling drink sponsor us La Croix now that we got our

hundred neck rings out of the way yes it's also actually been like a tree it's another milestone right it's two official years on Patreon oh two years with our patrons two years of belwis deserves better yes and uh no dad no and wow that's that's fun and we celebrated by kicking off our discord channel

it's a channel right not a server or is it a server and there are channels i think it's a server we're working on it everyone we have a discord server with some channels we've started with some of our patrons patrons in the thunder tier and above our ten dollar tier and above have access to this we're going to be doing some casual gaming and hang out and chat streams we'll probably be doing maybe some semi-formal streams about some on topic or off topic stuff who knows so if you want in on that action patreon.com slash girls gone canon big shout out to all of our patrons in all of our tiers you are why we bring you these episodes week after week after week after month after month after two years after two and a half years so yes thank you very much and i mean it's been great having people join and getting to experience this

with everyone so we've been getting a lot of animal pictures lately and that's always as you know exciting for me i brought this up in another episode, but thank you also to Nicole for emailing their puppy army to us. So really fun. Also what's fun is thank you to everyone who's been leaving us pod bean comments and reviews. We do get them and I enjoy them. A shout out to the one who talks about the arc

in which I start gradually just really getting into cases for cannibalism especially within the Song of Ice and Fire and why cannibalism is in fact a practical choice the Pobine comments in general though they just bring me great joy so thank you to everyone for continuing to leave those you also

the listeners are why we have been doing this for so long yes for 100 tree years around her necks 100 tree years a thousand years a thousand more and those are the only words i know in that song oh wait no i have died never mind i tried to actually sing it then i realized i don't know anything that was your musical and comedy entertainment for the evening at the girls gone canon birthday shenanigan bonanza this year the ball that you all have had tickets to you just heard both the entertainment acts in one thank you eliana you're welcome. We did get this comment on

iTunes that was actually really cute. I liked it a lot. It was from our friend who is a Wales listener. Well, I'm gonna read it to you. I've consumed an embarrassing number of A Song of Ice and Fire podcasts. Same. I initially stumbled across this because of

their amazing His Dark Materials coverage. I've read those books over and over, but they managed to breathe new life into them. I feel like I'm getting to feel what it was like to read them for the first time again. Thank you so much, because I got to read them for the first time with everyone. So I hope that helps. Yeah, I think bringing in that energy and also, you know, this is the first time for me reading these books of dust. So we are, of course, rereading them. And thank you. Yeah, again, we also do his dark materials episodes. And we're really excited for series slash season two, depending on your part

of the world in Wales, they'd probably call it series two. Yeah. And if you haven't checked out the show or the books, give them a read if you're not in the headspace or heart space for taking on another series. It's just three main books, a couple smaller offhand books, so if we call it Dunkin' Eggs, probably a quarter of the size of the Dunkin' Eggs, and then the Books of Dust, which are a companion trilogy. So if you have time, I know you're not reading any new A Song of Ice and Fire, so you may as well jump on board. And I do want to add, I think you should check out the show if you aren't feeling like you want to read something in depth. Check out the show. It is available on HBO Max. And I can tell you as a BBC and HBO produced show, it is a wonderful adaptation of a book series.

Yeah, it's been really faithful. I mean, it's a beloved book series and also has gotten treatment before, right? That is not so faithful of an adaptation. And I think it really captures a lot of the same spirit as the books. There are some changes, but I understand why those were streamlined for visual audiences. I'm going to recommend another book series that's also going to be adapted soon. Maybe you don't want to watch the visual

adaptation, right? That one comes with its own caveats because it's about to be granted only as consultingly produced by David and Dan of game of thrones that you all might know but i'm here to plug the book series that they are adapting the three body problem or remembrance of earth's past depending on which title you want to go with it's actually i really love this series i think it's so imaginative. It's got an incredible premise. And as someone who really loved the Foundation trilogy, it's just such a deep series and explores all these

ideas. Really interesting also, because it's coming from a cultural context within China, starts in the Cultural Revolution in China, and then spans a lot of different time periods. And again, just all these concepts. There's some things that I don't love about it when it comes to how they handle portrayals of women, but otherwise, honestly, it's a series that I've recommended to people constantly since reading it, and almost everyone who's read it since then has loved it. All right, I'll buy it tonight.

It'll go on my big list very convincing while we're plugging things we got a message from our friend and patron pepper pepper said weird question maybe not weird but it's been on my mind for a while the whole jb's gonna be a king's guard because cersei is in King's Landing and says so and he's staying with her plot. It doesn't sit right with me. Like, what did she think was gonna happen? Tywin would be all, my heir's gone, that's totally cool. Of course, Tywin's gonna lose his shit.

Right. So, back to the Jacob and Asao imagery. Was Cersei trying to steal Jamie's birthright and be the new heir? Or is she just that stupid? She does come up with dumb plans that never work, but they don't work because the people she enlists go off script. This instant went off perfectly, Tywin did exactly what everyone would expect him to do, and without an heir he's gonna pick the demon-twisted monkey son as the replacement, or her. Hmm, that's my first question. Second, who did she approach?

Who could she have gone to in King's Landing to suggest to the king that he names his hands heir? Varys? There's no details given, but just that Cersei somehow made it happen. She's 15 and might have a maid hanging around, but that's it. I have no idea who it is i just can't think of how that happened but except by someone who purposefully wanted to destabilize westeros obviously the capable hand tywin would go ape shit and quit yeah so i thought this was a really interesting question especially in the context of what we're going to be discussing today with asha's chapter and that idea of women and birth rights who gets to inherit what and i think that for the first part of this question regarding circe and jamie becoming a king's guard circe was under the

impression right that she was going to king's landing at this time because she thought she was going to be rhaegar's bride right yeah she thought she could have it all right like she thought she was going to king's landing she was gonna marry the prince become queen someday have his beautiful silver babies and fuck jamie maybe sometimes on the side when she felt like it yeah she she thought that she could have her cake eat it too bring her side piece her currently maid who is her brother uh and then have him be a side piece at king's landing because she had that prospect for queen ahead of her i don't think she was trying to get casterly rock i don't think that's something that had occurred to circe until later and even now i i think she's once she's had that idea planted in her head right it seems like she's been

trying to be queen solely and have real power for a while especially because she wanted power over her own life because right now she's lady of the rock and kevin reminds her of that and she's like i don't fucking want to be lady of the rock she's like i'm queen i mean she does want to be a lady of the rock but that doesn't matter to her right now as to who she would have approached about this plan i don't know if that's something george has thought about or cared about i also wouldn't be surprised if it was just something maybe cersei would have been able to directly say to aries like i don't know in passing at some dinner party or whatever and just sort of incepted and like dropped it as an offhand comment yeah i could see her definitely saying something to him or to an advisor near him or something

as far as that goes but i do think it's significant that cersei in this moment is very tunnel vision and it reminds me a lot of sansa in the first book, right? Like she didn't think about how telling Cersei of her dad's plans would do anything bad to her household. She thought, this is going to fix it all. And my dad will be able to forget about my bad behavior and about how bad the king was. And I'm still going to marry him. And, you know, they're going to just set things straight.

Maybe Cersei, she's the queen. She has a straight head on. And, you know, she're going to just set things straight. Maybe Cersei, she's the queen. She has a straight head on. And, you know, she's been through some shit, but she understands what's at stake. And Cersei will take care of me because my dad obviously is not listening to me. And Cersei did the same thing, right? She's like, my dad's not going to listen to me. Jaime doesn't know what's good for him, right? Like she thinks she knows what is good for Jaime.

And she's like, I'm going to take take care of this he can just be there I can fuck both of them if I want to fuck Jamie depends on the day I don't think she thought much beyond that like I think she was just like this is the perfect plan and we're gonna do it let's put it in fucking here let's go yeah she was also like 15 at the time and you know what maybe that sounds like a perfect plan at 15 you know who else was about 15 years old who did something really rash in the story um there's like incited some there's a lot of there's a lot of lists there's a lot of yeah that's true actually i'm sorry i'm sorry i have to be more specific I was thinking of Liana Stark oh I was thinking of Robb Stark I mean any Stark just saying no I'm just kidding

but the contrast of Liana to Cersei is like their plots very much do have a nice rotation around each other there yeah and she thinks about them she thinks about Liana right she thinks of her in a way as a rival even Kevin kind of thinks about them like that

so interesting food for thought i think there could have been a little fuck you dad hidden in there too you know what i mean like any good 15 year old fuck you dad i'm going over your head dad and yeah i really don't think george just thought that far i think he was just like ah and cersei ruined everything and i think he probably thought a good parallel to sansa ruining everything in book one and now she deserves to die. Because that's what all men that read A Song of Ice and Fire think.

I'm just kidding. I'm sorry, please cut that. Or don't. It's our podcast, who cares? I don't know, that's a good one. That's a good one. I wish we were doing Cersei sometimes just because we just did Jaime and I'm really hyped about Cersei someday whenever it happens, which we will not be telling you right now.

No, we won't. No, we won't. A hundred episodes of keeping you all in the dark. And we will tell you about when Cersei will bring her storm someday. But for now, we're going gonna bring you our lightning round our lightning round is gonna be done a little differently tonight because it is a character's first episode we are doing a mini intro to asha basically a focus from some of the chapters that happened before the kraken's daughter we aren't gonna go through eight million chapter summaries tonight in the lightning

round we're just gonna give it to you straight and fast, so let's jump into A Clash of Kings. Theon 1 and 2. Asha is reportedly on great wike, taking messages for Lord Balon. She toys with her poor, cocky, and arrogant brother's heart, also his dick, passing herself off as a shipwright's wife to fool Theon and see what kind of man he has become.

She takes the seat of honor at Balon's side that night. Then during the War of the Five Kings, Asha is given command of 30 longships for Balon's invasion. She visits her mother, Alanis Harlaw, before leaving, taking Deepwood Mott while Theon heads for Winterfell. Theon IV and Theon VI. Later, Theon requests reinforcements from his sister, but she denies him them, refusing to further aid this silly quest for an inland castle that they cannot hold. She leaves him ten men who abandon him by the end of the chapters. A storm of swords! Balon's dead!

Good job, Eliana. You're doing great. Thank you. A feast for crows. The prophet. The damp hair declares a king's moot will occur on Naga's hill. That brings us to the Kraken's daughter. Asha has

arrived at Ten Towers from her victories at Deepwood Mott, waiting for her supporters and her crew to arrive. She visits with her favorite Nunkle Roderick, hoping for an escape into his vast, magnificent library, but ends up getting rid of Dosa Reality instead. Preparing to rule her people like the queen she is, Asha must face one last hurdle of the night her ex tween boy toy who is a level 10 clinger how is she supposed to be a queen

with that shit hanging around you're right XOXO gossip girl yeah Asha Greyjoy has some conflict she's at 10 towers waiting for her supporters distant cousins Gossip Girl, I guess. Yeah, Ashton Greyjoy has some conflict. She's at Ten Towers, waiting for her supporters, distant cousins, drunk Harlaws.

The banners are scattered around the room, but she also notices the room's only 25% full. Carl told her as much when they originally counted the longships, and his observations were right. but she couldn't agree with him, at least not where her crew could hear her. Devoted, the ironborn would not give their lives for a lost cause, she thinks. Do I have so few friends as these? So we tend to compare a lot of these point of views. We did put Asha purposefully next to Eriohota for numerous reasons, right? Like duty, axes, living in a significantly different culture than the mainland of Westeros. But there are a lot of ways that Arianne's introduction and feast feels similar to Asha, and also a lot that feel different as well. They're presented to us as these strong, liberated, independent women raised as the heiresses to their house,

their mothers estranged from their fathers living separately brothers who were off as wards to solve a blood debt with Quentin and Theon the Kingsmoot and the Queenmaker both have some really strong parallels right they both go horribly wrong Asha though is warned numerous times in this chapter not to do it where Ariane's premiere is her forging into battle, with supporting chapters of course introducing both of these stories like the prophet or with Ares Oakheart. This loneliness that Asha feels in this chapter, this lack of support, does feel similar to Arienne in The Queen's Maker on her failed journey of a diverse group of friends.

As in the Dornish chapters, a significant amount of new world building helps us take in this chapter, and the factions that are forming are important to note as well. The big difference is, of course, Arianne spends that first chapter thinking that she's fighting against the system that's denying her what she's owed, but that system actually has a lot of plans to take her to the center of Westeros, even if the system is suspiciously maybe slightly still a little sexist, and I don't trust it, but I digress. And also, it results in training marriage to gain that status, though, which is what Asha spends her first chapter being pushed at. She spends it in this land that supposedly embraces reaving and

winning glories, although we know it is a bit misogynistic. And while she's done just that, reaved and gloried, she's being caged by the Westerosi society box of marrying a lord and settling down, which we'll definitely expand on throughout this whole episode. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we could

have had Asha after Erianne. She would have made a great successor to those chapters. And we're seeing a lot of commonality, especially here in this book, in The Feast for Crows, across many of the women in the great houses of Westeros who are suddenly finding themselves with openings through which they might have the opportunity to rule. And besides what you said, there are some other really interesting ways that I think Ariane and Asha's chapters sharpen each other's stories and their position in terms of how they were raised. As you said, both have grown up feeling, for the most part, equal to any man

and have enjoyed a lot of sexual liberation. But whereas Ariane thought that her birthright was being torn away from her, which goes against her cultural traditions down in Dorne. And whereas she grew up feeling really distant from her father and his plans, feeling rejected by him, Asha was in fact groomed to rule and she sees herself as the rightful heir to the Iron Islands. That's what's actually contrary to the Ironborn culture, and which again is highly misogynistic and patriarchal, which gets hammered home over and over in this chapter as a sort of warning of like, Asha, do you really want to do this? And Asha grows up this way because Balon doted on her. He made her a huge part of her plans and brought her in and really taught her how to rule versus the

relationship that Arianne and Doran had until recently. So next we have a list of some of the folks who have actually shown up in that 25% which is the Silverfish of Botley, Stonetree of the Stonetrees, the Black Leviathan of Volmark, and the Nooses of the Myers are present and the rest are all just like variations of the Harloth sides. Bormans in pale blue, Hothos with a border, the knight with the peacock of his mom's house, and then Siegfried, silver hairs,

two sides, counterchanged, and divided bendwise. I cannot visualize this. I was gonna look it up and I honestly didn't. I just was like, I followed the counter change but divided bend wise it's like a strap it's a strap that runs from the upper dexter corner of the shield usually uh huh and it divides it in two lines it's just really ridiculous right like

it's like way to make yourself stand out Siegfried Sie. Siegfried's silver hair, yeah. And I think it turns out he's a little difficult when it comes to House Harlaw politics, as we'll talk about later. Only Lord Harlaw's banner had the silver sides on a black field, like the dawn of days. Her favorite uncle, Roderick the Reader, was the Lord of Ten Towers towers but his seat is vacant the feast had finished and roderick did not enjoy quarrelsome drunks at this hour his steward three tooth confirms that he's with his books and bodily too let me have this quote the woman was so old that a septon had once said she must have nursed the crone that was when the faith was still tolerated on the isles. Lord Roderick had kept septons at ten towers, not for his soul's sake, but for his books.

This chapter is like much of the Ironborn in the story, framed in the new way versus the old way. There's a ton of power in the new way, compared to that magpie nature of the old way. When I say that, I compared to that magpie nature of the old way and when i say that i mean the violent magpie nature the war of the five kings created this huge vacuum of opportunity for the iron islands much like i imagine and game of thrones will create for like the starks who will also likely seize it and roderick's library full of books instead of war

trophies and his beautiful ten towers that are full of his sisters, while not treated as well as they probably should be, sisters instead of thralls, is a symbol of the new way. Blacktide and Christopher seem to be as well, which we'll talk on later. And Asha herself, it's basically the coming of the new way in the story. Euron says he's the storm, and Asha says she's the new way. He used to have septons to tend his books. Like he just told Asha like in a few pages, he'll be like, hey, I just sent an Amazon order over to Mir to get some new glasses. That's pretty, pretty up there for an iron morn. A little classy.

Tone it down. The queen of turnips and queen of otters, Asha, will offer them nourishment at the Queen's Moot, and they're all going to laugh at her in the wake of Euron, who promises to give them what they want. Glory in the face of their society that keeps keeping them down. The glory they were denied in Baelin's penance, much like the veil during the War of the Five Kings for Robb and Ned's deaths. It's very similar, right similar right different reasons but very angry they all want more even the dornish when we look at them they want to rise up too quellen of course had a ton to do with this behavior because he sought out neutrality during robert's rebellion

so when this is juxtaposed against the north and dorn all that suffering comes to mind the difference of course between this and dorn and the North is that there aren't a lot of relatable characters in the Iron Islands besides Asha, Roderick, and sometimes Aaron. Like, most of them sometimes suck. So I know that's a stereotype. It's a stereotype because it's true. They all suck. And the North and Dorne have more sympathetic characters right you sympathize with their stories you feel for these characters and this is our first chance in this episode to start getting some of that sympathy through ash's eyes who sees her people as a different type of people that could change yeah i absolutely regarding the sympathy because because with the North, we see how they're very clearly wronged, as

we open up in A Game of Thrones. And Dorne, that pain that they've endured, especially the Martells, that loss from Robert's Rebellion, they clearly haven't gotten over it. Whereas there is a sense of loss for the Greyjoys after the Greyjoy Rebellion,

but it doesn't feel as justified, perhaps, because it was incited by Balon. Whether or not that's right, but there is still a pain for both, just with the Dornish. It's a more sympathetic cause. Yes. Asha had not seen the sweet fin amongst the ships outside, and she comments that the Crozi had swain, bodily drowned. Three Tooth says that this was his second son, Christopher, who's here. Then Asha remembers the last time that she saw him, deciding not to dwell on what's going to be

the upcoming awkwardness, understandably so, as we're going to see, and then asks where her mother is. Three Tooth says she's in the widow's tower, a bed. Something I really like in this chapter is the way that Asha frames people by their ships and not men so while men are looking at her and seeing her how they want to see her she actually looks at them and sees them as ships she looks for the swift fin she doesn't look for the man she opens with the ships being her descriptor it reminds me almost

of sansa identifying renly and baristan on the road as her sign of intelligence. George is telling us Asha's language is the sea. Even when we met her as Eskred earlier with Theon, he thought she moved as if she were used to a deck beneath her feet. Yeah, and I mean, you know, people might think in terms of men when it comes to combat in the rest of Westeros, but it makes sense that they would think in terms of ships in a place that's so based on naval warfare and reaving. Absolutely. Asha thinks it's no wonder Roderick prefers the books. Widow's Tower had been named for her aunt, Lady Gwyneth, who had come home to mourn her

husband during Baelin's first rebellion. Gwyneth claimed she'd leave when her grief passed, though she claimed the towers should be hearst by age rights as well. But still she lingered, old muttering about how this should be her castle. And now Roderick has a second half-mad sister, Alanis.

Morissette? Yes, in fact. You, you, you, and I'm here to remind you. This our uh encore entertainment performance i like to think alannis is up there after the episode she's like writing songs while while at the ten towers between when s is too they're both up there. They're co-writing, you know, like first- They're like Tegan and Sarah. Their first album's gonna be hard. Maybe.

Oh my god. They were walking with the ghost? Oh, but they are. Yeah. Please don't insist. Damn. I can see it. All right.

This is an interesting AU. We'll chase another time. Other AUs. This time, maybe canon by George R.R. Martin. Between the Fair Isle and like gwyneth reminding roger constantly that she is the elder and therefore ought to be the one ruling i feel like gwyneth could have actually been a jumping point for george conceiving of reyna targaryen jaharis's eldest sister who actually spent quite a bit of time on the fair isle and was jokingly

called the queen of the west at one time and a lot of that on the Fair Isle and was jokingly called the Queen of the West at one time. And a lot of that is because, as she would remind Jaehaerys, she is the elder. She's the eldest of all of them at this point and could have been queen. In fact, she was actually supposed to be queen alongside her brother Aegon, and she was the dragonrider among them and was kind of a queen again when she was forced to marry their uncle maegor and her daughters were jaherys's heirs for quite a bit which i think really highlights the threat that a female claimant could pose to his rule and perhaps is part of why jaherys was reluctant to name his eldest and uh daughter denarius heir because of Rhaena, especially during a time when those rules of gender and succession weren't set in stone yet in the Targaryen dynasty because

they were still so new to ruling Westeros. And we are seeing that in Ash's framework as well. I would argue that that was written through Gwynness. And I do think that's definitely kind of where George sandboxed that idea for Fair Isle. And I think we're going to see a lot of that throughout this chapter as we keep going. But this is definitely framework for Asha, who is going to be usurped by her uncles in the next time. And again, there used to be the Salt King and Rot King who harmoniously ruled, right? So that kind of idea, just like you said,

Jaehaerys didn't want that precedent set. And it seems that this is the first King's Moot in thousands of years. We don't know exactly. There's a couple different estimates, but it's the first one in more than thousands of years. And that's a big deal.

And they don't want to set it off with her. And that is for sure seen in this chapter. Yes. When Asha sailed north, she worried her frail mother would die before she could return, but she'd outlived Balin instead. The drowned god placed savage japes upon us all, but men are crueler still.

Damn. Yeah, Rip. It makes me sad. Yeah. Rip. It makes me sad. Yeah. So Asha hasn't seen Alanis since leaving for war and she thinks about how her mother had once actually had a

fierce and strong face with laughing eyes. But the last visit, she was pale, wrapped in furs, staring at the sea, and I feel like I really missed on previous rereads how strong and fierce alanis was uh in asha's memory and that asha had looked up to that strength in her mother before yeah at this chapter we get the famous line my mother raised me to be bold that

she says to roderick the reader and i am sad that we don't get a further kind of flesh out of some of those memories we get a little bit of it right, but not a lot through these chapters. I wish we would get a little more, so it'll be fun to see anything we can pull out as we read along through Asha. But I'm hoping he does actually expand on it in the Winds of Winter when we get some of her further chapters with Stannis. We have this line here of, Some pride remained in the way she held her head, but her eyes were dim and cloudy and her mouth had trembled when she asked

after Theon. Did you bring my baby boy? She had asked. Well, if you recall, I actually had a chance to be or resemble Alanis Harlaw in Michael Klarfeld Claradox's Iron

Islands map. Yeah, so I got to be a ghost of the towers walking around looking for my baby boys. Damn, that's sad. Jake! It is sad. Oh, Jairus! Alisanne! I can't say that too loudly. They'll get excited in the other room. Alanis seemed to think of Theon as forever 10 years old, and Asha had to break the news that Theon would not come, telling her Balin had sent him reaving in the north. The words had cut Alanis deeply, and now Asha had to deliver worse news, that Theon was dead. Another dagger to add to the ones that were Roderick and Maren.

Yeah, shitty news. But good news. Yeah, we know otherwise. He's not. Her delivering the news that Theon is dead. Spoilers, if you don't know. He's alive. She learns. But Arianne here, not to make this our ariane hour as well

this reminds me of ariane doing everything right now she's doing everything in her plot in a feast for crows with quentin being alive and using that fire of him plotting against her to propel herself right uh even after this she thinks like oh he's still he wanted my birthright i know it's true except he's the one that's actually dead and asha comes to find out her brother's alive yeah and i mean theon probably doesn't have too many hopes and dreams for himself right now you don't say yeah so god it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out that'll also come later in the episode for now though asha's vowing to see her mother the next day and asks three tooth to see lord roderick and commands her to tend to her crew they were finishing unloading the black wind

with captives asha tries to negotiate hot meals for her captives lady glover and her children but three-tooth says that she'll ask her lord what to do with the wolf folk asha gets serious then pinches her nose and tells her you'll do as i command three-tooth squeals and promises to obey and asha lets her go to find her nuncle yeah this stuck out really hard because three-tooth is very obviously old right which means that three tooth might be someone of a different time that practices an older way or believes in an older way even here three tooth calls these captives the wolf folk and almost acts as if asha has no authority and says no i'll be asking the man of the house what we do with these captives not you woman and ashley has to use

physical force to actually get three tooth to give in to her she pinches her nose until she like is like ow ow ow and lets three tooth go and i thought that was something very interesting that this is again another symbol of the new way she wants to get hot meals for her captives and she's like they have a newborn who isn't doing so well and three tooths like we don't give a fuck about your prisoners we're ironborn who the fuck cares they're prisoners and ash is like okay but they're important captives we have to keep them alive yeah she's like we need these for political reasons you know politics that thing that we've been very bad at the past a few years and yeah so i think that's a that's a great point of how she had to exert that force yeah it's like the ironborn are playing pokemon but they're just playing based off of the names of the move and they don't understand

technique you know what i mean like they like have like a someone sends out a bulbasaur and they're like huh i know let's send out a Magikarp. Asha's out here playing like with the fucking metagame, you know, she's out here thinking about trick room. She's Eevee and Ivy breeding. Well, no, she's Ivy breeding, Eevee training. She's gigantic, sorry. Everyone. Yeah.

God. Well, Asha had always felt more at home here at Ten Tower than in Pike. Yeah. God. Well, Asha had always felt more at home here at Ten Tower than in Pike. And she remembers all the different races up and down the steps and the walkways and bridges and fishing and the quay and nights in Roderick's books. The castle was the newest on the Isles. Roderick's great-great-grandfather raised it. And ancient Harlaw Hall's issues had taken blame of Theomar Harlaw's three young sons.

They died. They had, like, horrible horrible just everything is bad and moldy and crumbling. So you know, you had some dead babies that happens. He raised the Aryan comfortable 10 towers in its place with all the different shapes hours. I just thought this was a really well structured bit in this chapter where you know, just a bit before you have Asha and Three-Tooth bantering about the infant mortality rate and keep the captive babies alive, okay? And then we get a little more of that world-building of how infant mortality fits into the history of the Iron Islands and why the castle's the way it is. Yeah. Many joked that Theomar was changeable and compared his six very different wives to his many-sized towers.

The book tower is the thick set. It's octagonal and made with blocks of stone. Stairs are built into the walls. She climbs all the way up to the fifth floor for Roderick's reading room. That sounds like an endeavor. So you know how everyone was really hyped about sam in the citadel with all the books and everything yes it is this is what i would be hyped about because i just imagine it's a cozy solar-esque tower space like a decent sized room it's the the widest, not maybe completely like even. So I'm imagining it's

like wide and not like short, but I don't know, just a little shorter, not like a not a perfect circle. It's octagonal. So I just can like be in it. And I'm seeing all the books and you're in this warmer space. There's probably a candle lit, there's a desk, there's a leather chair. space. There's probably a candle lit. There's a desk. There's a leather chair. Wow. And there's this line he was always reading. So they're all his rooms. And we're going to go into that in a second. But that is my life. When I was a kid, I could never take my face out of the books. My mom called me worm all the time as in bookworm. Like I was like reading Goblet of Fire in the parking lot of a Sam's Club after my mom bought it. And like, she's like, you need to take your face out of that book, you're gonna get

hit by a car. So I relate to this, like, this cozy reading space is all I want. Just leather bound, whatever and books. Yeah. And the nice thing about it, unlike the Citadel is it's in his own home. So he can just sleep and be cozy whenever he wants there. Exactly, and it's funny you say that because we're going to talk about someone that came from Old Town later with some new ideas. Wow. And just kind of the difference. Yeah, it's funny you say that. I have some black tide to bring us. I love that this goes on to describe that he would read while entertaining, read between court cases, read at dinner at the high table, all of it, and we get this little passage. She found him hunched over a table by a window,

surrounded by parchment scrolls that might have come from Valyria before its doom. Heavy leather-bound books with bronze and iron casks. Beeswax candles as thick and tall as a man's arm, burned on either side of where he sat, on ornate iron holders. Lord Roderick Harlaw was neither fat nor slim, neither tall nor short, neither ugly nor handsome. His hair was brown, as were his eyes, though the short, neat beard he favored had gone gray. All in all, he was an ordinary man, distinguished only by his love of written words, which so many ironborn found unmanly and perverse. Aw. I only wish the best for Roger Carlaw.

Kind of like, he's the hot uncle, right? Like, in my opinion. They just said he's not hot. Like, if you put a sweater vest and some thick glasses on him, I think he's hot. He was neither ugly nor handsome. like in my opinion like if they just said he's not hot some thick glasses on him i think he's hot i bet they're ugly they're handsome dick is good enough it gets the job done and he's borderline hot he's just almost borderline hot uncle just almost there if i had to fuck one of ash's uncles it would be rod brick the reader or you're on if i was really fucked up the other ones are unfuckable um do you like how it has to be like either you're on or rodrick though there's no in between yeah those are two really different different ways of sleeping with

people fuck marry kill ashes uh uncle oh my god. Obviously Mary Roderick. Anyways. Oh man. Do I still get to? Never mind. Continue. This is going to be a very different tone in a second everyone because I'm going to talk about how there's a lot of depiction but not endorsement of toxic masculinity in these chapters that really

set the stage for how you know the deck of cards is really stacked against asha's campaign for the iron islands here and for some reason reading has been regarded as a mark against masculinity among the iron islands and it feels really reminiscent of another raging misogynist that we know in the series randall tarley and aaron grayjoy's chapters actually bring that into focus and echo this line of thought as he thinks that, to quote, no proper man would choose a life of thralldom nor forge a chain of servitude to wear about his throat as he regards it the maester. So some good stage setting.

Yes. And to pop right back to the man who would rather wear a chain around his throat really if he had a chance which no i don't think roderick would ever take the chain from the citadel but the books he would love to go to read the books because right now he's actually reading a book and you may recognize this book it is arch maester marwin's book of lost books it was a gift from his cousin hotho who wants him to marry hotho's daughter he highlights some of marwin's texts where he claims to have three pages of signs importance by danice the dreamer from before the doom hit valeria hmm chloe i'm hotho's daughter that's you you're trying to be marry me roderick i'm just kidding i wouldn't marry roderick that's you where you're trying to be marry me Roderick I'm just kidding I wouldn't marry Roderick

that's inappropriate he doesn't want to get married I'd respect his wishes also you're Alanis oh that's weird but I mean we were just into the sister brother thing like just a POV ago or two that's true that's true anything goes back to this book and by this book I don't mean Asloff

I mean book of lost books i kind of wonder how old like this book is because as you said people may recognize that name marvin like is roderick super jazz like i have the first early early copy first edition not that editions matter because they don't have printing presses and therefore cannot mass produce books but whatever see like sign but i mean they're all technically signed copies it's not an exciting anyways but if you think about it the point is this book isn't very old all right marvin is existing in this story he's like not 100 episodes old okay yeah we hear about him like even as early as game of thrones right like he has been meant to be this character in the story since the beginning and George was kind of waiting for the right time to drop him I mean he's dropped

for the first time in Daenerys 8 or sorry 7 in a Game of Thrones I want to say when Mirri when Mirri Maz Duer mentions that she was taught about human anatomy by him so he is the perfect boiling point for someone of the Seven or of that allegiance originally, a maester, to be brought into the Iron Islands. Because again, we're about to see Euron start fooling with some wizardry. So it's interesting that we know that Marwyn is looking for Daenerys to help guide her right in some of this magery. And he's coming up in this plot of people that generally don't believe in magic, but oh, they're about to.

Yes. For now, though, he's asking if Lanny, which is his pet name for Alanis, knows that Asha's here, and agrees that maybe it's best to let her rest for now. Asha moves the books to sit on a stool, mocking Three Tooth's further tooth loss. Roderick says he actually prefers not to talk to Three Tooth and she scares him a little

bit. Then asks the hour, looking at the darkness. He asks Asha why she arrived so late and she explains that there have been bad winds and captives that kept her concerned, such as Lady Glover and her young children were being very difficult and the youngest is still at the breast. Lady Glover's milk has dried and they had to find a wet nurse and then they just settled for a goat. Is there a nursing mother in the village?

Deepwood is important to my plans. Your plans must change. You come too late. Late and hungry. We're gonna go into it in a little bit, but does remind me of twergold latecomer and theon stark the hungry wolf as a reference which i think is purposeful here right as we get into that story of the latecomer and how it relates to theon coming late but the fact that she responds late and hungry i think relates to those two separate characters it's a little mad yeah asha glances

through a book acceptance discourse on maegor's war against the poor fellows and says she's thirsty too and roger gets stern saying he doesn't allow food or drink in his library because the books and she finishes the sentence might suffer harm which okay valid yeah i mean no food or drink with the books yeah i mean they're also rare and they're all like handwritten so i get it some of this line though about the septons discourse on maegor's war against the poor fellows i kind of feel like you're getting some of that foreshadowing for the cersei chapter that comes later in this book snuck in here yeah and the next chapter is actually a Circe chapter. So that's really astute.

It's Tommen's wedding, which is kind of the beginning that kicks it all off. And some of what you're saying about the fair isle plot earlier kind of comes back to play here. It's not quite as gruesome, but there is a small, quiet and awkward affair done in that wedding, right? It's very less people are, or sorry, fewer people are attending this wedding. it's very less people are sorry fewer people are attending this wedding it's very quickly done it's a little inappropriate considering the time frame and people dying to make this wedding happen and it reminds me of maegor marrying his black brides it wasn't quite as terrifying or gruesome but specifically reina who of course for asha she ends up getting married against her will to eric later but specifically reminds me of maegor and his

black brides coming up in this chapter yes and of course like i said we do get marjorie and tom and getting married in the red keeps royal sept they don't even go to baylor's sept for this because it's so small there's fewer than 100 guests asha laughs at him and roderick says that she's provoking him then we get this classic line of her telling him not to look so aggrieved and i've never met a man i didn't provoke which amazing i love her so much asha's a great character she's a she's a breath of fresh air this story especially here in the iron islands asha turns the conversation back to him asking if he's well and how's her aunt guiness roger's eyes are growing weaker he's actually sent for

lens as chloe said earlier to help him read from mirror guinness on the other hand is old forgetful except not forgetful enough about her rights she mourns the husband she barely remembers passionately and deeply i i feel this you know we forgot our episode numbers but here we are going on and on about how 100 episodes 97 97 98 99 asha cuts to the chase though she's like so do you think my dad was murdered and she's like what do you think what do you think roderick says well your mom seems to believe so although ash is like interesting because she probably would have murdered him if she could roderick then goes on and is like he probably fell to his death when the storm rose and crushed the bridge which is what by the way the maester told me hmm throughout

this chapter we're reminded that balon grayjoy died of a storm over and over again and i think it really pays off later when you're on grayjoy comes in and he's all like, I am the first storm and the last. It's well woven in. Yes, the oncoming storm and here it comes. And he does. I mean, he storms on in. It's something.

He disrupted life so much that George had to give us more POVs. Actually though, literally. Asha cleans the dirt out of her fingers with a dagger while implying that it's kind of interesting the crows I returned the day my dad died. And he argues, he's like,

actually, I heard it was the day after, but silence was still out at sea when Balin died, everyone claims. And then he does kind of give it and he's like i do think it was a little timely and she's like i don't think that's what i would call it i would not call it timely it's like a little too convenient like maybe murder murder yes and so asha is frustrated she slams her dirk into the table demanding to know where the fuck are my ships roderick is like i sent summons for the love i bear my sisters and i bear you and i

brought what i could here's house harloss stone tree volmaric some mirrors but asha calls out that's like one out of seven aisles all right with a lonely pike botley banner. She thought she would at least have had Saltcliffe Orkwood in the wikes as well. Roderick then closes the Book of Lost Books and says that Baelor Blacktide came to consult and then just set sail just as soon for Old Wike, where Erend Dampir is called to Kingsmoot. Pew pew pew! Gasp. A Kings moot. Pew pew pew! Gasp. A king's moot.

Throughout this chapter, it's pretty noteworthy that Asha has called I think her banners and ships at Harlaw. It's not just as a reminder of her family history and all of this exposition and the narrative in this chapter. It's a crash course. Also, on the awesomeness

that is Roderick Harlaw, of course. And it's not also just about the the awesomeness that is roger carla of course and it's not also just about the strength of the harlaws in ironborn politics i think most of all her calling the banners at harlaw really hammers home that she did not call her banners on pike political posturing in the narratives that are woven into those and how those narratives reinforce power are a huge part of A Song of Ice and Fire. We speak about it a lot when we're talking about Varys's plans and how he's all like going to use those trappings of power to confer legitimacy onto Aegon over Daenerys,

who does have quite a bit of trappings of power around her. I mean, she has literal dragons and that counts for a lot, you know? I mean, she has literal dragons and that counts for a lot, you know? We see the huge blow that Theon, you know, Asha's brother, deals to the Starks when he rests from the Starks, their seat of power, Winterfell, when the Starks lose that. Asha already has an uphill battle, okay, trying to claim her father's seat with everything going on. But the fact that she cannot even call her banners at Pike, her home, which is the seat of the Iron Islands, right, their great house,

because her uncle is there, not only positions her as not having enough power to take or hold it and therefore rule, it does a lot to delegitimize her cause. cause yeah and we kind of see a parallel of this elsewhere with arianne right who meant to press marcella's claim at hellholt because she couldn't do it in her own land george actually himself described the ironborn culture in

2000 in a really good summary that i thought we should bring into this. The Ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition, much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste, the Knights, on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The Old Way of the Islands encouraged almost all men, and some women, like Asha, to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy. Asha has done everything right. She's exploited her labor, inspired men to follow her, and she still doesn't win. It's something that almost runs parallel to someone's arc like Catelyn, who believed so hard in the system that when it betrayed her, time after time, she eventually

lost herself. But Asha, who believes she could change this system, is suddenly having a different complication, right? Yeah. We have a line that follows this. The Drowned God must have shoved a pricklefish up Uncle Aaron's arse. A kingsmoot? Is this some jape, or does he mean it truly? Roderick's like, the damp air hasn't shaped since his last life all right and all of the priests have actually taken up the call black tide tarl the thrice drowned huh old great gull all intent to preach at the king's mood and the captains gather on

all dwight asha is astonished and asks is the crow Crozi going to be there and abide by this decision? The reader james, Euron doesn't confide in him beyond summoning him to go give homage to him on Pyke. And she asks about Victarion next, who had sent word of Balon's death and also of the Kingsmoot. He doesn't know much else about it. Asha then thinks, better a king's moot than a war. Except, like, you know no matter what there's gonna be a war. Anyways, I believe I'll kiss the damn pair's smelly feet and pluck the seaweed from out between his toes. Asha wrenched loose her dirk and sheathed it once again a bloody king's moot arnold white confirmed lord

roderick though i pray it is not bloody i've been consulting herrig's history of the ironborn when last the salt kings and the rock kings met in king's moot uran of orcmont let his axemen loose among them and naga's ribs turned red with gore. Housed Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from that dark day, until the Andals came. So, something that I want to call out here that we're probably going to actually discuss more during Aaron Dampier's chapters is how much Aaron's misogyny really just fucks him over. Alright, he shoots himself in the foot with it, misogyny really just fucks him over. All right, he shoots himself in the foot with it, because we all know that Aaron Dampare really doesn't want the Crow's Eye to rule the Iron Islands, and if you've read The Forsaken, there's a pretty good reason for that. The Dampare's thought process

echoes Randall Tarly's, right, and that ends up conveying to the reader along with what we see as the general culture of the Ironborn. But with the power of religion backing Aaron, he could bring ships and men to Asha's cause. We're seeing that people are flocking to go to this Kingsmoor because they're following his lead. But he's also just so intent on this idea

that a woman may never sit the Seastone Chair that rather than putting asha on it right and securing her on the sea stone chair in his schemes to be like i guess we can put victorian on the throne he's fine and i'm like victorian's a fucking idiot but he's like yeah we can put victorian on there anyways erin actually ends up opening a very viable and legitimate path for Euron to claim power of the Iron Islands had Arryn just fallen in with Harlaw

and honored his brother's wishes because Balon had confided in him or told him pretty explicitly he was not secretive about it that he intended for Asha to succeed him then Euron might not have taken the Iron Islands and Arryn Greyjoy secretive about it, that he intended for Asha to succeed him, then Euron might not have taken the Iron Islands and Aaron Greyjoy wouldn't be where he is now. There was a more sure way

to prevent it, but Aaron took that gamble because of misogyny and is paying that price. Yeah. And this continues on because she decides that she wants to know that history right like this history not just everything that's happened with quellen from quellen to of course to what has been doing like murder he's been doing some murder don't tell anyone i told you but he has asha wants to learn her history which is a great thing she asks to borrow herrick's book thinking i gotta read this as much as i can all the king's moots before the queen's moot happens

and he's like well you can read it here because it's fragile yeah i find this line significant though in terms of how we perceive asha because she like her uncle is actually quite studious and wants to read books on the history of the iron islands and king's moods to prepare herself which turns out some maybe some iron warranty that is even more evidence of her being unfit to rule because they're like oh she reads books she must be so feminine and weak and i'm like damn she's literate all right that's incredible But it also shows that Asha could be a very diligent ruler, right? She wants to read this book, asks to do so, which means she probably has done this often

and is ruling based on knowledge and evidence and cares to know about the history of her culture in order to build its future. Yeah, that's absolutely important. You have to know your history so you don't repeat the bad shit, right? And if we compare this to Arianne, for example, in The Princess and the Tower, when she's trapped with all of the books and does not read them, I think that might say something about Ash's fate, you know? Like, when she has nothing else she can really do, it's not like she can go talk to her crew about the King's Moot right now.

All she can do is try to get some knowledge while she sits here talking to her uncle and i think that is pretty significant yeah we have this line here of arch maester rigney once wrote that history is a wheel for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging what has happened before will perforce happen again he said i think of that whenever i contemplate the crow's eye you're on gray joy sounds clearly like urine gray iron to these old ears i shall not go to old bike nor should you this is a reference to those books i don't read wheel of time it is a reference to the wheel of time but it's also something we were just saying right like you have to know history history's a wheel and especially with what's to come i know you've already spoken a little bit about the dance of the dragons and some of the events that led up to

the secession choices in the dance of the dragons or the secession murders and bad choices we should say history's a wheel you know and i think that asha grayjoy wants to break the wheel wow isn't that really deep i came up with that all on my own asha says she doesn't want to miss this piece of history this first king's moot and she starts to say the first king's moot in and he finishes and he's like it's been 4,000 years at most depending on who you listen to or 2,000 years since the last King's moot thanks blathers so George quite obviously played with this and sandboxed this idea through random prefixed characters right there's a bunch of er your eras throughout the story very purposefully throughout history and he provided

us specifically with these two stories first of all all, and buckle up, because like I said, there's a lot of these similar prefixes, so I'm going to do as much as I can to differentiate it for you. King Urathon III Greyiron, his family called a king's moot when he died, while his eldest son was off raiding, and then instead they raised up Urathon the fourth good brother who then put all of the kin of Urathon the third gray iron to death he just killed everyone that was there Torgon the latecomer returns two years later to claim his rights and he's like my rights were withheld from me I was was out at sea. Everyone hated this Urethon the fourth good brother guy. So instead they revolted and raised up Torgon and denounced Urethon.

Torgon had a son, Uregon the fourth gray iron. I'm not making this up. These are all the names George uses. His son, Uregon the fourth gray iron, ruled without a king's moot. But the priests insisted after his death that they have a king's moot, but the priests insisted after his death that they have a king's moot that turned into a huge bloodbath because Euron Greyjohn, George, please, Euron Greyjohn, gathered his men, killed all the attendees, and then declared himself king of the Iron Islands, even going so far to change his crown to an iron crown instead of driftwood. And that was the last king the ironborn had since the Andals arrived.

This backstory, of course, serves as this unlawful kingship background for Euron because they declare Theon still must press his rights, the latecomer. Yeah, thank you for that marathon of... Stop! You did not just do that to me. You're fired. yeah thank you for that marathon of stop you did not just do that to me you're fired we're so close and you just had to go and get fired again

this power differential is quite strange Chloe's allowed to make kraken jokes like the same kraken joke three times in a row I make one one joke Roderick thinks times in a row i make one one joke roger thinks that going to the king's boot would serve no purpose and the dream of kingship in the grayjoy's blood is madness he says we need lands not crowns stannis and tywin's throne games has

left the board clear for them to just pick a side improve their fleets go gain victory and hopefully new land they just gotta maybe bend the knee or something right asha promises you know she's like fine fine i'll give it some thought once i've taken the sea stone chair and then roger gives her the hard truth of their culture. No woman has ever ruled the Ironborn. Gwyneth, as we all know. Is it Gwyneth reminding everyone of this all the time? Or is it Roderick? I don't know.

He's like, you know, you know, Asha, again, I'm actually younger than Gwyneth. She's passed over. I actually usurped my sister, just like you're going to have happen to you. Yeah. And he's like, Asha, yeah, that's going to happen to you. You're Balon's daughter. And he says, but you're gonna have happen to you yeah and he's like asha yeah that's gonna happen to you yeah you're bail on his daughter and he says but you're not his son it's tradition yeah he's like you got three uncles as well and between the language that ties kingship to madness and the

reminders that no woman has ruled the ironborn and i think this chapter would have gone nicely with some of our dance chapters which you know these were one book once upon a time especially because it's heralding in many ways the start of another dance of the dragons ah

she basically comments saying I have four uncles actually not three. Well, actually. And your support is important. While it's not the largest support, it is the richest of the islands with the most population. Harlaw's power is unrivaled on his island.

They all bend to the scythe. She says that in war, she should command her cousin's swords and sails, and then she starts to talk about the king's moot, but Roderick shoots her down, saying, beneath Naga's bones, all of the captains are equal. Some may shout for her, sure, but it won't be enough, and the carnage will not be worth sailing into the storm. I kind of feel like Roderick throughout this conversation is playing a voice in it or bringing a perspective that's kind of like Ellaria Sand

in that chapter right but here yes because he says some will die even those dining in this hall this evening and then he calls it a hopeless fight no fight is hopeless till it has been fought I have the best claim.

I am the heir of Balin's body. You are still a willful child. Think of your poor mother. You are all that Lani has left to her. I will put a torch to Black Wind if need be to keep you here. What, and make me swim to Old Wyke? A long, cold swim for a crown you cannot keep. Your father had more courage

than sense. A lot of them do. I mean, that's Theon too. Anyways. Oh, that is Theon too. Not the chapter. I mean, in general. He explains that the Old Way worked with, you know,

they were small amongst many, but then the Con ended all that and Balin refused to understand history. He reminds her that the Old Way died with Black Heron and his sons. But Asha knows all this. She loved her father, but he had been blind in respect. He was brave, but a bad lord. It's true. I think the sins of the father thing is so strong like i mentioned before quellen's actions were neutral to kind of sow peace between westeros and likely to do kind

of what roderick is suggesting right see who is the better king give him ships reap some rewards on easy mode level grind try again another And unfortunately, would they wait like five, six years to have a rebellion? That's not enough time to strike after that rebellion. It wasn't. Everyone was down for the count, sure, and repairing their armies, but the alliances were stronger than ever and strengthening. By the end of the war, everyone had taken a side and had babies with each other, and Robert knew how to prepare broken relationships. In fact, Balin was right when he was like, War of the Five Kings, time to strike, because this is the time.

This country is at war. He just fucked up the whole way by putting people in wrong jobs and you're on. And the Iron Island lords all lived through Quellen openly trying to tie to the throne. It very much so has that soft buzzing under the surface like the veil, though the toxicity bleeds through. They're fighting for what they want to call freedom, which is actually thrashing and murdering and stealing land and people and resources instead of besmirching their glory.

Honestly, they confuse honor and glory, but to them, they bring honor by taking glory, so whatever, it's confusing. These ironborn are butter. Euron can take them easily with charisma. He knows their patterns. Or he can murder them if they oppose, and I think that's being made pretty crystal clear right here. Yeah, definitely so.

It's all right there. It's spelled out, but Asha still asks if he plans for them to live and die as thralls to the Iron Throne. She offers that if there are rocks to starboard

and a storm to port, a wise captain steers a third course. He wants her to show him this third course and she says i will at my queen's moot you're invited everyone's invited she can't believe that he would consider not attending this piece of living history and he answers that you know i prefer my history dead we have this line that i really think is pretty uh pretty deep right that history is written in ink the living sort in blood ink is dry uh sorry that's not actually the line that i wanted to remind everyone of here i wanted to remind you all of the line i know it we're trying not to

spoil too much of the Forsaken, but I am going to bring this line in from it, from Lucas Codd. Words are wind, but blood is power. I also had a new analysis I want to try to blow your mind with. Okay, okay, okay.

Dead history is written ink. Well, Euron is bringing a giant kraken into Oldtown and probably thrashing all of it, including the Citadel, by all the beautiful libraries. He's going to drown it in ink. Yes. With a kraken.

He's going to erase all of it somehow using also ink. Wow. Wow. Deep. Asha accuses Roderick the Reader of wanting to die craven and old in bed and he says how else though not until i'm done reading i love that i would love tyrian and roderick to get together i think they'd have a good conversation he stares out the window and says she hasn't asked about her mother's health which seems to be strengthening thanks to food and sleep, and of course she thinks

she was afraid to ask. He thinks that she will outlive most of them. Definitely Alanis will outlive Asha if she keeps up with her folly. Asha remembers the last years that her mother spent on Pike with her. When Lady Alanis would wander the halls with a candle looking for her dead sons, calling for Maren and Roderick and Theon. The next morning, the maester would draw splinters from Alanis' feet after she crossed the bridge on bare feet. Oh. She named one of her sons after Roderick.

I didn't think about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty sad. It's fine. I'm fine i'm fine very fine just sad asha says that she'll visit her mother in the morning and roderick says well she'll ask word of theon asha thinks about the prince of winterfell theon that's a thing you know that's that's chapter. We all read it a while ago. And now he's dead. Allegedly.

Roderick hasn't told Alanis yet of Theon's death. Again, allegedly. And asks Asha, are you certain he's dead? She's like, no. We found pieces of bodies when we went there and the wolves had been there before cracking the bones open for marrow so it's just it seems plausible it also seemed really confusing right the northmen seemed to have fought amongst themselves crows will fight over a dead man's flesh and kill each other for his eyes. Lord Roderick stared across the sea, watching the play of moonlight on the waves.

We had one king, then five. Now all I see are crows, squabbling over the corpse of Westeros. He fastened the shutters. Do not go to Old Wyk, Asha. Stay with your mother. We shall not have her long, I fear. Asha shifted in her seat.

My mother raised me to be bold. If I do not go, I will spend the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if I had. Sighing, Roderick says she may not have many days to wonder if she does go. She declares, I'm no Gwyness, and the chair is hearse by rights. Which, ow, makes him wince. Damn. Deep cuts. Also, I'm realizing now with this moment where Asha's like, it's kind of weird. It seems like the Northmen fought amongst themselves.

Is that like an aspect in which the North, as we know, the North doesn't quite know what the Boltons have been up to? Is that something where Asha kind of knows a little more of that truth true story versus the North where they kind of only suspect. I mean, this is what she saw, right? Yeah, but because she was there in the aftermath whereas everyone else only came later

once the Boltons had time to control that narrative. So she's like, that was suspicious. Yeah, it definitely seemed like she was a little like she paid attention like hmm, something wasn't quite right. Yeah, it definitely seemed like she was a little, like, she paid attention, like, hmm, something wasn't quite right. Yeah, because it's not that, the narrative being sold is that the Ironborn did this. And she's like, no, we didn't. And that was not their kind of work.

Yeah, she's like, I did not do this. Another thing that's interesting is that compared to many of our other POVs, you know, here following this discussion regarding Old Wick and how her mother raises her and that she's not Gwyneth, Asha's characterization is just really driven by her mother. And we're seeing that here in this chapter because a lot of the other POVs think more, as opposed to their relationship with with their mothers they think a lot about the relationship with their fathers right i mean the lannisters are like an eternal list of just daddy issues uh that goes on forever they're like i don't know my mom died she seemed nice but my dad whereas asha actually had a really close and healthy relationship with her father the hero that she saw crushed over the years, that wasn't her father. That was her mother, who was once bold, once fierce. That's a pattern that Asha wants to be like.

And so there's a lot of that because of her closeness with her father. She ends up becoming bent on succeeding his dreams. But I think there's also many aspects of her that are striving against the fate of what her mother has become. She rejects the idea of mothering children and being a wife because she doesn't want to become like her mother, who, you know, she's putting off facing that. She's putting off facing not only her mother, but what society's telling her she has to be asha actually makes a really great foil to cersei as well with all the reminders from roderick of gwyness because asha's out here trying to hold the throne as a woman she wants to beat a new path for herself for the women

of the ironborn to not end up like either of these other Harlaw women, her mother or her aunt. And perhaps that's also part of why she's exclaiming and reminding Roderick that she's a Greyjoy. It's not just about her birthright from Balin, but also that she can inherit as a woman. Yeah, it's absolutely significant because after this, the next thing that happens is that Roderick the reader does something that he thinks is such a big gesture. his sons died at Fair Isle and he breaks down and he offers her 10 towers he wants the castle to keep all of those towers to pass to her and that's great but she doesn't want to die in one of those towers like those sisters like you said right and it actually reminds me a little bit of a family that asha does encounter later on her track in stanis's camp which is house hornwood

everyone is hoping to make lady hornwood designate their choice of heir whether it be by marriage whether it be just by saying fine your son can be my heir after her son is slain in the field by Jamie Lannister. A bastard son of the house, House Manderly, Ramsay, everyone has an idea of who should have this castle. The truth is that Ten Towers is going to be squabbled over by the crows when Roderick does die. Even if Gwyneth and Alanis were somehow still alive and haunting the place, they wouldn't be strong enough to hold it for themselves. Roderger could never understand what this means to asha right it's nothing that he would ever understand how could he he sat there and took his castle knowingly knowing has said out loud several times that it was his sisters technically by age she age. She's the elder. And he said, that's just too bad.

I guess I'll just keep sitting here reading a book under these two bent sites. He obviously did not fight for it, and he could never understand what that means to her. It's not just what she wants. You mentioned earlier, you reminded me, he said that he would burn the ships so that she couldn't leave. Right? Which reminds me of nemeria burning her ship so her people started in this new land but for asha this isn't the new land she wants to start in she doesn't want to burn her ships here it's like when arianne says like that's

nemeria's star you won't steal my birthright quentin that's how this feels for Asha. She's been raised to keep this. Yeah, absolutely. I like that tie back to Nymeria and Nymeria's star, Quentin, on the other side of the world. I don't want this. Quentin's like, I just want to make out

with this 12-year-old. Pretty much. That's actually it. He's like like i just want my dad to love me see there we go again daddy issues how many dragons do i have to steal until my dad loves me asha's like my dad really really loved me and he was just okay you know she's like he wasn't great to my brother but he was amazing as a dad to me honestly asha is bail on gray joy's redeeming like one redemption actually though uh i forgive bail on gray joy a lot just because he was a good dad to asha asha argues saying that you know what

i don't think that your cousins are gonna like like that very much, Uncle Roderick. And thinks that, you know, I would take it if I could. And he says, they have seats of their own, they're fine. And she then thinks of their keeps, and it's like, it is not fine. Alright, these Muslim have nothing but decaying towers or small keeps. And they all answer to you, Lord Roderick the Reader. Asha says that all of them mean to follow him. Boram and his three sons, Siegfried has grandsons,

and Hotho has ambitions, as we know, because he's out here gifting very new books, very new rare books to Rodrik. And Rodrik counters that the Knight of Greygarden, Harris, will rule from his seat and will protect her if she gives him fealty. But she says she's a kraken of House Greyjoy. And that his sides look perilous.

One could fall and slice off her head. He calls her then another crow. Screaming for Carrion. And tells her to leave him to Marwyn and his search. And that line from Asha of those sides look perilousous is another callback to that sword of Damocles, that idea of ruling and constantly being under threat. That comes through most obviously with the Iron Throne and the threat of the different swords because of the idea that no king should sit easy. But here in the Iron Islands, it seems that there's an aspect of that too, with the scythe of Harlaw and the threat there.

Oh, yeah. It's tough. Like those are, it reminds me again, a lot of these Dornish chapters, because there's so many different factions you're seeing, right? Like we discussed in the Watcher with everyone there from all the different houses and who came to King's Landing with Oberyn

and who went here and who went there. And a lot of these people that she knows that are not here are people that after the king's boot we see either go to your on side or die i mean that's unfortunately what's about to happen yeah no respect we get this uh wonderful passage it is one of my favorite passages in the whole POV. Actually, Asha has some really great quotes. Her victory at Deepwood Mott would serve her in good stead once her men began to boast of it as she knew they would. The crew of the Black Wind took a perverse pride

in the deeds of their woman captain. Half of them loved her like a daughter and the other half wanted to spread her legs but either sort would die for her and i for them she was thinking as she shouldered through the door at the bottom of the steps into the moonlit yard shout out to you twitter feed asha walks into the yard she is stopped by a man in a seal skin cloak from the shadows at first she reaches for her knife stranger danger

but then realizes who she is and thinks he's another ghost and I'm like yes Asha I too think of my old hookups as only ghosts hope that they never show up ever again yes Asha I too would want to put a knife

to my old hookup's throats. God, he's the worst. It's Tristopher Botley. They have a bit of a flirt. Turns out they haven't seen each other since they were kids. He was one of Alanis' wards after the rebellion and he grew up with Theon and Asha and he was sent away because they were found

fooling around with each other. It's interesting that Alanis would request wards to replace her dead and stolen sons. We talk a lot about Theon's trauma after the Greyjoy Rebellion and feeling that threat hanging over his head as he lived as a ward of the Starks, especially because he doesn't think of Lord Eddard necessarily as a warm father, right? He thinks of him as the demon who set his home on fire and then stole him from it. And Alanis is very much the other half of that, right? Of how this war destroyed a family.

Yeah, and this was the boy who replaced Theon for Lanny. When we think about this chapter, that's something I have to kind of put into perspective that this was the son she had after Theon was gone. Interesting. Well, I guess all of them are feeling up Asha, right? He's grown, filled out, unruly hair, big trusting seal eyes.

He calls her beautiful and she thinks that while he no longer has pimples, he's too sweet for the Iron Islands. She gives her apologies for his father's passing and he tells her that he grieves for her own. She's kind of surprised at this. In her head, she's like, she's really close to being like, he's the reason that you got sent away, so I don't know why you miss him. But she thinks better of it, asking if he's truly Lord Botley. And he gives us and her some exposition on the current political field for everyone that's

not Asha. His brother died at Moat Catelyn from a poisoned arrow, and his father denied Euron's claim to the chair, so Euron drowned him. Half the lands went to Ironholt because Lord Winch bent the knee immediately to Euron and Euron bought him with treasure. Plates and pearls, emeralds and rubies, sapphires big as eggs, bags of coins so heavy no man could lift them. The crow's eye had been buying friends at every hand. Honestly, I see the appeal because I want gemstone fucking eggs. You know, what kind of eggs are these?

How big? Right? Are they jumbo eggs? Are large eggs what grade you know it sounds so frivolous and dumb and i fucking want a gemstone egg sansa has that moonstone that's as big as an egg and i think man that would be like the most intense easter egg hunt think about it easter egg on uh and I also want to add that something in this passage that stuck out was that the Crow's Eye,

which we already know this from later, he's buying friends. Well, the chapter before this, what do we have but Littlefinger buying friends in the Vale? Yes, yes. Villains, man. He's using tapestries.

So Asha promises to restore Lord Port to the rightful Lord Botley when she holds a sea stone chair. She's putting it on a little thick, right? But not too thick. Just like enough. Just like, listen, Triss, you're the real Lord. I'm going to make it happen, baby. And then he's like, I don't really care. You just look so lovely in the moonlight.

These are every girl's most feared words, right? you just look so lovely in the moonlight these are every girl's most feared words right like when when i ask for your loyalty i'm not asking for your dick and that is what ashla is trying to drive home here he proceeds to tell her you used to be so skinny and full of acne which is what you say when you want to seduce your old sweetheart right yeah i mean if i want again as you said loyalty not dick we have this line of the five boys her mother had brought to pike to foster after ned stark had taken her last living son as hostage tris had been closest to asha in age he'd not been the first boy she had ever kissed but he was the first son to do the laces of her jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts. I would have let him feel more than that if he'd been bold enough.

She goes on to think this was because her flower bloomed, because you're hornier on your period. True sometimes. And she called it love, though, all the same same which is your first mistake because you can't call back the arrows once you've sent them right that is a lesson we've learned and chris runs with that he goes on about all the sons and daughters they're gonna have and she's like i'd rather have adventures not children and then he gets sent away to black tide when they were found fooling around together. He then goes on to tell her... Shit. No Simps September.

He goes on to tell her that he wrote her love letters, but the maester would not send them. He even went as far as to pay a random man on a trading boat who was going to Lordsport to deliver it, who never delivered it. He paid a whole stag for it. That is a waste of a stag. Truly, truly was.

Asha never even, she didn't even leave it on read. She was like, fuck this shit. He tells her, you know, I never received any letters back from you. And she's like, oh, they probably also got lost. And he's like, yeah, you're right. And she's like, I never sent

any. She's just like, oh my god, just pledge your loyalty shut the fuck up and in fact she was actually kind of relieved when he was sent away she's like he was kind of starting to bore me i bet he couldn't find the clit that was it you know he's like he figured out how to how to touch her breasts and then she's like i would have let him find more but anyway he probably wouldn't have she then cuts the chase and is like support me at the queen's moot dick and he's like lord blacktide says it's folly euron's gonna kill everyone just like euron before him get it because their names sound the same and to give it a little backstory Tristra Botley gets sent to live with Baylor Blacktide when he's 14. Baylor had just returned from being a hostage in Old Town for eight years so that's like basically getting a master's in poli sci and this is likely during

Robert's Rebellion because the timing doesn't work for the Greyjoy Rebellion. So I also want to break down that the fantasy trading card game art for Baelor Blacktide is so fucking hot. I never knew that he was supposed to be hot, but the art for him, you guys need to go look at, Google it, Google Baelor Blacktide right now. I was just like, wow, no one talks about what a sexy little devil this guy is. So that was something I found during this episode. I just thought I'd bring the thirst to the table. Now, while you look for that, Eliana. How did you know? In turn, I just knew my heart and my vagina knew.

In turn, so Baylor is super about the Faith of the Seven after coming back from this eight-year hostage stint in Oldtown. He's all about it. Few on the island, as we know, are about it because the Drowned God is the god. Baelor Blacktide, as we'll see in Queen's Moot, is the first to yell for Asha. And of course, later dies, spoiler, from refusing to bend the knee to Euron. So, spoiler alert, Christopher Botley isn't going to be very stable anyways. It wouldn't be a great relationship. He needs to work on himself.

Besides the whole he's awful thing. Baelor Blacktide represents the new way. This chance at unity and harmony for the island in way of resources and war and sustainability, much like Roderick and Asha. And Christopher's attitude here comes from that. He's been raised since like age 14-ish on this. He sees marrying Asha as a means to unity

and building more infrastructure and also power surfing her hot naked bod and putting babies in it. Under some of these more Westerosi ways being presented, this is what an alliance is. Make babies with someone rich and powerful. And that is what he alliance is make babies with someone rich and powerful and that is what he is trying to do yeah it's just that's not what she needs to make an alliance with right now right

tris you lack the strength and tris is like you know they explained that euron hasn't brought shitty men there's orkwood of ormont who brought 20 ships pinch face john meyer has brought a dozen lucas codd heron half-whore kemet pike roderick freeborn torwald brown tooth and then asha's like yeah they're fucking salt wife sons and grandsons of thralls bringing the cods she's like in their famous house words uh to the front which is though all men do despise us really really inspiring house words there uh really speaks to a team player uh allegedly you're on he's also brought wizards and monsters home and yikes i mean that's kind of scary i'd be afraid of wizards and monsters but ash is not she is our brave bold queen and she says let the wizards call upon their gods the damp hair will call upon

ours and drown them will i have your voice the queen's moot tris he says that she shall have all of him forever and then tells her her mom even gave consent for them to wed what the fuck she thinks he could have asked her first maybe even if the answer wasn't going to be to his liking yeah i'm just like why would he ask alanis first like what a fucking weirdo why did he think that was a good idea he tries to hype himself up as like a lord again even though he was like i don't need to be a lord i just need to love you and then it turned out that angle didn't work so now he's like i'm a lord again and she's like it's not gonna lord again. And she's like, it's not going to happen, Christopher. It's just not going to happen.

You think you want to wed me, but you don't. I do. All I dream about is you, Asha. I swear upon the bones of Naga, I've never touched another woman. Go touch one or two or ten. I've touched more men than i can count some with my lips more with my axe mood g-boy gratuitous post of myself she remembers the one uh she remembers the man that she lost her virginity to a blonde lysini sailor who only knew six words of the common tongue fuck included and she's like that was the

important one afterwards she found a woods witch and then she learned how to brew moon tea tristopher botley is like really really upset about this by the way like he's very pro-life well he doesn't know about the moon tea he just knows about the sex which is just as bad because it's not pro-life because it's pro someone else putting life in her which he is not for he is definitely not for that he also thought she'd wait like a virgin thing like i gave you a promised seaweed ring yeah they didn't even give promise rings why would he think that also they never even discussed this okay again they never discussed their relationship yes exactly they didn't discuss

their relationship and i i understand they were 14 but it was kind of foolish on tris's part like they're what they're 20s now are there no girls on blacktide no he was saving himself that's what makes it really meaningful according to him he asks you know he's like asha were you were you forced and i was just like no and she sighs and she has to break it to him that you know tris you're a sweet boy but i'm not a sweet girl if we got married i'm pretty sure you would hate me which i think is very true because it's pretty clear the trap that tris has fallen into and again tris has put the pussy on a pedestal all right and we don't want that all right don't do that that's not what we want for men okay like between the letters that like that tris has written and

then all these romanticized notions of asha as a mother or a dutiful wife which shows that he doesn't know anything about Asha at all if he's like yeah this is the future we're gonna have together it's like he hasn't fucking listened every time she was like no Triss I want to go on adventures he's like not internalized this he's thinking of Asha only in terms of his fantasies anyways and then her later having to remind him that she's queen and not to presume to grab her, Triss ends up kind of feeling a lot like a cross between Peter Baelish fantasizing about Catelyn and

their alleged romance and Jorah Mormont imposing upon Daenerys. Are you ready to get your mind blown again? Yes. Always. You know how we've been talking a lot about some of the Fire and Blood Fair isle stuff and the reina and her birthright stuff yes with all the fair isle references it definitely feels

like george got a lot of his andrau farman and reina inspiration from this as well imagine if she had married him how tristopher would act when he came to see how her normal everyday is you would hate me i am your queen definitely yeah i think uh there's something there for sure like the roots of andrew farman and i mean this is a trope that george seems to be quite interested in too absolutely tristopher goes on to not listen and goes never never Asha, I've ached for you. She had heard enough of this. A sickly mother, a murdered father, and a plague

of uncles were enough for any woman to contend with. She did not require a lovesick puppy, too. She tells him to find a brothel, but he still doesn't lay off. He tells her he knew she'd be his wife and the mother of his sons.

Read the room. I know. It's bad. He could have changed tact at any point in time, you know? He could have changed his flirtation method at any point in time and been like, oh, I'm sorry, that was a joke. I didn't mean any of that.

And, like, had a chance, but chance but he didn't instead he tries to go an even worse route all right he seizes her arm very charming and within a second asha presses her blade against his neck threatening to push harder if he doesn't stop fucking touching her you want a woman well and good I'll put one in your bed tonight. Pretend she's me if that will give you pleasure, but do not presume to grab at me again. I am your queen, not your wife. Remember that. Asha sheathed her dirk and left him standing there with a fat drop of blood slowly creeping down his neck neck black in the pale light of the moon god she has my sword i would do anything and my axe and my axe yeah i would kill for that girl

and her jerk and her dirt oh i love her dirt so when we look atne, who's stuck in a literal tower, right in the chapter, the princess in the tower, or Sansa in this chapter right before where she's languishing in a castle on the clouds, you'd be surprised to think about the princess in the tower trope regarding as a theme for Asha. though are constantly attempting to put her in a box or a tower even when we see her on the very first moment in clash of kings that she appears as eskred with theon is it love you fancy he decided he liked this wench whoever she was her sharp wit was a welcome respite from the damp bloom of pike shall i name my long ship after you and play you the high harp and keep you in a tower room in my castle with only jewels to wear like a princess and a song? What Theon said to Eskred or to Asha at that time is just like this scene with Tristifer Botley. In the chapter before this, Sansa has to garner support from the Lord's Declarant of the Vale, lying to conceal Lysa's death and to keep Littlefinger in control of Robert Arryn's fate. Her mentor pushes her to lie, pushes her to spin a tale and bend to his powerful will,

and by book's end, Littlefinger is exploiting Sansa's claim and power further with plots to marry it off to the Vale. Both women in this story here, Asha and Sansa, have claims that are being used against them constantly. Sansa also previously saw this through Tyrion. Through her uncle Victarion's thoughts of her, when Euron decides to marry her to Erik Ironmaker, and even when Stannis captures her and thinks of her as a valuable token for marriage. As strong of a warrior as she is, Asha Greyjoy is crippled because of her value as a woman in Westeros. She's constantly having that stacked against her and looked at as a commodity for trade.

In the next chapter also, Cersei is at Tommen's wedding, which is her only hold on power as a woman in the story, her son's name. Feast gives us such a great exploration of this. I especially am reminded of your callback of Randall Tarly earlier in Brienne's arc here, because Brienne, too, is a warrior, a knight who refuses to back down from this duty that she's acquired, but she's constantly hampered by attempts to put her into a cage of marriage for commodity as well.

Yes, absolutely. There's a lot of people who are, especially Triss, right? As you said, her uncles are kind of, they have one view of her and how they think that they can use her. Triss has a way of people who are, especially Triss, right? As you said, her uncles are kind of, they have one view of her and how they think that they can use her. Triss has a way of kind of using her, in which he, for some reason, has decided that Asha is his manic pixie dream girl. And she's like, I don't want to have children with you.

She's like, I have a kingdom to win. It's not about your fulfillment right now. There's a bigger thing at stake here. And in the larger context of the story, it's not only something happening in Feast, it parallels really well with some of the other characters that we're seeing in Dance. And something that I've been thinking about recently between Val and Daenerys, some of the other right women characters that we have here, where Val has a lot of things that people seem to think that she can be used for they are like yeah we'll just set her up in Winterfell and that'll help us secure an alliance with the free folk right and they're like yeah Val's a free folk

princess this is how it works and they keep imposing these ideas of what Val is and that happens a lot to Daenerys as well, where people keep imposing onto her this idea that she's just a young girl or that she can be bartered and traded or that they can just marry her and then use her dragons or marry her for her power and claim, thinking that she's another pawn to help them fulfill their dreams. From Jorah Mormont thinking that Daenerys is there to stand in for his great love of lannes to quentin thinking like i i guess daenerys is gonna come and help my family get revenge and those are just some examples of that so asha is another exploration of how that all comes through and we see that it again it's an uphill battle especially amongst the

ironborn compared to how it is in dorn and it's interesting to compare all of these with one another well said well said and i think that concludes our first asha grayjoy episode our hundredth a song of ice and fire episode i for one am very excited to dive into asha further we have some pretty we have a pretty exciting guest coming out in a couple weeks hopefully i think so we'll let you know more about that next week yes absolutely and you know thank you to everyone again for helping us get here. It's a hundred episodes. It's a big deal. That's like what,

well, these days, the average of two, two and a half hours, I guess on, on our better days. Remember, remember when we were like good and stuck to an hour and a half.

I kept looking at the timing today and I was like, maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll stick to an hour and a half, but no, we did not. Sorry, everyone. You might hear this at an hour and a half though. Eliana does have some pincers that she cuts episodes up with so we'll see what happens but thank you so much

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And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Talk to you next week. Goodbye.