Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 9 - Eddard Outro

Episode Date: June 27, 2018

Ned reaches the end of the Kingsroad, and Eliana and Chloe witness his effect on not only other POV characters, but on the general direction of the narrative.  Be sure to check out some of the essays mentioned below.   Episode Links: JON VIII MUSIC BY MATTIA CUPELLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYHk_D5A44 https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6198zy/spoilers_extended_like_father_like_daughter https://twitter.com/shakesofthrones/status/802600687494254592 http://poorquentyn.tumblr.com/post/166362229873/why-should-jon-conningtons-notice-of-aegons-eyes  http://liesandarbor.tumblr.com/post/160451187817/sansas-psychological-superpower-convincing   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

Hello and welcome to the ninth episode of Girls Gone Canon. Edited an outro and overview. My name is Chloe. I am one of your hosts. You can find me on Twitter as at LiesInArbor. And you can also find me on Tumblr as LiesInArbor.Tumblr.com. And hello, I'm another one of your hosts. The other host, Eliana. The other girl. The other girl.

The other girl. Also very canon. You can find me as Glass Table Girl over on the Maester Monthly podcast and the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit. It's actually our last net episode this time, you guys. Like, pour one out. Our last net episode this time you guys like pour one out our last netisode no we're gonna take a second we're gonna let you pour out pour it out for our boy ned i'm gonna pour some some wine right now into my mouth it's not the same i know cheers

aliana didn't publicize it but she also has the community's best Butterbumps impression. We don't know this yet, but probably. It's actually... Oh, did I just spoil a POV? I think I just spoiled a POV. Yeah, we spoiled... You guys were going to do the Butterbumps POV next. We lied.

That's the surprise. Barristan is Butterbumps, right? Yeah. That's the theory. Just like, okay. So we ended last episode with this a little bit, but, you know, this episode we're going to talk about, did Ned warg into ice? Did he warg into a pigeon?

We're not. We're not going to talk about that. Are you sure? Did he warg into ill and pain? I don't think I've heard like a theory like that I'm just gonna throw out all these things did Ned Borg into Baylor's statue and then for the next

hour and a half couple announcements before we get down to business and get real sad we are moving the podcast release day, drumroll please, to Fridays from now on. Friday, July 6th is going to be our first Barristan episode next week.

It's just going to work out a little better for release time and recording, and we will be able to go even more canon than we have ever gone before with you that way and eliana can you tell them why else we're doing that next week here in the united states um it's going to be july 4th on wednesday which as you know is the american independence day it's the most american of holidays and we can't just do we can't just drop our first baristan episode on July 4th because Barristan is a traitor. Barristan Arnold more like America. will be your new release date. It'll give you guys a few days on the weekend to listen. We'll still release it bright and early on all of the RSS

feeds in the morning. You will be able to find it in iTunes, in Google Play, on Acast, and also, of course, on Podbean where we host. But it'll be early Friday mornings from now on in the US Eastern time or other times where you are.

I'm not going to describe. You guys know the numbers. You got it? I don't. So that's the other reason I'm not describing it. But yeah, that's it. That's going to be it. We're moving on to Barry next week.

How are you feeling about moving on to Barry? It's different. Yeah, it's weird. It's different from that. Like, it feels weird it's different from that like i it feels weird to close my chapter in like this book on that to go to barriston um i just i think he has an interesting storyline and i love that barriston is like badass old nan shit but also i'm just like he's also just not as great of a dude as ned yeah and this really is gonna highlight that it's gonna be really interesting to see because he's gonna make a lot of choices and we're gonna talk about a lot of the stuff he does

after we just spent all this time with our father ned stark who are aren't in heaven. In heaven. Oh, with the old gods. Bless him. Yeah. Speaking of sadness, we're about to get real sad together, all of us, so gather round. This episode is gonna be kind of a freestyle format. It's just gonna be us answering some emails

and some tweets. We got tons of emails for this episode. If you ever want to email us, don't forget, you can just send us a quick email or a direct message on Twitter to girls gone cannon at gmail.com. But we're probably just going to do a little free form discussion here. Me and Eliana chatting about different questions,

different tweets you sent us. Yeah. We also, some of these we did receive a bit ago, but it just made more sense to put them in the Ned overview because they were about Ned's storyline as a whole. And we wanted to be able to address it after having gone through his entire arc. Yeah, it just feels more meaningful that way. A lot of the sentences, sentences, a lot of the answers will feel fuller this way, more gratifying for all of us involved.

So thank you for sending us emails, sending us tweets and messages. We love it. Keep it coming. We love chatting with you guys and bringing up new ideas and new questions and just exploring the text. I mean, that's all we're really doing here is all of us are exploring the text

together. So it's kind of cool to get other minds to be open to i also now i'm just thinking of it as like with all these emails and tweets about that now like with everyone's voices here it's like a little support group as we bid farewell to our dear father, Ned. And to kick us off, typical Girls Gone Canon style, Chloe's going to read us about what to expect as Ned passes. The whispers of Ned Stark's past follow him from the black cells to the steps of the great sept of Baelor. With the daughters he failed to protect watching from two very different positions in the

crowd, Sansa main stage about to be caged and her dreams crashed, and Arya from the crowd slipping away to live a hardened life on the road, Eddard does the exact opposite of what his character has been slated to do this is all going, I just want to share with you all this iTunes review that we received within the past week from DRB098875. The title is I'm Hooked. And honestly, this is probably the most accurate review that I've seen on iTunes so far. It's probably also the title of this episode. DRB says,

I'm not crying, you're crying. Dad no! Dad no. Dad no. I feel like last episode we didn't really let our emotions take charge, and I feel like this episode is obviously

us let our emotions take charge, because it's like 20-something pages of notes also. There's a lot in here. Like, we thought we were going to record earlier and really go, but wait, we got to say this about that. Oh, wait, we got to say this. Oh, my God. We're at so many pages, but we're still not done. Well, and that is so important.

We're going to talk about reactions to his death from a few different point of view characters in a minute. But it's so important because he influences so much in the story. He I mean, half of his kids have POVs, you know, yeah, like some of them, I don't know, whatever. Kids have POVs. And over half of his kids have POVs. And we joke about him being like Jesus, but when Ned dies, it all changes. You know, like Ned Stark died for our sins. He really did. He really did. And that's why he's always asking WWJD what would Jon Yoran do?

That's really what a lot of people are asking throughout the story. And we're gonna touch on that in a little bit. But first, we want to thank Recycled Galaxies at Our Galaxies for sending us this tweet. And we're going to use this to kind of frame up a bunch of the different ideas that we're going to touch on throughout this episode. Our Galaxy says, I have questions! I too have questions, Yeah. Ned Stark took many secrets to the grave. What effect will they have on his family? How will history judge him? There

are still plot points to resolve, which may reveal different aspects of decisions Ned made in the past. Can Gurm write these resolutions to a tidy end? We don't have answers to that last one, I'm sorry, but everything else we have things to talk about. Yes, recycled galaxies. I think we're going to answer at least most of these. Touching on the effect that Ned had to other point of view characters, his children definitely are the most prominent

of these characters. We'll start off chatting about Arya. Could you bring back a man without a head? Arya asked. Just the once, not six times. Could you? I have no magic child, only prayers. That first time his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good God's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss, it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the lord's servants as they died.

I had given it a time or two myself, as all priests must, but never before had I felt a dead man shudder as the fire filled him, nor seen his eyes come open. It was not me who raised him, my lady, it was the Lord. Relore is not done with him yet. Life is warmth and warmth is fire, and fire is gods and gods alone. Arya felt tears well in her eyes thoros used a lot of words but all they meant was no that much she understood aria just seems like such a hardened little girl but in this scene it's just so heartbreaking like she seems like she's got it all together, but turns out she just wants her dad.

And she sees for a split second a moment of hope, like, oh, we can fix everything and dad's going to come back. And no, he's just gone. And she has to live her life now that way. Something I've talked about a few times, and I think I mentioned it briefly sometime on here. I mean, we talk about everything. We go on forever. We're the worst. I love us.

But is how Arya is very black and white. Yes. Goes to that house of black and white about how she was raised and how she's a little girl and she doesn't understand the nuance of decisions sometimes i mean even when ned's saying to her in her chapter in a game of thrones you know about how like sansa kind of had to lie kid like you get it like we're in a bad place aria with that and how you know she's like no like that's not right like everything should be good or you know when she tells sand, you should have saved my mother. You know, she's very black and white with what's right and what's wrong. And we see a lot of that in her, which really just reexamines how she is a kid. I think this quote really demonstrates something we easily lose sight of, especially if you've been watching

Game of Thrones, which is pretty fast paced, and you're revisiting the books for the first time in a while. Arya Stark in season seven is very different from the Arya Stark in the books. Arya Stark is just a little girl. She's a little girl and her family's dying and she's all alone and she just wants to go home or cry or stop having to be strong. Ned's death in a Game of Thrones is really just the beginning for Arya and Sansa of being alone and surrounded by people they can't trust and the beginning of their complete disillusionment in the story. Arya adopts the

I can survive alone mentality while Sansa hits the opposite end of her previous rose-colored shades. People are the worst, everything's awful, I want to jump out of this tower. I feel this way sometimes same big mood ned's death sets aria on this journey where she ends up traveling with robert's bastard who ned just met as we know but she has no clue gendry it sets her in the arms of the

brotherhood without banners who ends up being fronted by her undead zombie mom in a way a faction of it it sets her in the clutches of the hound which who ends up being fronted by her undead zombie mom in a way a faction of it it sets her in the clutches of the hound which really ends up being where she learns more about the gift of mercy and finesses how to defend herself and fight which of course while helping to teach sandor the gift of mercy that she had learned from her father i want to come back to what you're saying uh starting this out about like how aa ends up learning this black and white idea of justice, or quote unquote justice, and the Mercians and stuff. that this entire story, of course, Ned's story, the first time we see him, it's like he's beheading someone and his story ends with his own beheading. But his son's got a very different lesson than his daughters did. His sons were taught this sort of lawful idea of justice and whether someone

deserves it or not. And they saw someone who's beheaded who maybe deserved it, maybe didn't. Kind of didn't. I don't know. Geared's complicated. But the very first beheading that Sans and Arya see isn't through the eyes of a just law system or someone holding responsibility responsibility for it the first beheading they see is their own fathers and then which is extremely personal and painful and the lesson that the girls take away from it isn't necessarily justice but this idea of vengeance absolutely it also leads to aria and her child soldier kind of arc that we get into um and a lot of this it's hard because we're trying to keep it ned focused but there's just

so much that all of this involves it's going to stretch out to each plot as we talk i also found it really interesting that during aria's chapter uh when her father dies, which is where we ultimately see this happen. We see Ned's death through that. Yoren from the Night's Watch is in the crowd. And the Night's Watch, of course, wears loyalty to no one but the Night's Watch. But he immediately helps to hide Arya and tries to get her safely home. He shields her from watching Ned's real death which is interesting too especially with where sansa is standing up on the stage and she's forced to watch it and she collapses and aria

sees that happen but yoren covers her eyes before she can see ned's death from the crowd it's just really interesting perspective wise and where it puts the girls it is it is speaking of sansa witnessing her father's death sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes yet those were the best times for when she dreamed she dreamed a father waking or sleeping she saw him saw the gold cloaks fling him down saw sir ellen striding forward unsheathing ice from the scabbard on his back saw the moment the moment when she had wanted to look away she had wanted to her legs had gone out from under her and she had fallen to her knees yet somehow she could not turn her head and all the people were screaming and shouting and her prince had smiled

at her he'd smiled and she'd felt safe but but only for a heartbeat, until he said those words, and her father's legs, that was what she remembered, his legs, the way they jerked when Sir Illyn, when the sword. Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come, the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sanza went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw up in the shutters. But then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing. That's an intense passage for an 11-year-old. I just want to put that out there real quick.

That's like a traumatic passage. That's a traumatized child passage. Absolutely. And especially like in contrast to like, Sansa talks about how she didn't really feel anything when she watched sergio the veil die at the tourney she's like oh how strange but then this this is so traumatic for her like starting from this like moment waking or sleeping all the way until when the sword this is in some ways like this is all one sentence it's a huge run-on

that's sansa can't even string together a whole thought and that's not like her only nightmares about everything that happens in king's landing after the riot she has horrible nightmares of the riot and almost getting raped from the crowd and i mean sansa just keeps having these recurring dreams and nightmares which of course is a super reflection of all of ned's dreams that we get to witness it's so i mean she is totally ned's daughter which we will get more into that in a bit i know you have like a huge amount of stuff about it which i love ned's death is in many ways sansa's wake-up call to reality. The second Ned's head rolls, the mask is pulled off, and she is granted one superpower, the ability to realize

that the world around her is complete and utter shit, all at the cost of Ned's head. Not only that, but she spends the majority of the time depressed in King's Landing, trying to find ways to get out of marrying Joffrey, a thought that once excited her, and even to get out of life. This passage above isn't the only time Sansa's suicidal in her story. There's another point she thinks about how it'll all be over soon and she'll be with her wolf lady. Another interesting thing, just like Arya's plot, is that Ned's death leads to her finding a paternal figure in Sandor Clegane, who she teaches her own version of the gift of mercy to, just like the recurring theme in her father's plot. And she learns how to defend herself and lie from Sandor.

Something I also find interesting about these plots with the Stark girls is that Sandor Clegane has dark hair, a long face, and gray eyes. A very House stark look. So stark that Arya looks like his daughter while they're on the road. And also, I would just like to point out that Sandra Clegane gently dabs at Sansa's lip when Joffrey has Meryn Trant beat her. And he is brave and gentle and strong for her. Because that's what Ned Stark wanted to make a match for her that was brave and gentle and strong haha sansan forever anyways so i just like don't know how to segue from that

into this i'm just gonna go into wait wait wait it's canon kinda i just went real canon sansa thinks it's canon so you should too regarding how Sansa reacts to her father's death I actually wrote a post about this like a while ago but the language in Sansa's final chapter actually very closely mirrors the language that's used in Ned's final chapter

which of course sets up Sansa's journey back to her Stark identity and shows how much she grows into being her father's daughter while of course as we mentioned, Arya is very much Katz. And here's just like two examples of ways that happens like in Eddard's last chapter. Well, first of all, he keeps like talking about how it's dark and he can't tell if he's like waking or sleeping. He can't tell the time of day. And that's the case for Sansa as well she's just like drawn like the curtains and she's like i don't know it's dark all the time she just goes between waking and sleeping um and we see that in the language of how time

blurs in the eddard's last chapter for how long he could not say there was no sun and no moon he could not see to mark the walls and i closed his eyes and opened them and made no difference he slept and woke and slept again for sansa she was in bed curled up tight her curtains drawn and she could not have said if it was noon or midnight so that idea of not being able to tell from outside there's also this like pleading that happens within their chapters. Eddard, please, Ned said. My daughters. The door crashed shut.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Sansa. She woke murmuring. Please, please. I'll be good. I'll be good. Please don't. But there was no one to hear. And then back to Eddard again as to who he's pleading with.

Yet in the end, he blamed himself. Fool! He cried to the darkness. So, we'll link it, whatever, and check it out, or you can check it out later. Because, you know, we are gonna do, at some point in our, like, next four years

together, Sansa's chapters. Yeah, we've kind of hinted at it before but it will be happening this year even we'll be having Sansa in autumn I loved him made as red as autumn

I love you I was kind of watching the last two episodes of season one last night just to really get myself in the mood for rereading some of these chapters. And a line really struck me that was a show only line, but emotion inducing all the same. There was a lot of really emotional writing then, and I really do miss those first few seasons for kind of some of the liberties they took with some of the plots, but yet still kept it really classic. This line was, we have to get the girls back and then we will kill them all. And it was Catelyn to Rob. Between this scene and in the books, of course, the King and the North scene, there's so much to take in emotionally and tonally in the books as well as the show.

The loyalty Ned Stark inspired in life and death and how he treated his vassals, how he treated his children, the honor and justice that he portrays, precious Ned's little girl. There are so many scenes in this book that just have this sense of legacy. Ned Stark's legacy and what his children are doing

in his name are so important. This righteous man who we're all introduced to as the patriarchal protagonist of our story, it's just so important. Of course, something else interesting about Catelyn and Rob is Catelyn's stone heart begins to grow, of course, after Ned's death. The guilt of Ned's bastard,

whether it was Azshara's or someone else's, begins to weigh on Catelyn too heavily. The guilt of Lyanna and Rhaegar's choices and how Catelyn has to bear those crosses turns her colder and colder. We reach the peak of Catelyn in the Red Wedding, sobbing when she's just losing her

mind and sobbing, all our babes, Ned, and no, not my hair, Ned loves my hair for sure and i don't know i think some of the heartbreaking parts are really just katlyn thinking about ned and when you think about how i don't know i thought they were gonna see each other again after and that last time in the brothel like we talked they should have had sex they should have they should have had sex they should have banged rob also i'll touch on this in a bit but like you can see throughout his story of how he like tries to live up to who ned is in many ways and I don't know maybe we should think about doing a Rob

episode sometime Chloe yeah we did have Mercedes on Twitter a bit ago asked us if we were planning on doing a Patreon at all and it is something that is in the talks something that we have considered

that might just be a Patreon episode we'll see see. We'll see. There's a little teaser. Yeah, step one, get our shit together. Step two, talk about Bran and, I don't know, maybe this other kid named Rickon. Yeah, and step like 742, make a

Patreon, give you secret episodes. We'll see. We'll see. So far down the line. Let us know if you want it. We'll see. We'll see. Speaking of Bran and this other kid, I don't know if you've heard of him. His name's Rickon. I don't... Who's that? Was that Ned's dad?

I don't know that. Yeah, he died in King's Landing. No. This is the kid that's hanging out with the unicorns right now. Yeah. Which is actually the dream, right? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't want to pull too much out of it because it is a little more of a disconnected from ned uh reveal and we will actually get into way more of it when we get to the brand chapters there's a lot more to delve into but a quote that really strikes me is brandon r Rickon have the same dream of their father talking to them in the crypts of Winterfell and that he's dead.

And which, of course, kind of highlights the skin changing and warging connection of House Stark and House Stark's dreams, having symbolic dreams or even prophetic dreams to an extent. And of course, Bran and his powers. So really interesting how it all folds together. But this quote is very painful. I was very sad this morning. I was thinking about this quote and I was like, oh, my baby boys, my baby Starkling boys. It's dark here and cold. I'm not afraid.

I have to wait for father. You can wait with me, Bran said. We'll wait together, you and me and our wolves. This is a really painful episode. Who did this? Who chose this? I don't know. Some terrible person, probably. It it me it's all of us we all chose to do this just by that i mean like you and me i mean no one else is here they're here now they

chose this i mean this is you guys are long for the ride they've all joined this party we're gonna bring them all in in a bit. In some ways, Rickon's, like, really peaceful about this. He's just like, Dad's here. Isn't that interesting, though, because kids are like that, though, you know? Like, young children. Rickon's three, four

tops. He's three. He's a baby. He's a toddler, and he goes, Daddy's coming. You know? Like, this is totally, it's a very realistic portrayal. And I know George has said he has a lot of issues writing Bran and the younger characters. It's harder for him because he is not a

little boy in that mindset. He is an old man. And he's thinking about wild cards. And turtles. He's thinking about turtles. He is thinking about turtles. Oh my god, I'm thinking about turtles. Good thinking about turtles oh my god i'm thinking about turtles good for you george yeah you're doing amazing sweetie that is the first turtle to fall he's the first hedge turtle turtle hog yeah he's not a pov character but i think it's heartbreaking the line the line that breaks

my heart is from maester lewin when he finally gets the letter he's like guys no your dad's fine he's alive and like the kids know because it's like creepy horror movie shit but and then maester lewin's all just like we will have to find someone who knew his like this well or something i don't know man just such an innocence lost kind of moment you know just like uh all of this was that was the biggest thing for all these characters it was very innocence lost there's so much to say about john and his plot and what this means to him that this is the father he has no matter how his parentage is revealed eventually. I find it interesting that right before Ned's death, right when it's at like the very climax of Ned's plot in John chapters

and other chapters surrounding, we get really intense scenes and lines. And at the very climax of Ned's little plot, we read, we just read, uh, John and Eamon have the speech, the R plus L equals J speech, basically, you know,

that your father is one in thousands. What is honor compared to a woman's love? And this is kind of our last real moment in a John to Ned chapter connection, because they follow each other, it ties in beautifully. It's also just so beautiful because we get, you get an idea. You know what Ned's kind of going to do. Obviously he's not going to throw his daughter out there to the lions if he can't. Like if he, if he can help it, he's not going to put her life at risk for his

yeah and the end of ned's story just like the beginning of ned's story comes through the povs of other characters and it's through this speech because they are talking about ned in with several layers like amen and john specifically said they are talking about ned but we also have that double speak there um we're tinting at something else and this in many ways characterizes you it primes you for the decision that ned is going to make in that Arya chapter. Jon and Rob both also begin to think of Ned more often, and they draw on his example a lot for decisions that characterize their growth and rule in the Night's Watch and on the field. Interestingly, we also get people who aren't related to Ned.

We get Tyrion. And while I'm not necessarily going to touch on whatever like Tyrion's immediate reaction is um after it all goes down we see Tyrion actually think a lot about Ned in Clash and especially in his King's Landing storyline because he's just like okay i'm the new hand now and ned stark obviously like made a couple of missteps and i'm really hoping that i don't fall into the same traps he just thinks about that a lot i mean he still ends up in the black cells so yeah but you know this time varies is like we we are not waiting we are not waiting we saw are not waiting. We saw what happened last time. Red alert.

On Dragonstone, we even get reactions from Stannis being super salty. Maybe this is the salt. You know how they talk about the salt and smoke in the prophecy? This is the salt. Oh, are you a Stannerman now? No, I'm just saying that. You're a Stannerman? Oh my god, are you secretly a Stannerman? Oh stanerman now no i'm just saying that you're a stanerman oh my god are you secretly a stanerman oh my god no i'm not please are you i knew it you're secretly insulting me why are you doing this hoey's nagging me but you're like the best kind of

stanerman you're not like other stanerman not a stanermanerman. Do I get to kick you off the podcast this time? Yeah, I'm fired. Now it's equal. You're fired. No, it's not. How many times have I been fired? Okay. But I mean, you need me.

I do. I need you to. You're like the peanut butter to my banana. Sure. too you're like the peanut butter to my banana sure or like the stuffed pheasant to my dripping bowl of gravy i don't know i was trying to be george am i the i'm the lemon to your cake oh oh my god i love lemon cakes so stannis is technically king now but he's also pretty upset because robert liked ned more that whole brother connection that we have constantly talked about of you know ned being the brother that robert chose and now stannis will never get to eclipse ned and will never get

robert's approval forever a middle Chose before bros is apparently how Robert lived his life. Chose before bros. Stop. Alright, switching gears a little. Coming back to all of you, our friends. User Logan Blizzard Blizzard with the handle at Logan Blizz asks

care to speculate on the whereabouts of Ned's bones? Sorry to be macabre. Rip dad. I love that people are getting into this with us like dad no like everybody is really emotionally attached to Ned right now and I'm me too bro me too.

I love this question. This was like, I was so excited. I jumped with joy when this question came. I'm not going to go into detail as much as I really, really, really, really want to right now. Okay, I'm going to start off with that. But the people want you to. I know, but maybe someday. I do have a rough idea.

I've been working actually on something similar to this for a certain series of essays that I've been writing or working on. You guys probably have never heard of them, so we'll move on. I think that Ned's bones and probably also Hal's got stuck along the way up to Moat Catelyn. And I think they're in Greywater Watch. Catelyn straight up says, you know, like, get them to Moat Catelyn. Go north with them. And we know everything that happened with the war there. It wouldn't be surprising if somehow Hal found his way to Greywater Watch.

It works in several ways, but most specifically, it works thematically. Howland helped bring Lyanna's bones home to Winterfell, and he's kept himself off page in way of sending his children to aid the Stark family for a reason. He knows too much. So how do we get these bones in the end? Jon Snow goes south to retrieve Ned Stark's bones, arrives at Greywater Watch, and learns his backstory from the only person alive to tell the tale, Howlin Reed. How else does the Chosen One get exposition on his parents? From the only person still around to give it to him. Or people. I digress, we'll keep moving. Turtle Paste on Tumblr actually had a really great snippet where they talk about how they think we'll see a. Turtle Paste on Tumblr actually had a really great snippet where they talk about

how they think we'll see a funeral with the remaining Starklings and Ned's bones or some sort of crypt type service. I think it would make sense for Jon to have a memorial service with the siblings. Maybe after they exit the crypt, he stops to have a deeper moment with his mom's statue. I've been fond of the different theories of something is going on with Liana's tomb. Many have theorized that, but I think a lot of them are a little too on the nose. It's too obvious. Like, no, there's no harp. You know, there's no baby blanket. My favorite theory, actually, though, is kind of a subtle one. It goes out to at paparazzi on Twitter, who has theorized, which I love this theory that there isn't the harp or the blanket

or whatever in there. No, sir, there's the Targaryen ring that Aegon V has in the Duncan egg novellas, which is really perfect because that ring was introduced and it's kind of, you know, it's out of place. Why introduce that ring with no payoff? I think that would be especially because Rhaegar hung out at Summerhall all the time in the ruins, just looking up at the sky. What if that ring was at Summerhall? What if Rhaegar and his knights sat there with his harp, writing Jenny's song, found that ring, and Lyanna had it, and she died with it? found that ring and Liana had it and she died with it. I could be mistaken and I don't have the source on it. So I'm going to have to go do my research again.

But didn't George say that Howland Reed is coming into play in this story later on, I believe. Yeah, he did. So this definitely makes sense to me as a possibility. And there's no way he can't in a way. True. He's been talked about so much. He's a legend off page. You get the stuff with the Kranog men blindly, you know, where you don't you just hear about how they use guerrilla warfare tactics.

And I mean, we're going to hear about how and it's guaranteed at this point. And then George has confirmed it. point and then george has confirmed it so i mean he's the only person that's alive that's going to come back into play that would have liana exposition or rake our exposition at all besides obviously barriston or daenerys yeah and as for the ring i didn't catch whenever paparazzi brought that up but i do think it's an interesting idea because the ring was used the first time to reveal a kind of like a secret Targaryen. We knew he was a Targaryen, but like he was being secret. It's a really interesting idea. I didn't think of it.

She mentioned it to me during when we did the Hedge Knight for Drunken Egg. Oh, yeah. She mentioned it yeah that was our first awe remember when everyone way back wednesday when we talked about like horses is it yeah it is yeah want to talk about horses no uh i don't know those were just some ideas but there are other things i want to talk about uh i want to talk about what Ned's death and his life really meant to the story to the reader. And I want to start that with a really great email we got from one of our really good friends, Patrick. I'm so excited about this email. It's just a really good

email. And we had to save it this whole time. And both of us were like, Oh, it was such a nice email. I want to talk about it. Oh, what are you thinking about it? Oh oh we can't talk about it yet so i love patrick um dear chloe and eliana the girls gone canon also like addressed us by our titles like patrick you're a real g uh the girls god canon i wanted to write in and thank you both for the sympathetic view which you are employing when dealing with Ned, particularly in his decision to confront Cersei about his suspicions that the children are not Robert's true offspring. Too often I see people taking the rather lazy view that Ned was some kind of guileless bumpkin running around King's Landing giving everyone his social security number and announcing he only ever uses one password,

Winter is coming, with ones for the eyes i certainly agree with lord eddard's critics that ned confronting cersei contributed to his fall i'd rather not judge him harshly for that particularly because ned was expecting king robert to return to the capital hail and whole that wasn't an unreasonable expectation and not only was ned concerned for the fate of cersei's children, who, forget about Joffrey's future misdeeds for the moment, were not guilty for their births and didn't deserve Robert's likely wrathful and lethal response, Ned also had a personal investment to not see his best friend murder Cersei and the children. So much of the man Robert had been was lost to Ned, and it

would be unbearable to see his beloved friend turn into a monster with blood on his hands hasn't ned lost enough yes based on all this yeah right dad no based on all this although ned made a less than optimal move his reasons for doing so were not irrational along those lines i wanted to highlight ned's decision to have the conversation in the godswood as a testament to his spiritual nature he chose the godswood because he felt the very real presence of the gods, to him at least, would offer either some kind of protection or would bring Cersei's actions into the realm of gods for judgment. I think a case can be made that Cersei's takedown of Ned not only doomed Ned, but herself also. This reminds me of Catelyn playing her political strengths when calling out Bannerman before arresting Tyrion. She felt the need to establish her case while observing legal niceties. Ned felt the same, but without trusted Bannerman before arresting Tyrion. She felt the need to establish her case while observing legal niceties.

Ned felt the same, but without trusted Bannerman, called upon gods instead. When you get to Ned's chapter in the Black Cells, which we did last episode, but we saved this for now, so apologies. Talking to Varys, I implore you to read the text of Shakespeare Throne's take on that scene. It's the first thing I saw from her, and I love it a ridiculous amount. And we will link that below in the description of the podcast. We did retweet it recently on Twitter. So if you follow us on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon, make sure you check that out and give it a retweet and give it a great read. It's very extensive and a really cool thread. Just doing

Shakespeare and Game of Thrones rewrites, comparisons. She's very talented. She is. She's one of my favorite accounts. To start off in response to Pat's email, I really love this insight that he brings about Ned's spirituality. It also makes me think about how like, so the gods of wood brings Ned and his family some protection. We see it, of course, in Sansa's chapters. But that also makes it all the more meaningful when and where Ned ends up dying. He dies at the Sept of Baelor. He doesn't have the protection of his gods there. It's where the faith has gotten hold.

And so the old gods cannot protect him. As for Ned's political prowess, yes, we've talked about it a few times, and we feel that both Ned and Cat know how to use their political power. As we said a few episodes ago, it's just that they do it differently from folks in the South and King's Landing, who are just throwing out rules and making up their own in the process. And while of course Ned and Catelyn both lose their lives in the short term i feel that they actually end up getting that long-term payoff that tywin lannister so desperately wanted and so fought so hard for to secure for the lannisters and their family but in the end

ended up losing because of the kind of strategy that he ran the lannister name of course carries a lot of prestige. And they're like really rich, and they've been in power for a long time. Talking about them strikes fear, they rule through fear. And that's what people feel. But unfortunately, the people don't actually love them. So after maybe 15 years, you know, Jorah's saying like people are sewing Targaryen banners in secret. Maybe, maybe not. But you can bet your ass and you see it in the storyline that people are sewing Stark banners in their hearts.

Maybe not really physically, but in their hearts. Because Ned was so good to his people and he treated them very well. They respected the way he ruled. We actually don't hear that much from people, I feel, about how Lord Rickard ruled. And from Barbie Dustin, who is a bannerman of the Banner Woman Whatevs of the Starks, we hear that Brandon actually didn't have the best reputation. He was hot-headed and stuff ned though ned like people loved the way that he treated the northmen the north still completely rallies around him his legacy and

like the way that he treated people had so much influence that people are still fighting for ned's little girl they're not calling them by by name. It's Ned's little girl. As late even into the Winds of Winter, we have lines in Theon 1 that are showing us how people are foaming for vengeance against Theon on behalf of Ned. And you can contrast that with how the Lannister power is actually weakening. Without Tywin or that strong leader to take the reins,

no one wants to fight for them. Those people were terrifying and they sucked and were mean. There is no Stark in the North anymore, though. But the love that Ned bore for his people still burns in the icy North. Oh, absolutely. We even get it

in lines where, you know, when there was a Stark ruling the King's Road road you could walk around like naked as your name day or you know whatever it was it was a better time with the starks around all right next we got another email uh oh this is fun this is a fun one we had fun with this. We have a lot of things to say. This is from Josh. And they say, Good morning. I enjoy your analysis of the non-viewpoint characters.

Which maybe we'll do more. Maybe we won't. I don't know. I think it has some fascinating insights. I'm excited to hear your views on Barristan and your take on the motivations of the people in Slaver's Bay. I've always found the Green Grace to be an underserved character by fans. I actually also think that the Green Grace is a very fascinating character, so I'd be really interested to get there.

Yeah, and totally the Harpy. Yeah, or at least some manifestation or wielder of that power. Anyways, Green Grace, very interesting. The leader, yeah. We're going to get there. I think you do a good job picking up much of the foreshadowing for R plus L equals J. That said, I will say that I am an R plus L equals J skeptic for two reasons. Hold on, everyone.

Boo! Hiss! It's okay. We still like this. This is fun. One, if true, I don't see it affecting the plot of the story. I don't see the Boltons, Littlef story i don't see the boltons little finger the royces the phrase the tyrells you're on the lannisters the dornish and most importantly

stannis changing course i okay hold on most importantly why most importantly i don't know i can see it having a chance of persuading house dairy the red wines the brotherhood without banners and maybe the veil of sansa can influence influence Robert Arryn to join his claim but not anyone else. Of the houses and people that would ally with Jon, a claim as lord of Winterfell and Resurrection seemed like a stronger influence than a claim to the Iron Throne. And lastly, I don't feel like a royal claim would make him a more attractive ally to Dany, and if it arose after they were allied, I see it setting up another dance at a time when forces should be coming together. 2. I am a fan of Jon, and given George's propensity to kill or maim heteronormative male characters, I fear he will kill Jon off rather than make him a savior. And the best way to subvert that trope would be to bring him back from the

dead, reveal he is the prince who was promised and subsequently kill him off before the climax of the story fans would be devastated and shocked two things he likes to do signed josh whose last name i'm not gonna say because i'm not gonna dox our fans or i'm not gonna dox our friends you know at first i was like j Josh, Josh, we got to come to Jesus, which is Ned Stark, which is where all the clues for what you're talking about are held. But Ned Stark died. Ned Stark died for our sins. Our sins. Actually, I just got done listening to Eddard Ford from Not A Cast.

That just came out on Monday. got done listening to Eddard Ford from Nodacast. That just came out on Monday. If you're hearing this, it's probably Wednesday, our release date, but Nodacast did release Eddard Ford on Monday. Earlier, if you're one of their Patreon episodes, highly recommended. It's really nice.

It was a great episode. Check it out. As we said in one of our first few Nettisodes, R plus L equals J is the mystery. It's not a clue to a bigger mystery it's what we spend ned's plot trying to figure out where ned is trying to figure out his own royal bastard tale we spend it trying to figure out his royal bastard secret this is the secret we as readers are supposed to figure out it's the slow burn it really doesn't matter in the long run if john

is rhaegar's bastard legitimized or not not, because Aemon and Jon in Jon VIII make that very clear in A Game of Thrones. The old man seemed to sense his doubts. day should ever come when your lord father must needs choose between honor on the one hand and those he loves on the other what would he do john hesitated he wanted to say that lord eddard would never dishonor himself not even for love yet inside a small sigh voice whispered he fathered a bastard where was the honor in that? And your mother? What of his duty to her? He will not even say her name. He would do whatever was right, he said, wringingly to make up for his hesitation, no matter what. The Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in. Wind and words.

Wind and words. We are only human and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory and our great tragedy. Promise me, Ned. Promise me. The amount of sacrifice that goes into raising Jon, keeping him safe, into finding out he's the Chosen One in the end, and all the people that died for him to face the Long Night and save humanity.

The politics don't really matter, I agree. If anything, Jon's Targaryen blood will work against him and the Northern Lord's eyes, but I don't think it's something he's going to personally even know about until into A Dream of Spring. Bran will likely give us the reveal in the Winds of Winter of Jon's parentage, but I don't think Jon will know about it until it's too far in. Jon's parentage isn't about making him a claimant for the throne, although it's something that may ruffle Dany's feathers at some point. Jon doesn't want the throne. Jon wants to belong to a family, to his home with his siblings he's only ever wanted to have home. This information changes everything for Jon, but Jon doesn't want to take the realm, and being the king of westeros not only isn't in his cards but it isn't really on the cards for

anyone westeros has been working with a broken system for years and years and years it didn't work for dragons for the stags lions and it won't work for the stark garyon either there has to be a change in the political environment in the kingdoms a shift if you will and whatever that shift whether it pushes more toward feudal or otherwise, it will leave us with a far different political situation by the time Jon's parentage can publicly be dealt with. Jon's big goal right now is survive the battle against others, in my opinion, and I think he will. Bringing Jon back just to kill him one more time doesn't really seem likely in my eyes at this point, but I mean, if he dies in the very final battle of sorts, I could understand it. I'm not saying Jon won't politically rule at all post-war. If he's alive, I think he will definitely have a position of leadership in Westeros of some sort, but I don't think it'll be the same as, for example, Robert leading a rebellion to take the throne. example robert leading a rebellion to take the throne i agree about yeah sean who the fuck is sean sean bean i agree about john and what you're saying about his end game i don't know that he'd

like come back just to die again unless as you said he dies over and over and i think that could be an aspect that could really be explored with how death changes people each time and Jon potentially becomes maybe like less heroic in the same way we see Beric's mental state deteriorate. And I think that could be a really interesting direction for George R.R. Martin to go. I'd be open to that. in the end I think that could definitely happen and I also see that as something that George wants to explore very much especially with his whole like Aragorn's tax policy stuff and I could like see Jon on the throne

as someone like being very melancholy maybe something like a sad figure like the Fisher King though or maybe he's like another King Robert oh yay yay as for like that R plus

L equals J stuff I'm gonna echo Chloe's sentiment of they addressed this very well in the latest Not A Cast of Eddard IV so check out what they have to say about it also i forgot who it was the one

who wrote in about it to not a cast that prompted that discussion he also has some really good words on it too but i'm gonna start off my response to that question with these two quotes from george r martin we're about to go on a ride here people like buckle up oh no so first george r martin often quotes american author william faulkner uh probably most famous for writing as i lay dying maybe unless you think he's more famous for like the sound and the fury whatever uh that's another shakespeare reference for all of you taken from a soliloquy from Macbeth. George R. R. Martin says, I've always agreed with Faulkner. He said that the human heart

in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about. I've always taken that as my guiding principle and the rest is just set dressing. How come I've never practiced a George R. R. Martin voice? I should really do that. No matter what it is, I feel like that the story needs to be read

through that lens, and if you're not reading it through that lens of the human heart in conflict with itself, you're missing out on the very heart of the story itself. Next I have in 2008, George R. R. Martin conducted a Q&A session on the Barnes & Noble forums. Like, yeah, who knew

that they had those? Also, what, 2008? So long ago ago that was 10 years ago damn dude all right we old i'm so old we out here i know i know he answered a question regarding john learning his parentage so a person named alorian asked um i have a million questions but the one that i'm most wanting to know is will john ever find out about his parentage and george says eventually yes so obviously this actually hasn't happened yet for john and that means that we must like know that john's story isn't finished and note that it says parentage not just mother so we'll

include the archival slash wayback machine link for this q a for folks since it's been taken down and actually the version on uh the citadel is a little bit paraphrased perhaps to obscure like how this is phrased um in that exact question anyway both of these quotes play into the answer for that first question about r plus l equals j and what impact it's going to have and i'm about to like go on a thing where i talk about a lot of different things but starting with that human heart and conflict with itself i just think that of course john's parentage and being the son of reygar and liana matters like perhaps it's not going to change the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna matters. Perhaps it's not going to change the course of those major houses that were brought up, but as George R.R. Martin said,

all of that is just set dressing. Let me use another prince as an example, Aegon or Faegon, especially if he's a Blackfyre. A reveal like that, assuming it's revealed to everyone, maybe, maybe not, wouldn't change much if the public believes him to be a Targaryen and if he's already accrued all that political power. You can see this play out, of course, with Joffrey and the other Lannister bastards. No one cares that they're bastards or believes it. Also see the Blackfyre Rebellion, literally bastards, and probably plays into a part here. But power resides where people believe it resides. actually wrote a really cool piece about Aegon's role as his fake prince in the story like some different things about how like some of his physical appearances are very loyalist and just a really cool amount of stuff I will link it below I think this is going to be an episode be linked just to a lot of work because there are so many really cool pieces that really sum all

this up and of course like what's behind all that is like what drives like that belief of where power lies a phagon reveal does so much for the story in terms of how it affects other characters especially those for whom we get povs phagon is like less he is a character right but he's in some ways a very elaborate character development like plot vehicle because like if arianne rallies doran behind agon then she chose a dragon she chose war because she wanted to she says that agon is actually real and maybe she has hesitations but because she had a glimpse of a future where she was queen where she was married to viserys that's her she feels that ambition and leads her people astray even if she has those hesitations we have john connington of course and he's the one who's

like so important if this fagon thing is true because for john connington it's everything like everything he thinks often about how he should have gotten full Tywin in the past and that he regrets that he didn't. And now he has greyscale, so he's only going to become hastier and sloppier in the decisions that he makes. He wanted just so badly to do right by the man that he loved, by Rhaegar, and he wanted to make it up to him. And he's trying to do that by propping up Rhaegar's son and he wants it so much that he's fooling himself into believing that Aegon was his redemption but instead it would be bringing about his own damnation as well as the realms and that's why it matters for Dany regardless of whether or not Aegon is real even if he's not but what his part in the story does

sure it like takes some of that um momentum that could have been hers away from her but what it does is it tells her that this home that she so badly wanted this place that she thought was home isn't going to be hers anymore because it was stolen by another targaryen in this whole like personal aspect thing this is how it's going to be for john for anyone it's gonna matter if you find out that your parents aren't who you thought they were like anyone literally anyone to find out that the man like that you admired so much for his honesty and honor had been living a lie to everyone also this whole time like had essentially been committing like this really big treasonous crime had lied to you and that you were not his son had lied to like everyone it's gonna matter to his family especially if there ends up also being a clash regarding succession in the

north and of course like as chloe's had said just a bit before whether john feels he belongs or not it also matters in the sense of how we interpret the character of ned stark and the actions that he chose it recontextualizes those decisions that he made and who he is like that's a huge thing for the story and of course if and when john and dann end up as, like, a thing? A thing? I know. It's a thing. It's a thing.

Blue rose grew in the chink of ice from a wall, smelled of sweetness, yada yada yada. That's the quote, right? Actually, yeah, it's actually like that. And this, like, revelation, yeah, that blue rose thing, like, this revelation is going to affect them as well. Like, this is a huge thing to throw into your relationship. Okay, honestly, though, I'm going to throw this out there. Regardless of whether or not people are related, like, dealing with your partner going through an identity crisis because they found out that their parents aren't their parents is gonna throw a wrench into your relationship all right but first of all going back to like all the stuff that happens in this story not necessarily the universal aspect of like i don't know find a good your parents aren't your parents first of all whether we like it or not george r martin

he wants that icky incest reveal okay george r martin along with being a fan of faulkner is a big fan of robert e heinlein who says that a big reason like that george even became an author in the first place is because of heinlein heinlein loves these weird incest plots and reveals just shit like that it's kind of in the same, but if you want like a quick short story that like introduces you to that, it's a little different, but it's quite the twist. You should check out the short story called All You Zombies. Fun fact, I read my first George R. R. Martin short story, Sand Kings, in an anthology because I wanted to read this exact Heinlein short story. Also going back to Faulkner. Faulkner's got some like weird like incesty vibes in some of his stuff too. And then there's of course what happens if it comes on the heels

of a Fagon plot and a Fagon reveal. It throws another whole wrench of distrust into the John and Dany relationship or besides that whole incest part because suddenly john becomes danny's rival whether the realm and other families believe it or not his claim threatened threatens hers and also because it's like a relationship and stuff she's gonna be like did he lie to her has he been hiding like his parentage this whole time is he another fake another like piss water prince just like fagon is this treason has like my boyfriend been lying to me this whole time and you know after all this and after all this

I think it just comes down to to reference Shakespeare one last time for all this would a blue rose by any other name still smell as sweet you had to I had to it was perfect and then you like set me up you were like oh the

blue rose and yeah i'm gonna chink of ice i got you girl we ride together we die together um with ned promise me eliana uh on top of all that john goes from being a bastard and being a minor threat to secession in the north. And even with the tension of Rob telling Catelyn he wants Jon to be his heir. But then he goes just from that to the real throne. He becomes a threat for the real throne. Any way you cook this egg. Ah! Ah!

I didn't even think about it when I said it and then I said it and I'm like I hate myself it was meant to be any way you cook this egg it's gonna amount to trouble in some sort of way Jon has a claim to the throne whether he's a bastard whether he's not

I mean I think Aegon taking the throne is gonna kind of reflect some of that I think Aegon will very much have the throne for a small bit of time, but I don't think Jon would take that throne. I don't think that throne will even be up for taking at that point. I don't know where it's going to be, but it's going to matter. It will. It will. will all right next we have another tweet from Javi Marcos who writes for the blog Los Siete Renos and he's also a host on the podcast de Hielo y Fuego. So check him out. I'm not.

I'm unilingual. I'm pretty basic and I'm very white. Aliana is the real diversity of the podcast. I am the color of milk. You know how it's kind of see-through a little bit because it doesn't go outside. It's indoor milk. I'm indoor milk. Chloe's Dawn, made of milk glass.

I am Dawn. I'm Dawn. Are you Dark Sister? I was hoping for something more like, I don't know. I don't know. Probably not. I'm one of those copper things, probably. Those old, like...

I bet you're like a bronze rack. Yeah, probably something like that. I think that's a good description. I don't know. Alright, good enough. Alright, so... Javi, though. Javi says, congrats for the last episode. So sad to say goodbye

to Ned. And for the last Ned review episode, I would love it if you could analyze Ned's influence in the future on the North and debate about his role in Rhaegar and Lyanna's relationship before the abduction. Abduction. Abduction. Betrayal.

Betrayal. Betrayal. Before this literally my podcast waifu, Lyanna was like, I'm gonna just let you do it, girl. Like, you just, I'm trusting you. She was like, I'm gonna let you loose. And anyone that knows me personally may know, or semi-personally, or just, like, on the internet.

I get real sad about Liana Stark, so this is kind of what I live for. I'm real ready for this. I'm, like, stretching right now. I'm doing a little stretch. You see this, Liana? I'm just stretching. I see. She's flexing. I'm flexing. She's stretching. She's flexing. She out here. On the Rhaegar

and Liana relationship and Ned's involvement and before the abduction, his role, I don't really know if I think Ned knew. Like big asterisk, capital letters, knew during the rebellion. I think that he had his suspicions about Rhaegar and Lyanna's relationship. On Ned's relationship with Lyanna, we learned through Ned's POV,

especially after different thoughts we received from Lyanna, like when she said to Ned about Robert that he, you know, was never going to stay to one bed, that it just wasn't going to be love. Ned thought that the side of Liana she wasn't allowed to embrace, the sword swinging side, would have saved her and that the boy crazy harpist loving side with dreams in her eyes is what did her in. And we see this treatment to Sansa and Arya from Ned, which we'll chat about in a bit, a bit more. I think Ned feels that protective big brother role until the end for Lyanna and that he feels incredibly guilty he couldn't have prevented the rebellion and what happened to his little

sister and that his best friend Robert was kind of put on his little sister and he didn't want that. It makes him adhere to his role of keeping Jon safe and keeping the promises he made liana we chatted a little bit about this before with reactions to ned's death from some of the main point of view characters and we certainly have more to come in this episode even about it yeah so we're gonna touch on this in like a little bit so i'm just not gonna yeah for sure much next we have another letter coming in uh this is a good one hey ladies i can't tell you how much i've been enjoying your edited breakdowns even if i have to embrace that my good king robert was totally terrible and dumb right it's the worst but thank you for making me accept the truth here's my question discussion topic i have for you it's in my head much better than i can write it so feel free to reword ned by

far is the ghost that haunts the rest of the story aside from the individual stark slash stark john obviously characters what do you think was the ultimate legacy will be at the end of the story you're probably already going to discuss that. It's something I've been noticing reread after reread. Even though he's dead, he's still a major presence in the narrative, not just through his children. Even though our main protagonist dies in the first book, he's still our protagonist. And here's a tinfoil thought. So far, we only have one true dead POV, Ned ned as catelyn is now lady stoneheart and john is something else do you think we'll see net again via the crypts and battle for the dawn

there's too much to talk about those bones for something not to happen with that thank you so much it's become a weekly highlight for me and if either of you are in nyc for any reason let me know so i can gush and fangirl rabea lady, Lady of Waves, Captain of the Iron Shadowcat. I love this question. I think we've covered a lot of it so far, but there are certain things I still want to give a shout out to, especially because we did get a couple questions on the whole idea of

like, will we get another Ned moment in some chapters? First off, Rebea, I am so excited because I am moving to Philly in the fall, so we have to grab a drink. I'll be only like an hour away. I love that. That is so cool. We have to hang out and chat

a swath. Thank you so much for listening. I totally think we could get like a Sima Mufasa in the stars type of scene with Ned and Jon, maybe? In a dream, you know, like a remember who you are yada yada I suppose that's something we'll get to when it quite literally happens with Quaithe and Dany in a way but I'm sure Jon could remember him in that or have some sort of dream especially

since Bran and Rickon have both had dreams about Ned so far yeah I would love it if we got something like that but i kind of wonder if in many ways we kind of already do get that like for peeps who are resurrected or maybe like they die within the story but secretly don't die and they actually come back fake outs um it feels as though we don't get the characters who mourn them as much and they don't pontificate about like how sad they are that they're gone because like oh wow look they're back whoa but we actually get that with ned a lot and to some extent in the opposite direction tywin who yes is a kind of like a foil to ned in many ways as we mentioned earlier like i don't know we may or may not necessarily see Ned again as like some kind of force ghost. But I feel that we do see him again and again in like his children's POVs, in Catelyn's, in the memories of him from the people who were around him. I think that in a way, like these collective memories of Ned, that's like his ghost.

And he lives on rather than like coming back as like him. lives on in them that's his ghost and legacy and i think that tywin's kind of like this as well because i'm just going to keep comparing them um but instead people think of just like how terrible tywin made them feel especially his children while on the other hand you have like all of ned's kids trying to bring back their father's memory literally trying to bring him back too but like not doing so um so that they can just recall his guidance and example and i definitely agree that ned is that ghost who haunts the entire story though in other ways like his death kicks off the whole like war and it just hangs over everything. We said this like in either the first or second episode, but he's the Julius Caesar of this story because I'm going to talk

about more Shakespeare plays because I'm on this podcast and I can do that. Ned seems to be the titular character, the main character. I'm going to talk a little bit later about how I don't think he's a protagonist, but Ned is the titular character, the main character for like this first book, and he dies halfway through it, or through the story, I mean, in total. And by that, I mean like a seventh or the eighth of the way through it. But like, once upon a time, this was a trilogy. And that's another really interesting point.

We always keep that in perspective that especially through this i mean ned's kids and ned's death has always been kind of planned in a way ned's death has always been planned though his children i mean in the original trilogy cat dies north of the wall sansa has joffrey's baby Arya, Jon, and Tyrion get in this weird love triangle I mean we have to keep that in mind a lot has changed but Ned's death has never changed Ned's death was always cemented

it was concrete in the story and it was going to happen yeah there are some cornerstones which when I come back to it it seems as though like in that original outline in that 1993 letter to George, it's also hinting at something about Jon's parentage.

Because, I don't know. It's important, maybe. I guess it made it less incesty for the Arya-Jon-Tyrion love triangle. And of course, while a lot has changed, we have tons to say about the politics that happened in King's Landing and the downfall of Eddard Stark.

But first, of course, an email from one of our favorites. Not to play favorites, but we do love Warren. Warren. I love Warren. I love Warren, too. He makes me excited to record for this, you know? I'm just like, oh, at least Warren's

gonna be happy tomorrow. There's someone out there who's like whose day is brightened by us. And he brightens our day. That's what's crazy. We're like, we're happy. Thanks, Warren. It's a symbiotic relationship. It's a cycle.

It's a virtuous cycle. It's how it keeps happening. You know, it's how it keeps going. So Warren writes to us. Halfway through another exceptional installment installment i'll finish it tomorrow with glee the feeling not the tv show love you so much a small couple of issues for me i'm not a sansa hater but her behavior in this book is at best precocious and while it's understandable i don't think it's excusable. Having said that, I like that you're questioning Ned's role as a father, because both he and Catelyn do unwittingly fail their children.

I can't for the life of me fathom how Ned, who was so concerned about Sansa's betrothal to Joffrey when Catelyn received Lysa's letter, never sits her down and tells her to get your head out of the clouds, girl. I think they both should have spoken to her at Winterfell, but understand why they may not have. But surely, I repeat, surely after the incident with Joffrey and Lady's death, Ned really needed to help his daughter open her eyes. I hear a lot of people criticizing Sansa for things like running to Cersei, but I'm not on that ship. I agree with you girls, it was a natural thing for her character to do the two biggest issues i have with sanza in a game of thrones are one she shamelessly bullies aria i understand the level of older sister snootiness but she constantly belittles her and encourages jane to do it too

bad parenting ned sorted out and that horrible septum ordain does it too oh i can't believe warren called her horrible uh then he says aria fights back and throws me that she kind of just because she dies doesn't mean she's not horrible like she still is kind of the worst like she's not like a bad person she doesn't deserve death septum ordain does suck she's like not great um and this one is the worst it's her shallow worldview in her chapter where she witnesses Ned pronouncing justice on the mountain, she thinks Alan

is a better captain of the guard than Jory. And why? Because he's more handsome. I truly believe Sansa suffers horrifically for her invitae, but I also want to believe that thoughts like this are a kind of defense mechanism to protect her from the pain

and sadness she feels at events that have happened. Thanks for listening Warren and he ends with some like ends with some incendiary words so I'm going to read that aloud some sass he ends with some sass

I don't know when we're going to get to this actually but he says p.s catlin is definitely no angel but we'll talk about that again winky face emoji and yes we will talk about that again listen more and we are gonna talk about it yeah of course i agree i'm about to go off on a tangent here so relax relax. Take a sip of your drink. Whatever. Light a cigarette. I don't know what you do. Smoke a doobie. Cool.

Whatever, dude. Just get relaxed. Of course, Sansa's behavior is at best and worse in this book. Shitty preteen angst and repressed trauma by the end. I agree with you on a ton of these points. In my opinion, her worst behavior really starts to manifest post-trident, when you note Ned should have talked to her. I mean, Sansa is a sheltered 11-year-old, and it's made really obvious in quotes like, my father only lets us have one cup, and only at feasts she confessed

to her prince about wine. And even at the tourney, the hands tourney. It is better than songs, she whispered when they found the places her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. I mean, Sansa starts off with such a bright, dreamy worldview, but a couple things I just don't agree with you on sansa's shameless bullying of aria i don't want to be that asshole but i don't think sansa really shamelessly bullied aria in fact jane pool did uh which we could go on a whole we'll we'll get

into this eventually but jane pool's actions only come from her living up to being a steward's daughter and friends with the hand's daughter and friends with Ned Stark, the Lord of Winterfell's daughter. But Sansa was too courteous to really bully herself. Not only that, but in Arya's first chapter in the needlework scene, Sansa actually kind of covers for Arya. She tries to draw attention away from Arya using her courtesies when Septa Mordain comes looking, remarking they were talking about her half-brother and trying to keep things pretty smooth.

After seeing siblings grow up in family situations bullying each other, I wouldn't say Sansa's outright cruel toward Arya. I mean, shh. The real bullying doesn't happen until after the loss of Lady and Joffrey's involvement, and I don't know if I'd call that bullying so much as siblings on edge in an intensely messed up situation.

Not only is Sansa completely rejecting the reality of the situation, in order to not deal with the emotional consequences ruining her fantasy land, she's traumatized at her wolf connection being torn from her. I mean, she's the first Stark kid that loses their wolf. You mentioned you hope a lot of this is Sansa's defense mechanisms kicking in, and I wholeheartedly do think it is. I did write a while ago on Sansa's defense mechanisms and how they keep her surviving, which includes and is not limited to her completely rejecting her reality in order to not feel the pain of it. Sanza is often seen practicing level three neurotic defense mechanisms in psychology,

which neurotic defense mechanisms are things that give short-term advantages in coping, but they also can cause problems long-term in the psyche. Some of those are things like displacement or denial, disassociation, repression, rationalization, and projection through the books, veiling her mind and intelligence with mostly the goal to survive. I'll link that essay I did below, but this doesn't excuse her refusing to realize Joffrey and Cersei are the villains, of course, but it doesn't excuse Joffrey and Cersei from manipulating the closed-minded little girl from the snowy gates of Winterfell either.

Joffrey uses every easy emotional abuse tactic you could think of on Sansa. Something horrible followed by something sweet, enticing her to just wait a little longer. He might change. He might be everything you ever wanted him to be, the prince you dreamed of, until finally he lops off her father's head, which is the final straw to taking off the rose-colored glasses. I wouldn't say Sansa's behavior toward Arya is fine in the later chapters of A Game of Thrones, but I would hardly call them bullying. She isn't trying to intimidate her sister or using force. She's crying out in distress of her wolf being dead and being unable to do much about it. She's betrothed to the prince,

so pretending everything is fine on that front is what she sees as her only option. I think that's a big reason why we see Ned's children have no betrothals made, all of the trauma in his chapters and in theirs, how he kept his kids close to home after the rebellion, and what transpired for House Stark. And Ned even really prepared Arya for her role in King's Landing more than Sansa, and I would argue gave her different expectations than Sansa. Sansa was told she had to be a lady and performed to the best of her abilities at that, where Arya was told that, but then allowed to keep a sword and wasn't held

accountable in being a lady. She was in fact given lessons to use the sword. Ned gave her more of a political King's Landing education than Sansa had a chance to get. And to really hit further, something I feel like people kind of forget is that even Ned himself thought that Cersei was going to do the honorable thing and wouldn't have herself defended in the last few chapters. Sansa is easily manipulated by Cersei. Not only does Cersei play the good queen mother in front of her, treating her kindly and manipulating her through courtesy, the same thing Sansa learns to master in Clash of Kings and Storm of Swords, Cersei has been made to look like the victim in front of Sansa. Of course, she has been a victim in many ways, but it doesn't make her innocent as we know. Sansa's unaware of the incest that they pushed Bran out of a window. All Sansa knows is Cersei is the model of a queen,

what a queen should be, and she's seen the queen come to court with bruises from the drunk fat king. Everything else has been behind the scenes. Cersei manipulates everyone. How is it so surprising that when she manipulates an 11-year-old girl, why is that surprising? Cersei's manipulations last for the first four books.

The High Sparrow is the first person to really call her and catch her on her shit publicly and gets away with it. I mean, till then, Cersei's pretty much controlled as much as she could. Yeah, and I think until we get our POV in Feast and we're like, what are you doing? She seems like a very formidable political opponent, I think. Her POV really undoes her. It unravels her. Yeah, her POV unravels her, but while we also just watch her unravel. Yes.

Truly. Also, just to add on to how Sansa's story starts out, and Morin, of course, touches on some of these too. We're obviously going to dive into more of all of this when we do that read-through of Sansa's story starts out and Warren of course touches on some of these too like we're obviously going to dive into more of all this like when we do that read through of Sansa's chapters but you know regarding like how Sansa thinks that Alan is more qualified than Jory due to handsomeness I think that all of this is very intentional and necessary for Sansa's arc which of course like Warren also says again it comes back to that character development Sansa's arc, which of course, like Warren also says. Again, it comes back to that character development. Sansa's starting out with all of these fantasies, and it creates a really stark contrast with who she becomes later. I'm proud of myself. The moment that she, like, meets Harry the Air, though, later on, like, in Wynne's, um, sorry, we're gonna talk about Wynne's.

When she meets Harry, she's like, he's hot, but he a thot. Got him. Got him. I mean, like, she thinks of Joffrey again. Like, she remembers that Joffrey too was beautiful and he was a monster in fact we start to see like these things happen literally right after Ned's death like her disillusionment then she thinks that Joffrey like his lips like look like worms and then she tries to push him off the tower and then of course the house the hound stops her he the hound becomes

like her knight in shining armor her knight who who is no knight, who isn't beautiful. And like, I think that's the whole point of Sansa's story. It's really unwrapping her plot. Absolutely. And of course, that brings us to our personal favorite parts of rereading Ned's point of view. This was something really big we took on to just kind of, I don't know, you guys have been with us from the start. Thank you for listening. We really

appreciate it. We had a lot of fun, worked real hard during this, sometimes didn't work very hard, it depends on the day, but we have a lot of favorite parts of reading Ned's point of view. We've touched on this earlier, but I think one of the things that I love about ned's

story is that it is a complete story it's a complete character arc it catches you off guard a little bit the first time because you're like whoa no way you're not gonna kill the main character that's not gonna happen he's gonna make it out somehow and then he doesn't and it just sets the tone for what to expect the entire rest of the series and again caesar dies in that third act but also like i mean i mean everyone kind of knew that caesar was gonna die like in real life so you kind of expected it whereas you didn't necessarily with ned but anyways the play turns out is not really about julius caesar on a reread though you see how ned's story hits every point of a narrative structure i want to double back quickly though about like that whole main character versus protagonist point there's some schools of like narrative thought like dramatica

is one of those things that goes into it that a main character is different from a protagonist i think that ned is very much the main character or a big part of being a main character in a game of thrones he's a he's in many ways the framing through which we see the story, we see, we come to understand the world through Ned's point of view and we're following him throughout the plot. But I think that he's not a protagonist. And this is the great like way that George R. R. Martin pulls the wool over your eyes. Ned is like that helper guardian figure. He's like Obi-Wan Kenobi or whatever, but Ned's not the protagonist because he's not the one driving forward the action of the story ned's kind of in many ways his story he's like passively

going through a lot of things and we're going to talk about his character development how he's complete character and like narrative arc but he's not the one driving the action. Which is important for someone to be a protagonist. Anyway, back to Ned's story and narrative structure. Again, numerous schools of thought propose how a narrative should be structured. Some of them mirror each other, some are different, but a lot of them have similar elements. One of the incarnations of how to structure a narrative is called the seven structure points. So first you have something that's called a hook, then you have a first plot point,

then you have something that's called a pinch point, which is followed by a midpoint, then you have a second pinch point, which is followed by a midpoint. Then you have a second pinch point which is followed by a second plot point and finally a resolution. So again, hook first plot point, pinch point one, midpoint, pinch point two, second plot point, resolution. And each of these different points helps further Ned's story along and it provides this problem for our main character Ned to have to overcome and of course a story's hook is exactly what you think it's intended to hook the reader's attention to get them into the plot and find out what happens next like an unexpected event or twist for Ned story, our hook arrives in Robert's visit, teased in the earlier Catelyn chapter. When Ned and Robert finally meet again after nine years,

the text introduces Robert by emphasizing how much has changed. The first plot point sets the story in motion for the main character. It sets up what the character will do for the rest of his story and why. As we see, Ned is reluctant to take Robert's offer and replace his surrogate father, Jon Arryn, as Robert's hand. His decision about this offer is his first plot point, which is delivered through Catelyn's chapter, learning Jon Arryn was murdered. When Ned navigates King's Landing,

he learns more about the Lannister's secrets and Jon Arryn. Finding the truth Jon Arryn died for becomes the driving force behind his narrative. Next we have what are called pinch points. And pinch points are intended to apply pressure to the main character. And it gives them a taste of what they're dealing with. It creates that tension. Shows the stakes.

And that first pinch point characterizes the villain's capabilities for the audience the first pinch point actually because we're looking at the villains um I won't quote villains comes from Jamie flinging Bran off the tower and the cat's paw so it's interesting it's not within like Ned's POVs and though the cat's paw. So it's interesting. It's not within Ned's POVs. And though the cat's paw ends up having a different origin than expected, it still serves the narrative purpose, especially when Ned's informed of it, that of realizing that the Lannisters

are not only murderers, but they are vicious enough to go after a young boy to protect their secrets. to protect their secrets. The midpoint always acts as a crux for the story, where the main character turns from reacting to information to taking action. This is the change.

At this point, the reader knows the secret the Lannisters are keeping because of the actions that led to the first pinch point. This knowledge becomes a point of anticipation for the reader as we wait for Ned to discover the incest between the Lannisters are keeping because of the actions that led to the first pinch point. This knowledge becomes a point of anticipation for the reader as we wait for Ned to discover the incest between the Lannister twins. The midpoint then is when Ned truly begins his investigation arc, his noir arc, his noir film arc, if you will, to find out what Jon Arryn knew. Now his story is carried by the death of Jon Arryn and understanding why anyone would seek

to murder his son cersei's confession closes the second part first plot point to midpoint of ned's story by providing a solution to the mystery of what john aaron died for then like the first pinch point we have this second pitch pinch point this again applies pressure to the main character. But rather than introducing the villain, it provides that conflict by making it seem as though the main character's plans have gone awry and as though the villain has a chance of winning. This ends up being a little bit complex in Ned's storyline. There's this tension where, of course, Robert dies before Ned can reveal the truth. And then it turns out that Cersei was the one who killed Robert.

And then there's like this whole power vacuum and like, oh my gosh, why isn't Cersei leaving yet? Then we have the second plot point, which begins this march towards the resolution. The main character has all the information that they need to finally address the problem or the villain. And Ned's taken some of those first steps by changing the wording on robert's will he turns down renly's suggestion at which point you know ned's honor seems like it's at stake for a second and then ned ends up with what seems like a solid plan he has the information he needs and with help from little finger he's gonna like get the gold cloaks except then it all goes awry and then turns out redley has fled and they're crowding joffrey king now so the story plays with our expectations here a

little bit it adheres to the structure nonetheless and we expect the main character's plan to go through and instead it like kind of fell apart and now we have Ned sitting in prison, awaiting his sentence. The ending of Ned's story serves to wrap up his character arc. The development of the main character. It shows how the conflict of story has changed the character from the beginning of the story to where they are now. From the first moment the reader is introduced

to Ned, honor is what characterizes him. He lectures his sons on how an honorable man would swing the sword when he makes a death sentence. Honor is what compels him to continue to follow Robert, even when signs show the Lannisters are too dangerous to confront. And it's what causes him to turn

down Littlefinger's final offer to put Joffrey on the throne, along with justice for his family. In the end, he has to make a choice. We get Ned's closing to his character arc from Arya's chapter, where we see his last words. Her father raised his voice and began again. I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King, he said more loudly, his voice carrying across the plaza. And I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men.

Skipping forward. I betrayed the faith of my king and the trust of my friend Robert, he shouted. I swore to defend and protect his children, yet before his blood was cold, I plotted to depose and murder his son and seize the throne for myself. Let the High Septon and Baelor the Beloved and the Seven bear witness to the truth of what I say. Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne, and by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. And with that, we come to a close on that storyline his character has made a complete

arc from being characterized as honorable to just for himself he says that he's fine with himself just dying and rather than that he makes this more holistic choice where he puts his daughter's life above his own far above his own life and reveals to us who he is and perhaps even choices he's had to make before you'll see that sometimes character arcs go from like the self to the holistic it's one thing they talk about um and they transcend i mean this arc transcends to all of his children in a way. They embody something from his arc, some sort of thematic, whether it's mercy, whether it's, you know, doing the right thing. It's just very strong morals and themes that get played within Ned's arc and go on to the family. It's a catalyst for everything. Also, I just noticed this now and I've never thought about it before. I'm sure someone's pointed it out.

Just a quick aside, because Pat was talking about Ned's faith and spirituality. But how Ned says, let the High Septon and Baelor the Beloved and the Seven bear witness to the truth of what I say. And like, he doesn't believe in any of... Well, yeah, he doesn't believe in any of those people. So whatevs. Yeah. But he ends up on those steps of B so whatevs. Yeah. But he ends up on those steps of Baelor's Sept. Yeah.

But the old gods know the truth. Yep, because they see a thousand eyes in one. Indeed. Indeed. I think something I noticed more this time around was the trust that Ned blindly placed in Catelyn about

Peter and other things like capturing Tyrion. I kind of think that trust was placed really easily because of Ned's immense guilt that he felt and never telling her the truth about Jon Snow. And Catelyn herself dies and is risen, which we see the manifestation of all this guilt and loss in Lady Stoneheart, but not knowing the truth that she had done nothing wrong ever in her life, except trust Littlefinger that one time, and she could have been nicer to Jon Snow, I admit.

But otherwise, Catelyn did nothing wrong ever, so jot that down, Warren. I think the death of Ned is super important for the story, narratively speaking, because it sets off the gunpowder of all of these plots. Each direct point of view character goes forward with a plain directive for sansa bran rick on an aria it's survival to honing their powers for catalan and rob the north

the brotherhood without banners it's justice that even turns to vengeance it gives motion for stannis and renly it opens up the stage for the tyrells, and eventually even for people like the Martells to be sick of the Lannisters' shit. It even creates enough of a disturbance in the Force, so to speak, to rally the Ironborn to action for themselves, of course. Yeah, Ned Stark was like, he was like that guard at the door, you know, for the Ironborn. was like that guard at the door you know for the ironborn now that he's gone they're like all right cat's out or not cat i don't know cat's away mice will play i really like yeah the way that you've pointed out this relationship between ned and catelyn and yeah that did really come through in this reread they're they're partnership. You know, they're partners. They complement each other so well.

Yeah, I came to appreciate that a lot more in this reread. Yeah. And finally, good old Philip Phil Terzik on Twitter asks us, What did you two learn from your first POV?

Successes and mistakes. I was so excited Phil asked us a question. I was really excited to meet him at Ice and Fire Con this year. It was a really good internet friendship brought to life. I'm glad he came. Yeah, I'm sorry I only met you on the last

day while eating cup noodles. But I'm glad he came. Yeah, I'm sorry I only met you, like, on the last day while eating cup noodles. But I'm glad I did get to meet you. Next year we can eat cup noodles together. That's true. Friendship. Well, I think we learned a lot from doing our first point of view. Like I said earlier, I'm so happy everyone's come on this journey with us. This is probably going to be our longest episode, I would guess.

Oh, yeah. We definitely had successes and mistakes. I'll rattle them off. We are awful procrastinators. Like, Eliana and I are the worst because we'll accept each other's bullshit. Like, she'll text me and be like, it's okay. I can't do till tomorrow either. And then we just... We're the worst. We'll be, like, an hour before.

We'll be like, want to talk in an hour? And two hours later we'll record. We're the worst. We have to get our shit together our lives are hard i just moved uh i moved actually in the middle of ned and i didn't have a consistent space to record behind the music you know vh1 uh so from that to editing sometimes on the same night with work problems and stuff before releasing i'm just i'm proud we've only had to delay posting one out of eight times like that was impressive or one out of nine i guess this is nine so that's uh that was a good thing and oh my gosh i'm just gonna say it before you get to our tower of joy recording that was good yeah i'm yes i'm gonna just like agree with everything you

said here and that yeah my favorite thing that we've done so far was that Tower of Joy recording. I had a vision. I had a vision. You did, and you executed... Chloe's a rock star, like, she's just, like, she's carrying us, like, let's be real. You're real cute, though.

Yeah, but, like, you know, I'm, like, you're, like... You say stuff, too. You're, like, the salt, you know salt you know i'm like the paprika or whatever are you the smoke and i'm the salt born amidst was girls gone canon born amidst salt and smoke are we the ham okay and so something that i learned really early on uh especially from chloe as we were doing this, is the need for us to do this really thorough outlining. Chloe just sounded super smart because she had things planned out. So we do really thorough outlining of this cast. As Chloe was saying, we were like, yeah, you want to talk in an hour and then we record two hours later.

That's because we're going through our outline again and making sure it makes sense and also maybe gossiping. Pulling up sources and gossiping yeah we plan and like write a lot of what we're going to say and we make sure to like collaborate and make sure we're all on the same page to make sure that that you know no one's talking too much or like if someone's talking too much that we can like just balance everything out yeah this one we probably got a little overboard with our like thesis statements that we went off on but i don't know it's a lot of work but we love it though like this is this is so fun thank you for coming with us because we have had a blast honestly it's given us more time to be in love like we are and uh it's exciting we we do have some you know big plans for the future of, like, maybe a Patreon coming up, like we've mentioned.

Some cool options, though, for Patreon. We're talking, we're talking, I don't know. We got ideas. We got some. Lisa Frank stickers. Yeah. I don't know. You want a temporary Girls Gone Canon tattoo?

It could happen. Maybe. Yeah, it could definitely happen. Personalized messages from us? I mean, I don't know. Like, throw it out there. What do you want to see if you want to throw us money we will do things for you like eliana and i are over here like we're gonna build you legos i don't know we're gonna do stuff we have so many ideas yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be a wild ride

yeah man i don't know i'm lucky i got eliana by my side she's also a rock star she's all this smart stuff but mostly i'm just like willing to go along with crazy ideas i'm like this is this is weird let's do that why not i love it dude no i love it like you you open people's minds to things you didn't understand or think of before like there are some things that i have said oh that makes a lot more sense now that eliana said it out loud so like i i'm glad i'm glad that you give me some knowledge kid yeah and i also just yeah love to go be along with doing this journey with everyone else i especially love doing it with you we we definitely like did this like capstone for ned and i don't know we you and

i had been talking for a long time about doing this project and now we're like wrapping up this first POV and just like throwing this out there to everyone, you know? We don't have a prenup. We don't need a prenup. We're poor. We don't need a prenup. Yeah, we're both broke. We don't need a prenup. What would you get? You'd get my computer. Fuck you.

It's bullshit, Eliana. Alright. We got this this we're good we'll get out of here in just a minute you guys you can find us on google play you can find us on iTunes we're also now on Acast and Stitcher

but of course, always you can find us on Podbean where it's all hosted and that's where the RSS feed comes from. Stay with us. We're going. We're going to Barristan next. We're going to Barristan next.

In the meantime, you can check us out on Twitter. Make sure you follow us. It is at Girls Gone Canon. If you want to send us a message on there, that is fine. You can also send us a message or whatever on email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. As always, I've been Chloe. You can find me on Twitter as at Liza and Arbor and on Tumblr as Liza and Arbor dot Tumblr dot com. And of course, I'm Eliana, also known as Glass Table Girl, and you can find me on the Meister

Monthly podcast and always on the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit. Could you bring back a man without a head, Arya asked. Just the once, not six times. Could you? Crying, crying. Crying.