Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 55 - ACOK Jon VI/VII

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

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: liesandarborgold.com     https://upfromunderwinterfell.wordpress.com/2019/06/15/the-last-temptation-of-lord-commander-snow-part-1-killing-the-boy/  - The Last Temptation of Lord Commander Snow P1: Killing the Boy by Maester Merry Snowfall by Scott Buckley https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley  Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/jIsaq_7RqjY

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, episode 55, John 6 and 7 in A Clash of Kings. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as at Liza and Arbor or from LizaandArborGold.com. And I'm another one of your hosts, Aliana. You probably know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, on the Maester monthly podcast or as arithmetic over on twitter you guys i'm very excited about what there's so many things to be excited about there's a lot of there's so much happening all the time we are just having an exciting life i'm most excited about this chapter though right now like the next two chapters john six and john seven oh they're so good There's so much packed in these two little chapters. I mean, there was a lot packed in those last

two chapters, and then in this one things are just getting ramped up for John's storyline, you know? It turns out I like John. I'm sorry. I fooled you all. So John is in the Skirling Pass, or the Skaling Pass.

We got a lot of really great tweets from people with various band names, ska band names. Some of the really great ones that we got, you know, it was kicked off by Clint of the Laughing Tree. Our real big blackfish, Less Than Jockin'. That one's great. I really loved Reek and Pickle and The Food Who Glows Skulls and Kisses. We got Mighty Mighty Brontones. That one's

very good. That's like a very good pun. That's top two level pun. That one came from Topher Lundell. This one is also top tier from Bruno Marzipan, aka Crystal Pepsi. These are two different kinds of sweets, so I'm fascinated by this. It is

Manshall Crashers. Oh my god. It works on many levels. So good. So, everyone, check out this thread from Clint of the Laughing Tree, and everyone else's replies afterwards,

because they're amazing. I'm glad someone made that happen for me. And you. And everyone. Yes. Well, I'm really excited about His Dark Materials, the new series that we're doing. Yes. So

everyone, again, we are we announced last week our second series that we are going to be starting in July, the His Dark Materials series. The first book, since people seem to be a little confused, and I can understand why, because it has two different titles in the way that the first Harry Potter book had two different titles, but only one word was changed. These are completely different titles, right? So the first book of the His Dark Materials series is called Northern Lights, if you're in the UK, or maybe other countries in the world that are not the US. And if you're in the US, the publisher entitled begins in late 2019. It hasn't been announced yet. And we are going to switch over after finishing the first book to covering the

television series. And we'll put out episodes, you know, as those episodes air. Yeah, but first, we're gonna stick to the first book to the golden compass we'll probably do two to four chapters depending per episode and we're looking at doing this monthly to start maybe it'll increase maybe not we'll kind of go with the flow and see how you guys deal with all the content and i think what we're looking for in terms of starting this reread is we said july we're looking probably somewhere in late july we want to you know prep and and make sure that we're giving you the same sort of in-depth analysis that we give you for a song of ice and fire we're coming at this a little differently this is new territory for a lot of you and for some of us here and obviously we're

reading this colored a little bit by our experiences with A Song of Ice and Fire, but it's a completely different book series, right? It's covering different things. So we want to give it the space it deserves to breathe. But also, while I have you guys here, there are already so many awesome themes in it. And also, Lyra is such a little badass. She's so Arya. No spoilers. Read the books.

I think it's pretty obvious from the beginning. I don't think it's a spoiler and i think that's why you know when i first started a song of ice and fire in game of thrones you know i'm i'm used to those kinds of protagonists i think that's part of why i was so drawn to aria when i first started the series right we're excited that a lot of you are excited to start this with us one of the people who said that they're very excited is the Faceless Maester, a.k.a. Maester Mary on Twitter. Mary recently wrote an essay. There have been so many good pieces that have come out around the end of the show. And of course, from the books lately, Eliana is one of these people who has written that fabulous essay about Daenerys Targaryen that I will talk about until the day I die.

Technically came out before the end of the show. But Mary has written an awesome essay that is about Jon's sense of duty and familial allegiance and how it always will come before the vows that he's made, that he doesn't place a very high value on his perceived honor in anyone else's eyes. And it asks a ton of great questions. It's a really good companion in analyzing Jon's arc. We will link it in the details because I really want you guys to take a minute to read it. And of course, this is only part one of her essay series. She'll be covering more

and gives a sort of overview of what she's going to be talking about in her essay. So, you know, get in, read this essay and stay tuned for whatever else she's putting out. Yeah, the series is called The Last Temptation of Lord Commander Snow, Part 1, Killing the Boy. It's available on her WordPress, up from underwinterfell.wordpress.com, so make sure to check it out. Along with that, we also got this email from Warren, or Quorin, as he said on Twitter. Warren or Quorin as he said on Twitter since you know Quorin half hands in these

episodes that were Quorin emailed us about a story of some Irish folklore yeah he emailed us about some Celtic lore the story of Tere Danoj and he says the story that rings truest to me

in Jon's arc as he goes ranging with his Night's Watch brothers joins Quorin story of Terre de Noges, and he says, from the Fianna, Celtic warriors. She tells him she wants to marry his son, Oisin, which is Irish for young, and ultimately Oisin decides he will marry her, and he goes to Ternanoges. After a time, he misses his father and friends from Na Fianna and petitions to return home to Ireland. His wish is granted, but he's warned not to set foot on the soil. He meets some farmers who tell him his father and friends are long dead, and he's's distraught dismounting to help the farmer shift a boulder it might have been a cart either he ages dramatically and cannot return to his wife in ternanosh warren says he's often taken with the similarities in this tale and john's time beyond the wall it's not identical but i really sense the presence of the influence similarly there are elements of this story influencing Bran's quest north with Meera, Jojen, Hodor, and Summer. and of his his two families and in the end it seems like he kind of gets nothing which is really

sad he gets a little bit right but um ultimately the choices that he makes means that he loses something so i think that's a really really interesting tie i think there's a lot that people would see this in his ending in the show whether that is going to be his ending in the books which i'm 100 sure it is because george rr martin literally said it's gonna have the same ending as his would it's very much incorporated in these next chapters in the bail the bard story as well also in john's birth story which echoes bail the bard correct that's pretty pretty agreed on that bail the bard story is like egret looking at john and saying hey this is your birth story idiot your mom wasn't just some woman uh and it talks a lot about rhaegar and lyanna's choice like whether this was for prophecy

or for love what they did running off having john in secret that's kind of similar with those elements of choice that you speak about and it all kind of files in with that's kind of similar with those elements of choice that you speak about and it all kind of files in with that prophetic last hero storyline and bran has the last hero storyline as well while we bring that subject up you know they go north of the wall and they seek the truth yes that seems to be the thing everyone you come back and everyone's dead yay thank you warren for sending in that email. And let's get into it. You know, Chloe kicked us off a little with discussing Bail the Bard, which we're going to go into in this episode.

But first, let's do our lightning round. Tyrion 10. Tyrion has Tommen kidnapped. Hits Shae. Boo. And chats about where Varys's junk went. Oh, and he thinks about killing his sister again. He's a good guy, trademark. Catelyn, six.

The Starks continue to win in the Riverlands, but Catelyn still feels anxiety and feels like they're losing. Bran, six. Theon Greyjoy takes Winterfell. Arya, nine. Arya frees the hundred Northmen prisoners at Harrenhal with Jaqen and begins to serve Roose Bolton. Daenerys, four. Daenerys IV. Daenerys enters the House of the Undying. Tyrion XI.

Tyrion takes time to organize the city's defense while Stannis draws near. Theon IV. Theon hunts for the escapees, escapee, of Winterfell. These are Bran, Rick and Meera, Jojen, Osha, Hodor, and of course Summer in case you all need to remember. And he employs the help of a man named Dory of Reek to help.

This leads us into Jon VI, in which Jon is moving through the Skirling Pass with Corrin, Halfhand, and his crew, and comes across several wildlings, but also a spearwife named Ygritte. Ygritte tells Jon the story of bail the bard and he finds himself unable to kill her and so begins john six with squire dalbridge watching um the watchers in the above scrolling pass and the fire is burning harder squire dalbridge is the oldest among all of them and he had actually been a squire to a king. Allegedly, Jaehaerys II, according to the World of Ice and Fire. Fire is life up here, said Corrin half-hand, but it can be death as well. By his command, they'd risked no open flames since entering the mountains.

They ate cold salt beef, hard bread, and harder cheese, and slept clothed and huddled beneath a pile of cloaks and furs grateful for each other's warmth it made john remember cold nights long ago at winterfell when he'd shared a bed with his brothers these men were brothers too though the bed they shared was stone and earth they'll have a horn said stone snake the half hand said a horn they must not blow yeah so first of all i want to say hard bread and hard cheese are not fun to eat as someone who's trying to do that myself sometimes i try and rehydrate my bread like 50 50 chance um i've never thought you know before about how close the knights watchmen get and that they would share

a bed with one another like this beneath the cloaks and furs i think really adds a little something to what we're going to talk about later on with Mance and Corrin. But regarding these fires, right, it's kind of a catch-22 for everyone north of the wall, because Mance obviously fears the wights and the others, right, which is probably the same for the other

free folk, and that's why they're lighting a fire. They're risking being seen by the Night's Watch because they need to have a fire if they're going to keep the others away i kind of just like this line from corn half and talking about the horn that the these watchers have saying a horn that they must not blow the whole idea of them sleeping together under these cloaks and furs is just what jay or has been trying to teach john that like it's a matter of life and death that these are your brothers when you're north of the wall on a

ranging that warmth is whether you live or die that those are the brothers that have your back when you come under attack by wildlings such an interesting conversation to have about that bond especially with what's coming with corinneatham. They're family, so desertion, anything, it's very personal. Yeah, I wish I could do that to my friends. Like, you desert me, Pyre. What? Don't burn bridges, burn your friends. Anyways, whoa, whoa.

It got dark. Girls got canon. Okay, anyways, Ebon thinks it's a long, cruel climb, climb and corn says it's also a longer fall but i'm gonna throw this out there it's actually shorter when you fall yeah anyways no matter what you fucking idiot jesus corn you idiot it's so much faster gravity uh corn knows a lot anyways he even gets to reach his own watchers and uh stone snake is one of them he's ready for the climb and so is john yeah ghost stays with corin so that ghost isn't spotted because fur in the moonlight is more obvious and john goes off with stone snake and his crew so this is something i didn't realize

until today the show definitely did this differently in that corin doesn't go with them in the books uh but in the show corin goes with them obviously he's the lead character in this little side plot so i get it i'm not like mad about it but i just thought it was interesting because there's a lot more implication of having corin not see what john goes through away from there interesting the ground is super uneven so john has to be super careful uh stone snake knows the ground by heart but john is kind of you know trying to keep up the wind cut like a knife up here and shrilled in the night like a

mother mourning her slain children what few trees they saw were stunted grotesque things growing sideways out of cracks and fissures tumbled shelves of rock often overhung the trail fringed with hanging icicles that looked like long white teeth from a distance.

I think that's a huge shout to Catelyn right there. A mother mourning her slain children. This is, everything's happening, right? This is the end of Clash of Kings. Bran and Rickon have been declared dead soon. You know, right around this time pretty much. Right after this is when Theon and

Reek kind of, you know, burn those kids and everyone thinks it's Rickon and Bran. So mother mourning her slain children. Really beautiful setup. This is when everything is happening in Clash. Yes, it's interesting that it's also here north of the wall that we start getting some of that language that points towards that. Because obviously it's not happening anymore at this point in the story but you know in the 93 letter originally catelyn was supposed to go north of the wall with with her children yeah so and die there it's some it's some interesting stuff that george

is pointing to it here um i i also like that you called out how the ground isn't even and john has to be careful and obviously you know some of this climb you know now John's an experienced climber for like the next time we have to do this shit right but that's uh this is a coming of age story right John doesn't know the ground as well as Stone Snake and he does and that's the difference between

a man of the night's watch and just being a recruit yeah and then John of course sees many wonders during his climb and ascent he sees icy thin waterfalls over sheer stone cliffs autumn wildflowers across the meadow blue cold snaps and scarlet frost fires and piper's grass in russet and gold i just had to call that out because it's such a beautiful paragraph the language is beautiful george does a great job with that world building of what it looks like north of the wall and where that magic comes in and that there's not a ton of color but there is some color in this wildlife very very lightly peppered in like if we were watching bob ross if we were watching bob ross

you know this is him bringing a little color into the world just painting just a little flowers and a little cabin you know just uh just real calm painting it last episode you mentioned we don't hear the night's watch uh really talk about the comet too much we only hear them think about it here and there john sees it here and there and says something about it but we don't hear them declare sides for it however when they're north of the wall the wildlings frost fire that lingers above them is kind of like their own comet that is their version of the comet. That's their signifier that those frost fires signify that they need to defeat these wildlings. Yes, and I love how you're seeing this changing of the seasons through the plants as a way of heralding that.

Jon then watches a shadow cat stalk a ram. And he thinks, he must be like the shadow cat here, like liquid smoke. He wonders who will be the ram and who will be the shadow cat in their chase against the wildlings. Very Arya-esque, right? Swift as a deer, quiet as a shadow, fear cuts deeper than swords, you know, fierce as a wolverine from her, just her entire Game of Thrones repetition. Yes. The ascent is really rough going up the wall and frost has begun sticking to john's recently acquired facial hair from you know not shaving that's called out and i'm like oh my god

this is such a teenager boy to think about my peach fuzz getting frozen i'm finally growing a stash growing up on the wall mtv true life. One step and then another, John told himself. One step and then another, and I will not fall. This reminds me of Maya Stone leading Kat up in the eerie and also Sansa's ascent in the eerie. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I didn't think of that in that connection. For me, when I saw that language of the one step and then another, one step and then another, that's pretty much like those motifs that Jeremy

brought up in that email that we talked about last episode. Yeah, it reminds me of Sam and the way that recurs in Sam's first Storm chapter, where for him, though, the line that is repeated is, sobbing, Sam took another step, and that's what ties all of that together.

In John, it said, one step and then another another one step and then another and i will not fall i do like it because it brings back that idea of rhythm that you've always talked about so often and that we've been talking about a lot in the last couple chapters of how john is one step and then another and sam is sam took another step and it's definitely on different rhythms right yeah and it reminds me of that idea of needing to go forward and what it means to have to grow up right Danny's story she always thinks about how she has to also go forward and in a way John hasn't had to deal with trauma in the same way yet in this chapter but Sam will when those lines occur and i think it's their coping mechanism for that point in time that the only way they can leave is they have to go forward because they're gonna

break if they look back yeah and we're gonna see a lot of that in the next chapter and we'll talk about that towards the end of the chapter but this really is john's first time as a soldier north of the wall at the end of last episode right he very quickly volunteers and jr mormont knew that john was going to do that right because john's been longing for this adventure he's been longing to be a hero in the songs he's going to find it's not everything that he thought it was going to be and i wonder to an extent um that motivated him to initially almost desert right to join robin his army like for him he thought that was a noble cause that he would join in the songs fighting alongside

getting vengeance for his family but this is a way of doing it too and he's gonna find that there's different kinds of truths in songs yeah and it is a lot of truth seeking where sansa had to find that you know the songs aren't always real john is learning that on his own way as well and more than that it's this whole entire time john is trying to prove himself as a stark as a man he's trying to prove himself as ned's son this entire journey when he literally took a vow where he's supposed to forget that kind of see where that stark contrast huh uh starts to really build and how when he thinks of he's doing the right thing he really is doing it for an entire other reason and that's the problem it's not that he's not doing the right thing it's that he's not doing it for the right yeah and he's no one else

on the fucking night's watch gives a shit if he proves himself a Stark son or not, right? Because they're like, you're a part of the Night's Watch now, dude. He's doing it and trying to prove that he's Ned's son to himself. And he's always thinking it to himself. He wasn't his dad, but he was his daddy. But Rhaegar is his dad. That's the bitter dramatic irony of it all. Rhaegar is actually his dad.

He's trying to prove himself to be this man that wasn't even his father. And that's where his identity spins out of control in the very end. That's where we're going to find him probably in A Dream of Spring or In the Winds of Winter. Yeah, trying to understand what fatherhood means. But along with his parents, the mountain is your mother.

Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won't drop you. John had made a joke of it, typical teenager things. I would've done that. Saying how he'd always wondered who his mother was, but never

thought to find her in the Frostfangs. It did not seem nearly so amusing now. Yeah, it's treacherous up there. It's crazy for the beauty of the environment what we just read of how beautiful it was and all the little autumn flowers and all of the ice along the way and how it looks like glass basically not all that glitters is gold and it reminds me a lot

of that line from maya stone in elaine too in a feast for crows that a mountain is not a man and a stone is a mountain's daughter it's the whole entire passage where she talks about parenthood. So again, this is coming right back into that with Robert Baratheon as her father and how, you know, one day he just stopped coming. Yeah, and that is interesting because you're seeing through Maya Stone that she's struggling with this sort of fate of vastity herself, right? We didn't really dig into it as much but john's experience isn't necessarily unique to him and it's unique in how his life is and who he is of course right but it's

shared by a lot of these other great bastards and i'm sure edrick storm probably feels well edrick storm knows who his dad is but maya stone obviously feels this especially with that abandonment and john's father did not abandon him but he doesn't know what happened to his mother. Nonsensical aside, and Chloe's gonna, whatever. West Virginia mountain mama, take me home. Frostfang Road. Okay, so, speaking of roads, at the end of a road... Go on, Eliana.

I want you to continue what you were going to say now. At the end of a road, they're at the end of a very narrow track, and John must follow. Stone Snake moves very closely and carefully. And then John remembers Stone Snake's advice never to look down, and he just keeps going. Although, you know, he slips here and there and even rips open his thumbnail. Yeah, he's leaving blood on the rocks, which is gross,

but also like a trail of where he's been. And it's very much so like what you just said above, that if I look back I am lost it is that repetition of that line and John knows that if he looks down he's lost yeah and of course a lot of that is against the backdrop of him remembering oh yeah

I had a brother who's actually really good at climbing and he fell yeah yeah he's thinking of his courage and he's trying to draw from it which is really sweet uh it reminds me of you know sansa always thinking of rob and saying like i must be brave like rob and aria thinking of her family as well yes stone snake pulls john up and they crawl 300 yards to watch the wildlings at their fire they were only planning for two but there are three wildlings And it's exactly like what you were just saying. the wildling with the horn and john agrees they have marked him for death john thinks did rob feel

this way before his first battle and it's exactly like what you were just saying of how sansa thinks of rob and draw strength and john does this of course we've seen many times throughout his chapter he's like is this what rob feels like and yeah they just john could be a dragon as much as people say he is he can be as targaryen and as he wants but he draws his strength from winterfell just like they do from the old gods i mean i think that's a big thing in the song of ice and fire right sure it's not the case for everyone but the brothers they keep each other alive and warm people draw a lot of their strength from other people we're all connected oh god damn i think it relays that idea of choice and choosing you know choosing

between the ice and the fire and fire consumes ice preserves in the show even has given theon choice right he says you can be both you know you can embrace both but john wants to not he wants to choose you know he wants to be stark he's always wanted to be stark and he can be like water from that you know he can be both mold himself to the cup of either like in pokemon where like there's all the orbs oh my god you're right uh the power of the power of three and there are three wildlings here we did it we connected it wow the dragon has three heads wow so stone snake leaps down on the wildlings, bringing pebbles with him and kind of relishing keeping that name alive. And Jon unsheathes his sword, Longclaw, following suit.

And it all happens at once. Stone Snake kills the man with the horn and knocks the horn aside before he can blow it. Jon admires his courage at trying and failing to blow the horn before dying, though, which I really respect. We as readers are supposed to as well, because mean corin says as much regarding wildlings being the same as the people south of the wall later on and the same as the night's watch you know that they're all human but for this man to reach for his horn first like that's indicative of something that's explored in this chapter and john's next one i mean his whole fucking storyline right whatever

duty like in reaching for the horn first, this wildling, through his actions, the story tells us that this nameless dead man put his duty- I think we get his name later on, whatever- to his fellow people before his own survival. If he could just get that one blast out, that could make all the difference of life and death for all of these wildlings. I mean, horns in the story, right? We talked about it extensively last episode. Should it be Jormund's that brings down the wall? It's a note that's a little flipped on its head.

That single blast is all that separates life and death. Yes, great points about Jormund's horn, especially with that line earlier that they can't blow that horn. If that's the horn that brings down the wall, they're screwed. They're stuck on the opposite side with all the dead. Yeah, but they're willing to make that risk, right? If all of them will live. They're like, fuck everyone down there. Yeah.

Sacrifice is a huge theme in these coming chapters. John comes down on the man at the fire, but his sword is jerked out of his hands at the kill. hands of the kill he goes to grab it back and he's ready to kill the red-haired man but as the point is at the wildling's neck he realizes it's not a man it's a woman a girl even no older than he is john could see fear and fire in her eyes blood ran down her white throat from where the point of his dirt had pricked her one thrust and it's done he told himself he was so close he could smell onion on her breath she is no older than i am something about her made him think of aria though they look nothing at all alike will you yield he asked giving the jerk a half turn and if she doesn't the girl yields though and john takes

her as their captive against stone snake's wishes stone snake argues that corin didn't say anything about taking captives and that the spear wife was going to kill him had he given her a second more with that axe right there john says i'll be watchful of her she won't get a chance and he asks her her name and then gives her his own which she says is an evil name speaking of fairy stories right in those emails this is such an interesting thing that egret demands john's name back and then it says that it's an evil name i and i don't think in a song of ice and fire i mean maybe it does maybe it doesn't but we haven't really seen that same sort of idea of if you have someone's true name or something right you can control them but names are important within this story it does kind of remind me of the ghost of

high heart a little bit here when she meets aria and she says begone child you know dark heart in a way it's almost like that it does have that like slight prophetic you know that's what you'd expect that's a woods witch and the wildlings are wildlings, right? Savages from the woods. And they have their superstitions, right? Like, for her to say Jon Snow is an evil name, maybe it's more gray than that, you know? I'm gonna say some people might interpret some of his actions later on. As Mary points out in her essay, it's just some of the things he does are very ambiguous. So Jon's obviously not evil, we're not saying that. But the wildlings' enemies have been starks and stark bastards and bastards of the north forever, though.

Bastards of the north that get sent to the wall. Oh, interesting. I was thinking it had to do with Snow being his last name, especially because the winter has been bringing death for all of them. Maybe it's all of it. It has made life hard for them. Yeah. I mean, it's all their enemy.

That's all their enemy.'s all their enemy yeah egret ominously tells them they should burn the bodies of the men they killed but stone snake is suspicious and he thinks that's exactly what she wants them to do to signal the other wildlings we the audience are like um no they just come back to life and then kill you they'd kill you dead egret's not trying to signal the other wildlings she's being pretty fucking practical here and john's like yeah let's do that because somehow in these not trying to single the other wildlings. She's being pretty fucking practical here. And Jon's like, yeah, let's do that. Because somehow in these rangings, many of the other Night's Watch

haven't seen the wights or the others, where it's just like the ones who have don't really survive except for Garrod. And I don't know, it makes me wonder if the wights and the others are trying to avoid being seen by the Night's Watch for the most part. Right? Were they just trying to plot things in secret and maybe they decided

you know, we're bored. Let's send Othar and Jafer or whatever. Well, I guess maybe that was to signal a message or send a message now as well but especially since we just keep hearing the numbers are dwindling in the Night's Watch. Before the Night's Watch was formidable they were the watchers on the wall.

They were the shields that guarded the realms of men and the others haven't had to come back like this has become from the wildlings which is the wrong fight the others are the true fight the true attack right and they have not come in a thousand years you know since the last the long night yeah i why were they not given a bigger briefing on this? I don't know. And why does, of course, the most junior member is the only one that gives a shit? John. Yeah. But so it goes. Yeah. Stone Snake says that there are other ways to deal with the bodies, and so they haul the men off the pass together and throw them off the cliff.

But they're coming back you know what is dead may never die yeah i mean like for this to have been effective they would have had to like really really splattered very hard and basically been turned into a jam and i don't think that that was the case no i think you're correct there they begin to question egret and they ask what awaits them beyond the past. And she says more free folk. Jon kind of realizes from the way that she speaks, she doesn't actually know how many free folk are there. She says hundreds and thousands, more than they've ever seen.

She won't tell them why they're in the Frostfangs. She falls silent, staring in the fire. And when asked about them marching on the wall and Jon's Uncle Benjen, she stays silent. And she just stares into the flames. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure Ygritte just doesn't know how many of them there are. She's not trained in knowing the difference between hundreds and thousands. And she probably doesn't know what happened to Benjen either, but it's cool that she makes them think she might. Yeah, right. I'm just here.

She's not going to say shit. Good for her. Good for her. What right do they have? They're the ones that came here. She's not gonna say shit. Good for her. Good for her. What right do they have? They're the ones that came north. She lives there. Yeah.

This is her home. A shadow cat comes and Jon draws his sword, but Ygritte tells him he's ridiculous and the cats are gonna eat the flesh of the men and their bone marrow all night. This is in fact preferable to becoming zombies, throwing this out there. Yeah, agreed. Jon asks if those they killed were her kin. Ygritte says no more than Jon or Stonesnake are. He doesn't understand, and she says he's the Master of Winterfell, and she asks him who his mother was. And he says, some woman, most of them are.

Someone had told him that, which we know is Tyrion. Ygritte can't believe that whoever his mother was had never sung him the song of the winter rose and this is so heavy-handed but i love it it is of course the story of bail the bard yes also when the did he not explain this when the hell was his mother gonna sing him this anyways right uh come on be great you're fucking. I love you, though. Be fucking sensitive, Egret. Christ. Egret teases him, calling anyone who is from below the wall, right, a southerner, and telling him, you're probably not going to like this story. She's nagging him about it, but she eventually tells it all the same. Before, Bael was king of the Free Folk, and he was a raider.

Stonesnake, though, calls him a raper and a murderer, but Ikrit says that's up to perspective. Okay, is this exact meta-commentary about Rhaegar or not, though? Airhorns. Airhorns. It's literally about Rhaegar. Oh, he's a rapist and a murderer. Okay, well, that's up to your point of view, I guess. Which is what George is trying to say, I guess. What else?

The Starks at the time wanted to capture Bael, but they couldn't, and bitterly called Bael a craven to those who would listen. The word got back to Bael, and he was like, fuck that shit, and wanted to teach the Starks a lesson. So he comes in, he demands a rap battle, and by that he doesn't actually, he, well, kinda.

Because he's a bard. Anyways, he came south, passed the wall, and entered Winterfell with a harp in hand. And he named him, he called himself though, Sidric of Skagos, or Deceiver, the Old Tongue. And interestingly enough, we have Davos journeying right now in Dance in the Wind's Winter to Skagos to steal a child. I think that's such a cool parallel.

Yes, it is. Lots of trickster characters. The North welcomed singers, and Bael ate at Lord Stark's very table. He ate his food. He played him songs well. Stark offered him a prize of his choosing, and he chose a blue winter rose. Stark said it would be done, but by morning, the singer had vanished with Lord Brandon's daughter.

Her bed was empty, but for the blue rose. Jon interrupts, asking which Brandon this was, and Ygritte tells him, Brandon the Daughterless! He had no children but her! Shut up! Duh, Jon! asking which Brandon this was and Egret tells him Brandon the Daughterless he had no children but her shut up duh John I do love that we get this in such close relation

just a few chapters after Danny 4 in Clash when she's in the House of the Undying and we get that a blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice and filled the air with sweetness it's a really perfect tie in to make you remember oh this all goes together. Right, and just like

in that same chapter, of course, her seeing a man dying with a woman's name on his lips, proclaiming some random boy, song of ice and fire. Yes, although, of course, that was Aegon. Yep. Or was it Aegon?

Oh my god. everyone searches for the daughter and everyone fears that the stark line is at its end but lord stark hears a child's cry in the hour of the wolf one day and he finds his only daughter in her bed with a baby on her chest john asks if bale had brought her back but egret's like no they never, they hid in the crypts, which... Winterfell, Bran, things happening, whatever. The maid loved Bael so dearly, she bore him a son, the song says.

Though, if truth be told, all the maids loved Bael in them songs he wrote, be that as it may, what's certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is. You have Bael's blood in you, same as me. The real North, just like that scene we got in season eight of Game of Thrones,

we had that moment that you have the North in you, Jon, the real North. And that's what this passage and this little story really is all about. It is Ygritte telling him, you know, you are a Northerner, you are a true northerner and it's george's way of showing us who john's mother really is and giving more kind of commentary on that whole song and story and how it relates to john and john says it's not a real story that never happened but egret says it's a good song that her mother used to sing it to her and that her mother was a woman too just like his it's a good song john the song ends when they find the babe but there's a darker end of the story 30 years later when bale was king beyond the wall and led the free folk south it was young lord start who met him at the frozen ford and killed him for bale would not harm his

own son when they met sword to sword so the the son sued the father instead, said Jon. Aye, she said. But the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael's head upon his spear, she threw herself out from a tower in her grief. Her son did not outlive her long. One of his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak. Your Bael was a liar, he told her, certain now.

Eh, that sounds like a Bolton. I don't know. Right? Very Bolton. That's so Bolton. That's definitely the Boltons. And it's definitely showing what's to come. I mean, we just had the Bolton happen with, we just had it happen with those two Miller's

boys. Yeah. Like, that sounds, I don't know. That checks out to me, John. Yeah. just had it happen with those two miller's boys yeah like that sounds i don't know that that checks out to me john yeah but um along with that the structure of this story is interesting and we're gonna obviously get into the the content of it but before then i'm like there's a few influences that i feel george is working with here or uh story traditions that you see echoing in the bale of the bard like in g Greek mythology and sure other mythologies too

you have that sort of trickster way like that a god sneaks his way into the line of some mortal houses like for example the way Zeus comes to Danae as a golden shower which I'm like what is going on in this story what do we mean by golden shower anyway and then with

a new Lord Stark not recognizing his father and slaying him leading to the grief of his mother uh killing herself right uh you get something a little reminiscent of oedipus now john isn't going to end up sleeping with his mother because she's just some woman in and has never sang him songs because she's dead but that the song evokes the story of oedipus has some resonance with john's storyline with his heritage being very much shrouded from him and then of course incest does still hang over the story and while it's not his own mother it's his aunt it's bringing back that same sort of irony

that the play Oedipus is known for. Ygritte says this line to him and it comes in with all this idea of stories and not only are there all these references from different texts like Oedipus but also from within the story, from all of the different stories that we get throughout this series. It comes right after the House of

the Undying and it has major rebellion and red wedding parallels even hidden within it. I love the line Ygritte gives to him, but a bard's truth is different than yours or mine. on dying and it has major rebellion and red wedding parallels even hidden within it i love the line egret gives to him but a bard's truth is different than yours or mine uh the songs are always different just like we kind of mentioned that it almost hints at rhaegar whether he raped and kidnapped and murdered lyanna or whether it was an elopement and romance run away out on the horseback in the countryside to dorn. You think about Brandon outside the Red Keep and the Lord Brandon in the story.

Come out and die, Rhaegar. The woman throwing herself from the tower not only has Lyanna Stark vibes of being kept in the tower with the baby, but also has Azshara Dayne vibes and her quote-unquote suicide. And of course Helena Targaryen and even Catelyn vibes with the mourning mother reference we had

earlier in the chapter. Bolton skinning the Lord is literally happening right now in the story in Theon's plot, right? He's skinning the Lords but it isn't really the little Lords of Winterfell. It's not the princes. It is, of course, the Miller's boys.

And in the end, there's that beautiful idea of the truth being hidden in Winterfell's crypts of Jon's parentage. And it reminds me of Paparotti's piece on Egg's Ring. You can check it out on, you can check that out on our A Song of Ice and Fire, our A-Swath on Reddit. She has a piece on Aegon the Unlikely, Aegon V's Ring, being the evidence that is hidden in Lyanna's crit to prove that Jon was a Targaryen. Rhaegar and Bail both have their heart plucking a girl from Winterfell

just as Abel goes on to do so in A Dance with Dragons. We even get this idea of the Stark line possibly ending which is what we're being faced with right now after the War of the Five Kings and Sansa being made a Lannister in the next book. What you're saying about that Bard's truth plays into a larger discussion of the truth of songs, like we've discussed before, that much of Sansa's storyline is about the disillusionment of realizing that life is not a song and that there aren't any heroes in the way that she was taught. But

that doesn't invalidate the truth behind the values that the songs espouse, right? And that people should aspire to be better. We're all going to all gonna fail we're human but we can still try to be better and there's something of that response to that songs like those of bail the bard or the legends that the reads tell bran about the tourney of harrenhal that's masked in that language of fables like there's truth in the emotion and i think that's what egret's trying to tell him and saying that there's a bard's truth to this and of course the legends and songs they might get distorted as they're passed down but they do carry some of that oral history yeah and not only does john represent that taken child idea and theme like bail the bard but john goes on to become the own bail the bard and switching children at the wall later on yeah dawn and Corrin Halfhand arrived together.

The black stones had turned to gray, and the eastern sky had gone indigo when stone snakes spied the rangers below, wending their way upward. Two things just to add here. One, those Arthur Day and his Corrin Halfhand theories all base off of this, and that's so funny to me.

We are going to chat about it later and about the thematics that surround those tinfoil theories but why the thematics that surround them actually work really well and you know the indigo sky uh dawn and corin arriving together it's very interesting language it's supposed to depict that emotion probably similar of what you feel about arthur dane through ned's fever dreams i do love the black stones turning to gray especially as john goes deeper into the north and his cloak is going to slowly turn to grays when he takes the wildling cloak that's interesting i didn't think about that and of course that's very much about the lines becoming blurred for john like how right now john pulls egret along with them and then he plays with ghost and egret's standing here like

what the fuck is going on right now when he's just playing with this dangerous animal yeah her eyes are huge and white like big old legs i know i love that he looks at just like she's like you don't play with them like they're wild fucking animals john she's like danger this is dangerous but that goes a lot with that skin changing idea right like john is going to become a skin changer soon enough and uh they don't it's not normal you know it happens to only one and how many people yeah and i mean i'm sure egret has encountered other skin changers before right because she knows some of that when they get back but she's just like that's a dire wolf though this is wild what's going on that bond with that his bond with his dog is a little different than most people's

bonds with their pets yes because they're out here wrestling and being cute and shit the other rangers though all patronize john for keeping Ygritte as a captive, and Jon repeats that she yielded! And Corrin takes control of the situation, saying that you're a son of Winterfell and a man of the Night's Watch, and, like, you know what you gotta do. Yeah, Corrin gives Jon privacy and a knowing look, and he takes off with the men.

And he led them up the steep twisting trail toward the pale pink glow of the sun where it broke through a mountain cleft. And before very long, only Jon and Ghost remained with the wildling girl. I love that. I think it's beautiful. It's just beautiful imagery. There's so much good imagery actually in the Jon chapters. There's a lot of nature.

Yeah, absolutely. And then of course we get to the scene where Jon must now make a choice he thought egret might try to run but she only stood there waiting looking at him you never killed a woman before did you when he shook his head she said we die the same as men but you don't need to do it. Mance would take you. I know he would.

There's secret ways. Them crows would never catch us. I'm as much a crow as they are, John said. She nodded, resigned. Will you burn me? After? I can't. The smoke might be seen.

That's so. She shrugged. Well, there's worse places to end up than the belly of a shadow cat. He pulled Longclaw over his shoulder. Aren't you afraid? Last night I was, she admitted. But now, the sun's up. She pushed her hair aside to bare her neck and knelt before him. Strike hard and true, crow, or I'll come back and haunt you. Longclaw was not so long or heavy a sword as his father's ice, but it was Valyrian steel all the same. He touched the edge of the blade to mark where the blow must fall, and Ygritte shivered.

That's cold, she said. Go on, be quick about it. He raised claw over his head both hands tight around the grip one cut with all my weight behind it he could give her a quick clean death at least he was his father's son wasn't he wasn't he wasn't he was do it she urged him after a moment bastard do it i can't stay brave forever when the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him john lowered his sword go he muttered egret stared now he said before my wits return go she went I'm so gonna pick some music for behind that by the way that was pretty epic we did great what a little passage

that's right there that's Jon showing you his character and you get a little bit of Ygritte's character too in the way that she deals with it she's here she's facing her death head on and i i love that she's like i can't be brave forever and you know that she's like i'm brave now that the sun is up i can deal with it she has her own kind of honor yeah she has her own honor system and it speaks a lot to where

his honor system is coming from. It's very much so coming from being Ned's son, quote unquote. And it also leads into those thoughts we get throughout the rest of the books for Jon. Like in Jon's six in a storm of swords when he leaves her. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. And it just rings with that same line. He was his father's

son wasn't he wasn't he i'm just riffing here but like him thinking he was his father's son thinking of his family part of what made it so difficult for him to kill egret is that she reminded him of aria if he's his father's son and stark this is also like that first round of humanizing the wildlings you know like they're just they're just people. He looks at Ygritte and he sees Arya. She's just like his little sister Arya. She's just a person. There's nothing wrong with her. There's nothing criminal with her. She's running from the White Walkers,

which they're gonna be doing as well. Yeah. And I mean, she and the people she was with, they were watchers too. They were watchers of their own sort of wall. They've held the North longer than the Night's Watch have. Yeah. They're justers of their own sort of wall. They've held the north longer than the Night's Watch have. Yeah, they're just trying to look out and protect their people. Are they not supposed to guard the realms of their people as well?

They're guarding the realms of men, same as they are. And we'll talk about that a little more in the next chapter that we're getting to in a second. Yes, but first, our lightning round, what we missed. The only chapter we missed between Jon VI and Jon VII is Sansa IV. After meeting with Dantos, who pledges to get her out of the city, Sansa spends some time with Sandor Clegane. She awakens the next morning after having her moon's blood for the very first time. And that takes us to Jon VII.

Corrin learns the type of man that Jon is in sparing Ygritte. Squire Dalbridge sacrifices his life to keep his brother safe. Oh, what a G. I know. He's like the Alan of this plot. Oh. He is. Yep. He is. Yep. Oh, Alan. Why would you

bring up Alan again? God. I know, I'm sad. Sorry. So they walk the Skirling Pass finally, which is steep and narrow. In single file, Squire Dalbridge leaves, keeping watch, except Ghost, who walks beside John. Sometimes he stops, hearing things. As they reach the

highest point that leads to the milk water, Corrin says they'll wait until it's darker. Yes, and finally as everyone is resting, John says, Corrin, ya, uh, so you never asked me about, um, my date? yes and finally as everyone is resting John says Corin you uh so you never asked me about um my date why didn't you ask me about my hot date

Corin the one where I'm supposed to kill oh god anyways and then Corin's like first of all I'm not a lord and then he affirms that yes you're right john mance would have taken you and i've actually heard the songs that mance used to sing before you know about

bail bail the bar because mance used to sing them after rangings all the time we all knew him his voice was sad they were friends as well as brothers realized, and now they are sworn foes. Mance, according to Corrin, loved the wild. He was wildly born. Mance returning to the wild, I don't know, the story of Mance in a way reflects that of Jon and Ygritte, right? If you come back to that line that Jojen says of if love and hate can mate, like, for Mance and Corrin, as we were talking about earlier, they were close. They kept each other alive. They had to be physically close. They had to be spiritually and emotionally close if they were going to stand by each other like that. But with Mance and Corrin and the other brothers of the Night's Watch, they've become then sworn enemies. That's why

you hear that sort of sadness from Pain and Love when Corrin talks about Mance this is one direction that love and hate can flow but for Jon and Ygritte it flows the other way, they were sworn foes who then become lovers as they begin to recognize that humanity in one another and neither way that this goes is any less

difficult, right? It's hurtful both ways realizing the humanity in your enemy and either having to face them or having to part from them uh being star-crossed lovers yeah definitely is that star-crossed kind of almost arthurian even you know like saving guinevere uh it's kind of john's own little raygar and liana love story comes out with John and Ygritte. Yeah. He was the best of us, said Halfhand, and the worst as well.

Only fools like Thor and Smallwood despise the wildlings. They are as brave as we are, John, as strong, as quick, as clever, but they have no discipline. They name themselves the Free Folk, and each one thinks himself good as a king and wiser than a maester. Mance was the same. He never learned how to obey. Jon quietly says, hard same. Corrin's like, okay, so you didn't do it. Jon's like, hey, finger guns, finger guns. Corrin's like, all right, word.

What I also like about this quote, right, is that there's respect from Corrin of the wildlings. He understands that they're the same, but that makes the choice more difficult. And that makes it weigh a little more that he has to choose himself and his vows over what he sees as their humanity. But it's sad because where Corrin finds himself being honorable he's being honorable to his vows which stem from of course this systemic idea of the night's watch while john of course chooses ned's honor he's honoring his father and the choices he's making in the stark name ned chooses to hide john away in secret for his family for blood for love uh where corin is honoring the vows he made for the night's watch which is just

to defend the realm john he's thinking here but aren't they the realm too for corin especially looking at how mance was his brother and that betrayal you see where this institution both hurt and coddled both of them the night's watch is truly the problem here like the problem with the night's watch is the night's watch mance didn't agree with these. He found that free folk were just humans and he wanted the freedoms they had. And those freedoms come with harsh conditions like winter and ice zombies. But isn't that what being free is about? Right? And that's why they're coming south, though.

They all know it. All of his people have seen and been affected by the White Walkers, by the others. That's why Ygritte sits there looking into the flames. She's looking in the flames, thinking of these ice zombies that are coming to get them she's willing to make these fires and give away their position she's like oh it's better than the zombies y'all yeah like what you're saying with mance like he didn't agree with their morals he thought that they were just inconsistent and he maybe comes back to that love is the death of honor right even though i still have qualms with that but he didn't love the wildling woman who sacrificed and gave up her most important worldly possession to fix his cloak

right but he was just like how can we not feel something that there's a sentimentality behind his desertion he's like this woman gave this incredibly precious thing for me and you would take that away because of what your stupid code it's something very very small but at the same time man sees the meaning in it man's is like past the blunt strums his loot it's just life and love bro it's just life and love he's like the hippie king yeah until he has to start killing people yeah that he's not so peace and love yeah john explains that he followed ned's example though uh of looking in their eyes and before executing them and he saw no evil and corn's like uh yes this is the same with the two other dudes he killed too but john's like now they don't have a

horn though it's fine it's chill if i had needed dead, I would have left her with Ebon or done the thing myself. Then why did you command it of me? I did not command it. I told you to do what needed to be done and left you to decide what would be. Corrin stood and slid his longsword back into its scabbard. When I want a mountain scaled, I call on Stone Snake. Should I need to put an arrow through the eye of some foe across a windy battlefield, I summon Squire Dalbridge. Ebon can make any man give up his secrets. To lead men, you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you now than I did this morning. And if I had slain her, asked Jon?

She would be dead, and I would know you better than I had before. But enough talk. You ought to be sleeping. We have leagues to go, and dangers to face. You will need your strength. And it's true. Corrin did not command it of John in the last chapter. All Corrin said to him is, then you must do what needs to be

done. Corrin half-hand said, you are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night's Watch. Yeah, and it really ties in with all of these same ideas, like in Bran 1, from Ned, of course, if you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words, and if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps

the man does not deserve to die. And of course, just like Ygritte said last chapter, strike hard and true, or I'll come back and haunt ya. He was his father's son, wasn't he? Wasn't he? All of these quotes just swimming around in his head. This is what haunts Jon. This is what is part of his choices he has to make. Yeah, he's determining what it means to be a man, and Ned's his example of what that is and trying to figure out can I do that and what I also love about Corrin's line here in this exchange is it's very indicative in a way of

the writing process itself Corrin knows each of his men or these different characters if you will and what is at the core of them and what they can do but for writers a lot of authors and for the readers because the readers need to see this in order to better understand characters authors have to put them in situations that bring out the core of who they are and show you what choices they will make i told you to do what needed to be done and left you to decide what that would be and this is what the author does with his characters and in learning how the character reacts so the author now knows more of the character than they did before and so do all the rest of us i that's all yep yep and then john tries to get some rest by cuddling ghosts but ghosts

ghosts on him to go haunt i'm proud of myself but sleep comes for john and he dreams of direwolves there were five of them when there should have been six and they were scattered each apart from the others he felt a deep ache of emptiness a sense of incompleteness the forest was vast and cold and they were so small so lost his brothers were out there somewhere and his sister but he had lost their scent he sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky and his cry cry echoed through the forest, a long, lonely, mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow. John? The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong, too. Can a shout be silent?

He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean gray shape, moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only a weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen no more than a sapling yet it was growing as he watched its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky wary he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face red eyes looked at him fierce eyes they were yet glad to see him the weirwood had his brother's face had his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout.

Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy. But behind that, there were other scents. The rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard gray smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling and bared his fangs.

Don't be afraid. I like it in the dark no one can see you but you can see them but first you have to open your eyes see like this and the tree reached down and touched him okay you creepy little shit bran first off second i like it in the dark. What the fuck, Bran? Second, what a good passage. There's a lot of emotions wrapped into it, right? Somehow through the dogs. Yeah, absolutely. With Ghost really communicating most of this for Jon. Yeah, that they don't feel whole, that they're missing, that they're all torn apart. Yet they are still a pack.

They still feel connected to one another. That ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness, as it says. Yeah. So I want to bring up another passage that comes up later in A Clash of Kings. It's, I think, the last chapter, right, of the book. In Bran VII, he remembered who he was all too well. Bran the boy, Bran the broken. Better, Bran the beastling. Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his summer dreams, his wolf dreams? Here in the chill, damp darkness of the tomb, his third eye had finally opened. He could reach summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm into a sitting position. I just wanted to bring that quote up because I think there's something wonky going on here. If you read this Jon chapter outside the context of the rest of the book, sometimes people kind of forget that this Bran chapter follows many, many chapters after. And so it can seem as though this exchange is definitely Bran from the future. And it might still be, but that Bran also experiences and recalls this dream in this same book. Muddies it. The language is also a little ambiguous.

Like, not before the crow could refer to Bran's meeting with the crow in his dream in a game of thrones but it could also refer to the meeting with the three-eyed crow later on and his strengthening powers it's very unclear as is brand discussing how much he likes the darkness which smells of death in that same brand seven chapter brand thinks of how much he likes the darkness and how it calls to him and how much he wants to see it and be in it and how he wishes people wouldn't pull him up from it but if it's death i don't know like he's obviously in the darkness in dance right they talk about how dark it is beneath the weirwood so i i'm not sure i understand what's up and i think we're not supposed to quite yet yeah i think it's

ambiguous on purpose because he obviously wants you to know that was a dream john had haha then all of a sudden bran reveals he had talked to ghosts and talked to john through that dream but then even bran says maybe that was only a dream i think it does happen in the same book especially because that chronology is so strange you know and things are happening at the same time or near the same time as each other but But I think it's also really practical use for this as Jon shifts into this following wolf dream. Bran was protecting him just in time when he needed to be protected, right?

Because then we get a second part of this dream when Jon has actually awakened as a wolf. Yes, he does. And we get a lot of the information about the wildlings. In Ghost, Jon overlooks a huge cliff We get a lot of the information about the wildlings. In Ghost, Jon overlooks a huge cliff and sees a huge host of men preparing for war. But this is no army, no more than it is a town. This is a whole people come together.

And then off in the distance, as Jon's looking at all these people mass together, he sees a tusked Snuffleupagus. That's not. That's what it is. It's a Snuffleupagus. Eliana ears and tusks oh my god and then a bird an eagle i guess attacks ghost and then john wakes calling ghost to him and then he tells the men that once he wakes up uh that he was dreaming because they're like why the fuck did you just yell are you trying to give away a person position he's like i saw thousands of wildlings and i saw giants riding stuffle up a guy and corin though is like so he had a wolf dream and he's like you got to tell me everything and this time no one

laughs someone calls john a skin changer but that's just the stories right as they discuss the truth of john's dreams john begins to worry about his wolf the one true thing that john cares about which is his doggo and the first time i read the books in general i probably glazed right over this shit i started the books after season two i don't remember caring about it these books are so dense that that whole like tree dream i was probably like that's a weird tree dream okay moving on like i wouldn't have connected it you know back in the day so it's amazing that the magic really has come back alive in this book especially having this come right after danny four magic is very

alive and it's happening with john's third eye open yeah i i also read these books at the same time around that same time after season two and i don't remember what i thought of this moment i think i remembered it a little but i was like like, whatever. Yeah, he's a skin changer. And now people are calling him a skin changer. I remember it maybe being like, all right, that's happening. Yeah, exactly. I just didn't. Now I'm looking at it and I'm like, this is so big.

In the larger context of the books and how we're probably going to get weird time stuff with Bran, but also at the same time, it's within the same book, but Bran can just like awaken things in people. It's interesting. Bran opened his in people. It's interesting. Bran opened his third eye. That's nuts. Which actually, now that I think about it, if the crow was able to do that for Bran in the dream, is it like Bran going through his old self and having that dream? Do you understand what I'm saying? Where does that butterfly effect go?

you understand what i'm saying like where does that butterfly effect go yeah future brand goes in like through old brand forces a dream that opens john stardye i don't know i feel like that's a bit too much it's too timey-wimey shit yeah too deep too deep i'm a doctor who fan and you went too deep yeah and i don't even know anything about that show i'm like there's a time booth oh my god there's a booth and um it's a booth and it's like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. So Squire Dalbridge points out an eagle circling overhead. It seems to be watching them. And they find Ghost and he is deeply injured.

Which is the saddest thing. Oh, poor Ghost. I felt- it's really sad. It's very scary. Yes, Corrin and the other rangers tend to Ghost's wounds withdraw and they hold him down then they pour wine over him because they're like we gotta take care of the dog we gotta take care of the dog we do go straights matter it's important uh they retreat the eagle has spotted them and

they're like we can't do this anymore and then the party makes its way back up the thin winding pass in the darkness this introduction to skin changing is perfectly transitioned in john's plot the chapter does a really good job of that transition and that eagle is just background the darkness this introduction to skin changing is perfectly transitioned in john's plot the chapter does a really good job of that transition and that eagle is just background noise everything is really meta when the reveal comes that skin changers are actually real after everyone just doubted it they're attacking us actually and they're also among us ghosts the eagle the magic of the wild north becomes real in this chapter it's not just sparkling fields of glassy ice the stories are real everything old nan said is coming true like you were talking about sansa's

fantastical ruminations john has heard these stories through nan and bran and he and rob lived them out as well as young boys they were not little boys when they fought but knights and mighty heroes i'm prince amon the Knight, Jon would call out, and Rob would shout back, well, I'm Florian the Fool. These are all of the stories coming to life in Jon's plot, but also coming to life in a much darker way. Absolutely, and I'm just waiting

for Snarks and Grumpkins to show up, too. Yes! I think that they would be hilarious, and I really want them. We are not far from the place the wildlings died said corin from there one man could hold a hundred the right man he looked at squire dalbridge the squire bowed his head leave me as many arrows as you can spare brothers he stroked his longbow and see my garin has an apple when you're home he's earned it it, poor beastie. He's staying to die, Jon realized.

Corrin clasped the squire's forearm with a gloved hand. If the eagle flies down for a look at you, he'll sprout some new feathers. The last Jon saw of Squire Dalbridge was his back as he clambered up the narrow path to the heights. When dawn broke, Jon looked up into a cloudless sky and saw speck moving through the blue. Evan saw it too and cursed, but Corrin told him to be quiet. Listen. Jon held his breath and heard it. Far away and behind them, the call of a hunting horn echoed against the mountains. And now they come, said Corrin.

Now it begins. I was thinking, what? What? Well, we will talk about that in a second but first squire dalbridge saying please give an apple to my horse he's a true canon man he's earned it poor beastie yeah that's that's a good guy right there if he feeds his horse before he dies that That's honor. That's honor. Honor is a horse. It really is. Okay. Oh my god, okay.

Alright, Chloe. When you look at Mance Rayder, he's this figure that's been built up for so long that we don't see him immediately, right? He's a legend beyond the wall. He's a king beyond the wall. A crow turned wildling. An oath breaker. But it comes down to something we hear echoed across the books of all of these institutions uh john is a soldier for the first time he has to fight a man

he doesn't know in the field sent forward as a man of the night's watch to die for the realms of men but against a fellow man the systemic institutionalism behind the night's watch has dark echoes against its light side the king'sguard. They're not so different, despite what we would think with the politics behind them, and with literal ice zombies at the wall. We get that quote in Cattle and Seven in A Clash of Kings right nearby this. Jaime reached for the flagon to refill his cup. So many vows, they make you swear and swear. Defend the king, obey the king.

Keep his secrets, do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father love your sister protect the innocent defend the weak respect the gods obey the laws it's too much no matter what you do you're forsaking one vow or the other this choice between duty and like eliana was talking about the death of duty earlier uh there's a reason this quote happens so close to this chapter in a clash of kings and this is alongside men in this book like sandor clegane breaking in battle at the black water and it

directly corresponds to what happens in a feast for crows when we get the broken man speech it's what's to come in our story and it's in every character's arc man's fleeing the watch long ago tells us of the weight that john will start to bear even at this young age and even with his failure at killing Ygritte. It's why in A Game of Thrones, when Jon admires Jaime and thinks this is what a king should look like, it might ring truer than he realizes. Just like the thoughts of, am I like my father? Something that also echoes throughout the rest of the story for Jon, who is more like his father than he knows. We get that line in Brienne 5, the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge

seems to fill the world, and the man breaks. Everything happening in the Clash of Kings directly ends up in A Feast for Crows, showing just kind of this aftermath of war and what it makes of men. Yes, I love everything that you're bringing up here and what you're saying about the man breaks because in a way, that's kind of what happens in John's storyline through one way or another. And I love the parallels that you're drawing between him and Jamie, who also struggles to live up to the songs that he was taught growing up. And what you say of is this what a king should look like? And we know that in the 93 letter, Jamie was supposed to become a king, but obviously and we know that in the 93 letter jamie

was supposed to become a king but obviously his storyline went in a different way but there are a lot of parallels between them in failing to keep up those vows right like just as jamie is john becomes an oath breaker he probably is going to be a kingslayer of a sword queenslayer um so there's a lot of ways that their um characters come together and i also like what you're saying about mance and how he's built up to be a legend you know he becomes a legend later on he becomes a man later on he goes and crafts himself into a song once more to save jane jane aria are you jane his very own bail the bard abel the bard and so like he like john and jamie tries to live up to some sort of heroism that's in the songs as well both you know breaking their oaths for their family family duty and honor that uh wants for

blood for gold for love i feel like that really fills in in a lot of places here another interesting concept that's come up that i've been talking about really lightly is that people make tinfoil theories about mance's rhaegar kw dent looking at you and about corin being arthur in disguise that he survived and goes north and goes to the wall and ned you know let them do that while the theories don't really hold plausibility in the story in in my opinion. Same. Hard same. As John. There's no time for that. There's just no time for that.

But the thematic resonance is really what makes those theories hold any weight, in my opinion. There's all these lines that really compare Corrin to Arthur Dayne in the story. So why does Corrin sound so grave after such a victory from John 5 in this book? There's Jaime's fever dream and a storm of swords. We all swore oaths, said Ser Arthur Dayne so sadly. And in John 5, we can only die. Why else do we don these black cloaks but to die in defense of the realm? Arthur Dayne is Corrin halfhand in only the way that Corrin is Jon's Arthur Dayne.

We find this later when Corrin asks Jon to kill him. Their faces burn clear even now. Sir Arthur Dayne, the sword of the morning, had a sad smile on his lips. And that's from Ned's favorite dream in A Game of Thrones. And then you have, The finest knight I ever saw was Sir Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn,

forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the sword of the morning, and he have killed me but for howland reed father had gotten sad then and he would say no more brandwished he had asked him what he meant and of course looking forward to a storm of swords john won we have john thinking of corin after he has been made to kill him to desert to the wildlings i will thought john i will see and hear and learn wait this isn't your john voice i'm making you do it again i will thought john i will see and hear and learn and when i have i will carry the wood back to the wall the wildlings had taken him for an oath breaker but in his heart he was still a man of the night's

watch doing the last duty that corinne halfhand had laid on him before i killed him arthur dies for leona stark's baby right for john for keeping the secret we don't know the exact circumstances but we know it is exactly for the most part that and john also has to kill corinne for the good of the people for the good of their people for the realms good of their people, for the realms of men, for saving the realms of men. Corrin and Arthur both have these huge, huge arcs of self-sacrifice. Ned killing Arthur is tied up in a moment where, of course, he sees Lyanna and he also loses a lot of the illusions of war being romantic. It's killing that heroism in those songs and those legends. And that's what, as you're saying, it is for John and Corinne. But in Arthur doing this and Corinne, and then,

of course, it starts here with Squire Dalbridge laying his life down for the watch. You get a lot of that idea of self-sacrifice in a story that is dealing with that idea of sacrifice in general. And I think that there's something very specific and important, the distinction between self-sacrifice versus sacrificing others. Because you see, people like Tywin, people like Stannis saying, what is the life of one boy? What is the life of 12 men against the lives of thousands? But in doing so, in choosing to sacrifice someone else, you're kind of removing the agency of the other person, and you yourself aren't necessarily always paying the price. But Squire Dalbridge steps up here. He does his duty and does it himself.

Arthur does it for his vows, whether he was right to do so or not. And Corrin also recognizes this is a thing that must be done, and I will do what it takes for our people. Ned killing Arthur. Arthur has to die if Ned is to go back to Robert. Ned can't face the Kingsguard. Ned can't face these men, these legends, without killing them for Robert to accept his desertion. Just like how Jon can't join the Wildlings without killing Corrin Halfhand. Killing Arthur Dayne and killinginne half hand are what allows them to come back for john it was corinne told me to kill him and for ned it's probably the same thing that

arthur dane told ned that he has to kill him yeah and i mean let's be real the person you should really be doing any sort of atoning here was robert accepting the deaths of children which is the reason why he and ned were fighting. But I think that's an interesting idea, especially with the Danes so shrouded in mystery. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of this language between Corrin and Jon reflects that similar sort of relationship. And I do think that's what George wants us to look out for.

I don't think he wants us to think Corrin is Arthur, but I think he wants us to see that while Jon is so lost in trying to become his father, he literally is his father along the way. He is Ned Stark. He's facing all of these same choices where Ned seems like this super honorable guy and everyone thinks, oh, good old honorable Ned. Only Ned knows these horrible traumas that he's had to endure and this horrible stuff he's had to do to be this honorable man who does the right thing. And beneath the surface, it's really just all these lies that he has to live with. Yeah, and I think that Mary's essay draws a lot of those comparisons between those lies and the different kinds of honor between Ned and Jon very well. And the plot culmination really leads to that, you know, saving the children.

Yep. Wow. Wow. That was a fucking episode. I don't even smoke cigarettes and I need a cigarette. It's a fire to keep the whites away. Yeah, for sure. To keep the others.

Yeah. Three blasts. They would totally do that, right, I guess? Yeah, some sour leaf yeah but it's not the same it's not it's not the sour diesel leaf uh that was an episode I'm like I feel like

exhausted I just feel like that episode hit me like bag of bricks those two chapters are very good they aren't that long believe it or not I was reading them and I was like I feel like like I thought this was longer, but there's so much packed into it. So much density. Yeah, I also was like, oh, this went by really fast. All right.

But this episode did not. Yeah. Because as you said, lots of discuss. Lots of discussion. As John's story ramps up. Yeah, I'm really glad that we're enjoying these chapters like this. I didn't think we wouldn't, but I was worried maybe they'd be Vland, maybe they'd be Vanilla. But I think there's a lot that ties into Jon.

I mean, he is one of the most crucial characters in this story. And this was a great chapter that showed us Bran as well for a little bit there. So I'm happy about that. As you said, Jon's one of the central characters and therefore a lot of the central themes of the story, right? And its arguments are within Jon's chapters. Yeah, they flow through him. Well, guys, thank you so much for listening this week. Next week will be episode 56.

We will have Jon, the finale of A Clash of Kings with Jon. We will have Jon VIII in our outro discussing the book. And we are excited to cruise on into a storm of swords where uh it just hits the fan it's gonna be wild i can't wait it's gonna be wildlings it'll it's gonna be wildlings hey i heard you like the wildlings um you guys can find us on social media if you want to tweet with us dm us uh send us memes send us fan art eliana loves the fan art you can i get that like the fan art i do like that eliana likes itunes reviews and fan art i am a much humbler girl gone canon uh you can find us at girls gone canon on twitter twitter.com slash girls gone canon or

you can even send us an email chat with us at girls gone canon at gmail.com and of course keep up with whatever we're doing be sure to subscribe to us on google play on itunes on stitcher acast spotify or on popin where all these are hosted yes the place that you listen to your podcasts we are there and of course if you haven't

checked out our patreon you got a few bucks you want to throw at us go on over there we have tons of perks we're actually talking about reformatting some of those perks with our new series that we're going to be covering additionally to a song of ice and fire his dark materials uh and we do have a new stretch goal on patreon that once we hit this stretch goal two thousand dollars a month we will be doing a feast for feast of crows uh we'll be making recipes together live in the flesh on a

YouTube livestream while we talk about why A Feast for Crows is our favorite book. Recipes will be from the companion Feast of Ice and Fire cookbook. So we're excited. We're picking recipes. We're getting hyped in advance. Lots of feast things happening within this.

It's like the Game of Thrones, poor Game of Thrones, but a feast for Feast of Crows. Yeah. And, hey, make sure you guys check out Nauticast coming up in the next weeks. Eliana, our very own other host, will be on Nauticast. She'll be covering a Daenerys chapter. Eliana, do you want to talk about what chapter that is? Yeah, so I will be reprising as a guest on Nauticast. was there a few months ago. Wow, like no, a year ago? Over a year ago now? To talk about Daenerys II and her storyline there. And I will be coming back to talk about Daenerys once more in Daenerys IX of A Game of Thrones.

Game of Thrones. A lot of what we'll be discussing builds a little off of that essay that we talked about earlier that I wrote. I'm very excited to join our good friends, the Amen Brothers. The Amen Brothers and the Hallelujah Sisters. I love it. I'm excited. They're very close.

They're like four episodes away, I think, at the time of this. They'll be four episodes away from Clash of Kings. Finally, they'll get to cover some stuff. We've covered a ton of stuff and i don't know they're just they're still on a game of thrones they're i think they're excited of not just covering some stuff they're excited clearly to get to stannis yeah they're just what them what you think they're gonna talk about stannis and a clash of kings i don't think they are oh man i think they're gonna just they just have to skip the prologue you know i've got five silver stags on it

Oh a stag Are they on fire? Are these fiery silver stags? It's a heart aflame if you will As always I have been one of your hosts, Chloe And I've been another one of your hosts Eliana

You're literally the only other host Eliana No there's Allie Have a great Day night evening