Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 42 - The Prince of Winterfell ADWD

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

You're invited to the world's worst wedding - "Arya" Stark and Ramsay Bolton get married in the Godswood of Winterfell in The Prince of Winterfell from A Dance with Dragons. 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: www.liesandarborgold.com 

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon episode 42, The Prince of Winterfell, A Dance with Dragons. I am Chloe, one of your hosts. You know me from my blog, LizaNarborGold.com, and from Twitter and Tumblr as LizaNarbor. And hello, I'm Eliana, another one of your hosts. And you probably know me as Glass table girl from the song of ice and fire subreddit or the mason monthly podcast or maybe you're on like the social medias and you might know me as a real metric on twitter today is a very heavy episode the prince of winterfell is one of the most graphic of the theon slash reek. So we want to call out that we will be, of course, discussing issues of assault,

specifically sexual assault, as well as abuse. Lots. And it's not fun. So if you're delicate like I am, this probably isn't the episode for you. We're not going to go into it into it. I think we do a very good job of being casual about all of the horrible, horrible assault at the end. And to be fair, George does a decent job of taking us out of the equation after a couple excessive paragraphs. That's nice, but it's

a lot. Yes, and there's a lot of it kind of just hinted at and strewn throughout the chapter, so feel free to skip this episode if you like. Yes, we would. No, we wouldn't. We would never. We have a horrible duty to do. But first, before we go into being horribly depressed and traumatized, which I'm really excited about, obviously, we do have a funny tweet from this week. So we'll all smile a little before we get horribly sad. Yes.

Snark Knight tweeted at us about last week's episode. Yes. If you'll remember, as usual, we were discussing horses, and this time we're talking about Ramsay's horse is named Blood because he's evil because he's evil, because he's extra and one of our buddies on Twitter Snarkknight1 said now I want someone to name their horse

Cheese, Dunkin' Egg 4? hmm, we'll see what about Dunkin' Egg 5? and of course this is a reference to the characters of Blood and Cheese in the dance of the dragons, not a dodo.

Wait, hold on. The dodo. The dodo. I was going to say the dodo. The dodo. Everyone was a dodo in this war. Yeah, I'm working on putting together something like dunk and egg cheese sandwich. You know, like a bagel, egg, and cheese.

Maybe I'll get it by the end of this episode. I did love our idea, Eliana and I, earlier, which is bullshitting. We were like, what if we provided a blood and cheese or a cheese tier on Patreon where we suggested pairings when you're listening to our episodes of what to eat and drink? I think that's a good tier. I don't know what we would do for it, but I think it's a great tier. We're thinking about it. Just wanted to, you know, putting out these feelers. This is our focus group, all of you.

Yeah, you're all invited to our brainstorm hour. Yes. Speaking, though, of Patreon tiers, as a reminder, we have a stretch goal. Woo! A stretch goal. We invite patrons or prospective patrons to stretch themselves like Chloe's cat, Alysanne, across her lap. And...

You have a stretchy cat. Yeah, I do have a stretchy cat. She's so stretchy. Well, our stretch goal is kind of fun. It's really exciting. We are on Patreon. If you're not a patron of ours, then check us out just for funsies.

Patreon.com slash Girls Gone Canon. You can join for as little as $1 and get some perks, some bonuses, some fun. We will be doing a live stream once we hit $1,000 as our stretch goal. So we're getting pretty close, getting close. We're chugging along. We're hoping to meet that stretch goal and get there so we can do a live stream for patrons. And, I mean, it's gonna be an experience. You know, it's gonna be like

patrons get automatic VIP access and whoever the patrons let into this party, you know, we're not gonna stop ya. We're here to have fun. So. Why are we not? So make friends with a patron. That's what I'm saying. That's what I would do if I wanted to get invited to a party, I guess. I don't know how that works. I don't go to parties a patron. That's what I'm saying. That's what I would do if I wanted to get invited to a party, I guess.

I don't know how that works. I don't go to parties, but. That's not true. I guess maybe, I don't know, maybe you host parties. Well, now we are. We're hosting a party. I want to. Look, the whole idea here behind this marketing scheme, you guys, is I watched Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.

Oh, my God. It's also a really great crappy book especially because like it's really cool sidebar it was written by two authors it was written by this guy and chick who like were writing it together so back and forth back and forth and then the book is written from nora and nick's point of view back and forth so anyways i digress really good teen fiction novel it was fun you know and the movie's really fun because i like kat dennings and michael cera's weird and awkward so it just worked out well but uh they, you know, spend all night looking for their favorite band's party. So what I want is I want, like, our concert, our party, our live stream to be looked at.

You know, like, graffiti on a bathroom wall. Girls Gone Canon. Here's the URL. Are you Nick or Nora? Oh, I'm nora i'm absolutely nora but obviously let's um shit well it's gonna be a secret show i want everyone just to post like question mark question mark question mark don't day girls gone canon oh i guess no one can see me gesture. I made a gesture, everyone, and only Chloe really saw me reacting to this. So, anyway. To be fair, it's always me that only sees you react to this.

True. True. Check out our patron, as mentioned. Come to the party. This will be for all patrons, a dollar and up, and whoever else sneaks in. So that pushes us into our lightning round for what we missed

between Reek 3 and this new character, the Prince of Winterfell in Adawara. Yes, we're gonna start off with Tyrion VIII. Tyrion befriends Penny and listens to Makoro's prayers and visions. Bran III.

As Jojen weakens, Bran's sight grows stronger. He sees visions of the past, distant and near. Jon VII. Jon leads new hires of the Wall to take their vows. They bring back more baldlings, and Stannis sends word of his victories in the war to Winterfell. Daenerys 6. After visiting the sick refugees camped outside of Meereen,

Daenerys prepares for her wedding to his dar. She learns of Brown Ben Plum's betrayal and her dad's Dario. Oh my god, betrayal. And finally, yes, that brings us over to The Prince of Winterfell, where Theon Reminds Jane that She must be Arya or suffer As Arya's last surviving Brother

Theon is chosen to present her At her wedding Ramsay humiliates his new bride and Theon After the wedding feast The hearth was caked with Ramsay humiliates his new bride and Theon after the wedding feast. and white lambswool trimmed with lace. Her sleeves and bodice were sewn with freshwater pearls and on her feet were white, bow-skinned slippers. Pretty, but not warm. Her face was pale,

bloodless. What a start to a chapter. That's just... I get that people say they don't like feast and dance. I understand that you can say say those words i just don't understand how you can believe that because this is just top tier just the imagery the

bolton imagery right like her face is pale and bloodless and uh the the virgin bride the sacrifice kind of imagery you know is huge here she's covered in white little fashion hour depressing fashion hour you know she's dressed in white little fashion hour depressing fashion hour you know she's dressed in white lambswool trimmed with lace and there's freshwater pearls sewn all over it and she's wearing white slippers everything's very pure very much like snow you know the embodiment of the north which we're going to talk about in a bit is very very important to this entire chapter for the Bolton regime. Also coming back to that fashion hour,

this sewn with freshwater pearls reminds me of that cloak that Sansa wears that people say could have been. Sandors. Yes. Or I guess technically it wouldn't have been Sandors, but is worn underneath, right? I guess technically it wouldn't have been Sandor's, but is worn underneath, right? Or like above the cloak that Sandor wears. When people discuss the theory that in many ways that exchange was like a wedding, which you all described in a few episodes ago. Once upon a time. Yes. yes as you were saying jane's face being like carved out of ice because it's bloodless it's it's interesting it's the way that i feel cersei was described when we first see her

in ned's chapter is a very much an ice queen but here it's a little different that's why jane is feeling that way here it's because she feels fear returning to winterfell what a terrible feeling right to to be scared to come back home and yeah you finally get to go home after the horrors you've seen and this is what you're going home to and it's more of a nightmare yeah man nothing poor jane um i also want to say randomly the bloodless thing i know that people think of the Boltons as vampiric someone recently made a joke they were like oh yes the vampires fighting against the direwolves or werewolves

and I just really think it's bold of George to take that much inspiration from the Twilight series anyway sorry I'm just glad you're bringing a little light to it thank you Ellie I'm here for that yeah I'm bringing the light I'm just glad you're bringing a little light to it. Thank you, Ellie.

I'm here for that. Yeah, I'm bringing the light. I'm bringing the vampiric sparkle. Because I am sitting here and my stomach's like... Someone has to do it. Thank you. You are another sacrificial lamb, you know? I guess.

So the wedding procession begins. As they wait for their turn, Jane says she'll be better than the real Arya, that she was the one who made up the name Horseface. She longed to be beautiful like Sansa. It's a very sad line. She asks if Ramsay thinks that she's pretty, and Reek lies and says yes. He shouldn't listen to the lies that Ramsay hurts people. He then thinks that his hands and the torture were deserved. Jane pleads with him to help her and, you know, says, oh, you're so handsome.

Run away. I'll be your lady. And then, of course, we get this passage. Leon wrenched his arm away from her. I'm no, I'm no one's man. A man would help her. Just, just be Arya. Be his wife. Please him or just please him and

stop with this talk about being someone else. Jane. Her name is Jane. It rhymes with pain. The music was growing more insistent. It is time. Wipe those tears from your eyes. Brown eyes. They should be gray great someone will see someone will remember good now smile oh my god there's a lot to break down in this passage there's a lot to break down in this chapter it's a it's a long chapter everyone this is longer than most of the other chapters and of course is very dense in terms of what happens. Starting with the rhyming, you know, you all know it, reek reek, it rhymes with freak or leek or meek or insert x eek thing here. It's a way for Theon and the reader, of course, to remember his new name.

It becomes this verbal tick that reminds us of this fake identity that he's donned. And it's interesting that here we see that the rhymes are used to think of Jane's name, not as Arya's, because it's so important instead that people remember her as Arya. And it reminds us, the reader, that this is in fact Jane. But it also gives us that impression that Theon is remembering who she really is, even though he struggles to remember himself. And that idea of someone will see, someone will remember, it ends up being that the person who remembers is actually Theon. He's the one who sees. And shunting it off as someone else, we'll see it kind of absolves him of that responsibility. And of course, it comes from that fear of being found out but in the end like with

the north it's it's theon who sees and remembers whether it's jane's torture or who she really is it's him and he's the one who is responsible and in our october patreon episode we discussed in depth this changing the slipperiness of identity for so many of the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire and it's interesting that a lot of it is occurring around this time in the lives for many of those characters which is adolescence because of course it is a time when many people are finding their identity that's why teenagers love that like metaphor of the mask I'm not about to pretend like I did it and a song of ice and fire as a story is using that in a very literal sense and theon being the one who remembers who sees it it becomes him

who has to take up that responsibility and step up and help jane even though here he feels like he can't i'm just gonna throw this out there that's what adulthood is. The worst is what it is. Adulthood. Yeah. I mean, we don't have to deal with what Theon does, but it's it's it's a story, you know, it's a metaphor. That's a rite of passage right there. Yeah. It's something.

Jane attempts to keep a smile on her face as they exit into the wedding crowd. And it just reminds me of the line, like I said, so sad. I was never beautiful like Sansa, but they all said I was pretty. Jane. Pain arrives with pain. It's the only thing she has. It also makes me think of how it was such a missed opportunity in the bad show that they didn't take Roz and let her be fake Sansa because it was so set up you know I mean

she gives that whole thing about oh they rang the bells you know in the city when she was born from like beginning of the day to midnight to whatever she actually says but you know she like does that stupid line with Theon so right there it was like it was almost set up it makes me wonder if like you know there's the the heavily listened to rumor that she might have been you know fired for not wanting to do nudity anymore um and then you know viciously killed offset so that's cool but yeah uh but that would have been such an interesting thing, especially like, I mean, Littlefinger was grooming her and then like she's murdered by Joffrey. That would have been so perfect. It was already set up.

Yeah, it really was. And we have an established relationship between her and Theon, like that interaction that would have really come around. Yeah, it gives him almost a reason to give a shit about her yeah we then go into a flashback speaking of past seasons where theon asks why he's the one delivering jane to lady dustin and barbie tells, well, all of Arya's family is dead. He's like, uh, what? And Theon exclaims, she has a brother, he's at the Night's Watch, like, everyone fucking knows him. And Barbary

says, that won't do, because he's a bastard as well, and I guess that's not okay. And Theon understands exactly then what it means for him to be the one walking Arya down the line. It's a stamp of approval to the Northern Lordsords they are using me to cloak their deception putting my own face on their lie you kind of broke into some of the identity talk that we chatted about back in october with our patreon episode about identity uh every day is halloween and I kind of want to talk about identity here too because in a dance with

dragons a double up respectfully we talk a lot about this theme of identity and fake identity and people you know being someone else whether it's Tyrion being Hugo or Yolo or whether it's you know uh Aegon Targaryen coming back or Jon with his secret identity, or Theon, or Arya. All of these things kind of all ramble around, and themes really build up, especially as what we're probably going to find out in The Winds of Winter, as Jon's identity revealed, right? We're going to hear about R plus L equals J.

We're going to find out that Jon, that john you know is actually there was a place for him yada yada whatever that john was the son of brandon and ashara is that what you're gonna tell me i'm gonna tell you to stop is what i'm gonna tell you uh and garbing theon in his golden black velvet and jane in this white and gray with a star cloak is to show what they are symbolically to these people. Theon is the lord of the Iron Islands with his little silver kraken that Lord Bart, that Lady Barbary gave him attached to his cloak. And of course, Jane as Arya. It reminds me greatly, especially when talking about Aegon and Jon of the line from the Princess and the Queen, the passage from that in Fire and Blood, that every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. He sat the Iron

Throne. He lived in the Red Keep. He wore the Conqueror's crown, wielded the Conqueror's sword, and had been anointed by a Septon of the Faith before the eyes of tens of thousands. Lots of ideas there with identity, but of course it leads back to this line from a dance with dragons in this chapter that theon thinks you know unless the gods were good and stanis baratheon descended on winterfell and put all of them to the sword himself included that was the best he could hope for he knows that they're going to try to get rid of him once the wedding's done. They won't need the Iron Island Lord anymore. Yeah.

I think that's such a great point to show how these symbols, those trappings of power, are working in this storyline. I like also, it says T-Pow over here.

They make their way to the godswood for the wedding a stark at last he thought arm in arm the bride and he passed through an archstone door as wisps of fog stirred round their legs oh god this chapter sucks it's so painful they both wanted to be starks and theon's all like i mean yeah it's all those him kind of delivering jane as aria and he's like i'm stark but you know bitterly and he's also thinking it because he's wearing quote unquote theque colors because his skin is gray now and his hair is white and i'm like what the fuck yeah he and jane both finally get to don their gray and white right like for jane it means the abuse she's about to really endure from ramsay and there's such a time jump you know between these chapters we see this chapter and the next chapter are pretty close and then that last chapter has a little bit of a time jump so you see how much he's suffered in that time but it's obvious

what leads Theon to where he is at the end of the book uh these chapters do a lot to execute that but man they hurt and I do love there's this great passage that I'm gonna skim through real quick and just talk about I love this passage. Theon talks about how he's not a stranger to the godswood. He remembers playing there, skipping stones, hiding treasures in an ancient oak tree, stalking squirrels with a bow. I love how we get this characterization of Theon as a really good bowman. There's a new Game of Thrones game. I don't know if you've seen it, that browser game, the Winter is Coming game. And it's really actually addictive and horrible. And no, I haven't spent money. I don't want to talk about it. I don't know if you've seen it, that browser game, the Winter is Coming game. And it's really actually addictive and horrible.

And no, I haven't spent money. I don't want to talk about it. I haven't paid to play at all. But I might have. Anyways, so they make Kiana Bowman in that as well. That's his prime thing. So it's interesting and cool that they paid attention to that. It's his thing. And then he talks about soaking his bruises

in the hot springs after fighting with Rob and Jory and John. And then, of course, you know, soaking his bruises in the hot springs after fighting with Rob and Jory and John. And then, of course, he would find secret places in the godswood to kiss girls or to hide when he wants to be alone. And, of course, later he has sex and loses his virginity for the first time in the godswood underneath a big gray-green tree. And then there's this really beautiful just imagery, and it's such a good line that he had never seen the godswood like this, though. Gray and ghostly, filled with warm mists and floating lights and whispered voices that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Beneath the trees, the hot springs steamed. Warm vapors rose from the earth shrouding the trees in their moist breath

creeping up the walls to draw great curtains across the watching windows there's so much good language in this chapter oh man because like as horrible as it is at the end imagery and just the godswood alone it's beautiful it it does a lot to display theon's connection to the godswood which we learn of course is really a connection to bran uh to blood raven and bran but another connection that i've talked about extensively before uh is gray mist i don't know if you guys listen to game of owns who are a great podcast you should definitely check them out if you haven't they are like forefathers of a lot of podcasts in our scene. But listen to Game of Thrones. I was on there and we got to talk about some of the Bran chapters.

And we talked about the Grey Mist theory that I have written a lot about, a couple of people have speculated about as well. Anytime that Grey Mist is involved, it is Bloodraven meddling or Bran meddling with memories? And it has to specifically be Grey Mist. But if you look at the glamour in, of course, Duncan Egg with Maynard Plum, that's a pretty confirmed little theory that he was Bloodraven, glamoured as Plum. He was surrounded by Grey Mist. Melisandre with the glamour of Mance slash Rattleshirt. There's Grey Mist around. Different magics just seem to lead to that so i

don't know if it's all blood sacrifice or this or that or what but just really interesting that the imagery and the reminders of like just all of that keep coming into play and of course it coincides with the hot springs as well we definitely see the steam rising from the hot springs too yeah there is so much of with that mist imagery and and the idea of something looming there in this chapter and i don't know with the language in general you can just see i that like george poured his heart out into writing this channel with the imagery you can really just see that george poured his heart out into writing this chapter yeah not only that but there are some chapters in a dance with dragons that i feel like obviously you can see that frustration peeking through like oh yeah the danny chapters you get a little of that you know some of these marine chapters you can see where

he was frustrated and where things weren't molding together right and this is a chapter that you know this is everything he wanted it to be and more like he was just writing and his fingers were probably just flying into word star and he was probably just like oh this is so smart and it was it was so fucking smart so really good job george thanks props buddy word star he is the word star Reek leads Jane down the footpath taking care not to say her name or misstep literally misstep or else he might lose a foot and he thinks that the setting feels

like the underworld and he wonders if maybe we've all died already maybe like Stannis has come and killed us all of us in our sleep and is Stannis like the Sandman or something? The Boo is like the sandman or something the boogeyman yeah he's like the the boogeyman or something like that the way the mist threw back the shifting light made their features seem bestial half-human twisted lord stout became a mastiff old lord lock a vulture horsebane umber a gargoyle big big walder, fray, a fox, little walder, a red bull,

lacking only a ring for his nose. Roos Bolton's own face was a pale gray mask with two chips of dirty ice where his eyes should be. Rude dirty ice, damn. Me like a minute ago, George, you're so brilliant. Me now, you're a furry George.

Except for the dirty ice. I don't know what the fuck that even is. What does dirty ice look like? It's yellow snow. Okay, I'm done. I don't believe you. I love this passage because, you know,

Theon is like seeing these people for how they are symbolically, right? You have like big Walder. Grey is a fox fox which we know he's a lot smarter than what people think because he's small little walder is a red bull lacking only a ring for his nose you know so that's like uh he's so stupid big and mean and ruse's mask of course that idea of the mask that we always talk about you especially have hit on it and lord stout is a mastiff old

lord lock as a vulture obviously a vulture descending upon you know wanting that feast for crows we keep talking about horsebane umber a gargoyle uh i also think a lot about that vision from quay here to danny uh how she speaks to danny of people as sigils and symbols, and just how through these myths this is what Theon perceives. That quote that we get from Quaithe to Dany, that glass candles are burning, soon comes the pale mare, and after her the

others, Kraken and Darkflame, Lion and Griffin, the sun-sun and Mummer's dragon. Especially with the idea of the gray mist being something magical going on in the text just like with quaythe and whatever she's really doing no one really knows but which okay i'm getting to the point where we obviously need a new book because i'm starting to be like what if melora is quaythe and she's using a glass candle and like what if i believe that theory after all

and now i'm like if i don't get a book, I will turn to the dark side on this table. Oh my god. We gotta stop me. What's gonna happen? I'm gonna have to hold you back. I'm gonna have to perform an exorcism. Yeah. Okay, call Melora.

Quaithe also reminds me of, I want to say it's Illyrio speaking with Tyrion and saying, like, you Westerosi all think of yourself as actually your sigils. Yeah, definitely. And them becoming that the ravens watch the wedding and then the mist parts and by the heart tree stands ramsey bolton asking there's like this whole you know it's a script right before the god mother, maiden, father brother, crone sister, earth fire, heart did I do it right?

you did but you know we don't follow captain planet os oh my god that's my halloween costume that's my ice and fire costume oh

that would actually be good and then having like the companions Oh my god, that's my Halloween costume. That's my Ice and Fire Con costume. I'm going to be Captain Planetos. Oh, that would actually be good. And then having the companions all be characters, but in superhero outfits or something. Man, Ice and Fire Con. It's not too far, but we could still do it. You could do it.

We're not going to do it. No, you're not. Yeah, the script though, you know, you gave that southern script. Here in north they're just like who comes before the god they have very short weddings it's like the episcopalian version of the catholic wedding that's how i think of it much shorter unless i'm confusing my my uh different sects, whatever. Anyways, Theon replies with all the right words, and he goes, It's Arya, come to be wed. And then Ramsay's like, I come to claim her or something like that.

And Theon's like, well, I'm going to give her. And then Jane slash Arya lifts her head. And again, Theon wonders if everyone is just so blind as to not see that the brown eyes should be gray this is I'm we're gonna just read another another passage aloud because again everything's so good this is your chance he thought tell them tell them now shout out your name before them all tell them that you are not Arya Stark but all the north here you were made to play this part it would mean her death of course and his own as well but Ramsay and his wrath might kill him quickly the old gods of the north might grant them that small boon I take the man the bride said in

a whisper Theon's awakening is like kind of starting in this chapter, right? Like it's an awakening of his consciousness at least. It's him realizing he could put someone else, their life, ahead of his life. And it kind of took falling to the bottom becoming nothing for him to feel that way. Yeah.

After a prayer, the groom removes the dire wolf cloak and then puts on his own cloak which is spattered with garnets because ramsey's like super i don't know it's like garnets and shit yeah and it's super symbolism as we've been talking about the whole cloak thing because bloody cloak replacing the white and gray cloak now and the whole virgin imagery of all of her white dress and all this. It's basically putting a bloody cloak over this beautiful whitely clothed tiny fawn. Oh, Shane.

So the wedding ends and the musicians start to play two hearts that beat as one and hey, it's Abel. Theon found himself wondering if he should say a prayer. Will the old gods hear me if I do? They were not his gods, had never been his gods.

He was ironborn, a son of Pyke. His god was the drowned god of the islands. But Winterfell was long leagues from the sea. It had been a lifetime since any god had heard him. He did not know who he was, or what he was, why he was still alive, why he had ever been born. Does anyone? Thea, a voice seemed to whisper. His head snapped up.

Who said that? All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered him. The voice had been as... The gray mist! The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate. A god's voice, or a ghost's. How many died the day that he took Winterfell? How many more the day he lost it? The day that Theon Greyjoy died to be reborn as Reek, Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek.

Suddenly, he did not want to be here Bran and the grey mist and blood raven and Theon oh my god it's starting it's beginning this is the most exciting chapter and the worst chapter because the end is physically sickening

this part you're like oh my god the old gods hear him and by that we mean it's bran it's the old god holy shit i know it's a theory somewhere by now i'm sure i mean it's kind of like it's brand like it's very obvious right so blood i don't know yeah but it is interesting though the idea that if bran is theon's old god and is the only one who can grant him forgiveness for the crimes against everything. Very, very Christian. So much Catholicism in here. You know how Theon we've talked about, you know, is the beauty and the beast princess in the tower right now?

In a way, like how he was the beast. But then I also joke, he kind of did the whole princess in the tower thing when he was like stuck in the dungeons well you know i guess in a way is bran his fairy godmother kind of i think bran is theon's fairy godmother and that's my hot take i think bran is part of is kind of his fairy godmother, but deep down inside the real fairy godmother is Theon for himself. Do it for yourself. Do it for Jane also.

Tap all the toes you have left together three times and say there's no place. Theon is totally spooked. He heads to the Great Hall. He feels as if a ghost has unhooded him. The Winterfell is full of ghosts for him. It's a ruin in Winterfell, of course, and the guests are all sleeping, huddled within Winterfell. Smoke rises from the kitchens and barracks that were recently rebuilt. In the ice and snow, Winterfell is gray and white, the stark colors. Everything is gray, except the eyes of the bride, which are, of course, brown.

What had she been thinking? That he would whistle up a winged horse and fly her out of here like some hero in the stories she and Sansa used to love? He could not even help himself. Reek, reek, it rhymes with meat.

Come on, Theon.on break through you're so close it's very similar though right cause Sansa now no longer believes that some hero is going to come to save her though sometimes she's tempted to yeah there's a lot of those parallels in this chapter that we're still even getting through

so the Boltons have decorated Winterfell with all the bodies of people that were squatting there. Dead bodies. And they started rebuilding Winterfell, as we heard, with the barracks and the kitchens that were recently rebuilt. And it's just a morbid affair.

Like, Tim Burton as fuck, right? Like, all I could see are spindly, skinny characters with big eyes and snow and depression. But it's super morbid. It's super depressing. Weddings are kind of soured after those last two ones we had, right? Even for characters in text that are forced to bow to a new, obviously cruel regime to survive their winter. They have no better options at the moment.

They're choosing what they think will sustain them rather than some vendetta to murder boltons openly right like i mean they have to bide their time as we learn yes before the wedding lady dustin had insisted on being the one to keep watch over this aria and reek thinks that so long as she is aria and does not anger ramsey ramsey wouldn't have no cause to hurt her. Which, like, really? You think that well of this Ramsay person? Okay. Or it just shows how much he's been brainwashed to think that he deserved any of the torture that he received.

Theon's hands ache, especially his missing fingers, and he remembers that all of this ruined because he made himself the prince of winterfell i love that kind of uh parallel to john prince of winterfell and his hand hurts oh yeah i mean there's a lot of things like in all of this like they were talking about that whole bastardy thing earlier and they they come back to that idea later on. And there's so much of Jon kind of looming in the background.

And of course, vice versa. Since both of them are in this book, like we didn't have Jon and Fiest. It's not a mistake that they're both in the same book. No, they're both the bastards of Winterfell in a way, right? Theon was never going to be a Stark. Jon was never going to be a Stark in his eyes. And of course, Jon has those other parallels with that hand flexing with Catelyn

with her hand from a Game of Thrones after a surviving attack in the tower. So really just some interesting little strings tying each other. But there is this horrifyingly sad passage that Theon thinks.

I made myself the Prince of Winterfell, he thought, and from that came all of this. He had thought that men would sing of him for a hundred years and tell tales of his daring, but if anyone spoke of him now, it was as Theon turned cloak, and the tales they told were of his treachery. This was never my home. I was a hostage here lord stark had not treated him cruelly but the long steel shadow of his great sword had always been between them he was kind to me but never warm he knew that one day he might need to put me to death like we've been saying we went over this. But yes. Yes. Yeah, this plays well with that earlier quote about the heroes and the songs. Theon's learning not that the songs aren't true, but that the songs that are remembered are the not so good ones sometimes.

Theon remembers growing up in this yard learning to fight alongside Robb and Jon under Ser Rodrik and this was also the yard where he called everyone out to find Bran and Rickon and in those days Reek had whispered to flay those who would disagree with him and Theon's like ah no there's not going to be any flaying

that's weird yeah he even ends up thinking about when uh ramsey put reek's face aside after he slayed all the men and all of the ends ironborn and dion thinks how ramsey set his horse afire that was the last sight he had seen the day the castle fell smiler burning the flames leaping from his mane as he reared up kicking screaming his eyes white with terror here in this very yard oh smiler he also thinks about you know how none of these northern lords would help him like he's known them forever and none of them would help him and all this is just really sad like he is known as a turncoat though though. They have no reason to help him. They think he killed their lords.

And it's just he really buried himself in this hole and kind of like dug himself this hole, got in it. And then it turned out there's this giant monstrous worm living in this hole that's going to eat at him, which is Ramsay. I think I watched that episode of Star Wars. Oh, my God. This is like a huge break, right, in his chapter in the Reek persona. We see it kind of tilting slowly but surely as Percy, he's now the Prince of

Winterfell. He's not Reek anymore. We see it in his reckoning of these memories. He's starting to kind of process some of this memoriam and this trauma from before his transformation to Reek. So we see that whole theme of it's not too late to come back coming back into play yeah but but it's not there yet like you were saying he's

thinking about like no one would help me and he keeps he's still thinking like even so he had done his best to protect them which like if you had done that you wouldn't have come to winterfell and tried to sack it but anyway like he still has some penance to go and doesn't really understand what he did was wrong yet and is still salty at people it is kind of a bummer as we reread this that i'm like oh yeah you still don't get it though yeah i'm like man come on it's an arc take this leap to faith already well it is interesting because like in the quote we read a little before this he's thinking about how he thought people would sing the songs about the Prince of Winterfell. And he's still, like you said, he's still transitioning out of that.

And the Prince of Winterfell is, of course, named quite bitterly and sarcastically here, ironically. And the next chapter, though, is titled The turn cloak and i think that's shows what that transformation between the song that he thought he would have the song he does have and both of these identities and accepting them both yeah the turn cloak is definitely so good and man we know where we are right now we just want the ghost in the waterfall that's what we're holding out for right now i don't know i this this is also just this is all these chapters are heavy and a lot and yeah god it just is so dark so dark in the great hall abel is singing fair maids of summer and theon slash reek as eliana has lovingly referred to him as three in our notes he thinks that abel is a panderer he showed up lord manderley's singers

and brought six women two sisters two daughters one wife and his mother but none of them look like him um because you know like they're they're not what they're not they're not what who are they oh you know they're not they're they're they're just some women okay i mean like everyone knows all right everyone knows it's man's raider what yeah this is the second time I didn't know that dude oh my god is that a spoiler it is probably kind of but not it's more or less confirmed they're all great washer women slash musicians

all of them they're doing great yes it makes sense to me you're going to know how to wash things I guess somehow out there they're out there playing the washing board, like a little grassroots band. Yeah. That would be so cute.

Bluegrass. Oh, my God. I love just this imagery that they don't cover the burnt down walls. Like, you can load up all these Northern houses, but you're still not going to have Winterfell, Fulton, you know, underneath all those colors and finery. And of course the largest banners there are the Bolton banner and the Stark banner at the head table. And Theon immediately knows this is wrong. He thinks of Jane Poole's sigil, which is a blue plate on white,

framed by a grey tresser. What is a tresser? Are you googling it? Yeah, I am. I keep getting... So, in case anyone was wondering, a tresser is a thin border inset from the edge of a shield narrower than an...

This is actually not intuitive. Narrower than an orly, and usually born double. I don't know what the fucking Orly is. You know, heraldry is something I would love to learn more about, except not. You know who would know all of these things? Everyone, Fat Walda,

aka... You know who would know all these things, everyone? Fat Walda, over on both Twitter and the song of ice and fire subreddit she talked extensively about heraldry in a maester monthly episode and had a lot of really really great information to share and listen to her we also had her on for an arianne episode yeah back in the day i. She's great. Gotta go back for Cersei someday. Oh, yeah.

Oh my god, you're right. We haven't done Cersei yet. Where are we even? Man, Cersei's gonna be fun. I know we haven't really talked about Cersei being fun, but those are gonna be some fucking chapters. It's gonna be some, like, Bravo real life. We're gonna be wine drunk for at least two months. Oh, we have to be. Yeah,

there's no way we can do Cersei chapters sober. I don't think she would want us to. No, for Cersei we have to do these drunk. I don't see the problem. She was telling Sansa that she has to drink and therefore we shall and it's only right. Yeah, exactly.

So Theon walks into the hall and as he walks in, men spit at him and they call him a turncloak. He thinks on how they're kind of justified. He's a traitor who's brought Winterfell's demise, and he's delivered Arya, quote-unquote, to the Boltons. Yeah, I mean, he ain't wrong. I do think it's interesting how he is called turncloak right after this entire discussion within the text, them using upon the cloak and

sigils that jane is wearing and how they're all wrong and of course like yes duh turn cloak is a fancy way of saying traitor and while jane is not a traitor per se she is literally acting as a turn cloak here by turning her cloak to be a stark you know, blue plates and gray tressers. And, of course, in many ways, a very active marriage in Westeros. It's this weird, like, uncanny thing that it's the turning of cloaks for women, right? That's the marriage ceremony. They swap out their maiden cloak for that of their husbands. Yeah, you're, like, turning your back on your home and your family and

becoming someone else taking a new face so to say he calls her his foster sister not just aria when he's thinking that he's brought aria to winterfell like he's seen he's talking about how he's seen by the northern lords and how you know he's like i delivered my foster sister like he knows at the same time of the whole you know ned obviously didn't treat me very warmly my sister that was basically my sister like that is the girl i grew up with that i call my sister you know foster or not it's still his sister he didn't call her you know aria stark he called her a four a less formal tone so it's kind of a kind of a deal he does a lurch walk since he's missing toes and a washerwoman in the hall laughs at him kind of like gives us this little thought explanation that

washerwomen are camp followers and they're also like salacious open-legged ladies and he thinks i'm basically how they're all different sorts they're some of them are like hardened and can take dick like crazy uh some are like doe-eyed and innocent and some are camp brides and all of them birth awful wretched bastards he thinks so again like you said he isn't getting like zen yet. He's not out there like justice warring about stuff, but you know, he's still kind of Theon-y there. And then he has this thought that, and it's really about pride, obviously. I mean, he has this big ironborn-ish kind of like need for pride in there. And he thinks, even such as these made mock of Theon turncoat. Let them laugh. his pride had perished

here in winterfell there was no place for such in the dungeons of the dreadfort when you have known the kiss of a flaying knife a laugh loses all its power to hurt you which reminds me a lot of that tyrian line of course like you know you name yourself buddy don't let other people give you names that's true i just realized so i'm about to talk about some other things here but maybe part of it like that whole birthed wretched bastards is him projecting onto them his hate for ramsey but there's a bunch of other things going on here like this is this is kind of fucked up thinking right this is misogynist thinking from theon and like he's very wrong to think it but you can kind of see why thinking right this is misogynist thinking from theon and like he's

very wrong to think it but you can kind of see why he's doing it it's the other side of that coin when before he was just like oh i will buy sex breakers all the time and i'm gonna do whatever i want and just leave the captain's daughter who what's her name everyone still don't know and as we learn like later and it's hinted out throughout this chapter where he thinks earlier on he's about to say i'm no man that but instead he says i'm no one's man he's thinking that he's not a man and ramsey jokes that theon isn't one and i mean manhood isn't defined about whether or not you have a penis anyway like it's about how you act and shit theon but whatever we'll get to that like in a few chapters and part of why theon's probably thinking so disdainfully about these camp followers though is

like he used to frequent sex workers a lot and like as a way to other them right and and create that social distance make himself feel a bit superior despite their laughter and it's his way of trying to like differentiate himself from them and try to reclaim like his masculinity or some sort of identity indifference to them but like all of this of course gets turned on its head when theon is forced into this sort of like sexual um moment with ramsay like he's not directly having sex with him and there's that uncanny underpinning and none of it is consensual of course and how that relationship with ramsey is but like it's all framed in this very strange way and all of these are coming together in this chapter and i said it better myself sister theon is given a seat on the dais not completely in the high table but you know up on the dais

and he sits next to Lady Dustin no one sits to his right Arya is given a place of honor on the high table between Roose and Ramsay which that's not a fun place to sit I would not want to sit there how awful that's it's it's way worse but it reminds me of the time i had the

middle seat between like my friend and her mother on a 14 hour flight and was like you guys really put me in the fucking middle seat okay you couldn't sit by each other this is weird i mean i understand that they wanted the comfortable seats but i was just like okay fine i see how it'd be I see how it'd be. Roos gives a charismatic speech, so to say. It's a charismatic Roos speech about, you know, joining Stark and Bolton as one so that they can end this enmity that has grown between them forever. And then, of course, this great part. His voice was so soft, the hall grew hushed as men strained to hear.

I'm sorry our good friend Stannis has not seen fit to join us yet, he went on to a ripple of laughter. As I know, Ramsay had hoped to present his head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift. The laughs grew louder. We shall give him a splendid welcome when he arrives, a welcome worthy of true Norse. Okay, but like, also, he's straight up kind of japing about killing Rob here. Like, in Rob's house. Yeah. Go the fuck home.

Acting like he's not the real turncloak. Roose is the turncloak! He is the turncloak the turn cloak also uh i guess he makes jokes yeah also it's fascinating to me why are they laughing at this this is not funny to me like i'm like ruse are you really like he's not that good this is literally what happens in the comedy scene when people laugh at mediocre white men's jokes but it really is because i'm it's not really that funny of a joke that's what you could have made so many funnier jokes and you

could have talked about salisa's ears i'm just saying like that's that right there is like nailed it humor yeah this was just kind of like a i don't know it wasn't that funny of a joke that it warranted a ripple of laughter anyway even shireen would agree that the stakes were too high. Yeah. Oh, God. See, you got Bruce Bolton. We're going to give you a calling card. We're going to give you a business card for Chloe. She is, in fact, a professional, a professional comedian. Me, the only person laughing right now is me by the way oh no i'm sure all of our listeners are laughing out there that one was good that

was a good one you're the one really making all the puns nowadays yeah i've been on a kick i don't understand this idea that like people think i don't make puns maybe like we just cut a lot of the ones i make but i do make puns you guys i don't think we cut any of the one i don't i'm like maybe i do i don't know some of mine just come off really cheesy yours are very uh you have this persona that you can pull them off and i unfortunately don't know if it works for me constantly you know so i gotta be smooth also i don't want to over pun i feel like your puns are better usually so you're the pun spotlight and i just support no i don't think so i think you just i believe in you and maybe you just don't believe in yourself and i leave your puns in you know what i do believe in

food and lord manderley provides food for this wedding and it sounds good i am hungry most of it some of it i'm skeptical about we'll get to that like the latter of it right but the first part sounds amazing he brings cod cakes and winter squash and neeps i love you tommen but you are wrong neeps and beets are delicious wheels of cheese slabs of mutton someone told me that mutton was gross on the internet we've had this discussion already beef ribs like wow do we have barbecue sauce and westeros i know we don't i'm joking and of course manderley brings the wedding pies yeah three huge pies stuffed with carrots onions turnips parsnips mushrooms and chunks of seasoned pork swimming in a savory brown gravy don't give up on the gravy yum i think you'd need the gravy for those chunks of seasoned pork i'm sure wyman manderley himself served presenting the first steaming portions

to bruce bolton and his fat fray wife, the next to Sarah Hostein and Sir Aenys, the sons of Walderfray. The best pie you ever tasted, my lords! The fat lord declared, Wash it down with Arbor Gold and savor every bite. I know I shall! Wait, do you think this was an instance

of, shall we call it, lies? Invergold? I mean, isn't it always? I mean, yes, but mostly because, do you guys remember Jared Frey or Rhaegar Frey or Simon Frey? Try not to. Do you remember them, Eliana? Well, we were looking for them last Girls Gone Canon episode, remember? I do.

We had a hunt to go find them, and you know, he ate them, y'all. Can't find the bodies that way. Got them. Got them, set them ahead, and was like, oh yes, they want to go see their kin. And it's like a direct, obvious arc.

Like, obviously obviously this was a theory that was very much so speculated online by fans uh and kind of analyzed but it was all but confirmed in the tv show as uh david and dan kind of used it for a racy plot that wasn't exactly this they didn't really include this arc in the north. But basically, Manderly murders the three Freys. And he eats two slices of each pie? Six pieces? Like, each pie? That's, he's a savage.

He, like, that's savage. I couldn't do that. I'd gag the whole time. It must have felt really weird but good in a gross way. Right? Like, it's just a clear line from all of it it's obvious that these themes of cannibalism you know have been ongoing especially in adobada in a dance of dragons uh stannis's troops the skagosi astapor joe jim pace night's watch deserters from cold

hands when he serves brandon them food i mean mean, it's an ongoing thing, so it's not really that surprising at this point. Yes. Yeah, some, as many have pointed out, of course, it's some major Titus Andronicus vibes. And I mean, like, I've heard, this is kind of unrelated, but not at all,

that people taste like sweet, tough pork. And so it makes perfect sense to me that... Why would you say that? Because people need to know. There's a reason that people are called long pig, all right? Oh, I do. It loves you. But yeah, and also, of course, the whole savory brown gravy

kind of reminds you of that bowl of brown that another Simon got cooked into. Similar names, different spellings. Similar names, yes, absolutely. That's actually a perfect direct parallel right there, that Simon and Simon. Yeah, don't be named Simon, I guess. And bowl of brown. That's actually, like, really smart. Now that you say that out loud, I never thought of that.

And I'm like, oh, duh, it's's canon i never thought of it until this moment when we were reading aloud this quote and i was like oh hey hey yeah that's duh like i'm sitting here like duh no wonder he just named like george's random fray names i almost want to say like a lot of them aren't random and you really like put them into play like obviously there's the rhaegar thing and trying to you know impress the Targs. I mean, Jared might be random. Maybe. That might be just a framing. But you know what I mean otherwise.

Theon watches Jane pool in her big brown eyes that are wide with fear. And he thinks of putting her out of her misery. And maybe it'll put him out of his misery if he were to cut her throat. Lady Dustin breaks him out of his thoughts to note that he doesn't eat and well turns out eating's kind of hard when you have a lot of broken teeth so instead he drinks wine which i understand this logic on theon's part but at the same time this is how we talked about boot and rallies like last episode or the one before and that's how that happens lady dustin observes that lord manderley is being very happy right now and while theon comments that lord manderley's drunk lady dustin says that he's a craven uh pandering you know to bruce bolton and all this stuff and along with of course all

of the pie stuff and how we know that those are made of peoples the soil and soiling greed is made of people the songs that lord manderley plays might have some significance like the night that ended or especially danny flint on reddit someone named lord tryhard wrote a post about how wyman manderley knows about aria and that the suggesting that the song danny flint is played as a sort of message or hint from lord manderley to signify that he knows that jane is a fake or saying that she doesn't belong here pretending to be someone she isn't and when you frame it in this way and you think of all the songs that he's listening to and like he's getting dragged out at the end because he's drunk and falling over and he's like i think you guys should play a song about the rat cook which we're gonna

get to but giving himself away really obviously and this is you know lady dustin says he's craven but we know like he's not craven like he's done you know he's like just like big bucket wool says you know I want to go out bathed in Bolton blood like fuck it just fuck it we're gonna get this regime back or we're gonna die trying like that's

even though Lord Manderly says it a little more subtle and a little more politically he right now at this wedding he's drunk enough he's like ah fuck the phrase and fuck you roosevelt drinking your way here's a pie bitch so i like that he's yeah he's doing that while also playing his he's his own delilah on the radio you know he's making these dedications out there playing these songs oh it's what i do to me that's him oh i was thinking delilah like the radio personality the one who you know the delilah it's some sort of syndicated radio radio segment anyway yeah so theon kind of rebuts at barbary and he compares his happiness manderley's happiness

to the ironborn feasting before battle and the northmen feasting before Stannis comes. Lady Dustin chuckled, and when he does, the fat man will piss himself. His son died at the Red Wedding, yet he's shared his bread and salt with the Freys, welcomed them beneath his roof, promised one his granddaughter. he even serves them pie the manderleys ran from the south once hounded from their lands and keeps by enemies blood runs true the fat man would like to kill us all i do not doubt but he does not have the belly for it for all his girth underneath that that sweaty flesh beats a heart as craven and cringing as well yours burn yeah of course we know that both of them theon and lord manderly kind of pull through as northerners true and true you know with that whole you have to know your name thing the whole like go find Rickon. Yeah. Lady Barbary Dustin is spelled like

the word projection apparently. Yeah. When I actually like look in the dictionary under Lady Barbary Dustin, you know, when I turn the page and it's E-R-O-J-E. I mean, I love her character and I love the way she's framed.

She's such a fantastic character and I love these interactions she has with Theon. But she's obviously wounded and taking it out on people. Yeah, I'm like, okay, just because you feel like you didn't get to make any of your actions does not mean that Lord Banderley is just sitting down. He's out here. He is making moves. You are eating people. Yeah.

Here he is making moves. You are eating people. Yeah. Theon provides polite talk, saying Lord Bolton didn't seem to mistrust Lord Manderly, but Barbara doesn't speak against that. She tells Theon to watch the way that Roose guards himself with Wyman. Yeah, she's team Aliana. She thinks Roose is a total badass who's not going out anytime soon, and definitely not by Manderly,

who couldn't do shit to anyone, or Stannis. In fact, she thinks he may just become Heng in the North eventually, if he reaches so far and wants it. But, you know, I mean, it's okay to be wrong, Eliana and Barbary, because Roose is gonna die, because all men must die, and honestly, it's gonna be soon, very soon. Like, first quarter of the winter should should have been in dance but you know chapters had to move and you know he's just not going to see it coming that's what i'm saying that ruse i mean i don't know i don't know i i so did you really put a quote here yeah i put a quote i saw you put a quote so i was like all right bitch is bringing quotes i was gonna bring this anyway, but now that you had a quote, I was like, I'm bringing a quote. Okay.

Anyway. So I'm going to bring us back to that shitty joke that Roos made earlier, right? It wasn't very funny. He goes, I am sorry that our blah, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I know that Ramsay had hoped to present Stannis' head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift. And Ramsay is being framed like Joffrey here. And we've seen a lot of similarities in the way that they are and how Ramsey is a more extreme version of Joffrey. You know, they both have lips like worms,

because apparently that's the description that we use throughout the books. And Ramsey wanting to present Stannis' head to quote-unquote Lady Arya is like how Joffrey told Sansa that, oh, I would like to present Robb's head to you as a gift. I don't know if it was for her wedding or not. So, same energy. Joffrey was set up very much like a big bad but in the end the real mastermind was the quieter one Tywin Lannister who outlives Joffrey he eventually dies of course because that's the way that these stories go because it's not about how the bad guys are all badasses even though some people think that's what the story is but anyway I just think that it's possible that in the books, Roose, who will of course die, outlives Ramsay because he's the scarier, quieter villain. See, and there's just so many little lines in this chapter,

especially like in Roose's charismatic speech, he has this line, Until that day, let us eat and drink and make merry, for winter is almost upon us, my friends, and many of us here shall not live to see the spring and i'm like all right but you're gonna be one of those people and like he thinks you know oh we're untouchable we killed the starks we now hold winterfell at least that's what he's trying to project he doesn't think that we know he doesn't he he knows he's in hot shit and that like any fucking misstep and like ramsey could just fucking do something crazy and he'd be fucked like he knows that he said that he knows he's in hot shit and that like any fucking misstep and like Ramsey could just fucking do something crazy. And he'd be fucked.

Like he knows that he said that he knows that, but upfront he's like, Oh, we're the shit and we're going to kill Stannis. And you know, nothing's going to bring down the real regime. We're going to show him what the North is. And I think that's great.

But him saying some of us shall not live to see the spring that totally cements it for me. That's like, Oh, you're that somebody that's not going not live to see the spring that totally cements it for me that's like oh you're that somebody that's not gonna live to see the spring but it could be both him and ramsey it's just ramsey first because as you said last time we're just talking about this we could we could no i don't know you have to eat oh you love eating to drink i have to drink a screwdriver no horrible pain i don't know i just think ramsey is going to uh perform well you could call it a a ruse oh a ruse oh that's that's us now guys. We're just gonna keep making this joke about ruse and ruse. Oh my god.

Tying up some ruse-ends. Oh, no. Oh my fucking god. Hey, better than some frays. That's true. Better to have some ruse-ends than a frayed rope. I don't know. I'm working on it.

I'm working on it. Just like I'm working on this Dunkin' Egg and Cheese and Bagel thing. You've got a lot on your plate yeah oh plate a blue plate on a truck never mind okay anyways theon mentions that barbary could also have some pull here in this like winterfell and weird ass court if she wants but as she is explaining this mutually non-aggressive relationship three maesters come in one of them named medrick i forgot the other guy's name and the other is named henley which is a name that i remember because it reminds me of the way that chloe greets me sometimes like henlo that's what i think of that's what i think of when i see his hello the maester and man barbary sure doesn't like the

Maesters. She thinks, she like says they're gray rats. I'm like, true. Real true. And this scene to me is very Cersei and Sansa like at Blackwater. She gives him this speech like, she's a little buzzed and she's like, the Maesters are twisted. And he's like,

but they heal. And she's like, Maester Rickard's Maester Wallace was a rat and he was a bastard they heal and she's like maester rickard's maester wallace was a rat and he was a bastard too before the citadel like again projecting where his father was the arch maester yeah so so you really feel barbara does then i also like the name wallace yeah i like that name it reminds me of like how they called hodor willis in the show though oh yeah that's right i don't know why it just reminded me of that she claims that wallace or whatever wallace oh my god she claims wallace filled ricard's ears of poison but ruse interrupts her buzz little confessional about her life as a woman and how it sucks because of the maesters

and the starks yeah i i think that this discussion about maesters having questionable loyalty is really interesting here and that questionable service to their lords because in the context of Theon's storyline, we did in fact have a maester, right? There was like a really prominent one and he did his duty very well. He tried to help as much as he could, like help theon in the way that theon needed to be helped not in the way that he wanted to be helped that is of course maester lewin bless him wherever he is while like lewin says he didn't love theon he certainly showed him some sort of care and good counsel and yeah he might not have loved the, but he fiercely loved the Starks and Bran and Rickon.

And like the Starks trusted him, even if like Wally's was like kind of suspicious. And Lewyn loved the Starks. He served them. And as Lady Dustin points out, I don't know, there's this like weird relationship of servitude. Lords wanting to have a maester, like as this weird status symbol, as though maesters are objects. Just a really like wrong and off, especially in the context of things later on in this chapter. Also, if you think about maybe the Reek chapters were supposed to be in... Before Feast and Dance were split into two books,

George has said that the prologue... First of all, the prologue was going to be that long. 19 POV prologue. Everybody gets an intro chapter, basically. Yeah, yeah, that one one but I think he was still always going to have some of that Pate stuff going on and like if you think about how like the Citadel and all the stuff

with Pate and those are framing up this discussion on Maesters anyway in terms of the storyline George cutting Barbary off mid thought is of course significant because it's a story and he gets to make this happen like about i don't know i don't know what they're saying about the high towers for sure like if they did or didn't arrange that marriage between the tallies

and the storks through wall-e's but like i'm just like what was their goal we know that the high towers have always kind of been a like a huge power player in the reach they they're somewhat rivals with the tyrells but not they had a lot of marriage alliances with them and right now that's happened again with allery wed to mace and it doesn't seem like they're the ones who are going to be the friends in the reach for the golden company because of their ties to house tyrell but like i don't know maybe house tyrell falls and tommen's death is of course like foreshadow then again, Euron's ships are threatening the power of the Hightowers, being so close to Oldtown. I don't really know, but something's happening here.

I don't think it has anything to do with, like, current so much, you know, as far as that. Like, maybe they'll support a Targaryen faction, whatever, especially with, like, the whole Dance of the Dragons idea and the high tower is always you know getting them getting knocked down in the targaryen past that we've learned of in fire and blood and such and such but i don't know maybe they were trying to match lynette with brandon or ned possibly she's about 10 years younger than them but she would have been like betrothal age by the time they were close to becoming men, you know, I suppose. And Jorah was 20 years older than her.

She was born in 272 and Liness, Jorah was born in 252. So I don't know. It's kind of an idea. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure. They're obviously into these power plays as shown in Fire and Blood. And I just... I don't know what they're doing.

Yeah, and maybe they are... I mean, the big thing is, then you think again, I know we've talked about her this episode, she keeps coming up, but Melora, you know, and what the hell she's doing up there. Scad from Davos Fingers is doing a panel on the Hightowers at Ice and FireCon, and I'm really excited about that.

I really hope I get to see that. I'm not sure schedule-wise if I'll get to, but I hope I do, because that's going to be interesting to get some other perspectives, I think. Interesting. Yeah, I gotta check that out. I don't think about the Hightowers enough. Me either.

That's actually what it's about, is how people don't think about them enough. So, Roose announces that Stannis' troops are on the march. The Umbers and Karstarks are as well, meaning to join their power to him, and Hastine Frey starts to offer different ideas for battle. Roose pauses him, announcing Ramsay must consummate the marriage with Arya. Manderly is then drunkenly carried out of the hall, and he's asking for a song about the Rat Cook.

Listen to... Not about the Rat Cook! You to... Not the rat cook. Made a very meaningful pointed mixtape, all right? And some of Ramsay's men then are awaiting Theon. It's Damon, dance for me, and Sour Alan, and Yellow Dick. And they tell Theon that Lord Ramsay has need of him to bring his bride to bed. Like, oh God, why does he gotta be there?

You know, the rest of this chapter is going to be a little graphic. We're not going to go into super dense detail on any one plot point. Just wanted to put another warning here for you guys that this is a turn back now point. If you don't want to hear about, you know, strong themes of sexual abuse and abuse and assault, turn back. We're going to keep it light though for sure ramsey has theon unwrap jane with his dagger uh in this moment theon notices scars on jane's back from being whipped in the brothel so fuck little finger is the goal of this episode first off yeah i mean like ramsey asks her and threatens her because he says that he was told that she knows how to please a man. And Jane's response is that she was trained, which, like, again, fuck Littlefinger. Like, I mean, actually, though, anyone who thinks that Littlefinger has valiant goals or I see this sometimes where they think that he's secretly the good guy. Like, he sold Jane. Okay. He forced her into sex slavery. That's not good good guy coded that's it's not like a subversion of anything it's evil in anything george writes

ever slavery will never be good i don't understand why people have this issue with understanding that like slavery does not equal good it does not equal great it the idea is that like what is a human life worth that's not fair to say that you know little finger selling jane into sex slavery isn't just gross on the level that fuck little finger it's also fucked up on this whole idea of a corrupt government and we know that westeros is poisoned it's corrupt it's bleeding it's gushing it's so gross just filled with infection and rot and little finger straight up like sansa sat there and she's like please like my friend's dad we just want to know what's up with him please tell us please tell us and cersei sits there and

manipulates sansa and says oh i'm so sorry this is bothering you we'll take care of it little finger take care of it she turns to a government official and he says okay it's taken care of and he sells an 11 year old into sex slavery to be like forced to be trained to please a man or a woman or anyone and it's just it's so fucked up like it's not okay there's nothing good about it there's nothing redeeming about little finger like i'm sorry when my crush rejected me and i got into a fight with her you know boyfriend basically her fiance i didn't then go cry and try to like start a war and ruin her entire family's life like that's a little immature i didn't you know sell girls at a sex slavery that's not you know if that's my villain root yeah i'm a villain i don't know how else a little finger's bad he's not good

he's a bad man he's a villain capital v going back to that idea of growing up is learning to accept and respect other people's choices and like move on dude and he didn't instead what he did was he caused more pain because of it so terrible terrible. It's just really awful. And then Ramsey is mocking both Theon and Jane during all this and he forces Theon to perform oral sex on Jane to get her ready for him.

Somewhere in the godswood a raven screamed. The dagger was still in his hand. He sheathed it. Reek, my name is Reek. It rhymes with weak. Reek bent to his task. I'm just very uncomfortable.

Yeah, the raven screaming's a mood. Even Bloodraven and Bram were like, No! No! We don't want to see this shit! Yeah, they... I don't know. It's that pain that the birds are crying. It's all just very horrible, but... I'm just going to break down these last few lines and the symbolism and the stylistic use of omission here,

because it's all terrible, but I still respect what George is doing here as a writer and a lot of the different layers that are coming together at the end of this chapter because it's heavily implied though not and of course implied means not outwardly stated that theon has been castrated it's it's said explicitly and revealed for sure in the show when they like show it happening and the books don't actually say it explicitly and of course this idea isn't the first time you're going to see that in literature like i wonder to what extent george is inspired by like this character of jake barnes and the sun also rises by hemingway um who's ends up impotent

after world war one and i do think i don't know maybe maybe it's a thing because george did after all go to the same journalism school as hemingway and decades apart because that's how time works. You can see that sort of phallic imagery that becomes a specter in this whole scene. That idea of impotence or like to play off of impotence and what that word actually means beyond just not having, not being able to get it up or not having a penis is of course that powerlessness that theon feels throughout this entire chapter throughout being weak especially here at the end as he keeps thinking of like i have this dagger we all have this dagger and he's like i could just turn around and stab ramsay with it but i don't because he's just feels so so weak in these moments and that resheathing of the sword into the hilt is of course like as he's bending down to his task it's him resigning to that powerlessness

but also at the same time it's also that sexual imagery like weak can't participate in this sort of like penile sexual intercourse anymore but this is again sexual language and it's highly uncomfortable there's that implication of what follows like the task as it's called with this sheathing and it's that violence and that rape that Ramsey does unto Jane and and Jane is ushered into the room to do her they they use the term duty and again what dion does it's a task and it's all very intentionally stripped of sexuality just contrasted with that similar act of of oral sex with that lord's kiss and storms in a storm of swords that that that is done lovingly unlike this and given like these removed cold euphemisms but in the context like a task

comes off as still horrific yeah it's extremely horrific and you get all this cruel mockery from ramsay these japes you know of theon being less than a man and him demanding he do the work with his major ellipsis mouth only add to the idea that you know theon's unable to participate fully in this uh due to possibly being castrated as we said not confirmed but is confirmed uh it just the writing and the careful play around the words makes it kind of obvious what george is trying to accomplish here yeah and it's very delicately done to dance around all of it. Like the ellipsis, as you're saying, that lack of seeing the scene, because we don't need to see it the way that he writes, because leaving it out and leaving it as this implication makes it that much more awful.

It leaves it to the reader to fill in, and it puts the onus of this horrific action on the reader. horrific action on the reader. Yeah, it lets you fill in the blanks, which is definitely something different from what, you know, we kind of went through in the show. They tried to do a similar thing, but it just didn't translate to screen, right? And no matter what, it was pretty horrific the way they did it. I don't think it was as awful as it could have been, but by replacing a character and using someone that was beloved and showing it the way they did. As people pointed out, it's not any better that it's Jane serving the storyline for Theon or for Ramsey or even for Littlefinger and showing... Jane being the example of how terrible Littlefinger truly is but i think it's that difference between conflating the different issues that women might face or something like that yeah no matter what whoever was in jane's role was going to be a

victim yeah so it's just disappointing on a thematic and arc centered level obviously with what they did the show uh and And the book is just disappointing, because no matter what, someone was a victim here of Ramsay, of his torture. And this also rings really loudly with that scene they did with Joffrey in the show, of him with the sex workers, with, you know, Roz

and the other girl. I can't remember her name. Oh, God. Say her name, Chloe. Remember her name. You have to remember her name. Yeah, I don't know her name. Oh, God. Say her name, Chloe. Remember her name. You have to remember her name. Yeah, I don't know. It's very heavy. I'm kind of, like, really happy we're done with it right now. Yeah, it was a lot.

Oh, man. That was, like, my whole stomach was just like... Well. This is it. This was the Prince of Winterfell. Yeah, now that we're thoroughly depressed and giving you guys almost an hour hour and a half of Prince of Winterfell content

let you down we're sorry you guys deserve nicer things than this this is like the series of unfortunate events only in our podcast oh okay that's a bummer that is really what happens though throughout all this but way worse anyway thank you everyone you can follow us on social media

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gonna be three episodes with me or before but we did do part three closing out the dance and again we have a stretch goal of a thousand when we hit that we will be looking to do a live stream a fun secret show live stream party that we are talking about so it's kind of secret but kind of not but you know you know it's a secret to me it's like exclusive but not you know yeah absolutely like not at all but it is it's like a willy wonka yes absolutely come into our factory the girls gone canon factory a canon factory oh check that out at patreon.com slash girls gone canon and make sure to tune in next week as always i have been one of your hosts chloe you can find me on the internet as lies in arbor and i'm another one of your hosts celiana also known as glass table girl thanks for listening you guys yep get some good rest make yourself like a nice

tea or something like a hot chocolate or win a blanket and like don't think about this chapter yeah put on something like nice and happy like i don't know brooklyn 99 or something or like marley and me wait what the fuck are you doing