Season 2 is in the books or in the show.
Wait, yeah, we took a long look at each episode individually, as
is our won't, and it sure does make sense to take a look at the
whole thing, the whole shebang. Look at the episode, the season
as a whole, right. The blacks and greens as
individuals will do that. And as units, including their
allies and those undeclared, as well as the plot lines in play,
we'll be less focused on predictions and what's to come.
That'll be a topic for another day.
There's plenty to say about that, but we'll parse things out
here. So much happened that it's easy
to forget where it began. And in order to properly make
predictions, we got to make sure we got a stronghold on
everything that's already happened today.
So our thoughts on the season in its entirety, our favorite
performances, moments, things like that.
Some meta analysis on the situation Visa VHBOA.
Few Easter eggs you could say this episode summarized would be
how it started versus how it's going with regards to season 2.
But we've got that and more on this episode of History of
Westeros podcast. Hello and welcome back
everybody. If you're watching live, well,
welcome back to Sunday's our very familiar time slot of three
Eastern. We've been holding down this
slot for quite a while. It doesn't really make sense to
do during the TV season because of when the episodes air, but
whenever it's not full swing, we drift back to Sunday.
So here we are, This is where we'll be for the time being
until the next TV season. So find us every Sunday at 3 on
YouTube, live streaming or with the occasional rerun 'cause
we're not here every Sunday, just most Sundays.
Sean, I see that you are wearing a Denver shirt showing your
hometown. Me, I'm wearing a a Green Man
which. Your hometown, too.
My hometown, Yeah. I live in Green Man, Georgia.
It is really green here actually.
It is quite green. Yeah, we're we're having.
Georgia isn't as hot as a lot of places would.
You might think Georgia would be hotter, but it hasn't been any
less humid, which is right now. That's the greenery goes crazy
here. And we are all green men in on
this podcast because we've all cosplayed the green men like
Green Man Always Sunny matched up with A Song of Ice and Fire.
So I love that shirt you got. And if you're not watching, you
might be surprised to find out that my Green Man shirt is not
green, but Sean's Denver shirt is black.
So we kind of have green and black going here, even though
one's only in Word, not color. We got a comment from books of
MERS who said, does Sean purposely have a background
that's complementary? Orange against diseases, Blues?
If so, that's awesome. If not, also awesome.
And I said it was ice and fire. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
We we kind of, it's kind of an accident, but it we kind of
noticed it worked out. And we're like, Sean, honey,
you've kind of, you've changed your posters around, but this
you, this one was like, whoa, this is this is the best it's
ever worked. Yeah, Yeah.
This is the best contrast we've had.
And what about your? What do you got to drink there
today, Sean? Anything special?
I was saying this is my magic mind drink and it's it's which
is a green drink on its own. And I've mixed it with the naked
Green machine and also the, what do you call it, the sparkling
ice, coconut, pineapple. And also, I just feel the the
drive to mention this isn't just a Denver shirt, it's a different
Nuggets shirt. And our star player Nikola
Yokich just almost beat the US basketball finals in the
Olympics. Like it's like the the NBA All
Stars versus Jokic. And it was a close game.
Wow, I'm not a fan of basketball so much, but I am a fan of
Nuggets, so I do appreciate the shirt.
Yeah, Nuggets. It's just a great word.
Like, what is when is a nugget bad?
Like Nuggets are always good, right?
It's a positive connotation. The end of the season also
brings back the return of our trivia questions.
It's a little much for us to have included during the season
when there's so much to talk about, but I'm glad to bring it
back. And we have a show related
trivia question. We we've mentioned a couple
times that Jefferson Hall, who plays Thailand and Jason
Lannister, he is one man playing twins.
Is was also the actor who played Sir Hugh of the Veil in season
one of Game of Thrones? There are at least two other
actors who are in both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
These are pretty hard to know. I one of these I discovered on
my own. I haven't seen it mentioned
anywhere. And I say at least because it's
entirely possible there's another one or two that I didn't
catch. So if you know of any actors who
were in both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, name them.
And if you name one, if you get it right, or name one that I
haven't named, well, you'll get a shout out at the end here.
I mean, I haven't poured through every actor's IMDb page, but I
have poured through most of them.
So I, I, I expect that I caught them, but there might be another
sneaky one in there. I will give you all a clue.
They're both men, the one that I've found.
So if there are the two that I've found, So if there's, if
you find a woman that's been in both, well, you're, you already
know that you found one that I didn't.
Let's start with our favorite performances for the season.
Later, we'll talk about the season as a whole individually.
Like Sean will give his take a Shay, we'll give hers, I'll give
mine. But let's start with the way we
like to start our in season episodes by describing who we
thought was our favorite actors. And we're going to do a primary,
secondary and a tertiary. I've allowed I said told Sean
and Shay, define that however you want.
I'm going to pick a a a main actor than one who was maybe
second tier than who was surgery.
That's how I'm going to do it. But y'all do however you want
Sean, start with you. For me, number one is definitely
Emma Darcy. They were I feel like the most
impressive and got the most air time.
I just love, love their they're nuanced and the the types of
emotions they're struggling with to portray and the the character
themself is, is intriguing. You know, I could say the same
for for at least a dozen other people in the show, but but Emma
Darcy is the one that really stood out the most to me.
After that, it's a little closer.
It's a little tighter, like I I think I have my next two picked
out, but it's just like the slightest little nudge could
completely put two new people in and put them out.
I think Eve best it was spoiler. One of my favorite scenes from
the whole show was when she had to turn back around and face
Veigar. That that that moment and red
dragon and gold. I think it was that episode.
You had spoiler in our recap in our wrap up episode.
How could you? But, you know, she had a few
other nuanced moments too. And then the third I think, is
Fabian Frankel. I, you know, maybe I'm a little
biased by the wanting to defend the Kristen Cole character, but
still, I think that that that moment in that final episode
when he was talking to Gwen was really powerful.
And a couple other times too, even when he's doing something,
you know, maybe frustrating. Here's what I'll say is I think
for me, and I bet for all of you too, every time he's on screen,
some emotion is being evoked and so.
Yeah, some people are just like, seething.
Yeah. It definitely lessened as the
season one for me 'cause I like you said, like he's just this
performance has been really good and that that that's moving.
Less deceived about and he started getting less screen time
also. But but still those if I, if
I'm, if I'm pressed, Emma, Darcy, easy #1 those two I guess
are right #2 but I, I wouldn't argue with anyone.
There's a dud as in others I easily could have picked.
Well said, Sean. What about you, Ishaya?
It's really hard, isn't it? That's what she said.
Yeah, you know, on a different day, I could have picked 3
completely different names than what I'm about to say.
I could have said Emma Darcy as Rainura.
You know, I might have said Alice Rivers.
I might have said Simon Strong. That's not the names I'm going
to say today. Today I was called to say Tom
Glynn Carney as Aegon, who who captured such a transformation
from the beginning of his arc to the end, who under, who went
underwent so much prosthetic work, who made me feel for
someone that I, I, I, I don't have any I, I didn't think I
would feel for and who I'm riveted by whenever he's on the
screen. And he was always very funny as
well at the simultaneously, even at his darkest moments, the
scene with Laurie when they're just like talking past each
other. He still amused me a bit there.
So all the props to Tom. My second pick will be Alan Abu,
who played Allen of Hull because of that last episode.
I think he really both the performance and the character
he's like, I wanted to give kind of a shout out to a character
that I genuinely like think is kind of a decent person,
honorable and I'm excited to see in season three.
And I and I expect him to to to, to be a good man, I guess.
And I I'm excited for more of for more of Alan and my final,
my tertiary one. I will say, and this is hard.
This one was harder, which is why I said Simon for that one as
well. Simon Strong, I'm going to say
Alf arguable because maybe he is on the secondary tier with
Allen. Like they're kind of similar
levels. They both kind of had their own
plot line. That's how I was kind of trying
to define it. Who like who had their own plot
line versus who was as a player in someone else's plot line.
You know what I mean? And and Simon Strong was a
player in Damon's plot line, whereas Alf kind of was his own.
So I don't know if that's if I should say someone even more
minor, but I like a humorous character.
I like a funny guy and and I appreciated that performance a
whole lot. Bet you considered Gwaine very
strongly then too, given that I. Did, I did.
And I think he fits tertiary better because he is a he's part
of everyone else's story. He's not.
It's not about him. Yeah, he doesn't have any scenes
that are about him, but all has. That's a very, that's a pretty
good way to to categorize it. Like I said, I let you all
decide the categorizations and that's a pretty good way to do
it. Yeah, it is really tough.
I want to shout out Matt Smith, 'cause he's great.
But yeah, Emma Darcy just is just too good.
They're just so amazing. It's hard to hard to top them.
They're just, yeah, they're by the end of it, we'll be using
words like goat and things like that.
I think, 'cause this is, you know, roughly halfway through
the story. There's so much more.
In fact, there's more episodes with Emma Darcy coming than
there have been so far. That's one thing that I think
about this kind of baffling or or strange to kind of hard to to
swallow or realize. Even if they keep it at 8
episodes, which I hope they don't, but even if they do,
that's 16. So if they don't, it'll be 20 or
maybe somewhere in between like 18.
They've only been in 13 so far. There's only been 18 so far.
So, yeah, by the end of it, I mean, we got more Emma Darcy
coming than we've had so far. So in some ways we're not at the
halfway point of of them, but we are at the halfway point of the
show. So that's that's pretty cool.
I also want to give Aegon Tom Glenn Carney my second place.
I loved him all the way through. I was very impressed by him just
his he really did have a range, which a lot of the characters
it's not their fault. They just weren't given the
material to have a full range of on top to all the way at the
bottom right. Like, this is a man feeling
himself out as king to afraid his brother's going to kill him
to having to, like, retreat ignominiously in a, in a cart
full of Ravens. Probably smells terrible.
And he's, yeah, obviously his body is in pain.
So he he he got some of the most rangy material and just knocked
it out of the park. So I, I definitely got to call
him out for my third. It's it's it's it's difficult.
Like you all said, it's really hard to pick, especially when
you've already named 2:00 and you're like, oh, I've only got
one more. Oh, no.
Who do I? I kind of think I want to give
it to Fabian as well. It's real close.
I'm tempted to give it to to a Gwaine or an Alf as well.
They're both really for similar reasons.
Gwaine also showed us a lot of range despite being a pretty
minor character. We saw him it as as a fopish.
Like I, I'm I can do whatever I want.
I'm a rich privileged kid to like very serious and at war and
just a lot of quite a range for such a small role.
And Alf kind of similar. I mean, we haven't seen him
maybe at his worst yet, but we've seen him at a pretty
expansive number of scenes. But yeah, I'm a go with Fabian
because, yeah, partly because like Sean said, it's it's they
get the full range. You get a lot of character
change and it's a character that I had a strong pre.
I had an opinion about him well before the show started.
And Fabian's acting has helped me like center that a little
more. It's like, yeah, don't let the
your feelings and the character shouldn't affect how you judge
the performance. In fact, sometimes that gives
them more credit or if anything, And I think that that really
came through here. So I don't have a single actor.
I would say they just weren't good.
There's no one I would point to and say that was a bad actor.
None of them I would say. So this is just remains along
with the music, the casting remains.
Real diva though. Diva, Yeah.
I don't know. Silverwing was kind of
overacting in that one scene. Yeah, yeah.
What's? What's up?
Over the top, flying over King's Landing there.
Yeah, I don't know why. Everybody was so into that dog.
It was clearly just supreme. And that dog was just stealing
scenes. Like, I hear it was a real pain
to work with, too, you know, just always shedding everywhere.
Now, seriously, even. Yeah, even the animals were
amazing. Even the rats did a great job,
right? The Ravens were on point and on
pinions. Solan sends a super chat.
Thanks for the coverage all season.
Really enjoyed listening to your podcast while at work.
We appreciate it. That's when I do a lot of my
podcast listening. It's while I'm doing chores or
working, so I know the feeling. It is really nice to have
something entertaining to do while you're doing something
tedious. And that is that is a big part
of where podcast fits into our lives, I think.
So a few meta things that went down that were just coming out
in the news right when the season was ending, really kind
of just after it. So some of this didn't make a
lot of podcasts or Youtubes because YouTube channels because
because of it arrived so late in the game.
And the news was that HBO slash Warner Brothers lost just an
absurd amount of money, like $10 billion, which is kind of hard
to imagine how they did that. Like how like who lent them this
much money? Like where did they get like,
how like, wait, what? How does it possible to lose $10
billion? Like I wonder that when someone
loses like a few $1,000,000 at a casino, like, wait, how
physically how did you withdraw all those funds to lose them?
Like, no ATM will give you that. You went to the bank and said,
yes, give me a million. And like, I know there's like
wire transfers and stuff, but still, it just blows my mind
just the sheer scale of it all. And that's why HBO cut the end
of several shows, not just eight, not just House of the
Dragon, but also Last of Us and probably some other ones too.
But the fact that they're doing it to see with their most
successful shows is a really it's a bad sign about how they
manage their finances. You know, I, I thought a lot too
about how they could lose that much money.
And it occurred to me that they've got a lot of projects
going on and a lot of these big superhero movies are like, you
know, nearly billion dollar ventures.
You know, they spend hundreds of $1,000,000 to make them and then
make hundreds of millions of dollars back.
And so they might have lost 10 billion, but that that could be
deceiving. It's not like they, it's not
like they have no assets and owe $10 billion.
They they spent 100 billion and lost 90 billion.
Or made 90 billion. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
And I mentioned that the, I think I mentioned this, that a
lot of the expensive just house the dragon, for example, it's an
investment for next season. They already have like the the
dragon mount thing that they write on and they've already
worked out the the flamethrower to burn people within.
And they have the volume built for all the a lot of the expense
they've had for the first couple seasons they get.
They keep using for the next couple seasons, yeah.
Some of it now we can't make the mistake of thinking that all of
it. For example, we know that the
season one set for a high tide was was awesome, but they didn't
have that for season 2. It probably would have cost them
more to keep it than otherwise because they would have had to
like rent that space for two years until they used it again
and keep all that place clean and everything.
So yeah, it isn't always worked that way.
Petron is right. That's a thing.
But there is another wrinkle here that I think we that cast
the studios in an even worse light.
And I want to say all these things because I don't want
people to blame the show. Blame the show for other things
if you want. Certainly they're not criticism
free. They still wrote what they
wrote. And you may or may not like
everything they wrote and that's fine.
You may not like every casting or every decision, whatever you
that's fine. But what I want to make clear is
that HBO spent a lot of this money can't maybe not HBO, but
Warner, because that's the parent company.
Some of the reason they encourage so much fees is
because they weren't trying to pay the riders properly.
They were saving that money and they were spending that money on
legal fees rather than paying the riders what they're worth,
rather than paying these people what they deserve.
And that's why we got the riders strike.
Now, of course, that's not just Warner.
That was an industry wide American, right.
It also wasn't in other countries.
But obviously America's very important for for such things.
We're we're kind of the center of a lot of these these
productions in the first place. So that had a adverse impact.
Their strategy of trying to bust the unions and not give in to
reasonable demands, not give in to reasonable concerns about the
future of AI with voice acting and things like that, these are
very well legitimate things to negotiate over.
So the studios did the thing that studios often do.
They were very corporate about it.
They were, they treated the their employees like enemies and
that had an adverse effect on a lot of shows like House of the
Dragon. So when they were forced to cut
the season short, they weren't. They were.
It was in part because of budgetary concerns caused by
their own selfishness, their own greed, compounded by the writers
strike actually making it hard to make changes to the script
after the fact once they were told they had to change it.
So again, this doesn't absolve Ryan Condall and Sarah Hess of
whatever particular criticisms you might have about things that
are more within the realm of the show.
But in terms of like what they had to work with, they were
kicked around a lot. They were given a lot of strange
restrictions that you wouldn't expect for such a successful
show. Normally they're really
successful. Shows are like, well, yeah, do
whatever you want, Here's more money.
You know, it's like that's not what happened here because of
prior mistakes and because of their going to war with their
own writers and, and industry wide.
So anyway, make that as you will.
But it's important to keep in mind these things when you're
judging as a whole, 'cause that's a big factor that they
don't want you to know. They want you to blame the show.
But, you know, I think the the studio deserves a lot of a fair
share, a lion's share, a Dragon's share of of the blame
here, which some people may not even have any blame to
distribute at all. But if you do, yeah.
On the other hand, on the positive side, it's number one
on the Nielsen's for streaming Hot House of the Dragon.
So there you go again. It's still successful.
This even if it wasn't a successful season one, still
highly successful, still very well received by the general
public. I know that a lot of y'all are
deep in the fandom if you're listening to us, so you may not
know how well it was received in general.
I loved it, for what it's worth. I will probably talk more
generally about our overall thoughts, but I I didn't finish
this all thinking, man, I wondered what happened behind
the scenes to ruin it that you know, I was like, man, this is
awesome. Oh, it could have been better.
Hey, I was happy. Anyway, that was my my take.
That's pretty much how I was too.
But doing this as we do, having done it for several years, I
sort of guess how other people are going to react based on what
happened. And I knew this finale would
have some criticism, even though I personally agree with you.
I was very happy with it. Sure, I wished it'd been two
episodes longer. I wished it'd had been episode 8
of 10 instead of just episode eight of eight.
But yeah, anyway, we we've beaten that horse to death.
Yeah, I I do know that my sister and my my parents in law are a
little frustrated. They were waiting for some big
climactic action scene battle at the end.
And I get that. Of course I get that, especially
having to wait two years for the next season instead of one more.
But also, I'm again, maybe I'm unique, maybe I'm beating a dead
horse, but I'm not watching this for some big climactic battle
scene. I'm watching this for nuanced
performances, for political intrigue.
And it's cool when they have Dragons on screen that look real
When a battle happens. It it matters to me more because
I care about the characters involved.
It's more gripping when it looks.
Good, yeah. Yeah, I agree.
And if it's done poorly, it can take you out of it.
Like there's some action that's done so badly that you're like,
that's that's becomes the story, how bad the action was.
So yeah, it's almost like it's like a lot of jobs if the
aircraft and controllers, like if they do their job,
everything's great. And you only really notice if
something goes wrong. It's like, oh man.
Yeah, Shake It. I often talk to my family about
the show. I don't know.
It's just not really something that comes up.
They watch it. My dad and mom have watched it
at certain levels. My dad, I talked to him recently
and he had like all these questions for me after the end
of that finale. He's like, I wanna know who
dies, who's gonna die. And he like, he was really,
yeah. He was very invested suddenly,
like, more than he'd ever been, right.
And he's like, who's going to die in this big battle?
I'm like, well, what battle? Like there's multiple battles
about to happen. Like there's land battles and
sea battles. And you don't know where the
Dragons will pop up in these battles.
Like, which battle are you talking about?
And he was like, wait, they're not all going to fight like at 1
central. Like he kind of had this this
thought that they were all like armoring to.
Super Battle. Yeah, you know, so anyway, so
that was kind of interesting. And then he he just really, I
was like, well, who do you, who do you want to live?
You know, and he was like, I really like the mud wrestling.
Lady Scirocco winning new fans. He said that's his new favorite
character. Anyways.
I I was so surprised. It was a pleasant surprise for
me. I didn't expect him to say her.
That's awesome. Go Lohar.
They go Lohar we go. Hi, Har.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's great.
I love to hear. I love hearing stories about how
like, people who aren't like super fans like us and take it
in and enjoy it. And I just maybe I, I don't
remember if I pointed this out already, but bears repeating
anyway because it's quick and and and noteworthy here.
In the first two books of A Song of Ice and Fire, there's two on
screen battles. That's it.
There's a bunch of battles, but they're just not on page.
They're just described after the factor you hear about them or
Battle of the Whispering Wood. Catlin's like there, but she
sees very little of it. You can call that 2 1/2 maybe,
but it's just the Battle of Blackwater and the Battle of the
Green Fork through Tyrion's point of view.
That's it. And in the show, Game of Thrones
show, there's only the Battle of Blackwater in the first two
seasons. That is it.
That is the only battle in all of the first two seasons of Game
of Thrones. So they're pretty much aligned
there. Each of the shows has one major
battle before in the first two seasons and that's it.
And I'd say the hat DS, one major battle was a lot more
spectacular than than the Battle of Blackwater.
But Battle of Blackwater was awesome.
Like it had, like you said, Sean, it was very plot relevant
and it had a lot like it wasn't just about the battle, it was
about the people inside the castle and elsewhere.
So yeah. And even even more so in Battle
of Blackwater, was this sort of inner spliced with dramatic
elements? You know, just conversations
between. Like, sometimes I see that as
like a Christmas. It's just people in rooms
talking. Like that's all any show is.
That is what but but battle. Blackwater would go back and
forth. A couple of my favorite moments
came from that, that that that episode, or maybe even that
battle. But they weren't battle.
It was when Sansa was taunting Joffrey into leading from the
vanguard and when Stannis said thousands, you know, like those
were the good moments. I don't care.
Sandor chopped some guy down with a whatever.
You know, just. But Sandor talking to Braun in
the bar beforehand when they're, that was cool.
Like that was more interesting than yeah than him fighting.
Tense and and both developing and revealing, if you will, you
know. Yeah, that was really good.
Yeah. So and I thought, yeah,
certainly Rooks Rest had its own angles to that with people on
the ground and being helpless. And yeah, it it was really
strong for similar reasons. They put the stakes there and
they put the characters there and yeah, we cared.
One one thing I want to talk about here to set us up for the
larger discussions for this episode is looking back at what
the themes of the episode were. And we always did as a put a bit
of effort into each episode and kind of coming up with what was
the overarching messages or recurring aspects of the
episode. So #1 the first episode we had
duty. That was a big theme.
And then Winter is coming. I have heard you say that word
more than I'd ever like. Duty.
Duty, But it got. To a point where, like in our
breakdown episodes, I was like, is he gonna say it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's.
Gonna say. Duty.
Yeah, obvious. It's a word that starts to sound
annoying when you hear it over and over.
It's not like it's not like other words.
Then episode 2 was more of the sacrifice side of duty, although
this kind of bled over the two episodes and then revenge and
escalation. Episode 3 continued that with
cycles of violence when something escalates and plays
out over the course of centuries or returns after after being
dormant. We also have these last ditch
efforts to stop the war, which were perhaps futile, but also
perhaps worthy. Hanging on the Conqueror was a
major theme of episode 3. His memory, his vibes, his his
armor, his history, all those things.
Episode 4 was pure war, the unleashing of the Dragons and
all the consequences that meant whether it was the damage they
caused, the death of certain people, or how people like
Kristen Cole viewed war going forward.
Episode five was a major power shift.
Raymond becomes Regent. Meanwhile, there's questions of
leadership with people like Allicent and Rainier herself.
And then there's grief. In episode 6, we saw the concept
of power held over the more powerful.
In other words, people of lesser power controlling or
manipulating people above them, whether in the episode title
with small folks. So it starts at the bottom,
whether you're talking about people throwing fish at Allicent
or whether we're talking about Mazaria or Lares getting in
close with Aegon and Reynira. The Monarchs episode seven took
the concept of ordainment from above to a new level where the
will of the gods and that which the gods choose.
Remember Dragons are considered gods in this context.
Was huge as Vermithor and Sea Smoke chose their riders and
Silverwing as well, along with Reynira believing her destiny is
part of this. The final episode teased that
which is to come. Whether we're talking Daenerys
far in the future or the outcome of the war or the lives of
certain individuals like Damon and Amond.
Great. The unlocking of great powers,
the Dragons taking to wing these new Dragons with their new
dragon riders. Well not new Dragons but dormant
Dragons now ridden again. As well as the return of certain
powers that have always been there and like the old gods and
and all that. Not to mention armies on the
March towards one big Uber battle.
No no, not one big Uber battle towards many different battles.
Naval land. Who knows what The Who who Who
knows what how will happen with the Dragons in the air.
Yeah, I was going to say that. I thought that there were three
and I'm sure I I wouldn't argue with someone saying no, not so
much or there's this other one too, but I felt like there were
three overarching themes throughout.
One was this sort of destiny versus decision thing, the will
of the gods, you're saying, or whatever.
A lot of times the characters are, you know, finding or trying
to find their role in the bigger picture, right?
Ranira starts to make some of her decisions based on the idea
that like, hey, the Dragons chose these writers.
It must be part of some bigger plan.
And her dad told her about this prophecy for the future, the now
Damon has seen. And so sometimes that might make
people feel justified in some of what they're doing, you know,
when they think it is part of a bigger thing.
And I, I can't help this. It's just part of what I have to
do to fulfill this prophecy, You know?
Then I think identity, I think a lot of characters through the
course of this have gone through some identity changes, sometimes
based on the role they have or the amount of power that they
have. But also just seeing the effects
of their decisions on their lives and their loved ones has
made them question it and maybe change what they should be, what
they think they should be doing or whatever.
Maybe Cole and Allison maybe are the most clear examples of that,
although maybe they are ones who they're starting to regret or
question decisions they made. I feel like Rainier's identity
might be starting to abandon some of her restraint, that that
piece of her identity might go away.
Because that leads me to, I think the third prominent theme,
which is the horrors of war, that that several episodes and
several characters throughout the course of this seem to be
resisting war in every way they can.
And it just seems to be coming less and less possible.
But we're already starting to see the results of it.
And I think to whatever extent you want to compare the Dragons
to like nuclear bombs, even aside from nuclear bombs, we
were firebombing the heck out of Germany and and Japan before we
ever launched a nuclear bomb. We did way more damage with
firebombing than we did with the the atomic bombs.
And Aegon, you know, he happens to be the king.
He's his central character, so we're paying attention to him.
But God, I can't imagine how many thousands of people were
suffering those same types of burns due.
To. War, you know what I mean?
He's just the one we're kind of seeing now.
But we, we hear a sharp point, you know, thousands of people
were killed, probably a lot more are are left with scarring,
burns and broken limbs. And same thing at the Rook's
Rest. And to to me it's almost, I'm
almost glad they don't focus on it more 'cause it's so
disturbing. I hear that.
Yeah. Super chat from Merlin's milkers
brings up a great concept, Something we should talk about.
Merlin's milkers. Yeah.
I didn't know Merlin was so endowed.
Is Merlin Merlin's been gender flip now?
OK, I'm. I'm down with that.
No, no, just just no. Just has big titties.
Just has big titties, OK? They don't actually have milk.
It's just the. It's just the term, OK.
Maybe he has minions that milk cows.
Maybe he just likes milk a lot. He's got a squad called Merlin's
Milkers. They're always out there on the
farm doing great work with those cows.
Merlin's milker says. Thanks for the content y'all.
Season one didn't have crazy battles, but it was still rated
higher. I I think the main issue for
most people this season was pacing, not lack of battles.
Well let's let's define most people.
I think if you're talking about listeners of our show, I think
you I would probably agree to that.
I think the wider fandom complained about the lack of
battles. I agree that I think like y'all
for our listeners didn't complain about that at all.
I think people complaining about the lack of battles was them not
being able to articulate what they felt was off.
I think they were sensing a pacing issue and just like
putting it into words by saying that.
But I think they would have been happy if the pacing was
different regardless. I think that's very fair to say.
I think a lot of people are not great at articulating their
criticisms. And sometimes that just causes
people to argue because it's like, well, that's because they
don't necessarily articulate their criticism very well.
It doesn't mean their criticism isn't valid.
That just means they aren't able to communicate it super well.
And then if you argue with someone or debate someone based
on what they've said rather than what they're trying to say, then
that can really get you off track.
And that can cause arguments rather than debates, I think.
And so I, I, I tend to somewhat agree that the pacing wasn't as
good this season. I wouldn't say it was bad, but
I'd say that season one's season one's pacing was also very
unusual because. Yeah, with all the time.
Jumps. It had massive time jumps almost
every episode where this entire season probably only covered a
few months whereas the first season covered like 25 years.
So like, it's already a massive change in the the way the time
passes during the show. I've I've made this sort of
comment before too, by the way. Sometimes it's expectations.
If someone says, hey, I'm going to give you $100.
Oh, wow. For free.
Yeah, thanks. Cool.
And then they give you $95 like, hey, hey, this is only 95.
You said 100. Like, I don't have to give you
anything. Like you, you should be happy
for the 95. And I, I don't think that's
necessarily even the best analogy because I think that
people, for example, I've seen a lot of complaints about like
Damon, you know, floundering in, in Harrenhal, right?
And I think that's because people expected Damon to go to
Harrenhal and kick butt. They thought he was gonna like
stab someone with a sword and burn someone with his dragon.
And that didn't happen. Something different happened.
And so they kept being disappointed or surprised or
waiting for it, then it wasn't coming.
But if that's wasn't what you were expecting in the 1st place,
if what you were expecting was a dramatic analysis of his
internal grief, well, then this is it.
That's awesome. And that's exactly what you got.
And I think that's $105.00, not 90.
I think that's more than if he just gone and chopped a couple
heads off or something. He, he eventually did chop the
head off, but it was a very meaningful moment when he did.
So I, I think sometimes it comes from expectations.
And I think you can even test my theory by rewatching the season.
I think if you rewatch the season as you go through that,
you won't be frustrated. There wasn't a battle at any of
you for him because you already know there's not.
And instead you'll pay more attention to what is happening,
which is very interesting, very well directed, very well
performed, etcetera. So.
Yeah, that's well said. I think.
I think I mostly agree with that.
And back to Merlin's Milker's point, it's hard to say that
without laughing. So yeah, I think the pacing is a
fair complaint. It's obviously a big difference
from the first season, but I think a lot of that is also just
the source material. Like this is this is what George
gave them the they condensed 30 years into 2025 years, and that
gave them a lot of things to work with because they had to
skip things this time. They weren't skipping much from
the book because there wasn't much to skip.
It's like a couple of paragraphs here and there that describe
these massive grand events that they had to fill in a lot of
blanks for. And I think that was part of it
is like you're expecting them to fill in blanks, but the blanks
for season one are a little more straightforward.
I think the blanks for this one is like, well, what was Darren?
What was Damon doing at Harrenhal all that time?
That's from the book. It doesn't sound like he was
doing much at all. So having all this come out of
nowhere, it goes against expectations.
Even people who have positive expectations or we're happy with
that probably didn't see all that coming.
So yeah, I think you're right. Expectations has a lot to do
with it. And whenever you have a season
one, you kind of expect season 2 to maybe have more pay off.
But that's not really how. That's not really how the first
two seasons of Game of Thrones went.
That's not how the first two books went and it's not what
Ryan Condall said. Ryan Condall told us season 2
would be setting up and pairing. It's, you know, like it is more
like A Game of Thrones, a Clash of Kings, a Storm of Swords.
That's what season three is setting up to be.
Fray girl. That's with an A, not an E.
So it's not house Fray girl. Let's be clear.
Could Alice or one of her family line be Old Nan?
She knew about the antlers. It's possible.
I mean really hard to say who's Alice's relatives are or who her
family line is. Old Nan never came off to me as
someone that had magical, specifically magical insights.
She had an insight into magical things, but she herself is not a
supernatural being. Could be wrong, someone who
knows a lot about those things, but I can't say it's impossible.
I mean, the timeline fits. It's a pretty easy timeline to
fit Alice's, you know, probably Old Nan would have been born
around the time of Maester Eamonn, which would been in
around the year 200 one 98, something like that.
So good. 60-70 years after the Dance of the Dragons.
Well, we've already seen that Alice Rivers is a lot older than
she looks, so who's to say she can't live on?
I don't know if such a being can have children, you know, can you
keep having children if you have this extended life?
But based on a few things from the book, we can't rule it out.
So we are going to talk about Alice Rivers more.
We're we have an episode planned with Joe Magician in two weeks
from now. So we'll we'll talk about this
in a little more detail with him.
I know he has some theories and I can't some of the things I
can't say because I don't want to spoil Sean.
So we'll we'll come back for that episode and we'll get into
this a little deeper for a girl and everyone else.
Let's talk about the greens. We'll start with the greens in
the second-half. We'll talk about the blacks.
Allison starting with Allison. So one thing that we talked
about early that we that kind of fell off because it cease to be
a plot point, at least temporarily, maybe it'll come
back, which is her relationship with Kristen Cole.
Who knows about it? And does it matter that people
know about it? Otto probably knows, Gwaine
definitely knows and Laurice most certainly knows.
Now Laurice has fled the capital.
So what? What's he even going to do with
that information? Gwaine is on campaign with Cole
and he may neither of them may survive and Otto's in prison.
So the people that could spill the beans are not really in a
place to do so. And would it even matter if they
did? I'm not sure.
Like Allison, this relationship started after she was her
husband died. It would really be more of a
problem for Kristen than it would be for her, I think.
What do you think, Sean? How do you view this
relationship now that it's at least temporarily in the
rearview mirror? Maybe for good?
Yeah, there's a part of me that feels like it.
It should be done for good. I think there's a part of them
that's still cares for me, loves each other, is concern for each
other at least. But I think also the the the
separation that happened both emotionally and physically
throughout the course of the season has probably going to end
them romantically, but not their love for each other.
Does that make sense? OK.
Yeah, it does, yeah. And I, you know, I don't know
how much more they will get to interact in person anymore, but
I, you know, I think Kohl's. Vowels to the Kingsguard are
going to retake hold if you will, and it'll be torn but and
I, and I think she maybe even won't understand that and
understand they can't really have a relationship that that
she wants or needs. But I don't know if it's going
to matter their their relationship itself or people
who might know about it. I don't know what good anyone
would get from talking if things turned around somehow.
Like, let's say the Greens win this war and take power and
Allison is effectively leading because Zagon's died or missing
or what, you know, I could see some scenario where she
effectively is back in power. Then someone might want to
blackmail her and her Cole. But I got to say I don't really
foresee that happening. So I, I don't think, you know,
one is really motivated. I I can imagine a few other
people knowing about this, by the way.
I can imagine her being some some chambermaid or one.
Of the other keys guard. That's how Lars would have
found. Out at least being aware of it.
Maybe they're not certain or they don't have proof, but I
think those people also would have little to gain by telling
anyone. They're probably going to
endanger their own lives more than anything by telling anyone
about it. That's probably true, yeah.
You wonder, too, if Laris is left.
He's fled, but he's probably still got spies that he's left
behind in his household that could send him things.
You know, he's got money to give them for their information.
So they certainly have an incentive beyond just loyalty
because I don't know if that would be enough.
Another aspect to Allison's story that didn't, we didn't see
any progress in in the last few episodes, but we saw several
earlier, was her digging into books.
And I wonder if that's going to continue and if she's going to
learn anything more about that or whether that will ultimately
matter or whether that's just a plot threat that they've
abandoned. Rainier is one of those scrolls
now too, isn't she? She is.
You're right with that really brilliant framing shot.
Yeah, I'm. Just making a kind of dirty
joke. She's going to go deep into that
scroll. Unroll that one.
So that's something I'm curious about and one reason that I'm
thinking about in particular is that she's fallen from power.
That was one of her major arcs. The season is her slow but also
kind of sudden loss of power was like it was slow slow.
It's like drop A level, drop A level drop completely, right?
Just you're no longer on the council even, right.
Like so this gives her more time for being a mother and maybe
doing research. And certainly she's her turn to
motherhood has been very interesting because she's like,
well, I can't save my sons, but I can save my daughter and my
granddaughter. So that's very interesting.
This gets into predictions territory, but it does show
where her mind is at, where she wants to save Helena and Jahara.
Will she be able to? Where would they even go?
All these questions that are for later.
Let's talk about Eamonn. Eamonn's personality probably
doesn't change a lot, although he's confronted with something
that might shift his personality at the end here.
We haven't seen his full reaction to the events of of
episode 8, which are probably the other than him being
promoted, which made him more of himself than he ever was.
He just became more AIM. And he hasn't really been.
He hasn't met with proper resistance.
He's met with lots of disagreement, lots of people
saying you shouldn't do that, lots of people telling him it's
a mistake. He mostly just plows through all
that. So the consequences of any of
these mistakes haven't fully manifested.
For example, the Triarchy, he's everybody's like, don't make an
alliance with the Triarchy because in the long run, blah,
blah, blah will happen. Well, we haven't gotten to the
long run yet. The short term they may very
well help and that we haven't even seen that yet.
So there's a lot of things that have to play out with, but just
consider how it started. Remember early episode one,
Aegon brought Amon to council and Allison was like, what's he
doing here? Which sort of frames why Amon
wanted Allison con later 'cause he was like what she she was
objecting to him being there and then he kicked her out.
But also just the idea that Aegon was like, my brother's so
loyal. I can set him on AI can set him
like a dog on my foes. That's what he said to his
drinking's guard before they were drinking's guard.
Like oops, like think about that.
Like, whoops, that was that was kind of.
Yeah, Aegon really thought too highly of his brother.
Like he was very naive with that.
I mean, it's kind of a good quality in a lot of ways.
You kind of, you don't want to just be a paranoid person who's
like looking over your shoulder. Like, I don't know, I kind of
like that quality. Like I think it would have been
more sensible for him to be suspicious of Eamon from the
gecko, you know what I mean? Like that would have been
sensible, but I think it's admirable that he would truly,
really and truly trust and love his brother and, and be mean and
bully him and all of these things.
Like, again, Aegon has been terrible to Amon, but I think he
he never thought that Amon would stand up to him.
So maybe that's a less charitable view of it, right?
That rather than about the love and trust that he just never
thought Amon would actually stand up against him.
I don't know. I think that he thought too much
of his brother and too little of his brother really.
He is just too self-centered to appropriately think about his
brother at all. Does that make sense that he was
just assumed he could use him as a tool however he wanted
whenever he want. If I want to make so on and so
on, I'll make fun of my brother. If I want someone to be on my
side when I say let's go to war, I, I'll give my brother, you
know, so he potentially could have had a better ally in
aiming, right? That that was in that in the
council. Like he wanted his brother there
because he knew his brother would be on board with let's go
to war. But outside the council, he
treated his brother like crap. So outside the Council's brother
burden. Yep, I mean, that's that's a
good way to put it. He could have made an ally of
his brother, but he's not good. Like a lot of people in his
position, a lot of privileged people with who are under
parented and even some who were parented properly or over
parented, they don't think through the consequences of
their actions very well because they're they're they're in,
they're immune to a lot of the consequences of their own
actions because of that great level of privilege.
And and you know, oh, the king messed up.
OK, that's fine. You just like when he gets away
with rape, for example, like what better example is that?
I mean, a lot of rich privileged people can get away with crimes
like that. We were in the real world.
That happens all the time, sad to say, but not a surprise to
anyone to hear it. So yeah.
So he's a person that grew up with not experiencing the
consequences of his own actions and now he is like he taunts his
brother and his brother pays him back a hundredfold.
Now to be fair, yes, Eamon's disloyalty started before that.
He was plotting with Kristen Cole on the sly and making plans
and all this other stuff. And this is and this is shows
Eamon's arc a bit. A bit.
He has a high opinion of himself, and that just gets
bigger and bigger as the season goes on until he's finally
confronted the the person he perhaps least expected to stand
up to him. Obviously his mother's been
standing up to him this whole time, but he kind of just like,
pushes her aside and ignores her or just doesn't end around like,
well, I'll just come back to Helena when she's not there,
when Allison's not there and talk to her again.
Our mom doesn't understand. Oh, I understand.
I saw you burn our brother. He is.
He couldn't have predicted she would stand up to him and she's
he certainly couldn't predict the reasoning for her standing
up to him the the evidence that she has.
He couldn't imagine she would have that.
So his whole world view is thrown off, His whole position
is thrown off, his authority has been rejected for the first
time, and he hasn't built loyalty.
Not only did did he do a worse job of getting his own family on
his side than Egon did, but he's turned his own counsel against
him. Think about this.
Council sessions were a regular feature of the early part of the
season. Eamon's just kind of semi
dissolved the council, right? Like Iron Rod.
It was like an Orwell, like that's it.
Like you know you didn't mean it specifically but if semi
dissolved means half dissolved he exact it went from 8:00 to
4:00 and in the last meetings one person wasn't even there.
Yeah, Elaris is gone now, so there's really only three.
I think it's just Iron Rod Orwell and Amond.
And yeah, Haman's flying all over the place, burning cities.
He's about to leap, right. Yeah.
So he. Can consult with this council
before he goes. Probably not Well, so it'll be
Helena. Will Helena hold a council
meeting? Will we even get a single like
moment of her ruling? I, I, I don't know, but that's
what Allison said is Helena will be the authority.
But like, I assume Helena is the authority and Iron Rod is
handling the, the day-to-day and like he comes to Helena and he
says, hey, Helena, can we do that?
I, I, I, I really would like to see this play out.
I know we're about to see Just Rainier a swoop in, but I
actually would love to see that. That would be cool.
A lot of Eamon's adage seems to be, look, I'm the best, I have
the biggest dragon. Well, how does his worldview get
affected by the fact that, well, now there's all these other big
Dragons, so, you know, you're not the most powerful, maybe
individual you are, but your side isn't.
So how does that affect his his world view, his his going
forward? Well, that's a conversation for
another time. But certainly he's that's how
things end for him on a he's on a meteoric rise that he doesn't
realize is very problematic as he doesn't understand how many
bad decisions he's made because the long term hasn't played out
yet. And now he all of a sudden is
confronted by perhaps the, the the least likely person in his
family to confront him. And that's very surprising to
him. You know, another thing just
need to think about is a lot of the mistakes he made, he still
might not really face those consequences because it's not
really a mistake he made that caused Renera to get more dragon
writers, right? He'll feel like that's just this
unfair thing to happen, or the will of the gods, or another
thing he has to overcome. Not that I messed up by closing
the city gates to the people or the merchants ships or whatever
else you won't think. Those are mistakes.
Yeah. He may not find out the whole
chain of events that that led to all that.
And. And you're right, he'll
certainly find another way to blame like he did with the
blockade. He's like, why are they blaming
us for the blockade? That's Rainier's blockade.
He's like, yeah, but you're the kid.
You're the one in charge. You're supposed to feed the
people no matter what. Like, that doesn't matter.
Like the blame, Yeah, it's, it's annoying that they're blaming
you, but it doesn't change your responsibility.
But he doesn't see it as responsibility.
He sees it as a privilege. I think that's a big part of big
part of his, his view of everything.
Aegon the 2nd, on the other hand, started with a few
positive instincts. He's definitely naive, you know,
but he wanted to win the people over, which was a good instinct.
That's that was smart even whether he had the right logic
behind all that or not. But he pretty quickly loses his
grip when his son is murdered. He he goes from giving them what
they want to giving them reasons to riot and turn on him.
And then he just compounds that by making more rash decisions
and starting to drink heavily, culminating with one and
particularly one particularly rash decision that was brought
on by drinking. So like the two things really
came together there for Rooks Rest and that changed his
outlook dramatically. So he went from trying to be a
good king to having to to being the most powerful man in the
Kingdom to running off with Loris in a box full of Ravens.
Like that is a dramatic change for him.
Technically still the king though in a manner of speaking.
He's ordained and crowned and that that counts for a lot of
people. Even if his family gets run out
of King's Landing, there would still be people that believe his
claim is superior. So I'd say one of the biggest
changes and perhaps one of the most interesting ways to point
to his arc is that he started off trying to not be like his
father and just ended up more and more like his father the
more he went through it. You know, he got to this point
for different reasons, like his father's didn't lose his health
because of 1 battle, but it was because of the throne, right?
It was being king did these things to him.
He's on, he's walking with a cane.
His face is half burned. He can't have, he's not going to
have a son like, you know, because he can't have a son,
just like Viserys couldn't have a son, you know, until he well,
he could, but not with his not with the wife he wanted to.
So there's a lot of parallels there.
And I think that's pretty dark, but also pretty pretty clever
storytelling to have him kind of turn this way and and be like
the man he didn't want to be. I'm particularly enamored.
That's honestly part of the reason I voted for Hang On for
Tom Glenn Carney as an actor too, because I I I particularly
like the writing for his storyline.
Otto. Not a lot to say about Otto, but
he has a very he's a more simple description to his arc for the
season, a voice of reason despite being highly responsible
for the situation in the 1st place.
This is like, hey, I wanted to create this but not this.
I wanted to create a more orderly version of this, which
maybe was foolish in the 1st place to think that was ever
possible. Still, his arc is in a position
of power, advising the king to in a box, and we don't even know
who has him. That is also a very big turn,
right, Even with Glenn Hightower halfway through the season just
kind of telling us. Don't worry about it.
He's Otto Hightower is a man of means, a man of, you know, he'll
he'll give U.S. news when there's news to tell.
I go. Will he?
OK. So, yeah.
So it's that is kind of weird that we all disliked Otto for
his decisions, loved his acting. So now it's kind of like, man,
these greens will be better off with Otto, right?
Yeah, I, I wasn't a particular auto hater, right?
Like, I think he made some mistakes, but I think usually
his mistakes were more in his communication and his empathy
more so than the actual choice that was being made, if that
makes sense. You know, I think sometimes he
was making tough choices that I wish no one had to make.
But that, you know, if you given that you are in this position
where you have this responsibility for these people
in this administration and etcetera, etcetera, then, well,
sometimes, you know, you know, it may maybe there's some
systemic problems that these choices have to be made in the
1st place, right? But given that there's going to
be, you know, a change of power, given that you're going to have
these leaders decided based on order of birth, you know, given
you're going to have that and the conflicts that come from it,
think Otto's doing the best that he can.
I, I, I wish, you know, going back into the roots of some of
this, that through his life, he could have been fighting some of
the sexism that was going to keep Rainier from being accepted
instead of it being sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.
So him deciding the men of the realm won't accept this.
So I need another plan. He could have decided how can I
make the men of the realm accept this?
You know that I think that's the real mistake that he made.
But but that's not unique to Otto, right?
That's not like some crazy mistake Otto made.
That's almost every single character in the show, including
most of the women are making that mistake.
So but but it is hard to see him take the make these tough
decisions. We don't see the internal grief
that he has like Damon, like we we see Damon do some awful
things and he seems cocky and arrogant about it.
But it was revealed in this season that he had some some
turmoil inside him. I bet Otto does too, and we
would feel more for him if we saw that.
Well, maybe his his course in prison might bring that out.
We'll see. Yeah, we'll see.
That's interesting. And as I'll repeat, he this is
not exactly a book plot. So it's one of the ones that has
this particularly curious because we don't know what
they're doing with it. Christian Cole.
Yeah, we talked about him a little bit when we described
Fabian's performance and he had one of the bigger turns.
Like he's just a guy that a little bit like Aegon, but for
different reasons. Cop is he doesn't have the the
privilege and he's not the king and he's not a Targaryen.
And his his upbringing was very different, but he goes from
maybe a little too much power. He's given he's got a lover,
which he's not supposed to have. And then he's plotting with Amon
and then becomes hand and then it just all reverses.
He's he's a pretty effective leader.
Morality aside, he does his job as a war leader pretty well in
the Crown lands and but then he's just traumatized by Rooks
rest his his. This is a veteran whose entire
view of war is flipped based on what he's seen.
And this is not unrealistic. In fact it's very realistic.
There are countless examples in real life of people who've been
in 50 or more battles. This is the 51st battle.
Breaks them and their their nerve.
There's trauma, it just piles up or something.
Finally breaks them. Not unrealistic at all.
And in this case, you at least have something very specific to
point to as what was different in this battle than all the
other battles you've been in. Clearly the Dragons.
And then he starts. It goes downhill from there.
Not only is he traumatized by Rooks Rest, he makes the mistake
of thinking parading Melis's head and the capital is going to
be a good thing, and that backfires.
He doesn't. Aymond stops treating him like
an ally and like a subordinate and he has his falling out with
Allison. And then when he finally goes
back to the field, he goes, he's extremely fatalistic, just
expects to die. Gives that brilliant speech that
was really powerful, but also, as I said at the time, isn't
exactly what you want to hear from a guy leading your army.
I was like, jeez, this guy is already dead.
He's got one foot in the ground in the grave already.
But that's just a it. It was really well done.
I thought this is a a big turn for his character, a big change.
It's a it's a compelling season long arc that goes from like
this, this man with a lot of confidence and almost cockiness
to a man who's just like, what is this life that we have?
Like, like there's nothing or dust before the Dragons.
Yeah, it was really, really good.
You know, I think the, I think he was assured, he had a very
assured quality in himself. You know, like he was sure of
himself. And I think he still is, just in
a different way. Sure that they're screwed?
Yeah, he's sure that they're marching to their annihilation.
I think that he I suspect that he might already have been
experiencing. I'm hesitant to use exactly PTSD
but something like that. I don't think you should be
hesitant at all, Sean. I think it is like, if you can't
have PTSD from the things he's gone through, then what?
What could you ever have it for? Like, yeah, go ahead.
But yes. But I just think in those
battles he was fighting, I think he was still disturbed by all
the the the killing in general. Like he probably killed a lot of
people, hit on his own, like his own storm plunged through the
heart of multiple people, but ordered the death of even more.
You know, like telling 10,000 troops to attack 5000 troops is
going to kill way more than he could do on his own and
executed. Benny, which is different,
that's killing someone kind of in cold blood.
It's not the same as in the heat of battle.
And I think he may have been throughout all that able to, I
don't know what word to use, bottle up justify it, whatever
it is, because it's part of this bigger mission to protect the
king and to protect the, the throne and, and the, the, the
sort of legacy of the, the rule of the realm.
There's this sort of bigger picture goal and a few thousand
people might die, but in the end, we're going to have peace
on the continent. But once that dragon just
started burning people to death, he's like, whatever kind of
justifications I had, whatever games I was playing in my mind
to make it OK and go out and kill people, all my fine
endeavors, they just don't matter anymore.
None of that matters anymore. It doesn't matter if I'm a good
commander. I don't have control over who's
going to be king now. Like I'm just going through the
motions and these Dragons, these gods are really deciding for
everyone. And in the meantime, am IA mass
murderer. Can I just say I'm a?
Star Are we the baddies? It's.
Funny you say that. You say it, you know, you see,
they call him Kingmaker, you know, like he didn't really make
any of these kings. Not not not really.
Not truly. Yeah, his his role wasn't any
bigger than Otto or Allison or yeah, but yeah, so we'll have to
see how that plays out for him. He's become pretty interesting.
Definitely a lot more interesting than his book
version I'd say. Elena is even more blatantly
changed from her book version though, given these prophecies,
which makes her a very interesting character.
I've very much enjoy what they've done with her and look
forward to more. Her season begins with her
losing her son and walking in on Kristen Cole and Allison having
sex. And maybe having stitched a
burial shroud for her son in advance, she forgives Allison in
a later scene, which we're still kind of wondering what that was
about or if it's still yet to come.
Or do you think she forgives her now?
Now, in retrospect, with seeing Allison's treason, do you think
she forgave her for this, this act of.
Treason. I hadn't thought of that one
yet. Good call.
Yeah, that's a really good candidate.
It might be a multi layered, multi tiered forgiveness, but
that's a good one. That's a really, that's maybe
the best guess I've seen so far, yeah.
Yeah, I mean that the treason hasn't played out 'cause we
haven't seen how that will play out with regards to the.
Last thing she does this season, Yeah.
Or less than any Greens do. Yeah, great call.
At the time, like the the default for that was I forgive
you for a single Kristen, but but we so often and in fact, the
beast beneath the board seems to keep having new things that it
might have been applying to. I think that I forgive you too,
and I don't really even know how this is going to play out, of
course, but Allison has still, in her own mind, decided to
sacrifice her son. So whether or not it happens or
how it happens, Helena still might forgive her for that if
she's aware that Allison. Also, good point.
Yeah, that's her. That's her brother, her husband.
Yeah, the the father to her child.
So that is a pretty big deal. We also had the procession, the
funeral, which she didn't like that, which we considered maybe
that was something she was forgiving her for.
She really didn't like doing that.
She asked Eamon was it worth the cost and that's before we knew
that she witnessed Rooks rest in her dreams or visions.
So she asked was it worth the cost when he was standing there
looking at the throne. Now looking back on that scene
she really did know what the cost was.
She had a fuller view of it than we could have been sure about at
the time. Now we also have her make this
comment about her. One of her crickets Stop
singing. I'm not so sure about that.
We got some decent guesses, but I wouldn't say any of those are
like, oh, that's definitely it, but there's some good guesses.
I saw an interview with Fiesta Bomb where they gave her.
There's a couple of the guesses they, they told her them and she
was like, oh, I hadn't really, you know, she hadn't like she
gave her, her answer was not about a prophecy.
Her answer was no. Helena genuinely was upset that
one of her crickets had stopped singing.
That made her sad. Like it was she was being
literal in that. It wasn't prophetic.
It wasn't prophetic, is what she said.
Not that she she said she'd like seeing the prophetic
interpretations, but as an actress or whatever in that
moment when she's performing, when she's like her read on.
It is what is what she's saying that you know, so that's
interesting. Well, every good red sewing
needs a red herring or green herring.
Is it a green herring? I don't know.
So the it's it's pretty interesting to have an end of
the season where the most peaceful character in the entire
show probably is being dragged off to war.
Or he's trying to drag her off to war at the end, only for him
or her to confront him with in a way that he could have never
dreamt of being confronted. As we explained when we talked
about Eamon. Meanwhile, Allison wants her to
leave and whether they're going to get to or not or where they
would even go. Again, we have no idea that we
talked about that with Allison and she appears in Damon's
dream, which is also pretty huge.
And if Damon and her ever come face to face, what?
What what would he say to her? What would she say to him?
Like, yeah, hey, there you are. I saw you in the dream.
Like, when's the lot? Damon and Helena, have they ever
had a conversation? Certainly they have it on
screen. I don't think they've even said
a word to each other on screen. Certainly not a conversation.
But that would be a conversation to have.
Now, some of this is, again, this falls into the predictions
territory. But like half everything
Helena's, you can't talk about Helena and not talk about the
future. It's like her own character is
predictions and prophecies and stuff.
So, yeah, but the big change to her, I think, was how her role
in the story changed a lot because she was a person that we
would discuss, like, what are her prophecies mean?
But no one in the story is talking about them.
No one in the story has affected even the slightest by them.
They just think she's weird. Like, OK, there's Helena being
weird again. Happy clap for her that that's
everybody's response to her. Or or Rainier, like Helena.
Why would I target Helena? She's the sweetest one.
Like, she's not a threat, but here at the climax in the final
episode of the season, she tells a prophecy, multiples arguably
to her brother, revealing that she has this power now it's out
in the open. Who else is going to find out?
Who else is she going to tell? So that's a big ball of wax, a
big Pandora's box. Helena's box is opened, Digby
Smollett says Helena's great. I don't buy that she doesn't
like riding her dragon though. She gives massive horse girl
energy. No way would she not love dream
fire. Yeah, she does love flying in
the book. But they have not shown us that
quality in her, and they've even made it seem as if she doesn't
like it in the show. And I, I think I agree with
people's assessment that it is a way to cut costs.
Yeah. And not film it.
To cost cut. But I just I'm it makes me, I am
disappointed. Let me still say there's a
difference between not liking riding her dragon, which may or
may not be the case, they certain haven't showed it much.
But there's there's not like riding her dragon and not
wanting to ride her dragon into battle to burn people to death.
They did make that distinction though.
She did say like Rainier said, Helena does not like riding her
dragon. It wasn't.
It had nothing to do with fighting.
Also she doesn't want to burn people, that's an even
important. But no she just doesn't.
Like she's just not into her dragon, which is definitely
different from the book. She liked her dragon.
However, even at this point in the story, in the book, she'd
stop writing her dragon because she was so broken by blood and
cheese that she'd stop. So it gets us to a similar
place. She's she's still more likely to
fly in the show than she was in the book.
At this point I would. Rather see her like now maybe
with all of these losses and being alone, she might go
reconnect with her dragon. I don't know.
She could end up at the, you know, she could by the end of
the show be close with her dragon as she was in the books.
Like, you know, we talk all about how characters can grow or
regress or whatever, so we shouldn't assume that Helena is
static and stagnant and will not at all do have changes.
Yeah, I I suspected that she might be, even though the show
didn't seem to be presenting her as someone who's going to ride
off in a war on her dragon. I thought she might jump at the
chance to get revenge for her dead son.
Right. I thought there was a chance
that would happen, but when she didn't, I was happy.
I was happy. She's like, I'm not going to
burn anyone. I appreciated that.
And I get that might be frustrating maybe from a
multiple levels, whether from the book or otherwise, that it's
crazy she wouldn't dig her dragon.
And I didn't quite read it that way.
Maybe I just missed the line of dialogue.
But one or the other, I do think it's reasonable for someone to,
even if you take it in a more realistic way, like someone
might like horses. I like riding horses.
I like my pet horse. I like to groom it and take care
of it and draw pictures of it. OK, get in your horse with a
sword and go kill people. Hold on, I'm not doing that.
Doesn't. Mean, I don't like, that's
different. Yeah, yeah.
I would also point to, I think a comparison between Viserys and
Helena, who I like comparing them.
They kind of have some some similarities.
Kind of sad we never really got any moments with Viserys and
Helena because I mean, they both have the other like hyper
fixation interests. But Viserys, you know, was very
uncomfortable with Valerian and talked about how it's a myth
that we control these Dragons. And he was also kind of attuned
with dreams. And I don't know, I, I, I think
of Viserys's discomfort when I think of Helena there.
And so that resonates with me at least as much as I can be
displeased with other parts. I kind of like there being
another parallel between Viserys and Helena.
Yeah, I like that, too. That parallel is good, Digby
Smallett also says. I imagined a Helena Damon is the
guy that cut that man's head off in the throne room.
Yeah, he did kill Vaymond in front of everybody and.
I had, I was wondering like in in Damon's mind, like vice
versa. Like what what does he think of
who Helena is? He's like, wait, that's like
that's Helena. Like like he probably has not
really thought much about her ever.
Like he recognizes. I don't know.
I. Because she's not.
Because, again, she doesn't ride her dragon very much.
He probably doesn't perceive her as a threat.
Yeah. Exactly.
But like I know he he would know her face.
He would know who that. Is, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that Digby's comment really made me think about like,
who is Damon to Helena? Who is Helena to Damon?
Yeah. What are their view of each
other? Yeah.
Damon doesn't even think much of his own daughter, who does ride
a dragon. So what in the world is he?
Thinking about how he's about to maybe have a second daughter
with a dragon, too. Hey, one that's actually about
the size of his, unlike Baila's. Yeah.
So other members of the Greens that we aren't going to discuss,
but individuals. But I want to throw their names
out there so we remember, you know, as a summary of who's on
their team. We got Thailand, we got Iron
Rod, we got Orwell, we got Gwain Hightower, we got Little
Princess Jahara, we got Sir Richard Thorne and whoever else
the Kingsguard are these days. I know there's been some
turnover with the Drinking's guard getting hired and fired
and Eric and Arik and all that. So that's that's probably been
some changes there, some names we haven't heard yet.
Prince Darren barely entering the the fray now with his dragon
Tasari and along with the Hightower army.
And they also lost a few people now in terms of their allies,
who they have, obviously, I mentioned Prince Darren and
Tasari and with the Hightower armies that are on the March,
let's not forget they're a little bit delayed by their
engagement with reach armies that are not on their side,
because there's there's a portion of the reach that are
either sworn to rain era already, they kept their oath
from before and or they're with the Bees buries because really,
what kind of overlord kills one of their own vassal Lords?
That's that's just that goes against a lot of tenets of honor
and and the feudal system. So there's that's a very
justifiable reason to turn on them and the tarlies, the
tarlies and bees berries aren't alone there in fighting against
the the high towers. We don't know exactly which
houses we have an idea from the books.
It might be slightly different in the show.
They haven't named all the houses.
We'll just leave that for now. Lannister pretty
straightforward. They've marched out of the West.
They're now in the Riverlands last we see them with an army
and some lions. Yeah, the crown lands are on
their side of the crown lands is pretty depleted thanks to rooks
rest and all that, but they do have a few thousand men from
there that Kristin Cole is currently leading towards
Harrenhal. And now they have the Triarchy,
which as of the moment they set sail, the only note probably
Thailand sent a Raven, but that's the the IT may not have
even gotten there yet. So they aren't keep, they aren't
factoring in this big Navy that's now on their side, but
it's a pretty substantial boon to their 'cause even with the
long term set aside, as I mentioned, regardless of what
they might do, you know, a year from now having a hundred ships
or whatever that is coming to attack the Gullet where the
Valarian fleet is. Well, you can see why the Greens
would be enthused about that, especially because the the
Valarians don't even see it coming at this point.
They keep talking about we're going to fight lions and krakens
and they don't mention the Triarchy.
Let's not forget, though, that there's a Baratheon in the mix
here. The Baratheons were like, yeah,
we married our daughter to Hammond.
We haven't heard a thing from them.
Isn't that interesting, Sean, What do you make of that?
Any, any. Like this is the guy that got so
mad about. Like, they can't just make me.
I'm not a dog to be called up to heal.
Remember? That's what Eamon almost said
the exact same thing when? When Lord Jason wanted him to
come escort their army. You know, that is an interesting
thought, or it's sparked several interesting thoughts.
One is even if they don't muster troops and join the battle, at
least they're not turning against you.
At least you're not defending against Storm's End, right?
They are a a very geographically nearby entity that you don't
have to worry about ostensibly, but did Eamon marry that girl?
You're right. It's a betrothal.
They're not married. She was too young.
Yeah.
OK, I, I, you didn't make me realize that nothing came from
that. And so, you know, maybe that
betrothal's enough. But maybe once the battle starts
to happen, maybe if one of those Baratheon allies, you know,
someone at the Baratheon think of as an ally, but Eamon burns
their town down, that might change their tune.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's definitely a
situation to monitor. That's a lot of, it's a lot of
power that's not in the field yet.
It doesn't even appear to have been marshalled like there were,
there weren't Baratheon armies marching.
We saw a lot of armies marching and that's not, and that wasn't
one of them. We weren't necessarily expecting
them to, but it certainly is interesting.
They're a powerful region. They're not the biggest region,
but they're certainly not to be despised.
Now, another factor to consider is that Doran is independent, so
both the Reach and the Stormlands as having borders
with Dorn in a time where they're not part of the same
nation means they do have to worry about that.
Like pulling their troops elsewhere might give the Dornish
an opportunity. I mean, that's the last thing
they want is to let that happen. So that is at least a
consideration for the Baratheon. But that can't be everything
that that certainly isn't the whole story.
Would you say the Dornish are a wild card?
Hey, wild card. Yes, good reference.
So let us run through real quick as well what the plots were for
the greens. I don't think we've covered most
of these in our discussions, but if you have folks reach out to
us if any of these plot lines you feel were need further
discussion or if you have questions about them, maybe it's
a good reason for us to circle back at some point.
And by the way, the the rest of the Reach, not only is it not
clear which are fighting for the blacks, there's other parts of
the Reach that are with the Greens that haven't been
specified yet too. So some of that will probably be
explained as these things work themselves out.
A lot of houses just haven't declared.
They're still kind of waiting to see what happens.
Like, I don't want to take a side until I can maybe join the
winner. And it's not clear who the
winner is. A lot of the houses probably
don't even know that Rainier has all these Dragons yet.
So like, all the more reason to just let things play out until
they have a full picture. OK, so there's the plot of
Allison and Kristen Cole's relationship, Aegon's crowning
Blood and Cheese and the rat catchers, Eric Ark, the Crown
Lands campaign culminating in the trap of Rooks Rest.
The victory that was not a victory, I suppose.
Then following up the victory that was not a victory is the
celebration that was not a celebration.
Mele's head going through the streets, followed by Amon's
Regency where nearly every decision he makes is objected
to. But none of them are actually.
They all keep going. None of them.
No one actually stops him. Aegon's recovery and eventual
escape. That's obviously a developing
situation. The March on Harrenhal still
developing. Closure of gates and port
inspections, that's been going on.
But I wouldn't say that's peaked yet.
Like certainly people, it's getting worse and worse.
Every day it gets worse. The alliance of the Trierarchy
that's also a brand new. The burning of Sharp Point.
Amon's general escalating fury and fear which go together.
Is he going to burn more places? How else is he going to lash
out? Is he going to get control of
himself? I just look at this list of
leadership changes throughout the season for the Greens.
Like they're the party in power at least by virtue of holding
the crown and the Iron Throne. But they cannot agree even who
is running things on their side. You got Otto out, Allison out,
Aegon in and then out again. Larry's in and then out again,
Amond in and question Mark and now Allison's betrayal at the
end like on top of all that. So who knows?
Kristen Cole kind of out, too. Like he was.
Promoted ahead, but he went off to battle and Otto was called
in. He's to whatever extent he is,
maybe officially still Hand. He is not practically still Hand
so. The music they should have in
the council chamber is musical chairs.
You know, there is one of the little plot point that, you
know, maybe you guys don't even want to talk about too much
because it could be potentially spoiler, but Aegon's dragon it
there seemed to be some ambiguity as to whether it was
dead and in Aegon said, I think. I I remain a Sunfire truther.
I don't think Aegon knows. I think he's going to be as
surprised as anyone that Sunfire's alive.
But again, because just the rule of television see a body, and I
think that's true here too. The here's one thing about if I
was going to nitpick a little that one way or the other, I
think it would be better known. I think that more people would
have witnessed Aegon being burned by Amond in the battle.
Maybe not, but certainly people saw that dragon fall and the
clearing in the woods and there would either be reports of it
crawling away or reports of people, you know, the the new.
It would be like someone discovering gold, like there are
all this dragon scale and dragon bone.
There'd be value to it. People would be making weapons
out of it or something. There would be some sort of like
a spurn to the greens that like we've got your dragon or, or I,
I don't know, I feel like some story would bubble forth from
that, whether the dragon was dead or not.
We haven't heard anything so. Yeah, it is interesting to see.
There might be more to it. You're absolutely right.
So that's the greens. I think there's certainly some
more nuance we could have gone on there, but I think those are
the high points. Those are the characters.
Those are where they stand in terms of the war.
So yeah, hit us up if if you, if anything else you want us to
cover with regards to that, but we'll call it there for the
greens for now. I'll move on to the blacks in a
minute. Want to shout out our good
friends over at Magic Mind. I'm really enjoying their mental
performance shots. It has gotten me through the
season. We have so much work that we
have to do during the season. It's fun work.
We love covering the show, but it does get a bit hectic doing
several episodes a week. A share has huge amounts of
editing to do. I have lots of writing to do,
and that can really be taxing. You know, it's a it's a lot of
time, it's a lot of thinking. I know a lot of you drink coffee
and so this is like, you're like, Oh yeah, I'm so used to
this type of thing, but I have never been a caffeine drinker or
coffee or anything like that. So for me, it's been really nice
to have my routine of, you know, I get up, I I make my drink with
my magic mind in it and I sit at my desk and I drink it and I
start my work day and it is, it works for me.
And again, if you're, if you're a long term caffeine drinker,
yeah, of course, that's how it works.
That's how it works. I had never experienced that.
I don't, I don't know. I had it.
It doesn't have much caffeine in it, but it does have a little
and it uses other ingredients to stimulate your brain.
And some of these are long term. We've done research on a lot of
the ingredients and several of them have had pretty rigorous
testing and definitely the claims are real.
You get, there's a few of them that actually give long term
benefits of memory and concentration and focus.
These are peer reviewed studies. No woo present here my friends.
And personally I can vouch for it having helped.
I can tell when I've been on it for a while, it starts to build
up and then I'm I'm able to wake up a little bit earlier, maybe
focus a little bit longer. Maybe my attention span lasts a
little a little deeper into the evening than it might otherwise.
Hard to say exactly, but absolutely I can tell it's
helping out and you all can get your own little sample pack by
going to magicmine.com/VIP. How trial?
That's VIPHOW trial HOW? Of course, History of Westeros
to get 3 bottles of magic Mind they're this size, look at how
nice they are and you can start your morning or your afternoon
if you are a night person. With one, and then two and then
three and see how it goes for you.
And if you like it, well, then you can subscribe and get the
full benefit. Bottoms up.
That's good. Now my mind is more magical.
That's right friends, go to magicmind.com/VIP How trial, get
your three free bottles and see how it works for you.
Also, we've been having lots of fun over on our Twitch account,
our Twitch channel twitch.tv/history of Westeros
and big news, the dragon content is coming this week.
In fact, they have added Dragons to the code.
So we'll be starting a new campaign, either Blackfyre or
Targaryen, and playing with Dragons.
I have no idea what to expect. They had Dragons in the earlier
version of Crusader Kings 2. Those were fun, but this is
crusader kings three much better much more developed, much better
graphics. So I don't know what to expect,
but I know it's going to be awesome.
So come check us out at twitch TV dot history of westeros every
Friday at 6:00 PM. We stream and my streams have
been getting longer and longer as we get deeper into the game
it. Was five hours on Friday night.
Aziz just just couldn't stop being Renly the Beautiful.
I was Renly. Yeah, I was Renly.
Renly somehow had like 10 children with Marjorie.
This is he also had a a little side piece man, but you know, he
needed to father heirs. We finished that stream off by
becoming Daenerys invaded and went to war with Robert because
Robert was still king at this point.
And this is obviously a different timeline.
And Stannis was still alive as as the Prince of Dragonstone.
And so we just said, hey, Danny versus Robert, this is our time
to declare independence. So the king I became the new
Storm King, an independent nation, after Danny won and
defeated Robert. Funny thing, she defeated
Robert. Robert's still her heir because
she can't have kids. And so I seduced Daenerys with
my incredible, overwhelming charisma.
Renly has the highest diplomacy score I've ever seen on a
character. So he just befriended her and
charmed her and bedded her, even though he's not into women.
And so that that is hopefully going to help him keep his
Kingdom independent. Although we're done with that
season, done with that now that we're going to start over and
play with Dragons, I bet it was a good story.
Does Renly always have that high diplomacy stat or just this
timeline that you're in or? He is.
He's born with a lot of natural talent in that regard, and I
developed it. Yeah, he's born.
He's like being good looking, helps with charisma, and then he
also just has some basic stats that help with that.
Like he's got a good diplomacy stat to start with.
And then, yeah, I just did a lot of things to to boost it even
more. The five year Franco should be
really high in that. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Christian Cole anyway, met. Fan man says you all are great.
Also, can I get your current guesses on where The Four
Seasons of Hot D end? You can get that in a different
episode. We are going to do that, but we
can't do it today because Sean is unsullied.
He doesn't know the end. It would be kind of interesting.
I don't know if it's going to be long.
I would say Sean shouldn't do it, but I would be kind of
interested in Sean as someone who's unselling, who doesn't
know where he think he thinks it'll end, what he thinks would
be the ending. If you got him to do it every
time you can, but you want to do it now, you could.
OK, so Matt fan man, we are going to talk about that.
That's going to be a topic of discussion in a week or two very
soon. Well, not probably not next
week, but before, before too long that we'll cover that.
But we got to do it on a day Sean isn't here.
So for now, we'll tease it by letting Sean take a few guesses.
These are obviously a little bit more random.
Again, Sean has not read the Dance of the Dragons.
He doesn't know how it actually ends, so this is pure guesswork
based on what you've seen so far.
I would say, Sean, I would like to know, maybe it's the same
thing, but one, what your ACT, what your guess is what you
think is reasonable for what it could be and maybe two, what you
want it to be. Maybe those are the same thing.
But I I just want to give two those are two different things
potentially. Let me start by saying that I
thought it was going to be three seasons.
Only in this past couple weeks have I realized that it's going
to be Four Seasons. And I thought that next season
was just going to be all this sort of conflict and battles
that have been built up. We're going to play out through
the season. And I thought that it might have
sort of a tragic end with, you know, an Ozymandias type of
like, you know, someone wins and they're ruling over ashes.
You know, all their friends and family and allies are all dead,
but you're a king. Good job.
You got what you wanted. Or queen.
But knowing it's going to be Four Seasons makes me think
there must be whole new plot lines that are going to rise up
because it's hard for me to think how it's really even going
to be close with Renera having as many Dragons as she does.
So I wonder if through this next season, maybe one or two of the
new dragon riders doesn't cooperate with her or turns the
other side. Or maybe they just get killed.
Maybe they they make mistakes or they don't have the experience
and Eamon takes them out. Maybe I, as we just brought up
the The Reason awards, yeah, maybe the Storm Lords do get
upset by something that Raniero does and, and join the fray.
And I guess I don't know, I, I, I'm kind of wondering if the
Baratheons might have some dragon rider blood in them,
right? Because wasn't the first
Baratheon ostensibly Aegon and Conqueror's half brother or
something? So.
It's been a while, but yes, yeah, yeah.
And there's been, you know, re infusion here and there, but
yeah, they don't have it. They don't have it recent, but
they do have it, yeah. So, you know, maybe there's some
potential for somehow they claim a dragon, maybe the war somehow
drags on for a long time and I, I maybe they like do another
time jump. Drag on for a long time, get it
bro I. Wish I could take credit for
having done that on purpose, but yeah, I, I, I just put me on the
spot. I, you know, I, I, I have a hard
time thinking of how it might go.
I guess the the one of the thought maybe is it the four
season or a large chunk of the four season is how it plays out.
Maybe at the end of the third season someone has won.
But knowing what's important to George, haven't listened to so
much of what he says or just observing how he writes.
I think about this all the time for the main series, the main
song of Ice and fire series. I have a hard time envisioning
how it will quote UN quote in because let's just say like
Danny is Queen or John is or Stan is or whoever.
Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?
Yeah. Who has a better story than
Aegon the Broken, Right. That's what Sean was gonna say.
You're leaning up to say the end of the show.
You envision Aegon is on the wooden throne and he is ruling
you. Who has a better story?
That's what you're saying. Thank you.
I just sort of forgot that brand has a better story.
Whoever in the Song of Ice and fire wins, if you will, who gets
the throne first of all, there's all kinds of other plot lines
and characters that we care about that aren't connected to
who gets the throne. Like, I don't know, Arya or
Sandor their their how their life plays out isn't real
dependent on who the the monarch is.
And and also it's not going to perfectly whatever you might
think of as a victory for Sansa or Arya or in or all these
different characters. It's not going to perfectly time
with Danny takes the Iron Throne.
Like these things are going to happen on different timelines.
And I just don't see how George is going to perfectly tie all
this up when what I think matters most to him and maybe me
too, is what do they do as the monarch?
John or Danny or whoever, whoever wins if it's Renera or
Aegon comes back or Laris is a puppet.
But like what do they do? How do they reunite the realm?
How do they manage going forward?
Which Dragons live? Are they still a threat if
Corliss's fleet gets destroyed by the Triarchy is there?
I feel like whoever wins this battle is just the beginning of
a news story that maybe matters more than who wins this battle.
Like that's why we care about who wins this battle because we
care about how they will rule in the wake of it.
And so that's what I would most like is for season season three
to be a bunch of battle action and someone quote UN quote wins.
And the season 4 is what they do with the victory.
And there's not a single battle or fight scene.
And the whole thing is just a straight political intrigue
drama. I I do imagine that, yeah,
season three will probably have the most battles of season 4.
We'll probably have fewer than season three.
That's probably true. Not just because not not purely
based on like the books or whatever, but that's just kind
of how it seems to seems to that would be a reasonable way to do
it. Like this big season three be
the action one and four have a little more of that than the
aftermath. Yeah.
That's a pretty good guess though, Sean, I like overall, I
mean, hard to argue with that. It's a little bit like you said,
a little bit of what you expect mixed with a little bit of what
you want. Yeah.
Yeah, I will refrain from commenting further though,
because obviously I have too much advance knowledge on, but
although some of that could turn out to be wrong, I mean, I
that's one thing I always say is that yes, I want it to stick to
the books, but I like it when they do good things that aren't
in the books 'cause I want to have different.
I don't want two identical stories.
You know Kevin, different versions is pretty fun.
Anyway, Books Immersed says. Do you have plans for a
potential Dragons and their Riders Breakdown episode later
in the offseason? We I've thought about doing
something like that and it would make sense to do that.
So it's a good suggestion. We'll certainly consider it,
especially since it's something I've considered before.
But in general, the best way to suggest episodes for us is we
have a lot of polls on our Patreon that we have you guys
participate in. We've we drop a lot of topics
and you'll pick the ones you like the best.
So that's often how some of our episodes get made.
So I think if we were to do some polling on some hot D related
topics later in the year that this would be one of the ones
that would be on such a pole. So maybe your time to sign up
and join so you can participate in such voting.
Otherwise, yeah, we'll still make episodes regardless.
OK, so let's talk. Before we get back and talk
about the Blacks and their similar setup that we just did
with the Greens, let's describe our overall thoughts on the
season. I know some of this we've said
already, but I want to kind of focus on that for a minute or
two here for each of us. So Sean, again, I will start
with you, give us your overall thoughts on the season, maybe
compare a little bit to season one and maybe to what you expect
for the future or maybe how it how you think it's going to fit
in the long term and whatever else you want to say, fire away.
I, I loved it. I, I loved the first season and
the season I would have a hard time picking one over the other.
I think that this season I, I, you know, I will say last season
that probably the biggest, the biggest action sequence I can
remember anyway, was Damon on the step stones.
And I found myself kind of rolling my eyes at that.
Whereas this one was the dragon battle scene, which I was just
completely enthralled with. So from an action perspective,
which, you know, a lot of people were frustrated with how little
there is, but I'm not, I'm totally satisfied and I overall
like the action from this season better than last season.
I think I do like that last season, but you know, just
having a couple extra episodes, you got to fill in a little more
back story. And even if even with the time
jumps, I so I was totally fine with those time jumps.
I think the stuff that went on in between those times, time
jumps probably would not have been enough to fill interesting
episodes. It would have been like little
plot lines that have to come and go.
It's hard to connect what happens between age 15 and 17
that doesn't have world implications into the main
storyline. It makes sense to me how they
manage that, but this season didn't seem to have much need
for time jumps. And if anything, I appreciate
they kind of spent a lot of time on certain aspects, which was
mostly, you know, character development and, and, and maybe
some world building. Yeah.
I, I, I mean, I, I feel like I've said a million different
things get in the details, but for a sort of an overview, I,
I'm just blown away with the production.
There have been a few moments this season where I had to kind
of like, you know, think how I could justify something like,
you know, the idea of the queen sneaking around.
But I think it was, I think I can find ways in my mind to
imagine how that would play out. I think if they'd given us 20
minutes worth of like negotiations and subterfuge and
stick through tunnels and some spy character, what I think they
could have set that up in a way that we would have swallowed
more easily. And given that I can swallow it
easily and it's worth it because I think those interactions were
great. I I, I love this sort of
journey, the sort of mystical journey that Damon went through
and and I I believe the results of it, if you will, Like I I'm
more sold on his commitment to Ranira and his his regrets for
mistake that he's made in the past.
He was a character I was really frustrated with the first
season. This season, I'm arguably he
might be less entertaining. He might there might be a for
me, at least there might be a little less love to hate part of
him. Yeah, but there might be.
Disliking him as part of the fun, yeah.
Right, yeah, I might support him a little bit more.
And some of the characters I'm I'm almost afraid for what's
going to happen to Kristen Cole. Not not just afraid for his
life, but afraid for like how broken of a person he's going to
become. Allison the same thing.
I I don't know, I feel like I've heard some people say nothing
happened in season. Like what are you?
What show are you watching? Like I can't.
That's the take I really don't understand.
Yeah. Yeah, and list all the things
that have happened. It's crazy how much has
happened, like the shifts in power and power dynamics and,
and the roles that people have and you know, the overall like
in the beginning, feel like how can the blacks possibly win?
I just kept ringing in my ear when Otto said Aegon has all the
every symbol of power is in our hands, right?
And now, not so much. Yeah, except for the Dragons.
Yeah, it you may even maybe the counterpoint is when, when
Cersei told Littlefinger power is power, you know, all of a
sudden she has all these Dragons.
Like we don't care what sword you're caring or who put the
crown in your head. You can't do anything about our
Dragons. Now there's a little bit of
that, which makes it harder for me to think how it's going to go
to Four Seasons, which makes me realize, Oh well, how much more
could happen with all these different characters.
And it, you know, if you just want to see who wins the battle,
we probably all need to watch like 2 episodes.
But if you want to understand the people who went through
these battles and why and how it affected them, then that's what
The Soul Show is for. And, and I love it.
I love 99.9% of it. Well said, Sean.
Thanks for that. That's really good.
I appreciate that. Shaya, what about you?
What are your takes here? I agree there's a lot of what
Sean said and I like looking at it in context of of season one
and I like trying to think about how it will be in context of the
whole show. And it's hard to to say for some
things the jury is still out. Things that didn't resonate hard
for me. I I still have hopes that for
example, even though I got comical, that Reyna still had
not actually become Nettles and tamed sheep's tailor by the end.
Like I found that amusing pacing wise, but by the time the show
ends and I've seen that arc play out, I might look at that much
differently. I'd like to think, you know what
I mean. And I, I think you know, and,
and comparing it to season one, I am happy to not just have time
jumps and changing actors and I I'm happy to be settled with the
cast and, and, and character we have now.
So I, I think I liked season two more than season one in a lot of
ways, a lot of ways. I think maybe my complaints
about season two were like, I think the things I disliked in
season 2, I disliked more in season 2 than in season one, Yet
I, I still liked season two more.
I, I would say, and again, that that does a lot of that really
does come down to how they're handling some of the dragon seed
plotline stuff. And that isn't just about the
the nettles Reyna stuff, because I do think it would have been
more effective if we had been following some red herrings, you
know, red dragon, you know, I think if we had been following
some dragon seeds that didn't get a dragon, I think it would
have been a more effective episode.
So that comes down to pacing, what characters they feature.
I would like to see even more small folk.
I saw in the chat people talked about how they felt the show
really kind of focuses more on the main three and doesn't let
the show be the ensemble cast that it really is.
And I felt that I, there were moments with, I mean, I, I
Bayla, for example, who got a strong scene with Coralise, but
who I still regularly felt like she was kind of just there in
the background gassing up people.
She was gassing up Jace and Coralise both.
I didn't really feel that it was about Bayla as much.
And I, I don't know, I found some disappointments with
certain characters that I was really excited to dig into Bayla
and Reyna both Elena that all of the kid generation.
And I don't know, I, I felt that they still felt that they had to
focus on Rainier Allison to Damon.
And I don't think they really had to.
I think they felt they had to. And I don't know, maybe I was
more negative than I meant to. My point is, I like the season
more than season one. I had higher hopes for how they
would handle certain characters, but I was pleasantly surprised
by how much I liked how they handled other things.
I think you would maybe summarize some of that by saying
it had higher highs and lower lows.
Yeah, that's kind of how that's the higher.
Highs and lower lows for me, but I still agree with Sean.
I liked the action in this season far more than the action
in season one. Yeah, Rooks Rest was better than
anything in season one as far as battle.
Like Sean said, yeah, the battle, this is the Stepstones
battle wasn't anywhere near as cool as Rooks Rest.
I would agree with a lot of what you all said.
I will be more critical when we do a book to show episode, which
is next week. So when we talk about
adaptational changes, you'll see me with a lot more criticisms of
particular details. But I'm giving my thoughts as a
whole and I'm trying not to judge it by the book at all.
I want to separate that concept. I want to judge the show as a
stand alone thing and separately judge it as an adaptation.
I don't want those things to be contained in one analysis.
So I think those things are best left separate.
So yeah, strengths of season one that Season 2 didn't have are
it's a little clearer storyline. Paddy Considine's presence was
was missed a little bit. He was such a strong part of
season one. Only having a little bit of him
in season 2 was like, oh, well, they lost an important
character. It's a big deal when you lose a
major actor that was just doing so well.
Obviously we knew that was happening.
He was dead. So it wasn't like, Oh my God,
where's Paddy Considine? And I would also agree with the
the way I summarized Ashea's point would also describe how I
feel about it. I think it did have higher highs
and lower lows, Yeah, I think some of the some of the weaker
moments of the entire show or the season, certainly the fact
that it was shorter is is a negative.
It's not a good thing, right? Having two fewer episodes isn't
good. But yeah, the the timeline's a
lot easier to follow, even though they probably took a few
liberties with with distance and and travel times is what?
I think of with Aegon's. Healing Aegon is healing kind of
fast. Sure.
It's that Targaryen blood. Yeah, that's that's what it's
all about. He's built different.
So they don't and not having time jump like time jumps was a
really difficult thing to have to manage and they did it really
well. But just not having to do time
jumps, it's just kind of better, right?
So I do appreciate that and I think that it's hard to judge
like we can judge season one more now that we have Season 2
'cause it we saw what it set up. So it's hard to fully judge
Season 2 without season three to see what events it actually set
up. If it pays those off really
well, season 2's going to look better in retrospect.
And if season three is a kind of a bummer, it'll make Season 2
look even worse in retrospect too.
So I think these things are a little bit tied to each other,
especially when they specifically are setting up the
next season. Which both of these did you
know? Of course, every season sets up
the next season. That's that's always how it
goes. But this season particularly has
a lot of set up. And so we're going to a lot of
that's needs to be waited on to see how the payoff comes.
OK, let's move on to a few houses and powers that are
undeclared, meaning they aren't on either side right now.
And that is potentially important.
Like Sean, you brought up the possibility of other plot lines,
some other players that might shift the big picture, and this
is where some of that could potentially come from.
We have Dalton Greyjoy, he's been name dropped several times
throughout both season one and season 2 so far, No movement on
that. The Valerians talk about kind of
expecting to maybe have to fight them, but that's not a sure
thing. They haven't declared he's the
red Kraken, He's at the black Kraken, he's at the green
Kraken. His color doesn't give any
indication of what side he's on. I am going to dress up as the
Red Kraken for Dragon Con in a few weeks so we'll we'll
hopefully soon have some pictures of me covered in blood
and I've got a Greyjoy shield and all that.
So fake blood. Fake blood.
No, it'll be real blood. So we'll see about that.
That's a that's a big player. Obviously Greyjoys are like
navies don't do well with with ships.
I mean with Dragons. Navies don't do well ships.
And that's exactly what they are.
They are ships. They do.
They can't do well without ships, Dragons, and you know,
that's a problem for them. But there's so many ships and
both sides have Dragons, so it's not necessarily as big as a
deterrent as it could be. I will say ships much like
Dragons, not as much like Dragons, but more so than
navies, sorry armies, they could be in multiple places at once.
You know, if you split the ships up into like a little, I don't
know if you have like 100 ship army, you could have 10
different ships at 10 different cities and you can't get Dragons
to all those cities all at once, you know, So it can't be a, a, a
problematic distraction in the in the war efforts.
That's true, and we also saw how moving at night can be one way
to evade potential problems with Dragons, so maybe that could be
adopted. The Tyrells, they are green and
gold. It seems like they'd be a
perfect match for for Aegon's green and gold Hightower slash
Targaryen sigil. But they're not.
And yet they're not. So we hear that.
Remember, when Otto leaves, he's like, I'll go to Old Town, get
our business together there. And Alice's like, go to
Highgarden. They are the they're in charge
of the Reach. If you can go to them and use
their power to leverage control over the Reach, that could pay
off more. Kind of like what Damon did by
going to the Tulleys, although he didn't directly go to the
Tulleys. But still, that's how it worked
out. It went through the Tulleys.
Yeah, something like that is what Otto was maybe trying to do
before, who knows, before he got captured.
It might even be the Tyrells that put him in prison, that
that's one of the options. They're just like, no, we're
going to stay neutral and by to in order to stay neutral, we're
going to throw you in jail and just.
We do have a poll going in our Facebook group.
If you're in our Facebook group, please go vote on auto and you
could. If you think it's the Tyrells,
you could vote for them. I, I think I mentioned this at
least a little bit last episode, but I'm still thinking about it
now because someone in one of the comments I think suspected
that maybe Massaria had auto, which I, I hadn't considered
that and I think that is a good consideration.
But her much like the my rails and almost all these other
people that are suggested, like why would they keep it secret?
Why would Massaria not tell, Hey, Reneira, I got auto.
We can use him as a hostage as leverage.
We can get information from him like.
Whoever has it doesn't make sense missaria to.
Me. Missaria would kill him.
Yeah. She hates him.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, probably.
Maybe someone has captured him on her behalf and is bringing
him to her so she can be the one without of that.
That still seems a little convoluted and I don't know, I I
feel like whoever's got him has got to have a reason for keeping
it secret. Yeah, that's what makes it hard
to figure. But I still can't think of what
Lorries thinks Otto will do if you've kept him cat like I
don't. There is a flaw in that.
I still lean lorries, but I I, I, I, I feel about even about
lorries and bees berries. But it's not really the scope of
what we're saying right now. But regardless, go vote if or
and give us your opinion. Yeah, let's, let's move on.
We've already got it. We've already got a place for
people to weigh in on that. So the Arbor is another one
that's kind of like, huh, I wonder why the Arbor isn't
involved. They typically have a large
fleet, but their fleet wasn't involved in fire and blood
either. So they might just be following
George's lead on that. George has never given an
explanation for why the Arbor fleet wasn't involved there.
It's not hard to imagine there is one.
Like they could have had some sort of catastrophe recently
that threw off their ability. They might just be like, we are
not getting involved. They're just like a like
aggressive neutrality. Come make us join your war.
We're an island off the southwest coast.
If you want to come make us join, do it.
But until you come force us, we are going to sit here and do
nothing. And if you ravage us, that's
going to have an impact on the wine supply for this country.
So don't. So don't just think about who
you're affecting. You know, that's that's their
real like if you mess with us, you mess with the wine.
So like that's that's they've got that weapon to hold out
Bravos. Bravos is no ally of the
Triarchy. In fact, they're an enemy of the
Triarchy. They have a big Navy.
They have, I mean, they're the leader of Bravos is called the
Sea Lord. They always have a big Navy.
So that is a potential player. That's where Laurie said he was
going to go with Aegon, Yeah. Yes, it is very true.
Volantis Ditto. Also not an ally of the
Triarchy. Also has a big Navy farther
away. Less likely to be involved but
definitely potential. Absolutely, Norvos, Kohor and
Loras, those are the other free cities.
The rest have all been either mentioned or they're part of the
Trierarchy. Unlikely to matter but you never
know I guess. They're cohort and Norvoss or
inland. They don't get involved with
this naval stuff. Loraff is tiny and poor.
They're not likely to matter, but technically they're worth a
a mention as I said before. Dorn right?
Dorn is independent. Their book version Prince Koran
is like we are not getting involved in this.
Y'all both have Dragons. We're done.
We're not we're we don't want to join either side.
Last time Dragons came to our realm y'all burned a bunch of
our castles like repeatedly. Aegon and Visenya did that, then
Rainey's before. We'd rather just stay out of it
now. It would be a small change for
them to tweak things because his daughter, Princess Alejandra,
when she takes over, she starts raiding the realm.
She's like, Ah, here's our chance, like the realms when
weakened. So they could they could start
that early. They could have that they could
just tweak the timeline a little.
And this this interesting Dornus character gets involved.
So that's a possibility now. Also, the reason Dorn didn't
join either side was well, the Dornus typically hate the greens
anyway. They hate the Richmond, the
Tyrells, the high Old Town. That's that's see what they're
usually against, but they were opposed to the blacks in the
recent war of the Stepstones. The the Doran Doran was the ally
of the trierarchy against Damon and Corley.
So they they've got bad blood for both sides.
So anyway, worth a mention, but decent chance nothing much comes
of it. Let's talk about the blacks
characters. Rainiera huge turn for her for
her. She starts off in grief, having
a falling out with Damon, sending her children away
because she's worried about being able to protect them,
feeling lonely, isolated and thinking she can't win to
everything works out seemingly at the end.
Damon bends the knee to her after prophecy.
Like, to her, that's got to be like, wow, of all the things
that turned him around, you know, dreams and prophecy.
I guess she kind of is implied, like he doesn't really get into
the details, but I guess you're right.
He said. I saw it.
Yeah, it's just like I would
have a lot of questions. I would just.
Like you're talking like my father.
Yeah, I would like to see him talk about this more like I
would like to see the continuation of of like him
explain this to her. Anyway, they won't do it but I
I'm super curious. Yeah, they, it was, it would
have been weird for them to have a conversation in front of the
whole army like that. They already spoke High Valyrian
to keep it a little bit secret. But yeah, I, I do want to see
further conversations there. But it's such a dramatic turn
around for her. She's like, I'm going to lose.
I'm alone all of a sudden. Damon's back with her.
She's got Mazaria. She's got Mazaria's network in
terms of what that does for her politically empower dragon
siege. She's got new Dragons, she's got
a Navy. All right.
That was the one thing she had already.
But even that's stronger than it was at the beginning of the
season. And her vision for the prophecy
is a little clearer now because she thinks she can win now.
She's got all her thing. It's a humongous turn around and
it's starting to go the wrong direction.
Like it not only does it turns around so well that it begins to
make her maybe a little overconfidence, not the right
word. It's we use the term God complex
that she's getting a little too sure of herself to feeling that
what she's doing is destined that she's and nothing she can
do is wrong because she's the one with the prophecy she's got
like the whole realm dies if she's isn't successful.
Like she can frame it that way and not be entirely wrong.
But also you can see how that would that's pretty hard.
That's a pretty thing. Big thing to have on your
shoulders. You might like, mess with the
person, right Sean? Yeah, it might be enough like
right now, I think, or maybe even we could see that came and
burns it some town down. She doesn't go out and burn some
town down, but she might start to she might start to feel like,
well that's what I have to do or that's what he's doing.
I can do it or he started it or it's it's part of my destiny or
whatever it takes is there might be some justification for
unnecessary violence. Like already I think it's a
little hopeful of me to hope that they use the Dragons in
ways that do more message sending and military damage then
innocent civilian killing. I think.
I think I might be a little naive and hoping for that in the
1st place, but I'm worried there's going to be even more
than I would have thought the way it's going now.
Right on. So turning to Damon who we are
going to do a full episode on him separately.
So just the bullet points, he goes from wanting to just do
something going. His first instinct was to take
Rainey's and go attack Vergar to take out the key strategic
obstacle that they're facing in the large dragon on the other
side. If they can take out Vegar, then
they're then they have the advantage right away without
dragon seeds or any of the other things that came later.
But of course that doesn't happen.
Then blood and cheese happens and this backfires in a number
of ways. One of them being that it makes
Amond even more full of himself, which maybe isn't backfiring for
the blacks, but it's certainly an interesting side effect.
He's like, oh, they're afraid to face me, they're assassinating
me instead. Like that's not exactly what
happened there Amond. So he goes to Haranal and the
one of the like, one of the first things that happens is
Alice Rivers. Like you will die here.
And then he has a vision at the end of the season showing his
own death that seems to be related to his presence there or
directly connected to it. So he goes from ambitious and
selfish and angry to pretty dedicated and seemingly focused
on the long term and willing to die for the 'cause that is a
gigantic turn around like and nothing happened to Damon at
Harrenhal, right? I think it's pretty huge.
Like this is a guy that choked Rainier at the barest mention of
prophecy. Like I like he like she barely
starts talking about it and he chokes her.
He yells drivel at Alice Rivers when she's talking about curses
and dreams. And but then when she's leading
him to the heart tree in episode 8, he's like, he's like, you
know, you don't scoff. And he says I am no longer
inclined to like in a calm even voice, like devoid of pride,
even though he's admitting he was wrong.
It's just he's still keeping a little of his royal bearing
while admitting that he was completely wrong.
So that's a huge turn around too.
That is a character perhaps more than anyone else that changed.
I'm I think he may be changed the most of anyone.
But the one argument against that is that that change came
right at the end. And it hasn't fully played out.
Like, maybe he's just saying things.
Maybe he's going to backslide. You know, how convinced is he
really? I think he, he feels it seems
pretty, pretty legit. But to be fair, we haven't seen
his his behavior much, much farther past this moment.
I mean, he can be convinced of all of these things and still
think when it comes down to it that his opinion on some matter
later is is more correct. That's true.
His his assessment of some military situation is more yeah,
I I still don't think that means he won't still have some
stubbornness or streak of pride or anything like he just will.
He supports Rainier, but I don't know.
I also think the change came in the 7th episode and we're
already seeing a play out on the 8th episode.
You're right, I think you're right.
I think it was because of the change that came about in the
seventh one that he was able to accept the prophecy that he was
willing to kneel to Rainier. I think the kneeling to Rainier
is result of the change that has already happened in him.
I fully agree and that's why I wanted to set an aside an
episode for it because yes, there's multiple things like he
had to multiple things had to fall in place.
Like he couldn't accept the prophecy without accepting
supernatural. He couldn't accept the
supernatural without accepting, without evidence of that, and he
couldn't not, he couldn't follow Raniero without believing in the
prophecy, which he couldn't accept without.
Yeah, you can see why there's a lot of a lot to it, but yeah,
we'll talk about that later. Jace.
Jace's very interesting spot. Does a great job with
negotiations and diplomacy, Shows himself to be pretty
skilled at that, maybe even talented at it, but still ends
up kind of shut out by the end. He feels shut out.
He's got some SDE small dragon energy, but has legitimate
concerns about his place in the succession.
He's still his, you could say his art goes from air to still
air, but feeling less secure in that position, even though no
one's directly challenging him for it.
It's the reasons he felt secure in that position have been have
changed. The world around them has
changed. Like he still has the same
dragon. He's still Rainier, his first
born child, but the things that he thought made him special
aren't as special anymore. And the last we saw, Rainier
flew off to confront Damon and he, you know, as we talked about
at the time, it made sense for him, her to bring sea smoke
instead of Jace for a number of reasons.
But it it recurring kind of flaw with Rainier is, and this goes
to her God complex thing, I think 'cause she doesn't really
explain herself to subordinates very well.
It's a problem that we saw with Jon Snow.
I think that he wasn't very good at explaining why his decisions
were what they were, which we readers get we're in his head or
we understand we have the time to think about it.
Same goes for Jason Rainiera. But we also see that, yeah, I
know. Tell communicate with your
subordinates better. Sometimes I can't tell whether I
think that's a writing flaw or a character flaw.
That's one of those ones where, you know, like I try to point
that out that when I criticize something, sometimes I, I think,
yeah, like it's valid for the writers to write this.
It's believable. But I find it to be a character
flaw. In the case of Jon Snow, I maybe
was more of a writing flaw in my eyes.
In this case, I think it is meant to be more of a character
flaw because we see the way that Jay seethes over it.
We see the way that it plays out.
So I'm inclined to think that they that the writers would say,
yes, this is a that she has. I don't know that I thought that
in Game of Thrones of Jon Snow. I kind of felt like that just
kind of like got swept under the like I got wasn't important to
them. I don't know.
It wasn't a show thing for Jon. I think it was a book thing,
yeah. Like his, his his relationship
with his, with the other commanders on the wall, that he
didn't explain his decisions very well.
I I wouldn't. Yeah, I don't know that that was
a show problem. Just.
OK, cool. It was like I couldn't quite
remember that. But yeah, anyways, at my point,
I, I I don't think we think that they I think I think it's good
TVI guess it's good drama for Jace.
I think it's a believable conflict for a son to have with
a mother. It's believable for an heir to
have with the the the ruler I think for.
Bastard in the setting bastard. There's a lot of levels to where
I'm happy to see this play out. It makes me unhappy in that I
hate to see Rainier look so bad to me because I like the
character, but I don't like Rainier in this context.
I don't I don't like her as a as a ruling mother, you know, like
it's when it when those roles get muddied for her.
I. She goes to queen and that's a
mother. Like we talked a lot about the
duality of that, how Allison is now focused on mother because
she's no longer the queen and it's making her a better mother.
But Rainier is going the other way.
She's becoming less of a mother, more of a queen.
And part of that is her children have been sent away, so she's
not constantly reminded about them.
She's only got only has Jace around who is also the Crown
Prince. Better mother to Helena, I would
say, for Allison. Keep in mind she's still making
failures as queen too, because it it is important for her as a
mother to keep Jace informed of what's going on, but also as a
queen to keep Jace and the council informed.
And that wasn't the first time when she just went off and did
something or to give credit to the writers for making a mistake
that she's making. The council addresses it too.
Remember, they're like they, they looked at Corley.
So I'm like, what do we do? And he's like, let's wait, she
what see what she has to say first.
Like he doesn't know what to do, you know, like she often is
making these decisions and going off and doing things without
letting people know. And, and other people like Rob
made that mistake too. He had this big master battle
plan that Edmere ruined, quote UN quote ruined because Edmere
didn't know the big master battle playing because Rob
didn't tell him. And every now and in some of
these decisions, you can see that maybe they don't want to
tell the subordinates because maybe they don't think they'll
be able to convince them and they don't want to be argued out
of it, or maybe they need to keep it secret or something.
Maybe that's the reason to not announce it to the whole council
once. But jeez, pulled Jace aside and
let him know, right? Or maybe leave instructions,
say, you know, don't open it till tomorrow at 3:00 and then
leave. And then they can find out
what's going on. So they don't get in a lot of
these scenarios too. She just kind of got lucky it
worked out. What if she had gotten
intercepted by Vegar or got hit by a straight arrow or just
Damon needed her there or some internal struggle, like it's all
kinds of things that might have kept her from going back and
people would not have known. It's the same thing.
She's mad at Damon four. It's not letting her know what's
going on. She's doing the same thing.
So I I think it's definitely a mistake that she's making.
And I think it's this show seems to be doing it intentionally,
not not a writing. Error.
Right on. Yeah, I agree.
Well said. Y'all great takes on Jace there
Bayla. She does not have small dragon
energy, even though she does have a small dragon.
She shows herself to be someone that handles adversity pretty
well, like someone that the bumps in the road occur and she
has the right attitude about how to face them.
Just kind of gotten everything in life.
I think Reyna would say her her sister, you know?
There is a little of that probably too.
She hasn't fate. I mean, she's had her mother's
daughter. She's had some her life has been
easier for having her dragon and her betrothed of the Crown
Prince is all I'll say. Like, compared to Reyna, Bayla
has a pretty sweet life. She's had a mirror image that
she can see. I'm glad I didn't get that
outcome. Yeah, She's like, I'm the lucky
when I got the dragon, I got the I'm born first.
Not that these things will all necessarily go well in the end,
but yeah, she can look at her situation and go.
My sister got the short end of the stick on multiple reasons.
Whereas Jace is, he doesn't have that comparison.
His brother died. So yeah, that's worse.
But they're not twins. That's years apart.
He was never there or close in the 1st place.
So yeah. So Bella shows that her ability
to handle these things, take these things in stride is
something she's also able to communicate to other members of
her faction and kind of get them back in the saddle, so to speak.
She does it with Corliss. She's a big part of of his turn
and she does it with Jace, which is perhaps in some ways more
important and more personal because they have a more
personal connection. But it is also just beginning to
play out. So I would argue that that Bayla
is Rainier as most consistent and least problematic ally to
this point, The one that Rainier never seems to have any trouble
with her no back talk, no disobedience other than maybe
getting a little closer to the Kristen than she said she would,
which there's a little of that in there, but.
Her she's sidelined because she doesn't have a bigger dragon and
doesn't complain like oh, why didn't she take me, you know
Well, because your dragon is small.
It's as simple as that, you know, So good character she's.
Kind of sidelined because she's so good is what you know, like
she is so competent and not causing trouble that like
there's not a lot of not a ton of drama.
So like I'm glad they gave her that Corley scene and she did
talk and speak to her own herself.
I don't want to like I think I was maybe too harsh on that
Corley's Bella scene because it it was for the benefit of
Coralis and Rainier, but it was a good Bayla scene regardless.
But you know, it wasn't, it wasn't.
And the point is, it wasn't as much about Bayla the scene, you
know what I mean? Yeah, it was about what she
brings to the table, less about what she is.
You know, it's like this is her skill.
This is a skill she has of bringing Coralis back,
negotiating him and saying all the right things.
But it was more about him, like his role in a way, yeah.
Yeah, and so like, you know, she still said her thing.
I'm I'm fire and blood, you know, it's like.
It definitely has more like the plot wise those scenes are more
about Jace and Corlise but character wise they were more
about Baylor. Like she they got.
She said more. She had way more dialogue in
those scenes, way more. Action.
She had a great monologue. Yeah, great monologue, great
acting. So that's where I would maybe
quibble a little bit with that distinction, but I still I don't
fully disagree. Obviously, I mostly agree.
Reyna, her sister, of course, from the person getting the
short end of the stick to possibly a bigger dragon than
her sister, which puts her in front of her in terms of like
how she might get used in a war situation.
Like well, I'm I can't send Moondancer into battle unless
it's really desperate. But this dragon, assuming it's
tamed and controllable, which is a big assumption, But if that
happens, then this is a much more valuable asset to the war
than Moon Dancer. And all of a sudden Reyna would
leapfrog leap dragon her sister, which could create some very
interesting character moments between them in addition to
having an impact on the war. If another dragon, you know, if
it's like, wow, another dragon, wow.
Jeez, so far the way they presented Bela, she should be
understanding and supportive of that.
But. We'll see.
We'll see if her letting you know adversity just rolls off
her. We'll see if that continues.
Given this scenario, this would be a little more personal and
you're having her younger sister leapfrog her leap dragging her
pardon is might change that, but not maybe not Mazaria.
Big change for her as well. Less about who she is and and
more about her her fortunes changing dramatically.
She goes she's from she's a refugee because her place of
business was just burned. She lost everything to masters
of whispers for the queen, who's grateful for saving her life and
now a possible lover as well, which just again, we're not
trying to get too far ahead of ourselves, but that by itself
has all sorts of ramifications. This is the lover to someone who
believes she's the like ordained follower of the prophecy,
carrier of the prophecy, a prophecy Mazari doesn't even
know about. Like, oh boy, you know, that's a
lot. There's a lot there so well
that's that's fraught with potential that is untapped.
Corley's a lot of recent losses and mostly going back to last
season, losing his daughter, losing his son, then losing
Rain. He's the ultimate loss that he
felt that way more. And like we said with Baila, he
steps up to be the hand after she helps him frame what it
would mean to continue her work. He didn't see it that way.
And this is a big change for him.
This is someone a little bit like it's a micro version of
Damon. He's accused multiple times of
making things about himself. He says that later.
He admits to it in episode 8. And there's ample evidence of
that with his two bastard sons that he has had very little to
do with his entire life, which is a sign of selfishness there,
too. So this is a guy who goes from
being all kind of about himself, a man that when he gets sad,
he'll go flee and go take ship when his, his whole family is
hurting. But it's he makes it about
himself. So this is a guy that also has
turned, he's realized some of those mistakes seemingly.
And it it, his confrontation from his son happens right as
he's sailing out to join the blockade.
So from managing the blockade to joining it.
So it remains to be seen and how this will all play out.
But he's had a major change of, of who he is too.
I think we haven't yet seen how that will affect his behavior,
if he even survives the battle to have a change.
But I think he's a different man now.
Is that is that how you kind of see a two shot or?
I mean, he's just, he just has to be, he's lost his son and his
daughter and his wife. Like, how can you not change as
a person? So and, and I think for the
better. I think that that that, you
know, I'm not sure quite how well the show will portray this,
but I feel like that scene, I think they had that scene with
Alan for a reason. And I think that might 'cause
Corliss to focus who the new hymn is.
That makes sense. He's probably like a little lost
and maybe becoming hand gives him some sort of focus.
Some, you know, a lot of times people kind of bury themselves
in her work with her dealing with some struggling life, which
might keep you from really changing, right?
Or, or maybe it'll make you change in a way you didn't
intend to. You know, just momentum of your
job will carry you in in your direction.
But I think that conversation with Alan is going to pull some
strings in him, one way or the other.
Well said. Yeah, Nice and succinct there.
And Speaking of Alan, this is a guy we meet who's highly
capable, very bitter for good reasons, and he gets a chance to
finally vent about that at the end of the season.
So I'm not sure that we saw a large shift in his character.
Certainly his outlook, certainly his place in the scheme of
things has really jumped up. And who knows what's going to
happen in terms of his heritage going forward and his view of
his brother and their relationship.
But it's it's more of a potential for a lot of change
for his character than actual change like this character is.
We just got to know him this season.
He's a new character for us and he's developing Adam kind of
similar but different. I want to say it real quick,
Alan, simply saying those things out loud to Corliss, that might
be enough to change him too. That might release some of the
bitterness. You know, he's probably had
those thoughts in him his whole life and never told anyone.
And so to finally not only tell someone, but tell the person
that he wanted to tell it to it, it's probably somewhat of a
burden off of him. And and and opens the door for
him to move forward in a new way toward a new thing you know.
That's very well said. I think it's a very good point.
Adam didn't quite have the level of bitterness.
He's just more disappointed. Definitely hurt, definitely
struggled, but he doesn't hate their father nearly as much.
He does want his attention. He does want to his
acknowledgement, which could be something to consider as to how
what kind of dragon rider he'll be is.
Is he going to be trying to prove himself?
Is he going to try to earn his father's love and respect?
Or is he going to be his own man or something in between?
We'll see. He has one of the most, one of
the largest rises of all, but we haven't really had enough time
with him yet because his dragon riding is new.
To see how this effects him as a person.
We got introduced to him. He's had a humongous rise of
power, but not only is it not had a chance to play out, but he
hasn't even like been in a battle yet.
And that'll that. That's another thing that would
really have a big impact on him as well.
You would think a man, a shipwright, flying a dragon into
battle and doing whatever that means, burning people or ships
or armies or whatever, that that'll have an effect on you
too, wouldn't it? Once again, I'm not sure if it's
something to show would, would or could portray, but I think
just him flying around Harrenhal, like I sort of on
guard, if you will, when Rainier is talking to Damon, I think
that would have an impact on him.
Just seeing all those soldiers on the ground, just thinking
about like what my dragon can do.
Like it my dragon could kill all those men and I might have to if
it's a bad guy army or a bad guy dragon could kill all those men
and I might have to defend against that.
Like some of the reality, what he might have to do as a dragon
rider might have come into focus on that little adventure with
Reneira. That's true.
You think about the the level of devastation that's possible, but
you also think about the level of responsibility for somebody
that wants to protect against that.
Like what kind of danger would he put himself in or not if he's
not, if he's afraid or unable to?
Maybe not afraid is the right word, but just unable to be
brave enough. I mean, I think he is thinking
about that already because we see that conversation between
him and ulf where he's. Exactly to see.
Who's going to be a coward or not, right?
Yeah, he says that you're right. That's good.
Perfect foreshadowing. There's plenty of time for us to
see who the coward will be. You know, it might be neither of
them. It might be both of them.
Yeah, who knows? Yeah, you know, it's just funny
because, I mean, yeah, he says that it might be this perfect
bit of irony because Adam is a coward.
Actually. I get a good vibe from Adam, but
you know, like it is a good point that you could turn it
around. Turns out he's afraid of
heights. You know, it's like, Oh my God,
this. I'm so not cut out for this.
I actually would really like to see ulf in particular, but ulf
or Hugh have some kind of PTSD and trauma from the red sewing.
He was like ulf I pointed out how ulf was all scared of the,
the, the torch for a moment. He's got startled, you know, and
he's like, oh fuck yeah. I would like to see him a little
bit more scared or edgy about it all than the average dragon
rider among them like Ulf and Hugh specifically.
Absolutely. So let's talk about ulf briefly
talk about another large rise, a more unlikely rise perhaps than
than even Adams. Talk about stories coming to
life like this is something out of a story like Drunken Drawler
to Drunken Dragon Rider. Like, how does that even happen?
Well, we saw how it happened. It was pretty awesome, pretty
cool, a great story. It was compelling and fun and
unusual. But it's just getting started.
I saw it. It's a better story than all.
No one. No one.
I mean, he's a better storyteller than most people in
in. He's a certified yapper, better
than brand. He has the gift of gab.
Yeah. He's not a poor communicator.
I mean, he's a communicator, but he is a, he's a poor
communicator. He's literally poor Aziz.
Got me there, he got me there, but.
Also, I wouldn't call his communication to Jace effective.
He's not very good at reading the room.
Yeah, not very good at that, but he sure is entertaining.
We caught a great joke. By the way, Sean, I'm writing
the breakdown for episode 8, and I thought I'd share this with
you all while we while we have a minute, it's Alf telling Jace
we're cut from the same cloth. And then later when they're
getting dressed, he's pretty much wearing the same outfit as
Jace. So he's like literally cut from.
He's like, this is cut from the same cloth.
Yeah, which? Also points to him not wanting
to be as much in combat. He's not in the armor, he's in a
doublet. He's.
More like Eamon, Yeah. Eamon doesn't wear armor either.
He's in the Jace, the Eamon fit. You know they're not.
They don't wear armor, but Adam and Hugh get armor.
Yeah, Adam and Hugh were pretty much all in black and Jason
Olfer in black and red, right? Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Yeah. And Hugh with his hidden
heritage surprise, Well, except for the hair, it's it wasn't
that hidden though, right. Like even Sean, like you're the
one, you didn't read the book and you're like, that guy looks
Targaryen. Like, like, yeah, yeah, you're
right. So it wasn't that hidden.
The surprise was the specific connection to Sarah Targaryen,
which was like, that was really cool for us book readers, was a
great reveal. I like that it fit pretty well
with what was already laid out in Fire and Blood.
So he goes from desperate starving family man to dragon
rider family man. What a change.
Big difference like from from popper to power.
Unfortunately it didn't come before he could save his child.
Eating nothing to eating whatever he wants, little birds
or no. And so far, he hasn't even,
like, seemingly communicated with his wife.
That's like, where is there? Are they gonna get to talk?
Is he gonna somehow be able to? How's he gonna get a message to
her? Where is she?
Did she go to Tumbleton? Was it send this message to
Tumbleton for Cat? Yeah.
Like, how do they deliver that to her?
Like, I I don't know what. I don't know how that's gonna
play out. But certainly the fact that he's
married matters. Ulph doesn't really have prior
Ulph's drinking buddies. It doesn't really matter that
much. I'm sure he wants to see them
and show off, but that's not some great conflict building
there. And Adam with his brother and
father there's that's very interesting.
Hughes got a wife, but it's harder to see how that will play
out or even logistically come to bear.
Like do you have any thoughts on that, Sean?
Mostly my thoughts are around the idea of her being an
innocent person. You know, she's just this, you
know, faceless part of the mass. He might burn in some other
city. I wonder if he'll have any sort
of empathy as a just a citizen in a town that might get burned
by a dragon and he's going to go to some town and burn the
citizens with his dragon. I don't know if that would bring
him back from doing it or. I mean, I was happy in that
finale scene when he's talking Hugh, it's Hugh and Bayla that
ball, right? Like of the dragon seeds though
I'm sure the others didn't like weren't into the idea but only
to voice their concerns right then.
And it is Hugh and Bayla. Yeah, I doubt.
I doubt either of them were happy, but I'm like, yeah, let's
go burn people. That sounds great.
I can't wait. Yeah, but yeah, you're right.
Those box are worth taking note of for sure, Guilty, Undertaker
says. I did hear a funny comment that
Vermithor likes Hugh because he has silver hair, a silver beard,
and never listens to his wife's sensible advice.
Well, he listened. Jerry's listened to Alison
sometimes. I will say on that subject, I
did see Kieran, I quoted it in our coverage, the Red Sewing
episode, so I won't go too into it.
But Kieran Beau had a great interview where he talked a lot
about his thoughts on the character of Hugh and his
dynamic and his relationship with Vermithor, his relationship
with his mother and grandfather Jaharis.
And he the thing that he brought up that I thought was so
brilliant and like really spoke to how much he really thought
about it was he said that he felt that Hugh and Jaharis both
felt a lack of control. They wanted to have control over
things they couldn't, that they both even watched like one of
their like their daughter die from illness, which is like the
ultimate kind of lack of control type of thing, right?
Like you, you just want to save your child and you can't because
you can't save them from sickness, right?
You feel very powerless despite being someone who has all of
this power. Like you are the king, yet you
can't control the things you most want to control.
Anyways, I thought that was very astute from cure and view in
terms of I, I do see that comparison between the two of
them and and really in terms of any patriarch, matriarch, any
head of a family, head of a household I think would have
those similarities, you know. Right on.
Well said. Sir Simon Strong, another
character who founds him, finds himself in a very different
position. From the quickest bent knee
ever, to which was dinner with his family, to countless new
structures and repairs on his castle, and from just like a few
people at Harrenhal to an army of thousands and the Queen's
gratitude and more. It's a pretty big turn around
for this guy who was just like, I can't even keep up with the
upkeep with his castle. It's dripping.
There's huge vast piles of bat poop in one of the towers.
Like we're overrun by bat poop. That's how unable we are to keep
up with the repairs here. All of a sudden, river Lords are
there building Damon's chopping wood and building structures.
I mean, yeah, this is a big change for him and his position
in the world. He thought he was witnessing
treason calls for Rainier, and it just worked out great because
he he wasn't planning treason. But it was really good timing
for Rainier to show up, as it turns out.
So I give him the same little clap he gave at the end there.
Just it's like, hey, this is working out great.
Yeah. Someone at our City Winery event
dressed up in a Simon Strong inspired fit.
He had this purple and gold kind of brocade robe.
It was real, real drippy with it.
With shorts, yeah. With shorts just quite warm.
And yeah, I brought him out. I got about a big, big applause,
you know, and he was everyone, everyone knew that.
Simon has has the great fits. Purple and gold, really.
It's hard to not associate with with Simon now.
Yeah. So this individual called
themselves Stephen Strong, which reminds us of our good friend
Stephen Stark. Stephen Stark's real name is
Stephen Stark. This I don't this this
gentleman's name. It wasn't actually Stephen
Strong, but we'll we like that. It fits.
It's great. So shout out to you, both of
you, Strong and Stark. Yeah.
I hope that. Which, by the way, is the same
word in German. I don't know if y'all remember
that the translation of Stark in German is Strong.
So like someone Michael Klarfeld tells us that this can be
confusing. You're reading about the strongs
when they're the Starks and then the strongs are also the
strongs. It's a little that's tricky.
Alice Rivers we will discuss separately.
She's way too big for one episode.
We'll that'll be part of our episode with Joe Magician in two
weeks. We'll talk Harrenhal.
Alice Rivers. That episode is is tentatively
titled The Old God's Eye. Yes, play on words as we are
want to do. There's quite a few other
characters on the Blacks that are not quite Tier 1-2 or maybe
even Tier 3, and there's just a longer list of characters that
fit here for the Blacks and the Greens.
Young Joffrey, Young Aegon, Young Viserys, these little
princelings that are too young to do much.
Maestro Girardis, you know, well, we mentioned Orwell, so we
may as well mention Gerardis, right?
Lord Seltegar, the guy who got slapped, he's he's been in and
out, he's on the council. Lord Massey, he's around his
daughter of course, as well. Alinda, very important.
She, her running Mazar is propaganda, but we don't have a
lot to say about her as a character.
Her actions were important, but we don't really know her
personality very well. Much worse braider than
Rainier's current handmaiden, because Rainier's braids have
levelled up since Elinda left. Like I swear to swear to you, if
you look before and after, it is a clear line at which she has a
new handmaid in and it cracks me up.
Elinda the Braider is not her nickname.
Yeah, so we also got Deanna. It was kind of a surprise return
from her, but I'm glad they got to sneak her in there with a
fitting role. Going against Aegon, that made a
lot of sense. Going against the green Sylvie
as well. Going against Eamon, the two of
them were like we were, they were each jilted by one of the
brothers. Sir Alfred Broom, of course, his
role is there. Sir Laurent Marbrand.
We got Kingsguard like I mentioned, Sir Rickard Thorn for
the Greens. And now we've we're down to just
the one recognizable Kingsguard for the for the Blacks as well,
because Eric is gone and Stefan was burned to death.
RIP both Eric and Eric, I mourn you both.
You both thought you were, you know, doing the right thing.
Like Eric wasn't just like some evil knight.
Like they were both just doing their best.
And we wonder about, as we just did, we wonder about Cat.
Like, where is that going to go with with Hugh?
Like she's not really on the black side, but she's her
husband is. So she kind of is by default.
It makes more sense to include her on this list than it does to
include her with the Greens, that's for sure.
And RIP Rainis and Malis, Lord Darkland and Stephon Darkland,
the Darklands really took it on the chin in this season.
And Lord Staunton who was executed at Rooks Rest as well,
who died. As we said.
Yeah, now who's who. Here's who the Blacks have on
their team, apart from their main pass.
Let's not forget Stark, we got a marching army there that we saw
right at the end. We got Valerian of course.
They've had, they've been on this on their team for a while,
The Lords of the Narrow Sea, Massey and Celtagar and Sharp
Points now, not very useful, but there's others.
Riverlands, of course, are on their side pretty fully now, but
it's interesting to to remind ourselves that House Frey's deal
with the Crown is different than the rest of the River Lords deal
with, say, Damon and Rainier, because they got Jace to agree
to give them Harrenhal, which that could be sticky later.
I don't know how that could play.
I like, it's like, yeah, like what's how's that?
Yeah, can't be much stickier than Thailand giving the
Stepstones to the Trier. That's also sticky.
You're not wrong. That's the very big problem
there. Let's by the way, I want to
remind everybody of Johanna Swan was captured in season one by
the Triarchy. And they talked about it and I
think episode 3 on the episode with the stag hunt and they
mentioned her as a, a character that was captured and her ransom
wasn't paid for. So if you're a book reader,
Joanna Swan has a has a role in the Triarchy going forward.
So that's something we'll talk about later.
But I wanted to throw that out there because it's easy to miss,
but I can't say specifically because of Sean.
Sean, we can't spoil Sean. Also Beesbury and Tarly and
other reachlords who maybe aren't fully committed to the
Blacks, but they're definitely against the Greens.
So they're basically the enemy of my enemy is my friend type
situation. The Aaron's committed 15,000
troops to Rainier, but they haven't marched.
They haven't, they weren't seen in that montage of marching and
that's probably because of she feels like she got scammed by
the lack of dragon protection which may work itself out with
Reyna or not. So Reyna can really use those
15,000 troops but they aren't. They're not currently marching.
That is an interesting thought. By the way, let's say Reyna does
tame Cheap Stealer. OK, just stay there in the veil
and protect the veil. That's what we promised.
Just stay there. Don't do anything.
Does that work, the 15,000 troops?
Or it's like, Nah, you keep your 15,000 troops, this Dragon's
more valuable. Let's go.
Yeah. Would she be willing to do that?
Would she obey that command? Do they send Bayla to go watch
the veil 'cause we need the bigger?
Dragon hey, Moon Dancer would be a little more effective.
Yeah, that's. Interesting to be like, Hey
Aymond, I heard you need a new dragon rider.
Yeah, right. No, I don't think so.
Rain, Rain Aymond. Rain Aymond.
You know Allison's switch sides and now rain is going to jump
green. Now, the Greens also, or the
Blacks also, should have Pentos sort of as an ally.
They have Prince Reggio, who's a passive ally.
He's not like they haven't asked him for troops or ships or
anything like that, but he's guarding their children and
their eggs apparently. So the plot lines.
Let's go through the plot lines to remind ourselves of what
happened with the Blacks this season.
There's the the plot line in the North grieving for Luke.
The blockade has been a plot line all season long.
Blood and Cheese was a pretty big deal that moved a lot of
things around. The Black Council's frustrations
were an on and off thing all season long.
Not finished either. They're still frustrated with
Rainier. The the frustrations have
changed. Rather than her not doing
enough, they're now she's not doing, she's not telling them
what she's doing. And they maybe also object to
some of the decisions to burn cities, which may or may not
actually happen. Herron Hall's plot line
obviously multifaceted. Damon's character change, big
part of it, tying into the prophecy, big part of it, and of
course winning the River Lords, big part of it was almost like a
three headed plot. Those were the big things there.
I think that you could say with subplots aplenty, the phrase the
Brackwoods and Brackens, Blackwoods and Brackens, I did
it again, Tullys and all that stuff.
So there was quite a bit of extra, a lot of things that
mixed into that bag there. The Rooks rest pretty huge.
The response to it, the death of Rainies, was a big deal that
kicked off some of the other plot lines, Corliss's grief, but
also led to the red sewing. The Damon and Rainier and
Mazaria love triangle. It's not really a triangle, is
it? But it is three people, so they
can kind of make a triangle. But Mazaria doesn't know about
the prophecy, as I said, Damon does now.
So Damon and Rainier both know the prophecy and Mazaria
doesn't. But Damon and Rainier maybe
don't have a functioning intimate relationship anymore.
Or maybe they do, but Mazaria and Rainier seem too.
So that whole thing is fraught with possibility, both good and
bad. Lady Jane Aaron's hesitation, of
course, this has to do with troops not being employed right
now or sent. That's related to that.
Sending away the prince's hatchlings and eggs to Pentos.
That probably isn't just to there off the on the shelf for
now. There's more that could happen
with that. That's all sorts of potential
there. You mentioned it at the time,
Sean. That's putting your eggs in one
basket in a different sort of way.
Obviously, Renaissance for Sheep Steel are still ongoing.
Hugh Ulf the common folk of King's Landing loved having that
as a plot line this season. We didn't have hardly any view
into the common folk last season.
That's one thing I praise about Season 2 that season one didn't
really have. So that's really good.
And it wasn't just Hugh and Ulf, it was also Sylvie and Diana and
these Gold Cloaks, other random folks like ulf's friends.
You know, there's a lot of that. You know, I hope when you know,
you're asking my predictions, I mean, and maybe I mixed in a
little bit of what I thought might happen and what I kind of
wanted to happen. I hope next season the entire
the entire cast of our flag means death gets incorporated
into the triarchy. Yes, Sean, we already got
Alawande. Yeah, yeah.
When did they focus on it? Kind of like we got a little
focus on some of the small folk of King's Landing in the midst
of all the other grander stuff. I want to get a little focus on
one ship in the Triarchy in the midst of all the grander stuff,
and that ship to be captained by Steve Bonnet.
That's. Steve Bonnet, The least fearsome
name of all time. Like your name is Bonnet.
Like how? And your name is Steed.
Like Steed is something you ride.
I know it's spelled differently, but it's not the thing that
leads, it's the vehicle on. Bonnet gets ridden in that show.
Yeah, that's true. He does get rid.
He does get, but his his name sounds like horse hat, steed
bonnet. I mean, yeah, horse hat, horse
hat. That's.
Hilarious. Watch Our flag means death.
Yeah, our flag means death is great.
Two seasons of of excellence. It would be another Game of
Thrones actor on House of the Dragon cause Christian Nair and
AKA Hodor is on our flag means death as is his dark right.
That would be two. I kind of forgot.
Yeah, that'd be two characters. His DAR, His Dark materials
would be on no? He wasn't in that.
No, he wasn't in that, but his name fits really well.
Yeah, so the red selling, of course, huge plot line, one of
the biggest plot lines of the season.
And not only because it's huge in in how it obviously affects
the plot, but it happened so late in the season that we have
yet to actually see what that is.
We can just imagine, holy crap, this is gigantic.
And one of those effects is Jace's heritage and how it
undermines his his view of royal privilege and his claim and all
that. Speaking of heritage, there's
Allen and Adam's heritage. That's a big subplot
relationship with Corley's good kind of family dynamic that's
playing itself out. Damon's plan to March on King's
Landing is a strategy that appears to be going well.
And then the very surprising end of Allison's planning to kind of
hand over the keys to Rainiera, just as Damon is sort of
planning on marching from the other side.
So there's all these set up for King's Landing changing hands,
which it may or may not happen, but if it does, it seems like it
would happen pretty early in the season, along with, of course,
the potential conflict in the gullet, which hard to imagine
how that wouldn't happen. Both you got a Navy there and
another Navy on the way. Like what's going to happen to
stop that? A hurricane that would work, but
I doubt that's going to happen. After their experience in season
in the season, Aegon and Aimon both would be like good luck
Rainier. It's more trouble than it's
worth. They just have nothing but
trouble with having King's Landing.
Yeah, it's like, was it, I think Steve Van Preuen mentioned in a
prior episode the whole the the the two sided coin that Illyria
points out that there's a crown on one side and and a skull on
the other. And he's like, yes, to crown her
is to kill her. Yes, that's certainly it wasn't
good for Danny to win the crown. It wasn't good for like Jon Snow
recognized it as a danger. It wasn't good for Robb Stark to
win the crown. Like, yeah, these monarchs don't
do well in general in Game of Thrones, The Song of Ice and
Fire usually, like have tragic endings or violent endings or
violent tragic endings or yeah, maybe this will be different
this time. But prepare yourself for the
worst, just in case, you know? I'd say that's my advice, you
know? You know, sorry, this is a
thought that I meant to express earlier.
I, I wondered, you know, ostensibly I'm unsullied, right?
But I do still have some meta knowledge.
Like I know like King's Landing isn't going to get burned to the
ground. I know the targeters are going
to continue to rule. I had this general idea that
this time period was about a civil war.
It is interesting to think of someone who's a little more
purely unsullied, someone who hasn't seen Game of Thrones at
all and it's just started watching his show in the dark.
Didn't know anything about George Martin or Danny or any of
this other stuff. I wonder if they would predict
or assume that a tragic war was coming.
I wonder if they would feel like things were dragging out and
that that there needs to be an action scene or battle scene or
something. You know, I wonder if someone
who's, and probably this show is mostly, but like not mostly like
51%, but probably like 90% plus people who have already at least
seen Game of Thrones, probably not read the books but seen Game
of Thrones. I don't know how many people are
out there who are just watching us in the blind and with their
thoughts. If you happen to be one.
Of our listeners, I'm curious too.
Please let us know more. Likely is for our listeners to
have friends and family that they can regale us with stories
about or insights. Rather than direct listeners.
Yeah, they know listeners. Yeah.
Yeah, because there certainly are lots of people who have
their their family or friends. You're probably right about
that. Yeah.
Now, our families, for the most part, have read the books and
watched the other shows because they're so connected to us that
they want to be involved in what we're involved with.
But. Yeah.
Like a Shay.
I mentioned her father having watched it, but it wasn't like
his first, wasn't for his first go around, You know I.
Mean you watch lots of She likes sci-fi and fantasy.
I was instilled that interest from my father.
My mom's read the books. Yeah, she's she watched the
original show and yeah, yeah, they're they're in.
They're in few questions before we say goodbye.
Jordan Ellis Reynolds says Now the three of you have seen two
seasons worth. We need a favorite dragon check.
OK. Yeah, that's fine.
I gave. We.
I think we had this question not
too long ago. I don't know that our answers
would change, but clearly not everyone heard it.
So why not go through it again? I'll go first.
Mine's Karaxis. I It's not has nothing to do
with Damon. I just love the long neck, you
know, and the, and the sounds that Karaxis makes are very
unique and interesting. And I'm a big sound guy like you
are Jordan, so I appreciate Kraxis's unique nature.
I think Kraxis is arguably the most unique because of sound and
and appearance. I'll say mine I personality wise
it's Sea Smoke based on the scene with Adam.
Aesthetic wise it's Moon Dancer based on them giving the
comparison to David Bowie. Moon Dancer has this little
Mohawk. Like those are my 2 answers
currently and I remember what Sean's answer was when we were
asked this before and his answer is dead.
So can you give us an alive dragon Sean?
His answer was Mellie's. Yeah, I, I think that I'm torn
between 2:00 what one I barely know anything about.
But aesthetically, I think Sheep Steeler looks awesome and I
imagine Sheep Steel listens to punk music.
I, I, you know, we'll, we'll see what their personality is or,
you know, maybe even some better visuals.
But, but I, what I want to pick is, is it dream fire?
Is that Helena's dragon? Yeah, that's Helena's dream
fire. Because that's the one dragon
that doesn't seem destined for murder.
That's the one I want to pick right now.
You are consistent, Sean. I love it, love it.
Not a goer at all. Not a goer.
Yeah, I don't know. It's a.
Sleeper a dreamer? That's hilarious.
Yeah. Also, I want to say Sean about
Sheep Stealer. Sheep Stealer has the coolest
nickname, which didn't exist as far as I know in the Fire and
Blood days. It's a show phenomenon that
people have started calling Sheep Stealer the Lamburglar.
That's genius. That is a joke right up my
alley. I love it.
Yes, thank you. Bogsy says Simon Says traitor
and sweeps Broom out of the castle.
Now there's some good word play sweeping Broom out of the Yeah.
I love how he just like retreated to the back of the
army when he was like, oh this is not gone how I wanted him.
Did you guys, I don't know if y'all saw, but there was a
really cute BTS video of the actor who plays Simon, Simon
Russell Beale, driving a little golf cart with Alfred Brooms
actor Jamie Kenna in it. Joanna Robinson tweeted it
pretty recently. If you go to her Twitter, you
can find a video of it. I'm sure you can find it another
way. That just happens to be the way
I can point y'all to it. But yeah, it's just this.
It's like a minute video of them of Simon driving Alfred Brown in
a golf cart. It's quite, it's quite cute.
He's not a traitor in that moment, you know, he's a good
man. Jenny P says.
I can't stay for the live stream, but thanks for the
coverage this season. It was great.
Well, thank you to Jenny and everybody else that was with us
all season long. We really appreciate you hanging
out with us, discussing the show with us, having all sorts of
fun, diving deep into a variety of topics, and well, even though
the season's over, we are not finished.
We will continue our near weekly analysis of both books and
shows. So stick with us.
Fun times don't stop. We got a question, last minute
question from Jill 47. Can we talk next week about your
thoughts on why more book fans root for the greens more often
than show fans, if that is so? Yes, Thank you for understanding
that. That will be a topic for next
week. Absolutely.
We'll keep that and we'll talk about it because yeah, I think
it is interesting to compare book and show fans and their
perception on the greens and blacks.
I think to me, more show fans like the green, like like the
green, the green. Green supporters are few and far
between. But more show only people like
the greens than book. Like I, if I was to like say, I
think I would say I think green fans are like 70 show only 30
book maybe or something like that.
I don't know if I'm right but. Yeah, I'm not sure what numbers
I'd put on that. I felt like I was going against
the green trying, going against the green, trying to support the
greens. I, I felt like, and I, I think
I'm a little more surrounded by, you know, book fans and I felt
like I was like, on thin ice saying a lot.
Maybe the greens aren't so bad. I felt like I was.
Like. What?
How can you Chris a cold so good.
You know, I felt like I was. I I think you, I'm glad you
stuck to your guns though, Sean, because yeah, like a lot of that
was from book pre deciding and including from Manichea.
Like we're not unguilty of that to a certain degree.
But yeah. And in the long term, it is more
about like the how the actors are played.
Like, you can vote, you can root for the Greens 'cause you think
their actors are better if you want to, Like that's a valid
reason to root for them, you know?
Like, if you like the Greens, they're more camp, they're more
painting to you, whatever, right?
But I, I, I, I don't think so many people are supportive of
the Greens as in they are the righteous cause yes, men should
rule the realm like there's. A certain.
Issue with that. I hope not, yeah.
So anyways, we're going to talk about this more next week, but
thanks, Jill. Appreciate it.
Yes, definitely. Thank you for that, Jill.
I agree me echo Shea with that, with that appreciation.
Also the rest of you if you have other questions you want us to
discuss for our book to show episode, basically all the
things that were changed, adaptational choices,
diversions, just all our takes on that.
If you have any thoughts you want to add, certainly it's a
big deep topic, so it's easily possible that we missed some
things. So yeah, hit us up if you have
questions or what subjects you want us to discuss, but we'll
have plenty to discuss regardless of what feedback we
get from y'all. That's how it always is.
All right, our trivia answer? Two other actors that were in
both House of the Dragon and the Game of Thrones, apart from
Jefferson Hall, who was of course once again Thailand and
Jason Lannister and Sir Hugh of the Veil.
In season one of Game of Thrones, Steve Van Preuen sort
of caught one that we didn't. Very clever answer here.
He says George RR Martin. George RR Martin was in the Game
of Thrones pilot, which didn't air, but he was in it and he's
the Herod Hall tree. So I'd say that counts.
I'll give you I said you get a shout out for naming one that I
didn't and there it is, Steve van Preuen.
Good job Steve. Actually second time getting
mentioned this episode so that of course that is not the one
that I had included. Looks like Talon Kinsfire did
guess correctly. I guess it wasn't a guess.
You know, either you know this or you don't.
Paul Kennedy AKA Iron Rod the counselor, he was a random guard
at the Erie in season five episode 2 of Game of Thrones.
He was just guy in a. That would blew my mind disease.
I did not know that little bit of trivia.
I I knew Eddie Ear people did guess that one.
OK, people knew about Eddie Ear. Eddie Ear I obviously knew
Jefferson Hall like doesn't, but I had no idea about iron Rod.
That's. Pretty cool.
Very. Cool little bit of trivia.
Yes. So Eddie Eyre Ashaya mentioned
he was Gerald Hightower in the Tower of Joy scene for Game of
Thrones and he is Sir Axel Bulwer who is just.
Bull and Bulwer, which is kind of funny.
The two I, I, I don't know, I think he's a Bull.
Yeah, you're probably right. So Bulwer is a house in Game of
Thrones already? It's it's a crown lands house.
Maybe. I forget actually might be in
the Reach. I forget.
I think it's in the Reach 'cause he's often seen as a Hightower
guard. Yeah, I think it's in the reach
because that's one of the children of Garth.
OK, yeah. So he's does stunts as well.
The children of Gareth could be anywhere.
So he he paid for drama school Eddie Ayer did by being a
performing jouster at Warwick Castle.
So like sort of like a being one of those dudes that jousted
medieval times or whatever. You know, it's a real jousting.
Like it's actually, you got to be in shape and be able to carry
a Lance and it's you can get slammed to the ground pretty
hard there. And not only did it pay for his
acting school, but it became relevant to his performing
experience here. As you can see, he's a guard and
wearing armor and riding horses and stuff, being a Kingsguard
and all sorts of things. So that's cool.
Good for him. Eddie Eyre, good chance he pops
up in. He's one of the few candidates
to be in a third Game of Thrones show.
He could easily appear in Night of the Seven Kingdoms.
I wouldn't be surprised. In fact, he could be one of the
random jousters. Like it's, it's played by an
actor, but in the moment of jousting, it's Eddie Eyre.
I'm going to go ahead and call that now.
Eddie Eyre will be in episode one or episode 2 of Night of the
Seven Kingdoms. Lady Sophia Valarian says said
the Super chat says I'm a new follower and I've thoroughly
enjoyed the history of Westeros. Well, thank you Sophia.
We will. So nice to hear from a Valarian
that's extra meaningful. Yes, we will keep you company in
the offseason as well while you're sailing about the Seven
Kingdoms in your Valarian fleet or if you're managing the
blockade. A lot of hours to pass, a lot of
time to listen to podcasts, so I can feel for you there.
We'll keep them coming. Like I said, our back catalog is
is large. We've been doing this since 2012
and it keeps growing because we make episodes almost every week
and that will continue. Like I said, next week we're
doing a book to show episode. You'll like I said as well, I'll
be a little more critical about some things, but also that won't
be that's not the purpose of that episode.
It's not just to hammer the show for its adaptational decisions,
but there will be a few of those in there cuz we don't agree with
everything, but, you know, we'll be fair about it.
Yeah. So thank you all again for
participating in our show coverage.
And we hope you join us in our offseason coverage, which will
be mostly book focused, but we'll have show stuff here and
there. For one thing, we'll be talking
about what's to come. And we're not that far out from
another show season. Not House of the Dragon, that
will be a while, but Night of the Seven Kingdoms, quite
possibly less than a year away. And if it's a more than a year
away, well, it's not going to be much more than a year away, but
I would guess it's around a year away.
So that's pretty cool. That's something to be excited
for. Puts us in a position to have a
show at least every year, if not a little more often than that
going forward. So that's exciting.
Good for us all here in the fandom.
Yay, yay, yay. Three cheers for us.
Thanks to Ashea and Sean for being so great and having such
excellent takes and helping to make our show so wonderful.
We are grateful for you all and I am grateful for you all as
well for you all meeting the audience and you all meeting
Ashea and Sean. Don't forget to check out Magic
Mind. The link is in the description.
Thanks to our other regular contributors like Nina and you
all with your with your questions and comments.
Shout out to our Facebook group, our Discord group, those of you
who hang out with us on Patreon or on X or wherever else we
happen to appear. We are mostly all over social
media. Thanks to Joey, Jesse and Bran
for the music in our show. Joey and Jesse made the original
version, Joey Townsend wrote the original version, Jesse wrote a
very fun Blues version of it, and Bran made all set of new
music for House of the Dragon intro that we love so much.
And thanks to Bran as well for the video portion of that intro,
which he also did. And thanks to Michael Klarfeld
for our original intro and for the maps you see behind me.
You all know what to do. Until next time and always,
Valar reread us and Valar rewatch us.