Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 18 - AFFC Arianne The Princess in the Tower/Outro Ft. Fat_Walda

Episode Date: September 14, 2018

Nobody puts baby in a tower - and Arianne Martell is no exception! intro by Anton Langhage 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 patreon: patreon.com/girlsgonecanon   CHECK OUT Fat_Walda at: http://twitter.com/fat_walda http://reddit.com/u/fat_walda

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, episode 18, REN2, The Princess and the Tower, and Outro. How many Dornish men does it take to start a war? He asked himself. Only one. Hey guys, this is Chloe, one of your hosts. I am so excited to bring to you this Arianne episode today, and I am joined by my co-host. to bring to you this ariana episode today and i am joined by my co-host hello i am co-host aliana also known as glass table girl um and i too am excited today not only because we are doing an ariana episode but because we are joined today by my good friend from the song of ice and fire subreddit as well as on the maester monthly podcast and on Twitter, just in general, Fat Walda. Woo! Clap, clap, clap, clap.

Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on with us today. Let everyone know where we can find your stuff on the internet, on Reddit, and anything you have going on lately. Any writing you're doing or thoughts you have or general fat Walda-isms. Everything I'm doing is in my head still. Don't we all know the feel? I haven't written anything and actually like published it in forever, but I'm hoping with my new job that I've had for a year now that I will be able to find some time to take some of these essays, like some of the stuff we're talking about today.

And I was looking at my outlines and I was like, I wrote this in May 2016. I know the feel. I do the same stuff. Yeah. Eliana is someone that has that going on too. Someday. Yeah. But mainly Reddit and then on Twitter at FatWalda.

Awesome. Make sure to follow FatWalda on Twitter and on Reddit. I'm not like as big of a Redditor, obviously, as these two are, but they got like those profiles are kind of neat, right? You can follow people, your friends, you can pin little posts. I don't know. Reddit's doing stuff. I forgot that that existed. I try it. I blocked that out. We hate those. Do you really? Okay, well, I tried. We'll sign off. I'm an old person and I'm now like get these new faggot Reddit things off my lawn. That's me.

I downloaded some Reddit extensions on my Chrome. Wow, that was nice. Yeah, that's all I got. Those are game changers, to be honest. Yeah, they are. They really are. They help if you write, like writing an essay and formatting. Oh, man.

Oh, man. Well, in other announcements we have going on, as this is our last REN episode for the public, we have a $5 and up patron tier episode releasing next week for Arianne Martell. We're doing Arianne's The Winds of Winter chapters, chapter one and chapter two, and that will be out for patrons sometime next week. We also next week have some other fun news because Arianne's chapters are ending. We have our next POV. Yes, we do.

And oh, there's Eliana's drum rolling. Here we go. Here we go. Next week, our episode will be an intro to Sansa Stark and Sansa 1, A Game of Thrones. Is everybody just grinning a little? I'm so excited. I'm kind of grinning. I A Game of Thrones. Is everybody just grinning a little? I'm so excited. I'm kind of grinning. I'm kind of excited.

I know that I said I was excited about Erianne, but I'm also very excited about Sansa. Like, legit excited. One of my favorite characters. Same for you, obviously. It came so soon. This came so soon. Oh my gosh, we just started. And I feel like I'm really glad because we kind of compensated.

Like, we didn't just start. We did several point of several point of views yes they were short but we got through some before we forced you guys this is what not a cast is going to be like when they get to stannis yeah that's true i mean i just want everyone to know that you know we didn't just jump in on our favorite povs like we we paced ourselves we saved ourselves a little but we really wanted to do Sansa. And also, as we'll get into later on in this episode, we wanted to do it for a reason. Arianne and Sansa have some very interesting parallels,

some anti-parallels. Both of them are kind of, you know, princess in the tower kind of figures. They fill that trope in fantasy. So I think we're going to find a lot of different connections to look at there. And I think we'll going to find a lot of different connections to look at there. And I think we'll find even further in the chapter after Sansa, but you guys will have to hang in there for that. A few more things to talk about.

So we, as you know, get some really nice comments from those of you who listen to us. And we appreciate every single one of those kind words. And we just want to share some of the things that people have said. Yeah, absolutely. We had an email from our friend Andrew, Andrew Bergman on Twitter, who said, thank you so much for being awesome. Your cast work and presence are all continual reminders why the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom is the first one I ever felt comfortable throwing in with despite being a lifelong fan of other properties.

Star Wars and Star Trek among them that lend themselves to fandomings. Stay wonderful. So you too. Cheers, Andrew. Also, what? Star Wars fandom isn't welcoming? I wouldn't have guessed that. What? No. What?

It's funny because I feel like this is not a thing that i knew until i was much older i was like yes star wars maybe because i only like yeah new people in person who liked star wars and they were fine i threw a star wars swim swim club in fourth grade okay and i was a supreme chancellor of it yeah this was a thing i did don't know. I don't really know why it was that. My mom, like, helped me draw a contract. I was a nerd. But, yeah. So Star Wars was a thing when I was a kid, and that was cool. But then, like, everyone grows up and gets hormones, and dudes are just, like, sometimes mean, and girls are sometimes mean. And then I guess Star Wars isn't cool or allowed for us anymore.

And then next we have an email. I'm sorry, did you want to unpack that? Nope, that was it. Okay. We can unpack it. No, it's good. I was unpacked. I feel good.

Okay, cool. I put the baggage down. You can go on to the email. And we also received some great kind words from Patrick Spanogle, who is also on Twitter as Patrick Spanogle. He has great dogs

and also writes for Watchers on the Wall, I believe. Pat says, Eliana and Chloe, wanted to thank you both for the new podcast and podcast topic. I was a fan of the Doran storyline in the books because it was cool to see things from the perspective of this group hostile to the Lannisters. They're not the Southern Starks. But there was this kind of vibe that Starks and Martells could at least see eye to eye on their opposition to the Casterly Rock.

I sometimes wonder what kind of a reputation Ned Stark has among the Dornish. Your completely reasonable bashing on Darkstar has somehow made him more likable to me. I can't explain it. I could see it. Maybe I hope that George R. R. Martin can redeem Darkstar as a character and Sir Gerald Dane can rise above the caricature that we

have of him, one that's pretty solidly in place since it's all we've had for the past seven years, Christ. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the podcast and the further installments regarding ariohota's little princess of dorne best pat leave it to pat to start liking darkstar because of us i did see there was this one thing that made me a little bit more amenable to some like edgy thing that darkstar said once they're like when dark star says that like and i am of the night as opposed to like arthur dade when he's introducing himself to mercelle they're like yeah he's just trying to frame it into terms for like a little girl i was like all right that's kind of cute but i think

that's about the most i'll give him i don't know that's about it some defense i want to say on reddit that was something not that but they like something i don't know it was totally trying to justify his cheesiness is like i don't i don't know it's just whatever it's dark star when i reread it though it was a lot less cheesy than i remembered yeah it's not like it's a fantasy novel also like yeah you want you know like he's gonna be a caricature. It does suck because like everyone in Dorne kind of has become a bit characterized in a way like little caricature. That's not a word whatever. So I don't know like it's not I don't really see it as that bad like he is really cheesy at parts but he's not that cheesy i mean some of it is also just george's writing i guess yeah or maybe just arian's looks at things through a cheesy ass lens it's possible well she romanticizes it you know i mean we do talk and we'll talk about it in a bit of her

interest in songs in the last chapter i mean she was also kind of built on that romanticized idea too we see that as she thinks about you know oh our children will be as pretty as dragon lords. I mean, they were told tales of the dragon lords of old. So I guess in a way, yeah, it's Arianne's probably point of view. I'm interested to see him from other point of views, you know, like Erio's would be is really what I want to see him in. That's true. The Winds of Winter will be a great perspective on him yeah i wonder if he also thinks that dark star is the most dangerous man in doran as doran we'll call him later and i'm like really

i don't know but anyway so on to the lightning round yes what we missed since last chapter uh since the queen maker this is actually the only dornish point of view or point of view we get from the dornish area since the last chapter it's kind of crazy since there are no chapters we could check in on arianne's next destined area uh the king's land the the Crown Lands, that kind of area, which all we really have currently in the book between that time is Cersei. So why do we care about what Cersei's been up to? Well, we care because this is kind of history repeating for Cersei, and I think it's something we're actually going to talk about a lot in our Patreon episode for the Winds of Winter for Arianne. In Cersei 5, Cersei is informed of

news from the Golden Company, the slave rebellion in Astapor, events in Dorne, and that there was a treasonous puppet show, nice nod to Duncan Nagg right there, right? Which she was very much so interested in. Her jealousy grows ever increasing as she sees the Tyrells thrust their vines around Tommen. In fact, in this chapter, Cersei ponders sending to Dorne for a new master of arms to train Tommen so that she can get him away from Loras. When Qyburn brings her news of Ser Daemon being in prison for wanting the Sand Snakes freed and about spotted Sylvia's sudden wedding, Cersei blows this off. Qyburn points out that Daemon and Sylvia are close to Arianne and it might be important. And God's Qyburn, Cersei still doesn't care about these useless news. Yeah, there's so much around that plot that's going to come to play.

Right. And we find all that out before we hear it from Arianne. In Cersei 6, Taina of Myr shares her litter, whispering things in her ear and heightening her already heightened paranoia. She's moved to make a trade, rearm the faith for Tommen's coronation. And that brings us to Circe 7. At his valiant request, Circe allows Loras Tyrell to go fend off enemies at Dragonstone, thinking it is a blessing in disguise. Either he survives, doing her dirty work for her, or he perishes in the Knightly Manor, which is much referred to the Queen Mother. Qyburn informs her of a new champion in the making should Loras fail, and Teyna of Myr pries

her way into info on Cersei. Later, Feliz Stokeworth comes to call for the good queen's help, and Cersei passes her along to Qyburn. In Cersei VIII, Oraine Waters has returned from Dragonstone, his silver-gold hair in disarray from what she is told was a gruesome battle. Thousands of soldiers gone, all because of Loras Tyrell's storming. Waters informs Cersei that Loras is gravely injured and she relays the information at her delight to his queenly sister. After assuming some of her courtly duties and yelling at Tommen a little, for no reason but her power-hungry paranoia, Cersei hatches a new plan to pin treason on Tommen's queen. In Cersei IX, Cersei's plan blossoms into a scheme as she figures out the right way to fabricate Margaery's treason. After

implicating Margaery and treason. After implicating Margaery and banging half the court, she beds one of the implicated knights because, as Osni said, the best lies have some truth in them to give them flavor, as it were. So we talked a little bit about how originally Cersei's chapters before the split of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons were meant to contrast Dany's, but they serve a great purpose in contrasting Cersei's chapters in Feast with Arianne, especially when it makes you realize Arianne is not necessarily a mad queen. She is a queen that is making bad decisions, or soon to be queen, or maybe not, or whatever.

Maybe she'll die. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen because this book hasn't happened yet. And... But she's a princess right now. She's much gonna be queen like for a hot second and true hot second i you didn't even mean that oh no i didn't wow oh a hot second oh my Cersei, of course, shows that she is ever increasingly madder, making some very crazy choices based on this heightening paranoia, as we mentioned. So there are a lot of parallels and anti-parallels to grab throughout this, and I'm very excited to dig in.

And so that brings us to the princess in the tower. Isolated in the spear tower, Arianne Martell swallows her first taste at failure in queenmaking. Battling the guilt of Ser Ares, poor Myrcella, and her own personal demons, the days turn to weeks. Doran calls for his daughter, revealing a lot of information he should probably have told her before. Specifically, he reveals his plans for vengeance, justice, fire, and blood. We open on Arianne thinking, well, at least my prison's nice, I guess. It reassures her Doran probably wouldn't kill her for being a traitor, which something that we knew the entire time. She also thinks it's fair because she thinks about when she was going to reclaim her rightful throne again, that she didn't intend to be harsh to

Quentin and Doran, that she was going to let them live out nice, comfortable lives. How gracious. Just because we started this entire read through with Ned, I also thought there was some interesting similarities with when Ned's imprisoned. He's like, well, if they wanted me dead, I'd already be dead. So here we are. But you know, things went awry. A bit. A bit. On the way to her prison, Arianne tries to tell Arya Hotah that she did not mean for harm to come to Myrcella. She's seeking reassurance from him, and Ario rebuffs her and says, what you meant

doesn't matter, little princess. Only what you did. So this is sort of a lesson for her. Yeah, she's learning, you know, she played and she got burnt. Arianne thought she would see her father right away, but instead, her imprisonment actually begins at the Spear Tower.

Sir Manfred tells Ariane that her co-conspirators have been taken to Gaston Grey, and no place is as bad as Gaston. No one, never mind, I don't know enough of the lyrics, which apparently is a very shitty place. It's essentially Dornish azkaban in that people just are sent there to go rot and die in that order which is usually opposite and this causes arianne to feel great guilt because and this isn't the only time she's gonna say it in this chapter that everything they did was out of love for her and that she should be the one to die instead of them. Her soul is very nice. Like MTV Cribs,

like welcome to the spear. There are books, there are beautiful mirish carpets, there's wine, there's a savas table, and there's a beautiful view too. Yeah, and I... Can I also be imprisoned here? Right, like our tax dollars are going

to that though like my dornish tax dollars are going to her three square meals a day and tv this is bullshit yeah get the children in the water garden some clothes you know we could be buying the children clothes. Buy them clothes. After briefly examining the room, Arianne has a good cry about Aerie's old card. Why did you do it? Why throw your life away? I never told you to. I never wanted that.

I only wanted. I wanted. I wanted. I just love the way this line is structured and this little guilt fest that she has and the way that it ends it's just i only wanted i wanted and it doesn't say what she wanted it's just that she wanted which is a perfect summary of arianne and to me feels like the very definition of ambition yeah and we get that in other characters that definition of ambition or of their character motivation.

I mean, this is basically it's a short way of giving their character motivation on page. There's an awesome line that Catelyn has. And I want to say it's it's either her clash or storm chapters. I can't really remember which at this moment, but she has a I want I want I want sourful line about her family and wanting the days back where everyone was alive. And Cersei also has a line in one of her chapters when she and Jaime are banging it out, where she's kind of crying out in ecstasy that she wants

that I want, I want, I want, which are really interesting to pit against each other, in my opinion. So, Arianne doesn't say what she wants. I don't think she has much of a plan for what she wanted with um aries she mentions later that she was going to have marcella set aside his vow so that she could marry him but was she really i think he was probably more than just a utilitarian conquest

but was he really political marriage material definitely not we'll talk about this in a bit too but arianne could never marry him. That's just not who the Princess of Dorne should marry, either. He was Aerys the Queenmaker material, and Arianne was using, well, her woman's weapon. I mean, we learn in this chapter it took her half a year to seduce him. He may be a sexy jock, and I would never, ever devalue Ares Oakheart on this podcast. Not with Eliana, his wife, around. Leave me around.

Because she has married his corpse. Leave me alone. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Eliana, stop. What? But he's not a pretty boy like the dragons. You know, not like the dragon lords or like Darkstar.

He doesn't wield that much power. He is in the viper's court right now. You know, he doesn't really have a leg to stand on or an arm or a head anymore. But the reason why I say he was more than just utilitarian is because when Arianne tries to sleep, her dreams bring her no peace. She has these nightmares of Ares. She tells herself it's just a nightmare when she wakes up that it's over. In the morning, Ares is still dead. Myrcilla is still injured. She's still locked in a tower. For me, I wonder if this gives us some of an idea for the direction George is taking

in regards to A Dream of Spring. With that wording of like what it means to wake up from a dream slash nightmare. We've heard that the ending of A dream of spring slash a song of ice and fire is going to be bittersweet and does it mean that the characters are going to finally leave this horror of war but it's there's still the damage that's been done to the entire nation so yeah themes motifs well and especially that i mean we know it's going to be a bittersweet ending but this entire path has been paved with sacrifice you look at the hero's journey you look at john snow you look at you know what even before the story has taken place to get him to where he is now so it's very interesting like the plot of sacrifice and how much more sacrifice are we really going to see at the end of this i'm very interested to see that oh not to talk about the

bad show but there are so many people that have been posting you know like interviews like people from cast members to like production members about how like you won't see the ending coming it's shocking and i'm kind of wondering how much of that is just like blown up rigmarole or how much of that is actually true. Like how much of that is like, oh, are all of us like completely 100% off in our ideas? So at least we'll get to see that soon enough, I suppose. When she wakes, Arianne is wracked with guilt about Marcella and thinks none of this would have happened had they not been betrayed. It shows she still doesn't want to go back far enough to how it's her fault, which kind of gives

a bit of that Cersei vibe. You know, kind of like when Cersei thinks, wow, if my friend hadn't gotten a crush on my brother, I wouldn't have pushed her in that well. Oh my god. Victim blaming.

Well, I guess whoever told it wasn't the victim necessarily the last line of the previous chapter also again it's that someone told which is haunting Ariane throughout this chapter will probably haunt her throughout the rest of her storyline Ariane then

starts to mistrust those she keeps close. She wonders who could be the traitor. So here Arianne thinks someone told. The memory still made her angry. Arianne clung to that, feeding the flame within her heart. Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. Someone told, someone she had trusted. Ares Oakheart died because of that,

slain by the traitor's whisper as much as by the captain's axe. The blood that had streamed down Myrcella's face, that was the betrayer's work as well. So you can see here, she's obviously flipping this around so that it's not her fault. She thought of everything she could have, and it was the betrayer who led to this unfortunate ending. And it's interesting that she's turning this around. She's had this sadness, these nightmares's interesting that she's turning this around. She's had this sadness, these nightmares, and now she's feeding on the anger. Like, I'm going to be angry about this because it's better than crying.

It's better than feeling guilty and sorry for myself. And on that, I mean, we might see her cling to that anger in the winds of winter very hard as well. And that might fuel some of her decisions. I think that's happening amongst the dornish folk in general like arianne's fixation for me on of who told and finding someone else to blame for that failing for plans you know that means that someone else is to blame it's not her fault for being like let's go on this adventure and this feeling of guilt and deflection

yeah we see it from other people like quentin's friends, Jairus Drinkwater and Arjabold Ironwood, who like Arianne feel this guilt of this wasn't supposed to happen. And in many ways, Arianne's POV gives us a window into what Quentin's friends are feeling. And it shows how or why they react the way that they do. At least Quentin's friends like have Varyson to call them out and be like uh it's not Dany's fault that you decided to go after these dragons and to some extent I think that Arianne is kind of self-aware that if she's thinking that she would rather feel grief than guilt there's a bit of self-awareness there and Dorne kind of calls her out but unsure yeah there's definitely something to be said and also that and something we'll get into later I don't think we really jotted this one down that Quentin's journey is something his father asked him to do and Doran's anger with Arianne is really justified in that he didn't ask her to do this he says to her you know Quentin should

be the one that's plotting against me, that's plotting treasons in our court. Like, why are you doing this to me of all children? You were my star child and now you're also banging Kingsguard members? God, Ariane. So I think there's a lot to be said there and it's an interesting look at the relationships that we will definitely get into arianne decides to dress scantily so that her father will be uncomfortable when he comes to meet with her if i must crawl and weep let him be uncomfortable as well she also has the thought that doran might treat her like a child but she's going to refuse to dress like one so she's going to put all of her womanly figure on display it's a very i think 23 year old thing to think yeah i i remember i i feel that i feel that i remember those days you know you know yeah you want you're like mad you want to break out of your body you're like i'll just not work clothes i can do what i want

i don't care fuck you dad yeah Dad. Yeah. A quick fashion hour moment. I am so excited. I never get to do these anymore. We went through a couple characters that didn't really have too much crazy, beautiful outfits, and so last episode we had that awesome veil, that awesome, really beautiful silk veil

that she wore with the stones and the gems on it and i think there's definitely something in her wanting to choose this outfit and in the way george refers to lady nim in her chapter the chapters we see her in and how the snakes and arianne and others defer to her and feel about her i i kind of when i read this i think about arianne dressing like her older cousin here and think about about how George has written the snakes. While a bit caricature, he's also made, for example, Nim out to be the sexy vixen who kind of does what she wants, wears knives under her garments, was a bed with the Fowler twins, which is left very purposefully vague, I would say.

And it's just interesting that Ariane is always kind of this like not a girl not yet a woman insecure thing going on right right she goes i'm not a girl she goes for what would destroy her dad the most right all while like perusing the best option of how to appeal to him in a way so such teenage rebellion at age 23 uh also the way you kept saying this i don't know why it never struck me before but lady nim's name not only is it playing on her name nymeria it's also i think supposed to harken to the idea of a nympho oh yeah a bit okay yeah absolutely i could see that i think it's something that he's drawing on there i don't know that she necessarily is but i think it's an association he's making or maybe just nymphs in general yeah absolutely it was literally just reading greek myths last night for bedtime stories and we were

reading about the nymphs and about how zeus was going around banging them all oh my god i thought you were gonna say lolita where this is really fucked up what is but what is with you this week that's not really appropriate eight-year-old bedtime reading material true but but well no i didn't i didn't realize you're gonna say you were reading it to your child initially but that you were reading I don't know x thing because in Lolita Humbert Humbert refers to I guess girls

that he finds sexually attractive as nymphettes both as in like young nymphs but also playing on the idea of like nymphos it's real messed up Nymeria even in general is referred to as some sort of like witch queen

at some point. So I could see that. I could see that being played on in that name in general. I think Nymeria is definitely sexualized of the four snakes that are the older snakes. I think she is a little more sexualized than they are.

For sure. Obviously, I mean, Obara is, you know know in her armors and her leathers and tyene is pure and very you know saintly it's like it's something we'll get into later but each of them kind of has some sort of virtue about them you know one one cardinal character trait so very interesting doran doesn't visit arianne in her tower uh servants bring her food out of guilt and solidarity for her friends who are eating crap food in azkaban in prison which i wonder what they feed people there no but after a while the hunger is too strong and she gives in and quits not eating her food and letting it go to waste it didn't take her that long to give it arianne continues to mourn the fates of aries and russella and in feast dance in those

two books we see that a lot of characters begin to gain like this key mantra or phrase that they're always repeating and for arianne it's that someone told so that causes her to go through like this list of all these different possibilities and this idea of beginning to mistrust those around her and wondering who told reminds me of the fact that the house of the undying's prophecy of three treasons danny shall know has on denarius we see that in so many characters too like cersei uh with joffrey dying really gets that prophecy in her head more and more and more and then of course you know with tyrian it's wherever whores go uh you get john khan who is haunted by the tolling of the bells something I do want to touch on is

Arianne becomes really obsessed with who told just like all those characters with the other phrases so obsessed that later we'll see Doran refuses to tell her so Arianne will probably never know who betrayed her and will this really create a partial

mad queen kind of precipice another little hint not hint i don't think arianne will ever go mad but she's definitely gonna go a little darker her her character's not going to be more pure and soft after this this is a very smart punishment on doran's part to not tell. Arianne also just keeps waiting for Dorne to appear, and turns out none of the books that she's been left with are interesting to her, but, like, damn, girl, you want to be choosy in your imprisonment? Okay.

She has histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, the seven-pointed star and the lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as nudes. Arian would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two, but such amusements were denied her. So something that's really interesting here is these books weren't just

accidental, you know, like these books Doran put up there. If you look at what they're about, these are things that he wants her to study and needs her to read. So I think he was actually hoping for her to read these. Here's where we see those stories that we talked about that Quentin and Arianne grew up on. Doran provides her a foundation for new knowledge, especially of things like, oh, you know, dragons that may become, oh, maybe important for her to know. But she prefers to escape into the songs about Numeria, which kind of something to be said from this chapter to the next when Arianne begins her own

song as well and has to grow up from Numeria's loves and her 10,000 ships and go toward her destiny. Her burning destiny, however it may be. So I think it's just really interesting the character development we see between those two chapters.

Yeah, that hot second of a destiny. Arianne tells herself that Doran will no, he must visit soon because, I mean, he's her dad, he's gonna, right? But instead she's just visited every day by

a rotating litany of servants. We got Bors, he has a stubbly jaw, Tymeth, who is tall and dignified. We have theors. He has a stubbly jaw. Timoth, who is tall and dignified. We have the sisters Mora and Mele. That's about really all we know about them, that they're sisters. We have pretty little Sidra and Belandra, who was formerly

Malaria's bedmate. And none of them want to speak to her. They've been told not to. And at least they bring her more wine. And if she asks for more wine, they will bring her more wine and if she asks for more wine they will bring her more wine which again is this not the dream right this girl's like not appreciating got it made truly like she doesn't even have to pay someone's just bringing her wine any and she doesn't have to leave her doesn't even have to pay rent she doesn't yeah anyway it's interesting to see how differently arianne regards each of them

though in her tactics to try and get doran to notice her with bors she's insulting him and asserting her authority with like commands tip with timoth she's appealing to sympathy and she's all like i never wanted this to happen to marcella you know that right and then for belondra she's all about like for the love you bore my mother please tell my dad to come see me and she thinks this silent treatment is a weak attempt by her father specifically she thinks that it's her father's idea of torture to her we see later it basically is she resolves to use the silence to heal and fortify herself she just every at every turn she's just going to use this time that she's in prison to make herself better also like doran wins this round right like dad won she shows up to family dinner wearing her

good girl dress and it's implying she might like behave herself from now on i'm just saying like good on you, Doran. Good daddy. Right. I mean, like she literally, it literally does drive her crazy. Yeah. So while she's in her tower cell, trying to heal and fortify herself, she starts musing about the sand snakes.

So we get some more background on their history while she's trying not to think about poor Ares and Myrcella. So Arian and Tyene were the closest of the Sand Snakes. They were like sisters. They shared almost everything. And apparently we learn that Dre, you might remember him from our last chapter, and Arian almost fucked for their first time.

Right. With Tyene? Yeah. A threesome for their first time dorn is wild right like george stop but dorn is wild and so remembering this arianne feels even more lonely she begins to miss the sand snakes very dearly and gets the idea that they are somehow imprisoned in the same tower, but below her. So she starts yelling outside her window for them, but they're not answering,

which somehow leads to her imagination jumping to the idea that Dorne has done something to them to keep them from answering. She thinks, if father has done them harm, I will never forgive him. Never. She begins attempting to command the servants that she is ready to see Dorne. So instead of asking, ploying, she's commanding them. She also tries to make a run for it, and they drag her back. Yeah, like, Arianne is wilding out. Also, like, again, just like the last episode, Arianne, you were never in danger like of all people aries is stupid because he thought that he might try to hurt you erio hota would never hurt her

yeah like ever like that's it just and he wouldn't hurt the snakes doran would not hurt the snakes he can't even doran can't even hurt the people he does want to hurt that's true you know arianne hatches a plan to manipulate sidra into helping her contact the outside world by using how sidra feels toward garen here arianne does what she does best she talks and she talks aloud about how she's worried about her friends, especially Garen, because he's a free spirit. And Gaston Grey is gonna break him. Which, poor Sidra. Sidra, in case I guess we didn't make this clear, had slept with Garen once and feels very strongly towards him and then so she begins to plead quietly to Arianne to please help Garen don't let him die there so Arianne says Sidra you have to

help me send a letter only you can help Garen Arianne's manipulations we see her using what she knows works and we see her finding and utilizing that weak spot for Sidra with Garen, much like we see her do out of her necessity with Aerys. Prince Oberyn had armed each of his daughters so they need never be defenseless, but Arianne Martell had no weapon but her guile. And so she smiled and charmed and asked nothing in return of Sidra, neither word nor nod. And you know, it occurs to me that dorian was trying to torture arian by not allowing the servants to speak to her but maybe it was also a form of defense because he knew

that she had her guile and so if she was allowed to talk to them that they might give her information which she could use against him oh that's a good point right and it works arian hatches this plot she goes through a list of houses that could be helpful to her. She needs one that she can trust, but one that is powerful enough to force Doran's hand. And I feel like this is really mature of her.

She's super deliberative about it. She's looking for the Goldilocks house, right? Not too hot, not too cold. She doesn't, she still doesn't want any harm to come to her family or her father or Dorne. But then again, she wants someone that she can trust to sort of take the bait on this. It shows the same way that we saw last chapter, how Arianne knows her history of Dorne, that she is also very familiar with the people who live in Dorne. She knows her people. It's almost like Kat. In at the crossroads, yeah.

At the inn, and she's going through looking around, and she's like, hey, I know all these people, and I know what they're capable of. Yeah, I think that's a great comparison. The most powerful Dornish house is Lord Ironwood, but for obvious reasons, she's not going to ask them for help, especially because they're helping her usurper brother Quentin.

We have also House Dalt and House Santagar, which are houses that are, of course, close to her. Their kids are part of her crew, so they have a stake in the game, but they are too weak to move Doran Martell. So these are only two real options harman uller who is the lord of hellholt and franklin fowler who's the lord of skyreach and warden of the prince's pass i've been playing a lot of crusader kings too uh this week when uh my significant other was at work this weekend when I was visiting them. And I basically took over Prince's Pass and Sky Reach as I did when I was kind of being a dick. So that was fun for me. I'm pretty hated right now in Dorne.

I have tried to figure that game out and I just. Dude, it's really like a lot. A Shea from History of Westeros got me into it. And it took me two weeks until I was, like, finally getting it. But the first two weeks were very hard. So the Olers have enough ties to help Arianne, but are too dangerous and unpredictable in her mind. There's a lot of history with them.

And, of course, Lord Harman and lord olwick of the olers accompanied oberon to king's landing so they're also the people arianne knows are kind of the most flammable in this plot right like those are the people if you could start some trouble you know uh just like inviting dark star to your tea party you know you don't you don't you don't maybe want to invite the olers unless you're serious so there is a quote that is said that it is said that half the ohlers are half mad and the other half are even worse house ohlers keep hellholt was named after an incident in history where they had unfriendly visitors so they locked them in the great hall and they just burned them to death so that interesting. Kind of gives me a little foreshadowy feels about

the Winds of Winter. Uh, who knows? Maybe A Dream of Spring? Not sure if it'll happen, when it'll happen, but sounds like it's a hot topic. You know? And of course, there's also that nasty business of, you know, Rainies and Meraxes

around Hellholt and the Sands, just, you know, disappearing. Never to be seen, probably tortured. Basically, Dorne has some pretty scary places, right? Like Azkaban, Flamie Dungeon. It's going great. It's going great. Arianne decides on Lord Fowler as who to choose,

because settling on House Fowler sends a clear message. House Fowler has opposed Ironwood since Nymeria's war a thousand years ago, which ignited a lifelong feud with their houses. So it's a very anti-Quentin choice, right? Indeed. I'm the princess in the tower. She offers a hundred silver stacks to whoever delivers the letter. That's to make sure that the messenger actually brings it there. And then she offers her own hand in marriage to whoever comes to her rescue and thinks that should bring the heroes running. I like that line just because it really digs into that whole damsel in distress

or princess in the tower vibe. Especially after like how Cersei acts in her feast chapters, you know, she pulls the, oh, this will make this happen. Arianne is obviously a political player, right? Like we are learning in this chapter that Arianne's mind is politically apt. She's politically sound. She is someone to watch out for. After all this, she gives the letter to sidra sidra does not return the other servants continue to ignore her and her demands to see her father did you tell him i had need of him when the man refused to answer her this is

timoth arian seized a flagon of red wine and upended it over his head. The serving man retreated, dripping, his face a mask of wounded dignity. That's so sad. This line really gets me. Arianne, that was not a good queen moment. It's not very queenly or princessly of you. It's not guileful. No, it's not courteous, young lady. It just feels, it just looks bad, you know? Like, she's punching down.

I get it, this guy's not doing what you want him to do, but... She's not acting 23 years old. Yeah, this is... She's acting like a preteen. She's not even acting like a teenager in this chapter. Also, you know, Cersei would never waste that wine. True, true. Cersei, Cersei would never waste that wine true true cersei cersei would probably benefit from this treatment being locked in a tower with all the wine she

could want or maybe not benefit but she would probably kind of enjoy it arianne again presumes to know what doran is thinking either for her to rot in this tower or to marry her off to some disgusting old fool. And so she reflects upon marriage, and she envies her cousin's ability to marry whomever they want. So she thinks about her

role as a potential political marriage. She thinks Arianne Martel- wait, that's- obviously she didn't think that because why would she think her herself in the third person arianne thinks on some of her previous suitors uh both of the adults dre and her older brother his older brother not dre and apparently damon sand has also asked for her hand in marriage but doran has no intentions of letting her just marry a Dornishman. Yeah, as much as Doran accepts bastards, Doran probably wouldn't let his heir marry a bastard.

We'll probably talk about this a bit more in next week's RENT WOW episode where we get to meet Daemon Sand, not just through name drop. drop we also have renly as apparently showing up as a potential suitor when he visited dorn and aria and she was she was very young at this time but she's like you know what i'm gonna try i'm gonna try and try to seduce him but you know for obvious reasons this failed really subtle george she thinks it's just because she was too young, but like... Yeah, yeah, but it's the usual, you know, rainbow cloaks. It reminds me of Brienne. Yeah, Brienne's suitor story in comparison is really interesting. And it's also interesting to what, how they accepted their duties, you know? That's true.

that's true Willis Tyrell was also a potential option actually kind of a good one as we've also heard from another princess in a tower and Ariane attempted to sneak away to meet him but Doran instead attempted to betroth her to many old men like Lord Beesbury which a fun fact Lyman Beesbury from the Dance of the Dragons holds a special place in my heart because he stood up to this council of conspirators and was like, whoa, wait.

Whoa. Everybody hold on a second. We also have amongst the people that Doran suggested, Lord Rosby and Lord Grandison. Hey, haven't heard that name in a minute, right? Grandison? Grandison. From our Nud chapters. Oh, yeah.

It has been a minute. It's been many minutes. It's supposed to have had a second, you know? Oh, my God. Ariane thinks that she would never wed any of them, though. Even if Arya Hotha stood behind her with an axe. Is that like a shotgun wedding? Yeah, or a shot axe wedding?

Yeah. Like, Hotha's gonna stand behind her with an axe and force her to get married. Oh my god. It's a shotgun wedding. That's true. She has such a penchant for drama. She does. She's always like, I would never do that.

And then like five minutes later, we're like, all right, I guess I'm doing this now. I would do anything for Dorn but I wouldn't do that perfect I love it I just want to add on to this that if there were Isshat Axe Wedding I think these are the throwing axes

in the Iron Islands okay so because of all this oh Asha's quote makes so much more sense now. We should have put in Mora and Melee serve her now because Sidra's gone. Sucker. She takes so many baths. And I was reading this and I was like, you could go back and figure out how long she'd been in the tower if you counted how many times she talked about having a bath because it was every other day.

But then I was like, that's too much work yeah but that's again that's how george measures time i love that it's something i like pay a lot of attention to is like he talks about brienne's hair getting longer he talks about the moons in brand chapters it's so interesting to kind of like catapult along how george measures time in these sure at least she was kept clean too you know not every prisoner gets that yeah thinking about yeah thinking about ned in that dungeon you know yeah why would she even need baths every other day just being locked in a luxury tower right i wouldn't take baths i like, lay there. I don't wash my hair every other day. That's true. It's not good for your hair. Yeah, it's bad for your hair.

Also, I think that I'm now speculating on this just because you've raised this as a question, that Doran sent someone to give her a bath every other day because he wanted to just keep exposing her to people who weren't going to talk to her. I think that was part

of his plan, or torture i mean i'm petty and if i'm ever a parent i'll probably be petty still sure yeah and that's like you know part of this whole silent treatment which causes arianne to think that this loneliness is going to drive her mad which again that was the point oh my god so with this whole entire arianne in her tower we kind of bring this to we see a lot of women locked away in this series right like look at our next point of view character sansa of course sansa becomes the princess in a tower in a game of thrones we have stories from history like the maiden vault where baylor the blessed put his sisters dana the defiant reina and elena and of course there's even characters that are arguably

locked in a tower but not really locked in the tower but in a tower like alanis harlaw nay grayjoy who lost her children and shacked up in the towers in harlaw between the time theon leaves for the north and comes home again and she wanders the halls like moaning myrtle at night right like she does wailing looking for her dead children which a couple other people like helena targaryen also gives me similar vibes like that uh we were kind of discussing off air earlier that i just re-read this weekend on a plane ride. Princess and the Queen and, of course, the Mystery Knight just for some fun parallels to grab and look at. And Helena Targaryen definitely comes off as that kind of drastic, you know, depressed in the tower queen slash princess.

And in a way, it gives me kind of Malario-like vibes as well. Not quite as, you know, crazy. But as we learn in this chapter, she literally told Doran, you know, she would hurt herself if he took Ariana away. And of course, the Black Brides, Maegor's wives, Elinor Costain, Jane Westerling, and Rhaenys Targaryen, who Maegor wed all at once in one ceremony after taking some of their children as hostages to ensure their compliance we have liana stark who is of course one of the most classic lady in a tower stories we know in the universe and the other most classic ashara dane which we really hear kind of a similar

story in that song aria hears in a storm of swords of the fair maiden jumping off of a similar story in that song, Arya hears in a storm of swords, of the fair maiden jumping off of a tower for her prince. So just some, you know, popular, a song of ice and fire in story pop culture on princesses in the tower. It's kind of fucked up. Yeah, there's a lot of it. This, yeah there's a lot of it this Arienne also continues to be very dramatic

and is unappreciative of her very luxe imprisonment and she thinks I deserve a headsman's axe for what I did but he will not even give me that he would sooner shut me away and forget I ever lived. She wondered if Maester Calliot was drawing a proclamation to name her brother Quentin Airtador.

We got drama Khaleesi over here. Again, the huge point of this chapter. From this chapter's end until the Winds of Winter 1 for Arianne, it's such huge character growth. She makes herself grow up almost immediately. And I wouldn't say takes full accountability for her actions, but she definitely is a woman grown already. And she sees herself as Doran's heir finally after that confirmation. confirmation even before winds of winter there's an ario chapter in between um this chapter and winds of winter and you see that that um erin is there and she's by her father's side and she's sort of playing the responsible one to the sand snakes irresponsible side the other hijinks um so i think the talk that she's going to have with doran is really important so as after many days too many to count so there goes counting the baths to figure out how long she's there arian finally loses her spirit she becomes super depressed she throws all of her

food out the window which uses all of her strength and she just lies in bed same and because that's all she has the energy i, that's like grad school. It's like me. This is a mood. I get you, Arianne. Yep. I'm actually, like, really impressed with Doran's resolve. A lot of fans call him weak and foolish.

And some call him a mastermind. Which I don't really agree with either of these extremes, right? Like, I pit him towards, he's a decent leader who knows when to put his people and family into harm's way or knows to fold because he's, you know, needs to be too cautious after losing everything. He still has a little more political, like choice wise aptitude, more than what Ned had going into King's Landing. But this is like some grade A level one parenting he's doing with Arianne here. He's like got her shaking in her silks like he's made her go through the spectrum of emotion over the last like week two week three week whatever yeah this is him this is the equivalent of when your kid does something bad and so you tell them to go stand in the corner you send them to the room but over the span of months and people died

you know super grounding is this like where the wild things are except depression and wine

this is like gossip girl only in Westeros someone told xoxo gossip girl Mine? This is like Gossip Girl only in Westeros, you know? Someone told XOXO Gossip Girl. So it gets to the point where she might actually do harm to herself. And finally, Arya Hotha comes to wake her up and to take her to her father. For the first time in her life, she realizes that she's frightened of Doran. So she prepares to go see him. She says, Okay, I'll go. I've got to take a bath and get dressed.

She as opposed to how she said she was going to handle this at the very beginning of the chapter, she was going to dress all scantily, and she was going to be fiery and angry. And instead, she dresses humbly. She wears no jewels. She wears a modest gown. She plans to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness. So why is her attitude so much different than before? I mean, Doran was right. He knew exactly how to torture her.

He has her number. Yeah, he definitely broke her spirit on that one. And like Cersei, being locked in the tower, initially being angry, fighting back against her captors, and then at the end, resolving to confess and to be contrite in order to get out of the tower. This feels more genuine than Cersei's repentance. And of course, a check in for fashion hour. Because Arianne chooses a gown with some description. I am so happy.

Two dresses, one chapter. You guys know I'm very excited. Grape vines are totally seen as like a symbol of divinity. And faith and big harvest and bounty. So Arianne choosing a simple gown with very simple decor uh kind of highlighting faith and harvest and divinity is really interesting because we see throughout this entire book of female characters the choice of dress being important we see cersei choose a conservative woolen gown for her meeting with the sparrow we see sanza choosing very

carefully so she doesn't blow her cover in the veil clothing means something in these books and i love that george writes them as such how does george know like what clothes mean to women i'm interested in that too because i mean i don't he doesn't talk about it a lot, but it is there. I guess, like, he just views us as people and he sees us every day and he's very observational. Like, we exist. He thinks, I guess. I mean, yeah, it is interesting to think on that because the man wears suspenders and a dress shirt and pants every day and a hat, so. I mean, those are statements, okay?

He makes some statements, though, with those suspenders and- The flame ones are great yeah it's iconic yeah hey do you think martin goes to his closet every day and he's like which suspenders should i do he does he does um you guys's fellow moderator ham fast and i have had very lengthy discussions about the suspenders because he actually cosplayed George at Ice and Fire Con, as we know. And he like literally sent me seven different pictures going, which ones should I choose? And like had me help him look at some of them. And I was just floored.

I was like, wow, he has different ones. George, you dog, you scamp with your outfits. So she eats a little snack. She dresses for the occasion. And she goes to meet with Doran, not for judgment in the Tower of the Sun, but in his personal solar. When she gets there, she notes that his eyes are full of pain. And she wonders why. Is it the gout or is it his disappointment in Arianne?

I feel like she's very aware of other people's emotional temperature that's part of what she has to use her guile to to get what she wants from people yeah that's definitely true and i also really like the way that george does this with that line he doesn't say it explicitly but arian observing this pain in doran's eyes and wondering about what it is it reveals a lot of what arian is feeling herself at that time there's feelings of guilt and sympathy and of course love she doesn't want her father to be disappointed in her but she knows she's been pretty disappointing this is despite the fact that she still thinks that he's taking away her throne. Yeah.

And she's like, oh gosh, I hope I haven't made him upset. It's her dad. Well, and it's that, like, you know, back and forth of that little girl mindset and that woman mindset, that crossroads, that Britney Spears crossroads, if you will.

The princess pass? Yep, absolutely. The princess pass. The crossroads. where you're not a girl not yet a queen oh wait no i'm not a princess not yet a queen there we go i did it basically good job i'm trying to find the queen in me the younger more beautiful queen in me uh we get this story of the first time doran and malario saw each other it is kind of sweet but kind of bittersweet as well as we know how the relationship kind of has come about a strange and subtle folk the volantines he muttered as he put the elephant aside i saw volantis once on my way to norvos where i first met malario the bells were ringing and the bears danced down the steps ario will recall the day i remember echoed area ario hota in his deep voice

the bears danced and the bells rang and the prince wore red and golden orange my lady asked me who it was who shone so bright that sounds more irish than Russian. Yeah, I don't really know if that was Russian. It's fine. It's a fantasy. It was a Norvos accent. Yeah, it was a fantasy accent, so you did great. And also, man, I'm sad. Everyone's shining. Everyone's burning real bright

over here. Red and golden orange. Oh, they said, and then they started to scream. Dog! It's all of them. Locust! Red and gold and orange. Oh, they said, and then they started to scream. God. Dog! It's all of them! Locust!

They have a discussion about Savas, then. About how Doran made sure that she had a Savas table in her room, and he kind of hoped that Arianne was going to learn to play the game. Just like those books. She wonders, who was i supposed to play with and he's like yourself sometimes it's best to study a game before you attempt to play it how well do you know the game arianne hint hint that's like no he's not talking he's not talking about being meta you guys well enough to play she says not to win. My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only play such games as I can win.

Savas is not for me. So, yeah, Doran says that because Arianne doesn't know how to play that well, that she's also unable to play to win. And we see that conservative nature in doran because he refuses to play games that he cannot win and because of this arianne calls him weak even though she's gonna be humble you know but like this weakness in him doran says that even so oberyn's ghost still haunts him and it's almost like you know both of these people this father and this daughter they both have gone ghosts that continue to haunt them because of their actions and the things that they chose and their plans but you know i don't know i don't know parallels what

meta when arian sits down at the savas table doran says that she was not given permission to sit arian snaps back at doran um then he chastises her for making dark star a part of her conspiracy and calls him the most dangerous man in dorn you have done us all great harm and so we get to learn what happened to Myrcella, who was severely injured. She lost an ear, but she's alive. She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother and under my protection,

you have dishonored all of us. I never meant her harm, Arianne insisted. If Hota had not interfered... You would have crowned Myrcella Queen to raise a rebellion against her brother instead of an ear she would have lost her life

only if we lost if? the word is when a theory I thought was kind of interesting regarding Darkstar was being kicked around heavily a couple years ago especially on Reddit it's a theory by user ask 327 and it's called could the sword of the night be innocent and it is something I don't know if I necessarily believe it uh but the whole theory is basically that

Darkstar isn't actually who injured Myrcella it's just it was the only person Arianne thought could have known did it, and she doesn't even know what happened. It gets pinned on him, which, it's an interesting take. I don't think it's, you know, necessarily true, but it goes to show us this text has to analyze Arianne did not directly see what actually happened. She is just told, well, now it's Darkstar, so it's also Dorn kind of pits the blame on him. So if he was innocent, that would be interesting. Dorne, we learn, has been bluffing about its strength, which, of course, something interesting on that, though. George says in a so spanked Martin on the Citadel that of all the people that talk about the Dornish army numbers, Dorne probably has the closest number POV wise.

Viaterian and a couple other characters as in doran's numbers he's the one who's not emphasizing he's the one who's embellishing the least yeah that doran's numbers are probably the closest to what they actually have compared to other people's embellishments or de-embellish. I guess he feels he can't afford to bluff too much. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, it's like a lot of his cards are out there. And he also isn't the kind of person to bluff.

He doesn't like to play. Yeah, he's not very good at bluffing. Yeah, he doesn't like that kind of play. And, again, remember when Ariane said she was going to beg for forgiveness? Well, she is still not doing that she is now getting sassy with her father she's very sassy what am i gonna do with you arianne

why do what you always do do nothing oh my god like teenager burn right right at least like 13 year old arianne arguing with her dad um, he says, you disappoint me, Arian. And she returns, says the crow to the raven. You've been disappointing me for years, father. That is like, I would get beat if I talked that way. I'll be in big trouble. Yeah. And again, she's still bitter because she doesn't know that her father is not plotting to take away her birthright.

It's kind of a small fact. Is this how you talk to someone who might even be thinking about that? I don't know. Right? I guess she's like, guns out, sons out. Like, you know what? Can't lose anything more. Probably disinherited.

Let's do this shit. Is this the happy medium between being all fired up and being on your knees begging for forgiveness? Being snotty to your dad? I think it's a combination, right, of what you were saying, that she feels that she has nothing else to lose, but she's finally just been pushed all the way to the edge by how much her father is hurt or you were saying earlier that doran can't hurt anyone he doesn't even he's not even able to hurt the people that he wants but he does hurt people emotionally he's hurt his little girl's feelings and she's finally just letting all that out and i i'm gonna gush about this interaction for a couple of times but that's one of the reasons why i think this one's so good and then doran says in reaction to all that you know he's like he didn't stop arianne with from her stupid plan because he just still thought of her as his little girl and like

parenting is so hard you know he's like i had to learn this hard lesson about my daughter for myself maybe if he hadn't been so far up quentin's asshole he tells her that she was she's the little girl that used to run to him when she skinned her knee and he found it hard to believe that she would conspire against him so he had to know the truth and that's why he didn't stop her i think maybe that explains a little of why doran didn't talk to her about his plan earlier he still thinks of her as a little girl he does tell her that arian's friends are fine but he won't tell her who told quote because he says that a little mistrust is good in a princess and i think that that's true

probably she could do with being a little less trusting of people i love i love that line that doran gives where he says to arianne it's like the ultimate like like fuck you dad because he goes they talk about aries he goes what did you do to him i fucked him like oh damn girl reader i fucked him imagine that in jane air instead god god um yeah and doran's just like oh god why we also learn during this interaction of course she doesn't tell her dad because you you know, as much as this is gossip, girl, it is not. So Arianne's all like in her interior and she's like, it was so difficult to make this happen. And it turns out after all of that, Ares is really bad in bed. in bed and she wonders if Ari's died out of shame. Not

out of shame for his performance, of course, but out of shame for breaking his vows and fucking Arianne when he's supposed to be a Kingsguard. He died for me.

If so, he may well be the first of many, says Doran. You're next next Daemon Sand he's definitely next all of Doran all of Doran's gonna burn probably because they picked the wrong dragon

so the first of many didn't they read the mystery night? a lot of many no they only read the Dornish histories, which, like, I mean, fair. Nobody in Dorne dies out of shame for fucking. No. Except for Ares.

Yeah, that's it. Well, but he's not Dornish. Yeah, in fact, he's from the Reach. He's a Reachman, so that makes sense. Right, it's the opposite, yeah. That makes sense. Sorry. Sorry, Ares.

All right. that makes sense right it's the opposite yeah that makes sense sorry sorry aries all right so another piece of information that doran shares with arian now that he's telling her everything um is that is that sir balan swan is coming for a visit so uh king's landing has been like hey y'all uh we haven't heard from Princess Myrcella and Sir Aerys in a while. We're just going to send Bael and Swan down there with the mountain's head and have a little visit. That's obviously a problem. Doran doesn't know what to tell anybody about what happened to Myrcella and Ares. They can't just put a wig on Myrcella's, like, maidservant and put the armor on the one dude and say, hey, look, they're fine. Not full time, no. Yeah, no. So Arian suggests that they give a half-truth that Darkstar attacked them and that Ares died defending his princess.

That's what he was there for, right? Yeah, it's not entirely untrue, but like, how are they going to get Myrcella in on this lie? I mean, they do, but like, how are they going to get Myrcella to lie? Has this poor girl not done enough for you? My poor daughter. Well, and I love that it boils down to, as Arianne realizes, Doran needed her. That's why he called her back he's indeed better at politics than a lot of readers give him credit for and he

recognizes simple human interaction marcella will listen to arianne and go along with her we saw this exercised in the queen maker when arianne pretty much convinced her that, you know, Tommen had taken her crown. Not some prince that she doesn't truly know. Princess Arianne. Oh my god. Arianne then accuses Doran of always having had patience for Tywin and the Lannisters, though he's never had enough for her. And so Doran retorts with,

You mistake patience for forbearance. Finally, finally, Arianne airs her biggest grievance with Doran. They've been going around in circles. She's been snarky. He's been not forthcoming. A little forthcoming. Doran wants to know what's up with you, basically. And she says, well, I want my cousins freed, the Sand Snakes.

I want my uncle avenged and I want my birthright. Just say it. I want my birthright. Doran's just like, what the fuck? Why is this happening? He's also like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. Because this is the first time that it's been communicated to him that she thinks that

and he's that she's not his heir and as a dad like you need to know how to read women's minds like that's one of your powers if you don't have that and you have daughters that's on you bro did he think she was just being like this all the time like we build resentment that's what we do and we also know things like Like, we're very sneaky. Like, we will find out. He just thought her teenage rebellion was an extremely long phase. Wait, wait, are you saying that Ariane's

rebellion was built on a lie? It was, in fact. It was. Well, I guess it's technically not a lie. But, you i mean also like let's just chat about how like yes he's about to cover this you know and he's about to be like well you see i had other plans for you but it's also like so you were still gonna like disinherit her and give give quentin dorn and you know she had no choice in the matter so please keep that in mind you know

right it was still not what she was planning like either way he was still gonna do it and have Quentin run Dorn which arguably you know Quentin would King would be bigger but like he was still giving what was her birthright and what Dorn fought for succession wise like that's still pretty effed up like no matter what he was like well arianne you know like no no no we're gonna this is what you're gonna do this is what quentin's gonna do so i don't know either way he lied about it yeah so so doran gets a little ticked off at her about this um he says this mistrust does you no honor arianne quentin should be the one conspiring against me i sent him away when he was just a child, too young to understand the needs of Dorne. Anders Ironwood has been more to a father to him than I have, yet your brother remains faithful and obedient. And Arian is like, why not? You

favor him and always have. He looks like you. He thinks like you. And you mean to give him Dorne. Don't trouble to deny it. read your letter the word still burned as bright as fire in her memory one day you will sit where i sit and rule dorn you wrote him tell me father when did you decide to disinherit me was it the day that quentin was born or the day that i was born what did i ever do to make you hate me so to her fury there were tears in her eyes because she's not supposed to be crying she's supposed to be fiery so hard i never hated you prince doran's voice is parchment thin and full of grief arian you do not understand parenting is just so hard loving anyone else is a mistake. Your children are going to disappoint you.

Oh my god. You're gonna disappoint them. That's the gas. Love is pain. Oh my god, Aliyah, are you okay over there, buddy? I'm fine. To my fury, there were tears in my eyes, though.

Wow, okay, well, I didn't think we were going to unpack all this today, but here we are. I didn't think we were going to unpack things earlier, and we didn't, so let's just go. Arianne accuses Doran of making shitty matches for her, that each one was an insult, and Doran reveals they were meant to put on a ruse to make it seem as though doran was trying because he had other plans for her secret plans so he says the pact was sealed in secret i meant to tell you when you were old enough when you came of age i thought but and arian is rightfully angry at this point i am three and twenty for seven years a woman grown. And Doran says, I know if I kept you ignorant too long, it was only to protect you, Arianne, your nature.

To you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garen and Tyene in your bed at night. So he worried that Arianne would have gossiped it all away, which like really fair point, actually. way which like really fair point actually like i'm just gonna put that out there especially because he mentions her immediate path of speaking from garen to silva to dre the sand snakes to all of dorn he he had a point you know it's interesting because doran in this dialogue doesn't outright say to whom arianne was betrothed either but it's delivered in such a way that as readers, we who have been here for 3.75 books now would know a pot of molten gold. Also, the sand snakes are like alive and fine,

by the way, too. He mentions that. Yeah, some of them are playing in the water gardens pools and Doran says, it has not been so long since you were playing in those pools used to ride the shoulders of an older girl a tall girl with wispy yellow hair arianne in this exchange then remembers being a little girl again truly she's actually remembering

being a little girl not just feeling like a foolish little girl who's messing things up i think that there's a lot to what walda said earlier as to why doran didn't tell arian part of it is that he didn't trust her but he also thinks that he was doing it for her sake which is that paternalistic thing it's like as many parents do they he never really stopped thinking of arian i think as his little girl it's again it's hard it's a difficult balance between loving your child and wanting them to stay pure young and happy and innocent and small and also giving them that space to grow up and acknowledging their growth which is why i think doran's just like oh you fucked him when it comes to aries it's it's like oh my little girl's a woman and it's this entire dialogue and there's just so many feels there's so many feelings everyone is feeling and it's very

good we learn a lot in this one passage not just that as well right like we learn that arianne used to play in the pools uh at the gardens with a Tyroshi girl who was the daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh with green hair. They used to play chicken in the pool, and she and Arianne were going to go to Tyrosh to meet Viserys. But Malario refused to lose another child or for her children to be pawns in political schemes, which is very interesting because this is when Malario threatened to hurt herself if he took Ariane away from her, too. It kind of adds to Ario's protective fraternal nature over Ariane as well. I wonder if this whole thing is fair. You know, he says, I was gonna send you there, Malario refused to lose another child. How long was she really gonna be there? I mean,

you could just send her and, you know, let her in on the plot maybe i don't know let her meet some people and then bring her home again um malaria is a whole continent away from her family and i mean maybe that's why she doesn't want her children to go away but like you know how is her family feeling about her not being around just thinking it's it sucks it's it's tough because we don't get her point of view at all right we get doran and we get arian and like all of this stuff seems perfectly normal for noble children of westeros but it's like woman you're screwing stuff up um and i wonder if if he planned to tell her before she went what who she was planning on meeting there um you know why am I sending you to Tyrosh you know oh you know see if there's any blonde guys

there that you like I know I know that that they're your type um or was he gonna still keep her in the dark and then when she's 24 be like oh and by the, that kid that you met in Tyrosh, you're marrying him. I think he would have told her. I think it fits in perfectly with the stories that Arianne tells herself, you know, sneaking away to go meet, like, that prince. I mean, the Robert Knife. Or your prince, you know. I think there's something in there. Like, A, it has very Cleopatra vibes.

Sneaking in like a fucking little carpet to go meet Julius Caesar and stuff. But, and, yeah, then Doran is just really interested. He's mildly impressed, you know? Like, Arianne, how did you find out about Quentin's semester at sea? And are you i would really like to know it's pretty impressive not just admiration but also he says it kind of with fear like who was discovering our plans and if it was discovered that easily like who else could know them right like he's being very cautious. It's true. And of course we get the wonderful penultimate line that Quentin has gone to bring back their heart's desire.

Vengeance, justice, fire and blood. But it's a black dragon on this vast piece, not a white one. Yes, so Doran picking up the black dragon is so like... Bro, Dance of the Dragons. Black fire. Yup, it's so black fire. Especially like after reading the Mystery Knight, I'm just like laying here and I'm just like... I have to read those like every time we talk about them, basically.

Black fire. Man, that was it that was princess in the tower man okay it's so frustrating to me that he still doesn't lay anything out for her like right it's like she has to pull it out of him piece by piece to pull it out of him piece by piece Quentin got a maester yeah I assume that their conversation continues after this

because obviously she's like in on his plans the next time we see her but this is more dramatic and if there's anyone more dramatic than Ariane it's George RR Martin obviously well we will be covering the winds of

winter arianne one and two in the coming week so we'll definitely delve more into her future future then but let's examine everything else that kind of brought her to this point in the story and our thoughts on it like with her relationships like between arianne and Doran. Yeah, there's just so much love and hurt here. Both of them feel so deeply how they've disappointed one another, yet they're yearning for one another's respect. Arianne obviously wants her father to see her as good enough to rule Dorne, because it wasn't something that was automatically bequeathed to her. And as a parent, of course, you kind of want and need your child's respect,

especially if they're going to obey you and not steal the other princess. But he just wants his little girl to be proud of him. And so it's so impactful that Ariane's story in Feast ends with that open communication, that finally like that open discussion between her and her father everything's just coming out all of the past hurts are just spilling over and while

there has been external action and fighting and violence and area and storyline because of that queen maker idea the course of like this part of her story, it is very internal and emotional. It's driven so much by this relationship with her father. She leaves this to embark on her journey to discover the truth about Aegon and Jon Conn, which is so interesting because Quentin's story starts with an adventure that ends in horror where Arianne gets the chance to learn and have a fleshed out character and arc, you know, eventually tragic. We're all pretty sure but she really gets that full you know like makes the mistake learns from it becomes politically apt uh really you know becomes a queen in her own right and then probably does just what the martells do

which is go up in flames i know a lot of summer burning bright so i think a lot of doran and arian's character are driven by their insecurities um doran feels like he's been wronged just as strongly as oberon does he has a plan about how he's going to get his vengeance but he's over cautious he doesn't tell anybody about it he moves too slowly kind of like grass growing um he relies on tenuous alliances he assumes that he can send Quentin off just to walk into Dany's court and some 15 year old piece of paper is going to convince her to marry him and he feels entitled to this global influence which is more influence than he really has simply because he's a Martell um and the of Dorne. And Arian feels like her

father is going to overlook her birthright. But instead of talking to him about it, she gathers her friends and assumes they'll be faithful and basically executes a kind of coup of the Iron Throne. But she's not doing it because she wants to overthrow the kingdom. She doesn't want to start a war or really make Myrcella queen. She's doing it because she herself feels this insecurity about losing her own inheritance, about Quentin stealing it. There's insecurity in Oberyn's character too. He's this warrior. His sister dies. It's sort of a, an honor is on the line. His sister's death needs to be avenged.

And so he feels this need to strike out and show his bravado when his brother would rather sit back and silently plot and that's its own kind of insecurity we really see that transcend from doran to arianne and quentin in his attitude and from oberyn into the sand snakes as well and of course with arianne and quentin there is so much to talk about but that great dramatic irony in Quentin's journey escalates Arianne to commit to her journey, while his journey was just a failure all along. Arianne's insecurities have festered so hard and long, and their relationship and what we've explored over the last two or three episodes has been really interesting.

She continues to reflect on that in the Winds of Winter chapters. Quentin comes up a lot in her thinking as the winds of winter goes on arianne's gonna get very fiery i feel like like we saw her do above when she was very upset it's kind of sad because we've as we brought up before quentin doesn't think about arianne like almost at all like how Arianne just feels that she's living in her brother's shadow it's and we're never gonna get a resolution to that relationship they are never gonna get to hash it out

and become a brother and sister and actually get to know one another because Quentin's dead it was all for not in the end right all? All for naught. Of course, we're going to see this in the future, but just a little tease of Arianne and Aegon's relationship. I really wanted to highlight as the mighty Adam Feldman put it best in a thread on

the Wind of Winter's cringiest sex scene in a comment on Reddit. He wrote this comment and it's something that stuck with me because i was like man adam feldman can write the books you know yeah not half a moment had passed before the prince spent his dragon seed would that the boy's conquest of westeros be as rapid as my conquest of his maidenhead arianne thought wickedly i think agon will definitely prove easy to seduce right uh you look at Daemon and Ares and Darkstar and those were three tests that we kind of hear about from Arianne and she passed with flying and in some case bleeding colors with these tests right so it's interesting because there's all

this build-up that we've seen so far like you know our children will be as pretty as dragon lords that Aegon and Arianne is going to happen. Me and poor Quentin were just talking about this the other day that people that don't think Arianne and Aegon are going to be a thing. They are, they are very wounded inside for thinking that way, because it's just right there. It's right there. It's in the books. It's right there. There's just so many reasons like a, as you said, Arianne has a type. books it's right there there's just so many reasons like a as you said arianne has a type and it's pretty it's blonde it's i guess physically attractive and not so good in bed she's into that yeah that's like her her steez and honestly the way that arianne is written i mean she sounds like she's every boy's type so like

agon's a young man with hormones who has been written presumably as straight yeah he's blood he's blood hungry as we know already he's like i want to go fight yeah and like i there's just no way they're not yeah Yeah, they're gonna bow. Do you think there's gonna be any issue with his age that she's gonna be like, I'm so mature, I'm a woman now, and you're like 14? She's not that mature. He's not 14, right? He's like 18, or supposed to be. So we get it from Tyrion is the thing there, because he thinks, you know, the kid must be 16, because Tyrion's always wrong. You know what I mean? We don't necessarily know no no you know what he's he's late to know because he was late 281 or early 282 because elia was bedridden so that puts him at about 18 19 yeah

so it just isn't like that much younger than her but this this Aegon looks younger. I mean, he does not look. Sure. Yeah. He looks younger, but also gonna throw this out there that Arianne and thus Faegon slash Aegon, the sixth Targaryen of a closer age with Arianne. Like we aren't given Arianne's birth year prior to this. So she could have done whatever. George didn't. Yeah, George didn't need to do like a time skip for her like age.

And she might have been meant to always be this age. I don't know. I think that's an interesting thought on it. That might well be it. She's a moldable character. I mean, Dorne was absent off the page for a reason. He could mold it. Kind of, it was

one of those things he got to mold. I mean, look at how Quentin was introduced. He got to mold it to his tastes also that doran and the iron islands weren't necessarily supposed to be their own chapters originally they were going to all be part of some very large prologue so i'm glad that we get these chapters I know that not everyone thinks that but I'm glad I'm glad I love them yeah then we get Arianne and the Sand Snakes

that relationship and you can see that Arianne loves the Sand Snakes she loves her cousins so much but along with that um she sees how different their life is from hers by having had Oberyn as their father. And perhaps because Dornish women are allowed to be more physically active and have a little more leadership and freedom. You can see how much Arianne not only loves but respects and envies the life that her cousins have had.

She thinks about how they were taught to defend themselves. that her cousins have had. She thinks about how they were taught to defend themselves, but she feels that her only skills are her guile, being able to charm people, which is not a bad skill. And she also envies the Sand Snake's freedom to marry whomever they wish, which I guess Quentin kind of envies this whole idea too. Quentin, go home.

Go home, Quentin. So she thinks about, she accepts the idea that one day her father is going to choose some great lord for her to marry and that's what princesses are for but she says that admittedly her uncle Oberyn had been had taken a different view of matters

he says to his daughters if you would wed the red viper had told his daughters if not take your pleasure where you find it there's little enough of it in this world choose well though if you saddle yourself with a fool or a brute don't look to me to bridge you of him i give you the tools to do that for yourself hey arianne's got that down you know getting rid of men no each each sand snake almost represents some like sort of cardinal skill or ability that

she wants to hone or have right you have lady nim who is like this sexual confident you know character presented to you uh a woman you know a woman grown you have obara who is very skilled in her spear and the athletic cardinal kind of trait you have of course the knowledge behind sorella and of course you have tyene who is very very invested in poisons and also very pure right supposedly she's about to lose her virginity in a threesome listen i don't think you need to be blaspheming tyene san's name. She's very holy and pure. And she looks good in white. Yep.

Like fallen snow. Emphasis on the fallen. Indeed. Truly. Covering the land. Snow. Arianne's companions are another great place to look at her story. They have very strong Quentin parallels, but her resources are cut off at the start

where Quentin loses a few of his on his journey. So Ariane with Silva and Garen and Andre. And something I really wanted to touch with there is Spotted Silva, because there's a really interesting theory that so many people have discussed and talked about. I don't know who the very first person really was with that but sylva was sent to eastermont she went to wed the lord of eastermont you know there are people that keep disappearing like tyrek lannister and edric storm was sent to

eastermont which eastermont has no black fire history like that we know of it's never nobody's ever uh said anything about it one way or another so are Varys and Illyrio maybe collecting people you know right like Edric Storm is acknowledged of Robert Baratheon Tyrek Lannister is a Lannister uh has Lannister blood so Sylva is sent off to Eastermont could this be through Varys and Illyrio? Would this be through that? Does that even hold any value possibly here? It's interesting. I could see George being like, I want to give House Eastermont some sort of significance

because their sigil is a turtle, and we know how much George loves turtles and having political intrigue. And that is the tie that I have suggested. That's beautiful, Illyrio. Thank you for that. and that is the tie that I have suggested. That's beautiful, Eliana. Thank you for that. The gang's all broken up and this, I guess, isn't really about

Arianne's relationship to any of these people but I just want to throw this out there while we're talking about people like Garen that I just want Garen to care about Sidra as much as she cares about him. Oh no. That poor girl. That's it.

That's all I have. You're out of control with your shipping. I'm not shipping. I just want her because I feel like Sidra deserves I'm not saying like better. I just don't think Garen's right for her. Oh my god.

But I want. Okay. I'm done. The next relationship we have is arianne's relationship with tristane get out just go eliana just go just like doran being like tristane you think i'm gonna put tristane in charge instead of you that's it that's that's the extent of that relationship absolutely but what about a about Arianne and Myrcella? We have a lot of Myrcella and Arianne interactions probably to come in the next book. And I know we've had quite a small amount so far. But Arianne really seems to be playing the manipulate card on Myrcella. And it's only going to get worse from here. Yeah, I wish we could see their interactions since the Queenmaker incident. Prior to that,

it seems like Myrcella trusted Arian, that she looked up to her. Arian's a pretty good role model for her versus her other example of female leadership being her mother. Probably a better role model even than Margaery. Although I imagine that Arian's plot's failure probably soured her relationship with Marcella. I mean, she probably liked her ears. Nah. I want to ask for a second. Why do you think that Ariane would be a better role model than Marjorie?

Well, so, like, you have to put Marjorie from the show out of your mind because we see a lot of Marjorie from the show. Sure. out of your mind because we see a lot of Marjorie from the show. Sure. In the books like she's she feels to me like just sort of another piece. I feel like her family is kind of

giving her a role to play and I feel like she's a little boring. I could see that. She's very puppet like definitely. Right. Arian's like strong. Yeah she's a character. She's very puppet-like, definitely. Right, Arian's strong. Yeah, she's a character. She's got her own mind.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think regarding this relationship, even after all these things, though, it's interesting because you talk about Arian's folly. Somehow, Myrcella still goes along with this lie that Arian has planned so far as we can see in A Dance with Dragons. that Arianne has planned so far as we can see in A Dance with Dragons and I don't know why Myrcella does this like damn she must have a lot of trust in Arianne to do that well is she gonna undo all this in King's Landing it would be strange for her to wait until then to do it but I don't know very interesting yeah absolutely and then finally that brings us to another relationship of arianne and ariohota we're actually not gonna talk about this because we want to have things to talk about

in arioh's chapters so we're gonna just sum this up as like little princess and that's about it yeah yeah i can't wait to get to those chapters we're not doing them for a while but it'll be fun it's not too long a while from now it's not four years from now just to give people a hint I hope there are people out there I hope it's like Corey Hoisington on Twitter

out there with a calendar just like trying to mark like okay like they're making their own graph off of if they said this then this means this like like me with my ashara dane charts this is their baths every other day moment you know exactly i hope people on twitter aren't keeping track of every time i bathe me either god i don't want them to know that them to know that so moving on to some other characters that we can talk about in the context of area and part of what i love about a feast for crows is i feel that it's incredibly thematically

cohesive because a george cherry picked the chapters that we're going to go in here and it's it's about westeros right it's also the book that has the most feminine POVs and it shows how each of them are learning or grappling with power and so a noteworthy introduction to a character that we finally get as a POV in Feast is Cersei and I know that Fatwalda here has some ideas on comparisons between Arianne and Cersei we've touched on a few of them throughout this cast but like let's take a little Circe. And I know that Fat Walda here has some ideas on comparisons between Ariane and Circe. We've touched on a few of them throughout this cast, but like, let's dig a little more into that. Oh boy, do I. Am I gonna just, am I gonna just talk for 10 minutes? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, girl. Yes. There's so much to talk about. Get it, Fat Walda, get it. Okay, so, so Feast for Crows, I read the books through all five of them in the span of six weeks.

And so I'm rolling right along, you know, a storm of swords, like, you know, you're rolling downhill, all this stuff starts happening, you get to a Feast for Crows, and it literally felt to me like I hit a brick wall. And I really appreciate the book, but it was just so different. And there were all these new characters. But Cersei, like the Cersei chapters, that's what I lived for. Like, that's why I kept digging into these books. And I love to hate Cersei. I think her chapters are a real insight into what's going on in her brain and why she is the way she is. So I was thinking one day about Arian and how similar Arian and Cersei are to each other. So to begin with, their family structure is the same. So Cersei and Arian both have absent mothers. Cersei's mom, obviously, Joanna, she's dead. She died birthing Tyrion. Cersei reflects on this a lot in the books. Arian's mother, Malario, has had sort of a separation from Doran.

She's voluntarily chosen to return to her native Norvos. Interestingly enough, Arianne doesn't think about her mom very much. I wouldn't say as much as Cersei thinks about Joanna, but definitely their mother's influences are not really in their lives. Cersei and Arianne both strive to be worthy of being their father's heir. This is despite the fact that to be worthy of being their father's heir this is despite the fact that they often chafe at their father's expectations of them Cersei and Arion both have an intense jealousy of their younger brothers which plays into negotiating this role of power and women in politics and society I would say the biggest difference is that Arion of course is entitled by law and tradition to inherit the principality of Dorne.

So her insecurity stems from her good evidence that her father is planning to pass her over in favor of Quentin. Cersei, on the other hand, observes from a young age that Jaime is given a sword and taught to fight. And in Cersei's eyes, this is a great injustice because she sees Jaime and Cersei, she sees them as identical, as equals. So Cersei is all the time striving to be equal to Jaime because she feels that she should be, even though she's a woman. Arion is striving to make sure that her brother doesn't take away from her what is rightfully hers. Their political situations are similar. Despite being the rightful heir, Arion acknowledges that the role of highborn women the daughter of powerful men is to make political marriages and both she and cersei seem to be okay

with that um you know they might not like the people who get chosen the best but they acknowledge that that's a role that women play in the society um arian thinks to herself when she gets news of tywin's death that that's a good thing that cersei has assumed the regency for Tommen because that will prime the Seven Kingdoms for having a woman ruler after she crowns Myrcella. Arian frames the Queenmaker plot honestly as a Queenmaker plot and not necessarily as a plot to instigate war, which is obviously a reflection of her own political desires she wants you know westeros and particularly dorn to be uh comfortable and um willing to have a queen or a princess as their ruler um they both use their sexuality for political purposes so i know this has been talked about a lot already with arian so i won't go into detail about their nipples but um oh no that's a nipples get brought up quite a bit yeah that's a patreon episode

they both consciously use their sexuality for political purposes um they use it when they're negotiating sometimes they buy loyalty with it um as cersei does with i don't know whichever of the kettle blacks it is that she yeah um i can't keep them straight so also their reactions to being uh political prisoners are similar they start with anger they end with contriteness again um i think arian grew from her experience and she has this connection now with her father and she has this connection now with her father and she's ready to play the role in politics that she you know can play and cersei um acts contrite but is she really cersei and arian i feel like they have similar personalities

they both are comfortable making kingsguard members break their vows. They like bad boys. They surround themselves with useful friends. However, Arian's friends seem very genuine. They've been friends with her since she was literally born, despite her ultimate betrayal by one of them, presumably. Cersei's friends are pretty much all plotting against her. So while she chooses them to be useful, they are probably all telling on her in some way or another um and i thought this was really interesting this came to me the other day

arian and cersei both do a lot of ruminating about their age so in the books correct me if i'm wrong cersei is in her early 30s because they're she and jamie are younger than ned and cat and ned and cat are in their mid-30s. Cersei is constantly obsessed with not wanting to lose her youth, while Arian, who is in her early 20s, about 10 years younger, is obsessed with wanting to be perceived as mature and not a little princess anymore. I feel like that's a fairly universal thing that George has tapped into there.

I mean... That the 30s start becoming the, oh, I'm not old, right? Yeah. Also, like... Overall, I feel that Arian has a lot of wisdom, but not enough experience. So she's young. She hasn't been around as much as her father has. And so she doesn't, you know, she does a lot of planning.

She does a lot of critical thinking, but she doesn't have the experience to know how things could go wrong. Cersei, in contrast, has the experience. She's been around, but she has no wisdom. And we see this, like, despite Arian's weaknesses at playing Savas, she starts playing more and more as we get into Winds of Winter. She's like kind of trying harder to think about this game and whether she can win it. They joke that she relies too heavily on her dragon and neglects the other pieces. But she is strategic. She puts a lot of thought into her actions.

You know, the Queenmaker plot, the coming up with the lie that marcella has chicken pox like she plans things and she weighs her options and she makes and forms decisions and she's very vexed when things don't go according to her plan whereas cersei you see in the chapter we mentioned earlier in the lightning round where kyburn comes and brings her this report of this news from overseas she doesn't care about anything that's not obviously useful to her so you know if it's not obviously useful then why are you wasting my time oh yes and i feel like they're both a little self-centered i mean they are a queen and a princess so right um but cersei has this active disdain for other people while arian repeatedly says that

she's not meaning to hurt anybody right i mean like she thinks that her dad and her brother are trying to take away her principality and she still doesn't want to hurt them right um you know she's haunted by aries's death whereas cersei is like ew i don't want to think about the awful things that are happening to the people that i gave to kyburn to torture that's you know it makes her uncomfortable because she doesn't want to think about the awful things that are happening to the people that I gave to Qyburn to torture. That's, you know, it makes her uncomfortable because she doesn't want to think about it, not because she actually feels right. Like what up, blue bards nipples? Like, yeah. So with all that, it's almost like, next to there's no other answer that Arianne is the younger, more beautiful queen. George has put these parallels into place to show us that, right? mean george has put these parallels into place to show us that right i think that there's a lot of what is that word i'm looking for candidates candidates options but i mean arian's kind of

set off she set off the start of it by trying to crown marcella as Doran says crowning Myrcella would have taken that that would have basically been a death sentence on Myrcella and whether or not Cersei actually loves her children beyond being extensions of herself even as extensions of herself that's something that Cersei holds dear so well and that's the other thing is their plots are directly connected Cersei her firstborn daughter and her only daughter is sent there so you know Myrcella is directly connected with the Dornish plot and I mean Aegon is going to try for King's Landing whatever happens of that which we will probably discuss next week i mean that's right there their plots are directly connected so it makes sense that i mean next stop king's landing for agon crew so i think it's really interesting that they set up in these arian chapters about how much

dorn and um the reach are you know historic enemies of each other yes i think cersei is so caught up in hating highgarden that she never even stops to think that doran might be plotting against her yep i like arianne so much better than cersei because she has the flaws that cersei has she's not perfect she's working on it but she's not evil and i i guess i have this i have this soft spot for especially female characters that do things that they think are the right thing and then it ends up being the wrong thing she's not malicious it's her mistakes to be honest are less well-intentioned less well-intentioned than Quentin's. But if there were

a scale, and there's not, but if there were a scale, I'd say it's about on par with Quentin's. Like, people still died. Granted, in Ariane's, we just happened to keep following the person who didn't die. Who didn't die in this

scenario. POVs were in this scenario povs were lost povs were made mistakes were made yeah that's a way to describe the plot it's a great way it's good but i i guess i don't know i don't know if i ever get the feeling when i'm reading a Cersei chapter, like, yeah, I want Cersei to win. Yeah. But, like, I feel that way about Arianne. Yeah, like, I mean, she's very, she's confident. She's got insecurities, though, at the same time.

She's very real. She's very fleshed out. Like, she's a woman that especially us as women can relate to, I would say. We can understand those insecurities and, you know, that she has all right yeah another point of view whose journey that we love comparing with arianne is sansa who is in some ways also in a tower by her point of the story so and maybe we won't go all the way into this this week because we are going to talk about it a bit next week in our first Sansa episode. Yeah, we're just going to touch on a few things here. Like, for example, something to keep in mind as we go through Sansa's chapters and her growth. Like, to me, the biggest point of contrast between the two is their relationship with their mentors.

Like, Doran keeps Arianne in the dark about all of his plans and everything that he knows. He just doesn't keep Arianne at his side when he's ruling but on the other hand at this point at this point in their stories definitely not at the beginning you know little finger is ensuring that sans is always in the room whenever he's making big political decisions and then after everything happens and everyone leaves the room he's like do you know why i did that and he's actively teaching her and we also see from arianne's point of view that she's like i at least learned this from doran she only very passively learns from doran just by like watching him and observing there wasn't really like lessons between them on this is how you rule this is how you take care of people though we see that she is knowledgeable about the different houses in the political

situation in Dorne. Which we do see a lot of that with Sansa and Ned of course as well that Sansa is ill-prepared for court at King's Landing and as we've mentioned before doesn't exactly get like the total breakdown like someone like Margaery Tyrell might get with her grandmother after court. Yeah she has the trivia memorized of who is who, but not the context that makes it useful. We were talking earlier about sexuality throughout all of these characters. And of course, there's such a huge age difference and experience gap between Ariane and Sansa, but you see that as Ariane becomes, we see that Ariane's sexuality, of course, is such a big part of how she identifies with herself and that she's thinking about her body constantly in order to think about how she appeals to men.

Whereas for Sansa, you know, this might change a little in later books, like with Wins, but in her earlier chapters, she thinks about how she wants to be pretty for Joffrey. But after the loss of her father and as Sansa starts to become like abused and sexualized by other people, we don't really see her thinking about her body. Yeah, we get the most we get is her talking to Ramda in eerie really about her bastard's breasts you know yeah what is a bastard's breast what elaine stone has dog is that just an any woman who's a bastard yeah literally miranda royce says some crap and she's like she like shames her boobies for being bastard boobies she's like they're nice for a bastards i'm like damn damn arianne would never say that to her cousin she'd be like yeah cuz your bastard's breasts are super nice i wish my breasts were that nice or something yeah she'd probably get

really sad about it too wouldn't you think bastard's breasts would be better than regular yeah they're born of like sin so those boobies are on fire well arianne's will be at least someday what i take all all breasts are equal and dorn. Oh my god. No, that's not true. Some breasts have horned tips, you know, like very responsive brown nipples. Oh, that's true. Which makes those superior. Oh my god, okay. That's a true board.

Never mind. This was our cast. Yes. So coming sometime next week, $5 patrons and up can look forward to a very special REN episode of the Winds of Winter chapters one and two. As Sir Uther said in the Mystery Knight and as Quentin learned firsthand, if you dance with dragons, you must expect to burn. Thanks for listening, you guys. Hey, thanks so much, Fat Walda, for coming on. Yeah, no, thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. This was a blast. Can you tell

everyone one last time places to find you, etc.? Sure. You can find me on the Song of Ice and Fire subreddit and also on Twitter at Fat walda awesome with an underscore fat underscore walda underscore it's very important on all of these mediums by the way don't forget the underscore we will make sure to note it make sure you uh listen in and subscribe to us on itunes google play podbean acast or stitcher you can also send us an email at girls gone canon at gmail.com be Be sure to follow us on all of our social media. We are, of course, on Twitter. And as we said before, we have an iTunes. So please leave us a review.

We like seeing nice things, but also it helps other people find us. Yeah, absolutely. That would be pretty cool. As always, I have been Chloe. You can find me on the internet as at Liza and Arbor on Tumblr and on Twitter.

And I've been Eliana and you can find me as GlassTableGirl with underscores on the Maester Monthly podcast and the Song of ice and fire subreddit thanks so much you guys for listening into girls gone canon have a great day slash night slash whatever i don't know