Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 184 — ADWD Bran II ft. A Thousand Eyes and One Podcast

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Bran and company's journey diverges from the hit HBO TV show that the books are based on when they finally reach the Three Eyed Crow. They're rescued by a "child" and meet someone with a thousand eyes and one... and so do we! Nikki and Tanya from A Thousand Eyes and One Podcast joins us to talk Bran, Hodor, the Others, and of course, their fave: Bloodraven.  Where to find A Thousand Eyes and One Podcast:  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AThousandEyesandOnePodcast/featured   Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThousandEyesOne  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athousandeyesandone/  Website: https://thousandeyespodcast.com/  Background music:  "Vulcan" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of and Fire, episode 184, brand two in A Dance with Dragons, featuring Tanya and Nikki from the Thousand Eyes in One podcast. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. Yes, here for the big introduction to the Three-Eyed Crow. We have a Thousand Eyes in One podcast, and we have both Tanya and Nikki here this week. Hello, hello.

Hi. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. And also for having me not for dinner. Oh my God. Sorry, you heard her. Oh my God. We did say we were having you.

I did hear the pleas of run, Tanya, run. And yet she's still here. We like to say we're a comedy podcast. A comedy and a food podcast. I guess you were the food. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for that. What better time to have you both on?

One, I think this is the first time we're having a SWAF like foursome. I don't think we've had like one guest, but I don't know that we've had in A Song of Ice and Fire 2 for two on two. So this is so exciting. And for Blood Raven, I mean, having you all here, a thousand eyes in one podcast. It's fun. It's fun. I'm i'm excited i'm excited too what's new with the podcast what's been going on i know you've been doing live streams and reading books what uh what's coming up for you we've been doing 30 tuesdays that's our monthly

live stream where we drink 32 ounces of beer and discuss or wine and discuss any show any movie just whatever happens to be on our mind that month we recently did coming to america was our most recent yeah we had a black history month festival so we've done i'm gonna get you suck a love jones coming to america and if we make it on tuesday we're going to do House Party and Don't Be a Menace. Oh, that's so fun. That's great. We'll drop the link below. You all have to go listen in on that. We decided to do 30 Tuesdays as a way for us to cover stuff that's not in the world of Ice and Fire. And that doesn't fall into our speculative fiction book club,

Wine on an Empty Stomach. So this gives us the opportunity to do things that we'd like to do, but like don't have the time to focus so much attention on. Right. Because like if we do a show, when we do it with 30 Tuesday, we don't have to do things that we'd like to do, but like don't have the time to focus so much attention on. Right. Cause like if we do a show, when we do it with 30 Tuesday, we don't have to do like an episode by episode commitment. We can just do just that one live stream and have a bunch of fun. And we always have a guest. So if there's ever one you want to join,

let us know, be a guest. And we can all, we can all drink our 32s and talk shit. And have us for dinner. Yeah. Sounds amazing. I want that. I do. It's a fun

vibe, right? Like every trivia, we're always a fun vibe. And are you guys going to do more in-person trivia now that things have kind of cleared up or more just keeping it only offline? We did an in-person trivia now that things have kind of cleared up or more just keeping it only we'd like to do in-person trivia a couple months ago but we'd like to do uh definitely more in-person trivia it's about finding a good location yeah and management that wants to work with us yeah

we'd really like to go back to our distillery but they have new management who doesn't know us and so and it's been a few years because of the pandemic so it's kind of like having to start all over again with them so hopefully if not there then somewhere else that's easy to get to and the last one was not easy to get to i mean shout out to the stone bridge but white stone is far yeah no matter where you're coming from yeah yeah it was really far but we had a lot of fun and we had really a really good crowd and we miss it we might even do some virtual ones again i don't know they were hard they were really thank you they were really really hard i asked yeah me and eliana were in the side

chat like alone like what is this? I don't know this. I remember being very embarrassed. And some of my, like, teams, I was like, I don't know this. What the fuck is this? Yeah, it really tests people's knowledge. And I was joking to Tanya that I don't know that we'd be able to pass our trivia questions either. Outside of the research that we do.

Yeah, sometimes I go back and i'm like what the fuck i have no idea what the answer to this is and i'm like but i wrote this question it's very humbling i mean i showed up i felt kind of cocky and i was like this is gonna be so fun it'll be a good easy time no stress and i was like what the fuck we had a guy once that boasted about how many trivias he's won for game of thrones the first round we do anagrams and he quit during he quit during the anagrams round which are arguably the hardest one it's like the anagrams are the great equalizer like you don't have to know the books to like right or the or the show to to participate just unscramble some letters but he dropped out the first round.

And we were like, okay, bye. I agree. The anagrams are like the one that I'm like, maybe I could do this. That's the one where you start out with a little bit of hope. And then you go to the next one. I'm like, oh, fuck. But then Pictionary pulls it all back together, right?

That's true. That one I feel like I can do, right? That one, that's amongst my strengths. If I'm the one Pictionary-ing, right? If I'm the one guessing, I don't know. I feel that. I'm good at the Pictionary-ing. Pictionary-ing. Depiction-ing. Depiction. Yeah, my Piction is great. Yeah, any other books coming up also on Wine on an Empty Stomach? Yes. We just did the world we make

nk jemisin's uh sequel to the stevie camp but yeah tanya i think you're right good luck girls yeah we're gonna do good luck girls we also talked about possibly doing tress of the emerald sea but it's too soon because i'm only 60 through and it's march now pretty much so i'm getting ready for that next book to drop oh god i'm so excited are you guys brandon sanderson fans i am yeah i i read the stormlight series wait is it is it coming out already he wrote four secret novels right uh in 2020 and they're being released now that's what's up that's and i was like oh my god i can't believe he wrote so many yeah i was like bro don't you have a family yeah yeah it wasn't until i realized that his wife works in

his company that she's probably encouraging him to write well yeah i think he said he wrote he originally wrote it for her and then she was like you need to share this which is so cute that's what's up that is you know some people had some really productive pandemics and I'm happy for that. I love that for you. I'm really happy for that. Yeah, I love that for them. Love that for you, Brandon. XOXO.

I pretty much ate food and got pregnant. So not. I guess it could be considered productive. You made a whole person. You made a whole person. Literally, that's the most productivity right there i made cheetos go to my stomach i don't know anything i don't think i did anything we did this we did girls gone canon which was fun is uh continuing to be fun as long as eliana says i have to. Look at all the fun we're having.

My favorite Game of Thrones quote. Well, we're so excited to have you on. We'll leave some links below for you to follow up on A Thousand Eyes and One. We'll do a little housekeeping and get into the episode. I'm excited to chat on the episode with you. So before we get into all of that, first things first, Patreon episode for February. If you're listening to this episode, it should already be out. You should already have it if you're in the stranger tier and above at patreon.com slash girls gone canon, C-A-N-O-N. That episode was the mystery night, which is a blast. I am so excited for you all to hear this episode over at patreon because

you know we we birthed this podcast off of night of the seven kingdoms it was born was uh a whole entire idea that we had all because of drunk and egg and here we are finishing up the published work so far uh next this uh next Patreon episode is to be announced, so stick around. You'll hear that in the following couple weeks. Yeah, Drunken Egg has somehow become very sober since then. We've

changed. But also, a couple of other things that we have that are fun is this month, March, at the end of the month, our final week, we will be discussing Sailor Moon. We are kicking off our coverage of Sailor Moon Crystal. So again, everyone, the new series that started airing in like the 2010s, so I think 2017, right, was or so was when Sailor Moon Crystal season one dropped and not the 90s anime because there's a lot more episodes of that.

And a lot of it was Monster of the Day because things were different back then when we aired things. Yeah, it's still fun to watch. Like I definitely recommend watching the old one. However, it's kind of like Fullmetal Alchemist style, right? Brotherhood versus the original run. I guess most people would rather watch Brotherhood

because it's a little more accurate to the manga in some ways and just a little swifter in delivery and pacing is really good so I really am liking it however I did notice something through season one so far that you mentioned Eliano because we were talking about when I mentioned delightfully how I like the graphics and you were like sometimes there's this moment in one of the final battles where it's like, I don't know, it's like dolls in headlights, right? Like what happened to the, it was very funny. I can't wait to chat about it. The budget.

Yeah, there's a moment. The budget. It always, everything always comes down to the budget with all of these, so. Yeah, I will, we'll talk more about that in March. For certain, for certain. And of course we will be having our Discord happy hour and brunch for patrons in the Thunder tier and above.

Just icebreakers hanging out. Sometimes we play Jackbox games. Check out our Patreon for that information when it's going to drop. And we'll also let you know what date it will be soon on the podcast. Probably in this same spot next week or the week after. Once more, we are not going to share our emails. We keep pushing it back. I'm sorry.

George does it too with his book. So I think we're allowed. We will be covering Maddie's essay on Bloodraven next week. Promise. We have to because it's the last branch after. All 18 parts of it you know all 27 pages every time i speak about it it grows i don't know if you've noticed that but grows in the telling just like yes yes maybe the song of ice and fire were the emails we received all

wow george emailed that means geie Mail does the Winds of Winter everyone. JK, I wish. Look under your chair. Look in your spam folder. Just kidding. Well, without further ado, this brings us to our lightning round which, of course, will be covering the chapters that we missed between Bran 1

Adabada and Bran 2 Adabada and I'm going to start it off with Tyrion 2. Illyrio has ascended the Bachelor and the Bachelorette to create his hot new dating program, the Dragon. Why is this British spelling? I don't know what's wrong with me, I was drunk. The Merchant's Man, contestant number one on the Dragon. Quentin begins his journey on the adventure in hopes of coming home a winner with his own bachelorette.

John, too. Our next contestant on the dragon is too busy managing a failing penal colony to attend. But don't worry, he's dying to meet Daenerys. Tyrion, three. Tyrion isn't quite sure if he's going to be a contestant on the dragon yet, but he has a chance to meet our next contestant, young Griff, and the father of the groom, old Griff. Davos won. Davos will not be watching the dragon, nor will he be competing. He is far too busy smuggling himself from Sweet Sister to White Harbor.

John 3. At Castle Black, a pretender is burnt, and another seems like they will burn out. Ooh, Daenerys too. In Meereen, our Bachelorette faces stressful times. Attacks by the Harpy's son, Quaithe's warnings, and of course, traitors in her very own court. Reek one. Things are bad. They really are.

Not great. Not great. How's it hanging, Theon bad game of thrones birthday classic and finally we come to bran 2 in a dance with dragons after seeking this cave for like two and a half books bran and company must pass a treacherous field of whites. This launches us into Bran 2, where we have a great passage at the front. Something about the way the raven's scream sent a shiver running up Bran's spine. I am almost a man grown, he had to remind himself. I have to be brave now.

But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants. Monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind.

So the opening of this chapter circles us back around to that first Bran chapter, where the air is full of fear, right? Then Ned's all like, that's the only time a man can be brave, when you're afraid. So Bran has to face it and be brave. I think it's really interesting with those ideas of what it means. He's all like, I'm almost a man grown, and I'm like, no, you're not. Like you're single-digit age.

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I'm like, I have been a grown person, and that was not grown. I promise. And how Bran really has all this pressure. Like, he feels like he has to live up to all these Westerosi, like, extremist patriarchal ideals of, like, masculinity. And that means having to be brave despite being a child

and feeling like he is failing those ideals so i thought that was really interesting i've only read through the series once and doing a reread is on my to-do list of things to this year so i hadn't read this chapter since the first time i read it and immediately something that i kept picturing is like oh my god this is way scarier than immediately something that I kept picturing is like, oh my God, this is way scarier than it was portrayed in the show. This is like this entire chapter is horrifying. And it starts like, you know, just starting out, but the air was cold and full of fear.

It made me remember how much I love George's writing because I've been away from it for so long. It's funny you say that because when I was reading it, I was like, oh my God, i would love to see this on screen i do feel that way though like a lot of it yeah that's a good point like they kind of played it more action sequence right than horror yeah it wasn't really at all and leaf was like throwing fireballs. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you just like also just the reminder that Bran is so young. He is so young. You know, it's like on one hand, they've got him.

He's trying to prove to himself that he needs to be grown up and that he's a man grown. And he's like survived all these things up until this point. So he's just got to suck it up and continue to be brave. But then you have him, you know, very soon crying like a little girl over the slain elk that they had to eat his friend yeah he's like that's his friend nine so yeah i'm like i would have been i don't think i would have been dead i wouldn't have made it absolutely even the um even that language there of the shadows right the shadows have come back

as something swallowing and chasing them and it makes it just so much literally so much darker I think that's something I really like in horror and in sci-fi tropes too where usually like if you're escaping a enemy that's somehow like magical when the light's out

it's not a good point not great things are not good things are bad in regards to that future where i don't know hopefully things are not as who knows i don't know but you were talking about the trees being twisted right and and there's language here that has the trees like bowing which i thought was interesting very the personification that they're really doing with uh this environment where the trees are bowing to like also buried from root to crown and that language of royalty then being tied to the trees especially when you think about it in the context of brand's future where you know he's gonna be like i guess a baby tree but also maybe king there's a lot of that in this chapter.

I'm noticing. I'm really glad you pointed this out. I don't think I even thought of it this way. That's great. I hadn't considered that either. I don't always know if I'm like, is this a thing? Or is George just like, is he being like, hee hee hee, having fun while he's writing? Or is he just like, I don't know.

He's like, pay attention. Being evocative. That's important. He could just be, I don't know. He's like, pay attention. Being evocative. That's important. He could just be, yeah, being dramatic. He's always being dramatic, first of all. I think another thing that makes that portion really scary is that Summer's afraid too. Yeah. Because we're so used to the direwolves being the ones who are brave and, you know, ready to go fight.

But instead, Summer is afraid. And if summer's afraid the fuck yeah supernatural puffy it's shaking in his boots the ranger draws his sword they are near the wolves are close to hodor has basically turned into a human icicle and no one knows how jojen's doing but spoiler not great Coldhand says they must climb it will be dark soon and they have to be inside before the night falls their warmth will draw them removing the name of the enemy makes it so much more chilling here right that they won't say who it is that they don't talk about who but and that's like through the whole first part here I

feel like George is like really coyly not saying who they are even though we all kind of have an idea that it's the white yeah that just made me think of it i don't watch scary things so i was gonna say any context but i've only seen the one okay so it is a murderous clown that lives in a sewer and everyone just calls it it and it makes it kind of extra scary because it doesn't it's this thing that doesn't have a name you just know that it murders children and it's just called it and then the book and the movie i think are both just called it so when he says the warmth will draw them it's like them who you know yeah there's not naming it makes it makes it really really scary yeah because when you know his name...

Because it's the fear of the unknown. Yeah. Exactly. That's a great point. I was going to say, now that you say that, knowing that his name is Pennywise, it's not as scary. Yeah, his name's Pennywise, but nobody calls him Pennywise. They just say, it is coming. That is really interesting.

Yeah, like how, you know know this idea that names have power but also that it can dispel power as well when you can name something we don't really know much about them right it's it's interesting so i thought like any sort of little tidbit we get on how they work is interesting like of the warmth drawing them and that they're drawn to warmth because we aren't really told what they're after no that's so sad and knowing that the warmth draws them means there's no way at all to hide oh that's a good all you can do is try to outrun the true song of ice and fire right like humanity is warm that's what makes us human is that like different warmth between us and a white. Us being characters in the book.

I know that the whites aren't real, but just defending myself there. Just in case. But it's also like kind of sad though, right? Like the whites didn't ask to be made whites. I don't know why I'm like constantly, I feel like I got to defend them a little there because I'm like, their lives are probably really cold. It's really shitty. Of course they want warmth. Or they're trying to get, I guess, like seek life from them or I don't know.

And but yet fire, they don't, they only go for like living warmth, right? Because the fire obviously is bad for them as we see again later. So I guess the warmth is more so to track life. It's not necessarily the warmth that they're seeking but life that they're seeking like the predator yeah yeah that's what that's great yeah a white predator would be a sight to watch some scary shit i'm sure there's fan art there's got to be fan art remember everyone was making fan art about whites with anything oh yeah mid journey probably have all kinds of stuff cooked up for you if you throw that in there. yup mid journey predator white

hd 4k realistic gameplay. so this is the only reasonable way in and the path ahead looks clear it looks so echoes the ranger darkly.. Mira suggests that they are inside the cave, but the ranger says that the cave is warded halfway up between the weirwoods and the rock. Ravens fly in and out of the entrance. Bran can see it, but Mira cannot quite see it. Oh, Bran's got really good eyesight. The hill is steep,

thickly wooded, and still filled with snow, though no footprints are in the snow, Bran points out, and the ranger says the white walkers go lightly on the snow, that they'll find no prints to mark their passage and this is really dumb on me i never noticed until like this read through that this is probably why they were called the white walkers because they like tread on top of the snow leaving no prints behind ones who walk upon the white i never noticed that yeah i never thought about that either i'd say this all reminds me of the prologue of a game of thrones it's just like except now i kind of like you know what you're dealing with but you still have so much like so little

information about them that your hackles are up because you're like okay well these people are here and all the other signs that i've seen before you know the air being colder than cold and and just the silence that's happening yeah that's so ominous incredibly creepy i love that and cold hand saying that it looks clear like the way i read that too is another thing that's just like really creepy because it's like what do you mean it only looks clear like what's what's up there that's a good point there's something interesting about him holding back the information right like he and brand both kind of seem to know what lies ahead but again if you say it out loud it probably really kills the morale right it really fucks that morale right yeah i mean it

doesn't make me want to run toward the cave right personally yeah it's like slugging my dying brother exactly it's like i can only just see that instilling fear and paralysis. It's like after you, and you've been through so much already that like, why wouldn't they be real at this point, you know? Even if you didn't believe, like just why not? Also, if maybe they don't want to like manifest them being there.

So at this point, they probably believe in it. But if you, maybe if I don't talk about it, it won't happen. I get that. As lately I've been like, I don't talk about it it won't happen i get that as lately i've been like i don't know people will say things i'm like please stop manifesting this right yeah do not yeah crash the car because you have manifested it right so yeah they could just be like let me just not even say at least in brand's case i i think that for the ranger it's probably something different but i think for brand it's like if i just don't say it maybe it won't be true it's going back to his little boy mindset uh-huh and i like kind of

what you were saying nikki about how it's similar with the prologue right because i feel like we've been given all of this world building and lore since the very first prologue and these continual prologues and epilogues and little things that give us a little more about the world, not from our main characters. And now all of it is finally reaching our main characters, right? So we already have the context and now we're surrounding that context on Bran and Jon and all these characters.

And it's kind of cool. It's a smart way to world build. As you were saying that I was thinking about too, is that there's a sense in both of those, like in this chapter both those products of because of the way that George shifts who's talking chapters i feel very much like there's somebody else you know outside telling me the story who could like who could have reported back this person this person said this they're doing this now um and that makes it even creepier yeah and now anytime there's a goddamn bird north of the wall i'm'm like, what? Blood Raven. Blood Raven's watching.

That and Pale Mist. He's out there. That's I, number 960. Blood Raven, not the con. I hope that's their name. No, I haven't considered that. You were saying something earlier about how Bran knows what they are, right? He knows what's out there,

but isn't telling other people. And it comes back again to like, Jojen and Meera don't really know it because they didn't care or like grow up with these stories whereas like bran was like a huge nerd about all of like these different stories about you know history or the monster tales from old nan so he's like oh god they're all true yeah but that must be so frightening. Like, these childhood stories that were told to you just to be, like, a fun, spooky thing. Like, imagine finding out that your favorite horror movie is real. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I almost threw up. Or imagine finding out Hop on Pop is real. Hop on Pop. Oh, the horror. I'm going to read you guys a rhyme. A new book.

Poor Pop. Oh, no. oh the horror i'm gonna read you guys a new book poor pop a raven had settled on cold hands's shoulder they kind of decreased in quantity over the last few days so the flock that was following him is a little less which kind of shows some of that moving around by those burbs where they're going come the bird squawked come come come the three-eyed crow thought bran the green seer i found this line so interesting on this read through because since we know it's blood raven and considering we know how many targaryens have had dragon dreams historically it kind of puts that thought of like what is the real difference of dragon dreams and green dreaming or are they one in the similar or one in the same or connected somehow right does blood raven also have dragon dreams possibly i kind of thought they were the same and just one calls it and also the

targaryens you know they kind of sometimes think that they're magical so they think that they're the only ones who have these dreams so of course they're dragon dreams but everywhere else where people have them or at least in Westeros and yeah they call them green dreams I would think that they're the same yeah I feel like they're the same pool and now and now that he's north in the north he's learned about green seers and those things and probably just stopped calling them dragon dreams because they're green dreams. They're not just for dragons.

They're for everybody. Yeah. What if they're for green dragons specifically, like Rhaegal? Or like Vhagar. That's right. We got confirmation on Vhagar's color recently, didn't we? Yeah. Very green.

They're all cold and hungry, and it's time to make the ascent. Meera tells them to go ahead while she tends to Jojen, eyes closed, shivering violently, colorless as the snow. Meera carried him all the way, and Bran tells himself food and fire will fix him, but he's not really that sure that it will.

Meera directs Hodor to take Bran first, since she can't fight and carry Jojen with this steep of a climb. And Bran says Jojen needs to eat. It's been 12 days past since the elk collapsed for the final time and Coldhands had to slit its throat. Bran wept like a little girl when the bright blood came rushing out. He'd never felt more like a cripple than he did then, watching helplessly as Mira, Reed, and Coldhands butchered the brave beast who had carried them so far. He told himself he would not eat, that it was better to go hungry than feast on a friend. But in the end, he'd eaten twice, once in his own skin and once in Summer's.

The steep climb, I was thinking about how they said it was a thousand yards, right? And in order to like put that in context for me that's going around a track and field track four times and then halfway so four and a half time but and they're doing that all uphill so like a thousand yards is not that short a distance it's a little over a mile and you're going uphill carrying a person listening out for whatever starving cold and worried about them yeah i recently like not a mile i guess i don't think it was a mile maybe it was a mile it was uphill and it was a struggle i didn't have anything on me it was a struggle and i was like man i really wish that i had had a protein bar before this hike but imagine like doing it starving i'm like i cannot i was so hangry and i

was like what am i gonna eat after this i couldn't do it yeah i just i'd be dead i just had to google my math was off a hundred yards in a football field so it's 10 football fields uphill yeah which is i would just you know i'll just give up i told somebody the other day i'm gonna survive a zombie apocalypse but i don't know if i do it running uphill in the snow so maybe i take that back but something that that sticks out to me is just like coming back to again his mindset is like you know being childish he's like a food and a fire like how many times has he probably heard somebody repeat that you know say that to somebody else a food and a fire will fix him right up food and a fire will fix him right up you know he's like he just needs to eat

that that'll solve everything um it's just a very naive perspective when you know they need way more than food and a fire they need protection they need all the things it's kind of sad because with that context like for him it's the opposite right if bran really is possibly cannibalizing his friend or anyone to be able to scry and use his powers stronger powers like it's kind of fucked up that for bran it does matter like for bran eating could change everything but for jojen his fate is sealed that motherfucker's about to die it's over like there's no elk no quote-unquote pig that's gonna put him right at this point pig quote yeah what you're saying about jojen right like that's his friend and bran i don't know if he has like

it in him especially right now to to kill a friend right someone you cared about and we can see that like with his reaction to the elk. He's like, that was our friend. And I do think that's kind of really what's at the heart of a lot of this story. And that includes Night King's story and the idea of the things I do for love. What Night King did in regards to his, I guess, corpse bride and what he did to keep her, king did in regards to his i guess corpse bride and what he did to keep her but also like how his own brother who has to put him down i guess and defeat him for everything that he's doing like that's that seems real difficult and painful that he would have to do that and then he weeps watching someone kill an animal this elk that he considered a friend, but he had to show no emotion when Ned beheaded

an actual human in front of him, someone who was running from them. And then that he's not allowed to show that emotion, and he thinks of it as weeping like a little girl. And I guess that comes... I'm not faulting Bran for this. This is what his society has taught him, right? It's a common phrase even in our own world when it comes to patriarchal societies and how it asks for that repression of emotion but i think there's kind of an irony to it when we've seen a lot of little girls throughout this series who weren't permitted to weep when people that they cared for died right like aria wasn't given that chance when it came to to ned aria's had a lot of friends die. Or Daenerys, you know, cries in the moments beforehand, but she doesn't really have a chance to show that grief

after having killed Drogo or... Right, she has to be strong for the people following her. Yeah, she has to show strength and exert strength to show herself as a leader in a very hyper-masculine culture. Well, Catelyn, like even a grown--ass woman, too, to put it there. Like, that one passage she has, when she's like, I just want to cry. I just want to weep and be small and fucking cry.

It's hard. And, yeah, I don't know. Maybe George should have written, like, a 30-year-old woman. Because I cry all the fucking time. I actually cry more as an adult than i did yeah as a child yeah and it's like normal like it just shit just leaks out of my eyes and i'm like don't know why that's happening but we're just gonna move on a little stress cry get it out of your system like my friend's shirt i forgot the exact phrasing of it but it's like i'm really

awesome and i cry a lot the whole package the whole package i should use that as an affirmation really awesome and i cry a lot and i cry a lot not but it's important not to have like the but but i cry no it's and i cry a lot no it's yeah yeah it's what we're doing in 2023 ladies we're crying more and accepting it Shout out to the shower cry For real Just pretend you're in an R&B video The rain falling and just cry your eyes out Oh my god No just me I'm more of a seated in the shower cry

I like a good pillow Scream cry Blanket cry I'm really into a couch blanket cry you do that one a couple times a week yeah you got to do the shower cry with a glass of wine it is yes impeccable epic my friend got me a shower wine speaker bluetooth speaker so it holds your glass of wine while you're in the shower but also plays music oh yeah i need that's cool and it actually sounds really good too much better than i expected how do you feel okay this is very random How do you feel, okay, this is very

random, how do you feel about the prospect of the water falling into your wine though? I remember struggling with that with shower beers. I have it on the back half of my, not next to the thing, I have it on the back wall when I put it in there. Okay. I have a little table just

outside my shower and I just rest it there. To hold it? Yeah. To keep it out of the way I'm not good at like taking showers pleasurable like enjoying them like I'm like a really fast shower so for me I'm like I just drank it before I got in the shower

pre-game the shower I've heard I'm sorry I'm still off topic I've heard eating an orange in the shower is a very pleasurable experience something about the orange the oil the citrus oil

refreshing that's on my to do list that I would try going for oranges after this that's what I brought for all of you today where's the rain stick for that the shower hold on hold on yeah we perfect we we did it intentional eat that orange

imagine your teeth sinking into the juicy goldness of the orange as the water drips down your body. Is this an ASMR? I think we do ASMR now. Switch. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Fuck.

Oh, man. So, yeah, where were we? We were talking about little girls and big girls crying oh yes eating friends bergie lied yeah eating friends not oranges meats the meat different meat i think it's just like he talks about feeling helpless even more like is even more of a cripple but i feel like he's physically incapable of moving on his own he's emotionally incapable of kind of processing all the things that are happening and i think it's just that that sense of helplessness you kind of see it except for within cold hand with cold hands but you kind of get to see that hat be donned by everybody in this scene just like i don't know that i can actually continue and go on this might this might be where

you lose me yeah there's something to like he's going back and forth with his inner state right and by being in summer being in hodor being in other creatures i feel like he kind of is like lost between being bran the boy and summer the wolf and the animal right like with the elk for him now that he's like understood this level of life right like living through the eyes of another and and controlling their body and like seeing so many things and being able to to see outside of himself now like this is really wild like very body horror in this chapter specifically when he sees himself laying there like half dead it's so body horror but he almost seems to really understand and connect with animals now a lot more like i'm not talking eliza thornberry completely but you know he's very

he's really upset about eating the elk because he understands what the elk has done for them and where in the circle of life the elk currently is and that the circle of life is fucking over for the elk. It's probably going to be a lot easier for him to connect with animals than humans. Yeah. Reindeer are better than people. Exactly. That's what I said.

Thank you. Yeah. It's exactly what I meant. By Frozen, which is actually not that dissimilar story if you think about it from what we're going through right now. I guess it's like eating like having to eat your pet. Yeah, actually though.

They did it twice. Yeah, which Bren overkill. Summer had me too. He ate the elk twice. So it's like you didn't feel that bad. Well, maybe it was almost

penance, right? Fine, if we're gonna eat of it, I better go be present both times for everything it did for us. Rip elk. Did he have to be in summer, though, the time that he did it? Yeah, that's a choice. Yeah, because it's not like

summer would have passed on the elk. If left to summer was waiting the whole time right summer's like no no no yeah i'll just take more snow please no summer was trying to eat that elk from like the beginning right that is interesting he didn't have to be in summer for that you know maybe that's just a little bit exactly a little bit of selfish selfish or childishness. That ranger knows how to cook some elk.

And some pig. And some alleged pig. It's kind of another level of self-delusion. You're eating it as summer and yourself but you're not really getting to eat it the second time. You're just tricking yourself into thinking that you've had more food than you actually had.

Feeding his soul. That's interesting, yeah. Or enjoying the taste, but trying not to be greedy. Yeah, there you go. It's like, no second helping for me, I'll just do a switcheroo. He was actually being polite. The steak lasts seven days that's actually like a whole week

that's not too bad for that elk they really made that ration go but Jojen has only become more gaunt and Coldhands takes Hodor by the arm commanding they move before they arrive and Hodor plows through the snow drifts Summer and Coldhands are stalking

behind them Bran watches Mira lift jojen to his feet he is too heavy for her but she starts to struggle upward all the same up that thousand yard hill which grows deeper and they almost fall a few times ravens are flapping all around them giving them the ambiance passing them going into the cave and they're finally about 80 yards away and summer stops starts sniffing the air and begins to snarl something something's wrong brand tells hodor to wait cold hands keeps climbing hodor decides to keep moving against brand's wishes and pale mist fills the air they're 60 yards away now and Hodor causes a mini snow avalanche behind them. Craning his neck,

Bran sees a fire ahead in the cave and calls out, and Hodor screams, twisting, stumbling violently, and Bran feels the world slide sideways, mouth full of blood. Something has his leg, and for a moment,

Bran's like, it's a root. Until it's not a root, it's a hand, and the rest of the white reveals itself sorry I'm laughing I was gonna just say what Tanya said

before is like man I would have loved to see that depicted on the screen it's so real though if only someone would have covered this series and done a show on it. Someone, please do it. But actually, though. Somebody else is what I really meant.

If only. That's right. They didn't even really have cold hands like that. Yeah. No, they had Benjen. Yeah. This is way scarier. Yeah.

Comparing it to the show, it being Benjen is not that scary. It's his uncle. Yeah. Like, it's no big deal. I agree. It being this creature with black hands that is apparently dead because you don't see any breath coming from him. And he never eats and he never sleeps. That's far more terrifying because the whole time you have to wonder, even though it seems like he's on my side, like, what is his egg doing?

Exactly. Especially because he's all like, oh, yeah, that's right true i am a monster i'm your monster so you're just following the monster yeah like you didn't have to make this worse it was already scary bro yeah and it's just like just understand like imagining what hodor's terrified scream sounds like. Because we've heard him do lots of stuff. But a scream of pure terror in a Hodor voice is just, oh man, makes me shiver. Oh, I would have loved to hear that. Yeah.

All right. I got to redo this myself. Yeah, I actually thought about screaming just now. It's so funny because Tanya knows that i regularly have dreams about the world of ice and fire and like in my dreams i've re basically refilmed everything and then it makes sense the way that i think it should it happens like i've seen the end to game of thrones like 16 times and it was like it's always different or it's like a you know it'll be something like this scene would be in my dream and And I'm like, oh, this is what should have happened.

And it's very rude, I suppose, for it to take that stance. But I feel strongly about it. My brain's like, no, we could do better. You're the real puppet master. You're having green dreams. We're trying to dream. Reading it, it's just so easy. The way it's written is so easy to visualize it.

Yeah. It's so irritating. The world slides sideways. Mouthful full of blood hodor thrashing sideways something has his leg like that's so scary and disorienting your heart effectively disorienting because you're just like ah and disorienting like i imagine yeah i'm picturing it picturing just seeing everything turning as, you know, as you fall with this behind this giant person. You know, imagine if they had showed it from his point of view. Oh, that would be so cool. Camera angle.

That would have been really cool. Yeah. You just see tumble like something, you know, the world, the ground is up again. It's just like going down. The camera just like spinning with just screaming happening and hands coming out of nowhere. So much more dimensional. Or also like from Bran, I mean, if it were also even from Bran's perspective, right?

Like you, you're here for this ride. Yeah. There's not much you can do. You were talking about that helplessness earlier. Yeah. Yeah, and then suddenly, oh, it's a hand. Oh, God. And, yeah, I mean, like, you know, the language here. I like how it emulates those first few Bran chapters again in the first book,

where it's like, oh, and we're climbing. It's like, hmm, interesting. I feel like climbing is something that Bran has a lot of trauma about, and for him to, again, be helpless and be unable to do it here but uh Hodor is the one climbing but Hodor also kind of Bran acting as though Hodor is an extension of himself uh more and more and then triggering those memories for him in the fall the fall that's also you know a traumatic triggering experience for him too so hodor kicks out the wipe but it doesn't seem to feel it because you know zombies and shit they grapple and claw sliding down the

hill and snow fills brand's mouth in half a heartbeat he too is sliding something slams into his head whether it's a rock or a dead man he cannot tell and he finds himself sprawled on the hillside spitting snow and his hand is full of Hodor's hair. I think he's even, like, being a little squished, too. Brand cake. A little brand cake. Yay! And poor Hodor.

Brand cake. Oh, God. Some Jojen syrup on top. I'm saying poor Hodor is going through all of this while also having his hair snatched out of his head. You know? Yes. Yes. So it's like he's experiencing the same fear as Bran, but also Hodor is more childlike.

So it's probably even scarier. And then on top of that, someone's ripping his hair out of his head. That's true. And remember, the whites grabbed Hodor. They didn't grab Bran's ankle. They grabbed Hodor's ankle. So imagine if we had it from Hodor's perspective. Well, I guess it would just be a chapter of Hodor, Hodor, Hodor.

But also, if they grabbed Bran's leg, he wouldn't have felt it. Right. I was thinking that, yeah. That's a good point. All around him, whites were rising from beneath the snow. Two, three, four. Bran lost count. They surged up violently amidst clouds of snow. Some wore black cloaks, some ragged skins, some nothing. All of

them had pale flesh and black hands. Their eyes glowed like pale blue stars. Three of them descended on the ranger. Bran saw cold hands slash one across the face. The thing kept right on coming, driving him back into the arms of another. Two more were going after Hodor, lumbering clumsily down the slope. Mira was going to climb right into this, Bran realized, with a sick sense of helpless terror.

He smashed the snow and shouted out a warning. Something grabbed hold of him. That was when his shout became a scream. Bran filled his fist with snow and threw it, but the white did not so much as blink. A black hand fumbled at his face, another at his belly. Its fingers felt like iron. He's going to pull my guts out. But suddenly, summer was between them. Bran glimpsed skin tear like cheap cloth, heard the splintering of bone. He saw hand and wrist rip loose, tail fingers wr wriggling the sleeve faded black rough

spun black he thought he's wearing black he was one of the watch so this section i thought was an absolute horror movie like that's when his shout became a scream and then you know oh actually not even from there just something grabbed hold of him and it made me think of the lead up to the red wedding in the last few chapters with brandon also the beginning of this chapter you get this ominous feeling that something's gonna happen it gave me on first read, it gave me anxiety because I'm like, they keep talking about them. They like these things that might be out there. And all of this just happens in such quick succession that it's just, it just happened. And you have to kind of go back and read that again because it's like, whoa, what the fuck?

And it reminded me of the lead up to the red wedding because we have all these chapters of cat being nervous being uncomfortable and you you know you start to feel uncomfortable with her and then when the actual massacre starts it all just goes so fast that you can hardly believe what you just read that's a great point i did have to double back. I was like, how is this going down again? Right. It's very, that's such a great point because the chapters leading up to it, nothing really happens. Right. The last five chapters, nothing's technically happened.

They've just kept going. And in the last chapter, you get the rangers having been made into pigs. Magical. Very Cersei hours. Mythology Cersei hours. that they're suddenly now pig but that was like the biggest that was them on their tail the rangers on their tail was kind of that anxiety but we got rid of that one but this is the real problem this is and there's no way to avoid this it's unavoidable right it it was always going to

happen there was always going to be whites eventually in bran's chapter i just never thought it would happen in my being the whites grabbing at his belly like i thought to myself for the soft meat oh the tender meat of course you did yeah that baby back rack yeah the veal the bran as like a human veal, of course. Like straight to the organ meat. I think it's very similar to what when Small Paul was choking. No, it was Oath of Flowers.

Whatever the language was where he's like, his fingers felt like iron. He's going to pull my guts out. It really reminded me of the Small Paul and and the oath of flowers kind of encounters from the beginning do whites get super strength it seems they have like stupid strength right not even super strength like they just have no brain but they have full strength yeah because i don't know to feel like someone is gonna rip your guts out like that's gotta be a wild feeling of someone just like it because like in a way you're not grabbing somebody by their belly you know what i mean that would just be weird definitely i recommend thumbs in the eyes

but that would be really weird to do like to suddenly grab at my belly fat but yeah if you're trying to if you're trying to like stop grabbing my left hand but but this idea i don't know i couldn't get past the white gripping at his stomach like that was something that was very like well gut-wrenching but you know what it is about that is that he's he's saying that he's like the fingers felt like iron but he's not talking about he doesn't say they felt cold right and you're like you'd expect that to be a description that's associated with something that's just popped out of the snow it's just like all you get is the strength it's like when you go to the dentist you might not feel the thing but you just know that this there's a sensation of being pulled apart right um and i

don't know if that has to do with this injury and paralysis but again so scary and then just like it like it's really crazy because it's like you're all these things are happening uh simultaneously and he's in so much danger but then you know george does a really good way of just showing how irrational your mind can be in those situations it's like oh yeah he's he might maybe he was one of the watch like that's not something that like that's a detail that he's noticing as he's being you know threatened to be ripped inside out and oh it's just the things that pop into your mind in a moment of crisis and that he doesn't he notices that this guy used to maybe be part of the watch but he doesn't notice like oh interesting a black hand just like that guy that I'm following.

Right, right. Who still hasn't shown us his face. Seems to be fighting on our side, but I'm curious what color his eyes are. Oh, that's a good call. Probably purple. It's probably a shardane. I'm just kidding, I'm sorry. That's another secret Targaryen.

I am wondering if they do have they don't feel pain but I don't know if they have super strength I wonder if it's like without the holds or something I hear we could bite through our own fingers like a carrot it would be about the same strength but for obvious psychological reasons

that we have a blocker that keeps us doing so so you're saying i could rip someone's guts out i think i could do it um yeah i think so all right i think you could i really i believe in you next fight yeah i think i'm gonna just if i ever get into another fight i think that i will just start touching their belly as just a means of throwing them off yeah just start like because it is the soft meat and it does hurt it's like when you grab the underside of your arm inside of your arm it's so painful and it throws them off think about it like they would never see it coming that's the thing is like what the fuck are you doing to my no well that's how you're supposed

to like protect like you know that's why people get sort of in a hunched position when they're fighting, because you protect those... Your soft meat. Now I'm just thinking of, like, weird things to do in a fight, like, what if you just grab them and kiss them on the forehead? Vary everything everywhere all at once.

Yeah, that's what I was... Actually, as I said that, it made me think of that. You just grab them in a headlock that's a movie we're considering for Dirty Tuesday oh yeah I would love that that's Eliana's fave I've already watched it I don't know

three to four times I guess yeah me too because I have to keep showing it to people yes exactly you should do it with us when we do it let me know I'd be interested I actually really would be interested

I don't want to sound too it's amazing I love it I totally don't care I love it too I also was like telling people to watch it once I saw it Nikki telling people to watch it once I saw it Nikki told me to watch it

and said it was really great I got so excited about it because then other people kept telling me how great it was and I was so excited about it that my husband just bought it for me so I could watch it because it wasn't on streaming yet yeah I bought it too

I was like nope this one I'm gonna own yeah I also did. Yeah, I bought it too. Oh, that's great. I was like, nope, this one I'm going to own. Yeah, I also did that too. And I bought it like so that I could hopefully share it with my friends. But turns out I purchased it for like the Google family in the wrong way. So they could not access it. Oh no. I was like, I'm a big dummy. Yeah.

My first time watching it was on an airplane sitting between my mother and my great aunt which maybe that was not the place to watch it me who cries over everything don't fucking worry about it mom that's so funny has nothing to do with you i watched it on a date and i was like like really quickly into the movie i realized that if this guy didn't laugh at the same places I was laughing, we're not going to make it. He did. It was fun.

Okay. That's good. How did it go? We didn't make it, but he laughed at all the same places. And yeah, that one is a, it's an interesting litmus test.

I was just going to say litmus test. Yeah, that's perfect. it's a good way to date personally you know have you watched this will you watch it how do you laugh how do you yeah you're laughing at the wrong part bro this is over continue so summer flings the armicide biting into the dead man's neck and taking most of its throat out in an explosion of pale rotten meat. Which I think Summer ends up munching on a little later. Yes.

Very interesting. Bran rolls himself away. It's interesting also that they rot while they're zombies. Rolls himself away from the severed, still moving hand, glimpsing the trees above. It's like 50 yards. If he can drag himself 50 yards, they could not get him. And so he begins to crawl a little farther. Then you can rest by the fire. The severed hands thing stood out to me. I was like, oh, that's kind of funny because in this

book, we have a couple of, I would think of them as severed hands, like Tyrion and John Connington. They used to be hands of the king and now they're in exile. But also how a severed hand plays a role in Bran's story. It's what threw him off, you know, that tower while climbing. When you pointed out the tower like redux earlier, I was thinking that because I was like, oh, he was grabbed by a hand. And I'm like, I guess what else was the wight gonna grab him with? But it made me think about Jane. His mouth. It could grab him by the mouth. No, I'm serious. Kiss him in the forehead no i'm serious in the

forehead or it has really long toes just like in the hot dog world you can grab and dexterous night had fallen and cold hand stands hacking and cutting at the circle of white surrounding him summer is tearing at one nearby. No one's watching Bran, who's crawling higher, dragging his legs and himself. He's interrupted in his climb by Hodor, who whimpers below, and suddenly Bran is Hodor, fighting off a wight scratching at his eye. Deep inside, he could hear poor Hodor whimpering still, but outside he was seven feet of fury with old iron in his hand. He wields the sword, taking the wight's head off at the neck, bellowing, Hodor, until a bear of dead hands groped for his throat.

He backs away from the wight, bleeding, and Mira appears, driving her spear into the wight's back. Hodor! Bran roars again, waving her uphill, Jojen twisting feebly where she had laid him. She leads them up the hill, jabbing at wights, keeping them away. Above them there are dancing, flaming figures in the snow, and Bran realizes

someone lit the wights on fire. He ascends the hill, hodoring with each step. He wondered what Meera would think if he should suddenly tell her that he loved her. I love that line because I think a lot of people think it's weird or creepy or off-putting, but I don't know. He's in like a near-death situation right now.

So I think I kind of on this reread, I'm really feeling like there's something near death about this thought for him. Like, what if I just yelled out that I loved her? Doesn't really have anyone else to do this with right now. And I mean, how many girls has he known? Yeah. Her and his sister for the targaryens those are not off limits this is true this is true i thought it was really it was really really sweet and endearing for him to like consider that in this moment he's like oh you know what

maybe maybe i should say you know show my appreciation for this woman who's been along for this ride and he goes from feeling so isolated and lonely to all of a sudden needing to express love to someone before he takes his last breath right yeah and i think it's just it's a very sweet moment to me it's like you want more warmth like how can you feel such warmth through such a terrifying experience especially because it's like i feel the part where they're everybody's kind of on their own it's like no one was paying any any to Bran, right? He crawled, he crawled a little higher, dragging his useless legs behind him. If I can reach that cave, like he, at this point, it's like every man for himself.

And so to go from being so isolated to all of a sudden having it, like I said, a thought of love for someone else and their well-being, or just like the need to express that to me was very telling for him. And there's that difference in brand thinking right while he's in hodor he's thinking as brand but he's speaking as hodor and i felt like that also really stuck out here that he's thinking about how he wants to yell out that he loves her but when he speaks he speaks as hodor because hodor has had some temporal damage right that he's not able to say anything else but his name yeah i was kind of wondering is it is interesting that he can't say other words even as hodor right like that he's still stuck saying only hodor it could be that he hasn't quite mastered warging into humans yet uh there is also, and I do wonder if this is something

related, but there was basically Louis Victor LeBourne had lost the ability to speak, and this is what, ages ago, but he lost the ability to speak and could only say tan. Like, that was the only thing he was able to say, and he'd been

dealing with epilepsy for many years. It basically damaged, I want to say it was like his front temporal epilepsy for many years it basically damaged i want to say it was like his front temporal lobe but that that because of his like what had happened to him with epilepsy that it just and he developed like gangrene at one point which didn't help it i guess and like inflammation to the brain and stuff so it's possible that whatever has happened to Hodor in the past slash future has really made it so he cannot. Because I kind of wonder, does that mean that Hodor has thoughts in a language, right? Obviously he processes language to some extent because they tell him things, etc. And that he has things that he also wants to express and say right and he can't and

it comes out as hodor it's very similar perhaps to like even illin pain's story you know illin pain who clearly has an inner life and thoughts but unfortunately like his tongue was cut out and he's illiterate you know this actually it makes me think of toddlers because they get to a point where their thoughts become more complex but their language hasn't caught up yet interesting and so that's when you get tantrums a lot of times it's just they can't they simply can't express what it is like they feel big feelings but they can't tell you yeah it also reminds me of group that makes sense it's like you have to express it by the way that you say it you know like you get so much

by the way you know the one or two words in your vocab the tone behind them and also not to just do it here because I didn't know to stormlight it but also reminds me of Shallan fighting with her other selves you know the aspects of herself except it's Bran and Hodor

and there's our stormlight reference yeah and not hiding away or maya or maya could be kind of like that too yes the dead eyes in general perhaps we chose like okay i had to do it it's a good moment it is a great excellent moment what is even up I love it so Bran watches Summer snarling at the

thank god like you know Summer's here defending at the swirling flame of man and realizes Summer was driving

the wights away from Bran's body which is still face down in the snow yeah how traumatic what would happen

if it kills me the boy wondered will I be Hodor for good and all will I go back into Summer's skin Yeah, Hodor. Thank you. Very beautiful. Well done. Hodor! That is kind of interesting, right? Like that Hodor then is the one screaming, not him.

Right? And they're both in there. Yeah. A cloud of ravens pours from the cave and for a moment he sees a little girl he thinks is his sister Arya. Which makes no sense because she's a thousand leagues away or worse, dead. And we have this lines of tears filled Hodor's eyes and froze there. And I don't know, that line just fucking kills me. I don't know why. Well, it's sad.

Hodor right now. First of all, it could be Hodor crying, feeling Bran's feelings, making Hodor's body cry. But also Hodor whimpering inside his own mind and being frightened at what's happening around him, but also what's happening to him. Because we know that he gets afraid when Bran wargs into him. Fucked up, Bran. It is. So it's like this, it's the fear that you've lost control of your body. Someone's taken over your body and your mind is still there hiding in a little box being terrified. And also you're being attacked by these scary monsters that you didn't know for sure were real.

And then also you're seeing Bran possibly dead because he's just laying there face down in the snow so once again i feel for hodor the most he is going through it i feel like he just described my pmdd mood big mood that was like like literally it for word for word yeah i think like he's terrified it's like there's this terror like this existential terror of knowing that you might not make it and you're not in control you're not even in control of your own body uh but also it's like if i had to be very symbolic about it right it's like these the the things which he sees out of it's like it's frozen now it's like paralysis like it's locked in this moment of whatever he's seeing. And for me, it made me wonder if we'll get, like, a future paragraph that's, like, references back to that site.

It's like that where he's realizing what's coming. Does it click for him that this is the end? Like, click for Hodor that this is the moment. For Hodor that this is the moment that he doesn't remember that he remembers. Oh, if Hodor repressed it, too. Interesting. Dang. Fuck.

Yeah. Oh, if Hodor repressed it too, interesting. Dang. Fuck. Yeah, and it makes me think again of like what you were, you know, how you called out earlier, like Bran feeling helpless, right? And that's, that is probably how each other and the issues that they have right like that Bran is expressing such true raw emotion when he's yelling through Hodor earlier right and it's weird because he physically can't express himself but he can mentally and vocally express himself where Hodor can physically express himself and can react but cannot vocalize so they have kind of the inverse of what you know what they're incapable of doing and that he i don't know that it probably gives him some feeling of autonomy when he's using hodor yeah i think it's really complicated too to know that you can because at part like as i was reading it i was like well why don't you just work in the hodor and just walk up the damn hill like Like just take control of the situation. But then also knowing that there's definitely like ethical lines being crossed

when you're doing this, right? It's not like he's working into Hodor's mind and be like, Hey buddy, it's me again. Just going to take over for a little bit, you know, just calm down.

I've got it from here. And we don't really get that because every, every time he's doing it, it's like super traumatic like super traumatic and yes it's a violation each time more and more right it's like you're not just you don't know because you keep coming back right and so now hodor has an extra thing to be afraid of is losing control of his body yeah and you guys had mentioned um thistle when she tries to tear her eyes out and she bites her own tongue off and it's like hodor because of you know his affliction is has this childlike manner so he doesn't think to do that but instead he retreats and it's just like this trembling child while somebody else is completely taken over his body is something very creepy to that too brand yeah it because like this'll you know she's she's a fighter

in a lot of ways right if someone does that she fights back hodor hodor is gentle he doesn't think to do that i really love that connection that all three of you now have made of like the idea that maybe hodor's repression of the event that happened or is happening or has happened or is happening everywhere all at once to him whoa uh in his youth like that maybe he's repressing it just like bran has repressed it will that be something in the winds of winter maybe that like at the same time they both kind of unrepressed that traumatic event and does hodor know that it's Bran in his body? That's another question.

That's a good question. I wonder that. Does he know that it's Bran, or is suddenly his body just not his own? Free Hodor. I'm about to start a free Hodor campaign. Oh my god. We never had a POV, right?

From someone who is being skin-changed into, only the person doing it. So, I don't know. We know that Summer seems to know that it's Bran, since he just accepts it. But Summer's a wolf. They know things. They have a different bond.

Yeah. To the point that even when Summer's not being skin-changed, he's defending Bran's body. My cat. We're one. I don't cat we're one i don't i don't think your cat i don't know don't you think your cats would eat you no i think jake and ally would straight up protect my bitch ass i'm telling you jake in the last like five weeks has changed eliana and like we're one we have the same thoughts same movement that is harrison alice and my cats yeah they are he's like when i go to the bathroom he comes to the

bathroom with me and then he guards me and he looks out of the window like okay hmm sure gotta be there my son used to do that he'd stand in the doorway and like keep watch very strange baby like what was he afraid of that made me scared well i have a haunted apartment there's that oh okay i was gonna be like that's the them that you don't know about we don't talk about her yeah we can't talk about her she she comes to nikki and dreams okay let's not manifest that yeah um on a brighter i don't know if this is actually a brighter note or not uh i thought it was interesting that uh the memory of aria and what bran is feeling as he misses his sister who is either gone or worse dead um is what forces him back into his

body thinking about aria love of aria kind of does that for both of her brothers right kind or worse dead is what forces him back into his body thinking about Arya, love of Arya kind of does that for both of her brothers right kind of forces them back home in a way for Jon he's like yeah I'm gonna go storm Winterfell everyone this is a good idea to tell everyone and then also again for Bran his body

last chapter it happened too so with that really sad memory where it all you know fizzles out and all of a sudden he's there the one that made me cry probably but uh the one that made me cry last chapter well same thing here again it forces him out so now we've seen it happen two times in a row that when he gets brought back to his humanity and what's in his heart it forces him out of hodor's body. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. Interesting against Baramir when you think about it too, right? That like Baramir scrounged for himself and took people and did anything he wanted with them to survive alone. But Bran here only does it to save his friends and himself at least. And he never wargs into Meera or Jojen. You would think maybe he'd warg into Jojen to like help him walk or something or maybe because Jojen's body

is so weak he wouldn't be able to anyway but it's telling that he only chooses to warg into the most helpless person in the group I was just gonna say like I can imagine Jojen putting up a fight at someone else suddenly appearing in his head, you know, and maybe he thinks because Hodor is, quote unquote, broken, like him, that he has an opportunity to be in like, like he would be more welcome there than other places.

Because he repeats over and over again that he's broken, useless and stuff. And like, obviously, Hodor is anything but that. But, you know, if you needed someone kind of on par with where you felt emotionally um he's probably the closest link i do think that part of the reason he chooses hodor is that he does deep down kind of know what's wrong because do the others know that he's working into hodor no i don't think so i would say probably because of what happened during the lightning storm. But only that one time, not that he's still doing it.

Yeah. I would imagine they might suspect. He's not being very discreet is all I'm hearing. They might suspect a little, but they think only one of them thinks like that during the lightning storm. But they don't know if he's still doing that. Yeah, I bet Miro wouldn't know. he's still like doing that yeah I bet Mira wouldn't know but Jojen probably does yeah he gives him that look in the last chapter too when they're talking about

cold hands and like Jojen gives him this knowing look like ah I see some fuckery as a foot he said bitch you better not try me he's like you can just have my body in a different way eaten He said, bitch, you better not try me. He's like, you can just have my body in a different way. Eaten. Shaken, not stirred.

Oh, god. Something like green sear. Yeah, we got people saying they preferred that version. It does have more of a ring. Yeah, it does. Yeah, regarding Hodor, I think it's a combination of as you said right he knows it's kind of wrong but there's like an aspect in which does he feel like he can because hodor is in terms of class beneath him much further as well yeah he's just a stable boy either way he sees him as less than a person. So what I'm saying is, Bran is a real asshole.

He's being an asshole right now, but a lot of kids are. Most of them are. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. If not all. Too real. They all at least have a phase. Hopefully, our baby boy will get out of this one, you know?

I think this phase hopefully will pass. Probably after dire consequences, but not for him. Hodor will probably die first, but... Yeah. Yeah. God. Poor Hodor. Free Hodor!

Free him. But yeah, Bran does eventually find himself back in his body, half buried, and it's a burning white looming over him. That isn't... That is something to wake up to. The next thing he knows, he's in the cave, lying on a bed of fine needles. His mouth tasting of blood where he had bit his tongue, and yeah, there's that Varamir and Thistle call back for a second.

But that's the worst of it. A fire burns to his right, and he had never felt anything so good. Everyone made it-ish. Summer sniffs around him. Hodor is soaking wet. Mira cradles awe. Jojen's head in her lap, and the

not-Arya thing is over him, clutching his torch. He tells her that the snow fell on him, buried him, and that the girl says that it hid him, so she pulled him out, and Mira agrees. The girl saved him. Okay, back to earlier when you said the tree was bowing for Bran

from the crown to the roots. When I reread this, I'm serious. I'm not even shitposting on Mane that King's under the snow. She dragged him out from beneath the snow where it hid him. You know, like snow, Ned? Like Robert says to him

in A Game of Thrones, Robert says, you know, oh, kings. Must be under the snow, Ned. They don't make kings up here in the north like that anymore. I'm actually, like, unfortunately so serious about this that I really think George is laying it on thick right there that George is like, eh, eh, a king under the snow? Mm-hmm.

Brand king shit. Yeah. I like it. Ned's sweating bullets. I see the formula. Yeah. What do you mean? What kings? None of those here. it i see the formula yeah what do you mean with kings

the irony that he's gonna have way too many kings queens whatever on his hands from his children now that he's gone too many king too many kings thank you for understanding me every time i try to reference that song people are like what is happening to her why Why is she singing this? And now it's stuck in my head again. Forever. Bran thought that the fire had killed them, but the girl says that the fire burns them and fire is always hungry. Big Aemon fire consumes stuff, right? stuff right coming back to that idea of like you know it's interesting because like i associate

the stories with the ice part as being tied with the cannibalism just because it takes place during the wintry times and like that's when the food is scarce but that fire is the one with the language of actually consuming uh whereas also we associate some of like maybe more ice-tied magic with that because of the others taking over the bodies of the wights. But I guess it comes back to those ideas that Jojen was saying, you know, if ice can burn, maybe it is like kind of all similar magic and shit anyway. Fire is always hungry. That made me think of R'hllor. Yeah, I guess it does always ask people to be fed to it and sacrifice to it now that I think about it we're lore hungry be hungry oh god i am hungry yeah i'm hungry for real for real yeah there's a lot of lore language i feel like coming up in these couple of chapters like from the shadows

right talking about the shadows and everything that melisandre tells Jon about, like, the shadows being, I don't know, fighting, eating things up, and the fire being the only thing against the shadows. It's kind of interesting. It's not a girl's voice, nor a child's, but it's a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music and sadness to it that he'd never heard, but it breaks his heart. he'd never heard, but it breaks his heart. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doze beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer, large and liquid, golden green, slitted like a cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs

and withered flowers woven through it. Who are you? Mira Reed was asking. Brand new. She's a child. A child of the forest. He shivered as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of old Nan's tales. The first men named us children.

The first men named us children. The giants called us Wodak Nagran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees. But we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the tree tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your old tongue was ever spoken, we have sung our songs ten thousand years. You speak the common tongue now. For him, the brand boy. I was born in the time of the dragon and for 200 years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still,

but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home. 200 years? Men, they are the children. Do you have a name? When I am needing one. 200 years? Men, they are the children. Do you have a name? One, I am needing one. The idea that the humans are the children,

when you think of it, they were named the children of the forest, but why? Because they're small. And her telling us that she just walked around for 200 years, not that she's 200 years old, but that she walked around for 200 years. Ah. And how long does someone live in Westeros till they're like 60? Mm-hmm. She's lived multiple lifetimes by their standards, possibly dozens, who knows?

I also like that their name means those who sing the Song of the Earth. Mm-hmm. like that their name means those who sing the song of the earth because we have the song of ice and fire and now we have the song of the earth and where does the song of the earth fit into all of this yeah we're learning we're learning like that some of these things could be the same they could be euphemisms right like all of these if green seer and dragon dreams are that's just green dreams and that are maybe just euphemisms the the same thing, but called different things with misnomers. Like, maybe that too. Something, I never realized the language there of, like, you know, yeah, technically, like, she was only, that just says, like, she walked during those 200 years.

She could be much older and also, like, walked the world of men. So it was, like, she, did she find a way to, like, blend in? So, like, human. those 200 years she could be much older and also like walk the world of men so was like she did she find a way to like blend in so like human well she does say she was born in the time of the dragon so we know she can only be a few hundred years old but more than 200 yeah but anyway yeah how did she walk the world of men or maybe she just scuttled through trees like a squirrel. Yeah, just like kind of like, I'm thinking of like a scout, where you know how a scout would just kind of go and take things in, maybe revealing to herself, revealing herself to people in times of need or whatever,

but otherwise just like observing. Do you think that she knows how to use a glamour? That would be crazy. Because we're seeing glamours, right? Like a lot more in this book specifically it would be interesting if the children of the forest know that magic too because we also have that language in a storm of swords 2 for bran where we're talking about howlin reed and like the the magical talk which are really normal things we've discussed actually like

yeah i walk on leaves so do i bitch yeah yeah okay howlin read but at the same time like it's supposed to be implying magic right so does she have some sort of little weirding ways that she's able to do a glamour like how we have mance recently glamoured we literally just have mance dying but not man but it's like the what does she really look like what's the face that she's present like if she wears in a glamour what's the face that she's presenting to him and how you decide what's going to make someone you know comfortable enough to trust that you have them in a safe place yeah like and we're we're doing the mystery night too and like there's that with maynard little glam yeah. Maynard. Point quote.

So she's born in the time of the dragon. She walks the world of men for 200 years, and she learns the common tongue, and she does all of this for Bran. So this is long before Bloodraven, even. Because how long has Bloodraven been? Oh, yeah. It wasn't more than 200 years ago.

175. Yeah, he's born 175. He's not quite as old. has Bloodraven been... Oh, yeah. It wasn't more than 200 years ago. Yeah, he's born 175. He's not quite as old. He's 120, whatever. I can't do math. What a baby. Yeah. Yeah, he's a babby. But that makes you...

But that means the last greenseer was even. Already knew about Bran, who won't be born for a few hundred years. And that brings me back to the point that you were talking about, the Song of the Earth, right? It's like where are the things where these overlap, the Song of Ice and Fire, the Song of the Earth?

Like has it been prophesied like so far back that you need to keep an eye out for this person? This person will, you know, come across. Like was it her mission? Like was it her assignment? Was she walking the Earth looking for Bran for 200 years until he stumbled you know across her doorstep and maybe song of the earth is possible i would think the original song fire and ice are both of the earth but the earth itself is the earth so she's singing the song of the earth her song encompasses all of these prophecies and all of these things

i would love an illustrated book of that that would be so fun get on it add another one to the list you know why not if uh wishes for fishes i i love also the idea because you have like hot d right that just happened it was very much about the prophecy being passed forward in time and then you have all of this meta that's starting now that we can start thinking about of like what was lost in translation what translation was important and then looking at some of these bigger pieces of lore like the last hero or like Azor Ahai, right.

And who these pivotal figures are. It makes you wonder again, are they going off the same information just from a different time, different place, different way it was presented. I think something that also stood out to me is the way that she's, she refers to him as the brand boy, right? Because throughout this chapter,

we've been seeing that the conflict with him between be a man and then also him actually being just a little kid and like within the scope of her her lifespan like he's barely been alive a blink i think it's like times to go to just kind of like you know put him back in his you know gently put him back in his place and maybe maybe release let him be able to release some of these things that he's got kind of tormenting him. It's okay to be small. Yeah, and the childhood isn't necessarily a bad thing. But look at them. They're children of the forest.

But clearly very powerful. She's like trilingual. Yeah. At least. At least. That's a good point. And she said she learned the language of men, not just the common tongue. So who knows how many languages she knows?

At least the true tongue and the common tongue so she who knows how many languages she knows at least over 200 years tongue yeah probably valerian right yeah why not i mean you have 200 years yeah fuck not yeah yeah i could learn four languages with 200 years like even if she didn't know it before blood raven too, I bet he probably speaks that shit with her, too. Yeah. He probably just, like, vapes thoughts. Yeah, he just, like, vapes thoughts at her. I was just laughing because you were, like, thinking, like, oh, over the span of 200 years, you'd be able to learn these other languages. But I just thought about my Duolingo app, which has been idle for literal years. I'm on my 83 day streak right now so reasonably

thank you yes 83 days someday I'll know Italian yeah and then also when you talk about languages you know the idea of again names we were talking about names earlier and not having one she's like I, I don't know, I don't really always need one. When would there be a moment of not

needing one? Like, maybe if everyone knows everyone else? I don't know, Grishka. Or no one. Oh, that's true. Arya simultaneously is having her Jedi learning from some people, right, where she also knows we paste the book back together, at least.

We would paste it back together. But yeah, I mean, even Arya's story has someone who looks like a child but is also very old, right? Like the waif who was not portrayed that way at all in the show as well. The waif would have been someone really cool to also see in the show.

But yeah, I mean, this moment has a lot of these walking contradictions of your child but you're super old right or jojen's one of those jojen is constantly called little grandfather i'm like you're also a baby or even like denarius right being like a mother who has no children and constantly referred to with that that moniker so a very human heart in conflict with itself stuff going on not the same person but wouldn't surprise me if the ghost of high heart is maybe also a child of the forest and maybe somewhat glamored in how she presents herself to people that's what i've been wondering

i've been wondering that you know like is she because like everyone says that she has some of the blood of the child of the forest but i'm like now i'm like is it because like everyone says that she has some of the blood of the child of the forest but i'm like now i'm like is it all of her blood is all of the blood that she has well she's not described with like dappled skin or anything or like the golden eyes or anything like that so maybe not all of her blood but a lot of it yeah like maybe one human through one human got in and just turned the mix upside down unless she's glamorous well she's glamorous let's be real ghost of high heart is glam she's out here she's like give me a kiss i'm like all right cougar hours yes she is real cougar hours good for her what the fuck she really said let's make out

she's out there kissing foreheads talking style really confusing them leaf waves her torch toward the back of the cave and tells them to follow Bran asks about cold hands saying but they'll kill him and she corrects him and she's like they already

killed him a long ass time ago she tells them to follow her to where it's warmer where he is waiting for them the green seer mira helps bran up into his crushed wet basket and she supports her brother as they make their way down jojan asks where are we telling her he had the strangest dream smiling at the fire the way down is filled with dirt and tendrils, with the child and her cloak of leaves leading them deeper and deeper. The cave divides as they descend, the left side dark as pitch, following the shadows in light. The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant graveworms, soft and pale and squishy.

Graveworms have teeth. Hodor saw them, too. Hodor, he whimpered, reluctant to go on. But when the girl child stopped to let them catch her, the torchlight steadied and Bran realized that the snakes were only white roots like the one he'd hid his head on. It's weirwood roots. Remember the heart tree in the godswood, Hodor? The white tree with the red leaves? A tree can't hurt you. Hmm. Doubt. Sure.

Sure, Bran. Funny for you to say. Hmm. Hmm. I've been hurt by a lot of trees. Sometimes, you know, you walk past. They're the ones with the really spiky leaves. I was trying to get out of a car recently. And also, I've definitely walked into a branch or two before, too. I definitely feel like, especially if my hair is out,

the trees really lean down and bite me. Yeah. Trees are treacherous. I'm really short, so I always take great pleasure in walking under trees where other people can't. Oh. So I, like, maybe if my hair is up, maybe I might feel a tug of a branch, but usually it's cleared. I stay hitting trees.

If there's a tree, like, my body, my dumb, fumbling, big body just gravitates towards it on accident. Like, I really don't know what my issue is. If there's a branch, I'ma hit it. You are very tall. I'ma hit it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What a creepy description, right, of the wormy roots. I love that, especially with later when we have the weirwood paste, right, where in the light, the next chapter, it clearly looks like it could maybe be veins. He's like, no, no, no, it's not veins. It's not veins. It's just weirwood roots. But here, same thing. He's like, no, it's not worms. It's weiriends, it's just weirwood roots, but here, same thing, he's like, no, it's not worms, it's weirwood roots, and it is

weirwood roots, right, like great white snakes, but there's also something interesting about the cave like that warded, they're safe in here, right, like all of a sudden, for the last four pages, it's been real chill, no whites, they can kind of recover for a hot second, but it does

make me think about if that cave's magical ward comes up which more than likely it will right more than likely this cave will not forever be safe is it the same spell that's on the wall and the gates along the wall too i think something that i got from this is that it's also just further disorienting right because the only light they have is like her torch light and if you've been in the shadow like in a dark place with the light of a torch it's like it's always running away from you and then if it's jumpy it's like it can create the shadows to like if you're doing shadow puppets or like the illusion that things are like you know growing and shifting and moving towards you

and making it even scarier i think i don't know what i would have thought those things were but i probably would not have been able to catch my breath until we had that moment to catch our breath and to really see what these shadows are and really see what these white things are that turned out to be roots yeah like a halloween party that's pretty fair considering the last time that they thought they saw roots it was like a hand right yeah oh yeah cool reminds me like a halloween party where you peel grapes. So their eyeballs, you know, you make people hold more spaghetti as brains kind of idea going on there. I did that not recently at a Halloween party and I won. It was white pickled asparagus. Oh, was it the smell?

How did you figure it out? I don't remember. Maybe I was supposed to hold my nose. But because I was supposed to hold my nose i was like clearly there must be a smell here and i assumed it was a vinegary one and then i kept like uh it was it was a whole thing we don't have to go through the whole story of how i won halloween um sorry please continue amazingly done uh have either of you read a song for leah no i haven't i don't think so okay it was really good it's really good i

actually really liked it it's a novelette by george by georgie it's in dream songs volume one and we recently have that chatted about it well this one you should read up on i think you'd like it actually it's it's very good it's emotional it's very raw george was going through it he was absolutely going through it during this you could just tell but there's something great there's just a description of something where it's uh between us and the great bulk of the grishka was a forest of hanging dangling red strands a living cobweb of grishka tissue that came almost to our faces and without going too much into the story uh i can totally see what george is doing with this weirwood right That you have all these living strands and roots of weirwood hanging out all around you

and as we keep going we're gonna see like the bones, right? Of many people from before in this cave and it's crazy because even if it is a tree and even if it's not worms, it is alive right? Like it's like alive with like memories and humans and shit. The weirwood net. It's kinda cool. Yeah, and what an

incredible mindfuck to know that this is a place where you're supposed to be safe and you're still being terrorized by everything you see around you oh no it's like the internet very much so that's so true or i don't know it also makes me think of like cordyceps i don't know if any of you are watching the last yes oh my god everything connected yeah no it's not spoiler really but yeah i love that show i'm having fun i'm having fun with it i i do think they're all connected and all the caves below are network hodor hurries after the child who stops from time to time to wave her torch impatiently at them.

This way, this way, faster, she seems to say. They pass side passages and other chambers and money looks off into them. Slitted eyes look back in the torchlight. More children. So this girl is not the only one. He's then reminded of old Nan's tale of Gendel's children. Oh yeah, I remember that. John III, I think, in A Storm of Swords where Gendel and Gorn rule as king

beyond the wall, leading the Free Folk through Gorn's way, which were caves beneath the wall, and they evade the watch, but on the other side, the king in the north waits for them, attacks them. Gorn kills the king, and then the king's son takes the crown and kills Gorn. Meanwhile, the watch is taking them from the rear,

and according to lore, phrasing, Gendel is killed, but according to the Free Folk, he survived as the sole king beyond the wall, trying to fight his way back through the caves, but he didn't know the way, so he gets lost forever in all of the caves. And the Free Folk legend says

that the descendants of Gendel's people still dwell in those caves, attacking anyone who tries to find Gorn's way and eating them. Oh, cute. Yeah, kind of funny when you consider what might happen in this cave with eating people. Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got crows in my tummy. What? I have a random tinfoil.

What if Gendel and Gorn are Night's King and his corpse bred? Well, that would be the one thing D&D did right then, right? Because he had the lead Night King and his four boyfriends. Oh, okay. Interesting. They were boyfriends. I don't really know why we have to go that way.

A polycule. Yeah, they were a polycule. Why didn't we a new lady? I don't know. I was reading the books, I assumed that White Walkers did not have gender. Because they were basically like icy mist. Oh, I like that. That's interesting. Yeah.

Like how dragons are mutable as flame. Yeah. Changeable. Changeable as... Yeah, that's interesting. I think some of our listeners will have a lot of interesting thoughts about that right low i want an essay on it now i'm kind of like obsessed with the white walkers and the whites actually having their own culture even though they don't have culture or brain right i'm like i want to understand what makes them tick i just like i

want to know like what's the motivation what is the driving thing that's causing you to come down what are your rituals and culture cultural things absolutely i think i would love that except for the ice fighter part like they can yeah they can keep me there i think they do i don't know george says they don't i'm like i don't know if you know what that means george i think they have a culture like why are we seeing these things laid down in these ways and like you know like there's got to be a reason it doesn't seem to me that they are just like purely creatures of instinct and drive right it seems like they've got a motive they're intelligent they have an intelligence they have language there's clearly something there yeah exactly and humor they they laugh at waymar so i feel like humor is like a

culture thing yeah there are people i mean they literally fight with swords too so yeah yeah it's true feudalism marshall i mean maybe we should respect them as whole ass people you know maybe they could just have beyond the wall the weirwood roots are everywhere and as they keep going he realizes that the colors fled the world has become black soil and white wood uh very similar to his sister's world right now winterfell's weirwood had thick roots uh but these are even thicker and there's so many he thinks that there must be a grove growing above them hodor feels something crunch under his feet, stopping suddenly. Oh god, bones! Bran realizes bones of birds and beasts, but others too, bigger ones and small ones from the giants and even from children. On either side of them in the passage, niches with skulls, a bear

skull, a wolf skull, human skulls, giant skulls, children of the forest are on display. Some have ravens perched on them, roots growing around and through them, everyone. The final leg of the journey is the steepest and the darkest. Hodor makes it on his ass like a bony, dirty slip and slide. Below,

the girl child waits for them and they hear rushing water an underground river uh i thought that was kind of fun right uh coming back to rivers and how that has to do with like time and uh you know time being a river etc and how that's probably going to play with brand story and also you also entering an underworld like crossing the rivers into it like sticks etc because I mean it kind of is an underworld right it's full of people who were long thought dead

and some of them are maybe dead but inside like birds I love that I love that like the beyond the veil shit I'm really into that with Bran finally like crossing that stage of his story and I know we've talked about the allegory of the cave in our His Dark Materials series,

and maybe we've talked about it here too before, but I really feel strongly that the cave itself is actually the allegory of the cave from Plato and Bran's overarching experience in this story, because the cave represents the difference between people who simply experience sensory experiences and call that knowledge and those who actually understand real knowledge by seeing the truth and experiencing the truth and there are several steps to the allegory of the cave of like the enchainment to the shadows the releasement from the chains the passage out of the cave into the light of the sun

and then the return back from the light of the sun into the cave and i think there's going to be a lot of that for brand's plot because even looking at the cave right like you see all these bones of giants and children of the forest and of people littered on the ground and the cave is like both something freeing like knowledge but it's also a trap it enchains them look at blood raven as we see him and meet him here he is literally like he has roots growing through his body chaining him to this weirwood throne chaining him to it and that's like you might have all the knowledge in the world but you're not free right you don't have the actual experience with it and there's even something

with danny that it reminds me of is like the idea of those that refuse to try and leave the cave and continue to believe the shadows they see are reality and later socrates states if the chained prisoners were freed they would kill their liberators so which we have danny doing all over the place i think it's something that also it makes me think about is just like whether or not he realized that he's coming coming to terms or confronting the fact that like he's standing on the foundation of his world and society like the literal bones of the children and the men and the giants and everything that that informed the rich history that he's going to have to you know dig into to

become a blood raven you know our our green seer extraordinaire eventually and it's just like it's as similar to the allegory of the cave it's like you're having to be you're being confronted with what is real right like you're standing on bones of giants which you didn't know actually existed you're on standing on the bones of green you know the children of the force which you now have confirmation actually exist and like what are you going to do with that with all that information do you chain yourself to the throne too or are you going to use it and transform everything that everyone experiences and in that cycle of it too like are do you perpetuate that cycle of bloodshed in that way i love that connection bran asks if they have to cross but the girl says

no and lifts her torch higher to fill the chamber with orange and yellow flames that reveal behind them a pale lord an ebon finery and a tangled nest of weirwood roots his body skeletal his clothes rotted what skin is showing is white save for a bloody blotch creeping up his neck and cheek who could it be his white hair is fine and thin, long enough to brush the floor, roots coiled around his legs like serpents. One burrows into his thigh, emerging from his shoulder,

red leaves sprouting from his skull and gray mushrooms from his brow, brown and yellow bone peeking out here and there. God, the mushrooms are on his brow. Sorry. Talk about walking out of one nightmare into another yeah how would you even approach this like how would you push yourself and your group forward i'd be like i don't know about this shit my body would just like release everything

there would be poop well that's what they're saying that things are tears but they're not saying what with you know yeah like Yeah, like, just everything. I just start lactating, like, every fluid in my body would just release all of it because if I see some shit like that, a branch going through his thigh and out his shoulder, mushrooms in his brow,

being able to see bone peeking out, like, this is a nightmare. Nightmare. Just a little, you nightmare nightmare just a little you know just it's like you've got the blood eye you've got the root eye you know it's like those i try not to vomit it's just like it's a waste of good elk right that too but just like you know your screams are going to echo across walls and you can't leave, you know, because it's not safer outside for you than it is inside. You know, it's the literal lesser of two horrors.

It's like the series episode 8 but like times a thousand with the face falling off and shit. The eyeball rotted out, yeah. Yeah, the mushroom's growing from his brow. I'm like, oh no. Real quick, if only someone would have put this on a TV near us.

For real though, like I felt really... Cheated? Yeah, Max von Sydowen for one. Yeah. And for one. I felt cheated. I did. How could you not?

And like that he wasn't even there. How could you not feel cheated? They had a budget. They could have done it. I read the description again. It doesn't have to be in that many scenes like after like after the show after you know after having read the other books and it's just like but you could have done this like give me the birthmark at least you know like i will say because max von sedao is a big get i'm sure like it's one of those things where

it's like such a paycheck you're paying for that i'm i'm sure you don't fuck with him you know what i mean they probably were like thanks for showing up here's your money they could have afforded it though i don't know i know i don't know they could have like they they have a budget of like small governments like they absolutely could yeah i don't know if you guys watch mythic Quest. Do you guys watch Mythic Quest? Yes. I do. So like in the third season. Oh, okay.

Whatever. But it's just like that, that, that being able to take control of your actor and be like, this is what I need from you. Deal with it. Yes. Tanya watched Mythic Quest, especially since she just started playing D&D. Like it's, you're going to love it. It's so great.

Okay. It's on Apple TV. It's funny. It's a fun show it's really funny um i've been in how did you also feel i mean like you know seeing this and like also you know the the three-eyed crow slash i guess they called him the raven or whatever three-eyed raven in the show and then like that they didn't include blood raven like that i mean especially with your podcast slash channel being a thousand eyes and one that was why i wanted to do this chapter

redeem it it's so funny because like tanya read all the books before me and i started reading i think it was like at the end of season five or maybe that i started i was like wait wait and i was like before like let me just watch all the things i'll start reading the books and so when i got to this part i was like no shit that's where she got it from oh i love it i guess i didn't tell you why i came up with the name yeah it's like you met you mentioned it but it's like to actually like get to that part like after you know having been podcasting about and then just like yeah no it was beautiful thank you thank you thank you i do want to dig into that though after after we finish the chapter because we were almost there and like dig into the the history behind your love of thousand eyes and one etc. But I do like the language, though, when they finally meet him.

And they say he's being embraced by the roots like a child. I'm like, oh, like the children of the forest. But also that the roots slash thrown around him. I thought it was just cute, right? They describe it as being like a nest. I'm like, oh, because he's a three-eyed crow. Ha, cute, cute. I hadn't even thought about that.

It's funny that you say that. I mean, it's not cute at all. It didn't make me think of that. It made me remember the fifth season where they get to the node maintainer station. Oh, the node maintainers. Yeah. It made me think of that. And I was like, well, this is not a peaceful existence.

This is rot. It's rot with troubles. I think he has a lot of troubles. But yeah. Yeah. The node. is wrought with troubles. I think he has a lot of troubles, but yeah. I still think George hasn't written anything as brutal for me as the first node maintainer scene when they find

that. That was really upsetting. More upsetting than reading a book should be. It's at that point when I do the rereads that I'm just like, I should just stop here like it makes you want to put to put it down walk away because i don't know that i can sign up for what comes after this it's just such a deliciously awful description read the broken earth series guys and k jemisin that's our boo

eliana something you pointed out here about how he looks like a child is interesting because it kind of reminds me of how bran saw his body in the last chapter through hodor's eyes as a small like child on the ground and there's also something in it like blood raven himself is a menacing powerful figure in history right the way that it's spoken of you know he'll he goes down in history books as being this tough figure who had his you know his own little personal entourage army the raven's teeth and you know this badass and that he is supposed to be the three-eyed crow and this ultimate green seer and supposed to be like this huge menace and here he is enthroned

and wrapped entangled in all these roots helpless just like bran right just like bran helpless and looks like a child that's what he looks like now that's blood raven that is so interesting how it's presented like his reputation should precede him but here he is weak and small wrapped in a treeten and buried. It kind of is forgotten and buried. If you go back to Bran thinking a tree can't hurt you, what does he think now? It looks pretty painful to me, dude. Like how long did it take for the

tree to essentially chew him up? Evil dead style. Yeah. And for this person to convince you that this is what you have to become. Like, this is your future. Or you can turn back around and walk back home. Oh, shit. Or not.

He's like, I know you can't, Bran. And so that's very rude also. Got him! Got him! It's like, for the legal definition, Tanya, is that coercion? I think so.

I really think... I think it's a lot of things. Coercion, false imprisonment. Cat fishing. Child abuse. Grooming. Child endangerment. Child endangerment, yeah. We can go on.

There's a lot of things going on here. Yeah, you're right. It's not a compelling argument. It's funny because whenever you read it as a reader here for the journey, you're like, oh, sick. There's a guy in a tree wrapped up, and then you think about what it would be like actually being there, and you're like, I would not want that for myself.

Yeah, no. I would not want that for myself at all. Are you the three-eyed crow, Bran heard himself say? A three-eyed crow should have had three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eyes staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek and into his neck.

A crow? The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly as if they had forgotten how to form words. Once I. Black of garb and black of blood. The clothes he wore were rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been black.

I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you, except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes of one. I saw your birth and that of your Lord Father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell, and now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late. I'm here, Bran said, only I'm broken. Will you, will you fix me? My legs, I mean? No, said the Pill Lord. That is beyond my power.

Bran's eyes filled with tears. We came such a long way. The chamber echoed to the sound of the Black River. You will never walk again here, the Pale Lips promised. The Eagles fly. Chills. Chills. Chills.

Chills. Chills. Chills. Chills. Rainstick. If you haven't guessed, this is probably one of my favorite passages. I don't know. chills chills shimmies rain stick if you haven't guessed this is probably one of my favorite

passages I don't know she recited it from memory tell us about tell us about you and Bloodraven yeah

no so after I read these five I was absolutely hooked and I went back to read Night of the Seven Kingdoms

but before it was all put together when Bloodraven showed up and revealed himself and everything and the way people talked about him, I just thought he was so cool as a character and even the way he violated all the rules of society

to end rebellion and accepted his fate to go to the wall and that his raven's teeth went with him like i just found him such a powerful figure and just just cool that's it i just thought blood raven was so cool i love it and do all that now he's the three-eyed crow like what a life what a rich history rich history he did he did and like even richer history right because he can see all of like the history yeah think about it he was like he was dutiful he wasn't overly ambitious or anything he did his job he did it well he did things that put him in a bad

light and ruined his reputation but in service to the realm. And then accepted his punishment. Just accepted it. And the fact that all those people followed him shows what they thought of him as well. He was highly respected. They didn't follow him, I think, out of fear. They followed him because that's their dude. Yeah. And when he goes, they go.

Yeah. So I like that you were also talking about the rest of his history, right? His role in the Blackfyre Rebellion. Yeah, what do you think about that? And also Bloodraven says he had a brother he loved and a brother he hated. And which brothers,

which people you think those were? The one he hated is most certainly Bittersteel. Obviously. Sister he loved. We know that one. Yeah sister he loved we know that one yeah yeah i guess we know that one yeah i think the debated one is really like the brother he loved right was it damon was it darren did he actually love darren who was it which brother certainly not the black fire one i kind of sometimes think he loved damon right but he was like so into the realm that he had to kill the person

he loves. Or yeah, his sons rather. Well, you know how that goes with the bastard brother that kills something he loves and has to go to the wall thanks to his brother who's now a king or his cousin who's a nephew? Whatever. It's hard. Nephew, cousin.

Yeah, it's like a little bit of each unsure the family tree is a bush major fucking john vibes though major john and tyrian vibes i get a lot of tyrian vibes from blood raven right of like him doing what was good for the realm even if it looked like violently awful from the outside like he was doing what he thought was the right choice. You could also argue that Tywin did what he thought was good for the realm, even though it was a horrible choice. You could argue that. That is a good point.

You could argue it. He essentially ended a war where who knows how many would have died. He just had to, as he said, murder a few people at dinner. But he didn't have them for dinner. So there's that. There is that. There is that. Actually, and you know what?

It didn't even fall on Tywin. So it wasn't even that he accepted his reputation being ruined. He kind of just let the Frey reputation be ruined. So never mind. I take that back. That was fucked up. Tell the mastermind. Yeah.

I guess the Boltons still no one knows. Do you think, who do you think Bloodraven had to eat to... Fuck, Eliana! Well, I'm just, I just want to know. To assume his... I just came up with that question now. To assume his new throne? Yeah. Well, do we have any really, like,

who were the named protectors on his little raven's teeth? We don't ever get names of the raven's teeth, but I am sure that he ate a couple of them. Yeah, and I imagine they're the ones who went with him ranging across the wall. So yeah, I would say one of

his raven's teeth had to be munched on. His own joj. Yeah. His own jojicola. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. It's kind of messed up that we didn't get all this yeah yeah I wanted more it's just like such an interesting character

and such an important one that you feel like you just come on do him justice let it play out I don't think they really cared that much about that part of the story what gave it away what gave it away I don't think they really cared that much about that part of the story. Which seems strange. What gave it away? What gave it away?

It makes no sense. It's like one of the most interesting parts of the story, right? Like creepy horror zombie shit and guy in tree. How is that not interesting? I think they shied away a lot from like the more fantastical elements like they very much wanted it to be just like a medieval war story with just houses fighting and they really i think they just really shied away from you know the magic of it it was a shame because it could i mean i don't know if they had to shoot

it all again starting now i think the magic could have could be written into it differently maybe there was some apprehension on how we represent magic we already got to do these fucking dragons like chill here's some dragons shut the fuck up and to the points that you both made earlier too of like that he's world building so much of this that we start the series with this magic right and like this mystery of exactly what's going on and he builds it up and they didn't put the work in. I mean, that's plain and simple. They quit putting work in.

All the foreshadowing they put in led up to season three. Actually, though. Yeah. And I also just want to point out for the fun of it, it's just that the sound echoed to the chamber of the Black River. You know, it's just like how Black River is just keeping... Think Brendan Rivers.

Every time I read it, that's like my brain is substituting it, substituting that there. And I'm like, oh, did he do that on purpose? Even though the Black Dragon, the Black Dragon. I haven't thought about that. That's a great point, like that his last name really does tie into all that river stuff time

yeah if it had ended right here I think I would have been still been thrilled just the but you will fly and just like leaving it there like before we even get into all the other stuff of him learning like I feel like it could have ended here and brought the rest into

the next book but of course we still waiting but you know but i would have been happy with it ending right here i just i love the way it ended yeah you get horror you get relief you get like suspense you get a little bit of romance you know like does he tell mirror in this next episode does he tell me that he loves her um yeah what does he mean he'll fly the stale piece of bread that we get later it's a perfect cut off yeah like there was a chapter that george pushed to the winds of winter and i can see now like by these two chapters I can exactly see why he pushed that you could actually do something you could make it pretty pleasing

to end this book it reminds me of the ending of Game of Thrones where the dragons are born and we just are left there where the dragons have been born what now? that's true, this could have ended the book the whole of A a dance with dragons but

well also i mean we did get a good ending i guess with that epilogue with the other little birds i think it sets you up for to be able to just believe that impossible things can happen right it's like okay here is this here's this man who is you know literally strapped in via vines and roots to this chair but also is just giving you the expectation that you know help can come from impossible places i mean not to not to discredit someone because they're crippled or whatever you know like you there's still a power there's still power in store for you and you just have to ask for it that's interesting i do wonder how that would like unfold for like their relationship right like because brand still doesn't obviously doesn't seem to believe that but like how does blood raven approach that um concept of like being disabled and

not being able to move but different kinds of power and then he's all out here like i don't know i i for one would be like what the fuck And Bran doesn't really process this when the guy's like, yeah, I saw when you were born. And like when you were talking and then also when you fell and I'm like, what the fuck? Couldn't give me a fucking heads up. Right. Like come to me in my dream and say, Bran, don't climb that tower. Yeah. I guess I don't know if that's what the birds were doing there they were like hey brand what's up but they didn't stop him that's

true they're just like come on hello come on you know you want to happen though you can't interfere yeah observably it was a he knew and he knew it had to happen love it the ink's not dry yet though it's not dry yet it's. It's not dry yet. It's certainly not. It hasn't even been printed. I just want, like, the Worldstar logo, but it's Wordstar over George writing the books.

Wordstar. Come on, George. We believe in you, George. We do. Throw the book book george no hate mail coming from us we can promise you that no no not at all leave george alone thank you agreed well any final closing thoughts before we take her home i don't know it was really exciting to read this chapter again especially when this is supposed to be my year of my reread. Because I got all tangled up in all things Sanderson last year. So therefore, I'm trying to commit to my reread for this year.

But it was just nice to like, I don't know if it makes me want to go back and watch the show again, but it does make me eager to jump back into the books and kind of like give it the reread that it deserves since me eager to jump back in to the books and and kind of like give it the reread that it deserves since i've read through stormlight three times already really it's time for a break those are long books they are i'm addicted to sanderson the audio books are like are like 50 hours yeah wow it's incredible that's a fixation it's so good it's a commitment it's a commitment it's so good i gotta say though now that i've like seen this again it's incredible that's a fixation it's so good it's a commitment it's a commitment it's

so good i gotta say though now that i've like seen this again it's just sanderson has a very compelling writing style right he like sucks you in but george is like the writing it's like every sentence is intentional and perfect and beautiful and like yeah just on its own. Yeah. So. The prose. The prose. It's so good. Oh, every time I read it and every time, like, you got me again. Yeah. It's just like how much I missed his writing style and writing. Because, like, Tanya and I have spoken about this on, like, our podcast. But there'd be times when I was reading it and, like, I wouldn't realize that the subway had gone by.

Like, I was deep into the book. And, like, I didn't hear it and like i didn't hear it come i didn't hear it leave i would just look around and be the only person on the platform you know that that missed the train i was waiting for because i was just so deeply in it uh no i definitely had moments where i was coming from harlan just trying to head downtown and I looked up when I was in Brooklyn. Yeah. I was like, oh shit, how much time has passed? Mistakes were made. Mistakes were definitely made. So good.

No, this is great. I'm really glad you guys had us on for this chapter. This has been really great. Thank you so much for coming. I'm just glad we get the Thousand Eyes in one. You know what i mean for the thousand we have to have them on for this yeah it felt right we're happy for everyone listening in could you two talk about where to find you on the internet and we will obviously

drop links below as well and take it away tanya for previous episodes actually we've been spending we've been spending a lot of time on youtube so go to our youtube a thousand eyes on one podcast we're posting episodes there and we're doing live streams and so that's where a lot of stuff is living but for our much older episodes you can go to thousand eyes podcast.com and you'll see them there and we're on all the different podcast platforms. Our social media, if you want book club stuff, it's Instagram wine on an empty stomach. There we cover just speculative fiction. That's not Song of Ice and Fire. If you want to follow us on Twitter, that's thousandeyes1one. You'll find me there you'll find nikki at our instagram a thousand eyes and one and our facebook is a toss-up because both of us forget about it and then jump in and post a bunch of shit at once and that is that was me that was you and that is also a thousand eyes

and one so yeah coming up we have um some more 30 tuesdays that's on the youtube channel and more book club went on every stomach so yeah youtube is is where we're living right now but on instagram where we're living this month well for march because march is national readers month you'll be getting 15 books from me and 15 books from tanya in our stories probably we haven't figured it out. We have too many that overlap. We can choose one where we overlap to be the 31st. We haven't worked out the logistics of it.

There's lots of stuff that we both haven't read, that we don't have in common I should say, that we'll be posting on there. Shout out to books and your libraries and all the things. Yeah, support your local library yeah well thank you again for joining us i can't wait to bring you back for another brand chapter you know like when the winds of winter drops next year ah yes when i have my grit when i'll

be watching my grandchildren oh my god no retirement yes can't wait you've been walking 200 years yeah god well if anyone wants to you know keep up with us or like you know especially when Wednesday comes out you can find us

on social media at twitter.com slash girls gone canon that's c-a-n-o-n or if you have thoughts that you want to send to us before the very last brin chapter that we will read because it is the very last brin chapter you can send it to us at girls gone cannon at gmail.com yeah i know that we're getting all those good speculations on who's next spoilers i'm not telling you yet you're gonna have to keep your ears peeled, and we will, of course, announce that

during the last Brannisode for the next episode, so make sure you're subscribed to us on a podcast platform near you, whether that is Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, iHeartRadio, Tandora, Audible, and Amazon Podcasts.

And of course you can always find us on Patreon.com slash Girls Gone Canon, where we have bonus episodes in February's Was the Mystery Night? Marches to be announced. Those are for patrons in the Stranger tier and above, and you can access our Patreon Discord

in the Thunder tier and above. Yeah, patrons in the Thunder tier and above. Yeah, patrons in the Thunder tier and above actually will get early access to the new POV very soon. So keep your eyes peeled on your Patreon feeds so you can know before everyone else, Thunder tier and above. And of course, you'll get access to our monthly happy hour slash brunch for March,

which will be announced date-wise very soon. As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thank you very much for joining us. Thousand eyes and one podcast.

Thank you. Thank you.