House of R - 'House of the Dragon' Episode 5 Deep Dive

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

It's time to dive deep into the fifth episode of 'House of the Dragon' with Mal and Joanna! They give their brief overall impressions of this middle episode (06:19). Then, they dive into the dragon pit and go deep into the plot details and analysis of the episode (08:52). Later, they give out the episode's awards, as well as look into book spoilers and see what they can predict in the future (02:47:29). If you would like to email Mal and Joanna about the show, you can reach them at [e-mail]. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salik, and I'm the host of Bansplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer podcast network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions 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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Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. I'll not be happy right in the midst of his speech. Do you know what color it glows when old town calls its banners to war? Green. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to the green wedding, or at least the welcome feast, but also to join us on the Ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things fandom.

joining me today. Now that she's finished telling me she has deep knowledge of the port at Sunspear where she's seen ships of ESO setting sail with their holes full of oranges and cinnamon. And she's always wished to see where they went. It's my house of our. Barkingitina.

Co-host Joanna Robinson. I thought you already said agreed to marry me in an earlier episode when I proposed with Legos, but if you need me to do it with fruit and spices as well, I will. I love a snack, as you know. Yeah, you too. Yeah. A cinnamon drenched orange.

Yours for the taking. Yeah. Actually. Joe, we are, of course, here today to dive deep into House of the Dragon. Episode 5, We Light the Way, written by Charmaine de Grate, directed yet again, by Claire Kielner. But of course, before we dive in,

before we set sail and take flight from Drift Mark, some programming reminders, it is Andor Week. The Midnight Boys, Piu, pew, pew, we'll be with you tomorrow.

Wednesday to break down the electric three episode premiere. So excited for that pod, so excited that Andor is here. Jealous with Midnight Boys, that they get to cover it. I know. I can't wait to

chat about Andor later in the run. Me too. Packed week as always, because on Thursday, junior men's get ready. Mint edition, we'll be here to break down episode six of She-Hulk. I personally am really eager for some more sneaker updates from Pug. We'll see. We'll see. On Friday, Joe and I will be back with a house of our deep dive into rings of power. We are somehow already at episode five of rings of power in the back.

half of that show. I cannot believe it. What a joy it's been. And then, of course, on Sunday, Joe and I will be back with Chris Ryan, Lord Commander of Talk the Thrones for Hot D. Episode 6 over on trial by content. You can hear Joe, Neil, and Dave every Thursday. Joe, how can people follow all of that? Oh, my God. Well, first of all, first and foremost, I really suggest you just go ahead and subscribe to what are you waiting for? We've got so much going on. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for, subscribe to the Ring reverse podcast, and Talk the Thrones, which is part of the Ring. Never mind, I'm going to do that again. And trial by content while you're at it.

Why not? This week, we're going to be debating the worst job in Westeros, and there are a lot of options. You know, like someone who swabs the king's arm, arm sores, is really high up there for me, but there are some other possibilities. So you can do that. Subscribe. Why not? Also, guess what? We're all over the socials.

right. Jomi is busy with the memes and the jokes and also the helpful links to all the shows. Follow Ringgivers on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all over the place to keep on top of everything. And of course, if you want to reach us directly to write us about the show or, you know, any relatives you might have on the show, you can email us hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. That's hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. We got so, so, so a crushing number of emails this week. And I will admit to you, I was traveling a little. So I read every email, but there may not be as many emails in this podcast as there usually are because I was on the road.

But we got so many incredible emails. Please keep them coming. Thanks so much. It's amazing. We need Sir Harold here, you know, the way he's announcing everyone arriving for the welcome feast. We need him to sit next to you on an airplane. I have a real question. Is that the job of the head of the Kings Guard?

I think it's the job of people making this television show to be like, this is going to sound great. They're like, let's give Graham McTavish more lines. Yeah, good point, good point. And of course, final programming renaut, final programming note. I guess renote is a combo of note and reminder. Sure.

Final programming reminder. Our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, today's podcast will feature. ample plot details, all of the plot details really from this fifth episode of House of the Dragon, all of Hot D to date. Anything from Game of Thrones is on the table. On the book front, we will be incorporating canon details from a song of ice and fire and from fire and blood for history, context, parallels.

Anything that comes in the future in fire and blood will be saved for a separate book look-ahead section. At the end of the episode, you will have another spoiler warning right before that segment begins. Okay. it's time for our opening snapshot. It's time to rally the realm. De Manor Robinson, what did you think of this fifth episode of House of the Dragon? I loved it. I thought it was wonderful.

Love a wedding in Westeros always. Yeah, do you? If I lived in Westeros, I would simply not have or attend a wedding. Ever. Well, what about our wedding? I like to think that we'll, you know, a quiet affair. Yeah, well, there are. be a pool of blood of one of our nearest and dearest on the ground as we exchanged our vows?

No chance for anybody to name our wedding after a color, be it red, purple, green, or otherwise. The translucent wedding it is for us. Yeah, no, I thought this is a wonderful, wonderful episode. A big, big moment, Allison and the Grey Dress that, like, those of us who are lovers of the book have been waiting for. And a really fitting send off, I think, for these younger cast members, who we've really grown to love and admire over the last five episodes. So, yeah, I had a great time with this episode. How about you, Mallory Rubin?

Yeah, what a raucous affair it was. I thought the back half of the episode, the welcome feast, had a pace and a rhythm and a scale to it that was just really vibrant and energizing and chaotic in that thronesy, vintage way. I have loved our time with Millie Alcock and Emily Carey. It's been great to spend these five episodes with young Reneera and young Alicent. And I am also so excited to welcome in the new cast as we enter into this time job heading into episode six and get to meet our new Alicent and our new Reneira.

I can't believe we're at the midway point in the season already. I mean, this really felt like certainly literally the. opening scene, the great counsel of 101 AC is the prologue to the show. But in many ways, this entire first five episodes is the prologue to this series. And this really feels like it at the end of this episode. This is a culmination. And this, we are on the precipice after this of something seismic. And I just cannot wait to plow into the rest of the story. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, Reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast.

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Let's go for it. right into the dragon pit for the episode four deep dive. I don't know why it gets me every time. And this week, I thought it was, I was ready for it on the last one. I was like, was this the dragon script? No. Anyway, Steve, maybe in future you should just move it around so we never know what it's coming. Just some nebulous scream.

Yeah, yeah. I'll replace a dear me with one too. You got to keep the dear me pure, you know? Okay. Yeah. Can't wait to spend an hour of the pod talking about Beesbury piecing out the second the second shit got rough at the wedding.

Tell me. Absolutely not. Mello's essentially just like grabbing the back of his hoodie on the way out as well. He's like, oh, me too then. Okay. Bye-bye. So good. They dipped so quickly.

But we're not starting there. We are starting at the beginning of the episode. We're going chronologically once again because let's see if Steve's ready, Joe. We don't want to miss a thing. And I thought. I want to get a sued. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Fine. Be responsible. Everyone knows that Stephen Tyler is extremely litigious. So let's be careful. We should just have Steve sing it like he sang faceless. Into the mic for our later sound cue. I don't know why that hasn't happened yet, frankly. Anyway, something to think about between episodes.

We open. In the Vale, riding around Roonstone with Ria Royce, who, let's just say this right at the jump, seems awesome and is an elite armor and seems like a great hang. Damon, we have some notes. What a babe, first of all. Second of all. I love that she's in, like, essentially like the sports bra of the breastplate, you know, as compared to some of the questionable nipple arm. that we've seen on women in the past of Thrones. This is like a real support the girls kind of breastplate that she's wearing here.

One quick note about the runes on her armor, right? So House Royce, the bronze arm, the bronze on the armor is because, like, you know, the bronze associated with their house. Right. You might remember bronze yawn. Bronze yawn, right? A messy bitch who loved drama. They give him kind of this, like, dumb, like big bowl, silver bowl breastplate.

this is some really cool bronze runic armor on the Royces here in this episode, both Rea and cousin Gerald. But at Zionius on Twitter has pointed out that the runes here on Reyes' sports bra are taken directly from, if you just go to the Wikipedia page for Roons, it is taken directly from the photo that is on the top of. the Wikipedia page for Roons. So whoever made this armor just Googled Roons and took what they found from there, which is fine. It's fine. I'm not mad about it. I just think it's hilarious.

Oh, man. I really wanted the Roons to translate to like, our women are in fact prettier than our sheep. Fuck you. Damon Targaryen. House Royce is proud and ancient and traces its lineage back to the first men. how dare you encroach on the lands around hallowed run stone. But that's your saying that's not the case. That's not the case.

Tough stuff. Tough stuff. I would say the Damon is making a notable fashion statement as well in this sequence. I have a theory about this. Okay. I cannot wait to hear it because he is standing lurking in weight in what I described on Talk to Thrones is his Hogwarts robes. And I don't really have a better description other than perhaps.

Dementor robes. He is just counting on this hood to hide his very apparent identity. I'm presuming he flew into the veil on Dragonback. And like parked it at like long-term parking, like away. What's you're flying in on Karexies? I don't know that you need to bother with the disguise. Let's just throw it out. And then took the air tram to Roonstone.

Okay, what's your theory? What's your theory on the cloak? It's not in universe. It's a practical theory. Later we see the horse rear up and there's someone there right in front of the horse in the same ridiculously oversized cloak. And I think it's just to hide the stunt person that had to like stand in front of a rearing horse. You know what I mean? So they like made the cloak as big as possible.

It's not as fun as is Damon Targaryen a Dementor. You tell me. But I think it's a filmmaking choice. It looks very silly. It's a, it is definitely a choice. That's for sure. Choices were made. Yeah.

Before we say goodbye to the lady of Roonstone, which we will be doing momentarily, let's say hello with a very brief reminder of what we know canonically about their marriage, which is very little. In Fire and Blood, here's the sentence that sets up the match in the first place. In 97, the good queen saw Baylon's second son, Damon, take to wife. Lady Rhea of House Royce, heir to the ancient castle of Roonstone in the Vale. This is Queen Alessane, who we've talked about many times. My read on that has always been that she actually like arranged or sanctioned this marriage because we know that marriage making was a big part of the way that she helped with rain management and alliance forging across the realm.

Of course, Viseras is marriage to Emma, as we've noted before, Emma was an errand. and also related to Vassaris with dark blood naturally. Totally fine. But both brothers married into the veil. So that's interesting. And we know from Fire and Blood that when Viseras became king, Damon, quote, petitioned him to have his marriage set aside. Have his marriage set aside.

What was so interesting to me is that we learned here from Ria that they never consummated the marriage. So Damon's performance issues are again central to the plot. And I'm wondering what you made of that. And why, if that was the case, Damon never just revealed that by saying, we never consummated the marriage. The marriage is null and void. I actually can get out of this.

Do you think that's because he was ashamed? Do you think it's because he wanted to maintain the illusion of the marriage so that he could go for this inheritance play in time? I think he was so desperate to get out of that marriage that he would have taken an excuse. were not for his crippling insecurity around whatever it is going on with his sexual performance. If you have seen,

I don't know if you've seen these obscure art films the Back to the Future trilogy, but the way in which Marty McFly response to being called chicken is essentially the way that David Targaryen responds to any nod towards his performance

issue, which Rea, you know, utilize it later in this sequence here. Yeah. That's my feeling as well. Anything that diminishes him, if it's wielded toward him directly, it feels like a great insult. And it's not something that he would want to perpetuate across the realm. Very specifically this, I think.

Yes. And I do really quickly want to shout out my sister, Morgan Robinson, for recognizing the setting of the sequence that is a very, specific place in Derbyshire called Castleton, and this is where, if you've seen, again, the obscure art film, The Princess Bride, this is where Wesley and Butter... I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid. This is exact spot where Wesleyan Buttercup go tumbling down the hillside, as you wish, all that and land and like smooch. So watch your footing in Derbyshire is the point of the sequence,

I think. Well, this is a slightly less cheerful sequence here, because... You know what really struck me in addition to all of the barbs that Ria is hurling Damon's way and his very conspicuous disguise and silence? She says, she brings up the sheeper prettier line that he uttered at the small council table earlier in the season. And we have all of these reminders across this episode in the season's date of the way that word travels, which is really notable for everything. But with a character like Damon in particular,

and we're going to talk about in a minute his motivations and what we can glean and what we can't still, the fact that everything he says and does is going to travel and make its way around all circles of power is not something that we can ever really forget. Who in that small council room do you think leaked that thing that Damon said? It's a great question. Small room, closed doors. Who said it? I mean, I think that in general, anybody in that room can reveal anything at any point. I like the idea, given how much Otto and Damon hate each other, that Otto is constantly tattling. But I also think it would be hysterical if it were like Beesbury.

I think a Beesbury is my number one candidate. Yeah, especially in an episode where Laris reminds us that people who aren't chatting a lot are often observing, taking note, and then what do they do with that information? Our guy B's, you know. Buzzing around. He gives us a gods be good. But what's he giving to the Royces? Damn it.

Great question. Great question. She really continues to goad Damon here. She says that he was cast aside in favor of a little girl. We see that, you know, the disdain is mutual. I think that's fair to say. And mere moments after meeting this wonderful character who seems like a great hang. Cool, babe.

We say goodbye. So here's my question to you. Did Damon Targaryen head to the veil the express purpose of killing his wife, Rea Royce, or did this unfold organically in real time? What does your read on Damon's motivations across the timeline here? Do you want to know what I think, or do you want to know what the people who made the show just outright told us in the inside the episode sequence? I want to know both.

And let's actually start with the context of what we knew heading in from fire and blood. In fire and blood, Damon is fighting at the stepstones when this happens. So he has ostensibly an alibi. And like I mentioned on Talk the Thrones and Ryan Caudill had the exact same raid. I never once for a second believe that Damon Targary did not kill Ray either directly or sent someone or something like that because it was just way too convenient a death. Damon would kill literally for this woman to be dead and then she dies. Convenient. No, he definitely killed her, is what I think.

But he wasn't there allegedly. I don't know how easy it is to slip away on Dragonback, but he wasn't there allegedly. The slipping in and out thing with Damon is also so important to keep in mind and track. Like, we know he got that dragon egg out of the dragon pit. Obviously, he passed along the map of the secret passageways in the Red Keep to Renera. These are all different locations. but the fact that he is able to move in and out without detection is an established part of his character. So I agree.

I always thought that that fire and blood passage was very notably phrased to spark theories. There came a tragic mishap. Right. What I think is wild. And like I've read too many like Agatha Christie novels and I'm like someone put a bur in her saddle. Like that's how that's how you like kill someone who likes to ride their horse. You put a bur in their saddle and the horse will rear and kill them. That's a great way to do it. I know many ways to murder a person, just FYI.

Comptuiting. Yep. Cheersome. Anyway, point being, I think what baffles me a little bit about some of these inside the episode conversations that we're getting from the people who make this show is that what I loved about this is that I thought it was just like shot through with ambiguity. I thought Matt Smith did a great job of giving us nine different ways to read him in that scene. And I thought I love that he, once again, Damon doesn't say anything. This is another long, silent appearance from Damon, Matt Smith, just sort of letting the body language and the facial expressions, you know, give us what we're supposed to take from it. And then, you know, Connell and Sopachnik, et cetera, are saying, you know, essentially their read on it. is that he didn't necessarily go there necessarily to kill her,

but that he took advantage of an opportunity. Like, then he was certainly ready to kill her if he decided in the moment that he wanted to. It wasn't hard to think about it. And then they were also like, and he definitely murdered her in case you thought that cut away from the rock and the menacing approach on her was ambiguous at all.

The added wrinkle, we got actually a bunch of emails about this. So for, I really want to. wasn't expecting it that way. To be, you know, to make it super clear. So, Raya falls from her horse. She is, like, paralyzed in that moment. And when he steps on her forearm, that's him saying, oh, she is, she cannot move, right? Because she can't feel it.

She's paralyzed from the neck down. She then goads him once more into killing her. I think mostly because that's a better way to die than her just languishing out there with a broken neck. You know what I mean? she would have starved to death or whatever. So she knows that when she taunts him about not being able to finish him and calls him a craven,

that she's going to spark and incite that response in him. Yeah. What's really interesting in this moment, though, is, and again, I want to embrace this time. Again, we got a lot of emails about this thing, Steve, is that Matt Smith, this is a big, you know, this is a big move from Damon. He killed this woman and not only killed her, but like, we think she's pretty cool.

They designed her to kind of remind us of Aria or other, like, cool women that we like. And so this question of Damon Targaryen is a morally gray character. We got a lot of emails, a lot of them from non-book readers being like, what are you guys talking about morally gray? Let's talk about all the things that we've seen Damon do. How can you label him a morally gray character? What do you think about that, Mallory? Well, this is this, I, that's what. why I mentioned that and asked you and Chris about that on Talk the Thrones because it was bothering

me a little bit coming out of this scene. I will say like on the one hand, Damon's been my favorite character of the show. I think Matt Smith's performance is tremendous and he injects a certain life and crackling energy into any scene that he's in, whether he's speaking or not. Often when he's not speaking, it's the most electric. We can track his eye movement. Who's he looking at? What is he implying with a glance? So he's been riveting to watch. I think that having him standing there in a giant oversized hood, wearing, possibly intending to cause the horse to fall, but regardless of that initial intention and the ambiguity at that point,

stepping on her arm as she lies there paralyzed, not asking if she needs help, certainly not going for help, picking up the rock. We know definitively from the inside the episode that, and I, you know, if that was my read that he did then finish the job based on the cut, but knowing definitively that he did,

like these are not morally gray actions. That's just villainy. And I think if the show wants to portray Damon as an outright villain, that's okay, but that is definitely, I think, a notable departure, especially given that he's, especially given that he is the character so often propped up as emblematic, of what George loves so much about this story and about this character set, right?

That moral grade that defines so many of them. Now, like, to be clear, I think that it's entirely possible that a character could start off by doing these really horrifying things and then win us back over time. We need look no further than one of our all-time faves, Jamie Lannister, who's the first thing we saw him do

in the pilot of Game of Thrones was push, Brand Stark out of a window. He kills his own cousin with his bare hands, etc. These are our earliest experiences with Jamie. And by the end, there are very few character arcs that we would hold up as saying, like, gripped us and moved us the most, right? Or to that extent. So maybe these are just the early days with Damon, and that's actually intentional.

And the more that we're able to get into the inner working of his mind and understand what is motivating him and what he's thinking, the more we will have. have a full sense of how he can inch back toward that gray or maybe has been occupying it the whole time. Or maybe he won't. Or maybe he won't. Yeah, or maybe he won't. So I don't know, like, even though I was also in the Damon definitely killed her camp, I mean, we should say, we talked about this in the book, like ahead section last week and, you know, cast our votes for will, will Damon prove to be the murderer? And, you know, we both thought, yes, he would be. Even in the book, there's that she lingered for nine days before finally feeling well enough to leave her

bed only to collapse and die within an hour of rising line. And I always was like, well, maybe not then because if she's around for that long, wouldn't she have just said to someone, Damon did this. But that's also part of what's great about the story is like what information makes it around and what doesn't. So yeah, and I love that this, this is, she's not the only one who lingered for a few days before dying that the show was like, no time. Yeah. Clop. Let's go. We got to move. It's true. We'll get to our night of kisses. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Let's go to Drift Mark. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's get back on our pleasure barge bullshit, Joe. We are sailing to Drift Mark. I'm curious to ask you how the cut from rock to cleaver slicing the head of a fish compares for you in the fabled throne's history of knife sliding into grayscale, cutting into the gravy inside of a pie. Where do you stack this?

No, nothing will ever compare. to the grayscale pie cut. That's an alt-time. Because that's something, that's a cut that's meant to ruin something that's supposed to be appetizing. Rock to fish cleaver

is just, I think, supposed to make us think of murder. Anyway. Oh, God. So we see a couple, so a quick sequence, but we see a couple key things. Kristen helping Reneira

around the boat. They're close. They are still together at this stretch. We see the hand of the kingpin on Lionel Strong. And we see Vassaris vomiting freely,

setting the tone, for a very infirmed episode. It's getting seasick on a voyage. Totally normal. That in itself is not any great signal of Vassaris's health, but this sets the tone for an episode where he is deeply, deeply infirmed, consistently offered chairs, bleeding out of every orifice.

Every orifice is exactly the phrase I was going to use. Every single orifice, as far as you know. This scene put a twist on the, you know, the hand shits in the king, the king shits and the hand wipes. the king vomits in the hand. Yeah. These are not too poor Lionel.

It's like, wow. So this is what it means to be the hand of the king. Well, I mean, in the hunt episode, Vassaris wiped like, you know, animal scat on auto. So, like, yeah, it's a real, like, Lionel Strong gets a promotion, but how fun is it to be hand of the king? I say not. Oh, God.

As always, we have some notes on Vassaris' personal hygiene. Before we get to Driftmark, though, we go. back to the Red Keep where Otto High Tower is leaving. And this was a real, oh, this is our first no time has passed. No time of substance has passed. Obviously, it takes a little bit of time

to sail from Kings Landing to Driftmark, though. Not much. Very proximate, as we'll explain later. If Auto's only leaving now, we're picking up right where we left off at the end of four. It's pouring. Our guy cannot get an umbrella, let alone a carriage.

he's on horseback and he's got one conversation left with his daughter who seeks him out for a fascinating exchange. She is still in the Targaryen colors here, still in the red of House Targ will be tracking the outfit evolution

over the episode. The same dress she was wearing when Reneas swore on the memory of her mother under the guardswood. It's a tough one, folks. And what is what to do here, Joe? He blames Allison

for his ouster. He says, and yet you made it possible, you chose Reneira. Father of the Year is always, what did you make not only of him saying that, but of how Allison's responded to it?

I actually have more to say about the next thing he says and his specific word choice. Okay. That is classic auto manipulation. Yes. But I'm really interested in what he says next. I thought it was interesting

that even though he's manipulating gaslighting classic auto bullshit here. She seems, despite pushing back on what he's saying here, later in the exchange, consistently challenging him throughout this conversation, which was important and notable, she also is genuinely sad to see him go. And so there's this real interesting and frenetic mix of competing instincts and emotion because she is, once again, we are seeing how her loneliness and her sense of

isolation are on full display. And despite the real fraught nature of her relationship with her father to this point in the show, him leaving, as we will hear later when she's speaking to Hobart and House High Tower, it changes things in terms of the calculus of the alliance inside of the castle. And this is something that we talked about last week in the book reader section of like the line we keep hammering is like a Targaryian alone in the world is a dangerous thing. What's a high tower alone in the world. Like, you know what I mean? What is, what is that like?

And honestly, I think what we get from this episode is not alone for long is, is, is what Allison plans here. Call the banners. Yeah. The beacon put on that new dress. She insists that Otto's informant was wrong. Insists that this information about Rainier was wrong, which is an important opening note because it really continues to build and set the stage for how betrayed she will feel

later when she hears Kristen's confession. And it's key that she says she swore to me that she's amazing. Like, you know what I mean? Like that we get Allison's interpretation of what Reneira said, not the exact letter of it. And the sanctity of that idea, exactly. And she keeps challenging Otto in other respects to because she knows his failing and his misstep in continuing to advance and push Agon's claim. So he responds with a real doozy here. Can we hear this in full?

Listen to me, daughter. The king will die. It may be months or years, but he'll not live to be an old man. And if Ramirez succeeds him, war will follow. Do you understand? The realm will not accept her. And to secure her claim, she'll have to put your children into the sword. She'll have no choice.

You know it. You're no fool, and yet you choose not to see it. The time is coming, Allison. Either you prepare Egon to rule, or you cleave to Reneira and pray for her mercy. Fascinating sound design there where the rain just like vanishes and the score comes in. Anyway, I want to talk about a couple word choices here. Yeah.

Yeah. I think the smartest thing he says is when he says, Reneer will have no choice but to put your children to the sword. And so what he's doing is here is he's not like, if Allison decides that Rainer is her friend and she decides she believes her, then the move for Otto is not, she's a villain, can't you see it? It's even your dear friend who you, for some reason, believe, will have no choice. It will not be up to her. She will have no choice. This is an act of villainy from her.

This is an act of protection. And you were just naturally on two sides of this war just by dint of where you are. And then the other thing he says is cleave to Reneira and pray for her mercy. How merciful do we think Reneera Targaryen is? Now, like, something I will say is that I think Otto is, Otto, by saying this is almost like willing it into existence. Because I actually do think, again, once again, a million times over, if these two young women would just talk to each other, like, honestly,

but it's already been proven in the previous episode that they can't, they would just talk to each other. I don't know that Reneira would kill Agon and baby Helena. In the book, there's much more like Reneer hated her, you know, half-siblings stuff, but there's none of that here in the show so far. She's barely interacted with them. So, like, I don't know that that's true, but at the same time, I'm like, Reneira merciful? I don't know.

Like, Reneer, I don't think of Reneer as cruel. She's not Magor the cruel, but, like, she just has over and over again shown how little she cares for people other than herself. And so I thought that choice of pray for her mercy was a really clever way for him to frame the conversation, you know? Yeah. No, that's a, it's a great call out. And I think your first point there about the choice language, it makes me think of Renis, and we will talk later about what she says to Corlis,

but the real parallels between what Otto says to Allison here and what Renice says to Coralus later, because both of them are anchored in that the order of things,

idea that we've heard from Renice before, just the reality of the realm. So whether it would be Reneer's desire or not, the people around her will seek a certain end. And that's the same,

Otto and Renice are on opposite sides of this alliance, and they have, opposite goals, opposing goals. But Renice is ultimately sketching out the same inevitability that the people who have a certain goal or a certain agenda to protect, that it will necessitate that sort of discord and dissent.

And so on the one hand, this was one of the things I thought was so interesting about this moment with Otto. he is one of the people who is responsible for perpetuating this reality. It doesn't mean he's wrong, though. And that's one of the real tragedies of what we're watching unfold. You know, everybody is right to anticipate that this is not just a possibility, but an inevitability. Inevitability, yeah.

And the real despair then for us as viewers and for the characters themselves sets in when we think, like, what would happen if people try to challenge that reality then or try to change it? But, I mean, and that's what Reneer is saying, right? I will change the order of things, right? But I will make a new order, yeah. But if everyone around you is saying that's impossible and accepting it's impossible. I think more importantly, presently, the person guiding the realm is Viceris who's so ineffectual,

so unable to stop any fight, any banished brother from taking a seat. at the banquet table at the wedding, like unwilling to do anything. So like could someone with a stronger hand, could an egg on the conqueror? Yes. Change the order of things. Yes.

But not a Viseria's Sargarian. You know what I mean? And that's the realm is leaderless in many ways. And that's why. Joe, it's a great point. It's of a piece with what we've talked about about how Viseris keeps telling Reneera she has so much to learn but doesn't teach her.

he recognizes he has to acknowledge he sees the truth of what she keeps saying to him about the realm not welcoming her and not wanting her to be air. This is what the bulk of episode three was about. What is his response to recognizing finally that one of the people closest to him, Otto, is part of this.

It's to cast him out and formally make him an opposing force instead of attempting to say, let me explain to you why this is how this needs to be. Let's work together to forge a different kind of future. Now, whether he could actually succeed their given house high tower's agenda, it's almost moot because to your point, he doesn't even think to try. The conversation that he has, which we'll talk about later, is, was I good at this and will I be remembered for being good at this?

As everything around him is crumbling and the fissures, you know, there are more sores and gaping wounds in the realm now than there are even on his own body. and it's because he's not solving them. There's this fascinating insert shot of auto climbing on his horse and it focuses on his boot getting into like the stirrup. So we got this email from Mindy who was asking. She says, it jumped out to me how the camera focuses on Auto High Tower's foot

jabbing into the side of the horse as he gets in his saddle to leave. They also put the same cut in the inside of the episode. And so I think like this is a clear, this is a clear, clever little cut that just shows the way in which Otto is digging his heel into his daughter, right? And spurring on what's to come in this episode. Because I think what happens coming up in this episode, all the violence that this episode and despair this episode ends with, the first domino is here with Otto. And then there will be another one and another one.

But like it starts with Otto digging his heel in here, you know? And I think that's interesting. It's a great point. It's like he's calling it. out all of this division, but he's constantly sowing the exact doubt, the spur that ensures the Pierce that the realm will bleed. It's a great point. Absolutely.

We go not via horse, but via ship to Driftmark at last. We were briefly here inside and the end of episode two for that great scene between Damon and Corlis. You don't get to talk shit about my brother, only I do. but now we're here in full. It is delightful. Brief geography refresher here, Joe, for folks on Driftmark. I know one of your favorite things to do is explain in words how maps look.

On a podcast, what my smartest move ever. Anyway, I loved it. Mallory, how are you at describing maths? I think you're better at it than I am. I can try, though. This is, uh, Driftmark is, very close to Dragonstone and very close to Kings Landing. That's the most important thing to know. It's northeast of Kings Landing. It's in Blackwater Bay. It's like southwest of Dragonstone.

The Valerian settled there, as we've talked about before, even before the Targs came out. Prime narrow sea location for shipfarers, seafarers, now you're caught up on where Driftmark is. Crush it. High tide, I think, is also worth talking about for a second, though, maybe even more so than Driftmark. because Driftmark has been the house seed and the prior castle was actually also called Driftmark, but it was just a shitty keep, right? Wet. Constantly full of seawater, dark grim place,

always damp and often flooded, says Martin Dorr-Darmor. Not going to cut it for the sea snake, Joe. Not going to cut it. Our guy Corliss built this new castle, built high tide off the riches from his voyage. I love you get this visual confirmation of why it's called High Tide. It's described in this book only this causeway connecting the larger island to the island on which the castle is perched when the high tide is in.

It was so cool to see that shot. And it's built from this pale stone and this shining silver. And it's this rich brand spanking new seat built from the vast wealth that Corliss acquired on his fabled nine voyages. The nine voyages are captured in this incredible mural. In the Hall of Nine, the Hall of Nine, of course, named for these nine voyages that we are probably going to get a spinoff show about. Yeah, okay. I want to talk about this for a second. So, you know, Mallory and every week watch these little 20-minute docks that HBO is putting out called The House of the Dragons built.

And the main focus, I would say, of this one is this pride that they're taking on high tide and the way that they, you know, we talked to Claire, set decorator last week about, and she, like, was excited to talk. about this, but she couldn't yet. But, like, this is clearly a set decorator's dream is what they've built in the throne room. And I think we can see a lot of the wonders. Hall of Nine, by the way, that phrase never appears in Fire and Blood. This is, like, they decide to name this the Hall of Nine. It's great. It's a great name.

I love it. I love it. Yeah. All these little treasures here are from the nine voyages. And, like, we should say that Crois Valerian is, like, the only person to have ever visited all the continents, a legend. you know what I mean, and sailing farther than any man in Westeros had ever sailed before to, like, Y-T to all these, like, places, aside, like, all that stuff. But the mural, it actually kind of broke my heart because the mural looks so cool on the inside of the episode.

I felt like I couldn't see it at all. It was like bare, it was like dimly lit as they walk in and like, yeah. I'm holding out hope that we get to see it more in future episodes. Maybe. I hope so. We'll certainly be back. And I also, also, Corlis, you did a great job. The castle looks cool.

Your treasures look amazing. It's very, I think, Newvarishi to put, like, all of your, like, wealth on display that way. That's fine. I support you. My guy, I beg of you to get a landscaper because your front yard looks a little crusty to me. Get some nice, like, there's some coastal sage you can put in there, some, like, succulent. Like, I'm from the coast. I get it. It can be a struggle to get a garden going. But like, there are some options, some succulents, like, put them in there.

He's focused on interior design. You know, Jim Clay said in the house the dragons built, it was going to be a museum of his life. So if you're creating a museum, do you have time for the landscaping? Maybe not. But it's a fair no-cho. The only other thing I wanted to say, we're going to talk specifically about this throne

and how it's used in the scenes more later. But that is not one of the new elements. This is a family throne, the ancient driftwood throne, that Corlis moved from the old castle to the new seat of High Tide, a gift from the Merling King, according to legend, per F and B. So that's all just awesome. Great, great new setting. And for people who don't know, the Merling King is, like, essentially Poseidon.

Right. So, like, according to legend, the sea god gave House Valerian when they first moved to Westero's, gives House Valerian this, like, I don't know, half a barrel of something, like whatever the driftwood throne is made of. But I love that because it gives them their own sort of divine right of kings sort of thing. Like the Targaryens are like, we are divinely gifted to be dragon riders.

And they're like, well, the sea god gave us our throne. So we are also very magic and important too. Thank you very much. Not feeling super magical and important right now is Viseris because we see it's much more than sea sickness. He's really struggling. And Corlis is not there in the yard to greet him. Lainor and Joffrey are sparring, but no Coralus, no Reneas, Lena will eventually come out as well.

Lionel is abhist. He advocated, let's remember, for two matches. He advocated initially for Vassaris to marry Lena, and then he advocated for Reneira to marry Lainor. So if this blows up, if this goes terribly wrong, it reflects very poorly on Lionel Strong, and you can feel that anxiety in this moment. Absolutely. New job.

New job, new worries. Yeah. What did you make of Vesaris's response? Because he's just like too tired to care about being so overtly insulted. He literally says, let's just get on with it. I mean, I think Renice is going to sum it up later. Like, it's, you know, pathetic. It's not absolutely just embarrassing himself in this entire, entire sequence.

Before we see him make his way to the drift. wood throne, though. We go back into another wood, the godswood, in front of the wherewood. Our favorite setting, and certainly this show's favorite setting, we have had so many scenes in this godswood joke, but this one feels rightly placed in multiple respects. Allison is alone in the godswood reflecting in her chosen pious place. Only is she, or is that Verestrace Strong's... Joanna, please formally welcome. We got some brief. brief time with him out in the hunt. Here he is in full. Your beloved Laris Clubfoot has entered

the great game. I'm so excited that Laris Strong is here. I have so much to say about this. I have like, okay, well, I'm wondering if you want to run through the scene and then, and then I can say what I want to say about it. I'll do a quick kind of snapshot of the bullet points because he does a lot of things in rapid succession. He'll hear all of which are notable. I'll go through. them quickly and then you can annotate and analyze all of them because he's your fave and here he is. Thanks, Mal. I appreciate you seeing me and knowing me so well. We had to open the episode with our beloved strong brothers. One for you, one for me. That hot goss at the welcome feast. Usually we are like fighting over the same person. So I like this. This is like dividing conquer.

As you know, I love Laris too as a character. And I'm very excited. to see how he's deployed in the story. So the first thing that he does is use the foliage to make a point about Allison's outsider status. Steve, can we hear this? An outsider among the natives. Lord Laris. Malvely's rare bloom.

Indigenous to Ravos. By all rights. It shouldn't be thriving here. Nature. Such mystery. Incredible. Next, he broaches her father's dismissal, which is really bold. We have seen these characters interact in this social circle inside of the tent at the hunt, but without having seen many, many, many exchanges between them and understanding that there's this deep history of conversation, it's like, whoa, this is a move. Okay. Then he sums up his own ammo, but much like with the full, Holyage commentary makes a point about Alicent herself in doing so. He says, when one is never invited to speak, one learns instead to, um, observe. Crackerjack, Lair's impression, first of all. He asks her outright if she needs an ally, which causes her to go on the defensive a bit.

This is when he lost Mallory, by the way. Yeah. To the point where she says, state your purpose, my lord. And then he spills the tea on the moon tea. We guessed last week that the tea episode would tell, and it did. And this achieves a couple really crucial things. It establishes Laris as a character who knows things. Knows things. Has this knowledge. What will he do with it?

And it reveals to Alicent that Reneer lied and that Viseras didn't believe her, which sets into course multiple key events. Joanna, take us through all of that. Take us through Laris's intentions here. Take us through Laris' character and how he's working those plots and schemes. I mean, I think what's really key here is that he has been hunting her since the hunt episode. Like, that's when he, at least we got to see him start to hunt her as someone who could use a friend.

And it is interesting that, like, his father. and his brother are so clearly and closely allied with the king and everything that's going on there. And Laris is making a bid for the other side of the table. Now, is that to ensure that the Strongs have representatives on all sides of an argument, maybe? Or is he, you know, this is a very archetypal character for George R. Martin who loves characters like Tyrion or Varis, who are, you know, have had some sort of physical disadvantage in their life and have made up for it with extreme wit, some schemes and plots, etc. Cunning, cunning characters, right? Yes, a character who feels like an outsider and has to work to have that influence inside.

Right. So how much, how much has Laris chafed against his own, the physical prowess of his own brother, the high placement of his father and how much does he want to cut his own path in the world or how much is he working in concert with them? We may never know because there's this great description of Laris in the book that Martin writes,

The enigma that is Laris Strong has vexed students of history for generations and it is not one we can hope to unravel here. What was he about? How much of what he said and did was Ruse, how much was real. We do not know. But what we do know is that he was sly, secretive, yet plausible, and pleasant when need be. So, like, even George is like, this is a real, this is a real dark cloud. Like, we don't know how to out of pierce it. So what he is insinuating himself into is someone who

can provide Allison with information she needs. She needs a spymaster. He's like, I can be your eyes and ears. I know things. And I can help you out. And I see that you are vulnerable right now. Your death's gone. You're all alone. Here I am here to help you. But, well, two things. Number one, I know that like we talked about in Talk to Throne. You weren't a huge fan of this scene mostly because you felt like he was being a little too obvious with his plotting and scheming. And you would prefer him to be subtler in his movements. Yeah. I think like it's actually a lot of connects to the line that you just read, we do know that he was sly secretive. Like, I don't get sly secretive from that scene.

And I think that the point that you made in response to me noting that on Talk to Thrones was exactly right, which is we just have, this is the time jumps again. We just haven't gotten enough time to like get a feel for how Laris behaves. But to go from the, I'm the one who just observes into. here are multiple very clear attempts to manipulate and upend you. It just felt like a touch to, a touch to we are going for a very clear signal that this is a little finger figure in this story.

And I just wanted it to be like a tad subtler. But I love Lairis as a character. So I think that in any way, in a way like that's why actually the scene didn't work as well for me as I wanted to because I was, when I saw him there, I was like, this is it, here we go. and it just didn't quite land for me the way that I was hoping it would. But we see that he's effective, which is the key takeaway, ultimately.

This is the other, you know, auto domino number one, Laris, domino number two, right? But I think that our pals over in the history of Westrose podcast came up with another really interesting idea for like why this read so broad. And they were recalling that in season one of Thrones and certainly in the book as well, Veris, when he's dealing with Ned, sometimes has to get like really obvious and because Ned doesn't necessarily have a brain for plots and schemes. He's like, to quote, to quote Littlefinger, quick temper slow on it.

Exactly. And so Varus has to like really lay it out. Like when he's talking about whether or not Hugh of the veil is the one who poisoned John Aaron and then died mysteriously. And he's like, pity what happened to him just when his life seemed to be going so nicely. Like, Veris is really just like underlining these things for Ned because Ned. So, like, Alice, and if indeed she's joining the game, this is her first entry into the game, right? We've seen her gently guiding Viseras towards a point or two.

But in terms of, like, schemes and plots, like, that's not really her thing. But can I please, Mallory Rubin, enter our first crackpot theory into the record? I would be delighted. Is this going to be the Joe Magician theory? Have you heard this theory? I was looking at his tweets this morning. Is this the green sear theory? Bring it. This is the cred. I love this. Let's do it. Okay. We got a few emails about this, but I was like, I was talking. So our friend Matt, who tweets and YouTube's and podcasts under the name Joe magician has this incredible theory. And he laid it out in this long video on YouTube. There's some tweets about it, but he laid out a long video on YouTube that I definitely watched on a plane yesterday. So I really hope that lady who was like sitting next to me and necking just pure vodka over ice enjoyed me watching this like, incredible. incredibly elaborate Lara Strong theory.

This idea that one of the great benefits of this theory, that Larry Strong is actually green theory, and there's no evidence for this in the text necessarily, like no clear evidence. This is not a spoiler, right? Because if you could read through fire and blood and never, this could never occur to you. But one of the things it does is explains why so many damn scenes

have been taking place in front of that gods would. right in front of the Weir's Wood Tree because we've been making jokes about, oh, is Brand spying on them as a three-eyed raven spying upon them? Like the reason why Brand or the three-eyed crow would be able to look through the wherewood tree is because they have the gift of Greensight. Does Laris Strong have the gift of green sight? Has he been spying on all the things happening in front of the wherewood tree with his gift of green sight? Additionally, another thing that we saw Bran Stark do is warg into various animals. So is Laris able to warg into the rats and rodents that we have seen in significant moments so far? Was he creeping on top of Allison and Bessaris' bed?

Again, this is his, I'm not taking credit for this. All his theory, please watch this video. I love this. We saw a shot of a rodent when Reneurus sneaking out of the castle on like right around Balearian skull. So if you go back and watch all the moments where there have been rodents or all the moment that have taken in front, a place in front of that werewood tree, Lyrrhus would then have a very, like, well-rounded picture of everything that's been going

on so far in the realm. some some evidence here that that Joe magician has gathered is that Heron Hall Isle of Faces

right by the Isle of Faces Yeah Which is this like That's compelling It's very compelling This This This

This Stroud and mystery That like Howlin Reed tried to go out to That like Could he have gone out there Could he have learned Green Sight from

being out there, like, in among the wherewood trees. In the book, the show wasn't doing this, but in the book, Laris is one of the king's confessors, which means he's a torturer, essentially. And he, like, always got his man, essentially. So, like, was Greensight enhancing that? And so this idea that, like, if he has been targeting Allison since the hunt or earlier and is using his rodent army and the wherewood tree and all this sort of to gather his information, this was Chris Ryan's big question. How the hell? how did Lairus know about the tea? Well, if he's just a rat scuttling down the hallway, like, you know, how wouldn't he know?

So, I don't know. It's really, really compelling. And, like, we should say that the three-eyed crow, before he became that, was Brandon Rivers, Blood Raven, and he was a master of whispers, and a big way in which he was able to be an effective master of whispers was using his warging and his green sight in order to do so. So very, very interesting. And a reason why this maybe wouldn't have made it into fire and blood is that it's important to remember who wrote, fire and blood is written by maesters who are, we got an email that from a listener who was like, why isn't there more magic everywhere? When like the whole point of Game of Thrones was magic has gone out of the world. When the dragons left, the magic left. And when the dragons come back, the magic comes back.

But why are we watching this dragon story and we're not seeing a ton of magic everywhere around it? You know, without spoiling things, I will say we will get to some characters later who manifest that. But like, what if we're seeing one sort of hiding in plain sight here? I mean, I would love it. I desperately crave those deeply fantastical elements and magical elements in the story. This would be incredible. I was going to ask you what you thought of the theory, which our pal Kim raised in one of her pieces, about whether Laris sent the tea instead of Vassaris,

and that was how he knew. I don't love that. I don't think that he could convince Melos to make it. I don't know that he has that standing. I don't love that, but I love that he spied on it. Anyway, the video from Joe is called Laris strong colon, spy master, and greens here of the where it was. There are some gentle spoilers in there, book spoilers. So, like, you know, proceed with caution.

But it's like 27 minutes of shit. sheer solid crackpot goodness that I love. So shout out to him and that's really fun. Amazing. Amazing. Love a theory. My only question, you know, I love a theory. My only question about it is, like, is there a way to reveal that that isn't cheesy? I don't know. I was there the whole time. Like, how do we do that? I have questions. But I love it. Or they might just be something that they always like imply but never confirm. I don't know. But yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Okay. Anything else on Laris in that scene before we move to... No, I'm just...

The Hall of 9? You and I are usually on the same page. It's fine that we're not entirely on the same page here. We're on the same page about Laris as a character, just not about the depletment in that scene. I will just say that I think Matthew Needham is, like, incredibly well cast in this role, and I really loved, like, basically every single line read. So, yeah. Back to Drift Mark.

We are heading into the Hall of Nine, though we go where Rainira is not welcome. Door closed in Renira, in Renira's face. Lena takes her to breakfast. They walk off arm and arm. Kristen Cole goes, sorry. Really sweetly. Maybe one of his last sweet moments, sorry. Oh, God.

Viserra is so visibly ailing that Corliss has to ask him if he needs a chair. We'll talk more about his state in a moment here. But because Corliss did not greet him in the yard, Vassaris has to make this walk. And where does he find Corlis when he enters the Hall of Nine? He finds him sitting on the Driftwood throne. Now, Corlis does rise. He does bend the knee. He does go through all of the steps that you're supposed to do.

But he still made the king walk into his hall where he was sitting on his throne. It's been years since these two have seen each other. This is an incredible power play and an incredible flex. and Viseras allowed it to happen. This was an unbelievable move from Corlis. Did you dig it? I dug it. It was fantastic.

But actually, I love what his wife did even better, right? Charging in, bundle of energy in her riding. In her riding leathers, hopefully reeking of dragon. That's right. No commentary on how she smells like a dragon, which would have been helpful, actually, in this episode where it's never overtly stated. that she's a dragon rider, even though we see her on her dragon later. Really annoying.

But anyway, but I feel like that's, I mean, like, it's a very, like, you know, English woman to the countryside, just fresh off her horse sort of moment. But also, it's like a flex because Viseras doesn't have a dragon that he can take for a brisk morning ride across the sea, you know what I mean? Absolutely. And to not only go from, hey, I just got off my dragon and Corlis just got off his throne, but to reaching out to grasp his hand. and he recoils in pain.

We talked so much in the first couple episodes about how Otto in particular was really motivated to keep a lid on Viceris's failing health. And his state, his visibly deterioring state is so apparent now to so many people who can see.

I loved the, are you well? Very exchanging. It's like so not convincing. It was so funny. He even rejects the offer of one. What more do you need to know about the state he's in? It's true.

It's true. I always, I love a morning glass of red. But I think that there's, I've seen some debate of like whether or not Reney's grabbed his hand on purpose to like reveal that. That's not my read. But my read is that it's very important that she learns in that moment how bad it is for him because that's going to inform so much of her subsequent worry. Like you, she's like, the clock has.

to be whining out, like, we're running out on this guy, right? And the show's like, maybe not. But, you know, like, she's like, can't be much longer, right? Before, and then our son's in danger. We'll get to that the second.

But I just thought that move was really interesting. It was a, there are a lot of, you know, Chris made the great point about, like, the theater of manners on Talk to Thrones. And there were so, so many interesting little like nuggets to parse in this change where there are all of these, like, really lame.

attempts all around at exchanging pleasantries, which nobody's really interested in doing. You know, Corlis congratulates Lionel on becoming hand. Vesaris doesn't take the bait when Corlis tries to bring up Otto and what a pity it is. They reveal what happened with Rhea. We get these interesting glances passing between Vesaris and Lina. Like everyone in the room is thinking, Damon definitely did this, but nobody says it. We're just reminded that they can't be honest with each other. And so when Viseras states his purpose and proposes the marriage between Reneira and Lainor, he says something that I thought was so interesting.

He says it's long past time our house is united in blood, the last pillars of old Valeria. This is a really strange thing to say. Mallory's like Vesaris has not read the book. But I'm all right. Vesaris is not a book reader. Exactly, Joanna. I mean, first of all, you don't need to be a book reader because you're talking to Rainis. Targaryian and Corlis Valerian,

a marriage between house, Targary and House Valerian. We've talked about this on other episodes, the fact that Agan the Conqueror and his sisters that their parents were obviously Targaryen and Valena Valerian, their mother, Alyssa Valerian marrying Argyannis, the parents of Jaharis and Alicene, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so there are a lot of ties between these houses.

Don't challenge me to go down the list of Valerian-Targarian marriages. I haven't memorized. But I will take any opportunity to talk about Argyanas, the second king of Hustargarian. I'll never pass off a chance to do that. Oh, yeah. And in addition to all of the marriages, as we've also chatted about before, the consistent presence of the Lord of the Tides as the Master of Ships, etc., these long, deeply rooted ties. So what he really means is it's long past time that my line united with your house, that I did this, that I gave you what you've wanted, but he can't put it that way.

He can't say it that way. And so it sets into motion this conversation where everybody is pursuing their aim, but speaking in these kind of thinly veiled, masked languages and sentences. And we get the best version of this from Corliss who full on shoots his shots. He wants some details, Joe.

Yeah, yeah. On the succession. Walk us through this exchange. Well, I want to go back to that line that Vassara says about uniting their houses. Because I'm almost wondering, like, when Robert Baratheon goes to Ned Stark to asking me, Hannah the King, and he says in the crypt,

standing right in front of Leonis statue, cool move, he says, I have a son, you have a daughter, will join our houses. And I almost wonder if they were just trying to, like, do a little quick little nod to that line, even though it triggered. Mallory's like, you want me to go down the list of literally triggering marriages? I will. Anyway, to your question.

Corlees wants the kids to be named Valerian, right? Not Targaryen, as is the custom. And Viseres, those are really cool. I'm a feminist and you're not move on Corlees. And he says, Shirley Lord Corlees, you're not proposing that the Targaryen dynasty and with my daughter simply because she is a woman. And Rainies' reaction to that is an all-timer. A real like, oh, now we're feminists. Are we? Okay. Where was that energy at the Great Council of 101? So, yeah.

I loved how she was standing. She had moved from being right there with him to positioning herself in front of the driftwood throne, not the iron throne, but still a throne. So that every time we're cutting to her and seeing her in this exchange where first Viseris is reiterating just the actual succession, Renier's the heir. Her kid with Lainor firstborn will be the eventual ruler regardless of gender. And we're to Renice during that point too, and then throughout this whole really almost shockingly bold pitch from Corliss about the last name. And what's the upshot of it? Vissaris doesn't, he's indignant. Again, he doesn't walk out. Yeah, he strikes the bargain, which really reveals the extent of his desperation. I just want to say, for my own personal life philosophy, I think it's better to go through life being like, okay, let's not worry that he didn't come out to agree with me. Okay, let's just find a compromise and get over it.

I think that's a better way to live your life. But is it a good way to project power as a king? Probably not. So, yeah. God. If it. Sarah. I agree. There are parts about the way that he behaves where I'm just like, this is like sort of like charming and like makes me warm to him. But then when we actually think about his station, it's just impossible not to, like, see his actions as so feeble. And more crucially, even, is to see that the other characters around him see it that way. And that makes him consistently vulnerable. Yeah. Before we hear Corliss and Renier and Rehnese, excuse me, debrief on this, we go out to the beach.

Yeah. With Renira and Lainor. Gorgeous visual sequence here as they're strolling on the sand. I mean, I appreciated the breakdown of all the, like, props in Corley's throne room here. But I wanted to know how they got this shot because it's the low winter. It's the same low winter sun from the bridge at Dragonstone,

which we know they did digitally, but you can't do that on a beach scene. So like, it's incredible, incredible shot. Really, really beautiful. It was lovely. Fascinating conversation between these two. We see, first of all, that Rainer's view on this arrangement has really evolved.

She says, in truth, if it had to be someone, I'm glad it is you. Now, of course, the fact that two people who do not want to be together and do not love each other are going to end up married is a deeply sad thing and a product of the time in the realm in which they live. However, they both are embracing this as the best outcome given the fact that they were both going to be maneuvered by their families to doing their duty in a marriage. And I was so interested in the fact that we got a pretty big change here. On the one hand, we get a great parallel to fire and blood and this scene when we get the duck, goose talk, because that calls back to a line for the book that I know you're excited to share.

But also, while you're reading the fire and blood passage, let's also talk about the fact that it's a big change from how Renera responds to the idea of this match in the book. Joe, can you take us into the text here? Lainor's sexuality is an open secret in the context of fire and blood. And so much so that it is a, as they're debating in the small council who Reneura should marry, they're openly talking about Lainor's sexuality, right? And we get this all-timer from Mace for Mellis, which they changed to goose and duck, and I think for the better, because this is what Mellis says.

Okay, it says, on one objection, was raised, Lainor Valarine was now 19 years of age, yet had never shown any interest in women. Instead, he surrounded himself with handsome squires of his own age and was said to prefer their company. But Grand Master Melos dismiss this concern out of hand.

What of it? He said. I do not like the taste of fish. But when fish is served, I eat it. Oh my gosh. Steve! Give me a dear me on that, Steve. Give me a dear me, please.

Give me. Thank you. Oh, that might also warrant a gods be good. God's be good. Thus was the match decided, right? But Renera's response is, my half-brother would be more to his taste, you know? So it's, you know, she is not proposing an open marriage

because we are not privy to that, you know, Laris the Greenseer might have been, but we were not, the book readers are not privy to that conversation she had with Damon, where he lays out to her the idea that a marriage can just be a political thing, and then you could just do whatever the hell you want. And she's like, Lanor, have you heard of this thing called an open marriage? My really cool uncle told me about it right before he took me to the bowels of the pleasure den. So, you know, let's try it.

Let's try it. It was really, really notable that she is carrying forth this lesson from Damon into the way that she is going to live her life, despite the way that they parted. And despite the tension that is so clearly on display between them later, like when he said to our marriage is a duty yes,

but that doesn't stop us from doing what we want, fucking who we want. That's what she's proposing to Lainor here. And listen, open marriages seem like a lot of work, but good for these two.

Good for these two. Let me just say one thing about open marriages and polyamory and whatever is that the most important thing is complete honesty and openness and Reneira so far swearing on her mother's memory. I'm not sure.

She's a great candidate for an open marriage. Interesting. Yeah, you can't just say the matches for our families and our duty. Then we'll take our pledges for ourselves. You've got to also say, and I will be providing a list at the end of every month of how I sought those pleasures. You know, what are the rules? You got to all agree on the rules. Lay it out.

This might have, this might have, Joffrey might still be with us if there was a little bit more information on the table here. That being said, I want to draw a quick parallel. between here, between Reneira and Marjorie Terrell, because Marjorie does the exact same thing right with Renley and her brother, where she's like, listen, I didn't know you like my brother. It's fine that you're gay. Let's just get married. And then you can do whatever you want with my brother. I can join you, whatever, whatever you care about. I don't care about. And speaking of Marjorie Terrell, I'm thinking about her a lot when I'm thinking about Allison also. There's all these references to Laris, both Laris and then later Hobart

are making these references to Allison as a flower. Growing strong, you know, the house Tyrell words. Growing strong, Allison High Tower. And like, will anyone sketch a rose on a piece of parchment and pass it inside of a hand grasp at any point? Who can say? I hope so. But probably it'll just be a dumb tower with a green flame on top of it.

We'll see. Oh, God. Yeah, I was thinking of Marjorie a lot, too. We talked last week about the Searcy Marjorie Moon Tea reveal and plot in Asanga Vice and Fire, so I was thinking about her again here with the Laris Allison Tea Exchange. Spilling the tea specifically about tea. Boy, Laris, little guy. Should we head back inside?

We have our beautiful low sun outside, but we have those murals inside. So let's go back into High Tide, because we have a wonderful scene here, a rich, scene with Corlis the Sea Snake and Rainis, the queen who never was, this is so fascinating in so many different respects. Corlis, who was he smirking in the opening shot here at the crab feeders mask? Was that the crab feeders mask? I couldn't tell exactly, but I trust, well, as I said, I just, you can't trust my eyesight. That's why I'm asking you. I really wasn't about to say that. Because I couldn't be sure. Why don't you talk about it? and I'll go look at it right now while you're talking.

I'm listening to you. He's looking at a relic of an achievement. I think that is certainly safe to say, whether it's a crabby's harpy mask or not. Oh, it is. I think it is, right? Yeah. I thought so, too.

I thought so, too. So I like that because it's like, he's smiling at it like, this is a sign of victory. And sure it is, but let's not forget that that took quite a long time to achieve and that they were on the brink of defeat before that. That's an important thing to remember across this exchange. And one that her niece is really trying to remind him of, even if she's not specifically

like, remember that guy, the crab feeder, remember him? Corlis asks Renice if he overreached with Viseris. And I think that was what both of us wanted to talk about just broadly across the entire scene before we break down the particulars. He asked her. He asked her. And the presence of true partnership in a really, real open exchange of ideas across this scene was really lovely to see. They're in each other's

arms as they're talking about this. I feel like I haven't seen this since like season one Cat and Ned is what it made me think of. You know what I mean? Like where he, I believe that he respected her opinion as they as they talked over next moves. So yeah. Yes. Not only a love on display here, but but respect. Exactly. So did he overreach? because my feeling is no. I mean, yes, it was incredibly bold and risky, but it worked. It worked.

They moved House Valerian into that exactly what we heard. Everybody chatted about in earlier episodes, nothing but a direct line to the Iron Throne will satisfy him. This arrangement of the names, they'll be Valerians until one takes the Iron Throne and then they'll be Targaryians. You have that adjacency to power.

It's in your grasp. And Reneas, we've been alluding to this line, says as much. She says, my cousin chose to sail it to this tempest husband. It was undignified of the king to drag himself here and beg for Lainor's hand. What a damning assessment of what has just unfolded. And I couldn't help but think that Otto Hightower would not have allowed him to do this. I mean, like, let's be really real. He's offering to Corleys who is deeply ambitious, very thirsty for people.

power, your son is going to be king consort and your grandkids, be they male, you know, men or women, are going to rule the seven kingdoms. That is definitely worth Corley's getting in his ship and, you know, bringing himself to the Red Keep. Otto would have been like, get here. We have something to say. Lionel's new to the job. You know, it's brand new. Focused on the vomit. You know, Scott really pressing matters to attend to. He's got like a, strong son and a weird son, and he's trying to just like handle, you know, war was easier than sons, Mallory, is what I have to say about that.

Indeed. Before we chat about Renis, expressing her concern that they are placing their son and their family in danger, can we talk for a minute about how Corlis speaks about his son's sexuality? Because in general, we're very pro the sea snake. Great character, delighted to have him back.

This was brutal. He says that he will, quote, outgrow it. Very upsetting. Really fucking tough. And, like, in that jovial sort of, like, you know, no pleasure better than a woman sort of thing that he gives it. But I like, I love her niece in all of this where she's like, obviously not, you know. And let's talk about the other danger that just puts him in. She sees clearly all aspects of who her son is and how he wants to live his life.

And when she's assessing this marriage pact, she says, Reneer's succession will be challenged. Knives will come out for her, her husband, and for their heirs. As we noted earlier, a remarkably similar forecast to what Otto conveyed to Allison. They're on different sides, but they see the same future, highly ominous. what does you make of not only that read, but of Corliss's response, which boil down to anyone fool enough.

That's what he says. To challenge them will be crushed. And I'm like, again, my guy, it just took you three years to beat the fucking crap feeder. What are we talking about here? I love it because it's, it's complex. They're aligned and they support each other, but they are really seeing the board differently here.

Three years to crush a guy who didn't even get his sad card for showing up to this show. I want to talk to you about this dragon math that we hear from Corley this year. Yeah. Half the realms dragons. We're going to talk about it again in the book reader section, but I guess my best read on this is by the realms dragons, he means the dragons that have been introduced on the TV series House of the Dragon. Because if that's the case, we've met four dragons exactly, right?

Syrax, Keroxies. and in this episode we see C-Smoke, Lainor's dragon, and Maly's Rene's dragon, you'd be forgiven if you didn't know that that's what you saw. We'll talk about her later.

So House Valerian has two of the four dragons that we've seen on the show. And I guess if they're backing Reneer, that means they've got three of the four dragons that we've seen on the show. So that's some pretty decent math in their favor, I guess. I think it's, Yes, that's my read on the math too.

We're talking about active dragon rider pairings established on the show, not just dragons we know to be alive because we have heard others mention. We've heard Dreamfire. We've heard Ghagar. We have talked previously in other episodes about others we know to be alive but not paired with writers at this point. I just think that the show, a show called House of the Dragon, should be spending more time on clearly establishing the dragon pairings, the dragon origin stories.

the fact that House Valerian, the richest house in the land, a house that could challenge the throne if not brought into the fold into an alliance in this way, has not only, we talked about that sky and sea dual power,

but they have that now within their house. Like, this is a crucial thing. And so Corliss is right to note this, but like, we need more time spent establishing how that came to be. And what it means?

I could be wrong, but like, isn't this the first house outside of House Targaryen that has had, like, a number of dragons? Because Targaryians have married outside the family before, but I'm not sure, and please, Hobbiton Dragons at Gmail.com, if you want to run down a list of all the other, like, non-targarians who've been dragon writers,

but it's super significant. I think not only that, but, like, houses that had a hunger for dragons were actively kept at arm's length, like the Lannisters. The fact that in, like, Jehires did not welcome them into the full because they could see so clearly that they wanted access to drag. And this is, I mean, I'm going to talk again about the Valarians and the Lannisters before we're done with this evening. But like, by evening, I mean, it's morning while we're recording.

But that has to be a huge thorn in the side of the Lannisters is like we've talked before about how, again, the Valerians are sort of newly the richest family in the realm. And we've got the high tower, they displacing the high towers and the Lannisters. And so it's no accident. that Jason Lannister when he's like, lady wife, et cetera, and he's like,

I'm going to build a dragon pit at Castlery, like he's envisioning so many dragonriding. Like, if the Valerians get dragon riders, definitely the Lannisters get some dragon riders. Let's go. So it's crucial, crucial math.

Vesaris and Lionel could have a conversation where they say, hey, we need to ensure that those dragons are aligned with us. Like, but the characters should just be talking about this more. So it's not, yeah.

It was refreshing on the one hand to hear Corliss say that, but also it's jarring because there's just not like the time spent around that to make that all very clear. You know, you mentioned that like new money and that second son's speech that Coralus made to Damon in episode two as we talked about that, not actually a second son, but this idea of like somebody who made his own fortune who had to reach out for what he wanted to take

and carve his path to that. There's this heavy, like queen who never was presence in this in this conversation, this heavy second son's impulse presence in this conversation where both Corliss and Reneas have this perspective of the outsiders who have to either work to change that or confront the fact that maybe it's it feels unchangeable. And so Reneas is not arguing when he says like, we'll crush anyone who's full enough to challenge us. She's not arguing that that's possible. She's asking what it's for.

And his answer is, quote, justice. By all rights, you should be queen of the seven kingdoms. You were robbed of the crown. Reminder that in the show, we see that the finalists are Viseris and Reneas in the book. Her claim is also cast aside at the Great Council. But Lainor is actually the other finalists. So there's an even extra layer of resentment and bitterness in the book in that respect. this is again that order of things aspect that feels unmovable for Reneas and Corliss is saying let's move it.

Yeah, but what I love about that is that she says, I myself have put the business behind me. So it's like one of those moments where like, and usually I'm sorry, but usually men do this, where they're like, I'm doing this on your behalf. And like the woman's like, I never once asked you to do that. Right, because that line is in response to him saying I would remedy that small minded error by any means necessary. And she's like, I just want my, I just want to keep my family safe. Don't pretend this is about me. This is about your pride, obviously.

Don't like, don't hide behind something that happened to me. Own that this is about your pride, your wealth, your power. I'm eager to see if that changes for Reneas because I think it's a great point and you're exactly right. But I'm, I'm personally eager for the moment where she says, yeah, you know what? Fuck this. Where that smirk when she was standing in front of the throne as she hears them talk about how, no matter what Reneira will rule, no matter what the gender of their child is,

that child will rule. And she doesn't believe that it can be true. But she is a character who is as much reason as anybody in the entire story to try to make it so. And I just, I just, Corliss and Renez back in the story. Delightful. House Valerian, I'm so glad they're here.

I've really missed spending time with them. Well, yeah. And I think Steve Toussaint and Eve Best are fantastic. And I would just love to get more and more and more of them in the show. So if you've watched some of the junket interviews that the cast has done and Chris Ryan and Mallory and I were looking at this one that Patty Concedee and Matt Smith did about British versus U.S. snacks, that's delightful. There was one that it was like a trivia because all these junket things are involved games. And there was one where it was like, Game of Thrones trivia.

And they were all like paired up. Eve Best and Steve Toussaint like crushed everyone at this game. Mom and dad knew all the answers. and it was awesome. Anyway. Someone who does not have all the answers is the Night of Kisses, Joffrey Lonmouth. We head outside where Lainor and Joffrey are kind of nestled in the seagrass. They're very sweet with each other. Very quick cannon run down here.

We don't really know a ton about Joffrey. He's IDed in the wedding tournament stretch in Fire and Blood as, quote, the groom's favorite. Sir Geoffrey Lonmouth, known as the Night of Kisses. And then we learned that quote, when Renera bestowper. her garter on Sir Harwin, her new husband laughed and gave one of his own to Sir Joffrey. We'll talk later about the death scene and how that differs in the show in the book. Here we get the night of kisses they call me, though I don't know why. When he's talking to Kristen later, I have to assume it's because of the skulls and lips on the house crest.

Anything you want to say about this little exchange, we see that Lanor, despite the arrangement he and Renner I've made, is really wrestling with what his betrothal means. And Joffrey's saying it's better than we could have hoped for. You're going to be the king consort. Plus, you've got this arrangement. And he's already sleuthing. He says she has a paramour of her own, right? He's deduced this from the arrangement.

I wonder who it is. Cut to. But anyway, I guess this is to underline for people who didn't understand the tortured sort of goose and duck metaphor or even what Rainies and Corley's were talking about. And they're like, these two are fucking for sure. That's here. I just, I have some questions about Joffrey. get to that a little bit more later, but I'll just say it here to begin with. I think this is a character, even though he only gets like a few lines in the book, I think this is a character we really

should have met earlier and like met, met, not like he's seen in the background of the Battle of the Stepstones, which he is. He pulls Damon off the messenger that he's like brutally beating. Like, if you go back and look, Joffrey's there, but we don't meet him until here. And this episode is two characters we meet who die within the same. episode and like, you know, it's, I, you know, they're trying to do a lot, but I would have liked him seated in earlier. Yeah, I agree. And even, you know, even Lainor, like, oh, definitely Lainor. Spend time with him briefly in the stepstones. But the, to feel the extent of this tragedy for him, yeah, if we had spent more time with them together as two young people in love, I mean,

and again, if we had met similarly Ria, like more than three minutes before she was killed. Yep. A little bit nice. Ah, the time jumps. Joe, yeah. Hold the oranges because we've got another marriage proposal. It's time to head back to Kings Landing. We are on our ship again.

We did not get to spend a ton of time on this scene on Talk to Thrones, but I think there's a lot to break down here in this conversation between Kristen and Renira. Kristen approaches her for a chat. Very risky that anybody could hear them. It's established that like they couldn't sleep. It's very early still. I was like, guys, what are you doing? This is wild.

Plus, I mean, so you know him the dock here that he's not wearing his armor and you, and you've, something else you want to say that about that. But I will say to me, and I don't usually get like too stuffy about this stuff, but it bothers me when people like, like, this isn't decent of him to just like come to her and his like britches on the deck of a ship. Like they do this in the, the Cura nightly pride and prejudice. People were forever greeting each other in like nightgowns, and I'm like, they wouldn't do that.

They'd be dressed, what the hell? Anyway. As a person who spends the bulk of my time at my pajamas, I was not bothered by this, but noted. Noted. The thing that's set out to me about him not wearing his Kingsguard armor here is that it's one more example of how the show is really smartly using wardrobe, set design, scene choreography to signal mindset and intent.

He has to take off the white cloak, this reminder of the vow that he is so horrified to have sullied as he goes to have this conversation. And throughout the episode with Kristen, Alice and many characters, Reneas and the throne, as we talked about, these kinds of little symbols

of what people are thinking. I think that's one of the things the show is doing really well. Joe, can you take us through Kristen's proposal? We have a few things to hear there. We have his initial proposal, Reneira's response,

Reneira's proposal, and Kristen's response. Let's start with his initial proposal to her. Right. So he says, I mean, speaking of pride and prejudice, it's way better than Mr. Darcy's initial proposal. We'll give him that, right? So he says, I'm asking you to come. I'm asking you to come with me away from all this from the burdens and indignities of your inheritance.

Let us leave it all behind and see the world together. We will be nameless and free, free to go where we like, to love us we like. In Esos, you could marry me. A marriage for love, not for the crown. I love that you capitalized the CN crown on this document here. I think that's really smart. What do you make of the language in that specific proposal, Mallory? So I think it is very telling that he's building toward this proposal by focusing on how Reneira herself has lamented her lack of agency, how she didn't get to make these choices in her life, how she did not specifically choose Lainor.

Now, on the one hand, I think it's so fascinating that his proposal includes exact language, like not similar, exact language to what we have heard Reneira herself say before. He says, here, from the burdens and indignities of your inheritance, recall the burdens of my inheritance language that we heard from Reneer to Damon in episode four. So he's using exact things that she has said to describe her own circumstances here. However, he is asking her to cast aside her birth, right? Her life, her family, her name, her crown, everything about herself and her circumstance, something that a man would never be asked to do.

The goal. The goal! I have to wonder, like, what do you, during his adventurous youth, what tale did the women tell him about his prowess that made him think that one roll in the hay with him was worth giving up her birthright. Oh my God. I have questions about that. My big question here, well, first of all, this is, they're competing accounts of this in fire and blood, right? This was big confirmation. We've talked before about Mushroom as a source and Mushroom had a big win last week with his salacious, you know, gossip about Damon and Ranira. And here, another source.

source in the book, except in Eustace has the upper hand, right? Because Mushroom is the one who says Reneer went to Kristen and begged him. And in the book, it's Eustace is the one who says, you know, Sir Kristen Cole slipped into the princess's bedchamber to confess his love for her. He told Reneer that he had a ship waiting on the bay and begged her to flee with him across the narrow sea. It would be wed in Tyroche or Old Valentus, where her father's writ did not run. And no one would care that Sir Kristen had betrayed his vows as a member of the King's Guard. His proud. His prowess was sword and Morningstar was such that he did not doubt he would find some merchant prince to take them into service, but Renera refused him, right?

So that's pretty close to what happened here. You think when they said his prowess with the sword that they're talking about what you were asking about a minute ago? Tell me. My big question for you is that he's couching this initially as a love proposal. Do you, Malar Rubin, believe that Kristen Cole loves Renira, Targaryen? I think it's hard to answer that in a vacuum here without accounting for what we learned from him later in the conversation about sullying his oath. Because I think that those things are like inextricable from each other. Does he have some sort of genuine feeling for Renera?

Maybe. I almost think it's irrelevant, though, because he's so clearly driven by this other impulse as well, as we'll break down in a second. But what do you think? Do you think that he does love her? Do you think he doesn't? Do you think it doesn't matter? We're going to talk about this a bit more

during his conversation with Allison. I have a lot to say about, like, his ideas of chivalry and stuff like that. And as they pertain to being, but there's this idea of chivalric love. And if you think about it when it comes to, if you've not made your way through various Arthurian legends, both for pleasure or for in my case, my English degree, then maybe you don't know about the idea of chivalric love. but think about Jora and the way that he loved Dineris, which is more like a remote, idealized love.

Like not a real down-to-earth feat in the clay love, but I've put you on this pedestal and I love you. That's sort of what chivalric love is. And sometimes it's not even like sexual. It's like virtuous, whatever. Obviously, Chris and Cole is a sexual being. But I think he loves the, it's actually a really viral TikTok audio that is from outer banks of all places.

that is about, you don't love me, you love the idea of me, right? And so it's like this idea, I don't think he actually sees Reneera at all. And I think it's really important that stand in contrast to someone like Harwin Strong who grins at her as she drags a bore back into camp or grins at her as she runs to the street of King's Landing as dress as a boy or even Damon who sees her very intimately. Like, I think those two men see her. And I think Kristen, though he spent all this time with her, he approaches her. He's like, I think I know you. Here are all the things I know about Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I know you. And I'm like, I don't think you really know her,

Kristen. I think you've, I invented this idea of a princess benefactor and you've envisioned this like Lancelot and Guinevere story for yourself. And that's not actually the story that you're in. You're in the wrong story. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that connects to a lot of how he sees some himself and how he thinks about symbols and station and what all of those things represent and how they would be inextricable from each other in his mind. And he does not respond well to Reneer's reply. She sort of smiles at first and then kind of steps away, walks away, and then turns around their position in the scene is flipped.

And she says, I am the crown, Sir Kristen, or I will be. I may chafe at my duties, but do you think I would choose infamy in exchange for a a bushel of oranges or a ship to a shy? It is my duty to marry a nobleman from a great house, and certainly in her will make a fine husband. Now, this is before she then makes her pitch to him. But I was struck that it was like hard there not to think of how similar she sounded to Viseris, how she had adopted this language of duty and the necessity of rule. Well, and I think we see her turn away and the way that Millie Alcock is playing it,

like we see tears in her eyes. Like, she is, this is not, it's not like there isn't an appeal to her in this. You know, Little Miss, I want to write off on my dragon and eat cake all day long. Like this, there is an appeal. She does feel drawn to Kristen. She does chafe a bit on her duties. One cannot help but imagine, and she more explicitly says it later, that she's thinking about the prophecy here, which is a fun new thing for book readers. Because, again, as we've mentioned over and over again, this idea of Reneera knowing about a prophecy having to do with the duty of House Targarian,

is not a factor in the book. So we can start to see how it informs the decision she makes. And for anyone who thinks her saying in exchange for a bushel of oranges was cruel, I will just say that in the book, as Eustace reports it, she says she was the blood of the dragon. She reminded him it meant for more than to live her life as the wife of a common cell sword. Yeah, this isn't quite as harsh. And if he could set aside his Kingsguard vows, why would marriage vows mean any more to him?

So, like, Briner could have been way meaner than she was here, you know? I mean, she makes a kind of generous offer. Hey, what if we kept fucking, you know? But it doesn't go over well with Kristen. He says, so you want me to be your whore. And then he is moved to tears, supreme emotion, as he says, Steve. I took an oath. as a knight of your king's garden,

an oath of chastity, I've broken it. I've sold my white cloak. It is the only thing I have to my fucking name. I thought if you were married, I might be able to restore her. Okay. So when you asked earlier about how he feels about her, like this is clearly the driving primary impulse, that he feels this compulsion,

this need to repair his honor to, again, in his mind, be worthy of that cloak that represents that newfound stature in his life and for his house, as we've talked about in prior episodes. Like, without that in his mind, what is he? Who is he? I want to talk about some specific word choice here. So he uses the word soil. Okay, first of all, I want to talk about his delivery. Okay, so he says, I've soiled my white cloak, and it's the only thing I have to my fucking name. I was reminded of, and the word crucible comes up later in this episode. But the crucible,

there's this very famous line for the crucible, especially who's seen the Daniel Day-Lewis film version where Dale DeLewis goes, because it is my name. Because I cannot have another in my life. It's all the only thing I have my fucking name.

Like, I really feel like Favier and Franco might have watched Daniel Daylois before he gave that line read. But I want to talk about this word soil because this idea of the white cloak and soil comes up again and again in Georgia Martin's writing. There is a POV chapter at a Feast for Crows called The Soiled Night.

This is Eris O'Kart, who was The Night of the Kingsguard sent. This is not someone who ever shows up in the show because they cut this whole plotline from the show. But he's Princess Marcella's escort to Dorn, and he gets seduced by, you know, a character, a great, cool character that is cut from the show. We'll not talk about it. But she says, it is not our love that dishonored you is what she says to him when he's worried about his soiled white cloak. She says, it is not our love that it dishonored you. It is the monsters you have served and the brutes you've called your brothers.

Because a reminder at that time in the realm, this is like, this is like Joffrey's Kingard, Kingsguard who beat Sansa Stark. Aris is one of the Geoffrey's Kingsguard who used to beat up Sansa. So, like, the Kingsard falls mightily in that time. And what's really fun is that Kristen Cole gets a major mention in that chapter, the Soil Night chapter. They talk a lot about Kristen Cole in that chapter. So that's interesting. However, I think more crucially to our understanding of honor and vows and the Kingsguard in the realm of Game of Thrones is Jamie Lanister, right? Jamie Lannister, the Kingslayer, like, the idea of soiled comes up here for him in this great exchange with Bran and Storm of Swords, where she says it is a rare and precious gift to be a knight, and even more so a knight of the Kingsguard, is a gift given to few, a gift you have scorned and soiled.

He says, and I love this, I earned my knighthood. nothing was given to me, it was the white cloak that soiled me, not the other way around. And so this is all part of, like, George really grappling with this idea of, like, what is this institution and what do, like, these unattainable, you know, ideals of virtue and chastity and oaths due to a real flesh and blood person? I love that thing that Brian says there about, you know, is a rare and precious gift. to be a knight, because it reminds me of, like, Reneira holds her position kind of cheaply in general, right?

Like, she was bemoaning in the hunt episode that she's a princess. And Kristen's like, so many people would trade places with you, princess. You know, like, this is, you are so privileged. You don't even know what you have here. And back on the Jamie front and that idea of an ideal that you cannot pot a white clothes, an unsullied, unsoiled white cloak that you can not possibly live up to comes one of my favorite Jamie Lannister speeches that is in a Class of Kings and also a version of it is in the show. Please imagine me dirty, bearded, Danish in a cage.

So many vows they make you swear and swear. Defend the king, obey the king, keep his secrets, do his bidding. Your life for his, but obey your father, love your sister, protect the innocent, defend the weak, respect the gods, obey the laws. It's too much no matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other. That's the book version of it. And so, like, when we think of Sir Kristen Cole and this unrealistic, unattainable ideal that he is set up for himself, the pressure that he has put on himself as I'm the only one in my family to do something like this,

it's all part of the pressure cooker that he's he's operating under in this episode when we see him pop at the end. Like there's there's so much going on. I don't know. I just think I think that word choice is really, really cool and interesting. I agree. I was thinking of the Jamie so many vows moment as well because I think it's a real contrast to Kristen. You know, first of all, Jamie is a character who can afford to think about things that way and has this,

this life of privilege and luxury and connection that allows him to be more of a rogue and behave in the way that he chooses and frankly, like, flout the vow. But then also that's part of why we are won over so fully is to realize what he did to uphold the vow to protect the people of King's Landing, right? And that direct challenge of one vow in conflict with another in a moment like that and how that is really at the heart of his character, like actually being able to make a choice that other people maybe wouldn't be able to make. For Kristen, there's none of that nuance.

There's only the oath. That is the way he sees it. That is the entirety of his purpose and his existence. And so he is feeling completely aimless without that to the point where if we, this is all is present in the next scene, so I think we can move into it and talk about all of this together there, he commits this kind of astonishing own goal where he is like so haunted by having forsaken his oath and now feeling like he has no pathway to repairing it, that when Alicent,

who is back now in her mom's dress, that old, that old favor of yours, Joe, has appeared again. She's seen, Faint in the yard, doesn't go to him upon his return, doesn't go to him to see if he needs anything, summons Kristen instead to ask about these rumors with Renira. And Kristen badly fucks up. But before we get to what he says to her, there are a couple interesting details about how we come to this scene. The staircase. Well, the reason I wanted to mention that is I thought that location was so interesting because there's this great line, which we talked about, I think, last week. When they're talking about in Fire and Blood, the various sources for the stories in this time period,

George wrote, what happened in the years that followed happened behind closed doors in the privacy of stairwells, council rooms and bedchambers, and the full truth of it will likely never be known. So I just love that they could have done it anywhere, but the fact they did it was steruel. We went from a stairwell. Sterewell to a bed chamber. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. I love it.

And then we get this really, like, fascinating juxtaposition at the outset of this conversation because we go from Renera asking, to borrow a Samism for some Sally on the side, to Allison really forlornly rocking her baby, just look of misery on her face, this symbol of not only a vow that she has maintained, but how the reality of that circumstance has tried,

as we talked about so much last week. The fact that this conversation about chastity and sin takes place surrounded by the Targaryen dragon orgy tapestries is an all-timer. Well, I think it's really, I think it's really interesting, right? So Kristen, own goals, as you said, right? And he says the sin you alluded to, I have committed it, right? And Allison says lapse of morals. And I think what's really interesting is that, that my oath had been broken, I had dishonored myself. Like, I think what's really interesting is that idea of, like, these are two, I think, small C, conservative people surrounded by,

you could say progressive if you're Damon, or you could say, licentious, you know, depraved, if you're just looking at those Targaryen murals. But I think, Alison, we know to be a pious, religious person. Kristen Cole, I have some questions. And someone pointed out to me that, like, when he and Renera have sex, he takes off all his clothing and he has this medallion that he's wearing. And like, I looked at that shot a lot for science. With his shirt off.

No, I was trying to zoom in on the medallion to see if I could see what it was. And I cannot. So if you guys can figure it out, let me know. I think HBO Max is really, like, suspicious of why I paused on that sequence for so long. Is that the scene you were going frame by frame on on the airplane? But it almost, no, I spared people that. But it almost looks like a St. Christopher. Like, it looks religious to me.

So we don't have, like, clear information about Kristen Cole and his piety, but, like, the sin you, you know, the sin. I have committed it. And, like, I just, I think that that's a really interesting. And, like, if we're, I know we're running along and I do want us to move along. but, like, I think that the idealized chivalric princess that he's looking for in Alicant is a better match for that sort of world that he is envisioning for himself, the piety, the propriety that Reneira has no interest in and never has, you know? Right. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't, I don't know if Kristen Cole is religious.

I guess we got the kind of boastful recounting of his adventurous youth. and he was clearly sleeping around the stormland. So I don't think he, to me, I haven't interpreted it as necessarily feeling like guilt or shame about having sex. It is that he has violated his oath of chastity. And my read, I think it's a great callout and a thing to track moving forward,

particularly given the choice to go to the godswood in the closing sequence and to be in that setting as he's about to kill himself before Allison interrupts him. I think like, something fundamental changed for him when he took that cloak, when he took that vow. And his vow is his religion. And without that oath intact, he has no sense of self anymore. He has no mooring and no sense of identity or how to live his life or what function or role he occupies in this larger realm.

And we got another kind of interesting symbol with how he's just dressing, undressing, behaving, sitting, because, like, Allison invites him to sit next to her on this chaise. She eventually gets up, but that would have been, like, a very intimate position. And we were both struck that he took the sword off. You know, previously he removes to talk to Reneira, the armor, which is, like, the shield. And here he takes off this offensive weapon. The sword, something we see him kind of, like, grasping for later at the wedding. And I was also wondering.

I was wondering if the pause there is because he's wondering if that's the last time he'll ever wear the sword. because he stands up later and he's like, please put me to death. He wouldn't put that sword back on if she went with his version of what should happen, which is you should die. There's something final about that motion of... One last time I will take off this sword

that I work so hard to earn. I like that. She's, of course, talking about Damon in this entire exchange, but Kristen doesn't know that. And she just says, I slept with her. I did this.

She's, of course, stunned to learn not only this actual fact, which would shock her, that moral lapse, remember? This is a moral lapse from Allison's perspective, too, certainly. But also most germainly

that Reneer lied to her, that the sense of betrayal unfolding here is so consequential. And I was really struck then by Kristen's appeal rather than gelding or torturing me, kill me, how he refers her as a Clement Queen.

And... Which is, again, chivalric language. Totally. Totally. Also, Clement is the name of 14 popes. So, you know. But, like, is... Is Kristen called Catholic?

That's my question. Okay, go ahead. Well, so on the one hand, we're like, how could Allison accept the things that have happened here, either what Kristen is revealing or what will happen at the wedding feast? But who else views her this way from her perspective? And who else is actually telling her the truth? Like, he's a real rarity in that respect,

which I think is kind of a key part of the foundation of this relationship. when she then goes to him in the godswood at episodes end. Okay, we got to pick up the pace. There's so much to talk about in this episode, but we're two hours in already. Viseras, pulling a tie-win. Do you know what legacy is? Joe, the state of Viseras,

the first Targaryen's arm, is very tough here. Just looks like he's a dragon's scale away from death. It's disgusting. The only thing I have to say about this scene is, you know, he's asking how the history books will remember him, like, oh, this isn't the stuff of songs. And I think that stands a nice contrast to, like,

his daughter's obsession with someone like Namirio, who is in books, who is in songs. Like, we've seen evidence of what that looks like for a figure of history and this, as someone to be admired. And that is not who Vassaris is ever going to be, you know? Yeah. I loved that he was once again in front of the model of old Valeria. And it's like the light is coming into the window,

but it actually kind of casts him then in the shadow of that. history. And I really thought this was like an incredibly sad scene. I mean, we have the interesting moment of him asking where Allison did and reinforcing how notable it is that she's not right there by his side, what a change that is. But the vulnerability of him asking Lionel, like, will I be remembered as a good king? And, you know, you mentioned how you can feel the way to the prophecy for Renera on the boat, but you can, I mean, you really, really feel that here. Like, he's basically saying, Lionel doesn't have the full context that we do. oh, like I'm not going to be the one who gets to stand at the end and fend off this

apocalyptic doom. And Lionel always wise saying to him, well, like most of the people who are tested wish they hadn't been. Like this is that crucible line you teased earlier. When Vassar says there's a part of me that wishes I've been tested, I often think that in the crucible I may have been forged a different man. Like when Taiwan talks about legacy and how it is this thing you pass on to your children and your children's children, it is so tragic here to see the way that Viseras is so obsessed,

much like when he talked with Alicin's in front of the fire at the hunt in episode three about the power of dragons again, the power of prophecy, like how badly he wanted to be a dreamer, how badly he wants to be this great legendary figure of prophecy and of might. And he can't even keep his own house in order. It is crumbling around him the way that his own body and skin are just sloshing off. And it was just tragic. This was like a really, really, really tragic scene. Yeah.

But the tragedy is not over because it's time for the welcome feast. Time for the royal weddings festivities to begin. House Valerian arriving via sea and sky. This is the melee moment that you mentioned earlier. The Red Queen, previously written by Alyssa Targaryen, Viserys and Damon's mom. So that's a fun connection here, these scarlet scales, these pink accents, felt very clearly when we got to glimpse

the dragon that this was Maly's the Red Queen. We'll talk more about Males, hopefully, in future episodes. The booming intros from Sir Harold, we've shouted out as well, but we've just got to say the drums and the entrance for House Valerian here. Absolutely.

Just really quickly on the Dragons, I know we're zooming ahead. I just, I did smirk a little because they buzz the bell tower as they come in, so that felt a very, like, of the Bell's reference, you know? I love that. And the other thing I loved about this was, as you've mentioned,

previously you mentioned this on our, our primer when we were talking back to favorite moments that, or maybe it was the trailer breakdown, that so many pods, Joe. So many pods! That Rainis had written Mayleys to her wedding. And one of the quotes from fire and blood is, we can go back to the ends of the earth together.

She promised Corlis, but I'll get there first. I'll be flying, just iconic flex. And for then her to fly in side by side with her son, for him to also arrive to his wedding or wedding festivities on Dragonback, that was just like a really cool tie then across generations for that family. I really loved that. The crowd goes wild, Joe, for I guess, do we have like a second to talk about Jason Lannister? Or we don't. I mean, he's just such a douchebag. He's a douchebag. Let's roll on. Come on. There's a lot to say. You did note on Talk to Thorns though that, like, Renera's lack of interest in exchanging pleasantries and making friends feels like, again, on display here, Gerald. Gerald Roy's just cutting House High Tower and line. Remarkable. And then House Valerian, amazing entrance. Crowd goes wild for Lenore and Renira. They really know how to work the room. They have full command. Everyone is wrapped. Some of the wrapped people are horrified, like Kristen. But they have, they have. They have. have everybody's attention. There's this like magnetic quality as the sequence is unfolding. And then Damon walks him. The dragon eggs on this guy, Joanna Robinson.

Well, it's so funny because like he walks in and I wrote in my note like, oh, Maleficent moment, right? Like Melificent at the christening of Aurora. And then like, and then I had to scratch that out because the real Melissa's moment was coming later. But it's like, who has the biggest entrance? And Damon thinks he's the king. And he's the king. and then Allison's like, hold my green dress. Hold my gown. Yeah, hold my gown. It's pretty extraordinary.

Allison's arrival. Let's talk about it. The moment of the episode, Vesaris has begun to welcome the assembled and then stops mid-sentence. Everybody turns toward the door and we see that Allison has arrived at last, stunning the room into silence,

interrupting the king, stealing the thunder from Reniro and House Valerian, and doing it all in a bright green dress. The colors of House High Tower, a huge moment, she's gone through this evolution of her outfit signaling something about her state that that baby blue in the opening stretch with Reneira. She was watching Reneira fly her dragon, waiting on the ground, saying that she was content to be a spectator. That's not where we are anymore. We are fully out of Allison to a spectator into Allison, assuming her agency, into that

dress from her mother, into then the red and black of House Targaryen, back into her mother's dress, and now here, this choice that signals not only to her family that she is reaching out to them, but to everyone else, I am a High Tower and I am the queen walking up. House High Tower rises. They exchange this look in this moment. Goes up and calls her near a stepdaughter. This was one of your favorite moments of the episode. Well, this is where I will confess that every time I pointed out a dress that Allison was wearing, the reason why and book readers knew

was because I knew this moment was coming. So this is why I've been hammering the dresses the entire time. People have very quick rundown on how this differs because the dress appears at a different moment in the timeline in Fire and Blood. I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous about spoilers

that I'm like, how do I talk about this? Is this an okay thing to say just that it was a different time? It was a different location. It wasn't a wedding. Yeah, for sure. They sort of tried to bundle everything together here. But I do want to take a quick pause.

Well, first of all, if you guys aren't reading the fashion breakdowns of House of the Dragon by Tom and Lorenzo, who are like killer icons of fashion observation and lovers of genre television, you're fooling yourself because they are doing incredible work. What they had to say about the gold on House of Lerian was really interesting in this episode. And then, of course, I mean, like, this is the breakdown you want to read from Tom and Lorenzo. But I wanted to talk about a little, just quickly, about the idea of fashion as a weapon in a song of ice and fire, because we've seen it from characters before, like Marjorie, Circe, and Sansa. These, like, queenly moves. Again, another Marjorie Tyrell comp for Allison here. But Sansa is who I'm thinking a lot of, like, when she just started putting wolf, like, braiding wolf stuff on all of her clothing. Or you think of that final gown that she wears that has, like, the rest of.

out of the wearwood. Like Michelle Clapton, who did the costumes on Game of Thrones, just was, like, crushed it with all of the imagery that she would put into, like, the Sansa costumes or the Circe costumes. But I think this Allison entrance here, for me, what I wrote in my notes was Light of the Seven. Because the Rameen Javadi score comes in, and I know that you heard Light of the Seven later. But I hear it here. I hear it here in the music cue that she entered. with here.

What's a fun fact about Ramin Javadi, the composer of all of this music, he composed the music for Game of Thrones and for House the Dragon, that folks might know or might not, is that Ramin Javadi has Thinacea, which means he sees colors. So I love the idea of the prompt for this just being green. Like, what do you see for green? He's spoken eloquently about it in many interviews, so you can go look that up. But I think that's really interesting. It's also interesting to me that he has a track.

on the West World soundtrack that's just blue dress. So I don't know what this track is going to be called but I hope it's just called green dress. But I think it's to go back to that

Light of the Seven moment where Circe arms herself with fashion and we see her getting dressed the way that you would see a king being, you know, get his armor put on him

for battle. We hear this iconic music score. Chills every time. Yeah. In Winds of Winter, which is your favorite episode of Game of Thrones. But what, I mean, the other thing that makes me think of is wildfire and this idea of green fire, right? And so the High Tower Beacon, I just want to correct something I said on Talk

the Thrones because I was like, well, green is more, it's more important that green is the color of House High Tower, but then I word searched the word beacon in fire and blood to check my own work. And there's a line that comes before this story, so it's not a spoiler. This is an early confrontation, says atop the High Tower, the great beacon fire turned a baleful green, as Lord Martin Hightower called his banners, Old Town waited for the dawn and the coming of the dragons. So the light of the seven winds of winter, wildfire, surcy, costume, music, comp, all in the mix here.

Kind of seven, two, the tie between House Hightower and the Faith in addition to the Circe. Absolutely, absolutely. And the last thing I'll say about this is that I think this is such an interesting contrast to Reneira's big walk through everybody, which came in the hunt episode when she's spattered in blood and dragging a bore and everyone has to stop and stare and look at her. And it's like, what does that say about Reneira? She's working, she's operating entirely outside the rules of her society and like making a statement by defying everyone. And Allison is making, yeah, she interrupted the king. she's operating inside of her role, inside of the queen's weapons, which are fashion and diplomacy and all these things that she's doing here. And I just think that's such an interesting,

beautiful, telling snapshot of these two different women. I love that. I love that. What an incredible breakdown of an incredible sequence. We opened the episode with that clip of Harwin and Laris explaining the beacon on the high tower. Do you know what color it glows when an old town calls its banners to war green. But I love that because on the one hand, yes, this is a declaration of intent. This is this manifestation of Allison assuming this new agency.

But there's also, you know, if we move into, if we just talk now about the later scene, when she reaches out to her family to House Hightower and speaks to her uncle to Hobart, that beacon was lit not only for everyone else to see the choice that she has made,

this evolution, but it's a beacon to her family and they heed the call. They heed the call in that moment. What is the name of this episode? Episode five. We light the way. Those are the words of House High Tower.

The episode is named that. Allison comes in in this green dress and in this conversation with Hobart and her family, he says, you stood tall, know that Old Town stands, with you, this is really significant. Ceres just looks utterly gobsmacked as all of this is unfolding. And we move then into the Dance of Dragons literally, Joe.

And I loved this. I loved the, you know, obviously what happens with Kristen is the key. And everything with Allison that we just chatted about are the key moments in this welcome feast. But the dancing. The drum beats. It's difficult for us this game of Thrones viewers to not think back to moments

like, you know, Egritt asking John, wait, do you guys like, you know, march and like the play drums and like announce that you're heading into battle and he's like, well, like, you know, yeah, actually. Or Stanis and Shereen in season five talking about the dance of the dragons and Stan is saying, why is that a dance?

It's just what they call it. Doesn't make much sense. I think it's poetic. Well, what a poetic sequence here then. What a poetic and charged way to end this episode and usher us into the rest of this tale? We literally hear Reneira say, I was never much of a dancer. And Lainerr responds, it's not much different to combat to which Reneira says, we shall hope for a different outcome. Well, mere minutes later, it's not a different outcome. There's horror and death unfolding in front of

everyone. And so to get that rhythm and the dancing to like the kind of crowded nature of these scenes and the way that it allowed for for Claire and her direction to cut so often to not only what's happening between a given pair as they're dancing or speaking, but everybody watching each other or decidedly trying not to watch each other. Yeah, Kristen, Kristen is doing that thing that I've done in rooms with exes, which is I'm like, I will look anywhere but at them. We got a fun fact about this sequence. There had been some like, speculative We see a man drumming in the band, and some people had wondered if this was Mushroom, who is one of the sources in Fire and Blood. Fun fact, from one of our favorite sources, Kim Renfro, was interviewing Patty Considine about whether or not he had read the books.

And he said, I have read the books and not only that. But I insisted that there be some representation of Mushroom, and I thought he should be at the wedding. So Patty is taking credit for the fact that perhaps we are seeing a version. I don't expect we're going to, like, see him again, or he's going to have lines. or whatever. It's just like a little nod to fire and blood readers that like, here's the character who could be standing front and center in the band, banging the drum that could be the source of a lot of the stickier stuff that's in fire

and blood, you know? Mushroom loves a salacious tale. And boy, did he get one here. The fact that Patty was like, you have to put mushroom in this scene is just an all-timer, a little legend. So good. Absolutely incredible. And we thank him.

We thank him. Damon. Some interesting Damon stuff. going on in this sequence, telling Sir Gerald, who in sight and earshot of the hand of the king and the king himself, accuses Damon of murder. And Damon is like, I don't know who you are. Just goes even a step beyond the Dantreeprad. Don Draper, I don't think about you at all. Do I don't literally know who you are? Brutal stuff for Gerald Royce, iconic stuff from Damon. I loved tracking, you know, speaking of the

eye contact or the glances, the look on Damon's face as he's watching Renera across the wedding feast. Just that we just, despite him being capable of lots of monstrous, the monstrous things, we can't quite quit Damon, can we, Joe? We just love him. And the way that he's looking. Stairs of Ranieri is also looking at Lena a little bit, like he's looking around. We get a great series of glances up at the high table between Damon and Lena, and then

they go for a dance. This is while Vassaris is failing at dinner, as our beloved Jamie Lannister would say. Steve, can we get a snippet of the Damon Laina dance exchange? Well, I talk Gary and Prince. A dashing like a panda dragon ride up. You appear to be every home maiden's dream. That's only because you don't know me here. Amazing. Absolutely loved that. I could have watched 50 minutes just of that conversation. That was wonderful. We got to bounce around the dance floor, though, because Damon cuts in Harwin, got to interrupt. Sorry, breakbones. Need to chat with Renira once again in High Valerian, which a lot of people in that room in particular would be able to understand, much more so than some of their other sequences.

Some. Yeah. Renira calling Damon out on his bullshit because he's just like, this is not for you. This is not what you want. And what does she say? So take me then. And just as on the Bridgett Dragonstone, she continues to call him out on his bullshit and challenge him to actually follow through. on all of these great proclamations.

To the point where he takes her face in his hand, Vassaris looks like he's about to shoot laser beams out of his eyes. The full homelander. Allison is also not having a great time. Also, there's like literal beads of sweat all over Vassaris' face, I think from the exertion of battling the chicken, but like also from his like fear that his brother is going to make out with his daughter on the, on the, uh, during the wedding feast.

It's a stressful situation. Do you think they kiss or do you think the high-pitched screech that echoes to the room cuts them off? I think the high-pitched shriek probably prevented them kissing in plain view of hundreds of assembled gossipers and mushroom. What a move. Mushrooms like, let me pause my drumming to take some notes here. Mushrooms just firing off tweets from the welcome feast. Absolutely. Yeah.

before we see how that exchange can end, that that shriek is emitted and all hell breaks loose, Joe. Joffrey had previously identified Kristen to Lainor as Reneer's Paramore. He's figured this out, and he badly miscalculates. He goes over to Kristen,

and in essence pitches, let's look out for each other, but also mutually assured destruction. He says, we should swear to each other to guard them and their secrets, because if those are kept safe, then so are we all. Now, he cannot know and thus cannot account for Kristen's debilitated guilt and shame, Kristen already having told Allison,

Kristen feeling shattered over Rainer's rejection, and frankly, Kristen Cole being a psychopath. Sorry, sorry. I wasn't sure whether or not you're going to say that. I agree with you. We don't see the initial contact. We just hear the scream, Joe. Take us through it here.

Well, I want to say something quickly about Joffrey, which is that permit me pleased to quote this great Tom and Lorenzo fashion breakdown. I thought this was really interesting. They said, The gorgeous brocade of Joffrey Laudman's doublet sets him far above Sir Kristen's armor. Sir Kristen is not just angry and humiliated

by Renner's rejection. He's feeling incredibly inferior to everyone in the room. Good enough to be. a hard sword or a whore, but not any more than that. The incredible richness of Joffrey's outfit only serves to highlight that perception and infuriate him more. And watching Kristen try not to look at Reneira, but look at all these rich motherfuckers

enjoying themselves, reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Philadelphia stories where they go, the privileged class enjoying their privileges. And here is Kristen Cole just clinging barely to the come up that he has in this world having to watch. He's working, right, is what he says. I'm on duty. Yes. Um, and, and has to watch all of, all of these people do this thing. And so, you know, he pops off. And he beats the face off of Joffrey Lonmouth here. Brutely murders him in plain view of all of the assembled except for Beesbury and Mellos, who have pieced out as noted before. Or God. Um, two quick things that I want to say. One is that, um, In the melee, things happen.

A bunch of Lannisters throw Lainor into a table. And I thought that was really, really... After Kristen has punched him in the face. First, Kristen, punches the future king consort in the face. Shocking. Yes. And then Lannisters are like, oh, us too then. And just throw Lainor, the future king consort, into a table.

And, like, we know that the Lannisters are pissed off, that the Valerians have been chosen over... dumb douchebag Jason Lannister. But that is a wild move. I think they're thinking, like, in the cover of the fight, they won't be called out for that. But I just thought that that was an insane move of their part here. It's really interesting.

Again, Claire's direction here is incredible because she's able to maintain perfect clarity of what's going on while giving us also that panic, confusion feeling of being in the midst of something. It's really hard to do that to maintain clarity. She's got some great high above angles for the camera so that we can sort of follow what's going on. We check in with our most important people,

which are Kristen and the pulpy face of Joffrey Lonmouth, Renira cowering, Lainor being tossed around. People at first- Signaling to Harwin? Yeah, very important. Well, and I thought that was really important order of events because, like, the adults at the high table,

the parents are like looking at this destruction, And I think Eve best called this out. I think it was. Or someone said, it's the parents looking at the violence that they place their children in, right? All the children are down in the melee and all the parents, including Allison, because she is a parent, or up at the high table looking down at this awful position they put their children in. And this fulfills Rainis's fear that her son is going to be in danger. And then what is there, Sarah says?

Where's Renira? And that's when Harwin gives the nod. That's when Harwin gets the nod from Lionel to go. go plowing through the crowd and grab her and toss her over his shoulder. She's like, put me down. He's like, no. So, Vicerra's bleeding freely from the nose, nearly fainting, as he watches his just, this manifestation of his total inability to control the course of events. Kristen Cole is a psychopath is something that I'm going to agree with. The fact that he, like, beats a face off of someone is hard to disagree with. But I would encourage, I'm not going to

take the time to do this right now, but I would encourage people to go look up the quote that George or Martin has about Jamie, the thing that Jamie Lannister does in shoving Brin out a window, and he's sort of like, you sit there and you judge him and you say, I would never do that. But what if everything you held dear was on the line, your children, everything? And so if Kristen thinks that Joffrey could expose him and everything is on the line, that's one thing. The other idea that I talked about to talk to Thrones is like, here's from Allison, hears from Joffrey. Like, who else knows?

Is Reneer telling everyone? And she said she wouldn't tell, but why should he have any faith in what Reneira says? He sees all these rich assholes whispering to each other. Are they all whispering about him? And he just goes berserker. And I am not defending it. I am also, I think it's, again, I think it's tough that we didn't meet Joffrey before because I hate watching gay characters show up just to be killed off. Like, that really bothers me.

And I would prefer he was a whole character, at least, before he goes. But that's where we are. Kristen Cole. We mentioned this on Talk to Thrones, too, but worth noting here in case anyone didn't listen to that pod, this is a big change from Fire and Blood where Kristen kills Joffrey. That still happens, but it happens in a tournament, which is really different. So, quote, Cole's favorite weapon was the morning star and the blows he rained down on Sir Lainor's champion, cracked his helm and left him senseless in the mud. Born bloody from the field, Sir Joffrey died without recovering consciousness six days later.

Mushroom tells us that Sir Lainor spent every hour of those days at his bedside and wept bitterly when the stranger claimed him. We, as we've said many times, don't have all of the information in fire and blood. That's part of what's so fun about it. Did something similar unfold that led to Kristen using the tournament as cover to try to eliminate Joffrey? Maybe. We don't know.

But it's really different circumstance if something tragic happens like that inside of a tournament versus Kristen Cole. And again, we don't see that initial shot. So we don't, he follows, he pursues him in the middle of this throng and under cover of the throng, attacks him. But there's a fun thing that I possibly explain this. I don't know. I have a lot of questions.

I paused to Twitter. Twitter told me to relax, basically. So we'll figure it out. But a theory that I saw that I liked is that, like, what set Kristen Cole off? Was it just like, it was simmering? and then he's just like, I'm going to follow this guy and beat him. Is it self-hatred, self-loathing? That's all part of it.

But I also like the idea that he saw like Reneer about to kiss Damon. And he was like, what the hell? Who are these fucked up people? And how did I get pulled into this game? Yeah, exactly. Well, he walks out in a complete daze. Lainor crawls over to Joffrey, sees his face, screams and cries. as horrible,

deeply, deeply sad. Everybody, everybody who's still around leaves the room as quickly as they can. And then we get two scenes that are intercut to close the episode. We get this shotgun wedding and we get this God's Wood return.

This is a little confusing editing because Allison's in both. Allison is, I will say. Yes. Yes. So much for the seven days of tournament and feasting, Joe. Gotta lock this up now

before House of the Larian changes their minds. Septin is brought in. The wedding happens so quickly that Lainor is still dabbing the blood from his nose and Joffrey's blood is on the floor where in the closing shot of the episode, a rat will come in to feast upon it.

Or was a veris? I'm sorry, or was it Laris? That's what I meant to say. You got to stay nourished if you're skin changing into rats. Lainer is just, of course. Reneer also very emotional in the sequence

and presumably fearful because she knows what causes. Now she doesn't know everything. She doesn't know about the conversation between Allison and Kristen. But broadly, she knows that she and Kristen had a parting of the ways

and then he completely snapped. If this is a person capable of doing something like this. The reason I'm like, how will he explain this? It's not even just the killing Joffrey, though of course it's that. If he, there's like a scenario horrifying, though, would be to contemplate where you could say, I saw a person do something

that I, as someone on watch, had to intervene. Okay, you take that person out of the room then. Like, you don't punch their face off and you don't punch the future king. So, like, okay, I can play this through with you because I have been thinking about it a lot and arguing with people on Twitter about this, which is a really cool, relaxing thing to do, I know. But like, um, like, let's argue that Vassaris is not going to do anything about it. I can totally. agree with that because what the fuck is Vassar's going to do about anything, right? Okay, sure. I don't buy, and maybe Corley... He's going to turn to Lino and say, was I a good wedding planner, Lina?

And maybe Corleys who is slightly homophobic does not want to draw attention, probably more than slightly, does not want to draw attention to his son's lover or whatever and would just rather sweep it under the rug. But I just don't believe that Corlees as proud as he is and Rainies would be cool with the person who punched their son in the face at his wedding feast being someone kept around the castle, right? Because, like, how is this not curtains for Kristen Cole? Again, to your point, if this happened an attorney, there's plenty of plausible deniability. People brought up Jamie Lanister. And again, the fact that he was able to be kept around after he killed Arias, you know, Kingsguard is for life. So you don't get fired.

from the King's Guard, you either, unless you're Barrison's sell me, you either, like, get killed or sent to the wall, right? But I, like, Jamie is so different because that was about Robert Barathean trying to keep Tywin Lannister as an ally. Like, it's a very, it's a change of administration is super different than what's going on here with Kristen Cole. He, like, what he did was so unhinged. Yeah.

How do we go forward from here? Perible. Even with Allison's pure protection, which he might have, because she walked. up to him in the godswood after he has dragged his white cloak through the dirt of the godswood leading up to this sort of like Sepuku moment that he's going to have. Allison stops him. Yes. Out of clemency.

Out of clemency. Out of mercy? Maybe. But, you know, what we really think is that Allison is starting to play the game. And she's like, here's a piece on my side of the board on the queen's side. As Tyrion told us, the great game is terrifying. So you need to be ready for you. You need it.

What did you think of Kristen positioning himself in front of the godswood in that final moment as he is about to plunge his dagger into his guts? Was it a moment of final penance? Was it like I think Laris would really like to see this? So I'll make sure he has a good view. Again, I think I agree with you that like given his adventurous youth, like he's not been deeply religious his whole life. But I wonder if there's some sort of religiosity that has come with, like, him being part of the King's Guard. I don't know. Seems like a really interesting place. Science and portents, TM, trademark, a Boundjo at the end, because in addition to the symbol of the godswood, we have the Sarah's fainting and his crown rolling off his head.

What on earth could that mean? Paired with the aforementioned image. It's like rats drinking blood. on your wedding day. It's a crown rolling off your head. Yeah, I've lost the tune a bit there. A lot of Choir said is also famously litigious. But the way that you avoid getting sued is you don't sing the actual nose of the song.

And that's what Mallory Room is doing. Any final thoughts, Joe, before we head into our episode awards? What an episode it was. All right. Let's do it. Let's make the eight. I just like in my head make the screeching noise. Whig watch.

Best wig, worst wig. What do you got? Okay. Worst wig is poor Joffrey, who got the one episode character treatment. He didn't even get like a part in his head. It's a very bad wig. Go back and look at it before it gets beaten off his face. It's very bad.

Best in giving to Renira, not for the perfectly quaff ruby-studded wedding look, but the slightly disheveled. I've seen some shit and now I'm getting married look that we get at the end. I liked the must, carefully must. wig. What's your, what's your wig watch? I'm going with the, the ruby studded updo as my worst. Yeah. It's pretty bad. Shocking stuff. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Yeah. I'm doing teen, teen Lena as, as my best. It's, uh, especially after the relative proportions for, for child, Lena in prior episodes. This was, uh,

This was real progress. Fit watch, best worst. All right. What do I have here? I've got, I mean, okay, worst is I'm going to give it to Renier or not because her dress is bad, but because she got outshone at her own wedding by her stepmother, best fit winner, Allison Hightower.

This is the equivalent of the mother-in-law wearing the white to the wedding. Like, she just really crushed it. Who else could it be? Our green queen. I mean, I did really like Ria Royce's armor, but yeah, Allison's dress has to be the winner for best. I had Ria. Yeah, Ria's my smuggle.

Ria's definitely in there. It's great. It's a great luck. Worst is, it's got to be Damon's. Weird robe. It's just baffled. I'm confounded. I forgot about the cloak.

You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. Number three, they got bigger. And bigger. Best bit of Dragondom. There isn't.

Like, I'm just mad that people don't know that Malesis is in this episode. So I reject this category. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. Because the only pick is, hey, we got to see, we got to see Maly's the last, but we don't really get to talk about it. So, yeah, tough. Okay.

The award is retracted this week. Number four, the doctrine of exceptionally weird sex stuff. Yeah, you know what? I'm going to give it to good old Uncle Damon for grabbing his niece's face at the wedding feast and going in for the smooch. How about you? I'm going with Ria Roy's saying I knew you couldn't finish Craven to spark a murder. Only Game of Thrones, folks. What else is there to say?

If this show had Netflix subtitles, what's your pick for this one? Face collapses mushyly. I had fist pummles juicely. What about rat slurps anemically? Maybe I'll go out that. Gotta get your iron. Gotta get your iron.

I'm anemic. I just found out this week. Good, good to know. All right. I have no doubt I am too. Archmaster Ebrose could never. Best quote. I'm going to give it.

It's sort of best delivery and it's going to be to my guy, Laris. Who goes, what happiness it is to have been wrong. Incredible. Fingers might as well be steepled. If he had a mustache, he would twirl it.

How about you? I'm going with another line from that really sad Vassaris legacy sequence. When he said it is perhaps best not to know, I just thought that line reading from Patty was perfect. It was so tragic and captured so much of Vassaris's character. I thought that was an incredible line read. I ask your favor, Joe.

Who won the episode? Again, I'm going to split it actor and character. I'm just going to do this every week, so brace yourself. Character, Larry is strong. Good luck anyone unseating him ever for me. Also, as I said, important domino that fell. Like, I don't want to rob Allison of her whatever, but I feel like if Laris hadn't gotten into the mix here, none of this would have happened. And he got, I think, what he wanted, which is chaos.

I hear it's a ladder. It is. A ladder against which you can grow some sort of vine that we'll get to hear Laris talk about in a later episode. Oh, my God. Please give me a full Bodney tour of Kings Landing Laris Strong. Oh, my God. Best is, I always mispronounce his name. I'm going to try to pronounce it correctly.

I think it's Fabian. Fabian Frankel. It's Kristen Cole. Because I just think that watching that simmer go to a boil and then the shrieking and the pounding and then everything that came after. The shrieking was intense. Yeah. Like haunting. L's for everybody in this episode really is.

A lot of people catching L's. I'm going to go with Alson. I did consider picking Laris because his plot is so effective. I'm going to go with Allison, though. Sure. You know, that step forward, the address moment, iconic stuff, legendary. Though, obviously, she is also despondent and feeling utterly betrayed and abandoned by multiple people in her life. So it's not without complications.

Joe, our new tradition here every week. Yeah. Your most reliable narrator tracker has Mushroom lost the crown? It's a tie right now. One for Eustace, one for Mushroom. Tune in next week to see how we're doing. I love this. This is so great.

We have a new, a new category here. This is not an award, but it's an honor. We have to say farewell to the people that we've lost. And listen, was it intentional to not start doing this when the crab feeder died? Who's to say? That's up to you to decide on your own. But we will be sending off some fallen friends today. Steve?

Dracares. Your Dragon Roar is better than Cyrax's Dragon Roar. and cleaner. The Jacares of the Dragon Roar, four, the Lady of Roodstone, Rio Royce, and the Knight of Kisses.

Jaffrey Lottneth. Dracares. Tough transition here from talking about Joffrey to our next category, faceless man watch, and yet it's the nature of things here on House of R.

Very tough. I'm sorry to everyone. Steve, faceless man watch. God. Terrible. A rough week for that. I'd like to apologize to everyone. Joe, who is your faceless man at lunch pick this week?

Well, as a long time, Damon Targaryen defender, I'm going to say that Damon Targaryen we see in the veil is a faceless man. Oh, my God. So has he been murdered and someone's been wearing his face in all these scenes? I feel like our fit lord, Damon Targaryen would never put that cloak on his body, not even to do a murder. That's the tip-off. What do you think?

Who's your faceless man? I'm going with Gerald Royce, who appears in our story out of nowhere. Very hinky. Very close and proximate to two murders in this episode. He's in the veil for Ria's death, and he's at the pre-wedding feast for Joffrey's death. Coincidence or the plot of the faceless men, you decide. Love it. It's time for our Dance of Dragon Dreams.

are book, look ahead. If you don't want to hear a book, look ahead, talk. Bye. It's been real. Thanks for your time today. It's been real, Royce. We've got a few more nuggets for you. Joe.

Renier and Harwin. I'm so... We have not gotten enough, period. As irritated as I am about Maley's at this episode, I am more irritated about how little Harwin we've gotten, given that we're going to do a 10-year time jump. There's already going to be at least a couple kids

and we haven't gotten more than a few moments with Harwin. Yeah. So we'll just, I mean, we can see in the teaser for episode six, not only that the kids are there, but that their parentage is in question.

So this will be a focus of the next episode. We'll just learn, I guess, that they've been fucking for 10 years. Did it start that night? Who knows? I just don't understand this. I thought for sure we'd see them hook up

in this episode, really. Surprising. Or at least, like, give him a few more lines. You know what I mean? Like, I guess he's made, like, you know, he's a handsome guy. He's made somewhat of an impression. But, like, why in the goal, in the scene where he stops her in the street, did they have him keep his helmet on? Someone raised this question to me.

When, like, we have so little moments to know who he is. Very strange. Makes sense to me. Similarly. David and Lena, so we get this flirtation, which is great. Is it enough to set up a marriage and multiple children? Also, is she currently Vagar's rider? We just don't know that, or will that happen later?

Will it happen in the time jump? Because let's go back to this Dragon Math. Because, like, if she's writing Vagar at this time, which, like, if she were, then, like, she surely would have ridden in with C-Smoke and Maly's. Like, there's no reason why she wouldn't ride Vagar in, right? Yes. So then, like, actually dragon math means that House Valerian has more dragons than House Targaryen at this moment. They would have three.

So we have to assume that she claims Vagar somewhere in the next 10 years. If we don't get to see that, I'm going to be really upset. Really upset. That's a huge thing. And it's been set up. We hear her talk about the song in Spicetown and ask about Vagar. Like, we need to – I was bummed that we didn't get to see the origin with Lainor and C-Spoke. but Vagar is like one of the most consequential dragons in the story.

We have got to see that origin story with them. We have to. Especially given that we're going to then go to an Amund One Eye origin story with Vagar. Like this is, Vagar's just a crucial part of the story. We've got to see that. I don't understand. I don't understand. She's like, just make it make sense to me.

We get a Lady Jane mention in this episode. Damans' Inheritance pitch in the veil. Lady Jane says, absolutely not. also you're not welcome here. That's not how inheritance works in Westrose even at all. I admire Damon's hustle, though. Yeah. I don't know.

Cool castle. You got to try. It felt like a little like, he's like, I like the Princess Bride. I'd like to live here. Oh, my God. What should we say in terms of book, look aheads about Kristen? Obviously, joining the greens, switching sides formally. I mean, we get this.

The language in fire and blood is. so decisive, like became the most bitter of her foes in terms of Kristen and Renera on this switch that's unfolding here. But also the party lines are more clearly drawn. Like, we have not only the greens, but the blacks and both of these camps and parties. Yeah. And these alliances taking shape more formally. So, like, will all of that just be set after the time jump or will we watch it unfold more? Not with Kristen, just in general. I mean, the next episode is called The Princess and the Queen. So I think that's when we're really going to start to understand. and the blacks versus the greens

and how there's clearly one party or the other. I saw a tweet and I'm so sorry I don't have it in front of me so I can't give proper attribution but someone said that Allison and Kristen are forming Reneer's League of Evil X's and I Scott Pilgrim reference, right?

So like... Oh my God. If only Damon were to join that team but he's not, he's staying on the black. So yeah. But I mean, I think as far as I like that it's kind of confusing in the books. Like, what could possibly have fucking happened for Chris and Gold to hate Reneira this much?

And I was very dissatisfied with all the explanations that the various versions that are in the book. I think they set this up very well. Yeah, absolutely. He's got some darkness inside of him and it has exploded. So, yeah. Well, I want to talk about the other black and green map. Do it. Please.

Okay. So House Lannister throwing Liner into a table just really, I think, further underlines. like what's what's going to go on there. I thought that they were setting up, like, how's Royce to be on the team green because of the, like, conversation between Gerald Royce and Damon here. But no, they're, like, the Royces are with the errands who are with, you know, Reneira.

So I guess Gerald's just, cousin Gerald's just going to get over it, I guess is what's going to happen there. This is not relevant here, but Vassar is just doing nothing as his brother was called a murderer at his own party. Classic. Wild stuff. Yeah. Can we talk about Maesters for a second?

Yeah. Or a while. Well, he's been there since, he's been there since episode one. He was one who's, like, should, you know. Right, really an active challenge about the king's care here. Pushing for the polstices and mellas is just like, the leeches consistently bring my guy relief. And yeah, how could you not look at Vassaris?

and see that he was feeling relieved right there. But one of the things that I actually have like a real, how will this make sense question about for the show with the time jump is not just because of the ominous note of the Sarah's fainting and the crown rolling off of his head at the end, but the real deteriorating state, especially in this episode, like, it doesn't make sense based on how infirmty is here that he should be alive in 10 years in the show when we jump. So giving us this little kernel here of another maister. of or while coming in with a different plan for Viseras's care, laying a little bit of groundwork

there for how something could change. But even so, I mean, I will say Vesaris looks like he's 5,000 years old in the teaser for episode six. So it's not like he's in a great state then, but. Like when I, like, I've been, I've been imagining, and I don't know. I have no idea. I've not seen. But, like, I've been imagining he's going to kick the bucket in episode nine.

That, yeah, I had been thinking about. Like, how is he going to last three more fucking episodes is my question? We do have the episode titles. And episode nine is the Green Council. So that's when I imagine that he dies. He dies in episode nine and the Green Council is like them deciding what the fuck to do. And then episode 10 is the Black Queen. And that's Reneira is sort of taking her crown.

So I think he has to string it along for four. more episodes. Poor Patty. Well, Wiles really got to get to work. Just more, more limbs just drop it off left and right. I don't know. Anything else, Joe? Anything else you wanted to hit on in the book? Look ahead or in general? Well, we are always on the lookout for a blood and cheese set up. And this is what we thought the rats and mice were. But now I'm just going to be looking at all the rats and mice. Yeah. I'm full, I'm full blown crackpot green zero three. And let's just say, along the lines of Like, Varys is a merman and John Snow is going to come back with a wolf's brain and all these other really fun crackpot theories that came out of Song of Ice and Fire. No stress if it's not true.

That's the joy of a crackpot theory. Hold it loose. Hold it loosely. Hold it loosely and be ready to let it go when it's time to let it go, you know? I love it. All right, friends. Rearoy said that she knew we couldn't finish, but we did. We finished.

That's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you. to our dragon lords. Steve Allman for producing this episode. Arjuna Ram Gapal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomea Denneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember to send us your emails at hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. We will see you again on Friday for our rings of power deep dive and then again on Sunday night immediately after House of the Dragon Hot D episode six for Talk the Thrones. And remember the Midnight Boys, Poo Poo! We'll be with you on Wednesday tomorrow for the Andor

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