Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 101 - ADWD The Wayward Bride

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

In the aftermath of the kingsmoot, Asha flees her uncle and a marriage by seeking refuge at Deepwood Motte. But Ironborn aren't the only ones after her: So are the "wolves," who turn out to maybe be a different animal at the end of the chapter after a fight for the lives and freedom of her men. --- 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, episode 101, A Dance with Dragons, The Wayward Bride. canon a song of ice and fire episode 101 a dance with dragons the wayward bride i'm one of your hosts chloe and i am another one of your hosts eliana i forgot my name for a second i thought you were just gonna tell us your name right up front and just not even tell us what your role was on this podcast i was like who is she why is she here no one knows well i'm wayward eliana that's why i'm here episode 101 dalmatians 101 a dance with dalmatians i am here nice you're wayward i'm squidward that joke do you like that i do i've been trying to work with it i don't know if i'm ready but yes i'm wayward and i am uh i don't know i don't know about you but i'm ready to be

wow into another episode two weeks in a row i hope she does it every i hope she does it every single one of these asha chapters oh and when we eventually do you made me get up and go to the fridge like you literally are like no you have to oh i didn't realize that's what i was telling you i just meant you had to like make the joke, but you committed. And that's what we bring you here at Girls Gone Canon. Commitment to commit to the bit. Commitment. Well, I'm excited to be here for the wayward bride with you as two wayward women in the wayward world.

Say that 10 times fast, if you will. And another Asha Greyjoy episode. I've heard some great things about our last episode. People liked it. I always like that. Were they great joy things that you've heard about our last episode? She's allowed to make the same crack and joke constantly so i think i get to innovate a little here creative freedom for eliana rights for eliana

no rights uh i am very excited about something el, because not only have we been doing Asha Greyjoy chapters, but on top, just like Asha Greyjoy is this episode, on top of Asha Greyjoy, we have a guest next week. So as we promised everyone, we have a couple of exciting guests

for Asha Greyjoy, and we're going to reveal one of them this week. Next week, joining us will be very special guest, Alicia Kingston, a.k.a. A.K., the Lord Commander, who's going to join us to talk about the King's Prize. I'm always so excited when our friends and colleagues say they want to do a certain POV because I feel like it says something about them, right? Like, it's actually does like, which, which character do you want? So it's

special to me. It's special. It's like, we're only doing this chapter once ish. So yes, as you said, it says something about you. It's kind of like your horoscope, but not. I'm an Asha. What are you? People can be multiple right like so oh it's like what is your sun pov what's your moon pov what's your rising pov we should actually legitimately ask people those things now that i think about it oh my god yes please tell us if you're lost right now i'm sorry actually i'm not sorry this is this is the way we are i mean if you if you're following this entire journey you probably started you probably heard at least the Dunkin Egg Coachella episode

so listen we're just gonna dive on in send us your rising your ascending uh POV your sun POV yeah send it all your moon moon sign POV yeah uh there's there all. Your moon. Your moon sign POV. There's obviously all the others. You're POV in Mars or you're POV in Venus. Tell us the POVs that best represent maybe how you deal with conflict, how you deal with

romance. So I think this is something that I want to know. The POV zodiac. Yeah. Last week we had fuck mary kill the uncles so that was fun but this one is this is next level astrology but with povs i'm gonna have to think about it i think i know though i think i know but i'm gonna have to think about it and you know alicia gave us asha as one of uhVs, right, that she definitely wanted to talk about. And so I'm really excited to have her on because we had actually, as you'll all remember, talked about

the analysis that she had done with Matt, aka Joe Magician, right before this when we did Arya Hota. And there is, as we've been saying, very clear reasons for us as to why we put Asha right after Arya Hota. And I think those lines will come up a bit this us as to why we put Asha right after Arya Hota. And I think those lines will come up a bit this chapter and the next chapter where Asha is very insistent on calling, you know, her axe, her lord husband, her dirk, her suckling babe. And we thought it was really interesting to put these two very clear warriors next to one another. Yes, and I could think of no one else better to kind of bring some of that symbolism in than Alicia.

We had a blast when we were on the ginger ale talks with her and Minaro from Minaro Geek TV. We'll link the YouTube channels below because if you haven't checked them out, you really, really have to. They have some really fun talks. I really liked their Janey Lannister talk that they were doing in the Lannister episodes. That was a blast. Lannister talk that they were doing in the Lannister episodes. That was a blast. Both of the Lannister episodes, I think it sets a lot of good context for both the current generation of Lannisters and they also do an analysis of Tywin's generation. So both of those dovetail very nicely into one another. So be sure to check both of those out.

Yeah, and not only will we be falling in love with Asha Greyjoy while Alicia is on with us, but we are falling in love with Asha Greyjoy over on our Discord right now. We're chatting about her all the time in our chat with some of our patrons that are in the Thunder tier and above at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. Yes, I'm going to be real. So remember how back then we had said like, we'll do a we'll do a feast that's essentially what the discord is now it's a big potluck in which we all exchange ideas about food and cooking cooking tips and

is that my dream? maybe yeah we talk about avatar and Korra all the time and we talk about food and it is wonderful that is the life and I'm sorry Mary of House Richmond I will get you my cabbage roll recipe yes she owes her cabbages oh yes yes your cabbage and avatar yes yes I get it I get it okay anyways on discord there's a lot of recipes maybe the cabbage rolls will end up there as well please log on and have

some fun with us we can't wait to see ya yeah but we will send that to you mary personally make sure that um i'm still trying to winkle winkle it out uh chloe that secret recipe really secret she's like it's not i'm lazy she's not she's not lazy actually that's the secret that's what makes it taste so good is how lazy I am one of the most hard working people I know I'm not gonna lie she really is she's an inspiration to me everyday that's not a joke that's all very serious actually

so I'm gonna talk about some emails and tweets of note thank you to all of you who took to heart that I do read the podbean comments I might not always respond to them but I do read them Podbean comments. I might not always respond to them, but I do read them and internalize them. But I wanted to share with people two

comments that we got that incidentally were both on the same episode, the Jamie 3 A Storm of Swords episode, though they were made very recently. So thank you to those people who are doing that. One of them comes from Lil Miss Haven who says, This really doesn't have anything to do with Aswath

but the comment about nature coming back with COVID going on a couple weeks ago while I was driving I saw a fox running through a field it was my first time seeing a fox in the wild and it made my week we have a crying face emoji and two other ones that don't show up on my browser

I love it though, I love it I have not seen any nature come back. It's been great. I live in a city, so it's hard to see nature. I hear nature. Maybe birds. I hear birds. And the basketball court. We have some bees coming to our little garden, so that's been

good. They're there. And bees are important. We also got a comment from our friend kevin he's actually left very astute comments so naturally we pulled this one instead i'm sorry kevin but this is the one i chose this one i was like i really feel like kevin had some bangers but this is the one you take eliana all right let's go with it i I'm sorry, Kevin, but he, no, you're right. He did. This is astute though too.

No, no, it's not all on that though, Eliana, because this is astute because Kevin says, I hate having to switch to phone to comment and I hate not being able to fix typos. Podbean sucks. And you know what? We are hosted there. So we are gracious that they let us pay them money to be there, right? Like our capitalist overlords. We're them money to be there right like our capitalist

overlords we're so glad to be there thank you thank you to our podbean landlords yes our digital landlords but kevin yes it sucks it just sucks in fact only recently have i been able to get notifications for it that work ish uh it's awful i get it i really do uh for real though i i pulled this because i did want to sympathize and let everyone know you know if you're leaving comments on podbean i understand that it's a huge pain in the ass so i'm thankful for it because i mean it's a pain in the ass for me to have had to try to check it back then like went on my phone and they're like you need to log into the app and i'm like, am I not logged in already? And it like wouldn't pull up the comments.

And then like when I try to click it in browser, it doesn't take me directly to it. So I just kind of, you know, remember what chapter it's on. Then I go to the Podbean website, scroll down and find it. And yeah, it turns out you can't fucking leave comments on browser. It's a huge hassle. So I truly am thankful to anyone leaving comments and especially if you're leaving really insightful comments like kevin and i'm so so yes i appreciate it i appreciate you all of you you know leaving podbean for a moment now that we've commiserated about pod bean our mistress of

horse lady raj our patron and friend has come up with a hashtag for us and it is get squiddy with me i love it i do she said other things to you but uh that was a real gem i thought that was the the hard hitter though for sure for sure. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we talked a lot about Paralarve for Theon, but I feel it gets squiddy with me. Fits into the Asha, you know, as Wolfman Zack said, these are horny chapters. Yes, and he was actually, I know he did comment recently

saying that Wolfman Zack said that these lived up and beyond their their thirst level. He expected horny and we delivered, he said. That's all I can hope for. I just want to live up to audience expectations, especially on how horny each episode is. They don't even know what's to come with the next chapter of of the king's prize there's gonna be lots of tension for eliana oh interesting interesting yes uh but there's a lot of tension for chloe this week we'll get there in a bit i mean i also i also appreciate carl so yeah i also want to appreciate uh m mako on itunes i know that uh I know that we talk about your distaste for the John voice.

So thank you for continuing to stay with us, re-evaluating and giving credit where credit is due. And I just want to apologize, but not really apologize. I wanted to acknowledge, you know, I'm sorry. We kind of like, but not apologize. Again, we snuck in a John voice there once and Chloe does it for me. You got gotta do things you gotta do things for your partner even if it makes the rest of the world like a little unhappy you do the things you can for your partner okay aliana don't be cracking under

pressure oh oh hired promoted we had a couple comments about baylor Blacktide. Last episode, I was pretty thirsty about him. Now that I admit it. Our friend Elise said, damn, thanks. I needed to take a gander at that for sure. And our friend Rohan said, speaking of boyfriends, I googled Baylor Blacktide. And yup. And that does not come lightly from them. I know that.

So it does not. Cheers for Baylor Blacktide. And also, he's dead now. Yes. Sucks. It's a good die young, everyone. We're here admiring that dead dick. Jesus!

You know, if the men in this story are allowed to still get hard over dead women we're allowed to do it for the dead men characters oh my god okay glossing over the dead dick let's jump into the lightning round and we are again going to do this but a little differently than what we usually do for our lightning round right uh a feast for crows we're gonna break it up by ironborn chapter that we have missed between the last chapter and this chapter and a dance with dragons as well because we are into a new book a whole new book oh my god but the last one we had a feast for crows Iron Captain. Leaving Mutt Kalin in the capable hands of Ralph Kenning, Victarion returns to attend the King's Moot. His brother Arryn seeks to legitimize his claim against Eurons,

who quite obviously intends to cause problems. After explaining why his brother is literally the devil, cause problems. After explaining why his brother is literally the devil, Victarion refuses Asha's assistance in taking the chair and part of the north. The drowned man. Asha comes in second place at her queen's moot, and the iron isles quake in the glory of the crows' eye. The reaver. Euron sends Victarion on a mission to retrieve a bride and her three children. Victarion decides it's time to start

doing things for himself with his own thoughts and his own plans. And his own dick. Yeah. Soon to be dead dick. Victarion thinks, I can make plans and think too. But he can't. He can't.

Alright, a dance with dragons. Speaking of people that should not try to execute the plans they make reek one reek once had another name but now he is only reek his master ramsey promises him a bath for he is to bring home ramsey's bride bride, among other things. Oh, there are parallels there. Mm-hmm. Reek, too. Reek, the Paralarve, is charged to bring a peace banner to the Ironborn at Moat Cailin, but finds a dying group of men isolated and forgotten by

their Iron Captain. They surrender to Ramsay's banner, eventually, and Reek returns to Winterfell where Arya Stark has arrived, except... not? This brings us to the Wayward Bride in Adowada, A Dance with Dragons.

Wedded, but not bedded, and with no home to speak of, Asha Greyjoy must hold her men, her ships, and deepwood mat, or fail a coward. But a surprise element is introduced by chapter's end. Stannis! Stannis!

Stannis! I wish we could edit in Matt from Davos Fingers saying that from a year ago. It's been like exactly a year since we released our Jon episodes with Davos Fingers. Should I do it? I can put that in. Don't go crazy, but just think about it. I'll think about it. I'll think about it.

I'll think about it. The name they cried was Stannis! Stannis! Stannis! Stannis! We could do another take just in case. Stannis! Stannis! Stannis! stannis stannis stannis there were actually some great uh there's some great matt reading quotes aloud in that chapter he was on it he was all for it he was like i'll do it i'll do it if you want love the enthusiasm to listen to episodes that are really horny you should listen to matt uh

think about mance raider in that episode that's not a joke and so that brings us to the wayward bride also a horny chapter but first it starts off with galbert glover's maester interrupting osha gray joy's wine drinking with the men and bringing a bird from Barrowton. It's a letter sealed with hard pink wax. She does the math. It's a Bolton letter and thinks that she holds poison and that she should burn it. Her mood grows darker after reading the Northmen

have taken Moat Cailin. This is all finished with Lord Ramsey Bolton's signature on it. As well as Lady Dustin, Lady Kerwin, and four Riswells, as well as a drawing of a crude giant, probably representing House Umber. I like that this chapter is informed by Ramsay as the threat. Everything that Asha does throughout this chapter, she thinks,

is the Northmen are leading a brigade to take back their castle. And Ramsay's not actually the threat just because the letter arrives to her. Stannis is who captures them in the end. These temporary allegiances parallel each other so well. Ramsay has men supporting him that are actually not really total assholes, disregarding the phrase, but Stannis's actual men are assholes, which is also interesting. Also though definitely true and i just want to make the aside that i appreciate that the umber signed with doodles that's the mark of an artist every time i go and get like i don't know a comic book or something signed

by a comic book artist they'll put a little doodle i'm like interesting tell me about your comics umber a signature isn't enough these days, you know. Yeah. I try to show off. This letter opened with, I write this letter in the blood of Iron Men. I send you each a piece of Prince. Linger in my lands and share his fate.

John, of course, is the other lucky winner of this piece of Prince. Asha had, as we all know from the previous chapter, and as many could have assumed, because we all thought it throughout book three and four, because we forgot, Asha had thought that Theon was dead, but the piece of skin that fell out of the letter, she's like, ooh, this is way worse.

She lights the letter with her candle, which is interesting because it's something that Theon had actually done to lighting letters of fire so and and then tells the maester that she will not be sending a reply the maester asked her if he can share the tidings with lady sabella now she's like you know what sure why not lady glover lived in her godswood and her prayers stayed unanswered and i want to point out that professor prof cecily prof underscore cecily on asphof reread on the reddit on reddit so that's the r a s o i a f r e r e a d subreddit which has been rereading these books constantly pointed out that lady sabelle could actually be using a very similar to sansa a very similar strategy to Sansa in Clash and Storm,

going to the God's Wood to give intel on the Ironborn to her fellow Northmen. This is great because she kind of was. I mean, in the next chapter, we learn that the Glovers declare for Stannis in King's Prize. So while Sansa was communicating with Dantos for Littlefinger, Sibyl was communicating with the Northmen to join up with Stannis. That's the real Northern conspiracy. It is. There's several conspiracies going on, but this is definitely one of them. We're seeing that split between the Northmen

informed by Jon's suggestions to Stannis. Asha had left Lady Sibyl's children in Ten Towers with her aunts as the journey back north was too hard for the newborn Triss thinks Torrin Square will fall next and then Deepwood Mott but Asha holds on to the hope that Clefjaw will hold hard in Torrin Square that he'd die before he yielded haha about that yeah it's sad

I'm just remembering like damn i fucking liked dagmar dude everyone dies in this like i was getting excited i'm like oh yeah getting horny about blacktide and then i'm like oh shit wait no he dies doesn't he yeah i mean i wasn't horny about dagmar definitely not no no absolutely not but i mean you'd want to like i don't know play a game of poker like smoke a cigar with him or like never meet him yeah I want to appreciate him from afar maybe like his tweets or something in a book maybe yeah keep him in the book yep but I appreciated him and that counts for something Balin knew that Moat Cailin was key to holding the north and would not have let it fall.

Euron knew this as well, but Euron has no interest in Balon's conquests. Asha thinks back to what happened at the Kingsmoot. Euron had summoned the Iron Isles to Old Wyk and sailed out into the Sunset Sea with Victarion at his ankles. No one had been left on Pyke for Balon's conquests, and now no one was left on Pike for Asha's conquest either, except maybe her new husband. Ugh. Asha's men say they'll slay these wolves, but Asha knows they've already been slain. The Skinners are the ones that sent this letter. Her men urge her to let them join the fight at Torrin Square, not wanting Dagmar to have the glory. As the roast

is presented by Galbraith Lover's serving men, her appetites waned. She knows her men are looking for a good death instead of victory, and that they'll receive one when the wolves come to take back their castle. So there's a lot of things in Asha's chapter that we're going to go through in this that really tie it to a lot of the other things going on in this book. going to go through in this that really tie it to a lot of the other things going on in this book her appetite waiting because of the flesh is kind of reminiscent of some of the the moments of men in the north being like oh this is uncomfortable my friend burning on the pyre kind of smells like meat i feel weird uh but here another way that the language comes up is it's playing up that twist a lot right uh that comes at the end of this chapter because turns out it's not actually the wolves that she keeps thinking about she's like oh the

wolves are gonna come take the castle and it keeps reinforcing and hammering that home but it's not that and in a way though there really are wolves out there so at some point you gotta watch out ramsey i hear uh george has a wolf v dog showdown at some point. I know that some people would want to hear this, so woof woof. Oh, people do want to hear that. People do ask for that. I can't help the way I am and how I speak. So Asha climbs to the bedchamber and her head is pounding from too much wine mood. She's thinking of her almost 200 foolish brave men in the many leagues of land

and trees that lie between them and Clefjaw, and the few longships she has to even get them there. Including Tristopher Botley, who could not be relied on. For all his talk of love, she could not imagine Triss rushing off to Torrens Square to die with Dagmer Clefjaw.

Interesting. Does she kind of hope for it? Who knows? Carl the Maid follows Asha up to the bedchamber and she pushes him away, saying she wants to be alone. He's like, I disagree. I don't think you do. He tries to kiss her, she pushes

him away, and he draws his dagger, slashing open her laces, and she calls him a beardless boy. This only spurs the sexual hate love fuck desire chemistry they begin to physically fight her attempting to draw her axe him catching her wrist and then they hate love fuck and then we get that line that really famous line that everyone loves and is the pinnacle of george's writing chloe would you like to do the honors? Her cunt became the world. Has that ever happened to you?

Well, I'm going to be honest with you all, I just ate a spoonful of frosting while Eliana discussed this, and I think it probably has the same quality as what George thought he was writing. Fair enough. Alright. She forgets about her failures her family her new husband her exile ramsey and let's just just let's carl's cock i want you to know how chloe has spelled this it's important she spelled it carl with a q of course as we all know that's how his name is spelled and cock with a q also i just wanted to be consistent with a cue that's spelled with a cue also consistent she lets all that absorb her life afterwards she's exhausted spent and needs to make some moon tea

or she risks another pair of larvae coming into the world oh no we get this inner monologue from Asha. What does it matter? My father's dead, my mother's dying, my brother's being flayed, and there's naught that I can do about any of it. And I'm married, wedded and bedded, though not by the same man. When she slipped back beneath the furs, Carl was asleep. Now your life is mine. Where did I put my dagger? Asha pressed herself against his back and slid her arms about him ah yeah that's sweet and like i just love that carl has this little you know

skinny little swimmer's bod right little tiny butt it's actually pretty healthy for the most part how he's described i think it's like the perfect tiny but let's be real everything on this man except for that is probably tiny he was just pert you know anyway yeah he's pert he's tiny he's like he's like a piece of paper i like that about him uh like card stock like 32 pound what the fuck are we talking about i like this scene and i know that george sucks i could stop the sentence there at sex scenes um i know that he's not the greatest at those because sex scenes are like you either go bland or you have to do crazy shit right like there's no in between for authors and they don't it's just not i don't know a sex

scene that i can say is 100 perfect and that's whatever when you don't read these books there is no middle ground oh my god i don't read these for sex scenes like uh there's the internet exists okay if you want to read porn you can read porn that's true i'm just saying i will say about this sex scene you know and the way that it's written it makes me want to reevaluate a little bit about the context of the jamie searcy sex scene because i i do think george didn't intend it to feel so non-consensual i think this is just something that ge is into, this kind of dynamic, especially because Asha and Carl's is much more enthusiastically consensual in the time afterwards. And this whole wedded and bedded thing, right, but not by the same man, it really echoes Cersei's circumstances in a lot of the books, right? In a lot of the story, a lot of her life uh wedded to robert bedded by jamie

so and and there's a lot of the osha's chapters of course right especially here in dance and in feast and all these chapters coming close to one another that uh sort of juxtapose against one another and and so i think that it makes me kind of rethink that context a little and and that interpretation that we had discussed during those jam those Jaime chapters because we don't get Cersei's perspective. Yeah. Although I think that the perspective is very important. I really do. I mean, yeah, the framing is what's important and the toxicity because the difference is that Carl and Asha are presented as not toxic.

and Asha are presented as not toxic. It's presented as a great fuck buddy, like friend that like they used to go sailing on the coast and trading. And we'll talk about that in a minute. It's good times. It's innocence, but it's between it's like Ariane with Damon Sand. You know, it's similar there, too, that she also enjoyed her fling with him and wanted it to last. But she also has a duty to be queen.

And so does Asha. You know, that's kind of the similar themes that I think we're going to get into in this episode as we go through I mean Asha has a role she she to lead she can't be seen as weak and to love love is weakness another Cersei line you know when you look at it that way there's definitely a Cersei connection in the leadership and having to retain this role and being basically cattle if you don't have this role. And I think that's prominent here. I think that's very, that's very true and very astute regarding what's going on here, especially regarding the framing.

Because, I mean, maybe, maybe not, you know, sometimes George does have a tendency to frame things. And perhaps for obvious reasons, right? He is a man writing a lot of these scenes, but he frames it a lot from that male perspective without really putting in that framing of where is the woman's agency in this, right? And maybe that is something he deliberately wanted to write with Jamie and Circe, but maybe not. You know, sometimes he's been a little careless in how he frames some of these things and presents it. careless and how he frames some of these things and presents it and for asha i think what you said about that toxic relationship that's very true that's something that is interesting and really complicates and really makes that story between cersei and jamie deep but for asha she like arianne as you said has that opportunity to own her sexuality i know that when we were talking about jamie's chapters we got quite quite a few emails regarding Cersei's characterization. And obviously, we'll talk about that a lot more one day when we get to Cersei's chapters. And even like, I think we brought up some Reddit posts as well, where Cersei kind of owns her sexuality, as some people think, in what's within the story

codified as a masculine way. And to an extent, asha's ability to own her sexuality in the way she does it here kind of feels like that but not really because it's she she of course exists within the context of the ironborn but it doesn't it's not like she's owning it in a masculine way she's completely very much owning and is very comfortable and at peace with her womanhood she's just like why can't everyone else be fucking at peace with my womanhood too and just let me inherit the Iron Islands? I think that is exactly it. There's a lot of, I think a lot of Norse mythology exposition we're going to get into later that also informs this.

And there's a lot of classism surrounding this, right? Because Carl is the grandson of a thrall. None of this would be a problem if Carl was Triss Botley, for example, or if he was Baylor Blacktide's son. Carl is a grandson of a thrall. He has no status. He's known as Carl the Maid to distinguish himself from all the other Carls. Carl Shepard, Queer Kenning, Quick Axe, the Thrall.

Yes, there's another Carl the Thrall. But also he's known because of his cheeks because he can't get a beard up and asha started to call it peach fuzz when she met him like six or seven years ago and that's when their relationship began he had never seen a peach so she was like let's go and this is back when robert was ruling and peace was throughout the whole kingdoms it was summer so they sailed down the coast in the black wind, trading, and they hit Fair Isle and Lannisport and then the Arbor, and she made him try peaches, and the passage is the sweetest thing.

So sweet. So the passage goes, When she made him try a bite, the juice ran down his chin, and she had to kiss it clean. That night they'd spent devouring peaches on each other, and by the time daylight returned, Asha was sated and sticky and as happy as she'd ever been was that six years ago or seven summer was a fading memory and it had been three years since asha last enjoyed a peach she still enjoyed carl though hmm yeah. Yeah. It's just sweet.

It's innocence, right? Like, those are sweeter times. Those are the golden times of having fruit, partaking in fruit. Renly's peach, right? Yeah. We talk about Stannis looking upon Renly's peach and thinking, I'll always go to my... Whatever the line is, I don't care about Stannis. I'll think about my...

I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach. Brother's peach. Thank you. Yeah, Stannis. Kind of sounds lewd, but yeah't care about Stannis. I'll think about my, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach. Brother's peach, thank you, yeah, Stanley. Kind of sounds lewd, but yeah, exactly. It's Stanley, yeah. It is, it is, which is also a viable ship. But yeah, this is a lot of reinforcing that summer peach symbolism that people have, Fat Mulder actually has a great essay on it

from a few years ago. Was it six years ago or seven? Three years ago, maybe. Who knows? I don't know anymore about this book series. When anyone made anything. Hey, I mean, putting it against the oranges of Erioh Hotha's plot, right? Yes.

Thinking about the blood oranges in this scenario, we know what fruit symbolizes, what it means usually, and that is definitely innocence, innocence lost. And I think that informs this a lot more right like for cersei it would be eating a poisoned apple and then fucking jenny but this is like eating a sweet innocent peach and making out with carl and it's something that she can't have back right uh as she steps forward you know if you look back she's lost same thing as danny in that respect which i

know that you have a couple parallels we'll get into in a bit but first as asha thinks of carl she thinks a shaggy beard does not make a man and she thinks that she likes his smooth skin his long hair his little swimmer's bod the way he kisses and touches her his pubes she likes his pubes interesting uh she would have married him but a grand set of a thrall is too common born for The way he kisses and touches her, his pubes. She likes his pubes. Interesting. She would have married him, but a grandson of a thrall is too common-born for Balin's daughter, but not too low-born for Balin's daughter to suck his dick, which she does. He stirs and they go for round two, furs draped over Ash's shoulders while she mounts him. My sweet lady, he murmured after, in a voice still thick with sleep my sweet queen no asha thought i am no queen nor shall i ever be go back to sleep she kissed his cheek padded across

galbert glover's bedchamber and threw the shutters open yeah so speaking of danny if as we said last episode tris is jorah then carl very much feels like dario especially in these paragraphs and and compared to danny's chapters which are in the same book right but because like danny asha thinks you know if i could wet him i would but unlike danny is a very real and grounded fear because she's probably right in many ways like part of the reason that Daario loves Daenerys as she thinks is because of her queenship right there's something about him that's

kind of like a he kind of gets off right on that sort of cloud on her status whereas Carl is here ribbing Asha calling her a queen jokingly and has been bedding her for years and it's a lot more secure i think in real but still something she cannot commit to doing for reasons that she's pointed out so it makes another parallel with asha

also with uh her now definitely literally not being able to do so because she's wed to another, just as Dany ends up having to wed his dar. And whereas Asha has been forced to do so very much against her will in a way that Dany kind of feels beholden or chained to wedding his dar for the good of her people. And in a way, which we will talk about, it kind of weakens their claims, right? That's what they're for. Dani doesn't think of it that way. She thinks it strengthens her claim and her rule, which it should. However, it also weakens her actual claim as the ruler in Slaver's Bay. And for Asha, it's absolutely meant to cripple her. cripple her it's also so i'm gonna throw a couple of things out here but it's a little different compared to how rob treats his marriage right he's like i don't know i'm gonna save this girl's honor and he kind of throws away this huge political coin but both danny and asha know that as women there's a lot that they have to play a little more savvy when it comes to doing these political machinations and they know that marriage is a huge political tool for them. And they're not willing to just throw that away just because of honor.

They're like, I need that. In order to secure power. It is. And the key needs to unlock many doors to life by choosing the marriage. Asha gazes at the full moon at the snowy mountains the hills and trees in the way the wolf's wood the north men called it full of trees and too far from the sea deepwood may be closer but not close enough the air smells of pine trees instead of salt the sea was closer only five leagues north but asha could not see it. Too many hills stood in the way.

And trees, so many trees. The wolf's wood, the northmen named the forest. Most nights you could hear wolves calling to each other through the dark. An ocean of leaves. Would it were an ocean of water. I just love this paragraph and the language and imagery here. How Asha's comparing the forest to an ocean and obviously it's not really an ocean it's an ocean on land right but that that metaphor

because asha observes and knows that it's on land and she's like knowing her limitations she's like well the ironborn are best at sea and this is not that and it stands in big contrast to her uncle victorian who thinks he's going to make plans and victorian's hubris right because he thinks yeah he's like whatever i'm victorian great joy i'm gonna conquer any ocean or sea even the dothraki sea he's like i'll sail that too and everyone's like victorian because you know this is an ocean of leaves and no true ocean just like the grass of the dothraki sea not really an ocean and victorian does not know his limitations that's a really great point and it again is just something that speaks to her distinctive command right that she feels best and she feels empowered with a deck beneath her feet yes

northeast from there stood the wall where stannis had raised his banners the enemy of my enemy is my friend men said but the other side of that coin was the enemy of my friend is my enemy stannis needs the northern lords but the ironborn are the north's enemies. Asha thinks, well, I could offer Stannis my body, but knows he's wed and so is she. This chapter definitely feels like a redux in a way of Blackwater, because this right here, of course, is something very Cersei. although maybe Asha doesn't know as much about Stannis as she thinks she knows because Cersei obviously knows that she'd have a better chance of seducing his horse as she said in the Clash of Kings and the Ironborn and Stannis are old foes right considering the Greyjoy Rebellion he assisted the navy by smashing the Iron Fleet at Fair Isle and subduing great wicks so not great energy I don't think that's what Stannis is into you know asha power

is what he's into maybe if stannis like maybe if asha's like stannis i could give you sons but yeah absolutely as you said doesn't know stannis that well so but at least she makes a similar call right it's just that he's just not going to be seduced it doesn't matter that he's wet or not but asha is fortunate that unlike circe she she does have other options, right? She's built herself up in a way to create those pathways. And she goes down her list throughout this chapter trying to figure out, all right, so what are all of the other ways I can get out of this pickle? We get a little exposition on Deepwood Mott's shape. It's a rounded hill enclosed by walls. It's got a flat top, very stylish.

A watchtower above the hill. A bailey, smith, sheephold. Outer defenses in an oval shape following the land's contour. Gates protected by wooden towers and wall walks on the perimeter. All is swallowed by thick moss. An empty field sits east and west of the keep. All is swallowed by thick moss and empty fields sit east and west of the keep. The fields held grain, but Ash and her men

had crushed the grain when attacking, leaving mud and ash originally, and now they kind of had all turned to frost and rotted and melted. Mada. First thing I think about is and in this chapter in many ways we're definitely going to talk about it as a Circe kind of parallel in a couple ways and Dany stuff going on.

But also, I feel like this is like Theon's chapter in Clash, right? Attack of Winterfell. This is very much so a lot of those same themes and those same mistakes being made, like you said, with the candle and lighting the letter on fire. And right here, all is swallowed by a thick moss. Remember when the sea overtook Winterfell? Well, the storm is about to overtake here at Deepwood Mott. Wow, the storm. The storm, the oncoming storm.

The flood. And her trampling through the fields and the men ruining the last chance, basically, of any harvest, right, happening for winter is so interesting, considering the promises of glory through peace at the Kingsmoot, where she upturns the avalanche of pebbles for the wealth of Stony Shore and the riches of Deep Wood Mott, which is pine cones, and then the gold of gold of winterfall which is yellow turnips and then she says your choice is simple crown me for peace and victory or crown my nuncle for more war and defeat but of course no war allows that right war is war and war tramples crops no matter what and we see this chapter and the environment it's trampled it's dead it's ungrowing uh yes deepwood mott gets taken back by the glovers for in lieu of stannis but i mean they're not going to be doing great come winter with no harvest absolutely a lot of people aren't and they've kind of made it a little worse and that's something i think that's a good detail you know we keep talking about all the things that are setting up a shitty winter ahead. That's one of them. Things that are not part of the shitty winter, but part of the shitty autumn for Asha.

Ramsay is coming to take the castle from her. We have this line. He would not flay her, though. Asha Greyjoy did not intend to be taken alive. She would die as she had lived with an axe in her hand and a laugh upon her lips the best line there's a lot of good ones yeah yeah she's a queen she's she'll never be a queen she just said that so there's a lot of warriors in this series who actually say similar things to asha right i if

i'm not mistaken doesn't jamie have like similar lines to this right of dying in battle and that's kind of being taken alive yeah that was kind of his plan at one point he's like i'm gonna just go for it i'm gonna go for it and try and kill rob stark and just take all these men down with me but at the same time it's also quite like Cersei again at the Blackwater right with no intentions of being taken alive and I think the way that that's framed and presented at the Blackwater makes it kind of seem like what Cersei's doing is a little cowardly and I this kind of makes you reframe that and think about it again because the way it's presented in Asha, you know, it takes Cersei's plan from that of cowardice into being one of glory, because it becomes something that she chose kind of on her own terms, right, that she would be able to choose her death on her own terms in a life where she was afforded so little choice of what she could do with it.

what she could do with it. Yeah. And we're going to get into some more autonomy for sure of like the women in a song of ice and fire, having no autonomy over their body. And when you put it this way, you think like it isn't cowardly because it's her own terms of how it happens. Like I'm going down,

but this is my body, especially when society has done nothing. This society for Cersei, for Asha, for all of these women has done nothing but like punish them for their bodies, for who they are. And it is kind of like Blackwater for the Cersei, especially she keeps saying, what do we do? Die in these walls, right? So she takes the sword that her father let her have, which is what is unlike Cerseisei Tywin and Rickard didn't let Cersei or

Lyanna have swords and she goes and she's bold which is what her mother taught her so she was set up a lot better than some of these women we see in the stories and the Blackwater parallel actually hits really hard because Asha spends this thinking it's Ramsay just like you think Renly is on the Blackwater fighting off Stannis, but it turns out, surprise, it's just Stannis instead. Yeah, and interestingly, it's Stannis in both, right? Yes, Northmen and Stannis, but different Northmen. I do want to say, you know, regarding what you're saying of women in A Song of Ice and Fire and that agency, you were saying something earlier about classism when it came to Carl, but I do want to point that out when it comes to women living in this world as well.

The freedom that Asha and some of is afforded is something that maybe, you know, and that sexual liberation, some of it seems like some of the small folk women, right? Some of the lower born might have some of that freedom, especially on the mainland of Westeros. But on the Iron Islands, especially in a place where you have like the codified salt wives and rock wives, it's not. Asha has a lot more freedom in her womanhood than a lot of the women in the Iron Islands. I'm not going to act like she's out here championing every single woman on the Iron Islands and their like, agency as well. So I do want to call that out when we are discussing her. Yes. And as we get closer to battle, I think there's a lot going on as she commands the men that is also going to bring back some of this talk of femininity. And so right now Asha has captured Deepwood with the 30 longships that Balon had granted her.

But so only four remain now. And one of them is Tristopher's. The rest had fled to give homage to their king. Although she thinks, you know, quite poignantly. She's like, the one who really fled was me. I'm the problem. No, you're not. You need to frickin' live to have a cause, Asha.

Yeah, so we get that flashback to the king's moot. When Euron was crowned, Roderick was like, run. And she's like, no, I want to fight. Raise your men, uncle. All of your kin, get them to fight for me. And he's like, no, some of my kin rooted for Euron, idiot. I'm not sending them on each other and tearing apart tent towers. Get out of here.

So when Asha put her name in the goblet of Kingsmoot, she submitted herself to the judgment of the captains and the choice was made. Only one Kingsmoot had been overthrown. And even then it took time, according to Herag. Roderick said that if she stayed, her claim would mean she'll be killed or wedded and one of those might actually be worse than the other just pointing that out could be worse don't know which one though it depends on the man depends on the man depends on the day so roderick asks asha for the love that she bears him please leave do not make him watch you die

and so she does but stopping at the ten towers first she says goodbye to her mother which interestingly we didn't see her say hello to her at all right she was putting it off so our only time seeing her interact with her mother here so far is

to say goodbye actually throughout the whole story then yeah she remembers the last time before that she had seen her but yeah so it's once again just asha saying goodbye to her mother and alanis didn't understand what asha meant when she said that it actually might be a while until she returns. Then Alanis once more asks after Theon, asking where he was. Good news and bad news, Alanis. Anyways. When Asha said

to her aunt Gwyneth that she was leaving, she had a similar conversation. This time it was about Roderick, though, asking when he would return, because Gwyneth reminds Asha that ten towers should be hers. Both Harlaw women in this chapter, you know punctuation or an emphasis to everything that's going on in this chapter. We have a woman whose children were taken hostage, much like Sibyl, and then another woman whose inheritance and power are stolen. Again, those parallels between Asha and Gwyneth.

Asha was still at Ten ten towers when word of her marriage reached her euron told his men his wayward niece needed taming and he married her to eric iron maker the anvil breaker who was to rule the iron islands while euron chased dragons eric was once a fearless reaver who sailed with Dagon Greyjoy, her great-grandfather. But Asha had wounded his pride in the king's moot, and he's not like to forget that. Triss told her that Euron had a seal stand in for her at the wedding, even. Okay, is this a little more clever on Euron's part than I thought? Because I'm just gonna throw this out there. Is this an elaborate pun on Euron's part, right?

Is this... Did he have a seal stand there? Because he's like saying, this marriage pact is sealed. I am being I'm only kind of joking. Oh my god, well to be fair

it follows a recurring theme of seals in the episode because we opened with a pink seal on a letter oh so this is one of the seals that Euron is opening before he unleashes hellfire I'm not joking I think this could be real do Euron and I have the same sense of humor no my sense of humor doesn't involve killing people never mind I'm really glad it became to that and i do want to point out i actually tweeted this because it was killing me but george calls eric eric with a c in this chapter twice and then goes back to spelling it eric with a k like the rest of the chapter and the rest of

ash's pov and the story like anytime he POV and the story. Like anytime he's mentioned. And he does both spellings within one paragraph, which is even more annoying. I literally noticed it because of that paragraph. Like that was why I noticed it. And I was like, wait a second. And I had to search the book and I just implored. I digress. That was...

Several people let that be in the print. Rude on George's part.'s part yeah well i do appreciate other things in this chapter i like the approach that he has for her marriage you mentioned a little bit about it earlier with daenerys parallels the chapter's named wayward bride and we get this resounding beat of her lord husband that is basically blind to us right like we just keep hearing her say that she's wed, but we don't know anything about it until right this moment from Triss. Ash's forced marriage is of course one of many in Dance. Jane and Ramsay's wedding is in just

a handful of chapters, The Prince of Winterfell. In John 9, we see Alice Karstark fleeing her own version of hell and her own uncle who conspires to take her birthright away from her through marriage, Uncle Cregan. And these weddings seem to be anchored by Daenerys' wedding in her seventh chapter. It's the wedding that she thinks is for peace, a sacrifice made in wartime, but also a wedding that allows men to use her claim against her if we're judging by the ramifications that have started to arise since she left on Drogon. The way the Wayward Bride is sandwiched between the Windblown and Tyrion, two chapters that take us out of Westeros, still keeps some of these key themes in the story, like the binding marriage themes in Quentyn and Daenerys. Quentyn thinks,

wed her or fight her, either way I will face her soon, andha thinks that a little bit as well about her husband tyrian even spends some time thinking about his first wife taisha and he meets the widow of the waterfront whose role in this chapter is lady glover right of course the tyrian chapter following this chapter connects with the king's prize as well because tyrian is taken prisoner by jorah mormont much like asha is then seen walking as prisoner with Jorah's niece Alysanne these three chapters find themselves in a different land where politics

operate much differently than what they are used to and all three of them are posed to meet the king or the queen whether Quentyn, Tyrion, or Asha here making their way to Dany or to Stannis I would much rather be Alysanne's prisoner on the way to Daedra and Jorah's.

Seems the most pleasant. For sure. Of the situations. Adventure stinks, you know. But, you know, this is a great point. The wayward bride is Asha, but Asha's chapters, especially this one,

serve to really magnify and sharpen a lot of the other things that we's chapters, especially this one, serve to really magnify and sharpen a lot of the other things that we see going on in this book, while also, of course, giving us insight into her and what's going on with the Ironborn. First, the quiet of the woods unnerves Asha. She's used to waves

crashing on rocks. But there's none of that in Deepwood Mott. You have this line, only the trees, the endless trees, soldier pines and sentinels, beech and ash and ancient oaks, chestnut trees and iron woods and firs. We're obviously going to talk a little bit

about the Scottish play at some point, as there is a very strong reference here that many people have pointed out but i also want to add i really love the foreshadowing of the soldier pines and sentinels that george puts in here right because they do turn into actual soldiers and sentinels after i just think that's so smart i don't know maybe i thought this before the first time i read it or the second time or the 80th and just didn't think about it this closely but now I'm like soldier pines so smart yeah what's really interesting is they're supposed to be giant

sequoias right uh within the sequoia national park in California but when you look these up and the funniest thing is is that MSU has a really really expansive michigan state university has an expansive agricultural program i know a couple people that actually work for it and they are the second result about these trees and the first result is a song of ice and fire on the internet when you look up sentinel trees i thought that was so funny because really somehow ice and fire is what's giving them their due but they are from the sequoia national park oh interesting i didn't know that i didn't realize sentinel trees and sequoias were the same i probably could have looked that up but why would i do that you know

uh a sentinel tree is i think also obviously also, obviously, we have the Ents. Tolkien's Ents are similar. They're supposed to be, again, Scottish play. But we'll get there because there's more to come. But those are the response as well. So George is paying his respects to both of these things. And I think it just fits really well. It's very clever. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a bit.

But for now, Asha's doing big mood things right she's cutting into a huge wedge of cheese she's like it's a wheel of cheese as big as a cartwheel i'm like yes yes yes tell me more tell me more but then tris baldly comes and ruins everything he shows up and ruining her snacking and i'm just like no tell me more about the giant wheel of cheese I honestly like everyone complains that if George just took out all the food stuff he'd probably be done with the books I love the food stuff

the food stuff is one of my favorite things and the fact that Asha is just like alright I'm getting dressed so I can walk all the way to the kitchens and eat a bunch of cheese in the middle of the night from the fridge. That's the dream. That's the mood. And, okay, Triss Botley ruining the snack session is the worst.

He shows up and she's just trying to eat cheese. And he's like, you know, even though you lost the queen's moot, you're still the queen of my heart. Asha, here's the line. What am I to do with this boy? Asha could not doubt his devotion. The literal worst reply guy. Also, he's, I don't know, maybe he's just crazy hornier because A, she keeps saying no, and B, his father figure just died, you know? So maybe he's just like really out of whack, but I don't know.

He just keeps showing up like, hey, Asha, sorry about your basically murdered family and your crazy uncle who usurped your throne while killing my father figure, but you're still my queen of my heart lol what what if we're just like not examining tris deep enough you know like what if he's like the summer islanders this is his way of uh what is it this is his way of mourning or maybe like you know he's just trying to do some escapism and he's like projecting he's like you know the way that i deal with trauma through my dick yeah actually though escapism through fucking maybe tris is just trying to deal with the dead dick in a different way yeah maybe he's just like mourning and trying to feel anything which all of these are real all of these are like real things very much and maybe we're not getting credit whoa

okay we don't have to shit on tris all day we'll we'll leave it we'll leave it for now he is devoted he he she thinks about this too because he courageously crossed the sea to join her that does take courage stood on nagus hill shouted her name with the crowd that that's big she's like all right you can have some cheese, you little rat. And she offers him cheese, some ham, some mustard. And then he's like, can I have it with a side of that pussy? He says all this through his newly grown beard. And then he claims, which, by the way, I love that. He has a newly grown beard.

So the line that Asha just thinks about Carl, about how beards are really not that big of a deal. They don't make a man. And here Tris is trying to be a man so he is tris is going through some shit if he was me he would probably be dying his hair purple i get it he'd be calling up tyro getting some snails snailing it in oh my gosh tris claims that he saw asha from the watchtower, and he's like, I just want to talk. And she's like, how about you go date Haggin the Horn's daughter? She's 17, she's a redhead, and he's like, but she's no you. And he says it's time for them to leave Moat Cailin.

It's the only thing that's holding back the tide, and the Northmen will soon come to kill them. Would you have me run? I would have you live i love you no she thought you love some innocent maiden who lives only in your head a frightened child in need of your protection i do not love you she said bluntly and i do not run i love i love that line of the no you love some innocent maiden who lives only in your head because in in that line asha's interior interiority just calls out what we've been seeing all this time about men like jorah littlefinger quentin robert pate i i mean even baristan back then

right it's it's this problem of men loving this idea of a woman that they think completes them instead of the actual woman themselves. Pussy on the pedestal. Truly. Don't do it. Don't put that bitch in the tower. Don't do it. Don't do it. Let her go free. Let her go free, Rapunzel Rapunzel.

He tells her to sail away and start a new life with him on the sea. And for a second, she's like, all right, what do you got? Spit it at me. Like pirates, she says. And he's like, no, like traders voyaging east like the crow's eye, but bringing back silk and spices instead of a dragon horn

and finding a manse or keep in old town or free cities. I love that because, of course, he is going off of what Baelor Blacktide told him about how great old town or free cities. I love that because of course he is going off of what Baylor Blacktide told him about how great old town is, right? How it's probably just the shit and how the free cities are great. And in a way, he's actually recommending something very smart, which is do what the Valerians did and bring back some riches. Yeah, that's true. And it is smart, right? right looking at history because the valerians were able to secure themselves as a huge naval power during that time because of everything that you said here and asha's like you know that would be great her and then she goes carl and then tris like

flinches at carl's name she's like, and maybe, you know, Hagen's daughter. All of us together would love to do it. She's like, but not me. Not me, all right? I'm the Kraken's daughter. She starts to say where her place is, but he reminds her, Asha, you don't have a place, okay? And he's like, unless you submit to your new husband, who is not me.

In the end, all the winds are blowing her to Euron. She reminds him of her hostages on Harlaw and of Sea Dragon Point, although she thinks it's in ruins and not populated, just ancient remains of the First Men and the Weirwood Circles left by the children. Triss argues Sea Dragon has no resources, no gold, silver, tin silver tin iron no land for crops so something here about sea dragon point kind of stood out to me along with all those ideas of going to the free cities and pirating so last episode we talked a bit about how guinness

might have been the seed that grew into the larger story of rain and targaryen that george really fresh fleshed out and fire and blood and the way that this whole part here with sea dragon point and like a well we'll just make a new kingdom whatever we'll make our own kingdom kind of makes me wonder like maybe this is a little jumping off point for george in how he decided to put together daemon targaryen the rogue prince and the like whole king of the stepstone stuff i mean the stepstones do i think get mentioned here for like a split second yeah it has a lot of launching points like i can definitely see the seeds being played with and i especially with the way that the king's mood is set up how she presents the different plunders of the King's mood saying,

look, I'm going to leave you all to peace times. And we're going to have a sufficient Island and riches. And even here that she's thinking, you know, no, I have plans for, for sea dragon point. There are plans that I can make ships and do all this stuff with the wood. And so she argues that she says there's otters in the lakes there's salmon in the rivers clams on the shore seals tall pines to build ships tris asks who will build the

ships and where she'll find her subjects or if she means to rule over a realm of seals and otters which to be fair she does say might be easier to rule honestly that along with the wheel of trees a kingdom of seals and otters is also my new dream um i have been known to get drunk and tweet asha gray joy queen of the otters all the time because of this line this is probably one of my favorite lines in the entire book it sounds just like utterly amazing. Utterly. You have no clue. And something on a serious note, as I was describing these things that she could do

at Sea Dragon Point, it reminded me of something. Huh. Do you know where there's a vast amount of land right now that could probably be settled with houses and people and crops and tons of resources where the gift huh interesting another woman with some agency issues hmm well asha admits her best course might be to give up

right return to pike or go to ten towers when euron murdered lord blacktide he didn't help his cause maybe she could still find erin and raise the aisles because everyone's still looking for erin is the news tris tells her eric has been looking for him questioning everyone and tris thinks erin's been killed already euron's big search is probably just to make euron look innocent and not like a kinslayer. I get this line from Asha. Never let my uncle hear you say that. Tell the crows eye he's afraid of kinslaying and he'll murder one of his own sons just to prove you wrong.

Asha was feeling almost sober by then. Tristopher Botley had that effect on her. Same. Damn. Christopher bursts her bubble. Even if she did find the damp hair, they'd fail. The king's meet was over. Asha and Aaron both attended.

They couldn't call it unlawful, like Torgon the latecomer. And Asha starts to think, she's like, wait, Torgon, why do I know that besides king and age of heroes why do i know that and to refresh our history torgan grayiron eldest son of the king was off rating the king's moot was called illegally against him and they chose uragon good brother the bad brother to rule them who killed all of torgan's blood relatives and then she remembers the end that torgan came home

declared the king's moot unlawful and the lords and priests rose against uragon bad brother yes very interesting and you talked about that in depth last episode i do want to point out you know some of what you were talking about last episode was about theon as torgan latecomer but I feel there's something kind of interesting here where Theon can be a little bit of both Yorgon Badbrother and Torgon Latecomer, as you

said. And not only is it that whole lateness and the thing that sparks Ash's idea in like two seconds, but there's that whole part where Yorgon kills the blood relatives and then ends up becoming bad being called bad brother never was like he wasn't even related to any of them and that's very much what happens to theon throughout his story and it happened he gets

called a kinslayer right in this very same book for having slain the starks even though he wasn't actually their brother by blood that's actually perfect especially in comparison to the sacking of winterfell like we were discussing yeah it's just interesting you know people can be wow people can eat multiple things amazing that's really amazing george did this god well asha is as grateful for this analysis as i am right but i'm not that grateful because asha kisses tris full on the lips and is like thank you you did it i have a revelation going on and just as she has this big revelation about theon as the latecomer the warhorn is fired off and of course getting horny warhorns going off uh and i'm sure she

has some ptsd over the warhorn after losing her queen's moot that was awful she first thinks of her husband wondering if here he is to claim his wife but she doesn't care because she's just glad to have some foes to fight the sign of what's next from the drowned god and by the time they reach the fight it's over two north men are bleeding at the gate two killed before they make it over another killed on the wall walk all of them covered in camouflage brown green black garb boiled leather tree branches and leaves are sewn on them and she questions them she reveals this man is a flint and that they came to free lady glover she asks how many more and he lies saying they were only five she twists the spear already within him and she gets the truth three to four thousand men are coming yikes yeah she's fucked so this scene actually kind of

reminded me of something else also once again in this book and in theon's chapters it does turn out that this flint man is lying to her but the five coming to steal and save a woman who is a hostage kind of echoes what happens in theon's plot in Winterfell with the six or seven if you count Mance who sneak into Winterfell they steal in and try to also steal and save another woman

so it's interesting you say that because I was thinking there was some of that kind of parallel especially since the prince in Winterfell is just a handful of chapters away and there's some stuff after that that fits here too especially with the north but i also was thinking a lot about donella hornwood during all of this oh we should always think about that too i always do think about her especially compared to jane talk and even this asha stuff and with Gelbert Glover's wife uh I I just felt

like it was very similar with the north kind of like it's the opposite though like the north is actually coming to save her and get her out and coming against a different cause instead of all of them just trying to sleep with her and then bored and then like, eh, okay, well, if I can't have your lands and you, then good luck. Shit, that's sad. And that's why we should always think about Donnella Hornwood. Bless her. R.I.P.

Rip. We have a line here. Galbraith Glover's maester had claimed the mountain clans were too quarrelsome to ever band together without a Stark to lead them. He might not have been lying. He might just have been wrong. She had learned with that decent leg at her and Uncle's king's moot. Well.

I thought that was interesting to remind us that Stannis ain't got it. Stannis ain't it, you know? This ain't it. Yeah, but I mean, she is a little wrong stannis is doing a little bit a little yeah it might not be it but this is obviously her also misreading the situation on all this like thinking it must be north men there's no way but maybe not no one knows it's a little column a little column b you know and i like the idea that she's like at this point i don't care i just want to fight whoever it is i've been wrong before so who knows yeah all of these are big moods asha begins to give commands to the men fetch lady glover and the maester get the towers guarded lady glover emerges from the godswood with her bed made

begging and pleading with asha to strike the banners and let her barter for Asha's life. She says she'd exchange her children on Harlaw for Asha and her men, that no harm would need to come to anyone, but Asha knows that's a lie. She may be exchanged, maybe her cousins, Triss, but the rest of the company, some of them. For most, it would be an axe, a noose, or the walls. So she climbs on a barrel and gives her war speech. Before we get into the war speech, I do want to talk a little bit about, we've been mentioning a lot of the ways that Asha's chapter compares to other POVs in this book. But once more, there's a lot here that mirrors Theon's taking of Winterfell beyond the other Theon parallels that are going on within this book and I think that's very intentional right from taking the children hostage which both like perpetuates that cycle of the sins that were inflicted upon Asha's family tearing them apart destroying her mother and that also of course stole Theon's childhood and innocence away from

him that's happening to the Glovers right now with sabelle's children being taken from her to the part where where asha is being advised by lady glover and the maester of like what to do of like hey maybe you should just like surrender all right like we can all get out of this and it'll be fine and we see in a lot of the upcoming exchanges in this chapter that there's a lot of ironborn culture actually left in Theon, right? Like, that's a little bit of a question because he grew up in the ironborn, is an ironborn, forced to live and grow up in the north. And it's something that his father questions of him. issue and some of the things that she does and how he weighs her she weighs her options we can see a lot in the same that is similar to the thought process that theon had in those clash chapters that shows you know maybe there's still a lot that's left there in him but what makes them

ultimately quite different people is that they choose different outcomes with this right theon stubbornly digs his heels in. That's very much not because of his culture, that's because of his upbringing, and a lot of the trauma that he suffered. Whereas, you know, he continues to do so, to dig his heels in with Winterfell, and he's like, I'm gonna hold it, even when Asha comes to Winterfell and is like, Theon, I'm gonna hold it, even when Asha comes to Winterfell and is like, Theon, we can leave, all right? I will get you out of here. And at every turn during his class chapters, Theon showed no loyalty, whether it was to the Starks or to the Ironborn, because if you'll remember, he killed three of them to maintain their silence for what he did in killing those Miller's boys. He was

willing to throw away his men's lives as pawns for his scheme. Whereas a lot of the trust that Asha takes a lot of pride in, that she's earned from her crew who follow her, has to do with decisions she's made in the past, which are reflected in the decision that she makes here. She chooses the exact same option that she had offered Theon, even though she has less of an ability to carry that through right she knows she could survive here as a hostage turn herself in she knows a couple of them are going to make it exchanged and will survive as hostages but she knows that her crew and her men will die and she's not willing to take that outcome so she does the best that she can to save them and find them a way out of Deepwood.

Yeah, and I never really compared that role before like that. I like that of Maester Luwin, you know, giving Theon like, Theon, save yourself, save yourself. And she thinks about it so hard in the beginning, you know, it's very like, what do I do? What do I do? And right here when she launches into this speech, this is the do or moment this is her no chance no choice so to speak she's like you know what we are gonna rush into the tide we will not be taken by the tide because iron men do their best work in water so she gives this inspiring speech the wolves are coming down on us with their teeth bared they'll be at our gates before the sun comes up shall we throw down our spears and axes

and plead with them to spare us? No, Carl the Maid drew his sword. No, echoed Lauren Longaxe. No, boomed Rolf the Dwarf, a bear of a man who stood a head taller than anyone else in her crew. Not for long. Never.

And Hagen's horn sounded again from on high, ringing out across the bailey. The warhorn cried, long and low, a sound to curdle blood. Asha had begun to hate the sound of horns. I imagine

so. And I do think that the language used here is very specific because we know that Euron's symbolism of the others in general, those are very strong things, right? They're very very paralleled. The

blood curdling when a horn sounds it really does remind me of Castle Black and getting the horn sounding one time, two times, three times. It definitely is starting to feel a little chilly in here is all I'm saying. A little windy, if you will. Absolutely. And that happens quite a few times throughout this chapter.

Hence the horniness of it. Asha repeats her mantra if i must die i'll die with an axe in my hand and a curse upon my lips as hagen's horn resounds much like her uncle's horn on wick so throughout this chapter and what's going on here right we also throughout this book have this tension between victory versus glory but often the two are chained together, right? Victory, of course, you know, when you win, it naturally kind of comes with a sense of glory. And that's part of Jamie's storyline as well, right? That's why he kind of scoffs at those horses' names before. But here we see that they actually can be two separate things,

right? Asha realizes victory is not possible here right we're kind of fucking screwed but glory is still an option if they wanted to take it it's as asha said before dying as she lived with her axe in hand going out fighting but you know again despite asha being in a very similar situation to Theon, she makes a different choice. Her ships aren't burned yet, right? She hasn't burned those bridges, and unlike Theon, they're still in Atlas. It's not Nymeria. Yeah.

She commands her men to the walls, making for the watchtower. When she arrives, one of the men, Krom, who gets a fucking name. This guy gets a name, and Hagen's daughter does. Points to the soldier pines, which again, as Chloe has pointed out before, they're literally soldier pines. There are trees and shadows moving closer and Asha sees the men cloaked in

boughs like a green tide. She remembers an old tale she was told as a child of the children of the forest turning the trees to warriors against the first men. Just tale right as old as time until dnd canonized it oh i'm just kidding uh because of the show that the books were written about our french shakespeare of thrones talks about this better than i could also i refuse to say McBee word, so Eliana will actually be reading it. I'm not kidding.

It's bad luck. If you've been in the production, you know. We'll see our first big glimpse of this being Stannis' camp at the very end, but check out the rest of this essay from Shakespeare of Thrones on Ned Stark and Shakespeare's Brutus because they get into some talk about Stannis. Yeah, so I'm going to read this line from McDonald's, which I don't know why Chloe won't say it.

McDonald's. McDonald's. The Scottish McDonald's. God damn it. So as our friend Shakespeare of Thrones says, or shakes as she's affectionately called Martin goes one step further with a Shakespearean narrative instead of having a different character play hero to the villain

it is Stannis who plays them both embodying character traits of each and reenacting their deeds in A Dance with Dragons the method Stannis uses to take Deepwood Mott directly quotes the method that Macduff uses to take Dunnison Castle, a camouflage tactic involving soldiers carrying tree boughs to make their movement look like trees closing in instead of an army. It's smart and resourceful, but the most admirable trick here is Martin's. By aligning Stannis with both Macbeth and Macduff through plot and character, he further underscores Stannis' complex character dichotomy through single representation of both hero

and villain. This classic tragic hero presentation also removes the necessity for Stannis to be judged by someone else. So it is unlikely that Brienne or any other character will swoop in as Macduff's stand-in. In the end, it will likely be Stannis who delivers his own justice, something he has never done before. I think this is something so interesting to bring into Ash's plot because we're seeing Stannis now through Ash's plot. We see him through so many lenses but by giving him both of these characterizations it makes Asha's kind of lens on him in the king's prize and moving forward especially not to spoil anything yet but the winds

of winter chapter uh it it's just such a great excerpt it's it's not when we did john and when when we did john when we did john i found myself disliking stannis more i used to like stannis more than i do now eliana you were softer about like i don't know if i'm into him you weren't hard about his character and i don't know i like have grown to dislike him more so i think think reexamining his character through Asha might maybe balance me back out a little bit. Who knows? I'll probably hate him still. I don't know. I still don't love Stannis, but for some strange reason, I find myself quoting him a lot. About the good not washing out the bad and the bad not washing out the good. And I'm like, what does this mean about me?

And I'm like, maybe I just think that about Stannis. I mean, mean i like the things he says it's just he doesn't practice them yes absolutely and i know people are gonna fight us on this but you know what you can all wait for a different pov for those debates all right because and by that we mean probably like the next chapter or the chapter after that shut the fuck up um we can't fight this many all right just like tris says that they can't fight this many crom corrects him saying they can fight as many that come i don't know if i can do that with a standard but i'm sorry um the men will sing of them in their glory no matter how many come and asha thinks just like i think will they sing of your courage or our folly in talking about Stannis? No, I'm just kidding.

But she does think, will they sing of your courage or my folly? We're not kidding. I'm about to unload on all of you. Get ready about Asha and some of the stuff we've been talking about with her role in the Ironborn society and how they treat women and everything that Asha does, because this line alone reminds us that everything Asha does is weighed twice against her. It's weighed double against her compared to something that someone else does, compared to something Theon

does. The women we meet in this story are kept or protected. The classes of women are daughters, right? Protected by a man's name. Gwyneth takes solace in Ten Towers, even though it's her home because of her age, as we know, technically her right. Alanis comes home to her brother's protection instead of staying as a respected welcome widow at Pyke, because we know the nature of Balen's downfall. And now, as Eliana pointed out, Asha has become part of this group of women as well. The women spent time building their own alliances, learning their people, and they're shunned when the time comes for them to take part in this claim. Make no mistake, Asha may be a mid

20 year old with her only claim being Balin's only surviving heir, quote unquote, as far as everyone knows. But she also worked very hard to strengthen alliances among the islands. And while she does use her women's weapon to strengthen those alliances, much like we see Cersei trying to do across Beast or Arianne with Aerys, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's the oldest profession, grow up. Literally, life is just based on biology, inside of each other watch movies but she's courageous and clever right asha is quick on her feet she's distinguished herself among these women in this culture by not only her noble birth her eligibility by marriage and most importantly

her prowess as a commander she's a triple threat and when we discuss the ironborn they're kind of like a dramatized pirate version of scandinavian mythos right a norse soap opera if you will in the so spake martin back in 99 george actually described their longboats as a simple viking longboat with the royal fleet in comparison from king's landing being a little closer to byzantine ships so in scandinavian folklore and mythos, Asha kind of resembles a shield maiden, a woman who would have taken up arms and armor and fought alongside men. Saxo Grammaticus's early 13th century piece, Jesta Denorum, claims 300 shield maidens fought for the Danes, which many scholars argue about this and it's bullshit. I just want to put that out there because they like to say things like,

interesting that the woman was buried with a weapon. I don't really think there's a connection there. We just can't seem to figure it out. And then they move on. Like, hmm, can't seem to figure out the connection of why a woman would be buried with her weapon. Even in mythos, we have Valkyries, right? Supernatural women, warriors who led the dead to odin's great halls of

valhalla after battle which we see those references along this story with the watery halls of the drowned god scholars argue about whether shield maidens exist or not but whether or not they existed whether blenda defeated the danes is not important because the fact is the legend exists. It was popular enough to be repeated. And if it's an ancient legend, that means that culture respected women just enough to let them be heroes in fable and story. And there are tons of strong Norse female figures in some of the Icelandic saga. There's Skadi, the goddess of hunting and skiing like ruda scotty if there are any his dark materials fans listening in freya goddess of fertility luck love breenhild the valkyrie who

becomes mortal and avenges herself lagartha the victorious shield maiden and then there are two that i want to bring up specifically sigrid the proud and and Un the Deep-Minded. Sigrid the Proud or Sigrid the Haughty was wife of Erik the Victorious of Sweden. In some iterations, she remarries to Swain Forkbeard of Denmark. Sigrid is beautiful but vengeful, a daughter of a nobleman, and when Erik the Victorious dies, she's such a rich widow. She has estates upon estates, and she's being sought after by many. such a rich widow. She has estates upon estates, and she's being sought after by many. She and her son live in a gorgeous estate, and her foster brother and another royal suitor seek to marry her. She wants nothing to do with that, so she has them burnt at a great feast to discourage any other suitors. What power. I know. Later, she gets courted by the king of Norway, Olaf,

who wants her to convert to Christianity. She refuses and he strikes her. So she then vows to bring him down. She does. And in the later iterations, she allies Sweden to Denmark by marrying Swain Forkbeard. A further point that's cited in favor of Sigrid actually existing is that Danish kings, their holdings in medieval Sweden were called Sigrridslef the legacy of sigrid so could have been a thing that sounds right to me thank you thank you i tried very hard i think it's right i just needed a couple times you know to get it out of my system i know the feel i also

think it's important because esgrad is the name we meet asha as, right? Oh, interesting, interesting. The other person that I want to talk about from these heroic fables or mythos, whatever you want to call them, is Un or Aud the Deep-Minded, depending on what you read. Un was the second daughter of a military commander. She married Olaf the White, whose father conquered and named himself King of Dublin. When Olaf is killed, she travels with their son, Thorstein the Red, and he becomes a great warrior king in northern Scotland. Later, Thorstein is betrayed by his people in battle. When she hears of this betrayal, she constructs her own ship in secret

and gets 20 good men to captain it. Oh my god. She marries Thorstein's daughter, her granddaughter, off to secure an alliance, and then she captains the ship to Iceland, where she creates a new place for the men. In addition to those men, she had hostages from raiding around the British Isles, and she gave them freedom and land once they landed in Iceland, and created a class between slavery and freedom called Freedmen, kind of like Thralls in Pike. Quite the opposite of Sigrid, she actually brings Christianity to Iceland. It's said she erected crosses to pray at on hills. You might know those from pictures and the such.

I think Asha is a fair example of what a woman who's been born into this culture that refuses to change. I mean, we see Gwynness, we see Alanis, these bold women who punched out at this system. And it treats some of these women like a lesser wife right like a salt wife and some women a higher status and i know i have some friends listening who would probably say that's not what it's about rhaegar i'm talking to you just kidding you're friends with rhaegar him ellia and liana they have crazy parties every weekend if asha

returns to the iron islands after this failure, because this does feel like a failure, she's forced to return as a coward. And she's nothing more than a royal rock wife, right? At the end of the day, that's what she becomes. She's here in the wood fighting against that. That's what Asha Greyjoy wants in this chapter. When Asha says, finally, the foes have arrived. Now there's something to fight against. That's what she's fighting against. This is what Sigrid burnt in her dining hall. It's what Un the Deep-Minded fled from and led her people away from while she was clinging to her faith. And it's just so sad that, like, Asha now is forced to either return to that life and to use those protections or to just fight out against them so that's what

she's throwing her axe against absolutely and you know you were talking a lot in the previous episode about asha representing this potential new way right for the gray joys versus the old way and you talked about some of the treasures that she proposes at the Kingsmoot, right? Her gold is turnips, which Tommen is wrong. This is the one thing I disagree with. Tommen is wrong. Turnips are awesome. And you know who believes that? Our queen, Asha. Turnips are awesome. And that's why we support her. But

I think a lot of these parallels that you brought up, they're so strong, and it really paints this rich picture of what george is doing and as you were saying right asha ends up like if if she doesn't get to reform the system she just goes back to being like a glorified rock wife and she wasn't raised for that bail on didn't raise her for that but i don't think bail on raised her to do like the new way either but in many ways what she's proposing with peace etc right she doesn't

articulate this in this in her plan because i think george also doesn't think about it but peace and farming offers the possibility of doing more than just salt wives and rock wives you know that offers varied avenues for economics that like asha can implement for people right actually Actually having a sustainable system in which people grow food and don't just fucking plunder everything. It's not based on taking, it's not based on masculinity as much. It doesn't have to be.

It opens a door that it doesn't have to be based in the sort of toxic masculinity that is so entrenched in the Ironborn culture, which of course is the case in a lot of Westeros, and that idea of peace, right? Because a lot of the Ironborn and that idea of peace right because a lot of the ironborn way of grieving it's not just that it's based on this taking the rock wives and salt wives it's a lot of raping which is not awesome for women to put it in the most light

terms it's incredibly terrible and the idea that she would bring peace and try and make something that's sustainable that isn't rooted in more war could pave the way for potentially a bit more gender equality i'm not saying it's a given and it goes back to what you were saying earlier that she's not some progressive queen right she's not out here like women's rights for all but what she is doing does pave the way for a more equal footing in the future for these islands and i think we can all relate to growing up and thinking that we can make a difference in the world and then growing up a little bit more and then a few years later as an adult suddenly you realize everything sucks and that you feel just like a a drop of paint in the bucket right you don't feel like you are the

wave like the tide that is amassing on deepwood mott is a tide of thousands of men coming to attack her and she feels that small right now like what could she could she do? She can't go home. There's no comfort in that. And the world's overwhelming. And I'm glad she has an outlet is how I feel. Everything that you said, you know, she doesn't have anything like articulated in her platform for becoming queen that has to do with actually gender equality and that probably would have lost her the king's mood even more than she did uh even worse less cheers but you know in terms of what you're saying about like that's something that's so inspiring about her and i think that's so great about her character right there's no good there's there's very few good options here, but she is still trying to find a better way, and

she's still trying to find a better way out here in this current situation, right? She's trying to find something that'll work, and she's like I don't know, maybe we'll consider standing and fighting behind the ditches and walls of Deepwood. And she remembers how easy the glovers fell to her from behind those very walls, and she's trying to find something that

works for her people. We have a quote here. Come the morrow we'll feast beneath the sea. Krom stroked his axe as if he could not wait. Hagen lowered his horn. If we die with dry feet, how will we find our way to the drowned god's watery halls? These woods are full of little streams, Krom assured him. All of them lead to

rivers, and all the rivers to the sea. Asha was not ready to die. Not here. Not yet. I love that she's not willing to give up. Yes, her persistence is very admirable, because I would just give up. You remember that

the girl on the beach who lays down is like, I'm tired, i go sleep here that like meme it was a viral vine it was a vine my lord we're old uh vine should have invested i give up constantly i give up all the time i'm sam you know i can't wait for sam chapters because sam is the biggest mood i give up all the time Sam's like I'm gonna lay here in the snow and I'm like me too but Ash is not and something that feels really prominent here when we bring up these characters like Alanis or like Gwyneth roaming the halls kind of like these ghosts of ten towers that have had their rights taken away these women who invested in society and

society rejected them and pushed them out and hurt them and scorned them and persecuted them. Well, this line here, all of them lead to rivers and the rivers to the sea, reminds me a little bit of another character in this story, Lady Stoneheart. Oh, interesting. Tell me more. It just reminds me of how the line about the Tullys returning in their death to the water, and I think that she is a really other great candidate for a Lady Glover-esque character, but more

over an Alanis character wandering around for her dead sons, right? When you bring up Theon's murder of the boys. Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a lot of that going on in this story and you're right those are great echoes i i do love i'm gonna just make this aside that gwyneth is not a sad

ghost she's like a bitter angry ghost she's like this should be my towers she's kind of just like annoying she's and i love that that she's just like hey you gonna give me my castle yet big bro or little bro i should say sorry you're gonna give me my castle yet, big bro? Or little bro, I should say, sorry. You gonna give me my castle, little brother? Hey, little brother, you wanna give me my castle? She's a bully. I love that for her. I know.

She flicks him on the forehead. Just like Asha, right? She probably flicks her man on the forehead, right? She commands the men to make for the ships and wonders who is commanding them. She thinks that she would have torched the ships first if she were the one who was in command of the enemy fleet. None of her fleet. She's not trying to Nymeria this thing just yet. But she knows the Northmen do not think the same as the Ironborn, obviously. And her ships were split, some to make for Sea Dragon Point, some were in plain view for the Northmen. That's an interesting detail that they're splitting up. She tells Hagen to blow

his horn and make the forest shake. Hmm, make that forest shake. And Triss to put some chainmail on. He looks pale and he pinches his cheek, telling him to splash some blood upon the moon with her and she'll kiss him for each

kill. You talking about him making that forest shake is evergreen. Thank you. Just like the sentinels, right? Actually, I don't know what those trees look like. That was the pun, yeah. The soldier pines. Sorry, the soldier pines would work.

He tries to talk her out of this and he's like, we have walls, Asha. And if we get to sea and our ships are gone and she she's all cheerful, and she's like, then we die! But we die with wet feet! And she thinks the ironborn fight better. She's like, I want the wet-ass pussy. Oh my god, the wet-ass fighting. Asha Greyjoy wants that wet-ass fighting.

Really? She does. She thinks the ironborn fight better with salt spray in their nostrils and the sound of the waves at their backs. Oh, that sounds nice right now. Ah. Actually, though, kind of warm. Three short horn blasts send the ironborn to the ships and spear, sword, and horse begin to sound.

Too few horses, too few riders. Asha heads to the bailey where Carl has her horse, helm, and axes ready. Good guy. Voices shout about a battering ram at the northern gate, but they're drowned out by the sound of trumpets. And that feels wrong to Asha, wolves with trumpets. But she has no time to wonder, and she commands them to open the south gate. She straps up and tells them to form up and attack. Yeah, those three horn blastasts, right? Again,

horny chapters, never gonna let it go. Also, that it's set up with the trumpets is kind of how we get a little bit of those clues that it's Stannis with the mountain clans. I think it's interesting because I don't know that we've had that really established that well in the story before, that

the Northmen don't use trumpets. I don't know if this is more of set up for something later on. Hmm. Um, kind of, kind of, maybe, I don't know.

Hagen though is taken by an arrow immediately and his daughter who deserves a name, uh, is wheeling and Asha has one of the men grab her as they keep moving. Asha thinks that they'll have to cut through the men and they move out to the deadfield. So dead and trees are watching them and Asha's ready to leave this place. Triss trots

up to her at some point telling her they are going the wrong way. The ships are north and Asha's like, we're gonna go west to lose the trail. And then they'll turn north when the sun comes up and she sends Rolf the dwarf and Roggen Rustbeard to scout ahead and look for wolves. And they resume

their march. Triss says they should make torches. Asha reminds him I don't know that torches are a good idea because Northmen are actively looking for them and will kill them. And Asha silently curses the entire endeavor, unsure if she was wrong or right to leave the castle. It's kind of funny

because lighting torches is the right call when you're facing supernatural ice zombies. But not here, with humans. Different amount of horns. Right. Yup, yup, yup. They go on as long as they can, but they end up losing a horse and they're exhausted and sweaty.

They take a break until sunrise, but no one can sleep. Some men share Galbert's apple wine and some share the food they brought. I thought this was nice seeing the communal scene together where they all were kind of sharing their food and such. The horses are given water, they munch on the grass, and Ash's cousin Quentin sends men to look out from the treetops hagan's redhead daughter tries to take tris botley into the trees with her and he refuses so she takes six-toed harl instead who again gets a name yeah i mean that's bullshit how why could a six-toed harl get a name well we know it's meta ash is jealous thinking of doing the same with carl for one last time because she's anxious and she's nervous that she'll never feel the black wind beneath her

feet and if she did she doesn't even know where it was going to take her the aisles eric all of it seems bad it's not like she'd be welcome at any other port in westeros she thinks she could become a merchant like tris had said or join the pirates in the Stepstones. I'm telling you, he could be some blueprints for Daemon. I think actually Asha would be a good saleswoman. Asha mutters those lines from earlier in the chapter, I send you each a piece of prince, thinking hard about the next moves, and then Carl overhears saying, I'd sooner have a piece of you and before he can say which sweet piece we get a different sweet piece rolling

in. It's Rolf the Dwarf's head. He's just come bopping into the camp. Everyone's on their feet, reaching for their weapons and the trees erupt around them. Northmen howl like wolves and descend upon them.

No singer would ever make a song about that battle. No maester would ever write down an account for one of the reader's beloved books. No banners flew. No warhorns moaned. No great lord called his men about him to hear his final ringing words. I love this. I love this line. There's so many good lines, as you said earlier in this chapter and

this one feels really important especially in this story with where it's about you know a song of ice and fire all these legends that inform people's lives but these moments here where ash's men they're fighting for their lives right they're fighting for their survival in the darkness it's full of heart and it's crucial lives, right? They're fighting for their survival in the darkness. It's full of heart and it's crucial in many ways to like the future of their people, but there's no glory in it, right? There's not even victory. There's not going to be any songs.

And I think we're going to see a lot of fights like this in the darkness with anonymity, but nonetheless heroic during the long night. Yeah, and it goes back to what Sansa said in a Game of Thrones at the tourney of the hand right there be no songs sung for him that was sad that is sad it is sad the shadows fight each other and the ironborn in their salt stained leather and the north men are in their fur and branches the first man to attack asha dies with her axe in his head and she calls out to me but to her men or to

her next attacker she isn't sure another north man comes down on her with an axe and she guts him with her dirk catching another wolf behind her with her dirk into his throat after a hand wraps around her hair but she slams her boot down to escape and Carl stands over the now dead man his long sword dripping grim tongue provides a constant count in the background, yelling out each number of men killed. I love that. I feel like his beat under yelling one, two, three throughout the whole entire time. A, lets you know he's still alive.

B, it reminds me of this device that was used by David Wong in the John Dies at the End books. In the second John Dies at the End book, he basically uses it to count down to an event that's going to happen. So like he says like 10 months till this thing happens. And then a couple chapters later, it'll be like, seven months till this thing happens. And then finally, he gets down to like six minutes, three seconds and whatever until this thing happens, stuff like that. And I think it's just something like, kind of provides that suspense and that terror in the background of a fight. Is it kind of like in the songs for Josie and the Pussycats, the live action movie, where it's like it took six long hours and five long days for all your lies to come undone. But those three small words were way too late.

Can't you see that I'm the one? It is exactly like that, Eliana. It is exactly like that. I know that's what you wanted me to say, so I'm going to say it. It is exactly like that, and I'm so glad that you pointed it out. You're so smart to see it.

You're so smart to see it. You're so clever to see it, Aliana. She pulled a fucking Sansa on Joffrey. On me. All right, we have some horse issues. The horses are all screaming in terror. They're all very scared because this is awful, and I feel so bad for them. But Triss, his very large stallion, he mounts it.

Of course he has a huge stallion. We know, Triss. Anyways, he casts his sword out all around him, and he kills a few people, and Ash is like, wow, I might owe him a few kisses before the night is done. Yeah, I'm just like, Asha Grace Joy. joy she's like i guess i could give him a pity fuck hey it gets your blood rolling i hear murder it's a thing you know i'm glad that tris is proving proving people wrong he's slightly less annoying now slightly less annoying than he was last chapter just a little

and he learned, he backed off even though he wanted to keep hitting on her but he knew she'd kill him he was about to touch her and he's like wait maybe not, consent and I appreciate that, that's an arc right? that's growth I know that he totally is out there like

I know what happened to Sigrid the Hotties I know he's totally is out there like, I know what happened to Sigrid the Hottie's men. I know. He's like, she's wet now, but also he's like, I don't know, I could get a pity fuck out of it. People who also exhibit growth, but in a different way. Grimtongue yelling out seven men that he's killed since a bit ago. Loren long axes that sprawled on the ground. That's not growth. His leg is twisted beneath him. That's just really sad. Poor guy. Asha slashes at a man bound up in the boughs and thinks that we're fighting

shrubbery. Laughing, which draws more Northmen to her. She kills them too, wondering if she should start her own count. I am a woman wed, and here is my suckling babe, she thinks. She slides her jerk up another man's ribs and tries to get herself up again, later facing off back to back with Carl against the Northmen.

Her cousin Quentin defends her and Carl from a spear at one point, but then a half a heartbeat later he's killed by another bush. Well, Grimton's like, nine! A couple things. So sad about her cousin Quentin I liked him I do want to say he suffers a death just like another Quentin in the story so oh I thought that was great like oh uh oh Quentin dies and then Quentin dies it's uh it's great and also the fact that Carl and Asha are just couple goals fighting back to back. It's a total like montage scene of them fighting off Northmen together.

That's couple goals right there. That's, I'm just saying that's couple goals. It is. I want to be in a fight for my life with my partner. I don't. Chloe's like, we're gonna lose. She's like, if she's talking about me we're gonna lose yeah I hope you're not talking

I hope you're talking about your other one like your actual partner cause I'm like we will die tag out tag out I might be able to talk him down I give good talk yeah you know who

gives good fighting though Hagenstatter who's erupting naked from the trees because as you all remember she's in the middle of other serious business it's a horny chapter but now she's being chased by two wolves aka actually men and Asha throws her axe to kill one of the men

that's sisterhood right there Hagen's daughter again fan club George name her not gonna let it go and the girl stumbles snatching the dead man's sword up and smeared with blood and mud and she stabs the second guy then plunges into the fight her red hair

unbound I had a lot of thoughts about this and we're nearing the end of the chapter so I'm hoping my brain comes to an unwinding point because i'm just like so many thoughts so she's stumbling around and her hair comes unbound um it does remind me a little bit of you have harrenhal right danielle and harrenhal danielle lost in with her long red hair in battle uh right here you're seeing her naked with a sword.

It kind of reminds me of that. But something from out of the Ace Woff world, it reminds me of is something from the Torah, something prominent in Judaism, which is modesty in hair. I've been rereading some of my interesting Judaism mythology books lately. And I'm also reading a really good book on Mary Magdalene

that I told you a little bit about. So I'm very deep into it and the simplest explanation is the Torah commands women to cover their hair. This derives from numbers 5, 12 to 20-ish where the punishment of an unfaithful wife is publicly displayed and her hair is uncovered. After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering the grain offering for jealousy while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse he is to put the woman under oath and say to her if no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband's authority

may you be immune to this bitter water that brings a curse there are many reasons why the modern woman in judaism might cover her hair it's very personal sign of marriage identifying with the tribe piety humility modesty an act of deference to divine will many like susan weiss who wrote undercover demystification of women's head covering and jewish law argue it's overall a sign of domination that Israeli law uses this to treat their woman as cattle. But when we're talking about Asha and the ironborn and Hagen's daughter and Tris's refusal of Hagen's daughter, Asha throughout the chapter has tried to push Hagen's daughter as a replacement for her. And Tris has continually pushed her away.

for her and Triss has continually pushed her away Asha is described in the story as a woman with shorter hair mostly because it is not suitable for fighting as we see a guy tries to grab her hair and starts to get away with it earlier until she can stomp on his foot get away and hair is of course associated in kind of more in medieval stories and mythos with warrior class i find interesting carl the maid has long hair there's biblical validation in the story of samson right in judges 16 17 and long hair is denoted strength and virility it represents fertility in women and going back to this idea of judaism an unwed woman should wear her hair. It's an attractive feature. It's an alluring feature. It's supposed to attract a proper mate. So Asha is wed. She is out here fighting with her hair out. Hagen's daughter is unwed and Asha continually pushes her, but Hagen's daughter comes out of

the woods after being, well, unwed, but sleeping with someone and ruining that fertility with her hair coming unbound and everywhere. And I just think that in the middle of this crazy fight where everyone is fucking just slamming axes into each other is such an interesting statement on society's view of women and the ironborn culture as well. And some of this warrior class that's being represented absolutely and i think that's so interesting because like hagen's daughter wouldn't be traveling with them right as you said she has this long hair she wouldn't be traveling with them if she were not part of asha's crew and therefore can hold her own and we see that she does here but this idea of the hair growing out and that being a big part of this warrior class really reminds me of the culture of the Dothraki, right? Their honor is very much bound up in their hair.

You grow your hair out for each victory that you gain. You add another bell to your braid as it grows longer, and you only cut your hair in shame. And that idea of growing your hair out and the bells being tied up in it right danny's hair has been growing out throughout this time since that since that moment where it all burned off and i think quite a bit of it burned a little but not it doesn't sound like it was all of it though but she says to an extent that it did uh at the end of dance so i think that's a really interesting this idea of of hair and martial prowess and as far as that goes i mean looking at a dance with dragons there's another moment with hair and a dance with dragons what do we get there hair grows back i'm a lioness of the

rock oh yes another woman trying to rule and as you were saying with that story of samson right because samson's like you know what god give me this one more time i know like i cut my hair but give me this once more so yeah absolutely a lot of that interesting interesting things asha loses her dirk her throwing axe carl and tris amidst the fight somehow brandishing a short sword with a thick blade like a cleaver i need to get a cleaver she's lost time exhausted fighting and comes upon a northman with an axe bald bearded and rusted male and she's like he must be a chief or a champion the man is not happy to be fighting a woman though each time he charges he screams god at her spit flying and hitting her as well and i'm like fuck

you dude sorry no that asha doesn't say that that's me uh his blows tear apart her shield which she ditches because it's basically splinters at this point and she is pushed up now against the tree she's losing her footing in the roots as the axe crunches into her temple and i just want to point out all right fuck this guy because he's like acting like he's so much better but asha has been fighting all night it's almost dawn at this point and we have this quote the world went red and black and red again pain crackled up her leg like lightning and far away she heard her northman say, you bloody cunt as he lifted up his axe for the blow that would finish her. A trumpet blew.

That's wrong, she thought. There are no trumpets in the Drowned God's watery halls. Below the waves the merlings hail their lord by blowing into seashells. She dreamt of red hearts burning and a black stag in a golden wood with flames streaming from his antlers.

What an ending. It is a great ending. And to harken back to another chapter that we've covered, this is almost exactly to a Jon chapter in Storm of Swords. Like we mentioned Matt from Davos Fingers earlier, who actually was on in the chapter with us, chanting Stannis. Floating above them were the largest banners yet, royal standards as big as sheets, a yellow one with long pointed tongues that showed a flaming heart, and another like a sheet of beaten gold with a black stag prancing and rippling in the wind.

But believe it or not, another chapter from John sticks out here from this very book, John 13, where Patchface gives us a prophecy of sorts. His bells rang merrily. We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves, we will ride seahorses and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming. Oh, oh, oh. So when comparing that below the waves the merlings hail their lord by blowing into seashells i love that uh detail pointed out right as she's falling asleep and is about to pass out but it it means something i don't know what it means yet i know like as you pointed out by bringing this quote in, it means something. I know, and that's what I feel about a lot of Patchface stuff. I want to say, so a lot of analysis that has been done about some of the Patchface stuff, like this, for example, people think, oh, it must be a Merling.

It's probably something to do with Manderlys. Or Varys. Or Varys. Well, because it's connected with Asha, though, I do think this line might be something about Ironborn eventually. At the same time, it seems to be like the veil between worlds in a way, not to get too deep in the symbolism, but under the waves will ride seahorses and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming.

This is what the Ironborn believe is happening, right? Like Asha thinks below the waves the merlings hail their lord by blowing into seashells so maybe this is something predicting the fate of your honor victorian uh i don't know i don't know maybe it's just something like that maybe it could be something that applies to a bunch of stuff in this book because sometimes george likes to do that as we found yeah it feels like one of those things that might apply to a lot of things. A lot of things you were talking about, but also I've seen people point out on Reddit that the O-O-O, the repetition of it thrice, is kind of reminiscent of those three horn blows. between saying that when Patchface talks about things happening

beneath the sea or under the waves that things that happen below the sea mean the afterlife and all of these could be about the undead maybe or people dying so again I didn't come up with that

but I would also say if we want to march to that territory these chapters chronologically are near each other. Like they don't, you know, the King's Prize is the next chapter. Stannis is marching with his camp at this point. Jon dying happens alongside this in a way, not exactly alongside this, but john 13 happens not far from this if we actually compare the timelines i'm sure so food for thought that patch face in that chapter could be talking about john's death and also i mean asha here thought she might die you know

she thought she was going to die but then wait why are there trumpets and not mermaid shells this isn't right so i don't know i don't know i really don't know i would like to know i want to know i mean the ironborn do of course have that adage right very core to them of what is dead may never die that's a big part of their religion and uh that this could definitely play into that stanis's storyline is of course closely wrapped up with the storyline of the Others and the Whites and that he actually believes that they exist and is trying to fight that threat.

But, you know, thinking again about Theon and Asha and everything that's going on here of like you were talking about Theon, latecomer, and in a way, right, Theon has died. So what is dead may never die he's he's kind of reborn as a different person a different theon week and is finding all that so there's a lot of

things happening here on the literal level on the symbolic level and of course on the meta on the literary too and it also has that feeling of again uh Valhalla I mean that oh yeah they'll be going into war that that's the biggest thing like they will be going into war uh they will probably die and be feasted in Valhalla and that is something that I feel like really rings out in his prophecies like there there's a lot of just like, we're going to go to war. Oh, oh, oh. So I think overall overarching, it's probably just an others reference. And that maybe, maybe it's an others reference that the ironborn will join the fight against the others. That could be a thing.

I mean, absolutely. Like the horns throughout the story, the way that they've been used in the story and throughout history really associates them with war so that would make sense the seashells poor sebastian he didn't sign up for this under the sea we all die Oh, oh, oh, oh. Well. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Wow. Well, oh, oh, oh. We survived another great, great Asha chapter. And a lot of people have reached out saying they are falling in love with Asha or re-falling in love with her, some of them. And I am re-falling in love with her as well.

I love these chapters. They are a strong point of dance for me. This one. Falling even in more love with Asha. I don't know. There just has to be like a tall girl with a big nose and acne and bad skin or like ex-acne,

like just bad skin who like doesn't know how to make the right decisions and is trying her best out there. I feel good about that. I feel like my representation... She's making okay decisions. There are worse decisions. She's doing way better in the light of other rulers in this book.

I will say that. Yes. And the circumstances aren't easy for her. A lot of the, as we've said, cards are stacked against her. Not only does she come from perhaps one of the most oppressive societies when it comes to gender in the Seven Kingdoms, she also has a

murder uncle. Murder uncle. Yes. Murder uncles. Maybe not Roderick, but. That's true, you're right. One is a very schemey, smart, supernatural probably murder uncle. The other is a dumb murder uncle, but... That's true, you're right. One is a very schemey, smart, supernatural, probably, murder uncle. The other is a dumb murder uncle. And the other is a religious uncle who passively maybe might accept murder.

Man, well, I don't know how our heroine is going to get out of this situation, this harrowing situation, as she is going to get out of this situation this harrowing situation as she is going to be taken away in chains we will meet her back up in the king's prize with our esteemed wonderful guest aka alicia kingston the lord commander who is gracing us with her presence so we can't wait for that we thank you so much for tuning in to us this week And if you want to send a bunch of Podbean comments or tweets or emails, please feel free to do so. Our social media for tweets, DMs, our email, girlsgonecanon at Twitter, C-A-N-O-N, or our email is girlsgonecanon at gmail.com.

Please feel free to shoot us a message. Yes, and perhaps you might want to leave us a comment on Podbean, which is one of the places that this podcast is hosted but you can also find this on google play acast iheart radio that's new uh if i'm not if i'm not confused spotify stitcher uh i think chloe's added us to a couple new places recently including maybe Pandora and a couple of other places but you know of course also on Apple Podcasts where you can

also leave us comments yeah and don't forget to check out our Patreon patreon.com slash girls gone canon $5 and up patrons in the stranger tier get a special a song of ice and fire episode every other month just for them tailored to them this month it is going to be about lease we are going to talk about the lycée spring from fire and blood some of the

stuff from the world of ice and fire and of course everything else in between from the main series not only that but we do have a discord channel that has launched for our patrons in the thunder tier and above be sure to go check that out if you are in the thunder tier we'll be posting again to remind you to join up if you haven't done so but come hang out with us talk about food video games birds i don't know, everything. Birds, yeah, actually let those happen. Talk about other people's art projects, and there's a lot of random things that get discussed, and it's been good

fun, so come hang out. I've added a whooper emoji for us to all use. I tried to add the Pabu PNG that Chloe posted earlier, but I actually have to reduce it to be a smaller file size, but I'll do that later and so you'll have a whooper and a pabu emoji and i think that's important in a community and there's a get

a job emoji that i added oh so i tried to add a couple of the other like moving ones and uh we can't do that i tried to add a couple of parrots and we'll have to figure it out. We'll work on it. But anyways, so come hang out and yeah, you know, again, excited, excited to also hang out with AK. We have a couple of other

interesting things coming up, other guests lined up for all of you. Yes, before we end our Asha run and we move on to the next pov which you'll hear about in the future as well so for now we bid you adieu we will talk to you next week i have been one of your hosts chloe and i have been another one of your hosts aliana talk to you next week carry on my wayward bride we will go with the tide i don't remember actually all the words to um the real song goodbye