Welcome to Valerie Ritas For Dunkin Egg.
Our approach will be different than it was for A Song of Ice
and Fire. Rather than setting out a
specific number of chapters for each week, we'll aim to spend 2
hours per episode, covering as much as we can each time.
We'll cover the setting, the parallels, the plot connections
to A Song of Ice and Fire, the plot within the story itself,
and almost everything else you can imagine.
And I know you can imagine quite a bit, so this should be a lot
of fun. Yeah, we're changing the the
format a little bit, but the discussions, the humor,
analytical style should all be pretty much the same.
But there is, it's hard to do this by a chapter because the
chapters are so much shorter, right?
Yeah, yeah, In some ways they're not even chapters.
Like you could, you could look at them that way, but I don't.
So I, I, I wanted to come up with a different way to to
manage this. And I think this is going to be
pretty fun. So you've already heard him
speaking, but we should reintroduce our friend, our long
time Co host who hasn't been here in a little while.
But the return of dancing Sean of How's Beard?
How you doing my friend? It's.
Great to have you back. I'm doing great.
I'm doing super awesome. It's great to be back.
I'm pumped about this. I've become way more solid since
when I used to be here for the sake of the TV show.
I've read all the books, still have a couple more wins chapters
to read, but I've I've read all all of this series, of course,
and I just in the past couple weeks I've double read the hedge
night. So where?
Are you? With the fire and blood in the
world of ice and fire, I haven't asked that.
I have not even looked at those a couple times in the past.
I think maybe even when a show was still on, I like poured over
some family lines at the Targaryens or whatever, but it
was just too overwhelming. I didn't have a way to connect
these characters any story or image.
There's so many repeating names it's hard to keep straight.
I'm starting to get it better now it.
Is more of the advanced class. Yeah.
So we have that to look forward to in the future.
Are your fresh insights great? Absolutely, Yeah.
So you've been doing a little something on your own over
there. You started a YouTube channel.
We should definitely mention that before we get into our our
hedge knife coverage. Yeah, Dancing Sean on YouTube
and I was sparked to action by the TV show The Boys, which is,
you know, Simply put, it's like a superhero show.
But the reason I like it is 'cause it's really outstanding.
It's way more about sort of a realistic look at how society
would react to the existence of superheroes, right?
But how do politicians manage it?
Are they do they have PR agents or how they decide whether or
not to fight crime in New York or Detroit?
Some some it's not all about just punch fighting scenes and
and all the characters aren't just clearly good or bad.
There's a lot of grave that the show deals with social issues
like sexism. And it was just way more I I
remember when I first saw previews for it, I was like, but
it's Tony Soprano's mom. You know, what's my attitude
about it, baby? What's Larry David?
Kind of, but I walked in on an episode of it and I was like, it
didn't even look like it was like a drama.
It was like the serious conversation going on.
It wasn't even didn't even seem like a superhero show.
And I so anyway, I covered all that I would.
I did it kind of in a rush trying to hit the second season
coming out. And I went back and did all the
first season and then caught up to the second season.
And then since then, I tried to cover all the Academy Award
nominees for best picture for this past year.
And I just want to kind of grow the catalog doing different
things that right now what I'm trying to do is one minute
videos where I can do sort of spoiler free.
Just give you an idea what something's about the the genre,
who stars in it, when did it come out, You know, without
spoiling a plot, give me an idea of what type of movie it is,
kind of tone, director, things like that.
Now this, this is interesting to me because I can I think about
what you used to do when I first met you.
Now, Sean and I have known each other a very long time, more
than 20 years. And when?
More than 20 minutes. Yes also more than 20 minutes
and you managed A blockbuster video back when those I guess
maybe do any still exist that this is anyway this shows you
how I. Think I I think that, yeah, I
thought, I thought I saw a news article.
It was like the final blockbuster is closing, so maybe
that one's gone, too. So this to me, it's like you
would have done this, tried to briefly explain movies to
customers who come in and ask like what's this about or
something like that. So it's kind of like it's come
full circle a bit. You have, you've already had
this experience, you've long been last cinephile.
So it's a really good place for you to have put your energies.
The Boys was a deep dive. I I thought that I would do like
15 minutes per episode, two hours.
You know, it was a little shorter at the beginning.
We got longer and longer throughout.
But for the movies, at least right now, yeah, I'm trying to
do quick, succinct analysis. But like you said, a skill that
I've owned. There's so many movies out.
There, that's I was going to say that to watch all of them
exactly like it was valuable to me because I don't pay attention
to what's out there like I really don't.
I pay way more attention to TV shows and and books and things
like that. Movies people talk about popular
movies and a lot of times I'm like, I don't know.
So I I watched a bunch of yours to and it really helped me catch
up on. Even among good movies, some
appeal to some people more than others, right?
You like certain styles or genres or stories.
So yeah, that's my idea, is to give you a feel for what
something's going to be, and you can pick and choose which ones.
What? I'm trying to just do good
movies. Maybe one day in the far future
when there's 2000 Game of Thrones TV shows, you can focus
only on recommending those to people like, well, you like
adventure and sea travel, so I'm going to recommend the Nymeria
show and the Sea Shade show. I know those were some of the
earliest ones, but they're still good I.
Don't know if that'll happen in my lifetime, but maybe by then
our lifetimes will be extended. That's right, I'll be a frozen
brain, a Futurama head. I was going.
To say that, yeah. So thanks also to Nina Freel,
her, she's been invaluable throughout Valar Ruvidis and
that is continuing here. We've already had a bunch of
great discussions on a lot of different plot topics within the
Hedge Night and within the Dunkin Egg trio of novellas.
So that's something about this series is there's a lot of
rabbit holes, but there's also so much set up to do right.
We have spent enormous amounts of time getting our head wrapped
around the world as it stands in the The Song of Ice and Fire
universe with the timeline in mind, right?
We're, we're, we want to know how old Santa is, how old Danny
is, how long ago the Greyjoy Rebellion was.
There's a ton of dates and places and names.
And this isn't that far back talking about the hedge night,
but it's 90 years. That's several generations.
So yeah, there's still Castely Rock.
Yeah, there's still House Lannister.
Yeah, there's still House Stark. Yeah, there's King's Landing,
but the first names have all changed, right?
Instead, well, there's still some egons and derons, but you
know what I mean? It's a a completely new set of
characters, even if so many other things are familiar.
So there's a lot to to talk about.
And with so many characters, there's so many connections to
be made, like is this one, is this character on screen
someone's grandfather, is this, you know, lots of fun questions
like that. So that's why we're approaching
it the way we are without trying to put barriers on how much time
we spend on each portion. We just want to let the material
take us where it takes us. And I think the The Hedge Night
is a really appropriate book or novella for that type of
approach. So also thanks to anyone who
sent questions ahead of time. If you're a patron, you've seen
these posts ahead of time. You've got the opportunity to
send in some questions and we have some questions from some of
you. Caveat with that because we're
covering things in a different manner.
You may ask a question that we don't answer right away.
We may save it for a future week because we already have plans
for when some of these topics will be discussed.
There's a lot of subtopics. We've parsed a lot of it out.
Some of them I've set aside to discuss later.
For example, we got a lot of parallels to discuss, a lot of
character parallels. I'm going to point them out at
the beginning just as an overview, but we're not going to
do the deep dives there until the end, after we've already
consumed all the material. So I think that's going to fit a
little better. Dom Tartaglia sends a super chat
and says Sean is my favorite Cryptid.
Which is great. I have a question here though.
What? Dom is my favorite Cryptid.
So Sean, what are you drinking though?
People want to know. Good question.
This is a mix of the Naked drink, the protein and greens
flavor along with Mountain Dew. Oh my gosh.
It's very creamy. Let me say that the the someone
guessed that it was cold brew with cream and it was about the
opposite of that. So that tells you, if you're
listening, what that looked like.
This is both terrifying and relatively normal for a beverage
of Sean. So this has been a long time
coming, The Hedge Night. Rather, people have wanted us to
cover it for a long time. We've wanted to cover it for a
long time ourselves. But hey, there's so many topics.
We have a rather infinite ongoing list of topics for
history of Westeros, and that really hasn't changed because
that's how Infinity works. It doesn't get smaller.
But this is one of the biggest parts of the Song of Ice and
Fire Extended Universe that we've never tackled directly.
We've of course used the Hedge Knight and companion books, the
rest of Duncan Egg novellas as sources innumerable times.
I mean, quite a quite a few times.
There's a lot of things we can refer to, given that it's so
close, relatively speaking, in in the timeline to a song.
Waste of Fire. All those things I said before
about connections, that's part of why.
But there's a lot of other reasons too.
The the history of the Targaryen rain is well covered here, at
least parts of it. The Hedge Knight is particularly
beloved in the fandom too. I mean, I love Fire and Blood in
the World of Ice and Fire, obviously, but those books don't
have apov character. The World of Ice and Fire is a
history book. Fire and Blood is a history book
with a lot of story added in, sort of like a hybrid.
But The Hedge Knight is a story. It's an actual story, right?
It's not some hybrid thing, which I like the hybrid things.
But as we were just saying when you brought it up, Sean, this is
easier to read. It's more familiar in terms of
what you expect to pick up when you pick up a book.
Right at the end of our coverage.
We'll we'll probably talk about them as a whole, right as a
group, the way maybe they chain, maybe decide which one of ours
is favorite, which one and maybe is the best written, things like
that. But that's a ways away.
That's at the end of all three books, so.
You know, another thing I wanted to put in here is that it's just
an indication of how amazing George's brain is.
Like he has this whole world, like he has a whole world in his
brain. You know what I mean?
Like even thinking about stuff, there might be as much knowledge
about Westeros right as there is Greece.
You know, like that's probably not quite true, but but it
probably is true of certain, like ancient cultures that
George has created a fuller world.
Especially when you like not just know like these names and
dates and places, but you know, like not just characters, but
their opinions about the names and dates and their perspectives
and their, their, their life stories and everything.
And you, you just, I feel like reading through all the books,
you got to understand it. We're only getting the tip of
the iceberg. He has like the entirety of this
world and he's revealing pieces of it to us through different
characters, perspectives. And you just know how much more
of this world he has in his brain, how much more of the
iceberg we're going to get, hopefully get eventually, you
know? Yeah, we just, well, we just, we
really need his to tap his brain and, you know, just like squeeze
out all the juice. You're right about that, for
sure. Well said.
I totally agree with that. And he's been building it for so
long. It's it's a long time coming.
It's true too, what you say about how sometimes fictional
universes can be more detailed in the real world because we're
allowed to invent the details. Well, we the royal, we are
allowed to invent the details that in the real world they
would elude us. I'm pretty sure Darth Vader's
Wikipedia page is longer than like George Washington's, for
example. And I mean, well, there's been
more people have invented Darth Vader.
So you like all the details there.
It's like anytime George Lucas wants to add another detail,
he's like, well, yes, Darth Vader also added hangnails.
He was troubled by, you know, like just any kind of deep, like
if George Washington had such. He was just really plagued by
hangnails, I guess, right? And that's what turned him to
the dark side, was all those hangnails, right?
Yes, he he mastered the force as a way to cure his hangnail
issues. He also really loved the produce
aisle at the grocery store. Guilty pleasure of the sound of
that misty spray on the lettuce. You know, George Washington
might have, but we can never know.
We'll never know. If he's exactly you've perfectly
captured the type of lack of knowledge of real world people
that I was going for. Like, how how does George
Washington feel about the spritzers in the produce aisle?
We'll never know. We'll never know.
And that's a tragedy. This was released in 1998, part
of the Legends anthology, roughly the length of five A
Dance with Dragons chapters. We talked about, you know,
chapters. We don't.
It doesn't really have that. But if we were to give it a
length, yeah, that's about it. 5A Dance with Dragons chapters
which which if you recall the average A Dance with Dragons
chapter was roughly 40 minutes. 5 is actually a little less.
I'd say 5 plus for this it's a little longer than that, but
anyway it's roughly in that zone.
This was actually published before A Clash of Kings.
I think a lot of people don't know that it came out about a
month before. Although most people probably
ran the Clash of Kings first. You know, the fandom wasn't so
huge back then. It wasn't a big release.
Like nowadays, if something with George RR Martin's name is
released to the public, everyone knows about it right away.
But this wasn't the case in 1998.
Things were a little different back then, 23 years ago.
It was eventually made into a graphic novel as well.
It's quite good and it's really fun to see that because you get
to see a lot of these banners and these sigils and characters.
Like you see Targaryens and things like that.
That's pretty fun. Plus there's memories and those
memories are put on the pages, so you get to see things like in
the second one there's you get to see Damon Blackfire, for
example. So cool stuff like that.
And given that it was written alongside A Clash of Kings,
there were some ideas George hadn't fully fleshed out.
Sean, one thing we went over in Valerie Ritas was pointing out
when something's mentioned for the first time, or when a
character or historical note is is note hated for the first
time. As you noticed yourself, the
Black Fires are not mentioned in this story at all.
They're sort of referred to obliquely, but not by name, and
that's because George hadn't given them a name yet.
The first time the name Black Fire appears is in A Storm of
Swords. It doesn't appear in The Clash
of Kings either. It's not a problem, but it's,
you know, it's a little piece of trivia, something to take note
of, something for us to think about going forward.
Especially when he consider the three books together.
One thing that he definitely seems to do all along is lay all
this stuff out, which on the surface is both entertaining and
overwhelming. So many characters and places
and images, all the different heralds and houses and
everything. It's almost impossible to, like,
really absorb it the first time. Through That's what we're here
for. But then by the end, every
little detail that ever came up starts to come together and be
important. You start to think, oh wait,
that was a thing. He mentioned that, but I need to
read this again. You know what I mean?
You start to realize how much subtlety and, and foreshadowing
and, and symbolism and everything was just there from
the beginning and throughout, you know?
I feel like if I was an author, that would be pretty much the
ultimate compliment. Someone's like, I need to read
this again or, or if they say I want to read this again, maybe
that's slightly better. But that like, that's, that's
that would be very satisfying. Very.
Yeah. Like, I did my job.
My work is done. Well, no, George, actually your
work is not done. But let's not get into that.
Well said, by the way. I, I agree with you.
I think the style isn't super different, but what's different
is the presentation. I mean, we've got a different
type of character. That's that's the thing that's
really different. He still sees the world in a lot
of ways that are similar ish in in terms of tone.
And like you said, a lot of things are very well described.
I've been reading a lot of different books lately and
having a lot of fun reading lots of different books, But just
something I noticed that a lot of times a different author will
spend two or three sentences describing what is in front of
the characters, like describing the horizon or the setting,
whereas George would tend to go about twice as much on something
like that. And that's not better or worse,
but it is notable. And I think you're right that
that's that that is very much present here as much as it is in
the main novels. He might, even more than you
realize, use it as a tool for pacing.
When you spend a long time describing this visual,
describing that visual, someone going to their memories, just
crying this visual all of a sudden he pulled the sword just
happens to the nook and was. Like Oh my God, what?
Just. Happened, you know, like
sometimes things can like suddenly happen really fast when
he's been taking his time with the the pacing and the
descriptions. And he's also using those
descriptions to add layers of meaning and symbolism and
everything, not just to let you know what the sunset looked
like. You know he's mentioning the
sunset 'cause it's a reference to Dorn or whatever.
Yeah, very well said. You're right.
Yeah, he's, he's packing those meanings in there.
We maybe we've missed a layer here and there.
That's always possible instead of something that keeps us on
our toes. The Song of Ice and Fire starts
in 298. The prologue might be 297, but,
you know, not a big difference either way.
It is the year 209 here in the hedge night, so about 8990 years
before. It's been 80 years since the
Dance of the Dragons. So we're almost like at the
sandwich point between the Dance and the current time, which is
that's kind of an interesting thing.
And the Targaryen family, of course, was really reduced in
size during the Dance of the Dragons, and it took several
generations to sort of grow back, right?
And they are pretty large again as a family.
The Dragons, of course, have not.
The Dragons are gone. That's another thing we'll talk
about. But for the most part, it is a
time of peace. Right now.
King Dare on the second is called Dare on the Good, and
he's in his 25th year of rule. By the end of his reign, he will
have sat the Iron Throne for 25 years.
So oh. Uh oh.
So yes. It's only going to be a few
months after the end of the story that he passes.
And of course, given, you know, Baylor breaks beer, dies here,
who's the heir? Well, this is basically the end
of a good time. Like, this is a nice time in the
realm, relatively speaking. There's always problems.
It is Westeros, after all, the bar.
So the bar is kind of low for times apiece.
This is one of them. At the point being, it's about
to not be, and there's about to be lots of other things
happening. There's about to be turmoil,
rebellion, and all sorts of things.
That's part of the setting that we can keep in mind when we're
approaching this. On reread, we know that, yes,
this tragedy is part of the story.
Tragedy is coming to the realm, and quite frankly, tragedy is
coming at the end of Dunkin Egg altogether.
A lot of these characters you see in this, in this story,
Valar, we see Valar, who I really want to call Valaritis.
It's 2 Rs. You know, it's like, it's like
I'm starting to write that. But that's.
Break spear. 'S son, Valar's son, and Mataris
is his other son. You may.
Be aware. That there was never a King
Valar nor a King Mataris. So those two clearly, Yeah, part
of the oncoming tragedies now, Egg.
Is eventually going to be. Aegon the 5th, AKA Aegon the
Unlikely, and he's called that because he's the fourth son of a
fourth son. What does that mean besides a
lot of Targaryens dying for him to become king?
Well, we're going to see a lot of them.
The Targaryens that actually die so he could become king are a
lot of them are going to appear in these stories.
And we're also going to talk about his immediate family,
right? His brother, Maester Eamonn.
That's the one Targaryen who comes before him in the line of
succession but didn't die because, you know, he got to
become a maester instead. So you know that he kind of
dodged that bullet, so to speak. It might be semantics.
Actually, to say that the Targaryens of this era didn't
all kill each other, because that is kind of what happened in
the Dance, right? But because we were talking
about the Black Fire rebellions, which only one of them has
happened so far, right? Only the first one, which
arguably was the biggest one. They're all are.
Arguably Targaryens in a sense. Like they're cadet branch of the
Targaryens. They're not technically
Targaryens, but they all have Targaryen blood.
They all emanate from the same bloodline.
So you could arguably say they've been killing each other
a bit. But as things stand at the start
page. 1. 13 as many as 19 living Targaryens, not counting black
fires, not counting Valerians who married Targaryens.
None of that if their last name is Targaryen.
That's what I'm talking about. Somewhere between 13 and 19.
That's a lot black. Fires would argue that the
Targaryens were killing even. The Targaryens.
Might not. Good point.
Yes, it's all in where. You're standing.
That's a recurring overarching aspect to A Song of Ice and Fire
is perspective, and you just gave us a good example of that.
So 16 or sorry, six of those 13 to 19 are at.
This. Tournament Baylor Makar Aryan,
Deron Egg and Valar Guinevere Greenstone says What do we know
about Egg's life at Summerhall and his motivation to leave
home? Are there likely to be
Targaryens from outside Mecar's immediate family living or
visiting there? And how much separation was
there from King's Landing at that time?
In other words, how much did the King's Landing Targaryens hang
out with the Summerhall Targaryens?
Let me just do a little set up and then let me get an answer
from Sean. First of all, it's a.
Great question because it allows us to remind folks that Summer
Hall isn't yet a ruin. Wildfire hasn't come for it just
yet. So it's sort of like the
Targaryens have 3 castles it it of.
Course this is. Not like a defensible castle,
this is more like a summer home. It's more of a palace than a
castle like the name indicates, but the way it was, the reason
it was built, it kind of changed its purpose pretty quickly.
The king basically gets the Red Keep the air, which at this time
was Prince Baylor gets Dragonstone, kind of like how
Stannis got Dragonstone and Makar that he's the fourth son
got Summerhall. Now why is that?
Why did the fourth son get it? Well, basically because nobody
else wanted it. Aries is next, Aries the first,
not the Mad King. That's later.
Aries preferred to stay at court, probably 'cause he liked
the library. He our best comparison for
Aries. The first is the reader
Roderick, the reader of the Ironborn.
So Summerhall probably didn't have as good of a library.
Next brother is Regal. We don't know why he wanted to
stay at court, but he was mentally deficient.
He had issues, not undefined. I don't know what what the
diagnosis is. He was Targaryen.
So he just whatever. So the point is, he who knows?
We don't know why he didn't want to go to Summerhall, but he
didn't make our it's a silly place, right?
Multiple reasons. Why Makar would want to go, he's
a, he's just not a courtly guy. He's more like Stannis.
That's something we'll get into later, is he's very similar to
Stannis in a lot of ways. Stannis wasn't a big fan of
court either. Stannis went to Dragonstone and
preferred to be over there. He doesn't like courtliness.
He doesn't like all the flattery and the pageantry.
That's not for him. The dude's also a war hero and
he had a big family. He had a bigger family than any
of his siblings, so he needed. More room.
He probably didn't want them becoming all courtly either,
which we absolutely see that play out at the end here.
Though maybe he isn't fully sold on the idea until Dunk presents
it to him. Still, that's a pretty big deal.
But of course, one of the biggest things is Egg refers to
being tormented by his brother. That right there is a good
reason to leave home, right? Basically my question for you
would be what do you think from what can you gather from from
all this and say like, why would what, what's your opinion on why
egg would want to stay away from all that?
It's probably a. Few things I I was thinking, by
the way, like along the lines of this, remember on the second
book how much of Rohan's gathered family is around,
right? So you can imagine there family,
you don't always necessarily get along with family, but you kind
of have to, especially when you're like at court putting on
errors, especially when you're like the little kid.
I can just imagine like everyone wanted him to do something and
probably none of it was what he wanted to do.
Imagine all the different people like or in fact probably don't
do this, don't do that, put that down.
Just stay out of there. You know what I mean?
He just wanted to do his own thing.
He wanted to explore and have fun and be a kid.
And you could probably draw some parallels to Arya, maybe.
You know, I can imagine him not getting much attention and most
of the attention he getting being negative attention.
That's a very good point, yeah. Never.
Mind, Aryan. Just that one thing by itself.
You know that thing? By itself does say a lot too.
It's like clearly the rest of the family isn't stepping up to
deal with Aryan's abuse of his brother.
Like there's no mention of that Makar, no mention of Egg going
to tell his father, no mention of his other brother Stephanie.
Because you think, like, given this family, there would be
maybe someone that would do something not not Deron because
he's, you know, worthless in that sense.
But maybe Makar himself or but I guess he's just you can't be
bothered with that. There's a a pretty.
Big age difference between the other brothers too, right?
One of them was like one or two years older.
They might hang out and play together, but they're all like,
I don't know, 5, at least years older.
They're like he's not too far from Eamon.
'S age, but Eamon went off to be a maester pretty early so yeah
that they may have had that time together but Eamon also.
Maybe is more likely to be reading books rather than
running around playing in a wood, and they were clearly the.
Closest, yeah, like the friendliest to each other that
may have been part of. What drove him to leave?
Now that his favorite brother is gone and it's only him and
Aryan, he's like, get the heck out of here.
It may not be. It may be pretty straightforward
actually. During his day, Mads.
On says I wonder how much contact Egg had with the Dane
side of his family. And Guinevere Greenstones, who
asked the original question, says maybe they're close.
Maybe it's partly because Summerhall is so close to Dorn,
right? Summerhall is much farther S
from King's Landing. It is near the border of Dorn.
It's in fact considered to be built on the Tri border.
King Garon had it built it. It was meant to be the marker of
the Stormlands, the Reach and Dorn, like right, where the
three regions come together. And it's sort of a symbol of
unity in that sense, which as a ruin, it doesn't really work so
well anymore. What does that say?
Symbolism, symbolism. But what we're getting ahead of
ourselves though that's a great point by Guinevere greenstones
there that the proximity. It also allows them to be closer
to Dorn, which they have Dane heritage.
Now that is yet another example of the Danes just teasing us
with what we want to know, what we don't know.
As in, the Danes are a really mysterious family.
There's a lot more we want to know about them.
George had plans for them. He may have changed some of
those plans, but he still clearly has more plans for them.
So anytime that the name Dane gets mentioned, a lot of times
people perk up a little and go, huh.
So to be clear, Egg's mother was Diana Dane.
She died very young, so Egg doesn't really have memories of
her, so he's not able to speak of her very much.
Possibly some trauma wrapped up in that.
Like not a lot of people don't want to talk about their mother
who passed when they were young. That's understandable.
It's not like Dunk is going to press him on that, for example.
So I was. Going to ask by the way.
That we don't really know anything about Egg's mom and
that might be largely just 'cause he doesn't know that much
and stories coming from Dunk's perspective.
So even if Egg thought about her, we wouldn't get it.
But it is something that might answer some of these questions
and it's. Disappointed to not.
Know more about? Yeah, it's there is.
Disappointment. We, you know, it's, it's a
little, it's too often we find ourselves wondering about a
motherly character and like, what happened to that mother?
What's the deal with that mother?
It's not unusual for history to leave mothers out.
Of course, this is a story we could have more info here.
But it does make sense given the setup that Egg wouldn't have
much to say about her 'cause he probably doesn't know her.
Guilty. Undertaker points out Egg seems
to have been closest in age to his sisters.
Yes, absolutely. Ray and Dale are on either side
of him age wise and to be fair. They.
Could have helped defend him a little and they could have been
picking on him as well. I mean, Egg expresses some like,
unpleasantness that he he doesn't like them for their love
potions. It doesn't seem like they're
terribly close. Yeah.
So yeah, that's that's unclear, but that may have been one of
the other things you're trying to get away from.
He's like, yeah, my brother puts his knife to my balls at night,
which I really hate. But I'm not so excited about the
love potions my sister give me either because it's like Jojen
Pace. I don't know what's in there.
I'm not sure I want to know. Definitely don't want to drink.
Probably a naked drinking. Mountain Dew mixed in.
Yeah, she should have put some. Some sparkling ice in there for
carbonation. Make that bubbly love potion.
It's better that way. So that's a that's a great point
pacing this all together as far as where that is and the
location and the proximity to Doran.
There could be some some in laws that were that are relevant
here. But it's also interesting to
point out this connection that a lot of to to seal the piece.
King Garon married a lot of his family to people in the reach,
people on the rather people on the marches, which is still part
of the reach. Some of it is and people in
Doran to bring them into the fold, for example, Baylor
Brakespear's wife, Jenna Donderi.
That's part of why we find him hanging out with Manfred
Dondering later their in laws. That's a good summary.
I think of why Egg might have wanted to leave Summer Hall.
You you, you mentioned he may have been kind of forgotten
about. He's not the first born.
It's the ones who were higher up in the line of succession, the
ones who are going to get more attention.
Like you said, Ari is a great example of that.
Jon Snow. I mean, obviously Egg's not a
bastard, but Jon was, you know, the farther down in the line of
succession you are, the more you sort of get treated similarly to
that, right? The, the, that distinction loses
some of its sharpness the farther down you go like that.
Different details that come together really nicely.
So let's keep all that in mind as we move on.
Let's talk about a few of the other regions, King's Landing
and Doran. We're going to talk about plenty
during, but let's talk real briefly about what's happening
elsewhere, just for the fun of it.
In the North, we've got Lord Baron Stark, most likely because
we know he's going to die within a couple of years here.
So seems likely enough that he's the one in charge.
Now, whether he is or isn't, the next most likely would be
Rodwell, which what a great name.
Rodwell sounds like a porn star, and he would have been Baron's
older brother. He never had kids.
Baron was married to Laura Royce.
This is a very important marriage.
The Stark branches, as most of you know, were reunited.
There were two major Stark branches united by Rickard,
Ned's father, marrying his own first cousin, Liara.
Both of those branches emerged from this Baron Laura Royce
marriage. So pretty crucial timeline point
in the timeline for the Starks here as far as starting off of a
a big group of family members that we're all very familiar
with. There may have just been a
Skagosi rebellion sometime in the 20 years roughly around
there was a nasty Skagosi rebellion that claimed the life
of Barth Blacksword. It would have been cool name.
We've got Medgar Tully who is seen in this story.
But by the time we have another story, meaning the mystery
night, we're going to find out that Medgar is gone.
There is no more Medgar, and there's a boy in charge of of
the Riverlands. So clearly Medgar Tully is not
long for this world. There's perhaps some lingering
resentment from the Black Fire rebellions in the Riverlands and
damage, you know, there's a lot of, that's where a lot of the
fighting was. So could still be recovering
from that. And of course, the Blackwood
bracket issue is raised here as well.
That's going to become important.
We're going to have plenty to say about that over the course
of our coverage because Egg, of course, marries a Blackwood.
In the West. We have Damon Lannister, AKA the
Greek Gray Lion, almost called him the Green Lion.
He's Tywin's great grandfather, right?
Tywin's father. Tito's hasn't been born yet, but
his grandfather Gerald is about 13.
And I know big stories from out of this time right at the
moment. But Dunk was in Lannisport the
year before. We know that much.
And that occurs to me that Dunk might be more comfortable in a
place like Lannisport than in a lot of other places because he's
from King's Landing. You know, he's from.
He's a city boy now. He spent a lot of time in the
hedges, but, you know, he's from the city.
What? What would you think about that?
Like, if you were a hedge Dunk, do you think you would hang out
near the cities, you know, looking for work there, or would
you hit the road more like setting aside, not knowing
exactly what would work best. Yeah.
I don't know. I was.
Thinking about that, if Dunk would rather be you know, this
is like a a broad statement, but I in my mind the more.
Into. The countryside and the Maybe
the more into the north you get the more honorable things, the
more Spartan I guess. I don't know how to say it.
Whereas in the city, where a Dunk might feel like a big,
strong, honorable warrior, might feel better in the North than in
a city, but Dunk being from the city might be more comfortable
in the busy streets and the. But maybe his perspective will
have changed from having left that.
And yeah, he doesn't seem to think of it too fondly.
You know, maybe. No, you're right to be done with
it. I mean he was from Flea.
Bottom that's not exactly the best part of the city.
In fact, it's the worst part of the city.
So he not might not like he may have the familiarity, but that
doesn't mean he's like it's where he wants to be.
So those two and even if he got into.
Quote UN quote better parts of the city.
He might be quickly disenchanted when you realize that everyone's
angling against each other. You know what I mean?
There's not really that much honor.
Most of the nights are just being, are just being paid to
guard someone's merchant shop. And not that that isn't even
valuable, but it's just isn't like his idealistic vision of
what a night is, you know? Yeah, good point.
Maybe. Yeah, maybe it's, it's hard to
be a night in the city, you could say.
Maybe at least his his style of night.
Good point. Good point.
So in the Stormlands, Lionel Bratton, of course, the laughing
Storm, he's not the Lord of Storms End in this story.
He is the heir, but he is going to be the Lord of Storms End and
he's going to be a big figure in history.
There's some really famous art of him in the world of ice and
fire, Iron Islets. They're not much a part of this
story at all. I don't even think it mentioned.
They certainly are going to come up in the next one indirectly.
The guy who's running things when they do make their moves
shortly here in about a year or so is Lord Dagon.
So when you're named after an ancient undersea deity or
monster from the Hulu mythos, you know you're pretty serious.
So he's. Probably in charge, or he's
about to, maybe his father's about to die and that's going to
enable him to take over and he's immediately going to start doing
stuff. The veil is, well, we don't
know, No Lord Aaron, no House Royce here.
And we do have Humphrey Harding, that important character in this
story. He is from the Vale.
He apparently beat Lord Aaron in a melee the year before.
It is pretty far. That might be why.
I mean, we know northerners don't go to tournaments much
anyway, but even if they did, this tournament is super, super
far away. Let's go ahead and discuss where
it is. If you, if you look at the map,
go to Highgarden, find Highgarden on the map, then just
go straight east or right and you'll find Ashford almost right
away. So you you just follow the
mandor up. It's tributary.
The cockles went, which is a great word.
Cockles went and there you go Ashford.
So it's it's pretty easy to find on the map.
Most of the maps have it because it's it's a notable location.
Even though it's not a super important location.
It's it's important because it's been a part of stories like
this, by the way. What with Lady went, I'm just
picturing her like cockles went. That is a great word.
Chickens. Went hens, went Roosters, Yeah.
Of. Course last but not.
Least we have the Reach. Leo Tyrell, AKA Leo Longthorne.
Now Leo Tyrell, he pulled a Walder Frey in the Blackfyre
Rebellions. He was like, oh, you know, I was
getting my army together to show up and fight.
You know, it was all over by the time I did that.
They're like, yeah, but who are you going to fight for?
Oh, you know, I was. But loyal.
I was going to be loyal, yeah. I was going to be on the winning
side. This guy's a highly successful
tournament knight, but is he a good fighter?
I don't know. We that's that's two things
don't necessarily go together as we have been introduced to very
early in The Song of Ice and Fire.
Now here's a. Little Easter egg or a little
dot connecting? Tyrion tries to get a rise out
of Oberon in A Storm of Swords by bringing up Willis Tyrell,
the Dornish. Men did not react as expected.
I had a letter from Willis not half a year past.
We share an interest in fine horse flesh.
He has never borne me, Sean. He made me laugh sounds.
Like they're talking about. Eating it, you're like, yeah, we
love to eat fine horse flesh. Medium rare.
It's my favorite. OK, I'm going to not.
Look at Sean now. We share an.
Interesting fine horse flesh. He has never borne me any ill
will for what happened in the lists.
I struck his breastplate clean, but his foot caught in a stirrup
as he fell, and his horse came down on top of him.
I sent a maester to him afterward, but it was all he
could do to save the boy's leg. The knee was far past mending.
If anywhere to blame, it was his full of a father.
Willis Tyrell was green as his Sir coat and had no business
riding in such. The fat flower thrust him into
attorneys at too tender an age, just as he did with the other
two. He wanted another Leo Longthorn
and made himself a cripple. There are.
Those that say Sir Loris is better than Leo Longthorn ever
was, said Tyrion. Renly's little rose.
I doubt that couple. Things funny about.
This really. I was going to say one thing
funny, but this was actually several things funny.
A horse flesh aside, first of all, Obra just has a mocking
name for everyone. Kind of like Stannis.
Remember, the Hedge Knight was written before this.
So George wrote this dot to connect to the Hedge knight, not
the other way around, right? The Hedge Knight was written
first. We also see a.
Similar example here we have Harding, who gets his leg badly
wounded because of Aryans. Well, dishonor, putting it
mildly. Just yeah, I'm going to just
stab your horse instead. And of course, that wasn't your
foot getting caught in a stirrup.
That was your horse getting impaled and it falling on top of
you. So a little different in terms
of the cause, but it is similar injury.
And I guess this Harding fellow just a little little tougher.
He he's like, I, I can't, my leg is worthless, but get me on that
horse. I can still joust.
That is that's a tough man. But unfortunately, he didn't
drink some milk of the. Poppy Yeah.
And then he gets. Then he gets.
A Lance in the groin and dies. So you know that's no fun.
So as I said, the first Black Fire rebellion's already
occurred. It's been a while 13 years.
So of course Damon and his eldest sons are dead.
Of the other 3 great bastards, Bitter Steel has yet to form the
Golden Company. That's coming in about 3 years
and he's probably in the second sons at this point.
That's kind of fun to hear about right Sean?
That, that the Second Sons were around back then and we got
someone like Bitter Steel in there.
And I don't know if you remember that chapter from Dance Dragons
where that gets mentioned. Even Oberyn was in there and
some other people like that. Yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty cool, huh? I I just like the.
Idea of a company called The Second Son.
That's a neat idea to me. Yeah, right.
And they all. Really are like Oberyn is the
second son and better steel was. Not really second.
Son, but it's it's. And not not a first son doesn't
roll off the tongue as well as. But not a first.
Son. Brendan.
Rivers at this point AKA Bloodrape, most likely master of
whispers to King Deron. He's going to be Hand to King
Aerys and King Makar. But he wasn't hand for Deron, he
was trusted. Deron is the one who gave him
Dark Sister apparent and Sierra Seastar is probably there as
well. She's still probably turning
lots of heads up. Of course, it sounds like she
did that her whole life and but Bittersteel's gones is no longer
like some fight over her, but maybe other people are fighting
over her. Any in any case, she's probably
still around now of key importance, of course, it's that
Dornish connection. I already brought up some of the
connections, but there is the sister of King Garon Daenerys.
It's the original Daenerys, the one that not the first Daenerys,
but the first one that's mentioned in the story.
There's actually a another Daenerys that comes along in
fire in fire and blood, but she dies really young.
So this is the one who the Water Gardens are made for.
Yet another dot connecting to the latter books, A Beast for
Prose, is when we're introduced to the Water Gardens.
And of course, Darren himself is married to Maron's sister,
Mariah Martel. So you have Darren married to
Mariah Martel and Maron Martel married to Daenerys Targaryen.
This double marriage is the foundation for the new peace
that seeks to make Doran a permanent part of the Kingdom of
the Iron Throne. Had the Black Fire Rebellion
been lost, that peace may have been shattered, but this double
marriage has been in place for for decades now.
There's these unions have produced heirs and these heirs
are set to take over soonish. Yeah.
Doesn't that sound awfully familiar?
Weren't we just on the cusp of that in Song of Ice and Fire, 10
years before Robert's Rebellion? Anyway, 1/2 Dornish, half
Targaryen. Dornish Targaryen marriage had
been sealed and they already had kids.
And there was a Prince Aegon who was half Dornish, half
Targaryen, was going to take throne eventually.
And now all of a sudden, you have a possibly real, possibly
not. Yeah, it just all got.
Blown up. Nice.
So this is the same like basically a son of Rhaegar and
Elia Martel. Setting aside the likelihood
that he's fake, ostensibly has the same heritage as Baylor
breaks, period. Did that did that occur to you?
Did you notice that when you were reading this, this, this
Dornish Targaryen connection? Or did I don't know if.
I specifically thought about that connection or parallel, but
I I have noted a sort of a theme of trying to keep Dorn in the
fold. Dorn was like the last to join
and several different marriages between Targaryens and Dornish.
Yeah, never attacking them. Never worked.
They never worked out. But marriages, well, that didn't
work out either, but it worked out better.
So yeah, that's that's really important.
You wonder what if George is making a statement there like no
these, you know, they kept trying to conquer them and they
just kept fighting back. But when they tried to make it
more on even footing, make make them, you know, bring them into
the fold as equals, well, that had a lot better results, but it
still didn't truly. Work.
It still didn't truly work because.
Yeah, but they're part of the realm.
So it it did the what it needed to do, it didn't self destruct.
We'll put it that way. Other people messed it up.
There's. Also I.
Find this sort of an irony that I maybe even can make some sense
of, but that there's like this drive to get Dorn to be part of
the Seven Kingdoms, and maybe there's some skirmish from Dorn
into the Reach. I don't know how much of that
there was, but it seemed to me like there's a lot more of
attacking into Dorn to try to make them submit, right?
Well, let me jump. In for his arms of large scale
invasions. You're right.
In terms of small scale invasions it would be the
Dornish invade attacking the Reach because the the huge
mountain passes protect Dorn from invasion and and provide a
quick escape route for Raiders. But in terms of large scale
invasions, absolutely you're right.
Yeah, like holy big armies on the flip.
Side it seems like the iron, iron, iron, iron, iron.
Constantly. Are attacking the North and the
West and maybe others too. But the Targaryens are almost
oblivious to it, right? They, I don't think there was
ever this concerted effort to go put them in their place or
defend Casterly Rock from them or whatever else they're like,
They're gonna do what they're gonna do.
But we got to get Dorn. We got to get Dorn.
You know there's not. Really.
An effort from the Lannisters or the Starks, you know, who are on
the border with the Iron Islands, You might think that
they would want to broker a piece.
You're right, they did. Somewhat look east and South a
lot more than they look West because it's they're.
Borders. It's what's closer to them, it's
what it's affecting them more often.
You know, right, King's land is on the other.
Side yes, yeah, it's like I'll let our vassals deal with that.
You guys are you're great houses.
You can't deal with some Ironborn.
Come on after the hedge night we're going to see people say
blood Raven is focused too much on the east.
He's too worried about the return of the blackfires.
Meanwhile, the Ironborn are, you know, ravaging the western
shores. So you're absolutely right that
this is kind of a long standing issue of focus where the a lot
of different kings have been more focused on adding to the
realm than stabilizing and solving the problems that are
already there. They'd rather be remembered as
conquerors than people who made peace Yeah.
And you know. Even though they want to
seemingly own everything on the continent, they don't care about
what's way up north because it's useless to them.
I don't know, it's just. It's poor.
It's a great point. Yeah.
Like that. That's a fantastic point there.
There's less value in settling that north of the wall.
Is also like. Doesn't count, you know they're
not as interested in. That you're totally right.
So that's an important thing to keep in mind.
Now in current time, this fusion, this attempted
peacemaking, we have one of the exception.
Daron the good is one of those exceptions who does not want to
be remembered for conquest. He apologized.
He he continued the apology tour started by Baylor Brakespear.
I'm sorry. Baylor the blessed, which is
part of why he named his first born Baylor 'cause he loved
Baylor the blessed so much. Baylor was very dedicated to
peace. Baylor apologized for his older
brother Daron, the first invasion of Dorn.
And here we have Daron the second also carrying that on
saying, yes, we don't want to invade you, we want to be your
friends, we do this double marriage, etcetera, etcetera.
There's a lot of resentment over that.
As we said, maybe you can make a case that Rhaegar really did
self destruct some of that. But setting that aside, they
people, a lot of people wanted these marriages to work because
it would be peace. But a lot of people wanted to
the former status quo to return, which was enemies.
You want to be enemies with Dorn because that's how you make a
name for yourself. You need to have someone to
fight. They have this long martial
tradition of being warriors of the marches, Knights of the
Marches, defending the this region against Dornish Raiders.
This has been the state of affairs for literally thousands
of years. It's the modern.
World too. You know what I mean?
Who do we study in history? We study the conquerors, the,
the, the, the rulers, the murderers, you know, those are
the people that for better worse, get known and remembered
and have statues built. I think we're finally starting
to come around to a more civilized mindset in society.
But it is a a disappointing piece of humanity that we, yeah,
that we celebrate. The the Congress celebrate war
and war leaders, you know. Yeah, you're right.
That's it's certainly consistent with how a lot of the real world
operates. So that's a good thing to bring
up there, Sean. So there's a lot of resentment.
That's part of why you don't see.
But was this tournament is Ashford Meadow?
It's not that far from Dorn, right?
We just established that. But how many Dornish are here?
Tanzel the puppeteer, that's her and her people, right?
That's pretty much it. There's not a lot of the Dornish
folk aren't like, yeah, let's go to that tournament in Ashford.
They're not they're not close enough yet.
The the cultural barriers haven't been torn down yet.
The too many of the people who are still alive were raised to
hate the Dornish. Too many of the Dornish who
were, you know, who were still alive in these days, they were
raised to hate the rich men and the Stormlanders and their
fathers, like many of them fought and died against them.
So you go from a generation that that had forever fought them and
did fight them to another, the next generation that was told to
hate them but didn't actually fight them very much.
And now you have a generation that's just got this distant
memory of they just don't like them.
You know, I was like, but eventually it's going to turn
into just sort of a sort of a low simmering prejudice rather
than a these are our ancestral enemies that we must kill, you
know, but it that's the kind of thing that doesn't just fall
off. A great example in the current
story of that is the extreme difficulty the Night's Watch
brothers have in accepting the wildlings as allies.
Similar parallel John struggling to get them.
John Jamie Dare on the good here, trying to get the realm to
accept this, but he doesn't have as many tools to make it happen.
There's not as many marriages to make, but he did make one,
right? The Magnar of Femme and Alice
Karstar I suppose there. Is a parallel there, but I don't
feel like it's as strong or as focused on, you know, like there
is like they're not as clearly divided by a a massive wall, you
know what I mean? And they they don't have like a
different language in it. I mean there are differences in
their culture, but they still have like a a king and Knights
and you know, they still have a a similar foundation for their
the free folk are like. Hundreds of different small
cultural groups. Where Darwin is has a lot of
different cultural groups, but they're not nearly that
desperate. They've been more.
Separated from more time and more geographically and and and
more at odds with the people on the other side too.
You know more. You see some of the.
Some of those connections like Stannis is trying to bring them
in the realm. Stannis is like, look, you guys
can be subjects of the realm, but it's happening under very
extreme circumstances. Like if Stannis was king in in a
time of peace, would he do this? You know, he, he just needs more
men. He's kind of desperate.
He might, he might do it. I'm not, I don't know for sure,
but he's definitely doing this and it's kind of questionable.
Stannis is being I I want to say Stannis is being questioned as
much as John, and that's not quite true, but that's probably
because Stannis will burn you to death if you don't.
Yeah, John's not forcing. Anyone to change their religion
nor which is also an important thing here.
This is something that helps Dorn and reunite with the rest
of the realm as they share same religion.
That's a huge connection with like, I don't know if Baylor or
the blessed, who you know, is the Septon King would have been
quite as excited about merging the realms if they worship
Weywoods or something, right, or if they worship relore.
So that's a very important thing to keep in mind as well.
These cultural you're you're very right to bring the
differences in culture as something that is not the same.
Some of those things are the same.
Like there's some northern cultural traditions that that
free folk would agree with. You know, more of like making
your own decisions that he who swings this passes the sentence
belief in the old gods. But you're right.
The differences are much larger. Like there happens.
To be this natural barrier between Dorn and the Reach or
the rest of the realm or whatever.
But there was a wall built to keep out the northern, the the
wildlings or whatever. So yeah.
I've. I've I've worked.
Out a long list of scenes and so we're going to kind of go
through these scenes. They're like micro scenes.
Like a scene could for example would be him burying Sir Arlen,
then next scene is him meeting AG and then they see the
banners. Then there's the pavilions, the
puppet show, etcetera. So lots of little micro scenes
here. Scott had his.
Facebook poll in the group that was asking whether we think Junk
was actually knighted or not, and the answers are quite
resounding. 69 people say he wasn't knighted, 4 people say he
was knighted. So you 4 people keep on believe
5. Is that you Sean?
Make that 5. Make that 5 Sean's going to.
Hold that candle. Yeah, that's a great question.
Like Scott, I remember he messaged me this not too long
ago. So the poll wasn't up very long.
That's why there's only 73 votes.
But still, you know, it doesn't need to be up very long.
We can see the the huge disparity there, right?
Yeah, we're just going. To get a flood of of pro night
in there? I don't think so.
Probably start talking. For that and go a whole hour.
Right now, I don't know if I'm going to put that off for
another topic or touch on it slightly.
Right now I think let's not, but what we'll do is we'll let
people know that it's what we want.
To talk about. So folks, get your arguments
ready for next time. We'll talk about whether Dunk
was really knighted. The scene where he declines
tonight, Raymond, where he hesitates.
Maybe that's when the best time for it will be.
But we'll, we'll allow a little more set up time first.
So folks, send in your thoughts on why you think he was or
wasn't knighted and give us your details.
Give us your logic, give us your reasoning, and give us your
guests. I will say on my third reread.
That was like the focus of my read was like looking for
evidence and I found lots of evidence on both sides.
I think I mentioned to you Aziz that I think like a pro con
list. I found a few more indicators
that he was, but maybe the ones that he aren't are a little
stronger. And I'm not even like adamant
one way or the other. I just think it's Paul.
I don't think it's a shut and close case.
There's a lot of ways that maybe he could have been, but it
didn't count or the he isn't necessarily lying about it.
Even if he wasn't really or in a different we again, we could
talk about it forever. But yeah, good comment by.
Palavan here says the the puppet show by the two Dornish women
with the knight killing the dragon could be a very popular
story in Dorn from the decades of fighting with Targaryens and
driving them away and somewhat winning.
Yeah, actually resisting the Targaryens.
You think Dorn would be proud of that, given no one else resisted
the Targaryens for so long? No one else resisted the Dragons
because even when they were brought to heal temporarily by
Deron the First, there were no Dragons, no literal Dragons
involved. So that's a great point.
Yeah. You would think that they would
be. You know, that would be a
national point of pride. We know that the.
What is it? House Tolland has a dragon sigil
that was designed after the Conquest in honor of their
encounter with Aegon the Conqueror himself.
Yeah, with Rainey's most particularly.
And then Rainey. 'S as well.
They shot her down. That's.
You know, they'd think of that one too.
And thinking of their successes brings us to this other
question. From JT Lambeau Gaming Do we
think the puppet show is a depiction of Dorn taking out the
dragon with a scorpion? I do not.
I think that's too on the nose. It would upset a lot of people.
I think what that that it would still hearten Dornish, but that
it was a tale from many yeah, many yards ago.
I wonder if indorn they're a little.
More aggressive with the depiction, But I think you're
right that given how Aryan reacted, you got to figure it
could provoke. If it was more provocative, it
might provoke someone less easily provoked than Aryan, and
that would be a big risk to take.
So it's possible, but I think maybe they're just trying to
conjure that image. Like a Dornish person's going to
see this and it's going to make them think of barracksies.
But you don't want to be that blatant with it.
There might be some who would put that puppet.
Show on less innocently, you know, they not maybe Tansel and
her troop might not have been doing it, but there might be
some who would. It would be a jab, you know, at
the Targaryens to put that show on.
But if they put it up a notch or two, then other Targaryens might
also. They might have been arrested,
you know. Well, sad.
Yeah. And of course, we'll come back
to this point A. Little later we have parallel to
discuss in modern times with puppet shows and how things go
for people that aren't careful with who they might offend
amongst the powerful. I want to read this off real
quick. Just a.
Quick list of. Characters who were going to get
into deeper detail before, but I wanted to set it up now so y'all
can start thinking about it. If you want start letting it
percolate in your mind, Let it marinate on this for a while.
Mostly parallel characters, but also a few parallel situations
and also some inversions. Starting off with Deron the
Drunken and Tyrion. Huge group of parallels there.
Dunk. And.
Brienne, I think a lot of you were well aware of that one
already, but you may not have caught all the different
examples. Then Dunk and Duck.
Then likewise Egg and Young Griff, Aegon and Fagon.
You could say Arian and Euron, then Arian and Joffrey and
Viserys, that they, those similarities are very similar to
each other. So it's almost like a triangle
of awful Princess Makar and Stannis.
I mentioned that one already, but we'll get deeper in that one
later. Baylor, Brakespeare and Rhaegar
Targaryen as well. So there's a lot of good
examples there, a lot of parallels, a lot of things to
think about as far as inversions and comparisons.
Dunk and the Mountain, Dunk and Sandor, Dunk and Jamie, and then
Manfred Dondarian and Barrick. Dondarian has a much smaller
parallel, but that's one I wanted to highlight as well.
Then also we're gonna have things like Brienne versus Loris
and Dunk versus Aryan, how the duels are similar ran versus the
Brave Companion that it. Was sort of a a a no chance, no
choice. You know, Dunk knows he can't
just go the a Prince and all his guards and the whole Targaryen
family, but he just does it anyway.
He just charges in like this is just what I have to do.
Just like Bran knew she was outnumbered, out armed and well,
I still have to do the right thing.
Got to love it, got to love it, respect.
And then Nina. Also points out that this is
also somewhat similar to to before.
The no chance, no choice scene is also the scene outside the
gate, a maiden pool where the soldiers are basically having
their way with these farmers. And they're about to do much
worse than that. And it's, I think it's a
deliberate reference because what is the food that they're
bringing in? Eggs.
Dunks. Yeah, dunks they're bringing.
In dunks, keep an eye out all. That for that.
Folks, when you're reading, if you're doing more rereading,
keep all those parallels in mind.
You might catch one that we haven't caught.
I've already caught a few going through here that I hadn't
noticed before that I'll be sharing with you as we get
farther in. Our first quote is.
The actual first. Couple of lines.
The spring rains had softened the ground, so Dunk had.
No trouble digging the grave. We chose a spot on the western
slope of a low hill, but the old man had always loved to watch
the sunset. Another day done, he would sigh.
And who knows what the Morrow will bring us.
Hey, Dunk. Yeah, it's kind of an
interesting mix of. Sad and you know that but that
last line is is so optimistic so it's a real mix of but it also
really sets up the whole Duncan egg, right.
That is really the. You could say that's a thesis
statement of Duncan egg. Who knows what the marrow will
bring us? Hey, Duncan.
Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely you.
You get the. Idea that Sir Arlen was a a
really good mentor, father figure, you know, for Dhaka,
among other things, included. He, he seemed to have a positive
outlook on life despite probably living kind of a tough life.
You know, Sir Rowland seemed like he was usually, I don't
know, in modern terms, living paycheck to paycheck, right.
But he still was happy with his life and had a sense of honor, a
code that he lived by and that that fulfilled him as much as
money or a castle or whatever else would have, you know.
Yeah, one quick tangent I want to point out just on my mind as
I'm like reading one of these quotes, I will never do as well
as Harry Lloyd. Oh man.
One of my reads was the audio book and.
I. Highly recommend it.
Even if you read the actual book, listen to the audio book.
It's so he is so good. I, I, I even went on on Audible,
I guess to see what else he's done.
I'm going to listen to Great Expectations next.
He's done Great Expectations. Really.
You're right. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he is. Really good, you're right about
that. Just in case people have
forgotten that. That name's familiar, but you
can't quite place it. That's the actor who played
Viserys, who was, who was amazing.
I mean, as Viserys. Like it's hard to imagine having
a positive thought about. That individual, but his role as
the. Reader of.
Of Duncan Egg has totally supplanted for me his role is
Viserys, right? There's some people that really,
it seems like. Maybe a long shot, but there's
some hope that he could be one of or a or the reader for the
wins a winner because obviously Roy Datrice has passed, so it
won't be him. I would love it if you did got
to find somebody very early on. We have a couple of recurring
themes that permeate both the story and perhaps the quite a
bit of Dunk's life and Egg's life as well.
In part, both main characters start with false pretenses
regarding their rank. Egg, like dramatically
undersells his, of course, because he's the Prince of the
blood. A Dunk is just a little fib,
like, yeah, he was going to knight me.
He changes, He changes. He was going to knight me until
he did knight me or he really was knighted.
And he's not exaggerating anything real.
So there's that possibility as well.
Couple of great notes from Nina here.
For one, this opening reminds the reader of Dunk's own
eventual death. Let's not forget this is all
going to end in tragedy. Maybe you don't want to call it
a tragedy 'cause they have full lives, like during that.
You know, just because your life ends badly doesn't make your
whole life a tragedy. So let me put that caveat out
there. I'm not.
I'm not trying to bring the whole room down here, but yeah,
Summerhall 259, fifty years from now, it's two O 9 here.
So 259 is when that happens. 50 years long way. 50 years is a
long time. Dunc's going to be in his 60s.
But it is a reminder that that is the only way this can end.
The only way any life ends is in death.
That's as The Onion would would tell you from its statistics
department. World death rate holding steady
at 100%. The author is is, and he's
reminding. Us that that's just how it.
Goes like George doesn't fold those kind of punches, George
to, you know, I want people to have the realism of war, the
realism of life and death, all that.
And that's part of this. She also writes in one way,
Dunk's death couldn't be more different than Arlen's.
Instead of heavy rains and damp winds, we've got flames that
grew out of control that burned so hot.
We don't know exactly the the specific details and
circumstances, but yeah, wildfire burning, conflagration,
castle collapse, whatever. It's, yeah, very much very
different than outdoors in the rain, right?
This is indoors in the fire. So George is nothing if not very
consistent with crossing off all the connecting points here.
And it's really quite impressive how he covers so many bases.
But also age wise, I think Dunk is probably going to out.
Dunk is certainly going to outlive or.
That's an interesting. Little tidbit because he looks
like Arlen is closer to 60 than 50, but we know Dunk is going to
live is going to get closer to 760.
It also foreshadows the end of this story, right?
This it begins with a funeral. It ends with a funeral.
And also the two characters are very different, which is another
important point of the story. Comparing the life of a hedge
knight or just his foot as he thinks about it at the end to a
Prince of the blood to the hand of the King, to the future king.
Like how do you make this comparison?
And this this same comparison is wrought in these funerals.
Baylor Brakespear has this burned, wearing a black velvet
tunic with tunic with the three headed dragon picked out in
scarlet thread upon his breast in a heavy gold chain with his
sword sheath by his side. A thin golden helm on his head
is committed to the flames like all members of the hallowed
House Targaryen. Meanwhile this dude is like
thrown in a mud hole and Dunk can't even afford to bury him
with his stuff. Like he's like, no, I can't, I
can't put this sword in here with you, man.
I need this to live. And no one and no one looks
like, yeah, I feel bad for him. This doesn't fit, but I'll keep
it anyway. The Targaryens are like those.
Are treasures on the fire? Yeah, right.
What an incredible dichotomy. And this is one of the.
Things that I think that is pretty clear.
If you're reading it for the second time, you may not notice
it's the first time because you're you're overwhelmed with
detail and story and newness. It it bookends the story very
well, very effective. It's one of the.
Reasons why I think maybe. This is the best of the three
stories, even though it's lacking in some of the fully
fleshed out world building. One thing I I thought about when
I read Nina's notes. Though was that I don't know how
much he intended that in the 1st place.
He very well may have knowing how big a picture he seems to
have of this whole story. But when his book was written,
we didn't know anything about how Dunk was going to die.
And some people, for example my dad, just read the Dunkin Egg
series but hasn't read or seen, doesn't know anything else about
any of Martin's varieties. I mean, he's aware like Game of
Thrones exists or whatever, but so to him there was there's no
sort of parallel foreshadowing to how Dunk is going to end up.
In fact, I'm only superficially aware of something happened in
Summer Hall and they died in a fire.
I don't know if you tilt that well, you probably by the end of
the podcast will have it all, But no, no, you're.
You're actually right there with like.
That's that is about it. We know that.
Some sort of conflagration that involved wildfire, maybe like
why it started is that's a whole another topic.
But as far as the trigger, what killed them?
Yeah, that's it. It it's, it's shadowed in some
mystery, but so you've got the gist of it for sure.
OK. But yeah, I definitely like the
book. Ending and the the the the
contrast of the nature of the the funerals.
It is outstanding question is these just said that he thinks
the hedge night is the best? Is do you agree, Sean?
You don't want to get into it right now.
Wait until. How about this?
Maybe pick your best now and then we'll ask you again.
Wait at the end when? We're done with all three books.
We'll see if your opinions change.
It'd be a good that's we'll bookend the books and I just
can't pick one. I can.
I'll try to. Briefly explain thoughts for
each right one is the 2nd and 3rd.
It's almost fair because they're building on the 1st right?
Like if you just pick one, but like if you just read The Sworn
Sword without the knowledge of the one before, I don't know if
it would seem as good. Maybe it would, but it's hard to
know because I didn't do that, you know?
And another factor is that the third one is just longer, so
there's more material too. It's significant.
The second one's a little bit longer.
The third one's significantly longer.
I do feel like in the third one I had this feeling of like, Oh
my God, this is genius, the way everything came together.
But some of that needed the first two books to happen.
Another factor is the second book.
I appreciate the female perspective that we get there.
I mean, it wasn't actually a POB, but it was a significant
female character involved, which stands out from a lot of other
knighthood type medieval stories that are just about warrior,
which obviously you're still good and Martin does a good job
with representational role, but I think the middle one does it
best. And I, I think just my
prediction is that you probably like the second.
One for its for, you know, it being kind of more mundane, more
lower stakes, you know, just more of a day in the life of
this area. Yeah, even when it did get to
the bigger stakes. It was.
Still, just the stakes were still just like 7 commoners, you
know what I mean? And egg was worried about them
and I really liked the egg kind of pieced together.
These people are probably going to die and not for a good
reason. And, and I I really did like
that moment. I the fact is, they're all so
good. Like even if I pick a favorite,
it's one is 9.821 is 9.81 and one is 9.8.
You know, they're really good. Cool.
Well, I'm glad you feel that way.
And one last point from Nina here.
Dunk buries Arlen on a western hill because he loved to watch
the sunset. It's a nice representation of
the end of this stage of Dunk's journey.
Sun is set on his time as a Squire.
It's time for a new day for Dunk as Sir Duncan.
The tall edge night. You know, I can't believe I
didn't think of this joke before, but he buries Arlen on a
hill. King of the hill, anyone?
Oh, that's right, if you don't. Realize.
The town that they live. In is Arlen, Texas.
Arlen, Texas. Yeah, so.
By the way, I want to give a shout.
Out to patron who goes by the name Sir Zach of House wild.
He asked for a little assistance with his nickname, which is
normal for us to do with with patrons.
We help with nickname. Sometimes we make them up for
you and he wanted something to do with shredding because Zach
Wild's a famous guitarist and so I was looking it up I was like
looking up for reasons and I was looking at Zack Wylde's
Wikipedia page and I see that he's he's known for his spiral
imagery on his guitars He's so many of his guitars have
spirals. So I was like, OK, let's call
let's call this let's put the word spiral in this title.
Then I'm like, wait a minute, this spelling of Wild.
There's a house wild in the song of ice and fire right there.
It was spelled the same way, which is Wylde.
So it's a very unusual spelling of wild.
So I'm looking it up I'm looking at Wikipedia.
I'm like, whoa, house wild in A Song of Ice and fire.
Their sigil is a spiral. It no way.
So I'm like, wait a minute, is George putting an Easter egg
for? Zach Wylde in.
Here. So I'm like, I need more
supporting evidence. We've got the weird wet name
spelling and we've got the spiral that's pretty strong, but
that's not enough. So I go look at more into Zach
Wylde's Wikipedia page. Where is Zach Wylde born Buy on
New Jersey Where is George R Martin born buy on New Jersey?
OK, that kind of seals the deal for me.
Now I'm like we got 3. Unusual, very specific details.
So House Wild, I'm calling it right here, y'all.
House Wild is a reference to Zak Wild, guitarist for Zak Sabbath,
Black Label Society, Ozzy Osbourne, all these fans, pretty
famous dude. I think we saw him.
We saw him. We did.
We saw. We saw Zach Sabbath.
Which is his Black Sabbath. Cover band.
It was fantastic. He just was noodling.
Guitar through everything, like he like, was like behind his
head under the leg, jumped into the audience.
He was still playing the whole time, no matter what.
It was great. Yeah.
And those Black Sabbath songs really lend themselves to that
kind of. Just going off and grooving and
soloing. So yeah, that was really fun.
Anyway, one of the. Real big, big reasons, folks.
Like Duncan Egg sometimes even more than A song of ice and fire
is that we get the perspective of non nobles right?
The only small folk slash noble commoner characters we get in A
song of Ice and fire are prologue characters and of
course they all die pretty quickly.
And Davos, who's like was a commoner, right?
He still has that background. He thinks on it.
But he's now operating amongst nobles, doing noble stuff, doing
the duties of a noble. That's the the region he
operates in. This is 2 dudes on the road.
One guy has a rope belt. I mean, they're, it's so
different, right? And it's expressed partly in
this quote when he tries to say words for Arlen.
His heart is in the right place. His heart, his heart's totally
in it. But, well, the quote says it
all. There ought to be a septon here
to say some prayers over him. But he only has me.
The old man had taught Donk all he knew of swords and Shields
and lances, but had never been much good at teaching him words.
I'd leave your sword, but it would rust in the ground.
He. Said last.
Apologetic gods will give you a new one, I guess.
I wish you didn't die, Sir. He paused, uncertain what else
needed to be said. He didn't know any prayers, not
all the way through. The old man had never been much
for praying. Right?
Like the dichotomy comes pretty quickly not long after Egg.
Knows how to ride a horse, knows how to ride it well, knows a lot
about horses. He's just an 8 year old kid or 9
year old, whatever he is, he's well educated already.
He's already far beyond Dunk in education, and that's just how
it is like when Dunk's education is entirely at the hands of Sir
Arlen and his life experiences. Yeah.
No septum. That's what there would have
been. There would be a septum.
He's he's exactly right. That is what you would normally
have at a funeral. And that is when we see Baylor's
funeral. It's, as we've already said,
it's super fancy. There's a bunch of people there,
mourners. It's super different.
You know one thing, it's actually from the second book,
but it. Was interesting that Dunk
pointed out to Egg. He's like, look, you know a lot
about stuff you've been taught about heraldry and history, but
these villagers, they know stuff you don't know.
You don't know which you know. Berries are poisonous.
You don't know how to plow the the field for beans.
So don't don't judge them too hard.
You can learn from them and they can learn from you.
He might not be good with words, right?
He didn't learn to read. He doesn't know all the prayers,
but he's still he's he's street smart, if you will.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Yeah. And so they do.
Have a lot so they can teach each other.
He's head smart. Oh my God, Sean I.
Reached over to unmute. Myself.
To make that joke. And I was like, I'm not going to
make it. That's great.
Leave it to me. I'll make any joke that's really
good. And you know, there's this
Deron, you know, he meets Deron the drunk.
We'll talk about him a little more later.
He meets him real briefly in this early, you know, early on
with meeting Egg. But his his presence is more
felt when he comes in and admits who he is and all that and gives
them the warning. But he's clearly a Lord of some
kind, even though he he doesn't wear like his Targaryen
heraldry. He is going to be around the
throne in about 12 years, but he's also pretty far down the
line in succession at this point.
It's about to change dramatically for him in that
regard. But people just leave him alone,
right? They like if he was some poor
drunk guy, they'd kick him out. But this is a drunk rich guy.
He's he can pay for his drinks. They don't care what he does.
He can sit there and and ruin his life if they want.
No one cares. He also if they kick him out he
might come back the next day and have him arrested or.
Something Yeah, so. So yeah, it's like he has the
privilege. It's not really a it's it's an
awkward way to use your privilege to be to drink
yourself to death, but it is an example of that in a very
oblique manner that no one's gonna He can safely be drunk in
public, just pass out on a table and can be reasonably sure
privilege uses privilege the same way.
That's part of what makes. These two so similar, Yeah.
Like, there's plenty of things that make them.
Different, but this is a huge point of comparison they yeah,
he can do that and know that they can probably just no one's
going to mess with him. He can be like insensate on the
lying on the road and people will just walk around him.
But if he was some nobody they might like step on his face or
steal his boots or something. But I mean that still might
happen, but it's way less likely to happen because they know who
he is and no one wants he's good enough at it to not be quite in
the middle of the road He. He's an expert at lying, he said
it. I'm no one's also very Tyrion
like, right? Like that kind of.
Comments sort of a a pride in his his faults.
Right. It's like what?
John? He's well, he tells John.
Right? He's like.
You know, if you're, you know, you're a bastard, don't let
anyone forget it, you know, or they're not going to forget it.
So you shouldn't either. Just be what?
Be what they want you to be. He's like, yeah, I'm, I'm a
drunk. OK, then we go.
Keep that in mind when you want me to ride into tilts.
Here's another really important subtopic I want to get into
which. Is the the attitude, the
lifestyle, the pride and the philosophy of a hedge night.
It sounds like something that a lot of nobles would look down
on. In fact, it's not something that
sounds like it. They definitely would look down.
A lot of them would. It's rare that someone like
Baylor breaks beer, comes along and has the generosity of spirit
to not hold himself so far above other people, even though he's
so great. That's part of what makes it so
meaningful is that he is so great, yet he still holds
himself to a high standard and and doesn't put himself above
too many other people in terms of things like that.
So one thing we we get is that that's apparent about the way
Arlen treated Dunk is that he praised him a lot.
He was nice to him. He taught, he was motivating.
He didn't use a lot of negative reinforcement.
He didn't. There wasn't a lot of physical
abuse. There was apparently some, but.
Dunk. Doesn't think of it as out of
line. He thinks, well, only only that
one time. I didn't steal that pie.
But other than that, it's a really nice way to summarize
like, Except for that it's like there's.
Only one. Time that you punish me
unjustly. And it's a it's kind of a cute
way to to Ben. It's like it's only one time
that every other time, every other time he beat.
Me. It was it.
Was OK yeah I deserved it this other time yeah it it's.
Also he. He thinks of being called Duncan
Lunk is as praise. You know what I mean?
Praise isn't the word I'm going to use, but but it remember that
he he's like it sounded different coming from Venice,
you know, or, you know, other people that would call him out
like they're not being they're not being like fondly of me when
they say it. You would you know that is a
straight parallel to Gran. Remember, Gran and Sam's
conversation was like, they called me Sam the Slayer.
They're mocking me. They're like, yeah, but you
really did kill that other. And when I say it, I'm not
mocking you. When Sir Alister says it that
way, he is same like they call me Orox.
Like he gave me that name to mock me.
But quite frankly, an Orox is big and strong and can go miles
and miles without tiring. So he chooses to his Gren has
the Zen Gren. Zen Zen Gren has this attitude
of well, I'm looking on the bright side.
Yeah, he's calling me stupid. But at the same time, he's
calling me big and strong and and tough.
So that's the part I'm going to focus on.
And that's really what's going on here.
Right. Like Dunk the lung.
He's like, yeah, he's he's saying I'm not that bright.
He's also saying I think it's a castle wolf.
Like that's a good thing to be in a realm.
Of castles and swords. Right.
So, yeah, it's not. Sometimes people can use it as
an insult, but if you really break it down, it's a darn good
thing to be to to have that toughness and we see it.
I mean, we're pretty far away from the actual event, but man,
we just talked about how relatable he is.
That's a big deal here. He's less relatable when you get
3 feet of Lance sticking out his side.
He Yanks it out and keeps going Like that.
I can't relate to, but I can relate.
To a lot of this other stuff. Not knowing if I have enough
money for a room, you know, things like that, Like that's,
that's pretty realistic. And that's part of what I think
brings people closer to these stories is like, his struggles
are a lot more familiar than the struggles of Sansa and Jon Snow.
And I mean, these are characters we can, we can, there's things
we can find in common with those characters too.
But like, they're dealing with like, inheritance and crowns and
arranging weddings for 1000 people.
Like I've, I've done none of those things ever and probably
never will. But I will decide if I have
enough. Money to afford things.
Right. You know, I will wonder where my
next meal is coming from sometime.
You know, servings. Aren't just going to bring it to
me at meal time like where is that dinner?
I expected it to be brought here by now.
Like we don't live like that. And also at this stage in.
Our lives, maybe. Not everyone listening, but you
eventually get to a state in your life where things a little
more stable. But when I was younger, there
were times when I was skipping meals and trying to decide if I
was going to, you know, pay for this food or pay for this bill
or whatever. So yeah, ramen noodles are salt
beef. It's like, just think of it that
way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah. I was saying I could.
Relate to dunk 'cause one time I got a three inch splinter under
my fingernail. Some people, eventually you,
most people, eventually you get to a point in your life where
you're not struggling for food anymore.
Not that we don't still have to make budgets, but in our youth,
you know, a lot of times when you're 20 ish, you know, you are
struggling to figure out which bill to pay, But how you're
paying for your, you know, the grocery store, you're like
looking at the like cost per oz or whatever different things
you're buying just ramen noodle meals and stuff like that.
So I I think a bit of the movie rounders.
Or or any number of other movies where you've got a main
character who is pretty talented at something and thinks they can
beat all the current experts at it.
They're a little naive, but also quite good at it.
It's like a mix of naivete, but also a lot of talent because in
that movie rounders like he's a he's a wannabe poker star and he
wants to just take his entire bankroll and spend it on one
tournament, which is exactly what Dunk is doing here.
He's like, I'm going to risk everything I have on just my
first fight. And if he if he busts out, he's
got nothing, which would have been that's the case for Mikey
and rounders. If he busts out, he's got no
money anymore. And well, of course, in his
situation, he's it's modern times, you could go borrow money
from his family or something. Whereas here Dunk doesn't even
know who his parents are. So that's a huge difference.
The life of an orphan in Westeros really tough.
I mean Dunk only one of the few reasons Dunk.
Survived. Orphan Hood, other than some
luck, was his great size. Like Arlen pulled him out of the
gutter in part because of Wow. Look at how big you are.
You know, like all the other kids weren't pulled out of the
gutter. They didn't.
They weren't gifted with this great size.
So something else to keep in mind there too.
OK, let's move on to a little bit about the life of a hedge
knight specifically. And what makes a hedge knight
different. What important point, for
example, what separates a hedge knight from a cell sort?
Here's another quote. The only life he knew was the
life of a hedge knight riding from keep to.
Keep taking service with this Lord and that Lord, fighting in
their battles, eating in their halls until the war was done and
moving on. There were tourneys from time to
time as well, though less often. And you knew that some hedge
Knights turned to robber during leaner winters, though the old
man never had. Yeah, So that's a pretty, pretty
important point here. Let's.
Say here they don't get very
well educated, but Nina reminds us that they do get educated to
heraldry. You got to know heraldry because
those are going to be your bosses.
It's like not knowing the difference between a couple
different Fortune 500 companies. Like, in particular industry,
like you got to know the difference between McDonald's
and Burger King, or you got to know the difference between
McDonald's and Starbucks. If you're going to go get hired
by one of these companies, you don't go go to McDonald's and
ask to be, you know, a barista. That's not going to work out.
Nor do you go to Starbucks and offer to work the fry machine.
So you got to know what's what. You got to know the people's
names. It helps to like have some
understanding of of their lands, what type of business they might
need you for. Little things like that.
Coffee and French fries. That's it.
It's the wedding wedding combo I'll.
Be back. This is a another important
point, yeah, the the risk of it. Right.
This is what makes the focus of the story.
I'll say I take some of Nina's words here literally.
The hedge knight, so fascinating.
The hedge knight, as a Westerosi institution, constantly
straddles the line between peasant and noble, poverty and
gentility, right? They're poor, but they're always
working with and for the nobility.
So they're constantly around the nobility and constantly
struggling to live up to, you know, looking the parts
constantly. Yeah, putting on air is just
having to know. How to handle that and?
That's it's difficult when you hedge nights can't eat cat food.
When you don't have an A strong education.
When you're not good at talking. Dunk really has to get by on his
side. He's like, look at me, you can
tell I'd be good, right? Because I'm not going to explain
myself very well. It's really interesting about
the idea. Of a hedge knight in general
like maybe the code or whatever of a hedge knight and then
especially when you start thinking about the difference
between a hedge knight and a sell sword and how close hedge
Knights are turning into just you know thieves even but the
fact is that that the different 1 doesn't even have that code
right Think again you kind of got to look to the next book,
but think about how different Venice is from Dunk right.
They're both hedge nights, but they have completely different
mentalities, completely different levels of honor and
that you can also see why so many people might be suspicious
of head nights because so many of them do turn to crime or
because they don't all stick to the honor that they have.
Fact is, Landon nights, they don't know I'll have the same
code either. They're not always I mean we're
so I'm sure we can talk about parallels between Dunk and the
mountain or whatever. You know that that the a
constant theme that we were. Going to probably.
Going to come up over and over again is just because you're a
knight doesn't mean you're honorable.
Just because you're honorable doesn't mean you're a knight or
just because you're not a knight doesn't mean you are the all the
different permutations of the characters like Sandor and
Brianne. Yeah, like it just comes up so
much. Totally.
Right. And and that's one thing I think
that is kind of unique about Dunk.
Is that he doesn't even think of knighthood as not that he
doesn't think of it as a rank, but to many people knighthood is
just a rank. It's just a pass It's just a
level to get to so that I, you know, can order people around
and I don't know, maybe have nice armor food wire.
But to him, it's a social responsibility.
Yes. To him, it means you have to
help people out and do the honorable thing.
And and he's just going to do that whether or not he has the
official title of knighthood or not.
Whereas other people who had the official title of knighthood
there may or may not do the honorable thing.
And I think that Baylor maybe has enough experience in the
world to understand that all head Knights aren't the same and
sees in Dunk that he is a good one.
Yeah, that's a really, really well said, Sean.
Because also it it. Brings home like, I think a
central theme of this story, which is that, yeah, it isn't
that title that matters. Whether or not Dunk was actually
knighted is a fun thing for us to think about and maybe debate
a little bit. But ultimately, I think what
George telling us that his behavior is what matters the
most. And in terms of behavior,
there's no question he's a knight.
There's no question that Brienne is a knight based on that same
standard. Because of her behavior, we see
inside her head, we see the decision she makes, very similar
to what we see with Dunk. We see them do good.
They want to do good. They want to do the right thing,
as you put it, and the right thing.
Sometimes it's challenging to figure out what the right thing
is, but sometimes it's not. But sometimes it's difficult to
do the right thing. It's not the it's not the
figuring out what's right. It's the actually making
yourself get involved because of the the sacrifice you have to
make for it or the risk you have to take or whatever.
Yeah, very well said. So I I have this point here
written. Knighthood versus hedge
knighthood and there is a difference like you said with a
regular knight, a non hedge knight you would the things to
worry about would be well what are they really motivated by?
Is it greed? Is it glory or are they one of
the good ones with a hedge knight?
Well, they're probably not terribly motivated by greed or
glory because they don't have access to much, but they might
be desperate. That that's the thing you're
saying is like, why some of them are you like, oh, I'm I'm scared
of hedge nights because anyone at the edge of poverty might do
something desperate. Desperation does drive people to
do things they might not normally do.
But if you have this powerfully held philosophy, even through
tough times, you won't go beyond the limits you've set for
yourself of honor and, and, and such.
There's this very quick quote. A hedge knight must hold tight
to his pride. Without it, he was no more than
a cell sword. I, I really thought about this
one a lot because he's mostly unbothered by his signs of
poverty. It's, it's his attitudes to
philosophy. It's a code.
And it made me think of Sir Illifer and Sir Creighton from A
Feast for Crows. Some farm boy on a piebald horse
went by and an hour. Later, half a dozen men a foot
with staves and sides, they caught sight of our fire,
stopped for a long look at our horses, but I showed them a
glimpse of my steel and told them to be along their way.
Bro fellows, by the look of them, and desperate too, but
narrow. So desperate to trifle with Sir
Preyton Long Ball. No, Brian thought, not so
desperate as that. She turned.
Away to hide her smile thankfully Sir Creighton was too
intent on the tale of his epic battle with the knight of the
red chicken to make note of the maiden's mirth.
It felt good to have companions on the road, even such
companions as these two, right, Like those two were ridiculous.
But in a way that makes sense, especially with this to round it
out. The pride is really that's why
this guy is telling all these tall tales.
It's important for him to hold on to his pride because, well,
at the time we were like, well, it's just otherwise he's
embarrassed. But no, it's not that It's not
just about your outlook and how people see you.
It's to keep yourself personally from turning to desperation to
turning dark, the turning to to to jumping the line from hedge
knight to cell sword. That's it's amazing to me that
that scene with Creighton and Illifer with their silliness is
actually hits a lot harder when you think about it this way.
And it's like, no, that's not just silly.
George added some comedy to it, no doubt.
Like even Brienne smiles. And Brienne isn't exactly a big
jokester, right? So she doesn't like mockery.
It's almost like Victoria now. She doesn't really trust it
because it's always aimed at her or she's had too much of it
aimed at her for her to appreciate it.
But this puts a whole nother spin on it that it's a little
silly. Yes.
But behind that is an very important line that they just
can't cross. Because once you cross that
line, you probably, you may not ever uncross it.
You become Sir Venice. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Dennis really, is he? Probably has jumped in.
He calls himself a hedge knight, but he does seem more like a
salsa, right? Yeah, the way we think.
You know, that's another difference too between the hedge
knight, something I seem. To remember that that Dunk
thought about was that they kind of choose their Lord.
A lot of Knights. It's just because of their land
or their their inheritance, their family, that they are
bound to some Lord. That Lord isn't necessarily a
good person, right? But a hedge knight, they choose
their Lord. You.
I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be a knight for you
because I don't think you're doing the right thing, You know?
So at least ostensibly, a knight that does have a even a hedge
knight that has a true code of honor might be more trustworthy
than a Landon knight because the Landon knight is subject
whatever the Lord wants, not necessarily to whatever the
right thing is or protecting innocent.
The Lord wants go kill those peasants.
Well, the knight has to go kill those peasants if he's loyal to
that Lord. You know, that's a great point.
Again, we see a million examples of Knights.
Who are? Not doing the right thing
because their Lords are telling them to do something that's not
the right thing. So his dunks first loyalty is to
his bows to his knighthood. That's where he's for.
You're right. It's a great point.
Now the problem, of course, is you can't just look at someone
and tell whether they're one of the Dunk types or whether
they're Sir Venice. Other than, you know, looking at
their teeth maybe. But maybe you can smell them
out. Also.
Staying briefly on the topic of. Ilifer.
And Sir Creighton, that scene has a familiar feel to this one
in that we're about to be. At the point.
Where Dunk just doesn't want Egg to come with him.
He's like, Nah, I don't want you around, you know, don't stay.
I don't want to be with you. But Egg insists, and eventually
Dunk is happy. He's like, I'm glad, actually,
this has worked out pretty well. And this is the same thing that
happened here, Brianna. First is like, I don't want to
be around you guys. My horse is too fast.
I travel alone. And they're like, Nope, we're
Knights. And we just can't not escort
you, you know, that's just how it is.
And he's she's like, all right, fine.
And then eventually she's like, it felt good to have companions
on the road, even such companions used to.
So it's very. Yeah, I like, I like that a lot.
Yet one of the many, many connecting points between Duncan
Brienne that'll love it there's I I I'm eager to discover new
ones because I'm sure there's going to be when we take such a
close look at it, that's when we find even more real quick.
Let's also take a look at this awesome shirt that.
Rita got for me. Oh hell yeah.
If you're listening, it's Duncan, the tallest shield.
Exactly. The shield, of course, will be
one of the many other. Things we have to talk.
About going forward with our coverage, but that will not be
today as we're about to wrap things up.
Comment from Sophia on our Flick group.
Shout out to our commenters over on Flick.
You guys have provided us with many excellent discussion points
and comments and topics and questions for us to enhance our
listening experience and podcasting experience.
Sophia says eggs snarkiness reminds her of Aria, which is a
wonderful touchback to what we were saying about being sort of
pretty far down. You know, you're the 4th or 5th
or 6th child and the other older ones are getting, you know, more
attention, more education, more prepared for ruling and farther
from your age. Yeah.
So you still have this? Like rank but.
Without as many privileges and without as much like front and
center. So you can see where some of
that started as many expectations and
responsibilities I think. Particularly, most importantly
that he just is kind of been able to to do whatever.
That's a great point, yeah, especially.
When we compare it to some of the other, like farther down the
line of succession type characters, like ones who the
farther down you go when there's a big family, the more out.
I think you're likely to see George characterize these
character these these farther down the line of succession
characters as of this type, you see him make more sarcasm and
attitude and snark amongst these characters that are not amongst
the first and second porn, for example.
The good one would be Jerian Lannister, who Tyrion portrays
as He just didn't. He just stayed away from
everything. He just didn't play the game
like the three older brothers were.
Two of them were always trying to just win Tywin's attention
and Tywin was just dominant. And Jerian's like, I'm just not
going to be a part of any of this because, well, we don't
exactly know why, but he was very sarcastic and snarky and
had some of the same attitude and that's why he got along with
Tyrion pretty well. While we're at on the subject of
comparisons to some of the early characters in A Game of Thrones,
since the Stark children are the ones we know the best of, we
obviously don't get PO VS from other children.
Like there's other I could think of other people who might would
fit this. But we didn't get enough of
them. Like there's probably some frays
that are pretty down the line, you know?
Yeah, that's for sure how funny that we're going to actually
see. Walder Fray in the third story.
Yes, indeed. Little, little Walder, I I know
this is taking us forward to the third book because he said.
Did you realize that was Walter Frey?
Did it stick out? I don't remember.
Yeah, there's a strong.
Chance that I didn't piece. That together.
There and also there's a chance that I did but then lost the
memory with everything else. I I I remember reading the
second time the hedge night thinking like, what's with that
drunk? What's with that drunk Lord in
his dream? And then I was like, oh, Oh
yeah, I just forgot. I just had like, I had to re
remember, you know, he was there on, you know, yeah.
Speaking of wine, Sophie. Also writes that Raymond's offer
of Arbor wine had, you know, the eyebrow raising moment there
because we've talked about how Arbor wine is often a sign of
dishonesty. There's going to be some lies
told, but this might predate that team because Raymond
certainly does not turn out to be dishonest.
He turns out to be, as Sophia says, he's more like Sam, where
it's like John's election where he's going around trying to get
votes for, for for John. And even though even as John
himself is like, I don't know if we can get this to work, but his
friend is backing him up. I don't know, you could say
maybe because Raymond is going around.
Trying to get people on board that relates to it.
And that dunk is lying in that conversation.
The dishonesty of him being a knight, Yeah.
I don't know. OK.
OK, that's a good. Call.
Very good call. There is, there is some.
Implied dishonesty in there, maybe not from Raymond himself,
but but but also maybe maybe he's like exaggerating the
circumstances to get people to fight on Dunk side or something
like that. Yeah, maybe.
Maybe it is something I thought about earlier when you were in.
The beginning we were talking about a couple different things
like George's style and how it might have changed over the
years. Something that's distinct about
this story is we're only getting one POV and also just thinking
about the equivalent number of chapters that think how longer
and or fuller this story would be if we had different
perspectives. Like what if we got this story
from the perspective of of Raymond and or just three POV?
Yeah. What if we had three POV?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would be sort of like
more similar to A Song of Ice and Fire.
So that is a great point because it reminds us of another
difference in the way this is written.
It's it's unique in that sense. Yes, we've we've talked about
how it's different than Fire and Blood and World of Ice and Fire
because those are less story like and more history like, one
more so than the other. But both along those lines and A
Song of Ice and Fire is this vast multi POV story where this
is, well, it's still vast in its own way because it's in the same
world, but the story isn't as big and there's only one POV.
So yeah, it's a good like little way to look at it.
Think where we were in the story of Game of Thrones. 5 chapters
in hadn't even started, you know what I mean?
Like but it's already like reached a climax and finished in
this Dunk story so but also Game of Thrones is so much more in
depth because you have so many different storylines and
characters involved. So pros and cons to it all.
Definitely, definitely. Well said.
OK, a couple of quick. Wrap UPS, Dunk's sense of
unworthiness reminding us of John.
That's another one that's pretty good.
Compare the phrase thick as a castle wall to, you know,
nothing, John. You know, both of them just kind
of like, oh, that's good, Yeah. Kind of self aggrandizement.
Internally like. Being like, I'm not worthy of
this, I'm not good enough. But yeah, you know, nothing
thick as a castle wall. That's very good.
I like that catch a lot. We'll consider that one going
forward. I think we maybe need to explore
that one more. We'll have to keep our eyes open
for more. John to Duncan unworthiness
connections. Very good catch.
Sophia Guinevere Greenstones. Good question to leave ourselves
off with. Are there any History of
Westeros episodes you would recommend watching before next
week? Well, certainly if you want to
get yourself really well settled with the Black Fire Rebellions,
we've got a lot of Black Fire Rebellion episodes.
You could start with, if you want to start with episode 2, if
you if, if it's a re listen for you, episode 2 is Deron.
So that's kind of useful to have Deron in mind and all that.
And the episode right after that would take you a little farther
down the timeline. Our two Summer Hall episodes are
pretty relevant, although you could of course do those after
or at some other point. Can I point out the irony that
when? I bring up Summerhall.
You're like. Yeah, it's you're a superficial
understanding. It's pretty much it.
There's not that much known, by the way.
We have two episodes, probably at least two hours each.
Right. Yeah, we know a lot.
About what? Leads.
We know a lot about more leads to it.
Who's there but the actual like what went wrong and what they
were doing? The other thing we know a lot
about is the fallout, the effect that it.
Has on characters like Aries, so that's a lot to talk about.
In Radar for example, one of the main topics is is Aries is just.
Obsession with wildfire rooted in part in trauma that he
witnessed Summer Hall when he was about 15.
Like, he's almost his whole family was killed by wildfire.
So see, that might have an impact on his psyche.
That's just an amazing thing about this world that George has
created the community. Built up around it.
This podcast is it we're we're talking about Dunkin Egg, right
and we just went for two hours and I think we're on the second
scene of the first book, you know, like we get a lot of a lot
of material. There's a lot to say.
There's a lot of you're. So right now we probably will
make, we probably get farther next.
Week because we won't have done as we won't be doing as much set
up must introduction you know talking about bringing you back
in here and all that stuff. So we should be able to get
farther into the story but that's that's not to say we
didn't do a lot today in terms of story progress.
There wasn't a lot but we talked about a lot of really
interesting fun stuff there's a lot more to it than plot.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I mean. You're not into this series if
you're not. Into setup and world building.
I mean, you're just not you're not into this podcast if these
things don't resonate with you at least a little bit.
So I'm. I'm preaching to the choir by
saying no, it's as good as covering the story.
Like, yeah, Aziz, we know that's why we're listening.
Yeah. Jonathan Hagee, by the way, good
comment here. He.
Says Radioestros. Has an episode on the hedge
night so that would be you want to round out you're not as a
great place to start. Go check out Radioestros.
We of course, always endorse all their episodes.
Someone who's put some thought into this ahead of ahead of us.
They might get you to think about some things you hadn't
considered, maybe bring some questions over to ask us that
they inspired. So either way though, that's a
great suggestion. So let's hit.
On our outro. We'll pick up where we left off
next time. That's how we're doing things,
so no need to say what comes next week.
We're just going to pick right up.
Where? This was, I guess, all the
secret good stuff comes next week.
Better be there. That's right.
So thanks to. Everyone who came and watched
live, thanks to A Shaya for all the amazing management behind
the scenes and commentary alongside it.
Thanks to Sean. I'm glad you're back my man.
Yeah, it's awesome. Can I also share?
Sean got three kittens. And Sean, you really should
tweet your kittens more. Just saying.
So then I can tell everyone, Yeah, everybody go follow
dancing. Sean, who has to have posted
pictures of his three kittens. Is it worth grabbing them right
now? Is that too much?
I'm going. To keep I'm going to keep
talking, so come. Back people love it.
The risk is that. They jump on a keyboard to mess
everything up. Well, that's fine.
It's a risk we'll have to take, so yeah.
Thanks to our. History of Westeros mods
Particular shout out to Scott Wortman for making sure the
episode gets posted in the group each week.
Thanks to our commenters over on Flick and Facebook and Slack and
Discord. Lots of different things
happening, lots of discussions happening on those groups.
You can sort of pick which version of social media you like
best, find the type of discussion format that you like
best, and join us for that. You might get your name
mentioned out loud. You might read aloud one of your
questions. You might do that several times,
as several of you may know from being regular commenters.
Thanks as well to Michael Klarfeld.
AKA. Clairdox.de.
That's his website. His maps are what you see behind
us. He also is responsible for our
video intro. Thanks to Kevin McLeod for the
Valar Rivitas intro music. Thanks to Joey Townsend and
Jessica Wall for our regular History of Westeros intro outro
music. Thanks to the Engineer for audio
engineering sound quality assistance.
And it sounds like we have cats. We do have a cat.
Which cat is this, Sean? This is Cora her name.
Partly inspired. Mokoro lame tattoo on her face.
It's so cute. But mashed up with Cora the
Avatar. Her.
She's her in a storm right now. She knows she's a *.
Yeah, she's like I'm on. I'm on a live stream a.
Rat. It's so cute.
She's on his. Shoulder.
Nice, a great way to wrap things up I wish I could get.
Her to turn toward. The camera, I know she's going
to do what she's. Going to do, she knows she.
Knows she's got a good. Butt.
That's what all the other cats. Want to see any cat watching
this? Mother cats are like first
shame. Oh there, that's a good picture.
Poor, poor Aziz can't see this, but it's I.
Can't see any of this. I can look at it.
In a minute.
OK, you should. I don't have a live shot but
anyway thanks again everyone. Check out Hereby Dragons.
Our friends over there are are covering the first 3 episodes of
Loki. I haven't watched Loki myself
yet but I'm going to. I did the same with One
Division. I just wait for it to all be out
and watch it all at once. That's cool.
So it sounds like it's going pretty well.
Most reviews are pretty good so I I'm curious what HBD has to
say. No boys, but.
Cool. All right, everybody.
We'll be back next week. Same.
Time, same place picking up where we left off, more of the
hedge night and you know what to do in between now and then.
Bellar beat reefs.