Girls Gone Canon Cast - Girls Gone Canon: Game of Thrones S8E5 The [Tolling of the] Bells

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

  THE GIRLS WATCH THRONES: hang out with Eliana and Chloe as they sit back to discuss the fifth episode of Game of Thrones Season 8: The Bells 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 5, The Bells. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as at Liza Narber on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaNarberGold.com. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl from the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit, the Mason Monthly Podcast, maybe as Arithmetric over on Twitter. We have an episode. I feel as if the last episode of Game of Thrones might be further divisive than the second to last and the third to last episode have been.

What are your thoughts? Are you saying that you think that this one's more divisive than the previous one? More because it provided more on-screen divisiveness but i am actually theorizing that the final episode will provide the most the most divisiveness divisiveness divisivity i'm not gonna end it at the just the most i'm like okay word that's providing the most i'm like okay yeah i take that um i don't know so this is like the way that i see it i feel like things started dividing right in episode three of the season and then afterwards i feel like more people started just inching towards i guess a discontented side uh in episode four and then there's just more going to that side here does that make sense like people

are in an uproar about their feelings but they aren't divided they are in solidarity i think not all some some but some people are divided from other people i mean like the solidarity people are together but they're against the people that aren't solidarity people that are solidarity people they're old people anyways what i'm saying is that they're the sand snakes yes and honestly i am sorella because i'm not in the show right now is how I feel just kidding and I'm Ellia Sand because I'm also horses

and I guess we even bit into each other's sandwiches sand snake witches sand sandwiches their little faces on bread? Wait, wait, hold on, sorry. I want to stop us right there and say that we should make sand sandwiches. Like one, which could have, I don't know, lemon zest, and the other is a hot dog.

The flavors don't go together, but I'm going to work on this idea. That's it. So I guess at this point in season eight if i had to do a current breakdown of where i think episodes are ranking i'd say my top episode is night of the seven kingdoms it's too bad the series was over after that uh my second favorite this is going to be controversial my second favorite episode of season eight so far was episode four the last of the starks i know i thought that was interesting i was like that's a spicy take my third favorite app i'm gonna go with number three with the long night i would say my fourth favorite episode is

probably this one the bells that's. That's crazy, I know. I would say Winterfell, episode one, was my least favorite just because it fell the flattest. I feel like some of the stuff that we're experiencing in this episode could maybe have been worked in in that episode, where nothing happened. Winterfell. Winterfell. Winterfell. It's Game of Thrones in the city my I was telling you my favorite episode of the season

is season 1 that's not how this works Eliana that's not how this works it's my podcast too and I can rate it however the fuck I want Eliana do you see in our notes where it says season eight in uh 36 point font you know there's a there's someone uh really that i respect a lot that i'm

gonna quote here and they said they go i said what i said i've never heard of them oh you respect i've never oh of course this is, you respect me? I've never... Oh, of course I do. See, this is good communication between partners. Relationships are built on respect. Respect and trust. And you know who doesn't have any of that right now? Daenerys and Jon. Wow.

No, they really don't, though. This episode was definitely not my favorite. It was probably my, like I said, my fourth favorite of the season out of five. There were some really good parts though I liked. I liked certain parts standalone. I don't think the pacing or overall really worked for a lot of things. I liked the stuff with Arya.

I liked the cinematography, of course. It was beautiful. And the soundtrack. I loved Sansa being right. I said what I said. What? Who are you quoting? You quoting me. And I liked the very execution.

I think that that was probably the most well-executed scene. I will be accepting the responses to that pun. Hey! I'm proud of you. Thank you. You're hired. Oh my god, I got hired. Honestly, seeing it all burn was crazy. It was kind of you. Thank you. You're hired. Oh my god, I got hired. Honestly, seeing it all burn was crazy.

It was kind of awesome. It was very horrifying. I give it a 6 out of 10. I watched it today to just like re-remember it at work on mute. And it was a lot better. So I'm going to give it a 6 instead of a 5. It was an okay episode of Game of Thrones. Right? Like as an episode of Game of Thrones standalone. It was an okay episode of Game of Thrones. Right?

As an episode of Game of Thrones standalone, it was alright. It was a horrible second to last episode of the series and it was missing a very obvious piece from the books which is Aegon and Quentyn. Yes, and Dorne.

Just that whole... I mean, Aegon's posse are all those people. It's missing the Dornish and the posse Blackfyre plot from the books. If you're listening and you're a show watcher and you aren't really caught up with the books, there is a character named Aegon, who is the original Aegon. So we're told that Illyrio and Varys, allegedly the alleged Aegon, so we're told that Illyrio and Varys, allegedly the alleged Aegon, Elia and Rhaegar's child, their son, who technically has

the better claim to the throne, he is Rhaegar's son. So that is what we're told. Illyrio and Varys are kind of secretly, not so secretly, propping this guy up against Daenerys, and it is about to start the Dance of the Dragons 2.0 pretty much. And that

is also where you're getting a lot of this Jon Targaryen plot filtering in. Aegon really is going to serve kind of as this, you know, this place for everything we're seeing fall on Cersei, no pun intended, not talking about the building. We're going to see all what's falling on Cersei and falling on Jon kind of start with Aegon in the books, in my opinion. Yes, I agree. I think Aegon is very much a bridge to this character development that we're seeing in Daenerys. Yeah.

But before that, remember, so you were saying how Aegon is supported very much by Varys and Illyrio. So we got Varys supporting a different Aegon in this opening scene. Yes, we do. We actually get a really cool bit in the previous Leon I want to touch on where Dany, they kind of start to try to, you know, personify her madness into all these quotes, etched into these quotes, you know, like, you're a dragon, be a dragon,

and just back and forth of Illyrio and Olenna and Jorah and all these characters and all this like, stirring in her head and it didn't make up for several seasons of character development i'm just putting that out there but it was effective in the moment what if they just had like you know an entire like part the scene right where denarius is out in the wilderness and stuff and then she sees quaithe and then viscerys and jorah and she realizes that dragons plant the trees. God. I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Yeah, I mean, they could even include the shitting. I actually, I'm fine with that. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, this is a fantasy novel and it includes shitting. Let's keep it. And there's some pretty epic shits. And that's how you know it's fantasy. I mean, actually, no, I've had some real life shits like that.

Oh my god, Eliana. So the first scene is Varys and he has a little bird speaking with him from the kitchens. And also chats with Jon while Tyrion watches later on. So we start with Dany not eating. Varys was trying to poison her is what we learn in this scene yeah which like kind of makes sense why she isn't eating yeah she's starting to grow more and more paranoid she's not eating i love that line from eddard five in a game of thrones where eddard says tocelle, I've heard it said that poison is a woman's weapon. Pycelle stroked his

beard thoughtfully. It is said women, cravens, and eunuchs. Oh my god, we should have had you do Pycelle. I'm really coming into my own with voices. I'm glad that we- I know. I'm glad that we had this, though. Yeah. I feel like I have a missed

opportunity, though, right now. That we could have had you doing Pycelle. Anyway, yeah, I do think it's interesting that Pycelle seems to foreshadow this. I mean, maybe we see something like this in the books, right? Where Varys also has his own poison plot. Would not be surprised. I mean, it's not poison, but he does use a crossbow and does some other backstabby kind of shit yeah i don't know if this will be the exact payoff i'm sure maybe something else will happen

similarly maybe he will poison otherwise but we've seen fairies kind of wear all these different faces and disguises right so this is him doing his best as master of whispers and uh he wants to off his queen he doesn't think that she's right he thinks john would be a better king and he decides to tell john that very boldly on the shore of dragon stone in danny's ancestral home that she had just taken uh in the last season but john of course right in front of her in front of her salad but john remains loyal to danny he says he tells various as much that he doesn't want the throne again like nobody's listening to john oh john so silly yeah um do you get larry's a clubfoot vibes yeah i don't know i don't know where larry's a clubfoot comes into all this i don't know he sometimes i just see him in places maybe danny does too tyrian then tattles on varies

yeah maybe he's larry's the clubfoot i don't know oh varies and larry's there we go there you go yeah varies and larry's and i also think larry's has little finger qualities too clubfoot little finger uh there's a lot of that too there's a lot so tyrian goes in the throne room and danny's unkempt she hasn't slept she's pretty pissed off she can't find her shape tape concealer it's driving her mad dude big mood i know i was just like all right so we can tell that she's upset because she hasn't done her makeup is that what i'm being told by the show right now yes but you know she puts it all on when she has to go out there when she's got a good treat she knows she's got to put her war face her floppy ears on her face yeah you know with her floppy

beauty oh my god danny says that someone has betrayed her but where tyrian says that it's a varies she's like no it was john snow because he told all these people and she's like basically she's like sans is as much responsible for all of this as i am and i'm like okay word you can yeah you're saying things yeah and it feels a little contrived but you know you're saying things and then uh danny tells tyrian that the next time he fails her will be his last because i mean like it's true he has failed a lot i'm not sure why he got promoted in the first place throwing that out there in history there's this event called defiance of duskendale for those of you that aren't into the heavy book lore i'll sum it up for you real quick. In 277 AC, Dany's dad was the king,

Aerys II, the burn them all guy. Dennis Darklyn didn't want to pay his taxes, and he tried to get a new charter with some new rights for his people. Aerys goes down there to handle things, and they take the king captive, and they hold him as a hostage for about half a year. Tywin shows up as hand of the king, offers pretty shitty terms and then he like gets turned down offers slightly less shitty terms finally he tells them you're gonna get stormed if you don't let the king go they don't listen barris and the bold rides in and gets the king takes a shit ton of arrows in the process and in his vengeance madness and punishment mode aries basically extinguishes House Darklet and House Hallard, except for one member who Barristan begged him to spare,

the small child Dantos Hallard, who we know from Sansa Stark, right? She saves his life. He becomes a fool. After this day, Ares wouldn't let anyone else come near him to touch him, touch his hair. He let his hair and nails grow out. He descends into this madness. He won his hair and nails grow out. He descends into this madness. He won't allow blades in the same vicinity as him. And eventually he even refuses to leave the Red Keep. Worse off, he comes to this conclusion that Tywin and Rhaegar, his heir

and Dany's brother, Rhaegar, to keep your Targaryen straight, are conspiring against him and that Duskendale was probably a setup and he begins to mistrust any and everyone. He gets consumed by his paranoia and by his madness that he descends into, which is where of course we meet him when Jaime kills him in that show flashback, right? Burn them all. It's also giving you that idea of why Arya and Sansa don't and can't trust Daenerys because of this big enriched history with Ares II because this all led to their uncle and grandfather dying, like we talked about last week. It's a little different than over an episode and a half Dany losing all she has left,

right? Like that's a pretty rapid succession. This lasted a little over half a year. So you can see where Ares really, really, really went deeper into that craziness while he was held hostage. The pacing obviously didn't really lend to this. out of anger and vengeance as we're gonna see in this episode as opposed to the same reasons why aries did like aries was clearly very mentally ill i don't think it's fair to blame ari and sanza uh for not trusting denarius as we've discussed in previous episodes but there is a sort of what if question that i'm having like you know there's this really kind of ironic cycle to it right because they distrust in Ares because of what Ares did but

you know if they had trusted her would things be different? Yeah. Does that make sense? Like the sins of their father as comes up throughout this episode is definitely poisoning their relationship. Yeah.

They come for Varys. Yeah. I love that the scene he's removing his rings. He burns the letter he was working on penning and sending, and he truly knows like he did all he could for the realm. He's ready to die. He should just send it if he's going to, if he's going to go out anyway just just sent it if he's gonna if he's gonna go out anyway yeah

that's my thought you know uh do you think it's interesting that he removes his rings it's very resigned and tyrian tells him he's sorry i i'm gonna throw it out there i thought for a second that tyrian was doing for varies what tyrian does for jamie later on this episode i was like okay he's repaying him for the time that Varys helped him escape. And I was like, no! Only time for one debt to be paid. Sorry, Elion. We're in the endgame now.

Yeah, Lannisters don't pay their debts. It's a bummer because Varys is like, I hope I'm wrong. I truly do. I hope Dany's a good queen. Like, I hope I'm wrong. I truly do. I hope Dany's a good queen. I did really like that scene, though, between Tyrion and Varys.

And, you know, where Tyrion's holding him and they're saying goodbye, old friend. It is sad. And I think that's delivered well. And there is a part of me that's also kind of sad because, I mean, granted granted they only have one more episode to film or they've already filmed it whatever but I was like I remember reading interviews where Peter Dinklage talks about how Conleth Hill is one of his favorite people to film with because they just have fun on set together

apparently they're just two very funny people together yeah absolutely they're always pulling shenanigans even Sophie said something about that I think with the crypt episode or the crypts like that all of them filming together was fun oh yeah oh the show said thing anyways denarius sentences varies to die the dragon was really creepy here i really liked it uh i love drogon's head looming out of the darkness with its big old mouth out

of nowhere and this is pretty much gonna happen in the books right i mean she's gonna kill various in illyrio they've been basically betting her claim away from her i mean it's gonna happen it's gonna be framed around agon and then betraying her for his claim but this was cool to watch yeah and again it's definitely gonna make sense in the books. I'm going to say, throw this out there, maybe this makes me a bad person, but there's a part of me that is going to feel a little satisfied when it happens to Illyrio. Not so much like Tavares, but I think that there's something interesting there with Illyrio that makes me be like, get him. I don't know what it is. And I think it has to do with, even in the first chapter of A Game of Thrones,

Dany distrusts Illyrio, and then she goes back on those instincts after her dragons are born. Also, Kim Renfro made a really good point of showing that this mirrors the execution of someone else being burnt when Stannis is doing burnings over on the beach yes in dragon stone uh everything about this episode did especially that dimly lit well we'll get there but that scene with her where the the throne room was all dimly lit and she's sitting on the throne and actually the throne has brown hues in it now you can see uh from afar it doesn't look very brown but up close you kind of got that tint on it so that was cool the lighting was different uh the dimmer like warmer lighting almost and it was just interesting it was last episode like you brought up framed a lot like stannis everything in this episode is

very stannis yeah do you think i want to say that i've gotten that from other people on twitter and especially poor quentin has been talking about that a lot this week. And, I mean, it makes sense for reasons we're going to come back to in a bit. You know, just keep telling you, stay tuned for this ride that you are on with us. For example, other moments in Dragonstone. Daenerys gives Grey Worm Missandei's collar. It's her only possession.

It's the only possession that Missandei brought with her. And then Jon and Dany have a little chat. Yeah, Grey Worm burns Missandei's collar, which is really symbolic. And it's a very short but emotional scene. I agree. I thought that was a well done scene. And I did like this one moment. a well done scene and I did like this one moment yeah this very very small single moment between Grey Worm and Daenerys but I think it was well done

I think Emilia Clarke has done a great job of acting in this episode she's had to I mean she's had to but like I don't know I guess people haven't liked her in previous seasons I think she's guess people haven't liked her in previous seasons i think she's fine i also really liked her in solo hot oh i loved her solo is not like the best movie

but i think she was great in it plot moving at least yeah i agreed i'm very excited for her future roles in the series but anyways sorry yes we appreciated gray worm burning the sunday's collar and then john comes in yeah John tells Danny that she is his queen that he never meant to betray her uh that obviously she's the one that should be ruling and you start to really see that paranoia like when she took him aside at the feast last episode and she just like or after the feast pardon me and she begged him don't tell anyone don't tell anyone and she says to him far more people in westeros love you than love me i don't have love here i only have fear and john says i love you and you

will always be my queen and she says back is that all i am to you your queen all right then let it be fear what what else did you want she wanted to be a hot piece of ass that's right because that is when she makes out with him isn't it like i said i rewatched this with the audio off earlier so it was great it was a really good episode i'm gonna throw this out there and i have not great feelings on it apparently gray area tweeted that in the inside the episode which i did not watch i actually don't usually watch those um i i refuse to they essentially said david and dan essentially said that you know if john had i don't know slept with danny the scene none of the later things would have happened and i'm like what the fuck so i get that that's like

a gross misogynistic way to frame it and i agree but i do think that this kind of gives those parallels with aries right those aries vibes because she starts to kiss him aggressively and he pulls away and that's when she's all angry and i really do think they should have flip-flopped it like had the the scene start off trying to kiss him right away very you know how aries was after a burning it it would have at least if you're gonna do it just do it you know go all out yeah yeah and then have that betrayal afterwards i think that would have or that feelings of betrayal afterwards i think that would have made sense too it would have led the betrayal a little

deeper and like really feel like oh he doesn't want me i don't know i just think like why doesn't john just say it's just i have a really confused boner right now because you're my aunt because i think that's very also very clearly what it is and he's trying to also like feel out what she's about to do i made a joke though when i was watching this uh when i was watching the execution of varies that when john looks at danny i'm like that's the look of a confused boner it was it was the look of a confused boner well and i i truly though i do see where it could be framed as that isolation because this is all she has left is john and gray worm and the very small remainder of her armies, right? Like, these people are obviously and she just lost another person that she thought was her supporter

that was trying to poison her. People are saying, you know, there's no setup, there's no setup. And as much as I will, you know, validate the last few seasons, she was quite obviously set up as like a hero. And yes, there bernie little foreshadows but i wouldn't say quite enough to really make this feel comfortable to slip into and there is set up though i mean you're she's losing everything still right now it's just it should have been over like several episodes instead of one and a half or two. Yeah, I agree. And I don't... I agree with the portrayal that other people are questioning whether or not she's mad. I don't agree with the idea that she truly is.

Yeah. Does that... No, I totally agree. It's complex. I think the biggest problem is, like, we get her inner point of view and we've heard her thoughts we know denarius and we know that whatever this is if it was translated into a point of view there'd be so much to take in in her thoughts and seeing each thing happen that we would feel her loneliness with her yes exactly and I think that's something that a lot of the way this is written shows mostly her anger, but not the sorrow that is driving it. Does that make sense? The two are going hand in hand.

They didn't show a scene of her unkempt with her hair braided in down and her sobbing alone in that room looking out the window. You know, they didn't show her grieving, they just showed her get angry and desolate. We didn't see the scene of her before giving it to Grey Worm. We didn't see the scene of her, as you were saying, sobbing, clinging to Missandei's collar. Yeah. She was her friend. We didn't see her. I don't know. It's kind of like they have an issue, and we're going to talk about this soon with Arya,

of taking the humanity out of characters to make them edgy uh and try to prove their badass assassin fiery dragonness and it's kind of like there should be a middle ground and they do miss it and obviously they kind of got put in a rock and a hard place i mean 2016 they were supposed to have something new to go off of uh and they kind of just had to forge their own path obviously with that season five season six season seven it is what it is and this is what we have as we mentioned last week so we'll try not to hate it too much but it's interesting adaptively speaking i just wonder if it just wasn't consistent enough in terms of who she loses each season because we don't see her acting out in the same way when she loses viserion because we don't see her acting out in the same

way when she loses viscerion right but we do see her acting out in season five when baristan is killed yeah so it's something that i it just needed to be built up more like there was if you move a couple deaths to last season it was wish Yeah, yeah. It was starting. There are beats. And I agree with a lot of the beats. Truly, you could have done one last ten episode season. You could have had seven and eight smushed together. You could have cut a lot of this extra

fat out of it, and it would have been great, in my opinion. Yeah. I think it's true. I think that's what's needed. I mean, her losing Viserion in season seven. You know, if you mashed this whole season into one i would have i probably would have liked it but i digress we go to that dragon stone throne room like i was talking about the lighting's interesting there's a lot more brown hues in that rock throne and danny is straight up ready to push ahead with her battle plan her advisors are kind of pushing back right tyrian is

like show mercy if the city rings the bells and surrenders though and then tyrian says that they're yeah as you said he says they're gonna be the bells and like that's how you know the plan is gonna fucking fail right yeah because every time they tell you this is how it's gonna go like this is just this is just normal 101 when it comes to all that writing and storytelling they're like when you know the plan it's, it's gonna go awry. Yeah, she tells Grey Worm, like, she gives him, like, a nod saying you heard him, but, like, it's a very vague nod. There's no verbal confirmation for any of it. She tells Grey Worm that he needs to wait for her outside the city and that they'll know when it's time.

Time for what? We don't know yet. But it does put us on the road to King's Landing. And we flash forward. There are small folk that are being ushered inside of King's Landing per Cersei's plan. Jon, Tyrion, Davos and company are on a boat. Or sorry, no, Davos is on the shore. I lied.

Jon, Tyrion and their whole company are on a boat. Davos is on the shore. And Jon looks wary of arriving at the war camp on the Blackwater. And it is indeed Blackwater all over again for Davos, right? Oh, yeah. Which I was very surprised and a little bummed that he didn't have more of a role this episode. I feel like he could have played a really good role in King's Landing since he came from Flea Bottom. And Blackwater 2.0 uh but I digress I

digress yeah as long as he's alive I'm happy yeah maybe one day he's gonna go back to his family who knows he doesn't have a family anymore let's be real does he like okay no real talk does he have the family in the show or not these are questions i have he has a wife so she so maria is in the show he talked about her i think once but not really i don't know i don't know i don't remember i'm just curious um yeah it is very blackwater vibes but you know everything goes a little in reverse and much faster yeah then of course you know you have the Vale, the Northmen, the Nothraki the Insullied all gathered here and unlike in the Blackwater

Dany wants to attack during daybreak yes very opposite very opposite and you cut to a scene where Arya and Sandor are mounted on horse they do a little smooth talking with the guards and they kind of just like go right past them toward the castle

it is interesting though that the guards let her in of just like go right past them toward the castle it is interesting though that the guards let her in you can see that they already are having those that questionable loyalty yeah they do absolutely and after this the half of them aren't even alive so word tyrian uh talks to an unsullied similarly and talks him into letting him visit his brother, who has taken prisoner after walking just straight into the Winterfell camp. And they're all like, dude, we see you. He walks straight past them or through them and they grab him because they're like, look, you stupid golden hand idiot. And so Tyrion and Jaime have a brotherly love speech and something something. He pays his Lannister debt to free him.

Very Catelyn Stark freeing vibes. Very Jaime freeing Tyrion vibes. love speech and something something he pays his lancer debt to free him very cadillac stark freeing vibes very jamie freeing tyrian vibes i know the speech was super important to their arc and i think he said something like you're the reason i survived as a child but yet again i have failed to care about this scene like i did last week i don't know what it is my brain just like turns off during these scenes i don't know why it does i really don't but it just does it happened i know it happened i know it was there it was probably great i love them both great actors they are i think i personally find it interesting because i wonder how something like this is going to play out in the books because tyrian is clearly

conflicted by the dreams that he has where he's kind of like maily's the monstrous on one hand he's like super angry and a monster and then as he's killing Jaime, he's like, the other small head is crying. And you're like, oh, he still loves him. And obviously that's why what Jaime did to Tyrion and lying to him about Tysha hurt so bad. Oh, you know. Tyrion was married before. Oh, yeah. Brienne told me that this season.

Yeah, she did. Remember that? There's like a super zoomy shot of the bell because the bells are important in this episode, did you know? Oh, I did. You have to ring two bells. You have to ring the bell at the top. Gotta go past the bell gargoyles. Where are they? Questions that I have. Is Jon the Chosen undead? Oh my god, Quasimodo, stop. No, no, no, it's Dark Souls. Oh my god.

It's Dark Souls, everyone. I'm here. You know where you're not? In King's Landing. God damn it. Okay. Yes, I'm not one of these small folk running everywhere. Yikes. Lannister soldiers, archers, taking

positions, scurrying around. People are holding up in their homes for shelter. Sandor and Arya are of course going against the wave. And so is Jaime. People make for the gates out of the city, but they shut them. And that's that. And the Golden Company

lines up in front of the gates just a little bit around the corner. Not these gates. There's so many gates, believe it or not, in this new desert that King's Landing has landed in. There are a lot of gates. I have a question. And I don't

mean it to be nitpicky, but it's something I just remembered. Could they not have gone in through that other way that Littlefinger takes Ned that is incredibly precarious? And Sansa. Don't forget.

Yeah, yeah. Was that not an option? I'm pretty sure that's just a way to get out into the city and go to the brothel and then go to the port. So they could take it to the port. It's not a way back in as easily.

Yeah. But I feel like they would come out the same way Jamie did, apparently. Got it. Alright, I mean, that's fine. I'm very bad at geography. Also, also, they couldn't do that because that's not what they wanted to happen in the show. I mean, that's fine.

This is all right. It's their show, just like this is our podcast. I think the crowd scenes were good. Yeah. They definitely, you know, mirrored some other crowd scenes that we've seen in the show. And therefore, there was thematic resonance, as some people call it. Oh, yeah. People will die if they play that drinking game.

Oh, my God. Warren's the worst. Warren's trying to kill our listeners. Happy birthday, Warren. So the Golden Company is lined up in front of the gates, and John Davos and Tyrion watch solemnly from the hill. Cersei is watching from the only balcony she ever stands on. It's a good balcony.

It's the same one every time. Yeah. It's a very good wine drinking balcony uh it is sandor and aria get stuck at the gates they're unable to get in the gates shut on them and then the crowd begins to mass in rush yeah that was like anxiety inducing for me that was some like fire and blood riots that i was thinking of that's what it reminded me of i mean there's no dragon pit for there to be a storming of it but that's what it reminded me of except you know every yeah there's a lot of fire and blood in this we're going to talk about so jamie lannister is stuck in that crowd as well and he shakes his golden hand and nobody sees him or cares in the crowd in King's Landing

which I love that this is so unlike the Winterfell camp where he was just caught for having a golden hand I love that even in your own domain in King's Landing daddy's gold can't help you here I love that but do you know who my father is? But outside

of King's Landing the world is quiet Yeah Tyrion sits and he waits and he waits euron is waiting on his ship and of course out of the clouds out of nowhere come the flapping wings of death it is danny burninating the iron fleet on drogon she won't let herself make the same mistakes as last week where she allowed them to shoot the bolts at her. She just burns them really quickly. So, you know, hindsight's 20-20, one dragon down. Good job, Dani.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It was a cool scene. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Her rage was great. Amelia's acting was awesome. I'm always down for some Drogon flying. I will say, though though why did he bring

the Golden Company? Let's not even talk about it. I don't want to talk. They were here for like a minute and didn't do anything. Harry Strickland was so hot. He's alright. He was cute. He deserved better. If they were gonna make Harry Strickland hot in the show, which is such

bullshit because it's like they cast like old people for other roles that are supposed to be hot like whatever so yeah like davos i mean davos is still he's supposed to be a young daddy i mean like 40s you know he's still a dad sandor sandor's 28 okay sandor is supposed to be prince zuko that's true he is so danny burninates the golden company and the armies barrel through the burnt down gate. Harry Strickland dies a horrible death. Rip, we knew you very little. For like a second.

We actually really didn't know you at all. More like Harry's second. Harry's what? That's how long he lived. Slaughter in the streets, is what I'm saying. We get to slaughter in the streets everywhere while Dany just begins to raze the city. Ugh.

I'm trying to- really hard to think of something to go together with. Slaughter in the streets. Something in the sheets. But it's really- this might not be the time. So anyways, Tyrion walks through the carnage. He does. It's really sad. He's just looking around. I love that shot of him though very very beautiful

like ah chef's kiss cinema that he is just standing there in the gates and they're just all burnt down around him and it just is very a very small man can cast a very large shadow that's what that shot screamed to me he took the city that he had hoped once to save yeah and then we go over to kyburn telling circe that the battle the war maybe even is lost because there's no time when to save her this time no garland tyrell to come in in armor to ghost your uh friendlies And probably wouldn't survive against the dragon. No, there's no ghost either. It was interesting how Cersei was framed here, how she was like, no, they'll just fight harder. No, it's fine. He's like, nope, they

fell. Your armies are pretty much depleting. You have nothing. You're falling, Cersei. You have to go now. Which I think we'll also see in the books, probably in the Winds of Winter. I'm guessing it'll happen near the end that uh i think there will be a second sack of king's landing i've mentioned it before oh yeah and that it will be agon and arianne's armies and john con if he's still alive

but i think there's a nice recurring theme in this episode that i like especially with that sins of our fathers thing coming back but i like that for the lannisters there's no father to save them anymore there's no lord tywin coming to wipe their diapers off anymore you know like uh yeah you just waged a battle against the whole city with daenerys and you decided to use a human meat shield right and she's raising through it like the paper shield you ripped up for ned this is a a little meta they've all kind of lost their lannister locks right over the seasons it's kind of muted now and it's probably more out of like it was a better deal for wig choice and easier to keep up the coloring etc for like peter dinklage and jamie

but uh nikolai but i like to think that maybe they're losing their golden shine you know like all that glitters is not gold motherfucker are you telling me that joffrey was not in fact a lannister no that's not it's not at all what i was telling i didn't say no one said that who said that no one i do think uh uh the points that you were making about tywin having come in to save their ass is really good because it comes back to that conversation earlier in the episode about fear versus love and ruling because those armies only kept fighting so hard because they were afraid of Tywin, but they're more afraid of the dragon than they are of Cersei. Yeah, they all put their swords down. I mean, yeah. Surrender. Tyrion stares at the bell and he's like all right come on let's let's ring

it's gonna ring and then you can hear all the whispers of right as the armies are to stand so they're like ring the bell ring the bell they're kind of shouting it but like it sounds like a whisper from a pie yeah absolutely it's happening from all over the city right you're just hearing it you're hearing men yelling and shouting and... Sanctuary! Exactly, sanctuary. And then we get this shot that is amazing. Like, I just want to put this out here that, like,

no matter what happened in this episode, one of the most beautiful shots in the world was Dany on Drogon as Drogon's sword overhead King's Landing. That was an incredible shot. The way that the back of Drogon rippled as like Dany flew with him and just it was amazing and of course this is the vision that

Bran had in season 4 and season 6 in The Lion and the Rose he first had that vision I believe which was written by George himself. So this has been planned by George since season 4. I'll give it that. I want to come back to something very quickly because you know how we brought up the Hunchback

of Notre Dame at least twice. Yeah. The Disney movie. And this I'm going to just throw it out there. Hellfire, choose me or your pyre. I've talked about this extensively on Twitter about Stannis. Oh, what? Oh, but have you talked about it in

terms of Daenerys? As we discussed last you talked about it in terms of Daenerys? As we discussed last week, it's an analog to Daenerys. Exactly. Also, Hellfire is even though Mulan's my favorite movie, Hellfire is the best Disney song. Oh, absolutely. You could fight me in the streets any day about Hellfire.

Yeah, and I'll be right there, ready to tag team with you and lose, but I'll fight alongside you. Thank you. The Lannisters, though, will not. They throw their swords down. Yeah, they're done for. They aren't going to do it, dude.

I wouldn't want to fight that dragon. They know better. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is people straight up just bent the knee to Aegon. They didn't try to fight when he came into Westeros. He had three dragons, you know? There was no point in fighting you would die yeah they're also up against an army that like you know my boyfriend whom i was watching this with pointed out that you know those people have

probably been itching to do this for a while because when they're coming down to fight the lannister army there's a very personal vendetta for them yeah yeah all the rest of these landisers oh i get it they're all wearing red and they're red shirts i see i get it now oh my god that's true that was actually a very serious observation at this time unlike circe though who's watching from her balcony and she's closing her eyes and then the bells begin to ring and Daenerys goes into a rage. She flies toward the Red Keep. She begins once more to lay destruction to the city. And just two lines I want to repeat here.

One from the show, one from the books. Be a dragon. Dragons plant no trees. That was this moment. That was her unleashing just hellfire on the city i mean yeah as you said it was rage which is a pretty useful pokemon move but of course it hurts you back and might cause confusion if i'm not wrong the denarius that we have especially in the show yes obviously even look at spoils of war right uh the loot trade when she burnt the tarleys

that's obviously supposed to be a warning and all of this apparently that i know they said themes don't matter but apparently they do now uh a lot of people are pissed about this with danny's characterization very valid reasons but it's kind of like you say in your essay that's 42 pages and a lot of it is oh my god and the echoes that kind of tie in with the myrines knot pieces by feldman uh this targaryen war the civil war it's gonna tear dann apart, whether it's in show or book, how it's framed. And it's also going to tear cities apart. Feldman says she achieved peace, but she decided war felt better to her. The biggest problem in all of this is that obviously Cersei is not properly set up for this.

In the books, it's going to be Aegon that does this. It's going to be a lot of framework around Aegon. It does all of this work of throwing Dany down her path to kind of losing it. You can see the framework for it. You can see what having a fake usurper on her throne with her name, taking all that she's ever worked for away from her, does. Exactly. It's kind of a reverse right of brandon and ned when ned feels resentment and

says it was all meant for brandon danny feels when she comes to westeros like it was all meant for her she believed they were sewing targaryen banners in her name and then as as you said agon comes in he swoops in and gets all of the support from those who follow the Seven. He has all the trappings of power. And there's a very personal conflict there that isn't there necessarily with Cersei. Because in the books, we kind of get this idea, especially with the Dance of the Dragons, this very very sad element to House Targaryen where because of the power that they possess, and

even going as far back as Aenys and Maegor and the way Maegor acts for the rest of his family, family becomes framed as enemy. And we see this in Daenerys' storyline as well with Viserys who was supposed to protect her. Doesn't do that. He becomes someone who hurts her. And it stands in contrast to a different sort of question and portrayal of it in the books with how you know viserys i'm the last dragon like

rhaegar was the last dragon like all of this dragon imagery right but drogon's the last dragon but then you look back in their history and like targaryen history they always been crazy look at arian who wanted to become a dragon so he drank wildfire you know i mean it's all this tragedy framed with house targaryen i don't know when we were watching it, I was watching it with my boyfriend and I kind of thought at first I kept punching him in the arm saying how can Daenerys see them throw their swords down from Drogon? She's not going to know. What if she just doesn't know when she starts roasting them?

And I think it could have been a little more powerful for her to mishear it at first or to not hear the bells and then just go anyway and then be in a blind rage even while they keep ringing i just feel like there should be some sort of morsel of remorse in there something because i just don't feel like it's right to have her go full out yet yeah and for her to not be able to see i think is in some ways a statement as well, because the more power she gets, the higher up, the more far removed she becomes from the people that she had thought were going to be her people. Yeah, a lonely god high atop her mountain. Exactly. Storm of Swords.

Last chapter, what is it, Dany 10 or something? Yeah, 9. I like that idea that you have of the bells continue ringing as she goes around destroying everything, because there's also, I think, the idea of what? The bells ringing, perhaps even as Cersei and Jaime fall, signaling the death of a monarch. Yeah, absolutely.

And instead of that phoenix rising from the ash, it's a phoenix falling into the ash. It's the whole entire everything. All of this blood castle. Dark phoenix rising from the ash it's a phoenix falling into the ash it's the whole entire everything all of this blood castle dark phoenix dark phoenix no it's this blood castle falling you know this castle built on all this money and fire and blood just falling into the grounds and crumbling with all this corruption it's supposed to be ripping them out root and stem but why at the end of the day do we feel sympathetic yeah that idea of the house

falling i mean we've seen people talking about the bells also so far as being kind of like ed graham pose poem or reminding them right of ed graham pose poem the bells but if it's a blood house being torn down there's also i think an element of like the fall of the house of usher where the house is also their family and i think danny destroying uh the red keep and makers hold fast and all of that like it kind of makes you feel the end of the targaryen dynasty because they built this building and this nation it's those two sides of that coin of the conquering and the greatness, the madness and the violence as well. The other side of it that built this palace and,

you know, Daenerys destroying it is that. Yeah. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Thor Ragnarok where, you know, Hela says, where do you think they got all the gold to make this castle?

It's blood money. You know, it's all blood money. This red keep didn't just raise out of nowhere. The Targaryen's words aren't fire and blood for no reason. I also feel, and you might appreciate this, I do get a lot of that sense of, you know, the Scottish play, the green play, which is what us people that have been in this play say because we do not want to curse ourselves as the play tends to do it. I won't write it.

I won't say it. I was in the play, Aliana. You can say it. Mel Gibson, Braveheart. Yes. But it reminds me a lot of Lady Scottish Play. And of course, Outdamned Spot. And just that perpetual tick.

It reminds me a lot of John Connington with the bells in the books. Of course, you have that chapter, The Lost Lord, where he says he will go through with reclaiming this iron throne for Rhaegar's son. To reclaim his lands, his name, his honor, to still the bells that rang so loudly in his dreams whenever he closed his eyes to sleep. And I do think they were probably picking at that a la carte to use in the show. I think it's a great idea. I think we're going to see that maybe with John Connington in this next sack.

I think the bells are going to go off, and he's just going to go berserk and kill some innocents. But it very much so reminds me of the Scottish play An Outdammed Spot and how the king and queen, you know, they imagine that physical actions can root out psychological demons, right? So by burning down King's Landing, is Daenerys going to be able to get out her psychological demons? But the overall play is kind of exposition about how wrong they are how that doesn't work yeah I think

that's such a great point and rather than all that it complicates everything and I think we're gonna obviously see that this is gonna make shit worse for Daenerys it's cathartic perhaps in the moment or feels like it's getting you what you want but then it sure don't here's an interesting show canon to bring up does this make denarius the younger

more beautiful queen i kind of forgot this was technically in the show prophecy for cersei lol uh i guess in the show she's now the younger more beautiful queen that got rid of cersei i guess so that's what happens when you find your shape oh my god get that shape tape girl she put it on before battle she had it going i i strongly strongly believe it's ariane in the books uh i think that what i like about it is there are multiple candidates there's a part of me because i'm fucking trash that is like oh what if it were sansa there's also a part of me that like thinks that the wording is ambiguous and i was like maybe it's not a queen and the younger and more beautiful is brienne the beautiful uh i just i like i like going through all these possibilities and i'm like look at the possibilities well that's it it's a show prophecy and and it's Danny, so you're wrong. Yeah.

Are you sure it's not Drogon? It's madness in the streets, is what it is. Jon's barely surviving. He's trying to tell his northern men to pull back, and Grey Worm and Jon almost fight. They almost lock eyes, and they kind of, like, have this moment where they might just murder each other. But then Jon kills a Lannister out of self-defense, eyes and they kind of like have this moment where they might just murder each other but then john kills a lannister out of self-defense just in time for gray worm to believe slash remember

john is kind of on his side i actually really like these scenes because i think that gray worm's actions here very much humanize in some ways and convey what Daenerys is feeling but it also shows how far and how different Grey Worm is now as a character not in a bad way but that he's grown since being like

Anonsoli didn't ask the poor because now he's angry that the strange land didn't promise him freedom or the acceptance that he thought it would the strange land didn't promise him freedom or the acceptance that he thought it would the strange land took the woman he loved and as opposed to he's he's learned to feel all these different emotions before he wasn't allowed to feel anything that he learned to feel love and i think there's something very sad that now we see him in this also very true range yeah absolutely uh he very much so is carrying out danny's physical combat on the

ground while she takes her rage out with drogon in the air and everyone is dying it's women men children uh left and right and john starts to actually yeah horses i wasn't going to say it but i did actually tweet about it so you should check it out later i was like no the horses uh john starts to have these ptsd flashes as he fights and surveys the streets and the music does the same thing it did during danny with her isolation in the last episode where it pulls back and it puts you right in the heart of it it really makes you feel just that trauma coming on yeah i love that point you make about the ptsd because i was also thinking that moment i was like this reminds me of like those scenes where ned stark flashes back to all that stuff

and another thing that i was reminded of um a little bit in the sequence somewhere where john pulls a northman off of a woman that he's about to rape and it reminds me of that scene a few seasons ago between Brienne and Jaime where it's not in the books necessarily but because she kills the men for it where I guess it's kind of showing us that hey both sides are bad in war but there's also around these scenes I think it's interesting that we get another version of the reigns of Castamere. Because in that spirit of those both sides, the lines, that idea of, and who are you, the proud lord said that I should bow so low. And that idea of only a cat of a different coat takes on a new meaning. Because maybe the northern forces and the dragon queen are not so different from the other Westerosi and these lannister guards at all yeah

i also love that the outro music is a mixture of reigns of castamere with light of the seven in that minor slow key uh it's really just it shows the end of that house you got tyrian is the lord of castamere or a fuck of castamere tyrian is the lord of camere. Or, fuck, of Castamere. Tyrion is the lord of Casterly Rock now. Let it sink in. Oh, yeah. Shit. Yeah, I almost forgot they died. Speaking of,

Dany and Euron. I'm so excited to talk about this. This happened. Yeah, this is unfortunately a fight that happens which kang fucked the queen the best they fight you're on quote-unquote mortally wounds jamie and jamie him you're on then look straight into the camera and says i'm the man who killed jamie lannister yeah but like, did he? Because technically he didn't, you know?

I mean, Jamie was still alive when the building fell on him, so I'd say the building killed him. Typical man taking credit for a woman's work. Which is also why Danny is still burning the city, right? Yeah, I mean, maybe if Euron would have just chilled the fuck out. I don't think he knew how to do that. That's true. I don't think he does. Also, like, it just comes out of nowhere. Like, Jamie, of course, is walking in some

watery, brushy area trying to sneak into the castle, and there's your ungrateful. Why didn't, I mean, why didn't they just all go save Circe together? I know. They should just bro it up first, you know? Go save her together and fight over pieces of her later.

Or, throwing this idea out there, crazy idea, a threesome. Oh my god, I'd probably watch it. It's not the worst idea. Yeah, it's not the worst idea I've ever had. Something I did kind of pay attention to earlier in that speech that I said I didn't pay attention to,

Tyrion kind of gave Jaime instructions of go to this place go through the secret like entrance to get to her in the she was gonna wait for him like in the dungeons right or in the the bottom the basement the dragony basement whatever it's called in the show Tyrion straight up says to Jaime let's meet meet her there and like get her out through the dragon pit so is this what tyrian's been planning with cersei since last season is it i'm not sure have they been planning is this well i mean because they cut that scene off and there was no end to that scene you just have them looking at each other and then it cuts are we gonna learn that like the whole time tyrian was plotting to keep his family safe oh my god and that's like another brand sansa aria thing from

last season where they cut it and they're like oh but it's so clever don't you see what the twist yeah i hope that's not it i don't know but hope is. Cersei is looking out over the city. A plus to Lena Headey, per usual. Tears are streaming down her face and she begins to descend the stairs with Qyburn in the mountain. What a posse. Yeah. But we do get good scenes.

Ish, yes. I mean, we've talked about some other good scenes already, like in things that we like. But now we have a thank you sandor moment yes aria and sandor are in the lobby level of the red keep unfortunately the elevator is not in service and sandor tells aria that she has to leave so that she can live and not to thrive on revenge and vengeance like he has and don't become like him and it's a very sweet moment she's like no i have to kill her and he says no like just go don't become like me

and she looks at him and she says and this is the first time anyone has said his name to his face in this entire show which is bullshit because Sansa has done it in the books, but. Thank you, Sandor. That was very important to me. The next bits that follow for Sandor are not as important to me. But that was very important. That was a very sweet moment. She runs, she goes, she tries to get out.

And Sandor goes on to meet his brother one last time. I'm not happy about this, as we know. We already knew I wasn't going to be. I knew I wasn't going to be. I've said as much. There's no way that the show could do Sandor right at this point. They've made him into a walking, talking, chicken, cunt-talking meme. That's pretty much what Sandor is.

And whatever, I don't have time to flush everybody out. I get it. We demand Prince Zuko. It's just like they already had fleshed him out, though. Yeah. Like, he had a lot. And then, I don't know, him looking into the flames was really nothing when he saw the Arrowhead last season. I don't know. I just, again, it's another simple concept of they just really didn't know what else to do with him to keep him relevant.

And he had a great amount of fun acting, Rory did, and he did a great job. And he brought a great character to the screen. So I'm happy about that. But there's just going to be such different thematics working around it in the books, right? Mercy, mercy, mercy. I've written an essay, if you haven't checked it out, about how Sandor sandor aria and sansa all speak to each other and they learn mercy from one another uh and gregor right now in the books and in the show as you saw is frankenstein's monster he kills his creator frankenstein best death of the whole entire series by the way uh my favorite death was when kyburn just went bloop bloop uh at the

mountains yep behest but that's frankenstein's monster and you can't just put the dog to sleep like that we've learned all about the undead in the last couple books and gregor is literally necromancy undead we've learned about it in the show as well uh i thought it would have been way cooler if sandor did some crazy shit like had a flaming sword and then also went out with him in the flames that would have been fine to me but i don't know i just think it could have been continuous like the whole zombie theme they could have like kept that or he beheads him like the way gregor beheads the horse at the beginning yeah way back way back. Way back in the day. I do love that there's a handful of lines in different books, like A Feast for

Crows and in A Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings and all the different books about Sandor that we just don't get in the show. I love the line that in A Feast for Crows, Podrick and Brienne are looking for Sansa. Podrick did not know what to make of a dog named

Dog, plainly. The boy chewed on that a while and said, I used to have a dog when I was little. I called him Hero. Was he? Was he what? A hero. No, he was a good dog, though. He died. He was a good dog, though. He died. He was a good dog, though. He died. I feel like that really sums up so much of Sandor, though. Because, of course, was he a hero?

No, he was a good dog, though. He died. Sandor refuses to be named a knight. If you have time, definitely listen to the Broken Man speech, because it is only pretty much about Sandor, and it's obviously about other men that have broken in war and the broken man in general sandor's in the background petting a dog digging graves the whole time just putting that out there because sandor does go to this little holy isle of monks and hang out and starts to gain peace right he starts to uh repent

for his sins he's digging graves to repent for everyone he's murdered in his life and to kind of appreciate this new life he's been born into but in the show he comes back from that aisle after a brief trip there and uh doesn't seem at all characters only change in like two episodes at the end they change actually every season on the first episode because it's a sketch show Eliana and no one has consistent

characterization every season it's like they draw a card and they're like aha Saturday night I don't know i'm working on it what else anyways um i i did though one thing i'll say i did like i did like the sander parallels between uh you know the scene with aria and sanza with the look at me oh that was cute yeah yeah there's a a great line i do love the uh passage with

sansa and clash i think it's sansa too i like dogs better than knights my father's father was kennel master at the rock one autumn year lord titus came between a lioness and her prey the lioness didn't give a shit that she was lannister's own sigil bitch tore into my lord's horse and would have done for my lord too but my grandfather came up with the hounds three of his dogs died running her off my grandfather lost a leg so lannister paid him for it with lands in a tower house and took his son to squire the three dogs on our banner are the three that died in the yellow of autumn grass a hound will die for you, but never lie to you, and he'll look you straight in the face.

He cupped her under the jaw, raising her chin, his fingers pinching her painfully, and that's more than little birds can do, isn't it? I never got my song. Goodbye, Sandor. Goodbye, Sandor. Thank you, Sandor. Thank you, Sandor.

It's just it deserves so much more. Yeah. I was about to be real mad, though, if he died without killing the mountain. And I guess, I don't know, I guess they go out together or something. Yeah, and that's how it's always going to be. I mean, if he kills his brother, it's a mercy kill. And it's a kill for him, too, so he can be at peace finally. He has to die killing his brother it's a mercy kill and it's a kill for him too so he can be at peace finally he has to die killing his brother i mean it's is what it is prophesied actually in the books

it's prophecy so oh i i just realized are we supposed to see a parallel between sandor and his brother dying together cersei and jamie i see it now them Thematic resonance. Oh my god. So, zooming forward, the sky is literally falling. The Red Keep is coming down in bits and pieces. The mountain is shielding Cersei on the serpentine stairs, and at the bottom is his baby brother. That's right. It's Cleganebowl. Get hype.

When he took off the helmet, I know we just kind of talked about all this, but I'm just still going to talk about how when he took off his helmet, I was like, is that very sad for a second? We've always wondered whose head was under there. It was a little baby head. Oh my god. It reminds me of a...

He doesn't look like him. They did good makeup on him. Yeah, absolutely. They really really did it was crazy looking yeah it was very good for that scene cersei and kyburn are all like what the fuck clegane protect your queen gregor and he's like no fuck you dad and he kills kyburn it was beautiful fuck you dad yeah i i was a little confused as to why the necromancy control thing doesn't work, but whatever. I like your explanation of fuck you, dad. I mean, he does that even when he's not a zombie, you know? He does do that.

Yeah, Qyburn is his new undead daddy, so, and Qyburn was like, no. And he's like, no one tells me no. Qyburn, the daddy, yeah. Rip in peace, Qyburn. Qyburn deserves a great passage too, but I don't have time forburn, the daddy, yeah. Rip in peace, Qyburn. Qyburn deserves a great passage too, but I don't have time for that today. Yeah, but nope. Sandor cuts through two Kingsguard

like they're pieces of cake. Then he turns to his brother and they fight. They fight a shit ton. There's fire in the background, etc. etc. And Cersei escapes away from this fight. Hold on, can I just say I do love that moment where she's just like fuck this and just walks straight past the both of them i'm like all right and they

don't even like turn they're like i i know yeah i love that she's like i'm out like honestly aria could have waited for her and gotten her at this point let's be real i agree but that's okay that's okay i like the resonance that had yeah the twin matic resonance she makes it to the dungeons where there are dragon skulls we know this place yes jamie's also down there yeah it flashes right back to clegane bowl which is still happening by the way, because Greg just won't die. And Sandy has tried it all. He's like, here's a fork in your eyeball. Finally, Sandor dive bombs him off the rail into a big fiery pit of doom. I'm just going to like go past the eyeball thing.

I don't I can't deal with the idea of eye touching. And I don't know. It was kind of stupid that this is literally gregor clegane's only move you know it's his only finishing move um but yeah it was horrible and like there's this moment where sandor bangs his head on the stone on the stairs and like it just looks awful my poor baby boy he didn't deserve it yeah i was on my couch shaking my head and being like chloe must have been so mad during this moment but also i just realized something do you think sandor in this move was inspired by sansa about to push joffrey off the walls of the red key i hope so. I think that's a great connection.

He and his brother become the birds that fly to their death. Wow. Well, they're dead, so we'll never know. Yeah, whatever. But that was an idea. I do like that connection, Eliana. I'm glad. I'm glad I could make this work for you.

Yeah. It's Sansan. It's canon. And Smoke andble are everywhere. The soldiers are barely alive. Arya can barely breathe. She tries to get the small folk out. The small folk get killed by armies and fire. And oh, by the way, there are caches of wildfire going off during this, like all over, but they're not like huge.

They just go off and then sometimes it's greenish, which whatever. they're not like huge they just go off and then sometimes it's greenish which whatever but this pretty much confirms the agon plot for me that like danny will definitely blow up king's landing and wildfire will accidentally happen and she probably won't know tyrian will know but she won't all right we know all the different dragons have different colored flames when it is no longer in their mouths and still burning you know how wild wildfires still green, would Drogon's flames be black? Would we have the black and the green flames mixing together? I hope so. I hope that's what I see.

Like in the dance of the dragons! And you know, there's so much in the books for it. Illyrio's rings dancing back and forth and they're all green and black rings. Like, all of them. Yeah, like we get it, Illyrio. Yeah, you vape um i mean yeah probably uh yeah ideas jamie and cersei go out like they came into this world

together clutching each other um yeah the whole i mean they told us yeah this is gonna happen multiple times like both of them they literally have and it just keeps being said so i'm not like surprised by it uh kind of a bummer that this is how it goes out right you'd hope that jamie like was going to finish it or going like obviously i do not want jamie to like murder his sister i don't think that's a great move Obviously, I do not want Jamie to like murder his sister. I don't think that's a great move. But I think it's kind of inevitable via obviously, we've talked about it with the books of prophecy, and we've talked about it with a bunch of other stuff. But Jamie's really not on a redemption arc right now, even in the books, breaking up with your toxic girlfriend sister doesn't mean you're on a redemption arc from like shoving people out of windows or you know just because you were kind of like only slightly mean and could have been meaner to Edmure Tully makes you a good

guy you're carrying out stuff for your mob boss family dude like you're not a good guy you still have some ways to go yeah uh one of those discussions as to whether or not Jamie is on a redemption arc or not centers around would he have really thrown the babies over at river run and depending on how

you feel about the show etc as seems less but he basically confirms that last episode now i would argue yeah no you're right i don't have arguments I rest my case your honor no I don't know he's not on a redemption arc he's on maybe a humanization arc for us to understand his actions and why he performed them but I don't

think that merits as a redemption arc I just don't and I don't really know what the point of him being in winterfell was and the point of bran seeing him being there was like if jamie didn't show up at winterfell and fight against the dead with brienne and bang brienne and then leave like would they have not lived i mean maybe i guess like maybe maybe if jamie wasn't there you know maybe all of the different pieces had to be there doing their small little part, like the butterfly effect in order for it to work out.

Yeah, I guess. I'm just going to go with that. I don't know. Well, they go down. And I mean, it was a nice scene, even with Jamie's hand turning back from gold to flesh at one point. I don't know if you saw that, but there's... No, I didn't. Oh, please rewatch it. No, I didn't catch that. Yes, my dad

told me, actually. My dad called me to tell me. Oh, the Night King. Yes, the Night King. Who's no longer the Night King. I just loved that he was like, I'm no longer the Night King. Literally, the Night King dies. I'm no longer the... Who are you then, Dad? I don't know. I don't know who he is um some someone named brandon stark maybe oh my god aria is covered in blood and

ash and a white blood-stained horse appears and it's a really beautiful scene that takes about like two to three minutes for some reason and i was really confused as to what was happening this is honestly exactly like the unicorn store with brie larson oh she climbs on the horse and she gets out of the city i know there's a lot of like revelation six eight kind of relates to it you know with uh the white horse after the apocalypse and harbinger of death but i kind of uh i took it a little different than that i think i took it a little more positively. I took it as her choosing life. Also

the girl was mad for horses. Yes. Absolutely. She looks like Liana and she looked like Liana. Yeah, so John and Arya endgame is gonna happen. I mean it's the 93 letter. It's true. It's out here. End game.

Because I did think that this was a Taylor Swift music video-esque kind of feeling moment. Anyways, we got a thing. Yeah, hey, we got a tweet. A message from Johnny Tsunami. How did you girls feel about King's Landing being the place of losing slash reclaiming identity for Arya? We first see her shed her identity there. Dad, no! And I don't think she fully took it first see her shed her identity there. Dad, no! And I don't think she fully took it back until her conversation with Sandor.

Do you think that was an intentional parallel? Yeah, I definitely think it's an intentional parallel. I talked a little bit about it on Twitter today actually, because I was just going off because I love Arya so much, and I actually really like what they're doing with her this season. I've been saying it all season.

They're writing her, which is awesome. She deserves this. You have basically all of the support of mentors and past acquaintances sacrificing or giving her knowledge this season. You have Melisandre with the Not Today, Beric with the Liv, and

Sandor, of course, with his Liv. And I think Gendry plays a huge part in this as well. Her finally seeing Gendry again, who she felt so close to once. And obviously last season, she didn't feel so close to Sansa and Bran. She felt a little alienated. She was the stranger in Winterfell last season, not Daenerys. This season, she's really close knit with them.

And I think, although the writers seem to have gotten the whole needle was Jon Snow's smile wrong, this season, they got it right. Arya's arc has never been a revenge arc when she was in King's Landing and Yoren held her close to him and shielded her from watching her dad die. As she climbs from the ashes here she looks around at all this destruction and death and she sees all the small folk that have died and all the charred bodies just lying out on the sidewalk

and it's not this loss of humanity like they've taken away from her in all the past seasons anymore you have these tears streaming down Maisie's face she did a phenomenal job during this and she's just bloody and covered in dust and ash and she's just crying in king's landing just looking around at this destruction and it hurts and you feel it yeah absolutely she loses a

the mother and child that she was helping to escape. And there's also a moment earlier on in the episode where someone gets their throat slit. I was like, is this supposed to remind me of Catelyn? But yeah, I love the way that you've described Arya reclaiming and refinding her humanity. And she's always had a very complicated arc, and I like that you've pointed out that it isn't necessarily about revenge. Because I think there's a lot of it showing us, even in the books, that yes, Arya desires revenge, but trying to teach us, hey, this is a bad thing especially because george refers

to her in an interview once as being inspired or kind of similar to a ugandan child soldier which is a very sad thing um i was listening to discussions recently on attitudes towards violence in developing countries and it's sad because it's this intergenerational thing. It's this very normalized thing where children who grow up in countries afflicted by conflict and war feel that violence is expected. Like that's the way of life. And I think that's very much how we see Aria's character, but for her to see the horrors of it once more.

Especially after experiencing all this stuff this season. Yeah. Especially after, yeah, having taken part in a war. This is so different than the war that she was in where it's fighting the dead, where there's a clear good side. And here she's just like, oh, fuck, these are real people. And it's been kind of built up. And it's been kind of built up. You look back at last season with Ed Sheeran's scene with those Lannister soldiers when she, you know, hung out with them and they shared their ale and their food with her. And for one night, she was just a teenager. You know, every single time her, you know, that's very nice. You can just chop someone's head off when you're mad, but that's not how things work here.

And that's not how we do things here. And I think there's a better balance for Arya in the Force now. You know, there's much better balance. Yeah. But we'll see what this does to her. For the record, just while we're here on the podcast, I didn't mind the Ed Sheeran scene. Oh, I love that scene.

I think it was cute. Yeah, make Maisie Williams happy. I'm like, whatever. Oh, fun. Cameos. I didn't mind the Ed Sheeran scene. Oh, I love that scene. I think it was cute. Yeah, make Macy Williams happy. I'm like, whatever. Oh, fun. Cameos. I don't give a shit. If Arya's happy, I'm happy. There's a lot of other things to complain about in the show. Yeah. I think it's unfair that the show is kind of framing this episode

with Dany as Aerys too. Especially after we've read Fire and Blood that came out, the Targaryen history book that just came out this past fall. I think we should look into this as more of the sympathetic view that we get of Rhaenyra, who was, as you know, the black in the side of the black and greens. She was the named Aerys of the throne. And there are a ton of parallels, right?

Like Daenerys has been told they sew banners of your house. And Rhaenyra was regarded as the realm's delight when she was younger. They were both robbed of their birthright. They get caught up in warfare. Their children die in war. And there's even this passage from Fire and Blood that I want to read. And this is when Rhaenyra takes the throne finally, which of course she spirals down lower and lower

she starts off at the top and her birthright gets stolen after she's you know worked to retain it and then well yes yeah there was no way to spirit away the iron throne however nor would queen sleep until she claimed her father's seat so the torches were lit in the throne room and the queen climbed the iron steps and seated herself where king viserys had sat before her and the old king before him and maegor and anise and agon the dragon in days of old stern-faced still in her armor she sat on high as every man and woman in the red keep was brought forth and made to kneel before her to plead for her forgiveness and swear their lives and swords in honor to her as their queen. Septon Eustace tells us that the ceremony went on all through that night.

It was well past dawn when Rhaenyra Targaryen rose and made her descent, and as her lord husband, Prince Daemon, escorted her from the hall, cuts were seen upon her grace's legs and the palm of her left hand, wrote Eustace. Drops of blood fell to the floor as she went past and wise men looked at one another. Though none dared speak the truth aloud, the Iron Throne had spurned her and her days upon it would be few. Yeah, I, as you said, it's kind of sad that they're framing her as just Ares come again in earnest, right? As opposed to it being a sort of critique that to your family. You're not the same as them necessarily all the time. And I sometimes struggle when people ask who my favorite house is. The answer is House Plum or House Fossaway. I like fruit houses, but the reason is because, especially in the books, I struggle to see them as houses because they're struggling to be themselves apart from the legacy or from whatever their parents are. And I don't know.

Maybe that's something like obviously Daenerys is a little different of a story. But Tyrion has obviously tried so hard to stand out on his own for so long and be his own man his own lion and john has tried so hard for example to fit in to be a wolf i'm sorry i just remembered the quote where he goes and damned in the most recent john chapter we we read yeah he and theon they try so hard to fit into a different house and to... I mean, not that Stark is a different house for Jon, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Somewhere that they're not wanted or that they don't feel like they belong. Yeah. Which is what Daenerys is doing in Westeros.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's... What is this called, Chloe? The bells? The bells. Resonating? Oh, thematicatic resonance that was the first time i've said it all episode i know i was like she's gotta say it i can't be the one like making save her shit for her the whole time come on chloe you know speaking of fire and blood i guess it's

safe to say that that one plot of dannany getting the shivers right Princess Daenerys dying from having the shivers that's out of the cards now right so no Dany dying north I'm gonna throw this out there that sometimes I think the ideas in Fire and Blood some of them might be foreshadowing but some of them I think are ideas that George

liked for A Song of Ice and Fire but couldn't make it work or didn't like enough to put in the main story he's like I'm gonna use it here instead and I feel like this is one of them I like it but also you know speaking of that idea of children dying

well that was a segue there's a lot of emphasis there's a lot of emphasis again in this episode on that little girl and her mother and getting them to safety. And in regards to Arya finding that humanity again, she, like her father Ned, tries to save them, tries to save the children. And I think that little girl, because we're focusing so much on her, reminds me of many things in Daenerys' story, which we're going to touch on in a bit. on her reminds me of many things in denarii's story which we're going to touch on in a bit but here are some quotes uh that i thought were really poignant from danny's very last dance chapter aka

the last uh canon denarii's chapter uh we have and uh you know as she's out in the wilderness alone and sad she thinks i will never have a little girl i was the mother of dragons and then later on when she's talking to her hallucination of george she thinks um the the hallucination says her you are a queen her bear said in westeros and danny says back it is such a long way she complained i was tired jorah i was weary of war i wanted to rest to laugh to plant trees and see them grow i am only a young girl and there's so much innocence lost in danny's storyline it's danny she in killing the young girl like a lot of john's storyline is very much about kill the boy and let the man be born what

happens then and what happens when you kill the girl inside of you like ned stark wanted to save children as aria is trying to do here he wanted to save a little girl named denarius on the other side of the narrow sea that's what hurts so bad when it's framed like that we get that first person that point of view quality of aria on the ground and king's landing and by having danny removed from the second half of the episode there you really lose this feeling you have aria's blood and dust and tears and it really sells it for you and it's so hard because we've been rooting for this small exiled princess who's been abused and truly lost and alone overseas for all these years who's clawed and fought her way to the top and we've also been fighting for these two little girls sansa and aria

who have been living in isolation what has become a child soldier uh one in the show has been beaten and raped and had to learn and grow with barely any help you you know, with clipped wings, so to speak. And it's hard when those two girls that were never really, you know, the northern girls were sheltered, but it's so hard that they finally, you know, pull back and they don't trust because they want to protect their family. And their isolation of Daenerys, I mean, is proven, right? Dany ends up burninating the city, and we know this isn't really who Dany is at her core. We know that she's freed and liberated millions of

bajillions of people, and the events that lead her here in book obviously are going to make thematic sense. They'll resonate a little more in a longer stretch of time than like two, three episodes of hardcore Dany losing it, but it just sucks because it could have been so much two, three episodes of hardcore Danny losing it. But it just sucks because it could have been so much more.

And I also feel like having it built off of Sansa and Arya's isolation isn't obviously fair to them for them not trusting Danny and doubting her, but it is something that has built into this, just this thought process for Danny, you know, she's just very alone. She'll never have this wolf pack of her own. Exactly.

And I think that's something that frustrates me a little with the characterization of Tyrion in the show because a lot of what will go Dany into some of these actions, I think, is that Tyrion that we have in the books, who is much darker. And he and Daenerys would play off of each other, right? Because here we see that Tyrion still kind of has his lion pack,

but in the books, he too is alone. He too has turned against his family in the way that Daenerys is learning that family, for her, cannot be trusted. And they're two lonely people feeding off of each other's loneliness and deepening each other's darkness in that way. And it's, I think, very difficult and sad. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we've been rooting for her for so long. It's rough.

Yeah. And I mean, again, I don't think that the show is wrong in some of those beats it's just the execution is sloppy the execution was only there for very oh damn i did it again you did it wow do i get a raise you do get a raise not only are you hired you are promoted uh we should be laughing while we talk about very you can have ally's job okay well how's she gonna pay me rent oh shit i don't think just kidding it all goes to the same pocket i you know i think i've been moved and i would even give this episode a seven out of ten now after discussing it with you at length yes you have talked me into it without meaning to i just power friendship

look not loneliness the game of thrones was really the friends we made along the way okay oh my god yeah i'll give it a seven tops uh like i said at the beginning, it was a okay to good episode of Game of Thrones. It was a bad second to last episode of Game of Thrones. Yes, it was a good fifth to the last or fourth to the last episode of Game of Thrones. You know what I'm saying? Like, remember when Winterfell was a little slow and boring? I liked it! And we had silly medieval music. It was cute. Oh, oh, that Winterfell was a little slow and boring? I liked it! And we had silly medieval music.

It was cute. Oh, oh, that Winterfell. I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about it in Season 1, Episode 1 again. No, I'm not talking about your favorite season. I'm being very serious that I thought we were talking about Winterfell at the very beginning of the show. I'm not joking. I totally misunderstood. Anyway.

Okay. Well, I guess we got one more week of this bullshit. We'll be at the rest of our lives to be together and read these books over and over again. Until the next one comes out, right? Allegedly, there's an announcement coming. I don't know what the announcement's going to be. It's probably going to break my heart. It's going to be like 2016 New Year's all over again

but whatevs oh my god when will we rest are we the 79 Sentinels yes we are the Watchers on the Wall no that's a different organization oh my god

okay well as always this has been an episode we has been an episode. We are having an episode. What do you think next week will be called? A Dream of Spring. I think it's going to be the Hour of the Wolf

or A Time for Wolves. I think it's going to be one of those. I don't think they're going to go Dream of Spring. If they do, that'd be a nice homage. But I'm wondering if they'll curveball us. They want to subvert our expectations. It's going to be one of those. I don't think they're going to go Dream of Spring. If they do, that'd be a nice homage. But I'm wondering if they'll curveball us. They want to subvert our expectations. It's going to be called... I mean, like, Brendan B. Fish already got

the leaks for all of these titles. It's called Lady Stoneheart is in this one. Oh, yeah. The Stoneheart Cometh. Yeah. I thought it could have happened today. You know, with being Mother's Day and by today I mean yesterday. But I watched it today. Yeah, Happy Mother's Day and by today I mean yesterday but I watched it today so who knows

whatever well as always this has been an episode if you guys have not looked us up you can find us and subscribe to us on Podbean, on Spotify, on iTunes, on Google Play, on Stitcher, and on

Acast. And to keep up with all of those releases, be sure to subscribe to us on social media. You can find us on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon. Or maybe you have a question and want to, like, say hi or some shit, right? You can shoot us an email over at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. And hey, while you're at at it take a look at our Patreon patreon.com slash girls gone canon last month we did have a excellent time doing

an episode with Minuclear Bomb from A Scene of Ice and Fire a podcast in the community that does great work on the show Game of Thrones we talked about Eliana's favorite season episode 1 of season 1 winter is coming we talk about the pilot episode a lot of production things and just stuff that's different stuff we liked and

what we see today so take a look at that patrons five dollars and up get a special episode every month yes and this month we thought it would be fun to do an episode on prophecy since there's been so much discussion about it and of of course, what the role is. Excuse me. And of course, where it comes from, who's telling these prophecies, what it means for characters. So if you are a patron of $5 and up, you will get that sometime this May. Yes, to your dismay. Oh, wow.

My God. Wow. As always, I am Chloe. Find me on the internet at liesandarborgold.com and I am Eliana find me somewhere as Glastablegirl talk to you next week guys goodbye