House of R - 'House of the Dragon' Season 2, Episode 8 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

To war then! The Season 2 finale is over, and Mal and Jo are here to give you their thoughts on the exciting season ending (08:24). After giving their overall impressions, they break down each scene, including some of the most pivotal ones, such as: Tyland recruits and secures the Triarchy (28:01) Larys prepares Aegon to depart King’s Landing (50:17) Jace and Ulf butt heads (01:19:24) Daemon receives Ser Alfred Broome (01:44:09) Criston takes Gwayne to a poetry slam (01:57:06) Rhaenyra dines with the dragonseeds (02:10:13) Daemon receives his vision (02:21:53) Helaena would like to issue a prophecy too (02:55:34) Alyn confronts Corlys (03:18:10) Alicent appeals to Rhaenyra (03:22:15) Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producers: Steve Ahlman and John Richter Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Restrictions apply, services not available in all areas. What have aegon? He's broken beyond recognition. He lies in the dark in pain and terror. He has many faults, but... He still heeds his mother. I believe I can prevail upon him to bend the knee if he... No! Still!

You defend him! Still, you imagine! You can have all you want... Without paying too high a price. A price. I have no choice. What I want to pay! It's to set things right. If I am to take the throne, I must put an end to...

I must put an end to the opposition. I must take Egon's head and have to do it for all to see. You know this. However, you may try to evade it. You know this. Choose. Will you shrink from what you set out to do? Or will you see it through and make your sacrifice?

A son for a son. Greetings! And welcome to House of Ar, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory, and it is my name. my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Harenhall, God'swood, but also back to the House of Our. Joining me today, reminding me that it is best to live, she thinks. However you do it, it's Joanna Robinson. I'm so sad.

This is our last in-studio together for now, recording. I can't talk about it. Because I'm going back up north to live with the goat fuckers. I don't really help me. No, I love Northern California. Shout out Oakland. Johnny got me an Oakland pin from, an Oaklandese pin from Comic-Con, so I'm wrapping the Bay Area.

But, yeah, I've been down here all summer. Some people don't know this. I've been down here all summer. Yeah. To be able to record in person with you here in L.A., living in an Airbnb, but I'll be back, living at home, starting next week. So this is, we did it. I have one more thing that we're doing in studio.

But this is it for us, so. I'll miss you terribly. I can't confront it. I can't confront it. front of it. Let's save the tears. Joe, we are here not only to weep. What if later this week you wake up and I'm just sitting on the edge of your bed like Alice Rivers is just crying?

And I'm just crying. I would welcome it. Okay. Frankly. I would welcome it. Adam, unlock the doors. We are here to dive deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. Into the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale.

If all hinders our efforts through sloth or on readiness, we won't be able to get through all of our programming reminders. so let's just knock those out quickly. First, over on the Ringerverse, you and Van, dare I say it aloud, will be doing your last Jedi debate, the hotly anticipated last Jedi debate. That is coming later this week, yes? That is coming later this week,

allegedly, if all goes according to plan, and it may even, if our video guru, Jack Wilson gets his way, it might even be a live video pod on Thursday. Oh my goodness. So keep your eyes. and ears peeled for that alerts about that. Van and I will be here in studio fighting by the Las Jedi. Fantastic. Genuinely cannot wait. Great. Also, Junior Mints get hyped because Mint

Edition will have an Umbrella Academy season four pod at the end of the week. Here on the House of R. We will be back, as usual, multiple times. Next week, we will be chatting in some capacity, now that we are well enough to go to the movie theater about Deadpool and Wolverine. But we're, you know, we're a couple weeks after the release of that film. So we're going to make that more of like Marvel. What's going to? What's going on? What's going on?

Let's get your Marvel check in because we have Comic Con News. We'll have D23 news. So that'll be next week at some point. Do we get a whole like Witch Stuff Go section to talk about Agatha? You always have a Witch Stuff Go section. Always. And then also next week, we will be back for one more House of the Dragon Chat. We're not ready to leave Westeros yet.

I mean, we've got, you know, four-ish hours today. And then we're still not going to be ready at the end of that. So we're going to do a season wrap pod next week. We will be doing some handing out some season awards. We will be answering more of your mailback questions. So keep them coming if you have more House of the Dragon questions. But also we have a lot. We've got a lot.

We will also be hitting our book look ahead, which we normally do at the end of the pod. We're going to be hitting that next week as more of a like, Season three and beyond bigger like book look ahead now that we have concluded this season. So we're not going to have that at the end of today's pod as we normally do. That'll be coming next week. As always, full episodes of House of Our Midnight Boys, Poo, pew, pew, Poo! Talk the Thrones, which is over now for the season, but you can catch up on, all available on the Ringervverse YouTube channel.

Check it out. Hit subscribe. You can also watch our full video pods on Spotify. You can listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Joe, how can the people follow along? How can they reach us? Oh my gosh. Well, such a good question for you to ask me and for me to answer for you.

Listen, if you want to just subscribe to the pods on all of the platforms that Mallory just mentioned so that you can listen to them and watch them multiple times a week, who am I to stop you? I think that's a great idea. If you want to follow us on social, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter, on whatever you prefer, Facebook, that's a good way to keep track of things. And also, Hobbits and dragons at gmail.com is about to transition. away from dragons and over to Harfoots, but it's Hobbits. We are weeks away from Rings of Power season two. I cannot believe it. We had a lot of emails from people asking us to break down the Comic-Con trailer,

which we would not be doing anytime soon, but we will do probably in like a pre-Rings of Power prep pod or something like that. So I'm so excited to go back to Middle Earth. Me too. I can't wait. I can't believe it's already a pun house, but I also can't wait. Okay. The last program reminder is always.

spoiler warning, the friendly neighborhood, spoiler warning. We will, of course, be talking about everything that happened in the season two finale. We'll be talking about everything that's happened in seasons one and two of House of the Dragon. If it ever happened in Game of Thrones, it's on the table. We will be dotting in book context as we go. But anything from the future. In a book, look-ahead section, in next week's pod. You don't have to worry about that today.

Okay, Joanna, this place will have you barking at the moon. So let's pod. The Queen Who Ever Once directed by Gita Vassan Patel, who directed the eighth episode of the first season, one of our favorites to date, and then the third episode of this season previously. This was written by Sarah Hess in season one. Sarah wrote episodes six and nine, and this season two and eight. This runtime was 69 minutes. Nice. Nice.

And we got a little update yet again to the opening credits. Rack catchers, they're out. Got to make room for all of the new dragons at the end. Eat shit rat catchers. Eat shit. Yeah, and Sarah is also, like, also, you know, basically second in command on this show when Ryan Condal talks about writing decisions and stuff like that. He often, like, Sarah speaks for the show.

I guess we should have known there would be no battle. Like, we discussed this early in the season. We were like, oh, Gita's directing the finale. Gita's not really one of their, like, battle directors. So I guess there probably won't be, like, any kind of, like, big action set piece in episode eight. And then we forgot that we said that. think, or at least I did, because I definitely, along with most people, did expect a little something a little more actiony in the finale here.

Well, that brings us to our opening snapshot. We obviously are going to go scene by scene as we always do. We'll be talking about everything that happened in this episode in great detail. But let's set the table a little bit with that opening snapshot. It is not a sentence, but in honor. Joe, give us a taste. What did you think of this finale? Yeah, a little opinion snack.

Yeah. What did you think of the season? If you should care to say that, you can also say that for the season wrap, up to you. But where are you on the finale with a couple days of distance since top of the phones? My thoughts haven't really changed since Sunday in that I think it's a good episode of House of the Dragon, but maybe like a dissatisfying. Satisfying is almost too strong. But like in terms of a finale, there's definitely a reason why people are reacting the way that they are to the finale. And so, like inside, again, like I said on Sunday, inside this episode, there are two big Rainira and her very same partner scenes that I think are some of the best things that like Thrones in general has ever done. But overall, there's just some like, feels like off balance of equation sort of stuff. But I do want to, I want to like try to dig a little deeper into why people, some of the factors as to why it might have shaken out this way and also why people. are as dissatisfied they are. And certainly not everyone.

We got plenty of emails from people saying, I loved it. And also, what you see on the internet is not necessarily indicative of, like, a larger, whatever. But people, this is the strongest reaction to House of the Dragon episode that I've seen from people.

First of all, there's the writer strike factor, right? So the writer strike happened. All the scripts for, House of the Dragon Cala, flack for continuing production through the writer's Drake, but what Condola, et cetera, said, where they were like, well, all the scripts are done. So we're just shooting now.

But what is, like, in TV production, what is usually true is that you are revising as you go. And if they were, like, legally not allowed to revise, you know, that's just a data point. How much it factored in, I don't know. The leaks, I'm not discounting how anyone feels about this, but I do have to say that, like, and no shame in the game because I have been on the leak front line for years. But the fact that this leaked in snippets in out of order on TikTok and on various social media, you know, nearly a week before the episode itself dropped, means a lot of people watch it either willingly watch that way or were like confronted with like spoiler snippets of the episode. And like no matter how you slice it, that's just not a great way to get excited about an episode of television to watch it that way. So I'm not discounting the way that anyone feels, but it also meant that, like, people who didn't like what they saw

had sort of days and days to work up ahead of steam about how they felt so that when the episode hits on Sunday, there is this sort of like, we've already established that we're sort of twisted up about this. There's also this idea of, like, the long breaks between seasons, because we're not going to get the next season for two years. Long time. And so if people are like, okay, we're building up to something,

we're building up to something, okay, instead of giving us some one of those various things, they gave us people marching towards each other and we're not going to see those things clash for two more years. So that's, you know, that's a factor in all of this. No doubt. But I do think it's worth remembering,

and you brought this up and Talk the Thrones, this is like this idea that like a big thing happens in the penultimate episode, in this case the red sewing, which I think is just like a bigger deal than I think a lot of people are giving it credit for, both like character-wise. and also just like logistically, budgetarily, all that sort of stuff.

Like making those dragons feel real. We loved Romothor. And they could have, you know, burning-milled that. They could have yada yadaed over the red sewing. And we would have been devastated. So this is the dragon math. Yeah. The dragon math is, do you want all the time and money that they invested in making these dragons

may lease, you know, sea smoke? running down, Adam, like, all these moments feel like real, lived in characters, which they did. Like, they just absolutely smashed it. Or do you want two more episodes this season? I feel like that's the payoff. I think you and I would say, why not both in an ideal world? And hopefully, the Warner Brothers Powers that B, sort of see the reaction to this and think, like, hey, let's let's let them do 10 episodes next

season. I think that would, we would love that. Yeah. But this idea that, like, I have seen, I will push back on one thing, which is I've seen a reaction that, like, why would they do a cliffhanger that's so stupid? And I'm just sort of like, that's actually something Thrones has famously done. Like, the season four finale of Thrones, one of my favorite, you see, like, Veris and Tyrion are on a boat to Esos, Arias on a boat to Bravo. There's just, like, a lot of people sort of, like, moving in one direction or another,

on their way to something or the ultimate cliffanger, of course, season 5 finale is John Snow dead or not? Still waiting in the books. Who's to say? You know, so all, like, that's, that's a, this isn't new, this montage marching thing isn't new.

I think just on the whole, there was like, I know you asked me for a short take, but I just have a lot, a lot to say about this. And then the other, the other factor, we talked about this a little bit on Sunday in terms of, we will never feel about fire and blood

the way we did about the final seasons of Thrones in that, we were all speculating because we didn't know what was going to happen. So we were just like chock full of theories and that sort of stuff. The other side of that is that in earlier seasons of Thrones, we had these natural breaking points. Like we're doing book one. We're splitting Storm Swords into two, but we have a clear middle break of that book, like all that sort of stuff like that. So there was like a clear guideline, whereas this is Ryan Condole and Company taking a chunk of the book.

And we still don't know exactly where it's going to end in the book precisely. taking a chunk of the book, deciding themselves how to break it up over the various seasons. And then we're seeing it at home with knowledge that they could have done any number of big sort of event here. It's not clearly broken up the way that it was in the book series. So, I mean, all of that stuff is sort of in the mix. I do not begrudge anyone there like strong feelings about the finale. Of course. I just think there's a lot of external factors outside of even the storytelling.

that are contributing to some of the feelings here. Do you know what I mean? But the storytelling is definitely, you know, in the mix there. We spent a lot of time with the trierty. We sure did. Boy, did we? Yeah. I'm in a similar place with it, and I am in the same place as well as I was on Sunday night

when we chatted live as I lapsed into a multiple minutes-long coughing fit with you and Chris looking very concerned. What a time now was? I was like, she's so brave. What a time now? What a couple of weeks that's been here. But yeah, I'm in the same place as I was on Sunday night. Like I think, as you said, as we discussed with our guy, CR, this was a good episode of House of the Dragon and a underwhelming finale of a season of TV that on the whole I thought was really excellent. And I think both of those things can be true at once.

It's impossible not to feel like this was an eighth episode of a 10-episode season. and that there was a 10 episode of plan in place, I think we try to be cognizant of not saying a thing that we predicted because we've read the books has to be the way this goes. Right. But I feel like you look back at season one, we knew where season one was going to end, and that's where it ended. Right.

We had three guesses for where season two might end, and none of them happen. And that's okay. Yeah. I do not need a battle for an episode to be meaningful. We both, we agree on. And that is not actually what it's about to me. Correct.

If the season is oriented at least in part around moving the pieces across the map and the board so that they converge on a couple key locations, and that's still where we are at the end, that I think inevitably will feel a little bit anticlimactic to people. I think your point about the two-season weight is undeniably a part of this. I don't think people would not feel that way about it if we only have to. had to wait 10 to 12 months, but the two-year thing just feels inescapably significant, right? And then I think, like, you know, you did a just exceptional stellar all-star job moderating a panel with Ryan Condal after the finale on Monday morning, and one of the things that came out of that right was that it's going to be four seasons.

Now, I think that's appropriate. Four seasons has always felt right to me for the dance of the dragons, the material that we have to tell in that time. if we have two seasons left and they are both eight episodes, which like we'll see. Sure. But if that's the case. Yeah, Ryan was less clear on episode count. Yeah.

If that ends up being the case, which I hope it's not. I think what you said is right, like hopefully there will be a switch back to 10. If we have two seasons left, 10 episodes each, I feel really great about what we can achieve in that time. If it ends up being two episodes, and I don't think it's really like worthwhile to spend a ton of time, like perseverating over something we don't yet know will be the case. But just as we assess the pace to this point, like if we end up with two seasons left and they're both eight episodes, then I get in terms of what you were saying about like, would we want, would we have wanted

to shortchange the sewing to have a different finale? Actually, no, I wouldn't have. But without getting into any of the particulars, which we will not do, a ton of shit has to happen yet, and a lot of it involves dragons. I don't think that's a spoiler to say. And so if we have to make that trade-off, then I don't know how that ceases to be the case, and then I worry about whether we have enough time. This is a question I will want to ask our pal, Dave Gonzalez, on trial-by-contest. Dave knows so much more about, like, digital rendering of things than I do. But it is my suspicion that once you have designed the dragon, it is easier to reiterate

that dragon in sort of other spaces. So they had to design Tessarian, Sheepstealer, Vermethful. or silver wing, like, you know, all this sort of stuff. And so it's just like sunfire, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm hopeful that it's like slightly easier and cheaper to just sort of like reiterate those again in future seasons. But yeah, I mean, like, we're not going to have fewer dragon battles going forward. And I think in terms of actually a thing that I have loved about the show, the series to date,

and a thing that has been genuinely one of the great delights and surprises of how the story has been adapted, brought from fire and blood to the screen, is that we had no way of knowing. Conceptually, logically, we understood that there would be things introduced in the show that we're not present in the text because of the nature of the text, right? This historical and reliable narrator stitched together.

This thing happened and then this thing happened. Right. But all of those moments, those conversations, the exploration of relationships and arcs and the decisions people made in the shadows and the staircases that no one saw in that passage. I don't want to, switch into like, okay, let's get more action at the expense of that. There has to be room for that because that's been one of the joys of the show.

Absolutely. I think, like, one thing that I don't personally feel and, like, am not concerned about that I have chatted about just, like, anecdotally with a couple pals and colleagues, but I think it's real for the fans is the end of Game of Thrones PTSD factor of, like, we were rushed at the end and Thrones fumbled the bag. this is this doesn't that's not an invalid thing to have in our minds it's like inescapable as as throne's consumers i i would argue yeah and again this is only based on where we are now we'll see i would argue that we're actually in the opposite place that we were with thrones now

now the question about how much time do we have left how long does it take to get things done do we have enough room in the story that's valid but the trade-off at the end of thrones was spectacle at the expense of substance 100% This finale was the inverse. And if you made me choose, I would always pick this. Correct. Always.

And so that's why I'm not, I was like, oh, none of the things that we thought would happen at the end of the season happened. Huh. We're going to have to wait two years to see those things. Bummer. But I was not like, what a debacle. Because we got multiple meaningful scenes with characters who the show has allowed us to become deeply invested in. And so I am not just simply not in a state of panic. I think this is fascinating to like parse and interrogate and try to then spin forward.

But and I think like I said on Talk to Thrones like, well the good news is based on where we landed, season three is going to be bangers only, which I believe will be true. And I think if we if like, you know, Condole and Coe have talked about like we want to take the time to get thing X and thing Y right. And if they get it right and they nail it, it will be worth it. That doesn't mean there's like not going to be this kind of period of like collective adjada and the run-up. That's just the nature of modern day like IP consumption.

I think what you said in response to my banger's only point was fair, though, which is like that's what we were telling people at the end of season one. So we're in a little bit of a push-pull here. Yeah. On the whole, I thought this was like a really not only strong and compelling but promising season of TV. And I feel like the storytellers are in command of their characters and of the tale. they want to tell in a way that gives me

confidence in where we're going. I wish we didn't have to wait two years. The fact that we will be getting a night of the seven kingdoms in between is a thrill. I can't wait to be back in Westeros with you talking about Dunk and talking about egg. Condal, after that presser that I did with him on Monday, like sort of after

it was wrapped, was like talking to me and he was like, yeah, there's a lot of other good genre TV in the next two years that people can watch while they wait. Dude, how about that Lasmos hammer! On the coming soon. That was fucking thrilling. Elastis is coming.

Like all those sorts of stuff like that. So I mean, like, I know that Condo is like aware of how people are sort of chomping at a bit for, you know, for more, for more of this story. And I think I would agree with you. Like, I think the command of character is very firm. I think these performances are incredible. Exquisite. Yeah. Olivia Cook, Emma Darcy, Matt Smith, just like.

Unbelievable. Top of their game. But an unfortunate aspect of the story this season is that they were all split. they were all split up. Total scenes with Raina and Thailand. Oh, no. Okay. That's not what you were going to say.

You weren't going to say that we spent. No, not this episode. Or we checked in the Triarchy four times in the season. That's part of my larger point. We did. Which is I would say,

I feel like the equation was unbalanced. You know what I mean? And it's like there are things. I don't think I want to trade a single. Damon is losing his Marble's inherent hall scene. But probably. if I were revising this season, I could cut some of those and add some other things

and to make it all just feel a little bit more. There's just like a, you know, one or two Masaria and Renera scenes that I might cut. You know what I mean? Like there's just like, definitely out of balance, but never me asking for a battle every episode or there has to be a big battle in the finale or anything like that.

Because, yeah, with Thrones, it's like, oftentimes, especially in the end to your point. Do you remember that time that I like, called you and Jason up and we're like I'm writing a Vanity Fair article about how there's too much spectacle at the end here and like that was the most connected I'm you know we were still

like new in our friendship with each other but it was like the most connected I feel where all three of us were like yes this is a problem and so yeah we're not clamoring for spectacle at the cost of character you need to spend time with those characters so that it matters when John Snow is being swallowed

by a bunch of muddy soldiers in the Battle of the Bastards you have to like care about who John Snow is. You have to care about these characters in order to, you know, absolutely. Like feel the, and also, like, but to argue for the people who are like, I feel like I'm missing something. Yeah.

I do think there could have been something, you know, not to, nothing. I'm not even thinking of anything specific from the book, but I am just thinking like if we ended with something like Baylor, which is not a battle scene, but is one of the biggest things that has ever had. happen in storytelling in general. Totally. I think there's a difference between battle and significant forward momentum. Yeah.

Absolutely. Because the one thing I think that we or I like was not on the same page with Chris about on Sunday Night on Talk to Thrones, this is the one thing I've maybe evolved on slightly over the last two days was the closing montage. Because when we talked about I was like, fuck yeah, that ruled. It got me hyped. And the more I thought about that, the more I am. Maybe I've just seen too many, like was the finale of the 70 minute.

for season three memes. The memes are wild out there. But that is the one thing that while I still am like, yeah, let's go, let's go, because I care and I want to know what happens next. And I'm excited to be back in the world. It is a collection of, with a couple notable exceptions, right? Like, Agon and Laris are moving forward. You made the beautiful point about the inversion of the imagery and the positions for Allison

to Noreno, which obviously we'll talk about. later. When we see Jason Lannister just marching toward the city like that's not a new thing. That is not a new thing.

That is where we've been moving. The winter wolves have been marching south all season. And like we got an email, I'm not going to get to it today, but we got an email about timeline which is like Agon's whole body heals

and the winter wolves are still marching, you know? It's like that's tough. Also, some parts of his body are not going to heal. The face burns look great. I have a lot of thoughts about that. I can't wait.

Can't wait. But yeah, I mean, Jason Lamister, I actually have a Jason Linister point that I want to make, but let's get into, let's get into. Should we do it? Should we add to the? Bows of a Pleasure Den. Deep dive time.

You think that's where Otto is? The Palles of a Pleasuredust? Could that be where Otto is? Seameless cue call from Steve Hall. I know. Steve was fucking right. for that one. Steve was ready.

Steve is a finale shape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We're going in order through the episode. We're going scene by scene with two exceptions. We are bundling all of the Thailand triarchy scenes together, and when we get to the first rena scene, we'll be bundling all of the rena veil sheepstealer scenes together.

So let's start where the episode, I think it's fair to say, astonishingly begins, which is with Thailand, attempting to secure the services of the... The triarchy. Now, before we get into exactly what plays out in these multiple scenes, I will say this is an example of the kind of thing, like the map expansion. We're in Tyroche. We're in Esos.

I am not Chris Ryan, so I have not been longing for the return of the triarchy. But just like what we've been talking about since the beginning of the season and we were like, Blackwoods, brackens, the widening of the map, thrilling. Like panning out, making the world bigger, giving a, like, bit, big. player like Thailand Lanister, a more central, consequential storyline, these are things that I really welcome. Yeah. The finale of the season

did not feel like the place for this. As a place to put all of those scenes? Yes. Yes. We have this email from Ismail, which really threw me for a loop. Ismail wrote, I could not help but feel outrage as I realized we had spent far more time over multiple scenes with

Thailand and Chiracro, developing their dynamic, then we did with Prince Gassaris and Lord Crean Stark. Oh my. Half of their sole interaction was exposition from good old Craig, explaining why the wall is manned by Starkmen. We saw absolutely nothing pointing towards

a brotherhood between them, even less of friendship, just one cold, straightforward conversation about their responsibilities. When I see the show putting far more emphasis on introducing and establishing a relatively low-stakes comedy couple over the pact of ice and fire,

I get that same queasy feeling I had towards the ends of Game of Thrones, where the wrong things, even if you find them enjoyable, like Braun, get much more screen time over relationships that actually deserve further exploration, like John and Ghost. I mean, that was... Captive audience. Appealing, right to you, Mallory. This is absolutely, like, the fact that we got more time,

and also, I had this note later, but I'll just say it here, wild footage emerged that they filmed Craig Stark at the front of the Winter Wolves walking across the twins. They filmed that with ice strapped to his back, and they did not go with that, and I don't know why. I have no idea why. Do they decide they're not... Reserving the right to make a different decision

about when Big Craig reenters the story, I guess, just not wanting to be committed to that? Yeah, it could go a couple of different ways. And so, like, him being there would be like... Anyway. Yeah. We talked with this at the very beginning of the season when part of this is expectations.

Totally. They promoted the shit out of... good old Craig Stark and The Wall and all that sort of stuff like that and we were so excited. I did love that scene. You know, and the scene was great, but then we were like, oh, no, that's it for the whole season. And the fact that we got more time with Thailand and Lohar than we did with Craig and Jace, or Jake, I think, as Sierra would prefer I call him. I was not. Where's the Craig Jake musical number?

I was not as distressed about. not getting more in the North until we got so much of Tyrosh, you know? And so I think that, and I had been making this point about Jason Lanister for a couple weeks where I'm like, we keep talking about him. And we're not checking in with him. And then we did check in with him. And it was like a fun scene. He's got a lion.

Like, you know. I think more than one. Multiple big crates. Yeah. It was wild. Yeah. But like these, these, the winter wolves coming down, like all of these forces moving across the map, why not make these characters were in very?

vested in and interested in, like, why not give Jason Lannister a scene partner? Yeah. You know, and we're checking in with him all season. Should the scene partner be the lion? It should, and it should be voiced by whom? Why not just have Jefferson Hall do that, too? He's been Hugh and the Mail. He's been Jason.

He's been Dylan. What can't he do? Every different line. A different voice for every line. Okay, great. But, like, why not checking with Jason Landon? Not that I'm sure we would also have the insane. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe we're checking back up with Jason Lancaster.

But that's only if you don't make it fun and interesting to do so. Right. You know what I mean? Like there's a capability for all of these characters who are moving around on the map for us to like, which is something that, you know, to give it its due. Thrones did very well. We were never like, I can't believe I'm back with like the hound and aria. Or like even I can't believe I'm back with Hot Pie. You know what I mean?

It's just sort of like. You know what I love listening to Hot Pie talk about how you got to brown the butter. Or watching Moles Town Horror do this. I mean, like, yeah. So this idea of our time. Making it feel, making the world feel lived in. Alinda Massey, like, that's a character that I feel like we could have gone a little, like, deeper on this season. So, like, again, oh.

On my list of questions coming out of the season, genuinely, like, is Alinda okay? Everyone knows she was the one organizing selling is high on my list. Well, did you see that Condal, oh, Linda. that Condal said that Sharpe Point was House Massey's. I was confused by that. Because it's not. Like, it's the Bar-Iman's.

So that was confusing. And it is established in the show literally two episodes ago. Right. Because Corlis and Allen are talking and he's like, we need to, we need to swing by Sharp Point first because Lord Baramon wants us to pick up his nephew

so we can learn to be a boat swing. So my read, perhaps a bad and wrong read, but my read was that he was just talking about how because Sharp Point is located on Massey's hook, that it's like Massey territory and because Lord Massey, exactly, because Lord Massey is on Renera's council, which in Bookland, like, so is Lord Parma. But like, you know, they're sworn to Dragonstone. It's all part of the Renera hive. But yeah, I, I mean, Sharp Point is not House Massey's seat. So that was, but I was going to say, if it had been. But you just said like if this is about a,

If it's all about Alinda. You know? Anyway, I just, we had, there was so much that they had to do this season. So I don't want to be unfair, but I'm just sort of like, I feel like some of these side, you know, like, Gwain High Tower were like invested, not just because it's like Freddie Fox, but just because, couldn't have loved our time with Gawain more.

But just like, we only need to, like, check in a few times and give them actual, like, character and personality and things to be doing. I mean, the total, what was the, what was the TRT for going this season? Like, right. 10 minutes? Yeah, I might even be lessened. Yeah. Like, but it was effective.

Exactly. We care. So I know that they can do. We understand something about him, about Allison, about their family. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, they're like, they're brilliant in what they do. I just want them to do it everywhere all at once.

What, you know, what could you feel something? But like, what if we checked back in with Craig a couple times this season to see how things are going in the north, you know? Or I guess if he's marching with the winter wolves, which perhaps he is. march with ice on your back, man. And like we love we're marching, you know, think about like, torment and Eagret,

like various campfire scenes as they're sort of marching towards the wall, you know what I mean? You know, you never fucked a bag. Exactly. It's so easy when you really drill down

on big personalities to make those like, we're camping and we're walking and we're camping and we're walking scenes. Yeah. Absolutely dynamite. So,

it was always riveted watching Eigret, like, shave the feathers and the arrows that you're making. Mesmerizing. An artist.

Truly. Fuck you, Ollie. Okay. Hang to boy. Younger than Brann. Okay. The next otter in my village. Back to Tyroche where the monkeys roam.

And a very sweaty. I mean very sweaty. Tyler Lannister. He's like me in this studio. Like, why is it not 61 degrees? And then Arjuna's like, it is 61 degrees. Seeking to secure the services of the triarchy per Amon's orders. And we were.

recall from a couple episodes prior that the Green Council hated this plan. But Amund was really counting on that old stepstones animus, the Triarchy versus Damon, the Triarchy versus Coralus, to carry the day. It was not wrong to do so because that is a part of Loher's literally what they say. Cheer and toast. A quick... Triarchy recap? Triarchy Stepstones refresh for anyone who isn't CR and hasn't been thinking about the triarchy and the legacy of the crab feeder every minute of every day since season one episode three. Mir. That's a place in ESOS. Thoris was from there.

Thoris of Mir. Mir. Lease. Lease. What was it? Longer than a latexia. Lacey neorgy. Lease, that's a place in ESOS.

Talk about the impact of House Massey. I mean, what a line that always. Exactly. And Tyroche, which is where we are, we believe, are the three places in Esos that form the triarchy. a very complicated governing system but here in this show sort of more just a gathering of pirates it seems

and pretty fun for all my like why did we have spend so much time here I thought the set deck looked amazing I thought the vibe here was really fun I thought this was a great place to visit we have like no complaints overall about like the fact that this exists

placement in the season only placement is the question but like so that's the triarchy in season one the Battle of the Step Zones where the crab feeder and Lainor on Sea Smoke and Damon

quashing people with Karaxis into the month that's a battle of the step zones that was against the Triarchy. That's Damon and Corlees and their force is working together to beat back the triarchy. Who we should remember

we're like you've got dragons we're just going to hide out in caves and drive you mad. The fact that the triarchy has faced dragons in battle is like something we should be remembering. So stepstones are a chain of islands, you know, off the coast of Westrose, between Westrose. I keep talking about risk because I've played this game, Warlight, which is basically an online version of risk. And they have a Game of Thrones map. Oh, delightful.

And so like, I have in my mind, I'm like, if you get an anchor in the Stepstones, buddy, you can, you can fuck Westrose up. So, like, that's- Do you think a lot about your tax policy? Like, are you just like, you know, George is always like, what was it? Her gross tax policy? And you're like, in this game, what will my tax policy be if I secure the stepstones? Absolutely not. But what I do know is that you got to secure door and quick.

It's very important. So, ESOS, you know, if the triarchy want to maybe sort of like invade Westeros or at least squeeze Westeros for all this worth by forming their own blockades and their own taxation system, they want the stepstones. And Thailand's like, well, I don't know if I, the whole job. Generation did battle that. Like, you know, like, and Thailand. Oh, man. Were you, did we already have established? I'm sure we did.

I just missed it. He's Master of Quentin also Masterships? That was odd to me just because the exchange was like, we need, we still need our master of ships and let's check in again with like, have we heard from the Red Cracken? Yeah. So I don't, I will say, I don't think in this season, they made it abundantly clear whether Thailand had like also take it on the second title or whether he's just saying that

because he's there and in his certainly if you're like I have no money you don't just want to be riding the like I'm the master of coin you're like I'm here to secure your ships I'm the master of ships but yeah you know of our many memorable green council scenes that was left a little muddled in the finale anything while we're while we're on the trierkey

on the high council front or otherwise that you're you'd like to take us to wig watch and or beardwatch TM corner with Joanna Robinson TM? Yeah, in case you didn't see our celebration on Talk the Thrones, the Tyroshi member of this like three person council here has, I will say

there's another guy who's got like blonde wist coming out of a turban. That was not not my favorite wig moment of the finale. But the blue beard, blue mustache, blue hair of the Tyraishi member. Tyraush is like famous for their bright dyes and they like

color their hairs and beers and stuff like that. And book-accurate, Dario Naharis has this sort of blue, this, like, florid blue mustache and beard. And do you remember the, like, the fan art from Thrones Days when people would take the two very hot, conventionally attractive men who played Dario Naharis and, like, Photoshop blue beards on them and stuff like that?

That would be nice. So I have candidly no complaints about where we landed without Dario. And how Dario... It felt like a little, you know, it was a little crumb for those people who missed book accurate Dari Naharis. Absolutely. So Thailand has a blue beard to look at, but he wants something else. He wants a bath and a flag and a wine. And I'm like, honestly same.

Honestly, same. But instead of the flag of wine, it's some soup. I want some soup. I do love, I do love soup. Yeah, yeah. I do love soup. That would be great right now. Actually, I'm getting hungry.

The triarchy is happy to offer them something else And it is packed centered around 100 golden dragons Per man, not per ship, per man Fascinating over not only the finale but the season Like tracking where the money is, where it isn't Who feels they have it in their control, etc. Laris is like FYI. Iron Bank.

Iron Bank. I have been preparing for just such an eventuality. They want something else other than coin. They want the stepstones. They want to be able to implement say simple tax, simple tax, Joe, on those passing through. And Thailand agrees. He's very nervous.

He says the Prince Region may have me hanged for this. You know, I'm sure this will be fine because it is not like anybody said in this season of television. The Triarchy may play at accepting terms, but they are not to be trusted. Your father knew this. Nobody said that, right? Allison definitely didn't say that out loud. I mean, but it was a woman. So who was listening?

Okay, Joe, but the pact can't be sealed until the admiral signs off. Enter, Sharako Lohar. Played by Abigail Thorns. This is a female character. It's something that Condal sort of clarified in the press or that he did with him on Monday. This is a female character who is being sort of misgendered by the men on the council here. They say he and him a couple times, but this is a female character, Sharaka Lahar, who's like, let's mud wrestle.

That's right. And they do. Let me misname you many times. Yeah. What was your favorite? Tywin, Tywin, Tyman, Tyrod? I think Tywin, just because I'm always thinking about Charles Dance, personally. Good stuff. And then comes this moment that made Mallory and me think of each other.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited for your framing of this. Lohar says, have you ever eaten the flesh of your enemies? Yeah. Town says I have not and I would not. I'm just here to tell

folks who didn't listen to our yellow jacket coverage that this is a forever betrayal between Mallory and me. It was about eating friends though, not enemies, so. Mallory asked me what body part I would start with if I had to eat a friend in the woods, spoilers for yellow jackets.

And I came up with something. Yep, give a very detailed answer. You know you said the tongue. I said the tongue. And then I had Sally return. She said I simply would not for me. I just want this straight Thailand Lannister. Well, I'm glad for you.

Congratulations for your Thailand Lannister call. I didn't know that Thailand and I were so similar. We want a bath. We want a flag in a wine. Would not eat the flesh of our enemies. Do you see any kind of, I mean, personality-wise, I don't see them as very similar. But like, do I think Jason Lannister would have said, yes, I'm happy to get the flush of my enemies? I do.

Yeah. Oh, I do. I do. Yes. But there's a lot of things he would have gotten wrong. He certainly wouldn't have serenated the crowd. I don't think Lo Har would have fallen for Jason Lanister the way that she did for Thailand. Thailand, Lanister, and Jamie Lannister, and Lohar and Brann. Like, Lo Har and Brian are very different personality-wise, but in terms of, like, badass warrior women.

Yeah. That's like a thing. In terms of the Lancaster getting really muddy, that's a thing. Absolutely. Hold on to your limbs, Thailand Lannister. I'm excited to spend more time with Lohar. I thought that this was, again, placement in the finale aside,

an intriguing introduction. Did not need to spend multiple scenes with Thailand, mud wrestling, and serenading in the finale of the season, but excited to be back with Lohar and season three. But in general, it's the kind of stuff I want. Absolutely, exactly. It is strictly a placement thing for me.

To the gullet on the morrow! Hail! And let the sea snake roo! the day we meet again. Lo Har does have actually one other thing to say, and it is to ask Thailand to impregnate her wives. So I'm excited to learn how that went. Do you think when, okay, there's a couple moments episode.

This is for you, my horny friend, a couple moments this episode where I'm like, do these people just fuck? And my question for you is when Thailand is on the sort of like prow of the ship, looking a little like, looking proud of himself. Yeah. Do you think he re-uped the lyric about

greasing the, raising the greased mast. That was part of the song. So, dangerously close to Georgia Martin fat pink mast territory that I can't. The pink mask, the cinnamon wind, it's just embedded in our minds, our hearts and our souls forever.

Who else do you think fucked in this finale off screen? Damon and Runeira. Yeah. Before she left Heron Hall. Yeah. I hope so. When he walks out to like look at his troops. A little swagger?

Yeah. There's a little. He's like, yeah. The last few weeks, I've just been fucking my mom and my dreams. Now I got to actually fuck my wife. Interesting. Wonderful stuff. Closing montage.

Not Jason Bela, unfortunately. Still waiting for Jason. I think it would, you know, obviously you did important work chronicling this with Neil and Dave on trial by content earlier in the season. And we've chatted about this as well. But I think it would do Jace some good. It would behoove them. Yeah. Lod off a little stint.

But also, I really want like, yes, it would do. days good, but like, I want it for bail. Bala has spent so much time taking care of the various moping men around. Time for someone to take care of Bela. Let's take care of Baila. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe, in the closing montage, we see the fleet sailing toward the gullet. Must be the morrow. And obviously, we also see in the closing montage, Corliss and Allen, they're preparing to join the blockades. So there is a, this is one of

our convergence points, right, that we're working toward. Do you want to spend just a second here before we move on an hour into the pod to something other than our overall thoughts on Thailand in the triarchy? I wasn't going to say it to be like, they spent too long in the triarchy, and then you and are like... It's the finale. At four, it's in multiple scenes. We have no idea where our auto is when we see him at the end. We have no idea. We have our theories, but we have no idea. Because this is different. Otto is the one in... In Fire and Blood, Amon and Thailand got the auto plot of going to secure the services of the Triarchy. What do you make of that? Fire and Blood said the schemes of Ottawa, Tyra had born

fruit, meeting in Tyroche, the High Council of the Triarchy, had accepted his offer of alliance. 90 warships swept from the stepstones under the banners of three daughters bending their oars for the gullet. What do I make of what they've done to my boy? That's not. I, I don't know. I actually. Fuck you out of the High Tower. I really, I will say I really missed Otto from... As a character, yes, but like what Allison, the realization that Allison comes to at the end of this season, I don't think she gets if she's anywhere near Otto. Totally. Totally. I don't have a good answer. I'm fascinated to find out why they made the switch and what they decided to do with Otto instead.

Yeah, same. I genuinely have no idea. Or is it because one of our theories could be, Because, okay, when we see, I'm skipping ahead, but when we see Otto, he's in a cell of something looking a little worse for wear, in a cell cage of some kind. To me, there seems to be a gentle sway of motion in the light that could either be he's in the hold of a ship somewhere. Right, and the space is moving. Or it could just be the light moving and creating that kind of effect. It could, but to me that looked like he's in a space that's moving and it seemed sort of smooth enough that it could be. ship. So he could still be part of the triarchy story. We just don't know. Or he's been captured by the Beesbury Force on the row somewhere and he's in like a carriage somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. If he could be on another ship, I mean, we hear a lot about the Red Cracken.

Exactly. The Grey Joys have him. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah. That would be fun. Well, I also personally am like partial to the theory that he never got out of King's Landing. That Laris hasn't. That Larris has it. That Leris scooped him up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. That would be interesting to me. Yeah. Like, where is Otto? Those are the four good theories. It's just like there the whole time. I like that.

Triarchy, Laris, Grayjoys, Beesbris. I hope it's the Beesbris. Of course you hope it's the Bees. I hope it's the Aalids. Damn me. I can't wait to meet Alan Beesbury. Really can't wait. Okay, next scene is Amand sitting on Vagar.

Vagar's mouth is still a glow looking at Sharp Point, which he burned. We already talked about what Sharp Point is, where this is. Anything else you want to add here? I'm sure Vagar was delighted to burn more innocence. She loves to do it. favorite favorite pastime uh let's get to one of the best scenes of the episode and best scenes of the season laris preparing agon to depart king's landing joanna what a scene i do not want to scoop our eventual season awards we don't know actually what categories

we're picking for our superlatives but was this the season stealing like surprise pairing for you I don't know. I feel like like CR smugly cashing in his Kristen Cole's stock, I feel like I bought low on Laris. And I'm feeling good about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a tremendous together. Terendous together. Yeah. They really are. Okay, we have a lot to talk about here. I got just wants Orwell to mix some rum with his meds. Orwell's, I would like next season, here's my note. Next season, I would like

did a little know a little bit more. Orwell seems like any way the wind blows is sort of where Orwell wants to be. And I would like to know what, like, what are his motivations? What's, what's going on with Orwell? Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, later when Allison's like, hey, can you get me out of King's Landing? I'm pretty sure Orwell would be like, hey, Laris, can we get Allison out of, you know what he mean? Like, he's in, he's cooading. Yeah. With Laris pretty strongly at this He's definitely currently in the like, you know, midway through a season of Survivor, he's got multiple final threes. Yes.

Which is interesting. You and me, we're going all the way. All the way. We will be sitting together at tribal council. I'm prepared to make fire against you. Yeah. But you're right, like knowing then the motivation or what the true lean is, or even if we don't know the true lean, understanding better what is driving those different decisions. That's something to look forward to in season three.

So, Laris tells Egon about... the red sewing and about everyone's favorite town, Sharf Point. Everyone's favorite. Always on coastal city. Sharp Point. Yes. And our question that we asked on Sunday, and we ask again, is like, how does he know all of this? Yeah.

Like, how much did he know and when? And, like, how does he know that Amon fled in terror, you know, which might be, like, a bit of an exaggeration, but still he knows that like Aymann flew out on Vagar and then why he came back. Right. So I think he has, just like Masaria has eyes and ears and kings landing. I think Laris has eyes and ears on Dragonstone. Wide whisper net.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. This is an interesting one. Not only like the question that, you know, we'll get to the Aym and Iron Rat seed later, but like we talked about this last week, like Laris choosing to withhold the information that he has. That's one part of it. But how is the information making its way to him and what is the network and who is in the network?

Is a scintillating thing to consider. I was interested, obviously, like, to the fled and terror part. And then Egon's deserves no less reply. Like, that was fun for them to each just enjoy a moment, like, relishing in Aman's misfortune. I also just, like, we have a lot of very rich thematic things to break down here. But I did think just, like, in terms of the fabric of the story, a small thing, like, egg on greeting the news of the sewing with like, this is impossible? What you're saying is impossible. It's not true. It's possible. It reinforces just like the astounding nature of what

Reneira has achieved. And I like those little moments that just remind us. Like this is just, this is not a common thing. This is not a thing anyone would have expected or predicted. This is not a thing other people would have done. And we need to like hold on to that. She's an innovative leader, Reneera, Targaryen. Do you want to introduce to the pod our new favorite recurring segment that's going to just sweep the nation and fill people with joy and excitement. Nileism Watch. Nileism Watch. I was like, should it be called Nileism Watch?

Should it be called Nialism Corner? What's catchier? You know, Nileism Tracker? The Nileism Niche. Yeah, this is a very nihilistic episode. You know, it's not the first time in a Thrones season that we've watched many of our characters confront some sort of nihilistic tendency. But that moment when Agon says,

so what was the fucking point in all this then? And, you know, there's like the personal toll that he is weighing there, right? Yeah, because I don't know if you've heard. But his cock is gone. Like a sausage on a... Just straight up gone. Sausage on his spit, gel.

Just gone. Sausage on a... Bits. Encurring all of those catastrophic injuries and this life-altering circumstance and then he's like, for what? Now, he hasn't in real time and the flow this conversation yet abandoned the idea

that he should be king. In fact, he's like, I don't want to run. Take me to the throne. Amon's working through it. Great, here's our moment. Put me back on the throne. And when he returns, we will take him prisoner. And this was really interesting to me

because it answered a question that we had after a rook's rest right? Like, is, this is such a deeply shameful thing for Ego that this happened. That this happened, period. That he was vulnerable and susceptible in this way, but that his brother did this to him? Would he say it out loud? Would he tell other people? And the fact that we know now he is willing to reveal Amon's treachery in order to take Amund off the board and eliminate him and get his revenge, right? Even though it means people will know that this happened, not only is that an interesting development off the heels of the like, I'm going to press my small, ball into your burns and make you say, I remember nothing, and try to intimidate you into silence. Yeah. But just that larger question of, like, what does it tell us about Egonne psychology to keep

this quiet or say it out loud? Like, the fact that he's prepared to say it out loud was really interesting. It's just, and I think especially when we then couple it with like the Allison Helena Eamon scene, this chokehold of fear that Eamond has on everybody, you can feel it receding on a character by character level. People are ready to stand up to him to challenge him. That's because he was invincible on Vagar, and now Reneer has all these other fuck off dragons. Fuck off dragons is just great.

The red sewing was a big deal. Big fucking deal. A big fucking deal. I mean, nothing happened this season? Are you kidding? You know, I'm incredibly fond of the red sewing and thought it was fucking amazing. Laris tells Agon that he moved the coin, right? We had heard all this discussion from Simon from Laris about the her and all's coffers.

hear it as the real, it's Iron Bank of Bravo's. And it just like, incredible exchange ensues. We have to hear it, Steve. We can live well and remain until what is coming has passed. You want to take me to Esos to live with the goat fuckers. It's best to live, I think. However you do it. Is it?

My dragon is dead. I am burnt. and disgusting and alone. And I'm a cripple. You're not alone. My cock is destroyed. Did they tell you that? It burst in the flames like a sausage on a spit.

Do not despair your grace. There are better days ahead. I know there's a moment in here. It's just like went straight to your heart made you feel really emotional. And it was the use of the word burst. This is honestly, genuinely a remarkable bit of television here. So evocative. But, yeah, Laris is, you're not alone.

You and I both really responded to this. It's just like... Tell me what this meant to you. Well, I mean, this is something that we had actually talked about early on the season in sort of the book Look Ahead section. Yeah. Is this idea of like... Because in the book, all we really knew is that Laris smuggled Agon out of the city.

But, which we get in the finale here. So we knew that that was coming. But this idea of them sort of bonding, again, this is a character deepening angle that the show is taking over the bare bones of the story that's in the book. And so, you know, them bonding over their, you know, state of their bodies is just like really emotional. And for Laris, who is like, yeah, a creep and a manipulative, like, you know, piece of shit and all the sort of stuff like that. but we have, over the last course of the last few episodes, like learned about what it was like growing up in his family and learn how his father reacted to the way he was born

and all this or stuff like that. There are things that bound them together even before Agon got burnt and this idea of, like, their relation to their fathers and stuff like that. But it's not something that Agon weren't enough. It's not something that Agon ever would have seen, and they're still not open to, and whether or not that will change for him, we'll see.

But, like, I don't know, Laris clutching to the, this idea of like, could I have a friend? Is like, there are so many bids in this episode. We were joking about this on Talk of Thrones, this like, come to Cabo with me. But there's so many of the bids of like, join me. Yes. You know, Amon saying to Helena, come with me to Heron Hall. I don't want to stand in the season.

Like, I don't want to stay in the line. Join me. And it reminds me of like the conversations we had with Leslie Headland around Ackleight that scene in The Last Jedi, What a Great Movie. where I had to get one more in a little hour in person where Kylo says

you know join me please please this please bid for like unity from even you know some of our

most reprehensible villains because that's what you want yeah absolutely humanizing a villain is you want this sort of like I don't know it's a reason

Judas is the main character of Jesus Christ you're just are or Burr is the main character of Hamilton. There's a reason, you know? And so, like, yeah, inside this sort of, like, the dark corners of Laris's heart that is full of just, like, ambition and cutting, there's also this, like, yearning for connection.

Yeah, yeah. And we've been talking about that, you know, since their earlier scenes together, but, like, the way that – when Chris asks us the question, like, you know, is it this or that, like the way these things feel entwined with, like, Laris, the motive. He is working Egon toward an outcome here. Of course. But there is, there is a genuine feeling that is entwined with that. And it was like incredibly moving and compelling to watch. And I was really struck by the fact that like he didn't challenge. There was no contention with anything Egon said except the your, like I'm alone part. That was the one thing.

because, and, you know, like, you're saying we know that that's, the other things are the things that he's trying to get egg on to accept, right? But this is the one thing that Laris wished we can glean. Someone would have said to him at some point. Like, I was thinking it made me think of what you were saying about, like, really wanting to, you know, because we got that moment with Harwin and Laris at the pre-wedding banquet feast, you know, talking about like the, what color, like the, the Hight towers call their banners to war. What was that relationship like?

Moments like this really made me want to like learn more about Lionel and Laris, Harwin and Laris, et cetera, et cetera. So this was just very effective. I would like to briefly go back to nihilism. Watch nihilism, quarter nihilism. Where did we land? Do we want to call it the Nilesian niche? Let's do it.

This idea of like Agon wondering what kind of life is worth living. We've been talking in general, but specifically actually inside of the Laris Egon scenes like these bits of connective tissue to these bigger throne's ideas that we love. We've talked a lot about cripples, bastards, and broken things wear it like armor. And this reminded me, this was a very effective way I thought of capturing that tie again, that Egon is still, obviously the particulars are different. But Egon is still in the brand position of waking up from the fall and saying, I'd rather be dead, right?

And when Rob tells him not to, he repeats it and insists and you can feel and of course this builds like beautifully in the book toward Brand thinking of himself as Brand the Broken in a way to think I'm not going to get into it they simply will not get into

Tyrion naming and Brand the Broken at the end of the show guess what? We'll come back to it. I simply will not get into it for a handful of scenes and then we will. But like that Jamie Tyrion

conversation in the same stretch of the story at the beginning of season one you know Jamie saying even if the boy lives he would be a cripple of grotesque give me a good clean death any day and Tyrion's, I'm speaking for the grotesques, I have to disagree.

Death is so final, yet life is full of possibilities, and how characters like Tyrion or Laris, who have lived through letdown and pain and suffering and people disappointing them, have been able to evolve to that position where Laris can say, and this will be your advantage. Well, it's, Egon isn't there yet, and how could he be? This is, he's just confronting this new reality. What's so beautiful about Jamie Linister, one of our favorite characters of all time, is that Jamie then, of course, has his own, like, journey through, you know, a physical, like, event that changes fundamentally who, like, who he thinks of himself as. And this is something I brought up on Talk to Thrones is, like, I really do feel like the overarching theme of this episode, which I think goes hand in hand with nihilism niche, is, I'm not who I thought I was in the story, you know?

Absolutely. And so, yeah, Bran, who always dreamed of being a knight, or Jamie who, you know, was that hand, was that sword. Yes. You know, that's who he was? Then has to find out who am I if I am not that. Absolutely. And so, Agon, who am I if I am not that king sitting on the throne with my, with the pussypossy around me, right? Like, one of them's dead, the other two are at the wall.

And he's also not who he was before that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We should note that this does mean, just in terms of thinking about the story, where the characters are, what can happen. Egon cannot father. He said burst.

He said burst. He said burst. He said burst. Burntz. Oh, Simon. Oh, Simon. Egon cannot have children. So, Jeharis, Egan's male heir is dead.

Is dead. Well, baseball neck. We remember you still. We mourn you. still. Jehara. Going to Cabo with Alice. Yes, exactly. Ready for holiday, but cannot be propped up as Agon's heir for the same reason that they all said to Allison when she made her pitch to be regent, can't just prop up a woman of our own. And Maylor, as we talked about at the beginning of the season, is not in the story. So, Agon the king has no male heirs.

Exactly. Amund, the Prince Regent, has no male heirs. Right. Funfire and blood. the king was not a well man. The burns he'd suffered at Rook's Rest, had left scars that covered half his body. Mushroom says they had rendered him impotent as well. I will now share another passage with you. Burst. Yeah.

Though no longer himself capable of sexual Congress due to his burns, according to the dwarf, Egon still felt carnal urges and would often watch from behind a curtain as one of his favorites coupled with a serving girl

or a lady of the court. When I look back on the season and I think of my regrets, not reading that out loud to Chris on Talk the Thrones is high on the list for me because I know it would have led to one of those you guys spend your time reading this moment and we would have been like, we do, and it's great.

You know what I'm devastated by, I'll save it for next week when we do the book look ahead, but that we can't share the moment in the dressing room after Talk the Thrones on Sunday when we said something about the state of a certain character. And Chris is like, that thing is X. Anyway, it was just like a real

just like spit your tea out moment from, Oh, man. There's only one CR, you know? So good. There's only one CR. Laris, trying to get Agon to see the bigger picture. If they challenge Amund now, how are they going to fend off for Nira? Did this make you think of Searcy?

Only when you said I don't want to talk with Rome. It didn't make you think of Searcy. At the end of season seven, yeah, let the fucking army of the dead and the army of the North fight each other. I intend to stay among the living. That's the thing that Circe says. That's basically Laris's pitch here. Let the monsters kill each other, and while they battle in the North, we take back the lands that belong to us.

What Laris is laying out here feels very similar. There's obviously not the equivalent of Jamie standing there being like, wait. Are we the baddies? You saw that, right? You saw that right. And Laris knows it's not enough to just say, like, leave the throne behind. Right. Come with me.

Don't worry about the goat fuckers. Essos is lovely. Wait until you see the finale. They have monkeys. They have monkeys. They have mud pits. Instead, because he is Laris, and he is a master strategist, he appeals to the thing that he knows, Egon wants to hear more than anything else, the thing that he has not gotten from Allison's,

that he has not gotten from Otto, and that Laris has been giving him since the beginning of this season, when after the throne room sequence, Laris pulled him aside for a chat and he's like, I mean, I was young. When the conciliator ruled, but you really reminded me of Jeharis. Boy, you've got your father's neck. Well, but this is what I mean about planting seeds. Because the reason that you're like, this is,

you want to parse every single word of the scene, not just because you're Mallory Rubin and that's what you do. And because it's Laris. It's because Laris and I love him. But because this has been seeded all season. Yes. You know? Absolutely.

Perfectly. We really, we really, really did. I thought this was great. They will hail the returning king, his father's true heir. Egon the victorious, risen from the ashes, Egon the peacemaker, Egon the Rebuilder. And then Egan says, with like, I felt an absolutely mad glint in his eye. Egonne the realms delight. Tom Glencarnie.

Fantastic. Unbelievable. Like, did such a good job at the beginning of this season, just like giving us this like full-blown, just incredible, shitty, terrible, wonderful King performance. But this like Egon the Burt

from his bed really good. High off of whatever you know, Dream wine or milk in the poppy they allowed him to have. Great. Fantastic stuff.

Monkers. This is another smart... Titles, titles, titles. Titles, titles. You know the damn words. No, sometimes you've got to find the damn words, Robert.

And let's do that right now. Because this is another thing, in addition to like, oh, you want to be beloved by the small folk. You want your father who you said, he had 20 years to change his mind and he never did to accept you to choose you. What else is Lyrish playing at? I know this guy loves the idea of a slick sobriquet. Right. Dragon cock off the table. Well, does it have to be?

Like, print the legend, right? Sure. Print the legend. What else did Egon and the Pussy Possey consider it? Magnanimus, the generous, the dragon heart. They weren't concerned that nobody knew what magnanimous meant, which is still hilarious. Wasn't there like a... So funny.

Wasn't there a Google Trends like spike on searching for Magnanimus after that happened on the show, proving it right? Incredible. The untamable beast. Incredible. Just really, really good stuff. Fantastic. I just love this so much. And we had heard Otto in the Dragon Pit during Agon's coronation put a little moniker out into the world for Viseria.

Right? We grieve. Cesaris the peaceful. Like this idea of trying to sum up what you want people to think of you with one tidy title. Very interesting part of how the royals exist in the Thrones verse. However, have heard Team Black, Team Reneera, book readers, crowd and anguish, when Agon gleam in his eye is like, the realm's delight. Because that's Reneera's name in the book, right? fire and blood, at the center of the merriment, cherished and adored by all, was their only

surviving child, Princess Reneira, the little girl that the court singers dubbed the realm's delight. And then later in a lavish ceremony at Kings Landing, hundreds of lords did obeisance to the realm's delight as she sat at her father's feet at the base of the iron throne, swearing to honor and defend her right of succession. I love to do abasance. You do. I do love to do in abasance.

But like, and what is fascinating for Reneera is that the realm's delight. name loses its shine. Once she gets a bit older, she's had a couple kids. They're like, she's thick around the middle, no longer delightful. And so it's like, when she's a young girl or a teen, the realm is like delightful. Very weird. And she's like a woman fully grown and they're like, eh, yeah. And in terms of Agon's response, that, like kind of coveting that love from the masses, then it's perfect.

Not only is it, Greens versus Blacks, Egon versus Renera, it's like, specifically that second passage you read, that moment of being the chosen one, like chosen by Vassaris, right? Like, you're the one I picked to carry on my legacy. And so Egonne trying to like latch on to that, again, that thing that Vesaris never gave him while he lived and despite the misinterpretational never intended for him to have it all. And it's so interesting because we'll talk about this a little bit more later, but Condole is really lashed on this idea of like that was that was agon's life right i mean and helena and darren by being elsewhere entirely sort of coped in their own way but like the way that agon has

been you know pre-burned like twisted by you know vassaris's neglect and alison's contempt yes compare that with what happens to rinera when vassaris dies and she's confronted with this narrative that in the end he didn't choose you And what that does to her, we've talked about this a little bit last week in terms of like, you know, according to Emma Darcy, it sent Renera to the history books, just scrambling for, to feel closer to her father. Right. But what does it send her, like, scrambling for? Because this is like, this is just like a core belief in her life. My father has chosen me.

Yes. And therefore I have, like, purpose and meaning. Yeah. And when initially, Alicent and Co. tried to pull that away from her, she's left scrambling trying to fill in those gaps of where, once that approval is stripped from her, where does she find it or what does she do for it, you know? She was my only child, the Realm's Delight I named her out of love. And because I no longer believed. When Vassar says that to Allison at that bonfire scene.

Realms Delight, not as much of a thing in the show. but yeah, it does get mentioned when he is hammered. Teresh. Should we talk about Raina? Let's do it. So this is when the first Raina scene comes into the episodes. We're going to talk about all of these moments here. Let's just say, it looks cold.

She's hungry. Her boots are worn out. Like, my girl did not plan ahead. Yeah, if you were going to renege on your agreement with Renera, not an agreement that Reneer should have asked her to make, but one that was made, and abandon your half-brothers. I simply would not.

Would you pack a better go bag, is my question. I would pack some granola bars or some kind. Yeah. I'm not a great camper in general, but, like, you know, if I'm going to be out there, you know, I would grab a couple of the, like, string cheeses that we have in the, in the fridge at work here, and I would just make sure it had some. I do love those string cheeses. They really come in handy.

The little hummus cups also great. You think you're going to say goodbye to Egan and Viseras? No, because those kids came. keep their trap shut. So, you know, stealth was important for hair. Or maybe it wasn't because no one seems

to have noticed that she was gone. Right. Yes. So in the closing montage, yes. She finally reaches her target. Sheep Steeler has entered the chat. One of the three wild dragons

from Dragonstone. We still have not seen our guy, the cannibal. Or great ghost. Will we ever? I hope so. Sheep Steeler's here. Very dirty, very skinny,

on edge, yelling. I love him already. If we may or may not get to have like a chat with our friend Paula Fairfield about the sound, but I really want to talk to her about what Sheep Steeler sounds like in this moment because like the voices of the various dragons are incredible. And she actually had some like, she had a really cool thing to say about this.

If I don't get to talk to her for some sort of content that we put up for you guys, I'll talk about it next week on the pod. I texted it to you. It's kind of like amazing. But Fire and Blood's not like. super flattering to sheepstealer, right? Fire and Blood says, sheep stealer, notably ugly, quote,

mud-brown dragon, hash when the old king was still young, had a taste for a button, swooping down on shepherd's flocks from drift mark to the wind water. He seldom harmed the shepherds unless they attempted to interfere with him, but had been known to devour the occasional sheep dog.

And our listener Nina pointed out that sheep stealers' long curly claws suggests that the other dragons are having regular pedicures and that this is somebody's job. and I am here for this. Do you think the ancient order of old Valeria dragonkeepers who went on strike at Dragonstone around the red sewing?

Do you think they're out there giving dragon manicures? I mean, we saw what Maly's talons did to Sunfire and Vagar. Like some nail filing, whether it's natural or otherwise. I mean, I guess the rocky crags of Dragon's, probably do just like act as a natural. But there's plenty of crad in the veil and nail file. And good old sheepies like out there just letting them curl. Do you remember where you were when you first saw like one of those things in the Guinness

Book of World Records where it's like longest nail ever and you found out that they curl at a certain point? Gross. Terrifying. But that is what's happening with sheepstealer hair, right? Oh, man. Joe. We do not actually get a claiming.

But it seems like that's where this is heading. we'll talk about some questions and other things on our mind in our book look ahead next week. We've noted before this would be like a different a book to purchase. A different thing if this happens so we genuinely don't know exactly where this is going.

It certainly seems like we're marching toward this. I will say one of the things I liked about the season a lot is the different, and again, this dates back to last season with Amin and Vagar, every claiming feels distinct. Right. Something distinct about the character, something distinct about the dragon as a character, about their bond, about the circumstance, and I like that. So Raina, if they do end up pairing, like, the path to that being totally different from what happened to the sewing, etc., is cool to me. And so much like the triarchy, this is like a how it was parceled out and when in the season thing for me. And also, again, like some of the, oh, we have questions about thing X if this is what happens and what that means for some change. changes, like, which we'll hit next week. We should say is that, like, I agree with you. Cutting back multiple times in the finale.

I was like, must we? I think this is okay to say that the person who claims sheepstealer in the book does so, like, coaxingly and over time. And I love that. Same. It's amazing. That could still happen. Raina might take half of season three to claim this dragon. I don't know.

I genuinely don't know. Boy, what a harrowing possibility. I think you must think you might be right. Jace. Our guy is still not a fan of Team Bastard, but he is about to find out that Ulf, the Sot, is a big fan of hugs. Straight up, not having a good time.

My lord. This was, I thought, an incredibly entertaining scene. We find Alf, Jase finds off. Boots up on the fucking painted table. He's using the painted table. I got the conqueror's painted table. able as a footstool, and Hugh is just imploring him. Like, we've really got to get to the training yard.

If I'm Hugh, I'm spending my time with Adam. And I am just like, like, I understand that he's trying to distance himself from Ulf, but I'm like, just go hang out with Adam and don't even like hang out with Olf. It's not, it's dragging you down, my guy. The Boots on the table. Yeah. He has this incredible email from our listener, Tyler, that was titled of Maps and Models of Gantries and Balconies.

Gantries. And he was just talking about all the ways in which we see characters on top of or towering over the physical. So Ophaz's boots on the map table, right? So Tyler wrote maps, the painted table and Cercy's floor map in later seasons of Game of Thrones. Our protagonists stand like giants over these maps. And Cersi carelessly just stomps around on a map like Godzilla. Models, King Viseras' model of Kings Landing. it's hard not to imagine King Vissarius, well,

overly, but it's hard not to imagine King Vassarius is a god when he builds his model. Actually, it's not him building the model. It's someone else giving the pieces of place. Just as someone gave him a spear to kill the already captured heart. And the model is rather plain and gray, perhaps reflecting his desire for some peace and his turbulent later years.

Gantries. We all know what a gantry is, obviously. Always have. Always have. Moving yourself to a gantry. Removes yourself from the situation. Reneer above and protected gazing down. on the small folk below and trapped in this situation, again, trees the position of safety and

privilege. Balconies! As Ironrod and Laris Strong look down on Amon in season two episode seven, the size makes a difference here, Amon intimidating and ruthless looks like a child down in the courtyard, while those of, quote, lesser power, Jasper and Laris stand far above him. Laris are rejecting Jasper's information about Seas Smoke's new writer, demonstrates his power in the situation represented by his physical elevation. And balconies number two in season one, episode seven.

Agon is straight up, housing his dragon, I want to say hosin, but housing his dragon, if you know what I mean, while standing in his open window with the city of kings landing below him, it's pretty gross. So I'm not going to analyze that one too much. You want out of deference to the burst condition. You want to sort of like take a pass on that one. Yeah, yeah. I had said in our notes, you know, very much like Homeland or pissing on the city or Roman, you know, a wank in this window. But like out of respect for Agon. Yeah.

And the sausage on the spit, we can know. longer invoke one of the best moments of season one. Remember the good times. Oh man, what a time that was. Yeah, but I like that idea of like how to use these, I mean, you can't really, you can't really use it with the whiteboard that they have in Kingsland, small council. But yeah, this idea of like power as represented by physical proximity to maps and gantries and balconies, etc. Gantries. Love a gantry. Yeah. Always, always a word. I definitely always know. Jace, skip the sewing.

Yeah. So this is the first time he's meeting, Ulf and Hugh, and crucially the first time they're meeting him. She's not how I would have begun. Jay's King of diplomacy has forgotten. Yeah. My guy, you secured the veil, you secured the north,

you secured the crossing. This is not the most despicable way, whether you're in or out on team bastard, or not the most despicable way to welcome the new guests. It's not up to you, Ulf. Who's it up to then? Boy!

He is the Prince of Charles, Prince Gassaris Valerian. Prince Gisaris Valerian, right here, who'd have thought it? He lives here. Didn't count on Hugh coming in with the comedy in the finale. No. I was struck by how much stronger of a grasp Hugh had on the manner of court, on etiquette. And, you know, we don't know exactly how long Hugh spent with Sarah Targaryen. But at the end of the day, we do know from that scene last week that it was.

It was at least some of his life. He grew up with his Targary and Princess mom. Targaryian Princess mother. Yeah. He is making his scorpions for the crown. Like he's working for the crown. He's making an appeal to the king in the throne room. He is just simply more accustomed to this than broths a little thin and like this is thirsty work.

Yeah. So let's be clear. Ulf is not even trying a little bit. Right. Right. did that strike you as in line with what we had... We were going to talk about this movie in the dinner scene later, but let's do it here. Addressions out-leading the witness.

Did this strike you as in line with what we had seen from Olf or did this feel a little... I mean, we already talked about this. It feels like a real, like, lovable, you know, cockney-sought, you know, who does some questionable things, but, you know, is generally genial to sort of there's just like a like, and I don't fault the performance, but there's just like a sharper edge to him immediately. Yeah. And I guess we can just say that this is, you know, this is the corrupting influence of the dragon.

We talked about this last week and we talked about this throughout the season, this idea of these places or these things as almost ring of power, Horcrooks-esque, like corrupting influences on a personality and certain, you know, a bore mirror is going to fall faster than an Erragorn or something like that. And so like, like, if, uh, you know, if the dragon is the one ring in this scenario, and then he's just like immediately into greeting grasping. Right.

Give me all the birds you have. This is interesting. I just cannot wait to talk about the little birds. This I didn't bump. You and C.R. bumped on this a little bit. I didn't bump on it just because it felt to me like when the wagon of sheep goes by, like, all shouts after, ultimately like, so. soldiers, you know, like, they could have arrested him. They could have killed him when he's like,

sheep for your dragon, but not for us. And even just like, you know, the way he's always saying in the pubs and then men would take my head for it, like the sense that we had of him that he was unafraid to say the thing that whether it's true or he just wants you to think it's bold and brave, like that you maybe shouldn't say and do. And even just like with this in the, but there's such a difference. But it's certainly a ratcheting up. Nothing prepared me for Renera standing up at the table and him just like talking over her, which was shocking. Because like they, I mean, Jace is not being exactly welcoming here, but in general, like, they, they have connected you with a dragon.

Yes. I mean, also they shoved you in a pit with 40 plus other people and didn't really care if you lived or died. So that's true. But like, you know, they gave you a dragon. They're about to give you, like, they're about to give you a bunch of stuff. They've got new outfits. Yeah, new threads.

They're in the tarred colors. Like, as much quail as you could possibly hope to have. have, why would you be hostile towards him? Like, he's more hostile. Right. Yeah, because he's feeling it. He's hot shit. Like he's, yeah.

But he didn't seem, again, we didn't spend a ton of time with him, but he didn't seem like unkind. He was always like friendly to other people in the like three scenes. Friendly to other people, you know what you mean? Yeah, unafraid to call people out. But like, where's that sort of like walk into the bar? Everyone knows your name sort of thing. For sure.

Why would you walk in a draw and a job? Dragonstone and just try to like charm whoever this boy is, you know. That is totally fair and valid. I think the other part of it of like, in our limited time, we understand that this is a guy who spent his entire life just trying to get other people to give him things. A goblet of wine, a tanker to veil. You know, in exchange for whatever like bold thing he could say at the table, it's a rationing up for sure. But it wasn't one that like felt necessarily out of character. But it is certainly is quick.

I thought your point on Talk to Thorns about. You have just a little, literally a scene or two maybe between, and it feels, and then we're not even asking the question at all. It was interesting to me that Hugh, in addition to just the sense of etiquette, because the pitch he made to Kat was like, make you a lady. Make you a lady. Our station will be improved. He doesn't seem to be focused on that at all right now. He's not like, where's mine? Well, where is Kat?

How did Kat? I have to assume that Kat is with her brother in Tubbleton where she said all season she wanted to go. and Hugh is like, I'm going to go to the sewing. But, like, is Kat? I mean, we still don't know. Because you and CR seem to think that she was like done, done. And I was like, but will she feel the same way when he rolls up on a dragon? We'll see.

Stay tuned. We'll find out in a couple years. One of our listeners, Mariella, asked why Ulf and Hugh and Adam, I mean, we already talked about this in terms of Adam. But why Ulf and Hugh are not saying, like, why Hugh isn't like, hey, here's who my mom is. Or Ulf is like, hey, here's. who I think my dad is, you know, like would that grease the wheels of, you know, would that mollified Jace a little bit to know, like, how closely related he is to these people? I think it would probably have, based on the conversation between Jason and Rear, the opposite

effect, where Jason would be even more intimidated by that. But it is a great question. And like, so what do you think then? Do you think that that has not happened? Obviously, we know with Adam and Coralus, it has not happened. Neither of them is. saying he's my dad, he's my son. So not telling her now. A follow question is like, what? If it hasn't happened, has anyone asked them? Right.

So has it happened and it's just not on screen? Or is this not a discussion? It would be them not offering it up, odd, not asking. Yeah. Downright and conceivable to me. Right? But of a piece with inviting everybody in without being like, did you bring your resume cover lighter, which I still have questions about.

What do you are any agree? Are you, have you taken the break to Myers? Are you an ENFP? I have some questions. What's your love language? Man, I still feel great about the, what a wonderful mail-back question, the love language question was in the preseason. Provison and drag is Gmail. That really bore fruit. It could not have been funnier to me that were, like, formative early time with Ulf, was in part oriented around him, boasting.

about my nephew, Prince Gassaris Filarian, the rifle heir to the Iron Throne, and then Jace walks in and he doesn't have a fucking clue who he is. I just thought this was incredible. Gets up, hugs him, Jace is horrified,

tossles his hair, Jase is appalled. And then, most egregious of all, he says, Dragonriders, both you and I cut from the same cloth. Now this is, of course, the exact thing that Jases was at the heart of that

wrenching plea that Jace issued to his mother, do not do this thing, right? When you took Harwin Strong into your bed. Remember when Jay said, Ma Girl? That was brutal. That was horrible. I don't like it. I don't want it.

That was horrible. But like this was the substance of what Jace was saying to Rennara. And then Olfus invoking the very seed, the germ, the heart of Jase's insecurity as, let's wrap this around us, a little cloak that unites us. This is the exact thing that Jace feared. Jay's like, there's no us, man. Yeah, it's very John Mullaney. No, that's the one thing I've been secure about.

My hair! No. Man, he redirects, though, by bringing up Sharp Point. He's like, everyone's talking about it. You know, Sharp Point. Everyone's favorite city. House Massey, seat of House Massey. Sacred inheritance and asks, like, are they ready?

Are they taking it seriously? Are they prepared? And, like, you brought up just now, the horrid. Mongrel moment from last episode. I'm in the same place with Jace over these last couple episodes where the way that he's behaving, the demeanor, the way that he's interacting with other people or talking about other people as a Jace lover. I'm dismayed.

Dismayed. But the substance of what he's saying is anchored in, I think, a clear view of the board and in reality and in an understanding of maybe how people would respond to something. And so when he's like, if you hinder our efforts through sloth or unreadiness, I will see you hang in your body fed with the dogs in the street. I'm like, where did our sweet boy go? Where's the diplomat? It's like, are they ready for this?

They gave them dragons and never asked, do you believe in our cause? Will you take this charge and treat it with care? When Renera is talking at the at the Dragon's seen dinner later. She's like, you'll go burn this town and you'll go burn this town. And they're like, wait, what? I thought this is about getting quail. 30 plus for Tom Bennett we learned in the House of the Dragons Belt. I thought I was just here to get a really cool new outfit.

Is that not what you recruited me for? Not to jump back to that scene. House of the Dragon's build has been great all season. It's always interesting and illuminating to watch. But for that scene when Clinton, we had a lot of takes. So it was like having like a bear, you have to take a bite of food. I had like half a raspberry. And then Tom Bennett is like, I am on my 30.

He's like, it's great. I won't have to eat, you know, feed myself tonight. And then they're, yeah, he's just dying. Remarkable stuff. Yeah, next season of the, all the BTS should just be Tom Bennett. So good. Literally anything. So good.

Joanne and I would like to ask you now to join me on the docks of Driftmark. Once again, but not for the last time. Did you bring warm broth? And warm bread. I know. Wow. Actually, I wish I had both of those things right now. That sounds delicious.

where Rainira and Corlis are chatting and where Renira has some of the same things we were just discussing. Regrets? On her mind. Doubts? She has a few. The new riders are a boon to us,

Ranira says, but now that he is done, I cannot erase my doubts. We know little of who they are and what is the strength of their character. Obviously, we talked about this at length last week. She is pleased to know, however, that Corliss can offer some character testimonials

on Adam. and he provides a positive one, but once again chooses to withhold the information that Adam is his kid. I have to be honest, I did not think we would be waiting until season three for the Allen and Adam are my kids. Yeah. Wider reveal, shocking stuff. Corl is for his part. Maybe it was like an episode nine reveal of this season. Because that seems right, actually.

Corlissus is ready to do some dragon math. Damon's not here. Someone has to do the dragon math. I always welcome the dragon math. As you know, tells her, you got to strike quickly. You must crush this beast at its head and before too many days have flown. So he's doing a little of the Olena to Danny. Like, are you a sheep?

No, you're a dragon. Be a dragon. Right? Act with what you have at hand. Be who you are. Also this like season long through line of haste and pace and how the different characters are assessing what the right time is to act. to strike.

I thought you were going to say this sees a long through line of teasing the fact that Darren exists. Well, that is well, because they do a little, a little bit of Team Green Dragon Math for us, too. The third brother. Yes. I found this reminding us about Darren and Tessarian and Helena as Dreamfires writer, important and helpful. Coming out of the sewing, it is important to remind us that it's not actually just

vagar name, and despite that being the only thing anybody talks about. I found the exposition of this a little conky. Yes. But helpful to be reminded. Dreamfire. Obviously, we're going to get to Aman's pitch to Helena later. But is there anything here in terms of just like Reneira's response to this? Holina is no warrior.

Hash when the Conqueror was king, she is formidable. Still Helena is no warrior. Yeah. Throughout Renera has been Helena is an innocent. Helena, you know, like. Yes. Revere and Allison really agree that Helena is like the good one. We have this quote from Fire and Blood, doing a little dragon math their own in Fire and Blood.

To Sarian with Prince Darren in Old Town, only two mature dragons remain to defend Kings Landing. And Dreamfire's writer, Queen Helena, spent her days in darkness weeping and surely could not be counted on as a threat. That left only Vagar. Classic history book. Our listener? Weeping? Yeah, in the darkness. Or dispensing many dream dispatches?

While also caring for crickets and weaving tapestries. Oh, one of them stopped singing. Our listener Melissa asked, do we know how Holiana claimed Dreamfire? It is so interesting that she does not seem to enjoy riding a dragon. Yet Dreamfire, like the dragon wasn't hers because they grew up together from the egg. she actually went out and claimed her. We actually scoured through fire and blood. We don't have, like, details on how Helena and Dreamfire first hooked up.

Right. Just said Helena was younger, 11. Yes. But later, Dreamfire is called Beloved of Queen Helena. So in the book, at least, like, she has a relationship with her dragon. And you can see, I mean, you know, the fan art writes itself of her just, like, sort of, like, very alluded to her of her visiting her. dragon and sort of like murmuring with her dragon. Not like burning innocence with her dragon.

Right, exactly. She's not a warrior, but that doesn't mean that she couldn't like enjoy her dragon or ride on her dragon. Her bond is separate from violence. This isn't a fire and blood. And we've seen, we know that she took Dreamfire as her Uber when she went to the funeral in season one. So like she has flown Dreamfire. And so there's a difference between I want to fly my dragon to battle and like Viseris is like I don't really like to fly dragons at all so we don't quite know where I think it's easy I think it's reasonable to assume if you're just watching the show that Helena doesn't care for her dragon she never like talks about dream fire um but yeah this this book beloved of Queen Helena is sort of the morsel that we have from the book yeah I like to think

that she's visiting regularly and they're hanging talking about bugs bug stuff and talking about which bugs are still singing but not uh not gonna Go join Amen on his... Burning the jewel of Westrose's charpoint. Yeah, exactly. Dreamfire, you know? Shout out Raina Targaryen, other Raina. Yeah.

Dreamfire's first writer. Fascinating Fire and Blood character. Fascinating. One of the dragon meth nuggets that I loved is that when Laris and Egon are talking, Laris says that the blacks have seven dragons and Corlis here says six because it's the Damon swing dragon. You know?

Do you think Rainier is going to name Damon her VP candidate? On off the presses. Second on the ticket. Do you think Damon could wield Minnesota nice? No. I don't think so. I don't know. Even where we leave Damon at the end of this episode, I do not think the answer to that is yes.

So, despite the sewing, Renira is still not ready to be queen of the ashes. She says to Corlis, I hope my advantage may be in deterrence. Fagar has ever been our foremost threat. And she is now overmatched. So we talked a lot last week about when you're talking about. talking about divine justice and your quest being ordained and I am the chosen one. Do the rest of the pot in that tone of voice. And the look on your face when Vermethor lets you reach out, right?

I am right. I will do it. I will succeed. I must. The gods have blessed me. It felt really, really, really crucial and important then to hear Reneer still say, I don't want to have to kill everyone in order. to unite the kingdom and act on this burden of the prophecy that I have inherited, you know, back in the

season one finale, or Nira was saying, I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone. And that is still true. She does not wish that. And later she will say to Masaria, I don't think my father would have wished that. And so those felt like crucial things to hear Rineera voice on the tail end of the sewing before whatever awaits in two years. Episode 9. Episode 9. Corlis, however, has no, like, compunction.

He's very much to all then, right? Yes. Because they finally got the artist formerly knows a sea snake barnacle free, right? Yeah. Boy. Scraped that last barnacle off the old sea snake, which is now called the Queen who never was. And they are joining the blockade on the morrow, which I don't know if you remember is when. The triarchy said that they were headed to the goet on the morrow.

On the morrow. So how many Hightower weeks until then? We'll find out. But that's what we got. You know, I will just say in case we don't have time later, when we see Corlis sailing out at the end, the hand of the queen pin, just won. Very tastefully. Dimure. Yeah.

But placed onto his armor. Kristen could take some notes. That's all. Well, I mean, and Condo pointed this out in the press carvins, we, we did yesterday, but like, Chris and Cole is not wearing his armor at all in this finale. He has stripped off all the, just the like under padding. All the finery, all the office, you know, the, the symbols of his office. Speaking of symbols, this name, queen who never was, former niece.

This is how she was referred to after not being chosen, right, at the great council. I got to say, it's not the nickname that I would have, you know, cherished wife. Queen of my heart, something like that, not reminding her of the time that... That she was passed over by the realm, that she wasn't chosen. Should it have been something about their, like something about their frisky sex life? Their spicy bedroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it.

Walk me like a dog. Great. The... For Corliss's arc, the thematic impact of this, not only what it means to honor Renice publicly in this way, right? Like when Bela went pre having to get Jace to snap too and went to in the fifth episode talk to Corliss, right? And said, I wonder if any of them knew it was all for her,

the nine voyages, all of the glory and splendor in the Hall of Nine, to put that then out in the front at the four, right, for everybody to acknowledge and know and understand and see that a character who's the bulk of his life was about his own glory and his own pursuits and his own sense. sense of adventure and achievement, and of course, as was chronicled at length of season one, his own ambition, his obsession with legacy. I was thinking a lot about the conversation that he and Rainies had in the seventh episode of the first season. That's seen by the fire,

he was talking about this very idea like you were passed over, right? Tonight of all nights, let us lay aside this falsehood. It is not justice for your wife that drives you. It is your own ambition. It is desire for the throne. If not for yourself and for the science of your house, I gave up the idea of wearing a crown a generation ago. It is you, Lord Husband, who refuses to abandon this pursuit. And so to lean back into that moniker and reposition it as being about her and the things that he has missed and lost and grieves and longs for and not the way he used to think about the queen who never was, which is like, you were robbed, so let's go try to get this for ourselves now. What I think is most interesting inside of this is that this is far and away

not the most consequential corallus scene, that the shift in his character is coming later. Yeah. Ellen. Should we go with a heronhold? Yeah. I don't want to say too much time on Sir Alfred Brum. On your favorite character of the season, Sir Alfred Brum?

Let me tell you I didn't miss this guy. Did not miss Sir Alfred Brum. We did get an email asking about his sigil. By the way, broom with an E does not have a sigil in the book anywhere. But there is a house of broom with no E that does have a sigil, and it is like a, it's a knight's sort of helm with some, like, flowers growing out of it, and that is what is stamped on his.

So they just gave him the house broom with no-e. Like, they were like, fuck you, Alfred, you don't even deserve your own sigil. We'll give you one from a different house. Fuck you, Alfred is my general position on Alfred. He got a sigil. He's just going to get some pigs from Lord Peter Piper. That just sequence made me laugh so much.

It was really good. He prefers the thing. It just killed me. Great stuff. So, Alfred and Damon. Damon, clearly very proud to be found in a position of success. What do you think of my army? It's very large, right?

Oh, interesting. Ranira felt compelled to check up on me to see what I was doing. What was a foot? Check me. Got it. What did you make of when Alfred asked for a private word, Damon choosing to take him to the godswood? The thing that Damon has resisted and rejected the magic of this place, the supernatural element of this place, that that is then the spot and the seat that he chooses. of his own accord to go to.

I think that's fine to read that into it. For me, I think it's more so they could... Use the set. Use a set and have... And have the Tree Whispered Trader. I loved that. Trader. Did you hear that?

Trader. I think you could certainly say that Damon feels comfortable everywhere in Harenhall at this point. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that's great. But yeah. Where Wood Tree also fucking hates Alfred Bro.

Yeah. Yeah. The wherewood tree's like I heard you basically make the same sexist speech directly to Reneer's face. Alfred, not a fan. It was satisfying to watch him slink away and like shrink back into the crowd. He's like, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, the fuck out of here. Oh, man. I do love that he is taller than everyone else. It's like he sticks out really easily. And I think it's interesting because we've been sort of asking all season, what are Simon Strong's real motivations? Could he possibly be this sort of like loyal to fashion? fashion, a slave to fashion, but also just like... No, but like, is, what is his interest here?

Is he playing Damon? Is he really loyal to, like, you know, and it seems like his, whatever his enmity towards Laris, which is what his explanation was for why he wasn't fighting Damon, is translated enough beyond even, well, let's screw over Laris, it's like, actually, I've decided to take my fidelity to Renera seriously. Right. And so, even if you, Damon, who I've been, like, kind of trying to. to help all season. If I get a whiff, you're about to align yourself with this tall traitor's

piece or shit Alfred Broome. I haven't even, I have a Texas end. I heard the tree whisper traitor. They were both standing in front of it. And so, oh man, good stuff. Simon, I will miss him for the next two years. What a, what a time it was with Simon Strong. Iron Rod. Even, even Ironrod thinks Amon sucks. I don't think everyone sucks. That's true. That's, that's, that is true. He thinks everyone sucks. And yet when you lose him completely, boy, it's tough. So he just is passing along the like, hey, they all went on boats to the sewing. Amon's response is not, why didn't my master of was first tell me this? It is, let's make sure we're inspecting all the boats. Let's stop the boats. Let's control the boats. And Iron Rod's like, the people basically are only alive because of the fish from

the boats. They're pescatarians at this point. And Amon says, you know what? They're not going to get to eat anything if they all die. Do you think that's going to be an effective campaign slogan with the small folk of Kingsland? I love a West Wing walk-and-talk, and this is a real insight into the political mind that is Amon. Oh, boy.

Okay, so Amon walking directly from here to Helena's chamber. Yes. Mava. I love that, though. He comes in, he's like, Helena, he's like, Mada. Mava. Just sort of, like, extremely tossed off. Great moment.

But yeah, Allison and Helena are. having a mother-daughter moment. Touching exchange. I was happy before I was queen. Yeah. This made me really sad. What did you think about leaving this place? The way that Fia played the where would I go?

Yeah. Right? Where would I go? And that's why I loved it because, you know, you do get the sense that this is the first time, certainly Allison, but really anyone has basically said to Helena, like, what do you want? What would make you happy, right? And of course that makes us think about Allison's and her experience, right?

that great conversation with Otto and the penultimate episode last season that we talked that we talk about a lot. Like how would I know? How would I know what I want? This is at the heart of what Allison will say to Reneer at the end of this episode. But it's also not something Allison had previously given to Helena. Like when she went to tell Helena about the funeral procession for Ja Harris in the second episode and Helena was like, I don't want to do this. Yeah. Allison's response was not okay. It was we have to. Right. Because Allison is still operating under this idea of like whatever the patriarchy. says we have to do, that's what we have to do. We are representatives of the throne. We have a duty. Even then,

she was, that clear softness for Helena was present because even then she was like, I don't really give a shit that they murdered a toddler. Yes. But what they did to my girl,

what they did to Helena. So as like fucked up as Allison's parenting instincts are and they are, she has always, you know. Absolutely, and that made it more painful to watch because we could see the care was genuine, but she didn't know how to put that then at the fore above that sense of duty. And that's what shifts here. She says come to Cabo with me here.

How does she lean on Cabo specifically? Is that Allison's vibe? I've never been to Cabo. I've also never been to Cabo. Yeah, but you think it's an Allison spot. No. No. Where do you see them really?

Like Tuscany, maybe? Oh, that's so funny. I was going to say like, yeah, like the Amalfi Coast maybe. Oof. Yeah. Or like the French Riviera. Are she still handing out invites? I would love to go.

Sounds amazing. But I just think, like, her like, please won't let someone go on a girl trip with me vibe. Just screams Cabo to me. Screams like cocktails in the pool to me. But our listener Natalie was asking why we haven't heard more conversations talk of Jihara. Jihara, the child who survived essentially like disappeared. like where has she been? We saw her like handed off at one point.

Yes, there was a holding in a transfer. Earlier this season, but she's largely been gone. Later in this episode, when she's talking to Renera, Allison does say, I would take my daughter and her child and leave it all behind. So implicit in this invitation to let's go to Cabo, it's like, and girls trip. Right. Jehara will be there. It's the regeneration girl trip is what she's interested in.

But then Amin Bungleson. Mother? Mother. Oh, man. Coralus was right to anticipate this move that Amid would try, at least try, to get in a dream hire. L.O.L. What?

She is much more interested in escaping this conversation and going to bed. Wonderful stuff. Doesn't want to fight anyone? Doesn't want to burn anyone. Amon gets physical, like, pulling her, right? He is trying to present this. He's like, this is not a request.

This is an order. You don't have the ability to say no to this, actually. I'm Prince Regent, right? Kind of warps this insecurity and anxiety and like on board sensation that he has now after the sewing into this like Savior's pledge, right? They have defiled our birthright, made commoners into dragon lords. It is a sin and must be punished. We love to track whether it's Allison, Kristen, anybody, like, when you use this kind of like cloak of righteousness to justify some ill deed, it was hard though not to think of Jace here because this is like kind of what Jace is saying

and I don't think that's an association that Jace would want. Once upon a time and I'm very proud of this. A lot of the DeNaris Targaryen like Stan accounts on Twitter blocked me because totally normal because I did an interview with John Bradley where he called Deneres. He called DeNus Targaryenched and he did so before like it was clear how the show was going to end. That's on John Bradley. but they decided to blame me.

And all I just wanted to let you know is that the day that all these Twitter accounts that are called stuff like Targaryen supremacy blocked me. I'm like, that's a win for me, honestly. I think so. Oh, boy. Targaryen supremacy is this like really popular sort of vibe in the Danny's Dan community. And I just think that like the Targaryian supremacy idea is really coming through here for Amon. And sadly also for our guy, Jace, it's really tough stuff.

Jace. Oh, Jace. Allison, yeah, defending Helena here. She and Eam and get into it again. They are back in their favorite spot, which is blaming the other one for something that has gone horribly wrong.

He blames her for, like, how, in his view, her weakness has led to this circumstance. She blames him for always lashing out and harming innocent people when he is insulted, right? The eye for an eye. Luke, a burning egg on, which, of course, she doesn't know about,

but we do. Sharp point, everyone's favorite locale! I think that's where she wanted to go. She's like, get a girl. Get a girl, go to the coastal seaside town or Sharp Point. Oh, man. Well, there is room now. There's room.

Room and Sharp Point. The desire for vengeance for Amon remains very much intact. Where is the remorse? Like, where is that remorse that we talked about this so much at the beginning of the season when we saw him curled up with Sylvia and saying in the second episode, I do regret that business with Luke. I lost my temper that day. I am sorry for it.

it felt like because we had been, you know, tracking these mirrors with Aiman and Damon, and that was something we were getting from Aman that we weren't getting from Damon in that episode, right? Like, I cannot be held responsible. Where is this for Aymond? Is it just stifled below all of these other impulses? Yeah, I think he's calcified it. Because he opened himself up to Sylvie, and then Agan made fun of him to a point where he was like, oh, that was a mistake. But he does make himself vulnerable again in this episode. Tears in his eyes. when talking to Helena. So, like, the capacity for trying to let someone in is still there.

He's just very mistrustful of doing so. What did you make in the fact that he says, who will protect her if she cannot protect herself? And what that reflects about his recalibrated relationship to Helena. Because in the first season, when Agon was being a dickhead and making fun of Helena and saying she's an idiot and all this. stuff. Amund was the one who defended her. And he's not thinking about what she needs or protection or really just like any sort of empathy at all. She is just another potential, there's a need

that he feels, right? Someone stand with me. But she's a chip on the board for him. That's partially true, but I think what's also true is what's different between then and now is that a rat catcher came into, like, her bedchamber, and her security is on a different level altogether. Now, like, she is so much more vulnerable than she was even when they were children because they couldn't conceive of this level of exposure overall. They were the royal family. Right. So it's, like, protecting her from Agon's, like, shitting.

Yeah. ...feiting versus the larger existential threat of murderers in the bedchamber. And like you says Allison here, this isn't just about like, are we going to hold on to power? Like our lives, our very lives, would you not have us prevail? What does she say? Not like this. Never like this. Not like this.

And then she goes right from this conversation to Orwell to secure passage to Dragonstone. And so while this has been building and budding, she went to big bathtub and reflected last episode. This exchange with Amand and what she sees an Amin here, final push. Final push to send her to her to run your right. Hylina is threatened. since this like innocence inside the Targaryan family, it's something, again, they're all agreeing on. Our gentleest soul.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's protect the last bit of innocence inside this like, you know, fierce, bloodthirsty dragon riding family. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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I thought this scene was fucking great. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Kristen is inhaling the favor that he asked for from Allison in the third episode of the season. He is inhaling. Breathe in deep. just sitting on his log for all to see, all to see, right? Right.

Sitting on it. It's like missing her sitting on his log, and so he is sitting at A log, in Haleen. And Gawain is like, please stop holding my sister's handkerchief that she kept in her bosom to your mouth and nose in front of our entire army. And so then in front of their entire army, Gawain puts his sword to Kristen's throat. Yeah, again, there's a lot of, As we are constantly encouraging people to have conversations in private, like, not the, not actually the Renair a Damon conversation.

I think that was great. Yes, yeah. I'm so glad that you gentle that and you were like that she kept tucked away and have bosom this very, like, quarterly chivalric language from you. But just for the listeners at home, Mali wrote nip-nap to describe this handkerchief. What did you say? Spot the lie. Tittray. Sunday, what did you say?

Tit cloth, maybe? Terrible. I mean, again, it is exactly that. It is. So. Tucked in her queenly... Her decalitage. Go in.

He's like, Dianatta. You think nothing of your oath? And Kristen's like, let me tell you something. It is quite literally. They make you swear and swear. All I think about and all I talk about. Yeah. It is the only thing I have to my fucking name.

That was what he said to Renera. The white cloak is a symbol of our purity. are fidelity. It's what he said to O'Rick. Just couldn't get through the season without mentioning the card holes once more. I had to do it. Everyone, the sharp point of characters, Eric and Aurek. Gawain brings up Kristen's origins. Once again, Gawain never misses an opportunity to say where Kristen is from.

Godse-Stosh. Godsees-Sinish. Codney's not getting a cent. Threatens to send him to the wall. And Kristen is banking on Gawain not wanting to stain the family. name by releasing this scandal out into the wild. Now, there's a part of me watching this scene, a scene I love that's unlike a lot of people are hearing them talk. How actually did this stay quiet?

But that kind of exchange, you don't want to stay in the family name, does account for how this affair would have not made its way into the histories, which it didn't. So that's interesting. Mushroom was not there. Says Mushroom, who must not there. Who's not there. What does Kristen?

say about what Alicent means to him, represents to him, has been for him. Okay, so he calls her a beacon, which is a very, like, High Tower sort of language here, of course. Light the beacons. It reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in the perfect film sneakers.

When Robert Redford is trying to convince this woman to do something, and he's like, be a beacon. Be a beacon. Anyway, yeah, he's she's his beacon. Pretty incredible stuff. Chris's favorite line of the season, I think, was Desire for Women, has brought me grief after grief.

Yeah. Just great stuff. And Gwynne says resist it. Kristen says, oh, well, that it was so simple. And then we are treated to a just remarkable exchange. Before we hear that remarkable exchange. Yeah. I just want to let you know that, oh, would that it were so simple, inspired Steve and Rahmahoney and several other people I know to text me the identical thing.

Steve, will you play this clip, please? Would the detour so simple? Trippingly. Would the detour so simple? Trippingly. They don't say trippingly. Say the line trippingly. You receive multiple text messages.

No, on this. Would the de twer so simple. One of the funniest scenes from any movie ever from Hale Caesar with Ray Fines and Hansel himself, Alden Arnreich. I think about this all the time. And yes, when this line happened, I literally like, like a Pavlovian dog. Like, I have Tourette's. was like, what's detour? So simple.

And Steve texted me, Rob Mahoney, you text me, like all gaps. Two of the greats. A bunch of other people messaged me as well, but they don't work for the wrigger.

com. What a great website. You know, Ray finds his, he's on my list. He's a top fiver. Obviously. Top fiver all time. God's a big good.

Top fiver. Steve, can we hear it again? Would the detwerce are simple, trippingly? Would the detwerce a simple, trippingly? They don't say trippingly. Say the line trippingly.

Is that entire exchange in the text? Would that it were... Well... I can't remember exactly what Steve texted me. Rob did text me in all caps, would that it were so simple. Steve was like, did you watch the episode, then you know what we have to do?

Like, yeah. Oh, Steve, the commitment to the soundboard. All right, so do you want to hear something from this actual episode of television that we're talking about? Let's do it. Do they? Perhaps they do.

Or perhaps all men are corrupt. And true honor is amissed. that melts in the morning that is a bleak philosophy I have no philosophy or rather my philosophy was this to protect the righteous and dispense justice on the rest

but now you saw what I saw the dragons dance and men are like dust under their feet and all our fine thoughts all our endeavours are as nothing we march now toward our annihilation to die will be a kind of relief.

Then you think. I loved this. Should we go now to Nileism Nook as Steve Alman has branded it in a break that we had that you didn't see? Steve just broke into the room barged in. Nileism Nook? What I found out after I took my phone off of, like, Do Not Disturb is he had also slacked it to me. I apologize, Steve. I'm not looking at my slack right now.

But yeah, Nileism Nook. We go now. To Nileism Nook. I like it. it. Great stillings, John. The team, the soundboard, the graphics. My goodness.

Joanne and I was riveted by the scene. I loved it. I would like little episodes of like the daily Kristen and Gween travel logs. I just think these scenes are incredible. This is what I'm saying. You just have to check in with someone when they're on the road. Kristen, perfect point of view character for this kind of shift, right, going from the hubris of thinking he could set events into motion, could control the outcome, and then transformed by his experience

at Rook's Rest, into this just like complete and total sense of insignificance. We heard him say to Alicent in that great courtyard scene, we have given the War to the Dragons, a dragon rider should lead us. We saw that PTSD, the way he talked about the battle, we could feel him working through it. But to give like the, the dragons dance line to a regular guy who's not a writer and is on the ground looking up and then looking around him at the carnage felt like such a perfect choice. And when they were prepping for Rook's dress and he had this great secret plan and he was so proud, the way he talked about death was like, nothing can touch me, right? When Gawain was like, grown tired of living half you? And he said, are you afraid,

sir? Worse, I'm rational. We advanced. That was what, remember that was why I was like, is he like speaking differently? Like there was this, nothing can touch. And he. Nothing can touch. And he was, sir, worse. I'm rational. And touch me, I have figured out how to rule the world and run the game. And now he's yearning for the grave because he doesn't think he has a place in the world in this world that he helped to usher in? I love this. This is across the board what's happening to these characters, right? Like, Amon thought he was invincible until he like saw with very good eyesight, many dragons in the far distance, or, you know, Damon thought he was the king's shit of everything until he touched a tree, and we'll talk about that, you know, like, we're all...

A lot of ghost therapy before we touch the tree. That's true. So, a multi-step process. But touching the tree was... Was part of it. I also really like... Big part. When he says, at the beginning of this clip we just heard, do they, perhaps they do,

perhaps all men are corrupt and true honor is a mist that melts in the morning, what Allison said to him in that courtyard, well, one of several courteards, what she said to him is, has your loyalty faded or does it flourish only at night? and flee the sunrise like a moth. You know, it's like very similar. He's taking that seriously where it's like, for me, I was tempted to sort of roll my eyes. I'm like, what did you really expect? But for him, he's like, I mean, he genuinely does care about Allison, which is not, I mean,

I knew that he sort of had this like obsessive cleaving to her, you know, that he felt. But like, this idea of some sort of twisted romance is there for him. And yeah, and the fact that he is, like, taking seriously her accusation of betrayal, for me, I was just sort of like, what do you expect, like, really you expected, like, these assignations, random assignations that you're having to result in some sort of, like, loyalty. And he's kind of like, owes, they make you swear and swear. Like, if I swear enough to her, if I have some sort of loyalty to her or to Allison, who, you know, as he says, is his beacon spared him so many times, all this sort of stuff. Right. And if that runs counter to. Right.

The good of the realm, who I'm supposed to be protecting. Which, again, runs counter to the desires of the ruler who I'm supposed to be the hand of. I don't like putting him in a Jamie Lanster box at all, but here we are. Chris Ryan, if he ever listened to the podcast. But she doesn't. I don't think you should listen to the watch if he doesn't listen to House of Ar. I think it's even... He sometimes listens.

He sometimes listens. It's like an even trade. Two hours of the watch per week, nine hours of House of Hour per week. I think it's the same level of investment. I love that point about the tie here across characters and like tracking that shift in how characters are seeing their role in the story and who's in the, what's the point of any of it, place? Who's in a, there is a point, but it's a different.

I have a different relationship to it than I thought, Damon, or I want my relationship to it to be different than I thought, Allison. Can you the fuck out of the story? I can, this is, this is my story to like, craft, Reneer. I said it's fascinating. Bela. Let's do it. I thought this Bela J scene was great.

I thought the prior Bala Corlis scene in terms of what Bala was saying. I want more time with Bela. I've really loved these, like, need you to get it together. Perspective moments. It's great. Again, I would like her to do more than just walk around and tell Sadman to snap out of it. Absolutely. But she's very good at it.

She's incredibly good at it. It does not be fit of Prince to pout. I'm not pouting. What would you call it then? I'm reading. This is so great. That does not make me common. I loved that.

One of the all-time deliveries. Bethany is just like really good in this. Oh my God. That was fantastic. Or you, right? It does not make me comment or you. And I just really am loving the scenes where, you know, we've talked a lot about in our House of the Dragon coverage over many years now.

Coming up in three years. Wow. Just a couple months away. Yeah. First week of October. Yeah. Also your birthday. What is passed down?

Yeah. What is inherited? And so I really continue to love these scenes where the younger generation is processing, like, well, I'm going to decide what my relationship to this is. Yeah. Right? And so while, like, again, a lot of, like, Jace's insecurities are. born out of something real? For her to say to him, like, you don't, yeah, you've been hearing this all your life,

but, like, that, you don't need to let it be true. And for her to have, like, that declaration to Corlis about Reynese and her purpose. And now what Baylor's purpose will be in helping Rainera fight for the throne? Just really like that. I miss Moon Dancer. I was hoping we get to see Moon Dancer again. Gorgeous dragon. Take Bela to Heron Hall

Well, that brings us to our next scene Because it's time for dinner with their dragon seeds Renair's got the crown on, very formal This is like a really fun little like Scene that was in a lot of the trailers That like those of us who knew who the dragon sees were And we're like, there's Hugh, there's Ulf, there's Adam It's a dragon seat dinner

Oh man And do you remember how via like tricky editing in the trailer They made it seem like Damon was there? But in fact the person at the head of the table is Ulf More wine And more of those little birds Bring me those little birds I have

Intruthers Rineher stands up to toast Interrupted by Elth in the request for the birds I thought it was So weird So weird That in her toast

Renera went out of her way Toes Rine Rune They were lowborn Just fucking bizarre choice For Riner Again Someone he's I thought

Jace was the diplomat of the family But he's really Falling down here So I mean Bailey did get him to come to dinner, and that's nice. It's true. I love that little moment.

He's like, and she's like, no. You're a little bird. I have entrusted you with the power, only few have known, Reneera says, and I charge you to take it up with fealty and respect, serve me well, and I will make you knights of the realm. So this is what we were like talking about earlier. Has a moment transpired off-screen that we didn't see,

were they actually swore fealty to Reneera? Or is it just like a suit? Because Reneera said to Masaria, But in the highborn houses, there is an ancient fealty, there's honor. This was, like, part of her concern. Her clasism, yeah. Which was like, yeah, there was a prejudice and something like that made us feel icky there. But there was the practical.

What does it mean? They make you swear and swear. What does it mean to make somebody swear and swear and swear? Yeah. Do you think that happened here and we didn't see it or has that not happened? I don't know. Wild. I don't have a good answer for you.

Will we find out in episode night? I mean, yeah. Stayed you next week. We'll be back. Episode 9. Joanna, they don't want to do. They only have two more episodes of the season, and there's a lot to do.

I can't. Stop, it's too painful. Okay, speaking of two, though. Yeah. Sadly, we don't actually have two more episodes left the season, but they have, according to Renera, two days. Two days.

To train. To train. Listen, if people are going to be on the gullet on the morrow, then you've got to be ready on Dragon Pack in two days. Okay, what's the plan? What does Renaira want to do here? She wants to go to Lannisport. Landisport, if you couldn't figure out by the name, that is where the little Lannisters are from.

And it's a port. And Old Town, the seat of the high towers, right? So. Is there a beacon? Be a beacon. Annihally the strongholds of the usurper, forces to render. Everyone seems stressed out by this. Even Bala, who, like, loves to fuck shit up on their dancers, seemingly.

She's like, really want us to kill Linson? It's not Jace, though. Jase is like, do I get to finally go out into the field? Jesus doesn't know that maybe he's not invited. Okay. We got, I thought, a reasonable email from our listener, Emily, who says, okay, I'm confused. Reiner has seven dragons right now. The Greens have three, but really, like, one.

Desirean hasn't gotten there yet, and Helena is not a warrior. Why is Reneer attacking Lannisbore in Old Town? Why does she even need armies anymore? Am I missing something? She doesn't need battles. We saw at Rook's rest. that when dragons fight the land armies, the land armies become virtually irrelevant.

Why does she just fly her seven dragons against Vagar and kill her and Aymond? Aigon will certainly be easy to kill if and when he returns. Take your throne. All the people who swore to Aagon will bend the knee against seven dragons. There's your deterrent. Why have any battles? Why burn cities?

This feels like the same Daeneres writing nonsense where she had too big an advantage so they had to come up with reasons for her not to just win? And I kind of agree. I don't have a good rebuttal to that email from Emily. It's a very reasonable question, sketched out in compelling fashion. I guess the answer would be, as is also at play when Reneira and Allison's share their scene at the end of the episode,

and Reneer is like, you got to let me kill your kid, right? You got to let me take egg on's head. Reneer is thinking not just... And I was like, okay. Oh, the boy one? Okay. Okay. All right.

Okay. My dad did tell me this was probably going to happen. Otto said this would, yes. Huge like L for obviously, like, Team Green that Allison agrees to that, but you know that like Otto's like... Oh, rotting in his own shit. That was right in his cell somewhere. You are really covered in your own shit. Jamie told us, boy.

Reneera is thinking about not just what is required to take. the throne, but to keep it. And I think that is... I think that's reasonable. I think there's just... Were I... If you take the throne, what is going to stop those armies from coming to challenge you to take it back? Your seven dragons? Well, Tsarians out there.

If they kill Vagar? We do see... Chisarangu younger than Vermax? I mean, listen, with Apologies to Reneer, a character I love. Vermax is not the little fucking hatchling that Renera thinks he is.

How far do you think Darren the Dary and Tessarian are getting against seven dragons? It would be Vagar and Tasarian. No, they're going to, the first order of business kill Amid and Vagar.

I mean, at that point I think Tassarian would have a really tough time. This is like we got the email a few weeks ago. asking why, well, okay, like, yeah, when Egan kind of like, ooh, I'm just going to have Aymond go burn the blockade, and we got that email that was like, but why don't they? And like, after Maly's died. Yeah. Before the red sewing.

Yeah. I was thinking about that email again. It's like, why didn't Aemann and Vagar just burn the blockade? Like, why didn't that happen? There are, I mean, there are always going to be questions like that in a story like this, right? And sometimes the answer is like, because we have more story. to tell. Sure.

But again, I think that's why we had to have the like Corliss Renera, you're forgetting about this dragon and you're forgetting about this dragon. And because like... But Corlis is like, go take it and she's like, I don't want to burn shit. And then she's like, let's burn Lannis Port in Old Town. Yeah. Okay. This was not the part of the episode that I thought made the most sense.

We all agree, Emily. We all agree, Emily. We've heard an Old Town plan. Okay. Certainly not. Speaking of Vagar, Adam asks about Vagar, we are treated to an incredible exchange

starring our Guy Ulf. I'll take him on myself. Silver wings of Gower, she is. We're afraid of nothing. Even if you are. There will be time enough to see which one of us is a coward. I said more of these little birds. A knight will comport himself with grace

at the Queen's sea. table. Both make me a night, then. You forget to yourself, friend. Sense of humor, do you all good? Oh, man. You can really hear the scoff.

I've never heard a better vocal I scoff in my life. This is remarkable. Scoff the sod. Sir Laurent. Wow, I hope that sticks. Scuff the scoff the son. It rolls trippingly off the top.

Sir Laurent reaching for the pommel of his sword as this happens. Best make me enough. I'm sure this will be fine. It seems like this is all going to be fine. You know, Renair having to confront the fact that she, again, like, has given this world-shaping power to people she does not know, feels important. I can't wait to see how this all impacts what's coming in episode nine. Gerardi's walks in to stop. Oh, my God. I'm like, I'm anticipating now a moment where at like 557 Pacific on Sunday. You text me like, Can't we?

Hype for episode 9? I'm going to set myself an alarm to do exactly that. Girides comes in. Yeah. Simon's text has arrived. Treachery. She's like, let's take Adam. Yeah.

And I was like, why did she take Adam? Especially because, like, they, we, it shows them flying there and then we literally don't see Adam's no fair. Right. Adam's circling. Right. And your question was, why didn't she take Ulf? This is not what I said. If I smike me and not it then. That's not what I said.

Take Bela. But our listener, Anders, was like, Damon doesn't know or hasn't at least seen with his own two eyeballs. And Damon is definitely the kind of guy who needs to see the thing with his own two eyeballs about the red sewing. You might have heard that Roaner did this, but he hasn't seen it. And so seeing Adam on Seasmoke, C-Smoke, a dragon that he fought with in Stepstones is like a big, like, shit, look what you did. Look what I did.

Moment. So sure. Here's my army here. Your new dragons. I would still also take Bela and Moondancer. His daughter. That was actually the other, because I also, we were both on Sunday. Like, wait, why did, what?

Why not take Bela? That, the daughter part is actually then what made me think like, oh, well, maybe not. Because even though we've heard Bela say to Jace this season, like, you know, like I think maybe I hate him. Yeah. It is still her dad. And Reneera asking Bela to fly into potential. conflict against her own father.

Like, Reniero doesn't know what the outcome of that meeting is going to be. So that might be like... This idea that Adam is like the most loyal of the dragon seeds thus far, right? Quick to bend the knee. I mean, he was trying, but he's tainted by association, right? And so like Adam being the most loyal and also more dispensable than her precious actual blood kin. Jace is always not fucking invited.

Not invited for Max. Jay's leaning in when you're already so sick. He just wants to be included. Sorry. It does make me sad. Not invited. I do have some book-spoiler thoughts about some missed opportunities here. Well, exciting.

Which I will lay on you next week. Stay tuned. I frankly can't wait. Will you be here in the studio with me at that point? No, but Preston will be here. Sweet Preston. Preston. No, I am.

But wouldn't it be really funny if you showed up and it's just like you looking at Preston who's sitting here. Preston. I think Joey would like that for content reasons. No, Miss Preston. I will not be here either. I'll be home in pajamas. It'll see you on Zoom.

Can't wait. I'll miss this set. You know who will see us wherever we are? Damon Targaryen, Alice Rivers, The Green Man, Brandon Rivers. Let's go to the godswood.

Let's go back to Heron Hall. This is when Damon invites Alice perched on his bed, as you noted earlier. She seems very emotional. You were asking about this on Talk the Thrones.

Any further thoughts on what might be driving this response in Alice here? So, like, my first instinct was like, she was like, oh no, the jewel of the realm sharp point has been burnt to the ground and I can hear the screams on the way. Oh, man. That was my first thought. Or, like, you know, she knows they're all going to war

soon because that's, you know, how the episodes ends, that, you know, people are going to die, something like that. But, I do think there's just something inherent in, like, being able to see many things which Alice can do, which Helena can do, and we know that she is often in an emotionally fragile state. Right. That just leaves you constantly vulnerable to being blindsided by emotion. The ghost of the high heart, which is a figure who has dreams and visions in a song of ice and fire. Yeah.

Here's a quote. She's talking to aria. The dwarf woman studied her with dim red eyes. I see you, she whispered. I see you, Wolf Child, blood child. I thought it was the Lord who smelled of death.

She began to sob, her little body shaking. You are cruel to come to my hill. Cruel, I gorged on grief at Summer Hall. I need none of yours. Be gone from here. Dark heart be gone. Summer Hall.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Again, something we don't talk about because of Dunkin Egg. I don't know. Well, whatever. Jenny of Old Stones. That is associated with the...

I just fucking love that scene so much. That's Mallory's impression of Padrake singing Jenny Woodstones in one of the best episodes of Game with Friends that ever happened. But like this idea that the ghost of high heart, a figure who has seen a lot and can see into the future and experience a bunch of grief and sorrow is actually kind of constantly crying while she's giving her dreams and premonitions and stuff like that. So the fact that like Alice, I mean, I would love...

Today, we're recording this on Tuesday. Today is the day where a lot of cast, like the embargo, talking about the finale is up and they're talking to a lot of press. So I'll be very curious if Gail Rankin gave any kind of interview where she talks about this, so I hope someone asked her. But I don't know, and I want to know.

Why are you quite crying, Alice? Can't we just spend more time with Alice. Great character. But if his ghost of high-heart shit, something we were really bummed to have cut from Game of Thrones, that's cool. This is the moment that Alice decides Damon is ready.

He's graduated from ghost therapy. To receive this vision. Yeah. Time to put his grimy little paw on a wear-of-wit-wood tree. His nails are crusty. It felt like payoff after like all of our many hours of breaking down frame-by-frame the trailers. Like whose finger is that, whose ring is that, whose nail bed is that, you know? If it's crusty and dusty, it's Damon Darien.

Joanna. Alice leads Damon to the Heron Hall Godswood to the Warewood, where in the distance, behind the Warewood, we see a green man. Clip clop. It's truly legendary that Chris Ryan didn't even notice that this... What's funny is the first time that I watched... We freaked out! The first time that I watched the episode, I think I was looking down for a second,

and I just heard the clip clock. And then I looked up and there was nothing, and I was like, what was that? And every while, and I was like, oh, my God. And then you saw the antlers and you're like the fucking Green Man. It's a green man. Brand was always saying that old man told him they had antlers. Did this guy have antlers? He's like, he hears about cold hands.

He's like, did he have antlers by any sheds? Could he be a green man? So yeah, Heron Hall's here. God's eyes right here. Big lake. In the middle of the lake is an island called the Isle of Faces, where like, where it's a plenty. Very few men are capable.

It's like bloody brigadoon out there. You can't get to the Isle of Faces if you're a human. It's where the children of the forest and the first men made a pact of, you know, let's stop killing each other and destroying this world. And as a result of the pact, the green men sort of stay behind on this spooky, uki island full of wherewood trees to protect. But apparently they have day passes out to Heron Hall. I love this. One of the first time we hear about the green men in a song of ice and fire is when Mirro and Jojo is. when Mira and Jojin Reed are talking about their father, Howland Reed.

And this is the story of The Night of the Laughing Tree, which takes place where, Heron Hall, the tourney of Heron Hall. And we talked earlier this season about, like, this is the best. This idea that, like, Ragar and Leanna and everything that happens at the tourney at Harren Hall, which sets off the events of Game of Thrones that war, all of Roberts Rebellion, et cetera, et cetera, that that was some sort of somehow the machinations of the wherewoods, the green men, the children of the forest. Is Alice Rivers a chattel of forest in disguise?

Is she a, like, does she have antlers? Does she a green man person in disguise? Does she clip clop when she walks through the halls of Harenhaw? I don't know. It's all potentially very juicy. I love this so much. Love. I'm just thrilled.

Yeah, this is incredible. Incredible to see a green man. Incredible to have any reason to talk or think about the tourney at Harenhall. Did any smiles die here between Alice and Damon? I love a dying smile. I mean, I know that George doesn't want them to do a Robert's Rebellion. I just sorry, but I have always, actually back in the day. I badly want it.

Really early, like before I was like really covering Thrones in earnest, earnest, my friend was like a claymation artist and I was like, we should do a like claymation night of a laughing tree sort of. I think I was definitely thinking of like the Deathly Hallow. sort of like that whole animated sequence or something like that, but like that, but my Night of Laughing Team. And then I think there have been animated versions, but I want the full

Night of the Laughing Tree, Turning and Harren Hall treatment. I love this stuff. So much. Here's what Alice says to Damon. When you came here, you were to Closed Fest. You wish to bend the world to your will. But you've discovered, I think,

that this world will not be governed. There are omens here for those who seek them. You do not scoff. I'm no longer inclined to. I'm pleased to eat it. Do you wish then to learn what is given to you? All your life you've sought to command your own fate.

But today you are ready. That's so good. The vision score kicking in. My goodness. I was about to say, like, the score, the way the score is, is, yes, the Vision's Gore from Game of Thrones, but also through the wash of this like, almost like 80s, high fantasy, sort of synthy sound to it.

We should say the House of the Dragon Season 2 soundtrack is on Spotify over-review, listen to your soundtracks. Rameen Javadi has dropped the tracks, which means we can over-analyze track names if we choose to do. Oh, exciting. Great. Love to do that. Love to do that. Okay. There's some interesting language there that we want to break down, Close fest.

Close fest. When you came here, you were a closed fest. Sorry. Just thought I would piss off Scotland while we're here. Yeah, we were talking about Heron Hall as this grasping hand reaching towards his guy. So yeah.

Great stuff. Open that fist up. Wonderful. There's some other language there that I want to circle back to when we just talk about like the role of prophecy and free will

and what this means for Damon, what this means for broadly, etc. But why don't we go through what Damon sees and then we'll talk about some of the big picture stuff here. Obviously, we're going to talk about all of this again in the book. Look ahead.

We'll parse it. I think here we'll mostly like mention what we see. We'll talk about a few things. And then yeah, we're going to parse it a little bit more in the book look ahead next week. Okay, here's what Damon sees. First of all, you don't have to look at the filthy hands because the bloody sap. Yeah. You thought it couldn't get dirtier and then he's good to forever get that goop out of his ring.

Oh, I wanted to ask you on the goop front. Exciting, yeah. He killed someone in front of this werewood tree last week. Yeah. Do you think that's the blood goo of Will and Blackwood? Well, when we first port bent into the vision and we're seeing the blood kind of seeping out of the roots, the idea that the blood that drenches the ground is soaked up and, yeah, feeds. And this wide connection across the map in the world.

wonderful stuff. So the Three-Eyed Raven, Brennan Rivers, is in that tree. This is obviously this is Brand's eventual location, destination in Game of Thrones,

a little television program that you might have heard of. I don't have it lots. We haven't said to be out of it lots in a while. It's time to get back into rings of power shape, you know?

The tree beyond the wall. Blood Raven. Brennan Rivers. I freaked out. Oh, yeah. I, like, freaked. And with like, the book accurate,

he does have two eyes. The book accurate birthmark was just wonderful. They're straddling two things. So we've seen Blood Raven played by three different actors at this point, right? And at some point we'll see one more. Yeah. So we saw this like, I'm afraid I don't know his name, but an older bearded gentleman was playing him in like visions and, you know, you will fly and all this sort of like that. And when brand like first arrives.

Yeah, you will fly. But like, and then they're like, it's very much the like Wayne's world, can we get a better actor? No offense to that bearded man, I don't know him. But then they got Max von Sito to play Reding Rivers, and it was so cool. They did not put the birthmark on him in either of those iterations. The birthmark is here, which is supposed to be shaped like a raven. It's a red raven, which is why they call him Blood Raven. Joe, question for you.

How many eyes does Blood Raven have? A thousand eyes and one. He's only does have one eye. So I think it's interesting they gave him a book-accurate birthmark. Yeah. But two eyes when he's supposed to have one eye. Maybe they thought if they came in one eye, people would be like, is that Amund? You know what I mean?

Like, they would be confused. Yeah. I did ask Ryan Condal, like, because I looked at this guy. And this guy is like a dancer slash theater guy. And I think he's, I can't remember quite. He's like Finnish perhaps or Icelandic, something like that, very nerdy. But it was like one of those things, like when they cast that guy for Ragar and they cast someone who is just sort of like, you know. I was just sort of like,

okay, that's all we're going to see of Rhaegar. Do you know what I mean? And it's sort of like, that's what it feels like here. So I asked Condal, I was like, because we're getting in Out of the Seven Kingdoms, this spinoff TV show, which is set in a time when Brinnan, later than this.

Brennan is not alive right now. Yeah, this is future. So he's seeing the future, you know, because he's about to see Deneiars. But he's seeing the future, but Brinin Rivers should be in that spin, off show. Oh yeah. I can't imagine they would do it without him. And I was like, is this the actor? And Condal is pretty much like, no. Right. Right. They're going to cast their own person for that.

So that's going to be actor number four. Will we have a birth mark? Who knows? Will we have two eyes? Who knows? You know, like, we'll find out together. Oh, boy. But this is huge. This is really exciting. It was very exciting. Really, really fun. We then wolforg toward a White Walker in the Army of the Dead. This didn't look great. We're just going to say that. The warg effect or the White Walker? I just think they did not look like as top tier as they did in later seasons of thrones. And I might have just kept them in like the distance. Or I actually don't know what kind of access they have to footage from Thrones.

Because like, you know, I like the way that they did DeNaris. We'll talk about DeNaris in a second. But like with the White Walkers, I might have just used like footage that already exists of the Whitewalkers. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get our guy the Knight King in here.

But again, I don't know. And why not give us a, well, it wouldn't have been so cool to see the shadow of a dragon over Kings Landing because they're like, it's a Tuesday. But that was like the constant shot in the brand vision. It was. Speaking of dragons, we see some dead ones here. Yeah. We see a dead dragon in the foreground. We see what appears to be like the tattered wings of another dead dragon behind.

In the concept art, like the storyboarding in the house of the house the dragon's built. this, we got to see the storyboarding for this and there were so many. So many dead dragons. So many dead dragons. And so we should say, again, without getting into book, spoiler stuff, I think what is canonically true in dreams involving dragons inside of Georgia Martin's writing, dead dragons can sometimes just mean dead Targaryens. Correct.

Now I'm thinking about a thing I love. Yeah. It's really hard for me not to get excited. anything right now. Damon. Walking over just like a ton of dead soldiers.

Their bodies are just in the water. Fing to the bloody water. Yeah, feeding the fish there. Damon pulled beneath the water. The red comet. Red comet means one thing, boy.

Dragons is not what ocean sounds like. Watch her head. Watch her, Harry. Watch her hairy. Oh, man. The comet. I'm going to talk more after we get through this, like, about just again prophecy more broadly, but the way the right comment was to point in the story is always one of the fun and effective things to point to.

It was like, everybody's got their own interpretation of what this means, right? Science and reporters. Signs and portents and signs? Danny's eggs in the fire. Yeah. DeNaris Targary and the unburnt with three baby dragons in her arms, lamentably no Jura. of my blood. Dragons and magic returning to the world.

Joe, you spoke to Brian Condal about what we saw and what we didn't see in this area in particular. What would you like to share with us here? Well, I had noticed that. People online were being very normal about the fact that John Snow wasn't in this vision, right?

And the question was, if this is adjacent at all to Agon's dream, Does that mean, since we're only seeing DeNaris, that she is the prince that was promised, saying who was that, the prince of that was promised? Because our understanding walking out of Game of Thrones a TV show is that the prince that was promises some sort of hybrid of John and Danny, right? Pronouns are tricky. And I have a lyrician. Yeah.

And so, but there are some people who really believe that John is and some people who really believe that DeNaris is. would rather not, you know, combine the two. Anyway, so I ask, like, does the absence of John Snow mean anything? Yeah. And this is what Condal said. He says, this story, the story of the Targaryen dynasty and its evolution from the flight from old Valeria, to its growth and retaking a power in the form of Aegon and his sisters and the conquest of this period. Sister wives.

Which is the height of its power and its self-destruction in terms of this Shakespearean tragedy that we're experienced. You know, the dance of the dragons, the dying of the dragons, as we know from fire and blood. We don't know how exactly the events play out in this history, but we do know at the end of it, there are no dragons left in this world until they were born to the nearest in the end. And I think that is the interconnectivity. And so he was saying, like, John Snow and not being there had never crossed their mind that that was any sort of like weighing in one way or another on the prophecy. He's like that, you know, and this is true. The TV show made a decision.

George R. Martin has not written in the books yet who the prince that was promised was. And so Condal's like, that's George's story to tell. TV land only where Arias has the Night King. TV Land only where the Night King exists. I'm going to be all jace about it, but I'm just saying, okay. Here's what we say next? Iron throne. Empty.

Empty. And then Iron Throne. Ranira. Sitting on it, crowned, fire kind of like gleaming, reflecting off the crown. there's that light. The light in the scene reminded me of the way that Reneira is lit during Vassaris's long walk, that almost like, again, kind of like chosen, right? Light.

Interesting to me in consecutive scenes to pair glimpsing Reneera on the throne, as Damon does here, with what Helena says about Aegon. Agon. I know. I love that. In victory. Back to back scenes. I mean, there's a lot that I didn't like about that,

but I like that, like, here we have a prophecy that's like, Reneira's going to sit on the throne, and then we have Helena uttering a prophecy of a sort that says, Agon's going to sit. Yep. But a wooden truck. Okay. Before we get into Helena invading a dream here, dream walking, wild.

Oh, so cool. Something that they said in the behind the scenes is this idea that Dineris is the direct descendant of Damon and Reneira. So this idea of showing what I love about this, and again, we'll get into this, like, a bit more in the book section that we do next week. But, like, I think this is so smart if you're a wherewood tree. And you're deciding what to show Damon to get him invested in the future. It's like the future, scary-ey-zombies, red comets and scary-ey-somies and dead dragons are all coming. This is all calamity.

Winter's coming. You get to say the catchphrase in a scene soon. It's exciting. But here's what your personal lineage is involved. And that sort of plays into his ego, which is this idea of like, you know, it's not just any Targaryen that needs to be on the throne. We can decide for ourselves whether or not that feels actually true, given what we know what happens in Game of Thrones. That's interesting, too, in terms of in the context of Damon kind of like willfully receding after this. You're a small part of the bigger picture, but the bigger picture is still a little bit of.

about you and your family. Helena. Here she is. Bleeds in from reality. It's all a story. And you're but one part in it. You know your part. You know what you must do.

You know that Tyrion will say in the game of Thrones finale, there's nothing in the world more powerful than good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it. I think it's so cool to see a dragon dreamer like Helena inside a green seeing dream. That's like such a cool blurring. Magic mashup. Magic mega mix.

Condal described... Magic medley? Yeah, I love it. Steve is probably slacking a better idea to us right now. Condal described this sort of green seeing magic. He says this idea in the press conference we did on Monday, he said this idea of earth magic or green magic, whatever is going on in the riverlands. Those kinds of ideas represented a day under the course of the season. it now no longer than I. I like this idea of that I don't know that I've ever heard anyone

describe it as like earth magic. You know like green seeing is definitely a thing and blah blah, but to think of it as earth magic, to think of the like the dank like soil of the riverlands, like that shire, that good, you know. River matter mud. Yeah. Like that earth magic versus the fire magic versus the ice magic, you know, but like, where's that wind magic? Get the airbedders in here. But yeah, like, thinking of them as like Alice Rivers practices earth magic. I kind of like that idea. I love that. Okay, let's talk about some of the big picture takeaways from this.

Tying the story more directly. Yeah. To a game of, not just a Game of Thrones, but to a Game of Thrones ending that we know. Yeah. But broadly, do not like. Do not like. How are you feeling about this? You know, we discussed this on Sunday a little bit.

We've talked about this from the series premiere, you know, that opening title card. Years until Teneres, like introducing this idea of Egonne the Conqueror's Dream, which was not in the book that was new to us, this like tie to the prince that was promised. We were going to, as soon as those choices were made, we were going to keep getting moments like this. Also, it is definitionally a prequel, and it is about the Targaryen dynasty.

So this key occurrence in the future of the Targaryen dynasty, of course, will be connected to the show. But something this direct. Yeah. A vision where we see the White Walkers, where we see Danny and the Dragons. How are you feeling? about that, that specific

nature of a tie. The White Walker's almost more than DeNaris, like, sort of feels, so we got a ton of emails about this actually. Thank you. But I'll just go for a few. My elbow cracked. Oh.

That's how many emails. That's how you know we got a lot of emails. Jeez. And then I need to get out more and just move my body more. That's also how you know that. You've been tremendously ill. As Logan Roy once said, I have been incredibly unwhatever.

I've been convolessing. Okay. Our listener Ismail wrote, I was completely taken out of it as it harkened back yet again to Game of Thrones. It's lacklester eighth season and that damn prophecy. And Sean says, I think one of the things that isn't connecting for me

with a vision slash prophecy driving Renera being the thing which brought Damon back is the execution of the Night King's storyline and Game of Thrones, a rushing of that storyline, and it feeling anticlimatic and pushed to the side, makes it feel like the whole prophecy and event driving these main characters

actually wasn't that big a deal. I think one of our listeners wrote in was like it all is taking care of in a night that I couldn't see very well. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like reminding us of an episode of television that we didn't love. And then it's sort of like, and the more monumental event actually feels like DeNaris burning down Kings Landing, which is an interesting, you know, like subversion of expectations or whatever. But it's just sort of like this idea. I kind of actually perversely like that. Okay.

Tell me why. There's a part of us, like, watching this and being like, okay, they have this idea that they need to be in power. I mean, first of all, there isn't a Targaryian sitting the Iron Throne when all of that goes down. So that's a question. But, like, that they need to be in power. Or as Damon says later, they need to unite the realm. Right. And that is what happens.

That is what happens. To take down the Night King. So, like, that they need to unite the realm in order to take on this threat is. is true, largely true, but us knowing how that all plays out in the end and how sort of, it's not a false prophecy, but it's sort of an misleadingly, misleadingly overly important prophecy, I suppose, because wouldn't it be nice to also have a prophecy about De Nairis burning down Kingsland? You know what I mean? Like, I, because there's like that push and pull we've talked about where it's like, yes, this is the name. or a prequel. Yeah. But, like, would this story be more interesting if we didn't know whether or not

the prophecy was true? Right. And what I kind of like is that it's both true and not at the same time. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that idea more broadly.

The way this episode plays with and introduces, you know, the prophecy has obviously been a part of House of the Dragon the entire time since the first episode. Prophecy is obviously a central preoccupation for George R. Martin and the House of R.

We love to talk about it. Day will actually do our multi-episode tropes. Of course, when? Who could say? Don't ask us when. We're not going to tell you when, because we don't know. It's either right before or right after the Paul of Fame episode. I mean, honestly, Doom Prophecy could be a great hook for both. But you didn't hear me say that. You didn't hear me say that.

This is like Harry Collette admitting that he only read The Hunger Games on the Internet. Why would you ever say that on the Internet? I would ever admit that on the Internet. Incredible. Okay. So, this is like you are but one part idea. Obviously, in the sixth episode, we talked a lot about Alice saying to Damon, you are not the player but a piece on the board. We've talked today at length about how many characters are confronting their version of that idea.

Is that something they want to accept? Is it something they accept and then they're in the nihilism nook after? Is it something they want to like push against and try to challenge? With prophecy and free will, one of the things that we love most, in a story is when a prophecy is introduced, and then we watch the characters interpret, misinterpret, perhaps bring about the very thing they were seeking to avoid. Self-fulfilling prophecy. No better prophecy. What choices do characters make once the question of fate is put before them?

This is a thing we love. How much room is there, or what form will free will take? How does free will then have enough of a toehold? We're at Harron House, so let's say, let's keep, let's keep toehold in the mix as long as we can. Yeah. A toehold in the story in tandem with that. When we hear Damon say to Rainier later, I am meant to serve you. When we hear Alice say things like, this world will not be governed, or do you wish then to learn what is given to you? Not what you earn or take or forge given to you.

All your life you've sought to command your own fate, but today you are ready. What is implicitly not to stop trying to command your own fate, to accept the fate that I am showing you? Broadly, again, this falls into a realm, a sandbox that we love when our stories play in, right? What will Damon do now that these ideas are in front of him? What will Eamond do, etc.? We're going to talk about that scene later. So where are you with this big question and big idea? we love to think about. Are you feeling coming out of this finale? We can just talk about this soon.

We can jump ahead if you want. Multiple characters have had something put in front of them that will now, we will get to see what impact that has on them. We love it. Are you feeling that because the endpoint is known inside of the universe, that we are a little box in there? Do you have any like, okay, yeah, it's interesting if the characters here or receive a prophecy or see a vision and then we watch what impact it has on them. But I get a little nervous if the characters start to think that they're just on the tram lines from devs and that the future is set, and thus they don't have the ability to shape or reshape it?

Or is this all good? I love when someone's like, I have no other choice. And then, like, similar to John Locke and Lost, they have to be like, I was wrong. You would mean? Melisandra, Sanis, whatever. That's the tastiest. What I will say.

Would you say that Damon was a man of science and Alice? A man of faith. A green man of faith. Um, something I will say is that we've got a conval quote here about prophecy, which we can talk about in a second. But like, he also, when I sort of asked him, like, more specifically, this bothered me less than the Helena Amon thing was just really just like threw me for a loop. And Kamen kind of got this like glint his eye and where he was just sort of like the way that prophecy works is that it's not always like play out the way that you think. Right. Which made me think that they, this is me extrapolate.

Reddit.com, this is me extrapolating. No one told me this directly. That perhaps it's all going to play out much differently than we expect it will. This is where I am. But they have a plan to really play with some things that we feel like

we were like they just said it. You just said it? That's weird. Yeah. I think so too. This is what Connell said about prophecy more generally, right? He says And the thing that I will just say on a larger sort of literary storytelling level, the thing that we are very interested in as storytellers is the idea of how prophecy and these ideas of messianic ideals that we always see interpreted in stories like this and in Harry Potter in Star Wars, the chosen one, the one, the one is going to save us from everything, the lightbringer, the prince that was promised, Azora High, how those ideas are interpreted in George's world, which is, as we know, from all the storytelling that he has taken us through today. that these things are very rarely black and white.

And one thing or the other, and often can be cautionary tales or how ideas like this are interpreted by people in power. Remember, the Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, House of the Dragon in many ways, or Fire and Blood in many ways, are warnings about the perils of power and people in power. And particularly, I think, in this world, absolute power. So I'll just say that we're very interested in how those things play out in this world and how once somebody is given, as you seen Reneira, be given this football to run with,

that my father chose me, I was the one, there is a prince who has promised, it must be me, this dragon rider was delivered to me, and how that is going to see itself manifested over the course of the rest of this war. So I thought that was really good. We did get this email from Olivia, who carries with her a note from George. This George R. Martin, you might have heard him, on prophecy. And he says, quote, prophecy is one of those tropes of fantasy that is fun to play with, but it can easily turn into a straight jacket if you're not careful. Right. One of the themes of my fiction since the very beginning is that the characters must make their choices for good or ill, and making choices is hard.

There are prophecies in my seven kingdoms, but their meetings are often murky and misleading, and they seldom offer the characters much in the way of useful guidance. Yeah. And that's the discussion we're having. It's like that ease a risk. And I think that I think that answer from Condal is really thoughtful and exciting. And the kind of story I'm interested in watching, I like, you know, we talked about this on Sunday. I actually like, I think it's really interesting that we often and have throughout the season talk about how which Targaryians or even other, you know, other characters like Stannis are coming to contact with this prophecy in some form. And then they're like, all of my worst impulses are justified.

And so for like Damon to actually be experiencing the opposite of that where it's like this has a calming effect on him, right, on his worst impulses. All of that is interesting to me. I think we have to then navigate that with the rogue prince still thinking that the things he does and the choices he makes and that his role, whether he having clarity on whether it ends up being right or misinterpretation, on what he now sees his role in that larger story. as and how that influences behavior fascinating. You've got to the George Straitjacket quote, you've got to walk that line with care so that characters like Damon or Amand or anyone else still feel like they have a,

their choices matter, that they have the agency. The free will is a part of the story. One of my favorite conversations we ever had with this was on a Rings of Power podcast. I'm really excited to get back into talking about of power and Tolkien and Lord of the Rings with you, we were talking about Sam and we were talking about fate and free will. And we were talking about this idea that like, let's say we're going to Cabo or we're going to Sharp's Point or we're going to Dorn, get in, getting bitches, we're going to

dorm, whatever it is. We're going there. How do we get there? Yeah, exactly. What's the path that we take? Our destination is foretold, but the path we take there is our own choice. Yes. Absolutely. And, like, again, I love that, right? There's, like, Stephen Strange sees all 14 million futures, but there's a reason he waits until when he does to put up one. Because Tony has to make the choices he makes to get to that point. So, again, there, I don't think either of us or Chris had, like, the response like, oh, no. It's more like, you've got to walk.

I was a little like, huh, this with care. Well, let's talk about the Helena and Amy. You want to, let's take us through that. We'll continue the prophecy discussion here. Okay, what's so cool is that Helena is here in Damon's dream and then we cut to her on the balcony and it seems like seamless. Yeah. She was just standing there on the balcony while also being inside of his dream. So how often have we seen her staring out into space and she's been doing something similar?

Condal had an answer about this because this feels like wildly different from what we understood her abilities to be, which was just like vague visions that she doodles in her notebook on her wall and stuff. that. Beast beneath the boards. It's a close one eye. Versus you're going to die, bitch. All right. Connell says about Helena. Yeah, I think she's evolving.

And also there's been extreme psychological pressure put on her not only with a massive loss that she had over the, in the early season, but just the stress of living in this chaotic environment. And I think we know this from anyone that's read into people that have psychic experiences or things like that or people that seem to be medium, a medium that can, like, read into things or experience a haunting moments of physical stress can bring those things out in a more pronounced way, whether you believe in any of that or not. And I think you're seeing Helena, she's not just going to, from the beginning of her life

to the end, have that same sort of level of grasp of this and this ability. It's seeing it certainly change a little bit. So this idea of her, like, dreamwalking is a new thing she's doing. Or this idea of her being able to articulate what she does to Amund is, like, a new, thing that she can do. I love thinking about how her own familiarity with an awareness of her powers is evolving and thinking about that in tandem with how other people's exposure to her power is evolving. Well, this is something, so something that Condal said to the History of Westrow's podcast

before the season began was this idea of like someone's going to be paying attention to Helena and we were like, who, who, who is it? I would say, coming on this episode, Amid and Damon. Amon and Damon. Yeah. And like, we talked about this a lot in season one. It's both of them at the same time. Of course it is.

We talked a lot in season one about the kind of, not kind of, the tragedy of Vassaris being obsessed with dreams and not realizing that his own kid, this group of kids' second family that he just didn't pay any attention to or give a shit about, it's a dreamer. And like what would it have meant to Helena to have had that kind of like nurturing encouragement

and interest in her ability earlier? Ugh, sad. the target everyone needs ghost therapy honestly everyone Amon's back without mom Allison's not here and he's making a direct pitch to Helena one eye full of tears pooling yeah

pooling with tears this was emotional he does say that Allison she cannot understand that you and I have a true recall to heat and I did like because I really feel like that like your obsession with those beasts goes beyond understanding season one episode six moment is like for Amon an original sin in his relationship with his mother. Like, you were talking earlier about identity and characters, like, recalibrating their

sense of self. Like, for Eamon, for his own, his dad's not paying attention to any of them and then his mother's, like, this thing that is, like, sacred and inherent in who you think you are and who you're supposed to be and who every other Targaryen is, it's not just that you haven't found your way to that, and you feel out that. It's like, I'm telling you it doesn't matter. Yeah. Of course this is a thing he still carries with him.

We talked about this on Sunday, but I was struck by, like, fire and presents Amon's strategizing at this stretch of the story as like, I want it all for me alone. I'm surprising. Septin Eustace tells us that the kinslayer was determined that this should be his victory. He had no wish to share the glory with his brothers nor any other man. And so to see the truth of it, which is it's actually just that he can't convince anybody to stand with him because he has alienated every single person in his life, either actively sending them away from him or the way he is like, be.

behaving and treating Helena, given them no cause to believe in him and his pursuits. And then she just absolutely shocks Amon with what she says next about the past and about the future. Steve, can we hear this? And if I refuse, will you ban me as you did, Ergon? That is a lie. I saw it. You banned him and you let him fall. What you say is treason.

Egon will be king again. He's yet to see victory. He sits on a wooden throne. And you, you were swallowed up in the gods eye. And you are never seen again. I could have you killed. Joanna. Tough day for the Amen, Helena Shippers,

but a great day for people who are interested in tracking the tents across sentences, the shifting tenses. You were swallowed up in the gods, and you were not. never seen again. Wild. Okay. So a couple things here. It's a tough day for

layman shippers, but also I think a good day for layman shippers, because I really do feel like this is the most textual evidence that we have in season two that even carries any kind of torch for Helena. So I'm just going to throw them that crumb if they want it. Love it.

I loved the 10th shift in all of this. I thought it was so good. But it wouldn't change anything. How does she says? She says, anything. It wouldn't change anything. This is something that, like, you really bumped on.

And I was with you writing that out of Talk to Thrones. We got a lot of emails about this particular thing. And most people seem to interpret it a little differently. But it wouldn't change anything. It doesn't mean, like, the future is said and everything is set in stone. It's like me living or dying. doesn't change what I saw, right? James, among others, wrote,

quote, it wouldn't change anything as in response to Amon threatening her with death. That doesn't mean that she believes there's no free will and everything is determined, just that her death wouldn't have an effect on future events. Yeah, I don't think that either of us was saying that our definitive interpretation was that Helena saying this means that the show has no room for free will or doesn't believe it.

It's like a line like that, and some of the stuff that Alice said to Damon, I think it's reasonable after hearing those things to ask, what the story's relationship, given this preoccupation with and central role for a prophecy, is going to be with free will. It has to be something on their minds. And so I'm curious to see what they do with that. And some of that will be, again, as we were just discussing, through the lens of how the characters think about it. When you hear something like that, if you're Amon, what does that mean to you?

What does it make you think? Let's take the character of Damon. If Alice River says to you, you're going to die in this place, right? If she says that to you? Do you go there? Right. And if you do decide to go there, what does that mean about your state of mind? Yeah. You went there knowing. Right. Well, and maybe it's, I. No, I won't. Right. This doesn't have to be true, right? I think though, like, here's the one thing. And again, I think, let me say more broadly, people interpreting this stuff differently is, I think actually part of why this is, I think, actually part of why this is, an interesting thing to play with in a story. In terms of like the kind of through line of that response to what we were chatting about on Sunday, just that her death wouldn't have an effect on future events, my response to

that is that that's alarming to me, if that's the case, because it doesn't have to be Helena saying this more broadly about free will and mass blanket across the story. If a character like Amon, let's play out the string here, killed his sister and And that did not have any impact on his life from there because we're on the tram lines and everything is set. That's not compelling to me. If Eamond hears something like that and it makes him dig in his heels more stubbornly because it's one more person saying to him this or that. And he has to think then about how other people perceive him, how they judge him, whether or not they're willing to accept him. Then that's interesting and that's rich.

And that's about how the character is prepared to inhabit the world around him, a world that happens to include magical prophecies about your futures. There's a path forward here that I think is sensational and that actually gives us some of the most active text about a thing we care about and like parsing and stories. And it is, I think, a tightrope that you have to walk with care. And I find myself wishing, you know, something that Condal said in the press around Mondays, he's like, we're not pretending that no one's. red fire and blood, which was an interesting to sing to say because I think sometimes they do. And I think they're trying to have it both ways to a certain degree, and they know that. But like, he said that specifically about the Helena and Aman interaction. And I was like, that's strange to me. I guess it would be my preference, mostly also because I love like

weird puzzly prophetic language. If we had kept it in the sort of like, for both Alice and Helena in a more hard to parse kind of place where maybe book readers are like, oh, I know what he'll have to close one I means. Right. You know, like, but people watching at home don't know that that means that. What does Mark Kim as your equal mean? Like, don't know what that necessarily is going to do, you know? I'm so interested to see what they do with all of this.

Yeah. Helena, drawing check in. Yeah, yeah. We talked about this earlier in the season that, like, on the BTS especially, they showed us a bunch of, like, sketchbooks that Elaine Elena has. And she's got all these chalk drawings on her walls that are all these, like, images, mostly animal-based of, like, things that are coming. So you can see, like, the Cargill twins. There they got another mention. Wow.

We weren't. Like, in these two geese and the goose is a sigil of house cargles, stuff like that. You know, like, there are these things that you can track pretty evenly one-to-one to. It's a racist. To things that we saw. They're going back through them. There's eyes everywhere. So that could be the gods' eye that she mentions here,

or it could be Brennan Rivers, 1,000 eyes, and one. Yeah. There's an owl that I missed before. So, like, she saw Alice, right? A barn owl. And then there's antlered men. Like, there's antlers. There's a bunch of antlers, and I just thought,

I thought it was all Barathean stuff. Right, right. But I think it's some green men and stuff. A little bit of a win for old man there. Yeah. Sick. Great stuff. Speaking of sick, speaking of cool.

Reneer and Damon, it's time to reunite them at last. This was just a fucking incredible scene. This is so good. This is why we asked Klonnell at the beginning of the season, we're like, what are you going to do? Yeah. Yep. Given that we know in the story, Rainier and Damon have to be a part for most of, if not all of this season.

That's going to suck because we like watching these two actors together. And he was like, yeah, we figured out. But like, I mean, watching them come back together and work opposite each other is just like so wonderful. I really wish we had gotten to then watch them come back together. But. Tell me. Maybe it's in, maybe they. That's one nine?

Maybe it's not up some nine. Maybe it's like. Slide back again. The cutting room for it with, um. with Craig and Stark marching in front of the winter wolves. Okay, yeah. So, Nair and Adam fly over the gods' eye in the Isle of Faces, and the camera is, like, shaking as Syrac and Sea Smoke buzzed the camera.

It's so cool. Really cool to get that, like, aerial overhead shot to see how vast the Riverlands Army is. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's so cool. How about this walkway where Simon and Reneera meet? Oh, yeah. Whales.

Up the stairs. Whales. Raneer getting her steps in. They're like, we need us to get, like, just a lot of permits. It's a film here, and then you can see Saddam Russell be like someone, like, kind of like holding him, helping him, because they're just on this incredible

incline. These whales locations were absolutely stunning. I did love Caraxies responding to Syracus' arriving. He's just napping alone, and he's like, this poor guy, he's just lonely. Did I tell you what Paula said about, like, what he's saying there?

No. Okay. So she was saying that Paul Fairfield, a friend of the pod who does the dragon noises. She was saying that when Syracson, C-Smoke first meet each other on the beach there, she was saying that, like, sea-smoke is, that they were... Yes, that she told me.

They were disagreeing over the pronunciation of foyer, that one of them was like, it's foyer, and the other one was like, it's foyer, right? Like, southern accent versus, like, French accent, remember? Oh, man. And she said when they're flying over Heron Hall, that Carraxie goes... It's a mudroom.

Like that's what Krax is saying, according to her. Oh, I love it, Paula. What an icon. That's the best. A lot of fucking icon. Simon brings Reneera into... But yeah, Krakis is like finally some fucking similized people around this. They've just had fucking Peter Piper's dead swine.

Boogie. Dream space. Simon leads Reneera into the Great Hall. And of course, this is where at the Great Council of 101, Viseris was chosen by the realm to be king. This is where all of the terrible things that have fallen this family. Sinbe gets in, where did it actually be in?

Well, a lot of our characters were happy to discuss that as active text this season. But like this location, what this then did to this family? What a perfect place for Renira and Damon to come back together again. Renair entering Syrax perching up top to screech, to watch, to protect,

but also like to warn everybody else, and that army is still not. still not bending the knee to Renira. It was shocking. And then Damon... It's a little surprising given that the whole idea was that they're like... They're for Renira. Yeah.

I mean, you build that tension again for us at the end, but yeah. Well, but it's just sort of like, I guess in the timeline, maybe I wish a little bit more... Because you know that Damon is capable of guarding loyal, like the gold cloaks are loyal to Damon Targary. They're sworn to me. Yeah. So if Damon had just like a little bit more time to work his like better magic on them, you know, and they're like, we follow that guy. Right. and then he's going to tell us to follow you in like a few seconds

and it'll be great. It'll be the best. Damon. Joey gave us one of our favorite things. A long walk. The Damon long walk through the Riverlands Army toward Reneera. With that fuck our Alfred Broome there. Yeah.

Bliss. Not the Alfred part. The alpha part was not bliss. Just to be clear. I said bliss, right? As you mentioned, Alfred Brumman, I don't ever want to do that. Fuck that guy. The rest was bliss.

Can you keep that for the sound word, please? When we cover episode nine, I'll make sure that kind of I'll see you next Tuesday for our episode of nine deep time. I wasn't expecting you, Damon says. Renera replies that seems rather elapse in foresight. Everything about the performance from both of them is incredible, unsurprisingly, in the scene. That look on Damon's face there, like it felt to me like he was like touched.

Even though it's a, okay, this final challenge, are we on the same page or not? Like, you came to find me. You came to get me. The last thing, the last words we ever shared were not going to be your pathetic. You came, you called a real moment. Yeah, no, there's like, there's this jousting. There's supposed to be, there's supposed to be this tension, but you and I weren't feeling that much tension because, you know, that Damon is loyal to Reneer, but like, there's supposed to be tension here. But, like, there's this, like, fun joust in it.

And we talked to Chris a little bit about this on Sunday, but this idea that, like, they're both seeing each other again in a moment of victory. He's like, look at all these guys I got. And she'll be like, did you see that smoke? See smoke is back? And I got a whole other dude. on him? Like, we don't even, we think Lainor's alive and somehow, I've got some other guy writing him, like, I got three dragons,

you got an army, that's amazing. Look, think what we can do. So they're at the height of their power. Yes. And that makes them horny for each other according to Emma Darcy. Great. So there is this like laced inside of this tense, are you going to acknowledge me, blah, blah. And to whom

are you sworn? Right. stepping back, projecting for all the year. Damon wants us to be private. And Reneer is like, this is theater. He's like, let me draw you into our shared

Valerian language. Remember when you were, my niece and I groomed you and we only spoke Valerian to each other? I remember it fondly. I remember it fondly, folks. I did it. I have some great scenes.

Sorry. What are you going to do? What does he say to her in High Valerian? He says, The world is not what we thought it was. this war is just the beginning. Winter is coming. With darkness and doom.

She says, you sound like my father. He says, I saw it. I saw that we cannot withstand it, and yet somehow we must. When they had their absolutely shattering fight in the second episode, a scene we loved one of the best scenes of the season, we talked about how present Vissaris was

in that conversation. And so I love that he is present here as well. Yeah. Like, this is obviously a moment of Reneera and Damon making that. their way back to each other, but Damon, he held Viserius in such, like, judgment. Yeah. Right?

Dreams didn't make his king's dragons did. And for him to have this newfound appreciation for an understanding of who his brother was, how something like his experience with the dream could have shaped him, just felt really, really meaningful. I really liked that. And then they switched back to the common tongue. Let's hear it. The rounds only hope is a leader who can unite it, and my brother chose you.

You are the true queen, Rainira. First of our name, protector of the realm. I am meant to serve you. And all of these with me until death or the end of our story. I love the way that matches this is for Nira. Thank you. Guys, voice is so thick with emotion there. Yeah.

I loved this. I am meant to serve you and all of these with me until death do us part or the end of my story. the way in which you and Chris and I all clocked this as like a wedding vow, a vowal renewal in front of all of the mudmen of the Riverlands. And Sir Simon being like, yay! In the background. Genuinely incredible Simon background shot there. So good.

Who is your preferred background? Is it Sir Laurent sort of going for his sword? No, it's Simon clapping. With respect to Sir Lauren, it's got to be Simon. It's got to be Simon. That track from Ramin Javadi is, I believe, called Fight for Our Queen. We fight for Our Queen. It's always nice when you get a trailer line, finally.

This Damon's speech was a big trailer line. There's some trailer lines that are missing from the season. Well, that'll be in episode nine. Stop! How'd you enjoy the moment where Rennar kind of pulls Damon's hand? Right. Leave me again at your peril. And he's like, could not have tried.

warmth there. Such charm. The little, like, the lean-in. Like, he's, like, going for, like, a little head nuzzle. A near-nuzzle? A near-nuzzle! We've got the nihilus of no-can. We've got the near-nuzzles. Yeah. Oh, man. This was just an incredible scene. What else? Anything else about this beautiful scene that you'd like to say? Um, Sir Alfred, fucks off. If it were me. And I were Damon Targary and I routinely killed people I would have just cut off Alfred's head. You can keep his dog This is me being I put this on Twitter

But this is me being musical-pilled But like of course it's just like Logistically Practical That there would be tense inside of Harron Hall when Damon like got a huge blister After only cutting like four logs Like they have not rebuilt the The roof

So there's tents everywhere inside But tents inside of a stone structure Makes me think of Either the Bible if you prefer or if you're me, Jesus Christ Superstar, which is when they make a marketplace inside of the temple. And Jesus comes in and he, like, freaks out because there's a marketplace inside the temple.

And he just, like, sings in high falsetto. And he's like, get out. But it made me thinking like this sort of like, here comes from Nira, coming into check, where's the level of commitment and devotion here? Are you on the right track? That was sort of like the visual association that I meant. Made.

Do you want to talk about Alan and Corlis? Let's do it. Corlis is like... You know, I really want to talk about how you're my secret son, and I wasn't there a few, but instead I'm going to just say, like, I got to get on good terms of my first mate before we head out to the gullet. And Alan... It's just simply not how I would have done it.

Finally has enough of it, right? He does try to say, like, I will work to improve myself and go away, and then Carlos is like, I'm just trying to help you, and that's it. That is one step too far for Alan of Hull's liking. And he says, he recounts like what it was like the grief, the shame, the hunger to grow up without their father. And then on top of that, the indignity of having to watch that father walk by. Alan's out there selling fish in the cold and Corlis and Lainor with their furs, wrapped around them, walking.

five to get their sweet meats. The fur detail really got to me. Man. And then he says, and now that boy is dead and his sister before him in the air that took his place. And now, now you remember I live. He says that, I'm going to decline

your offer of help. Thank you. And Corliss look on his face. Like, he has the good grace in this very painful moment to look deeply ashamed. And I like this as a follow up to our conversation, our like

disagreement with Chris, but many sons of fathers emailed us to let us know that they thought we were wrong. They're like, Corlis is giving like crumbs, the bears of crumbs to Adam last week when he's like, you know, well, well done. Congratulations, well done, you know, like

and I like this follow up here where Adam's like, a crumb. And Alan's like, fuck your crumbs. Yes. Crumbs's not enough. I'm going to need a whole freshly baked, loaf still warm. Yeah.

It's the very least I deserve. And even if I get one of those, I didn't get one from you when I was kid for all those years. Yeah. This was an emotional little moment. Excited to see what happens with Alan and Adam. He looks great in his armor. He and Adam both get, you know, beautiful new armor. Yeah.

Oh, man. All of the suiting up at the end. I think Adam's armor is my favorite. Yeah. Incredible. Also, like, for armor, which is often quite heavy, it's still like very light for Dragon Flight, which I liked. Practical.

Okay, Joe, we're down to our last few scenes here. Masaria and Renera, we're about to get to the big. I was really sad that I remembered we have episode nine next week. Stop! Okay. I'll talk for real now. I'm going to make you pod with me about a fictional episode nine next week if you will keep it up. Okay. Don't tempt you with a good time?

Yeah, that sounds really fun. Masaria, Reneira. Yeah. What would you like to say about this scene? Episode nine, scene one. Jason Linister gets his face eaten by all. I dared a dream. That would be incredible.

Masario is using language here like, no choice, be strong, you know, you must. This felt like kind of like an uptick in the active handling of Reneira, right, of the pressure. And just reinforcing this idea, like the gods favor you, which is what we heard, of course, Renira herself voiced last episode, and now Masaria is, porting that in as Reneer is like in that little seat of doubt, my father wouldn't have wanted this. And Masari's like, let's do the thing. Condal, on the sort of like a Messiah complex beat about Renira,

Condal said on Monday, I understand, speaking as Ranira, Connell says, like, I understand that he, Vassaris, thought I, Rennara was a one. So she starts looking for signs and portents that seemed to indicate that Vassaris was right. And of course, we is with a sort of modern eye looking in. know that that's potentially a dangerous path for somebody in a position of power. Uh, does it say power. Welcome back. Welcome back to rings of power.

So, okay, so then we get like the scene. It's hard for me to pick, actually, between Damon and Rainer and Allison and Renera, but I think it is this is... What about Larison Agon? This was your favorite scene, Renair and Allison. I mean... It was really good. It's so... good. Someone was asking me, so like, I'm zooming ahead to this idea of like, we end with

Reneura caged in and Allison's like free and open horizon. And someone was like, well, actually Reneer has, oh, and I love a well actually. Renair has always been sort of hemmed in, you know, she said, she said no to Kristen Cole. Like, you know, I am the crown, blah, blah. I think it's different for Kristen Cole to invite you to enjoy. cinnamon and oranges. Then for Allison High Tower, your closest,

we were girls-together person to make this bid for runaway with me. Takabo or Sharp's Point or wherever you prefer, right? And only that, the Masaria scene wasn't like that useful in this episode, but I think

the reminder that Renira Masaria, like, smooched. Yeah. Which, by the way, correction, thanks to one of our listeners for DMing me on Instagram about this. I think it's Sarah Hess who said the kiss was always in the script. It was the embrace before the kiss that Emma Darcy. So the kiss was always planned. So she has kissed a girl and she liked it, perhaps.

And now here's Allison being like, come with me. Let's go. Yeah. Also, Allison's like, I've. people other than your father. Not going to mention specifically who. And specifically where you were bad. But I did do that.

And so it's like it's a different kind of offer for her to have to turn down here. Yeah. Than she's ever had the most duty has ever sort of boxed her in an oppressed. And I think like that, like we were talking about all episode, right, how are different characters responding to this idea of what is your role in the story? And for Allison, who sat there with the book, trying to get Renier her to focus. and to read and to engage, and then pass that page via auto as the Olive Bridge, as the bridge, for Allison to leave that and all the other things we're about to talk about behind and Reneer to be

very literally framed as a piece in this larger story, the weight of history around you. Very effective. This is one of those scenes you were talking about this earlier with the Laris Egon scene and how part of the part of what's rewarding about being actually how, actually having a scene where, not just because we do a four-hour podcast, but because, like, the scene rewards that level of... Oh, every word. ...interrogation. Like, we literally could have done the entire podcast about the scene.

Everything they say to each other, we have built toward the moment of that exchange. So let's get into it. Allison starts off just like, it's, I've been mistaken. I've been mistaken. I was wrong. Mistakes were made. She invokes the Order of Things, Joe. There it is, again, that she felt bound by.

It says that she resented Renier. for challenging it, for knowing what she wanted, a thing that Allison did not know and did not feel she could even assess. Can you say, Alison didn't even have to go to ghost therapy. She's eating one big bath. And she made all the progress that it took David. She needs a disease, Rickard, fingering in trails once. Just the one time.

I missed, I missed Rick the dick. She just had to lose one grandchild. And then watch her son the king get first. to go and then get fired and then take one big bath. Just a huge bath. Huge bath. She says she's lost her way. Lost those that she puts faith in.

This is where she mentions her lover and Reneer jumps all over it. You alone made virtue your banner. I loved this. Bliss. I loved this. Because when she's like, do not judge me for what you yourself done? And I mean it quite literally. We're talking about Kristen Cole.

Same bed, just saying, do not judge me for what you yourself have done. And then she was just sort of like, you alone made virtue your banner. This is my issue with, it wasn't her alone. It was the duo of Kristen Cole and Allison Hightower. Yes. Making virtue their banner whilst doing dirty deeds. I still say, as we look back at the season, release the animalistic, carnal cut. Do you think Bail is saying, but it doesn't make me.

What does she say in special? Whatever? Common. Common, there you go. Would have been better if they had been having sex at the time? Yes. Where aren't those kids having sex? I know.

On their private little like crossbow hill. Yeah. You know where they go for their little chats? Oh, that looks cold and uncomfortable. I feel like we could find. Just fuck like for the Dothraki, you know, out in the open sky. They have beautiful, warm, firelit bed, royal bed chambers. A rocky out hopping.

For just Sarah's Valerian, the air? I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of fires and, like, even the tables and Dragonstone are on fire and warm. But it doesn't see. It's a cold place. Reneer's bed looked kind of cozy. Oh, fuck outside. It did.

Even the way Reneer is, like, Reneer's, like, holding the pillow when Warren comes in. I still can't believe they let Allison did. I mean, we got a great scene. But I am like, I have some follow-up conversations with the crew at Dragonstone after this. I'm like, you can't let in. We didn't mean that the sapsed. Allison didn't sneak, and she just knocked on the front door at Dragonstons. They were like, come on it.

This was so funny. Allison is explaining all the stuff we were just talking about, this transformative experience that she has had, right? Bust, bustin out of that prison that Reneas used to talk about. Took a back. And what does her hear say? How lovely for you for you. Emma and Olivia.

They're both so good. They're so good. So good. By the way, it's our last opportunity to recreate the photo that we've been threatening to recreate. all summer long. Think about it. We get another few minutes before we leave.

I thought for the first time, Allison says, what I would choose? If not for the duty I put before all else. There is definitely a reason. In addition to just like, you know, tugging on our old, we love the North, we love Winterfell, we love the wall, heartstrings. But this season began with Craig and Stark saying,

duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all else, even blood. Duty. Duty. Oaths and duty. winter. This is really, honestly, of all the reasons we needed another big Craig scene, is to give you more opportunities to say Oves like that, which I've missed. I've missed that. All of Yorkshire in addition to all of Scotland? Okay, cool.

Allison says she wants to go away with Helena, with Shehara. I do not wish to rule. I wish to live, to be free of all this endless plotting and striving. So here we are, the payoff of Renice's question. Plots and strives. Plots and strives. Have you never imagined? yourself on the Iron Throne. The question is really, have you, are you going to be able to move beyond a moment where you imagined yourself as regent? We, you know, we talked on Talk of Thrones about the fact that, like, Allison rolls up here in her, like, Robin's Egg Blue, the color that she wore in season, not in just one

dress in season one episode one, but two, at least two dresses. The color we first meet her in. Back to gnawn on the nails. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought you were telling me I had something with my teeth. I was like, oh, my God. Yeah, I got it.

It's not just Damon who needs a manicure now. She's back to the nail bed. She's biting the nails. And what they said in the BTS is what they said behind the scenes is that it was important for both of them to be in sort of like a childlike state in this scene. So I'd love to hear the costume designer's thoughts on what Reneira is wearing. I confess I could not parse it or like connected to anything we had seen before. Maybe it's more just like for Reneer. I mean, this doesn't answer the childlike part, but like, you know, we're coming off of, you've written your dragon to make this great challenge.

You've got your crown on and your finery on at the table. You are the queen. And here you're just like, you're in your dressing gown. Yeah, yeah. You had a pillow in your arms in bed. Like, you're just a person. And here's your best friend asking you to go to come out. Run away.

And you say no. That's really fun. Wait, wait, wait. So all I wanted to say is that, like, you know, to be free of all this endless. plotting and striving, which is so Otto's influence on her, obviously. But it's just sort of like this idea that, you know, when she expressed this season one when Otto was sent away and she was so freaked out because she's just like, who and all of the Seven Kingdoms will be for me, you know, that sort of thing.

So I only want to take my side. It's like the fact that she was able to get back to who she actually is. Yeah. Without, because someone, the Triarchy, the Beesbury, somebody locked out of and a cage in a cage him. Yeah. And for her to get back to... I love that.

I love what you're calling out here. Like, strip off the uniform of the striver and the platter. Yeah. It's great. Great stuff. What does Renera say though? Here it is. This role reversal from the sept scene in episode three when Allison said, it's too late.

It's too late, Arneira. Yeah. Renera says here, it's too late, Allison. You said it yourself. Blood has been shed. Cities burned. Armies March. and you wish to wash your hands of what you yourself set in motion.

So here again is that idea, a season-long theme, very present in the third episode when they met in the step. Sin begets sin, the Simon idea, Reni saying we teeter now at the point where none of it will matter and the desire to kill and burn takes hold and reason is forgotten. It's one more moment where it's like, can reason win the day? And that like that Lady Macbeth you wish to wash your hands sort of imagery that we have been seeing all season leading to the aforementioned. and big bath. Yeah, it's... I love this. A lot of people didn't like this.

A lot of people don't like the fact that Allison here says Ames going to fly out to the Riverlands. In three days time, gull in the morrow... Two years. Gullin on the morrow, two days to train dragons. And in three days time, we fly to King's Landing. Man, episode nine's going to be fucking. Loaded.

You did it this time. You've accepted me. To take Kings Landing without bloodshed. So Allison's going to open the gates. I love that she's like, actually, Helena will be in charge, and I'll tell Helena what to do, and Helena will be fine with this, which probably. Yep. And here comes the sacrifice. This is what Olivia Cook was teasing about.

When asked what the finale was about, she said, sacrifice. Yes. So it's the half-burnt sun. There it is. This is the opening clip that we played at the top of the pod today. This offer from Allison to enter into your response is, I need you to toss in egg on's head. And I just need a little egg on top.

Can you put a poached egg on top of that? Poached egg. Too soon still after the cabbage leaves and the... peeling off of the and that as well. So, you know, Reneera is undeniably right. We have been building, and the show has been building

toward this inevitability, right? Then I won't challenge. Agon, back in his window-anking days, said to his mother. She said, you are the challenge. You are the challenge, Agon, simply by living and breathing, which auto, the previous episode,

and for many exchanges in their lives prior, had primed her for, the time is coming, Allison, either you prepare Egon to rule or you cleave to Reneira and pray for her mercy. If Egon lives, whether Allison convinces him to bend the knee or not, there will always be the challenge, the challenge to Reneira as the ruler. Reneer is right to say it, but it doesn't, the fact that she is right doesn't in any way minimize the heft and horror

of what she is asking, a person she loves and cares about, to do. But it's also, it is, I mean, it is obviously a huge thing to ask. Yeah. I got it ahead of your son. Yeah. And you need to let me. You need to, right there, make your choice, you need to nod and say I can. The way that Emma played this, which reminded me so much of, like, when you ask someone for something,

and it's going to hurt your feelings so much if they say no. And every fiber in your being wants to say, no words. If not, you know? Can I have your sense? No worries if not. Have you shared this cartoon I have of the bat signal? Have I shown you that? I don't think so.

It's like this beautiful line drawing. It's Gotham City. It's the bat signal up. And then the second signal just says, no worries if not. That's real me energy. So like, no worries if not. It's sort of like kind of churning inside. Obviously, big worries if not.

But like it's kind of, like. Emma is playing this as like a, oh my God, I've asked too much, and it's going to be so painful when she says no. Yeah. And then she says yes. Yeah. I mean, she doesn't say it, but she. The nod. The nod.

Incredible. It's an incredible chilling, spine-tangling moment. And like for Allison to live a life, and now in this position of new perspective, to look back at the life she lived of duty, you know, where's duty, where a sacrifice. and for that to be the thing that is invoked. Trampled. Trample. I know you're pretty fun again. To be invoked and the thing that she has to, like, heed and follow through.

Oh, my God, this was just painful. And then I thought this next exchange was just sublime. Rainer says that Allison is much changed. And it is true. We have watched them both change quite a bit. And yet, in some ways, they are in that same spot that they originally were in together or at least wish they could be. Steve, let's hear this.

I cast myself in the mercy of a friend who once loved me. History will paint you a villain, a cold queen, grasping for power and then defeated. Let them think what they must. I am at last myself. With no ambition greater than to walk where I please and to breathe the open air, to die unremarked and unnoticed and be free. You speak as if from a distant dream. Come with me.

My part is here. Whether I will or no, it's decided for me long ago. Ugh. This makes me really, really sad. Man. He speaks from a distant dream. Gorgeous.

Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. This is just really, like, I found crushing. I do want to repeat what I said on Sunday and just gently say that, like, there's so much I love here. Yeah. But history will paint you a event.

a cold queen, grasping for power and then defeated. Yeah. Just felt a little too like, this is the text of fire and blood. Yeah. I think there's a way to say this is just like, just shave the edges off and just say like, history won't remember you well or like history, you know. Yeah. Even history will paint you a villain and then just like leave the other part off. Yeah.

Yeah. I think would have removed that like, we get it. We got it. Yeah. That's what the book is, you know. Totally fair. I liked it because I liked the acknowledgement of how these crucial moments that have become so central to the show are not present in the text at all and how. Also, like, I mean,

yeah, saying you can kill my kid is a pretty big sacrifice, but this is a huge sacrifice for Allison, too, your reputation, your standing, your legacy and a show obsessed with legacy. That's the thing what they must. Oh, man. I found myself thinking a lot watching this scene and revisiting this scene about one of my favorite lines from Fire and Blood. We've talked a lot this season about Jeharis. Jeharis, the conciliator and what his legacy is and what lingers and what people think they are inheriting and trying to carry forward. And there's a line.

This is all. We read passages about Vermethor last week and talked about big Raj Brathian. The, this moment, some men say that we are now enemies, Jehara says. I would sooner think of us as friends. friends who disagreed just like kills me because I feel that so much in their relationship here for Reneira and Allison, like friends who disagreed. What a tragic thing that is to end up here as friends who disagreed. And I think like of all of the lessons people point to from Jeharis's reign, this is the great one to me. Like that he had the strength to say that. And I think,

And to believe that that could be true and that there could still be a way forward. Did it always go well? No. No. It did not. But there are so many people, especially people in a position of power, who would never have the courage to, like, allow that to be true. And it's just like, I just want Allison and Reneer to stay to each other, friends who disagreed, and try to find a way forward. And for Reneera, when Allison says, come with me to say, I didn't want Kristen's oranges and say,

cinnamon, but I do want to go do this with you. It's tragic. Big bathtub, baby. Oh, man. Anything else on this beautiful scene before we hit the close and montage? Yeah, I think it really invokes this sentiment that has been bizarrely popularized by a TikTok that was about these older women and this dedication on the bench and the dedication on the bench from one to the other said we were girls together.

and it became this like really, really powerful thing that has cropped up again and again on TikTok. And there's like various sorts of, like, did it come from Tony Morrison? Did it come from here or that? The other thing. But like it was popularized now because of this gesture between from one old friend to another, we were girls together. We are like our girlhood. And so, you know, in not to be like deeply super disgustingly zappy about it, but like, you know, in the like ripple after effects of like Barbie and Taylor Swift and all this sort of stuff like that

and this like new era we're in where it's like girlhood which is one something that was sort of like mocked for being frivolous and stupid has become this like sacred space for people it's okay we were girls together and that matters and yeah it just they were girls together and and all that time we spent with them in season one yeah with, you know, Emily Alcock and Emily Carey and just sort of like the way that we can think about these two girls under a tree. Just sort of like reading and talking about traveling and eating cake and never dusting about cake. It's like so beautiful. So like for the Rainier-Aleic shippers, I salute you and support you. And like I am for it. I like it. Yeah.

And also it's a story beyond that. Yes, absolutely. Which is just before my father made me do this or my father named me his heir, before all of that, before we had to fight and strive to be heard in rooms with men and all this sort of stuff like that. Before I heard a prophecy. Yeah, we were just girls together. I love that. And, yeah, I find it tremendously sad and tremendously beautiful.

And, like, these two performers are so incredible. incredible with that scene. And yeah, I just, I think that. And then like, when I get to talk to you about stories we read when we were like, girls and how they still matter to us now, then it's like, like, we were girls together. You and I, like, didn't know each other, but we were like. I know, but we shared a thing. We were.

Yeah. And you can discover that for the rest of your life. That's beautiful. I love thinking, too, of, like, the thinking now of, like, the, you know, the, choice to have the where what is that setting because we've obviously at length today and throughout the season we talk about the wherewith and like the magic and the connection and the future and the religion and the culture but like for them that was just the place that they could go be you know yeah and like sit and talk and think and it is just as much about that one moment in time

as it is about the three-eyed raven or future dragon eggs or or red comets or any sort of portent. It can just be about, like, the connection that you share under that shade with another person. Exactly. And that's just as magical and just as powerful. Yeah. I'll miss Westeros. I'll miss getting to see you every week.

I'm really sad. I'm not going anywhere. We're just not going to be in the same room together. Closing montage? Let's do it. Rameh Javadi is like, Just unbelievable. This score beat moment here is called Almost Choose.

I was looking back through the scores for the season. You know, and I think what's true in general in House of the Dragon is like, I don't think what Almost Choose is comprised of is a number of scores that we're familiar with. Like the Stark score or the Lanster theme or all the sort of stuff like that. I don't think House of the Dragon has a few where we're like, that's Renier's theme. That's this and the other, but not as many identifiable motifs. Where I think Ramin Javadi really cooked here and also earlier in the season, the track is called A Sun for a Sun, and it's the morning after blood and cheese. There's a track that's called Blood and Cheese, the morning after Blood and Cheese. It's that, like, that low cello sort of moment.

But yeah, I would love, I mean, wouldn't it be fun to, like, come out of the season with a Tully theme? You know what I mean? Like, I would love, or what's Alice Rivers theme? Like, maybe it exists. I just need to do more research and do it. Hutes of barn owls and clippity crack of a... Hoots and clip-popping and the slop of wet wherewood leaves into mortar and pestle. I would listen.

I would listen. What if it's just called Which Stuff Go? Which stuff go. Okay. Everyone's getting armored up. Incredible. Where's the horse? Where's the rider for all of them?

Raina and sheepy. Hemp there moment. Mm-hmm. This is Ormond High Towers' forces on the march in the reach. They're going north. And we see Tissarion. Yeah. Tissarion's saddle.

Yeah. Crucially cannot actually identify Darren. But Tisarine is a cobalt belly copper-winged dragon. This was a thrill to me. Ryan Condal did say, with all certainty, we will meet Darren Targary in season three. I mean, I'm fucking hope so after the 900 mentions this season. It was very exciting. That's why I said the press for us.

It was like, wouldn't it be hilarious if we didn't meet him in season three? No, it would not be. The winter wolves are crossing the twins. We hear the Stark theme. As we mentioned, there's a version of this that had Craig Stark, marching in the front, got cut. We don't know why. Jason Linister's forces march toward the fork,

and we hear the reins of Castamere in the score. Damon freshly fucked. And his armor walks out. looks at all the tens of cities assemble. That shot was in the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. Thailand also freshly fucked.

The triarchy, sailing towards the gullet. Corliss and Allen sailing towards the gullet. Auto High Tower, where? We don't know. Laris and egg on escaping in a wagon. If you're in Iran, you show up to Kings Landing and... Yeah. This is going to be a...

person who was like, we were girls together. Yes, I will kill my son for you. And she's like, oops, I'm missing it. That's a pretty big part of the agreement that was just struck. I don't know where he is. I feel like that might be a problem. It's a bummer. And then the dual shots, as we mentioned, of Rainier hemmed in by the lattice with all the scrolls and Allisant in the bright, broad horizon of reverse of these sort of tabloes that we've seen them in all season. Something that Condal said in the presser is that shot of Allison in front of this massive sky was not

digitally altered. This is something that they did in camera in the Wales coastline. It looks absolutely gorgeous.

Stornin. Stornin. On to episode nine. See you next week. Well, we'll be back next week. It does not the fit a podcast

turned about. I'm sad. I'm sad. I know, me too. I mean, I'm happy, I'm happy to go home, but I am going to I'm not missing you terribly.

This has been such a treat. I remember we got COVID for two. That part was horrible. That part I hated. That was awful. Still shaking off the brain fog and that was rough. But like you said, we will be back next week, not in person together, but we will be back on the interwebs for our hot D season wrap. We're going to hand out some season superlatives, answer more mail-back questions, do our book look ahead.

That will be a blast. Thank you. Thank you to our wonderful small council. We literally could not do it without them. Steve Allman and John Richter for producing these incredibly long, suddenly on video. Oh, no. Deep dives. Arjuna Ram Gapal for his additional production work on this episode and every episode.

Arjuna, who's like not let me throw away a piece of trash since I got here, he's just sort of like, oh, I'll take your trash, I'll take your trash. I'm like, how am I going to go back to nobody? pampering me the way that Arjuna does is going to be so sad. There's only one Arjuna. That's the thing I know to be true. And thank you to join me in dinner on. First work on the social for this episode and the entire season. We will see you next week.

Exact points to be determined, but a couple times for our state of the MCU. We're finally going to check in on Deadpool, talk some MCU, talk some down... MTAQ.U. My brain. Downy, Doom. Hot-D season two recap Not a recap We've recouped in a length

Our episode 9 recap The D-time episode 9 Until then We were rather set On a math And a flag and a wine And a line