The Ringer-Verse - ‘House of the Dragon’ Episode 1 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Mal and Joanna return to Westeros once again to give you their deep, DEEP dive into the season premiere of 'House of the Dragon', titled "The Heirs of the Dragon". They give their overall thoughts about this first episode and what it feels like to be back in the world of 'Game of Thrones' (07:05). Then they dive deep into the events of the episode, giving rich insights into all of these new and exciting characters (19:49). Later they offer up their own episode awards (02:44:39) and dive into book lore to give further insight into the season ahead (02:56:40). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 trial by 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 trumphia, 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. is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs.

Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris, now streaming on Paramount Plus. I suppose I see us. Tell me. Everyone says Targaryens are close to gods than to men. But they say that because of our dragons. Without them, we're just like everyone else.

The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. There are power men should never have trifled with. One that brought Valeria, it's doom. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. Targaryen must understand this to be king, or queen. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Red Keep, but to join us on the Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Here with me today, now that she's reminded me that we must all mourn in our own ways. It's my house of our co-host, Joanna Robinson.

Molly, I don't know if you heard, but the hierarchy of power in Westeros is about to change. Oh, my God. Incredible stuff. I love it. Some real crossover merch potential right there for us. I'm into it. Very into it. We are here today at last to chat about the long-awaited house of the dragon premiere,

The Hears of the Dragon, written by Ryan Condal, directed by Miguel Sapotchnik. Now, before we mount Caraxis, Caraxis, Vega, shore into our deep dive. We have some programming reminders for you. Dr. Thrones is back. Now as a pod, now right here on the Ringerverse. Every Sunday night after the latest episode of Hot D-Raps, Lord Commander Chris Ryan, Master of Whisperers, Joanna Robinson,

and I will be there in your feeds. Chris and Andy will also be with you on Sunday nights on the watch, broadcasting live from the Street of Silk. I'm excited for them to Google that and discover what that means. Do you have to listen to that podcast, like, glimpsing it through a gauzy curtain or some lattice work? Latus work for sure. Absolutely. And then, as you know, if you're listening to this podcast today, Joe and I will be with you here on Tuesdays for our House of Our Deep dive.

Deep, deep, deep. And then Joe will be with Neil and Dave on the trial by content feed on Thursdays for even more House of the Dragon. Goodness, mailbag, Laura Lux, book talk. It's all coming. It's all coming. If you're wondering, are there going to be any podcast about things other than Westeros? The answer is yes. The Midnight Boys will be with you tomorrow right here on the Ringerverse. Then we will have another She-Hulk pod on the feed this Thursday. And then at the end of the week, Friday, Joe and I will have a very special rings of power preview for you with a very special guest. We are incredibly excited. I'm so excited for that one. Oh, boy. How can you follow all of that? You might be wondering.

And we're glad you asked. You can follow it by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and by following the ringer versus myriad social feeds were everywhere. We've got updates for you. Jomi will have memes for you. Video breakouts. It's all coming. coming. Last programming reminder note at the top here is, as always, our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, which is multifaceted today. Today's podcast will, of course, feature plot details from the series premiere of House of the Dragon. That's a given. We're talking about everything that happens in this episode. Got it. We will also be accounting for plot details from the entire television series Game of Thrones ever heard of it. Anything that happened in Game of Thrones on the table.

We got an email from someone who said they're watching House the Dragon without watching Game of Thrones, but said, don't worry about spoilers, obviously. Like, obviously, this is what I'm sent up for. But I think it's a wild ride and I'm excited for that person. I love it. I love it. On the book front, we will throughout our chat today be incorporating book canon from George Dar Martins, a song of ice and fire saga. and we will be pulling from Fire and Blood the historical fictional tomb, fictional history, on which this new television series is based for lore insights and historical context and parallels,

all that jazz. The first portion of our podcast today will not feature any future plot points from Fire and Blood. We are not telling you what is going to happen later in this story. We will be talking about later fire and blood events in a separate dedicated section at the end of this podcast that we will clearly

announce and demarcate for you before we get there. Because one of the things that we are looking forward to doing is exploring how the show is setting up what we know will unfold. But that will be a separate thing. You don't have to worry about dodging in and out of sentences. We'll signal that when we get there. Anything else that you wanted to mention on the spoiler warning front show? No, you covered it. Shall we begin? Let's do it. Now it tends. Yeah, let's channel our best Arthur Dane and young Ned Stark voices here. Okay.

We are going to open, as we often do, with a quick snapshot. Joe, let's rally the realm. Great stuff from Steve. Steve is pulling out all the bells and whistles. And, wait, wait, Steve, do you have a Malloryubin' Dragon screen? for me. I might, but I think that comes at a later time, in a later segment. Oh, boy.

I can't wait. I'm so excited. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, I have a very just kind of broad and sweeping big picture question for you, Joe, which is, how does it feel? How does it feel to be back in Westeros? So you and I have been like sort of dipping our toes into this for a little while

since we got to go see the premiere a little while ago. We've been covering the trailers, but nothing really prepared me for how it Sunday night. And I texted you that I felt giddy, which was true. It was just so exciting for everyone to be watching. You know, now we know some of the numbers, like huge numbers, biggest HBO premiere ever. 10 million.

10 million people. And so you could feel it in the air. And by the air, I mean, Twitter. Like it was just like, helpful. Everyone was watching the episode. I was so excited. So yeah, like the feeling of being back here with all of our listeners, with you, getting to talk to Chris, getting to talk to all kinds of folks from the like, you know, Thrones blogosphere. It was just true, true joy, exhilarating.

Like, riding bear back on a dragon. Mallory Rubin, how has it been for you? I feel the same way. Exilarating is the exact word that I would use. It's just a thrill. It's a thrill to tap back into the not only joy that I as a person who loves watching this story and reading this story feels being back in this world, but that shared community around the story to like feel that spring up again in real time was a thrill. It really was a thrill.

And I feel a sense of euphoria that we are just now at the beginning, the dawn of a new shared experience and a new shared experience. in a new shared ice and fire journey. I couldn't be happier. I'm so excited to talk about this show every week. I'm so excited for all of the other spinoffs we're going to get. George is just back out there on the interview circuit talking about this epic sprawling yarn that he has spun. What a time to be a Game of Thrones fan.

I am hyped. I was wondering, Joe, if, you know, again, we've talked about this on prior pods, but for anyone who's just joining us today for the first time, you could give people a quick snapshot of your relationship, specifically to fire and blood. Yeah, it's interesting. When Fire and Blood came out, it was before the end of Game of Thrones a TV show.

And when I, I remember the first time I read it, I was really just doing that, like, eagerly minding it for any hints of what's to come. You know, it's like, oh, good Queen Alicane, like, flew over the wall when she see there. like what's going on? So that was my first read of it was sort of, you know, in the, like speed reading it in the context of that.

And then later going back through it and really enjoying it and enjoying all the, like, details that, like, the reason it's taking George R. Martin so long to write his books is because they're so intricate. And I really love Fire and Blood. I don't think it's required reading for this show at all, nor did I think a song of Ice and Byer was required reading. but I think it enhances your enjoyment. And this one is, Fire and Blood is, as you say, it's much more of a history.

You've talked about this a couple times. It's more of a bare bones story. You'll have like a sentence in the book will be a whole entire long scene in this first episode. So that's sort of what we're dealing with here. It's a different relationship than a song of ice and fire was. And then also, as we've talked about a couple times, crucially, this history written by an archmaister, from various sources, some of them unreliable, or maybe all of them unreliable. It's hard to say.

But basically, you know, the narrator of the book will lay out a scenario and will say, so-and-so killed so-and-so. Or did this person kill that person? Or did this person kill that person? Or did they just fall out a window by accident? You know, and so there's about nine different versions of all the different twists in terms of the events and what the people behind this show, Miguel Sapashnik, Ryan Condal, George, R. Martin, himself have said that this is supposed to be what we're watching here now, the definitive

history. So it'll be really interesting to compare which route they choose through this story that is like almost choose your own adventure levels of twists and turns available to them to get to the end goal, which is, you know, this big Targary and Civil War. Well, you had a brilliant idea to do some tail-to-tape tracking over the course of our adventure here. You know, is this a point for mushroom? Is this a point for Eustace, etc? The unreliable narrator aspect of reading Fire and Blood is so entertaining. And it is a really exciting thing at the beginning of this new show because we have these beats and this sense of key events, but so much room, not only for the definitive account, but for all.

All of those moments that we as Game of Thrones fans are so drawn to in love, the conversations in between, right? The relationships, the bonds that people forge that lead them to make certain decisions in their lives. I think that Fire and Blood is really fun to read. Like, it's a credit to George, as it always is, how captivating it is given the, this is a Targaryen history and nature of the pursuit. I have never felt that House Targaryen is the house in all of the canon that I am most personally interested in. But when you read Fire and Blood, you can't help but fall under the spell of the intrigue.

And there are so many different mesmerizing characters and dynamics and crucial moments across the run of this dynasty and thus this essential stretch of Westrocy history. And it's just really exciting to see this part of the timeline flushed out in full on screen. So I am very excited. I'm very excited. I think the key part of this section specifically, because you mentioned Mushroom is one of the sources.

And he's a... Shout out Mushroom. Yeah. He's a fool. He's like a, you know, he's a fool in the court. And he's like a... And he's very bawdy. And so all of his versions.

of every story are very salacious. But I really like this line from fire and blood where it says, what happened in the years that followed happened behind closed doors in the privacy of stairwells, council rooms and bedchambers, and the full truth of it

will likely never be known. Until each of the house. Until now. Until the streaming wars necessitated IP expansion. We're here for it. Also, even just that, even just what I did,

which is pick up a physical book on my desk and open it to read a line makes me really excited. It's part of like why I'm so thrilled to do this with you, Mallory, because same pal. It's it's book talk. No spoilers. I'm overjoyed. Okay, before we get into our episode Deep Dive. Yeah. Your quick overall impressions of this premiere. Yeah, I really liked it. I think we're really nervous going into it because we knew we were going to cover it no matter what and what if we didn't like it. Oh, no. And so we really, we liked it. We walked out of that premiere really liking it.

And that's exactly where I'll put it, which is like really liked it. But in the rewatch that you and I have done, I don't know if you experienced this, but like, I think Early Thrones is a masterpiece. And I don't think this show is quite a masterpiece yet, but it has so much that I really enjoyed and a lot of room to get there if it wants to. Game of Thrones is a show that I think came out, like so hot and strong and then burned out. And if this follows a more traditional TV path where, like, season one is where it's finding, fight, fully finding its voice and its footing, and then it grows and grows from there. That's a more ultimately satisfying trajectory, perhaps. So I like it, and I'm really eager to eventually love it.

And even just preparing to talk about it with you, may me love it more, digging into the corners and the details and the nuance, made me love the episode more. How about you, Mel? Just hearing you say hot and strong just makes me think of breakbones, you know? Harwin, hot and strong. Your break most, sure. I love it.

I really, really, really enjoyed the premiere. You know, this melding of these familiar touchstones and these fresh new things felt really well balanced. I thought it was a smartly structured and crafted episode in terms of orienting Thrones fans, but also giving us a sense of the new story that is about to unfold. I think that Ryan Condal's writing and just, you know, hearing him give interviews, reading his interviews, he's just such an incredibly passionate fan of the story

and has such a real grasp and mastery of the world that George has built. And that's always a starting point that gives me, like, great peace and comfort as a fan and as somebody who cares deeply about the story. It's like being shaped by somebody who feels that way, too. And I think you could really feel that in the first episode. The score, you know, the beats of the familiar, iconic score, again, blended with these new notes and this new composition. Sopachnik, who was responsible for some of the most fabled and iconic Thrones episodes at the helm directing this, the visual signifiers. this is an incredibly, incredibly well-acted episode.

And the cast is sensational. I mean, we were ready to just be bowled over by Matt Smith, Zaman Targaryam. And we were. We were right there in the joust. Ready. Ready for the charge. And it was fun to have the payoff of the performers that we were really anticipated.

and knew we're going to be great and then to see how great they were. But also, like, I was just blown away by Millie Alcock, for example, young Reneera, who was not a performer I was nearly as familiar with, obviously, as Matt Smith. And to see their performances shine, particularly in the kind of thrown scene and setting

that we are so partial to, the conversations in elegant rooms, as our guy, Tyrion Lannister would say, so much of this episode was character-focused and intimate in that way. And that really gripped me immediately and gave me a lot of hope for how this dance of the dragon saga is going to unfold.

So I am hyped. I am ready to go beat by beat with you right now. In our deep dive here today, we're going to go chronologically through the episode. Of course, there will be spots where we move around in time, but we're mostly going to follow a chronological order as we go through the episode here.

In future weeks, we might go character by characters, storyline by storyline. But today, day one, episode one, we just, we don't want to miss a thing. Honestly, there's just so much to talk about. In the immortal word to the bard, Aerosmith. Don't want to miss the thing. Let's do it.

Steve, did you have that cute up on your soundboard? Were you ready for an Aerosmith bencher? For Stephen Tyler? Sound cute. Next week, I promise. Oh boy. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference.

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Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately 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 you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you.

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Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. Soitgreen.com. It is time for our episode one, season premiere, deep dive into the dragon pit. We go. I'm so sorry I stepped on the gas on that one. If you guys didn't listen to our preview episode, that is a genuine sound of like joy and despair, strangulated joy and despair that Malory Rubin made in anticipation of covering the series.

Oh, my God. Thank you, Steve. You're incredible what you do. Remarkable stuff from Steve Aldman. Steve Allman, the old king, here at the Ring ofverse. And that brings us to the great counsel of 101 AC, the opening prologue for this episode set in Heron Hall. Of course, makes us think of season two of Game of Thrones, all of our wonderful time there with Aria and Tywin, this melted fortress. You think right away of.

Agon's conquest, his defeat of Heron the Black, those melted towers, a testament, the state of Harren Hall now to the might of the dragons. There's also just the practical need to find a place that could house this many people for the Great Council. But what a fitting setting it is. How did you feel about the choice to start the episode here years before the events that are the primary focus of the episode? Great counsel. First thing you see. Yeah, it's really, interesting it. And like, it's interesting in conversation with Game of Thrones where Weiss and Benif were so resistant to anything resembling a flashback, so much so that they cut stuff from the pilot episode of Ned's brother and dad, like, and their, and their death.

They cut that flashback, and they didn't go to flashbacks at all until season five. And so Ryan Connell has said his interviews, and like, I think in the after episode, he's just like, I love a prolog. I don't know what to tell you. So yeah, it's a little prolog, and it just feels a little bit more, to your point about Condal's kind of fandom or Martin's involvement, hopefully only to the benefit of the show, this is, like, I think a very Martin way to start things that Martin would be like, well, we have to say the Great Council of 101. How can we see what comes after we don't see?

And I think it's important to have it here because it sets an interesting precedent in terms of succession. They could have had people talk about it, but to show it, to show Rainies there and her disappointment, to show Vassaris there, to show Vassaris's wife, Queen Emma there, who's hugely pregnant with a baby that does not make it if we're doing our math correctly. You know what I mean? So that's one of the many pregnancies that she's talking about that doesn't come to term. And so all of those pieces in place there, and it gives you a very deep sense of all this has happened before. and will happen again. Yeah.

Shout out Battlestar. How about you? Yeah, I just thought this was perfect. I mean, frankly, I would have been content with an entire opening episode focused on the Great Council. I love the Great Council.

I think it is fascinating and delicious and so much of what spawns in the story connects to what happens here. You know, in our preview pods, we've both quoted this line a couple times from Fire and Blood. that is the line that sets off this stretch of fire and blood that covers this stretch of the story,

the seeds of war are oft planted during times of peace. So it has been in Westeros. This is an essential thing that, you know, they don't call Jaharis the first Targaryen, the old king, and the conciliator, just for shits and giggles. He lived a really long time. He reigned for decades,

and it was a peaceful reign. So you pair that. with some of the insights that we got in this opening voiceover about how the Targaryians are at the height of their power here, an idea that is then reinforced with what we see in the opening sequences, but also complicated with the nuggets that we hear about the state of King's Landing at the time, the disrepair that the city in which they rule is falling into.

In those days, House Targaryens stood at the height of its strength, we hear, with 10 adult dragons under its yoke. power in the world could stand against it. King Jairos reigned over nearly 60 years of peace and prosperity. Well, we don't linger for long in the good times because what's the concluding, very ominous note of that opening prologue? The only thing that could tear down the house of the dragon was itself. I thought that this was. I thought that this was, was really the perfect choice for the opening of this story. And it should be said that, like, King de Harris, for all that he's a peacetime king,

he's a peacetime king, because he can smell his stuff on the wind. And it's not, it's not there was a thought of war in fire and blood. It says that Corlis Valerian was amassing ships in defense of, you know, the claim of his family, which is slightly different in the books, but like the claim of his family. And it says, while hot-tempered and quarrelsome Damon was gathering support for his brother, right? So, like, already the sides are building up their pieces on their ends of the chess board as we go into this. And so it's not, it's not, will there be a war? It's the war is starting.

Let's head it off at the past here. Right, right, absolutely. And there is the crucial element here, this tone-setting element for the episode and for the series, for the story. this decision, the choosing of Viseris, cements the precedent that the succession will move through the male line. Reneas, a woman, would not inherit

the Iron Throne. We hear the lords instead chose Vesaris, my father. So when you look at Reneas Targaryen, and you just alluded to some of the tweaks from the book to the show here, the 14 claimants, the finalists in the show here

are Renice and Vesaris going head to head. Lenore, Corliss and Renice's son, is the finalist in the book, and that's sort of how Renice's claim is continuing is through her male heir. And that is one of the rejections and resentments that Corliss carries with him. But Renice had been slighted before, which is an important thing to mention, the second quarrel. Something that we love. This is just a great Georgeism. The second quarrel. It's just incredible stuff.

George, you did it again, buddy. The Queen who never was, as we will hear Reneas referred to later in the episode. Shout out the Baratheans. Stirring the shit already here on day one. Yeah. Just shit talking on attorney ground. I mean, we're better, honestly. You got to bring the trash talk out of the attorney fields.

Amen was initially. Jeharis's heir. When he died, Baylon, the second son, was chosen as the new heir over Reynes, who was Eamon's daughter. That was considered, again, a cementing or an initial solidification of the necessity of a male inheriting the throne, but also sparked a lot of this resentment for Renis, and not just Renis, which is key. Here's a quote from, fire and blood. The most prominent dissent her center was good queen Alicane, who had helped her husband rule the seven kingdoms for many years and now saw her son's daughter, by the way, Alessane and Jaharis, siblings, in case you're wondering, shout out the Targaryens now and always. And that way,

that's the last moment of incest of the show, right? Yeah, well, and it will never come up again. We wanted to mention that here because we're never going to talk about the incest again while we cover Hot D. Correct. Correct. Oh, dear. Now saw her son's daughter being passed over because of her sex. A ruler needs a good head and a true heart, she famously told the king. A cock is not essential if your grace truly believes that women lack the wit to rule. Plainly, you have no further need of me. And then good Queen Alessane, peace out.

Fucks off for two years. And it's called the Quarrel. Love that it's called The Quarrel. And then they're reunited after two years, but like it was never the same again between them. Because of this, because of what happened. And I think what's so interesting... Those are those seeds of war. I think what's so interesting about that is that...

So, Reynese, Eve Beth with her really cool, insane defying gravity wig, right? Gets passed over twice. In the book, the second time that she gets passed over, I love that it. It's her son that's up for the gig here, the second time. And they're like, no, not even... A man from a woman is going to hop the line here. And there's so many excuses, right? Oh, he's seven.

Yes. Is he 24 up. Vesaris rides Balarian. But what I loved about that is that like Vesaris wrote Balearian, but then he didn't ride a dragon again after Balearion. That line to me about that he wrote Balearian and the never another dragon, whereas Lenore was a dragon rider, that to me seemed a mark against Vassaris. And also we should say that in the book.

There's like Vesaris's uncle Vagon, the dragonless, is one of the, like he is actually the most, like the best claim. He's the third brother. He's the best claim. But George has this such shade for someone who, of Targaryen who never had a dragon. He says his very existence had largely been forgotten by the seven kingdoms. Like, and he was just like, even as a child, he was never very popular. Like nobody cared for him. He was a Targaryen without Drag.

What's a Targaryen without a dragon? And so that's a little like ding on Vassaris, too, I think, because this whole question of Vassaris was a dragon rider, wrote Balearion the Black Dred, one of the biggest, most famous dragons and all of Westeros. And then he didn't anymore. I sort of like, hmm, okay, Vassaris. Like, what's a Targaryen without a dragon? I have questions.

Certainly no accident that many of the crucial moments in the episode that we will be breaking down later, crucial lines in the episode that we'll be breaking down later are uttered in front of Balarian's skull. Looms Lodge. Any other great counsel thoughts? I mean, we could talk about the great council for hours. It's a rich text, but it really is the tone setter. It is funny in contrast to those other scenes that are like based off one sentence in the book.

This is many graphs in fire and blood. And it's like it took a year and a half for thousands of lords to assemble. Some of them got there after the voting. It already happened. You know, there's a whole cottage industry that crops up around Harenhall because people basically live there for half the year. So, yeah, it could have been a whole season. of the Great Council of 101. But a very satisfying prologue, I thought.

I agree. Last thing I'll say is I think that it's smart to make this Vesaris versus Renis in this and not get into all of the Lenore dynamics because it focuses things while keeping the central motivations and upshots of the decision in play and really does zero in on the gender politics that defines so much of this episode and the story moving forward. So very, very smart. We go from there to a golden Targaryen sigil center on our screen.

And that's it. No opening credits. Though we have since learned via many news report that they are coming. They're just not in this first episode. will be getting them. Winter and opening credits are coming. We got an email about this. So I'm going to go to our first email. If you want to send an email to us, Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com, we got a ton of great emails. We're going to sort of pepper them throughout here. This one comes from Laird. It's actually a sentiment and I've seen repeated all over the place,

which is the reason we don't have an opening credits sequence because Vassaris hasn't finished making the little models for it yet. Great. Great email, great joke. Incredible stuff. Quick point of clarification as I push my glasses up my nose. The model that Viseris is building in his bedchamber is Old Valeria. It's not Kings Landing. Though we could have the camera swooping around Old Valeria for the opening credits, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me necessarily.

But maybe, maybe we'll get his model or maybe we'll get the revamped map. Because I do think the map was hugely helpful to people every week. Granted, it's going to be a lot of Kings Landing. Just brace yourself for just circling the red keep. But maybe we'll get... But we could go, like, chamber to chamber. You know, we zoom instead of from one kingdom to another, right into the tapestry of the dragons, fucking the people and the orgy.

Great. So many possibilities. Love that for us. But I think it could be cool to... I love the clockwork aspect of the original. map, but it could be cool to make it look more like the model that Vassaris is building here. So maybe. But that is old Valeria.

I love the model. I loved the stonework. And I had like a real, wow, Vesaris, just like me sitting in my room late at night building a Lego model. Do you two wear a voluminous, like, nighty while you do it? Yeah, just a very loose. hanging night shirt. Great. Love that for you. No, as you know, because you see me in my pajamas on almost every

Zoom, I wear Nike yoga pants and Game of Thrones T-shirts. You feel like a wide array of Jim Jams, though. You're like the Jim Jam Queen, honestly. Wow. Thank you. Mother of Dragons and Queen of the Jim Jim's. Yeah. We'll add it to your resume. Oh, God.

We then go from the a golden tarc sigil into this opening title card. Quote, it is now the ninth year of King Viseris the first Targaryen's reign, 172 years before the death of the mad king, Ares, and the birth of his daughter,

Princess Dinaris Targaryen. And then a lot of the words fade and it goes to 172 years. years since Danaris. We are leading into establishing the time frame.

But again, that's Danny's birth, not the end of Game of Thrones in terms of the 172 years. In case anyone was wondering

about that, even though it clearly says the birth right there. Did you think we needed that? What was your feeling in general

on that very overt tie to Danny and the original show timeline. Is that just a purely helpful and reasonable thing? Did it feel like unnecessary? I felt like you and I didn't need it, but I felt like some cash viewers might, and that's fine, because cash viewers are viewers too, and they, you know, they need their handheld sometimes,

and maybe they haven't been pouring over books and trailers and stuff like that. And so they just fired up the old HBO Max and it crashed. Then they fired it up again. And they were like, wait, where are we? When are we? And there's a handy little title card for them, you know? On the timeline matter. Yeah. We can only work off of what we know inside of this first episode, but already there are a couple small

book versus show distinctions, which is a very normal thing in a Game of Thrones adaptation. You know, many of the characters in the original show were aged up. Thank the gods. And here, you know, in Fire and Blood,

we know that the Great Council is 101, and then Vassaris and Harris' crown in 103. It is not clear if that two-year time jump happens or if when we're saying we're in the ninth year, we're in 110 AC and it's just nine years since the Great Council, we're either in 110 AC or 112 AC for this episode, though. That's broadly where we are. And a lot of the events that we're witnessing in this premiere are aspects of the canon that are set earlier in the book, 105 AC, 106 AC, which I think it's

just, you know, worth mentioning because it's worth anticipating always that these things will slide around, which I think is fine and often actually helpful when adapting the tail. We also, given that we get this time range here, we got a lot of emails, by the way, about whether there's a possibility of other Thrones connections or cameos here. So we are long in the past, and this is similar to our question about rings of power, who could possibly turn up hundreds of years in the past of a story that we're familiar with? So most of the emails we got were about Melisandra. Will we see Melisandra at some point, given how old our Bay Melisandra is?

Will we see the Knight King based on, you know, the mention that we will talk about a length at the end of this episode? Will we see Beran bopping around through time at some point? Of course, we don't know the answer to any of that, but my question is, Mallory, do you want any of that? Interesting. I don't think we should see the Knight King. We'll obviously talk at length later about Viseris's reveal of Agon's prophetic dream, but the Knight King emerging in any way in this aspect of the timeline would, I'll remain open mind as I always try to, but I don't

think that would. Yeah, to do what? To just like walk around in a circle north of the wall? Like, I think we know when winter returns. We have. a whole show about it. That show began in 298 AC. So I'm going to say no on that. Mel Alessandro, though, I think is in play. I mean, which is fun. If our gal is 400 years old, anything's possible. I would love to see Mel. I always love to see Mel. What about King Brandon Stark himself? I'm going to go now. Why do you think I came all this way? He says. Who do you think sent the wind? Just a gust of wind, realizing it's brand peeping on the dagger.

Sure. Why not? That's no. That's a no from us then on brand. Oh, God. You know, hey, I'm ready to rock with it if it happens. I'll give it a go. So in the book, Renira is born in 97 AC. We were discussing right after we watched,

what if we're trying to figure out this exact math, what age does this make Renira? our buddy, friend of the pod, Kim Remphro, has confirmed 14 years old for Renira. And Alicent. And Alicent. And that's a change. That's a big difference because there's supposed to be sort of like a 10-year difference-ish between them. Yeah.

Speaking of young Reneira. Yeah. We then go into the skies soaring on Dragonback. Renira flying into the dragon pit above King's Landing on. Syrax, her mount. I thought this was a strong and smart way to reorient us to Kings Landing, a city that we are very familiar with, but a city that is existing here two centuries prior to the time we've previously spent there.

There are some filming and technical and set differences for how this was made that maybe you can walk people through here. And I think you can feel a little bit of that visual distinction as well. I also think that this really effectively essentially is. establish that dragons are a routine part of life in Kings Landing. But you have, like, again, this very deft dissonance at play here because people are walking through the Kings Landing with a dragon flying overhead and you can feel that this is a site to which they have grown accustomed, but also that that does, there's a difference between accustomed and comfort, right? Because when

Reneer actually lands in the dragon pit, we'll talk about the dragon pit more in a second, Sir Harold Westering and Allison Hightower are like, absolutely not. This is not for me. And we feel Even with some of the people closest to Reneira, closest to the Targaryen dynasty, that the dragons are a source of supreme separation between our silver-haired rulers and literally everybody else. Yeah, to your point about what King's Landing looks like, we should recall that in early seasons of Thrones, they like went to Dubrovnik and other places and they were in real castles and real cities. And eventually they stopped doing that.

Mostly, I think, to, there were some Croatian politics involved, but also I think to fend off sort of like spies on set, like leaked photos and stuff like that. So they went to like a lot of digital locations or middle of nowhere and they added digital effects. And so this is a largely digital city. And I felt that in this opening, you know, I missed the like cobbles of Dubrovnik and stuff like that. So I think that's a big difference. We do see, as you say, familiar locations. You see you get like if the camera lingers that like where the Klingameble happened in the bells.

And I think it's interesting to think about this shot of the Dragon over Kings Landing. There's two references that come to mind. One is, of course, like DeNaris and the bells. Like, you know, there's a strong visual connection between DeNaris and Reneira here. Reneira is wearing sort of gray leathers the way that Dineris often did in later seasons and stuff like that, but also Brand's vision of the shadow of the dragon over Kingslanding. You know what I mean? And so I think that's great iconography to start with because it puts us in three spaces.

It puts us in dreams. It puts us in terror. It puts us in a time of peace. But with that layer of unease underneath it, I think it's really. Smart. Agreed. I love the visual parallels there. How did you enjoy your time with our first dragon of the series with a beautiful golden Cyrax, quite visually distinct from Caraxis who we meet later in the episode, unless you were Chris Ryan, who said, I'm talking to Thrones that he could not tell these two dragons apart, organic stuff from our guy's CR. That's not Chris Ryan's job. It's not his job to tell the difference of two dragons. That's our job. Thank you, Chris. How did you take to Syrax?

Yeah, I feel like I need to get to know her a bit better to understand her personality. But I love all the trappings that come with the Dragon Writers in this. As you mentioned, the Dragon Pit, which we saw at the End of Thrones in Ruins, is fully intact. We've talked about this already on a couple trailer episodes, but there's a whole Dragon Rider infrastructure. You know, you've got these, you know, handlers. you've got saddles, you've got all kinds of stuff going on. You know, just to really quickly establish for us the dragon culture at the time and how different it is from DeNaris just trying to figure it out on our own.

What the hell do I do with these things? You know, so. Absolutely. And we will again be taking, you know, everything in Game of Thrones into account here. And we know that this is a prequel set a couple centuries before the. bulk of the time that we have spent with these characters to date. But a thing that we know to be true is that the, not just that the dragon pit is in ruins in Game of Thrones, but that it stands then as a symbol of the fall of this dynasty. And we have that great Danny line to John in the season

seven finale where she is really grappling with what this signifies. This place was the beginning of the end for my family, she says. A dragon is not a slave. They were terrifying a extraordinary. They filled people with wonder and awe, and we locked them in here. They wasted away. They grew small, and we grew small as well. We weren't extraordinary without them. We were just like everyone else. And it was impossible for me not to think of that line and that moment and the importance of it when returning to the dragon pit here, because while that infrastructure speaks to the power and while that idea connects to something that we will hear Reneira and Viseris discussed later, this idea of Targaryens is closer to gods than men

because of the dragons and what they represent can't shake the fact that these signifiers of power and might and strength and the full extent of their established and trenched rain, like you see the bolt on the side of Syrax's neck. You see the saddle on her back. You see the dragon keepers speaking in Valerian, these commands and leading Syracs into this tunnel where we know a dragon does not belong and should not be. We have seen Viserian and Regal in the catacombs of Marine. So I again thought

this was like an incredibly effective opening note to establish that apex status and to help us recall what the long term, and again, this is like a very, very, very long term future is for this family. Well, I think it's significant too that they kept the job. dragon pit ruins there in Kings Landing. You know what I mean? As you say, as like a reminder, because Targaryen kings reigned for a while with the ruined dragon pit there. And so I think you could easily tear that down and refurbish it and build something new.

But as like a cautionary tale of varying degrees of power out of control, I think is what the dragon pit represents, ultimately. Present to greet Reneera, Sir Harold Westerland. and Allison Tight Tower. Allison, right away, we're leaning in to the show version of this relationship. Besties. Give the people a little snapshot of the change here, because this is not our understanding of the relationship in the books.

Yeah, you know, as we said, like, Rainier is much younger than Allison in the books, and while Alicent is a fixture in the court, and we'll get to some of, like, her history with Targary. family, there's no mention of her relationship with Renira before something that hasn't even happened yet, like, later. And it's just sort of like, they're friendly enough or whatever. But it's not these girls had a very close, you know, inextricable bond. But this episode does a lot both in this scene and then the later scenes to show them as best friends.

I think it's a brilliant update on this story. I always think that women should have more friends, honestly. in stories. But I think, you know, for where everything's going, I think this is such a brilliant update. Allison is, as you said there, for many key moments, you know, she is dressing Reneira when it is time for the Lords of the Realm to pledge fealty at the end of the episode. We get the study time sequence, et cetera, et cetera. But she is also by Reneer's side, right in the next scene when Reneira goes to visit her mother, Queen Emma. We make our way through Kings Landing again.

We get a little bit of like a nice walking tour. We pass a dragon statue. We make our way through the Red Keep. It's fun to see which aspects of the castle look distinct. There was just so much fire everywhere, which feels a very fitting for a Targaryen stretch here. Totally cool. Not ominous at all. Very fine. Oh, God. The targs. The targs. Queen Emma. Yeah. Emma Aaron.

Viseris's cousin. Yes. Again. Oh, wow. Okay. Only two, though. Incess stuble. It's just those two. It's just those two. Those two incestuous relationships and then that's it. Then we're done. This is actually the last time that we will mention incest. Yeah. Fun fact, Mallory. How old was Emma Prezema when? when she married Viserius? The marriage in the books is 93A.C. And she, if I recall, was 11 years old. But don't worry, the marriage was not consummated.

She was not consummated until she flowered two years later. Yikes. Like big, big yikes. My God. There's this quote from, in fire and blood from around that idea of of Emma being married when she's 11. Some Masons felt she had been married and bedded too young. Some Mesaers were like, is that too young?

But maybe that that's connected to some of the problems that she has with her births later on. Right. Right. So obviously and thankfully aged up considerably here in the show. Again, yes, Emma Aaron, but you see the silver hair. You can tell right away. Targaryen blood. This is Roger Garan and Diala Targaryen's kid. Emma is like Vissaris, a grandchild of Jaharis.

The exchange here between Emma and Reneer is a seismic tone setter for the episode, the season, and the entire proposition of this television show, this story. Emma says, you will lie in this bed soon. enough for Nira. This discomfort is how we serve the realm. And Reneira says, I'd rather serve as a knight and ride to battle and glory. We talked about this a bit on Talk to Thrones, but it just so strongly evoked for me, Aria and the That's Not Me moment that she has in season one with Ned. And of course, makes us think of numerous women who we spent time with in Game of Thrones, Aria, Brian, Danny, Zanzah, Circe, et cetera, these characters who challenge the norms

and the expectations that the realm has for how they will live their lives. When Emma says, we have royal wombs, you and I, the childbed is our battlefield. We must learn to face it with a stiff upper lip. Now, of course, that is a harbinger of what is to come later in the episode.

It also makes us think of other aspects of Thrones lore. I found myself recalling Leanna and the bed of blood. And what I think is really interesting in this Alice, Alicent-Rinira relationship is that when I first saw Alicent emerge from the little carriage she was in waiting for Reneer to get off her dragon, in that pale blue, Virgin Mary blue dress

looked so much like Sansa to me, like Sansa on the Kings Road. Sonsa, you're spoiling everything era Sonsa wore a dress in the same shade. And so I feel like, you know, if we're setting up Reneera as an aria, comp. We're setting Allison up as more of Asansa comp in terms of dutiful, you know, when Queen Emma says these things, you get the sense that Renira is like, is that our duty? And then you get the sense that Allison is like, yes, that's our place in the court, you know, and I think that dynamic is really interesting. It was also just important to see the tenderness and the affection between Reneera and her mother, like Reneera has the moment when she's walking in, she says,

you know, everybody's focus on the babe. Who's tending to you? And she is a character who thinks that way. And of course, a lot of that is informed by her own experience. You know, so much of the episode is centered on Viseris's certainty that his male air is about to arrive, including in sequences like the scene we'll talk about next. next, the first small council meeting, where he's speaking about the damnable hand-wringing about to come to an end with Renera standing right there.

Like this has been a defining reality of her life. And in some ways, the obsessive focus on the pursuit of a male heir has allowed her to think about being a knight or riding on Dragonback or just never testing, I should say, about cake, a great line that we get later. the burden of rule is a new aspect of her life that comes into her reality at the end of this episode. Here, she is a character who was thinking about her mother and whether she is okay. And I think that's a very human note in an episode that is full of a lot of horror and a lot of pursuits of ends at the expense of any sort of tender feeling. or relationship or love.

And so you need a moment like this as a counterweight. I also think they did a great job of, in just two scenes, that one and the bathtub scene, establishing Emma as an interesting character with an interior life and her own. Like, I just thought that they established her well so that we feel the loss of her. Absolutely. And it's a really amazing performance from Sean Brooke. Really, really amazing. We go next to our first small council meeting.

We get a lot of time with Vissaris and his small council in this episode. And it's never enough. The small council scenes are wonderful. This is so much of the throne's DNA that we long for and crave, the plotting and the scheming. Every character has an agenda. How much of it can we deduce in real time? How much of it can the other characters at the table deduce? It's delicious.

equally delicious, you know, the egg that Viseras is just peeling and snacking on. Love to just peel eggs at a team meeting. And also with a little, you know, totally work appropriate small council meeting joke. So I said to him, end. This is how you start every ring or versus Zoom, Joe. I mean, well, you are forever peeling eggs

on your side of the Zoom. So we all have our sins, Mallory, our Zoom sins in your gym jams, peeling eggs. Um, yeah. Okay, here's the biggest question out of the small council meeting. It's a question on everyone's lips. We got an email from Joshua. What were the orbs that were in front of the council? Were they in Game of Thrones too? What are these small council balls? Uh, we find out via Hollywood Reporter article. The balls are just a cool piece of set design that basically is like punching in. You're clocking in with your small council ball. I have some follow questions about the balls. And we're going to talk about them again. I'm just going to say balls as many times I can, but also we're going to talk about it again in the book reader section. But there are different designs. My question is like, do you think you get to design your own ball? Like when you're appointed the small council? Do you design your own ball? Or if you're like masterships, you have to have, you know, the ball that looks like that. Yeah, some sort of like color coding. Yeah. Associated with the position would track. I would like design my own ball. Yeah, I like the idea that it's like a pottery class and everybody gets to really like put their own personal touch on their, you know, tend to their own balls as people should.

Yeah. Well, I'll say two things. One, great. Cool set design. It gives this council its own individual, visual and aesthetic flavor. Great. Cool. However, I refuse to accept that the balls will not have a role to play.

I could see in a game of thrones tale where murder and treachery is routine maybe someone will bludgeon somebody else with a small council ball could we get a small council murder with a ball? What do you think? Your small council ball theory

which you floated to me earlier. But yes, I have another theory. Is my, is like, I love that you have a small council ball theory and that's how I know Thrones is back. Yes, absolutely someone could get killed with those balls. And I hope that's the case. Because if it's just set design, why is the camera lingering on them so long? I know. I feel like those balls have to do something later on. Here's a, here's a more

spicy theory for you though. Oh. Now on the one hand, we know that, you know, Damon is left on Caraxies. Caraxies! At the end of the episode. But what's to stop our guy, Damon Targary and Prince of the City from popping back into the small council chambers, taking those balls and bringing them over to his next orgy. On the street of Silk or elsewhere, the boys had hero-gasm. Maybe Hot D will have small council ballgasm.

Let's get him in the mix. Why not? No? Forever unclean. Forever unclean. Unclean like Renira when she gets off a dragon. Okay, so Renira comes in Stinking of Dragon. Love that for her.

But also, comments about the smell. Yeah. Also, another Aria comp is, of course, we're near acting as Cupbearer here in the Small Council, as Ariya did in Heron Hall for Tywin. Can I ask you, though, what you think dragons smell like because it was remarked upon by both Emma and Vassaris? And it was remarked upon it like, you stink way. Really strong horse. Okay. A really strong horse smell. I don't like this. I think that dragons should smell like a caramelized dessert. No, like a like a like a smore or something. You know, there are, Breathing fire.

That's some real Harry Potter energy from you. I don't know. I mean, the night's watch is burning its own dead, talking about how great the corpses smell when you char something. It smells delicious. No? I could, like, maybe it smells like lighter fluid on a barbecue. But I don't know about like burnt caramel.

I'm sticking with it. I'm sticking with it. Okay. If that were true, why would anybody need to bathe after that? You'd just walk around smelling like a wonderful candle. Sounds great. It would be like, you stink of dragon. It'd be like, hmm, come closer.

Yeah, it smells like the holidays around here. Lovely, lovely. What did you make of that aria cup, Barracomp, and just the nature of that station for Rainier. Because I think you can interpret it a couple different ways in terms of what she's privy to and also how Vassaris is thinking about her role in his life and his kingdom. I mean, it's important to say that, you know,

she's their only child. They've tried to have so many children. She's the only child. She's known at this time as the realm's delight. That's her name. The realm's delight, Renira Targaryen. Her parents dote on her. Vassar's dotes on her.

And like, you know, whatever conversations we have, however much you must, you wants a son. And however that makes her feel, which is less than second class, he adores her. And, you know, there's a line in the book about how she was ever by his side. Because she's his cup bearer. So, but it just set her up to be in a position where she knows much more about politics, et cetera, because she's been in the room where it happens.

Exactly. Yeah. I think that, you know, maybe some people interpret that position as, you know, if you're just coming to the story, as, oh, she's just there to serve the drinks. But as you said, that affection, that doting is so palpable and so central to their relationship, you know, she is like the great joy of the Saras's life. and that desire to have her near and to have her bear witness,

even to the extent that it's not always a conscious thing for him, you think of, of course, as you noted, Ariah and Taiwan, and how much Arya, like the bonding that unfolds in those incredible all-time pantheon sequences, but also just quite literally how much aria hears and is able

to bear witness to because you were privy to so many consequential exchanges if you were in a small council meeting and how Reneer has just been absorbing, not only information by her presence, but a sense of who these people are, a sense of their dynamics,

a sense of what they think about each other. She knows what Otto Hightower thinks about things because she has been in the room for so many of his speeches and monologos. His epistles and his defense. It's a great one. It's perfect. And I also thought a little bit about John

and Lord Commander Mormont because, you know, John is, of course, so resentful of Thor's intervention and not being a ranger. But the way that Sam is able to ultimately assuage John is by reminding him that Mormont's decision to choose Mrs. Personal Stewart. And yes, I understand that the cup air is not an exact one-to-one to his store, but I think there are parallels. He's like, hey, dummy, you're grooming you for command. Exactly. And so I, even though it's, it takes a while for Viseris to have the epiphany that, Reneira is the right choice to rule and there is this horror, this just stretch of horror that unfolds before we get to that

moment, there is not only affection, but respect in having her here. The other members of the small council, quickly, hand to the king, Sir Otto High Tower. We will be talking about him more in ensuing small council scenes. Stay tuned. Grandmeister, Melos, Master of Ships, Corlis Valerian, the sea snake. Master of Coin, Joanna's favorite. Beesbury.

Lord Beesbury. A star making turn from Beesbury in the premiere here, truly. Master of Laws, Lionel Strong, and then Damon as Lord Commander of the City Watch, having gone through other positions, Coin and Law previously, not always occupying his chair, shows up in a later scene, has an incredible showdown with Otto High Tower. We'll talk about that soon. We're going to talk about all these characters more,

in this episode, but that is a quick snapshot of who is here. And one of the things that we see right away is that folks are not on the same page in terms of just what is the priority of the moment. Corliss is efforting to focus the conversation and the attention on the threat of the triarchy in the stepstones. Everybody else just wants to talk about Damon and the City Watch, which we'll return to, or planning the airs torny, including Viseras, who is very excited to focus on the airs torny. Corliss keeps trying to return to Chekhov's stepstones, checkoff's striarchy, check off scrab feeder. What did you think of the emphasis on this? Well, we should talk about Corlis Valerian because it's a very interesting figure.

In Fire and Blood, Martin pauses for like several pages to talk about Corlis Valerian. But it's important to know that Corlis is kind of a self-made man. Like House Valerian existed. The Valerians were from old Valeria, and they're really hitting that Valerian pronunciation, so we don't confuse it with Valerian. But House Valerian... You wouldn't want to have any confusion between similar-sounding names in House of the Dragon. What would we do that?

Agon's thick on the ground. But anyway, House Valerian came to Westrose before. for the Targaryens. But they weren't a rich house, at least not of late, until Corlis Valerian in his youth, via sailing the high seas, working the trade routes, all this sort of stuff amasses this massive fortune. And I think it's really interesting that only recently

the Valerian's eclipsed House Lannister, we know that they're rich, and House High Tower, Otto's house, as the richest house in the realm. And so if you're looking for some of the source of the tension between Otto and Corlis, I think this idea that Corliss is like, I'm now the richest bitch in the room, like, is part of it. The High Towers were the richest. Now they're like second or third on the list. And then also, it's a fun adaptive change to have Corliss on the council here because Corliss actually quit the council the first time his wife was passed over for Queen. He was so pissed off.

Or in Martin's word, Roth, that he was. He fucked off the small council, and he was like, no, thank you. I'm out. I'm out of politics. You guys are sexist bastards. But there's this other great line about Corliss that I loved because, you know, they were saying that Martin says that House Valerian, Targaryens control the sky. House Valerian controls the seas, right?

And so it says, of Corlis Valerian, his sons and daughters would soar through the skies because they're half Targaryen. Lord Corlis expected it, and one day one of them would sit the Iron Throne. This is his expectation, his ambitions for his children. And so, but that key part is he's made his own fortune. He's like Nouveau-Riche, right? He's relatively new on the scene. But it all depends on the sea and the trade routes and all of that going according to plan.

And so this fraca in the step zones is threatening to fuck with this fortune, is essentially what's going on. If those shipping lanes should fall, it will beggar our. reports, he says, and that is a personal concern in addition to being a concern for the realm. Yeah, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, it is worth, it is worth noting that, even though they came from old Valeria before the Targs, this is not a dragon riding family in history until the union here. And I think it's interesting. I mean, I, I could be wrong in up my own ass about this and sometimes I am, but like, you

know, there's been conversations about, like, the fact that they, cast the Valerians, Valerians, as a non-white family, right? Which is a difference from Thrones, a welcome, like, influx of non-white faces into the cast here. Yeah. But I don't, I think some people are calling it colorblind casting, and I'm not sure I would call it

exactly colorblind, because I do think there is some of this, like, again, Muvoreish, not quite one of us, vibe that hangs around Corlis, that, like, I think interacts with the way that they decided to cast this family of like Otto Hightower

feeling much more like he deserves to be there than Corliss because of the history of his family. So I don't know, I haven't read any interviews where they talked about that, but I thought that was kind of interesting. Well, we'll chat more about Otto

and some of the dynamics that he has with the other characters in a subsequent small council scene, but we go from this first small council meeting to Renera greeting Damon. Sir Harold West Westerling takes her there. And again, we have a couple sequences in this episode.

A few. We have the Dragon Pit one, this. Her asking about Sirkerson Cole later at the tourney, really establishing Westerling as Reneera's close confidant, always present in her life, aware of her secrets, because Viseras doesn't even know that Damon is here, but Westerling is taking her there, building up this familiarity. Who trusts whom? You know, this is an establishing opening note of consequence.

And a much better, like a much better, so this is Graham McTavish, who a lot of people know from Outlander. Yeah. Extremely handsome, distinguished man. I will say, Lauren Herald Western. Is such a better, like, confidant, because when she turns to him at the tourney, it gives me Sansa and Littlefinger at the tourney, right? And so, so her getting her info from Westerling is so much better than Sansa getting her info from Littlefinger. It's not a very pleasant story. That's exactly how he said, though.

I think that's the first I've ever heard your Little Finger impression. Well, everyone's different because every episode, Little Finger had a new accent, you know, part of the fun. That's true. When we enter the throne room, we see not only this more book-accurate Iron Throne, which we've chatted about before, the statues of Tark Kings of Old on the pillars. But we see Damon Targaryen seated on the

Iron throne, establishing the rogue prince energy that we need right from the jump. We get an instantly iconic, gods be good from Westerling when he sees this, which killed me. So funny. And this palpably

evokes Jamie Lanister and Ned discovering Jamie in the throne room. It was just impossible not to think of that. And of course, a fellow rogue being alluded to there is just perfect. What did you think of our first glimpse of Damon here? Love it. Love him. Perfect. No, no. Maybe one or two notes. Like the way he put this Valerian steel necklace on his 14-year-old niece. So in Fireblood, they talk about how Ranira was just absolutely captivated and fascinated by her uncle. And it says, whenever he crossed the narrow sea, he brought her some exotic gift on

his return, right? So this is just he's forever bringing her trinkets. Yeah, so I have some notes about that for sure. But as we've established, there's only two instances of incest and we've already covered them. So this is fine. God. We're fine. I do love in the, I will say in the necklace scene, I love the way that he says, now you and I both own a small piece of our ancestry, beautiful. Like the ties to old Valeria and the ties to this history are very, very, very present throughout this entire episode with numerous characters, including some we'll get to later when we chat about the big Viseris reveal. They're speaking also Old Valerian.

Like they are just conversing Damon and Reneer throughout the episode in their mother tongue. It is a casual routine part of their life and their bond. And I also thought that that was an effective establishing note. as is just showing us right away how Damon doesn't really take any of it seriously, right? They, again, don't call him the rogue prince for nothing. He calls court dreadfully boring. Who can argue?

And says, I heard your father was hosting a tournament in my honor. The tournament is for his error. And the error replies, hmm, just as I said, we're getting that troublemaker, shitster, energy, right away. Just the breakout star of the episode, unsurprisingly. Damon is such a rich character. This is the perfect introduction to him.

I had some people say, like, how could you love Damon when he is such a piece of shit, which she is? And I'm like, I don't know. Jamie Lancaster pushed a kid out of a window in Season 1 episode 1 of Game of Thrones. And my heart belonged to Jamie Lanister. So like... Things we do for love, you know? You know.

The things I'll tolerate. for a roguish character. Oh, God. We are next with Renira, again with Allison, studying in the shade of a wherewood tree, Joe.

An incredibly rare glimpse of a wherewood at this point in the timeline down south. The bulk of them having, of course, been cut down long ago. I guess this is

supposed to be a godswood. You know, it looks quite different from the godswood. would we're accustomed to seeing later in the timeline where Sonsa spends some very upsetting time in the wake of the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. It was an interesting way to pluck a bit of Thrones iconography there. It also say, we're in a different point in time.

This is not a set on Kings Landing it. That is exactly something you've seen before. What does you make of that choice? Yeah, I think it's interesting. the werewood tree in when Sonsa is there is a stump. Not necessarily this tree, but she's a stump of a wherewood tree. And so this idea that the religion of the north, the wherewood tree and two people under the wherewood tree made me think of Catlin and Ned under the wherewood tree and the premiere,

the series premiere of Game of Thrones. Tell me. But that idea of the old, you know, when you say the old gods and the new, like it's important to remember the old gods the way of the north all of that sort of stuff the wherewood tree that was eradicated largely from the south um and so you know this is a an interesting remnant of a religion that's not really practiced by any anyone certainly not by alicent or um by rinera um but there's also like the wherewood tree as like a way for people like the spy network of the wherewood tree like you know, so that there's, you know, so there's like one in King's Landing is interesting.

Yeah, to me, it just felt like they wanted, there might be more explanation later, but to me it just felt like they wanted a little bit of that iconography. Like you're back in the throne's world. Here's a weird word tree. Yeah. Speaking of connecting to events from the past, Alison is quizzing Reneera on Nymeria's arrival in Dorn. The choice to mention Nimeria here fascinating for a few reasons.

There's a meta, you know, 10,000 ships spin-off as spake-to-us. Right. So one of the spinoffs that HPA was theoretically has development is about Nimeria and the 10,000, you know, all of that sort of stuff, the story you hear. So maybe we're planning a seed for the future. It's also, again, under the wherewood tree that's familiar to us. I mentioned of Nimeria, a name that is very familiar to us because of Aria's dire wolf. Yes, of course, names her beloved wolf. But why does she choose the name Nimeria for her wolf?

It is because Nimeria, this figure, is a hero to so many women in the realm and her arrival in Dorn not only like cemented the Roinish customs in Dorn and this real distinct way of life inside of Dorn compared to elsewhere in the kingdoms, but particularly the, the, the, the, the way that Dorn thinks differently about women in society. And we get some of that in the primary series through Oberin. Dorn accepted a woman as leader and ruler. Fun fact about Dorn at this. So Dorn is not part of, you know, the realm at this point.

But Dorn did send an envoy to the great council just to, like, observe. And they sent their princess is who they sent to observe. And that's just like an indicator that, yeah, like women, women are allowed agency and rule in Dorn. So, yeah. Nymeria, I, like, frankly, that potential spinoff is top of my list of what I would love to see. This is, of course, another aria comp, you know, in terms of, like, Alison being concerned about what the septa will think about a page. I mean, I'm actually kind of pissed that Rinerer ripped a page out of that beautiful book, but whatever. I'm not, she's, fuck this up, doesn't fuck me, I guess, is how she feels.

But also makes me think of one of my favorite scenes that's such beautiful, efficient storytelling from season one of Game of Thrones, which is Bran and Macer Lewin in episode five talking about like the houses and their wars and the sigils and how much brand did not. Family duty, honor. Is that the right order? His mom left. He's upset. That's actually one of my favorite brand scenes.

I thought, I think it's so good. But just that, like, I don't want to study energy coming off with these kids. I love it. I absolutely love it. And that's also where we get the great exchange about position. And Reneira says here, when discussing the prospect of Asaris's heir, I hope for my father that he gets his son for as long as I can recall it's all he's wanted. And Allison says, you want him to have a son?

Roanero says, I want to fly with you on Dragonback. See the great wonders across the narrow sea and eat only cake. I'm being serious. I never just about cake. Me neither, though I particularly never just about pie. Lemon cakes. You love lemon cakes. Mmm, delicious.

This connects to a lot of what we already chatted about with that. That's not me palpable vibe here. I'm curious for your read on how sincerely Reneira believes this. And I think that there are a lot of different complexities at play here. But I love this moment so much because, first of all,

I think inside of a great story, people's motivations can change all the time. This feels like, again, more than one thing can be true at once kind of moment. And I think that Reneira has her real hurt and sorrow and resentment for the way that her father is so solely focused on the pursuit of a male heir and also does actually feel a passion for these certain aspects of her life. And it makes me think of George's, and this is, of course, not just a George tendency,

it is a fantasy staple, but George's inclination to focus his stories on the reluctant ruler. You know, the character who is not on day one seeking the crown and saying that's the thing I want, the one who comes to it because it is what the realm or somebody needed and required. And then maybe finds, again, this is a story trawling to just and across many of our favorite tales, that they are actually well equipped for that responsibility and that burden. In summary, I don't want it. Yeah. You're my queen.

I don't want it. All right. So the reluctant leader trope is so interesting to me because I think that I don't love that George leans on this so much. I don't know that I love this for Reneira. And there's more to come as we talk about the prophecy thing that's unveiled at the end of this episode because I kind of like what's wrong with a little ambition. You know what I mean?

Like there's this idea that like to be an ambitious leader or to feel. at least that I would do this job really well, that there's something wrong with that. And I think that that's, I don't know, I don't love that that's always the case, it seems like, you know? Yeah, I think it's a good point. Is it that there's something wrong with thinking you do the job well? Or is it that there's the distinction between that self-awareness and introspection and the pursuit of power, which connects to that auto line we get elsewhere in the episode about how the gods have yet to make a man who, you know, doesn't have the the taste for absolute power. Like, you know, one of the things that I always enjoy hearing George talk about is that

ruling is a responsibility and a burden. And even if you do think you could do it well, it shouldn't be something that you seek purely because you are then in a position to decide on behalf of everyone, right? It should be something that you realize you have the capacity to do well and responsibly and how few people actually possess that capacity, really. Yeah. Brinira as like a reluctant leader is never really the vibe in fire and blood. And so this is an interesting addition here.

And I'll be curious to how that's why I wanted to know how like sincere you thought it was. Is this kind of a new insight or I think at this point, it's not even a glimmer in her eye. She's like, there's no way I'm going to be king. So let's just have fucking dragon adventures. You and me. my best bud, my roommate, my pal, definitely not my girlfriend, it's fine. But I think that, and I think also this idea of her wanting a son for her father, it's like she's resentful, but at the same time she's like she's picking out an egg for her baby brother.

Like I think she's excited about the idea of having a baby brother. Like this is an interesting thing. But per Emma, she's picking out that egg for a baby sister. Oh, sure. And saying I wanted to be visited her to be named. That's true. That's a good point. So like, I don't know. Do you think, you think she's just saying this for Allison's benefit? No, no, no, no. I don't. I was just curious if, uh, if you thought it was possible to interpret it that way. It is. I think it is. I love the reluctant ruler trope. So I'm leaning in. I'm always down for more of it.

I like it sometimes. I just don't like that like. That's fair. I like that Reneer in the book. is a bit more like, I deserve this and I feel like I would be good at this. Oh, so to be clear, I am not discounting that. And I think that is, of course, an essential part of any good arc. And particularly inside of this story where so much of the realm is dead set against women ruling, the women in question saying, actually I'm the one who can do this well, whether it's Renera or Renice or any number of other characters,

is elemental to the appeal and the central focus. So I'm certainly not discounting that. I think that's central. That I just don't want to get lost in a whole, like, well, if I must, sort of thing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. To go back to my pals, Allison and Rainira, just hanging out like gals do under a tree. We got an email from listener Larry, who asks, are Renira and Allison lovers or nah?

Lovers or nah. I don't always pick up on unstated queer attractions, but the way they stare at each other in the first scene, the way they're sitting under the tree in the garden with Renera, resting her head on Allison's lap is not so subtle. Also, Allison gets upset at Renier, not taking her position seriously. It came off like a spouse upset their partner. Isn't trying to get better their career. I guess it could be that she sees another woman not asserting herself and is projecting a bit. Friend of the pod of Kim Renfro asked Millie Alcott and Emily Carey who play these two young

women about this. And they both said, yeah, we were playing that up. So it's not, you're not imagining it. If you see it there, you're not imagining it. It's intended in the performance. So. I love it. I love it, too. I love it. I dig it. Speaking of digging, let's go dig into the festering wound on Vassaris's back.

What a cut. Game of Thrones never misses an opportunity to dive in, not only to the lore, but to the pus oozing out of some sort of deeping wound. Very tough. Very tough. Vassar says it's a small cut from sitting on the end up. Iron Throne, it's nothing. The Maesters can't crack this one. Sample has been set off to the Citadel for study. They're forced to suggest caudorization to heal it. Auto, very focused on nobody learning about this, nobody hearing about this. We're going to talk about this more later today in our

book section, but here, I think we could just say that the idea of anybody in the realm being aware that, one, there was any sort of weakness afoot in the ruler, but also, two, that the throne, this idea of the throne potentially judging you, which is a big part of canon across the various characters and tales, so it's not something you want people knowing is happening. And we see him slice his finger later when he's exiling Damon.

So we get two sword barb cuts in one episode for our guy, Vassaris. At least two, because when we see his back, he's got other, like, scars on his body. So, yeah. And I love how the young maister's like, should we cauterize it? And the older one's like,

oh, yes, should we coronerize the wound, my lord? Like, I love that because even though we do see Vassaris later holding his hand in the candle flame for, you know, longer than a normal person would, cauterizing the wound was a great moment for the, the Targaryans are not actually fired. Fireproof. Sure not.

Canon. So that was great. Let's chat about Vesaris visiting Emma in the bath. We talked about this a little bit already, but this is just an

absolutely heartbreaking scene. She is recounting all of the children that she has lost before. She is apologizing to him for failing to give him an air. A horrible thing

that she would feel like this is something she had to say. and saying to him, is this the last time? Asking if this can be the last time that they try. She says, I've mourned all the dead children, I can. So there are a few really consequential things here. Obviously, everything we hear from Emma there. We see the real tenderness and affection between Viseras and Emma,

which makes what unfolds later in the birthing bed all the more painful and horrific and tragic? How did you feel about this sequence in terms of their bond? We'll talk about the dream in a second. I think it's really interesting that she says, I'm sorry. I don't think she's asking. I feel like she's telling it. This is the last one, and we should say that, like,

Moon Tea exists in Westero, so she has, like, you know, access to birth control. And yeah, she's like, this is it, man. So last time I put my body in a bath as the only, like, way I can feel any sort of comfort. You do get that real connection and tenderness between them. Again, this is another great performance from John Brooke to establish Emma as a character that we will miss. But I think that, and as you noted, you know, Reneira wanting a sister and wanting to name her Viscena. And like, that's really interesting. Do you want to talk about this Vesena?

Yeah. Yeah. So Vesaris responds to that by saying, God's be good. This family already has its Vesenia. There's some different opinions on who this might refer to, which I think is fun. You and I had different interpretations.

I was slacking with Riley and Kram about the episode. They had different interpretations too, which is always interesting. So who did you think that this was about? I thought this was about Reneura. Okay. Why? Just because, so Vesena. Senia being one of Agon's sister wives, being like a very spirited, maybe like disobedient woman sort of thing.

And I don't know. I just think of cutting from Renira saying like, fuck the set up to this eventually. Made me think that he was talking about Renira. Who is your candidate here? So I like that. My assumption was that this was about Damon. I think in part because Vecenia as the older sister to Agon the Conqueror, Renice the Younger. Again, both of them were his wives, totally normal family stuff for the turks.

Just three instances of incest of the Targan family. That's it. Just the three. Oh, God. So part of the reason I thought it was Damon was because there's the like sibling aspect to Viseris maybe making that reference about his own brother. But also there are just so many parallels between Damon and Vesnia in some ways that are quite overt. He carries and wields dark sister, Vesnia's fabled Valerian steel sword. But to that like difficult kind of difficult sibling aspect, you know, that that certainly I think fits.

Damon to like the kind of troublemaker in the group. And also, you know, Visenia, and I'm sure over the course of this season, we'll talk more about Magor the Cruel and Anus. Now, if it's, if it's Reinius, it must be Aeneas, but I will always say Anus because the fact that it's AE.N, L.A.N.S. But George named a king here, Anis. Because this is hot D. We've introduced our small ball theory. King Anus.

Now you're going to talk about Anus, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The second Targaryenian king. Vecenia, Magor's mother, Reynes, Anus's mother. What did you, okay, what did Riley say when you slacked them? He thought it was about Reynese. Hmm. And Cram thought Damon.

That's fun. Yeah. So a lot of different, but yeah, so Vecenia as Magor's mother, even though Anus was the heir and the next to become king after Agon, Vesania had a lot of thoughts about the succession. And so that also felt like a Damon tie. The way that Vassera says, Gaws be good, this family already has as a Vesnia,

gave me real. Also, they mentioned Damon right after that. Emma asks about your brother immediately after that, so that was the other. When Viseras says, God's be good, this family already has as Vecena, it gave me strong Ned Stark war was easier than daughters. But that's what I'm like to me.

Yeah, no, that's definitely true. Viseris, speaking of his views on children, shares then the dream. Now, we have heard snippets of the stream, edited ones, though, in the trailer. We get it finally in its full form here. This child is a boy, Emma. I'm certain of it. I've never been more certain of anything. The dream.

It was clearer than a memory. Our son was born wearing Egon's iron crowned. And I heard the sound of thundering hoves, splintering shields and ringing swords. And I placed our sun upon the iron throne. As the bells of the Grand Septu, and all the dragons roared as one. Okay. So we're going to talk, I think, more later when we get to the Agonne Song of Ice and Fire Dream reveal about the Targaryens and dreams and prophecy and the role of that in this film.

family, though we certainly can do it a little bit here, too. I think there are a couple different ways to interpret this dream, and I'm curious how you did. I think that there's one interpretation that we'll save and discuss in the book section later, and I'll say I'm partial to that one. I think there's also the interpretation here of the Agon's Iron Crown language. Again, I was chatting with Riley about this in Slack. The rubies on Agon's Iron Crown signifying this bloody birth, the tourney, the hooves and the shields. There is a way to read this as an in-the-moment interpretation of this dream. Is that where you land or do you land in interpretation too, which we'll discuss later,

or somewhere else? I think that I love about dreams and prophecies is that it could be multiple things at once. and what I love about how often these ideas of, like when we're talking about the Valancar, and then we talk about like the small hands choking, and then we're talking about like the Tyrion's chain, or, you know, the chain, time has changed choking Shay. We're talking about the golden crown for Vassaris,

and it's like molten crown that killed him. I think there's this idea, this idea of like bending the idea of jewelry to fit different interpretations and lethal interpretations. I love that idea that the ruby crown is like the, you know, this child was born through a cesarian, bloody, disturbing. But the thing that I placed our son upon the iron throne, that's the part that doesn't fit unless, you know, he did at one point put that baby on the Iron Throne before it went on the pyre. You know what I mean?

And in which case, I feel like they would have shown it to us. So it feels like there's something else there. You could interpret that line more metaphorically about his obsession and how he is so hell-bent in his own mind on placing their son on the Iron Throne. And the decisions that that leads him to make. and I think that that's going to be one of the real themes and through lines of our Targaryen discussion as we break down Hot D is where

this belief in prophecy, where this obsession with dreams and with this obsession of their own status as saviors. And again, we're going to this more when we talk about the Agon dream later. The fact that they put so much stock in this, it leads them astray so often. And that is, again, I'm glad you mentioned

the Valancourt. Like a great George and general fantasy story telling tradition is that how often the character as a pursuit of this end that they think they are predestined to achieve, end up setting into motion the course of events that maybe they would seek to avoid or whatever the case may be, Circe, Maggie the Frog. Yeah, the self-fulfilling prophecy is my favorite kind of prophecy. But I think that's a really smart point, that idea of placing his son upon the Iron

throne as more important than anything else. Because in this scene, as much affection as we see between Viseris and Emma, there are moments where he's just not hearing her. And the pained look on her face when he's like, this is a son, I know it is. And she's apologizing for not giving him an air. You know what I mean? And for him to not understand the tremendous pressure

that he's putting on her to be like, this one is a son, I know it is. It's devastating. Absolutely devastating. All right. We'll be coming back to the dreams. We go next to, the city watch's campaign of carnage,

freshly cloaked in gold by their new Lord Commander, Damon Targaryen. Boy, if you've been watching Hard Knocks and enjoying Coach Campbell's pep talks, check this out from LC Damon Targaryen. Now you're a pack of hounds! This was, even by the standard of Thrones extremity, the camera zooming in for the fart, the castration,

the cart full of severed limbs, all leading us into the next small council sequence where Otto is campaigning against Damon and his tactics, his impunity, and we then see Damon sitting there ready to bring this confrontation between these two characters who hate each other so much at last. I have more to say about this later. But right now, I hashtag defund the gold cloaks, I think is how I feel about this sequence we see here.

This is straight out of the book that Damon loved to mix it up in the streets. He was lord of flea bottom. Like, he loved to be down on the streets in the brothels, mixing it up. And mixing it up also entails like slitting the nostrils of thieves and gelding rapists. Like, this is a thing that Damon Targaryen does. Yes. But before we chat about the exchanges that Otto and Damon share in this small council sequence on the morning after the city watches carnage here, just a quick note about House High Tower that I think is worth keeping in mind more broadly. You know, you mentioned the richness of the family and how that compares to the rise of House Valerian, etc.

when we see a character like auto in this premiere, I think it's natural to think of a character like Littlefinger and like a real striver inside of the Thrones universe. But Otto High Tower is not a little finger figure. And House High Tower is not a house that has to style its own sigil and make its way through the great houses and up that ladder. It's complicated. It's a little, it is and it isn't.

I wouldn't put him in a little finger bucket. But despite the fact that House High Tower is extremely rich, Damon has his limery says Otto Hightower, second son who stands to inherit nothing he doesn't seize for himself. Takes one to no one, Damon. Exactly. That's exactly how Damon might describe himself. That's what I was about to say.

So, like, of course, Damon is, like, looking himself in the mirror when he says that. But I think Hand of the King obviously affords a person a lot of power and influence in the realm, obviously. But it's not quite a coveted position, right? What is Robert say about the hand, the king shits, the hand wipes, right? Jamie says there are days are too long and their lives are too short. Like, Hand of the King is a really dangerous position to put yourself in. And Otto Hight-Tyrrhus put himself not just for Viseris,

but he was Hand of the King to Jaharis as well. And Jaharis was in such decline in the last couple years of his reign that Otto effectively ran the realm, like Shadow ran the realm for the last couple of years. It's a, like, Otto, Otto's not a little finger because he's not as fun as little finger. He's much more uptight. He's a bookish guy, like that's sort of his thing. But it does feel like he has taken this job in order to confer some shine on the second son of a family. You know, we see Lord Hightower, his brother, is who shows up at the end to swear of Hilty to renew. Nira.

He's not... And Otto's son gets, you know, dusted by Damon and... Right. You know. The joust. So I think it is a source of resentment for Otto to see Damon fuck up again and again and again. And Fasarist would be like, oh, well, that's just my brother, you know? So I think that that's part of it. And I think it's a very interesting theme because we already talked about Corliss Valerian as, like, a self-made man.

This idea of rising up the ranks. I think it's an interesting theme to sort of settle on for a show. that is so focused on the royals, like this is more, this is closer to succession or the crown or the Kardashians or whatever than it is to what Thrones was, which was a cross-section of society, right? We're not, like, we meet Masaria, but like we're not meeting a lot of people who aren't lords and royals. And so to zero in on the strata within that layer of society, I think is interesting.

Yeah, for sure. And I think that, like, that's also why House High Tower in particular and then auto's role within the family, as you noted as the second son, is a really compelling lens through which to parse a lot of that because, like, House High Tower is the seat of power in Old Town. And Old Town is the, the city, the biggest city and most consequential city in Westrose before Agon, the Targaryens and King's Landing unseated, right? you have both of those things, this understanding of what it means to be at the top and then to move down one rung. And there's a lot of really rich history between House High Tower and House Targaryen and the Targaryens in Old Town more broadly. Also, the location of the Starrecept and House Targaryen

has a very complex history with the faith. So there are a lot of different strands at play there. And Otto is a character who understands what real power looks like. and what it means to be incredibly proximate to it, but to still need to reach out to take the part of it that you want and to wield it the way that you see fit. And the rivalry that we get to witness right away between Otto and Damon is so riveting and fun, in part because you can just feel how visceral and deeply rooted

this mutual disdain is, but also because even though Otto tries, even though Otto tries to get in his barbs, you know, if only the prince would show the same devotion to his lady wife, he can't keep up. Like, he can't keep up. He's just simply not a match for Damon in this exchange of wit. And that is a really notable thing. And that's the sort of like stiff, book-learned sort of guy who Otto High Tower is.

And I think, you know, for folks who don't remember, like Old Town, that's where San while Tarley goes in, you know, in Thrones. Like, this is the source of all the, like, learning. That's what Old Town is. And so that's sort of more who Otto High Tower is, which, again, is, I think, demonstrably different from who Littlefinger is, though there's still some machinations at play here, for sure.

We also, it's not just Otto and Damon in the scene. We also get a really interesting glimpse into the dynamic between Vissaris and Damon, because there is this scolding paired with this affection. There's support, but not complete indulgence. And it's ultimately all

yet another illustration of a couple key pillars for the story. One, and we'll get to the great throne room sequence between these two brothers when Vassaris exiles Damon and Damon talks about how thick the blood of the dragon is. Well, sometimes the thickness

of the blood is so that it can obscure you to the truth right in front of you, right? But then also what happens when you do cut it and it starts to spill out? And more broadly, the way that Vassaris, who has inherited Jaharis's

peaceful reign and peaceful realm, while a well-intentioned king and ruler, and in many respects a good king is ultimately unable to make hard choices and how damning and costly that is for him. When his ultimate final word on everything that is unfolded is, well, King's Landing has been in decline since my grandmother passed. In the end, this new city watch might be a good thing. You recognize that this is not a ruler who has been in the position often where he has needed to need it. make a difficult decision and where he has gotten the affirmation that he is capable of making

those decisions well. And what's also interesting in that, packed into that line, is this idea, and we talked about this a little bit with Chris Ryan, but like this idea that like when Ja Harris was the ruler, his wife, good Queen Alassan, the woman who fucked off for two years because she was pissed about something. She co-ruled with him, right? That's something that she did. And so the idea that the Kingslanding goes into decline once she dies indicates that she was, the real power holding, like the peaceful reign of King Jeharis together was very much due to Alessane's influence, you know, in all of that. I think that is so important and so interesting to keep in mind not only in the context of a woman in a position of power in this universe, but also

when we talk about the Agon dream later, like when you are willing to share and bring other people into your trust and into your confidence and have them carry that burden with you. We don't know all the details of Jay Harris and Alassane and who knew what about the Song of Ice and Fire. But I think we do see quite clearly that Viseris guards. He definitely told. Jehires definitely told Alassan about the song of ice and fire. You would think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Joe, can you take us from the small council chambers to the street of silk. As we mentioned, Prince Damon Targary and a man of the people loves to mix it up in the streets. So his main squeeze and all of this is Masseria, a lady misery, a k.a. The white worm.

And this is a woman who's been sort of bought and sold a million times, but she is, you know, and this reminds us of Tyrion, right, and his journeys to the brothel. But she is very much in David's camp. He is not having a great. time in this interaction. In fact, it ends with him sort of wrapped in a shroud of sadness. Yes. His cloak of shame. Nothing to be ashamed about, you know. You are demon Tagarian. Right of Caraxie's will do of dark seas death. The king cannot replace you. This is the big thing that sticks out from this up. A thing that sticks out this episode with me, Mallory Rubin, Sinoye Mazuna, who plays Masaria.

Wonderful actress have seen her and a million different things have seen her in interviews. I've talked to her in person. This is not what she sounds like. This is not her accent. She has made a strong, strong accent choice here, and I have questions, comments, concerns, and notes about this. Oh, my God. How are you feeling here in Accent Corner, Mallory Rubin?

Remarkable stuff from Lady Misery in our first meeting here. You know, look, if we fast forward to the end of the episode, when we see Damon exiting King's Landing on Kerrang C's. Lady Misery right there by a side. So I'm expecting a lot of accent corner talk in future episodes. I can't wait. Just want to say about the brothel sequence, vintage thrones. Everybody watching through the holes in the wall.

Prince of the city indeed. Real man of the people here. Letting everybody partake and bear witness. Really something. He likes a crowd. And that brings us to the tourney. The air's tourney. where we have so many parallels to the tournament,

the hands tourney at the beginning of season one of Game of Thrones. And one of the real points of contrast amid the parallels is Facerus' real euphoria compared to Roberts' just supreme disinterest in the entire affair. Faceras prematurely unwisely is holding the tournament in the first place for the air, right? But also announcing that Emma is in labor, saying, when I look at the fine knights in these lists, I see a group without equal in our histories. And just when you hear that, you're like, based on what?

This is a peacetime rain, and then that is reinforced very effectively elsewhere in the tournament sequences in a way that really strongly recalls Kat at Renley's camp, nights of summer. It's been 70 years since King Magor's end, Rainey says, this is to Coralus. The knights are as green as summer grass. none have known real war. Their Lord sent them to the tourney field with fists full of steel

and balls full of seed and we expect them to act with honor and grace. It's a marvel that war didn't break out at first blood. That again gives you that feeling

and that reinforcement that we are on the precipice, that the realm and the rulers and all of the inhabitants have grown unaccustomed to moments of tension and difficult decisions

and that everything is at the boiling point. ready to spill over. What did you make of that? What did you make of all the sigil spotting? We get some Barathean action. We get a Dundarian mention, a Stokeworth mention,

of course a Tarley sigil. Wonderful stuff. First of all, we got an email from Emily, who asked if we noticed that the overhead shot of the tourney looked a bit like, let's say, a Georgia O'Keefe painting.

I did notice that. Google that if you don't know what that means. So, you know, to prepare us for the parallels that are to come. But also, our guy Chris Ryan on Talk the Thrones, had asked a question about, like, what are the rules of attorney here? Like, how is it that we are allowed to start bashing people's heads in? So I did a little bit of research about what's going on here. So in the book, there's like a couple, there's jousting at attorney, and then you can also

have melee fights in the attorney. And a melee fight is usually where you get the accidental deaths. In fact, in Game of Thrones, there is this indication that the lanisters were going to try to get Robert killed in a melee fight, right? That people fight, they fight with blunted weapons, but accidents can happen in a melee and King Robert wanted to fight in the tourney. And everyone's like, no, no. I mean, Ned especially, it was like, no. You can't fight in the tourney. No one would, everyone would be afraid to touch you.

don't, yeah, don't do it, right? But in terms of the jousting, the jousting, and then calling, like, doing blunt weapons, fighting after that, that exists. It's not supposed to end in death or massive bloodshed the way that this does. Even though, yes, Damon Targaryen did fight with his Valerian sword in Turneys. That's canon. That's in the books. But you're not supposed to fight with, like, edged weapons.

you're supposed to fight with blunted weapons. It's supposed to be that. And I think possibly what's going on here is, to your excellent point about what Rainey says about, everyone is just sort of head up and hot and bothered and just needs to get, like, their violent rocks off or whatever. But also, when the worst of the violence happens in the, in the tourney, Fasaris isn't there. He's been called away. So this idea of an absent king, a king who's not taking control of his people, meanwhile, Bobby Barathean, of all people, in the tourney in the beginning of Game of Thrones

says stop this madness in the name of your king. So even Bobby Barathean is going to stop and calm the violence where Vassaris absentee king is not taking control of the violence of this tourney. I think that's interesting. Turneys, Sir Kristen Cole had no reservations about laying hands on the prince of the city, Damon Targaryen.

And Damon, you know, not quite as regrettable of a decision as our beloved Oberyn, certainly, but celebrating prematurely victory that he had not, in fact, earned here in this sequence. And in general, the meeting with Sir Kristen Cole is clearly one that is meant to draw our attention to not only the fact that this is going to be a character of consequence, but to how little people know about him. Reneera asks Westering about him, as we mentioned earlier. And all I can say is, I'm told Sir Kristen is the common-born son of law. Lord Dundarian steward, but other than that, and the fact that he's just unhoused both of the Barathean lads, I really couldn't say. By the way, on the Barathean lads front, I would humbly ask the favor of the queen who never was, leading to the Otto Viseris. You could have his tongue for that. And Vassaris is like, chill, dude. Tongues don't change the succession, let them wag. But you're getting some Barathean influence. The reminder that Renice has this standing as the queen who never was in the realm.

They are cousins, of course, as we hear her say, cousin. There's a lot of groundwork being laid here in the tourney. Kristen. And that's Lord Borman Barathian, who we'll see again at the end. And I will just object to Westerners' use of the word lad in relation. That's our own boys will be boys in relation to like a whole. 40-year-old man there, but okay. Kristen Cole, we don't know much about him until he takes his helm off.

And then what do we hear Allison say, Steve? God, he's Dornish. I got it. Most important piece of information we get in the entire. This is something that you and I had talked about in the lead-up to because he's not quite Dornish in the books. He's from the Dornish marches, which is different. The fact that they just made him Dornish, great.

stuff. Love that for him. But also it points to his like slightly outsider status. Again, as we mentioned, the Dorn is not officially part of the realm yet. Right. So like he's Dornish. He's an, he's not of the main court. He's not of a house that has any major standing. Kristen Cole. And yet, he best Damon Targaryen. He best Damon Targaryen. Remarkable stuff from Sir Kristen. He asked for Nira for her favor. Damon had previously asked Allison for her favor leading to a truly hilarious exchange of glances with her father, Otto Hightower, who despises Damon, as discussed at length. Some great little looks. I always love a scene that relies heavily on a quick bit of side-eye. We get a great little look between Corliss and Renice after the Bormann Barathean Queen, who never was favor-ask.

This is like a really rich initial stretch of the tournament. It is then... Rainis... Rainis, yeah. Rainis also looks at her nails at one point that is very Olena Tyrell to me. I just really loved it. Speaking of nails, Allison, chewing on her nails.

Yeah. Throughout the episode. Totally fine. She's fine. It's fine. So, we talked about the tournament in its totality just now, but in the actual episode, we're weaving in and out of two scenes.

The tournament scene is intercut with Emma's birthing bed and Viseris' fateful choice. This is an extremely, extremely graphic and upsetting sequence. Of course, this calls back to Emma's Our Battlefield line about the childbed in her own earlier seen with her daughter, Renira. Melos, the grandmaister,

tells Viseris, it sometimes becomes necessary for the father to make an impossible choice. Well speak it, Vesera says, to sacrifice one or to lose them both. And as we watch what unfolds, Viseris making the choice to move forward

with the Cisarian to not tell Emma what he has decided to not discuss it with her. She has no agency. It is not her choice and it is this hideous, horrible thing to witness that Viseras, in pursuit of his male heir,

in pursuit of that destiny that he thinks is guiding him is willing to make that choice at all, is willing to sacrifice his own wife and ends up losing his son anyway, very, very, very, very, very painful to watch. We have the most emails about this, and I saw them, you know, this is definitely the moment that most people are talking about out of this episode. A lot of people are very upset by it.

A lot of people are perturbed by it. A lot of people are curious about sort of what this presages for the overall treatment of women on the show, because that's been a question. I'm of a couple different minds about it because I think what's true if you read Fire and Blood so many women in that story both before this

like Emma's you know I think it's Emma's grandmother also goes through something terrible like this before this and after there's so many women who die in childbirth and it's usually just sort of mentioned or glossed over

right and so to show the horror of it. I don't know. I agree with some people that maybe there should have been like a warning. I've never given birth. I know that a lot of women who have like given birth had a really hard time with this. I think there's an, but I don't think it's here just for sensation at all, as opposed to some things that I would identify in Game of Thrones. I don't think this is here for sensation. And I think there's a really interesting theme at play here that I want to talk about really quickly bouncing off an email he got from our listener, Michael, who, to clarify really, Ryan Condole is said of this scene in the post-episode interview. He says it's made very clear to him that Emma is going to die either way, right? So he has, there's nothing that's going to save Emma here. She could have more milk of the poppy, but the maister says we can only give her so much before we start hurting the child, essentially.

So he holds back more milk with a poppy in order to save the child, which he doesn't anyway. That's a choice Vassaris makes, right? Michael says the way I see it, it is the fact that Vassaris is there with her holding her hand, telling her he loves her, that makes the scene such an indictment of his character. While this isn't exactly a pass-a-sentence swing-the-sword situation, Veseris struck me as passing the sentence and then just pretending that he hadn't, acting like he was just supporting his wife as she died naturally in childbirth. His choices throughout the scene expose his frankly gross combination of ruthlessness coupled with cowardice. He is largely ineffective, how long was Damon in the city before Vassar has caught on, and only chooses to take action in the worst possible way and the worst possible moment. So I want to talk really quickly about one of my favorite overarching Thrones themes of that starts with Ned's,

he who passes a sentence must swing the sword. This becomes an ongoing evaluation of a leader in Game of Thrones. because when you've got someone like Joffrey saying Sir Ilyn bring me his head, right? And then you have someone like John say, Ed fetch me the block, meaning John's going to go do it himself like Ned did, and Joffrey has someone do it for him. Danaris has someone do it for her. Theon butchers it badly. Rob does it for himself, just like Ned did. This is an ongoing, are you going to take responsibility for the hard choices that you have to make?

Something that I think is really interesting this episode is I love this idea that Michael wrote in about like Viseris says the cowardly executioner was the name of the email. And I love that concept. And as it contrasts with as disturbing as Damon in the streets of the gold cloaks was, that's demon passing the sentence and swinging the sword in a certain way. And I'm not saying that's the ideal way to do it. But I think that is a very, that's a key difference between these two brothers. at the end of the day. It is a real moment of horror. And some of that, of course, is, you know,

they're leaning into it and inside of the episode with the juxtaposition of the tournament and the birthing bed and, you know, leaning into the idea that it is wrong and unfair

that this is the reality in the realm, that the battlefield for women is the birthing bed, that that should not be how it is. and you see these knights at play, and you see the real visceral horror of this decision that Fasaris makes. And it's an impossible thing for him or his family to recover from.

I think it's very important that the show lean into examining that seismic regret. You know, he is, when we go to the funeral after, like, he is shattered, and we can hear the impact and in his later conversations with Renira that this loss has had on him. You know, I think of a character like Stannis and the sacrifices of his own family members that he is made

from Renley to, of course, Shireen in his pursuit of a destiny that he thinks he needs to achieve. I think of another moment that we've talked about before, Amon saying to John up at Castle Black, you must make that choice yourself and live with it for the rest of your days. Viseris is not prepared to live with this. it will not be able to ever be the same person, nor should he be, that he was before

after making this choice and losing his family, losing his wife, losing Baylon named for his father, of course. And I thought also then of Breanne and what she said to Pod, you know, nothing's more hateful than failing to protect the one you love. Viseris did not protect Emma here, did not protect his family. And that will and should haunt him. Yeah, and it's the way that, like, again,

if Emma was not going to survive either way, I think there's a choice that they could have made together to save her son. It's the way her body is yanked down the bed, the pillows are pulled away, she's forcibly held down, and she's screaming, no, no, no, no, no. And she's given no choice in the matter.

And she's going to die afraid alone despite him being there and betrayed. And that is his legacy. Terrible. Terrible. At the funeral, we see that he can't even bring himself to speak to Renira. We hear her say later, you haven't spoken to me since mother died. Damon is the one who reaches out to Reneira to comfort her. We hear her say, I wonder if in those few hours my brother live, my father live, my father

live, my father finally found happiness. One of the most tragic moments of the episode. I mean, that is just so deeply, deeply, deeply sad. She calls Syracus down, utters Dracarus, and burns the funeral pyre, but that I will never be a son, that that is something that has to be on her mind at all as she is grieving her own mother. The fracture of her family is just, devastating. I think it's really important here that Damon steps up in a meaningful way. Like, we see him behave reprehensibly here, there, and everywhere. But there are moments. What makes Damon and interesting characters, there are these moments of soulfulness in him. And he comes through here in this scene in a less creepy uncle kind of way. So a nice uncle kind of way.

Although not really one for tenderness or reflection launches immediately into the I consider the Madger Urchin. that of your succession sequence. Again, this is like a vintage Game of Thrones. Everyone has a play to make, setting the stage for all of the factions and fissures to come sequence. There are a few different camps. There's the case for and against Damon.

Lord Strong, as Master of Laws, is viewing it. The succession is set by precedent and law. Corliss initially agrees. He's the one who first names Damon, says it aloud. Melos, Otto. they're advocating against Damon. They fear for the realm should he be in control.

He is meanwhile watching through a peephole, again, vintage thrones and smirking as Vassaris says that Damon doesn't want to inherit the throne. This is where we get that, Otto. The gods have yet to make a man who lacks the patience

for absolute power, your grace line, which certainly feels like one of the mission statements of this endeavor. Otto says that Damon could be a second Magor. Maygor again styled

the cruel for the atrocities that he unleashed on the realm. I thought that when Otto said that about absolute power, it was a real, you're telling on yourself, my guy, kind of moment. And the fact that he doesn't possess the self-awareness to realize that is so rich.

I think the parallels between Otto and Damon are really richly drawn here. And I think also later we see when Allison is going to talk to Otto, he is like writing a scroll to send to Old Town. And this is straight out of the book that Otto sent this letter to his brother to he says He shared his fear about what kind of monarch

Prince Damon would be if he ever ascended the Iron Throne On no account can Prince Damon be allowed to ascend to the Iron Throne He'd be a second Magar the cruel or worse Better the realms delight than Lord Flea Bottom Otto really strikes me as a guy Who would repeat second Magor the cruel line like thought it was really witty. He's like, oh, I said this in the council.

Can't wait to email my brother. This is really funny thing I said. But I think it's important to show again that House High Tower's reach is not just in the reach, but like extends beyond Kings Landing that he had to write the letter to his brother is all part of like the House High Tower machinations that are constantly insured, you know. And he's scribbling, you know, we hear him say to Old Town at once for that first letter, but he's scribbling beyond that. It made me think, of course, of Tywin scratching away at his red wedding plans as he's, as he's engaging in conversation with his children.

And Otto has brought Allison after he is the one at the small council meeting to say, you know, Reneera, strong, Lord Strong, protesting. Renira, girl, no queen has ever sat the iron throne. has that line. If order instability so concerns this council, perhaps we shouldn't break 100 years of it by naming a girl heir. Corliss moves from Damon to Raynees, always have to seize the opportunity when you can. And Viseris will not hear it. He says, I will not be made to choose between my brother and my daughter. Now, he is in a moment of extreme grief and extreme guilt and shame, but this does still again reinforce his indecision, his debilession, his debilessing. Abilitating indecision. Now, he will make this choice eventually, but it will be,

it will be sparked by his rage, not by any sort of methodical, careful, planning, or intention. His reluctance, ultimately, is part of his failing. He does not know

how to make a choice, how to balance his personal feelings with the weight of Agon's dream. And it is really disturbing to watch in the next scene, Otto send his own daughter to Vassaris's chambers and say, I thought you might go to him, offer him comfort. But we are still then getting a really direct contrast in that adjacency between indecision and a character who is ready to act, even if the way that he is acting is foul. You don't think it's perfectly normal to send someone in their dead mom's dress to go visit the cave? Be glad of a visitor. No problem.

No prop. No prop. Vesaris doing his totally normal, like, late-night Lego project, right? And Allison walks in. She brings him, you know, not only the books, but the condolences, Joe. And great dress, by the way. And a departure from this virginal blue that she's been wearing. She's wearing green for the first time.

Green, the color of House High Tower, right? So that's an interesting moment. And we should say that Allison did this for old King Jehires as well. This is not the first time that Otto has asked his daughter to go console the king. Allison was reading to King Jeharis when he died. That's what she did the last couple years of his life. The timeline makes that a little iffy. I don't know if it works in the current timeline, but that's okay.

No worries. Typically, book context, you know, very helpful. really enriches and widens our scope of understanding. That's one where it's like, it diminishes how creepy what he does right here in the show is. I don't know that it diminishes it. I think it just means like he's just

ever using his daughter at no matter what age. Yeah, as a way to sort of manage all the kings that he's been hand to. Well, speaking of managing kings, we move then to the area. for a day sequence and Otto's latest plot here to remove Damon from the sphere of influence. We see Damon speechifying amid this orgy that he's organized at the brothel. I just have to say to everybody who stopped mid-thrust, mid-suck, mid-crank, admirable focus,

really team players there. Damon has everybody's full attention. It's remarkable to behold. Well, he bought out the brothel, right? Yeah, all his pals. Yeah, that's the... All expenses paid. So when the boss starts to give the speech at the Bucgitabopo dinner that he is paid for or whatever,

like you got to put down your fork and pay attention. It's true. It's a requirement of the evening. It's understood when you walked in the door. Now, we do hear some of what Damon says, but we do not hear the specific line in question, him styling... Baylon the air for day. That is Otto's recounting. He says he has it confirmed from multiple sources. Many people are saying that Damon said this, by the way. Though Damon does not deny it.

So on the one hand, there's an interesting kind of leaning into that unreliable narrator's aspect of Fire and Blood storytelling. And on the other hand, Damon had an opportunity to say this is not a thing that I did. And he doesn't. And it unearths for us this really crack. sequence between brothers, Vesaris confronting Damon, summoning him to the throne room, sitting the Iron Throne, holding Blackfire in front of him. And that is such a fascinating bit of set design. And even when you think about Viseris making that choice himself, in addition to the showrunners, Damon is the character we think of as the sword-wielder.

Viseris has to bring this set dressing with him to exude strength in front of his brother. it's all so deliberate. Yeah, it looks more like a crutch than a weapon. He's leaning on it like a walking stick, even as he's sitting. Exactly. It's an aid for him there. And Viceris feels,

there's this mutual sense of betrayal. Veseris feels betrayed by Damon's comment, by his lack of gratitude for the support that Veseris has continued to extend him. Vesaris notes that Damon has no support, save his at court, which is not totally true, by the way. Damon is, you know, not popular in some corners, but has quite a bit of loyalty and other

aspects of King's Landing. Damon feels betrayed the Vassaris trust Otto more than him. And he says, you've only ever tried to send me away to the veil, to the city wash anywhere but by your side, 10 years you've been king, and yet not once have you asked me to be your hand. Why would I do that? because I'm your brother and the blood of the dragon runs thick. This is such a tragic, not only inside of their relationship in this moment in the timeline, but a signal of what is to come, the intra-family war. Yeah, my chosen interpretation of this, and maybe this is just the Damon apologist in me, is that he did not say that thing about Air for a Day.

But he's so hurt that his brother would believe Otto Hightower over him that he'd, he said that, that he doesn't bother to deny it. Well, when he says we all mourn in our own way, that morning could be present here as well, mourning that his brother would think him capable of such a thing. I think that Damon is a character who's capable of a lot and a lot of showmanship and bravado, even when it's false bravado. And I think that's part of what makes him an appealing and interesting figure. But his love and affection for Vassaris is, I think, quite sincere.

And that is what makes this so heart-wrenching because characters who also should fight for each other and support each other and find a way to align against the people who are so clearly trying to wedge and tear them apart, ultimately end up being the ones who are suffering this fracture. And when you have, not everything is as strong as Valerian Steel, right, including relationships. And when that crack sets in, it becomes a chasm. And then everything and everyone falls into it. And that's the story we're about to watch. I'm putting them on a t-shirt. Everything is as strong as well-eared stealing. It's true. Except for our relationship, Mallory.

It's that our, our relationship and, uh, our beautiful bloodworm, caraxies. Caraxies, taking Damon out of town. If you had to be exiled from the city by a beloved family member and had to just like piece out immediately, being able to leave on Dragonback with your, uh, with your lady misery. But worse ways to go, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else you want to say about the Viserius Damon confrontation before we chat about Veseris naming Reneira ear and sharing this massive song of place and fire? That's a huge bombshell. No, can I give some historical reference context for Vesaris and Reneira here at the end? So Veseris names Reneera, his heir, not only that, but he makes these lords swear fealty. And we get a Barathian, a Stark, a high tower, Valerian, like all.

bending the knee and swearing fealty. Georgia Martin has been very open about the historical inspirations for many of his works, War of the Roses, as part of the War of the Five Kings, all this sort of stuff. So this is a reference to the Anarchy, which was an English civil war that lasted from 1138 to 1153, in which King Henry the first wanted his daughter, Empress Matilda, to take the throne. and he made his lords swear not once, swear not twice, but swear three times that they would put his daughter on the throne. And spoiler alert, they did not do that. And it was very complicated and there was a long civil war called the anarchy. And something that I want to say about the anarchy is my favorite thing about it. Is that Chronicle stated that at the time Christ and his saints were asleep during this period, meaning was just fucking chaos in the king.

But, and then there's another, and what's fun is that another incident later in the anarchy where one of the male heirs just mysteriously dies was the inspiration for Joffrey at the Purple Wedding. So George has been long fascinated. One of the a errors just like dies and that ends in Civil War because they're like, oh, well, I guess it's the other guy then, never mind. And like all the chronicles are like, he got a sudden illness. And George is like, did he?

Did he get a sudden illness? Or did someone put something in his pie? I don't know. Or his drink. Who knows? Anyway. Oh, Jaffrey. That fucker.

Never a bad time to mention Jeffrey. Last point of order. In the story of the anarchy, all the women, all the women are, for some reason, named Matilda. So if you want to look at, like, George naming all of the Targaryens Aegon, there is historical precedent. Rainis, Rainier. Rainieres, Rainier. Run around the place. Rexy's, Caraxis.

Exactly. Oh, George. So we get spliced with those oaths of fealty. This very, very interesting conversation between Vesaris and Reneira in front of Balarion the dreads skull. One of the things that Vassarra says is, I'm sorry. He says, I'm sorry, Reneer, I have wasted the years since you were born wanting for a son. Now, that apology is about the past, but there is also a weight of apology for the future for the

Agonne reveal that is coming and the burden that he is passing down. But Viseras also understands, having been named king at the great council over Reneas, a woman, what he is asking of her and the position that he is putting her in in the realm. He knows what awaits. And he understands that that is not an easy seat to sit regardless. This is no trivial gesture, Rainira. He says a dragon saddle is one thing, but the iron throne is the most dangerous seat in the realm.

There is this really intriguing exchange when he is asking her what she sees, when she's looking at the dragon skulls. and he is insisting that it is important, insisting, tell me, tell me. And she says, I suppose I see us. Everyone says Targaryans are closer to gods than to men, but they say that because of our dragons. Without them, we're just like everyone else.

To which he replies, the idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. There are power men should never have trifled with. One that brought Valeria, it's doom. If we don't mind our histories, it will do the same to us. That is really fascinating in a couple different reasons. We have a lot of aspects of the episode

that reinforce Vesaris is a student of history. Of course, everything we learned about the Agon Dream. Allison's, I do know how passionate you are for the history is lying earlier in the episode and the Chambers sequence. What did you make of Viseras' statement here about the dragons, the source of House Targaryen's power? So we had an email from listener DJ who says, Did King Viseris confirm that a dragon was the cause of the doom?

It feels like a huge lore confirmation they just brushed over. Let me know. So to recap the doom of Valeria briefly for folks, right? We've talked about Valeria before. Valeria, a huge thriving, ancient city, supposed to be like the Roman Empire. And they were mining. Delph too dangerously and too deep. For gold and silver.

They used spells to tame the 14 flames, which were the volcanoes here. But there's also some other stuff at play here. The faceless men were probably involved somehow in terms of assassinating the masters because the masters of Valeria had a lot of slaves. The faceless men that Aria eventually trains from came from the slave ranks of old Valeria.

So the idea that like faceless men plus, you know, and then the volcanoes erupted and it was like basically Pompeii is essentially what happened to Valeria, right? So how are dragons involved in this? And I feel like this idea, there's a couple things. First of all, my favorite theory in the world about Valerians is that they like bred themselves with dragons to create like dragon riders. And I know you never fucked a bear

And I know you never fucked a dragon Right? That tapestry. Yeah. Like, you know, were we crossbreeding dragons with humans? So I was going on. Basically, creepy dragon magic is what was rife in Valeria.

So I think that that's a rather, and using that magic to keep the volcano flames at bay in order to mine the volcanoes for more money. And that idea of like, as you quoted, Tolkien, like digging too greedily and too deep, just wanting more, more, more, dragons, power, money, gold, all that sort of stuff. I think that's an indirect way you could say that dragons are responsible for the doom of Valeria. Do you feel like there's a more literal interpretation of it? I think it's possible that there could be and that we could find out because I think that invoking the doom this often in this episode and everything that we learn about, Agon and his dream and the larger history of dreams, dragon dreams inside of House Targaryen.

survived the fact that House Targaryen is the dynasty that it is because they were the one dragon riding Valerian family that escaped ahead of the doom, I think it's not something that we can mention too often. It's not something that we can forget that there's this

tidal Valeria and that richness and that magic and that might, but also that the Targaryans are the, they're the ones who escaped to become the lone dragon riding family. But I think also the fact that the doom is, that the source of the doom is not definitively known in the canon is also like, it's really fun to

speculate and theorize about, like you said, the faceless man. And I think that it's very intuitive, much like everything we learn about this Agon dream, that this is directly tied to the dragons in some way because of the fire mages and the warring between the dragon riding families and this greed and this hubris. That all like feels really logical to me. What's interesting to me about it, though, is that Viseras's interpretation of that is not, we're the ones who didn't get fucked over by that, who weren't wiped off of the face of the planet. It's, this is a mistake that can happen again if we don't pay heed to our own history. And I think that inside of, like, this connects to the dance.

I always think of that Stannis-Sherine exchange where his, daughter has to tell him about the dance of the dragons. And the thing that he sung up on is, why do they call it a dance? Because he's so literal. Not, are there lessons that I can heed from warring against your own family? I think the idea that the doom of Valeria is hanging over Vassarra said he's literally building this model of Valeria and his, in his nighttime hours, like all that sort of stuff, is so that it, that it clouds, that this idea of a dream of putting his son on the throne so clouds his judgment that he's not listening to his wife, that he's putting it above all else is so important, as you and I have discussed.

And then we find out that there's this of a future doom that's also looming over him, that that was the doom of fire and now he's focusing on this doom of ice that has been foretold by Aegon. This is a huge, huge lore moment as we talked to Chris Ryan about a little bit on Talk the Thrones in terms of this big bombshell idea that Ragar had a dragon dream. This is Ryan Condoleus said, oh, sorry, let me say that again, that Agon had this dragon dream of, you know, presaging the invasion of the white walkers. And that this is George R. Martin's idea that Agan the conqueror was a dragon dreamer. This is what Ryan Condolez said.

That this is George R. Martin's idea was that Agoon was a dragon dreamer, and this was the motivation for him conquering Westroes. And again, that changes the idea from ambition to I'm just trying to defend the realm, you know what I mean? Which is a completely different flavor for who Agon the Conqueror is. So that's a huge thing. And then Condola said it was sort of their idea. Okay, Agon had this dream. Okay, it was their idea that the dream be passed down from Targaryen leader to Targaryen leader. As you and I've mentioned, we have some notes about a few.

The transition of this information. I might want to mention the looming apocalypse to more than one other person. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. And if you look back over the last few Targaryen kings, they're just always dying.

And just as Danes foresaw the end of Valeria, Egon foresaw the end of the world of men. It is to begin with a terrible winter, gusting out of the distant north. I, Rickon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. Agons are absolute darkness riding on those winds. And whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living. When this great winter comes, Runero, all of Westeros must stand against it. And if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen must be seated on the Iron Throne. A king or queen.

Queen, strong enough to unite the realm against the cold and the dark. Egon called his dream the song of ice and fire. Okay. All right, so we got an email from Sam, who said, in regards to the song here, I personally think it works for the Lord for Egan the Cocker's motivations, but the one, if he point from me, was how it fits with what we saw in Game of Thrones and the fumbling of the plot at the one-yard line, trusting Mal to translate the sprucey. force metaphor here if necessary.

Vassaris makes a point of saying the Song of Ice and Fire prophesied a Targaryen must sit the throne to fight the White Walkers and that the Targaryens would be the one to destroy the others. I think that might work for book lore, but it feels in conflict with the fact that, one, a Targaryian

king- queen was not on the Iron Throne when the Walkers came knocking in Game of Thrones, and two, a Targaryen was not the one to use the dagger to halt the walkers in Game of Thrones. You know, and just for So folks remember, first of all, Aria Stark with the cat's paw dagger in the godswood, right? And number two, Dineris never once put her incredibly delightful but on the throne.

Never once sat on the throne. No Targaryen sat on the throne and gave a throats. Got melted to a puddle before that. So Mallory Rubin. Yeah. How do you account for this? So I have like 100 things I want to say here about the prophecy, but to answer Sam's email first, I don't really mind this because I think that this is probably going to fall into the showrunners made a different choice than George might eventually make in the books camp.

And it actually feels to me like part of joy. It is messy, but part of maybe George's active effort here now to reclaim the story a bit, I think it's very much in play that somebody other than Aria, perhaps even a Targaryen, like. like, Agon, aka John Snow, or Danny could be involved in the ultimate confrontation with the Night King, but like we should remember when we're talking about one-to-one interpretations and comps.

Like, the Night King is seen in the show is not even a character in the books in that exact rendering. So it's just different. It doesn't exist. It's just different. And I think that that is, as you say, messy, but also the reality. I think that's fine, but like it's fine.

I'm not mad about anything, obviously. But it is tricky for us. It is. But if George felt compelled, to change his ultimate intention for the story because of the choice the showrunners made in season eight, I would be devastated about that. No, I'm fine with the books being different,

the ending in the books being different. I think it's just tricky to watch a TV prequel to a TV show, but actually watching a TV prequel to some books that haven't been written yet. So this is the next thing I was going to say, though. I like that part of it too, because it's an area where I think it's actually like handy

for us, especially given the weight that dreams and prophecy seem like they will bear on this story, to remember that the characters who receive these dreams or who have these dreams receive these prophecies often misinterpret them to their peril and to the realm's peril. The fact that the Targaryen in power at a given moment always thinks that that that person needs to be the one to fend off the doom and to save the world is part of their hubris ultimately. why should it have to be just to the Targaryens? Well, that's the question, though.

That's the question is, like, what is the wording? We're getting Viseris's recap of Agon's dream passed down through the generations. But what exactly is the wording? Because, like, wording is so tricky and precise in a prophecy, right? And so, like, what did Agon see about needing to be on the throne? And can we see it easily interpreted as Targaryen? hubris to believe that person has to be a Targaryen, you know? Absolutely.

I mean, I'm assuming that at some point, and again, this is not in the book, so this is a totally new thing for the show. I'm assuming at some point we will get the exact word-for-word letter here of what the dream is and how it is passed down. But I think there's so much room for interesting interpretation. When you say of like, when you mentioned just exact phrasing, though, even, you independent of the contents of Egon's dream. It makes me think of another thing

that was really interesting in this sequence, which was the end note of, you know, Viseris has that dagger, we should say, on him throughout the episode, and he has his hand on the dagger as he is recounting this to Renera. So they are inviting that question that we received in the email,

asking us to think about how that dagger will be used by Aria against the Night King, but then what do we hear? Promise me this, Raniara. Promise me. Well, we think of Ned and Leanna and the truth of John's birth and that promise. At the end of Robert's Rebellion and the dawn of that next aspect of our other story, what that promise bore.

And what is that promise happening because of Rhaegar and Leanna and their child, Egon, John? So then that makes me think of all of these other aspects of this that are so interesting with the Targaryen family history with Dragon Dreams and Provinces. You know, you gave that great rundown of the doom. Well, how did the Targaryans escape the doom? Because a member of their family, Denise, the Dreamer, dreamed of this great cataclysm. And they left and went to Dragonstone 12 years before the Doom claimed every other dragon riding family. We learn here that Agon is also a dreamer.

We know that Darren the drunken is, his life is, is, is, destroyed by the dreams and the weight of the dreams that he has. Damon Blackfire. Vesaris obviously has his own dream in this episode, the Egon Iron Crown Dream. Mastor Amon is a dragon dreamer. There's that really heartbreaking line in the books to Sam where he says, My brothers dreamed of dragons too,

and their dreams killed them every one. I think that is so crucial here. There is the look at this secret that we and we alone are entrusted to carry and pass down and protect the realm against. And then there is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, hubris of thinking that you alone should try or that you are the one who is destined to save everybody and all of the people who get hurt along the way, which brings us back to Rhaegar. We should say, of course, Danny also has many dragon dreams in the books. Ragar, I want to also quickly mention before we talk about Riga because I think we'll chat

about Riga for a few minutes. Read, if you haven't yet, Riley Macte's excellent column on this today on the ringer.com. I was mostly focused right after I heard this in the show on Ragar and all of the implications for Ragar. Yeah, me too. Riley said that the first thing he thought about was Summerhall, the tragedy at Summerhall, 259 AC. And that is also incredibly rich text of pars here

and he wrote about this really wonderfully in his column, so check that out. But this idea that Igan the 5th would have been trying to hatch that dragon sparking this great tragedy because he thought that he thought that he needed that dragon, needed that magic and that power

to ensure that he would be in the position to enact this prophecy and fanned off this winter. Well, that's a little bit of that dragon, doom, Viseria's talk right there. It changes everything that we know about every Targaryen leader leading up to this. And, like, I think the, the Ragar moment that's so interesting

comes from a world of ice and fire when Martin writes about the fall spring of 281 AC, right? So the fall spring lasted less than two turns. As the year drew to a close, winter returned to Westrow with vengeance. On the last day of the year, snow began to fall upon King's Landing in a crust of ice

formed to top the blackwater rush. The snowfall continued off and on for the best part of Fortnight, by which time the black water had hard frozen, and ice coals draped the roofs, and gutters of every tower in the city. As cold winds hammered the city, King Aris II, turned to his power mancers, charged them to drive the winter off with their magic's huge green fires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn. Prince Ragar was not in the city

to observe them, however, nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Ilya and their young son, Agon, with the coming of the New Year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidence on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the Riverlands, not ten leagues from Heron Hall. Ragar fell upon Leonis Stark of Winterfell and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all of those he loved and half the realm besides. So two things. Number one, the idea that the mad King Eris is as mad as he and awful as he might have been,

the panic that winter coming to Kings Landing would have sparked for both King Eris and his wildfire. and Ragar, who was convinced because of his own dragon dreams, that he needed three sons, and that's why he carries off Leanna. So it's not just that Rhaegar found this prophecy in a scroll or elsewhere and was like, oh, God, this is coming. It's that winter literally came to King's Landing, and he freaked out because of this prophecy. I love this.

And everything that this opens up for us about thinking about Ragar's character and the choices that he made and everything that unfolded from that is like I can't wait to, you know, we've been revisiting obviously key passages. I can't wait to just do a complete reread now with this in mind and see what stands out differently because so much will. Ragar, we knew, was obsessed with prophecy, was obsessed specifically with the prince that was promised. And that's another thing that I think is worth just repeating in the context of the Targaryians choosing to guard this secret so closely. The long night happened. Now, in Game of Thrones, you know, maybe the best embodiment of this is Sam's conversations with Archmaister Ebrose and others at the Citadel and the challenge that Sam in this seat of learning and the theoretical wisdom has convincing people to mobilize an act. The Prince was promised, Azura High, all of the different versions of the prophecy. These are things that are out there in the world.

It did not originate here with Agon's dreamer House Targaryen, but it connects House Targaryen and their dynasty to this existing history and existing legend. And that's another thing that unlocks these additional layers. So, you know, we've talked in some of our preview pods about that great passage from A Clash of Kings and Danny's trip through the House of the Undying where she sees Ragar and hears,

will you make a song for him, the woman asked. He has a song, the man replied. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song, vice and fire. And then later in that passage, we get the dragon has three heads. And this idea that Ragar, I'm like team, and I think you are too. Ragar and Leanna really loved each other. But this idea that once he could no longer have another child with Elia in that marriage felt like he had to.

Again, there's a parallel here with Vastaris, had to go pursue this heir, no matter the cost giving us John, another Agon. Well, then we think of another passage, this great one from, named at the time Still Whitebeard Selmy in a storm of swords, giving us this great insight into a moment of key transition in Ragar's life that we now think about completely differently after this episode of television. Quote, as a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rela must have swallowed some books in a candle whilst he was in her womb.

Ragar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father's knights would jest sourly that Baylor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day, Prince Ragar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boys suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard

as the knights were dining their steel. He walked up to Sir Willem Derry, the master at arms, and said, I will require sword and armor. it seems I must be a warrior. There is no question. No question now that this is what this is about. And I love that, how much that is all tied into Azorahai, the prince who was promised, because we get this language, you know, in late season thrones, there was that conversation about translation error, right? And then we get this, you know, prince or princess who's, you know, like, gender newch, like could be denizens.

Aris is the point. But we get this line from Vassaris here, right, where he says, as he said, if we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. Targaryen must understand this to be king or queen. And that gave me, like, real Prince who was promised energy here. But again, this changes every single Targaryen we've ever met, that ambition or cruelty or whatever, however it might be there. And it's there.

There are Targaryans. It's there. But it's mixed in with. family duty on her, I guess. And then also the element of the fact that, like, it doesn't reach Danny. You know, this is not knowledge that she has that passes to her.

And there is something, I think, so deeply, deeply, like, tragic and Shakespearean about the fact that she ends up deeply entwined in the Song of Ice and Fire and the battle against the Night King, the battle to fend off winter and save the realm, without the awareness

that every prior would-be ruler ruler or heir and her family had inherited, it really reinforces how alone and separate she was at the end. And conversely, as I think Condal pointed out, how there's dramatic irony here for the audience, dramatic irony being like us knowing more than the characters do. So, like, Viseris is being ruled by this prophecy. When we know it won't happen for another couple.

The dagger on his hip at all moments, because in any second he needs to be ready, right? Right. Yeah. And we know that there's hundreds of years to come so he can just calm down and it's not, you know. And so and that the only person who doesn't have them this ruling their waking days is DeNaris, who's the one DeNaris, Turgarian leader who ironically could have used this information. So. George.

You did it again, buddy. You did it to us. I love digging back into lore prophecies. I love it. I love it. Really excited to see how big of a role this place. It was very, they put out a new trailer at the end of the episode to, you know, tease what's coming the rest of the season and a lot of prophecy talk in that season look ahead.

So I'm excited to see how often we spend in Inagon's dream of ice and fire. Okay. We always knew it was going to be a long one today. There's just so much to talk about. We're at the beginning of a new journey. I'm having a blast. It is time, though. for some awards.

We are going every week to make the eight with our rapid fire episode awards. Joe, let's head to the tourney grounds. Boy, we have to start

with the Joanna Robinson special here. This will be a staple of our coverage. Yeah. Wigwatch. Best worst wig. What a time for wig watch. I mean, thriving, honestly. My picks here might be a little controversial.

Okay. I'm excited. I don't feel controversial about the worst wig, which I think belongs to one, Mr. Viseras Targaryen. Paddy Concedene, wonderful man. This is not my favorite wig. Jim Worstwig? What's your worst wig?

With, again, nothing but love for Matt Smith's performance. Damon is a compelling character. My pick is Damon's wig with the Legolas wig, as you've been calling it. That's just, we've seen. from trailers that we have new haircuts coming and I'm ready. I'll say that. I like when he's, I love when he's sitting on the small council and it's all must and he's got like sit in his face from like a long night of gilding rapists and it's like, I don't know. It's the best, again, this, I think this is controversial, but I'm giving it to the queen that never was Rainey's because I just love how bizarre. I have studied that wig from every angle. I don't understand it, but I love it. That's my pick for best, too.

It's great. Yeah, great. Oh, God. All right. Our next one, Fit Watch. Yeah. Best, worst fit. Worst.

Yeah. Vassaris is Lego 90. What's yours? My, this is a bit of a cheap, but my pick for best and worst is the same pick. Because I think it is absolutely befuddling, but also kind of amazing. And it's Demon's Dragon helmet at the tournament. I'm like, is this? I couldn't decide if it was my pick for best or worst,

which I thought was notable, so I decided to do a shared honor here. I love that. It is preposterous. It looks. So funny. The whole get-up looks very inefficient, impractical. I'm just saying for Vesaris, you're the king.

You can have a brocade nightgown. You don't, you know, like you can have a robe. Like, Hugh Heff it up a little, not the Depression 90, okay? Best is Reneera's course. Coronation look. Like, it's on all the promo material for a reason. It's incredible. It looks almost Spanish.

And it is unlike any of the fashions we've ever seen on Game of Thrones and in Kings Landing, etc. I thought it was glorious. Wonderful. Our next board. It's the... They got bigger than bigger. Splash, splash, flash, flash. Best bit of dragondom.

Yeah. What was your favorite dragon moment of the episode? I would say, why use a big lighter on your mother's funeral pyre when you can just have your dragon light on fire? And actually, there's a serious reason I have this here because I was thinking about the use of dragons in here. And I was thinking about, remember how disappointed we were that Thrones very barely used its dire wolves? Do I remember how disappointed I was by one of the great disappointments of my life as a story consumer? Yeah. And there were like a couple reasons why they did that budgetary or they also thought it looked silly or it's smart.

None of the reasons were good. Or whatever. But one reason was like they were like, well, the point is sort of magic is, we don't want magic to feel so prevalent. It should feel special and spare and rare, right? Whereas meanwhile, they're just like, oh, call your dragon down to light this funeral buyer. Like, that's, dragons. Oh, do you need a cigarette? Let me call over Cicerox to light your.

You're sick. Different pronunciation of Dracarus here, too. There was like a, that was fascinating. I think of all the people I've ever heard speak High Valerian, I think Millie Alcock is like convinced me the most with her role to ours. And she's just, she sounds perfect. Should we try to learn High Valerian this season? We could on Duolingo.

You could do the Duolingo, do you want to? You made me download a Dragon app already on my phone. These will be two other things we incorporated in future weeks, how our dragons are doing and how much High Valerian we've learned. Have you hatched your dragon yet? I thought we were going to sync up with Chris and do it on Talk to Thrones, but then you hatched your dragon and Chris didn't even respond. So I don't know where we landed on that.

Carry on brand for all parties. Joanna's over-eager. I love it. Oh, I think my dragon might have died because it started me over in a new experience. Oh, wow. Well, that's devastating, but it does give us an opportunity to set out of a new corsair together. Oh, my God. My favorite thing, this is not a specific thing, but I loved how distinct Syrax and Keraxies looked, because we're getting nine dragons in season one.

We're getting 17 overall during the show, and we're going to need to be able to tell them apart. It's cool, even just like going frame by frame in the, you know, still to come, and we can see so many dragons in there already. And I'm like, oh, is that? You know, and I just, I can't wait for all of them to have very specific and particular visual. renderings and personalities because they should end. Seas Smoke. Vega. Vega.

Vermax. I love it. Sear axes. Fittingly, given that we are referencing a very memorable Game of Thrones season one bathtub sex scene, our next award is the doctrine of exceptionally weird sex stuff. FK.K.A. incest slash brothel corner. What's your sexy moment of this? the episode. As you already meant, I mean, is it sexiest? Is that what we were going for? Because

that's not what I picked. What I picked was my guy who was, as you mentioned earlier, mid-thrust, and did not bother to extract himself from his lady, just stood there, just, no, knelt there, and turned his head over his shoulder for the length of, uh, Damon's speech. What's yours? For the length of indeed. Um, mine is, we already talking about it, but Damon hiding on the cloak. Remarkable. One of my absolute favorite moments of the episode, and it was

coupled with the ensuing Masaria line, you know, offering, hey, you want me to bring in another, perhaps a matter, perhaps several. And then I could even arrange one with silver hair. Because the Targaryans

love to fuck each other. Oh. Okay, guys, there might be more incest than I earlier alluded to. So amazing. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you not maintain your erection because you need to be

fucking a member of your own family? What a television program. Can't wait to continue to cover Incest Corner with you in the future. All right. The next one is one I'm really excited for every single week. This is, if this show had

Netflix subtitles, AKA are, in essence, if you haven't watched Stranger Things. Stranger Things has these remarkable subtitle descriptions of the sound design. So this is our best sound design, but really what we're just going to do is we're going to suggest a subtitle that we would have liked to see had the Stranger Things team been making House of the Dragon. Do you have one? Okay. The moment I picked is obviously the moment that inspired this because we were talking about this one specific moment.

Yeah. Which is when the Masons are scraping the pus off of the Saras's back, right? Oh. Are you ready? Pustule scoops moistly. I mean, that's horrible. That's off. That is just like so.

I'll never recover from hearing that. What do you have? Cruel. I have quivering anus amidst fearfully. King anus to you, Mallory Rumin. Oh, God. Great stuff.

I'm looking forward to this new tradition here on the pod. Next. Archmastery. Rose can never. Best quote. It's a real toss-up for me, but I'm going to go with my guy, Lord Beesbury, for saying, Damn me. Tell me.

Love it. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's a great one. Absolutely fantastic. Honestly, that's probably my pick, too. That was so funny. I guess in terms of, like, plot.

I really did like the opening. The only thing that could tear down the house of the dragon was itself. That was just great. But I'm going to go with I never jest about cake. Very, very true. Take a serious manners. It is. It is delicious.

Okay. Next. Leo, pointing meme. Most excitingly familiar location or object. The map room. So when we're walking through the Red Keep, we walk through the map room before the map was painted on the floor. So it's just got the arches. But I could just like, as soon as they walked through there, I just my mind flash to

Sersie and Jamie because I think 50% of their scenes were in that map room in the final season. So, you know, yeah, it's the old map room. How about you? I love it. There's not many choices here. I'm going to go with Harenhall. Good. I always love to see Harenhall.

I got a real kick out of being in the voluminous ample space. That was really fun. I guess it is also just, it is fun to see, even though we've seen it in the trailer so many times, in the marketing material, the silhouette of our original series, Iron Throne, inside of this new vast sprawling Iron Throne. That's my pick, I guess. That is fun. Finally. Yeah.

I ask your favor. Who won the episode? Speaking of. It's Reneira Targaryen. Princess of Dragonstone and Air to the Iron Throne. The Realm's Delight. Okay, not only is Millie Alcock incredible. So good.

Renira ends the episode on top. Dad always wanted his son. J.K., you're the air. Amazing. Also, we didn't like underline this, but Emma Darcy, the older actor who's playing Reneera voices the prologue at the beginning. My father, they say in the prolog. And so that puts us inside, like, if you're asking who's the main character of the show, I mean, Reneira. Renira is on all the promo material, you know? Like, it's got to be Reneer. Damon, too kind of, but like, you know, yeah, Renira. How about you?

So I will, I'm inclined to pick Damon because I think Damon was really like the breakout sensation of the episode. But I think in terms of that contrast at the end of one of them being named Princess of Dragonstone, Air to the Iron Throne and one of them being exiled for the city. It's difficult. It's difficult not to land on Renira there. So yes, I will go with young Renira as well. Okay. Three hours into our pod today, we have arrived in a section that in future weeks will be one that comes earlier in the episode and we spend more time on. It is time for a dance of dragon dreams of our own, Joe,

some prophetic analysis based on what we know is coming in the book. So here it is. We said there would be another spoiler. Here it is. If you do not want to hear about things that happen in fire and blood to the characters in this show, bounce. You already had three hours of pod. You're free to go.

I exile you. You're free to go. Hop on career. Go ahead. If you want to hear us chat about things that are going to happen later in fire and blood and how this episode sets up some key future occurrences, this is the section for you. forgot we have an amazing sound effect. We got to start here with the cuts from the Iron Throne.

We have to go back to not only the island, but to Fasaris's gaping wounds because this is... So gross. The revolting back wound, the finger slice on the throne. Yeah. This was actually one of the moments when we were watching this premiere together. We like turned and like gasped and grabbed each other's arms

because it is such a rich. portent. In fire and blood, Viceris cuts his, he cuts his hand, cuts his fingers in hand to the bone, nearly dies, is only saved when Reneira brings her maister to come treat him and remove some of his fingers, stave off the fever, never sits the iron throne again. Meanwhile, Alicent is like, this is fine. Unbelievable. Fester away. Yeah. Why does this matter? Because, and we, we, you know, alluded to this a bit earlier. You talked about this.

Yeah. But this is like a really big thing that the Iron Throne, there's this idea that the Iron Throne can judge, can reject, can even kill you. One of the, one of the most incredible examples of this to chew on in fire and blood itself is about Magor, Megar the Cruel, who was found dead on the Iron Throne. The passage reads, quote, pale and dead, his robes soaked through with blood. his arms had been slashed open from wrist to elbow on jagged barbs, and another blade had gone through his neck to emerge beneath his chin. Many to this day believe it was the iron throne itself that killed him. And love that. Delightful. Have you ever seen the movie Deathbed, the Bed That Eats? I think you know the answer to that

question is no. It's about a bed that eats people. It's tremendous. Anyway, I have not, nor will I Never. Deathbed, colon, the bed that eats. Okay. Anyway, Reneira. When Reneira finally gets to sit on the Iron Throne as the queen of Wasteros, she walks away and her legs are all cut up and people see it and they're like, The Throne is rejected.

It's a big deal. Rejected. This is the kind of read that the realm has that carries on into the future. Like there's a Joffrey cut, right? But I think the Game of Thrones timeline era example that is most pertinent is the Mad King who got cut so often by the throne was so unworthy of the throne that they called him King Stab. There's that great Stannis line to Stana, King Scab.

Did I say Stab? I mean, also would work, honestly. They called him King Scab and there's that great storm of swords. Stannis line that also brings back Magor into this that I'll share here. Have you ever seen the Iron Throne, the barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, sir. Aris cut himself so often, men took to calling him King Scab, and Magor the cruel was murdered in

that chair by that chair to hear some tell it. It is not a seat where a man can rest at ease off times. I wonder why my brothers wanted it so desperately. Not a seat where a man can rest at ease and not designed to be. Oh, woman. But I think also this idea of the throne is this living thing. Yes. One of my favorite sort of lore holes that I went down at the end of Game of Thrones

is this idea tying the iron throne to the ring of power in lore of the rings. And this idea that the throne crows. corrupts that it like, you know, they stop short of like putting Eldridge whispers on it every time you like cut to the throne. But essentially like it has a supernatural pull on people. It warps them in a certain way. Part of I drogue I needed to melt it. Yeah. The only way to stop all of this is to melt it down the way that the ring of power is melted down. And so this idea that it cuts, that it wounds, that it scars all feeds into that idea of this is this like living magical thing.

I love it. Like one of the first. things we learned about the ring, of course, is it wants to be found, this idea of the sentient magical object. So, oh, the best, the best. We got so excited when this happened in the premiere. This is great. On the Vesaris front, can we circle back to his dragon dream about his ear and that, his air and that other interpretation, which, this is how I interpreted this. Again, we have said it. You're in book, spoiler territory. You've been warned. I think that there's a clear way to interpret this as being about Egon. Agon the second, Vassaris' eventual son and heir with Alicent

and the dawning of the dance of the dragon. The war of succession between Reneira and Agon. And all the dragons roared as won. Yes. In battle against each other. Yeah, against each other. He implies, he interprets that is, they all, they're all united. And what we're saying is, no, they're screaming at each other.

Yeah. I mean, I think I laid my son on the Iron Throne. I do love that crown of ruby stuff. I know. They're both very compelling. Reneira. Yeah. Okay.

So Reneer and Damon, I think even the most cash viewers, picking up on this. Every person who watches this premiere is like, are these two going to fuck? What are these two going to fuck? Oh, she's 14. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Well, thankfully, it's, you know, the actual marriage and cementing of the union. They've each got some other relationships and marriages to get through first. Just a few

marriages to plow through first. But Renier and Kristen Cole is also, I think it's really fun that at the attorney, Damon asked for Allison's favor and Renera like gets Kristen Cole. Chris and Cole. Wait, I'm sorry. I'm forgetting. Where's Kristen Cole from, Steve? He's dormant. Not relevant to what we're talking about, but I couldn't resist. So good. But yeah, so that, so that, like, Kristen and Damon are approaching the opposite sides of where they will land, right? Eventually. Also, on the Kristen Renera front, there's this fun in the Damon Allison front.

There's, like, you know, if, I don't know, mushrooms to be believed or whatever, Damon deflowered Allison High Tower. Because his favorite thing was deflowering version, something that they left out of the show, thank you very much. Oh, for now. But then also did Kristen Cole, did Damon Deflower Renera? Did Damon help Rainer practice to seduce Kristen Cole? Did Kristen Cole seduced Renira? Like, all these foursome, they should just have all gotten together and gotten it out of

their system, the four of them. Again, we have a lot of gaps to fill in, maybe. Frit, damn me. Gaps to fill it. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Okay. Kristen.

Boy. Okay. For Allison, though, we got this email from listener Jay who said, is there book context for how Allison feels about her father, whether the brief favor given to Damon at the tournament indicates a longer flirtation with Damon either naturally or as an FU to Otto. So I think a couple of things. I don't know.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have a deep, deep sense of how Allison feel. Like if there's resentment, there's definitely this pressure we see her chewed up fingers. But in the books, I don't feel like there's like. resentment towards her father that we see. There's loyalty to her father, but I don't know if there's resentment. But I like the idea if the book is to be believed in Damon takes Allison's virginity extra fuel for the auto hates Damon fire raging in all of this. Anything you have to say on the Allison auto relationship front? I think just more broadly that it's exciting that we're going to

learn a lot more about Allison and what motivates her. Because, you know, it connects to what you were explaining earlier about how this relationship between and this deep friendship and affection between Allison and Reneira is really like an update for the show. And it gives us this opportunity right away to learn much more about a character who is one of the most central figures in this story moving forward. And, you know, on the Allison Reneira front, there was a lot here. are ready even amid that affection. And I think, like, in a compelling way where you can interpret it

in a few different fashions, but like that opening sequence in the dragon pit where we hear Allison say when Reneer is like, oh, let's go ride this dragon together. I believe I'm quite content as a spectator. Thank you.

I loved that because it's like, not for long. Allison's not a character who's content to be a spectator and won't be in the future. And so I love that note here. The look on Allison's face as she's dressing Reneer,

Reneira and readying her at the end? I mean, is it jealousy? Is it resentment? Is it fear for a person she loves? Is it all of those things? And she's still trying to grapple and assess what is in her heart at that moment? There was a lot here on that front already. And when she says, you know, aren't you afraid, concerned for your position if a son should be born, that means that Allison's thinking a few steps ahead on the chestboard in a way that Reneera isn't. We had an email from listener, Lauren, who asked about the age difference, right? So as we mentioned earlier in the non-book reader section, like, Alison Reneer is aged up, Allison is aged down, so they're the same ages. I think that is to introduce the extreme awkwardness of your best friend, your stepmom being your best friend

who's your exact same age. Yes. Versus like a woman you know who's like 10 years old than you, you know? On that front, I love it. I have some math questions about how we're getting grandkids in the right timeline here. We need not only kids, but grandkids. Pretty soon. There's going to be a lot of time hop, skipping, and jumping. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's, you know what, like if, so if Allison, I'm kind of working through the math in real time here, if Allison's supposed to be 18 in the books when she marries Vassaris, and that's in 106 AC, and she's 14 in the show in 110,

that's not that, that big of a difference when it comes to, like, is it possible? to get grandkids in a position where they need to be a certain age for terrible things to happen. I mean, especially when, you know. Looking at you, blood and cheese. Emma, Emma was 11 when she got married. If Allison gets married at 14 or 15 and starts popping out babies immediately, like, we're on track, you know. For those babies to grow and then have babies of their own.

Yeah. Lena is also aged down. And that's a good question. I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. They're adjusting a lot of the ages. Yeah. We got a lot of story to cover here.

I mean, we've got 28 years to get through in season one. Speaking of Lena, I wanted to talk about marriages and difficult births to come because like just, so just in the context of this scene here, I don't anticipate the miscarriage, the cesarian scene here. I don't expect that we're going to get that level of grim going forward. But should be said that, like, Lena Targaryen dies in childbirth. Reneira, Reneira, when, like, when her father's dying, when everything is happening, she's going down at King's Landing, she's at Dragonstone in a terrible birth that almost costs to her life. And so I can see the season ending with Reneira going through a terrible childbirth.

maybe not like the closing, but like I think the closing is a double coronation, but like I think that that is going to book, like echo this first instance here. I mean, I think that makes sense.

The timeline certainly works with that happening in like 129 AC. That's where we think the season will end because that's the dawn of the dance. Yeah. Yeah, I think that sounds right. Let's talk about the Baratheans here. The reigns these guys.

Fucking Borman Barathean. Okay. So let's talk about Borman Barathean. At the tourney, shit-talking, queen who never was. But this is his cousin, and there seems to be some warmth between them. However, when he's asked to bend the knee at the end for Rainira, who is the most reluctant, Borman Barathean? And in the books, his son Boris Barathean, who has been cast in the show,

crucially does not back Ranira, even though they expect him to because House Barathean is so closely aligned with Rainis Targaryen, who is on Team Renier. Yes. The Reds and the Blacks. Right. The Baratheans supported Renis at the Great Council. Yeah. And Lenore, like, backed both, like, both times they were team Valerian.

You know what I mean? And so Rennira sends her son to him expecting that he, that the Baratheans will be on their team because they have been historically does not go their way. I love that we got so much Barathean action in this episode, even though it was all kind of of quick, because. First of all, there's just like a really long and complex and interesting history between House Baratheon and House Targary. I mean, Oris Barathean's rumored bastard brother, first hand of the king. Obviously, then we go all the way in the future to Robert usurping the Mad King.

Thinking ahead to Boros and Storm's End and a setting for Luke and Amand and some of the most consequential moments in the story, it was important. and I think to say the Barathians are here right away. I really liked it. Or baby Luke. Terrible stuff coming. Heart breaking stuff coming. Oh, Jesus. But what I will say is that I think that pause is going to be something that we can go back to and point to people when, yeah.

Roneiro looks, right? She notices. Yeah. I think it's a real, it's going to be like a real, like, I think they're setting it to feel sort of like a Waldrereau moment, like a red wedding moment. You know what I mean? Like, we're going to go to the Baratians. The Baratheans are definitely going to support us. And then poor Luke, aka Rob Stark, is going to not make it out of life.

How strong? Yes. Lionel Strong is here. Oh, my God. No Harwin, no Laris yet, but they're fucking coming. Oh, my God, Laris. I'm so excited for Laris. In the teaser.

We got a couple glimpses of Laris Clubfoot in the teaser. I love Laris so much. Yeah, I mean, Harwin Strong is here. Very background. I think non-book readers are going to need their hands held a little bit with How Strong. And so, you know. Yeah, it's a house of consequence in this great deal. Can we return to your small balls?

Sure. Oh, we should say, How Strong. I mean, I guess there's people maybe listen to this. You haven't read the book. So we should say, like, why How Strong is. I guess people, some people are like, I don't care about spoilers. I want to listen. Yeah, welcome. Hello.

Hi. Basically, essentially, Reneira marries Lenore Valerian, but none of her kids look like her husband. Three strong sons. Strong, strong brown-haired boys that are all Harwin Strong's children. So Harwin is like the father of the bastard children of Reneira Targaryen. Also, they hold Haranol at this time.

So a very consequential. Very controversial else. And then Laris Strong, who is like the younger son, is, that's your little finger. Yes. Tied up in an extraordinary amount of drama to come. Tied up and causing an extraordinary amount of drama to come. I don't think it's going to feel like Thrones until he's here. That's what I have to say.

I miss the schemer with his schemes, Mallory, and his plots. Okay. Okay. Okay, let's return now to your small ball theory, your small council ball theory. Oh, do you have more to say about the, Yes, they do. Bring it. What do you got?

When Allison and her faction, yes. The Greens. Yep. Snatch the throne. Yes. There is a small council meeting. Yep. And my best friend, Lord Beesbury, dear me, is faithful to Reneera.

I know where you're going. And I love this. There's many versions of what happened to him. Did he get thrown in the black cells? Yeah. Did he trip and fall out a window? Did Kristen Cole slit his throat with a dagger? Or did Kristen Cole beat him to death with his small ball?

I love this. Oh, my God. I'm so into this. Maybe he just, maybe one was on the floor and he slipped on it and fell out the window. Oh, sure. I really think Kristen. Nicole is going to beat this man to death with the ball. Oh, my God.

Or like making choke on it or something like that. Oh, yeah. You know? Those balls have to come back, right? Have to. Absolutely have to. Check off small balls. So, uh, death watch on my best friend of the old Lord baseball. I love it.

Speaking of Death Watch, what else do you want to say about Damon and his gold cloaks? I think we just wanted to mention them here to say that, like, when it comes to the greens, which is Team Alicent and the. The Reds and the Blacks, which is Team Renera, a major chip on the side of the Reds and the Black, because Damon is also on Team Renira is the goal close, which is a fun surprise, by the way, we can say here in the spoiler section. So many people are like, can't wait for this season, Damon versus Ranira. And that's like a fun setup, but that's not what it is.

It's Damon and Renera versus Allison and Otto and all of her fuckers over there. So like I'm not even sure what team I'm on, which is the whole beauty of the Dance of Dragons. but Reneira Damon, their team, they got some loyalty from the gold cloaks on their side. It's, to Otto's credit, he was right to say the city watches fiercely loyal to him in Army 2000 strong. Numbers game, you know?

Though I guess that would make us think of Sersie and Robert and which Army is stronger. One. God, I love that scene. What holds the realm together? Our marriage. Or power resides where men believe it resides. You know?

Okay. Oh, my God. Great stuff. And as we said, in future, this section will be a little healthier. Yes. We just went very long. No surprise. No surprise.

Dear me. Dear me. Tell me. You know, speaking of Steve, we'll just say we hope you don't have to maim half our city to achieve. this episode's edit because that's a wrap. And that's where you come in, Steve, and like Damon, you say time will tell. Thank you to you for listening, of course.

We are so hyped to talk about this show every week all season long. And thank you to our dragonlords, Steve Alman, for his work as the senior producer on this episode. Regina Ram Gapal for his work on the additional production for this episode. And Jomea Denron for his work on the social media for this episode.

We will see you on Friday. for our rings of power primer. And then again on Sunday night immediately after the second episode of House of the Dragon for Talk the Thrones. Now take a bath. You stink of Dragon.

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