The Ringer-Verse - 'House of the Dragon’ Season 1 Awards, Season 2 Book Look Ahead, and Greg Yaitanes Chat! | House of R

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

This is the stuff, Ringer-Verse! Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson gather one last time to discuss their favorite moments of the first season of 'House of the Dragon' (05:22). They also share their final words and thank each other for a wonderful pod run (40:50). Then they have an in-depth chat with series director Greg Yaitanes to discuss the nuances of the first season (52:53). Later, they take a look at your emails in a non-book spoiler segment (93:10) before heading to the citadel library and looking into predicting what might happen in season two with all the book spoilers you can imagine (1:59:19). 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

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help each other down, pick each other up. You'll certainly form a lifelong bond, wouldn't you agree? That is the hope you'll grace. 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 to gather around the painted table, but also to join us on the Ringers' Nexus podcast feed. for all things fandom. Joining me today,

now that she's finished telling me that Lord Boris is an eternally proud man who will be honored to host two podcasters of the realm. It's my house of our working talk. Co-host, Joanna Robinson. What a joy to be here with you at Storm's End, at the Storm's End of all things.

You know, I'm sure everything's going to go fine. What could go wrong with this, the steady hand of Boros Barathean guiding our conversation today? Can you lift your glasses so I can see if there are any sapphires? Why isn't it an emeralds? Why isn't it High Tower green? Why didn't he go for the emerald in the eye? Come on, guys. Maybe he's a tarth, a real tarth stand.

You know what I mean? Maybe so. Loves a tarth. here, Joe, today. Not only to talk about sapphires, not only to mention the tarthes whenever we can, but to sail and soar once more through the skies of hot D content,

we are handing out our season one awards. We are going to be answering some mailbag questions from our wonderful listeners who have been hitting up hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. We are going to be chatting with series, executive producer and director of episodes 2, 3 and 10, the finale, Greg Yutanis, and we're going to be looking ahead to season two, some of what we are most excited for in season two,

and that is our book, spoiler, book look ahead section. But before we make that short flight down to Storm's End, Joe, just a puddle jumper. Some quick programming reminders. We will be back tomorrow. Moniana, yes. For our Andor episode 8, a deep dive. And the Andor talk's not stopping there.

The Midnight boys, pew, pew, pew. They'll be back next Wednesday to chat about episode nine. It's Andor season. Join us. Joe, how can the people follow the Andor pods? How can they catch up on our hot detox? How can they keep tabs on everything that awaits in the future in the ring of verse? This is truly a question for the ages, and I'm glad you've asked it of me, Mallory.

If you're Boros Barathean, you can't rely on scrolls to tell you where to look, right? Because, you know, so if I were Boros myself, I would just subscribe to the Ringerverse on whatever podcast platform, probably Spotify, but whatever podcast platform, you know, I could download from out there as Storm's End. But I also might just want to like follow the ringerverse on social. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. And by we I mean Jomey just like firing all cylinders. Did you see his and or feet tweet?

What a genius, Jomey is. Anyway, so follow at the ringerverse on social. And then you should be all set. I love it. I hope Laris saw that tweet. No, he did. of course as always bear in mind as well our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning we are looking back at the whole season as we said so everything from hot d season one is on the table today everything from game of thrones is on the table today on the book front we will be talking throughout the pod about fire and blood and a song of ice and fire when we're talking about historical context lord dives etc anything from the future of fire and blood will be reserved for our book look ahead section for season two Okay, let's start with the awards.

Normally we say we're going to make the eight. Today we're going to make the eight times too, Joe. We're adding some new categories, but let's make the eight-ish. A twist. I thought we'd be getting the usual make the eight. Sword-clash sound of that. Oh, no, absolutely not.

This is going to be the end of everything now. This is the finale, baby. Boy, okay. Yeah. Who knew so many surprises awaited? Give the people what they want, give the people what they want, which is nothing but. I crested through the clouds. And I thought in that ray of sunshine,

I was going to hear a familiar sound and know and said, Dragon took me by surprise. Boy, Joe. We're going to do all of our usual awards, but we're adding a whole other set today as we look back. So let's start with favorite episode of the season. Yeah, this is actually a really tough one because I think actually overall I enjoy.

the post time jump, like six through ten. I really, really, really, really love them. However, actually, based on the conversation that we had with Greg that folks will get to hear later, I think I'm just going to swerve and pick episode three because I really, like, we really, there's a lot, there's actually very few diversions from the main storyline beats except for this Royal Hunt idea, which is a show invention. And so, like, and I really, really loved that element. I thought it worked really, really well for helping us understand dynamics and characters.

And so, you know, when we talk about late stage thrones and the fact that they ran out a book and it's sort of like, what do you do when you run out a book? What do you do when you run out of source material? And that's the true measure of an adaptation is like, what can you add that isn't there? And so I think the hunt in episode three and that borewalk, that's what I'm going to pick. How about you? Amazing pick, but I think it's a little weird that you're saying the hunt is the recent. Episode 3 is your favorite and not your time with crabby?

Dreha! Yeah. That's what you like most about episode three. That's your Baltimore coming through, my friend. I remember what everyone's like, can't wait to spend time with his crab feeder. Yeah. I really vividly remember just genuine, like, a lot of time worrying about. Whether Damon had grayscale.

Yeah. What a season it's been. It's a great pick. The hunt was amazing. It's really amazing. The Sarah's got hammered. There's prophecies. There were stupid Lannisters.

We didn't know yet the depths of Laris's depravity. Yeah. We thought it was just a little innocent cookie nibble. How wrong we were. Otto suggested that someone marry a baby. I mean, a lot happened, and it was all pretty fantastic. That's not going to be the last time that comes up today. I promise.

Christian Cole very quickly offered to kill someone for Renira, and we were like, ugh. Really stands out on a rewatch that moment. Yeah. Really stands out. Great pick. Great pick. My pick is, and I had an incredibly difficult time selecting between two episodes. I could not choose between episode seven and episode eight. At first, I was like, it's just these are both my favorites. But I'm going with episode eight.

I'm going with the Lord of the Tides. Vesaris's long walk into the throne room, the entire sequence with the petitions, having so many members of the cast interacting with each other, the actual incredible charge dialogue we got, but also just the little moments with all of the looks. The family dinner sequence, similarly, an incredibly rich and rewarding stretch. Our guy Vassaris reaching out in the final moment into the dark. my love. That's what I do every time we log off Zoom, Joe.

Just look at my blank screen and think of you and say, My love. I know. And I hope you feel like you get a better reception than I'm sure Vassaris is going to get from the ghost of Emma. Yeah. My love. We have to talk about the way that I went out.

Before we lovingly embrace in the afterlife, let's talk about the end of my life. Anyway, great pick, obviously. Yeah, that's my favorite episode. Right. Episode 7, definitely a contender for me, Driftmark. The looks in that courtyard sequence, the vagard claiming, you know, one of my favorite moments of the season. An eye for an eye, all of it. So seven was really in the running, but had to go with age. Beach fucking, yeah.

Indeed. Indeed. Okay. Next award. Favorite moment of the season. Favorite scene, favorite moment. This one was very easy for me. And you already mentioned it. We're going to have the same pick here.

It's the long walk. And Damon picking up the crown and, you know, all of that. Come on. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Come on. How could it not be?

Any runners up in the real consideration set for you? Or was that an easy pick? That one came to me right away, so I didn't even think about it. I was just like, nothing's going to top this for me. Yeah. How about you? Any runners said? I think the eye for an eye sequence in the Drift Mark episode and Allison's entrance

at the wedding feast, the pre-wedding feast. Yeah. Those were, and Eamon claiming Vagar. Those were all in the mix. But yeah, this was, Vesaris's long walk was,

this was, I think, the first pick I wrote down of any of these. Next. Most astounding visual. What's your, this is a way to honor our pal, Neil Miller.

What's your one perfect shot? I love that. It's Cyrax coming out of the fog on the bridge and Dragonstone and episode two. Yeah. When you hear Syracin before you see her and then she comes,

she merges up out of the fog. Yeah. And I love, I mean, like, we talked about that at length, but like the bridge, I mean, we got an echo of it in episode 10, but the episode two bridge scene shot in the volume, the way that it captured the low sun, all of that. I just thought it was absolutely breathtaking. Glorious.

How about you? wonderful pick. How much of the reason that that has really stood the test of time for you is a supreme hot D moment is because it led to the realization that Chris cannot tell the difference between any of the dragons. Well, that's high on my list, but it also led to a nice trial by, it led to a nice trial by content moment because that's when Dave first said they're never going to show them dismounting from a dragon and they still haven't shown a dismount. Like, rewatch the season and just like note every time that someone lands on the dragon and then you'll just see like boots hit the ground kind of or like something like that but you won't see a dismount.

And what's hilarious, if you watch both, because Dave made me rewatch it this week, if you both watch that Syrax landing and the one in episode 10, how did Renira get off Syrac? Syrac's got both of her like front talons on either side of the, she's spanning the bridge. So did Renira do what I called a reverse Lego loss and what Dave called a Galadriel like off the front of Syrax? Is that how she got off? And if so, if there was a tremendous sort of flip move involved, why did we not get to see it? I would love to see that anyway. Great questions. Great questions, right? My pick is also a dragon moment, and it's one that we chatted about at length already this week, but I don't think it's recency bias. I think it would be my pick no matter when did it happen in the season.

And it's Vagar soaring overhead of ARAX in the finale. Just astounding. I feel like that's going to stand the test of time as one of these truly iconic Thrones visuals. You see it. You not only remember exactly when that was in the course of the story, but you remember what it felt like to see it and watch that for the first time. So that is my pick. You know, we haven't talked about this yet, but it reminds, you know, we talked about all the other illusions. But it reminds me a lot of the Game of Thrones season five poster, which,

I always remember really well because those are the last physical screeners that HBO sent out. So I have those like DVD cases. But it's Tyrion on the prow of a ship and then like a drogon coming out of the mist is the season 5 poster for Game of Thrones. And so that's what I thought of. But also Star Wars, obviously. Anyway, great pick. Most tantalizing new merch. Like the thing in this season of TV that you see and you say, I need it.

are they selling this? When can I procure this from my own home? You're the merch queen, so I would love for you to go first on this one. My pick's not going to surprise you. It's Dark Sister for me. I have Longclaw already, and it's a cherished possession of mine, something that I really love. And I would love to add Dark Sister to my armory. And not only because I love to collect Valerian steel weaponry, but because I, you know, with my ghost pommel and the dragon egg pommel and the winged hilt, I would really feel like I had the Song of Ice and Fire embodied there and those two and those two swords.

I need it. I need it. Wow. I can't wait for you to have it. I know you're going to get it very soon. I don't believe this exists. I'm just going to manifest it. I need a shirt that says either, dear me or gods be good on it.

I need a bees shirt out of season one of House of the Dragon. right? Honestly, this sounds like House of our merch to me. Me too. I'm manifesting House of our merch. Dear me. God's be good. Dear me.

Oh, boy. That'd be amazing. Leo pointing meme. We're bringing this one back from the early days of the hat detox. Your favorite resurfaced Game of Thrones location,

object, something that was familiar to us, but we got to see again here in a totally new way. So many choices. What's your pick? It's not the cat's paw because I've never liked the design of that thing. And I really can't believe it's such a key element. Dagger of prophecy.

I don't like that dagger. I can't. I eat that dagger. But, Belair and the black dress. He hit his song in the steel. That steel doesn't mean. That steel. For sure.

That steel. Can we do a little quick redesign maybe? it's it's belary in the black dreads skull down in the catacombs of kings landing great pick I love this

I it's difficult early in the season I probably would have said the more book accurate iron throne like getting to see this version of the iron throne with the sprawl of

flesh slicing shards I probably also would have considered picking the dragon pit, you know, seeing the dragon pit intact at this height of Targaryen power. I think though after the finale, I'm going painted table. But like my question is, I didn't think that it counted because it's so different.

It's a different table. They did the redesign on this painted table that they should have done on the fucking dagger. You know, they plus the painted table. for this. Yeah, I mean, never mind. I'm not going to deny you anything ever, Mallory, obviously. But I will just say that's why I didn't pick it.

But it's a great pick. All right. I think we're going to have the same pick for this next one. That, okay. Go ahead. Tom and 2.0. The performer that we hope they bring back from season one of House of the Dragon and cast in a new role.

That's to be clear for the parameters here, in case anyone's wondering. You can't say like, I'd love for Millie Alcock to come back. That role was too big the first time around. So this has to be someone who was in more limited screen time, a la Martin Lannister, and then gets to be Tom it. I have to assume we have the same pick here.

So this is the Dean Charles Chapman Award, but we're going to rename it the TIE Tenet Award. Because that's why it exists. The only reason why it's here is so we can talk about how much we love Tite Tentonet as Agon the second, second of his name, and how much we would love to see him come back as another character. Perhaps Darren the daring. Daring.

Daron, yes. Why not? Why not? Just a slightly different wig. I think this is going to be one where this becomes such a popular, widely requested thing on the internet that it actually happens. Oh, we're going to make it happen. Okay, hashtag tie for Darren.

Hashtag tie for Darren or something like that. Like, make that happen. His dad's coming back to Dr. Who, bring Tide Tennett back for season two of House of the Dragon. House of Tenet. House of Tenet. Most Throne'sy death. You can interpret this really any way you'd like. The coolest death, the most shocking death, the death that completely subverted your expectations heading into the episode,

the death that got the internet buzzing, any number of ways you could take this. What is your most thronesy death of the season? When I think Thronesy death, I think it's a bit. It's got to be gruesome, a little shocking, and kind of fun. That's like the ideal trifecta. So for me, it has to be Vaman Valerian losing his, don't lose your head. Like losing his head in the throne room. Yeah.

He can keep his tongue. Yeah, he can give his tongue. Say it. Say it is just an all-timer. That's a great, great pick. I wondered if you might pick bees. and death via small ball. I thought about bees,

but I have more to say about bees elsewhere, so I didn't want to overbe it, you know. Vagar eating Luke? I mean, it's tough to top. It's tough to top. The little pieces of my dear darling ARAx just fluttering. Fluttering down to the stormy sea below. No sign of Luke who has been ingested

by the largest dragon in the realm veteran of 100 battles. Kind of go with that one. Be his honorable mention, of course. Okay. I'm excited about this next one. So tell me a joke, Masandai of Nath. Funniest Moment of this season. What is your pick here, Joanna Robinson?

Steve, can you hear me? God's has been good. I'm giving it to me. How can I not? He's provided endless, endless. And thanks so much to Steve also, like, finger on the trigger of the soundboard, as many people have noted. Yeah, it's got to be the legend that is beast. He lives on through the house of our soundboard and he'll be with us always.

We'll carry him with us always. Okay. So I know that you think you know what my pick is here. Okay. All right. And it is. It's the only one. Of course, this is the stuff

I know lads that learn to get the other train together and knock each other down and pick each other up. They will certainly form a lifelong bond. Oh, wouldn't you agree? That is, I just need everyone listening to know

that Mallory sent a series of voice memos to Steve and me the other night. That was just like five seconds long and it was just like five words at a time of this whole speech. It was just claws by claws.

Did you agree? That is like legitimately one of my favorite moments of the season. Certainly the one that made me laugh the most. And it's it's the pick. However, I'm actually going to pick something else. You can't smoke. What a smuggle? That got the honor of the award of being the opening clip for the episode.

So to spread out our love. And to give this award to the other moment that genuinely I would say, made me laugh more than anything else. Classic Smuggle. Anything else this season. Steve, please play this. Who do you have in mind? I almost make this.

Prince Egon. The boy just turned two out. Yes. But it would cease the endless proposals for any of his heart. Betrothed them. I came here to hunt. Not to be suffocated by all this fucking polity. I mean unrivaled.

I almost. I just want to let you know. I almost picked that. You and I went like, our prompt was let's like find an audio clip. And I went and rewatch that. And when you can, when I realized that you could hear Agon like gurgle, I was like, this is going to make good audio. But yeah, classic smuggle.

It's so good. The, the, the little cry from two-year-old baby Agon, the paws that charge. Pause from Sarah simply cannot believe what he's hearing. The way that Otto says, yes. Yes. In the bow of the pleasure tennis. And then Patty's laugh of shock is just perfect, absolutely flawless television moment. Fucking politicking.

Now we're into our usual categories. We watch Best, Worst, Wig, Watch, best, worst wig of the season. best and worst the whole season, a nearly impossible task. And yet, one that you've been preparing for your entire life. Worst, I'm going to give to Little Lena Valerian who had like a 20-pound wig on a five-pound body. Like, that was just like a real tough combination, hair to child ratio, right? Best, I'm going to give it to the second Damon short blonde wig when like, because there's like

the first one and then in the next episode is just sort of like forelocking a little anyway of the wedding wig. Yeah. That's a great quick. Okay. I am going with the same one for best, the same Damon one. And then I'm also going with a Damon one for worse. You hate that Ligalos hair. I do. And specifically the small council scene. I just... I love it, but it's all must. Yeah. Even like on a rewatch now seeing the subsequent wigs, which I like just... so much more. It's, yeah, it's,

that's, that's my wig one. Damon wig one, Legulus Damon is, that's a, that's a note for me. But the ones that came after, I loved.

It's a hard pass. Yeah. I, uh, I also just have to say, you know, it's a journey. Always.

And I have gone through a journey of my own. After a season of ridiculing and annihilating the mid-season Vassaris Whigs, I would just like to say that Reveve visiting this text, the wigs in episode six and episode eight are tremendous. Tremendous. I obviously awarded the, you know, seven little pricks of strands of dental floss.

Best wig at the time for eight. But going back to six, that had incredible moment on the battlements watching the training, it's actually amazing the way that the hairline moves over episode to episode to show you how Viseras is aging and decaying. It's flawless. I recant all my prior worst wig picks for Vassaris. Anything that has to do with Patty going,

that's the stuff, Lytle. What's your agree? Just pointing at the wig. This is the stuff, Lionel. Wigs that recede, episode to episode, make you feel the passage of time. It will certainly hold up on a rewatch. Wouldn't you agree?

How directly do you think hair is affected by the magical leprosy, the magical throne-induced leprosy that Vassar says, you know? I mean, it's pretty direct. Corelation. Yeah. Severely. If like all of your skin is sloshing off your body,

then that's going to include some hair follicles, I think. Slosh is a real choice of a word there. Toughly, tough one. All right. Fit watch. Best fit of the season, worst fit of the season. I'm really hoping we have the same exact one. All right. Best can't be anything other than the iconic power fashion move of Allison's High Tower in her great dress, right?

Has to be. Without question. Yes. Okay. Slight follow up. Honorable mention, David Targaryen's murder cloak, okay? Worst has to be, and I really hope you agree. Worst has to be Kristen Cole's dumb hat. Is it not Kristen Cole's dumb hat? It's a two-way race for me, and it's between that. and the second, here's the second contender. I want to talk about this with you. It's not because it doesn't look cool. It's because it is not a responsible fashion choice.

And we need to take this into account. Your guy, Laris Strong, putting his personal sigil on his murder crew. I'm not over it yet. Why is this the thing that he's doing? You just can't tell people that you're behind the fucking kin-slaying and her. all. I mean, both of our picks are accessories kind of technically, so I can't even, like, DQ you on a technicality.

I'm still giving it the edge to that dumb hat, though. I can't believe you didn't pick that first Allison dress that you, uh, that you were the ones that she wore and wore and wore and wore and wore. Oh, God. And then put back on after her dad left. Yeah. Joe, it's time for some dragon. talk.

Again. They got bigger. You're going to miss your baserous impression. Best bit of dragondom in season one. Steve Olman, can you hit me with the old

Malay Rubin Dragon Screech please? Oh! Sorry. I know I should pick something from the show, but that screech has brought me so much endless enjoyment. So, yeah.

An absolute honor to be here in a house of our Hall of Fame alongside my pick, which is the Hyvalarian Lullaby to the Bronze Fury. Oh, yeah. Vermithor. Is that on Spotify yet? It's a great question. I mean, I am already looking forward to our six-hour off-season revisiting all of those lyrics, word by word

breakdown of what might await also Amon claiming Vagar maybe that's my pick actually I did love that so much in episode seven I loved that sequence I don't know what to pick

how can I decide who can know the mind of such a beast who can know the mind of Mallory Rubin when asked to decide between favorite dragon moments in this season

I'm you know what I'm switching Joe I'm going to I'm going with Amin claiming Vagar I loved that. Wow. What a twist.

What a twist and a turn. Okay. Sorry. All right. Yeah. Speaking of twists and turns. The doctrine of exceptionally weird sex stuff. What was your favorite sex thing from this season?

Okay. So there's a lot to talk about here. Yeah. Including Damon's fleeting impotence that was never raised again. But I'm not. When you say never raised again. Yep. To me.

Yep. I was pausing and waiting for the bees that time. Yep. All right. So before he moved into full monster territory, our guy, Agon the second, used to paint the town with the, you know, with his dragon seeds, if you will. Yeah. It's going to be.

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be Agon. in the Talman position, masturbating at a window. Yeah. If you just kept it to masturbating at a window, that would be it.

You can't stop it there. You have to then say interrupted by his mother, his mom, who then continued and proceeded to have a 15-minute conversation with him. As he sat there in his masturbatory, that's my pick as well. How could it not be? I mean, how are going to not be?

Astonishing stuff. Astonishing stuff. I did think that you might. you might pit. That's the stuff. Wouldn't you agree? I thought you might go with the old pleasure den coupling. Otto. David and Rineiro, we're seen together.

Coupling. A pleasure den. Coupling. Runner up. Runner up. Yeah. Also, honorable mention for the dragon orgy tapestries. We just have to say once again how spectacular those were.

What a gift. I mean, genuinely how dare I was. High Tower paint over them. I know. Awful stuff. All right. If this show had Netflix subtitles, so you have two choices here, Joe.

You can take one of your picks from a prior episode and just say this is the ultimate one. This is the one that stands out above all the others. This is the pick for the season. Or you can give us a new one. Anything you want here. I have a new one and it is informed. It is informed by our pal,

Paula Fairfield, who does the, the dragon audio for House of the Dragon. So first we're going to hear it. Steve, will you play this for me? Here's what Paula sent me. She says, I sort of asked her about like her favorite dragon moment, the season. And she said, did you hear Vermax say snork when he first saw the goat?

We don't talk enough about that moment. I'm not saying it'll be a pivotal point in the dance. But if I can make Vermax ever say schnork again, you know I will. And apparently she just started calling Vermax Snork. Like, that's what she calls him. So I'm going to say dragon snorks eagerly. Can we hear it one more time, Steve, please? I love it so much.

If you go back and watch it, it's a great moment. Like, it's a very velociraptor in the window of the kitchen and Jurassic Park moment. Like, Vermax's head, like, whips around when he sees the goat and then his little nostrils flare out and he snorks. So, the snorking vermax. It's a snack. Baby wants a snack. Sweet little bubba. Paula also said that Karexies is the most complicated sound, right?

Of all the drags, she says, 30 to 40 layers of sound in Karexies, like trademark whistle that we hear in episode 10 and elsewhere. So that she was worried. Yeah, she was worried that people weren't going to love Karexies. But I think Karexies might be the most popular. just because he's such a weird long boy and he's got that cool whistle. People love the bloodworm.

Love the blood worm. I mean, even the guy who got smushed underfoot caraxies down in yield steps. He was like, my prince. Samediest moment. What's your...

Astounding moment of television. Netflix subtitle. Your stranger thinks subtitle for this. So I'm staying true to a lot of our picks from across the season, but doing like a little bit of a mash up to capture our journey, and the totality of it.

Throne shards slicing judgmentally. Sores opening gapingly. Wounds spreading and festering worryingly. Limbs evaporating dismayingly. Sleeves. Oscillating windling. Face collapsing. Slashily.

Oh, okay, good. I'm glad the sloshing made it in there. When you said sloshily, I was like, oh, she should have saved that for the subtitle, but you did.

It belongs in a museum, Mallory. Can you put that on a, like needlepoint that on a pillow for me? Thanks so much. Yeah, I'll see if Helena can help me out with the needle point if she's through with the spider. Yeah.

Look into it. I mean, we'll get it. It'll just be like festooned with bug imagery, but we'll get the words. It'll just be like, Bugs galore in the margin. Best quarter of the season.

Tough one. Tough one. Almost, dare I say impossible. I was tempted to go funny, but there's plenty of funny shit up here, including Chris and Cole's dumb hat. But I have to go with truth of my heart, which is a true queen counts the cost to her people, and yet you toil still in service to men, your father, your husband, your son. You desire not to be free, but to make a window in the world. the wall of your prison. Have you never imagined yourself

on the Iron Throne? I'll be thinking about that forever. Window at the wall of your prison. Love it. Braine. So good. So good. I love that pick.

I, it might be my pick as well. I'll mix it up, though. I think similarly, I was drawn to something really poetic and resonant that told us something deep and important about the

characters who are taking part of the conversation. And it's when Eamon says, time to get it wet. I'm just kidding. Tell me. Oh, boy. Oh, my God. I knew it was in trouble yesterday when you told me you recorded a pod and you were worried that you didn't make enough, like, sex jokes on it.

So we're making it up for last time. I mean, probably my actual pick here is this is the stuff, Lionel. I do love that so much. But I think the two things that I've been thinking about a lot, like reflecting on the season, Laris's love stays the hand quote. And then Rainis's, the stranger has visited me more times than I can count Grand Masteur. I assure you he cares little whether my eyes are open or closed. Like that's the kind of line that really digs its dragon claws into me and sticks with me for a while. So I think that is actually my pick.

Men would sooner put the Torch, the realms of the Torch. Like so many bangers from Rainies. Yeah. Bars. Bars. Can't believe we didn't pick dear me. What's wrong with us? I already got. Bees is well represented. Okay, Joe. The most reliable narrator tracker has been, it's the tale of the tape every week. Twist and turns. I mean, I insisted on this. I'm not sure it's been the like wild ride that we all hoped and expected it would be. But here at the end of all things, I will say that the most reliable narrate,

and this section of Fire and Blood as it is adapted into the showhouse of the dragon. Speaking of getting it wet and all the other, the Mass of a Torium and everything else that Mallory has said it is the Mallory Rubin of Fire and Blood, which is Mushroom

himself. The depraved mushroom. Good old mushroom. I think one of the things I genuinely enjoy most about reading Fire and Blood is that almost every time I have to say it's like 93% of the time a mushroom account is presented.

It is immediately followed by a parenthetical saying mushroom was not there. Mushroom also wants you to know that his members three times the size. This is huge. There's always some mushroom commentary. So many parentheticals about Mushroom's penis. Yeah, it's true. Oh, boy, mushroom. All right, Joe.

I ask your favor. Who won the season? Just need you to know. Mallor, when we started the section, Mallory's like, this will be quick 40 minutes later. All right, actor character. Actor, Patty Constantine, not just because he's not coming back and can no longer win this award, but like, you know, George himself has said that Patty's Vassaris is better than his Vassaris, that Patty brought something to that role that really spined the season. So, yeah, Patty is the actor winner for me. but character-wise, I actually think it's Rainira Targaryen.

I think that, like, Damon gets a lot of the press, but the character that Millie Alcock and then Emma Darcy have built here is really fascinating, especially, like, as we're doing, I mean, and I love Olivia and Emily and Allison and that creation as well, but Renira Targaryen it's just a very compelling character to me and I could be done very poorly and superficially and is being done with a lot of care and nuance.

So, yeah. We have the same two picks for the same reasons. Yeah. You picked Renier up? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I almost picked Damon because, you know,

I think we're very intrigued by Damon week to week. But yeah, for the same reasons. I think that this portrayal and this rendition of Renier is like a genuine achievement. really remarkable. And yeah, Patty, I mean, so blind. Wouldn't you agree?

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Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order. Dot sweetgreen.com. Joe, I think there is another winner of the season though, and it's me forgetting to do this with you. Mallory. It's true.

That's how I feel. I agree. Except it's me. I'm the winner forgetting to do it with you. Should I say my, Should I pour my heart out to you now? Should we do it later? Yeah.

Should we do it now? Do it now. Okay, I wrote you something. Oh, no. I'm going to read it to you. In season eight of a little television program called Game of Thrones, Varis told Tyrion, quote, nothing less. And it was a very heavy thing.

to hear and to carry at the end of a decade-long journey as fans of that television show. And it has been on my mind lately as we have returned to the land of ice and fire after three years away. You know, we change. The people around us change. The world changes.

Always. Life is as mutable as flame to paraphrase our guy Septim Barth. Now, Barth was, of course, talking about dragons, but he could have been talking about any number of other things. So as I'm thinking back and thinking about Varus's words, I'm also thinking about a quote that we have talked about often and that I have shared maybe as often as any other odd pods over the years because I hold it so dear and think it captures so fully the spirit of all of this. Stories wait, my little lord, old man,

tells Bran in a Game of Thrones. And when you come back to them, why there they are. And it has just been such a gift to find Thrones waiting for us again. And to journey into Westeros with you and with Chris and with Steve and Arjuna and Jomey every week, multiple times per week for multiple months here. And before Brand sat a bed with old man and that, moment, receiving that wisdom, he used to climb. Quote, Brand could see all of winter fell in a glance. This is another favorite passage of mine from a Game of Thrones. He liked the way it looked,

spread up beneath him, only birds wheeling over his head while all the life of the castle went on below. Brand could perch for hours among the shapeless rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the first keep. Watching it all, the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was Lord of the castle in a way even Rob would never know. And that's what doing this pod with you, what talking about House of the Dragon and Rings of Power and all of the other stories that gotten to share with you has made me feel like.

You know, what a thrill to turn on our TVs and crack open the spines of our books and boot up zoom together and know what it was like to be, Brand in that moment, looking out at the expanse and just marveling at the vastness of it, seeing only the sheer possibility of what was ahead. And before Brand first wakes after his fall,

he visits the three-eyed crow and tells him that he can't, and not fly. And the crow asks him, how do you know? Have you ever tried? And I wanted to thank you for helping me find so many new ways to do exactly that, you know, to soar into worlds familiar and strange and feel that fear and uncertainty shift into awe and wonder. And I wanted to share another passage from a Game of Thrones, another absolute favorite of mine that I talk about often, but one that I think I've, I think I've thought about this more than maybe any other over the last weeks, and it's about John in his early days of the wall. He had no destination at mind. He wanted

only to ride. He followed the creek for a time, listening to the icy trickle of water over rock, and then cut across the fields to the King's Road. It stretched out before him, narrow and stony and pocked with weeds, a road of no particular promise. Yet the sight of it filled John with a vast longing. Winterfall was down that road and beyond it river running, Kings Landing and the Erie in so many other places. Casterly Rock, the Isle of Faces, the Red Mountains of Dorn, the Hundred Isles of Bravo's and the sea, the smoky ruins of old Valeria, all the places that John would

never see. The world was down that road, and he was here. Now, not everyone who reads the Song of Ice and Fire or watches Game of Thrones has joined the Knights Watch, but everyone, everyone has felt that way before. Coralus told us in the finale that hope is a false ally, and sometimes it's really easy to believe that, but not when I get to do this with you. Not when I get to talk with you about our favorite stories. Not when we're finishing each other's sentences on a recording session or delighting in the realization that we've pulled the exact same quote to blow Chris's mind a Sunday night. Not when we get to laugh together over Waldrig's accent, power! Or cry together over Vassaris's long walk. Not when you push me to think in new ways and, to ask new questions and consider connections that I hadn't previously even seen.

The best fantasy stories help us look down that road and feel not trapped on our patch of it, but ported, ported in every direction, able to embark always on some grand new adventure. And we know for rings of power that adventures must be shared. And the best stories, the best pals, help us feel that way.

Help us feel when we are living inside of those tales like Tyrion, did. Quote, when he opened the door, light from within through his shadow clear across the yard. And for just a moment, Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king. I like, I started crying in the first word and then I just didn't stop the whole time you were talking. What an incredible thing to say. Just think you're the best. I like, no, I know, like, what you should receive right now is thunderous applause.

and I'm hopeful that, like, everyone listening just stood up and clapped. That was incredible. What an incredible thing you put together there. True to form. You have this beautiful thing right now, and I was like, fuck it, we're doing it live. I'm just going to wing it because that's how I like to do podcasts. And I just want to say that, like, coming off of the last season of Thrones, I was, like, very certain I didn't want to cover this ever again. Thrones every year for me was a source of an enormous joy and enormous stress.

and anxiety and and then at the end when everything just got so so much pressure and the story also kind of fell apart under my feet as far as I saw it like I was just like I am done and I was nervous to do this at all

never nervous to do it with you but nervous to do it at all the fact that you sort of like wooed me to the ringer to work with you the fact that like you know we had the time I'm building up to it, but then, like, it just felt like it hit a different gear when we did House of the Dragon and Rings of Power together.

You and I both have podcasts with so many people that we really dearly love in the past. But I would just say for myself, like, I don't think I've ever podcasted with someone that made me feel like it could be my holy authentic. Is this good podcasting? I don't know. Made me feel like I could be like my holy authentic self. I think coming off of where I worked before, there was this idea that, like, in order to be smart, you had to be cynical.

And something that you've, like, really broken open for me in this past year working with you is that, like, you can be smart and have your heart sort of wide open to possibilities of story. And so it helped me approach story. I said this on a, I don't know, an Obi-One podcast or maybe a Boba-Fet podcast where I was like, listening to you talk about a story helps me love a story more. And I found that to be aspirational

and it was something that I wanted to do for other people as well. So that's the mode that we came into this stretch of the podcast with. That's the mode where the joy of House the Dragon has been as much getting to talk about it with you. I can't separate it from getting to talk to you and getting to read all the really brilliant, insightful, lovely emails that we've gotten from all of our listeners. that's been a big part of it too for me. The last thing I'll say is I do have a quote, but it's not a Mallory Rubin. Let me cite chapter and verse Game of Thrones quote.

But I mentioned one of my tattoos a couple weeks ago that I had a scarlet pimper done or last week I mentioned that. But the other tattoo I have on my wrist is the word uncool, which is from my favorite quote, from my favorite movie, almost famous. The only currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. And that's always been an overriding philosophy for me

that something like this, the stories that we share together, obviously it's ridiculous to call Game of Thrones, House the Dragon, one of the biggest properties in the world, like an uncool niche thing. But like, you know, we grew up as fantasy lovers. It was not always the dominant cultural thing. And so to get to connect with you about these stories,

to hear from our listeners who felt like they didn't have anyone to talk to about these stories that they loved. That is what feels so precious about doing this show with you, having the listenership that we have. It's just this connection of people who have responded similarly to a story and going from feeling alone in that feeling to feeling incredibly connected, emotionally connected in that story. So that's how I feel about you. Joe. And Steve is wonderful also and also here on this call on our Juna and Jomi. Amazing.

Amazing group. I feel very lucky to be at the ringer for this stretch of television. Me too. Love our team. Love our little family here. And it is just, it is so amazing to, to share it with the community of people who,

who love it too. Like all of our pals who cover Thrones to get to share. it again week after week. And like, it's just, it's the full boramere. It is a gift. It is a gift. Love you, pal.

Love you. Now we have to do the rest of the pod. Well, we can, now we can throw to a conversation we already had so that we can take a break and get some clinics. But yeah, we had this lovely little chat with Gregutainus, the, as, as, as, as, as, you can take a break, as Mallory said, the executive producer and director of two, three, and the finale. He talked to us for like twice as long as he was supposed to because he's such a gemstone. And really, really interesting, a lot of, you know, talk of what was cut out, what was left behind.

Like, that's always interesting to me because it says more about what remains. What's the importance of what remains, that sort of stuff. So let's go now to our chat with Greg Yattans. Thank you so much for joining us. I wanted to start, yeah, of course. We wanted to start by asking you, you know, we know that when you make any given episode of House the Dragon, let alone the finale, there's usually more story than winds up on the screen. So I'm wondering, like, as you carve away, what was the most important story or narrative or core, you know, idea that this episode needed to be and get across for you? The Brinera-Daman dynamic was the spine of the episode that everything else needed to orbit around.

And that is from the very moment. I mean, one thing I love, and I think Miguel had referenced this a couple of times, is that nine and ten are sister episodes. You know, they're the same events told from two different points of view, and only a couple of characters crossed between those two storylines, which is kind of great. And that in that we are focused on the Damon-Ranera relationship and it's kind of deconstruction within the episode. So that was our focus that everything was around. I mean, everything that, you know, one great thing about Ryan's work is that, you know, there's very little that makes it on the floor.

You know, that there's, there isn't, we're not trying to pack in more than, than we can fit and use. There's, you know, sometimes things are ideas that come out that end up, you end up seeing what the episode wants to be. And then that's where you gravitate towards and is everything in service of that. Or are you looking to get back to, again, the spine, in which case it was Renera and Damon? I'm just wondering really quickly, like, if you can sum up, like, in a sentence, like, what do you feel that dynamic between Renera and Damon is that you want to get through on this episode? In one sentence? I don't, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, and three and a lot. Well, I think, you know, I think that you, you, you, you really, you bring up something interesting to me that that fascinates me about partner on partner relationships and dynamics.

And, you know, I've, I've been divorced twice and, and people often want the one sentence explanation for what happened, you know. And what you come to learn is there's no one thing or one way to explain anybody's relationship. And so one of the things that I love about Damon and Bernard is the complexity of their relationship, that it is kind of an ecosystem in a way that's evolving. And it's changing moment to moment and where it goes. and we've seen an incredible journey. You know, I do think that, well, I think there's, so, you know, that's my multiple sentence answer to the multiple sentence question about that. I think that's what makes Ryan's writing so great and really the writing on the show is so great.

And what defines it from a lot of other genre work is that it's, it is those relationships first. The spectacle comes organically around it and houses. it, you know, I think, you know, one of the things I would tell people about the series I did that I'm very proud of, which was Quarry for Cinemax, and I did all eight-ups. I love that show. Thank you very much. And Quarry, for me, is, you know, is a marriage crumbling to pieces and the secrets we keep. It's a deal, really a marriage being deconstructed and the secrets we keep housed in the shell,

the genre-coated shell of a hitman series, right? But to me, it was really about marriage and marriages that collapse under the weight of their secrets. And so, and that was what was so fascinating why I wanted to do 10 so much is that, you know, when you're with a partner and that dynamic is shifting, it's a fascinating thing to feel like you're observing in that moment. I think force majeure, you know, that French film was so incredible. It's like another example of that. And not dissimilar to that, I feel like there's a lot of those kind of themes that come in. And, you know, when you're watching, you're literally watching, you know, power dynamics when they're at the table, but you're also in their most intimate, quiet moments, you're also watching.

And it's mixed with grief and shame. And there's all this complexity. So it's juicy. That's what makes it, that's what makes it great. That juiciness, I think, is even more palpable to us after, of course, in an entire season, because nothing that's happening in the finale is happening in a vacuum. And we were curious to ask you about those parallels that are so present, here at the conclusion of the season. I think we're interested more broadly in the way that those echoes surfaced across the season. But you mentioned this idea of the sister episodes,

and Miguel has talked about nine and ten as this pair at the end. How closely were the teams who worked on nine and ten? You know, you and Ryan, Claire and Sarah, working together to forge those parallels actively inside of those episodes, the fractures inside of each alliance, the way that a mistake could shape history, et cetera, to ensure that the penultimate and final episodes really worked in lockstep.

And then relatedly, looking across the whole season, there are numerous key connections between and across your episodes, the episodes that you helmed, particularly, I think, 2 and 10, the Dragonstone Bridge sequences. Shout out mummers, farces, and withered cocks. Key moments between Rainise and Ramirez and Ramirez, that very strong Second Sun's energy,

the idea of marriage is a political tool, but also, of course, three and ten, dragon battles in each episode. Joe and I have been talking all season long about the long walks. We've got Renera's long walk covered in Boersblood in episode three, and then here this long walk crowned and cloaked at last, but ascending in the wake of tragedy and in the face of doubt, the centrality of Aegon's prophecy is the force weighing on Vassaris in three. Renera here unseen to everyone around them in both cases.

So do those opportunities for those mirror moments, parallels or merge organically as you're working on the finale, or is the team working and you're working to very actively mine those moments inside of the finale to connect back? I mean, you broke that down so beautifully. I almost don't know anything to answer that. Classic Mallory moment. I mean, I'm not going to top that that is so like cinematically astute all of those observations. And what's so great is that that you're that you're seeing. them and that that is what's great me i was i would tell people that you know to rewatch two for a lot of reasons before watching ten speaking directly to my episodes the the you know i ended up Miguel and i

switched episodes late in the game i was supposed to direct seven so some of what you see in seven were off of original ideas and sort of early boards and concepts that i did especially with the claiming of vagar um and the the And we, you know, due to COVID and such and various things that can delay the schedule, seven was the least, had the least amount of sets, right? So we need to build a hall of nine and then we're on location for the entire episode. And so seven was actually my way into the series. I really identify with that script and really wanted to direct that.

And I was fascinated by the adult, the after six storylines, because, again, they get more adult and complex. and those are themes that I really love living in. And so when it swapped a two, it actually became a real, like, beautiful accident that happened because I was able to connect two and ten quite a bit. In fact, I would talk to Emma about things that she, she as Renair and not they as Emma,

wouldn't, you know, experienced in the past in relationships when it came to Rainies, for example, you know, talking about that scene between them when they're, when young Renner is watching her dad, court or sort of have that, what, what Sarah has called the uncomfortable walk with, you know, with 12-year-old Lena. and you have those moments that end up lining up quite beautifully. So I thought what really paid off was Rainey's watching Renera throughout episode two and continuing to watch her through episode 10. And that was the most interesting of the parallels to me. Then being able to treat Dragonstone Bridge from

different points of view and to be able to intentionally mirror those two things. So within my own silo of my three episodes, I was looking for those parallels either in three in terms of both Renera and both Damon being covered in blood. In fact, I wanted to go much more Gone Girl with Renera. And I really wanted it, I wanted it on, it was tricky because, you know, we have the stag scene came before. for a walk through the camp, right? So you want to save that and you want to save everybody's reaction to that.

So we ran tests and I, you know, I mean, some of the tests I did were like, you know, it was like Kerry, right? So I would like, well, you know, you want to, you know, it's one of those things you can't pull back from very easily. So you want to make sure everybody's on the same page. So, you know, I'll organize with a, with a, um, stand-in you know we will do you know we'll do like okay here's like option one option two option three just in degrees of how much blood right damon i had full reign to to make that you know a

a horror movie right so so there's those things within the episodes that tie together and then there's those things that do span the season and um claringida and i you know in terms of our our blocks and our episodes were in, you know, we had great camaraderie. Like my favorite community in that experience was with my fellow directors with Claire and Gita. That was we met before we all left for London. We met up in London and we met after London. You know, we've got, I've got this like great diptic of our three dinners that we got because it was so hard to really sync up and there was so much terror of spreading, you know, COVID and everything else that was going on.

So it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, you know, it was just really hard to connect, you know, outside. So it would, and then because we were always shooting and the way that we work is that we've got two full units working all the time. So there isn't, you know, we, you really have to make those efforts in order to connect and then check in and see what's going on. So I was watching how Claire really tried to mirror Alison coming in from episode one to episode nine and making those connections. And then globally overseeing that Ryan and Miguel would check in. So for example, it got deleted,

but there was a scene in episode two that followed. It was actually a great montage, which checked in with Um, there was, so there's a couple of scenes that aren't, that aren't in the cut of two. And I, and I didn't, I don't think they need to be there. I think the cut works really well and I'm very, and I'm very happy with how two came out. However, there was an aftermath scene between, um, uh, Alison and Renara in the garden. And then, and then it began a montage that mirroed episode one of, um, the, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, getting Allison ready for the wedding.

And it was this. And the only heartbreak of it was that I watched that wedding dress get me. There was never a wedding scene, but the wedding dress was manufactured forever. It was one of those things that the intricate detail of it is incredible. And I hope it goes on tour or on display or does something where people can enjoy it and be able to see it. So that was, that was, you know, I went back and I looked at what Miguel did in his episode so that I could, you know, intentionally shoot it very, very similar, not exactly, but similar,

and just sort of flip the roles and have a different tone and weight to it. And then it actually went to a scene of Elena on a balcony at night and her mom coming out to comfort her, just, you know, because there really wasn't any scene between Lena and Rainey's in the entire season. So that wasn't, you know, that, and so it checks in with everybody. And then in that, she hears like the distant cries of Agar, right? And it was also, but for me, thematically, it was a way to show that these young women of the realm have no agency in this patriarchy.

And then what, so it had a thematic connection. Ultimately, you can only tell the story you can tell. And I think that the choices were made were correct. But they were there. And those were other examples of ways that the show mirrored. and connected. But everything that you're seeing is very deliberate. I don't think there's anything that anybody has read into that wasn't somehow inspired or planned or connected. There was a real specificity. Nobody's winging it at any point, although we do plan as hard as we do so that we can

leave the last bit of magic for the day. I want to ask you about, like, you know, okay, again, thinking about the things that are carved away or left unseen, I think we've been talking throughout the season about the edit on Damon and how much we, like, say in the Stepson's battle that you directed, how we don't see that fight between the crab feeder and Damon. We just see the aftermath that there are so many moments with Damon that we cut away from or so many moments where he doesn't say a word and we're relying on Matt Smith and his, like, you know, magnetic stare to communicate for us. And so I'm wondering, like, with Demon specifically, um, what are, what are the decisions that you made in your directorial choices or in the edit of what to show

and what not to show? And what are you hoping to inspire then in an audience reaction in that kind of treatment of a character? I would say the global theme that I went in to Game of Thrones with is restraint. There is enormous temptation and bait to take as a director, right? So it can give one of the great things about Game of Thrones is that it is a drama that presents. It presents this fantasy, but really it's a drama. It's the godfather, right? And it's a story of a family tearing itself apart. That's what it is.

It happens to be set in a world where there are dragons and such. And you have to be careful because there is, you can tip onto either side of the wrong way. And so we would often, you know, say if something was. Throne Z or not or is that the show? And because in some ways, you're making season nine of Game of Thrones, right? So you're coming into that and you want it to come back into a world that has an aesthetic. You know, I wrote Dan and Dave when I rap that I literally felt I was building on the shoulder of giants that I, like, the only reason I was there is because of the work they did and the content. And that was, you know, such an incredible gift of a head start to be able to walk into a show like this.

So, you know, along the way as scripts evolve, you know, one of the things that has always kept me in television and one of the things that I love about television is the constraints that it has. I think when you get, it's why, like, I think, like, Logan is one of the great superhero films, right? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's, you know, and because it's attention to character, there's no real meaningful spectacle, but the spectacle that happens is so organic to those characters. characters, right? So I think that when you get really invested, and I think people lose track of that in, quote, tent pulls, right? So, and tent pole television can get absorbed in its spectacle, and you are lost in terms of character. And I think, I think a lot of shows are guilty of that that I see. And I, I ultimately lose interest. I instantly lose interest. But I'll give anything like one episode, because I'm curious. I'm curious to see who can, who cracks it. And, and, you know, I, I, I think one of the things that has made the show so successful is that we crack that. And everything anybody's talking about is always the smallest moments. I remember a long time ago, I was brought on to do. HBO had Rome and then ABC wanted to do a Gladiator-type series.

And Gladiator, the movie had recently come out. And I ask people, like, what do you remember most from Gladiator? And it was inevitably the scene between Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe, right before he goes up into the final thing where he stabs him in the cut. And I'm like, that was in the dark with two people, right? There's no tournaments, there's no Coliseum, there's no scale to that, but that's what you take away. And so those are great things to remember.

And so with Damon, you have a great character that, yeah, there was, at one time in one version of the script, there was caves and such and and Damon into that journey. But that, you know, that, journey becomes, as you know, when you start to really see the box that you can fit the episode in, I think that's where the real creativity comes. And Ryan really knew how to, you know, take what we had and then turn that into something that gave you what you ended up getting, which is what I love is that throughout that episode, Damon says like one word, right?

At the very beginning in terms of Kragis, in terms of calling him out, you know, which was a Right. Yeah, which was an homage to I Am Legend, you know, in terms of the come out, Neville asked me. So it was a, that doesn't, so those constraints, I always think things get better, the more constrained they get. When I read a quote for Monty Python with regards to flying circus, and they said something that always stayed with me,

which was if we had had twice the money, we would have been half as good. And I think that's true. I don't think that unlimited budgets and final cuts and, you know, are the path forward to the, to the greatest end result. We obviously wanted to ask you about the fight above Shipbreaker Bay, but I think the specific things we were interested actually connect quite nicely to what you were just talking about and that melding of character and always maintaining the thematic and character-centric focus inside of these grand spectacles. So a couple things here that we're curious about. Filmmaking question and a thematic question that I think are certainly linked. You chatted in the excellent House that Dragons Built Featured about,

we got to see a little glimpse of you using these small dragon toys to plan out the sequence. My daughter has those now, by the way. She plays with them now. They're upstairs in her bedroom. I love it. I'm jealous. I wish I had them. It felt like watching that.

very Star Warsian. And then you've noted subsequently in other interviews, you mentioned this in the Volter interview that you did, that the moment when Vagar emerges hugely overhead is a nod to a Star Destroyer dropping out of hyperspace and that just dread that sets in in that moment. So what specifically were you searching for in terms of that melding of the grand theater of that sequence

and the heart of the character-centric moments when you were plotting it out in that way and how did it plotting it out in that way help you maintain that? Because like, you know, we talked a lot in our in our pause this week, our many hours of potting this week about, we don't,

we're not ready to take a bye to us for us. I'm going to invest. I started. I started and I, I have, but I will commit. It's a lot. We've got like 50 hours waiting for you.

I know. I'm there. I'm there. Three and a half hours on that finale. I'm like, we also did a one. hour pot immediately after it before that. So it was part two coming today.

We got more coming and Joe did another one. It's yeah. I'm gonna, I want them all. I want to hear you. No, actually I really do. I, one thing I do love is that, you know, I had, I watched the finale. We, look, it's been a two year journey. So we, my fiancee through and with a friend of her as a, you know, final watch party.

We had probably like 35 friends and community. You've been, you know, come together and all watch it and close at all people that have watching the series. And it was great and what was great of the after conversations, everybody asking in putting their theories forth and wondering what, you know, did this mean this or what did he mean by that or what's this connection? And it's, but it's great because that again, again, comes down to character investment.

You're curious. You're interested in what, what their thought process is and what they're thinking. With, you know, with the Dragon Fights specifically, you know, the first Part of it that I wanted to be aware of actually was to always be one step ahead. I felt that the second you see Luke land and storms end or the second you see him go off into the storm and the dark clouds, you know something bad is going to happen. So I wanted to be just anywhere I could bring in the element of surprise. I wanted to be just like a moment ahead.

Like wherever you sort of thought something was going to happen, it would just happen one second sooner so that you just didn't get too far ahead of it. Even though you knew something was going to be bad, that there was that hope that maybe it would turn out okay. So that was something to be aware of. I think there wasn't a lot scripted for that sequence. So it was a great sequence to build and construct. and that's why the toys, that's why, I mean, that's how I used to play as a kid.

And I would, I was, I've said this in other interviews, but that I would, you know, I did before I really knew about shot design, I would get down and kind of get in that. I saw Star Wars when I was seven in the theater. I saw it five times in the theater. It literally blew my mind. And I would just sit there and play with the toys and play with the X. I would just do all that, but I would do it from perspective. And that was something that was great to go back to.

that sense of play is really what I love about my job in general and whether it's, you know, the prep of it is great. You know, I would, I, especially in genre stuff where you need to visualize these sequences. And then, you know, once, once the mechanics of that were figured out, then you start, you really have placeholders for the performance. And then as much as you think you've edited it, you want to go back and really do a whole performance pass. And, you know, the actors can see the whole journey. so they understand, you know, I can roll a two and a half minute take,

which is what that sequence I think comes out to. And they can run the whole gamut of the performance. And I would have the, I would have a monitor where they could see the pre-vis, so they understood where they were and what they were reacting to. The buck is programmed to all those moves. And, you know, it's selling the G-4,

you know, the cuts a little bit different, but there was, you know, in various previs, you know, there was real G-force of like going into that nose dive and having to pull out quick before you get to the water and just feeling that smush of force on Luke. And so the actors really have to, and you have to actually figure that kind of stuff out without being there.

So there's a lot of physical aspects to the performance. That's the next thing. And then the icing is really being able to clear all that noise so that they can bring a fully realized performance to the picture. And that's, you know, and both, you know, Uwin and Elio, were terrific to work with in that way. Plus, they're getting wind and rain sprayed in their face.

Fire host, yeah. Water inside of the volume. What a, yeah. Yeah, actually, you know, that was, that was, we were, you know, everybody's like, oh, you can't do that, it can't be done. And we're just like, I don't know, why don't we try it? And so we were like, well, what is it? What is it going to?

Like, if we don't get the screens wet, then why can't we do it? And they're like, there was no good read. There was no good answer that came back for Mortar Brothers on that. So we put the way we did it was we put shower curtains up on the volume, and then we worked out the exact amount of pressure of the wind and the water so that it would drop right before the screen. And it was incredibly precise. So nothing got no, everything had a kind of governor on it, so nothing would get past that point and then pry the screens. But we were able to solve that problem.

There's no problems-only solutions, that's usually what I say on set. I love it. How, I mean, that is obviously, that all sounds incredibly complex and intricate and involved and, like, pushing the limits of what had previously even been attempting.

So I think that's what's so interesting to us about it. Like, how are you achieving that in tandem with maintaining this true north of this central focus on the idea of control as an illusion? Control of the dragon, specifically the pursuit of power more broadly. The part of the reason that is, the final climactic sequence lands so fully is because we're as viewers thinking back to Vassaris's warning that harbinger to Reneera in episode one, we're thinking about Danny telling

John in the Dragon Pit in season seven of Game of Thrones. A Dragon is not a slave. We're thinking of the lines we've read in fire and blood. So is that something that you are the second, that line is in the pilot in the first episode that is always there to guide toward full impact in the final moment and everything is working in harmony. 100%. That is the payoff to that line.

And the first moment of it actually was I had a close-up in an earlier cut right when Begar takes that swipe just before Syrac's kind of banks down and goes into the nosedive, Beghar takes a swipe with his talents, her talents, excuse me. I don't mean to misgender my dragons.

And it was a, that was like the first sort of moment. moment of something that wasn't Amon's doing. And so, and it was just, we just had kind of a quick reaction of surprise of, of that. Like, like, there's, like, that wasn't like, whoa, like, you sort of start to see it register. But really, it was, we had a lot of conversation of where it exactly to slide that when it becomes. And really, when, uh, Vagar gets fire blasted, you know, which I was also in the same eye that Amon has taken out.

Beghar, you know, is, is, vagar's, like, not having it, right? And I watched that with, I watched that with my dog when, when, when another puppy was around. It's like, no interest in, like, you know, like, I'm like, you know, going to show you what's what. And so that's, that's really the point where both dragons are,

are on their own and are fighting them for their, you know, Cyrex fighting for survival. at that point. It's not just under Dragon Ride. So it was and also, you know, kids with nukes, you know, that was the other thing that we would, that we kept saying was that you're putting weapons of mass destruction in the hands of children. So what's going to happen? Like, you know, it's going to be, there's no amount of, yes, you, you know, you have that feeling of being powerful with, you know, Eamon feeling powerful with having claimed the biggest dragon in the world, but with that comes a price.

And we saw the tragic result of it. Yeah, thinking about sister episodes, like it's so interesting to me that you storyboarded a lot of Amon's first Vagar flight and then got to do this Amon-Vagar flight as well. It's really interesting to me. It would have been, you know, look,

I'm actually really thankful I did too. I think two is why I think 10 turned out as well as it did was the fact that that was, you know, really the secret sauce was that because I had done too. I want to ask you, so, you know, you mentioned that dread we feel as soon as Luke lands, basically at Storm's Head. We're like, oh, no, we've seen Game of Thrones. We know this is not going well. And I think even people who aren't familiar with fire and blood know that the basic premise of this is a civil war. There's civil war coming.

There's civil war looming. There's obviously, like, book story that plenty of people, including the writers of this show, are aware of. of, and I'm really interested in this finale episode, the painted table provides this great opportunity for the camera to linger on certain locations and for those of us who know a bit more about what's coming, to think about what's coming. So I guess maybe like a broader season-wide question is how much as you create this season, which has its perfect bookends of what Vassera says in the pilot and the payoff in the finale, but how much are you then thinking about, all right, this is going to echo forward in this way for this character or this way for that character as you're crafting the season one story.

I work with the cast to stay present in what's happening. The events that are to come are not, I think, actable, right? So, you know, I think it should be, everything should be fueled by what's happened and what is going, either what's going on that moment or what's happened in the past. So, um, we, Never was I having discussions about, you know, what's to come because, again, you know, what Ryan wants to do with it and where it's going. It wasn't what we were focused on in season one. That's, you know, that's, that's, that's, that is something for really Ryan to answer and answer to. I can say in terms of my process that I was focused on the present and whatever traumas or relationship or history existed between those characters and whatever that particular moment that I was working with them in.

And that and that in your guide or the scripts. And Ryan said many times that this is a history book told from multiple points of view with people with multiple agendas of their own. And what's great is that because it's a history book and because of those agendas and because of those unreliable narrators or reliable narrators, depending on whose point of view you decide to choose to follow, I think that leaves a lot of room for what can happen in the details. People only saw that dragon fight from the ground.

They don't know what took place. So that allows for great moments of character. There was anybody writing me saying, well, you know, like he killed him on purpose and intended to kill him on purpose, it's like maybe he comes back and owns it. But in that moment, you know, you don't know what the internal process is of a character. And that's the great thing I love about the chapters of the book that this is based on. is that there's so much room to allow the actors to fill in that space.

And I went back actually two years later to look back at those chapters. I looked at them at the beginning, and I looked at them at the very end. And I was so blown away by what Ryan and the writers did with that, taking that amount of material and turning it into as complex, as beautiful a season as they did. And going back to the painted table, you know, that everything about the fan, the painted table was fanboy directing in that. And what was the point? You know, it was, it was to, in the original series, I never really got a good look at the table and nobody shot the table in a way that showed it properly. And that the idea that it lights up and that's why you can't, you know, you never got a good look at it because it wasn't ever really, nobody knew what it did.

Like it was gone was the mechanism for it and had been moved around. And I love that we used, you know, what was once the room of the painted table was actually Reneiro's apartment and the painted table actually existed somewhere else. And, you know, after the fall of the Targary and somebody moved everything around, whether it was Stannis or somebody else. So it was exciting to be able to what we called the familiar, unfamiliar with the series, to be able to go to rooms, to be in spaces that were, that had familiar, unfamiliar, to them. And so the painted table specifically, I wanted to shoot that in the way so that you could see, you know, not just, you know, it wasn't necessarily scripted that way. It was that he was standing, you know, that Luke was standing at the painted table and he was standing, you know, between Drift Mark and Wharfstone. And he was, and, but in terms of, you know, designing an opening shot, I wanted to take people through the geography of,

the show that they brought them all here, which was to see how the lands and how things are laid out and then really understand where we are in Westrose, where everything is. And that, you know, I did that in a loving fan way, just as I did when I lit the table up was exactly how I want to see it if I was watching this show as a fan. Yeah, that opening on Winterfell with all of the thought

about the looming thread in the North too, just incredible. We can add it to our long list of notes for Stannis Barathean, you know, using the painted table to create his smoke monster baby with Melisandra, instead of lighting it up and thinking about the realm. Alas! Alas! The disrespect.

A little smoky. A little smoky. Wouldn't be me if I didn't ask another dragon question, but I think it really connects to a lot of what you've illuminated for us today about this pursuit of the heart of the character and that through line of the art. and the journey inside of this magical world. Because I'm curious about the dragon lore, there were so many intriguing moments in this episode.

And they work beautifully as character moments and thematic moments. The cuts. Damon summoning, summoning Caraxies to make Sir Laurent and Sir Stephan soil their small clothes, right? The cuts from the close-ups of Renira's face to Syrax's face, those many cuts, the different angles.

everything that we're feeling in that moment, is that telling us that Syrax is feeling Reneira's pain? Is that telling us something else? And then, of course, the Bronze Fury himself, Vermithor entering our story with Damon's high-valarian lullaby and those very deliberate close-up shots of both the dragon's eye and Damon's eye and these reflections. Is that, for you in the finale, was that primarily about that thematic emphasis and resonance, these mirrors of dragon and Targaryen that recurring the season about Targary's being closer to gods

because of the dragons. 100%. I think that connection between Dragon and Ryder was and again that was something that Miguel and Ryan and I mapped out specific to my episodes where we wanted to place certain moments like that

without overdoing it. Like what the threshold was. There was at one time a version of one that went from Renair's close up to a closeup over dragon roaring you know and I think that it was better to you know when you talk about mirroring and book ending you know we wanted to end season episode one the way we end episode 10 so that was again something Miguel and I communicated about so that we that we could mirror that so that's why we you know I think if you had gone to a dragon to end it or dragon roar or done something we would have done we would have done

the same but I think at the end you want to stay with the characters and find the moments of connection. There was, you know, in the battle when Damon comes out of the cave with crowd beater in an early previs, you know, Karaxes lands behind him in kind of that triumphant way when you're pushing in. But again, we wanted to keep that Damon's moment and just show that he didn't need his dragon, that he came off his dragon and that he established this himself. And during the birth, once I did a first pass of the birth, Adam, our storyboard artist, and I looked at her her Renaro's physicality and made storyboards to cut away to the dragon,

and we would use those with sound effects and kind of work those into the cut and put them in. So we were having conversations of where that threshold was emotionally that would really bring, exacerbate the connection between dragon and rider. So, you know, the birth was obviously a pretty intense sequence, but they can clearly, you know, summon their dragon, you know, when you call out to them or sort of have them, you know, I'm sure Damon, you know, make sure Carraxies was hanging where he was so that he was with an earshot of calling him. All right. Last question for you is we would like to invite you to

join us in one of our favorite pastimes, which is talking about the wigs on House of the Dragon. And we call it Wig Watch or Wig Watch Corner. And we just wanted you to pick if you had one favorite wig from the entire season. What's the number one wig for you in season one of House of the Dragon? I love young Rennara in episode four when she's at Storms End. I just think, Like, the whole look was perfect. That's Shawnee, that's Claire. That's the whole situation worked beautifully in that moment. That was the first thing that popped in my head.

We asked that question. So her bachelorette tour, and not the seven strands of hair clinging to Vassaris' head at the end of his life. You know, he was hanging on to what he had. Doing the best. Thank you so much for this child. This was great. Thanks for all your wonderful work on the show. It's really, really incredible.

No, thanks for having me. This was great to have a deeper dive and your observations and connections and understanding of the show. It's so great when you feel people understand the work you've done and get it at the deeper levels that you set out to accomplish.

So it was great and really rewarding and such a pleasure to talk to you both. All right. So the next couple sections that we're going to do is a lot of mailbag focus. We're going to do a non-spoiler mailbag section. And then we're going to hop into our look ahead, which also has some mailbag questions in it. I'm really excited for both sections, but the look ahead is really going to be interesting because it involves my favorite. A theories. Anyway, but like let's take a.

Right. But in this first section, the non-spoiler mailbag, we got so, aka Steve gets ready on the soundkey, right? We got so, so, so, so many emails about the book, right? Because there are plenty of people who are watching the show tune to this podcast who haven't read fire and blood. And some of them listen to our book spoiler section, which is usually about. like 15 minutes at the end, you know, it's a pretty short section. And some have stopped and are like, you know, I'm keeping myself pure. So let's talk. I mean, the answer, should I read the book? It's the question, should I read the book? The answer, Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson are always

going to give you is yes. Read the book. Reading is great, right? But we got this email from Natalie who says, I've not read any of the song of it. I've not read any of the song in my empire series, but I have have watched all of Game of Thrones and Hot D. Well, I have a hard time if I just read Fire and Blood. Is that something you too would aggressively object to, not sure where to start with these books? Mel, what do you think? Can someone just dive into Fire and Blood, or do they need to read, you know? Absolutely.

Without a stack of toes. Yeah, no. I think, frankly, this is a great way to start. It gives you a taste for George's language and style, even though this is a hit written as a history book and features these multiple unreliable narrators and a song of ice and fire is novel and written from these very rich and meaty first person point of view character chapters.

There are different reading experiences, but it's going to give you a feel for the world. You know, you're going to, you're going to, it's about to mention a foot. I'm going to say you're going to put your foot in the water, but then I started thinking of Laris. You're going to dip a toe in. Lyrus won't be there.

And if you love Fire, and blood, then keep going, you know? Yeah. And if you're intimidated by like, Fire and Blood's a pretty No, I just looked at it. It's like, oh, it's a thick boy. Okay. Yeah. It's a thick boy. Neat.

I was like, it's a slim little, a slim little, no, that's a long, that's a blood burn long boy. Okay, so anyway, um, here's what I would say. Uh, I do not consider audiobooks cheating. In fact, the audio books for Song of Ice and Fire are like, completely delightful. The Roy de Tris,

like come learn the very special way that Roy de Tris would pronounce certain names, like Brayne, join us and knowing that Brayne is how he pronounced Brianna-Tarts like that. So, you know, if sitting down with the book is too intimidating and you miss hours and hours and hours

and hours of Joanna and Mallory talking about House the Dragon, you can just pop in an audiobook and enjoy that. It's a great suggestion. We also got this email for Marcus sort of about the book reader section specifically. He would say someday I will not be surprised. Okay. He said, I would love to be able to join in and listen to your season two book reader look ahead, but I'm worried you guys may speak to further events past, like Marcus said in his

email where he had read up to, past a certain point and I don't want to be spoiled. Before I tune in, are you able to tell me if you're going to go beyond? That's a point. So at least I know I need to read, et cetera. The answer, there's a blanket answer to that. It's not specific to where Marcus is in the book. Our book spoiler sections are everything is on the table. So like we've had people say, can we go back and listen now that we finish season one? We did not contain our book talk to season one at all. So it's just like if you're in the book's trailer section, it's anything goes. So that's just sort of, you know, just in case you thought we could restrain ourselves. We didn't. So anything else you want to say about that, Mel? No, you know, the idea that we control.

the book look-ahead section is an illusion. It's a power we should never have trifled with. She's a power. Yeah. So yeah, read the book. It's really fun. So fun. It's really fun.

We talked like very early in the season, Joe, about like, okay, well, would it diminish from the surprise of watching the show? Obviously, for us, that's not how we approach it ever, because we always love to take the knowledge of the source text to the adaptation. But even if that is on your mind, I think if that's something that typically leads you to hit pause,

just know that with this in particular, like as we've talked about a lot, so much is being created here for the first time because of both the unreliable narrator factor and also that historical text approach, it's a lot of the beats, but there's all this meat then. A lot of the bones.

And then the show is providing all of the meat. So there will be a ton. There have been for us, of like very sincere surprises along the way. Lainor lives. Amon did an oops, like, you know, all sorts of stuff. Rainies killed a bunch of small folk. All right.

Oh, boy. We also, in addition, I would say tied for, like, should I read the book questions, where we got a ton of emails about the childbirth theme that ran through this first season, is this going to be an ongoing thing that we see going forward in the show? We don't want to get too specific about it because, again, this is not the spoiler section. But so for non-book readers, though, I think we can vaguely say that we don't expect that childbirth and specifically traumatic childbirth is something that we will see much more of, we don't know, but much more of in the story. Is that feel safe and accurate, Mallory?

I think so. Yeah, I think that it was very centrally positioned here in season one in a way that is specific to season one. Yeah, I think so. We also have this really interesting email from Aerea. I think that's how you pronounce this name. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing it. But that about childbirth. It says, you and the creators have talked about how Reneer is stillbirth seen is meant to be dramatically tragic.

In the moment she is finally called to lead, she is sidelined in a way that is particular to women. However, I think this has it backwards. While giving birth is coded here as weak, it actually requires incredible, unbelievable, superhuman, indescribable strength. The strength required to go from that to even living a normal life, let alone life is a newly crowned queen, going to war, is astronomical. There's a minor call back to Joffrey's birth, too, in which Reneer gets up immediately after giving birth to walk the baby over to Allison. This goes to show how the men of the realm and ours, too, fundamentally misunderstand women. Giving birth doesn't make them weak. It reveals how strong they are.

Renira and Allison have shown that they can lead as well as any man while shouldering the additional burden of caring and burthering several children each. I thought that was a really good perspective because we have been talking a lot about sort of like the burden of birth and like the, you know, being being trapped, like feeling in like you're in a prison as a mother or is like that. And it's important to talk about the other side of it, which is, yeah, like, Roneira planning a war immediately postpartum, like, you know, what did you do today? Sort of thing. Yeah, I certainly did not think that that finale scene was intended to show Reneira as weak in any way, I think. But the fact that Reneer was pulled out of that. Yeah. Yeah, of that first war council and what that said about the role of people in that patriarchy in society.

I definitely agree that that's not meant to be because of those weakness. How other people might perceive it, but like, yeah, certainly not. No, like, I don't think you can watch what Emma Darcy did in that scene and call that weakness. But I thought it was a good email nonetheless. We got an email from Olive who wrote. I stopped watching Game of Thrones around the time Theon's member was delivered to his father in a little box, Theon's favorite toy.

Theon's favorite toy, man. You cried when I took it away from him. But now I'm thinking of doing, just remember that Ramsey like sausage waggle gift, one of my favorites. But now I'm thinking of doing a rewatch. Can you recommend any good Game of Thrones rewatch podcast? In the word of Stephen Tyler,

I don't want to miss a thing. Boy, Joe. Boy, can we? Tell me. I have you Recap podcast? Have you heard of them loud? I was going to say

binge mode of you out of it. Binch mode, incredible show that our pal Jason Concepcion and Mallory Rubin did all the way all the way through Game with Thrones. All of it.

All of it. An initial sixth season rewatch and then carried on, continued, that beautiful journey for season. in seven and eight, it's all there for you

if you want to catch up on Thrones, all of it. Joe, what about your rewatch? Cast of Kings. Cast of Kings.

Cast of Kings is the show that I, like, before Mallory and I podcast together, we podcasted separately about Game of Thrones. So if you want to double your enjoyment,

you could listen to both binge and a cast of Kings, the show that I did with my pal David Chen, where we actually start in the first season we did in season two, but then we went back and did

season one. So that's all there in the cast of Kings feed. also Storm of Spoilers that I did with Dave Gonzalez and Neil Miller where we got like really, really super spoilery. That was really fun. So yeah, we've done a few Game of Thrones Rewatch Pot. We know a thing or two about Game of Thrones Rewatch podcast.

But not of the two of us together. For that, you have to turn in, tune in for fresh house of our content. So there you go. Email from Nicole. And I love this especially after our interview with Greg, Nicole wrote, I'm super hopeful that the next season on Hot D, they use the extremely beautiful painted table map for the opening credits, not only because it is stunning, but because it is helpful to understand where people are in relation to

others. I also hope that they use the map because I did not connect with the flowing blood family tree sequence at all. I watched it every week, have read all the books and did not get it at all. The only ones that made sense to me are the three for Allison's kids because of the spider and the blue sapphire. If I didn't understand that, them, I imagine that anyone who is show-only fan is equally lost. So that hadn't occurred to me. I don't know that it's the plan, but like, what a great idea. How do you feel about a painted table, the camera zooming around the painted table as a sort of remix of the Thrones map? Oh, you're giving me no face. So go ahead and hit me with your no. I mean, I'd be fine with it. I'm sure I think it was

amazing. Honestly, it sounds super cool. But I guess the thing to me that would be strange about it is like if you're going to do a traveling the map sequence in a throne's intro, just do just do it exactly the way it was done before. Like that feels like half a degree of separation from the original. Yeah, from the original credit sequence that I almost think would be strange. But I don't know. I'll say, I think the, the bloodline family tree, it grew on me over the course of the season. Did it grow on you at all? No, I'm still out on blood on blood tree. Yeah. Well, Tree and I are not friends.

So, uh, blood mountain. I'm sure it works for plenty of people, but a lot of people it doesn't work for. And I think it would be cool if House of the Dragon were like, okay, we tried that. It didn't work. Let's try something else rather than like sort of stubbornly sticking to something because it's what they did initially. You know what I mean? Um, I could, there's something I can see about the paint, like, if they did the painted table and did like a sort of cool, like, fire blossoming sort of effect under the location.

Yeah, that would be neat. From below, I think that would be really cool. Anyway, email from Leslie, who spells her name a really fun way. This is about dragon lore. So I'm going to throw a Mallory on this. Is Vermethor simply tolerating Damon like he might, anyone else,

or is that connection more meaningful? was Drogon Danny's only truly bonded dragon and the others were simply under her care? Did John claim Regal or just go for a joyride? Do bonded dragons often let people other than their writers touch them like John petting Drogon? How is book canon different from show canon here? Mallory. It's a great question.

I will say broadly, there are answers and then there are not answers because one of the things about dragon lore, and this isn't just, readers of the book saying, oh, there's a lot we don't know. It is actively incorporated into the text throughout the saga, like, that this is an impossible thing to understand. So this is why I think Joe and I in the finale got really excited about the House of the Dragon's seeming interest in exploring and expanding on this lore.

The Danny question, like, okay, so there's no precedent in the text for a living person, a rider having a riding bond with more than one dragon. And when a rider dies, a dragon will accept another rider. Balarion had numerous riders over Balearion, the Black Dread's life, but Balarion's riders never rode dragons other than Balaerian. Now, sometimes that's after a dragon like Balaerian dies. Like Viseras could have attempted to form another bond and chose not to. We know why, obviously.

It's still, it is one of the things, like there were a lot of things about the John Regal moment that I thought were exhilarating. But it always, it always did bother me in season eight, especially in terms of that larger, just a degradation of the care for the fantasy elements inside of the story. Like, it should have been a moment where everybody stopped and said, what does it mean that that happened? Holy shit, right? Yeah. Yeah. And this idea of like the Targaryen blood, too. Yeah.

I like, especially if you compare because John reaching out to pet Trogon is season seven. Right? I'm not getting that wrong. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. That moment is so much more arresting and like emotional. And like by season seven I was already feeling like we were sort of racing through things.

but like that moment is very powerful. John writing Regal doesn't like didn't hit that. So I don't know that we can answer that question because I don't think the show is that in that moment, at least that preoccupied. Yeah, I think the show didn't seem interested in answering that question, but I think based on our understanding of the lore, we can say, yes, John and Regal bonded and John became his writer.

Because like even if we think of the Aym and Vagar claiming in this season, like the shaking off, once the dragon accepts you, you and taste you for a ride. That's like a different kind of relationship than anything else. Dragons, though, they, you know, we see obviously like Jora, Monsdae eventually, Tyrion after his trip into the catacombs. Like people who are in Danny's life are familiar and become familiar to the dragons. So dragons can be around other people, but accepting a rider is a bond and a forming of a bond

that is a different thing entirely. I'll read a passage from Fire and Blood that I'm going to skip a couple clauses in it that contain specific plot points that we're not going to share here, but I still think this passage kind of nicely captures this larger question. Who can know the heart of a dragon? Was it simple bloodlust that drove blank to blank? Did the blank come to help one of the blank? If so, which some will claim that the bond between a dragon and dragon rider runs so deep that the beast shares his master's loves and hates. But who was the ally here and who was the enemy?

Does a riderless dragon know friend from foe? We shall never know the answers to those questions. So again, like that tells us something, that there's an understanding and a bond and a way that those feelings connect the rider and the dragon. There's a heightened awareness of what is going on in their hearts and their minds, but also that the exact nature of how that works

is not something that the text has presented to us yet. And something we're excited to see. to see is like whether or not the show, we feel like this lullaby to Vermethore is indicative of the show being interested in exploring some of the bounds of this a bit more. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in the book spoiler section.

But I think that... And what's also true is that... I think it'll be less true here where George R. Martin is a bit more involved. But like, George was forever cranky with the way that Thrones treated Firecannis. Her dragon, like the way that DeNaris Targaryen is fireproof is not how it's supposed to be in the book. And so then it like inspired all these questions forever about like our Targaryens and Fireproof.

And George is like, no. You know, so anyway, I, dragon bonding, dragon lore. It will be very important going forward. We're going to talk about that. But like we're in this cool like pivot space where we don't know exactly where they're going to go with it. So can't wait to learn more. Two more questions. And then we're going to, two more mailbag.

moments, then we're going to go into our book spoiler section. This is just about Allison and Reneer, our core duo of the series, right? We get this email from Chris that I thought was really interesting. Chris wrote, there seems to be an interesting theme being woven that contrasts morality built on law to corrupting disastrous effect and morality built on wisdom that leads to righteousness. I was incredibly moved by the Luke and Reneer moment when he calls her perfect. And she confesses to being anything but. It got me thinking about what a genuinely nice young man he is and how much of that is owed to Reneer and her authenticity. Jace, too, has displayed strength of character, but more importantly, an authentic respect for the women around him.

While the show may not provide any direct examples or corollaries, I don't think it's a coincidence that such a potent and fully realized woman would raise these kinds of humans. By contrast, Alicent and her stuffy, dogmatic approach to life has raised two horrifying things. individuals. Agon is a drunken rapist while Amund is insecure, Oprah, overcompensating psycho. They are violent, sexually and physically violent. They are patriarchy incarnate. Allison is by her own confession, a woman so confounded by the patriarchy, so stifled by the men around her that she does not know the true desires of her own heart. How could she raise anything but monsters? Poor Allison, she is most pitiable. So I like that idea that like goes back to that like sort of window in your prison idea of Rainey's talking to Allison.

Allison understanding not being on to see beyond the possible limitations of her power and how passing down these ideals of the patriarchy from Otto directly through herself and then into her sons. You know, despite a You Are No Son of Mind moment, like, you know, like that's sort of the Allison legacy. and then with Reneira because, you know, she's not just,

she's going to break the wheel, right? She's going to, she's going to bust out Kool-A-Manor way out of that prison, right? And so then her children are, yeah, they seem like much cooler kids. No offense. What do you think about this idea of,

like, being trapped in the patriarchy and passing the patriarchy patriarchal values down versus what's going on Roneira. Yeah, I think it's one of the reasons that the moment between Alicent and Otto in episode nine in the penultimate episode where Otto says, would you have, do you have wanted this any other way? You know, if that's true, I made you queen of the Seven Kingdoms. And she says, how can I know? And for the, for Alicent as a character to be recognizing that and wrestling with that, also, of course, that's on the heels of Reney, of the conversation with Reneas and

really saying the window in the wall of your prison line. So this is something that Alicent is reflecting on and thinking about. And hopefully, moving forward in the story, working to change. I think that would be a rewarding thing to see out of the character. Last question is from Catherine. It's on a similar theme. Catherine Rothera. Just so I think he's not going to do it.

Throughout the season, the question of who has not, who has and who's not I'm going to do that again. Throughout the season, the question of who has not simply power in the traditional sense, but agency has been central. Reneer has been about choice the whole time, even in moments where she may have felt powerless compared to others. She takes action for better or worse and worries about consequences later. Allison is put in a position of authority by becoming queen, but she has little, if any, agency. This has driven home to her when she realizes at the end of everything, even if she didn't, want to do a coup, it is happening anyway, and it is brutally and beautifully outlined to her by Rainey's, the window is a prison scene, the window in your prison scene.

Reneer is driven by a desire for authority because she feels it is her duty to act, and Allison is driven by a desire for agency, because she wants to control her destiny, how they understand power differently, and the ways in which their perceptions of authority and control influence their decisions makes their relationship so complex, as they try to justify the links to which they will go, the connections they maintain, the damage they do to achieve their goals, they get deeper into the gray area, Martin loves so much. They may be doing something for what they think is a good reason from a certain point of view, but it does not matter what the intentions are. It is how others perceive them. The show is littered with examples

of unintended consequences, misconceptions of motivations, and snap judgments all stemming from a failure to understand the root cause with someone's actions. I really love this email, especially the part. Reneira has been about choice the whole time, even in moments where she may have felt powerless compared to others. That is like something that you think about that scene on the bench in the godswood when Reneer and Allison are like sort of one of their close to reconciliation moments where Allison is trying to explain to Reneer how much freedom she actually has.

And Reneer is like, it's not enough. And like we applaud Reneer for, wanting to continue to push and push and push the boundaries of like what, you know, women, young women, et cetera, can do in Westeros. She fails to acknowledge how that reality is so different for Allison. I mean, she says, I'm sorry in that moment, but I don't think it's an acknowledgement that she carries with her going forward. What do you think, Malloribin?

Yeah. I mean, I think this is why the I-for-and-eye showdown would. really one of the not only best scenes of the season, but most important, because it shows us how each of those characters thinks about this regarding their own circumstances, but also the limit of not understanding, not being able to see the whole truth of somebody else's life. And some of that is because these people are carrying secrets and not able to talk to each other or share things with each other. You know, what have I done, but what was expected of me forever upholding the kingdom,

the family, the law, while you flound. it all to do as you please is there like a better encapsulation. Where's duty where a sacrifice is trampled under your pretty foot again? Leading, of course, to the cloak of your own righteousness retort. So I think that is at the heart of this divide. And it is a divide and a wedge that was created and then widened by the men around them. And so that is at the heart, certainly, and the root of the tragedy of it all.

Otto. Piece of shit. Damon. Saris. All right. So that, I mean, that does it for us for non-spoilery mailbag.

You know, thank you guys genuinely so much. If you're going to bounce now, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for all of your emails. Please, please remember that we're still doing it, and or man.

And it is a great show. And I really hope. that you guys watch it and come back and listen to us, chat about it tomorrow, because we are loving that show. So good. We'll still cry and make penis jokes on that show, too, I promise. Anyway. That's a promise from us to you. It is time now for Dance of Dragon Dream, season two book, look ahead. I really feel like we should bring it over to Andor. I feel like we should bring all of this

to Andor, but, or maybe we should just let us. Steve built his own new intergalactic soundboard. Who knows? So much to look forward to here in season two, Joe. Yeah. Breaming with joy and, you know, I don't know. Definitely dread, dread. Yeah.

A lot of terrible shit's about to happen in this television show. We're not going to go through every single thing that we think is going to happen in season two, but some of the things that were most top of mind for us coming out. of the finale. I think probably had the same thing at the top of our lists here, which is the sun for sun, blood and cheese. So in the book when Luke dies,

Damon's at Heron Hall, and he sends Roneer a little scroll says son for a son. Luceris shall be avenged. Avengers Assemble!

I was hoping, I was hoping that he would be there and not like, so they didn't say, he didn't say anything. Like that's not the closing line of the, of the season or anything like that, right? But it's sort of in the water as we watched that final moment between Damon and Renera, that final turn. I love that, I don't know why it didn't occur to me, but I love that Greg, Eutonius pointed out to us that that Reneera turn away from the fireplace moment was meant to echo her turn at her, you know, coronation, essentially. or her being named air at the end of episode one. But, so I'm glad that demon was there, not that he sent a little, a little scroll. But like the question for blood and cheese, which is team black, we'll just say broadly,

before we ascribe blame, team black sends to assassins essentially into the Red Keep, who type of Allison, torment Helena, make poor already addled Elena,

Helena, pick one of her children to die and then they kill the other like we're going to kill a baby in the opening,

I guess, of season two. Like we anticipate that this is going to open this season. Maybe episode two, but probably the premiere. It's,

I think the most horrifying thing that happens in this stretch of house, because it's so... You're that little boy, your mama wants you dead. Yeah.

This breaks Helena forever. Yes. It kind of breaks Allison forever, to be honest with you. How do you feel about that as like an opening? Sorry, not to get like too down, but like how do you feel like this is going to go over

with audiences? What are you anticipating for this? So, okay, I've been thinking about this because I think, like you said, we agree this seems like an end opening note for season two. It's next up, basically. You know, we're going to get some other conversations, some regrouping. Who knows exactly how the show will treat the timeline. But it can't be far away.

And one of the things that I think has been in the narrative about season one and the conversation around season one is like, I didn't feel these deaths as much as I should have because I didn't know these characters. Right. And so I wonder if, and like, look, is like a difference of half an episode or an episode and a half like really the equivalent of what you could have gotten with three seasons of somebody on Game of Thrones? Of course not. But I think if this opens season one or season two and is like the first half of the first

episode, it's just purely horrific. And like we feel certainly the impact of that on Helena and Allison. But we don't know. Like we've seen Jehers and Jehara very briefly. We've not met Maylor. We haven't spent a ton of time with Helena. And so I do wonder if they will build up a little bit more screen time with that family before Blood and Cheese actually unfolds.

And even stuff like, you know, the last experience we have with Masaria is wondering if Laris's murder crew successfully burned Massaria a lot. and, like, we know that Masaria has a role to play in the story, so presumably Masaria has to be introduced to the story again. So maybe this is, like, a couple episodes in to get all those characters back in front of us. But regardless, it's going to be one of the most harrowing things that we see in the entirety of House of the Dragon. Not only the moment itself, the murder itself, that whole torture and torment sequence, but, like you said, the impact on Helena moving forward.

One of the most haunting lines in fire and blood to me is she could no longer stand to look upon her son, Maylor knowing that she had named him to die. Like, this is just, this is one of the most tragic things in this tale. So it's going to be rough. The other question around blood and cheese is, you know, who orchestrates it really in the book versus who's going to orchestrate it in the show? Is this a case of Damon, who we've already seen break more violent than Rainier in this finale? Is this a Damon generated, like, via Masaria?

plan, is Rainierra involved? This face we saw her pull at the end of the episode, like, is that the face of someone who would, you know, sit down with Damon and say, yeah, let's order the death of a baby? And, you know, and then the follow question is, like, the show, you know, the constant complaints of, like, we don't have anyone to root for in House of the Dragon. Like, are, we've been talking a lot about the softening,

softening of characters like that. Like, there have been, I've seen some theories that, like, Damon won't even order it, that, like, it's Masaria going rogue because she's so pissed about what Laris did, you know, like, the greens are responsible for burning down her home, her building, right? Her place of business. So, like, will Damon and Rainer say, go, go scare him, go rough him up, and Masaria, like, miscommunicates the orders and says, take it further?

You know, like, how soft are we going to go? How hard are we going to go? on these characters that we then have to follow for the rest of the story, you know? Yeah, yeah. It'll tell us a lot about how far they want to lean into that, like everybody is capable,

not only of depravity, but of true, true, true atrocity direction. Email from on hell, who writes, will we ever see Helena ride or even interact with Dreamfire, her dragon? The aftermath of blood and cheese is doubly important, not only because of the sun for a sun promise,

because it takes a dragon writer off the board for the Greens. Can we please establish some semblance of a bond here? Shoot, I'll even take her reading a book sitting against Dreamfire. That's a real Cora move. That's from Joanna. What do you think? To your point about, like, waiting an episode and a half, like, are we going to get to see Helena on her dragon before, you know?

Like, she doesn't, thus far, she does not seem like she would be a super effective dragon. I like her so much. And I want her to just again, live her happy bug existence for the rest of her life. I love her. But if I'm like going into battle, I don't know that I would be like, suit up, Helena, hop on dream fire and come help me roast some people. Like, she's so soft. So, yeah, but in terms of the dragon meth that Damon is so concerned with,

it would be helpful to remember that she's a dragon writer. Okay. Also on the blood and cheese, not bread and cheese, blood and cheese front, we got this email from Shea. You tell that I didn't eat lunch. Okay. Do we truly think the beast beneath the boars Helena prophecy is resolved? Ever since Joe revealed Laris is a sneaky war spy theory, I've been obsessed with it and watching for the signs. Granted, now the Vassaris is officially dead, I did notice no further rats scurrying around the castle conspicuously.

But last week, I could have sworn that while Helena was stitching, her sweet bug girl embroidery, her mother tried to tell her that the king was dead, and she cut her off warning of the beast beneath the boards. Even more insistently when re-mentioned the prophecy again and pausing the divulgence of the info. Maly's and Rainey's busting through the floor definitely seems more legit, especially with the lack of rats. But just curious your thoughts on this theory moving forward, especially knowing a foot fetish thing now, rats have a great vantage point for feet peeping. So where are you on beast beneath the boards, washed Mallory? Do you feel like it's been? been resolved or do you think it's like one of those things that like it can mean any number of things? Yeah. That. Are we going to. Yeah. Okay. Are we going to hear it from. Yeah.

That would be interesting if we heard it again. I mean, I like the idea generally that these prophecies can apply to any number of occurrences and events. I think that your point from a couple of pods ago about like what pattern we end up seeing moving forward of like a prophecy issued and then kind of seemingly at least immediately fulfilled will be an interesting thing to continue to track. But, you know, I still, I'm still, I really like still the Jace theory that you floated about this many pods ago. We'll talk more about Jace in a few minutes here. I definitely think this still fits with the blood and cheese of it all and the rats and this, this, even just like the tunnels, the secret passageways that come into play for blood and cheese,

like this idea of what is unseen beneath you and how that can, that horror can rise up and pull you down with it. I think it just applies, you know, to any number of specific eventualities, including the ones we've already seen. We talked about Agon being pulled out from underneath that plinth except. Obviously, we talked about the unconscionable, incomprehensible loss of life at the hands of Rainies and Males at the Dragon Pit. So I think it fits both of those things we've already seen. And then a couple things that could still come.

Our pal, Joe magician, he of the, Lars, Laris is a sneaky one. work spy theory, had a theory that Laris could be cheese. Like, because we don't know everything about these assassins and would it be interesting? I don't think so. I feel like we're just going to get, you know, two blokes in here. But like, to me, then they have to move this, like, to the back of the season and explain how what would happen between Laris and Allison for that to unfold. Because, like, they're currently aligned, not happily, but.

She would have to. you know, turn off the foot access, honestly. You know, that would be a part of it. Anyway, all right, what else? What else we want to talk about? Let's talk about Damon and Harren Hall. Haran Hall specifically got some focus in the finale. The Riverlands more broadly the need to sure up this location, lock down this seat.

Damon at Heron Hall, you know, we have a lot of story ahead here in many different aspects to consider. But I think just Harenhall entering the story, the Riverlands entering. the story again in this new way, very exciting and cool. The way that Damon initially takes the castle, you know, harking back to Agan, the Dragon, Agan, the Conqueror coming from above and everything that happened with Hara and the Black and the curse of Harenhall that has still continued to spread through the land from here. Very fun, that'll be cool. Meeting Alice Rivers, I mean, this is going to be an important thing that happens very soon.

Early in season two, we have to believe, from Fire and Blood. But who was this woman? A serving wench who dabbled in potions and spells, says Monkin. A woods witch claimed Sept and Eustace. A malign enchantress who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth. Mushroom would have us believe. So I'm excited to meet Alice Rivers and see how that character is deployed in the show. And obviously just setting the stage for everything with Damon and Amand,

Caraxis and Vagar not only eventually at the battle above the gods eye but the Heron Hall castle swapping in between this is going to be a cool part on the map to spend some time on.

Are you hyped about the heron hall of it all? Yeah, you already mentioned broadly but I love this image of its elderly castell in Sir Simon Strong was quick to strike his banners when Carraxies

lighted a top King Spire Tower. And I can just see the bloodworm perched on top of Heron Hall. Like that's going to be such a cool shot. Right?

So David's going to take... Yeah. Just like sort of worming around. Yeah. So Damon taking Haran Hall. I'm really excited for. Alice Rivers, as she pertains to

Amen, going to be super interesting. She's a fascinating figure. There is a million, are a million to fun theories about Alice Rivers actually being Melisandra and that this is where we could get if we wanted to Melisandra in the story. I kind of hope not. I like Alice Rivers being her own thing. But that's a fun theory. But like we were talking about like we haven't felt like they've done a lot of track for Alice Rivers except for that older woman that Aman interacts with in the streets of Silk when they're looking for Agon because Alice Rivers is canonically like, you know, a bit older than Eamond. He's got a, you know, bad luck for, what is it, Floris Barathean. He's got a thing for, you know, much older women. So there you go. Oh, boy. All right, let's talk

about Jace's trip north. Winterfell. Have you heard of it a lot? Winter's coming. I am excited to spend some time in the veil before we, before we get to winterfall. It doesn't seem like we'll be doing the three sisters in White Harbor, like in the text will just be going, presumably, from the area to Winterfell. But Joe, there is so much to look forward to in this Winterfell stretch for Jace. First of all, how many episodes do you think Jase is going to spend up there? I mean, this could be a big stretch of the beginning of the season. Like five.

I would say like five. Like maybe, like, I think it's like, I don't think he comes back until like episode six would be my guess. So like maybe one episode in the veil and then four. episodes up in Winterfell or maybe even more, but something like that. It depends where we think season two is going to end. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because we need to leave time for which. A couple of other things we're going to talk about, sewing in the seeds and then battle

the gullet. Yeah, maybe four episodes. I guess it depends on how long it takes to do the red sewing. But, okay, let's talk about the Starks. I've always said Cregan reading this, but this is apparently not how this is pronounced. This is a real twist. How are we supposed to say it? Craigon?

I think so. I think so. Craig and Stark. Who did you hear it? Who did you hear say it? Condal. Condal. Okay.

I'm going to have to write myself a post that it says like, Craigon, like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, Craig and Stark. Craig and Stark. Craig and Stark. The packed of ice and fire, Joe. This is going to be a blast. This is going to be really cool.

We're going to get like, Craig and Stark is a huge figure. all the way up through well past the end of the dance, right? It's a massive figure. And this is something we talked about early on. You know, we were like, people who love Game of Thrones

are going to come into this show and they're not going to get any Starks in the first seat. Like, there are no Starks in the first season. Barely. But Craig and Stark, who's a very cool character. But we found out from Reneer in the finale that he's like,

closer to Jason's age. So probably around like 20 or something like that, you know, young. Two bros bonding in the north. And the snow, what could go wrong? I've seen a lot of fan casting for Craig and Stark. What are some of the names? Who's out there? I mean, all of them are like way too famous.

Like I just don't think it should be a famo. I think it should be, you know, like anyone Mitchell or like a Thai tenant or whatever, you know, or Millie Alcock or Emily Carey, like give us something that we haven't really seen that much of and let them make this their own, you know? So I'm excited. Sarah Snow. Yes.

Okay. Tell the people who don't know who Sarah Snow is. I'll read a little passage here that actually gives us some Craig and some Sarah Snow set up here. Monkens True Telling says that Cragan and Jasaris took a liking to each other for the boy prince reminded the Lord of Winner. Winterfell of his own younger brother, who had died ten years before. I don't know why I'm using such a cheerful voice and talking about this poor dead brother. They drank together, hunted together, trained together, and swore an oath of brotherhood, sealed in blood.

This seems more credible than Septin Eustace's version, wherein the prince spends most of his visit attempting to persuade Lord Craig and to give up his false gods and accept the worship of the seven. But we turn to mushroom. Funny. to find the tale's other chronicles omit, nor does he fail us now. His account introduces a young maiden or quote, wolf girl as he dubs her with the name of Sarah Snow.

So for both the relationship between Jason Kragon and this potential relationship between Jason and Sarah Snow, there are so many different accounts presented us of what the nature is. So who knows what's going to end up happening. There's a whole, like, did Jace get Sarah Snow pregnant and did they marry each other? Was there a wedding? Great.

Sarah's married to Sarah Snow element to this. Right. And real Rob Stark vibes, right? Of Jason the North here, right? Like, did he go Rob Stark himself into a... Don't want to marry the Fray girl! Have you seen, Tulisa? Yeah.

So, I mean, he... So, Jace is engaged to Bela, but, you know, according to some folks I'm surprised what happens in Winterfell stays in Winterfell you know what I mean I definitely don't think

that we're going to get like a careless thoughtless chase that would be surprising based on what we've seen so far but I don't know I mean some of what happens in the finale

it's like we're getting a little bit of a different energy from him he does seem very devoted to Bella based on what we've seen so far right based on what screen time that they sit, they sit nicely and stand nicely next to each other.

Didn't want to hear Agon's filth at dinner. So I don't know. You think, what do you think? You think that there will be an affair? Will there be a wedding? Or just a... I think it would be like a love affair. I mean, you know, I think that what I think, and maybe this is uncharitable, but I think

House of the Dragon, the temptation is going to be so strong when we go to some place like Winterfell to get, like, very familiar and dig into, like, some... trappings that fans of Thrones are familiar with. Like, is the wall going to get involved? Are we going to see not, you know, like, there's no reason to, but like, might they do that to bring in something, you know, lemon cakes? You love lemon cakes sort of thing. But like, so with Sarah Snow, I feel like they're not going to miss an opportunity to give

us like a, you know, Robeslisa or John Eddie Grette sort of feeling of like. Forbidden love. Yes. Yeah. A forbidden love or romance sort of thing. Yeah. Agreed. I think that would be really great.

and seems likely and like it would fit. I just don't, I don't know if Jace will be like a total. I think it's going to be the heart wants with the heart wants. He's just going to be like, I feel the pull of young love. Yeah, I'm going to try to be an upstanding young man, but have you seen Sirs? No. Craig and Stark is so important because, like, Damon is probably going to die in season three. Like, you know, like, we're going to need these characters, you know, Damon and Kristen

and, like, all these characters are going to. be dead. So, like, who's pulling, you know, who's pulling us forward. The thing about House of the Dragon is that almost everybody. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Not everybody. Yeah. But Craigon is going to be important.

Like, we're going to have to care a lot about Craig and Stark to be in. So anyway, we got this email from Leroy that I'm going to read mostly for one line that I found really extraordinary. Lord Craig and Stark is by far my favorite non-targarian of the story. He is such a, dare I say, a stark juxtaposition. To his descendant Ned, he's smarter yet brasher and more stabby, and I look forward to seeing him on the show. So I have a theory in order to make us care about him and show his bonding with Jace. Let's say his uncle is still controlling Winterfell's regent, well-past when Kragon should have taken over.

That's why Sir Otto thinks the North is in his pocket. Jason and his dragon will team up with Kragon and 86th the uncle, and this will be the origin story of their deep friendship, and of Lord Cragan becoming what I like to call the Duke of Fuck Around and Find Out. Additionally, we have Mushrooms account where Jace gets his Rob Stark on and falls in love with Sarah Snow,

but something that will happen to her, preferably she dumps him for his own good so we don't have to see another fridging. How else do people bond in a song of ice and fire, but with murder and weird sex stuff? I also think there will be some yada-a-y-a-a-to-explank why Craigon and the Winter Wolves are so late to the party, Or there will be a rebellion in the North.

He has to deal with probably the Bolton's because hashtag fan service or wildlings doing wildling things. This is Joanna again. I want to say, how else do people bond in a song of ice and fire with murder and weird sex stuff? Put it on a t-shirt. I will wear it. That thing you did with your tongue. It's a great television show. We don't even know what you've got to bear.

Oh. Lover. I bring Rose Leslie back to be Sarah Snow. Why not? Anyway. A fun theory, no strong basis for it, but, you know, I could see them sort of inventing something that makes the pact of ice and fire feel like it's born out of something more action-y, especially if they feel like they need a few more action spikes in the season or something like that. Do you have any thoughts about Craig and in the winter? wolves being late to the party?

So in terms of the Pact of Ice and Fire, rereading this stretch, I got so excited because I was like, oh my God, this is going to end up connecting to the prophecy. And then I remember that Jace doesn't know about the prophecy yet on the show. So that's a... We got a limel about that. Yeah, because like, oh, cool, maybe. But I think even absent Jace having been brought into that confidence in the Pact of Ice and Fire

actually directly connecting to the Song of Ice and Fire, inside of these characters' lives, still, it gives the show a chance to connect the North and the threat of the North to this particular character set. So, like, one thing that I... I'm going to stun you, Joe,

and bring up a dragon thing here. But one thing that really stood out relating this is the Vermax Egg Theory. There's that passage. You know, dragons not liking the North is a through line. This goes back to Good Queen Alicane. Alicein.

Yeah. So it's like, I don't think so. Yeah. And like we see it obviously in Game of Thrones too, right? They're not eating as much as they should be, et cetera. It's not a place that they like to be. And this ties into this magic and these opposing forces of magic. So I'm excited to see what Vermax unlocks for us on that front being up in the north for presumably a good stretch of time. And there's that passage. Mushroom also claims that Vermax left a clutch of dragons eggs at Winterfell, which is equally absurd. and on the passage goes, but including to say that whilst it is true that determining the sex of a living dragon is nigh on a possible task, no other source mentions for a max producing so much as a single egg, so it must be assumed that he was male, etc.

Who knows? I mean, that's I always the fun of the dragon. Yeah, the dragon under Winterfeld theory is so fun, yeah. Yeah, so I'm just excited about that. How else do they keep how else do they keep warm? there's a beast

Del Mar. The beast beneath the boards. Beast beneath the boards? Is the dragon in Winterfell? I love it. I mean, I'm forever disappointed there wasn't a dragon in the wall, but, you know, that's fine.

The beast beneath the boards, it's all of the dead bodies in the ecripps of Winterfell that nobody, for one second, considered, might be reanimated by the Night King. Those are the beasts beneath the board. We solved it.

We did it. Do you remember when that happened when all the stark corpses came back? Yes. And my friend Gustavo made this meme that I went pretty viral where he took baby shark And he was just like Grandma Stark did it to do to do like about all the stark corpses They were coming out of the wall anyway okay what a time what a time that was

Do you want me to do you want to me to tip off this next section? Please do it yeah please thank you in advance The battle at rooks rest um that mallory could definitely pronounce with their Baltimore accent. It's the... Rooks rest. Rooks. Rooks.

Rooks. Rooks. Rast. Rooks rest. Rux Rast. We anticipate this to be a mid-season event. Yeah. And this is where Queen that never was, Rainis, and her beautiful dragon, Maly's, square off against that piece of shit, Agon.

his extremely beautiful and fuckable dragon sunfire Sorry That's a trial by content Yeah Good all Aman Aman Kinslayer Aim on one eye

Vagar And Kristen Chris and Cole is also there Radies is going to die Probably midseason But good news That's badness

Not all I was lost What's the good What's the good news, Mallory? As sad as we will be to mourn Rainius and Males, I, it's just going to be a delight to see Agon so grievously wounded that his armor melts into his flesh. I'm not looking forward to seeing Sunfire badly wounded, torn wing, needing all that time to heal.

That's going to be very sad. But the injuries that Agon suffers at Rook's rest, are... ...crued and alter the rest of his life and alter the war. He's off the board.

And aim it for a really long time. Rules in his stead, which, you know, as we know. I'm sure we can expect a very measured...

It's got to be fine. This will be fine. Tender ruling approach from Amind Kinslayer should be fine. Yeah, I think midseason for this feels right. We'll get a little bit more time

with Rainies and then it'll be one of the, season two is going to be grim. The rest of the show is going to be grim. Blood and cheese at the beginning. Rooks. Rooks. Rest. Battle of the gullet is what we're going to talk about later.

But yeah. And Kristen Cole, I mean, who knows? Who knows who they're going to put, make responsible for what? But canonically, Kristen Cole is responsible for this like trap where AGO and Amon, like ambush, Rainey's all fair and war. But fuck you, Kristen Cole. once again. Fuck you.

Kristen Cole had sprung his trap and Raineese had come snatching at the bait. Now the teeth closed around her. I love though that next line Princess Raineese made no attempt to flee. Speaking of Dragons Joe, should we talk a little sowing of the seeds? Was there something else you wanted to hit at a rooks rest?

Rest. I'm just going to paraphrase a couple emails that we got from people who were concerned about Allison and Rainier going forward in the show because the reason that Raines goes to Rook's rest

and is sort of like Corlees and Reneas are sort of running the war plan from Dragonstone is because Reneira is so gutted by Luke's death

that she sort of fades away from the story for a while and Allison similarly traumatized by blood and cheese she fades from the story for a while

but a question that a bunch of people had that we got was how can we have that happen when Allison and Reneira are ostensibly our two main characters in the show. I mean, like, you know, things up and flow. It could happen that, you know, we'll feel like other people are main characters that were interested in following. But, like, I just don't feel like that's the story they're interested in telling.

And I think especially with Reneira, we'll see what happens with Alicent. But with Reneer, that look she gives at the end feels like she's processed. all the way through devastating grief to the other side, which is anger. You know what I mean? It will then force them to make some changes in terms of like, you know, why is it Rainis out here at Rook's Rest and not Reneer? Like, why isn't Reneera out doing some of these battle moves? They might just be like you're the queen.

You need protecting, like, stay behind or something like that. But I don't know. Do you have any thoughts, questions, comments, concerns about Reneer and Alice's roles going forward. Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot. I agree with everything you just said. I can't imagine the next season of the show not centrally positioning them

as very active participants and very present and key moments, but a lot of what happens will need to be slightly adjusted to account for that. So we're going to talk about Battle of the Gullet and Jace's death in a minute here, but the way that we're in nearer process

is that seems to have been shifted up, to how she's processing Luke's death. So broken by the loss of one son, the quote goes, Roneira Targary and seemed to find new strength after the loss of the second. Jace's death hardened her, burning away her fears,

leaving only her anger and her hatred. So I don't know if we're in full-on only her anger and her hatred territory immediately, but this, that look, that expression that we got like action, it is time to do something here. I think that we moved that up because we can't take Renair off the board for a season of TV.

It just wouldn't make sense inside of the universe that they've built. But then the question is like, how does that affect something like sewing of the seeds, which is very much a Jace-led pursuit because he is taking a more active hand in leading the blacks with Reneira in a more reserved position? Is Reneer leading the sewing of the seeds?

Is that happening while Jace is up at Winterfill? Let's talk about that in a second. Really quickly before Rooks rest, Rooks rest, Rooks rest, Rooks rest, Rux Rest. Cargill Bull, the cargill twins, basically the reason why these twins had to be identical. And I still think that you could just, like, have different hairstyles at least. But Aurek, Sir Aric, on behalf of that fucker, Kristen Cole, she sneaks into Dragonstone

disguise as his brother, Eric. So that's why they need to be identical twins. And then they fight. And then they both die. And we have actually spent now after episode nine an incredible amount of time with them so it'll hit us hard.

Time to keep making Eric and Ark. Did you see that apparently... So Tom... I can't remember his hyphenated name, but the actor who plays Agon posted a behind-the-scenes photo of, like, a lot of them at a pool. And Eric and Aric are very easy to tell apart with their clothes off because one of them is covered in tattoos and the other one isn't. And I'm just sort of like, that would have been helpful. What would have been helpful?

Yeah. All right. What do you want to say about sewing of the seeds? The red sewing, the sewing in the seeds, looking for these writers, for the unclaimed dragons. This is what's going to come from Damon's speech, his Dragon Math speech. here are all these dragons. We have some used to have writers, some are wild dragons,

who have never known a writer. And the dragon seeds, the bastards, all of these Targaryian bastards, people with Targaryen blood, the blood of the dragon that would allow you to form this magical bond with a mount.

A ton of people die during the sewing of the seeds, thus the alternate name, the red sewing. The red sewing, yeah. I think that this, the reason I'm wondering if maybe, because this is again very like Jace-centric in the book, I'm wondering if maybe Reneira leads

this while Jace is off, because I don't know how long they can wait to do this on the heels of the Dragon Math, but I guess the flip side to that is pretty apparent, which is just Dragon Math is always going to be top of mind throughout like every episode in the rest of the show. There are plenty of new opportunities to do that calculus. The Vermethor introduction here in the finale, obviously very important, given that Vermethor is one of the dragons during the sewing, who is paired. Hugh Hammer will be entering the story during the sewing. Silver Wing will be paired.

Oof, the white. Sheep Steeler will amazingly be paired. Sheep Steeler actually one of the wild dragons. That's nettles. And then Seasmoke, we've already talked about this on prior pods. We have a lot of questions about how this is going to happen, the Adam of Hull pairing. If Seaspoke accepts another rider and Seasmokes writer, Lainor is actually alive in the story.

That's like a very new canon download for us. An update to Dragon lore. Yeah. So will it be these same characters in the sewing? Will we have something else introduced into the mix? What do you think? I cannot overstate how many emails we got about the girl models, right? Like, people are really worried about this because by people, I mean people who feel like

Damon Reneera share a true and lasting love. because, you know, there's many different stories about Nettles. Mel's a very cool character, but there is also this story of her and Damon basically shacking up and she's young. She's like 16. And Reneerah finding out about it and Reneer trying to get Nettles assassinated and Nettles escaping and then Damon going off to die or did he. And so I don't know how it would happen He would have to go to Harron Hall later But I can almost see like

It feels like Damon should run the sewing of the seeds Doesn't it? Since he's the one the most invested in like The Dragon Lour and the Dragon Math And all that sort of stuff Like he should be running that program He's just also very invested in locking down the Riverlands And it doesn't seem like he's going to want to stick around for long

Amid everything on the home front But yeah, it would make sense for Damon to run it, definitely. There's this theory that Raina could be involved in the sewing the seeds based on basically one lingering shot that happens in the finale when Damon is talking about the wild dragons, the unclaimed dragons and the dragon math. A reminder that Raina does not have a dragon. And thus, Damon did not consider her a worthy daughter. Anyway, Dan wrote in. And the prior conversation between Lena and Raina about the multiple paths to finding a dragon.

It doesn't have to be a hatchling. You can claim a dragon, right? So I got this email from Dan who wrote, I think there's an off chance. Not sure how small of a chance, but it's definitely non-zero. The show will remix things and make Raina a dragon rider of one of the bigger dragons,

Vermethore, Silver Wings, Sea Smoke, or one of the wild dragons. The idea first occurred to me in the painted table scene where Damon runs down his dragon math, after he mentions the riderless dragons, blah, blah. The camera moves to Raina and causes her looking up and taking note. But beyond that little sprinkle, classic camera cut foreshadowing,

another addendum if they do go this route with Raina, is you also have a ready-made built-in, easy out, where you can kill off her dragon but keep Raina alive, but just having X-Dragon present for the storming of the Dragon Pit Calamity, do we really think the show is going to introduce us to each of Hugh, Ulf, Adam, Allen, and Nettles? I think any of them other than Nettles could be written out of the show in favor of a bigger role for Raina. I will just say I love this idea, mostly because I want more for Raina,

and I love the idea of making the sewing of the seeds a very personal father, daughter, what is the nature of a Targaryen? Can you be a Targaryen if you don't have a dragon, like, conflict? Because there is enough of that, it's sort of involved in it in terms of, like, who are these dragon?

Like, the dragon seeds are in theory Targaryen bastards who have some Targaryen and blood in them, Adam and Ulf and Allen and, you know, whatever. But like how much, you know, how Targaryen do you have to be to claim a dragon? What is the caprice of these dragons? As you mentioned, you love that quote about the Caprice of Dragons. So I don't know what.

Like, would that change in the storywork for you to get Raina more involved in all of this? I could see that working. Yeah. I don't know if I feel like that's like a prohibitive number of new characters to introduce, though. I think that as the story spreads out across the map, like, we have not only room to introduce new characters, but frankly, that would, I think, address a lot of the,

the laments from some corners of the viewership that, like, the story feels very contained and, like, limited to a certain character set. So I think, like, people who have Targaryen blood, but have never been a part of a Targaryen life entering the mix is actually, like, cool and something that I definitely hope we get some of, but certainly would love a more active role for Rina.

I think also that we can still go the Syrah egg, you know, that new clutch of egg route and Raina getting a new egg and ultimately still getting mourning. So any number of ways, I mean, definitely need, definitely need Raina and the dragon mix very, very soon, though. What about another dragon rider that we're eagerly anticipating? Okay. This remains one of the more confounding things about season one. Darren, the fourth child of Allison and Vassaris, only acknowledged by the one mention of four dragons from Damon and the fourth bloodline and the opening credits not present in the show, confirmed by George, Condell, etc., in Old Town.

When and how are Darren and Tessarian, Darren's dragon, going to be entering this story? Because the honey wine stretch, I have to think happens in season two when Tessarian arrives to rescue Ormond, High Tower in the reach. This is post-Gullet. So I don't know, exactly what the episode placement here will be. There's definitely enough time for us to meet and learn who Darren is before this moment, which is a pretty big swing moment. Like on the heels of Honeywine, here's a quote, on Dragonstone an air of despondence and defeat hung over the black court when the disaster on the Honeywide became known to them. Lord Bar-Iman went so far as to suggest that mayhaps the time had come to bend their knees to Agon the second.

So not only does this need to happen, we need to know who Darren is before this because it's a pretty big, it's a pretty big swing moment for like morale. I'm just so confused. I guess we don't need to get bogged down and I'm just so confused because it would have been so easy

to at least mention him a couple times. You know what I mean? Like Craig and Stark gets a mention, like, you know, so we won't be surprised by the Stark Lord next season. Jane Aaron gets a month, you know, like they're like very, characters that get mentioned and we can't spare a thought for Darren the Daring and his

dragon Tesarian. So, yeah. Very odd. Particularly when Otto came back to be handed out. That just seemed like a moment where I know there was a lot going on, but like Darren's doing great in Old Town. Your child, Darren is doing great and Old Town. Allison could have facetined him, you know, something that could have happened.

Anyway, you mentioned the gullet. So we've got Jace's death, which we, we've. think might close out this season at the Battle of the Gullet, right? The only question mark we have around that, like it seems like a really natural way where basically two little baby Vassaris and Agon are basically sent away for safety and then you will not believe this. The triarchy gets back in the mix. Somehow. The triarchy returns. He returned.

And the little blonde babies are in peril, except they're not babies at the point in the book. But anyway, they're in peril. And then Jace, who already lost a brother in the bay, hops on his dragon, but flies too low and gets got and dies. So the question, so we've got two questions. number one, are they going to age up these babies so that when one of them hops on a dragon and flies away, because one of the babies rescues self,

but should probably be a little bit older than the little blonde babes that we met. So is there going to be another little time jump in season two? Or are they just going to hide the babies from us and then like show them again and they'll be older and they just will like yada, yada, yada over the fact that they were very recently babies. I don't know, these kids need to be older. Bcerra's and Agon for this story to work.

The other reason why they wouldn't do the Battle of the Gullet in season two to end season two, that we really anticipate that they will. But the reason that they wouldn't do it is because, like, do we want a second Reneira strong boy to die on his drag, and over some water to close out. Will that feel too samey of a finale? Not to be reductive about it. Anyway, what do you think?

So Agon the Younger is supposed to be nine when this happens in the book. We don't know exactly how old Agon and Vassaris are in the show, but based on the timeline of the Rainira Damon marriage, what's the oldest Agan the Younger could be on the show? Five? Five and a half? So, yeah, that's the storm cloud

escape. Also, Storm Cloud is not in the show yet. It's Dragon. So there's a lot to take care of quickly to have this unfold exactly that way. But I think it, this is one of the things. And I'm, again, always prepared to keep my mind open and say, oh, yeah, I didn't think that they could change this effectively. And they did. And it worked. However, I think that given the nature of Agon's, Egon the Younger's life and future, this is obviously not the most traumatic, the only traumatic dragon-sentence thing that happens. But like, it's a seminal definitive. Only, here's a quote, only nine. He had never flown before and would never fly again. A later quote, though his brother, Agan the Younger, had fled and lived all the joy had gone out of the boy. He would never

forgive himself for leaping onto Storm Cloud and abandoning his little brother to the enemy. a huge, huge, huge moment for the character. His dragon dies. He never claims another dragon. Egon the dragon being, like the role and everything that happens later with Renira and Sunfire, obviously, and then the ultimate eventual extinction of the dragons during the rest of his life. This is an origin and a seed of something that blossoms horrifically across his whole life. Like, I kind of think this has to happen. So the question is, can it happen in a way that makes sense to us? If we haven't met Storm Cloud yet, we meet new dragons all the time without having met them previously, and then they're immediately involved in something central.

Can he be like six or seven, though? Maybe. Yeah, the way that we met Aerex, but like when we saw her bring Agon in to meet, like he's like three at most, like three at most when he met Vassara. So I have a lot of questions about that. I'm sure they'll figure it out, but I'm calling it the toddler conundrum for now. that's just sort of where I am. Can we talk about prophecy? Please.

Okay. Speaking of Jace, who's going to lose so many kids, right? We got this email from William who said, I was perplexed because in Reneer's arguable near-death experience during the stillbirth, she neglects to inform Jace of the biggest responsibility he would have if he had to step into her place as heir in the event of an untimely passing. To me, this is all going to culminate in Reneer telling poor little egg. The Thur, the younger, about it before she is barbecued and devoured by Sunfire in front of

his little sweet soul. I mean, this has to be what ends up happening, right? I can already envision Aegon, too, having any last words type situation for Reneera, and her last act ever is hugging little Agon the third and telling him about the Song of Ice and Fire. Imagine the horror, but the unreal scenes, OMJ. For the first part of this email from William, I would say, at that point, Renira, though she's never discussed it with him, assumes that Damon. knows about the prophecy so that Damon could tell Jace about the prophecy.

Again, she never talked in the six years they've been married. They've never discussed it. But this is her assumption before she finds out that he doesn't know. But yeah, you know, is Reneira, like when, how many times is she going to try to pass the prophecy off to a kid? You know, when is the ultimate handoff going to happen? Do any thoughts or opinions about that? I think she will tell Jace as soon as he's back.

I think it would be strange not to, given how, what a central preoccupation this is for her character now. Very, very strange. And especially, like, what it meant for her to realize that Vissar had entrusted this to her alone, to now then give that to her air, I think would be, like, a really cool story beat

and then the anguish of realizing she has to do it again. I do think that sketched out scene from William about, like, whispering, passing on in a final whisper this burden to sweet little egg on the younger, that would be like anguish-inducing. But I do think Jace will learn it. What about you? Yeah.

We're going to talk about Reneer's death again in another email. Quickly, we got this email from Jay. Do you think in the future we get a moment where Reneer tells Allison that she misinterpreted Viseris's last word as book readers. we know Allison is a prisoner for quite some time, it would be the ultimate salt in the wound to tell her all of this was started because she got it wrong. Now, was it? Because Otto was going to do a coup anyway? But like, what do you think? Do you think Allison ever has a reckoning with getting it all wrong? Hmm. I'm just salivating. Like, how long is it also how long is it going to take to get these two women back in a room together? A while. Yeah. Like, we're not going to get to see Olivia Cook and Emma Darcy in a room together for like seasons? I'm going to cry like when Sansa hugged John and you know I know

I know I have a theory I have a I'm going to throw something out at you when we talk about where we think the season might end about how we could we could end it with them back together but in terms of this

Skype I'm going to find out there die out in the force yeah exactly Reneera telling Allison she misinterpreted that Sarah's last words I don't know.

What do you think about that? I just don't even know that Allison would believe her. Like, it will be so important for Allison to cling to this, the cloak of her righteousness. You know what I mean? So, all right. Let me hit you. We're almost done here. Let me hit you with this email we got from Sam.

Sam has been writing us like beautiful, beautiful tomes, OED-length emails that I usually cannot work into the show. But I did my best to try to get an excerpt. in here on this final show. So Sam wrote, the details we have regarding this coming winter. So there's a winter that happens in the Dance of Dragons. And how will that relate to the prophecy? The details we have regarding this coming winter

are scant, particularly during the onset of the dance. Most mentions about the winter in the books concerned the Stark's getting ready to march south and die. It's never once mentioned in the context of Reneira. Winter is only mentioned explicitly affecting the sovereign in fire and blood after Reneer's death in a passage describing the winter of the widows as it affects the realm under egg three. The challenges he,

Egg three faced, were daunting for winter had descended upon Westrose and would endure for four long years. Winter is cold and bleak as any in the history of the seven kingdoms, etc., etc. Written record tells us Renera remains vengeful to the end of her days. She slides further into grief with each loss of a sun and becomes less and less interested in ruling the masses and more and more interested in keeping safe harbor for her and her kin. Consider for Jace what happens up north, a pact of ice and fire. That's what his alliance with the Starks is called in the books. It makes you wonder if Jace returns triumphantly, having gone two for two on allegiances in the books, it'll be four for four, but I appreciate the condensing. Wouldn't it be

interesting if he tells his mother, we have solidified a pack of ice and fire, and then Reneira's face shoots up, does he know? Of course not, but should he know? And maybe that is the moment Reneer officially tells Jace cutting through her bloodless and vengeance, or maybe the guilt of the fallout from raiding fire and blood in the realm, gives her paws and stays her tongue. She does need to officially label him Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the throne. It would be nice to get that dagger back first,

but she won't have it at least before his fall at the gullet. If Agon never finds out, I wonder how that will affect her death by Sunfire. Does she try to plead with Agon? Agon the second. Begging to say one last thing to him, believing her cause to be lost, does she whisper it to Agon 3?

Something of the effect of the dagger, the secret is in the dagger. The only clue given. in her final moments is as follow. Renira Targaryen had time to raise her head toward the sky and shriek out one last curse upon her app brother before Sunfire's jaws closed around her, tearing off her arm and shoulder. Definitely looking forward to that curse, not looking forward to that scene. So anyway, the question of the prophecy, and as it laces through Renira's journey, this is

something we've talked about a bunch. But like, how is this informed? We've already seen that payoff in this finale. Reneer's reticence to tear the realm apart is connected to her knowledge of the prophecy and Allison's team has no such knowledge despite the fact that Agon 2 has the fucking dagger on his hip.

So like how much is that prophecy going to guide Reneer's demeanor and attitude and all of that and Damans for that matter since Damon now knows throughout the rest of this story. Any? Sounds like some conflict in the human heart, Joe. that old trusty conflict in the human heart. Yeah, I like that.

I like that sketch a lot. And I think, you know, said this a minute ago. Like, I think the idea of Jace returning and them having that conversation, it feels like an important thing given how top of mind this is for Reneera. I just, maybe if she's lost in the quest for vengeance, you know, the line that we heard Reneira speak about Damon in the finale

gone to plot his war like if that kind of gone to madness fog and myopia sets in following Luke's death then maybe there's some way to delay

this conversation but I just I think it's something that we have to see between her and Jace we're having a really fun time keeping this light in the next few seasons

as like all this shit goes down but we like bees will carry us through Last but not least, Miley Rubin. Like, where, if Fire and Blood, House of the Dragon,

Fire and Blood is four seasons, the dance four seasons, which is what they've said a couple times, where do we end this story in a way? Like, we both agree that we think the gullet might be episode nine or ten next season, but for the larger, for the end of season four,

what feels like the end of this story? story because after Reneer dies, after Egg 3 becomes king, there's this whole regency period, that feels like a weird petering out of this story. So like, what do you, do you, is there a stop, a natural stopping point in your view? I don't know. I, I hope we find out soon if this is definitively going to be 40 episodes. You know, we had heard the three or four. It seems like it's got to be four, right? But also, like, I wonder when we all definitive. know if that idea of using the House of the Dragon container as an anthology to explore other periods of Targaryen history, if that will in fact happen. Because I could see that having some

bearing on the end point. Like, not that you would just immediately pick up the next batch of House of the Dragon right after this. I assume we would get Agon's conquest or Blackfire Rebellions, though. I don't know. Blackfire rebellions, like, then it's a lot of similar stuff. So maybe there is a different stretch to choose instead. I'm curious to know what you think. I will say on the end point of season two, though, I was thinking Jace's death initially, but I'm compelled by your observation

that that would be a very similar conclusion. On the one hand, mirrors, echoes. But on the other hand, yeah, that might feel too samey of a way to conclude the first two seasons. And so what if, like, what if, to get back to Rainier and Allison, what if this season ends with, the taking of King's Landing.

Like, what if Jace is episode 8 or 9? And then that episode 10 is, meanwhile, Prince Damon himself hastened south on the wings of his dragon, caraxes, flying above the western shore of the gods eye,

well away from Sir Kristen's line of March. He evaded the enemy host crossed the black water, then turned east, following the river downstream to King's Landing, and on Dragonstone, Renera Targaryen,

donned a suit of gleaming black scale, mounted Syrac's and took flight as a rainstorm lashed the waters of Blackwater Bay high above the city the queen and her prince consort came together

circling over Agon's high hill the sight of them incited terror in the streets of the city below that feels like an end point to season two for me and like even you could then go to that next little stretch

of the city is yours princess Allison is reported to have said but you will not hold it long maybe we get our Ranera Allison moment right at the end there Hmm. So I feel like that would work for season two. Ooh, Stunnen.

Stunin. What do you think? What do you think about the end of the endpoint overall, though? I don't know. It's hard to say. It really feels like the story dies when Reneer dies. It's hard to imagine, like, some, but there, a lot happens after she dies. So, but, like, imagine House of the Dragon without Reneer Targaryen.

Like, that is tough for me. But maybe it's just the death of death of egg, too, and the egg on the younger being crowned. Sure. I mean, sure. But the false dawn, the hour of the wolf, like all that sort of stuff. Like that's really interesting. I would love, like the hour of the wolf, I would love to have. Oh, awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, if you have, if you have, we have years probably until 2024 to find out what comes next for House of the Dragon. If you have any ideas between now and then, you can always email us, Hopasand Dragons at Gmail.com and also about Andor and also about Wakanda forever and also about Willow and also about all the things that we'll be covering on this feed. Everything. All of it.

We'll be here in the content wars. Joe, hope it's a fool's ally and yet I still hope that season two of HotD will be here next year. I just am not ready to accept 2024 even though it seems likely. What if, what if until then, you and I fly on Dragonback, see the one of the one of across the narrow sea and eat only cake together. I never just about cake. Okay. That is a wrap on today's show.

A vagar-sized thank you to all of you for listening. And of course, to our dragon lord, Steve Allman, for producing this episode, Arjuna Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode, Jomea Denneran for his work on the social media for this episode. And for all of their wonderful work all season long, We are so fortunate to work with such an incredible amazing team. From the soundboard to the long edits to the hours and hours of work and slack and text and on the phone and on zooms and in files, we could not make the pod without Steve and Arjuna and the whole team standing around the painted table with us. So thank you to them for their wonderful work.

And thank you to us. To you. To you. I'd like to thank me. Thank you to you all. soaring through the skies with us, hot day, what the time it was. Join us on Friday for our indoor chat. Join us in all of the other magical worlds that we visit in the future. Until then, remember, our hearts remain as one. What's the difference between butter and butter made from

real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people, real care, real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt, keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California Milk by Real California Farm Families.