Girls Gone Canon Cast - Patreon Public Release 63 — In the Lost Lands

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

FULL SPOILERS FOR THE SHORT STORY OF "IN THE LOST LANDS" This episode comes to you thanks to the generosity of our patrons. It was originally released for patrons only in December 2023 and is now available for the public.  ----- Join us as we venture in the Lost Lands with Gray Alys for a job. Coming soon as a movie—and maybe even a cinematic series—we dig into this older GRRM short story.  George's Not A Blog posts about the upcoming film:  Announcement: "Gray Alys on the Silver Screen"  Post-production update: "Lost and Found"  --- Intro by Kevin MacLeod, "Fairytale Waltz"

Hello, you are listening to a very special Patreon exclusive but now public exclusive episode that was originally released in 2023. I'm one of your hosts, Chloe. And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, this is actually our Patreon episode of one of George's novellas, which as many of you know, we have been making our way through, making our way downtown. Walking at a leisurely pace through his stories. Yeah, that's true. I mean, we don't want to... he's got a lot.

Depending on who you ask, it's a fast pace. Like George. Oh, true. Um... This was originally released at the, last quarter of 2023, the last fiscal GGC quarter of 2023, dude. Isn't that nuts? It is. 2023, who are we? It's 25 right now at this moment. The Lost Lands by George R.R. Martin, the novella, is being released on March 7th, 2025 as a movie

adaptation? Question mark. It is! It is, or at least it is inspired by this short story in The Lost Lands. This was our 63rd Patreon episode and interestingly, so yeah, George released a not a blog about it recently with the trailer, which is exciting and great, but I will say he called his short story Into the Lost Lands. Like, not a big difference, but I was like, your short story is called In the Lost Lands. This movie is called In the Lost Lands, George. Okay, but to give him like a tiny bit of elasticity on this, because we heart George, I will say that the blog title was Into the Lost Lands, so maybe he was saying come into it with me. Oh, yeah. Was it not that also in the blog? But anyways, yeah.

Come. Anyways. Come into the Lost Lands, into the Chocolate Factory. Did you watch that trailer? Yeah, I did. I did. None of those words were in, in the Lost Lands. I just wanna, what?

No, they weren't. But I mean, I'm hype anyway, just because I love like, A, Mila Jovovich and Dave Bautista and the director, like that aesthetic of movies and you can go. This is my second favorite Paul Anderson yeah. It's a Paul Anderson oh my god. I'm a Paul Thomas Anderson girl but a PWS Anderson he could be my second my second favorite

Paul Anderson I don't know. No I legitimately like really like those Resident Evil movies, so I'm pretty jazzed about it. I just am like, this is a completely different story, but I'm very, I'm here for it. We're releasing this story, obviously, because it's coming out as a movie. We want to see kind of what all of your feedback is when it's out in March this year. Listen to this episode, read the novella, listen to our episode, listen to our bullshit. I'm reading through our old notes for this episode, this story, and I'm like, who were we? The tagline for the movie, let's just compare it compared to our tagline for the novella. I think this is very interesting.

So when we, and you'll hear us probably say this very soon, when we covered in the Lost Lands here in this episode, we talked about how Lady Melange wants to be a wolf. Jorais loves Lady Melange. Lady Melange loves Boyce. Boyce is a werewolf. Alice loves chaos. Alice fucks and kills Boyce and dooms Jeraus to a life of loneliness next to Lady Melange. Here is how they describe the movie with its description tagline. Eliana? A sorceress travels to the Lost Lands in search of a magical power that allows a person to transform into a werewolf. Honestly, not inaccurate in a way, but if you watch the trailer,

it looks real- Yeah, ours basically, we gave away the whole plot to you. We assume you read the entire short story before listening to me and Chloe talk about it in depth, so maybe we should have put that up at the top. Spoilers, this entire short story, but that's the point of what we're discussing. I feel like you guys get it though, like y'all aren't new here. We'll throw that in the description as well, though. This is spoilery. It's the whole short story. Yeah, maybe it's a little watered down.

Maybe it's a summarization. I think that it could be really cool. It's got a like 55 million plus budget. You have, like you said, Mila Jovovich, Dave Batista, Amara Okereki, and a few other big names joining as several characters. It's gonna be cool no matter what. It's definitely a little hyped up and like the art and design and production design is very cool looking but not what I imagined in my head, which doesn't mean it's wrong.

Somebody else's interpretation. P.W.S.A. His interpretation. The United States of P.W.S.A. His interpretation. The United States of P.W.S.A. I don't think I didn't anticipate it based on what I know of the other P.W.S. Anderson movies, right? Like the aesthetic actually is, I think, what I anticipated based on that. But some of the elements- I just mean when I read it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like this is not what I see in my head when I read it. That's true. Like it's a much more, I think,

kind of somber. It's also like scaled up like crazy, like there are some crazy ass scenes in this trailer where I'm like, what? Very large. I think it's cool like if it has the possibility to expand on the story and like Grey Alice's stuff because George originally wanted to make a series about Grey Alice. I think especially as we get through these, like all of these side things getting made into a show, I think that's like, that's a way for him to continue his stories without committing that time, committing that effort to writing an entire Braavos novella or an entire Grey Alice series, you know?

It's a really good way for him to work and I think that's great for his vision to come somewhat alive or even for the vision to be expanded on. Yeah. And I also, my only concern is we just need to make sure that like Grey Alice, and I think Mila Jovovich can do it. It's just, will the writing letter continue to be mommy? She's mommy in my heart and in my con. I mean, yeah, she like is absolutely like on an objective level, but like, I'm

worried that my only worry is how they're going to portray that dynamic, you know, between Boyce and Grey Alice, because I, the point is, you know, Boyce is a little like, he's meh, give or take, you know, how we feel about men, meh, give or take. But you know, back in the 2023 blog posts, when he revealed it was meant to be first in a series of stories about Alice, he said that they're hoping to do a tie-in graphic novel, Oh, cool! showing both the original story at 6,000 words or so and the larger, dark, more expansive world of the film. So he agrees it's expanded.

I think that's kind of his hope of juggling their adventures alongside Aeswoth and everything else he has on his plate. So we might get something more. We might get more of that. I think that to your point, this movie will give some of that expansion. I'm excited to go see it when it comes out. We'll have to chat with y'all about what we think. And yeah, I'm curious to see what happens and I hope you all enjoy our coverage of it. Like we said, this is back from 2023. It's 2025 at time of recording and we are wrapping up our vacation, our break from A Song of Ice and Fire and on our way back into George's worlds. Indeed. So enjoy and hope you get lost in the story of Into the Lost Lands. Into the Lands?

Yeah, true. Hello and welcome to your 63rd Patreon bonus episode in the Lost Lands. It's us, it's me. Chloe, you know me. It's us, it's me. We got lost. Get it? It's a callback to our patron Jimmy's Aria letter advising people to get lost in order to appreciate Aria's storyline. So we are lost in the lands of said lost. Yes,

I'm excited actually, because this is like a little shut up, Eliana. No one asked you. This is kind of like a shrimpy, tiny, Navelette novella, baby story. It's a little, is it? Oh, I'm like, it's so small, but it's good. It's really good. I did the usual thing I always do, where I started it three weeks ago,

and I was reading like a page at a time here and there, and I couldn't get quite into it. And then last night at 2 a.m. I read all of it. So, um, I have to say the 2 a.m. reading all of it the night before we're gonna talk about it actually has worked out for me on this one because I wanted to be enraptured by the language and the prose. I just came off of reading the second of the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarrow, off of reading the second of the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarrow, the fourth wing in Iron Flame this week, and the moment that I read this story last night, my brain like softened, my body softened, I felt like I was being held by an old

friend, George R.R. Martin's prose was running rampant on a page in front of my eyeballs. It made me so happy, man. Like, I liked the Empyrean series, but sometimes you just gotta go home and get in your comforter and lay your head on the pillow. You know what I mean? I miss George. I definitely miss George R. R. Martin. Yeah. He...

I think he put a lot of his grimace into this. I liked it. It was actually much shorter than I thought it would be, and I think that's partially because, you know, as we had discussed, it was going to be a series, once upon a time, but it still could become a series, and we'll talk about how that becomes a possibility in a second. But first, let's talk a little bit about, Chloe, walk us through the history of this and maybe its future.

Yes. Step into the lost lands with me as we discuss in the lost lands, the meta of it all, right? What the fuck happened? Usually there's a great amount of rabble on the internet with a George R. R. Martin short story where you can read about everywhere it's been, how it was published. This one's a little quieter. This one was first published in the second Amazon's anthology from Jessica Amanda Samuelson, American fantasy author and editor back in 82, and it was then published again in Portraits of His Children, George's sixth short story collection in 1987, published via Dark Harvest alongside some of the other stories like The Glass Flower, The Ice

Dragon, we read that one, and With Morning Comes Mistfall. A handful of others in there. George has said that he would write many more. He could write at least twelve. I'm getting Aria and Bravo's vibes from that, you know? He could write at least twelve of these short stories He actually began a second, but he did put them aside. He hopes to come back to it and That leads us to Eliana like you said there is a chance we might see more because this is being put on the silver screen So Paul W.S. Anderson is directing in the Lost Lands

He is adapting George R.R. Martin's tale to the screen. You might know him from Monster Hunter. He did Monster Hunter. You may also know him from the many resident evils. And also Pompeii, I watched this recently with Kit Harrington, Game of Thrones alumni. How was it? It was actually really, it wasn't bad.

I'm like, how do I explain this? Was it good? No. Was it bad? Also no. Kit Harington was sweaty in a cute little cunty outfit. The cast was fun. It was a little drama.

The effects were fun. It was just a romp. You know, it was a fun romp. And that's kind of how I feel about a lot of the Resident Evil movies from him as well. Oh yeah, for sure. And Monster Hunter I didn't see, but I know from what I've heard it was also a romp. So he does a good romp. I'd be interested to see him do this.

We know he can do gritty and dark. And most famously for him for directing, I do want to point out he's Mr. Mila Jovovich. That's his most famous accreditation in my books. And she is, of course, going to be in this adaptation. She's going to start as Grey Alice, the leading lady. Dave Bautista is going to be Boyce. And Lady Melange, Amara Okereke, there's not a lot on her. She's really big in theater.

I've watched her, I've looked through her IMDB and she's a lot more theater. She's only done a couple other things, so she's newer. She's in Oklahoma! Yeah, she's what's up. She's in a bunch of good theater stuff, but she is Lady Melange, and I'm interested to see kind of how they play with Lady Melange and how they bring her into it, because like you said, this is a really slim story. Putting it on a big screen, they're gonna have a lot of fun getting to expand, I think, and add some things. Yeah.

Especially with a $55 million budget. That's a lot of budget! For this fucking 20-page whatever? Yeah! Right? And they're in post-production as of October. So, 55 million budget, post-production. It could come out next year, guys. I think it might. That's kind of insane, though. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, I'm guessing this sounds like it might be Amara's, what,

debut, right? Movie debut. It sounds like she was in a television show very briefly last year, but that's pretty cool. And by last year I mean 2022, depending on when you're listening to this episode. fellow time travelers. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I love the Resident Evil movies. I think they're really fun. So I'm excited to see this. I like Dave Bautista and love Mila Jovovich. That's part of, you know, the appeal of the Resident Evil movies. And oh, yeah, one of my best friends growing up had a poster of her on his wall. I think that there's a lot of possibility for them to expand the story, right?

Like, there's all these things that are gestured at being in the lost lands that we only see from afar in this short story. And there's a lot of potential for world building, you know, like she talks about blue being the color of loyalty and like that's not true of our world. So that's true of their world. So there's a lot of stuff to expand on. So I'd love to see how they turn 20 pages into a full ass movie. And I can see where they could.

I mean, if you stick to it and you keep very... even if you one-to-one'd it, that could be an hour and a half, in my opinion. I mean, it was probably at most a 30 to 45 minute read for me if I sat down and did it all at once. So I could see where you could take that, actually physically make it longer, in like a real movie, in an hour and a half, and maybe even have time to add a couple scenes, maybe give Lady Melange a little more to do in the middle and end, or you know, show her, show a flash to her or something.

I think you kind of have to, right? Because I think that the story in some ways kind of starts with her, but doesn't really, and ends with her, but it doesn't really like bring her that into focus. And that's the point. It's actually more focused on Grey Alice. Yeah, no it is, but it doesn't really like bring her that into focus. And that's the point. It's actually more focused on Grey Alice. Yeah, no it is, but I think that like, so there's a lot of opportunity to expand for her and for Jere, who I guess it sounds like

we don't know who's cast as him. It's Simon Luff, and he's been in a couple of things. He is, my god, he's very handsome. Wow, Simon. Wow, good for you. But he's been in not a lot, show called Eagles, show called Threesome, and he's got a couple other things coming up. Simon Luff, he's Swedish. He's 27 and he's very beautiful. I'm very happy for him. I wish I looked like that. I would just trade today. Let me skin change you. Interesting. Yeah. So he'll be Jirei. Blue Jirei. Yeah, I don't know. I think it could be fun. There's a lot of action that could potentially happen in this too. But I mean, what is the story? Let's talk about the actual summary of what happens in the Lost Lands, which apparently I

really needed Chloe's summary because I think I didn't understand the ending. Yeah, it has this great flip at the end that it's very subtly done. George is real brilliant on this one. Lady Melange wants to be a wolf. We don't really get to know why at the beginning, but we learn why as the story goes on. She wants to be a wolf. Jere loves Lady Melange. Lady Melange loves Boyce, who's a werewolf.

Alice loves chaos, so when Jireh comes to her and is like, please, my lady wants to be a wolf, but I want you not to let her be a wolf, and I will pay you in order for her and her money to not pay to become a wolf. So Alice then fucks and kills Boyce and dooms Jere to a life of loneliness next to Lady Melange who has gone mad who wears the skin of a wolf. Yeah this is quite the love quadrangle that's actually what this story is because you said Lady Melange, sorry we'll start from the beginning, Jere loves Lady Melange, Lady Melange loves Boyce, Boyce loves Alice, and Alice loves her job. This could be one of those like rom-com previews, you know what I mean?

Like if this was, just put it into announcer voice, Lady Melange wants to be a wolf. Jere, like this is like some Wes Anderson style stuff, not Paul Anderson, but Wes Anderson style. Jere loves Lady Melange. It's so confusing. There's also a Paul Thomas Anderson. And like when you, when we talked about the director last time, I was like, this really seems like a different kind of movie for him. Because you and I were talking about right, Paul Thomas Anderson movies recently. I was like, I'm uncultured. I've learned of this man recently and uh, different Paul Anderson. No relation out of the three men, out of these three white men. No relation, dude.

I know, right? Insane. So I thought, I thought that was pretty funny a few weeks ago. Anyway, so yeah, I understood for the most part, I think, what was going on. And then I was like, I don't understand why Lady Melange is so sad that she got like the ability to turn into a wolf now. And why did she go mad? And then I read your summary. I was like, oh, yeah, that is pretty clear now upon rereading it. That's why she wanted to be a wolf. For him.

It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's kind of hinted at, I guess, a little in terms of, you know, what she says to Jere of, like, you wanted to be with her, and you thought that me failing would make that happen. She's like, I'm just, she's just really good at her job. She's just really good at her job. She's just really good at her job. Yeah I love that morality too. In a way it's interesting because it's not like- it's not like she's defending Lady Melange's autonomy. She probably still thinks Lady Melange is a dumb bitch, which is why she's like, enjoy your fucking wolf skin! Good luck, here you go. She's an agent of chaos. She

is! No, she actually is. She's kind of like, it doesn't matter to her that, you know, it's not even about the autonomy. She's like, whatever, that's what she wants, so I'm just gonna fucking give it to her. And but it's interesting that she, she to an extent, maybe knows what Lady Melange wants in terms of like, not just the power, the power to turn into a wolf so she can go be with like, you know, her wolf boyfriend. But she also knows what Jirei wants and she fulfills Jirei's actual unsaid request, but not Lady Melange's. Yeah, there's something like- Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yes, exactly. That she's like, oh, Jirei, you're only asking this because of that. Like, the point. And we'll come back to some of that, I think, towards the end. There's also like that bit of independence and freedom, right? Like Lady Melange is kind of framed almost like she's a ruler, right? Jirei says that if you let her do this, her people will be afraid of her. She doesn't realize it. So Lady Melange rules over a town, a city, a land, a kingdom. Who knows?

We don't know. Something. We don't know. It could be like a fucking yard. But Alice, we learn so little about her, right? And you can only understand from what we do learn that she loves the feeling of power coursing through her when she is skin changing into other creatures, or she loves the feeling of power that she has as she stands over Boyce's body while he's tied up. Like she knows, like, I'm powerful and I'm safe. I'm safe. I have the power to keep myself safe. And she understands that men like Jeraise think that they can

control the destiny of women everywhere. And so do Boyce, right? Boyce has similarities we'll get into. They think they can control and like that they are the ones who get to make these decisions when it's Lady Melange's fucking rule. I mean, that he gets kind of subjugated to sitting next to her, her mad with power and with being able to skin change into a wolf for the rest of her life, that that's his sentence for meddling? Good. Good for her. I mean, move on, dude. You know? And also- She's just not that into you. I guess Lady Melange also needed to move on too. Boyce was obviously not that into her either, as we're gonna find out. But you know, you're talking about the introduction of Lady Melange,

she in many ways opens up the story besides those first two lines that George really loves. That he's really into like these, you know, separated ending lines. He did it in fucking Meat House Man. He's like, of all the lies they told you or something, love is the cruelest one of all. I'm like, okay, George. But he reprises the opening line here, which sounds like something he might be doing one day if he finishes A Song of Ice and Fire. He said, you know, he wants to call back a line in that first brand chapter. But anyway, Grey Alice's introduction, it's her with her pet rat who does not return as far as I can tell later on, but he's like a big ass rat.

And so I have, I was like, I'm sold already. I don't need to buy anything. I have bought into the idea of Grey Alice and her fucking big pet rat and I have a couple's costume idea for me and Chloe In which she gets to be Grey Alice and I get to be the big rat No, I think that's absolutely beautiful and perfect and I'm so proud of you for coming up with this because we don't have to buy anything I'm powerful, right? And you're my rat and we lay around together I think I mean I could I could probably stand to buy like a rat costume or something like that could be you know and like at least like ears you know but at the very least. And me now. I could buy a Chuck E. Cheese costume like one of those leftover

Chuck E. Cheese costumes. It's very expensive right now because of Five Nights at Freddy's I wouldn't also though I do have a sidebar on that to tell you about. We have the time. This is a very short story, everyone. You actually literally can buy Chuck E. Cheese stuff, but you have to buy it like online, eBay, like black market because they literally have a policy at Chuck E. Cheese that when the animatronics had broken down, the employees had to tape or take photos of proof of them destroying them so they can't be used for ill will.

So no one could just buy Chuck E. Cheese's head and like fuck it or whatever. You literally had to have pictures and evidence that you destroyed it with bats or that you broke it apart, that you busted it. So there are photos, if you google, you will find them of just Chuck E Cheese animatronics busted as hell nightmare fuel, right? Like you walked into Five Nights at Freddy's aftermath and they're just like dead looking busted, the eyes pulled out, you know, all sorts. I really recommend you look it up. This is a thing they had to do, but that said, they are no longer having the animatronics.

Like this is your last chance to see that they're taking them all out currently It's over. It's so joker. I don't Like Eliana a better life No, they're gonna they're gonna beat them up They're skinning that they're skinning them because they're going to skin change into animatronic Chuck E Cheese's it's actually kind of sad that we don't do this as a live stream for people because they could going to skin change into animatronic Chuck E. Cheese. It's actually kind of sad that we don't do this as a live stream for people because they could just see how many times an episode I just bury my head into my hands and say nothing.

Nothing. Yeah, I mean I tell them every now and then that people can use their imagination as George intended everyone to do. So, gray Alice, the line, I love that line though, Eliana, coming back to your Grey rat, right? Yeah, the you can buy anything you might desire from Grey Alice, but it is better not to, and George, of course, I think he's really proud of that line, because he brought it into his Not a Blog post announcing the movie.

Good, he should be proud. I'm proud of him too. I'm proud of everything that boy does. I bet he would bring it back again, you know, in another story or who knows. I mean, there's even some of the lines in Aeswaf have a similar poetry to it, right? Like he has similar lines, like, with beats like this. I don't know, like I think of like in Quentin's Pl's plot and oh, and then he began to scream. You know, like I don't know, just something rhythmic about the way he likes to quarter

lines like that off. I think it just, there's something about it that like I said, just really reminds me of the ending line of Meat House Man again, like, of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love. I'll defend that man on that line, I don't care. No you won't! We literally laughed at him. I changed. I think it's a great line. It's edgy. The Grey Alice one is good. I'm just saying he's real proud of it.

There's also something about this short story, before we jump into it. During Bitter Blooms you brought up how George said it was inspired by Suzanne and Leonard Cohen song and I don't know that this is inspired by a song but there's just something about it that feels also inspired by one. That's all. Oh great Alice, shamp-a-lam-a-lam. Oh great Alice, ram-a-ram-a-ram. Yeah. It was inspired by Blackdie, I knew it. I mean, who knows, maybe. That's... anyways, that's not how.

Oh. It could be. You never know. No, I don't know. But it's interesting, right? Some of the stuff right off the bat I notice, and of course a lot of what we'll talk about I'm sure we can link it to Aeswaf in a lot of ways, but color symbolism, right? There's a lot of lack thereof and also color saturation in the story and Jeraice isn't just Jeraice. We open up and he's actually called Blue Jeraice, which right off the bat it makes me think of Renly's rainbow guard. It makes me think of It makes me think of Hugh of the Vale with his blue lacquered armor and the eagle pommels on the sword and sapphires that George describes about Blue Jeraise. Though also kind of makes me think about Aemond with his sapphire in his eye a little bit. Oh yeah.

But I do love that Blue Jeraise also has clashing hair with this armor, like it gives a lot of imperfect energy to him that he has this blue lacquered armor and this steel sword with an eagle pommel and a sapphire and he's all about blue and then he has this like bright red hair that just clashes and he'll never look dignified and classy in like a true knight probably especially in Lady Melange's eyes. Yeah, I like what you've tied to it. It also, now that you've been digging into it, makes me think of even, you know, Brie'en the Blue, right? That's what she's called. And Brie'en also having that unrequited feelings

towards Renly when you were talking about, like, the Rainbow Guard. And then, like I said, there's, like, an interesting bit of worldbuilding there that they said that blue is the color of loyalty, and you were talking about the clashing of his hair, and it shows that he wants to give off the affect of loyalty, right? But deep down inside, who he is as a person is not, that's why his hair, which is part of him, clashes. But then I think we get into our own real world associations with the color blue, and then you end up with him all alone. And it says, like, in Blue Jury's who wed her a month after Grey Alice returned from the lost land sits beside a mad woman in the great hall by day and locks his doors by night in terror of his

wife's hot red eyes and does not hunt anymore or laugh or lust and so he becomes Blue Jury's in that he's like real fucking blue. No, big, like as in he is big sad. God, and I don't want to harp onto it, but like, again, like, okay, what did you want, then? Girls aren't allowed to be mad once in a while? This is bullshit. I think he just didn't want her to run off, I guess.

I don't know where to end up with, like, Boyce, but, you know, if he had just talked to Boyce and been like, Boyce, but you know if he had just talked to Boyce and been like Boyce What if you just dumped her? It sounds like Boyce did try to dump her, but Great Alice- maybe they were meant to be together in like their sad miserable way. Yeah, well, and that's it I mean that is you know George's favorite fateful thing as we go that'll be it They're made for each other and their terror and horror Yeah Where Great Alice lives beneath a mountain in a stone house, is also kind of vale-esque.

Everything about that first couple pages, there's a lot of vale imagery going on. Mountains and living in these like chasms under them made me think very much about the Vale. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She is, she does live in a mountain stone. It is very vale-esque and makes a great contrast to when we do enter the Lost Lands Yeah It's kind of interesting because when you read it from that angle and understand that Blue Jirei is like some sort of knight It makes it almost medieval in setting like you think like one area is medieval and then she lives in the mountains and or it's a Village or whatever who knows again not a great description but it also is weird because then you go into the mountains and or it's a village or whatever who knows again not a great description

but it also is weird because then you go into the lost lands where it becomes kind of terrifying and horror story and way different in some ways and more wild so kind of an interesting location move that you have like the mountains where Alice lives which are way different and supposed to kind of You know be isolated in comparison to wherever Lady Melange and Blue Jirei live, which we don't really see it till the end for a moment. Yeah, and both Alice and Boyce, I guess like this, this veil is not that far from the Lost Lands, she doesn't go that far of a journey, right? Because she's like, I'm gonna get this done in a month, and I'm like, good for you, you

know your timelines timelines and it works out. We get an intro to like her magical powers. I saw a lot of Aeswaf in that, some beginning foundational blocks of A Song of Ice and Fire and you know almost immediately I was like very Maggie the Frog, right? You go to her, you have to give her something to get what you want. But as the story progresses, she kind of became Arya, Melisandre, Varamyr, all linked together. There are a lot of great moments of her like

getting secrets and her using the shadows and the knight to hide for, you know, as she watches and waits and even the skin changing language reminds me a lot of Arya's wolf dreams, but very much Melisandre, a hint of Varamyr and I can really see a lot of the Crescent POV and the Varamyr POV in this story. Oh, yeah, definitely, and I like what you said about Numeghi the Frog and I would say even, you know, the Faceless Men, right? You, the price that you have to pay for the thing that you want, and by, for the Faceless Men, usually you only want one thing. You know, you go there, there's one, there's one, there's that, they actually have two things for sale. One is you die, right? The other is someone else die. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Take it or leave it, take it or leave it.

They've got a very special shop. There's even that language, right? Like, Deelian's secrets and betrayals and the ageless line, there's a line about her being ageless. And then there's this great line. True. Dead things have no power, night and day, black and white, they are weak. All strength derives from the realm between, from twilight, from shadow, from the terrible place between life and death, from the gray voice, from the gray, which to me was like straight out of Melisandre Piovi, that's like something she would say out loud. Agree.

Yeah,ing onions. I think Alice would probably eat that onion. That's something that's big different between her and Mal. She would be like, this onion's fine. Yeah I think, as you said, there's a lot about her that feels very Melisandre-esque. Actually even some of the language around grayness and Alice felt a bit inspired by Athena to me. You know, the epithet of Grey

Eyed Goddess and Alice clearly, she's got a lot of wisdom. She's got a lot of secrets and part of me also thinks like, did George reuse Grey Alice? She is not, the characters are not alike at all, but just the wording to inspire Alice and Marsark a little. And they were like, he's like, I don't know, fuck it. I like the name Alice, but spelled funny. He was like, I really liked that. That was so smart of me.

And it was like, she's a great girl. And she's like, she's a great girl. I mean, she does seem pretty great. No, it's absolutely inspired by that. Like there's no way he's not giving himself a nod on that. A gray girl and a dying horse. And maybe he is saying gray? It's pretty great. It's kind of funny because it's- he's using the other gray. He's using G-R-E-Y, so I don't know if he just like used it a couple times too many in A Swap and was like, oh shit, I guess gray Alice was with an A. Oh well. I think he just

decided he wanted to use the British spelling for some reason in Asswap and then use the American one and this. I really don't know why. Maybe some of it has to do with like Gandalf. Get off the grave. Inspiration. Yeah I could see, especially because Grey Alice kind of has that Galadriel Gandalf magical feel to her as well. Powerful and she seems like she can help you but also like she's a nightmare. Yeah that's what's hot about her. Yeah I mean I would eat her, never never mind I'm gonna leave that open to interpretation. You can imagine at home which I was gonna say. She's gonna slay the chicken she's gonna slay chicken Alice chicken form Alice. She could change her skin at will right she doesn't need the moon like werefolk so we've got those skin-changing vibes popping throughout the story.

She's a literal where folk, isn't she? Where's the folks? I just realized that now when you said where folk, I was like, oh, was George playing on this? I don't know, maybe. You've been talking about these ideas of control when it comes to like, Jere and Lady Melange, but also I think you can see there's this idea of control in a different way as well with with Alice, like she's able to control her power, right? She's not at the whims of nature or anything, she has paid this price in order to be able to change whatever she wants. All she has to do is go change her outfit, which is I think an interesting trope, especially when it comes to women and magic.

And it's something that I think we can see appeals to women. That's part of the allure of the magical girl genre, especially for girls or things like Cinderella. I think of her as having like, I don't know, I've been going to flea markets lately and one of those like fun like trailers and then inside is her closet. She just pulls one out. I assume that's more or less what it's like. Anyways, she skins the wolf. It reminds me of the Boltons because I assume this is the method for everything. But also, again, literal skin changing. She is wearing the folks and takes the power from them, right? It's this idea of consumption that comes up a lot in A Song of Ice and Fire and that we discussed a lot in Bran's storyline, you know, taking the other thing and it becoming a part of you and you becoming like that thing that you have consumed. Yeah, she almost like absorbs his power by eating him basically, you know, in a way.

Like he kills him and takes some of his power, siphons his power in a way. There's even the line that she uses silver, right? I thought that was great mythology to bring in that she's using silver to kill him because that's, you know, you can track that through time, through whatever, to when that mythology kind of happened, but silver bullets are the one of the few weapons effective against a witch or a werewolf. I mean, for example, back in the 30s even, penicillin was called a silver bullet, which is kind of funny. Uh-huh, they called it a silver bullet because of its shape and because of its color to treat and cure infections, like bacterial infections. So it makes you wonder how that tradition was passed down in real life, not just in lore.

But I think it dates kind of back to the Beast of Gevedan, a man-eating animal that the hunter Jean Chastel kills in the year 1767, but the allegations basically were that he had a gun loaded with silver bullets, and that's how he did it. So the giant beast and all that is kind of from a distorted detail, I'm pretty sure from a novel, Henry Perret's Histoire, Fiteurs, De la Bête, and Gevedon. And the French writer kind of says in this that the beast was shot thanks to fictitious metals of the Virgin Mary, worn by him in his hat, melted to make bullets. So who the fuck knows, I think it's kind of silly as a catch-all.

Throughout the years, even in Brothers Grimm, it was kind of a catch-all of lore and of the silver bullet protects you and changes you, but I like that she ends up using it against him. Against… There's almost like it starts to define like werewolves are different from what she The silver bullet protects you and changes you, but I like that she ends up using it against him. There's almost like it starts to define like werewolves are different from what she is, which is a skin changer. So you have that divide of warging and skin changing even so early, right? Yeah, and it's kind of funny because I thought at first she was looking for a werewolf and she's gonna like, I was like, why did we go to the lost lands? What are we doing out here? Because at first I thought she was looking for one until I realized,

oh it's gonna be this fucking guy, this guy's the fucking werewolf. But my assumption was we find a guy who's a werewolf and based on what we know about werewolf lore, he's gonna go to Lady Melange and scratch her or give her a bite and then she's gonna be able to turn into a werewolf, right? Like that's where my mind went and then the things started to happen. I was like, that is not what happened. Interesting. I like that though. I didn't think that. Did you not feel, oh that's so interesting. That was not your assumption. Yeah, that was my assumption initially and then until I realized Boyce was the werewolf and I was like, what are we doing out here?

That did get me a little bit. Like I was kind of just going with the flow, I think, until then. I was like, all right, we'll figure it out. She's going to find something in the woods. She has magic. It's a journey. Well, yeah, I thought they were luring out at first until again, I realized it was Boyce, a werewolf, and they're going to... He's the wolf.

They were going to bring the werewolf to Lady Melange. And... Yeah, we have that great stuff about her flying into the sky seeing everything and that definitely is reminiscent of skin changing right it reminds me of Bran flying overhead and seeing things or Arya in her dreams and it's made clear that you know she is much more powerful than just a werewolf she can summon bear or cat you know this has to be one of his earlier takes

at this. There's that great line where at the end she says, tell the lady melange to cut herself and drip her blood onto the skin. She need only wear the skin as a cloak. Almost like a glamour, right? So she's blood sacrificing to create a glamour. Yeah, binding herself. It's very much like a it's a blood, right? You know, and coming back briefly to the silver bullet stuff, I think it's interesting much like a it's a blood right, you know, and coming back briefly to the silver bullet stuff, I think it's interesting, I didn't realize that silver bullet predates, to an extent, the use of silver maybe against werewolves. So there's kind of an anachronism here going on with her like using a knife, right? Because that is likely by many people seen as an

older weapon than than a bullet, so that this is such a new piece of lore. But also, before she turned into a bird, I was like, is the whole... When they say that the feathers are silver, are the feathers actually made of silver and like tipped with poison? And then she turned into a bird. I was like, they were literal feathers. Yeah, putting on her own like magic to get into her bird format. Yeah, putting on her own, like, magic to get into her bird format. Yeah. Hmm. And that gray feathered cloak is so sick, it's totally Tytos Blackwood coated. Is that what you were thinking too? Because the whole time I was like, Tytos? Tytos? I was like, George reused his, I mean, it's a pretty cool aesthetic.

Let's be real. I want one, except... I would absolutely reuse that too. I'm like, it's not very sturdy, you'll lose feathers, you know, it's difficult, but if you got it good, I mean, my god. He- I mean, Tytos Blackwood, if you were rich, you know, you don't gotta worry about maintaining, someone else will go figure out how he maintains the feathers, you know? I guess you're right, I'd just get a new cloak, yeah, I'd just get a second one until- and then just keep getting them, I mean. Yeah, you're right, if I was rich, I wouldn't care. I don't know if he's continually getting them, but some- he's paying someone to maintain his clothes, I mean. Yeah, you're right, if I was rich, I wouldn't care. I don't know if he's continually getting them, but he's paying someone to maintain his clothes.

Maintain my feathered cloak, thank you, Jeeves. Yeah, just keep going and getting like birds whenever, you know, I lose one feather and then we like sew it back in. Whatever. The wolf description feels familiar to me, too. I'd like to read you the description. Oh, interesting, doesn't it? Across the fire from great Alice the wolf stood, a great shaggy white beast, half again the size of an ordinary wolf with a savage red slash of a mouth and glowing scarlet eyes. Who could it be? A white wolf with red eyes? What does it mean, George? Yeah, he was just really into like, I guess, some of this, this imagery and recycled it

and- Good for him. That's what writing's about, man. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. No, I think so. I think so. Like, why not reuse it? And I think it's kind of funny that he's what, smaller?

I'm like, voice you loser. That's all. I mean, if you're going to be a werewolf, you loser. Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe he's all. I mean if you're slightly bigger than humans and now you're snarly and you can actually like hurt them Alice is able to show like that's fine, but you're still not powerful compared to me. Yeah, that's true. That's a great point He just I mean it seems like he was an okay lay. Mm-hmm. Well, most of them are okay lays So that's what we have about boys, okay lay He's fine. he's fine. He's fine.

Ugh, the Lost Lands themselves were really well written, some Heart of Winter kind of shit going on there, right? Not quite, but it's a little warmer, I think, than the Heart of Winter, but desolate, so desolate, oh my god, and the only life we're told, right, are these trees that are so interesting. They're gnarled They're twisted all together and their limbs are heavy with swollen fruit the color of indigo and it really gave me some underworld kind of vibes Because the entire land is kind of painted as devoid of life dead

Gray, just like Alice herself kind of telling us this is Alice's land, this is where she thrives but no one else can thrive, this is her domain, and the underworld part of it, right, those swollen fruits of indigo, just of the fruit below looking different than above. Part of me wonders, like, it feels very desert-like, right, like the way that the desert can hold mysterious things or a spiritual journey, right? A lot of people associate with that. I wonder if it was maybe inspired by, like, did George already live in Santa Fe at that time?

I think he might have, based on what we heard him talking about with Neil Gaiman a few years ago, last year, times a construct. Yeah, I think he moved there around 79. So it would be perfect timing. He would have just been inspired, probably, to put some of these desert bits in there. Yeah. I thought, okay, I'm an idiot, apparently.

I like, I love what you interpreted about the swollen fruit, the clover of indigo being, having a sense of the underworld. I was like, oh, I thought these might be plums. They could be. I read the story all wrong. Okay. No, there's no reading a story wrong unless you're some of the people we know that read A Song of Ice and Fire wrong. But glossing over that, like, I think that's that's also fair. That is one of the few indigo fruits. I was thinking more like nightlock or like, you know, dark evil berries nightshade, you know, I'm thinking the color of Nightlock or nightshade these like dark purple poisonous colors. Like to me it said poison, danger. Okay, yeah. I mean obviously whatever it is like

it is probably a fantastical food that is not real, not an actual plum. But um- Could be similar. Yeah. food that is not real, not an actual plum. But um- Could be similar. Yeah. The Lost Lands, the Lost Lands do feel like this really desolate place which goes together with that idea of greatness, right? Not just like the in-between, but it does become this in-between place.

And part of me wonders is there something here that there is being a play of, you know, Alice, A-L-Y-S, Alice in the Lost Lands, Alice in Wonderland, and it's this place of transformation, right? When Alice goes into Wonderland, right, she can take a pill to become big, small, all that shit, and we see transformation as well from Boyce, like literally, and also from Alice, literally. I mean, it's a classic, and it's definitely closer to this time than it is our time. You know what I mean, generationally, you know, that book would have been a little more beloved. It's 1865.

People were making songs about it, yeah. Yeah, Jefferson Airplane. Exactly, exactly. I knew where you were going. That's what I'm thinking of. Go ask that bitch. Get over there. Ask her. Go ask. Actually, wait. I knew where you were going. Go ask that bitch, get over there, ask her. Actually, wait, that's the song! That's maybe the song that inspires this. Go ask Alice, because it's like, you can buy anything you might desire from Grey Alice, but it is better not to.

So maybe that is part of the inspirations. Yeah, I would also add like then there's the book Go Ask Alice which is also inspired it has you know some Alice in Wonderland it's very it's darker but it has some Alice in Wonderland-esque themes about it like mature Alice themes about it too so it was uh well the actual song White Rabbit is used to talk about that because that was. It was used as the title of the novel, Go Ask Alice. So it's all this nice and corporate, but I actually think you might be right, for sure. White Rabbit definitely would be inspirational. It would have been 67, right?

That's a pretty formative- that's the year my dad was born. That's like a formative year of music back then and like rock and roll and etc I mean that was pretty strong back then. Yeah, and I think you know it seems as though George For obvious reasons really loves music from that era. He's he's cited it before so yeah living in it. You know You can buy anything you might desire from Grey Alice. I can make a very We're gonna be this is going at the musical. This is a from gray Alice I could make a very quick we're gonna be this is going into musical this is a from gray Alice you thank you know remember don't buy from her besides the lyrics besides the lyrics. Besides the lyrics of our new songs.

Let's talk about some of the words in this story. Particularly the dialogue. I found the dialogue really interesting in this one. I think that it's pretty different from the dialogue that we're used to in a song of Ice and Fire, which in my opinion sounds much more natural, more conversational. Every now and then, you know, he'll have someone do like some soliloquy, like the broken man speech, but otherwise I think the dialogue in A Song of Ice and Fire is noted because of how realistic it sounds. Whereas here I feel like George is kind of very intentional in that the way the dialogue is in in the Lost Lands and how

the characters respond felt much more fairy tale-esque, right? Like they felt much more fabricated and formal. And maybe that plays into something that you're going to bring up in a moment regarding that whole kind of fairy tale aspect of the dialogue. Yeah, and I want to piggyback on that back to like what I was saying at the front about even the pros and like feeling back and warm in George's arms because I find I'm finding lately like dialogue for me in a book needs to be good for me to like it and if it's not strong or not well done, I'm fine without it.

You know what I mean? Like if you can tell through showing and not actually telling me a dialogue, I'm fine without it. You know what I mean? Like, if you can tell through showing and not actually telling me with dialogue, I'm fine with it. You don't have to. Not everyone's good at dialogue. You know, it's very true. You could ruin a good book with a lot of dialogue. So, I really like the way the dialogue was intentional. And there's something great going on in that like it almost felt very with Grey Alice Snow White also in the woods with a killer like with the huntsman

almost like a reverse huntsman in the woods story like you think that he's going out in the woods for me you know you talked about your initial thoughts and I was like she's gonna go in the woods and she's gonna get killed that's what I thought I was like she's gonna go in the woods and she's gonna get killed. That's what I thought. I was like she's gonna get murdered even though it's her story. I just know what happens to women in the woods with men usually. So I just thought it was very reverse Huntsman right? But she turns the tables instead and kills him. So I felt very very fairy tale. Yeah I didn't realize she was gonna kill him but I knew that she was gonna come out fine because George said he wanted to make a second story about her,

so I was like, clearly she's fine. It was too Aeon for me, you know, so I'm not gonna pretend to be smart. I was like, she makes it. I know she makes it. He was gonna write a whole ass series about her and Mila Jovovich has to go get paid for another movie. So she lives. And we will be seated. I love that you brought up the Huntsman fairy tale in this. I got to play the Huntsman once in Snow White. Interesting. Mm-hmm. It was a rendition of Snow White and other characters you may meet in the

forest it's called. It's like a play written about Snow White or whatever, like a remix. And I got to play the Huntsman when I was 14, I think? 14, 15? And I was very sexy in the role. I got to let Snow White go. Oh yeah, I think a lot of people have been doing tellings of it like that. I got to flirt with the Queen, it was great. I should have known then I was bi. You should, I mean, that's one clue. I should have known. There's also an aspect of this that makes me now realize when you're talking about

Huntsman and like playing with expectations, Little Red Riding Hood, speaking of colors. Oh, yes. But she's the wolf. Because the wolf literally, yeah, well the wolf is Mrs. Doubtfire. And I mean that's actually literally what happens in Little Red Riding Hood. Yeah, grandma and the stomach. Yeah, and then the wolf dresses up. And then the huntsman comes out and is like, fuck you.

But yeah, I think there are clues that Alice is the hunter from... I just thought that there was something really interesting in the language of how they described her and Boyce fucking, and that she is the one who is more aggressive in in their sex and then riding him to climax right he takes on a very passive role and I was like he just wants to be dominated which may be unsure kind of he hasn't met a match yet you know what I mean like he doesn't have a match and yes yeah it's interesting especially because it comes back to like classic He hasn't met a match yet, you know what I mean? Like, he doesn't have a match. And- Yes.

It- yeah, it's interesting, especially because it comes back to like classic germ. Classic germ, right? Like- Sure! Blue germase. Boys wants to fuck. Right, like we get that much from him. He is proud of fucking. He loves to fuck. He has a great time fucking, and that's- it's fun! He must be good at it.

Yeah, he must be good or cum. I mean, he's an okay lay. He's an okay. We already established that he's probably an okay lay. He loves to fuck. Who doesn't? He loves to cum. Who doesn't? And he wants to cum on in around as many women as he can, is kind of what we get from him. And Jeraise also, like he wants to fuck one woman he's like I just want that one woman he's fucked already you've got that great

like comparison of that masculinity that grows so toxic of I own it no I own it me I got a guy you know Jeraice withholds that there's another man that wants Lady Melange and yet Alice still figures it out. And his real desire is that he doesn't want her to have the power to be a wolf with her lover, Boyce. And so Alice kills Boyce, making Jeraise accept the wolf fate for Melange, and she ends up turning mad with power. It's a classic George R. R. Martin flip on its head

turnaround. Lady Melange's desire, though, to skin change, and Jeraise's desire for her not to is interesting in this, because she really didn't need to know that Melange was fucking boys to bring Jeraise down a peg. That was his tell, right? For Alice, that was his tell. Something was off.

Jeraise wanted to constrict her freedom and that turns out to be such like envy as well as envy and Alice figured it out because she understands that language. She's great at sales. She knows how to speak to... she can see what someone actually wants. Mm-hmm. And she does deliver, even if customers are not satisfied at the end. So she loves her job. Her job is just not customer satisfaction. And it's very much like a monkey's paw kind of thing, right? Be careful what you wish for, it'll come to you in the worst way possible. Yeah, I don't know, I think George was going like through a phase or something. He's just really interested in the idea of like the backstory of

merchants in general. Shaden Woe, who were also supposed to get their own series of short stories, but it also never grew into a series. No comment. I'm just not gonna do it. They are featured in Sand Kings. They're also merchants. And yeah, anyway, I will say I quickly want to come back. It says Alice finishes, but we don't know that Boyce actually does. So I just thought that was interesting too, as well. Interesting. Maybe that's why Lady Melange liked Boyce and not Juraise. Because you didn't because you let her come first.

You can't let her come at all, I think. I think Juraise did not do that. But anyways, I have to say through all this, the one thing we don't get is Alice. We don't know her desires beyond wanting power, right? The most that we get of Alice's inner desires are when she skin changes, when she's holding power over Boyce. I think she's intensely lonely, it seems. She doesn't let people close to her, and if she does, she kills them, as we see.

She seems very lonely. She seems, I mean, we don't really get anything of her interiority and her feelings. We only get implications of like, you know, she kills Boyce, she dooms Jeraise to this life, she gives Melange the power. Yeah. I found that really interesting that like with no actual personality besides what we see in dialogue and what we see her do,

different than usual when we compare other POVs, right? Like you get the interiority in the POV that kind of explains the character more. I actually thought that was really surprising that as you said she doesn't get as much explicit characterization because again I think it's interesting that George has taken a fascination with merchants and that the story is about her doing this product fulfillment thing and you think it's going to be about Lady Melange and Jureis because they're the ones who are given these emotional motivations and that's what you're taught to expect. But then it's more about Alice's acquisition of this product. Yeah, you're right. Like she's not given like that much. She's kind of this femme fatale figure. We don't even know that much about how she looks, right? Like, they're kind of mentioned, but it's not really emphasized other than that they're like, that is not how you actually look. You got Botox or fil- no, I'm joking.

Ageless. Yeah, she did something. They're like, I know that's not how you really look. How fucking old are you? You're still pretty hot though. And she also I think, feels many of these tropes of actually how I feel stoic loner men are portrayed in media, right? Like she doesn't say that much. She does action and, you know, how she seduces boys, like we find out she's the actual dangerous one. That's I think one of the biggest parts of your characterization alice is dangerous yeah i love that because like you pointed out their desires right what is gerace desire lady melange what is boys desire to make fuck fuck and to be a wolf on and off he he likes to just kill things fuck and kill he like man shit dude shit you know dudes rock jimmy lannister shit actually i think i had it? Dudes rock. Jamie Lannister shit, actually, I think I had it. No, but he does need specifically say fucking kill.

His sister, though. And then look at that versus Alice's desires, which we see are power. Melange's desires, which are to become powerful or have power or hold power to be a wolf. Interesting that they have these very, as far as fantasy goes, masculine coded desires, right? And those are their desires versus these guys' desires, which are like, I'm in love with the lady, I wanna be in love with the ladies. They have very almost feminine coded desires. Yeah, that's a great point. I really like that observation. And even at the end, right?

I don't know if that's supposed to be part of the horror, I don't know. It plays on also that trope of guy who goes out every night, never fucking comes home. Drace just fucking stays home. Lady Melange is out there going out every night, killing. She's not drinking, she's killing. There's that Twitter meme that's like homewrecker stinky coochie da da da. It's got all these emojis like versus like angel like pays her rent on time, you know, like it's a very funny comparison meme. I don't know. It's very funny, but I could see that thing down here.

I don't think I know this meme. I'll have to find you one. I'll find you one. Yeah. Please bring it tomorrow to meme education. Yeah, to meme education with Girls Gone Cannon. I will. Yeah.

I absolutely will. Their desires and their I wants, very interesting coded against each other. And you know, we talk about Boyce in the end of the story and at the front, he's pompous, almost arrogant, right? He goes from this intense, I'm a predator. I'm arrogant, I hunt, I fuck, confident, because he knows that he's powerful when he transforms, versus Gray Alice holding him captive, tying him up, where he's unable to do anything. Ooh, this is sexier every time I say it, and then she murders him. Ooh.

But then how he, like, is begging and and pleading because he has nothing, right? When she has him tied up, he's begging and pleading to her and he's powerless. And there's such an interesting difference of like the men courting the women, like he wanted to capture and keep her as a trophy almost when they were in the woods saying, wow, you sure are powerful. I can't believe you're into me. Jere also wants to keep Lee Melange, right? Like he doesn't, he wants to keep her on a shelf, like a treasure.

I love what you pointed out of how their wants are in some ways like what some people would consider stereotypically feminine, right? In terms of like the desire for love interest, right? The whole romantic aspect, but there's still an aspect of it in that, as you said with Jure, is still within that man wants to possess woman, right? Sees woman as accessory to himself. For Boyce, he's just like, Boyce needs therapy instead, he just really wants to be seen. I think he's like, wow, I could never share my full self with any of my other lovers, because they could not understand this aspect of my life in terms of the transformation and the wolf thing, but you get it. He's like, finally a woman who really can understand me and see me fully, and he just wants to be seen.

And Alice, it's so interesting because again, as you pointed out, even we as the reader cannot see Alice. She doesn't give herself to any of these people. And it's great because he mistakes that she is powerful enough for him when it's actually she's more powerful, too powerful for him. And it goes back to that romcom circle, right? Like Lady Melange wants to be enough because he will never see Lady Melange as enough because she cannot transform into a wolf. And that is why it all started. Because she wanted his love. Yes. And she, Lady Melange, you are kinuff.

She's kinuff. You are kinuff. And what if you were just, it's Boyce and it's Lady Melange, you know? Instead of it's Lady Melange and Boyce, I'm just riffing off. I rewatched Barbie this week. Anyways. I have not revisited yet. I have not revisited yet. Oh. She's more powerful than Boyce and actually, he doesn't realize that.

He thinks that she's tending to his wounds because she was just like, because of the defending, like, he thinks she was just defending herself. No, she was tending to his wounds, right, which plays into another like trope about women nursing men back to health. She was just doing that because she needed him at full strength for the fucking skinning ceremony. Yeah. That's my god.

My god. My god. Yeah, I guess she transformed. She could have done it at any time. I wonder if she waits for the other person to transform first so that she can, not because she needs them to do so, maybe they're more weak in that state or something. I don't know, but maybe she just needs to confirm. Well, I was like, is she just confirming the product first?

Making sure, yeah, this is the one. This is the one that transforms instead of just going after a rando. Yeah. Interesting. That's interesting. Again, how could we? Because we don't get to know. But now we see some of her methods, right?

Hopefully we get to see more of them. But maybe we will. Maybe we will get to know in the second movie. do you think's gonna come out first the second great Alice novella or the next Duncan egg? You mean the short story since they're both gonna come out before Tiwa? I Think the next Duncan egg, okay Okay now unless unless unless they find out that the Alice in the Lost Lands is very profitable, then it's gonna be, maybe, the second. Now what comes out first? Fire and Blood 2 or the next Grey Alice novella? Again, depends on the profitability of In the Lost Lands.

And then, what comes out first? The Winds of Winter? Or the Grey Alice novella? I just don't bet on The Winds of Winter anymore. Anyways, yeah, I would love to get one where we just see her do more so that we don't get her interiority, but we understand more, if that makes sense. Like, just give us something more to completely nod us to continue giving us implications about Grey Alice, because I don't know that I really want her interiority, you know? I think I kind of like, you know me, I like these sneaky little things where he says stuff without saying them or where he doesn't say something, which is how he says it. That's like a book turn on for me, man. Yeah, I agree. I don't know that I need her interiority, but it's fun getting to know about her in the way that you would also do

world building, right? She is part of the world building. We're digging into the life of this NPC. That actually is kind of what it is. And part of me also even wonders, with the pelts, how many of those... There's kind of an inference you can make of were all of those pelts past lovers of hers? I wonder that. Yeah. And then in the same way that like, you know, we're talking about her as this like loner in the same way that you can buy anything you might desire from Gray Alice, but it is better not to because she always gets people what they want, right?

But they're never happy with the things she brought them, the things that they had wanted. And so I'm like, does she do this to people? Because she also knows that the price of what she buys, which is that power control skin changing, doesn't bring her happiness either. Oh, I like that. Especially like you brought up earlier the feathers and how when she put them on she was able to transform into a bird So does that mean to take it a step further that all of those coats, every single one of them She can wear and turn into whatever animal they were transformed in when she killed them. Whoa

All right, that's what I'm saying. Like are each of those people- did she fuck each of those fucking pellets? I hope so. And then she killed them after and so like is she a serial killer? Also it's also it's like Nisa Nisa I mean in a way right uh getting them nice and hard and it's the person you love the most and come bear your breast for me and then stabby stabby and now I've taken your life and now I'm powerful. Very succubus stuff too. Is she a serial killer? Also, here's something I wonder, is her only power skin changing and chaotic customer satisfaction? Like does she have other magic? I do, I was wondering that. I think to an extent too it's

aria magic where it's you know faceless man magic, it's training, right? Like shadows and whispers and sticking to being able to see without, you know, seeing like, for example, she saw through Jeraise, even though she didn't know, she knew. Mm. Yeah. Or like, and also like, because you were talking about Melisandre, does she have like other, I don't know, spells and rituals and rites that she knows and does? She may. Not just this. I don't know.

According to you, we'll never know. We could find out one day. No, but we might in a second movie. If George gives them a summary of what I did for this first one, I think they could handle it. I think he wants them to, based on his not a blog post. Well, he couldn't have picked anyone better for it, honestly. Like I do think that Paul is a great director for this, like the grittiness and the romp of it all.

And like having it focused on just these handful of characters, I think he does really well with that. So something that stuck out to me, a little etymology corner by the end of our episode here, melange in general is a blend of things, right? A variety of things, often vegetables. I'm used to it. The way that I use it the most would be like my last job.

We sold a melange of mushrooms in order to cheapen it. We'd do like a couple of really nice dried mushrooms, then a couple dried mushrooms, you know, and you do a mushroom blend and you have a melange, a melange blend, but it could be for vegetables, etc But also the spice in dune, the melange. Yeah I did think it had to do with that somehow, but I don't know why or how I was like At least a nod. I don't think it means anything

But I think it's definitely a nod and then plus the blue. Yeah, the blue. Absolutely the blue Ooh, the spice must flow. Also Coming off of bitter blooms. Alice is very Morgan Le Fay, right? When we talk about those themes of loneliness, Morgan Le Fay was very lonely and bitter blooms too, right? You can see that that was what drove part of her her charade as well That's interesting because she also did a kind of wish fulfillment thing too, but empty, empty fulfillment. Yeah. Yeah. Very empty. Similar. And also lived much longer, maybe. Who knows? Yeah, we don't know what the future holds. I'd imagine that she's the way that Sean... Mm-hmm, Sean. The way Sean is at the end of Bitter Blooms actually feels a little Alice-like too,

that self-reliant, hardened, loner-esque character now, you know? Yeah, absolutely, I like that. Yeah, there's a lot of fantastical little fairy tale stuff written into the margins here in something that's kind of really dark. I was very surprised at that. He was, I mean, really, really setting the stage for digging into it more. I wonder if we would have gotten more stuff in The Lost Lands? Because if this one's entitled In the Lost Lands, do we ever come back to this place? Or is it only this story about being in the

Lost Lands? That's something that I wonder. Right, because this isn't a Thousand Worlds story, I don't think, right? I'm pretty sure it's not a Thousand Worlds story. I don't think so. Mm-mm. So this isn't a Thousand Worlds story, this is kind of a one-off, but that doesn't mean it's not a place he'd like to come back to. And there are some similarities in The Glass Flower. I was talking to you before this, we might have to read it sometime in the future just because there are some similarities going on in the glass flower that makes me feel like

it's related but... It's interesting seeing some of these stories of George's right, like from certain eras because you know we noticed during some of those earlier short stories that we were looking at like A Song for Leah, Meat House Man, really, George, are you okay? These ones, there's something different going on, but also a connective tissue between them as well, with, I don't know, this portrayal of women characters, and kind of being a little more focused on those versus guys getting broken up with.

This felt a little more empowered than the incel of Meat House Man. He was going through something. Yeah, and this does, I mean the stories around this era feel like he's coming out of it. It feels like he's over it and kind of punishing that person or that character, right? Like there's a punishment for Shurei, there's a punishment for Boyce. Yeah, that's true. Is it a right punishment? Dunno, but that's not for us to judge. Yeah, that's true. Is it a right punishment? Don't know. But that's not for us to judge. Yeah, Alice also doesn't care. She's like, ha. Overall, I liked it. Really short, but I liked it. Me too. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, let's maybe we'll like revisit it. We probably will revisit it once the movie comes out. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm sure we might end up putting this up when the movie comes out to kind of see some of our initial thoughts versus our afterthoughts once we see it. But, uh, there's no date yet, no release date on in the lost lands. It's 2023 post-production. I would hope 2024, 25, we will see a final cut of the film. I'm excited. Like I said, I like the Resident Evil films. Love me Leovovich. I love Dave Bautista. So yeah, it's a fit. It's a fit. I look forward to meeting some of these other actors like Amara and

Oh my gosh, I've already forgotten his name. Loof. Simon. Simon Loof. I think. Simon Loof. Simon. Simon. Yes. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. This was a shorty but a goody. I enjoyed reading this one with you, Aliana, and we will be back next month for a final 2023 Patreon bonus episode to keep your ears and eyes peeled towards that one. We could dress up for the premiere. You as Grey Alice and me as Big Rat. Finally, she's starting to use her brain, folks. Finally. Goodbye. Goodbye.