Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 71 - ADWD Jon V

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Food is scarce and tensions are high. You can take the "free" from the folk, but you can't take the north from them - and Jon knows that, more than any other leader in Westeros.   --- 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 Intro by Anton Langhage  

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 71, Jon Snow, A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 5. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You know me as Liza Narber on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaNarberGold.com. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlossTableGirl on Reddit or on the Maester Monthly podcast. Maybe you know me as Arithmetric over on Twitter. I think, most iconically speaking, you know her as one of your other hosts.

Someone said today and called us. What if they're, yeah, 50% of my hosts. My. I love the ownership. We are your hosts. We are. You guys. Your hosts. Oh, like parasites. Whoa. Be our guests. You guys are our guests.

Jon Snow. Oh my god, it's been two weeks. We're sorry. We're back. We're back. We we're back it's been a fortnight there's been so much afoot with his dark materials that we had to cheat on you guys we had to cheat on you guys and we had to cheat on John the time has come to choose a side

and we chose his dark materials in this moment no no we're just really relevant as far as podcasting goes and john's gonna be here he's still here in fact we're gonna learn he's not dead yet yes he got god damn it yeah i mean he's still here and he's still making choosing his sides well right now he's chosen chosen ones but he's still talking about how the choosing has always been hard it's a theme of pretty much

every one of these Jon chapters it's a theme for me every lunch time what do I want for lunch my colleague made fun of me she was like talking about how I don't know it's wild in there

she heard one of my thought processes once because I shared it once aloud, and apparently other people don't think like that in a way that is not good for me. Oh, we have a Wawa near us, and that's the life at my work. Wawa's pretty cool. Yeah, I get a lot of salads there i haven't tried their salad yet i only you know keep it classic get the sandwiches what about what about salt beef i could do some salt beef yeah salt beef i do like salt salted beef i like jerky yeah i love jerky i could maybe not i guess as like if that was all i had

but i could eat it very tough i could eat it you know maybe not but I guess, as like, if that was all I had, but I could eat it. And if it were very tough, you know, maybe not. But like the jerky that I can purchase at Theoretically Maybe Wawa, it's good. It is. A couple other tender things have hit our radar. We have a few emails and tweets of note for you guys. We had an email from our really good friend, John, the Prince of Sunsphere. We did. John says, Chloe and Eliana, that's us. You had me when you quoted Hilary Duff's Come Clean. Wow, that's a throwback. It's like one of our first episodes. And sold me

with Hoku's Another Dumb Blonde. I am so hyped for His Dark Materials on HBO and can't wait to hear your thoughts. I am also a big fan of Anne Rice. Another listener mentioned the witches and cannibalism. Hulu is adapting the Vampire Chronicles and may be my next event TV show. I included this even though it was mostly His Dark Materials themed, besides our quoted songs. Because of the cannibalism theme, we're seeing a lot of hunger in this chapter coming forward, right? Rations, barely any food to feed people. What are gonna do what will our protagonists do we do not know

la la la it's a reread we do know but it's gonna be interesting seeing some of the cannibalism to come especially as stannis goes along uh his his camp of course eating some people a little messed up um i i think it's a great theme that comes across in all these stories not just an apocalyptic kind of thing something like the walking dead you'd imagine that would come up and it does come up in the walking dead in the comics and in the show but for this i mean even in fantasy it comes up cannibalism is something that in horrible horrible conditions has been something that people have rationalized. Or even in, again, not horrible conditions, there are cultures and circumstances where

I get it. I think it sounds, it's, I understand the logic behind it. I don't agree necessarily, but I can see why like that's something that's very meaningful to them as bringing someone into you and being part of you. It's interesting that it's, I don't know if there's a connection between the cannibalism and vampirism, but obviously that makes sense. in regards to Anne Rice, whose works I will admit I'm not very familiar with, but there was a big upswell of literature that revolved around vampires during the Victorian era. In my understanding from people who study these kinds of trends, etc., some of them have done analysis that ties these themes of vampires and then to having having to do with like sexuality and and how that comes through

etc and i mean vampires have always been really associated with that so i think that idea of consumption and and lust together with cannibalism is something interesting and we've touched on it a little bit in in a song of ice and fire but um i'd love to dig into that more deeply as we see more in the series yeah it makes me think about that whole uh weird love triangle trist thing of stanis melisandre and salise right like salise has embraced relore and that's who she embraces and stanis embraces melisandre and and Melisandre embraces R'hllor, and just, you know, all this fucking and sacrificing, and what's to come?

What's to come? What's to come? So we got another email. Actually, this isn't an email that we got. We got a Patreon message from our friend Shadowfox on patreon who said i was hoping you might talk about what houses would fall endure and rise by the end of the books we all know that

from the hit hbo series the books were based on houses bolton and fray are gone casterly rock is given away to create house blackwater and the Starks run the whole bloody continent. However, in the books, what could happen? Will all the frays be dead? If Tyrion gets Casterly, how will the Lannisport Lannisters react? Secondary houses rising to power like Ironwoods or Arryn's from Goldtown. Alice Karstark marries a Then. Is that House Then now?

Will House Seaworth rule the Narrow Sea? Will House Targaryen go extinct after the second Dance of the Dragons? Or will they carve out a bit of the Seven Kingdoms for themselves? And don't get me started on Greyjoys. Oh, that was clever about the carving out a bit of the Seven Kingdoms for themselves. Asked Jon. We all know the ending won't have the same rosy Disney happy TV show ending. Is that what we thought that the ending was?

I don't know. I don't think it was very rosy i think it was still sad that's debatable uh also p.s when will howlin reed show up that was for me thank you that was the same person that banned me from talking about howlin reed in our patreon episode a couple months ago right about uh forgotten characters in the wind's winter because howlin reed is not forgotten obviously and i think that this question comes a little bit on the heels of actually shadow fox was the same one to suggest that idea of talking about those forgotten characters and wins so always always fun thought exercises yeah i've got some thoughts i've always thought we'd see at least as far as the big houses i mean there are so many houses that are set to go extinct right um the tyrells have a very high chance of extinction unless willis survives he might i think

willis could i don't think garland will he'll go out in a blaze of glory defending the reach um but willis is kind of their survivor right the the girls in king's landing are doomed yeah i don't see they've got a couple relatives but i could definitely see one of the other houses around the tyrells or one of the other houses that claim to be descendants of garth greenhand which is like i don't know fucking all of them in the reach taking over because it's been such a vibe spot and they talk about a lot how these houses are like all kind of gunning for House Tyrell's position. I don't think it's going to be the Hightowers.

No, me either. They have their place. They can stay there. I don't think we're going to see the Tyrells around after growing strong until they're not... The bros will be plucked, if you will. Yeah, and they're not the only one, right?

Even the sun burns too hot. The Martells. Sorella could be the only survivor if this story ends. I mean, even the little ones. Dorne is kind of fucked. Yeah, I think that a lot of the trueborn Martells aren't going to survive,

and I think the unfortunate fact is a lot of the children, like you said, probably won't either. Plopping on the sidewalk, just boop. Yeah. Rotten. Rotten juice everywhere. I don't know what we see. I think that Sorella's an interesting idea.

Seeing one of Oberyn's daughters inherit I think could be cool, but... I think Sorella's kind of the only viable option. There's Elia's sin. That'd be funny. I think she be cool but I think Sorrel is kind of the only viable option there's Alia's sin that'd be funny I think she's gonna die you have a strong affinity for her yeah she's gonna die you could have died died died oh sorry spoilers watch our Arianne

or listen to our Arianne Martell Patreon episode throwback and along with that check out Michael Klarfeld aka Klaradox and his maps because the reason why we're saying that i have an affinity for elia sand is i was the model um i wear more clothes than that sometimes you do wear crop tops i've seen it in the flash under boob that's true there's no under boob god you know something shadow fox said was about alice right

alice karstark who we're gonna see this in a few chapters we're gonna talk about it at length there but uh i think alice technically that would be a matrilineal marriage with sigourn right alice uh to keep her lands would have to matrilineally marry someone sigourn is obviously not worried about a westerosi title so much and yes he'll probably be happy to be a lord of something but I don't think that he has a problem with you know keeping his identity while being married to her they formed a whole new house right and that's special they created something new so now the Karstarks don't get that land it's Alice's brand of Karstarks it's the molded uh sunburst of Karstark and the bronze of then.

I think that's really special. It's something new, something that can't be broken by the traditional kind of claim to their lands. I agree with everything that you've said just now regarding Sigourn. I don't know if they're going to be called House Thun or not. I think it's an interesting idea. And we see them establishing and keeping their culture here, right? They're very intent on keeping that autonomy in this chapter and it's kind of like also you're bringing this wildling bit into the northern culture as an official part of the

culture that's really cool yeah and i think that's why i really like this idea of whether it's called house then or still house karstark i like the idea of them continuing right because it's a testament to me to the idea that different cultures can all intermarry and learn to live together and i think that's absolutely going to be necessary in this new westeros um whatever it is and the... The broken wheel. Leave me alone. And I think I like that idea. What about Lannisters? What do you think?

For the Lannisters that we have of Casterly Rock, and even with House Targaryen, it's such a follow-the-House-of-Usher vibe from both of them. From the beginning, regarding the Lannannisters I kind of felt that way but I also will say that I am partial to the idea of like Lannisport Lannisters maybe like inheriting or taking over I don't know same as with the Gulltown Arryns um I'd really like to see Lancel survive I know he doesn't in the show but they also play Lancel very differently I think in the show

they play him as more of like he becomes this extremist zealot as opposed to I think you're supposed to see Lancel as in many ways paralleling Aaron Greyjoy Lancel has been deeply traumatized and he's another exploration of that broken man idea, as opposed to how they played him in the show.

And I think it'd be interesting to see something. It might not be his line, right? It could be Gatehouse Amy pulling in someone else. Like, I think that would be fun. Yeah, and that's the thing if lancel does survive i mean the show obviously painted him a little different but he you don't just run in with cersei lannister and live you know like most people don't live from their run-ins with cersei lannister she has a track record so if he survives that would be great it would be great to have someone survive her i agree most people don't

yeah so there's that um coming back briefly to house targaryen again kind of the idea of like follow the house of usher if the red keep does collapse i think you know that that's in many ways a symbol of their family and their reign and also i got kind of house they're not house i got kind of like buen dia family vibes from them from 100 years of solitude i never heard george talk about gabriel garcia marquez but this idea of someone having a vision and build it trying to build like a city or whatever based on that and there's so much like i'm gonna end up spoiling 100 years of solitude but this is a no that's been out for a while and i think it's fine a a lot of the characters they keep repeating the same

names it gets very confusing same as within house targaryen and also at the end an aunt and her nephew unknowingly end up in an incestuous relationship and everything falls apart after that. Well, and that is like, look at Oedipus. We talked about this in His Dark Materials a little bit even, and we've talked about it before with Game of Thrones,

obviously, and with the Song of Ice and Fire, but Oedipus, you know, it all falls apart. Incest isn't sustainable as we've learned. Yeah, it was falls apart. Incest isn't sustainable, as we've learned. Yeah, it was something that was hanging over, like, House... I keep calling them House Buendia. Alright. But, anyways,

so, hanging over them, and, like, the mother of the family was, like, afraid that it was going to happen to them. I actually really like this Marquez story. I didn't love... I also like Love in the Time of Chronicle. I also like Love in the Time of Chronicle. I also like Love in the Time of Cholera. I hated the first Marquez I ever read,

but I love 100 Years of Solitude, one of my favorite books. Well, now that I know what happens, I don't have to read it, so thanks, Eliana. Are you serious? You know, I do want to harken back to something that we actually said in our review of The Bells from the critically acclaimed season eight of the HBO hit experience, Game of Thrones, which these books.

Yeah, it's not TV. It's HBO, Eliana. That these books are based on, though, I guess I said i was looking at our notes for some reason but it reminds me of thor ragnarok right where hella says where do you think all the gold came from yeah that's the targaryens right there in a nutshell so it's very shakespearean as i've heard someone write about before with the land or with the targaryen faction with daenerys's claim yeah there's this author this writer she put out this essay it was got like 16,000 18,000 words you know um about Daenerys Targaryen as a tragic

Shakespearean character the essay sounds interesting so I do want to argue that I think that Robert Arryn will survive and I will die on that hill. I definitely did not think that until the show. And, you know, granted, now we know that they took way more artistic liberties. There's obviously some things that are definitely going to happen from the show that are going to happen in the books, right? But, yeah. Robert Aaron surviving in and of itself feels like a twist to me. And I kind of like that. I feel like because Sansa is a Ned analog, right, for how she makes her decisions, how she trusts or does not trust the trauma she's experienced from losing loved ones, just kind of the Ned part of her. And if Robert Aaron dies, I think what's going to happen is she'll see the truth soon enough

to be able to stop things from happening. It'll be close. Obviously, it's already close to him dying, but I don't think he'll die. I think that that would go against that Save the Children vibe. Robert Aaron isn't great, as we see at the beginning of the books, but I like the idea that if he survives we can see him grow right he is starting to be a little bit better and he's like a child all right and i think that

the idea that people can grow and change is for better or for worse i think that's something that we can see in robert er hopefully. Controversial. I think the Tullys survive, obviously, through Edmure and Rosalyn. I think that the Tullys will probably side with the North. I think it's going to split Riverlands, North, Vale, is how that's going to split. I really do. I don't think it's going to be just the North. I think it's going to be North, Riverlands, and Vale that follow them.

I think that the South will remain the South with the Crownlands down. Dorne might section themselves off even. Iron Islands, I think they might even do their own thing. I don't think they might not be a part of the fray. Unless Gendry gets legitimized, I think the Baratheons are dead. I think Gendry could get legitimized. I think that could be a thing that passes in the show and in the books

I think it could still be Edric's storm could be interesting I think Edric's doomed because I think he's getting collected by Varys but I also think that like Gendry likes making likes making things and not ruling things no true

and I would like a future for him in which he gets to be a blacksmith. Okay. Well, we can't always get what we want, but if we try sometimes, we might find that you get what you need. It's true. I mean, he could end up just like his father, right?

Be like, I wanted to be a blacksmith, but now I'm a lord. This sucks. I mean, it's possible. That would make me sad. I this sucks i mean it's possible that would make me sad uh i mean i think it's likely that aria and him do not end up together but might have a romantic history together in the end everything's a history once it's over i think something will happen again and it has to because george has kind of hinted at it and balticon exactly he's talked about that and he's talked about aria flowering into a woman um

i mean she was supposed to be i saw what i said she was supposed to be like much older yeah and i mean like at that age you know if she was going to be 16 or 17 i don't know that i'd call it flowering into a woman but people started having like experiences they start exploring and i think that's part of growing up it's important to show especially for aria a character that you know is coming into her femininity she's not someone that it came to easily until now right like it was always sans that had it easy at this and that and the other thing and now she's learning the duality of i could be these things i could be death i could also be beauty i could be all these things she's learning it right now as we know from her preview chapter oh my god okay so the other question that shadow fox asked was howlin reed

when are we gonna see him you know my take i'll repeat it now that we'll see him in a dream of spring it will be at the very end george will play his cards in the very last book you will not meet howlin reed before that i like the idea of seeing house reed though come out against house fray i will say that i think there's something fun about it but of course you know everything that we think we're gonna get doesn't always happen so we don't get the gods aren't good damn all right i and on that note let's talk about toronto toronto is actually fun it's just really fucking cold and because of that we got an email from mckenzie saying as your local toronto ggc listener i got excited to hear eliana talk about us and our path in all caps system we do indeed have an underground

tunnel system that connects a lot of the downtown core the tunnels are lined with shops and restaurants it's a basically moles town down there love your podcast ashara forever that was for you what was that ashara forever did she say oh is that the officially came in ship of howland and ashara interesting interesting yeah mckenzie uh you're the best yeah. So just wanted to tie it in with Howlin' there. Yeah, absolutely. Mackenzie, rock and roll. I agree. And I want to go see Molestown. That's awesome. We're going to talk about Molestown today some more. So I'm glad that we brought this up. I want to go to like some restaurants, some shops. I think

it's probably a lot cleaner in these tunnels probably toronto's pretty cool and i didn't i didn't get to see those but i would like to and i mean they've got they've got some interesting stores there there's a cool ass comic book shop i want to say it's called sonic boom if i'm not mistaken that i went to i think that i'd remember and they have like cool record stores the catch is it's very cold and that's why they have underground tunnels hey I'm down with the cold I don't have your issues

you're from the north they're the same as you Chloe they're just from north of the wall well thank you so much Mackenzie and thank you so much to everyone else Shadow Fox and of course John Prince of Sunsphere for sending us a note

an email a tweet you guys you can send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com if you have thoughts about the episodes feel free to send us a tweet at girlsgonecanon on twitter that is c-a-n-o-n we'll look up canon too with two n's if we really have to but

try that and And then also feel free to leave us an iTunes review. You can log on to iTunes or Podbean and leave us a review. Leave us a comment and a rating saying if you liked it, hated it, whatever. We'll blast you either way. Yeah, and you can also leave us Podbean comments.

That always is funny. Yeah, we do love them. We do. Well, without further ado, we will skip into our lightning round wow it's been a while to say those words we don't have them in our his dark materials series no that is something i do miss but i do love doing a nice lightning round so first lightning round to get into is tyrian five after revealing his identity to the Shy Maid's inhabitants, Tyrion confirms Griff and his son's identity, just before tumbling into the waters of the Sorrows with the Stone Men's attack. Davos III. Davos treats with a prideful

House Manderly in what feels like a fool's court a phrase. Rejection stings, but Wyla Manderly's speech of loyalty to House Stark stings more for the phrase Davos goes to jail and does not pass go reek too reek reek it rhymes with the ghosts of a boy named Dion's old life coming home

but who is the ghost? it's Jane damn that's a downer I did alright, you know I was feeling rusty I'm glad it came out this well it came out really well It's Jane. Damn. That's a downer. I did all right. You know, I was feeling rusty. I'm glad it came out this well. It came out really well.

I just needed to get back on that horse, Chloe. Oh my god, I wish you would get back on that horse, my friend. Is that what John sings to Bowen? Who knows? John 5. Life has gone back to dormancy at castle black although the wildlings are not conforming to stannis's religion very smoothly and that's not the only thing not going smoothly rations are the next john goes against the wishes of marsh and brings rations to the free folk although small and a riot breaks out john extends an ultimatum join us or die against the others

not not by me not by like burning yeah like stans would say john wakes up amid piles of books he spent half the night trying to search in horrible lighting it turns out that sam was right the books need to be sorted too bad there are no literate stewards here though yeah and unfortunately none of the new recruits from this chapter are likely to be but hey you know what sam was right as he usually is and sometimes doing due diligence beforehand can make it faster for things later down the line john john was like books are done i'm feeling ashamed why i'm bad at that too. Like, I understand. You have to organize. You need things to be organized. It's just

like, I'm like a messy organized person. You're very organized. I don't know what the fuck you're saying. Maybe. So, John finally is like, fuck it. I gotta wait till Sam gets back. I can't figure this shit out. And then he worries about Sam and Eamon and

if they ever will come back. There was news of a wreckage in Skagos from Cotter Pike. And last night's supper was also awful. That is not helping the mood. The stew is literally veggies now and there's no mutton. Yeah, it's mostly gross because John didn't end up eating it and it's been sitting out all night. didn't end up eating it and it's been sitting out all night and we're starting to see in this like that meat scarcity because the joke used to be that the three meats do is mutton mutton mutton mutton mutton and mutton i've heard that mutton actually isn't great lamb is good goat is good

apparently mutton's not great and now again yeah it's three different kinds of vegetables and this is actually going to carry out this idea for the rest of the chapter, because that concern about resources and administration, again, is something that George is very interested in exploring. Then we have this quote. Bowen Marsh had urged him to move into the old bear's former chambers in the king's tower after Stannis vacated them, but John had declined. Moving into the king's chambers could too easily be taken to mean he did not expect the king to return i mean i don't know what the right answer is here what the right move is because on one hand moving into the king's tower could kind

of be seen as presumptuous right for a boy that the watch already fears is overstepping his bounds in terms of what he's making them do granted i guess mormont had to do it because they're like i don't know these are the next best quarters but on the other hand like the idea that he's not moving there because it could be offensive to stannis and like that expectation that stannis is going to return makes john seem really partial to stannis again which is like not great in terms of optics for him so and this is kind of silly but it reminds me of the show when in game of thrones they had the sansa and john squabble about the lord's chambers and who should be sleeping in them because where you sleep is a very political move when you have power right if you're sleeping in the king's chambers you think you're the king of the place you think you're the king of the place. You think you're in charge.

With the show, Sansa said, oh no, you should have them. You fought for all this. And Jon says, no, your family would want you to have them, Sansa. You should have these chambers. You're the lady of Winterfell. I don't want this responsibility. But it also reminds me of, and this just came to mind, the language reminds me of ned and king's landing especially just even cutting that sentence off it bowen marsh had urged him to move because this is a political move right

bowen marsh says you need to take those chambers back and bowen marsh has been kind of saying to him hey these are the problems the men are having with your choices this is what would probably make them feel better if you did this instead it reminds me of ned being urged by renly or littlefinger politically what to do in king's landing yeah i do think that bowen is trying to urge john maybe for john's sake here a little and and on the other hand it's a little bit of bowen marsh being like just give me a sign that like i can trust you a little but the things that you were saying about sansa and john and who takes the lord's chambers we actually saw that in the last pov that we read which almost feels like a million years ago now but theon theon was very insistent on taking ned's chambers because it's like you said it's a political move there's also of course

an aspect of like theon trying to like live out this weird power fantasy, right? But it absolutely has meaning. Yeah, it does. So since Stannis left, Castle Black has actually been really tense but quiet. The only sounds that people really hear are from the yard of people practicing. It's the Storm of Swords. It's the storm of swords. It's just clanging. I don't know, drizzle of swords.

Iron Emmet is training Hop Robin right now and Jon thinks everyone should learn to keep their shields up. Or he'll ring them like a bell. It's a little show cannon. I just put it there. Jon is declining a tail, right? He's not letting anyone guard him.

He would have enough men about him, he thinks. If it came to blood, two more would hardly matter. Yeah, so once more that whole tail thing. But yeah, I think it's kind of funny. Like, is the implication here? Like, John has just really resigned himself to the fact that there could be a mutiny. And I mean, of course he can't write that off. But's just really like yeah it's probably gonna happen especially because he thinks of mormon in a few in a few moments it's kind of stark noir at its finest right like ned in a game of thrones again it's better to be alone than take down others

with you and he knows that his name is on the list like his days are numbered and he knows almost he already knows he's stuck in this awful situation of to lead or to die or maybe both at the stable ed has gotten horses ready and the wagons are now also behind bow and marsh the word that they use is wayne w-a-y-n and i guess it's supposed to be spelled w-a-i-n i don't know but apparently that means wagon i had to google this so think about the wayne woods with their wagon sigil there you go wooden wayne that too i got you baby his cheeks redden again when he sees John cause I guess he's like a little mad again cause Marsh thinks that this whole thing is folly but John

says well the rest of the wall needs men Marsh is about to say Mormont wouldn't have done this but John's like you don't know what Mormont would do he's dead and by other members

of the Night's Watch. What does it mean, Eliana? So Bowen Marsh leaves, and Ed says, I don't remember my Ed voice. Pomegranates, all those seeds. Man could choke to death.

I'd sooner have a turnip. Never knew a turnip to do a man any harm well boy do you not know what tom and baratheon has invoked in king's landing with his brutish laws man turnips are pretty good but pomegranate stuff you know i know every time he's like buttered turnips are bad i'm like i know i'm really like hurt personally and i'm just like it sounds delicious right now are good beets are good turnips are good i like veggies are good eat your veggies don't just eat iceberg lettuce tommen maybe you'll grow up stronger if you do that because you're inbred as fuck i thought you were gonna

say because he's destined to die or Or stronger because he's a bastard. Um, get it? Because stronger. Oh. Like, how strong? He's a strong boy. John misses Aemon. Aw, duh. Of course he does. They're related. He finds it difficult

to work with Marsh and Yarwick. Well, duh, because they're the worst. And he thinks the Watch lost too many of its best men in their battles. It's also true. These are all true thoughts, John. Good analysis. As they head south on the King's Road, with more than last time because of the skirmishes happening at Molestown, Ed points out the Big Drunkard, a twisted ash tree, now has

a face. The Free Folk brought their gods with them even though stannis commanded them to burn them ed thinks melisandre is not going to be happy and john's like well don't let her find out but ed thinks she will see it in her fires anyway i like that john cracks a quick joke here and he's like she just sees smoke and cinders in her fire, but I like this bit of cultural resilience from the free folk. You know, trying to put up a Rainforest Cafe franchise everywhere

they go, but it actually is interesting to me that they're just carving faces into trees, not just weirwoods. Is this like graffiti? Is this a tag? I don't know. A warning? I don't know. A warning? I don't know.

It's like they're carving their own place in, right? These are theirs. The nature is theirs. The northern land, you can't take it from them. You can't take the north from these people. You can try, but you won't. These people are the north. This is what the north is about. Yeah.

They're making it home. Yeah. You want them to live here god damn it they will god damn it god damn it god damn it go through all the possibilities all the yeah the conjugations uh john has guards posted at molestown already to halt men making off with women to stop the fighting and he thinks he could double the guard but it would cost him the wall right manning the walls is the first priority here the wagons go on they find another tree with a face carved into it john whistles at the raven in the tree watching who yells corn corn corn and he

flies down to meet his shoulder john scolds the raven and says no corn for you only for the free folk and then he thinks i wonder if we'll be eating ravens come winter also this is clearly mormon's raven i'm pretty sure like this is the same raven as before because it says other words well why is it here if it isn't why what if it's just like blood raven operating another raven it could be another raven apparently a lot of them knew other words but if it is mormon's raven i think it's funny like they don't keep that bird in a cage it just lives its life and does whatever and it's like i'm gonna meet you later down the road john has to think it's mormon's raven because wouldn't you think it's a little fucking weird if it's a different raven yeah i mean like what is this john has multiple pets

all right he has ghost yeah he has the giant wolf yeah probably so i guess a raven's ravens following him and shouting corn isn't that weird i guess when you look at it in hindsight because there's a giant fucking wolf that's like magical and he can see its dreams and taste what it eats but and control it in his dreams if he really wants like uh i guess that's like magical and he can see its dreams and taste what it eats but and control it in his dreams if he really wants like uh i guess that's not that weird right like john gets there's mystical things about but at the same time like if there was a raven that i did not know like i didn't realize it was the same raven and all of a sudden it like said the same thing and came down on my shoulder like it was family like okay why are you here you're pretty far like a little familiar oh oh you'll like this

you're acting a little familiar john is a witch oh oh is the raven is his witch demon i think so it's john's demon ghost is this demon how dare you this one like because it can go far away. Ghost can too, but you're on the wall. That's true, you're right. John's a witch. He severed himself. Yeah. So the face on the chestnut tree actually reminds John

of something that Mance had once said. Kneelers are like sheep, but the free folk are like either shadow cats or stones. Sheep, according to Mance,

are easily herded by dogs, but shadow cats tear dogs apart. And to move the free folk who are like the stones you gotta kick them apparently because for some reason in this analogy people don't pick up stones or they don't skip stones or throw stones or anything i don't know i don't know a lot of people are throwing stones in those glass houses why are they why do you only kick the stone whatever listen the point is the free folk will not give their gods up easily there's a third tree and this one is an oak so we've had ash chestnut and oak and it makes me think of a lot of stuff i'm

about to like wax poetic today i'm so sorry i have like eight essays planned for you guys it makes me think of the dragons, believe it or not. Ash, chestnut, and oak. Oak tree is strength. It symbolizes strength, and it's the darker of the three woods, so that reminds me of Balerion a little bit. Ash is definitely light, and it generally means love and prosperity. It does make me think of Rhaegal a little bit in regards to Rhaegar.

And chestnut is super familial. It represents justice, and it does make me think of Viserys and Viserion. And it all also brings to mind some Norse mythos as far as the free folk are concerned. There's the prose at a book that talks about three brothers, Vili, Vi, and Odin, who create man and woman. They take wood from two trees, Ask and Embla, which are Ash and Elm respectively, and they carve humans from them. They then give them gifts. One person gives them life, one intelligence, and one gives shape, speech, hearing, and sight, and they're given a special home and celebrated in Midgard. I think tying it back to the prosaida is interesting because apparently there used to be some translations

that misinterpreted Yggdrasil as being an ash tree. So the idea that they would like carve a face and be like, maybe this is a weirwood, a tree of knowledge. And it's not. It's kind of funny. I was trying to see earlier when i was looking at these passages if there were like dunkin egg vibes or anything because like there's a horse named chestnut and you have the oak and iron guard me well saying but i looked into it and there isn't

i just wanted to share that that my hypothesis did not pan out and i think it's important to to own up when things don't pan out, because we gotta correct ourselves in the pursuit of knowledge. I love it, I love it. Thank you for your honesty, Eliana. You know, this oak tree does have an angry face, just like Balerion, in my opinion, though. You don't know what Balerion's face looks like? He can have a really happy face. The dread. opinion though you don't know what beliarian's face looks like he can have a really happy face the dread maybe everyone just dreaded how happy he like maybe he's kind of like toothless in how to train your dragon you're like definitely not okay read the quote but the great oak looked especially angry as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it

it's been so long dude it feels so long i can't believe i just pulled that out it didn't i don't know but i did it was it okay like john and ghost yes it was good it was good oh yes yes oh okay but so the trees i assume that this is a tolkien reference you know i asked my partner because he's a tolkien nerd i'm not a huge tolkien nerd i've watched the movies i've read some of the books not any like big amount of them. I've read bits and pieces. I know the story ish. But he said it's not like a direct reference that George is usually really obvious. But I see what you mean, especially with the life.

It's a nod in a way that the trees in general are a nod to Tolkien. George's trees, they aren't exactly Ents, but some tolkien-esque fantasy kind of qualities but there was a really cool theory i read that i don't know that i agree with all of it but chad immaculate on reddit wrote a theory called the riddle of the three trees and he claims that the trees that we see here represent tyrian bran and the Three-Eyed Crow. So tree one is Tyrion, and you get the line, the drunkard was an ash tree, twisted sideways by centuries of wind, and now it had a face, a solemn mouth, a broken branch for a nose, two eyes carved deep in the trunk, gazing north of the king's road toward the castle and the wall. Tree two is Bran. The chestnut was leafless and skeletal, but its bare brown limbs were not empty.

On a low branch overhanging the stream, a raven sat hunched. This is, of course, the raven that cries, Corn, corn, corn. And then tree three, Bloodraven. North of Molestown, they came upon the third watcher, carved into the huge oak that marked the village perimeter its deep eyes fixed upon the king's road or savage visages more often than not but the great oak looked especially angry as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them like you read there's obviously definite symbolism in the trees in the north you see davos and white harbor with the tree that

quite obviously in the godswood resembles lord manderley right its roots were as thick as as thick around as a man's waist, its trunk so wide, the face carved into it looked fat and angry. Very much so, Lord Wyman Manderley. I don't know, I like this theory a lot. It's fun. I think it matches up well with the heads on sticks in later Jon chapters and Melisandre's visions as well. She has the vision, she saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her socket, at her from sockets weeping blood and then there is of course the spears were eight feet long and made of ash the one on the left had a slight crook the other two were smooth and safe straight at the top of each was impaled

a severed head their beards full of ice and the falling snow had given them white hoods where their eyes had been only empty sockets remained black and bloody holes that stared down in silent accusation who were they melisandre asked the crows blackjack bulwer harry hal and garth gray feather bow and marsh said solemnly so there's a lot of threes lots of dragons three heads uh eyeless heads of course in that vision that's very interesting i just think that three symbol that three symbolism i almost called it symbology that's not a word that three symbolism is really strong though here uh it's interesting that it pops out among all these chapters yeah i was ready to like dismiss it until that third tree came up and I was like, oh, okay, this is like a thing.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with the theory you linked, but I think it is an interesting analysis and apparently I was one of 12 people who upvoted this two years ago. So clearly I thought it was good, or not like 12 people, but

12 upvotes, right? So clearly I thought something was worth it and it was an interesting idea right and i would personally knowing what we know now probably switch brandon blood raven right i would have blood raven as the chestnut and bran as the oak um i'm not sure yeah but i see the connection like there's definitely some sort of connection there if you want to go with like some of the things that Joe Magician has been toying around with, the drunkard could be Darren the drunk. Right? But I don't know.

It's all... Something's happening and I don't know what. It's definitely relative, I think, to kind of how you're embodying the story. You could even put Eamon in as one of them if you wanted. it's definitely relative, I think, to kind of how you're embodying the story. And like, you could even put Eamon in as one of them if you wanted. There's a lot there. There's a lot of interpretation of it. And it's like, it's one of those things we'll get to eventually, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, with like Jaime's fever dream, right? That's one that's widely debated.

There's lots of different meanings you could go there. There's lots of different meanings for Daenerys with her three heads and her three treasons um it's interesting there's a lot to think about and I think that's what's so great about this chapter is that it brings this idea of trees they're guiding their way tree by tree to get to Molestown to these starving wildlings and each tree kind of symbolizes something for anyone reading the story i think it's open to interpretation but i think any and all of what we've been talking about is definitely acceptable tree by tree is nine as they ride through the ruins of the actual town john is reflecting on how vast it truly is

in the tunnels that was where the free folk had taken refuge huddled together in the tunnels. That was where the free folk had taken refuge, huddled together in the dark, like the moles from which the village took its name. This is just like the mutant underground in the Brotherhood, right? R.I.P. I don't know. They don't all have powers. The wagons hold the rations and circle in what was the town. Kids are playing, but they scatter,

and up come the free folk adults from below. A stench came with them, the stench of unwashed bodies and soiled clothing, of night soil and urine. John saw one of his men wrinkle his nose and say something to the man beside him. Some jape about the smell of freedom, he

guessed. Too many of his brothers were making japes about the stench of the savages in Wollstown. First off, that's not okay. Second off, I don't know. This is just, like, uncomfortable, reading these men say these things, and this isn't, like, it's not like they're choosing to lay in their own filth, right? If they could take a shower or a bath or whatever, they would.

This is uncomfortable because, and we should feel uncomfortable, right? This is war. This is what it is. It's violence and it's war. They've been driven from their homes, their religion, their lives. And George continues that whole analog about war, not just here, but in Slaver's Bay, right? This refugee violence outside of the gates of marine uh john says that this is pig ignorance right he of his brothers he says

they smell because it's 1 000 people packed into tunnels that were built for 100 people this is the compromise these people made for their safety in fear of what's coming with the cold ones and what's happening with the night's watches stanis's army they're fleeing violence every direction they look they're just trying to survive yeah absolutely and i don't know if we're supposed to see it like a camp like a refugee camp or not but it's everything that you said i learned that pig ignorance is an actual term the term pig ignorant meaning that john is calling the brothers of the Night's Watch who are saying these things extremely stupid or uneducated and I mean they're not in great shape right and it's the brothers just kicking all these people while they're already down adding that insult to injury like they didn't choose to

be living in this way and I'm just so struck and I think what drives it home for me there are a lot of passages in this in these next few paragraphs that drive it home but for me it's just i'm so struck and just saddened by the idea that john realizes there's a lot of children but there are no babies because it dawns on him that all the babies died in trying to get across the wall or when Stannis' forces came and sarkaded them and I think this is just it's just terrible to think that they would be insulted for something

when they were just trying to survive they're just people yeah that's all they are they're people with families and lives dude that's all they are they're're people with families and lives, dude. That's all they are. They're trying to strip them of dignity by placing them in these places,

and then the brothers in what they're saying are dehumanizing them. Yeah. There's the line that Game of Thrones put in for Meera. People will always need helping. That doesn't mean you shouldn't help them. for Mira, you know, like people will always need helping. That doesn't mean you shouldn't help them.

The free folk line up for meager food. John sizes up the crowd. The fighters are crippled and old, but not all of them. He thinks, Broken men, he thought. The whites are not the only sort of

living dead. Oh, that's an interesting line. Broken men. The whites are not the only sort of living dead. Oh, that's an interesting line. Broken men. The whites are not the only sort of living dead. I think that's very good observation. First off, John. Second off, these are broken men. This is, especially with A Feast for Crows as the companion book to this,

this is something we're very much learning, right? The war, what it's's done what war does to people what it makes of men and what it does to the economy to a nation to people ripped away from their homes people surviving yeah i i think that this is something that george has been trying to drive home and i think unfortunately you know the hidden hbo tv show lost that lost a lot of what was trying to be said about the whites and how they were meant to be a And fortunately, you know, the hidden HBO TV show lost that. It lost a lot of what was trying to be said about the whites and how they were meant to be a reflection of the state of broken men, of people using other people in games of power, etc.

Yeah. Transitioning from one war into the other the way they did was not effective, and it should have been. Yeah. And I'm not saying that all of the unsullied are broken men right but we can see that something has been taken from them i'm not saying that they are living dead but you're supposed to see the way that they're used as um analogous uh to the whites and and i don't know i'm just thinking about this article i read recently and i sent it to chloe and it was about mental health in the middle of war and conflict and it was about children who had been trained and raised in violence and and they were children who had been like captured by isis and forced to fight one another until the last one was standing

and how that becomes very commonplace for them. And I'm not saying that that's necessarily the case for the Unsullied, but these are things that needed to be addressed and treated and the unfortunate fact is it doesn't always. And then you have the men of the Night's Watch here making fun of them for being the way they are.

Like they're any better yeah and and they're not a lot of these knights watch men some of them are completely haven't haven't faced any conflict and like that's great that they haven't you know if only everyone could be so lucky but yeah we're gonna see that a little in the next chapter because this is a reread podcast and i don't feel bad referencing it but like you know how the rangers go out with alice or thorn and like dyvik and them they're like maybe we'll teach you like how to fucking like ride a horse again or some shit right because he hasn't been out there for a while yeah it's not nice well there are half a dozen thens and harma dog's head's brother is surviving hallock and two hornfoot men uh and john thinks there are wolves among these sheep still i thought that was a good line to think especially for him with his wolf connection

he and he thinks of what oh and that he calls them wolves when they're you know the brother of dog's head he has respect for them he's gained this respect for that culture and some of these people yeah even someone as awful as the trunchbull he might not like them but he he respects them. Yes. Like these two specifically, especially. Or this one. He thinks of what- Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes.

Sorry, I, like, said two, and I was like, no, there's one. Oh, I get you. I get you. I get you. I get you. He thinks of what Val said the last time he visited her in her tower. The Free Folk are just like them. They're villains and heroes and good and

bad too. She was not wrong. The trick was telling one from the other, parting the sheep from the goats. I thought this was a very interesting line, especially with what's happening with Daenerys. With sheep and goats? Oh, you mean the sheep's bones?

With telling the sheep from the goats. Or from the children yeah the kids yeah literally the kids yeah and and the the bones and uh yep yep so they pass out barley beans turnips hey we just talked about them carrots also salt beef Hey, we just talked about them. Carrots, also. Salt beef, dried cod, flour, pickled eggs.

I like dried cod, that sounds good. John, over here's a woman asking for two apples. One for her and one for her sick son. The Night's Watch guy giving them out is hassling her, saying, I need to see the second face in order to give you two. Sorry, I gotta just throw this out there. This might be very

ignorant of me to ask do i don't know how agricultural right the free folk are what and do they have like what are they going to do with this flower i was curious about that too um i i guess maybe they were going to fry the cod or the salt beef up or something maybe or like to put some moisture back in. But how? On a fire? A spit fire? Yeah, I assume that they're going to use it to make bread or something. And I mean, like, yes, they could.

They could theoretically do that. They could make a fire, right? Pickled eggs, turnip carrots salt beef beans yeah these sound fine uh dried cod the flour maybe to batter it if they get it like rehydrated yeah if someone knows like more like and obviously there are other things like you you can put the flour out you know naturally for get some natural yeast in it make a bread that's possible right yeah but i just like don't really know what they were going to do yeah and maybe they eat bread and i'm just like and i myself

and pig ignorant right it's just for me like i think of rations in modern day being like rice i'm like yeah of course everyone knows what to do i think that's pretty much what it is i think barley they boil with some water. That turns into a grain. I think flour they somehow make a bread. Somehow. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, sorry.

That was something that really stood out to me. No, I agree. I agree. We think about food a lot, Chloe and I. All the time. All the time. Actually, probably. So back to the Night's Watch. Giving this woman one apple. And it's shriveled and ugly and she's like i want another one for my kid and the guy hal looks to john john shook

his head they would be out of apples soon enough if they started giving two to everyone who wanted to the late comers would get none. John had to make the choice between if this kid was real or not, and if it mattered or not enough. That's a bummer. It's not a great position to be in, but at the same time, like... I get it. I get it. I don't think it's great or right in an ideal world. People wouldn't have to do that, but... We wouldn't have this problem in an ideal world people wouldn't have to do that but we wouldn't have this problem in an ideal world so it sucks to have to prove that your kid exists

right and that they are truly sick it's something that um you know i relate to but i i don't know people in line start to push and get riled up and a fight breaks out and it feels so bad for this woman right her apple falls and like all of her rations fall into the ground because of this and i'm like god damn it watchmen start to draw steel and bows and john commands rory to blow his horn and everyone stops because it goes and the raven then squawks no so so snow, snow, snow. Good intro, right? John explains the watch is bringing provisions as best it can while planning for winter. The free folk accuse the Night's Watch of eating way better than them,

and John thinks, for now. Which, personally, I find real interesting, right? Considering that you remember the beginning of this chapter in which John has wasted a bowl of stew that he did not eat and left it out overnight it's not that it wasn't he was like so busy right and then like he didn't think to eat it in the morning he's like i guess this is gross because we don't get a scene of him eating his cold stew and i'm like wow okay john you're just wasting food out here john goes on giving this big this big speech he says he understands what they're up against the cold ones the white walkers the hunger uh the wall is what stands between them and the

white walkers and the night's watch who guards it he says that if these people would have more food they would have to fight to help hold the wall sig Sigorn, the new magnar of Thenn, says he'd rather kill Jon. Jon empathizes. He thinks of the Lannisters. He's like, I would rather kill them, so I get you. And he explains the wall is all they have, especially with Winterfell and ruins. An old man with a turnip cradled against his chest said, You kill us. You starve us us now you want to make us slaves a chunky red-faced man shouted a scent i'd sooner go naked than wear one of them black rags on my back john then turns to hal and asks him to repeat what he said hal says you gotta choose an

apple or an onion there's a metaphor here somewhere. And I think I finally figured it out. And we'll come back to it later on regarding apples or onions. But first, I wasn't really sure what. I am and I'm not. Because like apples don't have a fixed meaning or symbol in this story, unlike peaches. Which it's very clear that peaches kind of stand in for this idea of summer, of naivete, right? Whereas like apples, I think are a very symbolically laden fruit within our culture in general, right? Like it's associated with the fall and the Garden of Eden. So sometimes it's associated with knowledge

or sometimes with sinfulness, depending. Sometimes it's associated with autumn just because, you know, that's when they show up, right? And sometimes it's associated with autumn just because you know that's when they show up right and sometimes it's associated with electronics but that's probably heralding to the idea of the rebellion and sinfulness anyways um apples don't have a fixed meaning necessarily in this story but the story does bring up onions quite often and this idea of duty or doing the right thing or that idea of choice together with it like we we have a scene with mel discussing like a rotten onions all rotten and i'm like no melisandre because sometimes you know unlike john wasting food we cut off the bad part of the onion and we still use the good part don't judge me melisandre and there's also a lot of the symbolism of what onions mean

in terms of like duty etc that we get through davos's story yeah absolutely like regarding the rebellion i mean this is what saved stannis in the rebellion yeah right his whole faction and yeah peaches and pomegranates those have been choices why not apples but something that sticks out to me in this is that the idea of this woman says that her child is sick and apple will help them and in the last chapter didn't we just talk about how people were getting loose teeths and meat would be what would save that but they're running out of meat uh it just feels like that whole apples will heal you, onions will at least sustain you. Yeah. Pick. Yeah.

And, like, yeah. And I think we'll come back to that towards the end of this chapter. But, yeah, I just wanted to touch on, I don't know, apples don't have a fixed meaning. The closest we get to one is, like, House Fossoway with the red and the green ones, plus the green Fossoways. They're actually one of my favorite houses. Yes, absolutely thing this is about the choice yeah the choosing it's always been hard it has always been hard and speaking of that john gives a speech about that choosing and how it's always been hard i'm about to go hard are you ready i didn't even put the whole thing in and i thought about it briefly then i like, I can't do that to her.

Thank you. You have to pick, Jon Snow repeated. All of you. No one is asking you to take our vows, and I do not care what gods you worship. My own gods are the old gods, the gods of the north. But you can keep the Red God, or the Seven, or any other god who hears your prayers. It's spears we need, bows,

eyes along the wall. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Was it good for you? I worked hard for you. There are the stewards and the builders. The rangers. Yeah, and the rangers. He's like, not all

you have to be rangers. There are other things that we need to help keep up the wall it's like we'll also take any women who are able to do this too because he's like the spearwives are completely capable fighters and then a girl's like okay but what about the girls and she reminds him of aria and this made me think for like two seconds we don't have to dig too deep into it like how much worse would john's life choices be if he didn't have aria in his life to be like show him hey life's a little different morality right and john is like okay yeah you're right um because she's like why why are you gonna take boys as young as 12 but not girls he's like all right the only reason we took boys as young as 12 in westeros is because the system has a lot of them squiring at that age but free for girls are different. They're learning

shit all at the same time at the same amount as the boys. Right? So he's like, word, fine. Everyone over 12 can join, but only if you know how to take an order, because I'm not gonna ask you to give up your culture or pledge your life, but I do ask that you, like, follow orders and do your job

and anyone who disobeys gets beheaded. Oh, that's a Stannis idea right there settle down john uh except burnt for stannis he says disobey an order and i'll have your head off ask my brothers if i won't they've seen me do it don't remind them john right uh and sad enough like i think this is like a not an empty threat but it's like he's saying it for the point of saying it you know like it's show yeah it's definitely show not tell he's like saying like i'll kill you so please behave so i don't have to haha yeah i mean it's true but also like jindal slint was different pretty fucking it yeah different and annoying it was a special it was a special case personally yeah the choice is yours john snow told them those who want to help us hold the wall

return to castle block with me and i'll see you armed and fed the rest of you get your turnips and your onions and crawl back inside your holes so that girl who reminded him of aria is the first to volunteer and she says that her mother was a spearwifin john is like i don't actually know if she's 12 but i can't like say no to the first recruit it's gonna look really bad from a pr standpoint and then other other free folks are coming forward slowly until there's hallock who says all right again this is Harman Dog's head brother he's like I never liked you John but I also didn't like man's and I fought for him so why the fuck not and Halak is a respected man amongst the free folks so that after him a lot

more of them come forward but there are no fens so this is a pretty big move. Yeah, this is a huge move, considering Halak is now the heir to the Trunchbull fortune, right? It is, it is. Who's gonna come into the the chokie? Yeah. Chloe's got this, like, cool light now.

She's just playing with it, everyone. But after they hand out the last Withered they end up with about six not about they end up with 63 recruits and bowen's like all right now what's the plan and john's like okay we're gonna train them then we're gonna send them where we need them to man the ball the lord's deary glance back women too our brothers are not accustomed to having women amongst them, my lord. Their vows. There will be fights, rapes. These women have knives and know how to use them. And the first time one of these spearwives slits the throat of one of our brothers, what then?

We will have lost a man, said John. But we have just gained sixty-three. You're good at counting, my lord. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my reckoning leaves us 62 ahead. Marsh was unconvinced. You've added 63 more mouths, my lord. But how many are fighters? And whose side will they fight on?

If it's the others at the gates, more like they'll stand with us, I grant you. But if it's Tormund Giantsbane or the Weeping Man, come calling with 10,000 howling killers, what then? Then we'll know. So let us hope it never comes to that. Boom.

I like how he calls him the Weeping Man. It's the Weeper. Yeah, right? That guy's fucking- What is that? That rename? The Weeper's kind of a weird-ass dude. I understand not wanting to learn his name

because you don't want to think about him, but that guy, he's a creepy dude who slits eyeballs. 10,000 howling killers. What does that remind you of? 10,000? Wait, I don't know. 10,000 Dothraki howlers?

Not necessarily 10,000 but Dothraki howlers? Yes! Not necessarily 10,000 of them, but, like, Dothraki howlers, the language is similar. Yeah, that actually is. That actually really is. Okay. 10,000 howling killers. Yeah. That's some, uh, that's some shit.

I mean, I've been thinking a lot about, like, how is everyone gonna react to the Dothraki, to the Unsullied? Not well. It's gonna be interesting. Yeah. It's not gonna be good. Not good, Bob. I will come back to, like,

I was just like, wow. Bowen Marsh's first thought about whether or not the Free Folk women will be raped is about the sanctity of the Night's Watch's vows, not about the women's safety. And then his first thought when a woman fights back is like, okay

and when one of the men dies and not about like she was attempted to be raped? What if the girls wear a spaghetti strap top and use their shoulders in school? That's like Bowen Marsh right now. He's like, what if they can't control their boners?

What if their dick automatically enters them? What then? A lot of them have already been breaking their vows all right first of all on second like my god his concern is more around the vows and not about women being raped and like politics are like this right like it doesn't matter about the actual women and their bodies like they don't actually care it's all about what comes off in the back and forth interchange and what they get out of it. But I do respect that this is a great leadership kind of speech from Jon

and a great moment. We know this is sitting tone deaf for the Watch. They're probably pissed at him. But to us, we're like, yeah, Jon, you be honorable. Good for you. Yeah, I mean, he's doing what he thinks needs to be done right he's like well no one else is sending us men and and the woman can fight like anyone else yeah he's like we need everything we can get and it it really shows and that he's like

you know what fuck it we're gonna take little girls too we're gonna take children whatever anyone yeah it's risky it's definitely risky i mean kids are not great at taking orders i'm gonna be real as a person who was once upon a time a child i went to a birthday party today for a one-year-old so i'm right there with you sister um hallelujah sister john in this chapter this is interesting it reminds me of the Blackwater in that it reminds me of Sansa and Cersei. John is taking what Stannis did and learning what the mistakes were from it and saying, when I'm king, I'll earn their respect.

Much like Sansa said, when I'm queen, I'll make them love me. That's what it feels like. These people want something to believe in, right? They don't want to live in the ground ground in night soil and piss their whole lives um they want to live lives and some of them want to eat better right some of them want to survive the winter and they'll take it they don't have to burn their culture down john doesn't care who they worship okay yeah they like you said they don't want to live in holes and urine the whole time they want what everyone else

kind of wants for themselves right they want a life with some dignity and to be able to just like live have a good life for themselves and their families that's why a lot of them even tried to go across the wall

and I think and their families that's why a lot of them even tried to go across the wall and i i think that like what john is giving them it's not the greatest of choices right but it is more of a real choice than what stannis offered there's there's a lot of qualms that i still have with what's going on here like but john at least is not asking them to give up a piece of themselves not that they even would as we see by the three trees on the way here and i think that's also along with the other symbolism meant to show us like all right do you want action or do you want lip service because what stannis got was lip service not action right right and john lays out what's at stake here like yeah the wall is pretty risky you're

losing a little bit of your autonomy because you got to follow orders but you do get more food you get to be a part of what's standing between this side of the wall and the other one or you can choose to be safe he's like he he makes it sound like cowardly but like they can choose to be in their halls they will be fed not a lot but they they have a lot quite a bit of provisions as we see right they'll be provided for they'll have their freedom uh not as much as they had on the other side of the wall um but it's here they're not gonna have like a lot of the other things that they should have like in terms of like baths etc they're still in these hidey holes and yeah i don't love the idea that fighters get more food and i think that's just like i think

that he said because he basically meant the wall in general but to an extent it is like a bit of a logic that makes sense because they need to like stay strong if they're going to protect it and the free folk definitely understand this logic i think john's kind of offering a job i guess but because not everything that he's offering are fighting positions he's offering again stewardship builder positions and i guess that's what the apple and the onion thing is about because they're not great apples it's hammered home often that they're withered apples right and the onions while they last longer i mean onions aren't great raw so neither of these are good choices same as what john is presenting to them and it's a way more

of a choice right than the life or death circumstances that stanis basically presented them that was like give up everything about yourself john is just like i don't know you can come like work for us i guess and have some food and better yeah like my brand of capitalism is slightly less deadly it is you won't hate yourself as much yeah pretty much he's like keep your culture etc yeah yeah he's definitely doing it better than stannis that's what we've learned here. He learned from those mistakes. He saw what Stannis did wrong. And I mean, that's why going forward, yes, we haven't seen this yet,

but you can imagine that once Jon comes back, the Free Folk would follow him, right? They wouldn't respect anyone else, but they would respect Jon Snow because he respected them. And obviously it's war. Hey, fighters get free college in america after a while but we're colonizing we're not fighting a supernatural force that's like stan is saying you're gonna have all these good things if you come and murder a bunch of people so that my

claim is right um john is saying survive and you will live yeah and and stanis's war again has nothing to do with what the free folk are necessarily concerned about and and i've seen like arguments of like it's better for them in the log run or whatever it's their war too but like the free folk know the war that they're fighting and that's the one that john lays out explicitly to them it's the others it's the whites and the free folk are the ones who out of anyone else in west rose are the ones who have been fighting that war the longest they're the ones who have been most affected and most hurt by it and so he's like i'm not telling you you have to fight right

in the way that sanis was like all right he can do get a fight for me and he can't do much but he can do this get a fight from me. He can't do much, but he can do this. Yeah. John's like, well, it's not the greatest of choices, and you get a little more. You can choose to waste your fucking soup if you want. Which, goddammit, John. This is not the time to be wasting your soup.

People are literally starving right here. You could have brought your goddamn soup here well I guess that's John 5 that is John 5 we're getting through a dance with dragons we're getting through a dance with dragons

it's just like he dies at the end he does Chloe loves this series not this one the other one but also one. John dies at the end. It's not the end end. Theoretically we're gonna get two more books. I'm loving the theoretically.

Well you guys, as always thank you so much for listening to us. We'll be back next week with a brand new Jon Snow episode in A Song of Ice and Fire. Wow! Really I say wow a lot. with a brand new Jon Snow episode in A Song of Ice and Fire. Wow! Wow! Really, I say wow a lot.

Yeah, you do. It'll be Jon 6 and maybe Jon 7. This might be our last chance in Jon to combine a chapter, so we'll do a throwback and see if maybe we can do a twofer, get you guys some good stuff going. Is that in and of itself a throwback now? I'm not sure what I see in my night fires, you know what I mean in my night fires.

You know what I mean? That's true. Anyway, thank you very much, everyone. As we said earlier at the top of this episode, you can find us on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon, one N in canon, actually technically two N's, C-A-N-O-N, or you can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. As always, subscribe to us on your favorite podcast hosts you could probably

find us there we are on podbean on spotify on google play on apple podcasts on stitcher on acast or even on overcast and of course we do have a patreon patrons five dollars and up get special episodes monthly this month though we did an episode about his dark materials where chloe and i discussed the golden compass movie in in preparation for the his dark materials television show that is will have just premiered by the time that this episode comes out yeah it was a wine infused blast you could say and you guys thank you again for listening we're glad to be back with john it was refreshing we did miss it as always i have been one of your hosts chloe and i've been another one of your hosts eliana one of your hosts, Eliana. oh my gosh that's the wrong fucking podcast

okay John his wolf walks beside him an army stands behind him ghost walks beside him. Jon Snow. Jon Snow. Jon Snow.