House of R - 'House of the Dragon' Season 2, Episode 5 Deep Dive. Plus: Steve Toussaint! | House of R

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

The Hour of the Dragon is once again upon us, and Mal and Jo are here to dive deep into the fifth episode of 'House of the Dragon' Season 2! The road to war gets shorter and shorter as they go scene by scene to take a look at the riveting aftermath of the battle at Rook's Rest (10:53). Later, they are joined by the Sea Snake himself, Steve Toussaint, to discuss the developments of Corlys Velaryon this episode (3:09:21). Finally, they dive into their book spoiler section to plot out the rest of the season (3:30:50). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Steve Toussaint Producers: Steve Ahlman, John Richter, and Jack Sanders Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See terms at Fandual.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash herms. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. There are those of our line who never ruled. Those who married into other noble houses. Their children born with other names. A generation ago or more. The blood would be thin. And yet?

A dragon will only accept a dragon lord to write it. Also say the histories. Valerian histories. Written to gildas in glory. Are you suggesting we put a malister on a dragon? It's better than death and defeat. There are records here, surely, of our line, and of those who fell out of it. Greetings, and welcome the House of Arr, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Dragonstone Library. Scrolls abound, but also back into the House of Our, joining me today. asking, has my loyalty faded or does it flourish only at night and flee the sunrise like a moth? It's Joanna Robinson. Consort. Hello. Joe. What a thrill and a joy.

Hello. We're back again. We are. We are here to dive deep into House of the Dragon, Season 2, Episode 5, and our terms are simple for today's podcast. Renowned the False King Egg Gun as us as usur and ban the need us or your house burns. Those are the rules. Or your House of Opens. While you are thinking about your answer to that prompt, we will issue some very quick programming reminders.

Here they are. It is a loaded week over on the ringerverse, the midnight boys. Pew, pew. Streaming live on YouTube after the Ackolite finale. By the time this podcast goes up, that probably will have already happened. But great news. That episode's still available for you to check out. Ooh, exciting.

Wednesday, button mash. EA Sports College Football 25. This is like a high holy day. My most anticipated of 2024. Maybe we'll play this weekend. Sure. I actually genuinely can't wait. And then the Midnight Boys are back on Thursday for another finale, Boys on the Boys.

Great stuff. Here in the House of Our, we will be with you as well on Thursday because we will be covering the Accolite finale. And then we will be back on Sunday night immediately after House of the Dragon episode six with Chris Ryan for Talk the Thrones. You can find full video episodes. of House of Our Talk to Thrones and Midnight Boys on the new-ish ringerverse YouTube channel. So subscribe if you haven't. You can watch the videos on Spotify and you can listen to us wherever you get your podcast. There was a small glitch last week that I call.

Accolate didn't go up, but that was just because of a one-time thing. Yes. We will be back on video for that this week. Also, if you're listening to this Wednesday morning, you're like, I'm looking for something to do tonight. Come hang out with us at the LRA. because Ringerverse Live will be happening. 8 p.m. Doors at 7. Grab your tickets while you still can.

Joanna, how can the people follow along? Listen, I'm so glad you asked me. First of all, why don't you just follow us on social? Yeah, do it. Do it. Follow the Ringerverse on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter. I re-downloaded TikTok onto my phone. Oh.

It's a backslide for me, but here we are. Okay. I support you. You can also just subscribe to the pod. Our pod, House of R. Yeah. The Ringerverse. great stuff.

Also, Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Keep the emails coming. We got so many emails this week. Multiple and so many others in the dock today. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, the cause. There you go. Hit the hand. You're right. It is the left hand.

Yeah. It is the left hand. Okay. Noted. Joe, our last programming reminder, it's always the friendly neighborhood. Spoiler warning. Here it is. We will, of course, be talking about every single thing that happened in this episode of House of the Dragon. If it's ever happened in House of the Dragon, season one or season two, could come up today. If it's ever happened in Game of Thrones, could come up today. Book canon, Fire and Blood, Song of Ice and Fire. We will be chatting about that throughout the pod today for context, insights.

But if it's happening in the future of the book, anything that's yet to come in the show, be saving that for a separate little book spoiler section at the end of the pod, as we always do. You will get a spoiler warning right before that segment begins. And today, that will come after an interview because the Seasnake. Corliss himself is joining us. We had the pleasure of chatting with Steve Toussaint. And that is going to be right before the spoiler section. So everybody hang out for the interview. We had a blast.

Genuinely had a blast. Did Mallory stay exactly on brand? She did. And did it delight him? It did. So please tune in for that. Oh, what fun we have. Okay, Joe.

We have given the word of the dragons. a Dragon Rider should lead us. So let's pod. Episode 5. Regent. We were like, what is the title of this episode going to be? We had no idea we were speculating. Regent.

Directed again by Claire Kilner, who previously had directed episodes 4, 5, and 9 of the first season and the second episode of this season in for both of the processions through Kings Landing. Yes. On the procession beat, this was written by T. Mickle. And this episode checked in at 63 minutes and do you feel compelled to quickly note no additions to the opening credits.

This is one of the things we're tracking. Rooksressed. Did not make the opening credits cut. We await your arrival. Dismaying. Dismaying. Maybe it's just on delay. I mean, blood and cheese is not a bit of a delay as well.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not giving up hope yet. Okay. This is not a sentence, but an honor. It is time for the opening snapshot. Joanna. Yeah.

Give me your quick, impressions. Well, Table Sutter, what did you think of this fifth episode? I am going to keep this snappy because this will be a multi-hour podcast, I promise. It will? Yeah. But, well, a couple things really quickly. Regent, as everyone on who's been interviewed about this episode has said pertains to Amen, but of course it pertains to so many other people on the show. There's so many people who are sort of temporarily taking over for other people on the show.

So I think it's a really interesting title, title, title. titles. This was my least favorite episode of the season, like, pretty easily. I still liked a lot of it, but it's not for the reason that some people are saying, like, oh, it was filler. It's not a filler episode. Filler episodes really only exist in anime. It's not we're getting, we're getting careful. Big stuff happens in this episode.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Amon Targaryen is now the most powerful person in Westeros. That was not true last week. Allison Hightower has a no power. That was not true when she woke up this morning. We got a lot of key updates on the state of citrus in the capital. Yeah, and that's predominantly that. Anyway, people talking in rooms, all that sort of stuff.

You know I'm usually really down for that. I just felt some of the writing this episode felt a little like obvious to me. It felt like some of the themes that we've been covering were just sort of overtly stated over and over again in a way that flattened them for me. like, I would say particularly this question of the patriarchy, something that you and I have been obviously interested, is the text of the show, is why Reneer is not on the throne for so many reasons. There's a bunch, several scenes where it's just so overtly stated that it then becomes two-dimensional to me and not, you know, not the depth that I'm looking for and I know the show is capable of. Right.

So there's just like a few examples of that and other themes that I felt like they just said the thing rather than, and other things were just said, like, us getting a moment where they say, oh, remember that time that Raina tried to claim a dragon and she almost died? And I'm just sort of like, you just said it? Yeah. Like, that's a big deal. We never got to see it. And you just said it in a sentence and moved on like it was nothing.

So there were just moments like that that felt a little bumpy to me. But there are some incredible performances, as always. And the witches are here. So how could I ever be upset? You know? They are. And also, we got to. Watch them peel Valerian steel armor off of egg on over many minutes.

Looking forward to talking about that scene, genuinely. Which egg comp are you going for? You're going for the fried egg joke, the soft-boiled egg joke, the hard-boiled egg joke. I don't think it can be a hard-boiled egg. There's a little too much, like, ooze. I think it's a classic brunch soft-boiled eggs. Sorry. Vile.

Truly vile. Is it lunchtime yet? I'm not hungry. So it's 11thes? I'm the opposite of hungry. Eleventhies? Second breakfast? Thinking about peeling bits of armor like egg off of our game. Even with the cabbage leaf brought in?

Was it a cabbage leaf? Someone said it was like a fish skin. I don't know. Whatever it was, I didn't like it. A fish skin? Yeah. Interesting. I'll have to go back and look for scales.

That would be an impressive stack. I know. The skin of a fish. And well fletted. Yeah. That would just be one more. tough beat for the Tully's in this season. Anyway, this was also

my least favorite episode of the season, but I still really enjoyed it, and I do like the ebbs and flows of activity. Like, I was ready, I think, after Rook's rest for a little bit of a beat. I don't mind generally, like an episode where the characters are moving around

the board, right? That is valuable, and I certainly am always here for the great conversations in elegant rooms. I think that your point about the the dynamism of some of the exchanges is something that I felt as well. But certainly we have a lot to chew on here, cabbage leaf or otherwise, with our characters and the things that they share with each other and what they're working through. And the parallels across the camps continues to be a very scintillating thing to watch.

So we have a lot to break down. This episode had a lot of scenes in it. Yeah. So we're just going to get right to it. We are going to head for the deep dive into. in the bowels of a pleasure den Otto boy we miss you

yeah we are missing Otto yeah feeling that while I got a real kick out of Egon rasping for breath in his deathbed mummy

mummy we I think missed a little of the Egon on the front lines energy in this episode too for sure right so yeah I wonder when Otto will be back I know Too many I don't know.

Yeah. I'll bring it up again in the book section section. Oh, you got some theories. Okay, I'm excited. I will stay tuned and check back with you in three hours. You have no choice. You're locked into this room with me. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than in this 62.

Actually, I mean, listen, today, 64 to 66 degree room. Not at 62 again. That's fine. Why is Joanna drinking hot coffee in the summer? It's because Mallory keeps the studio refrigerator cold. I'm going to wear shorts and slides next recording so then I'm ready for the sauna that we record him. Okay, Joe, the episode begins with this hush, these scenes of mourning. We see Renera on Dragonstone, Coralus, on Drift Mark.

It is somber. It is a quiet and very lonely. We're tracking this isolation across our character sets and across the episode. It's a very lonely, grief-embute. start to the episode. It's like the hush of death following the roar of Dragon War. It felt like a very appropriate somber note to begin this episode on. And we spend a couple really poignant minutes early with Corlis, this portrait of grief, watching him make his way to the driftwood throne, a tear rolling down his cheek, and you can just feel the way that that, yes, they're together

for a couple council moments, but that last real conversation with Rainies, about Alan, in addition to just the fact that he has lost his wife, is hanging over him. What did you think of the fact that we saw him on that drift with throne,

the way that we associate thrones, seats of power, proximity to power with Corliss's journey and that portrait of grief in that space? He could have been anywhere, but that's where he chose to be. Right, where it was just,

it felt empty to him. He calls it a tombly. And, you know, we'll talk to Steve about all of this. And he had some just great things to say about what's going on in Corliss's mind here. So I'll let him take it away from there. But I do think that's, you know, they mentioned that they basically brought the set back for this scene. They couldn't rebuild the whole thing. They had to like blue screen it.

You know, so they only half built it for the scene. So it was really important to him that he was having this moment here and not on the docks where he's been like all season, you know? And I just, yeah. Needed it a barnacle break? Don't we all, first of all? Plus, you know, if you're not going to get some like hot broth of bread lovingly delivered to you, what's the point of being on the docks anymore? Not just any bread, warm bread.

Yeah. Sheesh. I know. The good old picnic days, how long ago they were. I was thinking a lot in that moment of all of the conversations that Rainies and Corliss shared, specifically about where this like striving pursuit, this seemingly. ceaseless pursuit of power, which of course does cease at a certain point when Coralus returns from his six years away. Blood fever. Hate to see it. He does reach that moment where he says,

I am content. And then Renice is the one who says, it's time to sign up and be a part of what Reneira is doing and join Team Black. But I was thinking so much about like that moment in episode five at the first season where she says Reneira's succession will be challenged, knives will come out for her, her husband, and for their heirs. And the number of people in House Balarian who have been impacted by that directly in some way and how Corlis is going to carry that grief with him. We'll talk more about his conversation with Bela later, and obviously, like you said, we had the pleasure of chatting with Steve

about the impact this has had on his character. It was an effective, like, tone to set at the beginning of the episode. Absolutely. Joe, like you to join me in Kingslanding. You know, it's been a summer of confounding box office news. Yeah. Sequels can be tough. Sure.

And Kingslandic death procession, part two. You're not getting your twisters taken? It landed with a thud. They needed Glenn Powell here. Kristen needed Glenn Powell. Where was Daisy Edgar Jones and you needed her? So we see before we get to see this procession how the blockade is impacting the small folk, right? The fruit rotten, the petrified orange.

Brutal. Yeah, I should say, I've heard a lot of criticism blights of Team Black and how they're doing nothing. Yeah. In the war effort. The blockade is tremendously effective, and that's been something they've been doing this whole time. Yes. That is their move. They have blocked the harbor for trade and your four-seat rotting fruit if you're a member of the small folk.

Our listener, Courtney, was asking about the blockade. Aren't ships incredibly flammable? Why hasn't Vagar burned it yet? This is what Rainies was constantly guarding and when she was constantly patrolling the blockade And the idea is the blockade is quite near dragonstone So it's almost like a Like a reverse rooks rest scenario

Where if you bring your dragon Be it Vagar or Dreamfire Who we haven't seen since season one Or Sunfire who is long in the dying Long in the dying My sweet sunfire If you bring your team green dragon over the blockade you're within spitting distance of Dragonstone

where they've got several dragons ready to roast you. So you don't want to bring your dragon out there to the blockade. I believe that's why it's not been DeNaris yet. Painful. Association still when you mention Deeris, dragons, and fleets anywhere in proximity to each other. We know also from this episode that Vagar is resting, like some little R&R after the battle,

like established cannon from Maly's and Rheny's and Reneyce, right? Maly's must gorge and rest and so must die. So obviously until Raineese died, Rainis was patrolling, presumably now there's no patrol of the gullet, at least for a short little period here. And so there would be a window, but Vagar is down in those gatorade gels. Tuckered out.

Trying to replenish the electrolytes. I feel like Reneer is like two seconds away. from being like, Beela. New job. Not my coddled princeling, but you, Bela, please get on the front lines and patrol the gutlite. It seems totally in play. Totally in play.

So a horn sounds back in King's Landing and a herald arrives. And here's what this herald, this piece of shit, this monster, this blight on society says, as Kristen's army parades its prize, Maly's his head, still smoking, swarming with flies. Behold, the traitor dragon Maly's slain at Rook's Dressed by your king. So the PR machine. Trader dragon for Eggon. Oh, look what Eggon did.

But the traitor dragon. So there was a part of me actually that was like, yeah, let's acknowledge that the dragons have agency. By being honest, there wasn't part of me that kind of like that idea. But this is foul. This is foul. Character assassination for Maly's here. We get this kind of hush that falls over the crowd.

described in fire and blood as well. Yeah, we were primed for this. In fire and blood, it says, it was the head of the dragon in Malyse drawn through the city on a cart that awed the crowds of small folk into silence. Septin Eustis tells us that thousands left Kings Landing afterwards until the Dowager Queen, Allison, or the city gates closed and barred. Oh, was it Allison's idea to lock the gates?

Classic, fucking unreliable, male narrators of history. Just like, look what Allison did. Eustace. I don't dare you. So we got this email from Dan and actually a few people, and I think this is an excellent point. Yeah. We have been wondering, since it happened last season,

since Rainies burst through the floor and stomped on a bunch of people with Mayleys at the coronation for King Agon last season, the usurper. Sorry, I just wanted to make my team affiliations known. Murdering hundreds, if not perhaps, thousands of people. as she stomped through the floor. And to quote one of the writers of the show, I don't need to call it names. To quote one of the writers in the show,

it was my idea, I just thought it would look cool. Great stuff. They haven't really, they have not really addressed it except a little bit in episode one of this season. And you would think that perhaps, as they were carting the head of that dragon through the streets,

the PR spin was like, behold the dragon that stomped all of you people. We have, we have taken her down or something like that. But Otto wasn't here to do any of the messaging. That's right. So we didn't get that. But Dan, our listener points out that in the behind the scenes,

Ryan Condal does not bring up this thing that the dragon Malyse did last season. And its writer Rainey's did last season. He says, quote, Males was a beloved dragon that probably flew over the city hundreds of times. He gestures towards what people have been taught about Targaryan exceptionalism slash invincibility. However, it seems pretty odd for that elephant in the room

to not even merit a mention here when it involves this very same dragon would have occurred mere months before. I mean, what are months and weeks to this timeline?

Who knows? Unless, of course, they've realized how awkward and ill-fitting of an addition to the story that incident was, and they just want to move on

and forget about it, truly bizarre choice. Incredibly odd. Very bizarre. Yeah. This is a great point. On the one hand, I would be,

to say that, yeah, there's maybe a concerted effort to pretend that this didn't happen. They acknowledge that it was a mistake. There's a desire to just like push for some collective amnesia and we can all move on from one of the truly like misguided decisions in season one. But it came up pretty often last week in the press around that episode. So that makes it a little harder to, I think, say that they're just like, this is not a thing that. Right.

They were saying like, oh, it was some of her. the reason she really dedicated herself to her book's rest was regret over what happened at the coronation. Odd stuff. I am happy to pretend that Maly's never exploded through the pit of the... Sure. We kind of forgot about Maly's doing that. That is fine. I just think it's odd for Condal to go so far to say Maly's was a beloved dragon that probably flew over the city hundreds of times.

Like, a beloved dragon that killed many of these people's aunts and uncles and cousins and fathers and, you know, daughters and stuff like that. So moving on. We can move on. It's a great email from Dan and the many others. So you sent it. Yeah. So this procession, it did not go the way that Kristen was intending. He voices this in real time. He's like, don't they know we won?

Gawain, hopefully, is there to say, strange victory. If it was won, right? And this is a question and will be throughout. Like, what can really count as victory? We're going to talk in this next stretch here about the implications of what it, of Kristen showing the masses. Oh, yeah, yeah. That the strength and might and status of House Targaryen can be torn down in this way.

But because we had the little baseball head procession, because we had Jay Harris's funeral in the second episode and saw the almost like ravenous response of the people. This was, I thought, very effective counterweight to that. You couldn't, it couldn't escape your notice. that this was being received in a radically different way. And we talked about this at the time about this danger that Otto was really playing with fire in terms of like sort of trying to manipulate and use the crowd sentiment, you know, for their benefit. But when the crowd turns on you, it turns on you. And this was just not the – I mean, I don't think Otto would have ever sanctioned this, but this was just –

I do wish that he just could pop up at the end of the episode and give his notes. And what? Has Kristen done now? So the response feels like a couple things are going on in the heads, hearts, minds of the small folk of Kings Landing here. Part of it is, as we hear, the dragons standing as gods. We get the great moment with the kid who's standing next to Hugh who says, please do this in your accent.

I thought the dragons was gods. Wonderful stuff. I thought the dragons was gods. We hear a random member of Kingslanding say, it can't be. They killed a dragon. We hear another person saying, mark my words, this is a black omen. So this idea, and this feels like the part of this like just really massive blunder for Kristen and not playing out the string on what you were putting in front of people and then what they will take from it

and how that will impact something beyond just the moment and time that you're currently inhabiting in the dance. this is the old like that's the problem minister the other side can do magic too when it's targaryen versus targaryen when it's dragon versus dragon if you are trying to diminish the other side by making them seem mortal fallible killable definitionally you are undermining your own side's strength the entire targaryian narrative the entire agon's entire this is why i deserve to rule this entire continent is because we've got dragons. Do you have dragons? We've got dragons. And this idea that, like, Targaryian exceptionalism, Targaryens are closer to gods than men, all of this hinges on, they've got dragons.

The dragons are named for gods. Like, it's this whole untouchable thing. And so to parade the head around. Wild stuff for Kristen. And it's just meat, according to Hugh Hammer. I will say, let the record state that I am concerned, alarmed, and dismayed by that reply to Hugh and the longing in his eye as he stared at the neck meat. Because he's like, hmm, dragon soup? Worrying. Worrying. We know how hard it is to get a chicken.

I am alarmed. Hugh. They carded that thing all the way from Brooks rests in the open air and the sun. I do think it's probably turned. I don't want to think about it at all. But if we must, I think it is probably turned. We'll have some timeline insights for Agon's rotting flesh that we'll get to momentarily. But it's a great call in terms of the overall hyperal hyper.

machine for the Targues, and it makes me think that one of, again, that opening note back in the premiere in the entire series, that's part of that key conversation between Renera and Vassaris, right? But they say that because of our dragons. So that's, like, one of the opening, tone-setting moments between key characters. They're acknowledging that. Is Kristen thinking about that? Like, so one quote, well, there's a couple things. Vesera saying the idea that we control the dragons is an illusion, right, from. that opening scene. Like, this is destroying that illusion a little bit, right?

That all-powerful Targaryen. Don't worry that we ride around this guy on nukes. We've got it under control sort of thing. And then there's this like classic Game of Thrones quote from our guy, Varis. The, Verris' is riddle. Yes. Which is actually one of George's favorite things that he ever wrote. And it's Veris talking about Tyrion.

Right. Right? Yeah. about various, the cell sword, the king, who has the power in this scenario. And various, power he argues, is ephemeral, a shadow. Power lies where we think it lies. This is where you get the whole small man can castle, long shadow sort of thing. Power lies where we think it lies.

And so if we believe as the small folk, as the various lords and ladies of Westeros, that power resides with the dragons. and then you see a dragon card around the street. It was really interesting. I was looking into, like, George's idea of, like, power and symbols of power. And when he talks about this Varus riddle, which he loves that he created, he says it was inspired by Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. And he was like, why would anyone fight for this?

Why would anyone follow this? And he says, quote, George says, you go because. you're afraid of what will happen if you don't go, even if you don't believe in it, but where do these systems of obedience come from? Why do we recognize power instead of individual autonomy? These questions are fascinating to me. It's all this strange illusion, isn't it? So this is the very important illusion that the Targaryians have created is that you're less than us. Right. Because we've got these things that can light you up. Right. It is right that we rule. Yeah. You'd like to let someone else chip away at that illusion. The

call coming from inside the house. It's a blunder. We're going to want that one back, Kristen. Boy, and then so the other thing, of course, driving this fear among the small folk, Joe, in addition to, like, what does it mean if you see God paraded in front of you on a cart? The impact of the blockade, which has been building and mounting across the episodes. Very central focus in this episode. And that was the case.

The blockade was already in place in episode two during the first procession. but because of the increasing effect, okay, first it was really hard to find the chicken, and it was really expensive, and now there's no brown to even put into the bowls. Right, right? People are just stealing chickens or their neighbors. Neighbors stealing. The citrus is rotting. Brutal.

Renera will answer this. Tis an abomination. This is one of the things we hear. And so there's just this general fear of what will it mean if Dragon War comes to our city? What will it mean if that fire rains down on us instead of just the lords in their castles and their fields? Right. You're inviting an attack here by taunting them. When Dragon War begins, what have we heard throughout the season for many characters?

Right. It will be savage beyond compare. And it's not just the high lords who are going to be aware of that. The small folk would understand because this is something else we've talked about a lot, like just thinking about where this show is slotted in the timeline. And the way, and we've heard this from many characters, Craig and to Jace. Jane Aaron in this episode, etc. The fear that the phrase have when they're chatting with Jace about Vagar, the blood

from the conquest and the periods after. Yes, we're coming off a stretch of Jaharis into Vissar's peace. But the characters here are not the characters in Game of Thrones who have lived their lives absent the presence of dragons at all. They know dragons exist and they know what it did to the kingdom when they last flew into the air. And it's not just all the way back to Agon. It's Magor who comes right before Jeharis.

And I mean, that's the last, like the dragon on dragon. Yeah. Action. My guy, Magor. Tough one. Your fave. Tough hang. Yeah.

It's always great to. When are you going to wear the Megger merch? You know, I don't have any. Maybe I'll look for it. We'll fight too soon. Yeah. A picture of him on the crown impaled through the neck and the wrist. On the throne.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love that. Always wonderful to revisit that stretch of fire and blood and confront, you know, yet another egg on. Just yet another egg on. The place is crawling with them. Speaking of agon and crawling. Yes. Yes. Right. We'll go from the bread being scarce, as

Masaria will say, of the small folk to the cabbage leaves and or fish scales being abundant. Joe, he may not be as fearsome as any of them, but he is as fearsomely burnt as any of them. Let's talk about our king. We watch him smuggled into the city. I loved this. In like a matchbox. I've seen some people confused by this, but I'm just like, it's, I mean, to give Chris and Cole some semblance of due, the dragonhead is partially to distract from king in a box. Yeah. There have, I know that there are

tunnels and other entrances into the city and maybe it would have made more sense to smuggle him in that way, but he's in this like rag-draped box so that nobody notices that oops are kings in there. Wonderful stuff. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain in and the box. Exactly. Look at the dragon. Do you think they could hear Blackfire clanking about inside against his Valerian steel armor when they pull Blackfire out of the box?

No, when they pull Blackfire out of the box so tenderly. Yeah. And then they just hoist him up. I laughed out loud. Blanket gurney. That was wonderful. I did really get a kick out of the idea. They're like, kings come and go.

But we only have a few Valerian Steel swords. Blackfire is forever. The idea of that just like bumping against him. for a week and a half on their journey. You know, was not bumping against him? The dagger. No. Because Aiman has that.

It's on Aymond's belt. Alicent clocking that. This great, so we really made a meal out of this visual in the trailers. Oh, Allison and Amon's up on the walls of the Red Keep looking out. What are they looking at? Looking at what are they talking about together? Are they forging something? No.

They share nothing but a very. charged pregnant silence here and some meaningful looks. I really loved the framing because we start by seeing them head on, but then as Allison is, they're looking down. And as she's looking at Amon, we are seeing him in profile from the eye patch side. And so it is just very difficult for us to see his expression, to be able to try to glean what is going on in his mind. I mean, I love that.

I love that you point that out. But that being said, that's just Aiman. And you and Mitchell said that to us exactly is like his goal is that you never know what's going on inside of Aeman's head. I thought that facade cracked a couple of times in this episode in a way I felt very satisfied to see. When he picks, when he reaches and picks up the small ball, he gives his mother a withering, I beat you look, withering. And it makes sense. Like how successfully could anybody contain that? I don't know.

What kind of game are you playing? If you're playing the long game, I don't know that you, again, that's sort of like parading a dragonhead through the street. It's like everyone knows you one. You don't need to like make a meal of it. It's got to feel good. I guess so. To stare down your thwarted foe slash mother even for a moment. To sort of blink them down? Yeah, exactly.

So we follow, we follow Agon's litter. It's kind of through the keep. We go up the stairs. We go down the hall. We go past Helena. I laughed again when I saw Helena. Helena's just like. Wild, wild stuff from Helena in this episode is always excited.

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Laundrae. Find yours at Target today. For the amendment that she has seen what happens. Oh, she definitely knows. Now, the question of like, as you've raised before in prior pods, like, does she see with clarity and context what is happening? Is it these sort of like out of context images and moods and glimpses? I mean, it's possible that she saw this happening like a while back, but didn't know exactly what it would be. And then when Egon comes back in a box, she's like, oh,

and Amon's like drooling over the throne, she's like, oh, yes, I see. Yes, right. Because it does make you think, like, could she have chosen to say something and prevent this? But I like the idea that it all kind of crystallizes. That one-eyed dragon that I had a vision of roasting the dragon with the crown on it. I guess that was what this was. He'll have to close an eye and wait a few extra seconds in the forest and then burn his brother while Kristen watches. Good stuff. So we get to see the horror on Allison's face as she watches them lower her little like roasted marshmallow getting ready for a s'more of a sun onto the bed. And of course, we were talking about like what would be going through Corliss's mind about the Allen conversation

after losing Renice. Well, there's a version of this with Allison too. We think back to that really harrowing, upsetting exchange that Allison and Egon shared before he flew off. So we have to imagine that she's playing all of that through her mind, again, that remorse of how she spoke to her son. And then what he did, will she get the chance to speak to him again? Wonderful to see that all playing on her face. Well, he's doing nothing, which is exactly what she has to do. Now he's doing nothing. It's going to be sitting there for a while.

Yep. You know, going to need some time to heal. Speaking of healing and the state of medical treatment in Kings Landing, got some highlights here from this excruciating. excitingly revolting scene that I loved. This was great. It's the peeling. The peeling was, I agree. So which was the grossest part of this to you?

Okay. First of all, we learned in the House the Dragons built that it took them six hours to apply these prosthetics. Do you know that we don't know for certain, but do you know what I bet was liberally applied here? What? K.Y. Jelly. Oh, for the pus.

Yeah. This was my favorite detail, I think, from learning. Not necessarily for the pus for, like, I mean, for the pus, but for like, Just the goopening. The sliming. You know what I mean? In the world of prosthetics, it's almost always K.Y. Jelly is what they use for this.

I'm dead serious. It was vivid. It was vivid. I really liked learning that they were operating under the instruction that it had been like at least 10 days on the march. And so the infection and rot had set in and the pus it needed to be abundant. Okay. Here's my... Abundant. Here's my thoughts and feelings on this.

Yeah. If it's to war then, we don't have a triage tent. We don't have a maister that travels with us to the battlefields. Yeah. We just leave him in his armor and let him roast. It does seem like we probably should have. Rosby and Stokeworth don't have a maister we can pop in and like utilize. Yeah, a little early restorative efforts.

Yeah. As we make our way back home. It's a good note. It's a good note. I mean, let Orwell do the, like, main, but like a little triage would be helpful. It seemed like they did nothing. Absolutely, nothing. I mean, he was completely, they had to peel off the plates of the armor.

So, okay, let's read the passage from the book that describes his state, because then I have a question for you. Yeah. His royal rider had suffered broken ribs, a broken hip and burns that covered half his body. His left arm was the worst. The dragon flame had burned so hot that the king's armor had melted into his flesh. do you think that part of the reason the armor was updated in the show to be Valerian Steel armor?

Yeah. Is to avoid having to do that effect moving forward. 100% because we thought they were going to have to, they were going to do it. And it was going to be really fun and that's why they spent so long designing it.

I was really looking forward to us. Yeah. And now they're like, well, Targaryen steel does it? Yeah. Oh, there is like some of the chain mail in the arm, so maybe some of that can make its way into the flesh. I'm not, I haven't given up hope yet.

Holding out hope yet. I haven't given up yet. Yeah. So in the book, as we knew and we're looking forward to, his armor melts into him. Just a wonderful touch from George. And that's just not what happens, simply not what happened here.

What did you think was grosser? The popping of the leg bone, revolting, the peeling of the armor plates off of the flesh, or specifically the great touch of Orwhile and Allison, raising their hands to their nose

that we know how rank Egon smells, Like Bannon, he is not. Not all roasted man flesh smells delicious. Gross. I think I still have to go with a goopening. It still has to be the goopy peel. The peeling and then the ooze of the blood.

Okay. That was a lot. That was a lot. Listen, I just want to say we got several emails about a question that has plagued probably George R. Martin since HBO first. started doing Game of Thrones. The question is, aren't Targaryen's fireproof? Right, they are not.

Mallory, in your long time covering this universe, how many times does someone ask you that question? Oh, a lot. Comes up all the time. Many times. All the time. It's because the show, the idea of DeNaris walking into the flames

with her dragon eggs, et cetera, is supposed to be a one-time, magical, wild and crazy things that happened. The fact that she then does it again and oops her clothes, burn off and she burns all the cows, but she's fine. Yeah. That's not supposed to have happened. And in fact, in the

book, at a different point, Dragonfire, like, burns all her hair off, like, Diniris herself gets burned by Dragonfire. So it is not true that Targaryens are fireproof. That George has said that many, many times, and I can understand why show, Watchers only would be

confused by that because it seems like, I mean, Viseris loves to say, fire cannot burn a dragon or whatever, like, all that sort of stuff like that, but no. You can bird a Targaryen. Yeah. You can turn, reducing to goo. Just remember a little Johnny boy and his burnt hand, you know?

Sure. Helpful data point right there at the start, at the start of all things. Yes, this is good to, good to refresh on this. Just a reminder. I will say, is this the last Targary that's going to get burned before all of a sudden done? You think in the Dance of the Dragons, there's no injury by flame ever again? They're like, oh, this is, oh, okay, we've gone too far. War over.

Sometimes your house burns, as Damon likes to say. Sometimes your flesh burns. Sometimes your king burns. It happens. So interesting that you say you're king and not your son, because Allison gave us the opposite. She said to Orwell, who is, I thought reasonably like, can we chat later? Yeah. I'm trying to save his life.

He's like, the silent sisters are here. Yeah. Everyone is waiting for the king. The silent sister's just standing there waiting for Egon to take his last shuddering breath was another great little touch. But Allison says, is my son going to die? We get that great little mummy egg on moment later when Allison's is just sitting there like by his sick bed. Allison's saying my son. We chronicled at length last week all of the things that have transpired between them. And you felt in that moment most of all, I thought, the remorse that she is carrying

for the nature of their relationship as mother and child. She doesn't say, as she might have elsewhere. How is the king? Is his grace going to recover? And so, like, there's a lot that we can understand about what's going through her head just from those two words. My son. She's probably feeling quite maternal towards Egonne's moment. I would say she's probably feeling the opposite to Eamond. She's not a fan of Eamon. When he comes in, the crowd, like, parts for him. Everyone is already, like, ready to treat him like the king. And the way he even positions himself at the edge of the bed, almost like he's like up at the podium about to preach to the masses. Yeah.

And he's like, someone will have to roll in his stead. So this is not going to be the last moment in the episode where we confront this, but in that line, the quickness, the haste with which he makes that observation, the kind of cold, unfeeling way that he says it, it does not seem that Amund One Eye, Amund Kinslayer, is carrying a lot of remorse for what he has done. done to his brother versus what he did to Luke. Yeah, which is interesting. Now, maybe we just haven't seen him in the circumstance where he would either process that or reveal that to something.

Right, where's Sylvie? Let's wait until he gets in front of Sylvie. Yes. Like, what do you think, though? Is it something he's just not allowing himself to interrogate and feel? Or does he not feel it? Because we know he said he felt bad about Luke, right? I think it's definitely a very different animal from Luke. Like, Luke was an innocent child. And this was an act of choice he made. Yes. And we talked before about this idea of Amund, like, cloaking himself in his own reputation. And, like, the boy we met at the end of season one who was like, Vagar, no, is not the man, kill the boy, let the man be born.

Like, is not the man who is eyeballing the throne in this episode. And he is just sort of like, whether or not he will have any kind of reckoning with that down the road. Right. You know, as we're seeing. Damon being sort of like pushed into reckoning with some of his actions. I don't know, but... This is not a moment for reflection. No.

Yeah, and it's interesting, too, because even though we hear him in the first episode of the season stated, Kristen, kind of resentfully, my mother blames me for this, but they were all plotting to steal the throne. Grace speaks with two tongues. Luke, he does have to, he does recognize and acknowledge that what happened with Luke set into, I mean, Simbegit Sin, not sure if you've heard.

It's hard to identify where this all started. But that was the accelerating and or, depending on your perspective, start of a thing, whereas this is like, we're in it now.

And so maybe that has some bearing too on what level of like culpability because this is about now winning. Agon flew into battle. So knowingly flew into battle. Your liability. An adult man flew into battle versus a kid trying to like desperately

do his mother's bidding to get peace on his little like hummingbird dragon, you know? Sweet air acts. Right. The first one was vengeance and personal, and this was like the liability of war. So it was so interesting talking to you and Mitchell last week about this idea. It never occurred to me that he would be harboring like specific resentment towards like someone like Rainis, who was, as he pointed out, in the room when he lost his eye and all these adults were there

and no one was advocating for him. Allison was advocating for him. She was the only one really advocating for him in that room. So the fact that he's resentful towards Rainis and Corlees and Rainier and Damon and all these other people. And it was basically like, I guess, Kristen and Alicent who were like on his team, I suppose. Like that all makes sense to me. Where do you think the like anti-Alicent rift start? Does it start post-Luque?

because we know from book context how Allison received, and we got a bit of show context in terms of like little snide remarks at small counsel. Do you feel like it was, do you feel like he was already out on his mom before the end of season one? Or was this a post-Luc her treating him as a monster? We've heard Allison say multiple times in this episode, like, you know what Aymond is. Yeah. I would trace it back to before an eye for an eye. I think that Amon's trace to me as a character who would not let go of the other laments and sources of resentment that he's carrying because you stood for him once, especially because so much of that scene, like, yeah, she is like, he's disfigured.

His eye has gone through it, but it's about, yeah, I know wasn't really about him. I know. He almost becomes, and I think he would clock that, like, he became for her in that moment just like another cudgel to use in her war with Renier. Whereas like before that, we get, he comes back from being bullied and humiliated at the dragon pit. And she's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why do you care about the most important thing for who you are as a person? I understand that. I just don't think that like I really feel like Allison had not a great, but like an okay relationship with Amund and a better relationship with Helena and a bad relationship with Agon from the start.

I think you're certainly right that it has devolved. further after Luke, but I think also like even thinking about what he voices to Kristen in the penultimate episode of season one during the quest for our for Agon, the race against the car house. Indeed. Indeed. Great murder cloak, though. I think even the fact that his mother was propping up this person who he thinks is a joke,

there would be a part of him that would say like, Well, what about me? Why can't you recognize that I'm the worthier son? I've studied history and philosophy. Philosophy, Joe. Oh, amen. What a wonderful character. Allison, wonderful character.

Team Green, as Chris is fond of pointing out, very interesting to watch. It's also interesting to watch the cleaning of a sword, as it were. Joe, when life gives you lemons, you know, we always say, clean the, 10-day-old rotting blood and flesh off your sword? I don't know it in front of me, but we did get a couple emails saying that this is actually quite a great trick for like scouring. Seemed like it? Maybe not your sword, but a pot and or a ban.

It seemed incredibly effective. I'm not going to judge any listener who might have a blood-incrested sword at home that needs cleaning, but who's to say how it got that way? But poss and pans, you need to scour them, use some lemon and salt. But here's a question. Yeah. Yeah. you and I both talked about this and Talk to Throne's

how much we love this as a visual as like a ritualistic sort of unclean you know the the clonliness of the white cloak yes comparing this to Allison scrubbing herself clean in the bath this sort of like out out damn spot lady Macbeth moment for both of them

like all of that great the pursuit of the purity that is completely elusive to them now we have several emails This will not be the last time I say that. Saying that it was painful to watch Chris and use lemons for this when the small folk are left with rotten citrus in the marketplace. That he's like, this is a cleaning supply.

And they're like, this is... The sustenance of life itself. Yeah. We're starving. And you're using salt and lemons to clean your sword. Fantastic observation. And cabbage leaves and or fish skins to kill your king. And we're starving.

Every time the small folk come up among the ruling members of the Greens, it's simply about what they will think of them, right? Well, look what I earned you with your dead son's funeral march. Look what you have risked and lost with your rat catchers. Okay, let's try this dragonhead gambit. When the small folk come up, when Orwell mentions them in this episode, it's like, we should really, this is getting like out of hand. We should really talk about it. It's all from Amon's perspective, we'll get to that scene later, obviously. Close the gates, lock them in.

Because they're leaving and talking shit about us, we can't risk spreading bad headlines. There hasn't been a moment. And it's interesting actually because this was, even if it was tactical rather than from some sort of like truly kind and nurturing spirit. Think of the number of times in Game of Thrones where it was like, can we count on the reach for wheat? Can we count on a part of striking an alliance with somebody was, are we going to be able to get enough sustenance to keep our people alive so that they don't turn on us? So that they don't riot in the street and they're shit at the king's face and tear the high septin limb from limb like they did in season two. And they're not thinking about it that way. So we can just deduce at this point.

It wouldn't occur to them to say, we have such a bounty should we share it? No, Marjorie's not here. That's a Marjorie move. Yeah. Marge. Oh, man. Or maybe even Otto would be like, let's send the queen and the dowager queen out into the streets with citrus and salts for all the people. Yeah.

Maybe just bring like one little basket, but make sure people see you handing out those lemons. The paparazzi will be called. Backgrid will be called and they will be there to capture the event. This is the like in vogue actor goes to Farmer's Market of Kings Landing. Love it. I love it. Absolutely wonderful. It goes to the library with his canvas tote.

Yeah. Great stuff. So, Joe, Allison does not, interested in making any small talk. Does not say to Kristen, like, glad you're okay. Good to see you alive. Brutal. One of the many brutal beats for Kristen in this episode. And she wants to know what happened. And Kristen gives the same official spin that we heard from the Herald, right? King fought valiantly. He did fucking great. He tried really hard. What a brave boy. That's so funny, because I heard that Ragar fought valiantly. And Rhaegar died.

Raygar died. Man. Brutal. No, this is great because it's so clear. I think you asked this question last week, and I can't remember, I think I gave you the wrong answer. I can't even quite remember what I said, but you were like, well, your bigger question was, who saw or was able to correctly interpret what they saw when Vagar rolled up on Sunfire? And let's be clear, if there's anyone on the ground that's able to correctly interpret what happened there, it would be Kristen. because he knew what the plan was supposed to be.

Yes. Right. And so he knew that it took Vagar a little too long to heave herself up from the forest floor and everything that happened from there. So when he's like, I could not say. Couldn't say. Well, I could, but I'm not going to. It's absolutely bullshit. And Allison knows.

Right. And it's, I could not say because I don't want things to unravel further. But also I could not say because, and we'll talk about this more and how this manifests in their riveting courtyard scene. What a series of conversations we've witnessed between these two and that courtyard, my goodness. A truly excellent Kristen Cole episode. Incredible. It hurt me to say it, but I said it. You said it and you looked into the camera so they know you mean it.

I'm fair. You are. You are. The personal guilt and regret that he is carrying for his role in this. And like we talked about this on Talk to Thrones. It's not like Eamon needs Kristen's permission, but from Kristen's perspective, this is the guy that he aligned with. to plot his war, and he has no ability to control or understand that. None. And so, like, I was revisiting that sequence and, like, the way that he's looking up when he sees him arrive.

I'm assuming, based on everything we watch from Kristen in this episode, that he saw the indiscriminate Dracarus, right, at a minimum. He didn't care what happened to his brother. And the other extreme is he actively tried to kill him. Open to interpretation, but came across him, with sword out by the king's body. Like he is carrying all of that with him in addition to just the fact that his plan, his secret mission that he was so proud of, oh, I've set this trap, resulted in this outcome.

Yeah, he's in desperate spin mode. He's like, this is great. Guess what? We got the head of a dragon. Yes. The king fought valiantly. Pay no attention to the fact that he's goo now. It's all fine.

Actually, a couple of our listeners. but Joe asked, just wondering if Allison really wanted the true story of what went down in the Battle of Rook's Rest, why didn't she ask her brother Gwain? I thought the main reason she is to stone in Gwain joining Cole was to keep tabs on him. To that last part, to be fair, that was just my interpretation of what happened in the courtyard scene. It was never overtly stated that Gwen was there. I have some other inns on my list that I wanted to visit, so I'll just hit the road again.

But it seemed like he was there to babysit Kristen Cole. But like the fact that Allison, I think as Freddie Fox fans in general, One line of Friday is just simply not enough. It's just not sufficient. We're a little dismayed that there is no interaction between Allison and Gwain post-Rook's Rest. What happened? It's interesting because... What did you see?

What was Chris and Cole like on the road? Like, blah, blah, blah. Like, wasn't he there to be eyes and ears for Team High Tower? This is a really, really good question that honestly had not occurred to me on first watching the episode. But now I kind of can't stop thinking about it. And I guess... So maybe we will see a conversation between Allison and Gawain later. We can only hope.

Who knows? But I think the only, the, the, my only explanation is, while Gawain would be the source of unvarnished truth that his sister could seek out and might even be eager to report on his, like, account of events, boy do I have a lot to fill you in on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We are so deeply invested in, we have just spent so much time with Kristen and Allison that actually we, I think it would be weirder to have. that missing, the conversation between the two of them. And so then it's like, well, that's my question is like, did they just feel maybe that that was one too many versions of the same conversation in an episode that is largely oriented around conversations about the choices and mistakes that people have made and

what they'll be allowed to do next? But, I mean, will I ever say no to Morgan Wayne? You won't. Come on. Absolutely not. Very quickly, can we talk about what Kristen says about Sunfire? You already quoted this line, the long and the dying? So I think people seem a little bit confused about this.

Our read on this is that because the line right before it is, I left Amiger Garrison behind to protect it and the king's dragon. Sunfire was long and the dying. So Kristen, I think, is just assuming that Sunfire will succumb to his injuries. Sunfire was taking a long time to die is how you should, you should. But that does not mean that he has died. The phrasing is antiquated, but if you substitute that with, I left Amiger Garrison behind to protect it and the king's dragon, Sunfire was taking a really long time to die.

Right. And he hasn't yet. So it might as well be like my guard dragon while he is. Yeah. Marching toward what I assume will be death is, I think, what Krista is saying here. Yeah. Okay. So Jace.

Let's go to Jase. He's hatching a plot and a scheme and a plot. Mallory and Juerre long in the podcast. Jase is doing the sulky Damon thing. Oh my God. The Palma work in this episode out of control. Like, we have been on Palm will watch all season, but this is just excellent Chris and call episode, excellent Jace episode.

Oh, fantastic Jace episode. So just fantastic. I'd say get this guy a doorway to lean, lean in against, like to do the full dam. But he doesn't need it. He's doing such great pommel work. Yeah, the pommel work. So he's marching off. Bala stops him.

What are you doing? He says he's going to go find him in at Harenhall to get him to affirm his loyalty to Reneera. And Bela is like, you're talking about my dad. This isn't going to work. And why do you think this is going to work? Let me give you my coddled princeling speech I've been working on it in the mirror. This was great. My mother gladly sends you away to scout to fight whilst I'm here being forced to play the coddled princeling.

It's humiliating, Bella. I love them. Me too. I think I love them both in this episode. Yeah, same. I would love a little bit more, we're young and hot and betrothed energy from them. You want them fucking. I mean, or something closer to, they seem very sibling-y, you know, their cousins or whatever.

But, like, I would love. of a little bit like we're engaged. Yeah. Let's go back up to that hill. The world's about to burn. Yeah. Let's do some tire practice. Yeah. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

A little crossbow action and a little hand exercise of a different sort. Why not? Who says no? I'm just saying. I see no flaws in the logic here. I like the coddled princeling thing a lot because we're talking a lot throughout this episode about like the parallels between where Allison finds herself and Reniro finds herself. Amos, Damon, et cetera.

It's fun to think about Jace and Rainier are really carrying the same resentment and longing for the same thing, but like Jace is still telling his mom, you can't go. You can't put yourself at risk, but then so deeply resents her not wanting him to go out into the field.

It also reminds, I mean, Amon and Damon are the parallels that we'll talk about a little bit later on in this episode, clearly, but between the Pommel acting from Harry Collette's Jace, so clearly mimicking Damon. I think also this idea of like you will, Damon saying to Viseris, you'll send me anywhere, you'll send me to the veil, send me to the watch, I just want to be by

your side, you know what I mean? And this is like, Jace's just being like, I just want to be of use. Yeah. Yeah. Let me go. Let me fight for her claim and mine. Yeah. And mine. Yeah. I, this is just a really, like you said, really good J-s episode. And I like to think, too, of the comps between not just the circumstances that they find themselves in currently, but young Reneer, of course on our mind because we've got to spend time with young Reneera and Damon's dreams this season. But Jace just flat out, it will work. We will be touting Jace's

like prodigy level skill as a diplomat later in the episode. Yeah, his model UN skills are out of control. Wonderful stuff. Very active in debate club. Yeah. The fact right. right now, though, here in this moment, is that he is disregarding what he was told. And he's taking his dragon to a bridge.

We love it. Just like Renair did. It's the exact thing Renair did. It's the exact thing we're near it. And there were so many moments in season one, including just the return from that dragonstone trip where Vassar was like, you're my heir. You can't get yourself killed. But also just in general, like the, oh, well, then you should not deprive yourself moment

after she called off the courtship tour early, right? Or you are my political headache. Like the fact that Renira was willful and would do the thing that she thought was right was a part of what won all of us to her. And we talked about this in the sense that like, and that's part of what attracted Damon to her as well. And with that absent, it's like it's affecting their relationship. Yeah. Like he called out in the episode two fight, she's reminding him more now of Viseris. Oh, yeah, 100%.

But I think what's interesting is that Jase is having a much more, a much different relationship with his parent than Reneera had with hers. Like, Viseras was more involved in her life than he was with any of his other kids, but he was still. My only child? Yeah, but he was still quite absent, you know, absent most with Darren, the boarding school kid. but everyone, you know, like, so, but Reneer is, she's a loving, like, active parent with Jace. It's a different dynamic. Yeah, helping him with his lessons when he's upset with himself that he can't learn his Valerian quickly enough, etc. So a light bulb goes off here for Jace.

All right, forget Heronall, forget Damon. Go to the twins. Go into the twins. Nothing bad has ever happened at the twins. It's always fine. Let's go. Let's go deal with the phrase. They're cool.

It'll be chill. I don't want to marry the frigg. The Gravehards that he secured from Craig and Stark. Craig, big Craig. Yeah, Craig. Of course, okay. Their margin south, they're going to need to cross a crossing that he can secure by going to treat with the phrase. And we quickly shift from Bela trying to stop him from going to saying like, yeah, I will keep your confidence.

I won't mention this until you're gone. Just one more other lovely moment between them. Delightful. Jace. Bela. Young love. I mean, again, I would love it to be sparkier. It feels like love, like young affection, and I will like it to be...

You think they've fucked yet? The world's about to end. They should, right? Coupling. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. Coupling. Whether they would fuck out on the hillside or any cozy confine on Dragonstone, I can't say.

But what I can tell you is that Damon is finally getting some fresh air. I wish I could tell you that it would be improving. his mental state, not so. I'm obsessed with, there's so much behind the scenes, it's like, Wales, what a country, right? But I'm obsessed with the visual we got in the behind the scenes. They took the dragon, like...

The buck. The buck. He got to ride the book out in the field. The buck out of the studio and plonked it in this, like, Welsh field. And it's just Matt Smith being like, I got to get wet again. It was great.

I loved it. I'm not sure if you've heard. Hates me and hot. Loves being wet. Loves being wet. It loves being good. Thank you. Or rainy countryside.

That was amazing. So I was like, how did they get these eyelines, right, and everything? If they're doing this and the volume and everything else is out on location? No, they just brought the buck out

into the field. They sure did. Sensational stuff. It was wonderful. Stone Hedge, we were wondering if we would see Stone Hedge. Here we are on Bracken Land, the castle in the distance.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Seenery. Beautiful. You're Welsh. I am Welsh. Yeah. This was lovely.

Thanks. Let's add this to our tour. I'll take that back to my people. So Damon is out here for a couple reasons. One, he is ultimately trying to like honor his pledge to Willem. Take care of the brackens and the Blackwood swords are yours. But for Damon, it's not just take care of the brackens for the Blackwoods. It's let me win these swords to my side. Right. I'm here for swords, not corpses. This is a fascinating scene. We get a couple of those trailer lines that were just instant. like pantheon moments for us and we couldn't wait to see. Oh, your housebush? Which did you ultimately like more in the context of the show? Or your house burns or I didn't think they would be so eager to die. Oh, your house burns is just...

I did not think they would be so eager to die is so delightful when coupled with the visual of him and his like full armor just sort of like plunk down. On the rock. On a rock. You know, just looking so like... Having to think on a rock. Happeless. That was great.

I think that was my favorite. This is all part of a larger Damon conversation that I want to have a little bit later on in our discussion, so I'll save it for then, but I'll just say, like, just real ineffective stuff from Damon here. We have some notes. Just really, like, missing the mark, the anti-diplomat. And then also, in terms of, like, undermining your own authority, if he's like, follow me or burn, and they're like, we choose burn.

And then you do nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Why would they take your threats seriously? Where's your authority? Yeah. No, it's a confounding Damon episode in a few respects. I did really, well, we're going to share some of the questions and critiques of the later scenes.

Not the dream where he fucks his mom, to be clear. That was flawless. I genuinely have no notes on that. But this scene I did really love because, like, this felt, so we have questions about, is this where we thought things were going with Damon later? Here, like, this feels true to me. The fact that he is behaving sort of haphazardly and recklessly, that he's not like you're identifying. playing out the string of like what are the ramifications of not following through, especially if you're the guy who just breaks out Dark Sister and cuts off Vaman's head in the throne room.

And you typically are too rash in one direction. This is almost like contrary to that, right? He's more passive here than we would expect, but that feels as reckless in some ways. Losses Mojo. But ultimately we get to see that it is because he has a plot, a scheme, a scheme, a plot. A couple things struck me here. One, the fact that... But that's something he comes up with on the fly.

It wasn't like his long game. But that's what that part feels true to form to me for Damon. Like that's very blood and cheese 2.0. The fact that he is like, first of all, basically Willem Blackwood, who he met five seconds ago in a drug adult conversation that he couldn't track in real time is like his go-to assigned sword now for, okay, well, you can't get the brackens to you can't necessarily engage in. them in battle, try a different type of persuasion. The fact that he is making the same mistake with, like, trusting somebody else that he doesn't really know to enact a plan that he's crafting in real time. Is this like a step up from the like rapy gold cloak and the stranger rat catcher? A lord of the house that you're aligning with is better than blood and cheese. But at the end of the day,

he's sort of issuing this like vague edict. He literally says like, you take my meaning then. Do he? Does he? What reason does Damon have to believe that? Especially because in the fourth episode, he's the one who said, so you fight for this old oath, meaning to Reneira and Viseris. Not, of course, for your thousand-year-old feud with the Brackens. Like, he actually was on guard for this and still let this happen. Well, we have to just assume that he's like high out of his mind at all times through all of this. This is why I thought the fresh arre might, like, clear his head a little bit. No? But I think also, and I agree. And I agree. What I did love, so we got concerned emailed from listeners before the season started about, like, what would Damon's storyline be this season? And there's a lot about his storyline that we could like. And I'm not going to eat into, like, us discussing this later. Yeah.

But one of the quotes that was sent over from our concerned listeners was, like, from Matt Smith himself, talking about how Damon is just sort of like slower, like, you know, just off his game this season. Yeah. And Mathismus seemed like he didn't quite, like, I think he preferred playing the, like, you know, the rogue prince, the dashing, you know, firebrand. And here he's like, I'm drugged and I'm drooling and I'm fucking my mom and I'm making mistakes out in the fields of whales. But I think that what I did love is in this exchange with Willem, this ill-advised scheme, he's got his little, like, smirky smile on his face that he loves to put on when he's just doing, he knows he's doing a bit. bad thing. Hatch and mischief. Yeah. Yeah. Just impish. Absolutely. What a scamp of war crimes.

He is a scamp is perfect description. I liked two that we can feel how Damon admires something that he sees and someone else that reminds him of like this aspect of himself, right? Like the fact that he says they would rather burn than succumb exactly the kind of man I need. He's not. mad at the brackens. This just makes him long even more fervently for their allegiance because they ignore him, because they say, fuck you. They call Karaxie's Willem Blackwood's Higher Dragon. This is so insulting and part of this larger portrait across these episodes and this one in particular of like the River Lords and the Riverlands is a place that isn't really drinking the

Targary and Kool-Aid the way that a lot of other places are. And he is drawn to that and would build in this episode to him saying later, like, you know, anyone can be led if you give them a reason. He thinks he's going to be the guy who can amass an army of demons and win the war, which is just astonishing. And there are things the crown itself must not be seen to do, which will mirror the Masaria. Council to Renira. That's a great idea.

Absent all the details in particular. Yeah, if you're just talking to Will and Blackwood, I suppose, you should say, so don't fly our banners. So what I mean by the crowd cannot be seen to do it is definitely don't fly our banner. And to be clear, don't assume that they'll think it was Agon's banner because he's changed to us. Wild stuff from Damon. Yeah, incredible, incredible demon stuff. Really, really tough.

Really tough. Whales, though. Sheesh. Beautiful. From one gorgeous locale to another, Joe. The veil. The veil. Pull up your hood.

Memorable shade. We're going to the veil. We get to see the redesigned Erie. This was really fun for us. We get to see Stone and snow and sky and the bloody gate and glimpse the giant's lance. This is a really fun setting to return to and see the slightly redesigned Erie. And, of course, as we'll also be the case with twins later in the episode, you know, as Game of Thrones fans, we are bringing all of these memories and associations from our times

in these locations, which were, for both of those spots, make the bad man fly. Often grim. Often grim. Fewer nursing tweens. Yeah, definitely fewer. Zero, as far as I can tell. In this episode, so that's dismaying. But great stuff from Lady Jane. I was sad, as you know, that we didn't get to see Jay's trip to treat with Lady Jane. We basically got all of the things that we were looking forward to seeing in that potential scene in this scene between Jane and-

kind of. Yes. In terms of like what is driving her. I will say, I really like this actress who plays Jane. I've liked her in other things. This didn't land with the same splash. This fell a little inert to me this exchange. I do like there's sort of like common cause that they find with each other.

And I'm hopeful for like Raina in the veil and whatever that might. bring, but Jane, I don't think, is, like, leaping off the page the way that, like, Simon Strong did or a Gwynne High Tower did instantly, or an Ulf did, you know what I mean? Or, well, did Craig, like, leap off the page for you? Yes, I was like, I cannot wait to genuinely cannot wait to spend more time with Craig and Stark. Can not wait. I understand, like, wanting to spend more time with the North and Winterfell and all those or stuff like that. Craig was pretty good.

I just think that, like, if we're ranking the new characters, it's like Alice and Simon and Ulf, you know, like, these are the all-killer, no-filler. You know what you mean? And then you get to, like, Craig and Jane, et cetera. But this fire and blood passage of what Lady Gin says to Jace. Yes. Thrice have my own kin sought to replace me. My cousin, Sir Arnold, is wont to say that women are too soft to rules.

I have him in one of my skiesills if you would like to ask him. Great stuff. The borders of that sentiment is there in the conversation with Raina, but my cousin is in the sky cells if you want to ask him would be such a bitching thing for Lady Jane to say in this scene, and she doesn't. Good stuff. We do need a little more of that, like Thor families can be tough. Energy from other parties.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not just the Targaryens who want to tear each other down. Raina, she is doing what we're near asked, right? She's not only getting the kids, the dragons, the eggs, up to the veil, until she can write to Prince Regio. She's asking for those 15,000 swords. Now, I wanted to ask you about this. I want to talk about the like still-up from the egg dragon thing, etc.

But when we, one of our series-long areas of interest has been, Reneira the ally maker, Reneer the diplomat, Reneer the relationship tender. Do you think that this, This is the Rina go and remind Lady Jane that she promised us 15,000 swords. Like, does this give you a whiff at all of the Barathean miscalculation at Storm's End remind Lord Boris of his oath? Like, Renera has a lot of remind this person via emissary that they told me they would do this thing.

Yeah, but I think we're meant to take that later when she sends Bela to Corliss that that was the right move. So, like, in some instances, her sending these emissaries, sending Jace was the right move. For sure. You know, just because Luke was too wet from the egg to complete that mission. Like, you know, so I think in some of these cases, the emissaries that she's picking and choosing are the right ones. And there's ways in which, you know, Raina and Jane, like, I don't think, like, a tough act of aggression would have worked with Jane the way that Raina like, guess what? I also mislike feeling powerless. So there's a reason which I think Rana is actually like the right person for the job here. I can understand if you're like,

hey, Reneira, maybe you could yourself go sometimes and instead of say, remind, say like sort of entreat or something like that. That's the thing. It's more the second thing. Yeah. I think ultimately actually Reneira needs more people she can rely on, which is part of the text of this episode, right? Like, I do not wish to stand on my own. Like, I think I will have to rely on you more. That actually, I think, is a good and welcome thing for Renera. I'm pretty sure that, like, Raina won't just, like, ghost her the way that Damon has when he went to Heron Hall. I think Raina's going to return the Ravens from the veil. Probably so. Needing to answer, Alfred, because Damon won't text you back, is just a rough place to be. But, yeah, I think it is

that the specific framing, because sending Jace was right and good, Jace, we'll talk about it later in the fray scene, but one of the things that really stood out to me of like emblematic of Jace's approach, when they mentioned Veigar and he's like, what about mine own dragon right there? There's Vermex. He's not issuing it.

The threat is implied. Of course, it's tacit. But he is able to spin it right away as a bridge between them, as the carrot, not the stick. He's able to say, and so I can protect you. And I think that that's. And also Caraxis. Damon and they'll just do what he's told.

If my dragon looks a little young, may remind you we also have Caraxies. Good old Caraxies. Great to see Caraxies. Also, Har and Hall. Do you want Haranol? Man. Man. Yeah.

But you want Heronel? Man. Wet from the egg. What do you think of this read? But also, Drogon didn't have to fight an adult dragon when Drogon was a baby. Correct. I do not think that Tiraxies and StormCloud at their current sizes are going to be ready to fend off a vagar attack. Obviously, that is not something that we have any reason to believe is true.

Or literally any adult dragon. But. Dreamfire, who may or may not even exist anymore. In general, you would be the envy of the realm. If you had two dragons, you're not a Targaryen and you have two dragons at your keep, I think she is undervaluing. But this all gets back to the like, is Reneira working and massaging these relationships the right way? Because I think there's a way to position that, not as why are you being such an ingrate, but it's like, yeah, I've over-promised what Rainer tries to do.

But is there, could there have been a, or not? Is the re-Rinera actually is trying to basically exploit a loophole in the Dragon Agreement? And Jane is calling her out on it. It's a fascinating one. Fascinating one. I miss like feeling powerless. you can feel how this would be true for so many people, right? We have the history in the veil.

Vesnia during the conquest, flying in on Vagar, taking the air, Ronald Aaron, the air to the veil, bouncing them, bop at them on her knee to just say there's nothing that you can do to avoid our dragons. We can reach you wherever you are, right? Impregnable, though you may think your castle is. It's not just Bron and his climbing spikes in his ten men. It's Vecena and her dragon. I like that that tie was present for Raina and the way that we've explored with her, the mission, Rennerosens are on the conversation that she has with Bela, where she's like, do not copy me.

Like, at least do me that. Show me that decency. Raina is feeling powerless. And these characters who aren't on dragons, like, I continue to be interested in how the show is showing us the different ways that the characters who aren't writers are contributing and are essential actually to the effort. but also how they feel maybe inadequate in the face of that might. And also for Raina because she doesn't have this dragon,

and that has been such a source of pain for her, there would be this aspect of like, how dare you not appreciate the fact that you have two dragons now? Like, this is the most precious thing in the world and my life has been defined by seeking it that felt present there as well. Joe, let's chat about Rainira. We're going to go a little out of order here.

the Black Council scene into the Masaria conversation because that is a debrief of this kind of shocking confrontation that Reneira and Sir Alfred have in front of the assembled. This is one that like another thing just like really felt too like on the nose.

Like you do not think that he would actually say after some marital spat or it is merely the gentler sex heretofore has not been much privy to the strategies of battle to his liege in front of the assembled counselors. I mean, like, listen, as someone who has had, like, men talk down to me in my life or whatever, I'm not saying that, like, this doesn't happen in the world. I'm just saying, like, with Alfred especially, they're just, like, putting their foot on the gas so hard with this character that I'm like, I get it.

Yeah. This guy sucks, and he thinks women are dumb. Yes. This did give me, like, do you really know anything about sports vibes? Do you get that? I think it's a very common thing for women in sports media. I really feel sure that Alfred is not inviting any women to his feelings. fantasy football league. So,

Renair goes into this conversation with Masaria. Renice, dead. Yeah. Right? Damon. Gone. Jace on his secret little rogue mission. Masaria increasingly across these recent episodes has become Renira's confidant. Yes. And Renira laments to her.

The way that her counsel treats her and it was interesting when Massaria asked, like, are they blaming you? She's like, I would prefer they did because that would be almost the product of an active thing, right? Right. Feeling kind of like the prisoner of. of this passivity. And she laments specifically the fact that Viseras did not prepare her for the fight, the battle.

We saw Vesaris watching the boys in the training yard. This is the stuff, Lionel. Right. Reinar didn't get that version of that. And like one of our introductory moments with the character, she's flying down on Syrac, she goes to visit her mom in the birthing bed. And she says to Emma in the first episode of the series, I'd rather serve as a night and ride to battle in glory. We have royal wounds, you and I, her mother says. The childbed is our battlefield.

So this is like one of our earliest understandings of Rearie's mocking her for just being a cup bearer. You know what I mean? Yeah. That bummed me out, honestly, the cup bearer part of it, to hear that redeployed here as like a lament from Reneera. I was made to learn the names of the great lords and the castles and fill a cup and stand by. And it's like those are worthy things. Those are meaningful things.

You should have gotten that in addition to this other thing. But it has been assumed by the resentment about the absence of the other. Right? You know? Certainly not. Or if it was on offer to him, he did not. He could have used it. Certainly the cup bear was not an offer, but the tutelage was.

This definitely, this disparity is definitely like something that, again, it's very much like on the nose in terms of a lot of things in this episode. But this idea of disparity between a male and a female heir in George R. Martin's work, we talked before about Circe and how Circe was treated versus how Jamie was treated. Another example is like Catlin and Edmere, right? Catlin was going to be the heir before Edmere came along. But like Catlin was never given the training that Edmere was given. And so it's just sort of like this has been something that like George's characters have been thinking about for as long as he's been writing a song of Ice and Fire. And it's, you know, it is interesting to me. I am curious.

I'm curious, though, the Vesnia thing, which you have been, you know, flagging all season, is so interesting to me for them to say, for anyone to say that, like, women aren't part of battle or whatever in the Targaryen family is bizarre when these women, you know, Vesnia, you know, especially. But like, these Targaryian women have been warriors. Yeah. In the history. Yeah, Warriors end, like, you know, you've noted before Jeharis and the Good Queen Alassane, that Alassane was like as active a guiding hand during that. She was the co-region.

Rain. Yeah. And so I like that Renira is trying to connect to that aspect of her history. Yeah. And, you know, it was interesting. The Path Eye Walk has never been trod line to Masaria, like as she's staring at that dragon skull to carry both of those truths inside of her at once to be thinking about Vesenia, to be thinking about a sword and a rider and a warrior who was as impactful and consequential

as Egon the Conqueror was himself during the conquest. And then also in tandem with that to be able to say, but the exact thing I'm trying to do. Yes. Has never been possible before. We had Alassain who was, I said co-regional, co-ruler essentially. We had a queen regent before that, but we have never had just a queen with her king consort. It's why Damon's like, should we workshop these titles? Yeah, I've got some thoughts on the titles.

Yeah. Do we need that last bit, the consort bit? Speaking of putting a spin on things, workshop and ideas, Masaria has a positive spin to put on the blunder from the Greens. Kristen made a mistake. The people see an ill omen is how Masaria puts it. and describes to Roneira the dire straits that we have glimpsed in Kingslanding. Their fear of this portent, the impact of the blockade, Reneira's response is, that going to help me tear down stone and break shields?

And Masaria knows that the answer to that question, definitively without doubt, can be yes. Steve, let's hear this. Do not underestimate your subjects. They are a thousand, thousand living in the shadow of the Red Keep and forgotten for too long. Then you think they will turn to me. To the discontented, rumors are feed. Your grace, what you cannot do, let others do for you.

There is more than one way to fight a war. So what do you make of this? We have the mirror to Damans let others do for you. Yeah. We have Masario's ongoing focus on the small folk. Yeah. Whisper campaign. We see Alinda head out, you know, in the red hood and make her way eventually to Diana.

What I love about this is that, yeah, we see Alinda roll out, but Masaria clearly already has contacts. She's got her ears on the ground already of what's happening in Kings Landing. So she's got a whisper network already in effect, which is great. And I love that we see Alinda and her Red Hood go out. Diana, who we saw at the tavern, who was, you know, the young woman who was sexually assaulted by Aigon, the king, who is now goo. And at least one gold cloak, right, is in Masaria's, you know,

pocket. And so, or owes her. And so... Right, Adet mentioned, yeah. I love this. Yeah. I love wondering how long Diana. Diana has been working for Masaria. I love wondering how long Alinda,

if Alinda has been, if her working relationship with Masaria predates, you know, this current, I floated that on Talk to Thrones, but I kind of like this idea. You pointed out that usually, like, Alinda Massey is like a highborn lady. She's not like, you know, Diana.

She's not like, you know, she's not a Talia. But like, I kind of like this idea that Masaria got to her, got to Alinda, you know, just sort of like, be my eyes and ears. And especially we're drawing a comp between the let others do for you parallel to Damon. But that then is such a delicious contrast. Masaria waiting patiently.

Oh, she's been cultivating these relationships. Building that fire carefully so that it will last. And Damon just going for the quick ignition that will. Hi, who are you? Want to commit a bunch of atrocities? Not in my name. I know which one of them is going to win the firemaking challenge and survivor. And it's not Damon.

despite being a dragon rider. On the Masaria small folk front, you know, because we've chatted many times before about how some of those moments were not successful in season one, like her just making this big pitch to Otto and episode 9. I think she learned from it. This is where I am with it now, too. The adjustment that she's made,

but also then now if we look at the long, not only like her network and her campaigns, but the personal relationships inside of these larger quests, like she and Renera once again discussed Damon here. They obviously both have relationships with him. And so if we think back to the moment where she challenged him on Dragonstone after the fake marriage stolen egg bit... I don't...

I choose not to remember that. No, but now that's a scene that is like improved in my estimation because accent watch aside. When she said to Damon, I didn't come into your service wanting gold or power or station, I came to you to be liberated, liberated from what? fear, we have an understanding of how, even though there's a tone we don't know about her history still, her personal relationship to fear? To feeling like a part of this game that the High Lords play has influenced her view not only on her own future and allegiances why she picked Renera.

I think it's why the throat scar is so evocative. Yes. And you're still on, I don't want to know, corner. Of what happened there? Yeah, I don't think we need to know specifics. I like it. I like it. Anything else on Alinda and Diana? We're not going to come back to that later. So anything else that you want to hit here in terms of... I'm just excited to see what these babes get up to Kings Landing. Me too. Me too. Renair and Bela. A quiet moment to remember Rainis. This was a lovely little scene. And I think it was so important not just to like set up the Corleys and Bela conversation, but also to underline that thing that Baila says later to Corley's, which is like she wasn't just your wife to

lose. Again, it's similar to like, I would like to see Allison talk to her. brother when he comes back from Rook's rest. I really wanted someone to talk to Bela about what it meant for Reney to not be there anymore. Because she was not just her granddaughter, but her ward. Her word, yeah. The closeness there. This is like her

mother in effect. And so I just love that moment of mothering from Reneira who is doing such a better job of being a parent to those girls. Well, you can argue about Rana.

then Damon has been to the strong boys. I was really glad for her ghost dream, Lena, to show up later. Your daughter? Checked in on our kids? No? No? Just dreaming about fucking your mom? Okay.

Yeah, and this is, this scene was a really great one for showing us how, reminding us of the challenges that are near our faces, I have challenges enough. I'm sure if you've heard of it challenges enough. But the way that she is able to navigate the different things that are required of her. She actually does have to deploy Bela here, but also reminisce and show a tenderness. And I really liked how this scene captured something that felt true to life where, like,

you're mourning and you're grieving and you're working through your loss and then you sit down. You don't just talk about how you're sad. You talk about the happy memories, like the memories of strength when you got to see somebody do something great. And not only is that an effective way to mention Alyssa Targary and right before we see Damon fucking her in his dreams. but it helps us understand how like Renese's impact would be felt by both of those women in her orbit and also how her legend will stay alive beyond this, which was really cool.

And the line where she says you are very like her in some ways really hit me, especially in such close proximity to the Alyssa Damon scene because this idea of like the stories we tell about the people after they're gone and the ways in which you know, younger generations in the family are told, oh, you're just like her or you remind me of her in some way. And we know that that is something that Damon has heard about his own mother.

Yes. That Damon was told Alyssa stories. You know, he was either three or four when she died. So, like, told Alyssa stories and told that he was like her. Yeah. And this is the gift that Rainier is giving Baylor right now. I love that. That's beautiful.

And I really love, too, the moment where Bala said, I wished I had known her when she was young. because we've had a lot of moments in the series so far where we were on one extreme or the other. Egon is casting Otto out because he's fucking old. He's out of touch. He's writing letters, I want to spill blood, not ink. Or the opposite, where the seasoned members of our story, Renice is going to set that note,

balls full of seed, fistful of steel, the hot blood. And this felt like a really important recognition of the fact that it doesn't always have to be that way where like a character like Bayla could simultaneously hear that from Reneira, except that gift from her of that line and that exchange. Say, I wish I had known her because she wants to, she wants more proximity and access to that time in her life, not because it means she doesn't understand something about her or Reneas felt out of touch

because she's actually like longing for a deeper sense of who she wants. of who she was and how they're alike. I thought that was like really lovely. Really lovely. And then this is where we get the handing of the pin. And the I do not wish to stand alone moment for Nero, which felt huge and like something that like a lot of characters who are struggling would not be able to say out loud,

would not be able to arrive at that moment where they can say, I actually do need help. I can't do this on my own. Yeah. And I think it's interesting to think about coalitions versus not, you know, like, Jace is an important part of Rainier's coalition versus like, what does Eamond have? Yeah. People who are afraid of him.

Had Sylvie, but no longer. One horror is as good as any other. Yake. Sad. Speaking of sex. Okay, good. I was like, how are you going to segue to that? Be respectful of Alyssa Targaryen, please.

Folks, we are delighted to say. that Alyssa Targaryen is in the story, but we do regret to inform you that Damon is dreaming that he's eaten out his own mom. Wild stuff here in episode five of season two of House of the Dragon. Way tough. My goodness. Damon, he's not alone either, Joe. You know, we've been talking about this isolation, but no. He's wrapped around mom, naked and indwine, in his dream. We're going to talk about all of this, but before we do, let's just hear this dream sequence. You were always the finest swordsman, Dragon Rider. Your brother had great love in his heart, but he lacked your constitution.

This eras wasn't suited for the crown, but you. Damon, you were made to wear it. Right. If only had been born first, my favorite son. Normal stuff. Why didn't you make us sit through that fully? Every second felt important. And it was.

Okay, so we're going to talk about what this means. But before we do, let's talk about who this is Damon's mom. Alyssa. Targaryen, Joe. Okay, I think first and foremost, I, okay, so book readers will say, First and foremost, Damon's dreaming, he's fucking his mom. Anything else is second. You've already said that nine times, so I think we covered it.

Have we? Book readers will say, we'll cry. This is not what Alyssa Targaryen looks like. Yeah. And I actually think it's kind of the point. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's described in the books as with a dirty blonde tangle of hair with no hint of silver, mismatched eyes, one violet the other green, her ears too big, her smile lopsided,

a whack across the face from a wooden sword broke her nose. It healed crooked, right? So she is like a scrappy, you know, tomboy, like unusual beauty. That being said, she and her brother. Baylon. Baylon. Those siblings really loved the shit out of each other. They loved the shit at each other.

They loved each other. Since they were children. The Targs. They love each other. I think I, the one note I would have, so I think it's interesting that he's like, instead of a dirty blonde with a broken nose and lopsided. To be fair, we don't know that he didn't see a dirty blonde tangle with no hint of silver anywhere. Okay, cool.

But I know, but okay, cool. But I think that the mismatched eyes, I wish they could. I kind of wish they had kept because that's something he definitely would have been told about. Yes. And it's as easy as popping, like, a contact in. But I think that him remembering her, because he's no way of knowing exactly what she looked like because he was three or four when she died. And they don't have photo albums. As this, like, Targaryan supremacist sweat dream is, like, very appropriate.

Wonderful stuff. A dragon rider. Love to ride. Love to ride. Love to ride. Her husband, brother. Want to read any passages that definitely didn't scar Chris Ryan for life? Okay.

I mean, first we should say, so she took the kids flying when they were like days old. She just wrapped them to her chest, Vassaris and Damon, the two kids that she had that made it. Yeah. RIP. And she flew around on mailies with them when they were mere babes. Um, Viseris, like, by the way, loved this, which is, like, so odd that he, like, didn't like Dragon Rite later. Doesn't it break your heart to- It's very sad. Read that passage?

Yeah. Um, and then, yeah, this is what happened when she claimed her drug when she was 15, I think got married also when she was 15. Quite a year for her, right? Um, and this is, this is what happens. Quote, The bride's sounds of pleasure could be heard all the way to Duscan Dale. Alyssa Targaryen was his body a winch as any. And now we know how far that. I know exactly.

That's why I thought it was an important detail to add. You didn't have the full quote. I put Dusk and Dale in there. Alyssa Targaryen was his body of wench as any barmaid in Kings Landing as she herself was fond of boasting. I mounted him and took him for a ride, she declared the morning after the bedding. And I mean to do the same tonight. I love to ride. And this is not just the wedding night, though, because years later in their marriage, quote,

the same shrieks of pleasure that had echoed through the halls of the red keep on the night of their bedding. were heard many of another night in the years that followed. These two, like Corley's and Rainies, how rock and sex life. This is part of why we talked about this at the time, but now we have the Alyssa perspective to add to it, where when we heard Ulf's boast,

and who knows about Baylon? About being Baylon. Like a lot of book readers were like, Baylon the Brave. I mean, shout out to our listener, Sam, who sent like a really long email that was all about how much Alyssa and Baylon were obsessed with each other. Our colleague, Riley Mackey,

has been very hung up on like would Baylon fucking other woman. So it's, I mean, Alyssa, she's, I mean, she did die. Baylon lives 17, for 17 years after Alyssa died. So that's just, anyway. And she died, we should say, in childbirth, well, soon after. Yeah, the effects. The third, you know, son that she was trying to give. And, like, Baylon's like, she's like, this is what I do.

You do battle. I do this. I give you babies. She's like, let's have a ton of babies. And like Emma, she died, you know.

So when you see Damon in that dream with blood on his hand, by the way, again, I'm going to shout out our friend of the potashia over history of Westrose.

She's just want to point out that there's always blood on one hand. It's not on both hands. It's on one hand and it's the hand he used to choke red era. Incredible observation there.

Iconic. stuff from Ashaia as per usual. And that's a help really actually feels like a crucial detail for us to be holding on to him or processing what Damon is working through and the way that his like shame for what he did is influencing what he's parsing. He's got various

blood like Lena that's not really his fault but I'm sure we could figure out how to make it his fault. Gerriss is definitely his fault all the stuff that Rainier has to deal with. His mom is not, you know, she didn't die giving birth to him. Right.

But like, you know. So this one feels more about a lot of people are telling me how I fucked up. And I would like my mom to tell me that I'm the special golden boy. From Matt Smith in this sequence. Such a good boy. Yeah, you're doing great down there. Such a good boy. God's just being good.

The look on Matt Smith's face. Because we cut in and out of these very intimate moments and just like him in a almost stupor of jubilation as his mother is telling him that he was the strong one and the one who was worthy of the crown. What I really loved about this is like, yes, he's like, this is the best. Love to fuck my mom. Extremely hot Targaryan woman, who is my mom, is telling me I'm the best. And we're having great sex and it's wonderful.

Yeah. Suck it Ranira. I'm great. I'm so good. Genorous lover, at least in his dreams. Nice to see. But the fact that at the very end he's like, oh wait, it's my mom was sort of how I interpreted his look at his face. And I've never had a dream like this. But like we all have those experiences in a dream where you're like, this is fine, this is great, this is normal.

And then like you wake up and you're like, wait, that was what I was dreaming about. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my favorite son hit him. It hit him. He was like, oh, no. Do you have any thoughts on Oedipus Rex or Freudian? I did look up. Yeah.

I told you that I would spend some time with Freud between now and that. Well, first of all, from Epis or Freud? Most of Freud's theories have been wildly, like, debunked and rejected by the psychiatric community. But there is this idea that, like, to dream of having sex with a parent, which is, I guess, a fairly common dream. Yake on bikes. Fairly common. Yeah. is to dream of like approval.

Well, and so... Which is exactly what we have here. Yes. The, not only like, we, I was thinking back to the now in hindsight, very prescient mailback question that we got about Damon's love language and Renera's love language. And we talked about words of affirmation. And so to feel how true that is for him, how desperately he needs that, especially because the other people in his life are, they're pathetic.

Reneiro tells Alfred later, like, I tell Damon, I'd like to continue our last conversation. Well, that was how it ended. Yeah. So what feels better? Your wife slash niece telling you you're pathetic, explaining to you quite clearly how you have brought about the ruin of her campaign? Yeah. Or your mother. Fearless dragon rider.

Telling you what an expert swordsman you are. Indeed. What should say, by the way, that even for the Targaryens, Oh, yeah, this is for both. Mother and son. This is a no. No. Even the Targaryens would be upset by this.

There's possibly like one example of this. But for the most part, this is like, and I love that, that like the writers in order to find something really edgy for something for David a dream about had to get like, they're like, well, what's, what is left that is taboo? Oh, man. Yeah, I, this was great. Yeah. Facerriss's words about Alyssa in season one on your mind here? Yeah, of course. He knew.

You were always mother's favorite. It's no great mystery. You were. Our mother, she had no regard for customer tradition rules. And I sadly was no. great warrior. Are you, sorry, just really quickly, it's just been on my mind since I first saw this. No, this is very innocent.

Do you know what this mother's brothers are? You do? They're like a comedy act from like 1960s. My dad was like obsessed with them. And like one of their most recurring bits was mother always did like you best. And I've just been thinking about that. Any incest humor? Not that I know of, but I mean, perhaps it's worth going back and taking a listen to this mother's brother's comedy routine.

Mother always did like you best is definitely what the energy Vassarius is bringing there. Love when something comes up from the archives, whether it's Mother's Brothers or a Goose Duck callback. Cutting right from this dream to Simon penetrating from reality, different kind of penetration than what we got in David's dream to the meat. Damon says he doesn't have an appetite. For any of it. Ain't enough a mom? What do you think? Gross.

So the... I'm so sorry. You're not. The callback you're mentioning is that when Rainier and Lainor were meant to be engaged and they're taking a stroll on the beach and she's like, I think you are gay and that's okay. And we'll just figure it out and it'll be fine. Yes. And it really would have been if it hadn't been for those medals of High Towers. You know, it made me really sad thinking that Ranias died without learning that Lainer was alive.

That was brutal. But then this call back to Lainor and thinking of how he lives on a Maway, the Maway is the one. That was nice. Fixer up or Heron Hall. Simon wants to know if Damon... The money pit that is Heron Hall. Yeah, is going to get the queen to fork over the coin for this shortly, heedless and inane pursuit. And Damon says, Joe, he's going to guarantee the payment himself, doesn't want to ask.

Reneura does, if I am supplicant to my husband, Damon, I'm not going to ask Reneira for coin. At this point in the story, at least, in this point in the episode, they both refuse to reach out to the other. I think it's most important about this, not just like, I don't need the approval of the queen, which, you know, again, Alice will sort of poke at this bruise a little later on. But, like, is Simon sort of dwindling patience with Damon? Yeah. I loved the adjacency of, get up, get up, get up, get up with the grandsons to try to appeal to Damon's ego still. But then the, he almost can't help himself. I'm like, but you're the prince.

What do you mean? Call you the king. Yeah, actually, that consort fit is important. Anything on that titles exchange that struck you? Because, you know, we're only a couple episodes removed from Damon saying, it's not my prince, it's your grace. And now your grace isn't sufficient, right? We keep escalating. I want to return to this.

I won't come back to this. Okay. Exciting. Green counsel. Ooh. Allison. Boy, is there some side eye in this scene. This is an incredible Allison scene.

This was in terms of just like the filmmaking in the episode, one of the more interesting sequences because of the rush of the buzz that Allison is hearing as we glimpse all those little other conversations about ruling. I thought a lot of this episode was heavy-handed and stuff, even stuff that people like kind liked, like the Reneira and Damon leaning on the fireplace mirror shot, I thought was a little like, I don't know, felt a little gimmicky. This really worked for me. The sound dropping out and just focusing on Olivia Cook's face as Allison's like, watches

every single grain of power that she scrabbled and strange to approve for herself, just leave her. Right. She let a moldering corpse fuck her for years and years and years. She showed her feet off to some guy and none of it matters. For what? Great lesson, ladies. Yeah.

Indeed. Right. In all of Kings Landing is there no one to take my side. And she finds herself in this moment making her pitch to rule. and realizes that the answer is no. Orwhile, to his credit, does say, she's got the experience that we need, actually, but everybody else, we expect Ironrod to come in and be a dick. This is what I said. I said, Orwhile is the... This was a good... Orwhile moving up again in my esteem after some questionable moments

wanted more out of them then, but it's nice to see, you know, we learned from our mistakes, we do. We expect Ironrod to say, yeah, you did fine in a time of peace, but like this is war. and give us that comp to the way that Alfred is behaving over on the Black Council. But Laris saying, it must be Prince Amin. And what would it say if in response to Renew's crowning, we raised up a woman of our own hits us? We feel Allison's pain in that moment. Kristen, who can't meet anyone's eye because of his shame. But I did love Laris being like, the hand.

He's like, your new boyfriend? What does your new boyfriend have to say about this? The hand speaks with the King's voice. Like, do you have any thoughts, Kristen? No, you can't meet our eye. but will you chime in it all? Also, it was just important. I loved the fact that no one, and of course,

but no one suggests that Kristen, the hand of the king, step in. Right. Whereas, like, you know, Ned is Robert's hand. Like, Ned, you're up, right? Without question if Otto had been here still. Oh, yeah. He is immediately stepping in as a region.

There's no doubt, but nobody thinks of Kristen that way. The thing about what Laris says here, of course, Kristen says, Amon's sex in line, it must be him. me, obviously doesn't feel great about that, but he does say it. With what Laris says that we wrote, what would it say if we raised up a woman of our own? And we can feel as that rush of sound is coming out on Allison, we don't leave. The camera stays on her the entire time that business is then being conducted, is that she has to

confront the fact that while it feels horrible, and it is like the follow-through on what Reneas asked her in the penultimate episode last season, like, have you never imagined? yourself on the Iron Throne and now we know she has. And she thinks she'd be good at it. In your prison. Yeah. That scene just, oh, so good. She played an active part in bringing about the circumstance that she now deeply, deeply, deeply resents.

They can't have a woman rule because then the entire argument for taking the throne from Renera crumbles. And she helped ensure that she can't do the things she wants to do and live her life the way that she wants to life. Well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions. No, like totally. So, so effective. The, I thought it was incredibly good. And what I loved about this, and this will come back later when we talk about Damon a bit more. Yeah.

Is how complicated our feelings are for Allison in this moment, right? Yes. We are all of us. You don't have to be a woman to feel what it is to just be cut out of something. thing that you have worked very hard for. Yes. And to be talked around and talked down to and diminished the way that she is. So watching Olivia Cook's face.

And, like, I mean, for me, I will project and say, if it were me, I would be trying so hard not to cry at that table. Same. I would just be like, it would just take every shred in me. Absolutely. Not to burst into tears in that moment. Not to show them how they made you feel. Exactly.

So for the sound to cut out, for her to just focus on keeping. it together until she left the room, that is so relatable. And at the same time, we can all be like, you made this goddamn bed for yourself, Allison. And that is what is so beautiful about this show or the gray area of characters that George R. Martin likes to explore where you can feel empathy and like derision for a character in the same breath. Yeah, absolutely. It's exquisite. In equal measure. Yeah. It is fantastic. This was like riveting to watch. I loved it. And the way that we feel her almost active fear of Amund, and he is the quiet counterpart, right?

He sits there in silence as they recommend him. And then he reaches over for that ball and he takes the seat. And then he immediately launches into, and it's closed the gates and we see her horror, right? Oh, my God. Look what will happen to the city in his hands. But what's the first thing he does? Like, after the close the gates.

Cut down the rat catchers. Undo the thing that my idiot brother did. Cut down the fucking rat catchers. We see right away what kind of active. He's not going to ever have a moment where he is allowed, allows himself to be in a position where he has to say to somebody what Eggon said, which is like they don't take me seriously. They don't care what I think. Or, what would you have me do? What would you have me do? What would you have me do?

And he's, he's calling out Laris for the loss of Haranol. Yep. And he is talking to Thailand about Jason Lannister, who we'll talk about a little bit later. later on. Right? But he's just sort of like, business, business, business. Here, let me tick down the list. Yes. I got agenda items for days. No hesitation, which is what we were expecting based on fire and blood. You must rule the realm now until your brother is strong enough to take the crown again. The king's hand told Prince Amund, nor did Sir Kristen need to say it twice, writes Eustis. I've always loved that line, nor did Sir Kristen need to say it twice. And so one-eyed

Amin, the kinslayer took up the iron and ruby crown of egg on the conqueror. It looks better on me than it ever did on him, the prince proclaimed. That line from the book was on our minds when in episode nine last season we heard Amon say, I am next in line to the throne. Should they come looking for me, I intend to be found. Now, they were never going to make a two-year-old regent, but this is one more clarifying moment for us where it's like, right, Maylor didn't make the show because he needs to just be the air. Yeah. Yeah.

I have more questions, but. Amen, Damon, brotherly heirs to Kings they thought they'd be better, then? Right. I mean, I think it's clear the comps that they're trying to make here. Anything else on this scene, Joe? Reneer's line later to Misaria or earlier later elsewhere, where she says they speak around me but not to me. Yes. Is, you know, very much identical to what is happening to Allison here.

And I was also reminded in Allison's absolute like gobs-macitude about. what's happening to her. It reminded me so much of Tywin telling Circe that she has to marry Loris. And Circe's like, I have orchestrated all of this shit. I have gotten Joffrey, my incest

baby on the throne. And now you're here to treat me like I'm a pawn. Right. A brood bear. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, are you fucking kidding me? I have been in charge. And now all I'm good for is to be married off.

Right. to Loris. Great call. And to your point from a few moments ago about how we can kind of hold and appreciate this duality in our minds, you can have the Taiwan, like, you're not as smart as you think you are, reply. And then you can build towards Circe being able to say to him, all your obsession with legacy, you never even knew what was going on in your own family. And for all of that to feel. True. True.

I mean, that's what, it's one of the many reasons why I love Circe because, like, I could feel for her often. and then also absolutely hate her. Yes. That's the joy of Circe. We're going to combine Joe a couple scenes into our, just a brief little interlude here with Hugh and the small folk because we go back home with Hugh yet again with his wife, Kat, and they're increasingly like gray child who seems like barely alive.

Rough. Yes. Rough. And Cat is calling out Hugh. You're waiting on this promise from the king. It's horseshit. Why can't you see it to feed ghosts? With them, you can feed the mouths of ghosts.

And so they're like, okay, time to go to Tumbledon. Yes. He doesn't want to be a beggar, beg her brother to house them, but she's like, let's be smart. Let's get out. We'll go and then lock the gates. Interesting to see a member of the gold cloaks announce during the closing of the gates. By order of Amin Targaryen, Prince Regent and Protector of the Realm and the way the people respond to that.

Like, did they say Amund? What about Agon? What happened to the king? And how, again, like a move that is meant to establish some sort of control and order just incites more panic. Yeah. In the throng there. The throng, by the way, that is just screaming for meat.

I hope they got, I don't want them to have Maly's skull, but I hope they got it, like, into the catacombs. Keep it away from the hungry masses. My God. Back to Allison. We only left for a moment. It's time to head to the courtyard. for this scene with Kristen.

And she's his dog. I need this dog to find his way to a loving home. The fact that he has been sitting there for weeks under Cheez's rotting corpse is so upsetting to me. Maybe Darren can come adopt a boy and his dog. So I have to wait until season three to meet Darren, to Sarian, and to see this sweet little pup find a good home. All right. I mean, it's better than him not finding a home. You know what, actually, I kind of want Ulf to adopt him.

Now this is, this is, yes. That's the stuff. This is the stuff, Lionel. This is the stuff Lionel. Olf and a little dog? Yeah. A pub dog? Yeah.

And he would treat him so well. He would treat him so well. He would make sure he had lots of pets from pals over and teach him all kind of, like, teach him all kind of tricks. I do think he'd let him drink ale, though, which is maybe not great. Like a little bit. Okay, this scene ruled. This is fantastic. And this goes back to what I was just saying about Alicent, and I'm going to say it now about Kristen.

Yeah. Which is just sort of like, I have, I'm not apologizing, I've hated Kristen. Yes. Well, yes. For a very long time, because they didn't give his character much dimensionality, right? And I, and we would occasionally hear from listeners who would be like, well, don't you feel from him because he's like, you know, he's lower born than the people around him or the like, God sees Dorian. sort of racially tinged stuff around him. And it's like, I do, I want to feel.

Gidey and assent. I want to feel that story. I really want to feel that story. And I wasn't feeling it because I was just like, he's just so toxic. And then to have him here be humbled by what he saw. Yeah. And express that, the fear. The like, I don't know who I, like, the admission of frailty, which is something I've been, like,

looking for from him. Right. Was so key to me all of a sudden being like locked into Kristen Kohl. I'm not like, I'm still. You're rooting for him? I'm not. You care about him? I'm not.

You need him to win? I don't. I find him so much more interesting than I did. Yeah. Two weeks ago. This is a great scene. Let's hear the meat of this conversation and then let's talk about a little bit more why we loved it so much. What did you see?

That armor melted. There were men walking, they were on fire. We have given the war to the dragons. The dragon riders should lead us. And what of justice? Of temperance, or his strength now to be our only God? So you cast me a son. Have I not spared you?

What we must do now is terrible. Will you preside over it? Is this who you are, Alison? I did not ask to be spared. And I did not give you leave to speak my name. Holy shit. This is incredible. First of all, just incredible work from both Olivia and Fabian here.

The intimacy, the history that they have and then the intimate aspect of their relationship and how that informs this. We have the humor leading into that exchange of, as your loyalty faded or does it flourish only at night and flee the sunrise like a moth, which is clever, but also it really registers because you would think if you were Alicent and we would think watching this. Right. You're only by my side when we're fucking at night And like the way that that kind of history could be Further complicate Why you felt somebody betrayed you Totally, but it is, I mean,

And here's where I will take Kristen's part in this. Yeah. Like, it's a double standard of Allison Who treated him like dog shit every time they left like... Absolutely. Her room. Yeah. And that's what I thought,

I did not give you to speak my name And the way his head hangs after that was so effective because it is an even, more personal version of the Gawain getting a scent line and the way that people are

always making him, reminding him that he doesn't in their world. Like it was just brutal. And then you have the PTSD from the battle waking to this change world. Now a world that he helped to change

which is also amplifying his feeling here. Similar to Allison. You made this bed. Yeah. Confronting what you brought into the world, right? Reaping what you helped. to sew. That, what of justice of temperance phrasing? Did this make you think of?

Where's Judy? She used the exact same cadence. Where's duty? Where's sacrifice? The rhythm of it. Yeah. For some reason that's brought up this like Stannis quote from a Clash of Kings. When she says, what of justice of temperance? And Stannis says in that book, in Kings Landing, the high septum would prattle at me of how all justice and goodness flows from the seven, but all I ever saw of either was made by men. This idea that, like, again, Alison cloaks herself in religiosity when, like, they, whether it's a flaw of the show or the character, I'm not sure, but, like, I would like to know more about, like, what the church's teachings are in this, you know what I mean?

She's like, she has her crucifix, which is actually a seven-pointed star, and she has her, like, you know, aphorisms that she says or whatever, but I would just like to know more. down the orgy murals. Like, yeah, a hard look for all of us. But you know what I mean? Like, it just seems so empty. Her piety. And, yeah.

Yeah. The one access point we have to her, to the depth of her connection to that is the sept and when we see her pray because that's about building a bridge to the past and establishing a sense of connection to people she's lost. But that's... That's a personal connection to spirituality. And I just like, I'm curious.

about the institution at this given time. I mean, especially, you know, she's a high tower, but she's part of this Targaryen reign now. And the history between the faith and the Targaryens is so loaded and evolves. Ruler to ruler. That's a great shout out. The sparing. Kristen thinking he's sparing her. Allison's thinking, I don't want to be spared.

Saying I don't want to be spared. Obviously another Ranier-a-comp here. Yeah. I don't want to. Stop saying you're protecting me. Cuddled Prince-Lew. I don't want to be kept on the sidelines. I thought the voice break on what we must do now is terrible was quite good.

Their armor melted actually got me more for some reason. Just because he's like, this is the thing I understand, which is war and battle and armor and all of this. And to see that it just melts. It's just nothing. It's just goo in the face of this dragon battle. Then like, what are we even doing here? Right. This is my life.

This is my uniform. This is my mission. This is my purpose. My cloak of purity. I'm your sworn shield. These are the things I, how I find understanding and meaning and purpose in my life. And sometimes that's true.

And for him pure. And sometimes it's a way to justify the things that he does to other people or something that he will project on to other people like the Eric scene. But it is the defining center of his experience. And for that to be turned to ash in front of him, well, then what mooring? How do you orient yourself in your own life after that? Then he's just had to give it over, then he's just decided to give it over to Aymond. Right.

I don't trust this person. I know what this person is capable of. But yeah, I have to say out loud, he should be the one to lead us because how could anybody else make their way through this world. I liked, too, how before the clip we heard that idea of like the order of things came back into play. Like, that's how Kristen justifies why Aymann should be the one is the order of things. And that specific language was at the heart of that great Renair and Renéis conversation

in season one episode two, right? And when the boy comes of age and your father has passed, the men of the realm will expect him to be heir, not you, because that is the order of things. When I am a queen, I will create a new order. And we talked a lot at the time about like the break the wheel comps. Yeah. But what we're seeing here is like for everybody, not just for Nira, how do you try, how can you seek to make a new order when the world is on fire around you? That's the only new order that there can be, the old order. I just love that he's like clinging to sort of this functionary role.

He's there with his little book supervising the cutting down of the rat catchers personally. He's just got his little like his little like hand of the king like little notebook and he's just sort of become a civil servant, a functionary. You know what I mean when he was this like great warrior. But he's just sort of like that's not, I don't know, not even part of that anymore. Interesting too for him to have to immediately return to that because that was the thing he sought to flee. right just before rooks rest like i am sitting down once in this hand at the king chair and i need to get out of here i need to get out of here i need to be back in the circumstance and i'm familiar with give me the notebook i'll do the spreadsheet it's fine it's fine you think he's an excel guy or a google

sheets guy oh this guy is an excel guy yeah i think so too joanna it is time to go to the twins a chill place where bad things never happen i got a little bread and a little salt for you is that fine or I will say that seeing a plate of food, seeing guest rights in the middle of that table, it was such a trigger. What about the twins in proximity to someone locking any kind of gate? Very tough. What was your primary association? Were you like, let me see if there are any fingernails in the offering there? Any fray pie action?

What did you bring to this most of all? Just pride and Jace for his diplomacy here. And delight in seeing Vermax? Yes. Sweet, beautiful vermouth? Sheak. It was such a little baby when we last saw him.

The line of the book here, nearish this moment, is, it was Jace who came to the four now. And I just sort of like love that as like, because we're going to get Jason Reneer at the end of the episode

talking about like, what next with all these dragons we have? But also like Jace and his pommel sort of. Yeah. Nab and the twins, the crossing for Reneera. Love it.

Absolutely huge. I like, again, the veil, the north, the crossing, it's an incredibly impressive CV that Jace is building. And it's not like this was instant. He had to work for it. The phrase, they have a question and a concern that other characters, including in this very location of Wade before, which is, my liege lord, the ruler in Kings Landing. What if they don't want the same thing? And so when we're hearing Forrest Frey and Jace have this conversation, we're thinking back to Walder and Kat. when they are trying to secure the crossing to hopefully make it to net in time back in season one,

which leads to all sorts of things. Rob's marriage backed, et cetera. I hope it was a very beautiful bridge. Honestly, it is. We can see it is a very beautiful bridge, Joe. But we call back to that moment. You swore an oath to my father. Oh, yes, I said some words.

But then I swore those to the crown too, if I remember right. And so that tension, the dance is a ripe stretch of the story to explore that idea. Well, what if the paramount of your region? wants one thing or hasn't made a decision at all and the crown wants another, what if there are two people vying for the crown, what if the various Lords of the Riverlands can't get on the same page?

What decision are you supposed to make? And so what do the phrase do? They pursue their own advantage. We're afraid of Agar. What's in it for us? You're going to protect us with your dragon? You are? You're going to offer up Damon too?

Is he going to listen? Your mom's going to make them? The way that all parties in that scene and we're thinking about how to leave that moment with the thing they need was fascinating to watch. What else did the initial, so many of Alice they make you swear and swear, conversation ping for you?

A couple things. Forrest mentions that winter is coming. He doesn't say it in so many words, but he says the winds are rising, you know? Yeah, yeah. Which is a very Riverlands way of saying, winter is gloaming. And then Jason Lanister,

gets another mention. He was mentioned in the small council scene, and he's mentioned here again, and we've gotten mentions all season about the Lanister forces amassing. We've questions about timelines and how long it takes to amass forces when all other things are happening around him.

But anyway, Jason Linister and his forces are amassing in the West. We've got our eyeballs on Craig Stark's promised graybeards coming from the north and Jane Aaron's potential Knights of the Vale. Also North. of the Riverlands.

Right. And then whatever fucking mess Damon is made of the various river wards in the meantime. Boy.

All of this stuff is sort of converging. Yes. Into one very rivery place. Yes. Quite helpful

that you ran through the map earlier in the season. Exciting stuff. I think it's interesting. I think it's wild that we haven't checked in with Jason

since we keep hearing about him. Yeah. Like I think that's really weird that we're on episode five and if Jason and the lanisters

have a role to play in this season. Yeah. Well, we've seen the Lannister soldiers in the trailers. We see them in the trailer for next week. So hopefully we'll be with them at last for more than a moment, but who can say? Spent some time with Jason. Who can say?

And then we've got Forest Frey and Sabbath Afray, and these are two characters from the books. Yep. We do have some questions about this Sabbath Afray. Both of them actually are quite different from the sort of more warrior-esque versions that they are in the book. Sabbath Afray specifically, I think fans of sabbatha have some questions about how this depiction aligns with the Sabbatha. There was some preseason sort of casting news that this character was called Lady Serena. It's unclear, actually. I feel some question marks around whether or not this is actually Sabbath Afray or if we're going to meet another character in season three who's Sabbath Afray. But that's all I'm prepared to say vaguely about.

it until... Which they've done with, like, other houses, including the blackwoods and the brackens. Like, here's another blackwood for you to spend some time with who's different from the one you knew. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very interesting. The Frey Pursuit of Harenhaw. This was something that Chris was kind of confounded by. What do you want to say about this for other viewers who might also be like, why does everybody want this heap of shit? And what do you want to say about that in terms of just the lore that Harenhall, the pull that

Harenhall holds for people more broadly, but also like for the phrase. Yeah. Why a status symbol of that? that sort would be desirable. I'm so glad you asked me. Haran Hall is the epitome. Free scholar. Long time, fray scholar.

Heronel is the epitome of I can fix him. In that sense, no better place for Damon to be, really. I can fix him. It's a nightmare for everyone, but not for me. It'll be just a status symbol. The phrase are always feeling inferior to other River Lords and always sort of grass. For status. This is certainly true of Waldorfrey. And so this idea that like, yeah, the twins are nice, but Heron Hall would be better and bigger. And what if you had fucking both? Yeah. What would they say to you then? Oh. Oh, they've been the knee to you. You know what I mean? So like I think everyone wants Heron Hall, despite its incredible money pit DIY status. Because it's the biggest, it's the biggest castle. Vass lands, like the status symbol of just. And there is. And there is. the one in that seat, and also the hubris of all these characters.

Like, the fact that nobody is phased by the curse and the doom that has befallen so many have walked under that gate feels right. Yeah, not for me. It'll be fine for me. It definitely will be fine for me, and I'm certain that nobody else who walked in there before I ever thought that. Oh, I'm fine. On the J. Swagger scale.

Yeah. Where did the, okay, you want Harren Hall, we're going to need something more, what do you need? Stand up, pour my wine, and then say bent knees. bent knees. Rank for you in this Swagger-filled episode. Oh, it's just below him later being like, sorry, that was a video moment. Incredible expression in the final scene. Incredible.

Jace and Aeman really need to have a blue steal off. They're both like blue stealing as hard as they can. They're just like cheekbones, you know, a plenty. And like a little bit of pout. This is something Ewan Mitchell and Harry Collette are both constantly doing. And I support them in that. Great stuff. Do you think they are Zoolander fans?

We know Ewan Mitchell is a cinema fan. Cinema. Apparently the children call it a magging. And I'm like, does no one remember blue stealing? But anyway. Interesting. Sad. Sad. Is Zulander not a reference, a hip reference for the youth anymore?

Oh, no. It's possible. That that like 20-year-old film is no longer. Oh, boy. I'm going to have to reflect on this later. Geez. In the present, I will be reflecting on Damant Targary and chopping like four logs of wood and pretending like he really got his hands dirty leading the war effort.

He got blisters. Okay. Joanna, I would not consume the wherewood leaf magic potion from the witch. I would not let the witch put the Shirley hypoallergenic, only 10% hallucinogenic, I swear, ointment into my open flesh. I wouldn't do any of that. And we have some questions on would Damon do other things that we're going to talk about in this sequence here. Oh my God, yes.

So Alice is kind of like watching from the balcony, it comes down, they have. We hear the screams. Presumably the screams of the Riverlands. The Brackens. Yeah. The women and the children. And the children too. And the children too.

And the children too. So I didn't go back and listen, but one of our listeners wrote in asking if they thought Reneera's screams from her miscarms. miscarriage at the end of last season was mixed in. I didn't go back and listen, but that's an interesting thought. Geez. Yeah. I thought Alice is just directing the screams that she's hearing on the wind into Damon's psyche. The wind sent me word from Brackenland. News. I've hit the I've activated the share button and sent that your way. Share my screen. I am curating your TikTok. She's got some feedback for Damon. This continues a little recent pattern of Alice saying things to Damon that we wouldn't necessarily like expect him to suffer from too many characters, right?

She says things like when he says war is a terrible thing. This is not war. There are crimes. These are crimes against the innocent that any upright man would repudiate. Or is that the kind of army you would raise men who hate you, who serve you under your duress? Or I'll cross you no further. I'm sure your tax are, after all, approved by the queen. What are you making of the fact that Damon is willing to.

receive this rather than again, the old, like, took out Dark Sister and lopped off your head because I didn't like the things you were saying. I think, well, first of all, we need to shout out him saying, like, basically you confuse me for an upright man. Yeah. Great stuff. Where'd you get that? I think he's just been put in a vulnerable space, a vulnerable guilt-written space, where he's

open to this kind of manipulation, whether it's just her manipulating his dreams or the potential wherewood goo that she gave him or whatever witchy amazing shit she's doing 10-10 Alice I have no-no's for you. You're the mate you the best. He's put him in a place where he is just sort of vulnerable here. What I really like is this idea

that like Dragon Riders can just like hop on Karexies if they're pissed at their wives or like whatever and just like zoom like away from the carnage. And Alice is really trying to bring Damon down to earth. I don't, I still don't know that I have fully grasped on, like, to what end?

Yeah. But she's really trying to make him marinate in the actual horror of what's happening on the ground. Right. And, like, even the way she puts, like, what has followed you here? Right. You can't actually flee and escape the imprint that you have left on the realm around you. Yeah, it's a great call.

Are you getting any Masaria vibes, not current Masaria, but, like, the Masarra's a damin relationship in terms of him not just having. having maybe like a drawer and attraction to a mysterious woman of a certain standing, but the fact that he will confide in this person, we're going to get to the things Damon says shortly here, or let that person chide him and ridicule him, which, like, again, he doesn't allow too many other people to do. As soon as you start critiquing Damon, he's kind of like, I'm out. That's it. But Alice and Missaria were able to say things.

to speak hard truths to him. So does that feel like a... That's a fun comp. That's interesting. So I'm going to watch. All right, let's talk about what David does, which is just respond outright by saying, Reneira cannot succeed,

her supporters won't let her lead, they look to a man for strength. Where are you with this a couple days later? What do you want to say about this? Take me through how you are processing this particular rendering of Damon Targaryen. I'm really out on it, but also holding out to see.

the full shape of the season. Okay. Okay. Here's the thing about Damon Targaryen. Yes. He is George Armarin's favorite Targaryen. Perhaps his favorite character, full stop. Yeah.

So I want to talk about all that and why it's important to get Damon right. Yes. Because he's so important to George. Yes. This is not come from me in a I love Damon fan girl space because I think Damon is an actual piece of shit often. And that's part of the whole thing. But it can't just be that. Right. And that's what's really important. That mix is part of what is such a fascinating brew. Brew. Brew. I haven't said brew in a while. I know. It's been a minute. One of our listeners, Tina,

sent an email about this idea of Heron Hall being, she likened it to like a horrocks or the one ring, if you prefer, this idea of like it enacting, she called it psychic rot. Incredible. Less hypnotic therapy and more like a psychotic, psychotic, she said, psychotic rot. Is Alice trying to drive a wedge between Damon and Rainer by digging up and defeating Damon's darkest fears slash ambitions? Is it like Ron wearing the horrocks, this magic slowly corrupting his mind, confirming everything he's ever dreaded? Damon has tried to bury these intrusive thoughts his entire life. Is Alice here to unearth them, to validate them?

Damon seems in some ways possessed. First, he wants to be called your grace. And it's my king. Is the progression coming from? from Damon or from something else within him. We see Damon refusing to eat when he first arrived at Heron Hall for fear of being poison, but what if the poison isn't a physical ailment, but a spiritual one. And, like, I love this idea that Heron Hall's particular brand of psychotic rot or psychic rot would be that one of ambition.

Yeah, yes. Because we talked about this, and we talked about Heron Hall, this idea of, like, Heron Hall itself is shaped like a grasping fist, like reaching towards the sky. And all of the people who have occupied it before Damon and after Damon are sort of infected with this idea of like wanting more and more. You know what I mean? Like the people who would be most drawn to pursuing the occupation of Haran Hall, the taming of Harrenhal, are the ones who are most vulnerable to what it could surface inside of them. Yeah, that's delicious. I absolutely love that. But like, again, if this is like something Damon's going through and working through, I mean, I personally never forgave Ron for abandoning Hermione and Henry in the forest.

Yeah, tough one. But, you know, if you consider it closer to like Frodo, like the things that Frodo did that he would never actually do or Bilbo did because they were corrupted by the ring, which is, of course, Jacob Rowling's inspiration for the Horrocks. it gets back to what I really need Damon Targaryen to be. Right? So in order to fulfill George's prompt where he says he likes a gray character, right? He calls Damon one of the grayest characters in the history of Westrose is Damon the rogue prince. Notorious bad boy, a rogue in every sense. And George's world is just like full of these characters.

It's slightly secure to give us one of those. characters in Fire and Blood versus Asa Song of Ice and Fire. Because in a Song of Ice and Fire, we're inside the heads of these characters. So we are privy all the time to that conflict inside the human heart that we love to talk about. Would you say it's the only thing worth writing about?

I really would, right? And so for a character like Jamie, who's like, I think a pretty good comp in some ways for Damon. And Jamie's inner monologue in Asa of Ice and Fire, we get lines like, and me, that boy, I was, when did he die, I wonder, when I donned the white cloak, when I opened Aries throat, that boy had wanted to be Sir Arthur Dane, but someplace along the way he became the smiling night instead, like him contemplating his own monstrosity.

And like how differently would we understand Damon if we were inside his head and understanding what he meant when he said Airford Day or understanding what it meant to confront Viseris and all this sort of something like that. But we don't have that access inside his head. And so what we need and what George gives us often plot-wise from Damon. are these moments where we have to decide for ourselves, but there's constant ambiguity of like, what is Damon thinking? When is he going to, you know, confirm our worst feelings about him?

And what is he going to surprise us with a moment of tenderness and affection? Picking up the crown. Yeah. Like being there for Vassaris. And so I think they've just done such a good job in graying up some of the characters that are a little bit more black and white in Fire and Blood,

like with Allison. We talked about this a lot. They've done such a good job with Allison. And we've talked inside this episode about all the moments where we are asked to feel sorry for characters we find somewhat monstrous or feel empathy for, you know, a Kristen Cole and Allison High Tower. In this season, Agon and Aman have all had these moments of like, I feel for this guy. I really do. Damon has not had any of those moments this season. There's not a single moment I can think of this season where I'm like,

I really feel for Damon in this. And that wasn't in true of season one. Certainly not. And so I kind of feel like it's something that, like, is an overcorrection of a response to Damon the character in season one that both Brian Connell and Sarah Hess and a couple other people who work on the show talked about where they were just sort of like, we don't understand the baby girlification of Damon Targaryen. Like, Connell told us he's like, I understand the allure of him. Yes. Why people find Damon. Yeah, fascinating.

Of course. But like, people were like, yes, murder me, daddy. And they were like, no, it's not what we want. And I agree, that's not what you want, but, like, I think they veered too far. And I think this is what some of the quotes that Matt Smith was giving about his character this season, this sort of dissatisfaction with, like, Damon is, like, on the back foot. Now, again, if we're in the middle of some sort of, like, movement, which I really feel like we must be. I hope so. Then I'm just, like, really ready to be here for where this character goes.

But, like, this, like, abjectus loyalty to Reneira feels so out of character for me. And I understand that some people are listening home and being like, he killed his first wife, what are you talking about? But I just think if you think about Vassaris, like he would say to Corley's like, he was never good at it at what? He was never good at being king

or I would be able to king, but not like, here's my plan to usurp my brother's throne is not something Damon never would have said. And that loyalty and that familial affection is a key part of Damon being a great character and not a like pitch dark, black villainous character.

And that's why he's George's favorite is that he's complicated. He's both. He's all these things. You know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I broadly agree. I think the Ron Horcrooks comp is an interesting one because I, while I think the inability to forgive is reasonable.

The reason I, it's a tough one when he leaves. It is. But he came back. That scene, that moment always breaks. me because he's like, I get it, you choose him. And like, the thing that the Horcrocks is able to pray upon is a real feeling inside of Ron. Yes. And then it's warped and weaponized and consumes the better instincts and the better angels. So if that's what we're seeing, I love the way the point in the email and then your description of Harren Hall is that comp. Amplifying the worst

parts of Damon, the worst instincts that Damon carries. And the then like kind of delicious irony of Damon ending up in this state of psychic rot, great, wonderful phrase that we will be continuing to use moving forward. Because he thought this was the place he needed to be to prove his worth. Yeah. That's all really interesting to me. I also feel that my hope as well, And I think my expectation is that this is like a rut that they're both in, Reneer and Damon, Damon in a more kind of like toxic way, where they're saying we don't need the other, I don't need the other person. And then they have to work back to realizing that they can ultimately unlock something

like more fruitful together than they can apart. Which is not even like a spoiler-based thing. It's like what Condal was saying about that this season is about their marriage to a certain degree. And also the book problem that we've raised a couple times, which is that Renera's off the board this moment in the book. And Damon's just at Heron Hall with like five sentences to his name at this point in the story, right? Yeah. So they're like trying to figure out like what's interesting to do with these characters where we don't have text to explain what they're up to. So what are they up to?

They're dressing up as septas and sticking into King's Landing. But they're also just sort of like really processing. What does it mean to have this alliance with this other person? navigating the internal conflict. I think that Condal's quote on inside the episode, though, I did find, like, a little alarming. This is kind of a counterweight dust being like, we hope and expect. He said, and while I don't think that anybody could ever be asked to believe that he, Damon, would turn against Renera and go to war against her.

I think we could all believe that maybe Damon would just go and clean the throne for himself. Now, that's not, I think, our read on Damon to this point. So the question of whether that will be an evolving view. Or an adaptive change. Or an adaptive change. The moment that's still of, because like you cited what he says to Vesaris, about Vesaris to Corlis, we've talked about what he says to Reneira in this season, etc. Like he held Vesaris in a state of judgment for the way he ruled,

but also wanted him to bring him closer to let him help. He believed he would be better, but he didn't necessarily want to take the throne from him. He said, just like, let me help you. Yeah. Our powers combined. Even just the way he constantly refers to himself, including to Alice in the sequence, as Viceris's rightful heir, there's a, I consider that language deliberate from Damon that it shows us I am the one who is meant to carry on his legacy.

Now, there are things he would change about the legacy, things he deplores about Viseras' legacy. But he thinks that he should have been the one to continue it, not necessarily to replace him. And that does feel like a kind of important distinction. I agree. Right. So the moment that I still can't shake, even though we do, have, it reminds me, this reminds me a little bit, this is for Jack, who's helping us out today, of like a baseball argument where you can always find the stat on fan graphs that you need to make

your case. There are plenty of counterpoints to this, but the one that still sticks out to me, even though this was so long ago in the canon now, is, you know, Viseras saying Damon has ambition, yes, but not for the throne. He lacks the patience for it. And Autos replies, like, you know, the gods have yet to make a man who lacks the patience for absolute power. But Damon, we watch him kind of glimpsing that through the lattice work. Yeah. And it just always seemed like that little kind of tiny little smirk and laugh was like appreciation. He gets it. Yeah. That's the person who everyone else thinks I'm a monster. Yeah. And that's the guy who understands that I'm flawed and I make him mad. I make him disappointed. But he knows like my heart. That's different than this for sure. I really agree. Yeah. So again, I just I think I my fear is that it's a bit of an overcorrection from like something that happened in. season one where like it's the same thing where it's like I don't know people thinking that

Joe on the show you is like a dream boat and you're like no a literal psychotic stalker and killer and it's complicated one thing I wanted to talk about there's okay so there's this idea that like which you and Chris raised on top of thrones a lot of people latching on to this moment where alice walks away from david in the hallway and she's sort of it's it's definitely staged in a way because She's walking very carefully, like to hit a mark so that she disappears behind Simon Strong. As in, like, he comes to the fore. She doesn't actually vanish. She walks behind him so we can no longer see her.

Then the camera cuts away, and then it cuts back, and she's gone. So your very reasonable question was, did that bitch just vanish into that there? My question is really, do they want us to be asking that? They want us. I definitely think they want us to be asking that. Here's our, and we talked about this last week, we're going to run it down again. Has Alice talked to anyone else at Heron Hall yet? No.

When she walks in in her very first entrance in episode three, and Simon is like, we're bending in the knee, don't worry, we'll hop to it. One of the random strong boys who's always at the table, when she walks in, he looks directly at her. Yeah. So like. Right. Simon looks at her here. Simon looks at her here.

Some people are wondering, like, if he's looking at her here, the way that he looks when Damon looks at the empty air and are like, Who are you, what are you looking at? I don't see anything there. Right. Another thing is like, is he looking at her the way that, like, he looked at that hand, the, the, like, the serving woman who Damon thought was Lena. Right. So is Alice glamored in some way, you know, where he's like, why is she talking to this

random kitchen witch? Yeah. You know. And he's, one of the times that he sees Alice in this episode is, like, her pouring. Pouring. Yeah. At the dinner table. Yeah.

So, like, I think these are all questions they want us to. ask. Is she glamored? Is she actually there? You know, what's going on? Is something a question we asked before, which I think is worth asking again, which is like, what is her aim? Yes. If she's up to something which she constantly, why is Sir Simon and his boys, why are they not experiencing weird dreams? Yeah. You know, as far as we know. I'm not going to read this whole email from a nameless emailer about Alice. And it's about, it's about, sort of like, it's about your own Greyjoy, who is also a Greenseer, the way that Alice almost certainly is a Green Sear.

And this idea that, like, not all Greens— hashtag, not all Green Sears aren't necessarily, like, virtuous in somewhere or another, that Yaron uses his greenseeing abilities for power to amass more power for absolutely brutality. This is different than Your On Grey Joy in the show. This is Book Your On Greyjoy, who's completely different, absolute maniac. But this question is, like, is Alice? using her powers for mischief, for power, for, you know, like, it doesn't have to be a, I speak for the trees, Lorax sort of thing. It doesn't have to be an altruistic. I'm pruning the branches on the Targaryen family tree to give us Azora High reborn, the prince who was promised. Right. Something that this emailer pointed out that, like, had never occurred to me

that I absolutely loved is this idea that, like, thank you. Is that, so, I. I'm Alice, if she is of some sort of strongstock, which is one of the many theories in the book. Yeah. Though the actress has said she is very old. But if she is of strong stock, they trace their lineage back to the first met. Uh-huh. So this e-mailer points out that there's, we've only seen three, you know, fact-checked that, if you will, but only three byproducts of a Targaryen slash first man intermixing. The Strong Boys, Brendan Rivers, the Blood Raven, and John Snow.

Because the Stark's trace her lineage back. Brennan Rivers' mom traces her lineage back to the first men, blah, blah. So this idea of like a combo of first men blood from Alice Rivers and Targ blood, like, is she trying to have sex with Damon and get an air off of him? Because that will be a really cool cocktail of... fire blood and ice blood. Right. You know, like, well, now she knows what gets them going.

She makes sure he's aware that she's peeping on the mom dream. Just get the mom involved. So, yeah. Fascinating. The idea of like, again, I would love to hear from our,

uh, our historian pals listening to this, but like first men blood and Targaryen blood would have been, would have been the other instances of that. If you were Damon, would you just leave?

I mean, I know what's in a house. I would have left. I would have left long ago. But again, this is like a point of pride. He can't concede. He can't let Heronhold defeat him. I know.

Yeah. Oh, Damon. Great stuff. From you. That was wonderful. And from you. Bail and Corlis. We talked about this a lot in our interview with Steve.

Yeah. We'll maybe just go through this really quickly because we're going to revisit it with him. Anything you want to say about this scene? Great Bail episode. Great Bail episode. And like just something finally for. that character to do a bit more. I mean, with all in respect to the moon dancer

incident early this season. But, like, I just thought this was wonderful. I thought her, like, really feeling like the shape of her character come through. Yeah. Yes. And I like the separation of the sisters, you know, because, like, it's always like Bela and Rana, Bailan and Rana, Bella and Rana.

Right. Now let's understand who they are. Here's what Rana's doing in the veil, and here's what Bail is doing here with Coralus. I think it's great. I agree completely. I, loved the I am fire and blood drift mark must pass to salt

and see just the framing of that the phrasing the confidence with which she said in essence I know who I am so many characters are trying to figure that out

it was really striking and I thought too just like the fact that she finds Corlis you know she says that she was she looked for you the track she looked for you the track This has become this season, I think my favorite, like, random recurring pit of ours.

Great stuff. And he's not there because he says his house has become a tomb. And it reminded me of after Vaman's death, that moment between Rehnese and Orwhile in the first season where, you know, he says to her, it is ill luck to look upon the face of death. And Renice said, the stranger has visited me more times than I can count. Grand Mastor, I assure you he cares little, whether my eyes are open or closed, which was such a haunting sentiment. and like now this family has just suffered even more death and loss since then. Oh, Alfred. What do you want to say about this?

Alfred's going to Heron Hall and may he be haunted in his journey. Oh, man. Maybe he's amusing when Rainer is like, am I off, or when Alfred says to Reneer, like, am I off the council? It's like, would you be surprised? I mean, she handles this with a level of a plume and tact that I, I thought was like frankly, remarkably to her credit. I would have been like, fuck yeah, get out of here. May he be smeared and wearwood paste?

May he be chopped up and fed to the wherewood trees? Oh, man. Alfred. Wild stuff. Don't let, do they have doors and dragonstone? Don't let the massive cavernous archways hit you on the way out. Don't let the dragons eat you on the way out. That's my message to Alfred.

Okay. We have notes for Alfred always. and Joanna, boy, do the river lords have some notes for Damon. Who is woken in the hour of the wolf? This is rude. They have valid feedback here. It's a 4 a.m. meeting. This is just simply not acceptable.

Now, they wrote to Haran Hall. They got there when they got there. I would be like, can I have like a brief power nap and a notch? And then I will see Damon when he rises. In one of your many drippy rooms. I was very amused when Damon walks in to this, like, clearly angry group of important people. Yeah. Right?

We, like, we have a dairy here. We have a Malister here. Wallace Mootin is here. Like, these aren't nobody characters who have come to give Damon a piece of their minds. And he's just like, let's start with a lesson in etiquette. But I also love when he's like, is it time for pudding? And it's just like because so many times he's been a. awoke from these dreams and he's actually a dinner.

That was incredible. That was incredible. Oh, Matt Smith. Wonderful stuff. So here's the update from the River Lords. They're not happy. They know he killed a baby. The Blackwoods had visited absolute abject atrocities on the Brackens.

That's why. Desecrated steps. Desecrated steps. Let's bring Anakin back for a moment. The women and the children, too. Yeah. And when they allude to a little baseball neck, they mentioned that this was foul business conducted under Reneira's banner. We mentioned on Talk to Thrones like this reminds us as Thrones viewers of the mountain. You know, I was waiting for Ned to just appear into the scene and say, I had taint him. One of Ned's greatest moments. It's so good. Damon is so shook in the face of this. Like it was really strong.

He's like, I'll have the man who I didn't do that. I'll have the man who said I did that pro before me. It's like, it's half the fucking kingdom. They're like everyone, good luck. This is your reputation and your standing in the realm. And they say to him with a level of like bold, unflappable, like, no fear, right? Again, to that idea of like, they're not impressed by you at all. Right.

another, this goes back to the dragons, the mailes and the procession and this idea of like, I thought they were gods. Like, they don't think of the Targaryans this way here, which is fascinating to think about given the history of like, we're in Harren Hall where Egon and Ballarian rain down fire and the castle is a melted, ruinous reminder of that might. And they stand in that very building and they're like,

we're not really impressed by what you're doing and we're pretty unfussed by this whole tariff thing. So don't expect us to bow to a tyrant. Also, we heard that you aren't burning people, even when they say they choose fire, so... We don't give a shit. I'm a mallister. Try me. Yeah.

Great stuff. Great stuff. Damon. Tough one. Amund? So this is real life for Amon. He is standing in the throne room. He's looking at the throne.

But it visually looked so similar to Damon's throne room dream. Well, you did Thunder and Lightning. Which is a sense. They did Dreamweather. It's dream weather. I loved this. I loved this visual comp. Loved.

What would you like to say about these two? We promised, yeah, we promised, like a week or two ago that we would do a little like Damon Amund foil conversation from a listener who's not a book reader who's like, okay, maybe you have book knowledge that I don't have, but like, can you talk to me why people are constantly comping these two? And one of our listeners, Aiton, wrote in to wonder, is the shift in Damon's character that we were sort of calling out a desire on the part of the show to draw him even closer to Aman in their sort of characterization in terms of like desire for power

or what will you do for the throne, et cetera. I would do a better job than the person who's there right now. Yeah. Okay. So this season has done work. to attempt to, like, expose the interior life of these two characters, right? We've got Amon in the brothel

and Damon in his dreams. Like, what are the inner workings of these guys? Very mommy forward sequences for both of them. White mommy focused. This is the, the tedious, tiniest of tropes course language combo happening here, but like... I miss the tropes course.

We'll get back to it. It's been a minute. But like, the idea of a foil, what a foil is, two characters, and I think I am guilty of misusing it, but foils are two characters who are quite different that are in like somewhat similar circumstances. You can sort of like put them under an umbrella, but when you look at their characters and their choices and all the way they live their lives, they view their lives, they're quite intentionally created as different

from each other in order to highlight certain aspects of each other. George loves a foil. He said, when someone once asked him why he writes so many foils, he says, well, drama rises out of conflict. So you like to put together two characters who are very different from each other and stand back and watch the sparks fly. That gets you better dialogue and better situations. He literally created Sart. Aria was the first character he created and he literally created Sansa as a contrast to Aria. But, you know, there's also like Brandon Jamie or Ramsey and John or Circe and Marjorie or. or et cetera, et cetera.

So this is a constantly like setup in George's work. Foils is not what we're talking about actually with Damon. And Amon, they are mirror characters. Yes. Foil, actually, fun fact, and I just learned that this this week. The term foil comes to the fact that jewelers used to put foil under jewelry in the displays cases in order to like bring out the shine of, you know, so like that's what a foil character is there to bring out the shine of the other character.

mirror characters are different in that they are like very, very, very similar to each other. And in that way, it can be like a settler way of bringing out the distinction and the differences because it's like they're almost the same and it then really underlines the ways in which they are just like slightly different. Right. And this is what we're dealing with. We're talking about Damon and Amund whose names are the same. You just move the D around. Just like these two words are looking at each other in the mirror.

That's what it is, right? But all the things that they share, right? Mommy issues you already called out. Second sons. Fond of a flat iron. Menace on a dragonback. Yes. Excellent swordsmen.

Both killed a child to kick off the war. In the book, Amen upon the death of his father, was said to have asked if Agon was king or if they had to kneel and kiss the horse cunny, referring to Reneira. When Sarah's son Baylon died, Damon was reported saying, Air for a Day, about the baby. So these are just guys who just say some shit When sad things happen in their family

Here are the differences as far as I see them And please agree or disagree if you will Emotionality, impulsivity And loyalty to family, right? Amon is on lockdown Yeah He is not an impulsive person He waits, wait, Vagar

He plans, he reacts slowly He plays the long game you humiliate him in a brothel, he will fuck you up in a small council meeting, and then torture us out of the guy later, but he's not going to start a fight right there in the brothel, right? Damon would have taken Agon's head off in that brothel. So, like, Damon is much more of an impulsive person. But in terms of that loyalty to family thing, which goes back to our question of how Damon is being depicted this season.

Even doesn't give a shit about anyone in his family, maybe Helena. Yeah. He cares more about the idea. And this is ultimately one of the things they do share. idea of like what a Targaryen lineage legacy more than means, more than the people, but not the connection to the people. Whereas like Damon, pretty crap dad, not as much of a crap dad in the books, but like pretty crap dad, but like in terms of like when it comes to Pharis and Reneura, there is that like actual emotional connection there for him and Talena as well, as far as we know.

And the last difference I think is fascinating, and this is like very much a. a show choice is the armor thing. We called this up before that Amon is like sitting on Vagar in just like leathers

in contrast to Agon. Yeah. But Damon is constantly seen in this like absolutely ridiculous thick, dumb. Wings on the helmet and everything.

Like cuckoo armor. Yeah. And once again Amon is just walking around in these like sleek leathers. Yeah. And I think it's just because

it's like what Chris Ryan was talking about in the brothel scene is like Amin is the armor. Yep. when he was naked as jaybird in the brothel, that was him armored up.

For sure. So he's always wearing armor. Damon has to put on this like... Which is like a different, ultimately just like projecting a different... Your insecurity manifesting in a different way. It's like telling yourself you don't need any shell to keep you safe, right? Yeah. I think the impulsivity thing, like that's why what happened in Shipbreakers Bay, what happened at Storm's End with Luke was so striking.

because, and that's why Amand has carried it with him. Like, it's not just I regret that business with Luke, but they were mean to me. Let me explain what led to it. It's, I like, I'm usually a little more in control than that of myself, of my circumstances. And then that's the other thing. I mean, we've seen Damon carry the emotional weight of the things that he has done. But when we saw Amon say to Sylvie, I feel bad about this.

We talked about this in that episode in the second episode of this season. It was such a notable contrast to Damon in that same episode being like, why are you blaming me for this? It was a mistake. Excellent. Who saying I did this?

Bring them before me. Oh, it's half the kingdom? Well, it's going to take a little bit while a whole long to get through that line. But I think the question now, and this gets back to what we were talking about earlier today, is like, will we see that from Amen again? I wonder if that will be like,

like the last vestige of that vulnerability and softness. And if he will like let himself continue to express or feel that or whether he will, that will just be a brief difference between them that becomes ultimately more of a similarity moving forward. Love that. Many tropes course. Always a delight. Always is a thrill. What did you make?

We already talked about what Helena said. Is there anything else you wanted to add here about? I just, I fear for the Helamond shippers, if this is all, we're getting from them so far this season. Yeah, that was an opportunity there for like a warmth between them or something. Like maybe just like a tender hand on the forearm. Anything, anything at all.

We already talked about Egon choking out the little mummy utterance. So that takes us to our final scene, which is Jason or Naira doing some dragon math, which is thrilling. Get out the micro fish. It's time to do some research. We love a library. 23 and me and dragon. We love to use the search.

function on the Kindle app. Yes. Oh, man. So, Jace comes back. Reneer is studying the text on Vesnia. Jace has some notes. Really the theme of the episode. A lot of characters have a lot of notes.

Yeah. He doesn't think that this should be the role model that Reneer seeks. And we've chatted about this already a little bit, but let's show this passage from Fire and Blow, which kind of sums up the complexity of Vecania Targaryen. The older, elder sibling, the sister-wife. one of the two sister wives of Egonne to conquer. A spicy figure. Indeed. Vesania, eldest of the three siblings, was as much a warrior as Egon himself, as comfortable in ringmail as in silk. She carried the Valerian longsword

dark sister and was skilled in its use, having trained beside her brother since childhood. Nothing Reneira, of course, did not get to do. Though possessed of the silver, gold hair, and purple eyes of Valeria, hers was a harsh, austere beauty. Even those who loved her best found Vesania stern, serious, and unforgiving. Some said that she played with poisons and dabbled in dark sorceries. Dabbling in dark sorceries is a... I mean, who doesn't like to dabble? I love to dabble.

I love to dabble. So this is like the thing that Jace fears, right? Okay, you want to model yourself after somebody who is... Did the thing regularly that we're all telling you not to do, which is like be on the front line. But of course, for Renera, that's the draw, right? That's the appeal is not only being in the middle. but being as consequential as the fabled figure in history. And like we've talked about Reneira's personal connection to Vesania,

tracing back to the beginning of the show. She wanted to name her younger sibling Vesena. If it was a girl, we had that, God's be good. This family already has its Vesnia response from Vassaris when Emma told him that. Reneira names her stillborn child, Vesnia. We know that Vesania is a hero of Reneas. We've talked before about that great conversation between Aria and Taya in Harenhall, thinking back to the legend of dragon power

and what Egonne and Belaerian did at Herod Hall and Arias like, let's not forget. Also Vesena. Vesnia. Let's not forget the sister wives. So you understand why Reneiro would want to model herself after Vesania, but then you're also like troubling figure in many respects who was, one, constantly, helped bring the realm to heal, but was constantly in a position of peril.

Maybe it was a dark sorceress and also was the mother. to make or the cruel. Jason the cruel doesn't not have the right ring to it. No. Absolutely not. So Jason's like maybe not this? But I'm not here. Is this what I have to be in order to be respected?

This is a question I, like when I was in my 20s and worked for like a couple different like hard asses. A question that we asked ourselves, do you have to be a hard ass in order to rise this high in the various fields that we were talking about. Like, is that who you have to be? These are all, like, women that we were talking about. Like, do you have to be an absolute terror? Man.

A Miranda Priestley or whatever. Yeah. In order to get respect. And I think this is a question of a lot of people and certainly a lot of women ask themselves. And I think it's really smart to have Rainiera sort of dwelling on this. For sure. How does you feel about the way that she just speaks very openly to Jace? Like, again, able to carry more than one thing in her mind and heart at once.

I'm proud of you for what you did at the twins. It was important. You did great. I love you. Also, I resent the fact that you can ignore what I tell you and go do the thing you want. And I right now don't feel like I can do the same. Yeah, I liked it. Oh, boy.

So Renera tried to avoid dragon where it all costs. And now here is where we are. I've lost two dragons. And I need more. I need dragons. I need dragons. So Jace has a pitch. And the pitch is, to be clear, it is the pitch that Damon made in the season one finale.

I can say this is like correction, though, because in the books, it's Jace's idea. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about that a lot when we covered the finale. They were like... Oh, interesting. They've changed Damon's relationship to this idea. Yeah.

This actually felt kind of true to life to me that like you're pissed at someone and you're like, I don't need to acknowledge that... Yeah. And then someone later's like, what if it's the same idea? And you're like, ooh, Chase, your hair is so compelling this year. It must follow. The pomuline, it holds a lot of sway. So we have two large enough, meaning dragons, to stand against Vagar.

They're called Vermethore and Silver Wing, and they sleep just beneath our feet. You and Chris shocked me, floored me, astonished me on Dog to Thrones by. He fed Chris the dragon mat and he pretended like he knew. And I was like, are we in Haranol? What is happening? What is reality? It was a delight. I've never seen someone agree to something faster. So do you want to make Valerie said explain? He's like, yeah. Wild times. So in case anybody did not watch the Talk to Throne's, which you can go to right now.

Here's a quick rundown of the dragon math. The Greens. They had Vagar. What's a thousand times the price you paid, Joe? Dreamfire. Can take on more than one dragon. So Vagar counts for more than one. Dreamfire. Do you think we will be seeing Dreamfire? Helena has a dragon called Dreamfire. We saw it in the background briefly in season one. and we have not heard much of it since. Sunfire. Badly, badly, badly, badly,

wounded, but we are not ready to officially take sunfire off the board. Tesarian, not yet rideable. But coming. Darren's dragon, somewhere in the margins, somewhere. And then some kilns, some eggs. Some eggs. So, not yet ready. Okay.

Team Black. Maly's off the board. ARAX, off the board. So since Damon's Dragon Math pitch, two dragons have died. That is a difference of notable distinction. So here's what we have. Karexies, the bloodworm, damage smell.

Cyrax. Rainer is dragon. Moon dancer, who is getting a taste for action. Yeah. Vermax, the diplomat dragon. Oh, man. Vermax has seen a lot of the realm now. Vermax has traveled.

Vermx has seen the world. Yeah. Tyraxies. and StormCloud. Hatchlings. In the veil. I still am taking some issue with calling Tyraxies a hatchling, but yeah, hatchlings and in the veil. So, and we should say StormCloud did not seem to be included in Damon's like math if we go through the numbers that he gave. I think we just need to like, it is what it is. Okay. And then unclaimed, but have been written before. Yes, right. So we'll have two categories of unclaimed here that are part of their

math. So previously written, known to be able to pair with a rider. Vermethore. The bronze fury, the former mount of Jaharis, the conciliator. No big deal. Damon sang to Vermethore at the end of last season. A lullaby. Beautiful. Silver Wing. The good Queen Alessanes mount. Yeah. Have not seen Silver Wing yet. But. Cannot wait. In the basement. Cannot wait. And sea smoke. Of the goatee. Lanars Dragon complicated.

Yes. And we have seen Sea Smoke a couple of times this season, Adam watched Seassook for Marsaria and Reniro, saw C-Smoke, like, crying out. Lonely. Lonely laments. Very sad. Then we have another category here. Wild Dragons. They're there flying around on Dragonstone, but they have never paired with the rider.

Never been mounted. Unlike Alyssa Targary. There you go. The Cannibal. Great name. Great ghost. Great name. It's also pretty good.

All of them are good. And then, of course, eggs. We know that, I mean, we saw Damon. A six dragons. Yeah, it's a lot. At least. Plus all the eggs. We saw the eggs that went to the veil with Raina,

but we know also, like, you know, Cyrax, a clutch of eggs, Damon going down into the dragon. Like, he's always talking about it has been over the episodes about the eggs that are in the mix. So they are also on Dragonstone where the Dragon's is, this natural habitat where the dragons like to be, which is important. Like this is a place that the dragons have a connection to their power.

Not so, the dragon pit. An unnatural confining habitat that will be the subject of canon for ages to come. So this is the math favors Team Black Joe, if they can find their riders. If they can find their writers. I think a couple things are important here. I think we're going to spend more time on this concept in future episodes. Yes, we will circle back after we see. Sort of an abbreviated thing.

But here's a couple things to think about. One is that Jace himself is not as Targgy as... No one really thinks he's that target, but he's half strong. Half Targaryen. And he can claim his dragon, no probes. Absolutely. Justice, his brothers, Luke, and Jof could. He has every reason to be like Valerian history, sure.

They said you had to be pure of blood, but do you? I loved this. Me too. Loved. And like the meta aspect for us is, fans when we're parsing the unreliable narrative nature of the histories for Jace to be like, yeah, like the Gilden and Glory, this is just the propaganda machine making us seem really special.

And we've talked a lot before about how, just to remind folks, like, in Valeria of Old, the Lego set before it was disassembled, the Targaryans were like one of many dragon riding families and hardly the most notable or powerful. So other bloodlines who can trace their roots to old Valeria, when they were. before the doom, before the freehold fell, all their families wrote dragons. So there's this connection to the Valerian history that we'll explore more. Our colleague Riley wrote a great piece on the ringer.com. What a great website. Valerian, not Valerian, is the key. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Going through some of the potential

theories of like the ties to the blood magic in old Valerian, what that might mean. He had a lot of fun with that. And there is that Sept and Barth. Get your Thanos was right, Mung, and move it out of the way. It's time for Septu Barth. right. Note in George's latest Nauta blog on Dragons, where he said Septim Barth got much of it, right? We're going to, again, we'll circle back like after the show explores this attempt to pair, and we'll talk more about what that cements or updates or confirms or tweaks, whatever, about what we know about the canon. The other thing in the Nata blog post that we should mention is that George was like, I'll be going into much more detail on this in Wins of Winter. A book is definitely coming very soon.

Oh, my God. Mallory, how did you feel about the potential for winds of winter dropping when they just announced a new box set of the existing books? This was a tough moment in Ringar Game of Thrones slack. This was tough. What did I say? It's not coming. I definitely had a, I will buy this. I can't wait to buy this.

This cover art is stunning. Oh, my God. Oh, beautiful. Love it. Can't wait to add it to the bookshelf. Oh, no. They wouldn't be putting out a new box set if they thought they had another book to add to. it soon?

They really wouldn't. But back to your point about, like, Jace and his lineage, because we've talked about the other side of that before, which was how people could suspect Jason and Luke and Jophe of being bastards all they want. Like, Ramiro is still their mother. So the idea that they would have, like, a difficult time claiming their dragon was always a little bit bizarre. Yeah.

But it had long been the custom amongst the dragonlords of Valeria to wed brother to sister to keep the bloodlines pure. So again, a larger Valerian tradition, not just a Taric tradition, bloodlines pure. I like, to your point, Jace and Reneira bringing that knowledge to this. Like, well, we were okay. Maybe you just need it on one side.

Maybe you don't need it at all. Maybe it is total propaganda. What's hilarious about Jase, again, I don't like using the B word, let's say, illegitimately conceived. Conceived out of wedlock. I love that they're like, let's look to our cousins,

not like, let's look around for some other illegitimate children. Yeah. They're like, let's search the family tree for some distant cousins who might have some targ blood. This was, that was really interesting. Yeah. Let's start with just like the non-ruling targs who had to be like shuncted off to other marriages and other families. Tough moment there for the malsters and the Tarleys.

Caught astray. Caught astray. This question of like disaster for the Targs. Yes. Our listener, Cody, just to parapherly, just to paramed. parallel, Maly's being paraded through the street, is this idea of like, okay, if we democratize the force, which we always love, if we say, shout up Brum boy, you don't have to be a pure Targaryian to ride the dragon, does that not undermine once again the specialness of the Targaryens?

I mean, I agree with Renier, we need more dragons. Let's put some dragon riders on there. Yes. But if you're, like, putting a Malister or a Tarley on a Dragonback, then like, you know, then the idea of like Targaryens closer to God's dragonriders. Absolutely. It's diluted. A long time source of speculation in the fandom has been, do you need some targ blood but not fall? Do you need just a drop?

Blood would be thin. Maybe that's okay. How many midi chlorines? No. No. Torbin, you stay away from me with your needles. No. How high does your arm count have to be to ride a dragon?

But there's been some speculation. And again, maybe we'll talk about this more later, but do you need to be a target? Oh, that's something that fans really like to speculate over and talk about. and I was struck by in Georgia's post. He's talking about how dragons are not nomadic. And he said, think about it. If dragons were nomadic, they would have overrun half of Esos and the doom would only have killed a few of them.

Similarly, the dragons of Westros seldom wander far from dragonstone. Elsewise, after 300 years, we would have dragons all over the realm. And every noble house would have a few. Now, he didn't necessarily say, and ride a few. Maybe they just took up residence in this scenario. But I thought that was like... Curious one and curious. A striking thing to put in the post.

And yet, your point about like, okay, well, maybe if it ends up being like you've got some targ blood but just not pure, you could still hold on to a little bit of that while we're different. We're special. Right. Targ exceptionalism. If you don't need any of it, how long can you claim to be closer to gods? Fascinating stuff. wig watch. This is a quick wig watch.

Will you wear wigs? I just feel like I always forget to wait for the musical cue. Thank you. Okay. Alice Rivers, who I think looks incredible. Yes. In the scene, in the hallway scene with Damon, where she may or may not have disappeared behind Simon Strong,

I felt like her wig was really wigging out. Like, it really looked very wiggy. It was like riding low on her forehead and, like, You could not see in her part. Like her part is so, anyway, this is a telltale wig sign. If you can't, like, see any skin inside the part, sorry, that sounds gross. But, like, it's true. Then it's just sort of like that it looked a little dime story.

So you hate a crevice, but you love a part. Interesting. In a classic wig. The canon grows. It expands. Joanna, it is time now. Yeah. Slightly more elevated than that wig watch was.

For our interview, our chat with Corlis Filarian. Iconic wig wearer, Steve Toussaint. We wanted to start by asking about sort of a meta question for you. Before we get into Coralus and Rainies, we wanted to get into Steve and Eve and what it's like for you. You've been paired with her for so long. You're together in every interview. What's it like to lose this sort of partner in your work? I mean, I don't want to sort of use too much hyperbole

so I'm not going to say that I'm bereft or devastated but near enough it's been such a joy from the day that we first met we just clicked just immediately literally within seconds of meeting each other and I've told this before that after the first day of shooting which was the scene, the very first shot of the whole of season one

was the scene where we're by the fireplace and I say that history doesn't remember, bloody remembers names. After we had shot that scene, I went home and I actually said to my partner, I said, oh, thank God for eat best. And it has just grown from there. So, yes, the thought of not being paired with her

and not doing their stuff and not working with her, it's been like, oh, no, that's horrible. But it's an actor's life and hey, it's Westeros. People die. No one's safe. No one's true. Have a sort of related question because the Corliss-Renice marriage, but more broadly their partnership, has been like one of the most rewarding relationships for us to watch develop over the course of the two seasons so far. So we're wondering if you have not just a favorite scene, either from season one or two, that you two shared, but maybe one that you feel is like most emblematic of the nature of that partnership.

Oh, wow. Oh, that's a really good question. I think, just off top of my head, I would think, and I'd have to go back and look at this scene, but how I remember this scene. There's a scene in season one. I think the king has come. I think he's come and asked. for our son to marry his daughter, to marry Rainera. Yeah.

He then retires, I hope I'm getting the chronology right. But it's a scene basically where initially, Corliss goes up to her, puts his arm around her and says something like, she says something along the lines of, you know, our son's gay, basically. And he's like, don't worry about it, he'll grow out of it. That scene, I think, is emblematic in a sense that, A, it shows, hopefully that it shows that there's love between them. Also that he pays attention to her,

even though he does brush it off. But that's a scene that I think encapsulates an awful lot of their relationship. And in fact, the very famous still was taken from that relationship, where we're almost in silhouette, looking, holding each other. Really, really have fond memories

of that particular scene. Now that you've been asking me that, I'll go and watch it and go, oh, no, no, no, that's not in it at all. No, that's a beautiful scene. We remember it well. Like you said, Viseras off, taking a nap after, you know, one of his many body parts has just fallen off on the journey. Great stuff all around. So we find Corlis in this episode, episode five, in a very broken, very emotionally raw place. You just mentioned Lainor. We're chatting about Raina's death, obviously. Lina. We're curious to ask you, because it's, In season one, so much of Corlis' arc is defined by his pursuit of legacy, his, like, obsession with what his standing and his house is standing is going to be in the annals of history. So that has really shifted over the course of his arc.

And we're wondering about that relationship specifically between grief and ambition. How has all of the loss that Corliss has suffered shaped the way he thinks about his goals, his pursuits, and what really matters? You know, it's an interesting journey and it's been fascinating to explore it and try and play it. I think that when he said at the end of season one prior to pledging allegiance to Reno, when he was in his sickbed and he said to his wife, my ambition has caused the death of our children, my brother, let's just get out of this. He said, not our war, let's just go home and enjoy our money.

and she says, no, no, no, we have to now support this young lady. She's what may well keep the realm together. And in fact, she has a legitimate claim. I think he then says, okay, we'll do that. And I think he is being completely honest in that, okay, this is what you want me to do. I just abandon you for six years. I owe you to actually listen to what you're saying and do it. But I think that we don't change that much.

So I think that the ambition is still, He has suppressed it. And so I have a feeling that despite the fact that he's grieving, and certainly when we meet him at the beginning of episode five, I think he wants nothing to do with any of them. Reneer is very smart in sending Baylor to him and saying, you know, ask your granddad, it'll sound better coming from you.

And I think he says that to her. When we shot it, he said to her, She was very smart to send you. I think there is a part of him that's still there, that still has an ambition, that still wants to, that still creates a legacy. And also, his wife, one of the last things she says to him, at least on camera, prior to her untimely demise, she says, she comes down to the docks and she says to him, I knew who that man is, that man who saved you.

And it's not his fault that he's here. Don't blame him to what you did, basically. And he shouldn't be swept under the carpet. He should be, I don't know if he's children used the word exalted, but he's that kind of, he is pure blood. He deserves to get what's coming to him. And I feel like as he sits, as Corlis sits there with the hand brooch in his hand, he thinks, well, I've got permission.

The last thing she said was, you should lift this child up. Because also, all of my other heirs are gone. and the last person that I offer it to says, no, no, no, I'm fire and blood. It should have come to salt and see it. It's like, well, I can't give this thing away. So I feel like the ambition is still there, the fact that he is now closer to the possibly closer to the crown.

All of that plays into it, but I think there's also a bit of him that goes, well, maybe I can still salvage this. And also I have the blessing of my now deceased wife. Before we get to Alan, there is that offer to Bela. And I was curious, in that moment when he offers to Bela, how much of that is sort of like an impulsive reaction to her directness, to her, the way she's carrying herself in that scene? And how much is it at all Corley's thinking about Rainis, who was talking about Bela and Raina as

possible heirs? Like, how much is he thinking about her in that moment or how is he reacting to Baila specifically? For me, I think it's about Baila specifically, because I think in the discussion that he has with Reynes, she posits, she doesn't mention Baylor because Baylor's going to be queen. Baylor's fine. She mentions the youngest boy and Corlis dismisses that.

His kid is like, I don't know, well, the kid is like two or three, so don't be silly. Right, right. And then she says, well, what about Raina? And he's like, well, she knows nothing about ships. So he dismisses her. I think it's in that moment,

that fire and that spark that Baylor exhibits it felt to me as we were playing it I was like oh you really are your mother's daughter you are your grandmother's grandchild I think he sees I think for the way that I think about him he likes

a spark in people so it's in the same way that with Alan is very wary of him and very much a self-made man that independent street I think Corlis likes that And so in that moment, to get back to your question, when Baylor stands up to him and says, well, you can do what the fuck you want.

I think he is kind of like, oh, yeah, maybe it could be her. She has the spirit, but she has enough sense. It's not me. I think. I love that. On the Allen and Adam front, how, you know, we get this great story of Corleyson-Raney's, and their love story and their long-enduring love story. what does it do to your perception of that to add this information that not only did he have two boys, you know, in an affair, then that means that affair was at least long enough to issue two sons. So how does that added information inform how you think about the marriage between those two?

Well, you know, it's so weird. It was, it's been very interesting in trying to explore it and trying to make sense of it. because for the whole of season because, okay, I didn't read the books. I purposely just chose not to read the book because the book is the book and the TV series is the TV series so let's just keep them apart.

And so for the whole of season one, it was just all about, oh, they're in love and it's great and it's pure and she's the one person he trusts and so forth. And then I was presented with these scripts and you're like, oh, oh, wow, okay. And not only did you, and so then initially I sort of went,

okay, well, maybe it's that thing of sailors, they go away and they go away for a month. But what was the crux of it was the fact that it's two boys with the same mother. Yeah. Yeah. And Eve and I spoke about this. I've had long discussions about this and about how Rénieis would feel about it and how

course would feel about it. And I still haven't quite got to come to terms with it. I had a friend who was a Capoeira instructor here in London. but when he was training, he went to Brazil to learn. And while he was there, they would travel around Brazil giving exhibitions and so forth. And he said to me that sometimes some of the guys that he was with, he would see them. They'd be on the phone to their girlfriends back home. And they'd be crying.

Oh, my God, I miss you so much. I love you so much. Every day I think about you. I can't think about anything else. It's just you. I love you. And tears, you know, wiping their eye. Oh, my God, I get my heart burns without you.

They put the phone down and then if white theirs and go, okay, let's go. okay, let's go find some girls. And we were like, oh my God. And there is this thing, I guess, so some people can just disassociate. When I'm here, this is my life.

But you're not going to be as important to me as the lady I left behind. She is, that's my real thing. But while I'm here, this is a part of the time. And I kind of, I guess I'm leaning towards that with callus. It's a very, it's an ongoing discussion with myself as to what his thoughts are. Because also we find out that these kids grew up in the shadow of Drismar.

Do you know what I mean? So I haven't fully found, I haven't fully been able to justify his relationship to myself as to, and I can only see me just like a lot of men, you know, and I'm not disassociating, disassociating myself. I'm a man to who can just sort of go. Yeah, well, that's that. Let's not talk about it. I guess that's where he's at. I don't know. Interesting. So you haven't, you haven't, like, crafted a specific argument or moment of a rift. For you, it was never like, there was a couple years where it just wasn't working in the marriage and then they figured it out. I mean, that happens. It ebbs and flows, right?

I mean, that would be nice. That's a nice thing to get out of it. I haven't got that far because I felt like, okay, so we know that when he goes. He goes away, he goes away for a long time. After the death of his daughter, he disappeared for six years. Yeah. So it's just like, you know, why? So I guess, you know, in those periods where he's done that, where he's been off exploring, or maybe some point during the these, that would have been during the nine voyages,

but maybe at some point he's gone off and done that and just thought, well, I'm going to be here for a few months. I need some entertainment. And I don't know. It's a funny thing because I've had this discussion with, a couple of the directors that we worked with with Claire and with Alan. I don't recall having a long, in-depth discussion with Ryan about it, because the two things that stick out, of course,

are the fact that we went back to the same lady. Yeah. We don't know, or it's I don't know, whether their mother has passed or whether she lives there, but she just doesn't, we don't see her, or if she's in another country altogether. That hasn't been explored, and I don't know whether it will or not, but there are more questions and answers at this stage. So let's stick with this like ghosts of the past, shadows of the past idea, but take it back into the political arena.

You've already alluded to Corlis's very complex feelings about Rainera. He had similarly complex feelings about Vassaris. That was a big part of the beginning of the series was like the ruptures, the riffs, repairing, etc. One of the truly like instantly iconic moments of season two for us in real time was Corlok. saying the dithers of Dragonstone, how fair are they, the dithers of Dragonstone? So we know what esteem he holds Rainer's counsel in, right? Yeah. But he's looking for purpose.

He's looking for newfound purpose. And so when we see him close his hand around the pin, the hand of the queen pin, near the end of the fifth episode, we can deduce certainly that he has made his decision to move forward and accept this offer. How is Corliss going to reconcile how he feels? about his new political bedfellows with his, what seems to be like a real need to entrench himself again and something that gives him meaning and some sort of mooring? I think his attitude to them would be very much like his attitude to Viseras' small council.

I don't think he had much respect for any of them. I think he kind of liked Damon, or at least he sort of, I mean, he would keep him at arm's length, but he was like, okay, he's useful. I think he thought Victoris was a nice man and not a very nice king but one of the things that I felt when I was sitting there

was like I'm better than all of you you just do a lot of talking which ain't been anywhere yet done anything and I think that is what you could take into he takes into the small counter in fact I think after the oh gosh yes after the scene

where Reneas said to him I forget which episode it is but she says to him something like after the thing about with Alan, I know who he is. She then says something like, Jason, Baylor are going to be eaten alive by this council. She goes back.

And then he comes along to back her up and say, one of that things he says if you're walking in, something like, is this what we're doing? We're just going to just be just scrambling for power. Yeah. He is aware of the gravity and aware of the power that he and the esteem of which he has held. And I don't think, one of the things I like about him is that he doesn't suffer fools. To me, despite his complicated.

relationship with Rainera, she's the only one on that council that's worth anything, as far as he's concerned. You know, she could be a half-decent ruler as far as he's concerned, I think. We're going to send this soundbite to Sir Alfred Broom. Yeah, our favorite. You're not worth shit, Alfred. You heard it directly from the sea snake. I know you said you hadn't read the book.

I think that's a really valid approach to all of this. we're obsessive book readers. And it was like, so it was like a bit of a lore update for us. This depiction of the nine voyages, as Bela puts it, is like something that you did for Reynese, that it was all for her. In the book, it's a bit more like about building up his house, building up his bank account,

building up all this sort of stuff. I'm curious, you know, how that idea either changes your idea of Corley's, Does it make him even more of a romantic for you? Or was he always that way? Or what is the backstory that you've concocted of Corleus out on the Nine Voyages, thinking of Princess Rainey's Targary? I think, again, this is purely conversations that Eve and I have had.

We didn't have any of this discussion with Ryan, so he may well contradict to what I'm about to say. But I feel that Corliss had been on a couple of those voyages. he'd seen her, he liked her, he knew he had to build himself up to call for her hand, basically. And I decided that they were out of ball somewhere. Maybe he was around voyage three or four. And he makes an approach to her. And he says to her, I'm going to marry you.

You're the one that I want. And she says something along the lines of, and you'd have to ask Eve. She says something along the lines of, well, you're going to have to earn me. And I think that's what he does. That's just my own romantic little story. I love it. Yeah, that he's like, of course he's trying to build himself up. And he's had that thing in a, there's a scene with myself and Matt's,

there's Damon in episode two, I think, of season one. We're trying to persuade. Seconds, second sons, yeah. Talk about, he said, I know, I built this all by myself and so. So there's still that part of him. It's still about self-aggrandizement, but also it's like, this is the woman that I need to be with and I will do whatever I have to to get her. And I love that, I love that idea of the two of them. We have just a couple quick rapid fire questions to close out. I'm going to ask you what we asked

you in Mitchell last week, which is make the case for your team, team, team black. Why should we be team black versus team green right now? Right now in the story. Right. Do you know why? Because This is a realm which is built on law and precedent. The king himself named his daughter. This is the person. Half of the people who are now on Team Green are the same ones who came to that hall and they bent the knee to her and pledged allegiance. When you give your word, you give everything. So that alone is the reason.

And we're just nicer people. I love this. I agree. We're just nicer people. We agree. We ride hard for Team Black over here. Yes, absolutely. We've lost one of our co-hosts to Team Green.

It's been dismaying to watch in real time. But I don't understand the argument for Team Green, to be honest with you. Oh, neither do I. I don't understand at all. Okay. So when we knew we were going to have the privilege of chatting with you, we knew where we were going to end the interview. This is the most important question. Correct.

Okay. It's been a great season, lots of highlights. Here's our favorite moments so far. It's Corliss and Renice in bed together. and Renice talking about how, you know, the idea of command, Damon's not going to let Renera command him. And Corliss says, pity, I have on occasion, found that to be quite enjoyable.

So here's a final question for you. What can you tell us about Corlis and Renice's sex life? It's all we've thought about since that moment. Correct. Oh, I've not been asked that. Well, you know, whenever we're interviewed together, Eve will always say, you know, that their partners are so forth,

and she will always say, and they've got a rocking sex life. So I'm going to go with that. Whatever images that gives you, please run with them. That's just much like I can say. Excellent. Fantastic. All right, we have permission to spark some new fan fiction here.

That's all we needed. I'll get started right away. Thank you so much. This has been a blast. Thank you. Thank you so much. Cheers. Okay.

Fantastic. Mallory, I love you being you. Delightful. Thank you. Always yourself. It's one of the things I love most. about you and doing this with you. It can always be me.

It can always be you. A gift, truly. It is time now for the book look ahead, which means if you do not want any spoilers about what awaits in the story, it's time for you to pull a brand and say, I'm going to go now. Joanna, I have a question for you about Hugh Hammer

after his, it's just meat line. What does his seeming lack of reverence for the dragons mean in terms of his impending bond with a dragon. I think it's just going to be so important to him that, like, his family is what matters. His family, family connected to Tumbledon. Yeah, that was incredible. That was great.

Can you explain to the listeners who don't know why? Yeah, so Tumbledon will be the site of the great portrayal. Where Hugh and Oof will turn. We'll switch sides. Hugh and O'F who claim dragons are riding for team black will change sides and ride for Team Green. And the question is why? Yeah. So do you think, because I've been assuming with this like budding riot that his family was maybe in jeopardy and also his kid's illness. But then now I do feel like the counterweight to that is that at least someone needs to be alive in his family for him to be pulled to the other side.

Yeah. I thought his wife and his child were going to die in the riot in Kings Landing and that was going to drive him over to Dragonstone to Claim Dragon. Now I think he's going to send them off to Tumbleton or something like that. he's going to drag and ride for Renierra. And then when shit goes down at Tumbledon, his betrayal will connect to his family tie that we've then spent time with. I think so too. It is going to be wild when they're like Vermethore, Silver Wing, the former mounts of Jahris, the old king and the good queen Alassane.

And then they're like Hugh Hammer and Ulf. Go on now. What's all this then? Dude, I have missed Ulf. Ulf has been tragically missing from our lives. If we don't get Ulf next week, I riot in Kingslanding. Okay. What's next?

Lock the gates. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The taking of Kings Landing, which we think we are aligned now is probably going to, like, here's how I envision it, among many other things. Damon and Rainier are come together to take Kingslanding together. That he extricates himself from the clutches of Harren Hall.

enough to go with Rainier to take Kings Landing at the end of the season. And part of the taking of Kings Landing, a key part of that is that Damon still has friends in the gold cloaks and they're able to sneak them, sneak people into the city. Yes. This idea of like lock the gates, but Damon has connections with the gold cloaks who we already saw, let Alinda in in this episode, you know? Never forget how blood greeted him. Commander!

Yeah. Can we talk about the flip side of that? Which is Amon, I mean, they can only take the city if Amin and Vagar have left. Yes. Damon and Alice just talk about Amin in this episode? That fool Egon is unlike to survive. The realm will suffer if Aymand one eye rolls. You should pray you never meet him.

He will cut you down as soon as wish you good day. I heard the same about you. So, do you think all this is going to happen in the next three episodes? It's sort of either they both happen or neither of them happen. I think my, the way I'm envision. it. Yeah. Sowing into fish feed into taking of Kings Landing?

It's complicated. And if we had more time, I would go into like full detail. I did. We talked about a lot of trial by content of how I think it's all going to go. But I do think Amon walking into an empty Heron Hall. Yes. And maybe meeting Alice or not, but probably meeting Alice. Right.

Ency. Yeah, yeah. FN. Yeah. Like, that's it. So he's going to arrive at Heron Hall and realize he fucked up. And he'd be like, what the fuck? And then we cut to.

Kings Landing and Rainier and Damner are like, surprise, we're here. We save the cut by the throne for another time. I still like that as the photo shot. I hope that happens for you. You had asked if Amon would be vulnerable again. I think we will see that with Alice, right? I hope so. And then this is a fun guessing game. If Amon gets haunted at Haran Hall, who do you think he sees? This is literally the only thing currently that gives me a different. theory for timeline for the rest of the season. Those mystery shots from the trailer of Allison, like by the gods eye, what we thought might be the gods eye, those like dreamy, like lake shots of her. Like, are those going to be Amon's mommy dreams at Harenhall? Will he arrive

in time to have some sort of Harenhold dream plot this season? It honestly doesn't seem possible based on how much time is left, but I am like, what are those Allison shots otherwise? That's a good question. I mean, is it a definitely a lake and not... Could just be the blackwater. They're just by the bay. Could just be a really big bathtub. They summed in a larger bath.

She loves a bathtub. Here's some theories I have. Yes, hit me. We get Leo back to play young Amund. And he sees a younger version of himself. I hope so. He was great. Ty Tennant could show up.

It would be the thrill of my life. It would be the thrill of my life. Don't even put these notions in my mind. Because now if that doesn't happen. Luke. That would also be great. That kid's probably getting taller by the day, so they got to worry that up. But, you know.

Will ARAX make an appearance? Maybe, yeah. Like, you really fucked me, man. My wing, man. Okay. The pink tread? Oh. To go back to taking King's Landing.

Yeah. Are you on Gwain Hyatt Tower Death Watch? I feel like by not putting him in the city watch, they've spared him. Protected him. Okay, great. And it was, if that is in fact the case, it was the one. right choice. Yeah.

And they should keep him around for as long as possible. Because Gwain Hyattower could die. Simon Strong and Gwain Hyattower, two of our favorite new characters. No. Could both die in the finale. No. No. As Aiman takes Heron Hall and.

So Simon and while that will be agonizing, I do feel like we've just gotten more time with him and it will be such a memorable time by the end. I actually, I mean, who knows when the next two episodes bring, but just don't think actually we've gotten enough from Gawain. Agree. Sunfire. Obviously Sunfire's not dead. Hashtick Sunfire lives. In terms of curious shots in the trailer that we can't explain, there's a shot of Bela on Moon Dancer that was not part of the sort of like attack on Kristen and Gwain, where she looks like she's like screaming or yelling or in some kind of agony.

So that could be her like, we're fucking taking King's Landing face. Or she has this line in the episode about Rain East where she says, the thought of her lying in a field broken amongst her enemies, will she go to find her grandmother's body and encounter long in the dying sunfire? And to have this like early sunfire moon dancer encounter. That would be great to set up the... To set up their later encounter where moon dancer does not win. I mean, in a sense, no one wins.

That's a real nobody wins one. Bruttle stuff. Well, I like a yeah. I like that. Because when we were speculating that maybe based on preseason trailers, Belaan moon dancer would be a part of Rook's dress, which we had questions about, but that was the kind of, in addition to the Rain East Bayloron, that was kind of the exciting part.

It was like a Sunfire Moon Dancer connection early. Yeah, that would be fun. What else here? The sewing. Anything else you want to say about this? What about the Raina line? Did that make you... Made me so mad.

Yeah. Did it make you feel like... I am like one million percent on board that she's going to claim sheep stealer in the veil. Yeah. This is happening. Yeah. Except George just told us that the dragons don't travel to other places. The veil's not that far.

Just a quick... A quick notch. Just stealing sheep in the veil if anyone's going to do it. Sheep Steeler of the Dragon. There's a shot from the trailer of Rina. I shouldn't do Dave Gonzalez. She's in the veil. She's like looking up.

I showed him to Dave Gonzalez. He's like, she could be looking at anything, Joanna. It's like, sure. But like, a sheep. But like. Them like raising the baskets. The fact that Raina's there and she's like, and Jane's like, where's my big dragon? This idea that Lena is in this episode saying, what about our daughters?

And if Raina slides into the role of the girl Nettles, which is the character from the book for anyone who's listening and doesn't read the book. Pray for our pal David Jacobi if Nettles doesn't make it. Oh, God. But like if Rana claims the dragon sheep stealer. Yeah. Comes a Dragon Rider. Damon is, like, proud of her for the first time in their life, toxic. Tough one.

And takes her under his wing. As you know, I've been pro. I like the Raina subbing in for Nettles. I think it fits very cleanly. And the idea of the history is being like, they were fucking. It's like, maybe not. Also, now that we've seen some stuff from Damon. Maybe so.

Who knows? Tough. Horrible. Did you see that, did I share with you? Did you see the theory about, like, the other part of Raina claiming sheepsteer having to do with the gay abandon plot. This idea that Reneura tasks Rana

with going to Pentos with the kids. And if she's like, don't worry, I put the toddlers on the boat, but I'm here with the dragon help you. And then shit goes south

on the boat with the toddlers. And Reneer blames Rana for that because she's like, I asked you to watch them. So that resentment that she has towards the girl Nettles is transferred to Rana because she's like, you had one job,

watch the babies, not playing a dragon. Yeah. I mean, we have like a lot of, I like that. A lot of things need to start building toward not just the paranoia, but Reneer just feeling like people are like letting her down a lot. Relatedly, on the Jace front with Gullet and trying to go rescue the kids, when she said, like, and you are my son and I did not give you leave to go?

There's a shot in the... There's a shot in the... They released this last week a new, like, sort of weeks ahead trailer. And so not in the next time on. But there's a shot in the weeks ahead trailer of Jace at Dragonstone watching all these dragons fly away. So they're all going to Kings Landing. All the dragon scenes get to go.

And Jace is grounded at Dragonstone. And that, I feel, like, sets him up perfectly at the beginning of next season to be like... There's no way that I won't go. Yeah. Oh, left alone at Dragonstone. So that way, Jace is not at Kings Landing because he wouldn't be because by that time of the book he's dead. He's not at Kings Landing. He's stuck at Dragonstone.

He's pissed. He's got his hand on his pommel. His cheekbones are popping. The curls are working and he's like, I got to go. And a ton of confidence because he's winning. Racking up wins. Bent knees. The Dragon Sea plan was his idea and he has to stay behind a Dragonstone.

Yet another tough one here for mushroom. It is. Where's mushroom to receive the credit he deserves? What else here? The sewing? Stefan. Yeah. Slouching in the chair.

I'm glad that he had time amid all of this to get a nice haircut and a shave. Looking great. Looking great. So Stefan Darklin is one of the would-be Dragon Riders who does not make it. He's like, well, we need to avenge Duskendale, so you know he's going to volunteer. The storming. The storming of the dragon pit. They are setting this up well.

I agree. Like the discontented rumors are feedline and this is at this point in the story, it's an anti-green, let's use this for Team Black kind of concept, and to know that this will turn on Renera. Bite them so hard in the ass. And be such a devastating moment. There's a shot in the weeks ahead trailer of like a poster of a draft. dragon with like a red circle through it or whatever. This sort of like anti-dragon propaganda. So is that what

Alinda Massey and Diana like in their bespoke like very newsies-esque print shop, printing up anti-dragon posters anti-dragon prop and then again the danger of starting up the crowd

and then that crowd then turning on anyone with the dragon, not just the greens. That will be a quite short-sighted. decision because ultimately their aim is to take Kingslanda. It's too bad. I really do want Misaria to have good ideas. That would be a tough one.

Here we are. A tough one. Oh, what else? So obviously, Baylor rejecting Corliss has offered to be heir. We're just one step closer to Alan. Our guy. Hour of the Wolf. Well, Alan first has to get very badly burned.

And then he gets to be aired at a drift mark. I'm excited for Alan and Adam to be more present in the story. Yeah, I agree. Hour of the Wolf felt like a nice little. Don't worry. Craigon's going to come back. You're getting your hour of the wolf eventually, nod to us. Fish feed.

Fish feed being a battle that happens at the shore of the gods eye, the bloodiest land battle. No dragons are supposed to be there. I do have some questions about this again. We talked about this a lot on trial-like content, but I have a question about, like, they need to come up with some other characters to be at the fish feed for us to be interested in the fish feed. This has been my thing the whole time. Like, I just don't. I actually don't think it's a successful or interesting climactic thrust of the season.

If it's like Jason, Lannister and the Greybeards and a bunch of characters we don't really give a shit about. So they have to get a couple people who are invested in. They have to put Kristen and Gwain there. They have to, if there's a shot from the trailer of Damon in front of all the tents, the encampment. So if Damon's there and he's like, I'm going to fight with you guys. And then he just sort of like solve. But if you, like, if that happens simultaneously with the whole like, yeah, Heron Hall, Kingslandabaden switch,

if Damon's like, let's go and then just books off on Caraxis. Great stuff. That would be really funny to me. Oh, man. And then they just slaughter each other. So do you think we're going to see the sewing, like, based on how they, what they showed us for the, you know, coming next week, we definitely see some dragon stuff.

But do you think, like, we're going to see the sewing in, Is it sewing in full in episode six, fish feed in seven, taking Kings Landing in eight, or is it just set up in six and then sewing in seven? Well, I think the sewing, let's imagine the sewing takes place sort of spread out a bit. Because I think you're going to get the sewing with like Olf and Hugh. Yeah. But Adam C-Smoke is going to happen a little differently. So it's not going to be this like big, hey, everyone call them.

It's going to be part of it. But I think Adam C-Smoke is happening differently. And I think Raina and Sheepsealser is happening differently. Do you know what I mean? But I do think there is going to be a big, like, come one, come all, get your ass torched by dragons. Yeah. Also, the triarchy are going to have to be involved somehow. We are running out of time for that to not feel like it came out of nowhere in this season.

Well, they've been, like, dropping the faintest of hints about the coffers being empty. Small ones. I think the fish feed and the taking of Kings Landing are all a thing in eight. Yeah. So you've got six and seven to do everything else. Exciting. It's a lot. I can't believe we only have three left. It's sad.

What a joy it has been. A delight. A delight. Thank you to you. It's a wrap. There were works of barbarity. Thank you to Preston, the rat. Yes, thank you, Preston.

Appreciate you joining us. Thank you to our small council. As always. Steve Allman, of course. Arjuna, good pal. Of course. Jomea Denneran on the social. Of course.

And then we got a whole crew of pals helping us today with the video. Corey McConnell was here, Thank you, Corey. Jack Sanders has been here for the entire thing. Great stuff. Thank you, Jack. Mark, thank you to Mark for helping out today. John will be back with us soon, so thank you to the entire squad.

We will see you on Thursday. Wait, one more thing. Steve Toussaint for joining us. Thank you, Steve Toussaint, for joining us for that wonderful chat. We will see you on Thursday for our Accolate finale, Deep Dive, and then Sunday night right after. the latest hot D for Talk of the Thrones. Until then,

what is it, Sir Hyman? Is the pudding now served?