Varys or Varys or Varys or yeah, another.
One of these names that it's not quite like Celtagar.
Celtagar. But no one actually argues over
this one but Varys. That's what we're talking about
today. It varies.
It's It varies. Yes, it does.
An orphan owned by a mummer's troop and sold in turn to a man
for use in a strange ritual that required.
Making him into a eunuch. From there, he was left to die.
But vowed to live. We'll ask how we wound up on the
streets in the 1st place if there isn't perhaps more to his
ancestry than his apparent because.
That might explain why he of all these orphan children was chosen
for this. And that brings us to another
central theme about virus, something that we'll have to
keep in mind throughout the entire episode.
It's an example of why we should be questioning what he's told
Tyrion and others about his youth.
In other words, should we believe that story about the
sorcerer when we ask questions like why wasn't it some other
kid? Is that the wrong question?
Are we falling for it like Tyrion did?
Why isn't the question Is this story even true in the 1st
place? Before we ask the question of
why not some other kid, maybe we should be asking that question
first. Both questions are valid, but
let's not forget one by getting caught up in the story and
believing it at face value. I mean, Varus calls himself
indirectly the most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms, and few
readers would challenge that. Which means we'd be fools to
believe he's telling Tyrion the absolute truth or the complete
truth. And Ditto goes for Illyria, who
also tells Tyrion quite a few things about himself and Varys
and their shared history. And one of the few things we can
trust about that part is that they've been working together
for a long time, and they probably know how to keep their
stories straight because they've been working together for a long
time and have been successful in their various endeavors.
But by the same token, A dishonest person isn't always
lying, like some of the things Varys has said are true.
I mean, just because we're dubious about some of what he
says doesn't mean we should discard it all.
We should just take a closer look and see if we can figure
out what might be suspect, what might be truth, and see what we
can do with that. It's one of the things that
makes Varus such a great character.
The second most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms is
Littlefinger, according to Varus, and he's a great
character too. But personally, I find Varus a
lot more intriguing and unique of the two.
And that's partly because we know what Littlefinger wants a
lot of it's gross and a lot of it's kind of standard.
Like he wants power as much as he can get, right?
That's kind of ordinary for, you know, fiction or real life.
People want power, right? But Varys like, what's he doing?
What's his goal? Why?
What's his motivation? He's not like after some girl
like like little like Littlefinger was.
He wasn't jilted as a youngster over, you know, some woman he
was in love with. Like that doesn't seem to be his
motivation at all. We kind of have those answers
for Littlefinger. But for virus, it's like, what?
What was it? You know what?
What are these things still like, Littlefinger?
Like most people, he is very likely motivated and shaped by
what happened to him. As a child and as a.
Teenager as 'cause that goes for everyone, right?
Formative years. So we'll have some time for his
early adulthood as well as that, but that comes with the caveat
that the timeline's pretty loose here.
We don't know how old he is. We don't know how there's.
A lot of dates. That are kind of unsure we have
to kind of use ranges rather than specific dates, but that's
all very good for Sean. You have something to.
ADD we might need another caveat.
Almost everything was said about him, just not the story that he
told Tyrion, or where he heard from, Malaria or whatever.
Almost all of it needs to include, ostensibly.
Yes, yes. Even basic things like having
come from this may or may not be true.
Like did he? Really know for sure if that's
even true or even if he did come from list.
Maybe he came from 7 different places, but that's the one he
singled out, the one he remembers best, or whatever it
is so. Yeah, you're totally right.
It's Everything has to be taken with a grain of salt because
everything we know about virus's youth comes from virus.
Except for a few things that come from Illyrio, which really
isn't any better. So.
So we won't be covering his time as the master whispers for
Aries, let alone during A Song of Ice and Fire when he
considers himself the most devious man in the Seven
Kingdoms. But we will discuss how he
earned the skills that enabled him to move up to those lofty
heights later in life. So we've got all that and.
More on this episode of History of Westeros podcast Hello and
welcome back, everybody. Another great episode, I hope.
We have for you. Today a very fun character to
discuss, one that you couldn't possibly, at least we couldn't
possibly do in a single episode, hence the format that we started
with the neducation episode. This is along those same lines.
Virus is a bit older than Ned, but the point being, their early
life is very interesting, very formative and worth diving into.
We are here almost every Sunday at 3:00 Eastern streaming on
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but if you listen on Patreon, it's ad free.
Sean, I see you have a nice House with the Dragon shirt on.
I've got a Dunkin Egg shirt today, and ashea you've got some
spider verse. Nice.
Oh, good for today. Yeah, I do.
Yeah, you're right. I actually just wear it's my
across the Spider verse like sweatshirt that I love very
much. But I didn't even consider that
it is relevant for Varys the Spider.
Sean did not not even occur to me at the Spider Man.
I almost, I was like sliver away from buying a Spider Man shirt
at Disney World. I wish now I had gotten it.
I would have worn it for the stream for sure.
Yeah, but we're the House of the Dragon one.
I don't really have a good virus appropriate shirt.
They've got some new word on House of the Dragon, so I
thought that might add to the hype.
I wish we were getting more word on Duncan Egg, though, I tell
you. You know, it's funny.
I have a Mazzari, a shirt and not a virus shirt.
I have a Rohan Weber shirt, so I have That's a spider.
On it. That's a spider.
You're right, Weber. That's a good point.
Trying to do research for this episode, I used to search an ice
and fire to look for spider and all kinds of giant spiders in
the north came up. Yeah, the ice spiders.
From Dunkin Egg stories came up, but plenty of virus talk also.
Virus is such a master of disguise that he's actually an
ice spider in disguise. Yeah, he's actually just a
secret ice spider. You see our secret Targaryens?
He's a secret ice spider. That's.
Right. I will tell you, a lot of the
spider talk that didn't necessarily apply to virus was
pale spiders or white spiders. They did say that a lot and I.
Big as hounds. Yeah, yeah, Mars is as big as a
hound, right? He's got.
But I am half wondering if Martin was like planting some
seed or creating some parallel. Same thing with the little
birds, because a bunch of, you know, Sansa talk comes up with
she. Gets called Little Bird by by
Sandor, yeah. She's like a child that's being
manipulated that without realizing it even maybe is
revealing secrets and so on. So I think there's Martin.
May not have done it intentionally, but he had to
scratch his head. Maybe even tried to not do it
intentionally to keep it from happening, I bet.
Absolutely. So yeah, So we've got a lot of
fun stuff to talk about. Shout out to our friend Nina, of
course. Good Queen Ally with
1l.tumblr.com. Her.
Latest blog post is relevant to her username, Good Queen
Allison. It's a discussion question she
got on the proposed marriages for Jaharis before he eloped
with Good Queen Ali, who of course hadn't yet earned that
nickname at the time. But there were a lot of kind of
odd suggestions for marriages to Jaharis that imply some
political shenanigans, or hopefully people hoping to pull
off some shenanigans because they obviously didn't succeed in
that. So it's a it's an interesting
question and a very good answer. Check that out good
queenalley.tumblr.com If you have questions for us, you can
ask them live. Ashay will often take note of
them in the chat there and and put them up for us, but you can
also send them later to us at westeroshistory@gmail.com or
just interact with us on our Discord.
Or on our Facebook group. On X on Patreon, any of the
different ways we will see it. And of course, I'll mention some
episodes at the end of this one that relate to this one, as we
often do our trivia question, which will also give the answer
at the end of the episode with Dune on the brain for many of
us, and having just released our collab with Alt Shift.
XI thought I'd throw y'all a bit of a.
Curveball. Which Dune character do I refer
to as the best parallel to Illyrio Mopatus?
That of course, usually I give the answer in the episode.
This time I'm giving the answer in that episode.
So if you've listened to that when you know the answer or you
might get a guess anyway. Throughout A Song of Ice and
Fire, Varys has shown skill at mummery in many forms.
Physical appearance, his odor, mannerisms, voices, everything
that goes into a person. He's also extremely astute at
reading people, learning their intentions and desires and
therefore their weaknesses. He has done so while concealing
his. Own.
He's a man who understands the value of secrets and terms that
go far beyond wealth. It's part of what led him to
such great heights in the 1st place, and rising from so little
allegedly taught him the value of struggle in terms of
character, building, self-sufficiency, independence,
seeing society from a variety of angles and different.
Rungs on the ladder, the social ladder, experiencing aspects of
life that most high born that do not even come close to, don't
even really acknowledge is is a fact of life for a lot of
people. So he's had a very.
Different life than a lot of people who are at court, even if
he's lying to us. And he's, he's seen it from
different cultures too, right? Like, there's not only a
difference in like levels of agency or whatever when you talk
about wealth, but there's those differences will be even more
different in a slave city versus, you know, even within
Westeros. It can be different beyond the
Wall or, you know, and the Highgarden or Dorne and so on.
So he, he maybe hasn't experienced all of those, but
he's experienced more variety than more other people.
So to better understand those differences even within
Westeros. Especially most Lords and ladies
whom he operates around and deals with all the time, all the
time, on a daily basis, etcetera.
Those, the people who are born wealthy, born privileged, they
have no idea what it's like other than maybe intellectually
to these things. They certainly don't know how it
feels now. It's shades of what Dunk said to
Prince Makar at the end of the Hedge Night.
He said, you know, he's like, well, no, you should come be my
Squire, you know, and travel around or not be my Squire,
travel around with me and take care of my, you know, be my son
and all that and be at Summer Hall.
And he's like, I think he'd learn more if we were out on the
road, you know, sleeping in ditches.
And he's like, he's a Prince. How could she?
He shouldn't do those things. He's like, I bet Arian never
had, never slept in a ditch, you know, I bet.
And Makar's like all. Those other Princess.
And he and he stalks off but absolutely agrees because the
next day don't egg shows up. He's like, I'm ready to go.
Yeah. So this is same vibe there.
Like Makar kind of understand. Got the point there.
But it didn't occur to him until it was suggest he's like, you
know, that's a good point. You know, I'm not going to admit
to it, 'cause I'm proud, but you're totally right.
And this is, this is the same thing that Varus was trying to
impart to his claim in Aegon. And of course, Aegon isn't going
to enter in this episode a whole.
Lot, because Aegon wasn't even born before.
Varus came to Westeros, but there's parallels to Aegon with
Varus himself, let alone other characters.
So there is a lot of we're going to have to look at his current
situation in order to look back. And of course, that's what we
have to do with all of this, because all of Varus's youth is
a matter of what we've been told.
None of it we've seen. So looking at Varus's youth is a
challenge, because not only is it all just been told to us, we
have so much reason to question it, There's so much context.
We. Have to take into account with
his back story. And when he's telling you
stories, that's a really big deal.
Like when he tells Tyrion the story of how when he was cut, I
think is really important. It's almost as important as the
story itself, because the first time Tyrion asked him, he he's
like, I'll tell you some other time.
And then when he actually tells him, it's at a moment that's
pretty pivotal. It's like before the Battle of
the Blackwater, when a lot of things are kind of up in the air
and maybe there's a reason not to, like viruses, loyalty should
be questioned. So he goes on, goes on and talks
about this anyway. We'll deal with that when we get
to the ritual. But the point is, Tyrion's
almost always the one that Virus is telling you stories to.
Most of what we know about Virus's youth is specifically
told to Tyrion, Not just other characters.
Tyrion, right? Not, not really.
Other characters now. That's going to change probably
in the long term. I expect Virus will have
conversations with Danny and others, but that doesn't mean
that he'll talk about his youth, Doesn't mean he'll talk about
his background. He he might.
I don't know that we can count on Eddard's another one.
He has conversation with virus, but virus's.
Past does not come up and those kind of Eddard doesn't ask about
his past, Virus doesn't volunteer information about his
past, so it just doesn't come up.
So again, it's really just these Tyrion chapters are the meat of
it, and that's something to take note.
Of it's worth pointing out that even if we have to distrust a
lot of virus says I think there's an interesting irony
that we also should I think trust a lot of what he says most
of what he says Tyrion himself points out I think it was when
when Forest was testifying against him.
Maybe Tyrion points out that a lie mixed with a half truth is
better than a straight out lie. Because when there are parts of
it that are true for sure that people know and corroborate and
in the lies mixed in with that it's easier to accept the lie.
When you just say something that's kind of out of nowhere or
hard to believe it's easier to dismiss as a lie.
But when you mix it in with a bunch of other stuff, that is
true. And so Tyrion understands that
virus has got to also understand that Laura probably too.
So he probably mostly tells the truth and every now and then
slip some something that's at least a little dishonest or
incomplete. So as much as we want to throw
shade and everything he says, I still feel like we probably
should trust like 95% of it. Maybe when it comes down to it,
you know I. I feel like there's more.
It's more likely he's left things out than he's completely
made things up. But surely some things are
made-up, you know, and and we'll try to do our best at maybe you
look flagging things that are more likely than others to be
false. Like, who else has left stuff
out? Ned, of course.
But do we distrust everything he says?
Because we know for sure there's certain things he left out
right? And even when people try to be
honest, they they end up having biases and misremembering stuff
and you know, they want to put their best foot forward.
There's all these things that aren't unique to virus that
might make us mistrust some of it, but not all of it.
Just like every other character so.
Well said, Yeah. So I do think we're going to get
more on virus eventually. I think George is definitely
going to leave us in the dark about some things.
That's just the nature of of how he writes and how a lot of
authors write. We're not going to get a full
dossier on Virus his whole life by the end, but I definitely
think we'll learn more than we have, and some of it might be to
expose some of these lies. After all, Danny is the Slayer
of lies in her vision, and one of those lies is Prince Aegon,
the Cloth Dragon on pole, supposedly, and and Varus and
Illyrio are the ones holding those poles.
So. The he She probably won't only
slay the lie. That Aegon isn't Rhaegar's son.
If that's in fact the case, there's other lies.
Slayer. She's that Slayer of lie.
She's Slayer of lies. So yeah, So let's look at what
we've been told so far. Consider the source, consider
the target, the listeners, the target audience of of viruses
stories. And then we'll question it.
And and and. Review it and flip it over.
Turn it around. See how it looks.
It's been a long tradition for us to point out when a character
or place or thing appears for the first time in A Song of Ice
and Fire or Fire and Blood, if that's the case, or World of Ice
and Fire. Hedge night whatever.
But that's not our focus today, since we're aiming at the
version of Virus that does not appear in the text since.
He's no spring chicken by A Game of Thrones, however, that is
immediately clear. In other words, the first
mention of ours includes Ned thinking that he's been the
master of whispers since the time of Aries, meaning 2 decades
or more. No spring chicken, indeed, not
even a winter chicken. He then first appears in
Catelyn's fourth chapter, Where We.
First learn he's a eunuch, but other than that there's no more
back story. Just he's been master whisperers
for 20 plus years and he's a eunuch.
And then she's thrown Catelyn is by the depth of his knowledge,
and then by Littlefinger immediately blaming the dagger
issue on Tyrion, which sort of takes over the narrative for the
short term rather than virus. So we can as.
Well, take a look at the first time George gave us information
on his youth. So here's the first mention of
viruses back story. Quote The Lord Varys was born a
slave in lease, did you know? Put not your trust in spiders,
my Lord. That was scarcely anything Ned
needed to be told. There was something about Varys
that made his flesh crawl. The context here is Pycell
openly suggesting to Ned that Varys was perhaps the one who
poisoned John Aaron. He's like Ned says.
I've heard poison is a woman's weapon.
He's like poison. He's like women and Unix, you
know, like Unix. Did you know Varys is a Unix
born and lease It's like yeah, everybody knows that.
I think it was Cravens women. Cravens.
That's right. Yes, you're right.
Cravens. That's the one I couldn't think
of. So as an aside, by the way
looking this is not young Varus, but it might have been very
satisfying for Varus to kill Pycelle.
They were on like Pycelle was on the small council before Varus,
and Varus has been there 20 years.
How Like, since it's probably been openly insulting Varus for
two straight decades. Just like not concealing his
disdain for the man and virus is like, finally, my plans allow me
to murder this guy who's been a jerk to me for 20 plus years.
Finally, I can get rid of this guy.
And to women and craving. And Sansa, who he like abused.
So he probably lots of other people and whoever else he did
things to and they were like, yes, good job getting rid of
that guy, but but think back though, that's jumping way
forward. We learned a lot more about
Pycell. At this point in the story,
Pycell looks like doesn't look like a bad guy because.
Ned look thinks virus is his. Makes a skin crawl.
Virus makes Catlin skin crawl. So both of them are
uncomfortable with virus they think he's.
Magical or just suspicious or Olive of Pisel's just joining in
with that. So at that point in the story,
he's just, yeah, this doesn't mark him as as as as anything.
He's just all going along with the characters that we already
trust that kind of interesting the way they were presented with
him in the 1st place. So that initially makes us more
likely to believe what people say about it.
When you're a villain and people are saying villainous things
about you, we're more likely to believe that when someone like
Ned and Catelyn, whom we trust, have the similar opinion.
Right, so it's already like we're already primed for this.
Let's do the basic virus. Rundown Before we get into too
much into the into the weeds and the details, let's just go
through his early life, what we actually know kind of a rundown
style here. You know, like a rundown.
Give me a rundown. What's a rundown is used.
Can you? What's a rundown can?
You give me an example of a rundown.
Yeah. So he was born into lists, into
slavery, born into lists into slavery, apprentice to a
mummer's troop, which travels around the master of the troop
completely owned him because that's who sold him, right.
That that makes that all adds up.
While the troop was in mirror, he sold to this sorcerer who
does this ritual and then leaves him for dead.
But then he rises to, which is an unofficial title, Prince of
Thieves. That's not some like you've
earned the right to be called. No, that's just a thing you call
someone who's really good at, like among the best of thieves
or whatever really good at. It I will say it is maybe a
little bit more than that, not just really good at it, but
maybe a ringleader too. Right, absolutely.
Absolutely. But let's not get caught up in
that. I'm just running the details.
We'll we'll get more into that later.
But you're right, that's a good point.
He's outed by some rival and then slavers come after him,
which is a little odd. Like, why would slavers come
after a thief? I guess it's because.
The penalty for in a lot of these societies is enslavement.
If you're like that's, that's a criminal punishment.
That's fairly common. But it could be that he's an
escaped slave and they wanted to.
They're slave catchers. That's another possibility, but
I'm not. Sure.
Or he could be stealing from slavers.
Perhaps that could be who he stole from, yes?
Which doesn't preclude the other issues either.
He could be suing for slavers who might want to get back at
him, might want to make him a slave himself.
Yeah, absolutely. So either way he flees mirror
and then goes to Pentos and and Pentos there.
That's a good place to go if you're afraid of slavers because
as we know, as we've covered elsewhere, Braavos has beat
Pentos in several wars and pent and had imposed their anti
slavery laws on them which are loosely followed.
They have, they don't have, they still have slaves but it's not
they're not called that, they're they have a lighter version of
it. It's still basically slavery.
But anyway, so he's there. It's a little safer for him
there and he meets Illyrio and they begin their steal from
other thieves and fence those goods business, basically
organized crime mafia stuff. Then they move up to stealing
secrets, which is also very organized crime mafia stuff.
You use a steal bigger and better things, steal more
valuable things. And that's when he begins
training his little birds to steal secrets super efficiently.
And this is what leads to him and Illyrio growing so wealthy
that they become respectable, which is also a thing that
happens to Mafio. So they they, they start using
their illicit money to buy real businesses.
And then they have a lot of real businesses that are, you know,
above board. And then they can become
respectable all of a sudden because they have all these
legitimate businesses. And this is where, and of course
what counts as a legitimate business in Essos is there's a
much lower bar there. And it's a lot easier to be
accepted as as part of the upper crust from pure wealth than it,
you know, might be in in other societies and times and places.
Either way, this is what led to him getting hired by Aries, his
skill and all that. And that's where he has been
until very recently obviously. Ostensibly what led to it I I
suppose there was it didn't happen randomly I think virus
and or or angling for. That they wanted Aries to
notice. Yeah.
Yes. Witness me, yes.
Which is a funny thing to do for a guy who's so secretive, but
you gotta do that just right. So let's go through that.
Let's start with lease and work our way through all those
details, that timeline and see what we can pick at, what we can
identify as perhaps suspect or as something that we probably
believe now lease is. The story about him being born a
slave and lease does come from Pisel.
However, even though it's not corroborated, I tend to believe
it. Or at least Pisel didn't.
Make it up, in other words, Virus probably told him that and
everybody else in court. Like, where did you come from?
You know? Well, I came.
I was born in lease. Now I don't have much reason to
doubt that. Like, what difference does it
make if he's from Volantis or Norvas or Slavers Bay?
It just doesn't matter. And let maybe Tyrosh would
matter 'cause that's the hotbed of black fire activity.
But George hadn't worked all that out.
By the time he announced Virus was from Lise, like that's in
Game of Thrones with viruses from Lise, he had.
George hadn't even written the term Blackfyre yet.
Though he had fleshed out a lot of his back story, he hadn't
given it all names and figured it all out.
So even that's not a great pushback argument about his.
You know, if we're trying to pin a lie on Virus about his origin,
I don't know that this one's a good, very fertile ground.
Yeah, I think it's something that, like you said, Kobe
doesn't really matter where he's technically born.
Like, especially when you're young, when you're 1256 years
old, you don't really know where you are.
You don't have control over it. It doesn't affect you that much,
at least not as much as like your parents or the people
directly raising you. So I mean, obviously there can
be some exceptions. I'd rather there's definitely,
I'd rather be born in, I don't know, Uptown Manhattan than
war-torn Rwanda or something like that.
But whatever it is, wherever he was really a born, or whatever
places he might have lived in his very young ages, he's going
to pick the one, true or not, that will add most to his story
or the story he wants it to be. Does that makes sense?
Yeah, I mean, Lisa's a hotbed of of slavery and and especially a
brothel. Slaves and all that and that
might be. Who he is, he might.
Have been a brothel, the child of a brothel slave, and that's a
reasonable origin for him. It makes a lot of sense.
Or being a childhood brothel slave might make it harder to
track down who he really is, if someone would look.
Into it, right. Yeah.
Very good point. He's like, well, no one could
possibly, no one would even try to look up who he is.
If that's his origin, like, well, you're never going to
trace that. But that might be why he tells
that story. So no one looks into it.
Exactly. Very good point, Sean.
Yeah, I like that. And so even though so it is a
notable hotbed of Valyrian bloodlines, that's a point to
remember. There's a lot of theories about
his ancestry, and he's like, yeah, he might have Valyrian
ancestry even incidentally, even if it's not an important
Valyrian family like Targaryen or Blackfyre, it just might be
because there's so much Valyrian blood there.
It might be in him. That doesn't necessarily make it
relevant, but it. Might.
So we'll we'll keep that in mind.
He's been master whisperers for over 20 years, like we said.
And he probably wasn't too, too young when he was hired, you
know, I doubt he was like. 20 He probably his rise to power
probably wasn't that quick. But maybe he.
But he was really good at it. It seems to.
He was talented. Maybe he was at least in his
30s. So I'm gonna guess he's in his
50s. But maybe early, maybe late 40s.
Could be late 50s though. He's hard.
It's hard to tell how. Old He is like when you shave
your head and have no facial hair.
That conceals your age a bit, right?
You don't have any Gray. You can't.
If you have Gray hair, you don't see it.
You know and and it makes you like having.
Smooth cheeks and. This makes you look a little
younger. It might be a little tin foily,
but I don't put it beyond him to be even much older.
Like if he's using some glamour like Melisandre or something
like that. He tells us he's he has his
disdain for magic, but we kept the kind of distressed stuff he
tells us. So he also might disdain certain
types of magic, but embrace others if it's meets his end,
you know? And for reasons I'll describe
later, I think he's a little older.
With an Illyrio, but maybe not. But I kind of based on a few
things about, like I said, I'll get to that.
Illyrio calls himself old and fat.
I mean, the second part's true. He's very overweight, but he,
he's old. What does that mean?
You know, like a lot of people who would turn 30 say, I feel so
old. You know, it's like, well, what
you know. Sweet summered children.
I get such an impression of Illyrio as a kind of dude who
values youth and like looks back at his lost youth.
And I I feel that he would feel old because he was so physically
fit and spectacular as you. Yeah.
So yeah, I wouldn't go so far as to say he's old by our
standards, or even necessarily a Westerosi standard.
Yeah, he he, yeah, you're right about that, 'cause he's he's
there's a lot of evidence that he was a model or chosen to be a
model when he was young. So not not so much anymore now.
So that argues for being in their late 40s, ish, maybe early
50s. And yeah, that's that's what
we're working with. That's for operating.
And I actually posted a poll in our Facebook group and most of
you seem to think late 40s. That was the most popular
choice, Not a hugely important thing, but I'm curious and
wanted to see what you guys think.
And if that's accurate, late 40s, early 50s.
He'd have been born in the mid two 50s, which is an important
time. And it supports a lot of the
ancestry theories, which is that it's right before Summer Hall in
the ensuing 5th Blackfyre Billion.
So he would have been a very young man when the final
Blackfyre claimant was slain, being male E the monstrous.
And if he had any connection to that or relation to that, well
he would have taken the fall when their that family fell
apart and that could be why he wound up in slavery.
So it it's. Not it's not proof of anything.
But it fits like his age lines up with all that pretty
well-being a young man in the era of the black fires finally
being done. Another theory out there is he's
the descendant of Arian Brightflame.
Again, another Duncan Egg connection here.
Arian Brightflame was sent to lease in exile after the Hedge
Knight. Now that was like 40 years
before Varus was born though. So he's not Varus's father,
probably not his grandfather, probably not his relation at
all. But if he is, it would be like
great grandfather or something like that.
Or distant cousin. Unless my hair brain theory
about virus using some. Sort of.
Oh yeah, that's true. If.
He's a lot older than he is. Yeah, you're right.
OK. Yeah.
So least never comes up again. Never is mentioned again in
association with virus. Tyrion and Illyrio, when they
talk about it, doesn't come up at all.
In fact, he's like we were green boys and pentas.
He's like, I thought virus came from me.
He's like. Yeah, he did.
One step ahead of the slavers. Least does not come up.
So that's not necessarily me doubting it, but it's just
pointing out how there's not much corroboration there.
Again, I don't doubt it because of the whole, like why it
doesn't seem to be a reason to lie about it, but it's still
gotta be. We gotta keep it in mind.
So he's a slave and an orphan. Which makes sense, right?
If you have children and you're a slave, those children belong
to the person that owns you. That's how these societies work.
That's the inherent difference with Thraldom is that your kids
are not slaves in under the iron born system, which is like the
only difference, a pretty important difference.
How noble of those iron born, how?
Yeah, how noble of them. You wish that it's 'cause it's,
you know, you're not a man if you only if you earn.
If you get child slaves through birth, you have to capture them
and and enslave them the hard way, like you know.
See, they they value hard. Work and go get it.
Pull their kids up by the bootstraps.
Yeah, so if he so this this does add up to his his history being
untraceable. If this is true, then yeah, he
might not know who his. Parents are like, if he was just
taken away from his parents because he they were slaves and
he's a slave, then, yeah. Then like the Unsullied, they
don't know who their parents are, you know.
So there's a lot of things like that.
His father could have been a noble who impregnated a
household slave, something very common in Westeros without the
slavery part. If Virus's mother was a brothel
slave, we've mentioned that that's very common in least then
his father could have just been some random John.
Any client you know could have been a noble, could have been
just some completely unknown person.
They would have definitely would have no way to trace that unless
like this person had very specific features which does not
appear to have unless his hair is silver and he shaves that
off, which is definitely possible, but given he's 50, if
his hair came out silver, would you think that's silver or just
Gray? You know, so he's past the age
where even that could be determined, even if we could see
his hair, which we don't, so. And he's been shaving his head
for a while, right? I don't think he just started
doing it when he. So he might have been trying to
disguise silver hair when he was 20 or 25, I guess.
I mean, I guess we don't know for sure when he started shaving
his head. I don't know.
I didn't think of that until just now.
Do we have a description of him from when he was under Aries or
whatever? Nope.
Apparently he's always shaved his head.
Now it's not, apparently. I think being a eunuch, you
start losing your hair sooner. Think because of testosterone.
I think that's true. I'm not.
I'm not a don't quote me on that double check that before he
says. So that may have been why he did
it, just 'cause he was losing his hair anyway.
I got to be suspicious of that, 'cause I feel like men lose
their hair more than women, and men have the testosterone, not
women, so, well, it's. Different for women, yeah it's
it's the whole mechanism is different.
So but you're right, like I'm, I'm out of pocket with my
knowledge on how that works. So anyway.
But it's also very relevant that while we're talking about Lise,
Illyrio claims to have met Sarah his the love of his life.
At a lysine brothel, the same place virus is from interesting.
So he claims Sarah was the love of his life, which is really
sketchy. It might be true, but like this
is Illyrio like? Is he really following and
falling in love with a random brothel worker?
And it cost him so much politically, he said.
Like this has always. Been a bit suspect.
Not so suspect that we should dismiss it out of pocket, but
something we should question. Maybe Sarah is a different, has
a different connection to them than they're willing to let on.
A family connection perhaps. Maybe it's virus's cousin.
Maybe virus is like, yeah, my sister is enslaved as a brothel
in a in a brothel. Least like I was or I was born
into. So is she.
But she's still there. I'm gone.
You know, I became part of this troupe and I had other skills,
but she's still there and. And then they saved her.
And they saved. Her did feel love for her.
I don't know. Yeah.
So they're kind of impartial to that.
Lots of. Permutations.
I would say I'm partial to the idea that Varys and Sarah are
related and had a a caring connection and and the
connection with Illyrio kind of sprung from that connection is
is what I lean towards at least. Were you leased towards?
It's worth noting not Tyrion doesn't call Shay the love of
his life, but he makes a lot of risks for her.
He takes a lot of chances and puts a lot of his, I don't know,
reputation even life on the line for his relationship with her.
So just because Hilario is powerful or whatever, doesn't
mean he might not do the same for someone who again Chaz, I
don't know, Lowborn, You know, she's not some Princess or
something. You might expect Tyrion to take
such a chance for her, like a Lara might have done with Sarah.
'S I agree and I think the bottom line here, even if we
can't get out the truth is that it's it's difficult to see Sarah
as a truly random discovery by Illyrio.
That part of the story I highly question whether Varys.
Picked her. It doesn't have to be a family
member, they don't have to be related, but that is a
possibility. It would make a lot of sense.
But it could just be like Illyrio later claims.
I never knew why virus picked me.
Well, maybe just picked Sarah for a similar reason.
The way they looked like if their whole thing is trying to
produce a child that looks Targaryen, then you're going to
look for someone that has a specific look, certain feature,
certain eye color, and Sarah might have.
Those may have been the top of the list of the physical
features they were looking for if they're trying to create a
Targaryen looking child. And Illyrio has those looks.
He's blonde and blue eyed. We do know what his hair color
is and his eyes and that he was a good looking man when he was
young. So that part fits really well.
So it could just be the genetics that they wanted, but it could
actually be certain noble ancestry on one or both sides.
Illyrio or Virus or and or Sarah.
Of all three of them, I suspect Illyria is the least likely to
have no one ancestry. But.
And I'd say, is Sarah the most likely?
To Sarah, the most likely yes. And yeah, it's a lot more
likely. Varus and Sarah have like,
certainly Sarah and Illyrio aren't related.
They're really trying to create be Targaryen.
They're trying to be an insane. They'll be so sure.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't be so. Sure, about that.
But we'll remind ourselves a few time in this episode.
The plot to make or crown or both make and crowned Aegon
slash young Griff may have been conceived prior to Varus's stint
as Master Whisper. They may have.
Planned this ahead of actually creating a child they may have
like, took taken them years to find the right pairing of people
to create this baby that looks Targaryen.
You know, I don't know if that's even what they did, but let's
keep in mind when Aegon was born.
Now Tyrion looks at Aegon and thinks he's a little older than
they say, but not a lot older like he might be. 18 instead of
16 or 15, But that's not going to change our math on this, like
when they started conceiving this plan very much.
And this is where Varus learned his mummer tricks at Lise.
He was apprentice to this mummer's troop and he must have
been pretty good. At it.
Like he he traveled with them. It's like if you're a kid
playing soccer and you're chosen for the traveling team, you must
be pretty good at Soccer Varus. Was a slave.
Apprentice to a mummer's troop and they took him on the road.
They took well on on the road like they were sailing to many
different cities According to him.
Like Old Town, Atlantis, Port King's Landing, Bravos.
Just lots of places and that implies a pretty decent length
of time. Like travelling from Old Town to
Pentas takes a while and then he's names.
All these different cities they went to this all this time he's
acquiring skills, he's practicing, he's learning
mummer's tricks, acting skills, things that he uses now.
Like I said, he must have had some talent, must have had some
ability, might have worked really hard, we see.
Him hustle a lot later, so I kind of that kind of fits that
he was useful to the mummer's troop, which is an important
point. The fact that he was useful yet
they sold him. He is very good at the things
that he must have learned back then.
So it all that all fits really well, the whole mummery.
So it's hard to imagine that a mummer's troop wasn't in his
past given that he has so many mummers skills.
That part really is hard to question.
You know I questioned the Sarah stuff.
But this stuff, yeah, this this I kind of believe.
But beyond Lee. So what what happens is right
he's one of the tour stops is Mir and that's when his life
took this dark and pivotal turn allegedly.
So he doesn't have any like sense of mirror is like a home.
It's just a place he got left and had to start over.
So let's. Talk about the ritual the first
time Tyrion tries to get an answer.
Regarding being made into a eunuch.
Varus evades the question. Maybe he doesn't.
He doesn't necessarily. Evade it, he But he says, let's
talk about some other time. So maybe he was evading it.
Either way he's he puts it off and this is Tyrion.
The Clash of Kings Two. When this happens, this is we're
going to have the quote here. And this is just after he sent
Janos Slint to the wall. Here we go.
Who cut you varies. When and why?
Who are you truly? The Eunuch's smile never
flickered, but his eyes glittered with something that
was not. Laughter you are kind to.
Ask my Lord, But my tale is long and sad, and we have treasons to
discuss. Now he could be acting here.
But Tyrion? Tyrion certainly reads it as
genuine emotion. I do too.
I mean, whatever you think of virus and his deceptions and
whatever the real story is, which it might not be what we
there's no way that this wasn't like traumatic ish.
You know I don't want to like. Overuse the word.
Trauma. But this man was turned into a
eunuch. I mean that's.
Pretty safe guess it was horrible, even if there wasn't
some dark ritual involved. Even though even if the Voice
and the sorcerer completely made-up, it's pretty awful no
matter what. Like, right?
But Forest might have known that a story like this had a lot of
potential to win him sympathy, to use as a way to win trust.
Like I'm going to get close to you as I'm going to share my
personal secrets with you. We're going to trust each other
a little more and Varus could see that this would give him
leverage over Tyrion and he wants to use it at a specific
time. And we know he's trying to
recruit Tyrion or trying to make an ally of him.
We know that they have maybe a long term plan of winning Tyrion
over. So if he has clear goals of
winning Tyrion over, then he's going to be very specific and
use good timing with when he tells these personal stories to
try to win Tyrion over. He's not going to just, he's
going to pick his moment, he's going to pick his spots when it
has maximum effect. There's a lot of incentive here.
If he's trying to win Tyrion over and he's not going to
scruple to tell like that's another reason to not believe to
think he's willing to lie. He's got goals here.
He wants. He's got ambitions.
We don't exactly know what the end game is, but we know he
wants Tyrion, or at some point he wanted Tyrion.
And every A lot of things that followed were his in the.
Effort to recruit him and it might start.
It might have started as far back as this, and so the timing
of the telling of the ritual story is is worth scrutiny.
It's also no noteworthy that he might not yet have decided how
to tell the story to Tyrion. Like the core pieces of it that
are true can still have different things added on
depending on who he's talking to or what his goal is.
So like pinning it on magic versus pinning it on slave
owners versus, you know, whatever other thing he might
not quite have sized Tyrion up for which angle he's going to
take when he tells the story. Yes, I like that.
That's a very good point. Yeah, 'cause it's it's along the
way it lines that I'm thinking, like when this next quote
occurs, we're about to read here.
Tyrion has just been told by Varys that of Renly's murder and
the subsequent claiming of his army by Stannis, the mention of
dark arts, the mention of a shadow baby.
Well, he didn't say shadow baby, but it was like some dark arts
have been suspected here. And we the rumors are that
Stannis has a shadow binder from a shy, which is true.
That's Melisandre. So the mention of darker.
You're right, Sean. He might have been waiting for a
a a good hook to use. And Stannis using dark arts
either fit perfectly or was a good lie to tell.
That virus came up with in the interim.
He's like, I need a good story. I'm going to work it up like an
actor. Would he's like, I need this
monologue to be? Really.
Effective. I need the audience to be bought
in on this. With my delivery has to be
perfect. The details of the story have to
be good. So just imagine if Stannis,
instead of having Melisandre working for him, he'd hired some
mercenary troop from a slave city.
Yeah, Varus might have told this story a little differently.
Yes, so. So check out this quote here and
keep in mind just who Varus is and his skills, his acting and
all that quote. This pause was longer than the
one before, and when Varri spoke again, his voice was different.
Somehow. I was an orphan boy, apprentice
to a travelling folly. Our master owned a fat little
cog and we sailed up and down the Narrow Sea, performing in
all the Free Cities and from time to time in Old Town and
King's Landing. Different Like what does that
mean because. It's just a it's a grave
stories. It's a big part of his history.
Believable. But this is a guy has such
control over how he speaks. This is a trained actor.
He knows these things. He's not going to do these
things subconsciously. He's going to take on a voice
intentionally for the gravity of what he's going to say.
This is very performative. I think even if it's backed by
truth, it's still he still wants it to hit a certain way.
He wants it to land a certain way so he can feed on his own
real trauma to make it more believable.
Even though some of these details might not be again.
So use Aria as an as an example too.
Aria is actually quite a great parallel to Virus in so many
ways, in a ways that maybe a lot of y'all hadn't noticed.
Some of you probably did notice the theater troupe stuff.
That's a that's a big one. Now I assume he was a performer,
but he might not have been. He might have been, you know
stagehand and some people do both.
You know, there's jobs in theater that are, you know,
multi flexible. You do some make up and costume
stuff. Sometimes you perform.
That's what Arya was going to do at her theater in in Bravo.
She was helping people with costumes, but she also had a
scene. That's pretty normal for a a
stage troupe. But he and he was good at it,
right? That's an important, really
important point. If he he was an apprenticed
slave, so if he wasn't good at it, they would have just
ditched. Him.
They're like, all right, you're not good at this.
Find some other slave. Just turnover, right?
But he must have been decent enough to keep his job.
And again, this this tracks with how good he is at mummery later
in life. At first it was probably a
decent life, relatively speaking, for someone who's an
enslaved orphan. You know, like most you could.
Mostly you would expect to end up in hard labor.
Or in a. Brothel or something.
Just much worse than a traveling acting troop.
That's that's much better than you would expect for for an
enslaved orphan. But of course, that was only
temporary. It did take the dark turn, and
here's that moment quote. One day at Mir, a certain man
came to our folly. After the performance he made an
offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse.
I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use
me, as I had heard men used small boys.
But in truth, the only part of me he had need of was my
manhood. He gave me a potion that made me
powerless to move or speak, yet did nothing to dull my senses.
With a long hooked blade he sliced me root and stem,
chanting all the while, I watched him burn my manly parts
on a Brazier. The flames turned blue, and I
heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the
words they spoke. He says he was in.
Terror. And you know, that's one.
I certainly believe that that's one of the most believable
things he ever says. What a turn for a young person's
life to take. This isn't even something you
might imagine is possible. Like you said, he's worried
about being sexually abused, which is terrifying enough, but
then it's worse. We wonder why again, Illyrio
says. I wonder why Virus chose him.
We wonder why this random sorcerer guy chose Virus.
Why was he chosen for this ritual?
Out of all the other orphan boys, we're told young Wires was
talented. We've seen evidence of it.
It's corroborated a number of ways.
So why a a relatively useful talented?
Slave boy that you choose. Him rather than some, I don't
know not. Very talented slave boy.
It seems like that would be a better choice.
Like, it's kind of ugly to think about, but like if you're a
slave owner, you're thinking of them as property.
Why would you give a valuable one up when you could give one
that doesn't have any skills if it's all the same?
Like what ritual requires talent amongst like, is that really
what we're meant to believe? Oh, I need someone who's good at
mummery for this ritual. What that isn't like, what kind
of magic is this? That doesn't really make much
sense to me. I don't know.
So you're selling a profitable asset to?
Like he got an offer he couldn't refuse.
The Goat Master paid. Was paid a lot by the Sorcerer.
But why? What did the Sorcerer see in him
that made him worth that? It's a very difficult part of
the story to get past. Why scoop a boy from the gutter,
teach him useful skills, see him succeed, then sell him to be
maimed? It doesn't make a lot of sense
unless there's a missing piece here, besides the fact he was
paid a lot, but even that. It's like why did the Sorcerer
pay so much for Varys? Why did what?
What? Why wasn't some other?
Boy useful. I I've had other like sort of
wait a minute pieces to this one is that if the sorcerer just
needed him for this ritual, it seems like he could have had
that and still giving him back to the mummer's troop.
What? Why was there no discussion or
negotiation? Right.
Like, yeah. Well, I guess my question is,
would Varys want to go back to the mummer's troop after they
sold? Him.
No, but he's a slave. They may not have a choice.
Am I selling back, you know? And on top of that, it's another
piece of this this scenario that's a little weird.
Why would the guy use a potion that keeps him alert, that lets
him feel the pain? Like, wouldn't it be easier to
just knock him out or use some other potion?
It seems like a relatively weird, rare, unique sort of
potion to be part of this. It just makes it more awful,
yeah. It makes the story makes you
feel more sympathy for virus. Right.
And so that makes me suspect this part of it, that part I
think he's making up, that he probably wasn't really awake and
aware of the pain, witnessed all this stuff.
That's something he gets to make up, I think.
But I still don't know to what end or why the sorcerer would
have done this in the 1st place. It it's a piece of this that I
can make sense of what might be true or not true, or why he
would tell it this way, but it doesn't like solve the whole
thing. It makes me more confused, yeah.
No, it doesn't. Yeah, it really doesn't.
Yeah. Here, let's, let's move on with
this. More on this, this aspect of it,
of his story. It's believable that Varys had
qualities that made him write for this ritual, but it's hard
to guess what that is if it's not something in his blood.
And the only thing we know about in this world about blood is
that there is power in King's blood.
And even that's a suspect concept, but it's something
believed by a lot of characters in the world, so.
This is perhaps the biggest. Suggestion that virus was not
some random orphan, but someone with notable ancestry.
So obviously, if the whole question of King's blood is too
big a topic for this episode, we'll just go on what we know
about it. But this doesn't even add up
with what we know about King's blood.
Like Melisandre just used leeches.
Like, why wouldn't leeches work here?
No other blood magic ritual? What's that?
Need more juice? Need more juice?
No other blood magic ritual we've ever seen involves
castration like this is the A1 time thing.
What is the spell he's trying to do?
Is it like a fertility spell? Like?
Is it particularly relevant to what the sorcerer is trying to
do? Like maybe there's something to
do with someone was infertile, was impotent or something and.
That's what the voice said. You are now fertile.
Yeah, yeah, you peed some. Language far as get.
Hard you. Can.
I don't know. It's blue, like the color of
Viagra. Yeah, I don't.
Play like I honestly, but that is where I go with it.
It's like if it's so like highly specific is about being that
like a a sexual organ like that. Does the ritual have a sexual?
It's a sensible theory, or at least like angle to take on it.
I like that, yeah. And it did seem to be
Melisandre's belief. Is it?
Look at the magic I get from a little bit of blood out of these
leeches. Think what I could do with an
actual sacrifice. And maybe there's a lot of
grades in between a little blood from a Leech and sacrifice, like
maybe and and like you Shay is saying.
Maybe you get even something more specific if you chop off
their sword arm or chop off their ears or their tongue and
the blood from that might give you different powers.
We do have. From Melisandre, Another red
priest burning a whole. Person gives, does things.
Now the difference here is that this is so this is a part of a
person, which sort of fits, but we've never seen this blue flame
part before. No, never has the flame turned
blue, which might be just like virus could just be making
things up that sound like magic. He's like, yeah, blue flames,
hooked blade, chanting. Yeah, just like stuff to make it
sound. Believable, but is it?
Still, it's not like you say, like a Shaz theory is pretty
good. It's not far fetched.
I mean, a lot of us are out here theorizing that Bran was fed
Jojen, so like, if that's possible, then why not?
This right? Yeah, it's definitely possible,
but there's a flaw in the. Ancestry theory, which I'm open
to. I think there's potential
viruses. Maybe they maybe someone chopped
his manhood off to keep him from making more black fires.
I don't know like it's possible. Yeah, it wasn't a spell at all,
but he was. He was made of eunuch.
Yeah, yeah. It might not have been for
sorcery at all. I think that's a great point.
Exactly the UNSL. Leader made into Unix very young
in age they they not saying virus was a former unsullied but
there's. Lots of horrible things done to
slaves that involve maiming, and they don't.
They're not all sorcerers doing rituals.
There's still a hole in that, by the way.
If they just don't want to have kids, just kill them.
They left them for dead anyway. Exactly.
Stab them through the heart, you know.
I agree with that. That's usually what's done to
potential claimants is you just kill them.
You don't just cast them but that.
But there are exceptions. The Byzantine Empire would just
cut the nose and would cut noses off of other claimants and blind
them and wouldn't kill them like you're not a like.
No one's going to see you as a viable claimant to be emperor if
you can't, if you're blind and had your nose cut off.
Noseless is still better than you, evil guy.
Also, this is very minor, but I want to point out noseless isn't
just gross. It would affect your respiratory
system, your ability to body's ability to cool itself down,
breathing, germs, and everything else.
Your nose serves a bunch of functions.
It would you'd be worse off without.
Yeah, like, I mean, Tyrion is a good example.
He has issues with it a lot. Like it's always, I mean he for
him pretty much. It's always just like scratching
or and that's bad enough, just constantly itching and being
irritated. And yeah, but you're right, it's
worse. Than that.
So here's another flaw with the sorcery idea, even though the
ancestor idea fits. Like how did the sorcerer know
he's in the audience and he sees this kid.
He's like aha, that's a secret Targaryen.
Like what? How would he know?
Like how did he know? So like even this, how did he
know that guy's special? Like what did the sorcerer see
in virus and how did he see it? How did he identify this
quality, whatever it is? Well my question is, well does
Varys know? Because if Varys knows he could
have been not so slick about it. He could have let it slip.
He could have if his related Sarah, Sarah knew and says like
I don't know, like there's if if if he knows or his family knows
other people could easily find that out.
And I also wonder how much of A sense a sorcerer type person
could have for that type of like you could.
Identify it? Yeah, somehow.
I I do. I do feel that it it has to be
somewhat possible for him to identify that kind of power.
But I think more likely is that Varys knew his heritage and.
It's someone else found out about it.
Yeah, that could that would make some sense I I think.
I do think that's a little more even if we're not fully on board
with his ancestry idea that I kind of like that if.
That's the case. I kind of like that idea too.
Just I like the idea of various, like learning a lesson in his
life. He was a different type of
personality. Seans nodding in agreement.
There not only in agreement there, but in agreement from a
different angle too. It's possible that after this
moment, he a wanted to learn who his ancestry was like.
He like it might have generated motivation for him to to track
down secrets. It's something he got really
good at. That might have been another
lesson learned here. By his own family, yeah, yeah,
that's a really good point. And it it's kind of like in the
inverse of Sir Glendon Ball. He was like, no, my dad was
definitely fireball, even though there could have been any one of
the men who visited that that particular brothel.
Same thing here is like virus. Could it have?
I think it was definitely Fireball.
Yeah. And virus is like, it could be
as simple as like, no, I don't want them to know who it really
was. So I'll say it was a brothel.
So let's continue that. The story about the night of the
ritual, like this is the climax of the story, the the finishing
move. If it's a performance, and it
might be, this is like the delivery, the part that matters
the most quote. Yet I still dream of that night,
my Lord, Not of the sorcerer, nor his blade, nor even the way
my manhood shriveled as it burned.
I dream. Of the.
Voice. The voice from the flames.
Was it a God? A demon?
Some conjurer's trick? I could not tell you.
And I know all the tricks. All I can say for a certainty is
that he called it and it answered.
And since that day. I have hated.
Magic and all those who practice it, if Lord Stannis is one such.
I mean to see him dead. So if the story's true, and
which a good question, we just have to keep asking This
conjurer's trick is like, why? Who the hell is this guy
tricking? Like your your your victim.
You're tricking him. Doesn't make much sense.
So I don't think it's a conjurer's trick.
It's just something that he's just acknowledging that I.
Have no idea what happened. You know 'cause he knows.
Tyrion is skeptical, which is an interesting aspect of this.
Tyrion is very skeptical about magic, so if Virus is trying to
manipulate Tyrion into believing, hey, I'm definitely
on your side, Stannis is. I would never ally with Stannis.
Even though Stannis is on his way with an army.
Even though Stannis is is not unlikely to defeat you and kill
you all, I'm still on your side even though I've flipped sides
before. I'm a guy that used to work for
Aries and then I swipped to Robert and now I'm Joffrey like
he's switched sides before so he's he knows his loyalty will
be called into question. He knows.
He's got to prove he's on their side.
It's like Tywin being like we killed all those Targaryens to
make sure everyone knew what side we were on because we
didn't prove what side we were on earlier in the war.
We had to be even more demonstrative about it later by
murdering baby Targaryens to really send that message home.
Same thing here. He's like Lord Stannis.
He's 100% my enemy. No matter what ideological
differences, I could never be on his side.
And he needs Tyrion to believe that.
He actually really needs Cersei to believe that even more, which
it will. Presumably, though, there may be
some of those conversations happened off Page.
Or maybe he just expected that to get around.
And guess what happens during the Battle of the Right Before
the Battle of Blackwater, Varus happens to expose the antler
men. A pro Stannis conspiracy?
You know that it's a good way to prove he's definitely not on
their side, so. And do you think Varus just
learned about them right then, Right before that?
He's probably known for quite a while.
Let them simmer till the right moment.
That's exactly what I was implying there, Sean.
Good catch. Yes, he was like, yeah, he he
knew about the antler men for a while.
But he's he he told at the moment that mattered most, I
think. Or before it was too late.
Yeah, the the maximum benefit to him.
But still, and we should entertain.
This though the idea that this is true, like that ritual really
happened or. Something like, it really
happened, which is crazy, right? It's wow, this is like, like I
said, this is not a form of magic.
We've seen precisely us. We've seen maybe some similar
things, like we've heard weird voices from Mary Mazdor's tent.
We've seen full body burning, so again, why not parts of a body?
We've seen eunuchs made in a variety of other places, magical
and non magical, but communing with demonic entities and not
much of that in this world, right?
We haven't seen much of that. This says it was demonic.
It might have been angelic. It might have been angelic or
and now George says that, like, the gods aren't like beings you
can talk to. So we can be pretty sure this is
not a God or a deity, but it's it's a being of some kind it
talk. You know?
And again the flames turned blue.
Which again, might just be embellishment, but it certainly
makes it a little creepier, you know.
And yeah, what the heck was that voice if it was a real voice, if
he really heard? It, you know and.
He says it gives him more nightmares than the sorcerer or
the pain or or any of that. Which is like whoa which is big
if true, but might not be. Might be just embellishment for
effect roll call. I'm curious each of you.
Do you believe? That Varys was cut by a sorcerer
A and B. Do you think it happened like
that? I don't think he was cut by a
sorcerer, but. He might have been.
If you're pinning me down on, I'm open to it.
Yeah, I know, man, man. I'll say less than 5050 that.
He was. I think I'm with you on that.
I think it's less than 5050 for me too.
As much as we are speculating on this, I don't know that.
I think it was a sorcerer. If you'd asked me before this
episode. Though I would.
I might have believed it, but it was.
Delving into this has been make me very suspicious.
Yeah, I don't know. I think there's a lot of holes
in this, in this theory. Yeah.
I think there's holes in him being castrated, even as much as
I like that, it gives me evidence for him having
Targaryen Blackfyre heritage. I like that aspect of it.
I think just him being castrated is enough for him to to have
proof of him having that heritage.
He doesn't. I don't know.
What about you, Sean? Pin you down.
I don't think so either. I'm I'm highly suspicious of of
a lot of surrounding this. Like literally till you just
started asking this question. Direct questions like do we even
know for sure he's castrated? Do we even know for sure that is
true? That theory is out there.
He does have the. Build of one like he has the
plumpness that the plumpness that we hear is is associated
with that it's it's like a real world thing and the and the hair
thing but. Could just be leaning into it.
I don't really go there like that would be.
Kind of. I don't go there either, but it
is something that occurs to me it seems like.
A question worth asking. Yeah, it seems like something
that someone could find out if they wanted or needed to, and so
he shouldn't lie about. Like things that can be found
out for sure. He shouldn't lie about that.
Yeah, I think they're right there.
If anyone ever had a reason to see his between his legs, yeah,
between his legs. Even if it's accidental, or
maybe he shows some people to make sure it was not, he gets.
Sick and and ends up like passed out and and probably still
looks. At him, yeah.
And the TV show he definitely. Is cause what's her name like?
Grabs him in the crotch and his and he goes.
But the show is not relevant here at all.
In the show he also has the sorcerer shipped to him in a
box, which is like OK, you know. That said, I do have a question
in the second-half about did he ever track that guy down?
Which he might have he he learned all these secrets, all
this power. He knows where the guy lived.
And then he took me out of his hair, took him to his house, and
did that stuff at his house. To be clear, when you say that
guy, that guy might have just is the guy who castrated him, who
isn't necessarily a sorcerer to the.
Extent or even a real person, yeah.
Or even a real person. But yeah, if he someone
castrated him and that someone who could be tracked down and
that someone might have even been had some sort of maligned
sorceress intent. But I just think we're kind of
agreed that it wasn't a ritual like we're seeing like he's
describing. Yeah, it might have been a.
Ritual that did nothing like this is this guys just like
trying stuff and it's like, yeah, there was there was no
voice he just cut. He cut my.
Parts off burned them and nothing happened.
You know it's. Not as good of a story.
Here's a couple other thoughts, whether it was a sorcerer or
someone trying to track down blackfires, secret blackfires,
or whatever, when they're trying to kill all Roberts bastards.
Do you think they might have killed a couple innocent kids on
accident, just to be sure? Just grabbing whoever they think
might would be. It's.
Entirely possible when it fits, yeah.
So he might have been just someone on a mission to track
down secret Blackfires and pick bars out and was just wrong.
Still, it's a little weird that he would just not kill him.
Why? Why pay money to get him then
castrate him and not kill him? That those are like a weird
series of. I guess so.
You could still have him as a slave.
But he left him for dead, theoretically.
Maybe that's a lie. Also, maybe he didn't love him
for dead. Maybe he took him as an
apprentice and taught him all his black magic arts.
And that's all Paris is hiding. His age, you know?
He's got a. Glamour on his crotch.
That's why. It looks like he's a eunuch.
But he's not. It's actually there.
He's actually really well hung. He's actually a woman.
I'm half joking. Maybe more than half joking
about some of this stuff, but it's worth noting that I think
Ned and a couple other people say that he knows the black
arts. That's how it's introduced,
yeah. Catelyn's like, I swear he knows
some black. Art.
Yeah, which? Is might be all the more reason
for VAR is to separate himself. And no, I hate the black arts.
By the way, I'm using black arts over here like.
Thematically, as a in a story sends, I like the idea more of
him as a as a counterpart to our magic users.
And be like no, you can still be despicable even if you're
against magic. Like you know you don't doesn't
require the supernatural for you to be an awful, awful person.
And my and my taste when I look at it from like if I take a step
back and look at all the characters and who's represented
doing what, you know, I I like him as a foil to a Melisandre
type thing, I guess. Yeah, I yeah, I do.
Too. Yeah, about to say.
Melisandre just wanting to sacrifice children.
Vara seems to be also, yeah. So which is that's a great catch
and also we have to think about this politically.
Varus's goal, his long term goal, is to elevate Aegon.
So he's on one hand he doesn't want to look like, doesn't want
the Lannister to think he's going to switch to Santis.
But actually he wants Aegon to win, and he doesn't want Aegon
to fight Stannis. He wants Aegon to fight the
Lannisters, who are much easier target and much they're hated
and not. And with, especially if Tywin's
out of the way, eventually, that's even more true.
They didn't have good leadership once Tywin was gone.
Stannis is his hardcore, doesn't like Varus.
Varus already knows that Santis won't work with Varus.
He won't keep him on his council, so he's like, so
there's a lot of reasons for Varys to not want Stannis to win
for his own goals and for his own Stannis.
His own opinion of Varys being against magic, though, we can
take that a little farther. This would not only put him in
conflict with Stannis and Melisandre, but people like
Maccoro. Maybe even Danny might get.
Complicated his feelings on her. If he you know her for being the
miracle worker who brings back Dragons, I don't know he.
He hears that she's hatched Dragons, but he doesn't.
Necessarily know the the magic behind all that.
And she's not an active practitioner of black magic,
necessarily. But still, it's complicated.
And I'm so curious about Varus's opinion on Dragon.
Yeah, Dragons and and yeah, so Jon Snow could be an issue.
Like if Jon Snow is Secret Targaryen and that comes out, or
if he's undead, like, what is that?
What does Varus think about Walking Dead?
What does Varus think about? Bran of Freaking Tree Wizard.
You know, what is that going to do?
Like is Varus on a collision course with being anti Stark
because of Jon Bran and? Aria like Arias.
They're skin changers like these.
None of these things like seem to line up well with what Varus
likes or his goals. Of course, they definitely don't
go with his goals of putting egg on on the throne.
With what Varus says he likes I. Right, right.
There's always that. Whether he's really against
magic in the first place. Good point.
Yeah. But the Starks might all present
threats to his master plan. Yeah.
And I guess we're saying that he can not be a magic user but also
not be violently against magic because of a traumatic
experience. Like we're saying there's a
middle ground where he is spinning this as a way to get a
sense of Tyrion and and cast, you know, shade on Stannis all
etcetera, as we mentioned. But he might not actually hate
magic. Yeah.
One other point before our break here, I want to point out what a
parallel. There's several parallels here.
Aria and Varus have parallels with regarding their youth and
being castaway from their family and growing up in Essos.
Like kind of taken in by some sketchy organization, you know,
that trains you in ways that are, you know, useful in other
ways. Like they're both very good at
mummery and things like that and detached from their family.
All that. And then with Danny, the whole
being similar situation chase throughout Essos with a target
on your back and sold into slavery and you know being
abused and and all sorts of things like that.
But Ned Stark as well, hiding a secret candidate that they're
but with the inverse, Ned's trying to keep Jon on the down
low doesn't want him to go for the throne, whereas Varus is.
Probably has a false. Claimant that he does want to go
for the throne, and the why of that is part something we'll
work on a bit in the second-half of this episode.
All right, so today I want to announce who won our episode,
Topics Moot. We called it on Patreon.
We had picked 12 topics over the course of the month of mostly
February, and there was lots of activity.
A lot of y'all participated. It was, I was very glad to see
that. Lots of discussion, lots of
discussing about the polls and the different possibility of the
topics and trying to decide which ones to.
Pick out of all the choices that we pushed out there for y'all,
so let me announce those those 12 winners.
Undead Character Poll winner Cold Hands.
That episode's already been made unfinished Scripted series
episode winner Nymeria. We'll be finishing the Nymeria
series. Yay Robert's Rebellion era poll
was the winner was The Abduction of Lyanna.
We had a variety of historical influences and authorial
influences, but y'all mostly picked the historical
influences. The authorial influences were
defeated. The Black Dinner won a runoff
poll against Jr. Tolkien, the Black Dinner being
the inspiration for the Red Wedding.
Also winners were Rome and A Song of Ice and Fire.
Rome's influence on A Song of Ice and Fire.
Not just the TV show, meaning the mostly you know, the Roman
people and their Republic and their empire, but also the TV.
Show 'cause it was actually, there is a bit of a connection
there between the making of Game of Thrones and the making of the
TV show Rome. And the Wars of the Roses,
Perhaps the most famous historical parallel to early A
Song of Ice and Fire. Not so much later, A Song of Ice
and Fire. Although in some ways yes.
Still, you mostly favored non POV characters for this episode,
Virus this episode. Was chosen by Topic Smoot.
We wanted to see which other characters y'all wanted to see
done in the young slash education of that.
We started with Ned. Y'all mostly favored older
characters. Barristan almost won, Young Nan
almost won. Maester Amon did win, along with
Varys and the OFT mentioned in this episode, Melisandre.
So Melisandre will be and and Maester Amon will both have
Young version episodes later this year.
And finally the winners of the supernatural slash Miscellaneous
categories. The missing.
That'll be an episode on characters who have gone
missing, people who we haven't seen in a while, like what
happened to Captain Obvious, what happened to the Widow of
the Waterfront? What happened to?
There's a lot of characters that I don't have a list in.
Front of me, you know. Stone snake People like that
next to be What is the shadow? As in the ash eye by the shadow.
What is it? Where'd it come from?
What relevance might it have to forms of magic that we see in
Westeros or might see in Westeros?
Big fun, supernatural world building mystery.
And last but certainly not least, what happened to
Hardhome? An episode all about Hardhome.
Where, how it was built and formed and then what happened to
it with its fiery doom sort of thing that happened.
And as well we'll have a follow up on our discussion of
volcanoes, which we started. Back when we discussed the Doom,
we said we would follow up with Hardhum episode eventually that
also delved into some of the recent volcanic eruptions on
Earth. So we'll have a little.
Real world parallels there and in particular I'm thinking of
the Tonga eruption which was really incredible and
devastating, but also. With modern science, we're able
to track it in ways that previous earthquakes have not
been able to be measured. So some interesting stuff there.
So yes, folks, this is our pitch to you to sign up for our
Patreon. We're always doing fun stuff
over there, whether it's voting on topics, whether it's doing
lots of them or a little of them, whether it's trivia.
Yeah, we have a Song of Ice and Fire trivia coming up again this
month For anyone who's a patron. We hosted on Discord and that'll
be Tuesday, March 26th at 9:00 PM Eastern.
But no matter what month you're listening to this, we have a
monthly hangout, whether it's trivia or Jackbox games.
This month again, March 26th for trivia and Tuesday, April 30th
at 9:00 PM for Discord Jackbox Games.
So, you know, come join the community, be part of voting, be
part of Hangouts, be part of, you know, seeing episodes a
little bit early when they're out on podcast.
There's there's many benefits. We could.
We could talk with you. About over 20 bonus episodes, I
believe. At this point I don't have a
count, but we have a lot of episodes that are not available
on the main feed. So if you want more History of
Westeros, as little as 5 bucks a month gets you a lot more
episodes. And more to come.
So patreon.com/history of Westeros, that's where you go to
get that done question from Cannibal the Dragon.
Who do you think is part of ours is family.
I think he is the grandson of Bitter Steel.
You know, I used to entertain that idea too, but I once asked
George RR Martin straight up did Bitter Steel have any kids?
He said no. So Bitter Steel has no
descendants. Unfortunately.
He could be was. It a no, I know.
I don't think he. Said no, you're right, he said
no, I don't think so. So he gave himself an out in
case he changed his mind. But for now it's a no,
unfortunately. So there it's still possibly
connected to Blackfires or targets other way, but probably
not directly through Bitter Steel.
And it's a good guess though, because Bitter Steel married one
of Damon's daughters, so Damon Blackfyre's daughter.
So the idea that they. Could have had children is very,
very much there and they would have been blackfire on both
sides in a in a sense. So Anthony De Palma asks.
I wonder if ours had another name when he was a slave.
Like how Melisandre remembers being Melanie.
Oh yeah, Slave name. Yes.
Virus might be his own name. Like Grey Worm.
That's not his real name. And yeah, very good question.
Yeah, maybe that's not his real name.
I have no idea what it. Would be.
But yeah, it could be some other name.
Aegon. No, I'm joking.
Aegon Oh God, I'm. Totally joking.
It's visarious, John Rohel says It's virus, an offspring of
Damon Blackfyre's sister. I figure that's how the sword
Blackfyre ends up with MO Patis. Well, we figure the sword ends
up with him through other means, if he even has it, which we do
think he does. Certainly in a deleted scene
version of an earlier chapter that George wrote, it seemed to
be the indication it wasn't 100% confirmed, but it does seem to
be what George intended. I think he may have changed his
mind. But in my case, I don't want
you. I lean towards the theory that
if there's a a Targaryen heritage, I like the idea that
it stems from Sarah Targaryen who went to lease and then
started a brothel and Volantis and did have sons.
Just because I like the the connection of of the name Sarah,
like literally her name is Sarah just spelled differently.
And like there's just a lot like like her sisters, viscera but
spelled, I don't know, there's a few things there.
I'm a little bit partial to that.
I know that there are some flaws and it makes them a Targaryen
heritage, not a black fire heritage, but those Targaryens
could have also married into some of the black fires there.
Yeah, absolutely not mutually exclusive by any means.
So there's a couple of different ways the sword could have ended
up with Illyrio, but there does have to be an explanation
because the Targaryens would have recaptured it after the
third Black Fire Rebellion. When Hagon Black Fire
surrendered, he lost and surrendered and was executed
very dishonorably. But you would think he had the
sword when he was, when that happened and what?
But we lost track of it after that.
We don't know how it went from there to there or not.
Maybe it was stolen. That would make sense.
Just being stolen is entirely possible.
It's the safest guess, probably at this point, but.
Who knows? Who knows?
Arya Saxena says it could be that the source renew virus's
parents a new virus when he was younger, so that could solve the
how it is the source for no, he has real blood.
Yeah, he could like several different free.
Folk look at John and go. He looks like a Stark, you know,
So, like certain families do have looks.
Now, I don't know that Varys has the look.
It's never been described to us that way.
But maybe when he was younger, maybe when he had hair, maybe
there was certain features, you know?
Maybe he covers the look up. Yeah, maybe he does.
You're right. So that's a good possibility.
Yeah. Maybe there was just some
physical traits that made it look like that.
Yeah, I'm down for that. Certainly you can't dismiss that
possibility. Joe Magician says his obsession
with secrets could stem from this, where letting his ancestry
slip got him castrated, So made him more secret.
Absolutely. A mistake he'll never make
again. Kind of like oops, I'm you
normally don't get to make that mistake twice.
Like as we said, this would have more likely made him we we would
guess he's more likely to. Be killed over this?
Little did. We know it doesn't have to be
the only case. Little did we know, he actually
did make the mistake twice. The first time they took the
root and the second time the sound.
Oh God, that's so gruesome, Jesse Johnson says.
I'm a bit behind, but I always believed Varus was taking the
story of how Unsullied are made to burn their own parts and also
Illyria surrounded by Unsullied guards.
Good. Point they he does.
Grey Worm does sort of phrase it that way.
He's like the the goddess that we worship, the Lady of battle,
Lady of Spears, or whatever they call her.
It's like we don't even like telling you her name.
She's a private thing that we worship.
Only those who who sacrifice their manhood can can worship
her or whatever. It's like their secret goddess.
Basically. He's uncomfortable telling Danny
and he's not uncomfortable with anything about her being in
charge. Really.
It's like the one thing that he's uncomfortable about.
So yeah, I mean that is an interesting.
Like if he's like OK, think of the movie The Usual Suspects
where Kevin Spacey's character Kaiser Sosa is just taking
details off the wall behind Chaz Palminteri.
Chaz Palminteri's character, he's like this name and he's
just using the details to to lie and make his story on the fly.
So that could this is that's basically what Jesse is saying
here is like the elements from what Virus has learned about
Unix and Unsullied. Those elements are in this story
which is with the dark sorcery added in, but the brassiere and
the manhood being burned there, those are associated with the
Unsullied. So, yeah, yeah, Good catch, good
catch. Flip side, maybe the person who
castrated him worships the same God.
That's, I don't know. At least another angle to take
on. Interesting, April, May says.
Well, the only other person who has eyes like Virus is Quaith.
Dark, wet, and shiny Virus and Quaith eyes.
I don't recall that description of Virus's eyes.
But if Virus has a glass candle and is speaking to Danny, well,
that'd be interesting. Of course we've seen Quaith like
on page right in front of Danny's.
He wasn't. In a glass candle when she met
her the first time. Like standing there, but you
know, there could be a quick connection.
That's certainly Quaith is a giant mystery, so I'd have to
verify that. About the eyes, I don't remember
that description. I don't remember any description
of Varus's eyes, to be honest. I Shaya, do you think Varys has
beady little spider eyes? Dark.
He's hiding his other six eyes. He does.
Dark beast spider eyes. Nice deep cut reference there,
Sean. Very few people will get that.
Lalitov says. That's what I think of Shaya,
but I see him more as a foil to Bloodraven.
The only person more powerful than him as far as knowing
what's happening is an immortal tree man.
And Virus is just a human. Yes, Virus is a great parallel
to Bloodraven. Here's why.
On the surface, he says he's doing these things to save
Westeros, to make a better world.
That's what Bloodraven is doing. He's doing all this stuff, some
of which is evil ish, to save the world from the others.
Which is kind of funny because Virus is trying to save the
world from something when there's actually a much bigger
threat that's that Bloodraven is attentive to and Bran is
attentive to, and other people are being focused on so.
It is kind of but. It does make for a parallel.
Well, they're sort of on their own, doing a thing secretly that
they think will make the world better or that will save the
world. And it involves doing kind of
evil things to make that happen. But it might be for good ends.
They both use disguises. They both are scarred.
They both are pale. They have, yeah.
Take many forms, yeah, April, May says in The mystery Night,
The guy who tries to kill Dunk when Plum comes in wearing the
glowing moonstone, the guy who Dunk kills is described exactly
like virus, down to the powder. Yeah, that's.
I mean, that's Bloodraven. Or Alan Cockshaw is the one that
tries to kill Dunk. And then?
Blood Raven shows up and helps him in disguise as Maynard Plum.
Yeah, I guess it my point to April, May, I would be curious
to see the exact quotes for you that you feel is described
exactly the same. As far as I can tell, Alan
Cockshaw was plump, was pudgy. But I don't know.
That it was the description was was exactly the same to me.
I I would have to check that. I don't know if.
You're worth a look. Yeah, Maybe Bars is a cockshaw
cockshaw. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I mean that is true.
I mean that could be the like, yeah, he could have other no.
Preparedness odd. But not out of.
I mean, there's no reason to dismiss that.
Yeah, no, no, exactly. There's no reason to completely
dismiss that. So yeah, I would be curious to
know more details on that. And then April.
May also says that the scene where his eyes are described as
dark, wet and shiny is when Tyrion asks him how he was cut.
Oh, so when he's describing the rituals, his eyes look.
Like that. What I take from that is that,
you know, he's turning it on maybe.
That is very interesting. OK, yeah, maybe we're maybe.
I'll take a second to look at that.
And yes, that's that's. A very specific odd description.
Dark, wet and shiny for eyes. Yeah, we'll take a closer look
at both of that at the Talk Shop entered a scene as well.
Thanks for all the yeah, thanks for all the comments.
Y'all great questions. This is such a great character,
and as is evidenced by all the thoughts y'all have OK, so this
is well, this next part I've called Starting for Nothing,
which is returning to virus's life in mirror, but after the
ritual. The mummers had sailed by the
time he was done with me. Once I had served his purpose,
the man had no further interest in me, so he put me out.
When I asked him what I should do now, he answered that he
supposed I should die to spite him.
I resolved to live. I begged, I stole and I sold
what parts of my body still remained to me.
Soon I was as good a thief. As any in.
Mirror And When I was older, I learned that often the contents
of a man's letters are more valuable than the contents of
his purse. So the mummers had sailed by the
time the sorcerer was done with him.
Now I have questions about that, because what is the sorcerer
like? Wait for the moon to be right?
It sounds like this all happened like right away took him home,
did the ritual, and then cast him out.
Like a day or two. Obviously there's I can't be too
sure of that, but it doesn't sound like it was a long
process, so it's a little little weird, but why would virus want
to go back anyway? Like you said, like why would
you go back to the troop? It sold him to this guy.
Maybe because he has nowhere else to go.
He's completely hopeless and helpless.
He has the only place he ever belonged.
He has friends. Maybe some of the other people
would care for him there. He probably developed
relationships with a bunch of the people there and enjoyed the
work, even though the one guy in charge is a tyrant or whatever,
you know? Yeah, so maybe it's just he had
no other choices. Like it's either that or be
homeless on the streets, which is apparently what happened.
So because he didn't have that option.
Because the mumper troop had sailed.
So it's fairly believable. That even though I have
questions. Now here's the thing.
Here's the question to ask. Does it make the story better,
Worse, or is it just a matter of opinion?
If he's a Secret Targaryen or Secret Blackfyre, does that
make? Is it?
Is it too much of that with too
many characters with secret ancestry?
Is it more interesting if he's truly?
A man that came from nearly nothing and is has the ability
to change the world. Is that maybe more compelling?
I bring up examples like Star Wars.
Is it more? Interesting for Rey to be nobody
or for her to be a. Palpatine, I think there's a lot
of division on that. Like setting aside the other
details of that movie, just that one decision about who her
family is. Like it was cool when Luke was
the son of. Darth Vader's like, wow, that's
really neat, you know? But you can overdo.
That going back to that what same well you?
Know. Right.
So I don't know that that's just the case here.
I wonder if that's just one step too far.
Like yet another secret. But of course we don't know
which ones are. There's so many theories of who
is a secret target who isn't what.
If they're most of those aren't true, or none of them are true
and only this one is, you know, then it maybe that wouldn't be
so many. It would still be another one
more than John, you know, and and a fake one in terms of
Aegon, probably. But yeah, maybe that's just an
overused like plot device of secret history and heritage.
You know, I just thought of something else.
A reason why the murmurs might have sold him despite his skill,
and why they might have left without him.
Maybe he was stealing from them. Yeah, Palladium is stealing from
them too, and that was his punishment.
Virus wouldn't tell. That's Terry that he was trying
to engender sympathy. Are you telling me that they
foisted him? They.
Foisted. They did a foist to see.
Her. Yeah.
Sorcerer foisted him. Yeah, so.
Sorcerer foisted him on Westeros.
Maybe a small, maybe a small issue, maybe not an issue at
all, but. Why did virus not bleed out like
did the the sorcerer not? Maybe it was cauterized.
Maybe this blade was cauterized. That might make it.
Easier about that too, but it also doesn't make sense that the
source was leaving it for dead. Why would you bother tending to
the wound? How did virus live through this?
It's. Like.
Cauterized blade does answer that because it would.
It would sear the wound as you're doing, and it makes it
easier to cut. Like you see that in medieval
sort surgery as you heat the blade up.
Before. Before you I suppose, yeah,
before you cut someone's arm off or before you amputate, you do
heat the blade up to a super hot.
So I don't have too much of an issue with that, but it's it's
worth mentioning worth questioning.
Also, virus didn't mention it if that's what he did.
He didn't mention it. Super, he tells about the voice
in a blue flame, but he didn't mention that part.
He didn't mention the blade being hot.
You're right, it's not it's not a detail he he he mentioned.
Totally true. So he says he begged, borrow,
stole, did sex work that he strongly implies was degrading
but also worth it because it got him to where he needed to be.
Since he was a thief. I wouldn't be surprised if he
stole from his sex work clients, you know, And that's a key here.
He makes it sound like this, this being cut by the sorcerer,
which might be made-up. The being cut part probably
isn't. But again, all these other
details he says this is like his biggest life motivation.
The sorcerer telling him I suppose you should die to spite
him. I chose to live, I, you know, to
do all these things. He traces it all back to that
moment pretty big. And this is what he's pushing on
Tyrion as his reasoning. And it's like man, this will get
you a lot of sympathy. Tyrion understands.
Tyrion understands being a cast out.
Tyrion understands being not accepted by his family.
Tyrion under Tyrion thinks of himself as a bastard.
All dwarves are bastard in their father's eyes, right?
So this is this is like, yeah, how can I win Tyrion over
without being too obvious? Yeah.
And I think, yeah, you're right. He knows his audience and Tyrion
is someone who would be motivated by spite, by being
like, I'm going to be the best, the best hand that I could ever
be to spite them all. I'll show them.
Showtime when you show Cersei, yeah.
They would have that common ground between them.
Yeah. I kind of think, I think it's
not wrong. That virus might have someone he
wants to spite. It might not.
I don't think it's this scenario exactly, but someone somewhere
might have told him you might as well die and he is actually has
a. There might be a kernel of truth
here. Yeah, there might be, there
absolutely might be a key eternal, a kernel of truth here.
And yeah, like someone being told, like being told you're
utterly worthless, that you have no purpose in life, could make,
you know, give you a put chip on your shoulder and be like, oh.
I'll show you. I'll show you what I can
accomplish, you know, like that's that's like sort of.
Negative motivation, but it certainly worked on viruses.
You certainly like, accomplished an awful lot.
And the way he indicates it to Tyrion and Ned and Kevin is he's
for the realm. He says to these all three of
these people in different scenarios, very different
circumstances that are happening when he says this.
But he's like, yeah, I'm for the realm.
I want to make peace. I want to make the realm good.
Maybe it's even true. Like this is something that we
have to ask. Like he comes from a horrible
place. Maybe he wants to help create a
world where that doesn't happen to people where this like
people, children aren't treated that.
Way. That's treat children terribly
to make. This work that.
Might really be the case. I think it's not.
You're not wrong. There.
He's like, well, me. Let me do this to 100 or 200
more kids and then it'll never happen to any children again.
I mean, that's pretty naive but unquestionable.
But that might That doesn't mean it's not his motivation.
It's not unrealistic for someone to think that way.
Now here's an interesting point about him having been a sex
worker. Shay sees through viruses
disguise. He comes up in like a mega
disguise. And Shay's like, oh, there's
virus and shit, Tyrion's like what?
That's virus and viruses. Even virus is annoyed.
He's like, damn it, how did you know?
And she's like, I'm a sex. Worker.
You know, if I don't, If I don't.
See through the disguise, I'm gonna end up dead.
So I went. So Virus must have had a few of
those skills. But not in the same way, because
Virus isn't a young, pretty girl who's in bigger risk, you know,
Probably. Almost certainly so, I don't
think being. Pretty.
Applied to virus. Although maybe, I don't know
what he looked like when he was a kid.
Maybe he was pretty. So I.
Guess he was pretty. It's possible.
I think so. So if you take a more rosy view,
it's things like this. He's trying to end the treatment
of people like this. And if you take a more grim,
cynical view, it's He's willing to do really awful things just
for his ambition, whatever that is, 'cause we don't know what
his ambition is. And if he's noble, if that
theory is accurate, if he has noble ancestry, he feels for
other noble children that were left behind, that were forced
into an awful situation because of what happened to their
parents. If Malice the Monstrous died and
the Blackfire cause was ended, the Tirashi people who supported
them would just quite possibly sell the rest of them into
slavery like, oh, you guys are. Done.
What am I going to do with these young black fires?
They're worthless. I'll just sell them into
slavery. We got to get rid of them.
We can't be seen associated with these people anymore.
They're a, they're a they're a toxic 'cause now we can't be
associated with this loss. We have to divest ourselves from
this. That would fit, You know, like
you're you're part of a, you're a young person, part of a family
that has its fall. You end up in a bad situation.
You end up, you know, one step ahead of.
Slavery. Like Danny, Like Viserra.
That's exactly. What happened to them?
Right. Their family lost the Civil War
and they're on the run. Thought usurpers hired knives.
Bit was exaggerated, but they were definitely haunted and
definitely people after them. They definitely were at risk,
like Virus and Illyrio. Are part of the risk taking them
in and using them for their schemes, right.
So yeah, exactly. It's it's, it's unlikely.
A lot of these things are individually unlikely, but
somewhere in here is probably the truth, You know?
It's just hard to so many different permutations and
possibilities now, all those different ways he he got himself
out of the gutter earning money. The criminal stuff was the most
lucrative, the stuff that he could keep doing.
He's like, yeah, I'm going to keep doing sex work that's going
to make me rich. Yeah, obviously that's not his
path to great wealth and power, but criminal stuff?
Absolutely. He had a lot of talent.
In that area. And he'd already acquired some
skills that were useful through mummery.
That's that's really good. Think of how he is now.
Very diplomatic. Very good at speaking to people.
Very good at like putting their fears to rest and not saying
things that will inflamed their anger.
Good at de escalating, you know, things like that.
Just really good at that. Good at speaking, good at
talking, right. Charismatic in his own way.
Even though he turns people off, even though like, people are
afraid of him, he still manages to get through.
To them when they're like virus, but you know.
He's insightful. He's quick, he's.
Very good at reading people. I imagine he was that when he
young, just less refined. He had those same skills, but he
just wasn't. As hadn't have 20 years of
practice at it, didn't have 20 years at court honing those
skills. But maybe he was bolder.
He had to take more risks. When he was younger, you know he
needed to take more chances because he had less to work
with. He didn't have the crown's gold
to hire spies with. He had to use his own gold for
that, that he got through. Criminal stuff.
And in his rise. What do you think about this,
Sean? We brought it up early before.
And Shea, I want to hear your take on this too.
Did he get revenge on that sorcerer?
If the sorcerer is a real person or the person that cut him, do
you think he did? I I would guess he probably
would have tried to find that guy if it if possible.
And. Maybe the dude was dead by the
time he came of age to be able to do that, but if he could
track that guy down, his ability to to get secrets and to find
people and there's few better. So if he wanted to go after that
guy, I bet he did. What do y'all think?
It it seems like he's got the wherewithal to do it right.
If he decided to, and I imagine he would have, even if it was
just like a curiosity, even if maybe some like burning revenge
anger in his youth might have quelled over the years, I still
think he would be curious. Although that makes it even more
hard to believe the story you told Tyrion, because if he did,
it seems like he would know more about it, or learn more about
it, or have a different take on it.
So it it may also be that he was curious and tried to find him
and found out he was already dead or he was unfindable.
It's what I leaned towards. I think just by the time he was
able to try to get his revenge and had the wherewithal to do
that sorcerer was dead and gone. It's entirely possible.
We're talking maybe 20 years later, yeah.
I don't know that's that's fine. Cuts it, makes I I.
Like. It as well because I like Varys
maybe not getting that like satisfaction or never seeing
Well, I mean again like I I say sorcerer, but I really just mean
man person who castrated. Him but I.
Think. There's some I I like the idea.
I mean, I don't like it, but I I find it meaningful that Varys
just never actually gets to get revenge on the person he wants
to get revenge on. Instead, he puts all of that
energy and passion into changing the realm, Etcetera.
That could be it. That might be why he's so
intent. He's never able to resolve this,
this, this. I guess if we're comparing it to
Varys and Arya again, it's interesting the idea of like the
unresolved revenge and and like it never finding his real
outlet. Whereas Arya has actually
managed to turn it around on people she wants to get revenge
on and has her list and everything.
You know what I mean? Kind of the inverse of each
other in that way. Yeah, that was my thought that
maybe various failed at finding him or did find him or he's
already dead or what it was. But this sort of like drive,
he's like, well now what do I do?
And you know, maybe compare that to the, what do you call it,
Indigo Montoya. And they killed the six finger
man like. Well, all right, now what I do.
Yeah, Revenge, yeah. What do you do after revenge?
Yeah. I wanted to point out another
factor with various 2 that he doesn't seem particularly
motivated by money, at least at this point.
It's a little easier not to be motivated by money when you have
it. And that's true, his quarters
seem very meager and maybe they maybe he really doesn't even
care about, like, you know, finer things.
But one reason and people want money as security and he has
security and so and money helps a lot with that soon.
You're right about that. Let's move on to the third Free
City. We've done lease.
We've done mere. Now Pentas.
Let's look at this discussion where Illyrio tells these
details to Tyrion. How is it that the spider became
so dear to you? We were young together, 2 green
boys and Pentos. Varys came from here.
So he did. I met him not long after he
arrived, one step ahead of the slavers.
By day he slept in the sewers. By night he prowled the rooftops
like a cat. I was near as poor, a bravo in
soiled silks, living by my blade.
Perhaps you chance to glimpse the statue by my pool.
Pytho Malanon carved that when I was 6 and 10.
A lovely thing though now I. Weep to see it.
So you might think that a poor 16 year old having a statue
carved after him is weird, but it's not.
It's not actually. There's there's a lot of real
world examples of just young people being selected for
statue. Can I?
Can I say my impression of this, which is Illyrio slept around
too. That's what I take from this.
Young teenager. Yeah, I I think that's that's
what that's what I take from this that he was sought after
and I'd be would manage to find some success this way.
I don't know. That's entirely possible.
Yeah. And he yeah, I mean it's think
of model searches in rural areas.
I mean that's it's not strange at all like you young attractive
person goes to moves to Hollywood to make get their fame
or whatever. You know, like it's something
that it's similar to that, you know?
That's what I picture it. It really is.
I don't know if that's just me. If I'm the only person.
I I I can't imagine I'm alone. That I just kind of filled in
the blanks, red between the lines and was like, I don't
know, I think. I think Illyria and Varies both
use some amount of sex work to get ahead in life.
Quite possibly. Ancient Greece has plenty of
stories about young people as statue models.
You know, Leonardo's David may have been one of those cases.
If I remember correctly, I could be crossing up my statue
history, and I remember telling the story in the past episode
where there was that really that statue of that famous courtesan
in, I think Thebes, maybe. It was definitely somewhere in
Greece where the statue was so attractive that they had to put
guards on it 'cause people would try to have sex with it.
Some of y'all may remember that story from a previous episode,
but yeah, so. This Illyro stuff isn't strange
at all. With that in mind, I mean people
trying to bang statues. Yeah, like, so by day, Vara
slept in the sewers. According to the story, that
sounds terrible. By night, he prowled the roof up
like a cat, which is kind of odd.
What's he doing up there? Sneaking in windows like that?
It's loud. Walking on roofs, like you're
you'll hear that, right? So you got to be really careful.
So sneaking in windows. Is he going in chimneys?
Is he Santavaris? I don't, I don't quite get that.
But he's. Cleaning his paws.
He's I was like a cat. Picture him with whiskers.
Does it work? You know, like virus, he
doesn't. He shaves all his hair but not
his whiskers. So more seriously though that I
assume this is like a vibe of a cat burglar.
That's a modern, semi modern term which is just a description
of someone who's capable of robbing a place without leaving
any trace that they'd ever been there, which is absolutely virus
and especially his little birds. Little mice.
But also, of course, makes you think of the connection of cats,
birds, mice and we're brought back to the Aria parallel.
Different quiet animals. Yes, cat.
Cat of the canals? Yep.
Again, are you're totally right to Shay.
That is one of the Aria parallels and.
Yeah. So he called them Little Mice
and Pentas and started calling them Little Birds later, which
is I don't know what to make of the name change there.
It's is it? Is it meant to?
Is is it meant to be like a little hint that this story has
changed over time, That that maybe Illyrio got a detail
remembered it slightly wrong? I.
Don't know, maybe I'm reading too much.
Connotation between mice and birds.
Like I wonder like one the mice that like like he might have
done more thievery and more like that the their purpose might
have been different. Do you know what I mean?
Like the like, they're more about telling tales and secrets.
He's not really stealing around doing stuff like that, he's he's
just getting, he's purely just dealing in information at this
point and so he rebranded to reflect the information sector.
It would sound nicer to the nobles too, that Varius has this
army of little mice. It's like, yeah, how sweet.
And. Because they already use Ravens.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, that might, you're right,
that might be preferred. Vermin mice or Vermin's birds
aren't, you know, Illyrio says in this quote that virus arrived
in Pentos from mirror quote one step ahead of the slavers.
So keep that in mind for the next part of this quote.
In mirror he was a Prince of thieves until a rival thief
informed on him in Pentos. His accent marked him, and once
he was known for a eunuch he was despised and beaten.
Why he chose me to protect him, I may never know, but we came to
an arrangement. Varie spied on lesser thieves
and took their takings. I offered my help to their
victims, promising to recover their valuables for a fee.
Soon every man who had suffered a loss knew to come to me,
whilst City's foot pads and cut purses sought out Varys half to
slit his throat, the other half to sell him what they'd stolen.
We both grew rich and richer still when Varys trained his
mice. So in mirror he was a Prince of
thieves, according to Illyrio. But he just told Tyrion there
were two green boys living in Pentos.
That is a little hard to square. Maybe Illyrio was green and
Varys was not, which is why I guessed.
Virus is older than Illyria. When I at the beginning of the
episode. This is the core of that
argument. It's like maybe Illyria was
green but Virus is like. He's got all this skill.
A Prince of How are you, a? Prince of thieves and a green
boy that that does not work. I could.
I could square that. I think, OK, go ahead.
Although on a certain shot, definitely suspicious, but one I
think he might call himself a Prince of thieves, and that's an
embellishment. It was just him and seven or
eight kids from his neighborhood, and he was the
best among that group. But among the entire population
he maybe was hardly known, but he would still be happy to call
himself Prince of. Thieves and I mean I think this
is and this is Elyrios. Perspective on varies.
I think Elyria had starry eyes for him, cared about him and
thought he was just so cool and so capable and all these things
to him. He was a Prince of thieves.
He came to him capable, successful, he.
He credits bars a lot of his success.
Now, but Tavares looking back, we were both green boys,
ultimately in relatives. They learned so much after that
point. OK, yeah, I don't think.
Yeah, he might have put a little spin on it.
He might have still been putting a little spin.
He could also be relatively green in a new town, right?
Even if before he was a true Prince of thieves, when you go
to a new city and you lose your contacts, you don't know the
roads or the sewers or the safe spots and the rooftops or
whatever it is. So you kind of have to reset and
that makes you green. Relative.
Yeah. OK, that's a very good point.
He's Green And Pentas. I'm also kind of curious about
like are Unix not looked upon as negatively and mirror as Pentas?
Was it? No.
Like it says, once he was known for a eunuch, he was despised
and beaten. I wonder if he faced that same
kind of he probably and mirror, or if they were just.
I don't know. I could see Pentas having a
certain culture where they are maybe more antagonistic to
certain types of people. I don't know the cultural
differences between them. I do imagine there are some
differences between Pentas Lease and mere culturally.
It seems like pretty much. Everywhere they look down on
Unix, but maybe less in some places than others.
So I could see that like, yeah, I could see it being a big
problem in penthouse where it's only a small problem in mirror
or whatever. It might have just never come
out in mirror. No one ever knew.
Like look at how. Pycelle is.
He's like a eunuch, You know, like so.
Red flag on this one too, though his accent marked him.
This is one of the biggest holes in the story that I that I've
seen. Maybe the biggest.
This is a guy. Who's an expert at Mommory?
We've seen Virus change his voice through different accents.
Like, how the heck? Did his accent mark him?
If he's already got his mummer's troop experience, like maybe he
didn't care to hide it. Maybe he didn't think it
mattered, so maybe that's it. He was, like we said, maybe he
was a little more arrogant as a youth.
Maybe that's what got him in trouble, talking about his
ancestors, Something like that. And I have my my question here
which is. Again, how much is this colored
by Illyrio's? Tail.
He's the way he puts this. Why he chose me to protect him.
I mean, like, did Varri see that?
The way to, like, cut through to Illyrio and make him yours, as
it were, was he wanted to be a protector.
He wanted to did Varri's pretend to be weaker than he was in
order to ensnare to hook Illyrio, to be his business
partner, You know what I mean? It makes sense.
He would need protection. They say half.
Like if you're stealing from other thieves, yeah, you need
some help. He wants, he wants reliable
protection. He wants protection from someone
that he can trust. I don't know.
I could see that he might have wanted Illyrio to perceive him a
certain way in order to. He might have wanted people in
general perceive him a certain way, because if he marks himself
with an accent, then when he changes an accent and his
disguise, he won't be that same. It makes it easier to disguise
himself. When he makes sure he's known
one way, then he can be different more easily so.
OK, I see that. Yeah, he wants to be seen as
that guy. That way.
He's the pet. He's the guy with a mirage
accent. So then they won't.
Yeah. OK, yeah, that does make some
sense. Now this is where we really get
into the style of criminal organization that resembles what
they're doing now. So stealing goods and reselling
them, that's fencing. You know, not the sword fighting
type obviously. That's the the selling of stolen
goods is is fencing obviously or nor is it you know putting a
barrier around your yard. It's not that kind of fencing
either. English is so confusing.
Three different fencings and they're not at all related
selling stolen goods. So thieves and mere learned over
time, you know through the through the thieve network which
as you said Sean wouldn't. They wouldn't know that about
him in Pentas. So he had to start over if they
don't sell their goods to Varus. They risk them getting stolen.
I guess that's even worse. It's like you better sell your
stuff, your goods to virus or you might get your stolen goods
stolen. The twist here is that's what's
different about the fence. In a real world fence, they just
sell stolen goods to whoever the twist is selling them back to
their original owners. That's not typical.
That's the unusual part of this. Would they have had to keep
their association hidden? Would Virus and Illyria not have
to be have associated with each other?
Like that's the guy who stole it you're selling.
People would find out that they're operating this.
You stole from me, you're selling me back stuff that you
stole. That wouldn't go well.
But if they just he's just this guy that has connection to the
underworld and it's not a direct connection to virus, that might
work. But I think they might have had
to keep their association kind of hidden from for this aspect
of their business to work. What do you think about?
That at least eventually, maybe They could have been sneaky
about it at first, but then by the time it starts to be figured
out there they've got too much wealth and connection.
People just have to accept it, you know?
Yeah. It reminds me of Omar from The
Wire. If you've seen The Wire, you
understand this reference. He was a stick up boy, which is
slang for someone who robs drug dealers.
And why would you rob a drug dealer?
Because they can't call the police if you if they steal your
heroin, how are you going to call, hey, this guy stole my
heroin. You know, like what are you
going? To OK, so you're you're going to
jail for the dealing heroin, right?
Yes. But get my drugs back for me
like you can't. There's no recourse.
And in and in the real world, the way a lot of these criminal
drug dealing gangs work is they don't carry weapons.
Your your penalty for getting caught with a with drugs and
guns at the same time is double or more.
But if you just have the drugs or just have the guns, your
penalty is way less. So they tend to like these drug
gangs, split that job. You have one guy who's the
enforcer who protects the guys holding the drugs or they hide
the drugs somewhere where you know they're not even it's not
even physically on their person. Either way there's no recourse
other than violence to a someone who steals from your criminal
organization. So it's if Varus steals from
another thief, their only chance that Justice is St.
Justice, right? That's the only form.
And Varus, of course, knows that he's got an organization.
He's probably that. He says Illyrio protected him.
That was part of. So Illyrio might have been a
pretty good at fighting, he says.
He was a a bravo and living by his.
Blade. So that seems to be his trade
was fighting. This is very mafioso, right?
They're stealing secrets. They're selling.
They're extorting blackmail, all the things that go into a mafia,
right? They're mobsters.
That's what Virus and Hilario were like.
Make no mistake, that's what they are were.
The reason? They might not have had to hide
their relationship with each other if Boris didn't do the
actual stealing, if he just got the information about where the
stuff was and had someone else do the stealing.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
And and if he's disguising his voice and his look, so maybe
when he does do this stealing, it doesn't get recognized for
it, yeah. I wonder if he had a reputation
for sorcery there like. Catelyn and Ned are like how
the. Hell, does he do this.
It must. Be sorcery.
I mean, I wonder if some people in Pentas that had he had that
reputation, which would make him more feared and more people
like, yes, you better sell your stuff to virus because you think
you can hide it, but he's going to find it somehow.
Like, that dude might be using sorcery, so yeah.
Maybe he's actually using sorcery?
Maybe he really is. It's.
I'm not big on that idea, but I won't dismiss it.
I will not dismiss it. Let's talk about the little bird
slash mice 'cause this is probably the worst.
Probably. It's the worst thing he does
that we know of. I I want to point out something
else. That virus never makes a point
of it and maybe it's not a thing, but I realized that this
process that they shifted from stealing stuff to stealing
ideas. And I I think there was even a a
line where they would even like he teaches the birds or whatever
to to read something. He teaches them to read so they
can read it and leave the letter there.
He can still get the information.
They don't even know that it was stolen or whatever.
And it's hard to overestimate how valuable it can be to know,
like when a ship is coming into port, or when the tax man is
going to make the delivery of the what he collected.
Different things like that could be hugely valuable, but they
could also change the information.
Like Better Call Saul, right? Changing the legal filing.
Replace date times or lie or spread false information.
Plan inaccurate letters or dates and things like that, which also
can lead to all sorts of value for you when you know the truth
or know who you need to trick or when to make a guard leave his
guard post because there's a false schedule posted that you
made-up or whatever. So his ability not only to get
secrets, but to like disseminate information, true or false, to
whatever end he it's something that he wouldn't want anyone to
know about. I think he would do and would be
hugely valuable in a million different ways.
So if those of you listening and not watching, I was nodding
emphatically throughout basically everything Sean just
said, Yeah, well, yes, preach it, brother.
I agree with all. That, OK.
So yeah, let's talk about little birds, little mice.
And here's the quote for that. The older thieves were fools who
thought no further than turning a Knight's plunder into wine.
Varys preferred orphan boys and young girls.
He chose the smallest, the ones who were quick and quiet and
taught them to climb walls and slip down chimneys.
He taught them to read as well. We left the golden gems for
common thieves. Instead, our mice stole letters,
Ledgers, charts. Later they would read them and
leave them where they lay. Secrets are worth more than
silver or sapphires, Varys claimed.
Just so. You can see how this
corroborates other things they're saying.
First, he taught them to prowl the rooftops, climbing walls,
sneaking in chimneys and windows, which is exactly what
we we suggested was happening. And at first they stole the
secrets, but eventually they just copied them like you said,
Sean, the most. Sophisticated version of their
operation where the people wouldn't even know the
information. So because if you have a chart
missing, you're like, oh shoot, someone stole my secret chart
that has my plans, they at least know to be worried about that.
But in this latter scenario where they've they've advanced
to just stealing the information without actually stealing the
paperwork, you don't even know your information's been
compromised. Think like you said.
You gave some good examples, Sean, of schedules and timing
and things like that. But this?
This is. Corporate espionage on one.
Level like you steal their trade secrets like and equivalent in
this world would be Valyrian Steel or Wildfire.
We don't know. Only the people who make those
know how that's done. Now I don't think Virus
necessarily knows how to make Wildfire or Valyrian Steel, but
it's an example of a proprietary secret that exists in that
world. Most likely he made use of
secrets that could destroy or embarrass powerful people or
families rather than stealing trade secrets like exposing that
one business partners cheating on the other or faking that.
Like you said, Sean, that's a great pivot, a great alternate
idea. Rather than you can blackmail
them to say, I'm going to make it look like you stole from your
partner, and we all know your partner is the kind of guy that
would kill you. If you found out this, so give
me some money or or you're screwed.
Or like the partner really is cheating and they're like, well,
I'm going to prove, I'm going to show them proof that you cheated
on them unless you, you know, give me some money.
Or some more secrets, maybe even better, more secrets.
So exposing an affair or parentage, right?
Big deals. Like, there's so many things
that you could, and it's not hard to see why this made them
powerful and hated. Just absolutely hated.
But the kind of hated that you can't always do something about
because he's got dirt on you. Like, what are you going to do?
Like if you come at him and met another Omar reference, if you
come at the king, you best not miss 'cause his his payback will
be more than you can handle. If you don't take him out, he's
going to take you out and that's that's that would be the fear of
ours. Especially if they're worried he
uses black magic, they're like, oh crap, like, I can't.
I'm too afraid to go after him. He's got, he's so powerful.
He might be using sorcery. I'm not even going to do it.
I'm just going to play. Along army of little mice or
little birds, he's got Ilario or whoever his bodyguards.
He seems to just have powers. You can't know things that you
don't even know how we can understand.
And Varus is also going to offer a carrot and a stick, right?
So like, he just hits it from every angle.
And he doesn't have, like, notice in Westeros.
He doesn't walk around with guards.
He doesn't have people protecting him as part of his
vibe. Like, I'm not threatening, you
know, I'm not threatening, you know, like anyone could just cut
my head off. It's part of it's a tightrope
he's walking there. I'm not sure he walked such a
narrow tightrope back in Pentas when his enemies.
Were like more able to get at him like he's lives at the Red
Key, but it's hard to come at, you know, who's going to murder
him in the Red Key. There are answers to that
question, but there's a lot fewer answers than there would
have been in Pentas than. The streets in Pentas, yeah.
Yeah, so he's not. And he's also not making enemies
in the same way he did. Like, he's not he he's still
stealing secrets and stuff like that, but he's not.
Like he's not blackmailing and and doing stuff like that and
extorting nearly as much. It doesn't seem like in in
Westeros. He's more about identifying
treason and identifying. He's being allies if anything,
right? Yeah, that.
Yeah. It's kind of a pivot.
He's more like this makes me people want me on their side.
Like I want to be valuable for what I know, rather than hated
for what I know. Even people that don't like the
type of thing he's doing still recognizes, recognizes value.
Even they don't trust them, they still go to him.
They still listen to him then? Good point.
So as awful as the story of what was done to him as being cut of
being a slave, being orphaned, all those things, it seems he's
done the same to these children, these these little birds.
He cuts their tongues out. He teaches them a secret
language. He presumably disposes of them
or has them just work at Illyrio's house when they're too
old and large to seek down chimneys anymore.
A lot of effort goes into it, Not to praise him, but.
It's got to be hard to teach. Children, all these skills or
teach anyone all these skills. This is very advanced training.
This is like CIA training, but horrifying.
And just learn all these skills that you don't shouldn't teach
children. I mean it's.
Awful. So yeah, if you ever find
yourself thinking bars is a good guy, just remember this and
question. That you know like well, I don't
know. I don't know about.
That maybe he does have. A noble end goal, but there is
no way around this as an evil thing.
I tried to, like, justify him. I try to like, well, maybe he's
finding kids who are already starving destitute orphans and
giving him some other option and having their tongue tut out.
Their, their, their tongue cut. Out their tongue tut.
Out is better than starving on the streets or whatever else
might come of them, but it's. Pretty questionable.
Right. Like maybe he's finding, you
know, the lesser 2 evils. But that's not true either,
'cause he could just. Feed them.
He's got money. Yeah, you.
Know he has enough powers and secrets and wealth that he could
provide better for them rather than take advantage of them.
Even if he's raising them up from a worse situation, he's
still raising them into a bad situation when he could raise
him into a good situation. And even if it is for an
ostensibly long term greater good, we don't see that and it's
hard to think how great the good could be to justify what he's
doing. And and that's also with me
trying to get him benefited it out like so.
Like he might not even deserve that so good.
Point it's. Rough it's it's like, I don't
know. And again, not to justify him,
but recruiting kids in your army is not that much better, right
here, take this sword and shield and go kill other people.
Isn't that much better than take this, you know, skeleton key and
break into this house and steal this stuff?
I guess you have to cut the tongue out, but people get their
hands and legs and charts cut out and battle.
In war, you're probably. Going to lose some parts, if not
all of them. Yeah, you know, yeah, you're
right. Especially with with when you're
poor like that, you don't have armor and whatever, you're just
recruited with very little. So maybe you could argue that
these spy efforts sacrifice. I don't know.
If you score kids, stop a war that might sacrifice a few
thousands of kids. Yeah.
I guess maybe you can just. I don't know.
I feel like I'm reaching and
trying to defend this. Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's
worth trying to make that a case.
But at the end of it, yeah, I feel the same way.
I'm like, yeah, you make the case.
But you don't feel good about it afterwards.
Like, yeah, I don't know if I agree with my my own argument
here, but. I get.
For me, it makes me lean on the idea of always having some sort
of, in his eyes, ultimately noble goal.
Like, I don't see what he gets out of this to justify what he's
choosing to do. You know what I mean?
Like, it doesn't make sense to me, like he's found such success
and security and etcetera. Why keep doing this unless that
he had some large overarching goal that like, is in his eyes
noble and for the best of the realm?
You know. He would have to go to a place
like Westeros to have that impact because Essos is not a
united place where like getting to rising to the top at Pentos
only gives you power in Pentos, whereas rising to the top at the
Red Keep gives you power over all of Westeros.
And maybe a little power over Pentos also.
True, it's a place where he can, he can have a bigger effect
because he can affect the whole country rather than one city.
So that might help us understand why he went to, why he decided
to go to West, why he took the job, which is a big question.
Why did he take the job from Aries?
Why did he give up all this wealth, this position of power?
Why is he starting from scratch again?
We talked about how moving from here to Pentas would be starting
from scratch. He's got to start.
All his criminal activities have to be restarted from the
beginning. He's a little.
Better at it this third time around, I'm sure, and this time
he's got the Crown's gold to help with a huge head start.
But still why? Well, the the why question is
still there, but it is worth pointing out he might not be
starting quite as much from scratch because I suppose he
plotted this for a while. He already got contacts set up
in Westeros or Red Keeper, whatever.
He has his own wealth that he accumulated there.
He gets to bring with him in addition to the crown's gold.
So now it's still probably at first was a step down but it
does set him up to have a bigger impact like we're saying.
And so if he has some goal of like making the world better
through a better leader or you know whatever else maybe even
something crazy like he also knows about the prophecy or was
worried about the white Walkers that that that seems like a
stretch too since he's never said anything about it and seems
like you should or could have been angling more toward the
support the wall if that was the case.
But one or the other what is the the the path to evil is paid
with good intentions you know like it.
Maybe he does have some sort of altruistic goals, but he's lost
sight of it, I feel like. I agree.
The other thing here is that think about how much Varys has
to put on like a a certain persona all the time in
Westeros. He's not just like, as you said,
like it's a slight step down for the chance of a step up, though.
It's like he might have had some amount of pleasures, enjoyment,
freedom. Like other things in his life,
when he lived in Pentos, he could not put on persona all the
time, but he is committing when he goes to Westers like he is
doing this. Full time memory all day like.
Is he really this effeminate? Is he really this?
Is that his real speaking voice? Like none of these things.
We can't trust any of it. Like, all of it could be putting
on airs, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, he had to
he. I guess my point is he
sacrificed a certain amount of his comfort and freedom actually
for us that he could never make. Up.
Why? Again, it's like, what is his
ambition here? He certainly gave up a lot for
it. That's that's important.
And comfort, freedom, and maybe even identity and morality also.
Yes, And comfort, Yeah, he gave. Up a lot, he gave he.
Maybe. Looks like he took more risks.
Yeah, it's just. It's a big question, yeah, Why
did he do it? What, what brought him to
Westeros? So if we're going back to his
criminal organization stuff, if you argue that he has
humanitarian. Goals now, which I'm open to,
even though it's questionable. He definitely didn't seem to
have that when he was just a master thief for Prince of
thieves or selling secrets and stealing from the wealthy that
it's already hard to argue that was humanitarian, even if he
wasn't like a guy who's like addicted to wealth or his
primary motivation isn't necessarily money.
Maybe it's being recognized or not being seen as a nobody.
If we go back to the story about the sorcerer and how he was just
like, yeah, you're you're nobody just die, you know?
Normally when you. Peg someone as a master criminal
slash mafia so you you pending on personal ambition, not like,
oh, I'm a mafioso because I want to change the world.
On the other hand, you do. Occasionally see like Mafia
bosses have a surprising sympathy for their people who
have not criminals like they like.
They really want to take care of certain families or cities or
places that are not evil or not bad.
They just have a fondness for that, and they do good for that
aspect of their life while still doing all sorts of other evil
things. It's even even that gets a
little Gray. So if we're trying to give
examples of like, evil people doing good things, there's
plenty of examples. You know, so far as maybe that's
the bucket to put him in, even though it's it's still not a one
to one relationship. It's, you know, you can kind of
feel the difference there, I guess.
And. The point isn't to think about
how these little birds, little mice, were abused and
manipulated. It's definitely matters, of
course, but it's to remind ourselves of what we're dealing
with this. Is what virus is capable of.
This is what this man is capable of.
He's willing to just put on this persona.
Like we said, adopt A personality and and act to be a
mummer for 20 years for whatever goal he has in mind and so he's
he's suffering for his goal as as well, whatever it is, in
addition to forcing these children to suffer and do these
things and all that. I mean, think of how dead eyed
they look when Kevin is faced with the kids, with the daggers
just surrounding him coming to stab him to death.
They don't. They come off like a little.
Inhuman, the way Kevin sees them, like they don't seem like
the way they're looking at him and everything.
It doesn't. It's ominous and.
Dark. That commitment is probably one
of the ways that I felt that there was some sort of parallel
connection with Melisandre between them is that we seem to
have seen that she is fully committed and would sacrifice
even her life if that's true, you know, for her cause.
And I think like this is Varri sacrificing his life, his
entire, like you said, 20 years of him living this particular
life in the pursuit of this, I don't know.
Maybe there's an argument for he does enjoy an element of it.
He loves being a mummer. He loves tricking people and and
seeing people be puzzled by like maybe, maybe I am being too
extreme when I say that he was like sacrificing him his life
for 20 years to this 'cause maybe he actually enjoyed lots
of this. He might have loved it.
It's possible he might like taking advantage of people.
Manipulating. To do his bidding.
Through he might be like, ha ha, silly Westeros nobles, they're
so. Dumb.
This is fun. And.
How did this get started? I guess just 'cause he.
It was what was done to him. He had had awful things done to
him, like the child slave forced to do stuff.
He's like trained a certain way. He's like, Yep, I'm going to do
that to others. It's a parallel to.
It's a common, rather, maybe not parallel.
It's a common theme throughout A Song of Ice and Fire.
What we do is what was done to us, You know, pay it forward.
We dance on the strings of those who came before us.
It's it's pointed. Out a number of different ways,
but it's kind of the same concept.
We are to some extent the product of our environment and
what was done to us is often what we do to others.
You know, we we inflict our trauma on on other people.
That's very common. And it's kind of ironic too
because Varus's spy operation really relies on this.
This is the heart of what makes him so good at ferreting out
secrets and. Why people are like how does he
get these secrets? It must be sorcery.
Which, as we say, might be very ironic given his possible hatred
of sorcery. But it's like it's one of those
answer before the question, things that we we've had a
number of times to point out, a number of occasions to point
out. Like Cat brings up the idea that
Bars might be a sorcerer, a full book before this origin story
that he tells Tyrion about hating sorcery.
So you might go a whole book thinking it's actually possible,
and you later later you'll find out it's not sorcery.
Probably it's something way more awful.
Of course, we arguably isn't even awful, although the type of
sorcery done to him. That he was.
Described certainly is. But you find that out later.
Like so It's little birds. And that's why he's so good at
ferreting out secrets. It's something that Ned and Kat
can't conceptualize. They're like, he does what now
they're not even close to. Figuring out the truth.
They know he has own informants, they know he has spies, but they
don't realize he's training child slaves and cutting their
tongues out, that that's completely in the dark.
They're completely in the dark about that.
That's another reason to call them little birds, both in
general and versus mice. Because you can imagine someone
mistreating mice, but it's hard to imagine someone mistreating
birds. Does that make sense?
It just sounds so nicer, even when Caitlin or you know so and
more on on the outskirts or even kind of close in.
Here's about varices, little birds like oh, how sweet.
You giving the kids little chores, you know like doesn't
seem so sinister as the reality that you find out.
And I'm guessing he's careful not to let many people find that
reality out, right? Yep, you're right about.
That So what is it ultimately? What brought him to Westeros is
a question we cannot answer, but it is a question worth posing.
Why did he take this job? What was his angle?
What did he see as his end game? Is it?
This is an.
Opportunity to impact a large population and do good.
Or is it just moving up the ladder?
The criminal ladder? They keep moving up higher
there. They first they stole gems and
valuables, then they stole secrets.
Then they just copied secrets. Then that just kept going up the
ladder. Is this just higher up on the
ladder, manipulating an entire country, doing their their game,
their which which is stealing something and then selling it
back? They have stolen peace and
prosperity from Westeros and are trying to sell it back in the
form of Aegon, a champion who will bring peace and prosperity.
But they're a big part of the reason that the realm is in
chaos in the 1st place. So it's that same game that
they've been doing for decades. Steal something, sell it back.
They're just, in this case, it's peace and prosperity.
Even if they and they're like, yeah, but we're we're going to
give them peace and prosperity. We're not bad guys.
I don't know, even if you fully believe what he says to Kevin
when Kevin Lay's dying, there's got to be more to it, though,
even if that's his goal, there's still more to it.
It's a it was a huge reveal, but it was not a complete reveal.
Another thought too, Sean backing up just a little bit.
You all were saying how this, this virus and his his little
birds are are parallel to some things.
One other parallel is to the others, because the recurring
theme of the whole series. Is, is.
Power, authority, slavery, Control.
The others are controlling the dead.
They and some of whom may have memories.
Whether you have slavery in Slavery's Bay or this and that,
this is another form of. That this is enslavement with
darkness. It's the reason those kids look
evil and and dark is because George wanted to show that this
is evil. I mean, it doesn't.
You don't need to do much to show that it's evil to do this
with children, but. He made very sure to emphasize
that and remember what's happening in the scene.
It's cold. Icy wind is blowing through the
window. He wants to close it, but then
he virus opened the window because Pycelle shot himself
when he died. He.
Wanted to stink to be out, so it's kind of a very.
Mundane reason for the window to be open, but it's still case
that effect. Kevin sees the White Raven
before right before he shot, so we're absolutely thinking of the
others he's looking. Oh look, Winter, right Raven.
Bam Shot. Virus Really.
Is an ice spider as big as a hound?
Yeah, instead of eight legs, the children are like his other
legs. It's.
More symbolic than literal,
Yeah. So it's amazing how Virus is so
unique, so different, so mysterious.
Yet he still fits so many of the themes of the book.
Some of the central themes of power, control, ambition, making
a mark on the world. Love versus duty.
Which we're not quite sure how that fits in with him, but it
might be family. Love or duty that he's working
on, that's. It's entirely possible that fits
here, we're just not sure. So it's one of the reasons Virus
is really special. George knows he's got a special
character. I think George is aware that he
he's created something unique with this character and I'm
looking forward to more. I'm looking forward to what else
we learn about him. I I want to say one quick thing,
because I don't. You made a million awesome
points. And I don't want to take away
from the idea that he's this theme of like, taking something
to sell it back. But Aries and Robert did plenty
to put the realm in turmoil. It can't.
Oh yeah, just plain varies. Oh yeah, it's not just him.
Once it starts to happen, he might feed those flames to put
himself in a better position. Afterwards.
It may be a parallel to Little Finger in certain ways too.
Kind of came from nothing and uses the the disorder and
secrets to move himself up. You know, yet another parallel.
I think it's interesting, but still just regular people.
It doesn't take manipulative monsters to screw the world up.
Yeah, well, I know it's. Just a a doofus, an arrogant
misogynist, you know? A doofus, you know?
And he's doing a fine job without any kind of menacing
background or secret plan or whatever, so.
Question from Wheezy squeezebox of the little bird can read and
write. What's the point of cutting out
their tongues? They are.
This is another reason why it's so devious and so insidious is
they don't read and write in the way the same way.
He taught them a cipher. He taught them a different
language. Like they don't communicate the
way normal people can. They can maybe copy what they
were they've seen, but they're they're they're trained to to
write it down or memorize it. Like visually and not
necessarily knowing what it means is kind of how I read it.
Like they they've learned a cipher like he's taught them.
Their a a secret language that he invented that probably keeps.
Them. OK, so maybe you're.
Keep them from communicating. They probably don't actually
like what I'm getting. Maybe they don't actually read
the words. They are able to like, recognize
the symbols, but they're not reading like, oh, the shipment
is going out, they. Don't know what it means
tomorrow. They're just seeing, like the
ship, like those words, and they communicate it.
Like they write really Egyptian hieroglyphics or Russian
alphabet, but I don't know what they mean when I write it out,
but I can see that. Yeah, and you might have a
cipher to where you can make every, You know, every time you
see an S, you make you draw a certain kind of scratch, right?
And like, they have that, so they can just copy it down in a
cipher, I guess. Yeah, Which makes it even worse
that he think they're not. He's not actually contributing
to the literacy of Westeros at all, like I thought.
It's also possible they can read or write like normal, but it
wouldn't be expected and it's a lot harder to slip up.
It's easy to accidentally say something out loud or be
overheard, but it's it's hard to accidentally.
And their children, they're not going to be maybe as careful as
it would be, but also he just. It doesn't keep them.
Doesn't employ them once they cease to be children.
So they're much more manipulatable.
And yeah, but he doesn't want to take chances.
Cuts their tongues out. There's no, there's no risk.
There's no risk later down the line.
Yeah. It's bad.
Like I I think that the the we have servants at Delirio's
mansion that refused to speak to Tyrion.
I wonder if those are retired little birds.
They can't speak to Tyrion. Yeah.
They have their tongues. It's entirely possible.
It's also possible he doesn't cut out everyone's tongue, just
certain people for certain roles or certain ages, you know?
I kind of doubt that because if he's worried about security,
then why? Why take that risk?
Well, because he might be worried about things other than
security, like spreading false information.
He might want people to say things out loud that are untrue
to. Well, I don't think he would
use. Children for that, but you
might. He has other agents that are not
little birds. His little birds always lose
their tongues. But yeah, he does have other
agents that that that can speak. With other tasks and other.
Yeah, that's what you're getting AT.
And I do think that's true. He can't only have one type of a
level of, I mean we see like, yeah, he he has people that work
for him that speak. And it's interesting to compare,
as we said at the beginning, I kind of introduced it this way
like Littlefinger has perilous to Virus obviously, but it's
he's he's in the conversation. But as we've shown throughout
this episode is Arya, Danny and even Ned have more be more
compelling, perilous to Virus, even if they're less like him
overall. As a whole, they have these
strong things in common. One of the reasons he wanted
young Aegon, young Griff to suffer and learn fear is so he
can know what that's like. Instead of being born with
everything right. He doesn't want him to have a
privileged upbringing. He himself had the value of
coming up from nothing and wants Aegon to.
Have seen all levels of society like that and that says I kind
of like that's. Not the worst thing.
That's kind of, I can see that. I kind of vibe with that.
He wanted that, you know? We wanted him to see things from
all levels. It's it.
Does seem to be a better idea than just having someone
completely only exposed to privilege.
Like it's that's all. That's another way of life that
one should experience to have a a comprehensive view on it, poor
and rich. Like if you want to be a good
ruler, you know you want to have an idea of what all those things
are like. He thinks that kind of
upbringing is important for a ruler.
I don't entirely disagree. I I agree with a lot of it, But
you can't just manufacture it, especially in the face of
someone who has genuinely lived that life for real, like he
probably did or Danny has. Danny actually has been chased.
The life that he's trying to manufacture for Aegon is one
that Danny has really had, and it's one of the biggest ironies.
And we return to Bloodraven as a parallel again, The virus is
trying to save Westeros and make it a better world.
He's been toying with the life of the person who's actually
best equipped to do that, which is Danny.
He he's used her as a the pawn. Oh, yeah.
This is what I was going to say before, Sean.
One of Arsenalero's biggest plans to destabilize the realm
didn't happen. Remember, they were going to
try. They were kind of Con Khal Drogo
into invading. That was their plan.
If that had worked, they'd absolutely be heavily.
Responsible for destroying the peace of prosperity of Westeros.
It just didn't. It just didn't.
Work. You know, it's it might, but
it'll be Danny. Leading them and not, you know,
the saris or some weirdo, someone who's incapable.
It seems a bit of an ambitious plan, even for Danny.
I'm suspicious of that coming. To fruition but or going well or
or whatever. Yeah, it's just still so the
changing slash evolution of virus and Lira's plan is
definitely outside of the scope of this episode.
But you know, it's a good way to kind of leave things here as
we're working our way to the end.
So not only would several characters never accept viruses
treatment of children. Again, Danny and Aria.
They're not parallels to him, but they are problems if he's
found out. And he's also missing the bigger
picture. As we've said, he's concerned
with saving Westeros from humanity or from itself.
But it's this inhuman element that threatens Westeros even
more, meaning the Others meaning the long night.
It's something I very much look forward to, like him.
Realizing, oh God, there's a bigger problem.
Will he? Will that ever even happen?
Maybe he'll die before that fully comes into play?
I don't think so, though I think having his reaction to that, all
his grand plans, so well executed.
So, so much. Discipline over so long to make
this work just. Supernatural Winter appears and
overtakes all that. The most well informed man.
The most devious man. But he hasn't seen this coming.
As you said Sean, I don't think he has any idea about this.
His He is a vast. Spy network.
But there's none of those Spies are beyond the Wall.
Why would he bother with that? Like, what does he care about
that from his perspective, It's What does he need to know that's
happening up there? What?
What value would that have to
him? You know?
Well, apparently some, but not from where he's sitting.
I wouldn't think so. Varus truly hates those who
practice the supernatural. That's another problem for him
too. The Others I don't know.
Those aren't. People, I mean, it's a problem
one way or the other. The Red Priests, I don't know
how that's going to go. I don't think he's going to be
too happy with that. Several other associated
element. Those are the stories getting
more magical virus. Sorry about that.
Higher magic elements are coming out.
I don't know if that's going to work for you, but it doesn't
exactly help us predict his reaction.
But we. We get a sense that he's not
going to be too pleased about his whole grand plan, maybe
crumbling in the face of overwhelming supernatural
elements and Dragons from both ends like we.
Got the all the winner and the Dragons these are.
Neither of these are working for me right now, but we'll see.
We shall see. I I think that another angle you
could take is it if he on some level has been affected to how
he was abused as a child, so wants to change the world for
that to not happen yet he's abusing children.
He hates magic because of how it was used against him as a child.
Well, maybe he'll start to use magic, you know, maybe you know
he. In many ways he's a means
justifies the ends, I think. And I think magic will fall
under that umbrella too, assuming he's even genuine about
not liking magic in the first place.
Right. Which is entirely he might not
give a crap, he might be like no, doesn't matter to me at all.
Yeah, I do it too. Yeah, and that's such a great
oncoming thing. Like Danny and Virus have not
met in in in the books yet. Obviously we saw what happened
on the show. It doesn't really give us a
whole lot of clue what I think is going to happen in the books.
Illyrio Also there's. Going to be things that happen
with him. We'll have cause to discuss a
lot more of these. Things from later in viruses
life. We'll be coming back to some of
these subtopics in different ways.
Of course it never ends. It's always fun stuff to talk
about. Virus is just one of the deeper
wells we can dip our. Cup into one that we certainly
couldn't do in one episode. Probably not even 2, depending
on how you look at it. The trivia answer for.
Today the question was again, which character in Song of Ice
and Fire is paralleled in Dune. On this episode, it's Hilario,
Mopatus and Baron Harkonnen. He has rings on all his fingers
with gems. He is unusually light on his
feet. In the books, he's he doesn't
float, he's light on his feet 'cause he's using suspensers,
they don't float to have him float entirely, they just have
him walk lighter. Illyrio is unusually light on
his feet. Also, Tyrion notices he's like,
wow, he's he's he's really big, but he's light on his feet.
And of course, there's a ton of parallels between what Illyrio
and Varus do and Baron Harkonnen's plan for his
children and inflicting them as rulers and people going out into
the desert and. This is why you should check out
our Dune episode with Alt Shift X.
This stuff is all in there and I think you'd enjoy it if you are
at all a Dune fan. Even if you've only seen the
movies and you'd still like it, you'd be surprised at how many.
Parallels there are between the two stories.
Yes indeed. I'm not going to tell you what
episode is next week. We're going to have that one be
a surprise again. But I will give you a few
suggestions on other episodes to listen to that relate to this
one. Valerie Reed, This is a good
place to start because virus just pops in and out all over
the place. But our Black Fire series has
some virus stuff in it because of this little bit more about
Illyria as well. Of course.
Of course an education episode is very relevant because it's
the same format as this one. The young Ned very different
person from varies but. Of course, an important
character whose upbringing was huge in forming the person he
became, just like it is for virus, even if those particular
formative elements were very different.
Of course it depends on how you see virus, what his plans are as
to. See maybe some of the other
connective episodes, like Valyrian stuff or not, but I
think that'll get you started. Yeah, that's our show for today,
folks. We'll be back next week and
we'll be delving deeper into a variety of other topics.
Should be a great 2024. We're in March now and we're
going to have ATV show this year and plenty more book content.
One quick note, the Oscars are later tonight, depending on when
you're watching this video, and each year I make a one minute
review of all the Best Picture nominees, so I'll have that out
in the next couple days too. Nice, yeah.
Sean's quick Oscar reviews are very nice.
Very, very. Useful.
Very knowledgeable about movies. Yeah, I like the style.
I like the format a lot. Me too.
So thanks everybody for coming in today.
If you watched live, we appreciate your presence in the
chat. A lot of great questions today.
Seemed like the chat was particularly bustling on this
particular Sunday, and if you're catching it later, feel free to
send questions to us in many of the what different ways you are
able to. Thanks to Nina for helping me
talk through a lot of aspects of virus's life here.
It's really good to have someone that can float these ideas off,
someone who knows the series extremely well, and someone
knows that knows the details extremely well and has a lot of
insight. That was very helpful here
because this is such a tough topic.
Very fun. But very but.
Very difficult, a lot lot harder than some of the world building
topics, but also more rewarding in some ways.
We also just got a super chat from April May.
Thanks you. Thank you all.
Great fun. Thanks April.
I loved all your commentary this episode.
It was it was nice. Yeah, that catch about the eyes
was cool, but I definitely missed that on my own, so.
Yeah. Absolutely happy to have you
with us. Yeah.
And thanks as well to Joey, Jesse and Bran for the various
assistance with music and video. And we'll be singing new House
the Dragon intro from Bran later in the year.
And Michael Clark Feld, of course.
Or he's got to shout him out, he.
Is. A great friend of ours and has
helped our show look a lot more professional with his maps that
you see behind me and the video intro that we have for our
regular episodes. Now you can go to claradocs.de
if you want to look at all of his maps.
Print them yourselves, order them from him, whatever you
prefer. It's really affordable to just
get the file and go print it though I highly recommend.
It KLARADO x.de is his website. Yeah, you can buy the files for
him and then take him to your local print shop and have them
printed a way that fits. Your wall size.
Or your frame that you already have.
Yeah, he has Lord of the Rings, Witcher, What?
Dungeons and Dragons. It's not just game with their
own stuff. Yeah, it's not just A Song of
Ice and Fire at all. And it's a variety of types of A
Song of Ice and Fire ones. He's got like one with the
Targaryen family tree on it. I can't say enough positive
things about Michael. Me neither.
But we'll keep saying them anyway, even though we'll never
run out. That's it for our show today,
everyone. And you know what to do in
between now and the next one. And always LR RE Redis.