Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 202 — ACOK Arya V

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Both Arya and our misinformation campaigns get unraveled. Arya loses a protector and someone else she felt she should protect.  Links mentioned:  ASOIAF Bluesky feed: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ebjaynkk5yhraodrfeocvpsk/feed/Bsky-ASOIAF   Learned Hands Episode 32, The United States of Westeros: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-32-the-united-states-of-westeros-federalism/id1504807044?i=1000599381064   Learned Hands Episode 1, The Long Night Court: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-1-the-long-night-court/id1504807044?i=1000469672322   Lo's essay, "The queer potential of a blank slate- Stories of transition at The Wall, The Citadel, and The House of Black and White": https://lothelynx.wordpress.com/2022/11/14/the-queer-potential-of-a-blank-slate-stories-of-transition-at-the-wall-the-citadel-and-the-house-of-black-and-white/   Lo's essay, "Brienne and Arya: gender outlaws": https://lothelynx.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/brienne-and-arya-gender-outlaws/   Ragman's Harbour Podcast: https://ragmanspod.podbean.com/e/01-the-red-wedding-and-other-bloodbaths/   --- Check us out on Bluesky! https://bsky.app/profile/girlsgonecanon.bsky.social --- 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: liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of Ice and Fire, episode 202, Aria 5 in A Clash of Kings. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, Aria ready for episode 202. We've graduated as a podcast and to a different level of class. And by that, I mean, it's still us. We're still in our same bullshit we have new bullshit we'll talk about it

that's one thing that never gets old is new bullshit with you new bullshit with you i was just talking at length recently on our dear friend san rixian stream that she does here and there i was on a little thing she does called Sanri scribbles. And we were talking about you. I think you had left at this point because you didn't respond in the chat, which is how I knew you had left. I said I was leaving. I had a birthday party to go to.

Wow. I announced it. Was it mine? No, it's true. I went to George's birthday. No, I'm joking.

George's birthday is this week though. Everyone. Wow. Wow. Well, that's, I went to George's birthday, but no, I'm joking. George's birthday is this week though, everyone. Wow. Wow. Well, that's okay. I hope it was a good party, but I did speak about you at length. We went bold. And about, yeah, I did. It was all, all positive.

I was just talking about the many things that we get to learn over these long, long episodes and years together of one another. Interesting. I feel like we could have gone over what it is that you've learned if we were in episode 200, but we're past that now. 202. Uh, well, we have lots more to come other than just 202, like our Patreon bonus episode this month, which will be out at end of month for patrons in the Stranger tier, $5 tier and above.

And this month we are covering a little ditty, a 1977 novelette by George R.R. Martin, you may know the man, called Bitterblooms. Butterbugs. It's about a girl who gets, oh my god. the man called bitter blooms butter it's about a girl who gets oh my god it's about a girl who gets lost in the woods in the deepest of winters and gets rescued by a magical woman who takes her back to her spaceship not dragon sounds sexy sounds hot i'm sorry i didn't mean to make it so sexy i was more like trying to be like where could they be taking her a dragon well you're just attracted to me you don't have to say that in front of everybody i was like wow yeah chloe magical woman take me to your spaceship oh i'm taking you there

to my spaceship yeah so that's coming out this month I'm taking Eliana to our spaceship to the spaceship yeah we're going on a journey I mean we are going to be in deep winter in a few months so if we never come back that's what happened oh my god oh my god it's true something else that's happening

this month in actually just a few days tomorrow in fact if you are listening to this when this comes out for the public is our next discord brunch slash happy hour brappy hour where there are sometimes games and giveaways and get to know you this is available for patrons in the thunder tier and above ten dollars and up and yes september's is on september 23rd saturday september 23rd 2023 for the historians next month october is not on september that's such a great point eliana it is not on september my god um woo damn uh after the leo season ends you, and you gloss over what what is it Virgo season you get into that that Libra season that somewhere in there.

I mean, you should know right like when the Libra season stuff happens and then after Libra season is that what Sagittarius the transition to Virgo season really hit me and my co workers hard this year. I don't know what it was. Oh, is that Mercury too? Yeah, that Mercury and Gator hard this year. I don't know what it was. Oh, it was that Mercury too. Yeah. Mercury and Gatorade. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So next month's brunch is indeed happening. October's 2023 discord happy hour slash brunch. I will not deign to call it the term that Eliana wants it to become. That is an Eliana thing. It's happening on a Saturday. It's happening on the 21st. It is 3 to 5 p.m. ET.

It's going to be a little little Halloween happy hour brunch. We're going to, you know, I encourage dressing up. It's an exciting day. Dress up if you want, you know, wear your hollows, wear. And I don't know, games.

We're definitely going to have some Halloween reindeer games. Some jack-o'-lantern games. Yeah. Oh, I have plans. I have plans. Oh, you do? Oh, okay. Yeah, and patrons over on the Discord,

if you want to contribute to those reindeer jack-o'-lantern games, let me know. I'm sure I could use the brain power. You know, it's 2023 i think it's time to own up that we are in our misinformation era we are misinforming we're in our corruption era we are the misinformation machine that is girls gone canon spelled misinformation like the way miss independent from Kelly Clarkson misinformation

misinformation miss keep your distance Chloe wasn't prepared for all the fun we're having this episode yeah you know last episode For all the fun we're having this episode. Yeah, you know, last episode we were really consumed with A, Ara,

because Ara was amazing last week, don't you all agree? But B, very consumed with being in Aria's POV. And yeah, we totally forgot. We've been told by a couple people on the internet, our buddies, that the Gold Cloaks did not come to apprehend them. That was just Amory and his bros, his party. But to be fair, in the dark, it could have been fucking anyone. Who the fuck knows?

It's like they said in the previous chapter, right? In the darkness, all cloaks are black. Okay, everyone. Okay. So, but no. Yeah, I think that there probably wasn't that much communication between them it's possible that there might have been some overlap but ultimately whether or not amory lorch was looking for gendry or new yeah it's true he doesn't care he just wants to stab he just wants to kill yeah and it's, the failure of bureaucracy there, right? That they have two separate parties out looking for Arya, looking for people, looking for Gendry, and none of them have their shit straight.

These are all people that they're like, yeah, we're totally looking for them, but no one in passing was like, hey buddies, there's a clue in case you need it. Yeah, Amory Lorch is just an execution kind of guy. We're out here, ideas people. We just don't understand, you know? We have a lot of ideas. We have a lot of ideas. Sometimes they're false ideas. You know what?

You know what? But what if, okay, here's an idea. Chloe, what if they had been gold cloaks? That is a great question. And thank God our friends love to email us miniature essays based off of our misinformation. So our very good colleague, esteemed friend, patron, etc., Clint from the Learned Hands podcast, ruled in regarding gold cloaks about their jurisdiction in the search for Gendry. Clint says that if the gold cloaks were a modern police force, their jurisdiction would end at King's Landing. That's where they're charged to defend. But in medieval terms, they're

also sworn to obey the crown. So as a result, they can go wherever the crown wants them. That's what I said. uh also i'm a lawyer now look at me i'm the lawyer uh but since gendry is small folk of king's landing and not sworn to other jurisdiction they could cover him regardless of where he goes on the continent moreover if clint were a lawyer for the crown, wow, sellout. Interesting. Has he thought about it, do you think? About just doing it? Is this just rolling around?

He says he would argue the existence of a royal bastard threatens the king's peace. Holy shit. Wow. Which is expressly a federal, you're defending Joffrey now? A federal central government issue since the unification of the continent uh learn hands episode 32 the united states of westeros he recommends you listen to it we will link that we'll dig that up for you but he does play the other side of this as someone who would work for the capital i see that and he says yoren has

a strong counter argument that gendry is under the jurisdiction of the knight's watch in aria two he says there's laws on such things here's your law when the gold cloak takes out the sword and yoren looks at the blade and he says that's no law just a sword happens i got one too point is the watch operates outside the structure of the Westerosi federal government. Gendry should be free and clear if the boundaries of the Watch are respected by the Crown. See Learn Hands episode 1, The Long Night Court. Spoiler alert, the Watch is not respected by the Crown. Of course, the Watch is not, as he says, and the actions taken by the Gold Cloaks are another

way to rule. Law and custom degrades in the main narrative leading to a breakdown of westerosi society and its governmental structure as a whole for more on this see literally the entirety of the published narrative bravo thank you clint thank you everyone read the books i agree yes i couldn't have said that better myself thank you clint um for for this for this i don't know what is this an amicus brief i'm just saying words i'm just saying law words i don't know i can't believe i thought he was supposed to be punk rock he's a sellout yeah i mean working for if i were working for job no i'm kidding. I guess they're supposed to think that way, right?

Because it's like... You have to anticipate. You gotta be on your feet, ready for the other side's arguments all the time. Maybe he's really on the side of the Night's Watch, and he's just like, you know, this is what my enemy would do. Listen to the Learned Hands podcast,

where you can hear Clint wax poetic alongside Mary, his wonderful co-host. They're wonderful. They're great. Great, great, great. And thank you for the email. You can hear Clint wax poetic alongside Mary, his wonderful co-host. They're wonderful. They're great. Great, great, great. And thank you for the email. No, that was enjoyable.

Sorry about my misinformation. Yes. Thank you, Clint. And also, again, we have to keep the Are You Readies every episode, partially because Clint will come after us legally if we do not. We've been told. We've been told. is it because he's working for the bad guys now unsure anyways we got another email yeah our friend josh oak and irony over on the socials yep wrote in after we mentioned him in a recent episode if you recall

uh he had a few thoughts on aria 2 and Clash of Kings, and I think they're swell and they kind of work here, and I just want to bring them up. He opens up with some very hysterical banter, remarkery. I think you would all like it, imagine you're listening to it. And then he kind of talks about some of the things we've been chatting on, like the allusions to the North, secret identities, stolen babies, Arya, Gendry, Jaqen, wolves eating babies, but also like, kind of a metaphorical wolf eating a baby, like Ned with Jon. For example, Ned wearing the direwolf sigil, stealing a king's bastard, Bael with Brandon's daughter, and Sam and Gilly.

And then further, Rhaegar and Lyanna, Jon and Ygritte have similar archetypal roles. He thinks it's interesting that when George revisits the Bail the Bard archetype, it's to save Arya, who's being smuggled away here in this chapter. Arya famously is the one who looks most like Jon. But to come back to Gendry, it's his identity specifically as King's bastard going north that stands out here it feels like george giving you the outline of the story again he's practically hitting you over the head with it p.s i really appreciate the ipa slander yes i am all for it in fact that chocolate peanut butter porter from duke law is delicious yes yes yes sweet baby jesus i haven't had that in ages

and frankly i'm a bit salty about it josh great email great email if you're feeling salty i have a salt ghost for you it's from union city i think that's the name of the the brewery they got a great ghost that i really love and yeah and that sounds really yummy yeah i really like this email and yeah i don't know i feel like i've been wondering after this episode and also what what josh is saying here like the way that things keep coming back to gendry's uh heritage right his identity kind of feels like definitely something's gonna come of it i know that the you know the show that these are based on uh gave us

one blueprint for how those could go i kind of know i don't know if he would necessarily be the heir of like what house baratheon or something or if he'd start a new one i don't know how house bull rathian or something uh that's that's what i have it would be a bastard cadet branch is what it would be called. Bullrathian? Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Cadet Kelly branch. Absolutely. My God. I like this usage of the word like stolen babies and stuff. And the wolves eating babies.

I don't know if I like that part, but... I don't know. Something makes me feel very... I'm in a fey kind of mood you know feels changeling fey like changeling yeah yeah makes me think of yeah on that same topic you think of like the switcheroos on the babies especially right like that's very changeling and then uh it reminds me of what cersei says to net about Ashara Dayne, right? Like, why did she kill herself? Is it because of the brother you slew or the child you stole? Yeah.

And I mean, even her being a changeling, right? Gendry to an extent as one as well, like, in that they're all kind of, you know, again, secret identities. Anyway, we are coming back to this email from our friend lo which uh actually does get revisited this episode this chapter but first i want to call out this thing that lo said on twitter about barrick don darian celebrating a birthday and suggested that barrick could celebrate his death day instead i was like interesting interesting it was a good idea Lo also shared some thoughts about the line that Arya remembers this chapter that Euron gives her a warning about the fact that

you know half these people would turn you in immediately if they knew who you were the other half would rape you and then turn you in which uh it uh, it's really something. I mean, and Lo was talking about, you know, how there's this danger that follows Arya's storyline, right? This danger of sexual violence because of Arya's gender. And this idea that if Arya's, in quotes, true identity were discovered, it puts her at risk specifically of sexual violence not just the risk of being highborn and the monetary gain etc like it's a different risk than is carried by gendry and then also that this concept that there's a true identity or true gender or sex that can one be discovered and two is based in the body when um gender isn't necessarily something

that works like that and low reminds us of historical trans people who were assigned female at birth lived their lives as men but then a bunch of people afterwards just thought that they discovered their true sex after they died and low has a lot of great thoughts on that that you can read more of in an essay called The Queer Potential of a Blank Slate, Stories of Transition at the Wall, the Citadel, and the House of Black and White. And also Lo talks a little bit more about Arya making water and the dangers around that and has also gone into depth about that with Brienne and Arya, Gender Outlaws, which I

think we might have discussed during the Brienne chapters as well. But we are going to link these two essays. And of course, if you want more low thoughts, you can find them on their new podcast, Ragnan's Harbor. Give it a listen. Episode one is already out. And I love actually how it kind of fits in with what Josh was saying a little bit, right?

About Arya and Jane and some of that switcheroo and that getting Arya to the wall under disguise and that danger to Arya. And, you know, in the email Lo set us and more that you can read about at their blog is about Dany Flint. blog is about danny flint and it all kind of comes together i think when we get the that kind of interesting back and forth with gendry and reveal with gendry in this chapter yeah especially you know the discussion of people who are assigned female at birth being at the wall yes well thank you everyone we told you we were going to get to your messages and we did now it's time for a little something a little different also Also stormy. Not just Gendry. It's the lightning round. Yes, indeed. We'll start off with Tyrion three in a clash of kings. Stannis sends out a big red flag or two announcing Cersei's incest.

They should have just stood and had like an a sign, not that everyone could read it. It just says incest. Or like Spongebob with imagination, but it's incest. In every town square. Bran II, the Lords of the North, arrive for the Harvest Feast. Tyrion IV. Tyrion gives his three confidants a different story, each in hope of catching the disloyal one. Sansa II. Sansa is disappointed by drunken knights. Slash knights.

Could be any chapter, honestly. I know, well honestly, could be anyone's life. To be honest. And that lands us to Arya 5, where Arya is forced to reveal her true identity to Gendry, right before they walk into a trap and are captured by Gregor Clegane and his men. Boo. Boo. Loud booing. Boo. Atop the trees, Aryria watches chimneys poke through

Roofs, streams She pushes herself out on a branch to see smoke coming from those chimneys and wagons Someone is there Yeah, I don't know, I just felt like some of the climbing stuff is very brand-coded In this chapter There are a lot of similarities A lot of brand chapter similarities going on i'm noticing they're very linked in a way without being at all yeah absolutely or maybe it's like leaning

into something i don't know everything had been desolate and empty until now if it could burn the lannisters burned it if it could die they it. The woods were even ablaze, though the recent rains kept it from erupting into a full forest fire. They would have burned the lake if they could have, Gendry had said, and Arya knew he was right. When they fled the village attacked by the Lannisters, the flames shimmered on the lake, making it come to life. They finally braved their way back the next night, though Hot Pie and Lami pleaded for them not to. They found the Lannisters gone and inside of the broken-down village strewn with bodies and death. Wolves or dogs had been there. Arya refused to leave until they found

Yoren. She told Gendry that there's no way they killed him. He a man of the watch but then they found his head split apart by an axe just the next paragraph and tangled beard and blood his clothes are more gray than black and aria wonders how many men it took to bring him down and thinks that he was gonna take her home so aria insists also that yoren deserves a grave There's like too many bodies and they can't give them all a grave, but she's like, we're gonna fucking at least bury Yoren. She doesn't say it in those terms. And I just love that she does that to honor Yoren because throughout the previous chapters,

we see that he insists on like burying people and honoring them, especially when they're part of their group in death. It would be really unlike me if i didn't talk about sandor clegane since we're starting to get really close to him coming to the plot so uh like with his brother in this chapter for example so i'm going to talk about sandor clegane i don't want to surprise anyone. But it reminds me a lot of how, you know, his his entire arc post death, quote unquote, for him is grave digging. Right? grave digging at the quiet aisle is his penance is maybe not something that could ever make it right. But it's a step in the right direction. So I love that Arya takes so much honor and thinks

it's important and a very big tenant in her code that if a man that was that good that promised to get her home and had all the intentions of it good intentions even if he had beat her in front of you know all the other boys like she still is like he had all the intentions to save

me in this fuck ass bitch ass world that that means something to world um that that means something to bury him like that means something spiritually to her let alone morally and aria learns a lot about mercy after this chapter uh you look back to her father's death and sirio's death and yoren's death they all die unfairly with several men on one there was never a chance and somehow they survived longer than they should have each of them in that viper's pit where each died later much later in storm we'll come back to aria killing the squire right when sandor reminds her to give him mercy and explains what mercy is but at the end of that chapter she leaves sandor to die right drawing those very black and

white distinct moral lines of her code right of her methodology of you know who gets to live who gets to die and it's kind of the only thing in her life she's able to have control over at that point right like she's thinks she's lost all her family slash has lost most of her family uh but the only control that she gets is being able to give justice or what her version of justice is that's so interesting i never realized that yeah that is something you know some people when they're seeking control over their lives they do it in different ways right they'll like maybe you know suddenly try and exert that control over others or like become paranoid or like it might manifest through like their eating habits which aria does not have control over right now she is eating bugs

but the life and death is a really interesting one especially because it's it is not a typical thing most people have control over for others you you shouldn't be able to pull that switch it shouldn't be a switch it's just the thing that most people literally do not have the ability to do or the skill so it's i mean so it's just like very interesting god yeah absolutely and i mean i guess that that is what her storyline kind of explores and becomes about. But yeah, there's so much in this chapter that kind of sets the stage for those Sandor chapters. And the last one. I know, I'm so excited. Oh, Yoren, Yoren, Yoren.

Yeah, that was a rough one. The axe through the head, especially. It's like yet another ugly death. And this one she had to see. She got to look away from her dad. She didn't have to see Syrio die die but this is the one that she comes back and she sees his dead broken body that's actually a great point like it escalates each time a little that's really that's really interesting the first two deaths were faceless but this one is

yeah full face on and this one is when you on. And this one is when, you know, people don't really, there's no adults there telling her to look away. She's like really looking at the corpses later on. And here, right? Because Gendry had remembered that the Lord's tower house, you know, ignoring the Lannister corpses, they're right there next to Yorn too. We don't bother

burying them because we are two children and we only have so much energy and time. Not us, Gendry and Arya. We are not two children and we only have so much energy and time not us gentry and aria we are not two children we are adults gentry had remembered that the lord's tower house had three men guarding it with only one door so they came back for them cut jack and curse had survived and they were sheltering there briefly they joined the Curse says that they should press north, and Ahri feels hopeful that they mean, oh, north-north. They come upon a village, no Winterfell,

and watch from outside to see who is living in it. And the buildings are far off. She can't make out any banners. She hears a horse at one point. Exciting. But mostly birds and crows. Uh-oh. Caw-caw.

The god's eye is to the east, a sheet of sun-hammered blue that filled half the world. Beautiful. Arya feels like the lake is calling to her, wanting to leap in and bask nude in the sun. But she knows she can't take her clothes off, not even to wash them. She would dangle her feet in the water instead dang that's rough i never noticed that the god's eye was described just so brightly blue until just now right it's a very interesting color that stands out because it sounds like a very shiny blue kind of like some others we know and really kind of i think cements that connection then with like

the magic of the old gods perhaps and and the creation of the others which i'm still not convinced is exactly like in the show and also it might be like similar but not exactly like that anyways speaking of which aria is watching for any sign of movement from the tree and also even that kind of feels very old godsy to me right like you're instead of being on top of a tree but like you're inside of a tree waiting for a long ass time as the old gods for a sign of life there's something so that blue color coming back to it, not just the other's eye, but you know who it really makes me think of is Brienne. Oh. That blue of Tarth of the Isle and sapphires, the sapphire blue of the sea, which is why it's named that. Interesting.

So I was just thinking. And there's also a song that's like an old piano song. And there's also a song that's like an old piano song. And it's something that I think we like, I learned when I was learning piano, like when I was like 11, that's called Sunhammered Blue. Oh. And I'm trying to remember it. Yeah. So I'm wondering if it's like a song that George maybe thought of when, when referencing it.

It really might be. I thought you were going to say that it reminded you of like the blue and the calling of the blue. It reminded you of Tyrion in the sky cells and the blue calling him. Oh, no. That's so funny because I was thinking a little bit of Tully, like House Tully at first. Yeah, as you said at the beginning before we started recording, family booty honor. Family booty honor, babe. Family booty honor family booty honor babe family booty honor oh god so aria's shoes had rotted and she throws them away finally she had adapted to walking barefoot her feet eventually becoming leathery earth and mud underfoot and squishing in her toes. That girl's got athlete's foot.

Oh, at least. Plantar fasciitis, athlete's foot, swamp toe or whatever you want to call it. I don't know. Swamp foot. It's not good down there. Things are bad. There's fungus. She's going to find mushrooms in those toes, dude.

But that said, there are a lot of moments in this chapter that remind me a bit of Bran, as you said, but also a lot of Howland. And this is one of them, just being one with the land, walking in earth and mud, running on mud, breathing mud. You know, she, like the last chapter when she was crawling and breathing mud. And not just Howland, but it's also, it's reminiscent of some of the religious forces we see, like the sparrows and the septons roaming the land. I was thinking of Septon Marabald and Dog and the elder brother and that they do their work, you know, barefoot. And also then thinking of that penance again of the gravedigger, whoever he may be, Sandor Clegane, at the Quiet Isle. of the gravedigger whoever he may be Sandor Clegane at the quiet isle and just that they serve their penance you know walking around barefoot and serving others and some of those religious kind of tone things happening behind it very interesting it is it is all those ties

with religion again like there's a lot of that that I've never noticed in this chapter until rereading it now with this and i don't know you have to tell me you have to tell me chloe is this like whole thing about the like leathery earth mud underfoot thing like is this a the barefoot hornfoots well not hornfoot but like also even just like a lord of the rings like hobbit thing you know they like walking around barefoot and they're on like fucking crazy ass journeys and that's what they're doing i really would like to tell you about this um unfortunately i have still not finished that first book buddy i'm still sitting there you've still seen the hobbits they have still had their hobbity feet that's true i have seen them i don't know if it's necessarily a reference it's probably

a reference i have no idea that's fine i going to say yes. Does that make you happy? Is that what you want to hear? You can say no. I just literally. I've been on the same chapter for like four months at least. So has George. So has George. Eliana, I have read like six Expanse books, but I can't fucking finish Lord of the Rings.

You just want a magical lady to take you into her spaceship. It's just what it sounds like to me. I thought I was the magical lady in my spaceship baby oh maybe that's what you're drawn to with the expanse anyway and to come back to howland right they're they're very good the books are rather rather great six is messy but i like. Anyways, Arya is kind of sitting there and she's watching animals like swans who obviously don't seem to realize that war is afoot. And I have to say, coming back to Howland, she's looking out. There's this line. Sorry, let me read it.

From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast. Well, that's the Isle of faces baby she's looking at the isle of faces when she says that that's the island she can see uh if you go back to a storm of swords to bran the quiet wolf had offered the little crannog man a place in his tent that night but before he slept he knelt on the lake shore looking across the water to where the isle of faces would be and said a prayer to the old gods of north and neck um it's pretty much exactly like you know where they were for the tourney this is basically tourney grounds right outside of heron hall i'm pretty sure like the villages and then you're close to where the

tourney grounds would be it's crazy yeah it's crazy and i mean all of that line there speaks to ara saying last time you know that the magic's stronger here absolutely they're close they're close they could use some fucking magic right now too real bad honestly there is some magic in this chapter and it's friendship between oh my god and the words of bob and hayley from paramore i could really use a wish right now i thought you were gonna say flat earth um wow uh coming back to these swans this isn't a reference i have like two things about swans but the first thing because i know you have a great thing about swans we've got a lot of talking about swans uh she sees black swans and i don't know this is this book was written ages before fire and blood right but we have the black swan

like lady joanna the famed courtesan slash courtesan in aria's plots you know in general like she's always around the courtesans in a feast for crows. She works alongside them down at the docks. She knows them very well. She's kind of in awe of them. And Joanna Swan, known as the Black Swan, was a noble woman from House Swan. And she ended up becoming an influential courtesan in Lys. This is, of course, in like 96 AC-ish. And the pirates, you know, had been out of the stepstones. Triarchy got greedy, and she ends up enslaved at age 15 her uncle doesn't give a shit and won't ransom her which i'm like oh kids these days getting you know they aren't getting ransomed by their brother in war until their mother you know

breaks the out jamie lannister interesting there's almost a connection there for for what happened to joanna that you know aria and sansa, they're like, nah, we really can't trade them. But yeah, so she basically becomes the eventual ruler of Lys in all but name, right? She has a great hold on its money, currency, etc. And her fate's kind of unknown after all we hear in Fire and Blood. But I do think there might be some reverse echoes there that George is, you know, maybe he thought about it in post, like, oh, the Black Swan, maybe I should name that with my girl. But it's interesting because I just feel like Arya's plot comes to be so important when she's getting down in Braavos in the economy and learning all of how it works there, all of their little capitalism they have going on. Do you wonder if, like, so I love those connections

and, yeah, the fates of how, like, Arya and Sansa tie into Black Swan, this courtesan, but also this idea of performance that they have to do throughout this and then, yeah, how Arya intersects with a lot of them. But also, random, like, do you think we would possibly get

maybe more explanation about Joanna Swan in House of the Dragon? I think so. I wouldn't be surprised if they expanded on that because she got a mention in Season 1. Oh, that's right. Interesting. At the hunt, when they're beforehand with the noble ladies. They know what we want. Yeah, they are dropping little moments like that, little details.

So I wouldn't be surprised if she gets somewhat of a plot, especially because they want to go five seasons, which is funny. And I don't know how they could stretch it out without going into some of Lys with Viserys, right? Yeah, that's true that's true so we might have full-ass plots in lease oh meeting joanna swan interesting and triarchy war and stuff and seeing it through their pov over there yeah i would guess we would get a little rojar action going on and seeing him living there once in a while who knows maybe not but I mean how else are you gonna fill out five fucking seasons

I think you could speed up some of that plot and actually show it I think that's great filler to make up I mean season two is gonna have great Winterfell filler you know yeah and I just also think the Free City stuff it just seems like it could be cool and again like we always talk about the importance of it for the rest of the plot in in the main books and how it's probably going to play a much bigger role which is why we have

a series and we did get a couple scenes yeah in our least episodes we did also you know we had those uh those moments in house of the dragon where damon and lena were in pentos we didn't get a ton of it but i could see them expanding to show a handful of scenes in season three yeah once the kids have been fucking split up so i actually like was reminded of something different. I've definitely discussed this Irish myth before called the Children of Lear, which is about four swans. But you know what? Whatever. I don't care that they're three swans.

Arya sees them and they give off a vibe and she's thinking of like she wants to be like them. They're very serene. You know, it sounds like they're untouched by time, unspoiled by all the things that are going on around here right now yeah so it reminds me of this myth the children of lear which are about these like four kids who were turned into swans by basically their evil stepmother who curses them they long to return back to who they were as as humans but also want to return home but they're cursed to spend 300 years of time in three different places i

would tell you where they were but old irish english is not pronounced the way that it's spelled and i am gonna fuck it up so that's 900 years total and by the time they finally return home to lear because a lot changes in 900 years a lot has changed in my life in the 18 years I've been alive and real so real so real and home is overgrown it's just gone right like it's just it's just ruins gone and then they also finally get to turn back into humans but when they're humans they're not in their children form they humans but when they're humans they're not in their children form they're fucking old they're super old because they're 900 years old and it feels like a mirror to aria's storyline even maybe all of the starts right this longing of being able

to return home and likely finding it gone and she, her form has also been changed too, right? She didn't want that to happen, but it was forced upon her. And then also this stolen childhood that you talked about a few chapters ago, right? Arya doesn't, she jumps from being a child to like hardened and old by all the things that have happened to her as she's forced to go on this journey.

Interesting. I really like that and i like that um it kind of just the language you were using makes me think of the ghost of high heart a little oh yeah because old but small old but small and like albino and so like the opposite of the black swans right because part of the thing about the black swans in general in literature is like oh a black swan how different um well you know like that is the point and i'm gonna i'm gonna mention it soon get ready but i yeah there's something there that just reminded me of the ghost of high heart and like her having lost all of this part of her life and experiences after summer hall and the horrible fires that killed the people she knew and loved and then she's like lived with the ghost and that's kind of who aria is already but not now by now so yeah i guess the opposite but not on a less mysterious, magical journey, though.

True. Aligned, aligned. I mean, the whole aspect of coloring, right, really is tied to magic when it comes to the old gods and their magic. As we learn from the eyes and stuff. As you said, Albaio. Ghost. Yeah. Yeah.

Albinism. Okay, one last Black Swan theory discussion. as you said, ghost. Yeah. Yeah. Albinism. Okay. One last, one last black swan theory discussion thing. So maybe George is referencing this because it's like the chapter as a whole and a fun little peaceful symbolic moment. But the phrase black swan comes from a Latin expression from like second century Roman poet juveniles,

a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan. So when the phrase was like originally coined, black swans didn't exist, quote unquote. Everyone was like, there's no such thing as a black swan. And the metaphor is basically an analogy of like a fragility of a system of thought, conclusions that can be undone if something is disproved. So like in this case, seeing a black swan would undo the entire logic of the system of thought that you grew up on being told, black swans, they don't exist. So any reasoning that follows from that underlying logic would also be undone. So you know, like knights, if you were told knights good and then a knight showed up and they were bad, you would be like, oh, my God, I can't believe they just did that.

And so anyways, yeah, then, of course, turns out they do exist. So it gets talked about in a theory that's like 01 through 07 by some finance book guy. And I don't care about him. I want you to know I don't care what happens to him or his book. But the whole it was like the pre-economy crash here in the US. And he played it off as a black swan theory or the theory of black swan events. It's a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. appropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight so it can't be predicted though after the fact people will often falsely claim oh that should have been stoppable or predicted much like the economy crash right uh that we experienced in the aughts but or for example watching this entire chapter and being like no you're walking into a trap you guys you're

walking into a trap because we know what's happening because we've read Tyrion chapters. We've read chapters at court. We know what's happening in the Riverlands at Harrenhal, but they don't know. And for hours, we're going to sit here and be like, well, that's not surprising. How would they know their kids? They were just walking around trying to survive. How would they know? But it's a black swan event. That's straight up a black swan event because it's something that like we're sitting here like oh no don't do it take your ear pods out get them out that's interesting because i thought also like that's a black swan event and we can see it after the fact which is the case with a lot of these things in the books right but also lami saying about this random thing afterwards he keeps rationalizing it and being like we should have

yielded back we should yielded we could have fucking survived if we had yielded it's like no you fucking wouldn't have yeah bitch which this proves yeah yeah so um there's a lot of them in here i wonder i wonder if there's like three in this to think about right and I just can't figure out what the third one is probably I wonder I wonder who knows George likes some of those old little you know isms whatever you want to call it little metaphors

so maybe maybe not though black swans house so Aria eats bugs and acorn paste for, remembering that she once ate a bug to make Sansa scream when she was little. Aw, I love siblings. It must be so cute. It must be cute. Weasel isn't afraid to eat bugs, but Hot Pie wretches up his beetle, and Lami and Gendry prefer to go hungry.

Foolish. Weak. his beetle and lami and gendry prefer to go hungry bullish weak actually literally that'll make you weak maybe if lami had eaten sub bugs here's my fucking black swan shit maybe if lami had eaten sub bugs his body would have had the nutrients to fight the infection in his leg think about it black swan think about it anyways aria being very comfortable with eating worms also shows why she's so comfortable being like you can't scare me kindly man i'm gonna eat the worm from your eye uh i also like that hot pie he tries to eat it and then he's like i can't do this and like does something with like blackberries instead in a second but it shows to me that hot pie is an open-minded very adventurous eater right but he also knows what he likes he's maybe maybe he's got too refined of

tastes based on where he worked before but he's willing to give it a try anthony burdain except anthony burdain would have probably liked it a little so i like that but it's true like i'm thinking hot pie has taste he doesn't like once you've had good food that's like one of the very few things in life that are good there are only like five things that are good

and I'm not going to describe them from like food to orgasms to friendship or whatever we don't have to talk about them even though I just did say them food is up there yeah that's three I mean that's all i can't oh cats cats maybe um four five yeah i just think weed uh anyways yeah so i think that hot pie gets it he totally gets it man he loves food and i respect that because like once he how am i gonna go back yeah i just i just respect that he like tried it and you know i just trust his taste i don't know you know worms are it's a

sustenance thing right i i'm sure they could be made delicious you just gotta season them right and i don't know if that's mud and raw I do want to say that the Arya's eating acorn paste and we have another Stark eat acorn paste next book in Dance with Dragons right we have Bran eating acorn paste so Arya's is actually

acorn paste I'm pretty sure but I think it is she doesn't have any of that fancy tree stuff here yet again that's probably... I wonder if Hot Pie would like that. I want Hot Pie to have magical tree sap now for his own culinary adventure. Also, I don't know if, like, paste is different, but I will say I've learned recently, if I'm understanding this correctly, you make a corn flour and if you really wanted to make pasta from it interesting and so can you outline for me how you would suggest they right now in the woods make that pasta and cook it uh yeah you get water i assume it works a little like durum flour maybe it's got a high protein count? I have no idea. And then they take the

water that they do apparently have and then they make you grind the thing, you make the paste, you dry it out or you cut it into the little noodles with your swords and shit and then you dry it out. I am

a survival genius, clearly. I'm gonna let you have this round, but don't worry, I'll be back next time to call you out. I could be spreading misinformation again. Let's not rule that out. So the day before, Gendry caught a frog to share with lami stop smiling oh my god knock that fucking face off your mouth bitch she's so proud of herself she's like i've escaped yet again uh the master of my own podcast, moi. Stroking your, like, villain beard. I do kind of do that.

Stroke my non-existent villain beard. I know. The day before, Gendry caught a frog to share with Lami, and days before that, Hot Pie found blackberries, but mostly had been a lot of water and acorns. Kurz had taught them how to make it into a paste. It was awful. Arya missed him. He died taking an arrow through the shoulder at the tower house, pulling up the ladder, and Tarber packed it with mud and moss. For a day or two, Kurs said it was nothing,

but red angry welts began to grow across him, and the next morning he couldn't move, and the next he was dead they bury him under stones cut jack takes his sword and hunting horn and tarver takes his bow knife and boots and then cut jack and tarver took all of those things and they didn't come back because they're assholes they thought maybe they'd went to bring food back and feed everyone but eventually gentry tells them that they gotta move on. Arya hated them for leaving, understandably, whether they had better luck without the kids or not. Kurz had also taught them to communicate with animal calls, and Gendry sent a bark their way.

Arya hopped from branch to branch and then rolls to Gendry. You know? Uh, very athletic. to branch and then rolls to gendry you know uh very athletic and you were talking about howland reed earlier and this is also i think kind of reminiscent of him right like we've talked about how howland allegedly runs across leaves probably not on the ground i guess and okay whatever so aria doing this jumping from branch to branch here makes me think, oh, is this Hallandie? And also no wonder then that Bran thinks that Leif reminds him of Arya. Again, talking about like all those ties with the Children of the Forest.

And even like the imitating animal calls thing kind of harkens back to, again, Arya talking about there being more magic here here but also all these allusions to aria skin changing here uh she can actually literally make animal calls probably with a little practice no wonder she's so mad at gendry when he's like you suck at animal calls or whatever she's like what the fuck she's like i'm an animal call's like, I'm an animal called Prodigy. I'm an animal called Genius. Yeah. He has no fucking clue. Let me just call him on my little wolf phone in my head. Call her, beep her, if you want to ring her.

Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, it's not Kim Possible. It's Nymeria. She's somewhere else. Also, it's cute that Arya gives herself a different name here. When she's hopping down, she thinks Lightfoot rather than Underfoot, but it's just in her head. I'm like, haha, cute.

It reminds me of Littlefoot from Land Before Time. So, speaking of trees, tree stars. Tree stars? Tree stars. Man, if they had some fucking tree stars here it would be sad not that they're dinosaurs who are can i say something without you getting mad at me do you not like the land are you no no no it's just are you more i'm trying to figure out if you're petri or spike oh i think i have a podcast, so I couldn't be Spike.

I just think that I'm very ducky or Sarah coded, but probably, I don't know. I could be Chomper. Okay. I don't know. We're going down the rabbit hole. We're coming back to the podcast. Nevermind. This isn't what I wanted to know.

Gendry asks what Aryria saw atop the tree which kind of makes me think about her feast chapters and bringing secrets back right when she would come from her journeys and they say what are your secrets you learned aria well gendry wants to know those secrets now here she says she saw a fishing village on the shore, a wagon, hatch roofs, and someone there. Weasel creeps out of the bushes. Her mouth is wet and dry, and Arya's like, my god, I hope she hasn't been eating mud again. This is so real. Arya is now a single mother of four people.

Yeah. Including some boys that are almost fully grown. Just kidding. Her and Gendry are young parents in this. I don't know. Actually, literally, though, in this chapter, Arya seems to have taken on kind of that parentified role in the absence of the leaders of the group and adults. And she's kind of a caretaker and the leader of the group, even for her by chapter's end, though, like she gets kind of a very mean and cruel reminder that she's a nine year old little girl and not a leader of a very mean and cruel reminder that she's a nine-year-old little girl and not a leader

of a surviving rebel faction you know it's interesting they're kind of like she's acting the first like 70 of this chapter they're acting like they're you know rebellion leaders yeah it's like nah girl you're nine you are nine and boy does she get reminded of that just knocked on her ass it's really sad um yeah for real don't stop coming apparently in her storyline but yeah she's she's trying to take care and keep all these kids together and alive and that falls apart but it also reminds me i mean i wonder if that's meant to kind of compliment Sansa's storyline too, right? She's taking care of a little kid. Only one of them. Yeah.

And he's a handful. He is. He is. Hot Pie, who's focused on the important things here, says that there might be food if there are people and maybe they'll feed them. But not so focused on the important things that recognizes that could be a threat. Lami props himself up, having taken a spear through his calf at the fight. By the end of the next day,

he limped around one-legged, but now he couldn't even do that. There may be a little litter for him, but it was slow to move and painful for him. But the sympathy is harder to give other than that because Lami won't shut the fuck up about, again, that black swan of Yoren should have yielded.

But Hot Pie agrees and is like, we're supposed to do what the king says, right? Gendry talks that horseshit down, though, reminding them, Knights and lordlings, they take each other captive and pay ransoms, but they don't care if the likes of you yield or not i love that it's giving class distinction right because nobles will always be nobles well until they're not uh and the small folk are always small under the nobles fists it's a clear distinction to make and it's like important because gendry has lived on both sides and seen it in a way not both sides

but he's lived close to both sides he's lived as small folk in the shadow of his father's castle without realizing it he's been luckier than most because of that whether he realizes it or not but he's gotten to see both sides of it and those get that don't have that protection that he has or that aria has yeah the protection from that but also even protection of people like yoren looking out for him right who who don't operate like knights and lordlings because they're not that are outside that system and he's also i mean he's, right? That he wasn't like the little babies, all those little kids who got killed. Dude, shit canned. Yep.

Crows are by the water, so something is dead there. Lami and Hot Pie keep talking about food. Understandable. Fish. Crows. They're like, they should make a fire. But Gendry surely reminds them, no fires. And also, I love this.

Arya finding out. She's like, yeah, I don't know, I really thought I could catch fish, it looked so easy, I thought it was going to be easier than cats, but turns out fish are actually way harder than cats, my bad. Dunning-Kruger strikes again. Looks way easier, made it look so easy. And she's stressed, like, not to mention she's fucking stressed out right now. I love the device that George always uses of fire being something that can keep you alive, but at what cost, right?

Like, it also kills you. It's like putting a crown of fire in the ground. And especially when it comes to the others. And also all those ideas of duty and war and fire consuming and cold preserving. Very interesting to me. Feels very, very that. Very vibes going on there. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. The duality. Because, I mean, interestingly, if you're being hunted north of the wall, you do want the fire. Mm-hmm. Or you die and there's no being hunted anymore. Oh, exciting. Then you become part of the hunt. Oh, if you can't beat them, then join them, they always say.

That is exactly what's happening up there in the north. I'm so sick of us. Misinformation. So, I like this part where they make fun of aria and call her worm breath not because they make fun of her but as we know worms are associated with death and then speaking about the ghost of high heart right the ghost of high heart says oh i thought it was you who smelled of death you know speaking to one of to like barrick but turns out it was aria aria is the one who smells of death and maybe it's because she eats worms but

it could be something else it's like really symbolic now that you say that that she eats worms here eats the kindly man's worms then becomes basically the master of death yeah she's not and become death master of death different things yeah things yeah but i i do i think that's something i think that's something my god yeah i don't know what yet i mean there are no other characters that eat this many worms okay i have a tinfoil is it related to the faceless men as a kind of death cult summoning the worms to kill all of valeria oh like the worms that wasn't the craziest thing i've ever i've ever said i don't know i like it though i really do think there's something about the worms yeah i don't know and i like it, though. I really do think there's something about the worms. Yeah, I don't know what it is. And I think that connection, especially with Fire and Blood, now that you say that, I'm like, yeah. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that. Valeria worms. Like, you just said the Valeria worms thing, and I'm like, oh, yeah, and also Aria and her worms. I keep seeing the little, like, Muppet or Sesame Street worms, though. Oh. They're so cute. Okay, okay. Now I'm thinking about thinking about like pinworms and they're disgusting oh no not fun not fun i mean even areas worms in fire and blood are described so cute with

their little faces those are they always again they give me sand kings vibes i haven't read that still remember you haven't it's coming someday it's coming it really could happen it really could happen all right all right back in westeros lami tries to say if his leg was better he'd hunt a boar for them and aria's like okay you have to be a rich person to hunt a boar you need men you need dogs you need land and she's like of course she has never been on a boar hunt her father would hunt them with rob and john and once even bran but never her septimordane said it wasn't for ladies and mother said she could have a hawk when she was older she thinks well she was older now but if she had a hawk she'd eat it hot i mean true hot pie of course is like how do you know

that and gandry's like shut up hot pie i'm trying to think which is a great save because that is kind of like how do you know all that are you yeah yeah also does that mean she's gonna get skin change a hawk i don't know probably not anyway maybe uh i really like this line about gendry it's very relatable he always looked pained when he tried to think like it hurt him something fierce mood gendry mood gendry decides that both aria and gendry should sneak into the village lami is worried that they won't come back and he'll be stranded there hot pie worries that the wolves will eat them aria had heard them the night before to be fair uh sometimes i i have a random story of like all the neighborhood dogs they all howl as one one dog starts howling then all of them do and it's hilarious you can just hear it some of them they're tiny dogs and you

it's like they think they're wolves i love this that happens here sometimes too yeah it's precious yeah i don't love it in the middle of the night yeah it sometimes but at the same time they're having fun i'm happy for them i don't love it at 6 37 a.m no that happened to me today i'd like around that time yeah it just interrupts right before I get to wake up you know like a little bit before my alarm eventually goes off and it's like I savor that last 40 minutes man I need it

you really do yeah I uh you know me I'm bad at sleeping Gendry tells them all to shut up and he's like Lami you have a spear to defend yourself with. And we're just going to go scout, get closer and come back before, you know, nightfall, nightfall. He commands them to keep Weasel there. Don't let her run off. And off he goes. Arya scampers to keep up as he's a foot higher than her. And when gendry finally stops walking he tells her he thinks lami is going to

die she says maybe we can find a maester but gendry reminds her maesters are in castles and people in castles don't care about lami oh it's true she says she doesn't believe that and thinks that maester luin would have helped anyone who needed it and I'm like just tears tears Maester Luwin. Aw he's dead too. I know. Very soon not yet but soon. Yeah it's very sad and I do have to add I love that he

you know right here he feels able to confide in her at that moment and say that because no one else in this group can he say that to like that's a very heavy burden to put on someone's shoulders to say we're gonna have to kill lami or leave him because if he doesn't die right now he will die soon and you know like it's a big it's like a survival thing i think about the walking dead and i'm like they've had to have those difficult kind of conversations of dude dude, this guy's gonna die.

What do we do? We got to be prepared that he's gone. He's dead. That's actually really interesting, because I didn't realize that. But yeah, he's picked up that she's like a survivor. He's like, she's done whatever it has to take to blend in here. he's like i've seen her fight like a back back there at that um village but also i he's like he probably does believe that she did kill a boy because she did and i think maybe he's just like she you know she's a survivor she she'll do what needs to be done to live but then aria's like uh no gendry says it's better right if he

dies lami's useless he's slowing everyone down that talk of yielding he's a fucking scab uh but weasel too right weasel is slowing us down and aria's like uh weasel is scared and hungry that's all and gendry's like lami's hot pies and weasels they get arias and gendry's all. And Gendry's like, lommies, hot pies, and weasels, they get Arya's and Gendry's killed. Don't you get that? Aw, but it's their job. They're supposed to protect them because they're the lords and the ladies. Not that Gendry

knows that. Bullrathian. Right, right, right. Bullrathian. The cadet branch. I've been saying this since the beginning. I'm glad it's sinking in for you. Glad you're coming around. So, yeah, this is, you know, you were talking about the Sandor stuff. This is one of those first times that Arya is called to give the gift of mercy, allegedly, right?

Or in a way, showing later on how she gets to the point that she refuses to give that gift to the hound later and i don't know lami might be annoying but aria is kind of like ned here right she's not going to just abandon or leave someone like that or i think at least this version of aria wouldn't show aria voice right that's not me gendry kind of takes it farther and he's like you're the only useful one here even though you're a girl and she's like whoa what the fuck I'm not a girl

and he's like do you think I'm stupid and she's like yeah but the Night's Watch doesn't accept girls why would I be going there there you go checkmate he's like um you don't piss with the boys. You don't hang out with the boys.

You don't, you know, come on around here. So unless you're a eunuch and they have this flirty, crafty little back and forth where Gendry's like, I'm not afraid to whip it out. Maybe you should whip it out. He says, I don't have anything to hide like you do. And she says, yes, you do. And she's desperate, this is a great line, desperate to escape the subject

of a cock she didn't have yeah hoomst amongst us deflection, and yeah I thought the accusation of her being a eunuch was interesting in regards to Arya being outside those roles of gender in Westerosi

society, right? Being these gender outlaws, eunuchs are kind of forced into that position in my society as well, but also that the most prominent eunuch we have in the storyline, right?

Arguably, there are other important ones, but Varys, I mean, let's be real, he's the most prominent one. He's got a history of being a mummer which ties of course into aria's later story not to give too much about that but gendry also gendry wishing that he knew secrets about himself kind of reminds me a little of like you know john wishing that he knew what the fuck was going on with him i still want to know what's going on with him, honestly. Gendry asks why she thought the gold cloaks were after her, since Yoren also obviously knew.

And she's like, well, I'll tell you if you tell me. But he doesn't know why he's being sought after. She's like, oh, well, I guess at least now you know about me. I'm kind of relieved, whatever, blah, blah, blah. She makes him swear not to tell Lami and Hot Pie. Could have told Lami something before he died. Damn. And he promises not to.

I'm just kidding. No, he would have absolutely sold her out. Yeah, in a moment. She reveals she's Arya Stark, and it takes him a moment, and he realizes he's like, the traitor's daughter. And she's like, no, he's not a traitor but yes that is my dad she nods and tells him she was going to be dropped off at home and

Gendry is in shock because he's realizing she's a lady and she looks down at the dirt and scabs lining her body and she's like my mom's a lady and she thinks Sansa too but not me yeah there's um Mom's a lady, and she thinks Sansa, too. But not me.

Yeah, there's, um... First of all, I'm glad that, you know, Ned got to meet his daughter's future boyfriend for a split second there. JK, JK, unless... Also, there's these heartbreaking lines with like you know Septimordain wouldn't even know me I bet Sansa might but she'd pretend not to as she's like thinking about how she doesn't look like a lady and first of all Septimordain yeah she wouldn't know you because she's dead second I kind of wonder if like is this speaking something that will to something that will happen with sansa and aria's later dynamic right like what if sansa somehow figures out recognizes that aria's who she is even if she's like in disguise or something um or she had to disguise herself and sansa sees

through and she's like that's my sister or like what if aria and sansa they have to pretend to be at odds with one another later on for politicking kind of like what happened in the show these are based off of but like not as stupid as that way better um or maybe sansa like sends aria or like they collaborate on like some mission right and aria is going undercover in disguise and is like in the room or something pretending to be i don't know a servant or someone else and sansa has to pretend to not know aria when she's in disguise doing these rogue class things i'm sorry and i just have to stop you there they They made a show about this? This was originally a show. They didn't make a show about this.

This is about the show. Thank you. And then second note, thank you for that. I just thought it was a good moment. And no, there's something too about the shadows and like lurking and playing in the shadows. And again, this is very crusader kings 3 agot mod influenced i've been playing a lot of that this week i've returned to it i play a lot of games

like seasonally rotationally you know a few months at a time you know several dozen hours every other day um anyways but yeah like you know, disguise, shadows, intrigue, web weaving, a mistress of shadows in the background doing some work in the background. Very hooded hand style. I don't know. Interesting. Exactly. Exactly. Gendry is like, you don't get it.

You're a lord's daughter. You live in a castle and I just talked about cocks in front of you and I've pissed in front of you. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. He's like, wow, I must be punished. And we have this great back and forth. I beg your pardon, m'lady. Stop that!

I know my courtesy's m'lady. Whenever highborn girls came into the shop with their fathers, my master told me I was to bend the knee and speak only when they spoke to me, and call them m'lady. If you start calling me m'lady, even Hot Pie is going to notice, and you better keep on pissing the same way too. As m'lady commands. Arya slammed his chest with both hands. He tripped over a stone and sat down with a thump.

Ugh. What kind of lord's daughter are you? This kind. She kicked him in the side side but it only made him laugh harder you laugh all you like i'm gonna see who's in the village how do people fake laugh but anyways precious babies babies oh i also there's something fun about this interaction really again revealing how this gender and class and Westeros and like this the performance that goes alongside of it and then who they are when people can just be themselves

it's a very sweet innocent moment between them where it's like they're sharing a joke even though the joke is like haha we're all in danger and our we have no family and we might never see anyone that we like or know or have safety ever again. Ha ha ha. But it's like the one last pure moment before everything goes to shit. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Because then, the sun begins to set. The scent of rotten flesh is on the wind. Whose? They don't know. They split up to scout more efficiently. You never want to do that. And Gendry tells her to bark if she needs help.

She tells him if it's that bad, she'll shout. This is, uh, this passage I could not not include because I just love it. When she glanced back over her shoulder, he was watching her with that pained look on his face that meant he was thinking. He was probably thinking, he shouldn't be letting the lady go stealing food aria just knew he was going to be stupid now that line is everything to me aria just knew he was going to be stupid now and he does right later on she's like you stupid stupid stupid stupid uh but not because of this black swan thing stupider black swan stuff hashtag black one stuff oh stuff is better uh-huh black swan stuff it's hard to say i i almost missed the letters there

at the village the stench is foul the trees are thin and she slips in the shadows hearing horses and men's voices the smell gets worse and by the time she reaches the south of the village lantern bugs appear she finally finds what is making the smell at the waters of the god's eye a long gibbet of wood is thrown up and things that once had been men dangled there corpses eaten by flies and crows men who had been ripped apart savage decayed we have this reminder of fear cuts deeper than swords dead men could not hurt her but whoever eaten by flies and crows, men who had been ripped apart, savage, decayed. We have this reminder of fear cuts deeper than swords. Dead men could not hurt her, but whoever had killed them could.

A, again, up north where people, if they can't beat them, join them. Dead men can hurt you. Arya looking at these corpses and then how they don't look like people, it kind of, I feel, mirrors a little bit of sanza looking at ned's head yeah that dissociation yeah the smell alone uh my god my god men and hoberks lean up on their spears by the water and the dusk makes it hard to tell which banners are up, but she hears a shout and a third man comes into view, shoving a prisoner wearing bull's horns to his knees. You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought.

If he'd been here, she would have kicked him again. The guards question him. They don't really like the answers they get, so they smash him across the face and they kick him. They march him off toward a storehouse where guards fling him inside and bar the doors. Arya can hear sobs from the building from others behind him. A breath of wind comes through the lake. The banners shift, of course. One is holding the golden lion, just like she feared. The other one… she doesn't quite know.

It's three black shapes on a field of yellow. I just can't figure out who it could be. Who could it be? Dogs, she thought. Locusts, she said. She knew them from somewhere, but nothing matters, just that they had gendry. Deep cuts, deep cuts, with that locust.

Locust. Even, we have this line of, even if he was stubborn and stupid, she had to get him out. She wondered if they knew that the queen wanted him. One of the guards took off his helm and donned Gendry's instead. It made her angry to see him wearing it,

but she knew there was nothing she could do to stop him. There's something here that reminds me of, you know, how she ends A Storm of Swords with the Hound, and Brienne then finding the Hound's helm, right, and feast in her own ark, and having someone else having stolen the Hound's helm,

wearing it. A little reminiscent of that for me, when his helm gets stolen, and that symbolism behind the helm, and what it means to wear, you know, to wear those bull's horns, to wear that dog helm. What does it mean to be that person and to put that on and what kind of person you're becoming? The person he is in the helm and, you know, before he donned the cowl.

Yeah. And we saw that for a while, he wouldn't put it on, right? He was trying to decide what kind of person he has to be to wear it. but now he started putting it on when i guess especially when he feels like he has to protect people or has to fight yeah it is stepping into a different persona i think yeah aria stays long enough to watch the guards change watching people skin deer and return with wood she hoped to free gendry after night fell but the guards stayed around passing wine and meat at the fire when she finally gets out of the underbush her legs and arms are stiff and the night is black she gets back to the group quiet as a shadow and she tells them to stay quiet telling them that gendry's been caught she tells them that she's going to sneak up kill the guards and then free him and when she's going to sneak up, kill the guards, and then free him. And when she's, like, coming up to, you know, the gang,

Hot Pie says to Arya, oh, he thought he was, like, he thought she was a wolf. And I'm like, ha, lol. She is, just not like that. But sometimes like that. Yeah, at night, mostly like that. There's this line I have to point out. Lami and Hot Pie are are like how many men are we

supposed to be killing and she's like 20 you know 20 good men she's supposed to be killing well bad men 20 bad men she's like there are 20 there are 20 good men here but they only got to kill two one-tenth of that it all goes to shit but only one-tenth then she's like it's easy you get one of them I'll get the other one oh Lami says forget it that we should go in and yield and just leave him and Arya's like you're an idiot who's gonna carry your bitch ass like he was the

strong one dumbass Hot Pie's like I'll go Lami you stay with Weasel and Lami's like what happens if the wolves come and Arya's like, I'll go. Lami, you stay with Weasel. And Lami's like, what happens if the wolves come? And Arya's like, I suggest you yield. Boom. Boom. And I know you're going to talk about this more later,

but it really goes to highlight how Arya's insistent on, like, we got to resist where we can, right? She's a story of resistance and resilience in many ways, as opposed to like, y'all, let's just give up. She's had too many people torn from her to give up now yeah you know yeah that's a that's a good point aria leads hot pie through the woods saying don't be afraid of the dead men on the other side and he stays quiet until a crow lands on him causing him to give a muffled gasp. A voice hears them, asks who's there. Hot Pie shouts immediately, I yield, throwing his sword. Arya tries to grab him back down,

but he wrenches loose. She draws needle, but men have swarmed them by now, and she tries to fight and bite, but a man knocks her back, calling her a fierce one. They talk about her while she lies hurting, her ears ringing. They do a great job in this chapter of using sound and ringing to drown out what's happening. Or muffling, right? Like the atmospheric sounds of torture happening behind doors that we're hearing in passing as they examine the village. Arya thought she might hear screams, but, you know,

they misjudged all of this as just a tiny fishing village. It's been turned into a mini fishing torture village is what it is. Nothing meek about it, right? And that's why Gregor here is able to kind of easily assess the four of them like a machine. Like an absolute oiled machine going, ah, can I enslave my captives? Or should I dispose of them? What will cost me more in the long run? Yeah, that's a great point that they didn't judge the situation accurately

and didn't understand the dangers of it all, right? And how close they were to all of it and the smoking pile of bodies. Yeah, it's almost like, would they have survived if the adults who were left didn't fucking abandon them.

Right. Like those two with the tower, but they're assholes. So we have this passage. They took needle. The shame of that hurt worse than the pain. And the pain hurt a lot. John had given her that sword. Syrio had

taught her to use it. Finally, someone grabbed the front of her jerkin, yanked her to her knees. Hot Pie was kneeling too, before the tallest man Arya had ever seen. A monster from one of old Nan's stories. She never saw where the giant had come from. Three black dogs raced across his faded yellow surcoat, and his face looked as hard as if it had been cut from stone. Suddenly, Arya knew where she had seen those dogs before. The night of the tourney at King's Landing, all the knights had hung their shields outside their pavilions. That one belongs to Hound's brother,

Sansa had confided when they passed the black dogs on the yellow field he's even bigger than hodor you'll see they call him the mountain that rides i just remember the one time the show tried to convince us that this actor because they switched out the actors for the mountain a lot and are you the mountain recognizes him at one time and and he is not a mountainy kind of man at all he's just like the skinny little beanpole guy no offense to you sir but uh this wasn't important it was just a funny memory for me well it's interesting right because they had the first guy like you said was mountainish he was big he was just a big guy and they didn't have to have him be really a focal point facially so they were able to keep him that

way and get away with it so they could recast if they needed to and not drop a contract and then they had the beanpole and that was interesting and then the final guy who's you know world's muscliest 25 year old man or whatever at the time. He was very young, but very strong, very strong guy. And I mean, he was great, but he wasn't tall. Not like the first guy. No, you're right. Yeah, the first guy.

Whatever happened to the first guy? Why didn't they just get him back? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, no, again, like, I don't think it was literally cast like with the idea of being the big role that it needed to be it was something they could garden with casting you know that's true i don't know that guy just seemed like they're gonna just they're cheap bitches who didn't know if they were gonna get to keep going that's what i'm saying also again another another recasting like i don't know new marcella was, but I was devastated for old Myrcella. She was so excited to reprise her role.

No, that one for sure was worse. That one was bullshit. So Hot Pie was yielding and the Mountain commands them to lead him to the others in the group and they find Lami under the oak where he yields immediately, flinging his spear. Then they ask, we heard there was a girl, where'd she go? And Lami's like oh she ran off and aria thinks run weasel run as far as you can and i'm like that's it this is the moment she's becoming princess mononoke now she's going to the wolves she needs to go north and meet rickon

you know they could really rule skagos together they could real mononoke hours they could but she doesn't need rickon rick's got his like, he's got his like unicorn thing, right? And then she's got her wolf thing. That's what I have for you. And so we come towards the end of the chapter. Tell us where we can find that horse

on Dondarrion and there'll be a hot meal in it for ya. Who? I told you, this lot don't know no more than those cunts in the village. Waste of bloody time. One of the spearmen drifted over to Lami. Something wrong with your leg, boy? It got hurt.

Can you walk? No. You gotta carry me. Think so? The man lifted his spear casually and drove the point through the boy's soft throat. Tom, Lami never even had time to yield again. He jerked once, and that was all. When the man pulled his spear loose,

blood sprayed out in a dark fountain. Carry him, he says. What if this happens? i think i should use this podcast as character work on my resume i think you should sometimes and i actually want to really shout out an inspiration that i had which was in my head whenever i think i get too close in a character and I'm like, I just sound like Jon Snow, which is often. There's so many nameless men we play in this, like spearmen one, two, and three. I think about someone who took a very bold risk once,

which was Mary from the Learned Hands podcast when she came on and did a southern accent for Winifred Manderly or Winifred Manderlyley sorry um it was amazing it was to give the idea of the south but in the region and then in the north and it was brilliant so i just sometimes when i'm feeling too stuck i go farther than i'm expecting so instead of a various form of english i thought some sort of southern ex hick slash with a little you know cornfields in the midwest i don't know what i was doing but i hope you all enjoyed it thank you thank you thank you for listening um i mean it's a fantasy series so they can who even knows what

these accents sound like you know and that was my fantasy you know right there yes that was chloe's western fantasy was it west i don't know what it was but i do know i was close to going bugs bunny all night i don't know what's going on um yeah and my accent as lami was different because lami's from king's landing is from a different place chloe's is from further west those lannister kinds of men see we got it we got a whole world building coming on here okay i'm gonna go back to my accent which is like midwest that has lived on the east coast but also reads a lot okay so big philosophical question of the chapter that comes up here, right, is do you fight for the people you care about and die with your ethics intact, which we've seen of some of the characters? Do you yield to the oppressors who burn your land and rape your people? Who is worth saving? Do you go back for someone who isn't able-bodied and can't contribute to the community? back for someone who isn't able-bodied and can't contribute to the community? Do the people who are strongest get to make the rules or the smartest? Who gets to control the food? Who gets

to control who gets water or shelter, right? These are some of the most basic like foundational blocks of living in a society. These are rules that are made and crafted. And sometimes, well, These are rules that are made and crafted. And sometimes, well, I'm going to be frank with you, which one never wants to be, sometimes society's not fucking fair. And those questions that I just asked get answered maybe in a way that ethically you or I may not agree with. Right? And as this is Arya's point of view, we come back to what Ned told her in King's Landing. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

And Arya Stark took that seriously. She wrote that one down. Took it to heart. They need Gendry to help carry the entire weight of the group, literally and figuratively. Hot Pie can help with food purposes. He was able to forge some blackberries. He could probably cook if they had enough time and resources and figured it out. They need Lami to keep being the ideas guy, but maybe shut the fuck up a little bit.

Weasel, that's their hope for the future, dude, right? Like if you can't save a kid, what are you doing? Ask Davos, right? Look at Real Knights. If you can't save a kid, what the fuck are you doing? Ask Davos, right? Look at real knights. If you can't save a kid, what the fuck are you doing? And they need Arya because she's quick as water, fast on her feet. She's light. She's observant. She's smart. She's a fast learner. And in one swift motion, though, all those things we just said, the mountain doesn't care. His men don't care. He charges his men with cutting through

Lami and any dead weight who don't have the knowledge that he needs, don't care. He charges his men with cutting through Lami and any dead weight who don't have the knowledge that he needs, don't have a body that he can use and put to work, doesn't have wit, can't contribute. Gendry, Arya, Lami, and Hot Pie all argue throughout this chapter about all of these things. Cut Jack and

co, right, leaving them behind, deciding the kids aren't worth saving. Instead of this philosophizing, Gregor's team cuts through it in one moment boom yeah i i think everything that you're describing with the pack right they did the thing that they were supposed to do as brothers of the night's watch they were looking out for each other they were family and they had their roles right what you said like each of them has like kind of their different roles that they fulfill that's exactly how the night's watch is set up as well and and they were living that and it's kind of a it's it's a big bummer a bummer for all because you know lami he did contribute as an ideas guy and bringing levity to things but

yeah there's there's absolutely like this central philosophical question that's like in this chapter that that gets carried throughout the books right and it's that importance of Arya refusing to just leave Lami and let him die because we see here doing that is what the fucking bad guys do all right and she does leave the hound to die kind of ish but only because she kind of just forgave him in that moment and there's an ambivalence and there's an ambiguity both like in letting him live right it's both an act of mercy by not killing him but also not because that's what he fucking wanted for himself versus with lami dying so you get to see the evolution of how this happens in Arya's storyline especially because it is different right like Lami's dying is explicitly not an act of

mercy other people are deciding for him and it's different from the people who are deciding for themselves at the house of black and white begging for mercy so there's this like through line of like what at what point do you become as as you were saying earlier, right, the person who controls, like, life or death for someone else, and she isn't gonna fucking do that for Lami. I love how that scales, you know, that, like, she has to go through this entire arc of understanding what that means, what you as a human being can play God about. Yeah. And then, like, you have war. and then you have the others on that huge larger scale of like choice slavery yeah good themes george good themesing good themes well said eliana well r.i.p lami he was an ideas guy good at names he named weasel he named Lumpy Head not enough ideas to save him damn

ran out of ideas at the worst time I have had a very excellent time I've actually had a very nice night with you Eliana thank you for a wonderful episode my god good game good game of thrones but clash of kings absolutely

I don't know why you said actually like we don't have a great time all the time, but you know, whatever. No, no. I have a great time every week talking to you and our friends at home. Spreading lies, just like Arya Stark. I enjoy spreading lies with you every week to our friends I enjoy

the time we have but tonight was extra special I don't know there was something about it it was a blast it was a hoot it was a holler so thanks for listening every week I spend with you all is a gift of mercy oh Jesus okay

I'm just kidding it's not i'm still here there's no mercy eliana where can they find us on the internet to talk to us where can you find us where can you send your emails and your legal analyses your thoughts on hot pies culinary tastes you can send them to us on twitter slash x at twitter.com slash girls gone canon that's c-a-n-o-n you can find us also on blue sky and actually one of the comments that we received was on podbean if you want to leave us a podbean comment you can do that you can also send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com yeah I will add, if you are getting into Blue Sky and you are a Song of Ice and Fire fan on there,

there is a new feed. It is called the BSkyASWA feed. You can look it up. You can find me on there at Lies and Arbor, and I have a link there to it. But if you tweet or skeet, it's called there. It's really not called that, but we call it that. If you post on Blue Sky and you use A s o i a f in your blue sky post slash skeet it will show up in this feed you can

find other a song of ice and fire tweets skeets whatever you want to call them it's a good time so i'll leave a link there for you a skeet of ice and fire and a huge thank you to our patrons who sponsor us and keep every single episode ad free because LaCroix still won't sponsor us so patreon.com slash girls gone canon if you too want to sponsor us we really appreciate you all for everything you do for us and for our patrons who keep us going every month and here is a little word from them on some of the places you can find us. You can catch Girls Gone Canon on any of the following streamers. On Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, Audible, and Amazon Podcasts.

You can also join us on Patreon, where if you join the Thunder Tier or above, you have access to a Discord and monthly happy hours and things like that. And by joining the Discord, you get access to a bunch of great channels, including but not limited to memes and shitposting channel, Fashion Hour. There are multiple channels for Historic Materials, A Song of Ice and Fire. There's a pets channel, which I think is probably the most important channel of all.

Respectful Thirsting, because there's a channel for that. Come by, join the community, it's a lot of fun, and you won't regret it. Oh my gosh. I love them. Don't you love them Oh my gosh. I love them. Don't you love them?

Don't you just love them? I do. And I'm glad that they remember all the things. Yeah, the song's a good touch. I like that they help us remember where to find us. Because Lord knows I lose myself all the time. Yeah, if your head wasn't attached, my God, it would fall off. Well, thanks for listening.

We'll be back to misinform you yes we'll be back next week hopefully sans the misinformation actually we'll be back with Sailor Moon next week so Aria will come back

in October we'll be back in October with Aria in a Clash of Kings. We'll be finishing up Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3. And we hope you tune in to that. Thanks for listening. I've been one of your hosts,

Chloe. And I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Did you know there were two songs named Miss Independent? One is by Kellyarkson and the other i forgot the one by neo the miss independent misinformation that's why i love her yeah yeah it works too both of them work i think misinformation uh we'll be here to misinform you next week or

next month see oh my god misinformation i gave misinformation about the lyrics of the song it's she's got her own thing that's why i love her then goes miss independent and i don't know the rest of the tune of this song because i don't listen to this one but i do listen to the kelly clarkson one we'll see you all later goodbye goodbye