House of R - 'House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 8 Deep Dive

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

Mal and Jo are back to dive deep into the ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 finale, "The Treasons at Tumbleton." They discuss everything that happened at the Battle of Tumbleton, Rhaenyra’s many mistakes, Alys’s new backstory, and more! (00:00) Intro(09:57) Opening Snapshot(25:18) Opening credits(30:22) Rhaenyra learns about Aegon and Sunfyre(48:17) Baela calls out Rhaenyra(52:07) Alyn takes command of the Velaryon men(59:44) Ormund knights Daeron(01:03:16) Ulf the White goes full Ulf the Sot(01:06:39) Rhaenyra dismisses Mysaria(01:12:58) Mysaria warns Helaena(01:21:51) Alys reveals her backstory(01:31:23) Rhaenyra force-feeds Helaena(01:35:52) Rhaenyra debuts a new look(01:44:17) Gwayne hatches a plan …(01:50:41) … Which Daemon immediately rejects(01:54:56) Aegon pays a surprise visit to Harrenhal(02:00:27) Rhaenyra orders the High Septon’s death(02:05:39) Rhaenyra shares the prophecy with the masses(02:11:47) The Battle of Tumbleton begins(02:20:42) Ormund is bowled over by betrayal and bowel movements(02:27:41) The human battles before the flame(02:31:28) Ulf chooses … Team Ulf(02:33:40) The fog of dragon war(02:37:52) Rhaenyra discovers Helaena’s tapestry(02:42:07) Dragon math update(02:44:33) Book spoilers!Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducer: Carlos ChiribogaProduction Assistant: Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings. And welcome to House of Our. A Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today, half-cooked but still fit to rule or so she thinks. It's Joanna Robinson. Half-cooked is generous, I would say. I think we're fully cooked here on the House of Our Pond.

That's right. Hang on half-cooked. We're fully cooked. Joe, we're here, of course, to dive deep. deep profoundly into the treasons at tumbledin the season three finale unbelievable of house of the dragon and we will dive into all of that right after this all right as usual that was a crock of shit we're not diving right into it we're going to do programming reminders first here they are listen we usually look ahead for programming reminders

but we're going to look back for a second because we want to make sure you know in addition to doing Talk the Thrones live on Sunday night with CR, which was a blast. Check that out if you, if you haven't yet. We had the pleasure of chatting with House of the Dragon, showrunner, and co-creator Ryan Condal. He joined us for like nearly an hour to talk about the season finale, season three, the series to date, adapting this text. That dropped on Monday. That's already up waiting for you. So check that out if you haven't yet. Here's what's coming next. Lantern's premiere. Can't wait. Genuinely. Everyone around the office is buzzing about the first episode of Lanterns.

I thought it was delightful. I'm excited to talk about it. And like I was just talking to Midnight Boys about it. I'm excited to talk about it. We will probably also have some, we think, X-Men news, Marvel news, because, who knows, but like we're going to D-23. The plan is to try to go to D-23, so I've never been. That'll be a first for me.

Not a first for you, but my maiden D-23 voyage. So hopefully we'll have some exciting Marvel news to catch up on as well at the top of next week. And then we're going to be on the road, the back half of next week, because we're going to Baltimore. We are going to my homeland. And I'm not enough of on the road. Now we're going to Baltimore. No, though I will say it looks like it's going to be a two to two and a half hour drive on Friday and rush hour traffic. So hopefully I will make it to this panel.

Yeah, I'll save a seat for you. We'll be in Baltimore for House of Our Night at Camden Yards. And it's a thrill. It's so exciting. I just want everyone to really brace for a wonderful live event and then disappointment with my first. pitch and then a wonderful watch along. It's going to be peaks and valleys. I feel like the collective well wishes of the bad babies, like clap of you believe in fairies. Like, you know, just boo you mall up. You don't need it. You're going to crush it. I'm excited.

I'm going to crush something, perhaps a bone or ligament as I attempt to... A shoulder blade? Yeah. It's definitely possible. But if you have procured tickets to join us there, check your inbox. You have instructions, arrival instructions from the Orioles, 430 arrival at the warehouse, 450 LivePod, and then again, you get to watch the game with us hang out. So it's going to be a blast. We can't wait. Joanna, how can everybody follow along? What a great question. You know, follow us to Baltimore, but also, but not in a creepy way, like in a cool, chill way. Follow us in a cool way. In a really normal, chill, fine, fine way. Why don't you just subscribe to the podcast? That's a thought. Great idea. Why don't you do that?

Yeah. Follow us on social at House of our pod. That's right. On various social media platforms. Yes. You can watch full episodes, including me podcasting from the dark as we talk to Brian Condal on YouTube or Spotify. That's right. Hobbits and Dragons is gml.com.

I do have a few quick emails, things to get to before we go forward. Is that all right with you, Mallory Rubin? Okay. We got a lot of questions from people about Buffy Season 5 and whether or not we will be covering it any time soon. I just wanted to announce that Mallory has begun her Buffy Season 5 watch. That does not guarantee when we will be covering it. I just wanted to let you know just in case we thought we had abandoned the projects. We have not.

No, no. Mallory has begun her season 5 watch. Yeah. We got a lot going on. We will figure out when we can do it. I feel like we can safely say September. No question. I don't know if late August is realistic, given that it's August 11th currently.

and I've watched four episodes. Okay. But count on it. Count on it around the, let's say around football kickoff if you're excited for some football. A notoriously unbusy time for you. Sometime in September. That's a pledge. That's a pledge for me to you.

God damn it. Our listener, Laura, wanted to share that for people going through House of the Dragon withdrawal over the next couple of years. Yes. No free ads, but the Calm app, which I have used in the past to try to go to sleep, has some stories from using House of the Dragon actors. So Gail Rankin does like a witchy walk through Harenhall, Steve Toussaint, Harry Collette, Fias Avent,

the Westrose-inspired tales to help you fall asleep. So if you want to listen to some of your favorite actors who are either dead or alive on House of the Dragon, you can listen to them on the Calm app. Also, our listener, Rachel, dispatch from the UK about the Mad King play. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people are talking about it. A lot of people are buzzing about it.

I am avoiding all, even though it's like a story we know. I'm avoiding spoilers because I really... Stage show specific spoilers. I'm really hoping to see it. That's right. When I'm in the UK, it's supposed to be closed by the time I get to the UK. But we heard from our listener, Rachel, who was at the Dirty Duck Pub, great, who met an American guy who was the, quote, agent for the tour of North America. And this is a breaking news from our listener because an American tour has not been announced for the Mad King stage show, which tells a story, just in case folks didn't know, the Mad King stage show tells a story of among other things, the tourney at Heron Hall, some key backstory for Game of Thrones.

And it's supposed to be incredible and there's like cool puppetry. I mean, say no more. George R. Martin went. They had a big press night. Our Ira Parker was there, et cetera, et cetera. So they're doing a seven-week run at Stratford-upon-Aven. That's what's happening right now. I probably won't get to see that. But it's supposed to be transferring to the West End. I can maybe see that, depending how long that takes.

And then it's supposed to tour in the U.S. And that's when you and I will definitely go and see it, I think. I say I'm manifesting it. Absolutely. I mean, I do think we should see it in the United Kingdom. Okay, let's go see in the West End. Throwing it out there. Let's go to Baltimore next week and then just like hop the pond to Stratford Seaboard.

Remember when we're on the West End. Remember when. We did the 2006. Is that what year of this is? Is it 2020s? Goodness gracious, 2006 hype draft with Rob and Sean and talked about going to Oxford. And Sean was like, Oxford? Yeah. I get served that social clip a lot for some reason. And then he was like, you two are very special people. Still committed. Still committed. To get into Jolly Old England together. We'll be there. God damn it. Last not least. Yeah. Tell me. Tyler. Uncle Spie, I believe is how you pronounce your last name, Tyler.

Your lovely wife, Katie, and all of your friends. That's delightful. E-mailed Hobbits and Dragons independently. The best. To request a happy birthday message to Tyler. Happy birthday, Tyler. So Tyler from Katie and all of your pals, have birthday, Tyler. Should we sing?

No. Happy birthday. Happy name day, Tyler. Geez. Happy birthday, Tyler. Yeah. And thanks for listening and spreading the good word

about how so are. Love it. That's it. Until more later. But that's it for now. That's the podcast. We're done. Spoiler warning.

Yeah. For today's Hot D season three finale discussion. It's the same one as always. If it happened in this episode of television, we're going to talk about it. It's going to come up. We're going beat by beat.

If it happened in this season, if it happened in this show ever in prior seasons, if it's ever happened in an episode of Game of Thrones television. It could come up today. Book nuggets, sprinkled, you know, throughout as context, as reference points. Yeah. Anything in the future of the text that will be discussed separately at the end of the podcast

in a separate book spoiler look-ahead section. You'll get a little warning before we get there. Anything on the tapestry after Helena goes out the window. That's right. Goes in the book spoiler section. There's a lot of open fabric there. Yeah. fabric and beyond, you know.

Who's going to take up the needle? That's a great question. We got a lot of emails from listening to being like, that's not needlepoint. Okay. It's something else. I just think that in- There's a needle. There's a thread.

In the year of Widows Bay and Ruth, it's all needlepoint. And it's, it might be wrong. That might have been cross-stitch, unclear. It might be wrong. But it's a broad term of- We're working on our textile art terminology and we support all of it. Exactly. Exactly.

If you'd like to present us with a needlepoint for we'll add it to the studio. Oh, absolutely. Well, we have a couple. We have our crest. We do. We have the needle points at home.

We have those at home. We haven't brought them to the studio. We do have those. Should add them to the new home offices now that we have our shiny new setups. We should. Got to redo the entire room. Yeah. It's a lot to think about.

It really is. Should we get to the podcast? Yes. We asked Roddy if he was still prepared to die for his queens and he said, can't fucking wait. It means it's time to pod. Let's get. to the opening snapshot.

Season 3, episode 8, Where's the Time Gone, Joanna? My goodness, where's it gone? This was directed by Andre Perak, who had previously directed episode 6 of season 2, and then this is co-written by showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal on the other than Lodge,

and T. Mickle, who wrote the fifth episode of season 2. Ryan is written or co-written more than we have time to list quite a bit. For anyone who didn't watch Talk the Thrones. Wrote on Nine of the Seven Kingdoms. That's right. And is George's either former or current assistant? T.

Yeah. T. Yeah. That is correct. Overall impressions, Joanna, not only of this finale, but now that we've reached the end of season three, of season three. Yeah. I would rank this season above season two for doing a classic ranking.

I would say season one's still my fave. It's hard to beat my guy Vassaris. Patty. It was just so incredible. Yeah. But I thought this season was an improvement over some of the challenges of season two. and then there's a lot to like and talk about in this finale, but it wasn't my favorite finale of all time.

But I think overall this season was like a real uptick for the show. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I enjoyed the finale. I thought it was very entertaining and engaging. I have certainly a couple questions and things will talk through on certain scenes. But overall, I was very entertained and thought it was a good blend of the grand sweeping tumbleton spectacle, but still rooted very much. in character beats and character decisions,

which is always the blend that we want in a battle episode. I enjoyed the season quite a bit. Overall, I agree. I think definitely we're on the upswing after season two, which again, season two had episodes in it that, like, we loved. But overall, on balance, start to finish this season, felt like more consistent. It had some incredible high points, something like,

I mean, the beginning of this season was really great, just really, really great. Episodes two and three were, I thought, tremendous. I know you loved, really loved four, right? And that was when we started to get so much time with our beloved greens. What a twist still. Yeah, I think one through four, which is the screener pack that they sent out initially for folks, for press and stuff like that, are just like among the strongest work that they've done. And then it's not like the entire back half was like not great.

It's just sort of like that opening chunk was so good. I thought it was really interesting in the House of Dragonsville. Condal said, and thank you again to Ryan for all of his generous time on the pod, but like... Wonderful conversation. Condal had said sort of like, it could take some time for a TV show to basically like teach you how to make it. And he was like, I really feel like we hit our stride in season three. You know, like the whole production team just feels like they all know what they're doing. They're working as a well-oiled machine.

And they're already sort of talking about like the two-year process to season four. You know, so it's like they feel like, like, much sturdier this year, I think, than they have felt in previous years. You know, there were some, like, behind-the-scenes changes for people who were working on the show and stuff like that. And so I, I feel really confident about how this is all going to end. We'll talk in the spoiler section about, like, what's to Kum and some questions about, you know, maybe where it all ends. But I feel like season four is going to be, like, a solid wrap-up to this show. Yeah, I'm pretty confident about season four as well. I'm sad that we only have one season,

left and eight episodes left, but I wouldn't anticipate season four being pretty riveting. And I think one thing in addition to the, you know, number of key moments and key seismic events and just the dance of the dragons, the canon that we know await, which is obviously exciting and something to look forward to. One of the things that this season made me feel really confident in it is, you know, we talked about this a lot on Sunday with Chris just like how much we all loved spending time with Laris and Egon or Gawain and Darren and Ormond. the moments of surprising investments in characters that we weren't anticipating caring about quite that much

have been one of the real pleasant surprises of this stretch of the series. And then, like, Reneira, you know, it's interesting to think that we were so much more drawn to those other scenes because there's just a kind of, you know, I think, frankly, like a charm, comedic aspect to it and some, like, surprise element. But the Reneera dissent that we watched across this season,

We talked very much early in the season about how so many Thrones fans were like, okay, are we going to get the time to really understand what happens here in a way that we movie didn't with Danny? And that has nothing to do with what comes in the future, just with what we're watching inside of these events. And I have found myself really riveted watching Renera's journey into where we find Renera in this finale, this despotic, desperate state, making these decisions. And so to have people in each side of the war who we care this much about and want to spend time with and those moments that are really rooted in theme and character arc, knowing we're going to be able to pair that with dragon war is pretty exciting and pretty cool. Obviously, it's always hard to wait a couple years for House of the Dragon to return. Great news. We get a Night of Seven Kingdom season two next year.

We don't know when yet, but we're not that far away. And we'll be in the UK next week for the Mad King. We'll be in the UK before you know it. So, you know, just being back, I'm feeling a lot of excitement about just being back in Westeros and feeling that rekindling. I think it's a great time to be a Westerosy fan. And I think that, like, to your point, it's funny, it's funny because, you know, when I get, when I think about who gets to be fun this season versus not fun, it's interesting. But I do think that, especially earlier in the season, I do. think even Emma Darcy, who does have a really strong sense of comedic timing, got to be, like, fun.

Funniest moment of the season, I think, was, oh, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Episode three was just, like, a real showcase for, like, all the flavors that Emma Darcy is capable of as Renera. So, yeah, like. Just a tremendous performance. Yeah, really, really good stuff. Bard slash Classics Corner. Hit me.

Okay. Got so many for this episode. I tried to be as particular as possible. A couple listeners, Calvin and Morgan, said in this passage from Henry the fourth part one, as it pertains to Argy Ormond, right? Came there a certain lord neat and trimly dressed, fresh as a bridegroom and his chin new reaped, showed like a stubble land at harvest home. He was perfumed like a milliner.

There you go. And twixt his finger and his thumb, he held a ponset box, whichever and any. And anon, he gave his nose and took twig and as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, he called them untaught knaves unmannerly to bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse betwixt the wind and his nobility. You know? A perfume lord who's like, these corpses smell bad and I'm getting in the way of my enjoyment. The instant hit of the perfume babel from Ormond after discovering all of just wonderful stuff, sensational. A number of listeners sent in this line for Macbeth, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top full of direst cruelty, make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse. Lady Macbeth, unsex me here, very Rainira. You know, a lot of behind the scenes conversations have been about sort of Renira at war with her gender this season and sort of this decision to take on this masculine or at least asexual aspect.

with the armor here at the end. Have you seen any of the theories floating around? It hasn't been confirmed by the show, but have you seen any of the theories floating around that this might be Vesnia's armor? I feel like they would have said if it had been, but it's just sort of like, you know, we saw Agon in the Conqueror's armor.

Yeah. And, you know, would this set of armor be laying around waiting for Reneira or would they have to repurpose something that existed already? Do you know what I mean? And would Vesna's armor. I mean, I think that would be great. Yeah.

It feels to me unlikely that the show. show would not have... That's what I'm saying. They would have said that that's what they were doing, given the number of direct or indirect allusions to our references to Vissani over the years. But that would be great. Yeah. That would be...

And obviously quite alarming, you know? From King John, from our listener William. About how it's too late for anyone to make peace in this dragon war. The Dauphin says, your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars between this chastised kingdom and myself and brought it in matter that should feed this fire. and now tis far too huge to be blown out with that same weak wind which enkindled it. So for Corlis to be like, hey, can we solve this with a marriage pact or perhaps slightly redrawing the borders? And Damon's like, nope.

It's dragon lore, baby. Our listener, Aiden, who sort of started Bard Corner, wrote in with something from Oedipus, right? I liked this description. Aiden says, obviously everyone knows Oedipus is the guy who fucks his mom. But Sophocles' play is about more than that. It's about an incredibly powerful man, a king, in fact, who devotes every inch of his power to avoiding his own fate. Yet every action he takes only brings him closer to his inevitable ruin. And among other things, his mommy's...

I'm quoting this email. Okay. Ranira had a similar arc to Oedipus the King this season, and so tonight I'll leave you with his final lines of the play as translated by Robert Fagulls, which I can just imagine Roddy the Ruin screaming with delight as he and Orman burn. People of Thieves, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance. He rose to power. A man beyond all power.

Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies free of pain at last. I like this idea of Reneira as someone, you know, a classic Greek, self-fulfilling prophecy sort of thing. of Reneira just every move she makes this season brings her inevitably closer to. We talked about this a lot with Nolan, this idea of being the architect of your own destruction. And like, as much as I'm happy to blame Allison for the plan of like, let's declare agon dead, had Reneira not declared Agon dead, then he would not be experiencing this quote, miracle resurrection moment inside of, you know, she made him the chosen one. She made him the chosen one.

And like all of her other decisions that she made, she was trying to avoid. being named a tyrant or, you know, all these other things, every step she took to avoid where she landed screaming about the prophecy in a suit of armor and the septon's blood on her hands in this finale. I just love thinking about going back and rewatching this season and watching every step take her closer and closer to this sort of inevitable spot. Yeah, I think this is one of George's favorite things. Sometimes literally when an awareness of a prophecy or a dream or a vision is in play,

but just more broadly with, you know, the choice and consequence aspect. There's something, you know, to discuss when we get to Helena later that I think is really interesting about, like, free will specifically through the lens of a dreamer who does actually have access to something that she's trying to understand. But for a character who is desperate to get that clarity like Rainira is and seeking it everywhere and carrying burdens and moving constantly toward, you know, that line in this episode, the fucking. Vassaris, like he put me here. There's so much. I'm excited to hit as we go through some of the scenes today. I was really struck, you know, Reneira as a character always of very precise language and tone. And so when there's any kind of shift in like the carriage scene with the litter scene with Joffrey, the real flat delivery and tone of voice, very notable, but in like the scenes with the Hyceptin, Bela in particular, there's a lot of, I think deliberately from the writers

of the episode, passive voice, blame casting other people. And so where is their culpability even as to your point there is an active hand and it is your own marching you toward this place? And what I love about this is like you and I agree that that it's quite blurry here. Like when she says, hey, it's Corliss's fault he was out there in the field. You and I are like, uh-huh. And when she's like, hey, it's a Viseris's fault that I wasn't prepared set up for success here. Uh, pretty much agree. No question. But our. Are there other active decisions that Rainira is making that she needs to own? Absolutely.

It's all true. Everyone's fucking up all the time in House of the Dragon. Last but not least, this comes from Fia. It's Sabin, right? I feel like I always mispronounce her last name. I looked it up. I believe it's Saban. Like Nick Saban?

Sure. Champions never sleep? Sometimes I want to say Sabon, but I think it's Saban. Fia Saban. Helena herself. In an interview with the rap, said that Helena's line about life being nothing more than being not dead. Yeah.

comes from George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan, the play St. Joan. Quote, Fia's interview from the rap. Joan gives us incredible speech to people imprisoning her when she says, like, quote, you think life is not being stone dead, but there is more to life because I might as well be not alive if I can't hear the church bells and the lambs and the wind and the trees. And that's what living is to me. And Fia went on to talk about how being robbed of the connection to nature is like taking, disconnecting Helena from her religion and without her connection to her religion. And again, Alice, Alice and Helena would make quite a pair of these naturalistic witches. Without that connection to her idea of spirituality, she's dying anyway. Right. And when we first see her in this episode and she's gray essentially, like it's just devastating. That is Bard slash Classics Corner from our incredible listeners. We had a really beautiful email from a listener. Will, who was just talking about, like, how much he enjoys thinking about these stories across, like, various, you know, just to think about the themes that Shakespeare was chasing and the themes that George is chasing and the themes that Faulkner chases and the theme. You know, like, all of these great thinkers and writers and how we revisit these same stories again and again, but how much we appreciate them by being able to look at them from all these different voices. And I say yes.

Thank you to our listeners. You guys really enhance this whole experience for me. So shout out the bad babies now and always. All right. It's time for the deep dive. Let's head to the bowels of the pleasure. At Volvo, safety is not a feature. It's our purpose.

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The dog stars, directed by Ridley Scott. In theaters, August 28th. Get tickets now. Okay. We are mostly going to go chronologically today. Every so often, there will be a little bit that's pulled up or down, depending. But got to note, the opening credits this week. Obviously, tapestry's on our mind.

The addition of Eggon and Sunfire was four. fucking sick. And the fire on the tapestry. Oh my God. I thought it was... It burns. Like, that just looked amazing. I thought it was really cool to compare...

To think about that and then think about the... The watery waves of the thread that opened the season when we were coming off of the gullet. Also, correct if I'm wrong. So the Reneera and her and her, you know, coterie, which took up a lot of the opening credits this season of just sort of like Reneera flanked on either side by her... court, let's say. Backed by a golden dragon, right? And then when we see Agon on the tapestry in this fiery thing, it's like a red dragon. Well, I thought that was just Sunfires pink membranes, the pink wing membranes, but it was... Sure, but okay, so... Yeah, but also the burns. Putting that aside. Yeah. What do you think of the golden dragon being behind for Nira? I think it's just supposed

to be Syrax. Okay. Who's golden? You think it's more than that? I don't know. I don't know. I I mean, Syrax is like not golden. Syrax is yellowish. I guess we have to get kind of simplistic in our tapestry work. I think it's Syrax, but... Sometimes a dragon is just a dragon, Joanna, I guess the way you're saying. You know, at the end of the day, when there are so many different colors and the dragon designs are so unique, those similar colors for the two dragons associated with the two characters seeking to rule,

though obviously there are other characters seeking to rule, too. Sunfire looked sick on the tapestry. Oh, yeah. I mean, that looked great. Very cool. Will the tapestry continue in season four without Helena? Maybe not. I mean, woe-a-tide if they go back to sort of the blood. You know what?

Churning through the... That was on my mind again, given the image of, you know, all the blood... Coming down from Renera. Coming down from Renera. You got a couple of miles about that. It is back to that kind of like the bloody rot of this family of this bloodlines. I still don't. Ryan Condal email us. He doesn't have her email. I still don't have a better answer for what is on the tapestry than the one we presented to Ryan. So I don't know what to say about that. Same. Okay. Same. I keep looking at it saying to myself, what am I missing? I will say this. So it's Renier on the throne. This is what she looks like, you know, when she unfurls part of Helena's tapestry. It's Renier on the throne. It's

Flames and dragons and hands reaching out behind her. So, like, carnage, the war, the dance behind her. Red thread coming down from her head and all of her onto the ground. So is it cuts from the thrones? That was my guess. But also sort of laced in bodice fashion across. So then is it more like threads. So then is it more like puppetry, almost like, are you like, hey, Joanna stop over thinking tapestries?

Maybe. But like, No. But like, me asking you that? Certainly not. But like Rainira as a puppet of fate or Reneer as the puppet master of the dance. Yeah. Or it's just blood.

I don't know. I think it's all in the mix. Certainly. I think the question of responsibility and culpability and how much of this is driven by the decisions that the characters right now and the dancer making and how much of this is some sort of inevitable aspect of Vassaris's warnings of Dragon Rider hubris and Dragon War and the kind of inherent rot in the Targaryen line and what they seek to do and maintain. You know, there was a, we was going to hit this when we got to the scene later, but because we're talking about it now, like there was a really interesting in-house that dragons built glimpse of like the prop, right, of the tapestry that they made for the show. And it's worth people going to look if they're interested in seeing all the different.

There's like some blood and she stuff. There's a ton of aim and eye image. across it. There's a lot of Heron Hall stuff, the goat, the owl, the noose, harrowing, given obviously what we learned from Alice in this episode. But there's also another ruler on the throne

with similar imagery. Is that supposed to be egg on? Like the idea that there's lame all around and shared? Well, okay, I need to go look at it again. I saw what you were talking about. I was, but they didn't put that

in the episode, to be clear. So like... Green. I was almost thinking he was Aries. Because it's like, to me it looks like the ruler is engulfed in flame. But it would have been green flame probably if it were the Mad King Aries. Like a burn them all sort of a moment. I mean, when I first saw it, my first thought was that it looked like Magor.

But then almost everything in that tapestry that they show is like this. From the show. Yeah, I understood that. Yeah. And it was like, all right, well, interesting. Anyway, we'll get back to that at the end. Let's start where the episode begins. Wrenera learning about Egon and Sunfire.

So not everyone is as thrilled as we are about Sweet Sunfire's return or a while shares this news. Reneira is hyperventilating, grasping her chest, sharing this report with Damon, seeking him out as he's getting fitted in his armor for Tumbledim. He is risen. The small folk name and a sign from the gods that Egon is ordained to rule that he and his dragon have been resurrected to claim the throne. Fascinating language given, again, that this. was, I mean, sunfire has risen, but the lie from Renera, like, Renira knows Egon is dead. So the language and word choice here are fascinating. Obviously, a lot of this prophetic language and the symbols and signs and portents,

portents and signs that the realm is going to see in this. Egon's status being known, big book change, as we have noted previously, but interesting to just have this definitively confirmed that everyone knows Egon's back. And you called this. You were like, there's no way he burned every single moon. No possible way. There were some scurrying figures in the back. So this is a fascinating place to be.

I thought, no, Egon would be thorough, but... Yeah, he's always on top of his shit, that guy. But, you know, it behoves him to have this message out there, so... It sure does. So, as you said, there's the Alicent aspect of kind of having planted this. Just tell them Egan's dead seed. But the Reneira, like, hoisted in a double capacity here by her own dragon, Patard and symbolic.

Patard is really rich. She is the one who positioned with first Seasmoke and then, of course, the full sewing, the idea of the dragon, raising the army of the seeds as a sign of her worthiness to rule. She told people Egon was dead. The other thing that shows choice to pretend Sunfire was dead for this long or half people think Sunfire was dead for this long pays off here because it is this rebirth and resurrection versus like our dude was hurt and hanging out and like eating on the ground before he healed enough to fly.

Wouldn't have quite had the same effect. So understand this choice more fully here. What do you think Bela and or Damon and or anyone else could have done to make sure that, like, go check his dragon pulse? Like, what would have been more, the more thorough? Should they just have burned sweet sunfire? I mean, I guess there's the other case that maybe you don't leave an entire intact dragon there if you want to be absolutely sure. But that's true to me. So they have noted that Males was decomposing and sunfire wasn't? Well, what was the decomposition aided by painful memory chopping off?

Maly's his head. That struck me more as just again, Reniro looking to blame everybody else around her for everything that is gone wrong. No, I understand that, but I'm just like, I'm just like, you know, it's like when you, when someone seems like they're dead and you're like, just shoot them in the head just to make sure. Yeah. I'm like, what I had just like driven a stake into the heart of Sunfire or something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe. I'm glad that didn't happen. Sweet Sunfire here to, here to wow us. The realm is buzzing. You know what I was thinking of was that moment that Laris and Egon shared earlier in the season when Egan was very anxious, obviously, and Laris said, anonymity is a boon. He was like, chill my guy. Your eventual resurrection becomes the stuff of song and legend.

It will ensure that your eventual resurrection becomes the stuff of song and legend. So, Reniero's choices and actions allowing that basically like calm down and stop being so difficult line from Laris to become prophecy of a different sort, just delicious. We didn't get any alias in this finale. And you know, what I would have loved if Laris, you know, fulfilling his promise to sing the songs of Aigon had been partially responsible for the spread of this messaging of like, oh, isn't he is reborn? He has risen, you know? Maybe he's doing it in the shadows and we'll find out later that he's been working really hard. One can only hope. You know the other thing about just the Aigon lie now in hindsight?

We talk about this a lot with just assessing things people do in real life, things people do in television shows, movies, books, whatever. Don't tell a lie that can definitely be disproven. She was trying all season to get them to find Agon, find Aman, find Vagar, find some. So, like, you made yourself a liar, too. You made him the chosen one and you made yourself clearly a liar and stuff. She was trying to get them and they were like, that's not the priority. And she's like, I actually think it is. And she was right.

Well, she was right about a lot. But it's too, damn. Wait, wrong about a lot in this one. Yeah. Damon tries to soothe her here. says the lesser gods, don't worry, they have no say in this. We're the blood of old Valeria, I'm not sure if you've heard this before. We have absolute power.

He's playing all the hits, right? And none of this has anything to do, I'm sure, with Reneira deciding to charge it to the great sept and demand at sword point that the high sept and anoint her, and then have him killed when he doesn't. I'm sure none of these little seed plants from Damon all season long about the lesser gods and the superiority of the guy who's saying, said in the third episode of this season, I style Oscards, Reniera. Sure, that had nothing to do with this.

For me, it's the moment he calls her princess. I'm like, the high septent. Yeah, that was a, your toast. That was a rough one. You're toast. That was a rough one. It's over. You know, all the septes and septes around him, we're like, my guy, call me.

No. Like, we're on your side, but please, please, please. I like from Damon getting, you know, we're going to get such an incredibly rich Damon-Orman comp later with Ulf. I've tracked all season the way that Orman talks about the high towers. Is it rich? Or is it just sort of like? It's rich in stench. Oh, yes.

You know? The superior man idea from Ormans about the high towers and, of course, Damon's version of this hubris. The might is right. Chris Vernon again. Indeed. All right, Joe, what does you make of Vernier's curse of Viceris here? Fucking Viseris.

Paired, if you want to hit this here as well, with what she says later, to Helena about Viseris' philosophy being the realms undoing and confronting that at last. I just thought it was really interesting to, I mean, first of all, I was really grateful to hear it because I do love Vassaris. But again, as the show knows, a lot of this is at Vassaris's feet. Yeah. A lot of it says Otto's beheaded feet, too, but like it's, you know. You know, I miss them both. For her to say, my father, Vassaris, the peaceful, I thought that was a really interesting moment of branding.

on the steps of the step there. Especially because that was auto branding. And she adopts a couple High Tower propaganda lines here. She uses their house word. Oh, yeah. I like the way. She says,

Great stuff. Got to co-op the message. What I do love about Rainer is that she's learning the power branding. That's what she learned in this episode. She's like, Ormond, I get it. You need a fit. You need some eye makeup.

I have a, Darren the Daring. Roll over Darren the Daring. Prince that was promised in a language they don't understand. That's who I am. am, you know? The fit that Renira debuted in this episode, people are walking around immediately with the t-shirts with like the multiple

Renira, no question. Yeah. And by people, that mean us. Has anyone made that shirt yet? Yeah. The optics are scary. Yes. But they are strong in a way that like, an Arunabega for you, and Arunabega for you was not. Okay. Yes. I thought this is really good. Mysterious's philosophy is the realms

undoing. I mean, I don't know. What I love about the show is, is I could see it go, going a number of ways. You know, I think if Viseris had, if Veseris had better valued this idea of dragon power, then,

and made it clear the line of succession and not let Otto and Alicent and all these other things get in the way of what was going on here, we would not be at war here. But in general, I agree with you. Your favorite thing is to say, like, hey, was Viseris right about the fact that we can't control dragons? Yes. I think for finding Reneer in this place is so fascinating because I agree with you, I felt very,

even as we were watching this deeply troubling, dissent for Reneer, our character we have rooted for for so long in this episode and steadily across, you know, we're building methodically toward this point. I also felt very heartened to like see Reneer a push to the side and retire this, I thought, frankly, very baffling notion. What would my father do? What would my father do? I understand why the character was there, but never felt like the way Reneira, other than the desperation to seek the legitimacy through the connection to his having chosen her, the crown, etc. One of the things that we want for characters were invested in for Reneira

is like, what is your view? And so to see Reneera shift from Viseras to just Damon is so dismaying. And you understand why the character has wound up in this place, but it hurts us. It hurts us to see. And then I do wonder and I worry, can you hold on, even if you don't agree completely to what fueled those words of caution if you have arrived at a moment of actively rejecting his mode of operation. Like, is when you're in a place where there's room for that kind of nuance, it doesn't feel like it. I think what's also true, and this is what Allison said earlier in the season, is just sort of like the way the Viseris operated came from the privilege of being. you know, the chosen male heir to the throne, and that is just not something that was ever available to Reneira. Agon could do the rock bottom least, you know, with some strong courtiers

around him and not under nearly as much scrutiny as Reneira was when she was trying her damnedest to please everyone and disappointing everyone at the same time. No question. And even something about the like, he put me here language also. It made me think of something you, I can't remember if this was last week or the week before, but recently. on one of the pies, you know, noting the, and we had a beautiful email about this, like, the characters who find themselves in this place where they're like, was this even what I wanted? And there's, you don't necessarily want, we don't want Reneer to say, I don't want this, it could be Agons.

That's not where we are with it. But this question more broadly for Reneura, for Allison, for Agon, for any of them, of where they have wound up and what connection there is to the thing that they actually designed. And then you pan back even a step further. It makes me think of Allison that really great Allison's auto fight back in the day of like, well, you know, our hearts and ever foot. How would I even know? Like, was this not what you wanted? How would I even know? And the idea that Reneira, a character when she was younger who was so, now even this, though, was like formed from all my father does is talk about the male air he wants.

So then Reneer is in a position of reacting to that by saying, I just want to fly my dragon and eat cake. Like you don't exist in a vacuum in life, right? But it is so interesting to think about the character's history in that respect and their evolution. You get to this place of making choices where you do everything through the lens of needing to hold on to this thing. And it's like you might think it's your inherited birthright and also the thing that you definitely deserve more than this piece of shit. But is it the thing you want? And does everybody have to pay as a result? You could ask that question of a number of different characters.

Damon, certainly. part of what makes the Dance of the Dragon so interesting and tragic. But Damon does desperately want. He does. The throne. I mean, thinking back to one of the earliest images that we got in this series of just like Damon looking at the throne, sitting in the throne. It was all there just from the word go. Speaking of Viseras, actually, he was on my mind again in this stretch because when Damon says to Reneira, this is your test, right?

The realm only recognizes strengths. Is Damon right overall about how they should conduct themselves? maybe, maybe not reasonable minds can disagree. The fact that the realm is looking for strength and that Reneera as a queen is going to have a harder time displaying it, that's undeniable. The reason that this made me think of Vassaris

is because of that conversation he and Lionel had, not the iconic, fabled, this is the stuff, but actually in the episode prior in the fifth episode of season one called We Light the Way, the Crucible Conversation. There's a part of me that wishes I'd been tested. I often think that in the crucible, I might have been forged a different man. And Lionel responded by saying, many that are tested only wish to have been spared. So, like, how do you respond to the test,

but also do you want the test? Do you actually want it? The fact that Vesaris was like, oh, if only I had gotten the opportunity to prove myself, this is what that crucible looks like. I think what's fundamentally tough about trying to determine who knows the right way to rule Westeros is, like, we have trouble understanding what it means to be a monarch. You know what I mean? We who have grown up in a semblance of a democracy. And so like this idea of like what's the right way? Is it giving out food to all the people?

Or is it like with an iron fist? And this Machiavellian idea of fear versus love, right? Like since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them and is safer to be feared than loved. But Machiavelli was like, you should try to be both. be feared and be loved. But Roneira is just like, they will not love me no matter what I do. I keep trying to please everyone. And I took the money from the nobles and I'm trying to please them and they don't give a shit about me. And all they want is this fucking Agon who sucks actually. And that's all they want. So they'll fear me instead. And that will be effective. But like, you know, when I'm watching her administration at work, you know, my instinct is to be like, yes, let's feed the hungry. let's do all these things. Sure, of course.

Yeah. But it's just sort of like not how the system of government works in Westrose. And it's certainly not how it works in the midst of a civil war, you know, when you need to have this iron fist. So it's really, you know, like I feel like sometimes you can watch, you know, the West Wing or something like that where it's like how to run a democracy and you're like, oh, that's the right way. That's the wrong way. But like watching a monarchy in the midst of a civil war, I'm just sort of like all of us are saying Reneer is making the wrong choices. and I'm like, I agree, but what are the right choices? Totally.

It's one of the things about, you know, watching, and obviously this was true in the original Game of Thrones days, the Song of Ice and Fire Days. It's like one of the, you find yourself, I remember this feeling regularly podcasting about Game of Thrones the first time around, like, saying things, and it's like, she should finish them all. Wait, yeah, and the number of times this season are like early

when, you know, you should have killed Darren, you should have, it's like, well, you find yourself trying to analyze it through the lens of these characters in this context, which is like, the Machiavelli quote is so interesting because it makes me think of other Viseris, the like who can rule without love or fear. But then Danny building toward the horror of let it be fear. Right, because she wanted to be a beloved, you know, like. And then when you feel the, thinking of her absence of that.

Thinking of her at Winterfeld talking to Sansa and like trying to mend fences or whatever and Sansa being Sonsa and that like that memed fake smile from Danny. But she's just trying. She's like, I want to show up and I want to be a breaker of chains. And I want to like, you know, have a better administration than, you know, Bobby B and Queen Searcy and all the rest. And they can't wait to give it to this other guy instead. That said, John, better than Agon. Other Edgon better than this.

Agon. The Bar-Saint-Rall-N-N-A-Gon. Reneera studies herself. All right. Damon's philosophy won the day. Let's have Hugh. I'm going to ask a Mallory question. Yeah.

how hard do you think Damon was when she was like, oh my God. Go do a war. The fact that, you know, we get some quick instructions out of the way, right, have Hugh go to the stand guard at the dragon pit. We're going to watch for, for Agon. You continue with the Tumbledin plants, and then the leaning in, the sexy flirtatious, like eyes up delivery from Reneira,

the realm is watching, do not make a monster to me. And then the musk and, like, The rasp in Damon's voice, it will be my great pleasure, your grace. Pretending for just a few more moments that they're not going to kill everyone really makes these two want to fuck. Mega horny moment between the two of them. But also like it reminded me of Damon and Vassaris. And it's just sort of like this is all he kind of ever wanted to beat it for Viseros to a certain degree where he was just sort of like, let me go.

Why don't you? Why did you pick this guy as your hand? What about me? Let me beat. let me do battle for you. Send me out to kill up. Like, let me do it. Prop prop you up indeed.

And then, and then later he's like, hoops. Sure is. Through his concussion. Rewis. Reneer vows to kill Aagon herself. Later, he will talk about putting her head on a spike. We have an email about this, Joanna. Well, on the fear and love front, I think our listener, Holly, wrote in about

Robespierre, the French Revolution. Robespierre was someone who had all these ideals about what the revolution should be. but this is a Holly wrote He was such a good, just educated man who truly believed in enlightenment ideals

but what he said to justify the reign of terror was this, quote, the whole development of our theory would end here if you had only to pilot

the vessel of the republic through calm waters, but the tempest roars and the revolution imposes on you another task. End quote. He thought the unjustified

the means to get a just society. We're going to chop people's heads off. So like this idea of like I have, Reneer is like, I have an idea of what the realm can be. If everyone just agrees that I'm in charge. But first we're going to have to burn a bunch of people, I guess.

And that's, you know, this is the guillotine. Her guillotine's a dragon. So here we are. Sure is. Waiting in the hallway. Bela, who has, like us, seen a number of very tense and fraught corridor exchanges across the season and thinks, I'll just, I'll just, Reneer up. I'll join in.

Pretty sure new wig on Bela looked great. Oh, interesting. Baila would like to know if Reneira has a plan to rescue Corlis from Tumbledon where he is being held hostage and prisoner and this is where some of that like blame casting passive voice popped from Reneer here Sunfire was allowed to live

my enemies have been allowed to muster their strength later with the High Saptain you will not deny me who is denying Reneer who is blocking Reneer tells Bala here Corliss made his choice now I think like you said before we did have that not wrong reaction. I think it's also true that Reneera can't pretend that the Adam Allen decision was not going to sit poorly with Corlis. We're past the stage of being able to parse those subtleties with those characters.

Bala tells Reneer that Corliss's abduction was her fault, says to Reneer's face, you use those who serve you as tools, which is what we heard Bayla say to Adam. Last episode, it's how Ormond oriented his recruitment pitch to Ulf, this idea that everybody's a tool to Renera. And then says, and this was like a woe moment. Yeah, but you can't cast me aside because you need my dragon. Incredible stuff from Bella. Right. Calling out a true thing there, right? The dragon math.

It's on everyone's mind. And then Renera reached out and grabbed Bella's face, grabbed her jaw, grabbed her chin. Gasps. I gasped too. But I was genuinely shocked by that because there's like the violence of it. But there's also just this the depth of this rift between, you know, we've got this old stranger or recent recruit that was all mishandled. But like, you don't know him.

Bela's family. Like this is Damon's kid. This is your stepdaughter. For Baila to say these things to you, it signals something about where we are. And some other things and some other things with Tarni. Indeed. All of the above. And also just this entire.

from Rainier, that everybody is hers. I thought it was really interesting. She calls her, what, insulin child, I should not blame you for it. Truly, insulin runs in your blood, as your sister has lately reminded us. I thought that was really interesting because, of course, as we just outlined,

you know, the family tree is a snarled mess. So when she says, it runs on your blood. Is she talking about Valerian blood? Like, that's what it seemed like to me. And then, you know, we get into, like, the aspect of the show that I'm not sure the show is always directly grappling with, but it's nonetheless subtext here,

which is racial, right? If she's saying it runs in your blood, I mean, a lot of what Bela has is Damon's blood. You know what I mean? Like a lot of it is Targaryen blood, but there's this Valarian blood in there. And if that's what she's saying,

like, you know, when we're evoking corallus, when we're thinking about Raina, when we're thinking about Bela, like that use of the word insolent. No question. Which is just so close to sort of like upjumped,

which is just so close to a lot of other things that I just, think, I don't know how intentionally the show is interacting with that, but I think we can't ignore the optics of who Reneer is saying certain things, too, I would say, for sure. Dragon Rider discontent. It has to be on our minds in this episode. Well, and especially, sorry, just especially then for her to whisper to Alan later, like, when she's like, insulin, insolence runs in your blood, Bela, but later to Alan, you've got the blood of all Valeria in you. You know what I mean? Like, this blood,

doesn't serve me when it doesn't serve me, but it does when it does, you know? Well, and in general, that is how Roneira is conducting herself. Like, what do I need from you in this moment and how can I achieve that end? Speaking of Allen, takes command of the Valorian men. They're finally here in Kings Landing. Some astonishing accents. I don't understand. Where are they from?

Literally, like, five feet away. Do you think Corliss, like, these are meant, maybe this guy, because it's just this one guy. Maybe this is like a guy that Corliss picked up on his adventures. And he's like, come work, you know, with me. Yeah. From across the narrow sea somewhere. That's from one of the voyages. That's my best guess.

Otherwise, I don't get it. I've had no other ideas. So let's go with that. Yeah. They want to rescue Coralus, of course. And Alan's like, what if we didn't? The Queen needs us. Corlis knew the risks.

He'd want us to focus on. of a Laurian honor. And when they're like, who are you? Who are you? Why do you get to say this? He says that he is Corlis's eldest. His name's successor. Your once and future Lord of the Tides.

By the way, this would be a handy time for Alan to have grown out his signature hair. And we're waiting. Yeah. We're waiting for the girlout. Surprised that we're not at that point already. I bumped hard on this. Yeah, tell me. Yes.

I mean, it's because it doesn't make sense. It makes no sense. It's obviously a T-H-Y reference. It's an Arthurian reference, and Condal cited Arthur a lot when he was talking to us about Agon and in a lot of the behind-the-scenes. They've mentioned Arthurian ideas in this episode and this season. We talked about the Lady of the Lake Alice language last couple episodes ago. The Once in Future King, which is, you know, we got an email about this, but I was already bumping really hard on this, right? But our listener, Nick wrote it to say my understanding of the Once and Future King term from the Legend of Arthur is that he was the king.

he is not right now since he is healing on Avalon, but he will return as the king in the future when Britain needs him most. Essentially, he was the king and will be again. Unless I miss something, Alan is not now, nor has he ever been the Lord of the Ties. At best he is a substitute hand, but he's not even legitimized. How could he fulfill the first half of the statement, even if he will, blah, blah. This would probably be one of the writer staff being too clever, but please help me. I don't, you know, I have no explanation for this.

Maybe he's really leaning into the alternate history of having been embraced from day one. The once in future Lord of the Ties? He was not the once. I don't know what to say about it. He wasn't. It's just, again, it's an episode really rooted in the idea of self mythology. Sure. And building your own brand.

So he's trying to do that. But it doesn't make sense. Always. He went to Ormond school and he wasn't fully paying attention. That's okay. This is where we're going to jump actually very quickly just to elsewhere in the episode to talk about the Alan Adams scene while we're here with with Alan. Later when Alan is waiting to escort Reneira to the sept, Adam comes up and he's like, you know what's going on with Reneira?

Like this egg on news says sent Reneer down a dark path. That's what Adam says. And mentioned specifically the treatment of Bela. And Adam is not moved to that, by that at all. I thought that Alan not caring about the Bala part of this. seemed weird. It's just an ongoing weirdness inside of this love triangle that they've created here. Yeah. I think if there were like one other scene between these two, between Adam learning that Bala and Allen, like, got together and then an Alan and

Alan and Adam scene where they talked about Bela. So for Adam to bring up Bala and be like, do you not care that Bala is locked up and Alan to be like, I'm not engaging with this with you? Like that would make more sense to me. And then Adam would be like, I'm worthier of her love than you are. Yeah. Because I care that she's grounded or we're bonded because we're a dragon, writers or all these other things, but it's just like...

I felt, I think that thematically what ends up happening with Alan and the Highseptan works okay. And some of the... I really like it, actually. Some of the takeaways, like, work well. Some steeply upsetting. As we'll get to. Very.

I am missing... They're fun. I know. To that, that was very recent. I am missing a couple Allen scenes. Like, that Adam Bela conversation for sure and another Alan Rinera moment. I think as well before the high septum scene. We got a reaction shot, but like, what conversation is Alan had about Lord Corliss is in

Tumbledon, you know, like, how do I care about, what do I think about this finger gift that I received? Like, what should we do, you know, like, the stifling, like, the stoicism that he presents here and just sort of this, like, stifling down of his humanity to execute on the queen's wishes. Yeah. It's an interesting place to find him. Yeah, I'll just agree with you.

Yeah. We're missing just like a few steps along the way. We are and I think it's like, because Alan in particular are so close to Reneera as now this like really trusted right hand, the, you know, we've talked about this in other context with other character sets. Like we got such wonderful time with Ormond, Darren, more than we would have expected with Gwynn, et cetera, and really benefited from that. We talked with Chris on Sunday about not feeling like we got enough time with the River Lords or the wolves for some of the Roddy and Allie stuff to land. Alan is actually a character we've gotten a decent amount of time with, but we're so close to Renera where like the progression is so intentional and methodical. And we have we have gotten to bear witness to every step along Renier's journey. Now, Reneer is the main character of the show.

So there's not going to be an equivalent there for all the people around her. But this, I just felt a little jarred by the Allen thing. And I don't know, it is weird. It's like the difference between does the outcome and ultimate place not make sense? That's not how I feel about it. But wanting to better understand how the character got to that headspace. Because I think it's interesting to see, like, in this Adam Allen moment, an inversion of how, you know, even just from what we glimpsed from them briefly in season two, we know that they always thought about the desire. Like the desire for more, the desire for courtless, the desire for a different thing.

You know, so to hear Adam say a glorious assent for a best. bastard and really cement the fact that this has flipped. You know, that the thing Adam used to want is now the thing that Alan has gotten a taste of and really relishes, which, like, we saw early in this season how delighted Adam was to be one of Reneira's riders. So they've been moving in opposite directions, and that has been clearly mapped. Yeah. I like that part of it. You know, they think that Alan, who has not only those whispered, but in a later scene, a scene

after this, that whispered Old Valeria, blood of old Valeria line from Renera, and that idea of this character who has wanted to be chosen by his father and wasn't, has now been chosen in all of these different ways by Renira that he is in this position. Yeah. What it tells us about like the proximity to power, the impact and the corrosive effect it has on all sorts of people in the realm, not just the person who seeks to sit on the iron throwing to wear the crown. I like all that. Literally just missing like a scene or two to understand.

This felt, it felt very rash to me for Allen to be here. I mean, again, once again, I would say almost all of his scenes this season, even his sex scene, we mentioned this at the time, we're just still about his dad. Which, like, if him doing this because Renera offers to be his daddy in a way that his dad never was, like I get that, but I don't know. I'm still, yeah, missing some depth of the Allen character. Yeah. Orman.

Also getting suited up for battle Reading some scrolls, classic ormond And watching Darren gazing at the window As Tumleton Reddy's for War Because he's Ormond, he badly misreads Darren's expression And he's like, it's all for you, my boy! It's classic For you, by my design

Because I'm a messy, manipulative bitch Classic Ormond here, really loved it. That's the manipulative bitch. He is. I'm going to miss him so much. Yeah, me too. A king inspiring the masses to fight Joanna must be a knight. Meal. What are you talking about? This was insane and incredible. I really liked this Gawain's face, Darren's face,

the looks of the past between them where they're like, you know, Darren's like, Gwain, jump in. Like, you do this instead. Jump in. And Gawain, I loved the shot through the blade on Darren's shoulder where Gawain is just like so dismayed watching this. A lot of really good perspective shots inside of this episode. A lot of really good shots were the camera was sitting just right over someone's shoulder. Yeah. I thought it was really, really good. Our listener, Michael, on this nighting ceremony, a sham of a nighting ceremony.

Beyond. So it's interesting, given the high tower connection to the seven that Darren's Nighting by Ormond was the first shown in the series that did not invoke the seven into the traditional in the name of the mother I'd charge him to. So just like further exposing the hypocrisy of Orman who literally clothes himself in these images of the seven and is just sort of like not using any of that. language here in this farce of a knighting ceremony where he says, you, this king that I've made, serve me your liege lord.

I thought that the... So funny. This was so... The decision not to use, to the point in the email, the more traditional and familiar knighting vow. Yeah. Was so perfect as was what filled that space instead. It's not just that he's not doing the proper vow.

this guy who has obviously no idea what it means to really be a knight in the way that we talk about with characters like Brian or like a character like Raymond who we just more recently got to watch this very emotional nighting ceremony within the Night of the Seven Kingdoms. You know, and so we have this evolution and all the nighting scenes in this season, we got the great The Seeds Nighting and the comedy of that with Adam and Hugh and Oll for earlier in the season. And this one felt so rooted in hypocrisy and just necessity, right? So we got to do this thing. We have to keep thinking about the brand in the image, the way that Orman says with this big smile, this to the extent he's capable of a sincere emotion pride on his face. Darren the daring. And you just know, I feel like we know Darren well enough at this point to know that he's like, I haven't earned this. I don't deserve it.

And you definitely don't deserve to give it to me. Would you say I don't want it? Don't want it. And then the fact that Orman, the gall, this was such a great little detail in choice, specifically invoking protecting the children as he is a mass. We cut to the children. Yeah, absolutely. The women and the children. Just so good.

Yeah, very good. But it's just funny because we're used, you know, across Game of Thrones and Night of the Seven Kingdom and even earlier the season. And, you know, you put this together in a beautiful, like, cut that we got earlier this season. But, like, we're so used to the rhythms of this nighting ceremony. And so to hear outside the normal rhythm and just very overtly missing. Yes. The seven. Yes.

For the wrongness to be the point. for it to be so palpable and keen, was just really, really great. I liked it quite a bit. Off the white. Going full off the sot. Really earning that moniker. He's down in the Tumbledon kitchens.

What was your vibe of the... I feel like the people were not really enjoying his show that he was putting on here. Oh, I thought he was like a little a salty. A little gravy, a little handsy. Oh, definitely a salty. Yeah. But, like, yeah, it just seemed like...

I didn't feel like people were like, Yeah, this guy. No, the one guy who almost looked like a seed with the targ hair, he was like, fuck off. Yeah, for sure. The cook was maybe the most into it, but even he was a skeptic. So just like, you know, if we got Ulf's version of this, everyone was super into it. He was like, I was the bell of the fucking ball. It was the king of the party.

But the reality is even the, you know, this is all he's dreamed of. Being able to drink around people of his own station, an initial station, whatever, you know, and just sort of like being able to like. And thinking about going back to when we met him and how he was surrounded by people who, like, kind of loved his shit, you know, and just like, now he's just cloaked in this delusion of, you know, it's very huge talking to Kat being like, I got a dragon is not the cool as it. She's like, she's like, disgusting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I really love that point about the thinking back to the pub days with the lads because while they found him, they like, they were in on the show. stick.

Yeah. It was like part of the... He was ridiculous, but they like... Yeah. But they generally liked him. And it does kind of make you think back to Ulf, going to Renera and appealing on their behalf as well. Like, you know, just like a little keep and just some part ends and we'll be fine.

Like, looking out for the people he knows, actually. And he also, like, earlier this season, he wanted to be a Targaryen, right? How would you style yourself? Targary. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Um... But here in this speech, he's like...

incestuous aliens don't you know what I mean he's like hitting the targ racism here and so it was an interesting blend of attacking and insulting them yeah seeking to embarrass them queen of bastards for rinera mocking the damon ronnera marriage both the short lead part and bitch in a kennel but also the like uncle lover husband stuff but then he's like i know come on the incest jokes on the quote cards are ours cite yourself you like dragon styling himself, dragon lord styling himself, Lord Ulf, he's like,

you won't give me the thing I want in all sorts of respects. I'm going to fucking take it for myself. And Orman's about to, of course, find that out as well in a very crispy fashion. I would like to ask if, I don't know, does wigwatch TM with Joanna Robinson TM extend to faux hair on a helm? Or no.

That's either called a crest or a plume. I was trying to figure out what the exact terminology for that was. I really liked it. You hated that. I thought it was absolutely perfect for Ulf. It looks so stupid. It doesn't.

It's like, here it is. The Targ hair that I don't actually have. Right. Like, Hugh has Targaryen hair. Ulf does not, but he is like, you know, affixed it via horse hair to the top of his helm. Incredible. I think it's great.

Great stuff. And it's just, like, too big for his head. It's perfect. It was gigantic and quite long. Seems very impractical to me for battle, but what do I know? What do I know? Masari is fired. That's what you know.

That's what I know. Reneer is gazing at the crown, Vassaris's crown, at Vassarra's Legos. She's not gazing anymore. Her gays and days are over. Boy, do you think that this means that I made the joke on Talk of Thrones, I'm sorry a bad lie. Yeah. But maybe it was actually like the sex was so good.

Renei's like, I can't afford any distractions. Yeah. Get her out of here. That's my preferred. I'm focused. I'm focused on the crown. I know she is. She is.

Alinda comes in and says Helena's not eating The Maestres are worried They're concerned about Helena They're concerned about the babe Reneira is going to deal with this in short order In a pretty disturbing way Alinda has to do so much bad news delivery

In this episode I just think that Rina It's not even I put in the outline Having Alinda dump Masaria And kick her out Was the Westrosi equivalent Of like dumping someone via text

But it's actually worse than that It's like back in the day Remember when we were younger I do when you were like Tell Well, exactly. Rick, I don't know. Exactly.

That I don't like him. We had landlines and we would always do the three-way calls. So you'd like have someone else do your dirty work or like fish to see if someone had a crush or you. You knew the other person was like probably on the line listening. Yeah, wild stuff. Reneer is very chill here as always when asking Alinda before the Masaria aspect of this to summon Allen for the escort to the sept. There will be no doubt who the gods have chosen to rule. Okay, everything's fine.

And Masaria, when Alinda goes to share this news, the Targaryan soldiers, they barge in, they've got packing crates. I mean, that's just rude. Like, let Alinda go in and tell her first. Hysterical, though, that Masaria is in her beautiful silken gown putting on fancy jewelry. Oh, she's putting on new earrings. She's like, I heard what Sylvie said, and I've decided to lean in. I do not want to leave the White Lotus. No, exactly.

I don't. I will say this. And this is not book spoilers. This is just me feeling like whatever. I feel really justified in my whole like Alinda as Masaria's person more than Reneira's person. She's torn up here. I had no spoilers for that. But it's just sort of like now Masari is gone.

Alinda feels really bad about it. And Alinda is still there in Reneira's closest circle. If I were Reneera, I would be worried. Not well, Reneer is not paying attention. I would just like to read a little bit from season three episode five. This is from the Oracle, Allison. Yeah. I simply urge you to think of yourself.

There is good in Reneira, but the crown is a weight that crushes Reneer will do in the end what she has to do. And what she has to do will be dire. There is only one who can walk that path with her and she chose him long ago. I'm sorry, she knows what Damon is. And Allison says, they have ever been two sides of a coin as much as she may deny. her attentions may be on you now, that you fade in the warm light of her gaze. But you stake so high a wager on the whims of a dragon rider. Allison was right about a lot.

Rich words from the mouth of a high tower. But anyway, Allison was right. No room for Osiria as a counterweight to Damon when you're all in on Damon when you are trying to just look. And no room for a non-dragon rider, honestly. What Ryan was saying was if we think of them as like an angel and devil on her shoulder if that's, it's not that easy, but let's say it is. Two devils. Yeah. She's listening to devil on the left now. So yeah, devil on the right is not even like

welcome the building. She cannot even look at him at her. I think there's something too about the idea of, well, it's, it feels, or her humanity. Yes. And like, so somebody who not only is going to challenge and counter Damon's worldview and philosophy, but someone who is appealing to something in Renera that Renera feels now that she has to stifle and quiet. And it. And even just then there's the more practical like, kill the boy. Kill the boy. Yeah. It's sad. Like when she calls it Renira. Yes. The intimacy, the vulnerability. So there's a little bit of the I maybe need to get someone who I know knows how to work me away from me, like a practical element, but also like a someone who has seen me. I don't want to look in this mirror anymore. Yeah, fair enough. She's like, you get to go to Pentos. Where is the gold coming from for this? Maybe she sold literally a gown.

The old Shea? Pantos temptation, that always goes well. That's where the blonde babies are, by the way. We got a lot of emails asking where the blonde babies are. Renira and Damon's children. I am surprised to have zero updates at the end of the season on this. You warned me that that was likely where we were heading, but I am surprised. There are two blonde babies.

Joffrey is awake. I thought Joffrey's crown looks awesome. A little circlet on his head looking great. Look great. But there are two other Sibs. They're blonde and they're often pentos, I guess. Nobody seems to give a shit except me. The Mermaid's Kiss.

That's right. Which is the boat that she's going to depart on. Yada, yada, yada, yada, something, fire and blood. I'm not going to get into it. But also the name of a ship in Game Thrones. Quentin Martel. Mermaid's kiss. Is it the same ship?

Who knows? But it is. It has its own Wikipedia page, The Mermaid's Kiss. So, you know, an important boat. A lot of boat stuff. But she's not going on the boat, so it doesn't matter. No. She, in a moment that I don't want to be reminded of season one, episode nine, basically, ever.

And Masaria later just, like, scooting off the wagon because there's a lot of shit going on in the city. Yeah. It did make me think of the way that Eric, your favorite character, and Renice were just, like, kind of able to get. at where they needed to go. She had a cloak. The hood was up. Oh, man. Something you need to ask yourself, are these cloaks of invisibility? Oh, it's a great question. Interesting.

Food for thought. Tell me to think about it. HBO crossover event. Imagine the merch possibility. Oh, my God. You get a cloak of invisibility in the Paisley that Missaria is rocking. Wow. Why not?

Before Masaria, perhaps with magical aid, vanishes among the people. She has to exit the Red Keep, and she will pass a lane. because Helena, you noted the kind of like gray pallor, just the tears, this outdoor space, the godswood, the bugs, a place of prior piece. The hair is not berated. Devastation. Queen's Guard comes over. Got to take you back to your confinement.

It's just all incredibly bleak and sad for a character we adore. And Helena moves into the courtyard. This was, we've done a really great job this season with sound design. And just a little shift when Helena entered the courtyard of the dreamy deja vu. Oh my God. Okay, there are people around. It's not exactly the same, but, like, I just dreamed of this courtyard. There's the pale mare.

Fuck, right? It was just, it gave me a little chill. The sense for Helena. The hour is near. And for book readers, that the hour is drawing near. And then Missario walks down the steps, Joanna, and what does she say to Helena? Oh, she's like, do not trust the queen. Eagon has returned.

His dragon lives. Your unborn child is a hostage. A prize by which she can hold power of your enemies. She will never release you. this is it's a lot to get out in a sort of brushing of shoulders

moment so good job missaria so helena just looks completely hopeless hearing this uh rinerra immediately

and I mean immediately we're not even out of the fucking building folks bit in the ass by casting masaria aside this question of

how do you treat your people and what happens as a result? For the last time probably not big reap and sew an episode for all of our characters

you mentioned I talk the third One of the things you loved about this in terms of a tie to the book. Do you want to share that with the deep dive listeners as well? Well, so when Helena dies in the book, similar mechanism out the window onto the spikes, like there is a lot of mystery surrounding her death. Did she jump? Was she pushed?

And Masaria is, in many of the rumors, Massaria is linked to Helena's death. So we were wondering early in the season, like I thought when my mom, Masaria had that housemaid killed who knew that she knew that Helena was pregnant. Yes. And she's like, that one, kill her. Yeah. I thought she was going to elbow bump Helena out the window because Helena knew that she knew that Helena was pregnant. I thought it was entirely possible that we were having there.

So I thought Masaria might kick her out the window. But instead, Masaria, let's say, trying to help her gives her this advice here. And if you want to use the Renera passive voice assigning blame thing, you could say. that Masaria's words whispered to Helena are the reason Helena goes out the window. I think there are a number of other signs and portents and stuff like that. But connecting Masaria to Helena's jump out the window is a fun fire and blood connection that I really enjoyed. I pulled the whole passage and then realized that 80% of it doesn't apply to the show in terms of the other scenarios and characters that were mentioned. So no point in that part.

Maybe it could have been this that didn't exist. Pretty funny, actually, to look at that. Anything. But the last sentence, the Masari one, septin. Eustace suggests that Lady Masaria, the white worm, chose this night to tell Helena of the death of her son, Melor, and the grisly matter of his passing. I think we could say that at Helena's dead. Like, there is this other kid. There is another kid, Maylor.

This is what George lost his shit about in his blog post where he was like, because there's no Maylor, baby Malor, Jahara and Jehires' younger brother, Maylor, because he doesn't exist on the show. And then he dies horribly in the book. Awful. I mean, on the list of all of the appalling deaths in Firearm Bowl, that's high up there. They're ripped apart. Very bad. Okay? So, like, Grim.

Mailor dies a bitter bridge. And because that doesn't happen in the show, George is like, how are they going to make Helena jump out the window if mailor doesn't exist? And, you know, and in George's version of whatever version of the script he read, he was like, there's no reason for Helena to take her own life without Malor's death. and all of us watching this season are like, I don't, we've talked about this before in the spoiler section, but like, yeah, we can put it on Maine now. Yeah, we can. I don't know if they changed Helena storyline after George had that reaction to it.

And we're like, okay, we got to do some work this season to make it really clear why Helena would go out the window. And I think every single person watching the season can be like, oh, I get why Helena went out the window. Like, no question. Yeah. Joanna, what was that blog post called? Yeah. What was it called? Toxic butterflies?

Beware the butterflies. So hard not to think about that. I have no clue. We did ask Ryan about this with like we had, I have to admit, some shit-eating grins on our faces when we asked him about this. But he did not take the bait. But like that is definitely why we asked about the use of the butterflies in this episode because I think there's no doubt in our minds. I'm sorry. It feels like a beware the butterflies wink.

But it is also symbolically rich in terms of the metamorphosis of, yes. There's no doubt. in our minds that the reason that a bunch of butterflies take flight when Helena dies is a nod to George's very, very sailing, rich blog posts that he wrote about Helena's death.

Character arc handled, devastatingly, but well, ultimately. We had a lot of great time with Helena's really, really good. And we did get an email from someone who works on the show that the vision that Helena has of her and two

children in the future was supposed to be Maylor and Jehara. And so this idea of like, again, every vision of her future that she dreamed, whether it's like I shall become a dragon rider, or I will take my own life out the window, or I will escape and raise my children, it's just like a bad outcome no matter what. And so in order to not become a dragon rider in order to not lean into this corruptive power or to not, you know, choose a happy future for myself that so neglects sort of of the cost that it would have for the realm. Yeah.

I will take my own life and the life of my unborn babe at the same time. Yeah, I mean, when we, you know, again, like talked about the dreamfire vision and this idea of thinking of the things Helena has said last season and just over the episodes about, I don't want to burn anyone not wanting to be a part of this thing that is, this doom that is increasingly inescapable. Yeah. I think that that Masaria connection to the 10. text and just the question of what Helena hears there and the sense of an inescapability, of confinement, of no path to the life that she wants to lead coupled with, the doom that populates each glimpse of a life she could potentially lead or was not able to lead, that question of like for a dreamer seeing something in the future or a number of different somethings

in the future and the sense, you know, the way that Helena has talked about other things in the future that Helena, we see the tapestry that Renera picks up at the end of the episode, Helena has stitched in full her suicide. There's the question of like, well, did Helena accept that this was her fate? Or did these other things push her? And I think the answer can be both. Well, I think what's interesting about her dream is that there are options here. Yeah. Inside of her dream. There is like, I could become a dragon rider or I could as gap and raised chickens. Or I could take my... Like, if she only dreamt of taking her own life out the window, if that's all she saw, one option, you know, but that's not how she's ever described her dreams. It's just sort of like... No. There's some phrases and also just sort of like very Galadriel's mirror, like, might yet come to...

You know? Yeah. Like, it's not set in stone. It's not clear. And so in terms of, like, that idea of a free will of a dreamer, I think because she's dreaming of various pass forward. But all of them are bad. But it introduces ad choice.

None of the choices are good. Yeah. But there is a choice for her to make. I think that this was handled pretty well with Helena in this season to that point. I think that what Helena said to Amen last season wouldn't make any difference, positions us in more of a cemented. Your destiny is like fixed. place.

Kind of, I just think a very strange thing for the show to do. Yeah. So I think we have updated the relationship and the role that choice plays. And also then the things that happened to you, the influence that that has on the way you see your future and the future that you seek or think you can forge felt I thought pretty well crafted this season. Speaking of well crafted, we have an Alice Rivers backstory. Holy hell, my God. Eamon. Dreaming.

haunted again by egg on screams by his own cries for help wakes up it has to confront the fact that his own mom who he wants to fuck poisoned him i could continue to be very moved by amon to this season i i think i might be in the minority here honestly but um i thought the way that he like confronted what alison did to him was was very even though she could be very sad oh yeah that was amazing and uh alice is like yeah your mom poisoned you you're alone but guess what we can be alone together and that's going to be pretty fucking hot. And Amon's like, I'm a kinslayer, I'm cursed, you should get away from me. And I really like that Amend has definitely heard my favorite line. No man is as a cursed as the kinslayer. And also just want to remind everyone that he is still a kinslayer

just because Egan is alive. He killed Luke. He's a kinslayer, no matter what. Yeah. Joanna, we, since Alice debuted in season two, have shared a couple different times over the years in seasons, this passage from fire and blood that we loved. about Alice and the mystery of Alice, because this is part of like our relationship to the character is not knowing exactly who she is and where she comes from. The castle small folk became his captives as well, amongst them a wet nurse named Alice Rivers.

Who was this woman? A serving one who dabbled in potions and spells, says Monkin. A woods witch claimed sept and eustace. A malign and gentrists who bathed in the blood of virgins. To preserve her youth, mushroom would have us believe classic mushroom. So this is all new to us. And we get it with Alice away from Aman.

Again, the perspective of the camera. We're on her face, seeing what struck me at least as sincere emotion. I thought so. I think it's interesting that, you know, Ryan said to us in the interview that it is possible that Alice is making this up. Yeah. That's not how Gail Rankin performed it, I would say. You know, it's possible that's a thought that the writers have in their mind. But Gail Rankin certainly, I think, made a decision or I don't know how many different takes they did or whatever.

Maybe she did different performances of it, but this version that they chose for the final cut reads to me, especially since Aben cannot see her face. Yes, exactly. And we can. It's very sincere. As a woman being very sincerely racked with the grief of the true story that she's telling. What does she reveal? What is that true story? What is the true telling, to borrow a term from this fictional universe?

So, Heron Hall was melted by some dragons. You might have heard of that. Mm-hmm. And Heronhor was the Lord Heron Hall when that happened. And the implication here is that she was his lady wife and that she had a child who died. And that she tried to do everything that she could to undo that. And the bargains that she made had a cost. And the cost was she's cursed to live forever.

Yeah, prisoner of Heron Hall or its surrounding areas. I guess she can go visit and kill some people if she needs to. Unlike Helena, she can go outside for as long as she wants. Yeah. So yeah. So she used and she mentions her title, you know, that she lost her name and she lost her title and stuff like that. So she seems like she was the lady of. Yeah, because there's a possibility for a second of, oh, was she a mistress?

But yeah, the lady. Yeah. So she was the lady of Harren Hall. And we knew that Heron Horror had sons, multiple sons. Right. Didn't know anything about the wife. So this is fascinating as it pertains to, I don't know. I just, we talked about this on Talk of Thrones.

I just love when magic has a cost. I was just reading this really fun duology of books that's based on Jervini fan fiction, but by Bridget Knightley. but it's literally called your cost, literally called your, like when you use your powers, how it physically makes you ill in that book is called your cost. And I just like always love that idea

of the cost of doing magic. And especially this like very dark, nature defying, trying to resurrect someone sort of magic. And so I love this idea. I love when Ryan was talking to us about it and he was like, something we knew,

season two, something we were like, hey, Gail, don't say this in your press interviews, perhaps after Gail in that Entertainment Weekly article was like, she's old. Real old. Move over Melisandra. Yeah, she's real old. It was funny. Our listener, Liza wrote in with this email, it's titled, So You're Telling Me You're a mom.

And Liza wrote, I have to assume this subject line was Aiman's primary thought when Alice spilled her heart and soul sharing her history and origin story about her dear, Krispy, dead son. The Mommy saga continued. use. Notice Aiman finally introduces Alice as his quote, betrothed to Aagon, much to the surprise of Alice, after hearing the witchy mama backstory. That's right. Boy, that guy loves a mom. And I mean, she, you know, she said as much earlier this season when she was like, I'm a mother, was aggrieved, you know, all these sort of things. So she hinted at this.

I choose to believe that this is true and I quite like it. Same. I think it's certainly further in riches. It's fun now to actually think back to like every prior Alice comment, but also a moment and just think about why she has done the things she's done, but also her relationship to this place, which like we have talked about a lot as very protective. She's like, I used to be the lady. Yeah, wanting to like have it and preserve it and the fact that she understands it in a way that other people don't. That's all true still, but also the idea that she is imprisoned here and bound to this place and this nature of life. It's a long time to be alone, the despair with which she said that.

What I like about what it recontextualizes is I was very much like. like, oh, Alice is like, of the nature, an old spirit, the Lorax speaks for the trees. And I'm like, actually, she's an aggrieved noble woman. Yeah. Who was like, I was in, this was my house and I was in charge. And now I have to watch all these other chuckle fucks come in and mismanage it. But it just reminds me of, you know, to your point about Damon or Ormond, like the entitlement of this is just sort of like, she's been cursed. All of these things are true.

also there is just the indignity of how far down she's come from the heights of being midwife is a lady of heron hall yeah and to the nature point the idea too that like something about your relationship would change but not for the reasons you would have wanted it to like she does have this now sense of the ancient power of the place as we've heard to talk about but the fact like the way that she describes treated with things that lived in the forest I love that word treated. Me too. Also, that's like just now I have all the stuff running through my mind about like Alice going to the aisle of faces.

So that's fun to think about. Wonder if we'll learn more at any point. But, you know, the idea that Alice's connection to that and understanding of it is richer for this horrible reason that watching her son nearly on the brink of death from Dragon Flame and trying to fend off this thing. seeking this magic that could not challenge the power of dragon of flame. And then thinking about how Alice is seeking dragons of her own through that specific lens of her relationship to dragon power and dragon might and dragon terror is like so fascinating. I was thinking of that there's the Jamie line and feast. We've been talking, you flagged early this season like the number of feasts for crows moments.

And this passage about Harenhall, this castle has an ill repute. that's well-deserved. It's said that Heron and his sons still walk the halls by night of fire. Those who look upon them burst into flame. Many ghost stories about Heron Hall, but just the idea for the Song of Ice and Fire fans, like the horrible idea that Alice has spent a century inhabiting the same space as her son's ghosts. Like she has mentioned ghosts many times. And it's kind of in a, I'm going to scare the would-be bounty hunter who's here and doesn't get this place. but to think about maybe the terror and the grip that that has had on her? Very Ranira seeing Jace.

No question. Walking around. No question. Yeah, and it goes back to like from the first when we were talking about Harren Hall in our coverage of season two several years ago. And we were talking about the thematic way in which Harren Hall across the various texts from George has represented this sort of idea of grasping for power. the fact that it is described as sort of like a hand reaching to the heavens. And so, again, this idea of Alice as someone who had power, had feudal power, and has been brought low.

And was looking to grasp unnatural, you know, put a stopper on death kind of power that does not belong to humans in this world. but also as a person who was looking to be restored to as the queen of Heron Hall. Yeah. The lady of Harren Hall. And now she wants to do it with Amon and some dragon babies. I ship it. I'm sure it'll go. I ship it.

Something that has not gone fine is the relationship between Rainira and Helena. Reneira's back on her sister bullshit here with Helena trying to get her to eat. Helena could not possibly be more ready for Reneira in this moment. Here are some of the things she says to her. In response to think of the babe, you're thinking of him now, just calling Reneer out as a once-in-future baby killer. That was Damon. That was Damon.

Once-a-future, bitch. I mean, Helena would say that. I could see it. I would wear a shirt that says once-a-future bitch. Make it. Bad babies? Put it on Etsy for us. You cannot think I would harm you, Reneer.

says, and then that's when we get the great. Do you think there's nothing more, do you think life is nothing more than not being dead? Our father would hate you for this. Great. And most devastatingly of all, all the things you care about are ugly. This place is ugly, you yourself, ugly. Now, I'm like, wait until you see my new eye makeup, though. And you say that to me again when I'm wearing that. It's a scroll stopper on Instagram when you see that eye makeup. It really is. Withering rebukes for Rainira, like, it would be intense for anybody to say these things, but undeniably, there is something about Helena. To borrow Allison's phrasing, the gentlest of us, right? Saying these things, that is just so damning.

The, I love the beetle story that happens here. I mean, at any time, Helena talks about bugs as a treat, but this idea of this, this beautiful beetle who embodies the idea of, do no harm, right? Just eats little shit. Yeah. Lives off the waste of others. Does not kill to survive is beautiful, even if it's a shit-eating bug or whatever. And Reneer is like, can't wait.

Yeah. To hear more about this bug. Show me next time. You're fucking lying. I know you don't give a shit about this bug. But I just like really love that. That Reneer is like, sure. Can't say out.

Can't wait. And only does like stop bullshitting me. You've been bullshitting me about bugs my whole life. I'm over it. I know this is a great scene and horrifying, of course, to watch the force feeding that happens when Rainera walks out. Absolutely horrifying. The fact that Renira, you know, because she's like, don't, again, don't make me do this. The bullshit, the foe, this is going to, you're forcing my hand.

This is a choice for Nera's making. The. to your camera angle point, you know, we get, like, we see Renera has not torn up about this. So that's painful to confront. And the background, the way that we see these Targaryen soldiers pinning, holding Helena down and ladling forcefully, food into her throat in the background, Renera in the foreground. Like that was just really, really good. And I thought, you know, Reneira has spent so much of this season, whether it was like assessing Ormond's strategy and intention or, you know, know if we go back to last season, something like auto orchestrating in the wake of

Damans, again, to be clear, blood and cheese fiasco, the Reneer the Cruel Harbinger at Jaharis's funeral procession. Call him by his real name. Like baseball. Baseball head, a little seam neck, yeah. Just really big stitches. So worried that head was going to just roll off the whole time. You know, Reneer has been thinking.

very actively and talking in the show about this, they will call me Magor returned, right? This Magor the cruel comp that we know her enemies, her foes are actively seeking to cultivate. In a scene like this with Elena, you feel it certainly in the Baylor scene with the grabbing in the face, obviously with what's going to happen with the High Septin.

With this scene with Helena, there's this like perception that Ranira feared and was seeking to fend off and was very conscious of, which only makes it more devastating to really watch this transition from. Who do you think I am? She says constantly to Allison and to Damon and like,

what horrors do you think I'm capable of? And then she's like, guess what? Yeah. From the Realm's Delight to Megor returned. The Realm's Delight was never really a good appellation. Remember when Agon was like, The Realms Delight talking to Laris in season two about what he wanted.

Everyone was so fucked up in the show. It's great. Time for Renier to debut a new look, and it is so spectacular that we, We would like to see it once again. Looks spectacular. We've got some notes on the policy, but no notes on the fit. Drip Queen.

So the male in the armor conveying strength, martial strength, masculinity for sure. Viseras is crowned still there to convey that legitimacy. I was his chosen heir. I am the one who has inherited this prophecy. The eye makeup, Joanna. Tell us everything. Splendid. Well, I really liked your assessment that it looked sort of like of a slitted pupil of a dragon's eye.

It's not really exactly what they said in the behind the scenes. War paint. Yeah, war paint. Yeah. They were looking for sort of this like rusted, red, bloody, crusty. And that both the makeup artist and Emma Darcy were sort of experimenting with like something they wanted Reneira. Alinda didn't do this. Reneira did this.

So like they were just sort of like smearing it around and just sort of like feeling. Yeah. Breaking up with me. I don't get it. Yeah, exactly. Monitoring Helena. Alinda had a lot on our plate. Always does.

So it seems like Emma Darcy at one point in the makeup chair just kind of went like this. Incredible. And then they showed it to Ryan. Ryan told us in the interview that they showed it to Ryan Runs like, that's sick. Looks great. I think it's awesome. I saw some people who did not like this look at all. Really?

I think it looked, well, there's people who just like love to not like things. But like this image came out before the episode. And I saw a lot of people critiquing armor. I just think it's a fantastic look. I think the armor looks great. I think the makeup looks great. I think the way in which it just sort of like really hardens her makes her so scary. He talks about Emma Darcy talked in, again, I think no one talks more intelligently about their character than Emma Darcy does.

But this idea, again, of this idea of taking a page on Mormon's book and wrestling down some iconography and this fascistic imagery. It was very, it's funny, the Darth Vader comp has come up a bunch. in the behind the scenes, you hate it. I don't love it. But what it makes me think of is, is Donald Gleason in the first, as the first order,

that sort of like Star Wars fichistic imagery in the Force Awakens. That was in all the trailers for the Force Awakens, you know, just sort of like barking out about the First Order with the banners

sort of all around him and stuff like that. So, yeah. Yeah, I love that Emma, comment Rainier is cognizant of the image making. And we, you know, our girl and the, has come up so many times today.

And I think it feels right at the end of the season to be talking about a Linda this much. But that coaching session with Renera on the precipice of hearing petitions for the first time in episode three, which we love so much, you know, really thinking about what is every single choice going to convey to somebody? So Renera has been primed for this,

thinking about it, what would it mean to hold a sword? What would it mean to wear a chain, et cetera? To wear jewels. And so the, like, deliberate nature of every single one of those choices really feels like a rewarding place to have built, I think that the, you know, with the winged, the dragon winged armor, like shoulder blade things, you know, to convey dragon strength and the Targaryan inheritance,

but just the confinement of the face and neck in particular with the male, like the way that that, yeah, the hair, right, exactly, the, the idea of just like stifling and suppressing whatever humanity remains in order to craft and forge the image. that you think the realm demands of you. Yeah. Is, boy, really hit. Really hit. Joffrey has a new look, too.

Yeah, a little circling. Little princely. Little princely. Do you think that these two have had a conversation while he was awake before this moment? A single other conversation? I don't know. In the litter over to the sept, Reneira sees Queen of Bastards scrawled on the walls. And it's a cementing, right?

A cementing of this focus on legitimacy and needing to reinforce it. that has led Renera so astray but has been so central. The fact that like when the Queen of Bastards with the strong sigil, scroll came up earlier in the season, Reneer saw it as a threat and now like it's a thing she sees right before she shifts into that different tone of voice and tells Joffrey about the prophecy and then of course goes to the sapt and does what happens there. Now it's just further vindication, right?

It's one more reason, more bit of proof that all the choices she's making are necessary. Interesting. So that was interesting. Here's what she says to Josh. It's an interesting assessment. Queen of Bastards. I need to think about it. Yeah. What did you think of the Instagram Carousel before the finale that was like Queen of Bastards? I can't remember the exact phrasing for Amund and Egonne, but the Amid one was like, one-eyed Kinslay or something, and then the Egg-O was basically like, he's back. So funny. Really great.

Did you see Emma's, speaking of Instagram Carousels, Emma did a sort of like, thanks so much for everyone who worked on this season. And one of my favorites was there was an overhead shot of Viseras's crown and a post-it that said soft. And so I think it was just sort of like in terms of like hero props, like this is one of the ones that was like made of rubber. Incredible. You know, because I'm sure it was like quite more comfortable. to wear the rubber version than, but like when Reneira has to sort of grasp it and look at it, you don't want it flop it around so you've got the metal version of it as well. I like to think it's also just a little dunk on Vassarra.

Soft. Soft boy. Soft boy, Vassar's the peaceful soft. Vesaris on our mind certainly here, we don't see the full conversation between Reneira and Joffrey, but she begins. We've seen it and we'll see it again. It's in short order in front of the masses. The setup, I thought this was really interesting. to compare and contrast when Reneira told Jace, which of course she directly invokes in this scene, you know, the moment where she told Jace, because both this, with Tumbledon unfolding elsewhere and the moment she told Jace, Rook's rest, are on the eve of battle. So there's some like urgency to why she is sharing this, but the substance and tone are so distinct. Like when she's telling

Jace, first of all, she says, I never told you because I was unsure that I believed to myself. So we're in a position of doubt. And doubt is actually healthy and good and normal and important to be in a position where you're like, is. this right? Is this okay? Should I seek more counsel? Should I pursue more wisdom? That's not the tone here. It's not the tenor here. It's not where Rainira is. And then there's also just the difference between like I had to exhaust every path for peace into we are in a moment of violent embrace. Well, what I think is there's a couple things, of course, that are different here. One is that Renira has hardened herself to letting Joffrey in the same way that she let. Yes. Poor Lucerison, Deserison, right? So a lot of grief. Yeah. So she's like, I'm not up for this. Yeah. Right. I can't do that anymore. So I've got to be this more like hardened version of myself. Like I'm your mother and I am the monarch and all this sort of stuff like that. But also, given the way that she delivers this information later on to the masses.

Yeah. Much to your delight. My favorite. Yeah. It's not, this is a prophecy you need to know for the future. I am the prince who was promised. I am, it's not one along the line will be, you might be, it might be one of our ancestors. It's me. Right. Right now, I like the way and I am the chosen. I am the chosen one.

Not I need to be on the throne so that one of my ancestors can be the chosen one. It's me. It's so gnarly if you really play out the string on that. Because what does that mean? It means like almost in some sick, twisted, warped way, you need the apocalyptic cataclysm in order to definitively prove that you are the one. It's dangerous. These happen now so you guys all know and nobody here.

Nobody doubts that I was right to do this. Oh, God. We'll get back to Reneer in the Sept shortly. Okay. Everything's going to go well, right? Everything's fine for all of the characters. They're all thriving. and doing great. Lots of winners in this episode.

Gawain. Our beloved of Gawain and Darren are watching Ormond load the children onto the battlements and freak out at smelly, proximate townspeople and panic whisper with Paul John Roxton. And Darren's like, they're hiding it even for me. So Ormond, of course, with the kids, plan A is still like, you know, deterrent. Maybe they won't burn the kids. But plan B, just as good to Ormond is maybe they will and then Magor returned. And for him, he's like, win-win. Doesn't know that he's about to be dead. Tough one for Ormond. Oh, well. Darren. The top, by the way, on House the Dragons built, not to jump ahead to Ormond's death, but Tommy Flanagan, and I'm paraphrasing being like, bum up the ass delightful way to go.

And then Dragonfire was really something. Here's the best part. Here's the best part of House of the Dragons built. Yeah. They had to subtitle Tommy Flanagan because his accent was so thick. They had to subtitle him on the, like, he's sitting there with his, like, sunglasses on. gigantic font, by the way. Yeah. He's sitting there in his sort of like at-rest sunglasses on interview, and he's just sort of like, it's like that scene from Hot Fuzz where you have no idea what people are saying.

It's so funny. Great movie. Here's what he said. James gets a knife that size and he goes like this. Up his bum. Yeah. Delightful way to die. And a dragon comes in and burns us both the crisps.

And then they show each show them like embracing after he's like done the bent over like shove up gesture. Man, James Martin really had to go through some stuff on, it was the like 30 cups of Campbell's suit mix when he had to puke earlier in the season. I don't know. I think the person who had it the hardest and this behind the scenes was, is it Karen Bo? Is that Hugh Hammer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he just had to like run. And they were like, everyone just wanted to go to lunch and everyone was hungry and he's like, 25 more. He's like, my armor is so heavy. That was really funny. Oh my God. Darren doesn't want anyone to die for him.

Real man of the people. I call this the anti-Joffrey. What we saw from Darren in this episode where he's like, I must take wing. I got to get out. It's the opposite. Did my mother say that she had urgent business? You know?

Did you say that Rosie and her golden breastplate calling to me? His options are to fight or to flee. And Gawain's like, I might have another option. come with me to this interesting little storage to him where Corlis says this really reminded me

both actually the visuals of just Corlis against the wall but also the substance of what they're saying of the Varus Ned pre-Bailor obviously deliberately they're framing it in a similar way but first of all I was like Corliss has got jokes

like the Boy King and his squire very funny but the Ned Varus vibes not only the setting just that like Corliss has given a lot of I grew up with soldiers. I learned how to die long ago when he says, my honor is all that remains to me.

Do you really think I would hawk it for Hightower coin? But then there's the kind of like madness of mercy appeal, ultimately here about thinking about the cost. More of the broad cost for the realm here than the very specific. Like, what about your daughter's life? But still, all in the brew. Here's the thing about Gawain's pitch. It is, and we absolutely love Gawain.

We are, I think, co-presidents of the Gawain. Freddie Fox's Gawain High Tower fan club. this pitch was never going to work and it was, I don't even know why. Frankly, kind of stupid. I don't even know why. I mean, I understand that he's like coming under the banners of parley so he's like, same.

But like, like, the fact that it's just like him with like a dagger and some chains in his hand. I'm like, what did we think we were accomplishing here? Worth it for the moment where Gawain lifts his foot so that Corlis can take one step for that. And then puts it back down hysterical. Damon, you know, he and her cracksies have arrived.

They've got to pause from talking shit about Kristen who got one more dunk here. It's like, oh, so easy to forget. Gawain introduces himself to Damon. Yeah, this upsets you. They've josted. They've josted. I thought this was weird. I'm moving on.

What I will say is... Maybe Gawain was like, I was so unmemorable. That would be sad. I feel confident that he fellated his way through every turn that he went to. And I support it. Since you mentioned the horse dismounting thing, I've gotten served versions of that reel, like, no fewer than 7,000 times. I've watched every single one. It's the best.

I just like the fact that Matt Smith and Freddie Fox were in a scene together. We deserve it. We really deserve it. We deserve it. genuinely two of the greats. Roddy is taunting Gawain mercilessly, but Gawain ignores him long enough to say, a thing that Allison, in the book, Alicent is credited with presenting this. Just divide the kingdom's fair at the time. is a little different. It's Renira has taken Kings Landing and there's this real desperate, like, well, wait, what if we just split it all up? She's like, too late bitch queen, into the

golden shackles with you. Farsicle then, farcical now. No question. And Corliss jumps in with a suggestion that is not any more effective ultimately. Make Darren, warden of the South, wed him to Raina, breach the divide. Now, of course, very few characters in the show, better position than Corlis to think about the impact or of the presence or absence of a marriage packed with the Targaryans, right? I mean, who could forget, 12-year-old Lena walking through? Dragons must be lonely, too. Sometimes I think back to that moment, I'm like, this show went for from day one and no one can say otherwise. My mother says, I don't have to sleep with you until I'm 14. Remember that? Oh, my gosh.

Amis seriously so stricken. And he's like, I'll go for... I don't know. How old is Alison supposed to be 16. I'll go for the 16 year old instead, much more reasonable. Oh, God. So here's what Damon says in response to Corlis' update on the pitch. Gawain is just like fuck off, right? Corlis basically calls him a traitor for suggesting any of this and says it was your wife who was passed over, Corlis. Renner sees the throne with a horde of dragons. Her rule is now unassailable. A lot of unassailable rule talk from Damon. Interesting that even inside of the Targaryen line, Damon, Reneira, the idea of their line, their children will rule it forever in a day, the prophecy, what Damon saw at Haranhall, what Reneer has been told, there's Targ supremacy for them even inside of the Targaryen line, which was really reinforced by a comment like that. And then Damon just like full mailed fist chokes going and is like, you can die like a fucking rat or right here.

It was scary. Same. Yeah, I was worried. What I think is interesting was what we're watching. which I feel conflicted about, but like a series of men discover that war is bad actually, right? So this is like Kristen Cole's experience

at work stress, right? And then this is Corliss's experience at the gullet, right? If this be victory, I hope to never experience it again. And then this is Damon's seemingly experience here at Dumbledon. And so Corliss here is saying like,

what do you want from this? Do you want a pile of dead high tower bodies or do you actually want peace? It feels like it's directly, I mean, It's not like he became squeamish. He went out and he was just sort of like... Brief interlude of just...

Murdering pirates. Murdering a ton of triarchy. That's different from war, I guess. You know, where he's just sort of like... It's mop-up duty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's like, I've seen what it's like... Yes.

To do battle like this. I don't know. Yeah. I need to keep the heat of this. It is interesting because Kristen... Kristen still feels to me like it was really, you know... Kristen made sense to me. Yes, and it was really about what does it mean to just be a mortal man

in a dragon war? And then he still led all of his men to their deaths. And only at the last second was like, what if you let them go? And I like this idea that like Damon understanding what it's like to be on the wrong side of dragon warfare, which he's, you know, because I was thinking, I was like, well, when he was at stepstones, like he definitely saw, he was definitely on the ground when Dragon Freddy was happening above. But all the dragons were on his side. So he has never been on the other side, right? of an army that had, because Vagar fucked off, an army that was like actually fighting against him.

So to feel that for the person. Like, barring, I don't know, Ranira drop in Syracx on the bridge at Dragonstone. Right, sure, screeching from across the bridge or sheepstealer charging him down from the moon, the mound of the moon and the skirmish in the field last week, obviously, when he was fighting sheepy. But yeah, it's a different perspective for Damon

and there's a level of culpability that he has to come up. Or versus like a family skirmish. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Versus the family skirmish that is the dance. And it's just sort of like, uh, that's, I don't know.

I'm still processing it. Like, I do think that people, people who are like, it makes sense to me that Damon would have this, this be taken aback by the children that he burned and, and the screaming babies and the women because they were not at the fish feed, you know, these sort of like innocent, like, mothers and children and stuff like that. I don't know. I just think it's interesting, like, who this revelation is available to versus not. And what he'll do with it? And I think the fact that, again, in response to, like, well, don't you want peace? What about peace? The thing he says yet again is a new Valeria will rise from the ashes. Well, that's pre.

Of her usurfer, half brothers. Pre-tumbie. Right. But so for him to have to like, well, what do the ashes actually look like? Well, they're made up a baby. Yeah. If you're constantly the one saying from the, like, courting dragon war, telling Reneera constantly, we have the edge in the dragon. math. Yeah. And then this is what it looks like. I would want, whether it totally tracks or not, I would want any character looking at that to be like, oh, fuck. Also, I just think he's badly concussed.

And probably grappling with the fact that John Roxy was kicking his ass. Tough one. He really was. Speaking of tough ones. Amund. Do you know what a phrase? I love having your bell rung. Bell rung.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Damon got his bell rung for sure. And yes, absolutely. Oh, it makes me think of the other. I love that flashback in the color car cross time. Wonderful stuff. Some Starks do some fucked up shit in this episode.

Stark men. Not actual starks. We'll talk about it. Dustin's, winter wolves, graybeards. Some blondes before we get to the graybeards. Amen wakes up from his dreams, and he is woken by the Targaryan alarm. Vagar? The beating of dragon wings.

Dragon mummy? No beep, beep for them. But it's not Vagar. It's not her tobeens. It is sweet sunfire and his crispy king. Let's see it You cannot be You are dead

I'm alive imbecile This is so good Lying rid of the season There's no question From the usurper who brought us to war then I mean I'm alive

I'm alive is so funny It's instantly indelible and iconic Really great I also thought the no no no no This was supposed to be fun was very amusing, really good. There's a lot to talk about this scene. So Amon begs for Egon's forgiveness,

falls to his knees right away. There's the shock, right? But also there is the contrition, saying to him, I coveted what you had. I judged you unsuited rightly. But he was like talking about it to Kristen Cole and his dumb hat

from the word ago. Like, it is I. Who is fluent in Valerian. Yeah, exactly. I've been to therapy. Exactly. Wait, boy, has he. Hair and all therapy, man.

I've been dream journaling. Yeah. My mom tried to kill me. Mom tried to kill me. I've gone through a lot. Fucked a hot mom. Sure did. While dreaming of fucking their actual mom.

We're gonna get married. Alice's face when he said Petroith and then Agon's face was just so good. I loved the scene. Egon is in real like eye for an eye vengeance mode, but he needs Baker. He needs allies. He needs support. He needs AIM, and he needs Vagar.

So he's like, maybe I'll think about forgiving you if you help me get these shitheels in line in Tumbleton and then put Renier's head on a spike. So this is a big show move. Yeah. This is not in the books. Now, we had been talking in the spoiler section a lot this season about how is the show going to pay off this mutual obsession that these characters have with each other if they don't interact. And here is the answer. The answer is they do interact in the show. We got this scene.

What happens after this? We don't know. you and Mitchell was talking in the inside of the episode about the kind of like clip the choice will he stay with Alice will he go with egg on so this is like new story to us we don't know right um the fact that because Alice is like uh-uh she's like you need to stay yeah you're dragon abandon you need to stay real shift from like maybe she left to protect you does dragon abandon him he can't go funny um there's certainly comedy high comedy from everyone in this moment certainly room to

introduce a scene like this because much about Egon and this stretch of the story is unknown. Where is he? Peaceed out, we don't know, and then we find out. So, like, there's room to play here. And I think, you know, as you talked about on Sunday on Talk to Thrones, not only is there room to play, it, these two character arcs and the entwinement on the show, like, we need, we need these character beats. I thought the scene was pretty good.

I really liked it. Pretty entertaining. I listened to JJ wrote in on the response to my betrothed moment. Jay just said, when Aeman called Alice my betroth, I imagine a sitcom-style smash cut to the poor nameless Barathean girl, not Maris, left all alone in Storms End since all the Barathean men are out, quote, fighting the, quote, dornish threat, heaving a heavy sigh. It would have been hysterical to get yet another Baratian mention if Agon had been like, but what about? But that would require Egon to have paid a lick of attention at any point. That would require that Barathy girl to have a name. Exactly.

Well, exactly. What about unnamed Barathean girl? I liked the contrast in disposition. Egan is like he's also seeing in Sunfire what the realm sees and what Reneira fears that people see, this sanctioning, right? He's really like newly confident, determined the way he says even like, we'll go under my banner. No room for any confusion anymore. I thought the setting choice to, not just Heron Hall, but like inside of Heron Hall, was really perfect because the Great Hall of Heron Hall, like where the Great Council was, you know, where all of this began with the Great Choosing was selecting Viseras over Renice. Perfect place for this exchange, but also just the fact that, even though we don't know exactly what choice Amund is going to make, this is also where Renera flew in on Syrax as Damon was amassing the Riverman Army and was like, put up or shut up time, buddy.

pledge your fealty or we have a problem and he gives everyone to Neil for her. Yeah. He swore to a swore to all his queen. Swear to me. What is that queen up to? Glad you asked. Not great stuff, I would say. Making a very public push compared to Agon's very private one, you know.

Did the Butterchurner witness this who can say? Did the goats witness it who can say? A lot of people for sure witness what Renira is about to do. There aren't goats. one goat and it's also Alice. I just got such a thrill out to sing the goat and the tapestry prop and House the Dragons Built. That was really a treat.

We're a while back in the middle of the season. Season 3, episode 4, asked Renera after Renera's confrontation with High Septan Balman, does it matter? Does it matter? But also, are we killing? That's right. We moved. Boy, life comes such a fast.

A little joke about killing the High Septon to like. Are we killing septans? Yeah. No, I would never. Apparently we are. Reneira has to now counter the egg on hype machine. The high septent is not only no more compelled than he was previously. He's like, I told you I needed a body and guess what I got one. My boy was back.

He's alive, imbecile princess. I think you may have six dragons, but I have a seven-faced god is a sick comeback. Might as well go out quipping. You know what I mean? No question. Get the bars out there while you can. harm me is to declare war upon the starry stop. Now, he told Reneira in the third episode, you would be wise to take me seriously. You would be wise to take the faith seriously.

Not only like the people need us, but don't make an enemy of the faith. And in addition to having that direct warning from this character who she is about to order Alan to stab in plain sight of all assembled, there's a lot of historic precedent, including her small son. I had a lot of like, oh my God, what is Geoffrey making of all of this pangs for this this sweet young boy. Show us your toebeats, John. Great ground, though, as we said. The history between, as we talked about earlier in the season,

like the faith in the Targaryens is quite fraught. And of all the Targs who had a rough go with it, uneasy detente. Quite. Guess you had trouble maintaining even that uneasy detent. Magar. Correct. The exact comp for Nira doesn't want,

Maker the cruel. They got I love to kill sentence. Boy, I just think also, like, Reneira being so focused, understandably, on what does the public think? What do they think of me? What do they think of Egon? But not worrying about, like, what are they going to think of me killing this guy? Well, that's because she has not updated her dragon math. And she says, I have six dragons. That's tough.

Babe. Tough. No. Okay. Very, very, very tough. Can I read this email from our listener, Addison, who gave us a real sort of, like, crunchy version of history here. I just got a kick out of reading this email. In 1170, King Henry II was annoyed at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett,

aka his old chess bestie, because he didn't love the overreach from the crown into the church. Thomas Beckett goes, Pope over the King, honey, I see your king and raise you a pope. Probably the wrong thing to say to the king. So King Henry II is like, Thomas Beckett needs to go to sleep like forever. And also he's back from exile on English soil, but he's in sanctuary in the cathedral, like whatever. Okay, actually King Henry the Second says this iconic line, quote, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? An incredible thing.

Four of his nights take that seriously, and maybe it was, sounding a bit like blood and cheese, and get into Canterbury Cathedral, and they try to drag Thomas out. They can't, so they murder him in the cathedral doing a big sacrilegious rut row. Everyone can read up on how all of that ended up unfolding. Sacrilegious rotros is really funny. This email's great. To quote one of the co-writers of the episode, T. McKell from Inside the episode. Killing the Highseptan is insane.

You know, she's killed the Pope. That's big sacrilegious rot-ro. You quoted earlier in the pod Allison's commentary on the state of inevitability, the morality, etc. When we think back to Renera's response to Allison, when Allison was like you will do things that your heart would have recoiled from. before you came to the throne, and Reneer said, I acknowledge the struggle. I dispute that I must become what I am not.

And Allison gave her the old time, we'll tell. And now it has. Time has told. Reneer was just like, you know, how can Allison not be on our minds? Not only because of that, but this slaying of the high sceptin takes place in front of their,

one of their favorite spaces. The candle table at the sept. Their besty candle ring. This place the first thing, Allison and Reneira multiple times across the years and then, you know, briefly and more comically for Reneira and Damon. Okay, it might be really hard. Maybe it's too late that it's too late Reneer moment. Can we find a path to peace being like befouled with the blood of the faith here? Can I ask you a season long question?

Please. Like how to, on the sort of like subtlety of the writing front. Yeah. I think Allison's saying like five different times like, hey, Renner and you. You're going to do bad things now that you're the monarch. And Reneer being like, no, no, no, oops, I did. Is like. Sure.

Yeah. Not the deftest weave inside of this season, I would say. Still below Raina saying, uh, I wanted a dragon my whole life and now I have one and it's really rough. Reneira's ready. Reneer doesn't need another pass. Ready to make a speech to the masses, shows the prophecy with everyone. And I will say I was struck by a couple of things. Visual contrast to where we found Reneira in the same location earlier in the season.

Ruta Bega, Ruta Bega, Rudebaga. Alms for the small folk. The, I think it was Claire. We talked about this on that pod, but Claire talking about the kind of saintly imagery, the way they lit Reneera in that scene, right? Yeah. Yeah. And this is obviously a drastic.

different despotic militant display. Upshot sort of thing. Yeah. Sharing the prophecy, I don't have anything new to say here about the choice. Like, I'm on the record. It doesn't track for me. That's okay. It does track inside of the show. There's a difference to me between inside of the show and across the canon. Well, it had been like a fun, mysterious puzzle for us to unnot and now it's just sort of like, okay, never mind. Yes. But we can talk a little bit more in the spoiler section. We got some listener thoughts on this. But, um...

I do like this idea of like, and Connell said this, and certainly the show depicts this, that everyone watching her is like, what is this crazy lady talking about, right? No question. Nobody watching this is like, this is normal and good. I shall remember this and tell all of the septans when they're writing down the history of this. They're just to be like, that lady was a rambling, and I had no idea what she was talking about. And then she switched to a different language altogether. I think this lady was rambling.

I had no idea what she was talking about. and she switched to a different language altogether is exactly the kind of thing that is commemorated in fire and blood. Honestly, exactly the kind of thing that is commended. So this is my, my personal, like, I just, here we are. Inside of the show, I think that Renira making this choice

makes sense. Does it align with fire and blood and this not making the history? Does it totally track with some stuff in Game of Thrones proper? No. It is what it is. No.

I do like thinking of the Night King being like Dragonfire? Eh? Eh? But of course, for the character, there's a lot to talk about here in terms of just like what is driving Reneer on and what is on display.

So invoking the doom, first of all, she's like, long before my dad, yeah, we've talked a lot about Fasaris. Long before my daddy chose me, I was ordained. Right. Let me tell you about the doom.

And they're like, what? They're not interesting. You know what's interesting on a house that dragons built that we got, obviously they did different takes. There was a lot, like the heckling and booing. But that was not what made the, there was more of a just sort of like bemused silent reception,

which is effective and tells us something in a different way. But taking from the doom of Valeria the wrong lesson, like we were the only dragon riding family to escape because we're chosen and not the, oh boy, wait, are we bringing about another doom? Tracks for where we find are near now, certainly. Invoking an ancient and sinister darkness. The look, Chris was very excited by this, the look that passed between. You know, we get a lands of always winter, the far north. But look that passes between Torne Manderly and Orwell.

And Torren Manderly. Of the north. Who's from the north? And is like, what the hell? Of the north and a learned maistre of the citadel. What are you talking about? Well, I mean, maybe. Or they're like, should we talk about this?

But either way, they're tracking something specific that other people are not. Possibly. But I read that as just sort of like. Linney. This lady is crazy. I did hear your, you like, you like, love to. say cuckoo bananas, which is, I could, like, hear you in my head saying cuckoo bananas. Watch this is just a very fun experience.

It was like you were there with me. And the thing about Reneira, the thing that makes this scene so good. Yeah. Because Runeira thinks she's killing it. Crushing it. She's like, I do. I light the way. That is only dragon fire.

Okay, so here's a question. And this was, I was too hung up of my bugaboo to, like, focus on this the first time around. but this was something I was thinking about a lot, prepping from the deep dive. Reneira is very high tower focused, and to an extent that makes sense. But here's the thing. While Team Green is high tower fueled and high tower coded,

the actual challengers for the throne are Dragon Riders. Yeah, but they're Targ Towers. They're Tartor. But if Egonne hears about this, he can just say, I also am a Targaryen dragonrider, so I can uphold that prophecy. He's not going to say that because he's going to be like,

Because how he's going to hear about is this. Your sister made the most cuckoo bananas. And no one's going to share any words of substance about what she said ever again. If you say so. She's cooked. Was Taiwan on your mind? You know, the old any man who needs to say I am king when Reneer was like, Reneer was the chosen and then switching to High Valerian for I'm the prince that was promised.

Now, a lot of people fall into the any man who needs to say I'm king is no king camp. But really palpable here with Reneer of certainly. Joff, as you notice, seems just, you know, really taking it all in. He's like, can I go back to sleep? Really taking it all in. I was like, I was loving those naps as you just calmly and quietly sat by my side. Not saying that you were Reneer of the chosen. Masaria watching her.

Yes. We'll talk about that in the spoiler section. This is like a book change that I think a lot of us who are book readers are drawing the same conclusion from. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And the assembled. You think a little bit of the Jora, you know, they don't care what games the High Lords play from the crowd there?

Or you think they do care and they just... They're like, less of this, more Rudebagoes. I mean, yeah. I miss the Rudebagoes is what they said. Well, the Rudebagoes in Tumbleton are about to be on fire because the battle is going to... Ooh, a nice chart of Rudebago. Yeah, that sounds delicious, actually. Prophecy talk from Minera

Intercut with the scenes of mortal men Readying for War Very effective in terms of the editing of that sequence gave me a little bit of a Battle of Winterfall Long Night vibe but like inverted in the sense that we see all of the townspeople who are imperiled but like

In the north in season 8 of Thrones there's such a desperate effort to protect them And here it's all like What are we willing to do to them or who could be a pawn? Oh you mean when they huddled them down into the Winterfeld Crips. It was always going to be fine. Nobody had ever mentioned that the Night King

raised the dead. So it was always going to be fine. It was, you know, I was, so, thank you for mentioning that because I was... So I was going to sleep and night, I think about Peter Dinklage, trying to explain my Tyrion, one of the smartest characters in the show. Like, let's sit by the graves, by the tombs.

I, I am glad you said that because I was like trying to gird myself to come in today and say, I'm going to stop bitching about how it doesn't totally make sense that Reneer would just tweet out the prophecy. And then I remembered that it's been seven years since John didn't pet ghost goodbye, and I've not stopped talking about it once, and I won't.

Sorry! All right, Damon and his lieutenants, they plan their approach. Some talk about main gates, post, and gates, etc. Here's the thing. There's just really one, like, thing to focus on for everyone, and it's this. Take every care to preserve the town, and it's people. the realm is watching the Queen's Moral standing. Must remain absolute.

Right, row. Black Allie responds to this before we see Roddy the Ruin happily drive his axe into a young boy's face, before Damon reluctantly but ultimately Dracarus is a gate, the gate where a couple kids still stand. Black Alley says to this sounds boring. And this is really a deliberate choice of this episode made. We were talking about Reneira's descent. where we find Damon, the entire team black faction,

I mean, Alan stabs the High Septin, Roddy, a character who are like, Rattie, everyone, cool, fuck, yeah, oh, Black, Allie, awesome. They're happy to murder legions of innocents. Happy to. So this is a weaponizing of our affection

for these groups of characters. Can I, yeah, we got this really great email from our listener, Simon, about sort of the way, an interesting defense of not giving us more Roddy the Ruin this season, right? Let's hear it. Simon says, A Song of Ice Empire readers and Game of Thrones watchers are primed to sympathize with the North

due to our narrative focus on the Starks in the main series. And so this northern dude who sounds like the Great John is going to be inherently sympathetic. However, this narrative... Would we say that the Great John is inherently sympathetic? However... Your meat is bloody tough. This narrative camera can often obscure the backwardness and cruelty and, inherent to the North, the right of the first night, the bleak generational culling of the

northern winter, and the relative weakness of andal institutions like the Maestors or the Faith. We don't really think about these things because we think about the Honorable Ned, who grew up in the veil, or the dashing Rob, who is arguably more a tully than a Stark. So to see Roddy the Ruin finally given a good amount of screen time in the finale and to find out that his characterization is less the charismatic soldier and more a caricature of bloodlust, and a borderline suicidal warrior mentality really works to further problematize the black side of the battle. Throughout the episode, almost all of his dialogue boils down to one of two categories. Yay, I can't wait to die or insert homophobic battle talk here. The fact that we are primed to like Roddy because he's northern,

only to see him be much more unsavory than we're expecting, really works for this reason. He is not Ned. He's not even the Great John. Honestly, he seemed more like Victorian to me than anyone else, a loony Viking whose sincerious ambition is just to go to Valhalla. And it doesn't matter how many kids he acts in the face to get there. I think it's no accident that he exchanges words with Kristen at the pre-butcher's ball parlay in season through episode six. Roddy says, what better way to die than with a blade in hand to another knight who is on a quest of suicidal nihilism, envisioning his own glorious death in battle. In Tumbledon, we get to see Roddy live Kristen's fantasy, and it is ugly to the core. I will push back on one thing in the

email, which is just that I think a lot of the end of Game of Thrones hinges on a lot of the northern. Not even the end. I mean, the Bolton's, the umbers, the Carstarks, there's a ton of houses in the north that we actively consider villains. So I don't think we have a the North broadly is like holy. I, I, the start, the fact that the Winter Wolves came to us through Craig and Stark as his graybeards, the stark halo and gleam over them, I think. I I don't disagree. They're holding the winter. They're holding the Stark sigil.

Like, of course, there are northern houses that we despise. Yeah. But I think in a sort of broader the North remembers sort of sense, especially people who do not like go into granular detail with the text and are just sort of like, who are the good guys in this world? Yeah, for sure. No question. I think the larger point stands. And to see them wearing clothing.

You know, we joked about how like the fashions haven't changed in like. for many years, the North are wearing the exact same thing. But he's just like wearing, looks like an old version of John Snow. Yeah, I mean, no, I said the same thing before you read the email. Like, I feel that too, and I think it's a very deliberate and effective choice on the show's part. I think there's a little bit of northern nuance inside of it that's very core to the canon. But it was interesting to think back to like the Roddy Kristen moment in the email,

or the point in the email, like, we were talking about that in the butcher's ball scene as like, why is Roddy's positioning and framing of can't wait to die, something we welcome and embrace and Kristen's isn't, and we had a great conversation about that. And then we're like made complicit for having felt that way because of our relationship to that really cool fucking moment in the book or our expectation of what somebody who's holding a stark dire wolf on a shield. I mean, like, we'll do. I don't know actually the finer details of the winter wolves and like if it's a conscription

or if it's just sort of like of your, you're of a certain age or whatever you have to go. But it seems like the winter wolf mentality is like everyone agrees. Yes. We've come to die with the dragon queen. Kristen's bad and we're like. That point still holds. Yes. We're going to go home, right?

The stores are limited. It's winter. Let's let the young people live and eat and feed and we'll go actually. Leave all comb to die for the drying queen. Kristen's like. I made this choice for everyone. Yeah. Because of my own ego and need for glory.

One more thing I want to say about Damon giving his speech on, you know, He rives on Karexies, but then he hops over to a horse instead. Yes. Our listener, Olivia, sent him this photo of just sort of this Damon on his horse back with Karaxies right over his shoulder. And his horse has armor with, like, spikes in the same place that Karaxie's spikes are. And Olivia wrote Kraxie's cosplay for Damon's horse, cute. And I think that's really fun. Damon, you know, the original dragon helm that we saw him in when he was Jousting Gawain, who either

doesn't remember that they've met, or thinks Damon more likely doesn't remember that they've met. He's always been very dragon forward in the armor. So I like that he's extending it to his horse there. Gives a pep talk from that horse. The chanting begins. The drums are beating. Roddy leans the wolves for leads the wolves forward, the arrows. The line is there, but then one hits a man.

He's like, rah! They charge. That's how it always happens. Burning oil, be damned. They'll plow ahead no matter what. The kids are pissing themselves and puking on the battlements. Roddy's like axe to the face. You tapped him on the calf.

Here it goes. And Damon is receiving some updates as well. He gets an update that Olf is not with his dragon, worrying. Then he sees Vermithor fly overhead and he's like, Hugh is supposed to be at the dragon pit. Later we'll see Hugh running into the town, screaming for his soon-to-be-dead wife cat. And Damon's like, what's up with that?

So he's clocking a lot, almost like they should have anticipated that Hugh would not want to stay in Kingslanding when the city where they know his wife to be is under attack. A bit of a mistread there. And then the Greens move the cluster of children in front of the gate that Damon is marching Karexies toward. And he tells them to move, and most of them do. But a couple stay. And he's like, I don't want to do it, but I kind of have to do Tricarus.

Definitely killed those kids. I think they ran. I mean, they ran. I think they got away. So they ran. They ran. They're definitely dead. I mean, they ran.

Maybe the flame got him anyway. They ran, they died. Regardless, before they ran and tried to escape, he said Tricarus with two kids standing there and that. his fucking yikes stuff from our guy, Damon, Tar, Garian. Keraxi's bursting his head through the chargwood, though, was awesome. It looks great.

No, no, it's for Karexies. He's crushing it. Orman, as the search for Ulf is continuing, and he's shouting for Ulf through the streets, Messenger comes to tell him, hey, the war has started. Norman's like, yeah, no shit. And he's like, well, it started

because Damon rejected the peace terms from Gawain and Darren. And Norman's like, excuse me? The what now? A who? A who? Uh what?

Uh-huh. And he looks so genuinely astonished and crushed to have been betrayed by Darren and Goaim. Yeah. Brutal stuff. Brutal stuff. His hubris, right, believing that they were really with him, loyal to him, that Ulf would be loyal to him, etc. And then it's time to find Ulf, Joe. And we get a really kind of dramatic, like a little bit of a slow-mo kind of switch into the scene.

And then see that Ulf is passed out, hammered. drunk, passed out in the privy, on the shitter, hanging dung, dick visible. I was going to pick this clip and then I was like, you can see his dick, so I probably shouldn't. Snoozing after dropping a deuce. Now, we had theorized earlier in the season when this like Ormond smell thing was introduced, is a dragon going to take a shit? And is that going to be how Ormond? Because we knew Ormond was going to die at Tumbleton.

So we've been theorizing. Is a dragon deuce going to be what? It's a dragon rider deuce? I mean, what's the difference? really. Yeah. A lot of... Half tonnage.

Yes. Yeah. But poetically, what's the difference, really? So Ormond unravels. Do you want to tell the people that you told me I had to change my slack icon to the Dragon Dumb? Was it ever... Do we get a lot of confirmation?

That was in fact. The Vagar deuce. Okay. Well, the mystery remains. Not everything was answered inside of season three. Dune back in in season four. I mean, where is Vagar? Is actually still a question.

So we'll file this. trail of shit until we find out. Two season long limitations for Ormond. Killies heel times two. That smells and a short fuse.

We saw the tantrum. Didn't like what was in the scroll, the slicing of the table with his Valerian steel sword. And an intolerance sweeping for ignorant people. It's like nine different things. How many heels does Ormond have really?

Nine heels and they're all. All the killies. He beats Ulf in the street in a way that reminded us of something that we had seen very recently. Carlos, can we watch this? You yourself should not understand. Set foot in the city again and I'll protect your eyes. Worthless. All you had to do was sit on your fucking dragon.

They're inside the walls. You useless. Baseborn. Baseborn. Useless. So making him feel like a tool upon lesser justice, Damon had, just as obviously Runeer had,

not in the same physical parallel as Damon, but this is how Ormond recruited and courted off, right? How dare he embarrassed you in the street? This is how they make you feel how they treat you, and then just like... Because it's not bad. Caught a whiff. The smell bad.

He forgot. He kind of forgot. kind of forgot about his messaging. Unbelievable. Small row bad. You know, poetic to be undone by the thing that his foe does that he thinks he knows better than, like, there's a lot of that in general because he also obviously makes the mistake even after that of ordering Ulf, okay, go do the thing that you're supposed to do,

thinking that he'll just listen to him after he treated him this way, Reneer is the one who gave the unknown people in the realm. She doesn't know Alf. She doesn't know any of these people. She gave them weapons of mass destruction. And we spent a lot of time after the sewing episode talking about that, right? To give that kind of power, dragon power to people you don't know. And whose trust you then don't work to earn and keep is worrying.

Orman didn't give all for dragon, but he commits a version of that sin by thinking. Do you think there should have been like a verbal test before they did the sewing? They just kind of hurted everyone on that, whatever that word was we learned about what that thing was that they were on. Would it be like with like a driver's license, you can like skip? Because you can only get so many wrong. You know, you can like skip a couple. You skip on the driver's test?

You technically can. If you don't know the answer, you can. When you get it renewed, I don't know if you can do that the first time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You have to read, like, read the rule book again. Yeah, of course.

And you're like, it's foggy at night. Yeah, we don't know how to drive. It's fine. Don't worry. What direction should your wheels be? turn if you're parallel parking on a hill. Oh, God. Great stuff.

Towards the curb. Okay. I loved what James Norton said on inside the episode about this, all because one man felt embarrassed, the power of shame. It's amazing. You can have all these huge big armies, big set pieces, and the thing which really dictates the story is something so small and domestic. I heard that, and I was like, I'm going to really miss James Norton's Ormond,

but also this guy gets it. Like, this is what we talk about all the time, where you need that human heart, the consequence of human decisions. And it's a great battle in a big spectacle. It's really cool and fun. And Tumbledton, I thought, was pretty cool and fun. You need character moments like that, and this had it. Well, and also we've talked about sort of the allocation of story resources this season and just sort of like, as we bemoan a lack of it for Allen or certain other characters, we could say that, Ulf, this was carefully plotted.

And they knew that. They knew they were ending with Tumbledin. And they knew that Ulf was going to have to betray Team Black. You know, the book readers knew it. You know, and so they had to sort of plot that course, and they did. Yes. They had time, and they had a great performer in Tom Bennett, and they just, like, really made all of that work. And so when he's like, when he's like, fuck both of you.

Yep. Which is a slight book change. It works. I just want to shout out an actor who's in this episode. Yeah. When Oof walks up to Silver Wing and he's like sort of the emissary from Damon, and he's like, oh, you know, there you are. And then they kill him. Throat, yeah.

That's Darren Evans, who I really like, who was in, who was a series regular on the show, Galavant, and my Man Fet Diary. And he's just like a really distinctive looking, like distinctive sounding guy. And when he first showed up as like a few scenes earlier in the episode, I was like, oh my God, he's going to be on House of the Dragon. He said goodbye quickly. I didn't make it. I was really excited. You allowed yourself at Tumbleton to say, oh, my God, this guy's an House of the Dragon. He would be a great, like, really fun guy to have on House of the Dragon.

and I'm sorry for you. I mourn for you. Thank you. I mourn for the legions of dead. He just like such a distinctive voice. I was like, oh my God. And then he was just, he was gone. Dead.

Dead. A lot of people are about to be dead because Ulf is heading for Silverwing. And before we get the burning on, on all sides, we get a little Roxton demon moment. Kinslayer, babe killer, heathen. Now, I would say bit rich for the guy who's helping Ormond populate the battlements with children. Rich words from the mouth of a high time. You love that one. It's great. It always lands. A horse. Bullet and cheese, you know. Still hanging over Damon. As it should. As it should. Listen, does it make sense to me that Bull John Roxon was handling Damon Targary? Not necessarily. However, I think that it is nerd cocaine to see Orphan Maker and Dark Sister in a fight.

And then to know, because Ormond's also here, the vigilance is there, which he'll use to battle Roddy, cut off an arm, three Valerian Steel swords in Tumbling and two of them facing off here with Damon. When have we seen? Fun, fun, fun, fun. Yeah, and that's what Tee and the behind the scenes was like, you know, we knew that if we brought Damon, because Damon's not at Tumbledton in the book. Right. And so they're like, if we bring Damon and Tumbledon, that means Dark Sisters coming to Tumbledon, that means there's Valerian Steel swords on either side. When we had Longclaw and Heartsbane, both the. And so they're like, if we bring Damon and Tumleton, that means there's Valerian Steel swords on either side of the ball. When we had Longclaw and Hart's been, both the. And so. And we had Longclaw, the Battle of Winterfell. They weren't fucking fighting each other. They weren't clashing. No. Isn't so exciting? When have we seen Valerian steel swords fight before? Hobbits and Dragons and Demol.com if we forgot something.

You think Amen is going to give the Casbah dagger and Blackfire back to Agon? That would be interesting. Yeah, we haven't, right? Nope. So. Okay. Gawain, meanwhile, frantically searching for Darren finds him in the sept where he is attempting to unchain to Sarian. We both love this scene.

and Joe, tell me. And please refer to me as my boy, as you tell me, why you love to this. I don't know. I just thought, you know, there are a lot of people who are expecting Darren to get involved in the Battle of Tammleton and we're expecting Tassarian to sort of, yeah, get involved in the fighting. I would have liked to see Tassarian. I'm glad that Tassarian in some ways because this was, like you said, like Damon's not here and the changes, but I was expecting to you see Tissarion in the field by this point, I don't mind saying. I think they didn't want to make Darren someone who killed a bunch of people. Sure.

This is something they seem to be wanting to avoid. But in the book, Darren has already done and will, you know, do some fighting. And they might just change that entirely. I don't know. I mean, for all we know. He was trying to get out there. For all we know. For all we know, Darren's dead on the show.

We don't know because, like, that's, I mean, I don't think so. Nobody. Nobody, no crime. Nobody. Gawain is very ash covered and worried at the end as he's like, Darren, where are you? And he kind of pushed him out of the way of the flame. Nobody. Okay.

Other than... Let's not keep up the farce. Other than Stanis. Darren Long and the dying. I did love in this Gawain-Daron moment, Kristen's presence for Gawain still, you know? I fought beside other brave men who believed the death was the only path to glory. Do not die for Ormond's vanity. My boy.

My boy. My boy. He's more of a father to Darren than Orman certainly are fucking Vserris. And this is the real family here. We love these two. Hope they're both thriving and fine. Things are going to go well for everyone. Ultimately, we're spared having to find out what would happen in the you'll have to come

through me, stay back moment because Tessarian's like, something's happening and they run out to look and they see Wolf and Silver Wing have entered the fight. Ulf flying overhead to the whoops and cheers from Team Black below only for him to turn Silver Wing around and burn that army, shout in Jerkaris, great reaction shots, you know, Corliss's horror down below. But then, of course, he immediately turns on Team Green too because he was not actually loyal to Team Green.

He just wanted some stuff. Ormond promised it. Then he shamed him and took it away. So who's he actually loyal to himself? He's not Team Black. He's not Team Green. He's Team Ulf. We're cutting to the Roddy pursuit of Ormond in that fight,

the smashing of the shield into the teeth. Ormond severs Roddy's arm. I know, it's sad, but he's dead and burnt, so it doesn't matter now. It would have mattered. He would have gotten some Westerosi veneers, I think, if he had survived this. The blood spurting into Orman's mouth and him gagging and then the knife up the ass, just the treasure trove in this exchange. And then they're both burned alive by Ulf who's like, fuck you, burn some great,

I guess, vision. How did Ulf see Ormond exactly? Very specific shiny armor. Yeah, the precision of the dragon, I guess, at the end of the day. The fact that Silver Wing, we got several emails about this, but the fact that Silver Wing, Drakars is both sides of the fight is very sheepstealer in the Battle of the Gullet, right?

This time on purpose from the rider, but like very much like a dragon shows up and just torches both sides of the fight. And also we got an interesting email comparing Ulf to sheepstealer. Or just sort of like this question of like, you know, the illusion that we control, The notion that we control dragons is an illusion.

Yes. The notion that we control dragon riders is an illusion, right, at the end of the day. Sure. What's the difference in terms of, like, a dragon and a dragon rider in terms of like that idea of control? Well, that's going to have to be on their minds after this. I'd be worried. I googled this. We could get a Valerian Steel Sword duel in a Night of the Seven Kingdom's flashback.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. So we could. Oh, we could for sure. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other than that, I think that'll happen.

I'm just, I'm unclear at this point how many flashbacks we're going to get. But other than that, I think this is it. The fog of Dragon War Joe. I mean, how do you feel? I actually haven't seen as much pushback on this as I thought I would. About Damon? About John Rockston just like handing Damon his ass. I mean, John is a very capable warrior and he has a Valerian steel sword and Damon is, you know.

Is Dame, Diamon Targaryen? I think Damon should have acquitted himself a little bit better in this fight. Just a bitch. Yeah, I do. I did get a kick out of Matt Smith as always and House the Dragon's Belt being like, I wanted it to be a bar bra. Yeah. And he's like, I hate the small council scene. That was so funny.

And then he's like, I get, I mean, I get why we need them. I hate them. That was hysterical. It was the field of fire writ small, grandmeister munkin wrote. We love the field of fire. I mean, it was a horror show, but the decimation and destruction. I'll tell you that much right now. No winners, as usual in Dragon War, decimation destruction.

Damon spared from, I guess, being murdered by John Roxton by the cascading wood. But as we talked about earlier, then he has to look out at the hellscape around them that he has helped to usher in. Yeah, we talked about this. Any other further thoughts on Damon's? No, but this. So Corlis shows up, right, and says, Ulf's turn, the town is lost, we are leaving a moment that I really, really love, right? And our listener Leanne wrote in to say,

I found it interesting in this episode that it was Corliss who comes to Damon after the battle becomes unmanageable. And vices they leave, and Damon does, having had his bell properly wrung. In this season one episode where Corliss and Damon are fighting the triarchy and reach a point where the battle becomes unmanageable, it is also Corliss, who goes to Damon and suggests they bail or accept help from Vassaris. But that time, Damon doubled down and took on the army himself. Is this girl? is he just 50 and the knees aren't as sexually sound as they once were?

He's old. He doesn't have the constitutional integrity to be covered in fucking gray scale blood at this point. You need to be young for that shit, man. Oh, God. What if we get another, like a return to the short hair from Damon after this, though? That would be great. I'm sure Matt Smith would enjoy shorter hours in the wig chair, probably. You think?

What does he hate more of the wig chair or the small council seat? It's so funny. We get a very brief shot of Silverwing, flying, pursued by Kyraxis, who is shooting flame. Toast in her bum, yeah. And then Verme, the bronze fury, the mount of the old king himself, now paired with Hugh Hammer. But he was not, he was cradling his dead wife cat, very sad. So, who do you think? Bermithors alone flying after Keraxies and Silver Wing?

Dda, da, da, who do you think? killed Cat. So there's a very quick flash of soldiers from both sides going into Kat's house, which to me was kind of like effective to say it doesn't matter. Everyone is a villain. Everyone is to blame.

There are no winners, only losers. I think there were a lot of winter wolf bodies around cat the end of the day. Do you want to be invoking the bells? I would say no. But I think the Rook's dress comp is a more favorable one. But in

one of the harrowing things that happens, of course, in the bells, among the many, we start to see soldiers from the north, like, raping, pillaging, killing. And John's like, no. Exactly. Exactly. And we're like, no. No.

I don't want it. Charter ruins everywhere. But if it was the winter wolves, that would be bad. What killed cat? how's you hammer going to feel about that? Well, I think he's just going to feel very bad about all of this in general. But again, blame all around. So.

He had one desire this season and it was to, well, get a house, but also get cat out of Tumleton. That's all. Allison had one job this season and it was to get Helena out of Kingslanding. On that front. Yep. Reneer arrives back at the Red Keep and Alinda's like, I've got some news. Ellen is like, it's bad news all the way down today. Jesus Christ.

It's been a busy bad day. Our listener Megan said, I can't believe we lost Baylor-Briggs beer, Humphrey, Beesbury, Jace the Face, and Helena within the last six months. Big Zad. Jace the face is really something, my God. The Great Sept, different, of course, from the scept of Baylor, but the Great Sapt visible as we pan out quite deliberately, certainly, from this window. It makes us think of our guy, Taman. Tough one. Kingslanding. Allison's out in the wild as the butterflies rise around her.

Beware them. Beware the butterflies. And also the beautiful metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly, et cetera. I mean, absolutely beautiful, like in terms of the tapestry, like the image, the sort of butterfly-esque image of Helena falling, you know. Really great. And the kind of the silver of her tears, the silver of her hair. Yeah, and the gown. Yeah, the scale.

It's very like wingy. Yeah, it did. Is that a word wingy? Wingy. Bewinged? You once said bewinged about someone wearing a wig, so. Bewinged, why not? The scale, like this comparative size of Helena compared to the red keep, but what that kind

of signals does about the magnitude of this moment and this death. Helena doesn't really care for a scale in her tapestry. No. So Renarapix set up sees that, then goes just one pain back. I would have looked at it all. I would have rolled it up and taken it with me and we would have poured over every day. And I would have been like, more red meat for red eats. Get on the case.

That is a vampire listat reference and an excellent one. Incredible. Reddite. Oh, my God. I missed that. That was so good. So Reneira sees herself on the Iron Throne. Bleeding.

Bleeding. Caught and judged by the throne. I think that seems in play. Fire. Fire and blood all around. Dragons roaring. Hands reaching. Hands.

Cut hands. Bloody like bloody fingers to cut hands. The, yes, the flame, the dragon claw, the human hands, the kind of like blood magic, blood mage element of maybe the unholy

to go back to the doom of Lerre. Like, what is this power? Yeah, the dragon orgy, never a bad time to think of the tapestries. There's that. But the, Overall, you know, not only the illusion of control, but the tie between this dance and the doom and the hearkening of a new doom series, long warning, rendered in creative artistic form here. We had a different interpretation of this than Chris Ryan. That was a fun discussion.

Are you still in the same spot? Yeah, I think we're right. Me too. Yeah, same. But a lot of the commenters agree with Chris. I think, I really liked the read from Chris. I thought it was really interesting. The idea that, I'm paraphrase, using his check it out on Talk of the Thrones or on the else of our Instagram. The idea that Reneira is like, I'm seeing what I want to see. That actually tracks to me that Reneer is. She's like, yep, be on the throne.

Yes. I think we had a related but the kind of opposite read, which is, I see something here that should be, I, the person who sought a dreamer to sanction my mission, now see something, I would say clearly, undeniably, deeply worrying and concerning. And I'm past the point. None of my business. Of allowing myself to care. To close the window on this conversation.

As Stanis Barathean once said, we marched toward victory, we marched toward defeat, but we go forward only forward. Yeah. My favorite detail on the extended look of the tapestry, by the way, from House of the Dragons built,

was in the Blood and Cheese Stretch, the Rat, holding the knife. Yeah, the Rat chef. Great stuff. Danny's on there, too, naked with her dragons. And we know that Helena was in that... She was dreaming.

Keeping. Yeah. Dream peepin. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Dragon Meth update. Let's do it. Team cream.

Vagar. Still in the Riverlands specific location unknown. Not with Eamond. Sunfire. Frankly, thriving. Back with his rider, Agon. In the Riverlands currently in Harenhall. But Agan's got...

plant to head elsewhere and Sunfire is... Oh, Tassarine. I was going to say, Sunfire is the object of prophetic wonder. So that's cool for Sunfire. Tessarian, chained, still in Tumpleton and the Sept. Team Black. Carraxies, roast and some tush. Did great.

But with Damon and Templeton. Cyrax, in Kings Landing with Renier, still we have to imagine injured. Probably, yeah. Angry writers is what you've written in the notes here. Verma Thor with a despondent Hugh in Tumbledon. Yep. See Smoke in Kings Landing with Adam, a tiny bit injured. Moon Dancer in Kings Landing with Bela.

Yes. And Teraxes with Jaff still too small to fight. And Taraxes has never been part of their six counts. So they're down, Teraxies technically, but they're down to five. I would say they're basically down to two. They're down to five, and three of those five are really pissed off. Yeah. So it's really.

Not good. Croxes and Syrax. And now that, and again, this is a book change, but if they can find Vagar, the idea that Sunfire and Vagar are together, it's not great. That would be a formidable pairing. Free agent. Silver Wing. Free agent is definitely on a, yeah, the Silver Wing is a solo team.

This is a team of one. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, not a free agent. That's a fully flipped off of Team Black, but not Team Team Team Team Green. Team Off. Team Off, the Dragon Lord. Undeclared or unpaired. Team White. is what old is.

Okay. Sheep Steeler. Separated from Raina, healing. But in the story still. Could be Team Black if they had managed that better. Exactly. Dreamfire? Devastatingly now without a rider.

Helena is Dreamfire's rider and Helena just died. So Dreamfire does not have a rider and Dreamfire is in Kings Landing. Yeah. Cannibal and Grigos, Wild Dragons still unclaimed. Odenaboot. And then RIP, ARAX, Mellys, Burmacks. Sad. Spoilers.

Yeah. If you don't want to hear anything about book events that we think might be relevant in season four. Thank you for listening this season. We've cherished our time with you and we'll see you for a night of the Seven Kingdom season two and hopefully many things between now and then. If you want the book, spoilers, spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers and spoilers.

Stay tuned. What do we got? Where are the little blonde babies? Many emails. Many emailers are asking. Where are the little blonde babies? Many emails are asking, where are the little blonde babies?

Do you think they're going to come back in the final season? I'm, yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it's, I don't know, it would be weird to be like Vesaris got snatched and still try to make room for that. Agon has to be back. Okay. Really, Veserah should not be back.

Agon, the Conqueror, babe. Exactly. Third of his name. They also have to kill StormCloud, who is in the show and we have met. He was so tiny. But we saw Baby Little Storm Cloud with Egon last season. I think that we need to see Egon crown crowned at the end of the show. So he has to come back.

Vesaris, I guess they'll just mention got kidnapped or something. I don't know. That's a – I don't know, honestly. But Egan has to come back and then say my dragon died and my brother got kidnapped, I guess. He's like two. I mean, he really needs to be there to watch what happens on Dragonstone. He really does. For the history of Westeros, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, maybe not for the show, but for the history of Westeros. Speaking of Dragonstone. We've been talking about this all season, but now, given what we witnessed with Egon and Amund in this episode, where are you on the question of whether the, Agon and Sunfire, like, lying in wait for Renera on Dragonstone is going to be a kind of, like, if the show is going to make that a twist and a surprise. You know who I want to pull this off? Laris. Because you were like Laris going back to Kingslandie.

And it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. But my guy, he of the weaving deceptions, I would love for him to somehow orchestrate that. That would be fun. I miss those two together. I listed Cameron. In the Agonne Amon scene,

Agan, when he's threatening, Amon should have Sunfire, and Eam and alive. Just think about Reneira. Oh, yeah, for sure. And then Megan said in an interview with Fia Sabin, she pointed out that the dragon fire around Reneira that I took as foretells her eventual end on Dragonstone by Sunfire and Agon.

I didn't notice the fire the first time in the watch, but would make sense. So maybe part of that sort of vision of Reneer on the throne is her ultimate end as well. Like, I mean, it's not a golden dragon. And there's dragon face, there's fire, there's the hand, you know, like, is that depicting her death behind the throne sort of thing. Could be. A lot of tragedy ahead. What else? Eamon's choice.

So he has to be at Harren Hall for God's eye with Damon. But when Damon shows up in the book, he's got to wait 13 days for Aman to come. There's certain, there is, I think it's entirely possible that Damon's just like, I'm staying with Alice here. And I think it's possible that he goes with Egonne. and then has to come back maybe because they have set up the phrase retaking Harenhal. So if Alice, if he hears that Alice is in peril, would he go back to be with her? I would like it. Fine.

I would not like Alice to be taken by the fucking phrase. Canonically, Sabbath of the phrase should be hiding in the privy, cowering, and terror. So she should not get the jump on Alice even for a second, but more like if Amon thinks that she's in any danger. Um, Ulf. Okay, I have a question about this. So, they kind of did the second Tumbledon thing with Ulf.

Is it like one point, Tumbledton 1.5? Yeah. So, and there are, I mean, I guess like, this could be on the Darren front of question two in terms of just, where's Darren? Like, what happened exactly in some mystery there

as a possibility? But like, sleeps through. It's just wasted and sleeps through second Tumbledon. Are they going to do that again? Or do they do it here instead, and they'll do something else in Second Tumbledon? Well, the question, so some people are like... Are we not getting Second Tumleton? Is Tumbledin just Ash at this point?

But I think you need Hugh and Ulf. Yes. And the chaltrops, everything. So I think there has to be enough Tumbledin left standing that they still are, like, posted up there. You know what I mean? Storming of the Pit, there aren't as many dragons to do the exact, like, carnage scale of the fire and blood attacks, though obviously that would be a seminal moment. And when you pair like Syrax and everything, even though that's not under the dome, but the proximity,

the sheer volume of dragon death at Second Tumbledin is one of the most significant moments in the dance. It just has to happen. It has to. So I was a little bit like, oh, interesting to have that old thing happen here. But maybe he'll just be up to some other shit. Or this is just the thing he does. Sleeps through battle because he's drunk. On the hue front. Yes. So we've been like, we were trying to figure out how they would get to, to like Hugh turning and the answer was they didn't. So fine. But do you think that like if Vermithor, who as we talked about on Talk the Thrones is like paired with Silver Wing?

Yes. If Vermethore attacks Keraxies for attacking Silver Wing, even if Hugh is not on Vermethor. Yeah. Will it matter and will just Hugh be accused of being a traitor anyway because Vermithor is there and somehow involved in, you know, the fight? I think that all of those, there will be the suspicion cast on all the seeds because of what, what else has done. So Hugh will fall under suspicion. Even Adam will fall under suspicion. For sure. Just looking beautiful at home. That's always. But I think that it would, to me, it feels more interesting if it's a more active choice from Hugh and he's just like, my wife is dead. And I blame everyone for that. So like, I'm curious if there's any. moment of alliance between Ulf and Hugh,

or if they're both just on their own side. Now, I don't think Hugh in the show has been set up to do the, like, you know, okay, there's the Robert Barathean

Hammer prophecy that Hugh thinks is about him and, like, you know, declaring himself king. I don't know that we'd have to get to a place really quickly where that felt totally credible for this character.

Yeah. But I do think that he's at the point now to reject serving Team Black. So I don't, I think if he went back and they were like,

you're not trusted, I would actually find that a little bit strange. Like he should not, he should just take his dragon and his ball and go home. Do what he wants. Go where?

Right here. Stay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think he's staying at Tumbledon, but I feel, well, we'll see. Yeah.

Because I'm, I guess the reason is is because they're going to be like you didn't stay at the dragon pit where you're supposed to. Like, it's a treason.

even though he did not actually get on his dragon and do what Ulf did. For sure. Him leaving his post at King's Landing and being there. It's called the treasons, plural at Tumpleton. Yes. But my question is like, why does he care if they're like you left your post? Like, why would he want to work for them at this point anymore at all? That's a great point.

So, I don't know. We'll see. Adam. This is the first time. We've kind of been joking all season of like, have we been pressing our thumb too heavily on the scale with Adam? Sweet Adam, never did a wrong thing. beloved Adam. This was the first episode where I was like, oh, maybe they're doing something different with Adam and he's not actually going to remain loyal to Runira. Is that possible?

I don't know about like loyal loyal, but I do think he will show up when he needs to show up. Yeah. Yes. And that would actually be, I think that would be ideal. Yeah. Is for him to. Like, what if he goes to the aisle of faces because he's like conflicting? Yes. Yes, exactly. And that I would really, I think we need that as somebody to stay, to commit to their allegiance, but ask questions and push back. Great. If everyone's just like, fuck off, peace out, that's not quite as interesting. Darren. Is he dead?

So something you wrote here, and this is something we had discussed before. We were like, unless the Zelda filming schedule means they're fast forwarding to second Templeton's mysterious fate. They cannot do this. Says Mallory Rubin. Is Darren dead? We don't think so. We think that like Gwain and Darren and Ulf and Hugh and bold John Rockston, that's going to be a very interesting. They've really set that up to be a very interesting.

story in Tumbledon in season two. But there is a question of like, did Darren just leave? Yeah. Just mysteriously disappear after the second Tumbledon, or did he die? All this fight or flee talk this season now, I think it does at least introduce the possibility. We've been talking all season, though, about the fact that, like, Ormond doesn't have any sons.

And inside of this episode, Corliss is like, what if we marry Raina to? to Darren. Yeah. In the book, Rana marries one of Ormond's sons, and that is the political marriage. Like, is there any way in which they keep Darren alive? I know.

No. No. He either has... He either has to be killed or he has to... Mysteriously disappear. He has to decide, like, I don't want to be a part of this at all, and I'm going to go live anonymously,

which they have done with characters in the show, who we thought were dead. Lainor did that, right? So I think it's always a little trickier with Dragon Rider. but there's tough stuff ahead for our beloved blue queen. Well, yeah, I'm just saying if Desireen is dead, is there any way the show? Yeah.

Not the book. The show could keep Darren alive and have Darren and Raina Mary. Because Garmin Haidtower is not on the show. Because then it's like, because then one of Vassaris's kids is alive in the whole. There would be no alignment around Egonne the third then. Too many people would still be like Darren should be kid. It's just that I think that's like a fork. That's like a TVA alternate branch timeline that I think is, doesn't align.

I would love for Darren to live. I'd be thrilled, but I don't see it. I don't think given all of the changes we've seen on this show, I don't think it's off the table. I think Darren being confirmed alive and like I'm sailing off to Essos for cinnamon and oranges is completely possible. And I think that would be interesting for him to declare so consistently, I don't want people to fight for me and die for me. I want to be out there, but then actually pick in the fighter flee. Flea, that would be an interesting character journey. him staying in the

like in the court of king's landing, I think would be difficult to pull off. If he's just like back in Old Town with Raina and it's just sort of like

Corliss's plan comes to pass and they make this political marriage that Corliss proposes here and this is part of the piece and his dragon is dead and he's got red hair

and he's like I don't even look like a Targaryan I don't have a dragon anymore I don't want it I just want to go back to Old Town maybe. And then And because sheepstealer has somehow died and mourning is born to rain up her the email we got a couple weeks ago.

It's like maybe it could happen. Masaria. Speaking of things that could happen. Do you think that this is 100% lock that Masaria is going to be the shepherd in season four? Or are they like test ballooning it? They're certainly test ballooning it at a minimum. Do you think there's a chance that they're like, people don't seem hyped about this. We'll walk it back or no.

Maybe. And it's possible that Masaria there is like a guy with one on. You know, blah, blah, but it's really Missaria and Sylvie. The Sylvie question, a common theory has been that Sylvie is actually Sylvanus Sand and will sort of like be involved in that regard. So like that Sylvie will be involved, that Missaria will be involved, that Alinda, her girl on the inside will somehow be involved in this mass conspiracy to, you know, take down the dragons and take down Reneira. But I think there's Given how unpopular Missaria was and they're like, fuck you, we're going to double down.

You know, because we were like, are they going to run Missaria off the show because people don't really like her? And they're like, nope, she's even more in the show than ever before. I really think they're going to be like she's integral to the final season. I think so too. It definitely seems like they're setting her up to be the shepherd. Here's a question for you. Egg on the third, egg on the dragon bean does not come back into the show.

And Alinda is really team Basaria and is not there to gouge her. out her own eyes. Who is watching Renira die? Allison. But she'd be cheering for it at that point. Would she? I think she's going to feel conflicted until the end. After Helena? Yeah. I think there's no path back for them now. No, I don't think there's a path back, but it's not going to be like a clean break. Here's a question on the Allison front. We can hit the Shepard emails in a second. But like, are you worried at all? I think consistently the show has avoided this concern. We've had moments. We've gotten emails from people over the seasons. Allison doesn't have that much story.

What are they going to do? This is basically like the third lead of the show, right? One of the three main leads of the show. I did have a moment when I was like, Allison was in the finale of season three for two seconds. Should we be concerned about that in terms of just like how to keep incorporating Allison's into the story when there's not that much? Is that a concern at all or no?

Do you think they'll continue to find like versions of Allison went to Dragonstone, Reniro went to the Sept, et cetera, to give us the meaningful moments? moments between these characters. I think the latter. Just because I know how much that is the juice of the show. How many versions of those two talking in a room about whether there's a path forward can we do? I don't know how many versions of, hey, Reneira, the crown will corrupt you. Did we get this season?

Loved them all. Okay. Loved them all. Anything else on Masarius the Shepherd? Our listener, Michael, came through with some, just a roundup, right? Sleeper picks could still include Laris, always plotting. Yes. Sylvie, up with the people.

Or while, oh, no, you did not just blab egg on the prophecy in a public speech. Gwain, alive, way past his book character. And Alan, my bad on the high sept and killing. The two main contenders are Misaria and Alicant. Masaria's chances went way up when she stepped off the retirement wagon to Pentos. She's got unfinished visits with Renera. Though I think Allison should still be the favorite. Keeping Elaine alive was her sole motivation and perhaps she'll lose a hand on the perilous journey back to Kings Landing.

She's also much more Light of the Seven coded than Masaria. Beyond that, Olivia Cook is one of the stars of the show and her character is almost nothing to do in season four according to the histories. You would hate this because you really want the shepherd to be an actual commoner. And Masaria would count in a way that Allison would not. Yeah, I think the connection to

like any sort of religious doctrine is a little bit of a harder sell with Masaria, but I think Masaria has been positioned effectively as a character who knows what to use in order to do the thing. And if she thinks that, especially after the high septum was just killed, the way to align her flock is to lean into the religious rhetoric that she would do that,

whether it was with a puppet shepherd or herself. I agree. I do think it feels really, the show has committed to focusing on the small folk and whether the Targaryens or the High Towers are fit to try to claim to rule and protect the small folk when they don't give a shit about them and don't understand them. So I think the shepherd being having that history, You know, dating back to Masaria's very initial, like, that season one episode two, fight with Damon about, you know, her history. That part of it would work.

So I'm very open to Masaria as Shepard, actually. Like, it doesn't – it's a huge change, but I think it could work. Allison would be a much harder self. As soon as we saw her in the crowd, I felt like it was a lock. I was just like, oh, she gets off the wagon. You're like, oh, okay. Yeah. All right.

Last not least, the prophecy. A listener, Colin wrote in with theory, which is just sort of like, as we discuss, how does Ragar find the prophecy? Could it be instead of like, oh, I found the dagger, I found this or whatever, he found a scroll that said, Dear Diary, today, Queen Rainera said something, cuckoo bananas on the stairs of the sept. And this is me, Orwell, writing it down, and doesn't this sound absolutely none of it? Fuck, Orwhile, I think your theory from last week that it's Torrin Mandurley's diary is a lock now. in his reaction. That's got to be it. Anyway. That has been

House of the Dragon. Season 4 coming in 2008. Is that right? Jeez. That sounds like a really long time. Will we be here? On Earth? I don't know. Will any of us be? Thank you. Thank you to our squad, Hark Queen's Guard for a wonderful season of House of the Dragon coverage.

Carlos Chiraboga. Scott Lee. Jacob Cornett. Arjuno Ramga Powell. Joe me a dinner on squad, squad, squad. Thank you to the bad babies, as always. Amazing. Thank you to you, Joanna Robinson. Love to go to Westrose together.

Thank you to you. Mallory Rubin. So excited to go back for Nine of the Seven Kingdoms. Same. Can't wait. And also, before that, to the UK with you to see the Bad King play. We'll be there. Okay. Sure.

We'll see you soon. Bye.