The ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Preview Mailbag
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Isn't a leader strong enough to unite them? Do you accept me as your queen and ruler? 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 Westeros, but also to House of R's new-ish, ish, ish. Very, very ish.

Podcast feed. Joining me today, reminding me that we must play the board before us, which is full of mailbag questions today. It's Joanna Robinson. What's up, my babies? We're in the endgame now. It's House of the Dragon time. Are you excited? Are you ready, Mallory?

Am I excited? Absolutely. Am I thrilled, overjoyed, consumed with anticipation? Yes. Am I also just a walking ball of stress as always heading into a new throne season? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Look what's taking up permanent residence on my desk. It's beautiful. It's the old doorstopper itself, fire and blood. There it is. I love it. Great text. Love a fictional history.

Love going to Westeros. Love potting with you. Here we are. We're back. We're going to answer mailbag questions today, Joe. We are just a couple weeks away from the premiere of Hot D season two, and we thought it would be fun to hear from the bad babies about what's on their mind on the eve of this next season of House of the Dragon as we return to

land of ice and fire. But before we unspool whatever scrolls arrived via Ravenleg, we gotta hit the early call today. Programming reminders, because it is a busy time. The summer of contentmageddon is upon us. It is here at last. Here's what's cooking. Over on the ringerverse. The Midnight Boys. Pew pew! Pew!

We'll be with you tomorrow, Wednesday, for their instant reaction to the two-part Acolyte premiere. The Acolyte begins this week. Episodes one and two are dropping together, and the boys will have their instant reaction to both. Over on the House of R, we will be back on Friday for our deep dive into the two-part Acolyte premiere. Where you might be wondering is the oft-mentioned, never recorded nor aired, Paula Fiennes.

What a phenomenal question. What a cogent and timely question to be asking us. Once again, I was stricken by illness. On the eve of a Hall of Fame, it is starting to feel like...

Now it's a bit. Yes. And so when will the Paul of Fame air? We can't say. And here's the thing. I think at this point, while we cannot wait to do the pod and are genuinely looking forward to it, and we'll do it, definitely, we're probably not going to say when we plan to do it until we actually have recorded it. Because we've been, like, tempting the gods and fate by announcing it again and again. Exactly. Hooks of plenty await us, Jo, you know? Oh, yeah. There's Oscar season. The one-year anniversary of David Bowie. The one-year anniversary. Perhaps.

Perhaps Dune Prophecy hit a max sooner than that. I'm sure. I'm sure. Timothy Chalamet has a birthday at some point. Anyway, point being this. I just want to make it very clear that Malarubin did try to convince us she was able to record this episode. I did say, hey, pal, you recently potted through a head injury.

And she was also like, but also I feel like I'm dying. And so Steve and I were like, listen, Paul will wait. He'll wait in the desert for us. I'm sorry. I really feel bad. This is a bummer. We really want to do the pod. We can't wait. We will do it because Dune is eternal. The house of our Hall of Fame is eternal. And at some point, Paul Atreides Muad'Dib, who is Usul, will be inducted. When? We'll all find out together. Okay.

Okay, Jo, how can the people follow along? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked. First of all, before House of the Dragon kicks off in earnest, I really do recommend you subscribe to this podcast. We will be doing House of R twice a week and Talk the Thrones also. So there will just be a lot of opportunity to listen to us talk about some of your favorite nerd properties. Star Wars, House of the Dragon, it's all happening. Listen. So subscribe to the pod. What a great idea.

Also, follow us on social, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, on X. I don't call it X. I call it Twitter, but you do you. Where you can see what we're up to, vote in brackets that are going on, all that sort of stuff. So that's a good idea. And then last but certainly not least, now is the time to get your dissertation-length emails into us.

and dragons at gmail.com. That is the email that fed our mailbag today. And we'll be feeding a lot of our house, the dragon coverage going forward, not to mention our acolyte coverage, which we're also very excited about. So hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. That is where you can send your Ravens directly to us and join the conversation about house of the dragon season to stressed Mally Rubin dragon scream insert here. Yeah.

I can't wait. Truly cannot wait. You know what else I can't wait for, Jo? What's that? I can't wait for Talk the Thrones Live, which we're doing this summer. We have mentioned the Ringer residency, which is a six-

event extravaganza here in LA at the El Rey Theater this summer. But this is a House of the Dragon mailbag episode, so we want to specifically say we are doing a Talk to Thrones live event on Tuesday, June 25th at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. You'll be there, Joe. I'll be there.

The dragon has three heads on Talk the Thrones, which means Chris Ryan will be there. Will some special guests join us? Probably. Who can say? It's going to be a blast. We're going to have fun in Westeros together. So if you have not yet gotten your tickets for Talk the Thrones Live, head to theringer.com slash events. You can find your link there for the event. You can find more info on Talk the Thrones Live, on all of the other great Ringer residency shows, including...

A ringer verse live on July 17th. So yeah, we really hope to see you for talk to Thrones live just a couple of weeks into hot D season two. It's going to be a blast. Um, do you remember that time that, uh,

The cast of Saved by the Bell went to Hawaii and they filmed a special and it was called Saved by the Bell, Hawaiian style. Of course I remember. Yes. Right. Yes. So I'm here to tell you that since I will be in LA all summer to participate in all the Talk of Thrones and House of R shenanigans, this is like...

House of R LA style for me. Like I'm having a Los Angeles adventure this summer and I hope you guys come and see the live shows and be part of it because make my Los Angeles experience as delightful as it can be. How many of your green pens will you be bringing with you to LA? Well, there's the one that's currently in my hand and

I don't know. I think 15 might last me. 15 pens. Yeah. Through the summer. Don't you think? You're bringing 15 pens. How many pens would you bring if you were going somewhere for two months and you were working? Literally zero. Probably zero. Zero? Yeah. I would then secure some on the ground, but I don't know that I would bring any with me. Perhaps one. I have...

I have multiple green pens in my bag at all times. Like on your person at all times. Yeah, yeah. Just love knowing this about you. One actually exploded in my bag when I flew to Austin. You know what can't do that? The notes app on your phone. Yeah, yeah. And I got green ink all over my hands and I had to do a panel in Austin with green ink all over my hands. Nobody said anything, but I noticed. So, you know. Yeah.

Joe looking like she robbed a bank. Oh boy. This is great. Listen. This is great stuff. I'm sure that everyone who did notice, they felt like they didn't need to speak or acknowledge it because it was assumed that it was a commentary on the green apple preference in the Apple Wars. Will that be coming up momentarily? Who can say? Who can say? Listen, we do have some Apple Wars content coming up at the very top of the mailbag. Before we get to the mailbag, we have to, of course, issue our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, Joanna. And

And here it is. It's the same one as is basically always in place for our House of the Dragon pods. Of course, throughout, we will be referencing everything that has already happened in House of the Dragon. So anything from Season 1, fair game today, of course. Anything that has been featured in a trailer for Season 2, casting information, marketing information for the new season, etc., that's all fair game. We're not going to talk about anything from Season 2 because we haven't seen Season 2, but we're going to speculate and look ahead because this is a preview pod.

We will incorporate nuggets from Fire and Blood, the text, the source text, throughout. But through the bulk of the podcast, that will simply be context, history, lore insights. The only area in which we will be getting into future plot spoilers will be the end of the podcast. We have a couple mailbag questions that are more book spoiler-centric. Those will be sectioned off. We will issue another spoiler warning next.

right before we get to those questions so that you will have a chance to dip if you don't want to hear those. Okay. Any other programming reminders? I don't think so. We're like 15 minutes into the pod. That was probably enough on the programming reminders front, yeah? Just great to be back together. Positively zippy. I know, I missed you. I missed you too. At the end of last week. I miss you too. All right. The great houses will come to our pod. It's mailbag time. Steve, give us a call. Our first mailbag question today comes from Chris. I know.

I just need everyone at home to know that through quirks of whatever, the caw is actually very low in our headphones today. Incredibly quiet. It's like a crow is murmuring gently to us. Like, caw, excuse me, caw, you have an email. You know I have to make that first caw actually silent for the listeners now. So if you don't hear us gasp in startlement, it's because the crow is murmuring to us today. So there you go. A gentle whisper. A gentle whisper. Ravens. Not a crow. Ravens.

Chris asks slash says, I've been listening to you both for quite a while now since the cast of Kings and Binge Mode and the great Apple debate. I don't know if that was the exact intonation in Chris's email, but that's what I'm perceiving there. Has been weighing on her parasocial thrumple for the health and longevity of the pod. Long may it reign.

I'm sending a raven to propose that we explore unity apples together. I'm going to quickly pause here and say, if you're listening to this and you're like, is this going to be a House of the Dragon question? It is. Stay tuned. It is. I don't know. I am sending a raven to propose we explore unity apples together. Two examples of red and green modeled apples immediately come to mind. Gravenstein? Steen. Gravenstein? Gravenstein? Gravenstone? Gravenstone?

And Macintosh. That one I feel more confident in. Yeah, crushed it. Before you take your first bite of either, you don't know exactly where it will sit on the sweet tart spectrum. So there's an element of surprise and delight that is not unlike the feeling I get when listening to you both work through your relationship to stories and characters. What an extremely nice thing to say. Lovely. Gravenstein? Is that where we landed?

Gravenstein. Can be found in Sonoma County and Macintosh are available at Gus's Community Market in San Francisco. Wow, that's a very specific local plug right there. Joanna, I implore you to find a few of both and bring them down to Mal for a taste test next time you're in person potting. I'm also happy to gather up some prime Unity apples and hand them off to smuggle in a question to make this mailbag worthy.

Who do we think will be the unity apples of next season of Hot D and the Dragon Wars to come? Okay, so Joanna, that's a very regionally driven apple question for you. Yeah. You can answer that. You can share your thoughts on whether you'll be bringing some with you this summer. And then on the who will be the unity apple of next season of Hot D...

I have some thoughts. It's up to you how you want to interpret that. It can be from the perspective of other characters in the story. It can be from the perspective of us as viewers at home. What's on your mind here? I wonder if we're going to have the same pick here. Oh, interesting. Well, first and foremost, let me just say, I love that Gravenstein Apples got brought up here. I recently moved back to Sonoma County to the lovely hamlet of Sebastopol, one of my favorite places on the planet. And I think it's a great place to live.

They have they literally have a Gravenstein apple fair every August in Sebastopol. And not only that, when I worked when I used to work at the Copperfields bookstore downtown, they would just put out huge crates of Gravenstein apples at the front of the store that you could just have. You don't have to pay for them. They were just there.

And the reason that gravestone apples are so plentiful around the area is because they are gross. Oh. Gravestone apples are... Jeez. I was just going to say, is that why, like, were they given them away for free? Because they had been befouled and corrupted by the presence of some green. But, uh...

Didn't want to be rude. I think gravity and apples are like more of a cider apple than they are like an eating apple. I think that's true. I could be wrong. They're good for something. I know that. True. But I don't think it's for eating. And that being said, I do like a Macintosh apple. I think a Macintosh apple is good. And those are more widely available. You've had a Macintosh. Those are available all over the place. So we could call Mac...

I love a Gravenstein for the nostalgia of where I currently live, but not actually to eat. But I think a Macintosh is a nice Unity Apple. Okay, moving on to dragons. Who's the Unity Apple of Hot D? So the real Unity Apple of Hot D was Viserys, right? He was the Unity Apple keeping the two sides just barely in check, right? That was King Viserys. But guess what? He's dead, so...

And then I have a couple of different answers. I think that, like, I feel like the fandom will be united in their love for... I expect Aemon Targaryen to become a fan favorite even more so this season. Like, I really feel like this is going to be Aemon Targaryen ascendant. As you know, he's my favorite maniac. And I think he's soon to be everyone's favorite maniac. Yeah. Uh-huh. So I think, like, in the fandom, I feel like Aemon's going to have, like, a really good year is my guess. But...

And then there's like a new Stark coming. I think that's going to be exciting for the fandom. Of course, yeah. Love a Stark. You can decide if this is spoiler or not, but there's going to be witchy stuff coming that I think is going to be really exciting. But I think the real Unity Apple, the one person that both Team Green and Team Black would be like, I like them...

And they're worthy of protection is Helena Targaryen. Okay. Everyone likes Helena, right? Like, I think that's just true. And, like, when you look at the dinner scene...

that happened at the end of season one. Helena's like the only one who's not like causing a ruckus. I mean, you know. So, yeah, Helena Targaryen, Unity Apple of House of the Dragon. Great pick. Who doesn't love to hang out with somebody constantly dispensing little kernels of...

Prophecy and bugs. Prophecy and routinely caressing the many spindly legs of a nearby bug. I would say the prophecy is the green apple and the bug is the red apple, and that's the Unity apple that is Helena Targaryen. A little prophecy, a little bug. That's a great pick. So I'm going to go with a new character. I thought you were going to pick this character. Well. Here we go. I'm going with the, this is like for the viewer's lens. Yeah.

I'm going with our guy, Freddie Fox, joining the party as Gawain Hightower. I thought you might pick him. Difficult for me to imagine. I just hope that he's in it as much as we want him to be. So this is the thing. We're not going to get into any particulars about the role that Gawain plays in the story.

I think the question of screen time is a reasonable one based on the book, but also think that through just one season of the show so far, plenty of roles have been expanded or compressed or altered in terms of their vastness, right? Based on the interest of the show running team. So my feeling based on my personal obsession with writing films

as Spider in Slow Horses and King Hugo in The Great is that you don't cast Freddie Fox as Gawain Hightower unless you intend not only to

to make the role, if not like a starring leading role, which I don't think it will be, a role of consequence and impact in the moments that he's on screen. And I think you don't cast him unless you intend to inject levity into the experience through Freddie, right? And so this is going to be an intense story as we make our way through the dance. And I think that

I am curious if Gawain will absorb, again, without getting into any particulars, absorb some of the other book Hightower character plotlines. I think that seems certainly in play and probable.

And that could heighten the screen time. But whether or not you are invested in the Hightowers, whether or not you're Team Green, I think everybody will like watching Freddie Fox as Gawain Hightower on screen and that he will give us a much needed jolt of joy and quirk and, you know,

Hot dumbiness is something that he does pretty well. Hopefully some laughs and some cheer in a very grim story. So that's my pick. That's a good one. I think also Tom Bennett, who's playing Ulf White, like, again, not to go too much into the character, but the actor is, like, incredibly funny. So I do think they've picked a few people to just sort of, like, lighten the mood of some of the things that we're going to be seeing this season on House of the Dragon. All right.

Our next question comes from Rachel. This isn't really a question, Joe. This is just an extremely sweet email that we got that we thought we would use as an excuse to talk about how maybe it's never too late to join the party. Okay. Should we make Steve read this email? Because it's like...

So nice about us. So nice about us. Feels weird to read it. Steve, I'm sending you this. Hold on. Okay. Is this because you don't think I say enough nice things about you in general? No, that's just an added bonus, though, that we get to hear you shower us with praise. Forcibly praise you. We're too modest as a proxy to read this. Is this our love language? Words of affirmation from Steve. Praise via proxy.

You know, I will say Steve. Yes. After every single pod I do with Kai, Kai tells me I did a great job. And I don't know that you always say that to me, Steve. Wow. Steve's like, guys, that was long. I'll do my best to get it up today. This is like when my stepmom's birthday happens and he texts me at eight in the morning, like, be sure to wish your stepmom a happy birthday. And I'm like,

I was gonna, but now that you said that, any time that I say that, it's not... No, it'll still matter to me that you told me I did a good job. With that said, Rachel says, Over a year after season one ended, I saw your breakdown of the dueling Hot D trailers in my feed, and despite having not watched season one, I turned it on for some fun listening. The laughs, inside jokes, and sheer excitement and joy in the breakdown inspired me to finally go and watch Hot D myself.

I've spent the last several weeks watching an episode and even going back to listen to the Talk of the Thrones episodes and deep dive episodes. I could not get enough. I love the show, love the instant reactions, and absolutely loved the multi-hour deep dives. It was all I listened to at work and while doing chores for weeks. Watching Hot D gave me a ton of emotions, sometimes joy, sometimes awe. I was on the edge of my seat and even stunned.

The two traumatic birth scenes particularly fucked me up. But I always kept coming back. After every episode, it kept me wanting more, and I sometimes struggled not to binge several episodes in a row instead of going to bed. I hadn't felt that way about a show in a very long time.

Anyways...

This is all to say that I eagerly await season two and following the pods and look forward to sharing in the excitement, laughs, and probably tears in real time. House of R has reinvigorated my love for the Game of Thrones universe, and I'm going to re-listen to the deep dives because I can't quite leave Westeros just yet. What a nice email. Good job, Steve. Good job, Steve. Great work. Great work. Rachel, thank you, Steve. It's a rocky road. Thank you.

Genuinely so sweet and so nice and really like touched us. And we wanted to share it because it is something we all, we really do like to just remind people and remind ourselves sometimes when like something is airing or people are talking about a book and we're like, oh man, this is a thing that's, is it too late to read Percy Jackson for the first time, right? To just point to a recent experience we had. And it's like, it wasn't and it was great. And so it's,

if Thrones wasn't always for you or you miss season one and you're like, is it, is it too late? 10 episodes, couple of years ago already. People keep talking about this fictional history with unreliable narratives. Never too late.

to join us in Westeros, never too late to find your own way into this world and figure out what it means to you. And so we just wanted to, I mean, maybe you are not listening to this House of the Dragon season two preview. If you are not interested in House of the Dragon, it's possible that we don't need to be saying this here in this particular context. But just in case anyone was like, hey, I'm kind of like, I'm interested, but I don't know yet. We just wanted to extend a warm welcome

welcoming, Westerosi embrace and say that we hope we will see you at the Red Keep, on Dragonstone, Driftmark, all across the realm. And Highgarden.

Casterly Rock. The Wall. Ever heard of it? Oh, man. The Wall. Sheesh. Can't wait. I co-signed that. It was a lovely email. So nice. And yeah, I'm really excited to be back in this world with everyone. And I cannot wait. Same. It's been so fun to rewatch, to start rereading, to just dip back in, to think about the impending season. It really is the most fun thing.

I can't wait. I can't wait. To quiz Chris Ryan on various dragon phenotypes. It's been a good time. We can't phase him. He's ready for our nonsense. He's ready for whatever. All right. Our next question comes from Caleb. This is really, I mean, Caleb sending this particular question to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. It's just...

What's the topic for this email that I put in the spreadsheet, Mallory? The professor is always welcome. Correct. And he is. If you could bring in any of the Lord of the Rings actors, either...

from the Peter Jackson films or from Rings of Power, two hot D, who would it be? Be it replacing an existing actor or adding new characters. Ooh, the new characters are cool. An obvious choice would be to bring in Orlando Bloom to play a Targaryen. But I thought this might be a fun exercise. Okay, Jo, there's plenty of cross-pollination between the Rings and Thrones universes already, right? Yes.

Who has not been in Westeros yet that you would like to welcome, along with all of the people we just welcomed after reading Rachel's email? I know. We can't bring Rob Aramayo back to just be a different Stark. No. No tense. No tense. Okay.

My first instinct. Karen Hines didn't get enough time as Mance Rayder, so let's bring Karen Hines back. Hard agree. Dave Gonzalez was reminding me that a bunch of book readers thought when Mance dies in the show, a bunch of book readers were like, well, that's a fake out, obviously. And it was this longstanding intelligence. It was like, nope, that was it. He's gone. Okay. All right. My first instinct was to go with the great...

Miranda Otto who plays who played Eowyn yeah good pick but um and and was really fun on the uh sometimes good not always great uh Sabrina TV series um

Because I love bitchy older ladies in Game of Thrones, I would really love Miranda Otto to show up. But there are not a ton of bitchy older ladies involved in the Dance of the Dragon, unfortunately. But maybe if we wanted to go back to last season, to second of his name, the Hunt episode, and recast Lady Jocelyn Redwine, who you might have remembered her with her little dog. Just toss Miranda Otto in there to just really...

you know, Lady Olenna ate up in that scene. I think we could have used like even more slicing and dicing from the sneering older ladies of the Hunt episode in season one. So that was my first thought. Also, House Redwyne could come back. They've got a fleet. It's something that we should always be thinking about when we're thinking about a massive war across the continent with a lot of coasts. Speaking of a massive war across the continent with a lot of coasts,

I'm just going to drop some upcoming character names and tell you that I really tried to find some, but could not find anyone to suit them. Joanna Lannister. Mm-hmm. Cast of Rock. We love a Joanna. So, Joanna Lannister. And then Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken himself. But I couldn't find. The Red Kraken, yeah. Shout out. Shout out to Red Kraken. I could not find. Because here's the problem. Yeah.

Thrones is full of like nasty little bastards and rings of power and Lord of the Rings is full of lovely little people. You know what I mean? There's just like, it's the attitude is not really where I needed it to be for a lot of people, but I have one exception. Well, there's a few exceptions, but yeah.

I decided to go, you remember, I know you do, Galadriel's brother, Finrod. Yeah, sure, of the Silver Lake Fade. Of course. Yeah, of the Silver Lake Fade. How could I forget? Will Fletcher, who played Finrod in both the first episode and then the last episode of Rings of Power, the first episode he's playing her brother, the extraordinarily hot and wise elf. In the last episode, it's actually Sauron.

sort of cosplaying as Finrod. I hate when that happens. And so it's a real bummer. And so that actor, Will Fletcher, got a chance to sort of like do this kind of twisted take on a Simi in art. So I was like, that's a nasty little, that's a good looking, nasty little bastard. And that's what we need for House of the Dragon. And so my, where I would put him is

And with love and respect to the actor who's playing them. But I think we could have gone a little harder on the Lannister twins, Jason and Tyneland, in season one. And we'll see them again this season. So I would say maybe I would put Finrod, he of the Silver Lake fate. Because they're supposed to be, the Lannisters are supposed to be like dashing, but...

And I think we just like leaned a little too smarmy and like dorky and not like dashing and shitty, which is sort of what I wanted for the Lannisters. So that's what I would say. Will Fletcher, a.k.a. a hot elf who is also Sauron, as the Lannister twins, Jason spelled exactly as you think it should be, and Tyland Lannister. So you think Jefferson Hall should have just been Hugh of the Vale,

Yeah. And that was enough. Leave it there. Leave it there. Yeah. This is not really anti that actor. It's more pro Will Fletcher. I don't know why I popped my B on that so hard. Anyway, so yeah. Okay. It's a great, it's a great, it's a great pick. I love all of it. I, I'm going fastball down the middle, right to the heart of the heat map here.

I do believe, whether or not we are engaging in a thought experiment for our mailbag, that Charlie Vickers should be in Game of Thrones at some point. See, I agree with you. I was just sort of like, he's busy. He is, to me, the clearest of everything about this Trax, and you actually could cast him in a number of different roles in this show or elsewhere. I think that...

Charlie Vickers, for those who don't watch Rings of Power... Spoiler alert! ...plays a character... Hot Sauron who fucks. He plays a character named Halbrand, who is also Sauron, who will soon be Annatar. So, yeah. The Halbrand hair is a big part of the thronesy vibe. I think particularly, like, gives a... Despite all of the time we spent in the Southlands in season one of Rings of Power, it gives a real northern thrones energy to me. Now...

I don't like to be ageist in my casting thought experiments, but I was like, oh, should Charlie Vickers be, with love and respect to all of the actors who are about to join the party in these new roles, we just have not seen them yet. Should Charlie Vickers be Craig and Stark? But he's not young. He just is not young enough like that. We really need that boy bond. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, you know, that was the pitch from Rhaenyra, right? At the end of season one. I'm just going to call it the boy bond from now on. Bros being dudes, lads being guys. It's like a soul bond, but it's a boy bond. Got it. It's like a boy band, but with a strong accent. Okay. So here's what I'm going to throw out to you. Just boys bonding. Yeah. Okay.

I'm going to name a new character. And again, this is like absolutely no shade at the actor who has been cast, who we have not seen yet in the role. And I hope will be wonderful. And then it will be unthinkable at a certain point that anyone else could have played the role. But just thinking like and I don't really want to get into any details here. So it's sort of difficult to talk about this. But Hugh, Hugh Hammer. Yeah. Charlie Vickers is Hugh Hammer, Joe. What do you think?

I will say to our listeners, if you don't want to know anything about Hugh, don't Google it. It's just a new character who's coming our way, and I think Charlie Vickers could be a great Hugh. The only thing that I would push back on with that is that I actually just want to save Charlie Vickers for an even bigger character.

than Hugh Hammer, which, you know, I actually don't know how much or how little they're going to use Hugh Hammer or whatever. That's not really... But, like, I want him to, like, be in one of the main character in one of the spinoffs or something. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I want for him in the Thrones universe. We have another casting question coming up later, and I had a similar conundrum with that in terms of, like...

Yeah, I'll explain more when we get there. But I had a very clear slice of the narrative universe that I wanted that person to be in, but then didn't feel that any of the roles were going to be ample enough. It's an interesting one in this spinoff era that we find ourselves in. Anyway, whether it's Hugh or a northerner or frankly anyone else.

I would love to see Charlie Vickers in House of the Dragon at some point. Aegon's Conquest. Dunkin' Egg is probably not the energy we're looking for from Charlie, but, you know, plenty of interesting characters. What if he says, you want to hear him say, is Balerion here? Yeah.

Okay, it's sealed. It's sealed. Yeah. Aegon's Conquest. Charlie Vickers. It's done. Done. It's a lock. Well, we're going to have a lot of time on Rings of Power Season 2 to see how well he looks in a blonde wig. So we'll see. Okay. I love it. This season on Naughty Yotta Island. When we were new, they spoiled me. They even gave me a phone. But then, it's like I didn't exist.

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Some models, trims, and features may not be available or may be subject to change. Check with your local retailer for current information. Lincoln and Aviator are trademarks of Ford or its affiliates. All right, our next question comes from Quentin.

Since the show has the acronym of Hot D. We would just like to pause here from reading Quentin's email and say, as we always do, thank you, George R.R. Martin. Thanks, George. Does your genius know no bounds? Thank you. You take your time with Winds of Winter. You gave us that show. And we are grateful.

Who are two people, either from the show or the book, that you would ship regardless of sexual orientation? Or...

Who would you ship with each other based off what you know about the other person? Like, who would Mallory ship for Joe and vice versa? All right, Joe, how are you answering this? Are you pairing characters? Are you giving me a ship? What are you doing here? Why not both, obviously? Okay, so first and foremost, I'm solving the war. Okay. No presh, but I'm solving the war.

and Helena are getting married. Yeah. And we're just fixing the whole war. Yeah. I consider Jason and Helena as well. Do you not ship Eamon and Helena? Actually, they're top of my list is Eamon and Helena. That's the thing.

Eamon and Helena, that doesn't fix the war, though. We have nothing in common. She's our sister. You marry her, then. I would perform my duty. If mother had only betrothed us. I really would have, he said. He's eager to. Eamon and Helena, I do ship it. It's got to be Eamon and Helena. This is really, truly of all the things that signal we're back together.

We're back. It's a throne season. We're shipping a brother and sister. There you go. Incest. Why the fuck not? Is it cousins or is it a brother and sister? Which one do we pick? Okay. Outside of the incest sphere. I'm sorry to take us away from that. Can you please add inside the outside incest sphere to the soundboard moving forward? Thank you. Please. Thank you. Okay. Carry on. Carry on.

It's like, it's similar to the dragon pit. Not, not wholly dissimilar. Okay. Mallory Rubin. Yes. With, and not, not to get in the way of, of a boy bond, but Mallory Rubin with Cregan Stark. I love it. The wolf of the north. Yeah. Because A, we know how much you love wolves and B, like perhaps if you are with a Stark, could you perhaps acquire a dire wolf of your very own? Do you know? Absolutely. It's not, not.

an option necessarily. I have no notes. Yeah. And who am I shipping myself with? Well, I'm so glad you asked. I decided... Beesbury? Alan Beesbury. Yeah. Who is Lyman Beesbury's grandson and heir. Dude. That is who I am. Genuinely and truly.

One of the best and most fulfilling parts of the pod is how we talk about this sometimes in like a very like earnest way and sometimes in more of like a ha ha way. But it's always true. Something about the experience of consuming, I think, will change based on what we have shared. Right. And so rereading Fire and Blood, I just cannot come across a Beesbury story.

of any generation without thinking of you. It's an instant association. I don't know if Alan Beesbury is going to be in Hot D at all, but he does get like a, like an early spicy mention in the section that, you know, the show will be covering. And I was like, they have an option to bring House Beesbury into, back into the conversation where it belongs. I love it. I love it. Okay. I,

I, as mentioned in real time, have Amandine Elena as my character ship. Super normal stuff. Totally fine. Super normal stuff. I have another answer that's like too book spoilery, so I won't get into it here. He's got one eye. She's got a third eye. It all works. It's perfect. I am shipping you with... I've got a couple ships for you. Okay? Okay. Here's the first one. I am shipping you...

with not one, but two Cargill twins, both Eric and Eric. I think that this is probably the only way to solve the... Wait, was that Eric or Eric? You guys really...

need to get acquainted on an intimate level and then we won't need to identify the particular threading on a cloak. Oh, so this is a service ship for the good of the pod. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Cloak's not needed for this ship. What do you think? You into it? No. What's next? Okay. I don't want it.

I am shipping you, perhaps unsurprisingly, with, you alluded to witchy stuff earlier. I'm shipping you with Alice Rivers. You love a witch. I love it. No notes on this one. Yes. This actually feels like a love match. Meant to be. Oh, yeah. And together we will ruin people's lives. Who was this woman? A serving witch who dabbled in potions and spells, says monkey to woods witch, claims sept in eustace. A malign enchantress. Enchantress.

I, as you know, I love a malign enchantress. You do. You do! You love an ocean vista, you love a malign enchantress, and you loathe, loathe a crevasse. A crevasse. Yeah. Okay.

Steve, anything to add? My favorite thing about Alice Rivers in that section that you read is they're like... Maybe she was... I was worried you were going to ship me with Laris, by the way, and then I wouldn't be able to like...

deny my creepy feelings i didn't think i needed to say it i think that was just a yeah an assumed state yeah but like that part that part of the book is like maybe she was a wet nurse to uh lares and harwin or maybe their dad or maybe down the dirt she's been here forever alice rivers a potentially immortal malign enchantress hot ideal dd honestly ideal keeps things fresh

Yeah. Okay. Beautiful. Our next question, Joe, this one is, uh, I'm going to leave this to you. This is really Joe. Yeah. This is from, uh, Michal who wrote in, uh,

I actually wrote in this email when we were covering Shogun, I think, over on Prestige or maybe to Hobbits and Dragons, but resent it for the mailbag. And there's just this quote from Shogun that goes a little something like this. A man may go to war for many reasons, but a woman is simply at war.

which is a real banger. Bars from Shogun, left and right. But in this email, it says, file under bangers from Shogun we should keep in mind during House of the Dragon. This is really a question. I just wanted to pay Shogun back for all the times that I mentioned thrones when discussing Shogun, and I thought I would mention Shogun while discussing thrones. So if you haven't watched that show, you have like,

you know, a week and a half thereabouts before hot D comes back. So you can just ban Shogun in your anticipation period if you prefer and, and then join us. It's a, it's a tremendous show. Wonderful. Thanks for the email. Next. Brittany spelled a way that George R. R. Martin would spell it. Yeah. B R I T T A N I E. Delightful. Love it. Delightful.

I am 100% a book purist and have always made a point to read the book before seeing the adaptation. Hot D is the only time I've willingly put off reading the book, so I genuinely don't know what Damon will do next. But having gone through thrones with a building anxiety as a book reader, who among us?

That was me, not Brittany. I thought this would be a nice change of pace. Curious if either of you have ever approached an adaptation in the same way. Joanna? No. Never? Not once? I can't think of one where I'm like, I'm sure, I can't, I've been thinking about this and I can't think of a single example where I read the book after the thing, like, you know, I have, but like intentionally read the book after. Yeah.

But, you know, something we've said, we've had a ton of people ask us, like, should I read the book or not? And the thing that we always like to point out about Fire and Blood, this particular adaptation, is that because Fire and Blood, as we've mentioned several times, is told from the perspective of multiple unreliable narrators. Shout out Mushroom. Eustace, Munkin, Mushroom, whoever you prefer. Team Mushroom. Yep. I know you are. Yeah.

might be team Eustace I don't know I need to break it all down again but but as we've mentioned many times this is just like a very different kind of adaptation because the story that is woven together in Fire and Blood is so you know full of heresy hearsay etc that the

the version that we're seeing on screen is not always going to track what is in the book by design. So it's not just like a departure because they thought it would make for a better TV show, though in some cases I'm sure that's the point. But like, it's also this idea that like, they're like, this is what really happened. And so you can read Fire and Blood. And by the way, it's only like just a few chapters in Fire and Blood that are being covered in House of the Dragon that Mallory and I have read over and over and over and over again.

But, you know, and not be spoiled on what's to come because they are going to swerve left and right. Who burned this

castle down? Who did that? You know, like if the record is mixed, then, you know, oh, is Laenor still alive? Okay. You know, like there are going to be things that happen in the show that have nothing to do with the book. So I respect, I really respect what Brittany's saying and the very French spelling of her name. Like, I really respect this idea of like, hey, I just thought I would take a, you know, a different approach. But this is just like the one example where I'm like, well, this is the one where like,

You can still be surprised. Absolutely. And yeah, the Laenor callout is a good one because that was, I think, the most like, oh, holy shit, this is just like, this outcome is genuinely different from any possibility presented in the text. But all of those competing narratives, like, not only does it leave open the door for like, what is the true version of events in the sense that then the show is the definitive canon in that sense, but like,

That commentary on how history inside of the world is told is something that extends across the wider throne sphere. Like thinking about, you know, we recently revisited the Thrones finale five years later, Jo. We talked about that on the most recent of our numerous, many, abundant, hot D trailer breakdown pods. We've done three. And on the most recent one, we... Normal. Really normal. Totally normal. Just absolutely normal stuff. Yeah.

On the most recent one, we also revisited the Thrones finale because it had been f***ingly and still impossible to believe five years, half a decade since that aired. And one of the things about revisiting that is you get to the moment where Song of Ice and Fire, the tome is presented. And Tyrion's like, well, you know, are they kind to me? It's like, you're not in there, right? And however you felt about that when you watch the finale, it's like there is that feeling.

amplifying element here. Like, the thing that happened doesn't always make its way into the books. And so that is part of what George R. R. Martin is commenting on as he stitches together Fire and Blood Part 1. For example, neither Mushroom nor Eustace nor Monk nor anyone has mentioned how impenetrable Misaria's accent is. That has not come up once in the Fire and Blood book. You have to watch the show. You have to watch the show. We know. We know.

That was going to be one of my other ships, actually. It was a time-traveling ship of Massaria and Littlefinger because of the ever-shifting accents. A real love match right there. I'm with you on that reply to Brittany's question and just the encouragement again. If people don't want to read it, that's completely fine. We welcome all. We welcome all here. And if you do and you're like, well, I still enjoy the show, you've got a ton of twists and turns in store. That's been one of the really fun parts for us, honestly, of watching it and covering it.

In terms of just the then like the question about have we ever done that? I was trying to think about this as well. When I am covering something, I think this is one of the earliest things we bought. I mean, obviously, the first thing we bought was Draw More Months. Just complete grip on our hearts. Yeah. Let's see. Yes. Our hearts. Our souls. Our minds. Our minds. Yes. And.

Then we bonded over loving a source text, Joe. Loving a source text. And when we're covering something, maybe it's something that we've read many times and have a deep attachment to. If it's not...

It's often something that we try to read. Like, again, this is now my second mention of Percy, but we had not previously read Percy. And like the fact that the show was airing was a really great, we welcomed that as an opportunity. I think we both were also like, we got to read this before the show comes out, but welcomed it as an opportunity to say, here it is. Right. Our, our, our moment at last to dip into this world, the three body problem, same thing. I just read dark matter right before the show came out. Cause I was like, I've, I've,

I want to read this book before the show, et cetera. So I think that's a pretty routine experience for us. I was thinking about like playing last of us in tandem with watching and covering the first season of the show. It's like a slightly different cadence for that kind of experience rather than rushing through the game before the season, trying to kind of pair the gameplay with the, the show, which was a, a unique one for me, but a really fun thing. It,

I was trying to think of all the things we covered on House of R. I think the one that popped into my mind was watching a covering silo not having read Wool, despite having really wanted to read Wool and having possessed Wool and had it on my bookshelf for a long time. Right. And then reading it. Reading it after. Reading it, yeah. Like, reading the beginning of it to try to just get a feel for the language and the prose and the world building and then kind of continue on with the series after that. But it's, you mentioned, of course,

and read that beautiful question about Shogun. And that's the one for me where I've wanted to read Shogun but haven't. And if I had been covering that, no doubt I would have felt compelled, but I didn't. I just watched the show, having not read it and still have not read it. And I got to listen to the Prestige TV podcast with Joanna Robinson and Ron Mahoney and glean all of these insights.

And that was a really fun way to cover the show, which, you know, was Rob was not reading the book and I was reading the book along with the show. And so that was really fun. And Shogun had been on my TBR pile for a long time. So I was really glad to... Also, if you look...

On my bookshelf or in my, you know, digital reader app or in my audio books, it's just full of things that are being adapted because that's just like it is. It is my job, but it's not required of everything outside of like House of Dragons certainly is, but not everything. But that's just how I like to absorb things. And yeah.

You know, I will also, I'll often read things, like I read the A Quarter Thorn in Roses series because there was, like, rumors that Ron Moore would be adapting it or, like, fourth-wing, you know, rumors that it would be adapted. And I'm like, well, I just want to know. I want to have an opinion about casting or whatever. Like, I just want to know even if it's not my usual. Cast Charles Melton as Zayden! Do it! Okay. I'll save it for another pod. Okay. Okay.

All right. Our next question comes from Gregorio. My question is, what dragon would your choice, what dragon would be your choice to tame? If given the choice, apologies if you've answered this before, currently going back to listen to all of the hot D-pods that I skipped in the past. Thanks for getting me through my long night shifts. The long night shifts. Gregorio, what a cool name. Um,

This was such an easy answer for me. Was this tough for you? Only because so many of the possible outcomes are so appealing. It was a thrilling exercise. You and I are not the same, so I'll clear the deck so that you can get into this.

This is easy for me, and it is Seasmoke, because Seasmoke was abandoned-ish by his, you know, rider, Laenor. Very sad. In the book, Laenor is dead, and the show he's alive, but somehow not with his dragon, question mark. Seasmoke, as we were discussing in the Ringer Slack also yesterday...

Has that goatee and what I call the derpy little horns. And he just has like just like a really distinctive face. Incredible Slack exchange with our beloved colleague Katie Baker, who came in multiple hours later and was like, wait, can we go back to the dragon who was described as having a goatee and quote derpy horns?

And she said, respect to the Gen X dragon. So yes, I want the Gen X dragon. We will go have lattes together. Seasmoke and me. Seasmoke is a beautiful pick. A wonderful pick. I consider it Seasmoke as well. Um,

I'm tempted by so many choices here. Obviously, we're going hot D division only here, right? We're not going back to the prior dragons or ahead to, you know. Suck it, Drogon. Drogon. I'm down to two.

admirable restraint. Genuinely. Thank you. I think so. I'm proud of you. Yeah. Was it anguish-inducing to get to two? It was. I would like the opportunity to claim to bond with. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm going to write down on a piece of paper who I think at least one of them is. I feel like you'll be able to guess. I don't think this will shock you. Either of them. But I just want to write it down so that like, I know this is good podcasting, but I just like,

So you can say it, but then I can just prove it. Which of your 30-some green pens are you using? 27. Okay, here are my two contenders. Vegar. Vegar. Which I assume you wrote down. No, I didn't write Vegar down. Vermithor.

Well, shit. You wrote it for two? What did you put down? Before I explain my reasons, who did you pick? I put Caraxes down based on the fact that I got a text from you earlier today about Caraxes' feet. And since you were thinking about Caraxes' deviated septum and his feet, I thought perhaps, you know. I did consider Caraxes. I love Caraxes. I love so many of the dragons. Okay, you wrote down Caraxes. Did you write down a second dragon?

No, I just wrote down Craxis. Yeah, that's a great book. I should have known that you would never miss an opportunity to say Vhagar that way. When we're in person recording, I'm going to pour molten wax in the middle of the podcast table when I say that. When we're in person filming, I'm going to have a little spray bottle and you're going to get a spritz every time you say Vhagar. Like a misbehaving cat. Vhagar.

tell me about your love affair with the bronze fury verb with Thor. I would love to. So I, I, I am tempted of course, by the idea of bonding with an egg in my cradle, I should say, but I did not go that route. Uh, I,

It's just special phrasing, honestly. You know? It's on offer for the Targs. Dragon lore. I am going with my two candidates here share something in common, right? They are dragons who have previous riders. And I love that, you know? The idea of rediscovering and forging a bond together. Beautiful thing. So, Vermithor, the Bronze Fury, written by the Old King.

Jaharis I. I am tempted, Joe, by this symbol of legitimacy. It's appealing to me. It is. It is. You know, get to fly around and say, I'm on the bronze fury, the dragon of Jaharis, the conciliator.

Unridden. Since the old king's death. Old. Large. Second only to Vhagar. Vhagar? In size. Vermithor at the time of the dance. Steve, can you spritz her? No.

It's kind of like warm in here. I wouldn't mind a spritz, honestly. I can't endanger the equipment. That's true. Yeah, you're a pro. Pro's pro. One of the things that I really love about Vermithor, who, of course, we, to remind everyone, we saw in the season one finale, Vermithor is the dragon who Daemon seeks out and sings to. Vermithor got a little lullaby in the season one finale. We have spotted Vermithor in the season two trailers.

Thrilling stuff. One of the things that I loved... Very, like, very beardy. And you love a beard. You love a beard, and this is a bearded dragon. I love a beard. I love a beard. And I love a dragon who is so mighty and demands such respect that you don't even have to inflict violence.

You could just say, have you seen a Vermithor? Have you heard the bronze fury of Yon of Ablance? And that's how you can conduct yourself as you fly about the realm. So one of the quotes, this is from pre, the pre-dance timeline from Fire and Blood that I always love, is Jaehaerys saying, why would I need hostages? I have your word. That is all that I require. But Grand Maester Bennifer, shout out Bennifer.

Heard the words he did not speak. Every man and maid and child in the Stormlands is my hostage whilst I ride him, his grace said, without saying. That's just the vibe I'm going for. So Mallory's like, who can I bully and intimidate with my massive war-friendly dragons? And I'm like, T-Soul and I are going to go on little adventures and have lattes together. And that sounds correct for both of us. Speaking of intimidation.

I would now like to present the case for Vanga. As Neil Miller likes to call her, Granny War Crimes. We podcasted for just genuinely hours upon hours about my feelings about watching, getting to see young Aemond claim Vanga in the back half of season one. It was a genuine thrill and joy to me.

As Otto said to Alicent in episode seven, what that rogue Aemond has done in winning Vhagar to our side, the boy was right. It's worth a thousand times the price he paid.

You don't really need to know anything else. I mean, we can tell you more if you want. You don't really need to know anything else. They are the oldest and largest dragon in the story at this point, Jo. Totally. If your goal is to crush your enemies, I think you have made two fine picks. And I love that for you.

You know, I'm a student of history. This is two days in a row we've talked about your, like, bloodlust and ambition on podcasts. Tune into our Hack Spot over on the Press TV feed. The Hack Spot was a joy. Interesting. Yeah, that is definitely a read on the Hack Spot. It's, yeah, it's funny. It's just, wow, there's really lots of parts there.

Joe, Vhagar was written by Visenya, you know? Fabled warrior. I love it. Written by Balon, the Spring Prince, obviously written by Lena and now Aemond. Like, this is a... This is just a proud line. Okay, so when you and Vhagar... Yeah.

chomp your way through not a bag of Sour Patch Kids, but a young boy and his tiny little butterfly head dragon. I will not harm. A-Rax is fine. But, but. In my version of this A-Rax, I'm like, A-Rax,

But Aemon couldn't control Vhagar. It wasn't Aemon, it was Vhagar. This is why it seems right that I should pick Vhagar. It really just fits in with the hubris of thinking, you know? You're more of a boss bitch than Aemon Targaryen. Not unless I eat it. Great. Actually, I think you are. I do think you are more of a boss bitch than Aemon Targaryen, just for the record. Thanks, buddy. Which dragon do you think Chris would have picked if he had been here with us for this exercise? I mean...

I think he would have remembered Caraxes the most. Yes. Like, that's the easiest to identify. Yeah. But I think maybe once he sees Sunfire, he's going to want Sunfire. I thought you might assume that I would pick Sunfire. No. No. I do love Sunfire. Me too. Steve, do you have a dragon you would want to buy? Yeah, Steve. I'd say definitely Caraxes. Yeah. Yeah.

Did I say it wrong? No, you nailed it. No, no. You nailed it. Should I have said it? Craxies! I mean, always. Yes. Always. Therefore, I said it wrong the first time. When Craxies snakes his wormy little body over the ramparts and intimidates people. Yeah. Great shit.

Wonderful stuff. The look that we get. Very cat-coded, that one. Oh, absolutely. The look that we would get from Caraxes when the file came in north of three hours. You know? Something to think about. Something to think about. I don't... Steve does not get it, Dragon. I don't want it. Okay. Our next question comes from Christina. Ah!

In addition to House of R and Ringiverse, I also enjoy the comic book couples counseling podcast. The hosts, a married couple, use relationship books to discuss a different comic couple each month. During the Cyclops Jean Grey episodes of X-Men 97, they talked about which of the five love languages applied to them. It got me wondering which applied to Damon and Rhaenyra. So here's my two cents. Rhaenyra.

I think her love language is words of affirmation. I think of how relieved she is in episodes three and eight when her father reaffirms her as heir and how she asked Damon in the season two trailer if he accepts her as queen. It seems like words of support make her feel loved. For Damon, this one's pretty simple. During season one, I joked that it does say LOL, but I couldn't bring myself to say LOL while reading the question. You can just say LOL. LOL. You know, I was once ridiculed,

and scorned on this very podcast for saying loader. And so, uh, well, moving forward, you are so smart. And that's the dumbest thing you've ever said. I stand by it. I know you are, you have the like most incredible brain of anyone I've ever met. And then you also said loader. So, you know, I said it with pride. I said it with gladness and I will continue to do so.

Resuming the email. During season one, I joked that murder was Damon's love language. But now that I'm really thinking about it, his language has to be acts of service. Whether it's beheading or charging into battle. So the murder is still there, to be clear. Damon shows love by being a man of action because he sucks with words and he knows it. Sideways laughing with tears of joy emoji.

And send email. That just sounded 97 years old. It was a tough one. Tough one for us all. Joanna, I would like you to obviously answer the question, but also to tell us, are you a love languages person? Do you study the five love languages? When you got this question, did you know exactly what you were going to say? Or did you, like me, Google what are the five love languages? I do know what the five love languages are. I think that most of that comes from having worked in a bookstore and sold innumerable copies of this book.

So I already knew what they were, but do I, what I call, consider myself a scholar? Do I constantly reference the sacred text? No, I do not. But I think it's a really fun exercise here. I think what's interesting, and this happens all the time,

So the way that Christina wrote this, she sort of wrote the love languages going two different ways in the way that she captured this. This was going to be my question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am not an expert. Should we be answering this like what is the way that Damon and Rina show love to others or what is the way they want to receive love? Because it's often different. Like the way you show love versus the way you receive love is often different. I'm going with receiving love.

for how I'm answering this. I think we can answer this however we want, but what I think is true is that I love the description of Damon's...

acts of service as his love language. But I do think that's how he shows, how he receives is the same as Rhaenyra, I think it's words of affirmation. Yes, I agree. That's my pick as well. This scene from season one between Daemon and Viserys. Yes. Where Daemon says, you've only ever tried to send me away to the Vale, to the City Watch, anywhere but by your side. Ten years you've been king and yet not once...

Have you asked me to be your hand? And Viserys says, why would I do that? And Daemon says, because I'm your brother. And the blood of the dragon runs thick. And Viserys says, then why do you cut me so deeply? Then why do you cut me so deeply is such a good thing. Anyway, so yeah, Daemon's just like, let me serve you, let me serve you, let me serve you, let me do things for you. So yes, that's obviously how he shows. Interesting that you ended the quote before he calls Otto Hightower a cunt.

Okay. It seemed off topic. Oh, man. It seemed not relevant to the conversation at hand. So I think that that is...

I should have started it with Viserys saying, laughing with your whores and lickspittles, which is honestly an iconic Viserys line. I miss Paddy. I know, me too. I'm going to miss him so much in season two. But so, you know, Daemon does just want to serve and serve, but he also wants to be, you know, considered the best, the valuable, worthy of the throne, worthy of the crown, the leader, stuff like that. So, like, when, you know, when he...

And Rhaenyra start their union as like the power couple of Westeros at the end of season two. He wants to do all these things like in her name, but he also wants to be the one to decide what is done in her name. So it's a, you know, he's not just like a,

you know, he's trying to like top from the bottom essentially, you know, and it's like, that's not, it's, it's complicated with Damon Targaryen. And then I think to say Rhaenyra wants words of affirmation, I think is very clear. Do you have a, do you have a sense of like Rhaenyra, like,

How she shows her love? Quality time? I was definitely thinking about, yeah, quality time I like. I was thinking about this for both of them in terms of what they are looking for from others and then did spend a moment reflecting on what it said about me that I thought about love languages through the lens of what other people give us and not what we give to them. And I'll sit with that for a bit later. Okay. Okay.

But yeah, for Damon, I think I'm with you. That scene is such a big reason why. And then like thinking about a moment of reunion between Viserys and Damon in episode seven and Viserys offering him a place, his court. And if that's something you should need, packaging, and then Damon has to reject it, right? Yeah.

I need nothing. Like, not being able to, after that feeling of rejection, admit that that is the very thing he seeks. And then, like, in that same episode, we talked about this for so long in real time, the way that he receives Rhaenyra just saying, I want you. Like, that's just the thing he needs to hear, right? I want you. And...

On and on the list goes, I think, of the evidence to support that. For Rhaenyra, you know, and the question does a great job of outlining specifically, like, episodes three and eight, where we really feel that the Aegon name they hunt, no one's here for me. Like, needing to feel that from other people. It's so devastating. That plea to Viserys in episode eight, then defend me. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Even her views on marriage and the conversations in episode four between Rhaenyra and Daemon, marriage is only a political arrangement for women. It is like to be a death sentence. My mother was made to produce heirs until it killed her. I won't subject myself to the same fate. Wanting somebody who wants her and values her for who she is and what she offers, not because she is...

a womb, a vessel, a concept, a path, right? That seems to really fit. And then I like that the love language that Damon and Rhaenyra share in terms of what they're looking for from other people is words of affirmation. That's such a fascinating thing to think about. I think it speaks to the Targaryen insecurities, but I think that if anyone's playing at home, the five love languages are acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, physicality,

Touch and gifts. So, you know, we can think about, maybe we'll revisit this with some other relationships going forward. You think Aegon the Elder's gifts? He's like, you gave me this really cool crown. Oh, it's the Conqueror's crown. Can you put it on my battle helm? Yeah.

Yeah, he seems like a guy who wants stuff. He gave me the dagger of prophecy. I don't know what's the dagger of prophecy. It's a pointer. Very valuable pointer. And presentations at the office.

As we know from that time that Allison... Like you said, though, it's words of affirmation for all of them, Jo. Like, thinking about it now in real time, Aegon's at security. Like, do you love me, right? Yeah. It's very sad. But I don't... Yeah, I was just going to say that I don't think Aegon is touch-starved because he is just, like, you know... Certainly not. ...forcing himself on any chambermaid and then also just, like...

Enjoying his own touch, as we have seen on the show. Shout out Ty Tenet. Which brings us to our final non-spoiler question. This one comes from Kristen. I've also greatly enjoyed your coverage of another topic. One David Tenet, our beloved Ten, who yang and Crowley. And perhaps less belovedly is Barty Crouch Jr. Junior. Barty Crouch Jr. Junior.

And then if you could see this, you would see us both darting our tongue to the side of our mouths in a very clear tell, revealing. Anyway, that's a conversation for another podcast. But I digress. That's both me saying that and literally the next phrase of the email.

While last year may have been hot David Tennant summer, I can't help but wonder where you both would cast him in any of the Game of Thrones properties. Whether it be a recast from Game of Thrones or Hot D, a character the shows may have omitted, an upcoming character in the Dance of the Dragons, or any of the rumored or official spinoffs.

personally, after catching up on Good Omens and seeing that performance, I think he could have made a wonderful little finger. No shade to Aiden Killian or his accents. Loved him in The Wire and Peaky Blinders. I think his charisma would have really brought something extra to the role, or maybe I just like the idea of him being around for almost the entire series. Winking emoji with the tongue out. With the tongue out. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yep, you bet. Hey, you bet. You bet.

Listen, this is a great email from Kristen and I love to read it. And apparently the Littlefinger fan casting for David Tennant is like kind of a popular one on the internet.

I think it's a mistake to cast someone that handsome and charismatic as Littlefinger. That sort of, like, defeats the point of Littlefinger. I think he needs to be as creepy and off-putting as... I don't think David Tennant is capable of being off-putting, you know, in that... I guess unless he does his Barty Crouch tongue thing the whole time. So, you know, it's... Starks. Quick tempers. Slow minds. I just...

Aiden Gillen's accent aside, I think he really like nailed the like, the correct smart factor. Because like if, if Littlefinger, if Littlefinger had been David Tennant, like people would have been fucking like shipping him a Sansa. It just would have, it would have gone in terrible directions. I think David Tennant would have said, Peter, please. Peter, please. Please.

It's a different energy for sure. Okay, so where are you? Where are you? Okay, so I am not even ready to answer that question yet because I do want to just say and reiterate something you and I have said on previous pause, which is it's not too late to bring Tide Tenet back and recast him and give him the old Dean Charles Chapman treatment. Dean Charles Chapman played two different characters on Thrones without anyone blinking an eye. Tide Tenet was so good.

as a younger Aegon that I just really need him to come back and play someone else. Okay. So, this is actually kind of

Accent-based. Oh, okay. Which is, I really like it when David Tennant gets to use his natural Scots. And natural Scots is actually not an accent that is often used in Thrones. The only example I could think of is Sandor Clegane, the Hound. That's the only Scottish accent we really get on Game of Thrones. And so, despite other Scottish actors being, like Richard Madden is doing his best, Ned Stark. So I thought, what if...

In like, there's a slight timeline overlap with Dunkin' Egg, so it could go in Dunkin' Egg or maybe just some other spinoff. But what if David Tennant plays Titus Lannister's kennel master, a.k.a. the founder of House Clegane? Can you just see him as someone who like starts his life as a kennel master and then like gets his own house as a result? Wow.

So that character does not have a name, but he's Sandra Engreger's, I think, grandfather, founder of House Clegane. I kind of like that idea. Fascinating. But if it needs to be an established character, again, this goes back to the problem of, like, I want him in a lot of the show, which is why, yes, Littlefinger is a great pick. Yeah.

I was like, why don't Uncle Benjen? Like, no offense to Joseph Maul, but like, if David Tennant had showed up as...

Stark in season one we would have been even more like where the fuck is Uncle Benjen where's Uncle Coldhands Stoneheart can't lose where is Uncle Benjen I would have enjoyed that's a good one but we would have been outraged then in

In our waiting. Oh, yeah. Outraged. And then how little we get at the end of it. To get on the horse. Well. No time. There simply wasn't. Oh, boy. Benjen is a fascinating one to consider. Boy. Okay. Clegane. This is a... You've taken me on a journey here. One I was not expecting, but one I enjoyed. I mean, I will say, if you look at images of David Tennant from Fright Night...

If he could do the accent, which I don't think he can, I could even put him in Dorne because that's the level of charisma he's bringing. He's Dornish. He's Dornish. Anyway, sorry. Okay, so what do you got for me? Okay, so I had an actually really hard time with this. It's tough. Because he has such a particular quality and vivaciousness.

And obviously he's an incredibly talented and capable and multifaceted actor who can do all sorts of different things. But like there's a certain presence and aura that we want from him. So that was what made it really tough. I thinking about tone.

The one thing I feel sure of is that I want him in Dunkin' Egg. That is the spinoff I want him in. And yes, I am still calling it Dunkin' Egg. This will remain my version of George R.R. Martin calling it The Long Night. And I'm saying, if we slightly fudge the timeline, the Lannister Kettle Master could make an appearance. Okay, yes. In Dunkin' Egg. What do you want? So then I was like, all right.

Who in Dunkin' Egg? And like, you know, obviously I don't want to wait. So I want to think about someone from Hedge Knight. And then I started thinking about some more. You just reread the Dunkin' Egg books. I've been revisiting Dunkin' Egg and having the absolute fucking time of my life. What a wonderful story. I can't wait to get Dunkin' Egg slash A Night of the Seven Kingdoms as they are currently calling it next year. Okay, so...

The casting for our titular, not actually titular, but, well, Tales of Dunkin' Egg in the written world. Titular Dunkin' Egg have been revealed. We're waiting on other casting, but we know from Not A Blog, from George, that other casting is locked in. We're just waiting. And I, like, am spending every day, Joe, waking up right now waiting to see who...

will be playing Bailord Breakspear. This is like my current thing I care about most in the world. Keeps you up at night. Yeah, it does. But so I was like, oh, could David Tennant play Breakspear? But it's just not it's just not right.

He doesn't feel like a makeover to me. I had a little mental dalliance here with the idea that he could be Raymond Fossoe, which obviously not the stout build, but I liked the spirit and the kind of like jovial quality. And also obviously for us, just the House of Armeta aspect of this, you have an apple as your sigil and then you, Raymond Fossoe, paint it.

after it was read. Like, what a... This would just be... This would just feel like it was a thing made and done for us. But, obviously, Raymond is just way too young. Like, it's just not even... There's not... I just don't think it's a... Plenty of characters' ages are changed, but the role he plays, like, he's supposed to be a youngster. So that doesn't work. And so then I went to the second novella. And here's where I landed, and I shocked myself, and I don't know... I don't know quite why this is...

I wound up. This is going to sound crazy. But what about Sir Bennis the Brown for David Tennant? Now, you might be saying, here are the canonical things we know without spoiling any of the plot particulars about Dunkin' Egg for People.

So here's the thing we know about about Bennis. He reeks like he smells so foul that his stench and the off-putting nature of his stench is one of the defining things about him. Here's the thing we know about Sir Bennis the Brown. He chews on sour leaf all the time and his mouth is stained. He's gross. He's a piece of garbage. He's disgusting.

Not just like physically, but everyone like he's got a terrible personality. He said she's a tough thing. He is an unattractive person with a terrible personality. I'm sending this directly to David Tennant. This is what Mallory thinks of you. Hang with me for a minute. Uncontainable.

snark. Bennis is a snark machine. And I think that there is like something in Bennis where he's quick with a turn of phrase and he's ready to annihilate another person with some sort of withering remark that David Tennant's particular aptitude would actually like really lend itself toward. And it would be a different kind of thing.

Do we want to all like fall in love with Venice? Probably not. But the snark is what drew me. Okay. There's a lot of wit there entwined with the foul qualities. And maybe it would be an exciting new spin for David Tennant. What do you think? And then Venice is a prominent character in the second novella, which is another thing that I liked about it. A lot of screen time. I like the screen time. Yeah.

I will be sending... I have not sold you. No. You don't want David Tennant. So on the stench front, everyone in Westeros smells like that. It's just they all stink.

chewing a wad of sour leaf that made it look as if his mouth were full of blood. That's what Mallory wants from David Tennant. I want him to be able to channel the snark, but also do something a little different. All right. So Joe is out on David Tennant as Sir Benis the Brown. And that is something that I will just have to carry. I will have to carry that with me. But I do think that David Tennant belongs somewhere in Dunkin' Egg.

Just the vibe. The energy of that. I agree. Slice of the story feels like a place where he could have a ton of fun. I just think we need to keep looking for the right non-repulsive fit. Oh, man. Okay, that's the end of the non-spoiler section of the mailbag. We are heading to the spoiler section. Grab your Unity apples. The mailbag.

We're going into the spoiler section. This is going to be quick. We've only got a couple here. We've got two questions coming in the spoiler section. Sirens. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've been warned. If you don't want to hear the spoiler questions, this is where you leave us. We can't wait to see you again on Friday for the Accolade Deep Dive. If you are interested in continuing on for the spoiler section, we will be starting that now. Our first book spoiler section comes from Joe.

I would just like to say once more before I read this question. If you do not want spoilers, leave now. Leave now. Bye. Okay. Take the tunnels out of this podcast and we'll see you on the other side. Here we go. Do you think the very gruesome thing that is definitely happening in episode one of season two will turn large swaths of people off the show?

How do you do it? How'd you do it? In a way that doesn't completely horrify the audience. Everyone at the Red Wedding was an adult. They aged up Tom and Marcella, so they were late teenagers. Joffrey was over 18 in the show by the time he died. Even Luke last season, he was doing adult-ish things when he died.

are they really going to kill a five-year-old in episode one of their giant show? Thank you, Joe. I will just note, in case this makes a difference to anyone... He's six. He's six. I don't want to hear he's six. He's six. Fine! Okay.

Allow me, please, a minute to recap Blood and Cheese. Because sometimes people join us in the spoiler section and they haven't read the books. So Blood and Cheese, this incident that we've known is coming, everyone knows is coming. We're pretty sure it's happening in the first episode because the first episode is called A Son for a Son. Blood and Cheese, the phrase refers to the two assassins who sneak into the castle and...

tie up Alison and lay in wait for Helena when Helena comes in with her three children, six-year-old twins and a two-year-old. And they give her the old Sophie's Choice and say, you get to pick one of your sons to live, the two-year-old boy, uh, Malor, or the six-year-old boy, uh, Jahaerys. And, um...

she's like, I'm going to pick the firstborn. I mean, first she's like, can't choose, can't choose. Bugs and prophecies, allegedly. That's not in the book, but something will happen. So she's like, I can't choose. Then she's like, well, you know, Aegon really likes his firstborn. So we'll just, you know, the two-year-old won't even, I mean, it's barely been here. So...

Take the two-year-old. The assassins are like, you hear that, boy? Your mom wanted you to die. And they kill the six-year-old and says, they kill the one that she said to spare. Yes. And they also threaten to like rape the six-year-old girl. I don't know if that's going to make it into the show. It's a very grisly, tough scene. And then they leave. Yep.

And then blood tries to take the head of the six-year-old out of the city and he gets stopped and interrogated. And basically all of this is done...

Because Daemon and Miss Aria in some combination orchestrated it. Okay. A son for a son, Lucerys. Vengeance. So, blood and cheese. So, if you look at it, I mean, they've been like really heavy handed with the promo for this. If you look at the character poster for Helena, there's like a dude with a torch peeking around the corner. Secret hallway behind her. And one thing that they've done...

And one thing that they didn't, I think this whole idea of making Helena like a dreamer, slightly addled like Luna Lovegoody in the first place. Yeah. Is just going to dial up the, you know, because this is essentially going to like sort of similar to Ophelia and Hamlet. Like she's never going to get over this, right? They're like, she survived, but did she really? Yes. She lost all of her marbles and like. You think we're going to get like a mini. Yeah.

from her before Blood and Cheese and the premiere. Like, we obviously spent a lot of time with the beast beneath the board. Do you think she's going to be like, there's a Gruyere, there's a ripe...

It was a ripe hard cheese. There's some spreadable brie. We laugh to get through the pain. This is going to be grisly and certainly people are going to clutch their pearls about it. But my experience in years and years and years of both Thrones and Hottie fandom, because like I remember the pearl clutching happening around like Emma's, you know, death in Episcopal.

episode one of House of the Dragon. Like, you know, there are people who will just be like, this is a misogynist show. This is a horrible, brutal show, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I, you know, on the first part, we can have a more nuanced debate on the second part. Yeah. This is a nasty, brutal world and a nasty, brutal show. And it always has been. And if this is, and if this is the line that some people want to draw, like, I'm not going to, you know, say you have to watch something that you don't enjoy, but like there

There will be like performative quitting, but then oftentimes, like there'll be serious quitting, but then there'll be like performative quitting. And then oftentimes those performative quitters I find just sort of slink back and don't talk about the fact that they're watching again. So like, I don't know. I think it's, I don't think they're going to like super soften it. A six-year-old is still going to, you know, die. They might not like...

show it. But also, we were stabbing babies on throne. So I don't, you know, I just, you know. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, like, obviously...

I do think that, first of all, this is extreme even by Throne standards and that they are actually leaning into that and how they're talking about it, which is really notable, right? Like, I think to the point of the question of, like, will this be too horrifying? Like, will the audience be too horrified? I think that horrifying the audience is part of the point, right? Like, to what you're saying, Joe, about the nature of the world and the story. So there's an EW piece from Nick Romano about this, and there are some interesting quotes there from both Olivia Cooke and Ryan Condal. Quote,

God, Cook, who plays Alison Hightower, tells Entertainment Weekly when broaching the topic, I'd just say it is Game of Thrones. Expect the worst. Expect the very worst possible and then...

Double it. Double it. I don't know what else to say without heavily spoiling it, but it is heinous. And then here's the quote about Condal. A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones have really conditioned people to expect the unexpected and expect the horrible, Condal teases. But yeah, that one's pretty horrific. We'll see what people make of what's to come. So I agree with you. I think there definitely will be people for whom this is actually like... Mm-hmm. A bridge too far. Yeah.

not something that they can consume and stomach. I think for... It sounds like a fucked up thing to say, but I do think for a lot of people...

This is why they watch the show? Sounding like too sociopathic. Yeah, I think this will be like the moment House of the Dragon arrives in full, right? Like, game... Let's not forget, I think your stabbing babies point is a great one, right? The mass slaughter of Robert Baratheon's bastards and the stabbing of babies in brothels was a thing that we all watched. The pilot...

The first episode of Game of Thrones... Jo, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the first episode of Game of Thrones ends with Jaime Lannister pushing Bran Stark out of a window. Now, Bran lives, but... Listen, it's just the things he does for love. The things he does for love. The story begins with a kid being pushed out of a window. Like, this is the world that we're in. And I think, obviously...

Vhagar, Vhagar, snapping poor little Luke and A-Rex out of the sky was a on-ramp to Blood and Cheese in many different respects in terms of like setting a tone for the horrors that await on the show in terms of the actual eye for an eye, sun for a sun aspect of the story. But

Blood and Cheese is going to be the House of the Dragon equivalent of Ned's beheading. It's going to be the thing where people say, I understand what story I'm watching and how it will unfold. I understand what level of a thing I could not previously have contemplated in another world awaits me here. And then we'll await again and again. Or the Red Wedding comp, because the Red Wedding and the reaction to it... Yes.

is, as everyone who's ever worked on Game of Thrones will tell you, the moment that that show, like, really arrived. Oh, yeah. Like, the viral videos of people watching The Red Wedding. So the fact that, like... By the way, there's another one, right? Talisa stabbed in her... Yeah, in her womb. Yeah, exactly. Like, I think that, again, like, if it is too upsetting for people, I'm not saying, like, get over it or whatever. But, like, you know, if you don't want to watch the show, don't watch the show. I support you. But, like,

Yeah, I do think that's what the show is. Absolutely. So, yeah, it will be really interesting to see how they do it. And I think it's going to be so key. We're going to talk about Damon next a bit, but, like, it is so key for the – it has to be horrible. Has to be. For what happens on Team Black going forward. Yes. Yes.

Which brings us to our next, our final question. We have like a related-ish additional question that we'll hit inside of addressing this next one. Yeah, for some fodder. But Joe, our next question comes, our last question of the day comes from Lauren. Lauren asks, with all the emphasis on Team Green versus Team Black and choosing a side in the marketing for season two, I've been wondering,

Do you think the show can make any sort of compelling argument for siding with Team Green? And more broadly, do you think they need to to make this show work? For some background, although Allison is my favorite character, parentheses, I love an emotionally tortured redhead woman, I can recognize...

This is a Sansa fan. I can recognize the team black is the obvious and unquestionably right team. And more problematically for the framing of quote pick aside, saying your team green makes you sound borderline misogynistic, which really takes the wind out of any fun of picking teams. That's all in the email. I'm not sure I totally agree with that, but we'll get to that after. Resuming the email here. I've read the book, so I know about B and C.

as does everybody else who was just listening to us talk about that. Topical. But even with that, although it might sour some toward Damon, I think it's so hard to make any argument against Rhaenyra being the right flair that they're using Alicent as the figurehead for Gryns instead of Aegon, which, although smart in the sense that Alicent is a more sympathetic figure and can help get around some of the misogynistic ickiness with Team Gryn, it doesn't really solve the narrative problem. Okay, Jo, we talked about

a lot across season one, this fleshing out and softening of a figure like Alicent to warm us toward her, et cetera, et cetera. Many examples that we discussed across the course of the season. Where are you on this more broadly? Do you know any team green people in your life? I don't know anyone who's team green in my life. Yeah. But like, I don't, I mean. Do you see that changing with season two? Do you think it needs to change in season two?

I think it'll depend how the rest of Team Black reacts to what Damon, the thing that Damon does. But our sense is that Damon will be essentially like ostracized from Team Black for blood and cheese. So, but here's the thing is like, I think Amon Targaryen is going to,

rise to a Damon-esque level of like, he just only had a couple episodes last season. And I think with more time with him, we're going to have like two fun little psychos on each side that, you know, that we're sort of like invested in. But there, and there is, I am invested in Alicent as I am in Rhaenyra. But I, in terms of like who deserves to rule, Aegon's such a piece of shit that like, how can I support any team that's propping up

Aegon. However Alyson misunderstood a prophecy or however justified Otto's distress of Daemon is or whatever it is, it's not enough to justify who Aegon is. But once Aegon is out of Kamish, we're in the spoiler section, and Aemond is sort of the leader of Team Green, I think that'll complicate things

The Damon thing, I really feel like... So we got this email from Courtney and Lindsay. I love a dual email, which we don't necessarily need to read out. But they were quite worried. They were sort of quote gathering and quite worried about what the show intends to do with Damon in season two. And from our various breakdowns, the various trailers, our sense is that Damon, who in the book by now is already at Harrenhal, is going to go to Harrenhal pretty quickly, perhaps later.

Mastermind, blood and cheese. I introduced my crackpot theory that cheese is never caught. Perhaps Damon is actually one of the assassins in the room. I don't feel strongly about that, but there are so many little choices they can make to...

amp up or ramp down Daemon's direct involvement. Like, if he says something to Missaria of, like, we need something to be done and then doesn't say anything specifically, then, you know, his hands are much cleaner than if he's, like, himself taking a torch down a, you know, a back passageway into the castle. So...

So Damon's direct involvement in Blood and Cheese is a question. And then ostracized very soon thereafter to Harrenhal, where it seems like he's just going to be beset by nightmares for perhaps much of the season. Mm-hmm.

when he's not threatening to burn people's houses down. Right? So like, you know, then your house will burn. So here's, here's the quote from Smith, a quote from Matt Smith. He's given several versions of this that had Courtney and Lindsay worried because they are Damon lovers as are we on this podcast. Um,

Matt Smith says, quote, he sort of tumbles into anonymity in a way. He gets softer, lazier, fatter, slower, and he's sort of haunted by his demons, really, by ghosts, by apparitions, by his own sense. The weight of all the bad deeds that he's done really come home to roost, so to speak. And I think he becomes more exposed, really, in a way. So, Damon...

haunted this season. And then Ryan Condal gave this quote talking about his sort of bafflement around the Damon fandom where he says, quote, he's not Ned Stark. He's the antihero of the story. If you're looking for Han Solo who's always going to do the right thing in the end, you're in the wrong franchise, folks. And so, Courtney and Lindsay are like, do they hate Damon and are they going to like character assassinate Damon or whatever? I don't think that that's the case and I think no matter what, Matt Smith's like,

intelligence and charisma in his approach to the character is going to make Damon a compelling figure. But if the show feels like it needs to like

turn down the brightness on Damon a bit in season two in order to give Team Green a fighting chance on, like, the charisma front or anything else. I can see that perhaps being a calculation that they make. What do you think? Yeah, this is so interesting to me. So when the Team Green and Team Black trailers came out and the, you know, like, player intentions, choose a side, campaign began in earnest. I was...

chatting with our colleague, Ringer editor-in-chief Ben Glicksman, and he has not read the books, but he loves the show, and he was obviously very invested in our content around the show, and so we talk about it regularly, and he was like, I don't understand who would be Team Green. And I found it very difficult

to engage in a productive discussion with them about it without spoiling or getting into blood and cheese at all. And everything that comes after that, which of course I did not want to do. So I am so curious.

Like how the early reception, or if the early reception to the choices the characters make and how, to your point, they frame and position the choices the characters make, how, if at all, that alters the allegiance. Because I think ultimately what is interesting about, there are many things that are interesting about the Dance of the Dragons, but part of why this is like a slice of the canon that so many people love is

It is complex. And you can start by believing and thinking that Rhaenyra was wronged. And you don't necessarily ever need to waver in that opinion, right? In thinking that Rhaenyra deserved to sit the Iron Throne, that Aegon and the Greens stole Rhaenyra's birthright, that Viserys never wavered in his desire to see Rhaenyra on the throne.

And you can still find yourself and you should find yourself because this is what's dramatically interesting about it, repelled by the decisions that certain members of Team Black make. And you should find yourself while rooting against Agon and his claim, like you said.

desiring time spent with members of the Greens. Like, that's what's interesting about the story. There's the actual who's right or wrong in the war aspect of it. Like, it makes me think a little bit of the great Jorah line that we quote all the time, right? It's tempting to see your enemies all of as... It's tempting to see your enemies as evil. All of them. But there's good and evil on both sides in every war ever fought.

Do we quote that Jorah line all the time? I love that Jorah line. Okay. I love it. I just don't know that I've ever quoted it, but I love it. So, like, how many viewers versus people in the story are going to be, like, swayed by, oh, the King's Landing...

to Rhaenyra's very harsh tax policy is like when, you know, her standing really diminishes with the masses. Like, that's not going to be the thing that sways viewers. It has to be more emotional than that, not just the logic of the claim. We should also say Thrones and HBO, God love them, are famous for, like,

kind of misguided marketing, you know, slogans or mottos leading up, you know, like for the throne or whatever, rally the realm. Like there's like various things where you're like, that's actually not the point of this season at all, but it's like a convenient marketing tool of,

we've talked about this before, how Thrones and Potter and a number of other, um, fantasy things have this sort of like baked into it, uh, you know, merch friendly pick a side sort of thing where it's like, are you house Stark? Are you a Hufflepuff? Like, what are you like? So the merchification of like team green and team black. But then again, I just don't know how much, uh, you know, uh, team green merch they're going to sell, but like, because we're not dealing with many houses, I mean, the Starks,

are here, but they're not a significant aspect. Like, it's all the Targaryens. So it's slightly different. So to create this sort of, like, factions, you know, it's a civil war. Factions within a faction. I don't know. It's marketing. And, like, we don't need... Like, no one ever thought...

Tywin and Cersei and Joffrey, like, how to claim or appoint. Like, it doesn't... But they're still really interesting. That's exactly right. We loved Jaime. We loved Tyrion. We didn't love...

Tywin or Joffrey, but we loved watching them. We weren't rooting for them to win. We were rooting for them to lose, but we loved every second that we got with their characters. So that feels like a real corollary. I think I'm interested to see, like, to your it's a marketing campaign point, which I think is right and important to keep in mind. I am curious...

How much of this is actually an extension of a very genuine intention and like the presentation and narrative structure of the show, right? Like continuing to actually play at that question of like, well, should this be a harder show?

choice and question of allegiance for people? Like, is it maybe not so cut and dry and clear? Like, will people be ultimately compelled? You mentioned earlier, you referenced like, basically like a misunderstanding in Viserys's last gasp. Right. And the Targaryens naming all their kids Aegon all the time is a way to

position what Alicent does as something other than base betrayal. Whether people are compelled by that into rooting for Team Green is a different question entirely. But I think there's then the like...

to the, they're all Targaryens and it's a civil war. It's the war of succession point that you made. That's the other thing about it that I think does make sense as a way to position the season, right? It's just reminding us that this is a story about a dynasty tearing down its own might and fighting itself from within. And...

Whether anybody watching the trailers at home feels compelled to say I'm team green or not, the realm is divided. And that's the story we're going to watch. And so there will be people in the world making the team green choice. And we have to believe that that would be possible because

Right? And we have to at some point understand why somebody would make that decision and all the different reasons. The dance split the seven kingdoms in two. Like, that's the quote from Fire and Blood. Lords, knights, and small folk declared for one side or the other and took up arms against one another on and on and on. Right? So,

Given that we're in a United States or in an election year, I'm sure this is going to be a very normal conversation that we have all summer. Very, very, very chill. And I'm sure that it will be very, very, very chill to be talking about the boys in an election year as well. I'm sure everything will be fine and calm and normal this year. Very calm and normal. Very calm and normal.

want everybody... If there is anyone out there who's Team Green, I don't necessarily want them to feel like they're... You don't have to be a misogynist to be Team Green, right? It is tough to root against Runeara. That part's hard, but you can find other ways into Team Green. Yeah, I don't think you have to be a misogynist, but I do want to talk to you about your reasons. We've got some feedback, for sure. I have some notes. All right, Jo, we did it. We did a mailbag. We did a primer mailbag. We did a season preview. And we will...

put this with our three, again, three, three prior Trailer Breakdown pods and say that we have now done four preview pods for this season. And will we do more? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. We still got a week and a half before the premiere. Any other thoughts?

On a dragon you don't want to bond with? On a ship that you want to introduce into our lives? Anything else? I guess it's Pride Month and I forgot to say Rhaenyra and Alicent in the ship question. I was shocked you didn't say Rhaenyra and Alicent. Yeah, I meant to. Rhaenyra and Alicent. That's another way to end the war. Surrounded by candles? Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay. That's a wrap. Thank you to our small council, Steve Allman, for producing this episode.

Arjunaram Gopal for his additional production work on this episode and show me a dinner on for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, head back into the ringer verse tomorrow. That's Wednesday because the Midnight Boys will have their instant reaction to the first two episodes of The Acolyte, which are premiering tonight, Tuesday on Disney Plus. Joanna and I will be back with you on Friday here on the House of R for our deep dive into the two part Acolyte premiere. We are very excited to watch that show and chat about it together.

And then we will be back, of course, next week. And there's no stopping the content from there. It's just going to be constant. So we hope that you join us. Ringer.com slash events. Get your tickets to Talk the Thrones live June 25th at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. House of R, Los Angeles style. All summer long. Bring your green pants. Whether or not you're too green. No green apples.