There are a fair amount of villainous houses in Westeros.
Houses that are hated by other houses, or by readers and or by
readers. I should say.
House Frey is near to or at the top of that list.
They are the main party responsible for the most
infamous event in all the stories so far, the Red Wedding.
They are simultaneously numerous, insular, and prone to
infighting. Lord Walder is like a mafia boss
running a huge family, literally, that he intimidates
into working together. But Despite that, they fight
each other as much as they fight other houses.
A common descriptor of House Frey is that they are upstarts.
They are new blood rich, but uncouth.
They're frequently disrespected despite their wealth and power
because of this new status that they have.
It's like they're members of the Country Club, but few of the
other members actually want to be seen golfing with them.
And when they do, it's because they were paid right.
There was some sort of arrangement.
Not that they're bribing them to golf with them, but because
they've come to some arrangement, some sort of deal.
Basically, the money is flowing one way.
Think how Roose Bolton chose to marry the heaviest Fray girl
because Walder offered a dowry in silver that matched her
weight. Dowries on aren't common, but
that story is, and it serves to show us that the frays are
buying their way into high society.
They haven't been accepted yet or maybe ever, and it is
expensive, but they can't afford it.
This is an overarching undercurrent of House Fray.
They've been trying to fit in since they were first founded,
which was only quote, only 600 years ago, which by Westerosi
noble standards isn't that long. Of course, in in real life,
that's extremely long. But hey, you know, cultures work
differently there. There's nothing they can do to
Fast forward that, right? The years just have to tick
away. But they sure have tried to Fast
forward that. They've done a lot of different
things to move up and it's had mixed results.
A pattern we'll go over today is how the phrase have repeatedly
tried to climb the power ladder by cozying up to new regimes,
new potential kings or power blocks, and usually failing.
Rob Stark wasn't the only example.
That historical trend for House Frey is very prominent.
Because of the Rob Stark example, it's they're willing to
join the new Kingdom of the North and Rivers, but only if a
Frey is queen. In other words, they're willing
to take the risk, but it has to be worth the pay off.
In his efforts to win respect for his house, Lord Walter's
pride may have had the opposite impact that he's aiming for.
There may not be a single house that's more despised in world.
There was a few that we could throw out there as examples, but
they probably aren't as powerful.
Certainly in the fandom, they own a special place in the
disliked category. That in itself is a feat though
by George RR Martin. He's written a lot of characters
that we love to hate. This is some of his best work in
that regard. It's almost an entire family,
and I say almost because there's a few phrase who are decent
people or likable and there's plenty more that we just don't
know. We can't just assume the 40 plus
unknown phrase are all terrible, although I would guess that a
large percentage of them are. And the ones that we do see,
even though there's so many of them, they're pretty well
fleshed out, right? Again, the ones we've seen
there's so there's too many. Some haven't even been on screen
yet or may never be. And that for them to stand out
so much is hated and hateful, admits so many other choices, is
a testament to Georgia's skills and a powerful statement on the
importance of House for a in Westeros in A Song of Ice and
Fire and most certainly more stories to come.
And that is a statement itself. Lots of phrase are hated by
other houses thanks to the actions of Lord Walder and his
most prominent sons. But there are so many relatively
or completely innocent ones. And then when we're talking
about them today, that's going to be difficult.
It's going to be a tough subject because we find a lot of that
Gray here. George is coloring his stories
with that color quite often. Some of these phrase do deserve
a harsh fate, but others might get it without deserving it.
And that just is that's what how George rolls, right?
Even the bad guys, even punishing the bad guys sometimes
has collateral damage, and that's because they're powerful,
prominent and wealthy. It's not easy to do anything to
them, but they are perhaps spreading themselves too thin
while gaining even more hatred. Perhaps George made so many
phrase just so he could turn it up to 11 by killing every last
one of them. Maybe all that and more on this
episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello and welcome. A huge house like that, like
this deserves A lengthy intro. So I gave you that just now.
We are here every Monday, Monday.
Why did I say Monday? We're here every Sunday and not
even every Sunday. Most Sundays at 3:00 PM Eastern
on YouTube, live streaming after the fact.
You can catch the episode as an edited video up on Spotify or as
a edited podcast up on anywhere you find podcasts.
You can also listen ad free if you join us on Patreon,
patreon.com/history of Westeros. Big shout out to Nina.
Lots of help from her in this one in particular.
Several years ago she drew up a full Fray succession chart.
It's really long, as you might guess.
And I mean, she put the entire order through.
So stay tuned because at the end of this episode, you're going
to, we're going to go through that a little bit.
And it's just amusing how big it is and where some of the
characters fall in the succession.
If you have questions for us, hit us up live at
westeroshistory@gmail.com and ask us whatever you like.
We're going to do a mailbag episode sometime this year.
So we would love to get some questions loaded up ahead of
that. And we'll put out a big call for
that when it comes at the end of this episode.
I'll mention some other ones that relate to this one, of
course, as I always do, 'cause you can stay immersed that way.
And I'll also give the answer to this trivia question.
This one's for you Beavis and Butt Head fans out there.
The word bunghole appears four times in The Song of Ice and
Fire. Yes.
Can you bung? Leave it?
Four whole time said by 4 different?
Yes. Four whole time said by 4
different characters. Lord Walter is the second one to
use it. Name one of the other 3
characters to say the word bunghole in A Song of Ice and
Fire. Yes, three other characters.
So it's really you could get 3 up to three correct answers
here. But none of them ask for teepee.
None of them ask for teepee. It's true.
Not one. Toilet paper doesn't exist in
Westeros. What a horrible thing.
Can you believe it? Yes, you can believe it.
You can, Bung. Leave it.
All right, let me read you all the episodes section headers as
I am won't to do these days. We have our founding in history,
then neighbors. Oh, before that we have first
mention. Of course, we always have the
first mention. We have Rain of the Storm Kings.
We have under the Ironborn. We have Phrase and royalty.
We have under the Dragons, which has a bunch of subsections.
Aegon's Conquest under Anis and Megor under Jaheris and Alsan
Dance of the Dragons era under Darren the second, under Aries
the first and then later Rains. Then we can move on to House
Frey in A Song of Ice and Fire, and that's parsed by book.
We have A Game of Thrones, the Clash of Kings, the Storm of
Swords, the Feast of Crows, the Dance of Dragons, you know the
book names. Then we'll have our quote of the
week. Then we'll have Outlook and
Succession where we toss around a few theories, some ideas of
what might be in store for House Frey in the future, and then our
outro and that'll be it. Let's get to it now.
In the beginning, I said, I say all that and more, you know all
that and more in this episode. But this episode is actually the
longest episode doc we've had in a while, maybe since Valari read
us. It's 29 pages.
This document that I'm reading you, I'm reading from today.
It we of course don't have time for a deep dive into each
important phrase. You all probably know that I
just got through saying the succession is many pages of of
names. But if you have favorite phrase
or side stories that you want us to focus on at a later date,
it's an entirely possible thing that will do that, because there
are so many other stories that we can't cover because we can't
focus on the characters that much.
Here we have so many phrase. So you let us know what you'd
like us to focus on if and when we return to this subject
someday. First mention the first we hear
of Lord Fray and the twins, and the house comes when Catelyn is
travelling Incognito with Sir Roderick to King's Landing.
She's thinking about worst case scenarios and it served as an
introduction to several of the River Lords with our subject
placed prominently. Catelyn knew them all, the
Blackwoods and the Brackens, ever enemies whose quarrels her
father was obliged to settle. Lady went last of her line, who
dwelt with her ghosts in the cavernous vaults of Harrenhal.
Irascible Lord Frey, who had outlived his seven wives and
filled his twin castles with children, grandchildren, and
great grandchildren, and bastards and grandbastards as
well. All of them were banner men to
the Tullys, their swords sworn to the service of River Run.
Catlin wondered if that would be enough if it came to war.
Her father was the staunchest man who'd ever lived, and she
had no doubt that he would call his banners.
But would the banners come? The dairies and rigers and
moutons had sworn oaths to River Run as well.
Yet they had fought with Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident, while
Lord Frey had arrived with his levees well after the battle was
over, leaving some doubt as to which army he had planned to
join. Theirs he had assured the
victors solemnly in the aftermath, but ever after her
father had called him the late Lord Frey.
Something that actually didn't occur to me while we were
writing this episode is Lord Fray showed up in person at that
spot. That's.
I mean, he would have been like 78 or something because he's 92
now. 78 Yeah, he was. Spry and making babies still.
He was still making babies. You're not wrong.
So I guess if he can make babies, he can, you know, go out
on campaign, you know, it's not that far away to try it in from
the fray or from the twins. So yeah, anyway, the first time
we hear this guy, we hear that he's just unbelievable with the
wives and children and and untrustworthy besides.
And this serves to make him sound cautious.
But as I said in the intro, he's not actually cautious.
He just doesn't take unprofitable risks.
The bigger the risk, the more he needs to be paid out.
He took a big risk joining Rob, but the payoff would have been
big. And then, of course, he, you
know, backed out of that and got a different payoff from the
other side. I also want to throw out this
early mention of Catlin and Rob discussing his plan and Lord
Walder, because it's pretty important.
It's it's a pretty early quote. It's not the first or second,
but it's it's it's pretty close. We hear of House Frey also
before they meet him, when he's explaining his plan to his
mother. Rob is the plan to split his
army, you know, to trick the Lannisters and break the siege
of Rivera. Let's hear it quote.
There's no crossing on the green fork above the Ruby Ford where
Robert won his crown. Not until the twins all the way
up here and Lord Fray controls that bridge.
He's your father's bannerman, isn't that so?
The late Lord Fray Catlin thought He is, she admitted.
But my father has never trusted him, nor should you.
I won't. Rob promised.
Whoops, he didn't. Actually not.
It's not so simple as Rob did trust him.
He kind of did, but we're not here to talk about the Red
Wedding in detail. It's just one of the most most
important events. But you knew it was foreshadowed
early on. This is really early on.
To be fair, this isn't foreshadow anything specific.
It just foreshadows betrayal at some point, or at least suggest
the possibility. It does tell the reader and Rob
not to trust this man, but what ends up happening is he he
doesn't trust Walder, but he just has to make concessions to
Pride to win the man back over. But that turned out to be bait,
but also cause of a manpower shortage and Ed Muir's planning.
But more on that later. Let's start with where it
started before the Twins became one of the most impregnable
castles in the realm, ruled by one of the most irascible and
certainly most progenitus. What's the word for having lots
of children anyway? This next section is Founding
and History. Here's a basic description from
the World of Ice and Fire quote. They had risen to prominence
some 600 years ago, their line originating from a petty Lord
who raised a rickety wooden bridge across the narrowest part
of the Green Fork. But as their wealth and
influence grew, so did the crossing, and soon the castle
grew from a single tower that overlooked the bridge to two
formidable towers that bracketed the river between them.
These two keeps, now called the Twins, are amongst the strongest
in the realm. Let's take a look at where the
twins are located, as this location is of course crucial to
their origins. That bridge is everything,
right? And not only the bridge, though,
but the value they created from it and how far away it is from
the rest of the river lands. They're actually closer to parts
of the West, the North, the Vale and the Iron Islands than much
of the other Riverlords. It's kind of like their own
little corner there. And that's always been a facet
of the Riverlands, that it's next to so many other things.
But the phrase are unusually close to so many other kingdoms,
even though they're up in a corner there.
White Harbor looks about as close as River Run to the Twins.
Now, in actual travel time, it would take longer, but the point
is that their placement is really interesting and it's easy
to miss who some of their neighbors are and just the
interesting position they have in the region.
There's a lot of ramifications of being close to so many
borders. So a surprising thing here is
that the petty Lord in question, this first Lord Frey, he would
have been given these lands almost certainly by a Durandon,
a Storm King, because 600 years ago when this bridge was built,
when the first Lord Frey got his land grant, it was the 1st
century of the three century occupation of the Riverlands by
the Storm King. So it was kind of in the when
they were new, which tells us a lot.
In that era, of course, there was no Heron Hall, no Kings
Road, and the Twins would be the newest castle on the block and
would thus not be much of A player.
I mean, especially given the early description as just a
petty Lord who built a rickety bridge, you're not going to be
getting involved in too much when when that's your setup.
But over time, and it sounds like overtime wasn't that long,
the toll and tax revenue really piled up and that money was
reinvested. It was a smart thing to do.
This was a place where a bridge was really needed, but no one
had done it yet. Maybe there weren't enough
people with the skill to do it. Maybe it was really difficult.
I mean, this is a really a deep part of the river, fast flowing.
So it was probably quite a challenge.
And we do hear that it took multiple generations, so that
adds up. So it was quite an undertaking.
So that that helps us understand why no one had done it before.
It sounds like the Fraylords and ladies have been for the most
part of one mind about the goal of their house and the source of
its power. The crossing is valuable, and
they always adhere to that. They know that.
They realize this is what matters to them the most.
It's the source of everything for them.
Now, Nina points out, this doesn't make the phrase on a
general level any better or worse than any other
aristocratic family in Westeros. In a world of constant
geopolitical scrambling, the control of natural resources,
barriers and roads just places to go it of course, this is a a
relatively expected basis for a family's wealth or status or
authority or all of the above. The phrase aren't like less
noble or more ambitious than the leopards with the golden tooth
or the errands with their bloody gait or the wills in the storm
in in the stone way. Big difference being though that
all those houses have been established for so much longer.
Should that matter? Personally I don't think so, but
it clearly does to Westerosi nobles and you can see how that
has an impact in the real world as well.
Not quite as much, because families aren't so old in most
cases. Now here's Catlin's view of the
Twins itself. The castle, not just the house
spray, which is the first time we see it in person in A Song of
Ice and Fire quote. The Green fork ran swift and
deep here, but the phrase had spanned it many centuries past
and grown rich off the coin men paved them to cross.
Their bridge was a massive arch of smooth Gray rock, wide enough
for two wagons to pass abreast. The water tower rose from the
center of the span, commanding both road and river with its
arrow slits, murder holes, and portcullises.
It had taken the phrase 3 generations to complete their
bridge. When they were done, they'd
thrown up stout timber keeps on either bank so no one might
cross without their leave. The timber had long since given
way to stone. The Twins, 2 squat, ugly,
formidable castles, identical in every respect with the bridge
arching between, had guarded the crossing for centuries.
High curtain walls, deep moats and heavy oak and iron gates
protected the approaches. The bridge footings rose from
within stout inner keeps. There was a Barbican and
portcullis on either bank, and the water tower defended the
span itself. Quite a description.
It's really formidable, really well designed, really
intelligently made in terms of accomplishing its purpose.
And yeah, like, how could you attack that?
It's difficult. If it weren't for our experience
with House Fray and Song of Ice and Fire, like everything we
already know about them are are prejudgement, it would be a lot
easier to look at this story positively.
Enterprising person, builds bridge, improves the trade and
prosperity of the region, increases connectivity between
communities, tames nature. This is good.
It's not mining. It's not something
environmentally harmful, right? Like, that's not the worst thing
ever, but on scale it can cause a lot of damage.
There's just no real inherent violence or harm in this
endeavour, unlike some of the other examples that have made
other houses powerful. It's one of the most basic
things that almost every citizen of every nation in the real
world has ever felt about their government.
When your government spends money on bridges or
infrastructure, you generally are OK with that.
That's like one of the good things.
It's one of the best things you can spend money on right As a as
tax revenue. But by that same token, a
government that builds a bridge or a highway can turn around and
charge exorbitant fees, right? That can turn a good thing into
a bad thing pretty quickly. I've seen in my own lifetime a
toll booth installed here in Atlanta that was made to pay for
a highway and it was actually taken down after those millions
were collected over the years. It was surprising you would
actually expect them to leave it there and continue racking up
the revenue. I shan't pretend like this is
super common, but it would be even less common if the roads
were privately owned, which is exactly what we're dealing with
here. This is like a big highway owned
by one family, and they can charge whatever they want,
whenever they want. They can charge based on your
ability to pay. They can charge based on their
whims. Change in such cases can only
come at the whims of the owners, which is almost always driven by
the bottom line. It's not quite the same with
governments, right? It's a little different.
Again, though, the phrase aren't uniquely bad.
This is a negative element to them, but it's not a uniquely
negative thing. Lady Weber and Sir Eustace fight
over the checky water. Wyman Manderly wants to dam the
White Knife and and petitions robbed for that.
There's plenty of examples that are somewhat similar, so the
phrase definitely aren't unique that way.
It's just something about this is a lot more transferable to
the real world because tolls and bridges, we have those now,
right? We don't really have people
fighting over river rights. Isn't really like governments do
that, you know, maybe some arrangements between
communities, things like that, but it's not very common.
You certainly don't have castles making these arguments or our
houses, right? So it's kind of unique even even
with the the other examples being somewhat similar.
That's definitely what we're dealing with in the case of the
phrase, they've got money by collecting tolls.
They have to be tough about it too, right?
Because you're collecting all this money.
There's people who are going to be like, no, I refuse to pay.
Early on, they may have had to just let some people cross
because they couldn't say no. Like let's say the Lord Castley
Rock, Lord of Castley Rock shows up and he's like, you want me to
pay how much? I'm not doing that.
Are you going to try to stop me? If it was in the first, say, 50
to 100 years of the twins existing, then they'd probably
just like, OK, dude, you can pay, you can pass.
And they might just remember that and charge them double next
time. But early on, they might have
had to just, OK, you're too strong for us.
Go ahead. You can pass for free.
Now, I'm not saying that's what the Lord of Castle Rock would
automatically do. He might pay because he's the
Lord of Castle Rock. He's rich as hell.
And he wants to make he wants, wants to demonstrate that as the
one that seemed cheap, right? Who knows?
It just depends on the personality.
But now all that's gone. Now it's you.
It's literally their way or the highway or the long way in this
case, all those positive ideals fulfilled by building a gridge
or sacrificed for one human shortcoming, Greed.
And that greed is insured by the only power that can insure it in
Westeros, Marshall power. They have lots of soldiers.
The phrase are very equipped. They have spend a lot of that
tax revenue, a lot of that toll revenue on soldiers.
Nina says it's also no pun intended.
I disagree. I intended the pun.
She may not intended the pun, but I do a two way St.
She says the phrase can only act in so far as they know.
They have the backing of a powerful overlord.
Their bridge is a powerful bargaining chip, but it doesn't
completely isolate them from the geopolitics of the Riverlands or
Westeros generally. Yeah, like if everyone ganged up
on them or, or the king ordered them to make changes, they might
have to, you know, either risk that or losing their charter or
land of forever. Still, I want to return to the
point I made at the beginning in the intro, that this is a lot
like mafia, like the way Wilder runs his family and the way they
run the bridge and the twins in general.
And I think that's part of why he wrote the house this way,
George, that he wrote them like a a large family, like a mafia
family and Lord Walter like a godfather.
They like real mafias. They take the proceeds from
their initial money making ventures and invest in new ones.
The area around the twins is fertile.
It's full of farms. But if it had always been that
way, then there would have been a Lord ruling the region before.
There's no way a fertile, useful region had no Lord in it for
thousands of years, right? That just doesn't really make
much sense, does it? Especially in an area where
there's so many people and stuff happening.
So it's very likely the frays are responsible for developing
land that wasn't developed into something fertile and
prosperous, that it didn't start that way, and that in turn would
see another significant increase in population and trade and thus
more tax revenue from their peasants and merchants and more
people crossing the bridge. Unlike most of the riverlords
who are steeped in ancient history and in many cases ties
to the old gods and maybe even some other supernatural arenas
here and there. Not the phrase right?
Many houses in the Riverlands either had their heart tree
chopped down or did it themselves.
Frasier's never had one in the first place.
They're way past that era. So that also is maybe part of
the reason why they're a little separate, why they're a little
looked down on. They just don't.
Their history is different. They don't have that connection
to the region in a way that a lot of the ancient houses do.
And that's also another thing unique about them is that they
grew over time. There's a few similar examples
out there, but most castles are built in what is mostly their
final form, or at least something substantial.
Very few castles of Westeros started out as a wooden keep and
eventually became multiple stone keeps and a third tower added on
and all the other stuff that's unusual Winterfell was added to
over the years, but it started big casterly rocks, sure OK they
add tunnels here and there but the main stuff has been done for
a long time. One example I suppose is the
Aegon for it, but that was just torn down entirely and the Red
Keep started from scratch. That wasn't an improved
building, it was just let's do away with this and start over.
So there's not many examples that I could really come up with
at all that are similar in terms of improving a a existing
structure. Like Storm's End is another one,
but that was it just kept getting destroyed and rebuilt.
That's not the same as improving it gradually.
It was basic and grew into something larger as their means
grew along with it. Now, surely some of the nearby
Lords saw what was happening. They could see what the phrase
we're doing and they could understand, perceive that over
time this was going to become a very powerful neighbor.
That income they're earning from that bridge is significant.
It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
In fact, it's very basic, very simple.
The revenue that would flow forever like like the green fork
itself is like, they're just going to keep collecting those
tolls and it's just going to keep stacking up and they're
just going to keep getting richer and richer.
And, and there's physical evidence the, the money, you can
assume the money's coming in and then you see the castle improve
and the stone towers go up and the would be swapped out and all
that. So it's absolute proof that
their income is substantial. And of course, as I said, it's
not just the castle, but their army and their influence.
So let's consider their neighbors.
Their sworn vassals are House Hay, House Charlton, and House
Ehrenford. Charlton is the most interesting
of those three because they predate House Frey.
So at some point in House Frey's ascension, they dominated House
Charlton, whereas they started off lesser.
That may have been after Aegon's conquest.
Maybe Aegon rearranged a few things after, you know, Heron
the Black was defeated, but it may have happened earlier under
the Storm Kings. And there's a lot of potential
there because if they were actual Stormlanders themselves,
if they were a Lord brought over from the Stormlands by the
Durandans, then they would want to have loyal vassals installed.
And, you know, bringing in someone that's loyal to you
because you gave them a lordship is a lot different than trying
to win over the dairies or the the malasters or all these other
houses that have been established for thousands of
years and and have their loyalties are pretty set
already. Now, we know pretty well that
the phrase don't get along with the chronic men.
And that probably has been the case since the beginning.
The phrase are much newer to the area.
It could be that the first Lord Fray kind of colonize an area
that was lived in by Chronic Men.
Just guessing though. I'm not really sure.
They certainly would have viewed the growing power of House Fray
as a negative development matter what.
And it's also possible that they tried to expand into places
where the Chronic Men really already held sway, and there may
have been some fighting or some bad blood, or both.
And for these frontiers, these borders are not exactly well
established, especially in a swampy area like the Neck that
is hard to define in the 1st place.
But it certainly would have made the chronic men nervous and and
not at all pleased with this development.
We see the prejudice against them here.
It's actually kind of funny how over the top the young phrase
express their beliefs. But this is apparently what
how's Frey teaches their children quote.
Mud men, answered little Waldor disdainfully.
They're thieves and cravens, and they have green teeth from
eating frogs. A few minutes later, he says.
Frog eaters don't smell like men, Frey insisted.
They have a boggy stink like frogs and trees and scummy
water. Moss grows under their arms in
place of hair, and they can live with nothing to eat but mud and
breathe swamp water. I don't think so.
Walter, this might be better
seen as like a boogeyman type story, the kind of story they
tell their kids when they're young and when you're older,
they don't actually expect you to believe that.
You know, I'm not sure, but it's certainly over the top.
And like I said, kind of funny. To the east of the twins,
there's very little other than the Kings Rd. which we'll speak
of in a moment. And of course, reminder, it
wasn't there when the Twins were founded.
To the West is Sea Guard, which is of course the first line of
defense against the Ironborn. They've been there a long time.
To the South is the ruins of Old Stones.
Old Stones and the Twins never coexisted.
Old Stones was long a ruin before the Twins was built.
So ultimately the sentiment for many of their neighbors amounts
to denigrating comments like upstarts and toll collectors.
They believe toll collecting, this kind of endeavor to be
beneath the nobility, even though a lot of them do it in a
different way. You know, they still collect
money. They're, oh, taxing.
That's so much more noble than collecting tolls.
Yeah, that. But still, you know, the nobles
have their peculiar beliefs. They think that such thing is is
a is a business of the merchant class.
Perhaps This is why we don't see more fortified bridges in
Westeros. I mean, Nina did point out, and
I agree with her, that there's plenty of other houses that just
make their bank off of controlling a certain area.
But there's not many that have bridges.
There's, you know, there's Bitter Bridge and a few others,
but that's not a fortified bridge.
That's just a bridge, right? So this is different.
This is kind of unique. But still, the point is build a
fortified bridge and charge lots of taxes and you get shunned at
the parties of the rich people. So it's kind of the what Nina
calls the inherently unwinnable politics of the Westerosi
aristocracy. To be in trade of any sort is to
be inherently less than by the aristocracy, no matter how rich
it makes you. It's like you have to get
wealthy at a very specific way for them not to look down on you
have to be your house has to be old enough.
You have to collect your money in a very specific ways.
You have to behave certain ways. It's just very strange and
inconsistent and blah. It's meh.
Combine the aristocratic horror of the mercantile life with the
similarly classist horror of a family that is relatively much
younger than the First Men, blue bloods who have been ruling
Westeros for the better part of 8000 years, and you get even
more reason for this resentment against House Freya.
They all look down on them for certain things, but also look
down on them for being richer and like they shouldn't be
richer than us. We should be richer.
We're more noble. We've been around longer.
It's wrong. It's against the natural order
of things for this house to have more money than us.
So it's just like even their success makes people look down
on them. And it's wild how this gets
translated into other places. Even like Dunk, who is a hedge
knight looks down on them because other people do.
It's like that. It's like the trickle down
effect of of hatred or of of shame or or resentment or
whatever you want to call it just ridiculous.
Just these beliefs get passed down and they have no look at me
defending the phrase. Let's move on rain of the storm
kings. Given that the Durandans ruled
the region when the House Ray was founded, again, we're
working on the assumption that that particular Durandon who
conquered the, the storm, the, the the Riverlands was the one
who granted him the first Lord Fray these lands.
Now, that could have come a little later, you know, but
that's a safe assumption, or at least a reasonable guess.
And it might have been like a request, like an upstanding,
ambitious visionary who's like, Sire, grant me this land and a
small amount of gold and I will turn this gold into lots more
gold and you'll get tax revenue out of it.
You give me this investment and it's going to pay off big time.
He was may have been convincing, charismatic, make a made a good
case. Maybe he had some experience
already. Again, we talked about the
bridge building isn't like such a big thing in Westeros.
So he might have had some special experience that he
gained maybe overseas. Maybe that's how what got him
the land grant in the 1st place. His his ability as an architect
or an engineer, terms that obviously don't exist in
Westeros, but we can use the use them to approximate what's
happening. And of course, this would be
highly appealing to the Storm King.
You're like, yeah, I get to install a vassal who's going to
be loyal to me and give me money and, you know, leave my mark on
the region. And yeah, you've got all these
conquered nobility around you. You want somebody that's kind of
in your pocket that you can count on.
That's not one of them. And the phrase, as we've been
talking about throughout most of this episode already, are not
one of them. Even now, they're kind of
outsiders within their own region.
So back then, it must have been even more so.
Now remember too that it wasn't the Kingdom of the Stormlands
and the rivers. No, it was just the Stormlands
is much bigger now. He just we just conquered it all
and added it to the Stormlands. It was not like when Rob said
this is the Kingdom of the north and rivers or or back when the
various kingdoms of the Riverlands were Kingdom of the
hills and rivers or Kingdom of the rivers and this or that.
Yeah. No, this is the Stormlands
version was just the Stormlands is a lot is a lot larger now.
The Neck would have been kind of the border there and again, a, a
kind of undefined border, but that's like potentially 1000 or
more miles away from Storms End. That's really far to to manage.
So you can kind of understand why they weren't able to hold
it, though they did hold it for quite a while. 300 years is
pretty substantial. They also would want to consider
keeping a barrier between the North and the Riverlands.
If you're the Storm King, you might consider that the
Riverlands is still steeped in Old God's worship.
And of course, the North is the biggest hotbed of such.
What's to stop the Riverlands from making an alliance with the
North, like what happens in the Song of Ice and Fire, and
pushing away the Stormlands, pushing the Storm King's rule
away? He probably considered that, or
at least one of his descendants did.
And that's a good reason to put the phrase right there in
between the Neck and the rest of the Riverlands to as a block, as
a check against the possibility of the North and the older
Riverlands uniting. So yeah, it, it, we said it's
hard for the Stormlands to hold the Riverlands.
And it was it, it's not just like theoretical.
There were, there were rebellions almost every
generation or so for 300 years. So yeah, it, it was difficult.
There was lots of sending troops there, lots of difficulties.
Now we're told the bridge was finished by the grandson of the
first Lord Frey. I remember 3 generations of
building that bridge and it just in its first form, just in the
wooden form. How many generations it took to
upgrade it to stone, who knows, but it may have been vulnerable
in the earlier times. That's why maybe the Storm Lords
or the Storm Kings were helping, providing assistance, riding
troops, providing protection or giving more money so they could
pay for that themselves. The river Lords in the area may
not have liked it. They may have seen it as a
threat. And so they may that might have
been why some protection was needed.
But the Riverlands may have. It's also possibly just shrugged
at it. They just like, So what he's
building a bridge is, is that a threat to us?
It might be good and it may be because they're looking down on
them like the nobility tends to do, like, well, these are just
tax collectors. These are just bridge building
tax collectors. Why should we?
Why should we ancient nobility be threatened by that?
Yeah. Their own short sightedness,
their own highfalutin pride might prevent them from seeing
the threat. And especially before the Kings
Rd. because the the back and forth wouldn't have been as
dangerous. The the control of that region
wouldn't have been as valuable. But there's not as much traffic,
you know. Also, it wasn't a united 7
kingdoms. Once Aegon comes, which we'll be
talking about shortly, all the kingdoms were had more
connectivity. But at this time there was a
strict border between the North and the Riverlands and a strict
border between the Stormlands in the West.
And those borders were a lot more likely to turn violent than
after Aegon's Conquest, when turning violent meant the
consequence potentially of facing Valerian.
So we can't be sure how long the twins relied on Storms End to
get them going, but we doubt it was that long because the phrase
we're just making such bank. And like we said, reinvesting
and things were going seemed to go well for them.
So they probably could handle it on their own.
And the more they got to handle it on their own, the more they
probably started thinking about independence and thinking, well,
we don't need Storms End anymore.
And when new leadership came along, they were able to make
their own choices regarding what was best for their house.
They no longer had to consider the Storm Lands, or anyone
really. They could just look out for
themselves under the Ironborn. As we said, the Twins are
surprisingly closer to certain other regions important areas
than they are to places in the Riverlands, but also to Storm's
End, which is really far away. The twins are closer to the Iron
Isles than they are to storms in by quite a bit.
The Ironborn came to conquer the Riverlands 300 years after the
storm Kings when the twins were about 200 years old.
So 200 years is pretty established, right?
That's not super established, but it's they're no longer with
the rickety wooden bridge. They're several Lord Fray's in.
They've got some money. They'd be even more looked down
on. They're even more upstartish
only 200 years in, but again, they probably already had
formidable wealth which 'cause them to be looked down on in a
different way by the nobility cause of jealousy.
So their truest loyalty would be to themselves.
And as they had became more powerful and had more of an
identity that's going to increase as each successive Fray
Lord ascended, they'd feel less and less indebted.
So when Harwin Hardhand made himself King of the Riverlands,
they did not have divided loyalties.
Let's take a look at the map as we're talking about this part.
This is fun. Harwin's forces landed South of
Sea Guard and carried their long ships over land on foot to drop
them in the Blue Fork and then sail downriver.
So they bypassed not only Sea Guard, the first line of defense
against the Ironborn in the Riverlands, but they bypassed
the new twins. They just said, hey, we don't
care about them. We don't need to attack that.
That's not the. Important part, these are just
upstart bridge toll collectors. That's not the center of power
here in the Riverlands. So most of the Riverlords fought
with the Ironborn, ironically, because they saw it as a chance
to throw off the Storm King. They're like, hey, the enemy of
my enemy is my friend. But of course, Harwin sort of
duped them. He intended to take it for
himself, probably all along, certainly, if not all along.
He did by the end. Most of the Riverlord's vests
were caught off guard and weakened already when Harwin
turned on them. We don't really hear about the
phrase here in this conflict. They aren't mentioned as having
contributed to the host that was defeated by Harwin, and they
certainly were powerful enough to stand on their own despite
the strength of their castle. I suspect they paid a hefty
tribute to Harwin to leave them alone.
He probably needed money because he's, hey, he's launching an
invasion of the Riverlands. You need a lot of money for
that. And it probably worked,
especially if it came with a pledge to continue those
payments. He's like, hey, yo, we're a
constant source of revenue. Don't mess with us.
You win. We'll just keep.
We'll send the taxes to you. No reason to come for us, man.
It probably worked, right? Harwin was said to have ruled
from the saddle because like the Storm kings the Riverlands is,
he found it hard to keep them in line.
They were constantly rising up. And he was vicious and ruthless.
And it still wasn't enough. They still fought back, but
presumably the twins kept sending revenue and that would
have kept them from getting targeted by heart when he would
have just ignored them. You know, he would have said,
OK, well, they're not a problem, they're sending me money, I
don't need to go punish them. But it is possible he would have
had to do something. Maybe they tried to hold out,
but they might have been wise enough to realize that the
Ironborn are a different animal in terms of stopping them
because they could actually sail long ships down the Green Fork
and and and and maybe mount an entirely different type of
assault than just from land. I'm not sure about that, but
it's an interesting question. So with these few examples in
the in the book so far, let's talk about the pattern that's
happened under the phrase for many hundreds of years,
basically since their existence, which is they their pattern of
trying to get in good with the royalty, maybe as a means of
moving past the noble prejudice that they face.
Like, well, if we can just ascend even farther, they won't
be able to laugh at us as much. It's nothing like getting back
at someone for looking down on you, then getting above them and
looking down on them in turn. That's that's like a fray vibe
that we should get. They're so tired of being
laughed at and looked down on and they're so they use that as
motivation to flip the, to switch the table, turn the
tables and hey, now we're looking down on you.
You who's the upstart now? You know, that kind of thing.
So of course they couldn't have cozied up to the Storm Kings
even if the Storm Kings installed them because the Storm
Kings were established thousands of years prior.
They already had connections with so many other ancient
nobles that go back so far. It's really hard to break into
that club. There's this is an Andal Kingdom
conquering another Andal Kingdom, 7 worshippers
conquering 7 worshippers. There's there's marriages
between the Storm Kings and say the Conningtons and other houses
in the storm lines that come back thousands of years.
Like you just can't compete with that as new blood.
There's no way for a Fray Durand in marriage to really happen.
But the Frays might have taken their shot at offering the
Ironborn kings some marriages, right?
It's a bit of a chintzy game to play with the Ironborn though
because of they don't follow the same marriage laws as the rest
of the Seven Kingdoms, they have a penchant for taking wives and
relegating them to lesser status.
That doesn't mean a Fray Lord wouldn't be willing to do that
though. I mean, plenty of Fray Lords,
Walder Frey included, is the best example of just treating
his daughters like resources, not people, which again, very
common in Westeros. Not something unique to Walter
Frey, but it was an interesting consideration.
Maybe the phrase offered some marriage alliances to house
horror, thinking that, hey, this could, this is what the way the
wind is blowing. We're already not that
established as river Lords. The other river Lords already
looked down on us. This won't hurt our status.
If somebody like the especially the Maoisters, tried to marry
into the Ironborn, it would be shocking and would ruin their
reputation, perhaps forever. But the phrase are already
looked down upon. That reputation's already bad,
so they can within that they have a little more room to move
around. Now again, there's no proof or
evidence that this happened. It's just a reasonable
possibility. Nina.
Nina tends to doubt it just because of the for the same
reason I suggested that the religious differences are
perhaps too large. You know, the wives would be
just as likely to be considered enslaved.
And I don't know that he would want to do it either.
I, I, he's a conqueror. He doesn't want to legitimize
his conquest with marriages, He wants to legitimize it with
further violence. That's really the more the
Ironborn way. So yeah, there's some arguments
against it, but but it's possible.
It's possible. Another scenario I'm fond of is
the idea that they cozied up to the invaders even more than was
necessary for self preservation, right?
It's so important. Like just like Lord Walder in
the Song of Ice and Fire timeline and his father before
him, they just try to attach themselves to royalty.
It's just such a common thread here.
Obviously, Robb Stark, that's one of the first ones that we
learn about, even though chronologically it's the last
one. We are introduced to them as a
man of extreme caution, the late Lord Fray, right?
But again, he joined right away once the issue of Queen, Queen
Fray, when that was put on the table, he's all for it, right?
He's willing to take all kinds of risks for that.
The Fray Queen would have been like the Riverlands, half
representative of the new Kingdom of Northern Rivers, like
the like poster child for this new regime.
Then, of course, they switched to the Lannisters.
But you know, you can't get in with the Lannisters.
You can't marry that high in the Lannister families under these
circumstances. They got, you know, Joy, they
got what which very not Joy. Joy married the the Westerlings,
but they they haven't gotten their Lannister bride yet or
their Lannister marriage yet. But it's going to happen.
It's on the schedule and more on that later.
It's it's basically our our building up to the possibility
of the Red Wedding too. Point so Lancel.
True, true. Well, that hasn't actually
happened yet either. But but you're right, They they
arranged that. Yeah, you're totally right.
They want some. Of their you know, they want
some other Lannisters. They want the Davin Lannister
marriage. That's the big one.
That's the big set up. But you're right, it's not the
only one. That's a good call.
Now, before that, they tried to get in on the ground floor of
the second Blackfyre Rebellion, not actually marrying the
Blackfyres. It was a fray frayed, a
Butterwell wedding and the Butterwells were the host in the
primary movers of all this. The movers and shakers the
wedding and tournament was that was the cover.
Not that this got remotely close to succeeding, but had Damon the
second become king, the phrase would have been like small
council. Other rewards on top of that
money new lands like they would have been definitely ground
floor investors in the new regime and would have gotten
paid hugely. Had that come to pass.
A quick and mighty rise it would have been but and that's what
they were aiming for. They missed, but that's what
they were aiming for. And the fact that it wasn't even
close is part of the point here. They were willing to take a big
risk again, even though they sometimes have this reputation
as being risk averse, But they're not.
They just want to be sure that the payoff is big enough.
This is a huge risk, but so was the payoff.
And they're really good at risk mitigating because they know
that they can buy their way out of it.
They can hold up in their impregnable castle and negotiate
and say, look, let's come to an arrangement.
We'll agree to be punished, but it's probably not going to come
to them being full blown invaded and and everyone having their
heads cut off because that would be so hard to pull off.
So many men would die taking the twins, so they think they have
this as a fall back, right? Nina says.
I think the phrase would have been most likely to simply stay
out of the internal politics of the Riverlands in these early
days, especially under the Ironborn, because Heron was
trying to treat the Riverlands like a mass forced labor
resource, especially Heron, Nina says.
But probably Halleck and Harwin as well.
They actively encouraged infighting, right?
They rather than their method of keeping their vassals from
rebelling against them was to encourage them to fight each
other. I don't know.
The phrase would have been down for that and they wouldn't have
needed to be. Like they don't have the old
grudges like the Blackwood and Bracken going against each
other. The Ironwood could sit back and
laugh at that, but there is no like rival for the phrase to get
embroiled with. Like, what are they going to go
fight the Kranigman? I mean, like, that is really
what the Ironborn had in mind, you know?
Another final example of how they cozy up, at least in the
area of current Walder Frey, is the names in honor of other
famous families. There's a Tito's Frey, like
Tywin's father and a Tywin Frey. There's a Cersei Frey and a
Jamie Frey. There's an Amy's Frey and his
sons are Aegon and Rhaegar and there's another Aegon, right?
There's a Jingle Bell. So there's, there's a, there is
Aegon Battleborn or Bloodborne, the the one who's like a bandit
or a Brig and that we've never even heard of or seen.
He's only mentioned the appendix.
So yeah. But there's even more examples
of the cozying up. I haven't mentioned any of the
Targaryen examples yet. So let's do that.
Let's move to under the Dragons. So quick math, very simple math,
it's roughly the year 300 now as things stand in the Song of Ice
and Fire, and it was 600 years ago when House Freya was
founded, or at least when they became historically relevant.
So 300 years prior to Aegon's Landing and 300 years after.
So there's half of the time phrase existed was before the
conquest, and half of the time they've existed after.
But of course we know far more about the after.
There's just it's just a more documented period, it's more
recent, etcetera. So the phrase were big enough
players by the conquest to start to be mentioned frequently.
They pop up a lot in the World of Ice and Fire and in Fire and
Blood a bit. So let's play in the historical
sandbox for a bit, shall we? Aegon's Conquest, though the
late Lord Fray is a stand out example of this concept.
It's very common for noble houses to wait to see who's
winning before joining, but sometimes it's easy to tell
before things really get going. Right when the Tullys and nearly
every other Riverlands house turns on the horror dynasty,
it's an easy choice. It's not like it's not hard to
see. Well, let's see what happens.
It's like, no, it's everyone is joining.
We should join too. You don't want to be the one
house left out. That's if you're trying to get
accepted by the other river Lords.
It'd be a bad time to sit out. Everyone hated hair in the
black. You got to be you got to get in
on that. And there's the valerian factor.
You don't want to be against that either.
So this was pretty easy. There's nothing to be gained by
staying loyal to Heron. As far as we could tell.
He wasn't rewarding his vassals, you know, he was just expecting
it. So yeah, really, no pay off
there. And again, new regime,
opportunity to cozy up to the Aegon and the Targaryens, the
sisters and all that. That's a new ground floor
situation to maybe get in on. It didn't work though.
Ultimately the phrase didn't make much headway under Aegon.
Not Aegon, but later. They made some progress, just
not under the Conqueror. And they knew that they they
must have understood that it's still the dawn of a new era.
We've got an entirely new system.
The Iron Fern united the entire Kingdom.
There's going to be other opportunities.
There's going to be more Targaryens.
We'll take our shot later. Here's a quote about House
Tully's relative strength compared to the rest of the big
names in the Riverlands. And it's a little bit surprising
quote. House Tully was unique amongst
the great houses of Westeros. Aegon the Conqueror had made
them the Lords Paramount of the Trident, yet in many ways they
continued to be overshadowed by many of their own bannermen.
The Brackens, the Blackwoods and the Vances all ruled wider
domains and could field much larger armies, as could the
upstart phrase of the Twins. Let that sink in for a second.
Even the history books are shading the phrase for being
upstarts. Like the maesters are doing it
too. Like you want to see what I mean
about the trickle down effect? Like people, they just can't
help themselves with all the other nobility looked at them,
so we should too. It's weird, but it's it's very
human. It registers as something that
people do right. So the Fraser mentioned among
the four houses here that have the largest armies that could
field the largest number of men. And that's also a statement on
their wealth. River men are said to have
made-up a bulk of the of Aegon's army at the Field of Fire, which
means it's very likely that a bulk of that riverman contingent
were phrased because the phrase or something like in current
times. Well, we'll say before the war
started and when before, you know, when it was a time of
peace, the phrase was something like 20 to 25% of the entire
Riverlands forces. So back then it may not have
been quite so large, but it clearly was already among the
top four or five in terms of size.
So they were pretty big even then.
And and if anything, they would have gotten larger by that by
now, not smaller. Maybe they're roughly the same
size, but I don't think they're smaller.
So while Lord Walders pride is enormous, yeah, he's not wrong
that other houses look down on them and historians and Sir
Duncan the tall and just yeah, it's he's not wrong.
He's completely right about that.
So these Frey men who fought the field of fire, they would return
home with these great stories or horror stories, mostly good
stories because since they were on the winning side of Valerian
and Moraxis and Vergar of a victory of a type never seen
before or again, right. So the the phrase were included
in that. And you wonder maybe there's
some some artwork, some some homages to the phrase who fought
in that famous battle. They would want to associate
themselves with such an important event in history,
given their desire to place themselves in the pantheon of
Westerosi nobility and not be seen as upstarts.
Like, hey, look, we were there at the Field of Fire.
That's an important event. You know, that's a big deal for
them. You know, they, they can't say
they were at the pact of the signing of the pact or fought in
a long night or, you know, many of these other long ago events
that would be a point of pride. But they were in this one, and
that's a big one. The unification of Westeros into
a single polity was most likely a good thing for most people.
For nobles and commoners alike. Surely there's there's
definitely examples such as people who died during the
unification of it because of it. But as a whole, the populace of
Westeros benefited from additional peace, cross Kingdom
trade, all that sort of thing. Which for the phrase if wartime,
they can profit off of wartime if people need to pay them to
cross the bridge like we see in the fungal ice and fire.
But generally speaking, it's probably better for them in
peacetime because there's just a lot more people are going to be
going back and forth paying those tolls during wartime.
People staying home, they're afraid to go out.
You don't want to get your caravan absconded with by a
travelling army that needs supplies.
So they would very much have benefited from the unification
of Westeros. Just way.
And people are doing longer trade routes, they're able to
cross the borders. You don't have to like petition
to enter the North going from one Kingdom to another.
You can just do it. It's just all one now.
I'm not sure they had such things, but it would have been
simpler once the Iron Throne was established, and for the first
time ever, probably for the phrase, it would be a time of
relative political stability. They'd never sworn fealty to an
actual native Riverlands overlord.
They were independent, either sworn to the Storm Kings or to
the Ironborn. And so once Aegon took over,
they were actually sworn to another Riverlands house for the
first time in their 300 years, so 300 half of their existence.
They were not a vassal of another Riverlord's house, which
is a pretty big deal, so they'd never been in that position
before. And it speaks to again their
separation, their difference, and why they're just their
values as a house. Their cultural upbringing is
just different. Not to mention the massive value
gained by the new capital of the entire continent, King's
Landing, that was built under Aegon and started to grow pretty
quickly, maybe at a speed the phrase will be familiar with
given how quickly their castle develops.
So having the capital, the entire nation relatively close
by, that's good for them too. So just lots of really good
things for the phrase that came under the Iron Throne.
Nina says it's interesting to speculate whether the phrase
featured in early Targaryen cross country matchmaking given
their strategic position on the Riverlands N border.
It may have happened. We hear about a lot of those
cross-border marriages arranged by Visenya and Rainey's, and
there were examples given in the in Fire and Blood and a few more
in the World of Ice and firefighter call correctly.
The phrase weren't mentioned, but it's it was explicitly
stated that there were a lot of these that were unmentioned.
They just didn't want to list them all, you know, So that's
entirely possible. And the phrase are important.
There would be a compelling reason for the king and Queens
to discard or push away or negotiate past old grievances.
And it's not good for, you know, for the river lines to have the
phrase and other houses and like not liking each other.
So they may have been some arrangements to try to get these
houses to get along better to be more of a unit to be.
I mean, the Riverlands wasn't under united under itself.
So they're kind of reforming that that grouping that they
were after being conquered for so long under Anise and Magor.
Quite a lot happened in the Riverlands after Aegon's death.
It was a hotbed of rebellion and discontent as Anise proved to be
a weak ruler. But we don't actually hear
anything specific about the phrase being involved.
Lots of things happened in Harrenhal.
There was, you know, Harren the Red running around.
There was the invasion of King's Landing itself, the attack on
the Red Keep. Not really sure what the phrase
we're doing then. But they may have just been
holed up waiting for things to die down.
Not much profit in getting involved in a lot of that stuff,
right? They did March with Aegon the
Uncrowned against Magor when Magor obviously usurped the
throne after Anis's death from Anis's son and daughter, Aegon
and Reyna. Reyna was of course the elder,
but of the the crown was expected to go to Aegon anyway.
And that's yet another example the phrase rather than siding
with the powerful existing king, they took a shot with the
upstart. Even though Aegon was the true
heir, he was clearly in a weaker position.
I mean Magor had the capital, he had Valerian right?
And he was a a warrior king. He was already very formidable,
so the phrase were on the losing side, but managed to, you know,
not get well. They weren't extirpated.
Magor didn't kill them all, so that's something.
He did supposedly come down with a heavy hand on the rebels,
though. Visenya encouraged him to not go
too far, which maybe isn't saying much when Visenya is the
voice of reason about brutality or extra violence.
I don't know. The bars, yeah, the bars are not
very high there. The phrase may have just done
what they always do, though. They're like, hey, you can fall
back on our great wealth and say, hey, we'll just send you
lots of money, maybe some hostages to make amends to Megor
and Visenya. And let's talk about that a
little more. Because a lot of houses are
wealthy because they own valuable things like land and
castles. But that doesn't mean you have a
lot of cash, right? You have wealth and money aren't
the same thing. Like wealth is owning valuable
things. It doesn't necessarily mean you
have a lot of. Millions of dollars in the bank
or lots of stocks you can sell quickly for money.
It's not always works, doesn't always work that way.
So the phrase would always, though, have a lot of cash on
hand. The phrase would be one of the
few houses that could say, yeah, we always have cash on hand
because there's a constant supply of coins coming in from
the toll collections, right? They would always have cash.
Some houses even occasionally sell land when times get
desperate. They're like, well, we have to.
We can't make ends meet. Our castle's falling apart.
We got to do this. We got to do that.
They sell land. It's the one thing, it's the
last resort. The phrase are much more likely
to be sniffing around, like looking for opportunities to buy
land from people who are desperate then to be the ones
that are forced into selling. I can't.
I just really can't imagine the phrase being in that position
unless something massive changes under G Harris and Alice Anne.
Remember that George quote where he kind of wonders about
Aragorn's tax policy? Well, let's talk about that a
little bit here, but not Air Gorn.
Of course, the Kings Rd. This would have also been really
beneficial to House Fray. And of course, the Kings Rd. was
built under Jaharis and Al San. Any traffic coming South Down
the Kings Rd. prior to or before there was a road there, they
would, they had the option of staying to the left, coming down
South and just heading towards well, there was no King's
Landing, but heading down that road that before it was the
Kings Rd. But now you can do the peacetime
version of what Rob did, take the crossing and then had head
South to River Run. Otherwise, to get to River Run,
you have to go all the way to the crossroads.
Shay's going to put the map up. This is very informative and
illustrative. And then head W.
It's extremely inefficient to come down from the north and go
all the way to the crossroads and then go all the way West
around and then back up north to the River Run.
If you can look at the map, if you're able to pull the screen
up here, even just for a minute, you can see what I'm talking
about or take a look at the map later.
It's a really inefficient, but if you just cross at the Twins,
you can get to River Run in like a third of the time.
It's way different. And it the benefit doesn't end
there because this River Rd. which is an extension of the
King's Road. After River Run, the road goes
all the way to Casterly Rock and then Landisport, and then
Highgarden and then Old Town. It's a great route for a
merchant. A merchant could start at King's
Landing, head all the way to White Harbor, and then turn
around and head back down South. But instead of going back to
King's Landing, they could cross at the Twins and then go river
on Casterly Rock, Landsport, Highgarden, Old Town, and then
back to King's Landing. It's a super long journey, but
nearly the entire trip is on the King's Road or one of its
tributary roads. Thus, you would never have to
leave the highly traveled safer zones.
It's an increase in safety, a reduction in travel time, which
means more goods going back and forth, which means more tax
revenue. Toll collection for the phrase
so much about that. Fewer bandits, fewer spoilage of
goods, weather is less of a factor.
Just pile up that tax revenue. You all that's this is all very
good for them. They're very well positioned to
capitalize on the prosperity brought by the Iron Throne in
the dance of the Dragon's era. A certain fool Fray, AKA Forest
Fray, he earned that mocking nickname by proposing marriage
to Rainier in the year 112. And he'd say, well, why is he
full Fray? Isn't this kind of like
embarrassed in the bold type stuff?
Why wasn't he like Forest the bold?
I couldn't come up with something there.
Forest the fast, I don't know. Well, because he was a younger
so he wasn't even in line to inherit the twins.
So it's like, is Rainier really going to marry a second or third
son of, you know, a medium house that's kind of an upstart
besides being really young. So yeah.
Anyway, that nickname didn't really stick, though, because he
actually turned into a Poissant knight.
He became quite formidable. Now, if you're not entirely
familiar with Poissant knight means, Arthur, King Arthur is
described as a Poissant knight. Lancelot as well.
It just means you're really good at fighting, really good at the
stuff that Knights do. Poissant, if it's attached to a
different like a Poissant king, you know that means you're a
powerful king rather than a great fighter, although it can
mean both. Anyway, Forrest Frey instead of
Rainier since she turned him down.
He married Sabbath of Vipron and then he but he actually did,
ironically enough, inherit the twins even though he wasn't in
line to because his elder brother or brothers, we don't
know how many there were, died without issues.
So Forrest became Lord of the Twins, Sabbath of Vipron, Lady
of the Twins, and even though Rainier rejected him, he didn't
take it personally. They supported Rainier's side
when the dance came. It's said that a sabatha is
sharp featured and sharp tongued and ruthless and yeah,
interesting, interesting character for sure.
Now she greeted the winter's wolves as they passed SA.
Little bit like what we saw in the TV show, vaguely like that.
Forrest Frey helped Damon take Stonehedge and he brought 200
Knights and 600 infantry to the battle by the Lakeshore, AKA the
fish feed, where he died too in the very bloody, very watery
battle. So his young son with Sabatha
became Lord of the Crossing. But he was a young son, way too
young to rule his own right. So the ruthless grasping, as
we're told by the history, Lady Sabatha took over and she was
quite competent, quite formidable.
She sees Harrenhal when Amond abandoned it, but that almost
backfired literally on her 'cause Amon suddenly returned
and torched a bunch of her soldiers.
She managed to hide in a Privy and avoid being killed, which
was you got to do what you got to do right.
She had even captured Alice Rivers at that point but lost
her. During this incident.
She did escape and make it back to the twins with her surviving
men. Sabatha was later joined by her
father and brothers in forming a new host which joined the Second
Battle of Tumbleton. The full size of the army was
4000 but we don't know how many of those were phrase and and
vibrons, but definitely a large number you would think.
Though several of the Black leaders were killed, they lost
less than 100 soldiers and Lady Sabatha was among the survivors.
She also LED her contingent at the Battle of the Kings Rd.
AKA the Muddy Mess, which was the final battle of the Dance of
the Dragons where the Stormlands army was defeated by the River
Lords and the Darklands who switched sides and attacked the
Stormlanders in the back. That helped a lot.
She may be the only woman who has LED Frey armies.
She's definitely the only woman that we know of to lead Fray
armies, but there's enough missing Fray history that it's
entirely possible some other ruling lady frays have existed,
though that doesn't mean they existed during times of war, so
we just don't know now. Sabbath also LED her victorious
army, along with the rest of the River Lords, into King's Landing
as victors, and they were greeted with cheers the the the
common folk. The people of King's Landing
were happy to see them. She never did remarry, but she
probably had a relationship with Black Alley before Black Alley
moved N they probably stopped seeing each other at that point,
but they had their time together I suppose.
She also was one of the few to hold widows fairs which was a
very clever move. She held them at the Twins.
There were widows fairs held elsewhere, and the point of the
widows fairs, if you case you don't remember, was to find new
husbands for the many widowed river women.
And a lot of those husbands were the northern veterans who came S
with Roddy the ruin. A lot of them survived.
Well, not a lot of them survived, but enough of them
survived. I'm not actually, it wasn't just
the ones who came S with Roddy, but some of the ones who came S
with Kragen. And they never got to fight at
all for them. So some of them just stayed in
the South and said, hey, I'll start a new life here in this
nicer climate. Give me a wife who already has a
household. Yeah, that's that's a pretty
good result for dudes who marched S expecting to die.
It's also an interesting way to show us how the old Gods had a
little bit of a resurgence there because these are northerners
moving in and these are the men. So they're probably, you know,
in charge, you know, dominating their households in a lot of
cases. So a lot of Riverlands houses
would restart their worship of the Old Gods.
I mean houses, I mean, you know, home like individual homes, not
noble houses. And that would, that's
interesting. You know, I don't know what
effect this had on the phrase, but it would because they have
no old connection to the old gods.
But it's an interesting consideration there that might,
that might make them more open to it because even though they
don't have the connection to it, it's like, yeah, sure, we'll do
that. We don't care.
But they might be strict about the seven in some cases.
A couple years after the war, three years after the war, we'll
say in the year 134, there was a succession crisis in the Veil
following the death of Lady Jane, the formerly known as the
Maiden of the Veil. Robert Rowan, who was the son of
the Hand of the King at the time, Thaddeus Rowan, was sent
to lead an army to restore the King's peace. 600 Freys were
sent by Lady Sabatha to join. Not entirely sure why what their
connection was here what maybe Sabatha was just trying to be a
A player and was just showing throwing her might around a
little bit and getting involved in things.
But 1/3 this was a 9000 man army that these 600 phrase were part
of and it went badly in the veil because of well because of the
veil the the conditions they marched along the High Road got
hit by snow mountains, Klansmen 1/3 of that 9000 which would be
you know 3000 died along the way.
Rough math of 1/3 of the phrase died that's 200 of them.
Maybe This is why the phrase didn't help Catlin at the end of
the crossroads after she sees Tyrion, because they tell the
stories about what happened to the phrase in the Veil, you
know, 150 years before are still remembered.
They still tell those stories. They talk about the field of
fire, but they also talk about starvation in the Veil.
Like, yeah, we we shouldn't be going back there.
Let's not do that. You could say they were right,
too, right? Like, how hard was it for Catlin
and Tyrion and the rest of them to get through the Veil to get
to the Erie? It was very difficult.
If they had had 20 heavily armed phrase with them, the Klansmen
might not have even attacked them.
So there's that, as there is another way to look at it.
The phrase were important enough to be included on the planned
royal progress for Aegon the Third, but when Aegon the Third
came of age, he famously cancelled that royal progress,
so it didn't happen. Now, we're not sure when Sabatha
died, but it's likely she was still alive when her son came of
age, because we're only talking about 8-9, ten years of waiting
before he became 16. Given how influential and
successful she had been, I bet he relied on her a lot, got a
lot of advice from her, at least early on.
But but who can say for sure? We know nothing about this boy
or the man he became, except that he was a fray, which
according to Wyman Manderley, is a bad thing to grow up as.
And it's hard to disagree under most cases.
Under Darren the Second, No mention of the phrase in the
first Black Fire rebellion of 196?
We can guess given what we've learned about them in their
patterns so far with some confidence that they either sat
out entirely because there's no clear winner.
There's no obvious like where's our where's our angle here?
Where's our edge? There's no new regime to get in
with in terms of the loyalists and getting in with the black
fires. Chin see as well, because
they're they already had so many close allies.
Bitter Steel did, however, rally much of the Riverlands, so it's
possible the phrase were included in that.
The Lostons, for example, joined, but they bailed or
switched sides. We're not clear which, but
certainly there was some sort of betrayal by the Lostons at the
last minute. But we don't hear anything about
the phrase here, so there's a good chance they just weren't
involved. They said hep, we're staying out
of it. But they were definitely a part
of the second Black Fire rebellion.
And a lot of the second Black Fire rebellion participants were
people who fought on the losing side in the first one.
And this is the phrase we're so deeply involved in this second
Black fire, quote, UN quote rebellion that does somewhat
argue that they were one of those losers of the first time
around, but certainly not by any.
There's no certainty here. It could be that the phrase
fought for the loyalists and were annoyed at how little
reward they got for it. That's possible too.
This is also an issue or this is also the era in which the Starks
were having succession issues and perhaps infighting.
So they may have been worried or concerned about what happens in
the North. Like they're right on the border
there and maybe this, this stark violence spills into their
territory. Dunk actually notices A Frey
banner at the Ashford Met attorney and Sir Franklin Frey
competes in it. That's the year two O 9.
Of course, there's no more to it than that.
But you know, when we see some expansion in the TV show, the
Duncan Egg show that's coming, we might get the a little more
of the phrase in in Ashford because they're a familiar face
or familiar house anyway. And we have already predicted
that they'll be, you know, more banners and more, a little more
activity from some of the other fringe.
It's going. To be the most hated toddler on
TV. That's right, when he appears in
the third one. Oh my goodness, everyone.
'S going to be like I hate this kid and I'm like, what do you
mean that's literally a baby? I hate this baby under Aries the
first, not the Mad King. Aries the first.
This is the year 212, three years after the Tournament of
Ashford Meadow, the third Dunkin egg story.
So of course, this is where the phrase are very prominent.
This is the second Black Fire rebellion, and they're very
prominent. So Lord Fray arrived in force is
Lord Fray. We don't know his first name.
He's the family of the bride. He represents the family of the
bride. His daughter was 15.
She was being married off in a hurry because she had been
caught fooling around with a Scullion.
Caught by the current Lord Walder Frey when he was 4.
See, we hate this baby. That's right, he ratted out his
own sister. What a little crappy kid.
Anyway, Lord Frey brought his son as well.
This 4 year old Lord Walder and his well regarded brother Sir
Franklin. The same one that competed at
Ashford plus his cousin Sir Adam and his other 3 married
daughters with their husbands. So a large group of people as to
what we're used to seeing a lot of phrase showing up right like
they they travel in force. So the purpose was to marry that
15 year old girl who got caught with a Scullion to Lord
Butterwell himself. He had lost his previous wife.
He already had kids but his wife had died.
It's mentioned interestingly, that is the Butterwell gold and
the Frey swords. That's telling because we've
talked about how it seems like the phrase are very rich,
although they definitely invest a lot of their money in swords
and that's true here. But the fact that the butter
wells were considered the richer of the two is, is pretty
significant, right, Because their money comes from cattle
and the the phrase comes from toll collecting.
But I guess the butter wells were not as big on investing in
their military. Now they're not big on investing
in anything because they don't really exist anymore.
But Bloodraven in the guise of Sir Maynard Plum, it says
something that's probably getting familiar to you all by
this point in the episode quote. He ought to take a swollen utter
for his arms. These butter wells have milk
running in their veins and the phrase are no better.
This will be a marriage of cattle thieves and toll
collectors, one lot of coin clinkers joining with another.
One of many clues that the man speaking is higher born than his
disguise would indicate. I mean, this is a hedge knight.
He's like, ah, I'm a hedge knight, but this is a marriage
of cattle thieves and Tolk coin clinkers.
The he's looking down on them big time.
And he's he's just a a man who doesn't own anything more than
he's carrying on him. But in reality, he's quite
higher born even though he's a bastard.
So that just tells you a lot here.
Yeah. So the phrase fled the wedding
tournament when egg bluffed that an army was on the way.
But an army was actually on the way bluffed without knowing that
he was right. So the phrase were caught by
Bloodraven's men, but then he dismissed them, saying they
would speak later. Or maybe they were caught in
quotes. Maybe they pretended to be
caught because somehow the phrase escaped serious
punishment here, seemingly. And it's very suspicious,
frankly, when we're presented with the scene of the phrase in
the butter wells facing Bloodraven butter wells on his
knees, Frey is on a chair with a cup of wine.
Butterwell lost his whole castle and 9/10 of his wealth.
Frey lost question mark. We don't know.
It's so little that he may not have.
He didn't lose anything that we can even speak to.
Crazy, right? That's suspicious, isn't it?
There's also the matter of Lord Frey's toasts.
When he toasted, he was toasting the crowd.
You know, he was he was neutral. He wasn't like to the the Black
Fire King or the king be on the water or anything like that.
He just said the king, you know, and.
Yeah, he also, you know, he which this is the daughter that
is quote UN quote spoiled, right?
Soiled, right? Obviously we don't look at it
that way, but they do. So he can act like he was just
trying to get rid of one of his daughters, Like, oh, I'm, I was
just trying to find a, a bride for my unwanted daughter.
This is the only one who would take him.
Well, what am I supposed to do? So he was clearly hedging the
whole way, right? Going in to this plan with the
possibility of ejecting and maybe stronger than we think.
Maybe the frays were playing a double game much earlier.
At some point it seems like they reached out and said, hey, Blood
Raven, come get them. And the reason they did this is
because they could see it wasn't going to work.
Like we have gotten involved in a conspiracy that's going to get
us all killed. Let's betray our allies so that
we can get out of this alive. Nina 100% agrees.
She believes Lord Fray sold out the second Black Fire rebellion.
When they realized it was going poorly.
It was always a selfish motivation.
It was always an ambition. Ambition on the Lord Fray's part
here that was motivating him. And when that motivation turned
sour, when the ambition, when that road appeared closed, when
the brown dragon is sitting there in the mud and the egg
isn't hatching and all these other things just go really
poorly. Yeah.
Eject seat or the ejector button is hit the Fraser like, Nope,
never mind. And they were ready for it
because they they almost certainly went into it like this
with this plan to back out or to take that option.
They didn't go into it with the plan of backing out.
They went in with that possibility.
They were prepared for multiple outcomes.
So probably Frey was Blood Ravens informant.
He probably snuck a message off one of his many on many, one of
the many people in his entourage.
It's one of the benefits of bringing, you know, 100 people
with you. You can have one of them sneak
away and no one will notice necessarily.
If there's only 10 people in your group and one of them's
missing, people can be like, hey, where'd that other person
go? What's going on there?
But if you have that many and no one's going to notice.
So it's very easy for him to sneak a message off, even though
would have been even easier if you'd known Blood Raven was
actually already there. Either way, it's somehow they
found out really quickly, sooner than you would think.
And yeah, it looks like the phrase turned and that's why
they avoided some of the punishment later ranks.
After the second Black Fire rebellion.
We don't actually hear much from them for several decades until
the time of A Song of Ice and Fire.
The third Black Fire abound is just a big unknown in general.
They may have helped with some troops in the 4th and 5th, but
we just don't know. At some point in this era for
sure, Walder ascended to Lord Walder.
Two 50s in the latest probably I'm guessing was around the 2
four years or so. And the reason for that is that
in 251, Emin Frey went to Casterly Rock to marry Jenna
Lannister. Emin Frey as Walder's second
son, Tywin. This is the infamous moment when
Tywin, who was only 10 years old, spoke out against this
marriage. He was the only the son of of he
was on the heir to Castle Rock at this point.
Emin Frey's been afraid of him ever since, even though Tywin
was only 10 at the time. Although he's not afraid of him
now since he's dead. But you know, Emin has other
problems now that he has river run and many people don't want
him to have river run now also. Lyanna defeats a Fray night at
Harrenhal right before Robert Rebellion.
We're not sure which one that is, probably Jared, but it could
have been Danwell or one of the other ones during Robert
Rebellion. Of course, he did nothing
besides show up late and earned that corresponding nickname.
A name he hates even though he most certainly deserves it.
Walter actually claims to have hosted 3 different kings at the
Twins. Our best guess is Robert Aries
and Egg on the 5th, meaning Egg. Jerry's the second would be the
other possibility, and he's pretty unlikely because he's the
shortest, reigned, and was of ill health for part of it, so
there's just not. The window is really short
there. I can imagine that the food he
served to these kings was a lot better than the food he served
at the Red Wedding, but we can't know for sure.
That would be pretty funny if he just he's so petty that he
served Robert bad food. Robert probably just eats it
anyway, but Harry's the second. I don't know, maybe not him.
This is probably the toughest time of year for us as a show.
We're it's been a while since there's been ATV show and it's a
while before there's another one.
There obviously hasn't been a book in a while and it's there's
like a a natural waxing and waning within this fandom of
interest. You know, when when there's ATV
show on the air, it's obviously the time when people are most
interested and consuming a lot of our content.
And here in these times, it's, it's less.
So we still have a, a very healthy following here, but it
definitely, it's like the slow season for us.
So this is a time where your support for us really matters
more. We certainly appreciate it more
because, well, there's less of it.
And we're still putting out episodes just as frequently,
whether it's the, the good times or the slower times.
And I mean, this is the longest episode we're probably going to
put out in a while, at least the way it's going so far and based
on the size of the episode document.
So we're still, we're still out here churning, we're still doing
our best. We're still diving deep into
Westeros with regularity, still trying to bring you the best
content we can here in these leaner times.
So if you want to reach out and support us, spread the word
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There's a lot of ways to to help out and we appreciate any of
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media or hit us up at our Gmail, historyofwesteros@gmail.com.
What did I say? What, what did I say?
Oh, our e-mail is westeroshistory@gmail.com, isn't
it? You're right.
Thanks for the correction. Over on Twitch, we just finished
a Fray campaign. Several weeks of playing the
phrase was pretty darn fun. Every once in a while the game
gets a big update and you have to restart, and that's what we
had to do. But those replays are available
if you go to our YouTube channel and find our CK2/CK3 playlist.
All those episodes are available now.
We're playing House Ozgre during the Century of Blood, and if you
want to catch those live, that's every Friday at six on
twitchtwitch.tv/history of Westeros.
Divine Charika says today is my birthday, and you guys really
chose my least favorite house. I find the phrase intriguing,
though, so let's go. Ha, yeah, a lot of people's
least favorite house, but we love to hate them.
That's kind of the fun part, right?
Yeah, well, a happy fray. A happy birth fray to you and to
anyone else whose birthday is today or recently, we we
definitely appreciate y'all. Brian Valco says Manuel Maroon,
who owns the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River between
Detroit and Michigan and Windsor, Detroit, MI and
Windsor, ON. Manuel Maroon has spent crazy
amount of money to keep another bridge from being built.
Oh, what a jerk. OK, so there you go.
That's exactly what we're talking about.
This, this is this is the this is one of the big flaws with
with with capitalism is that people it's like, oh, just
compete. It's like, yeah, but what about
anti competition? Right?
Like, I mean, this is really a flaw in any system.
But other people can spend money to stop somebody else from
living their life and making their decisions and their
progresses. But yeah, good example, a bad
example. No good example.
Good, bad example. Brian Valco, thanks for that.
I know that there's mixed feelings about Roy Dautrese
voicing all of us on Ice and Fire.
I don't know anyone who thinks he shouldn't do any of it.
The most common complaint I hear is that if you just have a woman
doing all the female voices then it would be vastly better, which
I agree with. But his Walder Frey is amazing.
That's a voice that's perfectly in line with his skills.
It's one of the most memorable voices.
He does his Emin Frey waving his paper, his deed to River Run
around. He does that one really well
too. And so does his Cleos.
So another shout out for for the audio version of the book.
You can get the the audio downloads on our website if
you've never checked them out before.
There's also a quick minute here to to discuss a a loose
influence here. The Norse God Frey, sometimes
called Freyr, twin brother to Freya, is probably a bit of an
influence here. And George knows his Norse
myths. They're very popular.
It's hard for him to not know this one.
Frey is one of the chief gods of the Norse pantheon.
He's associated with kingship, peace, prosperity, fair weather
and good harvest. The phrase are certainly fertile
and prosperous, not so peaceful perhaps, but definitely fair
weather friends or fair weather allies, right.
The association with kingship is the phrase constantly trying to
get in with the kings and Queens.
And you know, even though that doesn't really succeed, it's an
association. Adam of Bremen, who wrote one of
the oldest surviving written pieces on pre Christian
Scandinavia, refers to Frey as Frico.
There's a lot of different names for Frey and says that Frey or
Frico bestows peace and pleasure on mortals and his likeness is
portrayed with a giant phallus. Yeah, the giant phallus is
associated with fertility and having lots of kids.
There you go. Libations to Frey were made
during weddings in in old Scandinavia.
That's interesting. And a big part of phrase myth is
that he's he's going to lose his he loses his sword and when
Ragnarok comes, he still won't have his sword back and he's
going to have to fight with an antler.
So Ragnarok, he's going to face Ragnarok with an antler.
How do we how do we translate that for the phrase?
Like during the Long Night, the phrase will fight with the
Baratheons? Probably not, but I don't know
maybe just keep an eye out for frays who lose their swords at
in at opportune moments or inopportune moments and then
we'll find our Norse association once again.
All right that's a lot of history and some other stuff
let's get into house Frey more in current times.
You could argue that Lord Walders found like a hack or
cracking of the code of the nobility and power because
having so many children and grandchildren is an advantage in
so many ways. He calls them stock and looks at
them as resources, as we've kind of pointed out already, which is
not uncommon in Westeros, but it's really kicked into a higher
gear here because he has so many.
Like he forgets the names of some of them.
There's so many. He's loyal to them in his own
way and like a mafia godfather way.
I keep coming back to that comparison.
It's more to the men, which is also common in Westeros.
And of course the honor of his house kind of way not.
He doesn't care about the individuals that much.
He cares about how they're all viewed as a whole.
But that's also part of because there's so many of them, it's
hard to see them as individuals when you don't even remember all
their names. That comment about him being
able to field an army from his breeches, it's partly true,
right? He brags to Catlin that he has
more sons than Tywin by 19 1/2 and he sees it as both a measure
of his manhood and his wealth, both which fuel his pride, which
as we know is, you know, as big as it gets, there's, there's few
people that have the pride of Lord Walder.
So practically though, and, and just as beyond this being a
point of pride, it allows him to expand his ambitions majorly.
He can have a bunch of his sons be warriors, some of them who
are actually pretty dangerous, like Black Walder.
Some of the other ones have special skills like Anes, A
skilled commander, Lucian as a septum moving up the ranks.
More on him later. Lothar, the architect of the Red
Wedding, he thought I was going to say like the bridge or
something and endless marriage alliances.
How many marriage alliances you can have with all those sons and
daughters? It's crazy.
He has so many marriage alliances that he can treat them
as expendable too, which he does.
There's he turned like multiple of his former marriage
alliances. He betrayed at the Red Wedding,
like he had a Blackwood marriage and he killed one of the
Blackwoods there. He's like, I don't care, you
know, break a few eggs. And these marriage alliances
build on one another. Lena says.
Even a family which might ordinarily look down on the
phrase, they wouldn't necessarily look down on the
families the phraser married into, and thus their progeny
would look a little better by comparison.
So there's these, like, tangential or indirect
connections that the phrase are looking for that bring them a
little bit more into the old Country Club, into the old boys
and girls network, right? All these connections just get
them a little more in there. But of course, he doesn't always
get his way in that regard. Right.
It's a plot point that he wanted a Tully marriage for decades.
Hoster had already rejected A Fray ride for Ed Muir, but that
came back around, didn't it? Yeah, it sure did.
Another aspect of the phrase that is notable is that George
wrote them as physically unattractive.
George doesn't do the villains are always ugly thing.
I mean, look at half of the Targaryens and Lannisters,
right? They're they're very good
looking. But he made Walter look like a
stoat or a weasel, and his progeny looked like that too.
And many characters, including the Lannisters, mock them for
it. Even their castle is called
ugly. So it's really a theme here.
It's not just. And if George were a different
writer, you might be like, all right, that's a little bit of a
trope there. But he isn't.
He's he mixes it up here, the Fraser, where he is very heavy
with it. But that's he can do that
because he's been consistent elsewhere.
It reminds me of Edward Rutherford's book Serum, which
follows families in the region of Sarah.
All of his books do this where they follow different families
in different regions over long, long periods like 10,000 years.
You know, sometimes like epic history.
But he does have like families with certain.
I think it is rodent like or weasel like faces.
One of the families is described, I think.
The Fisher family. Yeah, yeah, the fishers are
described like that and they make me think of them and then
they he has builders. He has.
Anyways, it's it's a great author but very fray like.
I have read serum as well. It's it's the region around what
is now Stonehenge. So the the book actually starts
pre Stonehenge and ends in like the 1950s.
So it's really it's really good. It's a really unique book.
So yeah, good shout out Shay. That's a really good call.
But this, this weasel look hasn't always been true as far
as we can tell. We saw his father in in the
mystery 9. He didn't look like that.
So it isn't necessarily a long standing family look like the
the seed is strong, like the black hair and blue eyes of the
Baratheons, or the Lannister golden green.
But maybe Walder's look will stick.
Maybe it will become the divining look for them because,
well, he's had so many children. And that's just a lot of
weasels. Pop goes the weasel in A Game of
Thrones. Very early on.
The phrase are everywhere, even before we see them.
There's several in the Hands tournament.
Walder complaints later about how poorly they do.
Sansa actually counts 6 of them, but names Martin Rivers who is
afraid by birth, just not by name.
So he's really there's seven. This is a subtle bit.
You know Sansa is a good POV for this because Martin ends up
proving himself very capable as a commander of Outriders.
He's like second to Blackfish. He couldn't have gained that
position second to Blackfish without already being good at
it. He wouldn't have been promoted
or selected in the 1st place, yet he isn't a Sir while all his
true born relatives listed here are and he's probably more
competent than most if not all of them.
So here we get this like nobility over merit thing that's
very common. We see it with the phrase even
with within their own. And like Martin's probably more
competent than most of them, yet he is relegated because of his
birth. And this comes up in other
places too. Like at one point Wilders tells
one of the young girls to get off the stage because I don't
want any bastard stock up here, you know, real phrase only.
Like, damn, dude, rude. So there there's a large party
of phrase at the end of the crossroads when Catlin seizes
them or seizes Tyrion rather. It's to the phrase that she
announces her intentions because they're so numerous and because
she hopes to count on their support.
It's kind of subtle, but none of them do they stand up and be
like, yes, my lady, what can we do for you?
And then they find out what she wants to do.
They're like, never mind, we're not helping you.
Tyrion's POV is when we find that out, we're on the road with
them. And Tyrion's thinking about how
the phrase didn't help her. He finds that really
interesting. He thinks about how, yeah, Lord
Walder's not necessarily going to support the Tully's here.
If that's what's going to happen, You're like, Catelyn may
be making a mistake here. And you can glean from this at
the commander of that 20 or so Frey detachment.
It's been well, well taught by his Frey superiors.
The Frey values are on on in play here.
Like, no, don't get involved. There's no profit here.
This is Lannister versus Stark. You don't want to take a side
here. If it's Lannister versus random
guy, take the Lannister side. You know, when the friendship of
the land, if it's Stark versus random, take the Stark side.
There's profit in that. But these are two great houses
starting to fight. It's none of your business.
Notice how the other houses, though, did get involved.
You got Brackens getting involved.
You got a woad getting involved. You got all these other.
They don't. They're not taught that.
They're taught, you know, regular honor and nobility.
This is a noble woman in need of help whose child was attacked.
Yeah, that's not what really happened.
But they have no reason to doubt Catlin's story.
So. But the phrase were the only
ones who sat out of all those Riverlands houses that were
present. So that's interesting.
It's all at all turns the phrase behave differently immediately
from both PO VS on both sides. Here, both Caitlin and Tyrion,
we we hear that this guy is shifty, that he's not to be
trusted. So it's just we're told many
ways from many point of views, but we're also told in the same
breath that he is powerful, very powerful and has a huge family
and that the crossing is vital to Rob's strategy.
He can't just go around as the the must deal with the phrase.
And not only does he must he deal with the phrase, but he
wants them as an ally and definitely doesn't want them as
an enemy because of again, 20 to 25% of the Riverland's strength
is there is right there at the time when Rob's army is marching
South and we first arrive at the twins.
The vibe of this of the chapter is that they might attack the
twins, but that notion vanishes the moment we see it.
Quote. One glance was sufficient to
tell Catlin that the castle would not be taken by storm.
The battlements bristled with Spears and swords and scorpions.
There was an Archer at every crennel and arrow slit.
The drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, the gates
closed and barred. The Great John began to curse
and swear as soon as he saw what awaited them.
Lord Ricard Karstark glowered in silence.
That cannot be assaulted, my Lords, Bruce Bolton announced.
Nor can we take it by siege without an army on the far bank
to invest the other castle. Helmand, Tallhart said gloomily.
Across the deep, running green waters, the western twin stood
like a reflection of its eastern brother.
Even if we had the time, which to be sure we do not, there's
something deeply humorous to me about the Great John getting mad
at the castle itself. It's like a castle, but the
scene really shows, deeply delivers, how bad their
predicament is and how they really have no choice but to
deal with this man and how he knows it.
So not only attacking it is out of the question.
Yeah, 'cause they just really have no choice here.
Yeah. That is, Walter becomes an enemy
eventually. But that was not a preordained
thing. Remember, never believe that the
phrase we're planning on betraying Rob.
They were planning on that as an option, but they were preferred
to win and become the new, to have the new Queen of the North
come from their family. That was a better outcome than
the Red Wedding for them. And they knew that.
But the Red Wedding was a better outcome than losing entirely,
which was what they saw coming. Remember at their first meeting,
Catelyn fibs a little bit. They're like debating and how do
we negotiate? Let's should we go inside?
And they're like, don't go in there, Rob.
He'll just throw you in jail and do whatever he wants.
And Catelyns like, I'll go. He won't harm me.
And then she thinks, unless you think saw some profit in it, so
she doesn't say that out loud, 'cause he, you know, if she says
that out loud, then they'll be like, yeah, exactly.
Unless he sees some profit in it, which he very well might.
Which again, reinforces the idea that we've been saying all along
that profit motive, gain, extracting maximum value is his
primary goal here. He's always thinking about the
bottom line. And that's what he does.
He doesn't harm her, but in making a deal, he considers all
the factors and holds them over the barrel.
You know? He knows they're desperate.
He knows they want to get to River Run, and he knows they are
on a time or on short time. Here.
They don't have the ability to wait.
He knows his castle's too strong for them to attack.
He knows they want him as an ally.
He knows they don't want him as an enemy.
Unfortunately, everything they want, he knows, and he can thus
bring that to negotiating table. And this is something the phrase
for 600 years have been practicing.
Find out what they need, find out what those people want, and
you use that against them. If they need to cross really
badly, make them pay more. This is something they're
experts at. Walter also knows Ned is in
prison. Tywin is their foe, and he uses
the Jaime Lannister argument that comes much later.
Yeah. I swore an oath to Hoster Tully,
but I also swore an oath to the king.
Which oath comes first? I don't know.
So this is his out When they're like, you should already be on
our side. And you're like, yeah, but I
swore, yeah, whatever. It's actually a reasonable
argument. It's crappy, but it
legalistically it's kind of Fair.
So that's why the deal is so heavily in favor of the phrase.
Rob has to marry a Frey. Arya has to marry a Frey.
Big and Little Walder get to be wards to Winterfell.
Oliver Frey becomes one of Rob's Squires.
But it isn't just the crossing. They don't just get the
crossing, they get 1000 Knights and almost 300 or 3000 footmen,
which is that's a substantial amount to add.
The infantry immediately goes with Roose Bolton to go fight
the Battle on the Green Fork to distract Tywin, while the
cavalry goes with Rob's other cavalry to go relieve River Run
where we have the Battle of Whispering Wood and the Battle
of the Camps. We learned the attitude and
themes of this house through Catlin and others.
They're aggressively proud. They don't want to be looked
down on others. They want to overcome that.
They want to be the ones looking down on others.
And that's why they take shots like this to become queen or to
become just to move up the noble ladder.
And it's interesting too, because he talks about the
injustice of being looked down on.
And being looked down is something that a lot of us would
would sympathize with and say, yeah, I don't want to be looked
down on either. But it's written in a way that
we don't sympathize because it's nobles looking down on other
nobles. They're already so privileged.
It's hard to not feel bad for anyone in that position,
especially this guy. It doesn't feel like an
injustice the way it's written. It's like, no, this guy is
greedy. He's his reason for feeling this
way is his pride. You know, we shouldn't feel bad
that he's an outcast given how privileged he is, right?
But that's what he's trying to sell.
And it works a little better on someone like Catelyn, who
understands noble pride a little more and has a little bit of her
own, or at least a little bit. So even though there's all this
early on this, they're not trustworthy, blah blah blah, it
still doesn't come off as they'd murder you all at a wedding.
Untrustworthy. It comes off as they might
switch sides, maybe they won't give you their full support,
maybe they won't show up on the battlefield.
But like full blown conspiracy to murder you all.
It wasn't really written like that.
Maybe, maybe some of y'all got that vibe, but I didn't.
It seemed like the pride mattered as much as all, but it
didn't necessarily seem like his pride was that violent, that
overweening and powerful. And Catelyn understood that
pride was the most important thing, the key to Waldre, his
pride. But she even didn't realize how
deep that runs, how violent and how angry that is.
He's the living embodiment of violent pride.
Like this guy. There is perhaps nobody who
embodies it better. I mean, he's, he's basically the
IT. It's like the thing that keeps
him alive. Like this guy would have died
long ago if it wasn't for his burning sense of pride.
He just wants to be more respected.
He just wants it so badly and it's keeping him going.
He tells Catlin to read. He's like, why aren't you?
Catlin's like, why aren't you fighting with the Lannisters if
that's your attitude? He's like, well, they didn't ask
me if he wants me to fight with him, he should ask.
And Catlin accepts that answer because she realizes, well, that
coming from him, that's probably true.
And she's like, well, I'm asking.
And that's when they start negotiating in in earnest.
So it was it was a good play by Catlin, even though it didn't
work out in the long run. I'm not wasn't her fault anyway.
We quoted earlier how Rob wouldn't trust him and how
things kind of changed over time.
This is when we get back to that.
What Rob did to prove and to ensure that Lord Walter didn't
turn on him was he left 400 of his own men at the twins saying,
hey, Ray, you're giving us all these men to help us in our
army. Let us give some back to you to
help defend your castle, which is now denuded of defenders.
But actually I want men loyal to me inside your castle in case
you turn on us. But something changed.
Those men were pulled away in a little later.
We'll talk about that shortly. Let's finish up with what
happened in the rest of the Game of Thrones.
After the Battle of Whispering Wood, we learned that Perwin
Frey, one of the good ones, one of the only good ones that we
know of, was one of Rob's bodyguard.
So that was cool. He was there and fought well and
Rob respected him. Sir Cleos and Tian fight under
Jamie because remember some of the Freys are fighting for the
Lannisters. Cleos is the Lannister Frey and
and Teyon is his son. They're both captured and I'm
sorry they're not not Cleos. Teyon isn't his son, he's his
younger brother. Their father Emmon is also on
the Lannister side of the war and that's the only ones up with
River Run. So yes, there are Lannister
phrase and Northern phrase. It's confusing.
After the Battle of the Green Fork, which also happens near
the end of the book, Anis, Jared, Hostein, Danwell, Elmar
and Ronald Rivers are all fighting under Roose Bolton's
banners. And this is when we move on to a
clash of kings. Because in the Clash of Kings,
Jared, Hostein, Danwell and Ronald are captured.
But soon ransom. So all but two of them were
captured. Arya says while she's at
Harrenhal, 2 frays come to ransom them.
Presumably the two who weren't captured, Anis and Elmar.
Catlin suggests sending Stevron, who at the beginning of the
series is Walter's heir, as an envoy to Balon Greyjoy.
Good call, Catlin, but Rob chooses Theon instead.
Oops. After the Battle of Ox Cross,
Stevron is slightly wounded, but he dies in his tent while asleep
within three days. It's a little bit suspicious.
Later in the series, lots of phrases start dying and it's a
lot of some of it at least is blamed on Blackwalder murdering
his way to the top. This could be one of those
examples. This could have been one an
early example of that, but we can't be sure.
It's definitely, definitely suspicious though.
Now, Stevron had actually been preaching peace and the strategy
of just sitting back while Renly and Tywin go.
He's like, hey, let Renly and Tywin fight, let's sit back and
see what happens. A very fray thing to suggest,
but Rob isn't having it. And this is immediately before
Great John and Rickard rise up and name Rob King of the North.
So that is where that went. And Rob later thinks that man,
after he marries Jane Westerling and he's lamenting the fallout.
He's like, sure, wish Stevron was around and, and maybe even
in charge because he, we could have negotiated with, he would
have forgiven us and maybe, you know, could have worked with
that, but not Lord Walder. And yeah, unfortunately Rob was
right about that, not Lord Walder.
He was not willing to make amends.
Also, in a clash of kings, big and little little Walder arrive
in Winterfell. They are disliked by Bran and of
course they are. They're crappy.
They're crappy kids. I hate saying that about
children, but they're crappy kids.
It's a real insight into the culture of the twins, 'cause
these are children and it's hard to not like them or it's hard
to. Yeah, it's hard to not like
them. It's hard to hard not to dislike
these kids, which is just like, I don't want them dislike
children. But yeah, it's like, it's like
Walder when he was 4. They're they're bullies, they're
vicious, they're tattletales. One of them might even be a
straight up murdering Kinslayer. Probably is.
It's not a good look. So this is what you.
This is a really interesting insight.
By seeing the children of a house like this rather than just
the adults, you understand what the culture of the twins must be
like. They're all like this.
It's super common for them to behave like this.
This is like the corporate culture of house Frey, to borrow
a modern term. The organizational culture of
this of this family is extremely violent, extremely bullying of
extremely like getting over on each other, which is a big
reason why Bran is so turned off by he's never seen this before.
Bran was raised to be in the pack survives lone wolf dies
environment. That's the vibe he was taught us
the complete opposite of of how this generation if not many
generations of frays have been raised.
When they get the news of Stevron's death in the North,
they immediately just talk about the succession.
They're like, aha, he's dead, died of waiting for our
grandfather to die. And they're like, who's going to
be Lord? And one of them is, see, I'll be
Lord one day. Big Walder says he's like, I
don't care if he's going to be Lord, I'm going to be Lord one
day. And they're like 40th in line or
something like that. Max, you're Lewin over here.
And he gets mad. He's like, where's your grief?
And they're like, oh, we're very sad, like in a flat tone of
voice like that. And Bran gets a sick feeling in
his stomach about that because he realizes they're lying.
And this is when it really dawns on him what I was saying about
the complete polar opposite of the behavior and, and what these
children value versus what he values and what his house taught
him, what his parents taught him versus what these boys have been
taught. It's just so different.
Now when Ramsay takes Winterfell, they're of course
spared and kept his hostages. And, you know, they're gently
treated. But Ruse at the Red Wedding,
before the violence breaks out, does a toast.
And he's like, yeah, but I've got the little and big Walder up
at my castle, you know, hint, hint.
And, and, you know, like, I've got hostages, don't forget, you
know? And.
And Catlin notices Lord Walter's expression and, and understands
that the threat was heard. You know, Catlin witnesses much
of the Battle of the Fords. If you don't recall which battle
that was, it's the one where the fandom debate is whose fault was
it, Rob or Ed Muir? Right?
They didn't. Rob didn't communicate his plan.
Ed Muir maybe took a little too much initiative that we're not
here to rehash that debate. It's just a way to remind you
all of which battle it was. Sir Perwin, again, was involved
the good Frey and Martin Rivers, the competent but lower ranked.
They led the Frey contingent in this one.
But an underrated factor is the one I've been teasing for a
while here. In order for Edmar to make his
plan work, he had to take those 400 soldiers from the twins that
were there to make sure Lord Walder stayed loyal to bring to
this battle. They needed every man they could
get, and those men never went back after.
So that insurance policy was sacrificed to win this battle
that Rob didn't even want. So that would that proved very
costly beyond what anyone could have guessed.
It's it's a, it's a missed detail.
It's just a couple lines thrown out.
Prizingly important given so many other factors.
Sir Cleos is sent as an envoy to King's Land.
Remember, he's still a captive at this point, and when he
returns to King's returns to River Run after having delivered
the demands of of the Stark faction, Tyrion sends
infiltrators to help free Jamie. Now, Sir Cleos has nothing to do
with it, but Catlin uses it as leverage to to help with her
plan regarding Brienne and Jamie's freedom.
Remember, of course, Cleos is there with them.
He's like the red shirt of that trio.
He is killed ignominiously by outlaw arrows and then his own
horse dragging him. His head gets smashed on a
stone. And Jamie later tells his
parents that that he died bravely, which that's the good
kind of lie right there. You know, like even though Emin
and Emin's crappy and I like Jenna and she's not necessarily
a good person, she's a good character.
I don't have any problem with dishonesty to save, you know, to
save your family some grief, you know, like that's their child
that died. Even though it's Cleos, a guy
that we don't really like. Still around halfway through the
book, we learned that Roose Bolton after reforming his army
up on the Green Fork, you know, or up on the Causeway after the
after the Battle of the Green Fork, he headed West with that
remnant of his arm, actually more than a remnant, his pretty
substantial army still and married fat Walda.
Must have been some real interesting conversations there
between Lord Walder and Roose Bolton, conversations that the
TV show tried to give us. And those actually were decent
conversations. Those were reasonably OK and and
A and a decent facsimile of what I would guess some of those
conversations to be like. They would have been a lot more
subtle in the book if they had happened if we had seen them.
But it's the groundwork for betrayal.
I don't think the betrayal had quite started then, but the two
most villainous houses under Rob Stark's banner got together and
started conspiring. And as Rob's war effort tanked,
given some of the problems that picked up with Richard Karstark
and obviously the Westerling thing and losing Winterfell
pretty huge, they were already in agreement, even without
having to say it, that both Bolton and Frey want to be on
the winning side, whichever side that is, And if they can help
each other in that goal, all the better.
Because, well, helping each other can only make sure that
goal is accomplished. It's a convergence of villainous
values here. From the Fray vantage point,
Nina adds, the family was at this moment hitched to a star in
decline. Rob suddenly looked like a king
who couldn't even hold on to what he already had.
He started off doing so well, and the frays were all for it.
But then blow after blow after blow, major blows that it would
seem almost impossible to recover from.
And then, on top of everything else, Tywin wins on the
Blackwater. If Tywin had lost to Stannis,
which was a big possibility, something that Walder Frey
definitely calculated on and expected was part of the
problem. Let's say if we look back on his
thinking, there is no way Walder Frey joins Rob or almost no way
he joins Rob if Stannis isn't in the picture because Rob is no
match for Tywin one-on-one. But that was never the picture,
that was never the setup right? Tywin was fighting on 2 fronts.
That's part of why he was vulnerable.
He had to fight Stannis and or Renly and the Starks.
The Starks have one enemy until the Ironborn showed up and then
they did have two enemies. So it's hard to understate just
how much the whole war picture changed quickly from.
Starks are looking good. Not only do they have lots of
victories, but the enemy of their enemy situation is really
good because Stannis is coming for King's Landing and he's got
the whole army. Like the, the Baratheons did not
tear each other apart fighting each other, right?
They Stannis just got the whole army.
Well, almost all, some of them fled to the Reach, but still it
came a lot sooner than expected. It looked good for the Starks,
it looked good for the phrase, but then it just fell apart.
And then, of course, the Weschling marriage was the final
straw and they reached out to switch sides and did so.
Ari actually overhears the phrase telling Ruse that Rob
should bend the knee now, like after the after the loss on the
Blackwater, Rob should sue for peace.
It's just the situation has turned so dramatically, you
know, we should we should give up.
But they're not thinking villainously alone enough.
No, don't bend the knee. Don't tell Rob to bend the knee.
Tell Rob to keep going and then stab him in the back.
You have there's much more profit in that.
So these are lesser phrase. No worries.
Phrase your Lord, grandfather, Lord father, whichever is
totally on top of things. He was prepared to turn this
loss into a win, even though it's going to make them look
really bad in the process. There's also a fun joke here for
the observant. Some of you are familiar with
this one, but it never gets old. This is Elmar, Frey and Aria.
Remember, Elmar and Aria were going to marry each other.
They didn't know that that was arranged, but neither of them
knew it. Elmar knew she was going to
marry. He was going to marry a Stark
Princess. But when speaking to Aria, he
didn't know that was her. He just thinks he's some serving
girl. Here's the George R Martin joke
for the observant Elmar sitting outside on the steps alone
quote. What's wrong?
Arya asked him when she saw the tears shining on his cheeks.
My Princess. He sobbed.
We've been dishonored. Amy says.
There was a bird from the twins. My Lord Father I'll says I'll
need to marry someone else or be a septum.
A stupid Princess, she thought. That's nothing to cry over.
My brothers might be dead, she confided.
Elmar gave her a scornful look. No one cares about a serving
girl's brothers. It was hard not to hit him when
he said that. I hope your Princess dies, she
said and ran off before he could grab her.
I hope she doesn't 'cause she's you, Aria, you're the Princess.
So that's pretty funny. How cruel, though, just another
example of the disinherit, bullying and viciousness in this
family. Just they just casually throw in
that his father tells him he might have to be a septum now,
like he's like 12. Like what really.
There's no brides for you? You're afraid?
Come on, your your own grandfather had eight wives or
is on his eighth wife. Surely there's one out there for
you. And I'll just how weird it is to
have your dad be 92 and to be the 22nd son and he's not even
the last because his Walter's eighth wife is pregnant.
So he might be the 22nd of 23 sons or maybe he'll have a
younger sister. That's just wild to think about,
isn't it? A storm of swords, The phrase in
a storm of swords big and Little Walter sign a letter saying
Theon Greyjoy burned Winterfell, absolving Ramsay there as even
though they're just children, they're noble signatures add a
lot of weight to that lie. And of course, it's early in a
storm of swords that the news spreads even farther about the
Rob Jane Westerling marriage that reaches the twins.
The phrase with Rob just storm off and the Red Wedding.
We're not going to go into detail here.
You know the Red Wedding. We've covered it elsewhere, but
a few points here. The chief architect was lame
Lothar. He was also part of luring the
men to the arrangement as well. Let's not forget certain phrase
were kept away like Perwin and Olivar because they would not
have cooperated. There's a few phrases at least.
They still have honor. And I really wonder what they're
thinking now. What does Perwin Frey think now
that the Red Wedding has happened?
What does Olivar think? Olivar must be particularly
crushed because Olivar loved Rob.
His own family killed Rob, and he loved Rob.
That's what a thing to live in that family when your family did
that. But it also shows that Walder
knows his kin is as brutal and ruthless as he is.
He is intelligent, he knew exactly which of his children to
keep away from the reading, exactly which one of them to
prevent from being a witness or stopping it or standing up or
anything. Just keep them away.
Give him another job. Tito's Frey is actually killed
by Sandor Clegane outside the wedding.
He was the son of Jared Frey, future pie filling.
Sandor also kills Garth Good Brooke, who was the husband of
Titos's sister Kyra. So Sandor really did a number
with an axe to that branch of the family.
River Run is also part of the phrase reward for switching
sides. So they got a lot from Rob.
They also got a lot from switching sides, not quite as
much, but a lot. River Run is a huge reward.
And of course, these marriages that we briefly mentioned
earlier, let's restate that Davin is going to marry a Frey.
We don't know who yet. And Lancel is supposed to marry
Amare Frey, but that also hasn't happened because he's, you know,
in the faith and doesn't want to get married and wants to, you
know, be married to the gods in his own way.
Blackwalder. Here's a tale of two sieges.
Here, Blackwalder ends the siege of Sea Guard by threatening to
kill the heir to Sea Guard, Patrick Maluster.
It's believable that Blackwalder has credibility.
He will hang Patrick Maluster people that they know he'd do
that. So Lord and Lord Jason, who is a
highly competent, very good warrior dude, believes
Blackwalder and yields his castle.
Both of them are now captives inside their own castle.
In the BWB episode we talked about the possibility that
they're a good target for the Brotherhood or somebody to
potentially infiltrate and free the Malesters.
Because the Malesters, once they're free, they would
presumably turn right back to supporting the Starks.
Given that's their vibe, that's how they tend to operate, and
the reason they only reason they back down in the 1st place was
because of the threat to their air.
But if that's removed, then they might just get right back at it.
Merritt Frey. Of course.
Mutton Head gets the dubious honor of being the only Frey POV
chapter and epilogue POV chapter.
The first epilogue POV chapter. But of course that means Doom.
He's hanged by the now Stoneheart LED Brotherhood
Without Banners, who lured him to the ransom situation by
offering to give back Peter Pimple, but they just hanged him
too. Lots of hanging going on.
Yeah, so many more phrase get hanged after the Red Wedding.
Like like one or two phrase die before the Red Wedding, and then
after a whole lot more die. Too many to count, though.
In A Feast for Crows, the phrase are led by Ryman.
Well, the phrase lead the embarrassing siege of River Run,
and the Jamie solves for them. It's pretty much the opposite of
Blackwalder 'cause they threatened to hang Ed Muir.
Blackfish is like, I don't believe you.
And Blackfish was right. They don't want to hang at Muir
because they want to. They need him as a cat.
He's more valuable as a captive and Blackfish sussed that out.
So just it's an embarrassing and Jamie comes in and does it
right. So that allows Emmenfrey again,
second son of Walder Emmenfrey's allowed to take up the castle,
annoyingly waving his deed around being, you know,
comedically silly like that. It's reminiscent perhaps of why
Tywin spoke out against this match to Jenna in the 1st place,
but Emmen is almost certainly doomed.
Maybe Jenna as well. We talked during our Brotherhood
Without Banners episode that Tom O Sevens has already infiltrated
the castle. He's already in there, he's
already been operating, he's the reason Ryman Frey was hanged.
They blame it on Black Walder, which they might be barking up
the right tree in general, but it was the BWB in this case.
So it's a funny situation where you have the phrase are very
busy dealing with outlaws and outlaws are very busy dealing
with phrase. So they're both.
It's like a little miniature war happening behind the scenes
here, or maybe not behind the scenes.
Maybe it's happening somewhat openly.
Also in A Feast for Crows, we learned that Little Walter has
become Ramsey's Squire. Like that's a meeting of
awfulness that. Yeah, just the things they cook
up together, Bear. Yeah.
Just evil be getting more evil. Good.
The the the perfect influence on Little Walter, right.
There was a certain Septon Alador who was set to become the
new High Septon until he was dragged out naked from a brothel
by sparrows. And that ended his candidacy.
That put Lucian Frey, Walter's fifth son, in line to be High
Septon. We hear from Kyburn that he
feasted 30 of the Most Devout to buy their votes, to bribe them
basically. But it didn't work because the
High Sparrow was elected in a landslide by the by the Sparrows
charging in and just, you know, forcing it.
But that money that Lucian Frey was using to feast all the
Septons and the Most Devout, that has to be coming straight
from the twins. Well, while there's got to be
funding that, like, Lucian probably isn't independently
wealthy and he's not married, so it's not like his wife's family
is providing the money. So yeah, a Frey High Septon that
had been really valuable for the house.
Like, that's a big inroad there, but one that they missed out on.
You're supposed to forget your last name when you become the
High Septon, but this one wouldn't have.
Now, Lucian's only elder brother from the same mother, Sarana
Swan, is Jared Frey. And Jared Frey is our segue to A
Dance with Dragons. Jared, along with Simon and
Rhaegar Frey, are duped by Lord Wyman Manderly.
Famously and epically. They think they're getting
Manderly marriages and guests gifts and a new ally out of the
surrender deal because they brought his son's bones back,
but instead they get chopped up into pie.
This really puts the phrase in special company as being part of
some of the most memorable slash gruesome killings.
They set up the Red Wedding, but they also end up in fray pies
and there's probably more to come.
They also claimed in open court that Wendell Manderly's death
was caused by Rob turning into a rabid wolf.
They further claimed that Rob also killed the two that were
killed by Sandor Garsh Goodbrook and Jared's son Tito.
He's like, my own son was killed by Rob turning into a rabid
wolf. But no, that was Sandor.
It was a Hound, not a wolf. Hey.
Jared fires back with the one of the weakest insults I've ever
heard. Which it means George was
intentionally making this guy sound weak.
He said Davos called him a liar straight up.
And Jared's like, I demand satisfaction.
Many men cry when they slice onions.
I do not have that particular weakness.
It's like, is that supposed to sound tough?
Because it really sounds the opposite of tough.
The phrase, of course, went N with big plans, but they ended
up with big problems at Winterfell.
Despite their strength, despite their ascension, people are
openly hostile to them. I mean, these are phrase in the
North, who betrayed the northerners, and the northerners
are bigger on things like Gastrite and Kinslang.
It matters more there. It matters everywhere, but it
really matters in the North and they're not holding back a lot
of them. They're like these people were
there here, like the even though some of them are allies, they're
still looking down on them. This is a different sort of
looking down on that the phraser used to.
It's normally like you guys are upstarts, you guys are new
blood, but this is you guys are kinslayers.
You guys are guest right violators.
That's a whole nother level and they don't they don't handle it
very well, do they? They can't handle the insults.
They're already prickly and proud and wanting to be seen as
more, but they're seen as less. Their achievements, achievements
have they see as fair game in the ruthless Game of Thrones,
but most others don't. Most are like, no, you guys
basically cheated. You can go too far even in
violence and in the Game of Thrones.
And this is an example of it. And they're just so mad about
this. Like we, we earned this.
We earned that. Like did you though?
Little Walter just straight up turns up dead.
He was going to wear Mary Willa Manderly.
Well would've is loose there. Manderly never intended for
that, but that was the arrangement.
His death will be explored in the Winterfell Murders episode.
Atopic Smoot 2025 Choice not out yet but will be later this year.
Maybe it is. By the time you're listening to
this, Fat Wilda and her unborn child will be, or already is, in
major danger from Ramsey. That's about as straightforward
as it gets. Ramsey wants the dread for it,
for himself. Fat Wilda's child is a threat to
that. Very straightforward.
Amy's spray? Already dead, already fell into
a pit trap dug by the Umbers and their troop of Green boys.
Doesn't take a expert word to dig a hole, does it?
Stannis is very happy about that.
He's like Anis was clever and cunning, a capable commander.
Now Hostein Frey is in charge, and he's stupid.
He calls him Sir Stupid. Yeah, and fair enough.
I mean, Hostein is not very bright.
It's true. Biggest of all, though, is an
inside Winterfell. It's what's coming for them
outside Winterfell. They're already on the March and
the fight. They're going to try to fight
Stannis. And I don't think that will go
well for them. I think it will end them.
You may see an entire Fray contingent lost at this battle.
We have that detailed in our Battle of Ice series from long
ago. I think that was 2014 maybe, but
it holds up still. Y'all not?
It's not like anything has changed.
Our quote of the week. Given Star Wars is big these
days with Andor on TV, I'm thinking about it a lot.
I'm always been a Star Wars fan. I grew up on it, and I watched
Star Wars in 1979 when I was 4. I've read a lot of Star Wars
books too, and a lot of them are very good.
Some of them aren't, but the one I'm recommending today is Star
Wars the Fallen Star High Republic, book 3 by Claudia
Gray, The Light of the Jedi's book one.
It's also really good. This whole series is really
good, but I particularly like this quote here.
Only now did Bell realize that to him, acceptance had meant
something too close to surrender.
That wasn't it at all. Acceptance was strength.
It was being able to carry the weight of what had been and what
had not through all the many days, months, years and decades
to follow. Bell would bear this burden as
long as he cherished the memory of Blank.
I'm leaving out the name because it's a spoiler.
That meant he would bear it always.
Yeah, I really like that. That's a really good quote.
Really strong and really valuable for real life.
Acceptance is strength, y'all. It's not surrender.
Surrender is surrender. Giving up is surrender.
Accepting a truth, accepting what you can't change, is a
strength 'cause that can be very difficult, especially when it's
something like this, when it's grief.
Another Star Wars recommendation I have is Catalyst, which might
be more on point. Honestly I just didn't have a
quote ready for it. But it fills in a lot of the
gaps around Andor and Rogue One vis A vis the character Galen
Urso who was played by Mads Mickelson.
He was the genius that figured out how to extract maximum
energy from kyber crystals, but he was a complete nonviolent
man, a pacifist director. Chronic tricks him into making
this, doing this research without realizing he's
weaponizing it behind the scenes, and this is what is
portrayed. The beginning of Rogue One is
Chronic chasing down Urso to bring him back to work, and this
story fills in what happens before that.
It's really good. You can get it through our
website at historyofwesteros.com.
Click on one of the links on the right.
You can either buy the physical copy through Amazon or one of
the other places, or get the Audible version through the
Audible links there and listen to them.
Let's talk about the outlook and succession situation for House
Frey. It's our last section for the
day. In terms of military strength
now they're roughly akin to the Dread Fort, which is a fitting
comparison as an ally and kind of goes to show how they were
well matched in terms of their relative strength.
The dread Fort has about 4000 men.
They've lost very few. The frays probably lost a bit
more so maybe they have roughly 3500 but they're spread out.
1400 ish went N with a nice and hosting and we don't expect
they're coming back which might put them down to 2000 ish.
They also set 200 to Garrison river run those they might be
more around 1800. Plus they've got all these
parties out hunting down outlaws and they have to travel in force
because the outlaws are hunting them.
Small parties will not serve. Ryman was travelling with like
10 Knights and several Squires in a group and he still got
hanged. But none of this may matter
under the right circumstances. However, that's the phrase.
Manpower might be a weakness for them, but when they get their
comeuppance, which maybe we shouldn't assume is coming, I
kind of assume it, but it's possible they won't get as
satisfying of a ending as we think.
But it it it could happen in a way that doesn't involve
military might. You know, we obviously the show
gave us a thing with Aria, which I think is a little over the
top, but it could be along the lines of something like that.
Or we could get the Red Wedding 2 point O where a bunch of
phrase are slaughtered at the twin or at the at river run when
Davin Lannister marries his bride to be from house Frey, who
hasn't been named yet. He hasn't picked.
So most of the phrase we've seen have become or always were
villainous, right. It's, it's not a house that's
like, part good, part bad. Yeah, there's some good guys in
there, but they're overwhelmed by the bad ones.
And that's kind of tragic because those good ones might
get killed or caught up in the actions of their family.
Olivar and Purwin and maybe Roslyn.
I mean, Roslyn, we're not sure about where her loyalties lie,
but she's pregnant with a child with Ed Muir.
Like, her family did this to her.
If I were her, I'd side with my new husband, who hasn't been
awful to me, and my family's using me as a pawn and marrying
me to a house they're intending to slaughter.
Like what? That's a betrayal, right?
Rosalind would. Again, I have no idea what she's
thinking or feeling, or what kind of person she is, even, but
like, that is grounds for disowning your own family,
right? Supposedly she's going to be
allowed to join Ed Muir at Casterly Rock in his prison and
live there with him after their child is born.
But a lot's going to change before that ever happens.
I'm assuming so, yeah. Olivar and Perwin.
I'm preparing myself for them to have unhappy, tragic endings
that they don't deserve. The biggest irony, though, would
be if one of those siblings, one of those good siblings, Olivar
and Perwin? Probably not.
Olivar couldn't be blamed for the Red Wedding because he's too
young, but Perwin? Maybe.
Cersei's small council discusses the idea that whoever succeeds
Lord Walder would be smart to clean house, to pin the Red
Wedding on one of the other claimants, to provide the
notion, or to send the message to Westeros that the people that
did this in our house have been taken care of.
We abjure the Red Wedding. We it shouldn't have happened,
but it wasn't me. It was this guy.
It was these phrase and I've taken care of them.
We're cool now. So that would be so brutal if
Perwin, one of the good guys, is actually blamed for it and he
takes the fall. I mean, it probably hard, hard
to put it all on him. But you can do a lot with
disinformation in a non information era where people
just can't check things. There's no Internet for people
to look these things up like you can.
The lies you can tell are pretty big.
Look at the lie Jared told at the Mermans court.
Yeah, Robb Stark turned into a direwolf and eight people.
He told that like he's like, we can get people to believe this.
Speaking of, it's been foreshadowed that after Wilder
goes when this house cleaning may or may not happen, the main
danger to house fray among so many is itself quote.
Lord Walder would soon turn 2 and 90.
His ears had started to go, his eyes were almost gone, and his
gout was so bad that he had to be carried everywhere.
He could not possibly last much longer, All his sons agreed, and
when he goes, everything will change, and not for the better.
His father was querulous and stubborn, with an iron will and
a wasp's tongue, but he did believe in taking care of his
own. All of his own, even the ones
who had displeased and disappointed him.
Even the ones whose names he can't remember.
Once he was gone, though. And this is the kind of chapter
in writing this is merit phrase brain that we're in right now
that just makes me wish against all reasonable thought that I we
have chapters from more POV's like this is so thorough.
This is a really, really accurate, detailed take on the
way Wilder treats his family from one of his own.
This is perfect description, perfect encapsulation.
Even the ones whose names he can't remember.
Even the ones who had displeased and disappointed him.
But then the end. Stennen's there once he was
gone, though. It's a sentiment a lot like what
Rob thinks about Stevron. He's like, well, Stevron was in
charge. If Stevron had ascended to Lord
of the Crossing, we could deal with him.
He's reasonable and honorable and honest.
If Stevron had inherited, that's Barrett thinking.
Why? If Stevron inherited, we would
still be in the same shape. He would carry forward the
lessons of Lord Walder. He thinks how Stevron had it
beat into him by Walder to that blood is blood, that he taught
him that, but he didn't teach that to anyone else.
And Stevron's gone. So the omens of doom around
House Frey are legion. They come from inside the house,
outside the house, from the north, from the South, maybe
even east and West. Yeah, maybe the Iron Islands and
Sea Guard and the Vale. Who knows?
Who knows who will bring their comeuppance?
We just know that they've earned many comeuppances.
And Speaking of, you have made a notice of pattern of the phrase
largely, though not entirely, escaping consequences from the
Iron Throne. So many times they did something
and didn't pay much of a penalty for it.
Remember before we talked about the Black Fire rebellions, the
second Black Fire Rebellion? What was up with that?
Blood Raven not giving them blood Raven, the very merciless
guy not seemingly punishing them very much.
That's of course why we suspect there was foul play.
Still, he'd have to punish them somewhat to have a, you know, it
has to be public. It has to look like justice was
done. There's other examples too that
we've gone through throughout the episode.
And now. But now they are escaping
consequences or not having. Now they're not escaping
consequences even though the consequences aren't coming from
the Iron Throne. Perhaps George is setting them
up for one particularly huge takedown like the Red Wedding 2
point O, or maybe even multiple events.
While the Iron Throne isn't hammering them, Stoneheart and
some other houses are. And of course the BWB Arya as
well has named them right He she's thought about them.
She's like I want to kill those phrase but she just doesn't know
them by name. They would be on her list if she
had specifics. She just doesn't know who to
write down. Well, she's not writing that
list anyway. She doesn't know what names.
That's the point. So as I said earlier, more
phrase have died since the Red Wedding than before by far.
That's likely to continue, right?
In part because they're killing each other.
So yeah, the Red Wedding 2.0 is the biggest one, but there's
other ones. And, and, but there's a twist
here, one that we should see coming because we've been down
this road before. This is Nina's take, and I think
I agree with you very strongly. George may use future Fray Desk
to challenge the reader's desire for vengeance against House
Prey. George is very cautious with how
he writes vengeance. He doesn't write it as always
justified. It's it's human.
It's a thing that happens a lot, but he wants the reader to
consider that it's too much sometimes.
Like, do we think it's going to be fair if Perwin and Oliver are
killed? No, of course not.
And look at how Stoneheart's doing it.
She's perfectly happy to hang Brienne, Heil, Hunt, Podrick
just for being associated with the Lannisters.
That's not fair either. That's not right either, right?
How will we as readers react to unjust deaths of a family we see
as villainous? Here's that Gray area.
It's going to be tough. It's going to be tragic, but
it's going to be very well written and it's going to be
poignant, and that's great. What about Theon's torture or
Cersei's walk or her losing her children?
These are not the punishments we would necessarily decide on
ourselves in a civilized society.
Theon, yeah, deserve punishment. But to be tortured that way,
that's not the the punishment I would choose.
That's not justice. That's vindictive.
Or something else entirely. What about what about Catlin
killing Jingle Bell? That wasn't particularly
justified. He didn't do any of the most
innocent Frey in the room by far, right?
And Wilder. But Wilder even seemed to
acknowledge that it was fair play.
Like, yeah, son for a son. He actually says that's a
grandson. No, because he's doesn't value
human life very much. And of course, we've said before
and we'll say again that we expect Fat Walda to be murdered
by Ramsay, and Ruse will probably be killed as well in
that. So even though there's going to
be a lot of frayed deaths and that throws the whole thing off,
here's the succession as it stands right now.
It's not as complicated as it might sound, because we're only
going to, we only really need to follow the branch that extends
from Walder's eldest son, because it's a lengthy branch.
That's Stevron. Again, Stevron died after the
Battle of Ox Cross. Which made his eldest son Ryman,
heir to the twins. But Ryman, as we just said, was
hanged by the brother or without manners.
And they'd already hanged Ryman's third son, Peter Pimple.
So the current heir to the twins is Edwin, who is the eldest son
of Ryman. Next is Walda, daughter of
Edwin. Of course, if Edwin dies first,
Walda might get passed over. Next will be Black Walda, who is
the second son of Ryman. Everyone expects him to kill his
way to the top. A Lord Blackwalder would be an
interesting development. A very violent, competent man at
the top. That could make things
interesting. But someone else might kill him
first. Someone non Frey perhaps, or
maybe one of his other brothers. That would be quite a twist if
the guy that's murdering his own kin is killed by one of his
other kin first. Now he has no true born
children. It's possible he is the actual
father of whatever child is in the eighth wife of of Joyous
Erinford is her name of of Lord Walter is.
Some people suspect that Black Walter got her pregnant instead
of Walter himself. Walter claims his stuff still
works though. Well let's just say one way or
another she is pregnant by someone named Walter.
Next up would be Paraphray who is daughter of Peter the the
hanged Peter Pimple. She might also be passed over,
but it may not even matter because it probably won't come
to that. Next would be Walton, who is the
third son of Stevron. Then we have Stefon the suite,
who is eldest son of Walton. He's sixth in line.
Then we have a Brian Fray. Then we have Fair Walda.
These are all the children of Walton.
Then we have Waldor Vance who is eldest son of the deceased
Magell, who is Stevron's only daughter, followed by Patrick
Vance and Marianne Vance. The Vance phrase probably would
never inherit, but maybe they would, or they they might change
their name to Fray that that kind of thing happens.
M and Fray is now a new Lord of Riveron.
He's actually started the first Frey cadet branch, which is the
the house Frey of River Run. But this branch probably will
not last. This is the and that's the non
step first non Stevron branch. M and Frey is the beginning of
the next branch. If Cleos were alive, he would be
13th in line. The full succession that Nina
drew up goes all the way to wait for it. 84th.
That's how many freaking phrase there are. 84 For reference,
Roslyn, Edmure's bride is 82nd. She's very far down 53rd in
line. My famous, My famous, my
favorite Frey name. Jamos.
What is that?
Jamos? It's like a very modern name,
like jamming out, but modified to be medieval sounding.
What's that? Jamos?
You got Jamos? That's right, infamous forever
now. The Red Wedding, like the black
dinner of Scotland, won't ever be forgotten.
That's something I don't know that Lord Wilder realized in all
his pride and his ambition. He may not have realized how
historically significant and unforgettable the Red Wedding
will be, how his house will always be associated with this
violent violation of the gods rules of God's laws.
Kinsling guessed right. Treason, you know.
You might have been like, better that than toll collectors.
Better to live in infamy than to be insulted, right?
You might be right. That might be his vibe, his
attitude. That's.
What he thinks. Yeah, you're right.
It's ruthless. But you, you might be right.
The Black dinner of Scotland inspired the Red Wedding, and
that was 585 years ago. Obviously we still know about
it. Obviously we still talk about
it. George was inspired by it.
And, well, that's almost exactly the age of House Frey. 600 years
old. 580. Five, 600.
Yeah, roughly 600. Yeah.
That may have been what George had in mind.
Actually, it is. Besides being just historically
outstanding, it's also the single most historically
significant thing House Frey has done.
More memorable in the bridge, more memorable than any of their
wars that they fought or participated in.
And given the Kinslaying is likely to tick up even more,
it's only going to make them look worse.
Yeah. So it's going to be interesting
to see how George writes. Their ending will be a complete
ending, like all of them being wiped out.
It's kind of hard to imagine 84 frays being killed off.
That seems unlikely. But maybe they lose to Crossing.
Maybe they would go the way of Lofton or Black Fire or Toyne.
Maybe we'll see frays in the Golden Company.
We also might get more of them in future Duncan Egg stories,
Right? Maybe even more versions of of a
younger Lord Walder because they're so large.
I'll repeat what I said at the beginning or repeat a version of
it that we couldn't possibly go down the rabbit hole, the weasel
hole with too many of the individuals.
A lot of plot points surrounding various phrase were discussed,
but some of them have a lot more story to go.
Some of them may be worth coming back to.
And so many of them are going to die.
Some of those deaths, you might go, wait, do I even know that
phrase? Which phrase was that?
And you might not. That might be a phrase you've
never seen before, which is part of the tragedy here.
Again, like Perwin and Olivar, who we know, there's definitely
some phrase out of those other 80, some that are good people.
It can't all be bad, right? But blind vengeance, power,
politics and their reputation might be too much for those few
decent ones to overcome. And they may be part of the
tragedy, the good ones associated with the bad ones.
The bad ones are the ones that everyone thinks about, the ones
that everyone wants to get. And the other ones get caught up
in it. It may be Davos of all people
who said it. Well, thought it best.
He didn't say this line out loud, but it's a very perfect
line to end on. These phrase are cursed.
Few questions from y'all. Yaki Nikko says U.S.
President John Tyler was in his 60s and 70s still having kids,
his son, also in his 60s and 70s, still having kids, and his
son, President Tyler's grandson, born in 1928, is still alive
today. Whoa.
That is, yeah, that's some, that's some fray like qualities
there. The trivia answer, The word
bunghole appears four times in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Lord Walder says it's second. The other three to name to say
the word bunghole are the Great John Roarge and Lem Lemon Cloak.
Yeah, Lem Lemon cloak from last week in the Brotherhood without
Banners episode. Dom Tartaglia.
Shout out to folk wise. Check out the folk Wise channel
asks does bunghole in the Song of Ice and Fire only mean booty
hole or is it ever a nautical term?
None of the contexts I can recall have it to do with
anything nautical. You could, those characters I
just mentioned aren't nautically inclined at all.
Great John Roord and Lemon Cloak.
And he asked if it was Victorian.
Someone did guess Roord. No.
Nice. But yeah, I don't think anyone
said Lem or Great John. I think great John's, the
context with him was like, then after we, you know, then we'll
head off to the we'll we'll stick our sword up Tywin's
bunghole, then it's off to the Red Keep to rescue Ned Roord.
Yeah. Threatens Aria with her stick
sword. And Lem.
I forget what I forget Lem's bunghole comment.
Quite a few episodes that relate to this one that you y'all might
want to check out if you want to stay immersed in this area.
We got Wars of the Roses episode.
They we compared them to how Stanley very thoroughly and
there's a lot of detail there. Of course, the Black Dinner of
Scotland episode, which came out only a couple weeks apart from
the War of the Rose episode, and it was earlier late last year in
2024. The Mystery Night Valar re Rita
series, especially episode 4, but all of it really 'cause the
phrase are a big part of that. The Brotherhood Without Banners
episode that we did just last week has quite a bit of the
phrase in there because of course the Brotherhood Without
Banners is targeting them above all else.
Only the Lannisters are even close.
The Battle of Ice episode, we did 3, three of those actually,
and they all of course involve a lot of discussion of both the
phrase in Winterfell and the phrase going to face Stannis.
Arya's list is an episode we did not too long ago that one of
course, discusses the possibility of the phrase being
included in her revenge. Even though she doesn't know
their name, she knows the house name.
Last but not least, it's an episode that's not out yet as of
this, as of this episode, but by the time you all hear this, it
might be out. It's called the Winterfell
Murders. We'll be discussing all the
murders that happened in Winterfell and it is with
Dragons, which includes of course, Big Walter.
Thanks to everyone who watched us live.
Thanks to everyone who caught us after the fact as well.
We appreciate all of you. It's what we do for a living, so
it's vital to us to have your support.
Thanks to Nina for the succession work and the other
notes. She had a lot to say in this
episode and I appreciate that very much and I suspect you all
do too as well 'cause her takes are so good.
You can check her out at good queenalley.tumblr.com.
As usual, thanks to Joey Townsend for his excellent
music. We love that theme song that
we've been using for over 12 years now.
And Michael Klarfeld, KLARADOX, claredox.de, that's his website.
You can get copies of his beautiful well illustrated maps
and some other cool things he's got there now.
Just check out his website in general.
There's lots of neat things to see there.
On behalf of Ashea, I'm Aziz. We'll see you next time.
Until then, you know what to do.