Girls Gone Canon Cast - House of the Dragon S2E5: Regent

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

SPOILERS: ASOIAF, F&B, KOT7K, TWOIAF, ETC “The only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon… was itself.” ... and boy are they tearing it down! Check out our patreon where all members get early access to House of the Dragon episodes during the season @ patreon.com/girlsgonecanon Stranger Tier Patrons have access to MILFs of the Dragon (Mothers of the Dragon): https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-episode-72691222 Sound Effects from Pixabay "Night Vigil" "Big Drumming" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ THANKS KEVIN!!

The The The The The Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watch's House of the Dragon, Season 2, Episode 5, Regent. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. Here we are with another grief episode.

Yeah, there's a lot of those. I can't seem to figure out why. I don't understand. I'm not convinced that they aren't trying on... No, I'm joking. But I don't know. It's just like so interesting to me how it does kind of... I'm imbuing meaning into this. Like when House of the Dragon season one came out like that was a big time of grief for me and we had a whole episode about it so i don't know it's just interesting to see that we're all on the same wavelength about like the themes and how we execute this character stuff in the show and by we i mean just them i'm not part of that team our friend ryan my only child ryan condell also claire kilner who really killed it

wow thank you thank you it's true though yeah lots to talk about with regent it was a slow burn a naval gazer and i like that i like my thrones like that. We'll get into it. But first, Eliana, can you give us the spoiler policy? Yeah. So if you're here and listening to this episode, if you are watching House of the Dragon and don't know what's going to happen in the rest of the story and you don't want to know what's going to happen. story and you don't want to know what's going to happen well let me tell you we are spoilers all we are going to cover everything that we would like to cover from fire and blood uh the main five books world of ice and fire the original show that these books are based on so we are just going to cover everything and if that's not for you thanks for stopping by yeah yeah do what's best for you you know yeah self-care boo self-care absolutely that's our spoiler policy our spoiler policy is self-care yes that's that's actually it actually is that's

why we are spoilers all that is actually your and my self-care for ourselves absolutely plus i like to have fun i like to look at this story in whole we've been having a blast doing that uh and it's made every episode that much more fulfilling before we jump into house or before we jump into the episode into emails because we have a bunch of emails to read to you. We'll talk about that soon. Let's do a little quick housekeeping. First off, patrons over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon C-A-N-O-N get many perks. One of these perks is early access to all House of the Dragon episodes. You get them before the public. And another perk is that patrons in the stranger tier and above get bonus episodes. Every single month they get special episodes. And I'm so excited.

I love whenever we do a bonus episode because one of us usually gets really, really excited about it one way or another. Like someone puts it out there and sometimes that same person is excited. Sometimes the other person is like out there. And today folks, Eliana basically said I could have whatever candy I wanted from the store. Like she straight up was like, here's your candy. She gave me the idea. And I was like, that's my favorite candy. This is also my favorite candy. I've been telling everyone that I watch this show with them. Like like, everyone, listen. Listen, Chloe and I believe this. All right. And this is how it ties into everything else.

And I think the last time this happened actually was not that long ago. And I was like, you can have whatever candy you want from the store. But I also want this solely based on the title, The House That Went Away. Yes, Our House Went slash Heron Hall episode. I was also happy. That was so relevant. It was so relevant. For this season. Lots of bats. Yeah. Love this for us. Bats and witchcraft.

This episode that Eliana has supplied and that I am getting high on her supply. Just kidding. We wouldn't do drugs on this podcast. We've never done drugs. We have not titled this episode because it feels like it's going to come to us and it's going to be perfect. But working titles are Rainy's Targaryen from her blood. Rainy's truthers, we believe that nothing matters.

There are a lot of great things we could title this episode, so we're going to work on that. But this episode will be about a theory, a theory that we believe in strongly, that Rhaenys Targaryen of the OT3 is who the line of the dragon, the OG3 conquerors, who the line of the dragon actually descends through and not through Aegon necessarily. We will be discussing that, how it

impacts Fire and Blood and the stories we know today, lightly and overall discussing Rhaenys the Conqueror, which I look forward to. Indeed, indeed. So we are not talking about the Rhaenys that just died last week. We're about a rainies that died several several last weeks ago if you think about it don't worry all the rainies in this story die anyway that's so true just like us we all die anyway so here's historically historically here's a couple of other things to look forward to on the slow march towards death um we have our patreon discord right along with bonus episodes if you subscribe to the thunder tier and above you get access to our discord where people are having fun spirited discussions about the episodes but also about other things such as for example i don't know there's so many

other things the sims crusader kings and those are those are only video games there are discussions about other things too like people sending me uh what is it neon penises erection uh shirts and instead of neon genesis yeah evangelion yeah things like that so memes there's a lot of memes a lot of memes, a lot of shit posting, a lot of respectful thirsting. Everyone loves the respectful thirsting channel. I took a Stannis moment and I was like, go to your channel. Go be lewd. Oh, interesting.

Respectfully. Yeah, there was that one thing that Jimmy posted and I was like, I don't know, this motivates me to have sex in that bathroom. So that's what happens on the Discord. But also once a month you get to hang out yeah we do a brunch slash happy hour at our discord monthly and eliana likes to call that brappy hour where we hang out play some games sometimes we watch videos sometimes we do powerpoint presentations on a theme other times we just talk about the state of the decaying

world around us. It really depends. Always a good time at the end of the day for a couple hours. And the next two brunches are Sunday, July 21st and Sunday, August 11th. And those will be, I believe, 3 to 5 p.m. ET or noon to 3. Probably. No, noon. Yeah, noon to 2. I don't know how to do time. Noon to 2 PT.

So we will see you there. Again, that's patreon.com slash girls gone canon. C-A-N-O-N. We'll see you there. Yeah. Okay, last week, Eliana put out the gauntlet. I didn't mean to. Eliana called you all losers and said, you should be emailing me, nerds.

And you all fucking did. You all listened to her. Holy shit. There was a plethora of emails. So we are going to lightning round through them. Eliana, do you want to kick us off with the first one yeah i'll kick us off with the first one um our friend jeremy wrote us and said that he and his wife have theorized that only damon can see alice which is interesting and wonders if she's a ghost or hallucination or maybe even glamoring herself to only reveal to damon

that's actually really interesting. And also says, furthermore, I think this was foreshadowed by Mazaria telling Rhaenyra that men do not see women if they are not dressed to be noticed. Jeremy also notes that, full disclosure, he and his wife are only halfway through episode five. So please disregard if this is misproven by episode's end. I like it. I like it. I like it.

I like the Spitfire take. Yeah. I really love the Glamour take, and it would be interesting if everyone else sees her as someone completely differently, but to Damon, he sees her in her Gale Rankin form. I'm like, interesting. And I do think she's real.

I do think she's there. But when you think to like maynard plum blood raven right night of the seven kingdoms and all those lines about if you look at them just wrong you know you'll see a blur around their body or you'll see a give the shimmer of the sword versus uh no heat off of the sword for for example. So I'm very curious. We'll see how this plays out with Aemond, right? Because he plays a decent role alongside her during Fire and Blood. So I guess that's to come at Harrenhal.

Yeah, I think that's just really interesting. I don't know about the glamoring, but the idea that no one else can really see her. But like you said, I do think she's there. But yeah, I mean, I'd to re-watch the episode again but like i don't think anyone really even interacted with her this episode besides damon right or like acknowledge that she's there there's a moment she calls out to him then simon strong waltzes in and is like what's going on here but not necessarily doesn't necessarily talk to her there's this great shot and it's so well set up of her disappearing behind simon strong exactly cut away so you don't see her exit it's really cleverly done uh definitely very witchy you know yeah a little bit yeah it is interesting i don't i don't know that like missizaria's line is foreshadowing for it just

because i i think i just might have like projected too much onto that line since it came out yeah a lot to parse there yeah a lot to parse our friend juno sent us an email it's been a minute and she's just picking up the hot d podcast and eliana you actually have to read this one because it has the m word in it and you know i hate the m word and i can't say it well this actually goes pretty well with the last email that we just got and i'll go into that in a sec juno said enjoyed so many tiny details of this episode like the fake out funeral possession procession black and white council ball for allison as well well as alicent's panic attack and then her subsequent fight with kristin the blood and fire line with the salt and sea line

chef's kiss but moreover do you know moreover enjoyed that this episode had echoes of lady macbeth all over it such as kristin scrubbing the blood out of his sword, as well as Damon having blood on his hands. And then that there are three witches or witch-like figures throughout, such as Alice, Mazaria, and Helena. Juno also says, love watching A Feast for Crows on my screen each week. XOXO, Juno. I definitely do love that. And I love identifying the three witches, right? Mizaria, Helena, Alice. I know Mizaria definitely had more of those vibes in the book, not as much so far in the show. Her power has been more political and the world is big, but little people turn it speaks to you know some of the stuff that we see with like the lysine spring were they actually witches were they not or is it just like someone who's foreign is they decide that they're like a witch right um because they're they happen to have power through some way but also i like that this macbeth thing goes well with jeremy's email of

chloe's face every time i say macbeth. You know, hey, Macbeth is the, can other people see the witches after the first sign that Macbeth sees the witches, or is he the only one, as well as Banquo's ghost. So really, I thought that those paired well nicely together. Yeah, and you see Alice, Mazaria, andena all haunting a subject in this episode so well done our friend thunderclap commented that kristin cole using the lemon the salt and lemon to clean his sword could be a nod at the the fruit coming from dawn but also that maybe he could discover invisible ink like the revealing properties of lemon uh who whomst amongst us as a child hasn't dipped a pen or a whatever something to write with in lemon and written and done the invisible ink thing

me and that may be insane you really got to try it out you're still can you show me 23 let's do it when you're here it'll be an activity activity. Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. And then he also says it could be something to do with Amon revealing the invisible ink on the dagger. I don't know. I don't know. Interesting. I thought that was very interesting. My Amon dagger theorizing is growing stronger every day

that Miyu and Hana did, so. Yeah. He does really think well of himself. He's like, I was the one who said, I mean, he's's literally that meme of i was the one who studied the blade and all that shit thunderclap also gave us a rundown of like how invisible inks are developed by heat with like a bunch of different materials which i really appreciated and the first one on the list was cola i was like ah kristen cola my god not kristen not kristen coca-cola two last emails finally My God. Not Kristen. Not Kristen Coca-Cola. Two last emails.

Finally, Warren emailed us and commented how mom coded this season and episode is, which total agreement. If you want to learn more, we definitely recommend milfs of the dragon, which is pretty much where we fell in love with the Rainy's truth or theorizing. So we'll talk a lot about

you know the milfs of the dragon this episode but especially loved that warren calls out damon is looking to be loved and that his vision is so revelatory showing that that he fears people may lose the sentiment and struggle that damon is experiencing in his grief he's grieving too that when we see him confronted with that grief, his response is consistently disproportionate. And this is the most extreme example yet. Yes. Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes. Love that. Big agree, Warren. Thank you. And then we got an email from Miranda, who also sent a photo of a dog. Thank you, Miranda. Miranda, who also sent a photo of a dog.

Thank you, Miranda. And Miranda was talking about grieving about the dragons, but also specifically grieving about Vhagar's losses, the three different riders, and saying there's a profound sadness to any long-lived or immortal being because you lose the people you love over and over. And how the dragons feel the deaths of their riders physically as well that vegar would have felt it when lena had burned herself alive and also in conclusion i love me ma please let her finish her nap also she really is just a giant puppy because she flops down

the same way that my dog does when she gets tired in the middle of a walk. Oh. I do have a certain affinity for Vhagar, man. Yeah. Vhagar housed some of the milfs of the dragon. So true. And then Aemond. Which is referenced in today's episode of, with a specific milf, Visenya. Yes. Yes.

Her and Dark Sister is some of our friends and patrons. Like our friend Rowan would say. The strap. The strap. Thanks so much for sending us these emails. Please send us one over at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. If you want your voice to be heard, we record these Monday evenings.

E.T. Phone home. Not a lot of philosophical meta shit this week because the episode was the philosophical meta shit this week you know so i mean look the only thing i have to say up top is those burns are gonna make aegon the second so much hotter to me oh my god like is this i'm just saying is this a oh that's right chloe's chloe's sandor clegane fixation rears itself she's like but even more burn i mean if you think about it amand stuck aegon's face in the fire too whoa and then amand is also taking harrenhal soon right that's really interesting actually i yeah that's super

interesting that parallel i still like can't support Egan, but I just, like, I think he's just a fantastically done character, but. Oh, he's a great fail son, dude. Total fail son. Yeah. I love him. Love him. Something that this episode made me feel, like, I thought there were so many great scenes and moments. Some of them I want a little longer, or some of them I want more time with the characters. And I just do wish we had 10 episodes. That's all. Oh, yeah. I totally think we could get there.

Sometimes I just feel like we're going through things too fast. And I'm like, I know that they're already just making shit up, but I would like more shit made up with these characters. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great world. They're really building out and fleshing out these characters and this world and the lore and even the dialogue and how much it resembles of the text just little like moments that make you feel like george is actually the person writing all of this right now like it's it's george's world yeah like you feel like you're in george's world in a screen version and it's a

fun and sometimes harrowing place to be yeah it's a little it's it's tight like the storytelling's great it's tight they're doing a lot of lifting with just those few scenes and lines but time to get lifting to king's landing wow which is where we head over to see agan's little cart getting lifted the small council and agan and alicent and god even that first moment where he's in the bed and they start removing the plates and the silent sisters gathering around just like they did when Viserys had died right and Alicent kind of stood similarly anxiously at the foot of the bed watching her then king watching her now king it's always a tragedy and a tell of good writing to have the character come right back

to that same moment they were in one season ago but different right yeah that's a great point it's a it's it's interesting cyclical nature for allison right she she's just trapped in this time loop i something that i kind of also saw as they were crowding around the bed was I was reminded of Emma when she was killed as well. Emma Arryn, whom you'll all remember from the first episode of this whole series. And I don't know, there's just like this interesting juxtaposition of those like different beds, right? Like all these efforts that these people made as they crowd around this bed to save Agen, the male heir slash claimant, right? Versus all the effort everyone put into surrounding Emma to hold her down in pursuit of

such a male heir. That's about it. And then also, I just want to give a quick moment of respect for, you know, anyone doing these kinds of prosthetics and makeup, like not just the people putting it on the people putting it on people putting it onto the actors but also like then you go out there you have all these prosthetics on after you've been sitting in this chair for seven hours and then which is practically like a whole like eight hour work day right seven days of the way there and then you gotta go do the actual like shoot which is more hours. Wild. Crazy and impressive.

And, like, once I had a prosthetic, like, paint on me for a costume, and I can tell you that putting it on was a little quicker, and it was full body paint, head to toe green. Oh, yes. And I was green, and it was like a second skin. So seeing in the house the dragons built like that second skin being applied to him and all of them the detail work on top of that so you have like you just think of like the hours that went in before even the application of the prosthetic then the

actual fitting of the prosthetic that had to happen over weeks and then the actual application of it for the first time yeah something in episode four that they talked about in the house the dragons built was their ability to like for some of the extras especially since that was such grueling work they actually turned it into like clothing into like a tattoo sleeve for example almost so i'm wondering if some of that will happen for agan you know like maybe some of his arm chest whatever anything that might be peeking out would be part of the clothing because they can probably figure it out at that point now they've tested and applied it and then maybe just more the

neck and face and head would be the harder work yeah so we'll see or like i mean it depends on how many scenes he has right like you maybe you just do it all once, and then you do all the scenes that day, now that it's all applied, which is, like, that's tiring stuff. And, I mean, I assume... I don't know. I don't think it's possible. Yeah, I assume they did that with, like, you know, they did this in Game of Thrones as well, right?

You had a bunch of people with, like, prosthetics and stuff on for, like, the others, etc. So, I don't know, any show. Like, I'm glad that House of the Dragon is featuring that in that behind the scenes stuff really just showing the work that goes into it i mean a lot of places do that but right but you look back at thrones right and we got the one big documentary at the end which was awesome but i think uh all tv production should have that behind the scenes so

people can really appreciate it yeah it's fun it's fun speaking of those prosthetics right like the scene of cutting off the armor um i don't know i liked the motion that they used for it as they were like kind of it felt like they were taking the skin they are taking the skin off of him but the way that the armor was it's the same way that i remove like chicken skin or something right like when i am removing chicken skin or like filleting i don't know a fish so very interesting also you know very reminiscent of meat which is hearkened to right before the scene i was gonna say it's also reminiscent of jorah getting his greyscale removed in Game of Thrones by Sam Tarly. I never think of Jorah. Well, when Samwell Tarly removes his greyscale, that's what this scene reminded me of.

Someone brought that up recently, and I was like, why are we talking about Jorah? They were talking about the greyscale with Sam. I was looking for a gif recently, and I had to go past that scene, and I was like, what? Yeah, I remember, and I was like, I don't know. I just don't think it's that easy in the books. It's going to be a whole thing. It's going to be a whole, like, George has a lot of inspiration to draw on from the past few years. Yes.

yes so the in the house of dragons built they establish that the armor is much more heat resistant than normal steel right so that's that's good to know that these are some of the properties of valyrian steel which might have been said in like the main series but i you know we had the discussion i was like what really is the benefit of valyrian steel armor like why would euron really want this so good to know that they've fleshed out that canon for at least the show yeah i did that on purpose i did it um yeah so they're engineered to withstand that kind of heat in the valyrian freehold which makes sense based on you know all the different dragon lord families but also it speaks to why someone might choose like what if i did a more leather forward outfit instead of steel makes me wonder if that's how euron will uh be fried that's how he'll be taken interesting valyrian steel armor and fried

in it oh that's kind of funny especially when you think of how like like, Victarion is like, I don't care. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wear. Well, no, he doesn't, right? I forgot. Right. Yeah. I don't know. How he, like, judges people.

Yeah. Well, I think, and they made it really clear in the after interview and in House of the Dragons built that you just die and be cooked alive regularly. as we see with Kristen Cole's skeleton friend. Dust man. Dust man. That is probably not what I should be calling him, but whatever. You know, he doesn't have a name. That's true. Dusty.

Oh, Dusty. I thought this was kind of interesting because there was that one scene where after Jahari's the baby dies Helena and Agen pass each other wordlessly in the hall and now she's like wordlessly watching them cart Agen's body in I just feel like she only ever sees him passing in hallways I mean there was that one scene of them in the room together but whatever she's just yeah I would like Helena to have a little more to go off of so far i will say she surpassed last season i think true like 10 sentences right 10 whole sentences but uh and

to be fair not tons to go off of other than she went into madness as well and like was despondent for the rest of the book until her end. So they're doing what they can. One is more than zero, right? One is more than zero. And I'm hopeful that we'll get more of that next episode. It looks like we have that riot. So like, guess that'll be Helena's lines used up there. We'll see, we'll see.

But her little line to Aemond at the throne, right? Not much to talk about there, but was it worth the price and the callback to the price of his eye for a dragon? And yeah, was it worth it? And was it worth it to take the throne by roasting your brother a little bit? We'll see. We'll see. I assume they then had sibling sex in front of the Iron Throne and conceived Maelor right after that, but that's just me. That's just you. There are other things where I will go with you on this journey on we will discuss later, but that one, that one's just you.

Halaemon truthers are real. We will be respected. we will be respected I like the framing of Alicent and Aegon kind of as Viserys and Alicent right when she goes to kind of sweetly tend to him and see the damage and then she leaves and he calls out mummy it kind of reminds me

of Viserys' last moments when he starts talking about Aegon and the prince that was promised and obviously a lot of people I'm sure have already noticed that he looks a lot like his dad did at the end. So, um, he's kind of not looking great and a little holy and not in the way of the seven. You know what I mean? I mean, you could be both, but definitely, I don't know. I think that that, that man does not feel that way on the inside, but also, yeah. And then I don't know the I think that that man does not feel that way on the inside.

But also, yeah, and then, I don't know, the way that she was tending to him, and of course he screams mommy. It makes me think of how the crate that they were bringing him into that room with almost felt like a baby's crib. You know, like with the slats. The womb and the tomb. Exactly, exactly. Thank you, Freud. That's one of Freud's things. We're going to talk about other Freudian things later this episode.

I'm so excited to talk about incest. Then there's that like contrast of how it's brought in with all these ratty blankets and rags covering it and like food and jugs and stuff on it to make it kind of blend in, right? To disguise that the king isn't in there when they go by the small folk and the distraction of the dragon head instead. They're hiding the truth, right? Hiding shame. They should be parading the king who was the noble dragon slayer and warrior around.

But obviously they can't because it's a lie amand and kristin both know the lie they're on opposite ends of the lie and they still have to uphold that public image yeah they i mean they need to right like because if you're king's dad like super that's not good super embarrassing for you like yeah you have another ear but like does not inspire confidence in your side we get to see black fire in aegon's possession or out of his possession i should say for the first time since viserys they pull it out of his little womb tomb cradle whatever yeah and i really liked amand and counsel how it was already decided like he didn't need to campaign for himself because he had already done the campaigning in the last few episodes without asking right he already proved

himself the stronger ruler and he doesn't like stand up and say well i have ruled this much or i've done this where allison stands up and makes her speech saying it should be her amand waits for everyone to elect him on their own and then the moment he's elected he doles out orders very quickly very simply because the pins were already set up to be knocked down yeah right immediate actions get taken there was never a chance for alicent there's never a chance for anyone amon's been playing the long game yeah he has and i wonder like what is larry's plan like i think he it was better for him when agan was in power because agan was more pliable for larry's right but he does i mean i think he says it in earnest when he tells alicent like he's not even saying it to get back he's like we can't prop you up like we can't prop up one woman against

another woman like that's the whole thing kind of that our war is being fought on and i just think it's interesting that she's trying to be a regent during the war when you contrast that with reyniera's council as well because they're saying like oh you have no experience like allison actually does have experience ruling during war and she did it during a previous one that we saw throughout the course of the series the stepstones war right she doesn't do it outright in a way that anyone sees it happens within their bedroom but it was her counsel that motivated viserys to act and help and the stepstones war which it wasn't this i know it was like mostly like damon and

whatever's this fucking hail mary that they didn't have to do but that was that was a big part of it i mean we see from rook's rest right losing 900 men is a big deal like just because one person performs a Hail Mary, that doesn't mean that you really win in the long run, which is also a lot of what this all is. And you say women regents, I mean, that's kind of one of the big themes of the book, right? Fire and blood in general, and especially this part of the war and where we are in the story in the main series of men going off to war and dying and the women are left to rule i mean not even just like them going off to rule like you think of who fucking held the whole line together during maegor's shit alissa valerian yeah you know she held this whole fucking thing together absolutely so and then also who held it together during jaharis's reign yeah actually also visenya was kind of the regent more or less during maegor's

war as well you have tyana so interesting stuff i will say there was this line that stood out to me of like eight them talking about agan being very injured outside and how he has probably injuries within which are you know likely internal bleeding bad stuff that they just don't have the technology for hell even we perhaps do not have the technology for but especially also mentally yeah the emotional damage that's why he's all like mommy hold me my brother was me yeah also probably i mean like watching your brother kind of try to kill you like that's probably gotta do a fucking number on your psyche too but oh dude he's probably traumatized like does he even remember who knows i think we're

gonna find out though in the next episode which i look forward to yeah i mean allison kind of is like what happened here what did amand do so and no one will tell her but she suspects it it's fascinating that she suspects it like it's also funny that she keeps asking like saying like you know what he is to people and i'm like do they say killer or get over like i just are you gonna say that all the time, Allison? It's kind of funny. I'm like, do they know what he is? I don't know. I think she's trying.

Is she trying to say kinslayer? I don't know. Yeah. Well, nunners are cursed. All right. Maileys and the small folk. Lots of spectacle in King's Landing. Yes. Great call.

Was really interesting to open up on this this we get that shot right away of food rotten and scarce right the oranges those were crazy and the line of dragons are meat as hugh says and of course now what have they shown they've shown that the gods can be killed after all you mean the the years of living in fear and bending the knee because you thought that dragons were power made flesh, fire made flesh, and that nothing could stop them? All that fear might melt away? Uh-oh. They really fucked this up. They did. And that whole line, right? Dragons can't be traitors. traitor dragon may leave a dragon's not a slave yeah they don't have loyalty like that dragons can do what they want a dragon's not

a figurehead for your pr campaign to try to make yourself look better otto would never he really wouldn't and i think this really shows like the gap in i mean being a hand hand right between these two and this is not this is not what the episode is about but now that we've been talking about them like meat i'm sorry so at first i was like do they taste alligators other reptiles kind of taste a little like chicken and other other birds other fowl lean and gamey but chickeny yeah but now i so i was like do the dragons taste like that but we've been talking a lot about you know their proximity to volcanoes and stuff i'm like or do they taste like rotten eggs oh sulfuric which is kind of gross you know um i think of like the thousand

year eggs you know those are delicious thousand year eggs right but i think about that how it's kind of like almost blue cheesy and rotten in a good way does that make sense yeah i do love those but i'm thinking of like you know when you over boil an egg the the green part the sulfuric i don't like i don't like that that outer part i thought i didn't like boiled eggs for a lot of my life turns out my mom was just over boiling them yeah that could be it maybe like that i don't know. I would say that if you want to find out, go down to Flea Bottom and get a bowl of brown. Do you think that? No, they left the rest of the carcass there. They can't like expend all that manpower

just bringing it all the way back. I don't know. You be the judge. That's that was a tangent inspired just now. And also, speaking of food, I thought, and I doubled back, I rewind, I was like, oh my god, are those onions? No, they were oranges. But I still have thoughts if we pretended they were onions, because I thought they were onions. And so only part of them are rotten, right? And some of them, like, if it's just the outside, that's like, if it's just the outside that

has stuff and the inside is untouched i think it could still be usable and edible and it's it made me think of like melisandre saying like yo if half the onion is rotten you gotta throw that out it's not good and sam being like i'm eating this half rotten onion it's fine and this idea of like people being wholly good and wholly bad and you know that people aren't geez exactly exactly especially because yesterday i just took off the first layer of an onion i was like this part is bad but the rest is good so see today i had to throw one out because it was definitely molding from pretty much all over that that does happen and that that there are onions that are all bad

but if only part if it is. Just like perhaps with people. Yeah, not all of them. Hashtag not all onions. That is what I'd like you to quote from this podcast. Hashtag not all onions. And also, it makes me think of the usage of the overripe onions, the overripe oranges, the blood oranges in Dorne, plopping on the ground in A Fe feast for crows and that metaphor. And, you know, we're getting a feast for crows on our screen.

Every day. Every day. So, yeah, I love what you called out about them parading the head around. It's very much, like, I think a running thing throughout this episode. We open with the dismantling of Targaryen exceptionalism with the dragon head and then also jace at the end of the episode proposing like hey dragon seeds he doesn't use that word but it's okay we've read the book so we're gonna use that word and i thought of you immediately i knew that when he said the line about them uh gilding their history and glory for the valyrians i was like i know eliana's somewhere going yes yes i was like don't get an exceptionalism is a lie you just wanted to

fuck your sister you weirdos yeah so that's coming apart during this war, which is really interesting. And this is, I mean, they call it the dying of the dragons, but it's really the tearing down of the gods, right? And also, let me just say, they're all like, wow, Aegon slayed this dragon. And I mean, yeah, it was Aemon, but also Aegon's not fucking special for this, all right? Because I do this all the time in Elden Ring. And also, speaking of meat i eat the dragon hearts i'm pretty sure that's how it works and then i take on their powers wow it's cool i think i have a dragon slaying arrow in balder's gate three probably sounds real so yeah so i could

do it too brandon snow that bitch yeah you're not fucking special agan or amand and so yeah i don't know what you were saying also about otto hightower would never make this mistake it's it's a great contrast right of how otto does have a pulse on the city sympathies and the way that nazaria does and he knows the subtleties of where to show weakness right like here we have a head it's a dragon head as opposed to Otto being like we're gonna show Jaehaerys's head sewn back on we're gonna emphasize this different kind of monstrosity versus how they you know parade that body and have to hide Aegon's body because they can't allow like an adult male body to look weak, especially when that's what they're building their case on,

right? And I think that's really interesting because you were talking about how much Aegon now kind of resembles Viserys. Like Viserys bucked a lot of these conventions and was seen as a weak king for it and in some ways he was he didn't always make the best decisions but he did strive for peace and like in many ways was successful at securing that except for you know after he died but maybe that's just because no one wanted to listen to him he did say to everyone again he's like hey i marched all the way fucking out here i'm in so much pain but that's my fucking air y'all at the end of the day I think there are two conversations to be had when it comes to the monarchy right like the Targaryen monarchy a are they doing what they're doing for the people

b if they're not doing a or if the answer to a is not yes is monarchy bad actually is feudalism maybe not great i mean i don't think capitalism is really that much better in democracy because well sorry we're in a republic quote unquote and by republic i mean oligarchy but you know i'm like what does work and what works is what's taking care of the people and you look look at the side plot with Hugh the Hammer, which is growing on me, by the way, because that family's fucking dying. I just, because now that we have the old, the white balance, it makes more sense.

I just have to, you know, book fan first. I just have to fix myself with my immediate thoughts of Hugh because he's kind of played as like a loud mouth and not like a nice dude. You know, he's kind of played as like a big shot bastard, dragon seed, Robert Baratheon, you know, Hugh the Hammer. So we'll see. We'll see how it plays out but i like this look on the ground because dude his daughter looks bad as we stand at the gates at king's landing where no one's allowed out which we'll talk about she was like blue gray i'm like here your daughter is dying like she is gonna die and did you catch that line about tumbleton from his wife i was like i wouldn't go there if i were you but i guess he

plays a role in that. Right, like what would happen? Maybe they turn them away? I don't know. I don't know. And maybe his family dies or something because of it? Because they get turned away from Tumbleton? I don't know.

I don't... Yeah, I mean, does his family all die and that's what causes him to be like, I'm going to take up with them? And then what causes him to be like, I'm going to take up with them. And then what causes him again? Yeah. Or like, is it that his family is not yet dead and he goes and he's like, I'm going to try and claim a dragon because that's meat in a different way.

Right? Like with a dragon, I will have status and money to buy food, power to keep my fucking family alive. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't really know what they're doing with that but yeah i i can see why you didn't love it at first it felt a little i don't know did it feel trite maybe but with as you said with the balance with olf it actually does work yeah olf makes it great i see now that olf is just like a dumb bitch, which I like. I love that. Because I need representation in shows too.

Yeah. You know? And I like the Hugh family guy. We're telling the story, you know, from the front to end for him. So we're going to see how he becomes what he becomes here in this universe. It's a little, you know, it's a shortcut to get sympathy from the audience for this character, but it works. And yeah, so they're trying to leave King's Landing. Everyone's getting boxed in.

And this is not the first time that we've ever seen this happen in this world. But I think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and one of the argued human rights that everyone should have available to them is called like the freedom of movement or the freedom of travel sometimes called mobility rights but essentially like comes down to everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state right like you can't it's hard to argue that you can just do it across different countries as we see with a lot of discussions but also everyone has the right to leave any country including his own And to return to his country. So that's another argument that's being made as well.

But anyways. Very interesting stuff in regards to like. This is. By keeping everyone. In King's Landing. That is a human right. That they are denying all of these small folk. Yeah.

And you look at Mrs. Hugh Hammer and her brothers in Tumbleton to some effect, right? Like he's working there or something. So they definitely would have a right to go be there. Does she have a name? I was wondering that. I don't think so, but I'm going to call her Mrs. Hugh Hammer.

Because I've been calling, I like saw her call hugh husband and i was like all right like i know that's not his name what's your name lady maybe it's like uh the hunger games katniss oh my god and mrs katniss's mom and mr katniss's dad mr katniss's mom you know mr katniss' dad. Mr. Katniss' mom. Yeah, Mr. Katniss' is actually his name. This is canon. They don't have names. Did they watch

the Hardhome episode and go, we should adapt Carsey, but as Hugh the Hammer in long form for several seasons? Not saying no, but it's a similar idea, but it's not as bad when it's a man oh my god women are terrible aren't we i will say like jesus i did see a uh i'm gonna quickly go on a tangent like a critique and it was a pretty good critique of the inconsistency of

renear's character from season one to season two and that she bucks against wanting to be forced to be a mother and then like somehow like leans into that in adulthood and is a great mom which i don't know if she's a great mom or she's just a great parent right she parents in some ways the way viscerys parented her but the positive aspects and like that's a man you know like it's just good parenting shouldn't be bound by gender but also also, obviously, I think she just has a lot of kids because she's worried about the prophecy. She's like, we gotta up our odds of someone fucking surviving from the line. Yeah, I think it started as she needed to have them to uphold the succession and to uphold her place in it. Yeah. And then it evolved from there.

She realized she actually loved them, especially because she found love with harwin that's true and like look look look at how great jace is that kid rocks i like that kid i can't wait till he's through with puberty but we'll talk about it's gonna it's a really fast puberty yeah just send him to the gullet you'll see what happens i love when all the small folk are you you know, as you were talking about, entrapped in King's Landing. And the gold cloaks are calling out, Prince, Regent, Protector of the Realm, Aemon Targaryen. And the small folk are like, who? Hoomst. Who the fuck is that?

Her. Do they mean the king? Good enough. Good enough. Like, they really, like, they don't know. They don't fucking care and they don't know. Just give them food or let them go yeah great loud thematic smacking us in the face and i can see this mirroring you know the winds of winter a dream of springs in another sack of king's landing

with young grift and the martels or versus danny and we've already kind of seen this uh with the tyrells right coming to king's landing after being the ones that held out on all the food yeah and then bringing food of the reach the bounty of the reach and feeding them and becoming the favorites like we might see team black do maybe this season that was a pretty wild pr move yeah good queen raniera Rhaenyra. It's a great call. I also think of like what the grayscale outbreak once in old town and they were like, nobody goes in or out. Sorry. Yeah.

So. I think that with a current book, right? With Danny and Marine and the bloody flies. Yeah. Sir Christian Cope and Alison. Kristen Cola. Kristen Coca-Cola. Kristen Coca-Cola. Danny and Maureen and the Bloody Flops. Yeah. Sir Christian Cope and Allison. Kristen Cola.

Kristen Coca-Cola. Kristen Coca-Cola. That's how we open up, right? With this little ASMR sword cleaning channel. I actually, you don't have to hand it. Hand it to Kristen Cope. Christian Cope. But in the last couple episodes, I've definitely started to like him a little more. We get that line in passing.

I love the despondency. He's very despondent in this conversation to Alicent. War fucks a man up. He says men were left to garrison the castle and Sunfire, who was long in dying. So right now everyone thinks that Sunfire's dead, but I'm sure it will be a fake out, dying so right now everyone thinks that Sunfire is dead but I'm sure it will be a fake out which is cool just like in the books like you don't know uh until you find out they're like keeping dudes stationed on Sunfire from where he crashed and so we'll get that reveal eventually I'm guessing and just like in book just uh left in the wood with men making sure he's fed for a while

until he comes back for him yeah and I mean like mean, like, they could have, I guess, just let Sunfire die, but do you think they'd just get attached to, like, wow, I love this big golden dog. Sure, yeah, I'll bring in some sheep. I'll bring in some goats. Why would you introduce Moondancer and Sunfire and not have them duke it out? I mean... Yeah, no, they have to, but i'm just like also i was rereading

that part of the book and it's when they kill gray ghost and then bayla's like what the fuck is wrong and no one listens to her and she's like what the fuck is wrong something's fucking wrong what could kill gray ghost and then they all show up on dragon stone in the fall of dragon stone it's like such a really action-packed couple of scenes. And I look forward to seeing that next season, maybe. Yeah. And that makes sense for the trajectory that they're giving Bela, right? Like she's thinking, what is wrong?

Because she's now being trained to think of like, what are we observing? What does that mean? As she's been doing this sort of like reconnaissance. Yes. mean as she's been doing this sort of like reconnaissance yes i love this line from kristin not necessarily because of anything like of his own merit but it says his his grace fought valiantly in regards to that that battle because it made me think of the line where rhaegar fought valiantly rhaegar fought nobly rhaegar fought honoriantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably, and Rhaegar died. And I don't know that Aegon did any of these things necessarily, and I don't think of him as a noble or honorable person, but I do like that it harkens to that line.

Hey, it's got to take something to get the fuck on that dragon so i'll give him at least that you know because i can't even be asked to like go out of my house sometimes that's a big deal yeah i also like how allison's like what about amon and he just doesn't give a response total despondency right uh like like i was saying the other each side of the secret now yeah both of them are in on a lie and locked in on a lie and it's one of those things that like i think they've all realized telling allison just makes it worse yeah i don't know in a way i'm not here to be this boy's stepdad yeah exactly exactly his duties to the crown and i love when he says we lost some 900 men when she asks what happened he doesn't say agan was lit the fuck up the dragon got his ass he doesn't say any of that

he says we lost some 900 men as if to remind her that her son and her son's dragon aren't the most important fucking thing in the world 900 lives were lost that's far more than a boy king and a dragon now that he's seen what he's seen as he says later when they're fighting he saw men in their armor just melt disintegrate that they need a dragon rider now to finish out this war not allison yeah also lines that go really fucking hard when she says to him has your loyalty faded or does it flourish only at night and flee the sunrise like a moth oh oof oof everyone's out there thinking they can just call her alicent this season what is up with i don't know i think they were just like disrespectful without the series they're like i don't know you're just a girl damn ouch it's big sad and we do see her

get treated like that right yeah at the small council i will say i love that zoning in i what i love about this show is it takes things that are like normal game of thrones things right so here we have small council scenes. We still get information in the background. We still hear things happening, but the audio design is blurring it out to give you kind of that focus and that POV on Alicent. And they can take something so navel gazing, like we said, of small council scene and yet really make it interesting, really build that tension and tell you what a character is feeling instead of just having it behind headline news i really love that yeah that's a great point they did that character work while yeah they do move the plot forward like those are some pretty big

decisions that are made in that background thankfully we have subtitles and you can see what they discuss and it does get referenced later on in this episode right but jace being like jason lannister is moving we also are moving to dragonstone and driftmark let's talk about the opening of this episode with corley's yes there's this great musical cue and i haven't really gotten a chance to talk to our friends like double m matt who does some great job analyzing music i have to check in with him maybe he'll know off the top of his head but it almost sounded like the musical cue is reminiscent of Shireen's musical cue in Game of Thrones. That kind of descending keys. Really interesting. Kind of likening him to Davos

and his losses in some ways. And cheating his wife i found that fascinating the cheating on his wife especially yeah that's what we got out of there i'm joking that's not what we got don't start with me don't start with me don't start with me uh beautiful acting and opening shot on steve tassant and oh yeah a wordless a wordless opening right like that they just let him fucking act great job and then they do the close-ups of his hands which now i realized that was that was a thing because he's going to become the hand i see it now i see the vision but also they zoom in particularly on like his left hand and the ring which may or may not be like a wedding ring i don't know that the custom is the same in westeros but we do see the rings used as a visual motif throughout the series to represent dead wives right like in the first season we see the series like kiss emma's ring and then squirrel

it away yeah and we even have that ring that damon's wearing right when he's fucking his mom in the vision later i i didn't notice that one i was too busy being like what the fuck i i was i was like i was like is that supposed to be his mom or is i was like or is this like do i just not remember what emma looks like clearly i struggle with facial recognition every now and then as as many of you probably know on this podcast but she looks a lot like Daenerys I will say they found an actor who looks a lot like her but anyway yeah absolutely Bela and Corlys okay fine here I am publicly forgiving Corlys for finally coming to the idea of giving drift mark to one of his granddaughters thank you Corlys I am publicly apologizing for the slander that I've given you over the past few weeks.

And of course, Bela didn't want it. And she's going to marry the guy that you give it to anyways, so it doesn't fucking matter. Yeah, but you got to give it to Bela, I think, for me. Best line and delivery of that line award for the episode. Yes. So good. I am blood and fire. Need someone who's salt and sea. So i absolutely butchered it but also i just love her being you know i thought that was just a great

way to show how long their relationship has been going and like her talking to her grandfather like that and you know be like all these kings and lords did they know that all that glory you saw it was just for her it was just for rainies for niece just for her every guy's got to get off so that was a lot of work for it i also am glad that i'm just glad that house of the dragon is making you know they brought back the art of making characters as mean something. Like how Rhaenys' death was the through line for this episode from the start with that Corlys opening

to the Maelys parade. That sounds weird. Anyways, to the conversation between Rhaenyra and Bela, then to Bela asking Corlys to be hand, and then all the way back down here to the dragon seed sowing. We have a full character dance they actually like mean something again everyone grief it fucking means something i loved that rainies was present in every scene in different ways

but without it being too overbearing right like her absence was still felt and that scene with bella and raniera it was actually very touching as you mentioned you know season one was about eliana's grief season two is gonna be mine i'm pre-grieving bro i've got i've got grief coming down the drain soon too on the pipeline so the scene made me cry it made me really sad like it was very sweet them talking about rainies together uh and her legacy and who she was and how she believed in both of them and i just yeah i cried bro pre-grieving amazing thank you for that call back yeah i'm pre-grieving uh like helena style i know the future i was thinking succession i thought that's what you're referencing no no i'm uh i see the future

oh of course it's called fire but no um i yeah i think they just have a really interesting dynamic bela and reynira in which you know they have an amicable like step parent step child dynamic as well as this is your future daughter-in-law but also at the same time there is an aspect of it in like rainiera is kind of being a little manipulative of baila i mean i think she's putting on baila a lot of what was put onto her oh yeah she was a young girl as fair because she feels she can't put it on Jace. She doesn't want to lose him. She fears losing him.

So it's like this total displacement of expectations. Yeah. And like the fact that she is both what stepmother and future mother-in-law, like, I don't know, like the power dynamic there as well. Like, especially in regards to that stepmother role,

kind of being like, you are less important to me, but also the realm and being like you're expendable compared to jace compared to any of these five yeah and then also can you please go do this for me with your grandfather like you know there it's kind of like it's interesting yeah there's like that fine line that she's walking on this tightrope of, of like grooming her into a leadership role and position, which is good because Bela does become a strong leader in the history and events of A Song of Ice and Fire after this. We know that from some of the other books, not just Fire and Blood, but her and Reyna specifically are like very big figures in King's Landing and in the kingdom and well known beyond their everything, their history and everything in this show alone. So I don't know, there's something interesting going on there of like it's a fine line of her grooming her to be a leader, but also her putting too much on her. It's complicated.

I like that they're giving, I don't know, there are a lot of complicated character relationships in this so like this next one yeah misaria man i'm really interested in misaria especially being played out against like alice and larry's seeing kind of her motives start to unfold and i definitely felt like raniera was giving her a very vulnerable side of herself during their conversation. A little too much. Like, this is all the stuff she can't say to her other council members, but Misaria is one of her council members. This isn't just yapping like one of the girls. Like, this is also, you know, you look at whispers,

what Misaria deals in and how much they're worth. And Rhaenyra's kind of showing her maybe a look inside too deeply. Rhaenyra is really driven by wanting to be a good queen, a good person. And she thinks that her morals are a little bit above everyone else's, which isn't always a bad thing. But she does think that she has the superior vision for how things should go. Not that that's how they will go. And these are really honorable, good things to want to be, right? To be a good queen, to take care of your people, to keep people safe, to not send people on dragons into war. But telling Mazaria what drives her makes it a little easier for Mazaria to bend her to her will and shape her. She's complaining about her council, about their faults, about her own faults,

to her newest counselor, who, no offense, comes to her through way of Daemon, who she doesn't trust, who also recently sold out Aegon's location to the Hightowers and put him on the throne, who she also doesn't trust them. Just keeping tabs here so i don't know the frustration and shortness that she gives elinda massey who's been tending to her for a season now and is a trusted companion coming through in the room with miseria too i was like oh your mask is off around miseria you are still a queen even in front of Mizaria. That's dangerous. Yeah, it's a good point. Like she can't, as you said, yeah, with her like she's just one of the girls because

this is something we discuss a lot during our coverage of the main series. By the way, everyone, we have a podcast that we do usually if we forgot to mention this where we uh go character pov by pov of the song of ice and fire series but anyways we talk a lot about isolation and power right like that having power is an isolating experience when it's absolute power you have no equals by nature of it right and so mazaria can never really be that for her and also like I just can't tell at the moment of it does Mizaria really actually believe in Rhaenyra I think like yes to some extent right or is she just like a yes person right the the term is often usually yes man but whatever but yes person and just kind of telling as you said reynura what she wants to hear based on

all these things that reynura is divulging to her and like you know i for what it's worth i mean none of the advisors on any of these councils really seem to believe in their monarch to be fair except that it turns out auto actually did fucking believe in viserys i guess and also um also, but a great example of another, not on a council, but advisor who does not believe in their leader, Simon Strong. And he believes in staying alive. Yeah, I think like none of them really believe in their leaders. So like, I'm curious what's going on here with Mazaria. And I think that their dynamic joins a couple of other dynamics from the stories, right? Like Visenya and Tyana.

Or Cersei and Tyana. Which is a fun thing to say. Yeah, with all these names. Who hurt you? Name Tyana or Tyana. George. Yeah, interesting George. But even Mizaria saying to Rhaenyra, to the discontented

rumors are feed. Well, Rhaenyra, to the discontented, rumors are feed. Well, Rhaenyra is discontented. She's literally feeding her right now by telling her these things that she can do for her. Feeding her with her own rumors to make Rhaenyra feel hopeful and better about what's going on. And the new PR plan that's born, like we referenced, the Tyrell plan, the feeding the realm suddenly after withholding food from it. But what when team raniera can't afford to continue to feed the realm because it's been blown apart by war and the treasury has conveniently disappeared this isn't a very sound plan in the long run you know every now and then someone does not cause i mean she kind of

does like play a role in it but you inherit you inherit a depression right you you inherit a recession and then and then it it becomes like the thing that that people have decided you did but anyway my partner is very excited for the misario scenes i just want y'all to know that because she's she's she's growing in intrigue I still I now look forward to it because I'm like what is going on here but also in that discussion right she's talking about not being given a sword at birth and it feels very like you were talking about Cersei earlier it talks very feels very much like feast Cer right? Like comparing her lot to Jaime's. And she discusses how she was given a cup instead and therefore like is perceived as not knowing war.

And even she doubts her abilities to know war because she was given a cup instead of a sword. And I don't think that's the case, right? It makes me think of Sam explaining to Jon, like, don't you see they're grooming you to rule? That's why you were made a steward, not a ranger, right? Like Viserys was preparing Rhaenyra for rule see they're grooming you to rule that's why you were made a steward not a ranger right like the series was preparing reynera for rule by having her be the cupbearer and in the room like he wasn't

like great at it all the time it speaks to what mazaria tells her that there's more than one way to fight a war and i just think like knowing how to fight doesn't guarantee knowing warfare right like tywin does know how to fight but you know, I think of how he won that war with the Ravens, right? Or even like Tyrion Lannister, someone who is just physically at a disadvantage when it comes to that, but he knows how to strategize. It's like what the Arianne chapter where the line of, you know, words once loosed cannot be taken back. Oh, yeah.

Once the war begins, just like arrows, you can't just pull them back in. Once the dragons are loosed, that's it, buddy boy. That's the ruse. The ruse is loosed, but also bringing it back to Roos Bolton. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. A good soldier isn't necessarily a good commander is all. Eliana, what? I really wish that the writers would do something consistently about Elinda Massey.

Because I have a few complaints. First of all, red riding hood ass cloak, riding into King's Landing with a bright red cloak and with your house sigil on your dress through the cloak that can be seen like don't you know that red cars pay higher insurance and get noticed by cops more i did not know that like so interesting oh yeah absolutely absolutely you learn more every day that you talk on this podcast with me i'm telling you like also the color in the city is green don't you want to blend in it's not even like just it's

like why did she pick red like she could have picked brown which is like red but not that you know like red is a statement color red isn't like we're fucking tonight color you know like not i'm trying to hide in the night i guess it's also frustrating because the show hasn't decided to go all out on her being a highborn lady, which is what she is. Like, why does Diana call her by her first name like she knows her? She was a lady in waiting, so maybe she was nice to Diana or whatever in the halls. But it's just a little silly and clunky that Misaria is sending her to Diana and Diana's like Linda like that's I mean not to go feudalist on it but her dad's on the fucking small council the teen black small council like she's not low born like she's higher born than Jane Poole who is also decently born

you know and I don't know it was just really clunky. I know she's going to go start this riot or whatever. That's fine. But maybe they should have put... I mean, in Aeswaf, a brown cloak, like a riding cloak, is common. And to your points, to the great line from Misaria, you know, men are seeing what they want to see. If they don't want to see it it it can blend in into the shadows so it was just kind of silly well red is not a color you wear to not be seen well and i kind of told you my feelings last season too that they constantly had her in

alongside the serving women and alongside the midwives and alongside these other characters with raniera and wasn't necessarily as a lady in waiting and like the lady in waiting role you think of marjorie's ladies that she brings to the capital with her that are all wearing garb from the reach uh and for world building sake you would think that alinda would be somewhat copying raniera's guard but a simplified version and not to be outdone by her right so like this season they finally put her in this outer uh this outer kind of dress that has a collar so not dissimilar to some of Rhaenyra's pieces of red with blue underneath with her sigil on it and she's finally getting a little bit of characterization but again her father is on the

small council for Team Black. Like, I don't know. Yeah, I think that's just something maybe they were, like, condensing characters and decided. I don't know. I think it's, as you said, they don't know. They're being wishy-washy with the station of this character. But I guess Diana and, like, Linda. I think they were also, like, gardening the story. Yeah.

You know, through costuming. Yeah. I think Diana and Linda, I mean, they're probably, maybe they're girls like that you know oh this is just really alinda's really progressive like that um you you can tell though that like alinda's not there there's this detail of when rainera goes to get her hair brushed again like that person hurts her not on purpose right because it's usually Elinda who does it but now she's like on this business trip wearing a power suit apparently instead of fucking blending in yeah that's a great detail not the usual we'll probably see Rhaenyra start to send people out like that like Alfred Broom for example which

was nuts I was like what what are you doing you're sending him away you got to keep your enemies close bro yeah fuck Alfred Broom for this moment and for all the moments to come yes I mean like I don't I don't care if he even makes like slightly good points like he's just such a so annoying about it and is all like blah blah blah the, blah, the gentler sex doesn't know battle. And love that Rainier is like, you fucking don't know battle either. In fact, the only person who has actually participated in the war from the side of the Blacks is a woman. I mean, she died, but still. And also, I'm not counting the Blackwood Bracken thing, necessarily. But that was them.

It's definitely a mistake obviously we know from our knowledge of the books because we are great people who have done many times now um with our good taste that alfred broom is a fucking betrayer he's a motherfucking betrayer he's not just a betrayer but he's been a sexist piece of shit already on top of later being a betrayer. The worst kind of betrayer. I can't judge him, you know, till it happens, but I'm judging him for it now because I've got that foresight. And I don't know, sending him to go be with Damon? Yeah. Thinking you're going to knock some shape, like go, here's a task for you. Go to the guy who also is maybe getting armies and doesn't know if they're going to be for me or not. And obviously she doesn't know that part yet but she suspects it too much trust to put into alfred broom is he ever going to get there i don't know yeah it's it's been kind of hard for her right to

get people that she can trust on this council but hopefully things will change with corley's well not just diet a bunch of of them kind of just suck. But I guess at least they stuck to the thing that they swore the first time around. I guess that the other ones were executed. Anyway, he might have not sucked. Hopefully he gets his in the end. It ends up in those iron spikes below the drawbridge, friend. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So what about our prodigal son? number one boy jacerys we're gonna go through him with bela renera and his time at the crossing starting with bela yeah i don't know i just like this little exchange of don't tell mom i'm sneaking out rough right that he's taking this choice um making this choice on his own. And I will say that there's this great moment with him and his mom, as we talked about him and his mom too, where she doesn't necessarily yell at him for doing it. She lets him get off scot-free for going to the crossing, which in my head, I'm like, can you really give up Harrenhal? Like, is it really yours to give up? I don't know. Let it reclaim itself. But if anybody has to suffer up? I don't know. Let it reclaim itself.

But if anybody has to suffer there, maybe the Freys should. But obviously Rhaenyra is unhappy and frustrated that her own son doesn't listen to her or regard her as a queen. He doesn't ask permission. He thinks he can get away with flying off to do this on his own just by having his wifey tell his mom, oops, he left. And then you see Amon's secret combat plans, right? And it kind of goes nicely against that, his secret plans he was hatching this whole time. So between Damon, her council, and now her son, no one regards her as a ruler. Yeah. You know, like, that's how she's feeling.

I think it does feel that way. I think Jace does regard her as a ruler. It's just like, Jace is a teenager. Mm-hmm. And not everyone does, but I'm not saying that, like, I'm not saying everyone has to do it, but, like, maybe you sneak out at least once, you know? That's just... And give away a castle.

He happened to give away a castle. Other people do other things when they sneak out of the house, right? He, honestly, his was very productive. His little sneak out joy ride. Like, he could have done something worse. He gave away a castle, but honestly, like, who hasn't promised Harrenhal in the main series? Everyone's promising Harrenhal to all these people. They're all like, yeah, I've never set foot in there.

You might not ever set foot in there, but it can be yours. Just like if you buy a star in the sky, I will give you a piece of paper and say that it's yours. Yeah, kind of like the insurance guy in Braavos. Yeah. And okay, I will say the Braavvo stuff and paying for things i'm gonna come back to that in a bit but yeah i love jace i don't know i think jace has really good ideas

i'm proud of him too he's doing a good job and like i love that this episode ends though speaking of the conversation that they have of the line being like i don't know rainier says something like it's a mad plan i'm like aha madness but not madness scary and mad and great it's all together wow but yeah i mean like he goes and he he meets with the phrase which was pretty fun i love their alfresco dining setup. You would, you freak. You love eating outside. I do love eating outside. Yeah, I love... I like the back and forth.

Here's how we could still get Sabatha Frey, though. Right, where is she? I think that's her. Oh, interesting. I thought maybe they called her Sabrina Frey or something, but maybe it is Sabatha. People are calling her Sabatha. I don't think it's come out necessarily.

I don't think there's a source that can tell us, but one of the two. Either way, she could still be Sabatha. Sure, she's not as youthful as maybe many were thinking that she is, but if Forest Freay dies which man not my forest fray he does not at all look like the painting of forest fray by magali vianueva depicted in the world of ice and fire where he is hot hot hot nothing against this short king this short king is fine but he's gonna die anyways who cares but we could still get sabbath of fray you know like there's still time i don't think we're gonna get all the

riverland stuff all of it this season like there's still stuff to come and fighting to come and war to come um the winter wolves have to land eventually here at the twins so we're gonna see how this all plays out potentially in season three as well i don't know i think i'm really excited to get some of those drops of potential names next week for the dragon seeds right like who knows who we're gonna hear you know like just name drops from history and them being like dead or alive and finally realizing all they have left is dragon seeds not big names and maybe some disappointment in that right and some distrust i like the it's interesting and i like the idea too because like of jace you know i mean he fucking knows he knows he's a bastard he knows and like you know giving that proposal and especially him being like i

don't know like this this is blood being thin thing is that's just propaganda my dad's a strong all right look at me i'm doing great i got a dragon we did it those high tower kids they fucking got dragons you know like it's propaganda and yeah i knew when they were yelling about the valyrian propaganda i was like eliana's going off somewhere i just feel it in my soul and it was awesome that he called out the propaganda. Yeah. Well, yeah, we wrote well about ourselves, us Valyrian folks. Like, that's what we did.

It's absolutely, like, the trappings of power stuff, right? And so good. I will say, if that is Sabbath Afraid, makes me think of... I don't remember her name. I want to say she was in Fire and Blood. She was, like, the wife of one of the... i don't remember her husband's name either so like it's not it's not sexist um you know she was the one who was actually acting right as like master of coin or something and helping out her like useless ass husband and he was like the cover story for

her actually being the advisor sam tarley right you're talking about samantha tarley lady sam no i think it was prior to that i want to say it was like in the past not sam tarley but i want to say like it was an earlier king because yes samantha tarley was the founder of the bank of old town she went ormond hightower and then lionel hightower okay maybe i thought she came way later. No, she comes during mid End of Dance and during Aegon III's Regency. Yeah, that's why. I was like, that's way too late. But I don't know. I thought it was the reign of Jaehaerys. So anyway, Sam Tarly. Sam Tarly shit right there. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of those characters

could still happen. I'm just gonna hold out hope if they don't happen, whatever. But I think they all could happen. I think Black Alley. I think Sam Tarly. I hope if they don't happen whatever but i think they all could happen i think black alley i think sam tarley i think sabbath the fray here i think they could all have their day because we're not even there yet something that i'm really trying to remember is like pace yourself bitch like we're not even really there yet there's still like once the war is full blown there's no stopping it yeah it's a lot of battling and stuff you know and um they need to ride that slow burn probably for the longevity of the show yeah i'm just worried about like how will they fit that in because as you said like you want to like slow down your expectations but if they're going

through things so fast right like i as i said would love 10 episodes well they're gonna kill people so chill the fuck out okay sorry they're gonna have lots of stage time they have so many people to kill of course of course it's just like it's not just that i it's nice to have a longer setup for people too you know i mean once we get rid of auto high tower there comes like a huge chunk of money we can pay people so just settle down that's true that right there is like at least two subplots. Well, speaking of subplots, this isn't actually a subplot. The Riverlands is actually a plot. But let's go there. Bracken versus Blackwood and the Riverlords.

Wow. Wow. Violence is a wheel. Typical. Things are bad. As Alice tells him a couple scenes earlier, once again in the name of power, it's the weak and the women who must endure. We need some tension in the Riverlords against Daemon. I feel like he had it very easy

in both book and show landing here. So him arriving and winning the biggest castle by luck and dragon, because no one lives there except like 10 people, because it's too big to be kept by people. Turns out also calling yourself someone's Targaryen master, maybe not very charming, very not diplomatic, doesn't work that well, fucks shit up for Rhaenyra even more, and also really shows what you think of people, like that they are just your slaves to do whatever you want. Like, very generationally caught up in the blood of valeria yeah damon oh that's a good point he's very caught up in that he's very he's very like all these people are npcs and they're not they're not chris and cool just told us they're not fucking npcs you know and like i did like the

sound editing though right before alice talking to him like you can hear the screaming as he's chopping the wood yes and i don't know were they trying to be like that tiktok wood chopping man and i'm like it's not gonna work for me with damon and i don't know what you're talking about do you not know like he became like this big thirst trap on the internet this man who would just chop wood but he stands up for women we like him unless unless that's all a front which there are many people anyways um part of the forefront of this conflict in the riverlands is of course the bracken blackwood conflict and i do to echo what we said last week enjoy that they are giving much more moral ambiguity to this by having the

blackwoods not just be this very valiant house that we've seen them kind of characterized as throughout these books and the histories it sets up well for a night of the seven kingdoms two for um some blood raven conflict? Yeah. That person is very morally ambiguous. Yes. And they really brought something that was also relevant in Fire and Blood of the Blackwoods defiling sets. So I always took that as propaganda

because I love the Blackwoods and the old gods. But now I'm like, oh no, TV history has put me on a bad side. How could this happen? I'm just kidding. I don't care. They're not real. They have better fashion, though. Like, they have the cloak, the feathered cloak.

So there's that. Oh, yeah. Yep, I'm back on their side again. Yep, yep. Tidos' cloak. Olynda Massey, take a- if you're gonna- if you're gonna make a Satan cloak, you know? Anyways, um, the sept thing- the burning of the septs thing, though, like, does kind of make sense when you think about, like, why these people have been at war for so long. why these people have been at war for so long. It's not a good reason for them to be at war, but you see that the Brackens call the Blackwoods, when they're treating with daemon,

they call them heathens, right? This is an ethno-religious conflict, right? Between people who are first men and worshiping the old gods, and then the Andalsals the andal people who are worshiping the faith of the seven and i think like that to lean into that is a bold move i don't know like if they've leaned into it enough but i think it's a bold move and it's very unfortunately it's very real right like that's at the root of very many conflicts that we see happening in the past and in modern day right like um i know that in some areas in like northern nigeria right you there are like smaller groups of people but you see that happening between farmer and herder communities that are also of different ethno religious groups and we're seeing it on on a much larger like really devastating scale with what's happening in in palestine and so i'm not equating please please do not take this as me equating what

is happening in this fictional show as like the same as what's happening on the scale in palestine like that's not at all like what i'm saying about the blackwood bracket conflict please do not decontextualize that people but i'm just like, this makes sense as how they're building that. And frankly, I mean, Alice tells us the slaughtering of the trees at Harrenhal and what it meant to the religion. Like, this is literally on a forsaken ground, right? Where these battles are all joining up or where these armies are going to be coming to, to Harrenhal, that the whole entire castle is made of this horrible act that stripped all the trees from the area so

something to ponder yeah so i don't know how you felt about this when when they wake up damon and they do like the little camera turning thing and And I haven't watched much Hitchcock. Did that feel Hitchcock-ish? The camera turn when he's waking up? If you give me a little bit, we'll come back to that. Okay. All right. I will say like when he's actually talking to the River Lords, it felt the way that they delivered their lines, their grievances,

and then as they move towards Daemon around the table, like a play. It felt like a theater play, right? The way that was all blocked and staged and how, again, the order and the cadence in which they said their lines. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. There are pros and cons to it. It's interesting. I'm not sure yet sometimes you you read or you watch something and you kind of need a few weeks to like be like how did that

actually hit me how did that work in the context of the story so yeah definitely agreed and i think i think a couple things from this episode were a bit like a play or even shakespearean right like corliss's first scenes yeah scenes definitely feel very much that isolation and loneliness, whether Richard or... Interesting. Scottish play. Fuck you. And fuck off.

But also there's something about the ensemble feel of this and the waking in the night to this very interesting an interesting parlay indeed and i don't know if it worked or not but i do like the idea that they're all mad at him i love damon targaryen having people mad at him i think it's perfect for the plot because he's always getting himself into trouble always yeah you're starting to see like oh this is why no one fucking wanted him to rule. Right? Like, in the first season.

Because everything he's doing is fucking shit up. He's, like, very- He has no, like, long thought. Like, he's all about impulse. He's an- Oh my god, is he an Aries? I don't know. He's not-

It's fascinating. He came off as so charismatic the first season, but maybe he's only charismatic to fucking, like, teenage girls, right? And we were getting it through that perspective. And we're breaking him apart now. We're breaking all that apart with Alice's dreams. Oh, that's true, too. And I...

Someone, maybe it's me, we gotta save Simon Strong. I am going to save Simon Strong, not even going to save Simon Strong. Not even from his fate later with Amon. Just save him from this fucking situation. Like, Jesus Christ. The emotional energy he's spending.

Oh, God. Help that man. Oh, my God. This poor man. He is trying to, I don't't know keep the household and everything running i love that he's asking about the money because this is this was also a concern in um a song of ice and fire where they're like we ran out of money we can't pay the iron bank and they're like we're gonna go fund your enemies because you're not fucking paying us and yeah i mean they're so poor that damon is cutting wood in front of a cgi oh my god

you're right that is is that why were they low on hands were they low on hands they're having a they put damon into like manual labor um yeah he's really bad at this also at like ruling treating and it's funny because he's all like obviously obviously like everyone's going to see me as king because I'm the man. And that's what he was trying to like convince Rhaenyra of when he was like, let's go out on an excursion in season one, episode four. Look at all these people.

They don't fucking believe in you as a woman. So he was trying to like set that. Interesting, those seeds. Yeah. Yes. And something kind of adjacent to that here is like we know from that trailer right that raniera is going to visit heron hall so i kind of wonder if just like in season one when she was a child uh if they're going to engage in another classic

shenanigan and that will be how they quote make up or don't make up even maybe they don't make up and she shows up with a plan and says we're taking king's landing and he just falls in line because he doesn't have the the wherewithal to then actually fight her on it because she comes up with a big old scheme and because he's got no sleep because he's got weird dreams which we'll get to in a sec but like he he's got that he's got all these people showing up waking him up in the middle of the night doing like psychological warfare on him because i mean i don't know like the counterpoint to all of these lords in renear's council who kind of think that knowing how to fight is the same as ruling i would just like to my counter argument is damon this man clearly knows how to fight we have seen him do it multiple times and because

of that he fancies himself as a better king than viserys and also because he thinks he's being very decisive and as we see like he is not he is very bad at this he is very bad at ruling but he fantasizes that someone thinks he'd be better at it. Like, that fantasizes that someone thinks that he'd be better at it than Viserys. Well, and I don't know if we could really call that pure fantasy, right? I think that Daemon is a man that's been pushed to his fucking limit. He's not getting a lot of sleep. The sleep he's getting is haunted as fuck. And Iface that uh because we're going to talk about his mother alissa targaryen question mark i never thought we would see her me neither

screen if you can really call that her again he doesn't know what she looks like how does alice no one knows what she looks like at this moment, probably. Yeah. Except for Otto, maybe. Maybe Otto, right. But- Simon? Yeah, in the book, she passes away. We don't really hear why. Probably childbirth, knowing the way it goes for them.

Fuck. Who knows? I believe it was childbirth. I was looking that up a little. And so we start off this vision of him and his mother and there are a couple things that i think are really apparent with alice we get a confirmation in this that alice is doing this to an extent to him and the dreams are quite plainly driving him insane and pushing him into a further spiral of believing he should be a rival to

Rhaenyra and putting tension between his family members, their legacy, and their memories. Alice Rivers has planted these seeds and there's a pattern that I'm noticing where Alice shows up after each dream in these episodes and gives him some subtext on the dream casually in passing like when she said oh well yeah and she was just a child queen a babe that you held on your lap and doesn't that piss you off after all the freaky dreams about raniera or showing up here right uh she immediately showed up with the mother and said it's a shame you didn't know your mother, isn't it? And the look of comprehension that dawns on his face. He has finally realized that she's been fucking with his head for two episodes.

For two episodes. Wild. And plus with the Tully's there, like, this is just the worst version of a Muppet Christmas Carol. I've been thinking that, though, because we talked about the Lords that came in as a play. How interesting. I was like, oh, like a Christmas Carol. They've all shown up in the middle of his nightmare to be like, Damon, how dare you? So I'm glad we were on the same page.

I'm glad I said it then. We talked a little bit last episode, of course, of Jaime Lannister's dreams, where he sees his mother, his Weirwood dreams, and sees the ruler, Rhaegar, that he was supposed to protect, right? And sees Brienne, who he feels that he is letting down in another Weirwood dream. He's letting her down. Yes, absolutely. 700%. There are a lot of things going on visually here, right? Like, Daemon never meeting his mother and all of his mommy issues. And not just his, but everyone's mommy issues this episode compounding. This episode could have been named Milfs of the Dragon, honestly.

Aegon's whimpered, Mommy, as Alicent leaves. She is a milf. Daemon bringing a dead rat home to his mother, right? And saying, Look, Mom, look what I did. Love me. And she's like, you fucking psycho.

The second sons are suffering too, folks, is what I'm trying to say. Even Rhaenyra second son Targaryen Stannis over there too in Dragonstone with Melisandre Mizaria, the Targaryen industrial incest machine that has been pumping out couples. Interestingly enough, especially when a woman's claim is pulled into question, they get married off to their brother, but that's a whole nother topic. But the Targaryen incest machine is rotten all the way through, right? The poison drips through. When you're born a Targaryen, you are expected to marry your cousin, your sister. And if you're not assigned, if you do not get your assigned Targaryen coupling at birth, it's almost like Aemond with the dragon or Rhaena with the dragon, right? Oh, interesting. Daemon was married to Rhea Royce.

He was born to marry his siblings and then not chosen to do so. He felt like a failure. Marrying Rhea probably made him feel like a joke, like he wasn't worthy of bringing glory to the house. You think of Dany and Viserys, right? And Viserys blaming Dany for not being born yet to have married Rhaegar and stopped the rebellion. Like, that's her actual fault, he thinks, and he says, in turn blaming Rayella, right, for not birthing her earlier, cursing the Targaryen women's womb, cursing them for not upholding this, how the house crumbles on the shoulders of these women. As Alice points out to Daemon and reveals to us, he doesn't remember his mother. He was three when she died. He was an infant.

Her most famed moment in Fire and Blood is taking her sons on her dragon with her. And it's pointed out in the Bela and Corlys scene by Bela that Daemon was upset that Maelys didn't choose him. His mother's dragon rejected him. I thought that was really well just slipped in right before this scene, pretty much. Yeah. He was jealous. He wanted his mother's dragon, just like the girls wanted Vhagar,

right? Or felt that it was wrong for someone to take Vhagar from their mother, even though a dragon cannot be a traitor. A dragon cannot be stolen. These are things dragons cannot be. There's a certain ownership, especially for these Targaryen men when they're born, right? They have a certain claim. They will always have that claim to the throne. They will always have that claim to their sister's bodies, to their mother's bodies, the many mothers that die bringing them into this world. These men are entitled to that upon their birth. All while he's wearing that Targaryen familial ring, the things that his mother says to him. She says, you are the strong one. You are the fearless dragon rider.

Your brother was weak. You were made to be king. Mother-son incest relationships in mythology aren't trying to reflect the actual human behavior of incest and fucking your mother in these stories. They are there to serve as themes exploring the human emotion and fate and struggle against destiny. Obviously, some will liken that to Oedipus Rex, but also reminiscent of like, Oge and Telephys, and the Freud of it all. Like a male born child, a child's affection for their mother is not related to their genitalia or to their sexual feelings, but to marrying their mother and replacing the

father, becoming kind of a figure that's dominant over others that his mother would give attention first, like Balin or Viserys. Because in some ways, the firstborn son and the father would then be competition, a threat to him. Freud often said that most children give this up and instead decide to emulate the father instead of replacing them, but that the fantasy simmers below the surface, subconsciously haunting them in their irrational behavior, their irrational impulsivity and actions, like Damon, who constantly lashes out and demands action and attention. And to have this so clearly portrayed while showing Aemond doing a very similar thing, commanding and demanding action, is great. Alicent stroking Aemond's cheek, telling anyone that will listen, though, at the same time,

somehow he's turned into a killer underneath my very fingers when he's been living through this exact same thing as daemon right aegon somehow is the weaker king aegon somehow got the targaryen queen sister aegon has been fried alive and aemond is now stepping in as the protector or a person that could take power right just like where daemon has this opportunity that he could now take power especially after only sleeping three hours for like four weeks i couldn't and then i'm like interested i know i i'm like i'm thinking about sleep right now poor damon i do feel for that guy there nightmares suck i'm really interested to see then how this connects with ulf the white as balin's bastard interesting claiming a dragon like will that fuck Daemon up worse? Oh, he's gonna hate Ulf the White. He's

gonna hate that motherfucker. Interesting. When we talk about kind of the technical side of these dream sequences, I'm really loving what they're doing with the blood on the hands. I'm loving what they're doing when they're flashing in between reality and back to the dream uh and even the fluidity right like you don't know right away but you expect and you wait for the dream to hit you and everything kind of is the same but changes all the same with that dreamlike quality there are a bunch of movies we can talk about or shows that do this uh and i would say mulholland drive lynch uh the first part is really best understood as a total dream sequence and the main character is searching for the answer to her lost memories just like we're seeing damon searching to for an answer to something here

right like very clearly looking within being broken every night by these nightmares and rebuilt. For our Dune fans, if you haven't seen Arrival by Denis, oh my god, this movie makes me cry like a bitch. It's so good. It's some good ass sci-fi and also like sad and beautiful and poetic, but it has dream sequences that are delivered out of order for kind of almost a prophetic fulfillment at the end where everything wraps up and you were being told the answer from the beginning and finally something that really stands out to me that is somewhat reminiscent coming back to your mention of hitchcock eliana vertigo where you're seeing these kind of like blurred fragments and lights and symbolic color in the main character's subconscious after he's become way too obsessed with this woman that

he's tailing he sees people in the background like turning to her and then he watches them turn a corner and they turn back to who they were and uh there's all sorts of just little tricks of the mind like this and i do think there's definitely some hitchcock in here and of course uh our our good roommate poor quentin would want a shout out, a runner up shout out to The Shining because they are definitely talking about The Shining a lot in interviews. And that the Overlook Hotel itself has kind of become the character in the movie. And that's what's happening here with Harrenhal in the show. Love that.

And of course, in memory of Shelley Duvall, who passed this week. And yeah, God bless her bones dude because that woman was everything yeah dang absolutely love how you've broken down like they're they're really getting to do some interesting stuff with harrenhal right like in terms of how they're filming it and i love i love to see that they're pushing the boundaries on like what can we do like how can we make i think game of thrones did this with the serious tones of the first few seasons like they're like we can make sci-fi and fantasy a respectable genre right and like it should have probably already been interpreted as that but here like

they're like how can we how can we make it art and not that it wasn't before you know you know what i'm saying, everyone. You can make a cookie cutter HBO action fantasy show, or you can do more to really push the boundary. We already had Game of Thrones. It's time to have something more than just Game of Thrones. Yeah, they're doing visual storytelling. Again, like the opening scene of this whole episode doesn't have dialogue. It's just visuals.

And I love that they're doing that it's i mean that's where game of thrones failed often was dialogue it was also true there was so much that they could have visually told us and they never did yeah and i think something that they did do very well was uh you know telling the story through music and sounds which again house of the dragon has continued to do so fantastic breakdown i love what you said i don't have like many thoughts i just thought that was so interesting want to reiterate what you're saying of like how damon might feel about oaf the white uh being balan's bastard that's fascinating because like i mean you and i knew

about oaf right but we didn't know that he was Balon's bastard. That's not something that's given in Fire and Blood. Just that he's Dragon Seed. And you assume he's, like, very far apart. So I think that would be also, like, even interesting, right? For not just Daemon, but Rhaenyra wrestling with all of that as well. And with Daemon yearning for his mother, as you said, he doesn't really know her. He gets to have a mother that

he puts on a pedestal right reneera when she was younger and didn't know she didn't know who she was because she was a child he had that girl on a pedestal that's why that's the one that he's dreaming of and like egan yearning for his mother's love i think becomes this great like tie in as well with Damon, not just Amand, right? Also even Agen, like going mummy. And I think there's something about what mothers symbolize. Do mothers actually fulfill this all the time? No. But there's this narrative of the mother kind of being this idea of unconditional love. And Warren called it out

in his email of you know the shock value moment it's revelatory that he's just looking to be loved it's it's wanting to be loved no matter how badly you fuck up and do things and boy is this man fucking up right i think we just all kind of want to feel we want to feel unconditional love and to an extent even rainier right that's what she's looking for from her father. She had that from her mom. Thank God, like, you know, she did have that from Emma. In the books, he's not doing anything really besides he gathered armies and assembled them at Harrenhal. And then eventually Rhaenyra triumphant and eventually fighting on and off with Rhaenyra possibly and doing the final battle for her. And I'm starting to really see the shape of him doing that, right? Like he's being broken down right now. And the questions being asked, you know we see these alice dreams like

agam the conqueror's dreams those are being interpreted by people right shaping them through prophecy and right now alice's dreams breaking him down are shaping damon but who will he become that's the question right and i'm starting to really see how they could play this and how they could get him to the final battle at the God's Eye with Aemond. And you know, people won't like it, but it's giving Jaime Lannister in season eight, have a good life. Bye. Have a good life. Fight amongst yourselves. I chosen to love a hateful woman a lot of Damon has been giving Jamie Lannister this whole time as you pointed out even before the show

came out 93 Jamie but I mean Jamie and his brother everyone's just looking for love that's what A Song of Ice and Fire is actually about that's not a joke that's

with your twin, with your twin with your niece with your mom not even bad just like in general so many people growing up loveless right the way tyrian does the nares does big sad um interesting that we have these small folk that may not have much they sure don't have fucking food but they do have families that they love and reasons to live like he and his wife and kid apparently yes yeah until that's taken away from him and then like and then what like and that's that's another question that the series is asking what happens when the people you love are taken from you well and then the man breaks actually yeah literally wow

that's the through line we did it we don't even need to talk about the veil i was joking no we have to though i want to talk about it really excited about the veil everyone excited to see jane erin so cunty we love her yeah serving and absolutely erin blue crushed velvet burnt damask in the crushed velvet and she had these great sleeves and the erin sigil it was all beautiful cosplay it later we'll talk about it um kind of felt like she was almost an antagonist for reyna so you had a lot of that Sans Eliza kind of vibes from from Game of Thrones but maybe sexual tension I don't know I don't know what's going on I'm like oh maybe there

won't be a Lin Corbray love plot maybe it's a Lady Jane and Reyna love plot oh I don't know I don't know uh maybe I'm making it up but as somebody who uh, I like this idea of Jane understands the pain that Raina has, even though there's tension and antagonism between them. There's that line where she says, I miss feeling powerless. And they agree, and they kind of almost soften to one another. I probably too would be a little mad that there was a compromise made on a full-scale dragon not coming to my court. Take what you can get. Maybe you should have put that in your contract, sister.

Really excited. Now I think we're going to get a couple more scenes here at the Vale. Really loved the eerie and how it was constructed. I think they are unfortunately stuck in a couple of different places of like stuff you've already seen on screen. Some stuff they can change, but some stuff like the Vale is very iconic in Game of Thrones. It only changed, I think, one other time in season four of Game of Thrones. So season one, it looked one way and they changed it a bit in season four.

They can't really do much more as far as where it's positioned i wish it was in the mountain like it's supposed to be but it wasn't in game of thrones it's not going to be in hot d i do like the domed rooftops on it uh made it look a little bit more disney like yeah something we talked about in our veil episodes was the german neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, I believe. And it is basically what they based Cinderella's Castle off of, or what people envisioned it as, and kind of what they did at Disney. So got closer to that, got closer to that kind of like Arthurian castle up in the sky. And I can't wait to see more of the veil very excited for that yeah i mean hey high as honor

they only had so much budget those first few seasons of game of thrones so they did but they did what they could and as you said they're doing season four it was uglier oh well anyway um i do agree i i don't know if i was like is this sexual attention or not but i i misread that in a couple of times throughout this episode so i don't know there is the fact that jane aron calls reyna like a girl and i'm like i don't think she's trying to like pull a dame in here you know in which way could be true yo okay speaking of like when is rhea royce speaking of people in of the veil when is rhea royce gonna show up in his fucking nightmares i know i love that we got lena asking him this time um are you watching after the girls and it's like lol no no not at

all bro i haven't spoken to them in a long time yeah i mean reina speaking of people looking for love right like she feels that she needs a dragon to feel loved within this family and i mean she's not necessarily wrong but at least rainier is like let's not let's try to not fucking kill her yeah because as we're gonna see gorman massey for example uh will get eat it and yeeted pretty soon so that's a bummer oh no wonder elinda massey gouges her eyes out because then raniera gets eated like she's already seen dragons eat her fam oh yeah but i think raniera is going to choose that in a way now that we've got this yeah they really like they really sold it all wrong in fire and blood those maesters can't believe that they would have this anti-Agen propaganda

about burning his own half-sandal. I'm joking. This has been our coverage on Season 2 Episode 5, Regent. We'll be back next week with Season 2, Episode 6. We are in the final run of Season 2.

I'm already pre-grieving and limiting Helena hours. It's death. So, thank you for listening. And of course you can check us out over at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon C-A-N-O-N

or feel free to look around for a streaming service that we are on. We should be on most of them. Yes, we are on most of them, even ones we don't know. So we get added all the time. It's kind of exciting. So true. Kind of exciting.

I've been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana. San Dagon Clegane. San Dagon Clegane. Yeah, that's a, that awoke something new in Chloe, apparently. I'm like, TGC with burns? It's sexier than you think. Oh my god.

I mean, they are about killing kids, maybe. Anyways, goodbye. Yeah, geez, goodbye. Good-bye. Dragon Roar.