Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 23 - ACOK Sansa Stark Intro/I

Episode Date: October 19, 2018

 Thrust into a magical world where the line between truths and lies blurs more often than not, Sansa Stark finds herself battling for survival, hidden beneath a veil of her courtesy. intro by Anton Langhage 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 http://turtle-paced.tumblr.com/post/155894039887/sansa-smart- Sansa, Smart by Turtle-Paced

Hello and welcome to another episode of Girls Gone Canon, episode 23, Sansa, A Clash of Kings introduction, and Sansa 1, A Clash of Kings. I am one of your hosts. My name is Chloe. You may find me on the internet as at Liza Narber on Twitter and on Tumblr. And I am the other one of your hosts, Eliana. You can find me as Glass Table Girl

on the Mesa Monthly podcast or the Song of Ice and Fire subreddit or even as Arithmetric over on the Twitters. Hey. Hey. We got to Clash of Kings. We did it. We finally-

Oh my gosh. This is our first chapter in Clash at all. Honestly, a lot of people I know don't love Clash, and I love Clash. I think Clash is amazing because it's like just like Feast, like you're picking up all these pieces that just burst into air, you know? I mean, I love all the books, of course,

that's why I do a weekly podcast as well as the other ones, but I am one of those people for whom Clash is my least favorite book. Get out of this relationship. I'm sorry. I'm tired. I love Clash, dude.

We're breaking up. It's fine. You can love Clash. It has Blackwater in it. I just, I feel like the Blackwater doesn't have as much impact for me as it does for other people. I don't know. It has everything you could want. It's got like Wildfire. It's got Sandor.

It's got Tyrion. It's got Sansa. It's got, I mean, I guess. Okay, no one wants Tyrion. Let's be real. It has Davos. It has Davos. Like, it has explosions. it has singing and ladies and

sansa mostly it has sansa you make it sound like a transformers movie it's got explosions blackwater as a transformers movie go uh pacific rim oh my god yeah that's literally it that's the story pacific rim amazing award- Amazing. Actually my top five movies. It's not a joke. Like listeners. Pacific Rim is in fact one of my top five movies. We should do a cast about Pacific Rim anyways. Oh my god.

But not the second movie. Not the second movie. Betrayal. We did get a couple good emails and a couple good tweets that we want to talk about. Some insights from some fellow A Song of Ice and Fire enthusiasts. I'm just going to start calling myself that

in A Song of Ice and Fire enthusiasts. Enthusiasts. We did get an email from one of our fans, Warren Dudson, on Twitter. And he said, As for next week, it's Clash of Kings time, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on something

I've discussed with Chloe before. Hey, that's me. The knight... That's me. The knight who appears at Joffrey's name day tourney. Who the hell is he? His sigil's described in great detail. I do believe George intended more for him than changed his mind. Oh yeah, definitely. One notion

I'd put forward, no evidence, just my hunch, is maybe George considered him to have a two-in or supersede Sansa's rescue a la Dantos. I'm really keen to hear your takes on this. Well, Warren, we definitely did discuss this, you and I,

and we actually have something to talk about with that a little later on so guests stay tuned till after the jump i do want to react with the same way that warren's like who the hell is he that's also how i feel i'm like you know that picture of the pigeon on the red carpet who is she that's me that's how i feel about this man all right and next we also got a tweet from another lovely ass off enthusiast james b aka at coley on twitter spelled c-o-a-l-i-e-e and james says is it fair to say that cersei's red Keep assault on the Stark household is a sort of precursor to the Red Wedding?

Both incidents are planned by Lannisters, done in a place of relative safety, and chose to mostly murder everyone versus taking prisoners. I like that insight. I didn't even, like, think about that

for a minute, but the Lannisters are the Lannisters we know, right? Cersei thinks she has to live up to Tywin's legacy. And it also sets a precedent that Cersei and the Lannisters are more than willing to murder to cover things up, right? Like a la the sack. Yeah. And I mean, Cersei's still growing up in like a post Res of castamere Tywin world of course and I mean it makes sense it's such a perfectly encapsulated idea of like this is

what the Lannisters learned as they were growing up some people learned to make muffins they learned to murder can you imagine Tywin making muffins no I mean what would he eat do you think flavor wise They learned to murder. Can you imagine Tywin making muffins? No. I mean. What would he eat, do you think, flavor-wise?

I've never thought. Blueberry? I don't know. No, no, no, no. Yeah, poppy seed or. Like something really plain. Yeah. I feel like poppy seed would obviously be Sansa with her lemon poppy seed. Oh, I love her and tywin

would be like i don't know like a plain plain muffin tywin lannister a plain muffin the lion does not concern itself with the opinions of muffins and we did after last week which i don't care whatsoever but i did you know put up a little bit of a stink because of our one star review that I don't care about. We did get a really nice review from a few people, but we're saving some of those for later. We have literal plans for them. And we got a review from our good friend Pat Spanagle, the Patman 23 on iTunes, and he said, Title, I should be shamed for not writing a review earlier. Five stars.

It is inexcusable that I did not review this podcast within the first week it aired, since its greatness was manifest at that time. Oh, Pat. Brilliant Chloe and Luminous Eliana are doing a read-through of A Song of Ice and Fire, not in the usual boring way, but are eschewing the constraints of strict chronology and are focusing on the characters in the series, delightfully taking us through a selected character's journey through the narrative

before resetting and following another. The character focus gets to the heart of the story in a refreshing way. Please, if you are jaded with a song of ice and fire read-throughs, consider listening to Girls Gone Canon and their unique approach. Seven above! You might even learn about Poetic Meter and will discover a newfound love for the paragon that is strong

and bell-woss. Aw, true. Aw, Pat, thank you. That was very kind. Of course. Thank you so much pat and he makes us sound so shiny brilliant chloe and luminous eliana like we're just emanating light yeah i was kind of wondering what's going on there i kind of like it though i like it a lot makes us sound like stars like but not like like not like celebrity stars but like literally a hot ball of gas just emanating light that's what i feel like i

mean are you not and that brings us of course to sansa stark and that that isn't what brought us to sansa stark we're just here now all right talking about sansa stark's a clash of kings storyline so here's an introduction to that. Sansa Stark in A Clash of Kings. We just finished A Game of Thrones and very little time passes between A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Sansa goes from being a princess with a golden prince and everything she wants in A Game of Thrones to watching her dreams die when her father's head topples down the steps of the Sept of Baelor. Last chapter was kind of a transitional chapter between the two, but truly this is the beginning of the songs being

over for Sansa in A Clash of Kings. It's the real world, right? Like she's all alone in the real world now. Yeah, but like Chloe, like what actually happens in this book? I don't know what mentorship in this book. So we get the Hound as a mentor in her life, whether it's pity he feels for her or her inherent childlike kindness and courtesy that she extends to him in a Game of Thrones. He begins to creepily protect her while also being like a scary drunk brute, right? And pretty creepy throughout the book.

And I love him, so I can say these things about him. You know, it's like he's mine. He's my child. So I'm allowed to say this about him. But he does something that we see reflect heavily, especially in this upcoming first chapter. He teaches her about how the world is harsh and that she needs to lie her ass off better and harder to survive. Another mentor that we move into a role with is Cersei in this book. If Game of Thrones was focused on Sansa's disenchantment in her rose-colored world, painted cherry with a perfect prince and queen on top, Clash of Kings is the illusion fully faded and waking up with a hangover.

Faded. Get it? Because she drinks a lot of wine. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They both do. Yeah. Cersei's the embodiment of that in sansa's plot in this book especially sansa spends the whole first book thinking that cersei's the perfect queen the perfect role model and the second book brings us the perfect queen is drunk and mean and cruel and scheming and she's not virtuous and everything is just so broken and

fucked up for sansa right now i feel so bad for her. Cersei being her mentor and even Sandor Clegane versus last book with her real mentor was Septa Mordain, right? Oh, that's kind of a weak mentor to have for a whole book. And I mean, Septa Mordain just got like drunk and fell asleep and told Sansa her sister was wild and bad and that Sansa needs to act better and she was like your dog's bad so like is everyone drunk in like Sansa's storyline like Sandra's always not always but

Sandra gets drunk Cersei yeah Cersei's drunk a lot everybody's drunk everybody's really drunk around Sansa all the time and she's like is this is this adulthood yes it is it is said eliana drinking bourbon cersei is dropping some really harsh truths throughout this book on sansa right she's like look you are not really worth much because you're a woman and you need to grow some titties

or it's going to be like off with your head and sansa's like is this the real life oh shit and of course sandor's all like, my family died. I'm confused. I think I have a crush on a prepubescent girl. And I want to protect her because I'm like a psycho murder dog for the bad guys. And my coat is starting to break. And I've had a hard life. So it's really interesting to place her in the middle of these killers in this book.

And she has to fend for herself, thrown to the lions. these like killers in this book, and she has to fend for herself, thrown to the lions. Storm to Feast is very much her having the Tyrells and then Littlefinger as her mentor, and in a way, even a character we meet in this first chapter. In the meantime, I do also want to mention something that I'm going to link below for everyone. It's a classic and a favorite. It's an essay by Turtle Paste on Tumblr. If you haven't read it, you're missing out. And it's about Sansa's intelligence. It's called Sansa Smart. Turtle Paste actually outlines it really well. There's no point going over all of it. But the way that we as readers absorb these books, it is easy to overlook certain details that prove Sansa's

intelligence to us, right? We see a lot of that in this first chapter, so we'll be sure to point that out through the cast, and we'll let you read Turtle Paste's essay for yourself and make your own decisions. But you do listen to us, so I mean, you're going to hear the right opinions, no matter what. You're going to hear opinions. The right opinions.

Yeah, that's true. But what if we have opposite opinions no they're just right okay well they'll be just like worry about that they will be good opinions for sure though oh yeah they'll be correct opinions and because you know we have good opinions and are therefore not ugly or bad okay anyway so another uh thing to think about as we go through a clash of kings um you know since we're here uh we get two sides of king's landing through sansa's storyline of course but also through tyrians and like it's shown a couple of times in this upcoming chapter it's right there at the beginning

can't miss it what happens in the small council is very much removed from the reader like sansa has to find out what's happening through like third hand accounts but by having tyrian's pov which is tyrian coming to king's landing happens in this chapter it gives us insight into what's happening amongst like those political players who are invested in the actual game and that's one perspective of king's landing but we also get it through sansa storyline and you know the inner politics of the core uh the inner politics of like the small council and those players affects the rest of the court affects how things are in king's landing and sansa storyline is also about how like things that are happening in the rest of the realm affect people at court like what sort of information what we get and that comes through

sansa's own observations and her analysis of them yeah we spend a lot of time in sansa's head in her chapters so these kind of things through her head really give you a semblance of what her character is like. Last book, we didn't get her voice or her point of view until a little bit into the book, right? Like a quarter of the way in. And this book, we actually get it front and center. We got it after only two chapters, which is really showing us we're taking Sansa from like, chapters, which is really showing us we're taking Sansa from like, pawn to player.

We're taking her from, you know, in the sidelines to front and center. She is a leading chapter. She is an important POV to have in this story. Absolutely. And so that brings us to our lightning round so that we can get to the sansa chapter it's very short and speaking of lightning speaking of lightning in the prologue a comet appears like blood streaked against the sky that's blue as the eyes of death and the new king will actually like a bazillion kings emerge maester crescent who is a hashtag

good man has looked after and advised the baratheon since they were young boys but he finds himself incapable of advising both renly and stannis as kings and he's unable to assimilate into stannis's newfound comfort in the red god attempting to save the realm from the flames he slips poison into the goblet of stannis's new companion the red priestess melisandre of asshai but the flames show melisandre all and the fires protect her as we all watch piteously while maester crescent's throat closes up and his life force spills out of him that was really dramatic it was dramatic this entire story is dramatic i think we really fed that one you know like you really brought that one home i really brought that one to life or or death yeah crescent i mean because the night's dark and full of terrors

in aria one traveling toward home aria's disguised as a boy about to take the black among thieves and rapists an orphan named hot pie attempts to steal needle from her but she beats him until he's bloody earning a punishment quote-unquote from yoren, where he takes her aside and tells her that her father was supposed to have been mercifully sent to the wall and something went wrong. And that brings us to Sansa Stark, A Clash of Kings 1. It's Joffrey's name, the attorney. Go, go, go shorty. It's your birthday. We got a party like it's attorney. We're your birthday. We gonna party like it's a tourney.

We're gonna sip a cardi like it's a tourney. You know, we don't give a fuck. It's Joffrey's birthday. This party sucks. Yes. I love that song. This party sucks, though, and Joffrey hates it. Everybody's bad at jousting, especially that drunk knight over there, Sir Dantos.

And Joffrey Sentences Dantos to death By drowning in wine But Sansa saves That's adulthood. But Sansa saves The knight's life, turning him into a fool Then another Lannister shows up and three out of four

Lannisters in this chapter are pleased About it. But the Are all still lions and Sansa will never trust them again so good so good so we open a joffrey's name day and it's bright and it's windy and there's this like very visible streak in the sky that is a comet sir aries okart who we have talked about and met previously before in arianne chapters comes to bring sansa to the tourney she asks him what he thinks it means and he tells her like this bullshit line that the small folk have named it joffrey's comet and it means glory to him he'll triumph over his enemies

doubtless that was what they told joffrey sansa was not sure. The servants call it the dragon's tail, she remarks. King Joffrey sits where Aegon the dragon once sat, in the castle built by his son, Ser Aerys said. He is the dragon's heir, and crimson is the color of House Lannister, another sign. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey's ascent to the throne, I have no doubt. It means he will triumph over his enemies. sent to the throne i have no doubt it means he will triumph over his enemies okay is he a cancer do you think is that what that is or a virgo like i don't anyways wait are you zocard i don't know maybe i don't think i know that would explain why i have like some affection for him because my best friend's a cancer my partner's a cancer so i actually don't really know i didn't know that i just kind of like said it because it made me laugh because

it made me think of how he's like and the comet's red like house lannister which is a sign what i don't know what it's a sign for like this is this is some flawed ass logic though aries to get it to like mean joffrey i i also though think there is a logic here and it fits a lot for something right it just doesn't fit for joffrey like this idea of a dragon's tail and if it's like heralding something like a dragon's air as he says and crimson, sure, color of House Anister, but also color of maybe like House Targaryen. I don't know. What if it means that and not Joffrey? Oh, here's another one. What if it means, you know, Ned and Azshara's son, Aegon?

Oh my god. Leave me alone. I'll go. I can't. I can't leave you alone. You can't. You can't. You can't. Take that alone. I'll go. I can't. I can't leave you alone. You can't. You can't. You can't take that back. You know you don't need that.

Nope. It's Ned Nashara's son, Aegon. Who was switched at birth. Oh my gosh. With Jon Snow. The other Aegon. After we did all of these Ned chapters together, and this is truly you have the traitor's blood

chloe eliana would never make that mistake again sansa wonders how the gods could be so cruel same dealing with this her entire family is now joffrey's enemies. She wonders if, like, what, Joffrey's gonna actually come for her mother and her brother too. And, you know what, the gods are indeed cruel. And Joffrey doesn't kill them, but I guess Lannister plans to because you all know this. We've all read these books before.

Holy shit, they made books of this show? Yeah, they're based on the show. Dude, I love that Game of Thrones show. it's so cool they made the books why are we like this today the comet was red but joffrey was baratheon as much as lannister and their sigil was a black stag on a golden field shouldn't the gods have sent joff a golden comet that's so smart i'm so proud of her she is and also a golden comet would have been pretty cool to look at yeah i mean not if it's joffrey though that's true but he's not a brat then

ari's compliment sansa on how lovely she looks she took extra special measurements to look perfect she's wearing a moonstone hairnet that Joffrey gifted her and pale purple silk with sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms that she says were a gift from Joffrey as well. Yeah, it's of course a sign she's wearing pale purple silk, which is very expensive fabric, not cheap, not something that she would have come by, you know, very easily in the north. So it's kind of an important dress she's putting on her finest again here. When Joffrey heard Robb was proclaimed king in the north, he ordered Boros Blount to beat Sansa.

And this chapter kind of shoves it under the carpet and like sidles by it, just like when we talked about Maester Pycelle last episode. But it's a big reminder, like this isn't just a scene in the show where Sandor and Tyrion show up and save her that time. She almost gets beat like, or keeps getting beat. Like it's every day for her. This is everyday life.

Like she thinks how every single one of these King guard has pretty much hit her. Like this is, this is every day. Yeah. Like speaking of every single one of those king guard has pretty much hit her. Like, this is every day. Yeah. Like, speaking of every single one of those king's guard hitting her, like, so Ares escorts Sansa to the tourney, and she thinks that she prefers him over the others,

because Boros apparently is short-tempered, which, I don't know. And as you all know, Meryn Trant is very cold, especially when it comes to hitting her and mandan moore has strange dead eyes yeah it's weird same uh and sir preston treats her like an idiot but at least aries preston existing yeah he comes up again i guess in this chapter but i was like oh yeah that's a person he was a again, I guess, in this chapter, but I was like, oh yeah, that's a person. He was a Kingsguard, I guess. Yeah, and yeah,

at least Ares is always courteous towards Sansa. And he, like, even objects to meeting her at Joffrey's command once. Yeah, he still hit her, but not as hard as the rest. Sansa thinks, like, hey, at least he argued, at least he tried.

You know, none of the other ones ever did that. And the others always obey Joffrey, no questions asked. But Joffrey has never asked the Hound to punish her. So that kind of begs the question, would Sandor have broken earlier if Joffrey had asked him to beat Sansa, do you think? I think Joffrey also like knew better than to ask him to hit her. A man has to have a code, and to have the most ferociously drunk, badass fighter on your side, you know he won't do certain things, like be a knight or hit your girlfriend. Yeah, and along with what you said, I think that there's something else going on here. It's a little bit of what you say, but we're going to come back to it later in this chapter.

Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. Sansa good. Get it? No. Nope. I'm leaving. Sansa thinks that Ares looks very dashing in his outfit.

Ares is wearing his white Kingsguard cloak fashioned with a golden leaf. Yeah, this is different from the rest of the Kingsguard. It really stands out, especially after we just heard that he kind of put up a fight when trying to hurt Sansa, while the other Kingsguard members that we've seen have all had lion clasps on their cloaks, right? Like Meryn and Boros. Aerys has an oak tree that's worked into his tunic with gold thread. Sansa asks who he thinks is going to win the tourney, right? And he is like, I am, duh, like cocky.

But he says it's not going to be a worthy triumph because there's actually no more than 40 people that are entering the lists. And that's including squires and free riders. So it's kind of, kind of a load point for him in this tourney he finds no honor in unhorsing young fresh boys which is funny because he's pretty young and fresh yep arianne thinks he's fresh um yeah absolutely i was thinking that arianne thinks he's so young and fresh and he's over here going i'm not gonna unhorse young fresh boys you are a young fresh boy stop you so fresh uh and i mean ari still ultimately gives in and he does again as we discussed that dishonorable thing of hitting sanza but we can see a bit of setup for that night

that we saw in arian's chapters who were like who's like super wracked with guilt because he slept with her and in some ways i think that ari's is kind of like who's like super wracked with guilt because he slept with her and in some ways I think that Ares is kind of like Barristan Selmy right he like has that code he still ends up not fully living up to it entirely and staying with a shitty regime but like Barristan doesn't because he's like fired um but they go along with some of the shitty things that's happening Ares is a little more complicit because he does hit sansa um riz baristan's more of just like a standing aside like i guess we're killing kids now uh but it's because aries does still value that idea of honor and chivalry that he's so torn up about sleeping with arianne and it's also interesting you know that the the

chapters we see him in are sansa's and Arianne's chapters we did before this since you know we like compared them and stuff Sansa really compares this tourney to the majesty of the hands tourney but it's so different high lords and champions littered the city during that tourney and everybody like even the small folk came out to watch the events. She thinks on how splendid it was. She thinks on the silk pavilions, on night shields, on sunlight, on steel, and feasts and songs. But those days are all over. The king's dead, her dad's dead, beheaded on a holy ground, and war is now raging past the Trident. She thinks that it's no surprise they're holding the tournament within the walls of the keep.

The tourney of the hand was straight out of the songs, but now life's not a song and they're at war. Sansa asks if Cersei's going to be attending the tourney because, to quote, Sansa always felt safer when Cersei was there to restrain her son. Which, like, damn. Except for that one time. Yeah, except for that one time. But, like, that says something. But she couldn't.

She doesn't like Cersei. She knows that Cersei can't restrain Joffrey fully. But to still take some solace in Cersei being there to hold Joffrey back a little, like... Yikes. That really talks about, like, the gravity of the situation and how bad it's become. Yeah. Apparently Cersei's not there because there's a small council meeting which is urgent business because uh and we get we get a little snippet of some current affairs that we didn't know i i don't think we

knew right at the end of game no we didn't know this uh this is and this goes with the gap that you talk about that you know tyrian has to fill that gap of having that point of view in King's Landing because we don't get everything from Sansa. Sansa doesn't see everything. This is the first she's hearing of this. She is kept very much in the dark in her tower. Exactly. And so we learn a little bit of things that are going on.

And it's that Lord Tywin has gone to ground the terran hall instead of bringing his army to the city as the queen commanded and i love this like a little tidbit here that aries added because apparently aries is a huge gossip queen sansa not huge but she calls him a gossip so he's probably a huge gossip anyways he goes her grace is furious can you imagine what a cutie he is because he's just so lonely and he's like, yeah, I'll talk to this little 12-year-old girl. Whatever. She's probably really sad. So I imagine him like Jason Mendoza.

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. You're in King's Landing 2? Oh, my God. He is Jason Mendoza, though. Think about it. Hot and stupid. Hot, stupid, does like bad things, which is, you know.

We're not going gonna spoil the entire like yeah we can't spoil the premise of the show but anyways no watch the good place it's really good it's really good there aren't really a lot of people at this tourney most of them are already in the employ of house lannister or their lords and ladies seeking to buy favor from them. So you've got a pretty like C-list lineup. Okay. You got Lord Giles Rosby, who's just like coughing and dying. He, he has no immediate heir, you know, like he's had two wives and like no kids. Uh, Lady Tanda, Lawless and Felice, the Stokeworth family. Giles and the Stokeworths actually are some of those vague background Crownland characters that we get that come into their own kind of

throughout the series as supporting characters. But it's really interesting because even in like the world of Ice and Fire, me and Dopjon from Twitter were just discussing, we don't get a lot of real Crownlands insight or characters. For a region that should be so rich with history because, you know, the Crown resides there, we don't get a lot of it besides the defiance of duskendale which we'll talk about here in a bit uh lady tanda is actually guile's rosby's second wife's aunt weirdly enough so they're all kind of related over there in the crown lands uh not a lot of leadership besides you know the crown being there we also

meet jalabar joe who if you remember from the first book at the first tourney jane was kind of frightened of because you know she's from the north and she's very sheltered it's our first exiled prince echo in this story right uh in this chapter i mean this reminds me a little bit of when we used to talk about robert as a sellsword exiled kind of plot in ned's chapters where robert kind of you know interestingly enough said like oh like i would go to the free cities and i would fucking fight forever uh and we also see some exiled princes in viserys and, of course, in Aegon eventually, too. Lady Irma Sonda, the heir to House Hayford, is also there, but she's like a babby.

She's literally like an infant. How is a babby formed? Babby form. And this is another one of those background Crown Leons characters in houses. The Lannisters marry her off to Tyrek Lannisters so they can increase their monopoly on the market in this book, which, of course, is a very Lannister thing. Get Tyrek'd! Oh my god.

Sorry, I can't resist every time. I just, I'm trying to make it a thing, you know? I understand, I understand. Thank you, thank you. Joffrey's sitting. He's at the tourney. He's on a fancy chair and he's lounging with Myrcelle and Tommen behind him. And the Hound is here too.

He's also wearing a white cloak now. Also. It apparently looks kind of funny on him. Yeah, especially with his like woolen model. Like he's not wearing a fancy Kingsguard armor. He's just like wearing done. Brown done. Yeah, he's like mixing his fabrics up in armor. He's just like wearing done brown done. Yeah.

He's like mixing his fabrics up in a way that like just doesn't work. It's, it's sweet. He's trying. He's trying. He's just like, what I think what is cute is that he's not trying. He's like,

whatever I wear this now, I guess. It's like wearing Converse to prom. Yeah. What is it with people like shitting on Converse's lately? I'm a Converse. Well, I mean,

I'm just saying it's, it's literally a thing. Like I i will on the homecoming one year it's not edgy settle down you know yeah okay joffrey is again lounging and him resting easy i think shows a little bit of how unworthy he is of being king especially when like you know the first philosophy was all about how a king should never rest so easy and that's why his chair is like a lot right i mean also like all the weapons of his enemies and shit but i'm going to sit on the weapons of my enemies and toast their tears nice the hound of course greets sanza when she walks up and tommen is super super excited to see her he's so cute bless him and he is all like i'm gonna ride today sansa he reminds her of bran and sansa thinks on how she misses her brother a lot which i love that line it's tommen was all of

eight he reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe. Sansa would have given anything to be with him. Aww. My baby. It hurt. I hurt.

It's a good reminder, though. Like, because we keep thinking, like, aw, Tommen, he's so cute and small. And then, like, brand's pov is super like oh dark so many things yeah but it's a good reminder of like on the outside this is who brand is like this is who how brand acts like despite all that interiority he's an eight-year-old kid i mean think it makes you think of him again like that. You think of them in the gods would praying for him with Ned or Arya and Ned and like thinking about like, well, Bran get to be a knight someday. And it wasn't always him in a cave eating his best friend, you know, like, yeah, it wasn't always that. Yeah. And I think they're right.

Bran and Tommen would have gotten along really well. Absolutely. right, Bran and Tommen would have gotten along really well. Absolutely. Imagine if they had been allowed as a family to interact and not have this weird rivalry between all the boys. It's kind of sad. I could see them all

getting along really well. Yeah, if Joffrey's just not there and then we have this AU where Bran and Tommen are being BFFs and it's the cutest. Yeah, and like Jaime didn't throw Bran out of a window. Yeah. And Cersei's not fucking her brother. Yeah. And Robert's not, like,

a drunken lecher. A very, very AU. Yeah, so, I mean, like, if you changed the entire story, all of it. And we just had two nice little boys. You know, we could just write a new story. It's called Stranger Things now. Oh my god. They're too old. They're too old it's the sandlot i love that movie okay sansa though she does take

tommen seriously despite how adorable he is about this and she doesn't treat him like a little boy saying that she worries about him riding and i'm gonna just throw this out there i think sansa being mindful to not infantilize or like treat Tom and like a little boy and taking him seriously is because she thinks about how everyone's been treating her as dumb or like a little girl and stupid. Yeah. And I think it's interesting to look at how it happens here and where she goes when she goes to the veil and how patient she has to be with Robert Aaron.

Especially in comparison to her with her own brothers, right? It's a very interesting difference of how she interacts with these people. And she also kind of gives, like later on in this chapter, a bit of like a maternal, you know, sister-in-law-ly talk with Tommen.

And it's interesting. It's just very sweet. And it's nice to get to see her just be a kid. Yeah. Yeah. So unlike Sansa, Joffrey's being, like, a huge butt. He's all like, the foe is made of straw. And you have Joffrey over here, though. He's, like, super decked out and super intense armor.

Like, he's going to war right away, and he's not fighting anyone, which kind of shows how immature Joffrey is. Yeah, war is not a game, and he's choosing his armor like a fashion statement this is his 13th name day and sansa notices how much he looks like the lannisters it's interesting that she really often strays really close to the truth of his parentage accidentally her observational skills are amazing and while that of course could be akin to her as a camera for us for the reader it's also super telling of her characterization and what she as a character pays attention to and joffrey's also pleased that sansa's wearing this hairnet that he gave her and I don't know that George R. Martin knew yet that Sansa was going to be part of the plot to kill Joffrey because you know

hashtag gardening with this like amethyst hairnet maybe but it's an interesting setup if it is a thing yeah I I go back and forth about it at least it sets a precedent for like her wearing them and that it's a normal, like she would wear these regularly at court or at like events. Like these are, it's in fashion, it's in style. So it's something that like,

when we see it again, it kind of makes it a little, you know, ordinary. It's like, Oh yeah, it's just a hair net, whatever.

For sure. He gave her a really nice hair net, you know, Sansa is really relieved that Joffrey decided to play gallant today. He was being very, you know, Joffrey-esque only. I don't know, whatever. He reveals news has finally reached King's Landing that Viserys is dead. So, of course, that makes him all joyful because he gets off on being hateful.

He says some asshole things about Rob. It's almost as good as if some wolf had killed your traitor brother maybe i'll feed him to the wolves after i caught him did i tell you i intend to challenge him to single combat sans is all like i would really like to see that and this together with that earlier line about joffrey taking sans's mother and brother like you know, how he would take them away too. And would the gods be so cruel? I wonder if this is some 1993 letter shit, because what if the gods were that cruel?

Like, yes, we know that Rob was more experienced and a better fighter than Joffrey, but in the 1993 letter, they had Joffrey fighting Rob and, like, chopping his hand off. I don't know but anyway so Sansa says to Joffrey that she would like to see that and she internally thinks like more than you know and then Joffrey basically is that picture of Fry from Futurama you know the meme where like his eyes are all squinting he's like can't tell if mocking or serious. Something interesting there too is in just a couple pages, Tyrion does similarly, right?

He says something that's intended, like double meaning, something clever to hurt the king. And Sansa listens intently to see if Joffrey catches Tyrion mocking him. And she's kind of gauging with, you know, like what she can get away with and what Tyrion can get away with. She's kind of learning where that threshold is. And Turtle Peace brings this up. The fact that George like wrote both of these incidents in one chapter shows that Sansa being able to get one over on Joffrey like that is not a fluke. Sansa being able to get one over on Joffrey like that is not a fluke. No, absolutely.

I mean, she is keeping up with Tyrion, and if Tyrion is so clever, like everyone thinks, I mean... Yeah, and cleverness. Joffrey, however, is not allowed to join the list, even though it's his name day attorney according to circe and since you know we are thinking about the arc of a clash of kings i think that this act is something that we're going to see echoed towards the ends the end of sansa's chapters in this book like we see here how joffrey's like super eager to fight because he's like, oh, everyone's stupid. I'm in armor. I'm the best. But he's actually not ready for it. And he's forbidden from joining these green boys playing at war in the tourney, just as Cersei is again going to forbid him from taking further part in the Battle of the Blackwater. The Hound makes fun of Joffrey. And he's like, sure,

yeah, you'd probably win against these guys. Joff, of course, so badly wants to. And everyone is like, Joffrey, you're an idiot. I hope you didn't just notice that I just called you an idiot out loud. Oh, my God. Like, everybody hates him. It's great. It is.

It contrasts with what Aerys Oakheart said earlier about the green boys and poor. And it goes well with what Sandor says next that it's a tournament of gnats. Joffrey's like, I should have Sandor kill the champion. Sandor's like, what? Everyone's like, what? Why was this your idea?

It's like kids say really stupid shit and 13 year old boys say stupid shit, but then like, what's that? This is some next say stupid shit but then like what what's that this is some next next level stupid shit like what um and sans is just like joffrey was very fond of making men fight to the death what a winner especially like with wine barrels which is what i did last night i fought to the death it was a drop i don I don't know. I think the wine won. And so we're reminded by the text.

I don't know if we're like reassured this because I don't know. It's a new book. It's a new time. Joffrey's king. Everything's different. The town is like still not a knight. This chapter very much so does do a lot of stage setting,

right, for the book. It reminds you like, hey, and we're at the tourney and joffrey is a dick and he by the way he likes when people kill each other it's his thing and the hound's still here and he's still gruff and the kingsguard are still beating sansa and this is what's happening it's a lot of like here you are back in the books that you just read welcome back joffrey's holding sansa's hand and she thinks of how before that would have like made her super excited and now it's just repulsive we have a couple of people enter the yard and sir mirren trant comes in he sucks but his whore sounds pretty dope it's like a milk white charger with gray flowing hair. I want y'all to think about it.

The Redmine twins enter. Horse symbolism. Horse facts. The Redmine twins enter and we learn that they're actually also being held hostage the same way that Sansa is and she thinks it's kind of weird that

they've been forced into this journey because she knows that it's not their idea. Hobber loses his tilt and his brother, Horace, runs out to him. Also, sidebar reminds me of Ember and Umber. Anyways. In the Magicians? Just, like, the names. Oh, okay, okay.

You know, like, Horace and Hobber. Got it. And, of course, there's, like, blood and cheese. Oh, okay, okay. You know, like Horace and... Got it. Clobber. Got it. And of course, there's like blood and cheese and shit too, I guess, but... Next up, we have Bael and Swan versus Moros Lint. So, Sansa thinks, and Moros is, of course, he is the... Is he the son? He is the son.

Janos. He is Janos Lint's son. And Sansa thinks, I hope he falls and shames himself she thought bitterly i hope balin kills him when joffrey proclaimed her father's head it had been jano slint who seized lord eddard's severed head by the hair and raised it on high for king and crowd to behold while sansa wept and screamed j jano's son sucks he deserves everything yeah maybe um anyways honestly it kind of is interesting how similar sansa and aria in my opinion become in the sense like they fiercely wish for death for anyone who's wronged them and their family and

and even like those who kind of who are peripheral like Moros, but they're similar like that. Yeah, it's a really interesting character moment because Sansa, it's the first time she lets the hate truly flow through her for a second, right? She's feeling the dark side. She's like, I hope he dies like his dad killed my dad. But of course, it's a whole nother thing because Sansa also preaches of mercy. And, you know, she could be dead just like like her dad but she somehow survives and gets through it and like you know she's her dad's obviously not janelle slint thank god but uh though i mean this is like canon though right for sanza to become to let the dark side flow through her become darth sanza like that's what we saw at the end of season four of game of thrones

when she wears all black right that's what we saw at the end of season four of Game of Thrones, when she wears all black, right? That's what our podcast's about, isn't it? Yeah. Moros has no idea what he's doing, because his father isn't highborn, so he, like, just falls immediately in the tourney. Which is kind of weird, like, yeah, Janos

Lint sucks. We all hate Janos Lint. I don't think we're gonna stop doing that. But, I mean, Moros, I don't think we're gonna stop doing that but I mean Moros we don't know enough of him like he also kind of sucks and like maybe we don't know and

maybe just don't be born Moros maybe and I mean Sansa gets what she wishes to happen to him a little not entirely he doesn't die. But, like, even if Janos was the one who committed the shitty thing, do we know enough about Moros to be like, he's, like, that bad? I mean, like, yeah, he testifies against, falsely, against Tyrion. So we know he's lying.

But bear with me a second. Like, the reason that Moros, like, in my opinion, not in my opinion, like, he obviously gets owned so terribly. It's not because he's a shitty person and therefore a shitty fighter. It's because he's never gotten like that same education and that same training as knights like sir balan swan like he's completely out of his league here and he's he ends up getting dragged by a horse and bloodied and severely injured because like what he was too lowborn like that's kind of shitty like i don't yeah it's this mixture of like yes maybe it's the slint's family's hubris catching up to them in situations like this where they'll, you know, die.

But it's kind of weird. It's also like the sins of our father, that thematic arc of like, you know, why should you suffer for the sins of your father? And that's what a lot of our main characters do throughout the books, right? Look at John, look at Danny, look at Sansa suffering for the sins of her dad, which Ned did nothing wrong-ish. He did a couple things wrong, but... But nothing bad. Like, nothing ethically bad, really. Right.

And we don't know Moros. And I do think it has some strong parallels as well to Ser Hewitt of Vale dying in the tourney. parallels as well to sir he with a veil dying in the tourney and it's a whole different echo from the first tourney which was like this beautiful event in the second tourney which has become this sham of a tourney right this is just like totally a sham and she's just like shows up and she's like this is literally like this party is not lit and morose like gets his ass beat and she's like good i hope you freaking die like screw you screw your family we're the last one she was like there'll be no song sung about this handsome young knight like that's so sad now she's like good you don't get a song like screw you screw your dad like you don't have a dad you don't know yeah exactly and what you said about

Sansa being like this party is not lit and me think of, is the theme song for this chapter Alicia Cara's Here? Yes. Think about it. All right. I think it is. All right. Thank you for humoring me for that. You're welcome.

Morris gets super beat up and Sansa's horrified that the gods might have heard her prayer. And then so Horus goes up now. Horus, the twin brother of Hopper. And he does better against this elder knight with a sigil of silver griffins on a blue-white field. And again, who is she? So, Warren has mentioned before that he thinks it could have been a mystery knight. But it's really not a mystery knight. It's just some dude with that griffin as his sigil, right?

Which is a pretty prominent kind of sigil. He's literally a nobody, though. Maybe he's a random elder knight from the Crownlands that has, like, no backstory besides defiance or Targaryens, or, you know, like, maybe he's something like that, just someone from the Crownlands. I do think that there's some merit in what Warren said, that maybe it was seeds planted and

it just never ever got wound up going anything from there yeah that's that's definitely how it's written like i can see why it feels that way because i even i was just like well is this guy significant am i missing something joffrey starts to get bored, though, and that worries Sansa because when Joff's mood darkens, he becomes horrible, and that means he hurts Sansa. But then, you know,

the party starts to get a little bit better, because then my boy, my boy Lothar Brun, comes in, we talk about what he's wearing his plate is dented because you know he actually he actually does things and bless him bless my boy I mean it is interesting how he's written here because again this is totally a seed that George ended up planting and using there's no sigil no nothing you know it's just lother brun is just a free rider

he's supposed to go up and battle serdantos who shows up and he is just a mess not even a hot mess just a mess finally a chestnut stallion trotted into view in a swirl of crimson and scarlet silks but serdantos was not on it. The knight appeared a moment later, cursing and staggering, clad in breastplate and plumed helm and nothing else. His legs were pale and skinny, and as manhood flopped about obscenely as he chased after his horse,

the watchers roared and shouted insults. Mean. Catching his horse by the bridle, Sir Dantos tried to mount, but the animal would not stand still, and the knight was so drunk that his bare foot kept missing the stirrup. I think I've had some bad dreams about this.

Is this happening to you? Probably. This is what a nightmare is made of, right? It is. Like showing up to school, forgetting your clothes. Yeah. Oh, this is literally that.

Yeah. Except you're drunk and you can't get on your horse like then it really happens i keep talking about these background crownlands characters and stories and this is the only person left in king's landing from major crownlands plot nantos if you haven't figured or recalled is the only only survivor of House Hollard. His life was spared the defiance of Duskendale by none other than our favorite Sir Grandfather, Barristan Selmy, who just recently left the capital, right? So after the Lord of House Darklyn took Ares hostage and Barristan slayed some fucking Crownlands asshole to get in there and rescue Ares, he's all, Ares, can you spare this tiny, fat baby's life?

And that fat baby was Dantos, because, you know, innocence and save the children and themes and motifs. So Sansa, who of course names Barristan at the grounds of the Trident, and observed Barristan's dismissal just a chapter ago in heavy sympathy, pulls this one out of her pocket later on and

it's a very important moment and effect especially for her time in king's landing everyone's laughing though except for joffrey who has the same look in his eyes as the day when he sentenced ned to death dantos though is like fuck this i can't do this i'm gonna go back to drinking me yeah i know like the way that dantos handled this i was like hmm yeah sounds about right yeah big mood joffrey though is like you are gonna keep drinking to the death he it would have actually been cooler if he said it like that um anyways but he meets to drown dantos in a cask of wine it's interesting that all day sansa has been thinking about how he's getting testier right how joffrey's getting madder she's walking on eggshells and this is like where the payoff of that built-up anxiety goes it breaks

right here and we're just gonna we're just gonna read this passage because it's the best there's a lot of pressure but i'm ready are you ready yeah sansa heard herself gasp no you can't joffrey turned his head what did you say sansa could not believe she had spoken was she mad to tell him no in front of half the court she hadn't meant to say anything only sir dantos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm. Did you say I can't? Did you? Please, Sansa said. I only meant it would be ill luck, Your Grace, to kill a man on your name day. You're lying, Joffrey said. I ought to drown you with him if you care for him so much. I don't care for him, your grace, the words tumbled out desperately. Drown him or have

his head off. Only kill him on the morrow, if you like. But please, not today. Not on your name day. I couldn't bear for you to have ill luck. Terrible luck, even for kings, the singers all say so. Joffrey scowled. He knew she was lying. She could see it. He would make her bleed for this. The girl speaks truly, the hound rasped. What a man sows on his name day he reaps throughout the year. His voice was flat, as if he did not care a whit whether the king believed him or no. Could it be true? Sansa had not known, it was just something she'd said, desperate to avoid punishment. Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dantos. Take him away. I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool. He is, Sansa said. A fool. You're so clever to see it.

He's better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn't he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death. The king studied her a moment. Perhaps you're not so stupid as mother says. He raised his voice. Did you hear my lady, Dantos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with moon boy and dress in motley. Sir Dantos, sobered by his near brush with death, crawled to his knees. Thank you, your grace, and you, lady thank you dude i know the

feeling of just suddenly being sobered up by something like this podcast as we've been seeing that throughout uh this pod this this episode joffrey's not wrong sansa is not so stupid as joffrey says because she's demonstrating quick wittedness here. And it's just so fast that we don't even see or think on it. Like the way that this scene is written, the text is very deliberate. It's going straight into Sansa's dialogue rather than drawing the reader through that thought process of like, oh, how is she going to deal with this situation? Because that would slow down the scene and would actually make Sansa seem slower rather than her intuitively being able to respond. So the reader is left with that impression, right, that Sansa has an instinctual understanding of what people's motivations are. And both she and

the reader know that like Joffrey is self-absorbed enough that he's not going to turn down a compliment. He's not about to contradict himself. So Sansa takes Joffrey's words and she twists them. So that becomes Joffrey's own idea. and she like flatters him to make him more receptive to it and be like oh you're so smart and sansa also closes this by ascribing values to the different sorts of punishment like death isn't as bad as this prolonged punishment and rather than drown him quickly joffrey should draw it out for the rest of dantas's life making it so humiliating because death would be a mercy and this is actually something that for sansa to come up with this it shows her shows um how well she observed and learned who joffrey is because we get this image of joffrey from the end of a game of

thrones joffrey tells sansa that he was actually being very merciful in his execution of ned because he gave Ned a swift death and then had he not been merciful he would have tortured and drawn out Ned's death for a long time so Sansa's playing on that inclination of um Joffrey here yeah she's really gunning for survival for both her and Dantos and it's interesting because it really shows an aptitude for how she understands people and how much she's interesting because it really shows an aptitude for how she understands people and how much she's observing Sansa's not acting out she's not extroverted she's not talking often she's staying quiet keeping her head down and just hoping not to get

hit Joffrey though is like done with this shit and he's like game's over everyone go home and Tommen is so upset because he's like no no, no, no. I'm supposed to ride against the straw man. And Joffrey's like, no. And Tommen's all, I want to. Mom said I could. And Myrcella's all like, yeah, Mom said he could, Joffrey. And then Joffrey mimics him and mocks him. And Joffrey's like, you guys are being so childish.

And I love this line from Myrcella. She says, we're children. We're supposed to be childish and as you said it's so adorable it's like perfect like small like children's siblings bickering but also marcella one of the best clapbacks in like this whole yeah even sandor is like he laughs because we should all be laughing at that like got him sandor's like wait wait wait sandor's like burn too soon too soon too soon it wasn't that was actually just water thankfully yeah it's almost what it's really sad to think of marcella and how like she could have been a ruler in her family.

You know, man, like she could have been a very sweet ruler with good sense and grown up to be sling. But because of vengeance and the Game of Thrones, she's going to end up fated for death. Yeah, and this great AU, right? She's good friends with Sansa and everything works out great. right she's good friends with sansa and everything works out great and honestly this is just how i felt like reading this entire portion of this chapter thinking of like our that we birthed babies tommen and marcella yeah we made these somehow yes and i disagree oh because we're the hallelujah sisters but also sister wives birth Sister wives. Birth and Tommen. Exactly.

Like, I disagree with Tommen on the Beats, but these are our babies, you know? Still, that's, you know, Tommen outlawing Beats is still not as bad as anything Joffrey did. Agreed. Agreed. And they're just so doomed. So sad. and they're just so doomed so sad Joffrey going back to this idea of the Hound and what you were saying earlier

oh he doesn't like have the Hound beat Sansa like here we see Joffrey just gives in immediately like when the Hound laughs and he backs up and we're all like she's got you there because he just believes Sandor when he says yes you reap what you sow on your name day things like that and how joffrey gave up

in that chapter at the end of a game of thrones when sandra's like i don't remember making fun of rob stark joffrey just shuts up when like sandra says something for this you know for and i think this is for the same reason that joffrey doesn't order sandra around doesn't tell him to like hit his betrothed. Because I think Joffrey really looks up to the Hound as, like, this cool badass older kid who's actually, like, 27 and not a kid. Because, like, I'm old AF and I'm not that old. I'm, like, a year older than Sandor, but, like, he old. And Joffrey's, like, trying to impress Sandor.

Joffrey's like trying to impress Sandor. So he can't order the kid he's trying to impress around like that. Because like Joffrey sees the Hound as the seasoned warrior. And you gotta like be respectful and like act cool around him. Joffrey is straight up like, when I grow up, I want to be burnt like that scary motherfucker, you know? Yeah, he totally thinks like this is like a badass battle scar. and it's not. It's abuse from Sandor's brother. That's kind of funny and weird, then, that... Yep.

Yep. ...is literally that. ...is that brother. All right. I'm having light bulbs right now. Well, why do you think, too, that Sandor is so protective over Sansa and, of course, Arya eventually, but, I mean, Sandor is protective over Sansa from Joffrey because he sees Joffrey as that bully

brother. Oh yeah because he is he's a bully brother even to like Tommen who this quote. I do love this quote Tommen gave a shout of joy and ran off to be readied his chubby

little legs pumping hard. Luck! Sansa called out to him. The straw knight that Tommen faces, though, wears antlers. And Sansa thinks, that's weird, because their father Robert wore antlers. And she's like, oh, right. But now their uncle Renly, who's considered a traitor because he's calling himself king, also wears antlers. Tommen shouts, Casterly Rock! when he rides with his little sword

to go fight the straw man. And he, of course, loses, but we still love him. But interesting enough, of course, Tommen does have a claim on Casterly Rock. And we can see how much the Lannisters are influenced in this. How there isn't much of Robert left in these kids, beside for Joff how much the Lannisters are influenced in this, how there isn't much of

Robert left in these kids, beside for Joffrey, the drunken abuse. Tommen cries out about Casterly Rock for his war cry, and not Storm's End, which Tommen is technically in line for Storm's End if Renly dies. It's interesting Cersei doesn't use the Robert Englemore in these first three books. I know they're kind of like, you know, they have war happening and such, but she doesn't press after the Stormland seat as much as I probably personally would uphold my power and my incest babies, right? These are Robert's sons in the eye of the world, and rightfully, they are lands in the eye of the law. So of course, yes the eye of the law so of course yes clashes the stannis and renly battle off and stannis battling for the iron throne and cersei didn't

really have time during that but my plan of attack would have been try to go for storm's end in the name of king robert like as soon as renly dies right harness that early like we're doing this for robert it's just interesting and yes while tommommen has a claim on Casterly Rock, he's still two, three people away. Right. He's still three people away until he gets that. So it's kind of like Storm's End should be what's in mind for him. But he's such a Lannister and not a Baratheon that here you are with Casterly Rock. I was wondering why in that

I mean, I was thinking just like he's been indoctrinated to all of that but this is a great explanation. Love you. You're so smart. Love you too. Joffrey then laughs and because Tommen was beaten

by a straw man and then Myrcella she cries oh and then she runs to her brother because she's worried about him and Sansa tells Joffrey like uh you should probably go out there too and like run with Myrcella and she like is surprised because she like just feels

like she can't stop herself from chastising him like you should be out there the hound, though, also compliments Tommen because our precious baby boy. Not that baby boy, the other baby boy, Tommen. Tommen is the underdog. Sandor

roots for Tommen because Sandor was Tommen. Oh. He was. And they had a sister who was younger, but they still had a sister who was also nice aww the hound even says that Tommen has courage it's so

he does have courage when can a man be brave when his face is pressed to a fire when he's humiliated himself in front of all these people because of a straw knight adorable he doesn't care he's gonna he's doing that he's doing it he's getting back up and sansa because of this when she sees this this wonderful display from tommen she thinks she wouldn't have minded having to marry tommen interesting enough later in storm

at marjorie and Joff's wedding, Tyrion thinks on how Sansa would have made Joffrey a great queen. She would have made Joffrey a good queen and a better wife if he'd had the sense to love her. He wondered if his nephew was capable of loving anyone. Of course, he's right. I never shut up about it, but if Sansa had had the same counsel and education Margaery did, you know, like her grandparents going to court, discussing with her father afterward instead of shoving it under the carpet, there would have been no choice or chance for Joffrey to really set her aside this easily. Sansa's empathy and her courtesies are already

strong, but after Ned dies, her growth gets stuck inside a tower. She's quietly waiting and suffering. She doesn't really get to let that flourish. So it's kind of like flowers. What happens when you give a flower water and sunlight and space to grow? You get Margaery Tyrell, which I do want to add in here. You like that? I thought that was good. And of course, I had to add in here, poor Quentin and I were just talking about how Cersei is a Venus flytrap. So what happens when you lock away a flower in darkness and only let it do its rounds here and there? You know, Sansa plays this underground captive role

and we see her come into her own more in A Feast for Crows and especially in her sample winds of winter chapter which of course we're going to go into on our patreon sometime in the next couple months but she gets to plan her entire own tourney her whole story has been outlined in layers of agency being taken away and tourneys and songs and she finally gets the chance to orchestrate her own song and her own tourney in the winds of winter her own feast and her own tourney in the winter, her own feast and her own clever ploys. Then the gates open, and to everyone's surprise, there are...

Who is this? Like, they look real shabby. They look very weird and injured. They look like... There's a bunch of them, though, but they kind of look like that scene in Mulan when the Huns pop out of the snow. That's them right now. But wait, who's that? Over there! Oh, look! It's Tyrion amongst them and sansa still

thinks this is like not the greatest like observation on her part but she's still like oh tyrian's still the ugliest man i've ever seen well some things never change yeah but i i think this is an important observation on her part because of course character arcs and she's like oh tyrian's like pretty nice to me though as he is in this chapter which is like you know how it goes with the hound and stuff whatever and tommen is super stoked and he gallops towards tyrian he's like he's like i don't care about this like tourney anymore and he's like just so jazzed uncle tyrian's here i know i love it i love it they're just so happy to see him, and Tommen, he's just shouting with glee, and then

one of the mountain men, like, scoops Tommen up out of the horse somehow, and, like, puts him down right next to Tyrion, which is, like, super adorable, and I don't remember reading that scene of, like, one of the mountain men, like, from the mountain clans picking him up, and, like, that is just, I love it. There's also,

Tommen is the same height as tyrian here uh is remarked by sansa they're of a height together so that's interesting like that gives you like an eye for it of what tommen looks like it's still adorable tyrian claps tommen on the back and he scoops marcella up into a hug and it's just so precious all of it. His reunion with Joffrey isn't quite as cute. Yeah, there's some animosity there for sure. The Hound comments that people thought Tyrion

was dead. And he's like, no I'm not. And then Tyrion expresses some condolences to people about the people who actually are dead. He gives some condolences to Sansa for her losses and Sansa understandably is like yeah is he making fun of me everybody makes fun of her so yeah i can see why she would think that like tyrian legit means it and then he also says sorry to the loss that joffrey suffered as well joffrey's like what happened and he's like oh your dad died

robert and then sansa remembers her courtesies, and then she goes like, oh, I'm sorry that my mom took you captive, Tyrion. We're all just being sorry right now. Yeah. This is that game where everyone's like, oh, I'm sorry for this. I'm sorry for that.

We find out Jaime keeps losing battles, which is, of course, part of why Cersei's not here right now. He's been taken by the Starks and we've lost Riverrun, and now her stupid brother is calling himself a king. The dwarf smiled crookedly. All sorts of people are calling themselves kings these

days. There's that moment. Hey. Joff did not know what to make of that. Tyrion says he brought Joff his wits for Joth's name day and the hound warns Tyrion to guard his tongue. Tyrion and Sansa have a small aside.

She remarks on his injury and Tyrion's like, you're sad because your dad's dead. Yeah, he obviously doesn't know, right, that Joffrey's been beating Sansa every day yet, but I mean yes, she's also sad because her father's dead. My father was a traitor, Sansa said at once, and my brother and lady mother

are traitors as well. At reflex, she had learned quickly. I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey. No doubt as loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves. Lions, she whispered without thinking. It's not super explicit, but it's definitely an overtoned Insanza storyline. And you can feel George R.R. Martin channeling some of those biblical vibes in here with that idea of like being surrounded by lions and the story of Daniel and the lion's den. And like, there's a whole story. Who's going to lions and the story of daniel and the lion's den and like there's a whole story who's gonna tell us the story but like the important parts are that daniel gets thrown into a den of lions and god protects him so he comes out alive and unharmed and that i think

is very much the core of sansa's storyline in a clash of kings and of course a storm sword it's like she's harmed but she's like not dead. Interestingly enough, there's also a song by the band Bastille called Daniel in the Den based off of that kind of legend and that biblical lore. And there's a quote, there's a lyric from it. I really, I suggest listening to it. Cause it will blow your mind when you hear it. You'll be like, what? Cause it's totally just Sansa Stark, but it, the lyric is,

and you thought the lions were bad. Well, they tried to kill my brothers and for every king that died, oh, they would crown another. Like, mind blown. That's just very Sansa. I also just associate Bastille with A Song of Ice and Fire for an unrelated reason. It's very far removed. They had that song Pompeii, right? Da-da-da- in the movie Pompeii in which Ken Harrington stars? And that's why I associated it with the song of Ice and Fire. Maybe. It's very far removed. I

didn't watch it. I didn't watch it. I didn't watch it either. It's a very far removed. Very far removed. That's my story. There's another thing to go back to the biblical story of Daniel in the lion's den. Daniel is ascending to high office offered to him by Darius. Right. But Darius is tricked into the lion's pit and he dies because Daniel couldn't save him. I mean, Ned. I mean, Daniel couldn't save him. So Ned dies.

I mean, Ned. I mean, Daniel. Couldn't save him. So Ned dies. I mean, Ned dies, but Daniel lives on as a god after he doesn't die when he gets thrown in the pit. So the comparison stops there, but he's thrown to the lions, which of course gives you that imagery of Ned's head being thrown down on the steps of Baelor, and of course Darius is a clear Robert Baratheon

parallel. Yes. and yes. Tyrion, though, he promises that he will not savage Sansa. He speaks more gently than Joffrey, she thought, but the Queen spoke gently to me, too. He's still a Lannister, her brother and Joff's uncle and no friend. Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust

with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again. Of course, what a badass line that tells you her story is not the story you thought it was in a game of thrones she's done with the royals she hates these people she wants her family back she hates her life people doubt sansa stark loyalty or something sometimes and i don't i don't know what books they're reading you know i don't get it i don't understand if you doubt sansa's intelligence you're wrong and you should feel bad about it or no, whatever. But she's obviously a Stark. She thinks about her family this entire chapter. She compares little chubby blonde Tommen to her brother Bran thinking about him. She thinks about, you know, her brother Rob constantly, her lady mother.

Sansa is very Stark to the core. And this is the chapter in Clash of Kings that sets the stage and is telling you this is this is what her story is now it's not the same little girl that came to the capital in the first book yeah she's all like my big brother's the best he's gonna beat you up but nobody they don't play fair and also regarding this this as you're saying people who like are like oh just misunderstanding Sansa like yes Tyrion is nice to her so people are like oh she should like marrying Tyrion and they're all like oh but she only hates him because he's ugly and it's like did you read this paragraph and every single other time she thinks the same thing like especially in Storm like Sansa is given a choice right she

can marry Tyrion or Lancelot and Tyrion's like can marry lancelot if you want it's fine like i get it he's like cuter than me right he's like jamie light in terms of looks apparently but it's not shallowness like sansa has a choice and she picks tyrian because he is nicer to her but she's also like i don't want any of them i don't trust any of them you killed my dad and by that point in the story also her brother and mother so yeah like why would she oh she should feel lucky she got to marry the short rapey one like you know congrats yeah of of the people that like killed her family this is awesome i love this that's so great oh yeah let's just pick the least of the people that killed my family that still killed my family they're all complicit they're all lannisters

fuck a lannister clash of kings fuck a lannister except except for mercella and tommen fuck a lannister am i right except mercella and tommen who deserved better they're beautiful and willful and dead before their time and oh my god they are a littlercella is a little willful and so is Tommen. He has courage. We're children. We should be childish. Poor babes. I think we had a couple interesting things there with them. I think that Sandor comparison is really important when you look at Tommen.

Absolutely. Definitely. He's like, why can't i serve that kid instead and like i also would love to have seen aria and marcella have more of a relationship i think we were robbed of that definitely robbed of that i could see aria just being like how do i handle this girl and marcella just being like why aren't we friends and also remember marcella's kind of shy so she'd just be like with her head down like what is this?

yeah can I play with your dog? Arya would be like yeah it's fine come here we're gonna make pies out of mud and Marcel would be like am I doing this right? and she'd be like don't worry Numeria will just lick you a lot like just real cute crap yeah

this is our AU. Welcome. Girls gone uncannon. This is no longer canon. This is now canon. Like, this is the story now. So if you don't like it, you can leave. It's literally just like the actual story, except it's completely different.

Callback. I mean, like, season four, right? Oh, I love that. Like, season four and season five. And I think with that, that brings us to the end of episode 23, A Clash of Kings, Sansa introduction and Sansa one. Thanks so much for joining us, you guys. Thank you.

We're going to do the rest of these chapters in this book. Oh, my God. Are we? Yeah, there's been, like, some very rumored words that we're going to do the rest of these chapters in this book. Oh my god, are we? Yeah, there's been like some very rumored words that we're going to get a 10 hour long Blackwater episode. Yeah, I mean. Because it's what I deserve. Let's think about it. We'll think about it.

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