Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 226 — ADWD The Lost Lord

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

We have waited six years to finally get to this POV... but that's only half as much time as Jon Connington has been pretending to be dead. A lost lord finds himself as his hand count down his time left in the story. Link mentioned — AR Blackfyre with Lo the Lynx: ASOIAF Collab: "The Beautiful Spymaster: Lysono Maar, Orientalism, and Liminality" & Discussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I38Ue0dwVyA ----- 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 226, The Lost Lord, John Connington in a dance with dragons. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And are you ready for John Connington? No, oh my gosh. No? We're done. We're done with the are you ready, Eliana. You have to come up with something new for John Con.

Here we are on the edge of a brand new POV. I had nothing. I'm sorry. That was me trying to figure it out. Huh. We are standing on the edge, the precipice of a new POV. And of course, it will be a very short lived POV in our life and probably in his too. Let's be real when that happens but we're gonna embrace john connington from afar from afar from afar we don't we don't want that grayscale but we're gonna embrace him from afar for his two chapters before we go to a brand new pov and we're gonna tell you about that and what's to come this summer after a little housekeeping.

We have a lot of housekeeping here because things are going to be a little crazy for the next few months, but in a good way, in a good way. But quick rehashing. If you did not get enough Aria, Aria Itchen from Aria, then you can get some from our April Patreon episode, which is the Winds of Winter chapter, Mercy, and that's available for patrons in the Stranger tier and above, $5 and up. because we are still finalizing details and because we're taking on quite an exciting adventure here in May that we'll tell you about soon. But before that, let's announce our brunch where members in the Patreon that are in the Thunder tier and above get access to brunch slash happy hour or as Eliana calls it affectionately, brappy hour. This month's Mays will be the

26th of May, Sunday, from 3pm to 5pm ET. So, for those of you that are getting used to that 1-2pm, suckers, we changed it. It's gonna be 3-5. Come hang, come chit-chat, play some games or something.

We'd love to chat and get to know you, Discord champions. Champions. Champions of the Discord. Yeah. Well, here's something else that happens sometimes on our Patreon. If you are in certain tiers, you might already know

who the next POV is. You might not, but you do get early access to it. And next week, we will tell all of you what the next POV is. I mean, this was really short, I guess. Like, you didn't have to wait that long. But before we even start that new POV, we are going to hop back into our time machine, go a few hundred years back in Westeros to talk about some things that we're actually going to touch on a little bit in this chapter with the Dance of the Dragons.

Yes, it's official. Unleash the D, our House of the Dragon primer series, where we get ready for the next season of House of the Dragon, is coming back. After we finish John Connington, we will not move on to the new POV until after House of the Dragon ends and we finish Unleash the D. All right. It's going to get hairy, so pay attention, everybody. Scaly. Yeah. Unleash the D.

Three episodes before House of the Dragon starts. We will cover House of the Dragon weekly. Right now, it looks like we'll be dropping those for public on Wednesday. If you're a patron, you might get it earlier. So keep your eyes and ears peeled there. Now, on our mid-season break from Unleash the D, once House of the Dragon finishes, we will come back for two final episodes of Unleash the D. And what's special about Unleash the D is that we bring a guest on for their perspective.

So we have five episodes packed with incredible guests for you guys. Outdone ourselves once more. Good job, us. But me and my guest co-host, Eliana, will be coming to you with that on Unleash the D. And then when that's over, we will start the next POV. I think that that's part of what's really exciting and different about unleash the d it's that you do have a guest for you with you every single episode and it's me i'm the guest but we also have other more guests i don't know if any of

you remember more guests even more guests than just me because everyone as a review Unleash the D the award winning podcast series has a single only one of your hosts

there's only one of your hosts and I am a guest. A special guest. For each episode. Listen, you need to eat your salt and bread and shut the fuck up, Eliana. And if you remember, this podcast was born out of abandonment issues. Yes. When Eliana left me to rot.

We're going to talk about attachments. No, we're not going to talk about attachment styles. That would be very interesting, though. I actually do wonder what mine is. I've never really figured it out or cared to. Oh, I thought we were going to talk about it with characters, not ourselves. Well, I think we're characters. I think I know what I am.

All right. So with that said, that's what you can look forward to we will probably be releasing a little mini schedule on our social medias as we get closer here just to stay aligned keep all of our shareholders at patreon.com aligned with us you know indeed indeed so far we don't have any emails and tweets and note it's gonna not yet. Yeah, it's gonna be I guess kind of hard for this because we're doing a little bit of time traveling. But you know what? Whatever. Speaking of time traveling, let's talk a little bit about the timeline of John Connington. Yeah, you know, we're not going to do a standard lightning round today. We're going to do a

history overview lightning round because John Connington is a little scarce, right, throughout the books. When you finally get up to where we meet him, we don't even get to meet him in his own eyes, right? We meet him through Tyrion's eyes for a few chapters. So we're going to talk about House Connington, John Connington, a history and an overview that'll provide us a little bit of context right and shade for some of the gardening we'll talk about later that he's doing gardenering and you know a little bit of a little bit of format and like structure for the connington family john ronit all of them just some of these like great themes from the books that are already in there that we're just waiting for him to come and take the page. So to start off, House Connington is seen as a wealthy house,

especially during the rule of House Targaryen. There are a couple of notable Conningtons in our history books, such as Sir Alan Connington, the Pale Griffin, was Lord Commander of the Kingsguard at some unmentioned time. Yeah, Jaime 8 and a Storm of Swords tells us a little bit about some of those unknown Kingsguard people. And he's important enough to have a nickname, the Pale Griffin, right? Yeah, poor, unfortunate for that man, get some sunscreen. I love how you said Jamie ate in a storm of swords. At first I was like, oh, yeah, I guess he did eat.

He did eat. Jamie ate. Oh my god, Chloe would never say that. I know, right? first I was like, oh yeah, I guess he did eat. He did eat. Jamie ate. Oh my god. Chloe would never say that. I know, right? So I was like, how uncharacteristic. What's going on? Oh, oh, see.

There's a Lord Connington that supported the original three Targaryens. You know, the OG3, the Conquerors, on Rhaenys' side during the first invasion of Dorne. And he was actually killed by Dornish assassins while hunting. So you start to get a little bit of that Dorne connection with Connington's. Very interesting. Very interesting. You also have Aegon the Uncrowned's battle beneath the God's Eye. That had a Connington's son in attendance.

Mm-hmm. And the Golden Wedding, not too long after that, Alyssa Velaryon and Rojar Baratheon's wedding, Kyle Connington was a guest. This is in the Year of the Three Brides in Fire and Blood. And he spoke with King Jaehaer, and ends up choosing exile as his punishment for the crime of having had sex. But I mean, there's other things that go into it, of course, but it's interesting. Going first to Pentos, then to Mir, and then he eventually dies at the knife of a sex worker within a half year. Yeah, if that says anything about Roy here and his personality,

he also refuses to marry Alice Turnberry, which was like the solution to the problems because he got her pregnant and is kind of the first look we get in history at the redheaded Coddingtons, right? Like they're big. He was supposed to be like super redheaded. That was his biggest physical trait, his shock of red hair. So I don't know. It's fun to remember that when it

comes to the conningtons like canonically redheads yeah they actually really really are though then you have boros baratheon who dies in the dance the stormlands are kind of weak and his heir is an infant doran ends up being able to attack the stormlands easily because of this so alenda baratheon marries stefan connington in hopes that he would be able to keep stability in the region and then he is killed by wyland while rip is it wyland while or will and will i don't know it could literally go either way i just kind of like both of them though both pronunciations i like and it's weird because I prefer Willa. Or no, I prefer Wyla and you prefer Willa, right?

No, I thought it was the other way around. Yeah, yeah, I prefer Wyla. We don't even know what we look like. Who are we? No, I mean, but that's what I remember is you like used to say Willa. So I'm like, oh, this is coming back. Yeah, I think so. So I think this is really consistent for our characters. We're back in character.

Wow. Full circle. John Cunningham squired alongside Rhaegar in his youth. So they're best friends forever. But also it's possibly an unrequited situationship that he has got himself into here, right? Because I think he's kind of had it bad for the Silver Prince. Yeah, he definitely did. Big sad, very unrequited but this is also

again canonical this has been confirmed more or less by george he didn't say which pov but someone did ask about whether or not one of the povs were gay and it is john connington aries chose him as hand of the king after he fired owen merriweather and, who is young and fiery, promised to bring Robert's head to Ares, which is where the battle at the Stony Set became John's downfall. He's unable to find Robert, he loses the battle of the bells. It's very dramatic, and he's never gotten over it. Yeah, Ares would not let him get over it because he held John responsible, stripped him of his lands, and sent him into exile, where he joined up with the Golden Company.

And he became right-hand man to Miles Toyne, who also kind of in love with, we'll talk about that as well, the captain general of the company. And of course, his exile takes a little bit of a different path than planned because he's given a quest, which may be more important than the golden company itself raising rhaegar targaryen's son agon targaryen who was spirited away and replaced with a fake out baby before his death in king's landing whoa so many so many asterisk asterisk asterisk asterisk throughout the whole thing

yeah um we'll see that all you know we'll see if he convinces me but i don't think he will overall the most important thing that i want to point out is that this is an only child pov uh that's very important to us and you know in my eyes he's kind of like a gay only child ned who was in love with robert instead of a straight multiple sibling ned in love with robert yeah there are a lot of johns in the story john connington is not the only one we're going to talk a lot about a lot of different johns in this chapter and you know what it's because john is a very common name and george wanted his story to feel realistic so he's like no that's literally why he did it that's why we got a bazillion johns and a bazillion pates and bez yes i mean it feels

lived in the world feels lived in it does feel lived in another thing that's really interesting about john connington and also rhaegar is that as you read more of george's stories you'll see that george kind of has his own little archetypes of characters he kind of likes to play around with. John Connington feels very strongly like a character that George has come up with before. Also a gay redhead named Garce, Garce Janasek from Dying of the Light, his first novel, actually. And you have this character named John Fickery, who is, he's very Rhaegar-esque, actually,

in terms of his disposition and his desire to progress his society, whereas Garth really hates this woman that they have in their relationship and is willing to do anything for John, like very much clearly loves him. So this is a this is a thing and also kind of a firecracker too, as well. This is just a thing, one of the archetypes that George likes to recycle. Yeah, it's interesting, because he does like to pull out some of that internalized toxic masculinity, and misogyny, and homophobia, even and misogyny and homophobia even and being like homosexual and homophobia to of the internalized you know what the world has done to you and it's interesting and i think a lot of that probably could reflect some of the catholic upbringing that he originally

had and like going against it in some ways i'm very interested that he has these repeat kind of characters well it's interesting because like in the society that Garce and John come from in like Dying of the Light, it's supposed to be a little gay, like it is codified into their society. So I think that's really interesting. But yeah, absolutely. Part of you have John showing, as you said, some of this toxic masculinity. And that's something that we also saw a little bit in portrayals of maybe Renly and so forth so yeah and I think of like Meat House Man too right and some of those other novellas that have a little bit of the edgy his edgy material as we jokingly called it but there's something in there there's that little bit of just like

hatred burning pain and I like that it comes out of Jon. And I think that, I mean, not going to guess right now, we'll probably talk about it next chapter, how many Winds of Winter chapters we might see and what we think his ending will be like. But, you know, when I think about it, I really do look forward to more chapters because these two chapters, especially on reread,

I really wanted to mull them over and try to like pick out new details and see how I feel about it. Because I haven't read the whole book in one straight line in a handful of years now since we've been doing this, obviously, because we read them in a different way now. But I haven't read these chapters in a while, and I have so many different opinions on them than I used to have. Oh, really? I'm curious to see how it's changed. Yeah. I think the only thing that's like really changed for me is i've only increased in my desire for the john connington chapters in wins because not only do i think that he has such a great george has a lot of really quick

work putting together john's character and his motivations and this really, I mean, big challenge that he has, which we'll dig into. But he also like ties into, in my opinion, some of the most interesting storylines that are going to be happening in Westeros with Dorne. And it's stuff that's just been set up for years, right? Like years and years of different material, whether it's in the main five books, or if it's outside of those books, even in novellas and in the encyclopedia that's out, the old winds of ice and world of ice, the winds of ice and fire. Oh my god, I'm so I need that book. The world of ice and fire and fire and blood and all these little Oh, and the Duncan Agnovellas, you know, like all these little things that he's just been gardening in the background for decades on.

So it's a culmination of a lot of plots that finally get to come to life and be revealed. And it's really succinct for a character that just shows up, just has two POV chapters, the story, the motivation, the passion that he has for what he wants to get done in his chapter, his I want song that's singing so loudly. It's there.

It's a very loud I want song. Yeah. Like the two chapters we get, they are balls to the wall. Like shit is happening. Like absolutely. Things are moving forward. So yeah, next chapter, especially, but we're not there yet. So let's jump into this chapter while we're here. And I want to talk about introducing John Connington for the first time in his own POV chapter and giving him a moniker like the Lost Lord is amazing because it has so many meanings, right?

Multiple meanings. We have that opening chapter where without even telling you his name because he's been off the page for everyone except Tyrion. So calling the Lost Lord, it's classic George, you know, confusing us a little on purpose, being like, ah, I get it. Do you see what it is? It's clever. It's very fucking clever, George. God damn.

And of course, I love that it's the Lost Lord because that's really a feudal Westerosi title, right? We spent so much time in Braavos, for example, hearing about the Magisters, hearing about the Sea Lords. A lord is a Westerosi title usually, and he's Westeros' lost lord, right? He's lost to Westeros. And of course, he's just lost, dude. He's not great. He's been exiled for so long, and it's very stressful. And he's been told, hey, Jon, I need you to do this impossible task and be really patient and don't get upset when we put like roadblocks in your way and hurdles he's lost in his grief his emotions who he even is anymore after being exiled so long and uh

it shows he is lost indeed yeah i love that you pointed out i mean he's he is definitely lost in terms of who he is like we can see that through the narration of this chapter, but also, George starts this naming convention, and for some of the characters, it has to do with their loss of identity, but it's so interesting for it to start with that naming convention with him. It isn't for all of them, right? Obviously, we have, like, Victarion and Aaron's chapters, and they have, like, cool, fun names i think this really is a parallel that we thought about with aria right with her last chapters not being her names yeah identity identity in total being such a big theme in dance and feast yeah and identity is a big part of in multiple ways the connington storyline whether it's his whether it has to do with agegon's identity which obviously we're going to discuss a little bit about when it comes to some of the black fires but it also i think when we think about that lostness ties in so well with other characters again like we have aria she's lost like literally they're all like i don't know what happened to that other stark girl and

everyone's like oh she's here at winterfell it's like that is not her uh the other lost stark girl as well sansa they're like i don't know she got bat wings who fucking knows where she is and she's gonna do something kind of similar right to to egan's plan she's gonna just come out of fucking nowhere and be like hey everyone i gotta claim it's me what's up someone else who's doing that of course denarius but everyone knows that she exists she was kind of lost they they had an idea of where she was she was there in the free cities and they're like do we go for her now do we not until you know recently at the start of the books where robert was like i'm gonna go for it let's fucking go and ned was like absolutely not and and you

have another lost character lost Tyrion right we're out here killing a bunch of dwarves to try and get him that's Cersei's plan and then you have one more other lost Targaryen Jon looking for his lost uncle and

he's dead for a bit rip oh Jon Conn is technically dead too And he's dead for a bit. Rip. Oh, Jon- Jon-Con is technically dead too. Interesting. They are both dead. All three Johns dead. Wow.

Never be named Jon. Don't do it. Not even once. I like that George puts that lens on it, that we meet Jon Connington's character from Tyrion's eyes, right? Before the lost Lord, uh,

we actually see him through Tyrion's eyes, how we interpret his actions and the things that he has done that, that all comes with a shade of Tyrion Lannister cynicism. So I think that's also when reading this in one regular reading, you know, like if you read it in the published order the way it's intended to be read not like us rebels uh it's easy to let your judgment and your opinion of John Connington be clouded by Tyrion in my opinion like I'm I think a lot of what I felt about John Connington was more over through Tyrion's eyes than anything, and it shouldn't have been. That's a great point.

I mean, he comes off not just as griff, but very gruff, right? Tyrion's like, I'm just trying to have fun while I self-obliterate. Tyrion's like trying to crack jokes. Yeah, he's like, I have a job, a purpose, and I have been pretending to be dead for so long because of it. I've been out here for so long. Well, Tyrion leaves off the storyline, goes away somewhere. We'll talk about that one day. We're at Volan Theris now.

Old Griff has some doubts. And, again, they had lost Tyrion during the trip he worries that the Volantene have taken Haldan and Prince Aegon he's like where the fuck is Haldan and I kind of think this is just fun because Volantheris is a Volantene town so we're kind of getting the idea that these city-states that we know of of the free cities are not just like that one city right there are towns that are associated within each of these city-states. There's something interesting in the setting too, as we go through, we'll start to see it's all of these little mini fights and wars breaking out, like under the dome, not just whole countries going to war,

but then you have these city-states that are splitting as well. want them gone some people want them there etc that's a great point there's absolutely like a time of conflict right now going across all of worldos and worldos i usually hear planetos that one i hate that one yeah i like I like I like that one. Worldos. Worldos. The new name. You heard it here first. A girl's gone Kenanos. They had planned to meet with the Golden Company's officers today, and Griff complains to Septa L'Amour that Aegon will need to wash his hair and declare himself, but not to the camp of sellswords.

He thinks hiding him on the Shy Maid won't protect him, though, any longer, because Harry Strickland and his 10,000 armed men will protect him. Maybe we'll talk about Septimor some more one day, but not today. Septimor. Yeah, I just don't feel like it. So she's not a Shara Dane. And that's literally the only thing I care about moving on. Yeah, everyone's talked about T'Challa more enough. We have this line here that I love from John Connington of, he was sick of hiding, sick of waiting, sick of caution. I do not have time for caution. And we're going to talk about the way that John Connington really throws

into perspective a lot of characters in this series. One of them is Doran Martell. This whole thing, sick of hiding, sick of waiting, lot of characters in this series one of them is doran martell this this whole thing sick of hiding sick of waiting sick of caution is absolutely in contrast to doran martell who has been very much playing things very carefully right he's got all of these plans interestingly a little bit like alerio but just as he has had plans that have been waiting for years, he's still like a very cautious dude. And now he's like, I'm making moves. And I think it's going to play out very interestingly for both of these people as their stories collide. I'd argue Doran isn't that man anymore because now he's in the middle of it, I feel like.

I don't think he can hold it back, but I think they both waited for so long and now yeah it's time you know it's go time it's fucking go time it is a good time they waited the same amount of time literally actually yeah they actually they didn't they didn't right because john connington would have been exiled before and then i don't know did various companies like i have a purpose for your life now five years and we'll talk about that but the semi-canon answer to that is five years after he gets exiled yeah so he was just out there doing his own self-obliteration probably for five years until and doran was like i'm mourning and it's just been at this same thing for so fucking long septa lamar reminds him by the way speaking of years it's been years since you

rode with the golden company and their men though also your friend miles toyne he's dead which we know but and he knows but we as audience did not yeah that was good context to give to the readers so we know exactly where we stand here and there's a line about miles toyn a golden skull atop a pole and homeless harry strickland in his place oh it rhymes when you say it it's cool i like it a skull atop a pole these skulls atop the pole as we'll see throughout are those that have like elf on a shelf skull on a pole oh my god you gave that's our merch anyways um send them golden company skulls on a pole so these are crazy we're gonna see these throughout the chapter in the background that the golden company puts the heads of those who served the golden company on a pole

the skulls go on the pole and they get painted beautiful golden you know to match the golden company bitter steel beneath the bitter steel is gold that whole entire shebang so thought that was interesting and they're kind of similar to sampantli or skull racks from mesoamerican civilizations where they'd have basically like racks of vertical posts connected by cross beams threaded onto the posts are the heads and they would be skulls from war captives or victims of sacrifice. You might know it also as a skull banner or a wall of skulls. And Mesoamerican culture thought that it was an honor to be put on there if you were a sacrifice. Like this was an honor that your skull got put on here to be paraded around like you fed the gods is how they felt about it that you were feeding god so it's similar but it's flipped here right and i think

back to like king's landing where you have joffrey putting the northerners heads on the spikes and the traitors quote-unquote heads on the spikes but here they're actually memorializing them right like this is their beloved these are the men they lost in battle. They gild them. They display them proudly to whoever approaches. It shows, you know, like, these are, we set these up in every fucking camp we set up. We put our skulls out so you know that we're, like, guarded by the men that gave their lives for us. It's interesting. Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that, that this is, as you said, meant to be memorializing them as opposed to, I mean, we see it throughout the story in a way that is not memorializing. It's seen as very disrespectful, usually. So that these Westerosi have, because a lot of the people here, right, are Westerosi, have adapted to this new culture, made their own new culture fun stuff yeah it's a big blend of so many people together right rejects misfits from many different lands that they found a place for themselves yeah well septa lamore is right griff thinks the men of the golden company were sellswords and no sellsword could be trusted oh so it's fine when he thinks it but not when agan says it um we think back on his nightmare from the night before it's a recurring dream of the stony set where he runs with a sword in hand smashing down doors racing upstairs

leaping roof to roof while bells ring distantly deep bronze boom we have a We have this line of... Deep bronze booms and silver chiming pounded through his skull, a maddening cacophony of noise that grew ever louder until it seemed as if his head would explode. So another character that we can compare John Connington to, who is also out here in Essos, a little bit of an exiled knight as well right now, is Barristan Selmy. And I love that in Barristan's POV, we see him kind of still ruminating upon

his regrets from the rebellion as well, being like, what if I just like hadn't saved Ares during that time? Wouldn't it have been better for everyone and you have john connington here also with his own regrets of like fuck dude i should have i just should have killed robert so yeah i was definitely thinking about baristan this chapter especially because they have like a similar amount of chapters right two chapters three chapters i love that we get this introduction and we'll have a better introduction whenever we cover Tyrion. You just never know when it might be. We will have a better introduction to kind of the RPG team over here, the party, with, of course, the Septa.

Septa less is more, as you said. Just kidding. What the fuck? The Maester, right? And all of these characters characters but something that really strikes me of course is we get to meet in this chapter the mummers it's like a mummers team right for the mummers dragon they're all fake a fake septa

a fake maester fake identities for the son and the father and even Tyrion when he was with them had a fake name he was Hugor Hill that's a good point that's so great that's so great absolutely members dragon stuff yeah of course we got varies the number as well the leader of the pack yeah we'll get back to it in a bit or is alerio so anyways it had been 17 years but the sound of the bells still ties his stomach into knots. If he had just

slain Robert in Stony Set, Rhaegar would still be alive. We don't know that for sure, sir. That man still could have been killed, like, by anything else. I've played CK3, you know? Yeah. You just never know. You just never know. Anyway, we have this line

here of, for Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter. For every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince. Oh, he's so down bad. My god, down so bad. And like, it's total like tragedy because it's just like every man he loves dies. I was like, fucked up. I'm so fucked up. He's just like tragedy because it's just like every man he loves dies i was like that's

so fucked up he's just like me for real yeah i'm actually kind of surprised on reread because i feel like i had this predisposed notion in my head that john connington was like a trashy racist asshole but it's way less pronounced on reread it's actually more like a lover's jealousy and misogyny he's a huge fucking misogynist is his problem but like everybody from Westeros kind of seems to be so like that's a whole Westerosi systemic problem uh but there are almost like constant thoughts of him even validating Dorne and Elia with respect that I guess I just never read this properly or like paid attention to it when I read it but I'm like I'm not apologizing

and I'm not handing it to John Connington you do not have to hand it to John Connington but like I'm like damn John Connington like I misrepresented in my brain you and I think that's based on like Tyrion chapters that maybe I just am mixing things up but he's not that big of an

asshole after all I think for me i'm conflating it for mixing it up in my head with aries's perspective which isn't really fair you know i know that the some storm lenders as we saw from aria's chapters don't get along very well with the dornish it it absolutely as you said reads as jealousy there's part of it that i do wonder like is part of it at all like some of the racism against the dornish like i think of it is different right because john connington is a gay man but you'll see sometimes like white women will be weird in the way that they talk about like oh that guy's with insert woman of color here right and and then like there is a jealousy around

it but also a superior like they think that they're better or something like that in the way that they talk about it like if you look at the way fka twigs was so attacked when she was dating uh robert pattinson and it felt very much like they there's there's an undertone of you are undeserving of like being with white man and i'm like whoa yeah like the is being weird the worst flimsiest attack where like hiding behind a shield of it when all of it's really being caused over trying to invalidate their color of their skin you know it's very um messy and horrible and there's a lot of that prejudice and i mean we've seen a lot of that prejudice right in the books like if you look at cersei in a feast for crows she's the queen of it right cersei five she says it had had to have been the madness that

led aries to refuse lord tywin's daughter and take his son instead whilst marrying his own son to a feeble dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest there you go exactly what you just talked about or absolutely in the world of ice and fire. There's the chapter where they talk about Ares and what he said about Elia and Elia's child. When Prince Rhaegar returned to the Red Keep to present his daughter to his mother and father, Queen Rhaella embraced the babe warmly, but King Ares refused to touch or hold the child and complained that she smells Dornish. Very, very overt. But I was looking even in the next chapter,

and he's definitely like very sexist, very misogynistic, very jealous. He thinks that Elia was weak because she was frail and sickly after the first childbirth. But he doesn't ever say a bad thing about dorn which again like you said i think maybe aries oakheart was in my head about that maybe it was little tyrian little aries oh i was thinking aries aries aries targaryens because i'm like aries oakheart has some real stupid ignorant shit because he's just ignorant you know but and the reach and the reach the other problem but even looking through like he actually almost celebrates dorn and talks about them very highly like uh he says agon targaryen firstborn son of rhaegar

prince of dragonstone by princess elia of dorn he always makes sure her name's included he says that dorn will join them and he says prince agon is Elia's son as well as Rhaegar's. And then of course, there's the full line that he thinks Elia was never worthy of him. So he says she was frail and sickly from the first childbirth only left her weaker. So he sees that as a failure on her womanhood that she couldn't bear children and be strong for him. And I think that's a lot where that line crosses over, which is, you know, the ultimate rule, right? Like our wombs are supposed to be pushing out children apparently in Westeros and in society, but that ain't happening. So get over that. And then of course, he actually argues that they should be writing Sunspear in this chapter. And

Doran Martell must know his sister's son is still alive and has come to claim his father's throne. And then later, he also advocates that only the Prince of Dorne has the power to defy House Lannister and its allies and says, above all else, we must have Doran Martell. So it definitely seems that his problems aren't attached necessarily to Dorne, but to, you know, his boy that he was in love with marrying someone that he felt wasn't worthy, kind of similar to what you were saying in Worth. Yeah, but I think what you've said here has actually made it really clear to me part of why he doesn't like Elliot. It's as you said, the belief that women are only good for childbirth. Because this is a this is an essay that i brought up when discussing

dying of the light with our friend joe magician in bookshelf stud you can go listen to the discussion over on joe magician's channel or i want to say it's actually on his patreon he did an entire coverage of dying of the light marilyn fry a feminist and and lesbian scholar has this quote where she's talking about in this essay how lgbtq groups are not a homogenous they're not homogenous in terms of their politics right and that the interests of gay men were not necessarily aligned with the interests of lesbian women when it came to collective like liberation and one of the lines that in here this is about like straight men but she is in this essay like i said talking about that at large and patriarchy and misogyny so fry says to say that straight men

are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex fucking exclusively with the other sex i.e women almost all or almost all of that which pertains to love most straight men reserve exclusively for other men the people whom they admire respect adore revere honor whom they imitate idolize and form profound attachments to blah blah all these are men okay and when it comes to gay men marilyn fry points out like once done away with like the fucking they have no use for that and so for John Cunnington he's like the only use for a woman is to be fucking

good at making kids like what else are you good for if Elia couldn't do that then what even was her purpose for anything or as a woman so absolutely it's interesting those like crossroads are so interesting he saw that she wasn't able to perform what he took as her role as a woman

and what he saw as her only role yeah this is very much the case with garce in dying of the light though he got gains a little bit of respect for the one woman character just a little but that's because i think he's like i don't know she fights ish yeah it's weird it's something that like i felt was so in the books but on reread it really isn't you know and like things like i had full-ass thoughts about how he might interact with certain characters based on that and now i'm like well all that's invalidated so so i mean the jealousy makes sense i'm not gonna fault him for being jealous about you know the guy that he's in love with yeah he's never gonna love him back you know in the way that he wants especially now yeah yeah we'll get to that. The original plan,

Sept of Lemur tells us, was to reveal Aegon upon reaching Daenerys, but Jon comments she changed her plans. And thanks to Illyrio, Daenerys' plan of showing up here and Illyrio's plan has become ash. Lemur defends Illyrio, says he couldn't have known Daenerys

would change her mind and stay east. So I thought this was kind of like a funny line in here offends Illyrio, says he couldn't have known Daenerys would change her mind and stay east. So, I thought this was kind of, like, a funny line in here while he's talking about, like, young Griff and saying, like, blah blah, he's going to get us, and he goes, his time is, and then he gets interrupted, we have, like, this, you know, this end dash. No, sorry, this is an end dash

or so there. I'm like, so his time is cut short? Because that boy's gonna die i was like is that what the language is telling me anyway i definitely see that though that is like it leads you to believe slash no slash confirm yeah i was like that boy's time is cut short yeah poor kid poor kid yeah i feel for that guy who knows who he actually is and i'm sure we'll have our speculations in this episode and next but bummer for whoever's son he is yeah i don't think it's ever gonna be like officially revealed revealed it'll be like hinted at yeah i

agree which in my opinion that means it's blackfire but yeah i mean okay so why did we do all this out there yeah i believe he's a black fire yep i am a black fire believer for young griff definitely likely through sarah and alirio somehow so it's over in that area general circle somewhere over there yeah so do it that way that's where we stand that's where we stand thank you for coming we are going to move forward now griff agrees but aleria didn't expect viscerys to die or for cal drogo to die either you know a lot of people didn't and very little of what he has anticipated has happened hard same same. Before Griff can keep arguing with L'amour, Yandri

calls out the return of Haldan, who looks hot and bedraggled as he makes his way to them, sweat leaving rings under his arms on his linen clothes, his linen robes. He looks sour-faced, leading three horses. I, again, love that in the narration for a lot of this,

up until the end of this chapter, Griff keeps calling himself Griff. Right? You were talking about the Lost Lord as the title. It all says Griff within the text. And he's not calling himself John. Yeah, I love this in comparison to the Arya chapters we just did. Exactly. Coming off of that, it's literally similar same thing here and i'm really

enjoying chasing that with him and that confusion of who he is who he was and who he's now allowed to be and wants to be you know yeah i think i think i only noticed it because we talked about it so much in the aria chapters yeah it's very fresh on the brain right now i'm really glad we did it this way actually yeah griff commands lamore to bring the boy and see that he's ready, and he's disappointed in the horse. Dang. And thinks that he should have got himself, that he's no longer trusting Haldan as much after they lost the dwarf. And he was allegedly carried off by swordpoint, but he's like, I don't know if i believe that well believe it believe it griff he thinks that tyrian was clever enough to manufacture his own escape and that when tyrian

had saved aegon though like he had he had put his guard down he's like never again never trusting anyone again yeah there's a lot with him and trust that i'm noticing in this too and he has this like split it's interesting with his two names because he does have a little split personality going on because he can't trust he's very insecure of other people and worried that they'll betray him or that he'll be betrayed I just think that there's something interesting because he almost wants to like Tyrion especially after Tyrion saved Aegon and then he goes in and saves Tyrion because of that. He almost wants to believe Tyrion is able to maybe be, you know, a bad guy that's good on their side, which is too good to be true, as we know.

He's busy causing mischief for JonCon right now. Tyrion was like, dude. He's got his own personal dilemma. Yeah, but there's something interesting there. Like, he really wants Tyrion and him to be friends, but also doesn't whatsoever. And he, wants tyrian and him to be friends but also doesn't whatsoever and he like won't let himself trust or like i don't know open up to him so very interesting i mean it's not like tyrian's brother like killed his ex-boss or anything but

yeah yeah granted that guy totally fucked him too so it's not like he's got any good will towards aries anyways there's something with ned and john khan as those major character foils as well right even with how they think of tyrian how they find him half annoying half curious you know like part of them is like okay interesting the other part of them is like fuck that guy they're basically two sides of the war coin right like ned blames himself for liana's death and wants to protect her child from robert by keeping his family close inside and hidden in private for most of his life. John Connington blames himself for Rhaegar's death by failing to kill Robert and wants to avenge Rhaegar and promote and protect his son as the king to do so.

So straight up the most opposite of motives, right? The thing Ned is avoiding because to crown him is to kill him, John Connington is pushing rapidly towards it, trying now to get it done. That is interesting. Both of them, Rhaegar's sons, asterisk. And yeah, we get the core motivation stated, as you said, like the I Want song here. He had failed Prince Rhaegar once.

He would not fail his son not whilst life remained in his body and there was actually something that you said earlier that made me realize another comparison for John Connington not just with Ned but with Robert the way that he puts Rhaegar on this pedestal is very Robert Tilianaiana. Oh yeah. Interesting. That like fate connection, right? Like you think you're so connected to them but it was one-sided. Yeah.

But I do think John Coddington actually knew Rhaegar more and was closer to Rhaegar than like Robert and Liana because I do still think half the appeal of Liana was that, oh that's Ned's sister. Absolutely. It's interesting, though, because we obviously can see that John Connington wasn't on the inside enough to know about prophecy, or at least so far. We haven't had anything come up about the prophecy. There's no prophetic purpose behind him pushing Aegon he's pushing Aegon because he

believes in Rhaegar and Rhaegar's son his blood but not because of Azor Ahai not because of some prophecy which i think is a really interesting difference right for the reasons of Aegon being pushed here or not i wonder if it's something that will come up later like maybe he did know but you're right i feel like he would be much more driven by that or is it like reygar never told him because he didn't feel the need to convince him of this is why we're doing all this stuff he's like john's gonna just fucking do it anyway you know i don't need to tell him he's in well and exactly he doesn't tell him because john doesn't really think anything of liana he thinks his silver prince is perfect John doesn't really think anything of Liana. He thinks his silver prince is perfect

and doesn't necessarily think about what Rhaegar did, which we all are dying also to find out about with one girl in a tower and one girl getting murdered in the castle. Rhaegar wasn't that great is all I'm saying. He's fine. He's a good guy, I think, but he wasn't that great. Settle down, John. You don't know. You're pedestalling him for sure is what I'm saying. That he is, yeah, he is Robert and Liana-ing it. I don't think that John Connington was on the most inner circle. I think he was as inner as he got, but I don't think he was at the Arthur Dane level of knowledge here. Yeah, he's like, they're good friends, but he's not like, you know.

Yeah, no, I agree that he wasn't as inner circle. But I think maybe like he was just uncomfortable. Maybe Rhaegar was like, I don't know. Because you can tell when someone has you on a pedestal. But Rhaegar treated him very like, I mean, and maybe the memories are subjective. You know, as far as a narrator here goes, he might have some subjective memories we get to listen in on. But as we think about Rhaegar in the next chapter, Rhaegar was always kind to him. You know, just I just don't think Rhaegar actually had him on the inner circle and I think that John Connington thought he was on the inner inner inner circle I think there are there are multiple and like some people I we've seen in other POVs I forgot who's but they have called John Connington

one of Rhaegar's good friends it's like yeah one of his best friends but as you said not like prophecy best friends yeah yeah yeah and also i think part of it you were saying that he has rhaegar on a pedestal he doesn't care about you know rhaegar letting elia and liana die but as we've established like does he care does he care no about whatever happened to these women and girls. So, anyway. The shy maid would get them to Harry Strickland faster, thinks Griff, but he doesn't want to reveal A, where they're hiding the prince, B, splashing into muddy shallows

to enter, because it's not very kingly or princely. So, on horse, they will enter, and they'll be fashionable, too. Aegon has changed. He wears a sword, dagger, black polished boots, a black cloak lined with blood red silk. His hair is washed and freshly dyed a very deep blue and his eyes look blue too. At his neck he wears three huge square cut rubies on a chain of black iron, a gift from Illyrio.

Dragon colors. Yeah I love that there's an emphasis on black clothing on Aegon, not like black and red or emphasis on the you know, and I'm just like yeah, that is how the Targaryen standard looks, but I'm also like Blackfyre. Also, the black cloak lined with the red silk reminds me a little of Mance's cloak, and that's because

as you all know, Mance Rayder is in fact Rhaegar Targaryen. Yep, absolutely. That's true. That's true. I'm sorry, everyone. I'm taking the piss. Anyways, I love the fashion statement of Aegon having a choker.

I know it's not really a choker. It's like three rubies on a chain. And the chain could be kind of long. But also in my head, it's a choker. Fashionable. I'm not sure how exactly it's laid out but even though as they say it's cut rubies on black iron to me i think like they're probably set into it kind of uh and it's black iron so it might be thicker a little bit you know like kind of like some of

the maester's chains but not quite like a lordly chain yeah you know what it sounds like though agan's crown oh interesting, interesting. I was thinking Rhaegar's breastplate and the rubies flying off his chest as he does. I was thinking Aegon the Conqueror's square crown. That's a good one. It's probably gonna. Yeah, I mean, he's gonna get that crown. I mean, it was lost in Essos. So or in Dorne. Sorry. No, it was lost in Dorne. My bad. Well, old Griff comments that his father would be proud if he could see him now, and the boy comments that he's sick of his, Chloe, sick of his e-boy era,

sick of the blue hair dye, and that they should have washed it out. Old Griff promises soon enough, and they go to get Aegon's army. Though Aegon comments Yolo said to not trust sellswords and Griff admits alright, you know, he's right. But he doesn't like that Tyrion put all these doubts in this boy's head so he brushes it off. That's not the only thing Tyrion has planted in this boy's head. Griff's like

it's only okay when I put ideas in his head. Yeah. Can't have, I mean he's right, Tyrion does sow chaos. But anyways. There are things that you know i do criticize young griff for and like that have come up in the fandom in regards to how he reacts to losing the savas game and that he is a little naive but honestly when i like think about it and i just really take a good look i'm like these are just normal he could react to losing a little better sure but

some of the other stuff normal teenage boy shit he's just he's just a baby all right none of these none of these kids should be leading fucking anything they should all i don't know they should all be like not doing that they should all be in school no No, not the club. They're not old enough even for the club. I do respect that young Griff is cautious about the sellswords though. And because he's right, like how much can you trust someone who's only here, who's bought? We see that throughout a bunch of the other characters' storylines. And also this whole idea of trust no one that he's learning. That's not just him.

That's a lesson that's being taught to all these other young leaders who should also just be in school having a nice normal childhood but they're not like for example denarii's storyline that's super prominent and that's gonna like fuck young griff it's also something that we see happening in cersei's story very especially and i mean it kind of ends up being the climax of john's storyline in this very book, right? Trust no one. Yeah, and even the sellswords, right? I totally forget. But Tyrion and Bronn, right? Even though Bronn has great love for him and support for him, Bronn also was like, yeah, I would like a castle. I will sell out. Griff shrugs off the comment from Aegon and says, not every man is what he seems, telling him mistrust could make you sour and fearful. Like how Kang Ares had unraveled, he thinks.

Jon Kong remembers Rhaegar seeing the way that mistrust poisoned Ares's mind. And I think that's just really sad. Like that's something that we don't get as much perspective on. We see a lot of these kids being sad about their parents dying, but we don't really see them being sad about oh like you see them being like oh my parent is not who i thought they were right in terms of the way any kid goes through it but you don't really see them like watching their parent lose their minds and i think that that's something that's sad to imagine that actually might be a bit of what aria's storyline is going to come to oh yeah absolutely with stoneheart that's really sad especially like you know as a kid growing up with reygar alongside him squiring alongside him with others you know as a kid knowing aries and

then that that change that big flip yeah agreed he recommends that amen walks a middle course and let men earn his trust and when they do be open-hearted and generous he promises he'll remember and agan mounts the biggest and best of the three mounts of the three horses um this middle course is that he recommends is kind of similar to the one that like robert did right and maybe robert got that advice from a different john john aaron and to what extent also like again john connington is full of parallels yet is very much his own character it's it's actually like fantastic i love i, I'm sorry, I love John Connington as a character. And like, are he and Agen meant to make us also think of that surrogate

parent role that John Aaron fulfilled in both Robert and Ned's lives? And I think so much of these chapters are remixing these leadership lessons that we see in other storylines. But I think what's really fun about it is we're getting it from John Connington's perspective of the mentor, like making sure like, how do I make sure this kid knows what the fuck is up, right? Like imagine, imagine Corinne Halfhand's perspective, or imagine like J.R. Mormont's perspective, because the other POVs that we have, they're like really young. So obviously, they're going to be the student. I never thought about it that way. This is the this is the mentor chapter. We haven't really had a lot of mentors.

Something even about the way that he talks about him walking a middle course reminds me of the golden path in Dune. The idea that like there is a very specific path through that only the Kwisatz Haderach would be able to see. Lisa and Al-Gaib, a different prophecy. But only, you know, he'll be able to presciently see that small path in the very middle that you could walk to basically solve

all social, ecological, environmental issues going on in the world, etc., and give everybody this perfect fucking life. And even the language around, like, Jaehaerys' golden wedding, you know, or the golden wedding that happened during Jaehaerys' reign, and a lot of Jaehaerys's reign and a lot

of Jaehaerys's reign in general with that kind of like golden imagery around it of finding that perfect path to walk through is similar, right? Like I think of that when he says this middle course, let men earn your trust, be open hearted and generous when they do earn your trust. It's very important as a king, right? He's giving him king lessons. And I think about that path with Rhaegar, when he was seeing, you know, presciently what the right way through was to, I don't know, maybe make the prophecy happen to save the world later. Right? And Aegon, we don't know if he has dragon dreams or anything. So nothing like that. But that's kind of what the golden path is, right? Like, it's like that middle course of being a good ruler like what ned told his boys of how to be a good ruler uh this is similar

but also you know being firm having a firm hand but also giving them trust so you can earn respect and trust back and i really like what you were saying about the golden path quesad's hot rock thing because in a way that was a that was a person or a role from my understanding of having only read the first book one and a half times the first full time being when i was probably fucking younger than young griff and because he's being raised in a way that kind of feels as though they're trying to make special chosen one leader and obviously it's not gonna work out for him his time is gonna be cut short so i mean like quentin right they're both not the heroes you two were not the heroes you're just something fun for

daenerys to fight it's gonna be so fun well i guess she doesn't fight Quentin. That was... Yeah, not Quentin, but him. Dog locust. So the Golden Company is beside the river when they arrive, a camp even Arthur Dayne might have approved of, John Connington says. It's compact, orderly, defensible. A deep ditch is dug around it with sharpened stakes inside, tall cloth-of-gold battle standards perched around the edges of the camp. Horses line up to the north, and beyond that, two dozen elephants graze at the water. Griff thinks that not a warhorse in Westeros could stand against these elephants. Interesting. His fears that the

company had grown kind of lax were misgiven. This place is running a really tight ship. This is a really cool travelogue, and the details that we get as he walks around the camp, I've very much condensed them. There's tons going on, and it's kind of cool to see this war camp from close up from someone that isn't like Tyrion, Jaime, or Catelyn. There's a little bit embarrassed in, I guess, as well, but we haven't really seen an actual sellsword soldier POV on the ground at a war camp, right? So constant and consistent like this. Tyrion and Jaime kind of are a little performative,

if that makes sense. They're coming to it as kind of these leaders that don't necessarily need to put in work to be respected. They're there to show. I mean, Tyrion Lannister is Roman Roying when he's on the field, you know what I mean? But really great reference here to Arthur Dayne. This is what it looks like to see on the ground, a moving roving camp, war camp. Arthur Dayne preferred compact, orderly, defensible camps. He was neat. He was disciplined, right? John Connington remembers fighting alongside him, basically, or being in war camps with him. And he remembers Arthur being very disciplined in his craft, in being a soldier and being a knight and how he wants to see the camps laid out. I really love that contrast, because I haven't actually thought about,

you know, what it's like as they survey all the different war camps. So and yeah, I think what's also cool is now we get a little bit more of insight and intimate view on people like arthur dayden too so good call out we meet franklin flowers he's not new to our pov he's a big bellied shambling hulk of a man with scars on his face and the chewed up right ear he's got no left ear really seeing really seeing what the life asks of you he says he's not only been made a captain since the last time he saw john con he's been made a knight they embrace and franklin says old griff looks awful and points out the new blue hair franklin greets the group and asks who agan is and old griff is like oh that's my uh squire and Agen acknowledges him and says he has

a bastard name from the reach he's like look at me I learned I learned about the country that I'm coming to and I like that Franklin says that uh John Connington looks awful for someone who's been dead a dozen years especially again in the, in the context of, like, Lady Stoneheart. She's only been dead three days and she looks real bad, so, like, what does that mean for John Connington? Yeah, and what does that mean for John Snow? Oh, true. Everyone always talked about how hot he is.

Are they all gonna be like, wow, John, you're so uggo now? He's also basically been dead that long. My daughters are all prettier than you now. Yeah, they're all gonna be like, all of my daughters, not just just half all of them are prettier than you so not just half anymore fuck what franklin says that his mother was a washerwoman at cider hall but she was raped by one of my lord's sons he calls himself a brown apple fossaway and leads them through the flower dressed gates beautiful to a war council

in Harry Strickland's tent regarding the bloody Valentines fun that we get the Fossaways here supporting opposing Targaryen sides during hedge night right and now here oh right um the Fossaways seem to split and sometimes go black fire uh because it's perfect why would you have offshoot cadet branches of your house if you weren't going to have them have a civil war and go crazy? So if we go back to the Nine Penny Kings, you have Derek Fossaway, who was known as the Bad Apple, right? He fought for Mayleys and he got exiled. So strangely enough, Stannis, if you recall, had both green and red apples

both of them supported him Courtney Penrose was like what how did that happen I'm guessing maybe because of the Florent connection with Selyse I'm not 100% sure and you know it's just a small thing then in this chapter we actually have a mini meta civil war

brewing for the Fossoways right Franklin Flowers says so long as I can for the Fossoways, right? Franklin Flowers says, so long as I can kill some Fossoways, I'm for it later. He's like, yes, let me kill my kin so I can take back my home. So like all these bastards and exiles are ready to take back what was taken from them at their birth. As a bastard, I approve. Just kidding about About the approving. No, I do. There's kind of an echo for that with like other houses, right? And where we may see that, like, I don't know what I think about Loras, but the Tyrells and Loras, right? If Loras really is still alive out there and he did go to Dragonstone and he's holding

down the fort, trying to go to like Daenerys or even to Aegon, who knows? Who knows? It's obvious foreshadowing for what's to come for Daenerys and Aegon, but also a little bit of civil war internal foreshadowing maybe for like the Starks, which other people around them are pushing that onto them. Obviously, I don't think they'll be internally broken apart. I think that that'll come from external forces. Yeah, I like how you've called out the, yeah yeah he's coming up with his own civil war it's

something that we're probably going to see tyrian doing too he's like yeah i'll go back to westeros to kill my family and also it's very much in line with how we've seen houses support the black fires in the past like you think about which houses threw in for daemon Blackfire and how it's called out in Sworn Sword a lot of them are some of these like bastard houses or smaller houses looking to gain more power but I think Franklin seems like I don't know if he's trying to gain power it looks like he just wants revenge yeah maybe for his mom what a guy yeah I like the brown apple it's cute it reminds me a little bit of brown ben plumb oh very interesting just interesting similar anchor characters there right yeah with fruits as well

wow something's happening here though something's here. I don't know yet what. What is George doing? What is George cooking? Let him cook. Some sort of roasted autumnal dish, even though what, plums are, they're summer fruits-ish, right? So I don't know. Close enough. Late summer, late summer roasted dish. Anyway. Really love the flowers on the gates.

I thought that was nice, but also then thought about how maybe it helps disguise the scent of a bunch of sweaty men and other people who are shitting and living in this war complex together. I'm wondering if the flowers help with that, you know, with what we know about the Tyrells. I don't know, because, like, you might want to mask your scent to avoid predators in the wild but i don't know well i imagine also like the moat will eventually smell like shit from them throwing out their chamber pots so but also they're really into aesthetics yeah no you're right they actually are very into aesthetics we're gonna get into it in a second so it actually might be that too. They pass the men of the Golden Company who are all outside their tents, drinking, dicing, swatting flies away. Old Griff wonders how many know who he is, even through the dyed blue hair.

He was a fiery redhead before. Look, we've talked about it in our Tyraush episode on Patreon, and I just need to bring it back up. We need to talk about how this isn't possible for JonCon. That's not how hair dye works. You can't be a blazing red head and put semi-permanent or demi-permanent blue hair dye onto your hair and expect it to be a true blue. Ironically, it's actually more like Aegon's eyes where it would look like a muddy blurple, right? That's what red and blue together look like. Agen totally makes sense. He has white blonde hair.

You can dye that shit anything. He's so lucky. He could dye that shit every couple months and just wash it out eventually. And it's just, look, I know George has magic in this world, but there is no magic involved in this hair dye here. They even say we'll wash the hair dye out. What? How are you going to wash? You need some dish soap and you need to wash it rigorously.

Yeah, I don't know. Are they going to just put lye or some shit? Ooh, not great. If it's semi-permanent hair dye, which means they're using semi-permanent hair dye if it's able to be washed out eventually like that, John Connington would not be able to use that for his hair to be blue and match.

That's all. And his roots would show up. Yeah, I was going to ask, could he bleach his hair and get it to work? He could bleach it. Which we're not told he does, so he probably doesn't, but... But that's what I'm saying.

George, I'm watching you. George. What do you call that? Not a medievalism. That's a modernism. Wrong. It's wrong. That's what it is. George, I'll fight you.

Sorry, I just had an idea of George dying his beard. Anyways, that's where I got to in that brief moment. So most of these men believe that john connington drunk himself to death and lease but turns out that was lies um out of his disgrace from stealing the war chest which is also a lie but various was like it's necessary yeah there's something great about these lies and it's kind of a theme throughout the story right um that there are lies that are so good people want to and choose to believe them john connington didn't really make a lot of friends outside of miles toyn in the golden company right like he comes back and he looks at these people and he distrusts them because none of them like him either. You know, it's not just a one way

street here. He was right hand man against a bunch of guys that probably wanted his role. And it's kind of likely that everyone in the Golden Company when they heard the lie about him stealing for people that want him to fail and want him to get caught and fail it's a believable lie right that's very believable if you want john connington to fail and it's kind of like the lie that young griff is agon it's a lie so good that john connington has wanted to believe it and has believed it this whole time right it's like the perfect little story like well actually we whisked him away and saved his life and here he is the one last part of the prince that you served don't you want to protect him john and i mean it also reminds me of another lie that was so good that someone chose to believe

it robert in love with liana right he tore apart a country by thinking that rhaegar stole her and kidnapped her and raped her and murdered her. I mean, he had to tell himself that in order to make it so him being the front of the rebellion was somewhat worth it. And it wasn't in the end. No, absolutely. Like he has to. That's the, it's something we were talking about, I guess, in Arya's chapters as well,

right? Like the lies that people tell themselves about who they are. And the certain tells that a person has, and once you can tell their tell, it's over. Yeah. Being able to read their lies. Yeah, believing this other story about yourself. Interesting. You know, I brought it up earlier, but in the World of World of Ice and Fire app, semi canon, but basically canon, it said that Aegon five years after so five years after 282 283 AC, when John

Connington was already in exile, that's when he learned about Aegon. So about 288 AC ish, somewhere around there, he ended up being given Aegon. So he would have been about five or six at that time. So he was living for probably five years with Illyrio and Varys. And now he's been with Jon Conn ever since. So like 12, 12-ish years. Suspicious. Very, right. That's suspicious to me.

I'm like, wait, so he was five or six. Hmm. Suspicious. Yeah, like five or six. And why was he with those like why of all the people would he be with them with his daddies yeah i mean it makes sense like from what we know and think about from what you and i believe about young griff but i'm like if that was really agan i mean i guess he could it could be that varies you know switch them and was like oh

i'll leave him with my friend my rich friend my trust but suspicious you know you're talking about these ned and john khan foils i think that you have another thing that really ties them all together which is like the sting of a lie that disgraces them and for john khan it's it's this lie that like i stole the war chest and i drank myself to death because i mean that is that's pretty sad right like he just doesn't seem very cool for doing that and he's someone who very much as we can see values like performance of masculinity he's doing it though because he thinks he's doing it for like this kid whereas for ned there's the lie but he's like i'm doing it to save my kids got anything else be damned his honor didn't matter to him that much as lives and he was like yeah so i betrayed my friend and my king my bad

and we know that's not true we know that's not true but that was also both of these were ideas came from varies interesting interesting and as we know from book one likely varies was going to spirit net away from king's landing as he did john khan that's probably another reason why we put these these chapters together because that information comes in an aria chapter so yes if one hand can die why not another truly why not another two hands who doesn't need fucking i mean not everyone but like anyways two hands are good they are fun interesting line here from john khan about heroes being remembered not drunks thieves or cravens because i think the story is very much telling us like hey by the way those drunk thieves

and cravens sometimes those people are the heroes or sometimes you know for better for worse like anyone's capable of good in the way that we see with sandra clegane's story or the stories, the legends, the songs mask the cravenness, right, behind some of the heroes that they lionize. When can a man be brave? When he's afraid. Oh my god, when they're on Girls Gone Canon. No, that's so real. You have to be very brave to come on here. You have to be so brave, but really not.

We're very nice. Ish. And I mean, you look at Sam's chapter, right? Sobbing, he took another step. Sam, who is called so craven by so many people. However, he's so brave. I think of nimble Dick Crabbe, right? And just like John Connington tells us in in this chapter don't judge the book by its cover

or even tyrian with i wish i was the monster you think i am or cripples bastards and broken things or i would even add a line a famous line around these parts of girls gone canon of bastard oathbreaker motherless damned you know like i mean that's that's part of the big theme yeah exactly exactly or like on the other side of the coin right like Robert seen as a hero and we find out oh he like beat his kids and was like trying to kill kids all the time

and wife yes yes agreed and a drunk we have a passage back and forth of Varys and John Connington from a while back. This is a little bit about what we were talking about just now. Like, we want no songs about the gallant exile. The eunuch had, I'm sorry, that wasn't very tittering.

Let me try this again. We want no songs about the gallant exile. The eunuch had tittered in that mincing voice of his. Those who die heroic deaths are long remembered. Thieves and drunks and cravens soon forgotten. What does a eunuch know of a man's honor? Griff had gone along with the spider's scheme for the boy's sake, but that did not mean he liked it any better. Let me live long enough to see the boys sit the Iron Throne, and Varys will pay for that slight and so much more. Then we'll see who's soon forgotten.

Dang. So tell me about the chip on your shoulder, John Connington. Yeah, he's grown a little resentful of Varys and Illyrio, it feels like, in the last several you know 12 plus years yeah I get it I probably would too yeah in exile I mean you and now everyone hates you the opposite of what you wanted to happen wait yeah that's true all this sucks hate that in the captain general's tent are some interesting decorative choices cloth of gold makes the tent.

It's surrounded by a ring of pikes that are topped with gilded skulls. One is larger than the rest, grotesquely malformed, connected to a much smaller skull and represents their founding, you know, favorite blackfire to defend. Not their favorite. Maybe I think Maile's might be their favorite to have defended in the past, but Maile's the monstrous and his unnamed brother head. Griff asks which one is Miles's head and Flowers points. He steps in to announce the group while Griff contemplates

the skull of Miles Toyne. In a way, this is kind of similar for me to Winterfell to the Crips, when Robert shows up and wants to pay his respects, John Connington is paying his respects to a man that he loved. And we have this really beautiful passage. I actually think this is like a gorgeous, eloquent passage from John Conn of a memory. In life, Sir Miles Toyne had been ugly as sin. His famous forebear, the dark and dashing Terence Toyne of whom the singers sang, had been so fair of face that even the king's mistress could not resist him. But Miles had

been possessed of jug ears, a crooked jaw, and the biggest nose John Connington had ever seen. When he smiled at you, though, none of that mattered. Blackheart, his men had named him for the sigil on his shield. Miles had loved the name and all it hinted at. A captain general should be feared by friend and foe alike, he had once confessed. If men think me cruel, so much the better. The truth was otherwise. Soldier to the bone, Toyne was fierce but always fair, a father to his men and always generous to the

exiled Lord John Connington. Death had robbed him of his ears, his nose, and all his warmth. The smile remained, transformed into a glittering gold grin. All the skulls were grinning, even bitter steels on the tall pike in the center. What does he have to grin about? He died defeated and alone, a broken man in an alien land on his deathbed sir agor rivers had famously commanded his men to boil the flesh from his skull dip it in gold and carry it before them when they crossed the sea to retake westeros his successors had followed his example sorry quickly so is john connington just not putting the pieces together i guess it's like you said he wants to believe the lie so bad but i'm like so so you know you know that the golden

company is a black fire company right yeah it's like he won't believe even though all the people yeah john sweetie john yeah i do think john sweetie what are you doing a lot you're right this is actually like a fantastic passage and there's a lot going on in it right like we're getting characterization we're getting history we're getting hints about this is a black fire company and i love that line i it's just so it's kind of stupid it's so yearning romantic you know the the whole like where is it here when he smiled at you though none of that mattered definitely hints that john connington also had a crush on miles toyne and i'm realizing now like part of it is showing us that john connington does not have like a physical type as we know from tyrian's chapters john connington is not like a he's not a charismatic dude he's not a dude who probably makes friends very easily as we can see from him talking to

everyone here not very likable so like someone shows him a little kindness and he's like i love them and i think that's probably what happened with reygar and with miles a little like someone who actually like gave him time a day it was like nice to them bothered to be friends with them and i really love as well in this passage they're talking about Miles saying a captain general should be feared by friend and foe alike. And it speaks to that tension we talk about a lot of fear versus love in leadership that these books explore. And how do you balance the two? Comes up a lot in other John's storyline, you know, John Snow. What is the gap between leaders and friends if if fear is part of the relationship

I see you've called out the same line too though yes I did I love that in this passage while he loves Rhaegar and Rhaegar's memory especially obviously because it's been a while it seems that he's actually teaching

Aegon lessons from Miles Toyne, right? Because here he says, soldier to the bone, Toyne was fierce, but always fair, a father to his men and always generous to the exile Lord John Connington, which that's the value that he told Aegon earlier in the chapter that is most important to, you know, give them trust, receive their trust, receive their respect, and be generous and open handed when you do to them. Yes. I wonder if he has any lessons in leadership from Rhaegar, like to impart upon Aegon. I haven't seen any in this chapter, maybe in the next one. But what do you think? I mean, there's obviously there's going to be that great passage when he goes home to retake his lands, right? And Rhaegar calls his father's lands beautiful and tells him, you know, oh, I want to love your father's lands are beautiful.

Whatever that that whole entire passage kind of reads similar in some aspects to this of him having a remembrance of these men that influenced him. But it would be interesting. I'd like to see a little bit of the rhaegar from his angle more because we have that great line in the jamie chapter right where rhaegar says we'll talk about this when i come back i mean to fix all the stuff going wrong in the realm and then rhaegar dies valiantly nobly dies yeah i don't know i guess he didn't there's like some people have theorized if miles toyn and John Connington had a relationship I don't know I do hope that for John I don't know if he's ever like pursued anything with anyone that's really sad I agree and I it's so beautiful and romantic the language he uses here like you

said very yearning like there it has that great line that it's similar to a line that Jon says about Ygritte, I think, right? That when she smiles at you, none of that mattered. Talking about this deep love he had for this man and serving with all men in an exile army where as we're about to meet some of them in this council, it's not all people that are identifying or presenting as men, right?

There are people that are dressed flamboyantly despite of their being a soldier. There's a certain freedom in being a sellsword in the golden company. It's like a new band of brothers. It's like a, a night's watch in Kings guard where you're allowed to wear what you want to wear and stay up watching cartoons all night. Right.

As long as you like do the job and these are your brothers. And in a very interesting targaryen incest way uh maybe the brothers are also something more right i mean you spend every day together in this deep intense bond i would love for him to have uh had a full relationship with miles but i don't know that he did i don't know that he did either but i do i am glad that he was able to at least in some respect feel love again for someone after raygar died because i think that's like fucking hard yeah no absolutely so there's that and it sounds like i mean if not like a like a full like romantic relationship at least it seems as though he had a friendship

there's this line also in this passage that i love of dying a broken man in an alien land and it almost makes me wonder if that's the fate that's awaiting john connington yes they're returning home to westeros but i wonder if he comes home after all of these years right to find it an alien land to him like very different from the one that he remembers leaving it makes me think of you know this isn't the case with every immigrant story but sometimes people do return home and they're like wow the country's like really different from when i left or sometimes they think of their culture and their country as whatever it was like even if it was decades ago frozen in time of when they left like people will sometimes make fun of my mom and be like what is this slang term nobody says that anymore so i'm just kind of wondering if that's what it's

going to feel like for john connington when he returns he's definitely a broken man probably by then i mean he's out here gunning it i like that you pointed out that language because it kind of stood out to me too of alien land because it is going to be an alien land to him you're right everything's changed yeah i also wonder if it's i have not yet read this book but i know that george rr martin loves heinlein stranger in a strange land so i don't know he at least loves the tropes yeah i don't know what that book's about john connington thinks he would have been one of those successors to miles had his exile gone differently he spent five years rising in ranks at the company

and maybe it would have been him sitting in harry strickland's place today but he doesn't regret the choices he made for rhaegar's son and thinks that when he returns to westeros it will not be as a skull atop a pole maybe when when you go home, it will be. The skulls on the poles are very much Mummer's dragon imagery, right? A Mummer's dragon, you said. What is a Mummer's dragon, pray? A cloth

dragon on poles. Mummers use them in their follies to give the heroes something to fight. So, skull atop a pole, elf on a shelf, skull on a pole. to fight. So skull atop a pole, elf on a shelf, skull on a pole. There's something also interesting about Harry Strickland as we get introduced to him here. He's not quite what you'd expect, and he's not what old Griff expects, right? John Connington says that he's kind of weak. He was the paymaster. So this guy was an accountant and now he is the leader.

It's like, you know, your SVP accountant somehow becoming a CEO and they don't know what they're doing. He is soft in John Connington's eyes. And I wonder if John Connington might be underestimating Harry Strickland a little bit, like how people are underestimating Doran, for example. Maybe Harry Strickland is in the grass, right? The snake in the grass. Maybe you should watch out for him a little more. Yeah, I agree. I think he probably is.

I think we get the sense that John Cunnington, he's kind of a jock, right? Kind of like Barristan, but maybe a little smarter in some respects, unsure. And I agree that he's probably... it is kind of sad, though, now that you've summarized it like this, like, damn, that could have been him leading this whole golden company if he hadn't thrown it all away for dead guy's son. And it's not like he had much of a choice, I feel like because once they revealed it to him,

it's like one of those choices you can't really say no to because they'll probably kill you because they can't have you knowing about quote rhaegar's son unquote so they really had to make a big gamble that john connington would be the guy which he is because he wants to believe as we said yeah and i also think like harry strickland we know that he's willing to double cross right they said at the very franklin said like well we've been waiting just in case, you know, like, we could still go to the Volantines and say yes, you know, so they're willing to double cross. So maybe John Cunnington should watch his back a little bit.

Great point. Great point. Yeah, he should be watching his back more. I mean, not that it matters. He doesn't have that much time left anyways, as he said. I mean, his time's been up. It's been more than five years john connington since you got grayscale it's been like 11 or 12 by now but agreed and also there's something you were saying about him you know he had no choice but to but to go after this kid he's again he's like robert he's living in the past he's never let

it go and it's trapped him into this fate he could have had a whole other separate life you know a whole real life oh well now we get this cool story theoretically i was like wait hold on am i trapped in the past rereading the same book over and over again anyways insanity um also speaking of skulls on top of poles as we've been doing a lot it makes me think a little bit about someone that we see in the asha fragment yeah skulls upon poles indeed but that one's not cool and celebratory that one is used in the same way as like as you were talking about the skulls on poles in King's Landing. Yeah, that's true. Franklin welcomes them into the tent. Old friends greet him with smiles and embraces,

and the newer men are a little more formal, and he senses knives behind some of the smiles. Most of them believed he was dead until quite recently, and most of them believed that was a good place for a thief to be. John may have felt the same way in their place, honestly. He admits it. He's like, if I was them, I'd hate me too. We have a wave

of introductions. Some have bastard Westerosi names like Rivers, Hills, Stones, while others claim names that were once big in the Seven Kingdoms, like strongs peaks muds mandrakes loths and a pair of coals even boo interesting yeah coals hmm these names are very interesting though like you can really see george's gardening around the dance at this time because a lot of these are names that we see come up during the dance of the dragons we'll come back to them this summer in house of the dragon and i see you

george as well as the critically acclaimed podcast primer for house the dragon unleash the d when we unleash it yeah definitely somewhere around the dance right and the reach influence it's really clear he's playing with sworn sword stuff that he didn't get to follow up on yet and mystery night true yeah in general and this is like this chapter is a graveyard i mean the golden company is a graveyard for all of the houses that you presume are gone lost strong's muds this is like character hoarding, George. These are halls of forgotten houses. It reminds me of the shield hall

at the Night's Watch, actually. It's halls of forgotten houses that George has been trying to get through our skulls for the past few decades here. Ha, the skulls. Ha, skulls on poles. When you were talking about the wall of skulls, like imagery from, I don't know, other civilizations, but it made me think of the Hall of Thousand Faces.

But I like what you're saying of this is the graveyard. It's a memorial. It's a living memorial to these houses that are gone. But not. They're right there. Oh, yeah, you're right. But not gone. Unless some of them, like, as Connaughton was saying, he's like, I don't know, some of them,

like, just name themselves. They just pick a name and they're like, hmm, I'm a mud now. Maybe. Probably. Yeah, because we do learn, like, not all of them are genuine. In the free companies, a man can choose his name and they also get to keep their worldly wealth, as we kind of chatted on, and that's on display today. People have jeweled swords inlaid

armor heavy torques fine silks and each man is wearing a lord's ransom in gold arm rings each one signifying one year of service which is interesting uh mark mandrake who wears a chain of golden skulls has a hole in one cheek where a slaver's mark was burnt away. I like that detail about him. And yeah, you were talking about earlier how it is a little showy, young grifts attire, but like, that's just how they are here at the Golden Company. They just have very showy, extravagant attire, which is really interesting, especially when you think about it in contrast to like the Ironborn customs, right? Like they don't pay the gold price for fucking anything. So these people

the golden company kills a lot so that's iron prices but they also get gold a lot and make a lot of money that way all in a day's work yeah this this is jobs just like we were telling aria look these men have a job. It's not very good. Yeah. Not all the men are Westerosi, like Black Balak. He's got white hair with skin that's dark as soot, and he commands the archers. He wears a feathered green and orange cloak. He's a volu- Oh, and then we also have a Voluntine Goris Edorian.

He's the current paymaster which was as you pointed out harry strickland's old job and he wears a leopard skin on one shoulder wow so fashionable with red oiled ringlets cascading down against a pointed black beard this sounds like a comic book character i also am like should we worry about gora sidorian pointed black beard what did george just say to us in the last chapter yep he hate pointed black beards yeah that's little finger coated uh and okay we need to point out the spy master which also very interesting that we're kind of we have a whole small council here, right? You have stewardship, you have diplomacy, you know, uh, now you have a spy master and the spy master has the most drip of anyone on worldos ever. So much drip going on here. Uh, it is of course a Lysini named Lysonomar with lilac

eyes and white gold hair and lips, purple painted fingernails, earlobes dripping with pearls and amethysts. I love them. I love Lysonomar. They are amazing. This is a wonderful look for them. I'm so happy.

Honestly, I think I used to know a lot of scene kids that dressed like this, but... Really? You know... Interesting. a lot of scene kids that dress like this but you know interesting go off lysono fashion fashion work vogue definitely a lot of the different cultures though coming together so it's not just the westerosi exiles yeah there's a lot to be said about lysono mar and i do believe our friends ar and load the links have a fantastic video really analyzing the beautiful spymaster Lysone Omar in the context of Orientalism and liminality.

So we'll link that there. Yes, check it out. Ghosts and liars, Griff thought as he surveyed their faces. Revenants from forgotten wars, lost causes, failed rebellions, a brotherhood of the failed and the fallen, the disgraced and the disinherited. This is my army. This is our best hope. A lot of great bangers of little passages in this that's so like, this is my army. This is our best hope. All of these broken men. It's so like, this is my army. This is our best hope.

All of these broken men. Yeah, I like, because earlier you were saying they're like a flashy Night's Watch. This is kind of that. Yeah, like Kingsguard Night's Watch, but with a bunch of flash and bougie-ness. Yeah, and they're way more greedy and severe. Yeah. So. uh severe yeah so finally griff's judgment comes to homeless harry strickland who looks very little like a warrior portly big round head gray eyes thinning hair he's soaking his feet in salt water and apologizes for not rising because their march was wearisome. John thinks this is a mark of weakness, that he sounds like an old woman.

Oh, there you go. Harry's great-grandfather lost his lands when he rose with the Blackfyres in the first Blackfyre Rebellion, and the Stricklands had been in the Golden Company since its founding. Gold for four generations, Harry would boast, but John thinks as if four generations

of exile and defeat were something to take pride in. Dang. Got him. Dang. Bars. Burned his ass. Oh, roasted. So part of me, you know, it's like you were saying, right?

Is he underestimating Harry Strickland the way people underestimate Doran? But I'm also like, is Harry Strickland pulling a thing here? Kind of like Daenerys being like, I'm just a young girl who knows little in the ways of war and I'm like is Harry is that what you're up to I don't know Halden like also offers to make an ointment for Strickland which probably like doesn't

help Griff's idea of him Harry declines and offers them all water no no and then offers them like some wine with their little chat but griff refuses and asks for water instead and i thought that was really pointed like does that speak to how he's thinking about the reputation that he has if everyone thinks that he drunk himself to death and this is a way that he's reclaiming his story oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i didn't think about that

about him being seen drinking. But yeah, probably. Yeah, he's like, I got a reputation and I gotta make them think that like, I am not someone who drank myself to death because first of all, I am alive. Also reminiscent of Stannis, right? Yes, exactly. A little bit with him drinking water. And speaks to JonKhan's discipline, right? He doesn't want to be drunk at this meeting. He is kind of sour, like Stannis, it seems. Mm-hmm. A little bit.

Very dry. Yeah. So Strickland smiles at Aegon and says, this must be your son, and Griff wonders how much he knows. Does he know? Varys had been adamant about secrecy, and Miles had been the only one to know very much of this plan, and the rest of the company was ignorant and it needed to stay that way. But now Griff decides to reveal that

this lad is not his son. It is Aegon Targaryen, firstborn son of Rhaegar, prince of Dragonstone by Elia of Dorne and soon, with their help, the Sixth of his name, King of Andals the Rhoynar, the First Men and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms I mean sixth of someone's name you know and to be fair if you, I'm just saying

if you've listened to any of our our coverage of Fire and Blood on Patreon where we've covered the Dance of the Dragons in full from the beginning to end, starting, you know, at the question of succession and moving down to Aegon III as he takes his seat, as he's ready to begin.

But it might not matter, Bastard-y, right? Like, if Aenys is Rhaenys' son matter bastardy right like if anise is rainies's son and the rulers of house targaryen actually come from rainies's line and if that child is not of aegon one's line does it fucking matter does any of it fucking matter nettles could fucking ride a dragon like does any of this matter none of this matters right well none of it even said it had to be of agan's line just blood and then like i don't know john is my blood i know i agree i agree it doesn't necessarily matter like agan could be he could be helpful and important too but at the same time he's a blackfire wow haters in the house um it's not haters i'm just like it's so interesting in terms of i don't know the

themes and stuff well and it's like you and i talked about a little bit in mystery night you know i mentioned like damon blackfire like could he have been a good king? I don't know. I don't know. But we've had some shitty Targaryen ones and other ones, too. Like, you know, it's just... Could be okay. Who knows? I mean, maybe the idea is actually that, like, having a king is bad. But I digress. We'll come back to that throughout the rest of our POV series for the rest of our lives.

But... I think Daeron was a good king. I don't know if Damon would have been a good king or not, but he seemed like a good dude except for the part where he leads everyone to war. But like, you know, a good, a fun dude. Sorry. He seemed like a fun dude, but not in a Robert Baratheon fun dude kind of way. So my favorite thing ever is that when he announces this whole entire thing he's

met with complete silence and people like like no one's saying shit and he's like oh they all knew okay uh the entire time every single one of them have known strickland told them when they reached the river uh hoping to keep them from getting restless after walking away from a campaign in the disputed lands and they sat there, rejecting offers from richer campaigns like the Yonkish Men, who are offering twice what Meir paid them, and a slave for every man in the company. Ten slaves for every officer, a hundred maidens for Harry Strickland. Wow, what is he going to do with all those maidens? The Yonkish Men had hoped to find all these slaves, of course, in Meirin. We the readers know what's happening in Meereen. It makes it a little complicated to go get slaves in Meereen because Daenerys is there trying to

end the slave trade. So these are, you know, opposing, opposing battles, opposing people here. They have very diametrically opposing wants at this time. Strickland says he did not outright refuse the man that they would think on it, right? Because it would have been stupid to bluntly refuse the youngish men. And the men would ask him if he'd lost his mind if he straight up refused without telling them why. Yeah. And I think it's poor John. He's like, it's a secret. He's like, oh. That everyone knows? Everyone knows. Like, oh my God.

I think that's a fun thing that George did. Like, he's like, it's going to be such a big, fun reveal. Nut crickets. Absolute crickets. And these men just like, as you were saying, right, they don't have any loyalty. The Golden Company. They are kind of primed to fight against Daenerys already. They know that that's where the slaves are going to come from.

So I guess they're motivated to be like, yeah, fuck it. Fuck this Dragon Queen. We don't got to support her. I want my riches and my slave. And you know what? Daenerys is not about that. So I think this is going to be really interesting in terms of like their philosophies on life when they butt heads but they're ready they've been ready to fight denarius they've been

like hyping that up in their mind not to fight for her yeah it's what makes agan deciding to go west then take his side so fast right like they're like yeah exactly let's go we're sick of waiting i don't care yeah they're like i don't care about her whatever yeah old griff promises them work soon and lysono mar mentions the targaryen girl has not yet set sail for the west she's sacked marine but they really just can't figure out why she hasn't left because they are okay with slaves and she is not. That is the real answer there. Yeah, that's actually literally it. Lisono says, the slaver cities reek of gold and conquest requires coin. Her taking Meereen makes sense, but not that she's lingering there.

Lisono says, maybe it's fear, madness, or sloth. But Harry Strickland interrupts and is like, well, she's there and we're here and the Volantines are not happy that we're here. So we need to make a move. Yes. I mean, like you said, they just can't even fathom. They're like, I don't know. I can't think of any reason someone would stay there. They can't think of like, oh, maybe she like cares.

Yeah. The queen who cared. There's some more of that in this that I'm like, what? We'll talk about it in a minute. But what? What? Yeah. The goal was to raise king and queen, right? To lead them to Westeros home together. But this Targaryen girl seems more intent on planting olive trees than in reclaiming her father's throne, they say, while her foes are gathering behind her. Yunkai, Newgeese, Tolos, while her foes are gathering behind her.

Yunkai, New Geese, Tolos, Bloodbeard, and the Tattered Prince will soon ride against her, and Old Volantis too. She has only the Unsullied and the Young Dragons, barely more than hatchlings, to fight back against the armies that are closing in. It's actually fun to see in this chapter how much information they don't have that's up to date in the Golden Company, from whatever Circe's fucking up to. We'll up to date in the golden company like from whatever circe's fucking up to we'll get to that in a second but also they're like yeah the tattered prince is

gonna ride against her no the tattered prince is allying with her as we speak and i also just love that they have this language here of like she's planting all trees they mean it somewhat like on a on a literal level but of course we... This doesn't require that much explanation. This is a very obvious metaphor about peace and the tension within Daenerys' storyline. And then, of course, how it culminates later on

at the end of her chapter in this book, or towards the end of that chapter in this book, of dragons plant no trees. Right? She's like, oh, you're right're right maybe what the fuck am i doing and i think that they underestimate the keeping like daenerys has no chance all of these slaver cities are gonna ride against her their economy depends on on this slave trade which is true which again is part of something else that i'm looking forward to like that whole political and war drama in winds but they're underestimating that she's not a fool for

that because their labor supply like in volantis where they are now is going to be fighting them from within emboldened by the denarius's actions in Essos they can't bank on all of these cities going against Daenerys because they're going to have rebellions to squash inside well and it's just like I think of Les Miserables the world is big but little people turn it around right like you said they can't fathom what she's waiting around for, right? So they think old Volantis wants to get rid of her because old Volantis runs on slave labor. But guess how many slaves there are versus how many masters there are? It's like three to one, right?

Or is it five to one? Yeah. Some of the triarchs, it's three to one. Some are five to one. Yeah, which is still more than one to one, right? Yes. Still an advantage. So that's the whole labor.

If she frees them, they can't attack her because that would have been their labor to attack her with. And we know for a fact, again, like you said, we know Tattered Prince went there. Old Volantis had a message for her that they sent through tyrian right should you reach your dragon queen give her a message from the slaves of old volantis tell her we are waiting tell her to come soon she's going to core it all out she's going to empty it out from the inside and then they're a shell and they can't fight her yeah it's not even like that the slaves would even have been the ones fighting her maybe they would would, maybe they would have. For some of the armies, yeah, but for some of them, their soldiers won't be able to fight the Neres because they'll be squashing the rebellions inside. Yeah.

Or it's their own slaves for some of those soldiers that are turning against them. Well, and then they run out of food. No food, no water, no labor. Overrated food, water, whatever. Who needs food water whatever who needs it yeah you know only three days until you die with no water three to five sometimes seven if you're really lucky but really lucky tristan rivers thinks that they should go to denarius and quickly lison omar says they can't reach her by sea the harbor is slammed with ships and they have too many men they need a pirate fleet not a pirate ship

even if they found one Meereen is closed off by a blockade they could betray the Yunkishmen fading acceptance get east and return their gold beneath the walls of Meereen but Harry says one broken contract is bad enough and Miles Toyne is the one who put his seal on this secret

pact not him so like who gives a fuck about this harry would honor the agreement if he could but it seems he can't the nares will either be queen of marine or die in the east which she is going to be queen of marine as we know but also jury's out she could die in the east with all the shitting she's doing again back to water you really really do need water after getting sick like that. Clean water. But pirate fleet? Not the dysentery water. Yeah, not dysentery water. We don't need consumption out here. Pirate fleet? Hmm.

Where could we get a pirate fleet? Especially where there's a city that's closed off by blockade. The internet. fleet especially where there's a city that's closed off by blockade the internet the uh golden company kind of forgot about the iron fleet oh my god just kidding no but they did they did i'm so clever for pointing it out in a meme format aren't i um shut up about the iron fleet something about this betrayal right here really reminds me of the sack of king's landing right which is directly correlated to agan and that he's here but also potentially the second sack of king's landing we're gonna have to come right with the dornish sacking king's Landing is what I think will happen. You don't have to believe me, everyone. But I think the Dornish and this Blackfyre Brigade will come in and do a little switcheroo ballroom blitz and out with the old and in with the new.

And I'm sure there will be a betrayal at the gates, right? Like Pycelle letting in the Lannisters and the Lannisters slaughtering. I imagine it will be a betrayal of letting in the Dornish and them slaughtering and everyone else slaughtering. So we'll see. We'll see. But that's what I think. And I think it mirrors that really well here with this betrayal. And again, watch your back, JonCon. I don't trust these guys.

Also, I really forgot that not just this chapter, but A Dance with Dragons is like an entire book where everybody is saying shit about Dany that's not true, right? Like, Jera's drink water is like, what a bitch. And then these guys are like, yeah, what a little bitch. We don't care about her. Like, everybody is saying stuff that's completely the opposite of the truth of what she's doing, right? Like, taking Meereen, she's not there. Even Barristan. Even, exactly, mud, right?

Fire and mud. Not fire and mud not fire projecting baristan yeah she's not there because of the riches she's not there to make a slave army she's there to try to give them a better life liberate them even if she's not wholly successful in the end maybe she won't be maybe she will but she's trying to bring some liberation and freedom to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like her heart, her intent is in the right place. And they just don't understand that. They're like, I don't understand.

Wait. Like their minds don't even go to the possibility that she's trying to do this to end the slave trade or to liberate people whatsoever. They're just like, I don't know what she's doing there. And people have said, like, obviously, if the slaves in these other cities know what she's doing there, then the news is getting around. They just, like, don't connect it. Yeah, but she's gonna be real mad when she comes up against them. Franklin suggests the demon road. But Strickland says that he thinks magister alirio and

his friends were unaware were unwise to put too much hope on the child queen i don't know she's got dragons she she has accomplished a lot on her own griff begins to think of a comeback thinking they were unwise to put their hopes in harry strickland but agan speaks and says, then put your hopes on me. Daenerys is Prince Rhaegar's sister, but I am Rhaegar's son. I am the only dragon you need. Griff put a black gloved hand on Prince Aegon's shoulder. Spoken boldly, he said, but think what you are saying. I have. Why should I go running to my aunt as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me. In Westeros.

Tyrion's words out of Aegon's mouth. Ah. Yep. And Griff doesn't even know. He doesn't even know, like, this was planted by Tyrion. And Tyrion was just like, I will cause problems on purpose. And this is kind of a big deal right this is a uh him taking the reins

here on his own and changing the trajectory of what they were going to do and firmly taking the lead and taking the plan that does take things out of Jon's hands it takes it out of Illyrio and Varys' hands and it even takes it out of the Golden Company's a little bit

this move that he's made. Mm. True. It does. Something to watch out for when your pawns get minds of their own in this story, right? It's happening everywhere to some of these kids. Yeah, I think what we're gonna see with it is what? Probably Aegon being like, so, I also got also got married she's real hot here's arianne

and then maybe he might be like also i want a second wife and it's gonna be elia his mom no oh the other elia sorry the the young one who likes horses because of his mommy issues yes no i'm just kidding liana stark reincarnated agan liana ellia we named you for the bravest women in the whole story oh my god stop i can't i can't i can't stop fired fired uh some men i did it like franklin flowers love this but harry strickland does not love this he's like well without the girls the lords will mock you and brand you as a pretender that's what we're saying and um i'm branding you as a pretender like right now but also they don't have any ships to take west. That's a big problem. And then old Griff realizes, Strickland is afraid to fight and afraid to take the fight to Westeros. Griff reminds them they

could possibly get passage through the Triarchs. Nobody wants an army parked on their doorstep. Harry's still nervous though. Rhaegar's sister has dragons, and Rhaegar's son does not. Without Daenerys, her army, her Unsullied, they don't have the strength. This is not following the plan. He's just like me, for real. You know me, I hate when plans aren't going straight. Not following the plan, Aliana. Not following the plan, this Harry Strickland is mad.

There's a couple of things going on here that I think are interesting. So they said that yeah, there are no ships and they pointed out, no, there's no ships if you're trying to go to marine trying to go to Daenerys trying to go the other way the Triarchs will fund that so

I think that the concept of the Triarchs putting investment into this invasion of Westeros could really like that could really bloom into something because again always interested in the free cities getting involved in Westerosi politics. Also, I think it's so cute that they are like, yeah, this is a great time to attack because Cersei's attention.

She's probably like preparing, though, for an invasion because of what's happening with Daenerys and Meereen. And I'm like, she she just does not know what's happening. She's busy fighting her own like inner problem that she caused herself kind of but not really like cersei's busy being arrested and being put on trial she's not worried about the dairies marine she's got her own problems just like tyrian's got his own personal problems also i think it's hilarious that they're all like we don't need daenerys all right the first aegon took westeros without the unsullied and i'm like but you just ignored the part with the three dragons that was the big important part yeah they're very this is what we call projection

you want to talk projection it's everything that's being done to make aegon stand as the heir to the throne much like aegon too, right? Like we're going through so many gymnastics and mental hoops to be like, he is the one when he is not. Yeah, he's, I don't know. It's very interesting that Harry Strickland is wary of Daenerys though, of all of them.

Even though Griff thinks that he's afraid and thinks that he's not a good leader, yeah, but he's the only one is wary of Daenerys, though, of all of them. Like, even though Griff thinks that he's afraid and thinks that he's not a good leader, yeah, but he's the only one that's taking Daenerys and her dragons seriously, and he's right to. That's true. Again, underestimating the man. Because he's cautious, right? He's thinking about all the risks. He was financial.

He was CFO. Labor, money, you're gonna lose all of it. Your entire workforce lives yep well tristan rivers argues that illyrio's plan changes every time the earth turns viserys died danny went to slaver's bay robert baratheon won the throne without dragons and they can do the same he says or lose and retreat across the narrow sea like Bittersteel once did. Strickland starts to argue about the risks, but Tristan argues back that now's the time to conquer.

True. Tywin's dead. A boy king sits on the throne, and there are rebels everywhere. True. I mean, like, this is actually a good time for them to invade, but not for the reasons that they think or know. Griffin heard enough of Strickland's cowardice as well, and he pipes up to remind them that Doran will probably rise for Elia's son as well. Agen agrees and says that there will only be a woman left to oppose them in Westeros, and Strickland argues it's not just any woman, it's a Lannister woman. And with the Kingslayer on her side, well, good news, he's not there. And the wealth of Casterly Rock behind them, good news, she doesn't quite have access to that either,

as well as the power of the Tyrells in the Reach. But Laswell Peak is like, I'm optimistic though, because we still have some friends in the Reach. The power of Highgarden may not be what Mace Tyrell imagines. Little call out again on that line about there will only be a woman left to oppose us in westeros uh where did agan learn this misogyny from his dad his his dad who stepped up john connington he kinddad shirts, actually. Oh, God. The stepdad who stepped up. Stepdad no. Oh, my God.

Stepdad no. But actually, for real, though, stepdad no as well. We need some stepdad no koozies next. Wow. Mm-hmm. A new delicious brand. So- New era.

House Peak. GDC Eros concert. brand uh so new era house peak ggc arrows concert house peak the peaks were favored by the gardeners way back when the manderleys were still in the reach right and the gardeners were like we're gonna be nice to house peak because you're much smaller and the manderleys are gaining too much power and we want to out them, like get them out of here, send them out. So that's when the Manderlys went north and the Peaks helped them do that. Well, eventually, Gardeners are ousted by the Tyrells, right? And the Peaks and Tyrells never had big love between them. They didn't have relationships or intermarrying. No favor, no relation by blood like the Peaks and Garden gardeners had so they're marcher lords

they live in the dornish marches we haven't seen really a map that shows where they are canonically but if they're in the marches uh and they're kind of near high garden they actually probably sit kind of near house tarly's seat and kind of close to cider hall Hall, speaking of the Fossways. I think it's pretty fan accepted that the friends in the Reach are likely going to be the Tarlys because they are kind of one of the next bigger armies, not the Hightowers. They have their own battles right now.

They have wizard shit going on. I think the Tarlys kind of have the next big army and Randall has obviously been a figure that started to rise to importance in the last couple books uh even though i wish he wouldn't we're very anti randall on this podcast but i definitely think that lends a little credence to it being the tarleys that are the friends in the reach since that's where they would have been locally situated at and that is

the next big military faction in the reach that's probably being depended on. And a while ago, I broke this down in an essay I never posted and never finished. Yup. Shocking, right? Are you all shocked to hear that? And it is an essay about the second sack of King's Landing. And I broke down a little bit about how many swords these people really have. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I know, right?

Very surprising. Aren't you surprised by me? I am a little surprised. I'm like, oh, that's not a thing that we're usually interested in. Let me pull open here. No, you've done a lot of analysis on things like that before, but we just don't do that very much here on the GGC. Sometimes it's more vibes, you know.

Is it Golden Golden Company? Is that what GGC is? Golden Golden Company? I actually kind of love that. Golden Girls Company. Golden Girls Company. So, House Tyrell has a lot of fucking swords, right? Nice. Great analysis. Thank you.

I'm really going to find it. A plus work, Chloe. Half of the Reach's force is joining Garland Tyrell right now, right? In retaking the Shield Islands from the Ironborn. So they're salvaging the lords who managed to escape the Ironborn's destruction. 35,000 will defend the Reach from the Shield Islands to Oldtown, and they're awaiting the return of 300 ships with the Redwine Fleet. But as we learn in a chapter from The Winds of Winter,

the Shield Islands maybe aren't as important as they seemed. It was more of kind of a red herring and a distraction so that you could fuck up the red wine fleet uh and take out some of your enemies so that's kind of a problem right and then after that they have a small force left at storm's end which is 500 to 1000 people from mathis rowan there's a thousand alive at dragonstone of the 2000 that000 that were sent. And then Mace Tyrell and Randall Tarly both are descending on King's Landing to save Margaery. We learned that in Cersei I, right? There's probably about 30 to 35,000 swords cut in half, really. Like, this is with the sellswords, the elephants, and what's left of that Tyrell army, that's the most untouched. But then we start thinking about that Tyrell army.

So Randall Tarly, I mean, Team Agen has what, 8,500 landed sellswords, the Golden Company sellswords. So Randall Tarly is actually kind of supporting a very strong amount of those Tyrell swords of the ones that aren't busy. They're his. So he's the one that I think would make the switch. And the Martells might have exaggerated their numbers a bit, some people feel like, but if they even brought like 20,000 men into the battle,

the Tyrells are over. They're fucking cooked. Like they're out of people. They're wasting a ton of people in the south. They're using the rest to go to King's Landing to get slaughtered in the field and end up getting slaughtered between the battling at Storm's End and here. It's going to be really easy to get past the Tyrells soon. If Tarly joins Aegon's numbers, he might get to 30,000 men or so. Yeah, that's actually... I hadn't realized how stretched thin the Tyrells are and their army, which is very famous for being very big and strong.

Huge. But absolutely, they're so stretched thin right now in terms of military resources, opening bazillions of fronts in the middle of winter. And I agree. I think it's going to be Randall Charlie for, I mean, several reasons. A, probably their friends in the Reach. I forgot if we've discussed this before in the past or not. Yeah, but I mean, like, Randall Tarly, is he going to follow the woman who was forced to parade

in front of everyone naked? Definitely not. Is he going to follow the little girl, even though she has dragons? Probably not. Like, especially not if he has other targaryen that you know he's much more targaryen sympathizer in the past especially if there's one that is like has penis you know he's like of course i will follow that one because how dare a woman lead so dick trump's all yeah i think that's something that like

i understand that they condense characters and storylines in the show but that never made sense to me in that way because there's no world in which the randall charlie that we know follows circe lannister. Yeah, absolutely not. Not unless there's a betrayal to come. He would choose Daenerys over Cersei for several other character reasons, so I don't know. I thought that was... they forgot about

the Iron Fleet. Anyways, um... Tristan Rivers. Tristan Rivers tells Prince Aegon they're his men. If this is his wish, they will sail west instead of east. And it is. Agen says if his aunt wants marine, she can have it. He will take the Iron Throne by himself with the Golden Company swords and allegiance.

If they move quickly and strike hard, they can win easy victories before the Lannisters even realize they're there and win others to their side. The men all agree, and Griff starts to see the tide change. He hasn't seen this side of Aegon before, but he's sick of waiting, of secrets. Win or lose, he thinks, he would see Griffon's roost again before he died and be buried in the tomb beside his father's. John Coddington, you sad man. I love John Coddington chapters. This scene, Agen promising glory, and then he knows that they've won the Golden Company over when all the men are speaking at once. Presumably they're all, like, speaking excitedly about plans and what they're going to do.

It's not cheering, but i think that this is this kind of reminds me a little of the crowning right in the way that rob became king in the north as he was also leading a war campaign right they're both leading war campaigns different intents and then as it's all happening i like that there's this imagery then of the sun reddening the sky and the scarlet shadows on the skulls i'm like oh they're telling us this is gonna be bloody people are gonna die yes i love that imagery and it even really reminds me of um ilaria sand over in skull you know that that idea of like taking the skull to bed and every day they take that soul that badge that they wear basically of the people they've lost in the homes that they were ousted from you know every day they wear basically of the people they've lost and the homes that they were ousted from. You know? Every day they wear that. Yeah. Interesting.

Interesting. Absolutely. They're gonna take the skulls to bed. They're gonna be gold, though. Fancy skulls. Smooch, smooch. As opposed to, I guess, big... There are different kinds of skulls, you know? There's one really big like, oversized skull. You can get that in Dorne. Here's the bejeweled skulls.

Bejazzled skulls deal amorte so each man of the golden company rises kneels lays their sword down harry strickland is the last when they leave the tent again the sun is reddening franklin flowers offers to introduce prince agan to the camp and griff allows it but reminds him that he must remain young Griff by the way that's his name until we get to West Rose then we're gonna like wash her hair do the big reveal he's gonna be in armor it's gonna be sick

and with Agen being babysat Griff gives commands to Halden Halfmaester to return to Septimelmore and Ser Raleigh Duckfield as well as Illyrio's chest with all the coin and the armor. I think Blackfire's in that

chest, bro. Probably. Maybe Aegon's crown is in Dorne waiting for him but Blackfire's in that chest. I just think it's so interesting. He's gonna come over there and he's gonna have all these things and no one's gonna be like, suspicious! Where did he get these knockoff cosplay items?

Or like, Blackfire, what could it mean? While Yandri and Ysilla get dismissed, their part in this is over, but Griff says to make sure that they thank them for him and let them know they'll be remembered in the new kingdom. Griff heads into the tent that Harry assigned him and starts to think of the road ahead perilous but all men must die true all he could hope for was time a few more years enough to see his quote unquote son on the iron throne to reclaim his name, his honor, to stop the bells from ringing in his dreams. The way you called out son just made me realize, does? Does John Connington love young Griff like a son? It doesn't feel that way. It just feels like I really love this boy's dad. So I will raise him and not like, I really care about this kid and his development. It almost makes me think of jamie and

his kids and how he was never allowed to really love them as his own yeah i think like there are times that he you can see it almost especially when he's like wow i've never seen this side like maybe it'll come up more in other chapters and george hadn't like fully fleshed that out yet but as of yet i'm not sure i see it i also think the way he shows love might not be um very traditional true he might be he might be afraid to i guess show affection and love because he's had to be repressed all these years you kind of talked about it earlier and i that made me feel that way about it like of his possible repression and that he's never really gotten to love necessarily outright. And from hiding for so many years who you are and then hiding on top of that for so many years who you are on top of all of it.

It must compound. Is John Connington my sad son? Not John. John Snow is not my sad son. Like I've never adopted that boy. Disclosed. Is John Connington my sad son? I think so.

Maybe. Alone in the tent. John. Sorry, he's still Griff for a sec. Maybe he's John now. I don't know, whatever. He slips off his chainmail, peels off his gloves, and looks at his middle finger. And he's like, fuck you. No, it says black as jet. The gray crept up almost to the first knuckle.

The tip of his ring finger had begun to darken too. And when he pokes it with his dagger, he feels nothing. And we close the chapter with, Death, he knew, but slow. I still have time. A year. Two years. Five. Some stone men live for ten. Time enough to cross the sea, to see Griffon's roost again, to end the usurper's line for good and all, and put Rhaegar's son upon the

Iron Throne. Then Lord John Connington could die content. Mmm. Banger of a first chapter for a character. Is this shit about I still have time george talking about writing the books is this a five-year gap joke is this a i've been waiting for 12 years since

the no 13 years whatever since the last book joke i don't know layers i mean john connington also was waiting for 12 years so Wow, we're the same. That reveal of the greyscale is so good. And it's really sad because he got it from saving Tyrion's life because Tyrion saved Aegon's life, so he saved Tyrion's life and kind of repaid that debt. But it's a very big reveal. We're only one third into a dance with dragons. And I'm really shocked.

The ramp up to greyscale is interesting we don't have a lot of mentions of it in the story there are two mentions in clash one in a storm of swords two in a feast for crows and then 13 whopping mentions in a dance with dragons so george is obviously trying to bring this one up and of course the big mentions other than this that we have the grayscale comes from shireen being in john snow's chapters right not john khan john snow uh the child is unclean val says about shireen it definitely feels like build up to have shireen's grayscale john khan's grayscale and then we will see what happens when he brings that grayscale to westeros. He's bringing a whole plague, right?

And we've seen murmurs of it when it comes to things with Oldtown in the past. This is absolutely like a Chekhov's gun kind of thing. I love that the narration in his thinking, as he's thinking about going home and reclaiming the lands, finally he goes from Griff back to John Connington in those last few paragraphs. It's very much a reek to Theon as well in some ways.

And the idea of a person and identity that is tied to a place, I think that's really interesting, right? That Griff belongs to Essos, but John Connington exists and belongs to Westeros versus identity being something that's inherent because as we can see Griff thinks very much the same as John Connington would so it's more of about this placement and then also we have these reveals of identity but when it comes to this is Aegon I'm John Connington but it's also in this moment a reveal as John is undressing of the greyscale as well as his desires John Connington is someone who has greyscale right that's what we're getting the things that drive him are home his name his honor and finally redemption which is a big big driver for a lot of characters in here but you know he's motivated not for a life

afterwards he's not trying to build himself like a good life back in west rose with people he cares about or whatever he's just trying to get a good death right he's driving everything towards that death like how do you live life a life that you can feel happy about when you look back on your dying and i don't i don't know if he's gonna get all that he's gonna be like what the fuck have i done dies it's sad because illyrio and varus have taken away the opportunity for him to live a life right all he has now is the opportunity to die he is living like a ticking time bomb? This is the sand in the hourglass is draining in front of him and he's watching it go and he wants to see how much he could accomplish in that time. Will he have enough time to do that? There's even this line in here that cracks me up a little bit

because I'm like, oh, John, he wants to end the usurper's line for good. What line? The usurper has no line. He has illegititimate bastards which may get to rule to be fair but otherwise his legitimate line quote-unquote is already ended for good don't worry never even took off john didn't take off um great irony really funny uh especially when you have the cersei stuff earlier where they're like cersei must already be on top of it cersei's busy she's plotting around some other stuff you know wait so he's just very he's just very motivated though because he thinks they're robert's line he's like i'm gonna kill the kids yep you know it's very funny because i'm like fuck them kids energy yeah that's like the one of the worst things for him like, I mean, that's why he'll be aligned with Dorne.

That's what the Dornish want. Not necessarily, but stepdad, no. Is he my stepdad? I don't know. Anyways. Confusing times. Confusing times. And so I don't know your thoughts, but I want to find out.

My roommate thinks that John Connington will get to see Aegon crowned. Do you think that he will get to see Aegon crowned and on the throne? I don't know. He might. He might. For me, all that matters is John makes it far enough to see that everything he's worked for has been a line crumpled whether that's after he's on the throne or not i don't know it's possible that it it is after the throne and that george has told us multiple people will sit the iron throne so it could be like long enough for him to see agon crown and be like wait i am finally suspicious what have i done why did i put this kid on on the throne who the fuck are you oh my god rhaegar's son is dying but is he rhaegar's son and all these other tragic turns for him yeah i don't know if he's gonna make it that long i really don't if the greyskull doesn't take him

first i'm like varus probably will uh you know Varys loves to give a good villain speech and kill people who know too much he does do that it is his thing I could see that happening in kind of an anti version of the Ned in the dungeons like where he shows up and he's like well JonCon you blew it you're an idiot and if you just kept your

mouth shut I wouldn't have to do this because Varys obviously knows and I could see Varys completely revealing everything to him and killing him but i don't know he'll be in battle he's got grayscale there's got to be some conflict in the winds of winter for him and i know we're going to see some conflict with arianne and him at war councils that's going to be the funniest shit i've ever watched is them arguing in a war council because he's like you're a woman why are you speaking and she's like bitch what what is with your hair they're both they're like the same yeah they they are very similar in ways they don't realize so uh i can't wait to see them buttheads about

that i really can't but i'm just curious and maybe in the next chapter we'll we'll feel next week a little uh closer to to the truth I mean, obviously they're very different, right? In ways, Ariane and JonCon. But I think in terms of trying to think through strategy and things. Yeah. Yeah. A little. A little closed-minded, impatient, stubborn.

Yeah. Just some words that are coming to mind about them both. Yeah. Overall, I love this chapter. I think it's a great introductory chapter for John Connington. And I really look forward to reading the next one with you pretty slowly as well next week. And deep diving into it and get our big predictions on for Tiwau before we go to another black fight. I mean, greens versus black battle with hot d yeah oh man the next the

next chapter opens like it's fucking wild things get things pop off real fast in john conn chapters action actually though i'm glad we have stepdad now that like that's perfect yeah new era new us same us i'm very excited about stepdad no except just like dad no it is a conflicting phrase so indeed indeed if you want to keep up with any era of ggc golden golden company you can on social media uh damn it now i'm going against i'm telling them it said girls gone canon sorry everyone girls gone canon that's c-a-n-o-n over on twitter or you can send us an email at girls gone canon at gmail.com yes indeed and every single episode that we post is sponsored by our shareholders. It's sponsored by our patrons.

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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 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 ah music to my ears they keep me young thanks everyone we'll be back next week with the griffin reborn i have been one of your hosts chloe and i've been another one of your hosts eliana see you next time for john khan and his silver prince silver prince he's gonna he's gonna have a hair reveal makeover makeover episode oh it's the america's next top model makeover

episode yeah oh interesting maybe it is oh and he goes we were rooting for you we were all rooting for you that's another theme that goes wow with the not tiffany young griff relationship oh my god i'll be thinking about miles Toyne and John Connington sadly goodbye goodbye