‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 3 Deep Dive | House of R
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Apple Card subject to credit approval. Savings available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings accounts provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, member FDIC. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs.

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A terrible war is looming, and even victory may be so bloody as to be counted a loss. Do not let your pride blind you as a villain. No mistake. My father has gone from court. God is on the march, Aemon. You know what, Aemon, does? It's too late. Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Great Sept, but also...

Back into the House of R. No more newish podcast feed. Wonderful. Entrenched, established podcast feed. The House of R joining me today. Yes. Telling me she survived many a battle and does not mean to be felled by poisoned peas.

It's my favorite dragon rider, Joanna Robinson. I was told there'd be red currant here. No red currant. Lots of aged venison, though. Okay. Some black cabbage. That'll do. Joanna, we are back to dive deeper.

Deep. Profoundly deep. Perhaps the deepest we have ever dove in before. We'll see. We'll see. Into House of the Dragon, season two, episode three. And it is a bold scheme indeed. But first, some quick programming reminders. Let's zip through them. Over on the Ringiverse, Button Mash, Wednesday pod. Button Mash on a Wednesday. Wow. I know. Elden Ring, Shadow of the... Steve, is it Urn?

Correct. Nailed it. Crushed it. Well. Once again. And first half of the year, games of the year. Oh, nice. Wonderful. Then on Thursday, the Midnight Boys. Pew, pew. Boys episode six. End.

Episode six. That one's free. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not on a counter for the hot deep pods, only for the actual acolyte pods. Here on the House of R, we will also be back on Thursday for our acolyte, episode six, Deep Dive. And then we will be here with Chris Ryan on Sunday night, immediately after the newest House of the Dragon episode for Talk to Thrones. The second, the instant. Wow. Yeah, I know. We're doing so much. Where can you find all of it? You can find it on the new YouTube channel, the new Ringerverse YouTube channel. Subscribe.

You can watch us there. You can also watch us on Spotify. Follow the pod. And you can listen to us anywhere. Anywhere you get your podcasts. On the House of R feed. By the way, you can also come hang out with us in person. Oh, wow. Yeah. When? July 17th. Wow. Where? Oh, El Rey Theater. That's right. What city? Oh, Los Angeles, California. Yeah. What time? Getting tickets. Ah, doors at 7, show at 8. Correct. The urn tree. The urn tree.

Get your tickets at TheRinger.com slash events. Come hang out with us. We had such an incredible time at the El Rey for Talk the Thrones live last week. Genuinely a blast. We cannot wait to hang out with the Midnight Boys for Ringiverse live. We're already cooking up some fun segments. It's going to be thrilling. Can we top name that drag with Chris Ryan? I don't know, but we're going to try. Sweeping the nation.

It really is. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, good sport. What a guy. The best. Joe, how can the people follow along? How can they reach out to us if they have thoughts and feelings? Where can they see our little breakout clips? On the interwebs? On the social media platforms?

I don't know why I'm talking like a person who's never been on the internet. Great. Okay. So first of all, as you've already mentioned, we're on YouTube. We're on Spotify. You can watch us there. You can listen to us on the normal feed. Follow us on social. Why don't you do that? Do it. At Ringerverse. Yeah. On Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok. I hear there are clips of us constantly circulating through various platforms on the internet. Dude, you put up a library tour on Instagram. And Twitter. That was your urging. You told me I had to do that once I finished. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

And also hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com. Yes. Why did you say it like that? Yes. We got so many emails. I love hot tea season for the emails. Thank you. You guys are crushing it on the email front. So yeah, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com. Back to you, Mallory.

I feel like you're tossing to me for like the local weather report. I know, I was like, I did the weather, I finished the weather report. Time for sports? Yeah. Great. Happy to tell you that Gunnar Henderson has announced he will be participating in the Home Run Derby. Okay, but the Orioles, this is not their year. No, it is their year. Oh, okay. Oh, it's definitely their year. It's their year. The five-game mini-losing streak, it's behind us. Okay. It's back to being their year. Okay, I heard it. Fear not. Okay. Who told you it wasn't their year?

You and I had that conversation. Never. Never. Okay. Last programming reminder, it's the Friendly Neighborhood. Spoiler warning. Here's how it goes. Everything that happened in this episode of television, it's on the table today. If it's ever happened in House of the Dragon or Game of Thrones, it's on the table today. And throughout the pod, we will be talking about Fire and Blood, A Song of Ice and Fire, for context. Dunkin' Egg. For history. A Dunkin' Egg.

Anything from the text we might bring up throughout the pod just to explain, illuminate. But anything that's from the future.

Saving it. Anything that Helena might see. Exactly. In one of her bug visions. Exactly. An MDD, a mini dream dispatch, or anything from the future of the text, that will be in a separate book spoiler section at the end of the pod. We will have a spoiler warning for you in real time before we begin that section. Fear not. Okay, Joanna, if you've not yet surmised, you are welcome here. Let's pot the burning mill. That's the name.

Of episode three. And it is directed by Gita Vasant Patel, who directed our favorite episode of season one, episode eight, and is also going to be directing the finale. Very exciting. Of season two. What does that tell us about what the finale will be?

I think it tells us it's going to be a wonderful episode of television. Yeah. Lots of conversations. It's interesting because I think, you know, Alan Taylor is directing next week's episode. We know what that episode's called. I think book readers are drawing certain conclusions about the fact that Alan Taylor is directing that episode. And so I feel like the finale feels like it's going to be conversations in rooms, perhaps. This is what Gita does perfectly. Great news for our pod. Great news for Tyrion. Wonderful stuff. The rooms don't have to be elegant. No, but the conversations have to be great. Great.

This episode, episode three, was written by David Hancock, Chris Ryan's new obsession. Not yours? Ours as well. Ours as well. I got a text message about him from you this weekend. We love the crown. Runtime, 67 minutes. So yet another episode that is north of an hour. These have been meaty. And we do have a couple new additions to the opening credits. Thrill to report that little baseball head himself has made it.

Jaehaerys. He's in there. The trail of blood tracing across Targaryen history right across the neck. Wonderful stuff. Were you sad that it didn't stop and do a baseball switch? Yeah, I wanted a little seam work there. The baseball head king that never was? Man. And then cheese. The rat catchers. And I would say the blood, it's saturating the tapestry at that point.

Yeah, but we don't get the crow pecking the eye out, which is something we do get in this episode. Maybe it'll be there next time. Yeah, feast for crows. Let's do it. Carrion. Delicious. Okay, Jo, we have a lot to talk about today, so we're going to keep the opening snapshot... Snappy? Snappy. Okay. It's not a sentence, but an honor. I can never remember which one has like a... A whale. A dragon screech. At the end. Jo.

We're going to go in the deep dive, scene by scene, beat by beat. We'll talk more about what we loved, questions we have, et cetera, then. But give us a taste. Give us that amuse-bouche. What did you think of this episode of television? I loved this episode of television. It turns out that's a somewhat divisive opinion. People are having really strong feelings about this episode. But I think you and Chris and I found ourselves on the side of we really, really loved this episode. Yeah.

I think, you know, we're going to obviously talk about the Blackwoods and the Brackens for a long time, but I really like how much that plays into a lot of the themes that we've been talking about, especially the themes that we're talking about around the Cargill twins. But I wasn't asked to, like, care about these individual, they're, you know. Yeah. You don't want to know everything about Davos Blackwood and Aaron Bracken? Yeah, I don't. Well. I do. I do.

Maybe. I do. And then, uh, Catherine Goldschmidt, I think this is a good section to call out the DP work. Catherine Goldschmidt, um, I just want to shout out, she's the DP on this episode. We get Damon banging around Harrenhal in the pitch dark rain for a long period of time and you can see everything. So for a show or let's say a franchise that has, has caught some critique. Yeah.

For things that you cannot see, that was beautifully lit, I want to say. That's what you mean. I don't still have personal anxiety dreams and panic attacks, like waking up in the middle of the night wondering if I could see where Ghost was at the end of the long night. Couldn't be me. Couldn't be me. The dragons are fed way up there. Okay. And then I want to say that...

I really love she does it at least three times that Gita's camera follows people sort of into we follow like I think it's a page or a squire into the courtyard before Kristen takes off yeah we follow first like a random woman and then Ulf into the tavern in King's Landing and then we follow Rhaenyra and Stefan in their yeah

impeccable could not possibly see through them disguises through King's Landing. Like we're just following people in like this sort of way that I really, really loved as this uniting visual. And then, yeah, I mean, I will just say that like my favorite episodes of Game of Thrones are,

Are episodes like A Night of the Seven Kingdoms or Kiss by Fire, these like Brian Cogman joints that are very talky. And this is like right in line with them. But if you're like a Battle of the Bastards fan, like I can understand why this might not have been the one for you. And last but not least, here in the snappy snapshot, I will say that a listener of ours, Didi, asked...

If she could basically hop into Fire and Blood because Fire and Blood is not written as like a novel, but a history. We've answered this question before. I'm just going to give specific page numbers. Yes, I believe you can hop into the middle of Fire and Blood if you want to and then get hooked and go back and read the whole thing, obviously. But if you just want to read what we're covering on this show...

In the hardcover, it's page 339, Heirs of the Dragon, A Question of Succession, through page 432. So less than 100 pages, The Dying of the Dragons, The Red Dragon, and The Gold. So in the hardcover edition that I own...

That's the span. Like literally that's the page where Burning Mill, you know, happens is page 432. Yes. So that's all we're talking about here. Easy peasy to catch up and be a smug little book reader like us. Mallory, that was my not as snappy as you may have hoped, but somewhat snappy snapshot. How did you feel about that? I love a page number. I love a reading reco.

I thought this episode was fantastic. I loved it. I love chatting about it with you and Chris on Talk the Thrones on Sunday night. We had such fun. And I loved...

How rich this episode was. I loved the conversations. I loved the surprises. Something like Alicent and Rhaenyra ending up together, period, was a surprise. But then the substance of what they were discussing, the fact that this thing, we have all as fans of the story been parsing and assessing for, at this point now, literal years, right? Since the end of season one a couple years ago. Yeah.

became active text for the characters was so wonderful. This confidence that you can feel in the reason they devoted so much time to the backstory and the shared history. We talk a lot across Game of Thrones about ghosts of the past and shared history and to really see how rewarding it is now after the time that we've put in.

was great. The themes across this episode and multiple character sets and conversations, the sin begets sin idea, this question of, do you know what started it? Have you given up on being able to resolve it? So just like,

Wonderful for us to assess and think about from each character's perspective and also outside of the world. When something feels true of human nature and we can map it onto a fantasy story, it just is such an immersive way to spend your time exploring a world. And it allows us to develop even further those attachments and bonds that we already have to these figures because they feel so real and relatable to us, even though they get to fly dragons and we don't.

sad. So I loved the episode. I thought it was fantastic. I'm excited to talk about every part of it. And I just think the season has been dynamite so far. It's been really, really great. And it feels like we have. I think it's building. Yeah. We talked about this a lot in the preview pods, the trailer breakdowns and the other preview pods we did. The fact that we weren't going to be in this like prologue stretch anymore, that we were going to be in this tight time frame of the dance. Every minute feels like it's

moving us into a meaningful place.

I really liked all of the preamble of season one because we're so deeply invested in the world, but I totally understand why that did not work for everybody. And I feel like already this is just moving in a way and with a speed and a confidence that hopefully will allow people who maybe thought season one wasn't for them to opt back in and join us in Westeros. And what a joy that would be. Loved it. That was the opening snapshot. And you know what that means? It means it's time to head to the bowels of the pleasure den for the deep dive.

In the bowels of a pleasure den. There it is. There it is. Do you mean the banks of the Riverlands? It has the same ring to it, right? It does. I can hear Otto saying that. For sure. Yeah. As he's lecturing somebody who's failed him. This is so beautiful. It was so like misty and marshy and just like all those, you know. Wonderful. With love and respect to season one. Yeah.

There's a lot of volume stuff happening in season one. And like, they're really sort of breaking, we've been talking about this a lot with the Acolyte, but they're really like sort of breaking out of that volume shell. And this is like one of those moments where it's just like, there's plenty of digital effects happening here. They extend, we saw on the inside of the episode, like the body count. I think the body count

titular burning mill is all digitally created, but they are in like a, you know, a foggy verdant river land. And I loved it. It helps. I mean, we're enthusiasts of the idea more broadly of getting out into the wider realm. We've been talking about this a lot. It's important to take us to those toeholds. It's important to put us with families like the Brackens and the Blackwoods to understand how this conflict is

is unfurling and impacting people all across the realm. It's important to take us into the pub with Ulf. Like, all of those things make the world feel bigger and more fully realized. When this episode opened and we looked through the kindling, right, ready to light on fire, that thin,

almost splintering wood of the mill. I mean, right away, as fire and blood enthusiasts, we're like, fuck, burning mill. We're getting it. It was the same reaction we had when we saw the trailers and saw the Brackens and Blackwoods. It's like, are they going to do burning mill? And this particular execution was so...

in terms of how it was structured, in terms of how it connected to the larger stories. Really, really, really wonderful opening note to the episode. So let's talk a little bit, not just about the mill and the boundary stones and the beautiful verdant land soon to be soaked in blood. I'm sure it's good for the crops. I bet, I bet. Good for the grass. Thumper crops, the iron. Yeah, maybe less good for the water. A lot of blood, a lot of blood in the water. A lot of bodies in the water. Corpse-y. Bit corpse-y. Just a smidge corpse-y.

In the riverland these days. Jo, let's talk about who these participants are in this opening battle. Do you think someone downstream took like a refreshing slurp from the river and was like, hmm. Corpsey. A touch corpsey. Touch corpsey. Yeah. The Brackens and the Blackwoods. Yes.

Anyone who watched season one of House of the Dragon will, of course, recall that on the ill-fated tour of would-be suitors. Oh, that wasn't as much success. That Rhaenyra took. Everything has always gone fine for this family when they go to Storm's End. Oh, yeah. It's always gone fine. The Brackens and the Blackwoods were moved. There was a little duel. To brawl. There was a kid duel. A stabbing of the gut.

It happens, especially if you're a member of the Black Ones or the Brackens. We also got to hear elsewhere in season one, in episode six at one of our small council meetings, this discussion of this very idea, like anything, anything is an excuse.

The Brackens and the Blackwoods will use any excuse to spill each other's blood. So we have these little primers. And we saw that here, right? Like it's Boundary Stones. Yes. The cows need to eat. We're ready. I want to like the quote we had about the Cargill twins that we read last week.

that was in a Game of Thrones, the first Dance of Dragons characters that were ever mentioned were the Cargill twins. May they rest in peace. Similarly, we get this in the same grave. We get this quote from a Game of Thrones, which to remind everyone, George wrote over 30 years ago. Yep. Always painful to confront, but amazing too. So in a Game of Thrones, Catelyn, who's a Tully from the Riverlands. Yep.

Quote, Catlin knew them all, the Blackwoods and the Brackens, ever enemies, whose quarrels her father was obliged to settle. So from the very first mention, they're mentioned as quarrelsome, a longstanding feud. Yes. These two ancient houses, kings during the age of heroes, the hate tracing back.

across history. This is the thing that people, like Damon, he'll tell us later, like, what, can you, I don't really know anything about these guys. Can you, can you fill me in? But pretty rare. Most people know. I've got some notes for Damon. Damon should definitely know. Damon, get your head on the dragon scrolls and read like literally about anyone else and anything else in the kingdom. Tough one for Damon there. I want to shout out, there's so much Bracken and Blackwood lore and we'll get to like a little bit of it today. Yeah. But I want to shout out our pals over on the History of Westeros podcast. Yes. Um,

Shaya, Aziz, and Sean did a tremendous preseason Bracket and Blackwood. Like, you know, their pods are like several hours long. Who could possibly relate? Not us. But they did a whole pod on like tracing the Bracket and Blackwoods through all of...

A Song of Ice and Fire and everything that George has written. And it was really, really fun. So I really recommend it. Sensational stuff. Sensational stuff. This was a fun payoff for that thrill we all felt when we saw them in the trailer. It's like, this was good. This was cool. I love this. So this idea of this feud between these two houses, the way that this connected to the larger themes of this

episode and the larger themes of this point in Targaryen history, history more broadly, human nature, the themes of the dance, etc. This question of how did it start? Is it too late? We're going to hit this in a few scenes across the episode because intentionally it comes up. We hear it later.

Our guy. Your guy and mine. Hopefully everyone's guy. Sir Simon Strong. Yeah. We'll voice this to Damon when he asks this very odd question. Oh, well, the answer to that is lost in time. Sin begets sin begets sin. This is part of the Rhaenys-Rhaenyra conversation that's in our next scene and we'll talk about more soon. This is at the heart of the conversation between Alicent and Rhaenyra. This is...

It's too late. Parting. Parting over the idea that nothing can be done because you can't even trace back the root cause. How could you hope to fix it? I was also thinking about the Brackens and Blackwoods when thinking about

Those boys growing up, Eamon and Aegon and those three strong boys, and Helena was there with her bugs as well. But, like, how much of that hate was taught to them either by Otto or Alicent or Kristen? Like, I don't think that Jason Joff and Luke RIP were taught to hate their uncles, but those uncles were certainly taught to hate their nephews. And, like, you know, the kids do their own, like, boyfriends.

Boys will be boys bullying, you know, sort of stuff. But like that enmity was passed down to them. Absolutely. The way that it is passed down in the bracket of the Blackwoods from generation to generation to the point where no one can remember where it even started. And before it's passed from...

Alicent to the kids, it's actually part of the conversation in the Driftmark episode. They don't hurl out those bastard claims unless Eamon's hearing it from Aegon. It's Alicent's walking around the castle talking about it. But who's training and priming Alicent to enter that phase of seeking to change the succession? Otto. So even outside of the- And who's literally training the boys? Kristen. Oh, Kristen. What has he done? And I think this idea- And what? Yeah.

I think this idea that, like, Ashay and Aziz are really hitting on their show is this idea of the Bracket of the Blackwoods is this, like, lens through which you can view so much of Westerosi history and how you always have to account for which side did they land on in any given conflict. And you also have to account for the fact that if they wind up on the same side. Yeah.

Then you know whatever the threat is. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. Yeah. It's probably like supernatural. So, yeah, it's an incredible device that George uses. Just to confirm, you don't think that Viserys saying that Jace and Darren should have the same wet nurse was a sufficient balm? Who's Darren? Darren?

Dude, Darren mentioned in two episodes in a row. Who's that? Can this be our life?

I also like this. So there's very little, there's very little that happens before we get to stabbing in the Riverlands, right? Yeah. But one of the things they say, right, is they say, the Asciis at Riverrun? Yep. Fuck the Asciis and fuck you. So this idea of like ignoring the authority of the Tullys. Yep. Right? Fuck what Riverrun says. We don't care. And we talked about this on Talk the Thrones. We'll talk about it a little bit more. But like,

that's their liege lord and they're like we don't give a fuck yeah and it you know fuck fuck these sides and fuck you or my sorry uh for the language but um yes it's we never curse on house it was just a lot in a row um

Did it give you Shades of the Hound? Sure. She's a fucking king. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. I love that connection. And like, this was one of the things that was such a brilliant stroke about starting with these families because that taps in what you're citing here to this young blood running hot theme that is again present in the Renice Raniere conversation. We've been talking about this a lot the last few weeks and how that initial series premiere conversation between Renice and Corliss at the tourney, right? Balls full of seed, fists full of steel. Yeah.

is something that's going to stand out to us with increasing prominence as we make our way through the series. And this is a story in many ways about the Targaryens. But again, this is like, from that Rhaenys warning, Rhaenyra will mention it to Alicent at the Sept, right? Calling back to what they witnessed, to how they saw in front of them that violence was...

Not just inevitable, but desired. There's something base inside of these young men. They can't wait to brawl and bash each other's heads in. It has nothing to do with Aegon and Rhaenyra, what they do here. It has nothing to do with the Targaryens. Right, but it's just like a convenient cover to a fight that they wanted to have anyway. Yes, and so like this is about people.

and how they behave and how your shared history with people or the context of the world around you informs the way that you think about who you are or who you want to be. And while it's a story about closer to gods and men and dragons and the family strife and all of that is true, there is this wider truth

That applies to the characters who have no hope of ever mounting a dragon. It's also important to remember, like, you know, yes, Aegon conquers Westeros. That's less than 200 years ago. Like, that is not too far past that they were all their own kingdoms. Yes. You know what I mean? And so this idea of just, like...

Old grudges made new and, you know, the chafing against this idea of being submissive to either your liege lord or, you know, the royals who sit on that. What is it? It's a chair, some swords, big chair. The throne! Yeah!

That was hilarious. I like the way that this scene establishes these parallels and tendencies and instincts because like when Davos, our old friend, our old pal, Davos Blackwood, says, you wouldn't die.

And then we cut straight to Corpse O'Clock. Fantastic stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It made me think of the Otto-Egon exchange. You wouldn't dare about stripping him of his post-its hand. And what did Egon say? I have dared, and I find it stimulating, which was sh-

This is what it looks like when you dare. So this is what it looks like when you dare. This is what it looks like when divisions from the dance spread across the realm. And we've read this passage before, but it feels worth revisiting now that we have it in context because this paragraph that we have shared is kind of like a tone setter for what the state of the realm was on the eve of the dance. It's the paragraph itself.

You gave the page number. It is the paragraph that leads right into Burning Mill. And we should get this tone setter and then we get Burning Mill to prove the truth of these words. Burning Mill is...

Two paragraphs? Mere pages. This is like one of the things that I love. It's not even multiple pages. I think it's like four or five paragraphs at most. I think it's just like a few. Anyway, it's very short. It's brief. Yeah. It's zippy. The Dance of the Dragons entered a new stage after the death of Lucerys Velaryon in the Stormlands and the murder of Prince Jaehaerys before his mother's eyes in the Red Keep. For both the Blacks and the Greens...

Blood called to blood for vengeance and all across the realms, lords called their banners and armies gathered and began to march. What did you make of the cut right to the aftermath that we didn't see the battle? I love this. And I think, you know, we Alan Taylor, I think, has said that we are going to get two large battles this season. So they are coming. Right. It's not we're not just fighting.

doing a Tyrion season one of Game of Thrones, I got knocked out and missed the battle. This isn't just a budget cut. This is strategic. This is strategic. And they could have shown us Burning Mill. But the point is, we don't know these Blackwoods and these Brackens. They're not, you know, much time has passed since we last saw them in season one. This is not the same kids. We don't know these characters. And that's sort of the point. And I think the cut to...

The mass casualty. Starting with this tiny skirmish between these two boys. Brutal. I just thought it was... I loved... I, like, gasped. Yeah, me too. And then the mill's on fire. On fire. And this is how quickly, just the cut of a frame, everything can end. Yeah. Right? And the sword through the neck. Maybe this is embarrassing to say, but I'll happily share that I definitely thought that was that actor and...

and only until I watched it wasn't until I watched this is the second time they fooled us yes with their silicon models these 3D printed renderings and molds of these people like that's

Not a person, and it really looked like one. And it is just amazing what they are able to achieve. I mean, we're talking a lot about the castle builds and the sets, and we'll do that today with the Driftmark shipyard set and Harrenhal, et cetera. It's astonishing. But little things like this, it's just really impressive, the level of craft on display here. This is where I'll admit something embarrassing. Tell me. I was so smug about, like, I was never confused during the cargo fight. I definitely thought...

It was the Blackwood and not the bracken in the water.

I definitely thought, and that's sort of the point. Because you can't, it's, they're all so saturated in mud and blood and death. The tunic looks black. I thought it was a black tunic. And then I watched the behind the scenes. I was like, wait, that's the other actor. Oh, it was the bracket who went in the water. He has such astonishing cheekbones and bone structure. But again, I thought it was a real person, not a rubber doll. So here we are. We're definitely both getting a ton of sleep right now and doing great.

Anyway, they got me. The thing that you described them getting you with the cargo, they got me here. Oh, man. It really worked for me. Let the record state, I never said I was confused during Cargo Bowl. I said we were meant to be confused. Okay. I was never confused. Speaking of Arik and Eric, our guys. Joe, they're not out of our lives yet. They make another appearance. Got another episode on the old IMDB pages because it's funeral time.

They are being buried in the same grave because they are one soul and two bodies. And so they are now two bodies in one grave. And that is poetic and lovely for them. Quick shout out to our listener, Chris, who wrote this email, which I thought was really funny. Can we get my guy, the Dragonstone Gravedigger, some help? He's out here filling twin-sized graves by himself, one meager wooden shovel full at a time.

He'll be filling that hole still through the ascension of Aegon IV. We get 100 rat catchers in the Red Keep, but only one crypt keeper on Dragonstone? I'm not even going to get into the woeful contractor work at Harrenhal. Duh me. Here's my formal read on this. I just think Targaryens are burning bodies, so this is a very rare need. It's not often that you're digging a grave, right? Did they bury them in their armor? Yes. They did. I would save that armor.

What would you like? Did you go like full time with ice? Would you melt it down and make something from it? No, I would just put it on the next person I add to the kingpin. No, put different.

on the next guy so that this could never happen again. I would spray paint it black and then I would put it on a different member of the Kingsguard. Oh, man. Great email from Chris. Hilarious. It was funny. This is quite a long scene and at the end they look back at the grave and it's like, there's some dirt. Yeah, that guy's gonna be there forever. The grave was so deep. It was so deep. So deep. Oh, man. Good stuff. Jace. Oh.

Heated. Hot-tempered. Heated in this episode. I think this is the most worked up we've seen him since... There were a couple moments in season one where he was displaying an intensity, like when he... That's my teenage boy. Oh!

It's either that or an old codger. Who can say? Oh, man. Well, aren't they that different? That'll be a question that we pose when we get to the Black Council scene later. The sequence at the end of season one when Jace and Luke are training out on the sands and Jace is like,

kind of being mean to Luke for not being good enough, which is very... The only time we've seen something like that from Jace with the brother. He's like normally the like, I'm going to say I miss you, I'm holding you, I'm tending to you. And then when he was... The other moment was when he was yelling at himself in season one for not being a quick enough study with the High Valerian. And that obviously tapped into some insecurities about how people perceive him and do they think he's legitimate, et cetera. So this like...

Most of our time with Jace has been very vulnerable, very sweet, very compassionate. This was really notable. This is part of him. Absolutely. He is the basest of villains. He sullies the grave of his brother. You have to assume that Jace, who is missing Luke, his own brother, so dearly, would think this act like even fouler than just other people. Surely he knew Eric. Not Arik, but Eric, you know? Yeah.

Just bros being dudes? Just pals being guys. Lads being gents? Yeah. What did you make of Rhaenyra's reply? Because she says, I cannot fault him for keeping the oath, to which Jace replies, and what of those who sent him? Which is like where we really get that heat from Jace. But I was struck by the Rhaenyra part of that as well. This is a person who...

chose to stay with the usurpers rather than honoring Viserys's stated... Yes, arc with an I. Rather than honor Viserys's stated succession. Yeah. Penetrated her home. Sure. But she says the usurper, I feel like, is, like, the worst thing she says about Aegon versus, like...

the cunt whore bitch of Dragonstone, various appellations that she gets from Team Green, you know? And we talked to Chris about this on Talk of Thrones, but like, Rhaenyra still does have a tremendous amount of affection for certain people over on that side of the bay. Helena, Alicent, that might be it, but, you know...

Whereas I don't think anyone other than Allison on Team Green is going to say have a kind word for anyone. Right. You know, and even Allison was like talking shit on those boys in a way that she did not need to. Yeah. So I just think it speaks to Rhaenyra's temperament. We're going to see Rhaenyra do something wild. Yeah. Truly wild in this episode. Yeah.

And I'm fine with calling it wild and still liking it. Yeah. But it speaks to her how desperate she is to not take the next step. Yep. But we're already there. We are. It's too late. We are. But you're right. She's measured. She's slow to violence. She has a tether to some affection and still some hope. Jace leaves. He's off and off. Time for Renice and Rhaenyra to chat. This is a fantastic conversation and a great scene.

They're invoking that idea of the hot young blood again, right? This is something that Renise is returning to. They have the bit, the young men, she says, have taken the bit in their teeth. And we keep hammering this note because it is important for us to remember that Renise and Rhaenyra were not easy allies. And... You love this point. This was the thing. Yeah. That Renise said to Corlys in the season one finale, that girl...

is holding the realm together at present. Every man standing around the painted table urges her to plunge the realm into war. Rhaenyra's the only one who's demonstrated restraint. And so this isn't just what led Rhaenys to Rhaenyra. This isn't just what Rhaenys has been saying since the tourney in the series premiere and believes in her soul to be true, knows to be true.

This is her final push to say, like, keep being the person that I saw you could be. Everybody can feel how hard it is to hold on to this. We're not there yet. Yeah.

I'm so reluctant to use my dragon. I will kill hundreds of people. Straight through the floor of the dragon pit. Straight through the floor of the dragon pit. But I won't light the flame. Boy, do I wish we could have a do-over on that one. I also think it's really notable for her to be like, listen, Otto Hightower, don't like him. But guess what? Yeah. He wasn't this. Yes. Like, we're in a different level of the game now. Whereas, like, at least it was adults playing chess and now it's children playing, I don't know, course.

horseshoes. That's a bad comp, but you know. And do those children remember when they last played horseshoes together? When they first played horseshoes together? I feel like we could use a recap. Steve? Soon they will not even remember what it was that began the war in the first place. That is easy enough. They usurped my throne. That is one answer. Or was it when the child was beheaded? Or when Amon killed Luke? Or when Luke took Amon's eye?

We teeter now at the point where none of it will matter. When the desire to kill and burn takes hold and reason is forgotten. This was sensational. I'm sorry, all I could focus on was the scrape of the shovel as that poor man tries to fill that grave. No, it was tremendous. Is this the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead cut of Hot D season two? The Gravedigger's POV. Alas, I knew him. Imagine the Gravedigger in the Riverlands.

We've gotten some gravediggers. Sure have. Yeah. Excellent. Previously on from Rainies. Thank you so much. Genuinely helpful. Really lovely. But yeah, this idea like we teeter such good. And then the desire to kill and burn takes hold and reason is forgotten. She is talking about as she has been these since episode one, these hot tempered young untested men who have never seen war. But she's also talking about the nature of a dragon. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. My dragons grow restless. Right. Lonely. Lonely and restless. I'm going to cry when we talk about that later, I think. Okay. I don't think I've said it to you yet. Do you need me to do an impression of Seasmoke hooting mournfully off the coast? This is like...

mournful hoots. Yeah, my version of like a dude thinking about his grandma so he can like prevent himself from coming is like I'm going to be thinking of Chris talking about Seaspoke Doomscrolling to laugh instead of crying. That's going to be my little personal trick just letting you in on the process. Is that a thing that

Isn't it? I don't know. Their grandmother? Isn't that the thing? I just wouldn't want to... I would, like, think of, like, I don't know, my sports team losing before I would introduce my grandmother into this scenario. You know who I need to think about right now? Nana. Let's introduce Nana into this scenario. Nana. Oh, man. Well, Nana's not here, but Grandsire of Viserys, he always is, and it's just...

Jo, this wasn't the stuff. And they would not form a lifelong bond. No. And no, we would not agree. Viserys didn't always understand the stakes, but Rhaenys does. There is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin, and no war so bloody as a war between dragons. I have to ask. What was that? What does this make you think of? Would you say...

Say that no man is as cursed as the Kinslayer? It's the first time hearing of it, to be honest with you.

The stakes for House Targaryen. Yeah. The dragon riders. But the stakes for the realm over which they rule and fly. I would remind you only that when princes lose their temper, it is often others who suffer. We heard Sylvie say to Aemond in season, in episode two. Something that Condal said. What if those princes are on dragons? Exactly. But it's like something that Condal said at the beginning of the season was like, we would focus more on the small folk. But I really liked how we were just like,

We're going down the strata because it's not just like dragon lords to, you know, madams and brothels. There's like a lot of layers in between. And like talking about the river lords or whoever else it is, like everyone has to pick a side and everyone suffers one way or another. I have, as I already mentioned on this podcast, been rereading Dunkin' Egg. I finished. I'm devastated. Maybe I'll start again. I need –

Okay, I don't want to say anything is more important than getting Winds of Winter because it isn't. But. I feel like it would be easier for George to give us these more Dunkin' Eggs. He can bang out a fourth and fifth novella, right? Yeah. Keep telling us the story of Dunkin' Eggs. Give them more material for more seasons. When you finish The Mystery Night, which is the third, you know, novella in the collected Night of the Seven Kingdoms, there's an author's note from George. I can't. I can't. I can't.

Duncan A. will have so many more adventures. It'll take him to the wall. It'll take him here. It'll take them across the sea, you know, to the free cities and blah, blah. And he was like, and it was like George R. R. Martin 2015. And I was like, oh, George. Anyway. Sad. It's sad. The sworn sword is the second of the third. And like, it's fun to reread this, not just to like anticipate. Where our guy David Tennant will eventually be portraying. It's not a bad, it wasn't a bad casting call. Thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm retroactively approving of that. Okay.

The Sworn Sword, which is the second of the three. You don't have to have read these to follow along with me. No. All of these are George exploring certain like big ideas through the adventures of, you know, Dunk the Tall and his squire, Egg. Yes. And so The Sworn Sword especially is concerned, all of them are concerned with what it means to live in the aftermath of a civil war because there was a Blackfire Rebellion, which was another Targaryen civil war. And will inevitably be a television show.

At some point. And it's going to be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be wonderful. I can't wait to go from the blacks versus the greens to the reds versus the blacks. No one will be confused by that at all. All of the merch. You're going to need all of it. Okay. So The Sworn Sword is about sort of like, okay, so the rebellion happened. One side won. What happens to you if you were on the wrong side of that? And, you know, certainly like we thought about that a bit with Robert's Rebellion, but this is sort of like so much more present for George Carre.

So here's the quote from Sworn Sword. Quote, So good. Two princes fight for a chair where only one may sit. I mean, that's exactly where we are. The throne! Yeah!

Ever heard of it? It's a chair made of swords? But I just like really, I love like the vice that all of these, you know, lords and then their vassals and then the common folk who like live on that land find themselves in. They have to choose unless you're Dorne. Let's go to Dorne is my point. You know, Dorne's like... Oh, Dorne. I love that you cited that passage. The question of...

how everybody seeks to coexist after. Yes. And I mean, like, we... It's something that we can continue to think about, but, like, the aftermath of Robin's Rebellion, you know, that we spent so much time with in Game of Thrones, didn't really marinate in that as much as George is fascinated about that in this period, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Because everyone, like, almost everyone was like, that king seems...

Pretty bad. Pretty bad. Yeah. There's definitely a reason that George, the bulk of the canon and outside of the primary text is it's Targaryen canon. There's definitely a reason that this is his preoccupation. Renise has an idea, Jo. Alicent. Alicent Hightower. And not only does she have an idea. Do you think Renise has been reading the fan fiction? And she's like, I've been on AO3.

Yeah. TikTok, mere hours remain in Pride Month. Would you like to high you hence to King's Landing? Light some candles. Okay, great. I love this. Not only is Renise reading the fanfic and throwing out this idea, she is doing it because of

In our least favorite episode, our favorite scene of that episode, she's calling back to that great moment when Alicent sought her out after Viserys's death, the window in the wall of your prison scene. Not a good episode. It wasn't the conversation between Viserion and Otto? No? Maybe it was when Tom Glincarney just decided to bite you and Mitchell.

That was actually hilarious. Improv a bite in their fight scene. That was actually hilarious. So what did Alison say to Renice when she made her pitch at that time? We do not rule, but we may guide the men that do gently away from violence and sure destruction and instead toward peace. So what's fascinating about this is Renice is viewing that as...

a life raft that they could still try to grab onto and maybe avoid this great doom. Alicent thinks she can do this. Right. And then for us as viewers, we're like, how's that all gone so far? Which I thought actually just heightened the dramatic intrigue here. Kind of a big reveal from Rhaenyra here and a hugely tough beat for Ironrod. Rhaenyra has not read the letter. She says that Alicent sent a scroll, but she didn't look at it. So Ironrod talking shit about

Left Allison on red. On squirrel red. Brutal. Brutal! Not everybody's on day one text reply terms. Not everybody. Here's our relationship. Yeah. I know you will almost always text me back the same day. Yeah, after meetings. But usually it's at the end of your day when you finish your meetings. Yeah. And then I'll just get a flurry of replies from you.

And I'm like, oh, Valerie's over there meeting. I did have an enjoyable moment last night where I caught up on no fewer than 67 texts from you and Chris all at once. I just went and went and was going reply, like text by text, which I'm sure you two enjoyed. So Renise pushes this idea of what we think we know. Like you cited what she said about Otto because Renier is like, well, sure, but Alison, I

You served my throne. She helped you serve my throne, which is true. That is a thing that happened. That is a thing that happened. It's a tough affair. Tough affair.

Renice tries to show Rhaenyra, okay, this thing you're saying, this thing you're thinking, well, they're doing that about you. Like the way you orchestrated blood and cheese. So that's an interesting moment because so much of this episode is about perspective and point of view to ask Rhaenyra to not make the same leaps or assumptions or deductions that other people are making about her. And we know that in her heart, she still carries not only that affection for Alicent that you cited, but a belief that there's a thing that she would not do

Like, we heard more time has passed since murder when the prince was murdered. I do not believe Alicent capable of cold murder. That's what Rhaenyra said to Daemon in episode seven. I need you to meet Fabian Frankl one day. Murder! So you can just do your pitch-perfect impression to his face. Oh, man. Good stuff. Speaking of...

Should we chat about Kristen? And what has Kristen Cole done? He's gotten a new necklace. Oh. You're always on wig watch corner, but I like to think that you're also on accessory corner. Oh, obviously. Would you like to share any thoughts about the hand of the king, like Claire's choker? Hands of gold? That he's wearing. Hands of gold, yes. Hands of gold? Oh.

What a trashy look for Kristen Cole. A real... Okay. I don't know. I understand that you can't pin the hand of the king to your armor. But I feel like you could ask the metal workers to make you, I don't know, a little flat embellishment or something like that. What about just a helmet decal? Yeah. You know? Oh, sure. Right? Like the footballers? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. The footballers. Yeah. Sorry.

They call them football. Oh, man. So we glimpsed that necklace, Joe. Definitely seems like we've been hanging out at the pub with Ulf today. Oh, man. It's just a lot of coffee, no food, and no sleep. Can't recommend. We glimpsed Kristen before he makes his way to the small council meeting alone in his chambers. The audio is muffled. It's like a haze. Yeah. The haze is... It's like the tail end of a panic attack. Imposter syndrome? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so is he thinking about the Cargill's or at least Arik, perhaps? But I think he's also doing a thing that maybe sometimes I do, which is like hyping himself up for a meeting that he's very scared of. Getting ready for the big game. Yeah. Well, I don't get ready for big games, but I do get ready for meetings. And sometimes I'm scared of them. So, you know, you're just sort of like...

it'll be over. This won't be forever. You just have to sit and put your little stone ball and little stone thing and just sit there. You've been in this room before. Now you're just sitting in a chair. It's fine. Now your favorite murder weapon, that small ball, is a formal indicator of your presence and authority. Your purity, your worthiness. Fidelity. Speaking of the purity of the white cloak,

Kristen is entering the big game not by bursting through a banner, but by walking through the stairs and the doorway where he confronts three new members of the Kingsguard. Joanna, your favorites, the pussy posse. Leo, Marty, Eddie. Leo, Marty, and Eddie. I think Marty's my favorite so far. Marty's definitely the best. He's never fucked a woman!

Leo's the smartest because he's the one who caught on first that Aegon was serious about the purity vow or whatever. It's just wonderful stuff. What a come up for your bros. Kristen seems alarmed that the dipshit king has named his drinking buddies to the Kingsguard without a single conversation. The funniest thing. They're like lounging on the stairs. Leo can't be bothered. Uh,

It's not his real name, but I'm going to call him Leo. Leo cannot be bothered to stand up straight when he walks in. He just like tosses him the most like bored, whatever. And Kristen's like, fuck. Well, I've been like prepping my deck for this meeting. Got all the slides ready. Except he didn't. He has nothing to say. Someone held a Kingsguard election without me, the Lord Commander.

And I just think it's a great, I mean, Aegon doing this is perfect for his character. But like, let's think about all the, you know, we talk about the symbols of legitimacy for Aegon. Yep. What has he done with the throne? He sprawled upon it like a drunkard. Yep. What has he done with the crown? We find out that he has like soldered it to a suit of armor. What does he do with the dagger in this episode? He juts.

He jams it into the table. That can't be good for the edge of the dagger. And what does he do with the Kingsguard? Sullies the shit out of it. My pals. Stacking my pals. Stacking it with the pussy posse. You know, it's just, what a guy. He acceded to that prank without consulting Otto, and then he gave his pals...

Kingsguard armor and seemingly without them understanding exactly what they were signing up for a lifelong vow of chastity. Tough for everybody involved. Yeah. Everyone. Yep. Everyone. When you saw Kristen say... So those guys, the Pussy Posse are in the white book, are they not?

They have to be. They're sworn brothers of the Kingsguard. They're committed to the pages of record. Jamie, does that make you feel a little less stressed about being in there or not? When you saw the hand emblem as Kristen took that seat, how did it make you feel?

Oh, well, actually, this is a great episode for Kristen Cole because this is the closest I've come to feeling sorry for him. Yeah. Like maybe ever. Honestly. Yeah. He gets a face full of like classism and racism later on. From Gawain. From our guy Gawain. From our guy Gawain.

And like his imposter syndrome here is something like human and relatable that I can understand. He's still an absolute piece of shit. I do love that he like cannot look at Alicent in this meeting. People are throwing barbs at him about the whole Eric debacle. Yeah, they have some notes and they're not afraid to share them. I mean, Jasper always is unafraid to share a note. But, you know, Alicent, like little barbs and stings are coming his way. And he's just sort of like,

Kind of eyes forward, eyes on the prize. We have a plan and we're going to execute that plan. Yeah. And I don't know much, but I do know how to stab things. So let me get out of here. Yeah. And go stab some people. Yeah. As he makes his way to sharing his plan, it really does feel like he is

fleeing the discomfort of this political diplomatic role that he rose to, frankly, not of his own design. A giddy ascent. A giddy ascent. I simply cannot wait to talk about Freddie Fox's arrival, anticipated thrilling arrival in this show. Who Freddie Fox is playing in Sandman season two? No. Loki. Shut the fuck up. I'm so serious. What? Uh-huh.

Freddie Fox as Loki in Sandman season two. I know. Oh my God. I actually feel like we're not worthy. Like sometimes we don't deserve the good things that happen. For listeners at home. Oh my Lord. I waited. Holy hell. I waited until Mallory was on camera to tell her that on purpose. I was hoping you hadn't seen it so that I could tell you. I am overwhelmed.

I am overwhelmed, much like Kristen is in this meeting, much like Allison is. Very disappointed. Are you getting a, oh, we wish we were in private so we could fuck right now energy for them? Or are you getting a, we're never going to fuck again? I'm getting we're never going to fuck again from Allison. Me too. Yeah. 100%. She did not like the ARIC plan, and I think she is confronting. I just think that Otto is gone and Kristen is in Otto's role. Yes.

And she is even further away. He has the king's ear and she's even further away from whatever semblance of power she had. Right. And has to confront, like, who the people closest to her are and what they're capable of doing and what they think is why. He was her, like, dog on a leash, right? Not a very strong leash. Often broke the leash. But now he's not that anymore. She has lost control of him entirely. He's Aegon's pup now, right? And so...

You know, there's going to be no more knights standing outside of her door. He's not her sworn sword anymore. He's the Lord Commander. I mean, I cannot wait to talk about the courtyard scene. Same. That's an incredible scene. But this is very much we are never, ever getting back together. It's done. Yeah. It's done. It was fun while it lasted, even though we never got to see the carnal animalistic scene. I'm not saying never, ever, ever. Yeah.

But not right now. Not right now. Many dogs are off the leash because, as Amen says, war is already here. Already here. Tells them about Burning Mill.

Aegon is, of course, thrilled and happy to claim first blood in our name. And the advisor, everyone's like, ah, ooh, not so fast. That's a kind of fascinating little moment to watch. I got a chill from Aegon's response. The way that he silenced, the bickering will resume momentarily and Alison will have some notes, but the way that he silenced this effort to guide him by saying,

Call it what you will, I call it war.

And so will Dragonstone. And there's that idea again, right? It's too late. Yeah. Call it what you will. I call it war. The assumption of what the other team is concluding, right? Which is happening in both directions. No, it is. But we just talked about that with Rhaenys and Rhaenyra. But it's like Rhaenyra's like, I don't want to say we're already there. Right. And Aegon's like, well, they're already saying we're there. And, you know, Dragonstone's going to say, well, they're saying we're already there. Yep. Rhaenyra's like, they'll make the same calculation to not use their dragons. And over here, we're here. And they're going to say it's war too. Yeah.

It's not great. So, to war then? To war then! Great to get to hear the to war then. Yeah, at long last. Wonderful stuff. Fuck Dignity when we finally got it was also still great, but we didn't get to see Egon's face as he said it, but we were right there with him for the smiling smirking to war then. Delightful stuff. So, the question is not what to call it, it's what to do about it. And there's a moment where everyone looks at Kristen and he is like quite literally like,

twiddling his thumbs, just like playing with his fingers, has nothing to say. He will eventually share his plan, but in the first moment where they turn to him for counsel and his new role is banned, he's got nothing. Everybody else has an opinion.

This army, that army, my brother Jason, the Fort Ramon town. The plan that he puts forth is a plan we saw him develop with Aemon already. So it's not that he doesn't have a plan. He's just in that moment. Yes. Incapable of saying it. Yes. And when he reveals it, we recall the way that when he and Aemon were strategizing in secret, they were like, maybe we can present this to the

and private. This was not necessarily the way they were intending to try to incept him. And the difference is the Vhagar one, right? And we get the great, like the freezing of the... The coin. The wonderful coin. So we talked about this on Talk to Thrones, but this was something we both...

really got a kick out of seeing that Aemond is carrying around this coin that reminds him that Daemon sought to kill him. This, like, totem now. And to see him twirl it and the way it freezes in his hand when Kristen's like, actually, Vhagar's going to stay here to protect the city. Like, that's the one thing that's different from what they talked about. And then it starts rolling again. Because he's sort of like, what's all that? But he's not going to... He has taken the note that we have given so many characters, which is like,

Don't throw a hissy fit in the small council chamber about this. Yeah, take a beat. This is a private conversation between you and Kristen Cole. Good stuff. At least it was not private when Iron Rod mentioned not only Darren, but we got a Tessarian. Not. Here it was. Your brother Darren's dragon nears fighting age. But where is he? I'm taking these kernels and these morsels and they are the sustenance of life for me right now. I got a kick out of it all the back and forth or while making a completely rational suggestion. Just like...

Just go throw out there. Shouldn't we unite all of our forces? Laughed out of the room. But also, Tylan, okay, okay, to Chris's point in Talk the Thrones about this being like,

I mean, Gita is a director who has directed a lot of comedy before this, right? And the writer of this episode, David Hancock, wrote for The Crown. So there's like a lot of wittiness, a lot of comedy in this episode. Yeah. Tylan saying which link is in your chain is for like warfare or whatever is the most interesting Tylan Lannister has ever been. Genuinely hilarious. Not when he was poised to be a pony? Nope. No? No. It's right here right now.

The gods favor the bold. They did not favor Sir Aric. Just iconic stuff from Alicent there, who has a message for the entire council, much as this is a very late episode where the tendencies and shortcomings of the Green Council and the Black Council are mirroring each other, as are the roles that the women find themselves in, seeking to contain and redirect that chaos. And that disrespect for Aegon's authority is well earned from Aegon due to his behavior. Yeah.

The disrespect for Raniere's authority is misogyny. Sir Alfred, we have some notes. It's not some notes. I just have like a whole book for Sir Alfred. Oh, brutal stuff from him. This council must rediscover the discipline it lately had if it is to be of any use, Allison says. Renice will give the Black Council a lecture later. So it's fun to see those parallels here. We get a little...

this was something else that really stood out to Chris and he was interested to discuss on Talk the Thrones. We get a little arms race discussion, a little mutually assured destruction talk because after the Vhagar and Aemond are going to stay here, note, Aegon is like, cool, I'll come. Little Goldie. Sunfire's ready for a grand debut. Most beautiful dragon in the realm. We still haven't seen. We're waiting, we're ready. Put us in, coach. We're Sunfire. And everyone is like,

Uh, no, this can't happen. Kristen says, I want to avoid detection. That's the whole point. But then he says, we will be more likely to encounter one if we field one of our own, which again is an idea that we'll hear mirrored elsewhere. When you're saying we invite our own destruction. What did you make of what Eamon said to Egon here?

That is precisely why you must remain, brother. It is a brave thought, but we cannot risk your loss. It just feels like he's goading the shit out of him, baiting him. Yeah. And not subtly. Like, everybody at that table is going to feel that. I'm not sure that Aegon knows, though. That's an interesting point, because throughout season one, whether it was the fact that Aegon was... Actually, I take that back.

I think Aegon does now. Because we're going to get the tables being turned on Aemond momentarily. And by momentarily, I mean several scenes from now. But you know, a reason why Aegon is so vicious is not just because he's drunk out of his mind on honey wine or whatever. But because of how Aemond has made him feel. It's my turn to make you feel small now. Yeah. I think this dynamic between them, brothers, brothers will be brothers, but we love to talk about when we saw them in their youth, the way that

Aemond, like, openly ridiculed Aegon for not appreciating Helena, for not really appreciating their heritage. Yeah. What they stood to inherit. The...

episode nine sequence between Kristen and Aemond and then directly between Egon and Aemond. I make a better thing than you. Yeah. I'm more suited to rule than he is. And then when Egon says directly, like, I'm not suited, he's like, you're not going to get any argument from me. Yeah. So he's never been shy. Fighting harder. Yeah. But then when we come into the season, Egon's like, he's my closest friend.

He's my dog. He's my loyal pal. He's my best sword. It's interesting to think of how he holds him in such high esteem, even though he is clocking the way that Amon is to use an autoism like diminishing him. Ah, brothers. I'm as fearsome as any of them.

That's what Egon says. That's what I say to myself before any podcast I do. I'm as fearsome as any of them. I'm as fearsome a podcaster as any of them. Another chilling line from Egon. I thought Egon had a lot of chilling lines in this episode because there's something very sad and pathetic about that, just as there will be elsewhere in the armor-fitting scene, etc. But there's something scary about it. There's something scary about having to confront what a person who feels compelled to say that, who throughout the last episode kept repeating that refrain, I will not be thought weak. I am the king.

Any man who needs to say, I am the king. Like, what is a person capable of doing to prove this truth that they're trying to say aloud? Masaria. Speaking of not weak. Here she is. Masaria. Another fascinating Masaria scene. She's back and she has declared. Sorry, I just need to mourn Fully Hoot for a second. Okay.

Oh, boy. It's capturing the essence of sweet sea smoke. We see the sound of the crashing waves, and then the gravedigger just still one shovel full of dirt after the next. Man. Burying those twins. It's going to have some sore shoulders after that. Rhaenyra finds Mysaria on the ramparts watching poor sweet, antsy sea smoke, and...

Massaria is ready for her reward. Her reward for running back up. What's a queen's life worth? To sound the alarm on Ser Aric. We learned that it took a while for people to believe her. That was an interesting little nugget. And Rhaenyra asked what we were all thinking, I think, watching this, which was, wait, didn't you want to leave Westeros? Weren't you really eager to get out of here and away from all of these people? And so...

Yeah.

But it's not purely selfless. She also sees a path to Rhaenyra as a person who could potentially help Mysaria with this quest, right, to make a better world for the small folk. So is that part of Mysaria's arc, like, working better for you inside of season two so far than it did in the season one, episode nine? Very odd conversation. Absolutely. Put an end to the fighting bits. It...

Masari in season one was just a disaster and it wasn't just the accent work. Like it was just like a disaster of writing inconsistency of character, lack of clarity from what they want from this character. And I just really admire how they rebounded with her and given her a clear path forward to be of use to the plot. Yes. And of use to Rhaenyra and to give Rhaenyra perhaps the loneliest dragon in the scene, like someone to confide in and talk to. Yeah.

The Varys coding continues because she pitches herself in essence here as master of whisperers, right? I know the workings of the Red Keep and the movements of those who serve there. That is worth more than gold to you. I have these tiny little sparrows who can help you. These wee little birds. Okay, here's another thing in this scene I wanted to ask you about. Yeah. It struck me that Rhaenyra was not

necessarily flattered or at least not fully flattered by Massaria's assessment. Well, I hope you do not confuse mercy with pliancy, that there's a little bit of fear behind those words of how people will perceive her. Yeah. I mean, especially when it comes to her gender, I think. And I think the use of pliancy was such a brilliant move. I

that idea of like something bendable. Yeah. Something supple, something you can bend to your will and stuff like that. And I just... And something we associate with Viserys because that was what Lyra said. 100%. And Aegon said, yeah. I think this idea of her trying to... How do I possess the good qualities of my father? Yes. Without the weaknesses of my father. Yes. You know, and Aegon is going through some similar... He's...

Aegon's going through a how can I get as far away from my father as possible. Yeah. Forge my own identity. But both of them are really struggling with this shadow cast by Viserys. Yeah. And part of that shadow is that loneliness because that was another theme of the episode. And so we get this, I thought, very emotional and poignant exchange about Seasmoke because Massara asks, like, are there dragons?

Always like this. I'm going to be spending a lot of time here on the dragons. Always like this. And Rhaenyra says... Is it forever a bummer? Are we forever listening to Everybody Hurts? Just on loop, on repeat. He's grown restless of late, Rhaenyra says. We cannot know why. Later, she'll tell Alicent that her dragons smell war. But Mysaria offers up that reply here. Maybe he's lonely. And Rhaenyra seemed...

quite struck by that idea. So there's this idea going around, do you agree or disagree, that people think that this is Rhaenyra wondering if Laenor has died offscreen across the Narrow Sea. Yeah. It would solve...

Some of our questions that we've had around, like, what happens in the text of Fire and Blood, Laenor is dead. Yep. And Seasmoke is there for a free agent. Right. So we have some questions about the bonding canon. Right. So would they kill Laenor offscreen? Would this be enough of an acknowledgement of that? I would not like that for a couple different reasons. Even though I have the real, like, wait, this feels like a canon confusion thing. Yeah. I...

Look, time has passed, so hopefully that means Laenor would have enjoyed a few happy years across the narrative with Carl. Six years with Carl. That doesn't feel like worth doing that. And I think then like... Well, are you saying it doesn't feel worth having only fake killed him for just six more years of happiness in the plot? Yeah, and then to just be like he's actually dead? What it does is it makes... It keeps Rhaenyra's hands clean of that particular crime. Speaking of dragon riders...

She's not one. No. And Rhaenyra gives her a mission, and it is a mission given to her in part because she is not a dragon rider, which she is able to immediately suss out. And it's heartbreaking. I think it was also a really interesting reminder of... I mean, we'll get this a bit more in the Corlys and Rhaeny's scene under the dock, but...

what Reyna lost when Luke died because her future was I will be the lady of Driftmark and I don't have a dragon but I'm gonna be the lady of Driftmark and that is a huge honor and a title and now she's a nanny to some toddlers and some dragon eggs and I love when Rhaenyra's like I can't

make you happy just please make the sacrifice willingly happily can you just do this without bitching that would be great this was like my least favorite yeah this is a tough for near scene i thought the moment where arena is like to pentos where my mother died like imagine somebody asking raniera hey um can you just go like spend all of your time in this

blood-soaked birthing bed where your mother died. Allison's like, don't worry, I'll sleep there for the next 10 years. Oh, man. So they're gonna, this is the plan. Rhaenyra needs to get the kids out of here. They've penetrated Dragonstone. Nobody is safe. That's true. So there's wisdom here, right? Gotta honor the pledge. The two little blonde babies. Yes. Aegon, another Aegon and Viserys. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

I wish Chris Reyes did. Far-hugging! And Joff. Joff. So Joff is actually going to stay at the Vale because part of the agreement, we didn't get to see Jason at the Vale. We got to see him with our guy Craig. Our guy big Craig up in the north. But he did come to a pact. But badass Jane Aaron was like, give me a dragon rider. Flawless negotiation. And Rhaenyra's like, a toddler? Here's a sexy

and a hatchling. I do think that hatchling is a little loose for Tyraxia's crate. There were a handful of dragon keepers carrying that whereas we see storm cloud after. I thought it was like five maybe and then we see like two with storm cloud. That's a hatchling. I think Tyraxia is graduating out of hatchling standing despite multiple

lines in this episode that say otherwise. But we love Jane Aaron, and so I'm excited that Jaffa's going up there. We're going to the area. This paragraph from Fire and Blood where Jace is interacting directly with Jane in the text

Not only shows us how this deal was struck, but tells us a lot about Jane as a character and also about how people are deciding who to align with and why, right? Sometimes the motivation is very personal. Sometimes it might be more strategic, et cetera. But notwithstanding...

This kills me every time. Your mother's poor taste in consorts. Tough one. She remains our rightful queen and mine own blood besides. An errand on her mother's side. In this world of men, we women must band together. The valiant knights shall stand with her, if her grace will grant me one request. When the prince asked what that might be, she answered, dragons. I have no fear of armies.

Many and more have broken themselves against my bloody gate. Give me ten men and I'll impregnate the bitch. Oh, Bronn, miss you always. And the area is known to be impregnable. But you have descended on us from the sky, as Queen Visenya once did during the conquest, and I was powerless to halt you. I dislike feeling powerless. Send me dragonriders.

Oh, we've got the toddler for you. We've got the six-year-old. He's in first grade. He's doing great. He said the word mother in this episode. I'll stop calling him a toddler. The old half is six. I love this passage. It's not all the time, though. Dude, we basically got that line in this episode. I thought of you immediately.

We're going to talk about this more when Caraxes lands at Harrenhal, like a very specific callback for the people of that castle to Valyrian and Aegon. But there's no defense against the Air Force in Westeros. Exactly. And so the number, the reminders of like everybody at this time in the story, and it's such a distinction to when we enter the world in Game of Thrones, right? Dragons have been gone until Dany's are reborn. Everybody...

130 years after the conquest would still be living in fear of this possibility that those wings could flap in from above and there would be absolutely nothing they could do to defend against it. That is the state of play in the realm. And that's why Targaryens ruled for as long as they did. Yeah. Even after they lost their dragons.

What did you feel emotionally when Tyraxes and my beloved Stormcloud got a men's show? Was it last week that I was like, is Stormcloud going to make the story? Even in the show? Yeah. And then here we are. That was exciting. For me, a Dragon fan. And then Condal confirmed on the... And I love that for you. Thank you, pal. Yeah. Condal confirmed on the inside of the episode that one of the eggs, we're going to talk more about those eggs when we have the parting scene. I have questions. One of them is Viserys's egg. Oh, that is a name.

Oh, Velra King. I just miss Patty. Oh, boy. Now, okay, I would like you to meet both Fabian Frankel and Patty Constantine so you can do your crackerjack impressions with her. Oh, I would really—boy, I don't know if that would be my Patty go-to. I think I would do this. This is stuff. This is the stuff, Lionel. So back on the core subject here of what Rhaenyra is asking of Rhaena.

And what it means for both of them. We talked about this emotional response for Reina. But, like, let's remember what not being a rider means to her. Her father ignored her. Yeah. She's a Targaryen, but she's not. And it's like, we thought a lot about Viserys. Like, what does it mean to be a Targaryen and not have a dragon? Viserys...

Viserys rode his dragon once. One little loop around the sky and that's it. Balerion. Yeah, the Black Dread. In and out and then you're done. The Black... Anyway. Not sure if you've heard, but I imagine even dragons get lonely. Jo, Viserys said that? So, here's the deal. Daemon...

A lot of Daemon's disrespect for Viserys is tied to this idea of, like, he's not even, he doesn't even ride, he's not even a dragon rider, right? And so, you know, we saw him, yes, studying with Bela and ignoring Reyna because Reyna doesn't have a dragon. We saw Reyna talk to her mom about it. Will they let me stay? Yeah. It's just like, do I even count? So, you know, just to go back to the whole, like,

I don't think children should be betrothed to other children, but like at least when she's betrothed to Luke. Brave take. Thank you. Put me on the hottest take, right? I'm ready. Thank you for having the courage to share that with us today. I try. I called them footballers earlier. I just want you to know that happened. Oh, man. She had a future. It was secured. And now it's not. Yeah. And then from the Rhaenyra perspective. Yeah.

Two things here. One, Emma, who has yet to say a single thing on the inside the episodes that is not astonishingly profound and insightful about Rhaenyra. There's a decision to try to dislocate herself from her own motherhood. And this is really worth us reflecting on because we've talked so many times, like in the finale, in labor while the War Council and Daemon are plotting without her, about Rhaenyra.

how to navigate those two realities, how to meld those spheres. And like, it's so much of her identity when we put her in contrast to Alison and we talk about it, we're like, here's Rhaenyra who's tender towards her children and all this sort of, like her identity as a mother is a big part of her character as we've talked about that character. Um,

And so this idea, like I've got to be a warrior and a queen and all this other stuff like that. And I can't lean in and I can't have it all, you know, and I need to delegate some of this. So like,

I think back, thinking back to episode two and that moment that we talked a lot about in terms of like they paused an action-packed episode for us to watch Rhaenyra play with her little blonde babies and look at some dust motes. And this is like the moment for her of like, I'm going to have to send them away. Yeah. To keep the people you love safe, it means they can't be a part of your life anymore. What a devastating thing to have to confront. And then the other part of this from the Rhaenyra perspective that I was fascinated by, I

She is asking of Raina something that she would have deeply, deeply resented when she was young. You know, we think back to that conversation between Rhaenyra and her mother, Emma. Again, series premiere, tone setting from the jump. You will lie in this bed soon enough, Rhaenyra. This discomfort is how we serve the realm. I'd rather serve as a knight and ride to battle and glory. And like, that's what Rhaena wants too. And everybody in different ways across this episode is telling her that she can't have that.

And that's crushing. It's not even that Reyna presents as this sort of like warrior, martially inclined kind of thing, a person. It's more that like she's just worried that you can't have value in this family if you're not that. And the later, I can't wait to talk about the Renise Corlissian, but that moment where he's basically like, she doesn't have anything of the Sea War Dragons, like not worthy of either legacy. Brutal. And we have to be thinking about Aemond too, who like spent, you know, we spent a lot of time with Aemond. Yes.

before Vhagar where he was just sort of like, you know, something Alicent didn't understand. But Aemon is like, this is fundamental to being a Targaryen. Your obsession with these beasts goes beyond understanding. And that's a great call because also there's such a direct Heather there.

What sparked eye for an eye? Reyna was like, big or was mine to claim. It was my mom's dragon. Then you should have claimed her. Yeah, it was my mom's dragon. We all thought Reyna and Reyna was like, I was working up to it. It's a very big dragon. Come on. It's the middle of the night. No one can see anything. I'm literally at my mom's funeral. Give me a minute. My dad is fucking his niece at my mom's funeral. Can I have just a few hours? Just a min. Just a few hours. Okay.

And just a mo. Thinking of her dad. Okay. It's the thrill of my life. To get to talk to Damon. To talk to you about Damon and Aaron. It was the joy of my entire career. Dude. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you. Piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13. The Italian.

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Heron Hall. The God's Eye. The God's Eye. The Weirwood. Alice Rivers. Sir Simon Strong. Aged Venison. I texted you. I texted you and Chris. This is the stuff. I texted you and Chris before we did Talk of Thrones on Friday. I was like, can I just spend the hour talking about witch stuff? And you both did not respond to that. Can my prompt just be witches go? Witches go. I feel like that's just implied always that the prompt is witches go. Great. Witches go. The way you feel about hearing about...

Storm Cloud. I'm like, which are the witches? Are the witches here? Is Galadriel here? Like that. We're going to add Charlie Biggers to the list. Alice. Yeah, it doesn't quite have the same rhythm. I'll workshop it. I'll go back to you. Is Alice Rivas? Yeah. Yeah. No. Okay. Well, Caraxes is here. Damn it.

Caraxies. Dragies. I loved it. Yeah. Everything about it. The Caraxies cam approach that we get, the way that we're seeing Harrenhal.

flying over the god's eye and that dragon bellow from below, like, again, this would be the appropriate response anywhere, but certainly if you're at Harrenhal. And every moment you look around you and you see those melted towers and you remember what happened here, the horror, the terror of seeing a dragon descend upon you, it would be unmatched. It would be the thing you lived in fear of every day. To be clear. Yes. If you choose...

to make your home at Harrenhal. Yeah. Yeah. Looking up at the sky for dragons is only one of a long list of concerns you have. With a stroke of a pen, you would make me one of the most powerful lords in the realm. That's a great Baelish impression. Very good. Very good. It like hurts my, it doesn't, people shouldn't speak that way. It doesn't,

Right. That one you crush. But I think that like, yeah, there's a lot implied in that compliment is that I don't crush the others. Sad. So you would not want to live at Haranol. Is that what you're saying? Listen, I don't care for the damp. Too moist. It's when they say time to get it wet. This is not what they mean. What do you think it smells like in there? Oh, horrid. But the land of always moisture. I don't know.

Like, no. Yeah, horrid. Dank. Dank. Crevice galore. You have poor at crevice. I have poor at crevice. I know this about you. Yeah. Before we get into the history at Harrenhal, everything that unfolds in this scene, can we just talk about the set for a minute? Oh, my God. Okay. How are they doing this? Every week. Every week. Jim Clay's like, so I built a whole city. Joanna, literally every week so far, he's like, I made the whole thing. Here's all of King's Landing.

Here's all of Dragonstone. Here's all of Harrenhal. It looks extraordinary. And not only that, but they were like, and we've decided to make it rain in here. So this is just a long section of the inside the episode or the House of Dragons built where Matt Smith's like, I was wet from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. They just poured water on me all day. That's not an impression. He said he loved it, though. Oh, he loved it. He said he loved it. And they were like, he obviously loved it. I hate being really hot, but I like being really wet. Yep.

Put it on the merch. Thank you, Steve. Put it on the merch. Oh, boy. Great stuff. That should go on the merch. That's that's. Yeah. I mean, we did. You know, we did. We may or may not have had a moment earlier today where I asked if if it had gotten too warm in here.

And Arjuna came in and looked at the thermostat and said, it's 66 degrees in here. You maniac. So I hate being hot. I love being wet. You maniac was implied. Not stated. But it was understood. It was understood. Okay. Will you hit us with a fire and blood passage about what happened when one Aegon Targaryen came to Harrenhal?

And when you say one egg on Targaryen, you mean egg on the first Targaryen. I love it. Yeah. I would be delighted to. I would be delighted to taste a little corpsey this moment in our history. Yeah, but these are the, like, I didn't know Bannon could smell so good corpses, right? Like...

These are the saturated in blood, sitting in shallow water corpses, like roasted by the flames of the Black Dread. I mean, you know. Just house horror on a spit. The dream in a Yellowjacket storyline. It's house horror. It sure is. Okay, let's talk about what happened during the conquest when Aegon the Conqueror brought Valyrian the Black Dread to this same keep, Harrenhal. Quote,

I don't know why I looked over there. There's nothing over there. Your camera's right there.

Quote. There's nothing over there. Quote. But Aegon Targaryen took Balerion up high through the clouds, up and up until the dragon was no bigger than a fly upon the moon. Really fun to think about that, too, in this episode when we see Baelon Moondancer, like, lost up against the sun. Resuming. Only then did he descend well inside the castle walls on wings as black as piglets.

pitch. Balerion plunged through the night, and when the great towers of Harrenhal appeared beneath him, the dragon roared his fury and bathed them in black fire, shot through with swirls of red. Stone does not burn, Harren had boasted, but his castle was not made of stone alone. Wood and wool, hemp and straw, bread and salted beef and grain—it is lunchtime, and that honestly sounds delicious—all took fire.

"'Nor were Harren's iron men made of stone.'

Smoking, screaming, shrouded in flames, they ran across the yards and tumbled from the wall walks to die upon the ground below. And even stone will crack and melt if a fire is hot enough. The river lords outside the castle walls said later that the towers of Harrenhal glowed red against the night like five great candles. And like candles, they began to twist and melt as runnels of molten stone ran down their sides.

George had cooked with that one. Oh, man. Runnels. Runnels of molten stone. So that's why this place is a ruin. Yeah. Joanna, those melted towers? Yeah. Would you be so kind as to tell us what they're called? Yeah, here's a few names to keep in mind. Kingspire Tower is where Daemon and Caraxes landed. It's also where Aegon and Balerion landed. So Kingspire Tower, that's a totally, that's a fine name. I mean, it's...

It's a King on Fire, King's Pyre, but it's, you know, or King's Pyre. King's Pyre. Okay. Tower of Dread? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Normal? Fine? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a vibe. It's a mood. Good job, Heron. Tower of Ghosts? Wailing Tower? It's a no for me.

That's the one I say no, absolutely not. Widow's Tower. No, it's a pass. Yeah. Dread, I'm intrigued. Tower of Ghosts, okay. Sure. Are you just like imagining dire wolves? But whales and widows, absolutely not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about Widow's Whale? It's not my favorite. It's not my favorite. No, no. I was more of a heart eater, Stan. Heart eater. Yeah.

Here's a question. I don't think I ever got the chance to ask you this because we were not covering Game of Thrones together when this happened. Do you think Jamie Lannister renamed his sword when he plucked it from his dead son and wore it on his own hip?

I hope so. That he wasn't like, you know what? Here it is, my mighty Valyrian sword, Widow's Wail. Yeah, we have a great example from Bran with Oathkeeper of what a rebrand can do. So yeah, I'm hopeful that we went with something else there. Sisterfucker? Is that demonstrably better than Widow's Wail? Speaking of Game of Thrones. Where have we spent the most time at Harrenhal? Yeah, it's a program that you might have seen.

Have you heard of it? Some of the best shit in Game of Thrones happened at Harrenhal. It's essential and exquisite. I sent you, or I showed you an image that my Trial by Content co-host, Neil Miller, made where he's pointing out the names of the towers. And then he also just wrote bear pit question mark with arrows down at the bottom because Brienne went into that bear pit at Harrenhal. Aria...

was a cupbearer for Tywin. I don't know. What happened there? Some of the most memorable scenes, certainly from season two, but really from the whole run are the Tywin aria scenes in that chamber. And credit where it's due, Weiss and Benioff. Oh, yeah. That's not book stuff. No. That's show-invented stuff. That could have been Ruth Bolton, folks. No. Charles Dance. And what do you say? So we got to hear, obviously, a lot of wonderful exchanges and thematically rich ones, legacy, et cetera. But they talk about the history of this place as well. Tywin says, quote,

Quote, He didn't say it that way. Look at it now. A blasted ruin. Do you know what happened? And then Arya says,

Dragons? Yes. Dragons happened. Harrenhal was built to withstand an attack from the land. A million men could have marched on these walls and a million men would have been repelled. But in an attack from the air with dragon fire, Harren and all his sons roasted alive within these walls. Aegon Targaryen changed the rules. That's one of my favorite lines in the show. That's why every child alive still knows his name 300 years after his death. And then Arya replies...

Aegon and his sisters. And Tywin says, hmm? The patriarchy, Joanna! Visenya. Rhaenys. Rhaenys. Meraxes. Vega. All right. Great scene. Great scene. Harrenhal. The best. I have a few other things to say about Harrenhal. Please.

I want to shout out another pal of ours, which is Joe Magician. And I watched some tremendous Joe Magician videos on Harrenhal just to refresh, dust back up. And I was also reading World of Ice and Fire, which is banana tour set decoration. But this idea of Harrenhal is this like almost cursed object. This thing that Harrenhor, black Harrenhor, it's spelled differently, built, took him 40 years to build.

off the backs of slave labor of the river men that he has like conquered, which is why they went ahead and betrayed him to the Targaryens. Cause they're like, thanks for making us slaves. Thanks for mixing blood in the mortar. As Laris puts it, um, not ideal. Blood in the mortar, never ideal. This is what Jamie says. Um,

When he sees, when he comes upon Harrenhal from the book. Quote,

And it's 300 years than Casterly Rock had witnessed in 3000. So this idea of the shape of it being this like grasping hand reaching for the sky and the idea of like the various people who have,

inherited Harrenhal and this idea of like almost this hubris that defies the gods, this like these grasping, ambitious people. Your favorite Peter Baelish who you just did an incredible impression of. Love and respect to the Strongs. It's not their fault. Not the Strongs. But like Tywin being there. No, no, it's for Janus. Janus Lint being there. The Mountain being there. Fucking Vargo Hope being there. Like it's just, it attracts people.

an unsavory sort. Quote, this is Baelish himself, quote, cavernous halls and ruined towers, ghosts and drafts, ruinous to heat, impossible to garrison. And there's that small matter of a curse. Harrenhal has withered every hand to touch it. So you go there and

let's say, you're Lionel and Harwin, and a member of your own family burns you in your bed. It's not... The curse is here. It's a handy cover story, and definitely nobody in our family will figure it out. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. I like this idea of thinking of it as, like, the...

Like the house in Poltergeist, like a structure that you have built on top of a burial ground that you forgot to, like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be respectful of. Yes. So this idea of the weirwood trees that have been cut down and used as, like, beams inside of the castle. The castle's made of stone, but there are weirwood... The woods of the weirwood trees have been cut down to be used inside the castle. Yes, and a front. And...

This idea that in making this castle that we see on the show, Jim Clay and his team put the roots of... Bursting through. The trees bursting through. I love that. Like they're reclaiming the space. I just, I absolutely love that. We had, we got, I'm going to read this email that we got that I sort of saved for a little later on. But this idea of the roots of the trees sort of...

Yeah, reclaiming Harrenhal. Yeah. Our listener, David, wrote, the werewood roots appear to be growing all throughout the walls of the castle. It seems that after the ruination from Balerion's flames, the old gods and their emissaries from the Isle of Faces, the Isle of Faces, by the way, is this super mysterious, spooky, ooky place. One of my favorite. All the gods. One of my favorite things. And their emissaries from the Isle of Faces seize control of Harrenhal's bones. Yes.

From there, they possibly influence the residents of the Gargantuan Ruin and subtly control the history of Westeros, the Great Council of 101, the current occupation of Daemon. Edited for spoilers. The events of Lord Wenstern.

The events of Lord Wen's tourney wherein Prince Rhaegar crowned Lyanna Stark. This is the one. Instigating an uprising resulting in the collapse of the Targaryen dynasty. It seems whenever large groups gather at Harrenhal, resentments will brew and blood will eventually flow into the roots of werewolves throughout the continent. While Craig Stark is busy defending the wall from the encroaching death to the north, the old gods have already gained a massive what?

Go hold in the very heart of Westeros. This is one of my favorite emails we've ever gotten. David! Incredible. Incredible stuff. I love it more. God, that kind of gave me a chill. Like, this idea of, yeah, the old gods just occupying...

haunting, and then just pulling the puppet strings on your Rhaegars, your Lyannas, your Jaehaeryses, your whoever. And there's like the way that that idea connects to obviously religion and belief and what you put your faith into, but also of course this idea of history because we as Thrones viewers and readers associate the werewood, the werewood network with Bran, with the three-eyed raven, right? With the way that you can, that, that, that, that,

Your brother's going south. Like, they cut all the trees down. Like, how can God see if they have no eyes? This way that we think about this connection to each other and to our own history and to an awareness of what has befallen those who came before feels very connected again to, like, the theme of the episode. And I love...

I love what you're calling out about the striving hand and how that physical shape and reach captures that hubris and that feel like Otto is not in this episode, but with me always, that heedless ambition. And what I love about those so much with Harrenhal and what you're describing, like this kind of doomed, ruined past across history, is that everybody who walks in there knows that. Yeah.

Now, the list grows across history. I can be the one. Exactly. I can fix her. Exactly. And so you are literally standing inside of

Not just an embodiment, like the reminder of where hubris can lead you. Yeah. And how wrong it can go for you and your family, for everything that you would seek to achieve. It will burn around you. And character after character will walk in there and try to do a thing. I got this. It's... Yeah. A very rich text. Where is this, like, ranked for you on your...

It's a loose answer, not a firm power ranking required in response, but where does this kind of broadly sit for you in your favorite locations in the world of Ice and Fire? Is this pretty high on the list? It's in top five. Yeah, I think so too. Do we get to include the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Number one, maybe. I mean, maybe. It's not out of the wall. The wall is very special. Yeah, the wall is tough to top because it's so tall. Yeah.

But to your point, I mean, I was going to bring this up later when we talk a little bit more about Alice, but like you mentioned the old gods. What I'm really excited about, in addition to just generic witch stuff. Witch stuff go. There's a lot of, there's a lot of like Melisandre moments that I sort of like pulled to talk about today. And the reason is not because I think Alice Rivers is,

is Melisandre. But that I've really been missing this because what we've had so far is this sort of like a little kind of bland, basic sort of Catholicism-ish faith of Alicent. She goes to the Sept, but we're not really engaging in the Light of the Seven and what all of that means. A little bit like the mother, this is what the mother represents and all of that. But like we have...

Damon and Rhaenyra's dragon pagan wedding. But what I miss that was so... Yeah, what I miss was so prevalent in Game of Thrones from the jump, from Catelyn finding Ned in the Godswood and talking about, you know, their different faiths is the clash of ideology in Westeros. You know, not just the church as an institution, but like, and not just like sort of like

like bland morality, but like genuine, like deep, dark, spooky, ooky, old religion, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's a great call. And right away when we see Damon, we don't see him obviously dismounting caraxis, but he's then off all this dragon and making his way. He's doing his little like detective Elrond, right? Detective Damon, like looking around corner, going room by room, raindrop by raindrop. And he's,

He's confronting that, right? The spirit of the place, the essence of the place, the history of the place. He's confronting the more practical, like what awaits, who awaits. But I loved what Condal said on the inside of the episode. The real idea was to bring Damon into contact with something in the supernatural world that he could not imagine.

Now, this is about this initial scene, but also, of course, what will happen later with the dream, the vision of young Rhaenyra, which we'll talk about later in the pod today. But it's a fascinating context to consider Daemon in. For this character. Because, yeah, like...

Who's been so anti-Dreamer. Yes, exactly. Like, of course, there's a part of this where it's like, well, he's a dragon rider and he believes in dragons. And that is, there's a magical quality there, but that's a different thing from the way that he judges and holds in low esteem Viserys for, it's that dreams didn't make us kings, dragons did fight that he and Rhaenyra have that we've talked about, like,

He called Viserys's reign feckless because he was a slave to his portents and omens, as he described it. And so for Daemon to be in an environment where he is going to experience something and have to think about what that tells him about himself, but also then what it tells him about the other people in his life, like Viserys, who he held in judgment for their belief. It's another way belief manifests in the story here. And it's such an interesting moment because we talked to Condal about this a little bit

in our preseason interview about this idea of introducing more magic into this season. And he was like, we have to remember that, you know, in the era of Daenerys, the reason like the dragons are such a big deal and all this other stuff like that is magic has left Westeros. Yes. We're not in that era of magic has left Westeros. And so, you know, he sort of slow boiled it with season one, but here we are in season two. Magic is still here, but we still have these moments. And it's like when,

You know, someone sees a White Walker for the first time and they're like, oh, my bad. I believe you now. Or, you know, whatever it is, you have to see it with your own eyeballs. You have to see Melisandre do this thing. You have to see Daenerys walk out of a burning building and you bend the knee to her. You know, like all – so you have to like see it. So what is Daemon going to see in here that is going to change fundamentally his approach to everything? Yes. There's this line in episode seven in last season where –

When Rhaenyra says, Harren's curse is said to be as strong now as it was after the Conquest. And he says, that's a ghost story. One Ser Otto and the Quimans gladly exploit. No, he's right in that moment that Larys. Larys was happy to exploit it. Burned his family down. It was not the ghost of Harrenhal. It was not Arya. It was not the ghost of Harrenhal. But that's a ghost story. Yeah. And here he is. He's living in one.

That's such a great point. It makes me think of Bran, like one of those earliest Game of Thrones lines that I just fell in love with. Like, old Nan says, you know, the sky is blue because we live in the eye of a blue-eyed giant named Macumber. And then like Bran responding, maybe we do. And like, not every character would respond to that with maybe we do, right? Like, only some characters are willing to respond.

believe and accept that magic might be present around you. And some of them have to make that journey in a harder way. I love that part of the world. I also love that, like, the coding. I love that. And I love that the coding that we get here, people have been mentioning, like,

Old Hammer horror, you know, like Dracula, Werewolf, all that sort of stuff like that. What it pinged for me, not only this intro where he's wandering around in the rain, but also, like, the what is a dream and what is waking aspect later, reminded me of, like, gothic horror, gothic novels. Yeah.

If you, like, Mallory Rubin are a Jane Austen fan and have read Northanger Abbey, then you've, like, read one of the best spoofs of gothic horror novels there ever were. But, like, you know, turn of the screw if you've watched Bly Manor on Netflix or Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak or...

The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is one of the wildest books I've ever read. Or The Castle of Otranto. Or Slade House by David Mitchell. Or House of Leaves. This idea that you're in this liminal space. What is waking? What is dreaming? And also I was reminded of...

When he's walking through the castle and it's raining and the lightning is flashing. I was reminding what Brian Cogman said to us about why Peter Jackson was such a good choice to direct Lord of the Rings. Because he had that horror background and he brought that horror element to this high fantasy world. Yes. And that's what this moment feels like. This blend of...

and high fantasy. Absolutely. Gothic horror, especially because we are in a haunted castle. And I couldn't be happier. It's so spooky and evocative. Really incredible. Spooky. Spooky. Going down to the ocean, it's so spooky. Grab an Eddie Bow. Let's watch the O's. Love it.

Love you. Oh, I love you too. Daemon makes his way past the Great Hall of the 35 Horrors, where the Great Council of 101 took place, where Viserys was chosen. Over Rhaenys, again, making his way through history. And he makes his way then into the dining hall. This table, I mean, this scene, this intro to Ser Simon Strong, everything about this was exquisite.

This table was so sick. Stonin'. Yeah. Stonin'. My favorite part about it, I mean, it's gorgeous. I'm claiming Harrenhal. Yeah, obviously. Apparently so. Duh. My favorite part of the table is how preposterously oversized. It's a ludicrously capacious table.

It's just like this massive table and they haven't bothered to downsize, but it shows you how empty Heron Hall. It gives you perfect understanding because Simon's Dawn could have downsized the table, but they're like, no, let's eat at this absolutely ridiculous table. Massive. As Damon is soon to point out, he also could, you know, have gotten some repair work going. Where's the time? Someone's got to age the venison, you know?

He bends the knee. Sir Simon. Pledges fealty. Offers Damon what sounded honestly like a lovely meal. No recurrence. Sorry about that. Poison peas. Alice makes her way through the scene. We're going to talk about her a little more later. Does not bend the knee. Always notable who in the scene does not bend the knee. Everyone bends the knee and she's like, what the fuck is this? What are you doing?

Damon is offered a meal. He does not partake. I have to assume that dragon riding is hungry work. So a lot of restraint, but he has survived many a battle and does not mean to be felled by poison peas. I actually, this is like, first of all, the Matt Smith performance in the scene and the Simon Russell performance in the scene, like it just couldn't be better. It,

It's just sensational. What I loved in some of the behind the scenes, not even the behind the scenes, it's just like some of the junket interviews. Matt Smith was just talking about how he had the best time working with Simon Russell Beale this season. I would imagine so. Because he's like, he has so many stories. Because this is an acting legend of the stage, of the British stage. And so he's just like, I was just soaking up Simon's stories. He has so many. Soaking them up. I'm not sure if you heard, he loves to be wet. He loves to be wet. Warning you tonight. Tell me.

to be wet. You could tell that they were having fun. The way they're speaking, the mannerisms when we get later, the second misstep with the My Prince utterance from Sir Simon, the way that Damon is like, the thing I loved about the I do not mean to be felled by poison peas is like, it is actually a good, quick little way to remind us that you can kill a dragon rider. They're vulnerable. In all sorts of ways. Yeah. All sorts of ways. So I thought that was like a handy line in a few different respects. Simon tells Damon,

It's actually fine. You're welcome here. You don't have to worry about us poisoning you. Damon's like, what about your great nephew, Laris? Laris Clubfoot? Okay. So can we talk about this for a minute? Yeah.

You mentioned already that this was an episode where, like, we feel bad for Kristen a couple times. I felt similarly. This... Now, we're huge Laris enthusiasts, so, like, feeling bad for him is a less complicated experience for us. But I thought that was really present here, the way that Simon, who is a character who, like, we're instantly just... We're smitten, right? Oh, yeah. But when he says...

Laris clubfoot. Yeah. And we're reminded that on the one hand, it's like Laris did actually do the thing that Simon thinks he did. He did. But what made him feel on the outs of his family in the first place? Exactly.

Yeah, he's a classic like Shakespearean figure, you know, this sort of like person who's like twisted by their experience and like the absolute ignorance and prejudice of their family. There's clubfoot as a phrase.

or as a name is used over and over and over again in Fire and Blood. They don't use it on the show, really. Yeah, that's part of why it was really striking. And it just like really, yeah, just like takes you back. Yeah. We get a... What just seemed like a very apparent we made the crown together, David Hancock, Matt Smith sequence here, right? This is...

Not just Daemon Targaryen, this is Prince Philip. Our first Prince Philip. And so this entire exchange about titles, titles, titles, titles, felt very crown-coded, part of what Chris loved so much about the episode. Steve, can we hear this? We struggle to light the hearths. So know you will find no loyalty to Larys Strong here, my prince. Your Grace. Forgive me, I'd only assume that as consul... And we are reminded of the perilousness of assumption. Indeed. Your Grace...

So for the people who don't follow the significance of titles, titles, titles, your grace is what we call the monarch, right? So let's step outside Westeros and take us to the crown land, let's say. And by the crown land, I mean the crown. Yeah. Matt Smith played Prince Philip. Someone who was our listener, Brittany, reminded us.

uh insists on being called quote his royal highness prince philip even though that wasn't the title he should have had as husband to the queen so this idea of like if you are the king you are your grace if you are the queen married to the king you are your grace yeah but if you are the queen primary monarch you are your grace and the prince is the prince he's not a king if he's married to the queen which is a fucked up like weird thing

I think the idea is I think the idea is I understand is that a king is always more powerful than a queen. So you cannot make the queen's consort a king. He has to stay a prince. Anyway, so to say your prince is to I mean, but he's stumbling through it. This is like when Kamala Harris became our first female vice president. We were like the

The first husband, Doug? Like, what do we call Doug? You know, so it's like, it's a new, it's a new system. So Simon, Sir Simon Strong does not know what to say here. He's doing his best. But also, Damon is like, I'm going to make an issue of this. I don't think Damon and Rhaenyra had agreed to this particular landing place. Damon overstepping, as is his want. He explains not only what he should be called,

But why he needs Harrenhal. Why he needs this toehold. This has been a subject of much discussion across many character sets. 40,000 Riverlands swords waiting to be secured. There's only one place that you can garrison a host of that size. That's a similar reason to why the Great Council was there, right? Because of how many people needed to participate in that event. And Simon says, hey, Simon says,

Were you a Simon Says fan when you were a kid? No. No? Fun game. Okay.

I mean, I wouldn't call myself a fan. Yes, I played it and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed a smattering of Simon Says. Yeah. He says a good number of those swords are already actively at war. Let me tell you about Burning Mill. And this is where Damon is like, okay, the thing that this reminded me of most, which I also found incredibly strange in Game of Thrones was when Stannis is like talking about the dance of the dragons. Dance, why are they called a dance?

And it leads to a lovely moment where Shireen explains everything. But it's like, Stannis should know that, you know? Stannis definitely knows about Stannis. Stannis should know that. And similarly, it feels like Daemon should know this, but it's maybe easier for us to believe that he wouldn't. Don't watch Game of Thrones if you don't want House of the Dragon spoilers. Yeah, stay away. Just FYI. Stay away.

The answer to that is lost in time, Jo. Sin begets sin begets sin. That's where we get this beautiful line that I think we will be quoting the entire time we cover the show. I think it's the line of the episode. Yeah. I just want to... I don't need to go into it, but just so you know, in the text there exists the Blackwood version and the Bracken version of, like, how this all began and who was a king and who fucked whom over. That exists. Yeah. But there's also this great line from A Dance with Dragons where...

George uses the Blackwoods and the Brackens as a way to underline this theme that he will then like really like hit out of the park with fire and blood, which is the unreliable narrators of the historians. Right. Yes. So Hoster Blackwood to Jamie says, quote, past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend. So good. And that's what we're navigating right now with the show is the fog of legend. Yeah.

Sensational. I have to say less sensational is Grover Tully's reputation in The Riverlands and beyond because— Which would you rather not be known for? Not being able to control my cock in a cunny or not being able to seal my bowels. I think both are not desirable. But you have to pick. Listen, I think, you know, the first one, it's like, it's a thing that happens.

A lot of people are working through it. I don't know that anybody wants their reputation across the realm to be like, I have a leaky anus. Anal leakage. Okay, you're picking anal leakage. What about you? Well, I simply wouldn't choose. I don't want it. Me.

I'll turn about. Yeah. Okay. It is indeed fair play. Well, that only took me like a year. I got you. Oh, man. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, all I said was I wouldn't want people to say I had a lanky anus, whereas you specified which body part of another person you'd eat. That's a reference to our coverage of Yellowjacket season three.

Two? Yeah. On the Prestige TV podcast. That's right. We didn't cover season one. Remember when we did the pod on the season two finale in Steve's hotel room in Sweden? And we were all like sweating because there was no air conditioning. What a journey we've all shared. Yeah. Jo, tell us more about Grover Tully.

house tully in his leaky anus yeah you might say that the vassal house is the batterman they're leaking right out of that anus doesn't seem like he has great control of the riverlands right now tell us a little bit about the state of play yeah in the riverlands complicated region i have a little quote from the world of ice and fire okay about the riverlands quote

Quote. Honestly, when you do that, it just looks like you're looking at the raven or something. It's still better. Stretching from the neck to the banks of the Blackwater and east to the borders of the Vale, the Riverlands are the beating heart of Westeros. No other land in the Seven Kingdoms has seen so many battles,

nor so many petty kings and royal houses rising and falling. The causes of this are clear. Rich and fertile, the Riverlands border on every other realm in the Seven Kingdoms save Dorne.

We talked about this on Talk the Thrones, but if we think about the map of Westeros, it's a video podcast. We think about the map of Westeros. Oh, nice! I came today!

Okay, Mallory's wearing a map of Westeros. As though it were a subway. The tube. So climbing up near your clavicle, closer to your décolletage is the north. Right below that in an area we dare not mention is the Vale. Oh.

Okay, so the top of the map is the north, then this is backfired, and then the Vale. Okay. And then below that is the Riverlands. And the Riverlands then cut the north and the Vale off from the rest of the map. And if we want to remember what Jace accomplished in his sojourns, in his journey not being eaten by Vhagar, is he secured the north? You accused me of taking a few strays at Viserys, but Luke just got one.

North? Yeah. Craig Stark's like, you want some graybeards? I got some graybeards. The Vale? Jane Aaron's like, you want to send me a six-year-old and a hatchling? I got some people for you. I got some knights of the Vale. Have you heard of them? Oh, I've heard of them. Graybeards in the North. Knights of the Vale. They want all these people. How do they get them down where the fighting is happening in the Crownlands? Through the Riverlands. And if they don't have the Riverlands, they don't have anything.

So they need the Riverlands, which is why Damon is there with his toe holes in the Riverlands. Yes. But just taking Harrenhal does not guarantee he gets the entire Riverlands. The thing I've heard of the phrase is they've never failed to exact their toll, Jo. They've never failed. The phrase. The phrase.

The Freys are there. The Brackens and the Blackwoods are there. The Tullys are there. The Tullys are ostensibly in charge, but I don't know if you've heard about the leaking anus situation. Grover Tully does not have firm control of the Riverlands. The Brackens and the Blackwoods, I don't know if you remember, just killed a bunch of each other. So many dead people. And then the Freys at the Twins...

That's another question for another day. But that's not going to be easy. So just because Daemon has Harrenhal doesn't mean he has the Riverlands. But he needs the Riverlands to complete this game of Risk on the map of Westeros. Sensational. Tell us.

Feels like an emerging theme, too, beyond just the Riverlands, right? Because when Otto said last week, like, I just want to go to Old Town. Yeah. I just want to go home. You have a son there who will listen to me? Oh, it's time to go to Highgarden, my guy. I need to go to Highgarden because the Tyrells can't keep their bannermen in line. So this has become— Alan Beesbury. Oh, my God.

Bees. Bees! Damn me. Are we going to get Alan Beesbury this season? I really hope so. Okay, I hope so too. I don't think we can be deprived of a Bees for long. We can't send Otto to Highgarden and not give me a Beesbury. You're going to get a Bees. You're going to get a Bees. Stay patient. But like this idea that, you know, we think of...

The Lord's Paramount. Hold fast, Percy. Hold fast, Percy. They're vassal houses. They're bannermen. Do you think of something like the first time that Rob called the banners, right? Doubtless, the Grey John only meant to cut my meat for me. Like, the way that you would expect your bannerman to align with you, and then what it looks like, we watched this over the course of Game of Thrones, if they don't, if they break faith. John with the northerners. Exactly. And so, like,

This is not Westeros against another place. It's Westeros tearing itself apart. And the idea that every single vassal house inside of a region would just say, sure, whatever you say, my high lord, is like, it would defy belief. And it just depends on the liege lord because some of them are Craig Stark and some of them are Grover Tully. Yeah.

Enjoyed hearing Damon's commentary on that front too, right? People should obey their liege lord, whatever his condition. Perhaps the presence of the crown and a dragon will sharpen minds around these parts. Like, Damon is somebody who believes authority should be heeded. Like, you are the dragon and your word is truth and law. The idea to Damon that anybody would question somebody in a position of authority and then be allowed to get away with it. Yeah. Impossible. Will not stand. It's time for some Freddie. Freddie.

Future Loki, Freddy Foxx. I'm overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed. We are not worthy and I am overwhelmed. This was one of our most anticipated debuts of the season. Before we get Freddy. Yeah. We get the haircut. This was a less anticipated debut because we had seen the haircut in trailers. We had some questions, thoughts, comments, concerns. Joanna, it's pinging Roman Empire. It's so embarrassing. I'll save it for wig watch. I'll save it for wig watch. It's not a wig to be clear, but we'll save it for wig watch.

But it's here. Get used to it. I do love Kristen getting a new haircut for the new job. I agree. I agree. Absolutely love. Okay, so Allison is chatting with, as Kristen walks out into the car, she sees that Allison is chatting with her brother, Gawain Hightower. Now, a reminder, we have, this is Freddie Fox's debut as Gawain, but this is not Gawain Hightower's first moment in the show. Gawain is in the series premiere. He's in season one, episode one. Yeah. He's at the tourney, and he is, crucially, the night that Damon-

chooses to challenge just to piss Otto off and Damon dispenses with him with a quickness. Easily. I thought that this performance from Freddie was everything I hoped it would be and more. Snark. Wit. A little acid? Yeah, sneer. Sneer.

Yeah, that part was... Classism. It is tough because I think we're going to say our guy Gawain a lot. We love Freddie Fox. Yes. He plays absolute shit heels. This is exactly the distinction that we must maintain. It's like when I say I love Larry, it's that I'm not like a pro all of his creeping and snooping. Yeah. I'm not. You love the foot wank until the light family member's on fire. No. Right. That's just on the internet forever. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It was a joke. Alison introduces her former fuck buddy to her brother. And Quinn has a lot of things on his mind that he is ready to share with Kristen Cole and us. Steve, can we hear this? How exhilarating to arrive at court after three long months on the road to find my lord father, who served three kings faithfully, unseated his hand at the king. And by a man from such modest beginnings.

What a giddying ascent the gods have bestowed on you. You know, I'm usually on kind of accent watch. And I'm just going to forgive the fact that Otto Hightower sounds vaguely Welsh and Alison Hightower sounds vaguely like she's from Manchester. And he sounds like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth because his accent is perfect. So good.

Perfect. Spider is here. King Hugo is here. Toffee nose prick. God, this is just an absolute thrill. So yeah, the no one is more delighted than I to march out to war with adornishment line. The what a Gideon is sent line. Modest beginnings. The racism, the classism, the modest beginnings. It's a good reminder for us. It's not only an orienting introduction to Gawain, but it is a good reminder of how many people across the realm

view Kristen. Like, we think back to that conversation that Kristen and Rhaenyra had in episode three of season one. One day not so long ago, you held enough power to write my name into the white book. When your father named me to his Kingsguard, it was the highest honor any Cole had ever known. He's the first kid in his family to go to college. Like, it's huge. Well beyond his station. And I love that kind of story. Davos. Like, we love that story, right? Like, we love that kind of story.

But not when you're a piece of shit, Kristen Cole. You know what I mean? Like, I can't root for you, but your archetype is one. And that's something that George loves to do. Like, he loves to take an archetype that we love to root for and then pull a twist on it. Complicate our feelings. Make us regret what we have said. Gwaine talks about three long months on the road, and I would like to welcome back to Westeros the concept of travel time. Yeah. It's never gone wrong before. Yeah.

daron may help us yet in weeks to come like we were like why isn't he here with his dragon i mean obviously he could get there faster with his dragon but if he's traveling with a host it could take him until oh i don't know season three to get there waiting for that final growth spurt for deserion my vibe of this and i have no proof one way or another but just on based on like shared looks is that basically like gawain got there

Hadn't even, like, had maybe one night's sleep in the castle. Which we know he's seeking. Yeah. As he will soon set about the pursuit of an inn. And Allison's like, listen. I don't think she told him the whole deal. I don't think she says, I fucked this guy. But she's like, listen, dad's been fired. Yeah.

kind of a maniac is in charge, is now the hand and the Lord Commander. Yeah. I need you to go on this expedition and I need you to keep an eye on him for me. Interesting. Right? Interesting. Babysit him for me. Felt like the vibe here. It does seem more likely than Gawain, who will shortly be canonically established as a guy who can't wait for a feather bed and a pint. He doesn't want to go. But he gives me like, share this look where he's like,

Oh, this guy? Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I got it. I like that read. I think it could also be that he, because obviously he is like, you? You are the reason that my dad is not the Hand of the King anymore? Like maybe just on his own, he's like, I want to keep an eye on you, mark you, get to know you. Who knows? But something is, one of them or both of them want to keep Kristen in their view. I think that's true. Yeah.

Gawain is watching them with an interest as he mounts up and they part. He's probably a little too far away to hear what we are treated to, though, which is Allison saying, May the seven guide you, good night, and lead you not into shadow and death. Exactly how everyone says goodbye to the dude they fucked the night before.

I just love this, like, this just hilarious parody of chivalric love. One of our listeners, Renee, wrote in to talk about she called it a fucked up Lancelot and Guinevere vibes. And that's exactly what's going on here. We get this moment of him asking for her favor. This is huge. I have, like, so much to say about this. But, like, there's the aspect, of course, that we have to think about when we first met Chris and Cole. Yeah.

Yeah. Where he was asking for Rhaenyra's favor. And Daemon had asked for Alyson's. Daemon had asked for Alyson's. To make all their mess. Yeah. But Alyson definitely in that moment was like,

you know, God sees Dornish. Like, that's the moment where she was sort of like, gosh, I wish you were asking for my favor to a certain degree. And here she is all these years later getting her wish. But he is using it as a, like, cudgel on her in this moment where he is, like, he's saying it loud enough in a way that she cannot say no, in a way that is embarrassing her, in a way that is very public. And he is forcing her to enact the ceremony with him. And...

she's mortified and angry that he has put her, that he has embarrassed her in this position. But it's felt like a very like orange and cinnamon moment from him. And I mean, you know, again,

Were he a different person, I would feel so much empathy for him to have, like, fucked two queens and, like, both of them are like, don't talk to me in public, though. That's not what we do. That's not what this is. Yeah. Right? Like, I would, except I don't like him. But I still do feel a little bad. But then he is, like, it's vindictive. It's spiteful here what he's doing. Yeah. And also, I just need everyone to note that Laris is...

watching this entire thing go back like from way back at the other side of the courtyard but he is eyeballs directly on this exchange always observing always snooping in a creeping that's it's yeah that's a really interesting analysis and read on the scene because like when it you've compelled me with that i think like when i when i was watching it

It almost felt to me like Alicent was like, I can't even be bothered to like, you're asking me for my favorite. Here it is. Like a handkerchief for the Spank Bank. And just like the eye roll. Like she's like, I need you out of my life. You are every, it's that idea of like diminishment again. You know, when, because, because Alicent has participated, as many people across the realm have, in that kind of,

active theater and pageantry of what it means to grant your favor. And so to do it, but to do it with that level of reluctance just felt like a way, the oranges and cinnamon, the other side of it, like her way of saying like, you didn't think that

This was that. This was that. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. So I think you could. Part of that, but also it's just like the way she, it's not just an eye roll. It's like she kind of looks around. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. And that to me felt like. The gall of him doing that. But also just like a compulsion of like, I have no choice now. Right. I have to do this. Yeah. You have put me on display. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cheese is on display. You mentioned this. The crows are eating him. He deserves it. How do you think the dog's doing? Thriving. I have no doubt that he's found a loving home.

And he is nourished with both love and the sustenance that basically everyone else in King's Landing is struggling to find. Couldn't get a chicken for the pot, but the dog's eating well. Okay. I feel sure. Great. That's what I'm telling myself. Wonderful. Joanna. Mallory. Let's talk about the Black Council. It's really not going any better than it is for the Green Council. And it's not just the young dudes who want to fight. It is the crusty old codgers as well. Yeah.

Renise comes in, quick report, no sightings. Seems like she maybe got back right before Kristen's entire host left. What timing? Alfred. Sir Alfred. Let's talk about your guy. My least favorite broom? My guy? How dare you? So he is advocating. Start turning green strongholds to our cause. I'll own the foot wanking, but I will not own Alfred Broom. You will? Interesting. But before I own Broom, I will. Fair. That's fair. Totally reasonable. So...

The exact thing that Renise was worrying over earlier in the episode, the push for the bloody war.

And this is, of course, not new here at the Black Council, here on Dragonstone, because this is what Daemon was advocating for in the season one finale. This is what Keltigar was advocating for in the season one finale. And we heard Rhaenyra say to Daemon, not only, you know, my oath reaches beyond our personal ambitions. Turns out he did not know that. Tough one. But she said that Serra spoke often of the Valyrian histories. I know them well. When dragons flew to war, everything burned. I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone.

She doesn't want to be the Queen of Ashes? It's always worked out fine. For everyone who said something similar. Just a quick reminder, lore reminder, that House Keltgar, the Keltgars, like the Velaryons, are from Valyria. They came over with the Targaryens. So, like, but instead of dragons, they got crabs. And not ideal. Not what I would pick. Oh, well, you're talking to a daughter of Maryland. So the coat of arms being just a bunch of red crabs. Yeah.

I envision it. It's just, it is just red crabs on a field of white, but I envision it with a nice dusting of old bay. Yeah, just old bay. But I'm saying if you had to choose, and I understand, I understand your Baltimore roots, but if you had to choose between getting a dragon and being a crab person. Yeah, you know.

Anyway, the point is, I can understand how the Celtigars, we talked about this a bit with the Velaryons, like, that Corlys wanted to sort of burnish himself with, you know, proximity to the Targaryens. And so I can understand how the Celtigars might be something similar where it's like,

uh to all then with our dragons we have our crabs will be right behind you but we're essentially dragon people you know what i mean that sort of like imposter valerian your cause owns a power that has not been seen in the world since the days of all valerian dragons that's what kaltagar said last season yeah yeah uh crabs and dragons wonderful both they're great at gmail.com

Rhaenyra says something similar here, Jo. If dragons begin fighting dragons, we invite our own destruction. So this is quite wise, though nobody seems to agree, including, we must remark, Jace. Once again, his face is like, what's happening here, mom? What's happening here? And Rhaenyra is doing what Viserys tried to teach her too long ago. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us, but who else is willing to mind their history? So in response to this, like, you know, fairly important insight about...

A nuclear deterrent. Sir Alfred Broome, not your guy, laughs at the queen of the seven kingdoms at the painted table in front of her counselors for all to see and hear. Laughs in her fucking face. Laughs. I hate him. Laughs. This was astonishing, but- Do you think if Damon were there, he would have vaiment him? Yeah, just like slice. Yeah. He can keep his tongue. He can keep his tongue. Yeah.

I'll take his cranium. He can keep his tongue. There's the shock of it, like the way that Rhaenyra's look, you know, looks over, snaps to, the look from Rhaenys. But beyond even just the gall of like how condescending it is, the chutzpah of what he is willing to do, it does kind of force us to think that

Okay, do any of these guys standing around that table actually believe in her? Right. Like, who has aligned with her because they believe that she is, like Allison said in episode eight, would be a good queen? And how much is it just like, I remember the pledge I made? Or grasping for power. Yeah. Right, a seat at that table. If I ingratiate myself to her in her hour of need and we win...

how powerful will I be in the Red Keep then? Right. Yeah. What did you think of the fact that she hasn't quite given up on Damon yet? Because she's not like, war, it's not on the table at all. She says we need... Pathetic. Remember? Pathetic.

We need to secure armies, right? Victory will come from armies, not just dragons alone. So it's not like I don't acknowledge the possibility of war. It's like, let's be deliberate. Let's act with intention. Let's be methodical as we prep for that. And then she says we must give Daemon time. Romance. It never really dies. I guess that's the answer to Chris's question from

Last episode is Love Dead. Apparently not. Great stuff. Wonderful. Treason's not dead either because our guy killed the card. He's just right there at the table. He's like, what if you just went for a spa day and let us. As a distraction. We'll take the heat and also we'll rule. We'll just run everything. What do you think? Girl, you look like you need a massage. Yeah.

Have you ever been to Claw Island? Astonishing moment. Frankly, astonishing moment. And Rhaenyra...

Calls him out, right? Calls him out on it. And then leaves. And then Renise gives the little speech, like her version of Allison's speech from later. But she invokes here Jaehaerys, the Conciliator. And Jaehaerys and Aegon the Conqueror, like, both get multiple name checks in this episode. So this idea not only of, like, calling upon history, a forebearer, but what they each represented. The idea of, like, conquest and might and then the knowledge we have about prophecy, dreams, purpose, et cetera. And then wisdom, peace. And, like...

which of those each side is latching onto, the legacy of. But then that larger question of, like, is either of those paths totally right now? Right. We go now to... And I just don't even, like...

how do I even rank my favorite scenes in this episode? Yeah. Because we haven't even gone to Ulf, right? That might be your favorite. It might be. We haven't gone to the Sept. Yeah. We've got Harrenhal on the list. Harrenhal is probably my pick. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot. There's a lot going on. But we're here with Radius. This is a quiet contender. Yeah. Radius and Corlys.

Okay, inside the episode where they were like, we had this whole thing planned out and then it started raining. So then we're like, fuck it, let's lean into it. And we moved it basically under this. And we were on top of the throne. So we're like, what a brilliant artistic choice for them to do this. And they're like, it was raining. Great moment on House of the Dragons built when they're like, and it was raining so much. We asked, do we need the rain machines? And they were like, we do. Yeah.

Both Steve's songs, Eve Best, were like, this sucked. Yeah. By the way. Yeah. But the effect. Oh, I loved it. It's beautiful. Torrential rain downpour. Chris Ryan in our text message, it looked sunny. Don't ever let Gita or Eve or Steve know. Oh, man. That Chris Ryan said it looked sunny. Joe. So charming. All I want, and I mean this genuinely, is for somebody to bring me warm bread and hot broth.

For lunch. And lovingly, like, pull your hair out of the way. Yeah. This was a beautiful scene. There's a charm. There's a romance. There's a very lived-in quality. Lived-in, like... Like, inside of their relationship and the world. Domestic. This is where you would go to work. This is where you would fix the seasoning. And you would just, like, bring a basket of broth and still warm bread.

I mean, if I had a dragon, all the bread that I ever brought you would be warm. Would be warm. Because I would just, like, zip it over. Thank you. Would you arrive and expect me to say to you after you brought me the warm bread and the hot bread how fair they've been ditherers of Dragonstone? Which is just, like...

So perfect and funny. The Ditherers of Dragonstone. And I love it because it is hysterical. It's just great writing. This is real I'm a libertarian energy from Corleone. Yes. And like we know like one of our earliest...

experiences with like orienting ourselves in his worldview in season one, that great conversation with Viserys out in the gardens. To elude a storm, you must either sail into it or around it, but you must never await its coming. We've tracked a lot of this season how Corlys' perspective has shifted. Yes. But this is a constant. No dithering. No dithering. Action. But then there's the, comes the question of his heir, right? Yes. And he's like, Luke, who I definitely like

Played with once. At a funeral. At a funeral. Did he give him like a carved seahorse? Didn't he? And he's like, now you know the sea, sir. Right? That's always seen of that.

Now that my seafaring heir, Luke, is off the table, Joff, Reyna, none of these are good ideas as far as I'm concerned. And Rhaenys is consistent. She's picking up what she was putting down last season, which is like, make a woman your heir. What's wrong with you? Yeah. You thought I should be queen, so let's... Prove that it wasn't just about your obsession with legacy and that it was what you thought was right for me. Yeah. Name Reyna your heir. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a heavy quality to this scene because he basically says of this question of the year, like, we'll wait. We'll deal with it later. And she says, and if there is no time, we are at war, Corlys. If something were to befall you, and he says, then it is well that I am a good sailor. And he's like, I gotta go. I gotta go. Have you seen the sea snake? It is a fucking wreck. I still got barnacles to scrape. They have yet to slosh all the blood off the deck. There's work to do, but there's this just...

sense of encroaching doom and it feels like from Renice, the character who keeps reminding us that the doom doesn't have to come. We can keep it at bay that even she in this more intimate personal moment is like, what if there isn't time? Every character can feel the week. What if, yeah, it's...

The scene was great. It's so beautiful. Like, just a perfect little moment that, like, I think when people complain about this episode, there are a few things that I've heard. Like, mostly they don't like the Rhaenyra undercover scene. And we can talk about that. But, like, what I dislike is this idea of, like, nothing happened when I feel like one gajillion things happened. Yeah. And in these little moments, these are some of the most important things that happened. Would you say you love a character on an arc?

I love a character on an iron. And I love quiet conversations and elegant, drippy dogs. It's just such a... It's a sodden episode. It's time to depart. Time to depart for the Vale. We've covered a lot of this, but like... Yeah. What else do you want to hit here? We should talk about the eggs. The eggs. Let's talk about the eggs. Four eggs. Yeah. Three of them. One of them is blue and then three of them, I think anyone who watched would pause and

As my husband did, he shouted, pause! Are those Dani's eggs? I think that would be a common question and response. What have we heard about this? We have heard from Gita, the director of the episode, that these are indeed Daenerys' eggs. I will say with love and respect to her, she's tremendous. We've complimented her a million times. I'm really excited for her to direct the finale.

I want to hear this from, I think, Ryan Condal, I suppose. I just have been burned a few times by directors of episodes saying things that the showrunner later is like, actually, not quite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though this seems like a big thing. Like, if I were her, I would have double-checked with someone before I said something like this. So that makes me think that maybe it is true. It just contradicts some things that we think we know about where Daenerys' eggs come from. Yeah. And we're doing, those of us who are book readers are doing some, like, yeah.

tortured Eggmath. Yes. Yes. I have a question about this that I'll raise when we get to the book reader section that I'm trying to wrap my mind around. But basically like Aegon and Joff have their little dragons with them.

So Viserys's egg is in that clutch, and then there's three more. And these are the eggs that Daemon unearthed from the Dragonmount last season. Cyrax's clutch. That cool scene where he was like 127 hours plunking down and chipping away at the outer layer. So yes, to the book reader part, so not the part we're going to talk about in the book reader section, which we will hit later, but the...

accepted canon, right? The theory that has become so agreed upon that I think we all just consider it official even though like... It's not actually confirmed in any of the texts. Yeah. Is the Eliza Farman story. This character who much earlier in the timeline, 54 AC, was...

stole three eggs from Dragonstone, sailed across the Narrow Sea, sold them. And so it's like, okay, this is written into the book so that we understand that those are eventually Danny's eggs. So this would be a change. I had my kind of classic, like,

excuse me, no, this can't be. How dare they? And then I've talked myself... Okay, you were very dug in last time I talked to you. Yeah, I've talked myself into it because I think just thematically, like the way that Rhaenyra

sends off the crew and the cart with Tyraxis and Stormcloud are young and vulnerable. It's a legacy that we're protecting. These eggs are even more fragile but should all come to ruin here. You will bear our hope for the future. I like the idea of you will bear the hope for our future. Quite literally becoming that future. Again, I have some questions that we will hit later. But...

They have, one, I think your point about waiting for further confirmation is a good one. One thing I think is fair to say is they don't make three of the eggs the same color if they don't want people to at least, like, theorize and speculate. Oh, for sure. And it's with a mournful hoot of Seasmoke, hoot, that we must think about the lonely dragon that is Rhaenyra Targaryen. Yes. She sends, little Joff, his little hand comes around her waist. It's so, like, oh my god. The little blonde baby's.

Yeah, the little head kisses for Agon and Viserys. And Daemon's gone. Yeah. And like, part of what really hits, you know, you see the way that Jace hugs Joth, who we had previously seen him like hold up to Luke's funeral pyre. We have an actually great conversation between Bela and Reyna that we'll talk about more here in a second.

Rhaenyra, Bela, Jace, they're all still together, but each of them has some sort of parting, right? Jace has lost... Jace's... All of his brothers are gone. Either sent away or dead, right? In Luke's case. Rhaena and her sister are being parted.

Rhaenyra's entire family, other than these few remaining figures, gone. Like, the sense of isolation is so keen and deeply upsetting in a moment where people need each other to stay strong and to find that courage because the bulk of the people now at Dragonstone are people laughing in Rhaenyra's face, right? But it's an opportunity for someone like Mysaria to, like, insinuate herself. Absolutely. Absolutely. Baelon Reynna.

I loved the, you know, Bela's basically giving the pep talk, right? You do a great service. And Reyna says, do not coddle me, Bela. Grant me at least that dignity. I loved that reply from Reyna, but I also thought it was very sweet to see Bela, who we should remember, like, not only is Bela a dragon rider and Reyna isn't, but Bela went to war with Rhaenys and Reyna stayed. And we talked about last season how, like, there's the moment earlier in season one where Rhaenys kind of

mocks the fact that Rhaenyra is a cupbearer, but how actually, like, being your cupbearer is a place of honor, and Rhaena was the cupbearer sent away, right? And I loved, like, Bela saying to her to try to encourage her, we each do what we can. And, like, that actually is important. Not everybody in the story is a dragon rider, but the dance is going to touch a lot of people, more than just the people who have a bond with the dragon. Absolutely true on the one hand. On the other hand, if I was Rhaena, I'd be so pissed. Yeah, same.

Be the mother to them that I can't be? Yeah. I did not sign up for that. No. No, thank you. That's why this is a great kind of sequence because like every character you do really feel like you're steeped in their point of view. And then Bela's just like some consolation and points to the crate of eggs. And Rhaena's like, oh, that's pretty tight. Speaking of mothers, mother of bugs, Helena Targaryen. This was a scene. My goodness.

I actually like melted into just a pile of sobs when Helena just instantly says, I feel sad about your hair. We got some questions about who the, someone was like, is that Mailer? It was Jahara. Yes. That they were handing off. Yes. And we should say Helena like does get a little moment of joy, like interacting with Jahara. There's this like very sweet little like,

warm, tender moment. But yeah, I feel sad about Jiharis. And we had talked like in prior episodes about...

What is her path to comfort? Like, you know, that moment with Egon and Helena on the stairs. Like, you know, is anybody talking to Helena, seeing if she's okay? What does that look like? And so to get this conversation between her and Alicent and see what they were willing to say to each other and share with each other was fascinating. This is where we get the last of us. Children die all the time. People die all the time, especially babes. What did you make, though, of Alicent? Sadness is a condition of motherhood? Yeah, because she says, like, I'm sad about your hair, but my concern has been for you, right?

I'm worried about you, my daughter. Sadness is a condition of motherhood. You've been tracking Allison's relationship to motherhood. I mean, when we first met her, like ever since we met her as a mother and her role as a mother, a teen mother. Yes. She's been just like juggling babies that are too large for her hip on her hip. Fussy babies, crying babies, babies in carts, baby conqueror babes, like all this other stuff like that. She's just like never been like

Other than the tenderness that she shows Helena, she's never been someone who seems excited about or comfortable with motherhood. And again, we talked at length about the conditions under which she had her kids versus the conditions under which Rhaenyra had her kids. But I just thought it was like, this has been part of Alison's lot in life. Duty. Duty.

It's not love. It's Judy. Right. This deep association between despair and motherhood felt so striking. What did you make of the I forgive you that Helena issues? Allison is like kind of shook and shocked. What?

I should say, yeah. Kristen? All that has happened before or something yet to come. Yeah. Do you think she's referring to something that she has seen in her vision? We don't know. Could it be the sept scene? We should say as book readers, we don't know. No.

I am very tantalized by this idea that it is something yet to come. Yeah. We'll talk about it a little bit more in the spoiler section, but we're not saying it because we know for certain. No, no idea. But we have some thoughts and theories. It feels impossible not to wonder given our associations with Helena right now. So, yeah, fascinating scene. Okay. From one child to another.

Weeds and Whisperers cosplaying as a conqueror. It's time to go hang with Egon the Elder and the Pussy Bossy. Oh, my God. The bros are working overtime to hype up their guy. This was... Everything about this scene was perfect. I love that. Literally everything about this scene. They're terrible. I love them so much. Valerian steel, Marty says. Worth more than a castle. Uh...

great way of making sure we understand how astonishingly rare this armor would be. Valyrian steel armor, the Conqueror's armor. And Leo says, again, we're just going to call them Marty and Leo and Eddie. Yeah. A sight to stir the passions. Aegon the Conqueror reborn. Well, certainly Aegon II. Oh, the Conqueror, babe! Oh, here's to his grace on his armor-fitting day! Yeah!

Wonderful stuff. Aegon is drinking wine as he is readying for battle. And later we will see him out for a night at the pub and the brothel on the eve of the cataclysmic events. Everybody's readying for something terrible, except Aegon, who is going out to drink with his bros. Doesn't seem like he is focused on the right thing currently. But his armor looks so slick. It does. The armor was unbelievable. It was so fun to hear how they made it. Here comes Larys to save the day.

Always. Always. There are rumors that the king readies himself to fly to war. And what is that to you? Only that I think it would benefit all of us to prevent our king from being brutally slain by our enemies as body parts scattered to beasts. And his court come to ruin. Would you not agree? It's a hard. Would you not agree? It's a hard point to dispute. I thought court come to ruin was so smart because court come to ruin means, hey, Eddie. You. It's your neck on the line.

If Aegon does not come back from battle, you think the pussy posse is staying in the Kingsguard? Right. You're not. Certainly not. Absolutely not. Certainly not. You're out on your asses. I do have some questions about... Right, so he's... So Aegon's wearing the shell of the Conqueror. A better Aegon, right? Yes. I was given the Conqueror's name and his crown, so I shall wear his armor to war. To war! To war, then! The...

When they talked about making the army, the armor, and I understand this is an armor fitting scene. Yeah.

But I don't know how you, like, fit Valyrian steel necessarily. Would it not have been funnier if his armor didn't fit him like a glove? Yeah. And he was standing there and, like, looking like a child in a man's suit of armor. Yeah. That would have been good. Yeah. That would have been good. But they're like, we made this bespoke armor. And it looks amazing. It took half a year. Yeah. It looks amazing. Incredible. Incredible. Yeah. I did find myself wondering about that. Like, I think the Conqueror would be a more imposing presence. Yeah. Exactly. Interesting. Yeah.

Laris is here to present his cover letter for consideration. Oh, what font has he used? Ooh. Something elegant. Copper plate bold. Love it. Great. I tell? No. Steve, can we hear from Laris? There are diverse rumors whispered on the streets of your city. One searches that your grace sends his forces to battle and in his courage and wisdom flies with them.

Another is that his grace was outwitted by his counselors and persuaded to fly to war with Sir Criston so the Queen Alicent may reign in his absence with Prince Aemond at her side. Absurd, of course. Who spreads these lies? Matters little. Tales take on a life of their own. My weeds, unless they are tended. Tend to them then. Incredible. I mean, immediately offered the post of Master of Whisperers instantly. Craftsman at work.

Aegon also, like, my father didn't need it. Yeah. And that's why I know I do. Which was the seed that Larys planted. He's your father's hand. So good. Larys has been playing this like a fiddle perfectly. Man.

The language she uses about, like, the streets of, you know, the whispered in the streets of your city. Like, this is what the small folk are saying about you. We got this great email from our listener, Chris, who was talking about the way in which Laris is, like, intentionally exploiting. And we knew this, but, like, to underline this idea that he's exploiting...

Aegon's biggest vulnerability, which is this idea of like he cares that the people love him. Yes. And we talked about this in the previous two episodes, this idea that like he was not raised with a lot of love from his family.

And so when he got the big hurrah from the crowd, when he got crowned, he's like, oh, what's this? What's all that? Affection. Right. And so at the coronation, we heard the big cheer from the crowd when he got crowned and he's like, oh, affection. Yes. I've never tasted this before. Right. And so then in episode one, when he's in front of the, you know, the people who are petitioning him, he is trying to recapture that magic. We watched Laris watch that entire scene. Yes. Laris was stunned.

spying on him while he was doing that, right? Yes. So he knows that, oh, you know, people are saying this, that, and the other thing. Chris pointed out, and I didn't pay close enough attention to this, but Chris pointed out that in the Otto firing scene, when Otto says that the common folk hate Aegon for the, for hanging all the rat catchers, that we get this shot of Aegon's face of like, no, not my public reputation, you know, like not my, may

Main source of love. I didn't think about that when I murdered 99 innocent men. And then the fact that he goes. One guilty one, though. One guilty one. We got him. We got him. Then he goes directly from here to buying rounds of shots for the small folk in the tavern. Yes. To recapture his king of the people sort of reputation. Yes. What a delightful little worm Aegon is. He's a fascinating character. Yeah.

Not quite ready to head to the Dragonpit after all, it turns out. Like, I'll fly another day. I'll fly another day. Wise, wise. How about a night on the town instead? But you're sworn to chastity now. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course we are. Incredible. These guys. Wonderful stuff. Speaking of these guys...

The guy is here. Ulf. Ulf the Sot could not seem like a better hang. Oh, my God. Shoots to the top of the who would you have a drink with in Westeros list. I don't know that I don't want to be friends with him. Just a pint. A pint. Oh, who can I have a pint with? Yes. Who can I spend one evening hearing tall tales from? Yes. You say literally anything. And he is prepared.

You know my... To drive right up that on-ramp. My father, Bailon the Brave.

The spring prince. Oh, man. So before we get to his boast and his claim, we wanted to quickly note who is waiting on their table. It's Diana. Diana, who is the woman that Aegon, the serving woman who Aegon assaulted. Yes. In season one. That Alicent gave moon tea to. Yes. And set loose, I guess, into Flea Bottom to go work as a tavern wench. I would have set her up with some money. But, okay. Yeah.

She gets a smack on the ass. Horrible. I didn't like that moment. I did like that Ulf was like... I mean, he didn't intercede, but he was like, this is boorish behavior. Yeah. I don't really like this. He didn't stop him, but he was like... Yes. Yeah. Come on. This is gross. The...

seeing that she has left one horrible circumstance to still have to be, like, the plaything, harassed by men all around her horrible, the moment later when Egon comes in and she has to see him. She serves him. Her assaulter has to serve him. Horrific. And just to show us her face...

because we've had this interesting experience the last few episodes of like, oh, this little, this thing makes us feel bad for Aegon or we're feeling some empathy. We're watching him weep in front of the fire and his own mother can't comfort him. It feels very intentional to show us the person who he sexually assaulted, whose life he destroyed. Yeah.

And remind us of what he's capable of. And I think every time we've said we feel bad for Aegon, we've been like, I don't forgive him for the things he did in season one. And it's one thing to say that. It's another thing to see Diana's face. Also in a scene that's about Targaryen bastards. Yes. You know, to have her there, someone who very nearly gave birth to another one. Yes. Joanna, please take us through Ulf's...

His claim, which he cannot wait to share. He says it's on of Bail on the Brave. And he says, quote, bastard brother to Prince Daemon and the late King Viserys. Uncle to the one true queen, Rhaenyra Targaryen. The blood of the dragon runs through these veins. And yes, men would take my head for it. A dragon seen much watched his own neck when he has no white cloaked guardsman to do it for him.

Joanna, what is a dragon seed? Thank you for asking. It's not the same as raven teeth. Dragon seed. This is the name for the illegitimate children of Targaryens. Back in like the reign of before Alysanne forbid it, the Targaryens super enjoyed the right of prima nocte, which means Targaryen

Lords could have sex with your wife on your wedding night and perhaps impregnate her with a Targaryen illegitimate child. Silver hair, purple eyes, the ability to ride a dragon. These are all things you might see in a... Not every. Hashtag not every Targaryen dragon seed, but certainly some of them. So like back in the day, being a dragon seed was like this position of honor because...

You know, you were the blood that runs in your veins. You're closer to gods than men. Right. You know, you are a Targaryen. Yes. A couple passages from Fire and Blood here. Dragonseeds, they call them. Jaerys said with obvious reluctance, It is not a thing to boast of, but it has happened. Mayhaps more often than we would care to admit. Such children are cherished, though. Orys Baratheon himself was a dragonseed, a bastard brother to our grandsire. Whether he was conceived of a first night, I cannot say. But...

But Lord Arion was his father. That was well known. Gifts were given. And then Alysanne is like, a gift? What? Alysanne's like, no.

Here is another passage. Brides thus blessed upon their wedding nights were envied, and the children born of such unions were esteemed above all others. For the lords of Dragonstone oft celebrated the birth of such with lavish gifts of gold and silk and land to the mother. These happy bastards were said to have been born of dragon seed, and in time they became known simply as seeds. So Ulf knows what he is invoking here when he says this,

that Baelon the Brave, the Spring Prince, father of Daemon and Viserys, this beloved figure, is his father. This is a very specific claim to call upon like a well-loved figure. He's not just saying I'm any Targaryen bastard. He is...

citing a particular figure. It's also turned some heads among the book readers because we got this incredible, like, tome-length email from one of our listeners, Sam, that I am not going to read with apologies to Sam because we don't have the time. But Sam was talking about Balon, like, that Balon's... Big wife guy.

It was a love connection. They were inseparable from when they were children. He was a widower. Related children. For 17 years. So if Ulf is younger than Viserys and Daemon, and Ulf is their younger illegitimate brother, and Balon had him after his beloved wife died, maybe, and...

The fact that Tom Bennett may or may not look older than Matt Smith, who they have not bothered to age appropriately, is a question that we can all ask. But also, as Sam points out in his email, you probably age faster in Flea Bottom than you do on Dragonstone because you don't have access to the best beauty products. I think Tom Bennett looks great here, by the way. Oh, man. But the last part of Sam's email that I really liked is he was talking about how, you know,

Is Ulf telling the truth here? We don't know. Does Ulf think he's telling the truth here? Right. We don't know. Does Ulf have a different story of which Targaryen is related to each night that he's in the tavern? And this is where Sam dropped the incredible Dark Knight reference.

Want to know how I got these Targs? Like, does he have a different... This is how I'm a Targaryen story every time he tells it. We don't know. We've just met Ulf. But that would be a really fun thing. But this idea that he's Baelon's son, even as a story, Ulf is the character in the book. This idea that he's Baelon's son is new show canon. Whether or not it's true, we don't know. Right. We just know that he's a character who would go and say this out loud. And he's...

Yeah, so fun. Oh, incredible. Incredible. Did you enjoy the rapid switch from defending the just right line of Rhaenyra and his Jace, the true heir to the Iron Throne? Well, his hair's not so... Oh, no, no, no! Hail the king!

Incredible. We just learned so much about this character in this very short scene. Fantastic. Fantastic stuff. Speaking of spines and other body parts, let's head to the brothel.

Speaking of listener emails, we did get a listener email and I couldn't tell if they're joking, so I don't want to call out their name. And they would like you to explain your Aemon one-eyed joke. It's perhaps not a, maybe not English as a first language person. I don't know. They didn't understand your joke on Talk of Thrones. Can you explain it? Aemon, the person, has one literal eye in his head. Yeah, he's referred to as Aemon's one eye because he has one eye, but this was about the... Say more. This was a joke about how we see Aemon's penis and is that

Is that why they call him Amen to One Eye? Right. God's being good. There it is. Thank you. Thanks for asking. You're welcome. So Egon goes from, you know, being here to drink at the pleasure of the crown in the pub to the brothel. And he takes Marty's squire. Never fucked a woman. Never fucked a woman.

Marty. Two, not just any brothel. We know this brothel's not for Aegon anymore. We heard that from Sylvie last season. We hear it basically from Aegon here. Like, I'm looking for something different these days. Horrifying.

This is where he brings first timers, which we know because we heard Eamon share the story with Kristen in season one, episode nine. And now we get it kind of from Egon's point of view. Like, I know the best one for first timers, right? Takes us on this tour, the bowels of another pleasure den. We get an astonishing blowjob, Cam. This is like, they really went for it here. They were like, this isn't TV, this is HBO. Yeah.

And then he has this horrible... Yeah, real, like, hoeder showing up like, that's a big man. Giant's brother on the queen. Then we get this exposure for Eamon in more ways than one. But this is, like, this is his safe space. Yes. This is where he, you believe, is suckling at Sylvie's teats. The breast is out this time, and his head is certainly against the bare breast. He didn't, like...

move his face and wipe, you know, his lips or anything and swallow. So we don't know that, we have no reason to believe that she's like actually lactating and generating milk, but he's nuzzling. He's a boob guy. Definitely a boob guy. He's a boob guy. Can I ask you like what, just no closed doors? Or no protection for Eamon who must be like a very important customer. We got an email about this. I'm not going to read it because the emailer

Like, Sylvie is the boss. She's the madam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She owns this establishment. Yeah. So...

She's busy, but I just, I don't like this location. Yeah. Is there not... We need a more private space. A more private space for Aemon to just be himself. No, I guess this is normal. Because, you know, when we first see Daemon and Misario in season one, everyone's like watching them through the latticework. This is so different. Yeah, it is. What he wants out of it is different. What he needs is so different. Yeah. And especially that no one was like, hey, Aegon's coming. Yeah.

Because they all knew he would, like, as soon as he hits the street of silk, they're like, guess who's here? It's the fucking king. Yeah. Should we tell the prince?

Like, you know, they all know who they are. It's interesting to think about through that lens that Aemon doesn't ask her to come to him, that he chooses to go there. In the bells. In the bells, where he could be, because that's part of what he's, part of what he is intentionally fleeing is like all of the reminders and trappings of who he has to be all the time. So he's like shedding all of these things that it means, what it means to be Aemon Targaryen and just to be like,

a real human being. Yes. And then we watch him, I think, as Chris pointed out, sort of, like, stand up. Yeah. Starkers. Yes. And, like, cloak himself in the armor of, like, disdain or indifference. Yes. And look harder and fiercer than Aegon does in Valyrian steel armor. In all his dress-up. Yeah. All his dress-up. Yeah, I thought that was a really great point. The way that Aegon, like,

And guffaws and cackles and mocks him. Amen, the fierce. You've come so far, but still, like, you're first, right? Mocking him. Other people are there. And we have to, of course, think back to last episode when we heard Amen not only express this remorse for Luke to Sylvie, but say, like, they...

they were mean to me because I was different. And the way that that defined him is so palpable. And so to see him in another experience like that, where not just like any person, but somebody close to him, someone who should be like a source of protection and trust, his own brother, is happy to embarrass him and shame him in front of other people. And so the way that Amon's response to that is...

is to stand up and to say, your squire is welcome to her. One whore is as good as any other before he walks off. Which was, like, heart-wrenching because...

We saw him allow Sylvie to see who he truly is. And then he has to put that guard back on. When princes lose their temper. Yeah. Who is punished? Small folk like me. Like he has to put on cruelty. Cruelty to this person who offered him tenderness. This was really gut-wrenching. But it's ruined for him. Yeah. He can't go back there. No. It's ruined. Yeah. Yeah.

You know who's not ruined? Moondancer. Bela on Moondancer. What a badass. Rhaenyra said, hey, man, can you keep a distance? Yeah. Yeah. And Bela said, I know for a fact, because I've watched season one, that when people said you can or can't do this on your dragon, you never listened. You just did it. This is a pretty great sequence start to finish. Kristen chasing down Gawain and his bros who are riding off for a luxurious night at the inn. Yeah. What does Gawain say?

I assure you my nephew will not begrudge me a night of comfort. My nephew. The absolute name dropping. This is just exceptional. If it's

Suze your brow, Cole. So good. Calling him Cole, not Lord Commander or my Lord Hand or anything like that. Suze your brow, Cole. We'll rendezvous with your army at first light. Of course, the wine is good. Perhaps a little after first light. Ready for a good time. Ready for a good time. Kristen is less fun.

And often that's a downer and a bummer, but here it is helpful. He's right. Because he realizes that you're still carrying this. He's right. Yeah, I know. Realizes they are super exposed, and sure enough, there is Moondancer. There is Bela. And Bela sees this, like, glint as they are fleeing for the tree lime. And she follows them. Great sequence. Not just, like, the pulling up.

right before crashing into the woods, but the circling above, like their faces looking up, the tear in Gawain's eye. Yeah, this is the trailer shot. We were like, what is he looking at? Yeah, yes. It's a Moondancer. Fantastic. Anything you'd like to say about the Bowie in Spell? Yeah, Connell said this, and our friend in the pod, Paula Fairfield, said this was also her prompt, was to make Moondancer sound like Bowie.

It's got a boondancer. It's like a spiky mohawk. It's incredible. And we just want to shout out our pal, Jackie Lon, over on Acolyte, who was also inspired by Bowie. Bowie inspo's everywhere. Wonderful. No notes. Great stuff. Great stuff. Black Council. Joe, they still suck. This is bad. These guys suck. Is there more to say? They suck. They're very, very, very eager for war. Keltigar insisting that the time is now. Staunton's like, I would like to go home, please. Can I go to Rook's Rest? Yeah.

Massey and Alfred, like, don't worry about that. Everyone's going to Harrenhal. Damon's the one who needs to worry. I do want to say, I want to show, Jace is getting called out left and right in this episode for being sulky, and that is true, but also he is defensive of Bela. He is betrothed in this scene.

He's like, you wouldn't know shit if it weren't for Bela. That's true. And then, like, for some reason, I just, like, really bumped on, like, calling her Lady Bela. And that, like, even though I was just like, why isn't Gwaine giving Chris and Cole his honorifics? I don't know. It just felt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Felt charged. Joanna? Witches go. Witches go. It's time to talk about. Where do witches go? Oh, Tyrion.

Where do whores go? Sad. Let's talk about Alice Rivers. Let's get weird here. Damon does not seem thrilled with the accommodations at Haranol. The room is leaky. He has shoved some swords into the door handles to protect himself. He's like, poison peas are one thing. Getting stabbed in the night is another. I know that this is the product of the fact that they have built this resplendent set, but it is very funny to me that Damon is staying in, like,

a drastically nicer chamber than the one that Lord of Harrenhal, Lionel Strong, died in. He does seem like a real humble guy. You think he'd just be like, I'll just take this room right here. He's like, let's keep the fancy room for the guests. I keep it real. I'm Lionel. I believe it. I believe it.

We hear some humming. We see some feet. We hear the confusion at the door and then some humming. And like I so I don't have a super musical ear, but this did sound to me the humming that will be revealed in time to be young Rhaenyra, Millie back. This sounded like the same tune that Rhaenyra is humming here that Daemon sang to Vermithor in the season one finale. I played them back to back after you pointed this out to me. And I think you're right. I do.

I also have a... Dragon math magic Targaryen lore. Millie Alcock's here to play young Rhaenyra. They really kept the lid on this, man.

Is this the last season one cast member we'll see is my question. Oh, God, I hope not. I mean, it feels you it would almost be wrong and cruel if they gave us this glimpse of these Damon visions dreams. And then we don't get more like my expectation is that we will see like many of these. I hope so. Wife number one.

I'm okay to not see Rhea with love and respect to the Vale, but I would like to certainly see Viserys. That would be the dream. I have to imagine that's coming. We really hope that Patti is here. We don't know one way or another, but we really hope it's true. She's stitching up to Harris' neck. Incredible stuff. Always coming and going, aren't you? And I have to clean up afterwards. His face. His eyes. Yeah. That look of fear. Fear.

To go back to that Laris quote about blood in the mortar and this idea that Harrenhal passes judgment on you. This idea of like, this is a daemon reckoning. I think it is so perfect and so creepy that it's young Rhaenyra here. I just like, of course it would be her young. This is, this is her when she was like, it goes two ways. It's maybe him when he was like most excited by her because they like,

The young part is creepy and probably true, but also just like they shared ideology, right? Closer ideology. Giving her the Valerian seal necklace. We both share a piece of our history, et cetera. But also this Rhaenyra, this young Rhaenyra, even as exasperated as she is sewing a head back on a... Little baseball head. Little baseball head. This one's not going to call him pathetic, you know? So it's not just like...

The version of her he was most invested in, but the version of her who was most invested in him. This is still the version of Rhaenyra who thought she could fix him. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't gotten to the I have challenges enough stage yet. Yeah. That's a great call. He wakes up-ish by the werewood tree. It sort of snaps to you. Which is overlooking the god's eye, which is the body of Waterhair, right? And like...

We mentioned the way that the weirwood roots are sort of in the foundation of Harrenhal. Yeah. But also the tree is leaning towards the god's eye like it is like yearning tendrils. I love a yearning tendril. Of the weirwood tree towards. The mushrooms love too. The isle of faces. Do you weirwood trees love too? I think so. I want to just mention briefly this idea of hinges in the world that George R.R. Martin writes about. Yeah. This is a Melisandre quote. Yes.

When she says, I've dreamed of your wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it. And great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges.

Of the world. And it made me think of thinking about that quote made me think about this quote. I mean, this idea of like places where the walls are thin is a common one in sci-fi fantasy. But it made me think of the Doctor Who episode Wild Blue Yonder that you and I really loved. Great one. When he says, I invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe where the walls are thin and all things are possible. I just got this feeling. I love this. So this idea that. Love.

Heron Hall is one of those hinges along with the wall and, you know, many other places or whatever on the map. Like, because she says hinges, one of the hinges. Yes. This idea that like,

Harrenhal plus the God's Eye plus the Isle of Faces is one of those places in this world where the walls are thin. This gives me a chill. And like to go back to that email you read earlier and that list of these great consequential moments in history that unfolded here. The Rhaegar one really got me too. George! Alice is here. Yeah!

She says a really calm, cool, chill, normal thing. What did she say? You will die in this place. Oh, that must be a Tuesday. Honestly, I say that all the time. Alice, you very helpfully broke this down on Talk of the Thrones. And do you want to read the passage from Fire and Blood? Sure. Before we read what the actress says about a character? Yeah, let's do that. So Alice Rivers. So Rivers, of course, we know a bastard name. From Fire and Blood.

Talking about the small folk of Harrenhal. The quote here is, amongst them, a wet nurse. Don't. No.

Because Chris isn't here to stop you. Named Alice Rivers. Who was this woman? A serving wench who dabbled in potions and spells, says Munkin. A woods witch, claims Septon Eustace. A malign enchantress who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth, Mushroom would have us believe. So we get the unreliable narrator, like Varian counts. But all of them heighten this question and this air of mystery. Like, who is?

this figure. And there's so much we don't know about her. The actress who plays her, Gail Rankin, gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly where she said some things. And again, is this canon or is this just something an actress said? I don't know. And I don't mean to say that dismissively. It's just sometimes like actors talk about their own backstory that they've invented. And then later a showrunner will say, that's not what we had in mind, but here's what Gail Rankin said. And again, it feels like they would have checked.

She says, quote, she's someone who has all of this power, who's been alive for potentially 400 years. How do we make her a person with a beating heart and wants and desires? I hope that's felt inside of our exploration with her. And we are familiar with

Hot witchy women who are older than they appear, Melisandre. Yeah. Yes. So we wouldn't be like shocked, honestly. There's an implication of this in Fire and Blood that she is much, much older than she appears. 400 years. Her age is a question, yeah. 400 years is wild. Ripe. On the like, you will die in this place front. Yeah.

Because we're on the subject of Melisandre, I did want to shout out this great moment between Melisandre and Varys from Game of Thrones where she says, I have to die in this strange country just like you. Right? To him. And it's very like...

vague but also true and that's like the nature of prophecy right like what does it mean to say you will die in this place like what is what does that mean uh this is a show a book a text an author who loves to play with prophecy and wording like what does it all mean right um yeah on the funky nature of prophecy if only we knew how george rr martin felt about it oh wait we do here's some quotes yeah

Dreams were a treacherous ground on which to build. That's from Dunkin' Egg. Yes. Prophecies are treacherous. A Dance with Dragon. Yeah. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time. A Feast for Crows. Prophecy is like a half-trained mule. It looks as though it might be useful, but the moment you trust in it, it kicks you in the head. Tyrion T'Jorah, also from Dance. Yeah, prophecies are problematic. Not to be trusted. Bite your prick off. Yeah, bite your prick off. It doesn't sound ideal. So I would not like...

Neither does a kick in the head from a mule. No. Doesn't sound great. Yeah. And also just in general, like the king of funky prophecy is Shakespeare himself. The bard, always welcome. Macbeth. Macbeth, like the wording of the prophecies in Macbeth are notoriously like slippery and, you know, what are we talking about here? Right, right. When are we talking about here?

How are we talking about it here? I think George is consistently interested in what characters are moved to do if someone says something to them. The way that Cersei responds to what Maggie the Frog says to her when she is a child, like, shapes so much of her life. And she misinterprets it. Yeah. Love a misinterpreted prophecy. George says, George has said he always wants, he always believes in prophecies coming true.

Just not in a straightforward way. Final scene of the episode. Rhaenyra and Alicent in the sept. Okay, I get it. Listen, I get it. When I saw Alicent, when I saw Rhaenyra in the sept costume, I did have a moment of like, oh no. What are we doing here? Because specifically like it defies belief that she would be able to infiltrate or... No, I was just sort of like, is this going to be silly? Was sort of how I felt. Right.

And then it just really wasn't. And I thought the scene was so extraordinary. Yeah. I think the main bumping point people have is like this is just way too much of a risk for Rhaenyra to take. I do think that the episode and the character herself have set us up for this is an act of desperation. Yeah. Yeah. Daemon was just here in his murder cloak. And I understand that Daemon infiltrating things is a different prospect than Rhaenyra infiltrating things. But like. Yeah.

I believe, given this is an act of desperation, this is a last-ditch effort. And everyone's like, what's the plan? She says herself she didn't really think this through. I've begun to think what the plan is. I love to just have knives sequestered in our sleeves and remind us of the old eye for an eye, arm slice. To the desperate point, I really liked that part of it because—

And repeatedly throughout season one, Rhaenyra is accused by others, whether it's Alicent or Rhaenys, of behaving desperately. And then that becomes something that she actively embraces. Like when Rhaenys says a generous offer or a desperate one in episode eight, Rhaenyra says, what does it matter? And the fact that she was kind of the rare character who was able to say basically what other people think of me or whether I do something that is unconventional. Yeah.

Not only am I not afraid, maybe I'm the only one who's willing, right? Maybe everybody else is so trapped by their fear or the expectations of the way people typically behave. So like she is doing, and then we can, we contrast that with what her counselors want and seek and think is required and something that they think is like,

a lack of action. It's a very specific type of action that Rhaenyra kind of feels like the only character in the story is capable of right now. And it's like emotionally intelligent action, right? She has, she does have the read of Alicent in this regard. Yeah.

We should say when she opens the scroll, Alison's scroll to read it, the green dress theme plays, which is sort of Alison's theme plays on the score. Ramin Djawadi, the genius that you are. Also, I feel like they lampshade this a bit because Misaria says like, it would be easier to kill her. Like, what are you talking about? But then also we should remember that Misaria is not

when she says she knows the ins and outs of this. She hid Aegon in the Sept at the end of last season. So if anyone knows how to get in the schedule of it and how to get in and out and when Ser Stefan should sit on the steps and pretend to read a book while stuffing a knife up his sleeve, it's Misaria. This is like the Clone Wars fixing the prequels, like helping us to better appreciate Misaria's involvement in the penultimate episode of season one. The other thing I loved about the scroll in addition to the score is

She finally picks that up and reads it after putting away her kids' toys. And in that moment of privacy, she allows herself to weep. You know, she had to be strong in front of everyone else. You're saying, kill the mom, let the queen be born. Almost the opposite, in a way. It's like, to go right from that mourning of that loss into a scene with Allison. This, like, other lost relationship. And this person who she still has great affection for, despite everything that has gone so horribly wrong...

It's painful to watch these characters have to reconcile with the last little filaments of a thing that previously defined a great stretch of their life. It's just a deeply, deeply tragic, sad episode. And there's a lot of tragedy involved.

At the heart of this conversation, at the heart of this pitch. So good. I thought this was so good. Perfect setting. It's not just about Emma Darcy and Olivia Cooke being in the same scene together, though that is certainly part of it. Never thought we would get it in this way, like that they would not only be together at this point in the story, because this is new. Right. But that they would talk about what they talk about. Right. And this is something like we want Rhaenyra to know this.

To know that her father didn't change his mind. To also know that Allison isn't lying, right? And we want Allison to have to confront the fact that she fucked up. 100%. Yeah. Well, semi-confront. We got this email from our listener, Maddie. Confront and then tuck away. Who says...

She now, Alison, she now has lost the one and only excuse to assuage her own guilt for her part in usurping the throne. I find this ultimately far more interesting. So much of this show is built on complex relationships and emotional responses to the cascading sequences of events in season one. I can't wait to see how Alison spirals from here, knowing that she can't lie to herself any longer. Yes. When you can say, well, I did my duty. Yeah. But did you?

The Conqueror. The Conqueror. The choking out of the Conqueror is just absolutely exquisite. Actually, let's hear that exchange and then we'll talk more about what unfolds here. Steve, can we hear this clip? What did he say at the end? Did he speak my name? He was wary. It was hard at times to understand. But he spoke Ekon's name. He said he was the prince that was promised to unite the realm. What? I desire peace as you do, but to be set. Did my father use those words? The prince that was promised? Did he? Yes, he did. He...

spoke to you of the Song of Ice and Fire. It's a story he once told about Aegon the Conqueror. The Conqueror. So...

Good. That sequence of this conversation begins with this almost desperate searching of Allison's face, the way that Rhaenyra is looking at her after, like, saying, Allison says, I've, because you lied, right? I've been unkind, but never untrue. They are each so deeply rooted and steeped in the thing that they believe is real. Yeah. And that

I mean, just the look on Rhaenyra's face as they launch into this stretch of the conversation. And then they make this misunderstanding that we've been talking about for episodes on end and two years now. An active text. A conversation between the characters. Which was just a shock and a delight. Because as we've been discussing all season, not everybody agrees with this and that's totally fine. But like for us, this...

deeply human failing across characters, a mistake, a misunderstanding. Maybe you think you can control something that you can't, like your dragon. Maybe you think it's too late to fix something that is it or is it not? Well, that's the text of the episode. This heightens the tragedy of the dance.

I absolutely love it. We were just talking about this idea of prophecy and misunderstood prophecy. In a sense, Alison has misunderstood a prophecy. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. She didn't think she was receiving a prophecy. Right. But she was. But whatever it is, she misunderstood it. And again, this is like a constant in George's writing. I like this idea. I was thinking of Melisandre, right? And this quote.

Many a priest and priestess before her had been brought down by false visions by seeing what they wished to see instead of what the Lord of Light had said. That idea of like, did she want to hear? Right. Aegon. It's Aegon. Yeah. Not Rhaenar. Like Viserys with his dream, right? Exactly. Born wearing the Conqueror's crown. What he wanted. I mean, yeah. Wrong Aegon. Wrong kid. Wrong wife. Wrong all of it. The dream has like this just...

Just a reminder, we've said this a million times, but just as a reminder, the dreams of Targaryens are so important because it's the very reason that they exist at all. Dany's the dreamer saying, let's get the hell out of Dodge on our dragons. Let's skip the doom. Seems boring. Honestly, seems kind of hot. I don't want to stay. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Hate being hot. Love being wet. Yeah. Ocean Vista. Let's go.

Let's go to Dragonstone. So that's the reason Targaryens are alive. So this idea that like a lot of people put stock in dreams, but the Targaryens are like, no, but really. And not just alive, but why they are the great power in the world when there were legions of dragon riding families in Old Valyria that were destroyed because they didn't escape. And I just think it's so worth reiterating something that we've been talking about again and again and again, which is the idea of like, Alyson starting from a genuine, it's one choice to say,

And I believe her, mostly, that she genuinely misunderstood Viserys in his final moments. Mm-hmm.

The decision she makes here is different. Absolutely. It's not, oh, I genuinely thought it. It's, oh, it's too late. It's too late. And so that is our character, you know, being pushed a little further along an arc. And similarly, Rhaenyra. How is Rhaenyra going to react to this? Like, it's too late? I made my bid and now it's too late? Where do I go from here? And I'm just relishing watching these women pushed along this arc in the way that, like,

We hope when George R.R. Martin writes all of his books, we're going to understand Daenerys on an arc. Yes. From liberator of people to destroyer of King's Landing. Yes. You know, how if you read the Duncan Egg books, which you should, we can understand Egg who becomes King Aegon and does something terrible.

as king. So what does it mean to go from egg this squire that we love to this awful Targaryen? He's not an awful king, but he does an awful thing, right? And so I just, I love that we're getting to explore that

And it's a different experience than just being served up someone like Ramsay or Joffrey who are just sort of like presented to you as like little monsters. You know? Yeah, definitely. Like, here you go. These are horrible people. Yeah. Or even Cersei. Cersei, I think, is a similar case. We just caught her towards the tail end of her arc.

But we get these little moments and clues about how Tywin treated her or how Robert fucked her and called Leanna's name out or all the things that put Cersei in the mold that she got. And we got her from...

Pretty bad person who was like, let's kill the other dire wolf. I don't care which dire wolf. Like, that's how we meet her, essentially. Or, like, fucking your brother and being okay with pushing a kid out of a window. Pretty bad. But goes way worse from there, let's be clear. And so, like, but what would the story have been like if we had met, I mean...

Cersei always bullied Tyrion, so I'm never saying she was a great person. But if we had seen every step along the way, what would our relationship with Cersei be like? So what a gift. Right. However annoying the time jumps might have been in season one, what a gift to be with these women. And what a gift to be given this different depiction of them versus especially how Alicent is portrayed in the book. Yeah. I just really admire it. Beautiful point. The Cersei...

The Cersei compare and contrast is a fascinating one because it also, it does, we can think of it through the lens of this episode of like, what was the origin, right? Exactly. Is it when her mother dies? Right. Is it the fact that Jaime got to do things she didn't even though they were twins? Is it, you know, I'm thinking now of like another great show invented scene, one of my favorite scenes ever. Black hair boy.

The black hair baby?

Like, was it ever possible for us? And when he says no and then says, like, does that make you feel better or worse? What is her response? Like, it doesn't make me feel anything at all. Like, that's where we find her. She's already in the it doesn't make me feel anything at all. And then her kids start dying, et cetera. So, like, where in that stretch of terrible tragedy did it become the it's too late moment for Cersei? And we can think about that for all of these characters. So it's a beautiful point.

The show's been great. Great season. Great season. Wild stuff. I can't believe we only have five left. Sad. Sad. It's been three. We only have five left. It's too fast. I don't want it. I don't want it to be over yet. My goodness. And then the Rings of Power will be around the corner. I know. That's exciting. Wig watch? Let's do it. Will you wear wigs?

I'll just quote one of our listeners, Bradley, who sent us an email and said, I know there will be some talk about Kristen Cole's terrible new haircut. And I just need to note that I love it. It's awful. And I love it. Doesn't he deserve it? Kristen's got away with being too hot with his hair in the past season and a half. It's high time his hair reflected how shitty of a guy Kristen is. Also, Fabian Frankel's still so hot that he somehow makes it work. I disagree with that last sentence.

Not that Fabian Frankel isn't extremely attractive, but he's not making this haircut work as far as I'm concerned. But yes, doesn't he deserve a shitty, dorky Caesar cut that lets us all know? It's just like such a naked, visible act of like desperation of like, I got to look right for the part and the haircut's terrible. Take me seriously. Perfect. It's great. I love it. Incredible touch.

Okay, it is time for the book spoiler section, which means if you do not want us to, if you do not want to hear us talk about things that are still to come in the story and speculate about how what we saw in this episode connects to what's to come, this is where you leave us. Bye.

No time for amusements, Thailand. Okay, it's the book look ahead. Where do you want to begin? I just want a quick moment before we get into these specifics to ask you a broader question that I've been thinking about. Yeah. Which is, does how much we know about what's coming? I'm usually a like, I don't care what I know. But I'm just curious, does how much we know is coming...

impact the way in which you're investing in any characters? Are you holding back on anyone? Because I think it's a different prospect of thinking about Rhaenyra, a character that I actually do care a tremendous amount about. M. Darcy, incredible. And I also know that Rhaenyra will go on to do horrible things that I don't agree with. And also, spoilers, if you haven't seen Game of Thrones or whatever, will wind up getting roasted by Aegon's dragon, right? Yeah.

That's different than watching Daenerys' story not knowing where it's ending and thinking you're watching a hero's journey and actually you're watching a tragedy. Yeah. Does it impact the way that we invest in, like, someone like Jace knowing, like, the Battle of the Gullet is around the corner? Yeah. Or is it? Or is it? I still think Gullet belongs in this season. I think it's next season for sure. But, yeah. Yeah. Um...

I, it's a good question. I think my answer is no, it's not inhibiting my attachment to anyone. And I think actually I'm having kind of the opposite experience with the show, which maybe is just the product of the nature of this adaptation with the type of text that's being adapted. Yeah. Because,

We know Rhaenyra's fate, but there's so much that we never got to see. There's so much that we never got to experience and watch and see how it impacted that character. So I'm finding the show experience is actually heightening my connection to the characters and enriching the connection to the characters. And then there are just, in addition to, like, things we're learning or seeing that we didn't glean because they—we didn't get to glimpse because they didn't make the histories—

There's just so much more time, right? Like, we've talked a lot about how Alison and Raniere are so backburnered for so much of the story and that are the central protagonists of this tale. But we think of something like the seeds so far, you know? Like, Ulf is here. Hugh is here. Adam's here. Right?

Nettles is where. Nettles is where. But I was thinking back to like when we did one of our mailbag questions in the preview pod and we were trying to put a Lord of the Rings character into this universe and I suggested Charlie Vickers for Hugh and we were like, but would Hugh get enough screen time? And now I'm like, maybe he will, you know? And so we're just like learning new things. We see Hugh's family. We understand what Hugh's job is like. Yeah, I mean, that's... Yeah, I think I'm having... Yeah, I'm not having a... I'm not feeling like, oh, I can't...

I can't love them because they're going to leave me. I think I find myself there a little bit with like someone like Jace. Like I need a little bit more. I thought they did, you know, like him on the wall, him coming back and being upset and reporting to Rhaenyra. Like that stuff was really good.

Jace isn't angry in his Order of the Phoenix era teen. Like, it's not my favorite. But stuff like all the Rhaenys stuff. That's been good. Knowing where we're pretty sure we're saying goodbye to her next week. That, oh, that stuff is really hitting for me. Yeah, it's anguish-inducing to know that we have to say goodbye soon. Speaking of, the Rook's Rest set up...

I thought it was so clever for her, for the button of that scene to be her concern for losing Corlys in the war. Yeah. When, like, we all know that she's going out. Yeah. Heartbreaking. Next week. But that was such a clever way to not, like...

Put your foot on the gas for the audience. You know, if Corlys had been like, if Corlys had been the one to be like, I could lose you any day. And then Rhaenys is like, well, I'm off to this battle of rooks rest. I'm sure everything will go fine. Audience would be like, oh, shit. But right now, probably some people who are avoiding spoilers at home are worried about Corlys. Yes. Yeah. I am trying to figure out.

You know, the next week on, we see a lot of dragon action. We see Rhaenys and Maelys. So if Rook's Rest is where we think it's going to be, I am trying to figure out what will lead Rhaenys to flying into battle when she has been the most...

proponent of a more passive course? Like, is it going to be that she... Did it require something like this? Like, Rhaenyra's like, I went? That? Or is she doing it to protect somebody else? You know? Like, I'm fascinated to see how they make that work. Like Bela or something like that. Yeah, in like one episode. Burning Mill. Burning Mill Fallout. Just for one step,

one step closer to my guy, Bloody Ben, joining the party. And as you know, I cannot wait. But no Black Alley. Very sad. No Black Alley was upsetting. I feel... Black Alley, we should say, is just like a kick-ass Archer character. Yes, kick-ass. And like, you know, we talked about how we can't believe that our guy Craig is not coming back this season, but we hope we'll eventually. Like, we've

We've got a love match to make, you know? Hard to do it if no characters are in the show. So stay tuned for that. Tesserian we already talked about. This feels like this line in the episode kind of helped...

clarify what Condal had said in the press, we were confused by him saying that Tessarian wasn't flying size yet, but we get that, like, near fighting age. So it does feel like they're just biding their time until season three. But if you're only doing two...

Yeah. This is the question. This takes Honeywine off the table for this season. Honeywine's off as a battle where Tessarian, Darren shows up on Tessarian and saves the day. We're not doing that battle this season. Feels impossible now. We don't think we're doing the Battle of the Gullet. Right. Because... Still strange to me, but yes. Uh...

Like, the blonde babies are going to the Vale and could just, like, chill there for a while. Because the Battle of the Gullet happens, again, I'm just saying this for people who haven't read the book and don't know. Like, it's Jace going off to rescue his brothers from, like, the triarchy on the water and stuff like that. So do you think then that gay abandon, Viserys being taken, Aegon's flight, charting the course toward the Dragonbane,

Is all of that next season? They don't head out for Pentos until next season and then maybe they're like mysteriously, magically older? Older? No, I say they go to the Vale. They're going to the Vale. And they hang out. I say when we come back next season, there's going to be some older blonde kids. Yeah, they'll just make them older without much time having passed. Well, I also just don't know how much time they're going to be spending because the dance is three years, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. Thereabouts. Yeah.

So, you know, we had thought, like, no more time dumps or whatever. But if they slightly beef up and expand the time, they have to. Those blonde babies are still babies. And if, like... Well, Joff, too. Like, Joff being six doesn't really make sense. They have a lot of action to do in that battle in terms of dragon riding, hiding dragon eggs, talking ourselves out of being, like, killed. And, like, those, with love and respect to those babies, I need older children to do that. You know what I mean? I think the eventual...

The eventual Joff-Cyrax sequence, I think he also just has to be a little older. Maybe that works if he's really young and reckless. Battle of the Gullet, Battle of Honeywine, two major battles. And this, probably the taking of King's Landing. Yeah. All shoved into season three. So then you think, does Fish Feed move up? Right. Is that the second battle? We have seen Lannister forces in the trailer. Yeah.

My brother Jason is raising a great army in Casterly Rock. In a matter of weeks, he will be able to harass the Blackwoods from the West. So a Lannister, a big Lannister battle. We know the Lannisters. Jason Lannister doesn't survive. Is that the big... But I don't think it's like... But given that Geeta is directing the finale, I don't think a battle is what ends the finale. Right. So maybe that's episode seven? Right. What makes sense to me about that, on the one hand, it's like a lot of...

non-primary characters, right? But it's a payoff for a primary location, for the Riverlands being, like, the spot of the season. And, you know, obviously they can get other figures in the mix, but it doesn't have quite the, like, Jace at the gullet

No. Plus the... But that moment, I think, is going to be... Yeah. It's two things. It's Rhaenys at Rook's Rest, and I think the sewing, like the dragon riders and the sewing. That's the other thing about the gullet moving that is just... I'm still trying to wrap my head around those. Like, the gullet is their first real foray. The seeds. We make the sewing a huge consequential part of the second season, and then they...

Do what? And then they ride out in season three. They toast each other at the table at Dragonstone, which we've seen in the trailer. Yeah, okay. And then we ride at dawn in season three. Yeah. They ride in season three and Tesserian has grown in season three. Okay. How about the Rook's Rest set up for Kristen? Quickly, Helena...

Says that thing to Allison while she's like standing near a window. I just needed to say that. So like Helena, we should say, winds up falling out a window, throwing herself out a window. It's very mysterious how Helena dies on the spikes of the dry moat of Maga's holdfast. But she goes out the window. Is she pushed? Neil on Travel by Content has this big Helena got pushed by Kristen Cole theory.

because she saw what she saw. I don't know. I don't like it, but Neil likes it, and I love to encourage Neil's crackpot theories. But, like, is whatever sends Helena out the window, could it somehow be conceived as Alison's fault? And if it is, is she pre-forgiving her for that? Tough. Heavy. The condition of motherhood is what? Smisery? Sadness. Sadness? Yeah. Great. Boy. Okay.

Chris and Cole. Yeah. Speed is my ally. I will turn the Crownland Houses who declare for Rhaenyra to our cause. We will add their numbers to our own and then turn west where I will enlist the Brackens to do the Riverlands and take Harrenhal. Well, just going to turn the Crownland Houses to Rhaenyra's cause. Going to do some of that. Going to do some of it. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So he's going to get the Crownland Houses. He's going to go to Rook's Rest. He's going to... So it seems like Aemond has not been informed yet.

Yeah. About this plan. Vhagar will remain here to defend the city. Right. So because of the frozen coin, did you read that as Kristen is saying something that he and Aemon have not synced up on? But it feels like later Kristen's going to be like, we're going to tell everyone you're going to stay here, but secretly you're going to show up. And that's how we lure Rhaenys on Maelys. Rhaenys shows up to Rook's rest on Maelys because they think it's just that fucker Kristen Cole.

And then surprise, Vhagar is there and surprise, Sunfire is also there. And that brings me to my point, which is Sunfire, Aegon's dragon gets roasted with dragon fire.

Aegon gets his shiny Valyrian steel armor melted into his body. I genuinely can't wait. They spent 20 weeks building this armor that they're going to melt in next week's episode. I'm going the other way with it. I'm saying I'm going like if it's going to be permanently embedded in his arm, you really got to nail it. Okay. You got to nail the design. I like it. I like it. And that also sets up the whole Larys thing. Like Larys...

disability and his bonding with Aegon after, but I think they're really setting up this like Aegon-Larris like close bond connection. Like, Laris has really insinuated himself into that position as being like basically Aegon's only lifeline to the world for a while. Until Laris decides that that is also... He's ready for all occasions. Not for him. Ready to pivot. Not for him. Seasmoke, the sewing side of him. So... Okay, that was more for him. I

Here's what I've decided after many conversations with our colleague Riley McAtee about this that I am hoping for and kind of like, actually. Because we've been like, well, wait. If his rider is alive and they're bonded, he should not accept another rider. It just doesn't make sense. So the show has worked itself into a corner that the canon does not allow. Mm-hmm.

To me, killing Laenor after this whole big thing and just being like, he died. First of all, I'm like, how will they find out? How will they know? But like, also, it just feels— What if they know because he smoked bonds with someone else? Maybe, but then it's like, why do it? Why do it? To keep Rhaenyra's hands clean.

But Renée— She didn't kill her nice gay husband. She let him go— But in the book, she doesn't kill him. He and Carl have just like a quarrel. There was a way to— If that's the only reason, there's a way to have him die in a different fashion. Frankly, frankly—

With love and respect to all the brilliant people who worked on House of the Dragon, I think they didn't realize that they backed themselves into a C-Smoke corner. That's definitely possible. So, okay, on that front, what I like then is the idea that this can actually be a way to further heighten the mythology of this idea that the dragons are smarter than men, that they know more than we do, and maybe C-Smoke— You want to break the rules of dragon bonding. —decides. I think it can be an evolution. He's like, you chose not to be with me.

Why should I be alone? And how is he going to communicate that? By letting Adam claim him. He's going to look down the camera and be like. When Adam gets on his back. Stroke his goatee and say like, what did you expect? I was going to wait for you forever? What am I, chopped liver? I'm sea smoked. He is going to accept a rider. And maybe it's because he has decided that he should not be alone because he was abandoned. He was abandoned. Talk about gay abandoned. Do you know what I mean? Oh my God.

What else? I think Laenor has died offscreen, and I think it's messy and silly, but I think it's less complicated than, like, let's break the rules of dragonbombing. It's also just, like, the whole point of that emotionally was that Laenor should be able to go live a happy, free life, and then to be like, actually, he died offscreen, it just feels, that feels really lame. Actually, he lived six wonderful years. I hope that's not what happened. Okay. What else? Daemon's death. Well, Rhaenyra says goodbye to baby Viserys.

Whom she will never see again. Yeah. Sad one. Tough one. Yeah. Though, in some ways, frankly, happier for him than what awaits Aegon, I think. You could argue. Tough one for Aegon. Six of one. All right. Daemon's death. This was great. Guess what? Daemon will die there. Being positioned right there on the lip of the god's eye, this was extraordinary. I think that it is...

I think it's always worthwhile to talk about prophecy. I was trying to throw that in there to be like, maybe he doesn't die there, guys. Let's not say that that's necessarily the truth, though he definitely will die there. Just not right now. A ways in the future. Hopefully two seasons. Hopefully by the time you've forgotten that Alice said that once. Danny kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet and you'll kind of forget about what Alice says. Alfred.

What a piece of shit. Can't imagine why Rhaenyra didn't give him the position that he wanted. Why keep him around at all? That's one of the things that it's almost like stretching too far into insubordination. I would fire half that council. Or kill them. Wow. Right? Okay. Well, we know what Daemon would do. I mean, Viserys was like, if you say this thing, I don't want you to say it one more time. I'll take your tongue. Daemon's cutting heads off.

I don't know. Not the worst thing for Rhaenyra to experience. Be a dragon. Be a dragon. Are you a sheep or a dragon? Thank you, Olenna. Thank you. What else? Let's see. An heir who knows the sea. Come on in, Alan. Okay, well, here's two things that I think are interesting. One, like, do you think Corlys is already thinking about Alan when he's like, no, not Joff. No, not blah, blah, blah. Interesting. No.

Maybe subconsciously, but I don't think he's consciously thinking about this yet because the way that he and Alan interacted, it certainly gave us the sense that Corliss knows that that's his bastard son. Alan knows that that's his secret father. We hear Alan and Adam talk about it. They all know. Secret father. But it's not acknowledged. Correct. And so there is...

shame and Corlys is... It seems apparent that he is, like, hiding from this lapse, this thing that he has done that he is ashamed of. So if he's intending to make him heir, he has to be ready to, like, confront something with Renise that it seems like he is not ready to confront. We're just on... We're on double heir talk watch with Corlys. Yes. Daenerys' eggs, last but not least. Here's where I'm going to introduce...

a pretty common theory that I don't know how I feel about, right? Because the dragon egg math is this. If one of those eggs is Viserys's, then...

And then you believe one of those eggs is mourning. Well, I mean, the theory that you're... Share the theory, because... Yeah. I'm a fan of it, and we talked about it on a couple of the trailer pods. We did. This idea that Reyna, who wants to be a dragon rider, isn't a dragon rider, is going to take the place of this character called Nettles, the girl Nettles, who claims Sheepstealer, a wild dragon. And until this episode, that was what I thought was going to happen. And now I don't think that makes sense anymore. No.

Well, here's the question. What if Sheepstealer is eating sheep in the Vale?

Because we've heard a lot about the small folk and they're like, we've got a sheep problem. These dragons keep eating our sheep. That's true. So what if she's in the Vale, she gets some cool scenes with Jane Aaron, but also while she's there, she claims sheep stealer. Yeah, could happen. I have really liked, because I think that conversation between Lena and Reyna in Pentos in season one, where she was basically like, you have a harder path, but so did I, and I claim Vhagar. I felt like it was moving toward acclaiming. I agree. I think it's a better story if she never...

has a dragon because mourning is like is and isn't you know what I mean but like because I like this idea of like it there are different kinds of strength yeah you know like I think that's a really beautiful idea yes conservation of characters though if we've got a character who is potentially Nettles is either Damon's

or his paramour. Again, once again, our pal David Jacoby is like really invested in that theory that Nettles isn't a dragon seed at all. Yeah. A lot of, I think it would suck for Nettles to not be in the show. That's the other thing, right? So like, I hope Nettles is still arriving and maybe on delay. Maybe there's a phased sewing. Maybe we have the initial sewing and then there's a later claiming and a later like solidifying of the ranks. I could definitely see Nettles being a season three character. Yeah. Like 100%.

So then that, here comes the dragon egg math again. So the mourning then, the blue egg is mourning and that is Reyna's sad little dragon, right? Because at first I was like, oh, the blue egg is Viserys's egg. But it's not, if mourning is in the story and one of these eggs hatches, the blue egg has to be mourning, which means Viserys's lost egg becomes one of Dany's dragons. So it's like Viserys lost three eggs. Fascinating. And I guess that makes sense that when he loses his egg-

Yeah. This was not a dull affair. There were plenty of murders. I guess that, like... Because at first I was like, well, wait, when he loses his egg, how... But then maybe he just has all the eggs with him on the ship and they're all taken. They could make it work. I don't quite... The other thing is, like, I don't know why this is actually...

I don't know why they said anything. Because, like, part of what that does is it puts a cap on what the eggs can become inside of this show. Yeah. Which I think is a mistake. I agree. Especially given all the talk about unclaimed dragons and eggs. It's like, if three of those become Danny's eggs, regardless of whether Morning is born, only one of them can come into play in this story. And that just feels like a weird cap to put on that potential. Very odd. If it were me, I would not have said it.

But that's not where we are. No, no. Okay, that's it. We did it. An edit is coming and it will be savage beyond all compare. Thank you to our small council. Steve Allman, as always.

for producing this episode. John Richter on the video production for this episode. Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomie and Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. We will see you on Thursday for our Acolyte episode six. God, already six? Deep dive. And then Sunday night, right after Hot D episode four. Yeah. Full disclosure, that might be like a medium dive because of the holiday. It's a little complicated.

I just want to go light. There you go. Until Thursday and then until Sunday, we assure you our producers will not begrudge us a night of comfort. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs.

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