Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 230 — AFFC Cersei II

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

It's a fitting day for rain at Tywin's funeral. It's not a very comforting one for the family, though, as Cersei bats away the grasping mourners and tries to keep the pack—er, lion's pride—together. (They do not wish to be together.) ---- 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 Cannon Reads, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 230. Cersei II, in a feast for crows. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. Chloe And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. I'm not gonna lie, I think I almost forgot what I was supposed to say in that moment. I don't know why. Eryn You forgot your name? Chloe Yeah, I was like, what do I tell them? And I was like, oh my god, my name, what's my name?

It's because it's a little early where you are in the world to be having a glass of wine. Oh yeah, that's probably why. Yeah, and to be in the true Cersei mindset, you must have a glass of wine in your hand that you are swilling slowly as you glare into the distance. And that's what I'm doing right now, so excited to be doing that here with all of you. Hope you're doing the same as you listen to this episode. Cersei 2 is going to be a blast as it unfolds around us, but first we have to do housekeeping. There's a couple of things to expect on Patreon.

As you all know, we do have our Patreon, Girls Gone Cannon, where patrons in the $5 To You And Above, the Stranger To You And Above get bonus episodes every month. Last month we did Folding in Dorne, tentative title still. Could become permanent, could not become permanent, unsure. The first episode in our new series about how Dorne became part of the Seven Kingdoms and this month we're doing something a little more unnerving for this season. We are covering George's short story, Sand Kings. I'm really excited because I haven't read Sand Kings.

It's a fun one. Yeah, so I'm kind of like, oh, this is the time. This is the stars have aligned. And if you go to our Patreon, there's stuff for free too. I mean, there's some work in progress, behind the scenes stuff, and there's also a pinned post that you can see that gives you the canonical guide to Girls Gone Cannon, the definitive guide to every episode that exists, and all of our episodes are public there, so give it a look

there if you want. And of course, we will be having our brunch in November. That's going to be November 9th, a Saturday for patrons in the Thunder tier and above. That's the tier Thunder, where you have access to our Discord. Yeah, I'm excited for brunch. 2PM ET, Tee-Bee Bear, B Square. I think in the in the ThunderToon Above they get the episode one day early, so Thursdays are poppin' on the Discord. Oh, yeah, Thursdays are hot in the Discord. Thursdays are wild. Because of the Circe season. So yeah, speaking of like some of the stuff that you can get, our friend Rowan, who is I think like number one Circe expert or I don't know, some people might fight her for that,

but wrote us an email to Harold the Start of Circe saying, Good afternoon friends. I waited half my life. Over and with that quote, um, she had played the dutiful podcast listener, the blushing brappy hour attendee, the pliant fan. She had suffered so many teases at the Circe POV, coming next only to be deceived. She had contended with Victorian chapters hearing Chloe and Eliana say the Circe POV

and knowing it wasn't THE Circe, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Girls Gone Cannon thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, getting a word in on every Circe chapter, they had bloody well think again. And with that proclamation begins the first of our weekly Rowan Reports in which the world's leading scholar in seir seyology, a department I founded at the University of Lesbos in 2014, will provide some commentary on each of her episodes. And while the dance epilogue isn't her POV chapter, some points I plan to center in my Circe 2 Rowan Report around came up beautifully in this episode.

I want to use my Rowan Report on the dance epilogue to introduce these points as a focus of Circe 2's themes that run throughout her POV. I don't know why I'm saying dance for this, I should be saying Adelida. Cersei and the trappings of power slash shadow on the wall analysis are two of my favorite topics. I couldn't have been happier when Eliana discussed the trappings of power framed for Cersei's Walk of Atonement. Hey, that's me. I have long viewed her Walk of Atonement as the series' most powerful and gut-wrenching examination of how these trappings function. Her walk reveals what happens when the trappings are gone, or, as notable Game of Thrones fan Stevie Nicks said, after the glitter fades.

No one has more exterior signifiers and symbols of power. She's constantly described as adorned in jewels and finery. Her hair is gold as the money everyone thinks she has, but actually owes, yet her walk exposes the illusory and fleeting nature of the types of power created by external signifiers for a woman whose worth is based on beauty. The power it affords is especially external and ephemeral." The following passage is vital to this discussion because there are so few, if any, other times in the series where we see the public who perpetuate the idea of what power looks like and whose approval one needs to have power, unlearn their own concept of it.

I should not have done this. I was their queen. But now they've seen. They've seen. They've seen. I never should have let them. Gound and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so different from their wives, more like their mothers." Cersei II, A Feast for Crows, Cersei II, Athec, foregrounds the importance of trappings of power to her story and foreshadows how they cast a smaller shadow over time. Over the course of her narrative, in this chapter we see Cersei try to help Tommen understand his reliance on these trappings of power to command respect.

During Tywin's funeral, she tells him, Sit like a king. Put your shoulders back and straighten your crown. Do you want it to tumble off your head in front of all your lords? Note they are the parallels to Robb's crown not fitting right. Weep quietly, she told him, leaning close. You are a king, not a squalling child. Your lords are watching you. This and all of her instruction to Tommen recalls the shadow on a wall slash trappings of power analysis.

Power resides where men believe it resides, on signifiers that her own walk of atonement showed to be empty. Sound and fury signifying nothing. And it is apt that George R. R. Martin writes, power resides where men believe it resides. Because Kevin is an example of how, to many men, her beauty affords her power. Her walk of atonement verifies this premise because when she's stripped of beauty, although her green eyes probably still look nice, she is desecrated. Only a woman and not a god and seen as stripped of power, and serousy to and in her treatment of Jamie post-maming, we see how being raised as a woman whose value is based upon appearance

and for whom beauty confers power makes her hypervigilant about how her family presents themselves to cast a large enough, lion-shaped shadow on the wall to intimidate the sheep. P.S. the next time I hear anyone call Cersei stupid and not thoroughly analyze how she was raised to be unable to fulfill a political role well, I will send Sir Robert Strong. But more analysis of this topic will come as the focus of my Cersei 1 Rowan Report, which we did not receive, by the way. We have been told that we did so good that we are not going to get one. Thank you. We did an A-plus job, according to the head of the department.

Thank you. God, I hope we graduate with honors. Fuck. We will find out. We might even find out live if we graduate with honors later this semester. Ears peeled, eyes open. Thank you for your email, Rowan. And I think we're actually gonna come back to this email in a couple ways as we talk more about those trappings of power and how Cersei specifically interacts with them. Well, it's time. Oh my god, it's kind of really nice to get back to a lightning round, like in a somewhat normal monotonous lightning round way. I know that's really lame, but it's like, as Cersei would appreciate, the ritual of it, right?

The ritual of a lightning round. So without further ado, here is what you missed between Cersei I and Cersei II in A Feast for Crows. Brienne I. Brienne seeks a girl of three and ten on the road. Samwell I, Sam and Gilly are to be sent to the Citadel. Arya I. Arya arrives at the house of black and white.

And that brings us here to Cersei II, a feast for crows. The realm grieves for Tywin Lannister. Each in their own way. I guess. I guess that's what's happening. I think two people are actually grieving. Maybe three people are actually grieving at this funeral. Yeah, Kevin, Jaime, Cersei.

That's about it. Cersei in her own way. Jaime, Kevin Jamie Cersei. That's about… S. Yeah, Cersei in her own way. F. Kevin Jamie Tommen. S. Kevin Tommen. Actually, no. I'm gonna throw Pysel in. But Jamie definitely, because Jamie's out there being like, hmm, I think Dad might be dead because of me. F. Yeah. S. He's going through it. F. There's a lot of really good stuff between the next chapter of Jamie and this chapter Cersei. It's so good. S. If saying, oh fuck, this book, it's Jamie. Ah fuck. Ah fuck. Ah fuck.

A cold rain was falling, turning the walls and ramparts of the Red Keep dark as blood. The queen held the king's hand and led him firmly across the muddy yard to where her litter waited with its escort. Uncle Jamie said I could ride my horse and throw pennies to the small folk. The boy objected. Do you want to catch a chill? She would not risk it. Tommen had never been as robust as Joffrey. Your grandfather would want you to look a proper king at his wake. We will not appear at the great sabbath wet and bedraggled. Bad enough I must wear mourning

again. Black had never been a happy color on her. With her fair skin, it made her look half a corpse herself." think you could really pull it off. Actually, honestly, the piercing green eyes and black hair combo. Wow. New pitch for George. Anyways. Girl needs a little warmth. She needs a little warmth in her face. Don't wash her out, girl. Don't wash her out. The rain falls and Tommen chatters away, saying, Lady Jocelyn told him the raindrops are the gods' tears. For grandfather, Cersei tells him that Jocelyn is a fool. The gods didn't weep for Joffrey. Rain is rain. Tam." Ah. There's this moment where she's telling him that the mantle he wears is sable. Don't get it wet. Close the curtains. And there's a lot of these little moments I'm picking

up for her of how delicately, and a lot like what Rohan mentioned, how delicately optics matter. Something about her as a mother, there's this very strict quality of material possession obsession that she's more concerned with the state of belongings and material things and keeping their royal quality and image untouched than maybe her son in general at all. She's like, the mantle, sure. Tommen, many narcissists, and I know this from a friend who has a mother that's a narcissist, a really close friend. This is from a friend. A lot of narcissists kind of

like to use super nice things and caring more about material things because of reflecting status, right? Giving the image of being successful the tools they need to win. Someone that others want to be, someone others wish they were, kind of a wish fulfillment in some aspects. Often it's used to elevate yourselves over things and control behavior, which Cersei absolutely has within her, right? She craves control in a lot of ways because she's never been allowed to have it. It's the only thing that keeps her world stable. And liking nice things is really fine, right? Like I'm not saying you shouldn't like nice things. You should take care of

nice things. Yeah, I fucking love nice things. But Cersei does it to a really intense degree. You know the term arrested development, not just the TV show that we like, Arrested Development, that she kind of and often narcissists from a young age live from Arrested Development where they were traumatized or neglected, frozen in that certain age in development, and they use it as a response to almost protect themselves. They're quick to anger, they lack empathy, they blame others very quickly, they tell damaging lies. It goes really far to show that these things being nice are what Cersei believes keep the Lannister family powerful or a part of it,

what keeps her in power? What keeps people aspiring to be them? What keeps people giving them their tax money? It's one thing to be like, don't break something expensive and teach your kids to value things and that you shouldn't just break things, but often I'm noticing Cersei takes it a little too far. Everything in that castle is too valuable, more valuable than their lives. It reminds me of what Myrcella says, right? We're children, we should be childish. STACEY That's a great point, and I really like what you've called out of... She takes it a bit too far. It's not wrong to be like, hey, Tom, you need to wear this crown because the people need to see you performing. But then

she throws in a little jab, you know? Or you can see that she's not thinking about it in terms of, we need to teach him this thing. G.T. Tying their worth to it almost. You're only worth as well as you take care of this belonging. L. Yeah, exactly. And to that point, but also kind of, this is not the best point I guess to make after that.

She's not wrong about the rain ruining the effort that you put into looking good. I will say. I noticed that and I was like, oh, very relatable this is something George I kind of wonder if he pulled it from hearing you know some friend or maybe even himself being like oh man I put in all this effort to look good and the rain's gonna ruin my outfit. And also you know she's she thinks of Tommen as being weak and doesn't let him do what he wants, and that's very much a continuation of the way that Tywin likely perceived her as being the least capable of his three children because of being a woman.

Obviously he doesn't like Tyrion, but I don't think he perceives Tyrion as being incapable. The way that Cersei tells Tommen to sit like a king, I kind of wonder, did Tywin raise her being like, sit like a queen, right? Because he had all these plans laid out for her to become one. At least sit like a young lady. Yeah. That's what I was told. Or be like, you are meant for the throne. Yeah. I was told, put your legs together and sit like a lady. Somehow no one ever taught me that. Which is why I'm very much the way that I am. Sometimes you are eight-year-old boycotted.

I don't know, somewhere in that range. I mean, no, it's true. Yeah. Just give her her fucking juice box in her video game, okay? LBG Yeah. Go sit there. GF Eliana, don't shove people over on the playground. LBG And then I was like, mmm, but what if? I don't think I shoved people on the playground. Wait, no, maybe I did. I don't know. But I also

got shoved. It was a dog-eat-dog world out there, you know? GF A dog-eat-dog world, as Gloria would say for Modern Family. That is an eight-year-old boy thing to say also, doggy dog world. Yeah, doggy dog world. I could hear you saying that. Yeah, probably. Speaking of eight-year-old boys. This is like when Liz Lemon learned she was the bully.

I don't think that like, I was definitely like bullied, but it's easier. I mean, it's very much like Arya's storyline, which we've already covered, so let's not do that. We're here in Cersei. Okay. Tommen was obedient, and he moved to stop the rain from coming in. Cersei immediately thinks that she hates that too. He's too meek. Joffrey would have argued. She tells him to sit like a king, straight in his crown, asking, do you want your lords to see it fall from his head? The crown's too big. And Tommen had always been inclined to plumpness, but his face seemed thinner now. This stuck out to me. She made a reminder to check with the steward about his eating habits, thinking she can't risk him being sick with the dornish

having myrcella. Kind of makes you think as we get into Boros Blount being the food taster, maybe he is being poisoned. It could just be aging up and losing some of the little baby fat or depression or anxiety from living in King's Landing and your mom is Cersei Lannister and your life is everything it is. But I don't know. I thought that was interesting. Yeah. Let's get out to me. Maybe he is. Maybe he is being poisoned. People were talking about this in the Discord, and also about how it compares to the original drafts of CRC's chapters prior to it being published and before George made some edits, because someone was taking a look at them in the Cushing Library.

C-C-C-Cushing. Cushing Library! And, um... Crush it. Cushing Library and it seems that there's an implication that perhaps Tauman really is being poisoned. And I don't know if that means he is in this book or if that's something that George gardened out. Because you can see it in the Aegon III storyline in Fire and Blood. So I'm like, did he decide to explore it there instead?

Like it didn't fit. I don't know. And interesting because if he is still say that's happening, then you have the Dornish come like everyone's poisoning him, poison him and do him off. You know, it just makes it easier. Like he was already looking like this. But it's also interesting from like Cersei's angle of how much she looks at appearances and her relationship with like, weight, right? Like her own fat phobia that she deals with. As she gains weight in this book and her paying attention to her children's weights is interesting. Yeah, it also makes me think of a sweet Robin being kind of semi-poisoned as well, Robert Aaron. But also what you're saying about weight, it's interesting because she's concerned

about him not being plump enough, which we actually see you were talking about narcissistic parents. Like, I'm thinking of, I don't know if I forgot if you read this one of I'm So Glad My Mom Is Dead by Jeanette McCurdy. Yes. Child star. Yes, I've read it twice now. It's devastating and amazing. Absolutely. And that one, like, her mother teaches her how to have an eating disorder, right? Because of the parent being so invested in their child's appearance.

Yeah, that happened to a friend of mine in some ways too, actually. So that's interesting you say that. A close friend. Interesting. You don't know him? I don't. Same friend from earlier with the mom I told you about. Yeah, absolutely. Anyways, this friend's mother was on every fad diet as it happened, had the ephedra pills from before ephedra was banned, the diet pills. You know what that is. Yeah. Well, my friend does. Anyways, but yeah, insane.

It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Many parents can focus in on that. Yeah, pass that down. I mean, it reminds me of like, God, I swear, it's like a poem or some shit, probably like a rupee car poem or some bullshit of like, a mother being, you know, so obsessed with her body and saying I hate it, but then the daughter being like, but you gave me it. gave me it. Like, if you gave me your flesh, so like, why do I hate me too because you hate you? Like, that's what you're doing, that's the baseline of hate, right? Like, being so obsessed with that makes you baseline, feel that way, and pass it down. There's also like that interesting like gendered aspect of it as well, right? Because, but we don't see it, I mean, Tom is so young that we don't get his POV, and he's probably still like kind of confused.

Because Mom hasn't really paid as far as we can tell. She hasn't paid much attention to him until now. Yeah. Well, don't worry, it won't last that long. Like, I'm not sure. Yeah. Because he's gonna die. Still die in next book. We're just like, because he's gonna die. There's one character not fucking making it out of next book. It's Tommen. I'm so sorry, Tommen. Yeah. Could also be Brisella. Interesting. She's probably not making it out of next book. It's Tommen. I'm so sorry, Tommen. Yeah, could also be Marcella.

Interesting. She's probably not making it out either. She's not making it out of all the books, definitely. Yeah, no. Ados, beginning of Ados for me is my Marcella bet, but that's based on the whole thing, the electric boogaloo we've talked about many times. Interesting how much Cersei loves and hates Joffrey, right? And it shows in ways without her saying it that Joffrey was like the pride of her everything and also the bane of everything. You know? Yeah.

The pride, yeah. She was, you know, she loved him, she hated him. It's something I would have loved to hear more about in her ACOC or ASOS POV if she had them. And of course, she wants Tommen to be more like Joffrey, but the moment he is strong against her, she punishes him and strikes him down from it. The moment he takes any independence, it's interesting. She can't let him live outside of the grasp of her reach. LWX That is really interesting, and I think there's something to be analyzed there, and maybe we'll dig into it more in later chapters because I haven't fully formed these thoughts yet, but what you've said there really struck a chord of like, we don't have her earlier POV, so we don't really have

her perspective on her relationship with Joffrey during the time that he's alive. At the same time, is she like, oh, he should be more like Joffrey because of this, because she actually admired that in Joffrey? Or is this like a different way of her grieving, right? Like her putting Joffrey on this sort of pedestal, like, he was the perfect child, but like everyone can be perfect when they're dead, you know, we see that with the way that Robert Leanna Robert, Robert, like puts Leanna on a pedestal. so is that kind of what she's doing with Joffrey, but at the same time, as you said, right? She enjoys that Joffrey would argue back. People will see Kevin blame her for Joffrey later on in this chapter, but Robert is every bit as responsible for the way that Joffrey came out as Circe, if not more, because Joffrey was trying to emulate Robert, is always part of what she admired in Joffrey and his unwillingness to listen to Searcy, that he had that power and used that power that he learned from Robert and she covets that sort of power and control

to say yes or to say no to anything that you want. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It is, it's really sad she is the same shadow of Robert, right, as a ruler? Yeah. In some aspects. That, that hollowness and that pettiness and... Wow. Damn. Damn. Cersei decides they should chat up the Goldsmiths and maybe get to know each other. Damn.

Cersei decides they should chat up the goldsmiths and maybe get Tom in a smaller crown for now, since he can't really fit the big time crown, and they keep heading down Aegon's hill with the Kingsguard in front of them and fifty good Lannister guardsmen. Yeah, so I liked this line of he will grow into into Joff's crown in time until he did, a smaller one might be needed. One that did not threaten to swallow him whole. And I just thought that was really pointed because the idea of, of course, the crown swallowing Tommen, just like her dream, right, of the Iron Throne devouring her, how all

of these, this power, kinghood, it'll just devour their whole family. I mean, you spend your whole life with it one step away, right? So what do you do when you finally have it? That thing's a mammoth, like the Iron Throne and the Crown. Those are things that have always loomed over her her entire childhood growing up in that building in the Red Keep, right? In formative years. STACEY It's like you called out last chapter of how the Iron Throne is described as a beast. It's gonna eat you. Tommen mentions that he thought there would be more people when Father had died, and Cersei says, well, the rain drove them inside, but she thinks that King's Landing never really loved Tywin. Actually, yeah, that's probably true now that I think about it because of that sack, but anyway. About the rain driving them inside, I get it now.

It's raining, because that's his whole shtick, Tywin. The rains of Castamere. Yup. Yup. So it's actually very fitting for it to be raining for him. And also, besides the fact that they probably don't like him, a lot of people... I don't know the lines well enough, like... Well, I'm playing violin for you right now. Oh, okay. That's the background music. We don't own any copyright, I think. This is enough artistic transformation for a lot to own it. We don't know any of copyright. I think this is

Enough artistic transformation. We're allowed to use it. Um, I Kind of think that a lot of people leave King's Landing due to the fighting in the previous books, too So there might be yeah, that's a really good call It's optics all up or they're dead from the other fighting and hunger that all optics. Or they're dead from the other fighting. And hunger. That also. If you remember. But the hunger also drove a bunch of them to leave. So I don't know. There's just legitimately less people here than when Robert died. Yeah. Also, everyone hates them. That also. There's a lot of things going on here. It's very multifaceted. I love this next bit. And of course, something really interesting

with Cersei too is how it kind of combines with the Jaime chapter that's directly after. There's overlap. It's taking place during the vigil over Tywin, during the funeral, and a little bit after and around. And so we get a little bit of a connection here. You cannot eat love nor buy a horse with it nor warm your halls. On a cold night, she heard him tell Jamie once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen. So when we flip over to that next chapter, and we'll come back and quote that, you realize that's it.

That's where Jamie learned it. That's where they all learned it, right? Like we see this is what their childhood was. Their childhood was pure kill the boy. Like her, Jamie, Tyrion, now it's being lended rate to the new generation as well, except this new generation's going to die, but... Listen, I can teach them how to un-kill the boy. Let the eight-year-old boy inside you live. My god! Let him live. My god. Let him live.

She cat. It's also interesting because Jamie was very much like the golden child of the family by virtue of just being born male and able-bodied. But because of his squiring and later being raised to the Kingsguard, he didn't have to be around Tywin as much as his siblings. They took the full brunt of Tywin's quote-unquote parenting growing up. And we really see that, I think, through Tyrion and Cersei's POVs. It is in Jaime's, but much more subtly, because he just literally wasn't there.

And I don't know. I'm just like, yeah, love can't buy you a horse, but maybe I can get you one, you know how Tyrion's treasured the horse that Jaime gifted him. And I don't know, love may... it could warm your halls on a warm night, with people willing to be with you and you all huddle for warmth, and maybe one of you knows how to start a fire. Yeah. That's... Someone's about to. It comes back to that. Well, but yeah. But it comes back to the entire, like, big symbolism of the series, right? Song of Ice and Fire in some aspects, too. Fire and how people

wield it. That's true. And you look at some of Jamie's internal thoughts. He thinks in the next chapter, "'It was queer, but he felt no grief. Where are my tears? Where is my rage?' Jamie Lannister had never lacked for rage." That comes in the family. "'Father,' he told the corpse, "'it was you who told me that tears were a mark of weakness in a man. So you cannot expect that I should cry for you.'" And then there's the line after when he's thinking about when he was knighted.

He never felt it. A boy knelt, a knight rose. The young lion, not the kingslayer, but that was long ago and the boy was dead. It just highlights completely that parenting quote-unquote that Tywin gave them, right? There was no love in that parenting. There was no lead with love. Yeah. Yeah. I like how we just keep saying parenting, quote unquote, every time we talk about what Tywin did.

But now that I'm thinking about it, this line of, you cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night." It's responded to within like the same story, right? This is... Ilaria's line rebuts this. It says, I saw your heart die, here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs? Care for me when I am old and sick?" And that is what love can give you. But I mean, Tywin didn't experience love from his own parents. We don't really hear about his mom much, because she was dead. And he thinks that love is, I don't know, maybe he thinks that love is what his father had with his

mistress but didn't show to his kids, and love is what caused Tywin and his siblings to be abandoned by their father. Like love didn't protect them growing up. Love is the reason he had no protection and so he has no idea how to show it to his children and like just in case anyone gets the wrong idea here like we're not saying this in defense of Tywin but it's just like understanding you know like how he came to be a parent who therefore quote unquote teaches Cersei how to be a parent. LW and G and LR And you see how that teaching failed him and how it fails them too, right?

Love is what makes a human. When you take love out and you have just the hatred and the emptiness and the loneliness Especially the loneliness which we know George likes to play with yeah in his storytelling When you take that out, what do you have you have hate, right? What does Jojen and Mir say right if love and hate could mate? It's like what he says to you. Yeah Three log off SESH But it's like what Aiman says, we're only human and the gods have fashioned us for love, that's our great glory and our great tragedy.

And you look at Jamie and Cersei and they weren't taught to love. They weren't taught to love. STACEY Yeah, it's something we will come back to and I think explore more in some of those other POVs that we have. The last few. The other two? No, literally I think it plays a big role in them, but Yeah, especially in both of them.

No, literally both of them. It's like such a big deal because I think it's one of the conceits of the series of both of the Targaryens. I used to think that seats of the series of both of the Targaryens. I used to think that, you know, Lyanna telling Ned, you know, love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature was like very true. But I actually think that the whole series is arguing against that. And we've discussed this every now and then previously, but I think it's so true for these last few of like, love can change a man's nature, I legitimately. When you have support, things change. Anyways.

I just heard a scream outside my house, so I just have to Google to see what happened, but we're only in the bottom of the first and nothing good has happened, just so you know. Go Phillies! Fuck the Mats! Anyway. Fuck the mats. Anyway, I think, too, like, I think Leanna's statement was wise beyond her years in some ways in that a man like Robert probably no. It's not even just nature, it won't change their appetites.

But I think it could keep him from being an alcoholic. Not that that's like her responsibility, but if he had like Ned there, right? If he had Leanna there. If he had these good influences that were not- If his parents hadn't died when he was so young. Exactly, if he had had love. Yeah. Or like, Sanis, you know?

Love changes motherfuckers, man. It makes you fuckin' tiptoe through daisies and shit and sing songs. Like Renly. Yeah. He grew up with a lot of love. That bitch loved love. Yeah. And Sanis didn't get any. So Robert did for a bit and then it was all gone and he had gone to war. Anyways.

Hollowed out bitch. Broken man. What would love, how would love have changed Cersei? Kang. Broken man. Queen broken man. Yeah, like if their dad loved them. At the Great Sept of Baelor, there are more gold cloaks than there are mourners. Cersei tells herself, more will come. The first service in the morning is for Highborne. The afternoon the commons could come, and in the evening the smallfolk would join the

Highborne to watch Cersei mourn. The mob must have its show. Cersei, more people should be here. Cersei, the mob must have its show. I love her. Cersei has work to do. She has a realm to rule. She thinks her father would have understood that. Oh, I see. The whole, like, the mob must have its show. Very much we see that in season two of House of the Dragon. Mm-hmm. Yes. Because, I mean, just like with Otto Hightower, you know, Circe understands- Home run!

Oh nice, hooray! So happy for you. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. We're not a sports podcast, but we're playing with it. But we could be. This could be in the future for us. Circe understands the need for performance, same way her father did, or Otto Hightower

did. And she also thinks of the other responsibilities, but she understands, like, she actually I think understands this much better than Sanis, because Sanis would be like, dude, I don't have time to show up for this. I've got a realm to rule, right? Which is what Cersei's thinking about. I've got to, I've got to like staff all the offices. But this is exactly, yeah, this is exactly what Rohan was talking about in that email. Like Cersei understands that the trappings of power matter here. You have to give the mob its show because whether you like it or not, a big part of how people choose their leaders, and this is like proven in a lot of studies, is it's not rational,

it's emotional. They want to see like that there's a human, that there's a person there who cares about them. Even if she's fucking faking it, you can, yeah, even if she's faking it, like, she's there. And Stanis doesn't feel like that. Yeah, Stanis feels cold to them. Disconnected. Yeah. Unrelatable. Could not be on a reality show evoking emotion. He couldn't, but I do think he would be very interesting in a reality show. For those of us that have great deep enjoyment and a high IQ, maybe it would be great. L. It'd be interesting.

S. Truly, but just- L. You could put him on, like, put him on- actually, that's hilarious now that I think about it, put him on Big Brother, and then I think about the term, and him and his big brother. Anyways, I'm done. S. I could just hear him, like, doing a, like, camera confessional and being like, L. Uh? S. At night, I heard a noise coming from so-and-so's

room. That noise keeps happening. It has annoyed me greatly. They would not stop making the noise. We are going to have a conflict." Or on Survivor. Gritting his teeth. Yeah, I could see that. He could be on Survivor. That is literally his plot right now, is he's on Survivor. Yeah, actually. Fuck. I feel like he was raised for it. The High Septon meets them, wearing the cut crystal and spun gold crown. Sounds gorgeous. That Tywin gave him to replace the crown that was stolen in the mob that killed the last

High Septon when Myrcella sailed for Dorne. So I just really love the description of the High Septon's crown. The word used for it is a confection. Then together with that description of the spun gold,'s crown, the word used for it is a confection, then together with that description of the spun gold, it makes it sound like cotton candy, as though this crown could just melt away in all this rain, and it's a fantastic, I think, way of showing that the High Septon's fineries, they are a luxury, right? Like, dessert, sugar, these are fucking luxuries, and shows how out of touch and very fragile the Faith of the Seven is right now and

why there is a hunger for that sparrows movement later. Especially as we keep going that's so great. Oh god, and it sounds so pretty and so delicious when you put it like that. Delicious. Spun sugar. Yeah, like I do you like okay, this is not about this. I like cotton candy. Do you like cotton candy? A lot of people don't.

I do. And I think that as I get older, I understand why I shouldn't. But I still like it. But I don't get it as often because of that, because it's just- Because it's just sugar. Just basically sugar puffed up. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Like frying a rice cake till it pops. You know, I'm like, okay, this is just a sugar cloud, but I really love it. Especially the thing I like the most about cotton candy is the melt in your mouth thing. Yeah, same. Like feeling it dissolve. Like I love, that's my one little vice. Like I'm more of a dark chocolate person if it comes to candy or a beef jerky person if it comes to candy.

Okay, interesting. But I like sour candy. Dark chocolate person if it comes to candy or a beef jerky person if it comes to candy But I like sour candy like I got savory or like worthwhile. Yeah, well, you know, I love the sours Yeah, I love sour gummies. I love I love anything that is fucking show-off II like that dissolves in your mouth or I like pop rocks I love, um, what do you call it? Fun Dip. I'm a Fun Dip slut. I love Fun Dip. People of the podcast. Maybe they just have like the same candy taste now that I think about it. That would actually make a lot of sense for us.

Are you a Blue Raspberry enjoyer or do you like the other colors? I like the other colors also, but I also, I don't remember all the different flavors of Fun Dip enough, but I do like, I mean the blue raspberry is fun because you paint your fucking tongue blue. Yeah, exactly, and it changes color. Also yeah, Pop Rock's very fun. I mean like both that and Cotton Candy, it's about the sensory experience, you know. I would eat this crown.

Oh my god, but I think sometimes about that raccoon, because you know they wash their feet before they eat it, washing the cotton candy makes me so sad. No! That's the High Septon's crown. We're washing it, and it dissolves. And there's nothing. And it's great because between these chapters he does dissolve. I love that every single bit is set up here for him to die. You just see it behind the scenes until you realize during the council meeting, you're like, oh, you killed him. Oh, Qyburn killed him. She's the raccoon. Wow.

They're the raccoons. The High Septon is Tyrion's animal, Cersei realizes. Well, maybe. She kneels and kisses his fingers and bids Tommen do the same and wonders what Tyrion told the High Septon of her. He smiles at her, but is it a threatening smile or is it a vacuous smile? She can't quite tell. She should have just left this one in place. Really biffed it on this one. She should just let him be. Better than the sparrow. She really seals herself into this fate, actually, in this chapter, the way she pushes at Lancel when she learns the info she wants to use to kill the High Septon, and in comes the sparrow, sowing her fate.

Yeah, but we will get there. It's about the journey. The journey! We're gonna take a journey now through the Hall of Lamps and the High Septon. I thought this was interesting, leaning on a weirwood staff. That's it. Taught by a crystal orb with seven of the most devout attending him, and Tommen wears cloth of gold beneath the sable mantle, and the Queen has a black velvet gown lined with

ermine. There had been no time to have a new one made, and she could not wear the same dress she'd worn for Jothri, nor the one she'd buried Robert in. At least I will not be expected to dawn mourning for Tyrion. I shall dress in crimson silk and cloth of gold for that and wear rubies in my hair. The man who brought her the Dwarf's head would be raised to lordship, she had proclaimed, no matter how mean and low his birth or station. Ravens were carrying her promise to every part of the Seven Kingdoms, and soon enough word would cross the narrow sea, to the nine free cities and the lands beyond. Let the imp run to the ends of the earth.

He will not escape me." Yeah. I wonder if this is how Robert feels about the Targaryen children. Yeah, replace the name, basically. Interesting. They finally pass into the heart of the Great Sep and the Highborne mourners gather to kneel for the King and Queen. Cersei feels more confident seeing her father's bannermen and knights there, and they reach the marble beer that Tywin rests on. Jamie standing sigil, a hand on his sword, dressed in a white hooded cloak, and his mother of pearl, Kingsguard male. Sounds very fashionable, actually.

Uh, yeah. We have this little passage. Lord Tywin would have wanted him in Lannister gold and crimson, she thought. It always angered him to see Jamie all in white. Her brother was growing his beard again as well. She hates it. She finds it uncouth. I bet. It looks great. You know, beards don't necess- there's a non-zero chance it could increase the attractiveness of a man. I agree. That's it.

That's just science. I don't know what to tell you. That's just statistics. That's math. I mean, we know why she doesn't like it. That's a high level of math. Because it makes them look less like her. Yeah. Well, well, well. And again, focusing on that, she likes things clean and shiny and proper. And the emphasis on the attention she pays to clothes is really coming through. I feel like Cersei and Sansa, we get so much visibility into fashion and clothing throughout the kingdoms. And also, we know why Jaime hasn't shaved. He's depressed.

He feels responsible. It's a great contrast against Daven. I wonder why. Yeah, right? It's a great contrast with Daven Lannister, who we meet in Jaime's chapters, and he refuses to shave until he avenges his father's death. This is Jaime's defiance in a way, too. His father wanted him in Lannister cosplay, but is that appropriate? Is that what Jaime wants? Both of them are kind of cosplaying, right? She's wearing clothing she doesn't want to wear in the morning, he's in Kingsguard armor. We even open the next chapter, Jaime's, with, "'When did you last sleep, my lord?'

"'When my lord father was alive,' said Jaime. "'Allow me to stand tonight in your stead,' Sir Loras offered. "'He was not your father. You did not kill him. I did.' Tyrion may have loosed the crossbow bolt that slew him, but I loosed Tyrion." It's crazy that they're on just like different worlds. Jaime could care fucking less about what he looks like right now. He's so lost in his grief and in his blame and guilt and Cersei is the only one that has to keep the house together.

It's actually like a really great and I think we talked about this probably back then during Jaime's chapters, but you know how a lot of the conflict between them is just like... Miscommunication Yeah it is miscommunication. I mean you can't really just communicate, hey I loosed our brother that we think killed your son and he killed our dad. Um you can't like really just tell people that but that it is just the same sorts of things that you can see in like a romantic couple, even though they shouldn't be one. Says who? But it is that conflict, right? Like that they they didn't define the relationship. He's like, I don't understand. She's sleeping with other people. It's like, well, yeah, were you a real relationship, your brother and sister?

And never defined it. real relationship, your brother and sister. And never defined it. Yeah, and the the secrets that they're keeping from one another. And for him, it's this very big one. But sometimes other people it's like, oh, I don't know, I lost my job. And I didn't tell my partner. I've been spending a lot of time on Reddit. But no, but that's interesting and good point. I'm glad you're spending so much time on Reddit. Wow.

I mean, like, I'm just saying that didn't happen. This is not from my personal experience, just so you guys know. I would have told my partner. This is user Buttfarts420. Probably. Thank you, user Buttfarts420. So unless there's actually a user that's named that, there probably is. Not to like, not to slander them.

So Tommen tears up and Cersei tells him to weep quietly. His lords are watching. She kisses his curls and thinks that he needs her to teach him to rule, to keep him safe from enemies, some that may even be around them right now. And the Silent Sisters prepare Tywin in his armor, heavy crimson steel with gold inlays, golden sunburst rondelles, a lioness on each shoulder, a main lion in his great helm, and on his chest, a long sword gilded with rubies. Do you think that they like lions?

I can't tell. I need a couple more chapters and I'll come back to you on that. He looks noble, but his lips are curled ever so slightly. He would never be smiling. Ever. This is fucked up. The Tywin is sitting here smiling. Except that's like what happens, like your skin, and it goes. Anyways. Cersei blames Pycelle for letting the sisters make Tywin up this way, making him look less fearful. That, and she can't see his pale green eyes that can see inside you, could see how weak and worthless and ugly you were down deep. Cersei, what if this is just the way he looks, honey? Maybe you have to open your eyes and

take off the red shaded glasses. STACEY Well, they do and they don't. But like this line, first I want to say like this line's so sad, like that that's how she interprets his eyes and that it's- STACEY That's how she feels. STACEY She feels that each person intrinsically, especially herself, is weak and worthless and ugly down deep. Right? Not someone of worth. deep. Right? Not someone of worth. And a baseline level of like how she deals with people. Right. And this is like her philosophy on every single person. And that was time and special power. And I think about that in comparison to like how other characters think of people who've passed like John Connington thinking about like how Miles Toyn's smile like just lights up a room,

basically. I'm exaggerating, he doesn't say it like that, but you can tell. And then also him comparing Toyn's grin and death to Bittersteel's. He's looking at Bittersteel's skull and he's like, why are you grinning? You died alone and defeated. You fucking loser. He didn't say that. But you know how death promised you ownership over your own self and story. But also at the same time like I kind of get it like seriously being like I'm confused this doesn't look like Tywin like I remember uh when when I went to go check on you know like my grandparents after they they like put makeup on my grandma and like did stuff like that you know to

for for the viewing and I was like she never did her makeup like this why did you do it like this? Why is this the color that you used? She doesn't look like this and I get it, I get it. I felt that way about my grandma too. Yeah. And my, uh, it's crazy too because like I have a friend that passed that my friends didn't let me go see him because it was a suicide with a gun.

So my friends like stopped me, they were like, it was a suicide with a gun. So my friends like stopped me. They were like, you don't want to see this. This isn't how you want to remember him. You don't want to see him this way. So I never got to actually look at him, you know, so I didn't even get that closure in some aspects. And it's like, was I better off without? Was I better off with? We don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Probably without so you can remember. Right. But it's crazy to think this way, right? Like, this is the closure moment.

This is when you get that closure over someone leaving you and your life and what they've done to you or what you've done to them. Yeah. And I mean, like, I know that, so I viewed her and I don't know that, like, my grandfather got to decide what happened, but, and other people did, I'm not sure she wanted that sort of open casket viewing she was cremated so anyways it's also like some people don't want that. It's interesting too though because it's like this isn't for the person that's dead they're dead. Right but it's like it's hard to balance it because like it. She's thinking, how would you honor Tywin?

He should be wearing gold and crimson, but at the same time, I don't know. Jamie's gotta wear his job, his uniform is also a respectful thing to wear. STACEY That's optics, too. The Lord Commander of the fucking Kingsguard. STACEY That's actually a great point. It would be really weird if he weren't. STACEY The King's Hand actually a great point. It would be really weird if he weren't. The king's hand died. It would be really weird if he weren't. Yeah, that's a subjective want from her, a subjective desire. It's her wanting things as it was when they were children.

That's a good point. You go on into how she recalls a feast. Ares threw a feast at King's Landing once, and Merriwether, the exiled hand Merriwether, had been talking about raising taxes, and Lordriweather, the exiled hand Merriweather, had been talking about raising taxes, and Lord Riker suggested they put Tywin on the chamber pot to shit gold out. Ares and his lickspittles laughed and laughed, and Tywin stared Riker down until he drank his wine and stalked off red-faced, defeated by Tywin's eyes by his pride. Funny, this is kind of how they talk about Littlefinger in a way. You could put Littlefinger on a toilet and he'd shit gold. She basically is thinking that

way in the next chapter. But it's different. This is about her daddy. It's fucked up. Also, Littlefinger would have laughed it off and played along with the joke even though he would have been seething inside. And then stolen their fortunes by marrying their daughters or something? Yeah, something weird like that. Especially if they looked like the moms he used to like. To her credit, I think Ned was a little afraid of her. Yeah, I think everyone except for Tyrian is, honestly.

She is still scary. Just cause we get the POV. The sept is gloomy like the grey skies outside. Usually, the sun slants down through crystals and drapes the room in rainbows and Cersei thinks that Tywin deserved rainbows. That he was great and she must be greater, playing in rainbows in seriously thinks that Tywin deserved rainbows that he was great and she must be greater playing in rainbows in the background. Oh my god yes that's some real like not a canon blended playlist on Spotify action right there. Yeah actually we do have a lot of Radiohead on that one. I know I'll scroll in there and I'll be like

Manu, Emmett, Chloe, Eliana all listen to Radiohead next week, or last week. Time traveling. This moment right here where she's thinking about Tywin, I want to tie back to earlier when she tells Tommen the rain is a very silly metaphor, shit like that is stupid, don't think about that. She's like, Jocelyn's a dumb bitch. If the rain was crying, the gods crying, it would have happened for your brother as well as my father, like don't be stupid. And then here she is going, Tywin deserved rainbows, this is like a sign. I deserve rainbows, I deserve better, I must be better, I must be great. Just thought that was interesting, the hypocrisy and how she treated Tommen versus now, her being like, it should be having rainbows. That's true.

Interesting. Yeah. Just trying to imbue meaning into things. Yeah, well, aren't we all though, dude? That's like every fucking day. For real. That's literally what I do every day. That's what this podcast is.

We're imbuing meaning into shit. We're about to imbue meaning into baseball soon. I'm so excited because we are up one and oh. We are probably at the top of the third now. Hold on everyone, we're looking, we're looking. Fuck the Mets. We're still bottom of the second. Our game is for a few hours. Yeah, you're a time traveler though. So, you know when you don't time travel when you're dead in death, though, the greatest thing about time traveling?

you're dead. In death, though, the greatest thing about Tywin... Time traveling Tywin. Ty... traveling? Something to think about with a Y. Anyways, in death, though, the greatest thing about... Bran does the time traveling. In death, though, the greatest thing about Tywin is that he stinks. Tommen asks Cersei what the smell is, and she tells him, death, but pays the smell no mind. The ceremony goes on, seven septims, seventy-seven septas. All gather and preach and sing for the father and the mother to be served by Tywin's soul and shit. It gets pretty catholic and pretty long. Tommen is fidgeting and Cersei's knees hurt.

Jaime stands as if carved by stone and Kevin kneels, his shoulders slumped, and Lancel by his side. Lancel is not looking great. He's gaunt and gray-faced and his hair is brittle." Cersei has done one thing wrong ever, and that's Lancel. We can get into that as we go along. I don't need to talk about it more than that, but I'm like, yeah, Lancel is maybe the one thing she's done wrong. Also, Malara had bad vibes. Don't at me. STACEY That bitch deserved it. That seven-year-old bitch deserves it. STACEY Fuck them kids. Oh my god, I had a Lyft driver a while back that she and I were talking about

children she used to teach and she was like, yeah, I quit all that. She's like, I did it for like 25 years and she goes, f**k them kids. And I was like, yeah, she said f**k them kids. And I was like, yeah, f**k them kids. She's like, yeah, f**k them kids. This is a safe space. This is a pro Cersei Lannister space. We can say things like that. Yeah. Also, I don't know. It was both Cersei and Tyrion. Cersei definitely is part of the problems of people doing a fucking number on poor Lancel, but Tyrion also was like, what if I, let's multiply it. And they both together just fucked this poor little boy

up. Cersei's- Kind of funny because you have the Rhaegar cosplaying Orain, for Cersei, and then you have Lancel cosplaying Jaime, her two tastes. STACEY Orain doesn't know he's cosplaying, he's like, I'm just here. I'm just trying to steal some ships. STACEY That doesn't matter, a lot of people don't know they're cosplaying.

STACEY I'm just trying to steal some ships. STACEY And... STACEY Go for him. STACEY The Lorient is shipsexual. STACEY Yeah, actually. STACEY Those bitches love their ships. STACEY They love their ships, and not in the way that we love our ships. Different ships.

Circe sees Lord Giles coughing and then Pysel's eyes close and is like, if that man is sleeping, I'm gonna have him whipped. And I'm like, I, in my headcanon, Pysel is not sleeping. He is sad, he is grieving, because Pysel was in love with Tywin and he's just really heavily grieving. He's closing his eyes to be alone right now and if he's sleeping, he's dreaming of Tywin. That's what's happening. Sorry, Lord Giles? Giles.

Giles. Giles. Giles? Giles. Giles. Giles. Giles. Giles? Giles. Okay, that's what you're into. That's what I'm into. I guess I'm in for a long fucking 13, 14 episodes. Oh my gosh. Yes, Pycell is in love with Tywin, I agree.

That's it. We're here shipping. Our kind ships. Cersei wonders how Lancel is alive while Tywin is dead. She notices most of the funeral party is also smelling Tywin's smelliness, and she sees the Tyrells, of course, also being like, oh, it's smelly, and she looks down at them – at Queen Margaery, she almost forgets to call her. Margaery, she thinks, looks a lot like Loras, and Cersei wonders if they share other tastes, right? Other things in

common, much like her, who fucks her brother who looks like her. And she studies Margaery's ladies-in-waiting, sizing up which one of them is the most fearful, which one's the most wanton, which one's the hungriest for favor, who has the loosest tongue, and she watches them all wrinkle their nose at the smell of her father." LW So the way that Cersei is wondering, which of the ladies-in-waiting is this thing, this thing, this thing, right? It's a very cynical way of looking at it, but I think it's actually the exact same lesson that Ned gives his children, that a ruler must know the people who serves them. So I actually think that this is some good wondering on her part. I mean, is it supposed to be looked at as so cynical or is it real? Like, yeah, she's

shrewd but women have to be shrewd in some aspects to survive. Ladies politics are a lot different than dude politics in this kingdom. LW Yeah. But she could look at it as who's the most loyal, right? Who's the most whatever. But who's the best for ex-job? And this is not a bad way of looking at it either necessarily, like, she's looking at it a bit of what are their motivations and how can I use it as opposed to this person is best at, I don't know, beekeeping. I'm gonna make them in charge of bees. I don't know why that's what I went to. Wow. Bees are cool.

She thinks she hears someone making a joke about a privy, but when she looks for the voice all she sees are blank, staring, solemn faces at her. They would never have dared make japes about him when he was still alive. He would have turned their bowels to water with a look. Orler Castle In the hall of lamps Cersei is hugged and kissed and showered with condolences from mourners. I'm exhausted just saying it. Lord Giles hired a stonecarver to make a statue of Tywin.

Haline the pyromancer promises a burning hand in the sky the night Tywin's bones go west. I just like that he promised a drone show basically. Felice asks if her sister can name her child. It's about Tywin. Tywin. Ty- about Tywin time. Anyways, Cersei reminds Feliz and us, she's like, well, Lollis got herself raped by half of King's Landing and naming him Tywin is not an appropriate name. And they were like, oh, you're so right, my bad. She avoids the roses, but can't avoid her uncle and Lancel, who looks like death and tries to be kind, seeing that he looks much stronger but questioning why he hadn't made

his way to the castle yet, and he answers, oh god, and that she used to threaten to scrub it off with some spit. It's kind of sweet, but fucked up. It's kind of weird for the fact that she was like, yeah, like, praying on this boy who is her cousin. It is almost sweet. It's almost like a tender memory. Yeah. sweet. It's almost like a tender memory. Yeah, it is very of a past time too in some ways. It's like, oh, things were less the way they are now. Robert was still alive and stupid. Yeah, if they were both the same age,

experiencing sexual adventures together for the first time together and not related. It's sweet." It's sweet. It's sweet. No, literally, it wouldn't have been. They talk about the Riverlands needing a strong hand and that Lancel is soon to be wed to a fray girl. Amy, a widow of dairy blood. Amy, that should help rule the peasants, according to Kevin, but all his peasants are dead. He reached for her hand. It is cruel, Cersei.

Your Grace knows that I love— House Lannister. She finished for him. No one can doubt that, Lancel. May your wife give you strong sons. Best not let her Lord Grandfather host the wedding, though. I know you will do many noble deeds in Derry." Lancel nodded, plainly miserable.

Oh my god, I'm sorry, that line, though, about the wedding and Frey. House Lannister. Oh yeah, and Frey. He's like, don't let him host it. Don't let Baldur Frey host the wedding. Oh shit. Like, why'd you marry me into this shit, then? Fuck! It's pretty funny. This is a good scene. Lots of humor going on here, but also, this all comes back later in Jamie's chapters.

It's fun. It's a fun book. Yeah. Lancel tells her that the High Septon prayed for him when he almost died, and that he's a good man, who said that the mother spared him so that he may atone for his sins. Cersei wondered how he intended to atone for her. Knighting him was a mistake, and bedding him a bigger one. Yes.

She thinks he was much more amusing when he was cosplaying Jaime, and she's like, silent prayer is the best way to achieve atonement. Silent prayer, emphasis on silent before wheeling herself around to face the queen and her host. I have to add literally with that, like yeah, the silent prayer is the best way, but she did herself in, like you should have kept this one alive.

It's the next one that's the problem that finds out about it. It's funny cause it's also comes back to what you were saying earlier about the lesson that Jamie gave of like, you should be quiet about it and go inside. That's literally what she's telling me. So she's like, you should just be quiet about it. Just bury this deep down inside. That's how you can all atone. Drowning in it. Absolutely drowning in it. Marjorie embraces her like a sister. She's like, that was a little too familiar.

I understand this feeling. Lady Aery and the cousins all kiss her fingers. Lady Graceford asks if she can name her child Tywin or Lana. Another one. She almost groaned. The realm will drown in Tywin's, huh? Another rain reference. Yeah, ironic.

Circe feigns delight, but Lady Merrymother keeps her attention, saying she sent word to her friends across the narrow sea to seize the imp, should he show his face. She has friends in Mir, in Lys, in Tyrosh, men of power. And she thinks that Taina's pretty fucking hot. She's got all of skin, ripe lips, big dark eyes and dark hair, and she smells like sin. I don't know what that means, but... Really good perfume. Really good perfume. Okay, okay. She's ambitious. sexy to Cersei, but also the power, like gave her the biggest Cersei boner there. Right? Like Cersei gets off on power. That's why she wrote the song Money Power Glory by Lana Del Rey.

That's a that's a great observation. I didn't even really think about that. It makes me think of and this comes back to like some of those things that were talked about regarding the trappings of power in our letter from Rowan of like someone, I had a professor pointed out that, so I think that Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, so yeah she does love Mr. Darcy but the moment that she goes she was in love with him is like she goes and visits his estate. He's not even there and she looks at how great it is and she's like, I love him. And it's the power, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's sexy. I mean, that is what she's into, right? That's what she wanted from Jamie, and it's what she coveted. And I am kind of curious about

the way that George frames ambition, right? Like we're told that this is a defining trait of Lady Mary Mother, which again, this could be actually like Hidetaka Miyazaki, but like I'm thinking about the way that George uses ambition in some of his other stories. But I'm mostly thinking about it in the context of Elden Ring, where you keep getting this line called the flames of ambition, and you keep getting this line called the flames of ambition, and you, the player, have the flame of ambition, right? That's why you were playing this game. And I'll have to think about this a bit more. It's not necessarily that ambition is a bad thing,

but it is a dangerous thing, mostly for all the other people, because we see how ambition manifests in Littlefinger and how it's dangerous to the people around him, and then also how ambition can be dangerous in me and how I am going to kill all of these other gods and demigods and become Elden Lord. And Cersei sees Taina's ambition as something she can use and exploit, but she underestimates the danger and the risks that it poses her. STACEY And there's something interesting about how it connects with the Free Cities, right? We've seen a lot of – well, we'll see some casual Dornish racism on and off, let alone Cersei's fetishization. STACEY Just casual. STACEY Yeah, really casual.

STACEY Casual. STACEY Real casual. Exactly. You understand me, leaving like a poem. Cersei fetishizes Tyena like very much, but also there's a light obsession with the Free Cities. We even see in the next chapter she decides to change the names of her council rules to rules from the Free City. Kind of interesting that she sees the Free Cities almost as this power of this out of Westeros. She feels like Westeros is weak and she needs some sort of fighting example to strive towards. You could almost see that Tyena influencing beginning already on her. Very, huh, very Mazzaria-Bernera.

LW- Well, the Free Cities are, especially like, George mixes up kind of different periods of time. But the Free Cities would be, you know, kind of like the how the Italian city states, right, were having their Renaissance and it comes later on to other areas. And they're much more, you know, metropolitan than like, some areas of England at the time. But that's much later in time. Anyways, but when you say it like that, it makes me think of Sansa thinking like, oh, everything's bigger and better in King's Landing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Much bigger, much better. Yeah. What's less sexy, though, is Mace Tyrell. He tells her that Tywin was an extraordinary man,

and they'll never see the likes of him again, and Cersei thinks, you are staring at his like, you fool. And Mace offers his strength to Cersei. He's like, please let me be your hand, Cersei. Nudge, nudge, but he doesn't really say it. Willis is leading the reach, Garlin will soon take the Brightwater, and as Tywin often said, the governance of the realm must come first. And I am thinking a little here now, like, Willis and Garlin, this is what Tyrion and Jaime should have been or could have been. Rip. Good news. When you normalize, socialize. Right. With love. Love can change a man's

nature. This could have been them. But it ain't. Good news, though. Mace's Uncle Garth, he's coming. He's on his way to serve as Master of Coin just like Tywin wanted. And he's bringing his sons who also need jobs, which by the way, your dead dad also promised to us. to do the job. Jesus fucking Christ, Rosby. Cersei had already invited Giles, Rosby. She's like, you better send a raven and stop him from braving the Autumn Sea. Okay. Funny enough, I actually had this exact conversation about the pronunciation of names spelled similarly with my partner, where I was insistent on this one character being named Giles. And this is in, I think it's Buffy right no yeah it is Buffy and he's like no it's

Giles because I have like a cousin or someone that I grew up with and their name is spelled the same and it's pronounced Giles I'm like well this man literally tells us in the first episode his name is like spelled and pronounced Giles so both are acceptable pronunciations and to me this man is Giles Rossby. And I love that Mace like automatically reveals, he's like wait what that all he can think of when he's like so stud, he's like that coffer. Like the defining trait for Giles Rossby to everyone is that man is always coughing and Mace hates it and just reveals it right here.

He has turned red. Incredible. He's turned red at all of this and Olenna busts in. Also, she's got some feelings saying that it seems Tywin hadn't shared his plans with the Queen Regent. STACEY Oh, that's very tumbling right there when she says that. It's such a jab. Olenna isn't at all intimidated by Cersei. It's great. She's too tired for that. She's like, I've lived too long for that shit. I've dealt with girls before. TERA She's beyond all that. Power is doing things for her. Garth farts a lot, and how, of course, on the road he farts even more.

"'Your council chambers will smell sweeter with Lord Giles, though I dast say the coughing would drive me to distraction. We all adore dear old Uncle Garth, but the man is flatulent. That cannot be gainsaid.' I do abhor foul smells." Her wrinkled face wrinkled up even more. I caught a whiff of something unpleasant in the Holy Sept in truth. Mayhaps you smelled it too?" "'No,' Circe said coldly. A scent, you say." "'More like a stink.' "'Perhaps you miss your autumn roses. We've kept you here too long. Oh my god, tennis match. This funeral is fucking brutal.

I do think this chapter captures very well the awkwardness of one, I guess. The ones that I, that my family loves awkward, there's karaoke for some reason. I do really like how Circe is really channeling and quoting the song that George R.R. Martin put in here to the Tyrell. She's like, I know you'd like to think your shit don't stink, but lean a little bit closer, see roses really smell like boo boo boo. So anyways, thank you Cirsei for quoting Outcast. She thinks that the sooner she can get rid of Olenna, the better. Fewer Tyrells, fewer Tyrells swords, the better. And Olenna misses home, but also says she can't leave until Tommen and Margaery are

wed, and that Tywin and Olenna were very close to cementing a date. Cersei promises soon and off Olenna tottles, escorted by left and right, if you'll remember them. She skews Tommen from the Tyrell girls, telling him to put his crown back on it. It makes his head hurt. I wonder if Cersei looks at those twins and she's like, are they fucking? Every set of twins she sees. Every people who look the same, are they fucking? Yes, they are.

This is like that episode of Broad City where Elana dates herself. Maybe. Yeah, she dates maybe. It came maybe from a rest of all the- Alia. So. Tommen asks if he'll marry Margaery soon, and if they can go to Highgarden like Margaery said. Cersei's like, no, you're not going to Highgarden. You can ride your

horse back to the castle, though, and she calls to get him a mount, and she asks Lord Giles if he will share her litter, so she can ask him to be master of coin. So after Lord Giles coughs his way into mediocrity, like most men, Cersei reminds him if anyone asks, you were named to the council yesterday. As he coughs and coughs, she thinks maybe when he dies she could bring Littlefinger back. He'll need somewhere new to live soon, now that Lysa's dead and everyone hates him in the Vale.

Giles asks who the Hand of the King is, and she replies, dryly, my uncle. Hmm, we'll see about that. Not in the next chapter. At the castle, finally Cersei retires to her chambers, but then Qyburn appears, wearing his worn and frayed robe. He'd been in the dungeons, questioning folks about Tirion's escape, and it turns out that there was a third man that escaped that night, Rugen. He had worked there since Ares's days. No friends, no kin, didn't drink or frequent brothels, but under his chamber pot was a loose stone, a small hollow, where his valuables were held. And in the dirt of the hollow was a golden

coin buried from Garth the Gardener, dating before the Conquest, a Highgarden coin. It'd be really funny if this was from like the Hightower days in the throne Yeah, I mean really funny. It's definitely like plotted. Fairey's is like out here thinking like hmm We'll let her draw all these conclusions, but I Feel like it's so much more likely that it's like inconsequential and wasn't planted though. Like I think that would be even funnier I don't know everyone thinks like it was probably F probably berries, but I'm just like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe. I do think it was because he's just like trying to be like, what if we, why don't we just

kept pushing Cersei over the edge just a little, which we find out is his plan. He's like, she's doing so good. I couldn't have even planned how good she's doing for me. That's true. That's true. That's true. No, I don't know. I don't know if it really actually matters, too, because it's just Chekhov's coin. She found it no matter what. It's just going to add to her mistrust. That's true.

Well, she holds the coin and she thinks of the Tyrell treachery as a foot, which honestly it's not untrue. They did kill her son. And commands Qyburn to be discreet, which he knows's not untrue. They did kill her son. Um, and commands Qyburn to be discreet, which he knows very well how to be. The conversation turns to the next thing she asked of him, Sir Gregor. Turns out the viper's spear had some sort of poison. Qyburn says manticore venom. Pycelle had argued no, but Qyburn's like, I mean, it's thickened somehow to draw out the mountains dying, either with another substance

or maybe a spell. Cersei thinks this is stupid. First thing, Qyburn is always gassing her up, and we'll notice it a lot more too with Tyena, but there's a certain way she gets spoken to that she likes, even though it is discounting her intelligence, and Qyburn does that. He very specifically keeps honorifics when he speaks to her. He frames everything in a way that never tells but suggests and lets her pick up on it. And so does Tyena. And she would prefer to have the wool over her eyes, right? Like she prefers that. And she prefers to

live with these like optics being focal-centric. So thought that was interesting here, the way that his language is used to her. It may be as your grace expected, right? Putting the intelligence on her, putting like, oh, you said this, you're the boss. Ass kisser fucking mentality, but it gets you far with Circe, is what I'm saying. Yeah, and the the wool over your the eyes thing, like I do think that is very Tywin-esque of her, and it's hard because Circe hasn't had that kind of approval in ass kissing in her life, not in that same way. Like obviously people have ass kissed her before because she is the queen, right, and she's a Lannister. But not in the same way like people have with Tywin and not intrinsically when it comes

to power. So it's harder for her to like parse like what's real and what's not. Yeah, absolutely. Because you want to believe in how it should be. Yeah, you want to believe when someone tells you like, oh, you're, you're so good to see it. You're so smart, clever to have seen it. You're so clever to have seen it. But you apparently you told us you're starting to say it seriously now. So now how can we tell? Yeah. Yeah. So now exactly. And what's the truth? Exactly. And that serves

you right there. What's the truth? What's the truth? No one will know when Chloe tells you that you're so clever to have seen it. And you're so clever to have seen that. Oh my god. Cersei also, something that's coming out very much is like the idea of magic or the idea that the answer is magic to things is she hates it and that's based on what Maggie the witch told her in her experience with Maggie the witch versus now She hates all magic in her adult life and it's very authentic very real this like aversion to the answer being magic Hibern saying it was a spell Cersei saying that's stupid. There are no spells next chapter I think she has that idea of like if a prophecy is forgotten Malara told her it won't come true. You know, like, so just all these,

like, very anti-magic statements for magic. Similar to, like, when you think of Varys, right, talking about his hatred of magic. It's interesting to put those against one another now that I say it, but... Well, the idea that if you forget a prophecy, then it's not true is also kind of interesting in the context of how we see characters in the story keep trying to flail against prophecy and therefore fulfill it, right? Like with Cersei or like with Melisandre being like, I saw Renly there so we should kill him. And then it ends up like the quote unquote ghost of Renly like invigorates people even more and you does show up at the Blackwater. So if you forget it, you never like try and live your life by it and you can just be free. Anyways, interesting, interesting.

We'll get there in one day. But Magic does like, she starts being like, but I don't know, Magic could be fun with Qyburn there. Like Gregor- A cheat code. Yeah, she's like, I don't know, it could be fun every now and then as a treat. Getting to form her character from someone who hated Magic and was afraid of it because of what her fate was going to be, but almost embracing that as she keeps getting deeper and the prophecy keeps coming true that fuck it, we ball, fuck it, we have kyber, and let's do dark necromancy, that's fucking cool. That right there is fucking something to grasp in her plot that might happen. She might actually become less averse to it and embrace it, and that's wild to think about.

I think we are heading in that kind of direction. Yeah, which we'll get to. Like, CRC Queen of the Dead or something, which could be really interesting. Gregor is overly used to the milk of the poppy already. He's dying very slowly. He's in exquisite agony. His veins are black from head to heel and his pee is full of puss. Oh my God.

Ugh, sorry. I've had UTIs before. Ugh. And the venom has eaten the hole in the side of him. Circe frowns saying that he's very large and too stupid to know what to tie to him. She literally says that shit. Uh, ballad, I guess, in some ways. Actually kind of interesting too with the- anyways.

I was debating whether or not to include this, but I'm going to do it because we are all in- I'm sorry, I'm just like, as you all know, I've been like really Elden Ring-pilled lately in the DLC. I don't know with the DLC which parts are George and which parts are not George. There's this one character that I'm like obsessed with, a lot of people are, called Egon, which actually might be inspired by Aegon. He's a dragon, he's a Drake warrior, a true Drake warrior. He's got like the coolest fucking speech.

We'll read it aloud eventually sometime. Or should we do it now? No, no, no. Okay, anyways, he has these lines where he goes like, oh, the pain, the exquisite pain. So I'm starting to wonder is this character maybe from George because he uses this term here exquisite agony. In regards to Gregor, I'm like, George like phrasing. I don't know. I don't know yet. Or maybe is this like a common phrase? Do people just say, oh, the exquisite pain and exquisite agony all the time? Do I just not know how people talk?

Not me. Have you heard? Have you heard that phrase before? No. Together? Like the idea of like, yeah, something painful together with exquisite paired. Is it common? I guess like, because there's like that idea of agony and ecstasy, right? Yeah, like St. Teresa. Yeah, exactly. Christianity, St. Teresa. So like, there's something biblically kind of about it that I think has been, I wouldn't even necessarily say perverted, but has been changed through time to be adopted for other people and like BDSM and shit, you know, so

like, interesting, like the idea of agony being pleasure and magical agony being pleasure in some aspects too, and someone's pain being a pleasure. Yeah, I think that's a thing. Yeah, so I'm just like, is it, I don't know. It's an interesting idea. So Circe says that his screams frighten Tommen and wants him to be killed. Ah, they're putting the dog down. But Qyburn wants to experiment on him in the dungeons instead.

She's like, okay, sure, maybe you can work here, but job interview time. Why did the Citadel take your chain? And Qyburn calls the Archmaesters Craven and goes, the gray sheep Marwyn calls them. DING DING DANG MARWYN REFERENCE! Yeah, that stands out this time through on the read that Qyburn and Marwyn are school pals and so like Not only are they pals from school, but also they were aligned on some of their research methods. They were interested in this idea of necromancy together and apart. It puts them as peers, which puts

them now in the main story as magical peers. You have the idea of Marwyn maybe looking for Dany right now and going to Daenerys, where you have Cersei with this dark horse Qyburn who's like this kind of... they're both dark, but Marwyn's not quite evil in the Looney Tunes twink grandpa way that Qyburn is kind of evil. He's like evil twink necromancer and I love that for Grandad. I don't know. Interesting to see there's a little power here going towards that idea of Cersei existing in the story longer than some may think. If Marwyn and Qyburn are peers, there's going to be some tension between them maybe with this. Having someone with all this old knowledge on her side is really interesting. LS Yeah, I do think Cersei's gonna last a lot longer than people think. And, I mean,

this is exactly what we're saying, right? More magic is coming into her story. I think people think of King's Landing as more of this unmagical, very political side of the story, which is true, but I think this shows that she's very much actually part of the magical storyline as well. Kite Absolutely. Eryn Kayburn had opened the bodies of the dead that were still alive, I guess, and been forced into exile, and Cersei allows him to do what he wants with the mountain and the black cells. And when he dies, bring his head to her for Dorne.

Qyburn then begins to ask for some gold to job interview negotiations, and Cersei immediately cuts him off and says he'll have what he needs and to buy some new robes, and of course to practice discretion. This is the NDA part. Um. STACEY Um, Kyburn is so funny. He needs a grant for his work is what's going on. And finally, after Cersei does all this work, she relaxes with strong wine, watching shadows, thinking about the coin from the reach of her father's smile, and of course, of Tyrion, wondering if Pycelle was his cat-spa. Thinking of Rugen, the lost jailer, and the Hive septin too.

Finally at sunset, Kevin arrives and cuts through all the crap. Cersei needs a hand, and Jaime refused her, rather publicly. He suggests Mace Tyrell, but she refuses. He comments, Mace shouldn't have been begging you in the House of Lamps, but you were wrong to shame him so publicly." She argues Giles Rosby will be adequate as Master of Coin, and he dresses his household very richly, so obviously the man can find some money. But for Hand, who better to finish Tywin's work than his own brother? She should have had Qyburn sign a non-compete. Every man needs someone he can trust. Tywin had me, and once your mother."

"'He loved her very much,' Cersei refused to think about the dead whore in his bed. I know they are together now." "'So I pray.' Sir Kevin studied her face for a long moment before he replied. "'You ask much of me, Cersei.' "'No more than my father did. Cersei. I am tired. Her uncle reached for his wine cup and took a swallow.

I have a wife I have not seen in two years. A dead son to mourn. Another son about to marry and assume a lordship. Castle Derry must be made strong again. Its lands protected, its burned fields plowed and planted anew. Lancel needs my help." CERCIE As just Tommen. Cercie had not expected Kevin to require coaxing.

He never played coy with father. STACEY We don't actually know that. CERCIE Yeah. STACEY What if he did? Interesting. CERCIE I think when he did, he was forced to go take the house of the family he grew up in. He was forced to take the reins of Castamere. I like how also in the scene it goes, and we see this is the only time she thinks of

it, this chapter of, Circe refused to think about the dead whore in his bed in regards to Tywin and Shay, and how Circe's like pushing down the thought of Shay. She cannot, she cannot reconcile it with her image of Tywin as we see here like more and more throughout his death. She's lionizing him and almost in a way shaping, reshaping her memory of Tywin to what she thinks he should be, whatever her ideal idea of someone in power is. Whereas Catelyn, I think, has always kind of known that the men around her are very flawed. She finds out, like, Hoster's sins. You know, she has those, like, ideas of him but has been away from

him for so long that when she comes back she's like, who is this? Who's this sick man? And her father's going on and on about Tansy and at first she's like, oh, I mean, I guess he probably had another lover. Like, she had to accept this in her husband. She's like, I guess my husband had another lover. But instead of rejecting it, she incorporates it into her understanding of Hoster. And even like, because she accepts it, she's able to piece it together. She's able to piece together like, Oh, my dad forced an abortion on my sister. That's why Liza was crying and, and my father did a terrible thing versus seriously grieving and refusing to understand that, uh, dad fucks.

I'm not gonna say Tywin did a terrible thing, I guess, necessarily by being ashamed. Yes and no, depending on all these other circumstances. But more of she's just like, I can't understand Dad fucks. It's interesting because it's the first thing that Catalin comes to. Yeah, true. She immediately is like, did my dad fuck someone? Because she understands men and their nature, where Cersei has this like, pie in the sky view of Tywin. Yeah, and I mean like, Catelyn, you have that in your nature too, she's just only been a widow for a little bit. I mean like, listen. Jason Nellister's right there.

Please! Jump on it, my pony! You can't tell me you didn't feel a little something when Jamie was in chains in front of you. I felt it move, okay? I felt it move. That being Catlin, not Jamie. I don't know what I felt. Kevin tries to cut a deal.

He'll stay and rule the realm if Cersei goes the fuck home to the Rock and finds a new husband, which is what her father intended for her. In fact, Kevin even adds on, I won't force you to wed, but you're the lady of Casterly Rock and your place is there. She fucking wants to scream. She reminds him I'm the Queen, Regent, my place is with Tommen, the king is my son. He then says Jaime was always Tywin's rightful heir, and Cersei calls Jamie a handsome fool. Kevin reminds her she recently publicly was rejected after asking that handsome fool to be handed the king, and says, what does that make you, Cersei? Wow. Checkmate, mate. Damn.

Uncle Kevin, why would you do this? I think Kevin always knew that Cersei wasn't going to acquiesce to getting married again, or obviously going to Casterly Rock, and so he plays that hand of like, well you were supposed to get married after she says back that she's the Regent, and he just does this whole bargaining and negotiation tactic constantly, hoping that she wants him to be hand enough for her to go back to Casterly Rock and turns out she doesn't. Like being regent means she can control her own destiny. Yes, being Lady of the Rock has power to it but she doesn't- there's still someone who will have power over her when in that position. Here, like,

the rest of the realm, whatever happens to them, it's a side effect of her getting to control her own life. And Kevin keeps trying to play Tywin's memory card, it's just not enough, right? Like, Jaime has his heir. I'm like, I don't know, Jaime doesn't really know how to rule, that was very silly of him. Like, Jaime knows how to wage war, we see him doing some interesting stuff, this book, but he's angry. He says it himself. He's angry. He's always been able to be angry. Yeah, absolutely. Tyrion is the real heir. Tyrion's really, I mean, someday we'll get to that. You never know when. You never know. You never know. Cersei is like, I was mad with grief when I did that. VALIDATION. Me too. I'm mad with grief like every day. She just wanted someone she trusted near her, you know? Valid.

She's lonely. Loneliness. The human condition. The second kind of loneliness. Wow. Whoa. Kevin says from what he saw of Joffrey, Cersei is as unfit a mother as she is a ruler. Okay, but Robert gets no blame. Okay. mother as she is a ruler. She throws her wine in his face and asks what gives him the right to make terms with her. He is nothing more than one of her father's household knights. Kevin reminds her that this household knight was not forgotten by his own father when he died, and Tywin rewarded his service very well. Kevin has 200 plus knights, free riders, and gold to hire swords.

He's not threatening her, he's counseling her. And if she won't yield the regency to him, then she should make Randall Tarly or Mathis Rowan Hand of the King. Mathis is prudent. Randall's a fine soldier, he could finish the war. Neither would offend Mace, he would have to thank her for it." Yes, I actually do think that this is sound advice though from Kevin, especially from what we know of these lords, especially Randall Tarly, because yeah, Mace would have to accept

they are his bannermen, but it's not a bannerman who loves Mace Tyrell or any of the Tyrells, which raising either of these lords gives Cersei leverage because not who loves Mace Tyrell or any of the Tyrells, which raising either of these lords gives Circe leverage because not only would Mace have to thank Circe for all this, like these lords would have to thank Circe for all of it because Mace wasn't going to do it and I don't know. It's brilliant. Part of me kind of thinks like maybe Kevin actually always did want to be the castle and then not like come to King's Landing to something said I don't know and he just like yeah talked seriously into this in a roundabout way and

was like here you don't actually want me to be him and and as he says his brother is dead seriously father is dead like the positions that they are in in terms of power like it's forcing them to do all this business talk instead of like, actually feeling their feelings and grieving and getting to support one another during this tough time. Yeah, and no, because there's also something in like, I mean, we see Kevin, and it's kind of similar in some aspects to like Ned, the cup was never meant to pass to me, right? That bitterness that was never meant to pass to me. I was prepared to live my mediocre fucking normal life. That's all I fucking wanted after the war.

And same for Kevin, right? It's a punishment. Being hand is a punishment. In the same way being king is a punishment, it's a service. I think we think about Tyrion too with some of that and some of the Hand of the King punishments that he's been put in already, and some that he might be put in in the future. Yeah, takes the shit. And this chapter, Kevin tells Cersei how to fix everything wrong with the throne. Weaken the Tyrells without insulting them. Don't be your father.

Reward good service. Don't publicly shame people." And then literally in the next chapter, she upends all of that and does the opposite of it, and we see the results of it in her small council in the next chapter. And between the next Cersei chapter and Jaime's chapter, she once more begs Jaime to be her hand. She comes to him in the night, begs him to be her hand. She's lost. I mean, she's very lost in all of this. She doesn't actually know what to do, and she's doing reactive fire drill moves in the face of all of this instead of proactive moves instead of longer games. She's not willing to take

the short-term risks off her plate and make them long-term risks. She would rather do the short-term risks, and that's kind of part of her downfall when it comes to ruling. It's kind of hard because she doesn't know the dynamics of all the different players and pieces that she can use and staff her offices with very well because she wasn't allowed to go to basically any of those networking events, right? Her dad wasn't gonna take her and even when Robert was king, it's not quite the same as in House of the Dragon, right? Where Alysant rules instead of Viserys because Viserys was just like old and sick so there was like it made sense for her to at times like take that role and and so forth whereas Cersei

there's no fucking way Robert was gonna listen listen to any of her council, first of all, because... And also Robert just like straight up also was not ruling, so it would make no sense for Cersei to show up there in his stead either. Like there is no way she was going to get to be in the room to learn all these dynamics, so... Absolutely. Anyways, as we end this chapter with, that is my council. Take it or no. You may make Moonboy your hand, for all I care. My brother is dead, woman.

I am going to take him home. Traitor, she thought. Turn cloak. She wondered how much Mace Tyrell had given him. You would abandon your king when he needs you most,' she told him. "'You would abandon Tommen.'" Tommen has his mother. Sir Kevin's green eyes met her own, unblinking.

A last drop of wine trembled, wet and red, beneath his chin, and finally fell. I— He added softly after a pause. His father too, I think. STACEY Damn! That's all you can do in the face of a wine glass in your face, you know what I mean? Like, damn. She upends her wine glass at him. Some real Housewives of Westeros shit going on. STACEY Also, usually it's a smoothie in my head.

I don't know why. A smoothie. Smoothies are so much worse to get poured on you. Okay. Yeah, the milk content is killing me in this conversation. Not even just the milk, just like it's wet. It's like goopy, sticky. Yeah.

And the milk content, because of how it makes it that way, like it makes it so like stretched out compared to just like wine. It's thin, it's easier. VB- I wish everyone would kind of leave Moonboy alone, I actually feel really bad for him. VB- Like you may make Moonboy your hand for all I care. Damn! VB- Justice for Moonboy, the fuck is up with that? He gets implicated in so much shit, I feel for that boy. VB- Moon of my life, boy. VB- Moon of my life, boy. Moon of my life, boy! Stop. All right, Eliana, I want you to tell us a little bit more about your thoughts

here on Kevin as a turncloak. I have a couple last closing thoughts. Motherless. Damned. Okay, Cersei's not saying you would abandon your king when he needs you most, you would abandon Tommen. She's saying you're abandoning me. Alright, why would you abandon me, uncle? Jamie's abandoned me, father's abandoned me by dying, Tyrion's probably gonna try to come kill me is what she thinks. She's alone. She is alone. She has no friends.

She's like, I don't know, I guess my employee Qyburn, is he a friend? Tayna Merriwether, is he a friend? Tana Merriweather, is she a friend? Because of all that, this is why she sees Kevin as a traitor and a turt and cloak. He is actually doing what he can that he feels fits within his boundaries to strengthen the house as much as he can. He's not doing the best job. He's actually doing the right thing. I mean, he's doing the best he can.

Yeah, he's doing – and he's like, I just want to spend time with my family. I'm sorry, I do have a family. And unlike Davos – interesting – anyways, even when Kevin lacks some of what is necessary – and it's the lions cannot come together. You know, we think back to the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. It's the same for the lions, even though I guess in the wild, you know, sometimes they will fight each other, even eat each other's cubs or some shit. Whatever. Wow.

I- it's fun because you see that Circe sees Kevin as a traitor in the turn cloak just because he won't do what she wants, right? But a singular person's wants are not always what is best for the house or even for themselves. I know I have wanted many things in life that were not the best for me and Kevin's like she's interpreting Kevin's disagreement as a rejection of she's interpreting Kevin's disagreement as a rejection of herself, and she's already turned herself into the representation of the house and the crown. Yup. Literally that, though. Like, 100%. Like, it's a rejection of herself. She is embodying it. It is embodying her. If you reject it, that's what it means now. And it hurts. I mean, it's like she feels also like he would

have done it for Tywin, he would have done it for Jamie, he would have done it for Tyrion. Yeah. But I do think like, I mean, he's right, someone needs to be out there in the West. Someone's got to do it. Someone's got to hold the fucking seat, who represents the family name in that way. It comes back to what we were talking about with stuff, right? You can't just let the Baratheon seat get taken by a foreigner. You can't fucking just let Winterfell get taken. Right? We used to be a country. You can't just let Dragonstone get taken. Let's just name a bunch of places. You can't just let the Eerie get taken which is also what is happening on a more subtle level. Because it's impregnable.

Oh my god, but I mean, yeah, that's that's literally that's literally it right like but she's not she is being rejected But not you know, she's got that RSD that rejection sense sensitive dysphoria. She really kind of does. She's just like me for real. You know, I feel like we're gonna finish this and like I'm gonna get a text on my phone That's like Chloe at Cersei. I need you to donate to my campaign right now. Oh my god. And you're gonna be like no, she's gonna be like traitor turn cloak. Traitor turn cloak. Motherless. Damn. She is kind of motherless damn though. She is kind of motherless damn though. I mean he gave him he gave her he gave him I'm out here giving Cersei the best

gender of her life she's so excited he gave her like the right method forward yeah if she was going to keep peace but and he does deserve to go home and it's house is in shambles. He needs to go see his hostage wife and kiss her. His son! Look at his son! His son is in shambles! He's here at the funeral! Speaking of people who won't leave Tiwau. People who need support and help. My son, Lancel. That bitch is gonna be dead.

I guess I'm just saying that because I voiced Kevin a lot this episode. I don't really think of Lancel as my son. He's no Adam Valerian, sorry. Hashtag somewhat loyal. He's making a little too loyal. Seriously, you know that I love House Lannister. Interesting what Lancel picked up from his father in comparison, right? Here, Kevin is defiant, and Lancel is not. He is overall of the Lannisters, at least. Defiant of who he is. confusing sometimes to be a Lancel. Lansel, oh oh, and so confusing sometimes to be Lannister, Lannister. You say we have the same hair.

Oh my god. We'll be back to sing Girl So Confusing remix by Lorde in the future about the Lannisters probably next week for Circe 3. We're coming up on some real hot to trot guests in the future. Get excited, get ready, it's coming. It's coming. STACEY We also have a couple other emails that we're back logged on, but we got to space these out for all of you. We're here. STACEY Yeah, and Eliana's going to tell you where to send emails if you have them. I would gently remind you I'm sorry if we don't get to them. We've got some big episodes to come We will put as many as we can fit with the episode length in

But we appreciate your insights all the same and hope we get time to showcase them Eliana, where can they send those insights to? the same and hope we get time to showcase them. Eliana, where can they send those insights to? Eliana Indeed, you can send them to us on Twitter, did you know that? At girlsgonecanon.com. Or you can send them by email to girlsgonecanon.com. Of course, you can find us over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon where we have lots of perks that our friends and patrons are going to tell you where else you can find us besides there and what some of those perks are. You can catch Girls Gone Canon on any of the following streamers. on Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Audible, and Amazon podcasts.

You can also join us on Patreon, where if you join the thunder tier above, you have access to a Discord and monthly happy hours and things like that. And by joining the Discord, you get access to a bunch of great channels, including but not limited to memes and shit posting channel, Fashion Hour. There are multiple channels for historic materials, A Song of Ice and Fire.

There's a Pet channel, which I think is probably the most important channel of all. Respectful Thirsting, because there's a channel for that. Come by, join the community, it's a lot of fun, and you won't regret it. Thank you again patrons for telling everyone where else to find us. We'll be back next week with more Circe Lannister. I've been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana.

Bye, we love you. Goodbye. Kiss kiss. Girl, girl, girl. So confusing. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.