Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 186 — The Iron Captain / Victorian Intro

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Hop aboard the SS Canon as we head down the Ironborn Campaign Trail and do quite a bit of naval gazing with Victarion. We discuss Ironborn culture, history and lore, while highlighting the toxicity in the culture, as well as briefly talk sexual violence.      We do some-what-vaguely-hint-at-characters-future-plots-as-released-in-THE-WINDS-OF-WINTER-sample-chapters. Please be warned.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   The following music was used for this media project:   Music: SCP-x4x (Mind Leech) by Kevin MacLeod   Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/6734-scp-x4x-mind-leech   License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license ---------------   Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric   Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl   Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/   Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor   Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com   Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, Reads A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 186, A Feast for Crows, The Iron Captain, An Introduction to Victarion. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. Yeah, it's the Iron Captain, not nearly as cool as, like, The Iron Chef, which would have been way more enjoyable but yeah it uh i would actually maybe pay money to see victorian lose at the iron chef i don't know but with that flaming hand anything is possible anything's possible i'm excited to jump into victorian uh it's actually a pov that i'm not usually keen on, and we'll talk a little bit more about that as we get through. But hey, it's just like pizza. All POVs are good POVs,

am I right? Am I right? I think I've had bad pizza. It was still pizza, though. I mean, stir pizza well speaking of pizza meats back on the menu boys yeah this is our announcement for our special bonus patreon episode this is how we're introducing our march patreon episode. Let me give some subtext here really loudly. I think the subtext is not subtext anymore. We are going to cover for our $5 bonus episode, stranger tier and above, over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon. Get bonus episodes every single month.

And March's episode is continuing on with George's anthology of dream songs we're going to check out a story in it this story comes from before dream songs it is a has a crazy history you'll learn all about in this episode and that story grew up to be meat house man it did grow up to be meat house, which interestingly is one of like three stories that are about like the handlers. But it's the only one that's really accessible. I cannot, it's really hard to find the other ones. I think some of the other ones he was just like, I do not like my writing in this at all.

So. I respect that. I've taken a few essays down. Really? I don't really. Yeah. And I'm like like no one should read this anymore you know removed my name from history yeah you're like that's not me anymore

that's not me nameless bastard yeah so that's march's patreon episode is it meat house march march house man unsure unsure meatness madness yeah uh last year we had mushroom madness right march shroom madness and this year yeah march shroom march shroom meats back on the menu so a different meat yes not the forest meat and speaking of mushroom i think history of west rose put out their testimony of mushroom episode recently so it's a kind of also for them maybe they're also without realizing it all there's like a march room thing for them too let's keep our eyes peeled on next year in march 23 and see if meat becomes it someone else cover meat house man others have i guess it's yeah i guess the last of us was also about mushrooms and people too anyway and meat and actually yeah meat house men was part of the show too yeah i haven't actually read it so this will be really exciting i'm going to come into the meet a virgin um you'll be meeting me meeting her leotta you'll be meeting me for the very first

time oh my god i'm excited for that one um i'm actually i want to read a few more of these little georgettes these novelettes these novellas or georgettes as i am now going to call them i think we should call them georgettes yeah yeah yeah doing a george this one's an interesting one and i think like it makes sense to do it at this time especially we talked about it and referenced it a few times during the brand chapters so you can really by exploring this kind of see how george's thought has evolved since then so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that and that's not the only patreon thing happening this month we will be having our monthly brunch slash happy hour on the 26th of march yes that's sunday sunday march 26th 1 2 3 p. ET, which is now in daylight savings time.

Thank God. And I hear, you know, we might not leave it anymore thanks to the hard advocacy of Senator John H. Ryan. Or, as the kids may call him, Jonads. Jonads. Jonads. Peep the Veep. Can we peep the Veep? Yes.

And if you are in the Thunder tier or above at Patreon, the $10 and up tier, you will have an invite to that brunch slash happy hour waiting for you at Discord. So come on through. We'll be hanging out. Maybe play some giggity games. Or maybe we'll make Warren do his, our friend Warren, do all the presentations that he's been stacking up and missing out on finally.

Yeah, we should do that. I do want to see those presentations one day. Yeah, I mean, are you realizing we're always picking on Warren? I don't know. Are you? Are you? Are you? Another event happening at our Discord are the last two his dark materials series three

rewatch discussions uh keep your eyes peeled on the discord for that changing there is a his dark materials tv spoilers channel that is pretty active and the events over at discord update when uh when we're 100 sure on that time and date. But tentatively, it will be either Saturday or Sunday over the next two weeks. Yes, we're coming up on the end of that. Get your, I don't know, emotions ready. But for something much more optimistic, we are ending this month with something else that also kind of begins with the letter M, but not really.

Oh my God. We are, I'm kind of thrilled for this. This is one of our passion projects. Yes. You know, the year started off, Gossip Girls Gone Canon was quite a passion project. And now Magical Girls Gone Canon is beginning with Sailor Moon. We are hyped for Sailor Moon Crystal.

We're going to be discussing season one at the end of this month. So you will get one more Victorian chapter this month that'll be releasing on March 24th for those of you following in real time. And then on the 31st, happy almost birthday to me,

we'll be Sailor Mooning. I'll be transforming. You know, moon prism power. You will be transforming. I'm excited to, transforming you know moon prism power you will be transforming i'm excited to as you said it is our passion project this one tentatively may be called magical girls gone canon even though i don't know that we will cover any other magical girls necessarily but you know i don't care the name is good hey i see a lot of magical girls in our future especially when it comes to a song of ice and fire that's true there see a lot of magical girls in our future, especially when it comes to A Song of Ice

and Fire. That's true. There's a lot of magic in this series. After we put out the Reaver, we will have some more magic to announce with our first and maybe only Victarian guest, right? Yeah, probably. Next week, we'll announce that one for you. Get excited. Yeah, this one I'm very excited about. I think y'all should get excited about this one i i'm very excited about i think y'all should get excited about this one too we love a good guest and this one's been in the works for a very long time they had no idea they had no idea when this was gonna happen they were like yeah i want that one and i was like okay cool but we knew but no one no one knows what's next or when right except for us just us 4d chess 4d Except for us. Just us. 4D chess.

4D chess. You know who's not playing 4D chess? Victarion. Dumb as a box of rocks. Holy shit. Dumb and mean. Yeah, he's mean. He's nice to like one person and that's Aaron.

Aw. That I kind of like though. You know, like that part I like. So we called him a second son last week. That was more of a joke because Euron's not a son. He's a demon. He doesn't count. And Balon's gone anyway. Technically he's a second son last week that was more of a joke because Euron's not a son he's a demon he doesn't count and Balon's gone anyway but technically he's a second son now now he is yeah now he's a second son but he's a third son uh and you can kind of see that in a way I think

there's some like Renly Robert Stannis dynamics at play with the Greyjoys that maybe we'll go into talking about but what's what's your overall temperature read on Victarion? How are you feeling going into this POV? You know, I want to say, like I said, I'm super excited for our guests and the perspective that they're going to bring. And I feel kind of bad because like, I'm glad that there's someone here who loves Victarion because this is not, this is like my least favorite POV. I've come around more to Vict POVs over the years as other people, you know, I've asked like a couple times even like back when I was much more active on the subreddit and was like, I don't understand the appeal. Like, can someone explain this to me? And people have given

me some good explanations of why they find value in Victorian chapters, but it's my least favorite. We'll talk a little bit more about why um but how about you what do you feel it's funny because a couple weeks ago that guy i live with my roommate he was like so do you feel doing this as pov by pov with you guys as podcast have you felt like what was the character you felt the weakest on right like what was the character you didn't feel like you could find a connection with or didn't feel like you had tons of thoughtful things to say and it took me for a loop because he was like Jamie and I'm like no I actually loved doing Jamie chapters surprisingly even though he's the worst character I don't want to see a

single one of you at home right now rolling your eyes at this. I didn't have an issue with Jamie chapters. I had tons to say during Jamie. John, yes, we had some long chapters after a while, but I still don't feel like I didn't get anything out of them. You know, I still felt like they were, as our friend Maddie would put, nutritious chapters. They still offered me nutrition and vitamins. This may just be the least inspiring of the povs going in for me um definitely an agreement maybe my least favorite pov not one and it's not necessarily a bad pov like i said there's no such thing as bad pizza eliana according to you there is but

i don't care uh he's still a pov i still like most of George's work. I feel that he is maybe by the fandom misperceived as like, you know how a lot of people look at Erio or Ares in Dorne and they don't get a connection to him. Maybe that's what I'm experiencing, but I don't feel that way with them. I still found a lot of value in them. So I'm hoping I will prove myself wrong. The one thing I do see that I like so far in just the couple of chapters I've reread for this, the context that it gives you for the Greyjoy Rebellion and where that sits in history, that George is coming back finally to these details that he has laid out a little bit, but not really gone into, and all of these kind of dynamics of who hates who and whose

brother died and this, that, the other. I mean, this was a really a mini microcosm of a rebellion you know look at roberts but just here with them so it had to be very impactful for these characters so i think it does a great job of illustrating that and i would also argue that his chapters are not necessarily for him yeah like who victorian is to me has never mattered but his chapters provide context to all of these characters i'm sorry it's not nice but it provides context to all of these characters that are surrounding him right uh it's world building it's lore it's showing you the culture and kind of that toxicity in the old culture in the iron islands and what needs to die and putting them against ashes chapters chapters, which we've already done.

That makes it really interesting, right, where her chapters are all about changing that new leaf over and that guard over. So I'm excited to kind of regress here politically, culturally, mentally, emotionally with Victarion and kind of understand how he ticks and how the other men of his culture that are prideful and afraid tick. Yeah, I think that's a great explanation. As you're saying, like, I, every time we do one of these POVs, even if I come into it not really having that many expectations, I think I, the journey of reading it this way, but also the journey of reading it together with you, I find something to get out of it. And so I'm hoping to find something like that, uh, as we read through this time. And also, you know, cause I don't, I don't want like people to not feel excited about

Tyrion chapters and like, we're going to, we're going to look at them, right? We're going to dive deep into them as we do with every POV. As you all know, we put our whole ass off until... Oh my god. I did that just to get a reaction out of you. Into every one of these POVs. But yeah, as you said, there's like a lot of world building and context setting that comes through the Victorian chapters. And you and I were discussing this a little before recording, chapters and you and i were discussing this a little before recording it it made me realize so way back in the day and by that i mean it really was way back in the day it was like the aughts now that i think about it which are back a dance with dragons was one one singular book and it was going to follow directly after a storm of swords and have that five-year gap,

as I'm sure all of you know. And George's solution for that five-year gap was essentially his own lightning round. You know, you're welcome, George, for our idea, where he was going to have this like really long, I don't know, 20 or 30 page intro prologue, where he describes basically everything that's happened during those five years since the end of the events in A Storm of Swords and a lot of that context setting for especially the situation in Dorne after the death of the Red Viper and in the Iron Islands etc with Baelon's death too so that you know you know, we could pick up where we are. And I think that

it sounds like a lot of that context setting was repurposed, perhaps, into these Victorian chapters, because you do have, I think, much more exciting stuff going on, like, in the Asha chapters, and even in the Arryn chapters, which we didn't know until the sample chapter, right? But like, some people kind of knew, like, I don't know, that guy you live with, like, kind of had an idea. But the Asha chapters, right, there's like, there's a character there to be connected to. But Victarion, it just felt like a lot of world building and a lot of misery in a way that for me, I kind of had, in the past felt that these chapters were, they were kind of boring. I mean, there's a lot, there's like, as people have pointed out,

some of our patrons, right, have pointed out, there's like a lot of sexual violence in them. There's a lot of sexual violence in a lot of the other chapters as well. But like, he's a character that is kind of defined by that in a different way. Yeah, I think overall, that huge exploration of that toxicity of what it means to be a man from the iron islands and what it means to fulfill that role is such a focus in this chapter alone right like on rereading this chapter what comes to me the most is the culture there and is what victorian is trying to live up to even when the residents of the iron islands are yelling in his face,

this is no longer the problem. Yeah, and I would argue that it's not even just the Iron Islands, right? To an extent, his mentality is probably much more similar to the mentality of a lot of men in Westeros than we know or see. We just have a lot of POVs from people who, like, have a little more complexity and who tend to have a little more sympathy or empathy for others because of whatever they've experienced. Interestingly, it's like if Robert Baratheon had an older brother, almost, or another brother. Like, if we could just shuffle around the Baratheon brothers, because imagine Robert Baratheon brothers, because imagine Robert

Baratheon trying to live up to his older brother or something like this, but imagine how simplistically stupid and aggressive his POV would be. This is kind of like a Randall Tarly POV. Yeah, it's why we don't have these POVs, honestly. It is more over

what I was thinking by trying to parse this out, apparently. I think we don't have these po like i mean a lot of people find this pov for victorian a little boring and maybe not boring maybe that's not the word but off-putting you know and that's why these povs aren't laden through the story but you still need it you still need it to make it tick i get that it's interesting to think of him as kind of like the control. Like you have a scientific experiment, right? Maybe he's the baseline and all of our other POVs are not. I don't know. There is a lot of history that comes through in his chapters and that leads up to the place where Victarion is now and the Iron Islands are now. So I mean, we have our own lightning round, which again, George, you're welcome.

You're welcome to it. Yeah, I think the one saving grace for this chapter, something that does interest me is that rich history, that little bit of context we're going to get from the Greyjoy Rebellion that informs some of these characters and illustrates their motives and all of that good punchy fun stuff. So without further ado, this lightning round is going to have a different type of storm in it. We're going to start it with Storm's king, Robert Baratheon, and his rebellion. And then we're going to move on to a different kind of king, Balen Greyjoy, and his rebellion of 289 AC.

So we pop that off a little before with Quellin Greyjoy, who was the father of nine sons, Harlan, Quentin, Donel, Balin, Uren, Victarion, Uragon, and Arryn. Balin, Uren, and Victarion, and Arryn all survived to adulthood while the rest die in childhood for various reasons. Spoiler, TBA, more to come on that. Yes. Quellen, their father, died in battle at the Mander, attacking the Reach and rising in support of Robert during his rebellion. Quillen's eldest son, Balen, sought independence for the Ironborn, who didn't suffer losses like most of the great houses of Robert's Rebellion since they joined at the end. He constructs a fleet of 100 war galleys, the Iron Fleet. Balon decides that Robert's reign is fallible and that he would not be able to take action against the Ironborn,

and Roger Carlaw tells Balon this is a bad plan, trademark, but Balon says we're doing it anyway. Six years after the end-ish of house targaryen asterisk asterisk asterisk balan is crowned king beneath naga's ribs with a stylish piece of driftwood and the gray joy rebellion begins in an attempt to control the sunset sea the lannister fleet is burnt at anchor and the plan is constructed by euron and carried out by Victarion. This lets Balon attack Seagard in the Riverlands, but his son Roderick perishes in the battle by sexy daddy Jason Malster, maybe should be zaddy because this is the description essentially by Catelyn Stark, and the ironborn are thrown back in defeat. Robert crushes the rebellion eventually,

with Stannis joining the Redwine fleet and the Oldtown ships. Victarion's ships, however, are smashed in the Fair Isle Straits, where Arryn is captured and made to spend war beneath Casterly Rock. Tywin, Eddard, and Robert come down upon them, with Stannis subduing Great Wyk for Robert, and Barristan Selmy attacking Oldwyk. The final battle takes place on Pyke, led by Robert and Eddard, destroying the Botley Castle and Lord's Port. They attack with siege engines, and Balon's second son, Merrin, is killed in the breach, led by Thoros of Myr and his sword of fire. Jorah Morma and Jocelyn Bywater, who loses a hand in the battle, are knighted for

their bravery, and Balon's last surviving son, Theon, is taken as a hostage to the north, like other ironborn children taken hostage for good behaviors. Hmm, we're gonna see one today, which I learned last time around. The rebellion simply reinforces Robert's new rule in the end, and the Iron Islands are thrown into a little disarray in a much weaker rule, NDD. Yeah. Oops. This, of course, puts us into the present day, where Theon has grown up at Winterfell, rebelling at the wolf and the squid that fight inside of him, and in turn, he now has been captured by the bastard of Bolton. Asha was in turn raised as girl in the house, and Balon's heir. Arryn had a religious wakening between the rebellion and today, dedicating himself to the drowned god. Then we have Euron, who has been exiled by Balon for raping and impregnating Victarion's

salt wife, whom Victarion then kills to retain his honor. And of course, Euron shows up for the first time basically right after balin mysteriously dies shit seems like it's about to get real oh and yes balin is dead and that's the present day that's what you missed on glee there there is there are some songs that could show up every now and then um victorian grayjoy takes the campaign trail and the trail is rough and tumble especially when the competition is kept all in the family his niece is the third party pick his evil demon brother is some sort of evangelist turned possessed charisma freak and he's the guy keeping up with the old way

will they make the iron islands great again who the fuck is to say who really is to say right uh it seems kind of caricature-y of them all right to to think of it in these aspects but i don't know who i'd vote for you know i just don't know i think i know who i would vote for out of all of these people. I really do. It's Asher. The chapter begins with the Iron Victory coming into Naga's Cradle, a holy bay where the ribs of Naga rise on the hill above it at Old Wick. The bones of the Great King's Hall,

full of magic. There's a line describing the trees that they rose from the earth like the trunks of great white trees. I kind of love the language of naga's bones and the trees and the land around it and that magical mystic kind of look at it and even that language for the weirwood trunks of great white trees you could just say white tree but we know what giant white tree usually is thought about in westeros right and it comes back to a little bit of

ironborn lore that sticks out to me here as well, that the demon tree Ig had pale wood and fed on human flesh. We learn that from the world of Ice and Fire, and that the Grey King also taught men to weave nets and sails and carve the first longship from the hard pale wood of Yig. It feels very much so similar to a weirwood, right? Feels very much so, similar to a weirwood, right? A demon tree feeding on flesh. And also a reference to Yggdrasil in old Norse mythology, the Norse tree of life, the geographical center of the spiritual cosmos for the Norse.

The Grey King had carved that ship, so that feels very symbolic, since the Ironborn are very focused on making their great journeys across the sea and with the sea. And it definitely stands out as some sort of cross-culture of this mysticism between the North and the Ironborn, especially when we think about Ash's chapters, where Alisane and Asha realize their cultures are really not quite so different, just one of them subdued the other. We'll learn more about Naga someday from Aaron, right in the far, far future. But Naga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves, we hear. And then later we hear more lore that the storm god had drowned Naga's fire after the Grey King's death. The chairs and

tapestries had been stolen, the roof and the walls rotted away. Even the Grey King's great throne of fangs had been swallowed by the sea. Only Naga's bones endured to remind the ironborn of all the wonder that had been. It's funny because the Targaryens are put down, but here the Greyjoys have their own great wonders of sea dragons and lore and Naga's bones upon the hill. It reads across all of these different cultures and honestly, putting it on paper, this seems very fire and ice, right? Like, Naga's living fire had warmed the Grey King's halls, and he made Naga his thrall.

It's almost a love story between the Grey King and Naga, this immense power, and reminds me a little bit of Azor Ahai and Nisa Nisa in some ways, and some of the other little legends and storytelling moments we've had. I thought you were going to say with the Thrall stuff and the romance of it, it reminds you a little of Elanay, you know, the Storm God daughter kidnap stuff at Storm's End because there's something going on there with the relationship. But yeah, it is fire and icy. When you combine the two, you get water, which is a lot of what goes on here at the Iron Islands.

And you were talking about Yggdrasil and those Norse roots. Naga also comes from another real world legend or legends, right? The Naga is like these serpent deities. Sometimes they're like half human, half serpent, but like often they're just very much associated with snakes from South Asia and Southeast Asian lore and features prominently in a couple of religions like in Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism. I'm not as familiar with how the Naga appears in Jainism. But off the top of my head, I do remember a legend in which, you know, if you've ever seen any of the statues of the Buddha that looks like a peacock around

him, it is not a peacock. In fact, it is a naga that protects the Buddha during like one of these stories of the Buddha's like meditating during a storm. So there's like a lot of connection there. And like, nagas are seen as like these protector figures because of that in some of these stories i love that okay and especially the the serpent like quality and of course the kraken they do have some similarities right in in that they have all these legs i guess one has one no legs and one has several that's the duality. Snake-like legs. Of creatures.

Victarion remembers when Balin was crowned on those bones, and Newt the Barber, named for his axe throwing, which was a close shave. You know, you can shave someone's face. I love that. Not like the, well, I guess not unlike the barber of Fleet Street there, right? Newt the Barber tells him they will shout his name too. Not like the, well, I guess not unlike the barber of Fleet Street there, right? Newt the barber tells him they will shout his name too.

Victarion nods, but doesn't agree. Balen's sons and his beloved daughter come first. At Moat Cailin, his captains had all argued Balen's sons are dead. Asha's merely a woman. He was his brother's strong right arm. He must pick up the sword he let fall. There's something in this that makes me think about Stannis and how it must have been at his councils after Robert first was gone and when he went back to Dragonstone and all of his men being like, well, you know, you have to avenge

your brother and please, those children, they aren't real. They aren't Robert's children. You're the true King Stannis. Something about those political agendas. You know, something's in there. Maybe this is what it looked like. People blowing smoke up his ass over in Dragonstone, for sure, right? And he's like, I don't know, maybe. And then, yeah, with Victoria, he's like, yeah, I don't know. That weird kid.

No one even knows where he is or what's happening to him. And the other one's just a girl because of shit. Just a girl. Yeah, I know how that is. As just a to him and the other one's just a girl because of shit just a girl yeah i know how that is as just a girl yeah i'm also just a girl and it nothing to write home about interesting that he's his brother's strong right arm and then what happens to his left arm his left hand volcano arm right he becomes a magma being. Unlike Jamie, he doesn't lose the hand that gets business done for him, though, right? He loses his left hand. And that said, it does feel parallel, right? We have all of these handy moments here with Jamie.

And John, right? John has his hand pretty fucked up and hurt. Catelyn also fucked her hand up on the cat's paw dagger. So lots of focus on hands. and hands and hands george is doing something here he's doing something with this motif of hands but i don't think we'll have like a fully like realized argument of what it is till you know all the books are out uh much later sometimes you kind of need like most of the story to see you know what the argument is of it but anyways uh so like fire and blood part two fire and blood part three dunkin egg i don't four five six seven

and then of course the last five books of the series i can't deal with this sorry it's just like how victorian victorian cannot deal with the fact that he's like, hmm, yeah, I'm my brother's strong right arm, but I cannot understand what you mean by what is this role of a hand when Asha proposes it? He's like, I don't think I can wrap my head around that. Yeah, it's like he understands it, but he doesn't see value in it in their culture and where it could help him because he thinks that they're so different from all other men. in their culture and where it could help him because he thinks that they're so different from all other men yeah and i think that's like the key part the men and he's also like well well for them i guess the the strong right arm part is mostly kind of a military leader versus how ash is like you know what if we actually like thought things through politically yeah and he's like i don't know about that

not a bad point so then we have they you know these people telling victorian i mean the crow's eye doesn't even know their ways like there's no way he could come home suddenly and take the crown not at all sending everyone running for their lives yeah that memory of his brother stealing things he covets brings such an old rage into his heart you can see that and it starts from the very front of this chapter and And he thinks, Euron was his elder, no matter the bad blood by Taylor Swift between them. No man is as accursed as the Kinslayer. Yeah, exactly. Right from the start, you're seeing that this guy hates his brother enough to want him dead, which is really interesting, right? Because somehow Euron gets elected, but also it seems like no one from this family likes him at

all except for Job I don't care for Job I don't care much for Job yeah but yeah he's a motherfucker Euron's evil oh my god wait a second though Job from Arrested Development put an eye patch on him in your head oh my god look at his maniacal smile. Magician. Also, you know, like a dark wizard. Dark wizard shit. Dampier's summons for the Kingsmoot came and they had changed everything. Aaron speaks with the Drowned God's voice. If they say he must sit at the

sea so- if they say he must sit the sea stone chair, well, Victarion must go. He had given Ralph Kenning command at Moat Cailin and set off for the iron fleet oh yeah i i think i know you're going to talk about this more later but what we're seeing here is the setting up of like the weaknesses right of the ironborn's war strategy and and how they're overlooking things for northern ploys because we see a little later on they got i mean a little too cocky right they're like we got this we got no kailyn and

ignore all of asha's warnings about the northmen and she's like there are still northmen out there you know like they're still doing things like i'm telling you from first-hand experience first axe experience yeah uh there's even something in there a bit, right? Like, very Stannis-y itself. Now, you mentioned the North, and Stannis kind of in the North right now, right? But there's also something, like, Stannis-y in that Arryn speaks with the Drowned God's voice. And if he says,

I must sit the Seastone Chair, then I must be God. I must be Azor Ahai. Come again. Melisandre speaking through R'hllor. You know, in the beginning, Stannis doesn't really go for it, but now it slowly becomes kind of a

defense, doesn't it? Yeah. It does, but, uh, you know, they give it pretty fast. Every time you say Stannis-y, though, I hear, like, Stannis-y. Stannis-y! He's putting his Stannis-y into the war. His old Stannis-y. I have toi. He's putting his Stenussi into the war. His old Stenussi.

I have to leave. I have to leave this planet. Grief and iron vengeance. The ships were close behind as iron victory passed the headland with hard hand, iron wind, gray ghost, Lord Quelan, Lord Viken, Lord Dagon, and the rest. About nine-tenths of the fleet, sailing on the evening tide. This is a big sign of legitimacy for Victarion, right? For coming home with all of his big ships saying, I have the Iron Island's pride and joy behind me. Someone fight me.

Yeah, and someone does. And wins. Well, I mean, I guess not, you know, physically. Only, yeah, only other kinds of fighting we have this line of the sight of their sails filled victorian grayjoy with content no man had ever loved his wives half as well as the lord captain loved his ships and i'm like okay so that means he just does not love his wives as much as his ships which okay okay i see and old certainly doesn't respect them no oldwick is lined with all sorts of ships with some familiar banners newt and roderick's by lord harloss seesong old drums thunderer black tides night flyer silverin silverfin so when bought

these family and more i like the name Swain. And also this Nightflyer ship, I think that's a reference to George's Nightflyers. I think it's a novella, which is supposed to be a space horror and has been adapted now into, I think, a miniseries. So I have not consumed it, but if any of you

want to get into Nightflyers, there are many ways for you to enjoy it, both written and watched. I don't know if it sounds like my kind of show, but it certainly sounds kind of cool. Yeah. It's kind of a cool description. I forgot the reception to the show, but it exists. Hey, if you're into that, though, check it out. Let us know what you think. I would love to hear about it, honestly, because I just don't know if it's for me, but it sounds interesting. Yeah. Victarion remembers, by the by the way oh you're on

drowned lord botley and thinks wait his heir also died at moat cailin he wonders how many brothers and sons there are and if any of them had cause to ride for euron which i think is a great thing to point out considering we've had lots of you know usurping the brother and trying to kill the brother and and betting to get your chips in the air. Interesting little political thought there, right? Like, hmm, do any of them have cause to be with Euron? Like, ah, you killed my father. Thank God, now I'm God.

Yeah, I don't know. That could work on some of them, though, to be honest. Some of these people, you know, they are weak-willed. He also then, but also he underestimates Asha, because that's the biggest part. Triss goes to her. Yeah, that's true. Underestimates the pull of Asha.

And then he saw her, a single-masted galley, lean and low with a dark red hole. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor, silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother of pearl, but she had no mouth. Victarion's hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull's broad chest and a boy's flat belly

the kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men balen had reminded him on the day he sent the crow's eye off to sea lots to break down from the ogling of his brother's ship and of course from the trauma from his brother from balen but i have to stop and say here you have the reference of the iron maiden you know like iron maiden the band on the ship and then in a moment we're gonna get motley crew i get it i get it george you're on loves metal yeah i didn't catch any of those so i'm glad that you did and george yes you're on is incredibly very metal except for the

parts where he likes silence so it's very interesting but also george is just having fun with this chapter and throwing in his little references oh yeah i think you have a lot of fun with this chapter i think you kind of have to if you're gonna be in victorian's mind this long. That's true. It's kind of an empty play place, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He commands Newt the barber to drop the sail and row inward and have grief and iron vengeance block silence in. The rest of the fleet will seal the bay with no one leaving without his command. No man, no crow. Other ships begin to call out hellos to victorian and his crew except for silence where he sees a motley crew he thinks mutes and mongrels men black as tar and then compares these men to uh apes from sothiros and other animals and calls them monsters

them monsters victorian no it's a no it's it's a big no like he he's just like not a good dude you know like this is this is so weird of him and that he he looks shouldn't he be like kind of well-traveled like why is he so xenophobic and racist all the time like you'd think he's seen and met people on his traverses i yeah you would think that but it doesn't seem so i guess he's just like also very antisocial does he just like kill them all i don't know and i just think it's it's so weird and messed up that he thinks of them that way because as we've discussed for brand's chapters right like for example in the night fort brand's thinking of all these monster stories and turns out in that story Bran is the monster and I think we're going to find out pretty early on within this very chapter that Victarion is very much actually a monster and I just think it's so

strange that when he looks at Euron's crew, just because they look different, he thinks of them as the monsters and not Euron, who is the one who is actually kidnapping and mutilating these crewmen that Vakirion's judging. Like, Euron's the actual monster here? Like, it's pretty straightforward that these people are kind of victims of Euron. And there's something I never really thought about exploring until now, but, you know, you have those with the tongues cut out, silenced, and it makes me think back to the Bran chapters we just came from, right? And the singers.

The singers that are silenced themselves in this cave where no one hears their songs except for Bloodraven, and it definitely seems like some sort of little perversion right of blood raven and his caves with his singers and that euron now has singers that can't sing yeah he does and also i mean you think of what illyrio and varies are doing of course yep i was thinking also of Varys and his little birds. They can't sing either. No, they just cut these people, and I guess ill and pain

now that I think about it, too. Yeah, all these people losing their voice. For somebody that's so metal, so hardcore, Victarion dresses with a shit ton of swag. I've gotta capture the swag for you all.

He dresses up for the shore. Not the Jersey Shore. That's impossible. A different shore. He's wearing his sword belt. He could. He's wearing a sword belt and his Lord Captain's cloak,

which is nine layers of cloth of gold sewn in the shape of a kraken, arms rippling down to his boots, heavy chainmail over black-boiled leather, and a tall dark war helm in the shape of an iron Kraken. So of these different returning home POVs we've had for the Ironborn, for Victarion, he's not really unlike Theon in that need to prove himself. Everything he has is wrought in Krakens and paid for by blood to prove himself as this

like headstone of the ironborn culture and it's truly fascinating right that he's caring so much to resemble and look the part of the kraken in a way he kind of makes me think of like if theon hadn't been taken to the north and instead was allowed yet not even allowed, told actively to pursue ironborn culture to its fullest. This is what he'd become, right? Worse than just the sex pest he already is, he would be sexist, abusive, racist. His behavior would go unchecked. He would negate everything in terms of whatever he had morally because he wants to be adored and worshipped by his peers and that's who victarians kind of become i think that's really great that you've likened them to one another because that's true they do wish to be adored they kind of want

to be seen and and acknowledge theon especially so because of the way that he's grown up and it really brings up those questions that's in the story of nature versus nurture of you know to what extent do the people around you affect who you are what's innate about you and there there's also like this aspect of I like how you're talking about them returning home, because for Victorians, especially because a lot of people are coming home right now, right? It's a homecoming, right? It's kind of like if you decided that homecoming weekend was also for some reason your town's election, that's what this is, and your Victorians, like the high school like football hero and everyone's super happy and like congratulating him love to see him and but he's also kind of like a meathead which is again

not true not again which is not true of every person who returns home for homecoming and not true of every football player there's some very nice football players that i've met in my life yeah not not professionally they they did not stay in that path because not everyone can become a millionaire nfl player but victorian could that's a great way to look at him as like the washed up sports hero literally washed up here he is yeah who embodies toxic masculinity yeah oh my god i dated a victorian not all again not all of them not all of them are like that some of them are really nice yeah that's a great way to kind of think about him just placing him as that washed up football stud i get it literally washed up literally washed up yes that's what i was going for because there's water because

what is dead may never die uh yeah also that too that that too dunk dunk dunk dunk dunk dunk dunk giving him a swirly oh my god is this is that why aaron became a drowned priest because it was the only way to give his brothers swirlies? Well, I mean, first he got the ultimate swirly from God, apparently. No, that's literally what happened. He went to the bottom of the ocean, allegedly. And now he's got to pay it back. Ten swirlyfold. Victarion had worn lots of chainmail at Moat Cailin,

preferring it because he didn't want to be stabbed in the stomach by the poisoned bog devil arrows, glossing over his brazenly racist term for the people of the neck. He vows to take care of the bog devils no matter who sits the sea stone chair. That's nuts. So if he came back from the east, he would straight up abandon everything just to take out the people of the neck. All right, Victarion. It's fucked up. I thought that was kind of cool and interesting because we had not yet seen the other crannogmen doing anything yet in this story. So this is kind of our first word of that happening.

Yeah, a show of their guerrilla warfare only like somewhat on the screen. Behind the screen behind the screen but there yeah off page but happening yeah someone who's seen it so the boat is ready to take him to shore and he charges newt with the protection of his treasure chest and newt says as you command your grace to which he responds i am no king as yet yet erin greets him gaunt and tall with tangled ropes of hair and beard, waves breaking around him. He greets his brother with, what is dead can never die. And Victarion responds, but rises again, harder and stronger. This is like worst staff punk.

He kneels to receive the sacrament of salt water from Aaron and the ocean and then asks after their brother, the crows eye. and the ocean and then asks after their brother the crows eye there's almost like a soft tender moment i feel like here between them where erin is blessing his brother and welcoming him and both of them kind of quietly are exchanging uh have you seen our awful brother euron who's terrorized us and tormented us our entire life it feels like a small but significant exchange with them yeah there's i think a lot of love within this family for each other for the brothers that are not euron it seems like they really liked each other if they were not euron because i think we all know what what the deal is with euron uh we are also sorry very much spoiling to an extent and hinting at things that are in the forsaken spoilers to you well it's a little late my bad uh and and speaking of which like i i'm not sure that victorian knows what happened to erin like i think that balan knows what happened to erin but not victorian i don't seem as like being very uh perceptive and also i i could see maybe erin would

be too ashamed for anyone else to know and for victorian to know because he'd be worried that victorian would see him as like less of a man and respect him less for knowing that like erin was sexually abused i guess for me I think that there's kind of a cornerstone of the entire topic that makes me think he knows to an extent that he at least suspects if not knows and why I think that is because he knows that Euron seems to be capable of worse we also know that Euron obviously tormented Victarion in a different way it was a different form of control and torture we see that he practically cucks Victarion knowing that Victarion can't really emotionally handle things in a different way right like he finds a different

way to torture Victarion than he did to aaron and maybe to other brothers which we might go into someday and finally i think another big part of that is the the toxic masculinity that victorian oozes right that is just coming out of his pores he perhaps saw that he had to be something else in order to survive euron. But yet Euron still found a way to ruin him as well. And then the displacement, right? Like that Euron is able to ruin his life over something in his mind. But instead of being fucking mad at Euron, he actually, I would even argue there's a little bit of tension with him and Balon.

Because he thinks throughout this entire chapter, there's a little bit of tension with him and balan because he thinks throughout this entire chapter even a little resentment that balan told him no man is as accursed as the kinslayer which implies victorian was ready to fucking kill euron he was like let me kill him you have to do something about what he did like that is you know pretty fucked up that he rapes his wife and impregnates her and balan sends him away into exile to go do what he's good at, reaving in the east and find all these exotic things and start a new life, whether it's easy or not. That's like Victarion's dream, right, is to go reaving and lead his captains of ships and kings. So in a way, probably felt like Euron was getting off with no nothing, right?

Probably felt like Euron was getting off with no nothing, right? It felt like Balon maybe wasn't upholding justice for Victarion. Yeah, he probably suspects something happened to Arryn, which, again, I guess Balon didn't really do anything about that. Like, obviously was like, keep that man at an arm's length. But as you said, right, he didn't really do anything when Euron, I guess, you know, not that this is all I think it was, but like, you know, but this is how the Ironborn were perceived as like just disrespecting Victarion, right? Or something like that. And it is a big slight. And you're right, like he kind of does get off scot-free. Like, I mean, he's exiled, but also, I mean, Euron doesn't

really give a shit if he doesn't see people on the iron islands or his family he cares about power and that's why he's back here and it's only kind of made his mystique even more powerful but most of all what you're saying of like he's like why didn't you do anything like that is balon's job as a leader of his people to to enforce the law and act justice and we see like it isn't out of the realm of possibility for someone to do that against their family members we see it a lot with the Targaryens we uh you know or like even Egg being like I gotta do something about gotta do something about my uncle or cousin several x number of times removed who is was my hand maybe and also uh killed someone that was also my family member that

we also have to bring to justice because of the treason and they tried to overthrow my family so yeah there's something uh there's even something like Clegane about it right how Sandor was made to have his face pressed into the fire and then his brother was knighted and given different oils than he had and was enabled and encouraged to continue his lifestyle yeah exactly there's something Clegane about it and now he's a monster and a monster. And it's that question of like, could you or should you? Do you enforce the law in that same way? Like you're supposed to against your family members. But it's like, you know, for example, John wondering like, I mean, Rob wouldn't kill me for deserting Woody.

Woody? What if I came to join his cause? Woody? But it's like, I don't know. Thankfully, we never had to answer that question. But or now that I think about it, if is king you know you've brought up him versus john right and having a great crime of regicide intimate partner violence if that is what happens yeah not uh definitely something to think about in comparison to Victarion's chapters.

And, you know, it comes to that similar, when you're bringing up Egg, it reminds me of Viserys I and Daemon, right? Or Oberyn and Doran, you know, some of these great brother duos. And Balon was definitely, besides the whole deciding to rebel thing, because he thought it was smart and opportune,

got in, you know, this has happened to me doing war in ck2 and ck3 before so i totally get it okay i thought you were gonna say like in real life it's like when when did chloe do a treason shit happens aliana shit happens but you know sometimes you just think that you have it handled and you have enough manpower and then you realize at the worst time when there's no way out that it was the very bad choice besides that little hiccup balen was you know the even keeled tempered kind of ruler he does seem and he does seem like he was respected by his brothers right because like we see that so coming back euron is surrounded by godless men and monsters allegedly he's hosting them from a tent a cloth a gold disappointing the

house per usual i don't know other people don't seem disappointed and then you have this line of victorian would not speak of kin slaying here in this godly place beneath the bones of naga and the gray king's hall but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into euron's smiling face until the flesh split and his bad blood run red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. And on one hand, yes, like I absolutely agree with what you were saying of like, he has that sort of resentment of Balon not enacting justice, but there's also, I think, an element of which the younger brothers do still see Balon as somewhat protecting them, right? He's as somewhat protecting them right he's

kind of the red he's kind of the rob stark of his brothers uh and also ends up kind of standing against his own family members right there's this brother against brother thing going on especially amongst this generation of gray joys which repeats throughout a song of ice and fire with like the the dance and and the black fire rebellion and that's happening in this house but in a less visible way yeah uh i like too that his memory is standing for that in a way i love that you've compared it to rob and i think it even comes back to a little a lot of stark kind of feelings right right? The memory being the thing that, you know, Ned held this house together and Rob held this house together. And there's also this line in here of Euron's hosting everyone under his cloth of gold tent. Yeah, actually. Yeah. And I love that it's one

upping Victarion. All he has is a cloth of gold cloak. Euron has a tent. Yeah. It's interesting that people don't see that as like- Too gaudy. has a tent. Yeah, it's interesting that people don't see that as like- Too gaudy. Austin Tate. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because I guess, I don't know, iron price shit, but whatever. But no one sees through his veneer is the problem with Euron too, you know? Yeah. Beneath the gold, the bitter steel though, if you think about it. Oh, there you go. Anyone who was anyone on the Iron Islands had come to see the sea stone chair claimed. The captains and the kings. On the Iron Islands, they were one and the same, for every girl was a queen and every queen was a girl, Anakin.

I mean, every captain was a king on his own deck, and every king must be a captain. Hombre de la casa. with Bran and some of the other POVs we've discussed and including in our last episode how almost none of the POVs that we get are people who hold that societal power in Westeros right or at least they're not the default they're not like those first sons everyone's supposed to inherit it all and granted George did think that Rob maybe should have been a POV but anyways so Ned Ned is a second son right like it but he is a lord and I think the closest that we have to the default of power in that way in Westeros society is Jaime but he has pledged to serve and then also nobody likes him except for i don't know his direct family members

because he's seen as very dishonorable by the rest of his society and then his story transforms into more of this exploration of balancing masculine ideals with his emasculated body as seen by westeros when he is disabled so i think that victorian is actually the closest we get to a pov that has the default of power like sure he's a second or third or i don't know we bring all the other folks back to life further down the line son but with the way that ironborn culture is structured he holds all of that power especially when he's on a ship yeah it's uh it is the most like man's man place for him not like to be that person but it's like his meat his steak and potato kind of place this is his safe spot you know he's like i feel me on the sea commanding a bunch of dudes to do what i want him

to do all for us to get from this point a to point b i even wonder if there's a little resentment you know that euron was put into exile to do everything that Victarion's good at, and Victarion had to just be subservient, obedient to Balon's whims. I think, I think so, but also I don't know that you're not, I don't know that Victarion thought about it that much, maybe until yeah recently because i don't think he's like a traumatized yeah i think the trauma from the bad thing that he actually did uh as well as the he he just doesn't seem like a wants to make those big decisions kind of guy you know he's not really into navel gazing about his choices. Only navel, like navy gazing. Ah, navel gazing.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Victarion says he plans to claim their father's crown if the Drowned God wills it, and Aaron tells him to listen to the waves, that he will speak through them. This line is great. It's a great mirror to a Ned quote, a famous Ned quote. He wondered how his name would sound whispered by waves and shouted by the captains and the kings. If the cup should pass to me, I will not set it by. As a reminder, you know, that cup has to do with like Ned inheriting Winterfell, etc.

Just because, you know, I was supposed to go to Brandon. He keeps saying, like, the cup was for Brandon and shit like that, and it's hearkening back to the usage of cup in the Bible in which Jesus is praying, um, in the garden of, like, before he's, before he's captured, etc., Father, if you you are willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but yours be done because he's asking to not be crucified and sacrificed and is like like seriously if we have other solutions i think we should go with those and not the one where i get tortured and then die and i think that's important because cup then becomes this this it's a responsibility right it's a

burden it's it's painful with the risk of death and ned understands that that's what the cup is but victorian doesn't right when he thinks of the cup passing to him he only imagines the fanfare and people whispering his name and shouting it and none of the actual work yeah and there's something even more interesting about how it doesn't pass like that right usually like if it was just a normal lordship in feudal westeros society he's the lord of pike right however balin fucked that up balin straight up fucked that up for him with his whole Kang shit. And now everyone wants them as a king, right? The last idea before Balin was gone was we are going to carve out our goddamn kingdom against the North. And that's what everybody either wants or, as we're about to see, does not want. You don't just get the cup.

The cup doesn't just come to you. You should earn it, right? In the Ironborn culture, that's what they see it as. And here he is thinking, ah, if the cup passes to me i will not set it by i won't let it just stand there i will drink from it and i will fucking fuck them all up yeah and it does kind of seem like he was setting up asha's air and people were like i don't think women should get cups you know only b cups and c cup no i'm joking but it does have a lot of Dance of the Dragon vibes going on. There's a little bit of Asha being the Rhaenyra and being able and wanting to

and even being smart enough in this chapter to see like it shouldn't be her. Yeah. And I think Viserys at least like had people pledge to Rhaenyra. But I think Balon thought he had more time to figure that out i would say so he wasn't even the one going out there doing the weaving during his war campaign right like he was he was at home doing the strategizing managing so which is important and so yeah i think he thought he had a lot more time and not that you know rando faceless man was gonna show up on a bridge and shove him off but you know could happen to anyone it could happen to me you should be nicer to me why do you think it could happen to me it could

happen to you it could happen what do you mean i was like is someone trying to say well i was like is someone trying to kill you and shove you off like a bridge is something happening yeah i was like are you implying it's me are you accusing me to get free of the podcast that's a pretty big one men had come to seek victorian's favor and wish him well the black tides tawny's orkwood stone trees winches good brothers of old and great wick and ork mont as well these are some lord of the rings ass names and some like uh what does nuts and step and some hp lovecraft names and step brother names but i must say i did get chapter four of those books i thought you'd be really impressed on chapter four you're making progress i am proud of you i am proud of you the cods were

there though every decent man despised them what a line i thought i thought it was so funny that they included this line and him thinking it and then also how later on asha literally says it but she's like and though every woman despises you like she says it to the cod's face and i don't know people people just really do not like the cods they're like the mcpoils i I guess, of Westeros? Of the Iron Islands? They're the McPoyles of the Iron Islands, and Euron is a night man. This is very Always Sunny. I really appreciate it. We're going through a lot of sitcoms.

Not sitcoms. I don't know. Shows today. Yeah, we are. Yeah, I don't know. I feel bad sometimes, because they suck but like house cod does do some shit right uh they actually bloodless tom of house cod goes with the iron fleet to slaver's bay yes that's his name and daggan cod is left behind at moat caelyn when victorian goes

for the king's moot and daggan gets killed by Adfrak Humble. Shepherds, weavers, netleys, humbles, volmarks, spars, and more. Victarion drank deeply with them, going off to their cook fires to hear them talk of war, crowns, plunder, glory, and freedom of his reign. Later he feasts fifty famous captains on Roast Kid, Salted Cod, and Lobster at the Tideline, with his brother Aaron attending as well. Many promise him their voices.

Froleg the Strong, Elvin Sharp, and Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offers him a daughter, but Victarion claims he has no luck with wives, okay? His first died in childbirth, the child too, and his second was dead from a pox. And his third, well, we'll come back to that one, but he murdered her. Hotho's daughter is young, fair, and fertile, and a king needs an heir, he insists. Besides, Euron was showing off several of his young spawn as they spoke. Victarion tries to picture the girl,

but he only sees the wife he killed. He promises to look at her once he is crowned. So as Chloe has said once upon a time, so never, he's never gonna look at that girl. Regarding the second wife dying from a pox, I thought that stood out to me. Does that mean what kind of pox because sometimes pox is used as a euphemism for for stds like syphilis in this world and it could be that i mean there are other kinds of poxes because i live in the real world and there are several kinds of poxes but if it were a sexual disease like an std like where did he where did she get it from because was it your fault too victorian and i mean if it wasn't his fault was it his brother's fault maybe or like

literally anyone else so i don't know i'm just thinking like has euron has euron been coveting his things a lot longer yeah though i guess he would have noticed if it were like an STI kind of pox now that I think about it. I'm sure he's seen it before. Yeah, that's more over why I would say probably just a regular pox, probably like a John H. Ryan pox. So Baelor Blacktide was not as easy to negotiate with, although he continues to be very sexy for some reason. He's a slept-on character, all right, as we have talked about in the Asha chapters, slept-on. He is wearing a black and green tunic, a sable cloak, pinned with a silver seven-pointed star. He had been a hostage in Old Town for eight years, and he came back worshiping their gods. Yeah, a great

commentary there, right, on this new culture and this culture diverging and the truth of the culture, right? Like what happened to Baelor Blacktide is the same as Theon in a way, but Theon was in the north and Baelor was in Old Town, which is, you know, a little heavier on the liberal education and arts and religion in their culture, right? That's a very big cultural place to be held hostage at. So you can imagine that he's gotten a lot of viewpoints there. Yeah, he's also just like, he's just way more mentally healthy than Theon. You know, he comes back and he just feels comfortable saying these things and also being like, but what if we did not do more war, right? Like he suggests things that are kind of similar

to what Asha does, but also he doesn't do all the weird shit that Theon does when he returns home to the Iron Islands. Well, to be fair, he doesn't have Balin Greyjoy as his father waiting for him, right? And Balor says,aelin was mad,

Arryn's madder, and Euron's the maddest of them all. What of you, Lord Captain? If I shout your name, will you make an end of this mad war? Viterion asks if Baelor would have him bend the knee, and he's like, well, we can't face all of Westeros. Robert showed us that. Baelin paid the iron price, but our woman bought his crown with empty beds. The old way is dead, he says. It's not dissimilar to what we see in the Dance of the Dragons, right, in Fire and Blood with the Riverlands,

where it's just widows all the way down. All of these men went off to war and died. The old way is killing the ironborn, right? Like some of the Ironborn kill each other. Some are killed maybe in battle, but the old way is killing them more than anything. Evolve or be passed over is really what they're learning.

He goes on to call Balin the Widowmaker. He would trade the Ironborn's freedom for his father to come back. Victarion has nothing to say to that, and Baelor leaves. The tent is hot and smoky, the men are dancing, drinking, fighting, singing old reaver songs like The Bloody Cup and Steel Rain. The Widowmaker. What a great line, calling Baelon the Widowmaker, connecting this kind of with the Widow's Tower that we see in The Kraken's Daughter, where we meet Gwyneth's Harlaw, Roderick's sister, and the widow-slash-wife we meet in this book, and of course where Olenna stays as well.

The entire book could really be a hunger for widows. So much of A Feast for Crows is showing widowhood, from Margaery to Lady Stoneheart to Randa Royce, hell, to Cersei and her shenanigans. Well, yeah, those are shenanigans, and she is a widow. Kind of by her choice, but, uh... What are you trying to say about our queen? Oh, nothing.

You know, nothing that, uh... Ned Stark wouldn't say. And, um... But I do want to come back to what you were saying about Baelor Blacktide because I like what you were saying of how Theon can't disavow the war in the same way that Baelor can, because for Baelor, he kind of has this Ellaria-esque thing coming, right? Like, his dad died, and for Theon, it's like, you can't really, like, say shit about the

war that, like, it's your dad's war, right? It's one thing even if you were, like, the vassal of some other lord being like i don't think we should do this war but it's literally your dad's war and you gotta kind of back that and it's also like the baggage that's kind of similar to quentin right being like gotta go make dad absent dad proud and i don't mean this in a shitty way but like baylor didn't have those expectations to come home to, right? Like his father, Baelor's father died in this war, and he'll never know the love and support of his father, much like Theon didn't when he went home, obviously, and his was alive. probably also looked like Aragorn in fan art. And seriously, check out the Fantasy Flight artwork of Baelor Blacktide. It is in-fucking-sane.

Like, I cannot tell you, like, flick the bean. But glossing over that, glossing over that, but like his dad, you know, he'll never know now. And that's probably the hardest part, right? We see that for john right not knowing his own father not knowing that ned's not his father father though he is his daddy um you know he'll never know what was in rhaegar's heart and mind necessarily without like brand cctv so it goes a lot back to the conversation from amon right with john with Jon and what's honor, what's love, what's

duty, what are all these things and what do they mean to a person? Well, that right there is the answer. And what Baelor's saying here is true. Victarion doesn't embrace or understand what he says because Victarion will go on to kill and sell widows and children later in the Reaver. He'll kill a boat of sex workers. He, instead of dealing with problems or putting a structure into place, a political structure even, or planning for the future, like when Asha comes to him

at the end of the chapter, it's like talking to a brick wall about political acumen. He beats the problem to death, literally, figuratively, every time. And, I mean, we'll revisit it, right? But for Victarion, he abandoned Moat Cailin for the Kang's Moot. And then what happens to the Ironborn there that were supposed to be the men that he wants to rule? He abandons them and they die.

play it leader instead of being one standing by his man because i i think that if he had been at moat kale and things would have gone a little differently because he would have been like i don't know i'm not gonna treat with my like skinny weirdo nephew nephew i don't understand he's like i don't trust that kid what what's wrong with that kid not because like i mean things were wrong with the on and obviously he was leading them astray. But also mostly, mostly, I think, regardless of all that, he would have just been like, he's not buff. I will not listen to him. Which, you know, a broken clock is right twice a day. Yes, and that's a feast for crows. Yeah, that's Cersei's story.

And that is Victarion's story. In fact, they're on the opposite side of the clock yeah amazing amazing amongst all of this noise is a woman laughing and victorian finds asha whispering something into carl the maid's ear who's laughing too victorian had hoped asha would be wiser than to come here but seeing her makes him smile he commands her to him and she greets him and says she's pleased to see him at her queen's mood yes asha queen asha queen asha queen victorian laughs at his niece asking if she's drunk reminding her that everyone remembers her as she was in her youth swimming nude in the waters and playing with dolls and she's like i also play with other toys like axes and i am very good at it and and so you

see here this very much like infantilization of women in the ironborn culture right like even if any of them may be shirked off gender roles they're never seen as anything more than children right they're never seen as as adults only men get to be adults and it has to be earned right versus boyhood right which is which is a problem today because you see these women like Gwyneth and Alanis Harlaw that are were absolutely capable right um and fierce ferocious women but they're relegated to a tower right locked away like private premium editions and I do love though that there's still some sort of rapport with Vic and Asha right

like he's her weird favorite uncle and you can even see it's hard I mean most of them suck or are dead or are gone for a good reason there's even a little bit of the water gardens here right like Olive Pike kind of is a water garden for these kids

that have grown up here swimming naked in the water with the drowned god right playing with dolls or playing in the sands and on the beaches i mean this is their innocence that was her innocence as a child yeah it's also very much a literal water garden literally a gray water garden yeah lots of water everywhere women want husbands not a crown victorian says when he's king she will have a husband she rebuts i'll give you a pretty wife when i'm queen and he says i have no luck with women moving on to ask how long she's been there long enough to see that uncle aaron has awakened more than intended everyone wants claim now, even if the king must be a kraken, as Victarion reminds her to some of these newcomers that want a crown. She comments, though, that by that logic, Euron is a huge kraken, an older kraken, and the elder brother

must come before the younger, but she is Balon's blood, who comes before both of them. I just think it's so weird that victorian keeps going like i have no luck with women like that's something you say when no one wants to swipe i don't know right on you on an app not when a i killed my wife sort of way yeah yeah red flags man red flags not good and we'll come back to this more one day, eventually. And we've said it already in the Asha chapters to an extent, but it's fascinating how Aaron and Victarion literally just hand over this kingship and power over themselves, over what happens to their fates,

because you're giving someone absolute power to their abuser, over what happens to their fates because you're giving someone absolute power to their abuser because they just can't imagine a world where women could hold power and i'm not saying this to like victim blame them or anything but but more of to show how the rigidity of this patriarchal system chains them just as much as it does women i mean obviously deadlier consequences for some of them but i mean the consequences for erin are really bad they are really bad not just in the past but also in the future just because neither he nor victorian could imagine that maybe we should just let Asha take it instead of gambling. Yeah, maybe we should all form behind one and give in. Because the force that's coming is going to be much greater.

And terribler. They've just got like this, you know, the whole thing of like mediocre man very much assumes he is qualified and then they go give it a spin. And then they're like, oh, what? I'm not. That bad, huh? and then they go give it a spin and then they're like oh what i'm not that bad huh well before she can go on they're interrupted by silence and you're on gray joy i love the the subtle plays that george drops through here right of silence on and off when you're on arrives

he looks unchanged victorian thought he looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellen's sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a white cap to be seen, and his face still smooth and pale beneath his dark, neat beard. a black leather patch covered Euron's left eye but his right was blue as a summer sky his smiling eye bought Victarion crow's eye he said yeah everyone's just like I don't know you're very handsome, so we should hand him the kingship, which is not a basis also for kingship, hair dye and skin care. But Euron corrects him, being like, that's king's crow's eye to him, which is so...

Damn hair stands, reminding them that the king's meat will decide the king, and no godless man may sit the chair. But Euron says he sat the sea stone chair more often lately than not to no objections and besides Euron has met more gods than anyone he's met the best gods godless he says I am the godliest man ever to raise sail you serve one goddamn pair but I have served 10,000 from Ib to Asshai. When men see my sails, they pray. And I'm just like, do you think that Euron wrote that speech ahead of time and then rehearsed it for this moment? Oh my god, he starred in his school's musical in like his junior year.

And trust me, this is his time. This is his moment. He's been writing this speech and working on this monologue since then. And then he did Acid for the first time somewhere in his like mid late teens. And let me tell you, that was, that really set all this off. So yeah,

got to give him props. You know, he's really in for the long game on this speech. There's a semester at sea. Aaron calls these false gods and abomination and your own agrees saying, well, that's why I kill so many of them and I spill their blood on the sea. Their gods can't stop me, so plainly, they're false gods.

And by the way, Aaron, that makes me holier than you. Got him. I mean, honestly, I can't follow that loophole. It's a pretty interesting loophole. His logic is, like, seamless here. It kind of is. I'm not gonna lie here it kind of is i'm not gonna i'm not gonna lie it has like two seams but thankfully he just throws you back and forth at those seams so uh he uh he turns his eye on victorian and asha and he's like tell me how does alanis harlaw fare and ash is like very poorly

because somebody made her a widow, dipshit. And Euron fakes ignorance. He's like, tell me this man's name so I can avenge my brother. Ash is like, IDK, it was just kind of funny that you showed up three years to the day after your exile and my dad died. I don't mean anything by it, though. Just saying. Kind of weird.

And Euron's like, are you accusing me, LOL? And Ash is like, I don't know.k lol idk bestie Euron looks at his friends and he's like what do I command the winds and they're like no boss couldn't be you couldn't be you man look under your chair oh my god I would I would vote for Euron if he gave me the win I think it makes sense now. Yeah, honestly, that's apparently the criteria. It's kind of brilliant because he's using religion as a shield, right? He's claiming he's holier than everything and that his law is above all because he's holy.

But then he simultaneously uses it as this defense that no one can touch him through it, right? He's like weaponizing the old culture versus the new culture and promising them something new while serving them up the same old shit on a platter that he's going to like throw into the sea before they can have it he's this charlatan right like and somehow he just like has so much power they buy it they buy it and like they he gives them to an extent what they what he promises right in terms of more violence and like erin and victorian are kind of like i'm i am surprised erin's like surprise pikachu like the thing that happened to me as a child is the thing that we got because erin's in power but yeah god's word didn't speak so loud that day did it or too loud

not good Euron says honestly the best thing for Asha at this point would be to become a wife and he starts asking around his crew he's like any of you single and Asha pulls out her axe at all of the third person talk about fucking and spanking her that's going on saying that's the only husband she means to have she means to have yeah it doesn't really take much for euron to squash asha's campaign which is big sad and after this so few people respect her right no one really respects her because how can you respect someone that you think that you should be spanking, right? Like, how can she hope to lead people who, especially after this is reinforced, like, see her only as an object who should belong to one of them? You're

not going to take orders from that. And Euron dehumanizes Asha so quickly, again, simply by turning her into a sexual object, which is something that Euron does right he he uses sexual objectification to exert power over others which is like one of the most ultimate reads of the old way right and the very foundation of their concubine system right he demeans her and tells them to treat her lesser like a concubine which is we don't even need to go into how fucked up that part is already on its own without that part so interesting to kind of delegate her to that role in order to remove her the board to remove her from the board and it works i mean it works yeah quickly easily uh again he's better than them at this, right?

Like, he's a nightmare and he's better than them. That's why he wins. And he does, like, a more effective Karstark with that, too. When he tries to marry her off. Marries her to a seal. Brilliant. I mean, it worked well, I think. Everyone else believed it, so.

Looks just like her, they said. How rude. Seals are cute, though. Victarion breaks it up, saying that he'll have no bloodshed, and asks Euron to take his pets and go. And Euron says he had expected a warmer welcome from them,

that he is his elder, and soon his rightful king. When the Kang's moot speaks, we shall see who wears the driftwood crap. So Euron, I guess, takes his dogs, as they're called, and goes. There's silence lingering behind them. And then Asha asks her uncle to walk with her outside under the cloudy sky and faint stars.

And they walk along the many ships and banners bobbing at anchor and asha asked him to tell her about why the crows eye went away in the first place he had taken many readings and gone on many trips but this time he had gone east and asha herself had been in the arbor on through to the stepstone stealing trick stealing trinkets from lysini pirates i'm sitting here and i'm like no salad or i do not see it i pretend i do not see it for my favorite girl boss oh my god you know sometimes the characters you like they're just at odds with one another you know you know my two faves sometimes it's like that when asha returned he was gone and viction's wife was dead.

Victarion says she had only been a salt wife, but he thinks he had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. I will need to take a wife when I'm king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me sons. A king must have an heir. Balin had refused to speak of Victarion's wife as well, and Victarion changes the subject, saying, I saw Roderick's longship. Asha says it took all her charm to wrinkle him out of the book tower. She has the Harlaws then, he thinks. You know, I'm gaining a much higher understanding of the support of the Harlaws and what it means this time around for the Ironborn, right? Like, location-wise, what it means. And they're almost like the Tullys to the Baratheons in this dynamic duo, right? Like, they are a great asset to have. They bring ships, they bring people.

Just a better understanding of how they relate to them and how it's not just Balen's wife, you know, not just roderick the reader balin's wife it's a bunch of people a big family that gives power to the ironborn here to the gray joys yeah they're a strategic family that absolutely confers legitimacy right because they're they're old they're old and respected unlike you know i don't know the phrase or some shit no i'm serious like that's that's no it's true difference right like how the westerlings right they're like that's an old name that's an old house so victorian tells asha that she cannot hope to rule the iron islands because she was a

woman and she doesn't put up much of a fight and agrees because after four days and four not four nights her own were with her and a handful of others. But she can see now it's not enough to win the Isles. And in fact, she is thinking about voting for one of her uncles, even possibly Victarion, if he would share the rule. And then Victarion's like, what does she mean by this? Gets a very weird boner being like, oh, she wants to be my queen? Like that? Yeah.

He tells her that the chair seats only one, and she's like, well, let me stand behind you then to guard your back, to whisper in your ear. Even the dragons had men helping them. The king's hand. She asks to give him a hand job. Sorry, she asks to be his hand to end the war before it ends them

and make a peace. If they give back Deepwood Mott, Trin Square, and Moat Cailin, the Northmen would give them Stony Shore and Sea Dragon Point. Yeah. If Victarion were smarter, I wonder if he would have, like, remembered Daemon Targaryen. I mean, that's what this moment is. Well, she's not saying to get married, right?

But she is suggesting, you know, being his hand. And he's like, I don't understand this concept. But yeah, it's fascinating that the only thing that stops him thinking of Asha in a sexual way is that he reminds himself, word for word, like, she is Balin's daughter. And then that's what sparks the images then of her as a child, right? Then suddenly she's like, his niece, it's not that like, she's his niece, or that he watched her grow up, though he, it's that he reminds himself of her importance to some other man who's not even here anymore. It's like when people are like, that's someone's daughter. And it's like, no, that's just a person, their own person that you should respect, because they're a human. To get people to like, you know, to turn someone down right they don't respect if you're like no you have to be like i'm dating someone or i'm married they only respect some other man to someone yeah yeah exactly victorian chuckles and says that lady glover played her a fool

there's nothing to hand back winterfell has been burnt the north will be theirs like balin dreamed lol ash is like yeah right ash is like it's too hard to hold the north it's too big and he tells her to go back to her dolls that he has two hands for now and no man needs three she says he needs to her to get house harlaw but victorian tells her hotho has offered his daughter, and he will have the Harlaws to his side. He says that the Crozi has been gone too long, repeating his men's words, and he will be king. Some men look larger at a distance, Asha warned. Walk amongst the cook fires if you dare, and listen. They are not telling tales of your strength, nor of my famous beauty.

They are not telling tales of your strength, nor of my famous beauty. They talk only of the Crozi, the far places he's seen, the woman he has raped, the men he's killed, the cities he has sacked, the way he burnt Lord Tywin's fleet at Lannisport. Yeah, it actually reminds me of that idea, right? Of power being a shadow on the wall and it residing where men believe it resides and you kind of get is you're on the answer to the riddle of like the one the religious man the one who chooses to follow the priest right except uh no one chooses to follow aaron apparently but a different kind of you're on sort of godliness because somehow being far away in an exile the mystery around Euron

he can just make up whatever the fuck he wants no one's going to contradict him because his entire crew has had their tongues ripped out right and all this has only made Euron stronger exactly dead men tell no tales and men without tongues don't either right and that's literally I mean that's what Euron's mystique is built on. It's built on this trail of blood. And even here, Asha kind of responds, you know, with her own thoughts and like her own concepts of what she thinks happened. Victarion's like, excuse me, I burnt the lion's fleet. I flung that torch onto the flagship. And Asha's like, but Euron hatched the scheme, right?

He's the one who told you what to do and he killed your wife right and he's like not dignifying any of that with an answer balin told them not to speak of it but balin was dead she thinks so so we end with this conversation between them of him being like he put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return. So long as Balon lives. Victarion looked at his fists. She gave me hordes. I had no choice.

Had it been known, men would have laughed at me, as the crow's eye laughed when I confronted him. She came to me wet and willing, he had boasted. It seems Victarians big everywhere, but where it matters. But he could not tell her that. I'm sorry for you, said Asha, and sorrier for her, but you leave me small choice but to claim the sea stone chair myself. You cannot. Your breath is yours to waste woman it is she said and left him leave that man it is your breath yeah i actually love that that ending for her for asha because you know at the very least she's saying something is hers it's her

own air it's her own life and that that has worth right beyond just whatever man's being a man's whatever they can control who she marries they can marry a seal to eric anvil whatever fucker and that's fine and dandy but they can't have her breath yeah they're not gonna have her thoughts they're not gonna have her breath and these men can play at ship right they're just playing with their boat toys at this point but she had bigger beans to fry beans lose lobster beans lobster fried beans for now for now but who's, I don't know, she's not with some beans, she's with, like, I don't know, people steak, as we're seeing. The steaks are high! Pig, pig, as they might call it in Bran's characters.

And, yeah, so at the end of this, throughout the chapter, it's been teased out, we finally get that quick introduction to Victarion's, in quotes, trauma? teased out we finally get that quick introduction to victorians in quotes trauma which we see is only like painful for him because he sees his wife's pain solely as an extension of his own like that woman literally died right and the pain comes i think mostly from his pride there's the loss aspect of it too right again it's, it's from an act that he did, but he's giving Euron credit for, he's putting the blame on Euron. And I'm like, so why are you questioning people giving Euron the credit for burning the lion's fleet?

I mean, you're giving Euron credit for the murder that you committed. So I don't know. You can't have it both ways, Victarion. Yeah, it's interesting. He blames everyone but himself and refuses to accept his role in it right she gave me horns i had no choice oh you're on did this yeah oh a lot like jorah that's a great that's actually a great way to look at it yeah

but that's what's so funny is he like corrects her he's like no you know that was my fleet that i burnt and that right there says a lot of their relationship yeah as as asha says right i mean he's kind of pitiful in all that i mean like i don't feel bad for him in that way but as she's it it's her way of kind of minimizing him which i think she should yeah i also really appreciate that that was the veneer ripped off it's actually kind of a sad moment because again that was her weird cool last uncle left that wasn't like a total weirdo like he was kind of weird but like she was like ah i like the way you're weird and we don't get along anymore but i still like you uncle vick and that was just the veneer was taken, I like the way you're weird, and we don't get along anymore, but I still like you, Uncle Vic. And that was just, the veneer was taken off.

That was the shell that was laying over it. Like, his mystery. You talk about, ha, the seashell. You talk about Euron's mystique and everything he's built up, and this is all Victarion is. Underneath Euron's, you know, Emerald City curtain. There probably is just a small man. But Victarion just proved the small man under his mystique. Yeah. He's so enchained in all of the old way.

Yeah, he's Alice in Chains, you could say. George, you should use that one. Alanis in Chains. Oh, Alanis in Chains. Alanis actually is there to remind me of the times when... Alanis, you know. Yeah, it took me a moment to figure out

which Alanis we were going for. Alanis is out there like, Baelin, Baelin, Baelin oughta know! But he's dead. Yeah, he's dead. So I think that's a great note to end this chapter on thank you for listening into the iron captain we'll be back with the reaver for our next a song of ice and fire

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