Hello my fellow historians. Welcome to a special episode, A
Song of Ice and Fire and Dune with our good friend Alt Shift
X. This episode was originally
recorded over on his channel several months ago, but we put
up a nice cleaned up, edited version for y'all here on the
podcast feed because a lot of y'all probably missed it.
Or perhaps it's time for a re listen.
Enjoy. Today we're going to talk about
A Song of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones books.
In comparison to Dune, there's a lot of interesting similarities.
This stream was Aziz's idea. I've got a special guest today,
Aziz from History of Westeros. Thanks for coming on, Aziz.
Hey, thanks for having me. It's so much fun to talk about
Parallels. It's one of the things we do
over on my channel. Usually it's historical
parallels to A Song of Ice and Fire, or parallels within A Song
of Ice and Fire within the history of itself.
Yeah, it it's funny because like Dune and Game of Thrones are
both so famous and popular, but I think a lot, a lot of people
don't immediately see the similarities between them
because they are different in a lot of ways.
Like Dune is the science fiction series and it's got this sort of
dense philosophical tone to it, whereas you know, Game of
Thrones is the medieval fantasy. And so there are these
superficial differences to it. But I think the more you look
you you see how both series play with the same tropes and the
same archetypes in in really interesting ways.
So I'm excited to talk about all these similarities.
Yeah, it's going to be very deconstructive during meta and
we're going to have to constantly ask ourselves, is
this a trope that they both use? Is this a influence that they
both tapped into? Or is this genuinely something
that George RR Martin borrowed or was influenced by directly
from Frank Herbert? And occasionally that's going to
be hard to determine or it might be a case of both.
And of course we have to reckon for whether it's subconscious or
conscious, and we will never go to know that, but it'll be fun
regardless. Yeah, it's tricky to know for
sure, but fortunately you've done your research.
So our first example is one that we actually do know that George
Martin did deliberately, in terms of similarities between
Ned Stark and later with Tradies from Dune, we have a.
Quote here that comes from an interview that he did, and this
is actually a translation because he did this interview, I
think. Was it Russian?
Yeah, it was Russian. And they were trying to ask him
about, of all things that very related to this, they were
asking him about Tolstoy influences on A Song of Ice and
Fire. And that's an important note
here, given what George says, which is art.
Edard Stark is a great example. I always understood that he was
not going through the finale of the first volume.
Here. The model for me was not
Tolstoy, but rather the science fiction Frank Herbert and his
Dune. Frank knew that the Duke of
Summer would die within the first part, after which the
reader's attention shifted to the fate of his son and
daughter. It went, it seems to me, a
little further than Herbert. Ned Stark held out much longer
and he is an important character, not a secondary one.
So the reader sees the world, including his eyes, talking
about the famous Martin POV point of view characters.
The more impact the death has, of course, And so that's our
first major comparison. As you can see from the
thumbnail, perhaps Duke Leto and Ned Stark.
And the parallels here are just all over the place.
There's a ton of them, and some of them are also related to
plots related to him and not directly these two characters.
So this in particular is a very rich part of our set of
connections for sure. Yeah, 'cause they're both, like
held up as paragons of honor and morality at the same time as
being these like feudal Lords who rule over big chunks of
land. And they have this huge power
and they have this huge responsibility, and they're
presented as like a model of how to use power well.
And they are a father figure. You know, Ned is a beloved
father to John and Ayer and Sansa and Rob and all the
Starks, and later was a beloved father of Paul and A and a
beloved lover of their partner. Lato's Lady Jessica and Ned's
Lady Catelyn have like a really wholesome, loving relationship.
So they're sort of like the idealized father in both
stories, I think. That's well said and gets to the
point really well the they are that role within the story as
well which is part of this which is certainly we could call it
trope the father figure that dies kind of earlyish or I say
ish because of Ned Stark. Casey, it's it's Fish.
He's still fairly early in the, in the scheme of what would be,
I guess, seven or eight books, but it doesn't feel that early
when you're reading it for the first time.
It's like, oh wow. Yeah, it's definitely like
rather does first act. It's like a first act death that
then spurs on the heroes like like the death of the father is
like the inciting incident. That's that that feeds the
conflict of of like the main story.
Yeah. And I really like what you said,
too, about how they're both seen as good examples of power and
using power, and how that's a model that is hard to repeat,
especially when times become difficult and people are willing
to get really dirty and underhanded.
And that's when someone like Ned or Leto is a bit of fish out of
water, which is part of both of their stories.
Oh, it's almost literally true for of the Duke, because he's
comes from a water planet, right?
And he goes to a planet, so the fish out of Water Works pretty
well for him. But then you know Ned Stark,
he's obviously out of his depth when it comes to intrigue.
That's a plot line that comes up early and maintains itself for a
long time. It's like he's not that good at
this. His intentions are very clearly
good. You can see that much.
But he's clearly getting fooled by people.
He's not making a lot of progress.
And then it just backfires on him.
He ends up in prison. Yeah, like, you can see the the
parallels there, Especially when the way they are both brought
into it. I love this part.
They both knew it was bad. They both knew they were getting
into danger. Like, Ned has the moment where
he's trying to decide whether he should even go at all.
And he and Maester Lewin and Katlyn are debating it.
And you know, the show reverses the way the books do it.
Either way it's it ends up the same decision of yes I'll go and
it's the same with Leto like he then and one of the reason the
the the logic is that well we can't really refuse we have to
go or Robert will trust us or refusing is worse than going
even if going is dangerous. And it's very similar for Leto's
like, well, we have to, we have to accept this, you know, even
though we, even though we know it's a trap, we have to walk
into the trap and you know, survive it.
And even despite the wee fact that we're gonna, we're gonna
walk him into a trap, we're gonna be able to hopefully
that'll be enough to survive it and then we can come out ahead.
But of course that doesn't happen.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's striking how similar it is.
Like Lato is forced by the emperor to take control of
Iraqis, and Ned is forced by the king to take control as Hand of
the King. Like like they both are are
chosen like that to take power and they both do it kind of
unwillingly. Lato is more willing than than
Ned is, I would say. And yeah, as you say, they both
know that this political situation is dangerous, but they
both go into it anyway and and they die for it.
And they both and they both are capable politicians, but like
not not devious enough. They both underestimate the
willingness of their political enemies to destroy them.
Because neither of them are soft, but they are not cunning.
Like they're both strong, authoritative, and willing to
make tough decisions. But they are not cunning.
They're not, and they don't see cunning as well.
Yeah I I I would definitely say though that I I think the Dune
books show us a more sort of dark and conniving side to Lato
that a lot of the adaptations don't capture like it it we
cover this in like the real Dune video on Alt Shift X which talks
about how the Atrades really do a lot of like sneaky nasty
immoral stuff in terms of how they treat civilians and using
propaganda and and their whole like plan to exploit the frame.
And so like there there is definitely like a, a darkness
and a you know, conniving nature to the Atrades.
But I. But I think there is also a bit
of a parallel to that with the Starks in A Song of Ice and Fire
as well. Because A Song of Ice and Fire,
like the Starks are presented as these great heroic good Lords
who everyone respects. And you know the Grand Order
conspiracy, everyone wants the Starks to come back.
But you know there there's hints of darkness to the Starks.
Like when you read the World of Ice and Fire world book.
And like the history section with the Starks is just.
And then the brutal kings of winter subjugated the March King
and took his daughters and then they subjugated the Barrow King.
And then they sub like they were brutal warlords who took over
the north by conquering and and killing and and and taking the
daughters and forcibly marrying and like doing all these awful
things. That is how the Starks took the
north. And and there's also stories
like the Knights King, which is, you know, this mythical figure
who made a deal with the White Walkers and Old Nan hints that
the Nights King might have been a Stark.
And if we want to get really tinfoil, I think it's a fun
theory that the Starks might literally have the blood of
White Walkers in them and that might be this lovecrofty and
secret. So, so, so I won't go on too
much, but I I think that A Song of Ice and Fire also has a sort
of hidden darkness to their supposedly noble, heroic family,
which I suspect might come to the fore in later books.
Those were really good examples, and there's maybe a few more,
like just the fact that Ned executes a Night's Watchman in
the very first chapter after the prologue, right?
That wasn't evil, but it was a mistake, I suppose.
At least not to listen to him. You know, maybe he had no choice
based on the laws, but it was definitely a good guy thing and
an odd way to present a heroic figure to start off, especially
given what we know about the Night's Watch and the fact that
that guy really did see a White Walker.
I mean, damn, like that was rough.
So you know, you you forgive it because of the circumstance and
the fact that Ned's ignorant of what that man really saw and the
fact that he's acting insane. But Bran asks the question like,
well, you know, he was afraid and was he insane and obviously
sets up a lot of the things you're talking about.
Fast forward to much later in the story when we learn that the
North itself the practice of worship of the Old Gods, which
has been led by the Starks included.
Yeah, yeah. Things like human sacrifice and
and first night and awful other traditions that are nowhere near
the province of good guys, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
And and also like, there's there's a lot we don't know
about Ned personally. Like, like we think we know a
lot of what happened at the Tower of Joy and what happened
at Starfall when Ned took the sword Dawn back to Starfall, and
then Ashara Dane killed herself. Like what?
What really happened with Ashara?
What really happened with Leanna and Rhaegar in the Tower of Joy?
Like, my point is that there could be bad things that Ned did
that we don't yet know about. So there's definitely more room
to sort of deepen and darken Ned's past.
Yeah. And yeah, like, as we were
talking about like the the history stuff, there's another
great parallel in that the stocks have ruled the North for
supposedly some like 8000 years or 6000 years, and there's a
similar number for how long the tradies have supposedly ruled
Caledan. Like, it's a ridiculously,
unrealistically long time that these dynasties have survived.
And I think the implication in in both is that the way that you
survive as a ruler for thousands of years is by being
occasionally brutal. And your point is great about,
you know, we are introduced to Ned Stark chopping off a dude's
head. And we see that through Bran's
perspective. And Bran feels has mixed
feelings about this. He's like, wow, I love my dad
because he's so kind and loving. But also, wow, my dad is a Lord
who cuts off people's heads like and.
And I think that Dune and Asung of Ice and Fire are making the
same point about power here in how power by its nature sort of
sort of corrupts people and forces people to make these
really tough choices that are sometimes dehumanizing and
sometimes make us compromise our morals and sometimes force us to
do bad things. So Dune and Asung of Ice and
Fire are both definitely about power and and how power effects
people. No matter what you do, you're
going to harm people when you're wielding power on that scale.
And that's part of the lens through which you have to view
these characters. And the ancestry is such a big
part of it. You're right that not only are
their fathers a big deal, but the grandfather figure is a big
deal for, you know, the old Duke, they call him, right in
Dune that he's such an important figure, the way he's his bravery
and all these these examples he set and how well he's
remembered. Rickard Stark is a pretty
important figure for how things are set up in the Song of Ice
and Fire. You find out and of course his
death, the hands of Aries, and that's obviously really
important. But the things he was doing
before that, the Great S Rin's conspiracy, whatever parts of
that you believe, some of it were certainly happening to some
degree. So that's a pretty familiar as
well. Though those kind of intrigues
are always going to be part of any sort of political story.
High intrigue goes with royal families and dynasties and
bloodlines and and that's a feature of the world building
that's really similar despite the fact that one is taking
place in space and one is taking place very stubbornly, low,
aggressively, stubbornly low tech environment.
It stayed that way so long, yeah, Which interestingly I
think is is something that Dune uses as well.
And it's one of my favorite. The slight diversion here of
things about Dune and how he wrote it to avoid the technology
problem was to build in the whole Butlerian jihad, to
explain why certain technologies which must have seemed
inevitable in his in his time, which are, you know, kind of
happening in our time now. He wrote.
In Why those things aren't Part of the World and create a
compelling reason for why thinking machines don't exist.
And they're similar not as direct but undertones of
reducing technology or keeping things in a dark age or and or
magic having comings and goings on a grand scale.
In terms of how you know like the comet or how certain eras of
A Song of Ice and Fire seem to have magic seems to work better.
Age of Heroes versus like now being times where it seems to
work particularly well even if we don't know why.
So yeah there's a lot of that and that's I think that's a a
part of the world building that like you said it's hard to
notice that because it's fantasy versus sci-fi even though one is
a you know Dune has a lot of fantasy elements to it I would
say, which is you know that's not a pejorative by any means.
I I love fantasy. So yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Both Westeros and the Dune
Imperium seem to be like technologically stagnant or even
going technologically backwards, and they both have in world law
reasons for that. Like Dune technology doesn't
progress because they've got this Butler and jihad banning
computers and A Song of Ice and Fire.
Westeros's technology doesn't develop, possibly because of the
Long Night, because the White Walkers keep turning up like the
Reapers in Mass Effect and wiping people out like it's not
confirmed. But some people speculate that
the White Walker Long Night might be a cycle that happens
over and over and well and and I mean, I mean that's very
speculative. Another simpler explanation is
the irregular seasons, like when you have a winter that is
sometimes two years and sometimes 10 years and that
kills lots of people, that's going to set you back
technologically. So like there are in universe
reasons why Westeros's technology is kind of stagnant
and likewise with the Dune. Yeah, and what's cool about both
of them, and this is something that isn't really A1 borrowing
from the other so much as a really fun trope that's used in
both fantasy and sci-fi is the idea of powerful objects from
another time, or the powerful objects that are otherwise in a
lower tech environment. Dune has some incredibly high
tech things mixed in with you can't barely use like something
more than a calculator, right? Yeah, and like these incredible
personal energy Shields and other incredible technologies
like the still suit versus A Song of Ice and Fire, which is
comparisons like Valyrian steel or glass candles.
These are of course, more explained by magic than
technology, but they have the same effect on the story in
terms of what what allows to be possible and the way people seek
after these items because of their value in that setting.
And in some cases they are extremely necessary.
You you must have them or else. And that's, yeah, there's,
there's even some some more examples in that.
I'm sure I'm missing. What?
What do you got? Well, I think one of the central
ones is in Dune. Nuclear weapons or atomics are
like this crucially important weapon that they're they're all
these rules prohibiting the houses from using them.
And that is like one of the key, key forms of power in this
world. And that's really similar to the
Dragons in A Song of Ice on Fire, like George Martin has
compared the Dragons to nuclear weapons.
And the Dragons are also a power that is tightly controlled, and
only the Targaryens want to have power over them except for
certain events in the Dance of the Dragons.
So I think there's a big similarity there.
Is it something else? I wanted, like you mentioned
before, Rickard Stark, the father of Ned Stark being
similar to the old Duke, the father of Lato.
I I think like both of those characters are a great parallel
in how they die. Because the old Duke, father of
Lato, Paul's grandfather, famously died when he was
fighting a bull in the arena as a matador.
So the old Duke put himself in danger and put himself in the
path of this dangerous monster and and died for it.
And that's similar to I guess that's more similar to Brandon
Stark, Ned's brother, who went to King's Landing saying Oi
Rhaegar come out and die and Brandon went and faced the mad
King Aries. And then what happened?
Like Ricard. Ricard accepts the challenge.
He he says I'll fight you. Yeah, right.
I can fight one of the King's Guard, right?
And then he's burned, of course. Yeah, so, so Ricard, like, like
the old Duke, went and faced the monstrous.
Ares and and it was a fight that he thought he could win but but
he died as a result of his you know confidence and his attempt
to win. So, so and and I guess that sort
of frames like the political conflict of the next generation,
like like the grandfather of the hero boldly fought and died.
And so like the lesson to the to to the grandson, to the hero is,
well, maybe I need to be smarter about this.
Paul And and the Stark kids, they both sort of know that you
know, overconfidence and directness got their fathers and
grandfathers killed. So, like, you've got to be
smarter and more political to survive.
And then this brings up who the rivals are that are their main
danger to survival in the 1st place.
Which yeah, parallels between Lannister and Harkonnen are
pretty rich, including their vast wealth.
Heyo. Ha ha.
You see what I did there? And they're absurdly wealthy,
both of them, and for the same time scale as applied to the
other houses in both settings. So Lannisters have been rich for
a crazy long time and Harkenins as well, so you know both of
them. Yeah, I I I like the idea
though, that like while the stocks and the Atrades are both
these very, very ancient houses of this special ancient
bloodline, the Lannisters and the Harkenins are more new
money. They are more recent powers
because the Lannisters like they Castley Rock is not their
ancestral seat. The Lannisters stole Castley
Rock from the Castellies land the clever right and and then
they started exploiting the gold mines so their new money who
used economic activity and trade to get rich.
The Harkonnens are the same because the Harkonnens were like
cast down and exiled in the Battle of Koran, but then they
recently regained power through. I think the quote is adroit
manipulation of the whale fur market or whatever.
That's of course, that's the thing that you get rich from,
because I of course, we all knew that whales had fur.
Oh, I'm wearing my whale fur cloak right now.
So. So I think it's really
interesting that like, there's sort of this taint of there
being something kind of immoral about getting rich from trade as
opposed to just being an honor like a an ancient family like
the Starks and the tradies. The Lannisters and Harkonnens
both made money recently. They are new money.
They are the upstarts who are the rivals to the rightful old
dynastic family, which, yeah, I think it's really cool.
You know, we'll have to come back to one of these partial
comparisons because of course these aren't all one to one
comparisons. But think that the in terms of
actual characters, the best one to one comparison we have for
Harkonnen is coming later. So teaser for later in the
episode here. That's a huge one.
Especially because another thing I like about that is just how
the weight it's set up in terms of what they're up against.
You're up against in terms of when you're reading Game of
Thrones, and not necessarily later when the story expands and
you've got a lot more characters and a lot more houses.
But when you're focused on Stark and Lannister, you've got this
exact same thing. You're a character who's walking
into their territory, what they think is their territory,
meaning the Red Keep or Oracus. Something that they've had that
there may be losing their grip on and want to get back.
And one of the things about being the Hand is that for a lot
of people it's an opportunity to wield power and wielded and
scrupulously you can make a lot of money at it And that's kind
of a similar thing here. It's not as direct as it is in
Dune where the spice is. This just obscenely valuable.
Do everything, substance, that obviously control over that is
going to mean a lot, whereas even but even for someone like
Leto who's not going to exploit that as much as someone like
Harkins would to just an extraordinary degree.
The same thing is going to be true for Ned Stark where the
main thing he's given his political power and legal power,
executive power and he uses that to almost pick a fight with the
Lannisters anyway because of the small scale capture of Tyrion
and false blame placed on him for the attempted murder of
Bran. So that part is where things are
a little different because the the Dune, well, maybe you could
say that similar in Dune because didn't the Harkonnen Atrades
feud start with some sort of military campaign snafu from
long ago that was kind of minor but resulted in a blood feud or
something like that? The Battle of.
Koran Harkonnen was exiled for cowardice after allegations by
an Atrades, and that's kind of all we know.
OK, that might be sort of similar to how a relatively
small scale thing turns into a feud between 2 Great houses.
Which by the way, something else I forgot to mention.
George has lamented not using the title Duke in A Song of Ice
and Fire because Lord and High Lord are just too similar and he
wants a way to distinguish between the you know that the
the Great Houses and just calling them Duke would have
been one of the simple way to do that.
So that would have been a really obvious parallel to if he had
done that. I think Taiwan Lannister would
have made a great Baron. Yeah, throw a few 100 lbs on
him. And yeah, as, as I think you
noted, the Harkonnens and the Lannisters, well, the enemies of
the hero are similar. In the Princess Irulan, Karino
the the daughter of the villainous Emperor, has blonde
hair and green eyes, like how the Lannisters, Jamie and Cersei
have blonde hair and green eyes. So, so I don't know.
I I think that one of you know, the commonality here is that the
bad guys are rich and the bad guys are beautiful, whereas the
good guys are these sort of noble, upright ancient families
who are not as wealthy as well. The the books both make a point
that the Atrades are not one of the Super rich houses and the
stocks are one of the less rich great houses.
So yeah, strong parallels though, this.
Connects to the anecdote that I I wasn't sure about that you
clarified regarding the the origin of their feud, which is
that the Starks are very well regarded as a military force or
their soldiers are highly regarded, etcetera.
And that was true for the Duke, the Tradies as well, just the
Tradies family in general. And that's something that the
Emperor I suppose, and maybe the Harkins as well are jealous of
is his reputation because you know, they, they're petty like
that. And I think that was some extent
that's going to be true. Or some of the relationships
within long of Ice and Fire, maybe some of them Stark and
Lannister, they're not as direct, I suppose, but they
become that way as the feud develops early on and do.
And I suppose that feud has existed already for a long time.
Yeah, and and there's definitely that idea in both stories that
you know that the honorable Lato and the honorable Ned are
destroyed early on by the conniving enemies, but the
legacy of the heroic honorable Lato and Ned lives on.
So like in Dune, there's the there's the skull Shrine of Lato
that becomes this important lasting symbol of the Atrades.
And you know Ned Stark's bones like Lato Skull Ned's bones
become this plot point in the books where where the bones are
returning to Winterfell and and that's important and and the
bones represent the the legacy of these characters.
They may have been defeated, but their ideals live on and
continue to inspire people. And you know that the whole
grand Northern conspiracy plotline shows how the people of
the North still want the stocks in Winterfell.
Similar to how you know, Lato's legacy and the Atreides legacy
is part of what Paul evokes. So they both they both last and
certainly like the protagonists compare themselves to their
fathers. And there's always this question
of like, can I live up to my father's ideals while also not
being defeated as my father was? So.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, there's a lot of that in
the Song of Ice and Fire, but sticking just to this family,
it's pretty big because we're seeing, and obviously it's not
played out fully, even though he's been dead for a while.
The legacy of Tywin Lannister is pretty bad, right.
There's just all these things are going wrong because he made
so many enemies. He did.
He was so ruthless and mistreated so many people
including his own family. But they're not living by his
values. People aren't still remembering
him the way they do Ned Stark. They're like oh now there's an
opening he that he's now that he's dead.
You know it's it's a different sort of it's opportunistic.
Now that Tywin's gone we have the banisters a week rather than
oh, Ned is gone. Let's help save his daughter
right. That's a very big difference,
yeah. Quick one that I had forgot to
mention earlier, That's a really neat quote.
Is faint within a faint within a faint is a line from Dune and
wheels within wheels within wheels.
It comes up a couple times in Ned's arc, so I love that.
It's just that's a pretty clear one.
I don't think that one's intentional, but because it's so
subtle. But maybe it is because it's so
similar. But yeah, I guess we'll probably
never know. Yeah, yeah.
Both stories are very sort of like self consciously about
intricate political plots. And yeah, using that same little
pattern is a fun way to highlight that.
Thanks for the Super Chats, by the way.
Gonna, in a Super chat, points out that just as the stocks
moved from a cold climate into a warmer climate, the Atrades
moved from a cooler climate on Caledan to the hot climate on
Iraqis, Which is cool. And thanks Maura, who says show
of support. Thanks for all the great
content. And thanks, Super Rad.
Who says Paula Tradies is Azora High?
We'll get to that. Good segue point here is the way
that their ending happens for both of them, which is when Ned
Stark basically has no choice left.
He's in prison, he's dying, and he is as effectively willing to
throw his life away until his daughter is threatened.
Virus comes to him and gives him a chance to do that.
Help his family, make his death count for something and virus
that's also advancing his goals. It's something that will that
Ned will want to do and on the other side in Dune we have
Doctor Huey who also is not necessarily isn't a loyal person
like or is a loyal person not unlike virus, but was
nevertheless trusted with some important things and is you is
forced into what he's doing because of a threat to his own
family. But nevertheless, he's doing a
similar thing here where he's helping someone else get revenge
as part of their death, right? Helping, which is kind of part
of that legacy thing we were talking about as like a striking
from beyond the grave kind of thing that they both have in
common as they fade stayed exit stage left.
Yeah, yeah. So, like Varys convinces Ned to
falsely confess to treason in order to protect his kids,
protect Sansa and Yui convinces Lato to use the poison tooth to
try and kill Vladimir. So yeah, in their darkest hour,
they both. Protect his wife too.
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.
So they so they both sort of die in a way that sort of besmirches
their own honor. And they both are visited by a
schemer who sort of gives them a chance to make their death mean
something. So yeah, huge parallels, though.
So how about we move on to some of like the political background
is really similar in both stories because both worlds have
this foundational political balance where there's the
Supreme King on the Iron Throne or there's in Dune, there's the
Emperor on the Lion Throne, the throne is called the Lion
Throne. In Dune, Iron Throne fire.
Don't tell me that's a coincidence.
And and one of the sort of fundamental plot points is that
in Dune, Empress Shaddam doesn't trust and is jealous of Lato
Atrades power, which is similar to how King Aries Targaryen in
in the back story of Game of Thrones was mistrustful and
jealous of everybody, his son Prince Rhaegar and his hand
Tywin. And that's part of what sparked
the conflict of Robert's Rebellion.
And in Dune, we have Lands Rod, which is basically an alliance
of the Great Houses, which they're a check against the
power of the Emperor. If the Emperor gets out of line,
they'll all gang up, and together they're stronger than
he is. And it's a way to prevent
tyranny. It's a way to, it's some
balance. And that's sort of what was
lacking in Westeros. The Targaryens didn't have that
check for a long time, but Fast forward to the time of Aries.
And they lost that check because they don't have Dragons anymore.
But it it had been some time since they had lost Dragons, but
no one had really challenged them.
Except for challenges within their own family, if we count
things like the black fires. But that's again a cadet branch
of their own, so outside threats didn't really happen until
something that was very recent. Within the time frame of the
Song of Ice and Fire, Robert's Rebellion is mentioned
constantly early on in the Game of Thrones.
It's a huge part of the framing for the story and the setting.
The Lands Rod is basically the Great Houses, and what we see at
the beginning of Robert's Rebellion is Aries pushing too
hard against the implied feudal vassal relationship, which is
that, hey, I'm your king, but if something goes wrong and there's
an outside threat, I'll organize everything and get everyone
together and stop that threat. And in the meantime, you pay me
taxes and bend the knee and all that.
But if you just murder me out of hand without any fair justice
behind that, well, that's not OK.
And in Dune there's a system against that.
They've been around long enough to have fixed that sort of
thing. That system doesn't exist in A
Song of Ice and Fire, but it was what people like Rickard and
Hoster Tully were trying to create.
They were trying to create more of a check on the royal house.
That's the basic idea of the South Ron conspiracy, which is a
series of marriages and alliances that would keep Aries
from doing anything too much. Or the royal house going, you
know, thinking beyond Aries once he's eventually gone and Rhaegar
was basically behind that. And of course, that's kind of
what's too bad about the fact that it came to war and Robert
killed Rhaegar, because Rhaegar would have probably been a
reasonable one to work with. But as it turned out, Aries
ignited all that and the story went the way it did.
And that's very similar to what happens in Dune, except that
it's happening during the story instead of maybe 15 years prior.
So obviously there's going to be some differences here and there
between these parallels and how they're used within the story,
but that's pretty cool to see these parallels.
Yeah. I wanted to add with that idea
of like the the Southern ambitions Great houses and
Rhaegar all plotting to get together and to put checks to
reduce Aries's power. Like that line that Rhaegar has
before he goes into battle that Jamie remembers where it's like
A council will be called, changes will be made.
That was that was Rhaegar's attempt to try and change
things. And I think it's really similar
to how Paul I think it's Paul talks about the lands read you
know we need AI could bring evidence to the lands read that
Emperor Shedam tried to destroy the Atrades with Sadaka and when
we sort of present that to the lands Read council then we'll be
able to reduce shadams power Like that's a very very similar
idea that and in both cases it doesn't work it doesn't happen
that the houses don't get together to stop Shaddam it's
it's Pauls doing and the Fremans doing and Ragar and the Southern
ambitions alliance fails to put checks on Aries so so there's a
there's a failure of like sort of political due process that
causes the heroes to have to go and solve the problems instead.
And then almost a similar thing happens with Ned's arc as well,
where he's trying to create or gather enough evidence to
present to Robert, but it all becomes irrelevant because
Robert just dies and it's sketchy whether Robert would
have or Robert would have done about it as well.
Though yeah, it's neat how this is a almost a diversionary
tactic than these storylines that both authors like to use.
Rather than just engaging in more straightforward tropes,
they sort of set it up one way and then kind of take a right
turn. Maybe it may be a second right
turn after that. I I think there's a sense in
both stories that like you know they both of these medieval ish,
feudal ish political systems and they both fail to stop their
tyrannical leaders. King Aries, Emperor Saddam.
Both feudal systems are failing. And so like there's there's a
sense in both stories that we need to change this system.
Like we need to dramatically change this monarchical feudal
system because it's it's creating injustice and it's
creating horrors. And so a a big part of what the
June series is about is is exploring different political
systems and and changing things to make a a better universe.
And I'm really curious about what A Song of Ice and Fire will
do. Like it's interesting that at
the end of the Game of Thrones TV show we have King Bran in
charge of Westeros and the show never really explores what that
means or like why? Why is it a good thing for King
Bran to be in charge. But I think that, you know, we
anticipate that if it is that Bran becomes king in the yet to
be published Game of Thrones books, I think it'll explore
like you know how King Bran will be a different political system
and how it will be better to avoid the horrors of the past.
But I we can talk more about King Bran and Dune a bit later
on at at the moment we're doing like no spoilers or light
spoilers for Dune in this live stream.
But later on in the live stream, we will talk more about
spoilers, and we'll warn you when we do talk about any big
spoilers for Dune. Yes, the God Emperor of Westeros
is coming later. That's right.
Shall we talk about Jessica and Callum?
We should indeed, because they are another good set of related
parallels, starting with just some obvious physical features,
like they're both redheads and they're the wife or concubine in
Jessica's case, but it's very functionally very similar of
this doomed father figure type. And Catelyn is a doomed mother
figure. Jessica, not so much.
It's not not really the same in that sense.
So that's a that's a divergent, which is nice to see as well.
And they're both someone that had to really adjust to a new
living situation, right? They are not from the place that
they have to settle and have children.
Catelyn's not from the north, Jessica's not from Caladan, and
that parallels within each other the stories that we just set up.
Whereas Ned goes into a very unfamiliar situation to be hand
to the King and Duke, Leto goes into a very similar situation
going from Caladan to Arakas, which is very unfamiliar both in
terms of, well, in terms of everything.
It's just really unfamiliar geographically, politically,
and, and you know all that. Yeah, I think it's interesting
that, you know, while Ned Stark and later Atrades are sort of
the idealized father, where like the children have nothing but
love and respect for their father in both Junior and Song
of Ice and Fire, the the mother, you know, Catelyn and Jessica
are not as idealized. And I think they have more
complicated relationships with some of their children.
I mean, John especially obviously has a really
complicated relationship with Catelyn, who is not his mother
and who rejects him even like Aya I think has, you know, a a a
somewhat more difficult relationship with with Caitlin.
I I mean, there are certain revelations about Jessica and
Dune that complicate her relationship with Paul as well.
Yeah, yeah, but. But but I think it's interesting
that like it it's definitely AI think it's a more complicated
and a more layered relationship with the mother as opposed to
the father, Ned and Leito, who are who are idolized by their
children. Yeah, and that's true.
There's, it is more complicated and I think the fact that
there's also more children in the Song of Ice and Fire setting
complicates it as well because they do have varying
relationships. I mean, you use John as an
example. That's obviously a stark example
and because of the relationship with Catelyn.
But then there's the more straightforward examples like
Rob. And then there's Aria, who
arguably has a better relationship with Ned than with
Catelyn and and Sansa, who is probably the reverse of that,
because Paul is obviously not the only child, but kind of
effectively the only child in the first book.
And that's a big deal and changes, especially in in a
power dynamic like they have with with airs and and
bloodlines and all that. A similarity is that both
Jessica and Catelyn are very much motivated by wanting to
protect their children, but at the same time wanting to advance
their children politically. Jessica, you know more so than
in the movies. Jessica in the books very much
wants Paul to be restored to the leadership of House of Tradies
and to be politically powerful. And and Catelyn Catelynn in the
books, more than in the TV show, wants her children, wants Rob to
be the Lord, to be restored to ruling their homeland.
They're both politically ambitious and like it.
It very much explores how there's a tension between
wanting to love and protect your children, but also wanting them
to have political power because of course having political power
is dangerous. So you know, if you if you love
your children, should you want them to be Lords and kings?
Because that's dangerous. And that's a tension that I I
think both of these stories explore.
And that is the heart of one of the most direct, detailed
parallels I think we might have between these two characters,
which is the core plot for both of them.
Very early on is Catelyn trying to figure out who killed Bran,
and Jessica trying to figure out how Paul was almost killed.
Plus there's a Chris knife and a dagger with a dragon bone hilt,
which is of Lyrian steel, and these are both key parts of
that. And you have a secret message
from Margot Fenring, at least in the book version, with a secret
code written that only in a in a way that only Jessica can
understand because she's been a Jesserite and there's a warning
about the Harkinins. Meanwhile, Lysa, in a language
that only Catelyn can understand, warns her about the
Lannisters. Now this is a false warning, but
still it's the same kind of thing where it's an early plot
point where they get this message that steers their
actions in a very direct and important way and it's related
to threats on not just them but their children specifically and
sad advancement or lack thereof that you mentioned.
So that, yeah, it's really, really huge similarity there,
even though there's those plots have huge differences as well.
These similarities are like, Oh yeah, that's yeah, I see that
once you see them anyway. Yeah, yeah, they they both
investigate the attempted murder murder of their son.
They both have a special knife as a key piece of evidence.
They both get a warning from a woman in a coded message.
I I mean, surely George had Dude in mind when he wrote this and
and you know, you know that Lyce's warning to Catelyn is a
political ploy from Littlefinger trying to manipulate Catelyn
because Littlefinger is trying to turn the stalks and the
Lannisters against each other. But.
But I think in a similar way we can question Margot Fenrings
motivations when she sends that coded message to Jessica in the
June book. Because you know, we know that
the Fenrings are connected to the Emperor Saddam and we know
that the Fenrings are working with the bend a Jesuit and and
Jessica's goals are not entirely aligned with the bend a Jesuit.
So I I think that the complicated relationship between
Catlin and Lysa is similar to the complicated relationship
between Jessica and the Bend, a Jesuit and Margot for sure.
Right on. Yeah.
I guess I didn't catch that part, but now that you lay it
out, I'm like, Oh yeah, OK. Yeah, there's definitely like,
like deeper, more complicated politics and like factional
issues with Jessica than with Catelyn.
But we've always got to remember that, you know, Catelyn is not
born a Stark, Catelyn is a Tully, and Catelyn is connected
to the Aaron's through her sister.
And so, you know, Catelyn has these political and cultural and
religious differences from Ned and the Starks which which
complicate her relationship with her partner.
Yeah, and they were. Both of their marriages were
very directly related to the plotting.
Of. Prior generations Catelyn's
marriage to not just Ned but was originally going to be Brandon
star because that marriage was so important that they passed it
down to the next son. And similarly, Jessica's
marriage to Duke Leto was a lot of people had an interest in
that but particularly I guess they've been a jester most of
all right. Would that be accurate to to
say? Yeah, yeah, I mean the, yeah,
that that marriage of, well, not marriage, but that partnership
of Jessica and Lato is part of the Ben, a Jezera breeding
program to try and create the quiz at Sadarac.
So it's really cool that that both Jessica and Lato's
relationship and Catelyn and Ned's relationship, they are
both relationships that started for political reasons, but they
both blossomed into true love, which is really lovely.
And people say these stories are grim, dark, you know, but and I
guess they, these, these characters did have bad endings,
but they got to have nice long lives, at least partially.
They got to have some time in the sun.
Yeah. Oh yeah, sort of.
Yeah, well, yeah. It's important that like the the
hero protagonist characters get to see this model of like
idealized true love in their parents before it is lost.
So in the same way that the heroes like Paul and Jon Snow,
that they they ask themselves, you know, can I be as honorable
as my father, they also ask themselves, can I have a true
love like my, like, you know, Ned had with Caitlin and like
Jessica had with later, like it. It establishes those ideals of
love and heroism for the protagonist to strive for and
struggle for, as the story goes. On and George likes to invert
that where we also have a character, Tyrion, Jamie and
Cersei too, they're showing us the opposite showing.
Us the Mirror. That by their leg, they're
constantly thinking about their father and it's not a good
thing. It's usually, it's like, oh, it
makes me feel bad, you know? Or it's like, well, my father
would have done this and it's something awful, you know?
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Just as Jamie Cersei and Tyrion
grapple with their shitty father Tywin's legacy, we see how
Irulan has to grapple with her monstrous father Shaddam's
legacy. And you know, Fade has to deal
with the Baron Vladimir's legacy.
And it's there's sort of a tragedy that these people who
were born into these, who are the children of villainous
fathers, like they don't necessarily want to follow in
their villainous father's footsteps.
Tyrion doesn't necessarily want to be like Tywin, Irulan doesn't
necessarily want to be like Shiddam.
But there is like this sense of inevitability about following in
your parents footsteps and just the political realities, you
know? So there's that, that there's
there's much about like legacy and family and bloodline and
power that that both of these stories explore.
And that's what kind of why I brought up Tyrion, 'cause he's
specifically the one that points out that we are the puppets that
dance on the strings of those who came before us.
Because that's that's. A.
Nice, succinct George way to say that.
And maybe, maybe George got that line from Shakespeare or
something 'cause that's another major influence of his along
with along with Dune. George has some great line about
how his chief influences are William Shakespeare and Stanley
Marvel Comics, which is wonderful.
So our next parallel is the scheming and devious Pieter
Devries. The Mentat assassin who serves
the Harkonnens is very similar to Littlefinger.
Peter Baelish, the political schemer in the Small Council.
Yes, indeed. We have first of all a fun world
building aspect. Dune that is meant at.
And there is not a direct equivalent really in The Song of
Ice and Fire I suppose. But there is the example of
someone who's just really good at math and that alone puts them
above everyone else, which is a similar role within the story.
Especially because these are very unscrupulous people.
They're not fully in charge of their own destiny.
They have to work for someone else.
They're both small. Obviously the name is similar.
Yeah, I'm sure you noticed that one already.
They One of them has the pointed chin, the other has a chin
beard. They're everybody knows they're
not trustworthy, but they're so useful that they are allowed to
stick around. Well, there's something I I find
like something that recurs again.
Like we talked about how the Harkonnens and the Lannisters
are both villainous and they're both associated with money and
wealth and in a similar way like like pieder de Vries and and
Peter, like Littlefinger has this financial acumen.
I mean, I guess pieder de Vries is not associated with money per
SE, but he's he's like a devious, smart, mathematically
inclined person. And there's there's sort of the
villainy of being a manipulative nerd, which, which yeah is, is
huge with both these characters. And we have what their ambitions
are, yeah, Which is busting after these two characters.
We just compared Catelyn and Jessica, the redheads that had
all these other things in common with each other.
So that just by extension creates a lot more parallels.
Yeah, but they both, like Pyter and Littlefinger are both the
like, nerdy, angry, bitter, spurned underdog who wants power
and wants the hot redhead. And they both get tantalizingly
close to having it, but they don't quite get there.
Which, yeah, is really cool. And both of them, I think,
parallels and contrasts to a more heroic mentor.
So Maester Lewin is the wise teacher of the Stark kids and
and he's, you know, this really nice, well-intentioned guy, even
if he's completely wrong about magic.
And similarly Thufia Hawat, the Mentat is like the good guy
version. I mean he's not really a good
guy, but he's like the the more heroic version of Pita de Vries
who is the beloved mentor of Paul.
So we we get like a a good wise man figure in Lewin and Thufia
and we get an evil conniving smart man in Pita and Peter.
That's pretty cool. And we even have a little bit
of. I'm working for the other side
by force. Lewin had to work for Theon when
when they were taken over by the Ironborn.
That's a pretty small part of his arc, but it is, you know,
that's how he goes out. Yeah, that's a great point.
The the, the why. The heroic wise man that they
both get captured by the bad guys and and they both advise
the bad guys. Lewin advises Theon honestly and
wisely, and Thufia advises the Hakanens in a slightly more
complicated. It's what he does.
And and and of course, you know, we we can note that Thuphia is a
much more nasty, evil dude than than Lewin is.
Because Thuphia is, after all, a meant at assassin and his job is
murdering people. And you know, there's there's,
there's some fun lines in the books about how the Harkonnens
fear Thuphia hoaat, because he's just this implacable enemy who
just absolutely will gut the Harkonens at every opportunity.
So there there's Dune. Dune is It does lean harder into
the villainy of even the heroes. Because, of course, Dune is
about deconstructing the idea of heroism and questioning the idea
of heroism. But I'm sure we'll discuss that
more later. Yeah, the better comparison for
a lot of what Thufir can do is like Blood Raven.
You know, he's the the highly feared, questionable methods
like powers that maybe he shouldn't have, you know, kind
of thing. Yeah, true.
Yeah. I mean, I I I think that's like,
the fun thing is that, like, you know, Littlefinger thinks that
he's the master manipulator, but then like a level above him,
it's more like, Oh no, Illyrio is the master manipulator.
And then you're like, Oh no, wait, Bloodraven is the master
manipulator who's above them. And then, you know, hell, maybe
Quake is up there as well. So yeah, there, there, there's
levels to it in a way that I don't think Dune quite well.
I mean Dune does have sort of levels as as the series goes on,
I won't spoil it, but you know, after Paul there are, there are
other Giga Brain mega people who are, you know that it's sort of
there's this power creep in Dune where there's like a new super
powerful person in each book practically.
So, you know, there's the the scale expands, birth stories I
suppose. And there is a sense in A Song
of Ice and Fire that the tide of magic is rising, Dragons are
reborn, White Walkers are returning.
This is an age for gods and heroes.
I like the idea that you're on. Greyjoy is emerging as like a
new next level supernatural threat.
So I guess both stories have this sort of power creep, this
this increase in stakes and scale that increases as the
story goes on. Yeah, I that's that's a good way
to put it. It starts off as a squabble
between two houses and the royal house, yeah, overshadowing it
all. And then expands to include a
lot more houses and interests and supernatural slash high tech
aspects and goes from there. Yeah, so much.
Yeah, and I think that the scale and complexity increases so much
that the respective authors lose control of their stories.
Because I won't spoil it, but Dune?
The ending of Dune is almost explicitly a moment where the
author kind of explicitly says, OOPS, my story has gotten out of
my control. I've gone too far.
There's all these crazy characters doing wacky things
and I'm not really sure what's going on, to be entirely honest.
And like like that that. Is the end of Chapter House.
And whereas The Song of Ice and Fire.
George, I don't think has quite admitted it to himself yet.
But I think the reason why the The Song of Ice and Fire series
is unfinished is largely because George has introduced too many
characters and plot lines and the scale has increased and the
complexity has increased and he's no longer quite in control
of his own story. So I think that there's a very
strong, like, meta similarity in how Frank and George both sort
of lost control of their rapidly expanding universes.
I agree. That and especially 20-30 years
from now, some of these parallels will seem even more
stark or more direct or maybe not.
Maybe some of them will look less so depending on how next
10-15 years actually go. But yeah, it's so true,
especially as well the arc of of getting things made into TV
shows and their own personal influences.
I know we we had a few notes on that in terms of just like
things that they've done where Dune has a lot of parallels to
the wars in the Middle East over oil or the drug wars whereas the
Song of Ice and Fire has allegories to climate change and
these aren't necessarily Oh yeah I definitely did this George
isn't George has said that he didn't do that on purpose.
It we can he's he's also said you it it absolutely works for
that but doesn't really even matter in terms of authorial
intent if we're just talking about what's there and what
isn't. And so they both have, you can
see the products of from their own time and things that were
important during their era when they were writers and all that,
which I think is always a fun thing to deconstruct and look
at. Yeah, I mean it's fascinating
that they both are of their time and yet the stories are so
similar despite coming from such different times.
I mean the Dune books were published first in the 60s and
the Song of Ice and Fire was, you know, some 30 years later in
the 90s. And yet they are so similar.
And and I think that's because like I I think that both Dune
and Song of Ice and Fire that they are responding more to
fantasy literature and like ropes more so than they are
responding to like current events like Dune.
Dune is very much about I I I mean they both draw from history
as well. You know Frank Herbert
enormously was influenced by you know Sabres of Paradise and
Lawrence of Arabia and you know Song of Ice and Fire is very
much about Wars, Wars of the Roses and stuff.
So like I I think they they both draw more from history and from
literature and from you know tropes and common stories than
they do from their current time necessarily.
I mean I mean George RR Martin is writing The Winds of Winter
in the year 2023, but he but The Winds of Winter is not about the
year 2023. The Winds of Winter is more
about the you know 80s when when George Martin was coming up.
You know and George has said as much in interviews that he he's
George is not writing about 2023 politics in A Song of Acid Fire.
He's more responding to history and more universal.
Cultural ideas, that's something that interests him more in in
general the things that he reads about like he grew up reading
history and you know he has painted figurines of Knights and
he loves you know Lord of the Rings is a one of his biggest
influences. So that that sort of thing,
history repeating itself, the cycles of history and ancient
world or the medieval world, that is more his jam.
Even though he's written substantial amounts of both.
He has a pretty wide catalog. He's written a lot of sci-fi and
he did that before he wrote and fire, which is probably where he
gets some of that ability to use different notes within a
familiar story, which helps be more unique.
I think that adds to it overall, I'd say.
Yeah, I think both George and Frank are writing as much in
response to Beowulf and the Iliad as they are to the
politics of their contemporary time, that they're really
reaching for something more universal.
And and I think that's part of why these series have so much
longevity. Like Dune is a book that is
being read and enjoyed some 60 years after its publication.
And and A Song of Ice and Fire I I suspect will be read for a
long time as well. Because yeah, they're both
reaching for something universal rather than chasing any kind of
like current, current trend or whatever.
I wonder how much they have in common regarding doing
psychedelic drugs. Yeah, must be asked.
Yeah, drugs are definitely a theme in both stories and in
both authors lives. Yeah, right.
Like, no, Herbert experimented with psychedelic.
Maybe more than experimented with.
I'm not quite as clear on George, but he's a huge fan of
the Grateful Dead, you know, his Dead head and that subculture.
And yeah, I mean, he doesn't have children, so there's
nothing really stopping him, you know?
So yeah, and with the the Weirwood visions and the way he
writes things like that, it might pay off to have some
experience if you're going to write prophecies and visions to
maybe you had a few of your own. Yeah, yeah, 'cause obviously
Spice is the powerful drug that's at the heart of Dune, and
there's also other drugs like Sappho and some muta in Dune, A
Song of Ice and Fire. The drugs aren't as obvious, but
you have drugs like the shade of the evening, which Daenerys
takes before her visions, and Euron also drinks shade of the
evening. And interestingly, shade of the
evening stains your lips a dark blue, dark purple, dark indigo,
which is similar to how the mintats have their lips stained
red by the drugs that they take. And the indigo of shade of the
evening might be a bit like the blue of the spice in Dune.
Like that one, Yeah. And the whatever brand drinks
that thing that is debatedly Jojen paste or not, seems to
trigger a bunch of visions as well.
So there's that, as well as Dream wine, apparently, can
maybe 'cause some visions. I know there's that famous scene
where Jamie has his vision, his dream with Brienne underneath
Casually Rock and King's garden and all that.
The ghosts in blue and white. He's under the influence of
dream wine and fever, and he's got his head resting on a
weirwood stump, so you know you've got.
Multiple factors there too. Shall we talk about the Baron
the and Illyrio Mapatis, the conniving fat man at the at the
heart of the story, pulling strings?
Let's do it. This was the the character I
mentioned that isn't a Lannister, you know doesn't
isn't a Lannister within the story in terms of Illyrio.
It has the characteristics of a harken which in early we made
the Harken and Lannister parallels.
Both of these large men have rings on every finger and my
favorite parallel here in terms of the way they move is that
area is unusually light on his feet.
And the in world description for that or reason for that is that
he's a former water dancer whereas the Baron is also
unusually light on his feet and that's because of the
suspensers. That's not unusual.
I guess it just would look unusual when you're seeing it
for the first time. Now if you're if you watched all
the various TV shows and movies, usually have him floating, but I
think in the book it's more of a just a lot, a lot of help.
But maybe I'm wrong about that, I don't recall exactly.
Either way, it's very similar in that sense.
Yeah, I think that as you say, yeah.
I think in the Dune book, the Baron doesn't so much levitate
and fly. He more is just held up partly
by the suspenses to make him lighter.
So he's it. It's almost like comical the way
he's described as like this big fat baby who sort of drifts and
hops across the ground lightly as though he's walking on the
moon or something. And it's like the the the
villain. The Villeneuve Dune movies make
the Baron a lot more sort of serious and dark and a lot more
dignified, whereas in the book the Baron is this more
ridiculous, comical, over the top talkative also like a sort
of like negative gay sex criminal stereotype thing.
This sort of this homophobic element in Dune in parts of it.
But yeah, the the Baron is is is more sort of ridiculous than
over the top in the books. And yeah, definitely similar to
Illyrio because Illyrio like similar to Vladimir in the
books, the Baron in the books. They both love the sound of
their own voice, and they both talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
And they both have these secrets that they blab about a little
bit too much. The Baron, there's a couple of
moments in the books where the Baron says something and gives
away something, and then he's like, oh, why did I say that?
I shouldn't have given that away?
And in I think the same way, like in Elyrio's conversations
with Tyrion, Elyrio says things about, oh, you know, I have
debts of affection to repay. And, you know, a dragon is still
a dragon. And he has all these little
lines where he sort of he, he, he can't help himself but sort
of hint at his grand scheme, which I think is part of what
what leads or will lead to their undoing.
So yeah. The the possible connection
parallel to that is Aria overhearing virus and Illyrio
plotting under the Red Keep. And you know, that's not them
blabbing because they have a very reasonable expectation that
no one's listening. But it, you know, creates a
similar thing where something gets leaked the way that the
audience can see kind of straightforwardly.
I I think it's interesting how both characters use words like
the Baron. Vladimir explicitly, like Frank
was obsessed with language and and how language can be used and
misused. And so there's times like, you
know, the Baron says oh I promised that I won't kill
Jessica and Paul, so therefore I won't kill Jessica and Paul.
I will just leave them in the desert and the desert will kill
Jessica and Paul. So it's a sort of like
ridiculous like semi truth. And I feel like Illyrio plays
with language in similar ways. I can't think of a direct
example, but Illyrio's Illyrio and Varys definitely like play
with like language and appearances.
Varys is of course a Mama, you know he he he's a playwright, he
takes on disguises and he and he uses things that are technically
true but not quite. So I think there's similarities
there as well. 2 examples to come to mind from Illyrio is is
1 where he twists Tyrion around regarding the poisonous
mushrooms and it kind of manipulates him that way and
trying to tricks him into showing him and you do want to
live. See, I proved it to you by
presenting you with the choice. And another one maybe is the way
he Nikito's his way past Viserys temper tantrums.
Like take me for a fool and he's like, oh, I take you for a king
because kings lack the caution of common man.
He turned, he just is very smooth at turning an insult into
a compliment, you know, And a lot of that is just the way
Viserys took it in the 1st place.
Yeah, I agree. They're both very good talkers
and they talk a lot and Tyrion thinks about that how he just
wants me. The more Illyrio talks and the
more he drinks, he's maybe more careful than the Baron.
But he does let a few things out that Tyrion's able to get a
sense of a lot of things. Tyrion figures out that this,
that they're up to something. He he figures out that that
young Griff is more important to him than he's letting on.
Which has led to all these black fire theories and and him being
his father and more suspicions about that, his connection to
Varys and all these other things that help set up the black fire
plot, the young Griff plot, whatever you want to call it.
And that yeah, that feels pretty similar here.
Yeah, well, you, I mean, you mentioned Young Griff.
I I think that Illyrio Illyrio has this conspicuous fondness
for the handsome young boy, Young Griff, which I think is
similar to how the Baron Vladimir has a conspicuous
fondness for the handsome young boy Fayed Ralpha.
And you know, Fayed Ralpha and young Griff are both talented.
Well, maybe not talented, but but they're both like young
trained warriors and they both have nice hair and and they both
are Moody teenagers like Fade. Ralph and young Griff had both
like these impetuous teenagers who have these sort of temper
tantrums and they sort of they sort of are learning to be smart
like they are. They are being trained by their
villainous, conspiratorial mentor.
They're being trained to be a political player, but they are
not as good of a political player like Fader.
Alfa is not as good at scheming as the Baron Vladimir, and young
Griff is not as good at scheming as Illyrio.
And that's how Tyrion is able to mess with young Griff and
convince him to go West and all of that.
So. So you know, I don't.
I don't, I don't think that Illyrio is like sexually
interested in young Griff in the way that the Baron Vladimir is
sexually interested in Fader Alfa.
But I think there's definitely like a similarity to their to
their close relationship and that sort of mentor relationship
and and how Young Griff and Fayed Ralpha, they both I think
are unworthy scions. You know, like the Baron has
invested all this time and energy into putting Fayed Ralpha
into power and Illyrio has put all this time and energy into
putting Young Griff into power. But we we can plainly see that
Fayed Ralpha and Young Griff are both not worthy to be rulers
because. They're not as good as the
alternatives. Yeah, that's the Super great
point. Yeah.
They both explore like that. They both are manufactured
heroes, Fayed Router and Younger.
If they both have been carefully created and and groomed to take
power, but that it just doesn't, that just isn't a good idea in
either situation. Ironically, they created the
better alternative through their actions by sending them into
situations where they weren't expected to survive.
They were coddled and protected all throughout their whole
lives, even though they were given a great education.
And virus goes on with that speech to Kevin about how O
Aegon has been scared. He knows what it's like to fix
Nets and swim in a river and do all these all this like common
born stuff and but that's nothing next to what Danny has
gone through, right? Danny's gone through way more
than that. Danny's gone through
legitimately, feared for her life.
She was sold as a slave. She was, you know, taken by a
Dothraki call and seen horrible things in war already at a young
age, whereas young Griff didn't see any of that.
And the same with Paul. Faye didn't see any of those
things. He didn't go through like true
hardships. He may have had tough training
sessions and sweated out, you know, a lot of calories while in
the gym, you know, I'm sure his muscles were large, but he
wasn't like shaped by the desert like Danny and Paul were.
And and fought with the the Fremen or with the Dothraki,
which are a bit of a parallel here, at least at least in this
particular context where it's just really hard living and it
makes you tough if you survive it.
And neither of them were expected to survive.
And because they did, they're a better stavier slash leader
figure than this engineered version that was basically grown
in a lab, if you want to use that metaphor.
That's the plan that's being foisted.
Here you have a Baron who has this beast, Rabin, to be a bad
ruler that everybody hates. He's doing some purpose in order
to later replace him with his beloved engineered alternative
and fade. Which is exactly what Illyrio
and Vars are trying to do by sending Viserys leading Dathraki
to Westeros and then have their guy come in and be the savior
against that, and thus come out ahead and be beloved for his
being such a hero. So it's it's super similar in
that regard, of course. And you know, obviously there's
huge differences. If we were to sit here and list
all the differences, there'd be huge differences as well.
But these similarities are are stark and and crazy and cool.
I love it. Yeah.
No, I that that is a similarity
that is so specific that I think it almost has to be George
copying Frank Herbert. Because yeah, Illyrio sending
young Griff to replace awful Viserys is the is the same
goddamn idea as the Baron sending Fade to replace the
awful Raban. It it's it's the same plan and
it's such a specific plan. So yeah, I love it.
Love it. Yeah.
So. And of course there's, I wonder
if I think Illyrio isn't rich from, rich from whale fur, but
he does trade. And you know, he did get rich
from. I mean, that Origin stuff is
kind of similar. And like, he eats like crazy.
And yeah, yeah. Yeah, they both love food and
money and luxury and and that that sort of indulgence is all.
Yeah, coding for a sort of villainous vibe.
So yeah, huge similarities. And they both are slavers.
Illyrio has slaves and the Harkonnens have slaves and so
they both use and abuse people and that's part of their
villainy. And and and yeah, like, it's
it's that whole idea of, you know, Illyrio creating and
installing young Griff and Vladimir installing Phaedra
Alpha. It it's that idea of you.
You can't manufacture true worthy heroism.
You can't be born into true, worthy heroism.
You can only get it by experience and work and
intention and hardship. And that's what Paul and
Daenerys represent. And that's how both stories
criticize monarchy and and feudalism.
It's that idea that any kind of power passed down through
generations is is just a deeply flawed system.
Even when the good guys wield it.
Yeah, right. Like even they can't avoid a lot
of the problems that come in here into the system.
Yeah, you're not born into power.
You have to earn power. And that's what the heroes do in
both stories. That's part of John.
We didn't even mention Jon Snow. That's a big part of him as
well. Whether or not no matter how his
end goes he has gone through a lot to gain power or to have
been placed over other people to have the responsibility of
leadership. He he first went through
legitimate dangers and and survived legitimate things and
and suffered and and a lot of that.
So yeah Arya she's not necessarily going to be a leader
but she's gone through a lot. Ansa is is probably going to be
a leader been through a lot right.
And yeah, it's it's a recurring they're all going through
legitimate experience rather than something that's that's
cultured or done behind closed doors.
Someone in the live chat points out that the 2nd June book has a
has a quirky, funny dwarf called bejazz, which is similar to
Tyrion is often playing word games and being funny and
provocative. I I think there are some
similarities between Bejazz and Tyrion.
It's. A great point.
I'm surprised I missed that. Yeah, it's really obvious.
Nothing to mention it, yeah. And and George has had several
dwarf characters. I I remember the the authors of
The Expanse, Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank were saying that George
Martin, like the the The Expanse sci-fi story started as a
tabletop role-playing game with Daniel and and George and others
as players and and George's character in this role-playing
game was a was a dwarf character.
With a. Really ridiculous name that I
can't remember off the top of my head, but yeah, dwarves.
That's amazing. I knew about the campaign stuff.
I didn't know George's character was a dwarf, though.
That part's new to me. That's great, Yeah.
Yeah, George has a has a thing for dwarfs, apparently.
Shall we talk a little more about Daenerys and Paul?
Because they both are these, you know, scions of ancient powerful
houses who lose their birthright and they both wander the desert
and they both learn to survive in a different environment.
And they learn to live with locals, the Dothraki and the
Fremen. What?
What other similarities are there?
This is a really strong one and it's it's nicely LED into from
this, this plotting of before where we talked about who the
real hero figures are, the ones who have really had strong and
tough upbringings. That's probably the most
overarching similarity between them is that they are inheritors
of huge important bloodline it at a really hugely important
time, and they both have prophetic visions.
Both have said they're going out into the desert and survive
that. And out in the desert they
interact with and come to lead an extremely powerful local
regional group like the Dothraki slash.
The Fremen in this case, who are extremely formidable like the
Fremen of course, are a much much much older culture.
They're much more highly developed.
The Dothraki are are more just straightforward warrior culture
in its in its first few 100 years or maybe a little later.
It's kind of unclear when they actually started, but they
definitely aren't anywhere near as old as the Fremen.
Though the Dothraki don't tame you know, Dragons, Daenerys does
and that's obviously a a parallel to the the shy halood
and the riding of sandworms which very few people do.
Just like very few people ride Dragons in the history of A Song
of Ice and Fire and they both have a a family member with them
when they're when they're go out into exile.
Of course Danny has an incompetent, poor influence on
her. And then Viserys, whereas Paul
has Jessica, who is extremely capable, like the exact opposite
of Viserys. Level of competence and level of
education and mental fortitude and everything.
I mean, they're they're about as opposite as it gets here.
And the pregnancy part is similar too, 'cause you have,
you have Paul being or Paul obviously isn't pregnant, but
Jessica is, and then Danny is pregnant, and it's with someone
who has passed recently within the story.
Yeah, it's interesting that like Daenerys, I, I think has this
intense loneliness because she's a Targaryen alone in the world.
And as you say, Viserys is not a good family member And and Paul
in contrast, Paul has his mother by his side, he has a, a family
member watching his back, which is great.
But but I guess Paul's isolation comes more from his prescience
and his visions and all these experiences that are going on in
his head that that that's sort of what isolates Paul.
And yeah, as you say, they both have these prophetic visions and
this sense of destiny that drives them.
And there's we can talk more about prescience later, but it's
something that is both empowering and it's also
dangerous. And there's also a question like
part of the books is that Paul, the way Paul treats the Freeman
is exploitative, is sort of part of the point.
And we can question, is it right the way that Daenerys uses the
Dothraki and that's something that I guess we will see more of
in the next books. Yeah, you're right, 'cause that
is obviously a huge question for Paul and and just not just how
he leads the Fremen, but how he wields power in general, which
will also be a question with Daenerys.
And they both will have to battle the Messiah complexes.
Like Danny is having these thoughts about, you know, I'm,
I'm lonely. I have all this power to be
responsible with this power, but it can be overwhelming.
I mean, she, we've seen her once or twice already, maybe lose her
temper and do something that she probably shouldn't have done in
terms of more morality, her own morality.
It would violate some, you know, things that she has said
previously she wouldn't do or wouldn't want to do.
And that's what we've been talking about since the
beginning, the use of power. And this is where we're going to
talk about Paul and Bran in a minute.
And this is where those things diverge.
Danny did not have good examples of wielding power.
Well, she had Viserys, and when she thinks of her father, that's
the mad King. Like that's not a good example,
and it's it's a good thing that she wasn't raised by him.
But her one maybe decent example is Rhaegar, who never actually
was king and she didn't know him.
Khal Drogo. Like she falls in love with this
guy, kind of because he's the only strong presence within her
world, The first person that like treated her halfway
decently, even though he also, you know married a 13 year old
or whatever she was, which is pretty sketchy.
So that's the what just goes to show what Oz good treatment in
her world. Whereas Bran, when we talk about
him, that's what's going to be more similar to Paul.
Like Paul had a pretty good upbringing.
He had great education, he was treated well and he had a lot of
people helping him learn, which is similar to more similar to
Bran, but we'll hold off on that for the for the moment.
Yeah, yeah. No, that's a great point.
Like, Paul had every advantage and every luxury and all the
training and knowledge in the world when he was growing up,
whereas Daenerys had nothing. She basically grew up on the
streets. So I think Daenerys, Daenerys
had a lot of obstacles and hardships that Paul didn't.
Paul has advantages over her. I I think there's another
similarity in that you know, like Paul and the Freeman and
like Daenerys and slavers BAE they they both are characters
who come into these foreign lands and these foreign cultures
and they tell they tell these foreign cultures what to do.
Paul says, hey Freeman you should follow me against Saddam
and not you should fight in the wedding way.
And Daenerys comes to slavers BAE and she's like, hey, you
guys should stop slaving and you guys should treat the people
differently. And she tries to totally upend
the social order of this foreign culture.
And there's lots of, like, complicated ideas about whether
or not that's a good idea. Both stories have been accused
of being a white saviour. Story like I remember was at the
end of Game of Thrones season three when Denaris liberates
Astepor or is it Marine? And there's that scene.
Yeah, the crowd surfing scene, yeah.
Yeah, Daenerys surfs the crowds and it's like this very like
visually striking thing where all of these like darker skinned
people are worshipping this white skinned person who has
just come to save them. And so and so, so both stories
of being accused of being a white saviour story.
And you know, I I, I think the, I think the point of June is
that it's about how Paul is a false Messiah and it's about how
it is a bad idea and it is wrong how Paul exploits the Fremen.
Whereas I, I think A Song of Ice and Fire has not quite.
That storyline has not concluded.
We don't really know how Daenerys will resolve the
situation in Slaver's Bay. And I'm really curious how it
will end. Like, will it end with, you
know, Slaver's Bay is like, wow, thanks for fixing our culture,
Daenerys. You sure told us a superior set
of morals and cultural norms to follow.
That's great that that's sort of what happens in the Game of
Thrones TV show where Daenerys inexplicably leaves Dario bloody
Naharis in charge of. And like, we're we're, we're
sort of meant to believe that Slavers Bay is fixed now.
And it's like, really? And again, like George says, he
doesn't write allegory. But like, there's obvious
parallels to, you know, Western invasions of the Middle East
and, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq and some of those
situations not turning out so well.
So I'm really curious how the Daenerys and Slavers Bay
storyline will resolve, and whether it will turn out to have
been a good idea for Daenerys to try to take over and reform
Slavers Bay. Yeah and that's something they
definitely have that is related. Both been pushed outside from
their claim or their their rightful title but they both
also have a supernatural destiny.
They're like a chosen one type figure.
Paul's kind of an engineered birth I you know manipulation
over a long period of time trying to create the the perfect
conditions or whatever. And Danny, it's not quite that
explicit but she's the mother of Dragons.
She's the one that brought Dragons back after all this time
and she had these visions in the first book of Ancestors with
pale swords and encouraging her to wake the dragon and all this
stuff. So absolutely similar Child of
Destiny stuff. And that's why this forks into
Bran a bit, because he also has a lot of that as well as John.
So Paul is kind of way. Paul is kind of Danny, Bran and
John wrapped into one with maybe even some of the other
characters, maybe even some Sansa thrown in there too.
I don't know. It's hard to say, but there's a
lot of these because it's some of these things that we said at
the beginning. Some of these are just common
tropes or features of stories that have lots of politics and
and big power games. But some of them are pretty
specific and pretty detailed. And yeah, it's kind of a
challenge to suss these things out.
Yeah, I mean, it's funny. We were talking about how, like,
Young Griff and Phaedra Alpha are both like manufactured
heroes and manufactured rulers, and how that's like, not a good
idea in the books. But it's true that, you know,
Paul is the product of this artificial breeding program, and
he has been bred and trained to be a leader like Young Griff and
Daenerys, You know, she's the Targaryen heir.
And she arguably may also have been the product of a breeding
program because it's not explicit in the books.
But there are all these hints about how you know many
Targaryens were into prophecy, like Viserys in House of the
Dragon. And there's all these hints that
you know the woods witch said that Jeharis and and his wife
should marry. And there's these hints about
Bloodraven may have, you know, like like egg marrying a
Blackwood who have the old God's northern blood.
And like that you know that it's a whole long speculative thing.
But there are hints that the Targaryens may be following a
certain prophesied bloodline genetic breeding program in
order to, you know, keep the dragon blood to themselves and
also and also potentially to produce the Prince That Was
Promised. That hasn't been revealed in the
books, but I think that it is hinted at, you know, so.
So in a way, Paul and Daenerys, they are both manufactured and
artificially bred to be saviours and heroes.
But the difference between them and young Griff and Fade Rafa is
that Paul and Daenerys also have experience, and they also have
struggle and they also have hardship on top of being bred to
be heroes and on top of being born into these great
bloodlines. So that they they are a
confluence of, like all all the different kinds of power coming
together in one person. For for good or for I'll.
Because of course, you know Paul Paul's ascension.
You know, I won't totally spoil it, but Paul's Ascension turns
out to be maybe not great. And Daenerys Ascension, at least
in Game of Thrones season eight, turns out to be maybe not great.
So that that, yeah, it's a huge part of.
The mixed bag, 'cause obviously she helped save the world from
the White Walkers, but then that other part doesn't go so well.
Jackie C, in the live chat asks if perhaps the dire wolf human
bond was also engineered. I don't know how much he liked
these tinfoil theories as these, but I I do like the idea that
the stocks in some way deliberately acquired the
magical power to skin change and to walk 'cause there's all these
bits in the world book about how the Starks, the Starks took the
daughters and the and the Starks forcibly married the people who
they conquered, including the Warg King.
The Starks married the Daughters of the Warg King.
And perhaps it was marrying the the family of the Warg King that
gave the Starks the warg blood and the warg genes that allowed
them to have that power. And you know, if George was
reading June and you know George has written other stories about
genetic manipulation and modification.
I I, I don't know if it'll ever be acknowledged in the books,
but it but I think it is very reasonable to think that the
stocks deliberately acquired certain magical genes just as
the Targaryens have certain magical genes.
I I mean, Aziz, you and Ashea interviewed George Martin
recently and George Martin was telling you guys about how you
know. Yes, like the reason why the
Targaryens do incest is in order to keep that dragon riding gene
to themselves and it's part of a sort of eugenic genetic plan.
So George definitely is aware of and mind is thinking in that in
that way and everyone should go and check out the history of
Westeros George Martin interview if you haven't already.
Thanks for the. Plug Yeah, that was a really
good interview. We we got a a lot of time with
him, almost an hour and a half, and we've listened to enough
interviews with him that we knew when to like try to stop him
'cause he'll go off for 5 minutes and something that maybe
he said in other interviews. So we were trying to steer him
in the direction of new things. And one of the things that came
from that was him talking about how it wasn't just the the
Dragon Lords that did that, it was also the blood magicians of
Valeri that did that. Which makes sense.
They're the ones that are fiddling with the genes in the
1st place to make them permanent or to make them dragon bonded or
to make them something that's similar to skin changing or
whatever allows them to continuously have the same
genetic features. Maybe some of that same magic
exists in Westeros. We did some episodes on how the
the houses that still have weirwood trees seem to have
stronger genetic patterns than ones that don't.
So that might be you know a way for George to have sort of
implanted that within his world. So yeah, there's a lot of that
in both and and it's like this is one that's also a not a trope
but a a fun feature of fantasy and sci-fi.
Maybe more fantasy because in sci-fi it's more, well, you
engineer this, you can change someone's DNA that's more like a
in a sci-fi shadow it can be almost ad hoc, but in a fantasy
setting it has to be a little mysterious and more like
underground, a little more random, a little more uncertain.
And when it comes to buy it is Lovecraft.
His breeding of people with the Old ones, or the rather the deep
ones rather, was a recurring feature in some of his stories
where people would have that within them and it would slowly
manifest. And if madness slowly manifests
in the Targaryens and they already have, instead of fish
features, they have dragon features which we see manifested
in some of these children that come out horribly wrong.
Oh yeah, I think it would be wrong to not be open to some of
these genetic manipulation theories without being too
specific about them. Yeah, I mean where did the
Starks get that ability? Why did the this horrible
tradition of first night persist?
Well, maybe because they were trying to spread this magical
DNA around to enough people or maybe that's why people accepted
it because they could receive magical DNA.
And that that also explains like the dragon seeds who sometimes
they considered themselves blessed when a dragon Lord would
come and sleep with them because they might have a silver haired
child that. Well the implication being it's
more than just the silver hair that matters there, you know.
So obviously this is a big part of Dune as well, the
manipulation of bloodlines, the certain families breeding with
other families, certain things being right at the right time.
I'm not as familiar with the Dune stuff.
I haven't read Dune nearly as many times as Song of Ice and
Fire but you you filled that in all pretty well already anyway.
So yeah the parallels are are very strong there.
There's other there's other stories that do this like the
Witcher bloodline you know, chosen one.
All these these things come out in a lot of different stories
but I think both of these stories do it particularly well.
They use they they invert the trope.
They it's not just Chosen one hero win.
It's no there's problems with being the Chosen 10.
Like, what does this do to you, Lord?
Lord of the Rings has that in a sense.
Frodo isn't a supernatural being.
But having held on to the One Ring for so long messes that
dude up, right? And that's somewhat directly
supernatural. But it's meant to also be
metaphorical, because it messed up everyone who held it.
Yeah, it all comes down to power, I think like like the
political power, the magical power, the prophetic destined
power, it's it's all different ways of looking at how does
power affect people and how does, you know the the the act
of striving to get what you want, how does that change you
and and what what is the cost? I think that's a big part of it.
So while we're talking about, you know, Daenerys with the
Dothraki and and Paul with the Freeman, there's a lot of
similarities I think with Jon Snow's relationship with the
Wildlings and Daenerys's relationship with the Fremen.
Because the Fremen are are the free people who are outside the
control of the realm, and the the wildlings call themselves
the Free Folk. They are outside the control of
of Westeros and they both are underestimated by the powers
that be. There's there's some really
similar passages where the Baron Vladimir and the Emperor, they
think that there's barely any Fremen, just like a few
Renegades at at the at the edge of the desert.
Whereas in reality there's millions of Fremen all through
the planet. And and similarly, there's a
moment in Book 3 where Tywin says no, there can't be lots of
wildlings like the lands beyond the Wall cannot support vast
numbers of wildlands, when in reality you know, a 100,000
wildlings turn up at at the Wall later on.
And and and so they both of these, they're both of these
underestimated cultures who exist in these extreme climates
and have adapted to these extreme environments and turn
out to be a force far greater than anyone expected.
Yeah, that kind of speaks to how George writes his story in one
of the major comparisons of it to a lot of other stories,
whether it's doing or otherwise. He takes, he takes these things
and he layers them. Like Paul had all these things
wrapped into one character, whereas we just talked about how
a lot of these features are spread out between Bran, John
and Danny. In some cases they're doubled.
They're like you just said, the Fremen are paralleled in both
the Dothraki and in the Free Folk, and there's elements to
them in both how they learn, how they learn to lead, the lessons
they learn as compared to the lessons of their home culture.
And how they have to square those two is really important.
Like everything Paul has grown up with, a lot of it's thrown
out the door when he meets the Freeman.
But on the other hand, some of those things line up pretty well
and he's able to win them over using some of those things.
But also he just has, you know, they the set up for him.
You know, they are quoting scripture that, you know, shows
his arrival is coming. And they're like, oh, this is a
chosen, this is the person we've expected.
Which is that, I guess speaks to the the vast amount of
groundwork laid for Paul before he he took the reins, before he
was even born, but also before he took the reins of power.
And for Danny, those things were there too.
They just weren't laid out for her.
They were laid out, but she took them.
They were a part of her family. But she was an afterthought in
Illyrio's plan until she wasn't, until she proved she was what
they were like. Oops.
Actually, she hatched. She did what?
Now? She hatched dragon eggs.
OK, let's let's work her into the plan.
But she wasn't part of it initially.
And that's kind of what John is. John was an afterthought to a
lot of the main characters. He's not important.
He's this kid on the wall, right?
He was the the bastard son that was the least important of the
Starks. Obviously as a reader, you don't
necessarily see it that way. But within his lens of his
society, he said to the Wall when he's 15, I mean that's
that's clearly a a child you don't expect to have a big
future. But obviously that's not how it
goes at all. He has a huge future.
And that's the similarity between Paul and and Danny.
They accepted John wasn't expected to die, though he was
believed dead in the context of being lost beyond the wall.
And of course there's a couple times that happens actually, but
John's believed dead a couple times and now currently we're
waiting on him being stabbed and whether he's going to get back
up. So yeah, that one keeps coming.
Yeah, it's. Yeah.
I mean we were talking about how you know Paul and Daenerys are
both sort of manufactured heroes and they come from like a a plan
like you know Illyrio and Virus were planning to use Daenerys in
the in their play for the throne and the Benet Jesuit we were
planning to use Paul with the breeding program.
But but both of them, they they benefit from that plan but they
go off the plan and they defy the schemers who wanted to
manipulate them. And I guess this is sort of mild
spoilers for the first Dune book.
But you know Paul, Paul defies the Benet Jezera and he goes
against their their wishes and their expectations and I think
in a similar way Daenerys defies the expectations of Varys and
Elyria with the Dragons and and and her plans for Westeros.
So, so it it's about defying the scheme, isn't defying the plan
and choosing your own path, for better or worse.
And that's, you know, with with the Fremen and the free Folk and
the Dothraki. Like these are both these great
armies that the heroes adopt control over, and they use these
armies potentially to take over the realm and and in all these
cases there's an implication that it might not be such a good
idea to do so. Because you know, without
spoiling too much, the Fremen's influence on the universe is
maybe not good. And you know, John in his
chapters thinks a lot about how you know I want to let the
wildlings through the Wall. But if I do that, there will be
thousands of wildling Raiders who might want to raid the north
and burn the north and steal stuff and and kill people.
And and similarly the Dothraki Denarius worries that the
Dothraki could cause chaos in Westeros.
So you know the the Fremen and the and the wildlings and the
Dothraki are all these powerful tools but who can't but but who
may cause as much damage as as good.
So there's a lot of danger and complexity there.
I I also like how you know each of these cultures has a strong
male leader who is respectable in certain ways but who the hero
screws over. So like the leader of the Fremen
in Dune is Stilgar and Stilgar is this really impressive, smart
thoughtful capable powerful guy. And you know I guess mild
spoilers but you know Stilgar. Stilgar gets he becomes less and
he is reduced through his relationship with Paul.
He becomes a follower and and he becomes less of like his own man
as a result of Paul and there's a tragedy to that and I think in
a similar way like John sort of supplants Mance Raider.
You know Mance Raider. John likes Mance Raider and and
Mance is almost like a father figure to John.
Almost like how Stilgar is is a little bit of a father figure to
Paul and yet John inadvertently causes Mance Raider's downfall.
He is still alive in the books, but you know Mance Raider is
much humbled by John. And I think the other parallel
is, is Drogo. Karl Drogo is the leader of the
Dothraki and I think he Drogo is less admirable than Mans and
Stilgar. But there is still a kind of
tragedy in that. Drogo, you know, is beloved at
least by Daenerys and yet Daenerys actions cause Drogo's
downfall. Daenerys tries to save Drogo
from, you know, that infected wound, but you know Miri Mazda,
her influence may possibly have caused Drogo's death.
Or at least you know, Daenerys. Daenerys involvement in you
know, Drogo being turned into a catatonic zombie and you know
it's Daenerys who puts the pillow on Drogo's head.
So. So in all of these cases, the
hero causes the downfall of A at least semi likeable leader and
and there's there's something messed up about all of those.
Yeah. Even if they're not likeable,
you like you say they're not like a good person.
Like Drogo is not a good person. But you still you're still you
still find yourself curious what he's going to do.
Wanted to see him actually invade.
Well, like a lot of us wanted to see what happened if he invaded
Westeros. And like how is that going to go
Like these aren't real people. You know I'm not I'm not wishing
real suffering on the world. I want to see what happens if
this dude invades Westeros. I remember a good friend of mine
was like reading the books and it's like, I can't wait to see
what Karl Drogo does when he gets to Westeros.
And I'm like, you know, this was like 10 years ago, but so funny
stuff like that. But yeah, you're right.
Like that's a similar thing. Like, it goes to the same power
theme that we keep coming back to.
George talks about it in terms of magic using a metaphor that I
like, which is sorcery is like a sword without a hilt, and these
or like peoples that you lead to victory against an important
opponent only to have what do you do with them afterwards is
that same kind of thing. The Dothraki are a sword without
a hilt. The Fremen are a sword without a
hilt. Once they have a certain amount
of power or reach or whatever, then yeah, they're they're you
can't put that sword back in the scabbard afterwards.
And that's yeah, that's a definite strong power theme
between these two stories. There's an interesting line in
in Melisandre's POV chapter where she thinks that she's
she's sort of pretending to be helping the Wildlings and Mance
Raider. But internally, Melisandre
thinks, yeah, these wildlings are doomed.
The free folk Mance Raider is doomed, they will go extinct,
There's no helping them. And it's like this really dark,
like messed up thing that, you know, Melisandre and the
characters are using the free folk, but Melisandre expects
they're doomed. And, you know, moderate, I
suppose spoilers for book four of Dune.
But, you know, the the Fremen we learn are also a doomed people
because ultimately their culture does basically go extinct and
they become this pathetic museum Fremen culture and you know,
they lose their original lifestyle.
And and you know I think that I think that's I think that is
inevitable for the wildlings in A Song of Ice and Fire because
you know the Wildlings have mostly already been killed by
the White Walkers I think and you know like the and and
they've broken against the wall and they're having to leave
their homeland. And you know, if even if the
wildlings survive, I, I I'm not sure the wildlings will survive
beyond the Wall, which I think if they're not existing and
living in their in their natural environment, in their in the
place that their culture is based on, can their culture
survive, you know, so, so I see a lot of similarities there
with. Yeah, it's a great one because
it's it's it's also succinctly said by another character in the
same parallel. We're making witches with Mary
Mazdur, she mocks Danny. When Danny's like, hey, I saved
your life and she's like, not really.
You say you literally saved my life, but everyone I knew and
loved in my home, all those things are gone.
Like, what is my my? My life sucks now.
I don't even really want to be alive.
Like, I kind of would rather be dead.
I wish I died with everybody else.
You know, I have nothing now. And that's this.
That's a similar thing, you know, with these, Like, if the
wildlings aren't free, if they're not living the way they
lived, then yeah, they are. They might still be alive, but
they're no longer wildlings. It's not as harsh as Miriam
Mastur, more a gradual thing, right?
It'd be something that plays out over generations, like it's like
you say it does with the Fremen. It's the same fate for those
people. It's a it's a way of life that
that dies with the events of the story or starts to die that you
see that that boulder start to roll downhill, even if it takes
a while to get to the bottom. Yeah, that's a great point about
Miriam Mastur because, yeah, we were wondering earlier if you
know a song, Device and Fire ever will sort of, you know,
question more Daenerys savior role with Slaves Bay and
everything. Yeah, I guess even from book
one, the Song of Ice and Fire books have said, hey, Daenerys,
like when you try and come in and save these other cultures,
sometimes it's not as simple as you think, and sometimes you're
not being as helpful as you think you are.
And yeah, Mirror Mazda is a really, really strong point in
that direction for sure. Yeah, they make it clear.
And I think Dune does this as well by showing you have, well,
when it's an obvious brutal enemy, your choices are simpler,
but you can still lead to harm later.
Like Danny, it's going to be very straightforward.
Like, yeah, well, Dothraki are bad, but they're not as bad as
the others, killing everyone, literally wiping them all out.
And so that's the that's part of the conundrum.
But you also have this ground of well, you can't just leave those
people behind either. Like the Dothraki.
Those are you know you don't it's wrong to wipe them out
entirely. And with Slavers Bay, the
example is OK, Well, George made it the worst possible people.
You could just show that even if you're trying to reform a
culture that absolutely definitely is evil, like,
there's no doubt Slavers Bay. Like he he goes so far as to
have them have hairstyles of horns.
Right. They shape their hair into horns
like it's it's it's hell. Like it's meant to remind you of
Western Christian versions of hell.
There's people living in an extreme heat with constant
endless brutality, and the people inflicting this are ultra
rich people with horns. You know, like what's it's The
metaphors are really strong. So if you can't fix that, if the
moral question isn't whether you should fix that, it's how do you
fix that, right? And if you can't even fix that,
then how do you do? How do you handle these much
more nuanced situations? How do you like Yes, it's right,
right? The Emperor is trying to kill
your family. You.
It's fair for you to stop him. Let's look at all the You're
also affecting the entire Galaxy, or the entire known
human Galaxy? Yeah, yeah, I I think you're
right that, like, George makes the cultures of Slavers Bay
cartoonishly evil. So that we can ask, you know, if
Daenerys, if Denaris can't reform these cartoonishly evil
slavers who literally eat puppies without creating,
without creating like a moral quagmire, then how on earth can
Denaris hope to take over Westeros without creating a
similar mess of of of of moral complications.
So, so yeah, I think that's what it's going for.
It's maybe getting a little too deep into just Danny
specifically, but like, look who her advisors are.
She's got like, she's going to have like, Makoro and Tyrion and
Dora. Maybe if he's allowed.
These are not like. The Tattered Prince.
Yeah, like these are her people
giving her advice. Like a brown Ben Plum, you know?
Like she knows these aren't good people, necessarily.
But still, this is who's telling her things.
You know, Kirsten is a good man, but he's not, like, savvy enough
to give her advice on these trickier issues anyway, and and
he might not be around much longer.
Yeah. Compared to Paul, who has like
the most over the top, like virtuous wise people, you know
the best of the best are his advisors, and Daenerys's
advisors are the worst of the worst.
Yeah, it's an it's a really interesting dichotomy that the
George lays out early on with the the type of education that
the different people are getting in their their environment,
their nature, nature versus nurture.
So part of the horror of Slavers Bay is of course the Unsullied.
Who are these children who are forced to kill puppies and who
are castrated and made into eunuchs and used as slave
soldiers? And we think there are some
similarities between the Unsullied and the Sadaqa.
I'd say so, because they're both trained from a very young age,
if not birth, and they're born into an environment there's
absolutely no escape from. And that you you must turn into
this thing that they're making you become.
It's a lot like, well, it's definitely slavery in the
Unsullied case, even even, you know, accepting maybe after
Danny's freed them. And with the Sadaqa, they're
basically a slave army, right? Like it's not quite that simple.
I don't think they've got a retirement plan, no.
And they're pretty incredibly tough.
Like they're really hard to beat.
You know they're they're perhaps the toughest thing there is in
their in their world. Although Saratakar, obviously
tested by the Fremen, that's the ongoing thing.
And the Unsullied, we'll have to see what happens with them.
You know, how they stand up to armies of dead or whatever else
they face. I'm not quite sure about that
yet but seems like that'll be even though they're not
necessarily murderous you know raping savages or whatever you
want to call what's going to be left behind.
They still something still has to be done with them.
They still have to have lives after the fact.
And they may be rather than a danger to society, society might
be a danger to them because everyone's going to, you know,
they might be shunned. They might not be accepted.
They might. And they, I don't know.
Westeros isn't going to be a kind place to them, Even if
they're heroic, even if their actions are are important and I
don't know that they'll be treated well, might be like
another opportunity for allegory after the fact that veterans not
being treated well, you know, by the population that benefited
from their service. Grey Worm will simply start his
own noble house, Aziz, just like his parents.
Easy solution. Like, yeah, like the the
Unsullied themselves are not necessarily cruel warriors in
the way that the Sadacar are, but the creation of the
Unsullied is unbelievably cruel. And I think that that cruelty is
meant meant to reflect on the society that creates them.
Like the cruelty of the Sadacar shows how bad and unjust the
Kirino Empire is, and the cruelty of the Unsullied
creation shows how cruel and unjust Astapor and Slaver's Bay
is. So in both cases it's it sort of
justifies those regimes being overthrown, I think.
I I also think there's similarities between the Sadaqa
and the Kingsguard because the Sadaqa are like the Imperial
Loyalist best warriors who who serve the Emperor, and the
Kingsguard are the supposedly the best warriors who are most
loyal to the Kingsguard. But of course, we learned that,
you know, Kingsguard are sometimes not loyal and they are
corrupt and they're sometimes not even very good warriors like
Boros Blanche. And similarly, the Sadaka, we
are told, have become weaker because they're corrupt and
they're arrogant and they're no longer as powerful as they used
to be. So.
So the Kingsguard and the Sadaka both represent like the
degradation and the corruption of the regimes.
That's a great point. You you see the Kingsguard, the
early one and it's something that's spoken of in the books in
several places by several characters and how great the
Kingsguard used to be even in Aries's time.
And it's debatable whether those guys were actually great
morally, but they were definitely great warriors and
yeah, like in the current times, yeah these guys are mixture of
horrible people and just incompetent people and and
people who don't belong like Jamie.
So right. Even though he was, he doesn't
belong for a couple of reasons possibly.
But either way, yeah, it the the parallel is very strong, even
though the Kingsguard is a much smaller order.
And the the Night's Watch isn't maybe as corrupt, but it is
another example of an institution that fell apart over
time and that's causing big problems in this story.
I mean, they're assassinating their own leader.
It's not what you're supposed to do, it's.
Not a. Kingsguard did that too, yeah.
Both the Kingsguard and the Nights Watch have killed their
own leader in the in the story you know.
Yeah, yeah. The the the rot in the
institutions represents the rot in the regime.
Yeah and you see these things within some of these other
organizations we and that how that's a recurring theme with
someone like Ned who leaves a legacy of people wanting to be
like him because he did good things and that's a positive
inspiration versus the the exam prior example of of someone like
Tywin who inspired the opposite And then we have the same with
like a a Baron Harkonnen who he's worried about his own
family killing him right. And Tywin's own family does kill
him, you know so. Yeah, great point.
Yeah. It it's not only like
institutional corruption, it's it's it's families are
dysfunctional. You know, like the Carino family
is so messed up and dysfunctional and the Lannister
family is so messed up into functional and so are the
Targaryens. I mean, you know that that they.
I mean, even the Starks, I mean all of the families are
dysfunctional in their own little ways.
Even the Atrades, like, you know, the sort of tension with
with Lato and Jessica and Jessica's resentment that Lato
never married Jessica. You know, like, I mean it's
like, it's like what? What is it that that quote about
how, you know, happy families are all the same, but unhappy
families are all unique and interesting.
There are no perfect happy families in Westeros.
Or if there are, George Martin isn't writing about them.
Yeah, they're they're not very fun.
Let's leave them alone. I always think that's what's
happening on the Arbor. Like, except for now that you're
on, ships are hitting there. I'm like, where where is the
best place to be? Like deep inland at the Arbor?
The Ironborn can't get to just have wine and it's warm.
Winter's definitely not going to get down there, you know.
Yeah, maybe. Maybe I.
Don't know where that would be in Dune either.
Yeah, yeah, maybe. Maybe the house Tolland or
something is is having a perfectly happy idyllic life
while all the messed up families are off fighting for power.
I I'd like to respond to some super chats and then I'd like to
move on to a slightly more spoilery zone as we start to
talk more about some of the later in game book type stuff.
So thank you for the Super chat from Isaac who says what do you
think of the themes that June and A Song of Ice and Fire both
explore the most and how does it compare?
I mean we've talked a lot about power, haven't we?
They both obviously are stories about power, and they're stories
about heroism and questioning heroism and how power changes
people. It's also about like prescience
and plans and prophecies and the dangers of those things.
And we're going to talk about those things in depth soon.
Thanks for the Super chat from Gladys's bastard son Gladys
Pike, who says do you think that June Part 2 will be any good?
What do you recognize this? I think so.
I mean, part one was pretty darn solid.
I mean, I enjoyed it a lot. And I think there's no reason
not to think Part 2 will be pretty good at at least if not
better than pretty good. So I'm pretty optimistic yet
I'm. I'm not usually that optimistic
these days. There's so many.
If it was the first movie, I I wouldn't have been so sure.
But now that they've done a good job with the with the first
movie, I have more confidence in the second one.
So yeah, what about you? Yeah, I'm.
I'm hopeful. I, I noticed that at least from
the trailers, it looks like June Part 2 will be different from
the books much more than June Part one was.
June part one was pretty faithful to the books.
It just cut out a few things. Whereas June Part 2 seems to be
introducing whole new plot lines that weren't in the books at all
involving like Irulan and Shaddam and Riskier.
Yeah, it's riskier. Like those things could be
improvements, but I I hope that they don't you know mess with
the art of what makes the books good.
I I think that Danny Villeneuve's intentions are good
and I think that he wants to capture what the books are about
South. So fingers crossed.
Thanks for the Super chat from film cram Who says, are you
suggesting that like the quiz at's Hatarack prophecy or like
the mission area Productiva, the Azora High Prophecy has been
implanted in its variations across the world artificially to
prep for the white Walkers attacking?
Well, there is that thing in in House of the Dragon which
apparently George Martin suggested about how Aegon the
Conqueror may have had a vision and conquered Westeros in order
to protect Westeros from the White Walkers and avert the
apocalypse. And there's the implication that
you know, Viserys believed in that prophecy and and passed
that prophecy down and you know, Blood Ravens manipulations.
And I I I think there certainly is evidence in the books that
the Targaryens were consciously preparing for the White Walkers
to appear. And and what is a prophecy if
not a warning? You know what is a prophecy?
If not someone from the past saying, hey, this is going to be
a problem, you should prepare for it.
Certainly a big theory around Quaith as well, whether she's
part of some manipulation and manipulation doesn't have to
mean negative like they're they have some goal of profit or
ambition. It can mean we need to
manipulate this person into saving the world, you know, or
into putting her on the right path to doing what needs to be
done. It's not about personal benefit.
It's about making sure everyone survives or making sure this
thread is met properly and without any interference,
though. Yeah, I think there's
definitely, I mean, it's outright said that you can go
into someone's dreams with glass candles.
George already made it possible in his world in at least one
way. So yeah, dream manipulation or
implanting A prophecy, which These are different things, but
you know, they're related. They're there.
Yeah. The Azorahi Prophecy is super
old. The Prince that Was Promised
Prophecy is perhaps a a different variant or just a
different name for the same thing.
And that's been around a long time and it's come up in
multiple places. You got characters talking about
it. In a lot of like Amon talking
about it. It relates to Rhaegar, it
relates to Bloodraven. Yeah, it just, we're just not
there yet with all all of the reveals.
But it feels like it's going to involve some of those same
mechanisms of manipulating the truth.
But maybe for good reasons and or just reading what's coming,
you know, the prophet. It could be more straightforward
than we think in some ways. It's just the way George is kind
of revealing it more slowly. But either way you have this
parallel. It works either way.
Yeah, it's interesting that in both June and A Song of Ice and
Fire, like prophecies are not things that just exist naturally
and automatically and immutably, and they just are what they are
and they just are the truth. Prophecies in A Song of Ice and
Fire are made by people who have motivations.
And you know, we see how Melisandre interprets and
misinterprets her prophecies based on her own biases.
And we see how like visions and dreams are not not just
something that happened naturally but can be planted, as
you say, like Quaithe with glass candles enters Daenerys mind and
gives her certain messages for her own reasons.
And Bloodraven enters the minds of certain characters like JoJo
and Bran in order to manipulate them.
And so, so prophecies are not just this inherent magical thing
that they are just another form of power and of manipulation.
So I so I don't think A Song of Ice and Fire goes as far as
Frank Herbert did with the mission area protect Eva,
wherein entire like religions are created artificially over
thousands of years deliberately by the Beany Jesuit.
But it's not unreasonable to speculate because yeah, it is
suspicious that all over the world of Ice and Fire there are
all these suspiciously similar prophecies about the Prince that
was promised in Azorahai and Hakun the hero and the last
hero. And and you know, you have to
wonder. Are these like natural memories
of the past or are they planted myths and planted messages with
the purpose of telling people how to defeat the White Walkers
when they come again, how to create light Bringer, how to
sacrifice? And isn't this a how to use, how
to create dragon steel? Or you know, whatever the secret
is? One we haven't even mentioned
yet. We mentioned how Danny will
bring Unsullied and Dathraki. She's also going to bring lore
worshippers. We've been told that she's
savior of mankind. Narrow, the High priest of Red
Temple and Volantis, The largest one is openly preaching that.
When we see Tyrion and Jorah pass by, that's a big part of
the religious aspect that we haven't really seen fully play
out yet. Where we're seeing the we are
seeing the seven and the the High Sparrow.
And that stuff just gets started in the books and we we maybe
have some idea where that's going to go based on the show.
But the show didn't bring in these hordes of relorists.
They just had one. They just had Melisandre and
your Thoris was there too, I guess.
But he wasn't really a zealot. So that's going to be I think
that's something that goes under the radar because it wasn't in
the show. But I think we're going to see
that is something else Daenerys is going to bring which will
also which will help perhaps defeat the others but also
perhaps create some conflict out like what are they going to do
with all these like zealous fire worshippers in a realm of seven
worshippers. And that's similar to some
things that happened in Dune with belief and and the the
people getting a little too into Paul and who he is and and that
message going too far and and things that you were alluding to
earlier. Let's not forget fan favorite
character Kinvara, who had such a huge impact on the story.
Yeah, Daenerys is suddenly playing with fire, very, very
literally with the Riloric priests and and Volantis and all
of that. And again, I think that's
similar to like the religious fervor of the Fremen behind
Paul. We see religion as a as a
dangerous, powerful force that can get stuff done, but it also
is hard to control and fire burns.
Thanks for the Super chat from chug who says that Jon Snow will
be God Emperor of Westeros. Thank you, Lucifer.
Hey. Lucifer Morganster, who says
thank you, big fan, Thank you Nazar.
Who says something weird about George Martin?
Thank you Sean, who says thanks alt.
You got me into reading June. I'm on to heretics now, and
they've easily been the best books I've ever read.
What's your favorite movie? Wow.
Yeah, well, heretics is is fun. A lot of people don't like
heretics in Chapter House as much as the earlier books, but I
think they've all got a lot of fun, unique stuff going on.
What is my favorite movie? Oh my God, Aziz, can you go
first? I need to think what my favorite
movie is. I'm gonna take an easy way out
and just say the one I've seen the most, which is Monty Python
and the Meaning of Life. Fantastic choice.
An absurd amount of times when I was younger, I had it like, you
know, when I I I'm old enough to have had AVCR and only a few
tapes, and that was one of the few I had.
So I would play my online computer role-playing games
while just putting that movie on repeat.
So I'll go with that, yeah. Fantastic.
I I've got to say, I've seen the Blues Brothers a lot of times.
Oh, good one. That's a good film.
I also really like The Royal Tenenbaums.
I think I have a very basic movie taste, like I'm a real
basic bitch when it comes to movies.
So I'm a fan of Wes Anderson for sure.
I can't believe you, said The Royal Tenenbaums 'cause that is
the first movie Ashea and I watched together.
Oh. Really fantastic.
Yep. Yeah.
Oh, I love that film. Thanks for the Super chat from
Jordan who says Dune character alignment chart.
Yeah, I I saw that that notorious Rapscalli and Alt
Swift X did some character alignment streams with Glidis,
ranking characters on how how chaotic or orderly or and and
good and evil they are. The the Dungeons and Dragons
alignment system, which is fun. It it would be interesting to do
that with Dune characters because Dune characters morality
is so fraught and complicated. It would be very.
Hard to. To rank them, wouldn't it?
Yes, Yeah. How?
I don't, Jeez, what would Paul even be?
What would at least rank him? Is he?
Yeah, Paul exist through neutral Paul.
Exists on every point on the morality spectrum
simultaneously. He is.
And don't even get us started on like God Emperor later the
second My goodness, 'cause he, like he like, enforces order for
the sake of chaos and evil for the sake of good.
Thanks for the Super chat from Film Comics explained who says
the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality
to experience, which is one of the great Dune quotes.
And he says thanks for providing the best detailed analysis on
YouTube for both Dune and Game of Thrones that has helped us
all understand our experiences with our favorite IP.
Cheers, Niat, thank you so much Niat.
And check out Niat's channel Film Comics Explained.
Thank you Moss, who says thank you for helping me stay
connected to my friend who passed away last year.
He loved your videos. Keep up the great work.
Thank you Moss. Sorry to hear about your friend,
and thank you for the Super chat from Nuisance who says I think
there's parallels between Melisandre and Jessica as pseudo
prophets who are in on the facade.
I like the position facilitating A fervent movement that puts
them in resulting isolation. Yeah.
What do you think of that as Ace?
That's pretty clever. Yeah, 'cause Melisandre
obviously knows she's making some things up and she's using,
you know, changing some details to push things in a direction
that she thinks is correct. And yeah and Jessica also is we
see her get in trouble with the Benedjeserate because she does
some things her own way and is already kind of a a bit of a
rogue. Alessandra's like connection to
the Red Temple and like whose center doesn't seem clear, which
kind of leads us to believe, and I think reasonably so, that
she's also a bit of a rogue and doing some things outside of
what the higher ups or hierarchy the the people that have wield
power within the the Red Temple would would have done it.
So yeah, that's a really good catch.
I like that. Yeah, I think there's a suspect,
Martin, where where George did allegedly confirm that like,
yeah, Melisandre is she, she went to Stannis and Dragonstone
on her own accord and she's not operating under the orders of a
Red Temple. She she's sort of a renegade red
priest, which is really similar to how Jessica is like a
renegade Ben, a Jesuit who is deviating from from their plan.
And yeah, like in that scene with Mapes where Jessica sort of
lies and manipulates to fit the prophecy of the Listen Al Gaib
with Mapes. That is really similar to a lot
of what Melisandre does. When we see Melisandre,
Melisandre describes towers by the sea crumbling under a great
wave or whatever. And Jon Snow is like, oh, is
that Eastwatch? And Melisandre is like, Oh yeah,
that definitely is Eastwatch. But inside her thoughts, we see
Melisandre going, oh, I have no idea if that's Eastwatch.
I don't think that actually was Eastwatch.
But yeah, John seems to think so.
So I'll go with it. So And that's really similar to
when, when Jessica is like, oh, the maker.
Yeah, I totally knew that The maker is a sand worm.
Yeah, I know what a Chris knife is.
So so so both Melisandre and Jessica totally bluff in a
hilarious way. They they, they cold Reed almost
Mapes and Jon respectively. So yeah I think I think that's a
fantastic point nuisance. Thanks for the Super chat from
Isaac who says rewatched your hooded man video recently.
Who's your favorite character in the north at the end of dance?
I think that I think that Wyman Mandely is enormously fun
because Wyman is funny and evil AT and sort of heroic all at the
same time. Like Wyman has the speech about
the North remembers and how he wants to avenge his son who was
killed at the Red Wedding. And he gets revenge on the
phrase by cooking phrase into pie and feeding them to their
family. And he sort of wants to help
restore the Starks and he wants to save Rickon.
But really he's doing it for his own political empowerment and he
wants to make, he wants to take over the Hornwood lands.
And like Wyman has so many layers and motivations and it's
so much fun and it's so witty and and fun to read.
And so, yeah, he's one of my faves.
Thanks for the Super chat from Glidis who says, can you make a
video about how Curious George is different in the books versus
the TV show? Yeah, look, I mean, it's hard
to. Adapt.
I thought you did that already. I I have been thinking of of an
April Fool's joke explaining Bionicle's Law.
I I think it would be really funny to go real deep into all
of that if anyone remembers what Bionicles are.
But yeah, there's no limit to the ridiculous topics we can
cover on an April Fool's. Video.
Have you done any like straight up joke videos on history of
Westeros? He.
Did once. We did the wit and wisdom of
Stannis Baratheon a long time ago and it was just like reading
his quotes and and just like setting up some of the funny
things he said and just showing how funny he is.
He's we we cited him as I think the third funniest character in
a song of my story. There's Tyrion and dolorous Ed,
I think are probably ahead of him, but Dennis is makes a
strong case he's he's damn funny with all his sarcasm and jokes
about Robert and all that, yeah. Yeah, Stannis was robbed by the
Game of Thrones TV show. They.
He has so many funny lines in the books that were just not
included in the show, which is tragic.
Yes, a real a real tragedy. Thanks for the Super chat from
Dylan who says do the Bionicle video on Ironically.
Yeah. Well, look, I guess, I guess we
have to do it now. And that's all for this episode.
But we do have more. There is a spoilery portion of
this discussion that we also recorded in the episode, but we
cut it in half so that y'all who don't want to be spoiled can not
get spoiled. So that episode will be released
separately. Look out for it on your feed in
a week or two. That's it.
And Valar reread. The.