That the Brotherhood without banners was created indirectly
by Ned Stark is, but one of many details about the group, that's
easy to overlook. Catlin leads the group.
Now, under a different name, of course.
But she is, well, played an indirect role in creating it.
Her seizure of Tyrion was met with tywin's unleashing of
atrocities across the riverlands.
His goal in that was to lure. Ned Stark out from the red, keep
because Ned Stark leads from the front.
It was a predictable thing to happen and then he would capture
Ned and swap him for Tyrion and that would be the end of it.
But thanks to Jamie who ended up helping breaks leg that planned.
And instead we got the brother without banners and they have
been a significant part of the story ever since but unique part
as well. They are mostly a group of
commenters, peasants, and what Westeros would call the lowborn
most of us on fire is focused on the nobility, which makes sense,
but the story would be incomplete without the regular
folk. How they deal with war and
deprivation and suffering. And what else is yet to?
Come what they hoped for how they see the greater conflict
through different eyes. They have a different set of
what's important to them. Wore impacts all levels of
society now while Taiwan and Rob and Renly and Stannis and bail
on everybody else are fighting over castles and titles, the
commanders are fighting for their lives.
And the Brotherhood is one of the only organizations, the
chief organization, helping them out, who took on the bloody
Mummers directly the worst thing going in the riverlands, it
wasn't Rob's Army. Is it wasn't tywin's armies.
Even though the body numbers switched sides, it was the
Brotherhood, right? They took them on directly.
It was their army that did that. Well if you could call it an
army and it was mostly commoners Yet, there's so much about them.
That is anything but common. There's a bizarre and
compelling. Blending of magic and culture
here. Reor the young dead prophecies
the old gods and the Seven are all present.
Plus a mixture of personalities and characters and backgrounds.
Nothing common about that. Even though none of them are
povs, we get various POV spending time with them Arya,
and Brienne in particular with Jamie in the queue, to be sure
given how his Arc is a hanging right now.
Plus other important characters like sandor, Clegane, Gendry,
edric, Dayne, Etc. Living like Outlaws can change a
person though, right? These were good, guys.
But George doesn't pull punches with the realities of an
Insurgent force of living, the life of resistance fighter.
He does however, add the unreality of all those
Supernatural elements. Especially in the group's
leadership. It's fair to mention as well
that this group and they're very plotlines were handled poorly by
the show, Even though some of the individual characters were
pretty solid, and the performance is were great.
Still, the difference is pretty large, this episode is the
something of a palette cleanser as we refresh ourselves on the
better version, which will help make the two cannons more
distinct. The Knights of the Hollow Hill,
the Forgotten Fellowship, the Brotherhood without banners, all
that, all them and more on this episode of history of Westeros
podcast. Hello, and welcome back
everyone. If you are catching us live, it
must be around 3:00 Eastern on Sunday because that's when we're
live, otherwise you can catch us after the fact on YouTube, or on
Spotify the video version is edited on Spotify Spotify.
So it's a little clearer and cleaner sound qualities a little
better. A couple mistakes, get cut out,
but you can catch it anywhere. Also very well edited on any
podcast platform. And if you listen on patreon as
a member, well you get it ad free.
That's right patreon.com history of Westeros.
Big shout out to our good friend, Nina Cruise Ling, good,
Queen, Ally with one, L on Tumblr.
She was very big in, reminding me to check out the writing of
the late, great, Stephen Atwell, and he has a lot to say about
the Brotherhood without banners his chapter by chapter read
through of A Song of Ice and Fire was in progress when he
passed, but he got through A Storm of Swords at least through
the Without banners portion. And that was really vital for us
today. I a lot of takes that I borrowed
from Steven or Worse inspired from him.
So, let's remember Stephen and check out race for the Iron.
Throne blogspot.org wordpress.com, I got the full
link in the description for you. I can't remember.
Stop my head. But anyway, his work stands
still many years later and will continue to even though he's not
able to add to it anymore. Obviously, so check it out race
for the iron throne. If you have questions for us,
hit us up at west, roast history at gmail.com or on any of our
socials. We're pretty much present on all
the social media platforms. You can also just drop a
question here live if you are live And of course, I'll mention
some episodes at the end that relate to this one.
If you want to stay immersed, we've got that covered for you.
We'll start with the trivia question, the answer to, which
is also at the end of this episode and I'm doing it a
little different today. Slightly a multiple choice,
reverse multiple choice, type question a Imposter question,
which of these is not a member of the book version of the
Brotherhood without banners Melly likely Luke johno, Nuttin.
He be nothing pelo. Trebla swampy, Meg.
She putting foot. She is she be swampy.
These names are crazy, right? Putting foot, like, what the
heck does that mean Merit or Moon Town hunting foot sounds
like an offshoot of powder flame.
It's terrible illness. In the show Black Monday with
Dawn Shield where he had progressed about her foot.
So I think putting foot is a part of that when you have a
putting foot or powder foot, you go to live in Moon Town.
Yeah, so yeah, one of those is not in the book version of the
brother without Banner's identified that character and
you will have got this one, right?
Let me read you the sections that we have for you.
Today, we have first mention, we have kings men, we have under
the lightning Lord, we have, the Mummers Ford rating, the Lions,
The Outlaw Network battle at the burning Cemetery, The Hollow
Hill, high heart under stoneheart, River, Run, Hilda
and other spine. The BWB fan group are the week
departures and current members looking ahead and theories,
That's How we'll finish with some ideas about what's to come.
And what might we what we might be able to expect in the future
from this group. Let's do it.
That's our setup and I'm ready to get right into it.
We happen to be live streaming this episode on May 4th.
So May the 4th be with you. I've even got a mashup Game of
Thrones. A Star Wars shirt which is a
funny thing to be doing. When I just said this is not a
show episode here. I'm wearing a show shirt but hey
As the only mashup Star Wars Game of Thrones shirt.
I have. So, you know, I gotta do that
and it's neat too because the Brotherhood has a lot in common
with many elements of the Rebellion, including the leaders
and most of valuable members often having serious character
flaws or losing side of their purpose losing themselves.
That's a special trip on Dairy and not the losing sight of his
purpose where she remained quite focused on, but the losing
himself, right? That's the part.
Yeah, he's a little more to it in here, giving the supernatural
elements and that's another thing I want to point out one of
the many things that makes the show and or which is on the air
right now. Stand out from other Star Wars
shows, one of many things that makes it stand out is the lack
of Supernatural stuff. It has the force is not present,
lightsabers aren't there. You know, it just it's not
there. I just not that kind of story,
that is not the case with the Brotherhood without banners who
are steeped and various magic and Supernatural plotlines,
which makes them all the more interesting and let's get to it.
First mention. Here we go.
With a quote from thoros and Tom, we are brothers here,
thoros of mere declared, holy Brothers, sworn to the realm, to
our God, and to each other. The Brotherhood without banners,
Tom seven strings plucked a string, the Knights of Hollow
Hill. I told us these.
I wanted him to sing it for me but he didn't.
I was slightly singing like I'll work my way into it.
Maybe, yeah, the Brotherhood without manner, that's a Hollow
Hill. That was more country, wasn't
it? It's an unofficial name like
cold hands or the three-eyed Crow don't like they well they
don't have Banners at all and like they carry anything that
says that name on it or indicates that it's just a
nickname because they have no official name.
They got to call them something. This is actually only this line
from Tom is actually one of only two times.
The phrase brother without banners appears in the main
text. That's the only time it's
spoken, period. No one says, brother without
banners, except that time right there.
That was it. The other quote, when it appears
is narrated, it's the Aria comes into her mind as things are
happening. And we have that quote for you
later in the episode, the only other two other times it's
mentioned but they're both in the appendices. oh, it's in the
or three other times, rather well You'll see what I mean.
It's not quite clear like that. The name brother, without
banners applied to this group, appears in the appendix in A
Storm of Swords, but not in A Feast for Crows or A Dance with
Dragons. They're just called Outlaws and
other characters, it doesn't even give them the group name.
But the ear, the real life fan group for A Song of Ice and Fire
the Brotherhood without banners which is she and I are inducted
members of we have a section on that later in the episode as
well. They are mentioned in the Feast
for Crows in A Dance with Dragons in the appendices.
So George mentioned that Brotherhood without banners, but
not didn't call this group of Bandits that.
So that's got a fun. They also call themselves as I
said in the intro the Knights of the Hollow Hill forgotten
Fellowship. Yeah.
They don't have a single name, they just have ideas about who
they are and men like Tom who was a singer.
He comes up with these colorful phrases and some of the stick
because well they're colorful phrases and their memorable.
So, kind of describes what they are.
Or maybe not what they are anymore.
But what they were at one point because this first mention, it
doesn't describe the origin of the group.
They are outlaws now and have been for most of the span, we've
known them. But at the start, they were
Kingsmen given a lawful order by hand of the king.
Ned Stark, it may have been an unwise order.
Nevertheless, it seems straightforward enough as far as
that goes. Let's talk about that.
The mission came all the way back in a Game of Thrones very
early on quote. Lord, Barrett John derian.
You shall have the command as befits, your rank. the young
Lord with the red gold hair bowed, as you command Lord, at
ard Ned raised his voice. So it carried to the far end of
the throne room in the name of Robert of the house Baratheon.
The first of his name, King of the end dolls and the Roy are in
the first man, lord of the Seven Kingdoms and protector of The
Realm. By the word of eddard, of the
house Stark his hand. I charge you to ride to the
Westlands with all haste, to cross the red fork of the
Trident under the king's flag and their bring the king's
Justice to the false Knight Gregor, Clegane, and to all
those who share in his crimes. I denounced him and a taint him
and strip him of all Rank and titles of all lands and incomes
and holdings and do sentence him to death.
May the gods take pity on his soul Now you all are experienced
with this series but at the time it looked very straightforward.
Good guys, going to hunt bad, guys.
Gregor we'd already seen his behavior at the tournament.
We saw these charges late against him and it looked
straightforward, right? I mean, and it even more looks
like good guys versus bad guys, because Tywin and Gregor cast is
evil right away and Ned was cast as good.
So you think well, Ned is doing a thing.
It must be a good thing and it was the thing.
It's the problem wasn't that. It wasn't good.
It was that he didn't handle the politics of it very well.
You also don't know that George R Martin is necessarily such a
trickster when it comes to tropes.
And when you're reading the story for the first time, you
might not have seen coming all the tricks and and inversions
that did end up coming to pass. You might have guessed That sir
Gregor would kill. Lord, Barrett you might have
predicted that or predicted the other, but you wouldn't have
guessed Gregor would kill Eric twice.
That part is not very predictable.
Neither would many of guests. Both the man sent to lead the
mission and the target would wind up Undead.
Yeah. Barek and Gregor are both The
Walking Dead now. Well, bears and walking anymore,
but he was for a while and Gregor still is so those are
entirely unpredictable from the point of which were entering
this. These subplots right?
That's wild. Now, Ned was very loud about
this and demonstrative because you wanted everyone to know was
being done. He wanted all to be above board,
but this backfired horribly for multiple reasons.
He didn't send Laura's Tyrell in the group which virus chided him
on. He's like, look, if you want, if
you're gonna go after the Lannisters, put the tyrells on
your side like position them to be on your side and he's like,
no. I don't want to get mixed mix
all that together, you know, and Laura is too eager, you know, I
don't want that. And of course they were
ambushed. So he eagerness might have,
might have been a problem, but they were ambushed anyway.
It wouldn't have made things worse.
And of course he also didn't send Ellen Payne, who was the
king's Justice and he's like well in pain is a Lannister,
something like a trust him. But these are things that if he
had done them, it would have made the brotherhood's job a lot
easier. And it might have left them in a
better position would Gregor and Ty would have done what they did
have. Laura's Tyrell was in that army
of wanted, to upset the tyrrells.
I think they were a lot of things gonna go on.
Differently. Now Ned couldn't necessarily
seen that coming, but one thing he probably should have seen
coming, was announcing his intention and then sending these
men out to go after Gregor. Gregor knows.
They're coming Tywin, knows they're coming.
So an ambush should have been predictable and that's exactly
what happened. so, What will happen if we look ahead a little
bit too, just to think about how crazy this all has become, we
have a Brotherhood led by now, an undead woman Following being
led by an undead man. And they may yet put down the
undead false Knight Gregor still out there.
He might still get put down partly by the Brotherhood or
maybe you'll be sandor and their associated with sand or already
so there's like a three-way connection here you know like
obviously sandor is very connected to his brother in
terms of their their stories and their arcs and Sanders are
already have a deep connection to the Brotherhood and they
already have a deep connection to Greg or on their own because
he was their original Target. Now as well.
His story is tied to Aria. Both sandor and stoneheart and
the Brotherhood. So there's another person,
another bit of connective tissue between all these little
subplots. And of course they were the last
people to see her before she escaped for.
So they they know Catlin by becoming their leader learned at
her. Daughter was still alive and we
barely know anything about that other than we know she's
searching for her. So the greater detail and more
for these parts of the story are later in the episode.
This is sort of an overview of some aspects of it but let's
tell the story from the start backing up to this order by net
and where it led to and the immediate aftermath This section
is called King's Men. Here's the group as it was first
created quote, Ned eased himself slowly back onto the hard iron
seat of aegon's. Misshapen thrown his eyes,
searched the faces along the wall.
Lord Barrack he called out thoros of mirror.
Sarah, Gladden. Lord lothar.
The men named step forward one by one.
Each of you is to assemble 20 men to bring my word to
Gregor's. Keep 20 of my own cars shall go
with you. Ultimately the perfect example
of the common folk caught up in the Game of Thrones, they don't
care who sits the throne. They do care about being
pillaged in worse, though, right?
And this is where that started. This is where Beric Who is a
good man is confronted, with that reality, something has a
lot of Highborn. People, never even really
experienced or know or take the time to learn about So Lord
Barrett didn't just carry out the order or try to carry out
here at the Spirit of the order. The point was to bring Justice
to bring specifically Justice to Gregor Clegane. and to help the
Justice was for the small Focus that he terrorized Taking it
back a bit farther. Right.
It was the order came from Tywin but still they didn't know that
at the time they just see this false Knight doing false Knight
things and reacted to it needs. We should give Ned some credit
for this decision because his choice nearly out foxed Tywin.
He was again trying to lure Ned in to capture him, but Ned
actually. included Taiwan in his declaration by saying, In the
quote, we read not just Gregory, but all who share in his crime.
He's a Gregor and all shared his crimes.
He doesn't name Tywin, but he's leaving the door open.
Because he expects that Tywin, probably did give that order,
but he doesn't have proof of that yet.
So Tywin would have had things gone differently, Ty would have
had to disavow Gregor's actions in order to perhaps avoid Civil
War. So they all had their own plans
there and they both kind of missed some of the nuances of
what the other was thinking. But let's get to the
Brotherhood. Under the lightning.
Lord, they've only had the two leaders so far.
And only one of them was actually among the living for
very long in that role. In fact, Barrack was not alive.
When they were the brother without banners, they became the
Brotherhood without banners after this battle at the Mummers
Ford that he died. His first death during So let's
hear from them on how it began from the lightning, Lord
himself. Speaking to sandor, Clegane
quote. When we left King's Landing, we
were men of Winterfell and Men of dairy and Men of blackhaven
Mallory, men and wild men. We were Knights and Squires and
men at Arms Lords and commoners bound together, only by our
purpose. The Voice came from the man
seated amongst the, where would Roots halfway up the wall?
Six score of us, set out to bring King's Justice to your
brother. The speaker was descending, the
tangle of steps toward the floor.
Now, there's an important follow to that quote that will have
later but let's fill in what happens here with more detail as
it happened at the time because he of course, is telling us what
happened afterwards. This is what happened in the
moment at the Mummers Ford. Now, the first account we get is
from Rob who tells Catlin about it, but it's almost humorous
because Rob doesn't actually know all the names properly.
He calls Barrack Derek for example, So let's skip that
quote. Will we get a quote from someone
who's actually there. So their information is far,
more accurate, Rob's was secondhand with the wrong name
and everything. Harwin, the son of the master of
horse of Winterfell. Relays, the story right here,
quote, Greg Gore was waiting for us at the Mummers Ford with men,
concealed on both Banks, as we crossed he fell upon us from
front and rear, I saw the mountains slay, Raymond Dairy,
with a single blow. So terrible, that, it took
Jerry's arm off at the elbow and killed the horse beneath him
too. Glad and wild died there with
him and lured. Mallory was ridden down and
drowned we had liens on every side and I thought I was doomed
with the rest but Alan shouted commands and restored ordered to
our ranks and those still a horse.
Rallied around thoros and cut our way free Six score, we'd
been that morning by dark. No more than two score were left
and Lord Barrack was Gravely wounded.
Thoros drew, a foot of Lance from his chest that night and
poured, boiling wine into the hole it left.
An extra piece of detail, not included in the quote, is that
tywin's Army was not that far behind.
So Gregor's van was setting this Ambush and tywin's army was
supposed to come up right behind them.
Of course, that was bending on. Ned Stark being with the group
and he wasn't so taiwan's. Plans, may have changed in the
moment there, so Really, what a horrible thing.
They take six score men and they were basically headed towards
Tyson's entire host that's like what had they not been ambushed?
They would have blundered into something perhaps worse.
So they had little hope as as Harwin is telling Aria here.
and, In this desperate hour, a miracle heard.
If I'm exaggerating it's not by much the men involved with,
certainly see it as such. Yeah, this is a world where
Supernatural things happen, but none of them had ever seen
someone raised from the dead. Barrack was raised from the dead
in the battle. Like that's crazy or not in the
battle shortly after he rose, you know that night.
So, it's bizarre, like, you witness that and that, you know,
that's crazy, you're not gonna even in a world where there's
Magic. This isn't Magic.
They've seen they haven't been around anything like this.
It's it's unbelievable. It's Gonna Change you.
It's like a religious experience almost but Harwin when he's
telling Aria this, he evades, the miraculous part the
supernatural, he kind of glazes over it and that's really
interesting. Here's the rest of the quote
Every man of us was certain his lordship would be dead by
Daybreak, but thoros prayed with him all night, beside the fire
and when Dawn came he was still alive and stronger than he'd
been, it was a fortnight before he could mount a horse but his
courage kept us strong. He told us that our war had not
ended at the Mummers Ford, but only begun there.
And that every man of ours, who'd Fallen would be Avenged
tenfold. Avenge tenfold.
Not Avenged Sevenfold. This is not a not a shout out to
that band. Yeah, so that's interesting.
Like we know from characters like Lem who is simply in denial
about Barrick being raised from the dead multiple times.
Like yep, borrows is a great healer and then yeah healer
sure. So Harwin might be that might be
the case here rather than just talking around the subject
because he's speaking to Aria who was a 10 year old girl and
maybe doesn't want to try to throw that at her like yeah.
And then he got up again. Even though he should have been
dead. Like he just maybe just isn't
telling her that part of the story because she won't get it.
It's an important thing about a song by fires.
Yeah, we are all aware of unreliable narrators.
We also have to be aware of Unreliable receivers of
information because people lie to them, it happens a lot.
And cersei's chapter, for example, people, I just see a
lot and these a lot of these povs are children, so they don't
things get not told to them because they're children.
So yeah, a hero rising from the dead to lead them.
You can see why he left that out for the 10 year old.
Its mystical and unheard of and and even amongst the
Brotherhood, they probably don't exactly know how to deal with it
or think about it or talk about it as people like lemur and
example. So of course they were no match
for an army down to two score men with an peculiar miraculous
leader at the front, but they were still capable of doing harm
to the Lannisters. Even before we meet them on
screen, other than seeing Burek in the throne room there.
Well, before Arya encounters them, we hear about them from
Tywin in tyrion's POV who complains he says, yeah,
American forces have been raiding.
Our supply lines, So Tyrion, you know, is caught up in that
briefly and near the end of The Game of Thrones.
This next section is called raiding the Lion's.
Now under stoneheart, if we're looking for ahead, the
Brotherhood is targeting phrase and Lannisters in particular,
which yes there's a lot of difference between stone hearts
leadership and Barracks, but that part's not that different
because it was a Lannister man, sir Gregory.
They were after in the first place and Lannister's who
ambushed them and then Lannister's who were ravaging
the riverlands who their trying to save the Commerce from.
So the answers have been in this, the whole way.
And then the Red Wedding happens in the Fraser kind of linked to
the Lannisters in that regard. So it's well, now they're
targeting these two houses and set of just the one, but at the
start, it wasn't about vengeance or anything personal, which it
absolutely is for stoneheart. It was about helping the king
against what was clearly, a rebel Lord, in Taiwan Lannister
and his false Knight Gregor game.
That was the job. That was the deal.
Now, Harwin tells Arya. How their whole everything
changed. They went out there as Kingsmen
and became Outlaws. without any action of their own, it just
happened, quote, Only then we heard that Robert was dead and
Lord had art as well and Cersei Lannister's.
Well, pet ascended, the iron throne.
That turned the whole world on its head.
We'd been sent out by the king's hand to deal with Outlaws, you
see. But now we were the Outlaws and
Lord Tywin was the hand of the king.
There was some wanted to yield then but Lord Barrack wouldn't
hear of it. We were still King's Men, He
said and these were the Kings people, the lions were savaging.
If we could not fight for Robert, we would fight for them
until every man of us was dead and so we did.
But as we fought something queer happened.
For every man, we lost two showed up to take his place.
A few were nights or Squires of gentle birth.
But most were common men. Feel hands, and Fiddlers and in
keeps servants and shoemakers. Even two, septums, men of all
sorts and women too children, dogs.
Nina writes that harwins words to Aria show, how much his
experience has changed traditional feudal.
Thinking for him, the Mummers Ford saw the downfall of an
aristocratic leadership with Raymond, Dairy, glad and wild,
and Lord, Mallory, all slain and Barrack was killed too
technically, but he came back, so Harwin and the Brotherhood
faced a paradox, they'd been sent out by the king's hand, to
bring Outlaws. But by the king's hand, and then
the new qingshan declared them outlaws like what do you
supposed to do? So the answer to that Paradox
according to Barrack was to Fulfill their original Mission.
The spirit of the mission. As I said earlier, not just the
letter, the law, maybe Gregor game is out of their reach now,
but they still were there because of what Gregor did too
small and those small poker still there and they can still
be defended. In fact, they very much need it.
Their Kingsman here to protect the king's people.
It sounds so basic but it's not. It's fairly radical in this
world to us. It's like yeah protect the
people. These lives are important.
Of course, you protect people. Life comes before, almost
anything, if not anything. But Arya isn't are he's a good
girl. Like she's a good person.
She hangs out with commenter. She doesn't have that snobbery.
That's present among so many other people of her rank yet.
She still sees this idea as a betrayal.
She still disappointed. She gets it kind of, but she,
when she saw her when she was like, hey, that's my father's,
man. He will do what I need, he will
be on my side, it doesn't occur to Aria at first that he has
Taken on a new master, he is now following the brother.
He's no longer a sworn to the start and that's just blows
Arias mine. It's, it makes sense kind of to
her when she hears it but in the moment it makes her sad and
disappointed like, oh you're not helping me.
I'm your I'm being held for ransom by, you know, but you
still kind of understands because they're helping people.
So it's a real conundrum for her.
It throws her world up a bit because she just is used to
thinking that. Anything her father does is
correct. And for some for someone to not
work for her father anymore, someone to betray her father
betray her father in finger quotes it just doesn't make
sense to her even though on some level she does understand.
So it's a real interesting. Bit of writing by George.
Where we see the these different class struggles Through The Eyes
of someone that is still in their formative years.
Someone that doesn't have a lot of the natural inclination to
dislike. Commenters and is able to see
both sides even though she's disappointed and feels betrayed.
And but harwins ultimate message here is that this aristocratic
model just doesn't matter to him anymore.
It doesn't work anymore. He's seen how flawed it, is it
how stupid it is? It's like, I was an out.
I was a Kingsman and then I became an outlaw just like that.
Like, that's dumb. Like, I'm not doing this
anymore, but it wasn't really that it was, that's part of it.
But it's really just the being out there with these comments
seeing their suffering and realizing that, this is where he
belongs and what he can do and that he's one of them.
So yeah, the goal of bringing lines to Justice became
protecting the commenters from Injustice is from lions.
Eventually other problems arose and even Rob's men became his
bad as the land. As in many cases not necessarily
the ones in his army because those were in the west, they
were being awful to Western peasants instead of ones in the
riverlands. But the deserters Rob had
deserters. They were Lannister deserves,
every Army has deserters. Even the good armies, you know?
Usually car starts though right? The car Stark man after the
execution of Rickard karstark flooded, the riverlands looking
for Jamie looking for and being awful all the way through.
Killing people raping people just being as bad as the bloody
Mummers in a lot of cases, or as bad as Gregor or what have you.
So it's at this phase of their existence, where we get a more
firsthand. Look at them.
When we see them taken Arya, and Gendry and hot pie, and Gendry
for good and hot by all kind of for good.
He, he joins one of the brotherhood's Allies rather than
joining the Brotherhood directly, it was Gendry joins
directly but that comes a bit later when they actually meet
them. They have this conversation or
rather they overhear, this conversation between Thomas
Evans and got the Archer. It's pretty clever as well.
A little undercurrent here, let's hear it quote.
Could be a wolf, maybe a lion. With four feet, you think or
two? Make, no matter.
Does it. And there you go.
At one point, it did it did matter whether it was a wolf or
a lion on two feet but if eventually does not because
they're all enemies, they're all dangerous by the latter stages
of the war, neither side can be trusted because then he started
in the riverlands is a Broken Man.
A car is a, probably a car start of a brigands.
So, and any Lannisters well you have been able to trust them
since the beginning. So it's very foreshadowing like
this point in the war there is that difference but later on
there isn't and this is very playful.
They're trying to the end guy and Tom know that Arya and and
hot pie and Gendry or hiding behind this wall and they're
trying to be obvious to get a reaction and talking out loud
and saying things. But so it's meant, it's
delivered, very playful, but it is actually got some depth to
it. If you think about it, the Lamb,
of course is with them. He just doesn't talk as much.
He's task to turn and grumpy, and he in particular is a
microcosm of their decline. There's many ways you can look
at this. But there's several of the
characters you can look at and see how they start and where
they end up and just the way they look and it's just to clear
sign of decline like thoros goes from the man.
He looks like to just run down and drag it.
He loses weight, but people don't even recognize him
anymore. Lambs.
The same way. His cloak is big and Broad and
bright. But by the time we see him
through Brian's POV, it's described.
As its sodden and filthy his nose has been broken by Aria.
He's you know, it's he's wearing hounds Helm, they all look
different. Here, Arya thinks he's big with
the quote look of a soldier. He doesn't have the look of a
soldier anymore. He's still big, but he's wearing
the hounds Helm, and his, you know, being all muddy and dirty
and gross. Like that doesn't look like a
soldier anymore. I mean, yeah, he looks, he looks
like an outlaw. And this scene is telling
because the Outlaws behave not like Outlaws.
Singing talking out loud being very demonstrative and visible.
That's not what Outlaws do. They're supposed to be sneaky
and of, right. It's this is the opposite of
stealthy and that's part of why they're doing it.
Because they know there's these kids here, they're trying to You
know caudal trying to get them to convince them to come with
them, you know. So they can take their horses,
which is what happens and they keep calling themselves.
King's Men which, you know, that is kind of their mission, right?
To distinguish himself from Outlaws and they do a little bit
of, maybe it's a light gas lighting were there.
They start to Imply that Arya and Gendry and hot pie.
They're outlaws like, oh honest folk wouldn't hide behind a
wall, you know. It was like, it must be Outlaws.
In fact, know you're the Outlaws.
So just they're good. They're mostly good.
But there's a more ambiguity is present right away, right?
They accuse Aria and And Friends of stealing from a garden
normally, stealing from a dead man's Garden in Wartime when
you're starving is fine, right? That's acceptable behavior, but
Thomas Evans knows, or claims to know the farmer his family
anyway because that farmers passed.
He tells him hey this is farmer blanks land and you know I don't
look like him so you're not his relatives.
First of all, time could just be spinning a yarn, he could not
know them at all. He could just say that Aria
won't know, she'll believe it. But yeah, I don't know.
If he's telling the truth then the brother has probably been
using this farm for a while, getting food off of it because
they need food. And it might even be in fact, be
why they were there to get food from this particular Farm
because they know about it. But if he's flying well, that
that makes sense too because you know, Tom would have reason to
do that. so, this reflects the natural reality too of
resistance groups, Living close to the population as many do.
They have a personal connection and knowledge of the land.
They're defending they are married into it or have families
with it. You know.
They they're they act as Protectors of the place that
they come from they're probably Defenders of the community and
peace time as well. The types to stand up when
something is threatening like you have a community meeting and
the ones who were like The loudest and most aggressive
about defending the place or making sure things are good.
The ones who like active security, things like that, the
people who stand up within a community, when violence
threatens basically. That's the the anger, the Tom
The Lemmon cloak, that's who these guys are, probably at
least some way, right? And that's why the people love
them so much. That's what people will do
anything for them because they're And they're one in the
same. They all come from the same
group. They have the similar
backgrounds, they come from the same communities.
Which leads us to our next section on this, which is
perhaps their best Advantage disconnection to the common
Folk. We're calling a section, The
Outlaw Network. If they're going to be Outlaws,
they had to learn how these aren't career Outlaws.
These are Kingsmen that had to change who they were in order to
survive and to carry out their mission.
So they had to learn how to be Outlaws.
These were yeah, born and bred Outlaws right there.
Like let's learn how to do this. They started off by just
understanding things, from basic military perspective.
Like Barrack is a Lord and a knight.
He was trained in Warfare. He knows things like raiding and
live and things like that. Like nightly combat does include
some forms of raids and ambushes and things like that.
He would know those Basics, but he doesn't necessarily know, a
whole lot of things about hiding in the wilderness or getting
supplies. When you're hunting living off
the land Lords, don't necessarily have to do that.
They have supplies and wealth and money, you know, there might
be some exceptions, but for them, I doubt America on Dairy
and had ever like lived grimy. You know to use a common term,
right? He did, he ever had to live in
the forest without food until he became an outlaw?
But some of these commoners probably have gone through lean
times, they have gone through periods without food or a few
days or longer with very little to eat.
So they bring that sort of toughness and you acceptance and
familiarity with this lifestyle to the table, which makes them
all the more dangerous. They can actually teach the
Lords and Knights of the group how to do these things.
Whereas in exchange the Lord's, in the knights, teach them sword
fighting and spear fighting and discipline and combat things,
that they learned their education gets shared, it
doesn't just a one way street, where the commoners take orders
and just follow those commands and nothing else.
No, this is a sharing. This is more communal.
They're that the information is passing both ways.
It's it's two Factor rather than one directional.
And because they're so few people out there like this
because they're so few people helping the commoners.
No one is standing up for them. Except the Brotherhood, that
makes them all the more beloved and makes them all the more
receiving of help from the common.
Foes like yeah, I want to help the Brotherhood I want to do
that. They're helping all of us.
They're this this creates enormous amounts of loyalty
because there's No one else doing it.
Harwin explains it to Aria when they're looking for Lord
Barrack. She just doesn't get it.
She doesn't understand a lot of this and it's very, it's great
as a reader because we don't get a lot of it either.
And so we are Aria. Aria is getting an explanation
of things that we also need explain to us like this quote If
you're there men, why do they hide from you?
Tom? Seven, strings, rolled his eyes
at that but Harwin gave her an answer.
I wouldn't call it hiding Milady but it's true.
Lord Barrack moves about a lot and seldom lets on what his
plans are. That way.
No one can betray him by. Now there must be hundreds of us
sworn to him maybe thousands but it wouldn't do for us all to
Trail along behind him. We'd eat the country bear or get
butchered in a battle by some bigger host.
The way we are scattered and little bands.
We can strike in a dozen places at once and be off somewhere
else before they know. And when one of us is caught and
put to the question, well, we can't tell them where to find
Lord Barrack no matter what they do to us.
So not even, they not even a single one of them, not a, one
of them knows all the allies and hiding places that the group
has, there is an a single person that could draw an
organizational tree that could list all of their resources, all
of their allies. But it's interesting to hear
those numbers. It could be thousands, we
haven't seen that organized, maybe it will at some point.
Could we see, maybe a big rallying of commoners at some
point? I have an idea to for you all in
the latter. Part of this episode.
The answer is maybe strong, Maybe Just a few examples, Stony
cept, the end of the kneeling, man.
The crossroads in the, the septum at Sally dance, these are
all allies, they have acquired along the way and some of these
might fly by without you realizing the significance of
some of these allies. First of all, getting support
from Nobles is a big deal by itself, but support from the
faithful septums, that's interesting.
Because these are lolis, they're openly trumpeting lore.
They are sworn to reward. Their Knighthood depends on
role. Their leader is resurrected by
the Lord thoros is a realist. So, septums joining them, that
means they value the brotherhood's actions goals and
ideology. More than they dislike.
This religious difference. So there's this is part of what
I was saying earlier about the same way, that commoners and
Lords work together in this environment where they wouldn't
do. So elsewhere, is also the
environment created here, that allows for this religious
syncretism to happen like the seven.
And Laura worshipers is not really a problem, right?
This, this is the most successful Delores to outreach
in Westeros period for us, was there to When Aries over didn't
work, tried to win. Robert over didn't work made
friends with the man but didn't get any new followers but as
soon as he goes out on this Mission and resurrects, Beric
valoris or like yeah, people like yeah, I follow her lore.
Yeah. There's never been more success.
The Brotherhood without banners is a single most successful
example of Heroes Outreach in Westeros.
It's crazy to think about that, but it's true.
Stony step is on this list because well it's they have
allies there but it's also important because it was where
Robert hit Robert breathy, their Robert, the king's their kings
men, he's the king, right? And it's an extra fun thing,
because Robert as a rebel, which they are now head in a spot,
which is now, helping he's Rebels, don't accept helped
Robert and now it's helping Roberts loyal Rebels money years
later, And Robert, of course, father, to Bella at during the
battle of the Bells during at the Battle of Stony, September
during Stony septal there. And remember, there's that
moment where Bella almost sleeps with Gendry and they don't know
that they're related and whoops, so, Just a bunch of examples of
places that are that the Brotherhood has allies in.
And there's countless more that. I mean, George couldn't possibly
list them all. Just as we couldn't name all the
Allies, we couldn't name all their locations Etc.
Yeah, it's way too big for that. If you others are Acorn Hall,
that's where lady Smallwood lady.
Revela Smallwood who was a swan by birth, their vassals of House
of ants, the lady of the leaves is a is a commoner but she's
kind of lives in a hidden village and this is a whole
interesting almost Tookie and esque set up their lord, light
Chester is with them as well. Um indirectly they're maester
his maester is communicating with them as well.
So everywhere they go, there's helpers shelter supplies and
supplies people that are going to give them information.
They're going to be looking out for them and of course they even
have the supernatural, right? They they had thoros from the
start. But thoris wasn't much of a red
priest, right? He's just a drinker that could
fight, you know, he doesn't really his roller stuff was
mostly just preaching. He didn't really have powers,
but now he does now, he's sometimes he is reading the
Flames now, and of course, he's resurrected Barack a bunch of
times. So as the Brotherhood is evolved
and grown and some evil ocean, some Evolution there, but
they've changed for sure. One thing they're much better at
now, is there is their tactics and their, just their basic
Outlaw lifestyle. They're much more proficient at
it than they were when they started.
Because as I said a minute ago, none of them started off as
Outlaws. They weren't experienced in
this. So over the several books time,
they've gained valuable experience.
But this is again to distinguish them from any other Outlaw group
we've ever heard of but what other Outlook is used you know
prophecy and Flame reading and stuff like that to guide them,
let alone having an undead leader that's just nothing like
anything else. We have an example for So, the
Brotherhood by shifting their focus from going after
Lannister's to helping the common foe.
And thus winning the Loyalty of the common, Focus became a
reciprocal relationship, you know?
It's we help you, you help us and that worked out great or
continues to work out great. It's not working out as great
anymore because of the change in Focus, but at the time of
Barracks leadership, It was working pretty well as far as an
arrangement. Sir Gregor sir.
Emery and Vargo ho were out there and they were trying to
stop them, trying to anticipate them trying to give food to
people who had been displaced by them things like that.
Now, those would have been there three.
Most Wanted surely, they would have wanted people like Tywin or
Jamie but early on in their existence with just 40 men and
maybe some new recruits coming in the idea of capturing a Jamie
or a tie. When would have been kind of
unreasonable little, did they know that they would be able to
capture Jamie later a couple books later?
But this isn't what I'm saying, like they had to learn and get
experience and figure out how to be Outlaws.
They wouldn't have under barracked on Dairy in They were
willing to take the hounds money, right?
But he wouldn't have used Brienne as bait to lure.
Jamie, that's not barracked on Dairy install.
A special not after witnessing her bravery, at the end, killing
rogge, and taking her for wounds from bitter doing what a night
is supposed to do, stonehart, punishes her for that.
Well, not for that. But for her other quote-unquote
crime that she perceives, Barron would not have done.
This Barrack would have been like, hey look what she did.
That's great, she's doing the right thing.
You want to join us, you know, like something like that.
So you get to see this this Evolution or Devolution as I
say, From the way they behave, in the way they treat other
people. And oh, it's a, it's a big
drop-off there, isn't it? So they had to think smaller
when they were new at being Outlaws, they weren't as
skilled, they didn't have as many options.
They had to keep their Keep to within their means.
Over time, they just got more ruthless and brutal as they
figure out what their options were and I mean, they're a
little ugly from the start though.
Right, think about this. This is I think something I
think most people miss this Or missed both of these factors.
I think a lot of you caught this part which is that the Inn where
Arya and friends are brought to by Tom and Angel guy, and limb
is the same in that Jaime and Brienne and Sir Cleo passed
through the one where the owners tried to direct them into an
ambush, but Brianna and, and Jamie Smith out of doesn't, but
sniff it out. They're like that.
I think we're being set up for an ambush here, now that seems
fine right. Like what's wrong with them
doing that? What's wrong with setting up
some Lannisters to be ambushed. Problem is, they didn't know
they were Lannisters. They didn't know.
That was Jamie had his head, shaved.
They didn't, they don't know who bran is.
They don't know, sir. Cleo's, what none of them were.
They were traveling Incognito. You might, we might say, heck,
yeah. Those are clearly nights like
that dude's really big but they didn't know who or what side.
So and it didn't matter, they don't care what side it's on.
That's the point here that I'm saying is these, these these
ambushers were not really ambushing Lannister's only.
They would Ambush anyone. That's what we learn in the fall
of anyone can be ambushed. Regular, folks.
So, This element of the Brotherhood, right away is
robbing regular folk to feed. Other regular Folk.
They it's already a little gray, right?
They take Arias horses. And they give him an IOU, right?
It doesn't mean very much. Sorry, of course, doesn't even
have that IOU anymore. I don't even know when she lost
it is. This is morally ambiguous at
best. They say they're better than the
Lannisters who was like, we would land users would have just
taking your horse and give you nothing.
They might have killed you true. But that doesn't make this good.
It's less bad. Like in that bar was so low.
You wouldn't trip over it. Arya had means of
transportation, she's alone nearly alone, vulnerable but had
means of transportation, and they took that from her.
That's yeah. Not being good, guys.
Yes. A lot of the other things they
do are good guys stuff, but these are humans in a George RR
Martin story. They're not gonna be completely
good or completely bad, right? it's also sad, because In This
Moment is a very subtle scene where and guys teaching Aria to
wield a bow like she wants to learn that but she's not strong
enough to pull it back. She's, you know, a little child.
She's bows are really heavy, you know, to draw a bow and I got
like, look, we'll get you a bow at River on, you know.
Like we'll get you a small one that's made for your hand and
she's like cool. And toms like now.
We're not doing that. If we go to River Run with her,
it's the ransom her. So it's like, hey guys.
Instinct was to treat the child, like a child, to be good, to
her, to be friendly to be, you know, like kind of like an older
brother, you know, just be good, be decent, but the reality of
their situation is Outlaws. Trump's that.
But and guys not thinking like an outlaw at this point, he's
thinking like a good guy. He's like, no, we're Outlaws
because we were forced into it. We're not like Outlaw Outlaws.
Were Kingsmen Outlaws, right? So we're still good guys and so
they try to do good things. But the reality of their
situation, pushes them towards his morally, gray areas, or bad
or just, not gray, just dark, you know.
So it's like I said, it's sad. Like, you want to see these
friendships and these compassion happen, but it's, there's a
barrier to just basic human decency here.
On the other hand. Counter example.
Let's look at the Brotherhood at their absolute best.
The battle at the burning separate.
Yeah. George has a few battles with
burning this and that we had the battle of the burning Mill, you
know, and the dance of the Dragon is a battle at the
burning Steph Curry. A good example of the
Brotherhood acting to defend the commoners.
Here is what we have it's when they assault.
The bloody Mummers, the Mummers sacked a subtree inflicting
atrocities as is there won't, but while they were still there,
you know, enjoying the stolen food and torturing the surviving
acceptance and all that the you know, stuff that they do.
The Brotherhood attacked Perhaps the most important undertone of
this battle, is that it is at the time, the best and the worst
of what's happening in the riverlands.
The bloody Mummers are evil personified, causing Untold,
unspeakable harm. There's no redeeming qualities
about the whatsoever. while the Brotherhood are a Grassroots
effort to defend against such. There are the riverlands main
defense against this and other things.
Now it also should be noted just at this point, the bloody
Mummers aren't even working for Taiwan anymore.
This moment when this battle happens, they're working for
Ruth. It doesn't even matter though.
It doesn't change what they're doing.
Why they're doing it, how they do it.
Nothing at all. It's just evil.
They're just attacking to for personal gain and greed and to
inflict harm because they enjoy it.
The brave companion the brother without banners, I almost called
them to break companies, which is what we're does intentionally
to piss them off. I didn't mean it guys.
The brave companions are assaulted here directly and the
Brotherhood risks themselves directly in combat taking on
risk of their own lives. To destroy a portion of the
bloody Mummers to prevent them from inflicting future evil.
It's an unambiguously good act. Now, of course, they didn't
announce, they're coming with song like Tom did when they were
approaching Aria, they didn't draw a battle.
I know it was an ambush, they sneak attacked, they still, they
tried to do it in a way that would cause them their own side
to take the fewest casualties. The attacked at night or rather,
it just before Dawn, they shot fire arrows, which wrist harming
the hostages, but it was a good calculated.
This is a lot, like, Fiona shooting the guy that was
holding a knife to Brands neck. It was a rest, but it was a good
rest. It was a, you had to do
something. And if you just let that guy
dictate, he was like, well, you have to kill the direwolves.
You have to kill these people. It's like no better to take a
chance and try to kill the man. Same thing here, the factory was
burned to the ground, but it would have been Really difficult
for them to enter the step to try to fight in the halls.
And the Mummers would killed a lot of them.
Instead, they just lost one man. Kyle the Archer who was
immediately Avenged by Limp. He also goes to show.
This battle, also displays just how amazing in battle Beric and
thoros are with their flaming swords.
Barrack first of all knows, he can't really die.
So like his brain, he was already extremely Brave.
Now, he's like, well I can't die.
So I'm a brave man that can't be killed.
So I'm going into this hardcore just right into the thick of it.
Thoro on the other hand is His is more of a matter of Faith.
He's also a very brave man when it comes to more to combat.
But he's also believes this whole thing is Guided by Roar.
Everything that's happening was rewards.
Handler resurrected Barack. Thus thoros is going to stick
with Barack. That's Laura in action.
He's not going anywhere, but where Laura's work is happening
right in front of him so he's got that backing him.
He's like well I'm not gonna die unless we're once me too and if
that's the case, that's if it's my time, then it's my time.
So he's got that sort of Bravery going and Arya enjoyed watching
the battle. She likes seeing it, she likes
seeing the arrows, she just like seeing the tactic and just
thought it was interesting. She took note of the Justice
given to the captured Mummers led by septum Hut who was a
horrible horrible, man. The September is a pedophile and
and torturer just of dude, they hanged him.
And so I already took note of all this.
She was like, hmm. This is, this is how they're
doing it. She took kind of considered how
her father would have a sum of this and the Justice part, a
specialty. and, It's so important.
Here's an example. Of what sort of loyalty and
sentiment comes from people. When they hear about Deeds, like
this that Barrack is doing on their behalf.
Here is a very telling quote, you swear, he's not dead, the
woman, clutched, Lems, arm bless you learn.
That's the best Tidings. We've had in half a year.
May the warrior defend him and the Red Priest, too.
Of course, it's no surprise that people hear rumors that Derek
has been killed because he was killed.
Six times. Those were true stories.
You're not supposed to go. Oh, how can we reconcile these?
Oh, resurrection that makes sense.
That's what makes like we heard. He was dead and then he's
walking around like how do you? They must have been lying.
Oh no, he did die. He was just raised from the
dead. That's all makes sense.
Now, yeah. But this goes to show right?
How important the BWB special Barracks leadership at the
front, the lightning Lord. He's such a symbol.
That's a very like, that's good marketing, right there.
The lightning Lord. Right?
Like everybody likes that that's, that's that sounds cool.
It sounds like, yeah, this guy's defending us.
You never know where he's going to be lightning.
Never strikes. The same place twice.
It's it's comes. It goes quickly does its
business. You can't grab it.
You can't hold it. You can't capture it.
It's out. It's cool.
Like people are gonna like that. They can, they can count on
that. They can hope for that.
There's reasons to buy in and his other reminder, the
syncretism here. What is she just say May the
warrior defend him and the Red Priest too, people.
Regular commoners who have only ever worshiped the seven or all
of a sudden like yeah red priests Diego or like that's
crazy. These are people this place is
been seven worshiping and just about that's it for eon's but
you show them some love, show them some loyalty, show them,
you're willing to die for them to protect them.
Yeah, we'll worship your God, too.
If you're going to do that, if you're going to, be that cool,
that good, that honorable that Noble your goals, are our goals.
Now, your beliefs are beliefs, like, if you're gonna lead, by
example like that. Yeah, we'll follow.
And this moment, this attack of this, at the cept, the burning
of the step tree, and the Justice done after that is
exactly why Gendry joins. It was their behavior.
It was the example set by Barrack.
He specifically cites that he's like, I like how you save the
commoners. I like how you did Justice and
it's more than you think. It isn't just Justice that he's
doing. He's doing Justice for the
commoners coming up in a minute. I'll explain what that means.
So it isn't just Barracks leadership.
Its that syncretism. It's how he's brought together
or how they have brought together.
Distinct groups people that you usually don't operate together
at all. Astonishing level of Melting Pot
ISM here. But it's not astonishing when
you realize that they're United by very basic human ideals of
Justice, right? To life and basic happiness, or
dignity. Right.
But once again George R Martin is realistic, not everyone
follows Barracks Justice. One example is the Mad Huntsman
a man. A member of the Brotherhood who
to use a modern term, he was radicalized by tywin's reverse.
His wife was in sister were raped and murdered.
His farm was destroyed his and even killed his dogs.
So his only purpose to life is Revenge so he's not about
Justice. He's more of the stoneheart,
ilk, rather than the barracks he was already acting on his own,
he was already remember what happened.
He's on a captured sand or clay game, and was gonna leave him in
a croquet and had left. Other people in Croc ages.
Until Tom and Angie guy and others.
Come on. Like that's not what Barrack
condones. Yo, let him out.
Like get those people out of the crow cages and hang them
properly even while and guys saying that he laughs at the
facts. Like yeah, Eric would give him a
trial, then he would hang them. He's there, he's basically
meeting with their mock trials with their show trials.
Which is still better than no trial at all.
I mean, if, you know, they're guilty witness like like what's
everybody news, know those bloody Mummers were guilty as
hell. I mean, their bloody Mummers,
they were caught red-handed A sacking the septic.
They were they still had the blood on their hands.
You know, you don't really need A show trial is fine and that's
about, you know, like everybody knows already. so, Let's move on
to the next section, where a lot of this Justice is done a lot of
in one of their hideouts where the religious syncretism and
cultural, syncretism takes another step.
Hollow Hill. The Knights of the Hollow Hill,
right? It's one of the more clever and
thematic hiding places because it's a cave, full of where would
Roots, which gives it that sort of protected, but watched Vibe
and aligns with the old gods lingering power.
They already have a connection with the ghost of high heart so
you've got Laura ISM the seven and the where would stuff here
you get the old gods. Look at that, it's all of its
here together. It's super cool.
Here's a description from Mario's perspective of what the
inside of the cave looks like, quote, a huge fire.
Pit had been dug in the center of the earth and floor and its
Flames. Rose swirling and crackling
toward the smoke stained ceiling.
The walls were equal parts. Stone and soil, with huge white
Roots, twisting through them like a thousand, slow pale
snake's. People were emerging from
between those roots. As she watched edging out from
the shadows for a. Look at the captives.
Stepping from the mouths of pitch black tunnels popping out
of crannies and crevices on all sides. in one place on the far
side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of Stairway up to
a hollow in the Earth where a man sat almost lost in the
tangle of where would We hadn't seen blood Raven sitting on his
wear with thrown when the scene happened, but when it happens to
books later, it jumps back to this looking like, whoa, that is
a similar right down to the black cloak in the single eye,
which bare has not so similar. When you compare reward to the
old gods but it's still the old gods Vibe here with the wear
with throne and then there's a trial by combat by definition a
religious event. It's normally nightly combat
which is a seventh thing but it's done under the auspices of
lore. So can you just cool and
interesting? Mix of different religious
ideals and traits. So, and this, of course, all
happens. Right before the Hound duals
Barrack Earlier in the episode, I said that there's only twice
where the phrase Brotherhood banners appears in the main
text. I gave you the first here's the
second quote, but when the Hound made to step toward his foe
thoros of mirror, stopped him First, we pray.
He turned toward the fire and lifted his arms.
Lord of Light looked down upon us. all around the Cave, the
Brotherhood, without banners lifted their own voices in
response, Lord of Light, defend us so, as you can see, it was
narrated that time rather than spoken Now, a bunch of dudes and
dudettes praying to fire, is definitely gonna freak out the
Hound. But he obviously handles
himself, well enough in the duel.
This brings us to a notable point.
This is where Eric finishes that early or quote to sandor.
Remember he was describing the basic of the Brotherhood without
banners the six score men and what they've become he at first
before, I bisected, the quote, he described what they were, but
here's the follow-up, The Finisher where he describes what
they are now quote, Six score brave, men and true led by a
full in a starry cloth. A scarecrow of a man.
He wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars in an iron
breastplate dented by 100 Battles.
A Thicket of red gold hair, hid most of his face.
Save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been
smashed in. More than 80 of our company are
dead now but others have taken up the swords that fell from
their hands. When he reached the floor, The
Outlaws moved aside to let him pass.
One of his eyes was gone, Aria saw the flesh about the sockets
scarred and puckered and he had a dark black ring all around his
neck. With their help, we fight on as
best we can for Robert and the realm.
They have a better quality cut off one head and two more growth
himself is different. Cut him down.
He just gets back up. As word spread that this group
is about the commenters. Many were eager to help as we've
seen a lot of that's just Word of Mouth.
Like the Brotherhood wouldn't have even gone to some of these
places. But friends, tell, friends, tell
neighbors, tell neighbors, and they're all eager to help
because it's again, it's just they've, they're so starved for
anyone to care about them and to give them dignity and a chance
at life. It's a rare thing, super rare.
So the Brotherhood is constantly in flux as their mission
changes, their leadership changes their options change and
they're not done changing even. Now they're still changing even
where we've left things, where the books are at this moment.
It's also really a brilliant challenge the concept of
Knighthood. Right, sandor.
Hates Knighthood, because he thinks it's a lot of crap.
It's a lot of bull. But the Brotherhood gives him an
alternative argument to Knighthood.
It shows that it can be about character, not about class, not
about birth, but Merit sandor should accept that argument.
That's, that's a fair point. But he's just so bitter about
Knighthood to admit that bear has a has a good point there and
then that's a really interesting debate.
They have Steven Atwell full credit to him.
For this idea, I did not come up with that one.
That was a really good call that, it's a real before the
trial by combat of Swords. They have a war of words about
the concept of Knighthood and how sandor is, as a narrow view
of it, even though his trauma is real and lived, He hasn't
considered just viewing Knight Hood in a different lens.
Like these folks have So sandor mocks them, that's part of his
defense and his defense mechanism generally is to mock
them while also saying he's like them in that they're all guilty
that they're all killers. Yeah, I'm a killer but so are
you, you know, he's like you're shit stinks as bad as mine Sansa
Stark. Does this though?
Sansa's very presence. Threatens sandor's sense of
righteousness. She is the living embodiment
that he's wrong. That there is a reason to do
good in this world. He's terrified of that.
He's terrified of being wrong, because he doesn't want to admit
that, he's lived his life a morally because he, if he, if he
has to face that he's lived and a moral life, when he actually
had a reason to be a good person all along, I think he could just
set aside his bitterness, he's terrified of realizing, he's
lived his life wrong all along. He's also desperate unloved
broke. And hates and full of
self-loathing. So, he's terrified of of
confronting, that reality. He's far more afraid of that
than of death. He's not afraid to die.
He's basically provoking them with his hands tied.
Yeah, go ahead and kill me. He he's not afraid of them at
all. He is totally ready to die
because of how much he's suffering and hating himself.
And he's desperate to prove as well to them but also to himself
that they're not better than him.
He's desperate to maintain that facade.
He's in denial because it's not really true.
They're not. He is he's not better than them.
They are better. They are arguably better than
him and he doesn't want to face that.
He's legitimately surprised that they serve King, Robert that
just kind of throws him for a loop.
He's like the dead King. Like what's that all about?
He hates the pretense, he hates pretense.
Just like he hates it on Knighthood and thinks the
ribbons and the oils and all the sacred stuff is just a bunch of
crap. He hates pretense and all that's
forms. So he also just shreds the
argument. They aren't allows like yes,
you're Outlaws. Yes.
You're guilty of war crimes. He hates that they are in denial
about that. He thinks it's hypocrisy.
He thinks that a perfect example of their hypocrisy is, you want
to blame people for what they've done.
You don't want to take responsibility for the harm that
you cause, but you want to sit here and blame me for the for
what my brother did. I'm not Gregor.
I'm Clegane, but I'm not guilty of other Clegane crimes, and
this really makes him mad and it's a good point because, yeah,
it's not his fault, what Gregor did, but then Arya steps in and
says, Micah Micah, you killed Micah.
That's a murder that's real, you know.
That's, you know, and sand it with this sander starts to lose
his moral High Ground because he says, well, I was following
orders. George was very deliberate with
that one, right? No one's gonna be like, oh yeah,
he was just following orders. That argument doesn't fly.
Come on. You were just following orders.
Yeah. Right.
That doesn't solve you at all and Berk is like, yeah, we were
following orders. The king's orders, right?
And you gonna use that orders line on me, bro.
I got that. I can throw that right back in
your face. So this whole thing it's super
interesting, right? But before they actually have
their duel, this are this. Duel of words is far more
interesting even though it's an amazing duel.
I'm like I'm not downplaying how awesome.
It's probably, it's arguably better than the Red Viper vs
Gregor. It's super interesting.
So it's also a culmination though of Barracks, new way of
doing Justice. His radical new Justice.
What's radical about it? What's different about trials
and trials by combat. They're not supposed to be for
commenters. Trials and trials.
By combat are for the nobility. Beric is extending the umbrella
of Justice to everyone. That's very radical.
Sandor would never have been on trial for killing a peasant.
So it's not just who's on trial. It's for who they inflict that
crime against if sandor killed. Another Noble trial, Sandra
killing Micah. No trial Barrack says there
should be Yet, it looked like was gonna let him go.
It looked like Barrack was going to be like yeah, you, you were
ordered to do it. Barrack was almost ready to
accept that argument of. Yeah.
You were following orders from your your sovereign.
Until? until the idea of trial by
combat came up at Sanders like, very ready to he's like, well,
he doesn't believe in this fire stuff, he doesn't believe in his
pretense. But he's like, well, if you want
to decide this by swords, I'm all for that because he's very
confident in his ability with the sword.
Standard was trying very hard to paint everyone around him as not
as selfless as they're saying like, you guys act selfless but
you're not. You're all out for yourselves,
you're out for survival. It doesn't really make you any
better than these other people, but Barrack again back foot
sander repeatedly, Sanders like oh okay.
Your breasts played versus my nakedness.
He's like, okay, I'll take my breastplate off every time
sandor tries to point out Barracks hypocrisy Burek.
Responds and and counters. It he's like no, I will face
like, for standard didn't even expect back to fight him.
He's like, who's gonna fight me? You you barely know me.
I delivered the sentence. I will fight you Santa wasn't
expecting that. He was really, he was expecting
hypocrisy and at every turn Barrack did not deliver
hypocrisy. He delivered straightforward, he
delivered on her and this Sanders know what to do Sanders
like. Okay then let's fight like that.
I understand this warrant words isn't going my way, but this
other thing, and even later when they go looking for Barrack,
They don't know where he is. No like.
Well let's start looking where the need is greatest, where the
commoners are most suffering. That's where Eric will be.
That just screams good guy. I mean, sandor is trying to
argue this man's. Not selfless, Barrick.
Don Darion is selfless. And they used Supernatural help
or rather additional Supernatural.
Help because again, Derek did face sandor, but he knew he
couldn't die. So it's a little bit.
It's a little bit tricksy there. He's like, yes, I will risk my
own body against you in trial by combat but I can't die.
He can still lose though as he did.
So that that in that sense, it was fair, he took last rest but
he still sander, still had to win and of course they're being
led by the undead they have a flame reading priests.
They sit and where would throw, and this is group is all
surrounded by where would Supernatural magic stuff.
It's baseball season. Which for me means lots of
distractions. I'm always like wanting to look
at the scores or just see what's happening, check the news, in
case, someone got hurt or some player got promoted or demoted,
whatever. Rise is really good at keeping
me from doing that too often. I swear to you that it probably
saves me 15, 20 minutes a day, it just pops up and say, are you
sure you want to be looking at this right now?
And I've told it what's good, and what isn't I say?
YouTube is fine because I have to do research on YouTube.
I'd love to do research on baseball.
That's not part of my work. That's fun.
That's my time. I should be doing that when I'm
done with work, but sometimes I can't help myself Rise.
Like I said, probably says me 15, 20 minutes a day of work or
convert 15 to 20 minutes a day of idle time, or of goofing off
into work that really adds up, that's an hour hour and a half a
week, right? Depending on how many days a
week, you work. That adds up to, you know, five
six hours a month, that's a lot. Think that's a whole work day or
close to it, right? So I think that's a pretty big
deal. If you can a piece of software
that can just kind of sit in the background and remind you to
stay focused. Even if it's only saving you a
few minutes a day, maybe not as much as me that still adds up to
a lot and maybe it's saves you more than that.
Maybe you are even more distractible than me, maybe it
save you. 20 30 minutes a day. Maybe it's saves you an hour a
day. That's a lot of productivity.
I don't know how to put a price on that but Rises not expensive
so I think it's worth it. Westeros 3 with that code you
get 25% off all payments in the first three months so you could
check out rise. See if it helps see if you save
those minutes. And then spend the money on it,
get through the trial. And say, yeah, this is saving me
money, it's worth spending on, right?
That's, that's how I see it. It's working for me.
So, I gotta figure that at least some of you all out there.
It will help you as well, the same way or maybe you have an
experience more like a Shea as whose more structured, a lot
more. Well, you explain it.
You say it. I don't need to speak for you.
I do use rise, like you're describing because I do get
distracted. Just like anyone else.
But I also get two locked in too focused.
I just I just need something that says hey stretch your
life's. Hey, get up like, get a drink
do. Do something else for a minute
and and so yeah it's helpful for for locking in.
I think it's helpful for for Focus.
Both ways. I can help with your better
habits and sort of Tamp back your bad habits.
I suppose, maybe he's a way to summarize that.
Once again, that the link is in our description, it's rise.io
and you can get decided as r. I z e, and you can get the code
Westeros 3, for 25% off all payments, in the first three
months. Also want to remind you all that
I stream on Twitch almost every Friday playing Crusader Kings 3
with the Song of Ice and Fire mod.
It's extremely well detailed, super cool.
And we have What's called the large Council, which is y'all
listeners who are watching along and helping me make decisions.
One of the things we do regularly is Work together, to
name children to three weeks ago.
We named all our kids, our three in names.
So we have our air became Arthur OS gray.
That's right. We're playing house.
OS gray. Arthur OS, gray Lord, Arthur OS.
Gray is now in charge. The next week we did lead
singers so we have Ozzy OS grave that name popped up and a few
other famous singers got in there.
And then this week this last week we did Star Wars and honor
of May 4th and just Andor being on TV.
So we have for example, a Marva Oz gray and a 3p I was great.
And things like that. It's great times, hang out with
other song of ice and fire fans, like yours and delve deep into
the gaming, world of things. Play a full Dynasty, see what
happens over the course of centuries, it's great fun.
Every Friday 6:00 on Twitch history of Westeros.
Dom tartaglia says and Steven is now an Iron Man's side
character. They named the Stark Industries
union, rep for him really Yes. Spencer Ackerman is a writer for
Iron, Man. And named Karen and Iron Man
character after Stephen Atwell. Yes, I did not know that.
Yes, Stephen was a big fan and we know Spencer Ackerman.
We follow each other on Twitter. He's a great guy but I don't
know this guy now. Yeah you're right.
He's not on Twitter anymore. Not an ex anymore.
So that's cool. That's awesome.
I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that Tom
Let's talk about High hearts. It's a prominent piece of their
piece meal puzzle. They have all sorts of people as
we said and represent the well known Gods, most of them fall to
seven, but they've been made Nights by Barrack and each other
under thoros. So there is seven worshipers
kinda and here, of course, they're communing with
werewolves effectively. Yeah.
Just adds more to their amalgam of options here.
It's really cool as we wondered about during the ghost of
Fireheart episode, which wasn't that long ago.
Why did they go there in the first place?
It's doubtful, they were looking for her specifically they I
think that was probably a happy accident.
Although maybe, maybe they're like let's go seek out this.
Prophetess of the riverlands the strange places.
They may really just see what that's all about.
But it's because it was shunned, it has great visibility.
That makes a good Hideout if you no one wants to go there.
Well, that's the good reason to go there.
That makes it a good Hideout. If no one's there and the
visibility like I said well that's that's just useful for
making sure. No.
One sneaks up on you. Most of our coverage of the
ghost of iHeart was on her prophecies and a bit about her.
But they used her a lot to just find each other like she's like
a Google Maps or a geolocation thing.
Do you know where Eric was? You could just like, you know,
concentrate or feel the energy flow.
I don't know how to describe the magic happening, but She could
do that, or was it just with Derek because she dock because
of, who he, because he's Undead and he's like, quite a unique
individual or can you do that with stoneheart?
And we're also close to moving on to the stoneheart era of the
BWB in this episode. But while thinking about goes
Ohio, will they ever interact again?
She accepted on Dead bear even though she was calling him, Lord
of corpses and kind of insulting him.
He didn't like that but it's the same flame.
Like Barrett passed the flame of life too Catlin, so it's like
sort of the same being in a sense but all so there's a bit
of conundrum here. I'm not sure that the ghost
supported the Brotherhood because just they sang the song
for her. I feel like because they're
helping the commenters that's part of why she's helping them.
Which means she might not be so eager to help stoneheart.
She freaked out at Aria. She's like, oh my God.
Are you a ghost blood, child wolf child like looking into
her? Future was very dark and and it
caused her to think about summer haul.
It was bad. Part of that are his vindictive
and has lots of Revenge on her mind.
She's traumatized catlins worse, catlin's, got these trauma,
thoughts, and these vindictive thoughts, and she's dead.
So I think that if REO was scary to the ghost of fire, I think,
Stone Army scary. I mean, not the even, not even
the, her being dead Park. Is that or him being dead part?
Because her being dead part. Yeah.
Because Derek being dead, didn't freak the Ghosts Out.
It was like the, the vindictiveness, the Revenge, the
dark future, and I think that might be what she sees in
stoneheart. Maybe not, maybe she sees the
future of stoneheart is like, oh, you're not a problem.
They didn't even put you on TV. Why do I care?
No, that's, that's part of why we said this episode is so
different than what you saw on TVs, because of they cut
characters like stoneheart and they made the Brotherhood evil.
They made the bread that evil brother's never been evil, but
on the TV made the brotherhood like dark right away.
Like they sold genre to Melisandre very early on in
their Arc. So it's not like they slowly
declined in the evil. It's like now they were pretty
bad right away. It's like just because of that
single act they sold a guy. Like that's awful, right?
It's not like a ransom. That's how they friends like
God's just a ransom know you know what she's gonna do to him
this whole like a teen too. Yeah, I know guy whatever.
But like this old a child like Andrew was pretty young still
instead of just casting Edward storm.
So yeah. Here's a passage that Steve went
out well called one of the most important in all of A Storm of
Swords. It comes right after Arya tries
to write off. But it's caught by Harwin and it
reflects back on what we were saying earlier about the class
distinction and the struggle and Arya is realization here.
Quote, the look she gave him was Full of Hurt.
I thought you were my father's, man.
Lord, eddard dead malady. I belong to the lightning, Lord.
Now, and to my brothers, what brothers Allen and father, no
other sons that Arya could remember.
And I am Tomas Evans, Jack and green beard all of them.
We mean your brother Rob, no, ill male lady, but it's not him.
We fight for, he has an army, all his own and many a great
Lord, to bend the knee. Small folk have only us, he gave
her a searching, look, can you understand what I'm telling you?
Yeah. Are you expected Harmon to be
loyal to her but it didn't even occur to her, that it would be
otherwise so, the idea that Rob is in the good guy, Is bizarre
to her not that he's necessarily the bad guy, but he kind of is
because his men are doing some pillaging, too.
Not as much as the land is, but they are doing it.
So Harwin is just a different man.
Now, he's no longer his past has changed like so many of these
people. His past is the past he is now a
brother. A brother of the Brotherhood
without banners. And what he did in the past is
irrelevant. They have earned his loyalty in
a way to start, never did the Stars.
Could have maybe maybe, you know, maybe you could imagine
her wins in battle and Ned Stark leads them really well.
And his leadership is the reason they survived.
You could see that being something that binds him to him
forever, but that didn't happen. So this happened, he's bound to
Eric and thoros forever instead because the experience their
shared experience and what they've gone through.
The ghost of high heart reminds us too.
That thoros is a flame reader. She says, yeah, you can look
into your flames, but you won't see it here, won't work here.
So that's just a way to remind us that he has those powers.
He's using that to help the brother without banners, but we
haven't seen it. We haven't actually seen like
what is flame reading his amounted to for them.
So it's still kind of a known quantity or unknown quality for
in terms of what good it does them.
It's really does something. But I don't I'm not sure what
But by the end of A Storm of Swords, he's no longer using the
flame reading for the same purposes because it's a
different leader. Bear could probably be like, hey
if I do this do that. Find this find that stoneheart
would be making different requests and Bear.
In and for one thing, she'd be like, look for Aria.
That'd be a big one, but maybe also look for their enemies.
Look for phrase, look for Lannisters.
And a big, another important distinction here is that Barrack
was like his best friend like he loved Barrack.
He doesn't really have. He's no Catlin.
I mean, he obviously his respect for her, he reverse her in a
way, but they're not, like, friends.
He didn't love her prior to this, you know, it's like a, it
is more of a traditional like leader, follower relationship,
whereas American thoros were they had a different kind of
connection, you know, they like, they were very close.
Is also in that regard, he's also suffering because he lost
his best friend. Under stoneheart.
Let's get into the weeds with their leadership with the Hang
woman. Stay another person that just
has a lot of nicknames. Don't heart official name,
either. It's like, cold hands or the
brother without banners. She's got a bunch of nicknames.
So they start off with Robin Hood Vibes, kidnapping and
ransoming. That's Robin Hood's men did that
too. It's common enough and bringing
groups but it just gets darker and darker.
From Mary men to murderous men, they're literally led by an
undead Lord and their leadership takes advice from Supernatural
sources, like flame reading and the Ghost of high heart.
Still despite these flaws and red flags not red banners
because they don't have banners, right?
There's still mostly good, right?
Especially from the perspective of common folk with their
fighting for most of them anyway, Was it part of Barracks
yearning to be done? Was he tired of living?
Is that, why he passed the flame to Catelyn?
Was it his sense of nobility? He's just overwhelming sense of
giving like the his life was meant to be spent for the realm.
But why Catlin of all the possibility?
Why her, you know, surely not just because she was a noble
woman of extremely high birth. Or was that part of?
It is just oh, she's the highest ranking personal?
I can save that doesn't seem like what the brotherhood's
about, but bear is a little unique as he's a lord too, even
though he's for the commenters, now he's still I don't know,
it's a little confusing, a little hard to perceive there
might be more to it than the George hasn't revealed yet
again. It was Lord eddard who sent them
on this Mission and he would maybe recognize that that was
lured Edward's wife so maybe that's part of the connection.
I don't know but whatever his reasoning She took the
Brotherhood on a much darker path.
Just like there's rumors of Barrack dying a bunch of times
which were true because he did die.
A bunch of times. There's also rumors of
stoneheart. This Undead being or This creepy
strange looking woman that leads the Brotherhood.
There were rumors of it, like I said, but there's dream, she had
that wolf dream, but the actual first on-screen reveal of
stoneheart as a moving being rather than just, a body comes
famously in the epilogue of A Storm of Swords.
The first epilogue of the whole series, there's only one other
one in a dance attractions. Just like the prologues, of
course, the characters. Doomed, its Merit Frey,
obviously, he's hanged just after they show him that they've
already hanged, his cousin Peter, who he came to rent.
Some like the guy you came to him, he's already hanging.
Yep. You're next That he ends the
chapter dead is not surprising, but the reveal of their leader
is right, that's super different.
Like that's that was a surprise party.
Thoros again, loved Barrack. He is different feelings about
lady, stoneheart. One of her.
Other nicknames is the silent sister.
This is what thoros says in response quote.
Lightning comes and goes and then is seen no more so too with
men Lord, Barracks fire has gone out of this world.
I fear a Grimmer Shadow leads us in his place a Grimmer Shadow.
That's true. It certainly interesting that
they just unquestionably accepted her leadership.
I guess it's because it was the demonstrative and almost literal
passing of the torch his passing of the flame of life from bears.
Like, Well, he kind of says, you're the new leader because
our old leader basically gave his life to make you alive.
It's just a very dramatic way to do it, but it's also kind of
hard to deny his intent. Again, under Barrack, we saw the
shift from fighting Gregor and Lannisters to fighting to save
the commoners from the Lannisters.
And then from other broken men, and from starvation, all these
things are still problems, right?
There's still broken men out there.
There's still starvation out there and they're still
Lannisters out there causing harm and along with some other
people too. But under Lady stoneheart, of
course, was priorities have changed.
They're still doing some of those things, but they're
they're top priority is much different instead of Justice,
its revenge. And instead of trying to save
the commoners their focuses to try to find and locate one
specific person, which is Aria, a lot of the random helpers of
falling off. They're not as beloved as they
used to be. They're not the same
organization, which means they don't have the same appeal to
the commoners. Some of the people that are in
the organization are no longer good people, they've become dark
and hateful and, and the thing that they've been fighting
against in some cases, that's what they are.
And others are just dead. Pharaoh says it quite succinctly
to bring in here quote Justice thorough smiled.
When Lee I remember Justice. It had a pleasant taste Justice
was what we were about when Barry let us Or so, we told
ourselves. We were Kingsmen nights and
heroes but some nights are dark and full of Terror.
My lady wore makes Monsters of us.
All are you saying you are monsters?
I'm saying we are human. You are not the only one with
wounds Lady Brienne. Some of my brothers were good
men when this began some were less good.
Shall we say though there are those who say it does not matter
how a man begins but only how he ends.
I suppose it is the same for women.
It's really sad. Thoros is just like looking.
For answers. He's just maybe this is okay,
maybe this is right. He he's helpless at this point.
He used to be a leader of this group but now he's Bound by his
religion to continue to see this through.
Even though he has no idea where it's going even though he's
depressed and doesn't have an eye, doesn't see the light of
the end of the tunnel, they're literally in a cave.
He can't see the positive outcome from this, but because
his God is in charge here because his God has really
raised their leader up multiple times.
He's got to follow along even though he's got his not going
anywhere. Good.
It, they have become paradoxically broken and
hardened at the same time, they're more used to the
depredations and warfare and suffering, but less capable of
being human, which is what they're fighting for.
They're fighting for Humanity and humans.
Even though, that even while their leader is not among the
living, it's almost as if sand or was right.
When he said Knights on their ends at night but the rest of
you are the sorry, a lot of Outlaws and broken men have ever
seen. I've shit better men than you.
It's like he was Right. A little early on that one, you
know? And he was wrong when he said at
the time but it became true eventually.
Nothing. He could have predicted these
particulars. But it's hard to say he's wrong
when they're doing the kind of things they're doing now, even
though they still are doing some good things, they're doing
violent things, and sometimes that violence is aimed at the
worst people, like they do, kill the rest of origin.
Biters group that was good friends in the Brotherhood is
just so much different than ours.
That's a clear thing here. They and much briefer too.
At least so far, she's still with them.
So maybe lendup being lengthy, but thoros is explicit, that
quote, he didn't pull punches even as even as he's searching
for answers, even as he's saying, Well, we're doing evil
things now, but as long as we finish, well, it'll be okay.
Which is like, are you gonna finish?
Well, he might actually maybe We'll end heroically and doing
good things. Maybe he'll fight the others or
something like that. But just ravaging the riverlands
and searching for Aria, you know, by itself, I don't know.
That's that maybe won't save your soul by itself.
It's kind of makes me think of about it being the journey, not
the destination to quote, you know.
Yes, things George may be ruminating on with his own
writing you ended. Or maybe it's about the journey.
I don't know. That's a good.
That's a good point. And and Brianna confronts is,
are you saying your monster is? And he's like, he says, no.
He doesn't say no. He says, I'm saying we're human,
but he's saying, human humans can become monsters if they're
pushed enough. So he's kind of saying yes
without saying yes, But he also says they are not without a
chance of redemption. He doesn't want to say they're
too far gone. If they can't come back.
He that's the part he won't admit because It's tough to
admit that it might not be true. It might be that there's still a
chance of redemption for them. I think if there's a chance of
redemption for someone like Jamie, why not them?
Maybe that's not art because she's Undead and that's a whole
different thing, but the rest of them maybe maybe flipping back
to a kind of fun, and exciting plot line rather than a dark and
depressing one, we have a river run.
But one of the most exciting things they've done is
infiltrate this Castle. Tommo, 7s shows, how effective a
Bard Spike can be. Yeah, you know, in real life and
in a lot of fantasy stories, The Bard is often a spy, it's true
in The Witcher, a couple others. I can't think of the top of my
head but Just like mushroom. The the dwarf gesture
entertainers often have Insider access just by being in the room
when important things are discussed, they are ignored but
they pick up in fortnite information.
Singers aren't common in Westeros so they can often get
jobs and invitations just by being around and that again,
that gives them access to what we were saying gossip,
information, maybe more, maybe straight up secrets.
Tom has been doing exactly that. travel party is in particular,
somehow he's sending information out about which phrase or going
where and that's huge because that's how they learned about
Merit Freight. They learned Merrett Frey was
coming and they hanged him. Well actually that's not too
different because that one they just tricked him into thinking a
ransom would be paid Fred the phrase stopped Falling For That
Trick. Like yeah, they're not gonna pay
the ransom, they're going to kill.
Take your money and kill them. So after that stopped working,
they just simply pass these messages along and ambushed.
These phrase, Ryman is the heir to the ones the air to the
twins. He was hanged at fair market out
in the open, like brazenly Janie is annoyed by their audacity,
but for the brother, it must have been quite a scene.
There must have been like, yeah, we got a big one.
We got the heir to the twin. That's their biggest get yet.
Well, now they have Jamie, that's, that's bigger.
But before that, this was, this is huge.
He would have been shouting about how much he's worth he
didn't like no, Ransom me, I'm the heir to the twins are more
so much like you're worse so much more to us dying.
We're gonna enjoy this Solomon of money would would make this,
but we just too bad. Right?
Like They could take that money in Alleviate the starvation.
That's what Barack probably would have done, right?
This is that's the difference. Like yeah, that's crazy dude.
Kind of deserve to hang, but isn't it more important to feed
those commenters than to kill this man?
Not to lady stoneheart. Thomas has been shown to be a
womanizer, that's a common place, by the way.
And we've hardly gotten to delve into the specifics of a lot of
the individual members like Barracks come up a lot.
Doris is a lot but like there's a lot of colorful characters in
this group that we've not been able to spend much time on so
some other time off to maybe and examine some individual stories.
So yeah, Tom womanizer might have slept with Lady Smallwood
that might be part of why she's an ally.
Jamie doesn't know any of this. But he casually tells Tom.
If he wants to win a job, if you want to win a permanent
position, you need to talk to Jenna Lynn.
So, she's the one, you should impress Jenna is the one who
really rules around here, Eman phrase, the Lord.
But Jen is in charge. And we've seen that in play.
Like Jamie's almost certainly right about that.
She's the new lady River and she's Jamie's aunt.
Now, Tom's intent was to be Jamie singer.
He's like I want to work with you because we know what he's
goal is there. He's gonna infiltrate Jamie's
group and get Jamie captured. Of course, that ends up
happening. Anyway, as I keep saying, but
that was what time was trying to do.
And that's when Jamie and Jamie suggests well, you know, instead
why don't you do this? Try to get a job here in Tom's
like, oh yeah, I'm gonna do that.
So the implication putting together the woman.
The sleeping around and Jamie straight up suggesting.
That's the one whose favorite you need to win.
It's not unlikely. That Tom was Evans, will sleep
with General Lister and then has that children with her, and
there's no indication that that these aren't his kids.
But she it, like openly talks down to him, openly says, she
didn't want to marry him, you know, she was against the
marriage what had happened. She was so proud of Taiwan for
standing up against it because Tywin is like a 10 year old was
like this is an embarrassing match, you know, that's a ten
year old. He said that Jenna loved it
because it kind of was anyway. That's pretty interesting.
But Tom's, perhaps most valuable play.
If, since he's staying at River Run, he could play a crucial
role in the so-called red wedding 2.0.
Letting the Brotherhood in or letting an army or of some
Violent Men inside river, run, while the Lannisters and Fries,
don't expect it. And why is it called the Red
Wedding 2.0 because it could happen during a wedding and that
wedding would be Devin Lannister jammies, cousin, son of Stafford
Lannister, he is going to marry a Fray, we don't know which
phrase he's gonna marry yet but it's going to be afraid.
Given River Run is held by Emmon Frey.
And Genna Lannister, it's a really good candidate for this
location for this marriage, to take place for them, to create
this marriage. And to Basically make a
statement that they're the new rulers of River Run.
Davines. Also, the warden of the West.
So he's a really high ranking officer type And we've already
seen via the Blackfish. How just slightly raising the
Gate of one of the port causes enables a person to slip under
and then swim away. So they just the ways that we've
been subtly told River Run can be infiltrated, we've got a spy
on the inside. We've got, we've seen logistical
methods on how River Run can have men.
Let in, we've seen an escape from River Run when Jamie tried
to get out when with tyrion's like, mummer and lock picking
guy and all that. So, we've seen lots of things
happen that are related to this at River.
Run not to mention boats. Men could sail down the red fork
or the tumblestone to sneak up on river run at night knowing
that with the knowledge that someone's gonna let them in.
Yeah, there's a lot of options here and that's part of why this
is such a popular Theory because this seems to be a lot of
foreshadowing for it and a lot of groundwork.
And if let's say that wedding happens, let's say there's a
Fray Lannister marriage. Going to take place at River
run, then announced that this is as bad as the Bolton's
announcing a Bolton are Stark marriage at Winterfell in the
ruins of Winterfell. The commoners, the Old Guard
Nobles are gonna hate it. The river, Lord's all hate the
phrase and they don't like the Lannisters.
They're not river Lords. They're Westerman, why do they
don't want this? They like the tullys The things
under the tullys were good, right?
And they're at least River Lords that that handled themselves
honorably. So Everyone's gonna hate this.
It won't be hard to get a Grassroots movement of
commoners. And remember we said earlier
hundreds if not thousands of them out there and who treated
the commoners best Edmure Tully out of besides the Brotherhood
admir tells, you specifically brought commoners inside river
run when the War was happening to give them better protection.
No other Lord would have done that because it takes too much
food up and who kicked them back out when he took charge black
fish. Kicked them back out when this
the the castle was gonna be about to be besieged by the
Landers, like, well y'all don't want to be trapped in here and
we can't keep you in here so I'm sorry, this is terrible.
We gotta kick you out. so they might not like that, but they
will remember Edward or who was the actual Lord and who did
things well, Now, Forest has a vision.
Let me finish this section with this vision of thoros that he
has. He sees lions at River Run.
He's an island in a Sea of Fire. His interpretation is that the
Lannisters are going to besiege River Run.
He tells us to Aria and is like, no.
But what if he had it backwards? What if?
It's the Lannisters being attacked, not the Lannisters
attacking at River Run. Yeah, they have the castle now,
so it's feasible that they will lose it and Well, that's what
thoros could be seeing here in the same breath thoros.
Admits that he reads the Flames wrong.
Sometimes Right, very possible. So there's your red wedding 2.0.
There's a lot more to that theory but you know, it's not
all about the Brotherhood. Just a lot.
So maybe we'll come back at some other time.
If you have other red wedding, 2.0 theories, I'm all ears,
we're all ears. Let's move on.
Hilde and other spots whose hilde that name.
Probably sounds familiar to y'all but you might not remember
exactly who she is when Jamie arrives at Raven, Tree haul
after River Run. He goes to relieve or to finish
the seed of the brackens of taking Raven tree Hoffman from
the blackwoods. Of course, the black was refused
to surrender to the brackens butter, okay?
Just surrender to Jamie. and when Jamie arrives, The Lord
Bracken is in his tent humping. A camp follower named hilde who
proceeds to flirt with Jamie very brazenly, In earlier drafts
of A Dance with Dragons. Hilde is explicitly a member of
the Brotherhood without banners as a spy.
She's a sex worker spy, another Insider type like a singer that
can get intimate information even more intimate than a
singer. Well, maybe not more than a
singer who sleeps around. Same difference, right?
So we're not certain, she's a spy, given the Red Sox and
rewrites. But she probably is, it's
probably just George didn't make it explicit, right?
Especially because they're we've got Tom trying to hang out with
her. I mean Tom's trying to hang out
with Jamie trying to get hired by Jamie in order to pass
information about his location, then we actually have the
stoneheart and Brienne capturing him so he's been a target for a
while so he'll do was probably targeting him too.
That's the implication. And it makes a lot of sense
because Well, that scene is a little like something's going on
here. We really just a flirtatious sex
worker that really all this is about.
You know this is really just Jamie showing how he still loyal
to Cersei. I mean that is also being done
here but I really like the George always does it so much at
once. I can't imagine that's the only
thing happening in that scene not just it's also not just a
way to show, Jonas Bracken being a man of a little lower quality,
you know, so makes a ton of sense and it just makes you
think, okay. So he'll do the sacks workers a
spy Tom, the singer is a spy. Who else?
This is probably a ton of them out there.
Anyone could be BWB loyal, right?
Because any given person in the riverlands Could easily have a
grievance against the Lannisters even be BWB sympathizers in the
room right now? Well, careful, you won.
I am one. If you are too fat but don't
rescue yourself. Good thing.
You're all using assumed names here with our internet names.
Yeah. So, this is less of a shift.
From earlier, BWB more of a development.
What I mean by that is earlier I remember what I said, early on
that, they had to learn how to be Outlaws.
So what I'm talking about. Healthy wasn't a spy when the
war broke out. But she became one because she
needed. It was necessary.
She had to, you know, fight for her.
People fight for whatever, she's fighting for just like, Tom
wasn't sending secret messages about the movements of phrase
when he was just to travel and singer who wanted to get laid.
You know, they didn't know how to do that stuff when this War
Began their acquiring skill. It's was it like that movie
Taken? He's like I have a specific set
of skills. Yeah, these day of acquired
specific set of skills by being in war skills, they did not have
when the war hadn't broken out yet.
So I don't have any other suggestions.
I'm just saying anyone out there could be beat WB and that's
fascinating and fun. And interesting, you might
George can has laid some groundwork for some surprises,
because it could come from any direction.
They're just so many possibilities here.
Speaking of people with unique skill sets, let's talk about the
real world brother, without manners fan group earlier.
I mentioned that the Brotherhood without banners fan group
appears in the appendices. Here is one of those quotes from
George in the Feast for Crows appendix.
Thanks also to my readers. For all their kind and
supportive. Email for their patients.
Special tip of the helm to Lodi of the three fists pod, the
devil bunny treble, and dash the trivial Kings, sweet, caress of
the wall Lannister, the squirrel Slayer and the rest of the
Brotherhood. Without banners that half mad
drunken Fellowship of Brave Knights and lovely ladies who
throw the best parties at worldcon year, after year, after
year, we've been to some of those parties.
We were inducted to share and I into the Brotherhood without
banners in 2018 in San Jose, we were the free company of the
Green Leaf each Year's inductees get a they pivoted.
They've rebranded it would, they are now called free companies
and each year has a different free company originally the
Brotherhood without banners in order to be inducted in the
brother without banners, you had to go on a quest in which you
found a food for George, that became kind of an unwieldy thing
to do every year. Are the they phased it out.
So now in order to join the BWB and become a member of a free
company, you do this shot of this liquor this like Fireball
whiskey type thing. Everyone it was you do like this
liquor. If you're not if you don't drink
alcohol it was like a habanero drink.
It was so spicy if you drink alcohol like me you don't have
to take a shot of an alcohol. You can take a shot of something
non-alcoholic don't worry. They are not biased against
those of us who don't drink but it's not quite as good to join
the BWB these days but it has these fun group The themes.
And so yeah we're free company of the Greenleaf ostensibly for
the California and red and redwoods and all that.
But really green leaf is pot. 2018 was the first year that
worldcon was in a weed legal City.
So they they addressed that accordingly.
The BWB doesn't ever take the dark turn the book Brotherhood
does but now they're probably never gonna be led by Undead or
anything like that. So we probably have to worry
about that. And we hope to see lots of them
this year at Seattle worldcon, which is in the middle of
August. Yeah.
And you as well, folks, come to worldcon and let us know if
you're coming and you'll get to meet us in person.
And you'll probably get inducted into a free company.
You very well. Likely, will it show up be a
part of it forever? and now, our quote of the week,
Stories never really ended. They just rolled one into the
next. The past was never wholly lost,
and the future was never quite found.
We wander forever in a pathless forest.
Dropping with weariness as home. Draws us back and the Grail
drives us on and we never arrive.
The quest never ends. That's the bright sword by Lev
Grossman. It's an Arthurian novel as you
probably guessed. By The Mention Of The Grail.
I mentioned this book last week and I wanted to mention it one
more time because it was good enough for multiple mentions, I
really enjoyed it. It was written in 2023.
Loved Grossman is the author of The Magicians.
Very successful, very quality writing.
Really liked it. If you liked our three in stuff
with a modern streak to it, still our three in a little bit
of modern element to it. I really appreciate it.
Check it out. You can get it through our
website. We've got Amazon links, you can
order it, hard, copy, or use the audible link?
To get the audiobook version of it.
And if you haven't used audible, before you can sign up for a
free trial through us which the link is on the website and that
will get you one free download, so you could get the bright
sword for free. Try out Audible and if you don't
like it, just cancel the subscription, you've done
nothing, you've cost yourself nothing, but you got a free book
out of it. all right, let's discuss briefly who used to be
in the group who left who might still be in the group and they
were not sure about who they have as allies that we know of
and then we'll finish up with Theories, looking ahead and
theories. Under lady stoneheart, the lack
of justice and loss of their original Mission caused a lot of
people to leave. They aren't bound to it as
tightly as thoros or perhaps as just.
Have no other options like someone like, Lem.
But some of them did in particular, edric Dayne was with
the Brotherhood as a squire of Barrack, and he felt duty-bound
to Barrack even in his Undead to continue on.
That's what Squires do, right? He never did get his Knight Hood
I suppose. Well or he didn't know he did he
was not under like everybody else.
I suppose other no one calls him, sir edric but he's Lord,
edric no one calls him Sir Eric either because he's Lord Barrack
so there. Yeah, there you go.
And that's why he clearly had some place he could go because
he's Lord, edric Danes starfalls.
His, so whenever he wanted to leave the brother at he had of a
castle waiting for him. I gotta believe a lot of the
other characters who left went with him.
In particular angle the Archer because Anne guy the Archer's
dornish. So going to adornis Lord makes a
ton of sense. Especially when the alternative
is, you know, living in caves being hunted and following the
orders of lady stoneheart who's a rather creepy individual. but
there's also, A lot of these names that we threw out who
their maybe a little too obscure for us to have follow-up with
yet. We might hear these names later.
George's is pretty thorough even with these super minor
characters. Why do the Miller swampy Meg?
Jonah, putting foot meredo moon to you love John.
Oh nothing. He not he really funny names.
My favorite is swampy Meg. Yeah, I swampy wouldn't be as
horny to me except for the whole Cersei and tayden, Maryweather
thing. Yeah, that's true.
There's one swampy Meg from here.
Hello AKA green beard the tie Rashi sell sword.
That worked with the Brotherhood for a while.
He might still be with the Brotherhood but he may have left
to just do food missions because we know that pillow and the Mad
Huntsman left. With sandor's gold a long time
ago to go buy food and go bring it back for the for the
commoners. We have not heard from them
since they may be just doing that.
They may just be Distributing food but for all we know they're
dead or something else happened, but they're still out there.
As far as we haven't heard of either of them dying.
The Matt Huntsman is particularly vicious and
dangerous but still mostly a good guy as long as he's aimed
at other bad guys. For sure guys, that we know are
still with the group with stoneheart, thoros Harwin lamb.
Tom Jack be lucky who's also One Eyed Jacks.
Another ridiculous one there, beardless dick, that dude
belongs in a porno and Dennis The most ordinary of the names
there. Dennis.
So, some of them are spies Tom's in river, run, you know,
gendry's, you know, at the end doing Smith work pretending to
be a Smith. Well, he is a Smith but not
pretending to pretending to not be a part of the Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, working on their weapons, for an armor for them.
People who are not like explicitly in the Brotherhood
but are absolutely allies. Include Sharna, husband boy and
hot pie. At the end of the kneeling man.
Remember, Sharna husband and boy, were the ones who tried to
sit up the ambushes and we use them as an example of sort of a
moral banditry that's associated with the Brotherhood, even
though this room of people was they're feeding children, right?
So that's good, they're feeding orphans, but they're robbing
just regular folk to feed these orphans, which is not so good.
There are so robbing, Landers and stars to feed the orphans,
which I mined a lot less and you all probably too.
All those girls at the Tony set, tansy, Bella, all those girls at
the peach were happy to give free favors to the Brotherhood
because well, it's a service taking offer.
It doesn't cost them any money and it helps the morale of the
troops who were helping defend them, you know.
Jane Willow heddle and the orphans at the crossroads in
that Gendry and the others are there, helping take care of as
well, similar situation as the end of the kneeling, man, we've
got lady ravela Smallwood AKA lady, revella Swan at Acorn Hall
who, you know, the one that had that really meaningful sad
moment with Aria where she's talking about, you know, the
horrors of war and how, you know, you shouldn't have to go
through all that and how she lost her own child, things like
that, we mentioned, Lord Lyman, leichester and maester ruin,
that's Lord, Lyman maester. So they're both sympathizers as
well. That's a pretty big one because
that's a noble house, not just a small Ghost of Fireheart
obviously and we talked about her.
So there's a lot and there's so many unnamed.
As we said as Harwin indicated there's 100s of not thousands of
people and the whole point is that it's a nameless Mass, it's
the common foe. It's not necessarily about the
individuals, it's about the whole even though the
individuals are important and very interesting is characters,
In terms of their goals of the brotherhood's goals.
It's about the whole So yeah, what's coming next?
This is a lot out there. There's a lot of open
possibilities and the vast number of characters involved.
Stone hearts looking for Ari and she wants to kill phrase and
Lannisters. Is that going to come to a head
at some point? Is she going to be part of the
attack on River Run? As she gonna recruit Blackfish,
is Blackfish gonna be like, whoa, you're my niece and you're
dead. What the hell nymeria?
The Dire Wolf. We haven't even mentioned her
yet. Like, she's out there, too.
Like they're gonna she gonna play a role as are you gonna
From Bravo like participate remotely you know, there's
there's a tale from the world of Ice and Fire of long ago, when
the children of the forest emerged from a Hollow Hill,
that's the exact phrase used to send hundreds of wolves again
and all camp. Hundreds of wolves.
We've got the Hollow Hill and we've got hundreds of wolves in
my areas pack or maybe 100 more than 100 anyway.
So that I will go with 100s maybe and I'll Camp could be a
Lannister camper just something like that really got Echoes of
possible foreshadowing there doesn't it?
They could appear in the T while prologue we've talked about the
tile prologue and how it's set up to be probably an ambush of
the Lannister forces bringing edmure and Jane to casually Rock
Jamie's very concerned about it, Ambush on the way.
And in fact, his concern might help the attack on river run
because he's so concerned about an ambush to free admirer and
Jane that he gives 400 men to this party to protect them,
which clearly is denoting River on some of its Defenders.
So by bulking up the defense of this hostage party, he may have
made it easier to invade River Run.
Hmm. And that's what is such a big
challenge for. Jamie is no matter where he
moves his troops. The brothers gonna know about it
right away either from their internal spies or just from
watching the roads. You can't move 400 men around
the Riverland, without them seeing it.
Everyone's on their side. Any single person Witnesses this
group, they passed the information on.
There's no hiding that. So many possibilities there, you
get the direwolves. You got Blackfish, you got the
brother themselves. You've got.
Yeah, you've got things that we haven't thought of what if they
end up going north that's one thing that happened on the TV
show that might have some semblance of Truth or at least
possibility that they decide. Well if we're really fighting
for the realm and we're losing supposed to stand against the
darkness and Shadow and cold. If they hear that's really
happening, you could absolutely see them going there.
Catlin's original Arc, the George wrote out for her.
The original plan was that she would die beyond the wall and I
think it may have even involved the flame passing from her to
John. That's not as explicit.
But you could see that happening before he decided to maybe have
that be melisandre's thing instead because the timing
doesn't really work on that. Like she's still weigh in the
South and John is dead already like is that really gonna But it
is a possibility other than Melisandre, we do have another
option for John coming back. She also would want to defend
the north, let alone Catlin and her followers being Delores.
Now, they would want to stop the others just for the regular
reasons of Catlins family is Winterfell and if that would be
one of the first castles to fall, if they get through the
wall, right? So that's just kind of
straightforward but what if there's just a new leader, what
a stone hearts, flame dies in The riverlands and someone else
takes over? What if yeah I mean Eric passed
it to her. She could pass it to somebody
else. We've obviously just gone over
the possibility of John but it doesn't have to be him.
It could be somebody else or could be someone else and then
John. Passing of the flame thing is
really interesting and probably not done yet.
Will they fulfill their original Mission?
Sir, Gregor is still out there that was the first task they had
and they still haven't done it. Will they decide to or get an
opportunity to make good on that?
Which is weird because he's dead also.
So you got a dead Catlin leading a group that's original Mission
was to kill a man who's now dead but still walking around.
He's obviously more tied to sandor's Ark and Cersei and
stuff going on at King's Landing.
But you could see them being involved somehow, because
they're involved with sandor, another ways.
Will they discover that amongst their ranks?
They call themselves King's Men, Robert.
The king is through their furniture.
Will they realize or discover that they have?
The King's son as a member Gendry is this right there,
blacksmithing away with his coal, black hair and his blue
eyes looking seed as strongly. That's they might be like, hey,
this guy should be the king. They may promote their own
claimant be like, hey, this this is Robert's son, he should be
the King. Joffrey is not really Robert
son, and he's dead anyway. And Tom and Marcella will be
dead by the time this comes along, right?
That would be a wild way for all those iOS at the brother's
handed out like yeah, we're gonna take your food, your horse
your stuff. Here's an IOU though.
Sandor Clegane, here's your IOU, just cash this in later.
What if those are actually good later?
What if like Gendry becomes the Lord of Storms?
And he's like anyone with a Brotherhood without banners, I
owe you. I will pay that Much will show
up with like forgeries and a few of them have a real ones.
You know, I could see that happening, of course, there's
also edric storm. He might be the one ends up Lord
of Storms. And I was no, there's no
automatic for Gendry here, but I love the idea that the guy that
they're followed this dead King's amongst their ranks and
neither he nor them knows about it.
So any of the above many of you could happen and it's it's
difficult to get into the weeds because there's so many
possibilities and it's just like trying to figure out what order
these things might happen in is tricky enough.
But that whole revenge for the Red Wedding thing.
The Red Wedding 2.0, that's a big one.
That's seems real likely. The slaughter of new inhabitants
of river and things to Tom's infiltration stoneheart or what
that too. She would want that maybe as
much, or more than defending Winterfell from the others
because at least one enemy she hates more one.
Might be more dangerous but she's also farther away from
them. So hmm.
Another possibility is freeing of political prisoners who have
a grudge against the Lannisters or phrase like like great John
great. John's a cat was kept taking
captive after the Red Wedding. He's still in captivity.
Imagine that dude getting free breaking his chains.
That's their schedule. Watch out phrase and Lannisters
have a great John ever gets about back out again.
House mallister are imprisoned in their own castle.
Patrick master Jason Master, they are held captive by
Blackwater in their own castle. If some commenters some
Brotherhood without banners maybe infiltrates there, maybe
they already have an infiltrated days, you know, let them out,
let them free, get them out, something like that.
That's another very staunch on fighting till till the end and
it was only because Patrick maester was made a hostage and
Jason was like, okay, you got my son you win.
But if it wasn't for that, he would have fought on as Taiwan
said, for honors sake. So if Patrick and Jason are
free, then honor will move to the front again, and the mouse
tours will take the field despite all these possibilities.
Despite all these interesting options that could happen for
the Brotherhood, it seems like From a general perspective.
It looks dark, right? It doesn't look great.
So on the subject of their future when they discuss it,
when thoros tells Brienne what he sees, He doesn't know, he
doesn't have an answer quote, we were King's Men when we began
the man told her, but King's Men Must Have a king.
And we have none. We were brothers too, but now
our Brotherhood is broken. I do not know who we are of
truth. Be told nor where we might be
going. I only know the road is dark.
The fires have not shown me. What lies at its end.
I know where it ends. I have seen the corpses in the
trees. That last line was in her
thoughts. She did say that authors but she
sincerely believes it. She's has seen lots of hanging
people. Many of them Outlaws and she
thinks that's really the. Only way it could go like what
other end is there for an outlaw.
Right? Well, there are other endings
there are exceptions. There's occasionally, there's
pardons maybe they could maybe some could take the black maybe
to SOS definitely wind up in bizarre, fandom theories.
If Redemption is to come for any of them.
Well, this brings us back to the north going to fight the
Ultimate Enemy would be as thorough says A way to look at
the ending of a person as what defines them and not what came
before. Because if you end, especially
if you die, fighting Mankind's, Ultimate Enemy, I do think
that's. As good as you can do.
I mean, you can't make up for other things, but that's giving
your life. That's you, get giving
everything, its giving everything you have.
So I think that that counts, I think if you're going to take
that step, I would I would certainly be willing to overlook
some past crimes. If you give your life and
defensive everyone, And how they slightly influenced Aria?
May hit it how they may help change someone else.
For example, they have Jamie, he's an enemy, he's hostage but,
Jaime and Brienne together. They may move the Brotherhood,
they may cause him to rethink them, some things or challenge
them in some ways and if we know Jamie is to be partly redeemed,
or if we expect that maybe this is To come in part with his
association, with the Brotherhood.
Maybe the Brotherhood is where he learns.
Some of these things that he hasn't learned yet.
He learns more about the play of the play to the common foe.
He learns more about what his past actions have caused.
He learns more about what this war has done about what his
family has done. Just growth introspection,
things, that might happen for Jamie that are already
happening. That might happen more.
And the Brotherhood may be vital on that Journey, especially
because of his connection to some of the other characters.
Remember the very beginning of Brands first dream where he
Shares the, the mountain black bloody Helm in front of Jamie
with Jamie and Sandra standing in front, there are all tied
together. The brother is all tied to that
too. The brother is connection to
sand or Gregor is undeniable. And now they have the connection
to Jamie too. These things are hard to
proceed, but the groundwork is there.
Jamie's Redemption. The Brotherhood redemptions
stoneheart. Brienne these.
They're very tied and I'm so excited to see where it goes.
Whether it goes north, whether it stays in the riverlands where
it goes, whether it's both something unexpected, so many
members of the Brotherhood, it's just by itself that creates so
many possibilities. And when you throw in all the
supernatural elements, it really is even more mysterious.
Like there's this we can't even precede things we can't predict
The Brotherhood I think are so much more interesting than they
appear on the surface. When you really Dive In I'm only
excited or am very excited. I'm only excited only excited, I
have no other emotion. I have no other emotions
excitement is my only gear know, going through all this and
reading it all to you and going through this episode definitely
has me excited for the future of this group, they're there.
But then it was so many unknowns and so much, they're just so
rich. So many different characters.
It's we can relate to all these characters, a lot more it's
important, really. They're not rich at all.
These characters are a lot more relatable, and a lot of ways,
then, a lot of the Nobles because they're Nobles, like,
they're rich, they're privileged, like, we can't
relate to that, like, I can't relate to being so being a
refugee, either to be fair. Like, I don't identify with that
not because I couldn't but because I haven't, I haven't
been through that. Let's talk about the trivia
answer here. Let me read the question again,
which of these characters is not in the Brotherhood without
banners Melly likely Luke johno nutting.
Hello traveler swampy, Meg, putting foot Merit, oh Moon
Town, the answer is trouble is a Member of the real brother.
How about banners? The fan group, I threw her in
there for fun. A couple y'all would have
recognized that because you know her and her know of her that
would be fun. She sounds like she fits in
there right? But she's not fictional.
Yeah, cool. So hopefully some of y'all got
that. Fun thing.
Now, Spotify has a has released a new feature that I always end
the episodes by telling you more episodes.
You can listen to that relate to this.
Well, now Spotify allows us to link them.
So if you listen on Spotify, you should be links going forward to
episodes, like, thoros of mirror, the ghost of high heart
and Brendan Blackfish. So those should be just right
there in the description was a man.
Really. Yeah.
Oh, my bad. Sorry trouble.
I didn't mean to misgender you there.
I just heard wrong or you my thing and was like yeah, I might
have just assumed that from the beginning trouble is a forum and
a man, okay, my bad honest mistake thanks to Stephen
outwell race for the Iron Throne dot wordpress.com.
And of course Nina, good Queen Ali dot, tumblr.com one, L in
alley, great takes from both of them, I haven't shouted out
Steven in a while, but man, he his, I read his whole every
Aria, chapter review he did for a Storm of Swords and maybe you
notice from the quality of this episode.
Hmm. Thanks as well to Joey Townsend
for his great music that we use and in our show that we've been
using for many years, and to Michael, Clarke felt for his
maps and video intro. You can get things from the
Clarita. Docks Shop download maps, map
files, and have them printed over it a Kinkos or something
like that. That's what we've done.
And the website is k, l a r, a d o x dot de that's Clara.
Do Until next time, on behalf of a show, we will see you again
very soon. And you know what to do until
then. Valarie readus.