Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 135 - ACOK Catelyn VII featuring Manaro (of ManaroGeek TV)

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Catelyn receives news about the (alleged) death of her sons. Manaro of ManaroGeek TV joins us for a tour of the sex dungeon to examine Catelyn's grief and how it changes her. While down there, Catelyn mourns by seeking answers and shooting the shit with Jaime Lannister—with a dash of hate-flirting, maybe.  There are shit jokes. Be warned. This is a shitty filled chapter. Where to find Manaro:  ManaroGeek TV - YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ManaroGeekTV/videos  Twitter - @ManaroUnlimited: https://twitter.com/ManaroUnlimited  --- 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 Alexander Nakarada Background music: Skye Cuillin by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4371-skye-cuillin License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 135, Cattle in Seven, and A Clash of Kings, featuring Minero. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, today is such a big episode, not only because of the chapter, but also because of, again, we are joined by our friend Minero. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, if you're listening and you haven't had a chance to check out Manero's YouTube channel, Manero Geek TV, Manero talks about everything. And if you don't find her on her channel, you'll find her on someone else's. She's always getting videos up on not just A Song of Ice and Fire rereads and theories with a lot of her friends, but Game of Thrones, The Witcher, The Expanse, you name it. Minero, we're so excited to have you on. I know that we haven't really gotten to record lately. Last time we hanged out was during a very special ginger ale chat, a very wild special ginger ale chat.

What have you been up to? What are you recording lately? Actually, I'm starting a new series called Narrow Bedtime Stories, where I take excerpts from different books that I read, and I take those excerpts and I just read them as bedtime stories in sort of an ASMR-ish type style. That's what I've been working on. I'm hoping to release my first one the first week of September. Wow. So what stories are on your docket? Can you tell us a couple of what ones you're excited about? I have some excerpts from The Witcher. I have some, of course, from A Song of Ice and Fire. I also have from The Expanse, the books. Harry Potter. I also have some, I may or may not have some erotica.

Hey, bedtime. We're in the sex dungeon episode, so. Yeah, this is a sex dungeon episode. So it makes sense why you wanted on for this this is yet another bedtime story for minero that is a bedtime story isn't it kind of a fucked up bedtime story as we get into it another project that i'm working on is i'm going to be starting an anime series on my channel as well which again i also hope to have that launched in september so the bedtime stories i hope to have out weekly every friday and the anime series will probably be like the

first monday of every month because i'm trying to work those two things in i'm batch recording the bedtime stories since they're just maybe anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes a piece and then the anime series is a little bit more involved there's more things that i have to get into to try to squeeze in to like maybe a 10 minute video so yeah those are the two projects that i'm working on. Aside if anybody else wants to have me on for anything. What anime series are you starting with? Actually, I'm going to start with one of my all-time favorites called Naruto. I don't know if you're familiar with it. But I'm going to start with the actual original series of Naruto

and then go into Naruto Shippuden and then go into the Boruto series. So plenty of material to go through. But I will be interjecting others that I'm also watching. But the first one I'm going to kick off with is Naruto because it's like my all-time favorite anime. Amazing. Are you going like episode by episode for this or i'm doing like block episodes because if i were to go episode by episode it would like drag out for a very long time i was like that's a long ass series yeah so i'm doing episodes i i'm i'm doing blocks so i'm going arc arc. And then I'll do the blocks of episodes. So basically, I might do three blocks of episodes per arc. So that way it doesn't drag out. Because again, I do want to talk about other animes. And the great thing about a lot of these animes, they're separated by different arcs and so you can like talk about like i don't know 10 to 15 episodes to kind of

you know bring everybody up to speed if in case they have never seen the um anime itself and maybe it might pique their interest or maybe they might be able to revisit it because they haven't seen it in a while so that's great that's really great well call me when you're ready for cowboy bebop i'll be on standby i'm here i'm your girl ring ring i love cowboy bebop that's mine that's probably my all time favorite that and uh aliana and i do have a date we keep talking about that we're gonna pull some sailor moon episodes out so oh no or or if you want to talk evangelion i'm always also that's another big love of ours what else i don't know i i didn't want to like sign myself up for just one i was like i don't know i'm flexible eliana is open and ready is what she's saying

but anyway so that's exciting i'm excited for you to start both of these projects. Yeah. So am I, yeah. I've been away for a very long time, so this is a great way for me to come back into the YouTube scene. With a bang, too. That's a lot. That is a lot to take on.

So I'm excited to see it. In more ways than one, with the erotic look. They just won't be coming as often, but I will bring back the Ginger Elle chats, like, maybe once a month. I haven't just figured out what day in a month yet yeah those those are some crazy episodes but you know breaks are important so I think you know that's great that you found some time to rest and are like bringing

it back in so yeah absolutely well before we jump into Jamie and and of course, God, I'm so sorry. Wow. Pegging this early in the episode. Phrasing. Wow. Phrasing. Let me backtrack phrasing on this one. Yes.

Thanks, ladies. Before we get into our project of the day, which is Cattle in Seven, prison dungeon sex episode, we got to go through our housekeeping real quick. We do have a patreon episode special episode coming out for stranger tier and above patrons this month that will be of course eliana enchanted well it is it's eliana enchanted that's the book no it's ella enchanted we're going to be talking all about ella enchanted uh for a person who i know who was born this month so it is in honor of them,

and their name is in the title of the episode, so you can figure it out. This will be out by the end of the month, patrons. Eliana Enchanted. Make sure you read up on it. It's a quick read, 300, 400 pages, and you'll enjoy it. You'll love it.

And it's like big text, you know, because it's in like lots of spacing because it was written for younglings. Yeah, it's like a break. It's a mental break, you know, just sit there, put some earbuds in, some fantasy music on. They got that stuff on YouTube and you could just

read Ella Enchanted. Come get lost with us over at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. And if you're over in the Thunder Tier or above, you have access to our Discord. And if you have access to our Discord, you have access to monthly brunch and happy hour. Yes. And this month, our monthly brunch slash happy hour, we are again, still deciding on a theme, but it is going to be

on Saturday, August 28. We have ideas. The court has brought ideas. We've got ideas. And some of them are related to some of the things that we've done lately. Maybe not necessarily here on this podcast, but on other things. So if you were paying attention. Yeah, with your sharp eye. And this is the last of Song of Ice and Fire episode for August. I know it's a little early, but we will, after this episode, be coming out with our HDM episode, our our his dark materials episode for

the month we were kind of off last month due to some health stuff but we'll be back here back in action for september so look out for cattle and one in a storm of swords out on friday september 3rd yes so with that so we did get a pod bean comment of note from our friend Brian, who, thank you Brian Afars for continuing to leave Podbean comments. And I thought this was like, really went in well with this episode and you know, what's going to happen with Catelyn. So wanted to bring this in. And Brian says about last week's episode, well put about the kids being an extension of oneself i've had 14 years of the 50 50 schedule with my son and it does feel like you're losing a part of you most important thing for you to remember is you're still their parent when they are away and there's no shame in working on yourself or your happiness nothing ever fills the void but it does help stave away the darkness and guilt now i got a little rob stark thinking he's a king and doesn't need me when he's here and he also added that ryman the rhymer is now scott stapp in his headcanon thanks to me so you're welcome i think that's good i can hear him all wolf in the night you know just i forgot

i kind of forgot i didn't know the name of the frontman of creed until this moment until this moment literally right now You could call this Eliana's sacrifice. It's a Creed joke. Thank you. There goes my innocence. Well, we'll get rid of the Creed. We'll get right into the depression, you know. But first, we do have a lightning round.

Lightning round. Minero of course is ready for it. She seems primed, ready to jump right into the storm that is our lightning round here. So take it away, Aliana. Bran 6. Bran watches Jojen's visions come true through Summer's eyes. Arya 9. The Bloody Mummers bring 100 Northmen to Harrenhal, and Arya hatches a plot to free them with

Jaqen H'ghar. She becomes Roose Bolton's new cupbearer, Nan. Daenerys IV. Daenerys is trapped within the House of the Undying, but Jor-Gon comes to her aid. Tyrion XI. Tyrion sends his men to raid Stannis' baggage trains. Balon Swan and Osmund Kettleblack are inducted into the Kingsguard.

Tyrion meets with pyromancers and fairies. Theon IV. Theon hunts for the missing nobles of Winterfell, but when he's unable to find them, Reek offers him a solution. Jon VI. A fight ensues between Free Folk and Jon and Quarren. The survivor is a young woman who tells Jon the story of Bael the Bard. Quarren commands Jon kill her, but Jon is unable to swing the sword. Womp womp.

Oh, he swings that sword later. Oh. No spoilers, sorry, wow. This is a reread. Right. Sansa IV. Sansa meets Dantos in the Godswood, where she's told to be patient for her escape. She climbs to the roof where Sandor surprises her, bringing her back to her room after a gruff discussion.

She dreams, but when she wakes, her moonblood is upon her. The worst. The worst. Jon 7. Corrin tells Jon Ygritte does not lie. Mance would accept him to his armies. He dreams through ghosts and he awakens shouting. Corrin takes them back toward the Fist with their enemy on their trail. Tyrion XII. Wartime planning

is not going great between Cersei and Tyrion. Cersei decides to get even with Tyrion. Petty. That is best. And that brings us to Catelyn VII, A Clash of Kings. Catelyn and Jaime very narrowly avoid having hate sex.

I didn't think there was much else to be said about the chapter. I mean, sure, she finds out about big news and stuff, but most importantly... You guys have read this stuff. It's, yeah, it's steamy in there. But there are other reasons, right? You know, I want to start out with Minero.

When we asked you which POVs you'd like to join us for, you gave us a couple of them, but one of them was Catelyn. And I, you know, wanted to hear a little bit more from you about why Catelyn? I chose Catelyn because the group of ladies that I'm usually always with, the Mad Queens, shout out to Alicia, T-Baby, Timo, Lady D, Black Wilding. They all give her a hard time. I kind of feel bad for her because I look at her as a very multidimensional character who has made some choices in life that she thinks are what are best for her children, but she's demonized a lot because of the way that she treated John. And so I understand some of the hate that she gets because of that. And because John is such a, well, I don't know if he's like

a well-loved character, but I think a lot of people see themselves in John and how he's portrayed as the bastard of Winterfell. I think a lot of people kind of hate Catlin for that. And I see her as more than that. I have no favorite characters. I always say that. But I do love the human interest part of A Song of Vice and Fire. And I think she is one of the great human interest stories. If you really take the time to read read her chapters see where her mind is see her flaws and how she navigates um a lot of what has happened to her her entire family but her entire family just disappears and is destroyed and is disseminated right before her eyes up until the end of her life and then then News of Resurrection,

which I find kind of weird, is that everybody loves this new iteration of her. But in her human self, a lot of people were so quick to be so judgmental of her, but everybody is more accepting of this new, the rebirth of her new self, where she's just a creature of vengeance. And so I guess everybody is just projecting their need for vengeance for the Starks. And she is that vehicle through which they can express that vengeance that they are seeking. And so for me, I just want to, I guess, hope to people who don't like her human character, the human side of her, will take a second look and try to be a little bit more open and not just judge her because of how she treated John, but also because of how fiercely protective she was of her children.

Yeah, that's that's perfectly said. she was of her children yeah that's that's perfectly said um i think i don't know i have nothing else to say that was like a perfect perfect encapsulation like podcast is over that those are all the cap chapters go home ladies we did it did it that was it we don't even have to finish catalan anymore we can just move on to the next pov which is obviously obviously going to be lady stoneheart i really love the way you put that and i actually i'm coming into this i think trying to be harder on her this time through because i feel like i sympathize very greatly for her and i am seeing a lot of the flaws and i'm seeing a lot of what i think a lot of the fandom really doesn't like about her. But I mean, in one scenario, you know, you can see where her choices, especially in wartime are not appropriate.

But I would do the same thing. I would burn it all down. I mean, if I had these children and I was split like this, you know, like cut in five pieces and I couldn't, I mean, I was immobilized, right? Like she's immobilized. She doesn't have real power. I would do anything I could to get my children back so i get it i mean end of the chapter i would do it i would have freed jamie too and i don't even like the motherfucker that much so jot that one down i would have freed him if it might get my daughters back i get it

it's painful i get it this chapter is sad we're about to get into a real sad first half of the chapter. I was all thinking it was dungeon sex, you guys. And it's not all dungeon sex in this chapter. Like the first half. The first half of the chapter. I came for dungeon sex. I lied. I lied to you. It's horrible. Horrific.

Yeah. Oh, God. It's super depressing. Shit. yeah oh god it's super depressing shit i think george did a very great job of capturing her grief even so far as um how many times if you've ever been like if you really having a bad day or if you're really you know feeling very depressive and you're in a room where everybody else is so happy and you're just so angry and so hurt, you're hurting inside.

And it's like, it's just the juxtaposition of the grief that she's feeling compared to these people are celebrating. And for her, like the celebration is so hollow compared to the loss that she, okay, this is the information I found out. And not knowing that that would be the last time that she would see them. You know what I mean? And not only that, but to hear about the way that they have been killed. And I'll put those in air quotes, right? That had to have been been devastating so not only do you lose your husband you feel a loss of your of your daughters but they're still somewhat within reach but then you

hear news that your sons are gone and they were supposed to be in the safest place which was home yeah they are killed in their home and not only that but they are killed by you hear that they're killed by somebody who was raised in your home um yeah so it's multi-layered and just opposed to that is there's a celebration going on and and george does a great job of describing the meal that's happening and the celebration that's happening and all of her internal thoughts that she's going through you know discussing about how rick rickon's smile and how he just wants to be like his big brothers or about brand climbing and the pride and then the mixture of emotions she feels watching him climb and stuff and going through all of those things and

then remembering her other children and so there's a huge amount of grief and then there's Brienne who's also grieving herself and then he also mentions how she's annoyed by the way that Brienne is eating and just wants to get away from her. But, you know, all of these emotions that are flashing and it is extremely depressing. And you brought up a great point there as we start the chapter on how, you know, George is describing everything that's going on around her, every emotion that she's having, but he's not telling us what happened, right? Like we fill in the blanks as we go.

And it starts out with the great hall being shadowy and lonely and dark. And she thinks that it's a lonely place for two people to have supper. Catelyn and Brienne are staring in their wine goblets and the hall's empty. All the people of Riverrun, the soldiers, the servants, the small folk, all of them are celebrating out in the yard. 20 casks are brought down from the cellars to celebrate admir's return i guess that's brought up you know that's a problem of mine i always mess those up uh and directions and of course they're celebrating rob's conquest of the crag cadeline can't blame their celebrations they do not know and if they they did, why should they care?

They never knew my sons. Never watched Bran climb with their hearts in their throat. Pride and terror so mingled they seemed as one. Never heard him laugh, never smiled, to see Rickon so fiercely trying to be like his older brothers. Yeah, you can really see in these lines as we start to unravel why Catelyn's on her own, what Minera was saying about, you know, how like her grief in this chapter, and also something that Minera was saying about how it's in the middle of like a party, right? I think that that kind of

makes it feel even lonelier, right? When you feel so alone in what you're feeling and no one else knows. And later in this chapter, caitlin's going to bring up the deaths of rickard carstark's sons in her conversation with jamie but again in in regards to that loneliness cat's grief is very focused on what she herself is feeling right where's last chapter um in some of the previous chapters she's been kind of projecting and wondering like last chapter she was wondering i wonder if john's mother ever prayed for him the answer is no because she's dead um and in other previous chapters whether cersei ever worries for her own children as catelyn does but you know as catelyn loses her own children after having already lost her husband ned uh she becomes much more

focused on her own pain as opposed to wondering, you know, and empathizing with other people, right? Because there's none of her ever really thinking about or wondering, like, I wonder if Rickard Karstark, who just lost his two sons, which I know about, feels the same sort of, like, lonely grief and then the anger, right, that she's feeling and how she wants vengeance. And clearly Rickard Karstark does too because that pans out in a few chapters, you know, like when his sons died. But at the same time, everyone else, like same with her right now, they were all super jazzed. They're like, we did it. Great job team. We caught the Kingslayer. But like at what cost to him? And also at

what cost to all the other soldiers and their families, right? It's an empathy she never extends to all the small folk who are fighting in this war what for her family so yeah i mean rickard dies yeah after he lost his two sons for his betrayal and she frees the lannister and she doesn't get really that in trouble i mean she didn't have much to lose but it is kind of unfair for her not to extend that empathy down the line a little bit. The trickle-down empathy effect, right? Yeah. Yeah.

It's a myth. Trickle-down empath-a-monomics. Empathomics. It's your podcast now, Monero. It is. Grab it. I don't want it. Oh, God.

Well, this is a food podcast also, so we're going to, of course, talk about cat food. I don't want it. Oh, God. Um, yeah. Well, this is a food podcast also, so we're gonna, of course, talk about Catlin's meal. Her, like, sad meal. Which is not, like, a sad, you know... It's actually a pretty good-sounding meal, right? She stares at her food. It's trout wrapped in bacon, a salad of greens,

and also red fennel, which I thought was interesting. I was like, I want that ingredient. Also, sweetgrass. I don't know what the fuck is sweet grass peas and onions and i'm like peas and hot bread and i'm just like why have i not thought to do a bacon wrapped trout it seems like very easy to have thought of and for some reason i've not done that yet so it does sound really good but and i i this might be being far too serious but it felt like a metaphor when i read it a trout right okay i mean the tollies a trout wrapped in bacon and if anything like bacon is it resembles money you know and financial fiscal security so it's almost like the fancy trout are wrapped in chains of like the trappings

of power you're the fancy trout at a fancy dinner but you're still wrapped and stuffed and stuck right and it kind of is her she's the fancy trout being eaten alive here you know yeah i don't know it felt like a metaphor this time maybe i'm hungry but it felt like a metaphor is there anything about her is there anything in the metaphor then about her eating a trout? You know, that cannibalization? You have Joffrey later saying that the fat trout from the wedding, that they caught a fat trout. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And also from the Red Wedding, how they threw her off naked. They threw her. She had been dead for a couple of days they threw her body out into the river in a mocking sense

of how they actually lay their tullies on her to rest which is they are pushed out I guess to the sea and then cremated but then again she, you know Arya finds her through Nymeria.

Yeah. It's a great point. I feel like food's really important in this book, personally. Personally. It is. It means something. And to be fair, I mean,

there's so much to take from this scene just from them eating, right? Because you have Brienne eating like it's a chore and something you had said, Minero, that Brienne, you know, also is kind of in grieving as well she's at a different stage of the grieving process right her wounds aren't being reopened necessarily she's kind of looking for a purpose which is a big part of her in this chapter that she's like all right I'll step up Lady Tully Lady Stark uh but she's eating methodically here so I feel like she

Catelyn doesn't even want food. She's like this is all so disgusting. I can't even think of eating ever again or breathing ever again or doing anything ever again. And Brienne is past that a little. She is still eating, but right now it's a chore. She's not eating for pleasure. She's not eating for joy, so she's still grieving.

She definitely is still grieving. And this is just brilliantly stitched together all of it even the way that like i said we're getting this news we have the theon chapter a few chapters ago that tells us you know brandon rick and aren't really dead we know they're not dead we know theon's kind of a chicken ass so she doesn't know this and that's supposed to color that for us that now we're like oh shit she heard about them but that doesn't mean that they're actually dead so we're left to wonder until the next chapter

and the very next chapter is a theon chapter and it opens with theon having a nightmare of being chased by wolves and i wanted to highlight the language eliana will definitely appreciate this but the language is mercy he sobbed from behind came a shuddering howl that curdled his blood mercy mercy when he glanced back over his shoulder he saw them coming great wolves the size of horses with the heads of small children oh mercy mercy blood dripped from their mouths black as pitch burning holes in the snow where it fell uh it just like flows so well from this catalan chapter into that that's the genius of george it's like a continuation right but then you know that's his where you have one person who is grieving a loss and and and trying to process that loss, you have another person who is riddled with guilt

and is literally being chased by the ghost of those he should have protected and didn't. Yeah, great point. And also, I'm thinking of the horse-sized duck or whatever question here. They're wolf-sized horses, which sounds like a bad deal. Sounds like some grown-ass wolves. Feels like some stuff that's going to come back in T-Wow. Maybe not for Theon, necessarily, but coming back.

For sure. Or I hope so. I take no joy in mead nor meat, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me i am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings there is an empty place within me where my heart once was the sound of the other woman's eating had become intolerable to her as minero said earlier yeah catlin's now just now just like, I can't even stand the sound of Brienne eating. And I'm like, damn, Brienne's just like, living, all Brienne actually doesn't want to go. She's like, this is not the outcome I hoped for. She's explaining she's not made for them

and says she will go if Catelyn commands it, and then Catelyn realizes, oh, no, I pushed too hard. Brienne actually really doesn't want to go, and said that she only hoped to give Brienne better company than herself. It's great that she was very conscious of that, at least. You know, most people when they're losing, they don't really give a, you know, they don't

care about anybody else's feelings but their own. But at least she's like, she's still aware. Yeah, there's something really strong. And we've been talking a lot about how Catiline and Cersei are so distinctly different in the protection of their children and in how they see their children and how they view their children and I believe we talked about this a while ago with laughter being poison to fear in Catiline's interiority and I think it's so interesting that right now in this Blackwater kind of era of the book as we're about to go straight into the Blackwater you have the

line from Cersei in that maiden blood the the moon blood chapter with Sansa saying love is poison a sweet poison yes but it will kill you all the same and from Catelyn who used to think that you know laughter could be good in court and could be helpful to grow the bonds and for you know uh example the great john you know uh being loyal to rob and rob kind of subduing him a little bit down from his not so humble attitude sometimes uh how that was a good thing for rob's campaign but now here she is saying song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me she's a changing woman she's a woman in a constant state of change and she's no longer the same woman from the start of the series right she's really hurt absolutely

the woman at the start of the series was you know she was very confident right she felt that she knew what to do how to run a household and all the all these things now she's like i don't know what to even do in my own life everything's a fucking lie yeah but she still holds on to that she has to fulfill her duty right she has to like she still is holding on to that she has a duty that she has to fulfill despite everything else that's going on around her and also in another sense that she kind of twists what her duty truly is to kind of fit whatever narrative she now has because right now her narrative is I have to save the ones that I have left and I have to do whatever I have to do in order to do that and so that is now what her duty is her duty is no longer to whatever cause they had set out for. I think she mentions that.

I think it was right before Rob is made king where she talks about how when they left, they left for the purpose of going to rescuing Ned. But now that Ned is dead, she can't think about who's dead. She has to think about the living. And so she still has her daughters that are still in King's Landing and she wants them back. She wants to go home. She wants to grieve for her husband. She wants to have her children around her. She doesn't want to lose anything else, anyone else. And I think at the backdrop of that, you know, she takes a lot, you know, she carries a lot of guilt because of the actions that she took by kidnapping Tyrion, in her mind, she kind of set this whole thing off. And it just spiraled way out of control.

Yeah, she really takes the blame on herself for all of that. And I think, you know, as we've discussed, maybe that's a way to feel more control over the situation. But something that kind of is in the background of this chapter that pops up, but isn't like really it's it's sprinkled in is it's not really like her fault in some ways it was it was little finger pulling the strings but how could she know right how could any of us know none of us knew until later yeah there was nothing creepy about that man the moment he entered on the page with his minty weird breath with his face over sans's shoulder yeah i mean george gave him like a villain goatee and i don't know what he

wanted us to think like about that like you don't give someone a villain goatee and not i mean actually i guess you could that that's that's what he should have done to subvert the tropes yes anyway in the awkward silence catlin tells brienne the raven that they received this morning which no one knew about except for her and maester vyman and she had actually meant to keep it a secret until well actually she doesn't know until when she meant to keep it a secret she had just thought that maybe maybe just not speaking it aloud would somehow make it not true but unfortunately it was true she tells brienne that yeah that's true that's true it was true in her mind but it's not true in our minds you know the chad the chad readers all right

we're not in this story all right we're not we have secrets we know the secrets we do know the secrets. We do know the secrets. The ancient Jedi texts. Oh my god. So, Callan tells Brienne these lies that Winterfell has fallen- Actually, no, this is true. Winterfell has fallen to Theon Greyjoy. That is true.

The lie is about mounting Bran and Rickon's heads on the walls. They mounted other kids' heads on the walls. Not actually much better, but- That's a's on the walls. They mounted other kids' heads on the walls. Not actually much better, but... Oh, Theon just... That's a whole nother story. It's the same story, Monero. It is not a whole other story. Monero, 10 minutes ago.

I love all characters equally because they all make up the story of ice and fire that I'm singing. Monero, right now, fuck Theon. Fuck that kid I you know he is yeah he is a character that you know

I have to say brilliantly done I do think he's brilliantly done you have gone through so many emotions reading his chapters for me is like reading like a Monty Python adventure for me yakity sax is just going off in the background he's like he's like yosemite sam

that's what it feels like reading his chapters i'm like is this dude is wow daddy issues much that is actually what his class chapters are like. And you're like, all right. Okay. Rico Suave out here. Yeah, for sure. He thinks, but he thinks he is very suave, doesn't he? He does.

And he ends up actually, and you know, interestingly, Kat never really thinks about this. As far as I can tell. She's never like, you know, interestingly, Theon did all the things that i thought john was gonna do well that's because theon did all the things she thought theon was gonna do too that's also true that is true she was like maybe i was right about everyone but she's she's not anyways just some people well with john i think she did a lot a lot of projecting if i'm yeah just a quick second she did a lot of projecting, if I may, for just a quick second. She did a lot of projecting when it came to John, because John was just a constant reminder of Ned's supposed infidelity. And the fact that, you know, every time she looked at John, she saw a little Ned.

It was like, you know, reliving that infidelity every single day. Of course, we all know that's not John's fault and we all know that it's a little bit, you know, much. But from a woman's perspective, we normally wouldn't want to raise our husband's bastards or have them around. You know, yes, you can go take the kids to go play with them. You know, you go have daddy time. But I don't want to be a mom to your bastard kid. You know, I won't say that there aren't any women, but I know that as a human being, there is a level of hurt. And you're not going to take it out on the person who actually committed the act because you know dick whipped but you're going to take it out on the person who is least able to lash out at you right who's

probably just going to take it so john was just an easy victim for her to project what she was really feeling about what she assumed to be Ned's betrayal, but she couldn't take it out on Ned because the minute when she tried to bring it up, he was like, shut it down, city. Yeah, that's true. I mean, that's the thing is like, she didn't even have a choice, you know, like she wasn't even asked, hey, Catelyn, would you raise my bastard kid? It was just like, nope, you're gonna, no questions asked.

So I think that is also part of it. Obviously, he was pretty closed off because the whole trauma shindig yeah it's kind of a bummer he didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth either so or i don't know if it was a lack of trust or because he was um trying to honor his sister i don't know i guess it could go either way all of the broken promises right that he dreamed about that he had those fever dreams about. Yeah. One of the many.

Absolutely. And that's another manifestation, right, of the powerlessness that Catelyn feels. That's an earlier powerlessness that she feels, right? She has no way to change this situation, this family situation that she's in. And that powerlessness just keeps more and more things spiral out of her control, especially with the loss of her sons, right? After the loss of her husband, so many things start happening. And I think her withholding that information and not speaking it aloud is, again, one small way that she tries to gain control over the situation once more, right? Because she feels terrible when she finally says it aloud.

She says, I've said it, God forgive forgive me i've said it and made it true that idea of like made it true by speaking it aloud is it's one withholding that information from others is just one semblance of a way she can shape her world and her reality by not making anyone else acknowledge it yet but unfortunately the world keeps going without her and she has to she has to say it aloud. And I love this scene where she finally has to admit it. And you just really get to see how that grief is transforming Catelyn. And I just think it's a very it's a very real and raw feeling that it's just very relatable that idea. Yeah, I mean, part of me remembers when my mom read The Secret. And she was like, you got to read The Secret, Chloe, it's just very relatable that idea yeah i mean part of me remembers when my mom read the secret and she was like you got to read the secret chloe it's gonna change your life but part of me what

is the secret oh my god the secret it's like the self-manifestation self-help book about you know like it goes on and on but it's basically just about manifesting your secret your your secret you know your power your truth it was pretty big on dr phil or some shit i'm pretty sure and like the aughts it's an aughts kind of uh book i remember like my mom had a friend that bought her the book and then like she bought a book for someone else and it was a whole thing you know because you're passing on the power to your friends to self-manifest their dreams but this is to to actually be less facetious because you know that'll ever happen um this is interesting because it again gives her that cassandra that very very dark goddess greek tragedy vibe that everything

she thinks and says comes true it's just like what we were saying with tyrian that she took a lot of that blame for tyrian and thought wow it's the anti-denarius right denarius right now is like my dreams come true i manifest my dreams and they grow into dragons and catalan's like i manifest my dreams and their nightmares they're fucking living nightmares uh Everybody's having dragon dreams. Yeah. That's true. Yeah.

And I don't know, something that Kat doesn't really notice from all of this, from the semantics of the letter, because how could she? She's, again, drowning in her grief. And all of her judgment is also clouded with that devastating grief, to put that out there. But this letter from Winterfell that comes might actually be the reason Roose joins up with Team Lannister. Something that really stands out is now not only does she not have any kids, basically, they're all pretty much gone or severed from her grasp, whether they're kings, whether they're hostages, whether they're dead, whether they're lost. But Winterfell's gone too.

And that's what the fight was for. Like, you guys don't even have Winterfell now. That's really bad. That's devastating because now it's like, what are we fighting for? We don't have Ned. We don't have the girls. We don't have Bran or Rickon. We don't have Winterfell.

Awful. And this letter from Winterfell, you know, Stephen Attawell over at Race for the Iron Throne talked about this in his Cattle in Seven essay. And the emotional significance obviously of what roderick writes this letter is one thing obviously devastating but the timing is really important because ruse bolton might have rams like ramsay acting on his own initiative is fine here but being informed and news traveling can travel fast enough to the twins from river run from this that roost decides to go

on and join team lannister for the red wedding uh and as he just settled into harrenhal and as aria is just kind of sitting there like wait a second i don't understand if you're north men that are here why are you making all these plans this doesn't sound like my brother's faction um i mean if ruse knew at point a that the boys are dead and winterfell's only heir is now south warring in the south and b that winterfell was weak and possibly that his own bastard son took it or the iron men which as we see aren't that uh aren't as frightening in the north after a year without an ability to like know without insurance ruse wouldn't strike right so this does say that this is probably one of the one of those daggers in the back there this is probably where ruse

heard about it and thought all right well i'm in heron hall jam Jamie's going to swing by with Brienne any day now and we'll shake on it. That begs the question, how much of Ramsey's activities was Roos actually following? Because Roos had the conversation with Aziz and Skad when we were doing the Martells. And I mentioned that there's this group of men, they're all like the same like Walder Frey, Tywin they're the kind of guys that kind of play both fences right they have one foot in one foot out and trying to see which way the wind is blowing so that they can be on the winning side I'm sure Ramsey wouldn't have been running a monk and Roos not know it. And I guess he was just waiting to see what fruit it would bear so that he could be all in. Because just as quickly as Ramsey was able to, you know, tip the scales in that way, it could have gone either way. You know, I mean, it could have gone a different way.

way you know i mean it could have gone a different way like if they had never freed him from the jail or what if they had freedom from the jail and they killed him it could have gone so many different ways and so ruth strikes me as the kind of guy who's no different than walter fray and tywin and that they're just you know trying to see which way the wind is going to blow so that they can make sure that they're on the right side of it so they're not you know catching it they're not downwind and so it just so happened I would agree that it just so happened that it all played out well that his son was able to capture Winterfell or burn it and so yeah that gave him enough confidence to say okay yeah i can go ahead and collude with these other old dudes and take a piece for myself so that i can bury the hatchet on this old grudge that you know my family has had with the starks yeah yeah especially because

um you're talking about the timing and i guess as brought up last chapter catelyn and ruse i mean ruse might think that ramsay's dead at this time right until ramsay figures out like as you said gets himself out of prison um by manipulating theon i think maybe the bolton forces maybe ruse had some some inklings to some extent because i mean he contributes they contribute forces right yeah so he doesn't really lose any men he i mean like he his forces are still intact like i think he traveled with if i if memory serves i think he traveled with like maybe 5 000 men and his his forces are still intact yeah they are very very much so very healthy which is suspicious in its own right but so brienne joins Catelyn in her grieving

with tears in her eyes and reaches across the table for her, but stops short of touching her, because she's like, I don't actually know if we're, like, that kind of friends right now. Right? Sometimes people come in and I'm like, oh, we're hugging now. I'm like, I didn't know we were hugging friends, but...

Um, so, anyways, Brienne apologizes in sympathy, sympathy right saying her sons are with the gods now but caitlin sharply asks are they would god would let this happen rickon was only a baby how could he deserve such a death and bran when i left the north he had not opened his eyes since this fall i had to go before he woke now i can never return to him or hear him laugh again it's so awful and she reaches out and she shows her scarred palm and fingers and she thinks about summer defending her and bran and she thinks theon must have killed the wolves too she was certain they'd be safe as long as they had their wolves like Rob, but now,

just like her daughters, their wolves must be gone. She speaks of Sansa and Arya to Brienne then. Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she'll grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was. You can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, so thick and soft. The red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper. And Arya, well, Ned's visitors would oft mistake her for a stable boy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was was a trial it must be said half a boy half a wolf pup forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire she had ned's

long face and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it i despaired of ever making a lady of her she collected scabs as other girls collect dolls and would say anything that came into her head i think she must be dead too do you just want to stab me a little just a little yeah just take me out the good news the good news is all these people are alive i know i know that's that's that's what's so sad right because we as the readers we know that he's not dead and this kind of triggers the memory of i remember aria um saying that if she could just see her mother again that she would apologize and that she would try so hard to be a lady um if she could just you know if she were to ever come across her mom again and it's just you're reading all of these characters and all of their different

thoughts start to converge, right? Because now they're kind of realizing what's important and what's not important. When I read that from Catelyn, I thought about there must be a level of not only grief, but guilt, right? Because in the beginning, she was just like, oh, I want our daughter to marry a king so that she could have her sons would rule the seven kingdoms. Right. Her son had aspirations of being in the Kingsguard. Like all of the things. And I guess in I guess in that medieval time, those those are the kind of things that I guess mothers aspire for their kids. Right. Especially women of nobility. Having your daughter becoming a queen and having one of your sons serve in one of the highest honors of being a Kingsguard. Yes, you have a daughter that's more of a tomboy,

but you kind of figured that you can work on her. And you have a son and you have your oldest son, who's going to be the heir, who will more than likely take over from his father as the Lord Paramount. So you have all of these dreams and aspirations, and it takes one family coming over to visit to just like throw it all to ash. And you think about, okay, well, what role did I play in that too? And so it was just so sad. And I thought about Arya saying how she would tell her mother she was sorry. She would ask her mother's forgiveness and that she would be a lady and she would there's nothing to forgive aria baby girl come home it's gonna suck when she has to kill her mom oh shit yeah what

sorry did i say that well you know that that may be that may be eminent. And I think that would be like full circle. It would be hurtful. Hurtful is what it would be. Can't wait to read it in the winds of winter. Lady Merciless getting mercy from her own daughter. The gift of mercy. There you go. Yep, she'd be giving the gift of mercy.

Like I pointed out with Theon's next chapter, right? What does it start with? Mercy, mercy, mercy. Yeah. And I mean out with Theon's next chapter, right? What does it start with? Mercy, mercy, mercy. Yeah. And I mean, I think there's something there, right? You're talking about the guilt. Guilt. And that Catelyn probably feels of, I mean, she's their mother, right?

She probably feels, as you were saying, she feels maybe she had a hand pushing them in these directions and wonders if she didn't do her job of protecting them but as you read these it kind of like puts into perspective of like did it matter that much and i think she's seeing that perspective she's like oh i just miss my baby girl right well you remember when ned made the decision that he was going to go ahead and and listen to her and lewin mr lewin and said okay i'm gonna. The way that her reaction was, was she thought she was going to be able to go too. And then when he says, no, you're going to stay here because you're going to have to take, you know, you're going to have to guide Rob in taking over as the Lord of Winterfell. And I'm going to take both the girls and Bran at the time.

Her reaction was like, no, that's not how it was supposed to go. No, I was supposed to, I'm supposed to be with you. We're all supposed to go. No, Ned was like, threw so much cold water on that. Yeah. And she even tried to stop the ball

from rolling again, right? One more time when Ned was like, I'm still going to go after my son was injured. And she's like no everything's different now we should just stay here and i mean i'm yeah they should have just all stayed home everyone should stay home that's what i do and i'm great i'm doing fucking awesome from home no when he said that it was very ominous right when he said that you know this is where he belongs everybody who's his brother went south and died his father went south

and died it felt very ominous that if he were to leave he would never come back and you know luan is like yo that was a long time ago that was a different king you know those things like sounds fake um and i'm like listen you should have listened to your gut but there she was like yeah you need to go like and then she starts using the guilt trip thing don't you want to find out who killed john aaron don't you want to be there for your bro don't you want to be there for him do you want to leave him with those pit of vipers don't you just want to be there for him? Do you want to leave him with those pit of vipers? Don't you just want to be there for him? Like she's goading him and guilting him into taking this when he obviously didn't want to go.

And so now, now he's dead. And now your sons are dead, according in your mind. And your daughters are just like, you know, quote unquote, maybe prisoners. Or you assume that one is dead. And it's like, oh, maybe I should have just kept my big mouth shut yeah and i mean she regrets it right because again in the next chapter after bran's fall she's begging and like weeping and crying for night ned don't go anymore don't go things are different the moment that harm comes to the family right

because that's what she's so concerned about what harm towards the family she says don't go but then jamie as he points out later on in this chapter ned goes for robert ned's like jamie points out he's like ned was never unfaithful to robert was he he loved that man maybe more than he loved you i know and i i don't think jamie's wrong i think jamie's right unfortunately but after hearing about Catlin's family, you know, I think Brienne's also kind of like, what did I get myself into? She's like, I said the wrong thing. This is not how I thought this conversation was going to go until, you know, Cat just keeps going.

And I think Brienne realizes, oh, this isn't about me. All right. I see. I didn't say anything wrong. She's just sad because there's this line where I think it's interesting that Cat says of Sansa growing more beautiful. She says to Briennene she's like you can see that and i'm like no brianne can't brianne has literally never met her it's actually a big problem when we get to the fourth book when she's trying to find her it's in fact a big plot point that brianne cannot

see that about sansa but you know as you were saying earlier banero it's very bitterly ironic because everyone's kind of like they're alive right So Catelyn's grief is like this huge irony. But, you know, she's trying to just wring out their lives with their memory. And she feels like a fist is squeezing her chest. And she tells Brienne that she wants them all dead. Not her children, all the people who hurt her family, them. And by that that she means Theon, Jaime, Cersei, you know, every single one of them. Tyrion probably shouldn't be on that list at this time, but whatever. He's a Lannister by default, so yeah, he's gotta go. He's gotta go.

Yeah. And, you know, Brienne kind of tries to talk her down a little in her craziness. She's like, maybe Cersei will feel empathy you know like for her own children and take pity on you and catalan's like that's very sweet there's a sweet innocence about you bless your heart but cersei would never send sansa and aria back rob will have to avenge his brothers it's like a never-ending cycle right yeah and that's a very huge theme in this in this series the theme of vengeance like everybody's avenging someone or something it's all about i'm taking vengeance because of my pride i'm taking vengeance because of of you you killed my my son

i'm taking vengeance because you took my land. It's like vengeance upon vengeance. It's like this never-ending cycle. You hit me, I'll hit you back. You hit me, I'll hit you back. Nothing ever truly gets resolved. And while all of this is happening, White Walkers. Yeah. Yeah, it's very much like a Laurie asks,

she's like, when does it all end? And that was actually Catelyn at the beginning of all this. She's like, when does it all end? And now she catelyn at the beginning of all this she's like when does it all end and now she's like fuck that i want vengeance all right and it kind of echoes how her daughter is feeling right now right because sanza is also like my brother's gonna come and kill you all but only in her head she can't say it aloud because she's surrounded by you know people with power over her own life and i just feel bad for rob there's like a lot of pressure on him right obviously the pain that like catelyn feels is really heavy but like for rob there's a lot going on too that was like his bff who just betrayed him and like allegedly killed his younger brothers right he he's like how can i trust any of my expertise i just trusted the wrong people now he's got to lead everyone to

get vengeance for like the harm that's been caused to his family and also has to go save his sisters somehow and And his mother's also putting all of this on him, too. Everyone's putting things on Rob. And in regards to the empathy, Brienne being like, oh, maybe Cersei will feel bad for your daughters and free them. I'm like,

no, what Cersei's gonna do is kind of like what Catelyn's saying to you right now. Sleuthing. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. Yeah. The Blackwater edition. Yeah. Same difference. That was the term that we used to say in the aughts.

Same difference. That was what we used to say. Because it's, I get it, because it's an oxymoron. Yeah, that's, there is, like, those thoughts that Sansa has for Rob, like, it's an oxymoron. Yeah, that's there is like those thoughts that Sansa has for Rob. Like it's interesting the projecting of Rob saving them all.

You know, that's a lot to put on this 16 year old's shoulders. Yeah. He can't, he doesn't even have his driver's license yet. I have bad news for you. He doesn't get one before he dies. Yeah, but at least he got laid. He did get laid. That's true. That got laid so he did get laid that's that's true that

is that's important did i get my driver's license before i got anyways ice can kill as dead as fire ice was ned's great sword valyrian steel marked with the ripples of a thousand foldings so sharp i fear to touch it rob's blade is dull as a cudgel compared to ice it will not be easy for him to get theon's head off i fear the starks do not use headsmen ned always said that the man who passes the sentence should swing the blade though he never took any joy in the duty but i would oh yes i'm sure she would I think she would do a couple of like hacking

like oh sorry I missed oh oh I'm sorry I missed quick to make fun of Edmure and Rob but I definitely feel again that feels pretty significant for possible Arya X Stoneheart meeting there of the stark

swinging the sword giving the sentence swinging the stored uh of course and not taking joy in that duty with respect to um sansa and pierre or little finger or whatever you want to call it little finger sounds like a good thing sounds like such a naughty name to give somebody but whatever people die because of him that's naughty what was it miranda she goes have you played with his little finger something's like what what are you talking about yeah so you know if we if we're to like take into account the dream that the ghost of high heart has about the titan's head on a castle whatever i'm paraphrasing but she has a vision and so um can we talk about show spoilers? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I mean, the books are based on the show.

So anything that we say is a promise. Let's just say they're loosely based on the show. Loosely, loosely, very loosely. For context, you know, the scene where Peter is sentenced by Sansa and Arya is the one that actually swings the the blade I wonder if that's also going to be the same scenario that all of them will come together and pronounce Sansa who will be the de facto heir in Winterfell will be the one to pronounce the sentence and Arya will come in and and swing the sword to take his head off. Hell yeah. In front of Mommy Dearest.

I'm getting hornier by the moment. I'm going to be honest with you. You can't say these things to me, Minero. In front of Mommy Dearest right before she allows Mommy Dearest to take her final rest. I don't know if Catelyn doesn't know, I guess, that all this is because of Littlef final rest. I don't know if Catelyn should know, I guess,

that all this is because of Littlefinger yet. I do think, like, so my vision for what I see going down, because we've kind of talked about it a bit throughout Catelyn's POV, but I do think that Arya's going to come across her, and I do think that it'll be as Arya goes home, because we know Arya's got to

go to the Riverlands. She's got to get her dog. Well, or say goodbye to her dog. We don know we don't know yet could be worse could be sad could suck god that's worse than the death of cattle and shit oh my god it's just like how could you just say bye to your dog like that anyways that is actually terrible it's I'm just saying like we've all seen Marley and me we We've all seen all the dog movies. They're all- That's what happens to the Unsullied. Ugh. Yeah, that's true. It's hurtful. Man, it's awful.

Yeah, killing a dog, it's just awful, but hopefully Arya doesn't have to do that. But, I mean, I just think she's gonna have to come to the Riverlands to see her pet dog at least. So, and add Sheeran. Yeah, that's canon. Yeah, I can't wait for george to adapt i'm glad i'm glad that the show told us well that that was oh and gendry let's not forget gendry yeah don't forget that's true let's not forget gendry so cadeline opens her hands and closes them again

staring at the scars which is interesting because that's pretty parallel to another person who will think about his hand that he cannot open and close himself very soon. Well, not yet, but soon. Next book. She opens her hand, she closes them, and then she says that she sent him, the Kingslayer, wine. It served her well with Kleos.

She thinks, I hope you're thirsty, Jaime. I hope your throat is dry and tight. Interesting language there, Catelyn. Yeah, I know someone who's thirsty. It's been a hot second, you know? Game of Thrones was a long time ago. It was a long time ago.

They didn't even sleep together when Ned went to visit her in King's Landing. I know. And Littlefinger was being such a nice guy he was trying to let him yeah they didn't even have a quickie he's like hey you know i got a spare room here i'm sure i could rustle something together for you guys there's something very parallel in the sansa chapter with sandor where they just came back from the roof together and he they talked about the Starks and their husband, right? Sandor says to her, no, it gives me joy to kill people. Wrinkle up your face all you like, but spare me this false piety. You were a high lord's get. Don't tell me Lord

Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a man. Sansa, of course, says that was his duty. He never liked it. And Sandor does not agree. He's like's like yeah we fucking love killing dude it's like part of our flesh it's what we do we love murder man and saz is like i don't believe you uh that's kind of cadeline here is saying ned never took joy in it ever kind of corroborating i mean that's not like other boys is what i'm saying it's not the same I would love to do a whole thing about Ned. It's like second sons, man, they get bad raps and they always end up with the shorter and the stick. And it seems like they die.

So I think the only one that has escaped death so far is Jamie Lannister. And his is imminent. Most of the second sons have like bit the dust in this in this story and Ned is kind of has parallels to me to Kevin Lannister the only difference is he lost his brother a lot younger and so he's had to step into a role he really he's always had this lingering doubt about probably carried a little bit of guilt about having to be lord of winterfell by default i was never supposed to be here i was never supposed to marry this woman i'm not really supposed to have all these kids you know this was supposed to be my brother and i know and i'm sure a part of them felt like you

know caitlin must have felt like she settled for him. And I think also in Catlin's mind, she kind of makes mention that over time, she grew to love him, which denotes to me that she didn't really have any feelings for him one way or the other. It was really the brother that she had feelings for him. But, you know, out of duty, she married Ned. That's what the times called for. Over time, she learned to love him and be with him even though he had a bastard. Yeah.

I think she ended up happier with Ned. Well, except for the part where everyone dies. But if you ignore that part, I think she was happier with Ned than she was with Princess. If you ignore everything happening in this chapter and all of her grief, for that brief moment in time. everything happening in this chapter and all of her grief yes for that brief moment in time well and it goes right back to barriston right with his you know woman don't want mud they want they want fire when it's like actually yeah some woman could want mud maybe like you can grow love maybe love isn't just you fall in love and you chase a girl across a nation and then impregnate her and put her in a tower you know know, maybe that's not always love.

Oop. Yeah. Maybe sometimes love takes two people and constant communication and sacrifice and compromise and a lot of pain just for a lot of the good stuff. Yeah.

Maybe. Yeah. And we see it clearly. She very much loves Ned, right? Yeah. By all of the things happening in this chapter right and the other chapters of her story she asks brianne to come with her when the time is right at midnight she leaves the hall climbing to her father's solar and the people outside shout for house tully and it's brave

young lord and catelyn's like what the fuck inside she's like my father is not dead she wanted to shout down at them my sons are dead but my father lives damn you all and he is your lord still but she doesn't she holds it in just probably for the best hoster is deep in his sleep when she arrives and maester viman offers catelyn a sleeping draft to help her with her grief and she declines and says that her sons deserve better from her she tells him that he should just go join the celebration though and that she will sit with her father she holds his hand thinking that she can't keep him here and she has to let him go she tells him she prays but the gods don't answer and kisses his hand i loved this passage i wanted

to highlight this this this whole entire passage was just really sad i actually found myself very sad and thinking just like oh god poor cattle and now she has to let her father go uh and it's just like as we discussed the beginning when she had to let go of her daughters and that bran was the one that she couldn't let go she had let go of all of them in her heart but not bran and now her father you, you don't think you have to, you know, and now here she is and she realizes he's barely holding on and she can't just keep keeping him here to listen to her talk to the wind. There's this bit, the skin was warm, blue veins branching like rivers beneath his pale translucent skin. Outside the greater rivers flowed, the red fork and the tumble stone, and they would flow forever, but not so the rivers in her father's hand. Too soon that current would grow still. It was just haunting, you know, thinking of those veins. And it almost

reminds me a bit of Mr. Lannister as we get into him, that memory he has of Rhaegar when Rhaegar says, we'll talk about this when I return. And later on, when Kevin says, you know, it does not do to speak of roads untaken. And those veins to me just read like roads that were taken, right? Those blue veins in Hoster's hand remind me of the different paths that Catelyn, her siblings, Edmure and Lysa, and even the Starks and the Stark siblings have taken already that brought them to where they are and that they will come to take

even her, this very chapter, and of course Brandon, who we'll talk about later. It was just a really beautiful representation of the story. Made me think of just the storylines breaking off on his hand. Yeah. And I love how his body, right, is also it's the rivers, it's the land that he's

lived on and ruled and protected yeah it's sad i don't i mean fuck hoster but yeah but it is sad there's clearly a lot of grief here right because your grandchildren right her children aren't supposed to die before her dad people don't expect that you're they don't expect that their kids are going to die before them and I think that's part of the big tragedy of Catlin's story, and it's clearly something George is interested in exploring. He does more in Fire and Blood, but for now, Cat tells him

she dreamed of the time she had been lost riding back from Seagard with Liza when strange fog enveloped their party. They lost the road, and Liza started to cry and the fog swallowed all but peter had been there to find them showing that peter bailish is the hero of the whole story um and now no one is there to find her she has to find her own way chloe is shaking

her head like eliana what the fuck like that's what you took from that motherfucking passage you read you read that paragraph and that's the metaphor that you fucking absorbed what the fuck's wrong with you little fingers azora hi that's what it's like oh my god this is the second time i'm quitting the podcast today but here we are maybe the third if you count you know in my head all the time no i'm just kidding um no truly i read this and i was like oh that's a metaphor huh catalan do you see it do you get it do you understand why you had that subconscious subliminal dream coming to you no she doesn't uh because she's clouded once more by her grief

she can't take the time to put it all together of what could the little finger stuff mean in this this event moment in my life even at the end right jamie believes the rumor catelyn fucked little finger and he mentions it and it's interesting because she's so buried in her grief and through the other trauma that he's just throwing at her that she doesn't even like think about it she's like oh he's just a hateful asshole and it's like girl your answer is right there your answer is right there. Your answer's in front of you. There's your answer. Littlefinger is a piece of fuck. That's your answer. Absolutely.

And I think, so what's interesting is, like, he's saying it because he's trying to get a rise out of her. Because that's, like, Jamie, he's a fucking troll. It's a Lannister thing. That's, like, what the Lannister brothers love to do. They like to poke and troll. But, and to be fair to Littlefinger, right, like, I do think he does believe that he slept with Catelyn, right? Yep. You know, like, but he was the first time, right? He lost his virginity by being sexually assaulted by Liza, taking advantage of Peter's lack of sobriety, right? I think Catelyn doesn't catch it also because the first time it said Peter's name

isn't brought up, she doesn't know this rumor. She has like no idea what the hell anyone is talking about. And this is just a rumor that's been going around King's Landing. And so I think it's so interesting that Jaime tries to say it each time to try and hurt Catelyn with it. And it doesn't, because he's also like digging at her honor, right? Because that's something that's important to her. It's important to the Tullys. It's important to the Starks. And he thinks that he's trying to point out that none of us are that different right you also are dishonorable you're not a maiden just like me and my infidelities are seriously as infidelities um he's trying to say that the starks are just hypocrites but it all rolls off catelyn because she's like i have no idea what this man is saying he's just crazy drunk. Because why would she?

She'd be like, what the fuck is this? She's never heard it. Anyway, so speaking of house words, not just Atoli's, we have this one, which, of course, I've cited this passage before in previous episodes, but it's still good, so we're going to do it again. I keep remembering the stark words. Winter has come, father. For me. For me. Rob must fight the Greyjoys now as well as the Lannisters.

And for what? For a gold hat and an iron chair? Surely the land has bled enough. I want my girls back. I want Rob to lay down his sword and pick some homely daughter of Walder Frey to make him happy and give him sons. I want Bran and Rickon back. I want... Catelyn hung her head. I want... She said once more. And then her words were gone.

Earhorns, but also, damn, she really threw in that dig about Walder Frey's daughters during her sad time speech. I was like, damn. Catelyn, rude. caitlin rude never misses she never misses and i mean it's just so perfect because you have in the face of her children's death she wants all of that back and all of her home back but in the face of cersei's children's death when she cries i want as jam Jaime is thrusting within her and she yells I want I want it's power that she wants yeah power power over their own lives yep and to protect I mean their interests Catelyn it's her family yeah that's kind of like a running theme with a

lot of the women yeah in this story right because they live in a patriarchal society and so we can look at her her opposite which is Cersei Lannister who also wants power because you know she's been used as a as a pawn to advance House Lannister now she did enjoy you know a lot of the perks that came with it because she became the queen. But she also suffered physically under Robert. And every time she gains a little bit of what you would call power, somebody slides in to kind of take it away from her. her cunning in order to be able to do a power grab in order for her to be able to make to have power so that she can dictate her own destiny and not be at the will of her father's whims anymore or any other man's whim where she would be the one to decide her own fate and i think that's

the same with a lot of these women like you know they live in they live in a society where all the men are the ones making the decision and caitlin's no different right because she wants this all to be over but unfortunately she's she's actually at the mercy of her son's because he has just been made king and there's all these other men that are around her. She's the only woman in his council. And her voice is like drowned out by the means and wants of all of these other men. So she's trying to carve out and get her own power. And she figures to use Jamie in order to do that. Yeah. And I think that's so great that you brought up Circe as a comparison, because that's what Circe has been doing a lot of this time, right?

And she tries to do in Circe when Jaime returns, using Jaime as a means to fulfill her desires, and not just the sexual ones, even though that is part of the temptation in this chapter. But just being able to do anything, just being able to manifest anything, being able to manifest anything speaking of manifesting the secret the secret the secret is we freed jamie lannister the candle goes off after a time and then they're only lit by moonlight in the solar

she listens to his breathing mixed with the sounds of Ryman singing the seasons of love below in the yard. Catelyn doesn't notice when the singing ends, but Brienne is at the door before long and midnight has come. Midnight has come, father, she thought, and I must do my duty. She let go of his hand. And interestingly, the line that we get from Seasons of Love sounds a lot like Catelyn, because she's got red hair, like Autumn, but Catelyn's like, I'm not in Autumn anymore, I'm in the winter of my life. Girl, you're 32. But obviously she feels that way because of, again, her grief, right? Talking about that isolation. And what she does with it

is she just lashes out. She just takes it out on everyone, including like a guard later. And, you know, internally, she's lashing out. She's like, my dad's still alive. He's slipping away. And she has no one to depend upon here, right? You're talking about her being the lone woman on the council. She's just like alone here in general, right? She has no women companions other than Brienne. And she's like, I don't, I hardly know this girl. I got her, I brought her with me after we witnessed a supernatural murder, but I don't really know her.

No. It's been like a minute. Yeah. She is truly alone. Truly alone. The jailer is bent over a tankard and pigeon pie, drunk as hell, squinting at them, and C catalan kind of puts kind of uses her power here a little not great she she performed some scary lady of the house

threatening shit he's like basically he says to her i need a permission slip from the lord of the house edmure toli and she's like oh do you want to go talk to the lord of the house hoster toli and explain why you're defying his daughter? His eldest daughter? So she sends him back to his booze, his ale, and Brienne keeps guard outside the cell. Catelyn opens a very heavy wooden iron door to step into the dark cell with nothing but the sound of the tumble stone. A pail of shit is overflowing in a corner and a shape is huddled in the other. A flagon of wine, untouched, in front of this shape. It's Jaime Lannister. Hooray, he's back.

He greets Lady Stark, his wrists clanking in chains. Yes. Jaime Lannister had been allowed no razors since the night he was taken in the Whispering Wood, and a shaggy beard covered his face, once so like the Queen's. and a shaggy beard covered his face, once so like the queen's. Glinting gold in the lamplight, the whiskers made him look like some great yellow beast, magnificent even in chains. His unwashed hair fell to his shoulders in ropes and tangles. The clothes were rotting on his body. His face was pale and wasted, and even so, the power and the beauty of the men were still apparent, jaws

wet. They are! We are out of the depression, and we are now into the thirst hour, everyone. Yes. Lay down your tarts. We're out of the depression, into the sex dungeon. Oh, yeah. It also reminds me of the same thing that Brienne says, like down her tarts. Into the sex dungeon. Yeah.

It also reminds me of the same thing that Brienne says, like, when they're in the bathhouse, when he steps in, he's all grimy and nasty, and she still says that he looked like half a god.

How hot is this man? Everyone's just like is he's so gross covered in shit but fuckable i still do them and i want to know what are they feeding him that he's shitting so much like what is happening it's a good question you think he'd just have like diarrhea the whole time in my opinion i'm just saying like he's probably got some runny shit in there. Ew. Ugh. I'm guessing it's just, like, soft, because you got nothing real being fed to him, right?

It's just all fiber. They only give him fiber. Probiotics. Right. They give him yogurt. Catelyn and Jamie start to banter back and forth and his chains are bolted to the wall

so paint that picture Jamie jokes that some cells under Casterly Rock would make this cell seem like a sunlit garden and perhaps someday he'd show her them because my favorite part is that they're back and forth and they're just threatening each other lightly so that's what makes it sexier

or whatever that's what makes it sexier or whatever that's flirting right yeah that is foreplay this is foreplay he's like now that I've visited your sex dungeon come visit ours so the exchange comes out of of course

this part is preceded by Jamie complaining about the quality of his cell. And Catelyn's like, yeah, well, you had a sick-ass cell, right? It was really plush until you tried to escape in great. And Jamie pointedly, and rightly so, points out, well, a cell is still a cell, right? It's still imprisonment and i i think that's really interesting that he said that because right now catlin's daughter is also in a gilded cage held by jamie's family and yet this man might be her only hope to free her daughter from it yeah but you know i have to i have to say that catlin did have a point like you did have a plush cell but maybe if you'd have just wrote it out you

still could have been living a little bit nicer instead of you know literally rolling around in your own shit so there's that i would take that chance if i were jamie i mean like and his brother it was his brother's idea what are you gonna do be like nah little bro i'm not gonna run away take stupid chances win stupid prizes i would have only tried if i knew i had a hundred percent chance of succeeding that would have been the only reason why i would have tried if there would have been no way for me to succeed i'm just gonna take a chance but then again it is jamie lannister so yeah that's true he's very much fuck around and find out yeah i mean and he knew they wouldn't kill him like they because he knows that as we're about to read like he's like you

don't have real power like obviously your son can't kill me you need me you need me you need me yeah oh she needs him all right and that's probably why right he can put on this face of bravado because if he was feeling cowed he hid it well and Catlin warns him to keep a more courteous tongue in his mouth. He returns the herb asking if surely she was coming to take a widow's pleasure from him.

It tells her to step out of her gown and pour the wine and he's like, I'll see if I'm up to it. I'm like, Jamie, you've never fucked a woman that's not your sister. He's gonna have a panic attack. Jamie's all like, I'm gonna throw my dick everywhere. And I'm like, no, you're not. You're gonna cry into your pillow.

Come on, Jamie. You couldn't even fuck that nice girl over at Heron Hall who wanted it, you know? Catlin must have saw that he was just playing games. Like, yeah, dude, you're just talking. She called this bluff. I know you can't get it up well she warns him that her son will kill him for that one wondering if there was ever a man as beautiful or vile as him okay cat tune it down he says they both know rob wouldn't face

him in single combat and she adds yeah but you weren't exactly trying to play single combat when, you know, we were out on the battlefield. Besides, he is sadly mistaken if he takes Rob for a fool, she says. He says, did the old kings of winter hide behind their mother's skirts as well? Catelyn says he should speak now to save his own life but jamie doesn't fear death and catalan's like well you should your crimes have now earned you a place of torment in the deepest of the seven hells what gods are those lady catalan the trees your husband prayed to how well did they serve him when my sister took his head off jamie gave a chuckle.

If there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice? Because of men like you. There are no men like me. Only me. There is nothing here but arrogance and pride, and the empty courage of a madman. I'm wasting my breath with this one. If there ever was a spark of honor in him, it is long dead. She always mentions how beautiful he is. Yeah, she wants that cock.

I mean, I think it's very clear here. It must be those curls that's like... The golden curls. I think it is the curls. They must be actually very long and curly by now. I wonder if he's got a curly beard. I'm not into it. I just don't.

I've seen some crazy art of this. I've seen some crazy art that literally has him looking like an 80-year-old man in this scene that someone made that I was like, what? That's not... That's not weird. He's supposed to be sexy. He's supposed to be golden and filthy. Yeah, he's supposed to be dirty.

Oh, dirty, dirty boy. That reminded me of Futurama. Actually, yeah, like in Futurama. There's a lot of Futurama things that can come up, I guess, in Catelyn's episodes. I think we brought up Snoo Snoo recently. Snoo Snoo. You know, part of

what I love about this exchange and that is so on the nose, it's very grating of Jamie's retorts to Catelyn here about the injustice of the gods is that it really pairs nicely with earlier in the chapter, right? Because he's questioning, well, do the gods even exist if like, there's all this pain and injustice and it echoes Catelyn telling Brienne, she's like, what gods? How can you say that my sons are with the gods but gods would let this happen to them and she's like here she's kind of taking like the side of like there are gods but before you know she's she's all over the place uh religiously today for understandable reasons it also echoes back to stonis right because he also mentions when he's having a conversation with davos about you know what gods would allow, you know, for his parents to be killed in front of him like that. You know what I mean? And that was that moment that he abandoned the gods. And so you have a lot of people now that question their faith when all of these terrible things happen. But it's supposed to be the time when your faith is supposed to be

strengthened, right? Because your faith is now being tested. And now they question whether or not the gods actually do even exist if they allow for bad things to happen, as if the gods are supposed to control what the humans do, right? The gods don't control what human people do. They are just a representation of higher beings, but they don't meddle in the affairs of humans.

Unless you're Zeus, so, and there's that. That's because Zeus is a petty bitch. God, he's so petty. He's like, oh no, the titans are acting up again. Gotta plot my dick out, make sure everyone can see it. Jesus Christ, that guy has some issues yeah but yeah that's a that's a great comparison to to stannis right and what you were saying about the crisis of faith because i think that that's such a big part and especially as the story moves

forward in what we're gonna see with like erin damp hair right and probably with melisandre one day so you know i think that's a great call out of what causes people to lose faith well catelyn turns to leave dismissing jamie being like i know i won't get any answers from you and he surprises her after telling her the awful things her turnkey has been saying to him he semi-apologizes for his crudeness and then he promises her answers for a price and that price is that they must answer each other's questions truthfully oh that's a bit of truth or dare it is that kind of high school party it is literally never have i ever basically yeah because we never get to the dares you know yeah they're just truths i dare you to rescue my daughters's way that's a dare that is

actually a dare haha i might unless uh he asks for the wine finally he's like fuck it we're doing it live uh and he declares the wine sour and vile but he drinks it anyway and he's like i'm feeling charitable you have the first question take the floor lady stark and she does not bury the lead she goes are you joffrey's father and after some pushing he's like yeah i suppose all of cersei's children are mine and that language is so fantastic because he's never been allowed to think of them as his children like that right like so he's never even contemplate it he's never even been allowed to be their father and this is the first time anyone's ever said hey are you their dad and he can be honest right like he the whole thing is about honesty and he's never even had

to think this he's like yeah yeah i suppose i'm i'm all their dads hmm but he had a lot of i guess over time he had a lot of detachment from them as being his kids right because i think it's in cersei's chapters we find out that she literally like put when he tried to bond with joffrey he she literally pushed him and were like what the fuck are you doing he's not supposed to be your son get out and so he has this practice detachment of all of his children that he's had with his sister in that yeah they're my kids but you know not really i just wanted to you know bang my sister and these kids happen to be like a byproduct of that but yeah if you want to get technical yes technically they're my kids and i think that's just that's really pointed that he feels no connection to them right in a chapter where caitlyn is so it's so focused on caitlyn's own connections right to her children and it's something that comes up in Jaime's chapters later on. He's like, weird, I don't really feel like I want to avenge anyone

over the death of, I guess, my son. Whereas Catelyn's like, yo, my sons are dead, and I'm about to burn down everything. Pretty much. And the only time that he gets fatherly is with Tommen, finally. Like, if you want to call it fatherly but he tells him just go away inside this is the worst like i mean there are definitely dads that give that advice but it's that's what i did i turned out great

i'm a dad of the year for that one. I'm a dad of the year for that one. Well, then Catelyn skips his turn, right, in this, uh, 20 questions game. And says, so you admit to being your sister's lover? And he's like, I've always loved my sister. And he's like, also you owe me

two answers now, right? I've been counting. And he asks if all of his kin are still alive. And she tells him Stafford was slain at Oxcross. he's like i don't give a fuck about stafford okay he's like are my siblings or my father alive she's like all three live um though inside catelyn's like but not long if the gods are good i'm like catelyn what is this conversation been about it's about how the gods are not good okay pay attention catch up pick one girl well i guess you know tywin does die soon so the gods are maybe 50 50 he lets her ask her next question then how did bran fall and he responds i flung him from a window that wraps that one up yeah she wants to gut him right she's oh i ought to murder this motherfucker

but she thinks of her girls and then she accuses him of breaking his vows of defending the weak and innocent but he's like listen your son's a goddamn pervert there's nothing innocent about that boy he was definitely weak but he was up in that window he was gazing at me and cersei spying on us you should blame your gods for doing this to him and she's like lmao you literally just said you threw him out of a window like you literally did that jamie and you just admitted to it so why would i blame the gods when you literally and then jamie responds i seldom fling children from towers to improve their health yes i meant for him to die how could he call him a pervert when you're

literally banging your sister like how much more perverse is that that's a great point like it couldn't wait like i don't know they did wait they sent robert on a whole hunt you know it was a whole elaborate thing that's one second. You're like, you are on somebody else's, you're in somebody else's house. Like, you couldn't keep it in your pants until- I guess that's part of the fun. He's like, oh, they've got like an abandoned tower. Let's go explore.

My tower's feeling abandoned Cersei oh my god I bet he used that line on her too probably and then she probably looked at him like he was beautiful and golden and vile oh wait that's Catelyn yeah well no Cersei's like just like me and then she's like now I'm wet

literally the episode of Broad City when Alanna gets the girl for the next time. Oh my god, it is. I'm telling you, it's the same thing. That's actually, you're right. Yeah. You're right. So Catelyn asks in a very roundabout way if Jaime had sent the cat's paw. And Jaime's like, I mean, I talked about it, but I never actually pulled the trigger on it.

And he says Catelyn and the maester and Eddard were always around and the wolves too and he's like I mean I thought the kid was just gonna die on his own to be honest Catelyn presents her hands scarred and she's like if you lie to me our session is at an end which makes it that much more like Fifty Shades of Catelyn

she asks him to swear he had no part in sending the assassin and he swears on his honor as a lannister but that doesn't really mean much these days so she kicks his shit bucket over that was kind of rude that was so unnecessary and now like now he's gotta like live with all of his shit i mean i guess it was already there but anyways it gets close to him and the interactions here kind of make me think of uh as sort of a Sander, Clegane-like character, right? In terms of, you know, Catelyn already knows that the world is painful because she's going through it right now.

But she's also starting to just realize that it's deeply unfair, right? Especially as she has last chapter thought about how she's been doing her duty this whole time. And so she believes Jamie when he says most of the stuff because he isn't trying to dress any of it up, right? He's reflecting back to her everything that she's realizing now about how duty and honor have failed her family. Jaime is somebody who lives, like, in the real world, except when it comes to Cersei, right?

Because, you know, Cersei can do no wrong because, you know. Everything else, he's a realist about. In the same way that sandor is is real that you mentioned sandor like they both are realists about the world that they live in you know what i mean because when we think about when sandor talks to sansa about you know how he got his burn and how he you know he wanted to be a knight he was playing with a toy knight and he was probably no different than bran at that age thinking that he was going to be a knight. He was playing with a toy knight, and he was probably no different than Bran at that age, thinking that he was going to be a knight too.

But then he learns a very brutal lesson about what it truly means to be a knight. And that scar is a reminder of that. That whole thing is bullshit. And then same thing with Jaime, right? He's one of the youngest people to ever get knighted. And then he finds out that he's nothing more than a tool that eris is using against his father and then he gets to see what it truly means to be a knight you know yeah where he has to witness all of these brutalities i guess we're

going to get into the whole spiel that he has about what it means to be a knight and honor and all that other gibberish. But it speaks to the realism that he lives in and not the fantasy that, you know, she would tell Sansa about, which Sansa now is coming to learn that, you know, it's not real. No, it's not. You know, knights are shitty people. it's not you know knights are shitty people they're they're not they're not there's nothing romantic about them very few actually live up to their nightly vows and their vows often conflict with each other because again because people in general sometimes in that time you know are shit well and that is kind of the sad part right that like sansa's learning this but also catalyn is learning this about the system at the same time

as her 12 year old daughter that to me sticks out like crazy that like this is selling catalyn's finally being forced to confront in these chapters in a clash of kings she's being forced to finally confront that the system has always been broken even for when she was a kid in it she's starting to let herself actually feel kinda mad about what she's been through

yeah anger it's leaking through what's also leaking is Jamie's shit from the bucket that Catlin kicked over and he's trying to back us far away from it as he can. I like the part where he scoots back. I feel bad

for him. I'm like, this isn't a big room. You shouldn't have shit that much. Maybe you should have tried to escape. It's like fucking Rob Lowe as a Chris Traeger in Parks and Rec when he's looking at himself in the mirror and he's like fucking roblo as a chris chris trager in parks and rec when he's like looking at himself in the mirror and he's like stop pooping oh my god that's what i'm saying to jamie

stop pooping jamie well he agrees with catelyn you know despite all this he's like yeah i do have shit for honor um but he points out he he's like, if I wanted that kid dead, I would have come and done it myself. And she's like, all right, point. Ketlin then accuses Circe of sending the cat's paw, and he says, no, Circe keeps no secrets from me. Must have forgot about Moonboy. Okay, I think they didn't define, I stand by this,

they didn't define the relationship and Cersei thought they had an open relationship for obvious reasons. Cersei thinks that about every relationship she's in, though. This is an open relationship, right? Like, you can't bang anybody, but

I'm the queen and so I have to render services. Pretty much. Yeah. She actually accuses Tyrion after this, right? She's like, all right, fine, we'll explain this. And she's like, Tyrion's dagger in the tower with Colonel Mustard. She does break it down, and she's like, no, Tyrion, the assassin had his dagger and jamie's like no i remember that

dagger and this is this is the true story instead she says it was wagered on him when he tilted against loris but then she starts to think and she's like wait a second did i get this backwards which is a big mood because suddenly it does seem foggy. Did I get this backwards? And Jaime's like, no, Tyrion always backs me in the lists, but Ser Loras unhorsed me that day. Whatever Tyrion had in the lists, he lost. The dagger did change hands again later that night, he says, which this is becoming an Agatha Christie novel, and I actually really respect that.

And I do have to say it's really funny because Jaime thinks Cersei took Ned's head off later on in the chapter. He's like, well, when Cersei took Ned's head off and Catelyn's like, when you sent the cat spa. And I'm like, no, you guys, it's Joffrey. You're missing the fact that Joffrey did both of these things. Like that is literally the variable none of these people are understanding is that some pawns have minds of their own. Even Kang pawns. Yes.

Yes. With subliminal messages yeah from a puppet master somewhere that varus is just so so keenly to be like i'm not saying anything yeah right i'm just like why did you not help you could have helped he had his own plans that all went awry because he did not help maybe if he had helped his plans would have gone through anyway hell both of his parents were talking about this both jamie and robert were like what if we killed bran i mean they did kind of send the cat's paw both of them all of them yeah yeah and joffrey was around to hear the conversation

oh i mean joffrey's reasons were stupid, but I respect Jamie and Cersei's reasons. They're not, like, great reasons, but I understand wanting to keep the secret secret. Joffrey's was just like, this will impress my dad, right? If I send an assassin to kill his best friend's son. This is what dad wants, right? Oh, daddy issues.

What a way to interpret all that. Anyways, so,ie's so salty about it right because robert would salt jamie's wounds brandishing it drunkenly at the feast that night and katelyn's putting it all together she's like this is interesting because tyrian and jamie have both told me the same story but there's no way they could have like corroborated with one another because they haven't seen each other for more than a year so she's like maybe this holds water and she's like hmm but peter who's like a brother to me who loved her more than a brother should have um interesting and then catelyn compartmentalizes that and she's like i don't understand why would peter just lie to me are we a family of liars now he couldn't lie to me because you know he loved me once like he was totally in love with me i don't know because she really just didn't get it that he

was like she just was like that's just my father's word we're bffs yeah i think this is the part where this is the time where i feel like like she's losing her spidey senses right her spidey senses are no longer on point the way they used to be yeah when she first met up with rob she was giving him a lot of sound advice when she went to be an envoy she was really like on top of her political savviness and then once ned died then she hears the boys are dead like all of that is just out the window it really brings home when she starts to say that she talks about it she's she's like a shell of who she is she's no longer herself anymore like she's lost her true sense of purpose like she's's lost her compass. And so she's just grasping at straws at this point because she's just trying to hold on to what she's had so she doesn't lose anything else.

Yeah. And as you said, she's not at the top of her game right now. And there have been so many hints and she's almost put it together before. She's like, I don't know, I guess Trian was kind of okay when we were on that trip together. I guess Tyrion was kind of okay when we were on that trip together, but now because she has lost her sons along with her husband and has experienced so much grief, she wants anywhere to put that grief, anywhere to direct that anger, right? It doesn't matter if it's logical or not, she needs reasons and she needs to be able to let that anger out in some way. And she's obviously taking it out on Jaime a little here by kicking over his shit bucket. But that's why she can't figure out, like, why would Peter do this to me? Because she can't let go of the idea of, I think, that little boy, right, who loved her,

especially in a time now when she's losing the ones she loved. It's hard to let go of someone who has loved you and that you trusted during this time. It's easier to blame it on the people who have always been against you. When she's going to King's Landing with Roderick, you know, in her internal thoughts, you know, she thinks about how sly Peter is, right? And when she meets up with him, she said that she didn't know if she was meeting a friend or a foe. So she knows that Peter has the ability to be sly and conniving and i don't know if it was that she just so wanted to believe that the way that things left off between the both of

them that they could just like you know water under the bridge and we could just start anew i have found a long lost brother and and he's like she's totally brother zoning me again after you know i suffered a grave wound trying to get her hand and so it's like she knows that he's not really on the up and up but i don't know if it's just that she just wants so badly to believe that he wouldn't do anything that egregious against her like it couldn't be that he would he wouldn't do anything that egregious against her. Like it couldn't be that he would, he wouldn't betray her trust and betray her that badly. Like there's no way it's Peter. Like we grew up together,

you know, I kissed him on the lips a couple of times. Like she even told a story to her dad about how they, how he came and rescued them. Like Peter wouldn't do that. Like he was so helpful when i came to king's landing right like why would he do that why would he lie to me he wouldn't lie to me and i think again this is where i say that she lost you know she's not on top of her game

yeah she used to be yeah the hints are there and she's ignoring them because she's buried in her grief and also because she i mean it's the same thing that kills her right walder fray wouldn't betray my my trust walder phrase know me since i was a girl he would never do something so awful yeah and guest rights right we're all honoring guest rights and again in that chapter all the hints are there when you're reading her chapter like all the signs all of the signs that her spidey senses are tingling but But she keeps saying, no, that can't be it. It's just me being, it's just my grief that's talking. It's just my grief.

No, your spidey senses are tingling because it's about to go down. You see all the, all the Fulani and the buffoonery and the ball, the ball gradachery that's going on. Yeah. Like now is the time she should have been questioning herself you know like at that point it was like catalan your guts were all right it's like also she's so imbued with self-doubt and with like dissociating from the idea of even just like existing right as she loses child after child and thing after thing and as things get taken away from her by the end of storm of swords how could she be confident in herself and trust herself she's broken herself

down she's not the woman she was yeah she's alone she's alone and she doesn't have anybody to kind of like who's guiding her like she says that she doesn't have anybody to rescue her you know what i mean nobody's there to kind of rescue her from her grief. Absolutely. And, I mean, there isn't anyone for her to turn to, right? The only person that she's been able to really talk about this to any extent, honestly, for some strange reason, it's Jaime Lannister. But actually, though, right?

And now it's Jaime's turn in this game. And he's like, all right, my turn. Have Robert's brothers taken to the field? And she's like, they have. And he's like, alright, my turn. Have Robert's brothers taken to the field? And she's like, they have. And he's like, okay, that was a shit answer. That is unfair. I've been very good during this game, and tell me more. So she tells him, reluctantly, that

Stannis has marched on King's Landing, and Renly was murdered by him in Bitterbridge through Black Arts. And interestingly, Jamie's not like, what the fuck does that mean? Because Catelyn's got a whole story about that, right and jamie says that's a bummer i actually kind of liked renly but stannis on the other hand not so much he asked okay so what side of the tyrell's taken and she's like well they took renly's side at first but now i don't know and then jamie interestingly comments that her Rob, must be feeling awfully lonely right now.

And I'm like, oh, interesting. Interesting foreshadowing. That is actually, in fact, how Rob does feel right now. He does indeed feel lonely, especially after he learns about his brother's fates. But not really their fates, because again, they are still alive. Because again, they are still alive. Not only that, he screwed up the whole Frey alliance by marrying Jane Westling by doing the honorable thing. It's like, oh, Rob.

But it was a setup. We all know it was a setup. But keeping your oath is also an honorable thing, right? Well, you know. To someone who gave you a bunch of armies just saying yeah yeah yeah yes well his mother did say you know listen you could have just kept her as a mistress man you could just set her up giving her a nice setup and then you know kept he's like but mom that wouldn't have been the honorable it's like dude this is where i would have imagined her like smacking him across the head like do you realize what you've done this is walter fray

yeah that kind of information is stuff that she should have purveyed to him before he was of fucking and marrying age you know like these are things that you teach your child that maybe having a bastard could be okay oh wait and there you have it my friends i digress that's the problem because like he can't talk to her about it how could he she taught him without words that that's what he should do that he should marry someone that he has sex with right or unless they have a bastard because look at the way that she treated the bastard in their family for his whole life and rob's like well i don't want any kind of mind to go through that so yeah i mean the shame the shame he feels isn't because of society on bastards it's because of catalan's yes view on bastards you know it's a personal it's a personal problem it's a mommy issue he's

got going on and i think he's very he was very sensitive to the way that his mother treated john right because you know him and john were like besties and stuff and it's kind of hard trying to navigate this relationship that you have with your brother knowing that your mom like treats him like like shit but there's nothing that you can really do about it and in in a lot of other respects your father didn't really do much about it either like he kind of turned a blind eye to it and didn't really like you know you correct her in one respect but you don't correct her in another respect other than to say listen he's my blood you know what i mean and he's gonna be here i'm

gonna raise him and that's just the way that it is and you don't need to ask me any questions and you don't need to go around questioning anything anybody else around him but you know she treats him like crap and then you do nothing except go to the weirwoods and like pray that hey can you just soften her art so that she'll treat him better? Like, come on, Ned. Why don't you communicate with your wife? Yeah. I mean, and the way that Ned dealt with his grief, right, is by very much withdrawing and holding everything in. Granted, he got to fight a war and try and get vengeance for his family, so he did get that aspect.

Whereas Catelyn here doesn't get to so actively get vengeance for her family she has had to hold in her anger all these years about that sort of disrespect from ned and now she has to do it regarding the disrespect and the deaths happening to her family and unlike ned you know just like compartmentalizing and pushing everything down. She's lashing out, right? She's trying to take what actions she can. And she reminds Jamie that, you know what? Rob turned 16 like three days ago and he's a man grown and a king. So shut the fuck up.

He's won every battle that he's fought and has just taken the crag from the Westerlings. And Jamie's like, okay, well, has he faced Tywin yet? He hasn't. But Catelyn says that he'll defeat him anyway, just like he defeated you. Ha. It's kind of crazy because you can feel Jaime's bitterness and that, like, Rob is living the life that, like, Jaime wishes he was living. Like, he's watching this 15, 16-year-old motherfucker

out there on the field tearing it up, this prodigy winning every battle, and he's bitter here he's literally wasted away in the king's guard he craves nothing but a mother and father saying they're proud of him right like catelyn is out here like how dare you say that about my son my son would never let this happen my son this my son that she's like my baby boy is gonna beat the fuck out of your dad fuck you that's i almost feel really sad there for jamie because this is like this is the life he could never have he could

never have joanna you know defending him saying my son is a star athlete and he's gonna go fuck it up out there that's he doesn't have anyone saying that about him not even his father really for his father it's mechanical it's like how earlier brienne's eating is mechanical for his father it's what jamie's expected to do is uh well you're expected to do this yes exactly yeah and literally no one's on his side or cheering for him because kingslayer we're gonna get to that in a bit i mean you know he's he's tainted he lashes out right because as you said he's bitter and jealous and says that well rob used a craven's trick and caitlyn counters that okay well tyrian sent cutthroats under a peace banner and i'm like real bold of jamie to say that you know rob couldn't

beat tywin and uses a craven's trick when i'm like literally literally the whole red wedding is the biggest the biggest craven's trick yes exactly and then tywin later admits that this was the cheapest way that he could get rid of a great foe he realized that rob was a really true threat and the only way he was gonna be able to get rid of him was using a cheap trick and he did it in such a way where his hands were quote-unquote clean so it's actually one of rob's supposed bannermen that actually kills him and so you know what i mean yes allegedly yeah and so and he really didn't really have anything to do with it and of course waldo fray does this because he thinks that he has the protection of Tywin Lannister. He's going to come to find out that, you know, that protection wasn't really worth shit because Tywin is now dead.

Exciting. Jaime asks her if it were one of her sons in the cell, wouldn't his brothers do the same? The Catalan thinks her son has no brothers. She refuses to share her pain with him, and he asks, what's a brother's life when honor's at stake, eh? This felt so significant for a couple reasons, because of course the first thing I think of

is what is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms, or the memory of a brother's smile all these things that these two aren't you know gonna be very heard about by the end of the series uh and it also you know it's interesting because it just brings you back to john snow you know the end of a dance with dragons when he he sees his siblings in his head even the ones that some people may say he isn't

close with necessarily he sees each of his siblings doing something they love in winterfell in his mind's eye and he stops and he goes i think we best change the plan yeah and puts that all into motion and like that's what's a brother's life when honor's at stake for jamie it's his love of tyrian you know i mean springing him getting him out of the city later after he kills their father, the man that's, you know, helped them pretty much prisoner with emotional abuse all their life. Whether they want to admit it or not, for Jaime, you know, he might not realize or admit that, but it's true. And sexual abuse for Tyrion. Yeah, absolutely. It's just rough to think about that.

What is a brother's life when honors it's and apparently the answer is more way more way more royce oh wow thanks be here all day that's deep there's something there uh jamie says that tyrian is clever enough to realize rob would never consent to ransoming him and she responds rob's bannerman specifically lord karstark would sooner see jamie dead after killing two of his own sons jamie shrugs saying well i was just trying to get to rob honestly they got in the way he says they were killed in fair fight heat of battle that is kind of the goal during battle and any knight would have done the same and he's not wrong no i mean it's true

because rob later says the same thing to karstark like listen your sons died defending me on the battlefield with swords in their hands they died honorable i don't know about death being honorable i guess but they died honorably you know what i mean they like he allowed his grief to kind of invalidate their death like they were killed under some sort of treachery when they were it was a battle that's what happens people die when you're in a battle there's the casualties happen it just so happened that both your sons were part of that casualty um you know when they were on the front line and his grief was just so great that he needed to have some sort of and here we go with the vengeance thing again right he wanted vengeance for the death of his sons it was all well and good when

it was about getting revenge for ned and now now I want to get revenge. You know. I have the ability to avenge my sons right here. You know what I mean. I want to be able to do that. Yeah. Absolutely. And it makes sense that it happens in Catelyn's chapter. It's a great mirror to who she becomes.

Who she's becoming. Right. As she expresses those desires too. Well let me get to. You know one of the most iconic moments in this chapter how can you still count yourself a knight when you have forsaken every vow you ever swore jamie reached for the flag and to refill his cup so many vows they make you swear and swear defend the king obey the king keep his secrets do his bidding your life for his but obey your father love your sister protect the innocent defend the weak respect the gods obey the laws it's too much no matter what you do you're forsaking one vow for

the other it's such a good passage and that's why it's quoted very often. And I think for other obvious reasons, it's a perfect way to really introduce Jamie as his own full-fledged character, especially as it then like dives into his own chapters that open book three. And we've already discussed that in the Jamie chapters. But part of the strength of this passage is that Jamie's monologue is delivered, again, through Catlin's chapters. And it really hammers home some of the things that are going on for her and is a mirror to what she was thinking about in the previous chapter, where she was thinking about how she always did her duty, right? She did everything her parents said. She was the lady of the house.

She was the heir for a bit. And then she marries Brandon and afterwards marries ned and thanks her father for all these wonderful matches and jamie lannister gives a voice to the fact that you know what doing your duty is actually very hard and that what catelyn did wasn't any small feat what she did was actually very difficult and as he talks about how he finally learned to stop doing his duty, right, in the sense of what people think his duty is in terms of Westerosi society versus the moral good, right? Just as how speaking with Brienne has helped Catelyn finally voice her longing for vengeance, Jaime's tirade opens the door for Catelyn to stop doing the duty that she thinks she's supposed to be

doing right as as a lady right and as as you were saying earlier monero she reshifts what she thinks her duty is into saving her family saving those girls just as jamie was like you know what my duty is to the realm and like saving all these people in king's landing all right not letting this psycho blow everything up and And by Jamie saying this all aloud, it finally gives Catelyn the understanding of like, wait, all of this was unfair. Everything that I thought, right, of how chivalry and the system works, all this was wrong. And I think that really comes through, especially as he relays what's happened to Brandon, who features prominently, again, in Catelyn's Reflections on Duty last chapter.

She's like, you know what? Yeah, like, part of the whole thing is her dad made a match for her to Brandon, and she thanked him for, what a good match, daddy, thank you so much. Match.com. Oh my god. Yeah. Ew, what if your parents were the ones?

Never mind. Welcome to feudalism, baby. Weird. The goading is very obvious and it is rough. This is one of those best passages because, like you said, it's iconic. This is iconic, A Song of Ice and Fire. This is what it's about. It's that heart in conflict with itself.

And Jaime was told from every direction to be someone else and now he's dealing with a full-on identity crisis at 30 whatever i mean he also had it at 16 so he's had it at many times good for him when does the identity crisis stop being like a crisis and just being part of you yeah his identity is crisis that's mine holy shit wow that whole monologue right he's actually talking about himself right because whatever ideals he had with what it meant to be a knight and what it and it's like you know how you'll see the pictures like instagram reality and so he had an idea of what it meant to be a knight and then the reality was just so much more different after he tells the story of how Bran and Rickard Stark dies he tells the story of how gerald hightower telling him listen you took a vow to

protect the king not judge him okay you also hear in his he also has this other memory where he hears aries raping rayella and you know and he has this conversation i think it was with it was it with dane or was it high tower again where he's like i thought we were supposed to protect the weak yeah but we can't protect her from him right because he's the king that's just the sucky side of of what it really truly means to be a knight you can't win there is no win in being a knight because you're either doing a great service and then they praise you for it or you're gonna abandon that service to try to do another service and then you get demonized for it right and so he kills Ares because he knows Ares about to blow up

King's Landing and burn everybody because he thinks that he's gonna come out like the phoenix and and be okay and so he takes action in order to do that but everybody just sees him as somebody who killed the king but you guys were usurping him anyway what does it matter that he killed him what does it really matter like every one of these motherfuckers was out there ready to stab him in the back but jamie actually does and now he's the villain right and i agree with him when he said that you know that you know ned was like ned had no reason to come on his high horse and try to and judge him for it like yeah that was a bit much yeah sometimes honor can you know sometimes you can be a little bit too honorable sometimes you just need to take a step back because you don't know the full story you

walked in on something and you just made an assumption but you don't know the full story and you didn't take the time to find out the full story and even after you did you still stayed on your high horse about it but now you're dead so i guess it doesn't matter your lannister prejudices like you abandoned your honor like he straight abandoned his honor and then it still got him killed so now that said though Jamie just because like everyone was like there's no way Jamie Lannister

could actually be bad that doesn't mean you just have to be bad on that same note Jamie he's a bad boy well he goes completely the other way right because he was like well if doing this one really good thing and I'm going to get blamed for doing this good thing, what's the fucking point?

Because he was like, clearly the rules are fucked, right? And he finally realizes at the wonderful age of 16, 17, 18 or so, he's like, wow, the rules are shit. All these vows don't mean anything if we're not actually doing the right thing. Or we're not doing the thing that we want or believe in. And that's, you know, part of what's going on with Catelyn here. I will say, amongst these vows, right in his in his little monologue is, um, love your sister. And I'm like, I don't think they meant like that. That's not what they meant. love your sister and I'm like I don't think they meant like that Jamie that's not what they

meant when they said love your sister that's the best one he did so far that's the only one that he did a great job on uh god hey there's still time and that's really what Jamie's arc is about is that there's still time to become somewhat of a human being instead of a monster

and the way he's so proud about the fact that he's never cheated on his sister that's not something we should be proud about honey maybe go on some dates he's got an interesting point though he has an interesting point it's not like it's a weird ass point but i'm like interesting um different worlds different worlds you know those lannister brothers twisting words around well he continues on and tells her how he was the youngest ever to wear the cloak and she's like yeah and you betrayed everything it stood for kingslayer and he has this great line and such a king he was and he puts the wine

up in the air uh he asks her if she knows the true story behind brandon's murder or rickards and she says she doesn't want to know but he goads her saying ned wanted to spare his not so maiden wife there's that little finger dig saying brandon had been different than ned with blood in his veins not ice more like jamie but catalan rejects that she's like um brandon was not like you remembering and then of course she remembers that brandon had been on his way to river run when he heard about liana and turned to king's landing instead i will say i think caitlin is right uh brandon is in fact very different from jamie even though he thinks they're both hot-headed because brandon slept with many women

none of whom were his sister and jamie's only slept with his sister so that's a big difference between them. Yes. I think it's different, it's interesting. Well, I mean, Catelyn's here, you know, there's an opportunity. It's interesting how Catelyn finds her throat growing tight as she recounts what happened to Brandon. Like Brandon's throat going tight as he died. Shit.

Shit. Yeah yeah that too but also yeah because i guess she's choking up because she's actually like sad and i'm like shit i don't think i really realized the amount that catelyn really felt for brandon right because i think it shows us that she did have some attachment to him it's not really built on much in her chapters or in ned's even though like they're the whole book series kind of starts out in their chapters but like oh brandon was a ghost hanging over their marriage yes one of the many because there's a lot of trauma in their family but like i didn't realize that she was that enamored of him i think so i i think that's when she talks about how she

she learned to love Ned to me, that just let me know that it, you know, he wasn't the first choice. And, you know, she talks about how he was, he had just this plain face.

Brandon was the rock star. Like, you know, he was the ladies, man. He had the looks. He was, you know,

yeah, he was the wild wolf. You know what I mean? He, he was, he was spicy. He was spicy. You know what I mean? He was the bullet he was he was spicy he was spicy you know what i mean he was he was spicy he was the spicy stark and she got she got salted chicken hey at least that chicken was salted you know she got the baked chicken instead of the fried the fried

hot wings you know what i mean yeah that sounds delicious and so you know so she had to like over time learn to love ned and it could have also been because ned was putting it down i mean you know five kids later yeah well also it's not like he was like open though right like you couldn't get that spark with a man who refuses to speak about anything because he's so scared and full of trauma that he can't right yeah right maybe it was his he felt like it was his duty to like you know sleep with her but obviously she's grown to love him and even to the point where she has a some physical attraction for him when we read the chapter of how you know after they had finished making love she's like you know she wanted him to come back but he left the how, you know, after they had finished making love, she's like, you know, she wanted him to come back, but he left the bed. So, you know, she had developed some form of not only emotional attachment, but also the physical attachment.

So over time, even though her original attraction and feelings were for Brandon, and that even though it still loomed, she was able to form a love and attachment for Ned over time and I do think she dodged a bullet because I think Brandon was a lot like Robert and also I'm going to throw this out there sidetracking us a bit, I bet Ned probably ended up being better in bed than Brandon because Brandon could just get it so easily

I bet he just like pumped and was done and I bet Ned worked for it Ned worked for it yeah ned worked for it ned actually did foreplay ned you know took care of his woman and that's why and also you were like you know she wanted more after he left and i think you know he leaves her always wanting a little more yeah yeah you know doesn't even have a head to stand anyways well yeah he used to give her head not anymore at least he's left his skill to his Doesn't even have a head to stand. Anyways. Well, yeah.

He used to give her head. Not anymore. At least he's left his skill to his, quote unquote, bastard son. Bastard son. Like, he. That's true. He knows how to give the Lord's kiss. And she was like, how do you know how to do that? I don't know.

I just, when I try it. Just something I picked up from my genetic code. Yeah. You know, one of the more interesting parts of this to me is that, like, Jamie and Catelyn are both working through separate problems and not listening to the other at all. Like, so Jamie is talking about his life trauma. She is thinking about hers. Neither of them are having the same conversation right now, right? Jamie's conversation is completely he's all

like and then this happened and catalan's in her head and she's just like my kids are dead my life is dead everything's awful and catalan is sitting here wondering why she wasn't enough for brandon to turn around and keep going to river run catalan is wondering why brandon turned and went to king's landing why he chose because he had a choice. He could have gone to Riverrun like Ned did, married Catelyn, right? Ned didn't go to war until after he married Catelyn first. He had to marry her, make sure the swords were good. You know, dads are happy, war's great.

His whole family's dead now, so it's all up to her to have family that lives. And they get married, like brandon didn't go to river run brandon stopped brandon went to king's landing and that's the one thought she doesn't let herself have eliana you mentioned she doesn't think about brandon a lot like actively but it's obvious like from here it's always been quietly in the back of her head the one thing she never allowed herself to think the opposite thing ned did and jamie here is also bitterly like reminiscing of this stolen youth from the war the same way but about the king's guard and how you know the name i mean

all he's sitting here this whole time upset and he's like yeah kingslayer do you know what it means catalan i'm gonna tell you everything it means. And she's like, oh, you're right. Brandon's cock probably was huge. And that's like, but at the same time, they are having the same conversation. They just don't know they're having the same, you know, like, they're talking about the same fucking thing. It's just they're not listening to each other at all. At all.

That's true. They should've just fucked. Yeah, being the case guard sucks. I'll never know what it was like with Brandon. Right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great point, that they're talking past one another. Yet somehow this therapy session, I was going to say it's working for them, but I actually don't think it works out for them.

But it does lead to action. There are next steps involved at the end of this chapter um it's called springing jamie from jail anyways the great escape the great escape yes this is a pretty great escape because then we get the rest of the story with jamie's chapters and brianne's it's actually pretty good caitlin remembers hoster raging when they heard the news calling brandon a gallant fool. I love this. Jamie pours himself a half cup of wine. It's like the end of the

wine. He's like, I may as well help myself. You know, because he's a messy bitch and he loves to cause drama. Because he's like, oh good, I've opened all these old wounds in you, Lady Catelyn. Go on. The Lannisters do love to do that, though, in general, now that I think about it. They are huge trolls. Yeah, absolutely. They are messy are messy messy bitches and he goes on with the story so jamie tells the story

catelyn fills in the northern gaps that he doesn't quite know brandon rode to the red keep with ethan glover jeffrey malister kyle royce and albert aaron who was john aaron's heir he called for raygar to come out and die and Aerys sends guards to arrest them, calling for their fathers and lords to come and be held accountable for their crimes. Lord Rickard demands trial by combat, armoring himself to face a member of the Kingsguard, maybe even Jaime, but the king answered that request with fire, suspending him from the rafters while the pyromancers rotississerie has asked from beneath fire was the champion of house targaryen aries had said rickard could only prove himself innocent by not burning aries brings brandon in a while when the fire's full blaze hands chained behind his back a leathern cord

on his neck attached to a tai roshi device his legs are free and his sword set down just beyond his reach and i do have to comment rather inappropriately brandon's sword was a long sword didn't see that coming well we didn't see it coming because he died insensitive jamie then says rickard's cloak caught first then his surcoat and soon he wore only metal and ashes he would start to cook within his armor next unless brandon was able to save him but as brandon tried and struggled the cord constricted around his throat and he strangled himself to his death and rickard roasted and all the while all cat can think of now is the heads of her brandon and her rick and mounted at the winterfell gates right two more deaths in exchange and it's just so terrible because it's like he is forcing her to grieve.

He is forcing her to look all of this monstrous mess in the eye and she cannot look away. And it's weird because they're like, they're namesakes, right? Bran, Brandon, Rickard, Rickon. And he doesn't even know, right? Jamie doesn't know that these are the sons that she's mourning the deaths of yet somehow somehow as you said brings up their namesakes and it's not traumatic for calvin at all this is fine everything's fine it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay well then we get to this uh very actually climactic um end of the chapter

not all ends of chapters are so climactic but this one is and not in that way even though we would have been even though we've been saying that it would be that way but it's not that way oh like a sex climax i get it you're making a sexy joke i am am. Was it good for him as it was for her? Oh my god. She's not blonde enough. Or green-eyed enough. Or related enough.

Yeah. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Geralt Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him. That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me. All agree. Ares. Catelyn could taste bile at the back of her throat. The story was so hideous she suspected it had to be true. Ares was mad. The whole realm knew it.

But if you would have me believe you slew him to avenge Brandon Stark. I made no such claim. The Starks were nothing to me. I will say I I think it passing odd that I am loved by one for a kindness I never did, and reviled by so many for my finest act. At Robert's coronation, I was made to kneel at the royal feet beside Grand Maester Pysallin Varys the Eunuch, so that he might forgive us our crimes before he took us into his service. As for your Ned, he should have kissed the hand that slew Aerys, but he preferred to scorn the arse he found sitting on Robert's throne. I think Ned Stark loved Robert better than he ever loved his brother, or his father, or even you, my lady. He was never unfaithful to Robert, was he? Jaime gave a drunken laugh. Come, Lady Stark, don't you find all this terribly amusing?

I find nothing about you amusing, Kingslayer. That name again. I don't think I'll fuck you after all. Littlefinger had you first, didn't he? I never eat off another man's trencher. Besides, you're not half so lovely as my sister. His smile cut. I've never lain with any woman but Cersei. In my own way,

I've been truer than your Ned ever was. Poor, old, dead Ned. So who has shit for honor now, I ask you? What was the name of that bastard he fathered? Rianne? No, that wasn't it. Jaime and Lannister upended the flagon. A trickle ran down onto his face, bright as blood. Snow, that was the one. Such a white name, like the pretty cloaks they give us in the Kingsguard when we swear our pretty oaths. Bran pushed open the door and stepped inside the cell. You called, my lady. Give me your sword.

Catelyn held out her hand. Jamie is such a troll! He is such a troll. He is such a shitass. Oh my god. Also, I mean, he has nothing else left. In there. I know. You know, it's now or never, though. He literally will never, ever

get this chance again to talk shit to her, so good for him on that. You know what I mean? mean like go shoot your shot there in the dms but yeah he really did shoot a shot in the dms a little though he was like i'm never gonna get to really really honestly flirt with someone and not actually have to deal with like them reciprocating yeah well i have to point out of course the very amazing end in this ultimate clash of kings chapter of sword right because that is confirmed the word that brienne yells to lady stoneheart when they meet once more right when she meets lady stoneheart yes yeah from that chapter she says that you must choose take the sword and slay the kingslayer or be hanged for a betrayer the sword or the noose she says choose she says choose the same exact

offer she's gonna extend once more and the construction here is brilliant this is cat's last chapter in a clash of kings and we still have 15 chapters to go in the book, not counting. So like after this. So she falls off, and then we actually start A Storm of Swords with the chapter that answers this, Jaime I, right? So Jaime I is the exact answer to Kat VII. It is exactly where we left off from Kat VII. And then not too long after, we go right into Cat 1 in A Storm of Swords.

And Jamie 1 and Cat 1, which we're going to talk a little bit about some of the parallels of those when we do that chapter here in September. But it's perfect how they're laid together because this is the plot that George cuts you out of. You don't know what's happening. You just know that was it.

Now to check on the other people until the end of the book, the Blackwater takes over and you forget all about it, but you open Storm. You open the Storm of Swords with Jaime I and thinking, of course, more about Hightower and thinking about these knights and these men in the system that have failed him. And then you have Cat, who's sitting here with Desmond Grell in Cat I, who's disappointed because now he's seen her grow from a young woman to a young lady and to a still mostly young lady, because again 32. 32!

She's not old. But she thinks, you know, now he's seen me become a traitor. And so to start off a storm of swords in the exact opposite position that Jaime is free, cats and chains, quote unquote, not real chains, but you know, chains. It's a perfect way to end

this arc and bring it back up in Storm. Absolutely. That's such a great parallel. I love that, the way that this chapter ends with, as you said, the end of Brienne's and the Feast for Crows. Who knows? Who knows what

the end of Brienne's chapters in the winds of winter are going to be what other parallels are we going to get i don't know but i look forward to one day reading them it hurts all my babes i do i know i know i'm growing older in my grief i too am uh changing but um yeah that parallel is so good you know um in terms of she's asking for rian's sword part of it is in service to her right to do this thing but at the same time she's also i think kind of there's there's also a way of asking and putting jamie right swearing his sword a little too especially as he starts changing and it's like but what if

what if i did good things maybe every now and then so i love that and also when you were talking about gerald hightower uh jamie points out you know that line and i think you're talking about this too monero of um you know loyal to the end and a better man than me all agree and i just love how that hits on a reread right jamie's being bitter about hightower and what you were saying earlier about how that also fits in with the hypocrisy of them not being asked to stop the raping of raelle targaryen and you know how jamie comes to realize like what's the fucking point of following the rules and the law if it's unjust and how he hates being complicit in that system and it's the

same system that again like catelyn has been following her whole life only now to find herself completely alone at the end her family all disappearing one by one what's the point of the system if it doesn't keep my family safe and just as jamie takes justice into his own hands right vengeance into his own hands when he's like i'm gonna kill aries catlin inches towards that right starting with this treasonous act of releasing the kingslayer because she realizes same as young jamie she's like well if i want results i gotta just do it i gotta take things into my own hands because the rules aren't working for me anymore yeah they're going in opposite directions right like as jamie becomes

more human cadeline loses her humanity exactly exactly and i think a lot of the a lot of the things that she says in that chapter actually she becomes those things when we read her we read a lot of her lady stoneheart arcs right she says that she doesn't have a heart anymore there's a hole where her heart used to be and you know she know, she's now heartless. When she talks about she's a creature of grief, she actually does indeed become a creature, but not necessarily of grief, but of vengeance, where she doesn't recognize friend or foe. She's just singularly focused on revenge and getting revenge. And you would think, oh, I remember Brienne, but no one is safe. No one is safe who comes across her path. It's either you're with me or you're not. That's a great point. When it comes to rules,

she starts to make her own, right? There in between of morality as you said you're either on her side or you're not that's such a great point and she fails to see the context behind things anymore she's failing to see it here already she's starting to go that way too i think the grief the grief of the loss of of her son she snapped at the end you know when rob is killed in front of her she she just snaps by that point she was already at a breaking point where she's just like she totally loses it and goes totally mad for lack of a better term she goes totally mad and so the demise of her character from where she started this chapter kind of like shows you the rapid decline of who this woman is from,

you know, from this woman of strength to just this woman who's just barely hanging on to life and to purpose because she's just like, I'm just so alone. I don't have a voice and I have to make my own way because there's not anybody that's going to make it for me. And I am desperate and I'm going to do what I think that I have to do in order to hold on to those things that are whoever is left. I have to try to hold on to it. Even up until the end, she tried to say Rob and just it just didn't work. Yeah. the end she tried to save rob and just it just didn't work yeah and and that manifests right in her again she like you said she snaps and she kills poor jingle bell um she's like i'm gonna take vengeance on anyone and everyone now and she's like all right no one's gonna draw the

dagger for me i will do it then yeah because Because what does it matter if she dies, right? Like at this point, it's like she's already not even living. Yeah. It's a pretty heavy chapter. She only asks that they don't cut her hair. Ned loves my hair. How dare you both? Why would you do that to me?

Because I felt like being hurtful. I was reading a lot of Jamie Lannister. I was like, what if I too said hurtful things did you have fun with your experiment because it hurt me yes I'm going to kick my shit bucket over yeah I'm going to kick your shit bucket

to fucking hell see if you can get it then shit yeah they don't get easier. That's why I truly appreciate Catelyn's character. Even though she's not perfect, she's flawed. She's still a relatable character,

especially if you're somebody who's a mother or a guardian or whatever. When you're just trying so hard to protect your kids, and it just seems that everything is conspiring against you. And you're just losing them. I mean, five kids, you feel like you're losing all of them. It's like, it's got to do something to you. That's like, you know, you find yourself grasping at straws at some point where it's like, I don't know what to do. Like I couldn't even imagine what that is like. I would never even want to experience that level of pain. You know,

I think you lose a spouse. Yes. You'll grieve. Yes. You lost your spouse, but your kids, it's something like totally different. And even though the,

us, the readers know that they're not dead, but she doesn't. And so this is a very real grief for her. Yeah. It's really horrible. Was Catelyn wrong to leave Rickon and Bran behind? Did she fail in her duty there?

And what does that mean for how she's reacting to this news? I think there's a lot of guilt with that. Because I'm sure that she's going to have a lot of what- if moments. What if I just stayed? I could have sent somebody else. As a matter of fact, I think it was Roderick who said, why should you go? I can go or somebody else can go. But she was insistent that she's the one that has to go. Right. And so probably in hindsight, she may thought to herself that, you know, maybe she should have stayed. And even when she had the opportunity, she was returning back home and she comes across Tyrion in the inn. She could have just still gone home and sent a raven to Ned.

Yo, this dude is heading back to King's Landing and let Ned handle it. But no, she felt like she needed, she ran with her emotions and again intervened and so she set a series of emotions like by her own actions she set a series of events in place where you had every opportunity to return home would things probably would have played out differently had she been home i think so i don't think Theon would have felt brave enough to go and raid Winterfell if she'd have been home. I don't think so. Her sons wouldn't be scattered to the wind if she would have been home. I really don't think those things would have happened. And I'm sure those things were very much so playing in her mind, even though they're not explicitly said in the the chapters but we can kind of read between the

lies in how she's reminiscing about her kids yeah yeah the only i would only argue the only argument i would make is that i think that if she and roderick and the greek gang were all home um i still think it would have gone the same way i mean i don't think that her being home would change that much i don't i don't think she i mean physically maybe maybe the way the house is guarded would be different but i just don't see where everyone is in the south warring and her at home i don't know if it's that powerful enough to change things and the other thing i would say is that i do think like she's really hard on herself about she should have gone back, she should have stayed. But I also think that with her father dying, I mean, I kind of feel like you're expected to be the ambassador to the Riverlands in your marriage, right? Like, for how stark, like, and it's unprecedented times, but I don't know that sending your 15-year-old son south to go deal with family members he doesn't know,

slash lords he's never met before that aren't even your lords i don't know if anyone was actually like could have actually gone instead of her do you think rob would have left would have marched south if she'd have stayed home because he he didn't march until after she was gone and so she And so she wasn't home when he made the choice to march south. And there was never any discussion with his mother before he marched south. Around that time, she was still in the Vale. So do you think that he would have marched south? Or I'm sure they would have had some sort of a discussion about it.

Yeah, I think they'd still have gathered the banners. I think it just would have taken place maybe we started off north instead you know like maybe it wouldn't have gotten so far south i think that's the part of it that makes me think she had to because there's no way the north could have won the war without the riverlands right also there's no way the riverlands can continue to exist and be sustained with what's happening to them from the Lannisters and from the Westerlands. So that all together, they don't have resources without the Riverlands and you're in the exact position you were in during the rebellion. Someone needs the Riverlands. Someone needs the swords of the Riverlands.

Someone needs the resources of the Riverlands and also to protect it because it's such a central location. So I think it honestly just all comes down to she is from house tully and that is her duty i think they made a really bad tactical decision in bringing all of their band you know the majority of their band i mean agreed 100 agreed we see that with donella hornwood right like that nobody gave a shit to give her a guard home and then ramsey just swooped in like you guys just thought no one's gonna come it's like leaving your car unlocked in a bad area you know yes and net as much as said that to her when she was in king's landing like listen make sure you we man up moat because that's like the bottleneck if you hold moat calen nobody's getting through to the north

getting through to the north like he said that but you know along the way she loses all of that so i think that that was a tactical error i could blame rob for that but then you know he had a lot of men who were experienced experienced men who of battle who should have advised them to say you know you go some of us are going to stay here and kind of guard the home front so that we make sure that we're not leaving it undefended i mean what was roger going to do like every time there was something happening he had to ride out with everybody and then that left you know winter felt vulnerable yeah yeah and another example of that right is ned is Ned told Catelyn, and Catelyn also advised Rob,

we should keep Theon close. That's the whole point of him being a ward. And then they didn't. He went right home to his dad. Yeah, he went right home to his dad. And he was like, I also have daddy issues, too. I think if she would have impressed, like, your father said that you need to keep Theon, because for him, it's like his mom is just being a nag

telling him to keep the on close and he's having to defend well theon did this and theon did that so he's cool i think if she just said you know your father specifically instructed that we keep the on close i think rob would have probably and i hate to say it like that. Like, you know, why is it his father's word is more, holds more weight than his mom. But, you know, that's just the time that they were living in. And so unfortunately, you just got to deal with the rules. Listen, the father's word has more weight than the mom's. And so I think if she'd have expressed it in those terms,

he may have been more quick to listen. Like if my dad is saying it, I gotta, you know, he knows best. I do think if she were in Winterfell, though, with Brandon Rickon, at least if everything went down the way that it did, then she would be running away with them and she would know they were alive. So there's that. That is a pro. That's one pro.

And that's kind of what happens in the 1993 letter, but George obviously wanted to do, I guess, something different. And, you know, when Minera you were talking about earlier, and as Chloe was talking about, like Catlin wanting to stay with her dying father, you've been talking about Catlin's grief and how much that's driving her and the very, very human choices that Catlin

makes and I think in general besides Doody she loves her father very much even though he failed like his other kid like a hell of a lot um she she wanted to be there she wanted to be there to say goodbye to her father and I think that's a very normal thing that anyone would want to be there at the end of their parents' life. Except for Lysa. Because Lysa's like, he could kick rocks. She does think that. I mean, she has reasons. She has reasons. She has major reasons.

She's like, he could die. It's fine. It's fine. Most men do in my life and I'd be happy with that, Lysa. Thanks. Except then she dies. Fuck. Well, in my life and I'd be happy with that Liza thanks except then she dies fuck well that that's uh that's pretty depressing

whole chapter because you know then Catelyn dies eventually and it's all just lost Catelyn's life and death are depressing they are they are and I wish um a lot more people would kind of cut her break about the john snow thing and um really really take stock of this this woman who is just whose life has taken such a dramatic turn because of choices choices have consequences

right and so i'm gonna blame the lannisters because obviously wherever the lannisters go they they bring death and destruction wherever they go and so life was great until they came to winterfell and then everything changed and everything changed also because little finger you know was you know putting his fingers into everything that also played a huge part that also played a huge part you know he was fingering things and so oh my god it didn't get better it was worse that time manera what's wrong with you? Goddamn. Yeah, but, you know, Littlefinger, she ended up being a victim also of Littlefinger.

Yeah. Also, and because of, in her refusal to kind of see the truth, again, she made choices, and those choices had consequences, and it was just, it just became, it's like a tumbleweed. It just keeps getting bigger,

or a snowball and an avalancheche and it just kept going and going and it's unfortunate even now in her rebirth i feel it's just sad for me yes she can get this vengeance and yes we can we can cheer her like killing off frays and other people. But this woman is just like a shell of how she started. And now she's this undead creature. It's just walking around, satisfying the need for vengeance that, you know, a lot of us readers have, but we still have to remember that she was just once a person who just life just kept kicking and kicking and kinking. Even her death was... Yeah, hurtful.

Her death was like, I just, when you read it, I was like, even in death, she doesn't even get a break. Even in death. I just hope that if anybody just hated her because of the way that she treated John, that's just... I blame her treatment of John on Ned anyway. So not that she couldn't have taken accountability for her actions, but I blame a lot of how she treated John on Ned because Ned could have intervened and he failed to do so. And so I think that made her feel like she had license to keep doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree on that.

All right. What do you think, ladies? I think we thoroughly railed through the chapter, you know, through Jamie, through Catelyn. Especially with the railing. Yep. Railing through. Yeah. There was actually no railing in this chapter, unfortunately, for us.

I've been so let down. So let down. I thought this was the sex dungeon chapter. I know, right? Why would we get the sex part? With shit. Yeah. It was all this talk of swords and long swords and...

True. Sorry to have led you on, ladies, but, you know, you're gonna have to take me out to dinner first before the railing is what i'm trying to say monero thank you so much for joining us for this chapter we have had so much fun with you this evening please let everyone at home know where they can find you and what they should look forward to on your channel again you can find me on youtube at monaro geek tv i am on twitter at monaro unlimited but i just use it to let people DM me. I'm not really an active... I'm not really... I don't tweet because I'm not really that cool to tweet things. But you can always DM me. Say hi. And like I stated before in the beginning, I am going to be starting a series called Manaro Bedtime Stories, where I'll be reading excerpts

from some of my favorite books in a sort of ASMR-ish style. So that will be debuting in September. And thank you so much, ladies, for having me on. I truly appreciate it. This was fun for me. I'm glad. And thank you for joining us. You know, it's, Chloe said earlier, it's been a while since we've gotten to catch up so glad we could have you on and yeah looking forward to Naro bedtime stories I am too not only Naro bedtime stories

but Naro Naruto also oh wait you should call it oh my god my microphone just fell I was too excited you could call it Naruto Minaroto oh my god i'm gonna have to keep that i might have to go ahead and steal that go ahead and workshop that girl you got it it's yours it's all yours it's yours

my name is so it doesn't it doesn't really work for me yeah it doesn't work for either of us well we'll definitely be in touch and we hope to have you back sometime in the future as well. Have you for another POV. Who knows what our future POVs could be? No one knows. Except for us.

Yeah. You know, we have been getting a lot of emails and messages and guesses about the POV lately. And I know a lot of these people are looking for confirmation to whether they're right or wrong. And I don't plan on giving it to them. And you're just going to have to wait. But if you'd like to harass us about our next POV, you could do so on social media too. You can send us a tweet or a DM over at girlsgonecanon, C-A-N-O-N on Twitter. Or you could send us an email with your thoughts on what the next

POV might be at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Yeah, we're deciding between whether or not we should do Ariane or Sansa next as the next POVs. Again. Again. No, those were jokes. We did those POVs. And you can find those episodes or any future episodes as they come out when you subscribe to us on Podbean, where everything is hosted on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher, Overcast. That was good enough. You did great. You did great. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. that was good enough you did great I didn't even think you added in you and if you cannot find us on one of those or do not want to find us on one of those you can find us over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon where patrons get their own private RSS feed that'll load straight into their phone when you get set up and it includes also our special

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usually very intelligible conversations happening there. And you could also hang out and come to brunch or happy hour this month if you're a patron in that tier, because we'll be having that August 28th with more info to be announced. As always,

I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliotta. And thank you so much to our other other hosts this time. Thank you. Am I supposed to say monaro i mean it would make me personally happy but you don't have to i think i just did so perfect you did okay amazing got it all right bye bye and end recording maybe