Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 162 — ACOK Prologue, Cressen featuring Alexandra August

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

She was red, and terrible, and red.  Stannis was sad, and mocking, and sad.  Cressen was dead, and loving, and dead.  Alexandra August, cohost of GoT Thrones? podcast and Director of Podcast Production at Skybound, joins us to talk love, power, and new stages with "new" characters in the A Clash of King prologue.  Where to find Alex:  Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlxAugust  GoT Thrones? website: http://gotthrones.com/  GoT Thrones? twitter: https://twitter.com/GoTThronesPCast  'Catch the Throne' mixtape: https://soundcloud.com/catchthethrone  --- 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 162, A Clash Of Kings Prologue, Maester Crescent, featuring Alexandra August of Got Thrones, notoriety, first of all, because you have to remember your roots, and Skybound, infamy and notoriety, the director of podcast production at Skybound. I'm one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, thank you so much for joining us today. Alex, we're gonna call you Alex. Just nobody get mixed up. Yep. Drill it in. Drill it in. I approve. Thank you for the introduction.

Thank you for having me, ladies. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here. You've had us before. And now we're having you over, which is so exciting. And you are kind of, you're a mogul, you know, I go a little far back with you. I think you and I have been buddies on the internet since like 2015. Just like Eliana and I actually. used to listen to i got to know you a little bit and your co-host johnny from got thrones back listening to that back in uh the weekly season five episodes which we all really needed my god at the time and i've been able to get to know you through kind of your adventures at skybound as a producer and a writer and a director and a performer right for the better part of seven years yes i have done all of those things at least once over the course of seven oh it's been so good yeah now i'm like thinking about it too yeah i was very intimidated by chloe and eliana on twitter because they made way better jokes

about game of thrones than i did and so it was like very exciting when we became friends that felt very important and cool wow i don't even know you know yeah saw me on twitter yeah i hope no one sees no they do and i don't like it sometimes sometimes it's good though sometimes i have gotten to the point i don't know now where i am for a while i was like podcast producer it's skybound because i was i like my job and was real proud of it but then i was like wait a minute i lip off on twitter a lot and sometimes i'm not sober on this website so we're just gonna call me a podcast producer and make me a little harder to associate with my professional work that's smart yeah that's very smart I should have done that but I didn't damn I have a you know separation of things um it's funny yeah I guess I have like what that I was our ass off mod because you're

talking about season five and I was like I can't I can't talk about it that was like traumatic for me that was a time it was a hard time but look at it look at us now we're all here we're hanging out and I got some good friends out of it and uh yeah this is I feel

like for for all of us right now this is sort of maybe Alex is like to go forward you must go back moment but less death well no there's some death this episode oh there is some death oh no oh no it's a crazy episode to come on for i forgot how much i liked i think as i was rereading it i forgot how i realized i'm like oh yeah i really like how we had such a definitive end to Game of Thrones. And then there's this like equally thrilling beginning of a Clash of Kings that opens up a new, it opens up a new aspect of this world and makes it just as trenchant and compelling as anything else. And it's like, that's a pretty tall order to top

Ned dying, Drogo, sorry, spoilers, Drogo dying, and some new dragons. That's true, yeah. It's got religion, it's got power, blood. Excellent face tattoos. That's true, they do have face tattoos. Yeah. Colored contacts.

Very cartoony, too, in some aspects, right? Like, it's a lot of, it's the Tim Burton chapter. This is the Tim Burton chapter. I thought you were going to say it's the... I guess it's not quite the Hellfire chapter yet. It's not quite the Hunchback of Notre Dame yet. Not yet, but we'll get there.

Well, before we get there, before we get there, we're so excited to have you on, and I'm actually very excited. We're going to be... I don't know, not a break. We have a week off that we're going to i don't know not a break we have a uh a week off that we're going to do our his dark materials episode right our penultimate amber

spyglass episode coming out next week after this week's episode uh after that we'll come back to chat right we're gonna get to our third prologlogue our third of our prologues and we have a very special guest coming on for chat chat? yeah we are bringing on our good friend Micah whom you might all know from Planet Host podcast and also minor character notoriety

Chloe's really into this word notoriety today this is her robust you know I don't know what's happening imagine if you're Sue from Veep this is her robust you know like i don't know imagine if you're sue from beep this is your robust and so yes mike is gonna come on regale us with some of his minor character knowledge yeah we need that we do need that he is a good beacon in times for that sometimes he's always up on the discord posting some minor character knowledge for us. I know we've had a lot of fun at the Discord

recently with rewatches, right? We've been rewatching His Dark Materials, the TV adaptation that rocks over at BBC HBO. We're going to do a His Dark Materials episode for Patreon this month on the lantern slides that came out by Philip Pullman. Some old, some new. We'll talk about that.

Our Stranger Tier and above gets Patreon episodes, monthly bonus episodes. We're gonna read this so you can listen in if you like. And our patron members in the Thunder Tier and above get a few other perks like our brunch slash happy hour that's happening this weekend if you're listening to this episode as it goes live.

That is this weekend. Oh, shit. How fun. How exciting. Don't worry. This is what I had planned. Yes, so as you all know, we do have our Discord brunch slash happy hour. And it's open to members in the thunder tier and above and i don't know we we have a couple of ideas i think i'm thinking we're gonna try a version maybe of a game that forces people to give presentations like a powerpoint presentation of something that uh you did not a presentation you did not make and that you know nothing about. I think it'll be fine. I think apparently that's also available on one of the Jackboxes.

Yeah. Well, we can pull that out too. I think I have most of them now. I've bought a few on sale. We're going to kick back, relax, chit chat, drinks, games, get to know yous, you know, have a good time. That sounds cool. I want to have a powerpoint night yeah well you can join you can have a powerpoint morning slash

afternoon yeah i made 22nd yeah you don't have to i usually drink water to be honest sometimes a coffee in my younger years i was maybe drinking some mimosas you know or something crazy but no not in my older years my two years later yeah i'm no longer welcome at day drinking parties listen at sdcc uh eliana i know we actually did kind of get a comment of note this week we have not been going to our emails we have not been looking at our tweets as much lately we're sorry it's because we had to go all the way back to the beginning we don't want to be spoiled in our our recent endeavor to dip into each book i don't know i don't think people have been emailing or tweeting us about crescent except for our friend rohan who posted something on discord and says i would like to humbly request that y'all mention

in the next episode that this character introduction goes harder than pretty much any character introduction ever this is of course melisandre's introduction alex will you please do us the honors of reading the woman was the heart of it not the lady salise the other one the red woman the servants had named her afraid to speak her name i will speak her name crescent told his stone hellhound melisandre her melisandre of a shy sorceress shadow binder and priestess to rahala the lord of light the heart of, the God of Flame and Shadow. Melisandre, whose madness must not be allowed to spread beyond

Dragonstone. Thank you. Thank you. That was beautiful. I haven't heard that pronunciation yet of R'hllor. Oh, whoops. Rahala is just what my brain wants to do. Yeah. Eliana and I always differ

like the exact opposite way on a name that maybe isn't in the show or you don't hear often out loud. Eliana and I always go opposite ways and it's always entertaining to me. Always. And like Lisa and Liss. I like to mix it up

because I feel like there's a lot of wordplay going on with that name. So I say all the different versions just to cover all the bases but then she doesn't care about lissa erin it's nice like i feel like if you go how if you do just kind of have a variety of it then you know when george does eventually come out with a pronunciation guide so you you will at least be right some of the time someone will be right i mean i've said this before george pronounces dothraki wrong so he has no he has no power here he says doth rock guy and i'm like i can't

take you seriously you're wrong that's objectively wrong yeah i i think that's the loveliest part of books right they happen in our heads that's kind kind of neat. And in our hearts. It's kind of neat. And sometimes in our hearts, in our cold, dead hearts. Like Cressen's cold, dead heart. And before we can talk about Cressen's cold, dead heart and his unpulsing vein, I think we need to do our

lightning round, which last week if you experienced the lightning round thank you Eliana, it was an experience it was my vision brought to life. We have a different one today. And, you know, we got to talk about Stannis in Game of Thrones. That's what we missed in this lightning round. I guess this is it.

This is the last time until we get a book that we have to talk about it. So let's dig in. Shit. Second to last time, the penultimate time that we really have to talk about it. What about Melisandre? Let's dig in. Shit. Second to last time, the penultimate time that we really have to talk about it. So let's start. In A Game of Thrones, Jon Arryn has been murdered.

Murdered. Betrayal. Stannis swiftly runs to gather his royal fleet and strength at Dragonstone, thinking it was the Innocente, Cersei Lannister, who poisoned Jon Arryn. Justice for Cersei.

Surely was innocent. Yeah, I know. Meanwhile, himbo dad Eddard Stark thinks Stannis must have discovered the reason Jon Arryn was murdered and doesn't even think maybe his handjob

promotion was pretty insulting to Stannis. Ned drops into Stannis' DMs like, what are you doing? And Stannis leaves him on bread. Dude, he's so good. Ned discovers Stannis and John were besties, like BFFs while investigating King's Landing

and then he was like wow they went to a brothel together stannis would never do that wtf eddard is like what uh stannis isn't into that rogue princery rogue princery robert dies and it's succeeded by his son joff baratheon ask and eddard is selected to rule as regent, but he wants to bring Stannis into the fray. However, Cersei dashes that dream and Petyr betrays dad. Gasp.

Betrayal. Get a job. The last hope, of course, is hand-job delivered, wait, no, just hand no just hand delivered to Stanny when the Wind Witch hopes to sail north but Tomard is slain

by gold cloaks and the galley never leaves the capital allowing Joffrey to execute Nedward and ascend the throne I just like it I do like Nedward maybe it just makes me yeah that's where I'm at with it I do like Nedward maybe it just makes me think of Squidward that's where I'm at with it

and I feel like and Stannis is more Squidward Renly? No I think Ned I don't know Brienne? too happy is Jaime Spongebob thwarting

Eddard? we end Game of Thrones' giant arc with Varys telling Too happy. Is Jaime Spongebob thwarting Eddard? We end Game of Thrones' giant arc with Varys telling the small council that Stannis is building ships, hiring sellswords, and bringing a shadowbinder to Dragonstone, which leads us to the prologue of A Clash of Kings

Maester Cressen. And that's what you missed last time on Game of Thrones. and that's what you missed last time on a game of thrones oh my god i was gonna say this is kyle haber signing off the comet's tail spread across the dawn a red slash that bled above the crags of dragon stone like a wound in the pink and purple sky the The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here the ravens came, after long flight.

Their dropping speckled the gargoyles that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern, two of the thousands that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. When first he came to Dragonstone, the army of stone grotesques had made him uneasy. But as the years passed, he had grown used to them. Now he thought of them as old friends. The three

of them watched the sky together with foreboding. They're friends. Maester seemed lonely. He had some gargoyles. He does. He does seem lonely, actually. Everyone seems pretty lonely on Dragonstone, actually.

We're going to get into that. Yeah, it's vacation homes go. Actually true. I'm curious if House of the Dragon will feel less lonely. Like, will Dragonstone feel like fun times? Well, it seems like there's just even in the beginning of this, they talk about sort of like, what is it? The dragon font, the dragon font or something. It sounds like there was because there were dragons here, there were probably there was probably a lot of infrastructure to take care of them. And so I wonder if that's the activity we'll see is more of like people just kind of people being dragon monitors. Maybe that'll be sort of like where the excitement and the draw is, whereas without the dragons, it's just, it's a lot of stone. It's a very, it's a very eerie and foreboding place. And like, even from the get go, right, when we start this chapter, as you were saying earlier,

right, like, we are opening on a new place in this story. And it's got a lot of horrific elements, like the language of the comet. It kind of feels like it's pulling back the curtain, right? The comet itself as it goes forward. And there's a lot of description of it here as a red slash or a pink wound, and they talk about the blood. I'm gonna just say it, you know, I'm gonna be honest, get a little Freudian here for a second, but it is very sexual imagery, right? Like the way that they describe the streak of the comet across the sky, it makes me think of a vagina, a bleeding vagina, right? Like the gash and that, you know, people call it a gash sometimes, whatever. And like, we are going to get our introduction to Melisandre this chapter, and she does play the role of like this figure of horror in this book. And, you know, she owns, as we've discussed in those Davos chapters,

this idea of the Freudian womb, which is also the tomb, both at once, and that element of the uncanny as they descend into the cave while her cave, you know, delivers death. And so we get this convergence of this sexual horror

right from the beginning, this threat of sexuality. And it's very pointed in this chapter especially considering uh how the the maesters right they're meant to be this very celibate order yeah and stannis's restraint yes yes and then he's seduced right there's a seduction going on throughout all this and i know you'll talk about that it's something that like with crescent and sort of the sexuality of it i feel like it plays on tropes and kind of a good way of like crescent being the sort of like now i'm gonna be standing kind of similar to stanis

i'm gonna be upstanding and take care of these boys and that that lady is she's dangerous like well yeah you're yeah celibate she probably does seem like very confusing to you and she wields power that you can't touch because you have no connect like they're so lacking in terms of like sexuality there i can at very least see how that would be confusing and threatening and like or like frightening to him in addition to the fact that she's you know clearly terrifying absolutely it's an it's an interesting like contrast to like some of the other celibate characters right like sexuality ends up being this very deadly element of arianne's story right when it comes to aries who's supposed to be

celibate but he's getting it jamie yeah you know i bet they could all get it. Jamie, Jamie, little Lannister. Out there with his heart and his dick in both hands. My god. Oh, fuck, in one hand. Fuck, in one hand. Oh god. I'm sorry. How can he hold all these feels at once?

He can't. You have to fire me. God, I can't believe it. This is the last day I'll pack the office up at this point in time during the story Chloe Jamie still has two hands I feel like that's reasonable yeah thank you time travel fetus to this one

that's fair that's so true yeah I really do also I mean we'll talk a little more about what the comet means to different characters along these plots i think but sansa right she bleeds soon in in the story you know eventually and the comet is kind of her blood too so you have a lot of woman's blood smeared all over the sky yeah blood on the maiden's thigh some On your Taylor Joy Northman shit. I still have to see that. I haven't watched

that yet. You gotta see it. I promise. Oh, I love everything that guy does. I'm ready to go into a theater and just be profoundly disturbed and kind of upset and wildly entertained for a couple hours. And also turned on a little. Probably. Like just a little.

Probably. Electric. Electric. The Northman. Okay, so hours and also turned on a little like just a little probably weren't electric electric the northman okay so it's okay so it's called the northman and it's about a viking eric northman it's true but so i think it's the very least a shared universe i think this is his origin story there you go there you go it could be it could be a crossover event it probably will be like five to ten years when they need some dinero crescent didn't believe in omens but in all of his very many years he hadn't seen a comet like this one this terrible terrible color of blood flame and sunsets interesting that he doesn't say sunrise they're like the same fucking color um if stone tongues could speak interesting he thinks the

gargoyles on dragonstone may have seen a great comet like this may have this quote of such folly he leaned against the battlement the sea crashing beneath him the black stone rough beneath his fingers talking gargoyles and prophecies in the sky i'm an old done man grown giddy as a child again man we've talked a little bit about the the gothic architecture and uh especially in davos chapters when we kind of visited here again the hunchback of notre dame even some some little hints of that fleeing around here and in some ways yes it's not one-to-one right but you can contextualize crescent kind of as a quasimodo-esque character right the kind of the the person that will always be there and you compare it to frollo who's the only person he believes loves him or that he loves. And there's kind of a little bit of Shireen and Patchface in Quasimodo as well.

The idea of like the Feast of Fools, right? The annual Feast of Fools, Quasimodo in the book, in the books, not the movie that the books are based on, right? From Disney. The actual books by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo gets made the Pope of Fools and then he gets like almost beaten to death by an angry mob. And there's elements of that in this chapter, right? When Crescent gets made to wear the hat,

the bucket hat, the antlered crown and be a fool, et cetera. And Solis kind of condemns him. It's like, you're a fool. The opposite of what Sansa does in the next chapter, the literal next chapter when she's like,

no, save the fool. Right. It is kind of a mirror that Selyse is fool-making. Yeah, while Sansa is saving by making someone a fool. But the architecture is

something I really like about the gargoyles. Twelve feet tall, that's fucking huge. That's humongous. Yeah. Bigger than you. Yeah, and not many things can do that. This is bullshit. I want to be that tall and kind of. Anyways, we talked about this back in Davos a little bit. Gargoyles kind of keep demons away, right?

And evil forces. And they have a purifying role because they digest the unclean water and wastewater and they keep it away from the walls. I didn't know that. So makes you think about R'hllor. Yeah. I was like, this is new. It has some symbolism. Yeah, that's why they're all over the church to like be cleansing and to keep people safe from demons

and they since they digest that water and spit it back out, it's like R'hllor, right? Burning away impurities, but then it also makes me think of unclean, like Shireen. Interesting. Yes, yes. And the living beings covered in stone.

Yeah. There's something about that gothic architecture is so Targaryen, stylistically, of like, we're new Targaryens now as they land here and there's also something about the arches right so gothic architecture is basically the opposite of the romanesque buildings right as opposed to the rounded arches they have the pointed arches that actually hold more weight so it makes me wonder if they built it to hold more weight for their dragons right because they're not only just practical you know they're higher in the sky and the whole symbolism behind them

is they pointed towards heaven we're closer to god very targeted doesn't kind of look like dragon's wings gothic arches given that like the wings typically come down into points i wonder if and like yeah considering targaryens were such dragon fanboys, they would just have dragons everywhere. Just dragon posters, dragon teacups, dragon placemats. Etsy.com slash search slash dragons. Targaryen Etsy. Yeah. They have little dragon plushies around all the time.

They also have the Hodor doorstoppers just because they're like, hey, it's ours. Oh my god. Oh my god. I mean, yeah, they saw it. Maybe they saw it in their dragon dreams. They're like, we got to make that. That's a winning idea. Should we tell everyone what's going to happen?

No, no, no. No, they'll cut down sales. What are you talking about? But yeah, you're talking about like the timing of when this architecture would exist. And I do think it's kind of weird or interesting, you know, the Dragonstone, which would be Valyrian. And it's soon after this, like this is built soon after the time of like the fall of old Valyria is Gothic architecture.

It feels like kind of anachronistic right because like you were saying we kind of associate it with this more classical roman architecture but it is a fantasy so they can do whatever the fuck they want and george was like vibes vibes and even if the architecture is a little anachronistic cresson himself his character is acting a lot anachronistic too right the architecture i think kind of reflects that mental state of his because he's feeling this youthful giddiness at the supernatural and sort of a regret as he feels that his age is holding him back here and it's quite reminiscent of amen right we see amen feeling this exact same way in the samuel chapters that we've kind of just

wrapped up recently how he's excited and he's yearning to meet Daenerys who is as you all know probably very tied to Dragonstone to be able to behold that symbol of his family those dragons and you know be together family and this chapter it isn't also about family it's about found family and dying for them because Cressen sacrifices himself for the son he chose but speaking of talking gargoyles to kind of go on a quick tangent it does remind me a little of tyrian he talks a lot and he's described a couple of times throughout the books as grotesque which is a synonym for gargoyle oh that makes sense i'm an english major it's fine

well that you know tyrian targaryen they say people are on that boat so eliana you are fueling the train i do feel that i feel that train a lot i mean i'm as you know i'm a tyrian targaryen agnostic i will say someone yeah i agree with that though i like that and someone on twitter uh that i like duran durandon posted on Twitter, he posted a tweet and he said he is a 51% believer. I'm like, yo, that's so real. That is so real. I'm still in the 1% that I kind of believed it, so I can be welcome at the party maybe

when it happens, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. be when it happens right but i'm like i don't know i don't know i am up in the air on that one if only like i in the sense of like i don't care that's what i'm like what's what's gonna what you're not gonna ride a dragon tyrian and like i will i might be like i might be like retroactively amused that tywin was cuckolded but i don't know i'm more interested it'd be just so much funnier if it was the twins yeah i don't know i that one i'm not like that one i don't think lines up but tyrian i'm like maybe um i don't know yeah the timeline the timeline the timeline

the timeline the timeline the timeline no time a maester trained and chained ah like suited and booted

a maester trained and chained at the citadel of old town crescent stairs of the comet the vents of dragonmont steaming against the sky

do we know have we heard mention of dragonmont before I don't think so or since um since maybe but not like much happening i think in the passing of like in davos's chapters i think we hear a little bit of wondering what it is if it is what i think it is but um all right um and then a white raven has arrived from the citadel yesterday announcing the

end of summer making this omen feel even more important. Yeah, that would mess up my head a little bit if there was a massive vagina comet streaking across the sky. And then also a big white bird showing me like, hey. But he's interrupted by Shireen and her fool Patchface, who launched a thousand theories. who launched a thousand theories and uh paisal thinks her lord father was king of smoking rock in the great salt sea but king nonetheless which is a very apt description of stannis as far as i'm concerned it kind of is it kind of king of iraq but at this point it's like king of no fun but king i will say uh in storm after the black water after everything goes to shit, that's where Stannis and Melisandre descend into. And that's kind of the last time we hear about it.

But that's where all of those crazy dragons at the start of the dance, right? The wild ones, Cannibal, Grey Ghost, Seasmoke, Sheepstealer, Silverwing, and Vermithor were. So we're going to see Dragonmont very soon in House of the Dragon. And Pylos helps him to his chair, them in crescent was about 80 and shattered a hip which i can relate to from my numerous relatives um he'd been ill last year so he's feeling it he's feeling a little not you know not at his best so that's why they called pilos and we hear crescent kind of acknowledge that like it's not just for help it's not just you know a teacher's assistant he is going to replace him and uh Pycelle is like well good we need someone and uh he sends Pylos to get Shireen as it's

ill to keep the lady waiting that's real sweet it is sweet I will say I've literally loved the way that like you will not see Cressen he only calls Stannis King once and that's out loud to him. He does not call him a king throughout the entire chapter in his interiority. And he does not call Shireen a princess. He says that Pylos calls her a princess as that's her title now, right? Now that her dad's king, but he never calls them by their royal titles. And I respect that that that's kind of petty right like a little bit like he's like no way not my president but same but do we think

it's because he doesn't want him to fight this battle he doesn't want him to try and do this i like to think so like i think thatressen kind of realizes he's like this is dumb and I think there's a part of him that first of all I don't think George came up with this line yet he comes up with it later on but like Cressen kind of understands that to crown him is to kill him and yeah

and others are just power surfing on that wave of crowning him you know much like a lot of that in the vacuum the dance of the dragon stuff i mean it's just that's a miniature story of all these power grabs across these several books i guess but power surfing i like that i was thinking of literally like using surf and pokemon when you get on your pokemon you teach them surf and then you can surf around it was like power surfing that sounds fun like on a Blastoise

that's where I was you can go to Cinnabar Island aka Dragonstone yeah exactly get some missing number I love missing number I'm all about missing number yeah how many can I catch till my game quits?

They never know. You're not supposed to catch Missingno. Okay, anyway. So Princess Shireen is the best part of all of this. I'm so sad. That's my beautiful, ugly daughter. I'm very sad for her whole, like, living there with them thing going on. She's shy.

She's sweet. She's with her weird fucking cool patch face and he's wearing his crown which is a tin bucket with deer antlers uh and he's strapped in with cowbells every single blue oyster colt song that he plays as he goes he's ringing the the onomatopoeia here is so beautiful i have to bring it out clang-a-dang bong dong ring ling clong clong clong i will bong rip to that um shireen's like almost 10 she has baratheon blue eyes her dad's square jaw her mom's florant ears and grayscale that almost killed her as a baby half one cheek down her neck stiff dead mottled gray stony to the touch.

Cressen would never deny her anything, for she had been denied everything in her life. So of course, he wants to show her the White Raven from the Citadel, and he thinks she is the saddest fucking kid I've ever known. Aww. I kind of see where Stannis has inherited his sense of projection from a little you see it a bit this chapter crescent i think i mean he's incredibly loving right and where stannis likes to imagine that everyone has like slighted him is insulting him i feel like crescent has instead imagined and internalized he's like i have failed all of these people i failed everyone but i i mean

to give like everyone some credit from what we see of shireen at other times and other chapters yeah i guess she's denied a lot you know she's isolated living here on dragon stone but she kind of seems happy yeah another time she's vibing yeah she's having a great time she's like this is my bff patch face and now i have a new friend edrick storm we're having a great time. She's like, this is my BFF patch face. And now I have a new friend, Edric Storm. We're having a great time. Davos, do you want me to teach you how to read? Yeah, Shireen seems like somebody who appreciates where she's at. She appreciates, she's got her priorities straight. She likes family.

She likes fun. And that was sort of, I like what you said about Cressen and where Stannis gets its sense of projection. Having listened to the Will chapter and peeked at that and then just comparing the two you have somebody the person who like you have way more race who's just like here's my dick and i have everything sorted out and where's crescent and like he's he's completely ineffectual because he's too arrogant to realize what he doesn't know and crescent is almost too kind and too fearful i wrote my notes like the kindness is useless in the sense of like he does it the kindness kind of on its own in this world with these enemies what i like about this chapter always is that crescent

is very smart he's very planned out he knows this place and these people better than anyone and he still dies relatively quickly like melisandre's like oh yeah cool and just kind of gets rid of him and so it's an interesting kind of juxtaposition of somebody whose arrogance gets in the way of them you know managing to survive whereas crescent it's almost it's his empathy it's his kindness and his sort of can't really see past the end of his own nose or through any other lens but his own and so that's why like even though shireen is not that sad he's just like oh my baby girl and poor patch face who sees just an idiot patch face is kind of fine too and i think that's not a great example but um he's right about stannis but he also is completely he can't like he doesn't change the way he deals with stannis to reach him

he keeps just kind of like tut tutting over it when like stannis is kind of not in that place to receive that and crescent doesn't really have the flexibility or the adaptability to talk to him any other way when you put it like that it makes me feel like even though it's not right we're talking about them in this parental dynamic the way stannis treats crescent is almost teenage rebellious but not quite right he's like i don't want to listen to you anymore dad at one point there's a lot of that there's something later that we'll touch on that like especially where stannis learned some of this from because he's like i've been a father to you and then has no accountability on stannis's character how could you have turned to this

cult of ralor uh and you see like that tough love didn't work on him either right when he kills his other father figure so stannis's dad's beware you will die apparently you've got some john snow dad syndrome going on here but shireen is pretty content like and she actually is so well adjusted for being a weird a weirdo kid living at dragononstone with her fool that almost died that we'll talk about. There's also something very obvious here in the new guard switching over, right? That like Cressen is the old. He is the old.

The old gods are out. The new gods are also out. They're no longer new. The new new gods are velour, baby. They're hot. They're fire. And the same with the Citadel. So hot right now. Yeah, they're so hot right now um you have at the citadel in our prologue chapters we'll visit later for you know pate even though it's really the aleris chapter but pate i mean who's really important in this chapter pate or aleris

we know the answer the crowd has voted fans everywhere have said Alleris. But Pylos, right? You have young Pylos here who's like 25 and solemn and he's humorless and kind of like stiff. And there's no life in him at the very grim Dragonstone, which Cressen is like, you got to have a little joke in you. Man, you got to be a little soft somewhere in there. When Cressen arrived 12 years ago, he had served well and proudly but he never felt at home here especially now with the red woman around because he was having dreams and waking and not knowing where he is and pylos is here to stand against all that right be ready to catch him when he falls and dies which is soon as you'll all remember i'm pretty sure yeah we were pylos or i was a pylos stand during the davos chapters. I was like, Pylos is being very nice. He's also helping Davos. He's helping Davos with his letters. He's a great dude. But he's very much the opposite of Cressen, right? Like, where Cressen's like, I feel young. He's like, what's with this kid? He's like, he's 25, but he feels very old in

demeanor. He's very much the opposite, and kind of reminds me a little of Jojen, who's introduced later this book. Exactly. Lil' G. Lil' Grandpa. Well. Patchface sings a special song. Under the sea. Oh my god god the birds have scales for feathers

he said clangling i know i know oh even for a fool patch face was a sorry thing perhaps once he could evoke gales of laughter with a quip but the sea had taken that power from him along with half his wits and all his memory he was soft and obese subject to twitches and trembles incoherent as often as not. Now that you've sang you're an official girl gone canon. Congratulations. You did it. You've made it. That was the hazing. You have to sing on the podcast and that's how you get in.

Don't tell anyone. That's the secret. This is one of the best covers. I think the other one is Noah doing the Song of the seven but this one was really good ah thanks this is way better we could make a mixtape drop our hot tape maybe we should maybe we should

write in tell us what your favorite hot songs are you know your favorite musical moments and we will compile them into a great playlist there's gotta be an ice and fire con karaoke situation that is like improvised there is friday night friday night people do filk long ago didn't they make they made a game of thrones inspired like mixtape i remember this and like they got a lot of big names on that mixtape

interesting interesting i've never heard this it It exists. I'll link it. I'm gonna find it. Everyone can link it. I don't believe it till then. I do want to hear it, though, if it exists. Is this just the Game of Thrones Mandela effect? No. It's real.

It's real! Patchface's music would be great, though, as a mixtape like real real like dropped some songs i did love they did include in series five the only thing they included that was good was when shireen was uh singing in the credits no it was actually not that was like season two wasn't it i'm making this up maybe i don't know i don't know it's been a while but she sings in the credits of one of the episodes that i know i know it's like very haunting very chilling shreen was really gonna be in series eight yeah she's a creepy she did great she was creepy i loved it you know you have to be a little bit a little just on the fringe for this role you're not the most socialized not the most adjusted yeah that's why she died

she's having fun that's why she you know she's the only one who laughs now at patch face because she's having fun and then but crescent doesn't seem to think anyone's having fun he's like an ugly little girl and a sad fool and maester makes three and crescent asks shireen to sit with him saying oh she should be asleep and shireen says she had bad dreams of the dragons that they were coming to eat her and she has been plagued by these nightmares as long as crescent could remember and he tells her gently that they can't come to life, that the dragons here are carved of stone. Well, he reminds her that their island was the western most outpost of the Freehold of Valyria,

and by that I mean Crescent's reminding us, the reader, in the prologue, that the Valyrians raised this citadel, this specific citadel, through ways of shaping stone that were lost to modern society fashioning the towers in shapes of dragons to be even more fearsome topping it with gargoyles

instead of simple crenellations i realize that's is that a reference to like the roman concrete that's lost now oh possibly that's yeah that was my question i wondered if it what's from wait what's roman concrete concrete? Who knows? It's gone now. I'm pretty sure... You know how the aqueducts are so... They're still standing today. I'm pretty sure it's a... Whatever they had, like a concrete or cement.

And we don't quite know, I think, exactly how it is anymore. It was like volcanic ash. Yeah, we don't quite know i think exactly it was like volcanic ash yeah we don't have the exact recipe but it was made with volcanic ash and like it was like they're basically like they're valerian asphalt basically right so obsidian perfect sense volcanic so yeah because it's coming from their volcanoes that they lived on which there you go dragon's yeah i went because i'm uh made of oily black rock yeah I was like do they just spray the dragon on the stone and then they like heat it up so they just like kind of

like put it and make it into dragon stuff that's what's in my head yeah glass like yeah well when you own the universe I mean it must be fun to create things right when you own the entire universe I mean you have dragons

my god you can just sit around and craft with them like that that's the cutest I love that I know they were the ultimate goths honey you know they were they're out there shaving off their eyebrows and drawing them back on they are bicking straight

bicking their sides they're like yeah I don't know they were the ultimate goths they had it going on with this architecture i think especially on this read stands out shireen having dragon dreams like that she is having nightmares about the dragons eating her she does you know shireen is stannis claims a throne through robert who claims a throne through a tiny little ounce of targaryen blood and some rebellion so i think it's safe to say she's probably having some dragon dreams especially coming off of

amen in the sam chapters that really screams at me and if you have read any of the Tiwau chapters, the sample chapters, no big spoilers, but Tiura Toland has a dream, right? Down in Arianne's chapters, we get a moment where she says, they were dancing in my dream, and everywhere the dragons danced, the people died. And House Toland's sigil is the dragon eating itself. Right, so Shireen is dreaming of dragons eating her fun it's interesting the way that like premonition works here too of just like what i liked about one of my i think what is it season six that it opens with like very old melisandre yeah really yes and i liked the i remember liking that because there wasn't really any like narrative reason

for that other than to remind you that like melisandre is very old but also the fact that like there's it was also just a signature signal of like it's gonna get weird and i like the idea of there being this vagina comment like yeah and the whole thing is like guys you can't even see the forest for the trees it's gonna get real real strange here real soon this little chick is having dragon dreams and she's right about that absolutely yeah it really stands out that she's having dragon dreams and true regarding melisandre i mean melisandre is definitely like that in the books and i think there could there will be a reason there will be a reason we will get that maybe one day but yeah shireen does seem like she's having dragon dreams and i don't know if it's like her targaryen blood but i am kind of wondering i have a tinfoil i have a new tinfoil

is it like i'm maybe so i'm sure someone else has thought of this but i don't know who i haven't read it and if i have like it was in a comment and in passing i'm so sorry i'm not crediting you but um is it a near-death experience thing right like brand has a near-death experience and that like leads to his powers being awakened the patch face has obviously had a near-death experience thing right like brand has a near-death experience and that like leads to his powers being awakened the patch face has obviously had a near-death experience i'm like did shereen have one like during the grace scale or something like you know did your on have one yeah yeah that fits to me honestly it seems like you're on seems like into asphyxiation. That's what Dany has.

I mean, she has the birth and she walks into, I don't know, her walking into that pyre constitutes a near-death experience, but she gets pretty close herself. Yeah. And then that's like, it's interesting to me that that's what you're talking about. I wonder though, I sometimes think that like, Drogo's death is more the entryway for the dragons or maybe it's a combination of those things. George, explain it. I want some information clarified.

I have a long list of questions and only maybe a third of them are actually important. Maybe. I've gotten some answered. But for example, the snails, do they glow in the dark? I don't know. I want to know. I want those Tairoshi hair dye snails and I want to know. God, Tairoshi? I don't know. I want to know. I want those Tairoshi hair dye snails, and I want to know.

God, Tairoshi sounds like it slaps. I want to know. Can you show? I mean, you have to bleach it first. He's not even thinking. So Crescent tells Shireen, he's like, there's nothing to fear, even though he himself earlier was just thinking. The Red Woman gives him nightmares.

I digress. Glossing over that. She's like, what about the thing in the sky? And she had heard some of the people in the household, the Red Woman specifically tells Selyse it was dragon's breath. And Shireen heard that the Red Woman told Selyse this from the handmaids and

some of the castle women from Dala. Great great name you're gonna meet another one uh and she'll die and that's sad too uh shit oh shit shireen insists like no dragons are coming to life crescent i fucking heard it and he's like drat about that red woman filling this innocent girl's head with thoughts and nightmares about you know things she should not know about and he thinks ill enough filling your head with thoughts and nightmares about, you know, things she should not know about. And he thinks ill enough. Filling her head with thoughts. Right.

How dare that girl think. Got to get them out of that. You know, she suffer enough. Never ends well. Hasn't she suffered enough? God, for real.

He thinks ill enough that she's filled the head of the mother with her madness. Must she poison the daughter's dreams as well? He says comet is a comet a star with a tail lost in the heavens gone too soon and shireen's like well my mom said the white raven means summer's over and he's like yes it came from the citadel this is a great distraction for you child and he touches his maester's chain each link symbolizing all the mastery of his learning and he thinks now it's heavy and cold it used to be so much lighter he explains these ravens are bigger clever fatter cuter borbier uh bred to carry the most important messages yes you guys are serving me like strong louise belcher vibes with shireen in this capacity. Ah, yes.

Interesting. I see Aria and Edric Dane as pretty much Rudy and Louise. Pretty much. I like that. Yeah. Oh, poor Edric Dane. Sorry, I digress. Adorable. Adorable.

With a little hat. Yeah. She's obsessed with butts and horses, dude. Horses and butts. It's that age, dude. It's that age. Is Gene Brand? Sancha's such a Tina.

Gina's Brand. Oh, God. He's like, mom, dad, listen to my song on top of the roof. Brand, get the fuck down. This is the song of my supplier. Sansa's Tina Boucher, oh my god. It makes so much sense.

Loras Tyrell looks at Sansa just, uh... Huh. Somebody cosplay this combo cross cosplay cross cosplay oh my god so this Borb has brought word that this has actually been the longest summer

in living memory it has been 10 years 2 turns 16 days, and now it was over. Did you know that? I'm pretty sure that the wait for the winds of winter has been longer than this summer. I just wanna My summer has been long as fuck, George, alright? Winter's not here for me yet.

She I'm asking. Is it gonna get cold? I know. This is my, this is, yeah. Anyway, sorry. Sorry. In time, of course it says in time it will get cold, that if the gods are good, they'll grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvest for the winter to come. The small folk would argue, I'm arguing, a long summer means a long winter.

But he saw no reason to frighten Shireen Patchface rings his bell singing it is always summer under the sea the murmurs where nanny moans in their hair and we have gowns of silver seaweed I know I know

uh uh uh oh am I gonna fade off I've never thought of it to under the sea I don't know why I Am I going to fade off? I've never thought of it to Under the Sea. I don't know why I never have, but I never have. Because it's the obvious choice. I know. I know.

It should be. It was right in front of us the whole time. Just like the prince that was promised, you know? Under the snow, Ned. Snow. Under the snow. So Shireen laughs, saying she'd like a gown of silver seaweed and he sings

again saying under the sea it snows up and the rain is dry as bone I'm sorry I wasn't gonna try and sing it under the sea it snows up yeah you know uh he banger after banger they all have the same melody but yet I'm still standing.

I'm still buying the albums, everyone. I'm still streaming on Spotify. Who also has Girls Gone Canon sometimes, you know? So that's exciting. Where you can follow us. It's a plug, Eliana. It's a plug.

You can find the link somewhere. Oh my god. So Shireen is laughing at this song she's like you know she has kind of a filter sometimes patch face gets on her nerves sometimes she's like whatever this one's kind of a hit uh and she says i'd like a gown of silver seaweed and he sings again with that snows line. And now I have heard so many people break that down into different symbolisms. And I had no clue that Nenimones are purple flowers, purple sea flowers. And with the silver seaweed as a dress and the purple flowers, it makes you think of maybe Sansa right at the purple wedding, which there are tons of other purple wedding moments kind of foreshadowed in this chapter as far as poison

and as far as what that poison specifically does right it's my favorite wedding you know I love a good purple I love a purple moment my best reception ever 77 courses

I mean honestly I would go to that My best reception ever. 77 courses. I mean. Honestly? I would go to that. I would go to that prefix menu. That tasting menu. That omakase. I like a challenge.

There's something about the songs being connected, right? The next one's like under the snow or snowing it up. Up under the sea sea snow up up snow what's up snow hey john up snow what's up snow um definitely some john snow vibes there in the whole under the sea it snows up. And also there are some other like coming off that silver seaweed. Shireen in a gown of silver seaweed reminds me of like the feather bed song with Arya and Gendry. But also like a Nysa Nysa kind of figure, right? Since she's just a cute little toasted marshmallow, as we know. Yeah. And so it makes me think of Danny

too and like the silver seaweed kind of reminds me of like armor too like actual silver metal steel and I don't know I feel like all of Patchface's little musings half of them are just about battles to come and wars to come you know

yeah yeah though but actually especially the one with the dad one day yeah broadly you know yeah yeah though but actually especially the one with the day one day yeah probably you know more in general well shireen asks if it will snow and crescent tells her hopefully not for years and thankfully pilos appears with the bird impressive white as snow bigger than any hawk the greatest borb to ever exist big ass bird and i'm still like trying to be like that's like okay if it's as big as a hawk that's like like that's between a that's like close to a turkey oh it's a big ass borb you know

i'm thinking like you know harpy eagles, right? Which I've learned about recently. And it's got bright black eyes to show that it was no albino, but a true red raven of the Citadel. I ain't no albino. Yeah. He's just a cool bird.

And then Pylos goes to get breakfast and Cressen introduces Shreen to the board. Interesting that, you know, you have the Targaryens who were a little focused on purity in their time at some points, right? But you also have these super white borbs being bred for superiority that they're not just albinos. Like they are actual ravens bred to be this way. Pure, pure bread, pure blood. Interesting. Very interesting. The placement that the maesters also put on this right that they are also breeding for purity

while trying to maybe take down the targaryen cause who knows though they did a good job of doing that themselves personally they did grand maester conspiracy i mean it's probably really a thing crescent calls her lady shireen and not princess again and i'm like oh there it is there it is you don't believe in stannis after all maybe if you had just actually believed in him and his little cute religion but she doesn't even believe in but we'll get to that like stannis and the nerdiest most like just square way possible does not believe in the religion but definitely believes in his dick definitely definitely gets led by that by melisandre that is a key component of

their relationship and i have a sneaking suspicion if it was not a part of it stannis would not give a fuck about this religion nearly as much as he does oh absolutely absolutely some psychosexual behavior in there well you're not special status i know a lot of guys like that um um i really like the little nickname borb for the bird so i'm gonna use that um forever the board repeats after him. I think so. Almost bowing and Shireen is amazed at it because she's never done anything wrong in her whole life

and she's perfect. Actually, yeah. Even. True. Mood. Shout out to Not A Cat. Even Patchface joins in getting the board

to repeat Clever Bird, Clever Man before moving on to a new song. The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance, my lord. The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay song the shadows come to dance my lord dance my lord the shadows come to stay my lord stay my lord stay my lord he shakes his belled helm all the while

and the raven screams flapping away in case you thought it was gonna be a happy ending um shireen confesses to crescent that he sings that all the time she told him to stop frightened but he won't she asks crescentressen to make Patchface stop, but Cressen wonders how in the fuck he could do that now, which, fair. And they kind of get into the backstory of Patchface, which really sucks. Patchface had come to them as a boy,

and Lord Stefan, who seems dope, and I would have really enjoyed meeting, frees him in Volantis to bring him into another type of lifelong servitude uh while on his voyage to find rhaegar targaryen a wife so rhaegar didn't have any sisters to wed like you do but so instead of a wife he brings back a fool that he um accidentally almost drowned and uh brain damages but so that's how that happens and then uh but and he really played him up too because he wrote very positively of patch face's skills which were many like riddling juggling

singing in four languages which is more than i speak and uh said that robert would be delighted by him which is creepy and maybe he could teach sanis how to laugh she didn't and then stephan had the fucking nerve to die as well you know so it's kind of like stefan and kasana were like we're gonna drown and we're not even writing you a letter of recommendation patch face but we did earlier but now we would change it yeah yeah he's like you know what will definitely help with my son never smiling, dying in front of him. It's not a question. I like how it's not even like a sort of, it's not like an, oh, he got sick or, oh, this happened.

Like, no, his ship exploded on the rocks and he was definitely dead and his kids saw it. Yeah, all three. Mom and dad just bam. But then they get this this the only person who survived is this guy. Yeah. This is your new I mean, I guess he's got a friend. He's a friend to Shireen. Yeah. He has a place now at court.

He's got, you know, and he's got a nice hat. People like using that. And the storms and castling at the time Sir Harbert had said like the kindest thing would be giving milk to the poppy and be done with it the crescent refused and won and again you have that proud wing echo right there right like you should just kill the bird kill the bird let the man be born uh get that borb but crescent refused and had won well what good is it you know that's kind of an echo of proud, what good is it? You know, that's kind of an echo of Proudwing.

What good is it for Stannis? It also reminds me of, maybe this is where, not just Proudwing, right? Like, so we're seeing this is where Robert has sort of internalized that value of like, it would be a mercy if Bran died. Remember, he says that and Joffrey overhears that and is like, you know what?

It's a good idea. Murdering my dad's best friend's son right so this is just what the ethos was going on at storm's end and so robert learns it stannis learns it it's a shit show that's it's toxic bro that's toxic well i'm so glad i didn't grow up here i know right actually though i don't know storm's end i need way too much validation i would have been very easily manipulated yeah you would be like half of the reach would be under you and you'd be like yeah yeah i'll marry you and we'll take over the nation because i am the better one very easily manipulated oh my god actually that could be

either that could be half that i just said it could be either brother, I guess. Damn. It's too bad. You could pick a Baratheon. We could each be a Baratheon. I call Robert. Oh, man. If it was fuck, marry, kill. Oh, God.

I don't know about that. Oh, F Robert for sure, but young Robert. I don't know that he would be a spectacularly generous lover, but I'm pretty sure he'd be better than renly and stannis i'd probably kill stannis because if i'm going to spend the rest of my life with someone you got to be entertaining and yeah i'd marry renly seems like he's allowing his spouses to have some independence and he's sexually adventurous so we'll figure it out i would like instead of fuck mary kayla i'd just fuck off i just like i'm good without yeah brothers within me can i not can i not do it i'm gonna abstain i'm independent on this vote but

if i had to fuck mary kill abstain abstain yeah abstinence is the answer i've seen what what comes out of women when baratheon brothers fuck them okay that is an excellent excellent point and all these songs about shadows coming to stay my lord and back in the present patch face is still singing that song by the way he's still going on track yeah this is the music and shireen's starting to get upset which makes sense you know kids are like whoa i'm really starting this is too much he just keeps singing the same song and he keeps skipping i hate this block man crescent comforts her and pylos comes into this wild scene of just like patch face running around in the background and shireen like being like i

hate it here and crescent expects him to bring porridge like he was supposed to but instead he's like sorry Davos just showed up and Crescent's kind of shocked so he's like I gotta go talk to him no one got me no one fucking woke me up and he thinks I used to be close in Stannis's council and now this is a huge blow I have to go speak to shireen's lord father they follow him out everyone gets tired of his slow pace though and uh the kids dash ahead clingling and off and he descends down his great trip down the sea dragon tower thinking about how the castles are very cruel to the frail because it's a lot of steps goes through the stone drum to the chamber of the painted table and to get there he has to cross the

gallery the middle and inner walls with guardian gargoyles and iron gates and go up more steps all of them are a torment but stannis won't come to him so out he goes with pylos's help at least god that sucks they pass arched windows over the outer bailey, a fishing village beyond, archers firing at practice butts in the yard. The morning is hazed with cook fires, three thousand men breaking fast beneath their lord's banner, and out of the yard where ships are crowded. They hadn't been allowed to leave in the past year. I know that feeling.

Lord Stannis' fury, a triple-decked war galley, looked small next to some of the ships surrounding it. The guardsmen at the next pass let them through, and Cressen tells them to stay here, that his fury a triple decked war galley looked small next to some of the ships surrounding it the guardsmen at the next pass let them through and crescent tells them to stay here that he must see him alone and pylos warns him of the long climb and crescent smiles saying he knows each step by name and once he's halfway up he regrets it immediately i know that feeling that was me it was me exiting like the metro recently i was like i'm gonna take the stairs because i don't feel like waiting behind all these people on the escalator mistakes mistakes me with my 30 stairs every day going up and down them yeah oh god i like on the one hand do not love living in a lower unit because the ceilings are hollow and you know people seem to walk with

like just like iron on their feet but at the same time i haven't had to carry groceries upstairs in many years and it's fucking delightful well played well played crescent would not like to come over to my place sim both you and i have a lot of stairs i'll host crescent i'll have some places so he does take a break, right? He's coming face to face with Davos Seaworth, a slight man with his low birth written upon a common face. Classist. I don't know what that means.

Yeah, I was like, I don't know what that means. Rude. Davos has been established. Davos was a hottie. Alright. Yeah. Don't be jealous of his drip, dude. Yeah, he's just a dad, alright? Dad-boss. Dad-boss.

Davos returns in the black of morning, his favorite time. Crescent thinks of Davos' great prowess at handling ships in the night, and that he had once been one of the most notorious smugglers in the Seven Kingdoms before Stannis had knighted him and shortened his fingers. Davos says it is exactly as Crescent had warned Stannis. The people do not love Stannis had knighted him and shortened his fingers Davos says it is exactly as Creston had warned Stannis the people do not love Stannis and they certainly do not love lowborn Davos Gil and Swan

Old Penrose, the Tar-Sed Midnight in a Grove Beric Dondarrion has gone missing some say dead and Lord Cairne isryce the orange and the rainbow guard who are renly's own personal king's guard each with their own color commanded by loris tyrell i like i when i was when i was rereading this chapter that i realized i was today years old when i realized just how pointed an LGBTQIA reference

it is for Renly to have an actual rainbow guard and I just like that it also goes with his character perfectly so it works both ways but I was like I wow that's real on the nose and George like doesn't he say that it's not or that it wasn't intended originally it's not I mean, like, I remember the rainbow, a more mainstream symbol of LGBTQIA communities. I remember that when I was in like, college, which would have been the like, to like, I started in 2001. And that's when I remember it. I remember being like a young woman and being like, Oh, I guess I like I was like, I could happily wear my favorite rainbow belt. But I also that's when I became aware that like oh it might that might signal something very specific that is not me so i can believe by the time when the time that he was writing this that that just made sense and not in a super literal way that's

just yeah kind of funny that it worked out that way and well color especially right like that's the big thing that i notice here because as you get this whole description and you even later will get the description of his men that are at the feast and they all are in these ridiculous bright colors and there's stannis in his dark brown leather jerkin right colorless and davos and uh not all of them betray him but it's like you can see that like these are not really his people right like these are not people that are like-minded with him they they are wearing these bold colors and stannis is in this dark goth castle void of color void of emotion no fun he is now preferring pylos to krussin you know krussin who has a little bit of life left in him a little not a lot it's about to go it's very 10 things i hate about you in terms of like the differences between siblings there you go oh Oh my god, it is.

It is. And I mean, like both of them, you know, he friendly picks the Rainbow Guard, I guess, because of the Faith of the Seven. So both of them have like these like color coded things going on when it comes to religion, right? Like Stannis is goth with like, you know, the black and the red, which are different houses colors, but just red. Just red. The religion plays a really big role, I guess, in how they're signaling to people,

and I think we're going to see, again, as we talk about all the time, it become a much bigger role, as it already is in Feast, and will be in Winds. Yeah, that's a great call. the seven is definitely a big part of that it's very telling how people are it seems it seems like a fairly like not subtle statement to see like oh well if you find some kind of religion that's a really good tool to manipulate people into supporting you yeah yeah or not as we see with stannis yeah or push push sure or how to isolate yourself uh crescent too like he he thinks that renly is immature in some aspects too and that renly's idea of the rainbow guard is very him because he loved bright colors and fabrics and games as a kid and that he would

run around shouting look at me i'm a dragon or dragon! Or a wizard! Or the rain god! With his black hair and laughing eyes. Now a man grown. He's 21, right now, but still playing games. Still playing games, Crescent thinks, which is true. Look at me! I'm a king! Crescent thought sadly. Oh, Renly, Renly, dear sweet child. Do you know what you're doing? And would you care if you did? Is there anyone who cares

for him but me? Aww. Aww. Yeah, the cares for him, here the him is actually referring to Stannis, right? That becomes clearer as the chapter goes on. It's not about Renly, and

I mean, Crescent sees here, right? He sees how Renly is hurting Stannis. He cares so much about Stannis. He cares about Renly, too, right? And I'm like, is it so bad that Renly said, look at me, look at me? I mean, he was- he's a little, like, Shireen, right? In that he grew up

kind of without very many- I mean, Stannis and Sleaze don't seem like the most involved parents from what we see like is it so bad that redley an orphan child wanted to be seen and wanted to be loved i don't think he's very different from stannis in that way but stannis had more difficulty right because redley knew how to ask for love and stannis clearly struggles with that redley knows that if you're nice to people and if you're entertaining you can get positive attention like he figures out that relationship which where stannis is so i feel like stannis is always so incredibly honest and is so incredibly like okay here are the

rules i wonder if stannis maybe has a little bit of anxiety like his foundational you know his foundation is wrecked with his parents dying like in a like pretty violent way and so now everything is governed by things that are fixed by rules by things and so that gives him kind of like okay cool this is something that i am less threatened by because i understand it and i can control it as opposed to renly who's kind of like all right well if i pretend to be something else and i'm somewhat fluid i can sort of people please my way a little bit or i can i can charm people into liking me and to getting sort of external validation or love that i didn't really have at home and stannis is i think more trying to avoid pain and and chaos and renly just renly wants attention it's frozen because he probably yeah it's anna and elsa it actually literally is expert analysis stannis

has locked himself away in his dragon castle gonna murder my sibling no i'm just kidding kind of i mean it is kind of eventually shipwrecked everything you know i mean it kind of actually that is like the two halves and redley was raised more by robert than stannis and by raised by robert i mean he was raised probably to a similar degree as the other bastards that robert had uh where he sometimes showed up at court and you know drunkenly reveled and then peaced uh in fact he has kind of the rogue qualities of damon of damon uh targaryen right a little bit and that he's the rogue prince coming to his brother's court being able to get away with drinking and charming people and getting his way into the society and getting onto the council uh where stannis has the other part of it right the

more vicious more just darker side of it that he's upholding the i should have been the heir viscerys kind of side of it. This is maybe just because, not just because, I lost my dad pretty suddenly when I was about 10, and I can really just relate to sort of the anger at the universe and being like, are you fucking, seriously? Seriously. Just, just, just, just, like, there's just a, like,

I didn't deserve to have this random horrible thing happen to me. Like, Stannis feels very bitter and resentful i think it's just what he has been like he's i feel like he's resentful of the job he has to do but he's also like i think the only way he knows how to be is to just is to just do it joylessly yeah i think that's a great description he's resentful he's resentful. He's resentful. I mean, yeah. Shit's been unfair to him. Definitely.

Robert's always way more popular. And it's always going to be cooler than Stan is. He hasn't quite figured out a way to maneuver that. I mean, it's hard. If you get to 35 and you still haven't figured it out, you've had definitely a hard time. I mean, everyone in A Song of Ice and Fire needed therapy, and... Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And it doesn't help, again, we have Crescent, right? He's not 100% the best father figure, right? Maesters are good for some things. We'll talk about some other knowledge. Other maesters drop some of our children in a bile,

but not all things. Not in all things, right? Do they have the right knowledges that you need as a child? Emotional knowledges. Cressen kind of gives us some background on the siege, right? He had talked to Davos and found out that some of the lords Cressen kind of gives us some background on the siege, right? He had talked to Davos and found out that some of the lords had made excuses about why they weren't supporting Stannis. Some lied, but Davos will bring Stannis no hope, only the truths that he heard, which were that nobody likes him.

And Cressen remembers when Davos was knighted after the siege of Storm's End, where they had starved out. And Davos, of course, had smuggled in the food after they had eaten everything the dogs, horses, cats everything was gone. All they had was roots and rats and he was bringing saltfish and onions. And of course to pay for his years of smuggling Stannis was like I must cut off your fingers

and then give you a knighthood and he used a butcher's cleaver so it would be very clean. what a sweetie and davos chose seaworth for his new house and his banner was a black ship on a gray field with an onion i love this i love his little we get a little bit of davos's knighting scene from crescent who doesn't necessarily have like great pride like that was the best day for all of society he probably should have that pride but he doesn't, but he still thinks of it fondly for Davos. I like how,

I like how it went. This is actually like, I feel like this is Stannis' best moment. He's like, I appreciate, he's like, you stole a lot, but you really,

you know, you did make up for it, and thank you for your help, and I see how, you know, skill sets can transfer, but you know, we gotta do a little something,

so you can still use them gonna leave you your thumb but I'm gonna give you a knighthood there you go and it just feels incredibly fair I don't know if it's fair or not but I think you're right this is like a really big thing a really good thing that happened to Stannis even if he doesn't realize it this is the day that he like basically met his

best friend. Only friends. It is, though. You know what? It is. Yes, but also his best friend. Like me to you. I mean, it's not too late. I could still cut off your fingers, Chloe.

You could cut off mine. Someday I wish you would someday i wish you would i wish you would oh my god ah crossing calls the truth a bitter drought right a poison and that stannis doesn't have the numbers he wants to take king's landing back and it would mean death for him if he did and davos holds up his hand and he says my fingers will grow back before that man bends to sense. It's true. Break before he bends. Davos knows what he's talking about.

Yeah. Big sad. Weirdly, Crescent knows that Davos has done what he could and now that he must ascend, adding his voice to Davos's and he begins to make the climb, landing in the great round room of black stone and the great carved table, fashioned at Aegon Targaryen's command before the conquest. It's 50 feet. This is enormous.

All right. It's 50 feet long, four foot across, and the carpenters molded it after Westeros, sawing each bay and peninsula out, darkened by almost 300 years of varnish. The Seven Kingdoms kingdoms as they were in agon's day that is a single chair is in the room positioned at dragon stone's place raised to give a good view of the tabletop and in that chair is status clad in rough spun brown wool though he's only 35 or like almost right he's a small he's got a small fringe of black hair that rings his head and I love the language here that describes it as looking kind of like

a shadow of a crown he's broad of shoulder sinewy of limb he's got a square jaw short cropped whiskers and dark blue eyes beneath thick brows a thinly lipped mouth made for scowls and sharp commands

sturdier in the front of the books then we leave him in a dance with dragons right dance with dragons he's a skeleton but this is like sturdy he's he's definitely got the baratheon build in fact a lot of art that i see of stannis as well reminds me of Jorah Mormont too. Not show Jorah. We got to purge that from your mind to think book Jorah. You know, it's a different look, but similar looks is how I imagine them. But more brunette. It just reminds me, this description really lands home just how good this casting was.

They aged everyone up, but just in terms of his stance and his was and they kind of they aged everyone up but just in terms of his stance and his lips and kind of just i they nailed it and also actors yeah he he was accidentally the best wasn't he like he had no clue like stannis is an unsympathetic character like just because he's a drag like he's not like no one wants to hang out with stannis like you feel i feel like i felt a little bit of sympathy for robert because at the very least he was really entertaining and he he was just kind of like running like a battering ram at things and not really thinking about the consequences because masculinity like toxic mass no time to think about consequences whereas stannis had such an uphill battle to climb in terms of at least just personally in terms of like me caring about him as a character and being invested in this part of the storyline aside from just wanting Davos to be okay.

And both I mean both the writing here like he George is really good at finding ways to make you finding reasons that you can feel sympathetic with Stannis that don't have anything to do with kind of his interactions with people presently and Stephen Delane was just so good at having that that sadness and that yearning for something for something that he was owed for something for some kind of victory some kind of win that he felt like he'd been entitled to and waiting for for a long long time and it's yeah there's a humanity to Stannis that is I think just well achieved here i guess yeah he's raw he's very like he is a raw character like you see that isolated lonely especially with crescent being like that lonely child stannis like everything he says about shireen is really just how he feels about stannis he's like my god i can't feel like i failed the father you know yeah he doesn't want her to be lonely and sad like stannis grew up and joined braulor yeah and yeah no that's actually a great point like because being

i so isolated right and yearning for um acknowledgement has left stannis so vulnerable to being manipulated by people and you're going to talk about that in a bit, but that's a great point. And also, I mean, as you said, he looks so different at the end of, you know, Dance, the fifth book. And a lot of it is because of those shadow babies. And that's why we should be like maesters and celibate. Like Stannis came twice in his life. He nutted twice and look at him now.

Sex was a mistake. Wow. Wow. Wow. So, Cressen is not happy, right, that he wasn't awakened. He notices that there's kind of a power movement here going on. And he tells Stannis, well, Davos told me everything. Well, actually, he doesn't quite say that.

I'm sorry. Let me recant that. He tells him he met Davos and Stannis is like, I should have cut his tongue out. That man probably told you everything. And he's like, so let me tell you everything. It was sort of like the odd couple banter of Stannis and Davos. Like, I'm gonna cut your tongue out. Okay.

I'm gonna cut your toes off. Okay know is that like their version is that stannis and davos's version of like you're fired from the podcast is that like maybe yeah i don't know like blood brothers like it's some i mean the the light version of ramsay and Theon isn't it cute folks the old ball and chain it's cuter is that how he talks on top of his own Jesus I mean they're married so that's as real

they really are so Stannis takes a little accountability right for here and he's like yeah it was horrible davos came back he was a bad envoy he was given a failing mission that's like being asked to join a failing company okay um he did the best he could stannis but the storm lords aren't rising for him they don't like him don't like his cause the craven ones sit beside their walls and the bold

ones already declared for renly they already kind of saw the way the tide turned and he spits that name out he's like renly poison on his tongue ah poison your poison running through my veins uh a musical break other poison but i like that one too um i was going for more you know anyways stan is by rights is like runley's bannerman belonged to me runley belongs to me i am his older brother i am the king of him i don't know why he doesn't respect me and it can't be because i talk like this uh and he's like and i did all the work for Robert. I built the fleet. I took the shitty house. I was dutiful.

But my thanks was this, this volcano rock that I live within. What am I, Patrick Star? And the Baratheon seat and all its incomes went to Renly, you know, since Renly probably was the worst off of the three. He had a little step up, Stannis settled down. But Dragonstone is broke is broke you know it is broke ass as fuck it's people aren't really rich they don't have a lot of land lesser lords not a lot of people they live on fucking stony islands all around him it's not not going great here here in the crown lands yeah dragon stone does seem like yeah yeah he would be happier if he were patrick

star patrick star is having a good time at least he's alone sandus is like pretty upset about dragon stone he does think it's broke but like i mean honestly it's like what you make do with it because look at the valerians the valerians had a great time being like not in dragonstone but like within the vicinity right like they they do with the ships etc very industrious and i i think this is part of why stanis is has a very hard time making friends it's because he takes again everything is a slight he takes it as an insult and he's always like no um you gave me a cookie and i deserved a glass of milk someone sent us a unedited if you give a mouse a cookie recently which thank you very much to i'm sorry i'm sorry i don't remember who sent it um little wolf bird it's one of my favorite memes i haven't saved on

my phone yes sent it and you give a bitch a break we do oh my god we reference that a lot and as to whether or not dragonstone was indeed meant to be a slight, Cersei thinks it is, but also Cersei's also not the best at interpreting things. Good thing we have George, who wrote these books, even though he says Dothraki. In a so spake Martin, he clarifies that there are many different kinds of love. Robert was dutiful toward his brothers, and no doubt loved them in a way, but he didn't necessarily like them.

His relations with Stannis were always prickly. Renly was the baby of the family and spent little time in Robert's company until he was old enough to come to court. I suspect Robert was fond of the boy, but not especially close to him. Stannis always resented being given dragonstone while renly got storm's end and took that as a slight but it's not necessarily true that robert meant it that way the targaryen heir apparent had always been titled prince of dragonstone by making stannis the lord of dragonstone robert affirmed his brother's status as heir, which he was until Joff's birth a few years later.

Robert could just as lawfully retained both castles for his sons and made Joffrey the Prince of Dragonstone and Tommen the Lord of Storm's End. Giving them to his brothers instead was another instance of his great, but rather careless, generosity. And we'll link that so speak martin and now tommen is the lord of those castles so socket baratheon brothers should have just fucking shut up and accepted it tommen is king you know again it's very viserys and damon in my mind too right like that re that Rhaenyra actually got Dragonstone. But before that, he was like, you know,

go find your own fucking home. Daemon, good luck. You're kicked out. Stannis is just really not a politician. He's really not. All of them. Renly is the only one. Just Renly got the gene.

That's it. Yeah. And it even doesn't get him very far. That's for sure. Melisandre for the win. Yeah. You have to like understand people a little bit. And it seems like, I guess, Stannis him very far. That's for sure. Melisandre for the win. Yeah, you have to understand people a little bit, and it seems like, I guess, Stannis, I mean, he struggles with that.

He struggles to even understand when people are being nice to him. And Robert obviously understood that Lyanna was into him, right? Oh, yeah. The Baratheon brothers are great at empathy. Yeah, absolutely. Give them therapy. Yeah, they need it. Cresscent actually defends this right so george uh george is so spake martin here kind of reads through when crescent defends this he's very carefully

doing so because he knows stannis is prickly and he's like you know runley was a child robert needed a man to defend house targaryen sea in case they came back suddenly out of nowhere and stannis only repeats stannis like ignores that and he ignores any of the logic he's like redley's still a child and he's a thieving one one who's done nothing to earn a throne interesting he says this is a line that i think people with siblings humans that have siblings if you exist you have siblings right alex yes no yes okay good i do i have two brothers you would understand this um i oh wow you're the baratheon wow i ask you why did the gods which one brothers well you're the fun one but that doesn't really do much does

it yeah i know yep yep we'll see I contain multitudes oh my god a little Renly a little Renly in ya a little bit of Renly in your little bit of Robert little man by the light by my side

Baratheon number five or number three god yeah I don't understand this pain As an only child As the eldest only Yeah Sorry Yeah he goes I ask you why did the gods

Inflict me with brothers It's so good This is also a really good example Of like when guys are like Women are so emotional and then just like walk off a cliff when someone when someone offends them by giving them a castle like oh man cries about pet bird man cries about bird for three hours straight just kidding three decades straight actually he that is literally him that's, I know. Oh my god.

Man cries about Borb. I mean, I feel that. I was actually walking home today and I was looking at a bird and I was like, I love when birds are round. I was just thinking about that for a whole block. I love that round bird. Crescent says he can't answer for the gods and Stannis says

maybe then he should send for Renly's maester instead wondering what he said when Renly planned to usurp him and I mean like honestly like this is why I struggled to like really like Stannis especially like this is our first introduction to him and Crescent's trying to be like he's so nice I love my sad son so much I'm like your sad son's a huge dick because like i know that people say stannis is intentionally being mean to crescent to push him away uh from the plans the plots crescent has later in this chapter but i don't think that's what he's doing here right he maybe is doing that later in the in the chapter but i don't know about here i don't

know i still i still struggle to like him you know like the way he says this to crescent it's just so mean spirited it's so mean right crescent's just trying to help him he's doing everything and then sandus is like i should just send for renly's maester instead and it's just so doubly mean because we're in crescent's pov and we know that he's not too fond of pylos being here because it reminds him of his age and then he feels like he's being replaced not only as a maester but also as Stannis's dad in a way even though Stannis doesn't get that and I understand the sentiment of like sometimes you misplace your anchor onto other people right but it just feels so hurtful and targeted and spiteful and I don't know I don't know well it's like also too like i feel like

that's sort of where you get if we're gonna i feel like the baratheon the baratheon words really should be like toxic masculinity um because it's just like there are three different brands of it yeah i think like stannis has never gotten any like he's never gotten any he's never had any therapy he's never gotten any consequence for all had any therapy he's never gotten any consequence for all this bitterness and this resentment that he spews on to other people like these nobody's ever been like hey fuck off like i'm sorry that things happen to you and i'm sorry that you've had a tough life but like we're all have tough we're all having tough lives you're not a small folk person like you have a castle and lots of protection and calm the fuck down and like be

nice and i wonder if somebody had sort of i feel like there's nobody has ever shown any consequences to the baratheon men given the choices they make oh well that's what these books are the consequences of their own actions yeah but like that's that's a great point because then you get to see what that power does right and like before maybe someone might have been there to check Stannis, and that might have been Robert, that might have been the other lords, but now that Stannis has ascended to kingship, there's

definitely no one there to tell him no. As we see more and more, he becomes surrounded by yes-men, except for Davos. And even then, he ends up sending Davos on this faraway mission, and then, next thing you know, you're out in the north in the middle of winter and everyone's starving and eating each other.

And that's what happens when you have yes men around you. One of my friends at work said today, sometimes you can say no. Except not when Stannis will burn you alive, but sometimes you can say no. Boundaries. I have to learn that. I'm going to be better at that. I'm not good at it no not at all not one bit i'm no it's my boss gets mad at me because i'm like but they wanted this thing and he's like yeah that's an agent's job they're

there to ask for things for their clients you have to say to me but i'm but okay uh titles titles titles i'm good at saying i'm pretty decent I think at saying now or being like I can't deliver this to you this time but I can deliver it to you at this other time that's good that's admirable to provide like an ETA like you advise

set expectations when people are like please advise Eliana shows up and she's like, I'm advising. You wanted an opinion? I have one. Is it a good one? I don't know. But here's an opinion. She's got them. It's here. It's present. My god, yes it is.

Crescent thinks Renly is bold but heedless. Stannis complains he's only king of some rocks in Dragonstone. And he stands at his table before the black water in the forest where King's Landing now stands, brooding over the realm he seeks to calm. And he plans later that he will sup with his bannermen, Celtigar, Valyrian, Bar-Emon, and even the Lysene pirate, Salador Stann. We are Salador Stanns. Everyone, please remember we love him.

All my homies love Salador Stann. Yo remember we love him all my homies love salad yo i love him uh yeah the only sane person in this whole like place go yeah dude him and shireen shireen's one of the smartest people on dragon stone salad or sounds like yeah this is fun for y'all but i'm gonna i'm gonna license my ship just right on out of here i think very much he's like what is the point of all of this if it doesn't mean enjoying some life he's like 10 years of war idk idk yeah pretty much i don't know guys this feels like a you problem i don't know yes he does make it a them problem actually yeah yeah that lysine pirate salad or son will be there with the latest tally of what i owe him and morash the merman will caution me with talk of tides and autumn gales while lore sunglass mutters piously of the will of the seven keltigar will want to know which storm

lords are joining us valerian will threaten to take his levies home unless we strike at once what am i to tell them what must i do now Stannis is also unappreciative of the people. He's also unappreciative of the people who have sworn to him. He's like, I hate the people who have sworn to me. I hate my friends. It's pretty different from the lessons that Bran learns in this same book from Maester Lewin, who's like, oh my god, I can't believe that they showed up. Wow, amazing.

Wow, they're a small house, the Reeds, but they deserve so much respect, nonetheless. And Bran treated everyone who showed up to Winterfell with respect, even when he was like, I fucking hate these frays. They're so fucking annoying. He's like, I guess I have to be nice. Every time I read Lord Sunglasses, Lord Sung sunglasses it's gonna talk about jesus i like that but you also would think that stanis would be like into religion and been like well he's chill we'll just talk about god for a while that makes i feel good about that yeah his uh he's like decked out we'll read later he's decked out in moonstones too

which come up in this book a lot yeah it's kind of cool but like he's like way decked out in moonstones too uh which come up in this book a lot yeah it's kind of cool but like he's like way decked out and all the finery you can tell like he's wearing so much finery it's like yeah you're not gonna last here very long bro that's not how stannis works this is like a lean manufacturing environment thank you thank you yeah that's a great point though the uh the stark like that's what bran learns from lewin and he learns to treat people with respect and steven's like i don't even like my stupid lords they're fucking stupid yeah and i mean crescent is like make common cause like just come together talk to runley figure it out and steven's like no i hate him i have bad resentment issues and he's like okay

well what about rob stark the king in the north and stans is like no ned stark was never my friend he was never my friend he was only ever robert's friend and his son is no friend of mine and then he's like didn't you know that i sat outside you know or sat inside while ned sat outside loved by robert while i was unloved by ro Robert and he made a bastard while I starved in Storm's End don't you know Crescent I only say it every day of my life Robert never thanked me Robert never thanked me but he thanked Ned Stark didn't you know that Crescent how many times heard this I think he's starting to forget it. I'm going to be honest. Crescent's got his own stash of milk of the poppy for just

these occasions. Here he goes again. Maybe that's a little strong. Here we go again. George really lays this out. Ned Stark was outside and you were inside. That's some bullshit, son. I'm so sorry. Just hear me, give me that glass. Ned Stark, what a jerk.

What a big, fat dad jerk. We don't even like him. Crescent's like, he's a nice boy. Everyone thinks, most people think Ned's a nice boy. Very polite. He is actually, though. It's a good thing that Stannis is,

he's gonna get to make his own bastard suit. Someone's so against making bastards yeah don't have sex anyone or else you can be like Stannis Baratheon never have sex

um you will get pregnant and someone will die yeah you will get pregnant and you will yeah you will get pregnant and someone will die yeah you will get pregnant and you will yeah um we've discussed these in the Davos chapters before but Stannis

I mean I do think you know people are always like he doesn't really want the Iron Throne he doesn't really want to be king he just feels it's his duty but like yeah okay he does fucking want the Iron Throne but he doesn't want it because he like wants to actually like rule right he's not after power he wants it because not a civil service thing yeah

he's not like i want it because i'm gonna make i mean he does think he's like going to make the realm better and like be the best king and like yeah he does like have many qualifications but he does want it all right but he wants it because the iron throne to him represents robert right that's the closest he can get to robert by following robert's footsteps because that's what he wanted the whole time right he wanted robert's love that's why he resents ned so much because ned had the one thing that he wanted most in the entire world and i mean robert was the only family he could really see. It was kind of like his surrogate dad,

like, even though he shouldn't have been. And also brother, right? Like, because Robert was also kind of a kid, too, at the same time. And, like, Robert treated both of his brothers. Like, he did his nominal children, who were actually Lannisters. So, you know, it was really fuzzy there. but he was just an absent dad and brother to I mean both of them to both

Stannis and Renly and you know what Stannis took that real personally all right he fails to realize that you think so yeah I I don't know I don't know I'm not sure I don't know Stannis isn't emotional he's he's military minded and very cerebral because you know they don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. Stannis isn't emotional. He's military-minded and very cerebral. Because, you know, they don't get to have emotions. Oh my god. Oh my god. Because, you know, repressed emotions usually go really well. It goes so well.

Look at it. He's having a great time. He's having so much fun in this chapter. But, yeah, I mean... Stannis always has fun. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But, yeah, you know he really doesn't seem to realize like he again took that real personally and doesn't realize it's Robert

really who fell short not himself Robert treats everyone like this and you know he again he resents Ned for getting that handshake because he's like that was Robert's love that was an honor and that's why he wants it so bad to be at robert's side and to advise him and to have a relationship with him and he sees it as a sign of acknowledgement and a reward from robert and you know in that

quest for robert's approval he fails to see a crescent's love for him and be like ned actually was like this is the this is not a reward this is a punishment i've done nothing wrong why am i the hand now and yeah it's just blinded him to everyone else who loves him god stannis can take a drink he doesn't water with lemon water with lemon and salt of course of course i uh i found it interesting that crescent actually starts to talk him down a little and he almost gets him on board right like he's like what if and here i'm just spitballing stannis you know what if you hooked up with the veil send shireen to marry robert aaron which stannis is like he's sickly it would never happen uh and he's like well i don't know you could even send

patch face and he's like oh that's kind of that could help and unfortunately they're interrupted by salise salise shows up and she kind of pokes at stannis's masculinity she's like why would you trust this widow woman why are you relying on her? You don't need her. And he kind of scowls at her. We get our first real description of Solis. Thin of body, face, wide of ears, sharp of nose, and lightly mustached on her lip due to plucking it constantly. And Stannis reminds her that he doesn't beg. And she says, I'm pleased to hear it.

She says, Lady Arryn owes you allegiance, as well as the Starks and Renly and everyone in the entire universe. And you're the one true king by the grace of God. Yes, not gods, but God, one God, the Red God, because the Red Woman had unfortunately won her heart and soul, turning her to R'hllor. And Stannis says, I'm not quite swayed you can keep your god but i need swords not blessings there was no affection in his tone stannis had always been uncomfortable around women even his own wife which okay to be fair i don't know that anybody's really that comfortable around salise true um great point she seems like somehow less fun than stannis um there was no affection in his tone stannis had always been uncomfortable around women even his own wife when he had gone to king's landing to

sit on robert's council he had left celeste on dragon stone with her daughter his letters had been few his visits fewer he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year but took no joy in it and the sons he had once hoped for had never come so yeah salise is a catch salise promises house florent her family will rally to him but he says they can only give them two case where it's the best and he doesn't share the faith in her family as they lie very closely to high garden they wouldn't risk mace tyrell's wrath also i would much rather hang out at Highgarden than anywhere near this.

You guys got to take some responsibility for the fact that no one wants to rally to you. Location is everything. It's everything. Yeah. Dragonstone could be. As is ambiance. It could be fun. They have beaches. It could be fun. They do. If they do, like they've made it

fun, Janice, I just just you know yeah salise offers another way the comet outside is his unfurling across the heavens like a hot dragon's breath i forgot again like how george is very particular when he wants to make sure you know a woman is not attractive he just has a whole pocket full of details to put in there for you like poor brianne is just you just want it like every time he gets a chance to say it and poor salise but salise is way less sympathetic so i don't care as much yeah that's not how that's not how that's not how your upper lip works if you pluck it like they stay out it's not yeah anyway that's why people wax it, you know?

Yeah. Actually, why aren't they waxing? I'm sorry. They have wax. They have candles. I don't know. It's just one of those things that becomes like the personality point, which is really disappointing because I feel like we get a lot of great Selyse stuff in this chapter.

I was actually very shocked. I was like, oh, Selyseise you interest me this time through am i a bad girl florent fan now oh god look at me with my big ears and my mustache let's go i wouldn't mind i wouldn't mind a celise point of view chapter just just out of sheer curiosity right that would be interesting the a dream of spring prologue it's celise salice navidad it'd be like the most karen chapter yeah salice woke up she was cold she hated being cold yeah kind of she was like i want to speak to everyone's manager at the wall yeah which is kind of what she does that is actually what she's like there she's pretty she's pretty terrible at the wall but i did not care for that moment in the show when

all of it when like when shireen is like oh just as you know slowly barbecuing and salise at that moment it's like wait a minute i shouldn't kill my kid i'm like i didn't guys it was uh a lot of characterization that could have been done in other episodes to make that moment you know more effective but you know i don't know they only worked on the stannis side of it and that's fine because selise has a mustache so that's fine so that's all we need to know yeah uh the show didn't even give her that though they just made her kind of you know hinted her what what surprises me is like she's presented her poorly heretic yeah they did uh she's a huge heretic in the show and she is

in book but yet she's not like she's like an annoying church goer you know she's not like a like I don't know there's something interesting with her in this chapter she's more of a player of the game that I think she gets credit for yeah she does in the comics in the comic adaptations

of the books the artist gives her mustache amazing good representation i love the the kind of ownership she puts on the comic of course she thinks it's for him everybody thinks it's for them in this book every chapter like every first pov chapter they're like i think it's this. I love that, actually. I kind of think that's a fun through line. And, you know, we talked about Sansa. For Sansa, she ends up bleeding eventually, right?

That becomes her woman's blood across the sky. But we're told in the next chapter immediately from a fake pretender king who's sitting in a Targaryen seat, right? The small folk have named it King Joffrey's Comet. Sansa was not so sure. Doubtless that was what they told Joffrey. Sansa was not so sure. She says, I've heard servants calling it the Dragon's Tale.

Great show. Dragon Tales. Yeah. Dragon Tales. But Sansa won immediately. We have Joffrey just being like, it's about joffrey tyrian one uh vera says they call it the red messenger that it comes as a herald before a king to warn of fire and blood to follow bran one osha says that wink yeah right wink wink fire and blood get it? Do you get it? Get it? Dragons and war. Oh, wait. Wrong show, wrong show.

Osha calls it in Bran 1, blood and fire and nothing sweet. And Theon, my favorite, one of my favorites, actually, is Theon, where he says, it is my comet, sliding a hand in his fur-lined cloak to touch the oil skin pouch snug in his pocket. Inside was the letter Robb Stark had had given him paper as good as crown it is your comet theon keep thinking that buddy keep thinking that comet yeah if that gets you through pal and of course uh danny's chapters right they they say they look at it as like kind of a sign like go towards the comet head toward it follow it it will take us where we're meant to be you have stannis kind of coming in being like oh yes i am going to have to conquer westeros it gives me great you know grievous energy to say it out loud but it seems i have literally no other

choice than to perform a full assault on the seven kingdoms and make them mine with no swords melisandre's right selise is right it's the only thing i can do celise again is like i'll give you swords and relore will give you swords don't worry about it interesting interesting uh and he's like well i don't think that's true i don't think you can give me swords because he is a logical man and davos he's like davos would disagree that that could just give me swords the swords of the reach are sworn to renly they love renly like they loved robert and like they don't love me and selise is like but what if renly could die though but what if he died though what if i can make that a reality she's hinting at and again a lot of selise has almost some miri mazdur energy here right picking

fights using the love of his brother and memory of his brother and the hatred of his brother and the love and hatred of his other brother to push him toward relore like well relore could get rid of this pesky little brother problem it could get rid of all this we could get you those swords babe kind of like danny being pushed to miri mazdduar with her being like uh what do you need what are you in for kid and she's like save him use your magic please and miri's like okay i could do that haha it'll be fun for me not yeah when you ask witches for free stuff and then then also kill people yeah both of those things have zero consequences and really are the quickest ways to get what you want yeah for like a short amount of time but yes absolutely

absolutely you know i like what you're saying right about the comet means something different to everyone and it's funny that a bunch of these people think it means something good for the most except for osha who is wise like that uh crescent at one point later this chapter he's like maybe the comments for me and how my life fucking is going to shit right now and i'm like that's probably true too probably what you just mentioned about osha being wise like that i feel like osha's house words are just nope yeah nope yeah deuces somewhere else she's very smart we should all listen to Osha actually though Cressen you know in regards to

what if we killed my brother Cressen tries to butt in talk him down and is like whoa calling Renly's exploits follies but Stenis is like they're treasons and Sleeve says that Melisandre has seen him dead in her fires and Crescent calls this fratricide, evil, unthinkable

and it is in fact thunk we are thunking it right now it has been thunk it is thunk oh my god Lady Sleaze asks him what his answer would be then he might win half a kingdom selling his daughter to Lysa and bending the knee to Robb Stark win half a kingdom selling his daughter to Liza and bending the knee

to Robb Stark. Honestly, half a kingdom is better than just Storm's End. I'm gonna throw it out there. That's one thing. Or Dragonstone. Right. He doesn't even have Storm's End. I know. Half a kingdom is actually a good deal. Anyways, and Stannis says he has heard Cressen's counsel

and Cressen is dismissed. Now he will hear Selyse's. I said good day. He was so close to getting to him. Like for a second, he almost saw reason. Ah, Stannis. Oh, Stannis. He, it's a great sign right here.

He likes to hear not the truth all the time, right? Like he says, ah, Davos's counsel, you know, that's the the angel on his shoulder but Selyse here she is high key manipulative like even the line oh so you sell your daughter you sell her your heir that's a Cersei line like that was straight up Selyse has some major Cersei energy going on that I did not think I'd see like imagine Cersei stuck on Dragonstone married to a Targaryen, right to Rhaegar. And I mean, she would have loved she probably would have loved being married to Stannis if she had been told ahead of time, like, you know, you don't have to touch him. You don't have to care about him. The perfect husband for her. Hating Dragonstone having no illusions about what you're getting

into. So Lysa and Stannis is like a very sober somber version of robert and cersei a muted version after several decades it's so obvious there's no love there but they know each other so intimately that celeste is poking and stabbing and hacking at him and being like oh but you know that's not very manly of you to take a kingdom this way and selling your daughter real men wouldn't do that stannis she's kind of like finding those little oh robert might do that do you want to be like your brother robert do you want to be like runley she knows the buttons to push whether they care about each other or not from that intimacy of just knowing each other that long god salisa's an asshole i love it i support girls wrongs and rights thank you

thank you salisa's on that and like and the whole liza thing it's really funny because he's so close to bending thinking it would be a maybe a good way to a rid himself kind of of her and patch face probably for a little bit he needs some peace and quiet daddy needs to think uh while running the westeros campaign and then also making alliances and the veil right you have that memory of john aaron which all of this wouldn't have worked liza while running the Westeros campaign and then also making alliances in the Vale, right? You have that memory of Jon Arryn, which all of this wouldn't have worked. Lysa would never have done this, right?

Because that would just put Stannis one step closer to finding out who murdered Jon Arryn because it was her and not Cersei, who was innocent, very innocent. The most innocent person you ever lived. Yeah, exactly. It's never done anyways. So it would be a brilliant move right

and give him the strength to be a real threat uh if he had the veil we know that's the biggest reason everyone is failing failing without the veiling but celeste walks in within a moment and she destroys it and it we have so much talk about melisandre is seducing him. Melisandre is seducing him. She's bewitching his spirit in some aspects very quietly. She, as we'll talk about, she's not even really loudly doing it. Selyse is really opening the wound up for Melisandre to pour all the magic into. I've been listening to The Opportunist, which is a podcast that's about like normal people who see opportunity and become just horrible, horrible people. It's basically a, it's a scam podcast,

but that's more or less the hook. And there's a couple of different series. There's a couple, there's, you must remember this where there's sort of like little vignettes within seasons. And so there've been two so far that focus on female cult leaders and it is yeah which is just kind of fascinating i mean they're horrible horrible people but just in a different way than something like david koresh or something but the fact that i'm just looking at this and melisandre does not a lot of the work is done for her because mel because there's already i think she already knows like i feel like she can spot cracks in foundation and certain weaknesses and she's good enough at her job that she can play people against each other and manipulate and kind of get to the

ends that she wants while staying relatively in the background and kind of being able around and being able to sort of play off around her play to everyone around her like I didn't do it what do you mean I'm just here I have a dress and it's red and I'm a servant of the lord and it's fun and I don't know what you guys are into. Selyse clearly has ideas. I'm not going to get in her way. She's your wife. Yeah, she's very like Miss Aria, right? To Daemon.

The White Worm to Daemon is definitely a little bit of that. And she's kind of very Varys. Like she's the Varys of Dragonstone, the Mistress of Whisperers, really. Of Shadows. And she's, it's kind of neat how she's, I think it does sort of like a it

makes her a much more palatable or interesting character to not make her the villain here and to like so you sort of see it and you see she's i mean she is but she's also complex enough that it's not i'm not done with her character after this introduction and i think had she been the one to walk in and be like oh no you need to like no no the veil thing is not going to work then it would then i feel like there wouldn't be much more for us to explore in this story between them or in that relationship it would have been spelled out so completely and i don't know necessarily that i think she really is a villain in the long run right like she does believe as we read in her chapter like she believes in everything she's seeing and it's all about interpreting and misinterpreting which I mean let me tell you the podcasts I've listened to

but it's uh you know I think that for her like I think showing her this way and having her so hanged back and having her powerful moments that we meet her be that more much more powerful because she's not the one pressing like every passage in this chapter I misremembered that we meet her be that more much more powerful because she's not the one pressing like every passage in this chapter i misremembered that it was her that was pushing on him for some i forgot it was celeste that was really celeste has so much action and dialogue right here melisandre barely exists in this chapter she's but a red whisper on the margins and i love that until we meet her at the end i want to be a red whisper on the margins well get training honey in 400 years you know yeah or more too could be yeah and she is she is definitely yeah she's definitely she's got her mission and she did contribute a

whole lot during the long night it's one of my favorite parts that's true she just contributed it's like girl yeah you could have done that a lot sooner and maybe got a lot more allies but okay that's a good point she probably could have yeah and i mean like you know that's the thing right you're talking about varies and comparing them and varies as we find out as the story progresses is very much a performer he's a he has all these different ways that these different faces that he puts on to try and get what he wants and very much uses this soft power and melisandre is also using a soft power right she's not pushing the way that salise is as he pointed out chloe they're they're doing two different working towards the same strategy but doing like two different claws right

two different claws um working in tandem where melisandre is very much showing i mean she's showing power right like she's showing this is a vision of what we could have this is what i can offer whereas selise is being like no we don't want that we deserve better yeah right and and i mean the what i think we've discussed this also, I think in the John chapters, but you know, what's interesting about Solis is she, you were talking about Brienne earlier and how George really goes in, right, when he's trying to describe like a physically unattractive woman. But as we see, Brienne is pretty much, she's called the beautiful ironically, but we understand from Beauty and the B-Shit, she's meant to be very beautiful on the inside. she's meant to be very beautiful on the inside Selyse, I think regardless of how Selyse looked she would have had this personality Selyse is someone who's ugly both on the inside

and the outside, right whereas the Lannisters are meant to show us all that glitters is not gold and I mean Selyse is just, she's very rude and I just like still can't get how she was at the wall, she was really terrible, she was so mean and and and that's i loved how you compared them to like they're like robert and

cersei right but everybody's fucking miserable but at least shireen's having a good time you know some of the kids are joffrey's having a bad time somehow marcella and tommy they were having a good time for a bit too and shireen is also she's having they're gonna die too everyone's gonna die i mean and part of that is also kind of sandus's fault eventually probably later on and i mean that's the irony right like because solis is pushing him into solitude by forcing him to be a king right and to crown him is to kill him and as he chases that crown he ends up killing the everyone around him and the thing that he wanted most which is to be loved salise and melisandre are the hammer and the anvil here right like salise is literally hammering him into the anvil

bit by bit and melisandre is that foundation that she's hammering him into yeah absolutely absolutely but he won't be molded he's the he's iron will not bend allegedly he could be bent oh um anyway are we pegging now i think there's pegging i mean that is and that's that's one way to do it without a shadow then you don't make a shadow baby wow safe safe uh-huh though i feel like if anybody was gonna do that i feel like melisandre could find a way to get a shadow baby up somewhere that oh i'm sure i've seen before honestly that's true actually though hey sometimes we tell our cat that he was pooped out of his father's butt you know that's just the truth that's just after birth baby uh so when crescent finally gets all the way back down to his room he needs some help he limps there with pylos then he sends him away and he

stands between his gargoyles looking out at saladore's warships and out at the sea he thinks would that my fears vanished so easily had he lived so long for this same every day i say this while maesters were to put aside the hope of children he feels a father to those baratheon boys and now he feels like he's watching them kill one another and he blames it on the shadowbinder melisandre the red woman the sorceress priestess to relore the lord of light the heart of fire the god of flame and shadow he fumbles to light a candle and heads to his workroom where his potions ointments and medicines are looking for a very tiny vial a little glass vial a little glass vial with indigo glass blowing the dust off of it and taking it to his table spilling out a dozen crystals shining

like jewels in the candlelight he touches them very lightly with the tip of his little finger huh which is funny because you know little finger and olena and the poison is it coincidental i don't know probably probably uh his littlest finger um the god of flame and foreshadowing. Oh my god. So, all the world knew that a maester forged their silver link when they learned healing, which is fun. But no one remembered that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill. Very cute.

Makes me think again of this concept of the pharmacon which i believe we talked about during our circe and by circe i mean circ the book by madeline miller episode and the idea of the pharmacon as it's a word that simultaneously has its definition but is also the antonym of it so pharmacon means both the remedy and the poison but it also is related to the word pharmakos. It also is a word that means scapegoat. And we see here that Crescent is something of a pharmacon, right? He both knows healing and killing and in a bit is about to be the pharmakos or the sacrifice. He is willingly giving himself up for his children,

kind of like Ned Stark did. Died for our sins. Absolutely. Crescent's my dad too, you know? Just like Ned. So, the strangler was created from aged leaves soaked in a wash of limes and sugar water and spices from the summer isles.

Honestly, if this wasn't a poison, this sounds like an amazing cocktail. I was going to say. Yeah. It really does. I'm like, is this a mojito thickened with ash? Or like a gimlet? Yeah. With a little bit of like, you know, garam masala.

Even with the ash, I'm like, it sounds kind of cool. I mean, I smoke weed, you know, like I have ash in my lungs. That's true. Yeah. I mean, there are like, there are weed, you know, like I have ash in my lungs. That's true. Yeah. I mean, there are like, there are cocktails, you know, they like light it a little on fire, you know. Get dragon stoned. Use a little activated charcoal.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, hi. There's some charcoal in there. Yeah, some food grade. It's good for you too. It's good for you. So now that we've turned the strangler into a very expensive cocktail

i mean this is really just mixology is it not dissolved in wine it would make the muscles of a man's throat clench tighter than any fist shutting off his windpipe they say a victim's face turned as purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown. But so too did a man choking on a morsel of food. You get it? Because it looks like they're choking on food, but they're not. How poison. And I bet nobody knew the Heimlich maneuver in Westeros at this point in time. That's actually a great point.

I love that this is a direct like cough, cough. This is Joff. Joff's doom. Joff, Joff. Cough, cough this is joff joff's doom joff joff cough cough joff joff cough joff the 20th century westeros they're cough joffs hey man yeah you need a cough joff

what do you feel like you're choking I got some in my bag hold on it's cherry flavored is that okay the cough joff oh my god I feel the same way about like, pigeon pie flavor, wine flavor.

Cough chops. Pigeon flavored actually. Pigeon flavored. Oh yeah. So Crescent poisons Melisandre at the feast happening later that night. And it does not go as planned. He hopes that if there are gods, they forgive him. He really should have hoped they would save him.

Takes a nap. Fertile some murder, some blood. He is not wrong. Wakes in a dark chamber, aching, head throbbing, and realizing no one has come to get him, which is just rude. He's always summoned for feasts, and he's seated by Stannis. His lord's face swam up before him. Not the man he was but the boy he had been standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone on his elder brother

whatever he did robert had done first and better poor boy he must hurry for his sake scoops his crystals up into a pocket inside his loose sleeves of his robe calls out for pylos his neighbor no No call comes. Shouts for servants to come help him. They'll be feasting by now. Drinking. I should have been woken. Still wondering what happened to Pylos, he makes the great journey to the feast, telling his servants to stay out.

Somebody needs to get him a room closer to things. Yeah. Yeah. Telling his servants to stay. Or like, I don't't know have Pylos with a little chair or something yeah like the one that oh no they don't make one for bread I mean to be fair like Dragonstone that's part of it right the Targaryens

like a bajillion stairs means that we can't be followed easily by foot and then we can easily get to our dragons mounted on somewhere and peace out and leave our enemies I guess. Oh, bam. I wonder if the Targaryens had little baby gates.

Oh, interesting. And the kids didn't. They come out with wings. I mean, they should have. I would think. Didn't everyone have baby? I don't know. I don't know how historical child rearing works. Still wondering what happens to Pylos,

makes the great journey to the feast, telling his servants to stay outside, to let him look strong, not feeble. He arrives... So sad. He arrives to a room of mutters and fork, knife, and plate sounds, all backlit by one of Patchface's greatest hits and his cowbells.

And the lower tables are crowded with knights, archers, sellsword captains, and there was no laughter here or raucous shouting. Yeah, that sounds like a Stannis party. When I read this, ain't no party like a Stannis party. It's a Stannis party, don't laugh. The Stannis party has never happened

ever in the same sentence. Never once. Those two words. Not even once. This is like a very sad feast like the whole chapter he's forbidden fun fun is banned at dragon stone we will never have it again it has been outlawed he actually literally called off christmas yeah he was like it's not allowed i'm like the fuck it's very in line with like the fray court like edmure's wedding for example right uh and the pre-purple wedding you have all this headache and aches and the fools with the bells and the the food isn't amazing amazing there's nothing to write home about here right we don't

hear much good about the food uh no fun no fun's allowed and the poison of course wraps you into this feast so very much it reminds me of that obviously the opposite the the knights and the lower born people that are outside at the fray feast are rowdy right but everybody inside is a little like oh this is weird there's a weird vibe in here yeah i mean like you said the food's like meh and like it could have been good you know they're not far from where spice town used to exist could have sold your daughter to the veil gotten some spices there's a smuggler who works for you that's a great point he brought onions those are aromatics

there's a really you got a really good buddy named salazar san you guys are real close to the free cities come on now yeah ain't no excuse honestly yeah like sandus would have been happier if he had just instead of trying to build his life and that's a i mean that's what's hard this is why everyone needed therapy so trying to build his life around robert if he had like gone you know corley's valerian style right or if he actually had gone damon style without the other usurping part, but the part where he's like, what if I just like,

I'll just make my own like kingdom here on the stepstones. It'll be fun. Look at all the fun I'm having. He did seem like he was having fun though. That's true. He could have though. I mean, that's the thing. He went to that same model

and had he left and made himself the king first which then he comes to that obviously as he goes north but i and i think robert might have liked him but yeah he might have impressed his brother big time on that like wow didn't know stannis had it in him yeah really good for you then he would have moved on to another horse or lady yeah that man didn't know how to show people love he never learned love he had to show himself love

that's also true he did not know how to love himself either that's a great point so Crescent makes his way up to the platform trying to avoid Patchface aww Patchface lurches into him and knocks him and his cane down and then everyone laughs illegally it's only legal when crescent's heart to laugh in this court so sad so sad all right alex is gonna give us another musical performance under the sea you fall up I don't want to

oh oh oh oh under the sea okay that last part was um an improvisation but the rest of it is true freestyle patch face freestyle

yeah so yeah patch face is singing this and the maester smiles feebly trying to rise his hip hurting like fuck and thinking oh motherfucker I broke it again.

And someone does come to his aid, though, lifting him strongly, and he says, thank you, sir, but it is, in fact, not sir, it is my enemy, Lady Melisandre. I love the way this is presented, especially because in Renly's camp, we have first presentation we see Brienne right and it's very coded that she is male by her armor but the big reveal is that it's actually Brienne the beauty under that armor that one who is just as good as the guys and here Creston immediately thinks some kind lord

of Stannis' came to his aid and picked him up but no it's his worst nightmare my nemesis that's a great comparison with brienne though because brienne it's brienne the blue and melisandre the red fire the big red oh my god clifford it's called a dichotomy dog economy yeah i mean like everything, everything, right?

Everything's been leading up to this moment. All that shit about Melisandre and all that stuff about Cressen being like, things are spooky right now. And, I mean, it's all just leading up to this reveal and Cressen thinking about how terrible she is. And as you said, right, you kind of forget, like, until you read, you're like, oh, Melisandre wasn't doing all these things. It was Slyz. Like, all of it is withheld until this moment. She's Creston's final boss. And then he loses.

She is a lot of people's final boss, Melisandre. That's true. That's for sure. The last face you see before you die is her gleaming red eyes. It's not the worst face. No, I mean, she's pretty good looking. It could be a lot worse. Yeah. Could be Shagwell. Rip Nimble Dick. Oh, Nimble Dick.

Nimble Dick. I miss that boy, that lad. Ugh. Gone too soon. With a name like Shagwell. Yeah. He did not Shagwell. If Austin Powers was here, he'd be like, no, baby. No, baby. He did not Shag well if austin powers was here he'd be like no baby no baby he did not shag well

melisandre tells crescent to take more care because he's old and the night is dark and full of terrors and we get our first amazing look at her what an entrance as ever she wore red head to heel a long loose gown of flowing silk as bright as fire with dagged sleeves and deep slashes in the bodice that showed glimpses of a darker blood red fabric beneath around her throat was a red gold choker tighter than any maester's chain ornamented with a single great ruby her hair was not the orange or strawberry color of common red-haired men, but a deep burnished copper that shone in the light of the torches. Even her eyes were red, but her skin was smooth and white, unblemished, pale as cream. Slender she was, graceful, taller than most knights, with full breasts and a narrow waist and a heart-shaped face.

Little waist and heart-shaped face. Men's eyes that once found her did not quickly look away, not even a maester's eyes. Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red and terrible and red. Give us the skincare regimen.

Drop your skincare routine. All right. Have you guys read Gone with the Wind? Yes. I have not. So the reason i bring it up is that the first line of that book is uh scarlett o'hara was not beautiful i think or she wasn't like i'm paraphrasing but that is like interestingly the first line and the remarks in the head like hey she's not like margaret mitchell she's like she's charming she's not beautiful she's charming and that is what she it's really distinctive in the sense that that is what makes that is what brings everybody to

scarlet she kind of hits on her power and that that just reminded me of that if only because he makes a point to say she was not beautiful but she has a power other than that which i think is kind of a fun it's a fun mix for somebody for women like that who i feel like in so many stories like that traditionally you're meant to think oh she's beautiful so she has this power when both george and margaret mitchell kind of like sidestep that a little bit and point to power that's outside of your appearance that's a great call out i mean george loves talking about gone with the wind and her name is scarlet yeah right interesting does he love talking about gone with the wind he likes saying is scarlet yeah right interesting does he love talking about gone

with the wind he likes saying he likes talking about well first of all he references every and every now and then but he loves especially talking about it in regards to the difference of how many children she has in the movie versus the book and how that has to do with the difference between you know his books that are based on the tv show and it's not really the same i don't know if that analogy holds up anymore but in storm there's an actual like straight line the you were made to be kissed often and well is gone with the wind from rat butler when he's like you should be kissed and often by someone who knows how so no you are kind of onto something alex you are a genius yeah you're literally i really i really think that yeah you've called out something that george is inspired by all right

next time if i meet george rr martin met him once at a food truck at a speech i mean again he'll be like so they did a promotional scene they did promotional like food trucks when the show and when the show like first came first came on and george was not like mobbed by people and so they would tweet about it and they tweet you their location and one day it was on abit kinney which is walking distance from my house and i was like say no more fam went in and got some cheese and george showed up in line and so he sat in chat and i he they'd had um it was cool yeah because they'd had the party for they'd had the premiere party

for it this is season one so it was not like it was a portion of my restaurant not like the entire buyout was what probably would have been like later seasons and so I'd seen him I figured out that I wasn't working the party but I'd figured out that it happened so me and my friend who loved the books like right upstairs

were like oh this is really cool and then he was there the next day so i was like oh my god i was like that's so house and he was like that's so how house is a trendy place oh my god what a story it's made george story it's pretty great i'm sure he remembers it you should ask him you should ask him if he remembers he actually might it's surprising like you know you think he might not remember some things. He might actually remember that. Well, then it's worth a shot, I will ask. Maester's chain we all know because we have read Melisandre's chapter that she once lived in like servitude or slavery

but Cressen obviously doesn't know this this is not something that Melisandre likes advertising about her past it would shatter the veneer of power that she's trying to give but I mean yeah the choker that she's wearing is tighter than his own which kind of starts to hint at us that maybe the fetters and the chains that are on her are tighter than Cressen's own chains and vows and whatever's holding him.

And it is so tight that a strangler could not choke her anymore. I love that. I didn't really, I love the connection there with the collar and i mean because she challenges it right she challenges what the maesters know yeah yeah what price what freedoms has she given up to get access to that knowledge as the maesters have had to yeah that's always what's made me so like i think referring to our other conversation of her not being a villain i think that that's more or less like there's something about her she's not a megalomaniac yeah she's not here now that i'm now that we're having

this conversation you know she's not just out here for the sake of power she's misguided and incredibly violent and maybe likes to kill kids and little brothers a little bit too much but i think she's also entranced with her own power a little bit but other than that like she's pretty measured in how she operates and you get the sense that that's because like she's she's like listen i've i've been where it's shitty i've and i'm not going to waste my freedom and i'm not going to waste this job and i have it because of the alternative was me being a slave or something i don't know there's something that she's mentally justified that you she's seen some shit and in ways that you know has harmed her that she's not revisiting necessarily in other people she's not spewing her vengeance

out to other people she's to me is speaks to somebody with a little bit of self-awareness yeah and maybe somebody who doesn't want to repeat a mistake or repeat it she's never going back to that like she refuses to ever go back to that life now that she's finally gotten a little bit of power for herself a little bit of something and she traded something for it yeah that's really interesting you're talking about yeah i mean she is kind of brutal Like, but it's kind of pragmatic. And you were talking about she's not going back to that life. And earlier you were talking about this prologue in comparison to the Will prologue. And, you know, Chloe, last time, you know, we were talking about Garrett and being a deserter, right?

Like what it takes to get that freedom and you will do anything to keep it. And that's the risk. That's why they execute deserters of the night's watch so um is melisandre's backstory perhaps something kind of like that maybe yeah well and it's of course it puts you in the other eye of having someone who was enslaved right with rising to power and being able to utilize power, being able to channel power in certain ways that we later will see with Dany. Yes. You guys, you guys,

is Melisandre the Ruth Langmore of Game of Thrones? I just watched the Ozark finale, so I'm all... Oh, I still haven't watched that show. On season one. I need to one day. I like it so far. I like it so far. I can't explain it anymore uh and I'll spoil

the show for you okay I was just I was yeah interesting I think you'll like it it's a good it's not it's not quite as predictable like it came shortly thereafter Breaking Bad and I think some people just sort of equate I'm like myself included kind of equated it but it's I don't know it's regionally very different than a lot of television that's around and it's i don't know it's regionally very different than a lot of television that's around and it's i don't know it's got really interesting family dynamics to it and it has sort of an interesting tone i don't know yeah it's a it's a good show yeah i think you this whole standoff with melisandre and crescent starts to peak right because crescent's like only children are afraid of the dark and she gives him kind of a riddle while patch face sings his greatest hit and she puts patch face's helm on him calling it a

crown to match his chain ha ha ha and the men kind of laugh around him as she makes fun of his station and he says he needs no crown but truth taking off his helm and she's like uh they don't teach all the truths at old town old man and she swirls back to the high table he follows her to discover that sneak ass maester pylos has been there the whole time that's where he was that's the mystery up on the dais and he kind of calls pylos out and he's like you didn't wake me and pylos is like stanis said to let you rest man all the knights the captains and the lords are just silent as fuck here. Very awkward. Very awkward.

Yes, and we get a fashion hour. Which, we haven't done a fashion hour in a moment. So here it is again. Even though I guess kind of that trope reminds me a little. Anyway, whatever. Lord Celtigar, aged and sour, wore a mantle patterned with red crabs picked out in garnets handsome lord valerian chose sea green silk the white gold seahorse at his throat matching his long fair hair lord bar emin that plump boy of 14 was swathed in purple velvet trimmed with white seal

sir axel florent remained homely even in russet and fox fur pious lord sunglass wore moon stones at throat and wrist and finger and the lye scene captain salador sun was a sunburst of scarlet satin gold and jewels only sir davos dressed simply in brown doublet and green wool mantle, and only Ser Davos met his gaze with pity in his eyes. So sad. What a fashion moment, though. His whole court is so fashionable, it's so not him. Very well dressed, and to VH1, where are they now, real quick?

Celtigar bends the knee after Blackwater, right to the Lannisters. valerian dies and his half-brother orain is captured in king's landing and bends the knee later he daemons the stepstones a little bit and they have a boy lord uh monteris sitting at driftmark who still kind of supports stannis lord bar emin is one of the few remaining loyal houses lord sunglasslass well, you know what happens when sun goes through glass it burns you up, you know if you just focus. Lord Sunglass, well that's what happens to him

he burns. Axel's still around and he's still really annoying and Salador's been like fuck off Stannis, he's out so interesting kind of split there you got pretty much half and half of who's still supporting who's dead who's around uh if you're looking at the album art for this episode you'll see that most of these lords are there i i challenge you to pick them

out i i had some fun i made sure that we had all the different lords but i love the color he has all the colors it honestly it kind of reminds me of of that Illyrio quote when he has the rings, right? With the Dance of the Dragons kind of imagery going on of how the gems are all dancing, the green to black, the jade, the green to the red. It feels like that. He has all these colors dancing around behind him. And yet he thinks he and Renly are so different. Not at all. Well, Stannis calls Cressen sick and confused and of no use to him and yet he thinks he and runley are so different not at all well stannis calls crescent sick and confused and of no use to him and says pylos will counsel him henceforth we have this

super super sad line for also this is the most emotionally vulnerable any dude in this series ever is like outside of maybe john at least in my recollection i've had i haven't read this in a while this is stis, my lord, my sad, sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this. Don't you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all?

Yes, loved you. Better than Robert, even, or Renly. For you were the one unloved. The one who needed me most. It's like's so sad, because just like we've been saying, there's that reliability of narration going on, that the boy Stannis was versus the man he became, he doesn't seem to have been that much less prickly as a boy,

as we've heard tonight, right? He was just as much a middle child then as he is now. Cressen saw it then and didn't know how to deal with it, and he sees it now, and he obviously, quite obviously, does not know how to deal with it. Yeah. I guess it's been hard for him, right? Like, how does he show his affection in that way?

He's quite open with Shireen, and we see him show that towards Shireen, but I think of you know i think of it in the context of the discussion the whole series is having about maesters right in the first book caitlin's like i don't give a shit if lewin sees me naked he's already like helped me birth my children he's part of this family and we see lewin show that he's part of this family he dies like you know in this book kind of defending his lords he loves he loves those kids he loves the starks like his family same as crescent and you can trust that the way barbary dustin is like i don't trust any of these maesters we let them into their our homes

we let them into our families and like what are they plotting and some of them are probably plotting some things but as we see there is a genuine affection from some of them right and it's so sad oh crescent crescent was it just oh just stannis he's risking it all he actually is though anyway crescent accepts his fate glumly and makes one request to be fed and have a seat at Stannis' table. And Stannis, I guess he hesitates. And Ser Davos, who's the only true knight amongst all of them, rises and says he would be honored to have the maester sit with him. And Stannis allows it and turns to say something to Melisandre, who is in her place of honor at Sinus's right hand and sleaze at his left. And half of the bannermen are between the smuggler

and Melisandre, and Crescent's like, too far, I have to get closer. But how? Meanwhile, Patchface has come to regale them with, here we eat fish, under the sea, the fish eat us. Sounds like an internet meme. I don't feel like referencing it right now in these times but yeah there's something biblical there right like in can i eat at your table uh and

it's almost you know also it's hospitality it's the laws of hospitality like he's asking for hospitality yeah as we learn that's his salt his bread let me eat your food at your table so i know that you are protecting me i'm under your protection but it's also biblical right like whoever is hungry let him eat in this house let lest you be assembling for condemnation but concerning the rest when i come i shall give you orders it's very biblical very much like that's my god stannis is my god not relore you know the truth and stannis my god stannis is my god not relore you know the truth and stannis my god yeah it's funny because uh you're likening crescent to that but that's definitely i mean that's davos's story too right as we've discussed he's like stannis is my god yeah i mean crescent

is also like he's the betrayer he has to judas this shit. He's like, I'm sorry I had to do this to you, Stannis, but I had to kill your gods in front of you. Just get rid of them. And then he dies instead. He's like, well, fuck. Yeah. Half the bannermen are between the smuggler and Melisandre, and I'm sure this is what,

during the purple wedding, I'm almost sure this is what Garland or Olenna were thinking, probably. How do I get closer? How do I get my ass closer to poison him or her sorry uh and meanwhile patch face is singing you know he does the here we eat fish under the sea the fish eat us song and davos is kind of gloomy to crescent when crescent comes to sit by him he makes room and he's like we should be in motley we're fools uh and crescent like, we should be in Motley. We're fools. And Cressen is fingering his crystals in his pocket.

I'm like, girl, is it amethyst? No, it's the strangler. He speaks up to Lord Stannis and he's like, I want you to make common cause with the Starks and Arryns. And Stannis is like, no. And Slyce is like, yeah, I agree. No. Boo.

Boo. And this is where the tomfoolery starts shut up selise yeah you almost had it you know almost had him and stannis like gives his big speeches like they're all usurpers starks lannisters all enemies and crescent's like wow i have lost him he tells stannis you're the rightful heir to robert but you you need allies man you need friends and sleaze is like rilor is his ally lmao oh god crescent's like rilor has no power here and melisandre challenges this and she's like well you should wear patchface's crown again and sleaze is like yeah put on the crown old man and patch face sings under the sea no one wears hats especially not north of the wall which we see is a problem right there's a lot of frostbite a lot no hats where are their hats where are their ears yeah if you like your ears yeah wear a hat yeah absolutely and um it's big sad right everything just gets way more sad from here on

out right lord stannis commands patchface to give his helm to crescent and the maester thinks that this is not him his son has never been cruel he was hard but not cruel and he never mocked and i'm like i don't know i've read these books and stannis has mocked a lot of people like i remember him i remember him coming for it and that was actually a great note right you know he came for jano slint came for jano slint good times good times everyone loves it big hit anyways and then selise recommends that crescent sing his counsel from now on just like patch face and sanus is like no that has gone too far you have gone too far and this man has served stan as well and then crescent thinks like and i will serve you to the last my sweet lord my

poor lonely son crescent thought for suddenly he saw the way Crescent takes Davos' cup putting hard flakes of crystals into it and knows that Davos saw but no one else does it's fine he raises a cup to Melisandre in honor of the lord of light and his power and Davos tries to stop him but Crescent says he must do this for the sake of the realm

and the soul of his lord Alex you're gonna take us out play us out keyboard cat us out, keyboard cat. I like it. I'll take it. New screen name. Caught it. Melisandre of Asshai took the cup from his hands and drank long and deep.

There was only half a swallow of wine remaining when she offered it back to him. And now you. His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. And this is where I don't know why he didn't put a little sponge under his chin like they do in a bunch of other fairy tales. The magic is ruined. The illusion is shattered. I had no clue. What the fuck?

And now you. His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid. The wine was sour on his tongue. He let the empty cup drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor. He does have power here, my lord, the woman said. And fire cleanses. At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly.

Crescent tried to reply, but his words caught in his throat his cough became a terrible thin whistle as he strained to suck in air iron fingers tightened around his neck as he sank to his knees still he shook his head denying her denying her power denying her magic denying her god and the cowbells peeled in his antlers singing fool fool fool while the red woman looked down on him in pity the candle flames dancing in her red red eyes that's how you open and close the first chapter of the book dude that is shit that's a chapter and a half that's like some podcasts would argue it's like four chapters okay it was like 30 pages it's like a legitimately long ass chapter absolutely

absolutely it's like there's a lot all to melisandre's just epic mic drop well that's so great right about that silence that build up that terrible force of nature like she's the harbinger of doom to dragonstone she's actually smart she's not like celise who's loud and showy and mouthy and how she pokes now lissandra is the smart quiet one who listens and reads and waits and interprets. And you watch this whole chapter unfold of Stannis as this broken-hearted man, right, this isolated, lonely, broken-hearted man. And Selyse's machinations are overbearing. And then Melisandre, clad in red, and all she does is approach,

and it all falls apart. That's her power. That's her nature. And it's really unnerving. A couple people in our Discord were chatting about it, too. Our friend Amy, I think, mentioned, later with the epilogues, you have Stoneheart, her eyes saw, and they hated.

Talk about a silent woman. Yeah, especially with the reference to stone tongues earlier in the chapter. Ooh. Hmm. Yeah, I... in the chapter oh hmm yeah I I mean again not the worst face but maybe for Cressen the worst face you can see as he does

but ain't no shy one but absolutely yeah it's a great way that he sets up like you said Melisandre is this like figure of doom and horror and then we get that subverting of things later in the fifth book but i i don't know i just feel so sad for cressen and you know the last acts of his they feel very

important to the themes of this series right right? When it comes to sacrifice, especially sacrifice. I mean, sacrifice is a big part of Sandus' story. Let's be real, because he's going to sacrifice his daughter. And it's kind of sacrifice. He's already sacrificed his brother, right? Like, Kinsling obviously is not out of the question. And what makes it so important with Cressen's story, though, is he's willing to do it himself.

It's an act of love. It's an act of bravery in a way, you know. He's not imperiling anyone else. He's taking the risk on entirely, you know, except for the part where he's trying to also kill Melisandre. So if you ignore the part where he's trying to kill someone else, but you can in that way kind of liken it to Waymar Royce, right? someone else but you can in that way kind of liken it to waymar royce right he knows it's absolutely hopeless and he stands up and does it anyway it's kind of like ned stark again sacrificing himself for he his daughters his children crescent sacrificing himself for his son here and it's you know kind of like sam and small paul risking their lives for you know their found family their brothers at the wall later gilly and the babe but unfortunately the catch is crescent in his final act to try and save his son by dying leaves him even more isolated and alone

and therefore vulnerable to being manipulated it's interesting how they really draw out like it's such an effective chapter on so many levels like not the least of which logistically like in this you know exactly there are a bunch of new pieces on the board and now you know exactly how they're arranged you know it's stanis's and who he is and what he's willing to do you know the function salise serves in that relationship you know what melisandre's up to or at least the fact that her intentions are likely not to be trusted and stannis is right for her manipulations and we don't know what her purposes are so she's not someone we can trust yeah and you have stannis who is the opposite of that and this is now this team that's moving into and it's like he just

arranges the pieces so beautifully and so smartly of just being like which is this the pilot episode not easy to do you got a lot to do it's hard to do it in an artful way there's a comment and everything just a great chapter yeah all the elements hang in the air right like and there's something to it though not to devil's advocate here and be that other side of it but i don't know necessarily obviously what crescent is doing is he's like old man going out in winter kind of thing right he's like oh winter is coming yeah this is my one big moment he Wyman's it right we know where Wyman is right now at the end of the story hanging out half dead half alive you know someone let that man off the hook because he's just been almost dead for a long time uh George looking at you buddy but

Cressen like it's the same kind of thing however to me i'm like watching and i'm like damn crescent you saw this coming like you you should have known like there's no way you could overcome this and yes i think like from some point it's very brave of him to do this thing since it was his one last hope one last hitch but at the same time couldn't you have had better well no i mean his body's failing which i feel that to the extreme because someday it's all over for me but like you know he feels like he has no use left but doesn't he have more use as counsel maybe not you know maybe not maybe this was the best way for him to go out but it's just interesting to me i'm like that's such

a kamikaze suicide mission right to go after melisandre who has some sort of dark force that is giving you nightmares on her side i guess it shuts the nightmares up one way or another but i'm like damn crescent you didn't have to go out like that you could have still tried and also the problem doesn't seem to lie in like melisandre the problem lies in that like stannis was very easy to manipulate into all this in the first place yeah i guess like i don't know he he didn't plan he did not plan to die he had a plan to only murder but he should have had a little foresight is all well carson's a teacher not a fighter like the maesters are but none of those none of those chains are for like

combat and or wiles those links on those chains therefore he knows how to make the poison but there's a whole other game and it's like me i was an actor it's very good very very good at acting but there's a whole other business and world that has nothing to do with that that i was not good at which is fine it's great but that's a really good point because you look at like the other prologue the uh citadel prologue and you have pate right who's not really street smart not very street savvy you could say after his little ordeal his little chapter uh and he dies too because they all fucking die in the prologues yeah but spoiler uh but he dies too for not being savvy in those kind of realms and yeah i don't know i don't know if i

necessarily think it was like a brave brave choice or a good choice but i maybe it was the only choice i don't know i mean it's obviously not the only choice he could have stayed in bed which is what i would have chosen but um as you know you know he's like why didn't you wake me for the party i've been like yeah you love shit. But men's lives have meanings, not their deaths. So yeah, that's the other part of it. And I guess that's kind of what's going on here.

There's like, you know, you're talking about biblical stuff. There's a little bit of that too. You know, Jesus is like to God, take this cup away from me. And Kristen's like,

I guess I got to take it. I got to take the cup. I didn't ask for this cup to pass to me. Stannis, same way. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like take the cup i didn't ask for this cup to pass to me stannis same way yeah yeah and he's like i guess i didn't ask for this and it's like but you kind of did um you did drink it and everyone's like told you not to do it dude davos like don't do it don't do it um stannis don't do it that's why yeah but you were saying you know he didn't have any foresight and smarts and

paid and I mean you know Crescent just should have had like the foresight to not be a prologue POV like if he were smarter he would have just simply not been our POV and he would have survived alas or at least had a better chance of surviving that's so true yes

I feel like I'm gonna wake up one day and realize I'm in a Game of Thrones prequel God damn it And it's gonna be like that movie Palm Springs And I'm gonna keep trying to get out of it You get to the end of the chapter and you're like Oh no I'm a prologue character How could this have happened to me

I thought I was the protagonist Not the prologanist Oh no prologanist. Oh, no. I wanted to see a shine. What do you guys think? Last thoughts on Crescent before we ditch him? I mean, we don't even know what they did with his body. That's a great point.

I think they put him in the sea and the fish ate him. The fish and the fish turned to fish. And also some Stoneheart in there, right? Under the sea, the fish above the sea. Them fish be changing.

They be getting undead. It's a fishy fish world. Just like Patrice came back as a different person. They're like, uh. I kind of think a lot of them are features. You know, not bugs. I like them. He seems like he's having fun.

I don't know. Shireen's having fun. We should all be highly clever and die and come back. Smartest person. Oh. Evolve. I will say that Game of Thrones does not necessarily reward cleverness and optimism. No.

See. That's true. Season five. And if you want to catch up on that, if you want to revisit season five, which I don't think anyone says that often or fondly but if you so wanted to a great place to go would be the got thrones question mark podcast you know i i've i lived out some good episodes relived some of those listen to them they are fun they're very fun you two are silly yeah we try yeah i had a lot of fun oh no did we oh no we did we do still host it i had a lot of

fun with that logo color blocking yeah i'm looking at it right now yeah yeah i'm a graphic designer i'm back at the walking dead re-watching and i gotta get on your talk uh what is it talk dead to me is that the podcast i gotta go listen to some episodes. I'm at a dead rewatch. We're not doing it anymore. Or at least I'm not. I've been thinking I gotta start something to listen to a couple episodes. So that and our good friend Tara

over at Geek Saga, Saga and Sass, she's doing The Bitching Dead they do, which is a good web stream. It's very fun. They just bitch about The Walking Dead, and I think that sounds good. We have a digital YouTube channel that likes to talk to Walking Dead influencers. Let me know. I'm very in right now.

My husband has not watched all of it. He's seen some moments only. So this has been really fun. Not to spoil, but we just went past terminus we got past it so we're in season five mid-season five things are starting to really cannibal tasha yeah yeah there's a lot happening so he's having a blast he loves horror so i love the uh touching in on the walking dead with you i gotta check in on that because some of those good episodes sound good oh yeah well i'm happy to be your walking dead representative

in any capacity. Skybound's first audible fiction, audio fiction was released. It's called Impact Winter and it is a post-apocalyptic vampire thriller starring Holiday Granger, Esme Creed Miles, Himesh Patel and Liam Cunningham and a little bit of Bella Ramsey because if you give

me power, I'm going to hire people I admire. Yes. It's pretty cool liam cunningham is the nicest person you will ever be that's so great sent me an email once i'm pretty sure i've seen ads for it and it looks really good like i there are ads right like that's the ads that i'm seeing because i'm like this seems targeted to me there were ads on they've done TV spots like my mom saw one ahead of American Idol and like I don't have I cut the cord

I can't see it anymore but I did hear one on Hulu when I was in the shower and I like ran out of the bathroom well Eliana you have to listen in because it has the writer of Pacific Rim is one of the exact producers yes that's right that is

I do love it's her favorite thing I'm not kidding it's actually literally one of my top five movies she loves it oh my gosh alright I'm gonna send him this clip yeah we gotta get Eliana listening no it really

is like I have I've watched that movie I don't know I know people have watched it more than me but I've definitely watched it like at least four times it's well that's the thing that I like about like I like about audio and I like about Travis a whole lot is that he like he

Pacific Rim was one of the first like original movies that I had seen in a long long time and I loved just how like it's like oh this is a story that I don't have a frame of reference for and he's kind of done I like a lot of vampire mythology and lore I've seen and read a ton of stuff just as a kid because they're cuter than werewolves and I'm a cat person they kind of go together and it was fun during the first season when we were doing we were reviewing scripts and doing notes calls like just kind of having fun reading I'm like oh this is like a whole different kind of vampire

mythology and the references are kind of interesting and it has it the lore is not necessarily back in like the sort of traditional like Eastern Europe Transylvania Dracula stuff he's pulling from a couple of different mythologies so it's a fun exploration I much like it yeah that's

cool that's cool yeah I know that it's available fun exploration. I much like it. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I know that it's available wherever you listen to podcasts. And that's Audible hosting that, right? Like that's through Audible or? Yeah. So we have. Yeah, that was that was I kind of lost my brain on that.

But they liked this one so much that they were like, well, we're going to release it wide. And put a ton of marketing money behind it and stuff like that, which audio fiction i was i'm happy to do whatever work i get but i also am like americans don't have a massive appetite for audio fiction it's just not quite it's not the same as it is in like the uk but if you have but like americans like marketing and fun stuff and so to have like to have the company be like all right we're gonna push we're gonna help you with discoverability you guys make something good and we'll make sure everybody knows about it that was i was humbled by that that was cool as fuck besides that where else can everyone at home find you online lately where uh

your twitter all that good stuff where can they follow those those spicy tweets that the director posts that's a tweet my spicy Star Trek tweets which is mostly what I'm talking about these days um I am at ALX August across all platforms so um I'm most active on Twitter so if you like if if you like me blathering on about pop culture and whatnot, that is where I would point you. And if you want to see weird videos that make me laugh, you probably go to Instagram, but I'm more active on Twitter.

And who knows, maybe I will podcast again one day soon. I super enjoyed this with you guys, though. So thank you for producing such amazing work that has saved me rereading Game of Thrones because as much as I love this series, I do not have the bandwidth necessarily to keep going through it. And having collegiate level analysis to fall back on is such a joy in audio. So thank you very much. Thank you for coming on and for coming back onto this side of podcasting.

Your turn next again. The host? You're it. You're it. And then we'll be it. You come over. We come over. You know then we'll be it you come over we come over you know we'll figure it out going back and forth we can go back and forth make sure yeah is his middle name actually railroad oh my god that's something that uh my friend michael aka bookshelf stud

he just came up with one day his mind you know it's fine he's hilarious it's my headcanon i don't need to learn actually funny enough raymond is his middle name and his second middle name is not really his middle name it's his confirmation name so he uses it for his pen name and it's uh and he gets to knock off jrr tokiR. Tolkien a little bit. You know what I mean? Cute. My confirmation name is Cecilia. Mine's Mary, after Magdalene. Hey. We stopped being Catholic before I could go do

confirmation. It sucks. You know, you didn't get the full effect. You're fine. I am a branded soldier first. You only got like 60% of the torture. You should have gone for the full hundy. I, to this day do not know the Nicene Creed like I know most of it but I'm just like you know what they changed it they changed

it on us cause like I think I could just do it like mindlessly if we were doing the one that we learned before but they fucking they changed all the goddamn words they only changed part of it and it was to make sure people like you pre-learned, and it was to make sure people like you relearned it. Yeah, it was a test.

It was a test. Right? They changed a bunch of things. They're like, Lord, I'm not ready to receive you, but come under my roof or some other thing. I'm not ready for you to walk up under my roof. And I was like, no, before, the version of it, I understand that it's a metaphor, but the other version had double entendres and, like, literally.

My God. Listen, if you want to see more of that, more of this, I don't know where you can go to get this. Probably here. You can probably only come here to get this, but make you follow alex over on her social media which will link below in the episode and i tune into impact winter i promise it's a real good and it sounds real good which is the whole point i need something that sounded good i'm excited i'm gonna start i'm gonna start it you can also always find us also on social media because uh we're real active on it i've just posted a dog picture you You might not know it. I'm a dog today.

You can find us at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N on Twitter, or if you have thoughts, you can email us at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Yes. And you can subscribe to us over on a podcast streaming platform near you, whether it is audible, whether you are looking at Amazon podcasts, Spotify, Google play, Stitcher. I hear a cast might be closing, might be not, you whether it is audible uh whether you are looking at amazon podcast spotify google play

stitcher i hear a cast might be closing might be not but they want us to switch to them i don't know i'm like why are you flirting with me if you might be closing interesting interesting but you can find us there for now as well and a bunch of other places hit it to google girls gone canon and of course you can always find us on patreon at patreon.com slash girls gone canon where patrons in the five dollar tier and above the stranger tier and above do get access to bonus episodes every month this month we are taking a visit into the imagination chamber it's not quite like the time chamber in dragon ball z which lasts a long time um or you can also uh in the thunder tier and above join us on discord where once a month we have brunch slash happy hour but we also have a lot of other fun activities yeah like weekly

rewatches and discussions of shows and just hangouts so come and hang out as always i have been one of your hosts chloe and i have been another one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thanks so much again for coming. I have not been another one of your hosts. No, you have been another one of your hosts. No, you were. You were a host. You were the musical.

You were the talent. Yeah, truly. The musical talent. Thank you. I'll take it. One of us was Mel. One of us was Stannis. And one of us was Solis. And we don't know which. That's for you. I'll take it. One of us was Mel, one of us was Stannis, and one of us was

Solis, and we don't know which. That's for you. Oh, I was hoping you would be like, one of us was Cressen, one of us was Shireen, and one of us was Patchface, and that makes three, as Cressen said earlier. God. God. We'll see you all next week or next month. And don't forget, Micah's

coming on for chat. Micah is coming on for chat. Chat. coming on for chat chat chat bye guys bye