House of R - 'House of the Dragon' Season Premiere Reactions | Talk the Thrones

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

‘Talk the Thrones’ has returned to break down the season premiere of HBO's 'Game of Thrones' spinoff, 'House of the Dragon.’ Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson mount their dragons to share their instant reactions to the much anticipated first episode (03:07), parse the implications of the premiere's biggest reveal, and more. Hosts: Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez, and I haven't read any of the books in George R. Martin's The Song of Bison Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson. I've read every book in George R. Martins, a Song of Ice and Fire. And I'm Neil Miller, and I have also read all of those books. We are headed back to Westeros to cover the Game of Thrones spin-off series, House of the Dragon. We'll be answering your question, so send us a raven at Trialby Content at gmail.com. Take some bread and salt and join us Thursdays on the Trial by Content feed, and don't worry, you're safe. The reins of Castamere hasn't even been written yet. With adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumfaya, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease, and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways. Ketchup goes rogue ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into

the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. The Throne. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and I couldn't be happier to be joined by my coworkers. Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson were here as is House of the Dragon. We're here to talk about episode one. Mal, Joe, it's so great to see you. What a thrill, what a joy. Mallory is completely got a handle on everything. But Malay, I do want to let you know here live on live on hair, live to tape. I had my first anxiety dream about House of the Dragon. I haven't slept in a month. It's come for me.

It's come for me. I'm so excited, Chris. I can't believe we're here with Christopher Ryan first of his name. What a thrill. I can't believe I'm here either. I thought I had hung up my spurs, honestly. But it's just that, like,

those dragons, they have such a distinctive smell. And they drew me back. So we're here to chat about House of the Dragon. We're going to do it every Sunday after the episode. You can also listen to Mal and Joe do a deep dive on these episodes later in the week. week on the ringer verse feed on house of r you can hear and i sort of flippantly talk about this show on sunday evenings on the watch uh we'll have tons of other coverage on game of thrones both on the

site on video and on podcasts throughout the ringer extended universe oh there's more trial by content on thursdays with joe neil miller dave gonzalez but i'm so happy to be chatting about this you know, it's interesting. I think the three of us chatted a little bit before this episode aired, and we're generally speaking, like really thrilled with what we got in this first episode.

I was surprised to see some mixed reviews. I guess I thought that there was going to be a little bit more, a little less dissent in the camp, but it's always good to have like a bunch of different takes out there. But here's my first question for you, too. So we go to Game of Thrones, the series,

and that has the weight of expectations of adapting George R. Martin's works, right? Like, you're kind of going into that and you have this idea of it in your imagination from reading the books or from your relationship to the story in the first place, and then you see the show, and then the show sort of takes on a life of its own, in some ways it clips the books, in some bad ways it eclips the books in terms of its narrative plotting. So we come three years later, we get House of the Dragon, which is the first launched, you know, other piece of IP from this George R. Martin world.

And Joanne, I'll start with you. Did you find yourself watching this with the weight of expectations for following up Game of Thrones a series rather than, say, George's books? Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean, especially because when Game of Thrones first launched 2011,

soak that in, right? The books, though super popular in the world of fantasy readers, weren't the huge cultural thing that they were. So Thrones had the advantage of coming in with low, low expectations. It wasn't exactly on brand for HBO, so they just got to sort of be the weird little fantasy show that HBO was trying out. The expectations are so high,

and there's so much that they have to accomplish here, in terms of dealing with not only, even the best of circumstance, following up something like Thrones, a cultural juggernaut like Thrones is tough. The way in which Thrones ended, which wasn't everyone's liking, is another major hurdle that HBO has to clear, where they're like, okay, remember how much you liked the show when you liked the show? That's what we're doing. And George R. Martin's here. And it's going to be really fun.

And you love dragons. We've got so many dragons. And so, but yeah, I don't feel any as much preciousness around fire and blood as a text. And I think especially because, you know, as Mallory can speak to as well, it's, first of all, it's, first of all, it's, it's a little. a it's a shortened history rather than deep. It is a text. It's not a novel, right? Yeah. Yeah. Deep lore novels. And it's a history that George wrote from multiple people's point of view. It's like a Roshaman style telling of events. So there isn't one story that anyone can cling to and say this is the only way this story could have been told. And that gives the show a lot of freedom within

to take the story in different directions. So, yeah. Yeah, it's built into the text is a lot of forgiveness and leeway for the story. Now, what about you? Coming back, you're here three years at me. I mean, for as long as I've known you, Game of Thrones has been one of the central preoccupations of your, like, professional and also, like, fandom life. Like, what did you think as the lights went down and, like, those first sort of sounds of flapping dragons came across the screen?

I felt a surge not only of the wind in my hair, but of genuine and deep. rooted elation. That is what I felt. You know, in this, in this premiere, we get to hear Sir Otto Hightower, handed the king, say, I consider the matter urgent. Now, he's talking about Vesaris, the first Targaryen succession. But for us, Game of Thrones fans who have been waiting all this time to return to Westrose, to return to the land of ice and fire, the urgent matter is being back inside of this world and inside of George R. Martin's epic sprawling tale. And I couldn't be happier. I really, really miss this. I miss the opportunity to get attached to these characters, to war with myself for how I feel about the decisions that they've made, to watch them make terrible mistakes,

to watch them achieve great things. And I'm glad Joe immediately mentioned the unreliable narrator aspect of fire and blood because I think that it allows for a lot of great surprises here, even if you have read the source material. Like, there's so much to look forward to. And some of that is known. It is known. And some of it isn't. And we get to experience all of that together now. And just to see King's Landing, to hear the roar of a dragon, to be back in the world where you see a wherewood tree, you get a close-up of an ass and you hear a fart, you get an orgy at a brothel, it's like, we're back, we did it. Game of Thrones is happening again. Unbelievable.

You guys are talking a little bit about the text there, and that's one thing I wanted to mention just for us going forward on the podcast, but also the sort of interesting element, I think, that'll surround talking about House of the Dragon for a lot of people is so much of Game of Thrones, especially once it fully took flight, you know, after a few seasons and especially after Red Wedding, and it just becomes this cultural phenomenon is, and HBO leaned into this, was the sort of, who will sit on the Iron Throne,

how will this end, when does this happen, when will that happen, will this happen? And the sort of forecasting and the speculation became as much a part of watching the show

as the actual episodes themselves. Whereas with this show, I suppose theoretically, any question I had about what's happening or what's going to happen to any of these characters, you could answer,

right? Isn't that right, Joe, more or less? Or is the ambiguity of the text such that some of the resolutions of these plot lines are still up in the air? So to speak really generally because, as you alluded to you, like, we're not going to be book spoiling, quote unquote, anything on this show, Talk the Thrones, right? So Sunday night, you can fire it up without worrying about us, you know, saying, well, chapter 52. But we'll be doing that for things that happened previously. There will be plenty of all in chapter 52, just for historical context. For example, a character, I will say, yes, that character is going to die.

How did that character die? Who killed them? There's like five different answers for that. So that's where the mystery lies. So there are things that are fixed points in history, and then there are, but the who, what, where, why, when of it is a question mark. In the Bruce Springsteen sense, like, everything dies, but like, you know, I mean, there's sort of, of obviously there's always like a little bit of like literal backstabbing going on in this in this universe. So you're curious about what happens. Backstabbing, front stabbing, you know, window pushing,

you know, dragon fire roasting, all kinds of, kinds of nonsense. I think like it's worth saying, though, just more broadly even is like, this is a prequel, right? Which is probably something that everyone who is listening to this podcast knows, but to say it just in case, right? And we get this title card at the beginning to establish some of the time frame and how far out ahead of the events of Game of Thrones are we? And, you know, Game of Thrones, the eight-season television series that we all mostly really enjoyed together until we didn't will be something that I think we returned to often. And there were some surprising parallels and connections that emerged over the course of this premiere here. But one thing generally that anybody who has seen Game of Thrones knows heading into House of the Dragon is that one of the foundational elements of Game of Thrones is that the Targaryen dynasty receded and was thwarted and destroyed by

Robert's rebellion, that when Danny steps out of the funeral pyre in the season one finale and three dragons have reentered the world, it is this magical return. And so the show that we're embarking on here is, it opens 200 years before that. There's a ton of Targaryian history and Westerosi history to fill in the gaps in between. But we have a feel largely, contextually, for the overarching nature of Targaryen history in all directions. And this is like a key, key, key aspect of the timeline to further flesh out. And it's one that is a central preoccupation for George R. Martin as he continues to expand his world. And so I kind of want to take what you're saying there, Mal, and start at the ending of this episode. Because for somebody who's a little

bit more superficially, like, aware of the non-TV show stuff that's happening. I thought one thing that this episode did really effectively is that there are nods or Easter eggs or elements of, you know, the music, for instance, you know, like, there's parts of it where you're just like, ah, Game of Thrones. And then I think if you're a little bit more eagle-eyed, you're like, oh, yeah, that tree. The final scene between Vassaris and Reneira, when they were talking about how she she's going to have to assume the crown boy. I had like a split second where I was like,

what are these people named? I know. You got it. Mallor and I were ready to like pounce. And then you cleared it. You mounted the dragon, man. Really, really similarly all at once. He tells her this story about Agon's vision, right?

Like this idea that one of the things that they're sort of, the Targaryen royalty is entrusted with is, I guess the guardianship of this idea that there is a long winter to come. And that on the long winter, on the breath of the long winter or the wind of the long winter, there's this unspeakable evil and that their whole deal has this sort of secret principle. This almost like secret like goal is to sort of protect the realm and make sure that if that moment and when that moment comes, that they're ready to face that moment. And I thought that was really interesting, Joe, because obviously,

For most of Game of Thrones, everybody's like, yeah, that's bullshit. Like, all that stuff about the winter and the White Walkers, man. Like, nobody's, nobody's seeing that. Nobody's heard about that. It's been spent an awesome summer, you know? What did you think of, like,

for somebody like me when I'm watching that, how important was that? Was that more of like a nod to the series to come? Or is that part of the sort of inheritance and legacy of the Targaryens very important for these characters? It is a huge. This is the biggest thing of the whole entire episode because all of the pale never see the live day book nerds that were at the premiere that Mallory and I attended, we all gathered around a table and we're like, what the hell was that? That was a huge, almost like, lore breaking moment. The idea that the Targaryen monarch, like, so the people who sit the throne, I think he says, are the only people knows. And this is why he tells Renera, I'm about to make you my air, so you get this secret. I don't think it's very smart. to prepare for a world-breaking event

by only having this knowledge pass from one person to one person to one person? Pretty dumb. House Targaryen, we have some notes. But this is a huge thing with George R. Martin's approval, they've inserted here. It connects, you know,

it connects us to the White Walkers and everything that happens in Game of Thrones. So, like, it feels a little bit for the fans. But George has been out there in the press now saying things like, hey, this thing that we're introducing will have bearing on these books I'm eventually going to finish.

You don't know how it's going to impact them. You don't know what's coming. So George, you know, to your earlier point about the speculation game, George is so smart and he's always out there trying to sell books. And so he's just like, guess what? This is going to be hugely important

for something to come that I am definitely publishing at some point in the near future. I was going to say, you know what else sells books? Books. George, I believe. Just hit print. It's just like right there. Control P.

This is, yeah, give us wins part one, maybe. But this is a, this is a really, really interesting. Because at first I was really resistant to it, as I am to all things change. But the more I've been sitting with it, the more I've been thinking about how it impacts, like how Ragar, John's father behaved. because surely he knew about this, but then it died with him. And so that's why nobody knows, you know, that's why DeNaris doesn't know because it wasn't passed down to her, all of that sort of stuff. It's kind of interesting.

I don't know, Mallory, what do you think? I, yes, I agree with your statement that this is the most consequential element of a pretty loaded and meaty episode that gives us a lot to chew on and anticipate. I was, I mean, I was sitting next. to you watching this for the first time, Joe and I turned to you and I was like, wait, what? You know, really had that response. And I think initially also had that same, okay, we're like striving for a connection here to the initial series.

But it only took a few seconds for my brain to get to that, oh, this is a massive, massive update for the wider canon and the book lore. And I think it's not only a pretty exciting one, but actually one that feels really logical and intuitive once we kind of go through those beats. The Ragar thing that you mentioned, Joe, is also the thing that I've been thinking about the most because there's a, okay, well, if it's only passing down from King or ruler to air,

at what point is the secret lost because we know it's not something that reaches Danny. I agree, it feels very logical to deduce that it made its way to Rhaegar, given his obsession with the prince that was promised, and his obsession with prophecy writ large. I think there's a larger connection here to House Targaryen and the dragon dreams and the stock that this family puts in in dreams,

which we can probably circle back to later in the episode when we talk about Fissaris recounting his dream to Emma. But, you know, we should note that the reason House Targaryen is here in the first place, the reason that House Targaryen escaped Valeria, escaped the doom as the then lone dragon riding family in this universe is because a member of the Targaryen. family, Denise the dreamer, had a prophetic dream about the doom, and they packed up and went to Dragonstone, and they escaped it. So they are inclined not only to believe that they are special, right? And we hear also in that same end sequence, we hear Reneira say to her father, everyone says Targaryens are closer to gods than men. And there's a exchange of the importance of perspective there

and the dangers of meddling with dragons and magic, but also a recognition of the dragons as the real source of that power, they know that that dream is responsible for their origin story. And then there are numerous other members of House Targaryen who have dragon dreams, who have prophetic dreams. So the fact that they are inclined to believe this, and they have this larger doctrine of exceptionalism, which we won't get into all of the lore around, but is a big part of their establishment in the seven kingdoms, it is, it is totally, it totally tracks for me that house Targary and say, yes, we need to be the ones to fend off the apocalypse. It's all on us.

What is Viseras putting his hand on as he is recounting this to Reneira? He has his hand on the cat's paw blade, the Valerian steel dagger that Aria will use one day to kill the Knight King. That's the same one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Durable. Right. So your mind starts racing. It's like, did Bran see ahead to Aria using it? Did he see back to the role that that dagger may be always is held for House Targaryen is the weapon to fend off this terrible winter. I also had a moment where I was like, wait a minute. Sam renames Archmeister Ebrose's history book, A Song of Ice and Fire. So how did that happen exactly?

Is Sam a cribbing from House Targaryen's secret history? That made me laugh. But then you also have this promise me language, right? In the exchange between Vissaris and Reneira, he's imploring her. Promise me this, Renara, promise me. Well, what does that make us think of? That makes us think of Ned and Leanna and the bed of blood,

Promise me Ned, which also ties back to Ragar. So there are a lot of really rich connections here already between these stories. Well, we should say that Veseris, like, never takes his hand off that dagger. He always, like, he has constantly got his hand on the hilt when he's like, I don't know. It's really interesting how prominent they decided to make that dagger in this opening episode.

Like, because we see, we saw it in the trailers and those of us who, again, spend way too much time thinking about this, we're like, well, okay, the cat's paw is here. But the fact that it is like, Vesaris is, like, his, you know, fidget spinner, essentially, is not something I saw coming. I was going to ask whether or not the sort of revelation, I guess, that they are,

and we're going to get into more elements the episode, I don't want to get too sidetracked on just this one moment. But whether or not there's a little bit of, like, uh, retroactive, image maintenance going on in Targaryans because they don't necessarily get through Game of Thrones the series with the best reputations.

And I think this idea that they're kind of like almost like Knights Templar who have like this secret mission that they don't tell anybody but the other kings or queens about it's pretty fascinating. I mean Joe, I mean like

I think part of the issue for this series is going to be to take a group of people that we don't know a lot about firsthand if you've just watched the series. you get, see one dude get like, you know, molten lava poured on his head, and then the other one nearly ends the world. So that's our experience for Targaryans if you just watch Game of Thrones. So you go back and now you find out, well, okay, not only are there all sorts of different

kinds of Targaryens, you know, whether they're hotheads or whether they're political operators or people who just like doing model villages in their rooms. And then you also find out that they have been. Totally normal hobby. Yeah, totally normal. But you find out that. That was pretty good, by the way. That's talented.

That village? I bet he's got somebody who comes in, like, after he's done and is like, now I'm really going to do it. Do you know what I mean? Didn't he say that? Didn't he? Wasn't he like, it was like the stone masons who do the most of the work? Yeah.

And he just like goes around and like brushes it a little bit. Classic Vassaris. But, um, yeah. Joe, do you think that there's any like sort of, uh, Targaryen image rehab going on by like making this part of, part of now, I guess, accepted lore? I guess. But I, to, to the earlier point, I think it doesn't make them look tremendously. smart for this just to be a secret pass from one to one. I would have a whole secret society.

Like, it's knights plural templar, right? It's not like, you know, one solitary grail night locked up. And, okay, well, I guess. But it's, it's, like, but what is also true is that this is a story and I've talked about this a lot. House the Dragon is a story about all morally great characters. And you are not going to have a person, one person that is going to be. be really easy for you to root for. And in that way, it's much more challenging than Thrones that can throw someone, like, scrappy, like, Aria in front of you, and you're just sort of like, you have my heart and loyalty. I will follow you wherever you go, you know. It's going to challenge you and ask you to care for, like, the Jamie and Sertie Lannisters. But, like, there aren't

any Targaryens here who you're just like, I mean, except for maybe Emma in this episode, who, like, never did anything wrong in her life. Doesn't have a lot of playing time, yeah. That's true. But like, and that's something that George R. Martin has talked about about how these are gray characters, gray characters, morally gray characters are his favorite characters. Damon Targary and Matt Smith's character is his favorite Targaryen character. And so he just likes them messy. So to the, I don't know that this show has a lot of Targaryen rehab on its mind.

But you're right that we don't have a lot of reasons to trust the Targaryens. And that's, I think, where we should be coming into this story. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to suffice. severely active Crohn's disease, and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor

about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to by Nass Energy, introducing new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-pound-hour tropical tasting power, ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it. I want to kind of touch on a few of the major moments of this episode. I suppose one of the most important things to talk about is the transfer of power. We open the episode. We see Vres

getting crowned over his cousin. Am I right? Yes. Okay. Cousin. Rehnese, Eve Best, great character. And then over the course of the episode, it's like who's going to take over for Veseris when he dies? He thinks he's having a son. Obviously, that does not work out.

Then it immediately becomes like this urgent matter of. Is it going to be Damon, who is apparently a big shit-talker when it comes to funerals? Or, outside shout for Rainira, who winds up becoming

Vesiris' choice for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I think it's just because he doesn't trust Damon. So now, I was wondering with the Targaryens at this time, I suppose, is you know, this is a very interior episode. Like, we don't really,

we see a little bit of law enforcement, but for the most part, we stay within palace walls. Targaryens, what's their Q rating rate at this point? Like, are they, popular rulers, does it matter because they have air superiority so they can just kind of like quell any sort of rebellions? I know we get a little bit of like free cities. There's some pirate action happening and we have to stop that. But like, are people relatively happy with

who the Targaryans are as rulers at this point in history? So it's a good question and I think there are unsurprisingly inside of a Game of Thrones story, various competing answers and that's kind of part of the proposition, right? Is that something has to come ahead because one of the first things that we hear in the episode's opening voiceover at the great council of 101 AC, which Joe and I will definitely talk about the great council at length on House of Our on Tuesdays, if you want to hear more about that, because that sets up a lot of the dynamics for the resentment and the alliances that spawn from it. But we hear in those days, House Targaryen stood at the height of its strength with 10 adult dragons under its yoke,

no power in the world could stand against it. But if I could share also a key opening, tone-setting passage from fire and blood, it's this. The seeds of war are oft planted during times of peace. Because Jaharis, the first, the old king, who we see at the Great Council, had a long and peaceful reign. Viseris has a peaceful rain. One of the great moments at the Torney Field comes when we hear Rain

niece, say to Corlis, basically this show's version of cats, they're the nights of summer, right? Like, how could we not expect this violence to erupt? None of these people have actually seen war. So you put that against the backdrop of something like what we're introduced to with Damon, giving the gold cloaks to the city watch and going to clean up Kings Landing, which he says is rife with crime and the small people, the small folks are struggling and, you know, mocks and belittles Otto the hand for having no awareness because he doesn't leave the red keep

because he isn't seeing the actual state of the kingdoms. So there are these competing truths that House Targaryen is at the peak of its dynasty. That you look around, whether you're walking through the streets of Kings Landing past the dragon statues or seeing Renera, the realms delight,

land Syrax into the intact and beautiful dragon pit, right? But also, all of the seeds that have been planted in the realm at large and inside of this family. Viseris's choosing, and Jiharis, the conciliator's choice to hold the great counsel in the first place,

was a wise thing, and quite in contrast, we hear Viseris saying that he won't be made to choose between his brother and his daughter. By the end of the episode is a state of affairs that has changed, right? But changed because of anger, because of something that is very visceral and reactive in the moment. But even the Great Council and that pursuit of wisdom

and some sort of shared agenda. And the Great Council is just like Otto. It's a people who are a small council. A thousand people show up at Harren Hall. That's that big Heron Hall opening. They all voted. It's like quasi-democracy. Electoral College.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tyrion thought he invented it, but really it was Jeharis. Exactly. Nobody was ready for Sam's suggestion of a mass vote, but, you know, as is so often the case in this fictional universe, people don't study their own history. But Jeharis had lost a couple heirs, which is what sparked that need in the first place. And so Renice has her own resentment from being passed over once before the Great Council even happens. Then House Phelarian carries that resentment forward, etc. So there's a lot of anger. And you see like Otto and Damon, despite. each other, right? There's all of this groundwork being laid for the chasms and the fractures that are about to unfold. Can I just say another thing about Jeharis? So Jehires is this unnaturally long reign. He's king for a long time. He's king for so long that they call him the old king by the time he

dies because kings don't usually last that long. I was going to say he had sort of aged out of the blinding blonde hair look and had just kind of been old guy. Fun fact about the actor who plays Jay Harris, that is the actor who plays Bibb Fortuna in Star Wars, which I thought was really, really fun. Did not know that. Got to sit on another throne this year, I guess. But it's the downside to his very long and peaceful reign is that he had a ton of, there were a ton of what they call Targaryen princelings running around, so like tons of people

that could theoretically have a claim. And also, the idea of transfer of power, you know, people sort of forgot what that feeling was. feels like because they had Jeharris for so long. So they were just sort of like, oh, okay, new king. And Vassaris is fine. But then it's like, what do we do next and what do we do next? And in terms of that, like, personal enmity between Otto Hightower and Damon Tarkarian, which we see, we see them poking at each other.

We see Damon, you know, attack Otto's son at the tourney. Like, this is a two-sided, you know, little bitter battle that they're in. what's crucial about that unreliable narrator aspect of fire and blood in this episode is that we never see Damon say the thing that gets Vassar so mad that he loses, you know, that he loses his position is air. And it's like, oh, I heard from this person who heard from this person and I've since corroborated, yeah, right. And in the book, that's a question, like, did Damon ever actually say that? And Damon doesn't deny that he said it.

What's the bad thing he was supposed to say, like air for a day or something like that? Right. Air for a day. But it cuts away right before we see him say it. So it's introducing that. Did he actually say it? Or is this something that Otto cooked up to get Damon out of the running? Because he hates David so much. So he also picks his daughter. So we have to take that into consideration. Stop stretch. Yeah. Not a great guy. Not a great guy. One last thing about Otto Hightower is that he was Jiharis's hand before he was Viseris's hand. And so that's a really interesting thing. like when you've got someone, a political operator who survives between administrations, they start to believe that they have more power than the leader themselves, right? Oh, yeah. When the chief of staff goes from one admin to another, you always got to be like,

was this guy come with a furniture or what? Otto also, I guess, aging quite well then, you know, if he goes from Jay Harris through Vassaris's nine years of chilling and doing model towns. I don't think he, I mean, he wasn't the hand for the whole time. But yeah, he's a. And he had his. he had his daughter, Allison, care for the old king as well.

He was just constantly putting Allison out there. Keeping it on the sort of topic of palace intrigue and what's happening in these sort of leadership meetings. I was wondering if you two could give me a little bit of a breakdown of who I was seeing in the decision-making scenes with Vassaris. As he's talking with Otto, he's talking with Lord Corliss,

who is the sea snake. he's talking with some maesters, he's got some other people in there. And now, Damon, is he supposed to be in those meetings? But he's just not getting C-Ced on emails? Like, what's going on? He's getting C-Ced. He's just not reading his email. Okay.

Not very interested in work correspondence. They don't call him the rogue prince for nothing, Chris. That's like fantasy then, right? You know, it's just like, did Sean see this? Exactly. Yeah. I got to be honest, I think you're more of the Damon in this equation. Oh my God.

Prince of podcasting. That's not true. I don't love email, but I'm a very, very personable, like coworker. And I think that I make myself available for anybody

to chat. Devin's personalable. Yeah. Let's everybody peep through the brothels, you know, as he's hanging out with Masaria,

Lady Misery. He's a man of the people. Prince of the city. So you started setting it up a little bit, but I was curious about Corlis, uh, because I feel like obviously there's a lot of,

uh, a lot of road to run on that. on that plot line with him and Reneas and I'm, you know, her obviously feeling like she probably missed out on what was rightfully hers. What's his deal? What's the what's the sort of Valerian family doing in, in Targaryen court? So House Valerian, shout out the Seahorse sigil, absolutely resplendent and delightful.

I love that, that house crest. Their seat is Castle Driftmark, also in. Island near Dragonstone, and this is also a Valerian family. So they actually headed over West before the Targaryens. They date their arrival before the Targaryens. Now, they are not dragon riders. This is a crucial distinction. They are a family of the sea, right? So master of ships, head admiral, this is the source of their power and wealth. And House Valerian has extreme wealth. That is an important thing to know about the Sea Snake and this entire family. Now, through the union of Corlis and Rainis, dragon riding then enters the family through their

children because Rainis is a dragon rider and a Targaryen. So we will meet their kids. We see them briefly in the episode. We will meet them more soon. But between Corliss's role on the small council and in Fasaris' court, and you hear him voicing strongly, not only what he thinks about the line of succession, but matters in the stepstones. Don't sleep on the triarchy. He is already voicing. We got to do something about the triarchy, guys. I know you're focused, Chris, on Chekhov's triarchy.

I know you're really, you're tapped in. I'm sure it's real, and I'm sure it's from, like, deep George R. Martin study. But triarchy is definitely something that it sounds like some guy made up in an office in Culver city of like, we need somebody to be like kind of busting up the cities or the Damien to lose it. who try, not triad, not anarchy. What if we put those two things together? It is a triarchy.

This is how the free cities get people like you when they align, you know? You're not taking the threat seriously. First of all, you can sign me up for any triarchy literature you want to send my way. It sounds rad. Okay, we'll send you some links. One thing on the Corlis Valerian from this episode that I thought was notable was the look that he and Renice exchange at the tournament after. One of the Barathean lads. Great to see so many Baratheans in this episode.

When he asked for her favor, refers to her as the queen who never was. And then, of course, Corlis makes the case in this great small council exchange where everybody has their own agenda, right? And is making their case for the air they would like to see that suits their end. And that's like a vintage throne's thing,

that palace intrigue. The plotters of the schemers who Circe likes to talk about so that Tyrion can say plots and schemes are the same thing. Like, these small council scenes gave us so much of that. Reneas and Coralus are like a central power unit in this aspect of the timeline. They had the actor who plays Coralus Valerian said that he read Tywin-Lannister lines when doing his audition. They basically had all the actors audition with, like, lines from characters from Thrones.

And so he doesn't strike me as a very Tywin kind of guy, really. But in terms of his position of being by far and away the richest guy around, that gives him a lot of influence in power or it should. Or he feels it should, right? And I think what's fun about this episode, this premiere, is that we're seeing, there's a lot, it's not following the beat by beat of the Thrones premiere. But there's some elements from the first few episodes of Thrones that we see here. So when we see them planning a tourney, it reminds us of them planning like Ned's tourney.

when we talk about who's going to fund this. Where's the money coming from? Lord Beesbury is our master of coin on the small council here, played by Bill Patterson, one of my favorite actors of all time. Delight to see him here. Okay, so King Viseries has on his small council that we've seen so far is Otto Hight Tower, Hand of the King, right? Damon Targary, head of the city watch.

Lord Beesbury, played by the Great Bill. Patterson, one of my favorites. It's a master of coin. Lionel Strong is the master of laws. And yeah. And then, oh, and then Melos is the grandmaister. So Beesbury, Hightower, Strong, Valerian, Melos, and Damon. But those are the main players on the small council as it stands right now. But small councils are never stable, you know. One last little note on Targaryen government, it was I actually did like the bit about the triarchy. I think that was in the same scene that Vceras kind of mentions the city has been falling apart since my grandmother. Does he say something like that?

Or like he says something about like kind of the decline of King's Landing that's been happening over the years. And I always love stuff like that. I love like, you know, our tax base isn't what it once was here. You know, like all the stuff that kind of like has like little bits of mirror reflections in like contemporary like real life politics I always find pretty fascinating. Joe, are you going to say something? Yeah, one thing that's so interesting about so his grandmother would be good Queen Alassane who was Jay Harris's wife. And one thing that's so interesting about her is that she basically co-ruled the kingdom with her husband. and I and got so pissed when Rainey's got passed over the first time that she, like, fucked off for for a couple of years.

She was so mad at her husband for not picking Rainis as his heir that she just, like, left for a couple years. But she's beloved by the people and had a lot of, like, power and influence and was a great ruler along with her husband. So I think that's a key element in the soup here in terms of, it's not that there's no precedent for a woman to rule Westeros because this woman basically co-ruled the kingdom with her husband very effectively for a very long time. But it's just are we willing to give a woman the A-Spot? The official. Right. Right.

Yeah. Right. I want to talk a little bit about the role of women in this kingdom. If you're watching this episode and you're kind of probably in the back of your mind, the sort of inside your head, voice of watching TV is like, there's something big is going to happen, right? Because like, it's the first episode and I expect like some sort of huge climax. And I don't think I expected the huge climax to be this sort of cross-cutting scene between a jousting event at this tournament and the death of Queen Emma. And who she is very much foreshadows her own passing by mentioning her

very troubled pregnancies in the past and how she tried to have five different children over 10 years and through various reasons stillbirths or lost them in pregnancy or whatever. It's like she just is not having any luck with it. And then Veseris comes in and is offered the choice essentially save one. You know,

the maister is like we can we can probably save one here, you have to call it. And he chooses his male air and neither works out. The child dies quickly after childbirth. That was a pretty vivid scene obviously, but it was also an interesting,

I thought, dramatic turn or like climax of the episode now because, you know, it's not a, it's not actually what's happening in this tournament. It's not some big fight that takes place on a battlefield. It's, you know, to quote one of the characters in the show,

it's the battlefield of the womb. What did you think of that whole section and what it said about what's going on in this show? Yeah, so if you pan back to the conversation between Emma and Rainira before the childbirth sequence, Emma says to her, and this is after she's landed from her dragon ride, and we start hearing about how you can detect the smell of a dragon ride, right?

And Emma's saying, you will lie in this bed soon enough, Renira. This discomfort is how we serve the realm. She then, shortly after that, says what you just mentioned, Chris, we have royal wounds, you and I, the child bed is our battlefield. We must learn to face it with a stiff lip. Between that, Renier's response to her mother is, I'd rather serve as a knight and ride to glory in battle, which is so strongly leads us to recall,

I mean, many different characters from Game of Thrones, but I thought most powerfully of Aria and the That's Not Me moment with Ned on the steps in season one after Aria has begun to learn how to be a water dancer to train with CERIA. And Ned is saying, this is what you'll do. You know, can I be a Lord of a Castle? You'll marry a High Lord.

They'll have his children. That's not me, right? And so this is a real, that's not me moment from Renira. Elsewhere in that small council exchange, when everybody is running through the thing that they think is right, well, what do we hear from Lord Strong repeatedly? Not only this is precedent, this is law, the succession is said, this is how it works. the male will always have the stronger claim. He literally says,

Renira, a girl, no queen has ever sat the Iron Throne. So the gender politics, the gender roles are permeating the entire episode, right? Obviously, this sequence, but more broadly, the role that a woman is expected to play in this world. And the way that Renira, as a central figure in this story, will rebel against that. Now, to be clear, that does not mean that she does not view motherhood as valuable or care about her mother. We see quite clearly how much love she has for her mother, how devastating this is for her and for the entire family.

And again, there are these connections to other aspects of the story. I couldn't help but think of Leanna again in the bed of blood, this famous throne's phrase for the end of that character's arc and John's entrance into the story. So this was like a really harrowing and deeply upsetting sequence. also with the Viseris aspect of it, like that's not a choice that he should make. That should not be his choice, right?

Of course. That's like a horrible thing. And the fact that he doesn't tell Emma or talk to her about it, it just keeps telling her not to be afraid as she realizes, starts to realize it dawns on her what is happening was so deeply, deeply upsetting to watch. And it connects, and I think a way that we should not lose sight of to how dangerous it is,

this gets back to your like, is this a Targaryen rehabilitation exercise? Like, definitely not, because this gets back, I think, to how dangerous it is when these characters believe their own press, right? And believe that they are working toward some sort of great destiny. This made me think of Stannis, killing his own brother Renley with blood magic, burning his own child at the stake, all in pursuit of this thing that he thought he had to have. the thing the Viceros thinks he has to have is a male heir, and he's willing to do terrible, terrible things to reach that end and what is the cost?

And I think it's really important that in the mix of all those characters, we have a character like Alicent, who is so much more docile and compliant to, you know, whatever her father says is her role, right? Go dress up in your mother's dress and go visit the king. She's got her anxieties, as we see in her. her like, you know, her nails are all bloody from biting and picking at them, right? But the conversations that she has, and this is a massive book change, because in the book, there isn't any

idea of Alicent and Reneira being best friends when they were young girls. And so this is a change that the show made, and I think a really brilliant change, because we get to see the girls through their friendship and through each other's eyes and the difference between them. She reminds me a lot of early, early Sansa in this episode. And I think intentionally they dress her in like powder blue dresses that make me think of Sophie Turner in season one of Thrones. But I think Allison's, you know, more docile nature, her concern that they're going to get in trouble, all this sort of stuff.

But then also she asked questions like, aren't you thinking about your position, Rainira? Like if a boy comes, aren't you thinking about how that's going to affect your position? So she has a political mind, but she also just is less questioning of the roles of women in the court and what she's there to do. They kind of like set up those two characters as one feeling like a more of a natural kind of feel, has like a more of a natural feel for her position in life, even though it's about to drastically change. Like how she's just like, oh, I just want to like ride dragons and screw around and like, you know, eat. What does she want to eat? I forget what she mentioned. Cake.

Cake. Lat to me cake. Same. Lemon cakes. And then Allison's kind of more like, you need to study. Like you need to like go. We need to like kind of hit these marks here. And then Reneer is like, oh, I actually like, I know, I know all this stuff.

Like it's just kind of baked in and has her answer for Allison's sort of quiz question right there. That was really cool. What was, I mean, I think that like, I'm trying to think of like what else I really wanted to pull from this episode that I thought was really important. because we started with the end. We've talked a little bit about the death scene with Queen Emma, talked a little bit about some of the power dynamics going on on the council. I guess I was curious about some of the faces I saw and some of the names and words I saw at the tournament, specifically Dorn.

So Dorn comes off out of the bullpen on Game of Thrones a little bit later in the series, but we get a mention of it here. Yet it's kind of being treated as like this exotic. Is that guy Dornish, right? He's dawnish. Yeah, what's up with that? Yeah. The internet's new boyfriend, sir, Kristen Cole has arrived.

Kristen Cole, has entered the chat. Yeah, Fabian Frankel is Kristen Cole. Kristen Cole, and I think what's interesting about Kristen Cole in this episode, where we see him best, Damon Targaryen, like, you know, one of the best warriors in the realm, is like, this is one area of upward mobility for people in Westeros, because he comes from, like, a house that Rainier had never heard of, all sorts of stuff. He's, who is, who is this guy? But if you, you know, if you prove yourself on the battlefields, and if we don't have war,

let's do it an attorney, then you can sort of start to climb and start to get noticed. So yeah, Kristen Cole and his dornishness, they're playing up the dornishness. He's not like super dornish in the book and he doesn't have the like Pedro Pescal accent or anything. But yeah, I don't know, Mallory. What do you want to say about Kristen Cole at this? Juncker. I think that it helps get everyone's attention if you're not only good of fighting, as you noted, but extremely handsome because everyone's smitten right away, right away.

You know, when he comes over to ask for the favor, I like that before that we see this real, like, air of mystery around him. You know, Reneera asks Harold Westerling, member of Kingsguard and her kind of confidant throughout the episode, so put this guy, you know, and all, like, can say is common board son of Lord Dundarian Stewart. Shout out, House Dundarian, makes us think of Barak Dundarian. We see a Tarley sigil in the sequence. We get a lot of little connections through names and sigils, as you said, Chris. But they're drawing our attention to, like, who is this Kristen Cole character? And how is he able to best a fabled fighter like Damon Targaryen

who, you know, wields Dark Sister, one of the ancestral Valerian Steelers? Is he wielded in the Tournament, because that feels like juicing, if you do. Can you have a Valerian Steel sword when you're just, like, gaming like that? I feel like in general, Valerian Steel should not be allowed in the list. It's like Barry Bonds on an aluminum bat, right? Like, what is going on here? It's too much. But, you know, Kristen knows how to swing that Morning Star.

And you can interpret that however you'd like. I wonder how people will choose to interpret that. I had a question with the tournament. is that like a uniform fight to the death thing? Does it like, is it different for every guy? Like, why does some people get their skulls split open? And then others are like, eh, I'm done fighting. I lost.

Like, what's like, how come there isn't just like a one size fits all? Like, this is how we determine a winner in this tournament. That's a great question. I think part of it comes down to yielding, right? Like whether you yield or not. And we see the guy who gets a skull split open and get a chance to yield? That was tough. He was like, yeah.

I enjoyed the vomiting squire in the background of that sequence. That was great stuff. I love that he was doing the old S&L vomit, which is like the pipe up the sleeve vomit. Yeah, right. Put his hand in front of his. Yeah. I did want to talk about Damon for a second, though, if I can. Oh, yeah.

For sure. This is like, this is so key to landing the show as landing Damon Targary. This is the most important character for them to get right. And Matt Smith, I'm a huge fan of in general. We could talk about the Lego Las Wake if we want to, but like in general, Matt Smith and I are like, sympathico. And something that I think they do a good job of in this episode is shading in a few moments of like grace and tenderness for Damon and among the like, you know, shit talking. And like so when we when we see him eavesdropping on the small council meeting and his brother says something in his defense and he has this very like tender fond look. on his face, or at the funeral

when he steps up behind Reneira and is telling her that her father needs her now more than ever, all this sort of stuff. But he's not a cut-and-drive villain by any means. He's deeply complicated and that's a fine balance to try to walk, and I think Matt Smith

does a really good job with it. Yeah, I mean, he's, to me, the stand-out performer and the stand-out character in this episode. And I think that, Joe, I mean, without even knowing you could just feel the weight of how important this character is as he's moving through it

and there's also a little bit of like if Matt Smith is doing this it must be important you know like this this character must be a really big deal if he's decided to play this part I thought we could wrap up with the topic near and dear to Mal's heart

and that is dragons corrects over exposed, under exposed or properly exposed dragons in this episode oh wow breaking out the old Grantland Roodbrook there.

I think that showing us two dragons, Syrax, Renira Targaryens, Mount, and Caraxes, aka the bloodworm, Damon Targaryen's Mount, was the appropriate way to start. We know that we are going to get 17 dragons in House of the Dragon. Miguel Sapocci has said that we will be meeting nine of them

in this first season. There are a lot of dragons in the dance of the dragons as the name might indicate. Stannis might not have understood why they called it a dance, but even Stannis understood why Dragons was a part of the name, right?

A lot of dragons coming. It's not just though that we see the dragons. We see these symbols of the Targaryen might all around the Capitol. You know, I already mentioned just the statues in the street. But the sequence in the Dragon Pit is pretty important. And what's our association from Game of Thrones with the Dragon Pit?

It's being in it as a ruin. right? So when you see the dragon pit intact atop Renice's hill, don't. And then infrastructure in place, dragon riders speaking Valerian as they seek to lure Syrac's into the tunnels, a saddle. It looks like there was almost like a bolt in Syrac's neck, which may be very upset. There's a part of you like almost your instinct watching is, wow, we are seeing the Targaryens at their, like, Apex Mountain, right, if this were rewatchables. What does Apex Mountain mean? Can anyone tell me?

But there's also this feeling that this is not how it should be. When Danny kept Vissarion and Regal in the catacombs beneath Marine, what happened? Not only did they not get to fly free, well, what came from that? They didn't grow the same. way Drogon did. They didn't learn the same way Drogon did, right? This is not where dragons are supposed to be, but this is where we see them. And so that's, I think, like, it's a very deliberate initial glimpse as Reneira and Syrac's flying over Kings Landing, familiar imagery of the shadows of dragon wings above the city. There's a lot of, like, this is familiar to you and also this is

very different. I think pretty elegantly blended in this, in this first episode on the dragonfront. When she hops off Syrax is right after we've seen that title card where it's like, and it ends with like the word DeNaris, right? And then she's wearing her like gray leathers that look a lot like what DeNaris is wearing at the end of Thrones. So that's, you know, they're drawing intentional connections there at the beginning. And then with the song of ice and fire at the end, I think those are the two like most heavy-handed, hey, remember Game of Thrones?

You like that show. Yeah. But my question for you, Chris, is like someone who doesn't spend way too much time pouring over dragon manuals. Like they introduce, what they're trying to do here is to introduce dragons that look much more distinct from each other than the dragons in the original series. So you've got the bloodworm who's like got this weird long body and like these tails on those back legs and all the stuff like that. And then you've got Syrax who is yellow golden and, you know, a much more sort of conventional shape for the dragon. Like are you, does that matter to you that you could tell like that they look to?

distinct? Is that exciting? Do you care about dragons? I couldn't tell them apart. But what I did really respond to was, and we can wrap it here, is that really where we began this conversation, which is Vassaris talking to Reneira and kind of being like, these things shouldn't exist. You know, which runs counter to a lot of what you would imagine, a Targaryen is sort of thinking at any given moment. But like him just being like, these things, like we think like we're in control of these things. and they're kind of getting control of us. And when you think about it, we basically have flying Leviathans,

and it's not really a great idea for humanity for this to be popping off. So I really, really like that because usually the Targaryens and Game of Thrones have an almost cultish devotion to dragons, which I'm sure they do in this show as well. But there seems to be a little bit of, like,

a healthy fear of them, which is obviously well-founded. So I thought that was really cool now. he is making that speech. There are power men should never have trifled with, one that brought Valeria. It's doom. If we don't mind our histories,

we'll do the same to us. Cool, like, nuclear imagery there almost, you know? What's he standing in front of? The skull of Balaurean, the Black Dread, whose fire forged the eye on throne. That was his dragon. Viserius rode Balaurian. And then never took another dragon

after Balaerian's death. So, you know, because we don't, we don't see, obviously, Vesaris on a dragon in this episode, there's a lot of room to think about the relationship that he has to that power. But that's also in the context of this terrible secret that he has been carrying and not broadcasting more widely to the world, even though the long night is a thing that people know happened. And there are all these prophecies out there dating back 5,000 years. So I think that he is mindful, yes, Chris,

but pairing that mindfulness with some vintage Targaryen hubris. I and I alone will decide who else should be aware of this and thinking about this and talking about this with me. Is he stopping his brother after exiling him from the city from mounting his dragon, Caraxis with Masaria, he is not. No. Right?

So this is the heart of their power. And when you fear the heart of your power, you are wise, but also at war with yourself. And that is what the story is about. And I think it's important to note, and I don't know how much this episode makes it clear, but at least in the books, Maseris is a bit, he's not a Robert Barathean-level party king,

but he's a bit more of a party king than like some of the other monarchs that we see. see. Only a true party king would be like, that sore will heal by itself. Oh, my God. We're getting after it tomorrow night. Just pour some wine on it. It's fine. Yeah, he's not breathing in level party, but like, yeah, his idea of party in his air tournament than he is about anything else going on. Or like making a model in his room than anything else, right? So he's like an introvert party king.

But he's just sort of like party for two in my room. That's it. But I'm not, I don't have my eye on the prize and I'm not the kind of guy who makes strong choices. That's who Vassaris is, right? Yeah. Okay. I like it. Let's wrap it up there. I feel like we hit most of the major movements of the show. Mal and Joanna will have a deep dive on Tuesday. Is there anything else you wanted to add, Mallory?

I could see just you've got, the dock is probably vibrating right now, right? Can I, well, can I see something really quickly, which is that if there is an opening credit sequence for the show, we haven't seen it. I was wondering about that. It is not on our screeners or at the premieres that we've been to or whatever. So if they're holding it back for Sunday since we're recording this a smidge early. So if it's all these people doing like the Pachinko dance or something, we didn't see it. If it's taken over the internet by then.

It was wonderful to chat with you too about this. We'll be back next Sunday night. Steve Alman was our producer for this episode. Thanks for listening to Talk the Thrones. Make sure you're following us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, Ring or Verse, House of Rour on Tuesday. Tuesdays, the watch on Sundays on the watch feed, and I'm sure tons of other Game of Thrones stuff. Mal, Joanna, until next time.

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