A new sun rises, and as darkness falls, a shooting star blazes
across the sky. I kind of feel like the entire
fandom saw that shooting star and we all got the luck
contained therein because it's a great debut for a night of the
Seven Kingdoms. Almost everyone is very pleased
or extremely pleased. Most of the Phantom seems
overjoyed with the reaction results, and so are we.
It's the Hedge Night coming to the big screen, and it's great.
There's a lot of direct quotes from the Hedge Night in this
first episode. A lot of things are almost word
for word, actual word for word in a few cases.
George R Martin calls it a faithful adaptation.
I can definitely see why having seen this first episode.
There is a lot of new dialogue, but they managed to add things
without subtracting from the original.
It was more like filling in rather than a lot of changes.
They certainly leaned into comedy and that seemed to work.
They certainly had a lot of great jokes mixed in.
This episode will have a spoiler free first portion and a spoiler
filled second-half and it will contain a Shaya, Sean and myself
Aziz, all that and more on this episode of History of Westeros
podcast. Hello and welcome everybody.
It's the beginning of a new season of a new show.
There's really nothing like a season 1 episode 1, is there?
Especially when it goes well and well, we we've had a good record
of those so far. In general, the first episodes
have been good, so let's get to it.
First of a few scheduling notes first for how we're going to
handle this season. We are going to be at our usual
live stream TV show spot of 6 Eastern on Mondays.
We will occasionally have a preview stream on Friday.
We used to do this on Saturday, but they're going to be Friday
and it will be around 5:30 Eastern, so a little before this
one and then right after that. Those of you who want more can
catch my game streams on Twitch, which are a Dunkin Egg game
stream. Right now we're doing Dunkin Egg
on Crusader Kings Three. They have been specifically put
into the game and it's a lot of fun.
We just started it last week, so come join out. twitch.tv/history
of Westeros. Also very important, very
timely, and very much are looking for your help on this
one. Please join the World Science
Fiction Society by January 31st to nominate U.S. history of
Westeros in the best related work.
It's our Ragnarok versus the Long Night episode.
That's what that's the episode that we're submitting.
For 50 bucks you get the packet of everything on the ballot.
So many books, there's so many books and a lot of art, meaning
every book that's nominated for best novel, things like that.
You also get to do your own nominating and of course, voting
and if you actually attend World Con, which will be in Anaheim
this year in 2026. So it's a lot more accessible
for a lot of us. You can upgrade your membership
then. So once again, everything is in
the description, but we would very much appreciate your
support to get on the ballot. We'd love to be a Hugo nominee.
Ragnarok versus a long night. That's that.
If you have questions about this episode, you can hit us up live
hopefully if you're here, but if not, hit us up at Wistro's
history@gmail.com or hit us up on any of our socials.
We'd love to hear from you on what you liked most, didn't
like, favorite performances, Easter eggs, callbacks, things
like that. You never know what we missed
and we just want to hear from y'all.
Anyway, we certainly noticed a lot of Easter eggs in this first
episode and at the end of the episode we will mention a few
others that relate to this one real quickly.
What does spoilers and non spoilers mean in this case?
Non spoilers means the equivalent book scenes only and
not anything hidden between the lines there, only the the basic
carryover things that haven't happened yet on screen.
We won't talk about the book version of that.
So it's pretty straightforward in that regard.
In terms of what spoilers includes, well, that includes
everything. That means everything in the
novel, all the lore, all our theories that we have or don't
have, and trailers as well. There's a rest of season trailer
that was at the end of the episode and that had some things
in it that we will talk about in the second-half.
Can I say real quick about that? I almost feel like if you
haven't read the books, you should avoid that trailer.
I feel like you gave away too much.
I won't get into that of course, but I would say if you're liking
a show and haven't seen the rest of the season trailer, just hold
out for the rest of the show. That's my advice.
I agree with that, Sean. Very, very good point.
All right, so trivia question which we will reveal the answer
to at the end. Sir Arlen of Penny Tree Dunks
Master fought for Sir Manfred Dondarian's father.
Against what foe? Who do they fight against?
I know this one. I'm pretty sure I know this one.
All right, you'll find out at the end if you're right and a
poll which is live now for those of you watching on YouTube.
But if you're catching the episode on Spotify, you can vote
as well. Who was your favorite
performance? Not counting Dunk and Egg
themselves and the possibilities are Daniel Ings AKA Sir Lionel
Baratheon, Shawn Thomas, and Edward Ashley as a combo.
Those were the 2 fossil ways. Raymond and Stefan Plumber, the
steward, that's Tom von Lawler. And then our four sex workers,
Rowan Robinson, Carla Harrison Hodge, Abigail Oregon and Ellie
McHale Row. Now there's a lot of people in
that list just now that have hyphenated names.
So what's? Worth.
I just put the character names 'cause it's way too long to put
the actor names in the poll. Yeah, anyway, so that's who they
are, but take your pick there and we'll have more of these
throughout the season. Thanks to Corn Emperor for the
Super chat. Yeah, it is on.
You are absolutely right. Let's get going to the first
scene. It very much aligns with the
first scene of the book. What we'll do here is have a lot
of the quotes that that parallel that and then discuss them.
I really appreciate the setting on this one, like the visuals
you've got the the big mountain in the background, wide open
space and the makes it hard actually to tell what a big man
Dunk is. There's nobody he's next to, you
know, they're only the horses and he's not really right next
to them. So that doesn't really come
apparent until he comes up the egg, which makes it very
apparent. Anyway, let's have the quote
from the first scene of the book.
The spring rains had softened the ground, so Dunk had no
trouble digging the grave. He chose a spot on the western
slope of a low hill, for the old man had always loved to watch
the sunset. You learn a lot from that line,
and you learn a lot from how Dunk carries himself during this
moment. He is taking care.
He's doing what Sir Ellen would have wanted.
He's, you know, conscientious. He's empathetic even to a dead
person, Right? And Sean, his first line here is
I don't have the right words, which really is a really good
way to start off Dunk, isn't it? It is.
I had that written down in my notes that that was a, a great
way to to frame the show, to set things off.
And it also I, I got to be careful because they don't want
to spoil things. But there is this sentiment, I
think of fans that Dunk isn't that smart.
Dunk himself says, you know, he's thick as a castle wall.
And maybe because Arlen told him that.
And I think George Martin even said that he's not the brightest
character he's ever written. However, Martin has written
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of characters.
You know what I mean? So Dunk could be outside the top
10% and not be the brightest, but that doesn't mean he's dumb.
And I, I have that thought sometimes that Dunk is smarter
than he gets credit for. He's smart in a, I'm going to
say intelligent way as opposed to an educated way.
Like, I think his mind is clever enough to figure things out, but
he just doesn't have the knowledge of reading or, you
know, world experience or whatever else.
So maybe combine that with some naivete and I think we get, you
know, done being thought of as as unintelligent.
But I don't think that's true. I don't think it's fair.
But that's why I like this quote so much because it says I don't
have the right words. He like he if he had a better
vocabulary, he would say something better here, but he
just doesn't have a better vocabulary.
But he still has I don't know what what word to use exactly.
Enlightened thoughts, you know, deep emotions, whatever.
He just doesn't have the good vocabulary to say them.
Here and in many other spots throughout the series, I I.
Totally agree. I think maybe it to put it
simply, he doesn't have the right words, but he does the
right things. Oh.
Nice. You know, he has emotional
intelligence, I think, right? Even if he doesn't, you know,
have St. smarts or what have what have you.
So he tries to say the right things, right?
He doesn't. He's not taciturn.
It's not like he gives up on talking.
He keeps trying. So that's that's something you
can appreciate about him, too. And I think a lot of people can
relate to that. You know, how many of us, you
know, a day later, an hour later, a week later, realize
what we could have said? I'm like, oh, I could have said
it that way. You know, I think, yeah, I bet
Dunk has some moments like that. What?
What's the interesting thing about this scene?
Of course, it's raining now. That's that's from the book, but
there's very loud wind as well, which I thought was a nice touch
and it fits with the rain, but it also just gives the the scene
more of a a quality, a lonely quality, and I thought that was
a nice touch for sure. All right, here is the next
part. This is again the quote from the
book, and you'll see just how similar it is to the show.
I'd leave your sword, but it would rust in the ground, he
said, at last, apologetic. The gods will give you a new
one, I guess. I wish you didn't die, SER.
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.
You were a true knight, and you never beat me when I didn't
deserve it. He finally managed.
Except that one time in Maiden Pool.
It was the in boy who ate the widow woman's pie, not me.
I told you it don't matter now. The gods keep you, Sarah.
If you remove the narrator parts from what Ashea just read, it
could very much fit the show. You might not know which it was
if you heard both and you're like, well, that which was the
show and which was the book, you know, this was a pretty
effective way to do it, I think. And he's got a lot of emotion in
his voice and it's a solid way to to handle a monologue, I
think. And the flashbacks were
something we were hoping for, somewhat expecting.
And it was done interestingly here as a way to punctuate
what's a pretty sad moment with some comedy, which is something
that the the show apparently is going to do a lot of.
And we, we slowed down these flashbacks to see exactly what
was going on. And the 1st 2 are pretty
mundane. He just is standing there with
some dirt on his face. And the first one, the second
one, there's a group of people, you know, standing around.
They're all kind of looking at him.
I don't really know what he did, but he did something because he,
both of them, he doesn't know what's going.
He he seems to be agreeing that he was guilty.
And the third one, there's fire. There's a big fire.
It's a dunk start a huge fire. Dunk did start the fire.
It was always burnt. Yeah, it was always burning.
Yeah. So that's pretty funny.
And this is the actual Dunk actor.
It's actual Peter Clapi in this one.
Whereas the first two scenes, it's his.
It's, what's his name? Bamber.
Yeah. Bamber, Todd.
How could you forget Bamber, Todd?
Bamber Todd, Brother of Sweetie Todd.
Yeah, or it's Bamber. That name we all know.
Yeah, the name we all know that's that's what we've always
said about it. Yeah.
So the line about living rich for a year or two and where it
leads, outlawry or brigandry, that's straight from the book
basically. And I like how in the show, what
happens is he says that line and then he looks over at the shovel
and gravesite and then his face gets very serious, very earnest.
He's like, no, I got to do what I was taught.
I got to be a true knight. That's the only example he
knows. Sir Arlen's his father figure.
And he's got a, he wants to follow in those footsteps.
It's what he it's what he was taught.
And it's a, it's a noble calling.
And that's why he kind of sifts through those other ideas, other
ideas and kind of, you know, discards them, you know, City
Watch, things like that. He thinks through it, but he's
like, no, that's, that's not the path for me.
I'm going to follow Sir Arlen's path, I think.
I thought that was really well done too, don't you think so,
Sean? I I do in general, I love this
whole opening for a million different reasons, and that's
one of them. I thought it was a good
appropriate. What's happening here is dunks
kind of like choosing his destiny.
You know what I mean? Like what, what do I do now?
And it's almost might be expository in some situation for
someone to kind of ponder out loud.
What am I supposed to do now, Nate, give him a little bit of
an excuse to talk to the horses. We talked about the idea of how
some of his internal dialogue in a show, they'd have to have a
way for him to say it. And that's this is a clever way
from to say it to the horses. But also I want to point out
that it's like a natural moment for someone to have an
expository moment, right when you're you're basically your
father has just died and everything you had is on the
horse you ride around, You know what I mean?
Like it's not like he's time to go back home.
What's home even he doesn't know anyone or anything else.
And so having to decide what to do here.
And it's kind of neat, just the world setting for him to scroll
through different types of ideas, you know, and you even
see as he does that he's kind of naive about him, just like
people in the real world. Who the heck what 1718 year old
kid knows what they're really getting into when they go to
college and taking all that debt and get leave home and their
parents and their structure and suddenly there's alcohol.
Oh, you know what I mean. Like even someone who's maybe
kind of like dunk sort of naive ideas and going to go to college
and learn about mathematical engineering and instead you go
to college and you learn about girls and drugs.
You just don't know what's really out there in the world.
That steam when he pulls a sword.
Imagine he's in a city. Watch, Stop.
Stop conducting rapes, Sir. You know, it'd be a little
awkward and unrealistic because he doesn't actually know what it
means to be in the city guard or whatever.
Yeah, He wouldn't know what to say to someone if he did catch
them doing that. He'd be like, what am I?
Yeah, I assume they would train me what to do.
But he's just, yeah, he's just making something up because he's
trying it on. It's like he's trying that, that
roll on, you know, it's, it's like like an outfit.
And, and there are things that make sense in some way or
another, but the one he chooses is the one that's closest to
him. He's been to tournaments before.
Arlen is a knight. He wants to be a knight.
Knights go to tournaments. You know, this is a more along
the lines of what he fancies in his mind.
You know, absolutely also not really.
He's also naive. He's also naive about this
thing, even this thing. He should quote UN quote, should
know better from the world experience he does have.
He still doesn't really understand what he's getting
into here. Yeah, yeah.
One thing I love about this is that he, and it kind of comes up
later in his conversation with a laughing Storm where he's like,
why are you slouching? He because he's this is, if Dunk
understood better about living his own life, his physical gift,
his height. These are, these are qualities
that will get him a job. So yeah, he is downplaying them.
So it's like, no, you should be tall.
That's that's something, you know, it was, it was said as a
joke, but it's, it's it's really true about him.
He doesn't realize one of the things his naivete has him
believing or not missing. Rather he he doesn't know how
valuable his size is in the world.
Something a little deeper thought going back to the
flashbacks of Arlen. Yeah.
I was really stirred by that because it's something reading
the books that I would think about a lot, how much Dunk sort
of idolizes Arlen, but also how much he references Arlen having
hit him. And he so often has this
instinct to hit Egg. And it.
That seems like such a dark, awful thing.
And, you know, be fair, Modern times are different, but I still
believe a couple things. One, the showrunners chose to
slice those little flashbacks in, you know, they didn't have
to do that, but they did. And I think it really kind of
brings attention to, I don't know, the abuse, I guess the
Dunk maybe the average person would have taken and it maybe it
makes him tougher. Maybe Arlen doesn't know better.
You know, he that Arlen wasn't actually his father.
He wasn't trained to be his father, who is?
And especially back then, Arlen probably was also beaten by his
parents, probably worse than what he's given Dunk.
And I think at least one thing here, maybe I'm being kind of,
you know, optimistic outlook here, but the Dunk is going to
be better than this. The Dunk isn't going to hit Egg
when even when he says something about how Arlen taught me
everything he knew well as best as he could.
I think that's Dunk recognizing Arlen had his own faults, you
know, And I think Dunk doesn't want to have those faults
himself. And if he does raise Egg the
best he's can, as Egg suggested, it won't include actually
clotting him in the ear even when he might deserve it.
You know, quote UN quote deserve.
Like, I, it's hard for me to think what a child could do that
deserves being hit in the head. Like if an adult robbed the
store or called someone an asshole or I don't know,
whatever else. You don't hit the adult in the
head, right? Why would you treat children
worse than adults? So that is a theme in both book
and show that the this this upbringing and how it kind of is
passed on. And that's that's really true in
the Song of Ice and Fire very much as well.
Almost all these characters have very fleshed out backgrounds.
You can see how their ancestry effects who they are.
Thank you to Matt Fan man 781 for the Super chat who says
thank you history of Westeros for all your great reviews and
discussions. That's right, Hopefully we've
got plenty more for you the rest of season.
So here is the equivalent moment.
We have him pointing his sword out and his is.
This is the quote from the book that you can see pairs up really
nicely as well. He tied the scabbard to a length
of hemp and rope, knotted it around his waist, and drew the
long sword. The blade was straight and
heavy, good castle forged steel, the grip soft leather wrapped
over wood, the pommel a smooth polished Blackstone.
Plain as it was, the sword felt good in his hand, and Dunk knew
how sharp it was, having worked it with wet stone and oilcloth
many a night before they went to sleep.
It fits my grip as well as it ever fit his, he thought to
himself. And there is attorney at Ashford
Meadow. They added a penny to his
pommel. That's one difference from book
and show, and it's for penny trees or Arlen, a penny tree.
It's a nice touch. It comes up again later when
Dunk throws a penny and you can see it's the same coin, the same
kind of coin, not the exact same coin.
He doesn't take the coin out of the hilt.
But yeah, yeah, it's a. So it's a good visual way to to
know what's going on, especially because there's a couple,
there's at least one other scene where a coin comes up.
The first scene after he leaves the site of the grave, as I
mentioned before, is the N and the first person he sees his
egg. And that immediately
demonstrates even more of their height difference.
And it's it's definitely a running thing that there's
multiple moments where someone points out how big he is, like
Lionel stormed or Lionel strong. Lionel Baratheon does it and so
does Stefan Fosseway. But there's also a bunch of
people that in the background that just while he's walking
around the camp doing various things, you'll occasionally see
someone pass by and do a double take.
So they they've added a few extra like, whoa, just people
random people noticing him as being tall.
And so it's a kind of nice touch there and they.
Did a decent job I think of positioning him him around other
people being shorter. Like when he's at the the first
puppet show, he's a full head taller than the next nearest
person around him. And he is tall.
Like this actor is like, I don't know, well over 6 feet in real
life. He is.
Yeah. I think he's taller than average
in the 1st place. And it is somewhat of a
phenomenon that actors, on average, tend to have shorter
heights. So he's gonna stand out.
I've seen. I know that's like a concern
some people had going into this is that he's supposed to be
almost 7 feet tall. This actor's not tall enough.
I'm like, he's plenty tall. That's mine.
Yeah. Especially given the way they
can film and film around him and everything they're representing
himself as being the largest man around for.
Sure. Yeah.
And every scene, it never is never close.
Yeah, it's definitely represented visually quite well.
I agree with that. And when he comes up to AG,
it's, it's funny to consider that, you know, they're not that
far apart in age. And Dexter, soul and Cell in
real life, talked about how his neck would be sore 'cause they
have to do these scenes over and over and he's just looking up
the whole time all day long. So there's a a couple people in
the room. At first I wrote in my notes
that there's only one person in the inn besides the innkeep and
her young daughter. But there's one other person
besides the passed out, well dressed man.
There's actually one other person.
I think there's a guy, a bearded guy in the far corner that was
kind of leaning on his arm. But whatever, doesn't matter.
Here is the equivalent quote from the book again, which once
again very similar. Across the room, the lordling
raised his head from the wine puddle.
His face had a sallow, unhealthy cast to it Beneath a rat's nest
of sandy brown hair and blonde stubble crusted his chin.
He rubbed his mouth, blinked at Dunk and said.
I dreamed of you. His hand trembled as he pointed
a finger. You stay away from me, do you
hear? You stay well away.
I thought slamming down the golden dragon, there was a great
touch visual thing there. That says a lot.
It's already, it's one thing. The way the innkeeper looks at
Dunk is like, don't you dare interfere with my overpaying
customer. This guy's been hanging out for
days just drinking and overpaying.
You better not mess with that. Just leave him.
You know, that's that's the way I took it, which isn't how I
took it in the book necessarily. I think that's a really good way
to interpret the scene, that she's got this drunk rich guy
there and she doesn't want anyone messing with that.
The other thing, it was like slightly different in the book,
there's a few scenes where there is like a little nuance of
difference. And this is one of them where I
think if I remember right, in the book she said something to
dunk along the lines of, you know, in the show she said
something like never mind him, but in the book she said never
mind him. All he does is get drunk and
talk about his dreams. A little more emphasis on the
dreams in the book than there was in the in the show.
Yeah, so the line, yeah, the line both when he asked for food
is in the book and so is your big enough for it.
That's all there. And of course, after eating, he
returns to the stable and finds Egg riding Thunder and scolds
him, leading to this exchange quote.
Every night needs a Squire, the boy said.
You look as though you need one more than most.
Dexter's delivery on your belts made of rope was a plus.
This, It was very much the vibe of how the comic delivery was
throughout the episode. And yeah, it's neat.
Shay, you have a note here. I think this is your note.
Maybe this is Sean's note about that kind of dates back to what
you were talking about a minute ago, Sean, about, you know,
being hurt, you know, and how this is a different concern that
that maybe Sir Arlen didn't have for Duncan.
No, yeah, I was saying the dunks reaction, his instant reaction
is not that's my horse and don't get on that horse.
And you're, you know, all these things.
His reaction is Thunder could could kick you, you could be
killed. You could be hurt like that.
That is his his his concern, despite someone you know
touching his stuff. Yeah, well said.
I totally agree. It's it's a little sign of his
character that says a lot when you when you key in on it.
You know, and this is something I I wasn't until my second watch
a little deeper through or third watch maybe that it something
started to click in my mind is that I think Dunk is part of his
hesitance to take Egg on is he feels like he doesn't need it
and it's maybe even an offence to imply that he does.
You know what I mean? Like he's been taking care of
himself. Why do I need someone to take
care of me now when? But clearly he needs help.
He's got these three horses. You know, he barely knows what
he's doing. Egg Egg has skills that Dunk
doesn't even know as far as like the heraldry and the Knights of
the tournament, all this kind of stuff.
But but you could see there's a lot of reasons Dunk might not
want Egg. Like an annoying kid.
I don't know who. This kid, I can't trust this
kid. I don't need anyone's help, all
this stuff. But I think part of it is it's a
responsibility that he would have to take on.
To him, a Squire isn't someone there to help you.
A Squire is someone there for you to help.
He thinks like Arlen was the mentor to Dunk.
That's what a knight did. That's what a leader, that's the
father, whatever, whatever. So if I suddenly have a Squire,
man, I don't even know how I'm getting a tournament.
I can't take on the responsibility of a Squire.
I think that's part of it to him.
I agree. I totally agree.
Ready for that. I think that's reflected in the
conversation when he says you're you're lad, you're better off,
you know, not squirting for the likes of me or whatever.
And I think that's what you're what you're saying is in is the
subtext there. And I very much agree.
A couple corrections from the preview episode.
Dunk actually is well educated on sigil's and heraldry.
I completely forgot that it's something that's explicit in the
book that Sir Arlen drilled him on it.
And I think that was just a story device.
So that to cover the part that we were saying.
So Dunk knows what he's seeing. Otherwise the story would would
have some holes because the POV character doesn't know who all
these houses are. And that would be it just
wouldn't be as as good without that without that information.
That said, we don't know that he's very well educated on
sigils in the show. He might not be.
So we'll see. But but just to correct myself
from that, another small correction.
Medgar Tulley, I said that the Lord of River Run was dead in
this had died recently, but that's not true.
He's an adult. He's competes in this
tournament. He dies not that long after
though. It's it's the mystery night I'm
thinking of where there's an 8 year old Lord of House Tully.
So it's only a couple years later.
And there let's move on to our next part, the Pavilion Under
the stars. Here is the moment Dunk finds
his spot from the book quote. On the outskirts of the Great
Meadow, a good half mile from town and castle, he found a
place where a bend in a brook had formed a deep pool.
Reeds grew thick along its edge, and a tall leafy Elm presided
over all the spring grass. There was as green as any
night's banner, and soft to the touch.
It was a pretty spot, and no one had yet laid claim to it.
This will be my pavilion, Dunk told himself.
A pavilion roofed with leaves greener even than the banners of
the Tyrells and the Estermont's. There's a clue right there with
the heraldry. Is it greener than the banners?
He's immediately thinking of banners when he thinks of
greener things. So, yeah, in the show, this is
of course all visual, but when he comes upon that Elm tree, he
has a big smile on his face. He's like, Oh yeah, he
recognized. That's what I want.
That's for me. It's the perfect kind of tree
for a man who has to sleep under trees.
It's the best kind of tree, you know, and that's part of why it
ends up on a shield. So it's it's very the show is
pretty careful to give us lots of visual moments of the hedge
night lifestyles. In the book, there's similar
things, but it's it's communicated differently
visually. Obviously there's that beginning
part to the show where he starts you relieving himself when the
original theme music starts playing.
Yeah, it's meant to be kind of a crass joke, but it is also a
reminder that this guy has to eat crappy food all the time.
His stomach is probably going to get upset very often.
Like this is the equivalent of eating gas station food like
regularly. Actually, something worse than
that, worse than gas station food regularly.
You always say don't eat the gas station food.
I was like, well he has no choice, he has to eat worse so.
At least gas station food has caffeine.
And there's this line I'll read myself.
He beat his tunic in breeches against the trunk of the Elm to
knock off the worst of the dirt and donned them once again.
I mean, we, we saw that straightforwardly, which is the
added touch of the the comedy of him smelling his own clothes and
going, you know, So they add some humor to that because
otherwise, yeah, it's just like, man, this guy's life is hard,
and you don't want to just get sunk into that and just be
feeling bad for him all the time.
No, it's it, it. The show has a more upbeat vibe
than that. You can tell that things are
going to go better for this guy in the long run.
Like he's not the main character to be tortured and suffer the
whole way through. No, I mean, no, he's a, he's
generally going to persevere and have good things happen.
Bad things will happen along the way.
But yeah, I mean, he's he's the main character.
I I want to point out also like we I'm sure there's just ad
nauseam discussion going on about the opening poop, but but
I do think in addition to whatever kind of humor they were
trying to get out of it and maybe referencing, you know, the
bigger story, I think it had some value to to kind of point
out to us that this is like maybe from a tone standpoint
that this show is a little bit light hearted, but also from a
POV standpoint, right. When you think of the and you
know, I love Game of Thrones and you know, however disappointed
the ending or whatever, I think the first seasons are great.
The books are great. So I don't want to sound too
negative when I say this, but it just is a different perspective
when you have like stoic Ned Stark and brooding Jon Snow
pondering their futures as the leaders in the realm Dunks, just
some guy in the road, you know what I mean?
It's just a different story. And these grand ideas that he
starts to have that the music swells in to remind us of the
grandness of Game of Thrones, which incidentally, the music of
this show is not as grand, right?
Like they immediately cut that short.
Remind us, No, he's just a dude. He's not the heir to the throne.
He's not some Lord's son. He's not fighting some Game of
Thrones, right? He's trying to not starve.
That's his life. You know, he's trying to maybe
find some meaning, some some role, some home, but he's not
trying to find some throne or some inheritance.
You know, it's just a different story being told.
And I and I think the music in general is doing that well,
right in this kind of full orchestral big royal sound.
It's not, it's a little bit more like minstrels at a festival.
It's like a guitar sound in a, you know, light, hollow sounding
music. We've.
Got a whole a little bit of a section on the music coming up
so I'll comment on that a little bit more later, but I totally
agree the vibe for the music is very fitting.
One other at least small detail I thought was was nice to
include that reflects the difficulty of of his station and
and living day-to-day It was. How many times did he swat at a
mosquito? It was at least four, maybe as
many as like 6 or 7, but it got a couple.
Of those might have been flies or gnats and not mosquitoes.
Sure. Bugs, yeah.
Maybe not fleas 'cause we're outside a Flea Bottom.
Oh, yeah, yeah. When Dunk returns, we'll skip
all the way ahead to the final scene.
We'll just keep do all the scenes that are at the pavilion,
so to speak. The conversation is again,
almost straight from the book. In fact, Dunkin eggs lines are
probably the least change. Their exchanges overall are at
least so far the most straightforward from the book,
which is that's pretty nice because that's really, really
well written lines that don't need much change, if any.
So just like he's his delivery on the rope belt, his that's a
tree was what's really good in the book.
It said he's unimpressed, you know, by the tree.
And in the in the in both cases, he says trees leak.
And in both cases Dunk laughs a bit and he's like, yeah, is it
short for Duncan? That was really well done.
He's like, yeah. And how good was it when he
stood up straight to say Duncan the tall He like he did the
Superman pose there as he realizes, Sue he's going to be.
And that's part of what you're saying, Sean at the beginning of
the UPS. He's like who who am I?
And he kind of like he sort of gets takes another step to to
his identity there, doesn't he? Yeah.
That was in the book, by the way, that scene.
I, I feel like this was so, well, I, I don't know, written,
edited, directed, performed, because in the book, that was a
little internal monologue. It's like a little paragraph of
thought went through Dunk's mind.
He was like Dunk. Yeah, That doesn't sound like a
Sir, I guess Sir Duncan. Sir Duncan of I guess any tree.
That's where Arlen's from, but I'm not really from there.
He goes through all this and you know how like in the real world,
like your mind can flicker through a whole series of
thoughts in a split second and it finally spits out Sir Duncan
Natal. But here we we see that thought
we don't hear right in on in the book.
We just his thoughts are written down for us to read.
But here it comes out through his acting through his the the
how the camera holds on and how his facial expressions look kind
of slightly opens his mouth at one point, looks down and in.
We had this added context that wasn't in the book of when
Lionel Baratheon tells him be tall.
He was slouching. He gave you this gift.
Don't be a heretic, right? He was absolutely slouching,
Yeah. And I think that's part of the
internal dialogue that Dunk was having with himself here that
wouldn't have been in the book, was what did Lionel tell me?
You know, I think that's like me, who you are, except the gift
the gods gave you. So yeah, I love that, that
moment on multiple levels. One of the only times Egg smiles
is when Dunk is telling him what kind of lifestyle they'll have.
And as low as it sounds, as it gets worse and worse, Egg Smile
gets bigger. He's like really hard salt beef
sleeping on the ground. Yes, my Lord, no, I'm only a
hedge knight, you know, and that almost was the final could have
been the final scene, the last line, but they have to do the
shooting star scene. They can't just like do that the
beginning of next episode. That's that's the real ending of
the episode. And it's really well done.
And this is a perfect example of a scene that was entirely in
Dunk's head that they adapted really well to be dialogue.
I like how it played out. Dunk thinks he's being mocked.
He's like enough with the I don't have a pavilion thing, you
know? Then he's like, oh, wait, you're
saying Egg? Yeah.
So anyway, when the luck is ours alone, he finally figures it
out. Egg smiles.
Cool. So super Sat from Sam Jensen.
Loved the first episode so much. Almost as excited for your
guys's review as I was for the episode.
Cheers to the rest of the season.
So we have a note here. Shay is keeping track of what's
going on in the chat and she says no one cares about the
spoiler being a spoiler free. It's full of spoilers in the
chat. So OK, we'll we won't hold back
on spoilers. If any of you do care about
spoilers. Well, I'm sorry, you're in the
very small minority and there's just not enough of you, so we'll
go ahead and go with spoilers. Maybe some egregious spoiler we
saved with the second-half since we announced it at the
beginning, but. Yeah, we won't.
We just won't. We won't worry about it too much
and we're ready for the next section.
The plumber, the steward. Here's another great example of
a scene that is really close to word for word, especially at the
start. I love how even the description
is perfectly matching to what we see in the scene quote.
Men at arms in orange and white livery stood outside the gates
with Hal Birds watching people come and go, seemingly more
intent on joking with a pretty milk maid than in keeping anyone
out. Dunk rained up in front of the
short bearded man he took for their captain and asked for the
Master of the games. It's plumber you want.
He's steward Here, I'll show you.
Inside the yard, a stable boy took Sweetfoot for him.
Dunk slung Sir Arlen's battered shield over his shoulder and
followed the Guards captain back of the stables to a turret built
into an angle of the curtain wall.
Steep stone steps LED up to the wall walk.
Yeah, just to harp on this a little more, I was really struck
how exactly it followed you. He rides up.
There's the four men in orange and white livery joking with the
milk maid. He doesn't actually say it's
plumber you want. They skip the the line, but he,
the stable boy takes sweet foot. There's a narrow staircase up
the turret. It's exactly the same.
And then when he walks in, Dunk bumps his head in the show.
That doesn't happen in the book, but the same first line happens,
which is what do you want, man? And then from there, it's a
mostly similar conversation. There's the added bit about the
Ashford chairs for more comedy and but the line a sword it is
for a certainty is there. And there's a visual joke when
he says what's your name? And he says Dunk, he's actually
dunking his bread into his cup. When he hears that he's like
Dunk, you say he's dunking it. I.
Couldn't even tell him. Maybe he was doing it in
response, as though Dunk had told him to do.
This OK, I will so that was pretty funny.
So just like in the book, he pulls no punches.
He's very blunt and straightforward about the
situation, but he's he's empathetic to dunk by the end of
the scene, he's kind of well, it's a recurring thing that
happens. Dunk is so earnest and wholesome
that people are disarmed by it because in this world, everyone
expects people to want something from you or you're up to
something you're after something what you know who are you
really? But and and that's how so that's
how people expect you to be and then dunked throughout the
dialogue, they're realizing, wait, this guy isn't like that,
is he? And so it's it is disarming.
So then they're like, they sympathize with him and that's
how a lot of things go his way because of that reaction.
And people treat him like a good person because they recognize
him as a good person. And that is a very rare thing
and that means something to them.
I. Will say they they have to
recognize them as a good person and also have some good in
themselves too. Sure.
Good point. Yeah.
And I, I, I, I that is the point I wanted to make, is that this
thing was very, very similar to the book.
But as you said, toward the end, it started to shift a little.
And that main shift was that Plummer was a little bit more.
Empathetic because I think you said that's probably the best
word in the book. He ended with more like begones.
It got you know that good riddance to you that but and
this one was more like good luck.
I hope to see you again. You know, it was even in the
book a little more generally wanted to help dunk and.
Even in the book, he said he tells him how he can get it
done. He's like, well, if you can find
someone that will vouch for you, then you're good.
But other than that, yeah. But I agree with you totally.
So here's a notable moment from the conversation that relates
back to the first scene and has some extra what a meaning to it
will say. Quote.
Were there any witnesses to your dubbing?
Only a Robin up in a thorn tree. I heard it as the old man was
saying the words. He charged me to be a good
knight and true. To obey the seven gods, defend
the weak and innocent, serve my Lord faithfully, and defend the
realm with all my might. And I swore that I would.
And that's almost word for word what he says in the show as
well. He does see a Robin in a tree.
That's not something we get from the book.
It's we get the visual of seeing a tree.
Proof that Duck is a true night. We see the Robin.
So we remember what Dunk was actually doing in that moment.
He was. Yeah.
Unburdening himself there. And when Plummer pushes him,
he's like, who? Were there any, you know,
witnesses? He starts talking about how it
was raining, which it was not raining, but it was raining when
he buried him. So yeah, Well, it.
Wasn't raining earlier when he got knighted and the Robin saw
it just started raining later. Yeah, had tipped to listener
Kelly Lowe, who pointed this, a lot of this out.
How looking at the bird you know parallels looking at the the OR
how he tells it in the story rather.
Yeah, he was. There was a bird there when he
decided he should be knighted. It's the Robin, perhaps, who
actually knighted him, so there's.
A raves to Robin, yeah. Raves to Robin.
What a great lead in because I was about to say how many Monty
Python type jokes there were in this episode.
This is really a quality that it seemed to have.
But I think the most Monty Python ish line was in this
scene where he's like, no, I'm messing with you.
I'm bullshitting you, man. What do you think?
There's a scourge of Cottagers scuttling about entering
tourneys? You know, he's like, what a
ridiculous problem to think we would have, you know, like,
well, like, yeah, farmers are sneaking in there so they can
get plowed down by Sir Lionel. And that's the great lines.
Like that would be a different sort of entertainment.
Yeah. And that was that.
That makes you think about the idea of what why this guy kind
of has his guard up and some of the other people don't interact
with you. Like later we see it with Lionel
Bratton, right? Like people kind of expect you
to have some angle and especially at a tournament for
this guy trying to run the tournament, just think of the
different responsibilities he has probably just normally,
right. He's steward of Ashford.
So he's got to make sure like everyone's got a their their
meals ready and their horses are fed and the fires are kept.
And all the the different kind of managerial expectations on
him are suddenly amplified by 1000 at this tournament.
And a lot of it is going to be, you know, Knights and royalty,
nobles of sorts. Demanding people, Yeah.
Right. They expect a certain respect,
they expect certain facilities and equipment and demands to be
met and it to get it immediately and with utmost respect and da,
da, da, da. So this guy's putting up with
all that, but also there probably are some people trying
to get over there probably are some people angling to join the
tournament who are really just robbers.
That former hedge Knights that did turn to the wrong side of
the law. We're trying to disguise their
real personality. Or maybe people who are trying
to pretend they're Knights just so they can put their horse in
the stable and get it fed even though they're not a knight and
not you. You just imagine all the angles
people might be trying to get over on plumber and so he's he
probably has seen it before, right.
So he did this little story tells Dunk.
He's like, think how bad it would be if some farmer came in
here. Like, he's trying some level.
He doesn't want to completely be mean and dismissive of Dunk, but
also he can't abandoned his responsibilities.
Like, look, I I can't let people put themselves in this dangerous
situation. I can't let Lord Ashford be
embarrassed by thieves and incompetent fools getting in
this tournament. You understand, right?
You get it, right. And Dunk's like, yeah, I get it.
You know, I, I, it was humorous, but also, again, empathetic.
I think that it's interesting the way he presented his defense
to dunk. And not just.
Mean to him it's. Like, this is bad for everyone.
If, if this, if you're not the right man, it's good.
It's bad for Lord Ashford. It's bad for me.
It's bad for you. Yeah.
No one, no one wants this. And this is really important
because there is an undertone here.
There is a subtlety here because some of this is is is bluster.
It's not but not and he but he explains why he tells Dunk why
the rules are is the way they are for this tournament, which
is there are Prince's about. And he doesn't fully explain
what that means. And Dunk is definitely not
worldly enough to know what that means exactly.
But what it means we find out later in the book.
It's for example, Valar, most of all Prince Valar.
He fights weak opponents. His opponents give up easily.
They're doing all sorts of things to make him look good.
And this is a part of why he would look real bad if Prince
Valar lost to a hedge knight. So if there's no hedge Knights
in the tournament, if no sell swords in the tournament, it
couldn't possibly happen, you know, So they're being it's an
extra level of security. They're not letting them in just
because they're lowborn. It's because there's a potential
huge embarrassment. And then Lord Ashford is the one
who looks really, really bad too for that.
He's like, I, I brought you here to make you look good.
And the opposite happened. So let's talk briefly about
Tanzel and the puppetry. We don't get a whole lot yet.
Her role clearly is more for a bit later, but great
introduction. Here's the brief quote from the
book on how we see her. As he ate, he watched a painted
wooden night battle, a painted wooden dragon.
The puppeteer who worked the dragon was good to watch too.
A tall drink of water with the olive skin and black hair of
Dorn. As great as A Song of Ice and
Fire or Game of Thrones casting has been throughout all three
shows, they can't always have a perfect match physically.
But Tanzel is like, yeah, like, right down perfect for the
description. Yep.
Mild skin, black hair, tall. Yep.
I'll check all three boxes there.
And as you said, Sean, this is the scene probably most of all,
where they emphasize his height. He's really tall.
They can focus in on him without seeing anyone's else's head.
Like, they're just below the shot.
I love that. And it was a great choice, I
think as an adaptation move to have her do the narration.
That was a great way to introduce her a little more,
make her a little more prominent, great way to
introduce the scene she's. A beat poet.
A beat poet and the and the like dragon breathing fire with that
apparatus was pretty cool. Like seeing Sir when in the
mirror, shield and all. Yeah, it's just nice.
Like it's a it's a way to put some of the the mythology of
Westeros into the into the story in an organic way.
Can I actually read a couple lines from that scene do it?
Because it it really struck me. As much as I defend Dunk being a
true knight, it really struck me.
There was one line right at the end that said should the dragon
discover a man in great disguise?
And it was enough that I went back and listen to that whole
thing a few more times and yeah, sure, this is about.
Sir went to the mirror show. Sir went to the mirror show.
Or the mirror show. But this is also about Dunk, and
maybe also about Egg. Just a couple little excerpts
where our great hero forges on, leaving all he knows behind.
Who's that sound like a boy from nothing risks it all.
Ignoring looks. The sconce?
Who does that sound like? Very good.
Perhaps, perhaps he's only stupid.
Great honor. His ambition must keep a truth
concealed. What truth?
Who? Who's concealing a truth?
More than one person here. Nice.
That's really good. I didn't catch that at all.
Sean. Oh really?
Is he? OK.
No, I would say. I thought it was too on the
nose, I would say. Sometimes those are the things
I'm most likely to miss. I felt I I did not like her
narration as much I would say. So maybe you'd like the choice
to narrate less than the actual things she narrated.
Yeah, yeah. I wanted more puppetry and more
mummery and I think in the we'll see that going forward.
We'll see her more in the action.
I I think we will see her in the action, not just narrating.
Yeah. From the trailer, she's wearing
costumes. Yeah, I want more than just her
narrating and being the poet, I guess is.
My point? He did see two puppet shows in
the in the book. Yeah, so.
Well, and of course, there's the one, the big one coming where,
yeah, where Aryan gets involved. So we'll at least see that one.
Moving on to Manfred's red sex workers.
Manfred Dondarian is portrayed as a pretty terrible person.
These sex workers first make fun of Dunk.
It's partly exposition to explain to the audience what a
hedge night actually is. And that's kind of effective way
to do it. And it's pretty comedic.
It's nice to add a few more women to the story because
really there aren't many hardly at all Tanzel's in there.
And that's, this is a organic way to do that.
I keep using that word, but it fits.
They're not just bolted on. They fit very well, especially
in the later scene, which we'll talk about in a moment.
They point out that Manfred sleeps with other men's wives,
and that's what they expected. Dunk was another man coming by,
grieved at being cuckolded or whatever.
And so they're just used to that.
And that by itself, I think just sets up the rest of his day
where he's looking for Sir Manfred and other things happen.
But the thing that I think is a lot more meaningful and the part
that is one of the most meaningful scenes in the episode
perhaps is when he comes back later and Manfred still isn't
there. It's it's like, well, it's even
fall. And that's a nice little Easter
egg. The line even fall, the
conversation inside there. Now.
Sex workers have a defined place in this society.
They are, but they're unlike all the other forms of commoners in
that they actually have intimacy with the high born like no other
low born class has the level of intimacy that a sex worker can
have with the nobility. So like most people deal with
the nobility in passing or indirectly or not at all, and
like through subordinates maybe. So with sex workers it's very
different. It's a very direct contact.
And so the way this conversation goes is pretty similar.
At the start, you have them kind of mocking him, making fun of
him because they think he's just another jerky, you know, asshole
knight, you know, And then like, once again, his earnestness
disarms them and they change their they start talking to him
differently. And then basically the tone of
the conversation is, hey, man, we're similar.
We both have to sell our bodies for money because that's the
only thing available to us. But don't waste your body.
Don't ruin yourself or somebody else.
It's the only body you have. Don't get crippled on someone
else's behalf. You need to think of yourself,
you know, And it's it's I thought that was really, really
well done. Very poignant connection between
these two very on on the surface, very different roles,
Knights versus sex workers. But in this case, because he's a
hedge knight, there's a lot more they have in common.
And in the scene that's actually brought up indirectly, when Dunk
is asking or pleading with Sir Manfred, Manfred's like, he's
like, my Sir Arlen took a wound in your service.
And he's like, yeah, I don't remember that.
Why would that? Why would I remember that?
We had people that lost limbs or died.
You know, I'm not going to remember that.
And that's exactly what the sex workers were saying.
They're like, yeah, you're going to get hurt really badly, maybe
crippled for someone who won't even remember that you did that
for them. A slightly more cynical take.
More cynical? Yeah.
I think Manfred's exact wording was.
I don't remember people who reaped more than a wound.
Yeah. Why would I even remember him so
well? I'm thinking that even different
way. Some people, like, took a wound
or died for me. Some people got me four horses
from the captives. Some people got me a new stood
of armor and a chest of gold. That's who I I don't care if you
got hurt. What did you give me?
What spoils of war or did I get? That's who I remember.
That's one. Thing but I think it's just like
yeah, yeah. If he had 500 people die, you
think he remembers a man who took a wound and not like, you
can't remember 500 people who died, could you, Sean?
I couldn't no way. I never could have.
I don't care how good of the Lord I am.
I. Wouldn't have known their names
in the 1st place I know. I'm not going to have known
them, and that's the sad fact. But I think even the best, Lord
knows very few of those 800 men, maybe even if they know 10%,
that's only 80 men. That's 80 men. 10% is a lot.
Yeah, this is this is some of dunks naivete.
He, he doesn't realize that that that's a reality.
Like Sir Manfred is isn't friendly about it, but he's
exasperated because he's like, what the hell do you think, man?
How am I supposed to know that guy, you know?
On one hand I agree with everything you're saying.
Like it is like a little unrealistic to expect him to
remember 1 of many men who served at some point and got
wounded. However, if you were going to
remember some of the men who served under you, you're more
likely to remember the landed Knights.
If 500 men died at that battle, that wasn't 500 Knights.
That was 500 hedge Knights and peasants like Dunk and everyone
else. Right, but Sir Arlen was at
Knights. He should have been remembered.
Not a landed knight though, right?
I guess maybe not a landed knight.
Yeah, but but also, one way or the other, even if he doesn't
specifically remember him, he could have been like, yeah, no
story sounds good. Sure, go ahead.
Like he yes, he could have been kinder about it.
Even if he didn't remember. Even if he justifiably didn't
remember, he still could have offered up some.
Yeah, absolutely. He was having none of it, just.
In honor of it, he could have given him something like, yeah,
sure, I'll vouch for you. Like that's all he had to do.
The ask was very small. That's the other thing that made
Dunk for us, was like, you know, like maybe you don't remember
him, but I'm asking for so very little.
And you're not doubting my story.
You're just saying you can't remember.
Yeah. Manfred could be like, hey, what
what was what was this circumstance?
Describe this. He could test him.
He could just test him and it would come out the truth.
You know what I mean? Because like, you don't want to
vouch for someone and then they turn out to be an outlaw and
someone who, you know what I mean, you.
Would be a little. Careful, but he could have asked
him some questions. Yeah, and maybe a more what's
opposite of cynical, optimistic view.
Maybe Manfred knows that his voucher won't carry much weight
like Manfred will say anyone's a night man.
Look, Manfred's sleeping with everyone's wife.
Like maybe he doesn't want to expose himself.
I don't. Think that's true because.
Remember. This is the guy Palmer
specifically suggested that he he go to.
So I don't I don't think that's true.
But either way, that's there's a lot about a lot of subtext here.
And I think the perhaps the biggest part that's is setting
up is that Baylor is going to remember Sir Arlen later and
it's going to be really obscure. So like this is this the
forgetting of Sir Arlen is being is set up for Baylor to remember
him later. So that is very meaningful in
that sense too. There's also a big homage slash
Comic Relief Easter egg in the scene, the sex worker who
appears to be dead because she has the the the painted eye
stones over her eyes. That is an homage to episode 1,
season 1 of Game of Thrones where John Aaron is like that
and Cersei and Jamie are talking to him.
And so in this scene, our subconscious is like, oh, that's
a dead person. So it's very effective when she
sits up. It even works on Dunk.
It's like, whoa, he's creeped out for a second there.
That was really funny. Let's talk about the fossa ways.
I thought the casting for Raymond and Stefan was, I mean,
you could, I couldn't imagine better.
Really. The dialogue was almost
identical. The four yes 4 apple puns were
all in the book. Not ripe yet that's in the book.
Rotten to the core that's in the book.
Knocked the seeds out of him in the book.
The senior branch of the apple tree in the book.
Is that a long sword you wear? Yes, it's mine by rights that's
in the book. However, his response, that's an
odd thing to say, is not. And that was really funny, that
was. One of my favorite lines in the
in the show. Actually this.
Delivery was perfect they're if you look closely, you can see
that their weapons are leather bound so that they're not the
edges are taken away. So it's a little more it's it's
still not realistic to how they were trained, but it's a lot
more realistic than a lot of other scenes and a lot of other
shows including Game of Thrones and House the Dragon where
they're just fighting with completely normal weapons to
practice without armor. It's crazy, but there's.
Something in between deadly and safe.
You know what I mean? Like, they're not.
It's not deadly, but it's still not safe.
Yeah, I mean, that dude just got kicked through it.
Yeah, I'm sure splinters at the very least, you know, bruises on
the face, like he slapped him in the face.
Yeah. And then the second conversation
where Raymond sees Dunk walking by and runs after him, that's
also not too dissimilar from the book where Raymond just comes up
to him and apologizes and says, hey, I'm sorry because he's a
good guy, too. This.
This shows us that Raymond's a good guy.
He didn't have to tell Dunk. He didn't have to tell Dunk that
hey, I'm sorry I almost set you up to get hurt.
My cousin would have tried to hurt you on purpose and I feel
bad that I almost put you in that position.
I shouldn't have done that. And if he, he could have never
told Dunk that and Dunk would not have been the wiser.
So this is a a really strong signal for what kind of man this
guy is too. And it's why they walk and talk
and are getting along 'cause they are the rare kind of like
good seed. Ha ha.
I made my own Apple pun. And did you get Podrick Payne
vibes from from Raymond? Because men did I it's it's very
similar in my mind. I did.
And and I also do want to point out though, that they made
Stefan a little harsher here than he was in a book.
He was a little more. It was like you you a little
more needed the explanation for Raymond that he might have tried
to hurt you because Stefan didn't come across quite so
aggressive in the book. It was he was a little bit more
cordial when he's asking him to fight and he realized after the
fact that, oh, he's trying to trick you.
He's being underhanded, and here he's an outward, obvious jerk.
In the book, he was a little bit more of a underhanded, you know,
secret jerk. Yeah, I think, I don't think
Stephen calls him any names in the book here.
He calls him three different names in the short of the span
of that brief conversation. But it was a good example.
It was elegant story writing, elegant to what's the word
adaptation? Because in the book, Dunk goes
into town almost automatically, knowing he shouldn't stay there.
He already has it in his mind that he will be, at minimum,
scorned at, if not openly mocked.
I can't stay here. But in the show, we don't get to
hear those thoughts in his brain.
So it's demonstrated to us through this scene.
It's like at this moment, when Stefan insults him and a bunch
of other people laugh, he realizes, oh, let me go find a
choir to place. This isn't for me.
You know what I mean? Someone where I'm not going to
get mocked for what I look like, all right, How he's dressed.
If he'd walked by an armor, like nice looking armor, people would
stop to look at him and like went whoa, you know, it would
have been like an awe or respect or something.
But yeah, so his his size would have.
Been like hey come try me out and think he could break his
hand. Stuff like, oh crap, I don't
hope I don't have to go against him.
Yeah, exactly. So his size, it's, it's really
interesting how his size is such a part of the story here.
And there's another one coming in a minute.
But let me let's finish this scene because I got one more
thing to say here, or two more actually.
I love how happy Raymond got when Dunk told me it's well for
a Squire, which is another like Podrick Payne vibe from from
that exchange. And then the line where he says,
who are you going to? You'll have the look of a
challenger. Who do you, whose shield are you
going to tap tomorrow? And he says, oh, you choose,
doesn't matter. And then it does a pause and he
says that's what you're supposed to say.
When it actually makes all the difference in the world, That's
just Dunk's inner monologue in the book.
He thinks all three of those things to himself in the book.
So it's it's another great example of a simple thought he
has that's easily turned into dialogue.
Can I say another thing about this scene or these
interactions, which was not quite as much in the book, At
least I didn't pick on it up on it as much.
But it was a little bit of a dunk's imposter syndrome, his
realization that he doesn't really belong here.
When he tells Raymond that he fights good for a Squire,
Raymond takes that as like, oh wow, someone's complimenting on
me how good I am fighting. But in Dunks mind, he's like,
crap, I'm not near as good as him and he's just a Squire.
How he's like, he's just a Squire.
Ostensibly, the Knights are better than him.
I'm really just a Squire too, and he's way better than me.
Like, how can I compete? You know that he he wanted to
compliment Raymond, but really he was thinking less of himself.
Does that make sense? That's a.
Good point. And like Dunk hasn't fought with
a sword like he hasn't. That's another thing.
He's like not only is he kind of maybe fudging some other
details, literally hasn't ever sword fought someone.
Maybe he's fought like trained a little bit with Sir Ireland, but
it wasn't, you know, they weren't fighting in Herb for
real. You know, it was it was it was
training and I love that. And even and.
Trini they weren't fighting As for real as Raymond and and
Stefan. Would absolutely I love the half
man line. That's another great joke, which
again is a Podrick Payne reference because Podrick was
Tyrion Squire and that the half man joke of course is the
opposite. He's like oh, he's like, do I
look like 1/2 man to you? I half man half giant.
Another really well delivered joke.
Love that. OK, let's take a quick break and
then we'll come back with a whole lot more.
If you are wanting to support us during this Heads Night Night of
the Seven Kingdoms season, you can do through do so through
Patreon. Head to patreon.com/history of
Westeros and choose the level that's right for you.
We have bonus episodes, shout outs, and all sorts of fun
things like that, including access to notes and voting and
other things. If you go to our website,
historyofwesteros.com, you can find a link to our Patreon page
as well as a link to our new tour shirt, which I wore in the
preview episode as Shea designed it.
It's got all the different places Dunkin it go to
throughout their career, you know, marked as if their tour
dates. And it says at Night of the
Seven Kingdoms. It's really nice looking.
Get your own through that link. And of course, we also have
links to other things on our site, like links to Amazon.
You can do your shopping there and we get credit for that
without you spending any more. A couple of questions from the
y'all or comments. Corn Emperor says, is Sean
drinking anything with Mountain Dew?
Yeah, Sean, we, we didn't do your beverage today.
Are you doing a special beverage?
My bad for not asking. This is the Naked Green Drink or
the Yeah Green Machine mixed with Magic Mind mixed with Baja
Blast Mountain Dew. So yes is the answer.
Yes. Short answer, yes.
You came through very good, Sean.
You did not disappoint, Darwonka says.
I'm not sure if they're leaning into it, but Egg, it seems Egg
has a little bit that Targ shine about him.
He seems to just know things he probably couldn't know out of
hand, like where Dunk had his tree for it.
Yeah, that's just one of the undertones in the book where he
he knows a few things that are kind of beyond his capability.
But it all happens so quickly and subtly that you don't
necessarily can't put it together quickly enough.
And I think this is a a jumping point to a conversation about
how they're handling this, which is they have to be even more
subtle with it because if you're reading the book, you're reading
the book, you're going to pick it up again the next day or the
day after that. Maybe you finish it in one
setting. What you're not doing is
spending a week in between readings while also interacting
with the entirety of the Internet about what they think
rewatching it. Multiple times, Paul's rewind,
writing quotes down, reading forms of analysis, and on and
on. Yeah.
It's way different, Yeah. So.
So they have to be a little more sly with some of these things
because it's just going to like you have like 1,000,000 more
brains all working together on these on these questions.
So not to mention that the answers are already out there,
like in plain written English in the in the books or whatever.
So let's move on to party at the Laughing storms.
In the book, Raymond takes dunk to a party.
We we talked briefly about that and they just changed it to the
laughing storm party. And it's earlier in the novella
rather than later. It's a completely new scene.
Something important about the setting that here is reminiscent
of House of the Dragon is that you have high nobles who haven't
lived under any under any major threat for over a decade if not
more. The Blackfyre Rebellion being
that example. So there's more partying, people
just aren't worried as much. And how's the dragon?
It's the same thing. They've been at peace for so
long. People just like when they get a
chance to fight for fake, they make it a little bit real
because they have so much verve. There's the nights of summer
with nowhere to put that violent energy in.
In Game of Thrones, Robert's Rebellion isn't super long ago.
It's, you know, 17 years. It's more than a generation.
But Bailon's rebellion is only about 8 years past.
So there's a a lot of the current adults in that setting
have fought in multiple wars. Now in this one, there's some
who have fought in the black fire building, but there's a lot
of adults who haven't fought in anything, nothing significant at
all. So it has that vibe of a
peaceful king. In both cases, dare on the 2nd
it's actually a good king, whereas Viserys wasn't actually
a good king but he was very strong in the not starting wars
department even though well in his lifetime he set up one after
his death. But that aside, we're not going
too deep with this parallel so that.
Very strong. Very strong in the intention to
not start wars, yes. There you go.
Results.
May vary, yeah. So here it's another another
thing that's similar is that there are too many Targaryens.
There's a lot of Targaryens, and as Makar or Deron says, I think
it's Deron. The king says too many
Targaryens can be as dangerous as too few.
And that's partly why Eamon goes off to be Maester Eamon in this
timeline. It's been decades since the
Dragons died out, and there are living people in this setting
who saw the last dragon, including Sir Arlen of Penny
Tree himself, which is a thought that Dunk has.
I wonder how they're going to have that in the show.
Is he going to say that out loud or what?
Because it's obviously can't be thought.
It could be sort of thought because we got little Arlen
flashbacks. That's a good point.
We get a flashback to Arlen telling the story of the dragon.
So far they've been just the quickest little images.
But I we might get like a whole conversation as they walk down
the road or sit at a campfire, you know?
Yeah, and one of the reasons I bring this up as as we start
talking about Laughing Storm, here is 2 reasons. 1 is that he
clearly is not a young man. He's not an old man, but he is
Gray in his beard, which indicates that he's probably in
his 40s at least. 25 or 20? Oh, 40.
So he would have fought in the Black Fire rebellion almost
certainly. So that is important because in
the book we're not sure if he's even the heir at this point.
We know he inherits. So it's a safe assumption.
It's a fair. I would have done the same thing
they did. We'll say, well, let's just
let's just go ahead and say he's the heir.
We don't know that for sure because it allows them to do
this. Like, he's spending a lot.
He's, you know, breaking. He's just doing what he wants,
throwing money around. And that creates this huge
contrast between him and Dunk, which is despite these
differences, there's something they have in common, something
that brings them together. And I think it's pretty well
done. Let's talk specifically,
something we brought up in the preview is that none of the show
Baratheons are large. They just did away with that.
Stannis isn't large. Robert isn't large.
Renly isn't large. In the books, they're all very
big men, so that here we go, Laughing Storm, not big either.
And they referenced that Dunk sits down and says, I thought
he'd be larger. So in the book, the Laughing
Storm is he? He laughed as he's beating
people. He's like, ha, ha.
It's so easy. That's kind of the implication
that it's so easy for him that he just laughs.
It's like, ah, you, we little man, you can't beat me and that.
But he's also a little clever in that he starts using his Lance
to knock the heraldry off of fancy men's helmets and it and
then he throws that hail tree into this into the crowd for the
Commons to collect. And then so fancy highborn
people stop challenging him because they don't want to lose
their their wealthy, expensive helmets.
And that was that's maybe part of his strategy.
Like on the other hand, he wants to fight the Kingsguard.
And that is referenced here as well when he says it's a it's an
honor to test yourself against a worthy foe.
So that's all part of the character that we know.
And I think this is a big deal with this character because of
all the main characters, Raymond, Stefan, all the
Targaryens, Dunk himself, especially Duncan and AG and
etcetera, they all are. We have an idea of their
personality. In my opinion, Laughing Storm
of, of the people that are in Dunk circle at the end, he by
far is the one that we don't know about his personality.
He's just a guy that laughs and is wants to fight.
That's really it. So here they're like, let's give
a better reason for Laughing Storm to be on Dunk's side other
than he wants to fight the Kingsguard.
While they also make him a little bit of a lunatic, he's
just a little bit unhinged, which is also explains why he's
so eager to fight the Kingsguard.
Like what? What I.
Liked in the making of the Daniel Ng said the log line, the
description for him that the character was Jack Sparrow mixed
with Ernest Hemingway. And yeah, boy does that
translate. He nailed it.
Frankly, go ahead, Sean. I've been talking for a while,
so I'll come back with some more thoughts on the scene, but you
go ahead for a bit. I don't have a whole lot more to
say. I mean, overall, I like the
scene. I think is well done.
I didn't have any super particular notes other than
things you're you're hitting on already.
Yeah, I saw you put in the document that it reminds you of
Peter Dinklage. That's totally where my mind
went is that he look just looks and in a lot of ways acts like
Tyrion. He doesn't have like both the
physical capability and the confidence that comes with it.
Tyrion is lacking. Tyrion has a different sort of
capability and and confidence, but what they both have in
common are wanting to drink and party and have clever
conversations and looking exactly the freaking the same.
Yeah, especially from the side angle.
He really, it really struck me from the side when he was
sitting by each other rather than head face on.
He looked a little more like Oscar Isaac to me, which also
was pretty good like. Oscar Isaac and I don't know
what point. The thing is, he looks so, so
much to me. I think it can't be a pure
coincidence. It might have been a coincidence
at casting, but they had to decide this sort of hair and the
curl and the goatee and all that stuff.
I, I, I I'm confident they made that model after Tyrion, after
Peter Dinkwich. So there's a few different
characters throughout a song in Life and Fire history.
They're called The Laughing Something like the Laughing Lion
is Tyrion's uncle Jerian. It's pretty explicit that Jerian
was a cynical, joking guy, sarcastic joking guy.
So Laughing Lion was very fitting where this Laughing
storm is because he's a little unhinged.
He also laughs, but it's it's more of the loon style laughter,
a little bit crazy than the than the sense of humor.
Foot forward first. Although to be fair, Uncle
Jerian sailed to Valyria, which is a bit mad itself, so hey.
Anyway, another. He's the one that lost their
Valerian blade there, no? He's the one that went to try
and find it. OK.
Yeah. You're close.
Yeah. So another thing that I love
about this scene, I think it's one of the biggest points of the
scene, is what I LED with in terms of developing Lionel's
character more so that he has a better connection to Dunk.
Here's what happens. Let's recount some of the
action, and we'll analyze as we go.
Here, he gets called out. He's like, you come over here,
right? And Dunk is like me.
And at first it might be like, why is Dunk getting selected out
of all these people? Well, it's because he's way
taller than everybody and is the poorest dressed by far.
So he he really, really does stand out a lot.
Like he stands out like a sore thumb.
So they're not going to just he can't blend in.
I think he'd slouch all he wants.
He cannot blend in. So they are curious naturally
about who this guy is. And Lionel, being a very rich
man, the son of a great Lord, of one of the most powerful Lords
in the Kingdom, he does narrow almost everything down because
it's his life, because it's the life he lives.
Almost everybody does want his help, or his head, as he puts
it. Most people want his head.
I mean, his help. The help is more valuable
getting taking his head. I want his head.
We always. No, I don't.
I want his head. She wants his head.
So here's the exception. So he really from his point of
view, that is what almost everyone wants something from
him, right? He's rich, he can, he can
provide things so it makes sense.
And so then he has that hilarious.
He's like, oh, you're here for my head.
Must be you're here for my head then, since you're not here for
my help. And Jack's like what, what it's
so funny. But then he's like, no, I'm, I'm
here for food. And then I'm, I'm really just
hungry. And, and, and Lionel, it takes
him a minute and his delivery is so good, but he's like, yeah,
actually that makes sense because he thinks Thor's like,
yeah, you're broke. Makes sense that you would want
a free meal. You know, that actually does
make sense. And also it makes sense in other
levels too, like the person coming to get his head wouldn't
be such an obvious person, right?
They wouldn't, you know what I mean?
They would be sneaking, wearing black with a dagger or something
that big open poor man's clothes, right?
And probably the same thing for someone that would want his
help, probably wouldn't be so bold is to just show up and eat
his food and dance around and like, oh, by the way, I want
something, you know, like it. It is on multiple levels.
It it it and it also makes Sante He's a big dude.
He's hungry. And it's exactly specifically
true because Raymond said are you hungry Dunks like always.
And if Raymond brought him here, he didn't necessarily know that
this was the Laughing Storm's party or anything.
Even some other noble Family Guy.
Brought a minute. That's it, Yes.
You. Know right so yeah, if you've
ever known anyone who's 6 foot 5 like Peter Claffey is they I've
heard them say that yeah, they're pretty much hungry all
the time so it's very believable so this is.
I must be 6 foot 5. Imagine you if you were 6 foot
five, you were just eating all the time.
So of all the people that Dunk disarmed with his wholesomeness
after people expect that he's got he's up to something and
then they're they, they pull back the curtain and they're
like, oh, wholesomeness. That's what's behind there.
It's not something dastardly or sneaky.
It really is what's he's really what he seems to be.
And that immediately makes Lionel like him because he's
like, you don't want anything from me.
That's I don't know anyone like that.
That's amazing. I want people more people like
this in my life. I don't know anyone who doesn't
want things from me. So it's extremely refreshing.
So at first I didn't, I was like this, is this a little bit too
much having these two become friends?
And then I realized, no, it's perfect.
They nailed like the the thinking that went into the
scene is it seems kind of random and manic and chaotic and just
they're showing partying. But there is a lot of character
work going on here. Set up and foreshadowing.
Yeah, like the the, as I said before, the big, the shadowing,
the foreshadowing of him saying it's an honor to test yourself
against a worthy foe. That's one of the big lines
there where he's going to face the Kingsguard.
I even like the stomping game and.
The second thought about that, I mean, the big he's going to face
Lionel, right? Like that's one thing of one
day. That's true.
They're going to face each
other. That's very true.
The other bit that I thought that was resident character beat
for for Lionel was talking about seafaring and and the the ocean
and all that. Especially when you consider in
A Game of Thrones Stannis and Robert and Renly losing their
their parents to the sea. Lionel could have easily been
one of those Baratheons lost to the sea, but he wasn't and so it
it made sense for that to be a a tale he would tell.
Yeah, well said. I also really like the line and
it was maybe a little bit of a reference to original Game of
Thrones because, you know, wasn't it?
Am I remember right? Isn't it Ned Stark that says you
have to be afraid in order to be brave?
Isn't? That yeah, yeah.
That effect? Because Dunk asked Lionel.
Weren't you scared? And he says inside every man,
there are many men basically saying, yeah, part of me was
scared, but another part of me was bright, you know?
So yeah, I think it's a good line.
A good yeah. That was a good line.
You're right. Yeah, it's so good.
That scene is just so, so good. And OK, another thing that I
thought you might have seemed gratuitous or weird to some of
y'all. And once I thought about it, I
was like, oh, there's actually some purpose here, which was the
the weird stomping game where they were trying to stomp on
each other's feet. To me, this was like, it's like
a milder version of the finger dance, you know, like you could
get broken toes doing this. These are large, strong men with
big boots, you know what I'm saying?
So they could really hurt each other.
But but it's a, it's a matter of quickness.
Like you're, it's a, it's a martial game.
You're moving your feet and it shows that Dunk is light on his
feet. Like he's a big strong guy, but
he's also maneuver like he's moving around quickly.
And he beats Lionel in this game, which is well, that's
meaningful. Lionel's drunk, to be fair, but
still, that's meaningful. It is interesting that Lionel
chose this game to play with Dunk because maybe a little bit
of a test for him. And he later does say Dunk says,
sure, I'm quick and I'm strong. And so I think that that scene
shows some of his quickness, right?
And and and Lionel responds and and Dunk says, but so were you
and Lionel's ago? Well, yes, I am.
I am. But anyway, I think I went a
step further, Aziz, I suspect this might specifically come
into play later. I bet there's going to be some
sword fight action later where someone stomps or attempts to
stomp on someone's foot. OK, I like that idea.
We'll see. That's a cool idea.
So just one mother, one other tidbit about the scene in
general. Ira Parker, who of course is the
showrunner, he loves dancing scenes.
He loves dance scenes. He just put that out.
And earlier, I skipped this over by accident, Apparently Owen
Harris, the director, he did a Monty Python was a documentary
or yeah. So that's that also fits super
well. But yeah, Ira Parker compared
this scene to Fiddler on the Roof, which is great comparison.
Yeah. It also resolves with Manfred
Dondarian. So it gets right back to what
Dunk was trying to do all day long.
So it kind of brings us back to his search and that's what we've
already discussed the conversation about Manfred and
how that went. But there's a couple more things
I'll say about it from a different perspective. 1 is that
they they dropped the the book line of him also just retelling
the Dondarian legend of the purple lightning and the
messengers. They they didn't bother having
to do that. Maybe he'll do that later but
seemed I can understand why they dropped that.
I wonder if with Manfred limping away the city of Gowdy Toes, I
felt I feel like this is an homage to Harry Strickland, who
they didn't really use the book version of Harry Strickland in
the show. They just had like this
professional looking commander who got wiped out by Drogon like
all the rest of the Golden Company did in the show.
So they never went with Gowdy Toes, Harry Strickland version.
So this this could be kind of like that.
We'll just use that here. So and then they have that.
You know, that that fun joke. I you said, well, I thought you
said you were a Dornishman. No, he said he was hung like a
Dornishman. No, I said.
I hung Dornishman. Fun, very dark, dark joke, just
good word play, but really really heavy honestly.
Yeah, also in terms of those of you who are really deep into the
lore, we there's been a long like theorizing, not just about
the Laughing Storm and, and how old he was and how he fell into
the succession line. That was a little easier because
of how he definitely inherits eventually with Manfred, it's
what we always wondered what his connection to Jenna Dondarian
was because Jenna is Baylor Brakespear's wife and of course
the mother of their children. So we were wondering if Manfred
is perhaps uncle. To, you know, Valar and and all
them and we do see Manfred is one of the people in that
funeral scene. We get that clip of the funeral
right over Valar's right shoulder is Manfred.
It might give him a little more leeway in his arrogance.
And yes. Who is in laws are.
Exploits with women and everything else when it's hard
for anyone to say anything to him if he's a King's step
brother. What's the word I'm looking for?
We don't know. Exactly.
That's what the. Law or whatever.
I think Sybil, I think brother-in-law, yeah, because
he's probably this around the same age as Jenna, who is the
one that's married to the Targaryens or.
Nephew in law. Or nephew in law.
Yeah, something like that. Foreign Emperor says join the
Patreon in Discord if you haven't already.
Yes, thank you. Join the Patreon in Discord if
you haven't already. We do also have a Facebook
discussion page, but yeah, I hadn't mentioned the Discord
today, so that's a good one. We have that link in the
description as well. TK OK Podcast Network says
Laughing Storm was always my favorite nickname in the books.
Dunk scene with him was easily my favorite Laughing Storm.
Best hang in Westeros. Definitely best at eating food
with a Warhammer. I think he's very capricious in
a way that you would want to be very careful hanging out with
him that if you, if you just say the wrong thing, I think he
could really turn on you in a dime.
You know what I mean? So I, I, I think he would be a
great hang, but I think you'd be better off hanging out with
Tyrion Lannister, who would not probably like have you burned as
a heretic? He was joking about that.
But I do think Lionel probably snaps sometimes and really hurts
people and and. Yeah, I think you're right.
Here's. A society.
You know, I think he he, he could ruin someone if he wants
to, and he often probably wants to.
Yeah, if Dunk had been someone more nefarious, right?
If Dunk hadn't been who he had been, if it turned out he was
there with a poison dagger or something, he it would have been
the new main feature of the tournament to have him tortured
to death in public or something, right?
Yeah, that's true. So let's talk about the music a
little bit there. Did that little joke at the
beginning with the original theme.
It started to play the original music and then Dunk starts using
the bathroom. We talked about it a little bit.
I would like to talk about it a little bit more before it.
A lot of people didn't like that scene and I get some gratuitous
element to it, yadda yadda. In my, in my opinion, it's just
like kind of a weirdly unrealistic position to take.
I think it is. And this is what Ira Parker,
what Ira Parker and them have said.
It was important to them to really set the tone so early to
like have an editing decision like that to where you hear the
swelling epic Game of Thrones music and then you cut to
something comicals, crass, mundane even.
You know what I mean. Comment.
And so, yeah, I think maybe the execution could be better.
But I I will argue that it was an important editing beat.
Yeah, I like we said, it's a different.
There's more to it than just. They weren't just making a crass
joke. Yeah.
A lot of people are turned off by being a crass joke, which I
get. And, you know, I didn't exactly
like it or whatever, but I did like it from like you said, she
has sort of a, an editing, writing, storytelling
perspective. It was a good gear shift.
It was a, you know, humorous moments, even if it was gross,
lots of gross moments or get humor out of them on top of all
that too, for better or worse. And I this also, I don't mean
this to sound as cynical as it might, but it's kind of a good
marketing decision, right? It we're all freaking talking
about it, right? Oh yeah.
It caught our attention. It wasn't what we expected.
We were we, whether we're laughing about it or grossed
out, very few people are going to not watch this show because
of that and everyone is going to talk about that.
You know, I even though I get that it was kind of weird,
gross, whatever, I also think it was good.
I think it was an overall positive.
We watched this with my mom and she said wow I didn't expect it.
It's so much lighter than than she was like that last one, the
dragon one had the baby seat like that's what she could
remember so clearly. I.
Guess that's the comparison. Yeah, that's.
The comparison she's like in Game of Thrones, like she was
comparing it to those two she shows and was like, yeah, it
didn't seem to faze her at all. Frankly, she was just relieved
that it was not as gruesome. Relieved.
Yeah. So it's difficult to move away
from such iconic music, music as Rami and Jawadi.
Like that's a hard thing to be like we're we're not going to
have him. But that, I mean, but they
nailed it. I think the new guy's Dan
Roemer. It's a very different style of
music. It's very fitting.
It's got a lot of Western vibes to it.
There's a lot of slow guitar with Symphony behind it.
There's that one very happy song you mentioned earlier.
It sounds so much like Rainbow Connection to me.
We had somebody watching it with us here, Amanda, and she went at
the end of the show, she's like, hey, you're a musical guy.
Did you think Rainbow Connection?
I said it before she did. And she's like, yeah, that's
what exactly what I was going to say.
So clearly I'm not the only one who caught the Rainbow
Connection vibes from that one song.
To give credit, the new guy, his name is Dan Romer.
He did the music for Station 11, Superman and Lois, The Good
Doctor. He won an ASCAP award for that
one. Lilo and Stitch, Death of
Unicorn, Woman of the Hour. And he's done production for
Christina Aguilera and Shawn Mendes.
Yeah, real quick. Just say Station 11 was an
awesome show. I highly recommend it.
Nice, right? Let's move forward to some stuff
that I had saved to be spoiler only discussion.
But well, it's we don't really mind at all now, so let's talk
about it regardless. Yeah, one of the strategies as
we touched on before they used to, they're cutting back on the
clues for the Targaryen identities and dreams and stuff
like that because of what we said about how much time people
are going to take to talk about it and the Internet and all
that. So I totally understand that
they do little things like say plumber says there are Princess
about instead of things like Dunk spending quite a bit of
time thinking about who the current king is, who the
Princess are. He actually it's a lot of it's
in his head. They remove almost all of that.
Maybe it'll just come up later. But for now, no, like you said
mentioned earlier, Sean, how they took out that line.
All that guy does is drink and talk about his dreams.
Good example. They took that out.
They still he still mentioned his dreams, but they didn't they
didn't like repeat it to keep the emphasis kind of milder.
I would really like to know from people who don't know Game of
Thrones well, if they thought that, if they thought Daron, if
they recognize Daron, if they thought, is that a Targaryen?
You know, I got, I feel like a lot of people will be will be
wondering that It's hard for us to say a couple.
Quick things. Yeah, absolutely.
One, I thought it was interesting that Dunk
immediately referred to him as Lord, and I think it's
reasonable because he looks. He's very well dressed enough.
Like, but even having color in your clothes at all, that's like
dye that cost money and it's and it's a nice material with color.
So it's it's reasonable. And it's also probably a little
bit of Dunk. Like it's safer to assume that
guy's a Lord and be wrong than to not assume he's a Lord and be
wrong. Right?
But but still, I do think it's interesting to think I can see
someone not even assuming he's a Lord, much less a Targaryen.
So I do think that's an interesting to think to ask of
someone who isn't as familiar with the material.
I also want to point out another what 2 sort of A2 fold thing.
One way they're downplaying, and this is a full on spoiler, so in
case you're still watching and are worried about spoilers, I
think that they one way they are shifting the mystery away from
who Egg is is by shifting it toward whether or not Drunk is a
knight. I think that's good, yeah.
I think in the book, those are both mysteries, but one, and
it's something George is great at doing, is he's presenting
mysteries that you don't even realize or you're supposed to be
figuring something out. Does that make sense?
Like I don't think in the book you knew, especially if you
didn't know anything about the rest of the Martin world, which
when his book came out, there wasn't that much more to the
Martin world, right? So.
Yeah, originally this came out after Clash of Kings.
Y'all before Storm of Sora. Let's not forget that.
And I I think it was at least my second or third reading before
it started to click into my head the idea that Dunk might not be
a night. And when I started bringing up
with other people ad nauseam, discussion had already been had.
Anyone was ready to prove me why I was wrong.
But but it wasn't. My point is that even reading
through it a couple times with familiarity with the whole
world, that still wasn't like a mystery clicking in my head when
I realized it was being presented that way.
And I look back on it, I see the different ways that they were
kind of like, show him remember one thing but not remember this.
And his ears get red when he's embarrassed, which is something
it's hard to do on screen. So they found other ways to
demonstrate his embarrassment or whatever.
But I but I'm quick to point out, well, there's some people
equated the red ears to when he's lying, but that's not quite
true. It's just when he's embarrassed.
One time you might be embarrassed is when you lie.
Anyway, I think that they're being a little bit more
apparent, if not obvious about that being an issue of Dunk
being a knight or not. But there you're not even
realizing that there is some mystery with Egg and some things
happen in a book that make it easier.
Like this is another nature of writing.
When you read something and so you know a little more certainly
that they put that line, you can't not have your attention
drawn to it. Does that make sense?
Like if you're looking at two people in a room having a
conversation and you're looking at their Facebook expresses and
listen to what they're saying and drawing what you can from
that, but you have no idea that some painting in the background
is supposed to represent something, right?
Maybe under watch when someone points out like, oh, that was a
clue, right? But in the book, if they write
something about the painting in the background, you can't not
notice that, you know what I mean?
It's too selected. Yeah, they've picked out
something from all the things that are in the background to
describe it and it's must be important.
So in the book, Dunk notices eggs eyes are deep blue, almost
purple. Yeah.
And then later when he sees the Aryan, he's like, oh, he's got
the bleach blonde hair and purple eyes, the two trademarks
of a Targaryen. Well, Egg has no hair.
There's another way of clueing you there in ways that are way
harder to do here. If they just gave Egg purple
eyes, that would be too obvious. You know what I mean?
So. And they've already done away
with purple eyes on the show that that's the decision they
made long ago. So they just couldn't do that.
So that made it a little easier for them actually.
That decision actually helped them.
But another. Thing they did do, and I don't
remember this from the book. I, I'm not going to say it
wasn't there, but I don't quite remember.
But when Dunk asks Egg, when Egg says, you know what, what would
your mom think of that? And he's like, oh, not much.
She's dead. And he start, you know, he's
ready to be mad. Egg.
But I go has a little bit of sympathy when he finds out his
mom's dead and cuts himself short of some whatever quip
insult kind of thing he's going to give him.
Instead, he says, oh, are you an orphan boy?
And Egg doesn't quite answer the question.
He says, are you? So we're still left, I know with
the implication the egg is an orphan, right?
So I don't think if you didn't know that, you would know that
that's a mystery being presented to you.
And you don't know the he. He also similarly doesn't fully
answer the are you from Flea bottom part.
He says no, but he doesn't expand on he is.
He wasn't lie to him, he says. Are you?
He asked him, are you an orphan boy?
Are you? Are you from Flea Bottom?
No. He doesn't lie.
He's not a liar. He's not lying to him.
He's just, yeah, he's just a lie of omission.
It's. Very clever.
It's. Like the pluribus the the
plurhive. So there's another one of the
other kind of clues that's maybe a clue to think about it more,
not necessarily a clue of who he is is he is awfully skilled for
someone that small, which which indicates he's young.
This is sort of pushed back on by dunk thing.
He doesn't look like you eat very much.
It was kind of an idea. Oh, he is poor or something like
that. And then you have the way he
talks. That's the biggest one that is
you couldn't possibly have that in the book.
You can't hear what he sounds like.
I mean, George could have said his speech is polished, but that
would have been maybe been too much of A giveaway here.
His speech is very polished. He speaks very clearly.
He thinks like I had had enough of that in he says my Lord
versus Mallor. Does he say?
My Lord in the book ever would be the question He.
Does say, my Lord? Yeah, then he does do the
polished speech thing. However, I should say the
polished speech thing when George wrote that, my Lord, my
Lord thing, that's in A Dance with Dragons, that's Ruse
talking to Theon. So that's literally 13 years
later than the hedge night that he explained what the Lord, my
Lord thing is. So when he wrote this, he hadn't
explained that in the books yet. And obviously now all of us have
read that. So we do we do have that
explanation. But I think that's interesting
that he he played with this before he explained it many
years and which he does sometimes.
So they also, it's not just the pairing, the way they present
his identity a little differently.
It's also just like paring down the supernatural in general.
They like, let's talk about Targaryens, let's talk about
dreams, let's talk about any of that stuff, which is all same,
just all format, right? Just don't don't get them
thinking about that. Another one that's missing a
dunk in the book. Ask what happened to your hair.
And he doesn't, he doesn't not another straight answer there
either. He doesn't.
He just says the maester shaved it off.
He doesn't say why. He's like, Oh yeah, well, that's
literally what happened. Yeah, dunk things.
Oh yeah, Sometimes they do that when you have lice, you know?
He stills that that explanation works for Dunk, and in the
explanation in Dunk's mind, pushes the audience to further
accept him as someone who's poor, not someone it's a Prince,
right? Yes, absolutely.
Shout out to Laura Jane who had a great thought on the Egg Dunk
shooting star scene. Remember the book All That is In
Dunk's inner monologue he thinks about the star and the luck blah
blah. But in the show they give the
line to Egg shooting star brings luck and that it's very poignant
because Egg's mother from house Dane, their sigil is a shooting
star. So it makes a lot of sense that
he would know lore or, you know, old wives tales, whatever you're
going to call them about shooting stars.
So that's very fitting. Like that one.
Let's talk about Brienne for a minute here.
I there's not a lot of like overt Brienne content so far.
The one perhaps Easter egg was when will he be awake?
And they say even fall, even Fall Hall is the capital of
Tarth or the seat of Brienne's family.
So yeah. So which would Dunk will
eventually go there? So.
But mostly I wanted to talk about how all these multiple
situations that Dunk disarms people with his earnestness and
his naivete does not work for Brienne.
She is just as honest and naive, but it goes the opposite way
because of just, you know, the difference in how gender is
treated in Westeros. She's a woman.
A big woman is not a big man. It's like, oh, you're a big man.
That's good. A big woman, like, oh, a big
woman, blah. You know, they don't like that.
So it's she gets mocked for things that Dunk got.
It's an advantage for him. And it neither of them are aware
necessarily of of this going into it like because Brienne
comes from a sheltered environment.
She came from Tarth, which is like a microcosm of ancient and
all values. It's not.
She wasn't ready to be mocked. And and the cruel games that the
other nights play, she had no idea that would happen.
She thought they would be noble and honorable.
But yeah, so. And that's kind of where Dunks
approaches. He's like, well, Sir Arlen
taught me to be noble and honorable.
That's what I'm going to be. So he also doesn't perceive all
the harm and mockery and all the stuff around him.
He doesn't realize that's the case.
And it's very similar to Brienne, but in, as I said, in
Brianne's case, it goes negative for her.
And in Dunk's case, it kind of tends to go well for him.
Think too, how some of the mockery that Dunk might get that
a person might get Dunk doesn't. Some people that might Malcolm
don't because he's too big, right?
He'll beat me up, right? See, he doesn't face some
mockery that a person went and and and some of the respect he
gets. He probably doesn't realize that
he's gets because he's big too. For example.
I wonder if Plummer would have given the advice.
Go find someone to vouch for it and then maybe we'll let you in.
If he had been smaller. If he had been like some skinny,
you know, short person that also look like a farmer, they're like
no, no, no plumber at least like well, you're big.
I get you know, you can compete. Go ahead, get some.
But if he had been some scrawny guy, he will now get out of
here. You're not you're not putting up
with these nights. You're not going to do this.
So. Very true.
To be fair, it's not all about gender it it mostly is, but it's
also about appearance. Dunk is handsome, Brienne is
explicitly said to be ugly. So that's part of it too.
Like some people are just, hey, he's handsome, I like him, I'll
talk to him, whatever. But another similar part of this
is or example of this is when he's talking to the sex workers
and he's like, rather than being like insulting them back when
they insulted him, he's like, you didn't have to mock me.
And they're like, whoa, what are we?
What a thing to say. Like how earnest, how wholesome,
you know? But if Brianna had said you
didn't have to mock me to all those nights that played that
game with her, they would have laughed even harder.
They would have mocked her even harder.
Yeah. So it's just more showing
weakness. So anyway.
Can I say there I do think there was one other allusion being
made to Brienne? Oh, what does what does Lionel
tell Dunk? Well, a few things.
What do you what is specific? He has.
He has no chance. Right.
Now he has no chance, and soon he'll have no choice and no
chance. Very good.
Nice. Excellent.
Yeah, Well caught, Shawn. I like that West of Westeros
says I believe Bran Stark is in this timeline.
Well, if he's infinite infinite, then maybe it's.
I guess some of that could be how you view it.
Say I can't help but always be on edge if there's a weirwood
around I wonder but I would say I don't think they can see
through bird. Back then I saw people that were
like oh Bran's in the Robin, Blood Raven.
Blood Raven as living then could be say.
However, I don't think Bran and Blood Raven in the future can go
back to any animal. Perhaps, yeah, but they can go
back. To a weirwood.
So if you saw a scene in the show in front of a weirwood, I
would think it's totally possible for any of the the
people tapped into that to see. I don't think that's case for
the opening Robin scene, however.
Yeah. Also by the way, y'all an RIP to
Bob Ware from the Grateful Dead, the person who weirwoods are
named after. He made it to I think age 91.
That's that's a good number. Let's talk, we do.
How long, how good for your longevity the rock'n'roll
lifestyle was? The tree helped him, right?
The weirwood, yeah. Here's a little section we want
to talk about the making of. There's always a making of with
each episode, and we always like to watch that.
And especially the first episode there's because it's just
bringing us into a lot of this stuff without any of I was
having little understanding of what they started with.
And from then you build on it. So Shay's got some some things
here. Yes, I recommend it always.
It's on YouTube. It's about 17 minutes.
The making of it, not of the Seven Kingdoms.
They do concept art compared to the final shot, like you can see
here. Love to see the concept art.
They show non color graded versions of of things like the
pavilions and the armor and the swords and little wooden stag
concepts and just I love. I just wanted to skim through it
for y'all who maybe some of you don't have access to it because
you're in a different country or you just want to see the
highlights. You can see some shots here.
They did like models of all of Ashford, like full, full models
of it, which I'll get to. But just the the beautiful
artistry involved in all the Shields, all the pavilions,
etcetera. All of the wares that the
merchants have, the eggs and the spices and and George, yeah,
George Happy. You'll see lots of George in the
making of him. Happy about it.
They built a whole bridge like in they they modeled and made a
bridge that went across this river, a working bridge, which
is pretty cool there. Had to be a bridge that didn't
interfere with the salmon so there's no supports going into
the water it all. It only spans both sides of the
shore. Yeah, it's really cool bit of
engineering George said they should keep.
That's what he's laughing about here, that he said they should
keep the bridge. And I think they should.
It's such a cool bridge. And you can see they they
overlaid some of the quotes from the the novella with some of the
scenes that they built, which is a pretty cool touch for them to
do. And I'm still getting to the
model. Here we go.
This is the model they did of, of Ashford for them to build off
of. And it's just so cool.
I can't wait to go to see the filming locations to see the the
Belfast museum they have with all of this stuff.
But I'm sure they're going to add a whole bunch of it so we
can hopefully see some of this stuff in person.
These real models, real armor, eggs, little robe, there concept
art of egg where he looks looks like.
An alien there. He looks like an alien empire.
Yeah, he looks intense. Yeah, he's son.
Of he's baby of Nosferatu there. Yeah, he is.
Yeah, that's so funny. But yeah, you also will see just
lots and lots of of, of silly gag reel bloopers and stuff like
that. So I, I highly recommend it.
I'm sorry if it's region locked and you can't see it, I'll be
disappointed for you if that's the case, but there's.
My overview, the banners, the banners.
I did see a clip of Martin saying.
I'm not quoting exactly, but he said something to the effect of
walking onto the set was like walking into his book and he
really thought they nailed the look of the whole world.
So. Yeah, that's great.
You know, because George himself has said and I'm so and I'm
known to be very reasonable about these things.
I. Like this comment here from
Tyler McAlpine? Viserys would love that model.
He sure would. That is really true.
Well, let's talk a little bit about some other stuff where
we've got, I guess just a couple more things that I wanted to let
you all know that on Friday we'll talk about the trailer and
the rest of season because they did do, there's a trailer with
stuff in it and there's a whole rest of season trailer like they
do sometimes. And there's some interesting
things in there. Some pretty big scenes are shown
and there's some things that are a little bit unexpected in a
good way. And yeah, we'll we'll talk about
that in our preview episode. On the screen you can see we do
see more dunk flashbacks, which I was eager for, and we do seem
to see some extended ones, so that'll be wet.
Your appetite for what we're going to talk about on Friday.
More Bamber Todd love that kid. And I can I throw out real quick
by the way, that when we did our preview episode and you know, I
don't want to take anything away from your effort, Aziz, because
I, I hadn't really thought it out at all, but you kind kind of
predicted 6 sort of temp pole moments that might be the the
end. I mean, I was wrong in episode
1. Yeah, I.
I, I, I was reading a book and it's like halfway into the book,
that scene still hasn't come yet, that scene with Peninsula
and Aryan. And so I just started thinking
like, I don't think they can do it that early.
And, you know, and when I think of it being I, I think if it
happens like episode 3, that's, you know, so four, he gets the
team together, Episode 5's a battle, episode 6 that resolved.
Yeah. And and that's closer to the
halfway point. So but that did leave me
thinking, well, what all else are they going to do in the 1st
2 episodes? So things like dunk flashbacks,
which we suppose this like, I don't know, years ago that they
might do that and they and also he hasn't.
Done his armor yet like this and sell in selling the other.
Things straight from the book he still needs you like sell his
horse and get the armor and. Talk to Tans, Elsomar and yeah,
a few things like that, but also.
It scenes like this with Lionel Baratheon, stuff like that that
that does a lot to like reveal the thoughts in his head,
further flesh out the world and the other characters also
entertain us, build the space of the episode.
There's going to be actual jousts, so we got to see the
actual tournament moments and things like that.
Exactly right, yeah. That'll be cool he.
Doesn't join the tournament though I think until well, he
didn't even join the tournament tournament till the 3rd day.
Yeah. So that's right.
And before that happens, yeah. So he never actually competes in
the tournament. It's funny.
It's about a tournament, but our main character doesn't compete.
And even though that's what he goes there explicitly to do.
That was my other when you ask this in our preview episode what
scene we're most looking forward to and through the season.
My my smart alecky answer was I want to see who wins the
tournament. Yeah, we never talked about what
our favorite scene and our favorite character was.
I think that we absolutely should.
Do you have an answer for me right off the bad disease?
Yeah, I think it's easy enough for me.
Well, I'll let someone else say Laughing Storm.
I'll say Raymond. I'll say Raymond Fossaway.
I was super pleased with Raymond.
He just made me smile. His accent.
I loved his accent. I mean, that's how the that guy
really speaks. I think so.
You know, I just, I just like, I just was very fitting his
delivery. Just the character and my
favorite scene. Yeah, probably the shooting star
scene at the end. I thought that I really loved
the switch there and and after Laura's catch there about House
Day and I love it even more. Sean.
Oh, I think my favorite character might be the low
hanging fruit of Dunk. I I'm I'm tempted to name
Plummer. It was so gross the way he kept
Hocking up movies and I similar kind of comedic, you know,
grounding of the opening poop scene, But it was so gross
enough that makes me hesitate to pick him.
But I did like how he was reasonable.
You know, he he was, you know, dunks kind of coming into this
guy's world. It happens in a row when anyone
has worked to retail. You know that you you it's your
world, right? You know how the cash register
works and where the storage room is and how busy it's going to be
at 5 and someone comes into your world and they want to know
where whatever socks are, how to order French fries or something,
they are not from your world, right?
They're thinking about their kids failing math or their
husband wrecked a car or whatever's in their world.
And they're not in your world. And sometimes you have to kind
of like, I don't know, cater to them, You know what I mean?
And I think plumber was doing that.
Dunk came in to Plumber's world not knowing what the heck's
going on, and Plumber was relatively kind to him.
You know what I mean? I I appreciated that scene on
multiple levels. Right on SO.
I don't know. Yeah.
I don't know for sure if I would.
I, I and I want to be clear, I didn't dislike Lionel or that
scene. And in fact, I have an automatic
inclination to like scenes that include dancing.
And so I want to be very clear or not being negative, but I
didn't like the whole Lionel scene as much as other people
seem to have. It seems like everyone was like
super excited for it. I thought it was really good,
you know, fair enough. There are other things I I might
even pick is my favorite scene. I'm cheating a little bit, but
we just conglomerate of all the scenes of Dunk just alone with
the horses, you know, just. Like across the.
Landscape with the with the sparse music and just kind of
him being alone facing the world in his own I I appreciate those
kind of like down to earth moments.
It gives you as an audience the chance to reflect on what's
happening. What's he thinking?
What would I do in this situation?
A lot of times and again, there's different styles of
filmmaking and storytelling, but a lot of times things are kind
of dense and there's quick edits and full of conversation and
non-stop action. But when things slow down for a
minute, I love that. I love it when things slow down
enough for you to kind of reflect on what's happening and
think about what's been shown to you and why and how you react in
these situations. I love these what some people
might think of as slow moments where nothing happens.
Those are my favorite the. Show starts that way like it
does. That's the vibe from the get go.
Yeah, that's really cool. I'm immediately.
In love with the part of why I like the book so much.
Too. And the show did it perfectly.
It's immediately. This is for me.
It's yeah. All right, Shay, what about you?
OK, my answer is Lionel Baratheon and the dancing scene.
I do like dancing scenes in TV and movies in general and I like
the way it was filmed. And they get into that in the
making of the kind of shutter speeds they use and the style of
film work they use to give it this kind of almost like drugs
kind of atmosphere. Like, you know, if you botched
hedonistic like they they it really felt like a party and
other and other extras behind the scenes stuff.
They talked about how they wanted to give it a Burning Man
or Glastonbury type feel being at the camps at the turn me and
I really felt that not just in that scene, but when Dunk was
walking around, seeing the puppetry performance or really
just memory performance. So I I felt that vibe a lot.
I felt it most in that scene. I liked the way that they
expanded Lionel and the kind of foreshadowing they set for an
eventual conflict. I think viewers are going to
really be into whether you want to call it a bromance or a
romance. A lot of people are going to
like Dunk and Lionel Baratheon together.
I think they got really good chemistry and they have a lot to
work with there. And it's it's as we know as
readers, it's it's not going to end up great in the long term
for Dunk or or anyone really, I guess.
Yeah, I'm going to say Lionel. I liked, I liked Dunks awkward
dancing as well. So like, it wasn't just about
Lionel, but it was about seeing Dunk in this environment, I
suppose. Yeah, putting them together was
was a big, big thing. 11 really funny moment that some of y'all
might have missed from Lionel was when he says, I don't know,
I'm really quite drunk. And then he grabs his helm, his
horns or his antlers and walks away.
His antlers brush up on the chandelier and he he apologizes
to it. Sorry.
Yeah, exactly. It's it's so funny.
Not only did I notice that, but I can't tell you how much time I
spent thinking about that. My mind is constantly just
thinking about the, the nature of film production, you know
what I mean? And I wondered how much of that
was specifically written out in the script.
You know, sometimes that type of detail isn't there and it's a
director's decision at the moment of filming.
But sometimes that type of detail is there and I can't, I
went so bad to know if that was in the script, if the director
made that decision or if the actor did that and they ran with
it. I, I love that scene in a
million ways. I'm glad you brought that up.
I would also say my other favorite scene was a similar
conglomerate of scene, all the flashbacks just having like for
me, there's like an editing effect to that that I really
like in not just another 7 Kingdoms, but there's countless
shows and movies where I love a quick cut.
I love a quick flashback style cut.
I love using editing for humor to that effect.
And so they really, right off the bat, I was very sold on the
type of humor that they were going for.
Right on. Yeah, I want to say about that
too, Shia. I constantly, I'd say largely
because of you, try to champion editors.
That's a really good example there of how it was used to tell
the story. It wasn't just deciding when to
cut back and forth and maintain a continuity, which in and of
itself is enough of a skill and a challenge.
But that was very specific storytelling through editing
that was done great that editors don't get enough credit for us.
Yeah, like cutting back to Arlen just not saying anything and
just spitting hilarious. Like that's such a good beat.
It's so funny and it says so much and it has such
implication. And so yeah, I just the way that
they're doing flashbacks is is my other answer for favorite
scene. And that'll probably continue
going forward, I think. You're right.
I think you're right. I think we have a lot to look
forward to there, as we'll discuss on Friday.
It looks like there's an extended flashback scene rather
than some with the possibility of more quick cuts, so that's
exciting. And that next episode is called
Hard Salt Beef. Apparently this one was called
The Hedge Night. This could be the beginning of a
beautiful friendship. Y'all.
Let's enjoy ourselves and have a great season.
If I could get on my soapbox for a few seconds here.
Don't let anyone else's criticism of the show affect
your love of it. Enjoy it on your own with your
friends and don't let anyone else make decisions for you on
how much you like it. Once again, I want to remind you
all to help us out with the World Science Fiction Society
joined by January 31st and nominate us for best related
work history of Westeros episode Ragnarok versus the Long Night.
You get a lot for your membership.
Every book on the ballot, which means all the book things
nominated for best book, like, right, just right there.
That's worth the 50 bucks. Plus you get art and the
nominating and voting. And hopefully you join us in
Worldcon itself in 2026. And Anaheim.
Yeah. You definitely get more than
$50.00 of value of, of media of books and, and stuff like that.
Absolutely you get more than $50.00 worth of books.
And then you also again, could upgrade your membership and
you're supporting history of Westeros.
So we would really appreciate it.
I put the link in the description and in the chat.
Thank you. Our trivia question the question
was Sir Arlen fought for Sir Manfred Dondarian's father
against what foe? The Vulture King is the answer.
the Vulture King and Sir I knew. It I knew it.
And he took a crossbow bolt. That was quite clearly what that
was. Our poll.
The poll was who was the favorite non dunk and egg
performance. I almost wish I had put Lionel
up against dunk and Egg because it would have been more of a
contest. Plumber got 4%.
The four sex workers read Bione, Daisy and Leah the Lovely got
8%. Raymond and Stefan Fossaway also
got 8%. Lionel Baratheon got 80%.
So yeah, not so close there, but feels good.
To be in the majority for one. So often I'm not.
But I'm like, you know what? I get it.
I get why y'all love him. So once again, you all tune into
us on Friday at 5:30 for our preview episode.
Most Fridays we'll probably have that.
We're going to play that by ear based on what there is to
discuss or isn't. Yeah, this first week we had the
whole season to come preview. There's so much to talk about.
We're like, let's not cram it into the end of this episode.
Let's just, you know, do a Friday stream.
What time is that? Aziz 535 Thirty.
Yeah, it's your game. Stream will be not at all.
It'll be at six, so we'll this'll be, yeah.
Power Stream No. We'll just be a little little
late. That's fine.
The game stream will start when the when this is over.
OK, so we have also folks, if you want to listen to some other
stuff in the meantime, we have our Hedge night 4 part, actually
five part series that is going to be reposted to our video to
our Spotify feed and iTunes feeds, all podcast feeds.
You'll see that reappear at the top starting this next Thursday.
We also have a two-part episode on Baylor Break Spear and that
will that's also out there for you all if you want to check
that out. And of course, we have a long
series on the Blackfire rebellions.
Thanks to Bran for our lovely video intro.
And guess what y'all? We're getting a new video intro
from him all Duncan egg style starting next time and it looks
really cool. Just wasn't.
It's not quite done, but it will be by then and we're very
excited to show it to. You and there are puppets in it.
Thanks to Shawn and Ashea for all their great commentary.
We will see you all again soon. This is going to be a lot of fun
and you know what to do in the meantime.
Valar Ariris.