Music. Just as Sir Duncan and those he
stood for deserve justice, so did the climax of this all time
great short story, and the consensus is pretty overwhelming
that the trial of Seven and the tragedy therein did indeed
receive justice on screen. Put more simply, we knew it was
coming, but it still hit so hard.
It was. They did such a great job with
it. It's it's a joy, despite all the
sadness, How emotional it is to have something so legendary
enshrined this way in our fandom, permanently or semi
permanently. Again, It's just done such a
great job of keeping to the novel, which is done so well in
the 1st place, and that's a recipe for success.
Lines like this. A tall knight stood above him in
black armor, dented and scarred by many blows.
Prince Bailor, the scarlet dragon on his helm had lost a
head, both wings, and most of its tail.
Your Grace, Dunk said. I am your man.
Please, your man, my man. Black Knight put a hand on
Raymond's shoulder to steady himself.
I need good man, Sir Duncan the realm.
His voice sounded oddly slurred. Perhaps he bit his tongue.
Yeah, it's works so well as a companion to what we see on the
screen or vice versa. What we see on screen work so
well as companion to what we read.
They can they can work as the inner thoughts of these
characters as those moments are playing out on screen.
So we've got a lot to talk about, so let's do that all that
more on this episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello and welcome back everybody.
Episode 5 is in the books and people are already talking about
it as if it's one of the best episodes of a Game of Thrones
show of all time. I can see why we were hoping it
would play out this way. I couldn't have actually
predicted it would have gone this well.
So expectations have been exceeded, I'd say, and that's a
great thing. You can catch our last two
breakdowns at 6:00 on Monday, just like these other ones are
Episode 6 breakdown. And then we'll have a season a
wrap up type episode. We of course still have our
review episodes on 5:30 or at 5:30 on Friday.
We've got one more of those. So catch us this Friday for a
review preview stream of the upcoming final episode.
And then after that, stay tuned for a game of Dunkin Egg on
Twitch over at twitch.tv/history of Westeros.
Sean, are you drinking some sort of mournful beverage today or
some sort of violent beverage today?
You know, I did put AV8 juice into here, but still with the
green Magic Mind and also a Baja Blast Mountain Dew.
So the red and green is giving it more of a the Reds coming
through, but it's kind of brownish.
That is pretty. Violent.
Much tastier than what was ever at Alistair's wine bag that.
Was a sour hell there. Yeah, good.
Point the Queen's Witch's brew. That's right, that's right.
And you got red and green. You got the Fossaways clamoring
together in your club there. If you have questions or
comments, hit us up live here in the stream or emails at
westeroshistory@gmail.com or on any of the other social media
platforms. We're pretty much everywhere.
We've got a trivia question for you today.
We'll give you the answer at the end to this question.
Against which foe did Baylor earn the nickname Break Spear?
I will give you the answer at the end along with the context.
We also have a poll. This is a very violent poll.
Speaking of violence, which injury of dunks did you feel the
most like? Which one did he make you cringe
or shudder the most like? And there's actually more than I
could we could fit here because there's more than four.
We're pretty nasty. But I've tried to pick the four
that I thought were appropriate. The Lance in the side to start
it off. Then the Morning Star directly
to the face that knocked him off his horse.
Then we have the knife through the hand that he had to pull
out. I'm gonna go ahead and say
that's mine. And then the double stab in the
thigh, like he stabbed him, twisted it, pulled it out and
then stabbed him in the same place again.
A man that's painful. Yeah, they're like I said,
there's others. There's the whole, he throws his
knife into his leg and then pulls it out and tries to hit
him in the eye with it. And he almost kind of, yeah,
kind of almost does. Anyway, There's, there's lots.
It's very brutal. But it was supposed to be, you
know, it was supposed to be gritty like that.
So, yeah, we'll get into the details here.
Corn Emperor into super chat support for my favorite
Westerosi. Well, thank you.
And we've enjoyed having you all with us all season long.
It's been, as I said in the intro, better than we could have
hoped for. I'm I'm very pleased and I know
a lot of you are as well. This was the second longest
episode of the season. Maybe wouldn't have predicted it
that way, given the action episodes often have less time
because it's just so much to every second of action is more
production and training and effort than it is for the other
ones. Not that the other stuff isn't
hard, but this stuff's on another level.
Let's start with our favorite performances.
Let's get to that. We can all pretty much I mean,
we kind of talked about this ahead of time, Peter Claffy just
like we're he's was the best in this one.
This was amazing performance by him.
He has been on great all season long.
So we decided to just pick our second favorite and we all kind
of just acknowledging that we would all pick him, but we're
going to pick our second favorites while acknowledging
that that Peter was the best. So, Sean?
You are. I am OK.
I don't. I don't have to speak for
everybody. We're just saying his.
We'll just say we all agree that his performance was absolutely
outstanding and noteworthy. Maybe not 100% favorite for
everybody though. Sean, take it away.
I'd say egg, I think that, you know, to be fair, like a lot of
times someone's performance, it's not just them, right.
There's the context and the editing and all this other
stuff. But he seemed so he did so well
that two real outstanding moments when Dunk tells him, you
know, don't, don't rob me or I'll hunt you down.
He responds with a wolf, you know, and it was a good captured
this sort of gravity about what's to happen.
But Dunk is still trying to, you know, be light with him, you
know, and it kind of gets it, but still it kind of knows, man.
This is, you know, I'm trying to play along with his little jest
here, but this is scary, you know?
And, and he looks so small, all these huge men with huge armor
on huge horses and his scrawny little boy.
But still, I don't know, he's integral to the whole thing.
And then later on when, you know, Dunk appears dead and
Aryan's like, all right, call it, that's it.
And Egg's like, wait, that blood curdling scream.
Those are both really outstanding moments to me.
Yeah, I agree, Sean. He was really excellent.
His his range was really good too, that way.
It was really something he really did.
Yeah. He kind of like LED us in our
like we were him cheering and rooting for Dunk there, you
know, like he was our avatar, as if we were all there with him.
Sherry, what about you? I just want to say Peter
Claffey, I think he deserves it. I want to give him his applause
like in my section here, which is that he showed the
desperation, the the rage, his body language.
Like the way he kind of Lombard about when he describes later,
he's like 1 moment I felt like I was drunk, another moment I felt
like I was dying. He looked like that, like the
way he held himself. It was just it was just so well
done. But my other answer is the other
dunk Bamber Todd, who I also thought was really, really
phenomenal. I think he had this this
sweetness and vulnerability and this wide eyed quality that
really, really captivated me and made me think of egg made me
think of Duncan eggs relationship.
And yeah, I I just thought it was really beautifully done with
very little dialogue really. So giving it to both dunks.
Double dunk. Can't argue with that myself.
Yeah, certainly. As far as my favorite dunk
moment, I guess I could say the grief at the end, like favorite,
it's hard to call it that. He just did such a good job.
It was just so heart rending and it's such an important moment.
But as far as my supporting cast or secondary pick, I I put, I
suggested Baylor on the notes here in case someone else picked
him first. But I'm gonna go ahead and say
Aryan, just his exhaustion and just how much he had to put into
that. I imagined, like I said a minute
ago, the effort to train and and do all that.
I I wrote in the notes that I don't think they had to act
quite as much when they were trying to pretend they were
exhausted. I bet they actually were
exhausted, you know? So that's one thing they didn't
have to fake so much. The rest is just pure acting.
But like, there's no way they weren't tired as heck after
doing all that over and over 'cause, you know, they had to do
it repeatedly. That's how these things work.
Yeah. So let's talk about favorite
scene or part of a scene and interpret that how you will.
Sean, go for it. I want to give a general my my
my first instinct is the appreciation of the shots to the
visor. I thought that was a key part of
the presentation in the book is kind of dunks perspective.
And it was neat to see it here. Like, you know, not just that or
not so much the outside shots of him, but the shots from inside
his visor where the screen is, you know, 3/4 blocked out to us
and we're just seeing this sliver of vision like he does.
And he did a good job with the audio, making it sound kind of
muffled and distant from the rest of the world.
And, you know, I want to stay generally positive, but I was,
you know, connected to that. I really like how even the mud,
when he hits the ground, mud gets up into the visor in his
face way that was captured on screen.
I was a little disappointed when he cut to the next scene and I
was no mud in his helmet. Where did it go?
Like even if he tried to wipe it off with his metal head with I
don't know well. The next scene shows the mud
coming out like they do Address that.
Yeah, but I, you know, I'm nitpicking a little bit and, you
know, this is the action he's seen, which I attended nitpack.
And even if I am nitpicking at it, overall, it it was really
well done. But I, I as much as I appreciate
all that, there is one other scene that you've flickered up
or moments a quick image and gets up and yells and he holds
himself to his feet and at the last second of that, that
imagery, if he's barely able to stand, but right, he's his
sword. That was so outstanding.
I thought that, yes, right there.
And Aryan's like, sigh, like, oh, I got to keep the dog gone.
Haven't I done enough for it? This guy's too big.
I can't stop him. Like it was a great image and a
great moment. Well said.
You know, Shay, you had that
Morning Star flashing through his visor.
It didn't occur to me until just now how much that's like the
shooting star overhead as he's lying on the ground looking up.
And George sort of wrote it like that in the novel.
But yeah, I didn't really think about it till now.
What about you, Sherry? What is your favorite scene,
slash, subplot or etcetera? However you want to do it?
Mine was the sequence with Dung following Arlen is what I'm
going to say. And I also completely agree with
you, Sean, that all of the the film work showing it from inside
Dung's helm like helped you like feel so kind of claustrophobic
and overwhelmed and all of these things, right.
But I think they did that as well in the flashbacks with
framing. Like you see, like Arlen, the
way he looked when he sees Dunk through the window, you know,
like you're seeing it from his POV of Dunk biting Alistair's
neck, you know, And then he comes out and in the name of the
mother, unhand that boy, which is really very much like when
Dunk is putting on the persona of knighthood and he's like,
stop raping Sarah. That's very much what Arlen just
did. Exactly there on hands, you
know, stop accosting that boy. You also see the framing device
because you see Dunk looking through the bars right of of his
his room, which is very cell like, you know, in a way.
And so I thought that was beautifully filmed, but then
just the whole long sequence that's just kind of narrated by
Arlen's Dothraki morning song, where you see young Dunk
following him and the music, and there's so much meaning behind.
Like him looking at Roger's helm between like seeing them leave
King's Landing when he was scared to leave King's Landing
before he was reticent to do so. But he just follows after Arlen.
I don't know. I thought it was really
beautiful and moving. And it, it just, it made me
really sad for Dunk that, that he's in this this desperate
state. He almost dies, you know, just
following him and he's not willing to kind of show himself
to him, right. And so, I don't know, I found it
so beautiful, so beautiful. In that moment when Dunk was
kind of envisioning himself, you know, stop raping, Sir.
That was, if I remember right, at that moment, he was like, oh,
maybe I could be a gold cloak. How ironic that the gold cloak
was such an awful person and then yet Dunk maybe is inspired
to be a better person, you know? Right on.
Yeah, I really love that stuff too, Cher.
I'll have my thoughts on it later.
I have a few other pieces of context to fill in and some
other notes, but my favorite was a very, very small character
note that they added that wasn't in the book.
Or maybe it was in the book, but it was more implied and this
they brought it out and that's Makar's desperation.
And that's just him yelling out Aryan when he when Aryan is
actually injured, because Aryan's either either breaking
even or winning throughout most of the early part of the fight.
And then Dunk starts to come back and he gets in that nasty
cut into his groin or upper thigh, whatever.
And Aryan screams out and, and Makar is trying to get to him
and he's yelling my boy, my boy. And that puts a lot more context
into him later, forgetting, not remembering the blow that killed
his brother and 'cause he's just desperate and trying to get to
his son and not thinking about anything else.
And it's like, it kind of reminds me of Cersei.
Now, Makar is no Cersei, but when Joffrey dies and Cersei is
holding him in her arms and she's she's crying and
screaming, my boy, it's like, well, even as awful as Cersei
is, you can still kind of feel for her there.
And that's and, and Joffrey's Joffrey was still a mother.
And it's like, that's what's happening here.
Whether or not you would feel that way about a child like
this, you can you can understand why this particular man and so
many other parents would, no matter how awful their kid is.
So I thought that was great. And Makar's personality came out
more there, and it's going to be very useful for the story going
forward to have that conflict within him and in general.
So Aziz, a quick question about that.
At one point he kind of like tries to move toward his son in
two nights, kind of grab him and stop him.
Baylor and Lionel. Baylor and Lionel.
Yeah, yeah. I was almost certain one was
Baylor, but I did not know who the other one was, so yeah.
I definitely have some more to say about that as well later.
You can tell that we'll go into later detail, but real quickly,
most of them weren't trying to kill each other throughout, like
the entire seven on Seven. More on that later.
Yeah, so it starts really quickly, even though it kind of
quickly shifts into flashback for quite a long time.
There's probably that whole, that flashback is easily longer
than all the flashbacks from the previous episodes combined.
Baylor gives a quick strategy pep talk.
It's somewhat similar to the novel.
Change a little bit. They get rid of the whole, we'll
use Tourney Lance's thing. I never really liked that in the
1st place. It's also got done weirdly in
the book because Baylor is still a horse, still knocks someone
off, knocks one of the kings guard off his their horse with
the Lance and it still doesn't break.
And this is after the initial charge.
He like takes two people out without breaking the Lance
that's designed to break. So it's like what?
And his name is brake spear. It should break.
No anyway, so I didn't mind them getting rid of that.
It's just a little it's a little extra thing that takes long.
It's kind of can probably be confusing to some a lot of
audiences. It's a small thing to let go.
They kept the important lines like is that chivalrous?
The gods will let us know that was changed from Lionel's line
to Robin Rizling's line. And you know, that's cool with
that too. Taylor's response to Robin
Rizling makes more sense, too, if he understands that he's
motivated by his, you know, belief in the Seven.
Yes, that's a very good point. And there's that line.
He says these men will fight savagely.
And I believe it's Harold Harding that says so will meet.
So will we, my Lord. And then Beesbury gets his one
line. You know what if the Kingsguard,
he says, don't take heart Beastbury, I'll handle the
Kingsguard. Proceeds to get killed in the
first charge against the Kingsguard.
Whoops, so poor Beastbury. And of course Harding did as
well, but which is slightly different in the book, but only
the only difference is when he dies, not how he dies.
So well then Baylor says, don't die.
You know, that's the important thing.
You're Dunk. It's all, it's kind of about you
be vigilant and all that. So and then we have, you know, a
little back and forth of comedic and seriousness and confusing.
Raymond and Dunk are vomiting. Humphrey Harding laughs at them,
calls them green boys. Then Lionel.
Four times in this episode. Right, and Lionel makes that
comment about ah, mother loved you best, huh?
Too bad men fight harder when their mothers don't love them.
And Baylor's kind of like, OK, Humphrey Harding is this very
confused. Look at Humphrey's face.
He said you went from laughing about the green boys to like
what? What are you?
What? It's very confusing.
I love that face. That should be meme to that
face, that confused face. Let's let's make sure that
happens. Y'all Internet do your job.
So I don't quite understand either, though I'm a little
confused as to why he said that then like, it's I I kind of
agree with him. It's kind of true, but it's a
weird time to bring that up. I think he just thought he felt
overconfident, right? Maybe.
Yeah, maybe. You know, I mean, he's he's he's
making a little bit of light of it, but I think he's really
being like, that's his real feeling is like, I think you're
overconfident here. And I think I'm psychoanalyzing
you, and it's because of this. And he's, and Lionel's right,
like you were taking the Kingsguard too light, like you
can't necessarily handle all three of them.
You might be able to handle 1 or even 2 of them, but not all
three at once, that kind of thing.
So I, I like if, if you're thinking of it that way, I
totally could agree with that. That makes some sense.
You know, I'm not 100% sure why they chose to have Lionel say
it, but it does. I don't know clue in a motif, I
guess, because think about how many characters here did had you
know, I don't know. I think he said whose mother
neglects them. I think he said, and you know,
depending on how you define neglect, but Dunk didn't have a
mother. Aryan doesn't have a mother, Egg
doesn't have a mother. Like lots of these characters
don't have mothers. Which of these fight the
hardest? I'm not sure, but it's it's
seemed like a a theme of sorts that they're bringing out here.
It made me really wonder about Lionel.
I'm guessing he has some other problems himself if he's saying
this. Either that or he noticed it in
his younger brothers. He's like, oh hey, mom loved me
best and I can see it in my younger brothers.
They fight harder because she didn't.
Either way, I he's he's observed it, I think personally in one
way or another, whether it's he's the victim or not, I agree.
It's too bad we didn't get Raymond's green apple moment,
but he does have the green apple shield.
So it's it's there. It's just a part of the story
without being spoken to. So we we do can't at least say
that much. As you say, Sean, the I'll hunt
you down with dogs moment. That was great.
The way eggs face goes from smiling like he's like, yeah,
I'm with you, Sir. You know, till like when Dunk
turns away, his face just he becomes really serious and grave
and yeah, that's some good acting.
Yeah, and it really was beautiful staging that they did
to make the the size disparity between them so clear.
You know, the shots like you were mentioning, Sean, where you
kind of see Egg from, from looking up to to dunk there.
I just thought, yeah, the the directing was particularly good
in this episode. Dunk even still had to kind of
reach down a little to get the the Lance from him, you know?
Yeah, that's funny. So the prayer is also in the
book. It's LJ Bennion playing the role
as the septon in the book. It's it goes Lord Ashford Septon
had come to the front of the viewing stand and raised his
crystal to call the throng to prayer.
So here we actually get the prayer and the in the book, it's
just kind of happening in the background while they're talking
about other stuff. And then it transitions quite
quickly to the fight. They're like the dunk puts his
helm on the horses are really rearing.
It's a different vibe than the five on five because that's a
pageantry. Even though it's dangerous, this
is the horses can sense the mood of their riders and they know
this is real on some level. Even at COM, I was going to talk
about your prior comment, but that one now still kind of
relates to it. I appreciate that Septon was so
young, that this is new to them, this is new to everyone.
This hasn't happened in 100 years.
Everyone's a little green about this, you know, some people have
seen battle whatever, but The thing is it that Septon was
just, you know, basically a kid and it, you know, so was Dunk
and so is Egg and swords Raymond.
And like a, you know, even some of these people who are maybe 30
or whatever, it's still kind of relatively naive.
They're all a little green. Maybe, you know, a handful of
these people aren't totally green, you know, but but most of
the people in the audience and the Ashford and all these people
seeing this real grave violence in this ancient tradition play
out, I don't know. I think having an accept and be
young kind of reminds us these are like regular people and that
this is kind of new and surprising and uncertain for all
of them, you know? That's a good point cause
usually you kind of default expect someone older to be in
that role, you know, and that's definitely not what they want
with the. Guy with the beard and white
hair. Yeah, yeah.
There we go again. That's the extreme archetype
version or stereotype version. Yeah, and like you said, Sean,
like I picture Baylor was looking at those old law books
trying to like find a solution. They the septon was probably
like, what's the prayer? You never you've seen this trope
in in bunch of different TV shows where a character who's a
priest is like automatic my sermon about this week.
I got to need a topic for this week.
And like, what do you say at this?
I've never done this before. It's like a Doctor Who's never
done a certain operation. They've never done before and
they have to do that. Yeah.
So a lot of great shots here. There's so many good shots of
armor of the the different riders getting ready.
Some of them happen so quickly, it's hard to tell.
But just real quick, the order of the jousters here, or the
fighters. Robin, then Raymond, then
Lionel, then Baylor, then Dunk, then Harold Harding.
Humphrey Harding. I did it again.
Humphrey Harding, then Humphrey Beesbury On the other side.
Daron Stephon, Sir Donald Makar Aryan William Wilde and Roland
Crake Hall. So that's a slight change, I
believe because Sir Donald's facing Sir Lionel, which is not
in the book, I believe because Sir Donald kills Beesbury in the
book in the first charge. So they're not facing each other
this time. So that can't have happened.
And the only reason I know that's Sir Donald is for a
second there, his helm is off before they're getting started
and he's that's well, that's Sir Donald.
Stefan is facing Raymond, Adairon is facing Robin, Makar
is facing Baylor. So right away they're like this
trial's kind of set up for some kinslaying.
But and it does happen, though not during the joust.
Aryan versus Dunk Will and Wilde versus Harold Harding, who
apparently kills him. You can see pretty quickly in
the joust, right? Like almost right away before
Dunk is knocked from his horse that Harold Harding has been
bashed to the ground by one of the kings card.
Now in the novel, he dies of his wounds a few days after the
trial. In this, he dies during it.
So like, that's hardly a change at all.
But yeah, she had it on screen there.
You can see this is the some Kingsguard finishing him off
probably, probably wild or Cray call because Serdano was facing
Lionel. But there's no way to tell which
one's wild and which one's Cray call.
Either way, they both killed Harding and Beesbury
respectively, quickly turning it into a six on five, not seven on
five, because Daron also just kind of flops.
So it goes from 7 on seven to six on five very quickly.
And then it goes very quickly to the flashbacks after Dunk gets
lanced brutally and then Morning Star to the face.
Before we move on to that, I want to point out this one
moment in shot with Aryan here where he rears up his horse
after he like had comes in and and and stabs dunk in the in the
stomach. You know, I just thought that
was a really powerful, cool moment, you know?
The way he threw his Lance down, yes, it was very sinister and
triumphant. It was like, oh man, he should
feel triumphant. He just broke his Lance off in
the guy's side. Like he should feel like he's
winning, but let's go like the show does to the flashbacks and
then return to the action. When it returns to the action,
we'll follow along nicely. It's easy with an episode like
this. It doesn't jump around a whole
lot. We're going to go right to the
Flea Bottom here. It doesn't matter.
We can move fluidly. So this is a little surprising.
We have apparently the red grass field has just happened.
That is not the book timeline for this.
It's not quite clear to me what whether they changed the
timeline or just made Dunk older.
Hopefully it's just they made Dunk older because that is the
lightest change that's possible from the the suggestions I'm
making here as from what I can interpret as the possibilities
I. Think that just makes the most
sense to me, right? He it seems very elegant that
Dunk is simply older and that would place him at the around
Battle of Red Grass Field if you age him up that much, right?
Yeah, it needs to where we're talking about aging him up maybe
pretty good amount, like maybe six to seven years.
Like Bambert Todd is was 14 and that was filmed and just like
Peter Claffey is not is 30 and he's playing someone much
younger. So in that way it makes sense
you got a older person, you know, playing Peter Claffey is
already older than Dunk should be.
So aging Dunk up fits in that sense and it doesn't really hurt
anything to make him a little bit older and then.
I could also read Dunk like grown Dunk that we're watching.
Even though the actor might be 30, he could be 26.
Like he, you know, it's not like he doesn't look like some
grizzled 30 year old you guy. He could be in his mid 20s,
which means that the younger Dunk could be 10 or 11 and he
might be a little big for that, but Dunk is a little big for his
age. And it it would help parallel
him to egg and to egg being small for age and Dunk being big
for his age. So and then with the simple age
up, which doesn't really disrupt too much, it also doesn't
require any disruptor the timeline or affect anything that
plays out in the future or whatever else.
So yeah, I think it's all fine. I think it's better for Dunk to
be older when Arlen adopts him, frankly.
I think it's better in that we see it here.
Dunk has like thinks about how Dunk of Flea Bottom was
scrappier and is able to do these things and you see a 5 or
6 year old really internalized that that deeply.
I think it makes way more sense to me for it to be someone who's
10 to 14, which is the range we're guessing.
I wouldn't guess he is older than 14.
I wouldn't guess he's younger than 10, right.
And so I think it, his trials and tribulations, living as like
a street rat is more significant to me if he made it all the way
to his preteen years than if he was 5 or 6.
So I like that they changed this.
I also think it makes it so that he's even more reminiscent of
Arlen's nephew Rodger of Penny Tree.
If he's a little bit older, it would make him think of Rodger a
little bit more, probably. I don't know.
I think it makes a lot of sense in addition to what we talked
about last week was, which is that it just makes filming
easier for them. Yeah, having actual 6 or 7 year
old, they wouldn't use a six year old, but they would have to
use someone like 9 year old. And that's already a huge
challenge. And let's be honest, I think
maybe there's a case to be made that George made Dunk too young,
like you said, not because it's a bad age, but he was running
around with a group like throwing heads into pots.
And so that doesn't sound like a sounds like a little older than
six. Yes, he was big for his age.
But anyway, we're just. Does this like he does this for
A Song of Ice and Fire. He he he regularly makes
characters younger than he really needed to.
Yeah, yeah. So just to be clear on what
these numbers were talking about is the Black Fire Rebellion is
13 years prior to at Ashford Meadow.
So if Dunk is about 11 or 12 here, which is my preferred
guess, then he's 24 or 25 at Ashford Meadow, which is
reasonable. That totally fits.
Like he looks that he could be that it's fine that he's been a
Squire to Sir Arlen for that long.
Yeah, it all, it all works. And like you all said, we seem
to agree that it doesn't seem to have any butterfly effect beyond
that it won't affect the any other timelines.
So yeah, we have scavenging on the battlefield.
That's a pretty clever way to cut it, even though it's
jarring. Maybe.
And the pacing I can. I won't argue with anyone who
had a problem with the pacing as far as this goes, but I didn't
have a big problem with it. I preferred it more the second
time. If I was going to complain about
the pacing, I'd say it's you get, it's so intense prior to
this moment and I want to be thinking on a subtle thematic
level for scenes like this. And it's so quick that I'm I'm
missing things because I'm in the intense mode.
But on the other hand, I'm going to watch it multiple times and a
lot of us are going to do that because it's that good.
So we're going to catch this stuff eventually.
If you don't catch it the first time, who cares?
That's maybe a critique for, you know, how good it is as a piece
of art standing on its own. But as far as fan fans go, that
to me is fine. Piece of art standing on its own
should be looked at multiple times if it's really worthwhile,
you know what I mean? Like, you can't expect to always
get everything immediately upon viewing it, you know?
That's fair. And I found great meaning in
dunk his when he gets knocked out, him flashing back
immediately to kind of seeing the horrors of war and fighting.
And like the his probably his his one of his closest
experiences with seeing that with with killing a man.
You know, because that is they did have part of of his his
killing there, this Hightower man.
So I don't know that that's what I took from it.
But that's the moment that he goes to and then it follows us
through like the other great death that he saw, which is
holding Rafe in his arms. And then it parallels at the end
him holding Baylor. So I thought it was effective.
I get a lot of people were bothered because they felt that
him having a connection with Rafe was meant to parallel him
saving Tan Cell. I don't really think so.
I kind of think they're unrelated and kind of a happy
accident of a parallel. I think there was other things
that they wanted to show in terms of Dunks family that he
lost, you know, his yearning for a family.
I saw all of that more than I saw him wanting to save Rafe
when he saved Chancel. But that's that's a valid
reading of it. I felt like Grape wanted to save
him more than he wanted to save her.
I, I tend to agree that she was the one pushing for to be saved.
On the other hand, he was, he had a cogent argument that he
wasn't able to put into words very well, which is that it's
not going to be better elsewhere.
You know, it's the problem is that we're broke and lowborn,
not that it's King's Landing, you know, and that was a good
point, even though he phrased it as one of my, he made it about
his mother, which was not a good point.
She seized on that. It's, you know, it's sad that,
that he's saying that. I don't, you know, I'm not
ragging him for it, but in terms of best outcomes for him, I, I
kind of understand that. I also appreciate it like when
you, when they go back to Flea Bottom, you're still seeing the
ravages of warps. You're seeing like people
cauterizing like legs and stuff. It's pretty rough.
And I, I also like seeing that this is the environment that he
he was coming of age and growing up in.
You said it well with the I'm saris there.
He said I'm sorry to the Hightower man as he's holding
his windpipe blocked, blocking his windpipe, taking away his
oxygen and he says I'm sorry to rape, but she's dying and I'm
sorry to Baylor. In all three cases, it's not his
fault, but he's saying he's sorry.
That's just the kind of guy he is.
I thought Bamber tied, like you said, Ashea caught dunks
kindness really well. A recurring theme was dunking
nice to animals. We saw that here.
He's nice to a goat. He's petting a goat, you know,
just on the road. He pet the rat when he was in
prison. And of course he's very kind to
the horses. The whole bit about the
Hightower, they have to do a prayer for the Hightower man or
he'll go to hell with the rest of us.
And he says I don't have any words.
Obviously that's a call back to the first scene of the whole
show with Sir Arlen, him not knowing the words for Sir Arlen
either. And a call, a call back to him
not knowing the words tonight, Raymond, he had no words.
He had no words there either, or not all of them anyway.
On the on their way out, returning from their jaunt to do
some looting, they see a stoke worth minute.
Not a caravan, it's just a couple of horses and there's a
dead body there. I guess.
I don't know if this is like someone collecting A bounty or
taking it. Doesn't seem to be.
Could be a a funeral, but I don't know why they'd be taking
their a body to King's Landing if it was their own.
Yeah, they'd be going to Stokeworth.
Yeah, if there was some Stokeworth character that died
in the Black Fire rebellions, it may be this could be said
someone and we should recognize some story, maybe something or
setting up, I don't know. Yeah, the.
The Stokeworth lands are just north of King's Landing too, so
he could just be passing this direction.
But yeah, I don't recall a Stokeworth, a particular
Stokeworth knight. You know, there were the the
Lord Stokeworth was involved, but this wouldn't be him.
I'm glad. To see this digital closer, we
debated about it for a while before we knew what it was a
couple weeks ago. And we can see that they the
goblet has like gems and stuff on it.
I think it's such an interesting decision that they made it
instead of a lamb holding a goblet, they made it a goblet
holding a lamb. And I think it's a better image.
But I have questions about why they wanted to change it for
this era and I. Don't you just misread it and?
Went on with. Their work and no one called him
out. Said that this was one of his
favorite sigils in the series. Even so I, I, I, I don't know.
I think it's nice. It kind of looks like a a bird
with its tail from afar, you know, So it's kind of an optical
illusion almost. It's it is wacky and kind of
hard to figure. So yeah, they're trying to buy.
Miniature. Is that a miniature lamb or a
huge chalice? Both.
No, it's a huge chalice and a
huge lamb. It's gigantic.
So trying to bypasses to the free cities, which is always
like a kind of a sign that they don't know what they're doing
exactly, because like that's nine different free cities and
they're really not close to each other at all.
Which one are you going to? In in geography or or society,
right. Yeah, like you could Bravos.
OK, I would say that's a fine choice, but do not go to one of
those cities that they have a lot of slavery because you'll
end up amongst that. And it's one of them like do not
go to Volantis. Do not go to to lease.
Yeah. So I appreciated some of the
small character touches here too, like very much like Dunk.
He doesn't react angrily at someone getting mad at him when
Rafe flares up and he's like, well, we'll at least we you're
probably happy that we get to stay here and wait for your dead
mother. And he just like doesn't he just
kind of looks down. He's like, and then she
apologizes. He's like, he doesn't even say
anything. He's just like, I get it, you're
upset, you're lashing out like that's a very mature reaction.
But that is dunk like that is how he is.
He's he doesn't take things personally like that.
It's about right and wrong on a different level for him.
This is to them. That's nothing.
That's just those are just some words.
Words are wins, right? It's the deeds that matter.
And he is more concerned with those things throughout these
scenes when this Alistair character and the other bully
whose name isn't given, they're gold cloaks.
And you can tell the gold cloaks are in a particularly sorry
state given how disheveled they are.
His gold cloak is messy as heck. The other guy's cloak isn't even
gold. He may not even be a gold cloak.
They look so bad to me that I was doubtful when we first
watched it that they were actually Gold cloaks in City
Watch. I thought like, oh, maybe they
killed 1 and took his clothes and they're kind of faking it.
But no, he's credited as Alistair City Watch and the and
the actor referred to him that way as well.
So I do think that they really do show that the sorry state
they're in. A former thief.
He pointed out that he lost a hand for thieving.
So he's they they hired a former.
Yeah. I mean, really.
I mean, I'm all for rehabilitation, but I think
they're making a point here that this is not that because this
guy clearly isn't rehabilitated. It's not a good dude.
Yeah, I think, I think there was a lot of I think we were
supposed to get the idea that, you know, if not the Gold Cloaks
in general aren't the most upstanding or in the best of
times, the ones that flee bottom, you can imagine they
might care a little. Sure, whatever.
You can go be a gold cloak and flee bottom, you know, and and
he may even have a bad reputation if he goes out of his
area, the gold cloaks in other areas.
My like you, you shouldn't be one of us.
Get back to your, you know, I I can imagine it being a oh, a
range of quality of character and interactions between
different neighborhoods, if you will, in King's Landing.
But one way or the other, this guy in this scenario is not
good. Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
It's a very much like a lower scale Aryan.
This is like the bully of his youth, where Aryan is a like
peak bully, you know, 'cause he's the highest ranking bully.
You can basically imagine he and Rafe, the those two were both in
the Dune prophecy show, Alistair and Leah, Chloe, Leah, he was a
Harkonnen and she was a young Benny Jesuit.
So they weren't even on the same timeline.
They probably didn't. They may not have even met on
set. They weren't in the same scenes
at all, but still, that's cool. At different points she refers
to Pudding and Ferret a different as using examples as
they're discussing things. And those are both characters
mentioned from books. Dunks memories.
One of them in particular. A story that she mentions is how
people don't forget. People don't forget how they
made you feel. And that's why she says, yeah,
this Blackfyre rebellion isn't over.
People are still mad at each other over the things that
happened during the war. Even though the war is over and
she's 100% right. Then she for kind of forgets her
own lesson when she provokes this guy that she knows she's
going to see again. You know, she just steals from
him twice, I guess. She obviously didn't think it
would go that far. I.
Mean. She looks so proud of herself.
She looked so smug, her face. There.
And she was so mad that he stole their money.
That was they worked so hard for that money.
So, like, she was kind of desperate, yeah.
You know, I, I've thought about that quite a bit, how the, the
irony that she's trying to tell Dunk, you know, if you hurt
someone, they're going to hurt you back.
And then she goes and hurts someone, although they did hurt
her too. And, and I, I, I thought a lot
about the idea that it's a self fulfilling prophecy that like
that people who think that because people have this idea,
if you get hurt, you hurt someone back, well, then when
they get hurt, they hurt someone back when I that person got
hurt, so they hurt. So it's like they, they make
sure that it stays that way. You know what I mean?
And the cycle if. Everyone stops thinking that
way. The whole that wouldn't be the
way that it is anymore. Now you know, it's, it's human
nature, or at least some human sometimes.
So it makes sense. But it, I don't know, it's sad.
It's sad to see and sad. To realize how hopeless I'm, she
said Flea Bottom is full of people who have been hurt.
It's a tinderbox, you know, like all these people have been hurt
or waiting to hurt someone back. And sure enough, it happens.
And I was even thinking a little bit about the idea of, you know,
Dunk being there versus Ghost going somewhere else.
Maybe everywhere is crappy. That would be really sad, Sean.
Right? Yeah.
I love that line. It was good line, yeah.
And, you know, in King's Landing, in a way, in maybe big
cities both in and out, maybe, I guess, I don't know.
There's more. There's more wealth around, so
there's more opportunity, especially if we want to be a
thief. But if they get out into just
some farm somewhere, there will be more opportunity for work, I
think. Right.
Like in that city, what what can these kids do?
They're out scrounging scraps from a battlefield.
There's just more people, there's more disparity in
wealth, which encourages the the the thievery and less
opportunities for people to work so that more need for the.
But if he just went out in a countryside or found a farm, he
could just work in a farm and wouldn't feel the wrath of gold
cloaks trying to take his at least not as often, not as
likely. And that's kind of what happens
right when he gets out of the King's land.
He just wandering on the road. No one's harassing him anymore,
you know, to man, and you find someone who will have him work,
and he does work and he does well.
And I don't know, it's an interesting microcosm, I think
of at least certain elements of the world, both in both this
fantasy world in time and the real world.
I like that line from the guy they were selling scraps to.
We'll all be plundering that tomb for a Dragon's age.
And it feels like the kind of language that could be in the
world. You know, Dragons live so long.
So it's a good way to express, you know, a long period of time.
And it also is a good way to express just how big and bloody
the battle was. That that implies a lot of
people died there. There's a lot of things left
behind, a lot of pieces of armor, a lot of horseshoes, a
lot of daggers, a lot of random things.
This sets up a little bit what happens in the mystery night
when the snail knight gets mad at his Squire for accepting a
Damon Blackfyre coin, but he doesn't give the coin back.
He's like, I'm going to have to melt this down.
You can't meltdown leather. So like with metal, there's a
way around a leather. Yeah.
You can't do anything with that. So you can understand why it's
bad to be caught with that. They might think you're
especially under, you know, the the regime that emerges a bit
later under Bloodraven and all that.
They're pretty strict about black fire imagery.
They're not allowed to sing black fire songs.
You're not allowed to. Yeah.
So it becomes a pretty big deal. This guy's a little bit ahead of
himself. He kind of knows that that's
going to go, that's going to go that way probably for the same
reason Rafe understands it. Like, people are still going to
be mad. People are taking this very
seriously and the violence isn't done yet.
When they go to get fair to, you know, a free city, it is kind of
generic and the and the guy's like prices double.
A lot of people have the same idea.
I think what's behind that is that now that the Black Fire
rebellion is over, anyone who was a supporter of the Black
Fires in any way, they're in danger and they need to get
away. And there will be a number of
them. And that would increase the
demand for spots on ships and the price would double and so on
that. That makes sense, right?
It definitely does make sense. Yes, and a lot of their ships
would be wary about taking obvious black fires on, so they
would have to take more money to do it, things like that.
Yeah, so you're right. This is a whole domino effect
going on here. So getting back to the the
pivotal moment here, Rafe is killed by Alistair and Dunk
finally has something that makes him lose his temper.
It takes a lot because he's only going to react as more serious
things. You know, words are win and all
that. He wasn't nearly as upset about
the fair not being enough because he's more optimistic.
He's like, look, we'll just keep looting the battlefield.
We'll get there. Obviously not after this.
He's thrown off and speared in the leg and Sir Arlen's
drunkenly saves him. So there's some missing context
here you have to think back on. We all know Sir Arlen's a
drinker. That's been clear from the
beginning, but he's particularly drunk here.
And that's almost certainly because he just lost his nephew
and Squire in that battle, the red grass field.
He died in that battle. So this is like a day or two
ago, like literally that recent. And we know it's that recent
because that dude wouldn't have been alive under the horse.
If this would been like a week or two ago, that guy would have
been dead quite a while to it. That's how we know it's very
recent. So he's mourning, He's in
mourning. And maybe even Dunk looks a
little like Rodger. I'm going to guess that's A at
least a 50% chance they run with that as as a connecting point.
But it's the lesson. It's the opposite of this bully
lesson. He saw a kid being picked on,
doesn't know the kid, doesn't even talk to the kid afterwards,
just steps in and saves him and then moves on.
Like that's what a true knight does kind of when they're drunk
anyway and moving on is wise too because he just killed 2 gold
cloaks, which that's yeah, that that might be a problem for you
a little later there if anyone points it out, but he's.
Defending the week. Even when it was the 40 figure
like Dunk going after Aryan. Oh, sorry, I took your line.
But anyway, that's that's what I have to say about that moment.
I'll go ahead and Sean, we'll transition to you for the scene.
Just that just I just wanted to point out that the fact that it
was, you know, an, an official of some sort, some of authority
or whatever that didn't, he didn't hesitate, didn't they had
no factor in the, the decision that he made, the action that he
took. It didn't matter.
That really struck dunk, too. Even mattered extra, maybe even
made him more motivated. Like, yeah.
So he's still thinking about and we had these lines a little
before having a family, Rafe said.
No, you can't wait for your family.
You got to go make one. And that's hard to disagree with
that when they're in the state they're in, you know, orphans
living in a this is a sewer that we're seeing the grade to a
sewer, like actually about as bad as it gets.
So I was going to say Sir, he hears he sees Sir Arlen, but he
actually hears Sir Arlen first and then sees him and he's
knocks over some apples. He's still drunk, still drunk.
So again, on a a grief Bender, a guy who already drinks a lot,
going on a Bender is really a quite a lot of drinking.
And this brings us to what we were waiting for.
Now, Shia mentioned it earlier. We weren't sure how they would
splice in these shots into the trial.
We thought it might be some back and forth instead of we did not
guess. At least I didn't guess.
I don't remember us guessing all one all in one.
That was not really on my radar as a possibility.
There was 1 brief other shot of art when he goes get up.
Oh, get up, you're right there. I mean, it's just a repeat.
I just want to just semantically, technically
totally. Right, the best kind of correct,
technically correct. So that that brings us to a lot
of the missing trailer shots. Once we've been waiting for all
seasons, like when is Sir Arlen? When are we going to see this
one? And they're all like all of them
were here. I I don't think there's any
missing Sir Arlen trailer shots left and I don't know that we'll
see Sir Arlen again this season. Well, and maybe maybe not ever
again. I kind of think we will, but
I'm. Rooting for some flashback and
maybe not of Sir Arlen but I still want them to keep up a
flashback in every episode and I would like to see one in episode
6. But you're right that we will
absolutely see more of Arlen in future seasons.
I kind of think and hope and expect that we will cause Dunk
keeps thinking about him in the future books, you know what I
mean? Yeah, you're right, You're
right. Being an influence on him there,
he has more memories with him and so on, I think.
It's part of how the show frames things like, I think it's part
of the foundational DNA of this show to to use flashbacks.
He's the ancestor of House Dunk. Yeah, not just far gone
flashbacks, but recent flashbacks.
They I think that's a thing that they will continue always using.
You're right, they established that it's the thing they're
going to do. Yeah.
And and they cast a pretty solid actor for this role too.
Danny Webb. He's a he's a dude.
Arlen leaves. As I said, that's maybe partly
related to the fact that he's killed some gold cloaks, but
also related to the fact that he's a hedge knight.
He lives on the road. He also wants to go back to the
grave where where Roger is buried.
And that's his nephew and Squire again to repeat that whose helm
was sitting on the grave. And we're we were all pretty
confused about what this song was.
It's a Dothraki song, per David J Peterson, and he's the
Dothraki guy. And we have built the translated
list. He's the Dothraki guy.
He invented Dothraki. Yeah.
It's just. A funny way to put it.
So. We got the.
Lyrics. We got the lyrics.
Yeah, he has an AO3 that's Archive of Our Own, the fan
fiction site. He uses that under Dead Elves
DEDALVS and I'm putting the link in the chat again for y'all, but
Aziz is going to read it right? The ropes of death enwrapped me.
Ungodly men have made me afraid. The ropes of hell abound me.
The sorrows of death prevented me.
In my distress I called upon you, the great stallion who was
worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my
strong enemy. Beat them small as the dust
before the wind. I will cast the evil out as the
dirt in the streets. Courage is my salvation, Mercy
is my light. Make my feet like Hinds, feet
that my step would not blunder. Gird me with might that I
destroy them that hate me. I will cast the evil out as the
dirt in the streets. Courage is my salvation, mercy
is my light. That's pretty good.
Now, I'm definitely confused as to why Sir Arlen knows the
Dothraki song, but there could be some clever explanation.
It's too obscure for me to guess that, but I'm sure there's a
there's a way to come up with a reason for.
It I imagine fighting in war, there's very good likelihood
that they hired self swords right?
And that Arlen fought alongside some Dothraki.
And that that's my personal explanation is that it happened
during the war and not earlier. Because that's the most likely
time that I think he would have interfaced with Dothraki and
that they would have mourned people, they would have lost
people in a previous fight, and that Dothraki might have taught
it to him and other people then. I could see it.
Yeah, I could see it. So it's.
Interesting, by the way, not just that he knows this Dothraki
song, but he knows it in Dothraki seemingly pretty well.
Like he's got to like, memorize and he's singing.
It you're not like, you're not a native.
Dothraki. Speaker Sean, for all you know,
he's mangling every single word we don't know.
He's speaking it with a common accent, he said.
He's pronouncing everything wrong.
I would like to know actually if he, if I asked David J Peterson
if he had good slippery or if he was on purpose, like slurring
and messing words up, right, because he's drunk.
So you would expect that. It's not spot on.
So it gets lost in the shuffle because there was so much
amazing action in this episode. But that flop, that drunken flop
he did when he fell on his back, that was really good.
That was a really a plus drunken flop there, Sir Arlen.
So when Dunk sneaks up on the passed out Sir Arlen, he gets
that. We get that scene that we talked
about a little earlier when he he talks to Sweet Foot, which is
call back to Egg talking to Thunder and meeting Sweet Foot
and then Dunk having to sell Sweet Foot later.
Dunk is about to put the helm on.
They played with this in the trailer.
They showed it as if he was putting it on, and then Dunk's
putting his helm on during the trial.
We guessed that that might be back-to-back, but we also
suggested it might be a trailer edit.
It was a trailer edit. In fact, he doesn't put the helm
on. He plays with the sword, he
talks to the horse, but he doesn't put the helm on because
once again, Dunk has this innate goodness and it's wrong to put
on a dead person's helm. Yeah, you can tell it's a grave.
It's very obvious, obviously, that.
It's a grave. He's a child who doesn't first
realize that. He wouldn't realize it
immediately, but but as a child, he's just got to go through that
process of thinking that through.
I thought there were two shots that I love the way they
paralleled and they're going to be in a million fan edits on
TikTok and the YouTube and the like.
And it 1 is this one of him holding the helm and almost
putting it on the other is when he's curled up on the ground,
you know, close to mere death, right?
And that's obviously the exact same pose that he's in with a
shot that kind of is Dolly out and zooms in on him at the at
the very end. It'll show in a minute.
Yeah, those were like exactly the same.
I think it's also an interesting parallel to Egg where Dunk kind
of holds back and he he starts to pick up the helmet, but Egg
just puts on Dunk's armor, jumps on the horse like Egg.
I don't know if he's more brash or has faced less consequences
or has a different moral system or maybe that's why Dunk is more
upset with the Egg. He's like, who do you think you
like it? Doug have more for whatever
reasons reservation about getting into Arlen's mix where
Egg just takes his stuff and gets on his horse.
You know, like it's a. Well, there's a there's a noble
for you. There's a Prince for you, right?
Oh. Yeah, definitely.
They like they both they both have the same quality that they
both were. They grew up around awful
influences and bad circumstance. Well, eggs weren't as bad
circumstances so much as just a really bad family, whereas Dunk
had no family and really bad circumstances.
In either case, they came out as good people anyway.
And but they also see the have a grass is greener kind of thing
going on where for Dunk, it's more obvious, like he's broken
family was of course the grass is greener.
But for AG, it's more like the grass is greener because his
family sucks. Like if his family didn't stink,
he might appreciate his privilege and make use of it a
lot more instead of trying to get away from it because it's
associated with horrible people. But yeah, this is kind of
there's a little bit of like a drunken master kind of vibe here
where the student has to follow and suffer and prove their
dedication. But it's not quite like that.
Also because Sir Arlen is mourning and probably isn't
ready to have another Squire. Like literally, as we said that
his Squire died like a few days before, if if not like no more
than a few days. So it really seems to me like
they're both Darlin's aware of Dunk following him.
Dunk isn't trying to hide. He at one point he's just
sitting there whittling and and looking at him doing swords
lately. They they both know of aware,
aware of the other like very clearly.
And, and I don't, I think Dunk knows Sir Ellen knows he's
there. I don't agree actually, I don't
think that I think that's it speaks to how checked out Arlen
is that and how like he's numbing himself that I, I
thought that Dunk was observing him.
He was whittling, which mirrored Egg and Arlen still did not see
him even though I always see it from our perspective, you can
see it, but Arlen never turns his head to him.
He never looks at him until that scene where he sees him collapse
following him. And so I, I, I don't think he
will. OK, well, let's see all y'all
weigh in. What do you think?
Whether he noticed him or not, certainly I I would like to add
one other point that I think that point you'll see that's a
pun. I think Arlene kind of realizes
he's hit rock bottom when he sleeps on his own knife.
And it's to me that fits with what I'm saying, that he that's
just when he's like, all right, I guess I, I can't do this
alone. I should let you know, softens
him up a little bit because he realizes he's just is so deep in
this. What do you think, Sean?
I'm really, I'm really back and forth on it.
I, I, I think it could go either way because I, I thought the
same thing with a knife. Well, I, I think in the end, I
think that I agree with you, But for example, with a knife, I
think that that could go to Shay's ornament.
He's still out of it. He stabbed himself in his sleep
and maybe maybe he's still out of me doesn't notice the boy.
But also there was a moment when Dunk was puking, like he drank
the muddy water and him puked. And it's hard to imagine Arlen
didn't hear that. But they also show Arlen in that
moment by the crackling fire whittling.
And I don't maybe did drown it out.
And when you are super drunk, it's kind of dissociative.
You kind of become less aware, even things that maybe you're
kind of subconsciously aware. If you don't care about you kind
of block it out or forget about it.
That being blackout drunk, literally you forget things that
happened. Did you notice them when they
did happen? It's.
A several day long Bender? Yeah, you could.
I can see it. Yeah.
There were several moments where I felt like Dunk was too close.
He when he was, there's one moment they were kind of going
up a little hill and Dunk was maybe 2 horse lengths behind
him. But if Arlen slumped over half
drunk, looking forward, he still might not not you know, I, I'm
really back and forth like I could not decide.
I I think in the end I decided it was too obvious and Arlen was
quasi aware but just didn't care.
He's too drunk to care about anything, even his own
well-being, and finally was forced to acknowledge this kid
following him, but I can. I think there were multiple
times where Arlen would have acknowledged him if he noticed
one. And it's this is after the
whittling is it's when Dunk is really cold.
It's so freezing and he's shivering like he could die from
it. And then he's puking.
And I think Arlen would have said something if he had
actually noticed him puking. To the scene here that I'm now
on when Dunk is curled up because he's been so cold there
and he hasn't even gotten up when Arlen has gotten up, you
know, and Arlen, I paid. Arlen never turns his head to
look at him once as he walked, goes past him.
I think he did not see a little boy curled up there.
And I think it's not until because of the next sequence is
him. He's so drunk that he stabbed
himself, right? That's the next shot.
And then the next scene is finally he sees this boy
following him and collapses. And he goes right to him as soon
as he actually sees him and he sees him collapse.
So that's why I don't think he did, because I think there were
two moments where Dunk needed his help and he didn't help.
All right, Maybe there'll be some commentary from the
showrunner on that or when we're to clarify it.
What one kind of point to Shia is that they seem to be kind of
walking the line between whether or not Arlen was really a good
person or not. And it might be the Arlen, even
if he is a good person and would should could help, Dunk might
have been so drunk and out of it that he barely acknowledged or
remembered that he was there. And maybe that makes him a bad
person that you can get yourself so drunk that you're not doing
the right thing, you know? But.
Anyway, anyway, let's move on from that topic, y'all.
So what? Certainly there's no
disagreement on how it ends. He sees him there, and he
decides whether he's been noticed him there all along or
not. He definitely decides to help at
that moment. And it's helping the weak one
way or the other. Whether he should have done it
sooner or not, he definitely does it here.
And it's the exact moment where it goes back to the action.
And it's pretty cool because in on one sense, I could see the
earlier argument at the pacing. On another sense, this lasts so
long that you almost kind of forget yours.
You've been sucked into this so long that it is kind of like,
oh, back to the action. Wow, that was pretty smooth.
You're out because you're the first few minutes you're like,
when is it going to transition back?
But then it's been several minutes and you kind of stop
thinking about. That lulls you into kind of a,
a, a sense of security or you forget completely.
At least I I did as well. Yeah, for me, absolutely.
I, I actually particular specifically like the pacing.
I remember one time, I mean, this has been like 20 years, I
read an analysis of like screenplay writing and pacing
and whatever. And it was based off a script
that Tim Burton had written for Superman that ended up not
getting made. But he started it off with this
action sequence. He started off with this fight
between General Zod and Superman.
And then you get from this, think of action, cut back to
whatever Superman's on the farm, more dramatic, slow paced kind
of stuff. And then eventually it goes back
up to action again. And I, I, I think that is a
method modern film makers have taken on pretty well.
Start off getting people's attention and action does that
pretty well and then smooth it out.
Get to a low flashback to what got you to the point of action
or whatever. I think that it is a common and
effective. Pacing, if you will, for screen
writing. You might be wondering how I got
here. That kind of beat.
I don't think that's it's a screen writing thing.
I just think it's a storytelling thing quite often.
Like I think you very often start off with something.
It's not going to be like visceral start, but it is you
can. You often have action or
something intensed then you turn to.
Dial It Back has been doing that since long before film was a was
a medium. Yeah, certainly so, but it is
different in that sense. But, but it's a similar device.
Yeah. All right.
So Karina Strick sends a super chat and we appreciate that all
y'all's support. Let's take a second and then get
back to the action, literally the action.
But first, let us discuss something that's we've been
bringing up every so often to you all.
It's a time for some action. For those of you who joined the
World Science Fiction Society upon our call to action or on
your own, you are now able to nominate.
You should have an e-mail with your ballot information.
You should nominate all the works you enjoyed.
Sure, you read and watched quite a few of them.
Hopefully you did. If not, get on that good stuff.
Things eligible are things that came out in 2025 SA Night of the
Seven Kingdoms would not be eligible.
Just to be clear for y'all right?
But plenty of things came out last year that I'm sure you
enjoyed. That's books, TV, movies,
comics, you know, video games. There's a lot of great
categories in the Hugo Awards. We personally are not eligible
in Best fan cast. Don't nominate us there.
We are eligible in the category Best related work.
We are suggesting our episode Ragnarok versus the Long Night
by History of Westeros to make it easier for y'all.
If you disagree and you just have an episode you'd rather
nominate, please, by all means do.
We will have the best shot if we all choose one episode because
we have so many episodes. But you know, nominate other
best related works you like, nominate, you know, anything you
like that's relevant. Check the eligibility rules if
you're in doubt, e-mail us if you're in doubt and want to know
more about it. I like talking about the Hugo
Awards. I think it's a really awesome
award show. I like that they give you the,
the nominating all the nominations in a packet.
I think that's really cool. So you're going to get some
awesome stuff from it. Can I ask real quick is these I
understand, I guess I in my mind Hugo words was for literature,
it was for written works. But you said TV shows also.
TV shows, movies, video games, comics, podcasts, you know that
yeah, the year that we went in Ireland.
Archive of our own Speaking of it as we talked about it
earlier, that's what won and best related work.
That's a website, that's a fan fiction website.
And in 2018, yeah, that was 29 in 2019, that's what won the
best related work was a fan fiction website.
So no, it's it's quite varied actually.
And they gave and they owe a couple episodes of The Good
Place won awards there. So just to give you an idea of.
The. The scope goes from well known
things to independent stuff, yeah.
Can I go mention a couple quick things?
I'm wearing a Pluribus shirt right now.
Would that be eligible for a Hugo Award?
I hope so. I believe so.
Made in 20/20/2020. Five.
Yeah, I bet it's going to be nominated.
It would be nominated and you can nominate the whole I think
they they you can nominate something in long form as like
the whole season or short form as a single episode.
They have a little bit of flexibility.
So there could be ATV series that's nominated along with a
movie, actually, I believe, but you'd have to dig more into the
the rules to see what you can nominate.
But that is often the case is it's sometimes of course, people
split the vote. They vote, they don't know what
episode to vote for of Pluribus. So people vote for three
different episodes and none of them get nominated.
But you know, maybe there's an obvious one.
But yeah, you nominate it. Yeah.
Another minor thing, if I can throw this out, just a personal
thing. I've been working on a script
for a couple years at for ATV show and pilot is a entry for
the Atlanta Film Festival that we submitted to.
Me and a couple of my friends are working this together and
they told us that they've narrowed it down from 600 some
applicants to 32. I think they're going to pick
five to be actually nominated, but I feel good that we can put
in a target. And you'll find out pretty soon,
right? Yeah, imminently I.
Think amazing. Hopefully next week we have
great news for you all. I like how well we've been
discussing this, this great opportunity for Sean.
We've just had Dunk lying there in the mud.
I this is one of my. Favorite shots in the whole show
is why it's there. I think it's just like this
striking shot from the graphic. Novel too, right?
It's also. It is.
It is ripped straight from the graphic novels, truly, really,
the way he's kind of crumpled, but he still looks so big and so
small at the same time, you know what I mean?
Because his legs are all folded, but his chest is.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I I do think I I left it on the shot for a reason because I like
it so much. Also don't forget to pick up 1
of Ashea's tour shirts for Duncan Egg.
The I think it's a castle wall tour.
It's got every destination that we know of for Duncan Egg listed
as tour dates. You can get it front and back or
just just front and it looks awesome.
You see me wearing it in past streams.
The link is in the description. Now let's move on.
We've got a question from John Colorado.
Says given that the Dunk of the novellas is consistently treated
by others, including Egg as a fully grown, physically imposing
man rather than a boy, and the Dunk himself use Egg with a
mixture of adult responsibility, protectiveness and occasional
exasperation, isn't the HBO castig actually more faithful to
how their dynamic is written rather than the fan expectation
that Dunk should look like a teenager?
Yeah, that's a great point. Like Dunk is written as if he's
older than. So it's kind of like, actually
he's about 17. People are like, oh, wow, he
that's a good. You're right.
He is about. But he's he doesn't act that way
partly because he's an orphan. He had to grow up quicker, which
is a well established thing, not only in in the real world, but
George makes a point of that to point that out in many places
that that people in his situation would have to grow up
quicker. So yeah, that's a very good
point. This is, you know, this is
basically the same character, even though the age has changed.
Let's talk about the trial, the actual combat.
We as Sir Arlen says, get up, he gets up, we're back inside
Dunke's helm. I, I appreciate what y'all were
saying before about the how much that was a part of the intense
experience being in Dunke's helmet.
Y'all talk about the, the visuals there a bit, the sound
of his breathing, the muffled breathing.
I thought that was had a real effect on me just cuz he's the
desperation, the shortness of his breath and just to
claustrophobia of it all. You know how hard it is to see
what's going on and knowing that he has no experience with this.
He's only ever trained this. He's never had a real fight in
nightly combat with a great helm on.
This is the first time he's worn this helm that he just bought.
So a repeating thing they show that I thought was very
effective was the scared dunk eyes where you just see his eyes
and they're big and scared and he doesn't know what to do.
You see that several times. Eventually it becomes just dunk
eye because one of them is swollen shut, but it still
works. They're like write this one she
has on screen right now. Like he looks terrified.
That's and he should. It's scary.
Like, once again, we have a book.
It's a screen transition that's so precise and or nearly
identical that we can just read the novel scene to describe what
happens in the show. Here it is.
Quote. The spiked ball whirled round
and round the sky and fell toward his head as fast as a
shooting star dunk rolled. Where he found the strength he
did not know, but he found it. He rolled into Aryan's legs,
threw a steel clad arm around his thigh, dragged him cursing
into the mud and rolled on top of him.
Let him swing his bloody Morning Star now.
Yeah, Dunk gets some confidence there in that moment in his mind
and in the show. I, I, it's, it's unclear in the
book whether he completely dodges or takes a glancing blow.
He definitely takes a glancing blow here, but it's not enough
to slow him down. He's able to get close to Arian
and tackle him. Arian even gets in a few more
like one or two more shots with the Morningstar before Duncan
tackle him like hits him in like the arm and.
Maycard tries to get involved and and and Baylor comes after
valor. He's at his armor is.
Putting Makar knocks him down once with his Mace, You're
right. Takes him out like flat in the
face. And then Baylor takes Makar off
his horse. Yeah, that was a really
exciting. I think there were a couple
moments in there where Dunk and Aaron took hits from some other.
Passerby Oh yes, I I have a list of that in a second.
Let's let's hold that off just for a second.
So a, a significant difference overall is there is more combat
in the book. Once Dunk gets the upper hand,
he doesn't lose it. He he gets it.
That's and it ends shortly afterwards.
Here, Aaron's able to regain some parity and it's becomes a
close fight again for a little while until Dunk does eventually
get the upper hand. But that's after he, you know,
looks like he's done and gets back up.
I think that's my one complaint is that I feel like Dunk took
too many blows, had too many injuries in this version that I
I was hard for me to suspend my disbelief a little bit.
It felt too much like plot armor and I didn't feel like that in
the book version as much. I don't think he quite had so
many. I can sort of see where you're
coming from. I just, there's, I've just read
too many real world stories of people being shot like 12 times
in war and surviving. And people can survive
surprisingly often these things. And a lot of people would die
from their wounds after this. So there is that.
But obviously he doesn't. But I'm not arguing with you,
but just I don't have a problem with it.
But I see what you're saying. I'm a little on the Shea side
here that I feel like probably what put it over the top for me
was when he threw the sword and it jammed into his thigh.
Like I it's hard for me to believe that that would happen
and. That's the least believable part
I think too, yeah. The other one that bothered me
was and you named it as your most crunchy wound and for the
pole sake was when he got stabbed with the hand, because
that's something that like it it.
The thing is that I don't know, it's just the nature of these
actions scenes that it hurts like we want to see or we want.
I don't know what's the right word, but you know, the, the
presenters of the action want us to see that the hero is hurt.
And we go, we cringe with them and we're scared for them and it
makes them seem extra brave and tough to overcome it all.
But it's not just that it hurts, it's it, it injuries you in the
long term like that knife through the hand.
There's a strong chance did it cut the tendons to his fingers
and he can never use that hand again.
He can't bend his fingers in and we don't.
Have to assume that it does, like, you know what I mean?
But it is clear there's an obvious chance that it doesn't.
So like. Bothers disease?
Is that like you have to suspend your disbelief?
Don't, because there's a good chance it doesn't happen.
That's not like it's not an automatic.
This is. What we're saying, what we're
saying is that when it happens 10 times, you have to, you have
to do that exactly. OK, zero times did it
permanently crippled it, right? Maybe the knife his hands don't
cut the tendons and maybe the Lance and his side doesn't
puncture his lung and maybe the cut that don't gets on Aaron's
inner thigh doesn't cut an artery but like 1 after another.
None of these things have to cause a permanent serious wound
that cripples him for. Life OK, well we've kind of
moved the goal posts here we're talking about whether it would
kill him or not like whether he's permanent crippling
injuries is is different and I can kind of see that maybe he
would that doesn't mean he can't function or go throughout his
life well. I'm talking about about that it
would kill him. That it is that I have to
suspend my disbelief about how he functions and not only just
that it doesn't kill him, but that he isn't, that he is able
to pull himself together and continue moving and fighting and
all of those things. This is where I go back to the
argument about adrenaline. Like mothers who have, who are,
you know, no upper body strength at all can lift the car off
their child in a moment of extreme adrenaline.
So I think people are really capable of what they're much
more beyond what they're normally capable of when life
and death is at stake, especially when there's more
than life and death. That's taken in terms of Dunk's.
Position here. My only point is that I would be
just as on the edge of my seat and and stomach in my throat if
it had been half the number of times I would have found it just
as exciting. Sure, sure.
That's it. That's all.
I don't argue with that, but I don't.
I don't. Yeah.
I'm just quibbling with the idea that you have to suspend
disbelief. Not that you.
I mean, it's your choice to do that.
I just, I feel like this is all within the realm of someone
could survive and not have permanent injuries that are
crippling. Maybe permanent injuries but not
crippling injuries. Anyway, let's move on from that.
There's this interesting yield edit when Dunk is losing
consciousness. I thought one thing they did
really well was show that he's quite clearly taken a
concussion. Like, his head is is ringing.
He's wobbly and doesn't know where things are.
You know, he's confused. That's very signs of a
concussion. Now, in the novel.
Yeah, in the novel, there's signs of a concussion, too, but
no one knows that word. He's just, like, confused.
He can't remember everything. He has to have some things
explained to him. Some of it gets skipped over
because it's his internal monologue.
Anyway. Yeah, I think that's pretty,
pretty clear that he has. His head's not quite right there
anymore. Yeah, I thought it was very well
acted. That's really what put me over
the edge with is just like the the body language and the the
way he was. He was like he said he felt like
he was dying or drunk and he was like moving as if he was drunk,
you know. And I I thought that was well
done. Yeah, I, I want to give credit
to, to not just the acting with the music and the editing and
everything. It kind of that the sound
effects, you know, where things are sort of muffled and ringing
and did a really good job of showing he's like barely
conscious, barely standing, but still has this focus.
It is, you know, the, the fight, if the fight or fight or flight
is still keeping him focused on not dying because that that is
The thing is that his life is on the line.
Aryan is no joke. You know, we've talked in the
past about what his competence level or courage might have been
way. He is a formidable, well
trained, aggressive, quick, tough opponent and Dunc is lucky
to be in this at all. Look at how he looks in this
shot from Dunc's visor. How like, scary and demonic and
like, intense. Like, you just see, like, his
eyes. And this is when he's trying to
gouge out one of Dunc's eyes and he doesn't quite, you know, he
just kind of hits him a little bit, but he doesn't really get
him. But it's really was terrifying.
This was like a reversal of of the book because in the book
Dunc's thinks about how the visor is the weak point and he's
going to try to aim for of that, but Aryan and here is the one
that gets to the the visor twice.
You know, it it almost possibly would have been better off if he
could have punctured because Dunk had so much swelling in his
eye. Like this reminded me this whole
thing reminded me a lot of Rocky.
You know, they're just like wailing on each other to
exhaustion. It starts off Apollo Creed is
the more skill, but Rocky's more tough and they just won't stop
and neither can believe the other still going and and, you
know, but in a boxing match when their eyes swell like that, they
have trainers, modern medicine, you know, even for whatever 1975
compared to this time period, you know, they know that to cut
that open to relieve the blood and the swelling and a patch it
back up. But Dunk's eye was just swollen
shut. And if Arian had been able to
puncture his eyelid, it might have been a relief to Dunk,
honestly. Little puncture slightly.
Yeah, absolutely. And then he takes his helmet off
and I think it's part of what you're part of because of that
swelling perhaps, and maybe some other swelling because he he'd
taken several blows to the head at that point.
Because he he remember with the visor it's hard to see already
and now with his eyes swollen shut he just he can't keep
fighting. He's effectively blind and in a
book if I remember his mud in his eye too, he had to take it
off to clear the mud out of his eyes.
I liked Dunk going for Aryan's crotch because it made me think
of Aryan just talking to Eggs going to make a sister out of
him that Dunk was going to make a sister.
That's hilarious you. Know I was really like, I wish
that he could just, you know, castrate him right there and I
would never have kids. We know it obviously doesn't
really do that, but I was rooting for it.
So, yeah, you can imagine that Aryan is like bleeding inside
his armor there, just like Dunk even more clearly is.
We have scattered shots here and there.
There's not much, not much else you can see that's going on.
Every once in a while you can see a few things.
But just like the novel, Dunk can't see much of what else is
going on because the helmet, the fog, the fact that he's focused
on Aryan, and the fact that the story is mostly through his
point of view, we see. That great moment that you
brought up Aziz with Makar, I have it on screen right now
where he, he, he tries to run and save Aryan, you know, my boy
and and Baylor and Lionel, you can see his, his broken antler
helm up there and he's got yellow clothing.
And if you see the immediate shots beforehand, you see him
rear up because it's a part of that.
He's tries to stop him. Make our steps his horse and he
falls over and his helm breaks. Yeah.
I I even trying to figure it out, I was like, well, I know
that's not Lionel because he doesn't have the antlers.
But and I, I thought that little kind of cross hook thing, which
is clearly now I see the the remnants of the broken off
panel. I thought that was just some
debris or something in the background or something.
But yeah, I see. A horse who flying by, a
horseshoe flying by. Yeah, I I thought that was
really well done in part, too, because it's a reminder, as what
I said earlier, that I wanted to speak to more.
Now there's they're not trying to kill each other.
Most of them, Baylor and Makar are not trying to kill each
other. The Kingsguard are maybe trying
to kill the people that come at them in the joust because
otherwise they will get killed. But other than that, their role
is different. Baylor points out that hey,
they, my brother screwed up by adding the Kingsguard because
they'll have to fight me and they can't fight me.
But that's not the best explanation.
It's partly true, but the missed thing that Baylor doesn't
explain there is that the Kingsguards role there is not to
win the trial. Their goal is not to win the
trial. They'd like that they're but if
their primary goal is to protect the Targaryens and there's four
Targaryens on the field, one of them's on the other side and
there's only three of them, it's a really hard task they have.
So like, it's hard for them to care about Aryan because even
though he's the trial, he's the 4th most important of those
Targaryens, He's the 4th in the line of succession.
So there's only three of them and there's 4 Targaryens and
Aryan's the least important. So you can, if you were
wondering why the Kingsguard don't ever get involved with
Duncan Aryan, that's why. They also probably think he's
the most safe. They're like, oh, he's fighting
a hedge knight, he's probably fine.
Right, He's he's facing the least renowned opponent, right.
I guess maybe we're fighting there the.
Kingsguard also low key hate Aryan and so they're like you
know, it works out. Like it does make sense.
They have the excuse, but they probably aren't too bothered.
You can imagine that make makers when you ordered them to fight.
He's probably like my stupid ass son brought us into this.
You know he already called him an idiot in front of you know,
like the Kingsguard probably aren't ignorant of that.
They're probably aren't like, OK, yeah, we're nothing out of
the ordinary here. We're fighting in a trial by 7,
you know, that's never happened since 150 years ago, blah, blah,
blah. Yeah.
One of my favorite shots and sounds in the episode moments is
Arian here when he when they with like the kind of dreamy
haziness of when Arian yells, yields, you know, and he he
roars it. He sounds like it sounds like a
Dragon's roar is like mixed in with his voice, like the element
it has to it. It also reminds me, Speaking of
Dune, of the voice in Dune. It sounds a lot like it to me
that he's trying to do that. Wow.
If he had voice dude, Dunk would have yielded.
Yeah, yeah. It didn't occur to me, by the
way, that. Probably Makar and Baylor gave
the Kingsguard some sort of instructions about this, right?
And. Maybe, although they wouldn't
have needed much instructions anyway.
But yeah, you're probably right. But as far as like who to guard
or what this is really about or you don't need to kill anyone.
Or you know, I can imagine him giving some.
I can also even imagine Makar having told the Kingsguard, Let
Aryan fight his own fight, you know, don't let he know he he
started this. He needs to be his own man.
He's trying to get out of having a face dunk on his own.
And then maybe when and and Maker probably also is assuming
Aaron will win. Like, why would you be a coward?
You can beat this nameless guy. Yeah, he he's win.
Expecting A1 on one Yeah, suddenly he's.
Struggling maker's like crap, my son, no.
Yeah, so, well, I, I agree with you about Makar instructing the
Kings guard. I'm not sure about Baylor,
though, because Baylor shows up, joins the trial and then it
starts. There's no moment for him to go
talk to them. Well, he might have done it like
the night before or something. I'm not confident about this,
but I can imagine it. Yeah, I don't know about that,
but you're right. It's it's not impossible, but I
I'm I'm guessing, I would guess no on that but either.
Way they might have even come to him saying are we really doing
this? How should we handle it?
You know, I guess. It's like while Raymond's
painting his shield or something, sure, there's there's
some moments we don't see. It's definitely possible.
Yeah. Overall, I just appreciate how
desperate and exhaustive and ungraceful and this whole thing
was. And we, we're so used to
graceful combat, you know, flowing, athletic, acrobatic
maneuvers, a lot more things like that thrown sword moment,
you know, that was the, where it kind of maybe jumped the shark
slightly. But other than that, it was just
very gritty. And like I, I, that's not even a
complaint. It's, it was so good.
The only kind of TV fight I can think of that's similar is the
Season 3 of Deadwood has a street fight that's really
similarly brutal and just two people going at it and it's
just, they're not trying to be glamorous at all.
It's really nasty. And that's, that's what happens.
Season 3, yeah. Also, really we talked about at
the beginning, Sean did a bit talking about Dexter Sol
Ansela's egg, but he did a great job here.
His reactions all throughout it that we see where he you know,
his his his upset face, his large projecting voice.
He'll be good on the battlefield.
He's very he was very good at that.
And I thought Dexter nailed it. And also shout out to Rowan
Robinson as Red, who's up there. And I'll note that she's in the
same side of the sands as egg because she's there as man for
Dondarians guest. And that's the like extended
family of the Targaryens. You could tell because man for
is related to them eggs related to them too.
Anyways, So it's kind of adjacent to royalty, but she's
up there and she goes. Come on that.
Was one of my favorite. Moments that's going to be memed
Also, I think the one person standing up like me at whatever
people are going to say that use that as like me as the one
person at the convention or whatever, I don't know.
Can I say another thing? I I kept waiting for Egg to say
get him, he's right there. Get.
Him. We didn't get that.
That's too bad. He didn't say it there, though.
I I checked, I went back. He said it when Aaron was in the
joules against Humphrey Harding. Well, that's that's when he says
kill him. And in the show he says kill
him. Right in the book he said get
him, but he just said get him. He didn't say he's right there
in the show. He said kill him and in this
battle at the end he never said that.
He says it in in future books and he said the get them part in
the beginning. But I would at first I was upset
that they didn't include that, but I went back and checked.
They didn't miss it. He didn't actually say it there.
So it's mostly Season 2 and 3, then?
Yeah. OK.
I I I guess I must remember that too.
Cool. All right.
Well that's good then. Yeah, the bar is really low for
realistic combat, so I just really appreciate the effort to
make it more that type, even though we don't know.
Like, no, but literally nobody knows what medieval or pseudo
medieval combat really looks like.
Let's always remember that nobody has ever seen it, only
reenactments, movies and the best we can do.
And a lot of times it's not the best we can do.
But yeah. So I want to say something about
about Aryan that I thought was really well done.
He he thinks it's over. He yells, it's over.
He's dead. OK, So what happens to you in
that moment? If you're Aryan in that moment,
all you think you've won. Your adrenaline fades.
It's over as he's yelling. It's over.
And then Dunk gets back up and like, your body physically is
like, I have to. So his exhaustion really showed.
He really would be that exhausted.
And that just, I can't even barely pick my sword up off the
ground. I, I was just like, I'm done.
It's over. I won.
And then this guy gets back up and he can't.
Like, how do you get your adrenaline going again, you
know? Yeah, I thought they really
showed that on his face right here in his body language, in
the way that they kind of limped and kind of Lombard over to each
other. And yeah, you could see it in
both of them. But Ariad really was like.
He looked like human, not like a villain for a split second, you
know? He struggled to even just like
bend back down and pick his sword up.
He you. I think he literally even
stumbled and fell to his knee and had to push himself back up
up. And remember, he's also lost
blood. He, you know, at probably
whatever adrenaline is still going and probably still
adrenaline is going in them, but it's probably just keeping them
breathing and standing. Remember that the armor itself
they're wearing, just putting that on and walking around, it's
probably near their own body weight, right?
It's probably 100 lbs of metal, like modern times.
In this TV show, it would be plastic and fiberglass and, you
know, perfectly formed and fit and, you know, maybe, you know,
the Royals can get it blacksmiths and whatever to fit
them just right, but they can't make it out of plastic
fiberglass. It's still going to weigh a. 100
lbs, I think 60 is the 60 is more accurate, Sean like a
hundreds whatever, just we're just estimating, but sixty I
think is the actual close like a full suit of late mail.
I know that's a ton. It's also the people back then
were a little small and not this is not back then.
I hate when people say that and apply it to Game of Thrones.
It's not back then, but in the equivalent of back then, yes,
people were smaller too. So.
And there's that. Like nutritionists and workout
guys or. Especially not for hedge nights.
So, yeah. So I really thought.
So hats off to Finn Bennett here for his his role here.
Also, like in the final moment, you can see, like you said, he
was exhausted. He has to pick his sword up.
And he's like, you come at me, I'm not going to come at you,
come at me. And you can see what he's doing.
He's got a strategy. He's waiting for Dunk to miss so
he can strike him on the head because he doesn't have his
helmet anymore. And Dunk leans into that and and
turns his head to catch his strike on the gorge.
It right here, which is a great spot to catch it because it's a
it's just pure thick steel. And then he's able to wrestle
him again and that's it. Then it gets back to the book
scene where he's smashing his helm and finishes very similarly
from. There, that's dunk strategy too,
is he doesn't want to spar swords, he wants to wrestle.
He wants him to get in close and take him down to the ground.
Yeah, so early. When in this shot I have here,
when he's beating Aaron with the Shields, you know, also really
good acting by Finn Bennett because there's like this moment
where he looks away, like he looks to the side, like out to
like everyone who's watching him, where he like I think he he
really thinks like do I do I humiliate myself here by
yielding or do I let him kill me?
Like, I think you can see that he is wrestling with that shame
that he's about to face, and he ultimately is a coward who wants
to live. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Also I want to. Point out two things that I
think are are very interesting here from both the writing and
acting perspective, He says. He doesn't say I yield.
He can't bring himself to yield. He says I withdraw my
accusation. It's like, I guess maybe he
didn't do what I said, but I don't yield.
He's not better than me. I'm just going to withdraw my
accusation. Powerful to me like he says I
yield to dunk privately, but then publicly, not just I yield,
I withdraw my accusation, which has so much more meaning and so
much more like effect about like no, I was a liar I I I was wrong
right like that, that. Implies.
But in a way, I agree. But I still think it's more
embarrassing him for him to admit that guy's a better
knight, that guy's a better fighter.
I've lost him in combat. I think he's trying to avoid
that admission by saying, all right, I withdraw my accusation.
There's an element of that, I think.
Yeah, it's it's, I think. So I could see this.
The other thing I want to add is that he just got smashed in the
face over and over again. He says it.
It's like he's working around swollen lips.
He says, oh, who are my accusation?
You know what I mean? Like, I think he doesn't quite
speak clearly because his mouth is smashed up.
And I thought that was a really good touch too.
So earlier we talked about some moments where other people got
involved in their combat. It's mostly just those two
fighting each other, but there are a few moments where people
interfere. We still, we talked about the
one where Makar gets him in the face riding by and you can kind
of see the damage on Dunk's helmet later.
He's got like a big chunk missing.
It might be from the Morning Star, but it might be from
Makar's Mace. That's not from the book.
No one interferes at all in the book.
There's only minor interference here.
Meanwhile, Aryan gets knocked off Dunk when they're on the
ground and I'm pretty sure that's Raymond that knocks Aryan
off. And then that person who I think
is Raymond is immediately unhorsed by Stefan, who I'm sure
it was Stefan, which that's why it kind of makes sense that it
would be Raymond, not just partly because Raymond of almost
everybody would be the one most concerned about Dunk and because
he would be facing off against Stefan.
So that all makes sense. So even though the tragedy
happens, oh, here's a shot of it.
Here's we can see the green apple.
There it is. Look at that.
You can quite clearly see Raymond's armor, very
distinctive Gendry like armor. Sorry Podrick like armor and.
And Stefan's fancy apple. Armor.
Very fancy Apple armor. Yeah.
And again, as I said before, people don't want to kill each
other. And this is another example.
Yeah. Stefan Raymond doesn't want to
kill Stefan. He wants to beat him and hurt
him. In the book.
He's like, I hope I broke some of his ribs.
And Stefan does not want to kill Raymond as much as a villain as
he is. That was made it clear very
early on, and it doesn't even need to be made clear.
Westeros is very strict about Kinsling.
And it's been been pointed out that this is going to be a
famous thing no matter what happens.
This trial 7 is going to be famous.
Is that what you want, to be made famous at a trial where you
killed your own family? That is not what you want.
If you're a Westerosi. No, you don't want that at all.
So Stefan is not trying to kill Raymond.
Raymond's not country Stefan. They're just trying to take each
other out. So that very much tracks.
And it's fits in with the whole thing of so many of them aren't
trying to kill each other for the same reason the Kingsguard
aren't trying to kill the Targaryens, Targaryens aren't
trying to kill the Kingsguard. The Targaryens aren't trying to
kill each other. And for the most part, dunks
other side aren't trying to kill Makar and Deron's just lying
there on the ground like they don't really want to kill each
other. So that's, you know, getting
back to that a little bit. Let's talk about the crowd a
little bit with the the moment where dunks getting back up.
We talked about that from, you know, we get more Sir Arlen, but
and and eggs epic, you know, get up, Sir, get up.
But the crowd was saying up, up, up as you start to do it.
And that was nice because some of you all may know if, unless
if you listen to our preview episode for this one, that Ira
Parker just straight up admitted, y'all, I screwed up.
I didn't include the line about who are they to me?
Who who am I to them? A knight who remembered his
vows. He just didn't include that he
meant to include it. He said it was an earlier
version of the script. So this is sort of like that.
This is the crowd getting into it for Dunk, the whole crowd.
It kind of replaces Dunk saying that the Thunder in the book,
but we also got that moment of Egg getting Thunder to charge
initially when Thunder is when Dunk freezes up at the
beginning. And that kind of calls back to
Episode 3 where AG is training with Thunder in the morning.
So yeah, like that. Let's see.
People were asking about whether we saw the moment and I do have
it on screen. Yeah, so there's two moments.
One is less important, but Shay is bringing the important one up
on screen. You can.
You can also see the moment where make our breaks the front
of Baylor's helm because his visor is cracked from the front
and from the back. So the back, of course, you can
see the back blow, right? I guess Shay is putting it up
right now. Yeah.
And this was actually visible in the trailer.
So if you knew what to look for, you could see this moment.
You know what makes this moment extra sad?
This is not made clear in the book.
It's not made not clear either. But see how he's dragonary and
across the ground? It's over.
That's when Baylor takes the blow to his head.
It's already over. It's just nobody knows it yet
except the two main guys. So that's like just a little
extra note of really did not have to happen, which just
becomes the a big part of episode 6 dunk like why did this
happen? Why why you know?
So this makes it hit a little harder.
The fact that it was done, it was over.
Yeah, it makes it so much more tragic, but boy, what a great
shot. What great imagery.
So satisfying of Dunk dragging Aryan through the mud there,
just still just able to just pull him.
Also reminded me of Damon and and the crab feeder.
Right on? He asked.
The dragon. And of course that is what
happens in the book. He does drag him to the viewing
stand. Very similar.
Here's a line from the book also that is ominous in retrospect.
When he's looking around as he's dragging Aryan, or just before
he starts dragging, he takes stock of what's happening around
him. It's one of the few times he's
able to look at the other action on the field.
It says Mace, battle axe and longsword clashed and clanged,
ringing against helm and shield. Yeah.
Helm. All right.
Yeah. The dragon was dead, but you
were alive. Our last section, the the death
of Baylor, it was well done. It stuck extremely close to the
source material, as so much else of the season did, while taking
full advantage of what TV can do that books can't Visceral grief,
anguished words, crying, and our own attachment to the
performances building up through the season.
You know, like we get a little more personal with the
characters when we learn about them in a different way, when we
see them in a different way, when we visualize them, when we
hear the sound of their voices. They become more human because,
well, they literally are instead of imagine people on a book.
They really are. They're not really the
characters they're portraying, but we really see them.
They're real people, and that means something.
As we said earlier, Dunk is concussed.
It's the clues are there in the in the book.
It's a little more obvious here, which makes sense because you
can't hear his inner thoughts, which are also very jumbled.
But in the book he's in horrible, horrible pain and
desperation. But you know, the narration, the
narrator isn't like slipping and crying or whatever.
It's so it's still like the the level of visceral is different.
Now you all know I don't have to explain the difference between
audio and and visual, but or, or or book and and show.
But it's interesting to take note of how it was used here and
so effectively, in addition to how well it stuck to what was
already a perfectly written scene.
As usual, Dunk is firstly concerned about everybody else,
even though he's in massive pain.
And everybody else is like, oh man, look at the rings jammed in
here by the Lance, which is straight from the book.
They tell. He asks who else is dead.
Like we, like we said before, it's very similar.
He's told that Beesbury and Humphrey and Harding are killed,
and the book Harding just dies a few days later.
He finds in the book, he asks about Deron here.
He does not ask about Deron. They just skip over that, partly
because it's an internal narrative.
These happen. He's like a dragon must have
died, right, because of the prophecy.
Is Daron dead? And they're like, no, Daron's
fine. He's like, well, then the
prophecy was wrong unless Aryan's dead.
I didn't wait, did I kill Aryan? He's so confused.
He's like has to think for a second.
Did I kill Aryan? He says it out loud in the book
and egg says, no, you didn't kill Aryan.
Don't you remember? But that's why he's thinking
about he's like the prophecy so that you can't quite do it here
because it's a it's thoughts he's having.
So instead, you know, they just rely on some some visual cues
and the intonation and and the brilliant acting, which really
just carries it. The way Bertie Carville handles
a scene is so perfect. It's it's so much like it's
ripped from the page. The lines are the same.
The way he stutters. It's written almost identically
to what George wrote. Let's have a quick quote before
we get to breaking it down. I'll get everybody should weigh
in here because it's it's so, so well done there.
It's in the book. Dunk is confused and concussed
and that's why it helps. It helps conceal what's really
going on here. His confusion masks the the
horror that's about to be unleashed.
Get him drunk and pour some boiling oil into it.
Someone suggested that's how the maesters do it.
Wine. The voice had a hollow metallic
ring to it. Not oil that will kill him
boiling wine. I'll send Maestro Yarmwell to
have a look at him when he's done tending my brother.
So with all these clues here mixed in with the chivalry of a
tenders, he's. You clearly need tending more
than your brother, my friend. But the hollow metallic ring
thing where something's wrong with his voice.
And then just after that passage, Duncan notices that his
voice sounded oddly slurred. Perhaps he bit his tongue.
You know, he's trying to like understand, and Bertie just
captured it so perfectly. Dunk is in the book, Dunk is
confused about who's speaking. In fact, he's it turns out to be
steely pay who makes has that line about the the boiling oil.
But in the book he doesn't even know who says that.
The way here it becomes clear something isn't right.
You know, he says, my fingers, fingers feel like wood, exactly
like the book. The way he's kind of stutters
and the same thing he does when his visor is cracked.
The way he looks at Raymond and says brothers Mace most like
he's strong. That would just killed me.
It's just like he's just like leaning in like, you know what I
mean, man, You know, like my brother sure is strong.
Like he's chivalrous to the end. There's a moment at the end.
You can't. I don't know if a Shaya caught
it on the screen. I, I, I caught it near the end
here where he just when the horn blows, Baylor's like shaking his
reaches out to shake his brother's hand.
That's what it looks like to me. Or or is it like bracing him?
Like even though his leg head is caved in here.
It's crazy. So here's the book version of
that. As Dunk is saying, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. And as he does for Rafe and the
higher Tower Man, this is this is how it sets up book version.
A queer, troubled look passed across Baylor break Spear's face
like a cloud passing before a sun.
He raised his hand and touched the back of his head with two
fingers, oh so lightly, and then he fell.
Dunk caught him up, they say, he said, just as he had with
Thunder and the melee. Up, up.
But he never remembered that afterward.
And the Prince did not rise. It's an effective way to do it
in terms of the book here, of course, they're not going to
skip that. We're going to go straight to
the funeral next episode. But it cuts off here very
effectively mid grief, very much mimicking how it handles in the
book. Sean, I've gone through the
scene. Tell us what you think.
How did it make you feel? What have you to say about in
general? Yeah, it was.
I don't know how to say it's bittersweet.
Like the a large percent of this episode was so tough and violent
and dark and oh, and it's kind of like, I think we've talked
before about how I know what's going to happen, but maybe this
time it'll go different, you know, like.
Zigzag. Yeah, it's like just just kind
of dreading it and, you know, but both his death and, you
know, the sort of violence, the realization, the sadness, the
people around him are going to face, everything.
Yeah, it was. It was done really well.
I wonder how people who hadn't read the book, you know, maybe
weren't quite anticipating it. I just felt kind of sick to my
stomach knowing what was about to come.
But I wonder if you didn't know that, if you might have been
distracted by dunks, injuries or all the other guys that got
killed. And.
I don't know, I should talk to my.
My sister's watching and she hasn't read the book, so I'll
see what she says. But another thought I want to
say is it it's something that George does so well and is that
there is like something that's, I don't know how to say this
unanswered or mysterious. Sometimes you don't even realize
that it's a mystery. And George is just like
delivering the answer. It's like, here's the answer
right in front of your face and you don't get it.
You know what I mean? Kind of like when Raymond's
telling Dunk about Maker's kids and they're doing well, kid and
this kid and this kid and the fourth one and Egg comes running
in and like, oh, Egg is the 4th 1, you know, like and in that
one, pretty quick after that moment, you get the reveal.
Same thing here, dunks going through his mind.
Well, Aaron's fine and I don't think I killed Arian like which
Targaryen could have been. And here comes Baylor walking in
and it's like, oh, you know, pretty quick after you get the
answer. But it is still a great
technique George has of delivering the answer with the
question, sometimes not even knowing that it is a question
you. Know yeah, I would also like to
point out how well it was filmed in terms of the horror on the
faces that you see Raymond's reaction, steely Pates reaction.
You see egg, you see all of these things to really ramp up
your your dread until you actually do see it.
And it's like wondering what's wrong is just as scary as
actually seeing his like caved in brain, right?
Yeah, totally agree. They, they had, they dialed down
Steely Pait's reaction to build at the moment a little more
gradually, because in the in the book, Steely Pait just starts
basically yelling, you're like, gods be good, Gods be good Here.
He's like, gods be good. It's a lot more muted.
And Raymond, I thought Raymond was the most effective.
He he inches around, takes very small steps, like he doesn't
want to see it, but he's got to look.
So he doesn't just like peer around, he just like inches
around. And then he slowly his eyes
widen and then like you said, then it cuts to egg and then it
goes to dunk and he falls and the prophecy is fulfilled.
And it's a really great way to do it because the prophecy is
such a minor part of this. You could take the whole
prophecy out and it would still hit really hard, but it's a good
way to, like, mix in some of the mystical as part of the story
without it really driving it. Or no one made choices based on
it really, other than maybe Daron himself.
But Daron still probably would have made the same choices
because he's not a fighter and isn't going to be pushed around
by his father. Not in that sense anyway.
So yeah, just a really, really well done thing.
By the way, I meant to point this out earlier.
This is kind of a non sequitur, but remember what Stefon said.
He's like, oh, lots of men will will want to fight in this on
your side because of glory. No one did that.
No one fought on dunk side for glory.
Lionel did. Technically, Lionel mine.
He's the closest one. Yeah, Lionel.
There's a case to be made for Lion.
Yeah, like, I guess it's glory. He he doesn't like couch it in
those terms, but he just thought it sounded fun.
But he also wanted to. Like he wanted the thrill of the
fight, right? Yeah, exactly.
But he also wanted to look good. Yeah, Yeah.
So he's the closest to that. Maybe you can make that for him.
But for like for obvious, for both of the Humphreys, it was
personal or personal for one and personal in law for the other,
personal by marriage. For Robin Riesling it was
religious and for Raymond it was well, that's my friend.
So that's kind of personal for Riesling.
It was for the glory of the seven.
Yeah, if madness is bid is madness delivered.
Yeah. So yeah, just really wonderfully
done. I'm so glad they treated it
well. Reading.
We'll we'll talk in our wrap up episode, which will be two weeks
from now. We'll also talk a little more
about Birdie Carville's takes on this.
He has some interesting things that he thought about in his own
background, learning about the world and and knowing how
important this was. But I wonder if how he know how,
if he knows just how important this was to us existing fans.
And yeah, what? It's funny, I pointed this out
like we were all expecting. I was really curious about your
friends and family's reactions. But honestly, it's the people
who've already read it that are reacting the strongest because
there was just so well done. And that's amazing, right?
Like we knew it. We knew it was going to come.
And still it's just, I watched it five times and I was hard to
watch it some of those extra times because it's so intense.
And every time it got me like every single time, you know,
like the 5th watch, I'm still like, God, this is painful.
This is emotional like. It's hard to go about your day
or night after that. You're just kind of feel so
dejected, so like all the wind out of your sails.
Like even knowing I still it's just feel so so disappointing
for the Realms. For the world.
Right. Yeah.
I don't want this to to be too, too negative because again, I'm
generally very positive about us all about all of this.
But I I wonder if one reason why people who read the books maybe
or you know, and this is kind of anecdotal, but why people read
the books might be hit harder than people who haven't is
because I do think one thing I think the show has slightly
failed at is building Baylor up so much.
I feel like in the books he was built up to be more more of a
great fighter, more of a great hero, more of a Chrismatic
leader. And and it's not like this show
didn't make him Chrismatic or whatever, but the book just did
more so. And so I think it hit harder
when he was killed you. Can see that because Dunk has
this awe in his mind that's hard to for the man that's hard to
replicate through other people's actions, and his deeds are
written more explicitly as to what he did.
So yeah, I can kind of see that. But I do think from my anecdotal
experience, the non existing fandom reacted extremely
positively to Baylor. So I think it still hit pretty
darn hard. But I I mean, I see what you're
saying that it hit harder maybe for the in terms of why it hit
harder for the fandom, I can completely see that.
Yeah. OK, so Cher wants to show off
some of the armor here, which I'm all for.
We got some really cool shots. We all we commented earlier as
bears repeating that it looks it's well done that Baylor's
armor doesn't quite fit right because it's not his armor.
So well done there. And Lionel's helm looks quite
sweet. I I like the fact that the horns
broke, the antlers broke because that makes it more realistic.
Like people said, like, wow, that must be really tough on the
neck. It must be really heavy.
Well, it doesn't have to be. They could be made really light
to break. It could just be purely
ornamental. They don't have to We don't have
to assume that it's just over the top.
You know, he could, there could be some concession to
functionality in that ornamentation.
You know, it's like, ah, just let it break easily, then it
won't be a problem. You know, it's not the same as
horned helmets for a Viking. You know that silliness.
Yeah, it would be much better for them to snap off easily
because if someone could hit those with their sword.
Like hook it or something. Don't.
Break. It would yank your whole head
and neck and you would lose your sight or maybe break or twist
something. But if they'd hit it with a
sword, just snaps right off it. It's just unfazed by it.
And I don't know. You got to keep in mind, I wish
I knew a little better how much they weigh.
But, you know, deer really have them on their head and they run
at 30 miles an hour or 50 miles an hour, like, you know, I don't
know and like. True, true.
What's the next one, Shay? What do you guys?
I love Deron's fear here. We only got like a second of
Deron, but it's him just going. He's like, OK, and we survived.
Deron's armor, which is what I thought was cool here, is that
you see one his armor and then his helm that he has, which is
the Dragon Wing helm. It's a little bit different from
the others, so we don't see much of it.
A little flash of like, I don't know, a green plume or something
on his helmet as he put it on at the image doesn't catch it, but
did you notice that when you're watching?
No, I did not. I would love to see it.
I'm hoping that we get the making of today and we get to
see a whole bunch of non color graded shots of all this armor
and on all that. That's another thing we'll be
able to talk about in the wrap up episode because they have
been a little tardy with those making of which often have a lot
of detail and extra information and images of these armor and
swords and castles and things that we really like to have
extra nerdy detail for. Yeah, they had those.
So they had one for the first episode, I think, pretty much
right away. And then they didn't have one
for the second, but then after the third they had one which was
second and third combined. Yeah, that's why they they did
that is that they combined them because it was too, too, too
related that they didn't want to split it because of the spoilers
of it all. And then it made sense.
OK, so then they'll do four and five combined and then but.
How are they? But are they, if they?
Are they haven't put it out? Yet I know exactly I'm like oh
I'm checking YouTube constantly for this.
But this is my other favorite armor.
It is Stefan's apple armor. I do think it's very beautiful
and and cool and unique. I've never seen apples look so
cool. No one has ever made apples look
so good. I swear.
Stefan Fosman may be a jerk, but he's got swag.
That should be his middle name. Stefan Swag Fossaway, the apple
of swag. All right, so anymore armor.
Are we ready to move on, you guys?
Oh, look at that. I like, I like, I like the side
view there. We looked at that one earlier,
but it's really good. This is partly how I was able to
tell what the order was of the of the combatants seeing this
line up. It's also very similar to the to
book version, perhaps identical, but the book version isn't
explicit, so we don't know what the exact one was.
As we pointed out in the review episode, the graphic novel has
its own set of pairings which do not match the books in some
ways. And then the show has its own
versions, like 3 or 4 different versions of the pairings, which
in some ways tells you it's not super important, but it's still
kind of fun to get into those details.
I. Wanted to say real quick instead
of crabapple swagapple. That's nice.
So Corn Ember Super Chat says jumping the Mace, but waiting
for egg and straw hat. Oh yeah, jumping the Mace.
They said jumping the gun. Nice.
Very good. Yeah, we'll see.
Hopefully get some egg and straw hat next episode.
Is that Was that in the trailer? Egg and straw hat.
Well, I don't want to say that much about the trailer, but we
see Egg in a little a different hat, which shows us that Egg
likes to wear hats. So I think it's it's, it's
foreshadowing for for his straw hat.
But we do see him in a cute little hat and you'll you'll see
that next week. Right on.
So friends and folks and fellow W orians, definitely send us
your thoughts, your impressions, your grief, your tears, what
your how your friends and family experienced it as well.
And we will certainly be back next week for the wrap up or for
the season 6 or season episode 6 rather and the wrap up episode
after that. And if you don't, check out our
preview episodes. Our last week's one had a good a
couple of good segments that y'all might like.
One talked about an interview where Dexter, Sol and Sell
potentially spoiled some stuff about Dunk.
So check out the preview for that talk a little bit.
Summer Hall related. Yeah, Summer Hall related, but
we also talked about Ira Parker's AMA, which we briefly
touched on here, but we talked about it in a much more more
length there, including some of his favorite houses, favorite
sigils, mistakes he's made, flashbacks.
We almost had flashbacks. We could have that.
That episode's about 30 minutes. It's on our feed.
We will certainly talk about that again in our wrap up, but
if you're raring to hear about it, check that episode out.
We also talk about how Ira says that he has 10 to 12 stories
beyond these first three, like the outlines.
So that's 15 seasons he could do, which is pretty crazy.
Wild. Hopefully we could.
We couldn't. Could we possibly be that lucky?
We'll see, we'll see. Time will tell.
Time will in detail. Our trivia question was against
which foe did Baylor earn the nickname Break Spear?
The answer is Damon Blackfyre at the wedding tournament for
Baylor's aunt Daenerys marrying Maron Martel.
So that was pretty epic. Baylor and Damon when they were
both teenagers already prodigies and showing what a little
preview of what would be two of the main leaders in the
Blackfyre rebellion some eight years after that.
Paul results which injury of dunks did you file find the most
cringe or shuddery or whatever? 10% said Morningstar to the
head, 14% said double stab 30% Lance on the side and 46% said
knife through the hand. Yeah, the knife through the hand
is hard, hard to top because he he pulled the knife through the
hand. Lance is pulling through like he
pulls it out, like both of those are.
Yeah, he pulls the Lance out too.
But the hand, I mean, your hand is so crippling.
Yeah, that was a little more like real.
Like that's more likely to really happen in real life, some
sort of hand injury like that, maybe not a knife going.
Through it, but have a knife go through your hand in our Yeah,
you're unlikely to ever have a Lance.
Yeah, Lances aren't involved in anything.
Like when you deal with lances, you know, like, oh, you work at
medieval times. OK.
Yeah, like that's about it. Maybe cycling?
Yeah, Lance, Yeah, you got Armstrongs and all sorts of yes.
Good one, Good one, Sean. I wouldn't pay for to see that,
though. Lance's on bicyclists.
Yeah, just like get those guys, like modern jousting on country
bikes. What are those bikes called?
There's a touring bike. Anyway, if you all are
interested in staying immersed, definitely check out our hedge
Night coverage. We did, the three of us did some
Hedge night a whole read through years ago and we put it back on
our feedback to the front. We also have reviews of The
Sworn Sword and The Mystery Night that are also 4 episodes
long each plus a wrap up at the end.
And we have two episodes on Baylor Breaks Pier so.
We have a lot going to come out this week, right?
You'll be releasing the Baylor episode Baylor Breaks Pier this
this Thursday and next Thursday. That's right, they've been
remastered or will be by the time they're re released and
they sound a lot better, a little cleaner than they were
when they originally released. That's nice, and it's probably
been a while since y'all listen to those if you ever did,
because those were many years ago.
That's 2019. 2019, yeah. 7:00 Whole years, just like a trial
of seven. See, the gods arranged it that
way. As Sir Robin would say, if it's
seven-year gap delivered or gap bid, it's seven-year gap
delivered. That's right.
Any final thoughts, Sean or Ashea on this epic episode that
is now enshrined in the Hall of Fame of Game of Thrones
episodes? Worst birthday party ever.
Poor Gwen. Yeah, yeah, but she'll be
complaining about that. So she's like, you remember I'm.
She's 50 years old. She's like, do you remember my
13th birthday? No, let me tell you.
How could you not? Yeah, I, I, I had, you know,
kind of a big overarching thought that, I don't know,
interesting. The tone shift.
The first 3 episodes were very much lighter, you know what I
mean? Lots more comedic and light.
And in the fourth one, it wasn't as clear at that moment, but it
did start to shift, you know what I mean?
Or weren't as many jokes, you know, but a little heavier.
But this one, which is almost non-stop dark.
Terrible, heavy, tragic. One bit after another, they made
one little attempt at lightness. Maybe I'll give you what.
Would you say which one? Which one would you say is that?
I I was going to say the the telling egg, not the Robin egg
wolf back, but also the puking, you know.
Yeah, and the green fucking boy that that made me laugh.
Yeah, the way he said it, he was just like, he was so funny, so
boisterous. Green knocking boys.
Also, Humphrey Peasbury's mustache is always innately
comedic. The fact that he does that and I
will repeat your joke, how does he get that mustache Honeycomb?
We got to share that. I got to, we got to post that,
that that joke. It makes me laugh a lot.
That's right. I agree with you about the tone
shift, Sean. That's very true.
And that's the kind of topic we'll delve deeper on and
similar topic we'll delve deeper on when we get to the wrap up.
But yeah, that's I'm very, very, very intentional it seems.
It makes me wonder about the next episode because the next
episode we're dealing with these deaths.
It'll be Baylor's funeral. Like, you know, a part of me
wants to feel like this is a wholesome, lighthearted story,
man. It's also pretty dark and
gruesome. And I don't feel they would or
I'm not sure I want them to leave it on such a dark, sad
ending. I think that we wanted to be
hopeful and excited about the adventures that Duncan Egg go on
next, but also I don't want them to neglect the sorrow and
tragedy of what happened. So I think they've got a
challenge set for them in this this final episode.
We're curious how they handle it, you know, tone wise as much
as anything. 100% agree. That's something we should think
about and we could maybe think on and guess in our preview
episode. What do we think the last shot
of the season will be? I think Dunkin Egg walking
together with the horses. Riding off into the.
Sunset like to walking together like a simple shop is maybe an
easy guess, but that's I'm going to go out on.
A yeah, that's kind of what I was picturing too, because it is
kind of what the book does. So maybe something similar.
It's not, It's not. You're probably not going to
miss too often guessing that the show is going to do what the
book did because that that tracker so far is pretty strong
in that regard. But yeah, I, I think this has a
really strong ending. I think you all would agree that
it's one of the great things about this story.
Is it just how much it makes you feel.
But it has a good ending, a strong ending, you know, a solid
ending, which is just hard to do.
As we know, endings are hard. So I appreciate that this one is
it. Just a little speculation that I
wonder I I'm not sure what I'd put the odds at, but if we might
get a Blood Raven appearance at, at, you know, I don't know how
quickly the funeral will happen. How you know, long it'll take
Dunk to even be able to stand up and walk.
If word would have gone to King's Landing about the the
fact that this trial of seven was happening.
Oh, it definitely. Did that part?
Definitely did. Because remember in the book
it's King Garon that decides what Baylor wears to his
funeral. Garon doesn't.
Go. But he instructs them to put not
put him in armor. They're like, no, he should be
wearing his like court clothes or whatever.
Yeah, so there. And, and we see from the trailer
that there's some people there that probably weren't there at
the tournament, so there probably is.
And of course, Dunk so badly wounded, he's not.
He's got to sit around for a while to convalesce.
There's that too, kind of implied.
There's just a lot of demand, I think from the fandom and a lot
of motivation to set future setting series up to, to have
him make some sort of appearance, even if it's no
dialogue, just standing there in a crowd of Targaryens at the
funeral. But I, I I bet greater than 50%
chance, I I kind of expected to have it.
So I was going to say one we have two super chats to address
here from Jillsville from Jillsville, who gives us a
thanks sticker and from corn emperor who says burn the break
spear in dragon fire. Yeah, we do think we will be
seeing a Targaryen funeral complete with not dragon fire,
but fire, right. They don't have a dragon with
which to to burn them. But so I think we'll see a a
change a new era of a Targaryen funeral.
We know we will. In fact, they.
Use a flamethrower instead. Yeah, the other thing I wanted
to say was that if you don't follow us on TikTok or
Instagram, we release edits and buying the scene stuff from from
the shows. That's what we use our Instagram
and TikTok reels for. This week I made a fan edit to
house by Charli XCX, which is a TikTok sound that's been going
around lately, and I did. I think I'm going to die in this
joust and I would love it if you checked it out because I think
it's funny and heartbreaking all at the same time.
All right everybody, on behalf of Sean and Ashea, we will see
you all again soon. Thanks to Bran the Builder for
our awesome fun intro and you know what to do.
This is a good time, as ever, for a Valar ri rias.
The.