Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 242 — AGOT Daenerys I

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

When they write the history of her reign, sweet listener, they will say it began tonight. The day is finally here: We embark on the POV of a big part of the heart of ASOIAF, the Daenerys Targaryen chapters. --- 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 242, Daenerys One in a Game of Thrones. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, we are back, 242. Oh my god, it's us in the house. We're so back. It's us. I had no jokes about the number 242, but it sounds fun to say.

42, you know, life. I don't know. There's something there. But there's only one episode for you. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I think it's nervous energy. This day was always going to come and it's kind of weird that it's nervous energy. This day was always gonna come and it's kind of weird that it's here in some ways. I just recounted how many episodes we might have by the end. I think I got to 319 total. There's a fiery light at the end of the tunnel. Oh my god. There is, I mean, in regards to this day finally being here, I'm about to reference an essay that when I looked at the date of publication, I was like, this is from 11 years ago. We used to read essays. It said 11. It said 11.

I was like, that's insane that it's over a decade. Holy shit. Oh my god, dude, I just looked at the date and realized it's this is not hyperbole. It's been over a decade. Yeah. It's weird to look back like at the beginning of this podcast and the things that we so strongly felt. And some of them are definitely still foundational in the things we talk about. Right. But it's also crazy to see how we've evolved and changed.

Yeah. And and like we were but young girls who knew little of the ways of war back then. Like I look at us in 2017, I'm drunk as long as I have some fire history. And like, who were they? Drunk, first of all. They were very drunk, but like, that's so weird. There are parts of us that are still there,

but also new parts too. So cheers to finding the old Daenerys within you, because I know it exists. I know there's all these thoughts from your essays that you've written over time, which we should be linking every week, so get ready for that. You don't need to reread this essay. I have access to the accounts. You don't have to reread that one, just because it's like... No, read the ultimate one. I don't... No, I mean, also this one, some of the ideas in it are like so good, but some of the rationale, I'm like,

what the fuck was I saying? Like, what a stupid rationale. But some of it is good, and well, that's why we'll come back to it. But also at the same time, like, it's crazy to have been in this for so long. I mean, we took a, we took a break just now. So, you know, it's crazy to have been in this for so long. I mean, we took a break just now, so it's fascinating to come back. I'm also so excited for you. You referenced you were but young girls. I'm so excited to actually even get to those parts of the story because I was also rereading some things. I'm just gonna build my life now.

Tyrion telling John like arm yourself in what you are and like, no one can use it against you and that's exactly what she does there, but we'll talk about it more when we get to those chapters. I'm just so excited. Yeah. I was really taken on reread of like how much Danny one flows into Danny two and how much like you, you have a finite end to this chapter, but then you read Danny two and it is a continuation in a lot of ways, and it's so fast-moving still.

So much is happening in this plot, and how much is ushering us towards the end of A Game of Thrones, and that amazing magical chapter, and we have so much to get through this entire book, this entire season of Daenerys on our podcast. We have some really good guests coming on. We have some surprises up our sleeves. The first guest we cannot tell you whomst didative yet, but we can tell you that they will be coming on sometime in a game of thrones.

And then more from there, more from there. We did take a little time off. Thank you for appreciating the silence, holding space for us. Indeed. For defying gravity. And during that time of silence, you still went on with our friend Sanrixian at the scheduled date, so you can check that out on our friend Sanrixian's page if you need just a little bit more Girls Gone Cannon fix. But mine got pushed back, so it will be going live on March 2nd which unfortunately it's also the Oscars but um mine was Super Bowl and yours was Oscars are they trying

to tell us something at Sanrixie and at twitch.tv do they not want us I'm just kidding no but I mean that's actually they put the nerds on during the cool kid shows. That was my fault. I chose March 2nd and I was like, oh, whoops. I chose the Super Bowl too. I wasn't checking anything. Yeah. We just did that. Chloe sent me an Eagles sweater, you guys. She sent me an Eagles sweater. Go birds! Go fucking birds. I also sent you a Dodger shirt, okay? Yeah. I'm fair in this house. I wanted to make sure you were showing up to games in style, you know? I can't have you looking like a loser so I had to give you a champion sweater. I know right, speaking of our growth right on this podcast, look at us fucking sports. The only sports Daenerys Targaryen podcast. All that said, we are getting older in this podcast. We're not trying to drop some bombs on you, but we just want you to know that there might

be breaks weeks off from time to time. It turns out doing podcasts every week for seven plus years, sometimes you might need a break. So you might catch us taking a week off. That's probably because of scheduling. Uh, some of us are traveling. Actually, both of us are traveling a lot in the next few months.

So sometimes it just doesn't work out. And we do some crazy stuff sometimes to make it work out, but we want these episodes to be prime cuts, right? I want these to be good episodes. And that time we just took off, both of us read a lot. Yeah, I think you and I are just trying to really get in the mindset of Daenerys with all of this boppin' around of this traveling. We're getting in character.

But we are back, and that also includes having a Patreon episode for this month as well. I'm so hyped because we're going to talk a little bit about this during the episode as well. Uh, not about the show, but we are going to do a mini-sode on Dune Prophecy. Uh, Eliana is coming out it- the first season. Eliana's coming out it as a Shoni. This is kind of exciting. Eliana, you've read Dune. Just Dune, just the first one. Just Dune. I own the other books, I just haven't read them yet.

And they actually might be at my mother's house, so I might not be able to read those right away. You have me, so you don't need to yet, you know? Yeah, so- Your best friend is a Wikipedia. You are going to be providing us, and I'm finally being spoiled on this series. I already know the one thing that matters most to me, which we will discuss in this mini-sode.

Warm sign. And yeah, I'll be coming at it from a show-only perspective. We are going to cover the entire first season of Dune Prophecy, and I'm really interested to hear your take on it as someone who knows way more about the lore and brawl building Yeah, and I'm no like expert, you know If you want an expert our friend Quinn and Quinn's ideas is the expert came on way back when a while back for Davos Oh my god blast from the past. So Definitely an expert We invited Quinn to come hate on Stannis with us.

It was the best, actually. We were like, do you want to hate on Stannis together? Those were the good old days. We don't have to talk about that bitch now. Which means we probably will. Stannis, yeah, we probably will. I don't know why you used to make out with my life. Oh my god, he's back in Tyrion a little in the background.

Oh god. Oh yeah,, he's back in Tyrion a little in the background. Oh god. Oh yeah, I guess so. God. I don't know why he does Doom. But definitely check out those. Over Dany's chapters. That's true. That's true as the proto Dany in the story in some aspects. Yeah, he's got great videos, Quinn on Dune, if you want all of the lore, all the world building,

but we're gonna talk about Dune if you want all of the lore, all the world building. But we're going to talk about Dune prophecy from a somewhat fan and a somewhat fan, you know? I mean, we both are fans of the series, no experts, but I love them. And I also love Children of Dune, which we're going to talk about today. So buckle in, get excited. We're going to talk about Children of Dune and Dune Messiah later. It's coming. Yeah, we're Dune it live and not at all because this is pre-recorded. Um, things that are live though are our Discord Brunch, which happens once a month for patrons in the Thunder

tier and above. I am so excited for Brunch. It's on Daylight Sav savings. So that's gonna be crazy. Everybody watch your most correct clock and be on time. Discord will tell you if you're a Discord member over in our Thunder tier and above Patron tier. Which, yes, if you're in the Thunder tier, over at Patreon.com slash girls gone canon c-a-n-o-n you get some perks like discord and discord is oh it's fun enjoying the letterbox feed lately seeing what all our our friends are watching i love that feature it's kind of neat i can just find out what everyone's watching at any time isn't the internet great uh and also brunch every month brappy hour i think we're gonna have fun.

We're gonna be so back. It's been a bit we didn't have a Brappy Hour in February, and March we're gonna celebrate good times. Indeed. 2PM ET. And like I said, Discord will tell you your translation of time. Just hit the interested button on the event that we put up on Discord. That's what I'm about to rely on because that's just going to automatically calculate it for

me. So I'm going to be praying to my cell phone like I do every day. Yeah. Well, someone did homework a little early. Someone was doing some summer reading and by that I mean winter, summer break reading, and sent us an email slash treat of note during the break. Yes, our friend Megan wrote in with two really cool finds. So first find, they found us just a couple months ago, they are now on Victarian episodes, so they are moving through it. I feel like that's really fast. That was not that long ago.

That's true. Also, I love our Victarion coverage. If you, for some reason, are here right now and haven't listened to it, I think we did. That's I think one of our somehow sleeper hit for me, which is why when I do go on San Rixian's channel, I am going to be covering Victarion. Yeah. Hi to Victarion and Tiwau. Megan found a Langston Hughes poem that gave her A Song About Ice and Fire vibes, and it says... It says, it speaks, it reads, I don't know, it words. Words are.

I am so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife and cut the world in two and see what worms are eating at the rind." Megan said it reminded them of Davos and Melisandre debating the onion, one of Eliana's favorite moments speaking of Davos. Maggie the Frog and Worms Shall Have Your Maiden Head, which we talked about recently with Cersei, and something we talked about a long time ago, Brienne in A Feast for Crows, not knowing how to trust anyone anymore. Reminds me a bit of Arya too, right? And I think the Boys, the Roommates podcast, not a cast, podcast, I think they recently just covered the worm being eaten in Braavos in Aria chapters

as they get through Feast. Worm sign. It was kind of worm sign, yeah. She's like, I'm gonna yoink it and eat it. And I think it'll be out very soon, so not to like spoil, but there's a funny moment that I heard from my room. Me and the cats were like all snuggled in and I heard something really funny about Aria eating the worm.

So stay tuned for some funny jokes around there because they were cracking me up, everything I was hearing, which was only 50% of it, but I'm sure the other 50% was good too. Yeah, I mean, also this poem kind of hits hard for the world that we're in right now, too Thank you for sending it. I also thought about this onion the other day I had to take off some parts of the onion. I was like these parts are bad, but I still use the rest of it Hell yeah

Soup trim so I'm using all parts of the animal when I cut up those onions All parts. Yeah in all parts of the animal when I cut up those onions. Close the onions. All parts. Yeah. Well, second thing that Megan has brought us is second, have either of you seen the movie Heavy Metal from 1981? It's a bizarre adult cartoon movie with a fantastic soundtrack, but the reason I bring

it up is its final vignette to Arna. I'm going to take a quick pause here and say, I have not. Chloe, have you as our resident cinephile? So I haven't seen this, but I know what it is. Like, I've seen a lot of screencaps and videos from it. It's not something that I actually really got into. It's like, very gem-esque. Okay, cool.

You know, gem, animated gem, yeah. Like, in design, it's very reminiscent in my mind of that. But it's nothing I got into. But now I might be into it, considering what Megan says. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I might check it out. I mean, it'd be the first movie I've ever seen in my life. As we all know, I've seen no movies ever, which is why I haven't seen this.

Megan says, the description is vaguely Targaryen. The titular character is the last warrior woman of a people called the Ta'arachians, but it's the visuals of the piece that have me convinced that George must have seen this movie at some point and subconsciously or otherwise incorporated the aesthetics and some of the background into House Targaryen. Particularly the heroine is silver haired with purple eyeshadow and her battle armor, which uh, fetish vinyl it is an adult cartoon, just so you all know. Our black and red, she fights from a reptilian flying creature that kind of resembles a chunky pterodactyl and has a magic sword. There have been occasional references to Daenerys as a character

one might see painted on the side of a van. That's absolutely the vibe of the whole movie. I can't say I recommend it as such, but it's a bizarre movie and looking up the Tarana segment is worthwhile for asshole fans in analysis, and I was surprised at not having seen other commenters on forums mention it before. Megan also sends their best to our producer and intern. You did make reference to them a moment ago. Oh, yeah, that's true they're still around. It's funny you say that. I kind of forgot all about those cats. No I'm just kidding. They're like in the other room. Something I love about this, and this is coming from fourth wing Brainwatt. So the Empyrean series,

tragically I have to read one of them. you know, one of these trashy, romanticy dragon series and that's the one that I chose since, you know, gotta make up for it. The Court of Thorn and... is that one? Yeah, exactly, you know. Well, no, but you know, like, romanticy, there's sex, there's like, wow, it's all so romantic, but also there's like magic or dragons, like, look, I don't have time for all of them I respect your trashy whatever books too. This is the one I've chosen at this time my problematic trashy romanticy book, but Really funny about the Empyrean series is like she uses a bunch of Gaelic names

But doesn't pronounce them with the proper pronunciation so it's actually like... I respect why she didn't necessarily but like for example this I think is coming from Tarnenjak basically. It's not very good, it's not very good how I'm pronouncing it but it means thunder and it's one of the dragons name. Tarn is what it goes by but also I do think that that's actually Where Taarna is getting its name from right? Because Tarn is a Tarakian a race of skilled martial warriors, but I think like, you know, it's heavy metal

So thunder lightening like heavy metal You know thunder and lightning. Yeah. Yeah thunder In that yeah and Gaelic. I mean like that's also a thing that's pretty strong. So they do. So it's kind of funny because that stuck out to me. That stood out to me like very much. So interesting. I'm like, did Rebecca Yarrow space fourth wing off of Heavy Metal 1981?

Or like, is the name also pulling from the same Gaelic roots, right? Yeah. Exactly. I think that's more over it. But interesting. Really freaking interesting. And I'm sure George watched this, though. Like, 900% sure. I also feel that way. I kind of, yeah. I don't know, like, the basing, like, regarding this over here in the purple eyeshadow, that's also like just fantasy. Of the era? Fantasy, yeah, I don't know like the basing regarding the silver hair and the purple eyeshadow, that's also like just fantasy, yeah, you know? But I do think- Hi fantasy, hair, metal.

They're all kind of like pulling from the same, you know, creative well at that time. So absolutely, I think George has probably seen this. Sounds very him. Yeah. Um. Megan, that's incredible. Thank you so much for sending us this email. Yeah. This was like an incredible first Daenerys email. I'm hyped. So hyped.

We're getting even more hyped. Not you, everyone else. You're already hyped about this. Chloe has brought us- Hey, yeah. Another Heavy Metal round. Not Thunder this time, but Lightning round. I feel like we're about to do an Imagine Dragons song. They're not for me, I'm sorry everyone. I imagine dragons whenever I think about Keywell. Real.

George has the opportunity to do something so funny after we finish Danny. Drop a book. Really mess with us. It's not funny. Wait till after Tyrion. Um, just kidding. I hope we get it ASAP. So, let's head into our lightning round.

I hope we get it like five years ago. Yeah, real. Okay, here's what we missed. Lightning Round Remix Edition. So today, instead of going chapter by chapter through what we've missed and because we are introducing Daenerys, we are going to be covering Targaryen monarchs that have come before her. Aww. Right, and we're going to go all the way back to Aegon I, Aegon the Conqueror. Aegon Targaryen and his sister wives land in Westeros with one

goal, binding the Seven Kingdoms, whatever the cost, through fire and blood. Aenys I, Aegon's heir, faced difficulty with the Faith, and with his own kin too. Inaction led Aenys and his own heir to their deaths, and opened the door to his half-brother's short reign." Or we could say Enys. Yeah. Enys actually might be the proper pronunciation. Like Enys the Menace?

Yeah, like Denys. I don't care. I don't know. I feel like Enys is like an actual- I'm mature. I'm a grown up. It's an actual like also right Irish name or something. Like Denys, Enys.

Yeah, it's a town. This brings us to Maegor I. Maegor, Westeros' first feminist king and also an ill-eligible bachelor, though that didn't necessarily stop him, laid the foundations of King's Landing that his father and brother neglected. The Red Keep was built brick by brick with the blood of its makers, and Maegor handled his faith issue pretty ruthlessly. Ultimately, the throne demanded a blood sacrifice, and Maegor paid the price. I forgot that I'm behind on the Bachelor. Jaehaerys won. Jaehaerys' brothers were murdered

by the previous king, his nuncle Maegor, but Jaehaerys mounted the throne, and his sister, fearlessly creating a golden reign and legacy that historians won't shut up about. But a growing brood of dragons in his house created more than soap opera drama. It also complicated the already complex question of succession. Well, have I got a TV show for you, Jaehaerys. And so are the days of our lives. Oh, I was thinking succession. Oh, that too.

Viserys won. Viserys, the young king, inherited a prosperous peace time from his grandfather and coasted on that peace as long as he could. His first wife's death left him with an heir, but of course that heir was female. His second marriage left him with another dilemma. Several male children, which it turns out Westeros prefers. And of course, when the bell tolled, the dragons began to dance. Rhaenyra won. The only child of Osiris I, minus the kids he forgot, raised as the heir to the throne

and the realm's delight. Rhaenyra's throne was stolen by her brother, backed by the ultimate Westerosi force, Dudes Rock. What followed was a tale of woe, hardship, and loss that turned Rhaenyra into a bitter vengeful woman erased from history and the succession. But not here. We do not support Rhaenyra erasure in this house of her name. First of her name. She can girlboss like the rest of these men. Bear to the throne! Feudalism's bad, but let her do it too. Equal rights to ruin the world.

Hell yes, no, we... We bend the knee to the one true queen. Nevertheless, she persisted. I'm just kidding. She actually? Aegon too. No matter how you spin it, Aegon the usurper had two things. A cock and a whole lot of supporters eager to put that cock on the throne. Jesus.

Though Aegon won the war, he was poisoned by his counselors and his daughter, his only heir, haha sucker, how's that for just desserts, allegedly dumped, jumped to her death. Or was pushed, depending on who you ask. Well, pushed and dumped are kinda the same thing. That's what they're saying, yes! That's what I've been saying. Um, Aegon III. Aegon, a sad, sullied boy, watched the end of his queen mother Rhaenyra's reign.

He grew into a joyless man, barely leaving the Red Keep after his coronation, consumed by rage at the mention of dragons, often blamed for their extinction. He died of consumption at just 36. Dang, that's pretty young. Yeah, dude. I tried to keep some of that in here for you. It's right around here. You're like, Eliana, this could be you. Watch yourself. Old bitch. No, I'm just kidding. You're very young and beautiful.

I'm 14, just like Darren. Darren 1. The 14 year old son of Aegon 3, just like you. The young dragon took the throne and continued the work of conquering Dorne. He died at 18, betrayed under a peace banner, with his brother, Baelor, succeeding him. True, even younger than 36. Way younger. Yeah, like your age. Yeah. 18. 18. That's when I'm gonna die. In a way. Anyways, Baelor I, Baelor the Blessed, was both a septon and king. He married his willful sister, Dayna. But they had no children. Together. Beloved by the small folk for his charity, he locked his three sisters in the Maiden Vault for reasons. Though he

devoted much to the faith, he left no air, and rebellion began to stir in his wife's womb. Dun dun dun! Dun dun dun! We'll come back to that. Viserys II, Aegon III's brother, was next in line, having served as Hand of the King. And some questionable rumors arose once about poison, we'll just shrug those off. In just one year, Viserys too reforms. The royal mint boosts trade and revises the Westerosi law.

Wise and shrewd, he dies very suddenly and his legacy fades into history. Dude, he looks like James Franco in the World of Ice and Fire. Strongly recommend everyone go take a look and see how right I am. Aegon IV. Egan IV is known as the Targaryen king who definitely fucked. When was this man not fucking? Oh. Well.

On his deathbed. When he was legitimizing his 800 million bastards. Congrats Egan and hello Blackfires. Chloe, this is a banger. This is the best one. This is like one of our best lighting rounds. Egan Bastards! Congrats Egan and hello Blackfires! Chloe this is a banger, this is the best one, this is like one of our best lighting rounds. I told you to trust me and here we are. I always trust you. And I didn't little finger you.

I always trust you. What the fuck? You know, like I told you not to trust me, I told you to trust me. Anyways, Darren Too, Darren the Good brought Dorne into the realm peacefully, it's said by marrying Myrria Martell and betroving their daughter to Dorne as well. He reigns during the First Blackfyre Rebellion, led by his half-brother Daemon. Darin dies in the Great Spring Sickness. We'll probably come back to this during our folding in Dorne episodes, but hot take,

Mariah, like Mariah Carey, pronunciation. Oh, whatever. Do what you want. Ares the First, the second son of Daeron the Second. Ares was wrapped in the throes of prophecy and the return of dragons. He dies, and his heir situation is rather interesting and for another time. And Maekar takes the reins. interesting, and for another time. And Maekar takes the reins." Darren II's fourth son, Maekar I, was an unlikely king. Ruling through a scorching summer, a brief autumn, and a long, cold winter, he dies in the Dornish Marches during the peak

uprising, prompting a great council to decide his successor. Egg in the fifth, even less likely than his father, Egg five is chosen by the great council to reign at thirty-three, with his loyal friend Duncan the Tall by his side on the Kingsguard. His family drama rivals Jaehaerys the First, but we'll leave all that to George and the upcoming HBO series, A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, coming this year. He grants more rights to the small folk, but the lords aren't pleased and he realizes he needs dragons to control them. In 259 AC, the tragedy of Summerhall strikes.

Aegon fails to hatch dragons and his line as well as Westeros suffers for it. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe it's better. We don't know. We don't know. Hatchdragons and his line, as well as Westeros suffers for it. Maybe. Maybe it's better. We don't know. We don't know. We're testing that. Jaehaerys II, secondborn of Aegon V and Beth of Blackwood, and grandfather to Rhaegar,

Viserys, and Daenerys. Jaehaerys II rules for three years, with the War of the Nine Penny Kings being his defining event. The Band of Nine seizes the Stepstones, and after a long war, Barristan Selmy slays Maelys the Monstrous and the band retreats. Jaehaerys ended the Blackfyre threat, reconciled many of the great houses who kind of had a fallout with a Aegon V's reign. And then he dies of a sudden illness at 37.

Also soon. Have you noticed that the ones that die or only rule for a short reign get the most shit done? It's very interesting. That is interesting. That's probably, I mean... Real. We should come back to that thought at some point. Yeah. Aerys II at 22. I mean, hmm. Real. We should come back to that thought at some point.

Yeah. Aries II at 22. Oh my god, just like that Taylor Swift song. Aries started strong. I don't know about you, but I am Aries too. Oh god. I'm gonna get taken hostage. It's just what I will do.

Thank you. Aries started strong, bringing peace and prosperity at first. Once a handsome, charming young man, his wife, Rhaella, or Raeya, suffers multiple miscarriages, and three of their sons die. The final straw, Ares is captured by a loyal bannerman and held hostage for half a year. He becomes cruel and paranoid and when his former best friend, Frenemy, betrays him, he is killed by his Frenemy's son, Jamie Lannister, as his legacy crumbles and his family fleets. We're getting very modern here.

That brings us to Robert Baratheon. Boo! He's the usurper! Boo! And now in Daenerys one, a game of thrones, Viserys three has come to take his rightful throne as the next ruler in a song of ice and fire. Right? Right? Isn't that? That's the story, right? It's all about Viserys, and that's what we're here to talk about today. Viserys Targaryen, the third Viserys that Westeros will see kinged. Oh my god, after the first Viserys, it was a queen. That is interesting. Hmm.

Hmm. Oh, interesting. Yeah. History repeats itself. This chapter might be quote heavy because it's a banger. I love you, George. Please don't ever change. This is why no one else should or could ever finish this series because no one can fucking write like George, dude. I'm sorry, but some of the shit I'm reading it and I'm like, George, it's so good.

He wrote this forever ago, too. He did. Maybe even like- Before it was in a book. Yeah, I mean, I think he might have written it, it's possible he might have written it separately first, right? Because I remember he was playing around with the Targaryens being like psionic instead of Dragon Riders before, but it actually was published originally separate from the book series from A Game of Thrones in Asimov Science Fiction, which was like a regularly releasing fiction magazine as a novella in the July 1996 issue.

And I think like, the fact that he could do that shows how well that these chapters stand alone, which will be really interesting for, A, the way that we go through the POVs, but also I think really highlights the way that isolation comes up in Daenerys' storyline. It's a great way of kind of hammering home that theme for her. Clearly, I mean, she is the most isolated of our POVs at this point. Everyone's very much together or in Westeros where Daenerys is not.

She's very separate and she herself is isolated. We are going to start getting into and learning. I think she might be, I don't wanna say easy, but one of the easier characters to follow with our POV structure going week by week chapter by chapter. Not as much changes, right? Ned's chapters might be nice to throw in, Tyrion's might be nice to have a little court,

Jon's might be interesting for parallels, but Daenerys in a row makes sense. Yeah, I think like it goes well also with the Arya chapters, which we didn't do that long ago because those are also, after a while, become very, very separate from the other characters as well. And explore some interesting similar themes in regards to loneliness as well and the relation one has to their family. But for a Game of Thrones especially, this will be an easier read in some ways and maybe harder in others. Yeah, it's one of the most complex, I think, of the storylines. Daenerys is one of my top three POV characters because of the complexity of her character. I think just to stand out in terms of themes and the way that it goes into so many different ideas and emotions. It doesn't right from the jump, right?

That's kind of why I also felt like doing a normal lightning round would be wrong. Because these people aren't near her, they don't relate to her right now. But for Daenerys, those are the people, right? Those are the stories she knows. She doesn't know these other stories. Not yet. Yeah. It goes also so well with the way like the other stories start to unfold

in this book, and we'll talk about that in a bit. Yeah, can you tell I read Fire and Blood on the plane recently? Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense now with this lightning round. I understand that. Good reread, good reread. I was like, if I can't, I got through most of Agat, but I was like, I'm not going to finish the series in time, so fire and blood it is. I was on a roll. Listen, I did a lot of work. Over break, everyone. Well, we open the chapter with Biserys Targaryen, presenting his sister a gift from Magister Illyrio. It's a beautiful dress made of smooth fabric, one that will

bring out the violet in her eyes, that will make her look like a princess. She's afraid to touch it. She asks, why has Illyrio given us these presents? What does he want with us? She's lived in this manse of his for half a year, sharing his food, his servants, in the free city of Pentos. Yes, it's a brilliant opening. Like, we talk often on this podcast about how there's power in fashion, and I love that we see Viserys here imparting that wisdom, and what he can about the quality of goods and fabric and teaching Daenerys what it means to perform wealth, therefore how to perform power, how to identify it, right? Because he knows that it's a trapping of power, whether or not like it really should be, he knows this. It's something he internalized even though he was so young when he had to leave court, right? Like it's really interesting upon a reread

because you wonder when did he even learn this? Like, he was eight years old when he had to flee, and he's the one who has had to teach this idea about fashion to his sister. I mean, like, I'm not even sure that fashion is necessarily that gendered of a responsibility in Westeros anyway, because we see a lot of characters kind of do this. I mean, Blackwood, House Blackwood, oh my god, that cape. Right. I think that there's a lot of weight on Viserys's shoulders that is so much more obvious on reread to me in this chapter. And we're going to talk a lot about him being seven, eight years old when they fled, right, and how much that interrupted his growth, quite clearly, in many ways. And how he's had to remain a king in poverty and exile.

He gets called the Beggar King later. But he has had to understand and cling to those trappings of power to remember the scales of the dragon, like what the dragon looks like to be respected, to keep the respect of people. We see that those trappings of power are not only presented throughout this chapter, but then the next chapter, right? With the gifts that are given to Daenerys, with her kind of being given further gifts like this, and that the ceremony itself is a trapping. Right? He's teaching her, you are now in this game, congratulations. Yeah, and Daenerys, you know, having grown up, this being the only life she's known for her, she's like, all the gifts are poisoned.

Right? She already knows. And that's why she's questioning Illyrio's motives. And I don't think people do this as much anymore, but I remember there was a time when many readers took Illlyrio at face value as wanting to support Daenerys. They're like, that's why he gave her the eggs. And as Jor points out, he's like, dude, Elyrio would have fucking sat on those eggs himself if he thought they would have hatched. And I think there's a little too much credit given to Elyrio about protecting the Targaryens because he really fucking didn't. As it's pointed out here in the opening chapter, which again people forget because you get, you know, five books in, hundreds of pages, thousands of pages in. They've only been at Illyrio's for six months. They were on their own for a long

ass time trying to like make do. And people forget, Daenerys distrusted him initially. And I think there's's also, you know, in this opening line in regards to that price, there's a really great juxtaposition because Daenerys thinks of how there is a price in the free city of Pentos, and it really starts to play up even in this first chapter, that theme of price, of exchange, and that comes home at the end of this book with only death may pay for life. Yeah, it's so well set up. This entire, from where we start to where we end in this book, it's an amazing, solid

arc. Yeah. It's all setting up for that moment. It goes well with the idea of what we are always talking about in Sacrifice, but we'll build on that as we go. Yeah, we've got chapters and chapters, baby. We got Ty. Take it slow, take it easy. Enjoy your ride. Even though I blew my load about Storm already early on. Or Clash. Right. Viserys says that Illyrio is no fool.

That when Viserys comes into his own kingdom, Illyrio will be rewarded. The quid pro quo of how it works here. And we get our first look at Viserys. He is a gaunt young man with nervous hands and a feverish look in his pale lilac eyes. He's looking very fever dream, looking very Abner and Marsh here, you know, like the old the old duo. You should be fever dream everyone. That's what I did recently. Add it to the list Chloe read. Chloe's getting deep. Daylight is coming soon, you know? Daylight!

Illyria was a trader. He trades spices, gemstones, dragon bone, and other less savory things, and has friends in all the nine free cities and Vaes Dothrak. I love here, dragon bone. He deals in dragon bone, right? So when you think about how he now has the last surviving Targaryen children in his clutches. He has dragon bones there too. And so the idea of like cannibalizing a dragon, like here's the desiccated fossilized dragon bone that he's selling to people as a relic that's done and gone and passed and used.

And what he plans to do with these children, right? That he's using them as currency, that they're done and gone and passed, right? They're dragon bone themselves in a way, but also laying the ground for the eggs in the next chapter. That's true. And now that you've pointed it out, like, he himself has even been, to an extent, really intimate with the idea of Dragonbone, assuming a likely that Fagin,

Egan the Six allegedly, is a Blackfyre, but there are theories that it was Illyrio married to Serra Blackfyre, right? Spelled S-E-R-R-A. And that would therefore be the mother, I guess, of Aegon, so... I don't know, I'm agnostic on that part, whatever, but like, yes to Blackfyre's. Probably, yeah. In total, not just to Blackfyre's right, but those are relics gone to. Right. There's so much, you know, like House Toland Sigil eating itself.

Oh, yeah. The dragon eating itself. Cannabalot- Cannibal, right? The Ouroboros. The cannibal eating other dragons. Yeah. Aw. Cannibal.

Yeah, cute. I don't know, I sometimes do these kind of things. There's aibal. Yeah, cute. I don't know, I sometimes do think he's kind of cute. There's a lion. Yeah, he's adorable. His like show version is way too pretty. It's like, you know, casting only pretty dragons. Like, can we get some ugly up in here? There's this passage from Daenerys. She knew better than to question her brother when he wove his webs of dream. His anger was a terrible thing when roused. Viserys called it, Waking the Dragon.

How often Viserys is lost in his dreams during these chapters and daydreaming and looking off in the distance and rebuilding home in his head and knowing what we know that there is a prophecy or several prophecies that the Targaryens tend to learn and get obsessed with. That's very interesting. I feel like Viserys the Dreamer doesn't get focused on enough, right? Building and rebuilding homes in his head, his family, his lineage, his throne. Every Targaryen is left alone and isolated to dwell in their dreams of prophecy in the Iron Throne.

Each of them throughout history, right? Ares I. I forgot how much we know about him, which is barely anything, but we know that he is taken by prophecy. He starts looking into the higher mysteries, and like, obviously we don't have blood and fire. We don't have fire and Blood III, just kidding. Yet. But, I'm sure when we get them, and looking at Jaehaerys II, looking at Allora and Aelor, as we mentioned another time another time, but I find that some fascinating plot. Everything's pointing towards some sort of prophecy, something connecting them, something making them search forever, right, for a home or for a thing they can't quite grasp.

And Viserys embodies that perfectly in these chapters, and you can also tell that he was left abandoned, right, and to run away and around with Dany, and having to learn who to trust, and having to learn at such an important age when you're supposed to be grappling with like You know you can't just have a tantrum if you only have a tantrum and you aren't growing from that tantrum or learning anything or Apologizing or like realizing some sort of remorse in that tantrum Then your child is not going to grow and he is going to have anger problems. And so when you have people that see these children and see them as magical, rich, royal dollar signs in their dragon egg

eyes, like they look at them like, how could a Targaryen boost my court? They're not going to speak back to this child age 10 and tell him that's not how you speak, he's maybe a king, a prince at least. No one's going to tell him you can't throw a fucking tantrum. Nobody's ever taught him, right? He's precious cargo to them. And I don't know, maybe treating men and women like gods is bad, right? Because gods get lonely too and you can't chastise gods.

Not even that, like, absolutely to what you're saying. He's in a difficult situation in which no one's willing to say no to him and we see it from all these yesmen around him throughout this chapter, but also at the same time, no one loves him enough to tell him no. No one cares about him enough to try to be brave and like and and actually Set him straight like the closest would have been probably like Willem Derry, but that man's dead And he was also like the only love they ever knew yeah He was bedridden for a lot of that time and also like I mean for those formative years his example was Aries and Aries Probably didn't love him enough to actually set him straight

either. His mother was probably traumatized. STACEY Ares was very busy in those years, dude. STACEY Yeah. Yeah, his mother was also traumatized in a different way too. Like, no actual time for him. And like, this isn't, you know, Saddam Hussein series hours, but like, it's, I think, important because then Ares circles back to the sympathy for him in her own chapters at the end of dance and It's important to understand when we talk about The gray characters and and I mean how much how much of a banger Danny's storyline is. That and I mean abuse right? I think something that comes up lot, you and I speak about it a lot to each other,

is what does an abuser look like? Is an abuser a bad guy in a film that chases you with a knife and is evil and mean and everyone says you have to leave him and will protect you? Or sometimes can an abuser be somebody that was your companion and that you love and that maybe you feel guilty about leaving?

Or maybe you realize they had a hard life and still they are terrible to you. Like there are so many shades of abuse in the world and when we start to categorize it into these little pockets of bad or good and people are bad or they are good, and onion this and onion that, right? When we start to do that, you start to kind of, in a way, you know, you're dehumanizing that person, which,

yes, abusers are horrible in many ways, but they are still human, and that's the great tragedy is understanding that, right? They are human beings, they aren't just like there or not. They're not just monsters that only come out from under your bed once in a while. Yeah, and I mean like- They exist in all shades. In the real world, a lot of them also are victims of abuse as well. So. Yeah. In the Neri story, it is really interesting because this is someone who is

her only family, right? As far as she knows, that's her brother and he's the villain of her storyline. In the first book. But he's also the only other person in her story, you know? Ever. In her life, that's the only person she's ever had to protect her. So she doesn't know what safety feels like. No. We'll dig into...

I think you have more on this. Yes. Well, all that said, we can be mad at Viserys for a minute because... And it comes back to a lot of that. Yeah, all the time. But also it comes back to a lot of that dichotomy of like, being a Targaryen sister and brother and the ownership they feel over the body, right, and the incest and like the incest that is just like embedded generation by generation, right? Like he says to her often, you should have been born sooner so you could have married Rhaegar. That's your fault. Like, okay. I love that she's like, well, you should have been born a girl. Yeah, bitch.

So white lotus coated. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, I mean, well, we, so funny. That could be a mini-sode. Viserys hangs a gown besides her door, telling her Illyrio's slaves will bathe the stink of the stables off of you, because Cal Drogo has a thousand

horses but tonight he looks for a different mount. He tells her to straighten up and he twists her nipple, telling her don't fail me tonight because you don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" First of all, hold on, a thousand horses. How exciting. Um. Oh my god. You know, clock this that Viserys says send the slaves to bathe her because, and Viserys does call them slaves. As we know, slavery is abolished only in name and pentos. They do practice indentured servitude, that I guess, legal, and also basically slavery, because

during our break I read Parable of the Sower, and our society is just like not far off from this. I'm having a breakdown. The people escorted in, though, they are like actually, they're not like trying to sugarcoat that these are indentured servants, they are in fact slaves. And there's this slow-mounting horror to the reveal as this chapter unfolds that Daenerys is also going to be sold off, and the way that they're paralleling all this, and you have that cruel way that Viserys treats her, which again, I think it really hits home in the way that this book is structured because the cruelty with Witch of Osiris treats Daenerys contrasts with the last two chapters, which is so full of that stark other and like, my bastard brother took himself out so that we could

all have dogs, but thankfully he got a dog too. So like, you've got this beautiful family and then you have this. And it just really shows Dani's isolation and how her loneliness is deepened, again, by her family, who is the one hurting her. Yeah. And some of the lines we're gonna get about that just... It's a haunting chapter. And how normal everything seems. This is a normal fucking day. Even though it's like her wedding night, it's also just normal.

This is like she expects it in the way that she bends herself for this abuse, right? She prepares her vessel, her body to receive the abuse from her brother She knows it's coming the things she says in the way that she acts and how she interacts is all Framed around his abuse being incoming at all times. Yeah, that is how she lives her life waiting wait It's terrible. Yeah. She starts out the series as a very, I guess, like, and it's meant to be like, she's a passive character until she has that transformation throughout this first book.

So good. It's coming. Yeah, she meekly responds no regarding the waking of the dragon and he touches her hair. And we have this line of, When they write the history of my reign, sweet sister, They will say that it began tonight. I don't know if I'm gonna stick with that for a Viserys voice, we'll experiment. But...

Well, get ready. Yeah, Dani observes Pentos though in the setting sun, listening to its sounds. We got Red Priest, we got children playing games, and also there's Envy. She envies them. They are just children, Sansa thought. She pitied them. She envied them. Yeah. Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-gray mountains,

and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords, the Dothraki called that land Raish Andali, the Land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. Our land. He called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear.

Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon. Oh no, the dragon remembers. And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. Daenerys had never seen this land, her brother speaks of, of course. He had been eight when they fled and Daenerys had been quickening in her mother's womb. But she can still picture the midnight flight to Dragonstone in the dead of night. Her brother, dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King's Landing by the usurpers' dogs, Stark and Lannister.

Elia, pleading for mercy, baby Aegon's death. The dragon's skulls in the throne room, as her father was murdered by the Kingslayer. Ugh. And in the very next chapter, we're gonna see. We're gonna see the Kingslayer. And the structure of Dani's first chapter within this book is... It's really great that we get it surrounded by the Stark children because it really parallels them and highlights how she is still a child, just like them, yet she's been forced into all of this. And it becomes something about how stories function within her narrative, right? All of these legends that she's taught. She's not taught things,

she probably is to an extent, but like she's not harkening to Aemon the Dragon Knight, right, in the way that Rob and Jon are. She's not harkening to like Florian the Fool the way that Sansa is. Not these stories of long, long, long ago heroes from fucking centuries before. These legends and half truths that she's taught are actually about her own family history, and they're not like generations ago, it's about literally her eldest brother. It's about her father. These are direct like blood relatives to her. And it also dialogues nicely with the perspective that we see in the very next chapter in Eddard's as they descend into the crypt about like the usurper. Yeah, the lightning round was her fairy tale. Yes. And it's something that's so close that she

could almost feel it even when she didn't remember, like she has never met some of these people, but they feel close to her. I mean this right here, this is the fairy tale story of her birth. Yeah, the songs are about her. She can still picture the midnight flight to Dragonstone. Yes, it's about her brother dying for the woman he loved, right? Muttering a name as he sank to his knees, as rubies flew from his chest, and the sack of king's landing. But more of all, it's about her.

This is when she was born. Yeah, and then the next chapter- And she doesn't more of all, it's about her. This is when she was born. Yeah, and then the next chapter- And she doesn't really realize that yet, right? Right, and as she imagines these stories of her brother and the rubies flying out, then you get the next chapter and Robert being like, Yeah, I kill him every night in my dreams. And so you get those two perspectives of in between those two chapters you start to see like

this theme unwrap in a song of ice and fire about like questioning the songs questioning what you're taught. Which she's been doing her whole life. And she gets that throughout these books right? She starts to get that barestin when barestin joins. Oh my god we we get Barristan back! Yeah, we get Strong Belwas! Whoa! We get Strong Belwas. Holy shit. Proper.

Oh, this is gonna be good, guys. This is- holy shit. Yeah. Also, regarding the dreams, I forgot to say about series. It's interesting if it is like prophecy or also like the maladaptive daydreaming, right? Which is very much about, again, that trauma. Escaping. Escapism. Let's stop it. You're welcome. So even Daenerys' birth, nine months after they fled in Dragonstone, which is confirmed in A So Speak Martin, everyone, regarding the timing of Daenerys's birth versus Jon's. Please they are not twins, they're not born together amidst a terrible storm.

Smashing the Targaryen fleet to pieces, her mother dying as she births her, which Viserys has never forgiven Dany for, and she also doesn't remember Dragonstone either, for they had to run to avoid Sanis's new navy. New win. Motherfucker. Uh, Willem Derry had sprung them from Dragonstone in the night, the garrison ready to sell them out. She remembered Sir Willem Dimley, a great gray bear of a man, half blind, roaring and

bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dani. He called her Little Princess and sometimes My Lady, and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him. Day and night, a hot, moist, sickly wet odor. That was when they lived in Bravos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there with a lemon tree outside her window. We learned that when Willem died, the servants made off with the money they had left. And you know, I guess I have to say, like, good for them, right?

No offense, Dany and Viserys. I'm standing out here for y'all for this chapter and all, but like, I mean, the servants probably needed that money. Uh, and the red door closed for them forever, right? They could never return to the house with the red door. Yeah. And it's really clear that however you feel about the lemon tree theories, the house with the red door, wherever it must be, is Daenerys wrong?

Is she right? Is she a clone of Jon Snow? Was she genetically operated on and replaced and now she's in Braavos but maybe she's in Meereen? No one knows the truth. Only one person knows. George we're bagging you. Yes.

But I am bagging. This is me on my knees. George release blood and fire. We are bagging. Reverse psychology. The red door symbolizes security and safety. The only security and safety Daenerys can remember from her childhood, the only period of time where she ever felt some sort of security, and they were children. Children deserve to have a stable childhood, whether they're the children of a fucking royal inbred super line that's obsessed with lighting shit on fire and birthing dragons. Like, whether they're children of that or not, it's the same argument that I'm making today my good friend, Eddard Stark made in front of the king once Okay, my friend Eddard said they are children and they deserve a chance, right?

Everyone deserves a chance to live everyone does Yes, especially Luigi Mangione They should have been in the club, Aliana. The Mickey Mouse Club, maybe, but the club, okay? I mean, yeah, the red door. It's the only home that she like, it's the closest thing she has, right? It's the closest place she ever felt warmth, love.

Yeah. That guy was not able to really interact with her that much. As you said, security and safety. I put this in here for you. Um, Willem Derry calls her Little Princess and it makes me think that this actually might be an intentional allusion to the famous children's novel The Little Princess. And I'm gonna do the fastest fucking summary of this. There's way more in this book.

I haven't read it since I was also a child. It's about the protagonist's kindness and the loss of all of her fortune with her father's untimely death and then she's set out and treated terribly. It's basically an abuse servant, very much Cinderella story-esque things. But through her kindness is eventually discovered and restored to her place, which turns out to be heiress of diamond mines, which I'm not even going to touch that, but uh, fascinating. But also I do feel like there's an aspect of this that is meant to kind of allude to that narrative of lost princess, little princess family fortune. Yeah, it's like one of the original tropes, right?

Like, I mean, this was, it wasn't published until 1905. It's, um, Frances Hodgson Burnett is the author. But it wasn't technically published, but it's actually it was published as a shorter version So very George RR Martin back in 1887 Okay, and it was called Sarah crew or what happened at Miss mentions at the time I have a printed version of that really actually of the original Yeah, I have both the hardcover in a beautiful pink velvet as well as that

This is like a favorite book of my childhood. So I very much love A Little Princess and you're so right to have said it all and it is like very of its time, right? Like stirring jungle fever, that's what her dad dies of. But I do think there are connections there, especially even like that proto storytelling of a lost princess, right? Of the thematics of that story. Wow, Eliana. Lost heiress. I think you have become the MVP of the episode,

Engenarius's diamond mines. Oh my god, no, she's not diamond mines. Oh god, we're not even touching those things. Anyways, touching those things. Anyways, um, yes, and I mean, I'm very sure, like, there's no question in my mind George knows this story. It's kind of like one of those, you know, ubiquitous, I think, cultural pieces to an extent, but also, the Targaryens wandered from Braavos to Myr to Tyrosh to Qohor to Volantis to Lys, never staying too long in one place, always vulnerable to the usurpers' hired knives, Viserys insisted. Everyone acted like they would love to host a Targaryen at first, but eventually they

would have to move on. Viserys would tell Dany about the jewels, the riches, Dragonstone, King's Landing, the Iron Throne. All that they have lost would be back someday." Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, and the childhood she had never known. Damn, bars. Bars, free her. I know, right?

That's what a lot of what the narrative is exploring. Illyrio's servants enter, also the slaves, a gift from one of Illyrio's Dothraki friends. An older woman who never speaks and a fair-haired, blue-eyed 16-year-old who chattered as she worked. hair-haired blue-eyed 16-year-old who chattered as she worked." We have this line, and as you've already pointed it out, but, "...there was no slavery in the Free City of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves." Yeah.

Damn. I mean, we pointed out, I just pointed out earlier, because it's a reread, and we've covered, we've covered the Free City pentos. We actually did do that one in our Free City series. Oh my god, Pentoshi Pentos! Patreon.com slash Girls' Con Canon! Yeah, yeah. I'm in charge of those names. I'll never forget them. My favorite is It's-a-Me! Dario! Adario!

Adario! Yeah, and I see that sometimes now as a meme and I'm like, that's mine. Yeah. I made this. This is my baby. I am a baby. Congratulations baby, you're a meme. You're a meme baby.

Fly! They fill her bath with hot water and they scent it with oil and help her undress and get in the tub. Dani likes the scalding water. It makes her feel clean. Her brother often said, ours is the house of the dragon. The fire is in our blood. Leo pointing meme.

Oh my God, the house of the dragon. It's right there. It's right there. There it is. Ryan Condal got it from this Ryan Condal read the books He really did The girl tells her about Cal Drogo's riches that his slaves wear golden collars He has a hundred thousand men in his calisasar. His palace has two hundred rooms and solid silver doors.

He's handsome. He's fierce. He's fearless. He's a demon archer." Daenerys said nothing. Daenerys of course had assumed she'd marry Viserys when she came of age because that's what her family's done for hundreds of years. Viserys said, Thyrs was the king's blood, the golden

blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. But he was selling her to a stranger, a barbarian, all that said. Yeah, they towel her dry, brush her hair, anoint her everywhere with the spice flower perfume of the Dothraki plains. They dress her in a deep plum silk gown to bring out her violet eyes, and they give her gilded sandals. They fix a tiara in her hair and golden bracelets with amethyst around her wrists.

I thought it was really interesting when they choose to dab the perfume. One of the places I guess is like in her genital area and I'm like, why? This is a surefire way to fuck up your pH and like, I don't know, get a yeast infection or something like that. Just don't fuck around with like scented things, if you can, in your genitals.

Yeah, be careful out there. Ladies. I'm hoping like they weren't like anointing like Internally, but I think it's just a dad pelvic Lee but like yeah But like yeah, don't give her a yeast infection her life's already terrible, right? Jesus fucking Christ. I Will say that said I love This scene because it reminds me of Jesus at Bethany where he's anointed and the disciples are like, Jesus, this is so wasteful. We could sell that perfume, dude.

Like that perfume, we could give that gold to the poor, homie. And Jesus is like, yo, she's doing me a kindness because I'm gonna die. I'm being prepped for burial. What she's doing is like a yo, she's doing me a kindness because I'm gonna die. I'm being prepped for burial. What she's doing is like a kindness to me. So in a way, it's similar to Daenerys, right? She's being prepared for burial. She's going to marry this man, this strange man. Reminding you, she is a girl.

She's a young girl. She's going to be married off to this man. And then, of course, she will die in some aspect. He will die and she will go with him. But instead she will resurrect and emerge from the flames, right? Having birthed dragons. And just like we said earlier, everything in the beginning of Dani's story, Dani's book, her plot is such an anchor

for that last chapter, for the birth of the dragons, right, preparing you for the resurrection. Yeah. The second coming of Daenerys and the dragons. Which we talk about metaphorically right now, just because like there are some people who might think we're talking literally, we're talking metaphorically. No, no, I think Daenerys is Jesus. Oh, no, no, I do that. But not about her being resurrected. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no here she's being anointed. Yes. Um, and then we have more quotes.

More quotes! Last comes the collar, a heavy golden torque emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs. Now you look all a princess, the girl said breathlessly when they were done. Dani glanced at her image in the silvered looking glass that Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought. But she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich, even his slaves wore golden collars. She felt a sudden chill, and goose-flesh pimpled her bare arms."

And blossomed. So we asked, lots of fashion hour. Yeah, right? Lots of fashion hour going on here. I'm curious to know what the glyphs say. I don't know if George ever cared about it, but I would be curious. It says, I am Dragonfinder. Right, fuck.

Or maybe it says, I am color, because that one says, I am Dragonfinder. Oh my god, that's a good point. I wonder where Elyrio got that, right, in his many trades. It seems that he's been interested in Targaryen regalia or Blackfyre regalia for a long time. Much to consider, much to fucking ponder. But he's a collector, right? We're seeing this throughout all of this time that Khal Drogo and Illyrio, they are collectors. We start to see that they have many trophies and Daenerys and Viserys are yet another. I love what's used here with the dress.

It's important to make sure the purple of her eyes are brought out, and we see that trick used later with young Griff in the story. Right? Putting him in purple, putting him in colors to make his eyes pop. And it's important here, Proto, before all that, to show her as a real Targaryen because no one's really seen one in a while and everyone knows Targaryens have purple eyes and everyone knows that Targaryens are Valyrian and that they would wear Valyrian glyphs on their collars. It's standing out to me a lot that real Targaryen symbolism because they've been driven out, they've died and Illyrio, of course, is've died, and Illyrio of course

is parading his last dragons. And of course, Viserys is giving her to Drogo, right? So the Valyrian collar in a way is a symbol of that enslavement, betrayed by Viserys in some aspects and sold to Drogo by him, betrayed by her own blood. The Valyrian collar and the glyphs embedding that betrayal, right? Those are the very words of her blood, of being Valyrian, and here she is captured by them, tied up within them. They are on her, right? She's wearing a Valyrian collar. And knowing what we know of like potential blood use, right, in Valyrian ceremonies and weddings, she's a blood sacrifice right here.

She's the blood sacrifice. She's all tied up, tarnished up, and ready to be presented. A betrayal for blood? Hmm. I will say, because I'm gonna be pedantic, it does say treason. Three treasons, you will know. Not just a betrayal. I feel like treason is a specific kind of betrayal. But anyways, um, yeah, I mean, he's been betraying her their whole life, right? Like he was supposed to, as you said earlier, keep her safe, and he didn't. But yeah, I haven't really thought much about this collar.

Like, what was its use before? I think you're right that it probably was used in some sort of magical blood ceremony and here, like, Illyrio is just me, like, hmm, this is just fashion. This is very important, like, this is just fashion, it's just accessories. LWI? Illyrio loves to serve Cunt. He's culturally appropriating. He actually does, though.

He's got a lot of… Yeah, we're gonna come to him serving Cunt in just a moment actually. Yeah, actually. And yeah, he is a collector of a lot of these things, and good point, Blackfyre Regalia, they too take it out in one of the Tyrian drafts or sample chapters, but he did say he was going to give the sword, or was it the griffons? One of those sample chapters. Yeah, Blackfyre. Yep.

But he has it, he's got it. Kind of reminds me of the collector from Marvel. If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy, they put him in one of them. He's a character, he first appeared in The Avengers a long time ago, back in the Silver Age. And there's been many different versions of him, but he loves, he's a collector, right? He spends his days in thought and contemplation and collecting and creating like rare valuable item collections and slowly but surely there's prophecy involved. It makes me think George probably thought about him with Illyrio a lot. I think you're right, like I don't really know who this character is but I do think you're right and I don't remember- He's played in the movie by Benicio del Toro, and in the movie they have the collector try

to collect Gamora and Peter Quill. I haven't seen the movie in so long. But I do think you're right. And I mean, he collects all these things. He's built his wealth in a lot of different ways. I just am like, why couldn't he just have built his wealth in the way that I would have wanted to build? Well, I mean, that path isn't close to me. He's a cheese monger, which is like, what a calling. What a calling. And yet he sullies it with all this other shit. Just be happy with your cheese collection and like selling it and eating it. God. Um, you know, tell my job that that's how I feel. Yeah. And also, absolutely about the collar is a symbol of her imprisonment and it's really pointed that it's that moment of having the collar on that she thinks, oh, I guess

I must now look like a princess. And that it's the royalty and it's the trappings of power that actually imprison her. Literally trapping her. Exactly. Her brother and Illyrio evaluate her look when she arrives. Illyrio says she looks regal. And we get a look at him for the first time. A massive man with gemstones on each finger, a forked yellow beard, and flame-colored silk clothing.

He tells her, May the Lord of Light shower you with blessings on this most fortunate day, Princess Daenerys." Wow. R'hllor is very strong in these first two chapters, and I really forgot just how strong it was. I think a lot of that and some of the religious fanaticism that comes up about R'hllor get spread through the books when we introduce Stannis in a deeper way and you know when we kind of consult the Jon, Bran, Tyrion, Arya chapters, right? How many moments in those chapters we feel are very concentrated early in the story when it was meant to be a trilogy instead of eight to nine books with outer books also. Not counting Fire and Blood, Blood and Fire, Fire and Blood 3, Dunk and Ag, Dunk and Ag, Dunk and Ag.

But when you look at this- Do you think it's gonna go Fire and Blood, Blood and Fire, then back to Fire and Blood, like anyways? Continue. I don't know man, I- Ash and something maybe? I don't know, man. Ash and something, maybe? I don't know, maybe he'll get really... But these chapters, the first chapters are very concentrated, right? In A Game of Thrones, there are a lot of traces of what I feel George is looking at as the bigger arts for some of these characters. So I wonder if with that in mind as he built the story and gardened out Stannis following R'hllor and kind of where he's at and

the fanaticism that comes to mind and where we might see R'hllor later on in Dani's plot, it's curious to me how much Illyrio is into R'hllor in these chapters. Yeah, and just like, quick thing, I mean, the religion stuff subtly like making its way here, like the previous chapter was Catlin starting to like introduce a lot of the religious elements of this world building that we get here to Dany. Yeah, a lot of interesting world building that starts and then we don't come back to R'hllorilly till Clash. Now I want to talk a bit about Dune. I think that in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, and if you don't want to be spoiled maybe just fast forward 30 to

50 seconds at a time and see if I'm still going. I think that there's a lot to be looked at in the structure of Dune. I don't think that George necessarily is lifting things from Dune, but I do think that Dune is a fundamental story in so many stories that embrace sci-fi plot devices as well as fantasy plot devices as well as hero's journeys and as well as like the subversion and the devastation of a hero's journey. I think it's a really classic story that embraces that. So exploring some of these characters like Paul Atreides and Alia Atreides and looking at Viserys and Dany in that story, Lady Rebecca, right? Lady Rebecca has a lot of Catalin Stark in her, as I've

discussed before, but she's a bit here in some of this too, in some of these pieces. Rhaegar and Viserys very much are this idea of Paul, the brother that comes before that is supposed to be Madib, that is the prophesied one and thinks he's the prophesied one, and he sees a golden path, right? He sees a way that the future can turn out good if he just makes all of these tiles fall into place and then he dies tragically. And that is somewhat what happens in Dune. But I think Alia Atreides is really interesting in this context and I think there's little bits of Alia throughout the story. Alia is born several months after her father's been murdered. Her mother and brother have been forced to flee into exile and she is born with this incredible cognitive ability, precognitive ability, due to the

water of life. She basically absorbs all of her ancestors and their entire everything. It's called abomination. She can't control the ego memories of her ancestors, so she's super unstable. Like she has a limitless pool of knowledge of all of her ancestors and all of the different women, yes, from the Bene Gesserit. She basically has all this pool of ancestors, etc., but it's called abomination because it basically corrupts her over time. And not only does that mean she has the memories and thoughts of her ancestors, but abomination basically means she's someone who can control her own fate and aging, and she can live pretty much indefinitely.

So when she's born, she sees and feels and thinks that her brother is basically the answer to the riddle, right? The big riddle, the big question that Paul Atreides is the future, Paul is the future. And this gets really cool in really weird ways. I won't go into all of them in the future books, but it gets weird, including your worm boy. Like that's fucking weird. Absolutely weird. Highly recommend reading at least up to Children of Dune. I can keep going if you're interested, but Children of Dune is very interesting to me. Like it's

one of my favorites of the books. And I won't talk too much about Alia's End, but I will tell you that Alia's end is not great. It is sad. It is a result of all of this playing out after she loses control to a relative, basically, in some aspects, and she finds the only way to get out of that situation and she takes it. It highlights most of all, though, through her plot, Alia is left in Dune Messiah pretty much. She's abandoned by her brother and her mother and she becomes the ruler of an autocratic government. Her brother takes his life and goes into the desert like a Fremen and he's gone. What that means, you'll have to find out.

A character called the Preacher shows up later that's pretty much similar to him, so I don't know. Is it him, is it not? But in the meantime, she's left to rule an autocratic government, she turns basically a cult-like fanatical following out to prop up her rule and through her brother's rule and through the words and prophecies of Mahdib and all while the blood of her ancestors and their consciousness is poisoning her mind, poisoning her preborn mind and telling her to stay isolated, push people away, don't engage with them.

And so like she's being shaped by the future, but she's obsessed with the past, right, this entire time. And she inherits all of these successes and failures of her ancestors all at once to the point that it drives her to obsession. And I think that there's something in that with Baceras' plot, with the many Targaryens that have come before them, right, in succession, and even a bit in Daenerys' plot too. And the way that other rulers show up, prophets show up, people that have died and come back show up maybe in the story with claims to thrones, I don't know. Something interesting going on. as you said, pulling different aspects into Daenerys' narrative as well. But mostly I think this was great and now I'm super excited for you to watch Dune Prophecy

after everything that you've told me in this. And I think that all of you should be very excited to hear what Chloe has to say about Dune Prophecy after this. I'm hyped. I'm hyped. Our Dune Prophecy Patreon episode's gonna be fun. I'm so hyped to hear what you have to say. I'm so glad I just got you psyched for that. Like, after hearing all this. Very interesting. Did some things start clicking for you? Yes!

Did you not hear me go, uhhhh? Yeah, I didn't know what part that- I didn't know what you meant it to yet, but okay. Cool. Interesting. Cool. Wow, lots to chat about in Patreon episode this month for Stranger Tier and Above. Gotta point out the drip right here that Illyrio's wearing flame-colored silk robes. So R'hllor obviously is a big diverting point in families, like look at Stannis from the Baratheons. He's the weirdo that's supporting the the fire cult but I wonder if George was playing with R'hllor and the obsession with fire and garden did out maybe a little with the Targaryens like that maybe one every few like I think of like Kira of Tyrosh or

maybe like the Blackfyres because they're exiled have more access to R'hllor and maybe more of them support R'hllor because of that, and because they're, you know, exiles and they need support. But something interesting, right? Like you have Aerys II's obsession with fire, Aerion drinking wildfire, Aegon V's obsession with the fire and the eggs, the prophecy of ice and fire, da da da da da da da da da da da. I mean, just something interesting, right? Like, I think he kind of spread his world building and lore

out. He started really hard here, and obviously he took a little bit of a step back before he came back to how he wanted R'hllor to really appear in his story, right? With Melisandre and Stannis and really fleshing them out. So maybe he had some plans for R'hllor that he wants to come back to. But I think there's something interesting of like the one odd out child of the family is being interested in R'hllor, right? Or being interested in fire like Tyrion's obsession with dragons. And of course, we learn he knows a lot about history, culture, religion, et cetera. Something something interesting there. Yeah, it is interesting. I don't know if we would see any of the Free Cities, like the Targaryens who ended up going to the Free Cities, more interested in R'hllorism.

I know that's why we have Thoros of Myr there, because they were trying to convert him, but I think that, like, we're talking about Stannis' obsession with R'hllorism, and we do actually see Targaryens who are obsessed with religion, but it is the Faith of the Seven. And I think it kind of has to do with, like, the reason why Stannis is so interested in R'hllorism is because it's the religion that gives him power, that puts him at the center of it, and, like, that's why Baelor, I think, was so interested at the center of it and like that's how why Baylor I think was so interested in the faith of the seven

He's like, oh, this is a different new way for me to get power Like they invested a lot of fucking energy into trying to get the faith on their side They're not gonna throw all that effort away if any of them remember that aspect of power but it could like for the same reasons that it's important for Stanis, like as you were saying, like I think matter for Daenerys, right? Like what happens when when it's you at the center? When they want to support you, yeah. Yeah. What happens when the religious cult finds you and it turns out they're really nice? To you. They really want to have you over for, you know, jay barbecue. Yeah. And it's interesting

because that one's like, they have, they have like slavery within their religion as well. It's codified as part of that scene. So we have Illyrio telling Viserys that Daenerys is a vision, and that Drogo will be enraptured. But Viserys says she's too skinny. God, won't anything ever make you people happy! His hair, the same silver blonde as hers, had been pulled back tightly behind his head and fastened with a dragonbone brooch. It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face." Kinda reminiscent of how Stannis gets talked about in Dance.

With his skull head. I was just thinking that this boy's been starving a lot of his life too. It's probably why he's been there too skinny too. Yeah, six months is not enough to give her a little job. Yeah, they've just been starving peckers on the streets. Sad. Oh, that's what my cats were like when I got them. Oh, but now they're a producer and an intern.

Jake still has a pitfall on him. That's what Viserys and Daenerys will be. Brought on full time, oh my god. Yeah, that's because men's cat's rights don't matter. True. Viserys rests his hands on an Illyrio-borrowed sword and asks if he's sure that Drogo likes his girls this young, but Illyrio assures him she's blood that makes her old enough for the cow.

Blech. Blech. Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes. She is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt! And Highborne, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrap Sardrogo. No doubt, no doubt.

Yeah, so I talked about Daenerys' age, etc. like a long, long, long, long time ago on Nauticaust in the... I think Daenerys 2 chapter of the Game of Thrones? Yeah, I know, right? Who was she? What year was that? Holy shit. Like 2018, dude. No, it would have been earlier than that. 2017? Holy shit. Anyway, that's enough time for aius to be old enough to flee.

Anyways, or almost. Yeah, I do think it's important that you have highlighted in here Sirius being like, are you sure that he likes his girls this young? And next chapter as well where Eddard's like, are you sure you want to betroth Sansa? She's like, only 11. Like, young marriages are not typical. Like, it is not typical because they're like, that's fucking weird to wanna fuck kids, but also it's not great for the posterity of your line. for the posterity of your line. Yeah. Doesn't say that you're going to have great...

child-making in your future. Yeah, like, the child, like, will you be able to carry the term? Will the woman or girl survive? So anyways, this is... Children making children. Yeah. I wanna, like, emphasize this shows that this is not normal. Stop justifying pedophilia everyone. Yeah, every single reddit thread in the fucking world. Oh they did that back then! No they did not! And this isn't a back then! There is no back then! This is Westeros, bitch. Viserys says, always. Thank you everyone. It is a podcast. It was a TED Talk that turned into a podcast tragically. Viserys says, these

savages have queer tastes. Boys, horses, sheep. Illyria warns him, don't say that to the cowl, and anger flashes in Viserys who says, do you take me for a fool? Love the gay khalasar, good for them. We have a gay woke khalasar, I'm just kidding. They're woke to murder. I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men, my apologies if I have given offense, says Illyrio. Smooth. Kinned to any man who must say I am the king is no true king at all. Aerys never understood that, but you will. Ho ho ho. Mmm.

Ho ho ho ho ho. Yeah. It's... yeah. It's very interesting. Very interesting, Viserys. You're being set up to fail, buddy. By the plot. The plot hates you. They got it out for you. It really does hate him. Yeah. It's the strongest force there is, is the plot. It's pitch dark when they set out in a carved palanquin, and servants are lighting the way, and a dozen men are carrying them.

Dany can smell Illyrio's stench through his heavy perfumes. But where are the perfumed seneschal? It's cause he's- I do think that Illyrio is him, dude. his heavy perfumes. But where are the perfumed seneschal? I do think that Illyrio is him, dude. Intra, yeah, maybe. Actually, yeah. It's building his betrayal. I like that. Bit by bit. I think it's Illyrio, I do,

and I think that Georgia's given us others to throw us off, but I think this is the first use of it, and she already has. Like, Illyrio's betrayal, when it does come, when it's revealed overall, and when Dani's like, wow, bro, you sold me, uh, except now she has dragons, that will really like a meal. Um, I just think that like it's building perfectly towards that right here. Yeah, because like by the later points of the story, she's like, I don't know, maybe, maybe he was right because by the later points of the story she's like, I don't know, maybe he was right

because of the consequence of her birthing the dragons and she's starting to trust him and all that stuff with the tattered prints and that we discussed long, long ago in the Quentin chapters. Oh my god. But remember what she thought at first, she never trusted him, right? And it's what Quaithe says to her, remember who you are, Daenerys. And she starts, yeah, absolutely.

And that's definitely gonna keep her remembering. Shit's gonna go down in Pentos, I'm so excited. Burn it down. I mean, like, what are you doing, Illyria? Why do you have slaves, Christ? Just sell your cheese and be happy. I would be happy. I would have been happy. Rolling in the cheese. I would be content. Perfume in the story, I think we kind of see it becoming this way of portraying that someone has become soft based on how Ned thinks of Robert as just full of perfume before

he was like, Leather and blood clung to him like perfume now perfume clung to him like perfume and Chill out Ned. But also the way that Daenerys has grown up, you really get to see how she's constantly thinking about how other people are regarding them. She has this anxiety about it for obvious reasons. She's got this really astute assessment of how people truly feel behind what they say because she's had to survive and it's a great parallel actually to John in a few chapters and how he notices the true emotions of people at the Winterfell Feast. It's something that Ben says to him, Benjen. Sorry, we're not like that close.

Ben. They call him Ben, but like, you know, we're not we're not homies like that. Benji. Benji. Jen. Like Ben why it's nicknamed Benji. Oh my god. But yeah, like both. Reminds me of Liza too, to that point.

Mmm. Expand. How she's described as perfumed and has gone a little soft, right, from trauma in her life. She has... She has gone a little soft, but hardened in different ways. Right, a female ruler as well, who's come into ruling. Yeah. Unlikely.

It's interesting. It's interesting. It's interesting. But yeah, I think it's fun to kind of look at the ways that John and Dani's stories parallel each other, too. I would be interested to do a generis read-through. I mean, I was gonna say that's what this is, but it's not, but it- Yeah. Well, we're gonna force it to be in a way to like, they're both born in proximity to power, but they still can't access it fully until later on in their stories. It's really, it really makes them who they are.

home and says we won't need his whole calisar playing with his sword. Dani thinks that he had never used a sword in earnest. Kids with toys. Yeah, oh. Yeah. Kind of like Joffrey later, right? Absolutely. With the sword. Lion's tooth, lion's paw, lion's claw, whatever the fuck you want to remember it as.

Viscera says he only needs 10,000 men, that the realm would rise for its rightful king. This makes me think of something Liet Kynes says in Dune Messiah, I think. No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a hero. Yes. Um. Interesting. Y'all should be excited for this Dune episode. Anyways. Dune.

We have this line of Tyrell, Redwine, Derry, Greyjoy, they have no more love for the usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge—this is Viserys—Tyrell—I don't know my Viserys voice—Tyrell, Redwine, Derry, Greyjoy—they have no more love for the usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children, and the small folk will be with us. They cry out for their king." He looked at Illyrio anxiously. They do, don't they? "'They are your people, and they love you well,' Magister Illyrio said amiably, in old fasts all across the realm. Men lift secret toasts to your health while women sew

dragon banners and hide them against the day of your return from across the water. Or so my agents tell me." Honestly, I mean, yeah, Dorn Martell actually probably is lifting secret toasts to the Targaryens. It's so secret that his own family doesn't even know that he's doing it, but he is secretly doing that in Burning for Revenge. Yeah, I love this as kind of like a placeholder compared to what could come in Tiwau, right, or in a Dream of Spring, that, you know, I talk a lot about a rehash of the Sack of King's Landing happening at the end of Cersei's leadership? Question mark?

Question mark? In King's Landing with the Dornish, right? The Dornish men burn to avenge Elia and her children is a rather holistic quote to think about because the Dornish men, like Quentin, who has burned to avenge Elia and her children already, and also the rest of them, will likely also burn while trying to avenge Elia and her children already, and also the rest of them will likely also burn while trying to avenge Elia and her children in the capital in the long run. They're gonna kill Tommen and maybe like, Marcella too and all that and it's like- Round and around. Yes, I was thinking literally the same thing.

It never ends. Alaria was so right. Right. And, of course, the idea of the banners being sewn but hidden against the day of your return from across the water, but it won't be for Viserys or for Daenerys that they will be pulled out for. They will be pulled out for Aegon. Yeah.

But if they were just a little earlier, it could have been for them. No, it really could have. Yeah. Could have. Uh. Doran is doing that. Anyways. Dany has no agents, though, to tell her about what's going on overseas, but she mistrusted

Illyrio's where it's all the same. Viserys is nodding eagerly, though. I love this bit in the same. Viserys is nodding eagerly though. I love this bit in the story. This is the funniest fucking line. And the rest of it's great too, but Viserys goes, I shall kill the usurper myself. He promised, who had never killed anyone. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And Illyrio's like, yes, yes, that would be most fitting. And Dany sees the smallest hint of a smile at his lips But Viserys doesn't notice because this is how to speak to Viserys It's to fill his head with these dreams and tell him he's the greatest and that satiates him for a little bit longer And then there's this line

nodding he pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night and Danny knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again. What a fucking line. Abomination. Pre-born. Right? There it is. The successes and failures of your entire lineage crashing down upon you everywhere you look. Another great passage Another great passage that I love is from Dune in the first book. Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in.

He must reflect what is projected upon him, and he must have a strong sense of the Sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The Sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man. Interesting. Interesting regarding this idea of greatness. Yeah, Isaris is grappling with this. Yeah. Yeah. Just like Rhaegar did before him. Wow. Yeah. I also, I don't know, it's just such a poignant line.

All of like, I knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again. poignant line of like, knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again. Once again, because that's where he always is, trying to replay it in his mind, trying to get back everything they lost. Yeah. Just fucking, holy shit. It's such a good line. George! George! They're all so sad. Yeah. Well, they arrive at Cal Drogo's Mance with its nine towers and high walls covered in pale ivy.

The Magisters of Pentos gifted it to him with the promise that the Lord of Light would protect their city from a Dothraki invasion. The Dothraki guard lets them in, and Dany notices Viserys's hand tightening on his sword, looking scared. I love that they're all like, he's got a great house, you're gonna go live in a great house. No, they're gonna take her fucking camping. Sucks. Um, the guard- Hey, she gets it for a night the next night.

I'm just like, they take her camping. Ugh. The guard is not- Get ready, it's gonna be a long fucking camping trip. It is. Ugh. It goes all the way until like... It's actually like, I was gonna say into clash, but technically in some ways even past that. Storm.

It's past that, like they keep like stopping and doing it again. Anyways. She doesn't get a house until like a dance with dragons. And even then. And yeah, even then. Then she goes camping again by the end of it. Short lived. She doesn't even have a tent, really, later on.

She's just like, OK, fine. Just a dragon. Right. And even that. Is he a producer? My god. For her podcast. So the guard is Dothraki, but Dress is an unsullied.

Viserys mutters insults as they head inside. Elio reassures them that Robert cannot touch Viserys here, that Drogo will protect him. Though Viserys here, that Drogo will protect him. Though Viserys doesn't seem convinced. Inside, a bronze-collared slave offers Daenerys their hand, leading them to a hall decorated with a mosaic of Valyria's doom and black lanterns. And Eunuch sings as they walk under an arch of stone leaves. The series is announced with grand titles while Daenerys is simply Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, honestly still a pretty banger name and intro for being like second fiddle.

I love that it's pointed out and that Daenerys notices that the slave's collar is bronze. She's been like, soul division, that called Drogo's so great, so wealthy, that even his slaves wear gold. And it shows that Daenerys was wise to doubt all these stories of glory and that Drogo's wealth has been exaggerated. And it's something to note because all of these hyperbolic tales about how powerful and scary Drogo is, in a few books, people are going to be making hyperbolic tales about her and her power and how scary she is as a ruler. Yes. And I love that the hall is decorated with Valyria's doom.

So like, he's not just a collector, but he's like a fetishized collector. He's like, I'm really into the Valyrians and how they died right now, so I really need a Valyrian princess. And it's interesting the power transition, right? This is the last time that Daenerys is going to be kind of less of a station than Viserys. We know that Drogo really doesn't regard Viserys very well, and this is just a transactional deal at the end of the day. We see it like he's not... He's sat below them, right? Illyrio and Viserys are sat in a seat of honor in the next chapter. We'll talk all about that. But Daenerys is the one that's on the playing level with Drogo, even though it's miserable in the next chapter. So here

Viserys gets his grand titles, Daenerys is simply Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, and soon that begins to shift. That power dynamic begins to shift, and as she gets pregnant, it also begins to shift because thank God wombs are worth something in this world if everything else isn't right you know like if you can birth something my god Drogo's really into it so yeah better than Viserys he can't birth anything true he should have been born a girl like Danny said um yeah Khaled Drogo I didn't realize you're right he is such a weird like Valyrian fanboy like RIP Drogo you would have loved dragons he's like an anime fan yeah he is such a weird Valyrian fanboy. Like, RIP Drogo, you would have loved dragons. He's like an anime fan.

Yeah, he is, but I mean, I guess he wouldn't have loved dragons if he didn't die. Anyways, something to think about, I guess. Not really. Curious to understand more of why he has the Doom of Valyria. Is it just to collect her and to show he's powerful and that he has a piece of this like lost civilization that's dead and now he has a real flesh piece? Or is there something more to it? Does he believe something about it? We'll never know because he dies. Brit. Yeah.

So. The courtyard is bathed in moonlight. It's filled with Dothraki horse lords, bravos, sellswords, and various foreign figures from places like Myr, Tyrosh, and the Summer Isles. This line is very too real. Daenerys looked at all of them in wonder and realized with the sudden start of fear that she was the only woman there. That's a real feeling. Been there. Illyrio points out Drogo's bloodriders. He points out Kal Moro and his son R'Goro, the brother of the archon of Tyrosh with the green beard, and then Jorah Mormont, a knight-ish.

Sure. Illyrio says, no less, anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself. Of course, slaver recognizes slaver. That makes sense, you know? Oh yeah. Realize, realize. Uh, the joke there is that Illyrio's like, yeah, he's a knight, ha ha ha, he's only here because he was poaching slaves, ha ha ha, a knight. But also, you have that line of anointed with the seven oils by the high septin himself. And later we learn from Sandor Clegane who speaks to Sansa and says, Gregor was anointed with the seven oils, right? Yeah.

So versus Gregor with no true knight as we start to explore what a true knight is, Daenerys here is kind of being lied to. Yes, he is a true knight. That is something that that reveal will feel like a betrayal to her eventually too. But what Yes, he is a true knight. That is something that that reveal will feel like a betrayal to her eventually too. But what bullshit, right? Oh yes, Jorah, a true knight. Really, not a true knight. Would not trust Jorah. Yeah. Absolutely not.

What a weirdo. Like would you drink with him alone? No! I don't think anyone should. Exactly. Also, just because the vibes are bad even like Beyond the safety like if you're you're a woman like the vibes are bad even if you're a man Yeah, being around Jorah. There's a reason that's why he'll sell you to the bitch. Yeah, sell you to it He fucking would okay shit. I think a lot of places are so this doesn't make a special but we are an anti Jorah Yeah, it's really important places are, so this doesn't make us special, but we are an anti-Jorah podcast.

Yeah, it's really important to us. It is. Something else that's kind of important but not really. The archon of Tyrosh being in attendance at this wedding, and that Viserys recognizes him because, as you all know or might remember, it was actually the archon who was supposed to play a role back then in helping Arianne secretly meet Viserys. She was going to be the archon of Tyrosh's cupbearer before her mom was like, no, no more sending kids away. I'm sad. Which is why she left the family.

This was the missed opportunity. Viserys could have met someone finally, you know? A nice woman. And then Doran Martell with his fucking toasts and his sewing of banners, it would have probably been for him. So true. Back to Jorah Mormont as a poacher and slaver. This is so interesting, like how Illyrio frames this to lie to Daenerys in some ways and like to muddle the story and to excuse the slavery by the man, right? But like as a slaver defending a slaver I just find it fascinating. He tells them that Jorah

was wanted by the usurper. So he anchors that the usurper is the problem here because Jorah was selling poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night's Watch. He says it's an absurd law, a man should be able to do what he wants with his own chattel. Daenerys has always lived in this world where, okay, well, Illyrio has slaves, the last six months Illyrio's had slaves, I guess it's just how it is. But this is the world that we start Daenerys' story in, right? A world where, well, they believe a man should be able to do what he wants with his own chattel.

Daenerys should be able to be sold by Viserys because she does no rights but has rights as his property, as his sister, right? Yeah. So there's something interesting in the way that we begin that structure of Dani's story and the way that she begins to tear that down as we go through it. Yeah, that's true. Like, she's, like, that's kind of weird, but like, she's not like questioning it yet. She hasn't had the ability to think about those things before. She's just been in survival mode. And it also shows the way that like...

It's actually like interesting world building, Illyrio not quite understanding how knighthood and stuff works in the Seven Kingdoms. It shows like that cultural disconnect that they don't really get it, and him being able to be like, yeah, a man should be able to do what he wants with his own chattel. That's like, they're not chattel in... In Westeros. It's not considered that in the same way.

And also like, oh my God, and good point about him framing it is like, oh, he's wanted by the usurper, right? And then Jorah has the audacity to complain later on of like, oh, Ned Stark in his honor. He hates me so much. I'm like, yeah, bro, of course he hates you. You're a fucking slaver. You did a dishonorable, shitty, horrible thing. It's not like Ned was super haughty about it, you just suck.

Yeah. We get a good look at Jorah's outfit, that he's wearing dark green wool and a leather Mormont tunic and he clearly stands out, right? He's out of place with the northern style versus the styles that she knows from the free cities already and versus the Dothraki style and I love that because you're gonna start seeing that right when we get Jon and her to finally meet and when we have the north their armies joining her armies I think that's a cool kind of look that Jorah's out of place in northern style now fashion hour but later it's going to become very normalized.

Yeah, unless he's- I wonder if he's also wearing like really outdated fashions too. Probably. It's probably all he has. I mean, I don't think the North really updates their male fashions that often. Yeah, it's probably just like, we're cold. It's definitely gonna be like- Robb Stark leather armor! It's definitely gonna be like, we're cold by the time she's getting there. Anyways. Yeah. Illyria then points Daenerys towards Khal Drogo, and she wants to run and hide, but looks in order not to displease Viserys.

Like we said, that bit of being anticipatory towards his abuse, fearing that she'd wake the dragon. And of course we start to see a lot of this with Joffrey and Sansa later in the plot as well. Similar ways that Sansa starts to kind of frame her life in similar ways of being anticipatory of those mood swings. Indeed, yeah. That's a great point of how they're kind of developing these two characters together, draw from the series. And I really like how this also contrasts Dani's feelings of fear

in regards to looking at Khal Drogo with Bran's chapter, that first chapter of the book, not counting the prologue. I don't know, George thinks of it as the first chapter, so like, in some ways I do. I don't know why. Bran is forced to stay and watch the beheading or else father will know, right? Like, I mean, he's afraid. Obviously not to the same extent of, like, Daenerys being afraid of Viserys. It's a different kind of fear, but it's still there. And then Daenerys stays and she faces Drogo despite being afraid. And I think it really plays well with the idea of like, this is the only time that a man can be brave, and it's the only time that she can be brave. And it makes you really think that like, for so much of her life then, she has

lived afraid, and that therefore that means like she has been brave this whole time whether or not she knew it even though she was forced to feel small. Yeah. She's lived in fear. Yeah. As Tyrion later says. Yes.

I know that she is proud, how not? God, what a good- that is one of the most b yo anger lines of I think about it every day of my life. The whole series. How not not chilling. Just fucking chilling. Damn end of Danny one, and I'm already emotional. Oh, fuck. OK, OK, we're going to do great. This is going to be what a what a series. What a story, George. Okay, okay. We're gonna do great. This is gonna be... What a, what a series. What a story. George, wow.

So we get a view of Cal Drogo. He's a head taller than the tallest man in the room, but he's light on his feet. He's as graceful as the panther in Illyrio's menagerie in his many collections. He's younger than she thought, no more than 30. His skin is the color of polished copper. Thick mustachios are bound with gold and bronze rings. Viserys squeezes her arm while Illyrio goes to make his submissions to the Point of Pain and tells Daenerys of Drogo's braid and its symbolism that when Dothraki are defeated

in combat, they cut their braids in disgrace. Cal Drogo has never lost a fight. Viserys is cruel and he hurts her sometimes, but he doesn't frighten her in the same way that Drogo does. She begs Viserys, don't make me marry him. Take me home. But she can hear the fury in his response. How are we to go home? He repeated, meaning King's Landing and Dragonstone and all the realm they had lost. Dini had only meant their rooms and Elyrio's estate, a true home, surely, though all they had. But her brother did not want to hear that there was no home there for him.

Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. I don't know, she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes. I do. We go home with an army, sweet sister, with Kaldrogos' army. That is how we go home, and if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will." He smiled at her.

I'd let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister. All forty thousand men and their horses too, if that was what it took to get my army, be grateful it is only Drogo. In time, you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes, Illyrio is bringing him over and he will not see you crying." Dany turned and saw that it was true. Magister Illyrio, all smiles and bows, was escorting Khal Drogo over to where they stood. She brushed away on volunteers with the back of her hand. DINARY Smile. Viserys whispered nervously, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword.

And stand up straight. Let him see that you have breasts. God's know you have little enough as is. STACEY Daenerys smiled and stood up straight. DINARY Damn. STACEY Damn. We're gonna have a lot of like, emotional trauma acting this out together, you know, in the next few chapters. Like, I know that you're not actually doing this to me, we're just actors, you know, paid actors. We are BAFTA, EGOT holding actors, wow, banger after banger in this one though, those are crazy passages, emotional passages, and it's crazy, like, look, I'm not saying this is true, but to Viserys, he feels like he's making the world's biggest sacrifice,

right, because Dany is his property. Dany is his. He has always looked after her. In his mind, she is the reward for having to have had to look after her and take care of her all these years. She is his property. She is his to sell, to give away, to keep as he pleases and to torment. Again, a lot of the building blocks later for how we see Joffrey and Sansa interact. This is just the beginning, right? I mean Sansa marrying Tyrion, half of that is restated in different words to her about marrying Tyrion against her will. We start to see that with many of the women in this series that have this happen, where they are used as political coin. And in this very passage, that ownership of her, that whether he gives her to Drogo or he himself takes her, he gets more out of Drogo marrying her right now, I don't know, shortchanged, I guess, by having to marry her off. As you said, she was supposed to be the reward for him taking care of her this whole time, which is a weird fucking way to look at it, but it's true.

And it also goes to highlight the plight of a lot of the other Targaryen women with the way that incest kept them in the family, kept them as property, right? And the abuse that they had to endure, like that's that was what happened to their mother. The family trapped them. And honestly, Viserys- Take a targ. Yeah, Viserys should be careful what he wishes for in terms of Daenerys learning to like drogo. Things do not go well for you, so- Yeah, you told her.

And to what you're saying, we do find out later on that Illyrio tells Tyrion later on that Viserys had thought that he and Daenerys would marry. That was the plan to him this whole time. And it's only out of desperation, I guess, that pushes him to this point. Or to an extent, I would say even Illyrio's... I mean, it does seem like the easiest path for Viserys to finally get his point, or to an extent, like I would say even Illyrio's... I mean, it does seem like the easiest path for Viserys to finally get his army, but to an extent it is the manipulations of Illyrio that gets him to this, to be like, yeah, I guess I'll

sell my sister off, and like in A Fit of Madness we are told by Illyrio that like, Viserys was about to like go in there and rape Viserys himself before she was wed because he felt, as you were saying, like that ownership of her until Illyrio and his household stopped Viserys because yeah, he thought she should have been his and you know, Illyrio's like, ugh, we can't have that. In a way, Illyrio is saving her in some aspects. Yeah, true. Unwittingly not needed.

I mean, this is, you know, her life could have gone on the same every single day, right? Every single day with Viserys could have just been repeated over and over. Her hiding, her trying to avoid his rages, his moods, her making space for him. But finally she got a change, right? Marrying Khal Drogo, while it's not what she wants, provides the change in her life that she's able to eventually, thanks to some lucky eggs and some fire and Mirri Maz Duur, our greatest favorite female role model in her life later, just kidding, these are all being sarcastic, but thanks to all these things, right, like...

Of course she is proud, how not? How fucking not? I mean, she endures so much, right? Like, she's just been running and surviving from birth. And, like... You know, like they once said about the little princess, you know, when you apply pressure to coal consistently for so long, it turns into a diamond mine. Is that, is that in the- No, is that in the-

I don't know. For a second, I thought you were actually quoting the book and I was like, I don't know. No, no, no. I'm just making a colloquialism about like, you know, diamond, the coal turning into a diamond, but the diamond mine. I, I, like, I just don't know. I mean, I know what to make of it. Different time, I guess, but looking, into a diamond, but the diamond mine. I just don't know. I know what to make of it, different time I guess, but I'm like, speaking of slaves.

Speaking of slaves. Speaking of slaves. Yup. So, yeah, honestly speaking of slaves and the selling of people, or people being treated as currency, people being treated as coin, as property. I think that's a big part of the beginning of Daenerys' storyline. I love that from the jump you have her looking at the slaves in Illyrio's household because that becomes so important to the path that she chooses and wanting to address that.

And I think there's also an aspect in which Denarius, her name, is perhaps even inspired by the Denarius, the old Roman silver coin. She's used as such. She's what Viserys is using as a coin to pay for his transportation back home. And this is like an essay that I wrote like 11 years ago and some of it I'm like, this is stupid. Like, she's not fucking mad. I was questioning like, is she mad or wise? We'll never know. We'll know. All right, people like in story are going to think she is and she's fucking not. But it plays with the idea of the coin and the

coin toss when it comes to Targaryens and greatness or madness or whatever, and that fucking line. But also it shows that there is this idea of that duality, the two sides of the coin, and so much of Dany's storyline is about the balancing of the tensions of being the in-between of lots of extremes, right? How she has to choose between peace and violence, or the fact that she is being forced into a position of both child and woman, right? She's literally a child, but she's here and she has to take on the role of woman because she's being forced into it. She

becomes like, she's put into the position of mother later on, not just of dragons, that's how she's seen by the people that she rules. But also there's these ideas, again, of just of dragons, that's how she's seen by the people that she rules. But also there's these ideas, again, of hers currency and, you know, trade that takes place that I think is heavily intertwined with Daenerys' storyline. We talk a lot about the ramifications of the way that she breaks the slave trade and what it will mean across all of Essos. We've alluded to that in previous discussions, and you know, Stephen Atwell's historical analysis for Daenerys VI in A Game of Thrones

does talk about the Roman silver trade flowing east towards China through the Silk Road, and you can see how Daenerys' own path through the story through ESO's mirrors the flow of the Roman Daenerys being that coin and there's also I think like I love that a game of thrones one of the summaries of it like this used to be the summary once upon a time on Amazon maybe it still is I don't know you know like fucking publishers they like pick something to like describe the book and this one says meanwhile across the narrow sea prince Viserys heir of the fallen house Sargerian, once ruled out of Westeros, schemes to reclaim the throne with an army of barbarian Dothraki, whose loyalty he will purchase in the end of this chapter with, again, only death may pay for life.

And I think it's going to come up in a lot of different ways as well. And we'll explore that as we go through this and as we go through the winds of winter one day and this was 11 years ago ago so please don't believe anything like everything I wrote in this essay. Some of it is like garbage and I hate it but No but I love Daenerys Targaryen that's incredible dude that's like incredible and some of it was bakers some of it was not. I really I really can't wait for you to someday read Fever Dream I know it's on your list. It is. Someday. I mean, what isn't?

Sure, real. But there's this quote in it that I want to close us out with and it's from Abner Marsh, one of the main characters. He's southern. I'm probably not gonna do the accent. If you want me to I could I guess, but I just think it's totally not right right now. You can't just go using another kind of people like they wasn't people at all. Know what I mean? Gotta end sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it's got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see. And that is what I will leave you with from Fever Dream by George R.R.

Martin in Daenerys 1, A Game of Thrones. He said the fucking thing, baby. But did he also say House of the Dragon? No. So it's not as good. You're right. Tell George about that. It's not as good as what he did in this chapter because ours is the House of the Dragon. The fire is in our blood.

Folks, that's Danny one. Thank you for showing the fuck up. The fire is in our blood, dude. That was wow. We're so back to our episode. We're so back. Okay. In our defense, a lot of it at the beginning was us just being like, I don't know, let's go through all these kings and give our sides. Which was hella fun.

But I think it felt important. No, it was important. It was a fun lightning run. Yeah. Thank you Chloe for your work. Always, you inspire me. I have a muse. I'm the muse.

A muse-boosh. The mighty boosh. I don't know. Thank you for listening. We will return with Daenerys 2 in a game of thrones. The mighty pooch. I don't know. Thank you for listening. We will return with Daenerys II in A Game of Thrones. Yes, and if you want to keep up with whenever that episode drops, you can on social media, where we are GirlsGoneCannon, that's C-A-N-O-N on Twitter or BlueSky.

You can also send us your thoughts via email at girlsgoncanon at gmail.com. We may be shuffling around some of our recording schedule as Chloe is set up top. So apologies if your email does not necessarily appear with the corresponding chapter. Yeah, and thank you for your thoughts. We love them. Keep them coming. And you can subscribe to us if you have not already. Many places on the internet, our patrons are going to tell you a little bit about that. You can catch Girls Gone Cannon on any of the following streamers.

On Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcast,HeartRadio, 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 shitposting 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. And yes, patreon.com slash girls gone canon is the best place to find all of our episodes. We would love for you to become one of our patrons. Patreon.com slash girls gone cannon C-A-N-O-N. There are over 70, oh my god, maybe over 80 bonus episodes that you can access there, including by the end of the month you'll have access to our Dune prophecy episode on the first season of Dune prophecy. Can't wait to talk about it, about the abomination, the pre-born. There's so much there's so much you're gonna discuss and like I'm sorry first season of Dune Prophecy. Can't wait to talk about it, about the abomination, the preborn!

There's so much you're gonna discuss and like, I'm sorry, I apologize Chloe, I was unfamiliar with your game and I really should not have been like, yo, you guys, I'm so looking forward now to doing this episode and you should all be looking forward to this episode, holy fuck, it's gonna rock. I don't even know what we're gonna talk about yet but I know it's gonna rock. I don't even know what we're gonna talk about yet, but I know it's gonna fuck Yeah, absolutely get ready for Dune prophecy stranger to your patrons above The only Dune episode we've ever done, fascinatingly It's because you should just all listen to Quinn. Yeah. Well, this was basically a Dune episode. Dune 1, Agat As always I've been one of your hosts Chloe and I have been another one of your hosts, Chloe. And I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana.

See you next time. Bye. Wow. Here.