Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 117 - ADWD Davos IV & OUTRO

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

He was a better smuggler than a knight, a better knight than lord, a better lord than Hand, and a better Hand than a husband. The final Davos chapter in the published series, ending our journey with the onion knight and ending the mummer's farce. But before we sail off, there's time to talk about where the tides will take him.  Big Drumming by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7524-big-drumming License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license --- 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 covering A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 117. Davos 4 in A Dance with Dragons. i am one of your hosts chloe and i am another one of your hosts eliana and yes it is not only the final davos episode davos chapter in a double duh it is the final davos chapter that we have at all. No, no wins chapters. No nothing. Yes, we come to you on the eve of a new dawn. A new day. A new POV. And I know that you're dying to hear who the new POV is. And we will tell you that in just a minute.

After a brief break from our something sponsors. I don't actually remember what the lines are. La Croix? La Croix? Yeah, La Croix. Sponsor us. No, we do have a new POV after this, and we'll tell you that, but first we are going to talk about

what our Patreon episode will be this month, right, Eliana? Yes, so as all of you know, we do cover two series. We cover A Song of Ice and Fire and the His Dark Materials series, though currently we are covering the companion trilogy of The Book of Dust,

companion to His Dark Materials. And every last week of the month, we do a LaBelle Sauvage episode. And so every other month, we rotate between an A Song of Ice and Fire and a His Dark Materials episode. And this month will be a His Dark Materials Verse episode. We are going to be covering... Serpentine.

The novella. I am excited because you have not read it and I have. And I have finished the secret commonwealth I read that before serpentine serpentine came out more recently and you had not finished it yet but you're reading it so you'll probably make some connections I'm guessing but I'm excited to hear your perspective as like a blank virgin mind on this one eliana yeah i'm really pure you know like the fallen snow john snow yeah and absolutely if you and i were discussing it it'll be interesting to have that flip on perspectives and i am making my way through the Secret Commonwealth. I made some progress and I realized maybe it's not me.

Just saying. And, you know, we are going to be covering Serpentine. And I know that the television series where you can all listen to our coverage of the HBO, BBC, His Dark Materials television series over on our Podbean and other places our podcast is hosted. Serpentine was covered just a little bit. some elements of it made it into the show i was impressed by that and i kind of see the marketing there as somebody who's lived through some uh fire and bloods and season eight so to speak i could see the marketing of getting that out right beforehand and getting that out before the show takes off. So I think it was really well done with the season.

If you haven't read His Dark Materials, definitely check it out. I was new to that. I, too, was a virgin once, Eliana, to the series. But you got me in there. Weren't we all? Oh, my God. Anyways, I am done talking about my threesome with you and the his dark materials books and i know the cat is out of the bag on that so look forward to that patreon episode

over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon and you know if you are in the Thunder tier and above over at our Patreon. You have access to our private Discord server. It is kind of neat. It's fun. We do some fun stuff there. Sometimes we play some Jackbox games. We talk about food a lot. We shitpost a lot. There is a memes and shitposting channel.

People play video games. You know, we stream video games. We have a good time. So come hang out. That's the $10 and above tier over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon and all of those who have access to the discord also get access monthly to a fun brunch slash happy hour event where we hang out sometimes we do some fun little mini presentation slideshows on a topic uh potluck presentation style or sometimes we play jackbox

games now so we're just hang out come on fish around see what people are saying and yeah fish around indeed yeah see where the river takes you of life well the river has flown us to this point flown us to this point eliana we are at a crossroads so to speak not an inn just a crossroads and i think it's time right it's time right now to reveal this pov it is it is you know the people on the discord did get it ahead of time and so did our patrons but so we've got to quit playing with our food you know we do we do and i think quite a few people have actually guessed this pov i guess we weren't that subtle at the beginning and i actually tried to throw people off and i think i was mildly successful in throwing people off but also i think that the analysis made sense but yeah i think there's a flow to how we're doing this it It turns out we may have mentioned this before, but we are picking these purposefully.

There are parallels between the POVs as we go. Sometimes they might be not as deep, right? They might not be as deep as we think, but sometimes they are deep. There's a lot of great strong themes, and I think weaving them throughout the POVs is very fun. And I'll admit, I was probably a little too excited and probably made too many strong parents. It was probably me. I'm going to take accountability.

I don't know that it was you. I don't know. We did a lot of comparisons between these chapters and these characters, especially in A Clash of Kings, because both of these characters are very central, right, to A Clash of Kings. Because both of these characters are very central, right, to A Clash of Kings. Davos gives us an entryway into one king's campaign, right, for the Iron Throne. And it's the first introduction and perspective we really get in on that. And this character also gives us another perspective on a king in A Clash of Kings and is, I think, very integral to holding that book together. And I'm honestly just sick of watching you struggle upstream, Eliana, so I'm gonna go ahead and let the cat out of the bag

because, yes, it is Catelyn Tully is the next POV. Catelyn Stark. Nay, Tully. Yeah. Nay. Nay! No, sorry, this is not the horse episode. What sound do fish make? Alright, Gu is not the horse episode. What sound do fish make?

All right, Guppy, I'm excited. I'm running out of nautical funds. I'm sorry. This is bad. There's been a lot of firing and hiring. There's a lot of turnover in the last few minutes. Absolutely. And you know what? I think it's fine.

We have a bit of a way to scale in this chapter. I'm sorry. Listen, the parallels between Davos and Kat are there, right? They're pretty strong. They're there for a lot of characters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, they're a strong lens, though, into a King's campaign during the War of the Five Kings. strong lens, though, into a king's campaign during the War of the Five Kings. And let's face it, dead kids subscribe to the social system and gets literally burnt, right? Seven gods, I don't know what you want from me. I think this is going to be great. A lot of them have grief and guilt toward their familial situations or the things they've done in the past to get into their social standing or maintain. Even structurally, they play, I think, a really important role in some of the books and holding those together and giving us perspectives on how the world comes together in those politics, right?

Both of them end up playing as envoys. And even though Kat's not the hand, in some ways ends up taking on some of that role. But we are going to obviously dig into that more in about two weeks, right? We are not going to be dig into that more in about two weeks right we are not going to be starting catlin's chapters until march because again next week we are going to be doing a labelle savage episode to give you a little bit of a buffer between davos saying goodbye to our

dear davos and i'm i am really sad to be ending davos's pov and before we say hello to cat and we actually did not plan for the timing to happen like this. This was very fortunate for us. Yeah, sometimes these POVs, if you may notice, John, take a lot longer than what we predict. I mean, this one is probably going to be a late autumn, end of the year. We're going to be on Catalan this year. Okay, we're going to have a year of Catalan, which is awesome.

Perhaps, mayhaps, unfortunately, by the end of the year, we'll be killing Kat and we'll be rushing into our next POV. And bringing her back. We are going to, you know, bring Kat to life, wake her up inside. Wake me up. Can't wake up. You know, we could do a very special episode where we bring her back that that could be something interesting that's something to hold on to your hat right there eliana good thought i'm excited for catalan but yes our sendoff for davos this week i'm also excited for this is the chapter right when you think davos chapters this is this is the king of all chapters this is king shit I mean it's the north remembers

or hand of the king shit yeah because the hand does take the shit wipes the shit I'm not really ready to say goodbye I think it's been an awesome ride doing Davos in this deep dive and really getting to know Davos

and his character and his arc beyond just, and of course we have to examine him next to Stannis, but beyond just being a lens into him. He's not just some sort of extension of Stannis and not some sort of limb and not just a hand. He's his own man. And I think he's coming to his own. And this chapter kind of gives us one more confrontation that Davos has to prove himself at. Yep. Well, before we dive right into the Stormlord's hand, let's go through a little storm of our own. We have, of course, our lightning round. Yeah, our lightning round has been altered a bit to take out the Dany and Quentin chapters.

We'll visit with them later, don't worry. But first, in Reek 2, Theon presents Ramsay's terms to the remaining ironborn at Moat Cailin. Jon V, Stannis' host, has departed Castle Black, and a riot almost breaks out when Jon and company deliver rations. Tyrion VI. Tyrion dreams of the Shrouded Lord and his Lord Father, who become one and the same. After counseling young Gryff over Savas, he heads into Sal Horace, where he's captured by Jorah Mormont. Boo! Boo.

The Lost Lord. The Gryffs continue on to Volon Therese, without Tyrion. Aegon obtains the loyalty of the Golden Company. The Wayward Bride. Asha Greyjoy is wed and bed, but not by the same man. A surprise attack on Deepwood Mott keeps her busy. Sold into slavery, Tyrion and crew heed a warning from the widow of the waterfront for Daenerys. Tell her we are waiting.

Tell her to come soon. John 6. John receives word of Arya's fate. Melisandre offers him her power to save Arya. And that brings us to the ultimate Davos chapter so far in Aswath. The curtain has been drawn and the truth is revealed davos is asked to travel to an icy isle to bring home a stark air something is off in the wolf's den davos can tell through the sound of voices near the door his breakfast hasn't come and that makes him anxious same right every day had been the same here so change usually means bad this may be the day i die he thinks sir garth the jailer may be sharpening his sword lady lou even now

wyman's last words were to take this smuggler to lose a head and hands and the words were repeated daily to him by garth who who called Davos dead man. Garth speaks fondly of torturing the dead man, whether with a heated rod of cold black iron or gutting him with lady lute. He fantasizes about both of them all the same. Garth is kind of an interesting character. He's very, very strange and weird. We're probably never going to see him again. But he in many ways kind of feels like a Frankenstein of a couple of different characters.

Like, he reminds me of a couple of the jailers that we see throughout the series. But also the way that he talks about his axe and Davos noting how large the axe is. He's like, that's the biggest axe I've ever seen. Reminds me a little bit of Arya Hotha, who thinks of his axe as his wife. And that is kind of the language that Garth uses to talk about his weapons. He anthropomorphizes them, kind of like Arya does. But also the way that he names his weapons and the really, I think, sexual language around it reminds me a little bit of Dario. That's a good thought. I like that his name is Garth right it kind of has that southern name since you know the Manderlys are immigrants

1000 years and I just want to keep the fact when do you fucking like get like god when am I going to be considered Eliana an immigrant I'm sorry god damn

but the name right like he's still out there he's like i'm different i have a southern name you know hearken back to the old manderly days i belong here but no there is something about the other jailers that is a little bit here with garth right as far as like the obsession with murder you know like murdering your victims. And something that I noticed, though, is the opposite of, for example, Mord in the Eyrie. There's a little bit kind of

reminiscent of Mord and makes me think of Tyrion's time, but Tyrion's also a little asshole when he's there, which he should be. I mean, it's a scary situation, but it was. Mord's behavior is more scavenger-like. It's obvious that Garth is treated better here by the Manderlys. The Manderlys treat their jailers better.

And when we get the backstory in a bit for Ser Bartimus, we'll see that as well. There's also something here that reminds me of Melisandre in A Storm of Swords. Blow the candle, dead man, Garth says. And it reminds me of the conversation about the torch when Davos says, I need the torch. His hands open and closed. I will not beg her. I will not.

I did not. I did not. I did not hit her. I did not. I will not beg her. I will not. I know we did. I know we did that when that chapter happened,

but it's still relevant. It is. Melisandre says, I am like this torch, Sir Davos. We are both instruments of R'hllor. We were made for a single purpose, to keep the darkness at bay. Do you believe that? I think that Davos, a storm of swords would have been much much more worried with no no candle right like blowing the candle out he would he would have been worse off

a book ago but now he doesn't beg he doesn't quiver he just waits he does he does and i think that's what's great right we see a lot of i think dynamism in davos's character in the way that he grows and changes and some of the things that are integral right that stay the same in his story this idea of dying right he's called a dead man and obviously that's significant and i think you all know why and we'll talk about it more in depth in a bit but you know his story intersects a lot with seafaring right as a smuggler ships and stuff and the wex comes into this chapter and again davos thinks he's gonna die and there's part of me that feels like there's an element of the whole what is dead may never die thing uh sort of coming up as a theme or something in davos's chapter like obviously he's gonna die one day because all mortals do that. Eventually, you know, everyone you know someday will die. But instead of saying all your goodbyes, we wait until the sixth book. And he's probably not going to die within this story. But Davos has already died anyway, right? We talked about it at the start of A Dance with Dragons and the journey Davos has been on. He's drowned and been reborn at the Blackwater very much in a way that's reminiscent of the religious practices

of the ironborn faith. So it's really interesting for this to be happening to Davos again, for him to be a dead man. And kind of curious how his story is going to play out this time, because there's a lot of reprising elements of Davos's story here, right? It's very cyclical. Again, that death and rebirth, but also here how he's once again imprisoned, as you were calling out of the last time he was. Yeah, everybody he's gonna open up in the winds of winter in unicorn jail with the skagosi guarding him and i feel that'll be sick it would be cool charlie the unicorn jail oh my god i also kind of wonder if maybe it won't be that, which we'll get into today as well. So we'll see.

Maybe George will break the cycle, the wheel, so to speak. He's trying to break the wheel. Candy Mountain, Charlie. Davos had resolved he was not going to plead for mercy, that he would die a night asking only that they take his head before his hands. He rises and paces. His cell is large and pretty comfortable. Probably was once a lord's chamber. It's three times

the size of his captain's cabin. I'm Black Betha, which I will give as an aside. Black Betha is spelled as Black Bessa. Here. George, we missed one. Sending it in. We found one, ladies!

Fascinating. Davos rises and paces his cell. It's very large and three times the size of the captain's cabin on Black Betha. Larger than the Valyrian's cabin as well. It's huge. Its only window is bricked in, but its hearth is big and it has a privy in the corner as well. The few discomforts are mild. Mildewy sleeping palette, warped floor planks, that's on it, the mildewy sleeping palette, everything would smell like it. The comforts outweigh that though, right? Instead of the usual dungeon food, he gets fresh fish, warm bread, spiced mutton, turnips, carrots, crabs.

Fresh fish, warm bread, spiced mutton, turnips, carrots, crabs. Garth, his jailer, is not happy about this, of course. He has furs to stay warm with, wood for his fire, clothing, a candle. He requests paper and a quill and ink set. Terry, one of the guys, brings him. Terry brings them to him the next day. He asks for a book, and the boy Terry brings the seven-pointed star, which Davos then reads. Davos asks for a book and reads it, unlike Arianne.

And he also eats his food, right? Unlike Arianne. Absolutely. And first of all, I want to call out, because Davos was also in prison again at the beginning of this book right at the sisters for a little bit he always eats pretty well in prison he he really does but i did think of arianne a lot in this chapter especially because of you know how everything would have been structured before but the way that davos's imprisonment is described as quite comfortable kind of like arianne's and then of course in this chapter we get that revelation later of there actually being a revenge plot and then being like brought into the fold of them which is very much like what happens within arianne's storyline yeah it's very reminiscent of the watcher in this book as we chatted about last episode yeah and the princess in the tower is davos a princess in the tower thoughts oh davos is my disney princess in the tower yeah and at last davos oh my god

oh my god or how far we'll go i'm not gonna sing i've been standing here on the black water. Oh my God. All of my sons are dead except for three. Let's be real. Those two don't matter. I'm just kidding. Okay. Well, Davos' cell overall remained a cell.

It has solid stone walls and an oak and iron door and heavy iron fetters in the ceiling waiting for the onion knight to be put within them he wonders if today could be the day and any day could be his last obviously but he thinks the worst part is not the dying it's not knowing when or how so i know that i'm i'm pretty sure that this is what this line is meant to be, right? I know this is probably the point, but I'm also just like, you know, isn't that like life for everyone? We don't know what or how. That's how all of our deaths work.

Yeah, but I think this is an important part of his psyche right now at this point. I think he's coming to peace with it as we're about to hear from the letters he's writing. He's trying to come to terms with it and the things he's done and the person he's been and the type of person he's been and the types, I guess I could say. But I think this line is especially applicable to some of the other deaths that we see. The worst part is not the dying. It's not knowing when or how that comes up pretty rapidly for a few characters there are some characters that we just don't care about like kevin right like oh you sucker you shitty sucker but i think it's pretty applicable for quentin

who's coming up for example you know men's lives have meaning that not their death, is a pretty similar statement to be made here in John. John's about to die, not knowing when or how, just daggers in the dark. And I love that our friend Danielle brought this back to our forefront in terms of the men's lives have meaning, not their deaths, because it, Manderly makes himself

an argument against it, right? Manderly says of the man who died in Davos' stead that he might be doing more in death than he ever did in life. But coming back to Davos' statement here, there's a part of it that kind of feels like the torturous part to him is the mantra that we know is so popularized in Arya's storyline in Game of Thrones of the not today. Every time Davos is like, well, not today, that almost makes it more suspenseful and more torturous to him that he has not faced the god of death that day. That's a great point.

And this entire moment of him remembering, like realizing this cell is a cell, even the construction of it. We talked a lot about the construction of the mermaid's court last week. And this week, when you look at the construction of this, it does have an oak and iron door barred and locked. And it reminds me of another mantra from another man who didn't know when or how he was going to die. But we know when or how he died. Right. Duncan the Tall. Guard me well or else i'm dead and doomed

to hell uh i think that that seems significant that it's an oak and iron door here it does it does and that they both right rose rose high up from being nothing yeah lowborn exactly yes well exactly. Yes. Well, again, Davos has been used to being captive before. We've all been there for quite a few of those times. But usually it's with other prisoners in the dungeons where you share your fears, your hopes. Seems like

really beautiful. And I guess we saw that a little with Alistair Florent. But this time's different, because besides his jailers he was all alone in the wolf's den, but at least his jailers talked to him. Arianne didn't have that. Even the cells that lay beneath him, the torture chambers, the dank pits with the huge rats,

were unoccupied, according to the jailers. And Ser Bartmoss, the chief jailer, reminds him of this. He liked to boast in his cups, which is apparently, like always, that he saved Wyman's life on the Trident, and that the wolf's den was his reward some reward right it does remind me again of mord being stuck in those sky cells in the veil but it is a little different barticus is really happy yeah and you know we talked about kind of how when Davos walks through to the Mermaid's Court, he had all the beautiful trophies and the ships and stuff along the way of like, ah, this is the Manderley's Court of items, you know, just random, beautiful, valuable items.

They had no other fucking place to put them, so they threw them at Newcastle. And here you see that of the people like they're proud of working here they're proud of the history of this they know the history of this this is i mean this is like if you met davos at storm's end or at dragon stone right now he'd be like yes i can give you a tour of these places come along yeah absolutely and as you said uh we are going to get quite a few history lessons from them just as we got a history lesson on the manderleys last chapter and there's other staff here davos barely sees all of them though right there's a cook a guardsman washerwoman turnkeys though he does get to see terry as you said ter Terry brings him a book Terry's young one of the washerwoman's sons 14 to 15 years old and again there's Garth and Garth is old huge and bald he's

got a glower on his face and Davos knows from his smuggling years when a man just isn't one to be crossed and he knows that he should hold his tongue around Garth he's much more friendly when it comes to Terry and Bartimus and he always thanks them asking them about their hopes and their dreams and their dreams and making requests small ones but little requests that they always grant right like little soap little water book candles he's always very grateful very gracious Terry obviously reminds Davos of his son he's of an age with Davin and Terry talks about wanting to go off to war and to be a knight and you've spoken quite a bit about economic disparity right that we see at White Harbor and people that are forced

to sell their body sell their labor whether it's through trade whether it's through trafficking and that's true of most history right I mean we still do that colleges here you know allow the military to come recruit and exploit people uh and people that are in that position where they need money or they need something well you can always get a bowl of slop right if you fight for the day and if you don't have food to survive you're gonna die anyways why not join the war and white harbor is absolutely simmering on this edge of war and this exploitation of bodies. Davos was brave, right? When he was in wartime, he was like, I'm just going to take the L, I'm going to drive in, get my boat right on in there, feed Stannis and his crew,

you know, take my punishment, but hope I get to live to see another day and make some money and exploit this war. And he does, he loses his his fingers but he took that gamble and that's what he got out of it uh and terry probably reminds davos of him at that age right he saw ro ro die when he was young and he had to make his own way yeah absolutely and i think that's why he can as you said relate to terry and davos i think in a way kind of shows Terry some of the possibilities but at the same time maybe not because he's like in jail you can be like me kid in prison

often and they do drink together right Terry's like I need someone to talk to to what I guess gossip about his mom yeah and he brings Davos wine but like you know Davos tells him stories about

like being a knight and things like that and that's something that terry's like i i want that for myself a lot of the young boys do yes and whenever davos tries to instigate conversation about lord manderly or stannis or the Freys, the men won't speak. They'll talk about everything else, right? That's where he learns about Terry's backstory and gets the hot gossip of the bedding of the guardsmen. The mother is bedding two of the guardsmen who are on separate watches. So one day those ships are just gonna cross on by in the night and uh-oh nights Terry does bring wine like you said and Sir Bartimus doesn't care about the outdoors right like Terry's

like tell me about the smugglers life and Sir Bartimus doesn't give a shit he's like yeah whatever I lost my leg in the war to a horse it's not really in the war it's just to a horse and he says a maester had to cut it off with a saw but he had come to love being inside of the Wolf's Den and its history.

He says that the den is much older than White Harbor and that it was raised by King John Stark to defend the mouth of the White Knife from raiders. Many younger sons of the king in the north, brothers, uncles, cousins, headed up the castle, passing it to their sons and grandsons, and branches of House Stark started. The Greystarks held the den for five centuries until the Dreadfort rose in rebellion, and of course the Manderlys had joined them at the time. After their fall, the castle went to House Flint for a century, House Locke for two. Slates, Longs, Holts, Ashwoods all commanded, charged to keep the river safe by Winterfell. Reavers from the Three Sisters took the castle once, and during the wars between Winterfell and the Vale, Osgood Arryn, the old falcon, besieged it. When King Edric's start grew too weak, the wolf's den was captured by slavers in the Stepstones, the old blackstone walls bearing witness to it all.

and the stepstones, the old blackstone walls bearing witness to it all. Sir Bartimus then tells Davos of the cruel winter that befell the White Knife, which froze and the winds came howling down, driving the stepstone slavers inside to their fires. And while they did that, the new king, King Brandon Stark, Edric's great-grandson, descended upon them, Brandon Ice-Eyes. He took back the wolf's den, stripped the slavers, gave them to the slaves he had found chained in the dungeon, and from there they hung the entrails of the slavers in the heart tree, an offering to the old gods. Yes, we have this line of, Your seven don't know Winter, and winter don't know them. Davos could not argue with the truth of that. And

I think there's some southerners that could argue with that this week, first of all. That's true. That's true. Wow. Things are wild this week. Topical humor for 2021. Yeah, in case any of you are charting history, you know, if you are charting history,

you know, if you are listening to this episode after the fact and charting all of the big events that have happened throughout the past few years through any of the current events that we mentioned in the podcast. But speaking of history, I do appreciate this history lesson from Bartimus. And I do think it's really cool that he's so into this place. I do also wonder, is Bartimus the George R.R. Martin self-insert? Probably. Like just a little. Second, I also feel like the history here and this lesson that we get and how it's all leading up to these

things feels a little bit like foreshadowing for the kingships of John and Bran, especially as we talk about those sacrifices to the old gods, which is something that we get revealed to an extent in Bran's chapters in one of his visions. Oh, that's right. And, you know, I was trying to check the timeline.

So, the Night's King, a lot of people theorized that he could have been the Night's King. The Night's King was brother to Brandon the Breaker, though, but it's probably not. Sidebar, this is a great comment out of context. Someone on the Westeros forums back in 2015 said, The Night's King was brother to Brandon the Breaker. While a Stark, it would be inconceivable to name your two sons both Brandon.

Dude, I was thinking that just now, I was like, someone could totally name both their kids Brandon. That's not out of the cards anymore. Not at all. A lot of people theorize that this Brandon Ice Eyes could have been the Night King. I don't think it syncs up right because Brandon the Breaker

was said to be his brother. So, I don't know it's anyone's Game of Thrones but that's interesting it is anyone's Game of Thrones if only David and Dan can tell us what it all means it does feel like some good foreshadowing

a lot of this as we mentioned the White Harbor in general has kind of this feel of the future. You know, this is someday when things are good and there's no war. Prosperity. Maybe for us, yeah. I mean, that's what they're all hoping for.

But until then, Davos asks Bartimus what gods he kept, and Bartimus keeps the old ones. There's this line, When Sir Bartimus grinned, he looked just like a skull. It was a very creepy line, but I loved it. It reminds me of Stannis right now. We talked about skulls last episode of Kings in Attendance around skulls, so felt like a standout line. He explains his own forebears were the men who strung the entrails in the trees. And Davos is like, wow, I'm surprised Northmen make blood sacrifices still to the heart trees.

And I'm like, wow, it's a whole new world out there, Davos, first of all. Fire sacrifices of people aren't it anymore. And second, I have real bad news about where you're going, Davos. Maybe Davos is just going to tell everyone, oh, interesting that you sacrifice people this way. I've seen a sacrifice happen this way. He's about to become like a blood sacrifice anthropologist. He's like, you know, if you actually get in there with your knife at this angle, you can make it bleed out a little bit. Yeah, he's like, have you tried this prayer?

Have you tried sacrificing it in this way? Or leeches? Let's start with leeches everyone listen 30 minutes past nine each evening hour of the goat you're gonna do great the goat the black goat of cohort well bartimus says the southerners don't know much and more about the north. Davos reflects on this, staring down at his letters that he had scratched out on paper the previous night. I was a better smuggler than a knight, he had written to his wife. A better knight than a king's hand. A better king's hand than a husband.

I am so sorry, Maria. I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you. Should Stannis lose his war, our lands will be lost as well. Take the boys across the narrow sea to Braavos and teach them to think kindly of me if you would. Should Stannis gain the Iron Throne, House Seaworth will survive, and Devon will remain at court. He will help you So there's a lot, I think. There's a lot to unpack in this letter. I'm going to start with just one of the lines first, which is this insight into one of the many reasons, right? We're constantly trying to figure out, why does davos follow stannis and he says here should stannis lose the war our lands will be lost as well and we have discussed it before but this

way it's more explicit lends more weight to that idea that advancing his family's station or their well-being is one of the reasons like part of why he so fervently follows Stannis. There is more than one reason, right, as we discussed last episode, why Davos does, I think, show such loyalty. But that it's called out here so explicitly feels significant. I'm going to play devil's advocate because sometimes, you know, I like to be sassy. I want to zero in on if Stannis loses his war, our lands will be lost as well.

So what's protecting their lands right now? Because aren't armies of men attacking the Stormlands right now? Yes, they are. He doesn't know that. But, um...

Wait, sorry, and how many men does Stannis have guarding the Stormlands right now? We can't reveal that. Davos won't say. I won't do Davos like that. Eliana, we can't reveal that. Me and my client cannot reveal that right now. Davos is my client. So, what are the odds that men might storm his lands anyways and like follow-up question to the council if maria's like davos will be loyal lol will they just be gucci with it like what happens when the tax collector comes and she just gives the money to agon's crew instead

this time are they all right yeah i have no idea or do they become hostages right that that yeah i guess they're not useful as hostages anymore if everyone thinks davos is dead and that is part of the benefits of being dead and that's something we discussed in a previous episode maybe two episodes or so ago right that if he's dead he gets out of like you know anyone using his family as leverage against him which is good and i think that is part of what is in this letter again there's a lot of things to discuss as you were saying like how's maria gonna feel about it and this is one of those times where davos is this is like the only direct interaction we really see with Maria.

And it's not even obviously that direct, right? But where he really dwells on their relationship. And we're seeing that he feels that of all the things he was, the one thing he lived up to and feel that the most was being a husband. And we see that perhaps this is one of davos's biggest regrets maybe that's one of the reasons he doesn't go home right does he just feel too much shame to go back to maria and face what has happened whatever has happened yeah and it's it's also interesting that he says at the end there is husband but not father i do think there's something to it that may serve as motivation and we'll talk more about maybe his future later but here especially his motivation

to maybe say john snow if he's hanging out in the north still we should join up with team danny because she wants to take back the storm lands where my family is i wonder if it also could remain as motivation for why davos ties off to the dragon or ties off to the north in pursuit of the dragon danny will probably come back to dragon stone as we've chatted about and or take it back or whichever i think she probably would want to take back the Stormlands. She has to go to the Stormlands in some sense, in my opinion, because I think there's a challenge there, right? She's Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, and then there's a challenge of taking Storm's End. There's a sort of poetry there. If I'm going to go George Lucas about it.

Oh my god, which is that scene in star wars i'm just saying where they fight in the lightning storm that's literally like a man's one eye that's uh that's why it's called storm's answer anyways so what was that please feel free to omit that no i'm keeping it oh my god okay so he had written letters to his sons as we said in, and hoped that they remember, A, who the fuck he is, and B, like, hey, that's our dad who, you know, worked really long hours and suffered for us and lost his fingers for us, kind of. To give us a better life. Yeah, and I think he does legitimately hope that in many ways. And I do, the way this is all written is interesting, because he thinks that he bought their position with his fingertips. Because I just think that language is interesting, because of how Davos is justifying what happened to his fingers because as we've seen throughout davos's chapters and the way people sort of regard him like a lot of people think that what stannis did in cutting off davos's fingers was pretty fucked up like edric storm straight up says like yeah i think that was wrong my dad would have never done such a thing and yeah davos thinks of his fingertips as the price

for his family's station he bought it as opposed to this narrative that we've been told throughout a lot of the story, right? That, including Davos' own POVs, that Davos was made a knight as a reward for bringing food to the starving people in Storm's End during the siege. So that framing feels important because if it's not a reward, it's now no longer even a gift from Stannis, who Davos and Clash told us was his god, right? That Stannis had given him everything that he has. It's this sort of idea of Stannis's mercy. It's something that Davos has earned, literally bought with his blood, sweat, and tears, his own flesh. And it means something in a chapter where Lady Hornwood is brought up in two consecutive Davos chapters and the horror of how she lost her

fingers is revisited. And it does feel kind of like Davos is avoiding the apparent of like, as you've said, it's the very literal translation of our bodies and laboring our bodies and what we get

in exchange for the labors we put through our bodies right yeah davos quite literally gave his fingers for this role that's what he feels he lost yeah well well said i think that comes back in a bit in this chapter right that duality of what people do with their bodies right and is it part of you is it not the prices for it and things like that because you know manderly says his body feels to him at times like a prison so they bodies become a very big forefront of this chapter it's very tangible thing yeah well stephan and stanis's notes his sons, Zavos' sons, that he writes to them, they're stiff and awkward

as he barely knew them. To Devon, he writes more, right, about his pride, about being the king's squire, and about Devon's duty now to protect his lady mother and his younger brothers. And then he writes, signs it off with, tell his grace I did my best. He ended,

I'm sorry that I failed him. I lost my luck when I lost my finger bones the day the river burned below King's Landing. Do you think somewhere Stannis is looking up at the moon? Not the same moon, that'd be impossible. But thinking the same thing.

Tell Davos I did my best. I'm sorry I failed him. That's it. that's all the stavos you people get out of me i hope you're happy okay i wouldn't be surprised if sanus did think that for a split second he'd never admit it to himself and we'll never know but he's big sundari vibes for sure oh my god davos shuffles through his letters, reading them repeatedly, wondering, should I change words? Should I add more? Thinking that words should come easier to a man at the end of his life. I'm pretty sure that this part where Davos rereads the letters over and over again, deciding, oh, should I change this word or delete one here? Should I add a word here? Like, that's George. Yeah.

That's George's commentary about his editing process. He's like, see me, see me readers. I love when George winks at us a little, and that's definitely one of them. Davos reflects on his rise from flea bottom to Lord Hand, even learning to read and write, and that he didn't do so ill. He's pulled out of these thoughts by the rattling of keys. And the man who steps in is not one of his normal jailers. It's Roback Glover, we're about to find out. He's tall and a little haggard with gray-brown hair and a long sword and a scarlet cloak fastened with a mailed fist brooch. He tells Davos they don't have much time, and they must move quickly, doing introductions

on the go. i love the call out of the word please here that tips davos off that something isn't as he thought in terms of his execution he's like that was really nice in having to split feasts and dance right george and his editing um as our friend jeff pointed out previously that these chapters were originally written for fees george has i think done something really fun here in choosing to then instead move the Davos chapters to dance when that split happened. Because we get a lot of that suspense. He gets to play a little bit that suspense of what's going to happen to Davos, right? We're watching, like, maybe Davos's final moments in the story. or have all of those characters that we read in Feast

been tricked and like wow what a twist and of course like it's the latter and a lot of people like predicted that because the fake outs happen sometimes but like it's fun this is fun look at all the fun we're having to quote Tyrion but there's a lot of those little moments in this chapter right where you get that nudging in the elbowing right going what do you think about that phrase dead man and that please my Robert Glover and in terms of Davos's character again coming back to his gift with people and him kind of being a bit of a natural at politics in that way, he's so astute with people's language and noticing that dead man and that please and does and thinking about like how weird it is that his cell is pretty nice. Again, great accommodations in his dungeon. But we the reader are kind of tipped off about the soon-to-be-revealed twist with how isolated the prison is.

Because, of course, they have to keep Davos from the public eye. Yeah, and it is very, very crazy. There's tunnels under the stairs, right? It does remind you a bit of Tyrion's escape. Another ex-Hands escape or Hands escape. And Davos isn't the only dead man being talked about here right because Robette Glover is also kind of seen as a dead man we haven't seen this guy in pages and pages and pages we all thought he was a goner so we'll talk about that in a little bit but Davos realizes this is a Glover of Deepwood Mott he does get corrected because Gelbert is the lord of Deepwood thanks

to King Stannis, Robette says. Stannis took it back from the iron bitch who stole it, Asha. He catches him up on some of the other happenings. Moat Cailin fell, Roose returned with Arya and the Freys, and all the North is going to Barrowton to watch Ramsay get married to Arya. Davos makes him promise to deliver his letters if he's suddenly killed in all this drama, and Robat gives him his word, though he says death won't come at their hands if it comes. They crossed the castle's godswood where the heart tree had grown so huge and tangled that it had choked out all the oaks and elms and birch and sent its thick, pale limbs crashing through I love the obvious Wyman imagery on this.

As we get into the end of the chapter, it looks like Wyman. I like that because Wyman's like, you know, the Manderlys in general, there's a sort of perfect bridge between the old gods and the new. I also like it because we get the reveal in this chapter where Wyman's basically like, this is my fucking house. No fucking fray. It's going to get the best of me in this house. If I die, I die on my terms motherfucker and like you just can feel the weirwood blood seeping through

absolutely, I mean, we're obviously gonna get there but that's you know this chapter's iconic for many reasons but most of it is Wyman Mandrely it's metal as fuck old gods, new gods, bless them Glover lights a torch beyond the weirwood and down they go into a salt-crusted cellar

accompanied by musty foul scents. Down a tunnel and down more steps, Robert explains that the passage runs beneath the castle stair and up to Newcastle, a secret passage. It would not do for you to be seen, my lord. You were supposed to be dead. Porridge for the dead man. Adds Davos in his head.

That's literally the line. I appreciate the intonation and the clarification. Thank you, Eliana. Sometimes I feel like I need to clarify things. We're going to explore maybe a little more of House glover's possible role as we get through this episode but robot is a part of the crew that was ordered by ruse to go to duskendale to take out their fury when deepwood was taken later we get the reveal that tywin ruse were in cahoots right ruse was flirting with the dark side and he did go over to it and the battle at duskendale is a

disaster for the north men at tarly's strong annoying asshole hands robot leads a retreat to heron hall he goes into capture rob plans to trade him for martin lannister and he ends up going to golden tooth to await a hostage exchange rob dies you know that part and robot ends up sent back with the phrase to White Harbor, and this is the Robat that we are now seeing. He has just shown up, haggard, beat up, but recovering, and being treated by Wyman nicely, obviously. Yeah, and I love that we kind of got a hint earlier on, right? They were like, I've heard that Robat Glover's in the city trying to recruit men, but here he is recruiting someone. Good for you. Good for you, robit.

They emerge into a warm, comfortable room with a mirrish carpet, beeswax tables, sheepskins, and maps, and beneath the maps sits Wyman Manderly, richly garbed in a golden embroidered turquoise velvet doublet. Fancy. He offers Davos food

and wine, but Davos says he'd rather get down to business. He's like, I came here to treat, not to drink with you. Wyman sighs, begging Davos to please sit and drink to Wylus's return home. And I love that there's a couple of pleases in this conversation. As Manderly shows courtesy to Davos, he says to him at first, when they first meet, please sit. I also love that in order to make Davos feel more comfortable, and I don't know if it's like also to make Davos a little more pliable to this crazy fucking

ass that he's gonna make. Manderly refuses to drink, right? He pours out his drinks, he's like, alright, fine, so we won't drink together, but please, you have some wine. Do it without me. I've fucked your life up enough for the week, please enjoy some good wine. I mean, you i've fucked your life up enough for the week please enjoy some good wine i mean you know if your life's fucked up like doesn't matter that it's like

good or bad wine like thankfully terry terry has been here bringing davos wine bless that boy yeah terry deserves a promotion for sure night that motherfucker that 14 year old boy cup bearer the welcoming feast is heard above wyman explains they eat lamprey pie and venison above uh uh uh and for ray uh that winifred dances with the fray she is to marry and toasts are being made to their friendship. He explains slowly he's eaten too much and their friends of Frey will not question a lengthy visit to the privy. He has Robat pour the hand, Davos, he calls him the hand, wine, and Davos is like, so how did I die? By the axe, Wyman says. Head and hands mounted over the seal gate and his eyes out across the harbor. They dipped the head in tar. Interesting. Again, a counter to that line of men's lives have meaning not their deaths so we are going to come back to agon later but a lot of what davos's storyline does here ties in

really well i think davos's chapters in general tie in really well with a lot of the characters around him uh but here especially with a couple of the other hands that we've seen throughout the series and how they have not been very lucky. I'm going to start off with that line that we all know of, if one hand can die, why not another? Davos, like Ned, is imprisoned for love of a Baratheon man. And those words, right, that line is uttered in an exchange between Varys and Illyrio discussing the fate of Ned, but also someone else. Var Varys who of course helps Tyrion Lannister as we said before who was once a hand

Varys helps him escape execution and spirits him away across the sea to go retrieve and help out with some other like boy heir as Manderly and Glover are doing right now with Davos and then of course Davos is a dead man now.

And being a dead man, no one's going to be looking for him or wondering what happened to him, just like some other hand that has died before. John Connington, who again is shepherding a boy that they mean to crown. And going by how things went for all of these men, maybe it's not the politicking that

makes Davos such a good or believable hand, so much as maybe how unlucky he is you have that right right somehow the odds just keep going in this manner like yes lucky but lucky enough to not die

that's about where it stops he is but he is dead right right who's dead i don't know wyman explains that he bears davos no ill will that he had to put on a show for the phrase davos commends his performance saying it seemed mighty real to me your granddaughter was convincing and wyman agrees she was brave even under the threat of taking her tongue she reminded him of the great debt they owe the starks one that can't be repaid he says his

granddaughters both spoke from the heart and his good daughter lady leona did too she is a foolish frightened woman and why this is her life not every man has it in him to be Prince Aemon the Dragon Knight, or Simeon Star-Eyes, and not every woman can be as brave as my wylo, Sister Winifred, who did know, yet played her part fearlessly.

Yes. We'll come back to this. Bless them. And as you said, you know, before, actually, you and I were discussing this offline, right? The compassion that Wyman shows to Lady Leona in the previous chapter

it does feel significant, right? Because she is being a little difficult and she really does mean what she's saying but. And she means well. She's afraid. She's frightened. Yeah. He physically comforts her and it's not even his granddaughter. It's not his daughter. That's his daughter-in-law. And we're going to talk about his shrewd behavior today, obviously, more. He is very calculating and shrewd. But you can tell in that moment, like, he comforts her physically. He puts his hand on her shoulder to say, I know. I know, Leona. It's okay. It has her back. And I thought that was sweet in the face of all this craziness. I agree.

He's a complex man, right? He is very loving towards his family and he's smart. And I think there's a reason why people were so disappointed to not get Wyman in the show. He's a fantastic character and someone to really look forward to. I mean, it's important for Davos to have an anchor. This is his anchor in the north and it's motivation

and Davos didn't really have a story in the bad show. Well, it's a good thing that these books have expanded upon what David and Dan originally wrote. Wyman does that too, right? He begins to explain the great complexities of the Mummer's farce.

How Tywin held Willis and extorted White Harbor to bend the knee to Ruth of he and his people who would suffer as the reins of Castamere had. But then Tywin died! And the phrase turned up with Wendell's bones to make peace and a marriage pact but Wyman's like, I'm not about to agree to that so easily especially without Willis. And Davos' appearance helps him sell it.

Davos calls what Wyman has done a great risk and Wyman's like, well it wasn't that big of a risk because if the Freys had actually climbed up the gate and seen that it wasn't you there, I had a backup plan and it was we were going to kill you. Yeah, that's a that's a backup plan. Huh?

I do love this, though, because Davos just very matter of factly goes, I see. And he responds, I hope so. You have sons of your own, you said. Three, thought Davos, though I fathered seven. So Davos seems to be thinking of his sons, obviously, very heavily through this, trying to understand the psyche of Wyman and what Wyman wants and needs. But I did notice that he's highlighting a lot of holy connections as well this chapter, right? Thinking a lot about the gods gods kind of trying to find and

hold on to some sort of purpose throughout all of this even religious right with the the reading of the seven star earlier yeah it is interesting you know when i think about it with those religious ideas seven is obviously a number that's significant in a lot of things. Religion, magic, things like that. But so is the number three, and he goes from seven to three. Another significant number. They were seven against three. Ugh!

Right? Isn't that it? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Hmm. Huh. Huh. Well. Soon I must return to the feast to toast my friends of Frey. They watch me, sir. Day and night, their eyes are on me, nose sniffing for some whiff of treachery.

You saw them? The arrogant Sir Jared and his nephew Rhaegar, a smirking worm who wears a dragon's name. Behind them both stand simmoned, clinking coins. That one has bought and paid for several of my servants and two of my knights. One of his wife's handmaids has found her way into the bed of my own fool. If Stannis wonders that my letters say so little, it is because I dare not even trust my maester. Theomar is all head and no heart. You heard him in my hall. Maesters are supposed to put aside old loyalties when they don their chains, but I cannot forget. Theomar was born a Lannister of Lannisport,

and claimed some distant kinship to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling all over me. My son Wendell came to the twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder's bread and salt And hung his sword upon the wall to feast with friends And they murdered him Murdered!

I say, and may the phrase choke upon their fables I drink with Jared, jake with Simmon Promise Rava the hand of my own beloved granddaughter But never think that means I've forgotten. The North remembers, Lord Davos. The North remembers, and the Mama's force is almost done.

My son is home. Thank you. You can give me my Emmy. You can deliver it. You can straight up deliver the emmy to me the bafta give me the bafta thank you that was that was that's that's her reading for wyman manderley oh my god.

The North remembers. I remember Chloe. Holy shit. Yeah, I fucking remember. We did it. You can hear him. You don't need me reading it to you because anyone can think about that passage in their head. You can hear him in your head just say like,

the mummer's farce is over. Ah, let's fucking go. And then, like, the my son is home. Is home. Ugh, let's fucking go. The North remembers, bitch. That's why I'm in Vanderlei right now. Ah, you know, like, not to be a buzzkill,

but just came to my mind. It reminds me of REN, the opposite of the REN chapter. It might be in the Windsrianne, the opposite of the Arianne chapter. It might be in the Winds of Winter. So mine are the Winds of Winter spoilers. Since I have the book and no one else does. No, I'm just kidding. But it reminds me of the opposite of Doran, right? Like Doran saying, where is my son?

Oh. Yeah, not to bum you out for a moment. But anyways, back to the North Remembers. I don't think that's wrong. I don't think that's wrong. I don't think that's wrong. We talked about it a little last chapter. And there is a lot, I think, that is meant to contrast and compare. Right, like the vengeance gone wrong.

This was not supposed to happen. And this wasn't either, right? But the timeline's a little different. It's a little like, this was supposed to happen. Yeah, I mean, Wendell did die, right? this would be the wendell to quinton i guess but or the wendell the wendell to the ellia and over it right you don't usually just seek vengeance for no reason they're seeking vengeance because of wendell so well there's a lot to unpack in that speech, but honestly, there really also isn't, right? It's a simple speech that drives home that heart of what the end of A Dance with Dragons, or the middle, I should say, of A Dance with Dragons starts to heighten.

This idea of vengeance, this idea of the good guys maybe could have their day, right? Once in a while. Every dog has his day. Even the good guys could. It gets us hype. And it also comes back with that idea of the mummer sparse, which has been introduced throughout the story. Mummery in general is a pretty big theme George plays with on and off. I did a little bit of Google sheeting

today. I was having some fun. We're introduced to this idea of mummery throughout the story as a pretty prominent theme. And in a Game of Thrones, it's pretty lightly used. We actually see literal mummers troops in King's Landing for festival kind of things going on. But most strongly is the introduction of Varys. Arya seeing Illyrio and Varys in the dungeon. Ned says to her that, oh, it was probably a mummer, Arya.

Hysterical, right? Very hysterical. As we now come back to it, because it was. It was Varys and Illyrio. And Varys telling Ned in the dungeons that he was in a mummer's troop before. This theme continues to emerge throughout the story. In A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, mummery becomes personified in the introduction of the bloody mummers to the story called tywin's bloody mummers some may call them and they are a joke right like they are a total mummers troop they're false they uh you look at them and they aren't what you'd expect for the bloody mummers of these sellswords they're something and danny of course

has the mummers dragon first appear in the house of the undying visions in a feast for crows aria gets a first-hand experience in meeting mummers and working with them and begins to learn magical mummery through magic right yes and learning to match people's tone and her empathy but in a dance with dragons george brings that to the front as well because aria once more learns about mummery as magic from the Kindly Man. He says, mummers change their faces with artifice. Sorcerers use glamours, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. She goes on in The Winds of winter minor spoilers for mercy to work for isambaro the king of the

mummers baristan in a more figurative sense falls for his dar's betrayal in the mary's court and it's called falling for the mummery and quentin's friends call his adventure a mummer's show as well daenerys is told in the mummer's dragon in a Dance with Dragons in Daenerys 2 by Quaithe, and in Dany 3, she proceeds to think of Zaro Zoandoxis's tears as Mummer's tears. She's not wrong. But as we go to the north in A Dance with Dragons, we have three prominent Mummer's arcs going on. Jon, Theon, and of course Davos. Theon recalls the wedding of Jane and Ramsey, a mummer's farce.

That was why Roose Bolton had clothed him as a lord again to play his part in the mummer's farce. Once that was done, once their false aria had been wedded and bedded, Bolton would have no use for Theon Turncloak. In John's arc, contrasting what Davos is currently doing for Stannis' regime, John calls Stannis accepting the free folk through the wall and all the performance that comes with it, like taking the weapons and burning it and scaring them and making them burn part of their religion with the weirwood branch he calls it a mummer's far several times in

fact he calls it that four times he talks about mummery going on and it's all about this moment the tunnel through the wall was narrow and twisting and many of the wildlings were old ill or wounded so the going was painfully slow by the time the last of them had bent the knee mate had fallen the pit fire was burning low and the king's shadow on the wall had shrunk to a quarter of its former height. Jon Snow could see his breath in the air. Cold, he thought, and getting colder. This mummer's show has gone on long enough. So now, Davos has this mummer's farce of Wyman revealing that yes, you were playing a part too, Davos has this mummer's farce of Wyman revealing that yes you were playing a part too Davos you

helped me out in securing this with the phrase so they really think that I'm loyal yeah and the farce isn't over yet right Wyman's gonna go and attend that wedding that you mentioned that uh Theon is also a guest that a lot of these people don't want to be guests but there they are and it is a mummer's farce and it I think this is a great breakdown of the way that it's been ramping up in the story. I think we're going to see it come forward a lot more, right? As you said, there's the Mercy chapter, and of course, Varys and Illyrio are now kind of secured, where they've been brought to the forefront out of the shadows as big players in everything that's been going on in in the game and davos himself right a part of what makes it so much a mummer's farce for everyone is this

slipperiness of identity happening for a lot of people this artifice as people become others and davos is also doing that right he's part of a mummer's farce and taking on a different one as he goes to Skagos and he's a dead man I almost wonder if and because you know the vision of the dragon bobbing and the clash kings

in the house the undying I wonder if the idea for the winds of winter is to bring these mummer's farces to the forefront as actual mummery with Arya joining the Mummers troop maybe that vision coming true in the end of the Winds of Winter or in the beginning of A Dream of Spring

I find it interesting that George is shifting to two plot points like those are two plot points that will happen of actual physical representation of mummery yeah I don't know I think that'd be interesting like yeah i think we could see that actual mummer's dragon we could see it in a parade or something celebrating the other mummer's dragon yeah i mean that's kind of the uh the headcanon right that

that is the parade and that maybe the parade gets ruined and turned into a barbecue instead halfway we don't know we don't know we just don't know. We just don't know. We don't know. We don't know. It's anyone's game. A thrones. Well, Davos offers Manderly justice instead of, as he offered him before, vengeance, right?

He's saying that, well, King Standis is able to give you justice. Robert Glover is like, it's really cute how loyal you are. He says honorable, but he's like, it's so cute how much you, like, stan Stannis. He's like, but Stannis is your king, not ours. And Davos points out that, well,

you lost your king, he's dead. And Mander's like, wait, that isn't Lord Eddard's only son what oh my god Eddard Stark got busy um you think Eddard Stark cheated on Catelyn no

before he met her never you could never cheat on anyway I actually... They were born married. He was too shy. Yeah, he had no game. He tried. I respect that he tried. Yeah.

I am curious, though. The Glover thing here is interesting, right, of what role they're gonna play in the Stark-Baratheon politics with what's going on here but also maybe in defending wyman or anything or revealing things to stannis robert says that stannis isn't his king but his wife has just like pledged some men to stannis's cause uh sybil glover over in deep woodmont it's also really awesome i think think, that we get all of these reveals about Lord Manderly in Davos' chapter, not in anyone else's.

Because I think it becomes really significant in terms of both of their characters and what they represent. Put alongside one another, I think it's an interesting perspective into loyalty, that allegiance, especially to one's lords or kings. think it's an interesting perspective into loyalty, that allegiance, especially to one's lords or kings, because again, Glover compliments Davos's loyalty because it's something that the Glovers and the Manderlys both recognize, right? And I don't think that there's any denying that, as we said many, many times, Lord Manderly's very shrewd, very cunning, calculated. He's played a lot of things very smart here to secure the rest of his family and their safety. I don't think that there's any denying that there could be a political advantage for him if he did find Rick and Stark and set him up as like, set himself up as a potential

regent to Rickon, especially as we look at some of the things that happened in Fire and Blood. But I don't think that we can truly, completely discount, despite that cynicism, like any sort of earnestness in Wyman's loyalty, because White Harbor has suffered greatly for this war. And we see it all throughout the city. They are, even though, you know, they are still in this war and bringing boys back into the war, there is an extent to which you can say they are trying to provide refuge to some of these people, right? There's not necessarily a promise of safety. It's, I think, a little muddied.

But the greatest case for Wyman's loyalty is Willa's impassioned speech. She wasn't brought into Manderley's plan because she's a little young, and as you can see, quite a spitfire. But the fervor with which Wyla spoke of how the Manderlys are stark men, right? That's what she says. She has to have learned that from somewhere. And for Wyman to be so proud of that speech that she gave shows that he believes that, and that's probably where she learned that and so like the loyalty that the manderly show makes an interesting comparison for davos's own loyalty right that we've been trying to examine throughout this entire read-through he's so zealous about sanis but where manderly is playing it really smart and securing the safety of his family first davos's decisions have kind of led to the ruin of a lot of his family and I think it's arguable that like Wyman though Davos is heading out for winter and Wyman's probably gonna die on this last winter hunt and Davos I mean I don't know what is dead may never die that seems to be where his is going but he he's just much more blind i think in his faith it's interesting that you

bring up the dance because it makes me think a little bit of where we leave off at the very end of fire and blood right with that hour of the wolf and everything going on but specifically brings to mind tauren manderly tarin Manderly was the second son of Lord Desmond Manderly. Second son, right? So that could be Lord Wylus, maybe. He ends up Lord of White Harbor and Lord Regent in Hand of the King during the minority of King Aegon III. And it does make me wonder if that fun story of Torrin Manderly being fired by Aegon III because Torrin, if you recall, was making this beautiful big progress for the king and his wife and they were going to go around the country and make the nation happy and they're the new beautiful couple on the throne

and as soon as Aegthry turned 16 he's like, nah, you're fired. Something about this reminds me of that. Yeah. I do, as I said in that episode, think Torn Manderly's idea was a good idea. Oh, I agree. It would have been perfect. But I do think that there is a lot of room for setup and parallel there. We're going to talk a little bit about the fate of Rick and Stark and what might happen. But this could be an Aegon III and Viserys meetup, right?

Like, this could be Rick and Stark comes back to meet his brother Bran the King. You never know. Aw. Yeah. I never put those together until now. That's interesting. Yeah. And he's the Viserys II.

Yeah. Yeah. Ah, I didn't think about that either. And, of course, Davos is, you know, he is seafaring, kind of like Alan. That's a great point, actually. We'll come back to that. For now, though, Manderly commands Robert to bring out the lad. I don't know why I said it like that, but here's another thing I'll say.

This quote, Was it possible that one of rob sark's brothers had survived the ruin of winterfell did manderley have a stark air hidden away in his castle a found boy or a feigned boy the north would rise for either he suspected but stanis baratheon would never make common cause with an imposter hison, quit your job at the wall, Jon Snow, and let me put you in charge of Winterfell. Baratheon? That one? Stannis hanging out with the bad

Karstark right now? Baratheon? I'm just, I don't know. Stannis is not really a great judgment of character. Anyways, I really love how delicately George has been weaving, especially in Davos's plot, throughout A Dance with Dragons and some in A Feast for Crows, obviously. Aegon, the pisswater prince, is being purposefully kind of brought into this.

And the terminology of a feigned boy, specifically, I thought was interesting. So Davos, of course, hearing about Daenerys and Aegon respectively in the Lazy Eel was already kind of our glimpse at this, you know, the lines about if some king wanted me dead, well, then I'd be dead or the piss water prince story. But that language, a found boy or a feigned boy is actually used going forward from this moment for Aegon by Kevin. Sir Kevin said, but we have enemies enough without offending Dorne. If Dorne Martell were to join his strength to Connington's in support of this feigned dragon, things could go very ill for all of us. And later in the Winds of Winter Arianne 1,emon also calls him a feigned dragon he says if Lord Connington's prince has a crushed skull

I'll believe Aegon Targaryen has returned from the grave elsewise no this is some feigned boy no more a sellsword's ploy to win support I think it was a masterful use of space I think the lazy eel especially was a great place to start planting this seed but davos's four chapter arc in this book really served to kind of talk about identity right introducing the idea of fake identities in this book even heavier from a first hand as well as you know accompany the john connington stuff but dav is, as you've mentioned and I've mentioned, playing dead right

now. He's dead. John Connington is living that same life, right? Another hand that's dead. Absolutely. And yeah, as you said, it ties in well with the found boyfriend boy sets all that up. Because what, just before this chapter in that lightning round, right, we see Aegon's making his moves. And, you know, there's this idea throughout this chapter as well, you know, Davos asks who died in his stead, because he cares to know who paid that price so that Davos could be free to live. And I think that ties in with Aegon's young griff storyline, Griff storyline because and of course some of the other things here too right like what Manderly is about to attend when we talk about if someone is

found or feigned because Arya is lost and as we discussed in a patron episode long ago on identity her not being there has allowed someone else to slip into the space of her own identity and take it right in terms of Janeane pool but also this has happened before and wyman took a page out of that book to an extent from theon killing the miller's boy and it's i think pertinent that davos asks because egan slash young griff does not he shows no curiosity and if anything he shows disdain when he talks the wording is important he calls him a piss water prince when he speaks of the babe who died so that he could survive allegedly and though there's probably no lower lowborn person

that may have died so that rhaegar's son could survive slash Slash what I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure Rhaegar's son died. Well, that one. Rhaegar and Elia's son died. Like someone did die in any case, regardless, so that this Aegon could live and take on this role. The cost of a life, which Davos is very strongly about protecting, right? Like everything is about the life of a bastard child. What's the life of a bastard child? For him, it's everything. And he's about protecting right like everything is about the life of a bastard child what's the life of a bastard child for him it's everything and he's about protecting that and it's a hard thing to confront when you don't have control over it it's interesting to point out agon doesn't give a shit about the that like he doesn't care it's been so long and he's so detached from it in

general it wasn't even his choice he doesn doesn't know. He doesn't care. And I guess that's something that comes with wisdom, comes with age. Like, we know that Davos has a lot of that going on, the whole wisdom thing. But it gives you a little bit of that. I don't think Agen's like a bad kid, whoever he is. I just think he's misguided and was raised to be a little snot. He's spoiled. Yeah, he's a spoiled little shithead.

He's a little spoiled. Yeah, I mean, what boy in this fucking series is he? Yeah, he's spoiled and he's a teenage boy who's been raised to think he's a prince and like I met a lot of teenage boys who aren't told they're princes but sure as hell act like that. Someone told them that they are.

And I mean, that's just how it is. I don't fault him for being a teenager, but I don't think that he's being very grateful. And at least Stavos is. And I wonder if we'll see him ruminate on that. It makes you actually see how he could be lined up to be the Aegon II, right? To Dany's Rhaenyra.

When you find Aegon II in bed the morning of everything going down, and he's all like, I don't care about being king. And he's like, well, all your brothers are going to die and you're going to die. He's like, fine, I'll be king. That's kind of the whole Aegon thing, right? And that brattiness, that spoiled brattiness really comes out in that. Yeah. And I mean, also, you know, you have to question, did he really not?

He probably didn't care that much. But at the same time, we can see he does care later on and wants it. And to what extent is like that beginning part of him not caring? Well, I mean, when someone says that it's my ball now. Yeah, the historian like Gildane being like, well, you know, Aegon wasn't that bad, especially with the way... I mean, it's an unreliable and meant to be unreliable history. Who knows? Who knows? Well, the lab that appears through all of this, which Davos is waiting with bated breath to

find out who it is, is not a Stark. After all, he's 14 or 15. His eyes look older with a tangle of dark hair and a sharp, feral face. He is mute, but has been learning his letters. Robat hands him a dagger and has him write the name for Davos. W-E-X.

Wex. Wex was ironborn and was Theon Greyjoy's squire. He had been at Winterfell when Theon captured it. Davos tells them the most updated news he knew of Winterfell. Theon put the Stark boys to death, mounted their heads above the castle walls. I love Wex being introduced as this mirror for Davos here. Wex and Davos both have that common thread of being able to learn their letters in advance when they have been significantly disabled in that

aspect of life, right? Like Davos's fingers, for example, are one thing for him that sets him apart, but also his lowborn status and Wex is lowborn and mute. They both have valuable info on the Starks or on Stannis in Davos's case. And I think there's even a really religious aspect happening here as well. Yeah. Wex and Davos, their survival is rooted in that kind of religious feeling, right? Like Wex survives in the end of Clash by climbing up a tree because of the old gods, right? It's a heart tree. And Davos survives in a clash of king. And he frames it as religious.

He frames it as a thank you to the mother for once. There's a specific comment, too, that gets made about Wex's being saved by the old gods and climbing the trees when Davos first gets to White Harbor. In Davos 2, he thinks, do the gods have some other task for me? If so, White Harbor may be some part of it. Every corner, Davos here is looking for a sign from a god, any god, the gods, his gods, their gods, whichever gods will pay attention, but this little boy, this 14, 15

year old guy, crawled, scrambled down a tree, and I kind of hope he goes with Davos. I don't know if he will, but maybe he'll actually go, maybe he'll become like the Padraic to his Brienne, but opposite, I guess, maybe he'll become like the podrick to his brienne but opposite i guess because he wouldn't probably talk as much i don't know i think there there's a lot

happening there and i think that redux of wex being present for the people hearing the people that were dead actually living and now here's davos who his head has been cut off and displayed for everybody falsely as well but Wex sees him dead and walking. What you said, the language when you called out just now, the scrambling down a tree, it reminded me of another character, right, who also waits out in a tree until the danger passes, except turns out he

didn't wait long enough, slash it still got him in the end. But Will! Will! At the very, very beginning, the prologue of Game of Thrones. Yeah, shit didn't work out for him, but Well, I hope better for Wex. I really like Wex. Maybe because he

slept in the heart tree right in the godswood. Maybe that made the difference. Yeah, he's safe. Davos had heard when Lord Bolton's bastard came down Theon put the castle to sword down to the last child and that Ramsay had slain Theon himself. Robette interjects and is like, nope, Theon is alive, he's now a prisoner to be flayed by Ramsay

when he pleases, and Wyman nods and explains, you were told lies, Davos. The bastard of Bolton is the one who put the castle to the sword, sparing the woman because he liked to rope them together and march them to the dread fort to hunt them for his sport he rapes them flays them and feeds them to the dogs robat says the evil is in his blood he's a snow no matter what the boy king has let him be called so i don't know if this means the glovers or the manderleys came across some of these women, but what kind of specific questions do you ask to get these answers of yes or no from Wex

and figure all these kinds of details out? Like, holy shit. This is a bizarre game of 21 questions. Pictionary. Before I come back to Wex later on, there's a fascinating set of lines here as they discuss how horrible that they think bastards are, especially ones who are denoted by the surname Snow. Glover says, a snow, no matter what the boy king says. And then Wyman follows up with, was ever snow so black? And I'm like, yes, there was. His name is Jon Snow, and he took the black at the beginning of this book series as well.

his name is Jon Snow and he took the black at the beginning of this book series as well and he's another person right kind of like Davos or Rickon or Aegon who was kind of squirreled away you know I think there's something more to that too I think it is a specific call out a la Jon Snow because when you

have all of this set up for Aegon and this missing prince going on it's a herring right because Jon was the missing prince the whole time that is alive, is a real Targ. He's sitting here. He's the real prince. It's a total placeholder for Jon.

So I think this is a strong, Ceda's strong moment was ever a snow so black. Well, Jon Snow, dark of hair, dark of cloak. There you go. It's very much in the same vein as like snow net snow yes yes yes and as you said it's a herring a kit herring ah get out you're fucking fired i can't believe how fucking fired you are right now i brought it that was a layered that was a layered joke right there um long haul

they explained Ramsay's horror show with Lady Danella Hornwood to Davos and that the Lannisters mean to reward the Boltons with Ned Stark's daughter and Glover says that Ramsay is a beast in human skin ah that's

interesting because Skagos, right? With Skagos being where we're headed to for Davos next, Ramsay being a beast in human skin, that's what all the rumors are about. Yep. And I mean that language again, talking about Jon Snow, because we are talking about wargs here with the Starks and all.

Mm-hmm. Wyman says the Freys speak lies, and he says don't expect the North to believe the lies, but they do expect the North to pretend to believe the lies publicly or die. So rude. It is really rude. Roose and Ramsay lie about the Red Wedding and Winterfell's fall, and Wyman has had to bide his time and wait for Willis. And now, my lord, asked Davos.

He'd hoped to hear Lord Wyman say, and now I shall declare for King Stannis. But instead, the fat man smiled an odd twinkling smile and said, and now I have a wedding to attend. Roos means to see the old man get on his velvet knees. And so he shall go, but not without giving some wedding gifts to the frays on the day they depart he says pelfreys to guide them through the north

oh what a nice guy yeah give them some horses what's on your registry make sure it gets to wyman everyone oh my god some extra pie some leftovers for the road honey he can afford it i'm glad that he had like at least one set of good lamprey pies right in this chapter but yeah he's very sure as you said that davos like knows what he means he's like yeah we're both we're both into killing people no boyman lurches to his feet and begins to discuss warships because those warships that you saw in the harbor Davos, Manderly has been building a shit ton of them for over a year. That's not all he has. He has more hidden up the white knife.

And he's also like, guess what? I also command heavier horse than any other lord north of the neck. And my walls are strong and my vaults are full of silver oh that's a good call out there with the silver uh because the guards all had the silver tridents as we said ah i thought they were just fancy well they are they're also you can do more than one thing wyman says he can deliver king sanus the allegiance of the lands east of the white knife widow's watch ram's gate sheep's head and the head the allegiance of the lands east of the White Knife, Widow's Watch, Ramsgate, Sheep's Head, and the headwaters of the Broken Branch.

It says, if you can meet my price. And Davos is about to say something, and he's like, no, no, no, not Stannis meeting my price, just you, Davos, because it's not a king Wyman needs, but a smuggler. Again, all that talk of prices and buying, but okay,

part of it is like, Davos just did a really, he did too good of a job at his job, right? They were like, wow, I'm so impressed that you made it all the way from that storm in the sea, and then to the sisters, and then to here, and then snuck into the city unnoticed. They're like, amazing, amazing. Just the man for the job. Yeah, it's a bummer, though. It's a bummer to go to the next company and find out they think the exact same of you. Yeah, pretty much. Robat explains Wex was valuable, but he doesn't know all of his letters and words, so they've been puzzling together the whole Bastard of Bolton murdering thing for a bit. They realize Ramsey murdered Sir Roderick and the men of Winterfell, and Theon's men as well, all while they tried to yield.

Wex escaped by climbing the weirwood, sleeping in the branches till he heard the voices of the dead, six people. Two were Bran and Rickon and their wolves. Wex had drawn this with chalk. Wex followed after them when the group split up, specifically after the boy and woman had parted, and he knows where they went. So again, this is the most difficult combination game of Pictionary and 21 questions that perhaps anyone has ever played in their life. And the stakes are much higher.

But, so there's something that's been standing out to me about Wex this whole time and I couldn't put my finger on it until while we were recording and I finally put it together so a lot of people are going to talk about it rightfully so and I do think it's significant that

Wyman Manderly when he does the fray pies, the lamprey pies at Winterfell, that it is a reference to Titus Andronicus, in which Titus Andronicus, of course, bakes the sons of his enemy slash the rapists of his daughter into the pie and serves it to their mother. And his daughter is named Lavinia. And Lavinia, part of what happens to her, along with being gruesomely, horribly raped,

is that her attackers not only cut out her tongue so that she will not be able to name them. Learning from a previous story, they also cut off her hands so that she cannot write it. But she eventually does find a crude way to write and implicate them. And that's, I think, why Wex feels like he stands out and is so uncanny to me. It's because he plays into a sort of Lavinia-esque role from Titus Andronicus in that he, though mute, is still able to help pinpoint what the crimes of Bruce and Ramsay truly are and then direct them to where Rickon is in this manderly story that is laden with a lot of references to Titus Andronicus. It's another element that ties those two stories together.

That's well spotted. I didn't really think of him in that role. Obviously, he's much more artistically talented, but... Yes, but it's hard when you don't have hands, you know? Wex has hands. And I guess they underestimated the fact that, A, first of all, they didn't care about him and thought he was Zedby. He was illiterate. Yeah, he found a way for his worth to matter. Yes.

You want the boy. Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard's daughter. To thwart him, White Harbor must have Ned's son and the dire wolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him.

That is my price, Lord Davos. Smuggle me back, my liege lord, and I will take Stannis Baratheon as my king. Glossing over the idea that Roose and Ramsay literally will murder people to keep what they have and to get what they want.

Glossing over the idea that they probably won't just look at Rickon and be like, okay? Question mark? Glossing over that. This is a great plan, Wyman. Really good plan, but. It's like an okay plan.

Yeah, it's honestly not a great plan. Not like, I mean like great, you have a boy king that you can, you know, control like a four or five year old king. But like, I just don't think it's like a,'t think it's like a if you had a rob or if you had a bran or if you had you know i just think rickon's probably the least effectual i mean god even throw in one of the girls at this point there's just a lot of faith there's a lot riding on davos's shoulders and i would personally crumble under the pressure but i guess he's been under more pressure before yeah he reaches for his absent finger bones he's also anxious he knows he needs

luck for whatever is about to be asked of him he asks why wyman needs a smuggler when he has ships and lords and maesters and knights and wyman's like no i need a real sailor a real smuggler not a riverman not a fisher folk a man who has sailed to dark dangerous places and davos is like where is the boy and robert's like wax show him wax throws his dagger and flings it into the mat behind wyman grinning so coming back to wax because this is no wax podcast not really i not really. I stand. I love this. He's interesting. I hope we get more of him.

As you said, I hope, like, I don't know if it's that he follows Davos or not, but I do hope we get more. He's ill in pain. He's Davos' ill in pain. Oh, my God, you're right. There you go. And it's great that he's like learning to read and write because that's part of what has kept ill in pain as again, now that I'm in sad ill in pain hours. Why did you do this? He was so lonely. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.

sorry i do love this small detail though about wex throwing the dagger because it's another way that his ironborn culture shows right because we know that they love fucking throwing sharp objects and are very good at it is suckling babe wex is suckling babe wex you have been busy well well for half a heartbeat davos considered asking Wyman Manderly to send him back to the wolf's den. To serve Bartimus with his tails and Garth with his lethal ladies. In the den, even prisoners ate porridge in the morning. But there were other places in the world where men were known to break their fast on human flesh. Time to get hungry, Davos. Eat them before they eat you.

Under the sea, the old fish eat the young. I know, I know, I know. Oh, oh, oh. What if that is about that? It could be. It could be because the under the sea is a metaphor for death and now Davos is a dead man.

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. I had to consider. I'm interested. I am interested. I mean, I don't know. I just came up with this on the spot right now, so this could be...

Well, it is the veil. Under the Sea is the veil, as previous people have expanded upon so it could be well cannibalism infighting and black magic lie ahead in the winds of winter which we're going to chat about as we get toward our outro here of the episode and of course sacrifice but all of these things davos is expecting to meet at Skagos, right? We learn a lot about Skagos in Reek 3 on Skagos, while only heart trees ever see half of what they do on Skagos. From what we've learned, though, it seems that they might be viewed a little unfairly, just due to having a different culture than your average Westerosi,

even as some of the Northerners have lifestyles. I think that the odds are George is going to build up the Skagosi for us like this, but how he actually writes them might be similar to how we see the Free Folk, right, as far as how they're coded. The Skagosi like to be called stone men, however, they're called savages in the world of ice and fire and by some in the universe and it's admitted that they're the subject of many a dark rumor like offering human sacrifice to their rearwoods luring passing ships to destruction with false lights

wait wasn't that boreal and feeding upon the flesh of men during winter. But you know where all this is happening right now, Eliana? Who's using a night lamp style tactic and who's offering human sacrifices and feeding on the flesh of men? Stannis' camp. Oh, they are doing that. They're doing exactly that. So Davos is going pretty much to a place that is rumored to act like Stannis' soldier's

camp. Interesting. That is an interesting mirror. And it's, I mean, everything he's doing, right, is in service to his hungry god, his hungry god, not being R'hllor, but Stannis.

Boy, does Stannis want to eat. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as you said, we're probably going to see that Skagos is not what we expect. And like you said, revealed to be different in the way that the the free folk have been and i'm looking forward to seeing that especially if they serve to be a more especially if they're shown to be like a much more peaceful like version right of what's going on in stannis's camp where it turns out the west rossi right are the ones as you're saying they're the ones who are truly acting like savages and and the i mean i truly i think i've said this before i believe that the skagosi um

the cannibalism that they practice is ritualistic in terms of they eat the dead who die of natural causes or whatever around them and to become a part of them and i think that fits in with this idea of what we see going on with skin changing and and people becoming part of one another and things like that. Great thought. Yeah, it does fit in here. It's a loving thing. I know that sounds weird to say, but it is. That idea that your loved ones become part of you.

Read his dark materials. I mean, there are real world cultures where people would practice that, but they had to stop because that's how prions get spread. Wait, start materials isn't real? Oh my god, I mean, maybe in another universe, right? That's the whole point. I don't think we have time to unpack the damage you just did to me. No, I'm just kidding. It's not as much damage as a secret commonwealth has done to me. it's not as much damage as a secret commonwealth has done well before we say goodbye to davos in a dance with dragons we need to get right back excited

because we have a lightning round for after davos in a dance with dragons this chapter leaves off in the middle of the book leaving us going what the fuck what the fuck like what is this what uh davos thinkers calls davos after dark is this our own davos after dark i think so i think this is davos after dark and this means that we've condensed the rest of the book which is a reread right to some of the prominent moments affecting davos's journey or affecting Into the Winds of Winter that we might care about. So for the rest of A Dance with Dragons, through what we know from the Winds of Winter so far, so if you're trying to avoid Winds of Winter spoilers, bail out now.

As Chloe said, Asha Greyjoy becomes a captive of Stannis Wrathion, though his camp has deteriorated while snow piles higher. Yum. Yum. No. Theon Greyjoy. Theon remembers his name and works with the washerwoman and able to save Jane. Later he joins up with Stannis' camp, but will he survive or become

a sacrifice? Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys decides to embrace fire and blood in the tall grass outside of Aes Dothrak as a khalasar surrounds her. Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion, Penny, and Jorah are sold and Tyrion works their way into the Second Sons where he meets Brown Ben Plum. He pledges his sword to get closer to Daenerys. Tyrion sways Ben to Daenerys' side once more while the battle rages in Slaver's Bay. Victarion Greyjoy!

Victarion meets Makorro, who transforms his arm! Just as the siege of Meereen resumes, Victarion and the Iron Fleet arrive. Quentin Martell! Oh, you stupid sweet boy. Aw. Idiot. Truly. John Connington. John and Agen make plans for taking Storm's End, and once taken, await Dornish Princess Arianne Martell and her swords. Arianne Martell. Arianne heads to meet

the Griff family, stopping first at Ghost Hill before taking a ship to the Stormlands. Elaine Stone? A fabulous journey is to occur in the Vale with young, capable knights of all houses in attendance, including young Harry the Heir. With such a prominent audience audience what could possibly go wrong mercy mercy murders a man named raf she knew in another life she must perform and soon change her identity once more oh those mummers and that brings us over to, you know, this is exciting. Everyone, you should feel fucking blessed if you're here right now. You're about to get like, we're about to witness greatness.

This is something that we are all getting to see right now. And everyone should feel blessed. I'm going to give you guys, you all are going to get a special treat today from me I don't know if it's that special so thanks Eliana for gassing me up as always you know when my tank's on empty I know you're always there ready to pour

but but this is special okay it feels it feels special this is my Davos baby this is Davos baby. This is Davos and I are pregnant. No, you're suckling sweet babe.

Oh my God. Let's talk about the future of Davos in The Winds of Winter. I think a lot of Davos' story and Rickon's story and Shaggy Dog's story is overlooked. I think Davos' arc in the next book is going to be wild, and Skagos is kind of a wild place. So let's dive in, because as we left off in the Wolf's Dead with Wyman and Davos, Davos said, you want the boy. And Wyman says, yes, that is my price, Lord Davos. Smuggle me back to my liege, Lord, and I'll take Stannis as my king. But this conversation feels like we've had it before, right? And it brings me back to A Clash of Kings, Davos 2, when Davos and Stannis have a conversation.

My liege, you must have the castle. I see that that now but surely there are other ways cleaner ways let sir corton keep the bastard boy and he may well yield i must have the boy davos must melisandre has seen that in the flames as well davos's loyalties are pushed from treating for Stannis to making compromises and promises in Stannis's name, and now here he is, promised to deliver a missing Stark son. The son who, until now, was nowhere to be found whatsoever. But this isn't the first time that Davos has done something like this, right? Gone out on a limb, no pun intended, with the heart tree to save a boy. It reminds me a bit of when he saved Edric Storm. Not just the act of saving a boy, but even down to the environment, right? Rickon and Edric's stories begin in the ancestral seats of Winterfell and Storm's End, and both boys see their homes fall in a clash of kings.

Shadows murder Courtney Penrose, Maester Lewin bleeds out by the godswood, the last breaths used to usher the Stark boys to safety. Losing the guardians that helped raise them, these boys fall into new guardianship. Edric ends up with King Stannis Baratheon until he is sent off into Lys with Andrew Eastermount. And Rickon ends up with Osha the Wildling, bearing Ned's sword from the tomb. They both move to their new homes of stone, right? Dragonstone and then Lys later, or the Stepstones, I should say, a different stone. And Skagos. Even their crews kind of have some resemblance, right?

Kind of ragtag. You have Rikken, Osha, Shaggydog, the Skagosi, Unicorns, and then you have Shireen, Patchface, Edrick. Off the beaten path, so to speak. Davos's arrival in Skagos is going to come at an important time. The Battle of Ice will probably have commenced by then, between Stannis and the North. By the time he gets to Skagos,

he'll be cut off from the entire realm. With winter upon them, the armies are close to breaking in the North, so we'll see what happens there, but Davos is going to have some, like, adventurous couple of chapters. Mm-hmm. It makes me think about the heart trees that saved

wex specifically and the heart trees are probably going to save rick in i'm wondering and this might be a little out there but if we're going to see something in the way of the shaggy dog story that everybody always says right a shaggy dog story of a long-winded tale working out to a surprise ending outside of reality or logic and if this about rickon is going to be that davos gets to skagos he sails the shivering sea he makes it through safely gets all the way there, meets unicorns, meets Rick and Stark, meets Osha. And at the end of the day, realizes that Rick and Stark is in good hands here. Right? He's in good hands in Natalie Tenna, I mean Osha's hands. Returning Rick into Westeros means that he becomes a blood sacrifice, like Edric was.

Like Shireen is probably being sacrificed as as this happens in the story uh returning rickon means that maybe melisandre gets her hands on some king's blood or maybe wyman has political desires skagos's history is interesting here because the isle is known for rising up in rebellion against the Starks. This has happened as recently as Daeron II's reign with Barth Blacksword's rebellion. But maybe leaving Rickon on Skagos isn't the worst thing if it's actually safe like we've discussed. Could Rickon's fostering help bind Skagos back to the north? Rickon Blackwolf maybe uh even the idea of rickon riding his wolf into battle as some sort of monomythic warrior's tale in skagos it works right amidst all of the other possible

end games for the stark children of king beyond the wall queen in the north king of westeros the stark king on skagos skagos isn't just rich in having Rickon, though, right? Like, there are other reasons to go to Skagos. Davos might not come home empty-handed. He might actually come back with something that we might have discussed a little bit back in Davos 5, A Storm of Swords. Roro sailed past Skagos into the Shivering Sea, visiting a hundred little coves that had never seen a trading ship before. He brought steel, swords, axes, helms, good chainmail, hoberks to trade for furs, ivory, amber, and obsidian. Skagos is very rich in obsidian. It is a source of it.

Davos could leave Skagos without Rikken, vowing to come back and tell the northerners including Wyman who spoiler already dead by the time he comes back uh he never found Rikken but he did bring back obsidian which as of a feast for crows one from Samwell we know literally these plots pass in the night like ships right between a feast for crows and a dance with dragons the children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year during the Age of Heroes. This is a great resolve, after Sam stabs Small Paul, of course. So, maybe not empty-handed, right, he may leave Rickon to save his life, but the sad bonus is that if he saves Rickon's life by leaving him there and not

bringing him back into the turmoil and chaos of war, the entire threat against Rickon's life passes, right? Wyman's dead. The Boltons will be gone at some point in the next book. Stannis, Shireen, Devon, and co. will probably be dead by then as well. Melisandre might feel a little handsy still, but it's a tough call. Maybe we'll get a Dance of the Dragons style, right, like we talked about. Maybe he'll come home, the Viserys and Aegon style, reuniting.

Yeah. I mean, you have time to flesh that out. This is something that I feel so special because it's something that Chloe has been building up for a while and you just came across, you just thought of that Viserys thing today and pieced that together. So there's no fault in not having that fleshed out in the, what, 30 minutes since you first came up with it.

Thanks. Thanks, Eliana. I appreciate your help. I mean, it's true, though. Like you just came up with it thanks thanks Eliana I appreciate your help I mean it's true though like you just came up with that now um so we have witnessed a lot of incredible like things just now in this episode and um you know I I think what you're saying is true there's a lot of things that have been culminating in in Davos's storyline that leads us to this moment. And it also ties in with a lot of the other things that we've been seeing, right? You've told us and laid out how Davos has learned his lesson

from Edric Storm and has a bit of those lessons on smuggling boys in and out of places and choosing not to once he sees the consequences. And I think he learns a lesson that Arianne didn't learn, that a lot of other people didn't learn, and realizes that because you were saying, you know, all these kids are being brought to be sacrifices, even if not literal, figuratively, that to crown him is to kill him. And I think he would see that of Rickon as he sees what's happening and the toll that's happening on Stannis' life. Like, does he really think Manderly's not going to fucking try to crown this kid? Or, like, do something, right?

There's almost something tonally, too, when in that line between him and Wyman, where he gets it, you know, he goes, you want the boy. Of course. Of fucking course. Like, you know he's just sitting there thinking, of fucking course you want the boy. It always comes down to these men wanting the boy it's kind of like an opposite mirror mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all evil queen thing right like we see that yeah with sanza and cersei cersei's totally like sanza's the fairest no but uh stannis with king's blood for example it's an obsession and even in chapter alone, we talked about that line of how from Arya, Arya in A Dance with Dragons, when he says sorcery needs desire. Not only is it smoke and mirrors, but it's also desire.

You were saying this earlier, Stannis is a hungry man, right? When we're talking about cannibalism, we're talking about how he's feeding on flesh, and we discussed earlier the devouring of Shireen and innocence. And earlier on in one of Davos's chapters, Melisandre says and points out to Stannis, well, like, yeah, congrats, Joffrey's dead, but he has a younger brother, right? There's Tommen, and after T Tommen there's Myrcella and it brings back this idea of like Ellaria's speech of where does it end you know like over and over where does it end and if Davos brings Rickon back where does it end yeah and to this day like I mean I I think that he'd probably remain monomythic, like we never hear or see Rick and again in the text, which it's a clever way to move him off the page for George in a way. again that that idea of bringing him back you know from like the viserys and agon idea that

that's really cute i never really considered it because i really just considered this is probably the way that rickon leaves the story and we hear stories later on of you know the stark hang on skagos and his giant black wolf yeah yeah or it could make sense because i know um does westeros have elections right like they seem to set up in the show or not but if not if rick and does return to all of the series that's one way for the line to continue yeah that's true too that's true too well there's a lot to think about and i there's a part of me that i don't know jeff says it was i don't know if it was meant to be the last chapter in dance or not it feels like the way that the language is at the end doesn't feel like it in in that we know that a bunch of like what

250 pages or something that were intended to be in dance not that they were necessarily written yet right that george had planned uh to be in dance and to wrap up a couple things were supposed to be in there and i wonder if more was supposed to be in there or not but i'm sure he had other ideas right like there's so many options and so many opportunities that he has to think about for each character we've talked a little bit about all the rewrites right as far as the meronese knot and quentin how many times his chapters were rewritten and different angles yeah so i'm sure there were countless possibilities george had for davos but i do think that he had to have made the decision at some point to say no we ended this way once more davos is in the air we don't know if he's in danger or how it's going to be and i'm sure this

gives him ample opportunity also to speed forward in davos's plot when we open up davos's first chapter in the winds of winter i mean we can almost guarantee that it's going to be a walk back of he had been there for a month caged in the jail yeah and i'm excited you know after doing this reread it's now one of the plots that i'm most excited for in winds yeah if what happens to davos yeah if anything also is he gonna go home to his wife absolutely and as you said it feels like that's starting to be built up you know talking about you you pointed out that his sons right now they're coming they're there and and i'm gonna revise what i said but towards the beginning of this reread like i felt that davos before you know when you do it quickly doesn't seem to think of his children like we think of him as he has kids

but we don't always think of him as a father but they are there and he does think about them a lot and it's something that he touches on and then kind of and then grieves but then he has to move on because he does have to keep living he isn't really a dead man yeah well what a pov i truly i look forward to shaking it off and getting into Catelyn Stark with you, but I really enjoyed getting through Davos with you, so here's to another one. Here's to another one. Here's to however many fucking

years we have left of this. Here is to the next 17 years. Next 17 books. Here is to the 23 years. 29th book in this series. Absolutely. Well, you know us. You know where to find us.

But if you don't, here is an easy path to get there. Social media, Girls Gone Canon on Twitter. C-A-N-O-N. If you want to send us a handful of thoughts about this last chapter, or chapter before this or a chapter after this, whatever you want to do, pictures of your pets, send them over. GirlsGoneCanon at gmail.com. And yes, so we are not going to be starting Catlin until March because we are going to be covering a LaBelle Sauvage chapter next week. But if you want to be notified of when that chapter comes out, be sure to subscribe to us on one of the many platforms

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May I add for some really exciting A Song of Ice and Fire stuff. Yeah. I forgot. I see. What a wonderful surprise. Exactly. I forgot we planned it for next month. So that's exciting, actually. We've got a lot. We've got a lot of exciting things in store for all of you. I think you're gonna be happy.

So head on over there, patreon.com slash girls gone canon and if you sign up for the thunder tier or above we can hang out all day long on discord and of course on discord as chloe said up at the top we do once a month have our brunches and happy hours where people get together sometimes they present things sometimes we play jackbox now And be sure to come check those out if you are on Patreon, Thunder tier and above, $10 or above. As always, it has been a blast covering Davos and having your thoughts roll in

and talking about it with Eliana every week. I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. But who will we be now? Oh, oh, oh. Oh my god. Oh, oh, oh. We should do Patchface's songs as like pop songs.

Under the sea. Oh, oh, oh. I guess that was very like, hey hey now oh oh this is what dreams are made of catalyn we should totally hey hey this is what dreams are made of See you all soon. Kill death of twins Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Goodbye.

Bye. Bye.