Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 227 — ADWD The Griffin Reborn

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Top regrets of my life: Not splitting these Jon chapters to make more than two episodes, because WOW. What a ride. Griff decided to add an extra syllable to make himself a "griffin," once more. That's right, Jon Connington is back, and he's taking prisoners (it's his family). Welcome home, how's it feel to be back, strolling down memory lane? Well, Jon Con's got thoughts on that. 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 227, The Griffin, Reborn. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. Wow, that went real fast. What a POV. It's done. It's done. It's short. Just like, as you said last episode, probably John Coddington's life. Oh, Jesus. I said that? Shit. Something like that, essentially. I essentially i mean funny but me not not as short as agans if you think about it oh jesus that's so

true bestie and we're gonna talk about that today but we have a lot of housekeeping today because as you all know when you finish a pov with girls gone canon a new one appears until it doesn't uh we're still working towards that part of it but could pay for life oh my god i wish there's a new pov after this week actually there's a couple new point of views after this week and we're gonna tell you all about them but first everyone is dying to know they're they're all saying we must know the patreon episode for may 2024 everyone in the stranger tier and above or those waiting to join the stranger tier and above at patreon.com slash girls gone canon wants to know our our bonus episode this month. Eliana. Yeah, so once again, we are not doing Braavos yet. We're working on it.

She's thick. She's so thick. Oh my god. Yeah. So we are doing another George novella slash novelette slash... This might actually be a short story for once. And we have told you all that it is going to be the second kind of loneliness which is pretty fun in that it's a very different

format than some of his other short stories yeah i'm really excited it seems there's like journal entries i'm just about to get into it um we'll report back this month for you guys and i look forward to reading it and hearing you guys's thoughts too but especially look forward to listening to eliana's thoughts on it obviously obviously obviously every week every week and then we have some other i mean we're going to talk about other different george things coming up in the next few weeks right we're going to talk about the television adaptation of a book, House of the Dragon.

Yeah, but first let's talk about our Discord brunch and happy hour. Brappy hour, as Eliana affectionately likes to call it. May 26th, 3 p.m. ET. Patrons in the Thunder tier and above will have access to a end of May brunch. A great brappy hour we're gonna hang out maybe play some games we played a fucking riveting round oh my god 420 brunch was so fucking fun that's right we we played tko from jackbox and i don't know if i've ever laughed so hard um one of

our patrons septa siobhan helped make a shirt a Stannis shirt that had like just a really silly and by silly, I mean like MS paint drawing of the Stannis sigil pretty much. And it was not detailed, but honestly, we almost made it merch like right then and there. It was, I've never laughed so hard at that. That was fucking funny. And it was me that made it. So it was like, there must be three heads, you know? What was it? What was the caption?

Something girlies. Oh, no it what was the caption something girlies oh no i did the caption it was um girly something girly pop i chose the caption you made the shirt yeah you definitely put it together because i okay oh wait none of us knew how to play the game was the problem but we learned we learned really quick and i want to play it this month so come to the may 26th brappy Hour with us and the Thunder Tier patrons so that we can play TKO again. And this happens every month, by the way. Not us losing our fucking, actually, yeah, us losing our fucking minds, but Brappy Hour.

Every single month, we get on Discord and just chat, play some games, and we have a really good time. We'd love it if you joined us. No pressure. You don't have to our friend our friend jason one of the patrons has also mentioned that there is a new jackbox package coming out the jackbox naughty pack so uh the naughty pack naughty pack naughty pack pod anyways so may 26 May 26th. See you there. See you there.

All right. This is where things are about to get sticky. So I need you all to listen very carefully. Next week, there will not be an A Song of Ice and Fire POV episode. There is a new POV and we're going to tell you today, but it's not coming until the autumn. Why is that? But it's not coming until the autumn. Why is that?

Because we made the executive decision to only do House of the Dragon episodes and not do them at the same time as the A Song of Ice and Fire POV episodes this summer. House of the Dragon is only happening pretty much every couple years, right? So we can live with this. That's true. Spoiler alert, in 2022, Chloe threw herself down the stairs uh and chloe and eliana were tired they were so tired we were so tired i'm older and more tired now yeah and you know what we didn't give you guys the best content we could have because of it and to me you know i don't want to give you guys a shitty podcast and not that it was shitty we we did great for but we were tired and we want to be able to really soak it in you know take in the moment and give you the good

shit you know the good good shit yeah i mean i'm proud of what we did in like all those episodes i think we gave we gave all we could we just want to make sure that we really can give all we can yes this is a tongue twister but to like whatever content we give you, and we want to make sure that we're, as you said, giving you the best analysis that we can, whether it's Hot D or a POV. And we were tired. Or a different book series, like in The Hunger Games, our passion project. Look, what I'm saying is that five, six years years ago we were five or six years younger and we were very excited to record for four hours a night twice a week all the time and giving you episodes and now we are six years older and it turns out those are long and maybe not actually what we want to do

completely anymore we want to give you a little different, better, you know, the stuff that keeps you coming back. And those six years are a significant time for the human body. Those specific years for me and the ages that I turned from then till now. Those are big life

change years. We were in our 20s when we started this podcast, you guys, and now we're not. That was a different girl and body. Who is she? Yeah. So from now after this episode until about August 30th. August 30th is what it looks like. We're coming back with the A Song of Ice and Fire POV. If you're not here to care about House of the Dragon, I totally get it. Like, I respect

your choices, and we will hopefully see you then. Please don't unsubscribe. Keep us in your feed. We hope to see you then, and we will be back, so do not worry. But we are taking this time to focus on House of the Dragon. If you're a patron and you want to pause your subscription during this time and you're not interested in House of the Dragon content, we totally understand. Not a problem. Hope to see you back when we come back to the POVs. We will still be putting out bonus episodes for Stranger Tier and above every month during Hot D season. Yeah, and I also want to flag one last thing about our hot d coverage which is that it is the actual coverage of the episodes as they are coming out episodes season two episode

one etc those are spoilers all we are going to be discussing everything that happens in fire and blood um everything that you can expect from the dance. We will be doing, and we'll talk about this in a moment, we will be doing one spoiler-free episode, but our coverage of the actual show as it comes out is completely spoilers because, again, we want to be able to give you the best of what we have, and that means for us, we like to look at the full picture. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that you'd want to listen to us babble if we weren't talking about something we liked. And we like Fire and Blood. We like the dance. We love A Song of Ice and Fire. And we like those shows, Good Bitch Show and Bad Show, right? Like, we like both of them. So we want to be able to talk about them in full. Now, with that said,

you might be saying, but Hot d doesn't start yet chloe and eliana well you're right dear listener it doesn't and that's because our primer series girls gone can't girls gone canon's primer series for house of the dragon called unleash the d the podcast series critics are saying is great. It's coming back. It is coming back in full speed. We are unleashing the D. This year, Eliana is my guest co-host. Special guest.

She is the specialist to me. She will be hosting each episode with me, and we will be having guests for most of the episodes, and we will have a mid-seasonseason finale and we will come back to finish the season after hot d with two episodes so first episode starts not next week which is bitter blooms but week after and we do have a very special guest who we've had on for another series before and eliana please will you tell them drum roll please about the last time we had this guest on and who they are. Yeah. Okay, I'm so excited. We are going to have Chika from Shoujo Sunday, and who guested on Castle Black last season,

first season of House of the Dragon. And she will be coming to help us discuss what we can anticipate in House of the Dragon from, again, we said we were going to do one spoiler-free episode, and we are having Chika on to talk about that with us. Yeah, Chika is a show watcher only, so we will be talking about House of the Dragon from a not-book-spoiler, oh my god, I can't believe I had to say that, a not-book-spoiler perspective. This is all only House of the Dragons season one and potentially Game of Thrones spoilers will be included in this.

Chika does not read these books. So this will be kind of a fun test, I think, actually for me and Eliana. I feel confident. Chika is so fun. We had her on for Sailor Moon for Magical Girls Gone Canon when we covered Sailor Moon Crystal.

And she's a delight, dude. She's a delight. She's so smart. She has a lot of, I think, great insight across different kinds of media. So I'm excited to have her on. I'm also trying as much as I can to force my partner, who is a shonley for House of the Dragons specifically, to bring those takes in. I'm like, you have to finish? What do you think?

It's so unfair to actually call him only Ashonni, though, because I feel like living with you for years, some of that shit has to just rub off. Well, he's read the five books and Dunkin' Egg. See, interesting. So he has influence eliana he understands themes don't woobify him i don't think he read the princess and the queen and the rogue prince which is around the time when he was reading duncan eggs i'm not quite sure like i think it just like he didn't start them and then it never happened but um maybe we need to have him

on you know we can just call him eliana's partner that's his name we can give him we can give him a pseudonym damon targaryen no i'm joking damon targaryen oh god oh god but that said i'm really excited for chica who has not read that main series to come on because uh to your point like i don't know would i care about this show had i not gotten into the books i don't. And it's fascinating to have somebody with that show-only analysis to chat about it. And I loved your coverage of the first season as well. Agreed. Agreed. Well, we will continue to have a couple more guests. The guest after Chica is equally as exciting. It's Eliana. But also maybe another one other more other other guests.

But if you want to find out that guest, you're going to have to listen to the first episode of season two of Unleash the D. So keep your eyes peeled on your feeds. You can follow us for free on Patreon, too. If you don't, if you're not ready to subscribe, that's totally fine. There is an option for a free membership. We do post some chats, some community chats to our members. So come hang out in the free chat and just chat about Hot D or what's going on. We'll have some chats going during the season too. With that said, our House of the Dragon episodes will release for public on Wednesday mornings. Patrons will get

this episode a little bit earlier usually probably Tuesday nights when it's finished editing up all patrons though this year it will be all patrons so if you are a patron of ours in any of the tiers you will get the episode when it comes out before it goes public because happy hot d season it's a gift

it's a present yeah hot d for all hot d for all hot d for all all right the last announcement the one you're waiting for you have to wait several weeks now to wait like a couple months oh my god until this pov i don't know if anyone's guessed it it's been such a between POVs. I think maybe a couple people have an idea it's coming. You know, this POV is interesting because it's actually not just one POV. It's technically two in one. logs you guys who else are we going to follow john connington with but at the logs and you'll hear all about in our first pov episode when we return in uh august september why we chose this and why some of these themes fit i'm sure you can guess right with everything going on in king's landing kevin is a great choice to die and uh everything going on on the ground right uh in the riverlands

having a fray and seeing what's going on there. Lots of buildup that kind of paints a bigger tapestry for John Connington's story, too. And I'm really excited to tell you about the next three POVs after that. But you got time. You got to wait for that. I mean, like, nobody cares about those last three POVs. It's not like they're big characters or anything yeah i mean for those of you keeping count after we finished the epilogues we are on the final three published povs as of 2024 and george has like the opportunity

to do the funniest fucking thing to us right now i'm just putting that out there like release wins yeah the funniest thing like do it as a joke george it would be so funny i would hate it i would hate it if george released the winds of winter trying a new strategy putting new energy into the universe seeing what happens hmm so those are your gifts for me dear eliana epilogues tea wow and hot smooch and hot tea oh now that's worth a kiss now that's worth a kiss don't you think oh god and with that oh we did have an email we did have an email i liked i'm sorry oh yeah yeah all right let's hit an email and tweet of note uh eliana we've have an email I liked, I'm sorry Oh yeah, yeah Alright, let's hit an email and tweet of note Eliana, we've got an email that you want to read

We have a couple of fun ones So I always love that reading emails is like the mailbag version Of like a kids TV show We got a comment on one of our Hunger Games Episodes and It is Pretty cute

Or as cute as you could say that the Hunger Games are, from our friend. She's Peg Bundy. It says, Chloe, I'm an unyielding tyrant. I will crush each seed of hope in my path and create new realities as I see fit. Eliana, and I'm a puppy. That should be a t-shirt. That should be a t-shirt. I guess so.

I'm wondering, i don't remember which part that's referring to i literally don't know i wish i had more context but it sounds right question mark it sounds i guess so yeah all right and we got an email from our friend egg egg six you might know him over from the sanri scribcribbles live streams. Egg said, Chloeanna, Aria's been the first time I've read along live with the podcast for the entirety of the POV. Maybe a little behind at times. I feel that.

It's gone by so fast. Love Eliana's Stoneheart impression. New fave character on the cast. Will also be missing Are You Ready? I have no idea how to transition after it. Very excited for JonCon. Unintentionally, he's become one of the characters I think about most in the series. There are a lot of, maybe, disjointed pieces of his story that make me feel like George could be drawing inspiration from some of the gay men of his age, in contrast

to younger queer figures that we come across in his writing. George, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, would likely be familiar with similar human hearts in conflict of his time. I think a big one might be men who were drafted into service while also having to hide who they were to do so. John, like many queer men of George's era, was exiled from his family and home. His reputation was destroyed through slanders in his own homeland, leaving any kind of return even harder. family and home. His reputation was destroyed through slanders in his own homeland, leaving any kind of return even harder. Like many men inside the real world military, he used his closet

as a shield rather than a cage like we might consider today. He succeeded in keeping Deviant off his resume with that maneuver, unlike so many Westerosi queer characters. See Raina, Renly, Loras, Laner, and Oberyn for the way Westeros talks about queer characters. The third piece that uncomfortably makes me feel like George might be writing the character of John Coddington as a tragedy of queerness is the seeming projection of John becoming a blamed patient zero figure for a nationwide epidemic in Westeros. Like the AIDS epidemic George has lived through, John could be taking the blame for an outbreak that might have nothing to do with his own sickness.

His greyscale plotline seems to be leading us in a direction toward him getting someone else sick. If George is being his georgist, however, sorry, his GRR-M-iest, I'd think the same epidemic would come from elsewhere, maybe through an army that has just inhaled the ash and smoke of a greayscale stricken child? With tragic John getting the blame similar to his real world counterparts. John's never been my favorite. He's prickly, not fun, uncomfortable to read at times. He's also tragic as fuck. Analysis of his chapters always draws me in because he feels

significantly representative of figures from our not so distant past. George is a peer of I love this email. I didn't really consider the idea of maybe Shireen getting barbecued and her ashes like, you know, making everyone get grayscale, the compounding of it all. That's terrible. Thanks for that idea. Yeah, I think I'm going to argue with John being prickly and not finding uncomfortable, uh, because he's very like romantic and not quite prickly in his thoughts. Out loud, he sounds prickly, but that's like his, his Lord's armor, you know, come on his Lord's armor, but we're going to get into all of that today. I love this email.

Thank you so much, Egg, for sending us an email. And like we've mentioned, we are time traveling. So if we didn't get to your email, we hope we can throw it in in the future. I know we've been chit-chatting offline about the possibility of a Patreon episode covering more of John Connington and other characters in his vicinity. So keep your ears and eyes peeled for that. Thanks, Egg. Yeah, thank you so much, Egg, for sending this email. I thought it was brilliant. And it brings a lot of great perspective into how George is really examining being gay in John Connington's storyline, but bringing in sort of these elements that many of, as you pointed out, like peers in his generation would have probably experienced

in terms of like that isolation, being exiled from communities, and using it instead in this allegory of, as you said, grayscale, but also these other events in his life. So it isn't um you know you have those sorts of emotional beats without him playing into these stereotypes right like i we were thinking around this idea of like shame when it comes to grayscale and i don't think i like quite articulated that point well and i didn't really quite get to it until you sent this email and then i think a lot of the parts of it started clicking of how this is the way that George is exploring it in a coming from the side you know which is really cool and also um I'm gonna agree with

both you and Chloe here in regards to is John Connington prickly is John not prickly because um yeah I think we're something we're going to talk about a lot this episode is how John is absolutely this, this romantic, right? And you really see that, that poetry and the way that he speaks and, and the passion that he has, but at the same time, like, does he come off as prickly? Because a lot of times we see him in Tyrion's chapters and I'm going to be real, like, if I had to deal with dance, like book five Tyrion's chapters, and I'm gonna be real, like, if I had to deal with dance, like, book five Tyrion, I would be fucking prickly too. Like, that is absolutely how I would feel. So, I mean, I get it, Jon. I get it. And as Chloe said, we are doing a bit of time traveling, and we, uh, I kind of

regret not splitting these chapters so might have another episode one day we also got another email that like really warmed my heart i had a i had a life i had a life before chloe it's hard to imagine i was even more in my 20s at that time and my body i did terrible things to my body during the recordings of maester Monthly. And this comes from a friend, Tyler, who is congratulating us on five years. Tyler, we are even older than that. We are now six years into this podcast. But says, long time listener here, currently listening to your coverage of the Mystery Night. And damn, y'all talking about your anniversary is making me emotional.

I remember first discovering Eliana from Maester Monthly back in the day. Rip. And seeing my YouTube feed a video called Drunk and Egg. I got so excited. Finally, someone's bringing together wine and Westeros. Thank you, Chloe. But it says here, thank you, Chloe, the hero we need. And it had Glass Table Girl wow reddit username um that episode remains one of my favorite podcasts of all time oh i can't i personally cannot re-listen to it i'm not listening to that shit but good for you you rock tyler thanks i know uh tyler says it's pure gold and absolutely hilarious so that i love that for us you guys have such a good connection and you can really see the friendship bloom it's beautiful I remember tweeting at y'all in like 2017 pre-GGC asking about Sworn Sword coverage. OG Stan. Oh, it even has the painting nails emoji. Real.

your anniversary. Truly, almost five, now six. Thank you so much for the consistent coverage of Aswath. Always providing excellent analysis, including a very wide range of viewpoints that help us all see the books in a new way. The guests you have on are incredibly interesting. Keep tuned for

more guests this hot D season. You guys are absolutely crushing it. Cheers to many more years. Wine emoji, eggs emoji, frying eggs emoji. The best part of this is those were the emojis I would use to advertise Drunken Egg episodes when I did Drunk Aesop. Oh my god! Yeah.

Deep cuts! Tyler's literally a real fan. Yo! This is... He even used the emojis. This is incredible. Tyler, thank you so much. This is so special because, I mean, it was a long time ago.

I don't even remember what I said besides that hysterical Coachella bit. Yeah, that's the only thing I remember too. And the fact that you and I then stayed on Skype for four hours drinking together after we recorded for four hours drunk. I remember our gossip. Or the fact that there was also a first version of it. Anyways. I remember our- oh, that's right, the first version. Oh my god. of it anyways i remember our oh that's right the first version oh my god uh anyways yeah i remember our gossiping but i don't remember what i recorded yeah i remember the gossiping specifically but not well i think that was where we really fell in love with horses you know as a concept oh yeah yeah with dunkin egg drunken egg yeah i'm to link it, and Eliana's not going to link it either, but if you want to find what's being talked about long ago in 2017, if you want to learn the lore of Girls Gone Canon, you can go check it out on YouTube. Swath History, Drunk and Egg.

And I can't wait for Tyler to catch up with this episode someday when he gets here and to find out that The Sworn Sword is out, that he can listen to it. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he probably has already, because he put that out quite a bit ago. And I don't know, maybe that one links the episode. But yeah, there's that. And then we put out The Mystery Knight a bit ago. And of course, we we're gonna have to cover Dunkin Egg again when it comes out as a television

show because they released the casting now for both Dunk and Egg we have an anniversary to celebrate is what Eliana's hinting at and technically you guys will be listening to this pretty much at our anniversary as well so happy six years babe

wow actually seven if you count drunk a swath but i don't remember what month that was this is like our marriage you know this is a marriage anniversary we're not celebrating our dating anniversary okay well thank you everyone i just really wanted to share that it was wow og yeah it'll be a bit before we have some emails tweets of note for the main povs so good to get some in now but please do send us your emails you might get read during hot d season you never know you never know and if not we'll save them for later yeah especially because we won't be time traveling during hot d season so that'll be yes really interesting we'll usually be recording on

monday night so if you have thoughts get them in asap yep asap well thanks for listening to all the housekeeping we appreciate you tuning in we appreciate you waiting the long wait over the long night for hot d season to be over and uh thanks for listening all these years and kicking ass with us you know it's been great yeah well eliana we have a lightning round because it wouldn't be us without one except for that time last week when it was um and it was a different lightning round but today we will have a more classical storm to get through with a few a few asterisks i'm going to tell you what i chose this time before i kick you off i chose to piece the story together surrounding john connington there are a fuck ton of povs from the lost lord up to the griffin reborn so today we're only going to talk about in the lightning round quentin tyrian Eryo, and Barristan to paint the picture geographically

and story-wise. And we'll fill in the blanks about Cersei and Arion, I'm sure, in the actual body of the episode. Yeah, good choices, good choices for this curated playlist, if you will, Chloe. Let's start with the windblown.

Quentin and his companions make for Meereen. companions make for marine good fucking luck good fucking luck dog locust tyrian seven and tyrian eight held captive by jorah morma in volantis the widow of the waterfront gives them a message to deliver to the dragon queen tyrian boards the the selesori koran en route to Qarth, where he meets Penny and speaks to Makoro of fire and dreams. Oh, that one's

gonna be so fun too. What's happening? That's a fun prophecy. Daenerys VI, outside of Meereen, Daenerys visits those with the bloody flux inside the walls. She's told of Yunkai's movements. The Watcher. Gregor Clegane's head arrives in Dorne.

The Sand Snakes receive their missions. Nymeria and Tyene head to King's Landing. Nymeria with Myrcella. Go listen to our episodes about the Watcher if you haven't. I miss them. I miss REO. Tyrion 9. As predicted,

the Salasori Quran goes down and the ship and the ship comes to the rescue except oh it's a ship of slavers not great Daenerys VII Quentyn Martell presents the original alliance to Daenerys

between his sister and her brother but Daenerys is already set to wed Hizdhar. Yeah, Quentyn was like, have you listened to the OG Drunken Egg? Presents that episode to Daenerys. She's like, bro, that was 2017. Catch up. Tyrion X. Jorah, Tyrion, and Penny are sold into slavery at a Yunkish camp. Tyrion plays Savas with Brown Ben Plum and wins knowledge as his prize. Daenerys VIII

and Daenerys IX. In Meereen, Daenerys makes concessions for peace and meets with Brown Ben Plum. Daenerys reopens the fighting pits at the urging of her betrothed and watches a performance. When the pit turns violent at this show, Drogon spirits Daenerys away.

Exciting. The Mosh Pit. The Queen Drogon spirits Daenerys away. Exciting. The mosh pit. The Queen's Guard. With Daenerys still missing, the Shavepaint makes plans, and Barristan must also choose to make moves. Tyrion XI. Tyrion, Jorah, and Penny's new owner, Yezzin, is dying of the bloody flux. Tyrion plays Savas and hopes to win their freedom and become members of the Second Sons. The Discarded Knight. Barristan continues to uncover and sleuth his way around court without his queen and counsels the Dornishmen

to return home. The Spurned Suitor. Quentyn reveals his plans to steal one of Daenerys' dragons and not, as counseled, return home. That brings us here to A Dance of Dragons, The Gryffindor Born, aka John Connington 2. John and the Golden Company return to his ancestral home, taking holdings along the way. Aegon decides to move from pawn to player. He was like, I'm on the forums. Pawn to player.

Right? He's like, Tower of the Hand, Pond to player. I'm on all of them. He's out there reading Turtle Paste. He's like, aswafuniversity.tumblr.com. What can I read today? Just kidding. He knows absolutely nothing. Hello, welcome to The Griffin Reborn, where we open on a battle at Cape Wrath, where John Connington and the Golden Company are sieging. The archers are sent in first, led by Black Block, and he had the sense ahead of time to break the company up into ten ships with a hundred men each. So six of the ships have delivered their passengers to the shores of Cape Wrath, but four of these ships are still missing. The Volantine assured them, oh no, the ships are totally on their way. But this leaves them with only 600 bows, which no worries, right? Because for this battle, they only needed 200. 200 is all they needed. Yeah, JonCon really, really planning for all these contingencies. I love this opening and that like quick hit of characterization we get about JonCon from before

until like who he is now. As we know, he's kind of surly, according to Tyrion, but I mean, most people are probably compared to Tyrion. Anyways, like Ned, John Connington has lived a whole life beforehand, right? He is not a young man, and he's learned that life is not like the songs, right? Which contrasts with a lot of our younger characters. We're coming to this POV out of Arya's perspective, so it's really a big jump. And John Conn had lived by these ideas of knighthood and valor which is why he prioritized swords before he before he was like i don't know bows are kind of stupid now he's like bows are pretty they make sense because he realized it doesn't matter now if it's like more courageous to use a sword or not what matters is if you're fucking effective okay not otter you gotta just

get shit done. And so I'm kind of seeing that he might be this really, like, great planner, right? Because I don't know any of the military titles, just like I've never seen any movies. So I don't know what he is. Is he a commander? Is he a general? I'm sorry, I don't know. In terms of how he planned to have several hundreds more bowmen on these other ships

and ends up with, like, three times as many than necessary. He is assured for victory. It's not the songs. Oh, and also based on how many men they end up actually losing, they lose fucking four men. Great job, John Conn. John Conn means fucking business. I just have to tell you, it's not really your fault because it's kind of a medievalism because military ranks were more of a Renaissance, early modern period thing.

So it's more fantastical in a way too. But Commander can be a rank as well, not just a role, if that makes sense. I don't know. All I know is that there's that movie that i never watched again master and commander with russell crowe so i'm like does that have anything to do with this literally don't know what that movie's about um so like if there are for example several captains of companies several companies then an officer might be like a captain general meaning the captain in general of the whole

organization rather than a specific company i'm like i should just put this into business terms yeah so he is technically he's a captain general he's like separate from the whole thing though right you have the golden company under harry strickland with the captains below him that all report to him and john connington's like a contractor he's like he's getting paid like he reports his hours and they pay him but he has to pay for his own insurance basically yeah okay because someone else is technically hiring the golden company you know it's alerio yeah exactly exactly cool cool cool, cool. All right. Well, John Cunnington, very good at his job. Well, this part of the job. Who knows if he's good at the other part of raise a kid?

We'll get there. We'll discuss that. Yeah, I love that line, right? Where it's like, he only needed 200. They only lost four. It's such a sharp line and says so much without saying a lot to like, it's just telling you very clearly what happens. But it tells more of a story of like, oh, shit, he's intense. Like they took that shit. Whoa. And the buildup to is interesting. And it makes me think about the other side of the

buildup. Because if they're having such an easy time now, and obviously, as they mentioned throughout the chapter, that's because they took them unawares, right? They wouldn't be having this easy of a time if there wasn't so much confusion out there, if people had the heads up that they were coming, and if people thought they were who they are. Like, no one knows it's them, right? So I love that buildup because it also tells you like, because of storytelling and irony, like, you know that it's going to end very badly if you're having such a very easy beginning. Like Rob said, winning all the battles, losing the war. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And it's part of why I feel like the wildfire might be the doom when Arianne and Aegon are in King's Landing. I think their end may come by wildfire personally i'm a believer of that we don't have to fight about where everyone believes it is today but i do believe that king's landing probably uh turns into wildfire fest when they're there for a while because like it's such a quick goodbye to the whole plot that built up so well like this is all really being illustrated while the world building in these chapters building out the

golden company building out all these captains with them like it just feels like the end story will be very sad and abrupt in my opinion belly up i don't know everything's going great they're turning houses into allies lancers are stupid so they're gonna have an easy time getting the throne. It's all gotta go belly up at the end, right? Yeah, he budgeted for everything except for the dragons, to be honest. He was like, and he's still trying to budget for it. But that's, it's a pretty big misstep. But we'll get there i'm excited i also have to point out there are just victorian parallels strewn through this entire chapter right missing parts of his fleet his arm is um uh medically fucked up you know on fire he has his firearm yeah yeah victorian seems way happier with his arm though than uh john connington is with his victorian's like this is how i wanted it yeah he's like oh cool firearm john connington is like i did not choose the earth element fuck fuck yeah john

connington's very depressing like reading these chapters i'm so sad because he's like an old like veteran of these wars full of trauma and pride and he's beautiful and gay and sad and redheaded all the time and he's like poetic and romantic but also like a harsh military commander i don't know what to think about jon conn isn't he like in his 30s is he actually i will oh yeah oh if he's their age right then uh he's younger, he's younger than Rhaegar, so he was born, um, either 260 or 261. Okay, so he's, like, 40. Okay, well, never mind. He's not that old.

He's, like, 439. Yeah, but, like, I mean, he's basically, like, elder millennial, you know? That's funny, considering, like, his beard is all, like, super red and gray. Interesting. George paints him i think older than he is but the years have been unkind to him like all the trauma and war and death and stuff so honestly if i went through whatever john connington went through like that would definitely age me yeah and we'll talk a little bit more about his pride his honor his shame

through this chapter but i would say it's so fair, to look at John Connington's chapters in A Dance with Dragons, though they're few. I see them so much like Ned's chapters in A Game of Thrones, right? Like the one single adoptive father having his one arc in the story. It's an interesting arc and how it's gonna play out. A third of the men use crossbows, another third use the eastern style of bows, which, very interesting, that he's like, yeah, crossbows, fuck yeah. Double curve torn and sinew bows, some also use the big, you long bows from Westeros,

and then the best of all are the golden heart bows, used by Black Balak and 50 Summer Islanders who are seasoned veterans that are once more proving themselves at Griffith Roost. Great job, team. Yeah, the Goldenheart bows, we talked a little about that back in the Sam

chapters, if you remember. Yeah, with the Summer Islanders as they kind of took that very sad, grieving, you know, coming-of- age sex story going on in the background beautiful beautiful tv movie i'm like watch it on the end before degrassi no i'm just kidding but god degrassi it's the golden heart bows really stood out to me because i know they were like really well made i love the way they were talked about in those chapters. But they stood out this time, especially at the line only a dragon bone bow could outrange

one made of golden heart. It could be far fetched, it might be pointing towards the future and maybe a dragon dying. But everything we read about these kind of bows of the dragon bone bow, which is not that many mentions throughout the entire story, because they're far and few between because there are no dragons that are dying to give you their bones. Also, I'm like maybe teeth if a dragon loses a tooth, could you make one? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have time to go into all that. But these are things that are in my head I had to say for you all. Reminiscent kind of like Brandon Snow's weirwood bone is what it reminds me of, right? The one that could possibly bring down a dragon, on what lore is true and it does make me think someone might

want to wield or have a dragon bone weapon or bow uh a new one throughout the series and something kind of crazy is Illyrio uh Daenerys one we learned he deals dragon bone as well as like gems and other things that he's a merchant of. Which is like kind of funny because he literally does because he's selling Dany and Viserys to the highest bidders, right? He literally is selling dragon bones. Yeah, so interesting. I didn't think about that. I like didn't think about it today. I'm like, wait, it's not just dragon bone though like it's literally valyrian kids yeah so poetic yeah and just to connect it to this chapter i'm like oh shit wait speaking of dragon bone we've got some dragon bones quote unquote here it's aegon quote unquote allegedly

asterisk as we said last asterisks i'm like illyrio's child with sarah no i'm just kidding i mean i mean if it is like through sarah or like one who is a blackfire runner black a dragon's a dragon but not i guess you just heard what she said everyone she's a blackfire fan now but i guess it you know when it comes to actual fire breathing ones as arianne asks does he do all that no no my god i don't even want to think about it because i'll just start thinking about the adam feldman comment where he talks about arianne and agon on reddit fucking and how awkward it's gonna be it was like the funniest post i've ever seen in my life i mean never stopped thinking about it i'll link it i'll get it no he's so right that's what's crazy i'm like let george go adam um i don't even want wins i don't even want

i also think the the dragon bone bow stuff is interesting because it does connect with danny's plot like the whip at krasin's is dragon bone in the hilt it's black dragon bone the whip that she takes from him that he hands her which makes the idea of dragons are not slaves that much more powerful right like you can't use dragon at my dragon

the Valyrian steel dagger also is the hilt is dragon bone the cat's paw the cat's paw blade yes the one that cut cat's paw exactly exactly yeah oh good rundown of all these dragon bone weapons yeah i really thought that was interesting like there's not a ton so it feels significant when it is mentioned and the chapters that it is mentioned in if that makes sense i am once again attempting elden ring once again so fun to think about different weapons

well griffin's roost as we get into it is defended by a gatehouse which leads to what's called the griffin's throat where if they enter i love that name if they enter they're exposed to attacks from the castle's main gates and they can fall prey to boiling oil being dropped on them like we hear about at the wall and griff expects to lose the 100 men like we said but they only lose four amazing job so proud of you my only child john conning Connington. Our only child POV. Yeah, he's, I think, going to be just the very first in a string of characters that we'll see taking their homes back by force. Kind of kicks off this theme of homecoming that we're gonna explore more in the last

two books that I don't want. Like, the Stark kids taking back Winterfell, which who knows, maybe they'll get lucky and just have to waltz into it after everyone like, you know, kills themselves off. Tyrion, I think, is probably going to do so at Casterly Rock. We get all those things about him knowing the sewers really well. Asha and Theon, I don't know if it'll be both of them, but someone's gotta take back the Iron Islands because shit's gotten bad over there. And of course

shit's gotten bad. Shit's gotten bad, okay. And then of course we have Daenerys and that's going to be really interesting when you contrast her with Aegon. Both of them really returning back to a home that they've never seen and this place that promises belonging and how each of them will be received versus,

again, like, here we're getting Jon's perspective. I'd love to hear him think more about or talk more with young Griff slash Agen asterisk about how do you feel? Like, welcome back to Westeros. You haven't been here in a while right like since you were a baby allegedly yeah that's really interesting because we it's very seldom that George is letting Aegon take the stage right the moments we do get to see him and have these conversations it's Aegon exerting dominance now after Tyrion kind of gave him that boost of confidence that ill-placed boost of confidence. And we don't really see any vulnerability to him yet.

We just see a boy that's ready to be king in his mind. I'm just thinking, you know, as an immigrant, how would I feel if I had never gone back to my home country until much later? Which, again, I have friends, you know, I had the privilege of being able to visit the philippines starting from the age of four i have friends who never went back until they were much older than aegon so how do you feel aegon tell us yeah we got franklin flowers who used the brush to lead and conceal his men into the gates with their ram and their archers take out the men they come to fight them quickly the gates are closed but not barred in a war horn sounds from the castle. They shoot down the first birds as they

begin to grapple up the wall. They were given orders, shoot down any birds that come out and the enemies don't have time to boil the oil that they send down, which ends up actually causing them more misfortune instead of the people below. And then they climb the walls shouting, a griffin! A griffin!

A griffin! A griffin! And I also feel like they should be cawing or something. Like it would just be fine. A griffin! You know? Is that the noise you think griffins make? Fascinating. I don't fucking know what griffins sound like. Do I look like I know what griffins sound like? I don't know. You know how Colossus sounds like and

I only know how Colossus from X-men sounds like i'm sorry and john snow uh those are the animals i understand i just think like okay a griffin could sound like a bird which it probably does or it could sound like a lion right i'm gonna have to google it now mythical creature effects i'm I'm just like, what do you think? What I just heard was like a rawr! I don't know if that translates,

but it was like bird, but it had almost a roar to it. So I'll work on my griffin. I'm sorry, everyone. Okay. That makes sense. Call to action, Chloe. Get your shit together. Alright, so a griffin which is House Connington's

ancient battle cry and likely leaves all the men in the castle really confused right just like our listeners they're confused why did they take all this time to discuss this it's really important to me to make sure that you all get the sound effects

that you deserve it's important because i love this battle cry also like they just showed a griffin a griffin what the fuck well i love it too from like an actual not just vibes level like on a deeper level because it kind of reminds me of the sack of kings landing during robert's rebellion and that bait and switch at the gates and i think that i personally believe that taking king's landing as the this crew here that's going to take king's landing eventually oh interesting and likely with the dornish will be a reflection of the sack of king's landing and robert's rebellion and it will mirror exact parts of it including i think that there's kind of going to be a bait and switch, right?

For the Lannisters, they were led into King's Landing, right? They took, they helped take that throne through betrayal. They came in as friends. Betrayal. They came in as friends, and then they slaughtered house, which is like their whole thing. We know, we know. We saw the Red Wedding.

But that said, I think that'll probably happen again because you have the Dornish who are both in with the Lannisters right now, as well as trying to maybe make an alliance with Lord Connington here or Sir Connington. He's not legal yet. He'll be in like a second. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, having the big betrayal be let go, and I do think that's what's going to happen eventually, is that the rest of the Martell crew will show up with their banners, like, hello, good friends.

And then we drop, what, the Targaryen or Blackfyre banner, and say, ha ha, hello, good friends. Thank you for letting us in. Now we will kill you. And that confusion with the griffin call right it's kind of exemplary of something going on through this whole chapter because as we go through the chapter i'm going to keep pointing out there are little civil wars budding between people from the same house on different sides or from the same region on different sides of

which familial members should be rulers so of course we have the black fire or pretender kind of faction against the targaryens to come which is kind of what this is all contrasting as we get there right you have all these little battles happening like here in the connington house where he is roosting the other Griffins and taking control and taking back what he believes is his seat rightfully, even though the crown was like, no. So he's trying to take that back and we'll see more of that to come here. Absolutely. And it's great that we are wrapping up all we have of John Connington right before House of the Dragon season because that's what it's about. That is what House of the Dragon is about. Fighting within one house.

They told us this at the beginning of the very first episode. They did! Yeah, that's what it's all about. Well, this whole battle ends so quickly. They send the maester flying out of the ravenry. It's very cute. Franklin Flowers

is sent to rouse. Is it cute? I mean, it's cute. Yeah, it's cute language. Oh, yeah, word. Yeah, words. Exactly. Oh. Franklin Flowers is sent to rouse all the workers of the castle. And homeless Harry Strickland is even kind

of impressed. And he's not impressed by anything. He's like, wow, good job, team. Great job, workers. They stand in the Great Hall. And they look at carved and gilded griffin seat, the great seat. Lord Connington himself's seat. Studying the faded tapestries and the arched windows, which are gorgeous. There are diamond-shaped panes of red and white glass.

There are racks of spears and swords and war hammers on the walls there's so much history in this hall and now they've retaken it damn we were robbed i want to see the seat griffin's roost dude i bet it's beautiful i bet the seat inside it is gorgeous yeah i want to see that chair i was robbed there's really fun language as you were saying right words With things flying out of the ravenry. Like, okay, so you have a raven that's flying off and then they're like, it was feathered by black balak, which means it was shot with an arrow. But I think it's just kind of fun because we also know that the summer islanders tend to wear feather cloaks. So the bird was feathered, but also irony because it is already a feathered creature that

gets feathered with the feathers from the bow very fun yeah and then you have the the raven of the maester too you know and all the ravens too so it's all it's a little orny is what i'm saying oh wait feathers is a character in the arians also, we'll think about it some other time. Also, as you were saying, right? Not yet a lord, but he is in a second because we have this line. I just like this line. And quick as that, Griffin's roost was his again, and John Connington

was once more a lord. It's almost this very matter-of-fact way of putting what happens here. It's not romantic. It's like a transformation yet somehow not magical but still magical just and just like that and just like that i was like i guess it's and quick as that but you know imagine that carrie bradshaw wrote the griffin report why shouldn't i start calling myself lord again lord put out several albums but here i am sitting

in griffin's roost oh my gosh just kidding and just like that and just like that john connington became a lord again um no really though there's something interesting in the golden company that you can go there and you can choose your own name and it doesn't fucking matter and you go reclaim riches and get to be the lord you never got to be and for john connington he never could have stayed in the golden company anyways because he wanted to really be the lord he was he wanted the life that was stolen from him back right he wanted this life and rhaegar who was also stolen from him in his mind back oh i really love that you're so right because i mean he's the same

as a lot of the other characters that we still see chasing this image of the past it's like robert right being like i want to go back to the time that things sounded good for me and yeah and the ironic like sense of legitimacy that he craves that the the son that he's supporting doesn't actually have yeah not that anyone knows that except for like, I don't know, two people and us. Just us. George told me, don't worry. Bestie.

I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Misinformation, misinformation. Girly Pop, R.R. Martin. Oh my god. That should be a shirt. Write it down. Also, there's the whole like, killing the maesters, killing the knowledge, da-da-da-da-da. But also, there's something interesting in Westerosi folk often putting too much stock in maesters, right?

Like, Barbary Dustin tells us in this book, actually, about how it takes, like, leaving the country and looking back from across the sea and being like, nah, brah, you gotta kill that maester real fast. Get rid of him. No use for him. We have Hald and Halfmaester. Good enough for us. Kill that MRFer. I'm like, wow, you're just killing him? Disable the sending of the ravens for sure.

I mean, it's what Cersei would have done. That's a good way to live wwcd yeah like it's what tywin probably would have done we have a half maester at home that makes me want fast food just by you saying that oh my god i don't know what it is but does uh yeah interesting griff says that taking the rest of westeros is going to be a lot harder and harry's like well let them come we could stand 20 times our number here it's well provisioned and like griff is like um no that's not how this works if we just stay here we'll probably anyways anyways he's thinking ahead he's got those numbers and those plans in his head he's a brilliant man it's interesting because it does seem that harry's dragging it out on purpose

and i don't know if that's because harry thinks that daenerys is going to come cream the fuck out of them because the golden company could turn on a dime we know that um self-sword companies as daenerys is learning about right now right at like almost the same time they can be fickle you know they can change their minds and we're told that constantly through these two chapters that harry is like i don't know there's other money out there i don't know there's other money out there so maybe there's another schism to come here oh that's interesting yeah i don't know if harry's gonna win out on that, too, because I think that something that you said just made me realize these men are gonna wonder, do we want gold or do we want glory?

And right now they're hungry and thirsty for it. I mean, they want whatever they can touch. Yeah, but at the same time, as they start winning more, I wonder if they'll want glory more than they want gold. They'd be in the books, bro. For sure sure for this one they're crazy for this one yeah they are they are a little crazy thanks for a little crazy with the golden company wouldn't it be kind of fucking funny if like instead of what they did with season eight with tyrian not being in the books what if like the golden company and young griff i mean just like Rhaenyra's history is fucking struck in the story. You know, like her history is kind of whitewashed.

And some of that's gardening. George wasn't fully there yet. But some of it is also like she's cut from history. Illegitimate, they say, because of, you know, being a woman or whatever. Whatever the fucking story is about. Who knows? I'm just kidding. I do.

But, you know, I don't know. Could be interesting if they just like strike Aegon from the histories and none of this ever literally mattered yeah because or like are there different songs because we don't hear that much about some of the blackfire songs and stuff too like there aren't really any nine penny kings things going on which like there should be underrated underrated so underrated i can't wait i want to play it on CK2 tonight, or CK3 tonight. It's happening. Maybe we should do it one day. Anyways. Oh, you could make

the decisions, you know, and I could, like, guide you. We could do, like, a Oh, no, that's not what I was saying, but we could do that too when we're together in person. That was a thought, too. I like that thought. Interesting. Are you just thinking about a Nine Penny Kings episode? Yeah, which is, I'm sorry, that's so much more boring

than your idea. No, we could do both. I'm into both. That's true. Pork and no little sticks. You never know. It could happen. You really don't know. Just like we don't know yet what's going to happen to everything happening to JonCon. Because Griff, excuse me,

did you have something to say? No. I just wanted to, yeah. So, back in John Connington's world, outside of Eliana's head, back with John Connington, they discuss how there's a way in and out

by the sea, a hidden cove beneath the crag out to the cape that only appears when the tide is out, and they discuss being able to use that and etc and hide and yada yada yada keep the camp secret so griff excuses himself he says i need to go pray for my lord father he's buried in the sept but when they part he's like i am not going to the sept i am going to the roof of the east tower where i can think about the man that i love that's dead rhaegar targaryen um

tallest tower of griffin's roost this is where his lord father would once stand and gaze john remembers and then he also remembers a very special time where he and rhaegar stood here too i do love that we're having him paying respects to rhaegar, where Ned's first chapter is him and Robert paying respects to Lyanna, right? There is a little bit here hidden, right? He has to go to the roof instead of going to the sept, and he kind of hides what he's doing to go pay tribute to Rhaegar. And it's probably nothing that these men would even know about, but for him it's a private, special memory. Yeah, it's something that he wanted to keep for himself and you're right that i love that parallel with robert and you know robert does share it with ned but it is still a private thing too yeah his actual feelings about liana's death and liana

and the rebellion are things he can't tell robert just like how these are things that john can't tell his men yeah partially because he can't give away the whole game yet. Yeah. He can and he can't. I don't know. They know a little. Well, the context for this memory is that Prince Rhaegar was returning from Dorne with his escort, their royal escort, and they were much younger at the welcome feast. The prince had played his harp for them.

It was a song of love and doom that left every woman in the hall weeping at the end. Not the men, though. They've never cried once in their life. And just like women don't poop. And not Lord Armand? Armand Connington. Armand Connington, whose only love was land. John's dad spent that evening trying to

win the prince to his side in his dispute with Lord Morrigan. That's an interesting one because it's a territorial dispute because their lands are kind of so close. It seems there's some du jour back and forth going on. But both of these guys declared for Renly. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And that comes in like the changing of people, right? Like Ronit being in charge compared to John Connington's dad is different, I suppose. So interesting, though, that both declared for Renly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the that's the Lord who was there that they knew, right? And also kind of funny, because I do think John and Stannis are a little similar.

Mm hmm. Absolutely. also kind of funny because I do think John and Stannis are a little similar absolutely in attitude this moment because I love how you called out that he's paying his respects to Rhaegar in his own way like is this the moment that John fell for Rhaegar when he sang that song because I think we're seeing through this that young John Connington loves the songs, right? And we see that that's true of a lot of the young men, even though they act like it's just a thing for silly girls. But we see Rob and we see John Snow also turning to the songs of who they wanted to be. a knight from the songs i mean he he really just did the whole career ladder right and then obviously it all fell apart but so i'm wondering if this is the moment and also sometimes i do wonder if like john connington would see like reygar's disposition a little in john snow like even though john looks a lot like ned might he be like oh this is a little reygar of him oh yeah i i like that idea i think you're right that he would because john is so pretty he's always talked about as so

pretty yeah but maybe not anymore what were we saying really john maybe you're not pretty anymore now that you've been dead i don't even know the shit i say you know that's what's great like you can't hold me accountable i'm just gonna be insane um this is a moment of madness what's the the taylor swift lyric meme the you wouldn't last a minute in the asylum they raised me in and it's just me and you in this little discord video box together that's true yeah ironically uh the same song probably that john fell in love listening to rhaegar play is the same song lyanna also fell in love listening to rhaegar play right under heron's roof he ate and drank with the wolves and many of their sworn swords besides barrow down men and moose and bears and mermen the dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the

wolf maid sniffle but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head i want to know the song you know the fucking song it's jenny's song bro jenny's song yeah you're right no it is there's no other song that it would be it's it's high in the halls bitch okay yeah no that's fair that did bring all the rest of us to fucking tears too that episode that uh these books are based on cogs yeah be cogs be cogs the best thing you did on that show if you're listening somewhere good job cogman great job on that one john steps onto the battlements to the intoxicating view crags rocks spires the sea sky cloud wood autumnal colors remembers rhaegar complimenting his father's

lands and then john replying one day they will all be mine as if that could impress a prince who was heir to the entire realm from the arbor to the wall i think one of the most relatable things about john connington is you think back on moments with people that like you know you were interested in you're like i can't believe i said that that was so cringe and so embarrassing and also this scene makes me think of mufasa and simba in the lion king oh my god yeah look everything the light touches yeah yeah i love that about john connington what you just said though because it's just so sad right how sad is that too that he's thinking back on all the things he should have would have and could have said better done differently and that is very relatable like that's like a sense of loss and

sorrow and guilt and regret like he's so regretful there's so much in his life he regrets having done having not done and i can eat a person up faster than grayscale right that's a great point like i think we see that ned does live a lot with his grief and so do doran but like as you said john is driven by those regrets and be like i ain't gonna make the same mistakes yeah regret and wanting vengeance and justice for those near to you are such big themes in some of these characters plots but i don't know maybe it's just the the infrequency of chapters that john has that makes it that much sadder and more bittersweet to to read this yeah he wants redemption too you know it's it's in a different way than jamie's because you were talking about the latest earlier, but he wants redemption.

Yeah. I mean, don't we all? Yeah. Especially from embarrassing things we say, which, you know, mine are all chronicled. There's hours of it on the internet talking to me. Won't someone feel sorry for us? Won't someone feel bad for me? Wow. Hey, Eliana, here's that attention you ordered oh my gosh so we have another very sad brooding emotional little bit to read john had only gotten to hold griffin's roost for only a few years i don't mean that like romantically holding

obviously it's him being the lord but from here john connington had ruled broad lands extending many leagues to the west north and south just as his father and his father's father had before him but his father and his father's father had never lost their lands he had i rose too high loved too hard dad too much i tried to grasp a star overreached and fell bars bars fuck no but it's it is you right you're right it's good um i'm sad there's so much emotion, like, interlaced in the John Connington chapters. Honestly, as you said, right, like, we have a few of them. But because of that, they kind of just, like, hit real hard. I actually find him so much more vulnerable and romantic and sad. Yeah.

I know we talked a little bit about some of those, like, those character prejudices that maybe you get from not rereading a certain thing, or from maybe reading the books one POV at a time for six years when you read it like four to five times before in a row in the normal way. Maybe these are character like things you just pick up on in fandom too. I mean, I'm serious. You know, there are certain ways that the fandom like, will sometimes talk about a character that maybe sinks in and diminishes that character a little bit. But rereading this, like, everything I've once felt about John Coddington, I'm wrong on. He is sensitive. He's vulnerable. He's, like, this brooding, almost romantic and sad and grief-filled character who I don't think he's doing the things he's doing for the same reason as everybody else that's doing them obviously oh absolutely and i think like he's just such a human character right which is i mean that's true of a lot of them but he is really complex right he's flawed but he's he's just trying to do the best he can and like all of us yeah i mean he's been

through it and you know we discussed last chapter a lot of the things that are flawed about him but i think that is part of again like i don't mean that in a bad way i mean that in a i absolutely love this character kind of way yeah yeah absolutely like he could have better views on women but also i'm like who couldn't who couldn't in these books jesus christ i mean like i'm kind of a bitch sometimes too you know like he's allowed he's been through a lot yeah well john connington thinks on the battle of the bells when eris had stripped his titles and sent him into exile and that his cousin sir r Ronald, had taken the castle but lost his lordship when Robert became king. He was merely then

the Knight of Griffin's Roost. 90% of his lands were given to neighbors who had supported Robert's claim. But Ronald was dead and his son Ronit was now off at war in the Riverlands. Okay, first of all, Ronit and Ronald fucking McDonald with their

red bright hair. Fuck you, George. I'm sorry. I just wanted to bring some humor. Ronit McDonald of House McConnington just made me laugh this time through. I'm like, all right. So George was really into the R.O. name convention going on. But serious now.

This was something that stood out a lot to me this time. Obviously of him losing the lordship, him being the one that lost the lordship. But not just the lordship. 90% of their lands. That's a lot. That's almost the full 100% that is 10 away from 100%. Like, if you look around your house right now, wherever you live, if you lost, like, 90% of that place, what would you live in? The closet. Now, the good- the closet.

Shit. Oh, I didn't even mean that. That's a double. A tattra. Jesus. No, but really, though, like, he has not- like, he has- and I'm not saying, like, he's fine, obviously. Like, this castle's still chillin'. That gilded throne is great.

But, yeah, that's a lot of land to lose. You see why the amount of people they have working here is not a lot, because you don't need a lot to keep this keeping anymore. And not just the lands, but then being a knight, right? There's kind of this, like like bittersweet irony in that he lost the lordship, but it turns out lords, a lot of lords are assholes these days. Not my favorite lord, who's a musician, but the other lords, they are assholes, like real assholes. And knights are actually sometimes not as assholey, but they're also sometimes assholes.

There's a lot of like, dichotomy of knights are assholes, knights are not, lords are assholes, lords are not. But I don't know, nothing graceful to say about it. Just there's something there about like being a knight, being honorable, getting your honor back, right? That redemption, like you were saying, and trying to get your honor back because people think that you're someone you're not and coming back to jamie and what jamie wants right he's also chasing his honor to talk about my least favorite lannister he is chasing the honor that he lost by killing the king but it turns out the king wasn't so nice people might not have known that and john connington is saving possibly a king who knows yeah that's also really interesting because like

we see that to an extent he's tied honor to the symbols of masculinity in the past right when it comes to like sword fighting etc but you look at i'm sorry we're gonna just spoil the winds of winter here a bit um you look at the way that the golden company is acting right at cape wrath and it is not honorable we see in arian's in arian's pov it's not very honorable at all so there's something interesting going on there but you were talking about like how devastating it would be to lose 90 of your lands and I realize because of the quote that you called out earlier right of him reminiscing that moment with Rhaegar it's not just

that he lost all those lands he lost the thing that Rhaegar complimented him on right he said that your lands are beautiful and he held that memory so close and he lost those lands that he was so boastful about to him like damn this man lost a lot I mean that's what he lost those lands that he was so boastful about to him.

Like, damn. This man lost a lot. I mean, that's what he lost. Like, Rhaegar told him those lands were beautiful, and then he failed Rhaegar, and then he failed his dad. Yeah, and then everyone thought that he died. He lost his whole life. He lost his second job, too, in the Golden Company, because he was like, I'm gonna go take on this other new secret job.

Yeah, and I guess he was dishonored there too. Everyone was like, yeah, that man died because he drank himself to death. Like, damn. Exactly. Wow. John, man. Well, he's glad that Ronlet isn't here for the

bloodshed because he isn't in the mood to kinslay today. Today. I'm in the mood for... Anyways. His cousin was a child during the rebellion, and he didn't really hate Sir Ronald either. It was his fault he lost that stony set. Robert was kept hidden from him. We have this line of,

John Connington had known that, and he had also known that Robert's head upon a spear would have put an end to the rebellion then and there. He was young and full of pride. How not? King Ares had named him Hand and given him an army, and he meant to prove himself worthy of that trust, of Rhaegar's love.

There's something great about the setup of that entire passage that kind of reflects one of my favorite little speeches from Tyrion about Dany in language and theme of Rhaegar's sister instead from the chapters with young Griff actually, right? Where he says, I know she spent her childhood in exile, impoverished, living on dreams and scheme, running from one city to the next, always fearful, never safe, friendless, but for a brother who was by all accounts half mad, a brother who sold her maidenhood to the Dothraki for the promise of an army. I know that somewhere upon the grass her dragons hatched, and so did she. I know she is proud. How not? What else was left but her pride i know she is strong

how not the dothraki despise weakness i just love how it's set up in comparison to rhaegar's love king eris and daenerys on the other side all these things all revolving around aegon's plot yeah i love I love that, and I love the you calling it out. The how not, it speaks to, I mean, that humanity, right? Like, if you go through all these things, how won't you come out being like that? If you're a young man

full of pride because you've been named Han, like how not? Yeah. Also, like, yeah, I love how he calls this thing out about, I mean, Red Ronnet, whom we could slay Red Ronnet. It's fine. And he says, men would fight for things they felt were theirs, even things they'd gained by theft. And he is putting his quote unquote son into this position to fight for a thing he feels is theirs, is his.

To fight for a thing he feels is theirs. Is his. Even things that he had gained by theft. Because I'm sorry. He's going to be the thief. That Daenerys is going to have to fight. Yeah. He's the one stealing her throne.

Yeah. I mean I do strongly believe this. Yeah I do too. I do too. I also have to point out the verbiage here of like. He meant to prove himself worthy of that trust of rhaegar's love oh my god how fucking everything he does he does it for rhaegar's love yeah right like he speaks of rhaegar's love like it was the fucking warm sun on your skin after you get out of the ocean you know some romantic beautiful shit like that is what he does it for oh my god john connington is down bad bad yeah and

it's like it's sad it is like robert he's never let himself grow beyond that moment and that person and then become a different person like he might as well have i'm not saying he like drank himself to death but like in a way john connington died in that war he's never stopped perpetually stuck yeah he's never grown it's just like ned right like he's stunted and in that he stunts his family by not letting them make new relationships by not strengthening their alliances and sending his children out to like learn other things outside of the walls of winterfell he keeps them home right he did find something else to live for that robert never did he did grow beyond his grief and became someone else he was able to

find something else which yeah he made family yeah literally he's sad yeah still about the family members that he lost but you know he he's like i have to step up i'm a dad now oh my god and griff you're a dad john connington is the stepdad who stepped up yeah no you're right he he did unlike robert who was like married to raygar's ghost i simply will not do anything for my kids yeah it's sad because we see this pattern for miles too who i think he also very much loved i guess it's good he got to love that's why this chapter is called the griffin reborn because as you said he's the dad who stepped up he found

something else to live for it was young griff after all those years and he is reborn because he did die in that rebellion holy shit wait great job he's like dance mom john connington um god back in the battle of the bells we know what happens right he thought he could find and slay robert but robert was hidden he and his knights went through the town hoping they could get him uh robert was hiding in the peach and he thinks behind the skirts of women thinking what sort of king is that but as the battle memory goes on eddard stark and hoster tully had come down upon him while the bells rang and i just have to point out again not quite as sexist as usual but behind the skirts of women like what sort of king is that and like

yeah obviously he should yes not hide behind people in general he should fight his own fucking battles but very funny to me that it's the women of the peach who like could fuck you up that does stand out and like speaks to some of the things we were talking about regarding john last chapter and yeah it'll be curious to see how he feels during this War of the Five Queens and oh it's gonna be so funny when he's at councils

with Arianne and he's like god I fucking hate women what a nightmare for him I wonder is there like supposed to be a pun here with the Battle of the Bells is it supposed to also be like B-E-L-L-E-S because the skirts

of women and that being the thing that kind of saves Robert and the fact that he names his daughter after it right Bella yeah yeah yeah Battle of the Bella so anyway just thinking about that.

The Bella Bardens. It's so funny because, yeah, the last place he would have thought to look, of course, it's the brothel. Like, John Connington's not going to go to the brothel. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's the last place he would think to look, A, because of his ideas of chivalry and masculinity. And, you know, you think about like him and Ned being like, I can't imagine Rhaegar going to a brothel. But so you have this honor thing with Jon Conn not going to the brothel, but also, he's just not gonna patron a brothel. Yeah, brothels are, well, this brothel specifically isn't necessarily one that he would be interested in. He's not the target audience because he's not interested in what they're selling. No, but I think you're right because of that Ned line.

Like, I kind of forgot about how that could relate to this. Ned, like, thinking that probably makes him think about Robert, you know, and the daughter at this brothel, as well as Robert hiding in the brothel during the Battle of the Bells. Yeah, that's so true. Really well, well done. Well done. Pat yourself for that one. Something that kind of brings us back to those Arya chapters in this is when we learn about

Jon-Khan hanging hostages in the crow cages to try to make them talk. Jon-Khan hanging hostages in the crow cages to try to make them talk. He offered pardons, rewards, and withheld food and supplies. One night, he remembers talking to Miles about it and telling him Lord Tywin couldn't have even done more. Miles is like, uh, Tywin would have literally just dropped everyone in this town. He would have just burned it down. Every man, woman, child, knight, septon, rebel, all of them. It would have waited to find Robert's bones in the ash. And then later when

Stark and Tully showed up, Tywin would have offered pardons and sent them home with their tails between their legs. Now John sits there thinking, because at the time he didn't agree, but now he's like, no, he and he thinks i failed the father but i will not fail the son john connington taking a lot of lessons from my guest tywin's strategy book he's a fantastic foil as we discussed to so many characters but also tyrian right uh they have different motivations obviously but similar inspirations in terms of tywin which is confirmed by barriston a few chapters later right as he i mean he even is thinking about like what tywin did or told him to do you know things like at dusk and dale and again we see that change

in john connington's approach to things in this chapter. Yeah, he's rebirthed, as you mentioned. Good job. He is reborn, though. He really is. He returns to the yard in real time, where the Garrison and the small folk are, and Ronit's younger brother, Raymond, his sister, Alin, and his bastard son,

a red-headed fierce boy named Ronald Storm, are there. Useful hostages, he thinks, if Ronit ever tries to take the castle back. He orders them to be confined and safe as hostages until Ronit fucks up. And of course, the girl begins sobbing, the bastard boy starts biting a spearman.

So real. That's, like, same. Bastards are, we're like that. And only some of the captives are people that he actually knows. Kind of reminds me a lot of stuff going on here. Only like Harrenhal, right? Like reminds me of Harrenhal, especially with that changing of guard in that big castle and so few people.

But there's a half blind sergeant, a washer woman, a groom who was a stable boy during the rebellion, the cook and the armorer and that's it that's everyone john knows here dang it's been a while it's gonna be like that too with winter following me like wow i don't know a lot of these people because everyone you died murdered you know again coming back to tyrian we talked about richard iii in our mercy episode specifically the shakespearean play uh but uh the hostages here

feel a little reminiscent of richard iii taking his nephews as hostage though i think this echoes with a couple of other storylines that we see throughout a song of ice and fire as well like for example you know theon taking taking bran and rickon hostage then those two boys disappeared like allegedly allegedly he had killed them. We know he didn't. He killed two other boys, which was also bad. But history says Richard III did it. So I wonder if we're going to see something like that with John Connington's storyline. Richard III's nephews, they're gone. Brandon and Rickon are still around. I mean, they disappeared. Who knows? Maybe they were murdered, maybe not. I don't have much hope for, like, these kids, for the Connington kids right now. Sorry.

It even reminds me a little bit, or makes me think also of the connection with, like, Danny's hostages and Maureen. Yes, absolutely. Worried. Worried about all these children. Yeah, I think we're meant to, like, be seeing, like, every, you know seeing everybody's taking child hostages now that's a new cool thing to do well it's not just that right this is war we're finally in war

we're in it we had that couple of books war was ended thanks to Tywin Lannister and Roose Bolton the great philosophers and peacekeepers of our time that orchestrated a huge thing with Walder Frey they brought a

great piece to westeros for a book and a half and uh that book and a half was part of a feast for crows and part of a dance with dragons but now war's here again and these are all huge facets of war absolutely dang all the rules out the window out the window well griff's beard had grown out during the voyage, mostly red with a bit of ash, and he's clad in a very official red and white tunic with his house's griffins embroidered down the front.

He looks older and sterner than he had once been. So do I, every day. And they all stare at him with stranger's eyes. He gives them a speech about exile and his absence, and tells them to serve him faithfully. He'll bring them no harm. Each and every castle worker bids and kneels allegiance. No one balks, no one dies. There's no harm that comes to them. And that night he even feasts his victors with

roast meat and fish, drowning it all with red wines, presiding from the griffin's seat at the head table. A dream come true, right? He's home. The head table a dream come true right he's home the head table has harry strickland black balak franklin flowers and the three young griffins and it's actually kind of sweet he's like oh well they're my blood so i gotta put them at the table and he then has this passage this moment the children were of his blood and he felt that he should know them but when the bastard boy announced my father's going to kill you he decided this knowledge was sufficient ordered them back to their cells and excused himself so funny just that boy is just like john haynes like i'm gonna do this right

i will be a diplomat and the boy's like my dad's gonna kill you i i just love that john connington was like that's enough that enough. That's enough of playing nice. Yeah. He tried it on for size, like you do a hat, right? And he's like, no, that's fine. That's fine. I guess I do not respect the child hostage part, but I respect John Cunnington being like, no,

it's not for me. Fun uncle's not for me. Uncle Cunnington. Yeah. Oh god. Tyrion's fun uncle. Yeah for me. Uncle Connington. Yeah. Oh god. Tyrion's fun uncle. Yeah. Haldan Halfmaester doesn't attend the feast. When Jon goes to find them, he

asks if Haldan is looking for the rest of their fleet. 10,000 men who sailed with elephants and horses and weapons, and not quite half of them returned to the meeting spot at the Rainwood. He would have never dared landing on Cape Wrath when House Baratheon was strong and in charge, but now that the ones that people liked are dead, it doesn't matter. And besides, John Connington had friends, and Rhaegar had even more.

I love, like, he goes through a list of them, but I'm just here for Rainhouse. What a fun name. You see here in these upcoming ones, George, like, really puts some color and some shade to the Stormlands. He's been waiting to be able to do this. Yeah, I just, what a silly name, Rainhouse. I like it.

He tells Halton that by this time tomorrow, they should hold three castles. Those are like the Sir Tristan Rivers, went to take House Morgan's seat, Crow's Nest, and Laswell Peak, made for Rainhouse, which is the Wild's seat. And the rest of the men remain at griffin's roost to guard their prince in their headquarters with hopes that their numbers would continue to swell haldan had been puzzling out letters in the meantime the lannisters have tons of enemies and they lose friends constantly and the two queens were having their own war accused of treason and debauchery and the tyrells also are heading to King's Landing now to go save Mace's daughter,

abandoning Storm's End with a small troop to keep Stannis' men within. Yeah, we go on with some of these updates that Haldan's come up with. The Lannisters are relying on the Boltons and the Freys in the Riverlands. Oh, that's tough. And Stannis is still in rebellion. The Ironborn

are declaring their own king, and no one's talking about the Vale, so it seems the Arryans are keeping out of it. And Dorne is interesting, he says. Myrcella is engaged to Trystane, which makes it seem like Dorne supports the Lannisters, yet their levies are raised in the Boneway in the

Prince's Pass, simply waiting. There's more about that in The Winds of Winter too, for those of you that have not read the REN chapters in a while. So much in this passage, laughing very hard at the errands staying out of it. Yes, Liza's staying so far out of it, she fell out the moon door. Oh. And also, there's one of those mini Civil Wars brewing, right? Sweet Robin versus Harry the Air. Oh, true. What's gonna happen? Harry the Air there. I don't know.

That didn't work. But I guess I guess he survives, which is very interesting. What a twist. I didn't. I think he will. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. I think like it's one of those like, it's the little finger ism of it all right? Like Saul, small sickly boys literally could grow up to be something who knows yeah it's just he might still die yeah but it's also like is it about the kind of guidance you're given you know you if you gave sweet robin to like a put him in a good parenting situation yep could he really exceed our expectations hopefully yeah we come back to marcella you know we have that that little familial infighting, right?

The Lannisters are in with Dorne, but also, no, they're not all in with Dorne. And people are also probably going to turn themselves inside out over the Lannister's children and the current Lannister leader. Like, people are like, there's, again, a few separations that could be made, right? Jaime now has some mixed loyalties. Tyrion has very mixed loyalties, and Cersei, god bless her. That's all I'm gonna say there. Um, and this is where some of that troop talk from last week comes back into play, right? Everyone thinks Doran's lying about how many swords he has in and out of universe. People like who knows but if he really does have like 20 000

people between the boneway and prince's past like that would really replenish griff's armies that they're missing and they're just waiting for arien who always makes rational decisions firmly with all the right information that she needs to make a good decision. It's not her fault. But yeah, she just has to give the thumbs up. So those numbers could change any day. And I also love that we hear that bit about Mace, right? Here we see he's leaving Storm's End to head back to King's Landing. If you're on our Patreon as a Stranger or Tier Patron or above, and you've heard our Winds of Winter episodes,

we just put out Mercy last month. We've done the Arianne chapters already. And we already kind of know a little bit of the fate of Mace going to the Reach and coming back. We hear an echo about what he's going to do, and it turns out he's going to march on storm's end again and i think that might be the end of mace like i personally think he might be dying at storm's end or i'm worried i don't know with his strength being so split up and their next goal is

taking storm's end possibly as of this chapter like i'm worried for mace man yeah he's running out of some plot he is and also like it could be interesting to have willis be the head of the house there for a bit you know he's this he's this character that george wrote in he's not in the one good tyrell he's yeah he's not in he's not in the show. So George kind of just like made him up. What if we had one more character? Stop. You're the worst. No, that would be interesting. And I do hope we get

more of a look at House Tyrell with Willis at the head. I mean, obviously Garland's gonna be in the Reach, Shield Islands area, you know, dealing with the Ironborn. So it would be interesting to see an eye get with Willis somewhere. Who knows how.

And then with Mace gone, it's like that is a little weekend and you have like Randall. Different idea, everyone. Hey, what if I'm now the Reach? Look at me. There's a lot of like historical precedent set for some of that infighting coming regionally, right? Like, you look at Aegon and his sisters at the Gold Road, where the then Lannisters and Gardeners make common cause in defeating the Targaryens. The Reach was the center column, and they brought the most, which was 55,000 men. And that entire column of 55,000 men gets roasted by dragons.

Oh, word. Goodbye, Reach. And then 4,000 of the army, which were like Lannister and Gardener, die instantly. And another 1,000 die from wounds later on. So that's how House Tyrell came to power, right? Because of that battle over the Gold Road. And they wouldn't have risen without that and then like the idea of the military splitting uh the tyrell bannermen and the dance of the dragons half of them supported agan too and the other half chose to remain neutral so mace tyrell's

biggest war victory was touted as battling robert baratheon at Ashford but he really arrived too late to do any real damage and Randall Tarly actually led the charge himself so is Mace going to find himself too late on the draw again and Randall Tarly this time

takes over and it's over for Mace I don't know but I feel like that and then there's a bunch of like the fossaway strength obviously could be some split loyalties there with the different apples the tarly strength i don't know these are just some ideas i've had kicking around in the old marble machine up here for the past you know seven eight years uh paraphrased from the hit unreleased essay sack coop of king's landing 2 electric boogaloo oh word that is its name and it has not been released and there is artwork that i paid san

rixian to make me that is gorgeous that goes along with it all these things you don't get to have but you can have it here on the podcast i feel i i think we'll get it i think we will get this essay once um the podcast's over i was gonna say we get a release date but uh oh my bad sorry you guys get the essays here is all everyone I'm just I'm just a silly with my head full of songs

um silly little girl thinking about wins um yeah uh love love you bringing back the false ways i never really think about the role they could play going forward in the books but you're right could be something fun there lots of apples fallen from them trees true so we've got griff commanding held in to write sunspear and tell them that Aegon has come, and while they have opportunities for allies, they don't have much in the way

of rewards. For the allies, they've got no gold, no land, and even if we did, the Golden Company has first dibs. But there is one big prize to offer. It's the Bachelor. It's Aegon's hand

to bring a great house to their cause. And we have this line here. John Connington remembered Prince Rhaegar's wedding all too well. Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the start, and childbirth only left her weaker. After the birth of Princess Rhaenys, her mother had been bedridden for half a year, and Prince Aegon's birth had almost been the death of her. She would bear no more children, the maesters told Prince Rhaegar afterward. He just really doesn't rate women as

the whole thing. Like, they don't even rate on his scale. He's like, zero, zero, zero, zero. Zero out of ten. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero out of ten. Zero out of ten. God. He, like, he comes to terms with this, too. He's like, well, we must keep Aegon's hand free for when Daenerys arrives. And Halden's like, okay, but we have two

prizes because you're a great lord again. Remember? Like, you're a great lord. You're single. You know, maybe this is your party. Your debutante party here. Maybe Doran's daughter would marry you which i just want to take a moment for everybody listening could you fucking imagine oh doomed marriage but also part of me is like maybe not doomed maybe they would actually be

really like they'd make a deal they'd be like cool i don't want you you don't want me this is for politics off i go to do what i want you mean like maybe it would work later in raniera yeah yeah yeah yeah it could have been except i think he's just so they're almost like too similar and we'll get into that yeah yeah but it could it could like but i love how it's also like unfair that they have to marry it all but right and and you know it's interesting to see how that all goes. Like, John Cunnington being like, uh, no, I don't want to do that. But he gets a say, which is interesting.

He gets to be like, no, I'm not going to do that, which is very Tywin-y, you know? Because, I mean, let's be real. Tywin's hand would have been a great prize for anyone who would want that sort of political power. But he just took himself out of the equation he's like i don't know seriously sorry you're just gonna have to go marry again and yeah that maester was like john connington we have another season after the bachelor called bachelor in paradise you could be on it but not this time around anyways we have a sudden influx of information it's kind of fun now they're suddenly like wow guys, look at all these things we didn't know about

Westeros that now we know now that we finally fucking crossed the sea. I think that, you know, you have Jon Conn here thinking about those marriage alliances and we get a really interesting exploration into parenthood from him, separate from that of Catelyn. And I bring this up because he, I am sure, would love for Aegon to just hold out, marry Daenerys. But Aegon's probably gonna do something silly because he's a teenage boy. And he's just a teenager in general, and you just do silly things when you're a teenager. And Jon Conn is like this great POV in that he actually is a mentor figure right as you said

he's the dad who stepped up the way that ned was with a son who is not his son and i think that we're gonna see john connington wrestle with similar challenges that caitlin had with rob but john has a little bit more social power because he is a man and a military leader, but also at the same time he has less in regards to, for example, like, yeah, very, very, you know, prominent house, but seen him as a dad in that way, right? So I'm interested to see more of how he's going to explore that relationship with young Griff, who, again, styled it as his son, as his mini-me with the naming, but it has a really different relationship in that maybe young Griff sees himself kind of the way that Joffrey did. I'm destined to go be king, right? And has that entitlement.

And also, like, this is just kind of, I think, again, a difficult age for parents, whether they're your blood parent or not, because again, willful teenagers. And how do you balance being a mentor figure if your mentee doesn't really respect you? Or like, how do you father a child who has a different idealized version of his father, that same father that you yourself have also very much idealized in your head and once more the idea that like he's had to pretend to be his father when it turns out his father is someone greater to both of them in a way right yeah and like that that dishonor and shame that he feels and that displacement in exile that he's been going

through isn't going to be made better by that because what happens when you know it's like an independence thing too right some parents get over it some parents do not some parents are narcissists and cannot get over it right where like where a child that you've had becomes more than just you having it when it starts to be independent when it starts to do things on its own and like this whole time for griff it's been griff and young griff griff and young griff but now it's john and agon john and agon it's no longer the griff and young griff show and what happens when he outgrows him right like he's being outgrown he's being passed by agon's on his own there's something interesting

in that it's like what john's doing is the inverse probably of what liana made ned promise right we don't know necessarily what the promise was maybe she asked him to promote his identity and put him on the throne but i highly fucking doubt that i imagine it would be something to do with robert will kill him protect him it could be bad for a targaryen to be out there right now with everything going on so it is the probably the inverse right liana asking ned to keep john safe where john decided that the thing here to do that alirio asked him to do was raise rhaegar's son to be the king but also like doesn't ned think of his broken promises?

So, like, what if he did? What if she did ask him to do that? Which, like, I don't know. Yeah. Crazy 14-year-old girl thing, you know? That could be it. Yeah, but you're right. It could be the inverse as well, so.

It could either be the same or the inverse. Whatever it is, Ned really feels like he failed. Dead person. Insert dead person here just like john connington pick one pick one i was like i have to clarify which john i'm talking about right now fuck uh john gives halden half maester a very long cold stare and says i think not about marriage uh but internally of course he's thinking about how he's dying of greyscale, not necessarily that he wouldn't do his duty,

just that he kind of can't. Cool, cool, cool. Thinking about his existence and all that. It's pretty, pretty sad. I'm sorry. I just thought about fingering with greyscale. Sorry. And you had to share it with all of us?

Yeah. All right. Wait till we talk about fisting with Greyscale. Oh, interesting. He tells Halden Halfmaester to prepare the letter to Dorne, and off he pops to bed in the Lord's chambers. He wakes to a serving man asking how he likes his breakfast, boiled eggs, fried bread, beans, and a jug of the worst wine in the cellar. Yes, the worst, because he's not telling this man but he plans to soak his body in it he remembers lamor prescribing tyrian vinegar soaks and baths

so wine will have to do for now all four fingernails are black now not yet the thumb and the gray is creeping up the middle finger past the second knuckle he thinks about hacking them off but then he's like how would I explain missing two fingers? Greyscale is different than just the common cold. He thinks that men who once defended him would abandon him in a heartbeat. He thinks he should have let Tyrion

drown. But that's not who you are. Wow, you're right. That was very valiant of him to be like, yeah, we should save him. You're right. Yeah. He's got some good in him it's just gonna like it's all just gonna get thrown away for the plot while john later inspects the castle and invites his men for a war council where the half maester has news to share the volantines put mark mandrake's camp ashore at eastermont and they took greenstone though it

wasn't one of their objectives to do so. Franklin Flowers kind of notes that the Volantines are sick of them, and ready to put them wherever the fuck they land them. Harry mourns his elephants are probably stuck at the Stepstones, and of course, no archers would have been with the crew at Greenstone, so many birds would have left with the message of being attacked by now. But thankfully no banners were flown, so at least it will be confusing. And we do learn Cersei won a dance with dragons.

Cersei in prison, Kevin tells her Stannis has funded sellswords that are landing everywhere in the Stepstones. Success. Success! Truly. I'm just here to remind you- I don't always say poor cersei but damn poor cersei she don't know what's coming she really doesn't uh oh wow she really doesn't she thinks she's got it

all handled she's like i've got a new i've got a new zombie warrior i'm here to remind everyone that uh harry strickland part of maybe why he's like but the elephants aren't here is i think this man just really loves elephants he had a favorite elephant at one point called Little Pussy. That was its name. Fun fact about A Song of Ice and Fire. John Connington hopes that this attack gets blamed on Stannis, pirates,

or literally anyone else. Hmm. Hmm. Little Pussy, and then you have Lil Pigeon. Oh yeah, everyone just loves, you got the littles you got the youngs we can truly god all these hip-hop artists well at least john connington got his wish right that the attack gets blamed on stannis or pirates or anyone but him uh and

this is kind of interesting because eastermont does need to be taken whether they choose to or not because like Lord Eldon is Bobby B's like what grandpa or something so surely they'd want to take it anyways at some point uh this could be a popular voice for or against them and also very lucky that Edric and Andrew Eastermont made it out Edric Storm and they're hiding in Lys, right, which is a popular place for King's Blood to go take a vacation. That said, Eldin had just married Sylva Santagar, if you recall. So I'm curious to like, I'm curious if Arianne makes demands to get Sylva back from being a hostage, maybe or freed if they take if they've taken her. And Lord Eastermont also spoke against Tyrion. If you recall back in Storm of Swords and the Trial,

he was one of the people that spoke against him. So he's no Tyrion friend necessarily. He might be a Cersei friend, but no Tyrion friend. So that's kind of interesting, especially with Sand Snakes going to King's Landing. There's a lot of that Lannister splitting and what being a Lannister loyalist actually means friend so that's kind of interesting especially with sand snakes going to king's landing there's a lot of that lannister splitting and what being a lannister loyalist actually means because you're learning that all these people have dual alliances and are like

yeah i mean tristana marcella sure but what if the targaryens came back. Targaryen, I mean, dragon eats lion, bitch. You know what I mean? Sorry to say. Ser Lomas Eastermont is also in Storm's End while the Tyrells siege it. And Lomas Eastermont's still loyal to Stannis' cause, so that makes sense, but interesting. So you have an Eastermont in Storm's End. And also there are flags at the wall with Stannis.

There are Eastermont banners. So just another splits coming in. And also there are flags at the wall with Stannis. There are Eastermont banners. So just another splits coming in. You know, who knows what will happen with House Eastermont, but they've got turtles in every bucket right now and lots of little wars to happen. I mean, I think you're right. Maybe there is a schism in there because George did love writing stories about turtles against turtles.

That's so real. No, that's like literally his inspiration. He's like, yeah, I got into like these ideas because my turtles kept dying and so I would like make up stories in my head as a kid of like the plots that they had against each other. Interesting. So I'm thinking about

Storm's End because John Connington is going to go take Storm's End which we know because I'm spoiling a bit of the Winds of Winter and we know this from the Ariane Winds chapter Ariane 2 I'm of the philosophy that fiction short stories you know I mean obviously part of it is just to have a good time entertain you but another way in which fiction can be really powerful is by acting as these sorts of essentially experiments, right? Of like, what if we put a person who is like this in this sort of situation? Fiction as a petri dish of the reactions of, again, people put into

challenging situations. What comes out of that? What is is the result and i think that part of what i again i'm so looking forward to in this specific plot line is those interactions between john and arianne because in interacting with each other they're both being thrown out of the element of comfort because we've talked a lot about how Jon is misogynist. So like what happens not only when he has to deal with Arianne who is like a headstrong woman but acting as essentially you know a head of state when it comes to Dorne and not just with Arianne right? He is going to be wooing the power of Dorne and Dorne is a place in the seven kingdoms in which women are not seen solely as birthing vessels so it's actually really fascinating that he felt that way

about Elia as we were discussing because Dorne is a place in which women are full citizens of society they can hold households they can hold titles, inherit, etc. So he's going to be dealing with not just Ariane, but the other Sand Snakes acting in a leadership capacity in Dorne. And how is he going to deal with that? And then you also have, on the other hand, Ariane facing John Connington. I bet I discussed this somewhere else before, like not on this podcast, but this, like, John is a man that she is going to have to persuade to do whatever she wants without relying on her sexuality, like without relying on this man desiring her. And I think that's really interesting for Ariane's character, right? Because that's something think that's really interesting for arianne's character right because that's something

that she's really deeply valued about herself she also values her brains and like she can do that do i value her brains no let's see how wins plays out you know let's see how it plays out but both of them together it's going to be just electric in terms of that character development that i would love to see and then also you have the aspect in which i mean both of them are kind of alike as we were discussing last last episode like there's a lot of things that are very similar in their demeanors um not necessarily like the prickly thing but just like in terms of what they value yet they're not gonna get along it's it's fascinating actually both of them hate waiting we we see john connington be like i don't understand why harry wants to keep waiting

all the time like he just would absolutely bide his time and also i guess john connington has a literal deadline but also both of them as we're going to see end up having to be mentors to willful teenagers and also both of them really love just projecting their own goals onto aegon they're just trying to will and mold him into a dragon for their own desires like for john it's that redemption right um in regards to his past and his regrets and for aria and its ambition she's trying to ride this dragon all the way to queenship interesting all the dragon she wants or needs yeah john connington commands them to have mandrake leave a garrison behind and bring

the rest of the men to cape wrath as well as the noble captives, including Prince Agen. It's time for him to come to roost with the Griffins instead of staying at camp. Franklin mentions Agen wants to stay in battle, and Jon's like, yeah, yeah, all of us did at that age, man. Oh, shit. It's not time yet, he says, to raise Agen's banners. I find that line so interesting. Jon says, let them think an exiled lord has come home, and he'll write Tommen, asking for a pardon and for his titles and lands back.

I hope that that happens just because it would be hysterical if they actually pardoned him. And they might, they fucking might. Cersei, we might have a Cersei scene where she's straight up. It's like, fine, let him come back. He was no friend to robert but am i or you know some ridiculous thing i just could see her like totally saying yes it would be very funny for me well because she's so confused right she doesn't know what's going on she's like i've got other things to i've got bigger fish to fry right now in my immediate life

right like john connington who okay sure whatever Yeah. Shit's going to be hitting the fan in T-Wow for her. It's so unfair. She's just a girl. She's just a girl? Yeah, she is just a girl. The focal points here, talk about stunted in your youth, the focal points here of Aegon's banners not being time to raise them and giving away the element of surprise

and how that might pack into a second sack of King's Landing, that feels really strong to me, right? And also, like, there being confusion against Dany and Aegon's banners someday, right? Like, if Aegon, you know, you had that kind of warm-up when it came to Renly and Stannis and them having different banners, which was very helpful,

because otherwise it would have just been stag-on-ag crime out there. So like the confusion, if Aegon chooses a traditional Targaryen banner and Dany comes back with traditional Targaryen banners, and that same exact moment earlier of a griffin, a griffin, here you are, right? Don't raise his banners yet. Keep that element of surprise. That could be very interesting in battle with Dany. That's true. Yeah, I don't know what he's gonna use because, you know,

really gives the game away when you use the black dragon on the red. Right, I think that he'll probably just use Targ, but maybe he'll change it. Maybe he'll quarter it with Dorne or something. Oh yeah, that could be interesting. And I mean, it'll be hard for the soldiers, but it'll be hard for the soldiers but it'll be easier for the other part where you just look up and you're like which one has the actual dragons so yeah but who knows he could steal one maybe we have two books to go at least if not eight i don't even want them stop you're such a liar so while the Lannisters deal with that letter

they'll have to work to gain those allies in the Reach now, the Stormlands, and of course most importantly, Doran Harry Strickland thinks that Doran is too afraid to join their cause, but Jon says that if we show our worth, our strength he will join, and Peek and Rivers are successful, they control most

of Cape Wrath wrath now there are four castles in four days so efficient so efficient so proud um but harry strickland is a little hesitant again says that maybe we should take it slow when some lords over have lison omar dispatch his spies i wonder who lison omar's spies are i think we'll probably start to figure it out maybe but i do wonder who they are and where they are and what they're doing maybe they have not been dispatched uh no they've probably they're probably dispatched somewhere like some of them are probably yeah t while we'll see some of them somewhere i'm sure yeah well john's approach is the opposite of harry's right

attack hard fast take what you can take storm Storm's End, next, soon, which the Golden Company are a little wary of. Storm's End is kind of a big place to take. Brendol Byrne says we should make common cause with Stannis against the Lannisters, and Jon's like, no, Stannis is Robert's brother, remember, and part of the team that took down the Targaryens, anti-Targaryen, even though they are kind of Targaryen, it's a whole thing. And a thousand leagues away, also, is where he is with his army. That's very far. We don't need to worry about him. So Storm's End is ripe for the taking.

And they'll take it ten days from now. Plus, Storm's End was just promised to, like, Tommen randomly recently, if I recall, too. It's not random if you think he's a Baratheon. It actually makes perfect sense in that context. I know, but I know that Cersei's trying to prove her bastard boy's legitimacy, while Jon is as well, but... Oh man, everyone's just trying to prove their little bastard kid's legitimacy. So cute.

So they suggest that Jon con ally with Stannis first, right? And I actually do think this is a very astute and human observation on Jon's part that Stannis is Robert's brother and they brought down House Targaryen so he's like no allies there like not just even from the well he was a Baratheon therefore it wouldn't work but like Stannis really would not bend the knee to a house that they've a already defeated he's like why would i do that we won um and especially not after everything that you know young stannis went through to hold storm's end like that boy went through hell to do that and also like robert is to stannis as rhaegar is to john connington, as we discussed during some of those Davos chapters.

Stannis wants so badly to live up to this idea of proving that he could do it when he feels Robert didn't believe he could. And Stannis would never bend the knee, even out of common cause, to the Lannisters. He'd just rather be like, no, I'm just gonna fucking die here. That's fine. Because something so deeply rooted in his heart would prevent him from ever being allies to the Targaryens because he already had to make that decision of loyal to my king or loyal to my brother. And he picked his brother.

And that's interesting with the dynamics of like the Stormlands, right? Because Robert should be the person that Jon Connington was loyal to. And he chose Rhaegar. Oh, you're right. Interesting. So complex it wow i put my thing down flipped it and reversed it yeah and i mean again they've kind of got very similar dispositions yeah yeah grumpy grumpy efficient yeah i don't know john Cunnington's much more romantic. We don't have a Stannis POV. In his head, he could be very much romantic, for all we know. Yes.

I stroke Selyse's mustache and feel the grains of the world around me within. I mean... Anyways. Who knows? Maybe. Four days later, Aegon joins them, riding at the head of a hundred horses with three elephants making up the rear. Lady Lemore accompanies him, and Raleigh Duckfield is wearing a brand new snow-white cloak streaming from his shoulders. You know what that means. It's Kingsguard time, folks. He's number one. Trusty number one. And Jon is a little wary of this he doesn't think that rally should be

eggs duck he's like the duck to your egg no no he says that aegon should be saving his white cloaks for warriors of great renown who will bring allegiance to their cause from houses that have you know support to lend but aegon says duck would die for me that's all that matters the kingslayer was a warrior of great renown and he killed his king. Yeah, this reminds me a little just because I was rewatching it of Hot D, episode two, season one, episode two, where Rhaenyra's like, I don't know, I feel like I should pick people who have actual combat experience, not people not giving out Kingsguard titles for political clout. Yeah, and that really shows, even though Prince Aegon has a little attitude,

but it really shows kind of like how he's been taught to do all this, right? Like he has thoughts of his own because they educated him. What does Varys say, right? Aegon's been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He's been trained in arms

as befit a knight to be, but that's not the end of his education. He reads and writes. He speaks several tongues. He's studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the faith since he was old enough to understand them. He's lived with fisher folk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers, mended nets, learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound.

He knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught kingship is his right. Aegon knows kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first and live and rule for them. Obviously, he's working on it, right? Like he's getting there. He's maybe Aegon's not all this great that's being said about him but he's basically the bene gesserit answer to robert baratheon right it's like how do we fix what went wrong when robert baratheon became king how do we create a child that is exactly the opposite of that well you take a kid that might have a drop of dragon blood in him and you train him up to be that you train him to be a king john

connington thinks oh my king wouldn't have been in a brothel like robert what kind of king is that well here you go here's the answer to that kind of king and this is pretty one one to how dunk lived or dunk and egg lived right like egg under dunks tutelage did a lot of these things now i wouldn't say that this agon has done quite as many of those things but you know it's interesting to compare and i really like raleigh duckfield is kind of an analog almost for like quentin fireball oh right if we go to the night of the seven kingdoms and we want to keep going with egg you know he's his father had been an armor at bitter bridge he has a shock of orange hair is what we know about raleigh duck field and to me that's very fireball coded fireball was supposed to be put on agan the fourth's king's guard which never happened because then he died and then he was refused a spot on darren

two's king's guard and they wouldn't say why and probably because Darren 2 was like anyone Aegon IV was gonna put on the Kingsguard I don't know about all that he did a bad thing that one time at his deathbed so because of that though like that pushes him to Daemon Blackfyre's side which is where we

meet him in the story and you know Raleigh Duckfield has that story about why he's like a half maester and has run off in tyrian's chapters we learn he beat the shit out of laurent caswell with a hammer and like just beat the fuck out of him broke his arm and shit or something uh over jealousy over a new sword that i think his dad got him so caswell might be in tarly's army or tyrell's army right we might have another clash between raleigh duckfield and him oh interesting interesting i haven't considered that i i

don't know much about like i haven't thought much about raleigh duckfield other than you know as you said duck and egg and uh i think about him every day really i don't know what to think about him but i think there's i don't know i think about like the secret identities of that group every single day of my life i feel like okay i want to know but i also know it's all like b or c listers that we're gonna be like what you know what i mean like these are like d listers what am i saying like i feel like everybody wants to place these characters as like secretly secret hiding lords or some shit you know lamor as a shardane kill me um but i'm like if you say that to me seriously i will shake my head and walk away uh but i think like it's gonna be like d-list cast instead right like people you don't know because it's all kind of not a joke i'm not saying the plot shouldn't

exist at all i think it's beautifully worked in but it's supposed to be it's it's a you know it's a puppet we're following this is the dragon on the clothes clothes poles right like this is the mummer's dragon it's a mummery it's a story it's a farce it's not real and i love what you're saying actually it is about d listers because um as we saw in what the sworn sword that's who that's who hitched on to daemon's thing they're like well we're not very powerful but we could be if we backed this dragon and we won yeah so i think there's something there for sure there's also something else you said regarding like it's interesting what you're saying about like they're him being the bene gesserit, kind of molded, this is what we think a perfect king is like.

Because there's aspects of it that feel actually a little like Daenerys, right? Knows what it's like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Do I really feel like this Aegon has lived through that? Unsure. But a lot of the other molds of what they've built him around were... We just patterned him after Rhaegar. They're just like, Rhaegar was loved, let's just, like, fucking copy that. And make him that. And then also something you were saying, like, you know, he would never be hid behind, like, in a brothel. Rhaegar would never do that, but Robert would.

And, like, as you said, John Connington asked, what kind of king is that? And I'm like, well, the fucking, the kind of king who fucking wins a war. That's what kind of king does that. Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought valiantly, and Rhaegar died. Yeah. So anyway.

Well, Aegon joins John in his solar. And when he arrives, we get to close out the chapter on the following passage. Lord Coddington, I like your castle. and when he arrives, we get to close out the chapter on the following passage. as do i your grace please be seated sir raleigh will have no further need of you for now no i want duck to stay the prince sat we've been talking with strickland and flowers they told us about this attack on storm's end that you're planning show. And did homeless Harry try to persuade you to delay it? He did, actually. But I won't. Harry's an old maid, isn't he? You have the right of it, my lord. I want the attack to go ahead.

With one change, I mean to lead it. And that is the end of The Griffin Reborn. Jaunty and Agen, yeah, right? Ella Mayhem. It could be. That's, that's, yeah.

Wow. Strong end. Yeah. Strong end or Storm's end. I'm just going to talk about how much I love John Connington's chapters and character again. Sorry. He's just got this great dichotomy to him, right? I'm just gonna talk about how much I love John Connington's chapters and character again, sorry he's just got this great dichotomy to him, right

because I think the chapter opens with this ruthlessness and it's actually very detached the way they describe the attack on Griffin's Ruth, there's no emotion no glory at all there's not really like even bloodshed described, even though people obviously

died, right? But it's told in this very business-like tone that says we did this and this and this, all of it. It's just numbers. There's no humanity to it whatsoever. And then we swerve so hard right after that in this chapter into his feelings about Griffin's Roost, the shame that he feels in losing it, the shame of trying too hard because he loved Rhaegar and his memories of Rhaegar here and you can really see like Jon is pulled between between being both an efficient leader and knight like I bet he was actually a pretty good hand I bet he was great at it and then you have the romantic in him who loves the songs and by trying to win Westeros for Aegon he gets to have a

singular purpose that marries the two sides of him of efficient leader and knight no emotion and then the emotional like chivalric romance of everything and he has the efficiency it takes to lead a campaign to take a kingdom and also the deep-seated faith the passionate drive to do so for love and i don't know what should be a conflict of the heart. Instead, like it comes together, this emotionless part with a deeply emotional cause, and it's only going to get more accelerated by the grace scale. And of course, it's all going to come crashing down, which is part of why it's fun. Yeah, with what Agen said that Harry's an old maid, isn't he? You have the right of it my lord instantly i take back everything i said about harry in this chapter because harry probably has the right of it right like the same reason

doran has been taking his time the hesitancy to attack the bloodshed that's to come the deaths that are going to take place without having the dragons on your side i feel like it's all leading to you may be able to take westeros unawares right now because Westeros' protectors are gone but what happens when the dragons come, the real dragons it's uh

what happens when the real dragon comes and that's when it goes scorched earth literally for that and I think that's the saddest part is right here like he said harry's an old mate isn't he oh no oh no you're all gonna die screaming holy shit yeah they really could have won it all though if they waited for denarius yeah waiting's hard though as we know and as you know too since you're not going to get a POV episode until we come back with

epilogues at the end of the summer I thought you meant me but you meant the audience they have to wait so long but you know we will be back during this summer vacation to talk about House of the Dragon, to talk about some other dragons

right, black and red, red and black a dragon's still a dragon. For sure. And there will be probably like 14 to 16 of them on screen this summer on HBO. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. HBO's House of the Dragon.

If you love us talking about Targaryen civil wars, have I got these for you. Yeah. Also, though, when we do resume the POVs, we have been time traveling, so it's been a little hard to get, you know, some emails in here. You have months.

You have months to send us your thoughts on the epilogues. And you don't even have to wait for, like, the Storm of Swords epilogue to send us something about the dance epilogue because they're separate chapters. Yeah. Send us whatever you want to talk about with the epilogues or let us know what you're looking forward to with the last three POVs to come. Yeah. The last three published POVs. I'm not going to say them because I don't want to give anyone some sort of credence to like, is it this one? Is it this one?

How are you going to do them? You guys got to guess and you got to wait and you got to find out. But we will get to those last three characters which all three of them are blondes believe it or not I don't know how we did that but we're getting there we look forward to a strong House of the Dragon season 2 with you all

house of the dragon tune in for Unleash the D as well episodes moving forward after Bitter Blooms next week will be on wednesdays so you won't see anything on friday in your feed and uh eliana where can they send all those emails or messages or just chat with us at yeah you can send all of those especially again we won't be as time traveling as much on social media at twitter.com slash girls gone canon that's c-a-n-o-n or you can send us an email

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more on the epilogues of A Song of Ice and Fire. Until then, enjoy Unleashed Adi. Enjoy House of the Dragon Season 2. I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana.

See you later. Goodbye. You're gonna see us after a long time. We're gonna be different. We're gonna be the Girls Reborn. Oh my god, the girls reborn. I can't wait. Goodbye. Goodbye.