House of R - ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Mal and Jo are back with Dunk and Egg to dive deep into the latest episode of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’! They talk about the brutality of the trial, the flashback, a shocking death, and much more! (00:00) Intro (03:01) Opening Snapshot (21:09) Pregame Warm-Ups! (47:23) The Trial of Seven Begins (01:13:56) Raiding the Redgrass Field (01:23:57) Rafe Enters the Chat (01:28:30) Dangers on the Road (01:40:31) A Future Planned, a Future Robbed (01:50:40) Is That Ser Arlan’s Music?! (02:11:45) Dunk Versus Aerion (02:26:44) Baelor—"Breakspear"—Falls (02:33:00) Book Spoilers! Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producers: Carlos Chiriboga and Sarah Reddy Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings. And welcome to House of R. A Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today, she knows a witch who pays copper for teeth. I do. I know you do. Never has there been an easier choice for what to say at the top of the pod today. It's Joanna Robinson. Mallory. Yes. What a joy to see you. Thrilled. Thrilled to be here to dive deep into episode five already somehow. Episode five, the panel ultimate episode of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which we will do right after this. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through the first. through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia. Today. Enjoying activity twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle

may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. All right, Joe, we're going to be back for the finale because it's already finale time somehow on Sunday night. Immediately after episode six, we will be here with CR for Talk to Thrones. Correct? Next Tuesday evening, we will be back with a deep dive into the finale. But before then, later this week, we're going to have our buffets. We're going to have our I don't want to jinx it. Season three, part two pod. We made it this time.

It's going to happen. Thrilled, can't wait. Spoiler warning for today's pod, case anybody doesn't know it by now, how do we handle the spoilers? Oh, listen, the most of this episode is spoiler safe. That's right. Spoiler free.

That's right. The very end. Carlos will spike your heart rate and your blood pressure by blaring some sirens that will let you know that it is spoiler time. Yes. And then additionally today, we've got a spoiler section within a spoiler section because one of the actions in the show

dropped a pretty heavy revelation that maybe Mallory wishes she didn't know. I would prefer not to know. You're welcome to leave the pot at that point. It would be the very last thing we talk about. It's going to be the last thing we talk about the spoiler section. So the spoiler section will have a spoiler section.

This information's out there, so we just want to talk about its implications. Or I wanted to talk about its implications a little bit at least. Mallory's like, please protect me. Protect me at all costs. How can everybody follow along? Oh my gosh. Thanks for asking.

Why don't you subscribe to the pod wherever you listen to podcasts? Why don't you watch us on Spotify or on YouTube? That's a great thing to do. Why don't you follow us on social? Do it. And you can always email us. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Send the buff emails.

Please. Start sending your Project Hail Mary emails? Yes. What else is happening in spring? Daredevil? A Nolan movie? A Nolan movie is coming? Yeah, if you were able to figure it out from our very subtle clues.

Really, really delicate. Actually, someone was like, I hope they do Inception. I was like, good news. We already did it. Check those feeds. We already did it, and it's not inception. Okay. It's time for the opening snapshot. Joanna.

Mallory. If anybody didn't watch Talk to Thrones or they did, but they just want to have the table set for them again. Another amuse-boosh, an hors d'oeuvre of takes. give us your quick opening snapshot thoughts, feelings about episode five in the name of the mother. I guess I just want to track my like very flimsy episode title tracking that I've been doing this season and just say, so in the name of the mother, as we talked about on Talk the Thrones, you know, defending the young and the innocent, right? I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. And that's, of course, what Sir Arlen says, you know, in the name of the mother.

Yes. Leave that boy alone or unhand him or whatever he says. Now you have to vomit. Get your damn hands off of her. Whatever it is, he says, right? But weren't innocents killed in this episode? Sure. Baylor and most crucially of all, my guy Beesbury,

most crucially of all, huh? Are dead at the end of this episode? Indeed. So in the name of the mother, the innocence were not defended in this episode. The mother's very present across this episode, either in the pledge of hours of the absence, Frey also died Humphrey Arding.

A lot of death. We did say spoiler warning at the top of the pod today. Yeah, Arlen's shout, obviously, but also Dunk really longing for his mother. Oh, sure. I mean, there's mommy issues across the board. You know, we, you know, dunk haunted by the dead Frey, the died fray, croaking for his mother. Crookens for his mother. Lionel saying, like, you know, did your mother love your best? Too bad. No man, fight so fierce as we neglected by his mother.

Such a vibe. Such a vibe. Such a vibe for Wynel. As far as we know, Gwynne whose birthday it is does not have a mother or George forgot to come up with one, I don't know. How do you think Gwen is going to look back on this particular birthday celebration? No one will ever forget my birthday. That's what she'll see. They won't necessarily remember it was your birthday.

But they'll remember what happened. No, forget the attorney of Ashford Meadow. Will they remember your name? George did it. Oh, man. I loved this episode. I thought it was obviously thrilling. and devastating, you know, Baylor.

Real fave. So it's a heartbreaking time here at the House of Art. But, like, really this episode, I thought, did a great job of simultaneously joining, taking its place in this proud Game of Thrones tradition. The elite pan-ultimate episode, the elite battle episode, the elite episode with a shocking, subversive death,

while also doing so in a way that felt utterly specific to what this show is, to its vibe, to its scale and scope, to its essence and sense, And that's just a hard thing to do. Obviously, this episode includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile, a Sir Arland Dick-sized mile. My favorite unit of measurement. I agree. I'm still not really entirely sold on the fact of whether or not we needed this flashback.

I'm not, like, mad about it, but I don't know that we needed it or I don't know that we needed all of it. Perhaps we could have had some of it. but I don't know that we needed this much of it. 20 minutes is no joke. No joke at all. In a little bite-sized episodes, as these are, you know? I definitely have a couple notes on it still, but a lot of things inside of it worked for me. What is your despair level as we pre-greave heading into the finale, knowing we just have one left?

I know that pre-grieving is a state that you live in. I'm inspired by Roman Roy. I'm in a like... He's really emotionally healthy. I'm in a really high celebratory mood because... I feel like the prophecy has come true, which is that people are really getting into and catching on in the show. No question. I feel like people, we heard from a bunch of bad babies anecdotally about how people in their lives are catching up.

Sarah, who's in the studio with us today, just told me she's beenched last night. You know, so, like, people are catching up with the show because the word of mouth is so good. This is what we were hoping. And exactly the moment we thought it could happen. Well, we thought, like maybe, like, after the egg reveal or whatever. There was a little bit of an optic. And now it's just been like, yeah. You know, and then the Baylor entrance last week, I think, really got people talking a lot.

And then, of course, what happens in this episode. So I really feel like what we were hoping has come true. It started as, like, a modest audience. I'm not sure that it is like the biggest audience that Thrones has ever had. But as we said before, the budget on the show is so low that it doesn't need to climb that high and people might catch up in the off season and all the sort of stuff like that. But this is just such a good show and it deserves so many eyeballs on it. So I'm just like really happy that I feel like I've been like sending you tweets constantly

because every time I open Twitter now, Twitter's like, do you want to see more of this? And I do. So, you know. Yeah, I'll go. It's got you. I feel like in addition to just kind of the uptick overall in volume and conversation and that sense of something shared, the other thing inside of that that I have really felt the last two weeks in particular and this week most of all was conversation on Sunday night.

Yes. People are like, I want to be there in real time. And there's just kind of nothing like that. When people are watching a Game of Thrones show together in real time, it's the fucking best. I really agree. And guess what? They're not going to have to wait two, two and a half, three years for season two, because we're going to get it next year. What a time to be us.

Here's my mental state between episodes, well, being a few hours away from being between episodes five and six. You know, when Raymond and Good Menpate had dunk against the wall and they're starting to assess his injuries and he's like three. his swollen jaw and oozing orifices. He's like, yeah, he's like, one moment I felt drunk the next, like I'm dying. That's how I feel right now. Yeah. Anticipating the end of the show. Emotionally healthy. Emotionally healthy. You're thriving. You're thriving. And the next like I'm dying. But as soon as this is over, we're in Project Hail Mary month. I know that's exciting. This is a like, and that's exciting. You and I got, I don't think we can share, but we got like a behind the scenes release date information. And what did you say to me? He said

this could not be more our year. It's true. So there are things coming this year. It's us season. It's us. It's us a clock. I'm really excited. Can we talk really quickly about the AMA,

the Reddit AMA that Ira did? Please. Yeah. Absolutely. After we were lamenting. Yes. The absence of the Steely Pate line, a night who remembered his vows,

and we're like, maybe it'll be in next week's episode. I feel like mere hours later, Ira Parker gave a Reddit AMA where he was like, Danny kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet and I kind of forgot to include this very important line and I'm sorry. He said it was in earlier drafts of the episode but that it didn't make the final cut and he's like big bummer on my part. I'll remember that going forward. So on the one hand, I like that I like that smacks to me as someone who hasn't been like quite media trained because like if you start like bowing and scraping and apologizing for things you left out now,

like it's only going to grow and grow and grow from there. So like stay humble, but also just know that people are going to be mad about all sorts of things going forward. On the internet, we'll never. What? Speaking of people being mad about things, I'm mad because someone asked him what his favorite house was. And he said, House Beesbury. And I said, how dare you, sir, when you mostly cut Beesbury from this season? This pot today exists.

to honor Humph Bees. That was like honey in my eye. Like I... That sounds kind of nice. No, it does. Sticky? I don't know. Stinging?

Maybe it could be like sexy. Very much as well. Nothing for a minute. Fun for a minute. Just like the one glimpse of Beesbury's yellow mustache that it's stickily on being unable. Anyway. I guess that very quickly gets you to the stretch of the pit where that one patient had glued her eye together. Oh, I thought you were talking about the gonorrhea in the eye.

That also happened on the pit this season. Yeah, that was also early season too. It's funny of different kind. And then another thing I want to mention before we get to a couple emails is we've been tracking this like the presence of the seven, the seven gods at the tourney ground. And something we left out of the non-spoiler section in previous episodes was this idea is like, is Dunk himself the stranger in terms of someone who brings death to, and now we can say, bail or breaks spirit. And more importantly, like Humphrey, I keep calling Lyman Beesbury, because dear me, God's be good. He's always on my mind. Humphrey Beesbury died.

Very important. Dunk brings this death. It's not his fault. You could say that Maker brought his death, you know, whatever you decide. But like, this is sort of the theory is like that Dunk himself is the stranger. Yes. I think Dunk's guilt and these questions that he will ask himself moving forward, a big, big part of the character. I, before I forget on the bees front, hilarious that I think it's possible.

I might forget this because we're going to talk about these like 300 more times today for you. As he deserves. For you and for him. I just want to say. Of Honeyholz? There's been, you know, some feedback from the listeners. Yes, of Honeyholz. It's a great.

It's great. Honey Holt is wonderful. Sider Hall is fine, but Honey Holtz. Honey Holt's really good. You know, as always, the V-Day Quicky had people talk him. And I just want to shout out the one commenter on the Spotify post. Get in the Spotify comments if you're not in there, you know? Have a conversation with your fellow bad babies.

Give us the five stars while you're at it. Maybe, but it's a nice place. So don't go there if you want to be mean. Shout out the bad baby who is like, and I'm paraphrasing, Wonderful Pod, I'll never recover. I'm assigning you each 10, God's Beards and Dear Me's. It's like, beesberries with us always, you know? That's true.

Even when the yellow mustache himself only got one line. The legacy of the Beesbury clan and fam lives on, always. Can I hit a couple emails before we get into the deep dive? So our listener, Rachel, did confirm that over in the UK, tales from the seven Cs, the piracy. The piracy of this show has gone through the roof in the UK, apparently. So just date a point about how popular this is. We suggest you watch things legally, but, you know.

There were constantly articles about how Game of Thrones was like the most pirated show of all time. So I'm just saying it's a metric. And then our listener, Mikhail, wrote in to say, and of course I was going to include this because I get thrilled anytime someone reads a book I mentioned on a podcast. But she wrote to say that she just started the bright sword by Lev Grossman and said, it's so interesting how similar the opening is to the hedge night. So we had mentioned our previous pod that Lev Grossman was credited as a consultant. on the first episode this season. And we mentioned that he had written this book, The Brightsword, which is an Arthurian legend's book, right?

And Mikhail says, it makes a lot of sense as both main characters are young men embarking on a chivalric building's Roman, whereupon the scales of story will fall from their eyes. But it was fun to see how many parallels there were just within the first two chapters. Destitute protagonists with secrets, hoping for imminent glory but risking ruin,

competing among the great and good, who buries an old knight, and then stops at an inn where his journey takes a turn, etc. How shallow is the grave? It's a great question. Pick up the bright sword by Love Grossman to find out. Also, she says, the narration mentions that Colum kept his hair shoulder length in order to wear it flipped under his helm, quote, for extra padding,

at which point I mentally looked extremely pointedly at Baylor Targaryen and his fatefully stylishly cropped hair cut. Could hair have saved? Listen. It's Winwatch TM with Joanna Robinson, T.M. You're the hair expert. I'm not added to the list of things I'm not. A doctor, a scientist, a hairstylist. I do not believe that having extra hair keeps your brain intact. But what if Baylor had put, you know, the targs, they look shiny. I think it depends how much hair. Are you familiar with the Halo cap, the guardian cap in football? It looks dumb. But it keeps, it fends off head injuries. You're the problem. No, I said. people looking dumb in order to protect their heads. Just because I said it looked dumb doesn't mean I think they shouldn't wear it. So does growing your hair a little longer save your brain? I don't know. But what if Baylor had worn a guardian cap over Valar's helm? Something to think about.

I was looking to see if there was any more information on why Love Grossman was credited as a consultant in the first episode and I couldn't find anything. But I did find this like 2005 review of Feast for Crows that he wrote in Time magazine where he called George R. Martin the American Tolkien. It's sort of like he coined it. But it's really, I just want to read the first graph or so because it's really fun to read now in 2006. This was written 2005 before Game of Thrones a TV show was a thing, right? So Lev Grossman wrote,

George R. Martin is fond of sudden reversals, the tasty but poisoned dish, the false god who abruptly proves too real, the unsalvageable rogue who strikes a hidden vein of decency when we and he least expected. Martin is also partial to sacked castles, bear pits, disastrous battles, cynical betrayals, public executions, assassinations, ill luck, duels to the death,

ambushes in forests, and corpses left rotting and green hedgerows. The world Martin writes about may bear passing resemblance to Old England, but it is not a merry one. Martin isn't best known of America's straight-up fantasy writers. True at the time. That honor would probably go to upstart Christopher Paulini, Aragon. What a time capsule. Or Robert Jordan, the late Robert Jordan,

the endlessly turning wheel of time series, or better yet to Ageless Grandmistress Ursula K. LaGuen. the Wizard of Earth. Still valid. But of those who work in the grand epic fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, a feast for crows, currently descending on bookstores and ascending bestseller list, this is as good at time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien. But I just love that he's like, and Lev Grossman has talked about this review, how he was, like, so upset that no one was like covering Georgia R. Martin's stuff. And he was like, Time magazine

didn't care about fantasy literature. And I had to, like, fight for this review. So, you know, Lev Lev gets points for being ahead of his time, I guess. Great stuff. Last one at least. Alex wrote in about, quote, what has been by far the best adaptive change from book to show. It came in episode three when Raymond invites dunk to the fossiloid tent for a pint of cider. We press it ourselves.

I just re-listened to the Hedge Night audiobook. And at this point in the story, Raymond invites dunk for, quote, a fine arbor red, end quote. Really, George? You've already put so much stock into the fox. Potsways being apples personified, why would they be drinking anything other than cider? Kudis to Ira Parker and co for posting this layup. I'm pivoting the other way on this. Are you?

Yeah. Is it like cannibalism to drink cider when you are an apple yourself? No. Maybe. That's an interesting wrinkle. I love a cider, as we've previously discussed. I think that because, as we have chronicled across the journey of covering this season, Raymond, Stefan, Steverum, and presumably all of their fast-awake-in can't get through more than half a sentence without incorporating some sort of apple pun. At some point, it's a hat on a hat. It's too much. And so the cider, while I love a cider, and while I think, you know, look, cider hall, new barrel, etc., they're leaning into the branding. They're smart about merchandising their identity and their image great. It reminds me of, let me ask you this, are you familiar with, if I say this to you just an image,

come to mind. The Maryland Terrapins, right? My hometown, the university where my parents met, fell in love shortly before getting divorced. You can see the Maryland state flag. You know what that looks like, okay, in your mind? No? Okay, Google it. This is important. Quickly Google it. Carlos, maybe you'll put an image of the Maryland flag on the screen. So it's a great flag. It's very cool. Okay. Great color scheme. The Terps use of this color scheme. Red, yellow, black, white. Okay. At a certain point, they decided, what if instead of just incorporating the flag, you know, into the logo, et cetera, we make the entire uniform, the Maryland flag. Carlos, perhaps we can also now put a picture. I know you know what I'm talking about

of when the Maryland, Google Maryland Terrapin football flag helmet. The entire thing was just the flag. And it's too much. At a certain point, it's like, why not just wear a crab cake? on your head. But don't you think you would? And I say this as somebody who fucking loves Maryland. You would definitely. If someone made you like a fancy fascinator for a wedding but it looks like a crab cake, you would wear it.

Yep. I think you know that's true. But not honey. If you went to Honeyhold and they didn't have honey, would you not be disappointed? Sure, but like they can't have an arbor wine? There's what else. The Fasoys? In this region of Westeros?

When Dunk and Raymond Fossoway. empty their stomachs before they go on the tourney field. Yeah. Raymond's is a bright red. So I think he was consuming some, uh, some arbor red. Your ability to track colors through that foggy mist is, uh, I mean, it's one of the reasons you're you and you're great. You know, like when you eat beats?

Sure. And then the next day you're like, ah, I hate beets. You know, it's like, I feel like, Rimsbossi. It's very intimate podcast already. That's just a human condition. Yeah. I had a beet salad with a friend the other day and he's, He's like, I'm scheduling a text for you tomorrow that just said you ate beats.

Just to like, you know, set your mind at ease. There's a great beat salad at John and Vinny's no free ads. I've had it. It's wonderful. A little spice, little crunch. It's great. Let's do it. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus.

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Overhead shot of the seven on Dunk's team. And our listener who signs their emails Lady Olena, even though I know that's not their name. You don't think. So, so, speaking of the ongoing seven gods at Ashford Theory, did you notice the overhead shot right at the beginning of the episode that showed Dung's team assembled like a seven point star? Now, I love to chase symbolism as much as the next person, but I'm not sure that seven people in a circle. My answer to that is no. I thought they were in a circle. You have to draw all the lines to make it a seven point star, but I respect the commitment to the bit.

Same. We love commitment to the pit here at the House of Arn't. Dunck's side. Armored, sweet little egg. He looks so small holding the gigantic lance. Dunk, in case you've forgotten who the seven are. Baylor, the out of them lads. Raymond. Lionel. The Humphs. Harding and Bees. And of course, Robin Riesling. And I'm just fine saying it that way now. Robin Rysling, who goes into battle without putting a helmet on. I think everyone has made some very interesting choices about how they've chosen

to protect themselves heading into this battle. Everybody was very relieved to see that Raymond had some chain mail on. Some light ring mail on. Ish. And a helm.

Speaking of helms, Baylor, he's in Coach Taylor mode. No. Time for like a pregame locker room pepotocke. You got to get the squad ready. Clear eyes, full hearts.

We're going to cheat. Clear eyes, full hearts. There's no shame. and having a tactical game plan. Sure. His helm is off. It's just nice to take a moment to look at a still intact head.

We'll just enjoy it while we can. Let's just enjoy it while we can. Yeah. No minced words here. No minced words about the peril that awaits. They all know that this could be deadly. Baylor's like, don't panic. Stay in formation.

Try to remain on your mounts. That lasts about 12 seconds for all parties. Oh, and keep this one thing in mind. These men mean to kill you. They will fight savagely. And Robin's like, same, bro. Same. He's like, that's my life.

There have been so many questions. So we read the rules of the trial of seven last week. And it's all the information we have about the trial of seven, which is that either everyone dies or one of the main combatants yields. Like that's sort of what happens here or dies, etc. Right. I would say that there are some, like, there's some fine print that George never clarified that would be quite useful. And I think especially in this version of the trial where they draw out the action to the point where it's like, okay, it starts. The Kingsguard killed Beesbury and Harding right away. So there's no question of like, are people trying to kill it? Is everyone trying to kill each other? No. I don't think Maker and Baylor are trying to kill each other. Right. But some people, the Kingsguard. are just killing people out here, okay? But what is the Kings guards, like, their job is to protect the Targaryians that are out here.

Right. So take a couple of the other team off the board. Sure, that's doing your job. Yeah. And then they just kind of ride around in the background for the rest of the tour. And I'm like, does no one, like, Mekar and Raymond once each get involved in this Aryan and dunk fight? Yeah, the ride by us. But none of the Kingsguard get involved, even though they have, like, you know, the Fossways are fighting each other.

brother. Darren's down in the mud, right? Just where he said he'd be. Baylor and Lionel are holding Make-Hard back. Yeah. Is Robin Risling just taking on three of the king, like keeping all three of the Kingsguard busy? If not, why would they not get involved with Arian and Dunk? Because there's no rule that like, you know, the main combatants have to duel each other. Sure, yeah.

And Arian demanding a trial of seven and then just fighting Dunk one-on-one anyway. Oh, no, he's not a leave it to me, guys. The whole gambit here is don't leave it to me. Where are my bodyguards, right? And Darren's like, I'm taking a snooze in the mud. So I think while I like, there's many reasons why I like the protracted nature of the way they did the journey in this episode versus how it is in the book where it's like, don't take some hits and then he gets the upper hand and then it's kind of curtains for Aryan. Like that's it. It's over much faster.

Yeah. I like it and we'll talk about all the reasons why I like it. But it does reveal some sort of like flaws. And also Ira Parker is like, we didn't have much budget, so we kind of tried to make it work as we could. But just like every so often a Kingsguard just sort of gallows behind the action. I'm like, what are you guys doing? Yeah, I think there's like, it's one of those things where on some level the answer, certainly in the show adaptation is like, if the Kings Guard were constantly trying to just like encase Aryan, it's not as interesting to watch as this death struggle that we get between the two. There's the drama.

I'm not saying it would have been better. I'm just saying maybe keep Beesbury and Harding alive a little longer so that we have a reason why the Kings Guard are occupied. I think there's like just a touch. Obviously there's the, you know, the explanation we got last episode, the Andells in the tradition. Oh, the gods will be more likely to chime in, share their verdict in their opinion. You know, there's just like a touch. And it gives the opportunity for people to declare and try to be either bold or brave or forge the past. of glory or do the right thing. Like a little, like a touch of the like, wait, the snitch is worth how much? Right. It's like a touch and that happens sometimes. They've got four Targaryians to protect on the field there.

I do think Arian is their lowest priority in all of this, but he's still a Prince of the Blood. Prince of the Blood. So Prince of the Blood. What are we doing? His armor's sick. His armor sick. I, as you know, would have loved to, thought the stretches of the trial of seven we got were great. would I have felt sorry to see more of Sir Rowland?

No. Hot Roley? Hot Roley? Would have loved it. Would have been thrilled. I mean, Will Wild needs to be like basically incapacitated very quickly. But I think if we gotten to see the Kingsguard with their helmets off a bit more in this episode. Great.

Well, for your purpose is great, but also a reminder to audience who are not quite as sort of tuned in that like we've met two of these guys before. We've talked to them. Yeah. This is who. One of them wanted to know where to take a shit. Yeah. A crabber. A crabber.

A nepo baby. So, quick vibe check on everybody who just heard this rousing pregame pep talk from Baylor. How's everybody doing? Oh, profusely vomiting. Raymond and Dunk pukin. I call this the Josh Allen pregame ritual. Josh Allen. I do know who Josh Allen is.

I know you're getting last with them, but I know who Josh Allen is. Pukes before every football game. Happy to always talk about it and share these details. He pukes before every game. So here you go. That sounds kind of cleansing to me, honestly. Raymond and Dunk, part of Bill's Mafia. I guess that's the takeaway here.

Humph Harding. Yeah. Could not have found this more hysterical. Green fucking boys. Green fucking boys. I am just glad that he got to laugh once more before the end. Do you think as he laughed he jostled his shattered leg a bit and it sort of shodded like a baking dish?

I got real, and this makes sense to me because his horse fell on his leg. Milk of the poppy? I think this guy is loaded on milk of the poppy. He's floating on milk of the poppy. I do not think he should be allowed to participate in the trial of seven. And guess what? The gods didn't think so either. Torny drug test on on farting.

He's down right away. Listen, if you've listened to the House of R, if you watch the House of R, you know that every now and then we sprinkle in a clip. Often it is because the performance is so memorable or the language is gorgeous or yes, the theme is so astonishing that we need to cement it and codify it and the visual record before we talk about it.

And this is all of those things. And this is every single one of those things. Sometimes it's just a co-host and a producer given a gift to another co-host. So let's see Humphrey Beesbury's one line of the season, Carlos, if you please. What of the king's guard? Take heart, Beesbury.

That was it. Hot. I call it. Instant icon. Oh, my God. Take heart, Beesbury. Baylor, Air to the Iron Throne, Hand of the King, Baylor Brakespeer using Beesbury's name.

Obviously, later he'll call Raymond, Sir Raymond. You know, it's just really wonderful to get to hear him acknowledge Bees. He knows who's Sir Ireland of the Penny Treas. is and he knows who Humphrey Beesbury is. A lot of feedback online about not just obviously we've been discussing the yellow mustache, but just in general how Beesbury is styled. Very hip. That's great.

People are loving it. Fresh cut. I would like to now read to you a comment. We mentioned the comments that you can comment on our episodes on the Spotify app. I would like to share one with you. If you're nice. The guy with the yellow mustache threw me. Who?

Why? Care to comment. Listen, J. Matthew Johnson. and you seem to have a really great beard in your profile photo. And so I support you in that. But get on board. Get on board with House Beesbury. Oh, my God.

Listen, can't blame some members of the viewing public if they still don't know who this guy is. But if you're a bad baby, you know that Humph Bees means something to jail. And that should be enough. Beware our sting. That's their housewheres. That is good. Did it bear out? He took a sting.

To the groin. To the groin. Canonically in the book. Yeah. It's tough. He dies by a groin wound. He does. Yeah. And by Beware our sting, did he mean his lance and did it help him?

Does not seem so. Dead in the first pass is what we find out. The fact that we... Do you think that Kingsguard feels good about himself? Donald. Probably. Honestly. I think a life of delicious succulent crab meat and riches and then Kingsguard gorge.

Here's what you say. He's not allowed any. A single drop of honey for the rest of his life. As long as he has some old bay, he'll be fine. I can't. Honestly, he'll be fine. Honey bake ham out. Mead, out. Oh, that's sad.

Yeah. You need to be able to have meat in the seven days. Those little honey sticks, out. That is tough. I don't think you can really make it through Westeros without mead. Drink your tea bitter, my friend. No more honey. Do you put honey in your tea?

No, I was going to say, that is not. I've seen you have many a cup. And never with I hate honey. I think it's disgusting. What a journey this has been. It's sticky and sweet and it gets everywhere. You sound like Anakin Skywalker described the sand. That's what I was going for.

I just want to know when your fall to the dark side will be. How many are the younglings in the studio anywhere? Kill another beesbury and find out. Okay. Everybody's doing great. Everybody's doing great today. When Aryan took the groin slash later, I did think of you. and I thought bees couldn't even get his own groin slash.

The groin death. Like, even the groin slash went to someone else. They gave him his dignity. Groin death is not among the deaths. I'd rank it pretty low. It's low? Death by groin wound? I mean, he was dead on the first past.

Humpf Harding, that's an update. You know, in the text, he's like, dying and dying and dying and dying. A few days later, yeah. I'd like to thank him for having such a visually distinct shield with that Harding sigil. It was very easy to spot his unmoving corpse in the month. His immediate fall. Okay, let's discuss for a couple minutes here,

Baylor's Kingsguard gamut. And the group's response to it. I have noticed. Tell me. So here's what he says. He says, I will handle the Kingsguard. Their oaths forbid them to harm a prince of the blood. Robin says, is that honorable your grace?

And Baylor says, the gods will let us. Here's how the passage goes in the novella. Baylor took that calmly. My brother erred when he demanded that the Kingsguard fight for his son. Their oath forbids them to harm a prince of the blood. Fortunately, I am such. He gave them a faint smile. Keep the others off me long enough and I shall deal with the King's Guard.

My prince is that chivalrous? As Sir Lionel Barathean as the septon was finishing his invocation, the gods will let us know, said Baylor breaks bare. Lionel gets a different retort here. He says, Mother loved you best. The earring is just so showcased the angle of his head. It's wonderful. Shame. No man fights so fierce as one neglected by his mother. Just ask the motherless dunk of flea bottom. I'll say this. Tell me. As a fan of a dangly earring, I'm taking the earrings off if I'm going on to attorney fields. I understand the idea is to keep the helm on. Yeah, sure. Of course. And listen, the antlers are already like a liability because he loses some of those. Like they get, he could get pulled by the antler at any given moment. Listen. Imagine if he got pulled by the earring at some point. One more victory for Steely Pate, that's all I'm saying.

Simple armor. Oh, simple armor. Steely Pate, who reinforced that shield that didn't last its first hit? You know, maybe. That shield shattered right away. I went dunk picks up. It did. I've got, that's a powerful symbol.

I was like, that thing cracked right away. Much as we're about to discuss here, this is the world of Westeros. You spent a lot of time curting yourself and bracing and preparing, and then it's all ripped away from you in just a second. And you're like, and you brag about how you reinforce the shield with like sturdy iron, and then it just sort of like dissolves. In the text, they just, when Dunk picks up Aryan's shield and it's described as like, you know, it's like twice as thick, like Sir Arland's cock. And I was looking at it.

It reminded me of remember all the moments of Battle of the Bastards will come up a few times today, you know, John pulling, you can like kind of see the rubber sword. There's definitely a little bit of that with the shield, which is fine. A little wobble to it. It's fine. So tell me, Joe, what do you make of kind of a couple of, voices on this side, on Baylor's side, just lightly questioning and introducing this kind of tone setter of like prejudging the approach. What do you make at this? Okay, listen. Here and in

George's world more broadly. Um, Baylor, as as you, I think you noted on Talk the Thrones, you were like a little bit of princely hubris. Sure. I'll handle this. When he says, I will handle the Kingsguard to Humphrey Beesbury, Humphrey Harding, who gets, immediately killed by the Kingsguard? Sure. Yeah. I have some notes for Baylor Strategy. It'll be fine. I'll handle the Kings Guard.

Don't worry. As far as I know, he doesn't grapple with them at all. He's on Maker the whole time. So like, what is this prompt, empty promises from royalty once again? This is shh. Honeyhold. This is the Honey holt blinders.

Housebee's ready. The Honey holt blinders. The Honeyolt lens. The thick amber. They die in the first. you're seeing this. Pass by the Kingsguard. Absolutely bullshit that Bailer's spinning here. I did miss from the book we get, he has this whole strategy of like, we'll use tourney lances. Yes. They're longer than war lances. War lancers are sturdier. So like all of those turning lances that

we saw splinter into smithereens on the various tourney passes into like Balsawood. That's not what a warlance is. When Dunk gets a war lance to the side and has to like, like, you know, pull it out. That's, that's some serious business. But it turns out. But a turning lance is longer. And so Baylor's whole strategy in the book is like, we'll use turning lances, we'll keep on top of our horses, we'll keep them at a distance, we'll be able to enforce them. It's very smart. Didn't help Beesbury and Harding at the end of the day, but they just cut the whole lance thing. I'm glad they didn't want to describe. This is the difference between a terny lance and a war lens. Let's pause to talk about it.

Perhaps in the television adaptation, that would have been a touch, uh, uh, dramatic. genetically inert. I personally am glad that that did not make the cut, even though we can still see the very tall lances. Because that actually struck me always as the one where I'm like, no, I love a game plan. That's just strategy. But it's like the idea that can't touch me. That's altering the rules of the game. But it's strategy for one pass. True. Which. Because Egg only has to hand up one lance and then he's like, BRB, got to make a quick change. And then I'll be in the stands. I think that we will. I think that we will. certainly we will talk about this more in the season finale, just these questions, even if you watch the tease for the finale that they put like a one-minute teaser of what's to come.

We can hear and see in that preview that characters are processing what has happened, right? And anytime something like this happens in a George R. Martin story, it's a little bit of a litmus test for each character, maybe for the viewer or the reader, of like how you see the world. I think that the princess hubris, the idea like, well, maybe, you know, the hammer always finds the anvil or the spear always breaks. I actually like giving Baylor a little bit of that to our discussion earlier in the season. Like, it's not as interesting if he is literally perfect. Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you think Makar is like, who's the hammer now, bitch?

After he bashes brothers head. I mean, I hope he has a touch more to act. He says that, that's an alleg. I hope Mr. has a touch more fucking tact than that. I don't think he's above thinking it. But I hope he doesn't say it. I think that using tactics to pursue justice in the face of injustice is great

and certainly not mutually exclusive from being honorable and doing the right thing. Tywin Lanister once taught me and the grandson that he was actively manipulating. Yeah. That wisdom makes a good king. And so I look at all of this from Baylor and I'm like, this is a strategist and a good man. This is a bold leader. To me, it just makes him so much more interesting. I think this question of judgment, though, is fascinating in a George story.

And I think if you looked through every death that we would point to as shocking, subversive, a character we root for in a door cut down in their prime and maybe even in the peak of their pursuit of something virtuous, there will always be either in the fandom, people reading it, watching it, whatever the case would be, however you're consuming it for the first time. Characters in the world, most crucially, who are like, yeah, but you did this thing, right? That's, like, part of what makes it interesting. It's never simple. It's never clean. It's never easy.

Like, we love to talk about Ned's madness of mercy and this idea that, like, he warned Circe. He went to Circe because he wanted the kids to be okay. And like, you sound like Bill Simmons texting us from the sauna. Or Bill is like simple Ned didn't deserve to live. Eddie. Eddie. The next time Bill texts us, Ned will be the first time. Sorry, Eddie Stark.

Eddie Stark. Too dumb to live. Eddie Stark. But like, you know, did Rob break his promise to the phrase? Yeah. Does that mean that we're not like with Aria every second all the way to fucking Frey Pie? Does it mean Rob deserve to die? Like, no.

of course not. Oberyn wanted his vengeance and he got a little cute and that's true, but does it mean he wasn't in the right? He was cute the whole time. Let's be real. Yeah, he was. Wow. He was going to swear for you. Look at you. Like there are members of the Knights Watch who genuinely believe with every fiber of their being that what John did letting the wildlings through was wrong. And then for me, for many people, it's like this is part of what makes John a character worth loving and worth rooting for. So it's real like James, me and Kat talking in season two, you know, if your gods are real and if they're just, why is the world so full of injustice and Katzang because of men like you?

It's like, you know, we shared the quote from the novella last week. This isn't in the show, but Leo Longthorne, when everyone's like, yeah, you know, trial of seven, like the gods might be more likely to get involved. And he's like, or mayhaps, they simply had a taste for swordplay. The role of the gods, the role of fate is an interesting one to think about in this story. But does the judgment, is there, is Baylor judged wrong by the outcome here? That is not my read. I think that there will be some characters in the story who think that, though.

And that's interesting. Bailor made some choices. Humphrey Biesbury just showed up. I think that we know what the Biesbury's will say. Listen, I like my thing about the, that Leo Longthorn quote is a really good one to bring up because in the very, very young Septan who gives the sort of blessing before the tourney, talks about what, a bloody offering? Bloody offering.

Yeah, and that's just such a pagan idea of like, it's not the god, the sort of like virtuous god sitting on high will bless the innocent. It's like, here's, we're offering up the blood of House Beesbury, the most valuable blood there is to offer to feed them. I'm almost done this bit. To nourish them on their honey. No, you keep the Beesbury, you keep Beesbury's memory alive. Because here's the thing.

Parker Woodwall. The other thing, if you don't, nobody will. It's absolutely nobody will. Speaking of Ira, here's what he said on the inside the episode, a little mini feature at Baylor chooses to do the right thing. And like many people on Game of Thrones who choose to do the right thing, life intervenes as it will. So this is just to me like vintage Thrones, vintage George R. Martin.

Baylor's smart. Baylor's good. Baylor's brave. He's imperfect. He's tactical. But the fact that he is actually doing, the honorable thing is not like rendered mood or untrue, it just doesn't matter. It's not enough to keep him alive and that is the harsh reality that we're watching here. The other tried off.

Dunkin Egg's share a moment. Dunk calls him Squire. I love this little touch because it's like for just a beat here. It's all business, right? Dunk is trying to maintain a grip on him himself and his emotions. He's also trying to remind Egg of his duties. His responsibilities much like in episode two after what they witness with Aryan and Hump Harding, like there might be a day where a mishapy falls me and you have to be ready. But it's only a beat because then they share their little inside joke.

If you rob me, I'll come after you with dogs. Woof. And it's just this lovely little brief moment that they share that reminds us of what they've built over just a handful of days. I really love this moment so much because there's, you know, we've been talking all season inspired by a listener email

about like what people, how people look at, when Dunk's not looking at them, right? That we get to observe that the books being so strictly from Dunk's point of view can't give us, right? And so Egg kind of smiling at him as they share this like inside joke, that's a callback, that the show invented callback, which I really love, right? The original joke was show invented. This is a callback.

This is like the opposite of in the final seasons of Thrones when characters would just say lines that other characters had said who like... Remember when Thrones was good? Yeah. Remember when this line really hit? We just had another character say it even though they don't know. that other character and have no reason to say things the exact same way. Copy paste from a previous season.

Really bad. This is like a really cute inside joke between these people, right? And so, but then the way that that Egg's face falls when Dunk turns around and the serious, you know, the whole, I mean, egg is just us, the whole episode and like the come on get up, you know, all this sort of stuff. The weight, everything. Like that's on decks inside of this episode to perform and he's so good. He was really, really good.

But it's also this moment for Egg who, like, this is his dream. This is what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a squire. He trained to, like, here's her Duncan. Here's the lance. You know, my tiny hands can do this. But, like, so many characters on Game of Thrones. Like, like, Sansa when she gets to marry Joffrey, like, when these sort of, like, childish ideals, these dreams come true.

And then the reality is such a nightmare. This is an absolute nightmare. This is a mist-wreathed absolute morass of mud nightmare. And this is what egg has been like one and careful what you wish for, which George is constantly sort of throwing in people's faces. The blood seeping into the armor and the ideal. It's a great shout. Yeah.

The music here sort of achieves that effect as well. The scoring, we've been talking about it all season. Your guy fucking killing it, Dan Romer. This, I thought that what he did with the story. score in this episode was astonishing. You know, we have moments where it is, like, appropriate to give us a little bit more of the return to the jaunty adventure tune. But there are a couple times later after the, in a minute, actually, after, like,

the first charge when Aryan stabs, stabs dunk, puts the three feet of the tip of the lance through his side. And then he kind of tosses it down. Do you hear my elbow crack? Yep. I mean, it's not, it can't be good. You're game ready, baby. Can't be good.

It can't be good. The like, it sounded like a horn out of hell, the musical accompaniment when he did that. And then here, as this, as a, as Dunk rides away from Egg and they part an egg looks at him as you're describing. And the reality of the world kind of washes in. It felt like a pre-funal, funeral dirge here. Like, that was what the music sounded like. I just thought it was really masterful, compositional accompaniment on the musical film. I really agree.

The trial of seven begins. You mentioned the Ashford Septin set in the mood. It's not quite Tomman recusing himself in season four. If found guilty made the gods punish the accused, which always gives me like a chill every time I hear it, especially, of course, because of the familial ties and the bastardization, quite literally in that case, of those ties. But we get this little, this mood setter for the crowd,

and Dunk puts his helm on. And Aryan lowers his. being so young. We've mostly seen aged septans. So like, I think I got, um, thinking about what we've learned across the season, mostly from Plummer, about Lord Ashford, kind of overstretching. I got, he had to tap into the Faith of the Seven internship program vibes. He could not hire a real septon. That was no sense I got. How about you? I was also thinking about Aymond. Like, Amon is like, you know, young in at the citadel and sort of, you know, learning he's not a septent, but like, you know, like about the age of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Eamon always on our minds. Never a bad time to mention them. Or bees. Two of the greats. Two of the greats. The two most important characters.

I love this, the cut between the two helms and just the style of their armor, this like style versus substance jump cut from Duncan and Aryan prepping here. If you could pick one set of armor from any of the characters on either side to make your own forever, to have either to work. wear, to hang on your wall, to look at, who's would you pick? I mean, let's just put aside B-spray, because obviously that's the answer. But, like, I think my favorite shot of, like, in the lineup, and he's at the edge of frame, the camera wants us to see him, is Darren, right?

With the, he's got this in the book it describes as a green silk plume trailed from Darren's helm, and we get the green silk plume as he puts his, uh, his helm on. But, like, just like his armor, he looks so ill. Like, I'm surprised he didn't vomit. at four vomits in this episode. There's no question Darren vomited. We just were not treated seeing it. In the books, as we discussed, he's like fighting the DTs as he's like getting on his horse here. Like, he's not doing well. But I thought his armor was so good. But like if honestly, if I have to pick one, it's make our sick dragon tooth armor. It's pretty good.

That's amazing. It's really good. I think that Darren's, how about you? Yeah. Darren's little green bobble. It gives me real like cat toy like a little feather duster vibes. You were texting me. When I said you a screenshot of Darren in the mud, you texted me like the little like detective emoji

and then the little like greensprone little pea tential or whatever. A little green sprout emoji for Darren. You're great. You're great. I, make our arm is a pretty good choice. I do.

I'm ashamed by how much I like Aryan's armor, but I really, it's fantastic. All of this Targaryan armor is, is great. Valar's is really good, but I wouldn't want it in my home with it. I wouldn't want it in my home after what happened. With princely brain matter in it? I would probably take Lionel's armor. But can you, in terms of like scavenging and like selling things, can you imagine of someone, if you found that?

No, the antler prongs, but like the crunchy bloody helm that killed Prince Baylor. How many coppers could you get for that? Just a question. I'm just asking questions. I mean, I don't think that Egg, Raymond, or Goodman, Pate will be doing that. So who's in there next? That's the question. There are stable boys abound, you know? Maybe that guy who was like, are you Bella Tarrian? They get the full out of the way.

Yeah, he's going to just scoop up some of the brain matter. Head to eBay. Head to Ashford, eBay. Probably right. In this stretch where we're glimpsing everybody kind of lining up, readying for battle. I think there's like remnants of the other side of the of the Blackfire Rebellion who would like want the the scooped up brain matter of Prince Baylor. I mean, no question. Yeah. No question. No question. Bittersteel's like, here's my PO box in SOS. Oh my God. He's going to be tracking that package for months.

You mentioned early in the season drew our attention to the statues that are all over the tourney grounds. And there were some really, especially at the beginning, but throughout, just really great, like, adjacency shots of the flesh and blood knights and horses rearing up in front of the statues and this idea that we've been talking about all seasons. It was a really meta encapsulation of the tall tale that became legend, like this melding of myth and real life and the way that something happens in front of you that is rendered in stone one day. I thought that that was like just a great use of the set.

of the setting and the set, and one of the many things that they did inside of this episode, and this season so far, to give a real sense of, like, scale and specificity and something so memorable, like, now it's indelible with this low budget. I know. And it's so menacing. Like, those statues look so menacing in the mist. And, like, compared to, like, when Duncan saw them in the golden torchlight of earlier in the week, you know.

And I love, you know, we remarked upon the shots in the rain in last week's episode, but it's really important that the attorney field be an. an absolute mud pit. It does look fun. Did you like a slip and slide when you were a kid? I mean, the mace to the head and stuff less fun,

but morning stars and maces and flails three different things. Okay. Let's just get this out of the way now. Thank you to the... I almost brought the whitechew. The dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of you.

Did you ever see all the emails we got? I just assume it's an order of magnitude in the inbox beyond what was in all the comments to let us know, because we had this discussion on Talk the Thrones, what's the difference between a mason and a morning star? Many people have chimed in to say, hey, dipshits, that's a flail.

I believe it was dumb fuck. I think that's the truth of the kids. Adults. And to that I say, thank you for informing us. And I blame George because he says it a morning star. He calls it a morning star in the text. And there's like an illustration.

And he talks about it on the end of a chain and stuff like that. Here's the deal. Yeah. There's a way in which George can be right. And there's a way in which, unfortunately, Chris Ryan is right, right? We'll never tell him. Whoa. You guys don't tell him.

Okay. There's the Mace. We all know what that is. A spiky ball on the end of a stick. Yeah. That's amazing. Just going to add, we're not armors, blacksmiths or weapons experts. It's in the long list.

Yeah. I'm with you so far. Steely Pate, not a doctor. Okay. No. No. A morning star, and again, I was going to bring the whiteboard for this. A morning star is that, but the things are spikier. There are longer spikier prongs. Okay. But the important part is the longer... I'm sorry, when you do this and then say longer spikier prongs, I do find myself once again thinking about... Sir Arlin. But I'm locked back in. Yeah. How can I make it less cocky for you?

If I had the whiteboard. Okay, so. Yeah. A mace, but make some of the prongs longer, that's a morning star. Okay. Uh-huh. But the point is the long prong. So I think you can have that sort of mace with the longer prongs on the end of a shorter chain.

That's still a morning star. Okay. But the long chain, that's what makes it a flail. I see. I think. And what's really devastating for me personally? Everyone's going to tell you. What's really devastating for me personally is the reason I was so quick, we were both so quick to correct.

is that literally before Talked Thrones, I had Googled Morningstar versus Mace versus Flail. I had Googled all three and I still somewhat got it wrong. So tough out here for Game of Thrones experts, I guess. But George does call it a Morning Star. It's actually important that he calls it a Morning Star because he uses language that like compares it to the falling star. Yes. That Dunk Seas, right? He talks about seeing the star sort of come across.

And you see it, there's a great shot of it in this episode, but the star sort of. sort of like coming across the visor, the spike ball whirled around and round the sky and fell towards his head as fast as a shooting star, right? So like this falling star imagery that we'll be using for dunk all season. Update it right now with flail language. See if it works as well. The spike fell world around and around the sky and fell towards his head as fast as a shooting flail. It flailed as dunk head into the, it is the descriptions of what Dunk can glimpse through that little slit, like the way that he's like, The dragon was smiling.

Yeah. Because he can all, the... And the way the camera does that, like, when they eventually do do the charge, we'll talk about Thunder. Saving the day. You know we're on. And thunder saving the day. But that camera move of like in the visor, you know, like, it's so good.

So good. We had really gushed over seeing that in the trailer and just kind of the hype that was building. The sound of the breathing. Yeah. And then here we are. The horn sounds. We're off and we are in that helmet cam. And this just fucking ruled.

Dunks POV literalized and crystallized for us that way. I can't wait to see behind the scenes because you think they just put like a helm on their, like we just like a little. Like one of those cameras you fish under a door of your spy. This is like through his little. Owen Harris is the director here. So I just want to see shots of Owen or Owen's DP out on the mud field with just like a little visor like cap on. A little helm over the camera. Yeah.

That's great. I love this. Are you familiar with... You know what F1 is, Formula One. You're familiar. Against my lot. So Sky Sports. Yeah.

They broadcast the Grand Prix. They broadcast the races. And you can choose. You can opt in to an onboard driver feed for your favorite driver. So you can watch if you want... How many times you can you flip around? You can move around and you can do whatever you want. So if you're like, I only want to watch this rate...

through the perspective of Lando Nauris. Little Lando Norris. It was not. It's all too much for Little Lando Norris. World fucking champion. Papaya Hive. F1 is almost a pun of skin. I can't wait.

If you could have opted out of Dunk's helmet cam and opted into another onboard driver visor cam for another participant in the trial of seven, who would you pick? Are you riding with bees and then your feed cuts out after points? It would be really funny. If you're done for the day?

you're Darren and you're just like a camera that's been tipped over into the mud. I think I would either, in honesty, I would either pick Lionel Barassian so you could get the booming laughter of the laughing storm or... And he's really in the thick of it. Yeah, or Raymond Fawseway. That's a good one. Yeah. But then you're staring at your least favorite character.

Steveron? Stepron as he charges down and challenges him. Oh, man. My favorite little Darren detail, by the way, is at the end when they're kind of going over the body count, reading the injury report. Yeah, like, um, might have a broken fun. His own horse kind of just, like, freaked out and started running around and stepped on him. Stepped on by his own horse.

Okay. Okay, rank the embarrassment. Brutal. That's the tough one. Death by groin wound. I put that under the love of the games. Like, it might happen. That is just, that's just sloppy work by Darren.

Step on by your own. If your plan is one gallon charge and then I'm going to fall over in the mud, you've got to prep your mount to. Yeah. Where is egg to be like... Put like a carrot Or an apple or a sugar cube. Over as Dary... You stand so the horse goes there.

As Daron falls, he just flings a carrot. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Get a plant with, yeah, some sugar cubes. I dreamed of it. You found the sugar cube and left my foot intact. There was a giant carrot. Swings.

He can't get anyone... Cast a shadow on the field. All right. Only life for Darren the drunken. All right, Dunk's panting. His eyes are wide and tear. I love when we cut to the flashback and we see young Dunk with the cloth over his nose to block the COVID. Yeah, the COVID mask to block the stench of the corpses on the red grass field.

The early day of COVID when I was just like, if I just put this little cloth here, it'll be fine. This bandana. I won't get the vid. A Game of Thrones. One of our favorite quotes. We talk about it a lot. Sure. Can a man be brave if he's afraid?

That is the only time a man can be brave. father told him this is Brandon Ned. And so that is just so on our minds here as we watch this terror grip dunk because of course it would. How could it not? I was also thinking of, I was in a little bit of, I'm very Tolkienian, you've already mentioned him, episode in general. And I was really thinking here like courage, Mary, courage for our friends as well. That was very on my mind. Dunk is frozen until Thunder, spurred in part by egg that episode three, Egg and Thunder show early training really pang off because Thunder hears egg pulls dunk forward. I would say this is the most important passage in the history of literature.

What do you think? Read it to me. A stab of panic went through him. I have forgotten, he thought wildly. I have forgotten all. I will shame myself. I will lose everything. Thunder saved him.

The big brown stallion knew what to do, even if his rider did not. Okay, so are you upset that Ira Parker has stolen some of the credit from Thunder and given it to Egg? Yeah, fuck Egg. Clip it. Put it everywhere. This is Thunder's moment. God damn it. No, I really like the Egg Thunderbond.

I think it's nice to connect their little family. I love since we're in Dunk's POV, Dunk wouldn't be able to know, like, because he can't hear anything except his own Frady Cat breathing. But, like, he wouldn't know that Egg A, like, train. with Thunder because he wasn't there for that. He just thought egg had fucked off. And B, like, that egg was responsible. So he's like, wow, my horse knew what to do. Which surely wasn't the child screaming him from the stands. Here's something that Peter Claffey said in the after the episode.

Yes. He said, Dunk had never been to war before. Which surprised me because there's the shot of him tending to Sir Arlen when Sir Arlen fought the vulture king, right? So I have a fix for this, though. Okay. Is it just that he said the wrong thing? Which I think is probably what happened. Probably that's true. But come with me on this journey. As we've seen this episode, Sir Arlen lost his beloved squire, Roger, at the Battle of the Red Grassfield.

Which we will talk about at length, obviously, when we get there. At Sir Arlen length when we get there, right? But he takes on dunk sort of begrudgingly in the context of this flashback. And I mean, it's possible that when he went to war later, he's like, you wait in the tent. I don't want anything to happen to you. I don't want anything to happen to you. Yeah. But he wouldn't say it that way. He would say it gruffer and he'd be like, you're not worthy, sit in the tent.

When really he meant. I drink some dirty puddle water. Really what he meant is my heart is too tender and can't break again. Into a mound of dirt I had to dig with my own hands as I mourn my charge. But say it in a Dothraki. When we get there, I want you to prepare to sing Dothraki. I want you to do that. No, I'm like Chris, I have not promised to do any singing on this podcast.

We can't let him forget. We can't let's see our forget. Schedule the text and say, remember you eight beats and remember you promised us that you would sing on Talk of Thrones this week. Oh, God. Just immediately, just right away. Arienslance explodes into Dunkside. Just right away. And?

And the shield fucking shatters like. Like, Thanos is their shipping away a Captain America's shield. God damn it. Steely Pate's shield shatters. Yeah. He did his best. And the ring mail gets embedded in Dung's Flesh. To me, that just, honestly, if I were managing Steely Pate's business, I would say,

or leaving a Yelp review, I would say, all that means is the chain mail helped. I would say, it helped. Next time plate armor, maybe. It held. Next time, some plate armor. The male can only go into your wound if it doesn't break on the tip of the lance.

It's intact and being driven through. You miss your crawl in marketing. It's possible. All right, I'm going to give Dunk a little bit of a pep talk here. Green fucking moines. That, or maybe this is what he needs to hear.

And it's shields. When the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. I mean, sure, does he look at the shield in the Texan think Oaken iron. And shooting star gave him heart and then does it immediately shatter? Yeah, it's tough. Oak and iron guard me well or else I'm dead and doomed to hell. I mean, I think you were right to note last time we talked about that, that it's maybe not the headspace that you want a court on the precipice of battle. That's all valid. I think that seeing this symbol of hope. I think that's seeing the symbol of hope, not only symbol of hope, but as we've been talking about, you know, this was on my

mind actually with the moment with egg and thunder and dunk and Arlen, all kind of being involved in the little like search forward, pulling dunk forward into battle when he freezes. It's like those strands, all of the people who are part of his life. Yeah. And so like, you know, we've obviously been talking about that all season with the shield, all of the different people, as you were talking about earlier in the season, who helped Dunk get to, Sir Dunk in the Tall, to forge his name and then all of the different influences on what that shield is. It's like to have that rupture on the first charge, to have that idea, the idea of it, the representation and symbolic rendering of the notion that you can decide who you want to be, like split in half in front

of you. At the end of the trial, when Raymond and Kate come in and they're taking him off, it's just like there in the mud on the side. It's there without any mud on top of it, sort of pristine on top of the mud, conveniently exactly. On like, Daron, Humphrey Harding. And bees for Bees. Yeah, so I'll give this for Sealy Pate's work. It fell in a very artistic way and a very important place on the field

so that it could symbolically be there when Dunk was dragged on the field. Remember when Sealy Pate was like, listen, I'm going to just give you a helm. It's going to be rounded on the edges so the blade edge doesn't bite in. That worked. And also like, no fancy shit. It's just going to, if you take a lance to the face,

it'll serve you better. When that, it was like the pommel. The thrust. of the sword. Guess what? Dunk is alive. It was the, it was the spiky palm, like the crossbar of, not the tip. But like, I think he used the pommel of his sword to try to get in the visor.

I thought that was, Aaron had some great moves. I got to say. Aaron has no good points, but great moves sometimes. Throwing the sword? That was sick. Extremely cool. I love Finn Bennett. Finn Bennett was like, yeah.

Dunk is big and tall and strong and I needed Arian to be fast and quick and like sneaky and mean. And mean and all stuff. You even described the fighting style contrast was awesome. The throwing of the sword into the thigh was really, really good. Fantastic. Here's another quote, okay? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

On the morning star beat. Yeah. Through his fingers, he glimpsed a dragon flying and a spiked morning star rolled on the end of a chain. Then his head seemed to burst to pieces. Blame George. Send your letters to George. He's reading all of your letters. Every single letter you write that say, say, where is winter, winter?

He reads all of them diligently. If you want to say, well, actually, George. No. Yeah. It's a flail. Don't send them to George. Send them to us. We will happily take this burden on for him so that he can write the next Duncan Egg novella.

That's our offer. Did you see that Ira Parker said that he had 13 novellas on top of the three? I thought it was like 13 total. It's 13 on top. Let's do this for the next decade and a half. 16 seasons. Great. Let's make this longer than the fucking infinity saga.

Two seasons a year? I mean, don't get greedy. But yeah! would be great. What about like January? Well, how would we space them? January and like August? September or something like that.

Yeah. I mean, that would be wonderful. Where will Hot D go? In the spring. Well, there's only two more seasons of Hot D. And then all the other shows they're going to do. Agon's Conquist, which might be a film. A movie.

Yeah? Yeah. John Snow. The Blackfire Rebellion. I mean, I'm just starting to wonder. What's West of Westrose? Blackfire is all going to happen inside of the show. And completely in flashback?

It's possible. You think we're going to get. I don't think that ultimately this show. Yes, I do think that. I do think that. I still think they will at some point want to and should do the Blackfire, the first Blackfire Rebellion in full as a stand one. And that's got to be a big budget story. It just kind of has to be.

But what if that's a movie is like a companion to this experience? Keep watching. We can only hope that the new overlords at WB want to keep on, keep it on. Exactly. Keep watching. keep talking on Sunday nights about this show. You can keep watching, but Dunk can't because he can't see anything because he's concussed. He can't even pull his sword before Ariane is on him again, swinging.

And Dunk is just so, we're going to get after the flashback to this mud wrestling match, this like animalistic carnage here in the opening before the flashback. Dunk is so overmatched by design, right? a prince who is trained in all of these different modes of combat. And we talked about this on Talk of the Thrones, but like a line that we love, dunk the lunk, this is his internal monologue in the novella, thought he could be a knight.

That is what is going through his head as he just falls down, beaten in the mud. And then I love this other passage, which comes shortly after that, thinking about everything happening, not just to him, but around him. What was worse was the others who would die with him. him. Raymond and Prince Baylor and the rest. I failed them. I am no champion. I'm not even a hedge knight. I am

nothing. He remembered Prince Darren boasting that no one could lie insensible in the mud as well as he did. He never saw dunk the lunk, though, did he? The shame was worse than the pain. Oh, the shame was worse than the pain. Like gives me a chill. And then, visor cam, mud. Yeah. Just pours on in. It's great. takes us right into a flashback. Yeah. Did you want to hear the lost sort of like whoosh into the flashback moment? I heard it in my head.

Yeah. Sort of just kind of Pavlovian, I think, at this point. Anything just in the big picture sense before we go through what we actually see with Rafe, with Arlen, et cetera, in this 20-minute flashback to Dunk's Youth in Flea Bottom, before we get into the particulars, anything that we didn't hit the opening snapshot

that you want to say in kind of like a big picture way about this adaptive choice, or you want to just hit it as we go? No, I think we can hit it as we go. Fantastic. Thanks for asking. We've mentioned just one beat of context as we dive in. We've mentioned this before, but Dunk has been aged up.

So keep that in mind as we go through this. And the text, he is a younger boy. Can I do some math? Please. Yeah, this is 13 years before the show. I would say, matched only by the number of females we got about a flail versus a morning star versus a mace. It's people really pissed that I called Dunk 30 years old in last week's deep dive. Okay.

So let's do some math. Okay. Bamber Todd was like 15, the actor who plays Young Dunk, was like 15 when they filmed this episode. But let's say Dunk is younger than that. Okay. What do you want to say? 14, 13? He's not 12.

I thought he looked like he was maybe like, yeah, 14. 14. 14, 15. 14, 15 years later. I think the math checks out. So he's 27. So excuse me, he's not 30, but he's 27. And I'm sorry.

I think I'm just like, I think people who are like much younger. than I am and who are in their 20s. They're like, dear God, he's not 30. And I'm like, 27.30 is really not that much of a difference. When you're 27, that 30 sounds fucking washed. Far away. Anyway, I apologize. Let's go back in time and amend every time I said he's 32.

In his late 20s. Which is different than in the book where he's a teenager. He doesn't even know how old is. He would be like four years old when the Battle of the Redgrass Field happened. Right. Which, like, I will say, when you get to some of the descriptions in the a later novella, some of which we'll read passages of shortly because Rhafe is named a couple times.

Like, Farron and pudding. Wonderful stuff. Some of the things they're describing, I'm like, four or five, that would be like a, maybe it feels like a little young to be doing that stuff. Running around with a severed head? Running around, stealing severed heads, spikes, but I don't know. You grew up fast and flea bottom. I was listening to the folks on History of Westrose talk about this, and I think they were right

that, like, George just would often make so many of his characters kind of, you know, of younger than it makes sense for them to be. And then the shows always age them up. Yeah. Yeah. So. So, and it does make sense then that there's like more, just in terms of the adaptive choice, more crucial elements of Dunk's life to tell us about than if you were only a handful of years old, right?

If he's 14, stuff would happen that we would come to about up. Imagine Sir Arland picks up a four-year-old as his squire and is like 10 to the horses. Scour that man, your little shit. A four-year-old. Dunk dying of dysentarian Ireland's like, Get up! Today you're going to have pediolite, not puddle water.

You're four. Speaking of gross things and death. Worth the fucking red grass field, dude. This is so cool. This, I have no objection to seeing the red grass field. I have no objection to like being in, it's mostly like the rife stuff that I feel like is not my favorite.

But do you know what? Fun fact. Tell me. Tell me. the first time we've seen the House Blackfire Heraldry on screen? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that, and that the blacksmith pawn shop guy didn't give a shit. He's like, take that leather elsewhere. He's like, you might be the first time, but I... No, no, no, no. We've talked a lot throughout the season about the first Blackfire rebellion,

the way that the show has found many opportunities to sprinkle in, a mention, a reference that this hangs over this period of Westerosie history in a way that was inescapable. So, Joe, if anyone maybe is joining us today for the first time because this was such an amazing episode of Night of the Seven Kingdoms. They're like, I've got to start listening to podcasts. Blackfire Rebellion, Red Grassfield. What do we need to know about where we are and what we're seeing? This is the end of the first Blackfire Rebellion, right? So Damon Blackfire, who is leading the charge on this, dies at the Red Grass Field, as do his two sons.

And so this effectively ends, at least for now, the Blackfire Rebellion. Yes, his eldest twins. If you want to, like, go through the whole who did what, where you can watch Talk the Thrones, I did do a whole sort of like battle map thing. That's not important. I just wanted to do it. But what matters is that, you know, as, as Dunk says, naively, it's over. We did it, right? And so it's important to note how many people died there. Yes. 10,000. I think what's incredible about what we see in the aftermath, let me talk about a little bit more. But, but. like what we see the wounded in the streets of a flea bottom. Yeah. Like veterans like a leg and this just happened. Right.

And Sir Arlands Squire, Roger, died at the red grass field. So like freshly dug grave. Like this just happened. There's a guy still alive under his horse. Yeah. Duncan Raffer out there. They're like entrepreneurs. Listen.

The mobility is not easy in flea bottom. Yeah. But like. it can't have been more than like two days. Like how long can one survive under a horse? I don't know. I'm not a veterinarian. But like added to the list.

But this is just like this just happened. This is a historical battle. Right. And Dunk was there. Like Forest Gump. Yes. Exactly. Just so. Exactly. Dunk would, what do you think he'd do out on a football field? He'd be great. I mean, he's a

rugby player, obviously, as we know. I was running. doesn't even do. Oh man. As we chatted about on Talk to Thrones, Hammer and the Anvil, which we described earlier in the season, that's part of this decisive. Blood Raven, his raven's teeth raining down the arrow.

So there's all this kind of like legendary, fabled stuff that happens at the battle that becomes the stuff of, as in the case of the hammer and the anvil, legend and song, right? So it's fabled in that way. But the fact that 10,000 people died and that it was so bloody and so costly, the toll of the carnage and the fact that so many of the people who sided with Damon Blackfire, who sided with the rebellion, didn't stop thinking that was the right choice just because their side lost. It is a wound not only on that field, but in the history of Westrose that really lingers. It's very awkward.

The main houses did all support the Targaryans, we should say, like the Lannisters and the Tyrells and the, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But some of the other houses did not. and they still have to, like, be at the parties and be like, hey. Shout out House Ball. Fireball, one of the best monocers. Sick. Awesome. Fireball is awesome.

All incredibly good. Fireball is awesome. I think George blew through a lot of some of his best names. So many of them are in these novellas. In the Dunkin Egg books. Not going to say which character is saying these things because you'll find that out in future seasons. But some passages from Sworn Sword and Mystery Night, the second and third novell is just people thinking back on this battlefield in this moment.

many good men fell that day on both sides. The grass was not red before the battle. Did your Sir Arland tell you that? So that's something that a character who is redacted for the purposes of this conversation says to Dunk in the Sworn Swart and then in the Mystery Night, one of the things that Dunk is thinking to himself is just he's like thinking about that.

The grass was not red when the sun came up. Like that idea lingers. Now, of course, knowing that Dunk had this like firsthand experience with it at an age where he would have remembered, adds like a little bit of a different element there. Sworn sword. A great battle is a terrible thing, the old knight said. But in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break your heart. I will never forget the way the sun looked when it's set upon the redgrass field. 10,000 men had died and the air was thick with moans and lamentations. But above us, the sky turned gold and red and orange, so beautiful and made me weep to know that my sons would never see it. First of all, bars from George as always. But this idea of like the beauty. in the carnage. What we're seeing there is just death and rotting, festering ruin. And like no grass at all, actually. I know. I like that choice. Yeah. I like that choice that like the red is just

in these pools of blood, kind of muddy to match what we see in the tourney field at Ashford. So yeah, this is what we're seeing. And it really was. I mean, it's horrible. And it's pretty crushing to think of of Dunk and Rafe, not only the poverty and the, the, the, the, the, the, crawl space that they're living in and having to contend with the corrupt city watch and people like Alistra, but just like to grow up in the wake of this, right, for a year during this rebellion to be surrounded by this level of like horror and for the threat to be that close. It's a heavy, heavy thing. And then to think about the characters who would look at that and be like, wow, that like sunset that day. It's just a wild like insight into kind of the psychology of

Westeroseland that is plagued constantly by these kinds of wars. the body under the horse moans, dunks looking down and we get to see the sigil. It's House Frey. What did you make of this choice? I am, so it's so interesting because I've heard, like, some people say that it's House High Tower, but it's definitely not. It's the twins.

Like, there's two towers in a... Like, for a second when I first watched, I was like, oh, interesting, which also would have been fascinating. Right. But it's over here in a way that means clearly there's. Yeah, there's two towers on the bridge. It's the Twins, the House Frey Sigil. It's such a weird choice.

because there's like no evidence that the phrase are really involved in the Blackfire Rebellion. That being said, my only guess as to why it's here is House Freight does have a role to play in an upcoming novella. Yeah. So maybe like it felt important for them to plant that seed here. I don't know. Well, the Stokeworths also have a role to play. So perhaps that's why the Stokeworths are on the road at King's Landing. Yeah.

Do you think the green banner is supposed to be the Tyrell banner? Because Leo Longthorne did not get his troops to the redgrass field in time. So I thought that green banner was really weird there. Because you see that you see the Blackfire banner, the Redfield, the Black Dragon. But you also see a-lanister. You see a green banner. Like what else? What could that be?

I don't know. I thought that's a good question. I don't know. Here's, Lord Leo also won distinction during the first Blackfire rebelling, winning notable victories against Damon Blackfire's adherence in the reach, though his forces were unable to gather quickly enough to arrive in time for the Battle of the Red Grass Field. So, like, he did not get his ass there in time. Do you think he got there late and then just put his flag there and was like, I was there? I was there. Check the team.

You can't. My flag's there. I feel like the choice to put the phrase there. Yeah. Prepping, like you said, but I guess it could also just, and this is connected to that, but. It feels just like another moment where the show is kind of like, we are going to, the Blackfire history is a part of the fabric of this show. And so we have an opportunity to tell you more things than are established in the textual canon at this point. Like the list of known houses on either side is like pretty small.

Also to have like a Riverlands house there, I think is just to emphasize that this was a continent-wide sort of struggle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Don't gently whispers, I'm sorry to this man. Which we'll hear again. To Rhaef. To Baylor. To Baylor. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Covers this guy's mouth too. Do you think, so I've seen some interpretations of this is like he's so quick. I think maybe you said this on Talk to Thrones that he's so. Or maybe it was someone else. Anyway, he's so quick to sort of like go to a mercy killing. That means he's so used to death.

But I was wondering if like, is this the first time he? tries to take a life. Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's more of my interpretation. Yeah, I think, because, you know, and when he and Ray for talking on the walk back, and she's like, is that the first time that you, like, saw a body? And he's like, no, but clearly in this circumstance and in this way.

But as an active sort of like. Yeah, I, I, because I think there's a, when it, when he first does it, there's kind of a little bit of a, whoa, like, what is Dunk about to do moment? But I read it as, yeah, he's trying to, like, ease this. Mercy. Yeah, ease this. He's like, I can't move this horse.

And then Rafe's like, let's move this horse. And then they can't move that horse. Yeah, Rafe's like... And then the guy dies anyway. He's got a sigil. We can ransom him. So they would have saved themselves. They would have saved him like, I don't know, a minute of agony if he had been able to

stuff him out. If he's been there for two days, as your math indicates, then I'm not sure what that minute would have done. Did I say two days? Again, I am not a veterinarian. I don't know how long you can survive under a horse. Rave is here. Yeah.

Did this take you right away to find memories of Dune Prophecy? Listen. Sister Lila. Chloe Leah was really good in Doom Prophecy. She's great. And she's great here. That show sucked and she was really good in it. And I think she's good in this episode.

And I also think she just has like an incredibly interesting face. Just like a really distinctive face. And then I think it's really, you know, she's quite young. I think it's really cool that she's been in like Doom Prophecy and Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Like keep casting her HBO. She's fantastic. Well, take us to accent corner with the two of them. I refuse.

You know what I'm sorry. Off brand for me. Wow, I'm shocked. There are children and they're being asked to match. Basically, they're trying to match Peter Claffey's natural. They're like, let's not make Peter Claffey do an accent. Yes. So we'll just have him be Irish.

Davos was kind of Irish, so that's going to be the flea bottom accent, I guess. Yes. And so these kids have to match that. And they're kids and they don't, they're fine. I didn't mean make fun of the children. I just meant the low-class flea-bottom accent. Mercilessly mom. mercilessly mock child actors.

Yeah, they're trying to do Irish-ish is what they're aiming for. Great stuff. So Rief has mentioned in the novellas, as we noted earlier. Yeah. But this is totally new, what we get here. Yeah. They're older, like we noted, but this idea of Rief is this, like, the central figure in Dunk's Life, the love story, the kind of, like, original wound of this loss and

the loss of this love, this is all new. carry these mystery night packages to share what we do know about Rief from the text. Sure. Mystery Night, quote, they chase them through the alleys and make them give the head. Okay, this is when they're running around with a severed head, by the way. Yeah. You know, kid stuff. Four-year-old kid stuff.

Yeah. What are you doing it for? Some tots. Not running around with severed head. They chase them through the alleys and girls, essentially. They chase girls through the alleys and make them give the head a kiss before they'd let them go. That head got kissed a lot, as he recalled. There wasn't a girl in King's Lever,

Landing who could run as fast as raf, ferret, rife, and pudding, little monsters those three, and me the worst of all. And then this other quote, better or bigger than a thief. He had been both in Flea Bottom when he ran with ferret, rave, and pudding, but the old men had saved him from that life. It's interesting because, so the line there wasn't a girl in Kingslanding could run as fast as rave. Some people are taking that to mean that Rave was a girl.

And some people are like, that's possible, I think. It's possible. But like, it's not necessary because the point is these little monsters, ferret, rave, and pudding, were running around with the severed head. chasing girls. And the point was the girls could not outrun Rafe. And does that mean that Rafe's a girl? No. Rafe is a girl here. Great. Who cares? And so from that, and then what do they do with that severed head when they're done chasing the girls of it? They dump it into a bowl. It winds up in the bowl of brown. Very tough. This is why you never

trusted a bowl of brown. Absolutely. Never trust a bowl of brown. Rats are the best thing you can find in a bowl of brown. That's definitely an ideal outcome. A rat, for sure. Rave, clearly the brains of this business operation. Right. wants to ransom the fray, soldier, he dies as they're pulling them out so they can't, and then immediately goes to the teeth for copper place. And does have a moment, though, to say to Dunk, do you know any words? Do you know any words? Do you know any words?

So this is something we've been tracking all season because we opened with Dunk bearing Arlen in the first episode. I don't know the right words ought to be a sept in here. In episode four, he says the old man was never much for praying. So Dunk is like, why? Words? Why? So they don't end up in no hell with the rest of us, Rafe says. And Dunk replies, I don't know any words.

So very, like, Melisandro to Shereem, there's only one hell princess, the one we live in now, right? Thinking about another hell versus this one. But I like this idea that, like, Dunk doesn't know the words here. And then he has this formative experience to come with Arlen where he learns all of these different things. Did he think Arlen taught him. Dothraki? I think that Dunk probably just absorbed some of it. It's an earworm.

It's a earworm. It's a breakaway puppet. Yeah. So some of it up via osmosis during the nighttime campfire dances. But yeah, it's like, Arlen never taught him prayer or what to say when you were mourning or grieving, which especially given when Dunk comes into his life and the place for Arlen is just a fascinating thing. This idea that he grew up without religion. Yeah. Fine. Same. Hard same. But like then is now at this tourney at the mercy of this like very religious, you know, tribunal. Yeah. It's like the sword is my my. prayer, right? That's my religion. So, uh, dangers on the road. We're heading back to Flewbottom on paths that we are very familiar with. We're like, I know that dirt. I know those trees. This is just a wonderful thing for Thrones fans. Such an evocative, nostalgic visual.

Have you been to the Giants Causeway? So it's in Ireland, this road, the Giants Causeway. And it's one of those like, you know, as well as like DeBrovnik and all, it's like one of these, like places that Thrones fans like to go to walk the Giants Causeway, which is the Kings Road, which we saw Aria Depart on in Season 2 which we saw Briann and Pod on you know and like the fact that it's Aria and Brianne and Pod we talked about this on Talk of Thrones like these three

characters we brought up several times this season talking about these comps of these characters is like a coincidence but also just like really fun and also to see Rave here like she's got a helm on like very ARIA coded so yeah I love I love that they used the giant copy Giants causeways for this.

It just gives you that feeling. It pulls you back into a certain headspace and the ARIA connection. It's an extra delightful little touch. Aria would probably ask, like, what's she going to do, lift the fucking horse off his legs had Dunk asked Aria. This is like, oh my God, this guy, this guy is just calling for his mother. Dunk is, Rief is in a chipper mood, right? Oh, she's high. Dunk is shaken by what they have just done and what he has witnessed.

I think because the exchange rate is very confusing in West. We get two silver stags for this. Well, ends up being right. Not enough. Brutal. Enough for one. Indeed. Did you think for a second?

This is my real-time math that I was doing when I was like, please don't kill this girl to invent a backstory. And I was like, maybe she'll just take the two silver stags and go to the free cities without him. Yeah, because there was a moment where after she dies, after she, Alasor kills her, where I was like, okay, well, I guess as soon as this flashback unfolded in this way, there was only one outcome because this dunk is not leaving this person. And then that was the other thought that I had is like, well, I guess they could have just parted ways if she had left hand because he doesn't want to go. Skip ahead if you don't want spoilers for Better Calls All.

But there's a character on Better Call Saul, Kim Wexler, who is like not ever mentioned in Breaking Bad. And so like as that show progressed, we were like, oh God, how are they going to kill Kim Wexler? Spoilers for Better Call Saul. Vince Gilligan's like, I don't need to kill a girl to get a backstory. I can find another inventive way to take her off the table. You know, it's like you don't always have to kill her to get her out of the way. Right. She could have just gotten on that ship without dunk.

Exactly. What if you woke up and the silver was gone and she was gone? I think that's like a similar sort of like, oh God, what am I going to do? I'm all alone. Yeah. For aft in the world, here's Sir Arlen, you know. Right. He could have been upset, picked a fight with Alistair.

because he was so upset or something like that, and then Arlen comes out and saves him anyway. There you go. Maybe he's trapped in the pig pen and she's like, I got to bounce, man. I got to bounce. I can't stay here anymore. And maybe she could have told him what Robert said.

You know, they never tell you how they all shit themselves. They don't put that part in the songs, but if they had put that part in the songs, Dunk would have been more prepared for what he found on the red grass field. So something to think about for everyone. The war's over, Dunk says. The Black Dragon's dead.

And Rave thinks he's foolish. Nothing's over, she says. She reminds him of what happened with Cedric and pudding. No one forgets shit. You hurt someone. They hurt you back. Now, obviously, Rave's stance here, what she's saying to Dunk, is not born out of. She's not a political science student, right?

This isn't necessarily about, like, oh, I heard that Bittersteel escaped to Esos. And, like, there are still blackfire pretenders out there. And this is a, no, this is a comment on human nature, right? The way that the need for vengeance, like, works its way into your heart. With love and respect to Rave. Yeah. she is not very good at applying those own lessons to what happens immediately thereafter, right? You take the dagger.

Take the whineskin, take the dagger? But what does she say? Okay, first of all, fun fact that I learned. Tell me. The name's Cedric, which is not among the ferret pudding rave lore. This is a show edition. Cedric is a name that was invented for the book Ivanhoe. It was first found in the book Ivanhoe.

So I don't know if that's an Ivanhoe. her egg, but I think that's really fun. Wow. But also, when she talks about Cedric and pudding, et cetera, she talks about coming back and, like, burning half of flea bottom down to, like, yeah. I was thinking about De Nairis, burning Kings Landing for vengeance. I try not to think about the bells, if at all possible. They're with us always. It's so proud of the lore. Or not to think about, I guess, if we're here. I was thinking about, you know, there's no justice in the world, not unless we make it, certainly. I was thinking of Yoran and his need to kill Willem, who had killed his brother, to the point where he just gets on his horse and rides him all the way to the wall and how that story is what sparks Aria's decision to start making her list, which she will keep and knock names off of on her quest of vengeance.

And Breanne and Stannis and Oberyn and Sanzah and Littlefinger and on and on the list goes to the characters who have proven the truth of Raff's words. Can I quote from everyone's favorite storyline that was adapted perfectly into the TV show? We're talking sand snakes. This is what Alaria San says, right? Obron wanted, I'm not going to do the accent. Oberyn wanted vengeance for Aaliyah. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. If you should die, must, you know, these other girls seek vengeance for you and then other vengeance for them.

Is that how it goes round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end? I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I'm old and sick? And there's also like, I don't need to read the whole thing, but Davos gives like an absolute bangor speech on vengeance that I would have loved to have seen on screen.

But this is a preoccupation of Georges that comes, as you mentioned, comes up again. and again and again. You know, one might say it's like a wheel. One house is on top and then another, you know, and on and on it goes. Someone just needs to come along and break the wheel. And then everything will be fine. And that's fine from there. It went really well.

Just don't just make sure that the next bullet point on your dock isn't something about Tinder waiting to catch. Burning down almost all of Kings Landing. Oh, boy. We do see how true this is, right? The state that Flea Bottom is in, you noted, the survivors of the battle, the injured, there are rats. We love a rat in Thorns, but they're crawling over everyone.

We get to see the pig pen. The corrupt City Watch, nothing new. But as you noted in on Talk to Thrones, it's kind of like not the vibe that we're expecting or that Darren the good, Darren the second would be expecting right now. The reforms certainly have not worked. Quote, it was a year or more before the City Watch was similarly repaired for King. Agon had often used promotion to the watch. as a way to shower large S on those he most favored,

and they in turn made sure that the brothels, and even the decent women of the city, were available for Agon's lust. So according to the historical record, it took the good King Darren a bit over a year to clean up the city watch. Looks like he did a great job. This was many years ago, so it's not working.

Also, on that idea, there's a lot packed in to hear about this idea of what the nobles think they're accomplishing versus what is actually being accomplished. because the Battle of the Red Grass Field happens. Yeah. And I'm envisioning, like, the flashback scene of Faramere and Boromir. Like, we did it, right?

Mekar and Baylor are like, we did it. Yeah. We finished. The war is over. And Mekar's like, ugh. Yeah. But, like, they're all, like, celebrating. I'm sure they're just, like, really happy with themselves, right?

And then meanwhile, down in Flea Bottom, like, what does it have to do with the price of eggs? Right. It's always the innocents who suffer when you high lords play your game of Thrones. You know what I mean? Like this is the reality of the aftermath of the Battle of the Redgrass Field. And similarly, like the aftermath of war and the aftermath of the tourney, right? Like Dunk wins the tourney at what cost, you know? There isn't a jubilation at the end of a war.

There's just the body count. And who is tallying it up and who is really reckoning with what the cost. of these games are. Arian plays a game. Oh, yeah. And Baylor pays the price at the end of the day. I think that is, I would not say that this is the moment where Hot D has the firmest footing in the public consciousness. But I think House of the Dragon does a good job of exploring that idea.

Well, that's a whole premise of fire and blood. Yeah, and showing us, in that adaptation, showing us the resenting. that you can either completely fail to account for or potentially exploit, exploit, leverage, weaponize if you're paying attention to what is actually happening among the people who you claim to rule. Alistair comes in and the fact that his name is so close to Alistair Thorne just can't be, I just think can't be an accident. Just like a classic Thrones piece of shit name here. He's missing his hand. He's missing his hand. He's missing. moral compass. You think Arr Parker is like really intentionally being like, I'm going to spell it a little different. Alistair, Alist, like, I know how you spell Alice and Westrose.

That's not how I'm going to spell it. I simply will not do it. AIL-wise. I won't. I won't do it. It's a matter of principle. I won't do it. This is where Raph swipes the AL skin because he sees their bounty and this is going to be a pattern of their interactions.

I will say one thing on the like, what did we gain and maybe risk with the flashback doing it in this wayfront, I think that's something that should have been pulled out of the show if they were going to do this flashback is the moment in episode one where Dunk is talking to the horses and is like, where should we go? King's Landing? City Watch. Like, it's not on Dunk's list after what Alist. But like, maybe he could be a better, better than the Alicert.

I think, sure. He would be, but I don't think this is, uh, I don't know. I kind of agree. And on the other hand, I'm kind of like, dunk dreaming of, of, Dunk is always sort of dreaming of being better than the thing. Dunk, the reformer. Yeah. I feel like I'm signing up to wear a gold cloak.

I just think that a gold cloak killed the person who mattered most to him in the world. He's not putting that on. Can I ask you a follow-up question, please? This is not about that. Rave says that the booze hears. Yeah. Sorrow's the queen's own brew, right? which, okay, I've seen some interpretations that it's like she means piss, right?

By the queen's own brew, she means the queen's piss. Yeah. Or is it like an anti-dorn sentiment because the queen is dornish and this is like, dornish people like sour ale. You love a sour ale. I love a sour ale. Yeah. I don't know.

I was just, I was intrigued by that line. I did take it to be like night soil or something of the sort. Okay. Yeah. but who knows? It's mostly just because it's night of the seven king knows. So I just assume someone's always talking about piss or shit. And they often are.

They often are. Now I'm thinking of Kristen Cole. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you for that. Rave and don't take their spoils to the blacksmith pawn shop guy. And he gives over the two silver stags, but refuses to take the blackfire leathers, as we mentioned. Damon's rebellion is over.

Take your blackfire leather elsewhere. So this just quick little way to show us the risk that you wouldn't her. This will come up again in the novellas. Yes. This idea of something that is marked by the Blackfire sigil and how poison is that might be. Yes. The crawl space

that seems to be their home. Very effective visual. Not only show us just the space that they share, but the circumstances that they're in. There are like just some sad little homie like notes to it. This little like sort of imagine them at night all cold like probably huddled together. Very sad. I like to the little candle stick. It was very sweet. Raph on the sweetness front says,

look, we're going to be sailing off into all kinds of adventures. This is very sad because adventures, as we know, Joe, they must be shared. Aria on my mind here, too, like what's west of Westeros? Now they're talking about going east to the RAC to Athos to the free cities, not west of Westros. But just this ability to try to think about a different life anywhere but here. That's the headspace rife is in. It's not the headspace dunk is in, as we'll see. She's ready to break out into like a classic Disney, I Want More song.

Yeah. And he didn't get to do that with her. And that's sad, but he did get to do it, have an adventure, share an adventure with Arlen. And he's getting to do it now with A. Oh, I know. Sorry for your dreams, Rave, but don't worry. He gets to have them. Our list are Dave Rodin.

Yeah. And this one's for you. Please tell me I'm not the only one who couldn't help fixating on how eerily similar the flashback scene of Dunk Back and Flea Bottom in episode five was the opening act of Solo with Han and Kira conspiring to get their way off of Corellia. Hashtag Make Solo 2 Happen? Didn't occur to me, but I love that it occurred to Dave. Hashtag Make Solo 2 Happen?

Great. Never the wrong time to mention that and put that out into the world. What did you make Joe of for me to you? Thank you. And to Ben Lindberg, if he's listening. You gave me Beesbury. I gave you this. What did you think of the way that Dunk talks about his mother here?

I thought it was interesting because we also got him talking about his father in a previous episode with Egg. And canonically in the book, Dunk doesn't know anything. about his parents. So this is show edition. Abandoned by his mother, a criminal father. I don't know. It's interesting. To your point, it's like, we're meeting dunk. He's lived so much more life before he meets Sir Arland than the dunk in the book. So it makes sense that

he needs more life to be accounted for. Yeah. More life to miss. More life to long for. Probably also lice given, you know, flea bottom. No question. They're writhing with them. I feel like when they go to sleep at night, you can just see their hair move because there's just like lace everywhere. Ristling. Horrifying.

Hopefully they can't see it because they just had the one candle and they snuffed it out so that they could sleep. Save it. This is where Dunk is like, well, what if every other place is actually worse? And I thought this was such an interesting little detail because the idea that Dunk did not, you know, we talk a lot about his ideals of the way that he thinks about. Idealism. Yeah. Yeah. How good and honorable somebody can be the lament that he issued.

to the crowd during his big rousing speech, right? Like, he can't believe that all of the noble houses of Westeros have lost sight of this thing, the way that he thinks about the Kingsguard and the precinct nights, etc. That, like, that was not a part of his worldview here. It was all just bad, which is horrible. And then I think especially because we're about to see a, you know, a complex portrait of Sir Arlen, as we have seen a complex portrait of Sir Arlen across the entire show. Yeah.

This idea that just the notion that something could be better and that your ability to like protect and preserve that was something in your hands, that that was part of his life with Arlen and not part of his life before. I really like that. I think that feels like a nice part of his ongoing origin here. They love each other. You know, you want to make a family, go out there, get a family. Because you love me, yeah? Yeah. I do.

This is sad. So this idea of not just like a losing. someone but this formative love, you know, this person who Dunk wanted to be with. It's all he has in the world. All he has in the world. I mean, tough luck for ferret and pudding. They mean nothing to him, but absolutely nothing to him.

But like, what does it mean then if you lose that one person to you, that that was a part of Dunk's experience here, the despair that we find him in when Arlen is gone, what it would mean to be faced with egg who he grew attached to so quickly, maybe not being a part of his life. when he finds out who he is, etc. All here. And then Rafe's like, dude, the city, it's too fucking small for us. Be tall! A little bit of the early Lionel Paradian sprinkler, B-Dol. He's way too tall to live in that little crawl space, that's for sure. That's true.

They have to book passage, though. And Dunk is like, I've got to just pet this goat for a while here. I thought this was so cute. So good. He just loves an animal this guy. I mean, this is an update from Dunk in the book whose job it is to find animals to put in the bowl of brown. And here he's just a he's a vegan basically. I mean, he's not, we saw me eat that breakfast sandwich and that like leg of mutton and

like whatever. And the hard salt beef. But it's all made of soy. It's all made of soy protein. He loves a soyrizo. He does. He does. Joe, it's Game of Thrones. So nothing's simple. Nothing's clean. Nothing good ever happens. It's tragedy and despair all the time. The fairs have Spiked. They can't book passage. And then Alster, who is tracking them, pins them very like deadwood setting with this pig pen. Oh, sure. I loved this exchange. He's lecturing them on stealing and then Dunks like, well, what's stealing from us? And Alister says, that's life. So like, when we're talking about Baylor and the trial and this idea and this question of what's just and what's honorable and what might the gods judge.

It's like, this is not a world. Yeah, you're like, Alistair had some good points. Where there's, no, why there's true for any of that? You're like, the gods aren't protecting. Dunk. Alistair, he knows what's up. He nods to let them go and does this really sickening, horrifying little twirl of Rave's hair, and that's when she steals the dagger.

I was really worried we were going to get. Me too. Sexual assault on their own. Dunk's face when he sees the dagger, when he sees that Raph has taken it. And then it's like instant. Yeah. Alcer comes after her, reaches, takes the dagger, slits her throat, and Dunk is just bathed in her blood. It is horrifying.

She falls into his arms and dies. Very similar imagery, obviously, to what we will get with Baylor later. We talked about the I'm sorry parallel language. She's telling Rief, I'm sorry, just as he will tell Baylor. So it's very sad. For people who are like, this is the cozy comforting show and she's just like gurgling blood. It's just. Yeah.

I mean, it's gaping. Yeah. Real gross. Pretty sad. Welcome to the pit. Still don't think that this is like a perfect choice. Nope. How are you feeling about it a couple days later?

I don't like it. Yeah. Yeah. Because we introduced a female character and then killed her because we don't think we need this extra comp to Tanzel in terms of done. Like both of it. I don't feel like we need him to have. I think people are fooling themselves if they don't think the show is trying to draw a comp

between like two young women who don't look entirely dissimilar. and like, you know, this great loss of Dunks, like the love of his life and sort of this girl that he has a crush on being seeing or threatened again, going into a berserker rage the way that he did in the past. But I don't need Dunk to have had that origin story to believe what he did in the puppet tent. And I also just thinking about puppets again, sorry. So I always comes back to Beesbury or puppets, honestly. Sometimes apples.

And also in a in a show, in a novella. That has so few parts for women. Like, the fridging thing is just dicier than ever. Do you know what I mean? And so, like, we're expanding some roles. We give Red a line in this episode, you know, like, we're doing our best. Gwyn got some lines and a name. What an upgrade, you know.

But, like, it's a really sparse out there inside of this story. And so to introduce a character who's, like, cool and interesting and smart. And then it's just, like, the point is her death is, I don't like it. I don't love it. Don't love it. I agree and agree on the tens of comp too. I just, I think that learning more about characters' origin stories and motivations is something we appreciate. So I don't want to like say something hypocritical about that, especially as we're about to like draw a lot of parallels with what happens with Arlen. but I really think with Dunk

Does everybody have something that happens to them That leads them to where they are of course And learning about that is interesting Part of the point of what happens with Dunk in that puppet tent Is that he's like This is the right thing to do Always thinking about puppets Always I still can't get over you calling it

That was a puppet head in a trailer breakdown Just an all-time shit from you All-time shit! You mentioned the berserker rage So Dunk basically Hurls himself onto Alistair like bites a chunk of his neck off. This is the dunk.

Yeah. I love that goblin mode. Dunk of flea bottom who we will see rise when we go back to the trial of seven. This is a Gallum, a classic Gallum move, by the way. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. I mean, Smeagle. Gollum?

Who are we with at any given moment? Part of the journey. Duncan? It's the same. Dunkin the tall? Dunk of flea bottom? It all tracks. It all.

tracks. He takes a spear through the leg here. Ned Stark also with us always, much like Ghalem, two of the characters who were always with us on every podcast, Ned Stark and Gullum. Eddie Stark, Big Eddie Stark and Gullum. But Sir Arlen is here. And he's doing great. He's doing great. He is coming out of a nearby pub, brothel. Your mild may very. Both. I said you're mild, but I meant mileage. Anyway. He is so drunk That he immediately pukes after Saying invoking the name of the episode

And this nightly vow Carlos, can we see this both what Arlen says And also what he spears Leave that boy me A Night of the Seven Kingdoms in miniature Honestly Very chunky It is every episode they've found away

Here's what I love tell me Okay as you mentioned on Talk of Thrones In the name of the mother charge you to defend the young and the innocent as we discussed at the top of this episode. Like, so that's, you know, that's what he's thinking about. A knight who remembers his vows. Yeah, love it. Got.

Wonderful. Yeah, hot. I see that and I think hot. Shunky. I think it was hot. So he sees a boy being knocked around by the city watch and he immediately takes the boy's side and that makes me think of this passage, which you've quoted a bunch of times. Hedge night is the truest kind of knight dunk.

The old man had told him a long time ago. Other knights serve the lords who keep the lord. them or from whom they hold their lands, but we serve where we will for men whose causes we believe in. Every night swears to protect the weak and innocent, but we keep the vow best, I think. So this idea of, like, Arlen's staggering into action driven by a conviction of what is right in this scenario. He sees, I mean, yes, the gold cloaks apparently in this time period are very corrupt. So there's no reason to, like, you know, he's a real ACAB attitude right now, right? But, like, But he's like, I'm not siding with the authority.

I'm not siding with, like, the law. I'm siding with this boy because that seems to be, that seems to be the weak and the innocent that needs protecting. Yes. And to see Arlen, like, I wouldn't mind seeing Arlen do that and that be an inspiration for Dunk when he goes into the puppet tent. Because it tracks perfectly. It's so good.

Right? It's like this idea of defending the innocent, which Arlen does for Dunk, and then Dunk can do with Tenzel, that Brian's spirit in, And both of them, because Arlen is doing this, protecting this young boy right after losing Roger. So you have this like, no chance, no choice, baby. Nothing's more hateful, you know, than failing to protect the one you love idea that could be fueling him almost like an instinct and that nightly vow, a knight who remembered his vows. Yeah, that would have been just great. Arlen, here he is.

He kills both of these gold cloaks. Thought it was wonderful. I mean, I hope putting in fair or nearby to pick up that severed head and run it around the streets. It needed to be quick because the pigs were on it right away, rolling it around and gnosh it on it. According to Dunk in the book, right? So Arlen met him chasing pigs. Yes. Do you feel like this is a cop joke or do you feel like this is in reference to the pig pen that they're nearby?

White apple. This sword. We've been talking a lot about Arlen's sword, which Dunk inherits all season. And I love this new additional detail and wrinkle in. like the reverence with which Dunk treats that blade. Like this was the blade used to avenge Rafe? Yeah. Coded in the blood of all killers.

Everyone's favorite character, Rafe. Oh, man. Of the sad things that we've seen this season, sweet little dunk huddled, holding his knees alone in his crawl space crying. I mean, brutal. Made me cry. Made me think of seeing Dunk alone in the prison cell.

Did you cry harder? Did you cry harder for that? For Humphrey Beesbury when he died, more for the apples that tumbled to the ground here. I'll give you your answer. You didn't cry for those apples because they were golden deliciouses, and you and I do not, I think that's a plural of delicious. And you and I do not care for golden delicious-eye apples.

We don't, but we love an apple as a central plot device. And so the fact that Dunk sees Arlen again. But aren't we, like, united in our hatred of red and golden delicious apples, the worst apples? Okay, great. Of course. I was also thinking of Duncan's prison cell because we get this POV shot of him through the bars. Yeah.

Looking out, you know, through the visor slit through the bars, like looking out at Sir Arlen out there. And I was thinking of him when he, like, it brings you context to him wanting back up in that prison cell. And it's just sort of like, here I am back where I started. Right. Behind bars. Looking through bars. Yeah. Like only a rat for a friend, you know.

Preston. Why isn't Duncan a vegan? Must just be really hard. It must for us. It's true. Honestly. I mean, I've got a couple sticks. You're going to the free cities to get some say tan.

Not probably. The Apple merchant who's barrel, Arlen knocks over, which draws Dung's attention so that he can follow him, much like Egg chose to follow. Dunk, a wonderful little parallel there. She calls Arlen an old fool. Later when Arlen wakes and staff loves himself. Joe, would you say if you were podcasting or putting on a puppet show that, yeah, all night, sir. I would say, all night. And all nights are fools when it comes to apples.

You solved it. Thanks. You solved it. So dunk follows Arlen for days and nights. Some highlights. Do you think Arlen saw dunk? I think he for some time knows he's there. I agree.

That's my take as well. And I think that's actually kind of important that he's like choosing to. Yeah. It's a little bit of like a almost like hazing like initiation even if it's not like conscious or willful. Like let's see if you want it. Yeah. But it's also. just, I think, a way to show us the state that he's in, right? I mean, obviously there's

like the, he can hear him, puked up his guts. At a certain point, it's undeniable that he knows he's there, but I kind of, I think he knows the whole time. I think he knows the entire time. I think so. They're like alone on the road on the way out of King's Landing. There's no one else there. If Arlen doesn't know that Dunk is false, he's a shit night. He's an even more a shit night than we thought. Some of the highlights from this stretch, we get some like formative tree canopy as my pavilion stars in the sky stuff for dunk here and he has his like stolen moments with the blade much as like egg will sneak away with thunder and with the weapon. Or like egg with the helm and him looking at the helm. Yeah. The thinking back to just even after Arland's death,

Dunk picking up the sword in episode one and like fits my grip as well as it ever fits his, seeing him pick it up for the first time. That was all really cool. I liked too when he was like whittling the stick thinking of egg with the spear. I don't mind. It's a kind of parallelism. I don't This is great stuff. Roger. Here's why I don't mind it. Yeah. Because, like, in some ways it's a little cute.

We saw egg whittling. We saw him whittling. But kids do that. There's nothing else to do there. There's nothing else to do. They did not have iPads. What are you going to do? You got to whittle.

Got to pass the time somehow. The tablet had not yet emerged as the villain of Toy Story 5. On my winning I've dressed side. So do you think the villain of Toy Story, the story story story story prequel, the Westro's is whittling? It's entirely possible. It's taken up all the. time and all their attention?

It's probably somebody who picks up a head off a spike and contacts, track some sort of disease, possibly. Speaking of dead kids, Roger of Penny Tree. Tough transition. It's your best. And yet, here we are. Sometimes the material demands what it demands. Joe, we heard Roger invoked.

When it's a madness bid, yeah. In episode two, when Dunk is going around and like reminding everybody of trying to get somebody to remember Arlen, and he mentions Arlen's nephew and Squire killed at the Red Grassfield. So we talked about Roger a little bit already when we were covering episode two. But what do we, what else do we need to know about Roger, if anything? That he was Arlen Squire. Anything else? His nephew? His nephew? His nephew? That's really it. And he's dead. He died at the Red Grass Field. Here's everything I know about Roger. We'll talk about some stuff in the spoiler section. He was an Arlenz's nephew when he died at the Red Grass Field.

I think the thing that we... He had a little helmet. He did, tiny help. So those are the things we knew before this. And here's what we learn here is just that this shattered Arlen. Like, he's in a... He's on a bender. He's in a drunken stupor because he's grieving.

The loss of his nephew and his squire. And so he sings. And I would like you to tell us about what he sings. Okay. So David Peterson, who does all of the Valerian and Dothraki language stuff on, the shows, the various shows, does this thing sometimes when his language is used in the show is that instead of, I don't know, putting it anywhere else, he puts it on AO3. He did this with House of the Dragon and he has done this year.

But per David Peterson, this is Death Rocky. Yes. And the English translation is, the ropes of death enrapped me, ungodly men have made me afraid. The ropes of hell abound me. The sorrows of death prevented me. in my distress, I called upon you, the great stallion who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my strong enemy. Beat them small as the dust before the wind.

I will cast the evil out as the dirt in the streets. Courage is my salvation. Mercy is my light. Something I think is interesting. So the opening line, the ropes of death enwrapped me. This is from, have you heard of it, the Bible? Psalm 18. The cords of death entangled me in my distrifice.

I called to the Lord, I cried to my God for help. So I don't know the order of operations in terms of like Ira Parker writing some lyrics and asking them to be translated or any of the other people who are credited on this episode or was Dan Roamer involved. I don't know. Like who all was involved in composing the lyrics. I've seen a lot of people curious why Sir Arlen would know Dothraki. And like, I mean, I think.

a great theory is like, you know, there are Dothraki cell swords do exist. And so he might have served with some Dothraki fighters in the various wars that he fought in. And perhaps they taught him this song, this morning song, like after the loss of a battle or something like that. That is a reasonable theory. He's also very well traveled. Very well traveled. And I think it feels like fitting that Arlen, for him specifically, but also like this idea of the way he thinks about the life of a hedge knight, like life on the road. He's a nomad. And the fact that he, you know, like one of the, we've talked about this elsewhere on the season, but Dunk's like, shit, like, what if they asked me, like, about where he's from? And I don't know. And I've never been there.

And I haven't seen it. And like, you know, the idea that the road was their home. And so every person who Arlen interacted with, it was something that he absorbed that became much as we're watching with Dunk, part of the fabric of his sense of self and sense of place. And so it feels write to me that he would be singing a song from another culture because he doesn't have necessarily like a strong rooting in anything here. He's like a student of the world. He is. He's like a white guy who has like a Buddhist statue in his garden. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, he's like Dunkin' Animal Lover. What a thrill not only to see Sweetfoot, but to see Arlen talk to the horses, just as Dunk will always be talking to the horses. We just needed Raymond here to be like, you're talking to the horses?

What did you think overall of the portrait that we get of Arlen here doing this really heroic a knight who remembered his vows thing for dunk? Yeah. But then ignoring him, forcing him to trek after him, allowing him to drink the dirty puddle water, etc., etc. We heard from a lot of the bad babies about this complicated portrait of this man. How did it strike you? Yeah, like one listener, Mikhail said, like, sorry about him officially on team. Hashtag not My Sir Arlen, quote, a hedge-inized-trust night. Like all of these quotes that we've been saying, right?

She wrote, there's just no way this free-fisted sought ever said or thought anything like that, even if he did save Dunk's life at the moment of grief-stricken pure-heartedness. And then Kristen's a really good email that I'll get to in a second. But I want to take us now just like very briefly to Shakespeare Corner, right? Because so you mentioned the double fool reference, right? And the way in which Shakespeare uses his fool characters like Fest Day and Twelfth Night or the Fool in Lear, like these full characters often are the source of the most piercing observation and wisdom inside of these plays. But the character that he most resembles is Sir John Falstaff. And we talked about Henry V.

Last week we were talking about St. Christmas Day, but in Henry the fourth, the prequel to Henry the 5th, right? Prince Hal who was like fucked off because he doesn't want to be king and he doesn't want to be around his rich family and he's going to go slum it, starts hanging around with Sir John Falstaff, a knight who is a drunkard and a fool in many ways, but also capable of incredible wisdom. And he's just like one of the most revered creations that Shakespeare. ever created.

George R. Martin, when talking about his favorite characters in literature, said, Boarimir is my favorite member of the fellowship, the tragic hero. Classic George. Shakespeare's Brutus speaks to me as well, more so than the real one. The noblest Roman of them all whose nobility and gullibility led him to commit a vile crime. Captain Ahab, blah, blah, Gatsby, Falstaff and Hotspur and Prince Hal. Those plays are full of flawed characters, each with his own failings, Sir Lancelot and Sir Gounselot. on and Gawain, how you ever you prefer. But not Sir Galahad, so perfect, so empty. And Guinevere and

and Arthur and even Mordred, that little shit. Oh, the list is long. And when my reading turns to history biography memoirs, my response is much the same. So he's a big Falstaff fan among Boremer and other things. Great taste. And like Lev Grossman in that Feast for Crow's review that I read in time called Tyrion Martin's Fallstaff, right? A bitter, cynical, highborn dwarf, he's Martin's false staff. That's what Lev Grossman said. But I think that like this, portrayal of Sir Arlen, which is different, than Dunck's sort of honeyed perception of him that we get in the novellas is much more in that vein.

There's this great, there's this Harold Bloom, who is a very complicated figure, but taught me a lot of what I know about Shakespeare. Falstaff was his favorite character. And there's this, he wrote this great book about Falstaff. And Jeanette Winterson, a great author in her own right, wrote in her review of that book, had this description of him. Not that there's anything ethereal

about Fat Jack, this whiskery, swag-bellied, omnivorous, cornucopia of appetites, red-eyed, unbuttoned, sherry-soaked, this nightwalker and whoremonger, a muddy conjure,

swinging his old mistress, doll tear-sheet, a life-affirming liar whose truth is never to be a counterfeit. False staff is ancient energy thumping at volume, through a temporary poundage of flesh. He is part pagan, the Lord of Misrule, and as such his time is short.

We meet him first in Henry IV, Part 1, already old, lusting at life, drinking pal of young of young Prince Hal, who is swelming it, blah, blah, blah. Orson Wells, who plays Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, which is this incredible movie that sort of takes pieces of Falstaff from all the plays and puts them together. His description of Falstaff is, quote, the greatest conception of a good man, the most completely good man in all drama. His faults are so small, and he makes tremendous jokes out of his little faults. I disagree. Some of his faults are larger, quite large. But the whole, the reason that Harold Bloom, a reason that Harold Bloom loves Falstaff so much is that like we've

been hearing again and again about Sir Arlen in the text, is that he operates outside of the rules of society, quote, he praises Falstaff's wit and intellect and excuses his vices as a display of his, quote, freedom from society, right? So this idea of this like drunken, old, washed, whoremonger, like all these things are true of Sir Arland. And yet there is an inherent nobility to him, an inherent truth to him. And that is like exactly the sort of Falstaffian model that Shakespeare was chasing, all these other people were chasing. There's also, I love that you brought up honor because, like, Falstall's famous speech is about honor. And he's like, I'm not going to read you the whole speech.

But basically he's like, what the fuck is Honor ever done for me? Right? You know, like, can Honor set a leg? No, or an arm? No, or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in honor like us is not a doctor.

It's essentially his point. And so Arlin lives by a code and he has honor. But it's sort of like, it's not the honor of the knights. It's not chivalry. That is not what Arlen lives by. He lives by an inherent truth that sends him staggering vomiting out of a brothel or a pub or a combo, if you prefer, to save Dunk. And the echoes that go down history because of that. Like, Dunk is in the start of a story that people who love George R. Martin's work know, like, you know, has a long road.

Were it not for what Sir Arland does here, which is incredibly honorable while vomit. And all those things together, you know, are incredibly important. So I just, I kind of love this depiction of Sir Island. Me too. I'm a big fan of it. Yeah, that was awesome. Thank you to you and thank you to Willie Shakes. The Bard is always welcome.

I agree. I think that the, first of all, it feels like the kind of thing that we talk about more broadly with adaptation where like when something is teased out or altered or amended in any way, it's like does it feel like it's honoring something true that's the spirit of the character. Yeah. If it's different and new to us, but it connects. to something that is like the germ and heart of the thing, it can be a gift. And that's how, that's how this felt to me for the reasons. It's a gift. I think, like, I agree. It just feels so

true to the kind of character who George loves to not only write, but like center a tale around. And I think, like, we've been talking about this with Dunk, but just everybody, you know, Baylor, even the most heroic, you know, quote unquote characters, they're not interesting to us if they're not flawed if they're not complex, if they're not human beings. Because then all they are is the myth or the legend or an idea instead of a flesh and blood beating body that can stumble out into the mud and try to do the right thing. Sir Gala Head, so empty. I do want to read this email from Kristen because she connects sort of like conflict. I believe the subject of her email was conflict inside the human heart. So it's the only thing that's writing about. Can't help but thinking of

the conflicting near-contradictory nature of this poor boy, dunk. One steeped in tragedy and trauma, like seeing who I am assuming, was his first crush brutally cut down by corrupt city watch patrol and die in his arms. And yet he believes in the best of people and the very institutions that held him in poverty and flea bottom. He's still that same boy in the battle, seeing the corruptions of some royals, the noble houses who failed to remember Sir Arlenapenetree, even the bad apple who betrayed him. and yet still having hope that someone, anyone would do the right thing.

Then again, when you think of the times the right thing was modeled for him, whether that be by Sir Arlen or Prince Baylor, maybe isn't naive or thick as a castle wall, but instead brave enough to believe that there is right in the world and there are people who keep their vows. Perhaps that belief and behavior is what truly makes someone a knight long before the sword taps their shoulder or they swear and swear. Would you and Samuize say that there's some good in the world, Mr. Furdo?

And it's worth fighting for? It's worth fighting for? I would. I love that. Fantastic email. For all the reasons that you just described, how perfect that Arlen, that this sequence, this flashback ends with Arlen,

going over to dysentery dunk and putting his hand out and saying, get up. And that that is what pulls not Sir Duncan of the tall, but dunk of flea bottom. He's like, I'm in the mud. Back into the fight. I know what it's like to win him. Oh, I know what to do here.

And like, do you think they thought of calling this episode get up at one point? It's entirely possible. It's entirely possible. Broadly, this stretch of the battle. Yeah. I thought this was just epic and riveting. It's fantastic. Savage, violent.

It's cramped. It's suffocating, but there's all this chaos around. What, if any, prior thrones, more intimate conflicts or sweeping battles, did this most remind you of? Does it feel like entirely its own thing? A blend? You mentioned Hard Home. which had not really been on my mind.

I think I was stuck in, like, John drowning in the mud in Battle of the Bastards. Yes. That was, like, really chief to me. Or John dodging horses inside of the mud in Battle of the Bastards. Yes. I think for Hard Home, for me, it's literally just how hard it is to see. Yeah, the best.

I think I'm just going off the dome here, but Owen Harris was on the official pod. And he described the fog as, I think, sinister. And the way that it was another layer, like, between dunk. and understanding what was happening around him. So that element was hard on me. It's mentioned several times in the novel, the river mist, right? Yeah, the tendrils.

But yes, no question battle of the bastards was most top of mind for me as well. And I think like a little bit of the mountain and the viper, but with that crush, suffocating crush of bodies and mud and also just the kind of John, you know, the cam that we get, the perspective and point of view

of the sweeping nature of how that battle is filmed, that's, I think, very top of mind watching this sequence here, even though it is smaller in scale. I think also there's like, you know, John's like kind of big damn hero moment, like standing solo to face the charge. And so when Dunk, when the crowd leader is like up, up,

and Dunk kind of gets that moment. When you have those moments where it's just like this solitary figure who is about to do something that seems impossible, very Battle of the Bastardsy. Ira Parker on Inside the episode said, I wanted to have that like old Western feel when the two gunslingers were going to finally do it and they choose pistols at Don.

I love that. That was awesome. Very good. Before we talk about Duncan Arian and their savage death match here, yield match. Let's hit just some of the other surrounding highlights. What were some of the other favorite things that you witnessed out on the field? We're not going to talk about this in depth because it might be detailed more in depth than the finale. But since we get to see it in this episode, I'm considering it fair game to let you all know that Raymond Fosaway has painted his shield.

with a green fucking apple. And that is why Raymond Fossoway belongs to my team and not your team. It's green is my favorite color. I think green apples tastes like shit. Proposite bullshit. I think green apples tastes like shit.

This is bullshit. I think Raymond's a great character. Very brave. Yeah, brave. He did wonderfully. The green apple Foss away. Raymond Fossow. I'm happy for you.

I am. We get to see his shield. It's very exciting. We thought that they hadn't done this because it's kind of silly in the book that Raymond's like, by the way, I took the time between when I was knighted to when I went out on the field to get my shield painted with a green apple. Again, we'll talk about this more. But like, I love that we got to see it because it meant that I got to finally say it. Raymond fostered for you.

I'm thrilled for you. Unfortunately, you lost Beesbury, but you got the green apple. So you win some, you lose some. You know, the Lord giveth and Lord take it away, you know? Convlecting the human heart. Maker and Mika and Baylor. This is awesome. The moment where Mekar is screaming Ariens' name,

My Boy, My Boy, My Boy, and trying to reach his wailing, crying out in pain, and at this point, very imperiled son and kind of thrusting his mace, like, kind of here. That's a very key moment. This is actually a moment that don't. I think it's like that's where he cracks the front, the visor. Yeah. Is like there. Jeopardizing the integrity of something that already didn't fit because Baylor

was wearing his sons too small and he never meant to fight and his hair was too short and his hair was too short and that could have solved everything when he said my boy my boy is real godfather look how they massacred my boy which coincidentally is what i said when humphrey bsbury died my boy one line and they massacred my boy death by lance to groin that stuff what a way to go uh the swings to the back of Baylor's head. We get to witness a couple of those too after after Dunk has gotten Aryan to say that he will yield but before the sound horn. So in that terrifying moment for Dunk where he's like, okay, I've got to get them to stop this because all around me still, terrible things could happen to people. And we see a couple

real big bashes to the back of Baylor's head there. Who's the hammer now, bitch, is probably what Baker said. Again, I hope he's internal. Some things you keep to yourself. We got an email about a favorite glimpse in the battle. Gabe, I want to mention, this goes to the point I already made kind of about what the fuck is the Kingsguard doing. But I want to read this out because we got an email from Sabrina. And then like a few hours later we got an email from her husband, Gabe, who's like, my wife wrote in, so I wanted to write into. And I just like, we'll get to Sabrina's email in a second. But I just like, the couples that right into a podcast together or stay together, I guess.

But I will read this part. Why wouldn't Willie enrols? It's fantastic. Intercede and form a wall around his errant as like pale moths dancing around a bright flame. This seemed like the obvious move given they are battling against Duncan in service of the Targs. Curious to hear your thoughts and whether I'm missing something. Again, I think this is a downside of... So...

Pale moths dancing out of bright flames. Very good stuff. Very good. We'll get to Sabrina's email. But, like, again, Duncan takes so many more hits in this version than he takes in the book. It's crazy. The dagger through the hand, the sword and the thigh, the multiple dagger stab and the thigh. It's nuts.

I don't know how he's alive. Frankly, he shouldn't be. Yeah. Can I just read this list of injuries that he incurred here? And this is like, I'm just not sure how he's standing. Kicked in the head. This is after the initial. He's been stabbed by a lance

which has abetted chain mail into him. And he's been knocked into concussion protocol and directly into a flashback. Directly into a flashback. Then we rise and he is kicked in the head, bashed in the head multiple times by the morning star. Or flail or whatever the fuck you want to call it. And by we get at that ride by from Makar's mace.

Hit in the torso. Hit with the shield. Stabbed in the side twice. stabbed through the hand, stabbed in the back, stabbed kind of like, I thought it was maybe like the trap kind of there.

Stabbed in the torso, stabbed in the leg by the sick thrown sword move that we love, slammed in the head with the shield, nearly eyeball gouged. And he's fine. Dealey paints armor

and the plot armor are doing well. After the lands and before the final little wrestling match. And in the book, boy. Basically, when he gets the upper hand, he doesn't lose it, and he just like bashes the shit out of Ary. And it's over much faster. And so again, by dragging it out, you make it a little bit more confusing what the

fuck the King's Guard were up to. Right. You know, fair point. I thought the action was incredible. I thought it was really good. It is our job to overanalyze and ask some questions. So, but what I did think about, actually, is the point you made in your rapturous ode to Sir Arland's dick, you pointed out all these like scars on his. his body and I was thinking here's dunk. Yeah. Starting his collection and like later in life when he hits his surely giant dick out to do whatever it is he wants to do.

Like there will be a map. Must be tall everywhere. Yeah, we're going to get that line next season. There will be a map of, and he's like, got this at Ashrametto, got this at Ashrametto, got that at Ashford Meadow, got that at Ashford Meadow. This bruising, this scarring around my eye, Ashra Meadow, you know, like blah, blah. So, yeah. But the scars as a map your experience is like a great little touch.

in Westros. I was thinking of Red saying last one you're like to have of like take care of your body. There's a lot of damage for one go. It is. It's a lot of damage for one go, even for Dunk of Flea Bottom. In terms of the aforementioned, I mean, do you want to list Aryan's injuries? You know, he takes some, he takes some damage as well. Obviously, just in this little stretch here, Dunk gets the head bashes. He bangs his head into the ground. You know, it's soft mud, but still can't feel good. Raymond gets his ride by in, which was huge. So sick.

There's the like twisted shoulder. He's bearing down on him with the sword blows. The epic groin slash, which really it was just harrowing to be stolen from Beesbury. But he and then obviously everything later at the end. But just in this little stretch, he's encouraging to the point where they're both like they can't really move. Right before dunk flops over. They're like rolling around the mud. They can barely stand.

This lance just like breaks on top of them. at one point. The aforementioned Sabrina writes in to say this. I know the dunk, I know that dunk isn't typically the vengeful type, but during the trial of the seven, I noticed Dunk stabbed Arian right between the legs. Could this be a reference to the horrific story? Ag told him about how Arian would threaten him at night. Similarly, back in Flea Bottom, after Rafe's throat is slit, dunk reacts by biting the man who killed her specifically in the neck. Could this eye for an eye, throat for a throat, manhood for a manhood, be a quality of Dunk of Flea Bottom's fighting style? I love that observation.

I thought that was really good. And also, I think this idea of like body parts for body parts is something we will talk about in the finale as well. Certainly. I don't think that Dunk is capable of conscious thought in these stretches. I think he has gone to a different plane of existence. I agree. He's doing his best.

But it's a... I like the observation. It's like poetry. It rhymes. Indeed. Indeed. Ariens like, bro's dead. Rose yield.

Dead. Okay, so he says yield. Yeah. But he doesn't say yield. He's like, you know, it's like a roaring, right? A Chey on history of Restrose said it sounded to her like the Benad Jesuit voice. Oh, yeah. But to me, because when I'm not thinking about Beesbury, I'm thinking about the scarecrow.

To me, it's very scarecrow fear toxin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, like, Duncan sees Aryan, like, transform into a dragon at that point. He's just like roaring at him. So good. That's awesome. Did Ariane have a briefcase? You know, a morning star is a briefcase of sorts.

I agree. Also, Dunk looks up in his like haze. He looks up at the stands and I was like, is he looking for egg? It's very sad. Egg is ready to support him. He shouts, get up just as Arlen had. Egg adds a Sir Duncan here, which is something that Arlen could not have done for him. And so that is a bit of problem.

in Dunk's life here and just the melding of the different people in Dunk's life who have helped to pull him up out of some terrible circumstance. Rafe encouraging him to leave Arlen Egg, etc. Our listener Yusuf said, as we've tracking these like mini nightings, right? Yes. Says what is get up if not arise, arise, sir Duncan? Love it. Yeah. All Egg needs to see is a blink. Yeah. Dunk is. Eggs got great eyesight and can project very well. He does not have purple eyes, but he still has great eyesight. And he's like the only person. eating the carrots that turned to the stand. Great for your vision. And he screams, he shrieks out weight just as the horn is about to blow. Like, we're down to milliseconds before Dunk has, it's forfeit. I feel like the guy was like, like it started. You know what I mean? Like a half a note. Yeah. Like a little kazoo. And Dunk rises and he has finally, we talked about this adaptive change that the crowd isn't with him yet.

Like they were in the novella initially. And so it builds toward this crescendo of up, up, up. up. And then Aryan has to lower his helm as defeated and exhausted as a character has ever been. Finn Bennett did such a good job with this. The idea that all the adrenaline is gone and he's just like, oh my

God, here we go. And they just kind of like fall toward each other because they have not a shagre of energy left. It was so great. And dunk like, dunk again, that that like brand no chance, no choice. Like just bring the sword up. Yes. But I also love that. that like,

that, shout out of Steely Pate. Arien gets a hit off the, like, gorgeet, right? Like, that, like, that deflects the blow or whatever. But, like, pretty quickly. Like, dunk's not trying to sort fight. Right. He's trying to get in close so he can dunk a flea bottom fight him in the mud.

Yeah. And it works. It's great. Takes that shield. I got a couple texts for people who were, like, how did he, dunk's really strong and that shield should be made of, but shouldn't he have just basically, like, like decapitated Aryan there. And I'm like, well, he's chipping off parts of his

taking all his teeth out. Like he was threatened with. Bashing him with his mailed fists in the face, very violent, very good. And Ariane yields. And Dunk looks around and he's disbelieving and he knows he's got to drag him over. And this is a great line from the book, as he is just humiliating him. By the time he reached the viewing stand where Lord Ashford sat, the bright prince was brown as a privy. Delightful stuff. Arrian withdraws his accusation. the horn sounds and it is over and dunk wonders to himself. I am a night now in truth, he remembered wondering. Am I a champion?

Champion of Ashford Meadow, just never in the way that he thought he'd be, and certainly not with the consequences that we are about to witness. Because Egg, Steely Pate, and Raymond help Dunk leave the tourney field, the shattered shield in view, and they take him to the blue medical tent. Where he asks the most important question. What's up with Humph? Humphrey Biesbury O' day. Stories out he's not.

In the books. This is where he also asks about Darren, which he doesn't do here, right? But he asks about Darren and Prince Darren, Doug blurted, did he survive? Dazed and confused as he was. Great movie. Dunk felt a huge sense of relief. Quote, his dream was wrong then, the dead dragon, unless Aryan died. He didn't, though, did he?

No, said Egg. You spared him. Do you remember, I suppose? Already his memories of the fight were becoming confused and vague. So this idea of like, ah, the prophet. We escaped it. Aryan didn't die. You know, Darren got stepped on by his horse, but didn't die. You know? I saw Makar. He's fine. Baylor's here. Yeah. He's here to tell us not to pour oil into a wound. Steely paint. My guy. Use wine instead. Yeah, I love that moment, too, and that brief beat of relief. He's like, oh, washing over him. We did it. Also, like, before the horror. When you keep referencing concussion protocol, when you're inside Dung's head and this,

part of the book. Like, he is so out of it. He's just sort of like half talking, half thinking the whole time. And eggs like, you don't remember. I know. He's like, wait, you don't remember what I'm Darren? That's worrying. Almost as worrying as Darren, not remembering that he already told you he dreamed of you. Baylor is here with the wine info. He's going to send the maister over. And Dunk is ready to make a pledge. He sees Baylor Breakspeer and he, despite the extent of his injuries and the state that he is in saying that he feels like he's about to die, he forces himself to move over to Baylor, right? He brings himself to him and he kneels in front of him. Carlos, can we see this?

Your grace, I am your man. Please, your man. I need good men, Sir Duncan. The realm. Oh, I have chills. We talked about this on Talk to Thrones, but this slight adaptive change in the book he's basically just like gripping Raymond to try to like stand up. But to have Dunk kneel in front of him and to have Baylor put his hand on Dunk's shoulder where the sword would be another one of these mini nightings along the way. And another reminder that whatever Arlen did or didn't do doesn't fucking matter,

matter to dunk. But the choices Dunk makes are what matters and the people who recognize the impact of the way that Dunk has chosen to live his life. That is the lesson. And so they make this mutual pledge here and this like absolutely agonizing literal seconds before the helm comes off glimpse into this like possible future that they're not going to get to have that Baylor is a man who dunk things worthy of standing by. And that Baylor's like you're the kind of guy I want in the kingdom. I'm going to rule. But not just that's like not just like I need good men.

The realm. The realm needs good men. You will make this realm worthy. Right. And it's like Baylor walking in and safe. saving Dung's life again as he does so, right? Don't pour boiling oil in. That's not the move, right?

Boiling wine also sounds not fun, but I'm not a maister. I don't. Tell that to Khyburn. I don't use maggots, so I don't know. But I think that him coming in saving Dung's life and then thinking about the realm and thinking about his brother, you know, like he's thinking about. I love that detail. You know, strong.

My brother's strong. The realm these good men. Like thinking about all these other people, not himself. And he's dying. I know. I love that little, the way that he's smiling when he's because they're like, oh, boy, this is smashed in back here. Yeah.

That smile, as he said, my brother's most like he's strong. Like that pride that he feels and Maycar, despite how, I mean, we have seen their relationship is a complicated one, but that love is there. All of this, everything that you're saying, it just heightens the tragedy to like an almost unbearable but very thronesian degree. They pulled the helm up and the back of his skull is missing and it's gone. It falls off to the floor. I will say, great recap.

I will say that's what happened. Let's hand it to Ira Parker for having the restraint of not doing like a gloopy. We don't see like. Yeah. No. It's kind of a missing part of the head. It's gone. It's kind of still in the helm because we don't see or hear anything like glop onto the floor.

But it's gone. It's gone. brain's not there. A queer, troubled look passed. It's all this way to bitter steel across. Oh, God. I mean, he's a collector. That's true.

It's canon. That's canon. A queer troubled look passed across Baylor-Bray-Speer's face, like a cloud passing before a sun. I love that description. Just thinking of him as a sun, like this bright force in this very dark world

and that that is then shrouded and blighted out. It's just all really sad. and Baylor falls into Dunk's arms. And Dunk is repeating the get-up refrain that we heard from Arlen and we heard from Ag, and it doesn't work because Baylor's brain is not in his head anymore. And it's a little bit of, you know, Dunk is like, ah, ugh. One need not intend harm to do it. I didn't think that any of this was going to happen.

And so to get back to the dream, Darren's dream, you have that moment of relief. and then the horror of recognition watching over him. I dreamed of you, Darren had said in episode four, I have seen you, sir, and a fire, and a dead dragon, a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow. It had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead. Did I kill it? That I could not say.

In a way. It's like, in a way. Tragic, vintage, shocking Thrones death, but then this question of guilt and why and how and who. I saw some people who were unspoiled, yes, that Baylor was going to die based on just like the Math of Thrones, but also like this prophecy. And it's like, oh, who would be the most interesting Targaryen to die here in terms of like, the wings so large they could cover the meadow. Belor Briggs fear.

We had mentioned earlier in the season we had read this passage talking about where we are in the Targaryen line here. Quote, King Darren the Good had four grown sons, three with sons of their own. The line of the dragon kings had almost died out during his father's day, but it was commonly said that Darren the second and his sons had left it secure for all time. The heir to the iron throne and hand to the king, Baylor Breaks Spears, brain falling out at Ashford Meadow is good news. How things start to change. He has a son, Valar, and three brothers.

That's right. We're fine. Book spoilers. This, again, as we said, is going to be like, a Russian nesting doll, Matroyshka levels of spoilers inside of this section. But this is, we're about to do traditional spoilers before we get to the very end. Oops, don't give secrets to a small child spoilers. Correct.

Have you left? Are you gone? If you don't want book spoilers, this is your time to leave us. Okay. Darren's dream. So we've seen it. It's happened. And yet, in case anybody didn't listen to the pod after episode four, we were we talking about. talked about this in the book section, that fire line, which is a show ad, still feels like this is

also going to apply. I've seen you, sir, and a fire. And so, like, it could be the funeral pyre that we're going to get in the next week's episode, which they've, like, shown in photos and stuff like that. We are going to burn him in the next week's episode. But Summerhall, the tragedy of Summerhall, which is this thing that A-gon, King A-Gon, because, spoiler, it does not go fine with all the brothers and the sons that are in his way. For a fourth son of a fourth son, he becomes the king. and he creates this big conflagration at Summer Hall. Our listener Sophie wrote in this. As you both discussed in the pod, despite Dung's bumbling inefficiencies with formal religion, formal religion, the faith of the seven is heavily present here in the story.

The trial of the seven specifically invokes the gods favors, the gods presence in the nighting of the words, blah, blah, blah, constant mentioning, blah. This could be connected to your discussed theory of the seven gods being present here at Ashford in some form. there is evidence in both the Game of Thrones show and Asanga Vice and Fire books that divine intervention is possible. John Resurrection in Game of Thrones, again, that's in the show, but Barak Dundarians' Resurrections in Asong of Ice and Fire, the many face God, etc. So my question for you two is, this could divine intervention be happening here at the trial of seven, sparing Dung's foot at the expense of Baylor's life, perhaps knowing that that very foot will bring the birth of DeNaris Targaryen and thus, if you believe this, fulfill the prince that was promised, or is this just a series of human tragedies, compiling as coincidences or accidents, and then lead to the circumstances of the mother of dragons? I mean, we've been saying it all season, he's got to keep the foot to punt Rehgar out of summer hall. John can't be born otherwise. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, it reminds me of, you know, everything that happens in book one and season one with Danny and the decision she makes with Drogo and Miri.

And then if that's a horrible mistake and something that she'll amend, but if that doesn't happen, then does the funeral pyre happen and are the dragons born in that exact way? And the dreams and the prophecy that are, yeah, I think the role of prophecy and the story fate, it's kind of, I think that one of the many things that makes George genuinely such a mass. is his ability to navigate and thread and entwine choice and consequence with the idea of fate and prophecy. It's God dear. We've been talking about this idea all season and it's constantly been reminding me of the like for want of a nail verse, right? For want of the, for want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. Being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse shoe nail. Or like there are other versions where it's like the kingdom was lost. So like for want of a

the kingdom was lost and it's sort of like, what are the cascading effects of Sir Duncan the tall or dunk of flea bottom showing up to Ashford Meadow and all of the ripples down history that come from there. Does somebody rebel against the Targaryans eventually? Yeah. Is it Roberts Rebellion? Is it Rhaegar? Is it Leanna? Is it the Mad King if this exact thing doesn't happen here? I mean, no, right? Not in that exact fashion. Right. So yeah, it's fascinating stuff. and I wish Baylor had lived, but, you know, brain had to fall out, tough.

On the Blackfire front, the setup for Sworn Sword and Mystery Night and just in general beyond, because we have many a Blackfire rebellion in our future, I think that Dunk's swearing his sword to Sir Eustis to a Blackfire, pretender to a Black Dragon supporter

in the second season, in the second novella, is going to feel a little bit different now. Like I think him kind of And he's been at the redgrass view Yeah and just the level of awareness Because a lot of it in the novella Is like he's recalling things that Arlen has told him

But like he was around for this and right And wasn't four years old It wasn't four years old So I just think But in a way that ultimately I think Will heighten the second season In some ways I think I'm really excited for all the Blackfire stuff

That we get in the future in the future And certainly he'll have more motivation At White Walls in the third season and mystery night. I saw a great... I saw a great tweet where in the trailer for next episode, we get Lionel Barathean saying, like, you know, he risk nothing, you know what I mean?

Like, talking about Baylor. He's like, he was a prince, like, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I saw someone on Twitter was like, Ira Parker's very certain he's getting 13 seasons of this show, right? Because Lionel Barathe will eventually rebel against the throne, but it's just sort of like, so they're planting that seed there in the finale with, like, it's actually like a pretty weird energy for. from Lionel if they're not.

Like, we're more definitely going to get to make that season. I don't want to judge it based on the trailer. I think we'll have to see it in context if it makes sense. We also got this email from Clint. I put it here because talking about the future seasons and the Blackfire Rebellions, Clint says, do you have any worries for season two? It doesn't have any major reveals like Egg being a Targaryen or the crown prince dying unexpectedly.

It's a pretty small-scale story over disputed territory. Will the show need to expand Blood Raven or larger political tension to raise the impact? thoughts about that? Is it all down to like one extremely hot ginger in her braid to like yank that braid, baby, yank that braid? I mean, there's a lot of, I think we both are incredibly fond of sworn sword. I think it is definitely a subtler story. No question. I mean, the one with the least worries is like by season three, by mystery night, it's just like, you're doing a Blackfire rebellion. Yeah. Like season three. Oops, we did a Blackfire rebellion inside of here. Yeah. I was like, I can't probably, like, I can't believe in a year, a year from now I get to do the second Blackfire

Rebellion. Yeah. That's actually nuts. That's awesome. You know, there is. And Blood Raven is so incredibly sick. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to have Blood Raven somehow show up in season two. I just think expanding a lot of Blackfire stuff, either, yeah, incorporating Blood Raven sooner or

or doing the first rebellion flashbacks, I think is probably a way to do it. But there is a lot of action in the second novella. And I think there's just a lot of rich theme, you know, and a lot of sexiness. And you're hoping David Tennis. And Benis and David Tennis as Benis of the Brown Shield. Yeah. Why not?

Why not? Dare to Dream. Roger. Speaking of Mystery Night, you know, everything that happened. Gorman Peek, who killed Roger, who bashed his fucking face in with a, you know, he's a character. He's coming to us in season three in the third novella.

So that's, it feels very intentional that we've gotten a couple Roger mentions here because Dunk is like, I can avenge Roger of Penny Tree? Yeah. Whoa. And, you know, Specifically the guilt that he has. That would just fucking great.

Wouldn't that be great? He's like, you see this a petty treat? And he's so guilty, like, about taking Roger's place. You know, that's like on his mind in the third novella. So I think that'll be very rich and rewarding. And I'm glad we got a couple Roger moments here. Ariane's groin. We couldn't outright say this on Talk to Thrones.

Chris was like, so he cut his dick off. It's like, he's got to have a kid. You did a great job hedging that. You're like, I don't know. They change the kid canon in the show. sometimes. Sometimes we think we're getting kids and then we don't. This has happened in House of the Dragon already. It's hard to make Egg King at a great council if certain key participants and other contenders are not there. So like Aryan... It was very like being like, upper inner thigh. Being like mini or the cruel, like kind of has to happen.

Yeah. They have to dismiss him because he's Ariens kid and they think he's going to be a monster. Right? Upper inner thigh. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure kept the dick. Really hurt. But Dick is still, Dick is still there. He can fuck his way through a lease. Good for him. Great job. We got a few versions of this. Okay. This one, this particular one comes from JC. Who wrote, I also believe that Dunk has not having been properly knighted is brilliant because what this allows for is for Dung's first true knighting to be when he becomes a member of the Kingsguard. A moment I truly hope we get to witness. Ira Parker is like, yes, please, job security. You're going to have to cradle me in your arms. I'll be sobbing like a fucking baby.

Okay. The right for making a new member of the White Swords can vary. It can be a solemn informal event in which the knight kneels as he makes his vows before the king. So if egg gets to be the one tonight, officially knights are Dunkin the Tall. The best. We'll be messes. I would love to see it. We will get to see this because we fucking deserve to see it. Okay. Because the show is great and they're going to keep making it.

Here's the deeper, darker level of the spoilt. I'm sorry about it. I just wish I did not know this. And I don't blame a small child on a press tour for saying I think he shouldn't have said. Did I? I wish this were not out in the world. No, I had seen this on the internet. Okay.

You had already seen it. Okay. Great. Here comes. If you don't want to know about this thing, this is not a spoiler from the book, it's something that someone said about the future of the story. Leave the deck spoiler. So actually, my pal, Megan O'Keefe, who you cited earlier in here, was Megan

Decider was interviewing back in October at New York Comic Con, essentially, was interviewing. But as she put it on Twitter this week, it broke containment. Yes. was interviewing Peter Claffey and Dexter, and they were making puppets. Yeah. So it always comes back to puppets. It always comes back to puppets.

And basically, as Peter is trying to get Dexter shut up, he reveals that George R. Martin told them. And listen, George changes his mind all the time. Leave if you don't want to hear this. George or Martin told them that Dunk survives. Summer Hall, not only that, he's like, but we're not sure about egg. So not only are we saying, Dunk definitely survives, which there's a new new Lord commander of the Kingsguard a year later.

Right. So like, history books believe Dunk died at Summer Hall. That's like sort of been the common perception. Yes. And that King Agon Egg also died at Summer Hall. But maybe, but what if he didn't? Right. Right.

So here's the email we got from. Maybe it just got in a boat like Leonor. Yeah. He's just being gay somewhere else, right? Tech said... So we think Lena are instead because of seasmoke. Okay. Being gay for a while and then dying anyway.

Okay. Tech says at first I wasn't wild about dunk surviving Summer Hall. It felt like it spoiled the whole star-cross tragedy of Dunk and Egg dying together. Like if Egg's coin had started flipping Madnesside up, there's a certain romanticist quality to Dunk, saving his best friend by killing killing with him,

killing him or dying with him, and then dying with him. A loyalty so absolute and a friendship so deep that you can't separate the night from his squire. But after last night's episode had been reflecting back on that idea

and it's changed my mind. I think it was seeing how they mirrored Dunk following Arlen with egg following Dunk because history believes Dunk did die at Summer Hall. For him to survive that night, it can only mean one thing

after Summer Hall. After possibly killing his closest and oldest friend, the closest thing Dunk ever had to a brother, dunk goes back to being a hedge knight. It makes for such a beautiful, bittersweet bookend to the beginning of the story, how he first met him bearing Sir Arlen,

how Sir Arlenoreen told him that a hedge-night is the truest kind of night. Like Arlen, dunk's eventual death is anonymous and unremarked. So do great nights sleep in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road? I think, yes, the greatest of all nights does. So I do love this idea of dunk going on the road. And like the closing shot of the last season of this show, perfect. Being dunk under a tree. Under a tree or on the horse riding down the road, just like, you know, I'll let them think I died and I'm a hedge night now. Imagine how beautiful it would be if it came to you via novella or surprise. Sensational television show and not a resource time with a child's interview because I don't blame him.

He was George told him. Why is George's chair? Well, remember Comic Con George is like, I do remember. King Egg on. Everyone on stage was like, ooh, boy. Okay. So don't survive becomes a hedge show. night.

Anonymously, right? Everyone thinks he's dead and then he's like, I'm just going to hedge night around until I die. Canonically, Egg was 59 when he died at Summerhold. Is there any version of the story that makes any kind of sense that Egg is with him? They're like, let's go back on the road together. I think it's irresponsible for King Egan to be responsible for the death of so many people and it'd be like, off to have an adventure, bye.

But if Dunk, heroically, punts him. out of Summer Hall and, like, you know, kills his best friend. Now he doesn't need to punt him. He's not going to die in the fucking. He just carrying him. He just fucking use those feet. That's why I'm sorry. God damn.

This is, um. Like, you know, yeah. Dex is like, we don't know if egg survived. I don't think Agon should survive the tragedy of Summer Hall. Strikes me as a maybe George hasn't decided. Oh, I also think George hasn't decided whether a dunk survives, to be honest. with you. And he's just saying shit because that's what George does sometimes.

That's all. Great moment in the history of the spoilers of. There's another I won't. I don't want to give it. Do I want to give it to you? I think this isn't a spoiler. Tell me. In an interview with Tanzan Crawford who plays Tenzel and Peter Claffey who plays Dunk as we all know, they were

sort of like asked about because Tanzell is off to dorm. We won't see her again this season. Right. And And so there's line in the novella about like the last line going going off to Dorn or whatever. And so Peter Claffey was sort of intimating like, I believe like George has kind of told him like Tanzell will be in the like I always assumed that was the case. Yeah. But like that George told him. So like that Tanzan might come back for another season and we get to see Duncan Tenzel together.

And think of all the possibilities. Like think about like if in season five Raymond Foss away. crops up. I mean, I hope that that happens. And definitely Lionel Barathean. You know what I mean? Like these characters that we're meeting now, you know, seeing Red and Raymond again, like, I would just like, I don't want Mekar. I mean, Lionel, of course, but I don't want Mekar to be the only guy who is in our life. That would be insane. See Arian again if we want to. I don't know. It did on the, because they, we know from the beginning of Sworn Sword that they do in fact go to Dorn and spend time there and get some very sad horse stuff. I had a moment before they officially did announce, like, we're adapting Sworn Sword for season two where I was like, I wonder if they'll do it Dorn's story

for season two. Because since they don't have more novellas yet, why not fill those couple years? The Sworn Sword is a little uninteresting, is episode one. Dunk losing his V-card and Dorn to Tancel. The dunk that we met in this episode,

I, they're teenagers living together. They haven't fucked? They haven't, no. Dunk is canonically a virgin. Don't get me with your C. Rogers shit. Anyway. And yet. Oh, and then, yeah, the Henry Cavill thing, I will just say.

There was like an ambiguous, like, back and forth, confusing cut out of context sort of interview where it seemed like if you wanted to interpret it this way, Dex was implying that Henry Cavill, because the Henry Cavill has long been a dream cast for, or Damon Blackfire. So, like, it seemed that Dex was sort of intimating that Henry Cavill was going to show up in a later season. Peter's like, don't say that. We shouldn't say that. And then Peter Claffey came out and, like, clarified that that's not what he was talking

about, which I actually kind of believe. Like, I actually don't think Henry Cavill is going to show up as Damon Blackfire. Like, I don't. That would be kind of weird. She's a Highlander right now. He's got things to do and heads to chop. But, like, but the fact that Peter clarified that and not the same thing. summer hall thing.

Very tough. Me's the summer whole thing is definitely true. Very, very, very tough. George! That has been the more, even more, spoiler,

spoiler section of this podcast. All time. We did it. We did. Great stuff. I can't believe we only have one episode

of a Night of the Seven Kingdoms left. I'm despondent. I can't believe this podcast wasn't four hours. You're welcome. I knew we'd come in right at three today.

All right, thank you. Thank you to Carlos, as always. Thank you to Arjuna as always. Jomi as always. And Sarah, who not only is with us today to help, but as you already mentioned, binge the entire season so far.

And then had to sit through the spoiler section. Not ideal. Not ideal. Sorry about that. Join us on Sunday for Talk the Thrones on the finale right after the finale, and then we will be with you on Tuesday night next week, Tuesday evening.

For our deep dive into episode six of a Night of the Seven Kingdoms. We will be with you in the meantime for Buffy season three part two. And that's it. Get up. Bye. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment

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