We loved every episode, the performances and writing and
music and filming were all excellent, and we went through
each one in detail, week to week.
Let's now take a look back at the season as a whole, taking
the entire thing in context, looking at lots of little things
that add up to big things and lots of big things that add up
to bigger things. From the sad to the exciting to
the heartwarming to the optimism for the future of this corner of
the franchise and fandom. Let us gush geekily as we rehash
the most memorable moments. All that and more on this
episode of History of Westeros Podcast.
Hello and welcome back everybody to our wrap up episode for Night
of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1. We are likely to return to our
usual Sunday slot of three, but we're going to go ahead and
throw a poll up on Patreon to make sure that's what people
want. Somehow y'all might prefer this
Monday slot, especially since we're going to go back to it for
House of the Dragon season and having two shows in one year.
Anyway, this is a good time to perhaps consider signing up for
our Patreon. That way you can have some
influence on this decision as well as the upcoming Topics Moot
2026 where we vote tournament style on which episodes we will
make this year. Remember to nominate for the
Hugo Awards by March 28th if you registered.
We are suggesting Ragnarok versus the Long Night.
We got to specify that it's by history of Westeros and that's
for best related work. That's the category we're going
for. Hey Sean, how's it going?
I hope you're excited to talk about the season and you brought
yourself a wrap up beverage of sorts perhaps.
Excited to talk about this season.
I don't know what to talk about. I have a you know, I have the
standard naked drink and magic mine, which are a bright green
and a dark green. And I mixed it with Mountain Dew
voltage for this electrifying season, which is blue.
But the blue did not come through and it makes a red drink
in here. It turns kind of brown, but the
blue just got drowned out by the.
Green boy, if you have questions for us, comments, things you
noticed that we didn't catch or just stuff you wanted to shout
out, hit us up here live A Shaya is monitoring the comments as
best as possible and while doing so many other things and you can
always hit us up after the fact. If you didn't catch the live
stream or if you just thought of something later, e-mail us at
westworldhistory@gmail.com or hit us up on one of our socials.
Let's have a poll. We have a not this is another
one of those guesswork slash predictions poll we we won't
necessarily know the answer to this well for at least one year
unless we get some sort of behind the scenes knowledge and
the question is which character from season 1 will we see again
first. Now we're limited a bit because
YouTube polls are only four choices, so there's actually a
few more possibilities here, but we debated a little bit Here's
here's a choice. You could obviously write in
your own answer if you think there's a better option than
this, but here's what we put You are giving you a choice for
Raymond, Arian, Makar, Tanzel. None of these are obvious.
Makar Sam Spruill already came forward, said he's not in season
2. Book readers, that's no
surprise. Arian is exiled.
So to book readers, no surprise if we don't see him for a little
while. Tanzel, maybe?
We never see her again. That seems grim, and I wouldn't
predict that, but it's possible. George answered my question and
said, you know, there's a good chance, which is it's good to
say yes. Yeah, he's basically saying yes,
You're right. That's basically a yes.
That's no, it would be my pick because she don't does reflect
on Dorn in book 2 and so that's a really good spot, but I don't
I don't remember she reflected on.
Her can I tell you what my pick would actually be?
And it's kind of a weird, weird pitch, but it would be that if
we see a montage of Duncan, Egg and Dorn, if we just see that
like they're constantly like 2 steps behind Tansel.
And she was there recently, you know, like you would show her
like never interacting with Dunk or Egg, but you would be like,
damn, they're so close. They were so close.
That would be taking the the first POV thing a little farther
than they have. But I'm not saying they wouldn't
do it. Not saying they wouldn't do it.
It's true. It's true.
Yeah. The one thing that that makes me
maybe want to say Tanzel the least likely is that she's the
she's the one that's like the most Incognito by far.
Make our, you know where he is. Aryan.
You kind of know where he is, too.
Raymond. He's at his New Castle.
Like all these people are kind of an obvious known.
Dunk will know. On the other hand, Tanzel may
come find him after he becomes more famous, but that's also a
while away. Well, like, he's not going to be
famous for a while. Another good guess is Makar, if
we expect them to kind of show show on screen, him giving this
thing that to that doesn't happen in a book, but also.
Well they said he's not in season 2 so that could happen.
Season 3 though, so you're right Like that could.
That still might be sooner than any other.
That could easily be sooner. And to be clear, Sam Spruill
said he wasn't going to be in Season 2.
It's also possible that they call him later than he thought.
Yeah, we. Got 1 scene, you get a film.
Yeah, you know what? I I would say his answer does
not preclude that it's it is possible to me that they would
add like a reshoot or add something to address this.
OK, So yeah, vote on that poll and we'll give you all the
answers. What you think what what your
percentages came out at the end of the episode.
Related our trivia question, this one we have a definitive
answer for who is the only character from the hedge night
that we actually see again in a different Duncan Egg story.
One of the other two answer to that at the end as well.
Super chat or comment from the only character not egg.
Yeah, I know. Aside from Duncan Egg.
Yeah, aside from Duncan Egg, exactly, Jillsville says.
I've had the opening themed History of Westeros, a night of
Seven Kingdom streams, playing in my head for the past hour.
It is a pretty good tune, isn't it?
Like the visuals are very appealing and memorable too.
But that song does stick in my head.
We are looking into having him add it to Spotify so that y'all
can listen to it or embed it in your Instagram stories or
whatever, so we'll update if that works out.
And add it to your playlist if you're going to listen to this,
the House of the House of the Dragon 7 Kingdoms 9 at 7 Kingdom
soundtrack, which is out now too, which we'll discuss briefly
later in the episode. Corn Emperor sends a super chat,
says support for the best of Westeros.
Amazing season. I got to agree with you there.
Thanks for the support. Now let's talk a little bit
about we've got as we normally do with most of our review
episodes, we like to do some favorite moment type stuff.
So we've got several ones this time extra more than usual since
it's a wrap up. So we're going to have some fun
with that for a couple quick notes before that.
Well, really just one this this show was 3 hours, 28 minutes
full runtime, you know, reps rounding off to the minute.
It could easily have been more like 330 or something like that.
Definitely not less than 328 though, because we're not adding
the seconds anyway. So that's pretty cool.
It's almost like 2 movies in length.
Like a little shorter than two movies.
Or one long movie like Lord of the Rings special edition.
Yeah, good point, Good point. That's shorter than I think the
the third one, the return of the king full just like 5 1/2 hours
or something like that. And.
You know, by the way, I think about this a lot when I think
about when I make lists, my top shows or top movies or whatever,
and I try to recognize there's maybe a difference between, you
know, what I think is best or what I like, my personal
favorite or what is most popular.
Those are all, you know, different lists, you know, and,
and one reason for a list like that is what you want to
recommend to people. And as much as I might like,
say, Better Call Saul, when I recommend that, that's telling.
Hey, watch 70 hours of material. Like like.
This is such a good recommendation because it's so
accountable. You could easily watch this in a
week, you know. That's true.
Yeah, you're totally right. It's nothing like a starting on
Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon where it's like, not only
is it more time, it's way more to to to learn, like you have to
fit the world. There's more like set up more
things to memorize and understand.
So yeah, I I agree. So that by itself makes it an an
easier starting point for a lot of people.
So for what what these questions we're about to answer amongst
each other here on tops of our highlight moments, I'm really
trying harder to say the word highlight moment or highlight
scene or whatever, because I don't think favorite really
works. It's not as it's not the
accurate. For one thing, I struggle with
favorites in general. I don't like doing top ten
lists. I know Sean loves it.
And so we have the opposite ends here, But I just the fact that
you spend so much time on it is part of what why I don't like it
because it's so hard. You appreciate that time you I
don't I don't like doing that. You you enjoy it.
So, you know, to each his own. And to your point, combined with
what I was saying a second ago, IA highlight is good because
there are certain things that I recognize are iconic or everyone
will love or capture the moment of the show, right?
But those might all be different than my favorite, which might be
some subtle nuanced thing that just got me or whatever.
So highlight might be any of those or all those or some
combination or. Whatever.
Yeah, well said. It's not always about favorite.
Sometimes it's just like, I just really wanted to make sure
people caught notice of this, you know, like and that it
deserves to be boosted something like that.
Yeah. So let's start with just our, we
kind of danced around it most of the season.
There's six of these questions we're going to be answering. 5
positive one -1 criticism, really not negative as much as
criticism. One thing we didn't actually
talk a huge amount of was specifically Dunk himself.
We always talk a lot about secondary characters.
We talked a bit about Egg, we talked about other things that
Dunk was a part of, but we never actually really focused in just
on like a favorite dunk moment. This is the perfect time to do
it cuz we got the whole season for it.
So Sean, start us off. What was your favorite dunk
seen, whether it had egg or not? Yeah, it's, it's tricky.
I think that the the the two that I'm inclined to pick out
here and maybe more because they're my favorite, right, was
I, I've got to say that moment in the end when they ride off in
a sunset like that just really hit me emotionally, even though
only lasted like, I don't know, 7 seconds and it had egg in it
also. But another one that I, I do
want to point out that I really loved and a bunch of levels was
the banter between dunk and egg and even the behind the scenes
when they're kind of mocking each other, like, Oh, Meg, I
only fancy berries. That was so funny and still
captured them well and and and the general tone of the show and
everything. But I I guess if I want to zero
in on Dunk, it's it's almost the obvious answer.
Who among you you know, are there no true Knights among you
that? Moment nice.
Great and iconic and ripped straight from the pages of the
books, the screen and everything.
All right. Good call there.
Shay, What about you? I also would shout out their
impressions of one another, Dunk's impression of Egg and
Egg's impression of Dunk. And if there was a little bit of
an outtake extended, I would like them to just give us the
the whole take of everything they tried, because that was
improv on the day we. Yes.
But they gave us a little extended part of it, and I put
that on the History of Westeros Facebook page.
It's also just in some of the other extended materials, but
you can find it clipped out on our Facebook.
So I really liked that and the fact that that was improv really
they put it over for me. But my favorite Dunk specific
moment is when he softens and he teaches Eggs to sew because you
can see he's kind of like scowling when Egg gets back.
He's grumpy. He was worried he thought maybe
he did run off, like he's in a bad mood about it and he's kind
of being sour to him. And then there's like this, this
really visible moment where Dunk like looks at him and his
expression just softens. And then he's like, no, come
over, let's teach you how to sew.
And then they have like that really sweet moment where they
sew and they're brushing, they're brushing Thunder and
chestnut, you know, they're brushing the horses.
And I just it's a really small moment.
But I do think Peter Claffy's acting and the writing beat was,
was really strong to I think to make the audience love Dunk as
well. You know, like it was one of
those moments that you respect and love.
You know, can I add a little thing to that too?
Something I I noticed on a rewatch in that moment, if you
remember, Dunk says, you know, whatever was egg one, He's like,
go brush the horses. And then he's like, I kind of
sighs like you said. And he's like, actually come
here, I'll teach you how to sew a patch.
We'll brush the horse together later.
Like it's not this dirty work punishment I'm giving you.
It could be something we work on as a team.
It's something it's you shouldn't be.
It shouldn't be a punishment to do that.
It should be something you appreciate and your help.
Yeah, on a lot of. Levels, I agree.
Yeah, it was an admirable reaction.
Like his he's he corrected himself.
He's like, I this is wrong. Like, I don't want to treat this
kid this way. This is not a good lesson.
This is not the way I want to do it.
Yeah. Like, you wish more like parents
would do that, you know, or just authority figures in general
would like, stop and think, like, what am I doing?
What what message am I really sending here?
Am I am I being too harsh? Am I?
This should be a teachable moment, right?
Not a punishable moment. Maybe that's, or at least that
should be second. If I was in a better mood, would
I do the same thing right now? Very good point.
Like, yeah, what is my how is my mood affecting my, my impression
of all this and my reaction to it?
For me, it's it's it's episode 5 stuff mostly.
I think basically the range he goes through there from the
really heartwarming, almost heartbreaking added footnote or
not footnote, but follow up to the I'll, you know, send dogs
after you. I'll I'll punch you down with
dog because that's in the book, the original for but not the
second time when he does it again before the trial that's
added. That was really good using the
material they already have in a really meaningful way.
And then he goes from that to the just it's so impressive, the
thinking about it. Like you, like you said, Sean,
there's different things you think of when you're trying to
give you someone credit for something.
Just imagining how difficult that scene to film was.
The, the the fight. I'm like, God, with the wasp and
the blood and the mud and the hitting each other in the face
by accident and all the other stuff and just doing it over and
over. So that's just, I got to give
credit for that. And then at the end, his
reaction to Baylor's death was just, man, just showing the
range. Yeah.
Like, wow. And if I wasn't going to name
that, I would just say the actual first scene of the whole
show, which was just immediately told you, oh, they're doing it
right. I mean, this is only the first
scene, but this is damn good for a first scene.
So just that first moment where I was.
Like. All right, what a great start
that was like almost relaxed a little bit, you know?
I don't want to ramble too much, but you know, this is a tough
category to choose from. And I want to throw out that the
two of my contenders, or, you know, follow-ups that I might
have named were the opening scene too.
And also the dunk dragon Arian through the mud.
That was another just like very, I mean, I, I, you should give as
much credit to, to Martin for writing that or whatever, but
they, they put it on screen perfectly.
Well said. All right.
Next one, we're following up with a sort of maybe predictable
second question. Favorite egg or highlight?
Sorry, I broke my own rule there.
Highlight egg moment slash scene slash take Sean.
Do it with with just egg. And again, there's there's
several contenders. I I I'm probably stealing one by
even mentioning when he goes to Aaron with the knife.
That was really good and not even in the book.
I don't know in a way that makes me a little extra impressed with
it, but I if I have to pick one, I think it's eggs.
Airbender training when he's off, when he goes off on his own
with a horse, he's swooshing around with the staff and the,
the interaction with Robert Riceling, Robin Riceling.
I loved all that and and that man, I wish at some point
somewhere in the all the tournament fair, they could have
had a, a cabbage dealer in there get his cart knocked over.
If you guys know Airbender, you would get that.
Reference. I have to know it to know that
reference because I've seen many cosplays at Dragon Con and have
friends who cosplayed him actually.
So I just like the idea of cabbage things getting spilled
over. That's just funny.
Just the image. I have no idea what you're
talking about. But yes, cabbages everywhere.
Asia, please tell us your highlight egg moment.
Most of mine are more comedic. I do really like the hair
regrowth scene. I think we're all highlighting
that because it was no dialogue. Such a heavy scene for such a
young actor and just an amazing scene all around, right?
I really like the more comedic moments with him, like when he's
asking for Dunks advice regarding his size when he's,
you know, philosophizing about the Alice with Three Fingers
song, which I think both of those spoke a lot to kind of
Egg's personality. You get to know him better and
they've made me laugh a lot, made me really think a lot about
Eggs future personality. I think people heard me a lot
talk about Eggs Dog and spirit and in the podcast.
And I do think that that resonates with Egg in a way.
But also the Hello Operator song, you know, the Miss Susie,
you know, Blackfyre song that he does.
I just was very tickled by that and it has to go on my list.
Yeah. It's you're already seeing folks
that we we really can't do this. The way I've laid it out, we
can't name one. It's impossible.
We each are naming each other like I'm going to also name the
Harry regrowth one because God, that was so good.
And it's kind of the only one that's like that in terms of
like it's eggs darkest scene by far.
So many of the others, and including the ones we're
highlighting here, are, if not humorous, they're light hearted.
Right? Like the egg training stuff is
pretty light hearted. It's pretty got some depth to it
for sure. Like the way he pushes back
against what his father taught him about horses, you know, I
thought that was pretty cool. And the fact that he's doing it
at all, that he's, you know, getting up early to to work, you
know, and train, that's pretty cool.
But yeah, also the 9 Kingdoms epilogue bit was just too funny.
I love that. I mean, that's really a Dunkin
Egg moment, but it's really Egg that makes that moment funny.
Dunk's reaction kind of sells it, but he's just stuttering
like what? No, are you mad?
And that's pretty much the only thing he says.
And Egg has steals that moment too by saying is that relevant?
You know, so which is a great response.
But as far as like the most like sincere moment, I would say it's
when Dunk says to him, this is also kind of cheating because
it's really Dunk is a big part of this moment.
But it's Egg's reaction that gets me.
And Dunk says you really are a good worker when you put your
mind to it. And he the way he looks bad Dunk
like he's just like, it's that best thing he could have said,
you know, And he's just like, well, does that mean you'll keep
me after this? You know, I can Squire for you
after the tournament. And the way he looks with that,
it's just like the thing he wants most in the world and
it's, it's so touching. Yeah, you mentioned here, but I
don't think you said it there, but you mentioned get up Sarah
potentially shout out to that moment, him saying get up Sarah
and and and wait, because it was really impressive and because
I've seen a lot of hilarious memes and tik toks of it.
A lot of people have made him saying get up Sarah their alarm
clock. I've seen a lot of videos of it.
It's at a great alarm clock. I've probably seen 5 to 10 of
these videos of someone like waking up to get up there.
What I need, what we need is like, yellow lights or like
hazard lights that are out in the room.
Wait, you know, like you're trying.
Yeah. Something.
We got to find a way to put that into the real world, too.
I will say, by the way, I had forgotten about that moment
when, when egg, when dunks like, oh, you know, egg's like, I'm
too small and dunks. Some people say I'm too dumb and
then egg's like. And and yeah, I put that one on
the list. So folks, I put up a couple of
polls on Patriot and Facebook for y'all to vote in moments
like this. And that was one of the ones I
included for like for favorite non.
I think it was favorite non book moments was one of the polls
like things that didn't happen in the books.
I think like favorite moments that they invented for the show
only. All right, let's move on to the
next one here real quick. Also, I got a shout out three
fingered Alice. I think at the time I said that
was my favorite scene of that episode.
Yeah, that's just, I love that so much.
All right, so non Dunkin egg moment scene.
We're taking the 2 main characters out.
Sean, what you got? You know, there's hardly any
scenes that don't have Dunk or Egg.
I, I, I think I mean depending how you define a scene and how
you define dunk, maybe like the flashbacks when he was a boy.
I don't, you know. Just to be clear, they're
allowed to be in the scene. It's just like someone else's
moment there. You know, it isn't them.
They're, they can be there to respond or react or or yeah, it
could be. A Raymond Fosseway moment, but
it's him talking to Dunk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I, I'll say I had a hard time thinking about this one because
it wasn't quite sure what to count, how to count it.
Well, I, I landed on on Arlen when Dunk was following Arlen
and he's kind of drunk and singing Dothraki and stabbed
himself with his whole, his own knife.
I think that if I I think if I had to pick one, I think that's
it. Nice.
That's a good one. Yeah, I appreciate you.
You singling that one out? What about you, Shaya?
I'm going to say a scene from episode 1, which was Dunk going
to the party, but it's not for the dunk of it all.
It's for the Lionel Baratheon of it all.
And for kind of it was, I think one of the first moments in the
show where I saw them do something different and nail it,
you know, and where I saw them expand on Lionel Baratheon's
character in a way that I found satisfying, intriguing, resonant
with what we could know about the character.
You know, he's saying kind of the right things, I guess, with
what I would imagine he'd say. And so and like the dancing in
the scene, the film work, the way that they filmed it to
really seem like this bacchanal type of party.
Like just, there's so much about it, from the acting to the
choreography to just again, that I, I was so pleased to get
something new and fresh that was not in the books that I felt
like could have been. Yeah, and that was a big like,
like, like the way I referenced the first scene and I was like,
oh, OK, they're doing this right.
That's a great sign. This was the first like added
scene. It was a big one.
And they got that right too. Or did a really good job.
So that was also kind of like comforting, like, OK, well,
they're going to be adding other scenes.
Well, at least this first one was really good too.
So yeah, I, I really like they highlighted that one because it
it showed the expansion of a character and the expansion of a
plot in ways that fit didn't override anything, didn't try to
go too far in some new direction.
They weren't trying to be too creative.
They worked really well with what they had.
And for myself, I'll choose a a kind of an easy slam dunk
moment. Baylor joining dunk just at the
end of episode 4. This is partly for a meta
reason. We know how important that
moment is in the book. We we figured out which is not
a, it wasn't very difficult to figure out that it would be the
end of an episode. That seems very straightforward.
So it was more about like, well, are they going to nail this
moment and how will the fans react to it?
Because there's that's two different things.
They could nail this moment and it could still be like, oh, that
was kind of cool. You know, we were, we would hope
for something more than Oh, that was kind of cool.
And it was, it was way more the fans loved it.
The fans blew up. It was maybe the first episode
where people really, really started to fall for the show.
Like people are into it. But I think episode 4 is when,
if not episode 3 with the reveal and all the heart warming
moments. It was episode 4 when it got so
serious and like, oh, so that that's a really big one for me.
I'll, I'll go ahead and highlight that one now for
criticism then and before a couple of more positive ones.
Let's do the criticism here. Biggest disappointment, Sean,
what is your biggest disappointment or
disappointments? If you feel like mentioning more
than one. Well, my biggest disappointment
by far, obviously, is that we didn't get to see the actual
moment when Dunk certainly was 90.
Sure we would get that on screen.
George just forgot. George just forgot to put it in
a book. So.
But aside from that, I was, I was a little disappointed with
me two other things. And one was, you know, one's
just kind of my nitpickiness about action.
And I'm a little extra disappointed because they did so
many other things so well, including all the actor stuff.
So it bugged me. I mentioned it bugged me that
dunk is like on on a makeshift crutch.
It's really just a stick and he uses his hand to kind of cushion
it. But that hand had just got a
knife stuck through like they they did.
I. Tell you, Sean.
Yeah. I'm with you more today than I
was last week because I I sprained my ankle on Friday and
tried to go and I succeeded in going to a rave the next night.
But it was a rave that was all like you had to take stairs to
get down and I had a knee screw. It was very hard.
And so like thinking about him getting down to that funeral.
I'm I'm more with you than I ever was, but for for Tvi get I
still get why they have to. Change that it is I still it's a
type of thing that that and I don't know if that bothers me
more or less but they could have done something slightly
different to admit that they could have just had him not put
his arm up there or had the funeral different spot.
I'm not showing us it was up the hill.
Something I don't know. But the other thing that bugs me
because I think it might have more implications in how the
plot goes is that the final, final scene when Maker is like,
where is it now? Right now I can easily write
that off because I think easily with one line of dialogue, they
could just resolve that. We're like, well, it's a good
thing you're the Kings guard caught up to us and gave you
that thing that, you know, they could just easily one line
dialogue. I give them probably three
seats. I bet we get 3 scenes of
interaction or discussion or something.
But I think they're just going to move past that quick and easy
and it won't really affect things.
But you know, it kind of stirs us up with that.
Well, what now Hot Rod allocated it creates this.
I feel suspicion in the fandom of what that means and how it
will come from and and even maybe more importantly, it ticks
away a little bit for make ours decision or growth or whatever,
you know? Yeah, I I tend to agree with you
on that. One, I would say that suspicion
is not necessarily bad. I would say part of it is good
to get people to be rising buzz. But regardless, good point.
Even even like the big penis was people didn't like it, but it
sort of get a lot of people talking about it.
Yeah, right. Or the.
Pooping seed, you know it's a disappointment.
Because I don't want to give it more air time to be.
Disappointed by that, Sean. My parents actually.
It makes it hard for me to recommend it to my parents.
I you know what I mean? You just take that out and this
is a slam dunk for my parents to watch.
Would they be? Fine with the horse being
stabbed in the neck. Yeah, they don't care about
that. Happy about it, but they're not.
A difference between our parents.
My mom kept bringing up Arlen. She loved it.
She thought it was the funniest thing.
She brought it up many times. That horse, she was very upset.
She was like very violent. And then again when the the the
5th episode with the big fight she was not as into she wanted
more penis I think. So real quick before yours of
shed, just to add on to what you said here, I watched a couple of
videos and there's a real there's a real disparity.
Like I watched a couple of videos about like a doctor or an
ER nurse weighing in on the injuries and another where
people were weighing in on the armor and the neither side
understood the other like doctor, doctors, obviously no
medicine way better than anybody like me.
You these guys would understand, but they actually don't
understand armor. They don't understand medieval
armor, so that's kind of off. And it was interesting to see
that disparity. Like they understand one thing
like as better as, as well as anyone in the world and the
other like their understanding is might be even less than you
and me, you know, 'cause they don't watch fantasy shows or
think about armor. So anyway, that's not a way, I'm
not trying to rehash all that. It was just thought it was
interesting. There's a variety of takes out
there on all this. And as using Ashea's example,
her perspective changed based on having her own injury.
And that's extremely valid. Experience is the one of the
most valid things there is. Can I interject one thing here,
since you brought up armor, I, I just kind of threw out there one
time. I, I think when we were talking
about how exhausted they'd be fighting just wearing the armor
round, never mind the exertion and the wounds and all.
And I was like, that armor weighs 100 lbs and I, I didn't
really know. I just threw that out there.
And I think you said 60 is more accurate.
I said I was 60 for full plate, which none of which he's not
wearing and neither is Aryan. Right.
I was going to say there's a lot of variation and one just off
the bat, think about it, Dunks armor would weigh more than
Raymond's armor, right? So just how big you are, what
type of armor you're wearing? But the heaviest armor is
jousting armor, which ostensibly they're wearing.
Maybe they're not wearing. Especially Dunk might not have.
No. Well, they wouldn't be wearing
jousting armor for a trial by 7, that would be.
For they know they're going to end up down off the horses of
fight. Yeah, but jousting armor weighs,
give or take a hundred, £130. Like Dunks might be 130 and
Raymonds might be not. Include the.
Does that include the shield and?
I don't think that even includes the shield.
And the shield's not that heavy, probably, but.
Yeah, which, but but you do have to think that is another.
Adding on you. Know 8 lbs and I I don't know if
that would include things like they're clothes underneath which
wouldn't, which might be like pad cotton I.
Believe it does because that's that's that's in inseparable
from the kit. You can't really take that, you
know, you know, I mean, why would you count the weight of?
Not that if it's only ever going to be worn together, but.
I remember both myself and some of the reading and research I
did that modern marines in combat are usually wearing.
You know, give or take 80 lbs of stuff.
Now that includes. Like ancient Roma legionaries as
well. They would carry around all that
stuff. Yeah, it's crazy.
And when I was in your army and I had like a radio and
batteries, I was an intelligence, so I had extra
maps and whatever extra stuff. But I was carrying around and
I'm only 125 and I was carrying almost £100.
That's after I jumped out of the plane because getting on a
plane, I also had the parachute and the reserve.
So, you know, anyway, it's, it's the type of thing that exhausts
you just walking the list distance of a football field or
whatever, never mind running around and swinging and
everything. And then how tired you are
afterwards when you're fueled by the adrenaline that allowed you
to do more than you would have normally been able to do.
And then once that adrenaline's gone, you're like.
Tired. The actors portrayed that very
well. I I don't think they were
skimping on that. Another one of my picks for dunk
scene was when he pulled himself up and like so I can do just to
raise the back this shore back up to the ready and Aryan is
like has to lean over and pick up his sword.
And I made the point about Aryan that his adrenaline would have
already faded because he thought it was over.
And like, how do you get back to that?
You know, Anyway, so let's, anyway, we've, we've, we've
stuck with this point a little too long.
Let's let's move on. Ashaya, your favorite, your
disappointment. Favorite.
Sorry, your favorite disappointment.
For me, it was Tansel. I think there were a couple
beats and scenes, moments that weren't in the show that were in
the book, specifically with her and Egg.
Her and Egg interacted a little bit more like she played with
the puppets with him a little bit more in the in the novella.
Not a lot, but when when the characters as scant as as that I
I wanted that as well. Seems like they replaced that
which is him watching more more scenes than watching which isn't
as. But I would have liked to have
him and Tansel just talking and interacting more anyway.
So it's that and just the, the, the length of the episode.
I, I think I want more. So that's got to be it for me.
Right on. I have three quick ones.
One was the the lack of the dunks reaction to the small
folk, which I acknowledge they just goofed and left that for
they meant to have that in and forgot.
Oh well, you know, don't don't be too hard on them for that.
But it absolutely is a disappointment.
I was hoping for more jousting, not a big deal, and more
appearances of some of the other nobles that also I can kind of
go, OK, that's a budget thing. The tug of war was sort of a
replacement for jousting that they couldn't afford.
I think that's people. That's a lot of the theory
that's out there. That seems like almost certainly
true. And I was a little disappointed
with the funeral because I all season long I was like, oh,
we're going to see some cool characters at the funeral.
That didn't really happen. There were characters that we
still don't know who they are. So maybe when we learn who they
are, if we learn who they are, we might, I might go back and
go, OK, this was a little cooler than I thought, but right now I
had higher hopes for that and it didn't really pan out.
Part of your, I don't know, excitement or anticipation was
your ability to recognize who they were.
Like I should know of these? People.
Through contacts and signs and da, da da.
And we still weren't able Yeah, like people who we thought would
be there either weren't there or we couldn't identify them.
And yeah, that's a. Little bit, yeah.
Which is by the reason the budget's the same reason why
some of those figures were seen walking at the end and why only
certain people had horses. That's almost certainly budget
as well. The horse budget, you know all
that I saw. Someone who had a satisfying
answer to that, which is that often when you had a courtyard
like that, everyone would exit and get on getting carriages
outside of the courtyard. Like they have carriages waiting
for them. There's a, There's a.
Arian was already on a carriage though.
But you might be right still. Needed it desperately.
Everyone else would just get out.
That's a good point. Get them straight to.
Longer to load them in if they get everyone into the courtyard.
Anyways. It was someone was talking about
real world they. Wouldn't be carriages.
You're right, they wouldn't be. Most of them would not be riding
on horses. They'd be carriages.
You're right. That's.
A good point. If they, if those ladies,
specifically Kiara, if Ty Rosh and the other ladies with her,
if they were leaving, moving the courtyard and then they're all
going to get in a carriage a little bit later than that.
It's fine. Yeah.
I can see that. You're right.
That's a pretty good. I can work with that for sure.
All right, so let's highlight non Dunkin Egg character that
you really like the most or thought stood out the most,
Sean. Hit it.
My default is Baylor, but I I two things.
I feel like he's a little cheating.
He's among the most obvious ones to pick.
And also I, and I don't know quite how to say this because,
you know, disappointment isn't quite the right word, but
because he was good. He was.
He was, I was going to say fine, but not just fine, but good, but
somehow just didn't quite hit. And I don't know how much it was
the actor or the story around him, but he didn't quite hit
this like, I don't know, monumental character to look up
to that that I felt in the book, you know, So but but yeah, I'm
still picking him here and in my backup, who I'm antsy about
picking as my #1 because of his villainous.
But Aryan did a really good job. I thought they did.
They brought he had more depth in the show than he did in the
book. And I think that was that was
done well, made it more meaningful, made him more
interesting. Right on.
OK. Yeah, I definitely agree with
you about Aryan. I probably don't agree with you
about Baylor. I felt like he came off
similarly the book, but that's just that's just me.
I definitely wouldn't argue Kosia.
What about you? I'm going to say Lionel
Baratheon. I thought Daniel Ings was just
so charismatic. Every time he was on screen, I
was excited. I see him in the background and
he was like, oh, it's Lionel there.
You know, like I was, I was enthused about him.
So I mean, I feel like that's the easy answer.
I feel like he was such a standout popular character for
so many people, honestly. But you know, I, I don't need to
avoid a popular answer just because it's popular.
I think he's popular for good reason.
And that actor brought a lot to the role.
And I think Ira Parker talked about this, that they went
through casting that role and it just wasn't clicking.
And then they they weren't, it wasn't hitting for him.
And then Daniel Ings comes in and he just brought so much of
himself to it. Yeah.
So much swagger and and all of that, I guess.
And, and I was like, yeah, like their Lionel is a lot of Daniel
Ings in it, I think. And so that was cool to to learn
about. Someone.
Yeah, Well done there. OK, so for me, I I've been
picking Raymond all season long. I've by now a lot of you are
like that dude. Aziz must have a man crush on
Raymond. And you're right.
I do. I like that guy a lot.
I I liked him from the second he appears like I like that guy and
it's just stayed all season long.
I like Raymond. Everybody likes Raymond, but
especially me. My I would love.
Raymond. I think I do love Raymond.
Yes, I do love Raymond and Sir Arlen too.
Just that's one that it's hard to point mix up.
Maybe episode 5 or maybe episode 6 as well.
There's not like a single moment in the for earlier episodes.
We can go Arlen boom. You know, like there's a little
bits and pieces. If you look at it as a whole,
and this is one of the characters that most benefit
from looking at the season as a whole, it really comes together
more. And like I said, especially
because they did such a great job with his ending, with his
epilogue and with how much he meant to Dunk when it mattered
most and how Dunk thought through him and how he was the
character the Dunk spent the most.
I'm thinking about and and and landing in a good place on like,
yeah, he had problems, he had issues.
But the most important thing was he taught me to be a true knight
and that outweighs everything else because that's like such a
huge thing. So that was really good.
I like that. You know, Aziz, my second answer
would have been Raymond. You'd already written him.
And I wanted to say Lionel more anyways, but I also feel that
that Sean Thomas brought an extra sparkle to Raymond just by
his accent. Yeah.
Accent and Stefan Fossaway too. I love both those guys.
Actors, Stefan. Really like I knew what was
going to happen and that actor had me like wanting, really
wanting to believe him. Like he was very convincing.
Stefan is a good actor in addition to his actor.
Yeah, go Fossaways. Yeah.
As you said, I want to point your shirt out.
I can tell it's, you know, Targaryen dragon emblem, but
they're red and green like. Apples, you know, kind of
roundish and. I should make you a red and
green apple shirt. Phosphate shirt.
Please do, Please do. I'll wear I.
Wish I'd done it before this season.
I should think. I got to think more about your
shirt by. The time that's great, yeah.
And of course, just not to mention his the the the very
obvious and and pleasing parallels to Podrick that they
put in with him. He's so Podricky, which is of
course, so perfect because Brienne, right?
I mean, that's the connection is straightforward.
You got to love that, right? Highlight character slash
performance who had very few lines or scenes.
Now, very few is open to interpretation.
You you 2 both picked one that I think maybe goes over like, I
don't think I think paid had too many lines.
I think Rowan did too. But you're allowed to talk
about. I'm just going to say that I was
thinking of people who had like two or three lines at most.
But let's see what you all said. Sean, what is your choice?
Yeah, my my first instinct was Pate, but one I was debating how
much of that is because he I feel, and again, trying to give
a measured response here, I don't think Pate was bad or in
any way in the show, but he hit me harder in the book.
I appreciated him more in the book than it didn't show.
I still love them in the show, but even more in the book, But
also I was questioning whether or not, you know, how how minor
was your how minor you wanted to get here.
And I realized when it impressed me significantly, that was minor
in show and book and impressed me more in the show than in the
book was Villar. I think that that little bit at
the end with Villar we had always I don't even know if he
spoke that time when Aryan wrote up to him and said I won't
embarrass you today, cousin. We saw him, but I don't think he
spoke and I don't think we even saw him again until, you know,
maybe he was like somewhere in the background.
I didn't notice. But when Dunk comes up and asks
him and and that was it. That moment was in the book.
They. Slightly expanded the lines.
They did one extra one, yeah. I that when he talked about his
father dying in his armor. Yeah.
And if I remember right, I think it was him that said what did
your tree tell me? And they moved that to Makar.
That's still Makar. That was still Makar.
OK, but anyway that I thought that moment was really good.
I think he again, like the whole point is he didn't have much
screen time, but that little moment, I think he nailed it.
Yeah, I agree. And I also want to give some
credit to to the filmmaking in general.
I think it was really good the way they cut to Dunk.
He his voice over still happening.
We see Dunk walking through town and he tells him to be gone.
It was, it's a thing that like, we want to love Dunk and it's
extra hurtful because we know what Dunk's going through, but
also we know what Velar's going through too.
Like it makes sense for him to be upset and frustrated.
He could have been a lot meaner there too.
You know what? I mean, yeah.
And it and it was that was really well done, that he wasn't
mean. It was like, look, I'm I
understand everything that happened, but like, the sight of
you is still upsetting me. Like, I know it's not
necessarily your fault, but like, I'm hurt and I can't deal
with it. Yeah, it was it was very human.
And and you're right, the performance, that one, those
couple lines was just Oscar Morgan nailed it.
Yeah, who is your choice? Well, you said Rowan slash Red
is maybe a little too featured. I still will shout her out
because, I mean, not not many women in the show and they
wanted to add it. She had quite a character arc
and it's a good actress. You know, a lot of her scenes
were just her kind of her, her reactions and not really her
talking. That much you know, but for
someone who counts for your your actual specifications, Gwen, who
I mean, she had a lot of lines too, like a good amount.
But I'll say Gwen, because they turned a nothing character, just
kind of this nameless girl that this whole tourney is is
centered around that we never really learn anything about.
And they gave her a personality, a clear arc.
She really looked she looked young.
Like we watched it with some friends and she said that thing
about how Dunk was big and stupid.
And my our friend goes, what is she, 12?
I'm like, yeah, actually it's her 13th birthday, that.
Makes sense, yeah. So like, I, I felt like that
actress was good. I felt like the writing was
good. It came full circle with her
being teary eyed and upset about the grave injustice and and what
she witnessed. And yeah, I just thought that
was a a great arc for her on both ladies.
I mentioned I think both of them had kind of a complete arc, a
story up to them I suppose, which I appreciated.
I agree. Yeah, good shout out there.
Sean, you have something to add. Yeah, I wanted to point out of
Shia that when that first scene happened and she's like, oh,
you're you know, you're dumb and stupid.
And she kind of ran off and I, and I was a little perplexed by
that. I was like, oh, I get.
This instantly I'm like she's wants to share the tea, she
wants to gossip. She's a 13 year old girl.
And since you said that, I can't stop thinking about it.
It makes me appreciate that moment and that character more.
And I'm even thinking in the next season about the one
maester who wants to gossip with everyone.
And it is just kind of part of the world in people's lives,
especially back then when it wasn't like.
Your social media or your? TV or anything to tune into or
whatever the the only thing you had to talk about is what Jimmy
did at the Marquee. What?
Other. Yeah like what other nobles
brought their 13 year old daughters with them, you know,
to the tournament? Probably very few, if any.
You know, she's like, yeah, it's.
A shame. Like, you're like, this is a
tournament for a 13 year old, but they bring their daughters.
Yeah. Like they belong there, too.
That's crazy. Yeah, I totally agree.
That was a really good added. Those were both very good added
characters that were actually there, but their role was like,
Red was there, or at least a redheaded sex worker was there.
In the book, they don't give her a name, which is kind of funny
that they call her Red because that's like, well, that was what
she read. That's the only thing we know
about her. Yeah.
But yeah, those were. That was really good.
Little small touches like that really, really help fill it out.
I'll choose either Beesbury or Sir Robin.
I really appreciate it. Both the efficient way they gave
us a little bit to like about both of them very quickly.
Like Sir Robin, I loved his if it is madness bid, it is madness
delivered. Like his delivery was just off
in a way that fits a guy who's a little off like that.
His intonation and inflections were a little weird, which is
perfect. And Beesberry like, let's, let's
not forget that Humphrey Beesberry was the one who did
those amazing splits in the first episode to start off the
dancing and then was doing all this great dancing and he had
that great mustache. And and the fact that that both
of these houses more so bees buried by a lot actually got
some more like they expanded on how like their house lore like
the the bee coffin as. A bee's burial.
The bee's burial, Yeah, like, nice.
Like, good job with that. You know, it wasn't just a
character, it was the the lore around them.
Can I highlight another thing that I like that doesn't quite
fit into any of the categories that you had?
And maybe you guys might want to do the same thing.
The flashbacks, I thought it was awesome.
I thought the use of flashbacks was awesome.
They, they, they're both the, I don't know that the timing, the
editing, that in addition to the actual material that we saw.
And you know, I don't want to, I was fine.
I've seen some complaints about that, the long one with Rafe and
all that. And you know, being longer gives
more space to complain or whatever I guess.
Well, this is a perfect time for me to bring up a quote from Ira
Parker. This was from an IGN interview
where he speaks to the flashbacks and Sir Arlen and
I'll read it. You guys give me your takes and
I'll we're done with Sir Arlen, Parker said.
Sir Arlen is allowed to go rest. He has done his job with Dunk.
Dunk is now a night and he's heading off to have his own
journeys with his own Squire. Would Sir Arlen ever come back?
I would love that. First of all, I just love Danny
Webb and I think he's a genius and I think he is Sir Arlen and
he just did such a brilliant job for us.
But we will do flashbacks when they're appropriate for the
story. For the moment, I would say
we're probably not even doing them as frequently as we did in
Season 1. They're different, they're
changed. They're a reflection of the
story that we're in and where Dunk is in his life.
That took me aback. I would have thought there might
be still plenty of Arlen flashbacks.
There might be a lot of flashbacks in Season 2.
It it definitely surprised me a little bit and maybe it's a
misdirect and maybe he's just underplaying it.
I'm not sure. Yeah, it's a little surprising
to me too, because not only did I kind of expect there to be
more on flashbacks, but I also kind of anticipated some Black
Fire Rebellion flashbacks. But the the context of what you
said just there makes me think not or is so.
Limited. Yeah, yeah.
No, I I don't think anything they said there precludes like
black fire flashbacks like he says, like he's in fact, he's
saying that's what there will because it has to fit the story.
He's. Just saying we're not doing the
best frequently, you know, it just, it makes it seem.
Different they they're going to be about where Dunk is right now
and that's a little bit but yeah, again, it doesn't preclude
it but it makes me think that where.
He is right now is in a Fleur service to a former black fire
Lord. That's so that's and who who who
is does very little but think about what could have been you
know, like he mopes over it. Well, mopes is a little unfair.
He's lost his pretty much his whole family.
That's underselling it. But still, yeah.
So I think that is it's, it's inextricable from the plot line
that that that is very black fire coded.
I guess in my head I would have thought season 2 might have more
flashbacks, not fewer, so that's where I'm surprised.
I don't necessarily agree. I would think longer flashbacks,
less of them though, because you don't, you have to show extended
moment. Like the way Sir Sir Eustace
thinks about it is these descriptions of battle and these
aren't something that you can do with one quick flash.
You're he's like describing a long duel between Damon
Blackfyre and and Gwain Korbray and what happens before it and
right after. And like, I don't think you
could just do 2 seconds. Like that's that's 15 seconds,
30 seconds. And you're going to have several
of those maybe. I mean, you would you would
think that's a strong possibility.
So. But we'll see.
Yeah. I mean, who knows?
Like, they obviously haven't done all this yet.
This is just still in the planning phase.
They're filming some of it, but it's not all set in stone yet.
So, yeah, well, it'll be fun to come back and, and look at this
a little later and see what's actually done and, and how the
flashbacks have changed. And that'll give us a better
idea to predict Season 3 if they have different, like, approaches
to the way they do flashbacks. Cause 'cause as we discussed,
it's not just the Black Fire stuff.
It's like, well, are they going to do Doran as a flashback, Old
Town as a flashback, visiting next to Raymond, all that?
Yeah. Make our finding him and give
him the ring, yeah? Added scenes like that, Sure,
yeah. Perfect examples.
So on the same theme as characters like Gwen and Sir
Robin and Beesbury and maybe even Valar, there were
characters who were particularly expanded on the most, more than
others, I'd say. And those would be the ones we
want to discuss now. Most of the characters, like the
Targaryens, for example, weren't changed very much.
They were adapted very seamlessly to the page, almost
like sure make ours. Personally, he was a little
different. His delivery is a little
different. Baylor Sean said maybe he didn't
have quite the weight. I didn't agree with that.
But either way, the dialogue that he's given is almost
identical to the book and and his scenes are almost identical.
So I think it's a character like Sir Lionel that Ishaya
highlighted earlier that we're we come back to here and there
is a may be the most shining example, maybe the character
that was most expanded on. Certainly there's a case to be
made for that. It may be Sir Arlen or Raymond
or other cases to be made, but we'll see.
Let's talk about Sir Lionel for a minute.
I'll start it off and then hand it off to you guys.
In addition to disliking Dragons, as we see in episode 6
there, Lionel's a Stormlander. That's something we forgot to
mention, which might be a thing about, well, he doesn't like
Dornish people when Baylor is half Dornish.
So you might not have liked. There's another angle to Baylor
that he might not have been so throw about.
He said the line the others effing gelled me in response to
his witch maester saying things. That's an interesting little
tidbit because the others the line the others has never been
used on the TV before. They never used that.
They only only call them white walkers.
That was for a meta reason. It was because at the time the
show Lost was still pretty recent.
Well, there's two reasons. That was one of the reasons that
the show Lost was pretty recent. It's not really recent anymore
in 2026. They don't really have to care
about that anymore. But the others was a very big
part of lost. Also, when you're reading the
book, when you're reading the song about in fire, it's capital
O others. So you're not you're not
confused by just a generic of those others in the show.
There's no way to communicate that.
So not easily. So they just went with White
Walkers, which is a more distinct, unique name.
So here we can easily just say, well, language drift.
Let's this is 90 years before. Like people just call things
differently, you know, over time and words become trending and
then fall off and then come back again.
So that this is a simple thing, but I'm.
But it was probably meant to be a little fun little Easter egg
there. I like how they made him a
little bit of a madman a lot. Some people kind of noted that
he was a little bit like Jack Sparrow.
And then he said, yeah, I was trying to be a little bit like
Jack Sparrow. It's like, oh, how about that?
I like the madman interpretation because working with what they
had, we don't know much about Laughing Storm.
He's tall. That's not really a personality
trait as much as they tried to make it 1 jokingly in the in
that tent scene with Lionel, he just laughed a lot and wanted to
fight the Kingsguard. You know?
Like he didn't have a much of A personality.
So they went with what they had. Like this guy's a little crazy,
isn't he? He wants to fight the
Kingsguard. He laughs for 10 minutes
straight while someone's challenging him.
Remember I pointed to that before?
Like someone challenges him. He laughs.
He's still laughing as he's mounting his horse.
He's still laughing as he's charging.
Like, how long is this process? How long in a That's 10 minutes
of laughing like that is a little crazy, isn't it?
So. Yeah.
He's laughing at how heavy his armor is, and he's like, this is
nothing to me. So yes, he's got a little bit of
Tyrion in him, a little Jack Sparrow or maybe a little Loki,
you know, a little bit of look, because the mischievous is
there, too. They're like, he might want to
start a war. He's kind of talking about that
and he's often got, I personally find the noble or rich person
who has everything and is bored by life as kind of a compelling,
realistic portrayal in any setting.
So I worked a guy that like he's an adrenaline junkie almost.
Nothing really excites him. It's more that than actual
bravery. It's like, yes, he's brave
because he can face dangers, but it's more the appeal of
adrenaline that then rather conquering his own fear kind of
thing, if that makes sense. So I wonder if there's given the
set up they have, I wonder what else we're going to see?
Like are those there going to be build up?
Are we going to hear about him from afar, Duncan Egg and hear
news about Lionel? Like that's a thing.
If he if his father dies and he becomes Lord of Storms end,
that's the kind of thing we could a way to keep up with him
in between seasons. That would be that's the kind of
news that would sweep the country like the Lord of Storms
end just passed. That's everyone would be talking
about that. And also I wonder like, who else
he's recruiting Dunk for something, you know, because he
saw the power of Dunk and the appeal of Dunk and the quality.
Who else is he recruiting? You know, who else is he
gathering, you know, in his corner?
So yeah, anyway, I, I appreciate it all that.
I really like the expansion of the character.
Do you How do you all either of y'all have anything to add about
the expansion of Sir Lionel's character?
Well, one the log line for the character, yeah, was part Jack
Sparrow, part Ernest Hemingway, and was what they compared him
to. I see in the chat I like this a
lot, Sunny Skies 4000 says Lionel reminded me of Taika
Waititi as Blackbeard and our flag means death.
He did have a bit of that slaying pirate.
Wow, a little. Bit capricious, sometimes
emotional, kind of just wanting to do things for the fun of.
It the man crush on the main character.
Very fruity, very like. I mean, I that's something we
haven't said here about Lionel, but I think it can't be ignored
that he is very queer coded in the way that a future Lord Ling
would be. You know, like he's not we're
never going to see him living that life, but he is going to
talk about fingers up the bum and smack dunks ass.
And you know what I mean? Like it's as coded as it could
be without making him a gay character, which also is going
to kind of be foreshadowing. I don't know a little a moose
bouche. I don't know, an appetizer to
what we're going to get in the third book in the mystery night
with John the fiddler where he has, you know, a real another
guy who has a kind of a crush on him, not a definite crush.
So, you know, so I think Lionel set the stage for everybody once
dunk, you know, everybody is kind of captivated by dunk.
Even someone who is this charismatic man is Lionel
Baratheon. Once dunk on his side and by his
side and finds him attractive in some way.
He sees the power of dunk he's like this is this is this guy's
got a future. He noticed it before most other
people, if not anyone even except maybe Egg He.
Wants him on his side, by his side, on his lap.
Yep, I agree and and appreciate everything you guys have all
said. But I came away with a little
bit of a sour note from Lionel. I thought that it was he was
coming across a little prejudice against the the Targaryens and
not reading the room. Well, with Dunk, you know, I
think that and I do think it's unsheatable.
I want to tell you, I like that. I don't want a character without
flaws and I like that he has those flaws.
Right. It it, I should clarify it
doesn't make me not like the character or the performance or
the edition or whatever else, but it makes me not like Lionel
and also it makes me not like Lionel as much.
It just took him a down when not.
Usually you're speaking in world, not like you don't
dislike the way he was writing or you're just like.
Presented well, I don't like that warm.
Well, he was interesting, you know, all the stuff you guys
said, but his, I don't know, disdain for the Targaryen in the
face of Dunk, who is trying to appreciate a Targaryen like that
moment. Like, I feel like why don't you
just wrote it? Dunk might have come with you
and you just wrote it. You know what I mean?
So. I don't think he was going to go
with him in any case. But you're right, Like he if he
had a chance of of doing it, he was going to.
He was rude because Dunk was like, I am running the opposite
way from the nobility no matter what.
But you're right. But he, Lionel could have made
it more tempting, but he wasn't tempted.
The way he sold it, it wasn't really being sold at all.
So yeah, I totally agree with you there.
Let's talk about House Fossaway, because there's 2 characters
here and a whole new branch, pun intended, a House Fossaway.
Yeah. I love the idea of Duncan Egg.
Kind of like maybe hearing that Lionel's now Lord of Storm's End
and maybe things he's doing as a result of that and the changes
he's making. We're going to hear about New
Barrel from afar. It doesn't exist yet.
We know it will soon. This is a cadet branch, and
that's not a yearly affair. You don't see new houses pop up
that often, cadet branches or otherwise.
Nor do you see, like new castles built very often.
It's pretty rare. Like Westeros is very set, you
know what I mean? Like, not a lot of, not a lot of
change at the top like that. Not a lot of New Castle's coming
and going, right? That's a very rare thing.
Shout out to Nina, who caught that.
Edward Ashley, which is the actor for Stephen Fossaway,
actually knew his house words. There's a little behind the
scenes thing, which we actually said a taste for glory, which is
the house red apple. Fossaway's house words, a taste
of glory. Yeah.
Which is pretty appropriate for how he acted and spoke and all
that. And how's he feeling now though?
That he's this? He had a he had a shot at glory.
Instead, he's famous for losing to his cousin.
Oh well, too bad for him. A guy like that, I think he's
still feeling fine. Yeah.
He can lie to himself easily. Yeah, he's lost.
Or his own way. And he's.
The heir to Cider Hall. His life is going to be just
fine. Yeah.
And it's a little bit of a parallel to Dunk himself, right?
Like Stefan promised tonight, Raymond one day and ultimately
it didn't happen. Raymond got knighted by somebody
else. Not a parallel in that there's
any doubt in in this case, we saw it happen, but still there
is a little bit of that. And Dunk is not done thinking
about Stefan. We may never get this in the
show because it's an internal thought, but in in the mystery
night, Dunk thinks about Stefan's betrayal and how it's
still like bothers him and haunts him.
It continues to be a factor that makes him mistrustful.
The nobility there I I feel like they just would stuff with
Lionel was a way to expand on that.
Like well it isn't just this one guy or the Targaryen.
It's also the Lord of Storms and also all these other characters.
Even if it's a different reason for disliking him, Lionel stood
up for him so he gets credit for that.
He doesn't. He's not this weak non true
knight that won't stand up, but still he's like Ashaya said,
he's still got his flaws and they're interesting flaws,
especially if they're going the direction where it kind of seems
like it. Yeah.
One last thing about Stefan, which is that he he made that
prediction. He said the Targaryens, you
know, they came here only the fossil ways are thousands years
older than I bet will be here long after they're gone.
Pretty much. Right.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean, the Targaryens aren't
quite gone, but it looks like they will be at the end of A
Song of Ice and Fire. But or if not completely, then
in in effect and the fossa ways are doing just fine both
branches. Even if they aren't completely
gone, neither are the FOSSA ways.
I wanted to bring up I don't think it's been one of the most
talked about and debated things is Raymond and Rowan together.
A lot of people like why did dunk cannot tell him and I I I
talked about this before where I said, you know, he he's not
going to ruin her play to have upward like class mobility one,
but two, it's like, what are you going to take all the wind out
of Raymond sales here and this. But this is the thing.
I think I should tell you guys who are really bothered by this.
It's just as possible that that Rowan is not pregnant right then
she's just stopped taking moon tea because she probably was
taking moon tea with Stefan. I mean with with Manfred.
So like she probably was taking moon tea with Manfred and she
just got Raymond and decided to baby trap him essentially by
stopping the moon tea and she just knows she will get pregnant
shortly. If that makes it more palatable
to you, I would like to offer you this alternate theory in
this trying time. You know, a lot of people are
very bothered by this. Other people have come to
defense of like, even if it's not his birth son, it's or his
daughter, it's it's you know, he will still love the child.
It's been a very spirited debate.
I see a lot of arguments on both sides.
I think a lot of people are are bothered on behalf of Raymond
that he would be tricked like this or be raising, you know,
someone who's not his kid. And I think you have an answer
that you could hopefully feel better about.
There is my take on it. That's.
A pretty good take, yeah. Like, why?
How would? She know if she's.
Pregnant unless she got pregnant a while back.
And why would she be getting pregnant if she's a sex worker
taking moon T, which of course she would because she's a sex
worker. Like why would she doesn't want
to get pregnant unless it's to baby trap somebody?
So Sean, what do you think? Yeah, the fossil ways in
general, I, I, I loved them both.
Even though Stefan was a little more villainous, I still
appreciated his his character and the performance and his
armor. And same thing I've I feel with
with Raymond. I think that did a really good
job. And I think it was another great
example of how they've fleshed out something that wasn't quite
in the book, but they did it really well without negatively
affecting anything else in the book.
And I'll also say I I I 1. You got to be careful when you
think about how like. You think Raymond might be the
father to this child that is not really a son or whatever?
I I don't know. It doesn't mean he's not the
father. Like tell that to anyone who's
adopted a baby. You're not really a father like.
Tywin Tyrion thing, Yeah, I agree.
I feel strongly about that one too.
I agree with that, except again, people would say those are not
people who've been tricked and lied to into it.
So that is the difference why I think why many people took great
umbrage, like a lot of people were more turned off and I think
we realized by this decision and by Dunk not telling Raymond I.
Think Dunk also just isn't going to get the whole pregnancy part.
He doesn't know how that works. We do We can go sit here and go
yeah, she probably wasn't She probably is lying now you've
you've presented that theory. The more I think about it the
more I think it's true because yeah, like for what It's just
enough time has not passed you know for that to have like we
know that enough time isn't passed for her to get pregnant
from him. That's clearly true.
But they're like, it's not enough time for her to have set
this up. I.
Mean the point of that to be pregnant, incidentally, with
Manfred's child from weeks before.
Which would be foolish, I. Also want to point out that this
moment we're seeing feels like it might be or I think people
are interpreting it as the next day.
I think it is likely several days later.
I think it's a week. I think it's probably a week or
so. Which might now again, probably
not enough time for her to get pregnant and know that she's
pregnant, but it might be enough.
Time for her to get pregnant. Let's be clear, definitely not
enough time if it's a week. If it's a week, definitely not
enough time. Not enough time to get pregnant.
To get pregnant and know it, there's not enough time.
It's enough time to get pregnant.
It's not enough time to know it. Right.
Yeah, She it might be enough time for her to have done what
she knows will get you pregnant. And that is enough for her to go
ahead and say it, even if she isn't yet.
They're probably not going to stop having sex now.
They're going to keep She's gone.
Exactly. Yeah, she does.
Yeah. So she might know, like, hey,
I've had pregnancy scares before, I know I'm fertile.
She might have things, but she might be wrong and she has to
come up with a lie to Raymond about how she lost this child.
And then she never gives them a shot.
You know, like, we don't know. She doesn't know.
I think she's just making her best play, you know, get in the
bag, as it were. Well, here's the thing.
We can also extrapolate that since this is kind of an insert
into the timeline, we know this house continues and still exists
later and these are the founders of it.
So we kind of have to assume that they did have children.
Obviously it's possible that they didn't and he remarried,
but I think this is the safer assumption that this
relationship took off and and worked out.
Honestly I'd say that red slash lady Rowan might be the third or
fourth most expanded on character in in the season.
Like Lionel might be #1 Raymond might be #2 I can't.
I've struggled to think who's the 3rd character that got the
most new stuff. Like she went from almost
nothing to quite a few lines and in multiple episodes.
Did you get? Like a little bit of extended,
you know, bit and like, I feel like he had a little more
connection with Dunk. It kind of fell off.
I wanted to see him later. I was nominated.
Right. To not see him, Yeah.
He would be nominated, but I think he had more, it's a
smaller percentage increase 'cause he had more in the book
in the 1st place, right And so. Red went from no line.
That's infinite. Increase almost 3 red went from
one to 10. You know, So instead of doubling
A10X. Yeah.
So, yeah. So mathematically it's it.
That argument works even better. Although Sir Arlen is another
one that's just really extremely more fleshed out in the in the
book or in the OR Rafe. You could say Rafe.
I agree Rafe is probably not as fleshed out as these other ones,
but compared to the book version, Massive increase Yes
massive increase. Kind of in the same way the red
is like from almost nothing to just a name to a full character
with lilog and and back story. And again, just to repeat, like
for characters like the Targaryens, it wasn't about
added stuff. It was just about nailing what
George had already written. And I think for the most part,
we've said over and over that they they pretty much did.
Let's talk about the Targaryens though, because they are a bit
of a contrast here in terms of how they're portrayed in the
show as a whole, not in terms of individual performances or
individual lines or anything like that.
The big change was how everybody else looked at them.
This is way more explicit in the show.
The anti Targaryen sentiment was way bigger of an undercurrent
than it was in the book. Kind of it all other than
Raymond. Raymond talking about Makar's
disappointing kids, which isn't really an indictment of the
whole family, it's just Makar's kids.
In this version, Raymond has a rant, then he gets part of that
rant from Stefon, and then you get people not showing up for
the funeral and you get which, as Sean said, maybe that was
intentional, but it's still maybe kind of it it suggests
that possibility or could be part of that.
And then you have, you know, some other things like Aryan
being a little bit worse or other ASP, maybe make ours bad
parenting being a little more explicit, even though they also
gave him some some positive stuff to make him, you know,
like a more conflicted human being rather than being more of
a, a cold, distant kind of figure, which he's more like
Stannis in the books. So I I thought that was very
interesting that they they and I appreciate that the anti
Targaryen sentiment is important for the plot going forward.
It wasn't hugely important for this season, but it's going to
be more important. And that's part of why they made
sure to it to boost it at the end with with the blatancy of
Lionel saying what he said as a contrast to the kind of
undercurrent that's been there all season long.
I guess it's not so not so subtle when when Raymond goes on
his rant. But other than that, it's it's
generally handled kind of lower key.
You all have any takes on that aspect of it or on anything else
to do with the Targaryens this season.
I guess I have A1A counterpoint of sorts.
Is it certainly the book that the show presented us more anti
Targaryen sentiment than the book did?
Because the book presented maybe none.
I, I, I don't remember that being part of the book at all.
I haven't read it multiple times, including recently.
Maybe there was some undercurrent and pick up on or
something. Since it was so prevalent in
your show, it makes me wonder if I'd missed something in the
book. But I do want to include in that
that it's easy to misconstrue that because it could be that,
you know, let's just say 10% of the populace is has this anti
Targaryen sentiment. But we see it from two or three
prominent figures and we might interpret that as they go, no
one likes the Targaryens. Well, that might not be true.
You know, again, I'm not saying it is 10%, but I'm suspicious if
it's 90%. I think it might be a little
more like 5050 or something like that.
I want to shout out a interview with Bertie Carvel, who played
Baylor by Marco Spagnoli. It's a, he's a, you know, not a
big YouTube channel, but he got a lot of views on this
interview. He's really well done, so give
him some love. The comments section on this, on
this interview was amazing. There's people saying, oh, they
cast Baylor as Baylor or this guy needs to narrate an audio
book ASAP. You know, it's just like, so you
rarely will see a comment section on YouTube just
overwhelmingly positive like this with like nothing negative
at all. You know, like, come on, it's a
YouTube comment section. Like, no, no, it's actually
really overwhelmingly positive. A couple of quotes that he made
in that, I don't want to spoil it for y'all, but like one line
that he said that really stood out to me is he said actors fear
that we'll see through them or or actors fear that the viewers
will see through them. And he says, which is a silly
thing to think because everybody knows you're an actor.
It's like you don't think you're a real person.
This isn't actual footage. This isn't, you know, Highlander
isn't a documentary and the events happened in real time
kind of situation. And he also seemed to really
understand Baylor in a very deep way, like the the his dilemma,
the dilemma that Baylor faces. It's his family versus doing the
right thing. It's this character with no
power versus him who has a lot of power and has the the weight
of decision falls to him. The intersection of Baylor and
Dunk's influences how Dunk, this kind of nobody influences the
most powerful person there, the second most powerful person in
the entire realm. That is a great way to show the
power of the common people or how, you know, power can flow
the other direction sometimes when the circumstances are just
they the way they are. So, yeah, I didn't say it as as
as well as as Bertie Carville did, but yeah.
So I recommend that that interview.
So with friends and listeners and fellow W Orians, we are here
at the end of a season. Of course, this is a good time
for you all to join us on Patreon because we're about to
do our topics mood. We're about to take some of the
topics that we discussed here in Duncan Egg and make them into
full episodes as well as things that don't have a whole lot to
do with Duncan Egg. Just a Song of Ice and Fire
topics or history topics or theory videos, whatever,
whatever we happen to be putting up there and whatever you guys
choose and whatever you vote on successfully.
So good time to join and participate.
It'll be running this month in March into next month, and then
we'll be making those episodes the rest of the year.
You can go to our website to sign up for that or to support
the show in a number of different ways, like shopping
through our Amazon links. A good suggestion I have is the
graphic novel for the Hedge Night.
Really great art provides yet another way of looking at the
story that's a little somewhere. Kind of falls.
Between the written word and the TV show, because you have
images, but you know, as you get expressions and and visuals, but
you know, of course they're not moving and there's no sound I
don't have. To explain how that works really
and stuff like that. You don't get it, but.
Yeah, exactly. So there it's but it is kind of,
I think saying it's falls in between is a reasonable way of
putting it. Also, the audio book is
extremely good. It's read by Harry Lloyd, who is
Viserys in A Game of Thrones. He's a really fantastic
narrator, surprisingly good with, well, maybe not
surprisingly, but he does a lot of voices really well.
It isn't just his, you know, soothing British accent.
Can I say that when I first listened, I was suspicious
because I didn't like the saris? But to me, Harry Lloyd isn't the
saris anymore. He's the voice of Duncan Egg.
He's nice, incredible. Like I've I've said it many
times, it's among my favorite pieces of media of any kind.
Book, album, show, whatever. It's Yeah.
Yeah, I would say Duncan Egg is is is special in one way to me
in that, yeah, it has an the amazing audio book narration,
which is, you know, in common, I suppose to get like an actor
from the show doing a other, you know, book related to it.
I mean, Ian Glenn has done it as well for the Rogue Prince,
Princess and the Queen stuff, right.
But the other thing is that, yeah, it has the graphic novel
by Mike Miller, which has some really cool art.
My personal favorite is that the Another 7 Kingdoms books are
illustrated by Gary Gianni, who is just like a master is craft
and so talented. He's done other art for the
series, including the calendars and yeah, so like, you can't go
wrong, you know what I mean? Like you get like a real
immersive experience, no matter what medium, whether it's it's
the the regular old textbook, you get art throughout it.
You read the graphic novel, you get even more art.
You listen to the audio book, you get to listen to Harry Lloyd
do these voices. Pretty cool.
Can I give it a little shout out to Jordan Rannells, a friend of
the podcast who made music to accompany the Duncan Egg
audiobook? He also did the same thing for
Lord of the. Rings that's right.
Good. A good shout out there Sean.
I appreciate Jordan's work and of course I want to give another
shout out to Ashaya's tour shirts.
She has done actually 22 right. You did one for Hedge F1 for
House of the Dragon and one for a night of seven kingdoms. the
United 7 Kingdoms tour shirt has all the different spots that we
know of the Duncan egg will visit.
So this is a great time to get in get the journey is just
beginning. Season 1 was such a success.
A good time to get your shirt and have that memorabilia for
the long run. Yeah, you can get the shirts at
our Threadless store, but you can also go to
historyofwesteros.com/merch Dash hub to see those shirts and a
whole bunch of other things that we've picked out that are cool
related to the fandom. Some we get affiliate kickbacks
for, some we don't. I just think they're cool.
Yeah, that's right. We don't we we a lot of those
links aren't don't make us money, we just.
Like nothing. I just want to share them with
you guys just to be clear, but it has our our tour shirts
embedded there as well. A couple questions, more than a
couple questions from you all we got a nice question section here
let's tackle that. Connor McDonald says Renly.
There's a bit of Renly to Brienne versus Lionel Dunk
parallels. You got some different approach
to a person that everyone else is treating differently, like
Brienne is treated differently by Renly than just about anybody
else. No, nobody treats Brienne the
way Renly did for no, almost nobody respected her.
That's baby, putting it mildly. A lot of people mocked her like
to her face behind her back, both they did these games, you
know, these cruel games to her. Renly was not a part of any of
that. He was friendly towards her.
He was respectful. This is kind of a parallel here.
I think that's a good catch because Lionel saw something in
Dunk that pretty much no other noble did, even though he has
maybe his own angle to it. Renly probably did too.
We just don't get the it's just not as explicit.
We don't ever find out what that was.
But like, he wants Tarth on his side.
Maybe it's just just pure pragmatism.
He's like, yeah, of course, like she can fight.
Like, why wouldn't I want her on my side?
You guys are weird for making fun of her because she's she's
she could clearly fight and she wants to defend like what's
wrong with that? Y'all let's you know we get
Tarth too Like what? Let's do this.
So yeah, we. Have a different perspective on
masculinity too, you know, the kind of machoism and.
Renly himself, not the standard masculine orientation there, but
that's that's pretty cool. Yeah.
Basic respect and merit and and caring more about who they are
than than their station. Of course that means more to for
Dunk because he's actually low born, whereas Brienne is is high
born despite how she's treated. Kind of a common theory that
gets thrown around in the Phantom is could Dunk be cold
hands? I don't see how that could be
possible just based on sheer physicality.
Dunk in the book is 6 foot 11. There is nothing about cold
hands that suggests he's really tall.
He is described as gaunt and thin.
There's nothing that says he's tall, and he would be very tall
if he was Dunk. Like that's 6 foot 11.
This isn't Peter Claffy 6 foot 5.
This is book Dunk 611. So yeah, I just don't see it too
tall. I.
Agree. Too tall?
Dunk. Too tall.
I I do agree, but I will offer a counterpoint.
That may have shrunk in his zombieism or whatever he might
have lost, and I think he's usually on a horse and he's
disguised. The law on an elk, which is, you
know, largest, But yeah. Yeah, it's.
Not he's not said he's not tall, but I I mean, he'd have to
shrink a lot to not to be tall. Be worth mentioning.
You know, yeah, I don't, especially considering.
It's related like Hodors, that you might think he'd be like a
man almost as tall as Hodor. You might say something about
that, right? You would catch on to that?
I think so. So I'm down on that one.
But I do think that we should all acknowledge Sir Duck Duck is
the parallel Young Griff's first Kingsguard.
He's the parallel. Young Griff even wears a straw
hat and his eyes are similar described.
Similarly as so blue. Just be clear.
What's that duck? Is Duck Raleigh Duck field just
for Raleigh duck? Field exactly yes.
Maybe hard, maybe hard to search.
Sound similar? Yes.
One letter off. Yeah, Sir.
Dunk, Sir. Duck.
Can't miss that once you hear it.
And not only similar in sound, but in.
I don't know how to say this. Lack of dignity or whatever.
You know what I mean? Not, not.
It doesn't sound like some great warrior duck.
What? Who?
Yeah, neither. Duck nor duck sound like a Great
War. It's true.
So a couple of comments on Sir Arlen here, specifically his his
send off Jim Martin off one of our patrons pointed out that
it's a parallel to the Fast and the Furious because in that, but
Paul Walker died in real life and he's one of the main actors
in that movie franchise, which is up to like what 11 films now?
Jeez. So he died in real life in a car
accident pretty tragically. And they showed this at the end
of one of the movies. I'm not a Fast and Furious guy.
I don't know which one it was, but it was above shot where
they're driving down the highway and then the Paul Walker car
veers off to the left just like this.
But it's not a reference to Fast and the Furious.
Both of these are a reference to what's called the Missing Man
Memorial. It is AUS military procession or
tradition that as far as we know, it began in World War One.
It's a fly over thing. That's why it's not.
You might guess, you might have guessed it was from something
much older from other military 'cause U.S. military, you know,
historically speaking isn't particularly old.
But it it's a plains thing, which those aren't, those
haven't been around that long, as, you know, historically
speaking, as a military thing. So yeah, the idea is that you
fly a formation with one, clearly a missing 1.
You have like 3 or 4 planes and you've got a clear gap, which is
meant to represent the missing person, the person that just
died, the person you're giving a send off to.
In addition to that, there were older versions of it where you
would have a riderless horse in a procession.
Like Abraham Lincoln was given a riderless horse procession.
You even turn the saddle around for that.
So these are various types of memorials that happen in the
real world, but I think the fly over 1, the military, the
missing man memorial is, is pretty clearly the the closest
one, if not the exact intent. Now, Kimber Lafay, another
listener who wrote in, wants to know if maybe there's also a
little bit of a Dithraki thing going on there.
He rode off into a field which is a little Dithraki sea ish.
The great grass. Sea, the great grass, sea Ish,
right? Very.
You could see that and he was singing that Dithraki.
Obviously that would mean nothing without the Dithraki
dirge, but he's saying a Dithraki dirge, so there's
definitely some connection to him.
Mammy just did some, did some cell sorting, some hedge
knighting out in Essos because certainly.
Would have been like the Thraki too.
He's always felt a certain kinship to them.
For that. I'm joking.
No, no, really. Yeah, really.
He has a horse. He has a penis like a horse.
So he's no. I think it is another, I don't
know, piece of his character that was kind of brought forth
is, you know, sleeping under the stars.
He doesn't want to be in a castle and not fire for that
either. And the dog trackers.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
That's I miss that part. You're right.
That is a very death racky thing.
Yeah. And also just the emphasis on
your, you know, the difference between one of the biggest
differences between a hedge knight and some other regular
commoners having a horse. You got to have a horse that
that's the ones you're one step up if you have a horse, even if
you're not actually a knight. So the whole plumber thing
coming back to plumber briefly, we predicted that maybe because
we didn't, we couldn't see where that was going.
The whole setup for cheating in the tournament, we couldn't see
where that was going because it's not in the book, but it is
in a later book with the mystery knight.
We figured maybe that was just setting that up this concept to
do could go farther with it later.
And it does appear that's what it was because it didn't have
any follow up. There was a plumber didn't
appear again even in the background.
So it's my. I don't have another take on
that. And I say I would rather use
rather than cheating. I'd rather say chicanery.
Both chicanery. Is a good word for it, yes.
Yeah, it's not quite cheating, you know what I mean.
It would say at least, I don't know, you might have to define
cheating, but it's definitely chicanery.
It's not. And also I just want to make my
better call. Sole reference.
Yeah, it's not cheating in the tournament so much as it's
cheating the bookies, right? Yeah, you're not actually.
I guess that would be maybe a more accurate way of putting it.
And everybody is going to care less about cheating bookies than
just about anybody else. I I remember.
When it happened, being very suspicious, they're like, oh, I
don't know where they're going with this.
This is a, a hint of something that happened in the third book
and they seem to be sticking to the books pretty well.
And I, I, I was concerned, I would say, but I, I settled
myself by deciding, you know, this is probably a red herring.
You know, it's, it's a, they're leading us to wonder what's
going to happen in a tournament. There's not going to be a
tournament. And we kind of know that free to
books, but most audiences aren't going to know that.
And I think that was a good way. And it also does set up
something that will happen in future.
So a combination of red herring and foreshadowing.
It's kind of funny to think about about about that, by the
way. It's like if the stakes hadn't
gotten massively raised for Dunk, he would have just ended
the tournament and lost, and that would have been it.
He's like, Oh well, I, I lost everything.
I have nothing. Or one he he was.
He was like, he look how he's look how badly he lost to Aryan
in the first tilt. Like he just, he, he has no
experience. Like he wasn't going to beat all
these people. It's like Lionel said, no, you
have no chance. You have no experience with
this? I think he beats the first guy
because he throws it and then loses the second one but breaks
even as far as you know because. Of the chicanery would never.
Carry, right? Yeah, he probably does just lose
in the first round, lose his horse and can't buy it back and.
And might be badly wounded on top of it.
Maybe not because it's attorney Lances, but he might be hurt.
Still, you fall off your horse and break your leg or something.
Yeah, you're right. That could happen.
It's dangerous. Dangerous business, yeah, it's
not like you die or you're perfect There's.
A lot of people. Doing.
There is no middle ground when you play the game of jousts, you
know. OK Upper chat from Hey Dom
Tartaglia. Shout out to the Folk Wives
podcast. Check that out on Twitch.
Season will wrap up. Question for Sean.
Is there anyone on the show who is attractive as Fabian Frankel?
Is it a Fabian? I said Fabian.
Fabian Frankel as Christian Cole.
Well, no. Next question?
Too easy? What else?
Who? Who's?
The best in the night of the Who's the closest?
Who's the closest the most? Who catches your eye?
OK, good answer. Dunk the hunk.
David Fox 4548 says favorite moment was Stefan's first
appearance where Dunk is asked about his sword.
He says it's mind by rights and Stefan says that's an odd thing
to say. That was hilarious.
That might be. The shout out that's one of that
was one of the funnier lines that wasn't in the novella.
And it was one of the first comedic lines in the in the book
too, or in the in the in the show too.
That wasn't there too. Like, because the first comedic
lines in the show are straight from the novel in terms of like
eggs comments, like your boat rope is made of your belt's made
of rope. And you know, I you know, you
look like you need a Squire more than most.
But the first, I think this is the first added comedic line of
all of them. And it's you're right to shout
that out. David Fox and a Shaya.
It's such a funny line. I I I definitely highlighted
that one at the time. I thought it was so funny.
E Tazin game says I also took Egg looking so adorningly like
to dunk during the mimicking scene as him being so happy to
have someone make fun of him to his face in a fun way rather
than like. I suppose what you're getting
out here is Aryan would mock him and mean it.
Or no one would say anything about him, which it's unusual
for a Prince to have anyone mock him at all, except for a yeah,
you're right, his older brother who's cruel.
He likes it, yeah. He likes being, he kind of likes
being normal in that sense. He, he, he wants to be more
normal that way. That's great.
That's a good, that's a very good take.
I really appreciate that. Yeah, 'cause sometimes the the
class angles to some of the stuff we miss because we're more
tuned in maybe and most of us are more keyed into dunks angle
here. Not only because he's the POV,
but because we understand we're all a little bit closer to that,
most of us are than to royalty, I think.
But dude Egg does look at him like so lovingly and happy.
It's like it's he just like looks so happy in that moment.
I just the way I did not say moment dunk or like a minute
before that when dunks when eggs makes that point about oh,
you've already married the most beautiful daughter, right, Sir?
The way Peter clap, he looks down and smiles.
It's like, it's the look that a parent gets when they're
extremely proud of their kid. You know, like, Oh, my kid just
said something that I've just, I'm so happy that those words
left their mouth. Kind of a kid.
Say the darndest things moment too, in a little.
Bit of a way, but the like, happy, like the best.
Yeah. Like boy, this kid is just pure
of heart, isn't he? You know that I want to add a
little to this too, because I, I, I am thinking about it now
that a, you got to be paying attention to egg to have that
kind of banter. You have to kind of made some
observations about him and care to point it out And, and, and B,
which again, probably in the past, anyone that ever did that,
it was in a negative way and, or mean cruel way.
And that's. Why we love the the breaking the
breakdown of Three Fingered Alice so much?
Because Dunk didn't actually have a whole lot to add to that
conversation, but he was willing to go through it for Egg, who's
like Egg's brothers would have been like, I don't care.
Like who gives a crap? Like shut up.
You know he they would be not interested in the topic at all
and they would probably have shut him down or care.
Might have entertained it and that might be one of the people
that Egg has managed to have any kind of person who brings that
out in him. Deron.
I think Deron might have a. Little bit and Eamon would have
before he was out of picture but.
He would. Have, yeah.
But but my quick follow up thing is that Don't is OK with Egg
doing it back. Yes, that makes sense.
Like, you know, if Aryan belittled Egg in some way and
Egg came back at Aryan, Aryan would probably literally
physically assault him, right? But Egg was able to dunk, was
willing and able to play along and go back and forth.
He can dish it out and he can take it or whatever.
You know, yeah, at times Dunk is fatherly.
At times he's older brotherly. And it's it's it's fun to see
like how that plays out in different circumstances.
Taz and games again says thank you for a wonderful season of
live team breakdowns. Well, I appreciate that.
We hope you all have enjoyed our our run through.
And of course we've got plenty more to come.
Content wise. Stannis Baratheon 3356 says take
me to account every war since the conquest was the we're the
Targaryens and net positive to Westeros.
Less smaller wars, but when the wars did happen, they were much
bigger. That is an interesting topic
that spans lots of real world scenarios as well.
Yeah. What is better?
Like, what's more moral? Would you rather have a lot of
small wars or just everyone far rarer wars that span the entire
continent? It it's a really tough question
to answer with confidence because without like having more
day, like how many people die, how many people suffer?
Like if you could if you could make those count those numbers,
it might be easier to reduce it to that.
And, and they have the, the monkey wrench here of that
there's Hungarians ultimate if, if the goal is for them to
defend against the ultimate war, then, well, you know, it, it, it
just becomes way more complicated than we could
compare to in our real world, right?
It's there's nothing really quite like that.
I guess maybe if someone was going to take control of the
Earth to stop climate change. Yeah, it's always.
Just like I'm going to rule with an iron fist, but this problem
is not going to happen. I I don't know, right?
Yeah, that's tough. It's hard to compare.
There there is another variable to consider here, by the way,
because there's in the spans of time when there's not war under
the Targaryens, there's also this other added value of
stability and infrastructure in general, like the Kings Rd. that
just everyone's lives become better when not only is there
not war, but there's more communication and trade and, you
know, intermixing of cultures and intermarriages of family.
All these other things have an additional cohesive stabilizing
effect that gives extra value beyond just not war so.
Well said, Greer Gladney 4553 says I don't like what the
ending applies about Egg. I I assume you mean that the
dishonesty, the deception, maybe there's more implied for later
and maybe that's just a a mark against him.
I'll say we watched with a lot of casuals and a lot of people
were like, of course he did that.
You know, like that little Rascal I got my mom and stepdad.
Like of course, of course he lied about it.
That's just like him so. I don't remember how old he is,
you know, like this isn't necessarily who he's going to be
as an adult. I think.
I mean, there are dark hints as to what he might become as an
adult, but I'm not sure that they're leaning into him
becoming some big deceiver. But I mean, but it's still like
a change from the book that I can understand someone not
liking because, well, I like the original ending for other
reasons, but this is this ties into it certainly.
Also I got to say, think of the reasons that educated grown
adults lie for, like to just earn more money or have sex or
something like that. Eggs are lying so that he can
get away from his abusive brother.
You know what I mean? He's a good reason, right?
Yeah, that's a good reason. Koi Benazzi.
Assuming he's even lying, I guess you did say it's Impala.
OK, that's a good point. Yeah, I know that egg just
wasn't going along with some detailed planmaker head.
Not that he's straight up lying. So.
Koi Benazzi 1644 shout out Koi. How's it going, my man?
He says. Wish we got bald Danny on
screen. It would help show only folks
either Danny to egg parallels. Yeah, yeah, They should have had
Danny Bald. I agree with that.
It was a that's the butterfly effect.
They didn't. They don't think about these
effects as much as This is why we appreciate how tightly
they're trying to keep this show to the to the books, to what was
written because of things like this.
They don't necessarily know what they're changing.
They don't always know that they're creating a butterfly
effect. When they do it, it doesn't
necessarily seem like it's that big a deal, you know, to not
have her hair burned, even though it doesn't necessarily
make sense. Of course, her skin not burning
doesn't make sense either, if you're going to look at it that
way. So.
But yeah. But This is why you keep things
the way George wrote them, even when they seem small.
The number of people have had visions and prophecies and
dreams about a bald headed person starting you you you see
like it has a butterfly effect. Yes, a dragonfly effect, Stannis
Brothian 3356 says at the end of the fight.
Do you guys feel Aryan saluted Dunk with that pound to the
chest? I have a slightly different take
on that pound to the chest. I don't think it was a salute.
I think it was Dunk was waiting for him to be ready.
He wasn't going to just attack him before he grabbed his sword.
He was being honorable about it and Aryan was signaling that he
was ready because Dunk clearly waited.
Dunk stopped after grabbed just sort of approached him and
stopped. Aryan didn't even have his sword
in hand. He picked up.
He went to a knee and picked up his sword.
Dunk did not approach him during the night.
He could have just like launched himself when Aryan was on one.
Knee he could have right, like, yeah, it would have been not
honorable, but within the the the rules.
Yeah, So Dunk, I think he was. I think that was just a shared
honor moment rather than Arian saluting him.
I think it was like, yeah, okay, go ahead, you know, let's go.
I don't. Know if it was shared on her
because I think Arian would have done.
In fact Aaron did in the books. He yielded and then went for his
mates. So you know what's funny?
Is this a quick terminology thing?
It's it's the people are sometimes call it a Mace or a
that's a flail. Yeah, that's a flail.
I. Misspoke.
Yeah, not me, sorry. Yeah, it's a morning star, I
think. A morning starting to flail or.
No, no, no. Morning Star is not.
Not the Morning Star is the spike ball itself.
Isn't that what Arian had? The the spiked ball is on a
chain on a chain. Is the entire weapon the Morning
star? Piece of it's like saying a
sword has a blade. It also has a hilt and a cross
guard, but it's yeah, the whole thing makes it up.
But you. Would also often say he picked
up his blade and it would use it synonymously as swords and you
know. But yeah, yeah, that's true.
Blade is a little more ubiquitous, but you're right.
And, and I'm not. Yeah, people say Mace more
people know what you mean when you say that.
So it's whatever. Yeah.
Mace is specifically different. It does.
It's just one thing without the chain and, and, and that would
be like saying you picked up his blade and you're talking about
the Lance. And no, those are two different.
You can. Yes, like yeah, or like a subtle
difference between a spear and a Lance, which the spear can be
used like a Lance, but technically it's a little
different, you know, or yeah, and a a flail, there's various
types of flails and flails exist in the 1st place because they
were a farming implement. Like so many other weapons, they
started as farming implements. And a Mace can be spiked or it
can be flanged. There's all sorts of options,
yeah. A value of a of a flail.
By the way, it's more difficult to block.
Oh yeah, If you're swinging it and someone blocks with their
sword, it hits the chain but the ball in the end still comes down
and smashes you in the face or whatever.
It's a very crappy defensive weapon, is the problem.
You can't parry at all with one of those.
No blocking. Yeah, you cannot.
Yeah, that's the downside of it. Yeah.
I watched another one of the. I watched a video on that
recently because it was a Scala Gladiatoria who we posted a few
videos of theirs and and on Facebook in our group there.
He is a doctorate. He has a doctorate in medieval
weaponry. So he really knows his stuff and
they do. They run through all these tests
and showing how these things work.
And he loved night of seven kingdoms and goes into detail
about things like that. So a good thing to check out if
you all are interested. Jillsville sends a super chat.
Thanks for that. No question attached Birdie
perch says Hey, regarding cold hands height.
My grandma used to be taller than at my adult height and now
she's not. She she maybe lost three whole
inches and we're talking to maybe 100 years.
So maybe, you know, like a whole maybe someone could lose 9
inches in 100 years of being dead.
Yeah. We, we don't know, you know,
that's not something that we have data on.
We don't know how about somebody breaks down over it and.
You know if you're 56 and lose 3 inches percentage wise, if
you're 7 foot you might lose 6 inches.
And yeah, yeah. Still, that would make you 66,
which is still. Very tall.
Martin, I think if Martin wanted that to be, if Martin intended
that to be Donk, he would have included some just.
Some height or something else, some other clue, you know, like
a a a turn of a phrase, you know, something like that,
something that I. Think this is a good example of
something that's very difficult to disprove, but I don't think
there's really enough evidence there to be considering it.
And like we found a thing that is like it's possible some
Kangaroos wear hats. How could you prove that they
don't? But you know, probably no one's
ever seen it. I could probably you know what I
mean, like. You don't have a picture of
every kangaroo ever, so you can't prove it.
They. Don't even.
If you did, they might. Guarantee you.
I guarantee you there are Kangaroos that have worn hats.
Well, yeah, because humans. Put it on analogy, but hopefully
now we're. Going to hold you to that Sean.
We're calling when you kangaroo hat man.
From now on every. Time someone skis a camera with
a hat. Send me a picture I'm.
Picturing Roger Junior from Tekken who is a kangaroo who
would probably wear a hat. Darius read it before, says the
riderless horse goes back for centuries.
Procession of mourners with the burial wagon was led by the lost
persons. Unridden horse.
Yeah, that part of it I have we have to assume wouldn't just be
an American thing, especially if it's a horse tradition.
Yeah, that would be weird. The plain one, that does fit
because it's plains. But yeah, that I'm sure there's
other similar varieties of of mourning.
I mean, people honoring the dead is one of the oldest human
things there is, right. Or even Neanderthals did that.
It goes beyond humans even even some animals, even some animals
do that, like elephants. You know, elephants.
Yeah. Let's discuss some other
features of the adaptation. In other words, things that
stood out on the screen that or on the TV in general, things
that you can't do as a book, things that were the strength of
the medium, a phrase that I've used a lot to season, like
acting you can't. The power of acting is just
greater than the written the can that often than the what the
written word can pull off. Even even George's writings, you
know, can't match what what a person can do with their face
when they're really good at it or music.
I, George, can't write words that do what music does to us.
No one can. I will repeat that the
soundtrack was is by Dan Romer and it's out.
I love the way they set us up with that use of the Game of
Thrones theme. I know a lot of people didn't
appreciate the the shitting on the original theme.
That's not really what they were trying to do.
It was more of a joke. And it was like, oh, how Dunk is
realizing what he's up against. He's like, oh, excited.
And then he's like, what am I doing?
Anxiety, My guts are turning to water.
A lot of people didn't quite take it that.
Way a real trait of Peter Claffey.
He does have anxiety that causes him to you know, have have bowel
and and vomit issues. I, you know, that type of thing,
he's vomiting when he's, he's anxious and stuff like that.
And he did the he did the vomit scene too.
So we got both of those. It did come out of both ends
here. But then they did it so
seriously and meaningfully with Baylor when he rode out.
That's part of why I love that scene so much.
I I highlighted Baylor's scene is one of my favorite, a rival
joining dunk is one of my favorites.
And I didn't even mention that they the added music did so much
for that. I think it's part of why that's
something that none of us necessarily saw coming.
We knew that was going to be a big moment, but how are they
going to make this moment so big?
That was a a, a a thing, they added.
That was brilliant and perfect and worked really well.
They said that they tried a lot of other songs in the editing
room before they hit, like it wasn't conceived of being the
Game of Thrones theme song. For that, they tried other
things, and then they finally realized that that that's what
they needed. Nice.
That worked out Happy, happy accident there.
And then also we have these other songs.
There was that light song, the rainbow connectiony song, the
one that sounded kind of like the rainbow connection.
And there's all the way to the haunting music and the egg hair
regrowth Aryan scene. That was really chilling and and
well, yeah, it's really chilling that that says it all.
And then these exotic and curious Dothraki dirge like that
was pretty clever and unexpected and then fits into the whole,
you know, schema of music that they use this season and the sad
music of the outro like that. You you said it yourself, Sean,
that that scene brought you to tears.
Was the music a big part of that, or do you think it would
have hit nearly as hard without that?
I mean, it's hard to like separate it like that, but I
feel like it still would hit pretty hard.
It'd also be weird if there was no music.
Like who has a scene like that with no music, you know?
Well, you know, I was going to point out that's another thing
that you could do with film that you can't do with a book is the
removal of music. If things are kind of swollen
and intense and loud and suddenly you take all that away,
that's another dynamic. That more in a second too,
because that comes up a lot with the sound design how they did
certain other scenes to to change the tone or change the
perspective of what's happening on in the in the moment.
Ashay, you added some of these other notes here with the music.
And I also wanted to shout out the Western by a lot of the
music had a Western vibe to it, which we thought was we, we
commented on that early in the season, how appropriate that
was. And then the the music at the in
episode 6 was particularly different.
Not different, but they did a few things differently.
Especially anachronistic. And I want you guys to realize
that the the music in all the shows is anachronistic.
That's not what they would listen to in the world.
They don't have that same. Anachronistic, but it's none of
it's, it's all of that, right? Like symphonies didn't exist
then like. Anyone is saying that I'm like
OK but calm down now. Like it's all all is it all is.
None of it can actually be fully enrolled.
Like I prefer it to be to feel more authentic.
But I totally acknowledge your point.
Like you, it's not. To me, I'd never really thought
about the music in the show as being authentic to the show.
They even have like real world bands come in and perform in
Game of Thrones. So anyways, to that point, they
ended it with 16 tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford, which is
really this kind of working class anthem.
And it speaks to the the theme in the show of of class
disparity very well, very effectively.
I think. So I loved that.
I also really liked, and I brought this up at the time, the
opener to episode 6 is a jazz song.
It's called Alone Together by Kenny Dorham.
And like the title, it's that's the scene with with Lionel and
Dunk. And I thought even the title was
resonant, but really just the jazzy music was so well, well
put for comedic effect. So yeah, I thought the use of
so-called anachronistic songs were to great effect.
I would like them to keep going with it.
So a lot of you, I've heard you in the comments, Hated it.
Hated it. One of my favorite things in the
show. Funny how that works, right?
Yeah. A couple points they I've
observed that even outside of this, even when it isn't
necessarily anachronistic in the alien Earth series, each episode
ended with, I don't know, a noteworthy song.
Most of them in the realm of like metal or grunge or
whatever, you know, and a lot of people hated it.
Like what? Why I don't I'm like baffled at
to each their own. I don't want to judge too hard
but I would be more understanding if they stuck in
some you know, 90s song into Game of Thrones or whatever.
But I felt like something it's even in our world old 100 years
close probably is fine. Can I also wonder if this is a
little anecdote but just an amazing coincidence?
So Mad Men is probably my biggest hole.
I think I've seen every major prestige drama TV show.
I've made a point of watching all the greatest, best, most
popular, acclaim, whatever stuff and I haven't seen Mad Men.
I'm watching that. I could have been a little
slower or quicker as I move through it.
But I just happen to be, I think Season 3 episode 3 was my next
episode up Tuesday after we had watched and did our video and
this and this episode. Minor plot thread.
It's not really a spoiler, but Don didn't have a contract with
the company he's working for and there's pressure on to do it.
And so he does. And he, you know, signs his
contract and in a closing song is 16.
I'm like, what are the practical chances of me hearing that song?
A really effective song and meaningful.
It even says the word Saint Peter in it.
Come on. And we got Peter Claffey.
So pivoting to related topic sound design, which I mentioned
it a little while ago, we talked about, there's a lot that goes
into these things. And sometimes we're not as it's
not as it's more subtle than the music.
A lot of times. The music is often very
prominent. It takes up a lot of space in
our of our focus. It's hard to not notice it, but
sound design is a big part of a lot of these shows that have a
lot of things going on outdoors with lots of people in the
background. You get horses, you get crowd
noise, you get the sound of mud, you have the sound of but then
they did. It's some creative things like
being inside Dunk's helm and hearing his breathing.
And that's like more like, OK, you're not going to not notice
that because it's just so prominent in frontal and and
sudden or Raymond's knighting where Lionel isn't.
His lips aren't moving, but this this voice over is happening and
it's his voice and it's like, oh, they're doing something
cool. Here's his artsy and and as I
pointed at the time, having Lionel do it the the one, the
least serious person they're doing and he's taking it
seriously. The combination of that audio
effect and that the implication of it being Lionel of all people
was just hit really. That was great, you know, and
then the sound design out of. Design.
And also helped interject Arlen's little shrug too.
You know, Yeah. Great point.
Yeah. And then we have things like the
Tanzel's voice over her narration that rings in his head
later when he's at the ruined puppet site, kind of reflecting
on it, looking at the the head of Florian and he's hearing her
voice and hearing the night, you know, being a fool.
And he's hearing how he's being a fool and he's like, Yep, I'm a
fool. And that so that was very
effective too. I said, maybe that isn't sound
design so much as just a a way of using narration, but I feel
like it, you know, this is a good enough time, good as a
place as any to bring that up. Pivoting to visuals and
costumes, as Shea has some images for us to go through here
as we're talking about the ears. Look at this cool ass Kingsguard
armor. Now jumping ahead a little bit,
one of the things I think they did kind of subtly that we
talked about at the time is this looks kind of sinister.
I think maybe a lot maybe some of you will disagree, but this
that that helmet looks sinister and I think this is a reflection
of the anti Targaryen sentiment. These guys look kind of illness,
even though they're supposed to be good guys and they're
defending bad guys, even though they might be honorable and
noble have gotten into it for reasons of duty.
There's a little bit of like Sir Arthur Dayne, you know, maybe
Barristan Selmy here where they're very honorable legendary
Knights who are well regarded, but like they're kind of in
service to crappy people. And so we're seeing that
reflected here. And that that was that moment
was really brought out. I think when there was that mini
riot after Aryan did his thing to Harding and the crowd reacted
in a way that they didn't react in the novel.
They got pretty mad. That's another way they showed
the anti Targaryen sentiment. So I think this is this.
I think this fits into that showing that these, even these
Kingsguard who are ostensibly good people, are being used not
in a good way because of the people that they're defending,
who they're working for. Yeah, I thought it was very
effective costume design. They looked very intimidating
and, yeah, scary. People said it looked like snow
troopers from Star Wars because at first I said Imperial Guard,
but I think the snow troopers angle might even be better.
It might might be closer or some mash up of those two.
Either way it looks awesome. Like the spike on the helmet and
the detail on the helm. Like it's a lot of grooving and
and and lines in there. It's.
A real Targaryen Kingsguard design, you know what I mean?
Like like the way that has kind of like winged webbed, like I,
I, I don't know, wings on their armor.
It looks like you see. Yeah.
All these little, all these little effects that to me make
them really very Targary. Oh yeah, look at the knee there,
the wings on the knee. I didn't catch that wing knee
there. That's pretty cool.
It's. Distinct and and also I think
part of what makes it sinister looking, like you said, is when
it's all pale white like that, the eye holes look more black.
Good point. And that I mean that adds to the
sinister look. And on top of that, the when
they were deployed with their helmets, the only other time
they were deployed with their helmets besides the trial was
during, like I said, during that riot, they ride out and they are
so white compared to everything else around them because
everything is dingy and muddy and they're just pristine.
And there's something unearthly about being so unmuddy, like in
the midst of all that. Yeah.
Ghosts. Yes.
And and that's why like in the Song of Ice and Fire, people
very often compare the King's Guard to the others White
Walkers. Like there's, there's parallels
there. Like they are white shadows.
They are swords that who's you know they're they don't get to
make their own decisions. They are in service to a leader
that makes all the choices for them, which is kind of like what
the undead do, like they're the others guide the dead and they
don't make any decisions. They're just automatons.
The Kingsguard aren't quite that atom atomic, but they are.
That vibe is there and we get to see with their masks off,
they're helmet off. They don't talk like they're
sinister evil. They just kind of, it seemed
like kind of normal, maybe a little.
Male models, all of. Them.
Yeah, a little. Very handsome, yeah, but but not
bad. That's sinister, certainly.
White steel, if you can see their facial expression, blue.
Steel, white steel, yeah, that's good.
I want to go through the other ones real quick.
These. This is from like from Instagram
and social media. We've gotten some glimpses at
some of the stuff that I feel the making of should have
focused on a little more and didn't.
But you can see actually a better look at the Lannister
helm here, which was cool to see.
And from behind, a little bit of a better shot from the social
media. This is the embroidery that they
that they did for the show. A close up look at some of the
embroidery work we see a they they release on social media,
the Targaryen sigil, House Ashford sigil, which I thought
was really well done. How they incorporated that so
well into Gwen Ashford's clothing When you look at the
details on her stuff. It was Sons everywhere.
Loved it. Lannister embroidery and the
crown stag of House Baratheon. A lot of people think this is
anachronistic or wrong in the show.
It is not. It is not.
This is in fact the book Canon. The show Canon is the one that
changed it so that they added the crown.
Just so you guys know this is is book accurate.
Right on, good call. Share.
Now returning a little bit to the anti Targaryen sentiment.
We discussed what was present. We just talked about a lot of
things that happened during the season that communicated the
anti Targaryen sentiment. Not trying to rehash that, but I
want to go forward with that using the Kingsguard a little
bit as a pivot. Opinions will have changed,
things will have gotten worse because of as a result of
Ashford Aryan. What he did is going to spread
the news of that and it's going to look bad like what he did and
the result it it his active actions caused the death.
Well at least House Beasbury and how's Harding.
I hate the Targaryens. If they didn't already they got
a big reason to be mad like they would.
They didn't necessarily have that especially how's Harding
That's even, you know, Beesbury joined as a because of, you
know, family connection. Whereas Harding was directly
hurt, perhaps permanently. Well, and then he was killed.
That's pretty permanent. But who knows how his knee would
have healed otherwise, you know, I mean like it might have been
never, might never have healed otherwise.
So. But here's the other side of it.
Not to see nothing of the horse too.
Yeah, sure, even if he had a similar, I don't know mentality
of Makar where the horse is just a tool to be used and he had no
connection to it, but but he still may have right.
But also it's effectively it's your car.
You know, if someone like wrecked your car and broke your
leg and then killed you, you know, and then killed you.
Yeah, like you're right. Like horses are the especially
those kind of horses. So these are the sports cars or
the the high end vehicles of of the era like.
Your Lamborghini? Yeah, it's like why?
And why would you just? Destroy one of those just
because it's like, oh, a lot of people just like horses in that
era because they're supposed like a lot of people like cars.
It's like, why would you just destroy one just for the hell of
it? Like that's, that's just weird
And, and, and, and privileged. Like who does that?
Like, you know, like that's a valuable thing, you know, even
despite it also on top of it being an animal that that can
feel pain, you know, but the other side of all this is like,
oh, this is encouraging the black.
The black fires aren't popular either.
They're not beloved. It's not like people are pining
for the black fires as an alternative.
It's like they both suck, I think is what we're supposed to
get here. Like who loves bitter steel?
I like him as a character, but like people are like, oh, that
bitter steel guy, he's great. Let's follow like we love him.
No, they, they follow him because they respect him,
because he's strong and powerful and effective, Not because he
gives them the warm fuzzies or because they, they, he does
right by them all the time, you know, or that he's extremely
trustworthy. No, they can trust him to do
what he's doing because he's so intense and he's, he's going to
keep doing that. Like, oh, this guy is driven.
We can count on that, you know, and they don't know Damon's
other sons. They might have liked some
people might have liked Damon Blackfyre, they might have liked
his, his twin sons, but they don't even know the other five.
They don't know who they are. They're like, well, maybe
they're like Damon, but maybe they're not, you know, like, who
knows? So and.
Also, what what they wouldn't have that Damon would have the
thing that they I'm going to go too much to manage, but they all
have a sort of ulterior motive. Yes, yes.
We are behind this guy. When he takes power, we get
power. People real power and out lose
it. We gain it and however good a
person is, they don't care. It's almost better if he's a bad
person because he's more likely to get more power.
Right. And they're just, and the whole
existence of them, the whole threat they pose to Westeros is,
oh, here comes another civil war.
And that's, that just is terrifying to a lot of people
for good reason like this. As long as these guys exist,
civil war is a possibility. And and on top of that, in a few
years, bitter steel is going to form the Golden Company.
Now, in the long term, bitter steel is going to prove the
Golden Company is a different sort of sell for a company.
But you think anyone believed that in year 1?
Nah, they're like, oh, a sales work company that figures those
guys, those losers, of course they would do that.
They're all that's that's the kind of values they have in the
1st place. They're, you know, men of low
character. Of course they'd turn cell
sword. So, yeah.
So this is the kind of thing that will can involve evolve
over time that we get to see a lot of that, which is fun.
This is an era that we've talked about quite a lot.
We're going to get to see some of this actually play out.
All right, here's a little spot we have on the whole concept of
Dunkin Egg as a wolf and cub trope.
It's a little different, like it definitely fits into that
category, but it it it, it's missing some of the standard key
elements that maybe put it in a subcategory rather than the main
category. Taking two very popular
examples, The Witcher and The Mandalorian, the cub character
is in grave danger and constantly haunted.
That's not really the case with Egg, is he?
He's it's his identity that they're going to conceal.
It's not like people are hunting him, even if they are because of
the signet ring thing. They're not hunting him to kill
him, right? They're not, He's not in danger
in that sense. It's not like they're trying to
experiment on Grogu or experiment on Siri, which in
both cases they're trying to do like Doctor Mengele stuff to
these people, to these characters, which is kind of
terrifying. It's a very thing you really,
really want to avoid. But for AG, if someone finds out
he, he's actually willing to admit who he is to get out to,
to facilitate things here and there.
So it's it's very different in that sense.
It's more and it's a little more classic in terms of mentor
mentee, except Egg actually teaches Dunk quite a bit too.
Dunk actually learns a lot from Egg, and that's kind of a a cool
push back on that standard trope.
If you want to read about this trope, it often is called the
Lone Wolf and Cub or Wolf and Cub because it's named after
this old manga called Lone Wolf and Cub, but it's also.
If you want to read, the TV Tropes page was a great
resource. Badass and Child duo is the
trope it's under, and this is where Dunk it also kind of is
different from the stroke because usually the badass is
jaded strong, like silent, you know, there there's sometimes a
jerk or a little bit darker, you know, and cynical and Dunk is
kind of is not so much that. And so I feel that they that he
kind of inverts this trope in a lot of ways.
The child is often female. Rarely ever is the badass a
woman. I'd say one of the only real
examples I think of immediately is the show Arcane with Jinx and
and Isha, and it ends in great tragedy and kind of also inverts
it. You know Podrick.
Brandon, I mean, she's he's not a child.
He's not a child who's some age between infant and like.
He's not in a dangerous what? Podrick is a child or he's a
teen. He's like 13.
So I I think it's. The I would say the Hound and
Arya are closer to a badass and child duo and the and Ira Parker
has compared that they're trying to get that little magic
ingredient that that maybe had like he was, he's talked about
what what made Game of Thrones so popular.
And to him, one of them was was the relationships and
specifically he always did like Arya and the Hound.
But I no, I would not say Brandon pod count exactly as
that. I'd love to hear your favorite
examples of badass and child or wolf and cub or however you want
to class it. And I'd love to hear more from
you guys. I do like hearing about trolls.
C. 3PO and R2D2. I've got one to throw out is,
which I think a lot of people will chime in with, is Joel and
Ellie from The Last of Us. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Especially because I mentioned
The Mandalorian. It's the same actor.
And she was in and she was in Game of Thrones too.
She was too. Lana Mormont.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great one.
That's a really good one. Now, As for the wolf cub angle
here, the bad ass and child, this will change a bit going
back to what we just talked about when the Golden Company
and the Blackfires are back as a major power, which they're not.
They haven't really recovered their power at this point in two
O 9. But after the great spring
sickness and the drought and a few more years go by, they're
going to be their their threat will loom larger.
And that's when maybe Egg's identity might matter a bit more
like it might be more important for him to like.
There might be black fires out there, people black fire
sympathizers out there that might actually want to capture
him or might intend I'll knowing that there is a reward coming
the other way, or at least hoping for a war coming the
other way. But that's the thing that will,
you know, play out over the long term.
And alongside that, I have a question that doesn't have an
answer, but I think it's worth pondering is will Egg continue
wandering with Dunk Incognito? Or will there be a point where
everyone just kind of knows that he's there, that he's no longer
concealing his identity? Will there become that?
Will that happen at some point where he's just Duncan Egger
wandering the seven Kingdoms together?
But now people know who he is. Does that change the dynamic or
can they keep operating that way?
Will they try to operate that way for a while and realize it
doesn't work because everybody knows who he is?
And it's like, all right, well, Prince Agon, you know, like, oh,
you're here. You know, they can't.
It just doesn't work if he's, if he's out like that, I don't
know. But it has to end at some point,
right? That's an interesting question
and I had never thought about it before.
Because it would, because they are both so recognizable.
Dunk is so big and tall, and Egg, at least right now, is so
small with a shaved head. And they're going to have some
noteworthy stories spread about them.
They'll probably be an intermediate amount of time.
Like when you say everyone will know.
Even if everyone doesn't know, even if only 10% of people know,
that's enough. Because you go to the castle,
there's 30 people in the castle. Three of them know.
They told the other thirty really quickly, you know, so.
You don't need a signet ring at that point.
You're like, no, everybody knows who you are.
Just like, look at my eyes, they're purple.
Look at him. He's tall.
Who do you think we are? Yeah.
So that about. The trial of seven, right?
Like who? What was that?
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. So they're they're famous.
Yeah. So, so that's an interesting
question. Again, like we said, we don't
have an answer to that, but it's, it's, it's a curious one
that that that that they'll probably have to tackle at some
point. Can I say a real world thing
I've discovered I I couldn't help myself and I was looking at
the trope stuff. Please.
Recording. Apparently there's a real life
example cited on TV Tropes. The Soviet War Memorial in
Berlin has a statue that kind of essentially has this trope on
it. It's a 12m tall soldier with a
huge sword in hand holding a child on his other hand.
And according to the Soviet Marshall, the statue
commemorates the deeds of Sergeant Masilov, who, during
the final storm on the center of Berlin, risked his life under
heavy German machine gunfire to rescue a three-year old German
girl. Anyways, it's AI was like real
life. I was, I clicked on that.
I was like, well, what do they mean real life?
Oh, OK. So I had a question.
We were wondering if the missing man moment at the end with Sir
Arlen, we were wondering if that was intentionally meant to
parallel the, the that or if it was they had another reason for
doing it. Like actually maybe it was
intentionally like the Fast and Furious 1 without knowing that
it's also a military thing. So I texted Team Mikkel about
that. She just responded.
She doesn't know. She said I can ask.
So maybe we'll have an answer for you all later on.
What that happened. I we we even thought maybe she
was the one that wrote that, but clearly not.
Yeah, because she's Americans. Really.
Well, maybe. I don't know.
Yeah. So anyway, maybe more, maybe
more to comment on that. We'll, we'll keep keep our keep
researching that one or keep digging on that one.
Turning to fishing the egg Aryan fishing bit.
And what I mean by that, if you missed it, is Aryan was said to
be into fishing by Deron as of like a nice mundane way to show
that he wasn't always so crazy and cruel.
And we also found out earlier or it was revealed earlier, the egg
is into fishing. So it's kind of like, oh, is
that meant to be? Oh, they're on the same path.
Is that a little kind of a dark hint?
So egg is a Targaryen. If he doesn't go mad later,
maybe he will go a little mad, or maybe he will seem to go mad
and isn't, and that creates this interesting scenario where
people think he's mad but we all see.
Small folk, he must be mad. Yeah, like that's a very
straightforward way for it to happen or for it to like people
say that about him. It's not true, but people might
believe it. I'll make and it could both be
true. He might be a little mad and be
pro small folk too. Like it could both be true.
It's a little I don't know but like this seems possible to do
both I. Have a smear campaign.
Also, yeah, Zach was going to say he could not be mad at all,
but people could say that he is and once people think he is, see
certain things he does and. Then they kind of self
fulfilling. Yeah.
And this is something interesting.
We're not, we don't know. We're not trying to predict
specific symptoms that egg will have.
Rather, I want to acknowledge that this is something that they
have to plan for and George almost certainly already has.
Like George hasn't written, you know, all these stories, but he
has an end point in mind. He knows what happened at
Summerall. I'm sure there's a few things
not settled on, but he has. This isn't the five year gap
situation where he's going to have to make a big change to his
plan. Well, maybe it is, but it's this
show isn't likely to get lost in the scope of its own scale and
size of production like Game of Thrones did.
Can I speak to that with some quotes from Ira Parker, from
interviews that are relevant? One, as we've talked about
before, he has gotten outlines for 12 more stories beyond the
three we have. And so one, this is from The
Hollywood Reporter interview. He said, I would say HBO's plan
is for us to do the three novellas and that's it.
But I would do 12 of these. I would do 4 now, then four more
10 years from now, and then four more 10 years after that.
Take them all the way through their lives.
Just like a Richard Linklater's boyhood.
He compares it to beautiful concept.
Love it. And then to go on, this is an
interview that he did with Polygon.
He says George and I have talked very loosely, but if it ever
came to that, which is going past Season 3, we would just go
through and break seasons together.
That he has a lot of ideas and we can bounce ideas off of each
other. Obviously I don't want to take
him away too long from his day job, but it's amazing how much
can be accomplished in a quick amount of time with him and a
couple of his favorite authors in the room.
We were pretty good for season 1, so I think we could continue
that and come up with some good stuff.
And I want to note that one of the authors in the in that
Summit, Writer Summit that they did to break the story was Lev
Grossman. But as Lev Grossman confirmed on
social media, it was cited as a consultant.
And God, now I can't remember the other author.
I know a second author. I feel bad that I oh.
I forgot to I would have shout out Lev.
I happened to have read a Lev Grossman book just last year,
The Bright Sword. It's a it's a great book.
It's a Arthurian story that's got some nice twists, is
recommended by our good friend Mateo Barbagala, who was The Who
ran the Casseras City of Dragons event that we went to two years
ago. And yeah.
Yeah. So that was one of the
consultants. And so if they go going forward,
they would have other of George's authors that are
available that he likes in the room to help break it.
And that's pretty cool to to hear about.
And I think a good concept, although it's still awfully
ambitious, I would say. I would, yeah, I would say they
have to. That's funny.
I would say they need to break these stories more in advance if
they're doing that, Like they should break many seasons
together. But you know, that's for them to
deal with, Yeah. It's an interesting, interesting
thing, but it's I'm sure we, it looks like we have reasons for
optimism. I think they'll think they'll
figure it out. 22 quick thoughts on that that the reference to
Linklater's boyhood. He filmed that over like 14
years or something. He knew who's filming this boy
grow up kind of in real life, but kind of the story is
writing. But but but so that extended
amount of time and talking about, you know, 3 episodes and
10 years later, 3 episodes and 10 years later, 3 episodes,
you're 40 years. It reminds me in bottle rocket,
the Wes Anderson's first movie, when Owen Wilson's character had
this little notebook and he was making his seventy year plan,
you know, not like a five year plan, a 70 year plan mapped out.
So map it out, George. Map it out.
However, do it. So just returning real quick to
the fishing bid, like there's a, there's a number of ways they
can build on that. Like they can have egg fishing
again and we can be like, oh, there's the fishing.
Remind us again, if people maybe didn't catch that, they could
show it again. He could be wearing his floppy
straw hat when it happens too, You know, can dunk and dunk
maybe like, oh, fishing because dunk maybe didn't make that
catch that we did. He's dunk.
He's not necessarily going to make catches like that, but it
might occur to him later. I had a little section here on
flashbacks, future flashbacks. We pretty much covered all of
everything that I have written here, but I want to mention it
to give you all an opportunity to make suggestions to us on
what you think we might get in terms of flashbacks in the
future future, not not just season 2, although that's a an
obvious one to to think hardly about a hard on hard, hard.
I can't say this right. Anyway, season 3 as well, the
mystery night, imagining what kind of flashbacks they could
insert into that story. Yeah, so you know, we know that
the whole we know what a Shaya said quoted about Ira Parker and
Sir Arlen. He won't be in season 2
apparently, but maybe he will be in season 3, maybe four, who
knows? So we don't it's not clear.
But one thing that could happen in future seasons is we could
get flashbacks of Season 1. Yes.
That's something that maybe people haven't thought about as
much is that we can get flashbacks of this show within
it once it goes farther. One of things we saw and two of
things we didn't see. Right.
Like those are two options and we have seen flashbacks already
of things that happened in the show because you know that we
can see a. Flashback of the conversation
egg and make our hat about meet me in the morning I'll give you
the ring and da da da da da. Yeah, and they'll say, yeah,
it'll be, it'll happen, right? It's like you show up with the
ring, but if you get there early you'll see Dunk describe the
time he got knighted. Well, I'd also like to say I
expect we'll see a montage in Season 2 has kind of been my
expectation for the best way that they could show the Dorn
stuff or flashbacks. Is that told as a flash?
But you know what I mean? Like that is a flashback or is
it portrayed to us not as a flashback, but this is what
they're doing. You know, you see the
distinction, right? Like there is a difference
between that. When we talked about the idea of
there might be less flashbacks, but what if a montage it's only
you might have like 14 images over 10 seconds, but that's
still just one flashback or it's.
Not a flashback at all. If it starts to show out and
that's it's not a you know what I mean, Consider.
This too. Like consider the flashbacks in
episode 1. They were like less than a
second at a time. It was like you never beat me
unless I deserved it. Bam bam bam.
Like those were so quick and they'll but that's three
flashbacks, you know, in like. 3 seconds one.
Maybe it was just one. Yeah, well, no, they were all
three different. I mean you can count it as a
scene with multiple. People, but they were a
different age, a different. Actor.
Yeah, yeah. Because when it was actually
Peter Claffey and others were Bamboo Todd.
Yeah. And they were different
locations. So it's like, yeah, that's what
I'm like. That's the ultimate extreme of a
flashback that's less than a second.
And there's several in one moment almost where as you could
have Sir Sir Eustis just waxing about the Black Fire rebellion
and have a good 10 minute flashback maybe.
My my question is I I think I could see them playing it
straight and just having flashbacks of the Blackfyre
rebellion that Eustaces telling. I I wonder if there's a way they
can do it more comedically with more clever editing.
And it may people would be disappointed if it perhaps
wasn't as bombastic and action-packed, but I I wonder if
there's room for them to do things different than we're
expecting in terms of Eustace telling the story.
You know, like maybe when Dunk is imagining Damon Blackfyre
fighting Gwen Corbray, they could just have big smiley faces
on their, you know, and yeah, but they can have they can be
dressed as clowns and. That's that extreme, but you do
see the point that when he pictures it, he can picture it
to be much more like the story being told and not reality so
glamorized in this. Crazy way Dunk's POV, he's
filtering what Sir Eustis tells him and he's imagining what he's
here, you know? What I'm picturing?
It's part of. I'm picturing kind of like what
they do in Drunk History or it's Florida Man, you know what I
mean? You know, like, like the, the
Eustis is talking. It's coming out of the
character's voice. You know what?
Yeah. Like.
It's a reenactment, not a. Flashback.
Yeah. A reenactment type of flashback
could be a way to go. Yeah.
And they could save budget because if it's able to look a
little cheesier, that could be fun.
I don't know. But of course, we, we people
will complain if we see Damon Blackfire and Bitter Steel and
Blood Raven and they're they don't look as cool as possible.
So I don't know. Maybe I don't know.
I don't know. It's tough, it could look
possible but still speak with Eustis voice.
And then blood, Raven said. You know, And then it's just his
voice coming out. Right, like it's like Blood
Ravens actual voice sounds like. I am Hand of the King, you.
Might think of respect. To my authority.
Was he useless when he was on a story?
I wish I could remember that a little.
Bit he drunk a lot, he is drunk sometimes.
I don't think all of them, but yeah, some.
Of them they could have a quick history vibe right?
It's blurred his Peach and you should.
Blood Raven. Blood Ravens.
Have you watched boys come? Through a single episode of It's
Florida Man. I have, I've seen clips, I know
what it is, but. Yeah, 1 episode I think we get
it's very Drunk History, but has a certain other tone to it,
which I think is is kind of resonant with this.
OK, let's have some some quotes directly from Ira.
We already had a few of them throughout the episode.
We had a bunch of them pulled and and a few of them we were
able to use during the episode because it came up as to the
topic we were discussing. But here's a few others.
This first one, some of us thought there was some clarity,
but IRA's gone pushing back. Actually, George is the one
pushing back here, but IRA's the one talking about it.
Regarding the question if Dunk was knighted or not, well,
here's what Ira Parker had to say, because the interviewer
said, oh, looks like you made that clear, Dunk wasn't knighted
and here's IRA's response. Yeah, OK.
I'm glad he said this because it is definitely ambiguous, crazy
interpretation from the interviewer, but OK.
It's fascinating to me that that's what you got out of that
scene. At that moment, Dunk had never
been knighted by Sir Arlen. He says, why did you never
knight me? And then Sir Arlen dies and we
think it's over, but then he's back.
And as far as we know, the continuation of that scene is,
boy, go get me my sword, and then he Knights him.
There is no confirmation one way or the other coming out of that
scene. That's exactly how Mr. RR Martin
requested it. It remains ambiguous and people
can decide for themselves. Look, Danny Webb is a fucking
magician. I love him so much.
He just became Arlit. It could have been no one else
in this whole world. He was just pitch perfect all
the way up until his death. This whole journey is going to
be about what makes a true knight, whether or not you're
given the title or if you have to earn the title even after
you're given it. Can you earn it even if you've
never been given it? I mean, like are like, I was
saying all the right things and Ira knows Dunk was never
knighted, but it has to be ambiguous.
It's just. Yeah, because that's the point,
right, If you. Know that what do?
You because like right, yeah, the point isn't the title.
The point is the deeds. It's the deeds, not the title
that is the like. That's a big message that I
think is somewhat straightforward once you get
into it. If not from the get go, if they.
Ever give a clear answer to that question?
It it removes the question they he just won't he just.
The mystery is what matters. Maybe in book 9 when dunks enter
the king. Like I could see maybe at some
point years in the future of both the story and real life,
but at this point in the. First, the first.
Book being put on? No, wait, it's too.
Early. Yeah, good point.
Good point. Yeah.
So yeah, I I wrote that here too.
It's like, yeah, forever. I don't know, maybe, maybe it
could be a plot far in the future.
But I agree if it for him to feel right, like he might be
unsettled by a thing that a lot of people bring up is a plot
point or possibility. Possible theory is that it's
when he goes to join the Kingsguard that he's like, wait,
I got to be knighted, This is too much.
I got to be knighted before I do this.
Before it wasn't hurting anybody else.
Now I'm like, it's this is going too far.
This is crossing a line that I didn't intend to cross at first.
Maybe not though, you know, maybe not though, because if
they want to keep it ambiguous, then, well, yeah, anyway.
So here's the next one. Interviewer says you also have a
subtle moment connecting Dunk and Brienne of Tarth.
And I love that you not only did that, but also shot at the same
location. How did all of that come about?
Was that something you'd always wanted to include?
Did that come up later? And to be clear, before the OR
share reads the quote, the same location, meaning the leaning
trees spot outside of King's Landing where Dunk where Brienne
and Padre had a walk. We first saw that, I think, with
Arya in Season 1, but it's a this is the third time we've
seen it in a Game of Thrones show.
That came up later. That actually came up in our
reshoots. That was a scene that we had
early on that came out for budget reasons but then went
back in due to cutting too deeply.
We were looking for the original, original spot where
they did the very first of those walks.
But those trees had become a bit of a Belfast landmark and had
actually been destroyed a little bit just by all the tourism.
And so even the original series had to go in Season 3 or 4 for
the Brienne and Pod Walk, had to go to a different spot that
looked a lot like it and use that because they couldn't use
the original. So we went to that one.
It just seemed perfect. I loved it when I found out that
we could get there and do that. That's exactly the vibe that we
were going for. I love that image of the trees
touching over the street. That's something that feels very
special to me about Dunk and his great, great, great
granddaughter, whoever it is walking along the same Rd.
I think season 1 is a lot about what we passed down to the next
generation. We have father to son, we have
night to Squire, we have master to apprentice.
And so it felt very within our motifs or themes for the season.
So yeah, we've been to the the one that that has been ransacked
by Torres. We are some of the tourists that
went there. Did you nail?
A penny to it, huh? I did not nail a penny to it.
No, I did not do. Well, that's something.
But yeah, and this is honestly Tyrion's quote that echoes what
Ira is saying here. It fits oddly even better
because of the the connection to the hedge knight.
He says that we're all puppets dancing on the strings of those
who came before us. So obviously the puppet
reference is what I'm going for here.
As a as a nice commonality, shall we say, As Egg would put
it, that's a commonality. You're both gigantic.
Yeah. So yeah, we've been like Ashea
said, we've been there taking some great pictures.
That is a really nice spot. I recommend it to y'all even
though yeah the tourism is made it not quite as nice as it.
Used to be share where this other spot is, yeah.
People will ruin that one too. Yeah.
So returning briefly to the subject of the boot, there's
been a couple of different things that Ira said about it.
He's sort of said they haven't decided how to resolve it, but
they also he's also kind of said that they have it well in hand,
like maybe they haven't picked precisely how they're, but maybe
they it sounds like they have a lot of ideas, all of which work,
but they just haven't picked which one.
As we've said it, it doesn't seem very complicated.
It doesn't seem like it's going to have some butterfly effect,
at least not a significant 1. So anyway, here is basically
what he said about it all. Yeah, you could tell he also
thought it wouldn't be a big deal because he says here, he
says he wrote the he Parker said he wrote that scene to be tongue
in cheek quote, only for half of the people at HBO to take it
quite seriously and probably half of my writing room, too.
It was just like, no, what do you mean?
We've got to answer it now, the showrunner added.
We've actually gone through a lot of iterations on how to deal
with that, and so far we've landed on my favorite one, which
is being addressed with hopefully a light touch and also
a little bit of a dark humor as well.
So yeah, it'll be played for comedy, it seems.
Darkly. But it will be.
Addressed in the dark and light. Light touch, dark humor, little
connotation there. Yeah.
It's pretty cool. Yeah.
So I think you all probably could agree with what I said.
And it sounds like they have several answers for how to
handle it. And so far, they've landed on
the one that Ira prefers. But who knows if they maybe have
to change their mind. But even if they do, they've got
other possibilities. So either way, it sounds like
they have it handled regarding season 2 film.
Oh, Sean, go ahead. I just want to say real quick I
reiterate what I've said many times is I think they can handle
this easily. I think they could even get away
with literally doing changing nothing and even later on Dung
egg has a signet. Like as it is we never saw him
get the signet and as it is we know there were all sorts of
adventures between the 1st and 2nd book.
So I think it's easy for us to go in our heads how it might or
when it might have happened. Even more time passes between
book two and three. It's 10.
It's two. It's like a year, a year and a
half between 1:00 and 2:00, but more like 2 to 2 1/2 for the
next. So I I think that he will just
stick to the main story. I think season 2 is just going
to be book 2 and they'll flesh out some character they didn't
get in a book and I'll have some flashback that wasn't a book.
And they clearly seem to make some attempt to address that
finish. But I think it was, I said
earlier, I give it three seats. I think they're, I think it's
going to be a dozen lines over three scenes and it'll just be
something that's quick and easy and they just move on.
It's Yep. He didn't intend for it to be a
whole new storyline. Yeah.
And he and not it. Would be a whole new storyline.
People around him seem to think they need to address it.
So fine, he'll address it, but it'll be quick, it'll be simple,
it'll be funny. Light touch, dark humor.
So the deaths. The great spring sickness
happens between 1:00 and 2:00. My theory for the dark humor is
that there's a bunch of deaths and Makar and sees Egg and and
approves it and gives him the the ring.
Because yeah, I mean, he goes to.
Because of all the. Deaths and they could be they
could meet at Summer Hall too, which is near the which is on
the border of which is where Makar lives.
So that would make sense. And that's on the border like
the three-way border of the Reach and the Stormlands and
Dorn. So they could, you know, it
could emerge from Doran and go right to Summerhall.
Anyway, we've spent a lot of time on that question.
It sounds like it's well handled.
Here's a little preview. That's also a bit of a challenge
that Season 2 is facing. We're thinking about how muddy
it was for the trial and how that was authentic for Ireland.
Well, we're talking about a drought for Season 2.
Well, they're not going to film in Belfast, are they?
That's probably not going to work out a little too.
There's just no way to make it dry there.
So here's what Ira had to say about that.
Yeah, he has spoken about the budget for Season 2 and how you
might think it's, you know, better and they have more money
to spend on things 'cause they're not doing all the jobs,
but they're actually having some unanticipated cost in terms of
filling on location. Which is to say, this is from an
IGN interview. He says we are going to dryer
pastures in Spain for the drought scenes, except that the
location that was meant to be our dry riverbed is now a fully
flowing river after getting rain for the first time in 10 years
at this location. And so now has sent us
scrambling and searching for changes at this late date.
So that costs a lot of money, location scouting, getting the
rights to film in a movie, like all of that.
So there's one that costs a lot. 2.
He spoke this about this separately.
They have they're filming more scenes with egg.
That costs more for them to do because they have to use child
hours, so they can't film as efficiently as they can with an
adult. So it's actually costing them
more to film in a few respects from locations to the actor
feature. Yeah, he can't be you.
They can't have. Like you could ask an adult to
film 18 hours of the day. He can't do that with a 10 year
old. That's illegal.
Yeah. So despite it being less of a
huge production with jousting and all, it seems like it's
still like there's still using every bit of their budget, which
makes me seem like they'll be trying to cut corners, save
money. I, I guess I should say on
flashbacks of the Black Fire rebellions, which is going to be
very expensive. And if they can have a way to do
it in a way that is effective, funny or or something, they will
do it in a way to save money, I think.
Yeah, I think you're right. So let's close this episode out,
closeout our wrap up with some questions from you all.
Another set of questions here that you have sent in here.
Remember to join us on Patreon, participate in that first in
that Topicsmoot 2026. It's our third year of doing
Topicsmoot. It's been a lot of fun each
year. And of course, you can find the
link to that Patreon and the other ways to
support.ourshow@historyofwesteros.com. Greer Gladney says it's more
that it implies that he didn't learn the lesson about
unintended consequences and being in a position of power.
This is in reference to what exactly?
Maybe egg running off that permission?
Oh, OK. Yeah, maybe, maybe that all
about disliking what it means about egg.
Yeah, OK. I see.
Yes, that is probably right. Yeah.
And which again, I can, young people don't have the ability to
necessarily think through all that.
But yeah, I, I. Think he did ignore that it
could lead to don't be killed right?
Like this? Is something I meant to make
comment on when we talked about it.
You know, when the the comment that Baylor made and it not that
there isn't some wisdom in it, but the fact is Baylor did
things that he didn't intend to be harmful.
They ended up being harmful to like every single care.
Every person does that. Especially when you're in power
and you, you're like. You're.
All your actions have an influence on a lot of people.
You can't be perfect. Yeah, you like, you make a
mistake if a lot of people are affected by it, but like, who's
a perfect leader? No one.
I mean, never. No such thing exists.
Corn Emperor sends a super chat, says in my opinion, despite the
conspiracy, Fagon makes for the best king for A Song of Ice and
Fire and unlikely rain like eggs.
My biggest dream is a dream of spring.
Love y'all. Yeah, a dream for a dream of
spring too. That's a big dream.
But yeah, I mean, a great thing about Fagon, yeah, is virus.
Did try to impart and Jon Clelington decided to try to
impart some of the basics that that made Egg a good king, which
was understanding things from the common folks perspective,
living that life, being in danger.
The problem is that I think Danny had a more authentic
version of that life. She actually was on the run and
she was actually being chased without the without protection
of Illyrio and and John Connington in this whole like
conspiracy that was over 20 years of planning, which, yeah,
so it's a little more engineer. Danny's is a little more
authentic, but still. But doesn't mean Fagon wouldn't
be a better king because he's probably not insane or whatever.
I don't know, right. He.
I don't know, not really Hungarian, that could be a
bonus. Yeah, that's true.
Do you like fishing?
I mean. I think Danny is way more likely
to save Westeros, but she's also more likely to have some sort of
darker ending. Fagon, of course, might just
have an ending that doesn't really, he just dies.
Jenny of Cold Stone Creamery, which remains one of the cooler
screen names we see regularly here.
I think the anachronistic music fits the vibe, considering that
George inserts pop culture references all over the place.
Tully, Muppets, Grand Maester, Bennifer where Grateful Dead
references all. Oh, Speaking of music all over
the place, I'm not. Going to lie all black and
yellow spiral. I've never once considered the
Grand Maester Bennifer could actually be a reference to.
I guess you mean the couple named Bennifer.
I don't know if that's what you mean, but I I don't think it is
a reference and it just makes me shuffle chuckle to think that
George loves celebrity couples. Oh, Bennifer's and I didn't get
that. In it's a reference to that it's
just. Ben and Jennifer, OK, I don't
think. It is, but I've never considered
it I it's very funny. That is really funny.
That could be it. You never know.
He's always shipped them. Yeah, you know George.
George secretly is a big fan of pop culture.
You never wouldn't know it, but. He's always on TMZ.
Ani, how are you Tiani and I hope I said your name right or
close to it. Anyway, sends a super chat and a
hippo sticker. We love a hippo.
Around here, my favorite animal actually.
And Yak Yaki Niko says any confirmation of the Royal
Shakespeare Company producing a stage play titled The Mad King
about the Tourney of Harrenal more than confirmation it is
happening this year. It is done.
I mean, as in it's ready to go or close enough that they've
announced it. So on.
So we are going, we're likely to do an episode about it before we
see see it and certainly one or two afterwards and.
We're thinking it's Robert indeed.
Geek did a little bit of research into the the the
schedule and he said that there happens to be a window of
roughly September to October where it seems likely that
that's when it'll be. And they say summer and early
September can still be some. I don't know.
So stay tuned, we will announce as soon as, whenever we have new
info we will share with you all, both in an episode and on our
social media. That'll be at Stratford upon
Avon and they'll probably almost certainly extend the run and go
to London and go to New York and hopefully some other countries.
But we're trying to see it as soon as possible, as soon as it,
yeah, like maybe, probably not opening, right, but as soon as
possible, as close, as close as that as possible.
And we should know, I think it's, was it April 14th or I, I
forget the date, but we we'll know the dates when, when I mean
the ticket sales will open and, and all of that.
So we'll know a while in advance.
Our trivia question was who's the only character from the
hedge night that we see again apart from Duncan Egg
themselves, And the answer is Sir Roland Crakehall.
He the one one of the three Kingsguard Knights.
When when blood Raven shows up with the army at the end, Sir
Roland Crakehall comes and finds Duncan says, Hey, blood Raven
wants to talk to you. I was like, oh, hey, it's Sir
Roland again. So, you know, it's interesting.
Sir Roland's one of the few characters also that didn't
really, they didn't really seem to bother casting him in a way
that he looked like because he's supposed to be redhead.
They just like they're like, who cares?
We'll just do random handsome guy that's not redheaded and not
worry about it too much. So it's possible I forgot
somebody else that's in the mystery night or the sworn
sword. Well, probably not the sworn
sword because it's got a much smaller cast, but I don't, but I
don't I can't think of anybody. So if you can correct me or
well, it wouldn't be a correction probably as much as
an add on an addendum, let me know.
Did anyone get that? Did anyone get Sir Roland Cray
Collier? No.
All right, that's it was a little bit.
Tough, Yeah. No, no one guessed that that I
saw, unless I somehow missed it. Yeah, I think someone guessed
Makar. I think I, I, Yeah, that was
about it. All right.
Oh. Actually, frakkin toaster lover
says. Actually we see Baylor, Valar
and Arlen in Dunks Dream in The Sworn Sword.
That could count the dream, yeah.
Yeah, OK, that's, that's interesting.
Yeah. I mean, we that I, I wouldn't
count that, but I can see why you, you might, I would say like
in person. I maybe I could clarify the
question. I meant in person because, yeah,
he definitely thinks about Baylor.
He thinks about Stefan as well, as we mentioned earlier.
As for our poll, which character from Season 1 will we see again?
First, Arian got the fewest votes, which makes sense because
he's being exiled only 6 percent, 15% of you said Tanzel,
22% of you said Raymond, and 57% said Makar.
And I think the, the maybe the, the boot change might be part of
why. Yeah.
Also just fine. Yeah.
There's a lot of reasons it makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
So thank you all for participating in that poll and
the other polls and everything else you participate in.
We certainly do appreciate the engagement.
Go find our Facebook group or or our Patreon and go vote while
you can. Yeah, we got more polls up, more
fun stuff. We're going to.
We'd love to announce the results of those, but I put
those polls up today. So they haven't really had
enough time to marinate, shall we say.
So we'll mention that again at a future date or perhaps just post
the results on social media. Either way, we will let you all
know. Thanks to all of you for being
with us this all season long. And those of you who have been
here even longer than that, you know, past seasons of other
shows, we certainly appreciate that.
Sean, did you have looks like you have a a some sort of
comment you wanted to add? Just unplug that.
Every year I do minute long reviews of all the Academy Award
nominees and that's coming up in a week or two.
So my dancing Sean on YouTube, you'll check his videos.
Channel name dancing Sean yeah do that Sean does a really good
job with those very you you put a lot of effort into that and I
know you put a lot of thought into like we said earlier like
you make deciding who your top ten are you you put a lot of
work into that. So yeah so very worth it if you
guys are curious about that or into that show the the awards
that is and the the things that are up for award.
Of course you can check out the hedge night, the sworn sword and
the mystery night reviews that we've done in the past.
The Hedge Night episodes have been reposted to our podcast
feed near the top as as as has our Baylor Break Spear, a pair
of episodes that were made years ago.
We'll be reposting a few other episodes that are related to
this, but you can also just find those things deep in our catalog
by searching. For example, the Sermon of the
Mirror Shield episode is going to get reposted because that's a
bit relevant here. Thank you all again.
We will be back most weeks this year with more content that's
going to continue through House of the Dragon season and not so.
We'll be covering book topics, Dunkin egg topics, all sorts of
other things. The future remains bright and we
will never run out of content. Thank you to Bran the Builder
for our awesome intro that at least a few of you have said the
music is stuck in your head and there's a good reason for that.
It's catchy. We will look forward to what he
has to do with the updated House of the Dragon intro.
He's been working on that too. He he's the one who did our
intros for that in past seasons. So in case you weren't aware of
that, and thanks to Sean and a chef for everything this season,
we've had a great time covering this show and we are excited
about the future of this franchise and all the other
things we get to talk about. We're very lucky.
We get a date for Elsa the dragon.
June. That's all.
Just June. We're waiting.
We're waiting eagerly or nervously, whatever you want to
say, to find out the dates we don't want.
It early June and late June. Yeah, we don't.
Want it to crash with World Con or or Dragon Con for our our
purposes, but we'll see. But yeah, well, so we'll
certainly you all probably hear about that around the same time
we do because that'll probably be some big news drop when it
does happen. But certainly we will be on top
of that. So June. 14th is a Sunday is my
birthday by the way, I'm. Rooting for that.
That would be perfect. For all that would be optimal
for me, everybody pray for that or sacrifice a goat or whatever
you do to make things reality. So thank you all.
We do not support goat sacrifice, do not kill any
goats. Thank you.
Sacrifice the worst of all time. Don't sacrifice me.
Yes, sacrifice. That's good.
Nice one. The black goat of Kohor.
That's you could sacrifice that one.
That's a pretty bad goat sacrificing.
Banana. Yes, they don't.
They shouldn't exist. All of them.
Get rid of all the banana. The world should be purged of
bananas for and all their evil influence and odor.
Send her to me, I'll take care. Thank you all, everybody.
Until next time you know what to do.
Valar Riridis.