Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 147 — AFFC Brienne V featuring Sam of The Rainbow Guard

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

In the aftermath of Brienne's first kills, questions loom: Who deserves pity? Is a broken man an outlaw? Whose bodies are allowed stories of power? Sam of the Rainbow Guard joins us to analyze Brienne's story and find meaning in "illegible bodies."  Where to find Sam:  Website: The Rainbow Guard — https://therainbowguard.com/  Twitter: @therainbowguard — https://twitter.com/therainbowguard  Music credits:  Untold Stories by Alexander Nakarada Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5844-untold-stories License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl] Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of Ice And Fire Episode 147 Brianne 5 In A Feast For Crows, featuring our friend Sam of the Rainbow Guard. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, coming to you live, but not live, straight from the Rainbow Guard, it's Sam. Hello, I'm so excited to be here, you guys. Thanks for having me. Oh, we're so excited to be here, you guys. Thanks for having me.

Oh, we're so excited to have you. And, you know, I know there's tons of stuff online. If you haven't already checked out from the last week when we plugged it, head over to Sam's website, therainbowguard.com, or check him out over on Twitter. And Sam, let us know where else we can find you online and some of the stuff you've talked about, written about, and anything you'd like to promote. Yeah, absolutely. Well, those are the main two places, Twitter and the website. So I did start this fun new website all about queerness in fantasy literature. And then I got a new job and moved across the country and haven't updated it in a while. But you guys know how life goes. But I do have some different essays I've got in the almost ready to be posted stage. So that's fun. I do have an essay coming

out on Brave Danny Flint and kind of reading transphobic violence within A Song of Ice and Fire. I also am working on an essay all about Cersei Lannister's queerness and, you know, the way that informs her whole arc. So I'm really excited about both of those. That sounds awesome. And I'm looking forward to reading those. And especially, you know, I think the Dany Flint one is interesting also in the context of what you have here in this episode and all that stuff and i i know we said earlier up top sam's url is therainbowguard.com but it's also the same on twitter the twitter.com slash the rainbow guard correct the twitter yeah i was like the twitter on the interwebs

you can find Sam at these places I'm looking forward to those I'm sure many people will also be looking forward to what you have to say about Cersei yes I'm like the Cersei hive is simply buzzing right now simply buzzing and I'm excited too I was thinking about Cersei

just in this episode so we'll chat about Cersei a little today we'll bring her on in. Bring her on in. I think there's a lot to be said there, really, between this chapter and Cersei. You will keep them fed, because we did not. We chose to do Brienne next.

Yes, we betrayed the Cersei hive. We betrayed them, but they'll wait. They'll wait. They'll wait. We'll get there. You know, we're going to do all the POVs. We even might have a new POV coming soon out here. Who knows? Who knows?

More on that. Yeah. More on that at the 11 o'clock news. I mean, maybe. I mean, again, we could just do Sansa again next. We're doing Sansa all over again. I don't know. Barristan sounds real fresh right now.

I actually do want to redo. I strongly want to redo Barristan. I kind of do too, but you know what? Sorry, everyone. There's always the wins a winner. Always the wins a winner. Allegedly. Well, Eliana, before we can get crazy into our episode today,

not only do we have our amazing guest Sam with us right now, but we have another amazing guest next week. Yes. Back to back heroes. Sam next week is low. Another one of our good friends. And I'm also very excited to have low on low. Also has such great analysis of Rian.

It's going to be a blast. It'll be a great episode for Brienne 6. I think Brienne 7 is just going to be us, but we will have a guest to close out Brienne. So more to come on that before the new POV starts and more to come on that too. Yeah. Bangers.

This week is the no chance. Next week is the no choice. God. All right. It is. It is. bangers this week is the no chance next week is the no choice god all right it is it is before we jump over to our lightning round we do have a little housekeeping up top first thing is patreon episode this month for december we're doing something a little different right we're doing a different series we are not doing a song of ice and fire we are not doing a his dark ice and fire we are not doing a his dark materials bonus patreon episode for those patrons in the stranger tier and above five dollars and up we are doing the song of achilles by madeline miller which i am so excited about i finally finally pulled eliana's leg until she was like i'll read it which didn't take that much work

and uh we're gonna do it yeah it didn't take that much work and uh we're gonna do it yeah it didn't take that much work you like wiggled a toe you know metaphorically speaking because we are afar but kind of twirled my hair around my finger i was like come on patrickless it's time i was like okay just kidding okay all right uh i mean i'm i'm i'm really excited to do this and I'm excited to read this book and to talk about it with you I've heard so many good things this retelling is good

it's a really good retelling and I think it really contextualizes a lot of the emotional weight and brings some of the outer gods involved like Achilles' mother Thetis, there's a great focus on her especially coming off of doing the cat chapters for Aeswaf. I think it's some really interesting stuff and powerful stuff going on,

not just the beautiful, sad romance between our main protagonists, Achilles and Patroclus. Patroclus deserves so much better. Achilles, you bitch. There's a little, there's almost a little Patroclus and Achilles in Brienne and Jamie now that I think about it, though.

Anyways. Interesting. Achilles, beautiful, prideful. Can't wait to talk about H.I.L.S. today. This month. Sorry, not today. Maybe you will. I'm not ready.

Not ready to talk about Jon, Kan, and Rhaegar this month. I'm not ready. Not ready to talk about JonCon and Rhaegar this month. Honestly, not yet. I am also really excited to do JonCon one day. Anyway, other things that are exciting that we are doing this month is our Discord brunch slash happy hour, which will be on December 18th, Saturday, December 18th, from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern Time. And that is available on our Discord, which is open to patrons in the Thunder tier and above.

And this time, you know, we always say we're going to play Reindeer Games. We're actually going to play Reindeer Games. Yep, we are. The Baratheon, sorry, the Baratheon Games. I'm working very hard on that. Yes. Baratheon Games, yeah. Our favorite house. Not really. That'sheon games, yeah. Our favorite house.

Not really. That's a lie. It's not our favorite house. There are better. There are better. Ours is not the Fury or the Furry, but that's okay. That's okay. Reindeer games this month.

Baratheon games. Come get them while they're hot. December 18th. Or cold, I guess. Some like it hot, some like it hot some like it cold and a reminder there is no his dark materials episode in december of 2021 but you are going to get two two of them in january 2022 eliana where are those episodes going to be located in the month yes so we're gonna kick off january with our good friend cassidy to talk about the episodes that we

have next the chapters that we have next of historic materials and then the next chapters after that will be the last week of january so we're gonna you know just sandwich january with some his dark just say it why won't you say it are you gonna say it i thought you were gonna say it hit it from't you say it? Are you going to say it? I thought you were going to say it. Hit it from the front. Hit it from the back. I've had a long life. I have. It's been a long year. I can't believe we... I can't believe it's been a year already.

Goddamn. Damn. Can't believe it's been a month. A week. A day. And on that, we do only have a couple emails, tweets, messages, comments of note from our friend Thunderclap over on Podbean. They left a comment on last week's episode, Brienne 4, and said, I'm impressed they didn't try to find any sexual innuendo in a dick getting buried deep inside a swamp i i appreciated this thank you thunderclap thank you for calling us out on that i will say i just feel like i mean a lot of it is kind of just self-explanatory right within within that chapter with nimble dick crap so i'm gonna just like let that speak for itself and also

i mean i got a lot of it out of my system in 2018 that's true and you know that's like that's low brow humor okay thunderclap that's a little low brow humor for nimble dick there we would never stoop so low i like my dick jokes to be meatier than that i was also just you know i was just real sad there's a lot to be sad about i'm like yeah you want to just shit on the guy's memory that fast thunderclap my god he's only been dead for 11 years or whatever when was that book oh more oh god it's been a while 13 years he's been dead for 13 years so in that song by next too close i will say it reminds me of um when i was younger and i didn't understand the lyrics which are baby when we're grinding i get so excited i did used to think it said baby when we're crying i get so excited i feel like

that's what thunderclap wanted us to do be sad and be horny at the same time which does happen for sometimes but often here yeah that does often true occur well thank you for the comment Thunderclap you can leave a comment over on our podbean if you want

over at girlsgonecanon.podbean.com where we host our podcast and if you're not into comments there i know eliana loves it when we get a cool review on itunes she gets real excited thinks it's the bee's knees so head over to itunes or wherever else you listen that lets you leave a review and do it for tap dance for she'll be happy i love a comment this is like this uh narrative that chloe's made in her head about me but yes this is the song that chloe has you've proven it have i you've proven it yeah i guess i did pull it into here anyway so speaking of thunderclap, but not Thunderclap, we're going to do our lightning round.

Sam, I know you know what the lightning round is. We are going to cover the chapters real briefly that we missed between Brienne 4 and Brienne 5. We'll start off with the Queenmaker, where a crowning goes awry. That leads us to Arya 2. Arya wishes to learn the tricks of becoming no one, but is instead sent out to learn Braavosi, choosing cat

as her new moniker. Which leads us to Elaine I. Elaine is able to deduce part of Littlefinger's plans, and they both wine and dine the Lord's Declarant in hopes of Littlefinger gaining more control in the Vale. Cersei V.

Cersei oversees some of her own machinations. Terrified of Tommen learning how to think for himself at the hands of others, she continues to ban fun across King's Landing for him and everyone else alike. And that brings us here. 2. A Feast for Crosbrianne V of Brienne returns to Maidenpool with a heavier heart after killing three of the Bloody Mummers. Tarly warns her to quit playing knight, but she continues and Heil Hunt joins her party. They travel to meet Septon Maribald, who speaks of gods and wolves on their way to the Quiet Isle.

So, this has, I think, one of the most iconic moments in the entire series. People love talking about it, but I want to know, I want to know, Sam, why did you pick this chapter? It really captures a side of Brienne I really like, and it really takes time to kind of explore some of these questions of gender that I find really, really interesting with Brienne. Brienne is a character that I tend to read as trans, gender non-conforming, somewhere under that umbrella. And I'm less concerned about necessarily how exactly Brienne would identify, right? Because she doesn't necessarily have the language that we have today to say, you know, I am a trans man, I am non-binary, I am, you know,

whatever the case may be. But the queering kind of practices are still there. The choosing to present in a very masculine way, the choosing to pursue stereotypically for Westeros masculine pursuits. But it isn't just that. In this chapter, we really get a look at Brienne's sense of self and the things that really hit her hard, the kind of fears she navigates throughout this. And we take a look at the various traumas she's survived that then I think we kind of see get married into the kind of overarching message that we get I hate that word that's a little grandiose but about broken men and about the destruction of war upon Westeros and specifically the Riverlands, really taking a closer look at that.

But it also really takes a look at who deserves our empathy, who deserves to have their stories told, because there's a whole lot of silencing that happens in this chapter, too, of different stories that don't fit the kind of masculine, hyper patriarchy that we see in Westeros. So I think there's just a lot of really, really great stuff to explore in this chapter from a, you know, gender and queer theory kind of perspective, which is my background. That's academically kind of the field I came from. So of course, this has a lot that I'm really, really interested in. I also really like that it's very much kind of the quintessential feast chapter. You know, I mean, we start with the worms crawling through the heads of the mummers

and we end with the broken man. I mean, this is a feast for crows, right? This is the devastation that has followed in the wake of the War of the Five Kings and the cruelty of men like Tywin Lannister, and as we see in this chapter, Randall Tarly. So I just think there's so much to explore in this chapter. And I am so excited to get to do that with you too it is like the quintessential chapter it is and i think everyone would put this chapter on the broken man speech alone as like eliana said so iconic in your top whatever chapters it lands in everyone's top chapters uh and it it does a lot to chew the scenery right like this is a very nothing happens nothing

happens very mild sexual violence happens, nothing happens, nothing happens. All of a sudden, and it's like it takes you out of it because you're also in places that are so poor that no one cares about these places at all except for these very broken people. And you kind of see class-wise just as it kind of rolls off of the beaten path, just like when they went to the Whispers and saw all these people living kind of in the middle of nowhere with no resources and living their own life with their own narrative they've been following.

You just watch it all kind of break down and it becomes the thesis of A Song of Ice and Fire. You get the view of the small folk, the silencing of voices, as we've mentioned, the poor villages with nothing left to give, yet being assaulted still. Then the gray justice being dealt by Tarly, compared, of course, and juxtaposed to the gray vengeance sown by Mother Merciless on the road. And then to Brienne, the truest night between all of it, right, to the breakdown of who Brienne is and that it could go in either direction. Brienne could become a broken man on the road, not meeting Brienne's goal and thus, you know, succumbing to what some of these men have kind of broken down and become. Or Brienne could turn around. Or Brienne could have gone across the sea to Arya or Sansa, wherever they may be, which we see Brienne misses those shots we'll talk about.

So it's very sad. And it's like, like you said, very much so the feast book. And then of course, when you get the Dunkin' Egg series, it's very much Hedge Knight. I mean,

this is very much Hedge Knight and Sworn Sword with the heads rotting. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, as, as you all said, feast chapter, but it's not start off very delicious.

Starts off pretty gross. Heil Hunt has suggested that they bring the heads of Shagwell, Pig, and Timian with them for Tarly's cute headwall. He loves his headwall. And Brienne's like, uh, no, they're gonna rot without Tar. That's fucking disgusting. But Heil hacks them off anyway, bringing them and their dead eyes, watch for the entire ride back.

And it's actually like very awkward because by the time they reach Maidenpool, the heads are buzzing with flies and she asks him to get rid of them each stop. But Heil is very stubborn and keeps on and Brienne thinks he will most like tell Lord Randall that he slew all three of them also there's a part where she's like you know there's a there's that reminiscent of Nimble Dick where she's like she imagines that the heads are whispering right beheaded and the crab stuff and

you know Heil Hunt though to the surprise of everyone does not tell Randall Tarly this believe it or not he tells randall tarley the truth that the boy padraic had thrown a rock and that the sword wench did the rest and part of me wonders like did hyle hunt debate whether or not to take credit for this whole trip or did hyle like take the heads intentionally with the intent to defend slash prove brienne's worth which would create a sense of irony of Brienne being like oh just throw away those stupid things right this whole trip I don't know yeah there is a point to that though that like it could have been used as proof in

either direction he could have used it for whichever way I also think it comes back as like a look I did kind of my job I made sure the wench wasn't doing stupid things and look, we brought you a shitty prize. We played a stupid game and won a shitty prize. Yeah. That's what he wanted. I don't know. And she doesn't necessarily make this connection, but it does also

just kind of bring to mind Jamie's hand being carried around with them. Just like these rotting heads. You know, she doesn't, it doesn't necessarily give us her thinking about that connection. But she's very, very repulsed by that. And it's repulsive anyway. Don't get me wrong, I think I would definitely be pretty grossed out by some rotting heads regardless. But it definitely seems to kind of trigger that memory too.

Yeah, I would even argue she does think about it later in her subconscious, right? She thinks about the hand being chopped off. So it's definitely in mind. And also, I mean, that was you breaking for the first time. Would you want to be staring at those heads watching you judging you the whole way back? Like knowing that, like you said you said eliana knowing what they cost that they were they cost nimble dick and that she didn't even know she trusted him at that point and now she's like now i do fuck too bad guilt lots of i mean there's a lot of trauma a lot of trauma through uh these whole these sketches george has been putting out you know these little skits that they do. Absolutely. And there's more trauma to follow

from Lord Randall Tarly, who I guess loves to tar things. And also I just wanted to add, like, it was so gross that they would like be a hundred yards in front of Highland. They're like, what the fuck? This is so nasty. And maybe that's why Tarly isn't that impressed,

but he's just not impressed because he's an asshole um and he hopes that brienne had fun slaying rats and then tells her to go home and brienne politely declines and randall takes it you know about as well as you'd imagine there are a couple interesting connections uh makes me think of sansa right with all the heads tarred at king's landing oh yes you know in case you were curious of Lord Randall being a great character lately Aliana. No I'm just kidding. I'm just busting ya.

But it does make me think of Sandor also in the language of the rats right. Randall saying that you know hope you had fun slaying rats compares kind of to Sandor in Sansa coming to him and saying I should have thanked you during the riot for saving me you were so brave and he says brave his laugh was half a

snarl a dog doesn't need courage to chase off rats they had me 30 to 1 and not a man of them dared face me and it makes me think of that specifically because of how Brienne has kind of started going on this side of the adventure. The road she's starting to take is a little darker, starting to take a much darker road. And that 30 to 1 and not a man dared face me. We've had a lot of mockery to Brienne from whether it be Heil, whether it be Jamie earlier on, whether it being any of these men saying, you can't take on more than one man at once. And we have all this hero worship everyone does in and out of universe of Garland Tyrell,

right, with the two on one, three on one. And by the end, Brienne of this book is, you know, she can take five to ten men at once and fuck them up with her sword. So, stuff to think about as Brienne kind of goes for that dark Sandor mirror, right? Becoming a broken man, Brienne's self. Absolutely. Unfortunately, Lord Tarly is not impressed. Lord Tarly's fate suggested he would have liked nothing better than to stick her own head on a spike and mount it above the gates of Maidenpool with Tymion, Pig, and Shagwell. This stands out to me because it's really not the same callous cruelty we see him display to the people that he's passing judgment to standing on the gallows, right?

He doesn't care about those people. He doesn't show any of this emotion sentencing them. But Brienne, even though she hasn't committed any sort of crime, he wants to see her annihilated. I mean, you see this hatred come out in him. And it's not this kind of passive aggressive, wishing her harm that he kind of does, especially in the beginning, the first time they meet up, you know, it's not the don't say I didn't warn you stuff necessarily. It's more of an active kind of loathing, right? We see Brienne really get under his skin in a way that we don't really see at any other point with Randall Tarly on page. To Randall Tarly, the disruption of the natural order is unforgivable and distasteful in a way that actual violent crimes

he's judging and supposed to be providing judgment because of, those just aren't. Those are okay. That's normal. That's natural, right? There's something about what Brienne does that inspires so much hatred in him. And it goes back to this sense of natural order, I think. Brienne is a threat to him because she represents this kind of category crisis, right? It's this turmoil that ensues when the naturalness of binary classifications is called into question. It's something that Marjorie Garber writes a lot about in Vested Interests, a book that deals with these kind of questions of cultural anxieties around people who exist within the margins of gender presentation specifically. And Brienne, by her very existence, is a threat to this order that he's so keen on enforcing. regardless of Brienne's own personal identity however however they feel about themselves you know their existence is a threat to this order they are calling this into question just by the

way that everybody around Brienne perceives them right physically in manners of dress, in actions, in values, all of it. None of that quite aligns neatly with either side of the gender binary that Brienne has been presented. So Brienne is seen as suspect to somebody who's such a starch, patriarchal kind of tyrant like Tarly. Brienne's the enemy. I love the way you've described this because it is right it's that inherent like competition that masculine competition yes and

that brian's now not only taking like one spot away from them and being unattainable as we saw them go absolutely motherfucking berserk that they couldn't have brian you know at the melee like up until the melee sorry before the melee in Renly's camp like that it was such a competition then like oh we can't have Brienne because Brienne's taking up that space and now it's not just taking that space it's taking two things away from them right not only can we not have Brienne for Brienne's body uh now we can't have Brienne like taking our spot our role I mean we see these guys go nuts bananas trying to murder each other just because like their second son looked wrong at a person

and now they have to get a new castle whatever the the complexity is really there and like that the physicality and the manner and the values totally totally threaten them yeah I love what you're saying here about that threat to, I mean, the way that they perceive that natural order, right? The natural crimes and how Brienne defies all of that. There's this fear of the unknown, right? The other and not the ice demons. The Brienne is also blue and could be a blue demon in a way, too.

And, yeah, Brienne threatens, I mean, to an extent, right? Lord Randall's very pathetic reality. And has to question that order. And also what you were saying, Chloe, in regards to they cannot possess her and own her. But also she threatens, to put it simply, their power. She threatens the power structure inherently, and especially so, not just because of, like, damn, all right, so she's good at this, and she's allowed to defy these because she also has class protecting her from Tarth,

but now she also has the backing of a, quote-unquote, higher power, the throne, the crown's signature. And he's like, what the fuck what the fuck absolutely so much so that like he rejects like that it's not her he's like well that's what happens when you have a really nice sword like your daddy bought you a new car enjoy your daddy's jamie lannister in this scenario i guess but i mean only in only in her dreams that she hasn't said that yet not out loud at least just to us he says it's all the sword right

he totally takes away any contribution that Brienne might have brought to the sword situation it's straight up just because it's Valyrian steel like Randall Tarly is just the worst I cannot stand him even a tiny bit same but this this this little line about it's it's valerian steel that's quick that always kind of makes me think of the line that uh theramere says in lord of the rings two towers he says i do not love the bright sword for its sharpness nor the warrior warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Randall Tarly loves the sword for its sharpness. He loves the warrior for what they can do. Just kidding. I don't actually think he's capable of love. So that's a different conversation, I guess. He's the worst. But, you know, he doesn't give a shit about the people that he is. He and his men are supposed to be, in theory, protecting.

Right. Though, of course, they aren't right, own prowess, then acknowledge that good comes from protecting people and not just killing things, you know, right? That there's a difference between those two things. Whereas Brienne, you know, ultimately who she can defend is what gives that sword meaning, especially I think as we see her journey progress. If you just look at the way her arc starts from the tourney, from the Knights of Summer, until the end of this book, even, I mean, we see her really kind of internalize the value of the sword as defense the sword as what are we protecting what is this tool using for us right now the meaning comes through sansa stark right she's always constantly thinking about

sansa and what sansa could be doing what she would do if brianne were sansa all these different kinds of thoughts right and it just seems to really stand in contrast to those pretty dreams about Gloria's death in battle, you know, because now she's she's finally starting to kind of understand that, no, there's there's more to this sword than that. And, you know, this idea really comes back later in the chapter when Septon Maribald even talks about the smith and how the smith is his favorite of the gods. Because without his labor, what would the warrior defend, right? And so talk about kind of a theme for A Feast for Crows, right? What is the warrior defending if we aren't taking care of the people? If the rebuilding and the labor and the finding ways to bring these small folks some sort of quality of life if that's not happening what's the rest of it matter yeah it rings really true like randall literally is walking around this camp with a giant valyrian sword on his back i just want to put that out there that this man

is walking around using heartsbane as a giant fucking penis on his back to say look at me i'm a big man but he's gonna stand there and say to her oh well it's the sword that's fast oh so you're not fast randall oh so you're a bad fighter is what you're like it's very interesting that he wants to use that as a symbol of power a symbol of bringing quote-unquote justice, quote-unquote order to this city, a.k.a. marrying his son to Mooton's kid so that he can take the city because his wife's family just lost their summer house. But, like, it's just so funny to me that he can sit there and be such a hypocrite all because he really wants to go that extra mile of not giving a shit.

It's interesting. Interesting, Randall. so you're saying you can't fight i i don't know i really think that she should have challenged him then you know i i legitimately want to watch brian fight and beat up randall tarly well yes but everyone randall tarly's high up on that list for me. Absolutely. I mean, you talked about just now, you know, it's fucked up that Randall Tarly attributes it all to the sword. And Chloe also said it as his penis, right? And I mean, whether, well, no, I mean, no, I legitimately think. It's true. I mean, swords are considered like a phallic symbol in a lot of, I guess, insert, I don't know, thing here, right?

Like, I feel like I don't need to justify this i feel like everyone knows that this has been the case in a lot of literature and art etc and it almost feels like randall charlie is saying here it's because you have like a pretend penis right the power isn't in you inherently it's because you are pretending at being something that you are not because of the sword and as opposed to who Brienne is right and her ability and and gender being something inherent and saying it's external in that way but yeah and also I like what you're saying Sam about Brienne realizing and this is a big shift in Brienne's character right in in the first book Brienne's all like yeah we're gonna die it's gonna be fucking sick and everyone's gonna sing about me and it's like like yeah we're gonna die it's gonna be fucking sick and everyone's gonna sing about me

and it's like are they? and now it's more of that something to live for versus something to die for she wanted to die for Renly but now she wants to live for Sansa and for Catelyn but we'll see how that changes after seeing Catelyn again

cat's different and for Jamie's dick I mean yeah let your orgasm once please please Brienne deserves an orgasm and a blunt maybe a Xanax honestly I would give

Brienne all the Xanax in my house if that would make Brienne happy does this make up for us not talking about dick in the swamp anyways Brienne happy. Does this make up for us not talking about Dick in the swamp? Anyways. Brienne proposes that instead of whatever Randall wanted Brienne to do, Brienne's going to go find the outlaw, Sandor Clegane, who Shagwell said was last spotted with the Stark girl.

But Tarly says he's been unable to find that group of outlaws, Clegane, Dondarrion, the Red Priest, and this woman Stoneheart. How could she find him when he could not? He says he'll permit it, though he won't give her any protection. She has the king's protection. He won't give her much helpful information either, like how many men Clegane might have. Instead, he's very helpful with some further threatening against her person. Perhaps Clegane will let you live

after he and his pack are done raping you. You could crawl back to Tarth with some dog's bastard in your belly. Could we start counting these? Should we do a count of how many sexual violences are threatened against Brienne? That could be fun.

Is that fun? That could be a fun count. Look at all the fun we're having fuck right like some of it's a little like all right Jesus we got it Westeros hates women um it's it's so much you know and and whoo and and you understand what what George is doing I think to some degree and yeah and i feel as though he is trying to use that shock value in like a net positive way like i think i think what he's trying to do is you know show how messed up this whole system is right sometimes it

it just feels a little too gross sometimes it it's unsettling. Yeah, sometimes, which is, you know, very effectively done, George. Congrats, congrats, but also Brienne asks if they can have hospitality, and Randall's shook enough that he's like, no, it's not gonna happen. Thanks. And Hyle's like,

it isn't really your roof, though. It's Lord Mooton's roof, so will he let us stay and tarly's like no pretty much no pretty much no i will say this is a moment when i actually like kyle hunt when he calls randall tarly out on it like i'm pretty sure it's not your house that's a moment where i'm like okay okay you get a moment. I'll acknowledge that one. Yeah, it's well done because, I mean, listen, we all know I am a noted Kyle cunt hater. And he made fun of her skill so much

and mocked her appearance, physicality, skill, and especially skill. Like, that's the thing. You can disrespect brianne you know all day long and brianne will let it slide but game you can't disrespect game you know and brianne had game out there on the field and heil does not have that game and he now is knowing that yeah if i had i'll give him one point he's now at notch one you know in my book he's at the very first notch we'll see if he can move up or down from there hopefully for him you know, in my book. He's at the very first notch. We'll see if he can move up or down from there.

Hopefully for him, you know, speaking of notches, uh-oh. You don't have to hand it to the guy, but now he's like, oh no, I'm on team big wench, right? And you have him compared to Tarly where he's like, I don't know, Tarly. I don't think I would fuck with that one. Like he straight up in this chapter does defend and it's almost like tarly is so threatened but hunt knows he has nothing to kind of live up to in that he's not threatened by her power so much as much as like he now respects because of

that power he goes oh you're doing just what all of us had to do you're breaking your entire body and your mind cool we're on the same game now absolutely and yeah i appreciate that for again like same as you two hell hunt being like but loophole and you know what you were saying of like how now heil hunt like respects brienne and it reminds me of like this moment which may or may not be spoiling things whatever in Dying of the Light which has all of one one woman character it's it's an interesting book I actually like the more I think about it and ponder it I really liked the ending but that character right like it's like does Heilil hunt only respect brianne now for having proven her skill as a warrior right and and for being in that same sphere that heil hunt actually respects anything in right when it comes to strength because heil hunt did not respect

brianne as you pointed out like in renly's camp or in that other chapter a few chapters ago um for who brianenne is inherently, but only acknowledges when Brienne proves herself in what's like this masculine coded sphere of fighting and inflicting violence. And it does remind me of that character in Dying of the Light because this character finally gets some of what she wants and gets acknowledged almost as like a person, right? But only after she has been killing people. Never already inherently for just having been a woman, but by stepping into that masculine sphere, which is the only one that matters within like that specific society, which is an extremist society an extremist patriarchal society um now that you say it in that manner it's also like she played the she paid the blood price

right to get in the club yeah yeah like tarly's pissed because they're just letting anyone in in his mind now oh oh now you can get in but like like, that's the blood price. And it's almost something in, you know, the Ned Stark gravitas of if you can kill a man, if you can go so far as to murder a man and take his life away, I mean, that's serious. And Brienne proved themselves by doing that, right? Like that was the proof that you can do it just like them. And this chapter is kind of the consequences of now you get to see what happens when you continue to do it just like them.

Take Randall Charlie's life away, Brienne. Do it. Yeah. It's an experiment. It's a thought experiment and an action experiment. And I think we should think and action. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. experiment and i think we should think and action you know what i'm saying absolutely there's a passage next that i actually has the saddest the saddest brianne thought in it tarly gave the knight a venomous look mootin has the courage of a worm you will not speak to me of mootin as for you my lady it is said your father is a good man. If so, I pity him. Some men are blessed with sons, some with daughters. No man deserves to be cursed with such as you.

Live or die, Lady Brienne. Do not return to Maidenpool whilst I rule here. Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you. My daughter. Words hurt. Wow. He's the worst. And this is something that, this is a passage

I come back to all the time. And this is really the moment more than I think anything else, or at least one of them, that really made me read Brienne as trans. Just because this resonated so very strongly just with my own journey through dealing with transition and grappling with my own gender and how that was going to impact the people around me. Even if you have the greatest family in the world, I think this is always the fear, right? That some men have sons, some have daughters, no man deserves to be cursed with such as you. So this is the passage that really, really sticks out to me and really resonates with this kind of idea of Brienne as a transgender and or gender non-conforming in some way kind of

character, right? Brienne has internalized so many of these messages that she is having just reaffirmed right in her face by Randall Tarly. This is, in a lot of ways, something I feel like a lot of trans people, if I decide to present my gender in a way that feels authentic to me, am I going to be losing the people I care about? Am I going to be a curse to my father? Am I going to be a curse to my mother? Are they going to regret that they had me? I mean, these are the kinds of thoughts that I think the isolation of the trans experience sometimes leads to. And so this is one of the, I mean, I remember just reading this passage over and over and over again the first time I read it because I felt like I was being punched in the gut.

over and over and over again the first time I read it because I felt like I was being punched in the gut. And so does Brienne. Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you. That is a really emotional reaction for Brienne. You know, we don't really get to see a lot of the ways she reacts to hurt.

A lot of times she just shuts down and it doesn't explore, you know, kind of what their internal thoughts and feelings are in those moments when they are faced directly with that kind of rejection. Whereas here, it's almost like Brienne goes into an almost kind of dissociative moment, right? She walked away like one asleep, moment right she walked away like one asleep not knowing where she was going and that makes sense someone is their only family you know at this point the siblings died when they were young you know her mother has been gone for a long long time you know and so randall tarley has really found the thing that is just absolutely devastating and just thrown it right in her face and it's just absolutely heartbreaking that's a that's such

a great point i didn't even realize like until the way that you phrase it just now like found the thing that hurts most right because we're getting so much of Brienne's backstory in Brienne's chapters, which makes sense, right? Brienne actually says very little in terms of dialogue. But there's such a rich interiority in their chapters. And Brienne isn't worried about their fighting skill, right? We've seen that proven often. She was worried about whether or not she'd be able to kill people. But when it comes to actually fighting they they're not worried about that they know and that's why they chased

everyone down at the melee it was like beating their asses which good for you brianne you deserve it and yeah amen it's it's the family aspect as you said right like this is this is something that she kind of keeps coming back to, but then leaves, touches on it, leaves again, right? We get bits and pieces of Selwyn, but not a lot. So as you said, this is an anxiety and pain point for her. And there's like, a lot of other interesting questions that come up this chapter of who should be pitting whom, right? Later on, Maribald's going to say that, oh, we should pity the broken men. But here, Charlie's saying that he pities Selwyn, that Selwyn deserves pity for having Brienne. And then really twists the knife after going after family. He's just really, really insulted, I guess, by the fact that Brienne's an amazing fighter and got the Bloody Mummers.

I wonder if Charlie was even chasing the Bloody Mummers, because obviously they were pretty notorious. I think they had a whole cool name, so they must have been pretty well known. And Tarly calls her Lady Brienne, right, to remind Brienne of their place. And then there's this idea of being unable to return to Maidenpool, says never come back to Maidenpool so long as Tarly rules. And I almost wonder if this is to an extent a metaphor for Brienne being unable to return to maidenhood in one respect for being unable to return to being like a girl slash woman when it comes to being gender non-conforming but also on another level the loss of innocence that we discussed last chapter in regards to Brienne's first kill and how we were likening that with virginity in a way.

I like that connection there of being barred from maiden pool and maidenhood and also that he assigns that to her just to put her back in her place, right? And also that he sees that as a place, not a person. He's very much so like, oh, Brienne, you're someone's daughter. You're not a person uh that you know he's he's very much so like oh brienne you're someone's daughter you're not a person though just someone's daughter you're just this guy's daughter that's the only way i can relate to you brienne some dude's daughter right and it kind of goes into that like she's somebody's daughter rhetoric that you hear around conversations about, you know,

rape and sexual assault, right? This phrase is used to assign value to people who are assigned female at birth, but only by virtue of their relationships to the men in their lives. You know, she's somebody's daughter. She's somebody's sister. She's somebody's friend.

She's somebody's wife. She's somebody's sister. She's somebody's friend. She's somebody's wife, whatever. I mean, it only matters because of the humanity of the man and not any kind of inherent value on her own. and Tarly just dials that up to kind of an, an even more extreme version of that. And because Brianne doesn't have this value anymore in his eyes,

Brienne has given up the value that she should have as a woman by the way that she dresses and acts and talks. And so she's just a curse to her father. What value does she have left? None in his eyes, right? And it's hard not to then think about, you know, the other kid who has no value in Randall Tarly's eyes for not performing gender up to Randall Tarly's expectations. And of course that Sam, right? I mean, I see so many parallels with the ways

Brienne and Sam just interact with the world around them. You know, it's so good just to see. I mean, the way George uses these same fears in such different ways is so fascinating and i i just love that absolutely we'll talk about it a lot throughout this chapter but you know the next chapter is sam three and it's a it's a heavy chapter with amon dying right and there are a lot of parallels that pop up especially on this basis of sam versus brianenne on what they're missing in Tarly's eyes. And it's really interesting how Sam interacts with the world around him, right?

Because you see that he's only been raised with his sister and his mom and Dickon when they were young. But he had a positive female reinforcement around him. And had Brienne had positive reinforcement not you septa roel sit the fuck down had brienne had the positive female kind of interaction and reinforcement and saying like you can be what you want to be and you can do what you want to do because we're fucking rich compared to most of the country so who the fuck cares what you do ha ha um had brienne had that, you know, their confidence would have been soaring through the roof.

That's for sure. The lack of self-confidence is really easily seen for Brienne as Brienne has to somehow pull herself together to walk away from Tarly being an asshole. So it's very sad because Brienne should have more than that. Brienne should have more than that. dagger i mean yes it was the dagger but it wasn't the dagger that killed the other it was sam's sam's courage and strength right and that's the case for brian too it wasn't the sword it was grand skill and courage and strength right neither of them they both like they thought don't hesitate and they did it like that's that's the big thing right there the hesitation and that they followed

their heart to save the people that they care about or the people that they value humans they value they've also value humanity right like you see how inherently like sam is just like john we have to save this chick dude it's so not fair yes save her john and john's like dude you just met her like yesterday come on sam it seems like no this is the one this is the one and brienne hasn't even ever like yesterday come on sam it seems like no this is the one this is the one and brienne hasn't even ever like laid eyes on a stark girl because she blinked at the wrong moment and they got on a boat across from her but like she just hasn't ever you know like she hasn't even seen these girls she's obviously seen catalan and because catalan extended more kindness in three minutes than anyone pretty much had any female in her

life had that made her loyal, you know, in that sense, and her want to honor them. And I just think like, that's such a great trait to highlight in both characters that they're just like their courage, their bravery to do what's right for people that maybe, you know, the underdog. I mean, I was told as a kid, you always root for the underdog. You always be kind to everyone, but you especially, as Septim Mirabal would say, you give kindness to those who need it. You know, you pick them up off the ground if they need it. And Brienne obviously has to grapple with that in a very different way

because there are threats to her in every direction. But yet she still does it. And that's more than a lot of the characters can say in the story. Absolutely. That said, before Brienne can stand up for herself with everything going on with Tarly, he leaves. He's like, I'm outie. I'm not dealing with that. That was a close one.

I almost got found out as a fucking fraud. Heil tells her, meet me at the Stinking Goose tomorrow. My cousin Alan is one of the men that was sent to find the hound, and I will see if I can procure you some information. Brienne and Pod seek a bed for the night, but all the inns come up short, no vacancy, and per Pod's idea, they look for a bed for the night in one of the ships at port.

I wanted to just call out this line of Lord Randall's men still prowled the docks as thick as the flies had been on the heads of the three bloody bumbers. And the story of the chapter shows us how nasty those heads were. We've already discussed it. They were fucking gross. And yet Randall found those more valuable than Brienne or anyone associated with Brienne, who is currently alive, right? And has actually proven herself. and Brienne or anyone associated with Brienne who is currently alive, right? And has actually proven herself and like Randall's men

though, they're allegedly doing good rebuilding the war according to those people at the first chapter. But we know that many of them are rotten, right? They're stealing from the small folk. They're like, give me your eggs. They're like, no, these eggs aren't for you. So I like this comparison of as thick as the flies.

Charlie's men are the flies, not looking to protect anything. And they are just here feeding off the deaths caused by the war. It's so visual that like he's also the flies follow him too. He's the crow. And we see that politically, right? Yeah. We see that with him and his friends in the reach, probably that he is for Aegon. Brienne, Podrick and Hyle are rejected by many

ships. The Goldtown girl thinks that Brienne is a sex worker. Titan's daughter is leaving, and the sea strider is heading to Goldtown next and then north. I just want to call out this little moment, because I think it's really interesting that Brienne is immediately assumed to be a sex worker. I think it really speaks to the way any kind of non-normative gender expression is immediately regarded as inherently sexual. It's, you know, kind of at best. And then at worst, it's, you know, considered downright perverse, right? It gets lumped into this group with these other sexualized outsiders, which, of course, also kind of speaks to the violence and just awful, awful kind of treatment of sex workers in this hellscape that is Randall Tarly's regime, right?

But there's also this really long history of conflating sex work and cross-dressing kind of in a broad sense um including like people who would identify as um as trans or gender non-conforming in some way today um historically in the real, there's a long history of the way they've been policed and prosecuted. In her book, Arresting Dress, Claire Sears identifies what she terms as problem bodies, tracing the legal history of identifying and policing indecent bodies that threaten public morals, nuisance bodies that threaten public order, and illegible bodies that threaten the cultural imperative of verifiable identity in an anonymous city. And so sex workers, gender nonconforming people, disabled people, disfigured people were all amongst the most vulnerable to these sort of targeted attempts to push bodies not seen as truly human into the shadows and just kind of eradicate them from the record, right? Because these people are seen as unsightly, unseemly, they're nuisances to a society. And so we're treating human beings as unsightly public

nuisances. And the shame is a feature not a bug right and i think that really ties into what we see happening here with brienne and the whole riverland situation i i think this attitude is definitely something george is fascinated by his applauded you know cripples and bastards and broken things, right? So many of the characters that we see in these stories really fall into those categories. Brienne, Sam, Bran, Tyrion, Sandor, I mean, the list goes on and on, right? They all face these similar types of discrimination and scorn because they're seen as unsightly they aren't people to be empathized with they're a public blight is kind of the the general attitude in westeros that we get and i think so much of

this story is really struggling with that shame and watching characters trying to cultivate a sense of purpose beyond that brokenness right and that's something we see over and over again with Brienne. And that's kind of, in a lot of ways, the crux of what we get to with no chance and no choice, right? And so I don't know, just seeing the way that Brienne's gender non-normativity is conflated with sex work in this same chapter where we see Randall Tarly being the physical embodiment of the patriarchy, right? And, you know, we also spend a lot of time looking at the kind of daily banal traumas that lead people to break. It just feels really intentional. And I think this kind of framework of problem bodies actually works really well as a method of looking at George's work and the kind of central human story that George is trying to tell. thought was that Brienne was a sex worker upon approach because Brienne does not fit into the physical mold of what a woman from Westeros should fit within, right? You start off and you're

supposed to be beautiful and married and bear children. If you can't do that, then you're going to be delegated to the next rung. If you can't do that, then you have to find a living elsewise. And so sex workers are often, you know, the people that were not able to find the living in the normal everyday society of what Westeros finds value in and there's something interesting in that Varys had to carve his own way into Westeros of how he could serve Westeros and find his own way and kind of propose his own way of succeeding and success and Brienne is actually flipping the script to try a completely different profession that women are not allowed within usually and one that offers much more violence

and a lot more scary stuff than you know what she could be doing in some of the other aspects but the fact that they immediately think you must be a sex worker because of the way you look the company you keep how you act uh just the the reject society kind of feeling that they put out like ah you're a reject you must be this it's very sad because it's like it's not the first time that you know brianna's a mistaken for something that she is not but be also that society puts it in that category of rejects, like, ah, the rejects, they have to find money to, you know, like, what do you want them to do scrounge on the floor? Yeah, all of these people that we've mentioned are, are people who exist on the margins of a Westerosi society, right? They do not have a place for them. So no matter what

they end up doing, they are having to kind of carve out a room for them. And I think that's just really a really, really interesting thing in Brienne's arc and a really interesting way to see how Brienne manages that versus how Tyrion manages that versus how Varys does. You know, I mean, there's a lot of really interesting connections, I think, that kind of come from looking at it from this perspective. Absolutely. And I love the way that you've just extracted this passage just in general into, you know, the rejects, right? The people living on the margins, the marginalization of certain identities. And also, I mean, as you said, right, they just decide, I can't understand this.

Therefore, this must be sexual in nature. They put it together with that, you know, sexual, as some might call it, deviancy. These people are deviant, right? And therefore, their bodies, as you said, are policed. And something that I thought was really interesting in this quote that you have here from Sears is discussion not just of the threatening of the public order, but that they're called illegible bodies, bodies that cannot truly be understood or cannot be read, right? What is the story for these bodies? They cannot be read because we do not have the stories by which to understand who these people are. And so they transpose onto them another narrative. They've transposed one of not just sexuality, but in order to understand Brienne, they cannot understand Brienne and have decided, oh, this person must be doing this in order to serve men's desires of this must be sexual in nature not for brienne but for those who have this i

guess kink is what they've decided absolutely just recentering i guess patriarchal norms yes well podrick speaks up as they walk away asking if brienne thinks sanza went home you know actually i will say brienne's becoming a better detective as Brienne's story goes. I was thinking that today, too, that, like, it's not fair what we're saying because, like, if the kids had been there and if she had had the moment and seen them

and just, like, she had found them. Yeah. She was looking in the right places. We were almost there. She's doing great, sweetie. You're doing great. She's on track for one of the daughters places. We were almost there. She's doing great, sweetie. You're doing great. She's on track for one of the daughters. She didn't have that.

She didn't have detective internship experience. This is the first time Brienne's getting to be a detective. Entry level. Exactly. This is the work, the on-the-job experience. And Brienne says that, well, Sansa probably wouldn't go home because Sansa's home was burnt down. And then Padraic says that's where her gods are and gods can't die. And I just wanted to call that out quickly.

I like that line of, you know, the gods as legends are songs and therefore the songs do not die, which is what Brienne kind of said to Kat back in that Clash chapter. And now, yeah, you know, Brienne's growing, growing in her new, like, career field, and also growing in their understanding of the world. Resume building. Well, but until they know for certain where Sansa is, as

Tymion told them, Tymion had seen a Stark, so they can't go north, says whatever the north's burned i did want to call out a line really quickly because i think it's really funny and it's and it really does speak to what we're talking about too um so this is podrick okay bless his heart he says he tries so hard. He says, sir, my lady. What if my lady did go home? My other lady, I mean.

Sir. Lady Sansa. He's just losing his mind. Poor kid. He just cannot. He's like, I don't know what to call you that will not be rude. And I think that kind of comes down to a lot of the tension in Brienne's story, right? It's that illegibility that Eliana called out just a few minutes ago.

Brienne is not legible to the people who see her. They don't know what to say. They don't know the right words to use. They don't know what Brienne is. I mean, and that's such an interesting thing. And it's also such a real reality to anybody who presents in a way that is, you know, maybe somewhat androgynous or even just differently, a different kind of gender presentation than understandably male, understandably female. This is a conversation I've basically had plenty of times with like baristas and stuff who are trying so hard not to offend me, but don't know what to call me, right? And so I think that's

another thing that we see that kind of goes into the way Brienne sees the world and the way the world sees Brienne both right it's that kind of interplay and you know Brienne gives him nothing she doesn't correct him she doesn't tell him the right thing to say because what can she say you know should she tell him to call Brienne my lady would that feel right to her I don't think that would feel to call Brienne, my lady? Would that feel right to her? I don't think that would feel right to Brienne regardless. Would sir feel right? It doesn't seem to. There doesn't seem to be either thing that really fits and feels organic to Brienne,

in my reading of it, at least. It made me think of this quote by a queer theorist named Ricky Wilkins, who wrote, Is there anything I could say about my body or identity that wouldn't obscure everything I really wanted to tell them? Are there any names for myself I could have given them with which I did not completely disagree, which wouldn't have made me complicit in my own silencing? Damn. I don't know. I always think about this quote when I think about the Sir Milady scenario that we see over and over again with Brienne. And I think that's so important, right?

That last part of complicit in my own silencing, right? There is no term. It doesn't exist. So how can you, Brienne even is struggling to read their own story and understand right how do you define yourself if you don't have the language or the words hey and i'll say though like two pods credit at least he like realizes and understands and gives the respect like you're a sir in my mind if you want to be if you want to be sir in my mind you

are sir or lady which he's like i'm just throwing him out there let me know if one sticks uh exactly there's a big difference between that and randall tarly's lady brienne right that's a yeah right that's great contrast such a different thing it's and that's such a cool it's such a cool contrast in this chapter that's a great contrast um it's also like there's that other complication cool contrast in this chapter. That's a great contrast. It's also like, there's that other complication. I think Chloe, you brought this up a few chapters ago of, is sir even the right term, not just in terms of gender, but in terms of the value system, right? Because Sandor's all like, don't call me sir.

I'm not a fucking knight. Yeah. So what, what else is? When Sam was just saying, you know, like how, what is the word I want, right? Like what is the word that would have fixed it all? It doesn't exist. That's a big part of Brienne's plot, right? That Brienne is carving out a place and a name and a role to replace this broken system that has completely broken down.

And we're learning about what's broken in its stead. And we're learning about what has happened to these men and others who have fought and become this person and lost the actual semblance of what being a knight means so she's almost redefining and recontextualizing knighthood throughout her entire arc and sir is it important in the end right absolutely rian's gender is night yeah amen yeah as opposed to another i think sort of gender neutral right or gender non-conforming as the story is still like exploring this but uh no one i was just gonna say like aria yeah i did it i segued well it's true though like it is uh aria and we talked a little bit about rejecting the sword for her.

We need a last episode that both Brienne and Arya have rejected their magic swords to refine themselves. And Arya, we just missed her. We just blinked and missed her because those ships we just talked about a minute ago, the Titan's daughter is the ship Arya was on. So once more, and Brienne could have gone to Goldtown as well, but just missed a chance to Goldtown. If she had been able to go to Goldtown and asked all the questions that she was asking here in Maidenpool, she would have found Sansa. If she had gone with Shadrach, she would have found Sansa. If she had gone on the Titan's Daughter, if she had just gone for a night, she might have found a skinny girl with knobbly knees coming to her.

And in the very next chapter, Sam 3, we have Arya. We find Arya in Braavos who tries to sell Sam some seafood. Just have to put that out there. And Arya says, he's not a lord. He's on the Night's Watch, stupid. From Westeros, a girl edged into the light, pushing a barrow full of seaweed, a scruffy, skinny creature in big boots with ragged, unwashed hair. There's another one down at the Happy Port, singing songs to the sailor's wife, she informed the two Bravos.

I think there's also something really great in that Darren, she specifically calls out Darren being down drinking away his honor, right, as a member of the Night's Watch, where Brienne is now kind of fighting again, like we said, with recontextualizing what a true knight is as other knights throw away their honor around her. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, they finally find a boat in the harbor to sleep in. The Lady of Myr. Interesting. Oh, Cersei does that later.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's a ship. She finds the Lady of Myr to sleep in, too. That is a ship. That's a ship. Well, we have this passage of... They had a restless night. Thrice Brienne woke.

Once when the rain began, and once at a creek that made her think Nimble Dick was creeping in to kill her. The second time, she woke with knife in hand, but it was nothing. In the darkness of the cramped little cabin, it took her a moment to remember that Nimble Dick was dead.

When she finally drifted back to sleep, she dreamed about the men she'd killed. They danced around her, mocking her, pinching at her as she slashed at them with her sword. She cut the mail to bloody ribbons. Yet still they swarmed around her. Shagwell, Timion, and Pig, aye, but Randall Tarly, too, and Vargo Hote, and Red Ronit Connington. Ronit had a rose between his fingers. When he held it out to her, she cut his hand off.

Sexy. Yes, she did. Yeah, cut his hand off. Cut his hand off, mommy. How she likes her mouth. God. Yeah. Handless. Well, you really gotta hand it to Red Ronnit. No, you don't. You don't at all. Please don't.

you really got to hand it to Red Ronit. No, you don't. You don't at all. Please don't. There's something that I love about this dream and about this chapter is that chapter after the Sam chapter is Jamie's chapter. And that next Jamie chapter has Cersei, who's very busy mocking Jamie's injury and mocking kind of what Jamie has

become because of what he's lost. But here, Brienne subconsciously is dreaming of avenging it in her own twisted way. And I will add that that chapter also parallels in that it ends with Jamie punching Red Ronit. Right? So George really, really put these by each other. We have the very epic, you're speaking of a highborn lady, sir. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne. he spat a glob of blood at jamie's foot brienne the beauty yeah it's so well done and that like everything that's harmed her and everything coming at her that in

her dreams she gets her vengeance and hey if she's like danny or aria her list and her dreams will come true right oh i hope so and yeah absolutely and they it's just a great passage also and also like the listing of the names like you said and heil hunt isn't in here but i would say like you know with nimble dick looming in the background in these dreams as part of that trauma you know i wonder it's a reminder of brian not knowing how to trust anyone anymore and that includes like that's what's being explored with the journey with heil hunt because heil hunt has lost brian's trust for pretty obvious reasons also because all these other fine upstanding citizens who are in brian's nightmares have also contributed to the loss of trust in people in general and i'm excited for brianne

too i mean yeah it's great that jamie punched red ron it but brianne can also be their own knight um defending their own honor so it also is not dissimilar to aria removing sandor from her list interesting that she doesn't dream about heil hunt and now he's off her list. Interesting. That she doesn't dream about Heil Hunt and now he's off her list because he's, you know, you're off my shit list now. You're not quite as bad as I thought. Mark Mullendore and that fucking monkey That monkey! Why is Mark

not in this dream? But also I will say, is it like, I see Heil enough in real life, I don't want to have to see Heil in my dreams too. I see Hyle enough in real life. I don't want to have to see Hyle in my dreams, too. In the morning, they break their fast, and the innkeep remembers them.

She recognizes them as the ones who went with Nimble Dick and asks what happened to him. Brienne says he was slain by outlaws, and the innkeep is actually very surprised. She had thought he would end up at the wall or hanged which is kind of sad uh worse expelled while eating the fried bread and sausages she thinks hyle hunt is probably playing her a fool herself another joke at her expense but he surprises her he does show up and tells them sandor had last been seen in salt pans and rode west on the trident. Wrong. Hyle's cousin doesn't think Sandor's with Dondarrion, and thinks he's likely trapped in the middle of the war without a place to go. And worse, for what he did at Saltpans,

everyone's out to get Sandor and make an example of him as an outlaw. The only man they could speak to is a septon, river-born and bred, named Maribald, in the Saltpans. Hyle plans to seek him and asks brienne and brienne asks have you been sent to spy on me for randall tarly but actually the opposite it turns out hyle definitely has some moxie and has left randall's service and now he would like to co-look for sansa, of course, especially considering splitting the reward. She's like, I'm not fucking getting a reward for this, you dipshit.

Catelyn's dead. This is about rewarding my inner self. Golden land. That's what he sees in this. I mean to save the girl, not sell her. I swore a vow. I don't recall that I did. That is why you will not be coming with me they left the next morning as the sun was coming up they arrive looking quite an odd bunch

once they find the septon he walks beside them with his quarterstaff and a donkey carrying a very heavy load of food and dog yes dog the dog. The other special guest this episode. I'm pet-sitting a dog right now. Everyone needs to know. Dog is also here. And... Are you here, dog? It's me, Eliana.

Dogs never die. I wish. God, I'm still sad. Rianne, you will not be coming with me. Unfortunately, the next morning, Heil Hunt is also on the journey with horses okay i'm here not to actually talk about dogs right now i'm here to talk about horses a different animal and so i i just want to say so the line says sir heil on a chestnut courser and brian on her tall gray mare and Podrick Payne astride his swayback stot

and I just want to liken that to Dunks horses in the Hedge Knight you all know Thunder, Sweetfoot and Chestnut so Thunder is a war horse, a big brown stallion so kind of akin to the Chestnut Courser Sweetfoot is a mare

and also a palfrey, which is a docile horse usually used by women. So Brienne on her tall grey mare. And then chestnut is an old stot and Podrick is a stride his swayback stot. So I'm just parallels

horses. Nay! Dunkin' egg. Dunkin' egg. Dunkin' Egg. Dunkin' Egg. Dunkin' Egg. That's it. That was beautiful, Eliana. Thank you. That's the analysis.

So the septent explains that he's brought food for the small folk and some oranges and has this line of I have a weakness for the orange, I confess. I got these from a sailor, and I fear they will be the last I'll taste till spring. So on this reread, getting ready to come on this episode with you guys,

one of the things that really just stuck out to me was Maribald and his oranges, and it just kind of, for some reason, made me think of Renly and his peach this time through, and I'd never really thought about those two things together. But there's something about this idea of feasting in the middle of all of this war and objection surrounded by all of your knights and retainers and servants and all the things, right? Versus being the man who is traveling through all of the sad and tragic and ugly stuff you didn't want to see, you know, in your pretty, beautiful camp with the Knights of Summer. indulgence in a way. Renly's is very much talking all about the, you know, savoring the sweet moments in life, right? Because that's what Stannis doesn't do. It's this moment, you know,

do I dare to eat a peach? Like T.S. Eliot says in Proof Rock, those kind of things, right? We have lots of that going on with the peach. But with Maribald and the orange, he's talking about how it's the last he'll taste until spring. And so it's not just this symbol of privilege in a lot of ways that the peach kind of feels like for Menly. This is, I'm going to savor this because I know the hard times are coming and I know the winter is coming and I am going to savor this. I'm going to enjoy this final indulgence and I'm going to share it with the people that I encounter on the road. I'm going to bring it with me to the small folk. than Renly sharing with his friends and retainers who are basically all, they aren't suffering

like the people that Maribald is coming through here and seeing. And so to see Brienne in these two different camps in some way just seemed like an interesting kind of comparison. Oranges throughout literature are usually utilized to represent things like fertility, reproduction, rebirth, things like that. It almost feels like this could be a little bit of a dream of spring for the Riverlands, right? This is us, you know, the winter's coming and everything's going to be terrible, but maybe there's hope for something beyond. Oranges provide nutrition, you know,

they boost immune systems, they are life-giving forces whereas the peaches are associated more with sweetness pleasure living life to the fullest things like that i just thought it was kind of an interesting little you know not to get too in-depth about fruit but that's you know who i am as a person so here we are i'm here talking about horses, so whatever. Yeah. Eliana did talk about horses. That's true. So you're fine.

And also, it's not your fault. It's like George has literally made them symbolic fruit in general. We've talked at length before about the oranges, of course, and Dorne and what they symbolize for Dorne, right? And in the same sense, these and war and what they symbolize for Dorne right and in the same sense these and war and what they symbolize in the part of war it also reminds me it reminds me of a couple things what you were saying reminds me of that little quote from the wall we get where like they're running out of meat and John thinks soon they'll get loose teeth yeah and people won't like you know be able to like they won't have the right nutrition to fucking survive even if they do survive the winter up there.

And these people, it's not just about, you know, the surviving and nourishment, but it's also that these are special oranges, right? Like, these are, like, more expensive and you can't get them anywhere. And why should these people also not have them? Like, they aren't bad people. people also not have them like they aren't bad people they have done nothing wrong but live their lives and pay their fucking taxes to the king that they've never met right and it's like why it's like those stupid arguments you get about people like oh people shouldn't have iphones if they're poor what the fuck like it's that kind of thing these people shouldn't have oranges but he's going through and giving oranges and it's almost i, this whole tour with the septid does feel very much like, how many times should I forgive a

brother who sinned against me? Not seven, not 70, but 70 times seven. How many times should I exert myself to be kind to a person on the road? Whether they would murder me if I turned my back, steal from me, hurt me, You should always still do it. And Mirabal, like he doesn't actually really know some of these people, but some of them remember him, right? And him giving these oranges out as also just the symbol of goodwill that everybody should be able to enjoy life. Everyone should be able to reap these fruits that have been sown, not just a few gods that sit in the castle on high meanwhile you have little finger with his spun fucking sugar and his you know

lemons he's bringing in yeah i think he should uh get a job absolutely or no no no no no we've changed we've changed us people now gets no jobs that's our that's even better those go to the hard workers in society that deserve that and yeah i i love all of this discussion of like what the what the oranges symbolize and especially because i mean you know as he gives as mirabal gives them out and that that generosity of spirit like because it's almost more meaningful because mirabal gives them out and that that generosity of spirit like because it's almost more meaningful because mirabal loves it yeah and has a weakness for orange that he's willing to share that joy and i love what you said about it being um a symbol for a dream of spring and i'm like if i

eat enough oranges will i get stop the last two books i don't know look Look under your chair. It's an orange. It's an orange! Oh my god! That would actually be wild if I did have one. Septim Mirabald was a septim without a sept, just a step up from a begging brother, but slept where he could, even in hedges. He said of hedges, there are many fine hedges in the Riverlands. The old ones are the

best there's nothing beats a hundred year old hedge inside one of those a man can sleep as snug as edin in and with less fear of fleas brienne take notes and you know we just talked about the horses and now we have hedges mentioned so. So again, the Hedge Knight. That's the analysis. Sometimes I highlight important things for you, Eliana. Thank you. Sometimes I'm like, Eliana wants me to write about this for her. So that I can just say a word and act like that will suffice as analysis. Yes.

Oh my god. Septim Maribald can't read, can't write, but he knows so many prayers and passages from the seven pointed star by heart. He's six foot tall and has leathery, warm skin. The biggest, hardest feet Brienne has ever seen. He says he hadn't worn a shoe for 20 years and that at first he had bloody, blistering feet. But he prayed to the cobbler above and they turned his skin to leather. So Maribold, we're going to find out in like like a few moments is walking barefoot as a penance and i want to ask the both of you you know if you know um is this the walking barefoot is this the lord of the rings reference in regards to the hobbitses being barefoot

nope okay i guess no one knows um i don't know it could be second there are like other references of the horny feet you know people having horny feet so i think that is him paying homage i would give you that i don't i don't know i'm not an expert and second regarding the penance aspect it's a question that i feel is continued from jamie's chapters of whether or not redemption is possible or if not redemption atonement forgiveness mercy which I mean it makes sense as part of Brienne's storyline as we meet mother merciless at the end of Brienne's chapter so again also that question of vengeance which does travel with Brienne when it comes to Stannis but it's a it's a different angle on the question here it's from from Brienne's perspective, because Brienne is the one who was hurt versus here in this moment, in this chapter, Heil Hunt. I mean, there's a lot of other

people who have hurt Brienne, but we're going to just talk about Heil Hunt right now, because Chloe's made the great point that he's a bit of Jamie Light. Because currently in the books, but again, if we eat enough oranges, this could change. Bran does not remember what Jaime did. That's not a focus of Bran's current character development. Whereas it is a very present part of Jaime's, that question of whether atonement or redemption is possible. And we see throughout this chapter, and we kind of wonder, is Heil Hunt trying to maybe atone? I don't know. Heil Hunt definitely needs to apologize first do some like accountability but

again we're not exploring this through the one who is the aggressor right which is that's I mean again that's Jamie's storyline we're exploring it through the lens of the victim whether they can find itself find it in themselves, maybe, to forgive. Well, Podrick is like, this is bullshit. There's no cobbler above. I don't remember that from theology class. Not really. Podrick's very nice about it.

He's just like, there's no cobbler above. I would have known. Someone would have told me. I would have loved a cobbler. And Mirabal insists that there is and asks Podrick, who's your favorite god? And Podrick says, the warrior, immediately. But Brienne interrupts, saying that, okay, my father Septon, who did teach me theology,

not quite like that, but would say that there is but actually one god. And the Septon agrees, explaining, yes, one god with seven aspects, but breaking it all apart into several faces made it easier for simple folk like himself and the cobbler could also be called the smith or the fisherman or the carpenter we did sing the carpenter's last episode and so we have this line of the father rules. No, it's the father rules, the warrior fights, the smith labors, and together they perform all that is rightful for a man. Right. All that is rightful for a man.

So what about Brienne, right? Who labors and fights, but definitely doesn't rule, doesn't seem to have any interest in ruling. Who embodies some of what would be considered rightful for a woman, right? I mean, not so much the mother necessarily, but you can see aspects of the maiden, maybe a little bit of the crone. So what about us that don't fit into the three that we should, right? You know, we see Meribald compressing and simplifying these tenets of the faith by saying that instead of being seven gods, or instead of being one god that is actually seven aspects, he just calls it seven gods,

right? Because it's simpler to understand. It's an easier version. But he's also preaching this kind of compressed, simplified conception of gender as part of that faith, reinforcing that law of patriarchal order by glossing over any kind of nuance. Yeah, it might be easier to understand that seven separate gods that exist versus the mystery of seven who are one. But it's not really capturing the true essence of the doctrine, right? And in the same way, it might be easier to understand the world as having men and women and no in between and men's roles and women's roles and no in between. But that's not the reality of the world we live in. And that's not the reality that people face every day. And I just think this is an interesting thing for George to pair with Maribald,

kind of doing both to both, right? Doing, consolidating both and losing a lot of the nuance and the truth that, again, just serves to kind of marginalize people who don't really fit into either box. But ultimately it's not just limiting to trans and gender non-conforming characters, right? It's,

it's this idea of rightful expressions of gender is damaging to absolutely everybody across the gender spectrum. I started trying to pull out some examples of different characters that have been harmed by these expectations. And I was just listing all the characters in the book, so I stopped doing that. But it's damaging, right? I mean, this culture places so much focus on that. And then the only other aspect of these gods is the stranger. And so is that what's left to the gender non-conforming people of the world? Is that who they look to and see themselves in? You know, I just think it's kind of interesting. Seven gods and none of them for them. Exactly. Absolutely. And it could

have been all of them for everyone, right? Yeah. We can be more than one thing. We can fit in more than one bucket. We can encompass and be so much more. Like, I'm pushing back on it here, but yeah, that metaphor in regards to gender. Yeah, I mean, it's all this idea of seven aspects of one God. I mean, that concept in itself is about accepting multiplicity, right? It's about saying, you you know things can be more than one thing at its most basic terms and and that's something i think we're that brienne is struggling with too and so i just thought that was a really interesting little little moment yeah i mean to quote whitman i am large i contain multitudes and brienne is very large so large so big large large big board i love him so much

heil wonders why the septon didn't just wear his shoes. And Septon Marabold is like, because it was penance, because I was really fucking hot when I was younger. And I fucked a lot of bitches, Heil Hunt, is basically what he says that he would read from the maiden's book in the seven pointed star to get pussy. What is that, Ril real god spinoza i'm just trying to figure out was was something marabold really hot or did marabold have game you know did marabold pull that's also that's that's hot also though that's true if you have game that makes you ultimately 10x hotter that's true okay it's the same beauty standards eliana jesus i'm just curious was he hot or was he not hot i'm just curious you probably would say brienne's not hot too sinner oh my god oh my god um i am a sinner you know my poor theology my poor readings of

the text the text being a song of ice and fire and so there's a lot of great stuff to mine from this chapter in regards to, I think, oral traditions of history and storytelling, right? You got Sefton Maribold discussing how much of the seven-pointed star he actually has memorized, which is important, right? Because he's illiterate. And it's actually incredibly impressive if he has that much memorized. And also, it makes sense because most of the people to whom he would be preaching are also likely illiterate. So having an oral tradition is important for passing on their culture. But there's another aspect here that

I think is interesting as Maribold stresses as to part of why he was able to take advantage of so many of these maidens, right, was he apparently had a Nolor to allure to him yes i mean kind of as a septon but as someone who had actually ventured at all beyond the limits of whatever town he visited telling stories of this of the seven and it reminds me a little of the allure of the singers um of sansa begging ned to let the singer stay longer that the seven you know they are very much also made up of songs and legends right the gods don't die thing and the seven are lenses through which people can understand their own values and place in the world and that there is a lack of stories that don't conform to this gender binary that poor readings i guess of of the seven therefore make it difficult for people to

understand their own story as we were talking earlier about illegible bodies and as Sam pointed out like what does that leave like the stranger and I guess kind of for what it's worth maybe Heil has kind of been equating Brienne with death in this chapter but like in a very

positive I guess way like wow that was sick great job great fight and there's also this kind of aspect where it feels almost as if the text, maybe George, is critiquing religion as being just as fanciful as the songs. That the songs and religion here, right, the seven, it's useful as a vehicle for communicating societal values. But it is still just that right they are still just stories and songs and it doesn't always come close to the truth and it loses a lot of that nuance that that sam was talking about earlier the grayness and those other areas that people

live in and i think brian's reaction to him talking about all the maidens that he deflowered is interesting so we have the line bne shifted in the saddle uncomfortably thinking back to the camp below the walls of high garden and the way dresser hyle and the others had made to see who could bed her first so yeah that was a really traumatic event for her for sure right and i can totally see where the connection the connection she's drawing between the two of these two things. You know, we both we have men, you know, treating virginity as a game when to the people they're seducing or, you know, attempting to seduce, possibly coercing, you know, possibly assaulting in the case of the threats that were eventually made about Brienne in their little quote-unquote game. The stakes are just so much higher for the women and the assigned female people in this story. This moment also, though, kind of feels like a reminder to me

that this book is being written by a cishet man. Just because, to me me in that moment that's like a a gut reaction moment like hearing him talk about deflowering all these women and using his position of authority to kind of go out there and just get laid doesn't sound great it definitely that gives me some rapey vibes um yep and so to me it almost feels like it would be more it would make more sense for brian's thoughts to kind of move more to a place of safety right into you know kind of having that moment of evaluating like is marabelle the threat do i need to be thinking about him in this way I don't know I think

it speaks to something we're going to talk about more when we get to the end of this chapter about which traumas are validated and prioritized by the text and which are kind of alluded to but but not really explored and not really

given the same kind of alluded to but but not really explored and not really given the same kind of attention and depth as as the traumas that we see the men face so i don't know some thoughts and i do think this chapter especially is kind of like in some aspects it's how as we mentioned Brienne is carving that space and that kind of being and existence out right like it's almost as if Brienne is birthing the concept that other people have importance and value in this world too nonetheless their position their job their class I think that's interesting juxtaposed against what that speech gives us as we'll go into Patrick uses this moment as a reminder that hey we're seeking a maid 310 Auburn Hair maybe you know her and Deceptive's like ah yes you're seeking outlaws and Brienne speaks up and says

yeah we're seeking the hound so Sir H Heil told me. May the seven save you, child. It's said he leaves a trail of butchered babes and ravished maids behind him. The mad dog of salt pans, I've heard him called. What would good folk want with such a creature? Huh. Poor Sandor. It ain't him. They tell him the maid may be with this man and he says that they should be praying for that poor girl and I'm like I've read fanfics that go like that anyways Brienne thinks Brienne thinks and for me a prayer for me as well ask the crone to raise her lamp and lead me to the lady sansa and the warrior to give strength to my arm so i might defend her she did not say the words aloud though not where

heil hunt might hear her and mock her for her woman's weakness i know i'm praying for bria i am i'll pray for you baby yeah but also it's kind of not for hyle hunt no no prayers for hyle but you know it's kind of interesting how how she thinks that that she can't say the words aloud because she'll be mocked for her woman's weakness but the because of the pov structure you know that we get from George, we see all sorts of men have very similar prayers to this throughout. I mean, this calling on the warrior to give strength to your arm, we see that all the time with men that give us their point of view. And so I think that's a really interesting moment where Brienne is really just, you can see that they have to kind of judge every thought they have, right? And how it's going to be perceived by the people around them.

Yeah, that they can't show any vulnerability or else it'll ruin everything that they've worked for. Yeah, they can be anyone they want, just not themselves. You have to work even harder to be taken seriously. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself pegging Jamie in the Riverlands. I thought you were going to talk about the Joker again. They take the long way,

following the shore of the Bay of Crabs, staying off the common road from Hyle's maps. They travel through low wetlands, sandy dunes, salty marshes. Without Maribald, they would have lost their way. While it was vastly different from Tarth, it still had its beauty and its people who lived in houses of mud

and straw in the reeds and built homes on wooden stilts above the dunes. Hmm, reminiscent again, like we said last chapter of some other people who live amongst the reeds i would say a shy folk some of them bring forward clams for mirabal and dog at one point which is very sweet it almost sounded like you were saying a shy for a second because of a shy folk a shy folk by the shadow he gave each of them an orange in return. Though clams were common as mud in this world, and oranges were rare and costly.

One of the women was very old, one heavy with child, one a girl of fresh and pretty as flower in the spring. When Mirabal took them off to hear their sins, Heil chuckled and said, It would seem the gods walk with us, The maiden, the mother, the crone. Podrick looked so astonished. Brienne had to tell him no, they were just three marsh women. Settle down, Pod. I love that.

I love that Pod's like, oh my god, really? That's them? The cobbler? Now this? The cobbler's here? Oh my god. I don't know, until Brienne has to be like, No, calm down. Cobbler, now this? The cobbler's here? Oh my god. God. I don't know. Until Brienne has to be like, no, no, calm down.

Brienne dispels that notion. Brienne loves to dispel the songs. But also, I mean, now that after what Sam had said, which really rings true of like, now I'm like, why did Septon Marabal take them away alone to tell their sins? I mean, no, Septon Marabal doesn't do anything bad here. But I'm just like, you know, together with that other narrative of what septon marabal used to do i'm like that what what's happening but also what's happening is the maiden relapsing in the local pussy right but no those are holding marabal those are gods yeah jesus well that's worse because i

mean like don't they love the gods you know like viscerally like give their whole blood maybe he's just transfusion anyways uh it does make me think i mean look the mother of the maiden the crone we've talked about it before but they totally have that triple goddess kind of feel to it uh the moon hakade the daughter of persis and hysteria her companions actually are the theories vengeance right Vengeance, right? Which kind of makes you think of Stoneheart a little bit. Protective goddess of warriors and athletes, hunters, herdsmen, shepherds, fishermen, children. And Hecate is often associated with crossroads,

magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and sorcery. Represented kind of as a triple-bodied, three-formed, with a maternal blessing to offer to the two maidens embracing her. She was a pre-Olympian goddess, chthonic, and heralded by the howling of a dog. Interesting enough for what she, you know, puts on her head at the end of these chapters. And it was actually her typical sacrificial animal during rituals and offerings made to her at altars throughout cities. And most of the altars that you find of her are placed at crossroads, city gates and homes. I think that's so interesting because of course, the moon is very

symbolic for Brienne, it's quartered into her arms for Tarth and crossroads, right? She is at a crossroads many times through this multiple choices multiple gates and again with this chapter multiple choices and gates she could pass through for herself she could turn around she could become a new person she could risk it all and leave or she could stay and protect hesiod wrote of hecade which i I thought this was really interesting. Whom she will, she greatly aids and advances. She sits by worshipful kings in judgment, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games for there too the goddess

is with them and profits them and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy and brings glory to his parents and she is good to stand by horsemen whom she will and to those whose business is in the gray discomfortable sea and who pray to hakade and the loud crashing earth shhing earth-shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock, the droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep. If she will, she increases from a few, or makes many be less. So then, albeit her mother's only child,

she is honored amongst all the deathless gods. And the son of Kronos made her a nurse of the young, who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing dawn. So from the beginning, she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honors. It's interesting because while Brienne doesn't always exemplify the mother and doesn't always exemplify the maiden or the crone in some of the more traditional aspects and this this kind of triality that Hekate represents I do think she does in some senses of what she hopes to give she hopes to give like maternal unconditional protection to people. She hopes to bring that, whether or not it subscribes to the mother. And she kind of hopes to embrace innocence

and purity and justice in that same aspect of keeping things, you know, good, keeping things good. And just like the maiden and the crone, you know, we talked a little bit of how the crone keeps coming up as a character of vengeance, right? A character really reflecting Stoneheart, a character of vengeance. The crone is showing what happens to women like Cersei or women like Catelyn who have to perform in this box that Brienne is kind of trying to break out of at these crossroads. I really love your description of Brienne is at this crossroads, right? We are, I mean, the crossroads come up a couple of times here. And having to make choices, right? Which, or no choices, I don't know, later on, as you said, risking it all. And, I mean, it's so much a part of that coming of age aspect of Brienne's story. And also, that it's taking place here, that the crossroads

and that inn is here, reminds me a little of Sam pointed out the setting in which this is all taking place, right? It's the Riverlands. The Riverlands is a murky place, right? It's a place where it's not entirely sure where it belongs, which kingdom, constantly being fought over, and it's likened to into water there's a fluidity right to what can happen and also to brienne trying to figure out i'm not saying that brienne's gender fluid but maybe maybe not right like this is something that that can be analyzed within storyline and also um speaking of moon goddesses it also reminds me a little of artemis you know virginal though again i hope

brianne experiences some sort of sexual pleasure at some point in their life and give him an orgasm yeah um let them orgasm let brianne let Brienne come okay anyway sorry I'm making up for last chapter and I'm overcorrecting but I really like the way that you've tied in this discussion of these goddesses that are baked into the Faith of the Seven with Brienne's storyline

and identity so they continue on and Brienne's storyline and identity. So they continue on. And Brienne tells Septon Mirabal how surprised she is that the war has not reached these folk. And Septon Mirabal explains they have little treasures. They are born, they live, they love, they die, eat, pray, love, live, laugh, love. That's what Septon Mirabal gives us to what's going on here.

And they know their lord rules them, but few have ever seen him. But they do know the gods. He had walked among these people for almost 40 years, from Maidenpool to Maidenpool. He stays to the market towns and hold fasts and avoiding the castles. He uses the roads the small folk use. The Seven and Dog are both with him. patrick asks for dog's name and who he belongs to but the substance says oh dog belongs to himself and the seven he does not know his name he just calls him dog i think there's something really nice and queer here about self-definition

and choosing who you want to be in a world that feels really relevant to Brienne. Mirabal not imposing some name onto Dog because he hasn't told me his name is just so much more consideration than anybody gives to Brienne about their own, you know, self-expression.

I just think that's kind of fun. An interesting little interesting little aside that George gives us there. I thought that too. I thought that was really, I think it is pointedly intentional, especially when you have Jamie with the white book, right? Whatever he chose, he could be whatever he chose. And for Brienne, it is that same thing. So to put it into a dog especially when this dog is absolutely Sandor in context like he is talking about Sandor because the next two lines we get are from Pod and he says I used to have a dog when I was little I called him hero was he Was he what? A hero? No. He was a good dog, though.

He died. Which, it's all about Sandor. Okay, it's all, this is all metaphorically. Sorry, Brienne. I'm going to have to interrupt just for a minute. But you're giving a rent-free. Yeah, you got a couple pages here that are literally just about Sandor. So not to be uncharitable.

Maybe that's why I love these chapters so much, too. because they are very similar characters with their heads full of dreams that went down very different dark roads but this dog is i mean this nameless dog is every single night on the road that's fighting for their life and fighting for good and justice uh not just itself, you know, like the dog, but it's standing for that as his companion, as the Septon's companion as he walks these riverlands. And he goes on to say that Dog had protected Maribald where he could. Neither Outlaw nor Wolf could attack them. But the wolves had been growing pretty ferocious and bad lately.

He hears that there's a pack on the trident that's roaming in the hundreds. God damn it, Numeria. God damn it, Aria. So close. So close. What have you done? Chaos. I love dog.

That's it. I just, I love dog. I love dog. That's it. I just I love dog. And also, I love what you said, Sam, about dog as like this, and dog not giving Maribald dog's name yet as a sort of like, the queerness of it. And also, Chloe, when I read this line of was the dog a hero? I did think of Sandor and you and I was happy for you. I will say I think all dogs are heroes. All dogs are heroes. And I also really like, I really like what he says about the dog belonging to himself, you know? And that makes me think of Sandor a lot too, you know? Yes. Sandor breaking free from the Lannisters because, you know what? He belongs to himself, right? He's his own dog now and like that is the the thing like he doesn't have to be a hero to be himself to have control over his body and autonomy over the things he wants to do just

like brienne in this that like you don't have to be a hero to do the right thing and just like we talked about earlier with what sandor said to sanza it doesn't take courage to chase off rats that was nothing that wasn't being. That was doing the right thing, which, you know, he's so much steps away from the story and says, I would never do the right thing. Does the right thing. Saves the girl.

And that doesn't excuse him for his past, you know, forays. But simultaneously, it shows that like, as he says, like, no, he wasn't a hero, but he was a good dog. Oh, a good man. You're a good man, Sand man sandor oh i thought we were talking about dogs again but yes also sandor

yes also true sandor it's not it's not leading up to anything in particular in these chapters nope not at all and by that i mean yes absolutely it is it's gonna come into play marabold says that some had called these wolves demons led by a she-wolf a stalking gray shadow grim and gray and huge kind of like red and terrible and red anyways she fears neither steel nor fire slays any wolf that tries to mount her and devours no flesh but man good for her agreed agreed

they break their fast the next day with orange slices and salt cod and off they go midday they stop at a village men are fishing but women and young boys come down to pray to Maribald he absolves their sins leaving turnips, but women and young boys come down to pray to Maribald. He absolves their sins, leaving turnips, beans,

and two of his oranges. On the road, the septon tells them the villager's warnings. There are three broken men in the dunes. Heil says, That's nothing for Brienne! I want to watch Brienne fight again! Nothing for our sword switch! Heil's like, I think, like, that's

all Heil wants. It's hot. He thinks it's hot. Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes. Hyl's just waiting. But the Septon asked them to please leave them to him because they could be starving or survivors from

battle. And Septon Maribold would feed them and ask them to confess their sins and invite them to the quiet aisle with all of them this is heart-wrenching because especially in the last chapter right as they decide what to do about the man following them on the way to the whispers abrianne thinks you know to podrick in the very same chapter she says to podrick if you see nimble dick standing over me in the middle of the night or coming up on my ass wake me and tell me don't and he's like i'll take him down don't hurt him she says just tell me and it's the same scenario

that as we discussed that nimble dick probably was a broken man himself and here septim marabald says they could be starving or survivors fleeing from battle let me handle it and let me help introduce them that there is a better life a better way let them confess their sins and invite them to a better life which is exactly what he did to sandor right As we're going to see in the next chapter, this is exactly likely how they found Sandor, broken, where Arya left him dying. Septon Marabal, just about an inch off page here out by Salt Pans, finding him, having him confess his sins,

and having him join them at the Quiet Isle. And I do think that as we get into, of course, the very famous speech in a minute, we get that right at the front of it when he says, there are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many types of birds. This is about Sandor and Sansa. I don't think I have to continue that.

Thank you. Have a nice day. This has been a great, no, I'm just kidding. But the whole essay obviously that he gives us this thesis that he states to us is that there's many different types of outlaws and that if you don't handle it properly and if you don't approach the person kindly and if you pull a sword on them especially some of the more traumatized folk you don't know how they're going to react how anyone would react that has been so impacted with trauma on the road. And just picturing exactly this paragraph is how they found Sandor and how they found many other

men that are probably on this island from war. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a better look at the Quiet Isle later and learn other men might have been there that we might know. I'm also called to mind that while this runs parallel to that next Jaime chapter, Jaime has a conversation with Ser Bonifor Hasty. And Ser Bonifor Hasty is a very, very, very religious man. And they go back and forth. And he says, I fear no shade, sir. They go back and forth and he says, I fear no shade, sir. It is written in the seven-pointed star that spirits, whites, and revenants cannot harm a pious man so long as he is armored in his faith.

Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment. Hasty folded his hands before him like a steeple in a way that reminded Jamie uncomfortably of his father. If it is Sandor Clegane we encounter, what would you have me do? Pray hard, Jamie thought, and run. Send him to join his beloved brother and be glad the gods made seven hells. One would never be enough to hold both of the Cleganes. I think some of the view of Boniface Hastie of the pious view and that cold, black and white, and how he can hear Tywin's voice in what he says. Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment.

How do you punish Sandor for what he's done? How do you make that man repent? What do you do to make him actually want to learn the lesson? He's already broken. He's already cried over the man he's already broken he's already cried over the man he's been he's already held a little girl at knife point right like what he's broken he can't do more he can't take more of this how do you rehabilitate that by punishing how you don't i really love what you've said here now you've tied it all together with that broken

man speech and this part and with Sandor's story and these outlaws, if they're outlaws, or are they broken men or, you know, and that Septon Marabald is willing to provide another path to show compassion rather than violence. And, you're talking about sandor and you know how does how does sandor like can't they you know it comes back to like can can things be forgiven right or is it only punishment but it doesn't have to again it can be it can be compassionate sandor has been shown that and we'll see what happens with sandor's story but you know he's been he he's had a hard life as we all know Chloe I think has expanded upon this many times throughout um her asswap career and they and and the idea that Sandor could be a hero or not a hero you know you know what I'm. But there's this, a couple of characters who are outlaws, who are violent in Stormlight Archive and

have done like terrible things to other people. But this one character draws a portrait for each of them. And one of them, you know, he looks at, he's like, this is how you see me? It isn't quite. There are little lies baked into it, but the idea that could be positioned to look heroic, right? In a heroic light. If you can just see yourself as a hero, see yourself as something better. It's also, again, about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And Sandor, I think, you know, that's part of the appeal of Sandor and Sansa's story. That Sansa shows him, hey, here's another story of who you can be.

You don't have to be this version. And I think that pairs well with Brienne's story of trying to find Brienne's story. Brienne's trying to figure out what is their story. It's changed a lot since we first met them. Teach us all a kinder way right yes yeah exactly i was thinking that and there's also that through line right that like none of what we're talking about sandor has actually done in these chapters it's very much everyone is talking about sandor and talking about like earlier heil and Tarly and co were just saying,

Tarly said, you know, they're going to find him and make an example of him to show other people, don't be an outlaw. As if he's not a human being, just like, no trial, no nothing. That's what's planned for Sandor Clegane, to be captured on sight and to be put up as an example in front of all the other broken men that if they break like this, this is what they get. And he didn't even fucking do it. It's not even him.

It's someone in his outfit, in his stead, which we know is a huge common theme, right, of these name changes and outfit changes going on. And that's why later when Brienne gets to take up that helm for the moment like and reclaim not only their own identity but Sandor's identity for Sandor where Sandor cannot do that it's very powerful that Brienne's able to reclaim the hound's name for him reclaim that like the hound could do some good the dog could be a good dog if you let him thank you brienne everyone say thank you brienne thank you brienne i'm praying for

uh all right thank you thank you based brienne stop well you know we've come to the point where I wish we would have just called Skad from Davos Fingers, play his YouTube vid a few times here. He could just do it for us. He could do the broken man speech for us, but maybe we could break the broken man speech up between us three. I think we could probably all break it up. Sir? My lady? Is a broken man an outlaw?

More or less. Septon Marabal disagreed. More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves.

Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may just be as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk, who have never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod, poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, oft times with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick, strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends.

They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they'll see, of the wealth and glory they'll win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they fought in. But even a man who survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred and first. Brothers watch their brothers die. Fathers lose their sons. Friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. They see the Lord and let them there cut down,

and some of their Lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half healed, they take another. There is never enough to eat. Their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half-helm, they need to take them from a corpse. And before long, they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and

steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize that all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home, and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names. Yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make lines with their spears and skies and sharpened hoes to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men, clad, all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. And the man breaks. He turns and runs or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain

or steals away in the black of night. And he finds some place to hide. All thought of home is gone by then and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beasts than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these,

the Traveler must beware of broken men and fear them. But he should pity them as well. Sandor Clegane. Sorry. It's all I ever sandor oh excuse me excuse me excuse him god whoa whoa whoa whoa that you know horny sad horny sad yeah it's a roller coaster here yeah um so septon marabal

tells them that he had been young when he was at war and it was the war of the nine penny kings which it's a big deal maybe we should talk about the war of the nine penny kings sometimes anyways and then the chapter ends with though i never saw a king nor earned a penny it was a war though that it was yeah i think we should definitely talk in depth about nine penny king sometime maybe a patreon episode because there's so much to unravel there and so much trauma and you know me i'm just like attract to the trauma you put the trauma out there and it's just like shaking a dinner bell here comes chloe trot christ uh it's not untrue i'm being very honest here i'm always honest with

you all it's the world that's awful what is happening right now the sand or plagain is out of the box chloe is loose uh sept and marabald and elder brother have definitely seen some shit they have definitely seen some shit uh it shows and you know that next chapter sam 3 it's interesting because the way that Septimerebal has kind of put this read on the world reminds me of the way that Aemon is at the end of his life Maester Aemon really goes a little dark

on it all he's like does any of it fucking matter lol as I lay here dying in bravos away from anything never again to see my kin or do anything good or see it's not like blast views my life rocked uh he says the septons sing of sweet surcease of lay down our burdens and voyaging to a far sweet land where we may laugh and love and feast until the end of days but what if there's no land of light and honey, only cold and dark and pain beyond the

wall called death? Why would the gods take my eyes and strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old, done man like me? Septim Marabal doesn't preach and sing of a gilded life right a better crystallized gorgeous life that they could all live in holding hands he doesn't sing or speak of that he prepares those who have scarcely survived death scarcely survived war scarcely becoming like a cold one right like like a white that language is completely devoid and takes away that personage for the warrior. The knights come down on him, faceless men clad in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. It makes it such a very mystical quote, made faceless by the bludgeon of war, but also made faceless, like, in the way that history erases them.

There's a passage in a book by Peter A. Levine, he has a PhD and has written pretty greatly about trauma, pretty much at a length. In response to threatened injury, animals, including humans, execute biologically based, non-conscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves. The very structure of trauma, including activation, dissociation, and freezing are based on the evolution of survival behaviors. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from a library of possible responses. We orient, dodge, duck, stiffen, We orient, dodge, duck, stiffen, brace, retract, fight, flee, freeze, or collapse. Later he says, incomplete biological response to threat, but it's frozen in time. When we prepare to fight or flee,

muscles throughout our entire body tense in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from disease in the normal sense of the word. They have become stuck in this state. It is difficult, if not impossible, to function normally under these circumstances. Septim Marabal perfectly explains that the environments that these warriors and soldiers are placed within do not let them function normally. Being placed in traumatic environments

with steel coming down upon you does not allow your body or your brain to heal, right? Like, there is no healing and no coming back for these men because they are put right back in this industrial machine over and over again that chews them up and then spits them right out this is such a great explanation and like a wonderful i think summation of or explanation of right of what is happening you know when it comes to the broken men and i mean even to an extent, Arya's storyline, right? Because Arya is supposed to be described as like, George has said that Arya is inspired by child soldiers, right? And children who undergo,

who grow up in conflict, that that's a lot of what's happening there, right? Like the trauma does change them and witnessing all that violence. And I only think this because you're talking about the faceless men clad in all in steel and faceless men, lower, lowercase faceless men, not those faceless men. But it was making me think of that. a story that I think is actually like really good, especially at the end of exploring PTSD and this kind of trauma is honestly the hunger games. I think that the end is really good. And the, the author was actually inspired by her own father's experiences returning as a veteran of the Vietnam war,

if I'm not mistaken. So. I actually really agree with that, by the way, Rehunger Games. That is a great, that is like the only story that's ever I feel like in youth fiction, given a shit like that in popular fiction. It's really, I actually really like Rehunger Games. The nightmares and the waking screaming in the night. Oh God, it's so yeah yeah i mean i think

that's what happened to her father so yeah and and i like that i don't like that it's happening but we we see that happening with brienne too right already that trauma is creeping up i have a rant as i do um i mean the's speech, and it is so important for all the things that you have like extrapolated here. And I think it's a classic passage from these books. It stands up well. And I think it'll always be, I think, well regarded. And my critique of it is not this passage. But as Sam pointed out earlier, earlier right like there are things that remind us that george is very much like a cishet man writing these stories and it's that yeah george focuses on you know the bastards cripples and broken things which if i say it enough does that become the

love of the series anyways i won't shut up i've. I've been sabotaging Chloe. And yes, George does do a good job of writing that in some aspects. And my critique is where the focus always is, right? It's George's story. George has the right to focus and make his thesis statement of this story and broken men however he wants. And I also see how this passage functions well as a cautionary tale for Brienne's story. And I'll come back to that in a bit. But we get so much empathy for the plight of, like, yeah, these cis men performing toxic masculinity and, as we'll see, perpetuating sexual violence, but there's no same passage existing for, you know, women, or for people who are assigned female at birth, or anyone else, like, who don't fit the idea of, like, whose bodies have power

and Westeros in that way I mean yes and no right like like as pointed out there's I mean literally the entirety of Tyrion's POV is is in one way exploring that but also like at the same time there's no concern given to those the other people who suffer in conflict like and only one kind of violence. Because Brienne, even before ever entering battle, has already had violence, sexual violence, threatened against her over and over and over again. And as pointed out, like, she wakes up thrice during that sleep in this chapter in what should have been a place of safety because of that trauma. And that is also trauma, right? because of that trauma. And that is also a trauma, right? From a place of conflict in Renly's camp,

which is leading up to a battle, allegedly, which they never get to because Renly dies. But that should have been a safe place. And it also exists prior to the battles. And Brienne has to already in those camps be steeled for violence it's something that Randall Tarly impresses upon her and says that one of these men who's playing this prank on her uh will someday go too far and try to claim their maiden head by force. Brienne distrusts Heil Hunt specifically because of these pranks despite like now maybe Heil's actions are saying like oh oh just forget that one time i played that it was just a joke it was just a joke trust me i'm here it's gonna be fine let me go on the journey and you know i brought it up i know i brought this up several times over

in other chapters and i keep like beating this like a dead horse but maybe not a dead horse we got three horses in this chapter um again where is the passage for the people who have been raped or sexually assaulted during this war like septon mirabal at the end when talking about his own experiences at war talks of the friends and family he lost that led to himself maybe even becoming a broken man or how he comes to empathize with them. And he says, it was fever did it for Will and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart. And his friend, John Pox, was hanged for rape. I'm like, okay, well, where's the passage for the person that John Pox raped? Why aren't they named? Where's their honor? Where does the story mourn them when John Pox and his own shattering as a broken man gets a moment? And I do think, for as much as I love the other ways that George approaches things in this story, there's a merit to the critique that Martin sometimes uses rape and gender-based violence as set dressing for the pain of cis men's storyline in A Song of Ice and Fire. And I say that because it is kind of a pattern in some of his previous stories, such as Dying of the Light and Meat

House Man, where so much of it is focused on cis man pain. And again, no, George isn't obligated to tell a different story. But I am like, well, if you want to talk about the reality of conflict and of suffering and war, then talk about the sexual violence that goes untold. Don't just continue to silence this. When this episode goes live on December 10th for the public, it will be the last day of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. last day of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence but i'm like why is the emotional focus of this book's prologue on pate and not rosie and i understand it's because of the citadel but like also at the same time it could be envisioned differently why is the focus of the pain of tyrian's story on the darkness of his own soul and no thought or circumstance given to shay or the sex slave that he rapes or the other one that he

threatens to rape whether or not he does right where's the sympathy for the sex workers who have to endure the violence of soldiers who are traumatized who patronize them where's the sympathy for the wives and daughters of the men who return home when much of the gender-based violence is domestic and untold and within the home. Not even just the soldiers, right? You have farmers in keeps, other cis men whose masculinity goes, like, those become challenged in the helplessness of conflict. And they take that out within the home to reassert order or power on those around them. Where is it for all of the maids invoked every time Brienne says she's looking for a maid of Auburn

hair, three and 10 years old. And people say, oh, well, she's not going to be a maid for long because they're thinking of people that they know. And, you know, it comes up a little bit. It's just touched on in Fire and Blood with the idea of the Rite of the First Night, where they talk about women who are subjected to the Rite of the First Night that end up rejected by their families for having been raped by their lords. And that happens in conflict too. I'm going to plug Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, which actually does, I think, a great job of exploring sexual violence and conflict and the isolation and rejection of those who are already victimized, who are already assaulted, and how they can't go back home, they can't go back to their husbands because they're

seen as maybe unclean or whatever. And I imagine if that happens with the Rite of the First Night in Westeros, that must happen to people who are sexually assaulted in conflict as well. And the people and that thread of it in Brienne's chapters against the maid that she's looking for and against Brienne themselves, yes, we're reminded of this horror and this ever pressing violence becomes a refrain, but where is that same long beautiful passage that everyone's going to talk about every time they talk about this book series that gives them humanity and that asks you to remember them as people or as characters because this is a work of fiction after all and you know like again george can tell the story any way that he wants but that remembers that sort of humanity and that trauma and not relegates them to props.

Because Setden Meribald says, the broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beasts than man. I'm like, okay, what if those who live not as more beasts than man, but are constantly forced to live more object than human because of their bodies? And, you know, again, I still appreciate the passage, and I understand that, yes, the injury and death of soldiers and how it's evoked here is masterful, but is injury and death for those that they hurt? And over the years, I've just kind of come to begrudge that absence of that focus or even word of it in the story and again i understand that this passage is

also meant to evoke that this is the path that brienne's life could take that brienne could very much become a broken man because the chapter starts with their first few kills and heil hunt then clambering for oh that was sick give me more uh that, Brienne could easily take on many more fighters, but the trauma of it all, again, like wakes them from sleep over and over. And because she's enduring this trauma on multiple fronts, living out, you know, the sphere that Maribold warns of in terms of being like, yes, in battle as a broken man, but also the dangers of having a female body during a time of conflict plus another layer that another intersection right that is sam has illustrated

well throughout this chapter even outside of conflict this violence endured by someone who doesn't perform gender within the bounds of westerosi society and how people with power, when their power and authority are questioned, try to reassert power over Brienne's body through violence. There's your quota of rants from me. Good job, Eliana. You were hitting your last four words. I was about to cut you off. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm keeping track. No, I do really, I agree with you that

sometimes it's just not enough anymore, right? As a storytelling device, it is nice, but like it illustrated the first few times through and maybe to also be fair and this is also silly because like books are meant to be read so maybe they're not meant to be read 15 times for a whole series sure but maybe also someone should fucking publish a book anyway uh maybe they're not you're not supposed to read the broken man speech 27 times in a row because you hyper focused on a song of ice and fire for five years straight okay maybe we're the problem, is what I'm saying. Yeah. But George could put out another book and add another passage.

That could happen. Oranges, oranges. And then it'll be 28 times, you know what I mean? From when I have to reread it. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Dog. Locust.

Locust. Yeah, it does get to a point where it's uncharitable to not extend it past that like the roxton stuff like okay yeah i feel bad for your friend but did he commit the crime then that he got hanged for are you saying he didn't like if there was a story attached to that maybe it would matter there wasn't uh overall i do think it does its job right as its thesis statement of a song of ice and fire is a series it does its job it holds it together because otherwise as we said like this this chapter would be very simplistic like if you right up until this point that would be a short chapter if you just cut this the speech but the speech takes up

a good three pages and i do think there's something to be said for you know brienne and trying to carve out where brienne fits in all of this we have some of those cautionary tales like the one that sam's writing about right now like danny flint right and having to transport yourself between these two spaces one that hates you and wants you dead and the other space that also hates you and wants you dead and the other space that also hates you and wants you dead, and trying to exist in that. And it's like, those are the songs that are unsung. Like you have The One, you have Brave Danny Flint. Maybe there's a song of the Scarlet Shadow, right, of Jean Quill. I would love for Jean Quill, Dark, and Brienne to be able to talk, through some sort of you know obsidian glass candle just

like have a convo about hey hang in there sister it sucks it really did suck at the time uh because it's been done but we just don't have the details of how jonquil dark felt yeah absolutely yeah one thing that just really strikes me about what both of you have said is just that, just that way that George writes about and mythologizes almost cis men's trauma versus everyone else's. When it's a cis male character, those traumas are what makes that character explicable right it's what gives the character the depth i mean just thinking about characters like jamie lannister right i mean his trauma is what ultimately makes us care about him once we get to understanding what's going on with him things like that and you know i i'm thinking specifically of like jamie's jamie being traumatized listening to rayella being raped by aries right there's nothing inherently wrong with having that

as a detail that george includes in the story and i'm not at all trying to say that there is but when do we get the other side of it you know what i mean when do we get to hear from the victims in a way that actually affirms their humanity elia and raygar yeah yeah that's a big one that one kills me in that same chapter that one kills me that like absolutely raygar's man pain is just overwhelmingly the whole thing right and it's like yo your man pain i get it was hard but like also your dick pain and man pain combined made it hard for a lot of other people like women in the series yeah yeah i mean it led to a conflict that led to yeah a lot of like everything that we're seeing here right and the thing is you know the women in this

series and the gender non-conforming people in this series they're all going through the traumas that war has brought to you know they're seeing their homes burned and they are having their fields burnt and just everything they own they're going through the traumas of war in a lot of ways that are similar to their men they you know they may not be right there on the battlefield but they're being exposed constantly to this trauma as well. But on top of that, they're also being exposed to the trauma of every single day. You know that you might get raped, right? This is a part of their reality they're dealing with. You're getting told that this little girl you're trying to find has probably been raped by literally everyone you ask.

You are told that you can't be surprised when you get raped because you're not living correctly according to these standards. And so just the compilation of just the varying levels of trauma and the way that some of those are being, again, inflicted by those same men who are so broken. And yes, they are broken. And yes, the war is the reason they are this way. And that Septon Meribald's friend is raping women. Yes, there is some kind of correlation there to the brokenness he has experienced and the way he is inflicting that brokenness on other people around him.

But we never get to really hear about that woman. We never get her story. We never get, I don't know. This is something I struggle with a lot. And with this passage specifically is so beautiful and it is so lyrical and it is so painful and true in so many ways. And yet it leaves so much silent. Yeah. It can be both.

Yeah, exactly. It is. It's nuanced, right? It's more than one thing i'm just saying and if george put out a sixth book then we could have another amazing passage again for for for the people who are hurt by the broken men and i'm just you know it's it's and not just their pain just like you know if we if we have so much of this book series that is focused on the nuances of those who are, the nuances of the broken, one of the people

who have to rebuild, you know, like the people who have to rebuild, like the women who are assaulted and raped like in, you know, in like the Riverlands or whatever they don't get to leave home and roam around in bands because

society expects them to continue if they have children all right well what are you gonna do are you gonna provide for them like how are you gonna do that and and they're left there and it's just i i don't know i just i i love this passage I just as you said maybe like that's it I'm just still left wanting I want I had wanted I want I only wanted I mean and that's part like that's

something interesting too is because you then see and I think a lot of Cersei analysis and a lot of the lens that you can put on Cersei some of it's accidental analysis in some aspects, right? Like George obviously intended for you to see her as a full character and see her as having these complexities and these flaws and her paranoia is kind of consuming her and her mistrust as we look at it against Brienne's mistrust and others.

This is a systemic mistrust, right? Cersei longs for the power that she cannot wield because of how she was born and who she is and brienne too their mistrust in men is not for nothing right they're not crazy for having these mistrusts they are trying to survive in this world and it shows it's like a systemic thing not just for brienne who's trying to be the truest knight it's also for cersei who may not always have the best intentions right she might but but also she she has some intentions just not always the best ones uh but but that said like you can see where society has molded and shaped exactly what their roles are supposed to be and i think cersei's a

great example because i mean i think after his rebellion robert i think is meant to be seen in the lens of one of the broken men and cersei lived in a home of domestic violence that even ned was shocked at ned was like we don't we don't do that and give Circe a passage like that give her like that Gone Girl you know thing or no I'm joking but you know that passage everyone likes from Gone Girl yes

I cannot cite it for you y'all have google overall though great chapter as we Y'all have Google. Overall, though, great chapter as we see Brienne understand the weight of the world and the story that she is carrying on her shoulders every day. Large shoulders. We need to get her a gift card for Christmas to a massage therapist, I think. Ooh.

Because those shoulders have to hurt. They're carrying a lot. The spa, yeah. It's too bad that Randall Tarly banned them from the Maidenpool. Isn't the other spa that Alysanne went to there? Damn. Right.

Well, I think this puts us there. Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed this discussion so much. Sam, thank you so much for joining us for Brienne 5. You are the first in a slew of guests. How could we keep the good energy going? You know, we were very lucky to have had Sam for Brienne 5,

but to keep that good energy going next week we're going to bring on uh actually they've been a guest before for his dark materials with us and they'll be coming back to do brianne six and it is our very good friend lo lo the links coming back to do some brianne we can't do Brienne and not have Loan, right? So. Two weeks in a row. We'll make it two fun weeks. But you have popped off and given us some great energy for Brienne. We couldn't have done it without you.

Please let everyone at home know where they can find you on the internet. Absolutely. You can find me on Twitter at TheRainbowGuard and at TheRainbowGuard.com. Yes. Thank you. I agree. Thank you so much for joining, Sam. I was so excited to have you on.

And you just, this has been a great discussion. Thank you so much. And yes, please find Sam on the internet, on the Twitter, as we said earlier. If you would like to find us on the twitters is you can find us at girls gone canon c-a-n-o-n you can send us a tweet or dm with your thoughts you can also email us at girls gone canon at gmail.com subscribe to also subscribe to us if you aren't yet on twitter yes okay and you can subscribe to us over on a streaming platform that suits you best i know you're all getting those spotify wraps this week so make sure you're posting on twitter or on your favorite social media that hashtag girls gone canon magical flow

you can get us over at spotify itunes Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Audible even, Amazon even, you name it. We're all over the place. Find us. And somewhere you can always find us is on Patreon. As we said, this month we have a bonus episode that is not about His Dark Materials nor about A Song of Ice and Fire. It is about The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. It's going to be good and it's's gonna be sad and they're in love that's a that's not a spoiler read the fucking myth come on now uh i can't wait to do this book with y'all and for patrick list and achilles to do it live

live live live episode every moment live listen to it live oh my god every episode is live if you really feel in it you know what I mean we actually do have live content it's our discord happy hour slash brunch yeah our happy hour and brunch this month in December is

December 18th 1-3pm Eastern Eliana time reindeer games come join it's gonna be a blast December is December 18th, 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern, Eliana time. Reindeer Games, come join. It's going to be a blast. Until then, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thank you again, Sam.

We'll see you next week. Thanks, Sam. Thank you.