Girls Gone Canon Cast - UPDATED ASOIAF Episode 220 — ASOS Arya XIII featuring Warren, The Hedge Knight

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Episode update: In editing some of the music, the timing of the tracks got messed up. Reuploading a fixed file for you all to enjoy! ---- We brought on Arya's biggest fan, THE #1 Aryaholic, The Hedge Knight himself, WARREN to help us break down this huge turning point in Arya's chapter. Warren joins us to celebrate Arya being reunited with Needle and then to bid farewell to one of Arya's most important mentors, Sandor Clegane—as he himself bids farewell to the Hound. WHERE TO FIND WARREN, THE HEDGE KNIGHT: Twitter — https://twitter.com/DudsonWarren  Bluesky — https://bsky.app/profile/hedgeknight.bsky.social  ---- Background credits "Witch Hunt" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ free sound effects from https://www.fesliyanstudios.com ---- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of Ice And Fire Episode 220 Aria 13 In A Storm Of Swords Featuring Warren The Hedge Knight I am one of your hosts Chloe And I am another one of your hosts Eliana And yes, so excited Are ya ready? Warren! I'm ready

Are y'all ready for Warren? I don't know i'm not this is gonna be so this is like the episode that was promised we have brought on the world's biggest aria fan as we said last week an aria holic self-proclaimed here he is no really i mean we don't have even emails or tweets of notes this week because warren here, so we don't have any to put in the podcast. The email is here. It is being spoken aloud. Oh my god. Warren, thanks for joining us. You are a long time Aeswath fan now. You've been a long

time friend of ours, really. You've kind of been around since the beginning. You've listened to us for a really long time. We joke and hyperbolize about your emails, but no, I mean, every week was always here's a new Warren email. By the way, Warren Warren loves Aria so we had to have you on we're excited to have you thanks for joining us I'm incredibly excited to be here Chloe thank you very much for having me Warren tell us a little about your like your history with Aeswaf, Aria, George tell us why you're here today

you know why are you here to talk about um well it all started with some crooked stitching and just the very first time i read that line i was just sucked in and i'm always kind of drawn to a kind of a feisty somebody who doesn't kind of fit in and and and aria just she just appeals to me and her loyalty her honesty her integrity she just ticks all the boxes for me so i just i love arias since i first read about those crooked stitches and i love george for the work he puts into developing his story he doesn't just tell a story he tells he builds his world um and it's so much fun then you know when we go on to to through our little kind of groups or whatever to talk about it, that there's so much that you can imagine or make for yourself. You know, there's so much that you can extrapolate from the story that he's telling.

And I find that's great fun and it's great fun to kind of interact with people like yourselves on that. Yeah, especially Arya's chapters. It's like a whole world within a world within a world. And I'm reading a lot of other books lately. Yeah, especially Arya's chapters. It's like a whole world within a world within a world. I'm reading a lot of other books lately. I know you two know I've just been out there because, you know, we're all waiting for the book. We want to read it. I'm just looking under my couch. Under your chair.

I don't want to like ever compare authors constantly to George in my head. But sometimes it's hard because I'll sit there during a chapter and think, if George had written this, I would have read the next five chapters. You know, like, easily, because the world just neanders, and you're in the Riverlands, and you're in the foothills of the Vale, and you're all over the place with Arya, and I love it. George hits a hoibar.

For a second, when you were talking about crooked sitchers, I was like, wow, why hasn't Warren ever told me about this himself, that he sitches? I was like, this is new to me. I feel like, Warren, you could have picked any chapter. I feel like Warren could have done this entire POV also by himself. True. Honestly, as his own spin-off, his own podcast.

But because we only let you pick one why this one why this chapter well i think you said to me pick a chapter and that was one of the hardest things i've had to do in my life um my initial draw would have been towards the mercy chapter which isn't technically published but when i look at the main series i think there's there's two things a lot of people talk about aria's time the riverland and all those chapters are boring i think this is the last one and i think we're kind of you guys have proven that ain't true and there's an awful lot going on there and there's an awful lot of kind of sight into them into the world that people are living in as a consequence of the big action. That's going on outside the Riverlands.

But I think when it came to making a choice. I'm always influenced by Arya's mentors. My particular favourite. Would probably be Syrio. First you know. You always remember your first. But I think in terms of as a chapter. And as development.

I really loved the interaction with Sandor. And it kind of came down to two then was it the first one with Sandor or was it the last one and I wasn't brave enough to go for the Knights of the Hollow Hill because that's just a mighty mighty chapter so I thought oh I'll go for the easier chapter

and in actual fact this is a mighty mighty chapter too as I've been listening to this I was really like I think this might be mightier this is a mighty, mighty chapter too. As I've been listening to it, this is a really, really good. I think this might be mightier. The Knights of the Hollow Hill. It's really good. I know Lady Gwyn from Radio Westross.

I know it's one of her favorite chapters in the series. And I can see why. And it's funny, because this is one of my favorite Arya chapters. Why? Why, Chloe? Why? I don't know if you could guess why.

Listen, Eliana, you little shithead i obviously this is one of my favorite chapters like i i told eliana it was like you guys do all the hard stuff i'm just here for one part of the chapter and one part alone i'm the guest this chapter this is ward and eliana go cannon and chloe just shows up dude but uh yeah to me this is like a big chapter a very big chapter and has a lot of weight as far as for some of my favorite characters, not just Aria, also the tickler and polyvert. No, I'm just kidding Sandor. And I don't know, I'm like, I don't know, you chose a big boy to come on for and no spoilers to the episode ahead. But I think he did a pretty good job. I was pretty impressed

by you. Thank you, Warren. Pretty impressed. Yeah, baby big boy Sandor. did a pretty good job i was pretty impressed by uh thank you warren pretty impressed sandor um yeah baby big boy sandor i think worm i think it's interesting too that you felt like i'm glad you picked this one because the knights of the hollow hill chapter while very packed i think this chapter is more focused on aria as a character and her interiority and development versus knights of the hollow hill which is very external very action-packed as opposed to being about aria herself yeah i couldn't agree more that that is an excellent point but i just kind of feel the sandor stuff is it really draws out a lot of what's important in aria's development and in telling her story and stuff and and if i had to pick a chapter then i you know as an aria hol if I had to pick a chapter, then, you know, as an ariaholic, I want to pick a chapter that tells my girl.

He's like, all the chapters. All the chapters. If I'm not allowed to come on for every chapter during Girls Gone Canon Aria, at least this one. Though I must confirm for the listeners that Aria is also going to be rerun as the next POV.

So you guys can take a whole month, a whole year off and just rerun Arya if you like we are getting closer to the end of Arya to Warren's Chagrin I do feel that the next one I don't know I think it's going to be a surprise for some people actually for all people

they have no fucking clue no one has guessed it I don't know I have to go look I haven't been paying attention but maybe someone's guessed it on the discord I have to look don't quote me on any of this don't use this as hints yeah it's Sansa

but soon you guys are going to find out you can do Sansa again that was fun it's going to be Sansa then it's going to be back to Arya because I don't know it's a surprise Sansa then it's gonna be back to Arya because I don't know it's a surprise well thanks for coming on we are excited to have you we'll get into the chapter very soon with you

but first of course a little housekeeping up top patrons in the stranger tier and above at patreon.com slash girls gone canon c-a-n-o-n get a bonus episode every month that's right monthly bonus episodes the catch of course is that we choose them so suckers i'm just kidding it's our podcast

patroning us yeah but it is our podcast um this month we will be finishing The Hunger Games, the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Act 3, The Victor, Part 2, because we did have to split it up in classic style of us. That'll be finished up this month on Patreon for those patrons of The Stranger Tier and above, and yeah, next two months, keep your eyes peeled for, I

think, Braavos and Mercy from The Winds of Winter, which Warren, I know, is anticipating and has been waiting for a very long time for, to peeled for i think bravos and mercy from the winds of winter which warren i know is in is anticipating and has been waiting for a very long time for to be fair yeah like warren is out here waiting but it's coming we don't know which one's first so that's a surprise you'll find out too yeah it is a surprise i mean like we were surprised by where our journey took us and also being like oh we thought we were gonna go here and do bravos this month but we're like no sorry everyone just like aria's journey we're going somewhere else now someone has taken us somewhere else now it's miss collins yeah and it's our passion project it could make

sense i floated this last week but i'm gonna float it again it could make sense to do mercy in may and call it mayor c other things may is my birthday too ward likes that idea oh interesting interesting wow some other things that happen for patrons is our patreon discord slash brunch that happens once a month and that is on march 24th this month it's a sunday and yeah come hang we welcome the springtime with us yeah i'm excited it is uh warren just reminded us daylight savings right so we'll get an extra bright bright bright bright daytime hour back or two here yeah sun starts setting later it'll uh i think we're gonna see the flip in old america and miss america real quick too it'll get hot yeah it's what march 10 right it's march 10 or something uh in the u.s so go for persephone yeah we saved the daylight forward me personally i saved

the daylight so she's of the daylight. That's available for patrons in the Thunder tier and above. Yeah. Warren comes and hangs out. He knows. He's one of the cool kids on Patreon. We see Warren once in a while. He's real busy, though.

He's a busy bee. He's never, he's like, I'm busy. I have family this, or I'm going to this bar, or I'm seeing a thing, or I'm doing this. So it's too good for us. Sometimes he's got tricks when he shows up, though. He's got tricks when he's going out with people, and then he's like, whoa, other people are here. Yeah, he's shown up before one of our fellow patrons there, our friend Pete, who's been on our audio, right? He's done some really cool audio work for us.

I think he and Warren actually helped to put together that outro you hear at the end of the episode from patrons. So you guys helped kind of bang some heads together. All Pete, all Pete. God bless him. God bless Pete. Well, Warren, I think you know how the lightning round works, right? Okay, so Warren's here. He knows how the lightning round works. But do youren's here he knows how the lightning round works but do you know does everyone else know how it works warren could you tell everyone at home how the lightning round works real quick we're going to go through all the chapters between the last area chapter and this area chapter with a brief synopsis wow amazing he brought the storm ladies he brought the storm of swords we're gonna start that off with tyrian

nine imprisoning king's landing a champion emerges for tyrian lannister jamie eight jamie explores legacy in the tower of the white sword sansa six teams and people are not what they seem in the veil john nine although john valiantly warned the watch against the free folk he is accused of crimes and thrown into the ice cells Tyrion 10 Tyrion's champion does not win the trial by combat

you're doing sound effects this Daenerys 6 Dany banishes Jorah absolves Barristan and chooses to stay and rule in Meereen I was gonna add like that she fucks Dario some more, but I just thought that wasn't appropriate, so I kept it out. But you're hearing it now. Behind the curtain.

Jaime 9. Jaime charges Brienne with carrying on with their quest, slash makes her do the work. Jon 10. Jon parlays with the Free Folk. The parlay is interrupted by Stenise. Who is this Stenise? I'm in fun.

I'm calling him Stenise. Do you guys... Have you seen... I'm obsessed still with that video of the Medieval World Funtime Land parody. And then they go, yo dude, that's Denise. Yo dude, that's Stenise. Oh yes, I'm like, yo dude, that's denise when they look at you dude that's

denise oh yes i'm like yeah dude that's denise i'm picturing that blondie song i'll send you i'll send you this video please do this is like my favorite please do so that brings us to aria 13 in a storm of swords at the end of the crossroads, Arya and Sandor come across some old enemies and Arya finds an old friend too. Arya hears the hound's last words but cannot bring herself to take his life. Arya sets out on a new adventure. Valar Morghulis.

We open Arya 13 with Outside the inn on a weathered gibbet, a woman's bones were twisting and rattling at every gust of wind. I know this inn. There hadn't been a gibbet outside the door when she had slept here with her sister Sansa, under the watchful eye of Septimordain, though. We don't want to go in, Arya decided suddenly. There might be ghosts.

Does anyone remember that chapter in the Game of Thrones where Jon surprised his young sibling into pretending to be a ghost in the crypts? And feisty Arya kicked him and called him stupid. Who are you going to remember that chapter in the Game of Thrones where Jon surprised his young sibling and pretended to be a ghost in the crypts. And feisty are you, kicked him and called him stupid. Who are you going to call? Interesting now that she has real ghosts and kind of has lived in Harrenhal that those childish games have kind of melted away, huh? Nothing to laugh about now. Now she respects the spirits that lay here.

I love this open because it's staged almost like a spaghetti western, right? They walk into the nearly empty saloon and in there are their mortal enemies and they know there's gonna be a fight and the tension builds, the tension builds until the fight actually happens and then they kill them and take their shit and leave, although one is mortally injured. You know, it reminds me a little of The Quick and the Dead. I watched that recently. Or the opening of 1968's The Great Silence, where, you know, it's characterized by there's all this silence, all this lack of sound, this ghost town,

the gibbets, the people hanging outside, the bones twisting like a sick bone wind chime in the fucking air. Like, just that emptiness, and then all of a sudden characterized with an empty saloon and a shootout against all odds, whoever's quickest on the draw winning. I love that this is then all of a sudden characterized with an empty saloon and a shootout against all odds whoever's quickest on the draw winning I love that this is straight up just a western this chapter oh my gosh

it is it is it fits really well with some of the other stuff you've been talking about in terms of the way that Sandor and Arya's adventures are portrayed and yeah I don't know I too am on an arc you know first of all the watchful eye of Sep septimordain sounds like a lie and that drunk broad i was like was she watching what was she watching

um yeah another example though of like the riverlands is this place where people you know we keep talking about heraclitus and the crossing of the river and you're not the same fucking person it's not the same fucking river aria's here same thing you know another example of someone returning to the same place but they themselves are changed the place is obviously pretty different too clientele is different and she is afraid of ghosts right we we talk about this it comes up a lot at the beginning of Arya's chapters the ghosts of her father this time and also even I mean the ghosts of her father this time and also even i mean the ghosts of her childhood and also i mean these old friends they're ghosts too and we gotta we gotta fucking fuck these ghosts up that's what happens this chapter oh yeah unfinished business so much happens at the end of the crossroads

obviously we have some great essays in the fandom like lady gwynn's essays on the crossroads but so many events happen here, it's such a central location and it's like magnetic that shit hits the fan at the inn at the crossroads. Sandor is thirsty for the wine though, so they head in, fearless of any ghosts because wine conquers all. Arya thinks about escaping but leads the horses to the stable and goes on in after him. I love in this section how George has Sandor tell Arya she can come or go with no skin off my arse. I particularly like the British

radiology and the way you use it. It fits with Sandor's personality particularly when he's being cranky. Obviously not all British people are married to bums or have hairy arses. Yeah, not all of them, just most of them. Oh, okay.

I haven't seen enough. I haven't seen enough. Okay, I haven't seen enough, I guess. No, it's very prickly and conservative, right? I have a woman that I work with, and there's this interesting lack of wanting to connect, right? It's missing that it's no skin off my arse, whatever, if you stay or go, even though obviously he really needs her for money.

But, like, I work with a woman who's very, like, just a little prickly. And you just have to accept that and add, like, plus 10% warmth in your head to understand her. And that's Sandor. He means this affectionately. He really does, I think. Somewhere in there. There's love in it. Yeah.

Yeah, somewhere in there. Somewhere. Well, the men that are inside, we definitely know them. And Sandor definitely know them, and Sandor definitely knows them, and they know Sandor, and worse, Arya knows them too. It's a whole gang, right? Time for someone to say their prayers, I think.

Oh, yeah. Oh. They're going to say grace before they eat, right? Right. I'm a little priest. Well, you can't eat your pudding before you eat your meat. Tickler, Poliver, and Esquire sit, staring long and hard at both Sandor and Arya. They ask Sandor if he's looking for his brother.

The Esquire boy, stupid motherfucking kid, he just keeps running his mouth this whole time. And I'm like, I'd shut your mouth. You're not that big. He pipes up, and he's like, oh, is this the lost puppy Sir Gregor spoke of who piddled in the rushes and ran off? And the tickler like touches his arm. He's like warning him like, I'd settle down there, youngster, before you start running your mouth. The squire obviously either doesn't know Sandor's legacy very well or doesn't care. The squire continues to mock Sandor and Poliver shoves a girl off of his own lap and gets to his feet saying, oh, the boy is just drunk. He can't hold his booze.

That won't save you now. Of course, time getting drunk, huh? In a field with school friends, cheap cider, Bob Marley on a glass there. Different vibe to this, I think. I'm not sure this square is going to suffer that first hangover, though. Yeah. It's also terrible. It reminds

me a little, like, when you put it that way, it's very much like the hazing and dazed and confused but even worse even worse yeah it's sad too like because this is the system right it sucks them up crunches them up they want to be cool like the other big guys that are in command

under Gregor because they think that's what they want and what they're supposed to do but also these guys are terrible people and this kid has no clue what he's actually getting into it's not fun and games it's war it's actually very sad this is like the industrial westerosi complex at work right here yeah and now that you mention it like with the drinking and the hangover i mean it was the same trip right like everything that kind of led to the things happening and like the Micah stuff happens during what Sansa's like first time also getting

drunk as well. I love that, yes. I didn't think of that. I didn't think of that until you were talking about first time getting drunk and like hangovers and shit and I was like, I mean there's an emotional hangover for sure for Arya. There was an emotional hangover for Sansa as well. She got one banger of a hangover out of that.

Oh, I meant today, but yeah, also that. Everyone's getting hangovers. Septimordain's probably fucking... Septimordain knows the secret. If you keep drinking, you don't get a hangover. That's Septimordain's approach. Until you stop and it kills you all at once. She's the Shane McGowan of the series.

Waiting for that day. Yeah, that's a great point. This is where Sansa also had her drinking moment with Joffrey on the Trident right around here outside of Derry at the end of the crossroads. And it's interesting that you have like Arya who is so young still 910 isn't quite it's not that she's not an experience but she knows not to be running her mouth in this situation and she knows to see how it plays out not just as a sign of obedience necessarily but also moreover as a sign of listening and seeing what's there and what's not there with her eyes and ears surreal you know he's very immature

the squire he doesn't yet he hasn't yet understood what it's all about he's there because a he probably has to be was given away by his family to go squire as a sign of loyalty slash you know he just doesn't know he's a kid aria unfortunately has aged very quickly in the last few books that's true yeah interesting so sandor says then he shouldn't drink but the boy starts back in about like the whole puppy thing the tickler twists his ear while the incape scurries back with a flagon of wine and two cups for the table sandor gulps down half of the flagon am i saying this right and tells the innkeep now he can pour for everyone and that he should pick up the coppers it's not likely that he's gonna get paid otherwise today you know like these people they're opening a tab they're never

gonna fucking close that tab poliver claims they'll pay when they finish drinking but sandor says that he'll just tickle the innkeep, it sounds so gross tickle the innkeep for gold afterward, the innkeep decides to go vibe elsewhere and all the while of course Arya is checking out Polyver's many blades including oh, that blade

that blade looks pretty familiar she's getting needle back I'm excited for this needle is such a central element To various stories That moment when John first gave it to her Cemented her as one of my favourites And how good was Maisie re-enacting that in the bad show

When Ned discovers Needle in King's Landing It's also a beautiful moment As he hooks her up with Cereal And I know Chloe has a theory I use that word loosely because for me it's canon About Arya and Lady Stoneheart, and I personally feel if Needle is central to that moment, it just adds so much to the effect

because of moments like this. And honestly, in a logistical standpoint, it would have to be Needle. She's probably going to come back with Needle as her main weapon before she goes north. There's obviously that idea that maybe she can go north and dark

sister may come back maybe she'll be given dark sister at some point as she is kind of the dark sister with the sword skill not unlike the visenya and rainies to aria and sansa even from a logical point like that will be the sword she has will be needle if she does beat up with stoneheart that is what will give the gift i think it kind of gives me it may be a way of driving a wedge between aria and needle as well which opens the possibility for dark sister to different sword yeah not being able to hold that sword i mean think of ned with his sword right all the trauma that lot lay within ice before it was split up and what ice has seen yeah poliver tells them the mountain has been sent for by the queen and tells them joffrey's died murdered by the imp's wife who is by the way sansa we have the line of she killed the king with

a spell and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat and flew out a tower window i love in recent episodes and listen to you guys talk about the history lessons Arya has received. This week, it's current affairs and her black and white worldview still leaves her struggling to understand the meaning behind what's been said. Yeah.

Also, I just realized winged wolf shit, just like Bran. Love it. I'm sorry. I feel like a wolf with bat wings would be really cool. There's this brilliant line in here that also contrasts with Sansa's reaction right after Joffrey dies. You know, she's making her escape and like, she's wondering why is she crying? She doesn't understand why am I crying during this moment and all those like mixed emotions of not feeling the way you'd expect to feel which is what happens with aria right she's thinking like joffrey's dead she knew it ought to make her happy but somehow she still felt empty inside joffrey was dead but if rob was

dead too what did it matter and like first of all i don't expect nine or ten year olds to like have very much introspection i don't expect people like like- I expect people my age too, but like also sometimes they don't, especially not during trying times, right? And Arya is going through a very trying time. And it's just like I think this really brilliant moment in line because it completely passes over Arya, right? She's just too young to reflect on it. She's in a moment also of potential danger with these soldiers that she knows are very dangerous and also Sandor is not helping put them in less of a dangerous situation right now and I think it's just like this really great encapsulation of the way that revenge very much is empty right like again that look at what life

is worth when all the rest is gone but also very much what Ellaria is warning of as well in the next book of like can i bring like the skull back to bed with me no and so are you realizing or feeling in that moment not realizing she's feeling that well joffrey being dead it almost might feel like vengeance or even justice depending but what does it matter in the end when the ones you love are gone, when the ones who give life meaning are gone? But Arya in her youth, she doesn't really see it and she keeps her prayers anyway, but she's probably going to learn. We'll talk about that throughout this episode as well. Oh, yeah. I love that moment with Sansa with the bells going off in the background and her being hystericalical and like am i crying for joffrey why why am i sad for him for this stupid idiot person for herself you know as well yeah crying for

herself some of the crying she's not let herself do especially in those months you know that repression of that trauma and everything horrible which being at court the eyes are on you and aria's head similar right she knows how to draw attention to herself so there's definitely something there and of course i love what you called out with alaria's vengeance here justice versus vengeance in alaria's words going back to sanza as the the wolf with bats again we have that went imagery that is always there symbolically, but not by George narratively, as we've discussed in our house went episode of how God bless him at first. I don't think he knew that he was going to make, you know, the went side of Catalin at all important. And it's all kind of come in kind of nicely here with that imagery, because we have the woman being important to as Arya's want to say.

here with that imagery because we have the woman being important too as Arya's want to say and also likening Sansa to another disappeared woman of a great house right now Shallow Wendt right her relative yeah where has she went where did she ask every time where has she went yeah I think it's also a nice meshing of the sigil here right of bringing the wolf her father's blood together and of course her mother's blood with the wentz together a mash-up of those sigils and interesting with that winged wolf connection like you said we had aria in the last chapter being basically like brand from a clash of kings right a little despondent and wanting to live within her dreams and now we have sanza as the winged wolf as well. Yeah, very Halloween vibes. The hound's mouth twitches also. Sansa's mouth twitching feels like a tail.

Like he's trying to be all nonchalant and I don't give a shit, but he does give a shit. Yeah, yeah. He cares a lot. I mean, he has to give a whole performance here, right? Like you were talking about how Arya couldn't cry earlier and part of that is because she has to try and fit the mold of masculinity especially when she's pretending to be a boy and that's very much what sandor does in this chapter i love that

idea because this is kind of what sandor has always appeared to be and because of what's happened to him in since he's left king's landing or in his at the end of his time in king's landing too now it's become a performance rather than him because it he is changed yeah that's interesting like the whole persona of the hound is a performance as we'll see right and as we've discussed with you can take off the mask or it continues to be and sandor exits yeah at the end of this chapter there's still the presence of of the or not. It continues to be. Sandor exits at the end of this chapter. There's still the presence of the Hound and it continues to be a performance

or it continues to represent something to people. That is what Sandor is. Yeah, symbolically this chapter is like the Hound losing the Hound. Like Sandor losing that name completely and shedding that skin completely even down to the symbolism of his helm being left behind. You know, thrown back in the fire after he's laying there dying and other people taking it and moving it around Westeros from here on and taking that persona.

Like the persona is no longer his. He gets to get rid of it today. We have this line here as well of, uh, she ought to dip him in wildfire and cook him or tickle him till the moon turns black. He raised his wine cup and drained its street away. He's one of them. I love this because it's such a misunderstanding from Arya about Sandor's characterization and who he is as a person, mostly because of maturity, right? It's not the first thought that she has as a nine, 10-year-old to understand why he thinks

this about Sansa, why he would say Sansa should violently murder these men. Good. She should murder, or about Cersei murdering these people violently, et cetera, or Sansa murdering people violently. Aryria doesn't understand what this means or why sandor would be like upset at all about hearing about sansa marrying tyrian and then having to escape in the night yeah her age her maturity but also just the situation's kind of really complex in a way too that sandor is guilty he left her behind he left sansa behind and he left her in the clutches of the imp the imp the dangerous terrible imp which actually of course Sansa is kind of left in Tyrion who's the second best

option there at King's Landing for her right like of all people that are going to be in charge of Sansa at least Tyrion has half a heart question mark slash hates his family question mark at least they're aligned on that minus the whole child bride thing yeah i think the stark girls at first at first glance they seem very different and yet they both have a very strong impact on sandor and bringing out a tender side that we haven't seen before um and he struggles to contain those emotions and that's kind of what i was getting at with regards to the twitch. I know in preparing for this, I read a rather excellent essay written by Chloe. And she made some good points about the effect that Stark girls have on Sandar, such as how he stands as kind of a surrogate parent to both Sansa and Arya

as they deal with the loss of a parent. Sansa dealing with the loss of Ned and Arya now dealing with the loss of catelyn how john taught are you the first basic rule of store play stick them at the pointy end but sandra helps her to understand why where and even how um and having spent time with both girls and sandra and having spent time with sandra both girls lend the benefits of the skills and how to wield them when we left Sansa at the end of her rather excellent coverage, she was using her courtesy and grace to gain agency, recognition and a position of power at the Vale. Arya will use her skills for a benefit too, I think, as we move forward. We'll see as we go through future chapters. No spoilers, folks.

I think there's a mirror in that analysis as well in how Sansa unleashed the true noise in Sandor who holds knighthood in such disdain thanks to his brother and others. There's an element to that play in how he has tried to protect Arya, hitting someone in the back of the head with an axe mightn't seem like trying to protect them but I'm also thinking of his lost sister

here too and how both Stark girls have kind of resonated with him in terms of kind of bringing memories of that so i think everyone should read chloe's essay once they've listened to this episode should listen to read it anyway it's called mercy mercy mercy sansa sandor and aria thanks warren for the plug i uh i i do there's think there's something there too of like the true knight of sandor you you know, how he feels

sorrow for his lost sister and guilt at not being able to do anything about what happened to his sister, whatever it is. And then you see similar with Ned, right? Last week, Eliana and I, we talked for a while about that guilt that Ned feels and how it translates into Arya. Here you see that connection with Sandor and you see why Arya and Sandor's lives, while they don't, from the outside, seem paralleled. She starts to empathize and understand that they're not that different after all. Their kind of walk of life has not been that far.

Their road has kind of showed up at the same castle and been pretty straight and across from one another. It's funny in the story, isn't it, how those who appear at first to be the least like a true knight and ultimately as we read on kind of become the most like a true knight I'm thinking of take your earphones out Jamie now as well

in a similar way Jamie make Brienne do my job for me Lannister oh interesting I didn't know when you made a vow with somebody, it meant that you could have someone else complete the vow and it would work, but okay. It's funny, Brienne makes Jaime do his job, too.

I didn't expect that answer. But actually, Brienne is actually an encapsulation of that. That's what I was going to say. Thank you very much. A true selfless knight remind me again who's Brienne related to the real bravery is just saying shit to piss off Chloe you know that's what I do

I'm so brave every week just coming on here and trolling Chloe not enough booze in the world for what you do to me no yeah Brienne is definitely and the relation to Dunk I think there's a lot of ties there, and we'll come back to that today, actually, because I have a couple

Dunkin' Egg thoughts going on in this as well, because Sandor is also rumored, right, to be one of the many relations. Sandor is small-tall. Yup, I think that's a list, right? George has said once in one of the old pieces from the Citadel, one of the So spake martins

long ago he said that dunk has several relatives in westeros in the modern story and i think most of us have picked that to death but i think the uh cleganes and brianna tarth definitely have an opportunity there hodor obviously yes because of their builds as is uh told to us constantly yeah and our friend Kristen, who I think joined us for the Jamie episodes, was able to get confirmation that Brienne is a descendant of Dunk.

That is correct. Yeah. Which I love her for, but at this point, I don't need that confirmation. We know it in our hearts. In my heart, I know it. This is kind of what I was talking about in the beginning, how George Cunningham, he leaves these opportunities for us to weave our own worlds. Yes. He does give us such a great opportunity for that, doesn't he?

It's been a very long opportunity. I'm still looking under my couch. It has been really long. It has been really long. Poliver goes on to tell them how Sir Mountain took Karen Hall, that they kept a few people, but they just laid off the rest. And by laid off, we mean murdered. No redundancy in Gregor's gang. It's a tight market these days. Oh, God.

The Blackfish is barely keeping Riverrun afloat on his own, and I guess the Freys are planning to hang Edmure if he refuses to give him up, which we will come to in a Feast for Crows someday, right? The Blackwoods and the Brackens are fighting, of course, the Yuge, the Brackens are supporting the Crown, and that's the usual, because those are the usurpers, technically. Got him. And yet the Hound pours himself some more wine, you know, gotta be able to live in this world he's in, and stares at the Heth fire as they talk some more about Sansa. The little bird flew away, did she? Well, bloody good for her.

She shit on the imp's head and flew off. Don't point her, said Bolivar, if it takes half the gold in Casterly Rock. A pretty girl, I hear. Honey sweet. He smacked his lips and smiled. The hound agreed. A proper little lady, not like her bloody sister.

They found her too, said Polliver. The sisters. She's her boat and bastard, I hear. Arya sipped her wine so they couldn't see her mouth. She couldn't understand what Polliver was talking about. Sansa had no other sister. Sandor Clegane laughed aloud.

What's so bloody funny? Asked Polliver. The hound never flicked an eye at Arya. If I'd wanted you to know, I'd have told you. Fucking classic. What a fucking great man, right love sandor he's cracking up he's like they think they have aria i have the real aria right here bitch uh funniest shit in

the world no it kills me he he slays me slays himself you know slays the world we love the hound we love sandor and i love right here there's something great here is that like right here he is pounding the wine from his guilt about sanza so hard like the second they bring her up he's like better drink more and it starts right here drinking pouring more wine and you can even tell from his dialogue right that he's focusing on that part of it on sanza and everything about he steered the conversation back to sanza they left the conversation about sanzaered the conversation back to Sansa. They left the conversation about Sansa, and he comes back to it, and he's repeating himself, and he just goes,

good for her, huh? Shit on the imp's head and flew off. Good for her. Good for her. And also, the tickler here calling her pretty sets him off. This is kind of what starts the fight. That's true. I also think, like like you were talking earlier

about how aria misunderstood sandra's intentions and saying some of those things part of it is again like he's saying like this terrible shit because he's doing the performance of masculinity right which is fucked up with that this is what we expect of people that in this society especially and to an extent in real world ones too and as um uh noah's essay pointed out the the tie between masculinity and violence and westeros and that performing it means encouraging that and like aria learning later on to do information gathering sandor is doing a fantastic job of like pulling information of like, what are what is the news right now in King's Landing? What is it that we actually want to know?

Yeah, they didn't know about this. They had no clue about the stuff that's happened with Sansa. They've been that out of the loop. And it is all about the performance for him, like wearing the cobble, wearing the mask, wearing the helm. He has to be the hound here. He like they know that something's off he was last rumored to have run so everyone's wondering who his allegiance is to and because aria is kind of in disguise no one realizes his allegiance is to aria stark and himself right now his allegiance is to no one

i think no one no one i i think there's something interesting there in him and it's just an off-the-cuff thought i'm having is is sandor the ultimate broken man and in that this whole thing this whole thing everything that we're seeing right here is a performance because he's not that anymore i think even in previous chapters when he talked about i can go to um river run i can serve for rob and you know underneath it all you know can't, he can't, he can't go back to that. That net's gone. That's true, yeah. He's looking to get out of the business he's been in.

He's looking to quit the mob. He's looking to legitimize himself, which is going to come up later on. There's a lot going on of legitimization of being the Hound versus being Sandor Clegane and what that means on the road for him, and I do think that's important. And I mean, let's face it. I want to say yes, he is the broken man in the story. He is what the broken man speech is literally pretty much about.

Yeah, I mean, yes, it's about all of the men, but he encapsulates all of them right with his persona. I mean, the elder brother is talking about him. The elder brother is talking about him the elder brother is talking about him marabald is talking about him almost literally him in most of the conversation right especially when we get to the quiet isle love it yeah definitely brienne is chasing his helm yes yes oh fun we've had like a lot of uh i guess focus on that helm too last chapter mostly how well it holds water. Or wine. Literally. Well, now it's going to hold wine. In a literal way. Yeah.

Yeah. So as Sandor also like pulls that information out, right? Part of it, which is something that Arya will learn to do, perform a role, perform what people expect you to do. And then they'll tell you what they think, like you need to know or like whatever, you know, tell them what they think like you need to know or like whatever you know tell them what they want to hear and she fails to realize that this news and sansa's sister that they're talking about that she's like oh that's me they're talking about me but wait but i'm here so someone's pretending to be me and i'm just like someone tell your kids about identity theft it's important

people might use their information to open credit cards in their name like that could fucking happen i'm being very serious and also so this is somewhere that i think we're going to see a lot of growth for aria especially as she learns about using information more and also i'm coming off the high of watching dune part two last night but like the rumors abouta, whether or not she cast a spell, the rumors are the spell, right? And the rumors about Rob being the young wolf, those are the spell too. And this stuff about fake Arya slash Jane as Arya, that's a spell as well, right? Like the whole thing is double edged.

as well right like the whole thing is double-edged it makes them all seem dangerous but also the kind of people that you may or may not want to follow when it comes to sansa or when it comes to to rob as well and aria while like her time at the house of black and white and in the riverlands in terms of like what we already have in the published material especially with the house of black and white like and her time with the tickler shows aria the importance of espionage and the importance of gathering like true intel but she doesn't understand yet and she'll need to learn if she does like do this master of whispers role or like anything similar to that the importance of disinformation this is something that the boltons are very good about um and how selling a narrative or propaganda can be a means for power a way to get what you want as it is for the boltons right

and how they rule via fear like me on the podcast yes ruling through fear yes that's why it's very brave me every week coming on here and being like what can i do to rile me up yeah no i love this especially because i feel you can really see those roots of a feast for crows going on right and the three secrets that she's gonna have to learn and bring back uh george is doing a really great job of surrounding her with some of these plot pieces that are gonna move her forward at the house of black and white yes yes imagine what aria could do if social media existed oh my god keep those girls off tiktok sandor asks if there are ships at salt pans and the tickler and polyver agree they'd prefer that sandor return with them either to harrenhal or to king's landing instead i love this like dynamic

that shifts right here right up until now Sandor has kind of been like I'm the big bad hound I'm the dog I'm the beast I'm the fucking hidden beast and you have to do what I say Arya Stark but this almost delegitimizes him right hearing all these rumors about his character and who the hound is the puppy and delegitimizes his cause and almost tells Arya like why am I afraid of this man? From what they're saying, he's lost his belly for fighting, just like last chapter. And he starts to become more human and less of a monomythic character of the hound who's evil with his sword and his burnt face. He starts becoming real.

And his gruff and collected demeanor in the mask, right? That mask starts to slip. He is the younger, smaller freak brother of House Clegane. He goes from being a captor with power to looking weak and small in front of Arya, who has felt so helpless for these last several chapters for that same reason, right? The same reason she's slipping into her wolf skin every day is because she feels weak. She feels powerless. She doesn't feel like a big monomythic character that can go fuck shit up and it's weird it was reminding me a lot of dog day afternoon

ironically it has nothing to do with this and warren you might have seen this movie i don't think eliana you've seen it i've never seen any movie i know that's kind of what i assume but i don't want to seem rude in front of everybody um Except you, too. So, show and tell. Yeah. Show and tell. Warren, you've seen it then. This is Al Pacino basically plays an amateur bank robber in this movie. Full disclosure, hot as shit would sell ovaries for him.

Like, I don't know what I'd do for that man, but he's so hot. Al Pacino, young Al Pacino, fuck. It's just like the personality. It's not even the looks. He looks so sad like a puppy like a dog day afternoon anyways that has nothing to do with this but also maybe does like psychologically within we don't have time to explore that about sandor and al pacino right now um so dog day afternoon he's a bank robber who tries to pull off his very first heist but he's

a total amateur and it gets fucked up early on with people bailing on him. And it goes completely awry. Like it's not funny, but it is a comedy of errors of like every single thing he does. Like by the end, he has no hostages. He has none of the goods, none of the money. The FBI gets him, you know, like very messy. But my point is that both characters go into this with that false sense of legitimacy and where they have to pretend that they're someone they're not. And Sandra's like, yes, I can be a kidnapper. I can be a ransomer. I'm a bad bitch. And Sonny Wartzig in this movie is like, yes, I can be a bad bitch.

I'm a bank robber. I have money. And they both get delegitimized throughout the entire event in front of our eyes. Yeah, I get that. I love that. As somebody who's seen dog day afternoon yeah i get you there's a lot of shadow boxing going on here as well kind of creating attention as we're building up to the inevitable violence that we know is going to come yeah especially

because he's like you get the you get the classic sandor line he's like bugger that bugger him bugger you you know he's pissed now he's drunk he's pissed he's sloppy he's ready we're ready for the violence yeah bugger is just polite george way of saying fuck yep another little kind of british very british grumpy slang oh yeah okay word yeah yeah a britump. Yeah, I noticed actually even when I was typing in our notes, I tried to write axe as it's written in the books A-X-E, which is also how I think about it in the Google Docs. I was like, what if you wrote axe, just A-X, because that's the American spelling. And I was like, okay. I don't even know if I realized that.

Wow. It happened to me. I was like, why would you tell me it was spelled wrong? Yeah. I was like, excuse me. I know that the spelling's right. Anyways, everything happens all at once, right? They all draw their swords, and Sandor knocks Poliver's cut aside just in time, and Arya steps backward out of the way.

Dodge, dodge. The squire boy is fumbling for his sword hilt, and Arya smashes her wine cup in his face. She's like, my aim is better she's very excited about this and flings the second one at the tickler but she misses rip um not that much better i guess she's all out of things to throw now except for a dagger and she's like i can do it i can do it just like the tickler and she throws it but it barely even hits her knife thrown skills are less impressive than her archery. Does the show misrepresent this?

And give the impression that she's good with a bow? I'm not sure. But her area is no Artemis. Yeah. They do give the impression she's good with a bow. I don't even know. Do we ever see her throw knives in the show? I don't remember.

Honestly, the fact that she's ever thrown a knife at all in the books, by virtue of that makes her automatically better at that than a bow and arrow because she's just never done it it is weird though because we've yeah we're definitely noticing like every chapter there's a line about her being like how she could be good with a bow how she could be good the bow and it's starting to get really prominent on this reread to me i'm like hmm when when will she get good with a bow she needs to start practicing soon literally when um it might just be a lost gardened bit you know i picked up on her particularly in the chapters with angoy she was kind of hanging off man she was really kind of

oh this is cool i want to do this yeah i don't know when she would learn it makes me wonder like did he want her to have sort of like a sniper kind of role thing too I don't know like yeah I get that like some kind of ninja I feel like he's still deciding yeah I think he was really probably still deciding at this point too how things were going to go because we know he has so much

material that he's joked he can make a novella in Braavos of just Arya so that's kind of implying he's going to cut a lot of stuff in Braavos from Aryoked he can make a novella in bravos of just aria so that's kind of implying he's going to cut a lot of stuff in bravos from aria read that novella um so i know right i know warren's first in line for it he's like i'll take it george i'll take it but i also think like and maybe this is show rot seeping in but i do wonder you know Theon obviously gets really the bow and arrow kind of like weaponry that's his equipped weapon of choice and as the show progresses in the end of the show he ends up really good with it but it almost feels like you know like when she's sparring at Winterfell

with Brienne in the show those are things that I could see happening of sparring with people at Winterfell and learning different skills in the long night or for the long night so maybe we will see it eventually yeah it's interesting because also like now that you've brought up theon theon is like pretty good right like i mean amazing aim what what confidence i guess to be like yeah i'm gonna do it the little boys right there i'm gonna fucking do it um could be called arrogance too yeah no uh confidence derogatory um but i'm kind of wondering like in this like crazy fantasy that i have just now this is not gonna happen probably but like if we had more time like would it have made sense for theon to be the one who'd be to teach aria and be like i can't fucking shoot a bow and arrow that well anymore because my fingers are gone being like do this

yeah that would have been like really interesting if theon was her archery mentor it also seems like one of those situations that people have to learn not a i want to learn like at the wall most people will have to learn because ranged weaponry is going to be really important probably at winterfell during the long night. I was about to be like, what we need to do is we need to put Arya in District 12 and kill her dead. And then I was like, we've already done that. We're already there.

Yeah, we're past that. We're already there. She's just gotta learn to hunt, you know? Well, hopefully she can take a break eventually. You know, maybe somewhere around Tiwau or a Dream of Spring. Maybe like a summer off. You you know she's had a hard life already are you thinking or is there a helicopter no i'm just thinking about like is there even like an opportunity would she learned it in a practical sense like we're for her hunting not like learning it in a martial sense and i just

i don't know where does it go maybe when she comes back to the river lands and has to kill her mom and she's stuck out there with no food and she's all on her own and she like hunts instead that could happen yeah like who knows even brienne wouldn't be able to teach her i think like i don't think brienne knows how to either maybe no she's definitely more hand to hand and sword yeah i don't see jamie being one to do it, but he technically has the capability. I think ultimately she just wants to learn how to be martially better. If you know what I mean. She's just fascinated with that.

Her prowess. I understand this as a person too. Increase her prowess. It's like, I'm going to learn this new thing. Well, also a kid. She's like me. I mean, Aria is an ADHD child like me. How many hobbies can you have that you're ever going to learn? Ask Chloe when well also a kid she's like me i mean aria is an adhd child like me how many hobbies can you have that you're ever gonna learn ask chloe when she was a kid i did gymnastics i

did ballet i did jazz i did tap i did i wanted to do horseback riding and my mom was like nope that is too expensive for you to quit i wanted to do girl scouts wasn't allowed that's a different story we're not getting into today i wanted to do everything iouts, wasn't allowed. That's a different story we're not getting into today. I wanted to do everything. I was very, like, all over the place. My parents put me in Girl Scouts, and then they, like, taught us some O-thing, and I told them at five years old, I was like, I can't live up to all these values, and then I quit. I was like, you can't expect me to be this. Yeah. I'll tell you guys after the episode what my mother said.

It's a, it's a, it's a riot. Eliana will really go, what the fuck? So, in-universe, Arya has forgotten about the squire during the fight, and he comes up behind her, stopping her from doing more damage while Sandor is fighting the other men. Sandor's cuts in battle are sloppy. His feet are slow and clumsy. He's too drunk.

He didn't even eat. He has no food in his belly rookie mistake amateur yeah after some egging on from the men sandor ends up killing polyver but the next kill isn't sandor's it's aria's yes we have this uh great moment here where aria's like oh god what are we gonna do he's drunk and she's repeating the fear cuts deeper than swords fear cuts deeper than swords to herself to calm herself and then later on it during the middle of the fight the particular i don't know jumps over something she like describes the movement as quick as a snake so i love that like we keep subtly weaving in like sirio's lessons throughout that and like how aria observes other

people doing things and unfortunately though like sirio taught her to see what's there and to analyze the moment but again not to parse out and analyze the information that she gets to be like that's true that's not and also again coming off my dune part too high um i'm realizing now that like i've been really underestimating what it means when aria keeps repeating the fear cuts deeper than swords thing and i'm wondering if she's going to learn to wield fear based on lessons from the tickler but not like the tickler did maybe in a more subtle way you know as a weapon later on with some of this disinformation and shit too like and as a more effective a more effective weapon than having to use her sword or using any like really physical one so i'm like where is aria's story gonna go and you know what is scary you know i think about like how all the

people in the little cart were all afraid of jonkin they're like and you're like what did he do right like is she gonna do something with that to like be like taking people's faces and shit that'll like scare people too i don't know i'd be scared i mean again some of your dune two thoughts and then also like dune messiah dune god emperor and children of dune i know you're not but so i won't spoil for everyone but these books have been out for a while i've owned i've owned those books for a while and just not read dune like messiah or children of dune i've owned them for like like, I don't know, 13 years. Anyways, Arya is very

much, like, Abomination, Dark Sister, Begone From Here, Darkheart, right? Very Alia Atreides-coded for those that have continued on in the series to Messiah or Children or God Emperor. For those that have found the way.

I'm getting there! Aliana has not found the way to her bookshelf um but yeah like that she's very much that coded like the spreading of that idea of like disinformation and using rumors to make maybe her cousin and her sister have a different regime or her brother have a stronger regime you know to strengthen and build dread in others of their legacy i mean you think of rob right as as how he was kind of propagated and how he was you know the young wolf and warged and ate his enemies and tore through them as a wolf and i'm sure that the young white wolf and Sansa might even need some of that propaganda as well for the Long Night. That's true.

I also really want to call out this line where she gets made fun of. He's like, are you the puppy's puppy? And first of all, she's not his kid. Second of all, it makes me think of, in Neopets, a pet pet. So, are you the pet pet? I really appreciated that. I very much appreciated that. I hope you understand that, like, I was like,

Warren probably won't get this reference, but I will. Warren, I will explain to you. So once upon a time in the aughts, there was this website called Neopets. It still exists. Yeah, that's true. I did try to log into my old account, and I don't know how to. And you go, you make your fun neopet and you go around the world you earn fucking money through games for it or you go to the giant jelly with

omelette you feed your neopet but sometimes you can get a pet for your neopet and that is called a pet pet and they are small and round and cute are they they like Tamagotchis? No. Sure, yeah, kind of. Oh, wait, the Neopet itself is, but not the Pet Pet. It's like a Tamagotchi, but you go online to play with it. It's not a physical with you, but yeah, similar. Yeah, the whole entire idea is based on, like, you have a Neopet, and it was an E-pet that you could feed, but they don't actually die, so there's really no point in feeding it.

You could fight them against each other. I'm old, so I'm a child of the 80s. I didn't experience this. It's a browser Pokemon. Even before that. I recall seeing stuff on American TV, because it's not something we've experienced here, of people being sent home with a bag of flour

to practice being parents. With the bag of flour. So they had to feed the bag of flour. Oh, we've seen that on TV. That's an old school. That's many times a trope. Sometimes it's an egg. That was their new one.

Oh, that's very literal. Yes, if you smash the egg, well, you really fucked up because you smashed the baby, and now you should never have them, because they like giving stigmatisms even then to kids, you know? I didn't have to do this. you have to do that i didn't know okay no but i've obviously i've seen it on american tv yeah yep i've seen it on tv i've seen a lot of we're very strict catholic ireland so we didn't have babies

till we're 72 or something maybe do you think it even really used to happen i might be making it up but i swear my mom talked about having to do it okay but it could be made up the tickler backed away aria could smell his fear the short sword in his hand suddenly seemed almost a toy against the long blade the hound was holding and he wasn't armored either he moved swiftly light on his feet never taking his eyes off Sandor Clegane. It was the easiest thing in the world for Arya to step up behind him and stab him. Is there gold hidden in the village? She shouted as she drove the blade up through his back. Is there silver? Gems? She stabbed twice more. Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?

She was on top of him by then, still stubborn. Where did he go? How many men were with him? How many knights? How many foemen? How many? How many? How many? How many? How many? How many? Is there gold in the village? Her hands were red and sticky when Sandor dragged her off him. Enough was all he said. Bravo, bravo. Bravo. Thank you, Egon.

From our soon-to-be bravosie. I love how Arya repeats the tickler's mantra, as later she has Raff repeat his lines. Ooh, yes, yes. Very much lines, performance. Mm-hmm. Things like that. You know your lines, and I know mine. That's going to be...

Spoiler. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Asterisk. I've often argued in the past that Arya's quest is more about Northern justice than vengeance, but this passage really proves me wrong. It's interesting, though, the Northern interpretation of justice is it's not necessarily a retributive justice, like an eye for an eye, but it still maintains a focus on integrity and on retribution.

What's also interesting when you think of House Stark. And particularly Ned's preoccupation with justice. And his personally delivering it. Is that justice is after all. Just ice. Whoa. Realize. Realize.

I actually don't know if I knew that. Before. About just ice. Nice. Great catch. And yeah, I mean, at the very least, it sounds like she could look at oh, I guess it was a backstab. Never mind. She could look him in the eye and kill him.

That was a backstab. Someone who's backstabbed in video games many times. It wasn't about that this time. Yeah, I mean it was personal. The tickler was a bad guy. yeah it was guttural it was a relief it really was and like it makes sense you look at it in the context of everything that ari has been through it's such an emotionally charged scene like this is all of like you know

is it good for kids to be doing this no but this is a story and like it's it's a great encapsulation of everything that she's been through the pent-upness like coming out and you really start to see the damage that it's taken on this little girl's psyche i also love this uh one line in there of like the tickler back to a aria could smell his fear and i'm like oh there's a that's a wolfish language because you know they're always like animals can smell your fear so there it is oh yeah makes you wonder if for a moment she was in a different mindset or if a different mindset was in her so to speak when it comes to the warging you know we talked about with bran pretty often of is it you warging constantly or sometimes does the wolf

warg back? Yeah. I think that's interesting because am I correct in saying that George said Arya may well be the strongest warg in the Stark family and have the strongest connection? Yeah, because she slips into it so quickly in and out throughout all of these dreams and as Ara kind of pointed out when she came on with us too

I think that probably made us really sit up straight and listen a little more. Yeah. The cats and stuff as well and we'll see that in future chapters too as well as in previous ones it just seems very simple for her brand too but it was a little bit brand had to work a little bit well and his was more obvious right jojen straight up told him like by the way you're powerful that's why you're seeing this shit and then he gets to be taken to a magical mentor who tells him straight like listen i'm training you to be the next why you're seeing this shit. And then he gets to be taken to a magical mentor who tells him straight, like, listen, I'm training you to be the next me. You're going to see some shit where Arya is like smoke and mirrors.

The only people she's with are all like, here's a riddle three of how you're going to learn this shit. And then she's in Braavos blind looking out through cats. Not quite the same trajectory as Bran's story kind of got of that reveal. She's kind of had to figure it out on her own with some mentors that are pushing her towards it, but not actively. And I think in that last chapter there was kind of that revelatory moment

where she dreamed of Nymeria pulling Catelyn from the river. And when she woke up, she knew. Each dream is getting closer and closer to her having that revelation. I mean, she pretty much kind of knows by the time we get to the cat thing, she's like, oh, this is real. That's what it is.

I don't really have anything major to say about this. I just feel that I need to waste breath and air and space and reiterate how good this passage is. Like, nothing. Like, again, no. Nine, ten year olds should not be having to stab men that tortured people

at a camp, a prisoner of war camp that the nine, ten yearyear-olds should not be having to stab men that tortured people at a camp, a prisoner of war camp that the nine, ten-year-old was being held at. I'm not promoting any of this, but I do want to clarify and say, is there silver? Gems? Is there food? Where is Lord Beric? How many? That is like, there's nothing cool in this passage. The how many and just how she gets lost into it and the blood on her hands after and that

skip that like afterwards her hands are bloody and the hounds like i think you did it girl i think you're good you know like you got you got it soldier it's awful it's terrible it's dark for her plot and it's amazing it feels so good to stab him that sandor lets her keep going for a bit he's like i think she needed this but anyway yeah she's an angry little girl i've never stabbed anyone or anything in my life but i really felt that um even in that chapter that that that that release the violence that it almost you could almost hear it with every it's the gold it's the gold you could feel it yeah you can feel the release too stabbing is just like a different motion too because i'm like have i even stabbed anything like and i mean like in terms of like you know sometimes when you're

cooking you'll cut things i'm like that's just such a different feeling and motion the most i've ever done is like you know you smash things like you take your rolling pin and you gotta smash the thing but like you're quite the smasher eliana if i recall correctly yeah or that bar that we all went to yeah in new york where we got to smash the glasses you guys that was bar that we all went to. Yeah, in New York where we got to smash the glasses, you guys. That was fun. Yeah, we all went to a bar in New York and it was awesome. And we got to actually literally smash our glass after in a safety room with glasses and shit. Amazing. Yeah, that's what Arya really needs.

Well, and that's the thing. Mr. Gold. I am a sucker for a sitcom trope where there's like an accidental stabbing. Also, a lot of shows I'm realizing I watch have a lot of like heroines, like The Bear or You're the Worst. There's a scene where you're the worst. If you guys haven't finished it or watched it, I highly recommend it. In the US, it's on Hulu.

It's an FX show. It's one of the best sitcoms in the world. It's dark. It's funny. It's dry. It's about people that suck. So it's really funny automatically. But somebody like straight up stabs her husband because she hates him. And like, it's an accident that suck so it's really funny automatically but somebody like straight up stabs

her husband because she hates him and like it's an accident asterisk but like is it is the whole and she's like she can't even believe she did it and it goes back to like the scottish play right out damn spot this is very out damn spot this is very like blood on your hands like just killing and then afterwards realizing what have i done it's very bad for aria very bad for the psyche but very good for me at home reading so who really you know wins here me i win i win too tywin are you no gross ty fail ty fail i think it's nine years since Tywin took that bolt. I came up

on my Facebook memories. Tywin sitting on the toilet. Fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. Arya reminds him that the squire's still alive, by the way. The squire's trying to stop the bleeding coming from his stomach with his hands, and Sandor yanks him up. The boy blubbers like

a baby and cries for mercy saying, mother have mercy. And Sandor says, do I look like your bloody mother? Love it. The team of mercy in Arya's arc only grows. And of course, in the Winds of Winter chapter,

she adopts the persona of mercy. The very first song of voice and for a podcast I listened to was Radio Westeros mercy. So I do have a brand. Yeah, you do. You do. Yes, absolutely. It does.

I mean, it just keeps ramping up. It starts like this chapter. We're going to see it more in Feast as well. I don't know, Sandor, you don't know what this boy's mother looks like. But I guess it's interesting that he asked that because, I don't know, Sandor is kind of aria's mom in some ways right now he's like i do not need another child to bring with me that's bleeding out to take care of i don't have room in my emotional dance card to deal with you two is really what it comes to because then he like uses this as a fucked up lesson right he tells aria he'll be a while dying and the squire's crying and he's like it was only for the girls mercy sir I only came here for the girls and the hound smacks him across the face and is

like don't call me sir before he finally tells Arya better do it I think Sandor repeatedly using the phrase don't call me sir it makes me think of all the times Arya says or thinks I'm not a boy the different personas she slips into and out of and the overarching team of identity um in her arc and when will a reflection show who she really is oh pandering look at me i am not sandor's kid. I'm just a girl. Looking for my mother. She is dead. I dragged her body from the river.

Yeah, this one, we'll work on it, you know, for the sequel. For the musical. If we get hired for the sequel to Robert Rebellion musical. You mean a song of Ice and Fire? Obviously, we're big fans of Laeus Longa in this house who sang Reflection. And the last time we went to see her, she sang the song she did to audition for Mulan. And at that time, it was being written by, the music was being written by Stephen Schwartz, who went on to write Wicked.

I think they changed her role in Reflection in in the end but the song that she auditioned she got a tape over Manila, big story about it no internet, she had to get the tape record the tape, send it back, the whole ritual but the song was called you can look it up on YouTube and you'll find it it's called Heart of Stone which kind of, there's a circle there

there is there is my heart of stone we're getting ready to leave the inn and Cinder goes he turned back to Arya this one is yours she-wolf you do it she knew what he meant

that's the actual line that's not just me saying she knew what he meant I know and I love that I realize I said that in a tone that no one knew um so aria goes to polyver undoing his sword belt to remove the slim blade and i love the way that it works right they talk about her removing the blade and finally like the next line goes needle blah blah blah it doesn't tell you that it's it just like goes with needle stuck blah blah blah anyways um i didn't pull the line in here clearly

she slips it into the squire's ribs and sandor says they should abandon shop and go out to salt pans he tells her to take whatever wine and coin she can get from the inn and that they could go to the veil via salt pans maybe sell her to her aunt liza i'm literally screaming every time i read this passage it It's Needle. It's Needle and we all know who significant Needle is in Arya's arc. How it's always drawn back to her. The next time Arya retrieves Needle

we get one of the most beautiful passages in the series but there's lots to happen between now and then. See I'm surprised you didn't choose that chapter. It was close. I don't know if I could have handled it mostly in that passage. I don't know if I could have handled that in his top five yeah i don't know if i could have had a lot of passages yeah crooked stitches that was just too early yeah he directly laughs that maybe liza will marry aria to robert but then starts to

groan in pain uh man you're too late guys you're just a little too late on all of this literally by the time you get there she's dead she's already tried to marry, guys. You're just a little too late on all of this. Literally, by the time you get there, she's dead. She's already tried to marry him to Sansa. Like, just a little late. This is Arya's story all the time, isn't it? Just a little late. No, it's just a little too late. Oh, my God.

That's a jam. Hey, Jojo. This musical's coming together nicely, folks. I know, right? Sandor needs Arya's help to get back on Stranger. Oh, that's bad. They would have let him. Anyways, you'll say this. They made tourniquets for his thigh and ear. You can make a tourniquet for an ear out of the squire's cloak. I don't know. I have a lot of scars and I hate them. And every time I get other scars that are like not my fault or something happens, like an injury, I get so mad.

So I'm like, I don't deserve this. And Sandor probably feels that way, right? Like he's like, I'm already fucking ugly. Leave me alone. You're beautiful to me, Sandor. Oh, it's like with Tyrion's storyline. He's like, God damn it, my nose. Yeah, that's again, another character I love.

Honestly. Okay, anyways. Similar, similarities, similarities. yeah that's again another character i love honestly okay anyways similar similarities similarities there are a lot of similarities between tyrian and sandor there's a line that aria was afraid he'd collapse the moment they set out but somehow he stayed in the saddle and it brings me back to daenerys and drogo right no rider at all if you fall from your horse and kind of some of what you were saying eliana about those standards in westeros and that toxic masculinity that performative masculinity performing the role of being a knight being a warrior being a beast like they just left this in barely with their lives obviously for sandor uh they're lucky to be alive after having killed those guys and now they have to get on the run and somehow keep up the charade

and somehow live i love that as well because sometimes i think of quake and her prophecies to danny when i think about aria and she just wants to go home but she has to go here she has to go there she has to go everywhere but home yeah this is a great time to parallel that too with danny having just decided she's staying in marine and aria at the end of this chapter deciding to go to braavos, right? They don't necessarily want to stay in these places. They want to go home, but they can't. And they know that they need to follow the next thread of their adventure, quote unquote.

And also, how else are we going to get all the world building if these characters don't do these things? Exactly. It's for the plot. It's for me. So they ride on off roads through fields, woods, marshes until they meet the Trident and camp for the plot it's for me so they ride on off roads through fields woods marshes until they meet the trident and camp for the night aria brings him the wineskin cutting strips from the squire's cloak and piling it into his helm and sandor commands her to find a clean stick while he boils the wine in his helm there's something interesting about the helm and the way it's traveled through the plot right where it goes from being part of that mask, part of that charade, part of him performing his role of the hound.

Not Sandor, not vulnerability, but of the hound, the warrior. And now here, as he's failing, his body is failing him. He's starting to falter a little bit. His war helm is also being reduced to a device to boil wine in a device to put water in which at first look like it makes him look less strong it makes him look weak like not like the warrior he once was but also with that vulnerability it comes back to the idea of water or wine nourishing you cleansing you right like being used for health purposes like ice against fire being used to preserve his helm looks useless but actually Like, being used for health purposes, like ice against fire, being used to preserve.

His helm looks useless, but actually it's being used to possibly save his life here, because had Arya not done this, he probably would have died a lot sooner before he could have been saved-saved. Also, Arya has not gotten very much first aid training, so... This is good for her!

No, it is! This is great for her. This legitimately is. He has her pour the wine into his wounds burning her fingers as she goes and the gash in his thigh too peter clamps the stick i know i was thinking that i was so hungry games about that um sandra clamps the stick in his mouth to keep from screaming as they go eventually he breaks it they need a new stick by the time they finish okay guys so i need you all to know what this made me think of. So I don't know if you've all experienced this. Dogs, sometimes they'll find the stick or let's say you're playing fetch with them.

Then they fetch the stick that you threw and then they're so happy to like find the stick or when they catch it and they come back and they're like, and then they break the stick because they keep chomping because they're just so excited. And then they're so proud of both finding the stick and breaking it and they're like that was so enjoyable and it's like sometimes you want to be a little bit annoyed because maybe you found the perfect stick for playing fetch right and now how are you going to find such a good stick again but also they're just so pleased you know you can't be that mad and that has nothing to do with the scene but that's what it made me think of dogs doing that people are like why why is this here this is a heavy did you see my face the moment you started doing that too i was like oh

no here she goes um you have to understand like she's the dog whisperer seriously eliana is when she sees a dog a dog sees her back you know she looks into the abyss of dogs they look back every time I have to tell you from having walked down a street with her like if there's a dog there's nothing but Eliana and the dog in the world now and you just have to respect that I'll never forget when I visited you once at a place you used to live and there was one dog that you just fell in love with on the sidewalk and i just watched you two fall in love and it was such a beautiful moment it's uh yeah jennifer love hewitt did that show the animal whisperer but it should have been eliana with dogs in my opinion i think i even know what that show is that's on you that's not my problem uh you should it's not great maybe it was ghost whisperer

am i making this up i don't know hold on hold on it's ghost whisperer but i in my head it's about animals apparently talk to ghosts or did you talk to animals chloe maybe there's a ghost i feel like there was a crossover episode leave me alone the ghosts and the animals misinformation the ghost is in the animal and they're making pottery um i'm just spreading misinformation for fun. That's the fear. That's the fear aspect. I'm spreading dread.

This is so Dune Part 2 coded. So, no spoilers for Warren. He's not coming until Wednesday, everyone. You've read it, though. I don't have to tell you. You know what happens. I told you. I was like, he's read them. He knows. So, Arya trickles the hot, horrible wine

over the place where Sandor's ear used to be. Ugh. Ugh. He screams and he passes out. Arya figures the rest out. She binds the cuts with strips of cloak and wraps half his head to stop the bleeding. You get a real sense of Sandor's physical

pain and suffering from how George writes this who would have imagined that aria stark would be your west rosie florence nightingale yeah she has great bedside manner better than sandor's probably she just quietly does her job you know yeah that night she prays sir gregor the mountain dunstan raft the sweetling, Sir Illyn, Sir Merrin, Queen Cersei. It made her feel queer to leave out Polliver and the Tickler. And Joffrey too. She was glad he was dead, but she wished she could have been there to see him die,

or maybe kill him herself. Polliver said Sansa killed him and the Imp. Could that be true? The Imp was a Lannister, and Sansa... I wish I could change into a wolf and grow wings and fly away. If Sansa was gone too, there were no more Starks but her. Jon was on the wall a thousand leagues away, but he was a snow. And these different aunts and uncles the Hound wanted to sell her to?

They weren't Starks either. They weren't wolves. Sandor moaned, and she rolled onto her side to look at him. She had left his name out too, she realized. Why had she done that? She tried to think of Micah, but it was hard to remember what he'd even looked like. She hadn't known him long. All he ever did was play at swords with me. The hound, she whispered, and Valar Margulis. Maybe he'd be dead by morning. Well, the hound will be. Girl, you're right at that whoa the hound is

dead wow sandra clugane is at rest duh she did that her power aria's prayer has become her mantra as she lists her perceived enemies as a way of remembering those of around her her fam and her family it's fueled by anger and a sense of being wrong but I think her psyche might be better served if she used the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I think as we come to the end of as we say goodbye to Sandor it might be a good place to talk about Cú Chulainn, the Celtic hero and how he got his name. It's the story of a boy named Satanta. He was more skilled than all the other boys. Young Satanta dreamed of being part of Ulster's equivalent to the Kingsguard. But all the other boys were jealous of his skills.

Eventually he wins them over and they begin to admire him. A gang head off for a feast but Satanta stays playing, saying he will follow. When he turns up for the feast late, the gates are closed and Cullen, the host, has his hound patrolling. Satanta has been forgotten. The hound attacks but Satanta kills him by striking his ball at him. Overcome with grief he offers to serve as Cullen's hound taking the name to cullen hound of cullen until another can be found earning himself the moniker the hound of ulster i think the emphasis in this legend is on loyalty a characteristic that sandor most assuredly possesses even if his loyalties in the past may have been questioned

questionable or misguided but it's also a trait that's very evident with aria true she is she is very loyal and i think something that you're seeing like and and you also mentioned this um referencing like a previous chapter of like sandor wants to be loyal to something right like that's part of what he was what was so enticing about selling aria back to rob and and catelyn it wasn't just like the money it was like wow what if i could be loyal to these people like something to believe in and and like there's also it something that you said earlier about the mantra and like letting the perceived enemies help her remember the people of wrong turn in her family i thought that was really interesting too because it made me think

of like because aria is so young and doesn't have a a strong sense of self or identity yet like psychologically it's just not something that um develops in people until later on because our brains only develop so much by ages nine and ten she's defining herself by these other people and not through actually her sense of self and her wants and things she's defining who she is in contrast and indifference to them i get that i think there's an awful lot there's an awful lot of stories in the celtic mythology Chulainn and there's an awful lot you can draw from in relation to both Sandor and Arya. I think this one has kind of got the most direct obvious links. There's other stories to do with the death of Cú Chulainn and there are also other stories the brown bullet truly and anyone who's interested in the Celtic mythologies I'd

highly recommend of Gods and Fighting Men a compilation by lady Augusta Gregory put together in the early 20th century about 1912 or somewhere like that long time ago before I was born I love that you've brought that in especially because Satanta like wanted to be a true knight like Sandor did right someday and that gets taken away in some aspects. And I think that, I mean, not to be controversial on Maine, but I think humans are inherently good. I think we are. I mean, if we weren't inherently good, we wouldn't have the world at all set up, right?

Like it would be a battle zone. We wouldn't have gotten out of some of the ages we've been in. The fact that at our very base, humans, when they have enough for themselves and for their loved ones and the people they protect and hold near they are not selfish they share if they have enough westrose is that fishbowl idea where you take that away from people not everyone has enough not everyone has that in them and they become not inherently good from that but i think we start off with an inherent goodness you know i think that's real and i think sandor maybe still believes that there's a chance

that he could get back to that right he could move himself back on that scale and maybe he could be good with the right people with the right values he knows that if he gets picked up on the road by a tickler or a polyver and brought back to Harrenhal, brought back to King's Landing, they just put his body back into it. Like you're a soldier, you're a cyborg all over again, and you're captured and you're back to your hell. But if he gets captured by someone like the Starks, maybe there's a chance that he could do penance. Maybe there's a chance that he could work his way out of it. And maybe there's a chance he could once more do good and i think that's part of what's going on with i think it is good that he takes some time to himself on the quiet aisle actually it's called a spa

first of all it's a spa it's a spa it is a spa um selena meyer moments up it's a spa and because like it gives him a the chance to find also like his sense of self because like i don't know i was thinking about what i had said about the prayer too like he's been defining himself through other people through who he serves and as in contrast to his brother he's like i'm not like my brother i'm not a knight and i served these people like none of those are like an intrinsic thing about him so something that ties his characterization together with arias especially with what we're about to ride up on right where he has his whole entire mental breakdown of i've never been a good person and i could have been and i wish i would have been yeah and i mean i'm glad that he's like finding this out at 27 I'm gonna be real I got to like 32 and I was like my friend was like you

have to define things by your needs and stuff and like set your needs and then I realized like I was like I don't know what my needs are no I don't so all of you take some time think for yourselves like after this episode chloe likes to tell people to close their eyes so i'm going to try it close your eyes think about yourself and what your needs are self-help podcast i'm gonna need you to settle down is what i mean holy shit her boundaries this is great look at that well not really because you your boundaries aren't telling other people what to do it's about defining defining. Anyways, sorry, sorry. But we have a healthy relationship.

Are you implying I'm bossy? No, no, I'm just saying this is... Anyways, alright. So Arya wakes to the toe of Sandor's boot. Brushed out of a dream of being a wolf. Chasing a riderless horse up a hill with her wolf pack. The hound is weak, slumping in the saddle, sweating, his ears bleeding through

the bandage. Sounds bad. More wolf dreams. I love that Arya chose to name her wolf Nymeria. And as you learn the backstory of Nymeria, you can see why this historical figure resonated particularly with Arya. Yes.

I really love that. Yeah, right. They should have. It us a series they should have it's bullshit they should have picked it up as a cartoon I'm just saying they should also something that I feel about Nymeria as I've gotten older in reading A Song of Ice and Fire you know in the past 10 years

I feel like Nymeria's a lot lonelier of a figure than you get anyone gives her credit for right and i think aria really relates to that isolation a lot especially losing her friends along the way that's a good point sandor decides to call for rest long before noon uh-oh and when he dismounts he falls he's weak he crawls under a tree leaning at the trunk telling her he'd skin her alive for a cup of wine she brings him water instead and he falls asleep Arya can feel the fever and smell the infection coming off his thigh that kind of reminds me of the chapter when they were on the way to the twins and again they came upon

they came upon the night and sandor delivered mercy and he wanted wine but only gave him could only give him water yes like uh with mark piper in chapter 11 yep mark piper's man yeah that man didn't even get his own name i can't even remember his name he yeah i guess i wouldn't give someone well look we all know what are they gonna do with it well ultimately aria is going to be no one too so what's in a name especially though because like especially because after he hasn't given them his name but then he realizes it's sandor and calls it out at the end like oh you're the hound as he's dying and the hound's like yeah now I'm really not getting you wine you little punk he's also like I don't even have wine yeah why would I give you wine

I don't have any real though Arya considers she should leave Sandor to die and go to salt pans or maybe she should just kill him herself here it is right it's the moment he killed Micah and more more than Micah. Probably

a hundred Micahs, she thinks. Maybe her if she hadn't been a ransom. She draws Needle and approaches him. And then we have a very important passage, in my opinion. In my personal opinion. Like Peggy Hill. I think the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping

day in the world. That's not an opinion, that's just a fact. And this is the best chapter day in the world. That's not an opinion. That's just a fact. And this is the best chapter. Oh, okay. The best passage. Quick as a snake, she taught. Smooth as summer silk. His eyes opened. You remember where the heart is?

He asked in a hoarse whisper. A still stone stone she stood I was only don't lie I hate liars I hate gutless frauds even worse go on do it when Arya did not move he said

I killed your butcher's boy I cut him near in half and laughed about it after. He made a queer sound and it took her a moment to realize he was sobbing. And the little bird, your pretty sister. I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have, I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf.

His spasm of pain twisted his face. Do you mean to make me beg, bitch? Do it, the gift of mercy. Avenge your little Michael. Micah, now you stepped away from him. You don't deserve the gift of mercy. The hound watched her saddle craving, through eyes bright with fever. Not once did he attempt to rise and stop her, but when she mounted, he said,

A real wolf would finish a wounded animal. Maybe some real wolves will find you, Arya taught him. Maybe they'll smell you when the sun goes down. Then he would learn what wolves did to dogs. You shouldn't have hit me with an axe, she said. You should have saved my mother. She turned her horse and rode away from him and never looked back once. bleeding out under the tree dying. Sandor under the tree. Fucked up. Why are we talking about me? Is that a weirwood tree as well? I'm sorry. Could we be getting links to Bran if there's a weirwood tree there?

Or am I going on a tangent? You don't. He got a gift of mercy. We literally don't know. We're just leaving all this open. John taught Arya to stick him with the pointy end, I think, but Sandor teaches her where the heart is. And in her ultimate final decision,

we're left to ponder that unanswered question did she feel sandra was not worthy of the gift or that given their experiences together did she feel she could not deliver also although she doesn't grant mercy i wonder as she forgets what michael looks like is the hidden message forgive and forget is there kind of a sense of that in there going back to em chloe referring to Sandor as a Terminator, it's a hastalatiste, Sandor. Sorry. Yeah, I think also, Warren, I have to add to that.

I like what you said there, because she does like that line about her forgetting Micah. She's like, I don't even remember him now. He was just someone I played swords with. And that doesn't make his life not have meaning, because men's lives have meaning, not their deaths. But now that she's come to know Sandor, she knows him more than she ever knew Micah. I think there's a sense of that right now.

It reminds me of Daenerys as well, going like thinking about Arroway and being like, I don't I hardly even remember these people's names. Like, what what am I doing? Where who am I? What am I? What is motivating me? You know, and like ari is questioning that too here interesting i wonder is this a place to kind of discuss in stockholm syndrome maybe um i think i looked up the definition of it and it's defined as a coping mechanism for a captive on an abusive situation people develop positive feelings towards their captors or abusers over time it applies to situations including child abuse coach athlete abuse relationship abuse and sex trafficking i think it's interesting because it's

it's a feature that both stark sisters demonstrate in their time with sandor but not just in terms of them softening towards him but also in terms of him softening towards them. And Patty Hearst is their most notorious real-world example of this, and that having been kidnapped by a radical group, she ultimately participated in bank robberies and bombings with them. And Ari has participated in a massacre with Sandor in this chapter. It's also worth noting Stockholm Syndrome is considered a coping mechanism rather than a mental health condition. Have you seen Under the Skin, Warren? I haven't. Okay, it's a Scarlett Johansson movie.

It's really interesting, and it's got a little bit of that too, right? She's basically this kind of alien figure that seduces lonely men and like eats them in scotland but it leads to like self-discovery and by the end she like is like why am i doing this i'm not going to keep seducing and eating them uh she's an alien and she like comes to kind of soften and it even has some of that like dog day afternoon similarities right where he kind of softens to his victims as well at the bank robbery and that's what does him in right what kills him is the softens to his victims as well at the bank robbery. And that's what does him in, right? What kills him is the softening to these characters and that he didn't just go in, do the job.

You know, he started to build these relationships and feel bad for the people he's holding captive. I think as well, when you look at a character like Sandor, whose whole kind of persona and being is kind of built on their gruffness and their tough toughness and on their physical threat that they pose when you take that away what do they have do you know what i mean and that's kind of the real sadness that's there yeah that that's the real pain that's that's in his face and when aria turns from him it's not just the physical pain but it's that he can't be released from it he has he has to live with it he has to go to that

quiet oil and he has to atone in his own kind of way or find find his own inner peace in in a world that's just been his whole life seems like turmoil it does sorry i i found a quote as well from george which i thought kind of fitted in here and he says the battle between good and evil is a legitimate team for fantasy but in real life that battle is fought chiefly in the human mind in real life the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which and that can change you know that can change for you and i think that's very, when you think about Arya, back at the night of the Hollow Hill chapter,

and you think about Arya now, her concept of good and evil has changed in relation to Sandor. Absolutely. Yeah. That is kind of the battle of ice and fire, right? I'm just fascinated by the notion of how interchangeable it is, you know, kind of like just three four chapters ago Sandor was the most evil

person in the world and now it's just so different because of the time they've spent together and I think it's George is really trying to say something there I think the point in the quote is kind of lends to what he's trying to say in that. Yeah and there's that question of proximity

right when you know someone like can you look them in the eyes and be like yeah they deserve to die and you know we're talking about that like aria's story together with bran's story and um you know you were talking about mercy and justice within aria's storyline and like for Bran he literally gets to understand what that battle between good and evil is that goes through someone's mind because he can go into people's minds he can understand

on a very intimate level and see like what people are dealing with and like where do you pass judgment on that there's also another thing that I was like thinking about like you know as he comes as aria comes to know sandra more and understand him and like mercy it almost feels like it's easier to give mercy the gift of mercy to the people that you don't know and you don't care about it you're like like, I will give you this last comfort. But when it's someone you love, you cannot give them that mercy.

You cling to them being alive and prolong it. You want them in this world with you as much as possible, right? Because Daenerys does the opposite. Drogo is having a bad time. And she's like, but what if we tried to keep him here? But then at the same time, then you realize, oh, wait, he is suffering. He's not really living. And then she smothers him with the pillow.

Or I don't know. I don't know. I'm just thinking, Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze. Try to bring back his dead wife, okay? Just in general. Just the desire to keep the people that you love here and how it's harder to give mercy with that yeah i think as you're saying that eliana i'm kind of thinking of a real world

analogy of kind of you know being in a situation where somebody's in an end-of-life situation and you're making that decision to turn off the machine and ultimately denarius made that call or you didn't i i am thinking you know that too because like you know i've had to go through that quite a few times the past few years and it's fucking hard like what do you and also like it's unethical to be like yeah you're just give them the gift of mercy doctors literally won't really like let you i don't know like they do say at a certain point they're like only the machine is keeping them alive and it's like like, I don't know. Shit's rough. Life is hard.

Death is hard, too. Dealing with death throughout life is hard. It cuts the cut in the cord off and saying it's time and she's not ready for that. And it makes you wonder the next time she has the opportunity to, she'll probably be ready. Yeah. Like when she has a zombie mother in front of her, Like when Sandor has a zombie brother in front of him. Both of those kills will have to be for mercy if they happen, not for killing. Yeah.

And a release for both of them, too. Drogo was a zombie, too, wasn't he, at that point? Dang. There's something also, like, really interesting about the way that this scene is written. And I've seen a lot of people point out this great analysis of like sandra says all these terrible things like what what what people are like whoa what a what a shift why would he say all these terrible things all of a sudden and uh many people pointed out like that it is him trying to get aria to kill him just saying whatever it will take to make her angry and give him the gift of mercy and I realize like rereading this together with all of you that you get Micah brought up

several times throughout this chapter several times throughout their time together because it makes fucking sense and like evoking Micah and then here's what happens soon after Micah and when when Sansa is drunk too right bringing it back to the beginning of this chapter. Arya throws rocks at Nymeria to scare Nymeria off so that Nymeria will run away. It's a hurtful moment, painful, but she's doing it because she thinks it's for Nymeria's good, even though it will also hurt Arya, right? It will hurt them both, but it's what they think is for the best. And I think Sandor is trying to do that here too. He's doing what he think is for the best and i think sandor is trying to do that here too he's doing what he thinks is for the best of for them he's doing the emotional equivalent of

throwing the rocks by goading aria into the action and it creates this like irony because it is in this place it is he's evoking micah he knows that boy's name and he's calling him michael i know that he knows that boy's name because you can't travel around with aria saying every two seconds without knowing it just to troll her into doing it and then so it creates this brilliant like irony between those situations and how that gets called up but also parallels between aria and sandor's storyline and i mean then it ends she's like you shouldn't have hit me with the axe but But also, like, you're talking about Sandor as a Terminator, and sometimes I'm like,

I feel like Arya really fucking thinks he's the Terminator sometimes, because she's like, you should have saved my mother. And I'm like, how was he going to do that? He is just one man, Arya. How was he going to save your mother? And it's because she thinks he's the fucking Terminator.

I love the way it's subtly highlighting the ways in which they're both similar I think as well they're both so stubborn too I think when you talk about Micah as well I think I'll go back to that night of the Hollow Hill chapter I think

that moment where all the names were being thrown at him you murdered this person you murdered that person he was like no I didn't no I didn't and then Minari came out and said Micah what about micah and i think it it it really hit him i think it really stuck with him he's like oh shit i did do that one yeah that's me i know that that's on me because micah was just a boy like he was when he got sent into the war he's just a boy he was just a boy like he was when he had his face burnt in the flames. Yeah, I love the likening of throwing rocks at Arya to get her to kill him.

You know, that's really what he's doing. He's just throwing the stones at her, saying, come on, do it. He was also sent out to try to find her, too, in a way. You know, like, he brought Micah's body back, but he would have been the next person out to kill her then. They would have put him on the trail to find her. And there's a way that this is

all set up and here when he's saying this like he's saying these things these not just about micah but also about sansa right the things he's saying about her sister are also to inflame her are also saying like you know i've been lying about your sister and i took a song from her i did these things but even though he's using them in order to inflame her he's also using this as an omission of guilt what he's saying is i fucked up i failed my duty i failed protecting both of you i should have protected sanza i should have been there and kind of his drive to protect Arya this whole time that started, like whether he meant to or not, right.

Whether it was something he was doing consciously or subconsciously, this guilt is stemming from the failure of him protecting anyone. He hasn't been able to protect anyone. He couldn't protect himself. He can't protect his dad from Gregor, his mother from Gregor, his sister from Gregor, let alone the Stark sisters.

Here's the bigger part of that is it's just like what Arya's feeling, right? That she has not been able to protect her friends. She couldn't protect Lami. She couldn't protect Hot Pie. She couldn't protect Gendry. She couldn't keep them. She can't protect her sisters and brothers. It's why she's escaping into her wolf every night.

She's lost her pack. She's lost her autonomy. It's why she's escaping into her wolf every night. She's lost her pack. She's lost her autonomy. And just like Arya, it wasn't their job to have to protect these people. They should never have been put in that position. They should have been protected.

Sandor should have been protected by his mom and his dad. Sandor shouldn't have had his face shoved into the embers by his older bully brother that no one was you know confident enough to stand against aria shouldn't have had to do all these things aria should be at home in winterfell playing with her brothers neither of these children should have had to do that and there's something like a structure here as a recovering catholic i want to bring up that it's structured as last rites right you have sandor's confession you have the commendation of the dying you have him was confessing his sins as penance aria anoints him with the hot wine and he doesn't really take the eucharist so we don't get all the way to the end

of the last rites but i think the fire roasted wine works really well as a eucharist as an anointment maybe the eucharist is the water she gives him. But this all is supposed to lead to a dying in a state of grace, right? When you get read your last rites, the hopes are that the person takes their last rites and dies in a state of grace, having gotten all their sins off their chest, having, you know, in the eyes of the Lord, done everything that they needed to do before the pearly gates appear and God high fives you and says, what up? We just got new VRs.

Come on up. So Sandor doesn't get the Eucharist, which makes me think he doesn't die in a state of grace, as we know, because the hound dies, but Sandor does not. And then, of course, we have another religious character come to take him to the quiet aisle right around this, you know, off screen. Do-do-do. Here he comes. Here we go. We're taking Sandor to the quiet aisle. He's gone you know, off screen. Do-do-do, here he comes. Here we go.

We're taking Sandor to the quiet aisle. He's gone. He's not at the tree anymore. Great. And there's something also interesting having Arya be kind of this religious figure in this moment, being the person to have heard his last words and choose not to kill him, right? Because she looked him in the eyes and she could not, to her father's advisement. She's also kind of a harbinger of death here by leaving him. She is making a choice.

And it does make me think of Feast in the House of Black and White, where she practices vocational work, right? That a priest might maybe practice, like washing bodies, preparing bodies to pass over and then playing God a little bit, right? Like killing Darren, going off the script and killing darren and taking his boots it's interesting because in a way she's acting almost like a septon in this moment and it brings me back to that line maybe throw away when she asks ned you know daddy can i be anything when i grow up and he's like no honey because you're a girl uh you

could have kids though they could do it for you and you have that line of aria cocked her head to one side can i be a kinks counselor and build castles and become the high septon no but here she's doing more arguably than we've seen the high septon do right considering the high septon just steals shit the one that we have right now and is obsessed with wealth and the lannisters have him greedily in their pockets. She's being a septon in a way. That's so true. The septon should kill more people. This is Chloe's set, everyone.

Religion should be allowed to be armed and stab people. You're so right, Chloe. A septon should kill more people. I cannot believe you just pancake waffled my bitch. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. I'm here to, I'm just being brave, trolling Chloe every week.

Eliana's like, what if you all listen to me misrepresent her words and took that instead? Misinformation, I am misinformation now. Wow, I took the cowl, the helm off and handed it over to you. I'm the Sith Lord, killing the master. Chloe has died. There's also something I was thinking about, and this has nothing to do with this, but in a way it does.

How Egg has that mule or donkey named Maester naming it after Aemon. And Arya has Kraven, has her horse, and she has her cousin, her Targaryen cousin, at the wall as well. Much like Egg's cousin ends up at the wall. Oh yeah. Or his brother, yeah.

I like that. So, I don't know. It's not like a real point. I just like noticed it and I was like, huh, that's kind of cute. You guys have cute little animal names that are not normal names. I named my horse Maester. Okay, you weirdo. Okay, horses have weird names though, like

Secretariat, American Pharaoh. These are weird names. like secretariat american pharaoh these are weird names horses just have stranger is a good name stranger is a great name but like in general like in real life there are some weird ass horse names that i do not understand mr ed uh bojack bojack horseman but uh he's part horse part man I don't know if that counts but yeah Egg I mean Egg and Arya they do have like they're meant to have parallels

definitely some Dunk and Egg parallel going on with the ancestor here or descendant sorry Sandor time works in a straight line, usually. Linear. There is a lot of Dunkin' Egg vibes about Sandor and Arya and their time

together and the lessons that they both learn from one another. And the clouding in the ear. Well, now that I'm depressed, let's move on. I can't keep thinking about it. I hate when he dies, dude. It's the worst. It's fucking... You know that's my thing. You know that's gonna bum me out. Yeah, bummer for all, though. Bummer for allmer for all yeah aria reaches a point a wider point of the

trident congrats aria you're navigating shit oh wow this is growth for her honestly yeah right like honestly this is growth for her and the water begins to smell of salt and after midday a town appears hopefully it's the soul pan so like we're not sure yet but she's getting there most of the shops and inns are burnt or plundered but the port is there spreading toward the bay of crabs and there are ships she looks at the two river galleys and the third bigger boat with the two banks of oars a gilded prow and three tall masts with purple sails the hull's purple too and she realizes fuck how am i gonna pay for this passage like i need money to board the boat and sandor kept the loot that they took from poliver and tickler which honestly why did

she do that sandor has been teaching her this whole time you gotta loot the body you gotta loot the body it's like in video games aria and like i'm like aria see this is why your friends weren't abandoning you they just needed to get jobs they needed money see she learned directions and now she's learning about money i'm so happy for her it took so long there's so much growth in these last few chapters yeah yeah it's easier when you're with somebody who has to pay your way if they want to keep you for ransom money you know like that's a little easier. But being on your own and being 10, it's hard in the world, she realizes.

Yeah. Like here, she realizes she has to sell Kraven. Oh, it's just like Doug. Yes. Oh, yeah. She hopes she has enough to get through. Maybe she'll come back and buy him back. We don't know.

Maybe on the way back, kill the woman and buy him back. Just kidding. She realizes, though, after after that she's like all right i gotta go walk around sell him she gets directed to a very robust and horsey smelling woman who loves craven immediately she's like oh yeah this guy's great unfortunately the economy's kind of a grift in totality here the woman's like well you stole this horse from a knight and it's well bred but you're not which is very funny because that's your princess obviously yeah either way aria has to accept what the woman gives her

in payment or she can take aria up to the castle where aria can hang so aria takes the small amount of money i think george likes to play with some traditional storytelling tropes throughout these books and the fairy tale princesses a trope like that he uses and he uses that to tell sansa and aria story while sansa is a more obvious fairy tale type princess like bell and aria fits more with the princess who doesn't fit in like moana as she goes on a quest and soon aria will see the line where the sky meets the sea. But only once to go home. I fear, however, Arya's return home will be more bittersweet.

Yeah. For what it's worth, I will say, Belle also doesn't fit in. It's like the big point. She and her father are recluses. She's a bookworm. But definitely more Sansa-coded. Because she's uppity. She says, little town, little people. I'd be like, I don't fucking like that girl either jesus she called me oh you're just you're just a small town person and i'm like whatever well she gets trapped into staying in that small town for the

beast which is where it really works really works warren it's a good reference i i think i think as well you recently talked about the wizard of oz chloe and that kind of got me thinking as well and i was kind of thinking about the king's road has been like the yellow brick road a very dark and twisted interpretation of the yellow brick road but also about dorothy's mantra kind of being like are you and was there really no place like home and maybe aria's mentor or savers or scarecrow or lion and lion or team man but where's her field of puppies where are the monkeys we walk on this is falling apart

the monkeys have bat wings there's the house went stuff and then if I only had a heart then he goes you know where the heart is so it's all yep coming together definitely that definitely that weave your magic eliana where she went where did aria went oh my god aria realizes by the way that she can't just kill this woman outright because there's too many people about she's like damn i can't kill her i have to accept being cheated and i'm like that's probably

a bad knee-jerk reaction but okay moving past that the woman wouldn't have cheated sandor she thinks that's growth for aria too as she's realizing we can't just kill people to get what she wants because remember back then a few chapters ago she's like what if we just killed someone and took the boat let's just steal the boat let's just kill and take the chapters ago, she's like, what if we just killed someone and took the boat? Let's just steal the boat. Let's just kill and take the boat. And now she's realizing, fuck, I can't just kill people and I have to pay for things and I have to actually learn

to navigate. It's rough out here. The purple galley is still there outside, so she gets attention of the captain, who speaks the common tongue. She tells him she wants to go north to east watch but she doesn't have enough money a passing asshole is like you could share my cabin shut the fuck up she's 10 go away gross gross i think like the captain is like that's fucking gross yeah you'd hope so uh he

doesn't say it but like his attitude is like uh no what the fuck am I the only one that thinks that Arya's in a cup of mourning here there's kind of a sadness to her a sense that her indomitable spirit is at least fractured but also that she's small again separated from Sandor

back to being Arya underfoot a mouse or no one Madi wow not my deep yeah no but really though um i don't know we were talking about mice i'm sorry not the desert mouse oh my god eliana no but really though like there is um it's a morning that she didn't expect too right like it's similar joffrey right joffrey dead and sansa being like why do i feel so weird and aria being like but i wanted him dead so why do i feel this way yeah and i mean because she's leaving him right and i think to an extent when you leave and say goodbye to someone especially for a long period of time or if

you think you're never gonna see them again. There is a mourning and maybe this is also growth and empathy of like maybe she'll realize, oh maybe this is how my friends felt saying goodbye to me because I needed paying jobs. Are you thinking about me right now, Eliana? Because I feel like you're thinking about me every week.

I could be, yeah. When we hang up every week, Eliana feels this sense of loss. I know it. So the man tells her that she can't pay her way there through working odd jobs, like legitimately odd jobs, like, you know, rowing or sweeping the deck. Partially because he's like, I don't think you can row. I really just don't think you can. You're not qualified for this job you did not pass this interview and there's nothing for them in the north they're like we're not gonna go north this is the gallius titan's daughter of

the spree city of bravos wasn't that the boat net tried to her to bring the girls back to winterfell also i think area should maybe take her time a little bit here, because I'm sure Brienne's hanging around somewhere looking for Sansa. Literally around the corner, dude. It's so fucked up. She's like right nearby. Yeah. Isn't that so messed up? Like right there. You just picture George giggling. At least she gets to cross lines with Sam,

but... Yeah. Right. It's definitely small. It's not as big as you'd expect, Westeros. Small world. F fancy bumping into you here uh also it's kind of interesting because when i think about the titan's daughter i'm like oh sansa's the titan's daughter now pretending to be yeah well aria's like wait hold on bravos i think i actually have currency for that that i did not go to the bank to exchange aria suddenly remembers her coin

and digs for it and she's like wait what about this will you take this for payment and we get to the end of the chapter one more silver will make no difference child he finally said it's not silver

her fingers closed on it it's iron here she pressed it into his hand, the small black iron coin that Jaqen H'ghar had given her. So worn, the man whose head it bore had no features. It's probably worthless, but… The captain turned it over and blinked at it, then looked at her again. This? How? Jaqen said to say the words to. Arya crossed her arms against her chest. Valar Morghulis, she said, as loud as if she'd known what it meant.

Valar Dohaeris, he replied, touching his brow with two fingers. Of course you shall have a cabin. Scene. I love how aria thinks the coin is so worn that the face cannot be recognized such a subtle little chrome dropped in plain sight by george yeah i love this because i don't know i don't know if i necessarily like noticed notice but i forgot it's a faceless coin literally it is faceless that's precious go george yes yes i think aria's path allows readers to feel and understand why she ended up as she did although she seems highly complicated at times she's at the same time very simply simple highly relatable she's definitely a sympathetic character her actions are questionable at times but they're always

censored with a strong sense of morality a belief in what is right and a ferocious passion to fight for what is just yeah definitely huge character growth in this book holy shit yeah and still i mean even within those those past few chapters those past few paragraphs literally so much growth just now it took being on her own again that's true onto a new place to magical boarding school where she gets an internship not so magic once she gets there she has like a extra course in magic that she doesn't tell anyone she signed up for scrubbing steps isn't that kind of a princess trope as well yes oh yeah it's kind of interesting kind of cinderella-esque in a way too speaking of um you know she does a lot of those chores and forced to play that different role and yeah the faceless like faceless coin but even aria

herself uh face is so worn bears no features everyone's like yeah you're fucking worthless i'm gonna give you money it's so real it's kind of fucked up now that i think about it they're like i can cheat you because you don't need money and you can't tell anyone but if someone actually like already had money they would have to pay them real money that's kind of dumb absolutely i think there's one thing in this chapter that is for sure and that's aria won't ever let herself have to be cheated by a woman like this again i feel like in the streets like she won't ever let herself be powerless enough where she has to have this happen again after this she's definitely going to focus on her studies in bravos to make it that way yeah it's

also interesting because it's easier i mean first of all don't fucking cheat kids that's fucked up second of all this is a this is something where i think the five-year gap would have actually made a big difference in aria's storyline like her learning to perform different roles she's going to actually have to learn to be the kind of fucking person that she is right like a high class person and so her time with with the courtesans might be helpful for that, observing how they act. It's easier to pull off being a high class 16 year old or however old she would have been trying to do business than it is to pull off being a 10 year old all alone trying to do business. Absolutely.

It is a lot easier i mean emotionally for me tiwao has an emotional five-year gap no matter what yeah like in my heart in my head i'm going to treat it that way and lately you know i've been reading some stories that have a pretty big time jump that are handled really well including the uh the entire like character development over a couple decades is really good in a book series that may or may not be the expanse but uh it's such so well done that like i can really see where things benefit from it and i can really see the difficulties as well and tying the story up but to me when tiwao finally happens honey that's a 15 year emotional that's a 15 year gap isn't it you know we've all been waiting for that literally yeah i'm the one who's aged yeah them characters are gonna be old as shit in my mind i time skipped

i know for me this is my my first way as in when I finished Feast on my first read-through, Dance came out within months. So this is my first proper wait. But the rereads are good. The rereads are good, and we see the Faceless Man on the coin, and you pick up on these little nuggets. There are so many in the Arya chapters, too. I've really enjoyed A Storm of Swords in general this time through, and I think Arya's chapters in A Storm of Swords are so many in the Arya chapters too. I've really enjoyed A Storm of Swords in general this time through.

And I think Arya's chapters in A Storm of Swords are so different because a lot of them, like some of the in-between chapters, like 11 on the way to go to the twins and 10, for example, they're shorter. But there's a lot going on that sets things up. And then there are action chapters. up and then there are action chapters and especially i know we mentioned this last week a tiny bit but the rhythm changes as you get into these chapters where aria chapters are one every 12 chapters right now um because things are actually popping off in her chapters and george needs you to uh no pun intended needle that out a little bit oh wait a little bit for that to come back and really build that tension. You talked about building the tension within this chapter alone, Warren, and that kind of suspense before the fight finally

breaks out that you know is going to break out in its crossroads saloon. But it's also what he's doing in a meta sense overarching with her plot, right? There are some chapters that are many in a row that are giving you exposition. They're giving you a little bit of character growth. They're giving you just a drop here and there. And then he waits, he pulls the chapters, makes them briefer and fewer in between, and gives you the action, which is really fun to follow for Arya.

Thank you. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. All right, so what do you think? So, Warren, tell us about your thoughts on the future of Arya's story. Yeah, your wrap-up. I see a happy ever after ending

for the longest time i kind of you know this kind of they'll find you clutching needle in the snow and i was of the belief that she was destined to die i know paris kind of has insisted to george that she should not die um as a married man yourself you understand the way that holds I do I think kind of having listened to and I very much subscribe to Chloe's theory with regards to Arya and Lady Stoneheart that that adds a different dimension

to where she might go and I think doing a read through of Foreign Blood I kind of see a bit of Alyssa Farman in how George might end up taking her in the kind of direction he might ultimately end up taking her but that's the road you know that's the end

of destination it's the journey is where the fun is in this story and it's how they get there don't ask me that I have no idea really but it's fun and I'm here for it and if I have to wait another 15 years I'll wait 15 years and if it doesn't come I'll know I have to wait another 15 years, I'll wait 15 years. Oh. And if it doesn't come, I'll know.

I love what George has given me. Thank you very much. No, I agree with that. I do. I just want it to come not in 15 years, you know, but not on the other side of 15. Like on this side. Closer. Closer, yeah.

I hope so too, but. I personally think they're both close, but I'm an optimist. I hope so too, but... I personally think they're both close, but I'm an optimist. I hope so. Wow, he's the rare Adas Tiwau believer, which logically, when you think about it, you have to believe in both, because in order to write Adas, you have to write Tiwau, right? And you can't...

He needs to work out the wins and winner in order to get anywhere close to an ending, whether it's one book or seven that have to come still. 13, 20? Maybe 14, yeah. 27? I don't know. It could be any of them. Maybe in 30 books. to an ending, whether it's one book or seven that have to come still, you know, maybe 14. Yeah. 27. I don't know.

It could be any of them. Maybe in 30 books, you know, we'll understand. But that said, like, I really am a firm believer in understanding that, like, if he can't figure out the knots that he has to unknot in Tiwau, then, of course, he's figuring out the other knots that then, once they're unknotted complement these knots for A Dream of Springs. So I think you're right that at least from

a structure standpoint, and at least he has to understand where certain pieces are moving at this part. I mean, it's the Endgame of Thrones. It's anybody's Endgame of Thrones. No, it's George's. It's just George's. It's literally a series. I sometimes feel like I'm in an Infinity War. Every week.

Waiting infinity forever. Portals. Portals. What I will say before I sign off is I'm absolutely adoring your Aria coverage, guys, and thank you so much. This Aria-holic is very happy. Oh, good. Thank you. Well, we're very honored honored thank you for coming on yeah

it was great to have the number one aria stark fan on and uh i don't think we could have done this chapter without you moran i think that you've cemented such a great place in the overall canon by hanging out with us today so we really appreciate it we literally could not have done this pov without you thank you very much it would illegal. It would be fucking illegal. I mean, I kind of said this last week, but offslash on the record, you were the first person we asked. You had very first dibs on chapter. Not to, you know, put pressure on you, but you had first dibs. We wanted to make sure Morin had his very first call on what he wanted.

And I picked this one. It felt important. Yes. And it was a goddamn great chapter. I agree. Morin, is there anywhere on social media that you hang out, you want to advertise or anything you'd like to advertise while you're here with us today?

Well, you know, I'm kind of your casual kind of sit in the background kind of person. I'm on the twitter or whatever that's called these days um intermittently um it's not as fun as it used to be um i do enjoy hanging out with you guys on the discord and the girls going canon discord is great fun guys not that i'm trying to promo the best new podcast out there they're the two kind of prime places where you find me sometimes i play on blue sky as well but that has moments where it's not fun too but when it's fun it's fun that's me big agree big agree you can find warren in our comment section always but

you can definitely find him on discord we have a great time over there that's kind of become my favorite a swath social media too is the girls gone game discord you you bitches are the only ones i like out there so and i mean that you can find warren in our hearts yeah in our every day yes well with that said eliana where can they find us online yeah you can also find us on twitter or whatever it's called at girls con canon. That's C-A-N-O-N. Or also on Blue Sky, also still called Girls Gone Canon. Or perhaps you want to send us

an email. You want to be like Warren, and you want to send us an email. You can do it at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. That's C-A-N-O-N. Yeah, maybe you can send us pictures of your pet pet. Send them pictures. I'm going to start sending emails to us from my personal account. From your Neopets accounts.

Yeah. And of course, this podcast is absolutely sponsored by our patrons. That's why we get to be ad free and why we bring an episode to you almost every single week. So if you will take a moment and listen to our patrons, they are going to tell you where you can listen to us online. You can catch Girls Gone Canon on any of the following streamers. On Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Audible, and Amazon Podcasts. channels including but not limited to memes and shit posting channel fashion hour there are

multiple channels for historic materials a song of ice and fire there's a pets channel which i think is probably the most important channel of all respectful thirsting because there's a channel for that come by join the community it's a lot of fun and you won't regret it a warren cameo yeah i'm in there at the beginning double warren wow well hopefully we'll see you over at patreon patreon.com slash girls gone canon as they said and uh until next time until we hop into feast thanks it's been a blast. I've been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thank you again, Warren, for being here.

Thank you. As another one of our hosts. Thank you guys for having me. Another, another. Another, another one. Sometimes, guys, it's a pleasure. Sometimes it's a privilege. But this evening, it has been both. Thank you very much. Aww. Aww. We'll see you guys next time thanks warren thanks guys and end recording