Hello and welcome back everybody.
We've got a lot of season 2 yet to come that will likely
surprise us, and there's a lot of details yet to analyze and
geek out on, but we do have a rough kind of basic idea of the
framework for the rest of the season.
Like I said, rough. Not entirely, but a decent idea
given castings and book spoilers and reading between the lines
and all that. Comments from Kondal and Hass,
etcetera. So we thought it'd be fun to
look a little farther ahead outside the scope of the
currently accessible advance info, but also to consider a
look at the season. We're going to take a lot of
questions today, prioritizing those from season three.
But honestly, we'll answer just about anything as long as it's a
good question. No hard and fast rules here.
And we've got a special guest to help us out with that.
We're going to get into the the meat of it and get to a lot of
details and a lot of macro looks.
All that and more on this episode of History of Westeros
Podcast. Welcome back everybody.
It's another Wednesday deep dive.
This isn't such a deep dive specific topic as it is a deep
dive into a lot of different areas around the the season and
into next season. A lot of theories, a lot of
questions sent in by you all and some questions that we've come
up, things that have been on our mind that we want to discuss
with y'all. Every Monday.
We're here with spoiler free episodes.
Lot of these Wednesdays at 7 we have episodes and Saturdays at
three we have our preview spoiler filled episodes where we
talk about everything that's to come.
But we never have leaks. Never ever.
No leaks. And we have game streams at six
on Fridays over at twitch.tv. History of Westeros.
Welcome back to the show, Jason Concepcion and Jason the
maester. How's it going, my man?
What's been going on, you guys are you guys are killing it over
there on the official Hot D podcast and over on X-ray
Visions as well. I appreciate it.
Just continuing to churn out the content and really just loving
the calendar right now. There's so many, you know, just
House of the Dragon in full swing.
It's been really enjoyable and just getting to talk to you.
Hell yeah. Wonderful.
Thank you for thank you for inviting me.
You're welcome. We always love to have you on.
We've had many great chats and in fact, one of the questions we
got today refers to something we talked about last time, so
that's fun. If you are in the New York area
or will be in the New York area around August 3rd or on August
3rd, come visit us at City Winery, Manhattan, NY, the
Chelsea location. We are going to be doing a live
podcast there just in advance of the final episode, Saturday,
August 3rd, talking about the season, recapping with a few
theories for the final episode. Be a lot of fun.
Drink some wine. We're going to have bottles of
wine with History of Westeros logo on it.
That's pretty cool. We've never had anything like
that before. So you're going to want to come
and get one of those because we're not going to have many of
them and just hang hanging out with us and talking about the
season is by itself going to be a blast.
So I hope we can see you there. Tickets are available in the
link description there. And what is that link again,
Shaya? You can say it out loud.
Bit dot LY slash how live NYC Or you can just go to our website
and go to the sidebar. Right on.
Thanks, Shaya. Couple of questions jumping out
at us right away. We got modest jaundice now
that's quite a name. Joe and Jason nearly
back-to-back. We are so lucky.
Thanks. Yeah, that's right.
We had Joanna Robinson on. Now, Jason, we got all these
heavy hitters coming through. I appreciate that modest
jaundice for my people. Says how's the view from that
window in your prison looking now, Allison, to it?
Rainey's probably. Yes.
Ghost of Rainey's totally. Yeah, that is.
That's a good take there. Yeah.
She's really regretting that, that that prison window has been
shut. And Dom Tartaglia, a shout out
to Folkwise podcast, says I see that slab copy of Uncanny X-Men
141. Jason, let's go.
A classic and as Stone Cold classic.
Which one is that? I'm not as familiar with my
X-Men lore. 21 That's Days of Future Past stuff, the iconic
wanted poster that has been copied so many times.
John Byrne on the cover art and the art inside as well.
Oh is that like related to the the Sentinels and all that stuff
in the future? It's like an alternate future
where the Sentinels basically have one and all the X-Men have
been wiped out and the mutants have been thrown into camps and
are haunted down. I do remember some of that.
I I remember reading some of that a long time back.
That was good content. That was good stuff.
Yeah. All right, well, let's get into
the Westeros content. Dragon seeds.
Let's talk about dragon seeds. It's one of the most exciting
things that we have left in season 2.
The red sowing, AKA the sowing of the seeds, AKA new dragon
riders who are not named Targaryen.
That from our our show only friend was like, oh, like that
Yeah, that's cool. That's exciting.
It's just something that didn't initially see coming.
And the reason we want to talk about it, even though it's about
to start happening in the show. And I said, hey, let's talk
about season three. Well, this is not a short term
plot development. This isn't going to be a one and
done. Like one or two people ride a
dragon, then they die and then that's it.
No MO Dragons, MO problems. This is going to be a part of
the story till the very end. In fact, some of these seeds
might well, unless they change things around, which is
possible, will outlive a lot of the main characters in the book.
They do can happen. We'll see.
So my first question that we should talk about here, Jason, I
think is a good one. We first we have a dead dragon
paraded through the streets now. Now we have like non Targaryens
and maybe even bastards riding Dragons.
Like, that's just a the mystique is just getting torched here,
isn't it? Yeah, I think that that is a
cost that will be paid. And it's unclear for either side
what the effect of that will be. You know, the the Targaryen
right to rule is based in large part on the premise that they
can control Dragons and nobody else can.
And that's the most powerful force there is in this world.
Now, if you start saying, you know, as as Renira and Jace are
discussing at the end of this episode, but what if, what if we
find somebody else? What if, what if there's some
other, you know, obviously Targaryens intermingled with
lots of different folks of noble birth they're talking about
right now, You know, what if we put a Tarly or a Darklin or a,
you know, a Tully on a dragon? What would that mean?
Well, I think it would mean that some people, as we see at the
beginning of this episode, when people see the Dragons can die,
would start to wonder if Targaryens are all that special
anyway. Hold on.
Are they really? What would what would the result
of this be? It's unclear.
And I think what's really fascinating to me is like this
is a real this is a true revolutionary act.
Like, you know, Daenerys talked about breaking the wheel.
This is breaking the this is it. This is truly doing.
This is overturning like the social structure in a really
serious way. And that can't help but be
destabilizing, even though I think if you're Ranira, it's a
necessary step because what are you going to do?
You're going to risk yourself, You're going to risk Chase,
you're going to risk some other important person or lost
Rainey's who's someone who cannot be replaced.
So we've got to find some folks for these Dragons.
And hopefully they're folks that they can trust and hopefully
they are folks that won't 'cause too much destabilization in the
realm, both from the noble houses who are going to say,
hey, wait a second, what the why is this person on Dragon all of
a sudden? And from the small folk who go,
wait a second, I thought only Turgans could do this.
What? What does that mean?
So it's very interesting times ahead.
I totally agree. That was very well said.
And one of the one things, one thing I'll add to that is that
you have this culture that is very used to getting what it
wants because it has this advantage that no one else has.
And like you said, if it spreads around and everybody can have it
or more people can have it, then they start looking like maybe
this Targaryen authority isn't what it should be.
Maybe they maybe we don't need to be in awe of them like we
have been. And if the more of them will
start dying too, that's, that's going to get pile on even
higher. And then to add on, on the top
of all of that, you have the issue of war, making people make
the worst decisions. Like, well, we have to continue
to sell out our ethics because we don't want to die.
And both sides are, like you said, both sides are faced with
that. And it just escalates from
there. But we have these normal people,
these sort of everyday folks that might be involved.
They have a lot of different pressures on them and
upbringings, and they've never wielded power necessarily.
And it's going to be really interesting to see how that
affects them personally ulf and, and Adam and Hugh and Nettles,
Ray Nettles, whatever going to do there.
This is, this is, it's even even Raina, who is a Targaryen, it's
still going to change her. Like, she's as the twin that
doesn't have a dragon if she gets one.
At this point, I'm just assuming that's going to happen.
I don't actually know. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah. So it, it would even that would
you think that might go to her head a little bit, Maybe not as
much it would to Hugh or ulf but still, that's a big rise in
power. That's a great point.
And I think you put your finger on something else that I think
is really important in this medieval culture, right?
Oaths and fealty and leverage are so important and they are
often backed up by the threat of well, you have your kid at Ward
here, you know, what are you going to do?
You're going to say no, Well, I'm going to decapitate your
kid. You know, as we saw, you know,
at the beginning of Game of Thrones, when you know what
could happen when a when a worship goes bad.
But it's also it's it's an important way to keep people in
line. What happens if it's one thing
to put a Tarly on a dragon or Reyna?
If that happens, or someone who's already of noble birth and
standing where you know where their family lives, you can
probably have some of their family close to you.
You have buttons you could push to make sure once you hand over
the keys to a dragon to that person, that they do the thing
that you're hoping that they do. If you start putting other
people on Dragons, people who already come from basically
nothing, they don't have anything, how do you keep them
in line? How do you ensure that they do
the thing that you want? If you, you know, you put an
orphan on dragon, you can't say I'll kill your family.
And so that is going to be another aspect of this.
If indeed they start looking at a, a wider casting a wider net
with these dragon seeds, the idea of control, keeping people
in line, how do you do it? It's an important question if
you're about to hand over the keys to essentially like a
nuclear weapon. Yeah, absolutely.
Well said. Now assuming again I'm assuming
the Reyna sheep stealer thing for now, but other drag.
Otherwise the same Dragons are in play.
That's still the same dragon sheep stealer even if with a
different rider. I saw a theory that I like.
I wanted to get your your thoughts on this.
This would be a longer term thing.
If Reyna gets sheep stealer and then flies back to Dragonstone
or just goes somewhere else not where she's was ordered to be.
That could be how we get to the point of the kids getting
captured like they are in the book.
And that could be get us back to the same place Rainier is with
book Nettles and not trusting her like it's not.
It wouldn't be for the same reasons that she doesn't trust
her, but it would create conflict between the two of them
that might eventually set up the book version of Maiden Pool and
and all that, which is presumably wouldn't be till like
season four or something if that.
Happens, right? That certainly feels, feels,
feels plausible, right? I think that one thing I think
the show has done a great job of establishing is how bringing the
characters to life in a way where you understand, like what
they want, like Reyna not having a dragon that has having that
meeting with Reniro, where Reniro's like, OK, this is like
a really important mission and and responsibility I'm placing
under your shoulders. This is the future of the realm.
If everything goes sideways and Reyna's like everybody gets a
dragon but me like, well, you and now I have to hang out with
little kids like that. That felt really present to me
and I could certainly see Reyna, if she gets the opportunity to
claim a dragon, saying, well, this is much more important,
right? Yeah, like you told me, I'm here
because I don't have a dragon. Well, now I have a dragon and
that's like the power going to her head a little bit and being
like, well, clearly I have permission.
Not to mention Lady Green is is in my ass about the fact that
you know she didn't read the fine print of the contract you
showed up with like baby Dragons and a couple legs like she was
thinking full grown. So now you don't have a dragon
and you're still not going to stay here?
Come on. Yeah.
Jane will be. Pissed.
Yeah. Jane will be like, you got a
dragon. You still left.
Like, what the hell? So we got a question from Blue
Fleur, which says Nettles was thought by the maestros to not
have Targaryen blood. Now, I know a lot of book
readers, a lot of us feel like that's not clear.
But set that aside for now because the maestros definitely
do seem to believe that. I think that's accurate what
Blue Fleur is saying here. If Nettles has been nixed, do we
think one of the other dragon seeds will get that part of her
story in House the dragon, meaning a common, a truly not
dragon blooded person getting a a dragon?
I think we might already have that.
Maybe. Like is Alf really telling the
truth? I don't know.
But if he is, it's be interesting to find out that he
was lying and then he still managed to ride a dragon.
And of course, the the Valerian bastards is a little bit iffy
there because, yeah, you could say maybe there's some, there's
probably some Targaryen like way back in their history, but their
dad's Corley's. There's no immediate like if
there's Targaryen blood, it's way back, you know?
Right, there's no obvious link, and we also have to.
We also have to wonder how much of the Targaryen mystique is
propaganda on their part. Jace even says that.
I love that, yeah. Yeah, it would behoove them
right to say, well, nobody else can do it but us.
I really like the choice of Jace doing it too, because he's the
one that kind of deep down he knows he's not 100.
You know, he's like, yeah, well, there's me.
So like, we don't have to get into the hole.
But you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
What do you think is all like, genuinely?
I kind of doubt we'll ever know for sure.
Maybe maybe because like, how would how would they prove it?
How would he be able to prove it?
So you know. How would I mean, he's got the
look, OK, but I don't know. I would imagine I I wonder if
we'll ever truly find out, because how would they ever know
how they? Like, Hugh looks the part.
It's easy to believe with him like, but ulf it's like.
Honestly, even if even if Ulf said hey I was lying y'all, you
still could believe that he might have by coincidence a
Targaryen heritage back and it all worked out for him.
Coincidence. You.
Know what I mean? Which could have been the case
with Nettles too. Like people said that part like
maybe she did have Dragon Ball, maybe helped her.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's a great point.
And listen, as Massaria basically says, like, oh, you
want Targaryen blood? You know, like anywhere in
King's Landing around brothels, there's gonna be, you know what
I mean? There's gonna be folks in that
area that probably have some. And so.
It's possible that from Egon, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And so it's possible that even if Wolf is bullshitting, that
he's right without knowing that he's correct, you know, because
it's certainly could have happened.
I mean, some of us are related to Genghis Khan and don't know
it, you know? Right.
Yeah, yeah, we like to compare him a little bit to Sir Glendon
Flowers, AKA Glendon Ball from the Hedge Knight.
Who who's like, oh, I'm definitely Fireball sons.
Like are you? But you you do have the vibe,
but I don't know man, but you definitely have his his
attitude. So that's cool.
And and I don't think OLF has, you know, the attitude of Bailon
the Brave. But but talking about Hugh a
little bit, I mean, let's let's remember Hugh actually makes a
claim for the throne in the book eventually.
That probably isn't till like season four in the show.
Are we still, do you still think it'll be Four Seasons?
Is that kind of where we're at? Do you have any insight into
that? I have no insight, but it seems
at the pace they're going, here's a question I want to flip
around by way of that of answering this.
How far do they go after the matter is essentially settled?
Because, you know, once spoiler are we allowed to talk?
About spoilers are fine, yeah. Once you know one second, the
third's there. It's kind of not over.
Like there's still significant wrangling going on.
So does it then become like Degrassi the next generation?
Where they? You know, like we got, we have
the younger generation of, of, of youngsters like rising into
positions of prominence and we see that struggle.
It's unclear to me, but I, I think that at the pace they're
going, season four seems broadly right, because it feels like
season three is going to be the action that's going to be the
big, big fights. You know, like, like I, I, I
wonder even, you know, it seems the season was and the previous
season you got basically one major set piece action scene.
And I wonder if season three is going to be just blow that out.
Major battles, you know, the Butcher's ball, etcetera.
Like you, you wonder? There's some big ticket items
that you would expect some of, if not many of to hit the
screen. Yeah, there's, and that's the
thing we have to talk about here is this how some of these might
hit the screen, how they might maybe adapt some of these.
Got a couple good questions in that regard.
Sticking with you just for a minute longer.
I think it's going to be hard for them to like resist bringing
up that book prophecy that the hammer will fall on the dragon.
And I mean not resist like that's a good, that's a cool
thing for them to do. They should do that and that
would be really fun. And I but I'm interested to see
how they do it because this hot D has sort of reversed course
that Dave and Dan wanted to reduce some of the magic where
these guys are like, let's put more of the magic in.
And it could be interesting to see like how where would that
come from? Like where is this propping up
emanate from? Because in the book it just
people just talk about it. They're they don't bother to
name a source because they don't need to.
And the maestros wouldn't necessarily know what it is.
But here they might want to show like, where does that originate?
Maybe it's just maybe it's just Laurie's strong rumor.
Maybe just just completely mundane made-up nonsense, you
know? But maybe it's mystical.
I, I think it's interesting because, you know, part of the
texture of a Game of Thrones, the book series and a game of
and Game of Thrones, the show was, as you say, that kind of
just a drop of magic. And that, as we all recall, is a
part of that is based on George saying, well, you know, when
magic ebbed out of the world once the Dragons were gone.
So really what we're seeing right now is the most magic that
has been in the world since probably like the height of
Valerio when, you know, when dozens and dozens, if not
hundreds of Dragons were were flying around the world.
So it'll be interesting to see where that comes.
But we've already seen, you know, Hellenas have have
legitimate prophetic powers. We've already seen things going
on in Harrenhal that don't seem to be just someone slipping
stuff into Damon's food. It seems to be much more
existential and important than that.
You know, we've so I'm eager to see if that happens and where it
comes from. Right on, I am too.
Let's move on to a different subtopic here.
This is the one I teased at the beginning.
Glenn Chaos. Do you think Hot D suffers from
a slight lack of humor? I know it's a serious show, but
Game of Thrones game has characters like Braun, The
Hound, Torment, and Olenna who all made us laugh out loud.
And of course we had Tyrion from the very start who was very
entertaining. And Game of Thrones is very
serious as well, but it balanced out very well.
Would you like to see a character or a few characters
bring those funny moments? Or are you happy with the tone
of the show as it is? If a humorous character is
needed, who do we think can bring it oaf?
I don't think we have seen many options.
Unless Deron surprises us. Yeah, Deron, you never know.
That's a good question. You never.
Know who knows what kind of character he is.
I would say, and you can vamp off of this that I I do think
the style of humor is a little different.
It's I would agree that it's not as laugh out loud as Game of
Thrones. Maybe not yet, but but also it
is a little it is a little more contained.
You have fewer people that have that aren't directly involved in
things like everybody is so deeply involved in in House of
the Dragon and what's going on. You have a lot of characters
with so many different plot lines like that aren't involved
in this chase for the throne or doing something else entirely.
Like Aria's storyline, which wasn't a great isn't a great
example for humor necessarily has like nothing to do with the
quest for the Iron Throne. Whereas this show it's it's more
focused on that being the main purpose here.
And so I think we have more ironic humor things that we
laugh at. The characters aren't laughing
at with us in Game of Thrones. I think we had a lot of times
where they laughed and we laughed with them.
Here it's more like, oh, that's funny.
Damon doesn't realize it's funny or Damon doesn't laugh.
But when Simon Strong, who's pretty funny, says no Red
current, sorry about that. That's why no one, no one on the
show laughs with him. But that's funny, you know, So,
so maybe it's a style thing, but.
No, I agree with you. I think it was a concern.
As I said off mic, I think coming into season 2, I was a
little bit like, gosh, I wonder how they're going to lighten the
mood because there's a lot of, you know, you got kids getting
killed, you got cities being razed to the ground.
You have beloved characters meeting their end.
And a lot of the characters that I think people care about are
just taking hit after hit after hit.
So where's is it going to be too much?
And I, I think they've, they've, I've largely not felt that, Oh
gosh, they need to lighten up. I was a little worried that
maybe after the first episode where you're like, gosh, but you
know, in the in 205, the episode we're talking about, like
there's a great moment, as I told you, where like, you know,
Damon is insisting on being called Grace and Sir Simon is
like, well, are you, Isn't Ranira the queen?
He's like, well, what do you call the person who's married to
the queen, the king? Ah, and then David's like, well,
there you go. And then so Simon's like, yeah,
but Consort. And I thought that was quite
funny. And there are different moments
like that. I thought that until he got
burned to an absolute crisp. I was actually finding a lot of
mirth in in Tom Glenn's Glenn Carney's performances.
Egon, like he was kind of fun. Like I actually against my
against my expectations, found myself going, you know what?
He's making a lot of bad decisions, but he's he's a kind
of fun guy and he's. Very, he's very funny and even
his drinking guard like they're like 3 stooges with them like
hit, you know, running into each other's face.
Like there's so much like little humor with all of that.
Stuff. I don't know, that's just a good
physical humor there as well. I I find the show hilarious to
be honest, but I'm maybe easy to laugh.
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
Gwen Hightower too, right? That guy's funny.
Yeah, Gwen Hightower is very, very uptight and funny.
I think that the fun odd couple Ness of him and Cole is is add
some texture. I so it's a long way of
answering the question. I don't think it's I don't think
it's a problem, though. I understand the concern.
And you know what? Actually the Carrenhal stuff,
and we brought up Simon Strong, but I kind of think a lot of the
vision stuff had this humor to it especially.
And Alice too, like the way that she is observing Damon.
There is this humor to it. Some of Alice's comments have
been pretty funny. Yeah.
And Alf, like Glenn mentions Alf, Alf been pretty humorous,
and I bet Alf is going to be funny going forward.
And then that's part of what I was saying about you have
characters that are like at the heart of it, they're Royals, you
know, and they're a lot of them just they aren't funny.
They're never like their upbringing didn't allow that for
them. Like they're just everything was
very serious. So we're getting characters that
more that that have spent time just hanging out at the bar
more, you know, like off and egg on as well now that we're going
to get a lot more humor from him.
That's why we need off all the more, I think, because of the
lack of. Aegon and why?
Maybe slides right in there to take his.
Place well, if they may dare on a joking type.
That's true. You know, it might need that
kind of humor. Yeah, that's very, that's very
true. Yeah.
And back to Aegon. Yeah, he has been really funny.
Like we, a lot of listeners have heard us compare him to Michael
Scott, which is basically what you just gave.
He's like a he's not a good boss, but he is kind of fun
sometimes, you know? Yeah.
And like, honestly, like, you know, that first day on the
throne, I saw some promise, you know?
He managed to stand down Otto over pointing out that the small
folk would be important to the war effort.
Like it was a learning curve there but I just found some
weirdly rooting for the guy. I know it's really weird.
We have a lot, we get a lot of comments like how can you like
that guy so well, I that's the question I'm asking.
Why do I like this guy? I don't know, but I'm admitting
to you that I do. I'm not, I'm not like fired up
about it. I'm just like, you know, I like,
I kind of like this guy. I don't.
Really. I mean, even doesn't have a
sense of humor, so at least what else?
That's true. That guy is never like he's he's
like George Costanza's mother and Seinfeld, like never a ha.
Not a teehee, not a chuckle, not a giggle.
Let's talk a little about the Riverlands, which continues to
be a a a disentangling as sort of how the book portrays it is a
little easier for Damon in the book, but it was also he just
says, hey, everybody get for, you know, sign up for Rainier's
army. And they're like, yeah,
Rainier's army. So it was, to be fair, just kind
of easy in the book. So they they wanted to add a
little more to that hair and all as well.
Isn't just season 2. That's the thing that I like to
talk about here or bring up because it's Damon's arc for
now. And it probably won't have a lot
to do with Damon, you know, starting in season three maybe,
or I'm not sure but and and it but it will come back to him in
season four. Maybe.
Again, I'm assuming that he doesn't die till season four,
but it's going to be big for other characters.
It's going to be Amon that we see there instead.
And we're going to see him do like awful things and burn all
that wood down the poor Field of Dreams.
Burn it, you know, build it and they will come and they will be
Vergar and they will burn it. Yeah.
So lots of potential there for Harrenhal to be key to the story
kind of until the end. And honestly, if we remember our
book plots, it isn't actually ever resolved, is it?
Alice reference. Is just kind of like just kind
of like Peters out because notable people just kind of
disappear and up and, you know, vanish from the story.
You don't know what happened. We need blood and fire to finish
that off and we obviously aren't getting that by, you know,
before the end of this season. I.
Think that it's OK for the show. I agree.
I. Agree.
She, it's like she doesn't have to have it.
And because we don't even know when she starts, it's, it's kind
of neat to have her be like this out of time, you know?
One thing I want to get your take on is, you know, my
relationship to Fire and Blood is kind of changed because of
the show, by some of the changes and because of the way the story
has to life in a flesh and blood way.
For instance, you know, it's one thing to say on a kind of, you
know, intellectual level. Yes, I understand that this
fired blood is written from the perspective of several
unreliable historians, some of whom were writing like after the
fact. And we're not there for a lot of
like physically in place for a lot of the things that happened,
you know, except for Mushroom, which we what he's saying.
But watching the show and stuff like, say, when stuff like the
the secret Summit say happens, Rainier meeting Allison.
My my way of porting that to the books is saying, oh, well, that
this never came out. They never figured that.
Out and it's being. Truly secret, right?
And then other things then also come into focus.
Like I I've started to perceive fire and blood as war propaganda
written from an essentially misogynist point of view that
seeks to either sideline the influence in the moves of the
women players in this Allison, Raniro, Helena, you know, like,
or seeks to frame them as, oh man, they're crazy.
Alice, whatever is that? Create, you know, who knows
what's going on in her witch Renira.
She's unhinged, you know, And as you see the story unfold in the
show, you start to see like, OK, they're actually making
reasonable decisions. Maybe not the best decisions all
the time, but you understand where they're coming from.
And in that way, it puts the book, at least in my mind, in a
in a quite interesting light. I think they work together
really well, despite some of the actual substantive like
structural changes. Yeah, there's some difference.
I think that's been there from the get go with, you know, a
great reading of it, But I think it has started to really come to
the fore in people's minds. And I think a lot of people are
being faced with the fact that they were taking a lot of things
as facts in a book that is propaganda.
As you're saying that is a biased history and all of that
stuff. I, I too many people in this
fandom just took, I mean, one, they took it as fact, and two,
there's conflicting reports in a book they're taking as fact.
It makes no sense. Yeah, yeah, you have to take
some of it with a grain of salt. Yeah.
Here's a great example. Like in the book Rooks Rest,
it's Aymond and Egon fly out together to meet the threat,
right? It's both of them.
So you know the the implication there being that it was kind of
like both of their ideas. Or maybe the kings, when you see
what happened, it makes sense that nobody would want to touch
that story or would even maybe even know what really happened,
right? You certainly want wouldn't want
to accuse Amond of potentially trying to push his brother off
the throne. Like that would be a very
dangerous thing to do. And you wouldn't want to trend
those wars. So it would make sense to say,
oh, they both went out there and whoops, Aegon, hang on, got the
worst of it. And that just happens at war,
you know? And I think that's a great
example of the show bringing out these details that still work
with the books, but in a different way.
Absolutely. And like for example you you
bring it up this. This brings up several other
related points for example, like Cole specifically lies on the
way back. He's like Aegon killed this
dragon, you know like OK, so that's probably going in the
show cannon official record. Their maesters just wrote all
that down, you know, and if you and if you imagine the scenario
you just described about it looks like Aegon and Aymond were
in on the ambush together from the book version, which may be
correct from the book version. But the maesters would never
know that Aegon went on his own and they would never even
imagine. They wouldn't even cross their
minds like, wait, wait, well, what if let me just throw this
theory at you guys, you know, like we're all maesters and at
the sitter, like, what if what actually happened was he just
got really drunk that day and flew there on his own.
Let me just what do you all think of that?
They'd be like, dude, where's the, where's the evidence for
that, you know? Not only that, but but but
writing that down would put your life and say, I mean, look at
Cole in this episode, right when Allison asks him straight up
what happened, what happened out there?
And he's like, well, I don't know it.
It's very clear that Cole feels like he has seen something that
could put him at risk if he talked about it.
You know, he walks up and there's the brother of the king
with his sword out standing over his broken body that looks like
not a brother going to help his brother.
What did I just see? Not to mention, you know, the
Vergar not flying out at the signal, all these other things
like. And.
And so it's clear that just feeling at risk could have
altered the way historians wrote down this story.
You don't want to make anyone mad.
You're just a just a regular maester.
You're just like a regular, you know, just a real fool.
Yeah. You know.
Right. And where would they get some of
these insights too, like some of these things that were discussed
in private, these personal conversations, like you
mentioned? Alice Rivers, I think I
mentioned before, not in this episode, but in some other
episode that she's like the trifecta of things that maesters
would get wrong, magical female and a bastard like those are
like they trifecta things that a maester will have bias against,
you know? So, yeah.
So here's a good question from Scott of Grey Water Watch.
We had a related question already in here.
So this is nice, nice and timely.
Will they change the God's eye, the battle over the God's eye,
the the plot line and the timing.
I'm I don't know that they'll change too much about how it
happens. I think it'll still basically be
Eamon versus Damon, but I do think they will push it a little
farther out. I don't think it will be season
three. I'm going to guess it's in the
final season. Well, here's what I think about
that too, is that just like any of these big fights over like no
one else sees, we're talking about bias and propaganda and
what's reported. I think this is one of the times
when they have so much room to do whatever they want with what
happened in the sky there. I, I don't know that I think
it's that believable for the action of that to happen exactly
how it happened. Did find the sword through his
eye after the fact. So that's part of where that
story came from. But I agree, Like how do they
know that? Like there's there's no
eyewitness to anything. You're right.
Even Alice Rivers looking up there, she wouldn't be able to
tell like I can. See clearly what's.
Happening, you know, hundreds of feet above me.
If they know, OK, we got. To get a sword through an eye.
But they have room within that to play with so much about what
they could have said or experienced or done.
So I do think they'll change it in some way, like the idea that
Damon. That Veigar just lands there and
they face off and then they fly off together to fight.
There's no way that's what happened.
Like this. Like let's let's have our
meeting to talk 1st and then we'll fly up and fight.
Like, I don't think so. But anyway, that's but that's
the Maestro's perspective. Yeah, I would imagine it would
get. Changed in some way at the same
time, I think and I think you're it feels right with the timing.
I can't I can't see it happening any earlier like at the absolute
earliest end of season three. But I don't see it that early.
Yeah, they've seemed to focus more on the main characters.
So you. Know that.
Yeah, I, I, I would be surprised.
But I. You know when you.
Read the book and I'm sure they'll change stuff, but that's
one where you're like, whoa, this'll be it.
Like this is not they, they will do this in some form or fashion.
This is not gonna be Battle of the Burning Mill stuff where,
you know, flash cut 2 thousands of dead like this is going to
be, you're going to, this is going to be a set.
This is going to be a big, big one.
Something else I want to bring up.
To go well, one like, yeah, I think you're right.
It's always going to be Amon versus Damon.
Not going to be like, okay, actually it's Amon versus Jace.
We decided to pick right you. Know what I mean?
But The thing is, do you remember?
Preseason. Listen.
There was that. Interview with Bethany Antonia
where she said that she that Bayla gets Damon's sore dark
sister. Oh yeah, she does say that.
I found that so interesting. When I forgot.
About that comment, I just want to bring that back.
Up interesting, like maybe the end of the.
Season or something? Oh, that's interesting.
They're not even the same location right now.
Yeah, that, that will be. Fascinating to see how that goes
because I can't admit another happens, but that's got about
that comment, yeah. She did just come out and say
that that was kind of odd. So Speaking of the Battle of
Burning Mill, it's a great segue to a character that's been name
dropped a few times inside conversations.
And you may not have noticed this unless you like pay
attention to the subtitles or listen to us.
Or if you're Greyjoy. Pilled Yeah, like like me, you,
you, he, he. The red Kraken has been name
dropped a few times just in casual conversations on at
council. I think both times it happened,
maybe it was more than two, but I can think of two times where
it happened during council sessions, like when council
wasn't actually in session, they just someone was talking about
him and then and then they get to business and it moves on.
So a blockade. What do we do?
About the blockade, it's like, well, get the cracking over
there maybe. Yeah.
Then they move on. So I'm going to lower my own
expectations here and say I kind of guess he's going to be a
matter of dialogue, like, oh, the Red Kraken did this, the
Dalton Greyjoy's attacking the West.
Cause especially if they're cutting two episodes out of
season 2. And I don't know if they're
going to do that again. Like are we going to have eight
episodes again for season three? Are they going to go back to to
10? I don't know.
I wonder when? I think he appears eventually,
but much like the way we opened this season with a visit to the
North and an introduction to Lord Stark, when, you know, you
look at the pacing of this show and the way it's laid out and
we're not probably not going to see him again until, I don't
know, mid season three, end of like, you know, where, where
might we see? I think it might be the same
thing with the red crack. And clearly they're seeding it
so that we'll see him at some point, or at least they'll have
the option to show him. But I I can't imagine when he
would show up. Probably not until mid season
three, right? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Yeah, after the West gets pretty engaged in the Riverlands, he's
like, hey, you, all your armies are in the Riverlands.
Perfect. And.
They're like, Oh yeah. You guys do that, don't you?
It's been a while. Because they've had the piece of
egg on the Conqueror who didn't allow them, you know, obviously
would not have been cool with them raiding the West.
And so they're like, Oh yeah, it's been 100 years since,
right? That's always right, right?
Right. Right.
Yeah, we forgot. Yeah, thanks for that question.
Zeke boy, Zeke B, Zeke boy boyat.
I'm I have Zeke B written here and your name is Zeke Boyat, I
believe anyway. So one thing I I've been
rereading Fire and blood a lot, like well beyond the the parts
that this season 2 take place. And I, I just, I forgot just the
sheer number of places that Vergar burns.
Oh my. God it's insane.
So many places, yeah. So this brings us to a question
you pointed out to me. About when I when I asked if
Amond had ever killed someone by hand and not Dragon and what you
pointed out. Oh, that's a good.
That's a good one. Yeah, yeah.
So Jason, on Monday we were talking about Amond and how like
has he ever fought anyone hand to hand?
And Sean, you know, Sean of course is unsullied and you're
like, I don't think so. And I'm like, yeah, he hasn't.
And and then he only ever fights one person, killed anyone hand
to hand. Yeah, and it's.
Sir Simon. Strong in the book, that's it.
He fights hand to hand when he's like, forces him to fight him.
He's like, oh boy, that won't be funny.
Sounds pretty ludicrous to me. The idea of Eamon being like
fight me like you Victor, Sir Simon like that sounds comical.
It's like he looks like. A fool to fight.
This old man? Yeah, it looks it is.
Kind of silly, but Eamon losing his temper, you know, stuff
happens, right? So yeah, here's the related
question, though. The question isn't about whether
that will happen or other fights that Eamon may have or not.
It's the idea that the Dragons and their riders have a bond.
It's that's this topic of conversation that comes up more
and more as the show progresses. Because there does seem to be a
little bit of like unspoken here and there, like when Rainier
Cedricaris and and Cyrax knew to burn the funeral pyre, which is
kind of specific. And same thing in the battle.
There's like a little bit at rooks wrestlers, maybe a few
commands that are like, well, how did the dragon know what you
meant there? And that's true for real animals
sometimes like dogs can be pretty, pretty surprisingly
precise with with their commands.
So the idea is this, you have Dragons that are young that have
not, don't have a lot of experience.
They wouldn't be sending images of their long history towards
their rider. Like Vermax's grew up with
Jayce. His experiences are like they're
parallel. But Amond and to a lesser extent
Helena have ELT Dragons that have been around and especially
Amond. Vegar burned the hell out of
Dorn too. Like Vegar has done some
business. Like Vegar has torched more
castles than anyone. The Valerian's the famous one.
But Vegar has way more quantity under her wing than Valerian
ever did. Valerian's fires did more
damage, but Vegar did all of Dorn now and it's going to do
all the Riverlands. Vegar.
Just Dorn. Vegard has Dorn.
I mean, Vegard does. Like a twice and three times
over on Dorian. There's like the same places
every a while. This is like Gregor.
And and and Vargo Hood in the Riverlands, yeah.
So is that maybe an implication that we're getting here that
that maybe some of Eamon's? Personality.
Some of his. Vibe comes from Veigar like the
dragon effects his personality just as maybe to a lesser extent
than a skin changer was and now you did an interview with you
and Mitchell where he kind of he touched on some of these things.
That's kind of where I'm coming from How did that comment strike
you in the in just this general subject?
It it I think it makes. Sense to me on a certain level
and you know, we saw the end of season one, the end of poor Luke
and and poor Arax. You know, Eamon was like, they
don't know, don't do it. And clearly these beasts have a
mind of their own and it's written in the text that they're
it's not like riding a horse, like it's a different kind of
relationship. And obviously that bond on some
level is magical that the the Dragons are all tied up in magic
somehow. So it would not it would not at
all surprise me that there is that that bond, so to speak,
goes two ways. You know, I mean, look at you
know, it was two beautiful moments from Rick's rest in
different ways. The first was a drunk egg on it
going the sunfire and somewhere nuzzling his chest like a like a
dog would almost being like, Hey, are you good, dad?
And then that that moment where, you know, Ranis and Mae lease
lock eyes when it's they know it's over.
You know, that's such a powerful moment, but it speaks to that
bond, that relationship, and I think it has to be a two way St.
on some level, you know, or how else could one explain it?
And we've seen in Game of Thrones, even where, you know,
if we, if we want to pretend that that lore is the same kind
of lore where, you know, Daenerys Dragons would react to
just her general mood and the and the danger around her.
So I think that makes sense. What do you think?
Well, I I think they telegraphed.
It very straightforward. I wanna hear Shaya's answer, but
just one, I just have one quick comment.
When Rainier was pregnant, they basically like telegraphed that
Cyrax was feeling what she was feeling.
Like that was the most blatant, perhaps, communication between
Dragon and Ryder that we've seen 'cause like, they weren't even
in the same room. Yeah, that's a great example.
I want to. Bring it to You're talking
about, you know, Veigar's length of age, the types of things that
Veigar has experienced. I've long liked the idea that
Viserys was somewhat haunted by Valerian's long memory to bond
with such an ancient beast. Who's?
Experienced Valyria. Who's done?
Who's gone through so much? I can't help but feel that that
would lead into Viserys psyche in some way.
So that's why I feel that Viserys was so like focused on
Valyria because of his Valyrian connection with Valyria.
Could be. Vision.
Yeah, for what Valyrian saw that's really cool and why he
was so. Like uncomfortable with Dragons
as well is that he saw. So much of what Valyrian had.
Done. He saw so much of Valyria.
I, I, I don't know, I feel like sometimes the writers have to
get some snippets of feelings or memories or something from their
Dragons. Well, he says in.
Season one, does he not? That it's a fiction that we
control the Dragons. Yeah, it's a.
It's like it's. Not true.
And I think you're on to something.
I think that's right, and it makes sense for it's a it's a
well known human. Concept right?
Like. We.
Believe that we control our cats, but clearly they are in.
They literally put a virus in our thing in our head that makes
us love them more. Like that's actually, that's
actual. Science, I mean.
The cats definitely control us, so Dragons, why not Dragons?
Yeah. Anyway.
All right, let's take a quick, quick break.
If you are enjoying our content, why not head on over to
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And of course, make sure to check us out on Friday over at
Twitch, where we have great, good times with our Crusader
Kings 3, which is the world of Westeros modded into this
wonderful game with incredible detail.
You're starting a new family. New.
Camp, we just finished a Tarly. Campaign and what Yeah, that was
fun. We conquered Old Town and
Highgarden. We got like really feisty there
and he he was Hunter the big. Hunter.
I was hunter, the big hunter. Yes, they're the big hunter.
My. Kids, I keep losing control of
my kids in Crusader Kings 3. Sorry.
Game is hard. Game is hard.
OK my friends, what, what do you have anything else you want to
shout out? Like anything you've been
working on that's kind of that you aren't, that's like not your
typical thing, 'cause I know your, your, your profile is, is
nice and, and big and well seen. But I know maybe some other
things that you wanted to shout out or or bring attention to
that maybe I'm not, I haven't mentioned yet.
My my my writing partner Shay Serrano and I have a podcast
called 6 Trophies. You can find that on wherever
you get your podcasts. We cover basketball, the NBA,
the WNBA. We also wrote a movie that you
can find on the Hulu platform. It's called Miguel Wants to
Fight and I was wrote ATV show, wrote on ATV show that he
created called Primo. You can find that on Amazon
Prime slash Amazon freebie and then the podcast, which I'm sure
X-ray Vision wherever you get your podcasts, the official Game
of Thrones pod wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm gonna ask you about the. Movie, you know, I knew you were
writing that, but I didn't know it was out yet, so I must have
missed a little thing. What's it called again?
Miguel wants. To fight.
Miguel wants to fight. All right, I gotta check that.
Out very cool hell yeah that's a great achievement that's that's
really cool that you did that related to what you just said we
have a question about from our good friends in our Facebook
group Thomas Pappas and Dom Tartaglia they want you to drop
some NBA or WNBA parallels for some of the top characters let's
what do you got you got an Amond or a Cole or an Aegon or a
Helena or an Allison just just for the main characters else
it's a little too broad but what you got for them I think that.
You know, Ranira is like Caitlin Clark, rookie for the Fever, had
an incredible college career, but it's just kind of growing
into the game and, and finding out what a physical and bruising
game it is when you really start to play with the pros.
And I think Rainier is going through that exact same kind of
growing pain right now where she's realizing, you know what,
I've kind of been checked out early in my reign.
This is happening much faster than I was anticipating.
And I, I thought I was prepared for this, but I'm not.
I would say that you gosh, I would say that Aymond is a
little like Carmelo Anthony, former Knicks legend forward,
Denver Nuggets legend, former Syracuse legend, where he's
wants to do it himself a little bit and needs to let the rest of
the team in. But I think he feels the
pressure to do things on his own.
We're starting to see him now make make his mark as a true
leader now an actual leader. And I guess, you know, as often
happens in teams where egos get in the way.
I think there's been some talk that mellow with in terms of his
relationship with his teammates is kind of was kind of akin to
what happened above Rook's Rest. I will leave it there, yeah.
Sometimes it's the team mates do fight each other, don't they?
Yeah, that's pretty cool. I like it.
I like one for the NBA fans. You got any more there on the
top of the top of your head? Oh gosh.
How about? I mean, who are your Dragons?
Yeah, who's a dragon? Let's go with the.
Dragon. Yeah.
Who's Vegar? Who's the Vegar?
Vegar is LeBron James. Both very very old.
The oldest beasts in the game. Literally the oldest beasts
currently alive in the game. Slow to rouse but once roused.
Quite ferocious sounds really. Appropriate.
I like it. Yeah, Bogsy.
Says says. It's super chats.
It's a small token for almost a decade of watching guys.
Well, thanks, Bogsy. We hopefully the next decade
will be just as fun. Yeah, so the fish feed and the
butcher's ball, those are kind of related battles.
Let's talk a little bit about those.
They won't be this season. They'll probably be next season.
That seems like the right time frame for them.
It's a it's the bloodiest non dragon battle of the war.
The fish feed is so I'm wondering that's a conundrum for
them. Do they want to put a lot of
budget into a battle that has both not not only has no
Dragons, but kind of doesn't have a lot of familiar faces in
it. You know, it's going to have a
lot of westerners and Riverlanders that we have spent
very little time with. One character they can put in
there, though, that I here's a prediction I have.
I don't I'm not guessing they're getting rid of Roddy the ruin,
though they might. I'm guessing they're going to
have him just be a secondary guy that's standing in the
background that maybe has a line or two.
And Craig and Stark is actually going to lead the northern host.
Cause that's the character they introduced.
That's the character they want to make use of him.
And here's the one that I, here's the thing that really
sold it for me. I'm looking reading through the
book and look at it. Kristen Cole's death comes right
after the butcher's ball, after the fish feed.
And he's tries to like fight all those guys at once.
Like, well, let's just, you just fight me now.
And, and they shoot him down right.
And it's, it's, it's Roddy the ruin who says we'll have no
songs about how brave you died, Kingslayer.
So that imagine is it Tom Taylor?
That's his name, right? The the Craig, an actor who has
such a great voice. Yet another Tom.
He would deliver. That line so well, so I don't
know, it can't be head cannon yet, but I think that works.
What do you think about that and just general thoughts on the
fish feed and the butchers ball? Like the butchers ball, seems
like it has to be so cinematic. No dragon, I think if I.
Was to pick a battle that would happen off screen.
It might be the fish feed for the reasons you mentioned,
because it's huge, because there's not really a notable
person in it unless they make a change like you said.
At the same time, gosh, I wonder it does make I I think from a
purely adaptive point of view, it would make sense to say,
well, do we really need this Roddy the ruin character and why
don't we just put Craigen down there?
At the same time, Gosh, I wonder because it's kind of cool, Craig
and coming in later and being like, enough with the madness,
you know, into this. Gosh, I don't know that, said I
I could see a world in the in which the fish feed is kind of
not shown. It's basically just like a
massive massacre. Yeah, you've got also got water
involved, which feels like it gets really expensive.
Yep. People drowning and all.
That, yeah, that's weird. Yeah.
And I think Touche's point. Like the Butcher's Ball feels
like the more cinematic one you wonder if they'll match it into.
One thing maybe, and it's the one that I feel that they.
Have set up foreshadowing for in the show and we pointed out
Christian Cole walking around and seeing what he thinks are
are are real people alive people Ashman.
And instead he's. Gonna think that.
These are corpses and they're real people.
He's going to have this inversion.
And I don't know, I think it's just such good TV.
It's going to be so yeah, I I think they can't skip it.
It's got so much potential. You're right, because I think
also the whole the point about Kristen Cole's trauma being
raised at Rooks Rest and how that's going to like, you think
that was traumatic, How about how about let's round out your
nightmares with an entirely different flavor of horror?
Two skips of mint macabre, please.
Yeah. You know.
I love that scene where he's from this episode that we're
talking about, where, you know, Allison goes through with the
courtyard and is like, hey, what the fuck, man?
Like you're. Not going to support.
Me and and after everything, after all the stuff and like,
your loyalty to like, flowers at night and then flies away like a
moth. And it just felt like.
I love thinking of Kristen Cole as like everybody's terrible
ex-boyfriend. And he really plays into it in
that scene where he immediately, you know, like, Allison's
unburdening her anxiety and her hurt to him.
And he's immediately like, yeah, but let me tell you what I'm
going through, OK? Rook's Rest was so bad.
Like, all of a sudden he like, well, like, listen, you have to
enough with that. I got to tell you how bad it
really is because of Rook's Rest.
And at the same time, like, of course he is traumatized.
I think this is you're starting to see Kristen Cole.
I think Kristen Cole thought, you know what, I'm a like I'm
crushing it. I'm knocking over castles.
It's not a problem. And I think after Rooks rest,
he's like, how the how do we fight this?
How why are we out here? Like let the Dragons handle it?
Like why are we here? What's my role?
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's good.
I like that. That's a good take.
Yeah. I do like that they're bringing
that out of Kristen Cole. They're making, they're rounding
him out more as a character in that way and giving him like
he's, he's got some, you know, feelings, emotions and all that.
And he's always like, he's he's been in that position where he's
not. He says he's lowborn and and
half Dornish. He gets there's a lot of
prejudice aimed at him and he keeps getting promoted without
necessarily deserving it. So puts him in this position
where he's like, I got to earn this thing that I didn't earn.
And and I don't want to step on any toes.
And you can really see that with the way he talks to Allison, how
he's just like, he's just going along with it.
He's like, yeah, I don't want to do this, but I'm going along
with it. And here's the arguments that I
can make to sort of support myself.
Dom asks. Last time you were on the show,
this is that reference to last time you you said that one of
your favorite things about Hadi was the ability to make additive
changes to the text. It's got it's got more room for
that on as long as fire. The changes are more like, well,
we have to change things. This won't work.
Instead of here, it's like, well, we need to add things.
There's only 400 words between Rooks Rest and Eric Aric, so we
got to add stuff. The character, like you said,
the maesters don't like outline characters personalities very
well. So other than the dog is the
question, what's your favorite change from Season 2 or maybe in
general? The the question says Season 2,
but you can expand that if you want.
There's so many. Like I I I love the Raniera
Allison secret summit. I thought that was really,
really interesting as a back channel.
It made sense for their characters and it made sense as
a subtextual read between the lines things when you when you
reread the book. I love everything that's taking
place in Harrenhal is wonderful, you know, and it really sets the
stage for the spookiness of Alice Rivers.
And also, I think, you know, you forget about what a weird place
the Riverlands are. And Harrenhal is in particular
right on the shore of the God's Eye.
Do the children of the forest still live there in the middle
of that? Like this is a weird and magical
place. And I love that seeping through
into Heron Hall. That's a wonderful one.
And I loved, you know, I loved, I love the idea.
I love the addition that Eamond doesn't just become Prince
Regent because it made sense. He actively took a role in
making that happen. I think that makes a lot of
sense for him. And that was, I thought that was
so cool. I thought that was really cool
and interesting and brought out the IT just made him seem like
such a much more dangerous figure than he already was.
Yeah, I do. Like the change to to Amon to.
I mean, all the characters have been changed, like their because
their personality has been fleshed out.
But yeah, his is particularly strong.
And I totally agree with you about Harrenhal.
That's a really good change, just adding so much.
And then like, and like we alluded to earlier, they had to
make changes there. Like Damon's just like, hey
everybody, let's go. And they show up like, yeah,
yeah, yeah, OK, yeah. How'd that happen?
They need sores, they need Arbor, they need horns with the
other. Like how did the like TV is not
going? To go with that, I'm
appreciating them adding stuff for.
Jace, I feel like he's really benefited from that character.
In general. I feel it's so flat in the book
and I so that's one that I feel if and some great stuff too.
Yeah, his personality is it's. Hard to make his personality
shine through in the book or any other personality shine through.
It's it's And he since he has a significant amount of screen
time, he's so important. Yeah, it makes sense to give him
that. So let's see.
Let's take a few more questions. Here we have Urias.
Tosh asks will Game and pale hair be Aegon's bastard that we
already saw. It's a great question.
I mean, it's set up like there's certainly the groundwork is
there for gaming pale hair to be Aegon's bastard.
There's other possibilities. It could even be Amon's since
Amon has a relationship with Sylvie.
You never know. Or had a relationship with
Sylvie. I think that's over with now,
but I'm inclined to think it'll be.
A different kid and that just set up the fact that Aegon is
having bastards all over the place.
That's just my gut, but I don't know what you guys think.
I think that that. That feels like a very plausible
way to go. I mean, as we saw in season one,
like Aegon's been, there's a lot of bastards out there.
He's been at this a while. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure.
Yeah, they've no choice. They have no shortage of
options. Like I it's hard to predict
which one they'll choose, but I like the question because it
enables us to point that out Like, well, they're they
actually have a lot of choices here.
Aegon would make a lot of sense, but they do have other options.
Question from Ranabir Mitch Ryan Condahl on the inside.
The episode talks about the small folk remembering Melees
and Rainey's from long ago and they have good memories of them.
So did they just forget about the dragon pit event during
Aegon's coronation? Are we to assume that the small
folk don't care about the thousands that died due to
melees? I personally expected some
cheers towards seeing the dragon head.
Well, a couple things, a couple different ways to answer this
question. I'll start it off and kick it
over to Jason. I don't think thousands of
people died. I don't think that's possible.
I don't think it would probably. It's probably was all hundreds
at most, which is still a lot, but that still tells you that
maybe news didn't spread quite so much as we might have
thought. Also, the Targaryens, the kings,
the Lords, they get away with a lot of crap.
Real world politicians get away with crapping all over their
supporters, doing all sorts of stuff, stiffing them on bills,
hurting them physically. You know, you've got all sorts
of world leaders that have been re elected after doing horrible
things to people that vote for them again or support their
ascendancy. So I I don't think that there
would be, I don't know that this hatred of Meilis is necessarily
that should be assumed as well as not necessarily assuming that
everybody would have even heard about it.
Yeah, I agree with you. On all those counts.
And I also think as we saw in in this episode, this is also a
very superstitious time. And I think there's a world in
which some of the small folk might have said, well, you know,
when Viserys was running things, it was very Placid.
And if Viserys wishes had been carried out, then none of this
chaos would have been visited on us.
And it was only because this usurper came that this chaos
came. You know, you know, for
instance, it's Rainirez, the one that's enforcing a blockade
around the city. She's not getting blamed for the
fact that there's people starving the streets.
That's like we're wondering what the what they're doing up at the
Red Keep, you know, like what, why aren't they providing for
us? And so I think that there is, I
think it, it absolutely tracks that the blame wouldn't
necessarily go in a straight line to the, to the person or
the entity that you would expect would get the blame for
something like this. I think this is a There's a lot
of latitude for people to blame Aegon and his family.
Yeah. And I think there.
Are people mad about it? Not to say that no one's upset
about it, like people who lost their loved ones would would say
that, but it's such a small like this is a city that probably
might have a population of of quarter of quarter million or
even half a million maybe and a few 100 people.
I don't know that that's going to be enough, especially because
like you said, like when they roll in on the thing, they're
like, I thought the Dragons were gods.
So like a God, like being that you have that kind of reverence
for if it kills some people, your mindset is those people,
like that's that's OK. Like they not that they deserved
it, but that that's just the the gods are allowed to do that.
Yeah, maybe like you're saying, a.
Couple some people, a handful of people have the thought they
were like, man, that was messed up.
They killed my my brother. But probably most of those
people like, wow, what an act of God, or wow those Targaryen that
they shouldn't be usurping the rightful ruler or they think any
number of ways that they spin it.
But I don't think it's a plottal or unreasonable or anything for
the small folk to not hate Melis.
The thing that I thought I think that they should have done
probably is that if Christian Cole was a cannier propagandist,
he would have spun it by bringing it up.
But the dragon, The horses? The dragon pit.
Yeah, and Justice. For the dragon pit, yeah, it's
believable. To me that Kristen would fail to
spin it in the best way, Right? Yes, he kept Otto around.
Otto would have figured that out.
Otto might not have paraded the head.
At all. But if he had, he would have
spun, spun it correctly. Yeah, that's a great, that's a
great point. So So again, I don't disagree
that there would be people that would be upset about it.
But given the attitude of commoners in Westeros, they put
up with a lot. Unless they're starving, like,
or in fear like we see them, they're not gonna.
They're mostly just gonna put up with whatever happens to them.
They're starving. And then which is why they're
acting up now. Yeah.
You're eating people down. There in Flea Bottom, like you
get a bowl of brown. There's there's human thighs in
there. Like I think there's a different
level of care about about there's just like a a different
bandwidth for suffering down there.
And also there's the the. Bigger issue is it maybe some
people were like, oh, that's the dragon that good?
Good. I'm glad you did.
But the bigger overwhelming fear is, oh, my God, like Gwen
Hightower, or rather Freddie Fox, the actor plays Gwen Howard
put it, he said they're seeing the equivalent of the first
nuclear bomb dropped. So whatever, whatever their
personal feelings, whatever anger they might have towards
melees, they're more worried about what happens next.
Like, Rainier is going to take revenge for that.
And they're caught in the middle of it, especially after the
gates get closed. So, yeah, it's a good question.
I'm glad we got to address that because there's a lot, there was
a lot of a lot of debate on that particular one.
I think I've flipped around on. It more than anyone, perhaps
because I think I was really wanting, expecting them to bring
up this grievance and I like and I think as I watched it, it just
made sense to me why they wouldn't.
I think I've flipped my perspective on it and again, I
like I said though, I think the greens should bring it up and I
think the Shepherd will bring. It up if there is someone who
might bring it up eventually, I don't know if you caught this.
We actually asked Ryan Condall about that cause in season one
there was actually a sheep. There was actually a, some guy
was like, was that the shepherd? He's like, oh, that's
interesting. Well, he would be out there and
aware of what's happening. He would know, you know, so he
would kind of, he didn't give a direct answer, but you know, he,
he's, he appreciated that. That works as set up, I think,
for eventual things. So yeah, the question of yours,
I didn't, we didn't finish answering before.
We just drifted into other topics.
Where is the show going to end? So yeah, I do think Jahira and
Egon the third bearing, like that's a straightforward guess.
But I can see your point that there's so much else they could
do because there's other plot lines that aren't resolved by
that. You know, there's other things
that are still in play, but that seems like it.
That's my best guess. It's it's, it's an easy guess.
Maybe it's a little bit of a cop out, but it still is where I
land with the, I mean the things that aren't.
Resolved at that point, Can't they simply just be resolved at
that point with the timelines being like they can move things
around? Yeah, anything is.
Thick. Yeah, you can move.
Things around, yeah, you don't have to.
Get into unwind peak and all that other stuff.
Yeah. So like, I mean, whatever you
could say. That oh, they're moving Aegon 3
and and Jaira later or whatever your perspective is, whatever
they're moving. But I think that but none of
those things have to happen at any specific time.
We're already off on the timeline.
We're in like 132 right now, I think, and it should be 130.
You know, we're already like not actually canonically in the
right year. That's true.
OK, a few more questions from
y'all here. Another one from Randamir.
If the goal was to make it evident to the audience that
Alice is planting dreams into Damon and toying with his dark
side, was it necessary for him having sex with his mom?
I do not understand exactly what the goal was for such a scene.
If it's inner regret, then Shirley Rae Royce or Raniera or
Elena, which we those second two we've already gotten, of course.
And he thinks a better suggestion might have been an
actual confrontational scene with Paddy slash Fisiras.
Well, a lot of us are hoping for that.
We were. A lot of us are hoping it builds
up to that. So that the the end of the
question is why? Particularly the scene with
Alyssa. I don't have a great answer
here. Personally, I don't know why
they chose it. So in terms of what was it
necessary? Well, I mean, nothing is
necessary. They just they're making their,
you know, they're, they're doing what they want.
But do you think that they're just saying?
Like when they look at Damon's character and what formed him as
a person and his psyche, they think that this was one of the
major forming events. Yeah, he didn't know her.
He's got mother issues, Yeah, I think.
And I and I want to. Just be a little bit more
precise about something that was about the way the question was
phrase. I don't think Alice is planting
anything in Damon's mind. I think she is certainly feeding
Damon Weirwood. Paste or.
Something that is that is triggering these visions,
causing him to trip out so to speak.
But I think all of the stuff that he is seeing, he's coming
from him like he is working through.
Do you think all of that of the mother issues, so to speak, and
all the other stuff is my question?
I don't, I agree with you. I don't think she's thinking
specific things, but do you think she's attuned that she
like when she asks about his mother?
She seemed to know about the Mother dream.
Yeah, which is suspicious. To.
Me. Yeah, I don't know if she sees
it per SE, but I think she somehow is aware of it.
I don't know that she's well. She can hear whispers on the
wind. Maybe that is part of it, you
know, maybe she can hear what's coming from him or maybe that's
coming from the where would tree and she picks.
It's like a frequency she's attuned to.
Asleep, actually. That's the other thing.
Is he should you know, he is he awake?
Is he asleep in a lot of these moments?
I think it's unclear and I think that it's quite plausible to me
that she's just listening to all the stuff that he's saying when
he is quote, UN quote, asleep, even though it seems like the
the barrier between sleep and waking with him is increasingly
thin. But yeah, I don't think she's
implanting those things. I think those are the things
that are coming up. Yeah, Yeah.
I agree with that. I don't think they're.
Planted I've, I, I at first thought she was just astute and,
and could kind of read him, but I lately think that she might
have some method of actually knowing what he's seeing in some
way. But I, I still don't know what.
Maybe. But again, he's sleeping in a
Weerwood bed. He's having these Weerwood
dreams. Maybe there's some Weerwood net
type thing, which again, doesn't lead to control or implantation.
Yeah. I think it also could be that,
you know, the things that that she's mentioned are things that
happened, while the things that he is dreaming about are these
dream versions of his own anxieties and emotions and
feelings towards different people.
So I think there's a world in which in the weirwood net, she's
seen his life, snippets of his life and seen moments from it.
You know, the way she talks about like the, you know, this
is this, are you arguing with your wife?
And the stuff he she talks about with his mom, that's like stuff
that's like, you can see that through the weirwood net.
And so I don't know what I mean to say is I think that she's
it's very possible she's seen like his life and moments from
his life as they happened. But I would doubt that she knows
what he's seeing in the terms of the visions themselves, because
he knows I like. That.
I like that take. Yeah, I think it is.
It's meant to be ambiguous. We're not meant to have clear
answers. But I think that works as a, you
know, as a as a model for what might be going on.
Next question is from well, actually not next question.
I have AI have a take here as well.
Yeah. So the mother issues here with
Damon are are pretty well explained.
It doesn't necessarily lead to oh, well, he should have a sex
stream with his mom. But so like, yeah, it doesn't
that doesn't actually lead to that conclusion.
But I can understand why he's thinking about his mother a lot
and why that matters because she the lack of her presence in his
life is a big part of why he is the way he is.
This is somewhat like I'm no psychology, but this is somewhat
classic of he's overly male like meaning very strength first
doesn't like being seen as weak. It's not just that he wants to
be strong as he feels embarrassed and remember like
look at how he reacted to Viserys being like, let me help
you in the step stones. Dude went on a suicide run just
reading this letter, you know, like his pride is way up there.
You know, his ego is enormous. So and a lot of this is he
didn't have a mother that helped him sort of deal with some moms
help you deal with some of these things.
They teach you a lot of these things.
He literally she died when he was three.
What's that thing? And he's thinking about Lena
You. Know and how his daughters don't
have a mother lost their mother kind of feels to blame for how
it happened right and I think he's contradicting.
Himself and saying, oh, they won't follow a strong, they
won't follow a woman, they're only friends.
Like look, if you were telling them is it like helping her,
like saying follow me to help her, they would follow you.
And he's got all these strong women in his life.
Lena, his mother, he didn't know her, but she was a badass.
That's like pretty well known. Like they talk about it in the
episode that she rode MARAC or she rode Melese and was the
first one to claim her and all that and was the fastest dragon
and all this other stuff. So yeah, it it makes sense that
this lack of her in his life is going to have a pretty big
impact on him. Just like, you know, I never met
my father. I can tell that has an impact on
me. I'm not having sex dreams about
him, but. And I think it's good because.
Parallels Eamon in a in a nice way, which is also why they
might have chosen to go this direction because Amon I think
so too, I think. That's right, beliefs, and I
could. See Eamon thinking Ali Eamon
could have a vision of Allison saying you're my favorite son.
You should have been like it all parallels Eamon so well.
So that's why they have mother issues.
You're right. Yeah, that's.
Why they would go in this direction?
I think that's, I think that's absolutely right.
And I think so much of the parallels between those
characters is about the way they want to be seen by the people
close to them. Like, you know, Damon want to be
king. Does he not want to be king?
Did he want to be king when Viserys was king?
It was unclear to everyone around him.
But what it did seem like he wanted was just to have Viserys
go, wow, you're you're such a good warrior.
You're so good. You would actually make a good,
good king. I don't think Damon wants the
responsibility. He does very badly with
responsibility. But what I think he wants is the
recognition of the people around him that he respects and loves
and for them to go. You'd be good at that.
And so he can go. Yeah, but I don't want to do it.
I think it's I think it's a lot of that.
Whereas Amond wants people to go.
You'd be good at that. You should do it.
You like the Amon's whole. It's very similar to his whole
life has been he's been I'm I'm, I'm reading the books, I'm
learning Valerian. I'm I'm paying attention in the
sword yard. Like I'm doing all these things
to show that I'm like a by the book ruler.
This is how it is. And I want somebody to recognize
that I've been putting in all this work all this time.
And he wants that from Allison. He wanted that from Viserys.
He wants that from his brother. And he's not getting it.
Yeah, he's not. That's.
I really like this. This is works out really well in
terms of trying to understand his psyche and the whole
parallel to Amond. That's really good.
And this next question actually relates to this.
We can we can segue in the very first episode of the show, Damon
was pretty excited to receive the love of the crowd.
He he celebrated prematurely even, right?
He he didn't, he hadn't actually beaten Kristen.
And he's like, everybody's like cheering for the Prince of the
city. He loved that.
And again, like, he's not he didn't get that from his mother.
Maybe. So he loves the popularity.
So the question is from Michael M.
We know from the book that it's the small folk in the Riverlands
that answer Damon's call to arms before the Lord's due.
Do you think the scene with Damon chopping wood is supposed
to hint had a man of the people vibe?
Is it possible Damon is actually more likable to the small folk
than he is to the other nobles? The show has demonstrated that
members of the gold cloak seem to like him, which could be
additional proof that he has better reputation or reputation
with non nobles. Yes that's true and I like this
this line of thinking because I do think that this could be a
big part of how Damon reverses course in the Riverlands, which
of course at the end of episode 5 is going horribly for him.
He's made. Arguably, he's made negative
progress in building an army chair.
It seems to be the case at this point you're you're supposed to
get. About 5 to 10,000 men.
How many do you have about -500? Actually I have negative by the
way, no and by the. Way outfitting those men.
We have no money. Yeah, we have put it on my card.
I don't have my card with me, but eventually we'll pay for it.
So, so I think that might be part of how what happens
because, because that's the book plot that the, the fact that so
many people rise up and follow Damon now in the book, it's
because of Rainiera. They could spin it a different
way, or maybe it will be because of Rainiera, because of the
stuff about Viserys little girl brought peace, you know, or, or
Viserys had peace. So why not follow in his wishes?
So that could be how it goes. I I see that working out pretty
well. And yes, we the gold cloak thing
that's almost certainly still in play.
He's probably that's they're probably going to help him get
in the city. The book says that.
So I'm guessing that'll be the same.
But yeah. And then this comes back to what
we were saying about Melys and Kristen Cole and what people
know and what they don't know. Yeah, he just sent all those
banners into Raid Brackenlands. But how much of that news is
going to get to other people? To other Lords?
They'll find out they have already.
But like other common folk, do Blackwood commoners know?
Would they even care? Or they might be like yay, would
Vance commoners even find out? Would Fray commoners even learn
about this? They would get rumors of that
were that have been told by 5 different people before they got
them. They probably heard something.
They probably heard that Karaxis bit the head off of, you know,
a, a, a bear in the Riverlands. And now, yeah, they just heard
stuff that isn't true. So what they've heard is is hard
to figure. Yeah, it's interesting.
I'll say this, I think Damon is you put your finger on it.
He's making negative progress. Not only he's making negative
progress, he is at this point in the story got a pretty bad image
problem as the known architect of a horrific child murder.
You know that fact publicized far and wide by the greenside as
as engineered by Otto Hightower. So how he does it, it will be
interesting to see. Is it by force?
Is it by force of his dragon? Is certainly is.
He's wouldn't be the first Lord King, leader of an army that
people didn't like. So we will see.
I'm very interested to see how that works out.
Yeah, me too. Me too.
Yeah, it's, it's it's very curious.
And this here, this leads us to another somewhat related
question from Thomas. My fear when they chose to dance
was the lack of likable characters.
The show has, in my opinion, made great efforts to make
certain characters more sympathetic.
Do you feel that decision has made the show better or has it
watered down some of the most anticipated moments?
Yeah, they definitely. I would agree with the first
part for sure. They have the the the dance does
have a lack of likable characters, but I think likeable
is is is a very permeable term Like, like Cersei wasn't likable
at first in Game of Thrones, but people ended up loving her in
the long term, even as she got more and more villainous.
So likable can even. Be villainous and likable.
People like a mess. Yeah, well, it's interesting,
you know, like the Fire and Blood is and the other novellas
are pretty dry, honestly, in terms of characterization.
It's mostly plot driven. So I mean, I think just the
efforts in bringing these characters to life have I think
greatly added to to making even some of the smaller moments just
like leap out. Like I care so much more about
Allison than I thought I would. And I think that's because of
the great job the writing stuff has done.
And Olivia Cook like killing it, Yeah.
She's so. Good.
She's so good. And yeah, I think that they've
they've mainly made, you know, a character can be bad or good and
it just matters. Like you connect with that
person, you know, like Tony Soprano was a piece of shit and
people fucking love you. Give us an example on Monday.
That's. Awesome.
So I I think that they've done. A great job with the characters
starting from a from a from a source material that was pretty
dry pretty you know bloodless in the character sense not
bloodless in obviously the blood sense but like pretty bloodless
in terms of how the characters felt you know they didn't
necessarily leap off the page and here they're.
I just think the characterizations have been
wonderful. So I think they've added a lot.
Yeah. What do you, what do you guys
think? I I totally agree.
I think it's. Mostly been a huge plus because
action doesn't work if you don't have tension.
These where you could think of it being.
Worse characterization? I don't think so.
You know what I mean? I mean like I would go so.
Far as to say. That I think every character
that is on screen that is is is better.
I can't. Yeah, I can't, not there's.
One that comes to mind aren't on screen.
And maybe that's a disappointment that they didn't
just at all. Yeah, if the characters.
Translated, they're. Generally richer for it.
Yeah, I agree. Like you can't.
Say that about the original show, because they, those
characters were very filled out and the changes sometimes made
them worse, or often did often. Yeah, exactly.
But here they're not over exciting what George has done.
They're filling out something was never there in the 1st
place. Yeah, like Rooks Rest is a great
example to me. The battle of Rooks in the book,
it's cool. It's like, whoa, wow, I'm
picturing that. But I had no attachment to the
characters. I'm like Aegon, Amond, Cole.
These are guys, you know, they're just dudes.
But this time I was like, wow, I really felt Aegons, like, need
to be there to prove himself. Eamon's, like, ruthless
plotting. Cole thinking he knew it was
coming only to become traumatized afterwards.
Yeah, that was good. That added so much to it.
Yeah. There's a lot more dimension.
Yeah. So green.
All right. Scott of Grey Water Watch asks
will we see the Isle of Faces? OK, so why might we see it?
We've got Damon stuff. We got maybe Adam Valerian maybe
going there. But I'm going to guess.
No, I'm going to. I'm going to downplay that
possibility. It's too hard for them to
actually. Show without any concrete
answers like like if the show happened after winds and we saw
it in winds first, then yeah, I'd say yes.
But without seeing it A Song of Ice and Fire, no, it's hard to
see. I bet you we.
See it from a distance. OK, yeah, that I don't know.
I don't know if we ever go there, but it seems implausible
to me that with Herron Hall is a major location that you wouldn't
even just see it like in the. Back yeah yeah so I think that
we. See it in the back, the ground
of a trailer. Shot in fact, like we have we
have seen it the aisle, but you know the idea of whether we get
boots on the ground no, I don't think we get boots on the.
Ground. I would, I would, I would love
to get boots on the ground. And maybe, you know, we talked
earlier about the fact that Visa V Harrenhal, a lot of our
characters just kind of mysteriously disappear from the
scene. Maybe there's a world in which
the God's eye is involved in that.
That would be really cool. But I don't know.
Gosh I would love it though. Do you have a guess?
As to how season three will end, we we have a sort of an idea of
how season 2 might end, but you have a thought on the big
moment. We talked earlier maybe it could
be Damon and Amon, but we both seem to think that's more of a
likely season four thing. So what's like a big thing that
could do at the end of season 3 instead?
It seems maybe too soon for the storming of the dragon Pip, but
that's one idea I had as as possibly.
That seems kind of fast though. Maybe a different battle, maybe
something like maybe that could be the Butcher's ball.
Maybe the end of season three could be Kristen Cole's death or
around there. Just tossing some ideas at you
in case you don't have a No, I think that the.
Butcher's ball, You know what's the I think the OR Tumbleton,
maybe. Tumbleton could be good.
I just going off of pacing from Game of Thrones era to House the
Dragon era. It usually feels like the
penultimate episode is the banger and then we end on
something more quiet. So I could see Butcher's Ball
being a penultimate and then and then pressure mounting in King's
Landing, leaving that as like the but they have a, they get a
win. But then they have something
that goes bad, yeah. Leaving that as like a
cliffhanger going into season four.
But I think what's cool is there's clearly a lot of I think
there's a lot of ways they can go.
Yeah. What do you think they?
Could have. Rainier get ejected.
From King's Landing at the end of season three, Which would
kick off her flight, her running away on the road and, and all
which leads back to Dragonstone, which I think they will push as
close to the end as possible, which, you know, in the book
it's, it's a little bit more. It's a little sooner than that,
but how soon? In season three, do you think
she arrives in King's Landing? Oh.
I think that would tell us a lot.
Right. Yeah, pretty quickly.
I would think it'd be kind of a fun way to start.
The season, assuming it's not at the end of the season if you get
the city there. Yeah, 'cause we'll have the
dragon. Season like that's how it
happens in the book y'all. If you don't remember the city
has taken Damon, you know flip flops with Amon.
He tricks Amon into leading his forces out then goes around him
and while Amon's taking Heron hall he takes the city.
The gold cloaks let him in. Corlee's ships break the
blockade to bring their soldiers in and invade the city that way.
And then the dragon seeds in Rainier just fly in and just
take up positions. They don't fight anyone.
They just we're here. And that could be a really boss
way to to start, you know, like here they are.
The Dragons are all sitting on the different hills and you got
Hugh over there, you got Alf over there, you got Bala maybe
who wouldn't have been part of it in the in the book version.
But I think if it starts like. That then what we see is, you
know, Renira for a very short period of time, exulting in her
win and then going downhill, downhill, downhill, downhill
towards the end of the season where she's either to your
point, in flight or about to be in flight.
Yeah. And if she's in?
Flight, then Jace. Well, Jace has been dead for a
while, and Joffrey will have been dead by that point.
So she's just not a she's not the same person anymore by then.
She's gonna be, yeah. Season 4, if that's the way it
goes, is gonna be Raniera, truly Raniera the cruel.
Like, yeah, she's yeah Meg. Or with teats.
As they say, yeah. And that, yeah, I think then we
get into that whole moral collapse of her and that will
be. That'll be hard for some people
to watch, I assume. Assuming it's it's it all
similar. Speaking of another character
whose death is going to be painful, PETA Chick asked will
Helena actually kill herself or is it being set up differently?
Maybe, maybe Larius will do it. Well, frankly, there's a very
good chance that's what happened in the book, too.
It's definitely not certain that she willfully jumped that
someone else might have shoved her because the effect it had in
the book, when it happens, everybody freaks out.
They're like Helena. It's kind of like what Rainier
says, like, why would I do that to Helena of all people?
Like the the the small folk of King's Landing are like Helena.
Why would you do that to Helena? So it and it falls on Rainiera
in the book. It's like, oh, you, your regime
did this. So that's why you can theorize
that. Well, the greens would know that
this would blowback on Rainier. So Laris is like shut.
Well, he doesn't do it himself, but arranges for that to be
done, and then the blowback goes to Rainier and it.
It just seems like the kind of thing that could be set up.
Yes, she could jump on her own. You think then Laurie's or you
think he's. Like your main option?
He's my top pick. Yeah, but I don't there there
are other possibilities, like it won't be Allison, you know, like
forcing her own daughter to jump, you know?
But there are. Yeah, that would be.
That's I think that's a very likely suspect.
That's a fascinating 1 because I think Helena has taken on talked
about, we talked about like what are the some of the great
additions character wise, I mean, in Helena's front and
center and that right And I and so I think anything that has to
do with her from the books is up for up in the air right now and
how it actually happened because so much of everything we've seen
from her is just not there. It's not didn't is nowhere
mentioned anywhere. I mean, basically her presence
in the books is like Helena was really sad and didn't come out
of her room like so it's it I think it's it's an open question
as to how much of anything having to do with her in the
books will actually happen as it as written.
I agree that's that's a good. Way to perceive her because
yeah, she has been one of the most changed.
I wonder if they'll do the the theory that has been around for
the books for a while that it's, it's unclear the way fire and
blood words it. When Damon and Amon go into the
drink at God's Eye, Helena's death is it's, it's over at
King's Landing, it's said like this happens and then over at
King's Landing, blah blah blah blah blah, and Helena goes out
the window. It's it's not said to be the
same day, but the possibility is that this happens
simultaneously, that his death is what triggers her to kill
herself. Now at this point in the story,
that doesn't really work. They don't have a close enough
relationship for her to be like, oh, Amon's dead, I must die.
But people who ship those? Two are like, there's one.
Yeah. It's a long theory for anyone
who sees a connection between Helena and Amon has looked at
that and been like, hmm, there's room for heartache and drama
here if they want to go that direction.
Have you thought about that one? Is that is that AI have thought
about that one? And I because I've seen to the
end of this season, I'm not going to comment at all, but
I'll say that these are all good and interesting thoughts.
Cool. All right, cool.
That's sometimes the silence itself tells us things.
Let's not read too much into that, Jay.
Don't read too. Much into that?
Yeah, Yeah. OK.
A couple other questions and we'll call it a night.
One character who's been changed.
Another character has been changed a bit, or rather, she
hasn't been changed that much. Her dragon has.
That's Baila. Baila's dragon is younger in the
book, so it kind of sidelines her.
So they age up her dragon a little bit.
They don't age her up. She's about the same age.
So that enables her to be more involved in the story.
How though? Like what else?
We've seen her scout Kristen Cole, but they're already like,
your Dragon's too small for battle.
That doesn't mean it will. That won't change or they'll get
desperate or but and also after this last episode where she just
had the awesome scene with Coralie, so that was like her
best scene yet. I'm just looking forward to more
of her. But like a lot of a lot of
character and we know like the book version of her survives the
war. So there's this reason for
optimism that we can pin some hope on her little surviving the
story because she survives in the book, although her dragon
probably won't. So that'll be sad.
Can I say what I'm thinking about?
Is Bayla and Alan obviously together eventually and and
whether. Yeah, well, you think they'll
set that up? Well, that's.
My question like you could. Say that's a marriage of
convenience, but I could see a world where they fall in love
and actually care about each other.
And my thought is Baila and Jace like they are close with one
another but they're the closest of like they grew up together
like they don't ever seem romantic.
They never kiss, read like they she hugs him and touches his
shoulder. But like I, I don't know, like
it doesn't seem like they're sneaking off and hooking up
really. So I there's room for her to
fall. In love, yeah.
It's an arranged marriage, I. Agree with that, although this
is like the best version of arranged marriage, one of the
better versions. Yeah, they're quite.
They're very open with each other about a lot of things,
which I think is quite admirable.
Yeah, they may not be in love, but they.
Have a good relationship yeah, they're functional.
They're. Very functional and like they
could fall in love, but they won't have time for that.
And I kind of honestly looking at the two of them, I'm like,
they look so adult and grown up and you see you see Aegon and
Helena are together and have kids.
I'm like, why aren't these two married yet?
It kind of feels weird to me that they wouldn't just marry
them at this point, but I I think they're not 16 yet.
I think that's why they just look adult.
They both. They do look adult, but in.
The book they're they're he's 15 when he died so I guess that I I
thought they were aged up just. Because they looked so much but
I could believe he's I mean I could believe they're both 15
teens often look older. You I could believe anything and
I do think they set up. Baila Allen a little bit by
having Corliss offer him, offer her the lordship of Driftmark,
because she's just going to marry the guy that gets it
instead. So it's still going to go to her
kind of indirectly. I saw it was kind of cool.
It was a little indirect little Easter eggish vibe there.
Any other thoughts on Bayla Moon Dancer or is that just kind of
more of a wait and see? It's kind of, it is kind of hard
to predict. It's a tough question, I guess.
Well, it's kind of a kind. Of a wait and see I'll just say
that I I thought she had some of her best moments in this episode
and I've really enjoyed everything I've seen from her
and I I feel Jace's frustration that Bayla gets to go off and do
stuff and he just is like around the castle like looking cool and
cool clothes if he keeps negotiating.
So effectively they're going to have to send him one more and
that dude is like showing Damon up like Vale N twins just boom.
And meanwhile, Damon's got a negative bargain, I thought.
Too. Yeah, drove a pretty solid
bargain. I mean, listen, if anybody wants
animal, they can fucking have it.
Yeah, a lot. Of.
People nothing. People would not have been like,
well, my mom needs more than the crossing.
A lot of people would have just been like, OK, we'll take the
crossing there and all like I've got really spoke to his his
negotiating. I've even said that.
That arguably Jace got fleeced a bit here, but so did Rob, you
know, so like like they they knew that the twins are good at
this. They're like, I know we know we
can exact a high price out of you.
So it's like if he knows they know that, then he's going to
have to give give a lot too. So it's maybe he wasn't fleeced
because they know they haven't. They're negotiating from
strength. So I mean, you know, Heron Hall
is it? It's a poison, yeah, and and
it's good. I love how at the.
End of this book or at the end of the at the end of the book
and probably at the end of the show, it's going to be right
back where he started. It's like it's right back, like
it's. Nobody lives there.
And it's been burned, and we built some stuff, but that got
burned again. So it's just got some fresh
ashes, you know? Yeah, You think they'll do the
the cutting his slashing of the tree?
I'm kind of guessing they won't 'cause it's like a hard thing to
portray, but I hope they do. I I think that's so.
Cinematic, I feel like. That's a really like.
Makes for interesting. I I I can see the scene so
clearly of someone like waiting in time passing and you see the
sun setting and rising and the more slashes appear.
I just, I feel like it's very simple.
That would be cool. I I didn't picture it.
That way, that's the neat way to do it 'cause it's outside too,
which I, you know, of course it's outside, it's a tree, but
you know, still I don't know, the roots are growing.
Inside of her that's true. That trees all over the place.
My last question for you, this is of mine in my own theories,
so I'm I'm asking for validation here or just your own idea.
I'm guessing that Hobart Hightower, who in the book who
drinks off white to death, That's going to be Otto.
What do you think? And.
I'm guessing that it would be. Gwaine OK, we have two theories,
but neither of us thinks there's we're introducing a second.
Hobert Yeah, yeah, they're. Not going to.
The Law of the Conservation of. Hobarts, you know, yeah, I would
be shocked if there. Are many more Hightowers to
come? But I I would love it to be
Otto. That would be fun.
Yeah, we have had Orman dimensioned.
But Orman, he's going to go to Tumbleton and die.
So like he's he doesn't even have a line in the book.
He just leads the troops to Tumbleton and then Roddy the
Ruin kills him and it's like so badass and it's like I think if.
If Glenn doesn't die at King's Landing that I'm expecting him
to be part of the Kyle trucks plot because I could see him
offering to drink. Your theory gained so much.
If if Glenn isn't killed in the taking of King's Landing, which
again he is killed in the kicking of King's Landing in the
book. So it's it's not, but we haven't
really seen him with the. Gold cloaks yet?
So I don't know. You're right, he doesn't have a
gold. Cloak job which is how he gets
killed I hope he's extended beyond the season 'cause he's
funny we talked about how he has comic he's Comic Relief value
but it would be kind of neat and clean to just have him die in
the final episode the season and that's it for his contract
that's it for his role that's it for yeah so I'll be waiting
I'll. I'll become team Otto on the on
the Cal Trump's plot if if that happens.
Yeah, that's it's a. Ways away, but yeah, I hope we
we. That's the fun.
We can start thinking about it now, you know?
Why not? Why not?
Cool. Well, Jason, thank you so much
for coming. Did you have any last final
thoughts or extra shout outs or just anything else you wanted to
say? It's so fun to have you.
You had so many great takes and it's always so much fun to to
chat with you about this. Just I want to.
Shout you guys out. As you know, as you know, I've
been listening and reading for a long, long time and it's I'm
always so delighted to connect with y'all and this is my
favorite time of year when this when the shows are on and the
bands get back together. It's about the story is it's
fun. It really is.
Yeah, it's a good time to be
alive, a good time to be in this fandom for sure.
And it's the future's bright. We got House, we got Duncan AG
next year, so we won't have a two year wait in between.
We'll have it's a show every year and then maybe in five
years from now we might have multiple shows a year or who
knows just it's all it's all getting better y'all.
OK everybody, thanks for hanging out with us.
If you're listening to this after the back, well, we
appreciate that too. Thanks to Bran the Builder for
our awesome video intro. Thank you to Michael Klarfeld
for the awesome maps that you see.
That's KLARADO x.de if you want to buy one for yourself.
Clara doc.de on behalf of Ashea. We'll see you next time for more
and you know what to do. Until then, Valar Riritis.