Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 54 - ACOK Jon IV & V

Episode Date: June 14, 2019

Treasure - that is what you are. Honey, you're my cache of dragonglass amidst uneasy feelings at the Fist of the First Men while we wait for Qhorin Halfhand. His arrival bids changing winds for Jon.��   ALSO! An exciting announcement for Girls Gone Canon going even more canon than ever...   Intro by Anton Langhage -------   Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric   Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl   Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/   Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor   Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com 

Hello and welcome to episode 54, John, A Clash of Kings 4 and 5 in Girls Gone Canon. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet, where you can find me as LiesInArbor on Twitter, Tumblr, and at LiesInArborGold.com. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And you might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, on the Maester Monthly Podcast, or maybe you know me as Arithmetric over on twitter we have some exciting news that we have promised all of you yes oh i'm so excited about this yeah

i haven't been allowed to talk about it but i've been telling everybody very secretly so no one tell eliana oh well also no one tell chloe that i've also been very excited and not allowed to talk about it, but still tell people secretly. So we did it, everyone. We both betrayed each other, but it's okay. It cancels out. Betrayal. Betrayal. Yeah, it works out in the end.

Two negatives make it right. That's how it works, right? Eliana, would you like to do the honors? As we said last week, we are going to start a second series. We've been doing some summer reading. It's kind of a throwback as well, but also not a throwback, in that we are going to be starting the His Dark Material series. It almost sounded like I was going to say the His Dark Books for a second,

but the His Dark Materials trilogy, but maybe some of the other stories that surround it as well, because some new material was released at the end of 2018. We're gonna start covering it in July. Yeah, and I am actually the unsullied one for this. I'm reading through the books for the first time. I am reading the first book. I have started it. It has begun. I'm so excited to discuss it with everybody. I do not know what happens after the first book. I have started it. It has begun. I'm so excited to discuss it with everybody. I do not know what happens after the first book. I have seen the obviously very faithful book to my adaptation, The Golden Compass, which

first thing that I want to complain about is that Nicole Kidman has blonde hair in this movie and it is not book accurate. Okay. I'm coming from a series where the book hair color is so important, and the seed is strong in the Golden Compass books and not in the movie. You want to hear something very interesting? So when the movie came out, first of all, I mean, I actually have never seen the movie because I was like, this looks like it's going to be terrible compared to the book. And you you know this has never happened to me

before in my life of course um and i think you know nicole kidman's a great actress and it's funny because i kind of forgot i actually read this series a long time ago when i was in middle school and about a similar age as our main characters in the his dark material series so it was really fun to read around that time. And the author, Philip Pullman, says sometimes the author gets it wrong. They said that Mrs. Coulter should have been blonde.

He's like, she's blonde. And apparently in releases or editions of the book after the movie was released, Mrs. Coulter's hair is actually listed as blonde because he was just so, I think, compelled by Nicole Kidman's performance and the way she looked. But it does make sense because Lyra's blonde. Right. And I mean, beginning to speak about the series, you know, because of the color of her demon, etc.

I mean, and the way she dresses, like, it makes sense to me that she's blonde. Yeah, it sounds like he just kind of forgot. But it's just like George forgets, right? You have Renly's eye color, a bunch of other silly little things like that, Jane's hips being wide or not being wide. So I think in the end, authors are human. so compelling that you want to do that. Like how George felt about Natalia... Natalie Tenna's performance as Osha and things like that. I do get the sense from my understanding part of why we're doing the His Dark Materials series

is of course, I am very excited that since I didn't watch the movie and I heard it wasn't the best I heard it wasn't terrible but Philip Pullman thought that maybe a TV series would be able to capture his vision and the way that he felt the book should be. So they are adapting it, and it'll be shown on HBO. And I think that they might have Mrs. Coulter's character with dark hair

from what I've seen in the trailers, but I could forget. I have to rewatch a trailer. Sometimes I don't watch trailers because I want to be like, oh, the story is happening. Yeah, well, and that's the thing is I have seen the movie. And when I saw the movie, I was younger and I had no clue there was actually a book series about it. That's the age I was. I just didn't know. I just knew it was a movie that I got for a Christmas present. actually recently re-watched some of that movie at my grandparents on their super like larger than life tv that like okay their tv and my parents tv i kept watching it and i was like this doesn't look right something looks wrong about these tvs and it's because they're like the new like super

high def 4k and everybody looks so realistic that it all looks fake yeah and it makes everything look bad like i'm just used to it on this little little Sony Bravia that's like a 40 inch something. It's not small by any means, but it's just a different type of TV and technology these days. And I'm like, wow, I guess I'm behind in technology. Get the rabbit ears on the TV. Let's go. Yeah, or we're behind in the way that we are made as people. We ought to upload our consciousness. Oh my god, into the TV. Yeah. But about how we're covering this series and the format for it yeah we will have more details about the format on next week's episode for you it's not going to be a weekly episode you're still going to get your a song of ice and fire episodes on fridays for the public early release for patrons uh we will probably be reformatting patreon a little bit

to add some fun perks for his dark, but this will be a separate podcast. We will have a separate little His Dark Materials series going on, and we are thinking of starting it in July. We are hoping to carry it out until the TV show starts. Hopefully any of you that are new and want to read along with us and start the story with us, we highly recommend give it a start. Start off that first book, and we are going to cover only the first book first. So we will recommend give it a start. Start off that first book and we are going to cover only the first book first. So we will not be going past that. Eliana may have a little spoiler hour where she talks about some stuff, but we're going to have some more format coming

next week for you on it. Yeah, and we'll update on some of the frequency. But just to provide some of that information, I think we are looking over at our friends, Davos Fingers, who have done a fantastic job of covering the A Song of Ice and Fire series as a reread. And I mean, they're definitely one of the OGs of these reread podcasts, I think. And definitely check them out if you haven't. But I think we're looking at the way that they have been doing their reread as a sort of inspiration for how we're going to structure doing his dark materials. Yeah. And again, it's very different because I have not read his dark materials until now. And I have not reread it 10,000 times and quoting

quotes to you by heart from chapters. I can't do that here. But I'm getting excited. I'm liking a lot of the thematics. There's a lot of stuff that reminds me of A Song of Ice and Fire. A lot of those really nice fantasy themes and it's just a nice read so far. So we're going to bring some of that to you. We're excited about it. Yeah, it's a very different vibe. There's some mature things that are tackled, but you know, the way that a lot of the A Song of Ice and Fire stories are coming of age, of course, as Dark Materials is, that's the time that we come in for these characters. And it's written for a younger audience, but Philip Pullman definitely wanted it to be accessible and still interesting to older people. And it works.

Yeah, absolutely. I can see a lot of that writing, that naivete, but also I can see where it fits in for adults. So should be a good read. Yeah. Switching gears, we did get a handful of emails and tweets of note this week. Yeah, we got this really great email in response to the previous episode from Jeremy Dentinger. And it says, Hey girls, good call on the guitar analogy, Chloe. George's writing is

very rhythmic, words and phrases in threes or certain ideas coming up repeatedly through chapters, as you mentioned John's hand and Catlin's hand, but also Ned's leg. Obviously, Liana's promised me in all of Ned's chapters. A lot of Bran's chapters have that kind of rhythm too. Mormont's raven squawking is another great example. It sounds like you know a bit about music, specifically guitar. I play guitar, and by I I mean Jeremy. I, Eliana, do not.

And I always fixate on patterns like the droning of an open string in a picking style. I don't know if George has a music background, but he definitely uses the ideas of rhythm and meter. His character parallels may be seen as a form of rhyme, but I think maybe harmony is a better term, like a barbershop doo-wop group. Anyway, I love your show and I really want a salami sandwich. That's a great, a bunch of great references. I agree uh we talked about ned's leg a little bit

back when john was taking milk of the poppy in a game of thrones at around the same time that that paralleled it i do play guitar i play violin i play piano i didn't know you played violin and piano yeah you didn't know i'm learning so much about you i know we always get to learn so much every week this is good this is good yeah, I've been playing guitar and piano for about, oh god, how old am I right now? God, like 15 years and violin. I've been playing probably about 10 years. Oh god. Yeah, I just had to think about it. I was like, oh god, I'm old. Yeah, I've been playing violin for about 10 years, guitar and piano for 15 years, and I love music. I think that we see a lot of musical references throughout, and George, of course, is a major deadhead, for example. He does love music, whether or not he actually has any other background. He does a guitar at least. Maybe he doesn't know how to play it, but I know he has a guitar. There are a lot of photos from like the 80s of him with his guitar laying out on the couch next to him. So I've kind of crept and figured that much out. I love the idea of character parallels as a form of rhyme. I think that's perfect, especially looking at our POVs and how we have been following them, right?

There's a certain bit of harmony to those with Sansa and Theon and Jon for example. So very much Barbershop Doo-Wop Group. Thanks so much for listening. We love having you around and we have some further musical stuff to write about in the coming chapters with some horns.

So stay tuned for that. Yeah, I love that all of these call-outs and connections, it really reminds you of, like, hey, there's that thing in music that's also called, like, a late motif, and we talk about recurring motifs throughout A Song of Ice and Fire. There's a lot of great examples in this email.

Yeah, absolutely. Just that, like, that undertone. Absolutely. And we have a lot of that through John's chapters, which is great, because if he's technically part of the song of ice and fire then he has to be some sort of musical bit indeed and there's all that thought of like music is magic you know yeah yada yada yeah well thank you for the email jeremy we also got this fun tweet uh Bonnie, aka Duct Tape Fairy, over on Twitter, who said, I just started listening to John and I can't believe this is going to be a total sad net show again.

I'm like, fuck. She's got our number. She's calling us out. I mean, I don't know what she expected. Let's be real. Of course. We're always, sure, sometimes we're funny. But also, we love being sad i'm sorry

you're not going to change being sad i'm not sorry i mean these books aren't exactly cheery yeah yeah i'm just saying that's true i'm just saying uh there's not a lot of there's a lot of not happiness like you know it's too bad that a series of unfortunate events came out with that name because uh a series of unfortunate events for sure with that name because a series of unfortunate events for sure. Yeah. And I mean, John's a sad boy. How could we not be sad? Right. He's our resident sad boy.

And of course, Ned is the specter hanging over his chapters as well as many of the other Starkids. Yeah. Along with that, we did get some awesome fan art this week over on our Twitter. If you are on Twitter, check it out.

Fractalbomb, that one guy on Twitter. That's his name. He sent us Detective Jonachu. He got bored at work and there's a beautiful Pikachu with a Jon Snow hair, Jon Snow little beard, Jon Snow cap and a magnifying glass with a long claw helm and a magnifying glass with a long

claw helm on the magnifying glass. So really great art. We quote retweeted it the other day. Check it out around June 7th. Please. It's very funny. Yes. Very funny. I mean Bonnie's also someone that I was talking to about Detective Pikachu, which if you haven't seen, I don't know

if it's still in theaters, but you really should have. I saw it, what? It's amazing. Opening night or like pre-opening night. I even got a few tears watching it. It was beautiful. It was really good. All right.

Like there's a lot of solid continuity, surprisingly, with a lot of the stuff in the earlier series and movies. I was like, oh, okay. Some good twists. It's a fun movie. The villain that isn't a villain is definitely my favorite part of that i love the themes and it was a fun it was a fun romp that being said i will see sonic when it finally does come out after it's remade at midnight because i

guess i'm a furry now i feel like i just have to watch it you know just because it seems so it's gonna be a train wreck yeah i mean it's gonna be awful and it's a i can't wait it's one of the train wrecks you want to watch and i mean detective pikachu's a fucking masterpiece though yeah absolutely absolutely yeah i'm probably gonna see sonic i feel like that's the thing that i'm gonna what go to the theater bring some drinks in you know it's one of those well we got another tweet and an iTunes review, actually, that I totally want to bring up. They both have some similar thematics in those. And that is the tweet from Luminia.

Luminia 1 tweeted. There's some thematic resonance. Yes, some thematic resonance. Take a drink. Luminia says, binge listening to Quentin, the windblown episode. And I just got to the dog locust section, and I cracked up laughing. Now I have to wipe my tea off my screen.

Love you, ladies. Yes, and then we got an iTunes review from Kitty Knight. Is this Sir Pounce? I hope so. Sir Pounce left us a review saying, I wanted to reread via POV and did an OCD sticky note division in the books, but I didn't know where to start. I mean, who wants to start with Bran? Me.

I like Bran. Yeah, damn. This was May 25th. What? Yeah. So this podcast is wonderful. So funny and insightful. I was almost wetting my pants listening to poor Quentin's not that poor Quentin

just Quentin as a poor soul in general just throwing that out there Fiasco, Dragon Tamer episode Dog! I'm up to Sansa 7 in A Clash of Kings and have thoroughly enjoyed it I listened to Davos Fingers, which I love, yes which we also love

but was so sad when Brooke left because girls just get it now i have two brooks oh that's like a very kind thing to say uh as a as a song of ice and fire podcast woman who came before us that's yeah it's like a big thing of respect i'm like kind of really like emotional about it thank you thank you kitty knight sir i agree yes yeah i just love what a throwback you know the quentin chapters i miss the quentin chapters those were fun those were a time those were a ride uh that's probably how quentin feels about it too yeah well i don't know that he feels like that he feels probably a little crispier about it uh probably feels nothing because he. Well, reminiscing on episodes and on chapters,

let's reminisce on some right now on what we missed between John 3 and John 4. Yep. Let's start our lightning round with Theon 2. Theon meets a femme fatale who turns out to be his sister, who has the favoritism of their father, Lord Baelon. Tyrion 6. Tyrion poisons his sister so his actions can't be interrupted, and sends Cleos Frey back to the Stark camp with new peace terms.

He deals with Alistair Thorne, and he even gets a confession from Grand Maester Pycelle. Good guy. Trademark. Arya 6. The tickler tortures the prisoners in the village, and Arya and company are later marched to Harrenhal to serve under Tywin Lannister. Boo. Daenerys II.

A party is held for Dany and the khalasar in Qarth, and Zaro Zoan Doxos offers her his entire wing of the palace. Jorah Mormont brings news of the usurper's death and unrest in the kingdom. I love that there's like that delay, you know? Bran IV. usurper's death and unrest in the kingdom. I love that there's like that delay, you know? Bran IV. Jojen reveals his green dreams to Bran, who is counseled that they are nothing but whimsy by Maester Luwin. Tyrion VII.

Lancel brings the Queen Mother's demands to Tyrion, but Tyrion employs him as a spy. He makes a difficult journey to see Shae. Arya VII. Jochen Hagar offers to repay Arya for her mercy in the threefold, and she accepts to the late Chiswick's chagrin. Shiswick? Shisgrin?

Catelyn Shri? Catelyn 3. Unable to bring the Baratheon brothers to reason, Catelyn learns the Lannister children are bastards born of incest. She attempts to leave, but Renly wants Catelyn to see him defeat his big brother in battle. Sansa three. Sansa is made to pay for her brother's actions in the field. Catelyn four. While asking Renly to call a council for the throne, Renly is killed by a shadow. And that all brings us to Jon the Four. The great ranging decides the lodge at the Fist of the First Men

where the woods smell of cold and death, but within them lies a buried treasure. The Fist of the First Men looms in front. It did look like a fist, Jon Snow thought, punching up through earth and wood, its bare brown slopes knuckled with stone. I mean, we're always going to just be ex-poetic about how great George's

imagery and openings are, but pretty much everything in these two chapters, which go so well together, feels like the ramping anxiety of a horror film, especially because John keeps talking about these weird bad vibes, and I don't think that the fist imagery is necessarily foreshadowing anything, so much as being

part of all those other bad vibes, but it definitely evokes, you know that that iconic zombie movie imagery of like a fist or a hand like oh yeah popping up through the ground i love that especially with ghost finding the hand earlier on at castle black yeah i have a question for you so i remember there was discussion through during what was at the end of season five or season six with the episode the children and how the zombies or the whites are able to move even though they're skeletons do you think we're going to see that the whites can work without like any of that muscle in the books

like would any of these skeletons be able to work i imagine i imagine that's going to be like the necromancy side of it yeah you know what I mean with all of this magic rising I mean especially in a clash of kings this is the we'll talk about this in the next chapter but this is where all of the magic is uprising every single chapter things are coming to life and magic is reborn after the dragons are born and the others are obviously already on their war path in the first book so i think we're gonna see a lot more of the magic come into play so as they ride up to the fist ghost runs off three different times the first two times john whistles for ghost to return and the third time the lord commander loses

patience and snaps let him go boy i want to reach the crest before dusk find the wolf later ghost of course is representative of john and his leaving three times, right? Kind of reminds me of that idea that Jon will be tested three times, which I know that you have a lot of thoughts on, Chloe. And it kind of makes me rethink, though, whether to consider Stannis tempting Jon with Winterfell as in those or not. Because, you know, Ghost is called back twice, as Jon is to the watch like

once at the end of game which we've discussed and he was tested for love and he's tested for love again with egret but with stannis while winterfell of course calls to john and kind of tempts him it's the love that prevents john from wanting to take the castle boat as opposed to him being tempted through love like love for rob and ned and and the stark family and then that love causes him to feel guilt and shame and coveting it so he it's not something he really truly wanted in that way but then when john finally falters again and dance it is out of love for his sister aria and of course this likely sets the course for john leaving the wall for a bit and eventually returning in a way for his sister Arya and of course this likely sets the course for Jon leaving the Wall for a bit

and eventually returning in a way for his duty as Ghost does. I think this is a great catch and I think it does mirror those three tests. However, I think it really mirrors exactly how Dany's tests mirror. Once for blood, once for gold, once for love. I think the once for

gold is kind of the once for glory, joining Rob, going back to avenge their father together. I think once for love is think the once for gold is kind of the once for glory joining rob uh going back to avenge their father together i think once for love is perfect for egret and i think that the winterfell one is definitely once for blood for home and i think that the fourth test just like amen has he has a fourth test which is what kills him the fourth test for john regarding family kills him and i think that if the show the the bad show, is anything to be taken, Dani's fourth one is what kills her as well. Yeah, yeah. It's not just like three, but yeah.

They each have a fourth test that they fail. Yeah. The climb is difficult, and at the top are the high walls. They decide that they're going to camp there at the Fist of the First Men to await Corrin Halfhand. And Jon is actually fascinated by what is called a ring wall. And it's said to be a ring fort from the time of the First Men. They're slightly different ring forts and ring walls, because I was like, what is this? And as you all know, George likes to discuss the way visiting Hadrian's Wall made him feel and how that inspired the wall itself in the story. And I wonder if George actually was able to visit any ring walls or ring forts. They're from slightly different time periods from my understanding, with ring forts being a little more modern,

not by much, I mean, like in the large scheme of things in history, right? And they're seemingly a little more advanced, but ring walls or circular ramparts, as they are also called, can be found throughout Europe and come from the Neolithic era. And the way that John feels about the ring wall as he thinks of the first men who used to live there thousands of years ago, I kind of imagine that George, if he had visited a ring wall, thought of the people who built these structures tens of thousands of years ago, even further back, and that he might have a similar feeling of awe. Yeah. I think later on, you have a couple ideas about, you know, just the Neolithic period and how it really reflects this.

And of course, we're going to talk about Jericho a little later. We're going to save that for the next chapter, but this definitely screams a little bit Stonehenge-y to me, the entire area, just how it's described. And everything north of the wall feels like Eight World Wonders, right? Just the magic of it, the sparkle of it, or rather, sorry, if we need to be in the Song of Ice and Fire universe,

the wonders made by man by Lomas Longstrider. In not fiction, in real life, we have, of course, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which, of course, very big Hightower vibes there. In Lomas' book, we have confirmed the man-made wonders in the whole entire world there. Valyrian roads,

the wall, the Titan of Braavos, the triple walls of Qarth, the three bells of Norvos, Noom, Nara, and Nael, the long bridge of Volantis, the longest bridge in the world, and the palace with a thousand rooms in Sarnath, which is in ruins after the city was destroyed by the Dothraki. And we pretty much get to travel to a lot of these places, right? The only place that we really haven't heard much of, I mean, you can put a person to each of these. The Valyrian Roads and the Long Bridge of Volantis are kind of covered somewhat with Tyrion, we'll say.

The Wall, we have Jon. The Titan of Braavos, Arya. The Triple Walls of Qarth, Daenerys. The Three Bells of Norvos could possibly be talked about in the Winds of Winter upcoming with Aerial Hotas POV. And of course we have the Dothraki at the palace with

a thousand brooms. So there are also some things that fans kind of speculate should be on this list, like the high towers, which would really echo that lighthouse of Alexandria, and Oldtown Citadel is of course the library of alexandria waiting for that burning uh and heron hall has also been talked about as a wonder that people think should be included but just interesting that the north seems to have

all these big wonderments about it you know past that wall this magic and these kind of crazy lands like the fist or east watch by the sea looks like an arrowhead. And what, they're just not chronicled because so much of them are lost to time. I like that you listed all these different wonders. And of course, the fun fact that the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the wonders that you listed from our real world, is very much also a real world inspiration for the titan of bravos absolutely yeah george obviously was playing on that it makes me wonder you know the great pyramid of giza would that be the great

pyramids in marine just different things here you know i could see a couple different things the pyramids in marine and the temple of artemis and the mausoleum at halicarnassus i'm sure that has something to do with, I don't know if it's maybe the Great Sept or something. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, lots of thoughts there. Lots of thoughts.

Maybe that's something that we can further explore another day. Yeah. But today, Thorin says that it's going to be easy to defend this ring wall at the heights that the Fists of the First Men are at. And I'm just like lol and then sobbing emoji yeah sure yeah i mean in theory he's right but you know but not like people yeah sorry you're dead too wannabe reicher that's that's next time so hard i mean he's trying so hard in these chapters and you're like thor and smallwood just chill

take a chill pill. Jon worries about the Lord Commander's age. The old bear was too proud to admit weakness, but Jon was not deceived. The strain of keeping up with younger men was taking its toll. Jon thinks a lot about how old J.R. Mormont is throughout all of these chapters in Game and here in Clash. But interestingly, J.R. Mormont himself, as John says, doesn't seem too concerned about it and kind of takes umbrage with people questioning his physical ability when it comes to his age. Or at the very least, he doesn't voice these things aloud,

unlike how we see Baerston Selmy think about his own age and physicality a lot in his chapters. And maybe J.R. Mormont does privately in his own head. But I wonder if there's something there, because John's constant ruminations, and in my opinion, personally, underestimation of J.R. Mormont does privately in his own head, but I wonder if there's something there because Jon's constant ruminations, and in my opinion, personally, underestimation of J.R. Mormont because of his age, feels like a misdirection, knowing what we do about how the story goes, because this is a reread podcast. And J.R. Mormont ultimately doesn't fall because of his age. He falls because the Night's Watch itself, as we're going to see in some of these later chapters, is a shadow of what it once was. Like, you have

that their complicity in Craster's actions is dishonorable in the way that we learn how the Kingsguard has become a dishonorable order as well. And ultimately, you know, what brings JR down is this mutiny and the number of people who are in it it's a betrayal

from like how Craster acts and what JR does and it has nothing to do with JR's age like his age wouldn't have changed his success based on the way that his men were feeling and I know that our friend Jeff Brinton Beefish believes that Ba Barristan will play a Kristen Cole-esque role when Daenerys eventually returns to Westeros, you know, switching sides perhaps to Aegon. And what if it's not Barristan's age that eventually brings him down, same as with Jaor, but like a betrayal or something he couldn't have accounted for, like maybe with Kristen Cole's own downfall or just a betrayal in general. downfall or just a betrayal in general. If you guys remember, we released sometime last year, a Patreon sample chapter episode of Barristan in the winds of winter one and two, uh, that was released for the public. If you didn't listen to it, I urge you to go take a listen because we do a lot of chatter about Skahaz,

uh, Skahaz Mokondak in Barristan's chapters and how he has major little finger vibes. And I do think he is going to be the downfall, something that same thing with Mormont. He's not paying attention to what his real downfall will be. He is focused in other places. He currently is obsessed with the wrong war, kind of like how Barristan is putting his eggs in probably the wrong baskets in Meereen. Mormont is obsessed with this war against mance when the ice zombies are gathering right there at his door and it's holding him on to that end of

his youth this is his one last stand he wants to go out as the man of the night's watch who did this that is kind of what is in his mind his legacy and he's kind of blindsided right his belief in the night's watch that they will do their duty no matter what are what kills him. You could say, just like Jon, that sending away his most faithful companions kills him. Jon and Corrin, also after Benjen's already gone, which is something Jon learns in Book 5 when he sends his friends away as well. And you get that line from Will in the prologue, It was his duty and his death if he did. He shivered and hugged the tree and kept the silence. And I think it's a good wrap up to what happens with Mormont's plot. He thinks this is his duty and he does his duty and he loses. great point wrapping it in with duty and it's something that we see as you said with how john acts and kind of also you know discussing like bearson etc and how ned acts and it's this sort

of it's not an idealism but it's the belief that the structures of duty will keep everything in line well we see a lot of that in catelyn too right she lets this feudal society that she was told is going to nurture her take hold of her destiny and of what she does and her choices. And it's the same thing with Ned and his wanting to be honorable and doing his duty. These aren't bad people. It's just their choices were very much so armored in this ideology that didn't really help them in the end. It's kind of funny because this is not the first time this has happened to Jeor. didn't really help them in the end.

It's kind of funny because this is not the first time this has happened to Jeor, because he resigns from being the lord of Bear Island because he believes that his son will also be dutiful and will be a good lord. He hopes, right, that he's raised a son that doesn't suck. Or sell people.

Yeah, but instead he's raised a son who's willing to sell people into slavery and not take any responsibility for his actions. And that's kind of what happens here, right? Yeah, absolutely.

It's a running thing for J.R. It's very sad. Those will be very sad chapters. Yeah. But at the end he still clings on to that hope. Yes, absolutely. His last words to Sam. Aw. John raises logistical concerns about the distance from water, and Thorin

straight up calls him a lazy millennial. Yeah. He's just like, what? Is it too far? She's like, oh my god, shut the fuck up, Thorin. John decides not to argue against it when Mormormont makes a civil comment about avocado toast so uh they start to prepare they they get past the millennial discourse yes thank you for doing this thing for me yeah and then ghost of course returns at the foot of

the hill during this interaction and then they go up to reach the ring fort and as they're trying to go inside ghost is like i'm not going in there. This place is weird. And he refuses to enter and John also now begins to feel a sense of foreboding and he reminds himself that oh yes, this is the haunted forest. And wonders if maybe there are ghosts of the First Men in here, but then he tells himself to

get off the fucking gram and get his head back in the game. Get out. Chloe's about to quit the podcast you're fired uh yeah yeah i love the just all the imagery in this chapter in the north is so cool john uneasily watches the sunset and he notes the trees are what rule closest to the base of the hill the forest stretches to the south and the east peppered with red weirwoods throughout the other green trees, pines and sentinels, and some

yellow trees as autumn begins to come. John thinks Ghost is not alone in these woods. He's not, and Sam's here too in these woods. No, he's not what John's feeling weird about. Sam calls up to John and he joins him, and John decides not to share his uneasiness

with Sam, who's finally beginning to feel a little braver. And then he's like, oh, now that we've reached here, maybe Sam should prepare a bird. No doubt. You'd best get a bird ready. More might will not send back word. I wish I could send them all. They hate being caged. You would too if you could fly.

If I could fly, I'd be back at Castle Black eating a pork pie. My brave, beautiful son. Sam will twirly. He wants to free all the birbs. He wants to free the birbs and eat pie. Yes. I love it. They hate being caged. I love that John says you would too if you could fly.

It reminds me of Bran in Bloodraven. Especially of Bran because he's been really depressed about being caged right now in his own body. Yeah, and maybe we've discussed this, but the bird imagery throughout A Song of Ice and Fire feels like that running motif about being caged. Throughout the story, you have the little birds that Varys is cutting the tongues out of and forcing to do terrible things, but you have, as you said with bran who feels cage and sansa she's a little bird uh alongside another little bird sweet robin caged up in the eerie and then you have the crows

of the night's watch many of them who have not really chosen this fate and they're terrified as they venture into all these lands as we see in these chapters yeah absolutely and then you have more bird things because john as he's wandering around down there, hears the ravens before he saw them, and some were calling his name. The birds were not shy when it came to making noise. They feel it too. I can't do. They feel it too.

It's natural now, honestly. It is. It's who you are on the inside maybe there's just this huge sense of foreboding all throughout clash when he's in the north something's about to go down it's interesting it's such a build-up and then it pays off it pays off so well oh yeah these are great chapters i need to go back and read like the of that Storm prologue, just because it just... I don't know. Yeah. So good. And then we get a little more insight.

I really wanted to include this into J.R. Mormont, aka Mixologist, in his Moldwine Taste. There's just so much about J.R. Mormont and his beverages throughout all of these chapters, okay? The old bear was particular about his hot spiced wine.

So much cinnamon and so much nutmeg and so much honey, not a drop more. Raisins and nuts and dried berries, but no lemon. That was the rankest sort of southern heresy, which was queer since he always took lemon in his morning beer. The drink must be hot to warm a man properly, the Lord Commander insisted, but the wine must never be allowed to come to a boil john kept a careful eye on the kettle okay duh you don't want to boil the alcohol out well yeah i agree i agree yeah yeah i think there's something interesting in that

southern uh heresy talk with the lemon but how he always took lemon in his morning beer. I think that's something to point out right there, that like Mormont has this whole hypocrisy thing, like an old white dude. I mean, he's just all set in his ways, you know, the wildlings are bad and the South are bad and the wall is the only thing worthwhile. And we're going to keep Craster doing his weird Craster things.

Yep, out with the old and with the new. Sorry, old bear. Yeah, and he writes about all these things We're going to keep Craster doing his weird Craster things. Yep. Out with the old and with the new. Sorry, old bear. Yeah, and he writes about all these things in the many, many paragraphs that he puts at the beginning before he gets to the recipes on his food blog. Yeah, he talks about how, you know, when I was out fighting wildlings, this is the stew that I would have. Aw. Fucking wildlings. I think they might actually have something similar what uh jr mormon's mulled wine recipe in the feast of yes they do they do actually and i plan on making it

when it gets cooler out there's a there's a lot in there i plan on making i made sister stew out of that feast of ice and fire and that turned out really good but i can't wait it looks really good thank you and the trenches yeah uh yeah We'll definitely talk about this eventually. Hopefully we can hit our next stretch, go on Patreon, and actually make some of this stuff together. Yes, I would love to. You know me. I, like J.R. Mormont, I too am really into food and drinking.

John over here has some conversations of potential paths that they can take to the Frost Fangs. And the easiest way there is the milk water. But if they go through that, then Mance is going to know that they're coming. And there are some other routes such as the Giant Stair or the Scurrying Pass. When John returns, Mormont is studying the map that Sam made at Craster's direction. More deliberation on the path, the Frostfangs could be too difficult for them to navigate, and Mormont says he doesn't intend to take them there. Wildlings will have to pass through the milk water, so they are actually

advantageously placed currently. But there are thousands of them compared to the Night's Watch's hundreds. Mormont wants to strengthen defenses and keep the rangers close so they don't die or go missing, and he says that he knows where Mance is. Yeah, many of the other rangers, like Thorin Smallwood, who now feels way more Royce-y

even more, they don't understand what Mormont is going for, or if they do, they hate Mormont's inaction. And I don't know, I just, they're wrong. Okay, like, Mormont does have some good strategies and ideas here, you know, if we didn't have an army of the dead but charging blindly into Mance's army isn't a good idea either no not at all

and then Mormont asks Jon his thoughts because he's like well you kind of want me to send the rangers don't you and Jon's like well I just don't understand how we're gonna find my uncle if we keep the rangers here and Mormont's like I mean fair but what do you think I'm doing he says Maester Aemon says that you're clever and Jon's like oh mean fair but what do you think i'm doing he says maestro amen says that you're clever and john's like oh shit now i gotta live up to this live up to these compliments right

and he realizes that rather than sending men to find benjamin mormon actually means for benjamin and the other rangers to be able to find them easily because he's like it's easier to find 200 men especially if they're setting off a bunch of fires right and then john's like but what if benjen said and mormon's like well then he's gonna find us right just like othor and jafer flowers did and you know he's not wrong except it's all the bazillion of the other dead people who find them instead yeah i don't get why he thinks like it's like mormon won't put together that the wildlings that live north of the wall that meet the dead ones also turn dead just like the people he has seen turn dead that came to castle black that used to work for him so it's kind of like maybe if you put two and two together you'd think oh shit if there are thousands of wildlings out here and the others are out here

maybe they're killing the wildlings and the wildlings are also becoming zombies that could be a problem yeah and i mean like that's obviously why all the wildlings are massing and he knows that right and i his strategy isn't wrong for defending against the wildlings but he's just underestimating the army of the dead so much like i guess the rest of westeros right i mean i think the biggest thing is he's fighting the wrong war yeah i mean there's that but he's just not it's a difficult set of priorities because i think he understands that they kind of need Benjen to be able to fight this war at all. I don't know. Yeah.

And he's holding on to that hope that Benjen's alive, even though deep down in his heart, he is pretty sure he'll never see him again. But we are going to see Benjen again. Oh, my God. Well, not see. We're going to find out what happens. All right. I don't have the source, but I remember hearing or seeing someone saying that but george has confirmed we're gonna learn what happens to benjamin that doesn't mean we'll see him again eliana doesn't mean we'll see him again yeah i yeah

i corrected myself i was like we're gonna learn what happens back to the fires diwin is there he says the wood smells wrong to him seems to me like it smells well well, cold. The other Night's Watchmen make fun of Diwin, but Jon thinks he's right. It smells like death. As Jon gets ready for bed, Ghost comes back, and he doesn't cuddle, though. He circles the fire. Ghost kind of nuzzles at Jon and bids him to follow him, and so Jon goes out of the camp under the guise of getting water for Commander Mormont so he can follow Ghost. It's a dangerous descent, and Jon's like, oh my god, what the fuck am I doing right now? This is a horrible idea.

The tree stood beneath him. Warriors armored in bark and leaf deployed in their silent ranks awaiting the command to storm the hill. Black they seemed. It was only when his torchlight brushed against them that Jon glimpsed a flash of green. And just like the imagery of the Fist of the First Men, I think that this imagery kind of reminds us of a lot of

different armies, right? Especially with the trees being like them. First of all, it reminds us of the Night's Watch men themselves as those dark warriors. But it also reminds us of the Children of the Forest, armored in bark and leaf. Especially with that flash of green. But with the silence and the uneasiness forest armored in bark and leaf especially with that flash of

green but with the silence and the uneasiness of everything in this chapter it and you know we all know what's gonna happen next it also is another feeling that reminds us of that army of the dead of the whites yeah when john finds ghost again he's drinking from the fucking stream he's like oh my god why is my dog doing this get over here and ghost is like nope and runs away and john's like i'm pretty sure that this is madness as we continue to chase my giant dog through the creepy forest but eventually he catches up and he hears and finds his dog digging fiercely it's a grave yay and the dirt is recent! John finds cloth and he's like, oh god, it's gonna be a dead body. And instead

he actually finds a bundle. At first he thinks it's a treasure, but the shape is wrong. But no, John, it is a treasure. Alright? Because inside of it are a dozen knives, leaf-shaped spearheads, numerous arrowheads. John picked up a dagger blade, feather light and shiny black

hiltless torchlight ran along its edge, a thin orange line that spoke of razor sharpness. Dragon glass, what the maesters call obsidian. And along with all of these things, he finds beneath the dragon glass was an old warhorn made from an oryx's horn and banded in bronze. Jon shook the dirt from inside it and a stream of arrowheads fell out. So John just found his very first how to kill a white walker package, like a starter kit. Yeah, it is a starter kit.

It's his ranger kit. You get those at the beginning of D&D, only he got it just now. It's a subscription box. Oh my god, it comes monthly. It's a subscription box. Oh my god. For five gold dragons a month. You have to dig for it. This is ipsy. It's ipsy.

There's a lot of good discourse we can talk about with the horn. This is our very first look at a horn, which a lot of people do think this is the horn of Joramun. It's very much in universe history that Joramun, a king beyond the wall, once in history, blew the horn to wake giants from the earth. We're going to talk about that a lot more in the second chapter. But first, I want to talk about a couple of other references. The first being the walls of Jericho coming down at the blowing of the horns. Uh, the first being the walls of Jericho coming down at the blowing of the horns. Little backstory there is that Israel conquered Canaan, the promised land, and the walls of Jericho were virtually impregnable.

The first breach of them were 11 feet long, 14 feet wide, and then they ascend into a further stone slope that angles upward at 35 degrees for 35 feet. And then further stone walls rose even higher above that. The exodus of the wildlings and the Israelites actually really fits here as an illusion. Joshua sends two spies to Jericho and finds out people fear him and his God. The Israelites march around the walls once a day for six days, and the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant. On day seven, they march around the walls seven times

and the priests blow their ram horns and down the walls of Jericho fall. It all fits in with another reference to a horn in the Revelations, which this kind of fits in a little better with the twin horn, dragon binder, right? More than Joramun. I've cut a few bits out of this,

so I might paraphrase here and there, but in the Revelations, there are seven angels who come who have seven trumpets prepared to sound them the first angel sounds his trumpet hail and fire comes mixed with blood and it was hurled down upon the earth a third of the earth was burned up a third of the trees burned up and all the green grass was burned up the second angel sounds his trumpet and something like a huge mountain all ablaze is thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turns to blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea die, and a third of the ships are destroyed.

The third angel sounds his trumpet, a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turns bitter and many people die from the waters that had become bitter the fourth angel sounds his trumpet a third of the sun is struck a third of the moon a third of the stars and a third of them turned dark the third of the day was without light and also a third of the night the fifth angel sounds his trumpet and the star that had fallen from the sky to the earth was the key to the shaft of the abyss and when he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic

furnace. The sun and sky are darkened out by the smoke and out of the smoke come locusts down on the earth that are given power like that of scorpions of the earth. Horses prepared for battle is what the locusts look like. They have crowns of gold and their faces resemble human faces. Their hair

was like human woman's hair. their teeth like lion's teeth, they had breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots. The sixth angel sounds, and a voice comes from the four horns of the golden altar before God. Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. And the four angels go, and for a day and month and year released to kill a third of mankind. And then of course, the very last angel is robed in a cloud

with a rainbow above his head, a face like the sun and his legs like fiery pillars. He's holding a little scroll which lay open in his hand. And he speaks. And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write but I heard a voice from heaven say seal up what the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven say, seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down. So with all this like oncoming apocalypse of zombies and of everything promised through Euron Greyjoy's plot with Dragonbinder and blowing the horn, possibly of Jormun and the wall coming down. And when you blow the horn, all of these hells are unleashed. We have sickness right now in the story, right? We have the pale mare going through Daenerys' plot in Meereen. Well, not her plot anymore because she's not there.

But in Meereen, we have the pale mare and even Quaithe's visions, you know, first comes the pale mare. All of these very prophetic things, including the House of the Undying in A Clash of Kings, really are similar to the revelations in that sense. These are all like really strong parallels and comparisons to the things that we see in A Song of Ice and Fire. And in the books, we see that George has pointed out that dragons don't want to cross the wall in the Fire and Blood chapters with Alysanne.

And there's so much importance that have been placed on these hordes in the storyline that I can't imagine that they're not going to be actually part of the breach of the wall eventually. And George had a strong Catholic upbringing. he doesn't believe in it now but that doesn't change the fact that he's woven in a lot of ideas from christian theology or in the bible some of these stories into the way that he's writing a song of ice and fire because he knows that a lot of people also have similar similar connections with it like how you've pointed out that there's all these things regarding Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. There's an African American old hymn that is

about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. It's kind of a pretty famous song. So these are within our cultural ether, and George is definitely playing to these, and it's something that's going to be part of A Song of Ice and fire yeah absolutely i i actually know the hymn very well i know the claps in it again with the rhythm and also it fits in with another song that i want to talk about called jericho by hillary duff so i think that if you guys take a listen to that song by hillary duff jericho you will really understand john's plot in a clash of kings even that much better yeah and i think that that's the song of ice and fire oh my god is it not you know speaking of you know how it's such a musical it's a musical

story hillary duff was a big influence in george oh my god who knew who knew um but of course the bow on top the cherry on top of this cash of how to kill a white walker subscription box is that it is wrapped up in the black cloak of a brother of the night's watch yes so who left this cash john's like oh that's spooky left the cache eliana who left the cache who's who gifted john with the subscription i think it's likely it's who do you think uh i know brittanby fish and poor quentin have had a couple debates on this uh not a cast that brittanby fish thinks it's blood raven i don't i don't i think blood raven's busy it is true so the thing is, like, if it were Blood Raven, it kind of makes sense because they foresee it, but it also

like, does make sense for it to be Benjen and like, a gift from there because it's in the cloak of a brother of the Night's Watch. And also, I mean, it makes sense for an uncle to gift their nephew a subscription box, right? Oh my god.

They are expensive. That's part of it. A wine subscription. Oh, that's what you should get for J.R. Mormont, a wine club subscription. Those are real things. I don't know which ones are best or not. Wine club subscription boxes sponsor us.

I guess the thing for me is like, good wool, thick, a double weave, damp, but not r rotted it could not have been long in the ground and it was dark he seized a handful and pulled it close to the torch not dark black so to me that doesn't really give a lot of description on you know it's not a it's not super old the fabric doesn't sound like it's super old so anything blood raven would have i would imagine would be frayed and like thin by now you know a double weave and it's damp and it's been in the ground and not long it's it's such a toss-up i think it could be blood raven because how else would he just have known to put it there and then you get all those questions of well if it's benjen why didn't he stop by for some dinner or say hello yeah but what if it's not none of them what if it's another member right of the night's watch there are other ones out there yeah and you know as you were saying regarding it being black and

still of good quality like it's probably not someone who's been out there for many many years and and weathering everything they're not one of the rangers like corinne halfhand because as we see of corinne halfhand and his rangers they've been out in the elements and have been doing so much work that as john says their cloaks appear gray so who knows it's a mystery i'd love to know we could ask george and waste our questions someday on him but yeah and he's gonna be like oh you'll find out one day or he's gonna be like maybe i don't know he's gonna say something cryptic probably um as opposed to if we ask him questions such as what are the different hours of day or whatever other fucking questions i've

come up with that are useless to everyone that isn't me. Well, that was John 4. Before we scoot into John 5, we're gonna hit our next lightning round. Scoot, scoot, scoot. We start our lightning round with Bran 5. In Bran 5, Jojen Reed's dream comes true, but no one listens to Bran who tells Jojen's next warning.

And now at Tyrion, 68 quintillion, 39 million, 39 quadrillion 834 trillion. Fuck, I fucked this up. No. It's Tyrion 8. And now at Tyrion... Yeah, it's Tyrion 8. Chloe had a fun joke and I was trying to like really, really lean into it.

Okay, everyone. Commit to the bit. I tried to commit. All right. And I think I did. It's just he has so many chapters. He does a lot of shit in this book. He's a really important part of this book. This is a really important part of Tyrion's

storyline, but you know, that's not today. We're talking about Jon. Not today. In Tyrion's chapter, Renly's murder is discussed in the small council and Tyrion proposes a Tyrell match for Joffrey. Theon 3. Theon pushes for a further win after success at the Stony Shore and looks to Winterfell.

Arya 8. Another name is given to Jochen and watching Tywin's army leave, Arya thinks, maybe I've been given the wrong names. Maybe I wasted shit. In Catelyn 5. After success against Stafford Lannister, Catelyn meets the armies in Riverrun where they are prepared to battle Lord Tywin denarius three finding no help in carth danny wants to turn to illyrio and pentos and jorah warns against it she wonders why the comet led them here and

jorah advises her to ask piot pri which is not a good move it's not the worst bad things don't it's not worse, no. I mean, she gains a lot of knowledge out of it, but god, fuck that guy. Yeah. He gets his, as we know. Yeah, yeah. Tyrion IX, after seeing the princess Myrcella off to Dorne with the royal family and their retainers, a citywide riot breaks out.

Davos II. Stannis has his eyes set on Edric Storm, and Melisandre shows davos the goal of tonight's pregnant shadow magic every person this time i'm pregnant shadow magic oh my gosh oh this time i'm what 16 and pregnant 600 years old and pregnant in john 5 corin reaches the fist of the first men to meet up with the rest of the Rangers, and Jon is awakened by a hornblast. And yes, so a hornblast wakes Jon, and Jon's reminded of a part of the Oath, the horn that wakes the sleepers, and it's honestly really a fantastic transition if you're doing this character reread, or just like in general, because we ended the last chapter of john finding a horn and it's

just such a great connections good job george yeah it's a nice book end right it's a nice chapter end to cushion that with horns and awaken this one with horns it brings your attention back to the horn and it's a very musical part of the story without really even intending to be no one thinks of horns that wake up or horns for rangers could be music, but they very much dictate the Night's Watch's melody. One blast when rangers return to the wall, two blasts for Wildling, three blasts for others. It's literally changing the key signature of the song as it goes along. Oh, yes. I love that. And you know, there's just like so many horns that are in play in the story. As you said, there's the one, there's the one that Jon finds, there's the dragon binder that Euron brings. There's also another one, right, that Mel burns, that Mance thought was the horn of Joramun, but it wasn't. And I mean, there's honestly just enough horns in the story to start a Ska band. And I'm gonna throw this out there for a name for it, okay, here, because ska bands love their puns. You know, you got the skadelites, and so for this one I'm proposing the skalling pass,

like the skirling pass. That's my contribution to the fandom. Oh my god, I can't wait to fucking never do this podcast again. I'm firing you. I'm fucking firing you. The band's disbanding. We had philosophical artistic differences.

Oh my god. More like dismantling. We will bring up some of those horns a little later as well. We will have some chatter about that soon. But first, the men brace themselves for a second horn, that big pit of anxiety in their stomach. But that horn never comes, thankfully.

They hurriedly dress, and the Lord Commander emerges from his tent to confirm with John that there was only one blast. Brothers returning, the half-hand. I think it's funny that the men just keep bracing themselves for a second blast and it doesn't come but no one ever thinks oh fuck what if there are three right that's not the worry right now the worry is wildlings yes well and i think that's where that time signature like i just said will really come in handy right right now you have it kind of in your normal four four one blast rangers returning. That's what they're used to. Then it goes to the two blasts.

So you move that key signature to something a little more abnormal. But especially in key signatures, three blasts, I mean, is a totally different beat. You have twos, you have fours, and then you have threes. And three is that very off-kilter blast. So it's not as rhythmic it's a little different as far as melodies go i think that's something especially that we'll see more in the winds of winter as well more three blasts than those two and one so it's like as the books go along each trilogy of them has changed yeah and we see that they still didn't even expect it

right in the storm prologue, so it's just so particularly, I don't know, meaningful when all of that happens. Corrin and his brothers had been delayed in returning, and the camp was starting to kind of lose hope. They discussed leaving without him, but their numbers would be too small, and they discussed going after him, but

the numbers issue remained then, too. Send 200 wolves against 10,000 sheep, sir, and see what happens, said Smallwood confidently. There are goats among these sheep, Thorin, warned Jarman Buckwell. Aye, and maybe a few lions. Rattleshirt, harm of the dog's head, elf and crow killer. I know them as well as you do, Buckwell. Thorin Smallwood snapped back, and I mean to have their heads,

everyone. These are wildlings. No soldiers. A few hundred heroes, drunk most like. Amidst a great horde of women, children, and thralls, we will sweep over them and send them howling back to their hovels. Ugh.

That's not the point, you guys. Thorinin you're doing it wrong Thorin I think there's like an element right of Thorin being kind of afraid and anxious as they all are but it's just like he's also not he's being like so

he's so confident like yeah we're gonna fucking take them and he's like so gung ho about massacring all these women children and thralls and like as readers even without knowing what happens in the story if for some reason you're here and you're not doing a reread um we understand why they're scared we've like literally fucking seen the whites and the others you're supposed to feel uneasy about how thor and smallwood sees all of them as just like sheep and nuisances also he's kind of underestimating them.

He's like, yeah, there's some heroes and men, but like literally almost like a good portion of the women are spearwives. Yeah, I really hate that they act like they're just so, you know, like untrained and so like, oh, they're just wild savages. They don't know how to fight when they are pretty, pretty fearsome as Jon learns when he joins them. Spoiler alert. Yeah.

Dolores Edd is pissed because he wants to sleep, and people keep blowing horns, and I thought that was a big takeaway from the chapter, because I totally relate. Yeah, it's like every day of my life. And then Sam finds Jon, and he's hopeful that the horn meant Uncle Benjen was returning, but there's no such luck. John heads for the ring wall, where he witnesses the men climbing up from the shadow tower.

They are shaggy and worse for the wear. John knew Corrin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the watch, a man of slow words and swift action tall and straight as a spear long-limbed and solemn unlike his men he was clean shaven his hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been grazed only thumb and forefinger remained on the hand that held the reins the other fingers had been sheared off catching a wildling's axe that would otherwise have split his skull it was told that he had thrust his maimed fist into the face of the axe man so the blood spurted into his eyes and slew him while he was blind since that day the wildlings beyond the

wall had known no foe more implacable yeah john greets the half hand alerting him the lord commander is waiting for him and lets him know that his men and horses will be taken care of. And then Halfhand knows him as a Stark immediately. You are Jon Snow. You have your father's look. So it's something that I really, really want to talk about. I want you guys to keep it in mind. In this episode, we won't talk about it much now. There is a lot of tinfoil theorizing that half hand is arthur dane in disguise or some

shit and i think that exists in a way but a different way and we are going to get closer to that as john goes journeying with half hand interesting i think thematically it makes sense it's not true but thematically i think that corin Jon's Arthur Dayne, and we will talk about that. So, halfhand comments, thinking on that, that he knew Ned, and he also knew Rickard as well, who Jon had never met. He muses about Jon's wolf, and they head towards the Commander's Fire, where Ed is cooking some food, and asks Corrin what happened out there. the commander's fire where Ed is cooking some food and asks Corrin what happened out there. They met trouble with Elf and Crow Killer, but they killed him, and some of his party escaped them and is out in the woods, which is obviously something for us to look forward to later, right? A little bit of foreshadowing. They could just be some bad guys, or they could be misunderstood.

Will we find out? No one knows. Four brothers dead, a dozen wounded, a third as many as the foe. And we took captives. One died quickly from his wounds, but the other lived long enough to be questioned. Yep. The commander then has

Jon fetch Corrin some sustenance and Corrin is just like, I just want an egg and a bite of bacon with boiled water. And then Jon and Ed chat. I kind of like how J.R. Mormont, you know, he offers Corrin all these things. He's like, you want some beer, some hot wine? And Corrin Haffan's like, I just want some boiled water. And Mormont's kind of just like a suit-yourself kind of thing. He feels a bit taken aback, probably reading too much into it.

But, I don't know. Mormont was just really excited about his new hot toddy recipe, okay? There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk. I knew a brother who drowned himself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did not improve it. You drank the wine. It was an awful thing to find the brother dead. You'd have need of a drink as well, Lord Snow. I just love John's incredulous

you drank the wine. I mean, this is the obvious reaction. God, what is with all this booze in these chapters with people in it? You have Maester Aemon in the rum barrel. You have this. We should make both of those. You know, okay. So I've discussed this before.

I have a failed and it really, it really needs some work. You know, Maester Aemon cocktail where you have like a shot of rum and we're working on it. Okay, we're working on making it work. Last time I did a dragonberry vodka, put a star patch kid in it. I'm like, that's kind of, that kind of works, but I feel like it needs more. And we got to think about this one. You know, what can we do to put something that seems kind of like a corpse in some wine in honor of Dolores Ed's brother?

Well, you know, I've actually seen people do like a fermented, like something that curdles almost. So I don't know. We'll have to. No, I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to. No, that's I don't know. I don't know if I'm not. I'm not serious. We'll think about it.

We'll find out. Well, I've seen some good like Halloween drinks where someone did like a peach hemorrhage or something. So yeah, it really makes me think that all of this is foreshadowing. It's an awful thing to find a brother dead. You know, I say that at this point in the books, I think George knew he was planning on gardening the whole killing John. At this point, especially with the mutiny coming up, you have Beric Dondarrion set up coming for Stoneheart.

You have the rumors and clash. Dondarrion has been dead. And then the truth revealed that, yes, he has been dead many times. And then Stoneheart also rises in storm. And John is meant to die in a feast for crows slash dance with dragons as a whole before it was split so it's not illogical to see the path of that garden being planted right especially in this chapter we'll have a few more things soon too yeah in this chapter and again discussing the that ghost leaving three times. Yes. Sounded like he had a plan starting. Oh, a plan.

John listens outside of the tent and wonders, why if Alan Crowkiller is dead, why does Corrin sound so grave? Because you're fighting the wrong war. Yeah, gotta be worrying about those three blasts, John. And there's that interesting tonal contrast, though, between the way Corrin half-hand

talks and carries himself, compared with the other men of the Night's Watch. Because a lot of them, like Thorin, they're busy arguing about the best ways to massacre thousands of wildlings when they themselves are only a few hundred. It's not strategic. It's not gonna work. And, like, also Corrin knows that

this isn't gonna be fast and easy, right? It wasn't just now with a small amount of wildlings. And he's not so young as to be incredibly afraid, but he's not so stupid to not be afraid either. He's kind of like Ned, right? He understands that there's no glory here. This isn't a game. He's a weathered soldier, and this is just his duty. Yeah, and if you place Corrin next to

Thorin Smallwood, Thorin Smallwood is wearing Riker's really nice thick black cloak with the clasp and the very new outfit where Corrin shows up wearing old faded greys. He's been out, you know, snow-worn at in the snow. He's been out just fighting and marching and, you know, ranging for so long. And even in the way of what he eats, he won't accept anything that's complicated. He wants a simple meal with boiled water. He is very different in his priorities than Thorin Smallwood. He's lost a lot. And I mean, Corrin's arrival because of the way he's acting doesn't lift spirits as expected. And then Jon hears Chet and Lark and the Sistermen complaining in the night. Chet's comments pretty much border on mutiny,

saying that they'll take care of the old bear so it doesn't come to them finding their graves in the mountains. And Jon tries to convince himself that it was just empty talk and he wasn't meant to hear it, that his brothers are just cold and weary. They are cold and afraid we all are it was hard waiting here perched on the stony summit above the forest wondering what the night might bring the unseen enemy is always the most fearsome so in this line we have a couple

things set up more that adds to that john death setup, right? Daggers in the dark, the unseen enemy is always the most fearsome. But also what's adding to Lord Commander Mormont's death right there. The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome. And then, of course, it leads you to a third setup for the others. The others in here are very unseen in the last two chapters. We have that beautiful paragraph a little bit ago of Jon, you know, running out with Ghost and seeing the green and how, you know, we're all freaked out thinking he's gonna see the others. And the others are definitely the unseen enemy in this. The wildlings are the main enemy in a lot of their eyes, but it's the others.

Yeah, I think that's a really great point, especially as you've been echoing, fighting the wrong war at the moment. John studies a dagger made of obsidian and thinks it must have been buried in the cache for a reason. He had made a dagger also for the Lord Commander and Gran. He made one for himself, too. He passed the arrowheads around amongst his

friends, and he gives Sam the cracked warhorn because he's like, Sam likes old things, even worthless old things. He'll like this. And he tells Sam, I mean, I guess you can make a drinking horn out of it to commemorate the time you went raging. Won't that be cool?

And you know what just like really fucks me up about all of this? Like someone seems to have known, right? For there to be a cache of all of this dragonglass right there at the foot of the hill. Someone knew that shit was wrong here or they knew there was going to be an ambush here all of this dragon glass right there at the foot of the hill someone knew that shit was wrong here or they knew there was going to be an ambush here something like that like which even folks like diwen and john seem to feel so they got all these things right to help the

night's watch repair but they didn't know what to do with them they weren't able to use them like because the meanings of that like and it's true even in real life right we lose the meanings of that, like, and it's true even in real life, right? We lose the meanings of all this art and these artifacts. We don't know what people in civilizations that lived thousands of years before us did with a bunch of this stuff. And that's why John thinks, oh, this is just a fucking useless ass horn. Sam likes old things, but Sam recognizes that there's usefulness in that history. And along with that, there's another tie with Sam and that history, because it's very apt to give a horn to Sam. You know, House Tarly resides on Horn Hill.

It's not just about, I don't know, silly staghorns or whatever. Their sigil is a striding huntsman on green, but in the roots of their house go back to Herndon of the Horn, who bore a horn, and Harland the Hunter. The huntsman, I believe, actually has both the horn and the bow and arrow. And there are semi-canon sources that say that House Tarly's words are first in battle. And Sam shows himself to be very brave in upcoming chapters and some fights. And maybe he'll be first in battle, maybe not. coming chapters in some fights and maybe he'll be first in battle maybe not but the motto is that idea of courage of being willing to be out there and face that threat and enemy and i mean okay

like sam's the fucking horn bearer okay like he uses the dragon glass as a warrior not necessarily like a hunter but it's still like a fighting thing whatever um against the others and the horn again is important to sam's story probably the story at large which we'll get to later chloe has more thoughts along with the very good ones she's already shared and yeah anyway sam horns it's a thing yeah absolutely we're gonna get to that in just a bit there's a lot more horn discourse to even come up with but john first decides horn course john decides to serve the food in the old bear's tent later to eavesdrop and get more information and he listens to them speaking rattleshirt the weeping man and every other chief great and small he was saying

they have wargs as well and mammoths and even more strength than we would have dreamed. Or so he claimed. I will not swear as to the truth of it. Ebon believes the man was telling us tales to make his life last a little longer. True or false, the wall must be warned, the old bear said as Jon placed the platter between them and the king. Which king? All of them, the true and the false alike. If they would claim the realm, let them defend it. The half-hand helped himself to an egg and cracked it on the edge of the bowl.

These Kings will do what they will, he said, peeling away the shell. Likely it will be little enough. The best hope is Winterfell. The Starks must rally the North. Except there's no help right now in the north because as this chapter is happening, Bran 6 is also happening where Theon is taking Winterfell. Yeah.

And of course, if they would claim the realm, let them defend it. Most of them don't. Except for Stannis. Yeah. I'm gonna say, I don't know why, but I find it so adorable when Corrin Halfhand is eating these eggs. There's something that feels just so pure about this moment to me,

and I don't know what it is. It just feels very cute. I really love Corrin Halfhand. I'm like really excited that we're at him now. Corrin Halfhand's like not a cute, he's not an adorable character, okay? He's a very, very hardened character. He's a very harsh man like he actually reminds me a lot of ellard stark in the story where alice ann goes north just that flinty like beady-eyed kind of look i don't know not as much in personality but it does remind me of that stannis obviously reminds me of the most of that uh that's another tale for another time

yeah the old bear takes out a map and he starts to try to pinpoint where the wildlings will attack them only three of the 17 castles are manned now due to the watch's shrinking size which mance actually knows he puts his hopes in alicer bringing levies from king's landing which we kind of already know won't happen manning grayguard and longbarrow but corin corrects him grayguard has mostly collapsed they need men manning stone door ice mark and deep lake with daily patrols on the battlements we all know that they're understaffed and i just want to throw this out there again they're putting their hopes on alicer thorne being able to succeed in all this

and alicer thorne is an ever-present reminder to be courteous and professional at your job especially when dealing with other potential uh partnerships like when it came to tyrian because next thing you know your company needs help to pretty much basically defend the future of all of humanity and no one wants to do business with you because you are a fucking dickwad that is the lesson of alistair Thorne in his voyage to King's Landing. I totally get it. So, Elsie. Elsie. Elsie.

Okay, who are we, Natacast? Yeah, who are we even? Are we having a... Am I reek? Oh my god. He's depending on the wall to protect all of them and is hoping that Mance is going to attack through a gate or try and climb over but Corrin tells him the real plan they actually plan on

trying to pass through a breach in the wall and they're gonna try breaking it and they're all just like how the fuck is that gonna happen that? That's silly. Mormont is, of course, skeptical because the wall is very, very thick with two Cs at the base. And it would take 100 men a year to cut through it. And Corrin thinks, well, I think they're going to use sorcery, right? They're looking for something, something magical. Something magical? Hmm. So, of course, like I said, magic is rising in Clash.

Clash is, while the dragons were born at the end of Game of Thrones, Clash is that direct birth of magic back in their world. Daenerys III had Quaithe right before this. Varys had his moment about sorcery in the chapters where he discusses everything that happened to him. This chapter is cushioned by shadow babies killing Renly and Courtney Penrose. Clash is about the rise of magic, but also a look at the fight that

is being fought. The others are the Great War, not the War of the Five Kings or the war considering the Wildlings. And of course, there's a red comet, like we said last episode, that is just in the background, the soft rhythm beating over everything. So of course, this leads us to the Horn of Joramun. In A Song of Ice and Fire, not talking about Jericho, not talking about the Horns of the Revelations, we have a little bit of history. In Bran IV, In a Storm of Swords, we get talk about the Night King. Or, sorry, the Night's King.

Oh, whoa. I mean, they're different, different okay i will stand by that well duh yeah he brought her back to the night fort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king and with strange sorceries he bound his sworn brothers to his will for 13 years they ruled knight's king and his corpse queen till finally the stark of winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the others, all records of the Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden. So lots of similarities to what we're seeing right now, right? After his fall, when it was

found he had been sacrificing to the others, this story right here alone tells us a little bit of Craster. But that's not it for A Song of Ice and Fire history. We also have the wildlings from the Wall and Beyond chapter in the World of Ice and Fire. The first king beyond the Wall, according to legend, was Joramun, who claimed to have a horn that would bring down the Wall when it woke the giants from the earth. That the Wall still stands says something of his claim and perhaps even of his existence. I love that flirtatious note that's written there, right? Like that the wall still stands says something of his claim and perhaps even of his existence. So we, you don't build a wall unless you're going to tear it down.

Yeah. Right. That's the common thread of thought here. And this wall is begging to come tumbling down just like the walls of Jericho. And the more and more that we see the horn in Storm and Dance is very interesting. John sends the real horn, right, the horn that he finds here, north of the wall with Sam, south, where Sam is going toward Old Town, where Euron Greyjoy is kind of coming with that twin horn we talked about Dragonbinder but in A Dance with Dragons we see a version of the horn in Storm and Dance burnt by Melisandre but it's a false burning just like the burning of Mance who's really not being burnt it's Rattleshirt who's being burnt for Stannis, who is the fake Azor Ahai, right? Melisandre's burning a fake with a fake horn for a fake prophet king. So it's just interesting that these stories are all going

to wrap up. And if Euron is the reason the wall comes down by any chance, which a lot of people speculate and theorize, it would make a lot of sense and fit in with this. Yeah, bringing in these legends is like really important to how we understand, as you were saying, the way horns operate in the story, because one of the people that was mentioned as a king who tried to breach the wall in John, I think, three, which we touched on lightly last episode, along with the Joramun, the king beyond the wall who allegedly had a horn horn very, very early on in the history of what will later become Westeros. We have a king beyond the wall named the Horned Lord, aka the Horned King, long before Bael the Bard. And I think that there's some kind of wordplay here, right?

Because I think that the obvious assumption is that the Horned Lord who, according to Dallas, is the Horned Lord, once said that sorcery is served without a hilt. And it's alleged that he used magic to pass south of the wall. They don't know what his fate was yet, but you might think that he has horns on his head, you know, like a stag or a deer, in being horned. We talk about in the story, Robert Baratheon was horned by being cuckolded by Circe, but what if he's called the horn Lord or Horn King because he actually had a horn, which was magic, to somehow pass south of the Wall? That might be something that's going on here. And I think that tying Jormun and the Night's King together in this passage is really

interesting because coming back again to Sam having that horn, the ancestors of his house, Herndon and Harlan of Horn Hill, like the Night's King, they seem to also have taken to wife some magical woman. They took a beautiful woods witch, right? And they apparently shared her favors for a hundred years. Talk about being brothers, you know? And they apparently didn't age as long as they would have sex with her whenever the moon was full, which is some interesting ideas between horns and, I don't know, weird...

Guys' witchiness. Yeah, weird guys doing... Lots of symbols. Yeah, weird guys doing weird symbolic things and weird things with women who are of the night. Is Darkstar? Maybe Darkstar plays a role in all this. So something that I've been thinking about is how the Night Swatch is the only kind of faction that can cross easily between the north and the south of the Wall. The north and the south of the wall. Alisand flying on her dragon obviously could not go north of the wall because of the magic.

And the wildlings have not been able to escape south of the wall easily. Except for, like you say, in history, you have these horned lord, horned kings that had a horn that helped them pass. It reminds me a lot of like the Black Gate, for example, too. Where the Night's Watchmen have to kind of speak to it and give their vow to be able to pass back and forth. So they're almost like the keepers of these realms. They are the watchers on the wall. They are the shield that guards the realms of men, and they are the only people that can pass back and forth between this life and death place. It's almost like the wall has that breach between the underworld and the regular world. If there's something to do with the Hordes and this idea of being able to pass through the wall has that like breach between the underworld and the regular world. If there's something to do with the horns and this idea of being able to pass

through the wall and them being that embodiment of the oath, not only are they the things that you mentioned, but they are the horn that wakes the sleepers. Yes. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that that is a big part of it.

And I just, I have this great imagery of almost, you know, just like the underworld in Greek mythology and being able to pass between the two. So, I don't know. The wall itself is that liminal space. But yeah. Yes.

And yeah, the wilderness and the underworld, winter is death, right? The land of always winter versus the land of the living. the land of always winter versus the land of the living. And you have that kind of like thematic idea of if the wall falls, then death comes for the rest of Westeros. Right. Pandora's box opens. Yeah. Interesting stuff.

Snarks and Grumpkins. I really want answers to Snarks and Grumpkins. I do too. I want them to be real, I believe. Corrin suggests that they send three groups of five men to probe the Milkwater, the Scrolling Pass, and the Giant Stairs. So we were

discussing all three of these possibilities in the last chapter. We've decided all of them, okay? We're going to send Jarman, Thorin, and Corrin to lead in each of these expeditions. And this means that if the teams don't come out, at least the Lord Commander's group remains here in the middle of the wall

and the wildlings to stop them should Vance try to pass through. Side note, I really like the name Jarman. Jarman. It's like an X-Men name. Yeah, kind of is. He shoots mace and jars out of his hands. Oh my god, that's the best.

That's the character we need. That's what would have made Dark Phoenix better. I haven't seen it yet, but that's the best that's the that's the character we need that's what would have made dark phoenix better i haven't seen it yet but that's what they needed if they all die they'll buy time for the brothers to freeze the gates and garrison the empty castles and corin says our lives will be coin well spent thinking face emoji coins spent prices Coins. Spent. Coins. Prices. Hmm. The cost. It's so high.

What does it mean? The cost is too damn high. What does it mean, Chloe? Mormont gives Corrin pick of his men. And of course, Corrin picks Jon Snow to the Lord Commander's dismay. Mormont looks at Jon and asks, what is your willingness? To go, he said at once once the old man smiled sadly i thought it might be dawn had broken when john stepped from the tent beside arthur dane i mean corinne the wind swirled around them stirring their black cloaks and

sending a scatter of red cinders flying from the fire. We ride at noon, the ranger told him. Best find that wolf of yours. Finn. This is it. This is the chapter. Wow. Into the great unknown. There's so much shit about to go down.

I can't wait till next week. I know. Oh, man. So many things happen from here on out. Shit. I know. And like, John Six is so exciting. We meet Ygritte finally. And John, of course, has a big choice that he has to make. Yes. And then of course, John seven is an even bigger choice that he has to make. So next chapter is going to be lit. Next episode will be crazy lit.

Yes. And we're gonna get a lot more of discussions of Khorne Halfhand. It's going to be so good. So good. Wow. That's a lot to digest. You actually kind of inspired me on a lot of different things this episode, so I have so much to think about to digest this. I think there's a lot of the life and death

and that cost of what pays for it. Even this rise of magic, we're really going to see a lot of coming up. And it's a little dark and gritty in Jon's plot. You know, it's very much like a DC movie, right? It's all grays and whites and blacks. So not X-Men. Not Jar-Men.

Not Dark Phoenix and Jar-Man, the Mason Jar X-Men. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, along with, as you were saying, that price of life and death, just like the world of the living and the world mean, along with as you were saying, that price of life and death, just like the world of the living and the world of the dead as you were discussing, as

Jon ventures further into the world of the dead and finds life there, finds a whole people. Yeah, but just like we learn in Daenerys, to go forward, you have to go back, so Jon has to go north to go north. He has to go north to go north he has to go north to go south

that's his story yes absolutely all right well thank you everyone for listening to us this week uh this was this was i i'm just like glad these chapters ended up together they were perfect for each other yeah and hey again we're going to next week talk a little more about how we're starting another series of dark materials and how we're going to set that up but of course tune in to just hear more about john you can make sure that you keep up with all that if you subscribe to us on itunes on google play on stitcher, on Spotify, on Acast, on Podbean, where all of these is hosted. And again, iTunes might be changing through

no fault of ours sometime soon. Well, we're pretty effective. It's probably our fault. And catch up with us on social media. We have a Twitter account that we post pretty regularly to, at Girls Gone Canon. Or if you fancy sending us an email email you can do so

at girls gone canon at gmail.com we love to hear from you we are accepting fan art of all kinds now apparently yes we always have eliana eliana also loves itunes reviews so make sure to leave her one except for again when i don't yeah or don't or don't do do whatever you want do whatever makes you happy and of course we have a Patreon this month we will finally hopefully be wrapping up our Dance of the Dragons series if you are $5 and up

you get special episodes such as that you can catch up on the rest of the Dance of the Dragons episodes and we have different things for different tiers yes yes yes yes and we may be reformatting those to include some His Dark Materials things eventually. We'll see. We'll find out. I always think we're going to be saying His Dar

every time. His Dar Materials! His Dar Materials! Maybe that's what we should call our rereading. His Dar Materials! As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. You know me on the internet as LiesInArbor or LiesInArborGold.com. And I've been another one of your hosts, Aliana.

And you know me as GlassTableGirl, also on other places in the internet or Arithmetic or whatever. You know me as whatever. Goodbye. I don't know where I'm going. You guys are great. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for his darn materials. Bye.