Girls Gone Canon Cast - Game of Thrones S8E6 The Iron Throne

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

  THE GIRLS WATCH THRONES: hang out with Eliana and Chloe as they sit back to discuss the FINAL episode of Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne All The Colors by Dj Quads https://soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quadshttps://open.spotify.com/artist/2VZrdImbvB03VWApYtBRr3 Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com  Girls Gone Canon Patreon: https://patreon.com/girlsgonecanon

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 6, The Iron Throne. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as at LizaNarbor on Tumblr, Twitter, and LizaNarborGold.com. And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana, and you probably know me as GlassTableGirl on the As long as Ice and Fire subred Reddit, the Maester Monthly Podcast, and as Arithmetic over on Twitter. Hey, guess what? The

last spoken word, the last dialogue in the Game of Thrones series, the hit TV show that everyone's been following for years and years, the last words were the Queen in the North. The hit TV show that everyone's been following for years and years. The last words were the Queen in the North.

Just putting that out there. Anyways, the last episode ever, if anything, forever. Until, I don't know, the long night, but that's a prequel. And maybe we'll find out why it's still winter. Hey, it was finally winter in King's Landing again. They, like, remembered the weather happened today. That was nuts. And I mean, I get it. Like, winter takes, you know, we don't go directly from winter into spring.

I get it. Especially when you're in not a swamp like I am. Remember when Jamie left and it started to snow in King's Landing when he went north? And I mean, it doesn't snow all the time. Sometimes it's cold and sunny. And I don't like those days as much. I don't like winter. Never mind.

That's that. And then there was a bunch of snow coming down in the beginning of the episode. And then four weeks later, I guess it was spring. Yeah. Or it was just a sunny winter. Also possible. Yeah. All the snow was gone eliana i mean sometimes there isn't snow when it's winter especially when you're further down in a swamp i'm from michigan that's true i i i was born in michigan so that's probably my problem here someone who lives in a in a capital city

where it's further down, halfway through, in terms of latitude. Yeah. It's not exactly halfway, I don't actually know the latitude. But you know what I'm saying. So the episode, though, it starts, picks up a little where the last one left

off, and now it's Tyrion walking through the carnage left of King's Landing back and trying to get to the Red Keep so that he can find his siblings, Jamie and Circe. That was a bummer. It was a good scene. Dinklage acted the shit out of it. Yeah, he did. And I mean, you know, he walks through the rubble. He comes across. There's a lot of things leading up to him getting there. a lot of things leading up to him getting there um he sees a small toy horse that's clutched in the hands of a small girl who's now burned because we've never ever seen this before and by that i mean uh we've seen them we've seen this girl with her horse last episode but of course it's a call back especially with sir davos right here to shireen and her tiny stag um most of you probably

made that connection last week right when aria was looking at it but i think having davos here is just another reminder of another tragic character a lot of people have already discussed the connections between stannis's storyline and danny's and i think there's a lot of it that's written very much in this context of uh exchange, right? That price that people are willing to pay, especially with Tyrion's discussion on the price that Dany is willing to pay for things. Like her name is even reminiscent of the silver coin of the Roman Empire, Denarius. Her brother uses her as a coin to purchase an army. And then Mirri Maz Duur introduces early on in Dany's storyline,

that idea that only death may pay for life. And this runs through Stannis' storyline storyline that idea that only death may pay for life and this runs through stanis's storyline with that idea of cost where like your grace said davos the cost and stanis is all like i know the cost last night gazing into the hearth i saw things in the flames as well i saw king a crown of fire on his brows burning burning davos his own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash fire consumes consumes. Exactly and I think it's very much talking of course like of what the price of a crown is as we see and I think the story's also asking us at what point is the cost too high when it's your own soul. That's a discussion within the

story. Yeah absolutely what is what is worth it? How much are you willing to lose along the way to win? Yeah, so we move into this scene where Tyrion is just, he uncovers the rubble. He finds Jaime's hand, so he just starts digging and he sees Cersei's wig. So, you know, he knows they're there. And he just starts pounding into the pile of rubble, very upset as soon as he finds out they're dead. just starts pounding into the pile of rubble very upset as soon as he finds out they're dead is this meant to be i'm not sure if it is but it reminded me of remember the discussion that tyrian and jamie have before tyrian's trial smashing exactly it's like he's smashing beetles and i think people kind of interpreted that to be a sort of like discussion maybe like people

were definitely looking into that way deeper than i think it was meant to be on like nihilism and life and stuff and i feel like maybe this is supposed to be an echo of it but i also could be looking too deeply into this i don't know jamie and circe were the were the costs of what tyrian tyrian's actions i guess but also i don't know the smashing of the rubble maybe orson cousin, Cousin Orson and the Beatles. Maybe. Hmm, finally a reason for that stupid scene. Or was it foreshadowing? Otherwise it's like a seven minute scene. Was it? I didn't time it. I don't know, I didn't time it,

but it was long for like a scene where they discuss their uncle or cousin, yeah, cousin, smmooshing beetles. Whatever. I don't know. I felt like the scene was super moving. Tyrion tried to protect his family and be a part of them. Even though they were like garbage to him and others.

I mean, Jaime, like we heard last episode, was never as bad as Cersei. But Tyrion put his very last bit of faith in them when he realized Dany was off the rails, and he finds him dead. Nothing good came of any of it for as hard as he tried and the cost that he paid. And Jaime was the only light in his life growing up for so long, and obviously I joke about how I don't pay attention to their discussions,

but it was just really emotional. That was Tyrion's last hope, his try and they're they're just gone uh I think in the books we've had a lot of discussion lately around the fandom of you know Tyrion in the books is obviously going to be the devil on Dany's shoulder he's already kind of instigated the dance of the dragons by telling Aegon to go west uh and go to westeros and you know sit there and wait for your auntie and then fight it out uh she'll come to you and marry you son for sure nothing could ever go wrong um yeah i feel like in the books yes that is that is what's going to happen for sure tyrian is definitely going darker and he's kind of reveling in his misery however

especially because he's one of ge's favorite characters and Paris's favorite characters I think Tyrion's going to come out of it uh that's kind of what I think this is telling us a little bit here that once he loses his family either in the winds of winter or in a dream of spring whenever it goes down uh if he loses them because of daenerys it might change his mind a lot yeah i think that's definitely something that we can see kind of set up especially with a tyrian and his dream of being maelys the monstrous that sort of duality between loving and hating his brother and his family so yeah i think that's something that's definitely there and it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out in the books he's gonna probably yes he's

gonna probably take casterly rock but a building is not the people except for when we're talking about the symbolism of the red Keep and the Iron Throne, then it is. Then it's one thing. Then it is multiple things. Oh my god. It also really reminded me of the quote that Tyrion said to Cersei. It came full circle kind of on itself.

Not only did it wrap up for Cersei, but also for Tyrion, that a day will come when you think yourself safe and happy and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth and you'll know the debt is paid um i feel like his joy turned to ashes in his mouth this is you know he wanted to bring down you know like be with daenerys and be one of her advisors and bring down you know the the government and the corruption but at the end of the day that price was very high and he is very conflicted with his family and always has been and always will be and he was not happy yeah he was not happy seeing the institution the payment the The debt, the payment, the price.

Tyrion's story in and of itself is also kind of tragedy, less so I think Shakespearean but maybe somewhat Greek. You know, like they survived but they're not quite the same. Oedipus is alive but he's like, I'm in exile now and I blinded myself and I'm like, okay that is your choice dude god yeah the greek are so dramatic aren't aren't they maybe comedic whatever anyways oh my god I love the scene next where John is trying to stop Grey Worm and the Unsullied from killing prisoners of war um it felt very unsettling and sinister and I think it was a good scene. Jon tells him, you know,

it's over, it's all over, Grey Worm. And it's very Ned. It reminds me of Ned coming to the sack of King's Landing and, you know, Tywin delivering the babies bound up in the red blankety thingies to hide the blood. And Davos actually got to say a couple things here he as well said you know like whoa whoa whoa whoa this is not what we do gray worm not what we do yeah it was an interesting scene i as someone said on twitter a cast jacob anderson and more things he

has done great with what he has been given he hasn't been given a lot of lines right but i mean gray worm doesn't always speak that much and so i think that's in line but also he's done a great job this season someone suggested casting him in up in blade and i was like oh shit that's funny that's what uh we've been saying at my household about him he i i feel he's a musician he is i have to look it up yes okay. Okay. I'm not making that up. Good. Good. So. Yeah.

He did great this season. I keep saying it, but that moment in the long night when he lifts the trenches and the look on his face as he watches, like he knows what he's doing. He's damning his men and he has to lift the trench and especially to go from the unsullied, you know,

from season three unsullied versus own the unsullied you know from season three unsullied versus season eight unsullied is a lot different there's a lot more personality and seeing them grow as people seeing gray worm grow as a person and not yeah i mean like he's paid a lot too he's given up a lot in coming here and following denarius and i think there's something interesting that he says when confronted by john and davos in terms of the lannister men grayworm stresses that these are free men and that they chose to follow circe and i think that's interesting choice and language that he points out that they were free men unlike the insolity it's almost like

there's a grudge right like that these men have had freedom all their lives. And yet with that freedom, they chose to follow a bad leader. And the Unsullied, for so much of their lives, didn't get to have that choice. It was taken from them. And even when it was given to them, it was sort of muddied because they weren't able to be built to have everything that they need to have agency like their lives weren't on a foundation right like to have that and so gray room kind of seems to despise that misuse of that freedom and power that they have but i do also want to acknowledge that there is a flip side to all of this and it obviously feels a little unsettling in the next few scenes as well when Daenerys addresses everyone, like her troops, right?

And I want to acknowledge that there's a lot of discomfort that people feel over Grey Worm's story and the portrayal of the Dothraki as violent invaders in Westeresteros and that idea that the unsullied are violent upon being freed and i think i just want to acknowledge that that this there is a growth in gray worms but there's it's worth questioning like these harmful narratives and how they might reinforce bad stereotypes of what freedom means for people who have experienced slavery especially like with the way that show is showing is setting them up and like we don't see any of the dothraki women like this was a whole culture and they all came with denarius so where are the people where are they amongst this because they weren't necessarily always amongst the riders but they didn't go out right during the long night either so so were they even there i mean we don't see female dothraki the last

time we really see the female dothraki or the dash khalin uh in season six that's really isn't that the last time we've seen a female dothraki we've kind of flattened their culture and the show has done this in a couple ways and with that whole setup for the violent invaders, as people who have experienced slavery from the Unsullied, and just like, Dani's speech, her address with the troops, I like it on one level, but I know in having a partner who is Jewish, they are not happy about it. not happy about it um it was a very uncomfortable scene especially how they're setting it up with just like this idea i don't know even like the communism he feels they kind of went with it too but it was very nuremberg uh and amelia's acting was amazing during the speech i i do want to point out like she has killed it with dark danny this season especially because it's such a switch for her acting wise and tonally how she's playing it um i i think there are a lot of other podcasts with representation who will do this a lot better

speaking about this because of their experiences but it did make me uncomfortable as well i think these writers really needed some balance in that writer's room we know this they haven't had a female writer since 2013 uh they needed a sensitivity check they needed someone to tell them no to some things i will say the one thing i did like about the speech was it mirrors perfectly that cal drogo speech in season one after she is almost poisoned down in the market and this happens after almost being poisoned last episode by various right and it's the speech that he says that the stallion who will mount the world to him i pledge a gift to him i will give this iron chair his mother's father sat in i will give him seven

kingdoms i drogo cal will do this thing and he says he will take his calasar west to where the world ends and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no cal has done before and then he says he will kill the men in the iron suits like denarii said and tear down their stone houses i will rape their woman take their children as slaves and bring their broken gods back to vase dothrak to bow down beneath the mother of mountains uh it was a very interesting mirror and seeing her go that route and seeing her kind of take that attack on. But it was a little also unsettling because she says, I'm going to free people, you know, from the north, from Winterfell to Dorne. I'm going to go liberate. We're going to go liberate this country. But liberating, as we saw last episode, is burning everything down yeah i think we're supposed to feel that sort of

dissonance right between those two ideas and how they clash and how the actions don't seem to match up with the words but as you said i i know that this i'm pretty sure this is what they were going for intentionally i don't know how i feel about that choice i mean i know i i i don't feel great about the choice and i you know your partner also as as he pointed out um in another place and with later scenes where tyrian uses that language or first they came for X group of people and it evokes the language that the oppressed have used and mischaracterizes it amongst the oppressors. And so I think that there is, I think, a tonal miss on the production part.

Yeah, I think, and you can obviously understand this from a lot of your personal experiences too but you know being not white in general if you're if you're not white this is there's a lot of people who are not white in this world uh a lot of them like very very many of them believe it or not i am the whitest of whites and i can tell you there are a lot of people that are not like i am it's just it's very obvious that there are a lot of people like me in that room, except not female. Yeah. think but it it was insensitive and it also goes to this big form of media and all this erasure of things like the holocaust and different things that happened there and different sufferings that

people have gone through it kind of whitewashes those things by saying that by having tyrian kind of use that kind of language uh and it's something that as that spreads through media that becomes how people view it and as history goes on you know as well as i do even in game of thrones in a song of ice and fire that history uh after a while becomes very scarce and just broad strokes yeah i mean something that is true that tyrian says this episode we'll come back to that later on of course is stories have power and I think that something he doesn't touch on is to an extent the responsibility

of using those stories and power in terms of narrative that way yeah absolutely it's very Catelyn Stark you know we're all songs in the end if we're lucky if we're lucky or maybe

it's better to not be, depending on how people sing of you. Remove yourself from history. Tyrion was removed from history. That's true. But first, speaking of removing, Tyrion calls Dany out on her bullshit

and he's just like, she's all, you freed your brother, you committed treason and he's like, you burned a whole city of innocent people, dad. Very ballsy. I will give him that. I'm like, damn Tyrion, good for you. He pulls a net he takes his pin off and

he exchanges a look with Jon as Daenerys has him carted off by Unsullied and you can see that look on Jon's face. He's like, oh, fuck, now I gotta make a choice, don't I? Yep. Once more. Once more he does.

And then turns out Arya's also been walking around here too. She's stuck all the way from the north down to King's Landing. She was sitting there, like, staring at the horses that the Dothraki are on right before the speech. Yeah. You see her, and I'm just sitting there, and she's like, someone took my fucking horse. Where was her horse? That is a question that I have.

Did she just, like, leave it, and she's like, maybe- Ratconned. Maybe she let that horse go. She's like, go, be free. Or maybe, I mean, it was an injured horse. What if it died? Wow. That's rough.

That's, like- That's how I think of- You just went- you hit all of them. That's, I think, a uh sobering thing for me of course to say yes that's i i am kind of worried that's why i'm surprised right now i'm like oh you okay buddy you've come to terms with the horse i'm coming to terms with a lot of things a lot of things chloe and then aria of course meets up with john and tells her the truth of the situation that you know uh you know as an aegon being first in the

line is you're never gonna be safe yeah if you don't take the throne or try to like finalize it your life's gonna be in danger which is also i think while we're speaking of parallels of daenerys's earlier storyline that's kind of the choice that she had to make when it came to Viserys and her son. Yeah, absolutely. She did what she had to do for her and her child, and she knew that Viserys was not happy about the turn of events of her, you know, being the star incest child. Oh my god. Yeah, so had to save yourself and protect yourself, you know? And it's just like that line that Tyrion has in the books, the, you know, of course she's proud, how could she not be?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I keep thinking back to that quote today and I'm like, that's her. It's such a great- It's a strong quote It's such a great quote and description of her. It being imprisoned of course tyrian in the series and he asks john if he brought wine immediately so very tyrian very much so uh it doesn't change i i didn't look at them but one of the leaks allegedly was that tyrian has a trial and that they filmed it maybe as like one of those diversions right of uh fake endings or fake things that happen but i do think it's an interesting idea because I have kind of wondered if Tyrion gets another trial

because he's had two already, right? He's had the, excuse me, he's had the one in the Vale. He's had the one in King's Landing. Both have been trialed by combats. And it almost makes me wonder if he has a third one, right? Rule of three.

Basically, the whole idea was that Tyrion gets arrested for treason, for plotting, and they put him on trial and then he's executed in studio. They didn't see the end of it, they said. I also am wondering, it was supposed to take place in the Dragonpit, so I am kind of wondering if, you know, it's really not... It was only filmed in the Dragonpit and they had false information or something, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I guess we might hear about it eventually, but...

When the book's done, when the 10th book comes out. Right. But, yeah, it's definitely a rule of three. It's a nice way to close the series, having Tyrion in jail. I mean, this time, he's kind of just like, whatever, guess it is what it is. Saw this bullshit coming. I'm having a bad life.

He does have a bad life though. It's not great. Right now it's not, that's for sure. So Tyrion tells Jon that Dany will never stop fighting. She will never stop. Just like Adam Feldman's essay we talked about

last week, Daenerys achieved peace and then she decided war felt better and that's kind of where she is right now it's kind of sad we're gonna come back to part of this quote later on but again in Dany's chapter of a storm of swords Dany 10 she thinks like that the seven-faced god is kind of confusing then she goes the red priest believed in two gods she had heard but two who were eternally at war danny liked that even less she would not want to be eternally at war and like that's what's being set up here yeah there's this line uh john says to tyrian you've been by her side counseling her till today you've been by her side justifying her actions and encouraging them

till today don't you remember oh two episodes ago was it when you're in the war room in winterfell and you shoot your sisters a look a mean look and say yes we support you denarius like what what is that john like i guess you're probably likely just justifying your actions especially to yourself it feels like. You've been by her side for a while now. I think it's just so difficult because they keep setting it up as Daenerys is foolish for not listening to her advisors at this point in the series. But the rest of the story, of course she doesn't listen to her advisors. Her advisors were fucking wrong the rest of the story. Jorah's like, yeah, let's buy slaves.

And the person's like, no, just leave them, ignore him and like neither of those are good choices all right like one of them is complicit in the system like by allowing it to happen and the other is actively perpetuating the system of slavery and she decides to change that right and like well and it's worse than that because where she is in the books right now she's showing up with what makoro marwin the mage uh yeah all these dark characters she doesn't have good advisors right now baristan's gonna die jorah's the only good one left obviously missandei's great she's like smarter than all of them in 10 jorah's like missandei's literally a child jorah's doesn't he just doesn't really give that great of advice because at the beginning, also, his advice wasn't for Dany's benefit. His advice was, like, for Illyrio and Varys' benefit.

He's like, let's just turn back now. Let's just go. And then, of course, you have to look at, like, Tyrion joins in and we know where he is right now. We know what he just did with Aegon. So he's so deep and dark right now he's gonna end up joining danny i mean you're looking at she's gonna be coming to westeros looking like a villain uh i completely understand where the setup is she's coming to westeros with like this sinister like magey like all the fire priests are gonna be again like with her and she's gonna have

this huge horde of dothraki and we obviously know westeros is intolerant yeah she's coming into the fucking death eaters and like of course everyone's gonna think anyways so there's another really great line in the scene that i like when in the scene tyrian says danny's house words fire and blood have you know made her that's what she is and john kind of flips on him and he's like obviously you can see he's been repressing this as he's like trying to survey and figure out he's got aria in one ear tyrian and the other telling them you know like this is bad this is bad and finally he flips and he's like house words don't make the people like is that what i am to you am i fire and blood is that what that? I love that Jon does push back on that because I'm like...

Finally. Yeah, and I mean, this is something that he's been wrestling with internally as to who he is when it comes to family, and it's something that is within the series, and it's something that Tyrion also wrestles with himself of, are we our family?

Are we our own person? Like, to what extent is our destiny decided by the sins of our fathers versus like and like the blood in our veins versus like who we fucking are in our choices and i think that's something that the story is straddling yeah so good job john yeah that was that was nice but at the same time john paired that with justifying danny's actions tyrian has a great like this whole entire scene was really good it had a lot of exposition and a lot of characterization for danny but the problem is it's the last episode of the entire series yeah like you're using this scene to give context to danny's sudden change in

attitude but it's a little late to contextualize it like why didn't you try this in episode four maybe or episode two or you know it obviously there were hints there were bits of isolation there were tiny scenes where you saw how she felt alone but i just feel like there should have been more of this then there's this line tyrian says and also great writing here get ready everywhere she goes evil men die and we cheer for it and she grows more powerful and more sure that she is right i get it he's talking to the audience i see it yeah but i get it and like, to an extent, but he didn't have the flip side of why that's a problem. And on its own, that's just Danny kills bad people, and we're excited about it.

Yeah. He's not exploring that difference between, I guess, what is justice, what is vengeance, and also to what extent should it be enacted and i mean like again not justifying like fucking slavery because like that's something that was not i think that was uh a little sloppily done to be to be nice about it uh in in this agree in this speech etc as we've already discussed but it's something that they're nodding to and as you were saying of setting it up earlier it's not even just setting it up earlier in the season which yes

it needed to be done and i know people say that you can see it if you look back on the previous episodes but in the books people have been talking about how this would happen with only book five which is much further back and if you chart it to like where the seasons are right uh yeah in in game of thrones and at the time when danny chooses dragons plant no trees even like when we start seeing uh the things with the great masters or whatever in slaver's bay like let's say a lot of the conquering of slaver's bay is like act two right of a five act story of her storyline and then dragons plant no trees happens like early on slash halfway through maybe act three of her storyline and you're supposed to

be getting that gradual and very obvious build up throughout act three and four but we're getting we're getting all of it in act five which is about three to two episodes and i and that's i think the major problem that a lot of us have it wasn't if a narrative right a story is a house act one is your foundation right that's your character your exposition. And then you're building everything on it with Act 2, 3, 4, and 5. And it just feels like 5 is this huge, heavy stone tower. And Acts 1 and 2 are stone, but in the middle we have straw. And I think that's just how I feel.

And I understand many people disagree. That's something that I felt of acts three and four of Game of Thrones and especially with Daenerys's story absolutely so how do you feel about that Jon justification do you think that's him justifying to himself out loud or do you think that's him kind of regressing in character i mean obviously he chooses but what what do you mean by regressing in character where is he regressing to well obviously in the last episode he wasn't happy with what happened and he does later call it out to danny that it wasn't okay but to tyrian right here he justifies it all and says

this she had to do it so i'm i'm just feeling like either i don't know how to feel about it i i know just take it with a grain of salt because it's a show and it's not that deep but i also at the same time like i just want to understand is this just like him trying to lie to himself is that what they're implying i think it is i i think it's a valid question that you're asking i think as you're saying it's him in denial and trying to lie to himself and maybe that's part of him lying to himself about dandy's also him lying to himself maybe about himself and where he stands as tyrian calls out throughout this conversation and it's at the end of the

episode especially like when he comes back to ghost that we're like oh yes this is who john was the whole time they're supposed to be but he's just been confused and things have been things are rough you know when you die and come back and go to war i think a lot of this too has to deal with him not dealing with his parent yeah. And that fire and blood moment we just spoke about, that's like the first real dealing with his parentage moment, you know, out loud. Does he deal with his parentage at all in this episode?

Not really. No, that was it right there. That was, that was it. That was the only moment. It didn't matter. Yep.

Yep. So. Okay. Finally, we do get a little bit of an easter egg uh if you guys remember this character his name's maester amon he was in the show for oh you know what four seasons was that four seasons yeah yeah yeah so there there's a speech that uh and that that's you know the the last Targaryen that just died. Besides Dany and Jon, there was only three of them left in the show. And Maester Aemon died. So Dany, who's never met any of her family or, you know, doesn't get to hear much about them, has not heard about Maester Aemon from Jon. You think he would mention, I think he would mention her in the books.

Or him. I agree. I think he would mention her in the books or him i think yeah i think he would mention him in the books i hope so uh he says to tyrian that love is the death of duty and tyrian's like did you just come up with that right now it was pretty stupid uh and he's like no no no it was me i ain't that clever I laughed real hard at that. I was like, pfft. Tyrion says, sometimes duty is the death of love. So that's setting up, obviously, we know what is about to happen. Who knew?

As Jon leaves, Tyrion brings up Jon's sisters, and it becomes Jon's choice. Tyrion was direct blood of his family, and he never got to fit in with those lions and he wanted to so badly john was never directly related to his family or legitimized but now his family loves and accepts him knowing his parentage and danny danny is that missing link to his life and past it's all that's left of this family he never knew he had so john's choice right now is choosing between duty and between love and uh it's it's hard it's almost now that you frame it this way like tyrian saying i can't choose my family anymore but you can yeah it does kind of ring that way doesn't it it does like don't give it all up and again i think this is that like at what cost thing that's set up in danny's storyline and like that idea of

what choices john has is something that's set up very early in john's storyline especially in a game of thrones and it's very parallel right to ed wittkos and danny's storyline and i think this is something that i struggle with in the way it's presented in this episode because i don't think i find that the idea that duty is the death of love is very simplistic because i don't think they necessarily need to be countered to each. And we see that especially in Ned Stark, who, like, duty's not better than love. Ned chooses love over duty, right? Like, we've discussed this again and again, it's a different kind of duty in a way. And I guess Tyrion's complicating that here too, right? Which do you love more? Which family do you love more? which do you love more which family do you love more yeah and at the same time i wouldn't even say ned chose love over duty ned chose his duty to love yes god this is getting confusing but they're not different the duty he has to love he chose duty to his sister and to his family uh who he loved yeah and like you say they were the same they're just both different

duties i guess and it just reminds me of that line from maester amon in john 8 in the game of thrones that we just read a little bit ago with joe magician the old man laid a withered spotted hand on his shoulder it hurts boy he said softly, choosing. It has always hurt and always will. I know. Yep. And Jon makes a choice and must live with those decisions as Aemon has. As Aemon has. Which he repeats.

I know, it's just so sad when Aemon's like, as I have, as I have. That's gonna haunt Jon. Right? as i have as i have that's gonna haunt john right there's also this progression here in terms of choices or something that you know we were bringing up character regression and i'm not sure if this is something this story is trying to set up or not but i'm going to give it a voice um and put it out into the universe i believe in you yeah like we're going to get this to this part very soon because you know we're doing a reread of john chapters and we are now at a clash of kings and john encounters egret right and two other wildlings and he hesitates in killing egret upon

learning that she's a woman corn half hand orders john to execute eg, which thus makes it his duty. And then John doesn't execute Ygritte. As a consequence of that action, the wildlings find them and Corrin and here captured a bunch of the other men from the Shadow Tower died, right? That's the right sequence of events, right?

Died, but like John and Corrin being captured, that leads to Jon having to kill Corrin halfhand, who of course is very valuable to the Night's Watch. And I'm not saying that Jon was wrong to not kill Ygritte. I'm not saying he was right to not kill Ygritte. But it is a choice. And that choice has a price. And the first time he chose not to kill Ygritte. And it's like this time he chooses differently right there's no right thing i see that little part right there you know had he not had he killed

egret right away how many lives would he have saved and of course on the flip side with danny for him killing her means he's saving lives uh and it's choosing you know it's it's the harder choice the the road probably less traveled seeing as you shouldn't just like go killing your lover or ex-lover definitely not like on the rocks lover it's not a great it's not a great uh thing either no absolutely not and it does remind me of that quote in storm of swords when he thinks about egret just that it was wrong to love her it was wrong to leave her yeah yep there was no right choice john's forever gonna be haunted by both of these there's never a right choice yeah and then of course at last here we are at the Iron Throne.

Yeah, the music is a slow, haunting, Game of Thrones-y theme being sung in ooze. Ooze. And, uh... Real slow, real sad. Really slaps. It's a banger. It is, though. I really suggest it. I am so excited about this ost ramen just did us

good he was great uh that's yeah he did a lot of heavy lifting this season in my opinion danny approaches the iron throne and she reaches out to touch it it's this was a sad shot a very sad shot seeing her finally get to touch you know the seat where so many of her ancestors have sat her father sat there um so many people have sat in that seat and she reaches out to touch it it's just it was sad it was this scene well maybe i don't love the writing of the show as far as how they got to it uh it was really done well i was very surprised that i liked it as much as i did i expected to be really upset and i was but it was like in a different way yeah yeah yeah i thought that they did that so well and they just really executed that

meeting with the ironrone amidst the sky and everything just so great and like on one hand I'm kind of sad she never sat in the fucking chair but also like the entire thing that kind of makes it more painful in a way like the entire scene was just hopeful right as she touches it and then the music changes

and it was sad and it was terrifying and beautiful yes she's reunited with her family through the throne and then through John on the other fucking side the death of duty the death of love death of Danny I do

I appreciate Amelia's acting so much in this episode she nailed it she nailed the season. She had this very, this season's been amazing for her. It's been such like different work for her. Instead of like Rhaenyra triumphant, we get Rhaenyra overthrown, Rhaenyra defeated. It's kind of the vibes I'm getting as this happens. And all Nysa N Nisa Azor Ahai

discussion aside we won't even touch that because prophecies don't matter on this show yeah they just don't matter and it's not important right now it just doesn't matter right it's not going to forge anything no one cares there's this subtle dig about the throne's size almost because Amelia

Daenerys is talking about how when she was a kid you know Viserys used to tell her that it was a thousand swords and she's like I'm a kid I can't count past 20 like what the hell uh so it's a cute little moment she's like trying to be sweet and soft toward Jon and she she says how would I know like I wouldn't know how many swords that is. And I think that's supposed to be a subtle, almost digger joke, because George has made it clear that throne is not

what he imagines the Iron Throne as. He imagines it much more imposing and taller. And that throne is not a thousand swords. There are not a thousand swords on that throne. Yeah. And I feel for George, but at the same time... Yeah, George, get over it it's an adaptation and you had to make this during the first season all right when our budget was much

smaller and we had to be consistent you should have seen the original concept with foam swords we were using ikea rugs and they were amazing and we are gonna take what we're gonna get we are claymationing the iron throne okay that'll be actually kind of funny like wallace and gromit uh yeah but yeah yeah as you were saying i think it is i don't know that it's an insult i think it's yeah i don't think it's a dig i think it's one of those like references like this isn't the you know like like the nodding it's a nod i. I agree, I agree, I agree. Jon, instead of flirting back with Dany and smiling and being a part of this little conversation she's having about her brother, Jon calls her out for, like, burninating the land.

And Dany is justifying herself to Jon about King's Landing, about Tyrion's arrest. And she kind of starts to tell him desperately, be with me and rule with me you know like you were a bastard when you were young and you had nothing and i was a girl that couldn't count past 20 when i was a little girl and now look at us like we could we could rule and she has this desperation her voice just like viserys did before he dies uh before he is crowned so to speak very similar just like the the light did before he dies, before he is crowned, so to speak. Very similar, just like the light that goes in his eyes and how like, that's all I ever wanted was a crown. That's it.

That's all I ever wanted. And how pathetic and sad Dany feels about it. All she ever wanted was someone by her side. Yeah. Well, she had it for a minute there. Fuck. God damn it, Chloe. Jon asks her to forgive people he says please danny john calling her danny is a little more intimate uh that came up in season seven that he is the first person to call her danny and you know

forever since the series was alive very familial very intimate very sad yeah john like begs her like forgive people make them see you know how it is that how you are as a ruler that you're a good ruler we can change it danny you know it was very like anakin i loved you uh danny tells him you know we can't hide behind small mercies the world we need won't be built by men loyal to the world we have and john says the world we need is a world of mercy it has to be which is of course what it's about and now and it reminds me of you know when your enemy comes to you and bends the knee you pick them up off the ground you bring them back up so then there's these lines back and forth where john is searching for any sign that he should not do what he's about to do uh and he says the thing about mercy and danny says it's not easy to see

something that's never been before a good world and john's like how do you know what's gonna be so good and danny says because i know what's good and so do you. You've always known. And Jon says, what about everyone else? All the other people who think they know what's good. And Daenerys says, they don't get to choose. And I think that's when Jon obviously makes his choice. Right then and there. Because in his head he's thinking, what about my sisters?

What about Tyrion? What about all these people that also may have ideas about what is good and what is righteous in the world and Daenerys shoots it down yeah I mean choice is such a fundamental thing Jon gets to choose whether it's hard even if it's hard people should get it and like I don't know you've all watched this episode so I'm gonna just jump around as I talk about like this overarching conversations I see in the episode and series like we've uh there's this ongoing thing that's been running throughout the series especially with bran and danny's storylines and obviously it comes to the forefront when bran's a crown king um and this conversation i think is about power and godhood obviously both of them have some sort

of like magical power where they've been lacking this socio-political power within their societies because bran it comes to him like he wanted to be a knight but that's torn away because of his when he becomes disabled and then for danny part of it comes from her gender and for both of them there's there's a bit of it in terms of their station of birth like where they fall in line of things as well as you know being an orphan and like on the run and then that happens to brand two after a while he's also an orphan on the run you know things happen but each of them are associated with godhood in a way i think for brand it's a lot more straightforward as a three-eyed crow raven large black bird thing and the association with the old gods in the weirwoods and i think the targaryens are a little more complex like we've pointed to this passage before in storm danny 10 that discusses it

a bit like up here in her garden danny sometimes felt like a god living atop the highest mountain in the world do all gods feel so lonely some must surely missandei had told her of the lord of harmony worshipped by the peaceful people of noth. He was the only true god, her little scribe said. The god, because you know she's like 10 in the books, the god who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and earth and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of

Harmony, Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone all the time attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or unmake at a word and for Dy that word is dracarys right and then you have like all of these other characters discussing you know how the targaryens saw themselves in westeros like the dragon king said but brother to sister but they were blood of old valeria where such practices had been common and like their dragons

the targaryens answered to neither gods nor men So they see themselves above gods and above the law, as Catelyn thinks. And then Jaime's all like, yeah, Cersei and I are just going to marry each other. We could marry Tommen to Myrcella once we've sent Sansa Stark back to her mother. That would show the realm. That's about Tommen, right? I don't know.

That would show the realm that the Lannisters are above their laws like gods and Targaryens. He's equating them there. And I think that this idea of godhood, the way Bran and Dany's godhood or the ideas around it, you know, they're not literally gods, but how the narrative is positioning them, especially with religion being a big deal and Song of Ice and Fire,

like they operate against each other because Bran's power allows him to see through the eyes of others, whereas, like, being atop a dragon alone above the world is isolating, and then Jon asks Daenerys repeatedly, like, have you been down there and seen the burning children? But she's too far above, she can't see them. Coming back to that issue of choice that Daenerys says, like, in saying that she knows what's good Dany is setting herself up as that voice of morality and again of judgment of godhood and she's going to decide what is best for everyone

and in removing that choice she's not freeing anyone it becomes this paradox and then within that narrow vision of what constitutes godhood is that idea of destiny because I think destiny in and of itself is kind of that lack of choice and freedom as well you can't choose like what path you're on you've changed yourself to it as stanis

did and this is very opposite of the way brand sees the world literally figuratively i don't know theoretically he knows the future yet each time someone does something wrong like john later this episode apologizes for not being there when brand needed him brand shows him mercy he's like you were where you're supposed to be and we've discussed mercy and justice many times in our other episodes because it's such a running theme throughout the stark storylines talk about it in ned's chapter sansa's chapters i mean fuck there's like the mercy chapter of arias but in these especially talk about it in theon's chapters as it relates to bran you even see it in john's chapters regarding egret oh yes exactly exactly and like there's that tension right of justice

and mercy central to the idea of like the christian god in old new testament old verses new testament and george talks about his catholic upbringing and oh yes absolutely the seven are very very influenced by that exactly so yeah religion's a big thing here and like that's the paradox of freedom because brand knows what's going to happen more or less right like in a way maybe the future is set maybe it's not but he lets people choose he doesn't tell them what they have to do. He just kind of accepts what they do, and I think

part of me wonders if that's from his experiences with Hodor that has shown him the limits and consequences of power to those he loves. He committed this great sin and has gotten something of, like, mercy with people dying for him, whereas Daenerys was shaped by a cruel

world ruled by power and she was she wasn't shown mercy she had to carve this idea of justice out in that world so i this is that conversation that i see in terms of rulers thank you for letting me monologue oh absolutely it was a beautiful monologue. Daenerys has never known mercy because no one's ever shown it to her. And she has used that and hardened herself. And especially when you look at the women who have dealt with sexual abuse, assault in this story, and the women who have been manipulated and used as pawns, it hardens you, it does harden you you can't always stay gracious and sweet and kind when bad things happen to you and you can't keep trusting and Daenerys never was allotted that trust as a child ever yeah and I mean even that echoes with especially like book Cersei becoming hardened so of course we get the third treason yeah once for love uh Daenerys asks Jon to build a new world with her and he finally tells her you're my queen

now and always and the look in her eyes flashes and she's happy she smiles and she kisses him and as he pulls away he's stabbed her really emotive acting.

It is. It was really emotional. I cried a little bit even, and I didn't expect myself to cry. It was very sad. It was. It was. Yeah. It's different from the way The Night King was filmed.

Yeah, absolutely different. Very much so different. I do think it's an interesting recurring theme this season of that stabbing. Her wig looked really silver in that lighting, in that blue cool lighting in the throne room, so that was kind of cool. I thought that was a nice thing.

You could see Silver Queen, you could see the struggle on Jon's face, on Kit Harington's face during this. You could really see him pulling it off on his face and i think that was great yeah i did you you read right that like kit harrington just started crying when he got to that part in the script yeah i read that after and she had already known and typical typical best male friend you know that he's just like oh i haven't read it yet i wanted to read it live with you dumbass oh yeah cute but then like he's like he hadn't read it and he just started

crying in the script reading uh it's very sad uh she was like yeah punching you in the arm asshole of course that's why i'm upset and it's a bummer but i do really love this next part of the scene where drogon uh comes down he smells the blood on daenerys you can see him sniffer and he kind of does the lion king thing where he bucks her with his head a little bit you know like get up get up and uh you know because i don't need a heart after this scene at all and drogon burns down the iron throne melts it down after he realizes that denarius has died so symbolically because because of that throne she has died obviously and it hit me really hard john actually stands in the flame did you notice that yes does not move he stands in front of drogon he thinks drogon is going to roast him and he doesn't move from that path until he realizes Drogon's burning the throne.

He was ready to accept that as his death. To accept that, like, this is what I've done. I have killed my only connection to that family. And I have, you know, killed my lover. And if I die, I die. At least I did something good for the realm. It was sad, obviously. If I put it into the better in the book terms,

which is how I cope with this show, I compartmentalize it. I do think it was very sad and it was well done. The throne melting was nice and it was good. It was a slab of melted metal with everything on fire all around as the snow falls. And the music was swelling really good. There's blood underneath Dany and Drogon picks her up in his little feets and he carts her off, very much

so like Arya Targaryen in Fire and Blood, in my opinion. Hopefully to lay her to rest in old Valyria. Yeah, that was... It was a sad scene and the fact that it's all framed right of course against the iron throne like you said ends with that gone yeah as someone i forgot who um i had pointed out you know the

thing that made the iron throne the only thing i could destroy it was what made it that dragon fire probably joe magician i think he was likening it to lord of the rings and the fires of mordor yeah i could see that yeah we've been talking about how it's just really full circle in our household that's been a conversation topic there's just so many parallels that have brought us back to the beginning and closes out this season and that is one of them i think drogon also taking her away this is just like a weird idea that i have it's another one of those like godlike things right you don't have the body and it's just spirited away by i don't know magical creature it's very fantasy yeah uh

very tragedy and very fantasy it it was really sad really nice and uh not nice obviously but it was just sad it was a sad beautiful poetically sad scene it was a bummer yeah and i agree you know like that of course i think there will be more of a conversation around it and maybe condemning it a little more and and playing up the ambiguity of this in the books right because it is it is still as people pointed out like intimate partner violence and tyrian does it in the books without shay coming for him first right and it seems like it might be a running thing if valenkarqar goes differently in the books. So I don't know. The context will be different and darker for Jon. You and I have discussed this a little bit offline. And just that I'm curious if the Valonqar didn't happen in the show fully to that extent. I think i think it will happen in the books and i wonder

if they didn't want to do the whole woman violence thing two episodes in a row which i understand and i don't begrudge them that i don't actually begrudge them i don't that's what it was yeah and and i it's part of why i wonder if that's the way that they went with peter dinklage's That's the way that they went with Peter Dinklage's character with Tyrion and, you know, not wanting to keep malign people like with dwarfism. And I understand that maybe a more complex choice could have been leaning into that character and that complexity. But also, I understand, same as if that's what they did with the Valonqar, why they chose not to do that, especially with this. I think that would be a good reason. I would definitely respect that because obviously they don't often say, hey, let's tone down the violence against women. You know, it's not a it's not a usual phrase I've heard them say in the show.

Yeah. We'll find out when the 11th book comes out. Oh, my God. comes out oh my god so a few weeks later several weeks john gets arrested obviously for killing daenerys uh tyrian is paraded in front of the good enough council of 305 ac not a great council just good enough good enough it's not 101 people you know it's enough people yeah and so they are in the dragon pit and we have this unnamed prince of dorne uh someone made a joke all the princes of dorne just i don't know sure the same outfit like all the targaryens sure the same wig yeah and also like so he would be from a completely different house as well i just want to put that out there because there's no martell's left yeah i'm not really sure like who he is maybe we don't care i don't know yeah and by we i mean the story whatever

they you know what else whatever it doesn't matter we have this guy yeah we did get edmure tully i was i didn't know if he was coming back i i heard rumors so that was very surprising and fun uh he's looking real cute, actually. He's got a little gray in his hair right now. Yes, exactly. I was like, wow, Zaddy Tully. Sansa's there. Sam is there. Gendry is there. There's a

handful of randos scattered throughout that don't have real names. Brienne, Davos, Yara, Bronn of the bullshit, big bronzion Royenne, Davos, Yara, Bronn of the bullshit, big Bronzio and Royce, and sweet, sweet, sweet Robin. What a glow up. I told you.

I'm happy for that actor, though, to be honest. He's a handsome boy. Good for him. He went through puberty. I was just like, when he came back, what, in season four, in like a bit in five,

I was like, ooh, that sucks. Like, it's been three or four years and you still in five i was like oh that sucks like it's been three or four years and you still like look exactly the same as when like you were eight but now he's not i'm happy for him yeah yeah he definitely had a glow up i love that um i was surprised i was surprised to see him uh all glowed up in there i love his outfit too his little like falcony outfit i want to call out uh does this mean that that in the end game in the books because you are a strong proponent of sweet robin surviving yes harry the heir i think sweet robin will survive harry the heir um i think that

maybe this is canonical we'll find out eventually i'm sure i think he will survive it. And I think this is actually a, believe it or not, this is a nice round way to close Sweet Robin's arc. It didn't happen in the show. However, in the books, he's, you know, being poisoned by sweet sleep. And who knew that a small, weak, sickly little boy could survive? Yeah. And I mean, like, we've seen Sansa being very close to the Royces. Yeah, and I mean, like, we've seen Sansa being very close to the Royces, and I think you also suggested, right, that she maybe works with the Royces, and, like, that Sweet Robin survives, and all of these things kind of point to what you were discussing. Yeah, are you trying to say something, Aliyah? I think I'm trying to say, you guys, Chloe fucking called it.

I just, I think it's a little much to have Sweet Robin die. I just think it's a little much to have sweet robin die I just think it's too much I think it's a it's so much blood on Sansa's hands I think it's going to be a close call I think sweet robin's going to almost die and I think it's going to be used as evidence against little finger when Sansa takes him down I mean that right there is huge he's poisoning sweet robin in the books and Sansa knows yes she's slightly complicit but also he's telling her to do it and what's she gonna do yeah so it's interesting that he's

here um I was also afraid that they forgot him same as Edmure Tully but and they didn't they didn't so it's great I was surprised yeah I love Sansa in this scene. It's so great.

She asks, she straight up asks, she's like, why is Grey Worm not bringing my brother out? My brother cousin. My cousin. My cousin. Why is he not bringing Jon out? Where is Jon? And he's like, you don't get to make demands.

He killed the queen. He's locked up. And she's like, okay, I have thousands of men outside. I have thousands of army men outside. Like, you want to scrap Grey Worm? Because they're going to want to know where their king is. Yeah. And I love it.

Like, this is a criticism that I have and I think everyone has like there's just so much in this last episode and I wanted another episode right I want us to deal with the aftermath really of Daenerys death like we she deserves that space I think we deserve what that meant for a lot of

these people and for the story and I also think that I wanted to see that fallout of what do we do with john right like maybe another 30 to 40 minutes not necessarily in this episode but in like an episode right that should have been a thing especially because game of thrones is built so much on that politicking but i mean you know i want to see sansa and aria being like we gotta go down there say paralleling rob when they learn about ned being in prison but she's doing what rob and catelyn came down to do right when ned got in prison she's here they're saving their imprisoned stark she's doing also what you

know she's doing what rickard did when brandon was imprisoned by the Mad King. When he came down demanding Rhaegar's head for Lyanna. So it's just very Stark-like. I really like it. Yes. And that's not where it stops. Yara speaks up and she's like, fuck that guy. He killed our queen. I'm devoted to our queen, Daenerys.

He killed our queen. So who cares what happens to him? No Stark rights. And Arya's like, Stark rights! And Arya's like, keep talking about my brother and see what happens to him no stark rights and aria's like stark rights and aria's like keep talking about my brother like and see what happens bitch it was it was good and davos of course stands up he's like kids kids i need you to stop fighting he tries to diplomatically like placate every single person there he offers the reach to the unsullied to give them a place and life and a world and they're like no we don't want that we want justice also braun didn't say anything right like braun is right there and doesn't say a single thing yeah good he shouldn't

yep who are you even i don't know uh it looks like a ghost of a person because he died in season seven and this spoils the war um tyrian uh kind of speaks up he's like you don't get to decide what happens with john that's for a king or a queen to decide and then he's like well we don't have a king or queen anymore because john killed them and tyrian's like well maybe you guys should choose a new one right it's fascinating that also john's parentage doesn't come out here but i guess i understand because he killed the previous queen i don't know whatever whatever also why is gray worm in charge still he i get it he was the only named official from i think denarius's council right and the

other ones have been deposed such as john Tyrion, and therefore he's the only other governing- His last OG. Yeah, exactly. The only other governing person, so. But I just mean, why are they obeying him? Because he has the Unsullied. And the Dothraki, I guess. Yeah, I just would imagine, like,

you have several little regions here that have big armies armies I don't know also respect they're super trained I guess and respect yeah that's true they helped fight for the rest of the realm that's right that is what Davos says too so I'll give it that but I am sitting there like y'all just gonna

listen to him yeah go get Jon go get him yeah um I don't know I guess maybe they didn't bring Jon out because they didn't want to have the discussion about Aegon Targaryen. Whatever. Edmure. Edmure's there.

Yes, Edmure. It's exciting for me still. It was very exciting. And what's really exciting, you and I were talking about, is imagining, you know, he actually got to interact with Sansa and aria and bran with his kin yeah they got to be with family these kids who have not gotten to have family in so long and edmure who was languishing in a uh a dungeon in river run for so fucking long probably till like a week ago you know he uh he got to meet his kin and hang out with his kin on screen yeah he all of them he stands up he's like i would be

a great king and sans is like uncle please sit down what are you doing yeah sit down i do wish okay i i was telling you this how i wish there was a scene of like edmure reminiscing with the stark kids about caitlin yeah going up to sansa and in a non-creepy way being like you look just like her and then they talk about her and also i mean like his other sister's child is there too right like it's a family reunion this is this he's apparently actually robin in the show which is yeah he is robin in the show because they didn't want people to be confused yeah i learned recently though you know the way like harry is short for the name henry or something in something in old English nicknames, right? That Robin is actually, in fact, a nickname for Robert.

That sounds right. From back then. While sweet Robin. Exactly. So there should have been a family reunion, but whatever. Also, if Edmure is still here and is still Lord of the Riverlands, is he still married to Rosalind Frey? Did Walder Frey get what he wanted in the end? I think so, but we don't have that answer.

Yep. Question that I have. Just another question. Lots of questions. Yep. Sam is like, okay, well, I have a weird idea. What if we introduce democracy? And literally these fucking asshole high lords are like, what?

That's so stupid. And I'm oh yes good they just suck each other's dicks for the next century i guess i understand why sam proposes it because in the night's watch that's what they had and i was kind of mad because like you said like the high lord's just like slap it down there should have been there there was fruit for discussion there and i think that there would have been one but we didn't want to like cover it and by we i mean the producers and the writers because like here's whose reactions we explicitly did not get and i don't think it's an oversight i think it's intentional so that we don't have that conversation but we didn't get davos's reaction and we didn't get gendry's reaction uh Oh, you know, Gendry, who's now officially, like, in line for that throne?

Yeah, Gendry, Lord of Storm's End, in line for the throne, and Davos. Legitimized bastard. Yeah, I just- Both of them. Both of them. We should have gotten their reactions to that. Yeah. Anyway.

Well, the Lords do vote. They vote for Bran. That's a left field on the show. Book, it makes sense. Show? Okay. But remember when they removed him for a season? Yeah.

Also, like, remember when he didn't, he just was there? Yeah. Like you said, book book it makes sense i think there's a lot of i would point to essays that bookshelf stud has written on the connections between like the arthurian fisher king and brand storyline and because of that legend that's why that's why brand makes sense to me as a final decision for king. There's a lot of reasons, for sure. I do love, as they're deciding and each lord is saying

aye, Sansa turns to him and I love this. Again, they have been writing the fuck out of her. She turns to him and says, I love you, little brother, and I always will and you'll be a good king. But tens of thousands of north men fell during the great war defending all of westeros and those who survived have seen too much and

fought too hard to ever bend their knee again the north will remain an independent kingdom as it was for thousands of years yes yes popping bottles northern independence i mean they earned it they fucking like you said like she said defended the rest of the realm god i i was so excited when that was said and i thought that was that you know like i was like northern independence hell fucking yeah i didn't know it was gonna happen i'm so happy like that was huge but in my heart i did i mean that's what the story's about of course the north is gonna be independent a lot of people are like complaining and i see where it's kind of weird because you know bran is on the throne so what does it fucking matter but uh the north like it was always about northern independence for them for the past eight years

on the show it's been about northern independence after ned's head came off uh it's not surprising to me whatsoever yeah and i knew it was gonna happen it's what came later i didn't know what's gonna happen and that was i mean i didn't know it was gonna happen but when it happened i was like yeah i've been harping about this for weeks so yeah yep yep of course we i i don't well you saw obviously uh hannah from game of owns and i were together and we prayed to my son's a stark votive candle. Yeah. And we did a cute little adorable photo of us praying with it.

But you didn't know before. I had no clue. No. So I willed this episode to happen. You did. You prayed to the gods of television. Like an American gods. And the new.

Very new. Super, super fucking new. Gods. Brand the unlikely yeah I don't get it in the show especially but I can see the path that gets

there maybe it's growing on me also like the second watch it's growing on me they gave Bran a couple lines so now I'm like okay it didn it's growing on me they gave bran a couple lines so now i'm like okay it didn't like grow on me i i kind of just accepted it the moment that it came out and i was just like yes fisher king and i was like that's it that's all i need to tell myself and i accepted it and also i was just like this just seems like one of those things that's too big for george to have not

told it to them oh i think this is the. Oh, I think this is the third twist. Oh, you think this is the third twist? Interesting. Well, it could be John kills Danny or Bran's the king. But I feel like this is a bigger twist than John kills Danny in my book. I think by the time we get there in the books, we'll know what's gonna happen. I think that's interesting. Especially with everything you and I have already called out tonight, like the Jon and Ygritte stuff and his failure to kill her originally. I mean, it's just full circle at all. All of Jon's arc makes a lot of sense from this episode. Like, yeah, tons of sense. I have no issues with it for the most part. I mean, besides the usual, we know the usual, we won't go into it. But I don't have big issues with the big picture. I think Bran is definitely kind of a left field pick though and I'm sure it'll be a little easier to grasp in the books

and there's a ton about him like there's a ton that works so there is a ton that works and it of course connects back and Adam Feldman was talking about this connects back to Bran's first chapter where he's being taught justice mercy

looking someone in the eye being willing to swing that sword and he has to like rule winterfell at like i don't know seven years old right so yeah absolutely you get those chapters in a clash of kings as well you get the harvest feast i mean you get him as the lord of winterfell the prince of winterfell for a while yeah uh brandis definitely already has the seeds sewn for it yeah exactly and i i don't know if like there's a part of it that because he's so young maybe this wouldn't have happened if there was a time skip buddy because he's so young if initially some lords actually try to put him forth because they think he can be a pawn but well that's what

they're doing with rickon in the book exactly that's why i'm like do they move on from rickon and they're like we have another one right here i guess that's fine i don't know and that's what they're doing with Rickon in the book. Exactly. That's why I'm like, do they move on from Rickon? And they're like, we have another one right here, I guess. That's fine. I don't know. And that's the thing is they've already tried. I mean, Littlefinger tried that. Remember in season seven, Littlefinger tried to play the game with both Arya and Bran to see what kind of leeway and move and give he could have. And Bran was not really, you know, dupable.

And obviously he knows everything or whatever. But he wasn't easily duped when it came to that. Yeah. Is it okay to have a king who knows everything? See, so that's something else. A lot of people are saying that's kind of a problem after coming from Daenerys, right? I mean, now we're in a police state. But at the same time,

like you said, Bran allows people to make their own choices. Yeah. He's not minority reporting this. No, and he's not, like, spying on you in the shower or something. Yeah. Only when you're getting married. Yeah. Only.

All of this kind of feels like something George is going towards. There's this other idea that I have, like, in terms of this kind of feels like something george is going towards there's this other idea that i have like in terms of this governing structure like it it's a little iffy it doesn't have the strongest of legs but wonders if this is kind of where the books are going especially in terms of like what rhaegar's vision for the realm was and what it seems like the lords who showed up to that tourney at Harrenhal the lords who might have been part of southern ambitions wanted in terms of having more agency and power in the realm and like I think there's definitely still hesitation on there being like a king maybe but like having like there's hesitation on the

part of the the nobles voting right on there being a king but I think having something like, there's hesitation on the part of the nobles voting, right, on there being a king. But I think having something like a council that determines who the king becomes that check on power that maybe the southern ambitions lords wanted, kind of like a Magna Carta that prevents, like, a king from being too far above the law. Like, they made the king and they can unmake him if they want. And I think it's intentionally an imperfect solution because this kind of system is of course going to continue to lead to politicking and more

games of thronesy things that like created those power struggles but yeah absolutely the politics have been huge this this last episode uh all of sudden, they really brought it back to that forefront for us. And I think they did it well, for the most part. The brand stuff, as we've said, a little left field for some people. It works, but I think they did do it well. Here's a hot take

that I've been just dying to tell you about, Eliana. Are you ready for this? This is my spiciest take, so get a glass of milk just in case have it ready all right uh breast milk so that i too can glow up oh my god it does wonders for your skin uh so does this mean that bran is agon fifth of his name the unlikely Unlikely. Jon is Aemon Targaryen. And then,

if you even want to go this far, Jojen was the ghost of Highheart in the story. Hodor was Bran's dunk and Dunk's descendant. As George has told us, there are at least two people that are descended from Dunk in the story.

But, I mean, my original bets were always on Brienne, Sandor, and Hodor. Not Gregor? I think, well, and Gregor, I guess. Yeah, fuck him. He's not a real person. Literally. But those were my three bets, you know, right? And that makes sense now that you're saying four.

Yeah, I guess Gregor too. And I feel like that might have come true. It might have come true. Also, here's another spicy take. Does this really mean that old Nan was Tancel the Tall? I think that would be interesting. She made it all the way up north. And Tancel's a puppeteer who tells stories.

Oh, that's right. That would be why she knows so many stories. And I mean, if she- And Tancel Too Tall was tellinger who tells stories. Oh, that's right! That would be why she knows so many stories. And I mean, if she- And Tancel Too Tall was telling Brandy's stories the whole time. I like it. If she's Tancel Too Tall and Dunk, like, that explains why

the tall gene's so strong in Hodor. Yeah, exactly, in Hodor. Yeah. And I do want to harken back to something I pointed out a couple weeks ago. I know there was a complaint or two about this comment I made. I really wasn't trying to criticize the show. I was trying to explore a comment that was made that is fake history made up for the show that I thought was probably going to be important in the endgame. And lo and behold, I was right.

So nothing new. Darren Targaryen, the comment that Tyrion made to Bran about Daeron Targaryen, he said, Daeron Targaryen had a crippled nephew. Well, of course, Daeron Targaryen has a lot similar with Jon, you know, the young dragon, in a couple ways. But Daeron Targaryen's crippled nephew was really there for setup about Bran taking the throne. Yeah. for set up about Bran taking the throne yeah and speaking of crippled

nephew if it was real history and not fake history would Bloodraven be that nephew almost that crippled nephew he does end up on a tree yeah also a

throne a weirdosk throne of his own um yeah uh you know it's funny i mean you bring up blood raven and i was actually talking with another song of ice and fire moderator jen snow about all this and you know there's that again hesitation where people like so he made someone who's basically kind of like blood raven king and as you were saying like that police state thing because blood raven definitely uh on the shadier side with some of what he was doing with his powers and how he exerted the powers of the law right and i think there is though a strong running idea that like what if

people distrusted blood raven not necessarily for his sorcery, but just because he looked different? Like, it's strongly said that he's albino and maybe he turned to sorcery and, like, he was interested in those things. I don't think- I think he was just naturally interested in those things because people have hobbies like that. because people have hobbies like that but a lot of the distress against him like there there are a lot of uh bad narratives running around about blood raven and i mean some of them are justified of course some of them maybe maybe not but had to do with the way he looked and i think that this is a big running thing within a song of base and fire about how like people who aren't able-bodied or if they're outside the power system if they're like cripples bastards and broken things or even women people who just don't have that socio-political or even economic power they're seen with suspicion and like i don't know

exactly how we get there but i feel like the fact that people are willing to make Bran the king, that they're willing to take Tyrion as hand, right? That they don't mistrust the boy in the wheelchair. They don't mistrust the guy with dwarfism is meant to be seen as a sort of improvement, a coming towards improvement. Some sort of progression. Yeah, progression

within Westeros' attitudes and within the conscience of the people. And I don't know if this is also an exploration of the other side of Richard III's story, according to George R. R. Martin, because he's very into the idea. He's very fascinated by the way that Richard III's legacy, he feels, has been shrouded in a lot of stories and mischaracterized, right? So what does it look like

when we accept people who are different absolutely i do agree that it's really opening that door for people in westerns to feel better about that sort of thing and treat people honestly more kindly uh obviously brown people aren't really welcome right now thanks danny yeah i mean like show danny i don't think it's like in total. I just think it's an idea that is maybe being explored. And I don't know that it's like for sure. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

I do love there's two lines in the book to a couple passages that really just make me smile and do make me think, you know, like, Bran's a good boy. He's not like some rando like bran's a good boy he's not like some rando he's a good boy and there's that moment at the harvest feast where he sends sweets to hodor and old nan as well as sending food to other people that are his friends and he just says for no reason but he loved them yeah what a good boy i love and of course there's that little passage he eats with the littles in a storm of swords uh and when they wake up the next day the little had left but he left sausage for them and some oat cakes folded up in a cloth and uh some blackberries and pine nuts in the cakes and bran really liked them and he thinks one day there would be starks in winterfell again he told

himself and then he'd send for the littles and pay them back a hundredfold for every nut and berry. I think that Bran, and you brought up that he loved them, it's similar, right, to what's going on in Sansa's storyline in terms of love. Ruling with love versus with fear, but through Bran we're seeing you know caitlin kept saying throughout her chapters that brand was such a loving boy a lovable boy and here we see that ruler showing love towards his people yeah absolutely it's very pleasant it is especially because the way that they the stuff they had given uh bran as far as you know like acting wise what they gave isaac to do it was softer material and it was kinder and he even smiles and jokes a little bit and it's like you could feel the rain like not the last handful of kings

and queens has not been you know someone you could joke with. I mean, Robert sometimes, but you'd have to get drunk too. It just felt good. Fair. Very just and fair is how it felt. Yeah. Tyrion is made Hand of the King for his crimes. You know. Yup.

While Bran sends Jon to the Night's Watch for his crimes. Yeah. Um. I'm sure this is endgame somehow. Not sure of this path, but... Yeah, I don't know exactly how that path's going to work for Tyrion. I think Jon's is pretty cut and dry and clear. Yeah. I do wish he had turned himself in about it, you know?

Like, you'd seen him go to Bran and say, like, I've done or not bran to anyone to the guards and said like here i am i wish we could have seen that and seen him choose exile i think that might have been a little more powerful but it's still pretty powerful especially because tyrian breaks the news to him and tyrian comes to chat with him and he has this line though and he's like the realm will always have need for a place for cripples bastards and broken things you know the usual but why not build a realm that accepts those people instead of just like having one place for those types of people yeah especially because it's a penal colony like people shouldn't be punished for being different yeah that's like saying like you know all you left-handers we're gonna round you up and put you in this Yeah, that's like saying, like, you know, all you left-handers, we're gonna round you up

and put you in this place, and that's where you live now. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it works like that. That's a thing that I don't think happens in the books. Not quite like that. Yeah, I think if anything, I think

it'll be Jon choosing it. I'm okay with Jon not choosing it I'm okay with Jon not choosing it and it being assigned to him because he chooses the Night's Watch at the beginning and now he has to learn what it is to have not chosen it but at the same time

this is a consequence again right he made his choice and thus he doesn't get to choose again this is the price of the choice that he made the cost yes so I'm fine with it if he doesn't get to choose again this is the price of the choice that he made so I'm fine with it if he doesn't choose it and I mean this is gonna run a little counter to the discussion we have in the upcoming

Jon chapter but in our defense we recorded that before this episode came out I have no regrets about that discussion I stand by the things that were said there but I also stand by the things I'm saying right now good for you yes i'm a different person character development now that i've seen this episode foreshadowing isn't character development eliana okay so the starks have a departure scene uh first we see gray worm telling his captains that they're sailing for Noth to carry out the

retirement plan and protect their people. I think that's nice. I hope that's kind of how it is in the books even though obviously Missandei and Grey Worm won't have a relationship. I hope they still go to Noth and protect it. It was just nice. It was very nice. Yeah I don't know what they're gonna do. Yeah they're just gonna hang out and make sure no one tries to capture nath and put him in slavery so it's nice yeah i guess missandei will be fine because theoretically the people who grew up there are immune to the butterflies but we'll see what happens with everyone else yeah we get sansa apologizing to john you know about uh leaking his secret to tyrian says, no, the North is free because of you.

But Sansa's sad. She says, they lost their king, though. And Jon says, they'll have Ned Stark's daughter. Hmm. Do it for Ned's little girl. And that's the thing, this is like the first acknowledgement that, you know, even the show is saying, she's Ned Stark's daughter. Yeah. We also just have not brought up Catelyn at all this season, but whatever. first acknowledgement that you know even the show is saying she's ned stark's daughter yeah we also just have not brought up catelyn at all this season but whatever john invites aria to visit

him in the night's watch but to everyone's surprise because they did not know this including sanza aria says she can't because she's not going home she plans on sailing west of westeros where the maps end to find more yeah i've definitely dropped things to my mother like this every now and then she's just like what i'm like oh we haven't had this discussion yet oh my god anyway uh i like that yeah as you said she says she's going to what's west of westeros and then her answer is like no one knows and i'm like oh no one knows is that the case aria oh my god my favorite part of that is like the people that pointed out bran looks over at her like what the fuck do you think i am

i mean maybe if there are no beer wood trees there who knows that's true that's true but i thought his cctv just worked however now i honestly don't know how it works. I don't think they know either. I don't know. Maybe Bran doesn't know either. Yeah. It is very Alyssa Farman, very Nymeria of the Rhoynar. If you don't know those references, Nymeria was a witch queen who Arya named her doggo, her direwolf after. But Nymeria took the Rhoynar, her people, to Dorne after Valyrians conquered her home, and she reclaimed

Dornish lands as her own. She burnt her people's ships upon landing, and they started a brand new life. Oh, just like her wolf pack. Yeah, just like her wolf pack, absolutely. So, very strong parallels. And Alyssa Farman is a character introduced in Fire and Blood. She was very good

carnal friends with Rhaena Targaryen. Alyssa travelsman is a character introduced in Fire and Blood. She was very good carnal friends with Reyna Targaryen. Alyssa travels west until she reached Essos, and on the way she named three islands after Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya, and she continued westward in her ship, the Sun Chaser, and she was never seen again. Yes. And there's this quote from Fire and Blood I really love about Alyssa Farman that made me think of Arya here, Yes. of green islands verdant in the sun of strange beasts no man had tamed and queer fruits no man had tasted of golden cities shining underneath strange stars aria is just as much that dreamer

that sansa and bran have been as kids uh she may not act like she likes the songs or all the things that sansa likes but aria very much so still buys into that fantasy that all these kids were brought up on and I mean maybe it's also in the Stark legacy a little there's that one King Brandon Stark Brandon the Shipwright who was a head of House Stark and he's like I'm gonna go across the

Sunset Sea no one ever saw him again so I don't know it's kind of sad that people won't see Arya again I think that's really sad that she's leaving her family but this is what her heart wants and yeah i mean even in the books she loves meeting new people and hearing about the world i mean her bravos chapters are just so expansive she you know just gets to meet all these people from all over and i i can just really see this being it yeah Yeah, no, I agree that

it's a thing that feels bittersweet. Yeah, absolutely. There's a line as she says goodbye to Jon where he says you have your needle and she goes right here and then they hug and they're crying and he wipes the tears off her face

and... Needle was Winterfell so she'll always have help with her yeah it was john snow's smile oh and then john kneels in front of bran and he apologizes to bran for not being where he needed to be and bran says no you're exactly where you needed to be it's very reminiscent to the last goodbye that he had to give Bran right back in A Game of Thrones and Jon too. You know, when Bran was

comatose, he apologizes. I'm sorry I didn't come before. I was afraid. He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Jon no longer cared. Don't die, Bran. Please. We're all waiting for you to wake up. Me and Rob and the girls everyone then of course after he's done saying his goodbye and dealing with the awkward silence of lady stark

in the background john goes i have to go now uncle benjamin's waiting i'm to go north to the wall we have to leave today before the snows come he remembered how excited bran had been at the prospect of the journey it was more than he could bear the thought of leaving him behind like this john brushed away his tears leaned over and kissed his brother lightly on the lips it's john and bran were really close especially in you see it in the first books like john's the one who's teaching bran and talking him through all of ned's lessons so yeah i think it's you know adam feldman again like talks about that relationship and the choice that brand makes to pardon john and it kind of i think gives us an answer to a question that we had asked in john's last a game of of Thrones chapter where he wonders what would happen if he deserted

the Night's Watch. And he's like, if Benjen deserted and went to Ned, surely Ned would take him, right? Or he's like, what would he do? And he's like, surely Rob has to take me if I commit this great sin, right? And I think through Bran, we kind of see what Rob would do, what Ned would do, what

that answer of this is love versus duty, I it was good it was good uh i wanted them to hug too though yeah i guess brand might feel awkward about that now that he's whatever he is but i did want them to hug also there were good hugs these were really good hugs they hugged in my mind yeah john's a good hugger yeah john john is a good hugger and those hugs were all very emotional maybe it's the cloak uh and the sansa and john hug was it was sad it was very sad just uh him and sophie have great chemistry for acting it's always good from them yeah more believable than amelia and him they did a great job of reconciling and showing that connection, right?

Through Sansa, that starkness, and Jon being in the family and that complete acceptance. Yeah, he was a part of their family and him going to the Night's Watch is walking away from this family that he's been killing himself to be a part of since he was born. Yeah.

Sad. Death of duty. Death of love. Brienne is Lady Commander of the king's guard she finishes jamie's white book page she doesn't lie she doesn't dramatize she finishes it so these are the additions jamie lannister uh took river run from the tully rebels without loss of life lord the unsullied into attacking Casterly Rock, sacrificing his childhood home in sacrifice to a greater strategy, outwitted the Targaryen forces to seize Highgarden, fought at the Battle of the Gold Road bravely, narrowly escaping death by a dragonfire, pledged himself to the forces of men and rode north to join them at Winterfell alone,

faced the army of the dead and defended the castle against impossible odds until the defeat of the night king escaped imprisonment and rode south in an attempt to save the capital from destruction died protecting his queen died protecting his queen poor brienne yeah having to write that probably sucked but she kept it really cut and dry black and white and still she she he wasn't a man without honor the way that she wrote him he still did deeds and life isn't you know just one one good thing and you're a good person it's every single action has consequences and every single action has weight you know it's a case-by-case basis i do think as cut and dry and good as it was i would have liked to have her mentioned at the

end that he knighted her yeah i think that that tends to be in those entries yeah yeah uh knighted sir brienne of tarth yeah the first female Kingsguard Lord Commander yeah there was also I don't know some interesting stuff in the white book in terms of how the illustrations were that was fun but oh yeah it was great you could see the Arthur Dayne one you can see pretty

well the Barristan one you can also see very well again I'm excited because it's a full page view so I just haven't had time yet but I plan on you know digging deep to see what they wrote it was interesting because the previous ones were all just white swords but i guess once we get into the reign of robert baratheon baristan selmy's was the the wheat right of house selmy and then jamie's was the lannister lion still letting them have that heritage yeah there's a you know as you were saying about that black and white entry there's i think a touch of irony there that has always followed jamie around

like he was known as the kingslayer for many people which was a terrible name for the best act he ever did maybe or one of his best acts and when he finally kept his vows and died protecting his queen, it almost reads heroic because of the way that Brienne wrote it, like, in that objective manner. And in a way, it's kind of honorable for keeping that vow, but it's also not because it's Cersei. It's another one of those, like,

ironies. But it's also being framed this way because Daenerys is now the villain. I mean, it's not outright, but it is because it's like the Targaryen forces died protecting his queen. I mean, as you know, Cersei came out almost sympathetic last episode, which was really fucked up. Yeah, she like, speaking of consequences, we never dealt with like, after the set blew up but whatever i mean that was bad that was really bad well didn't she uh brush it off and say it was someone else that did it i believe that's why it was like some sort of throwaway line that like it

nobody our enemies did it or something yeah yeah yeah just like Roose Bolton, poisoned by his enemies. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We do get, the next scene is Tyrion rearranging chairs and it sounds silly but it's cute. It's actually kind of funny. Yeah. Because he really wanted it to be perfect for his first day on the new job and, you know, last time he was Hand of the King, he had some issues. So

this time he wanted it to go perfectly and he's rearranging the chairs and they all walk in and they fuck his chairs up just completely yeah no it's cute it's fun and then you get to see everyone being part of small council I like Sam's robe just wanted to throw it out there

what a great outfit because we like outfits yeah it makes me think of of the Grand Maesters you know of Pycelle's outfit of Luwin is who it really makes me think of, though. Yeah. Oh, Luwin. Sorry. Oh, okay. All right. I'm done. Luwin! Bran asks for word then on like, oh, by the way, we're missing some of these positions in the council, such as such as a master of whispers, master of what was it, ships?

Master of laws and master of war. I'm also kind of like, Brienne, can't you be your own fucking master of whispers? Yeah, that was silly. Very silly. Maybe he wants to do it right. That's why. Well, I mean, you gotta delegate in business. Yeah, he's like, is there any word of Drogon, everyone?

And then they're like, no! So he's just gonna work on locating it on locating him and he's gonna leave the rest of the council i guess to work on the rest yeah and oh podrick is also in the king's guard he is wheeling bran around he's bran's personal little Kingsguard guy. Well, he's been learning from one of the best. Yes. From Ser, my lady. Yes, Brienne of Tarth. I loved the long may he reign, like, all around the council. And, like, they obviously, like, would be, oh, long may he reign. Long may he reign. Long may he.

And, like, literally just Tyrion, as Bran rolls out, Tyrion's just like, that will get better. And Bran just goes I'm sure it will so he smiles it's really cute it's a cute smile it was a cute like old man smile on wise old man adorable ending smile I liked it

so yeah Ser Bran of the Bongwater is a fucking lord paramount and they gave him a whole job which uh yeah uh tyrian charges everyone with different jobs bronze master of coin he's gonna work on feeding the realm i don't think it's that weird in my opinion for someone who's lowborn to be made a master of coin they see it a couple of times in fire and blood and i'm gonna throw it out there i know everyone's shitting on brawn wanting to rebuild the brothels and they're playing it off as a joke in the show but I'm

gonna just say that the last prominent master of coin did own a lot of brothels remember that guy? Nope don't know who you're talking about. I don't know dead to me dead to me. Literally literally and that does

make sense as well that it's someone from the Reach to be fair because that is the most prosperous area for growing things. But yeah I just don't whatever. Davos is master of ships and grammar.

I thought that was cute. There's like that little memory of the lord. The king that he served. The king he chose. Back then. Back then. He's working on making an armada.

And he needs obviously the master of coins help for that. Sam is going to research some cleaner water solutions. And Tyrion does his stupid jackass honeycomb joke. And I thought that was gonna be it right there i was like oh that's the episode i thought so too as they were panning out i was like all right that's a game of thrones i was so mad i was like are you fucking me we end on the honeycomb joke go fuck yourselves but then we panned out to the next scene and then you got a perfect ending in last lines didn't you chloe i? I sure did. I wrote that, Eliana. I wrote it.

I do want to talk briefly. We talked a little bit about Aragorn's tax policy and the possibility of Jon being Frodo a couple weeks ago on our episode. And I know a lot of people are probably going to talk about this this week in general. But I do want to come back to it. We have that whole idea of what's aragorn's tax policy you know did he maintain a standing army what did he do in times of flood and famine what about all these orcs by the end of the war soran's gone but all the orcs aren't gone they're in the mountains did aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them

even the little baby orcs and their orc cradles uh these are questions that george wanted to know right he asked this of of tolkien of what what would tolkien do in this like what was aragorn's tax policy he was just a king and he reigned for a couple hundred years but we don't know why you know we don't have an answer to that and my new uh nuanced take here is the tax policy in A Song of Ice and Fire is this new council forming and making decisions. And John was Frodo all along. When John comes back from his journeys. Fuck. When Frodo comes back from his journeys, there's this passage we read a tiny bit of last week or week before last, possibly.

there's this passage we read a tiny bit of last week or week before last possibly, but I'm going to read it for you today because it really, really, really resonates. No, Sam, not yet anyway, not further than the havens, though you too were a ring bearer, if only for a little while. Your time may come. Do not be sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do. But, said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire too, for years and years after all that you've done. So I thought too, once. But I've been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger. Someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. But you are my heir,

all that I had and might have had, I leave to you. So that's from Return of the King. And it's obviously Frodo returns from his journeys in protecting the ring and, you know, all the craziness that goes on. He comes back and says goodbyes to his people and to Samwise Gamgee. He says, you're my heir and I have to leave. I can't live here anymore. Just like Arya kind of did after last episode. So Jon is definitely the Frodo of this. Definitely.

Yeah. Someone has to give them up, lose them so that others may keep them. Yeah. I think that's a beautiful parallel. And even in that first paragraph, you know, the someone has to be whole. Yeah. I think that's a great connection to the vibe that we get at the end of this episode

we have this final montage it mirrors the teaser trailer from the very beginning of the season actually where they're all in the crypts and you see each of them walking down the halls in the crypts of Winterfell we have Arya, Sansa, and Jon we do, Jon

quote unquote joins the Night's Watch yeah yeah yeah he'll be back at christmas for mashed neeps yeah i mean is there a night's watch is this not just a cover-up was that a cover-up story felt like i think so i think that's what it was i was talking with my boss and we're like so that was a cover-up story right anyway you know we're never gonna get to know i guess at this point so we should just pretend it is and pretend he's coming home to see his family or to see sansa i guess at some point just on holiday you know and then of course john reunites with ghost up at the top and and then told you so yeah i you did and you know i forgive him now for not floofing ghost you know that wow wait wait wait did you just say you forgive him i forgive john for not

floofing ghost i don't necessarily forgive him for everything right that's not for me to do but it is for me to forgive him for not flipping ghosts. He has done so. And I have appealed to moderator of Our Fluffy Dogs, Joe Magician, to unban Jon Snow from Our Fluffy Dogs. Well, I hope that he does. Don't say I never did anything good for anyone. Benevolent, gracious. Mercy. Merciful, in fact. Merciful queen. I unbanned john snow well i

didn't do it i appealed on his behalf anyways aria then is on a boat yeah she's gathering supplies for her trip we see her uh take her dagger and there's this really cool part where uh she's putting her dagger in its holster and john is putting Longclaw in his holster. And then it shoots to Sansa, who is getting dressed. I know that sounds silly, but we'll get there soon. Arya looks out at the waters with her crew and she's smiling and she's got the open air and the salty breeze on her. And she looks great. Her outfit's great.

She just she's ready to explore, ready for adventure. Yeah, she's got her Stark sail. She's, it's like she's salty, the character. Yes. That was the name she took briefly while on the ship. And I love that her hair is different too. Like I've never seen her hair like that in this show. And I think hairstyles definitely have meaning in this show, right?

Like here you can see she's ready for adventure. She's different now. We see that for each of the Stark siblings in this montage. Like Jon's hair is completely down when he's out amongst the Free Folk. He's just Jon again, right? His hair is loose. And it's also like Sansa. Sansa's hair isn't braided in any style anymore.

She's not copying anyone's hairstyle anymore. She's wearing it down. It's hers. Yeah. Interestingly enough, she had an interesting hairstyle during the council. She did have two braids coming down and the back was braided up. It was a different look, though, than usual. It was like two braids on top of just her hair down with a braided bun.

That was interesting. braids on top of just her hair down with a braided bun that was interesting but in the next scene that we get of intercutting with the sansa and the scene we get of her uh sansa has her hair down no braids whatsoever yes and she's putting on a weirwood and scaled gown uh she's being coronated with a stark crown in the north. It's really hard to talk about this because I didn't know about this. I knew a lot of stuff about this episode just because A, obviously it was going to happen. B, leaks were all over. This wasn't in any of the leaked material or any of the spoilers or anything anywhere, Eliana. This was...

I did not know about this. It was a surprise for you. It was a gift. This was pretty much the biggest surprise in the whole story for me. Sansa Stark is crowned Queen in the North after two seasons of fighting for Northern. Three seasons of fighting for the North and Northern independence constantly. Four if you count season five five but who counts season five uh it was amazing and i think we have to have a fashion hour because this dress was just beautiful uh one of my friends megan d pointed out the wolves

in her crown there's two wolves and she's the second born i think that's a really good detail yeah i thought that was just brilliant and the dress in general it incorporates some really cool embroidery of the toli scales and the arms and the weirwood leaves and the sleeves of course uh to really represent her heritage to bring out the old gods and it also is a grace it's a great nice nod to ned in the godswood and his religion and just him going there to which something that's something that sansa does a lot of right that's a great nice nod to ned in the godswood and his religion and just him going there to which something that's something that sansa does a lot of right that's uh sansa even if she isn't praying she goes to godswood to get peace and quiet and that's what ned tended to do i mean

it was a place of strength for her even in king's landing and it's a place that helped her get out of king's Landing too right through she didn't remove the chain by the way the chain is actually I didn't see it um it's really hard to see in the full length shot you can see it coming out of her armor got it sorry yeah it's fine she keeps some of those feathers also that little bird imagery in fact uh so she has the weird thing about the sleeves is the sleeves they show her putting them on they're detachable they're detached this weird cape thing on her back that's fabric and then the other side of the cape fabric is kind of a night's watch pelt almost that has

been shaved down to have its own stark-esque scales and it has attached to it as you go down the cape it has feathers coming out of it as well that's interesting i it there's it's great because there's so much you know they talk about the power of storytelling earlier in the episode and michelle clapton and michelle karager deserve everything yes the story is being told through the clothes and i think that's just such an amazing i don't know statement on clopton and like fucking capstone like all of them like their stories are being told through their clothing yes so good the last dialogue in the entire series is the queen in the north that's it she's the queen in the north i mean this is canon i'm just putting out there george george literally said the main characters will be the same yeah uh it's really crazy when we

look back at this original outline of what was originally supposed to happen with sansa uh in the original 1993 outline each of the contending families will learn it has a member of dubious loyalty in its midst. Sansa Stark, wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes, she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue.

Tyrion Lannister, meanwhile, will befriend both Sansa and her sister Arya by growing more and more disenchanted with his own family. My, my, my, how fucking far we've come. Truly from pawn to player. If a pawn

lives long enough, she gets to be queen. Exactly. George with his chess, he loves chess, coming in through the story, and here it is. Sansa Stark, queen of the North it did make me sad that all she wanted was to have her home back

and have her family back and have them in one place and be able to protect them and keep them safe and they're all gone I think that there is a little bit of yeah there's a little bit of that bittersweetness I think yeah that lonely god

feel yep that loneliness again like theon grayjoy's dead and her siblings couldn't stay and now you know somehow everyone's accepted a two stark regime somehow yeah well we're not gonna try to make sense of it we're just gonna nod our head but i would actually argue yes i know people are giving that a lot of shit with bran but the north has always been different they're different people they have different ways they have the old way it's the same thing how the iron islands is constantly trying to gain independence uh the north has their own way their own religion their region their realm is the size of like two or three of the south uh they have sparse land they're they're very different they believe in tree gods uh i just don't see them wanting to bend the knee even to bran yeah and i mean i think i feel feel

the same about the iron islands and people have brought that up. But at the same time, I can see Asha's storyline, especially based on her Kingsmoot speech. Yeah. Like, beginning to bend towards being part of the seven, sorry, six kingdoms. I fucked that up. And then, of course, there's a place beyond the kingdoms, right? This is where Jon, in our entire story, ends. Jon is leaving the wall. He looks back as the gates close behind him and joins the Free Folk.

Wow. Yeah. And it's nice. He ends up taking the punishment that Ned was supposed to have, but Ned obviously was killed, no mercy was shown, and he did not get that punishment. Yeah, he did not because Bran is not Joffrey, of course. And, you know, now Jon's not Jon Snow. He's not Jon Stark. He's not Aegon Targaryen.

Yep, he's Jon, stark he's not a targaryen yep he's john not john now out there he's he's himself and he gets to choose the rest of his life from there on out he gets to be a free folk free person he's a free boy and i think that's a people have pointed out of course that this is a parallel of those first few scenes in the series and of course it is but it's very beautiful it's full of life full of people that freedom it's a hopeful i think that's a it's a rather hopeful ending and no i agree i i think it's a very hopeful that's what the lady shelly on twitter and i were discussing that you know she's not upset she's a huge john fan and she's not upset because it does it leaves it open-ended it means that maybe john does heal from his trauma and his like scars in inside and outside heal from it and allow people in and yeah it's it's sad but it's beautiful in my opinion i think it's a really good ending for john i agree i i'm happy for him and

i don't know i'm not i'm happy for him and i'm not happy for him you know after everything that he's been through but and you know the things that he did you know those actions making that choice but it was a good it was a good ending note and scene and especially upon a rewatch I think that landed. Yeah. The second time, I liked it a lot better watching it the second time.

The first time, I had had a little bit to drink with our friends over at Game of Owns and Hayley Bowery of the Manimals, so I needed that second view. I needed a sober view to clear my mind, and now I'm like, I could even do a third. I think... Wow! I think so. I...

I think I'd give it an 8 or 9. I would give it... Am I a traitor now? I don't know. I'm bad at assigning these numbers. What is the scale that we used on Meister Monthly? We had apples to dingoes, but I don't know. Where I'm gonna go on this.

Oh, no, no, no. Let's go on. Well, that's it, right? Yeah, I think that's it. That's the episode. That's the series. That's the series, you know, until the books come out. Yeah, I'm so excited they're making books uh

off this show my gosh i uh i don't know i think we're gonna have to end up doing a total game of throne series wrap-up episode in the next few weeks just to chat about our thoughts because i have so many thoughts now uh just how this relates to the story what's real what's not all the good stuff yeah we'll figure out when that makes sense when it's when you feel far but so close enough to do it yeah and hey if you're listening to this if you came here just for this podcast you haven't tuned in to our regular a song of ice and fire read through we read through the song of ice and fire books chapter by chapter but point of view character by point of view character.

Right now, we're actually working on Jon Snow. We just got to A Clash of Kinks, the second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire installments. It's going really well right now, and we have a lot of new information to really tear our teeth into and think about

after all this, this penultimate ending. So, thanks for checking us out if you guys were just along for the show ride uh please feel free to hang out with us and listen to our regular podcast too yes it because we still have content for that and we're not gonna stop exploring these books we love this story yeah we're here to stay yeah and i mean we love all of you thanks for being here on this ride the past few years i mean we haven't been doing this podcast the past few years but a lot of us have been on this journey together and yeah it's been what what is it john says it was the honor of my life yeah it was an honor and i i want to give a special thank you to

you for being my partner you are so smart and you always say the best stuff and i am lucky to have you on here and this was such a journey to get through this show uh through the good the bad the ugly the good writing the awful writing the uh the the shock value the lack of females and i just i'm very lucky to have you so thank you guys for tuning in thank you eliana for being the best co-host and to many more episodes of girls gone canon thank you but no more of game of thrones except for a wrap-up episode right yeah right of course thank you chloe for being here with me and like keeping me going but i'm just like and i don't know you're an inspiration with me and keeping me going. But I'm just like, ugh.

And I don't know, you're an inspiration to me. No, you really are. I know that we are doing this thing right now, but you really are. I'm always like, Chloe's the most hardworking. No, you're the most hardworking. Shut up. You're pretty. She's the most hardworking woman I know.

No, you'd be the pretty one. Even not just on this, just in general. You're a superwoman. Girls gone canon long may they reign long may we reign canon in the north well as always make sure you subscribe to us uh you can check us out at podbean at spotify at itunes at google play stitcher acast wherever you get your podcasts take a listen listen. Yep, and of course, I mean, again, you've all been

on this journey with us. Say something to us if you'd like. You can find us on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon, or you can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. And hey, if you have not checked out our Patreon, we do have a Patreon. We're jingling that tip jar at ya.

$5 and up patrons do have a patreon we're jingling that tip jar at you five dollar and up patrons do have access to special episodes that the rest of the realm does not get to hear these episodes come out once a month this month's episode is going to be on prophecy and how it affects series prophecy in the series greensight sears etc that should be coming out in the next week or two. So pay attention to that by the end of May. Yes. And of course, you know, we need some time to process everything that's happened. You are going to get your episode of A Clash of Kings intro to Jon, as well as Jon's first chapter in A Clash of Kings this week.

If you're a patron, depending on your tier tier you'll get it on wednesday or thursday and the public release episode goes out on friday the 24th and with all that we will be putting out a couple of other things including that patreon episode on prophecy within the next week but there is no john chapter uh that releases for the public on May 31st and that means none on like the 29th 30th we are taking a break yep we gotta take a quick break you know two tired moms time skip

time skip time skip we're doing a five year gap just kidding thanks so much you guys as always I am Chloe signing off my watch has ended and my watch has ended i am eliana bye guys