Episode 2 foot long. Yeah, the main plot and conflict
have yet to unfold, but this episode completes the majority
of all the important stage setting for aforementioned plot
and conflict, including an actual scene on stage.
As part of the stage setting, this episode has some strong
themes of confidence in various forms.
We'll discuss that as it pertains to each different
character coming to terms with things.
Especially for Dunk. He's re litigating, rethinking
Arlen's life, but still thankful for what Arlen gave him, even as
he's realizing Arlen isn't quite what he maybe first held him up
to be. There's a lot more character
introductions, a lot more egg, a lot more scenes nearly word for
word from the novella, and we get our first taste of the
action. All that and more on this
episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello and welcome everybody. It's hard salt beef time.
We're here at six O clock every Monday during the TV season and
a little bit before and after to do pre and post coverage.
And of course we do some preview episodes now at 5:30 on Friday,
real short, about 20-30 minutes. And then that's immediately
followed by a Duncan Egg game stream.
Over on twitch.tv/history of Westeros.
We have our brand new video intro there by Bran the Builder.
It's super cool of the vibe that the puppetry and the the way it
moves from scene to scene showing various parts of what's
going to unfold. So great job, Bran, and wouldn't
be ATV show review without checking in on Sean's drink.
I noticed it was green. Not an uncommon color, but
certainly not what it is every time.
What we got this time, Sean? You know it, maybe it's hard to
tell, but it's kind of a brownish green 'cause I have
this the Green Machine Naked Drink with Magic Mine but with
the black cherry sparkling ice and that made it a little
browner. It'll taste great.
Right on. Well, I don't know about that
last part about it tasting great, but right on anyway.
All right, folks, if you have questions for us, if you have
questions about the show, the adaptation, behind the scenes
stuff, anything, you can also just tell us what you liked
most, didn't like favorite performances, Easter eggs and
stuff like that. We're going to do the same for
you all as part of our coverage. And if you're catching this
later, Westeros history@gmail.com is one way to
reach us. But we're also on pretty much
every social media platform. Let's start with the trivia
question, which Knight of the Kings card dueled Damon
Blackfire during the Battle of Red Grass Field?
Answer will be revealed at the end, but we'll also mention it
during the episode. As I said, we will be talking
about our favorite performances and scenes, and we will start
with that this time. We finished with it last time,
but it's back in its familiar beginning spot here by popular
demand. So we'll start with favorite
performance, and we'll make that our poll as well.
So while you all are listening to us tell our favorite
performances and why you all who are here live and those of you
voting on Spotify later because the poll is on the Spotify
podcast version and video version, we can only do 4
choices. So we're going to have a
favorite performance by a non Duncan nor Egg character for you
all to pick from. And the choices are Baylor make
our Steely Pate and Tanzel and we'll start with you.
Sean, who was your favorite performance by a non Duncan nor
Egg character in Episode 2? Well, I think I'll say 10 Cell,
there's not as much to work with since Duncan Egg are such
central characters. You know what I mean?
Is different than Game of Thrones or many other shows, but
this little subtlety, it's close to my favorite scene.
The moment when Dunk is asking her to paint the the shield.
You know, that that whole sequence, what I really love
about it was Egg kind of like moving him through it, you know
what I mean? But she was also she also, I
think she got this guy kind of has a crush on her.
Maybe she has a crush on him too.
And they're going through this sort of pretense of, you know,
introductions and flirting or whatever.
And Dunk is sort of stuck, you know, he doesn't know what to
say. He doesn't know what to paint.
He had this idea, but he didn't have follow through.
And she's like, oh, well, you know, the Grays kind of drab,
like she's trying to prompt them and Egg's trying to prompt them
too. I thought that was really well
done. Both, I don't know, acting,
directing, editing, writing, whatever it took to to get that
scene across. I I really appreciate it.
Right on. Yeah.
And I, it's, it's funny how I just talked about how confidence
was a theme. Maybe that is not an example of
confidence there, but Agate was. Confidence.
Confidence or like thereof. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Lack of confidence is a form of discussable confidence for sure.
Asha, what about you? What was your favorite
performance by non dunk nor egg character?
I'm going to go with Sam Spruill as Makar, Makar Makar as the
Herald. The the crier said he
mispronounced his name. It's kind of a different
portrayal than I expected, but I really like it.
You know, I feel like he's a little more foul mouthed, I I
think than I expected. And then it was kind of
interesting because the egg this episode is a little crass when
he talks about making someone's asshole a Lance hole.
And I'm like, oh, he heard his dad talk like that.
Like I think he gets that from Makar specifically.
That's a good catch. I didn't think of it that way.
The the connecting the crass language with eggs because dunk
several times in both book and show is like, you shouldn't talk
a square, shouldn't talk like that or whatever.
So for my choice, I I was really looking forward to Makar and I
was, I was very pleased, but I was surprised by how good Baylor
was. I didn't have this very specific
experience, expectations. I knew he's a very important
character, obviously, but I didn't perceive this
possibility. You know, I think maybe Makar
for me was a little easier to imagine Baylor just just such
serene confidence is the way I put it.
He's like later in the episode I wrote it.
I'll just say it now. Baylor is in charge.
He knows he's in charge. You know he's in charge and he
knows you know he's in charge. So he has nothing to, he has
nothing to prove. Everything's there.
And he perfectly portrays a person with that sort of
confidence. So I was, I was really happy
with that. So, yeah, you all can vote on
the poll. Baylor, Makar, Steely Pater,
Tanzel, and we'll move on to our next thing.
But also honorable mention to Sir Arlen, Lady Gwyn who is the
young Ashford daughter, and Aryan who.
Loved that that's Lady Gwynn. I know Lady Gwynn shout out
radio esteros. Yeah, and we'll get a lot more
of Aryan next episode and we'll probably get more Sir Arlenn.
There's definitely scenes that I guest might have been in this
episode that were in the trailers that haven't happened
yet. So there's definitely a good bit
more of him. So let's talk about our favorite
scene though, specific favorite scene.
Sean, what do you got for us there on that?
So my favorite scene was a similar kind of nuance to one
that involved Duncan Egg when right after the scene with
Tansel when he's kind of reflecting on it, you know, was
that how to say it was that I'll handled?
I can't remember the the term he used.
Zach, I think I'll handled and that whole sequence, it was so
good. And you know, I want to point
out again another little subtlety I forgot to mention
with the tan cell one. But even as they started as that
scene was finishing up and dunks like, OK, cool, she's going to
paint my shield. And she turns to he turns to
walk away and egg and tan cell stand there for a moment and
both slightly react before he realizes, oh, wait, I have to
give you this shield, you know, like that.
They're just still a little bit more.
He's more antsy about the whole thing than she was right.
And that continues when he's reflecting on it.
He's like, was that old handled? That was old handled?
He's like questioning himself. Like what was that Catch me if
you can line when you enter DiCaprio and he's like.
Why didn't I just? Concur.
Yeah. Why did I just concur?
Like looking back, you know what you should have done or said,
you know, but it, it kept being good beyond that because on, on
multiple levels, but the framing was so well done.
Like I, I want to give credit to, you know, I don't know,
directing, choreography, whatever.
The way they were seated, they couldn't see each other's faces.
Like, I really think that plays out differently if they're
facing each other because Egg couldn't see that Dunk had no
follow up. When he's like everyone tells me
I'm dumb and eggs like, and you know, we get a minute of of eggs
like going through these anticipatory facial expressions,
waiting for some follow up and dunks just drinking his drink
and looking out of the crowd. He has no intended follow up, I
think. And and so I can't see that he
doesn't have an intended to follow up.
Dunk can't see the eggs anticipated one.
I think if they're facing each other, they see that from each
other and the conversation goes differently.
But the way it went was so telling and entertaining and
well orchestrated and acted and everything.
I I think that was a great scene.
Can I tell you, Sean, the other thing I thought you were going
to say about how it was staged that I like was that they have
eggs sit up on the table and they built a table to be at the
exact right height really, so that they are at eye level.
They're at the same level. You know, they're talking kind
of a little bit more as peers. Although I think Egg wants to
see him as like someone to idolize and mentor him.
They really are more of a closer to peers in a lot of ways.
Especially in this moment when Egg is kind of asking for advice
and it starts off with Dunk kind of asking advice from Egg and
Eggs kind of asking advice from Dunk.
And both are kind of failing. They are, they are kind of
equals in their ineptness in this moment.
And, and yeah, that, that is a good point, too.
And, and I'm not even touching on like, the details of what
they're actually saying and the thoughts going through their
heads. Like, I'll bring it up again
later, but talking about himself being CUNY and can I really be a
knight wondering about that? You know, I think it's lots of
thematic things we're being hit on in this scene.
That's part of the confidence. Discussion.
Absolutely. Yeah.
For real.
O'Shea, what about you? Favorite scene?
I'm going to say two scenes, really, a series of scenes.
One is the Oscar Island flashbacks.
But because not not because of his prodigious member, but
because of how effective they were.
Sure, sweet, you know, meaningful.
You see the way that he taught Dunk and impacted Dunk.
You see how even when things were maybe looking pretty rough
and they're like under a tree in the rain, they're still able to
laugh together, You know, you see the thing that appeals to
Egg about this, this lifestyle. So I thought it was a really
beautiful series of scenes with with Dunk narrating it and
showing the life that Egg is kind of signing up for right
now. I like that a lot.
And then the kind of culmination in that of him selling Sweet
Foot, which I thought was very sad, very emotional, but just
had had to be done. You know, like he he he can't
have these three horses. He needs, he needs armor, he
needs so many other things. So he used to pay for his
painted shield, you know, etcetera.
So like, it's really, really, really sad, but I think
essential. Yeah, well said.
I think if you were to add up all the Sir Arlen flashbacks in
that episode, I I don't even know if you'd get to 90 seconds,
but they're probably like 6 or 8 different scenes.
So you're very right that they're very effective with very
little time. So that's, that's a great point
for me. I'm just sticking with the great
Baylor and just going with that whole scene where dunk meets
Baylor and Makar because you've got those great performances and
I I really loved plumbers. Just deer in the headlights look
the whole time. Even Lord Ashford was funny with
his, you know, a knight and a a sword and a shield don't make a
knight. And he looks at Makar for
approval and Makar completely ignores him.
But that line is in the book, not the Makar ignoring him part.
But you know the that's good job there.
I really like that I was that's such an important scene.
So I had AI really was hoping they would nail it and they
exceeded my expectations. So great job there.
Thanks to Karina strict 558 for the celebration sticker.
Appreciate that. And let's go on to the first
scene, which Ashea has dubbed Sir Arlen of Penis tree.
One of my first thoughts was this guy's about to get a whole
lot of new nicknames. What would OSHA say about this
one? Is this guy half giant?
Also, like, who wins, Hodor or Sir Arlen here?
So, Sean, you're right about the POV thing.
Dunk wasn't actually watching Sir Arlen pee that morning.
It was nowhere to be seen and wouldn't have wanted to be
anywhere seen. Yeah, he's hiding around the
corner peeking there. Yeah, but he would know that.
Arlen made him sleep outside that night because he had a
woman over, as you can see here. Yeah, Dunk woke up to the
spatter like hitting him like hey, what do you there's all
this all this room, you can go anywhere.
He. Goes right outside his door.
It's like he doesn't walk away at all.
What is he doing? Well, I guess that's probably
her door, really. But yeah, I don't think.
It's his own door. Anyway, so that was a good call
and this focus on Sir Arlen flashbacks is largely played out
through Dunk rethinking his legacy and carrying it on
realizing that no one else will and having some sort of reality
moments where, you know, he has to reckon with not everything he
learned was quite accurate. Maybe Sir Ellen, great night.
Maybe maybe not great night. You know, he he keeps calling
him that, but that by the end he's like a great night doesn't
die in the mud of the side of the road, though, do they?
So he's he's not just like his other forms of bravery.
He's not afraid to take on these tough truths about both who his
mentor was and who what he's facing and what egg is facing
and all these other things. And of course, that culminates
way later with what he's facing in the joust.
But I think that's a a good lead in for what the whole episode
focuses on the legacy and Dunk coming to terms with what that
really means. And just as he's honest about
some of the negative stuff, he's also honest about a lot of the
positive stuff, which there is some, you know, Dunk is talks
about how he's he gives to the poor and he was, he treats his
horses well. And he taught Dunk to be a good
person, even if he necessarily wasn't all the time himself.
So, yeah, it's a very balanced take.
It's it's not, it's it's honest. And I appreciate that.
What about you, Sean? I really love this.
I think it's a continuation of this thematic idea that George
toys with a lot of what is real knight, what makes a real
knight? And I think here we're seeing
Dunk, however actively he's thinking about it or realizing
it. He's scrolling through some
differences between maybe a night, a hedge night, a true
night, a great night. Those are all, you know, some
crossover in a Venn diagram. But on one hand, technically
just someone does get in your knees and dubs you with the
sword and says you're a knight, You're a knight.
But sometimes they just did that because you're the Prince or
because you fought off a bandit that came that day.
But maybe you were actually friends with that bandit and it
was all a scheme and you're not you shouldn't really be a
knight. Or maybe on and on.
You see what I mean? Like there's, you know, he gets
into it with Sandor and Brienne and dunks so much And it Arlen
may not have been a great knight in the sense that like he'll go
down in history and hey, he has respect of all the noble Lords
in a landing. He's got a great castle, LED a
great army. And someone could be a great
knight in those terms, but still be a jerk, still not actually be
chivalrous or honest or even a good fighter, right.
Like someone could be a great fighter like the mountain and be
a mass murderer. If that doesn't make them a good
knight or a true knight or a great night or does it?
I don't know what does. And I think that Dunk dunks he
lists off these different qualities that Arlen has.
If you don't mind, I'm going to I'm going to read a couple off
here. Humble never complaints benefit
to others. Those could be a night or not a
night, right, But a true night. Maybe you think or dunk would
think has those qualities. No money or lands.
A lot of people would discount a night with no money and lands
it. You're just a hedge night,
right. Maybe they could still be a true
night or true hedge night. No children.
You know, some of that sounds like someone on the wall or the
Kingsguard kind of higher, ostensibly level of knighthood,
at least the Kingsguard dog and fighter Ridge between Lords and
small folk is what he said of a hedge knight.
So Arnold might have been all those things, but none of those
things lead to the history books, right?
There are a lot of great people in the world who are very kind
and generous and hardworking. But maybe not in the right
position in their life, the right, you know, education or
family or wealth or maybe they're not cut throat enough or
whatever to get into some upper management position where they
lead the world to the moon or some nonsense.
It's I think that Dunk is struggling with this idea and,
and, and I'm trying to spend it all in a positive light and say
Arnold was a good night and it was a true night, maybe even a
great night. But The thing is, whether it was
or not, put yourself in our own shoes for a minute.
He hasn't won a tournament. He doesn't have a ward.
He's got rags on, basically. Ostensibly he must have had some
Armory. I don't talks about it for
tournaments or whatever. But he, he isn't a respected
knight, right? Maybe even at one time when he
was younger and stronger and healthier and had more of a
social circle or something. Maybe he could have, would have,
should have been. But he he just isn't at least a
vision of what a great knight is.
But he's still a great night to dunk both dunks vision of him
and the way he treats him right. He treats Dunk the way a great
knight should treat any person. And The thing is, though, that
Arlen, in his own mind, he probably recognizes his
failings. Maybe he's embarrassed by them
or understands why he had them. You got drunk too much or just
ruined that one tournament or said the wrong thing in that
one. Lord ruined my career.
All these things that he might have done in his past to kind of
set him on a course of what he or many might feel like it's
failure despite being a good, good man in many ways, right?
But when he's talking to Dunk or other people, he's not going to
say I'm just a failure. You're lucky I take care of it.
He's going to say, ah, I'm a true knight.
Well, if you're a true knight, why don't you have a cat law?
I mean, I'm a true hedge knight. A true knight doesn't care about
his castle. He just wants the fresh air and
a warm fire, right? Arlen is going to sell a true
knight. The way Arlen is, he's going to
tell Dunk the things that he's doing are the things that are
true knight. Does Does that make sense?
Oh yeah, absolutely. He's going to sell himself as as
the ideal, even if he's not. Yeah.
Right. And so it's and, and in many
ways it is true and fair the the ways Arlen has told Dunk what a
great night is. And in many ways Arlen is all
those things. But it's not the whole picture.
Just like in a normal youths life, you grow up as a child,
you're told all these things by your parents and teachers and
you go out in a real world like oh wait there is more out here
they didn't tell me about, you know, dunks hitting that.
A relevant quote here I'd like to to share regarding what what
what you referred to what Dunk says about hedge nights is
bridge between nobility. This is from the late, great
Steven Atwell from an essay he wrote that I'll drop in the chat
after I read this. Steven Atwell says hedge nights
occupy A liminal position in relation to the feudal class
structure. They're counted as members of
the nightly orders, which means they're expected to conform to
the honor code of chivalry and cultural mores of the
aristocracy, even though they lack access to material wealth.
In return, they can't be denied the rights and privileges common
of all their stations, so they can sit on the fringes of all
the ceremonies and rituals, households and feasting tables,
courts and command tents of the great and the good.
And so, from this surprisingly intimate vantage, they serve as
a perfect window on the lives of their betters.
And I think Aziz said something to this effect.
Talking about sex workers last week, didn't you, Aziz?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
This is a great strong connection.
Great pull here, Shaya, remembering what Stevens quote
here because it's yeah, it's super on point here in terms of
these are the two classes of commoners who have the most
intimacy with the nobility work with them the most who their
their lives depend on them effectively like sex workers
can't really depend on other commoners to have enough money
for that. They can't afford that.
And hedge nights aren't going to get lots of jobs from commoners
either. They they won't be able to
afford it and they don't have necessarily the authority to
even tell hedge nights what to do or to issue justice type
commands or what have you. So yeah, it's a these are people
who live amongst the commoners but have to but depend on the
nobility. That's a great parallel.
Jenny of Cold Stone Creamery says.
I get Jack and the Beanstalk vibes from Dunk.
He sells his beloved sweet foot and rises above poverty to meet
giants. Oh, I like that.
Yeah, that's good. Good catch.
I like it. And he, he is kind of a giant,
but he doesn't realize he, he doesn't kind of accept his giant
hood until, well, maybe by the end of this, this first story he
has. So one thing we see very early
on, and it it flows very nicely out of the voice over Dunk is
doing while we're seeing scenes of Sir Arlen is that he's
actually telling these stories to people.
He's actually not just this isn't just narration to himself
or set up for the for the viewers, although it serves that
purpose as well. He's actually talking to people
and trying to get them to remember Sir Arlen and when they
don't remember Sir Arlen through deeds, he tries to talk about
what a good person he was instead as a fall back plan.
And we apparently he's done this a few times.
Egg makes the joke like I can't leave you when you're retelling
the story of your master's demise over and over.
Like that's a tough thing to deal with and we only see it
happen once. It's it's just we get an example
of it rather than seeing it happen each time.
And it's with Leo Longthorne, played by Steve Wall.
This guy has quite the arsenal of fantasy and sci-fi shows.
He was in Dune 2, he's in The Witcher, he's in Vikings, and
this guy standing behind him is Sir Samwell, David Pierce.
He was also in Vikings and The Last Kingdom.
So these two guys together, they got, they're a real power duo, I
said. It in the preview but to me Leo
Longthorne is like a a Tywin esque character here with his
apron and he just kind of has a similar vibe to me.
He's got the sour leaf chewing going on there.
You see his red teeth there at the end.
It's one of the clearest uses of sour leaf, which is should be
pretty common in Westeros, but we we haven't actually seen it
on the TV very much. That's kind of funny, Sean.
He says, I won't leave you while you're doing it.
And then the Targaryens show up and he says I got to maybe I
should go check on the camp. Like a. 2 seconds later he's
like, I got to check the camp for thieves.
Yeah, so let's talk about the arrival of the Targaryens and
the arrival of the Kingsguard before the main scenes with
them. So he he's kind of transfixed a
bit and he is sort of gawking and Aryan says to him, hey, you
know, stop gawking and you can take my horse.
And that's, that's just just after the the kind of over the
top introduction of of Baylord Makar.
I have a slight quibble with that as they would never omit
the title Prince from either of them.
And they admitted it from both of them.
You never don't say the word Prince.
Whatever. It's a small thing, but they
they leaned into that to make make our the difference between
Makar and Baylor's Title's even larger.
When he's when he's meek. Yeah, I think they might have
done that on purpose, too. Like, does he really not know
that they know how to say his name?
That guy's just saying it wrong because he's.
Yeah, they're leading into that even more so.
Aryan's appearance is nearly identical, except his hair is
shorter. His hair is really long in the
book and they just went with a shorter version just just to be
different I suppose, which is cool.
You know, Speaking of staging and how they do that, I thought
it was really nice how they did the Aryan Dunk meeting here,
because as you see here, he's like, he meets him and he's
taller than him, right? And then he gets off his horse
and he's like so much shorter. And then they frame it so that
he's really, you show how Aryan is looking up at him and he
like, assesses how he looks up and down.
And he's kind of, you know, you could see that he's maybe a
little ruder to him for feeling inadequate.
Oh, yeah, a lot of people look dunk up and down.
It's it's like a recurring thing.
Almost everyone seems to either look at him like look down and
up, like even Steely Pate does the slow kind of eyes going up
thing. Almost everyone reacts to him in
that way in some way. But Aryan's the only one who's,
like, particularly rude about, well, Sir Sir, Stefan Fosse Way
was very rude about it too. So is.
So is Lady Gwynn. You're big.
Ass. We haven't gotten to her yet,
but you're right, you're totally right.
You're right. We just haven't gotten to her
yet. But you're totally.
I will say in just a moment one of the kings guards says that
how did he word it? He's not used to looking up at
people to cast his eyes down on. Him.
Yeah, that was really well said. And that's what Aryan's doing
exactly here, yeah. Yes, it is so there this is in
the book what happens is it's very similar.
He meets he meets Aryan. It's the similar dialogue but
not clever enough line the I'm not a serving man very almost
word for word there. And then he meets Sir Roland and
Sir Donnell almost immediately after and they drop an extra the
dialogue between them is different that is significantly
different here. They say it's not fitting to
face the Royals in the in the book version, which they
communicate that in many other ways that in the in the novel,
that or in the show that this is not true.
They're just downplaying for Valar.
Like we've seen Royals face Kingsguard in tournaments a
bunch of times in every era. It's so they're just saying that
as a cover story, but that's not in the book.
That's not in the show here. But they just they're going to
presumably show that in other ways, such as eggs saying I'll
take that bet, Sir. He's like, I bet Valar is the
best of these guys anyway, so these two Kingsguard, I love the
new Kingsguard armor. We knew we were going to get new
Kingsguard armor and it's sweet. It's very cool.
It's actually as white as we've ever seen it, which is how it's
supposed to be so. And it has kind of a dragon
dragon wing effect to it as well, as you can see in some of
the details that I think is pretty cool for this era of, of
Kingsguard, right? I agree.
Yeah, so they did trying to emphasize that because they
don't have real Dragons, right? Yeah, totally.
Did you did you notice that both of these actors have their their
brows furrowed like like up with the little bridges the entire
conversation? Because they have to go to the
bathroom. Yeah, he was looking for a place
to go. Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah. There.
I wonder if that's just like a, you know, they're trying to look
fierce, you know, like. Fierce.
It was sunny. I don't know.
Yeah, both these dudes look like they are, are like clothing
models, male clothing models or whatever.
So they're maybe they're. Furrowing their brows.
For for effect. You know what I mean?
They do kind of look like like male models but with Kingsguard,
which it's which I think is very deliberate.
Oh yeah, To make Dunk feel inadequate or whatever.
And then he's like, oh, he latches on.
He's like, my family were crabbers.
And that's that was with the hilarious resolution later when
eggs like his family owns half the crab fleets in Westeros.
It's like, wait, how do you know that you know?
Anyway, so the fact to hear I will.
Say go ahead. That was.
I feel like this scene was subtly but distinctly different
from the books, that there still was this vibe here in the show
that these nights are kind of better than everyone else and
it, you know, yeah, we'll talk to you for a minute, Don,
because we're looking for the bathroom.
You know, you're a big dude, maybe even slightly relating to
him and the how the Prince treat him as a jerk.
They're like, yeah, the Prince is a jerk.
But in the book, there wasn't really any of that.
There wasn't any down talk of the Targaryens or this idea that
we're better than you. They were much more like
respectable common men. Wanting to talk to another
common man kind of vibe came in the book.
Yeah, they were like proper and but brief.
Yeah, you're right. But I'm definitely respectful,
like you say. I I totally agree with that.
You can see the third Kingsguard knight, Sir William Wilde, in
the background. He's the one who calls out to
Sir Donald as their conversation with Dunk is completed.
So that's him in the background of the left.
So you actually see all three of them here.
That's pretty cool. So Sir William Wilde, Sir Donald
of Duskindale and Sir Roland Crakehall.
That's by the way, another clue about AG, of course, that he
knows the thing about the crabbing fleet in that scene.
Jumping ahead to that, when they're having cider and he
talks about the crabbing fleet and all that comes up his
delivery on There's a Bug in My Cider.
He's really good with that semi deadpan delivery.
He's done that a few times. He says the same thing about
that's a tree and your belt's made of rope.
You know the way it's delivery, it's very similar for the slots.
He's really good at that, but he's a lot more emphatic when he
says, do you suppose the Dragon House takes on many hedge
nights? Sir?
That was really good too. He's like, maybe they'll take me
on. He's like, are you joking?
But of course, that's exactly what happens.
Irony all around. Yeah, narrator he did take.
He was taken on. So here a scene that's
completely not in the novel, but also plays into an important
theme that is not too drawn out in the novel, but is pretty
important. And they they catch on to it
here in the show. And I think it's a good one that
they draw, which is Egg's size, him being small and him being
him feeling a little unsure about that.
It comes up multiple times in this episode.
The first, the first is in this moment where it was we we talked
about before when he's joking about being stupid compared to
being small and it so it ends with a joke and so you kind of
forget about it. It gets serious later and we'll
come back to that here. We see like a stepping stone
towards that concept where Egg is so small that he just lock.
He just puts his feet up on the rope and hangs from it.
And apparently that was not in the script.
He just, he just did that. Dexter did that.
And it was they were like, hey, that's pretty funny, let's do
that. And it looks like it's a
Stormlands versus the Reach battle here.
And oh, boy, the shippers got so much ammo with Lionel giving
Dunk a slap on the butt there. Just that's just so many people
were like, oh, oh, there it is. There it is.
So, yeah.
And of course, Lionel calling dunks drink piss froth, You
know, what is this? Piss froth don't come between
Lionel and his thirst, though. You know, you can knock a cup
out of his. He can knock the cup out of your
hand. But if he needs a drink, you
know, everybody has to wait. So Ira Parker said that Lionel
is only feels alive when he's at war or when his life is at risk,
something like that. So that explains a lot about his
character and how they're setting him up.
It's it it fits for the book version, even though the book
version doesn't have as much to mention because he's only seems
to be he seems to want to fight in the most dangerous fights.
So that fits. And that's partly why he's just,
he parties so hard and does all these ridiculous things because
he's life is just too easy and boring.
You know, when it's for him, he's just, he's, he's
experienced everything. He's it's too easy.
You know, he's got all the money.
Yeah. It's it's like the only the only
thing that that makes him feel alive is fighting.
So a little moments like this which aren't real fighting are
the next best thing. It it does show a certain, I
don't know, confidence, arrogance, awareness, when he
just leaves the tug of war to go get a drink.
I think that he, like, I want to, I want to say it is pretty
cocky one way or the other, but it also might come from a
certain confidence. He's like, I got the biggest
dude, like I got drunk on this rope for a reason.
So I can screw around. Like I know we're going to win.
Like he's probably had done a good job of like assessing the
challenge and the people involved is like, we got this
easy, I'm going to screw around, which is kind of an arrogant
thing to do, but also a testament to his skill,
knowledge, experience in a world or whatever.
Yeah, you can imagine he's like assessing a battlefield where
there's way more troops and way more going on.
He's like, this is just like 7 on 7.
You can just kind of look at the size of everybody and kind of
tell. Yeah.
So that's that's a great point, Sean.
So moving on to tall talk, let's talk about Florian and Jon Keel
and Tansel and Duncan Egg. We see the performance of
Florian Jonke. That was really cool.
And there's a nice touch to make Tansel even taller.
She's on stilts. That was very cool.
And this is this is her at her most confident.
We're talking about the theme of confidence.
Well, her stage presence is very strong here.
He's he's very proud, very confident, very in the moment,
you know, doing what an actor should do.
And she's the center of it. So.
And all the eyes are on her. So.
And then quick question. Yeah.
Go ahead. What character is she
representing there? Do we know?
That's Junkiel. That's is Junkiel 10 feet tall.
Well, it's a it's a play, so they're just messing around.
Yeah. No, she's not supposed to be 10
feet tall. Yeah, it's just how they're
doing it. It's possible she's like playing
one of the gods, but I don't know where.
Then where is Junkiel? If.
Because there's only two characters there.
Oh. She says the Junkiel lines.
OK, yeah, anyway, the yeah, all men are fools and all men are
knives. This is Junkiel lines.
So but when it comes to women, that's a Florian line.
But anyway, that's also strange for them to develop.
Pretty much. And afterwards, Duncan Egg
approached Tan well, very similar to the book
conversation, as we said, about the shield painting stuff.
But but as far as the you're not too tall bit, that's also very
much straight from the book giving Egg.
Egg says, Hey, that was really good.
The one line that was not one bit that wasn't from the books
is the whole pollen bit where Egg is asking about how the fake
fire was done. Just another little touch to
show Egg being highly educated. And I think this is one of the
things that is, it happens in the book a little bit, but I
think they're going to lean into a little bit more is that Egg
isn't just a Squire in the sense that he's helping dunk with all
these tasks and chores. He's also helping dunk with his
biggest weakness or one of his biggest weaknesses, which is not
knowing the right words. I'm not having the right.
I don't have the right words. The first line of the whole darn
show. Egg often does know what to say
the partly because of his education and his upbringing,
but also just he doesn't have dunks tongue tied nature.
He that's just a skill he has that dunk is is working on.
He's not a natural that, but Egg is.
Yeah, I mean, Aryan brings it up right.
And it's just, I mean, a lot of Targaryens I think are a little
bit more quick of wit, you would say more educated of course, for
their for their station, but also I think just a little bit
little bit naturally clever. Yeah, sometimes to be quick of
wit, you need to be in the right position, for lack of a better
word. Like a lot of times someone
might think of something clever to say, but you know, if you're
like in a classroom with 30 other people, you can't
interrupt the teacher every time I have something clever to say,
right? But we're in a when you're the
Prince, you can't you you you have both the ability and
confidence to just say whatever is on your mind.
So you get away with being with your quick wit or letting it be
known more than other people might also egg.
One might have observed people and a royal setting.
The Squires have got to be more tactful.
It's not enough to just sharpen the sword and clean the shield,
right? You have to be able to interact
with all these royal people and be in the right place and say
the right thing and turn your eyes down to the right with all
this stuff. And Egg has been a witness to
all this. And in fact, Egg might realize
that's his end since he's not as big and strong as even say the
other Squires, he has to be good in some other way.
And so knowing the etiquette and the heraldry and The Who owns
the crabbing suites, right, all that stuff, gives him an angle
to compete with the other Squires, even if he's not as
strong or big or whatever as they are.
Well said. Yeah.
So, you know, if it it occurs to me to think back like, what's a
what's a regular show watcher, someone who hasn't read the
book, they're probably looking like, hey, this is a feel good
comedy about his night and his plucky Squire, you know, beating
the odds, risking it all, believing in themselves.
You know, we've seen that story before and there is some of that
to it. But having this spaced out into
six portions where you would kind of it up more blurs
together when you're eating the novella, Like there, it isn't
necessarily carved into sections.
This really amplifies for me the coming shift in tone, which it's
not going to be as happy and plucky and feel good.
It's going to get a lot harsher and more violent and brutal and
it'll still have some comedy. But yeah, it's it's only had the
comedy and the like, the hard moments are like, oh, life is
hard as a hedge night, you know, things like that.
It isn't like, oh man, fingers broken and brains falling out
and things like that. So let's talk about the opposite
of being shy, which we just did with the a little bit there with
Duncan and Egg and Tanzel. Well, not Egg so much, just
Duncan, Tanzel. So a confluence of confidence.
I can call this part, for example, Tanzel, if we stay with
her for a minute, she's a little shy with Dunk, maybe not as shy
as he is, but she's sort of because he's shy.
She's feeling that too. It it sort of puts them both in
that space. But she's confident about her
skills as a painter. And of course, she's very, very
confident as an actress, as I said, and that's not uncommon
for performers, a lot of actors or musicians, they're more
comfortable being on stage, being watched by a bunch of
people rather than talking to someone one-on-one.
And that's pretty cool. Dunk is confident that people
will remember Sir Arlen, but he's he loses some confidence in
that over the course of the episode as he starts to realize
certain hard truths that we discussed earlier.
But he's still confident that he can get accepted by a noble
house, even if it's not because of Sir Arlen's name.
That helps get him his foot in the door.
So I think a lot of that is is very in linked here in terms of
Dunks retelling and relitigating what Sir Arlen was and what Dunk
is trying to be. And Egg comes into this mix very
nicely with talking about things like, why do you, you know,
think of these people as your betters?
And he's like, well, they are my betters.
And Egg is trying to get him to think kind of like what you were
saying, Sean. He's like, just because they
have more money, just because they have more, better
upbringing, that doesn't mean they're a better person.
They might be greater because they have more influence, more
money, more, you know, better weapons, but that doesn't mean
they're a better person. And Egg is leaning into that
part of it like you were Sean, where when he's saying that he's
like, they're not better, they're stronger, they're more
powerful, but better. I, I challenge that is kind of
what Egg was saying. He doesn't, he doesn't
necessarily have the right words for that either, because that's
a it's complicated. And of course he's personally
wrapped up in it, but I think that's a really good thing.
He's small, but he doesn't act small, especially on points like
this where he's very confident because, well, he has first hand
experience. He knows that.
How can they be better? Aryan's one of them, you know.
Yeah. It's it's blatant.
It's like Sandor's, it's like Sandor being extremely bitter
about Gregor being a knight. It's the whole reason he's not
one. Like if you Sandor really leans
into that whole thing because so many other Knights are all so
crappy. But if it wasn't for Gregor,
Sandor probably would have just gone along with it like
everybody else does. Maybe just been a little cynical
but he's just so 1000% turned off because it was also linked
to childhood trauma, which it is for AG2.
Not burning his face, but, you know, having a knife held at his
privates and his cat thrown in a well.
That's that's nothing to to gloss over.
Meanwhile, let's talk about his father a bit.
I mean, Makar, it's as he's he's acted really well.
He's an interesting character, but he's he's kind of a bad
father comes off like he's he hates weakness.
This is one of the comparisons to Stannis that comes up.
He he doesn't just hate weakness.
He doesn't understand it. He just thinks it's something to
just plow over, to push. And that's how you deal with it.
There's that line about Deron. You know, he will change.
I'll see him change or I'll see him dead.
Something to that effect, which is pretty much straight from the
novel. And if you know how things play
out much, much later in your Targaryen history.
Narrator. He saw him dead.
Yeah, exactly. Like he, he.
He'd make our outlives Deron. And Deron never, like, gets
over, never does really get better.
He's an alcoholic his whole life.
So I already described Baylor's version of confidence, which I
thought was the most impressive in terms of acting and and what
I wasn't expecting. Our friend Alicia Benson points
out there's some solid respect between Baylor and Makar.
They don't really, they differ in a few points.
There's some quick like disagreements, but they do not
argue. They D both deescalate, even
Makar, who's angry and in a bad mood and and just seems like
he's kind of like that a lot, just prickly.
Baylor's quiet confidence is a good counterpoint there.
It's respectful. He's not he doesn't feel talked
down to by his brother and he does.
And he's not talking down to him, you know, like when he when
he says Deron doesn't belong on the tournament field, you know,
any more than Aries or Regal. And he's like, Makar takes that
the wrong way and be like, no, that's not what I meant, you
know, be fair. And and then it doesn't go any
farther. And it's like, OK, yeah, there's
some there is some respect there.
And of course, for for those of you who don't recall, Aries and
Regal are their other brothers. Makar's the youngest, Baylor's
the oldest, and Aries and Regal are in between.
A couple times I wanted to give credit or I don't know,
benefited out to Makar because his sons are missing, you know,
so some of his ordinariness at this moment might be a little
out of character for him, but maybe not also.
Yeah, you get the picture. This is like, this is what
Baylor is all like all the time. But Makar, maybe not.
You're right. I that's a great point.
And he's not in his normal mood probably.
Or or maybe he's just more intense than he normally is.
Like you said, maybe he's just like this but worse, you know?
Yeah, I'm guessing he's usually, I guess he normally does snark
and swear and all of those things.
I I do think so. I think that's where Egg has
gotten it. I think we've seen that quality
in Egg in the books and in the show.
And I think I never really thought about like who he
inherited that from or who he took after.
I guess I kind of always figured like, brother, I don't know, his
brother's his. I never thought about it.
Right. It's a great point.
Yeah. It's similar to the whole the
classroom thing where like the the the Prince can tell jokes
whenever he wants, even if he's in a room full of many people
because he's of that rank. And that's kind of what Makar is
doing. Like he can curse whenever he
wants. Like other people are like, oh,
that's it's impolite, it's improper, but Makar's like do
whatever I want. You know, I got to say that
might be why Baylor will give a line of, you know it.
Baylor doesn't totally ignore Makar's questionable comments,
but he doesn't pursue them either.
He's like, yeah, look, don't cuss at our host.
And when Maker's like, oh, I cuss at myself, not him.
Baylor doesn't fall and say, look, just don't cuss.
Don't don't make me put you in your place, Baylor said.
Just enough that you know he addressed it, but he doesn't
need to follow up because I think he knows it may car
wouldn't normally say these things.
And if I do push him right now, he will snap and get worse.
But if I just remind him one time, gently, he'll keep himself
in check. You know, I think.
That's a great point. He knows.
Yeah. He knows his brother.
And pushing him, talking down to him too much will will make it
worse. Yeah.
Well, sad. Yeah.
That's really good. Can I give a shout out to the
costuming here? Look at all this glorious black
and red that you can see on Makar one.
I think his outfit's cool. And then as we talked about in
the preview, which not everyone watches, we have the very cool
Hand of the King merged with like a dragon scale motif for
Baylor, which is unique as well. So I with also with red liner
accents on him which is very cool.
I agree, sticking with the confidence theme a little longer
here, Aryans, it's more of an arrogance than a confidence, but
that's a, you know, a subset of confidence and some of its
projecting. I think is is the theme of
Aryans character as it plays out, is that some of it's an
act. You know, he's he's definitely
not as brave or as confident as he seems, Not that he's
unconfident entirely, but definitely there's some
bolstering there. The Kingsguard, of course,
they're we, we briefly talked about them in terms of their
confidence. They just come off as they're
part of not only are they the most respected order of
knighthood in the entire realm, they are obviously good at
fighting, else they wouldn't be there.
And they're men of privilege, these particular ones anyway,
privileged in terms of being high born and or wealthy.
So there's all sorts of prestige and and reasons to feel
confident when you're that. And this is a Kingsguard that is
well past the name, like Sir Kristen Cole.
So he's not that he's forgotten, but his stain upon the order of
Kingsguard is well in the past and has been since, let's say,
better represented by say, Eamon, the Dragon Knight who
died only 30 years ago. And there was Gwaine Corbrae who
faced Sir Damon Blackfire in the red Grass field and held his
own. And of course, Dunk will of
course join their ranks and his and his deeds will reflect well
on the Kingsguard too. So in this era, the Kingsguard
are, it's not like some of the other areas where there's some
questionable stuff going on. They're pretty much, they're
pretty pretty straightforward, pretty well regarded.
And that seems to be reflected here.
Let's talk a little bit about a few of the other characters as
we get to them. And but Sir Arlen, he he did
definitely had a confidence too. Just that that whole he just got
on with it business. And I guess he has the
confidence of the well endowed. You know, that's also what we
said about Sir Lionel. He just has the confidence of
someone who's done it all and is bored by most of it.
So he just he needs danger to feel alive.
And that's a form of confidence. Just a few examples of lack of
confidence that come up. Plumber looking like a deer in
the headlights. He's afraid of what Dunk will
say and of maybe more of Makar than anything.
Egg being concerned when he sees the Royals.
Egg being concerned about his own size, which we'll talk about
more specifically later when the joust.
Aryan's pride as well. That's that cup keeps coming up
in various regards. And of course, Dunk questioning
himself when he sells sweet foot.
That's the probably when he questions himself the most.
Even though he questions his ability to beat these really
powerful men, it's selling sweet foot that really makes him feel
the worst. He's like, is there any measure
of a fool I fail to measure up to?
That was a great line, but very sad too.
It's kind of like at that moment, at least some part of
him, he was letting some part of him that knew we couldn't win
come forth and he's like, I'm selling a horse anyway.
I know I can't do this and I'm still selling the horse.
Like, what am I doing? Like, he's being determined, but
he also kind of recognizes he's being determined to do something
you can't succeed at. You know, it's a, it's an
interesting internal conflict he's going through.
Right on Steely Pate my my second favorite example of
confidence in this episode. There's so many of them.
It's tough to pick Baylor being number one for me.
This guy is a great example of someone who knows what he is,
knows who he is, and he knows who you are too.
And that's why he likes Dunk, because Dunk is love cut from
the same cloth. Dunk isn't trying to be fancy.
He's not fancy. He knows he's a hedge knight.
He's embracing that he's a hedge knight.
And I think Steely Pate kind of kind of gets that from his brief
interaction with Dunk. He's good at sizing people up.
And yeah, Steely Pate said the same.
He doesn't sell pigs or fancy foreign fruits on his Helms.
He sells the helm that will protect you best when you take a
Lance in the face. It's down to earth, it's not
showy, but it's very effective. And that's what steely Pate the
person is too. His delivery, the actors
deliver. Yousef Karkor, his delivery is
perfect for that. He never raises his voice.
Very little emotion in his voice, but that's on purpose.
And there's enough emotion at different points, like when he
says, oh, the rest, oh, they're just here to to cheer you on,
huh? You know, things like that.
He's puts just enough in there that it, it, it really hits
because he his regular delivery is so stubbornly confidence.
He's got self esteem. He's he's lowborn and common,
but he is, he has no trouble with that.
He has no problem with who he is.
And I love that about him. And I love how that comes
through with this character. I think there's a little bit
similar to how Lionel has this certain expectation when he
encounters someone new. I bet steely Pate does too.
He's probably used to people working some angle right?
Like he knows his armor is worth whatever, you know, 1000 stags.
But some Lord will kind of like, ah well, you don't have any
fancy designs. Why?
There's no end leg, Can you? I I want to see a dragon on the
shoulder or what he was like. And they're wanting to justify
paying him less because it doesn't look fancy.
And he, you know, that that just for as an example, he's used to
having to go through some sort of bargaining to face someone
that thinks they're better than him to someone who's better than
his, someone who's not as good as the armor they're making for
him. You know, he his confidence is
usually greater than the people he has to interact with.
And he still has to interact with them.
Just the nature of his job, right?
But Dunk is just this dude that needs some armor.
He's not coming with any kind of expectations of fancy designs or
opinions about why your armor is not worth as much as you say it
is. I just can't afford it, sorry.
And he's going to leave, you know, pay just sees Dunk's
earnestness in the same way that Lionel did, right?
It's like, oh, wait, you don't have some angle.
You just wanted supper. You just want to buy my armor.
You're not trying to haggle me down.
I tell you what, you know, like it's, I feel like he brought a
more natural Pate out by just being a more natural dunk.
Very well said, Sean, and I think too, this touches on very
briefly the concept of this having some Monty Python vibes.
There's two Monty Python moments. 1 was just what you
described. It wasn't actually in the
episode, but it was implied. Just like what?
You don't want to haggle. You're right.
He doesn't want to haggle. Like, no, it's two.
You said two, I'll give you 2. It's like, it's like, no, you
got to haggle. And the other one was when
Makar's like, OK, you're grateful now fuck off.
You know, it's like it's like the the French knight on the
Holy Grail. My.
Nose on you. So yeah, that's funny.
Yeah, I totally agree with you, Sean.
Like that's why he brings up the no fancy stuff, because he knows
they're going to bring that up as a as a way to downplay the
value. So he he kind of cuts the mind.
He kind of, you know, dips the initiative on that and you're
yeah, the great scenes, the subtle, the subtleties there
were amazing. Can.
We mention the continuity error that we could call the answer
for here. Absolutely.
I wrote it later, but we'll talk about it now.
So there's a little continuity. It may be not an error, but when
they had to gloss over, look at the Gray shield on Dunk's back.
So this is, I think I figured this out.
The original order of the scenes has stale steely paint scene
coming before the shield painting scene, but I they must
have afterwards changed the order.
Decided to do Lionel first because it's all exciting.
It's a great way to kick it off. It's a really great scene.
So they moved this to episode 2. Problem is Dunk was carrying a
shield around after he's already given it to Tanzel.
So they had to edit it to just put no paint on, just make it
Gray. So it's like his backup shield
or something like that. He still wants to walk around
like a knight and he doesn't have enough knightly
accoutrement other than so he just.
Yeah, it's easy to head cannon. Yeah, I, I also noticed, I was
like, wait, why does he have a shield?
That my and I I thought there might have been some continuity
thing with how they filmed it and how they edited the
different episodes afterwards, but decided in my mind it's easy
that oh he just has 2 Shields, he has a practice shield or
whatever. Folks, we could really use your
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you're helping us. I was wrong that the extended
dunk flashback scene that we saw in this season on was in this
episode. I, I won't say exactly what I
was talking about in case you don't want to know 'cause it's
that's more of a true spoiler. Even if you've read the books,
'cause this is not a scene that's in the books.
It's something on me. Like I said this season on
preview that they did after episode 1.
So I predicted in our preview episode that we'd see that this
episode. Well, we didn't.
Well, maybe next episode we'll we'll see.
Definitely more Young Dunk yet to come.
Possibly quite a bit. So far, 2 episodes, flashbacks
in both. Quite possibly we'll have
flashbacks in every single episode.
I don't know. Do you have guesses on that?
Yeah, that's actually the first time I consider that question.
Would you? Yes.
Strong. Yes.
Episodes of every episode, including episode 6, the finale,
there will be some sort of flashback, Even if that
flashback is a flashback we've seen before.
Like we saw it. We saw a flashback in this
episode to him burying Sir Arlen, right?
That was still a flashback and we could see stuff like that as
my point. OK, You feel strongly about it
one way or the other, Sean. Yeah, I, I feel like they're
using flashbacks as part of their storytelling method and
that it will continue which flashbacks him at which point.
I'm not sure. I didn't, I regret watching that
this season on video. And so I haven't gone back and
studied and thought about it. Just saw it one time.
It just had the thought they spoiled too much.
That was just, I tried to like get in my thoughts of that,
yeah. So let's talk about Dunk
actually getting in the tournament.
It's funny that he talks to so many people, so many
high-ranking people, and they all say no.
But the highest ranking person there, the second highest
ranking person in the entire realm, is the one that finally
lets him in. And that's definitely some form
of irony. I don't know exactly what, but
it's definitely something. This scene again, we're coming
back to, we've already talked about the performances and the
and the acting and how straight it was from the book.
But a couple things I hadn't mentioned yet.
In the book, he thinks to himself, I'm speaking with
Baylor Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand to the king
and heir apparent to the Iron Throne of Aegon the Conqueror.
That's pretty much what the herald says.
It's a little different, but they have the Herald announced
that out loud and that's a good example of something that's in
dunks head that they have to find a different way to say out
loud. But in in this case it can't be
dialogue. He can't say I am speaking with
Bailey. You know, that's not that
doesn't work. You have to bring it out an
entirely different way. So that's a good example of
adaptation in action there. You know, it had to change that,
but they didn't change it very much.
It was interesting and understandable and fine, I
think. But this difference in the book
from the book, this this scene, he was looking for plumber, if I
remember right. He went to tell to talk to him
and he wasn't there. And someone said, oh, he's over
in this other place. And Dunk went to this other
place looking for plumber and happened into the rest of these
Targaryens and such right here. It was a plan.
It was a decision. Remember when the Targaryens
first showed up and eggs like, maybe I should get out of here.
Someone recognizing me. I mean, I check on the horses.
Dunk was like, yeah, you go ahead.
I have an idea. I think right at that moment he
knew Baylor. Remember, I need to go find
Baylor. Yeah, I think you're right.
And then you see he sees the door left open, and don't go
skulking about. He goes through the tunnel, you
know, here like this little entrance.
And yeah, it was kind of a calculated plan on his part.
I agree with that. So I think it's one it's
interesting that change and I don't think it like really
changes or spoils anything, but it does do something that to a
theme you're bringing out here. Aziz confidence Dunk had to have
a certain confidence or desperation to make this
decision, you know. Yeah, you're right.
He, he. I think you're right.
It's a combination of both. I think there is some
desperation, lack of other opportunities, as he says to the
sex workers. Like I'm not exactly, you know,
I don't think I have a lot of choices.
I forget how he put it. It was a lot more concise than
that. But yeah, he's like, I'm not.
I don't have a lot of choices, y'all.
My lifestyle doesn't give me a lot of options here.
I'm kind of broke. I love the moment where Dunk
blurts out it was 7 lances. That was a very well done
moment. Like that's a key moment in the
book. And I think this this might be
one of the times where the show did it better.
I love that Makar just laughed. He's like when he corrects him,
he's like, and everybody Plummer like freezes like Oh my God, he
Plummer somehow looked more terrified.
He was already looking terrified.
Somehow he just managed to look more terrified than he already
was. And Dunk's like Sir and told me
I was thick as a castle wall, which is the first time we hear
that line. This is really nice and as slow
as it means. A lot coming from Sir Arlen,
I'll say yeah. So I also like how dunked has
slowly gains confidence as the CNN as he realizes that Baylor
is hey, this this guy is actually really nice.
He's actually very kind and honorable.
And this might work. You know, like you said, Sean,
he he goes in here maybe with a plan or a hope and he's it's
starting to work. It's maybe Lord Ashford isn't on
his side. Plumber's not saying anything.
He's he's not against him. He's not helping.
And Makar is impatient. So he's like, that's the, the,
the obstacle he's facing. There's neither Lord Ashford or
Makar want him there. But Baylor's like throwing him a
rope here. And he's like, I got to take
this. Yeah.
So one of the other things I wanted to say, one of my other
thoughts on this scene, it's something we've touched on a
couple times already, but I think Baylor, just like Pate and
just like Lionel is expecting this guy to come with some sort
of agenda. He's used to people who want to
marry his son or have him send troops to the whatever, or like
maybe they're going to assassinate him or some angle.
But John's like, I just want to be in the tournament, you know,
Sir Arlen, Right. And Bray was like, it kind of
like Lionel is like, what? You just want supper?
You just want. Yeah, you could be in a
tournament, dude. Yeah, I remember Arlen, like
Baylor is like his Shields come down when he realizes, oh, this
is just a dude that just wants help, you know what I mean?
I think that Dunk keeps disarming people with this
earnestness and simplicity. And Makar is laughing because
it's like, oh God, this guy has no idea how to behave in the
presence of royalty. He keeps putting his foot in his
mouth and he and he's kind of right.
And we're kind of laughing too. But Baylor appreciates it.
This guy isn't like trying to angle for some royal favor.
He's just a knight and there's a bunch of Knights and there's a
bunch of good Knights and I don't.
And this guy isn't coming across as someone trying to take
advantage in some way. He's trying.
He's coming across someone who just needs some help.
Let me It's so easy, so easy for me to help this guy.
I don't have to send troops or commit money or marry my son
off. Nothing.
I just have to say, yeah, you could do it.
Yeah, all you got to do is get let the guy in the tournament.
That's easy. That's all you're asking for.
Yeah, it's. You're so right, Sean.
That's real true. And that's part of why Baylor
like Pate and like Tanzel and like other people like Egg, just
they recognize the good in him quickly and they love that,
right? They like that right away.
And that's why they want to help him or or support him or
whatever favor they can do, especially one that's really
easy like this, as you say, it reminds me of the Wire.
We love to quote and refer to It's Always Sunny on this one.
Someone abridged to it with that the character Cuddy in The Wire
who is Z in It's Always Sunny there.
Fred Johnson. Yeah, that's right.
And Fred Johnson on The Expanse, a very rangy actor.
Chad Coleman is his actor's name.
His Wire character was in prison.
He was like a, a, a heavy hitter for a drug gang.
And that goes straight and wants to just teach boxing.
And he goes to ask his old boss, the drug kingpin, for some money
to open the gym. And he's like, man, I, I don't
want to come, you know, I'm just, I want to be real
respectful. I want to ask for this one.
He's like, man, how much do you need?
He's like $10,000. Like, that's all he's like, man,
give him $15,000 and get the hell out of here, you know?
So you really expected him to be asking for, like 50 or 100 way
more. So he's like, oh, that's a
relief. Yeah, 10 Ki got so much money.
That's nothing. Yeah, get out of here.
Like, I'd rather just give you that money and you're wasting my
time, you know? I thought you were going to ask
me for 50K and I was going to need you to kill someone for it.
But yeah, I'm just giving, yeah. One last thing I have two last
things about this scene was when Dunk is just praising he's like
Arlen spoke so highly of Prince Bailor.
Listen that and Makar just goes. This is his exact face.
He rolls his eyes. So well, I hope this is like a
reaction image. Yes, it should be, yes.
Like a Makar's Ugg should definitely be a meme, at least
in this fandom, if not for the broader world.
So like, yeah, he's just not. He's colder.
He doesn't have this intimacy like he doesn't, It doesn't mean
things to him, especially when he's mad in this moment.
And the last thing I wanted to point out is that Baylor doesn't
bring up dunk shield until he turns around and walks out until
he can see the shield, which you don't catch that in the novel
because it's not presented visually.
But it's it's very nice touch that when he sees the shield,
then Baylor, it occurs to Baylor to be like, wait a second, hey,
hang on, bro. Yeah, you're going to have to
paint that. Why do you think the Lady Gwen
called him big and stupid? Why?
Why does she? She seemed almost excited to see
him and interact with him at first, but then she's like, oh,
you're big and stupid and she ran off.
What? What was up with that?
What do you what do you guys? Because she was read on that.
I have a couple reads on on how you could look at it.
This is a 13 year old girl, right?
Like she was trying to have a conversation with him and kind
of gossip and and I don't know, share the tea with him, you know
what I mean? And he just has nothing much to
add or say. And she's like, OK, you're big
and stupid. You're not any help to me at
all. Right?
That's my take. Is she wanted to gossip about
things? I, I, I think you're right.
She she she was waiting for some like, Oh my goodness response.
Right. She was like, wars have been
started for less and he's like, OK.
He's like there and he's not he. Doesn't have any sense of the
drama of it or how big a deal like she's he's useless to her.
Yeah. All right.
That makes sense and. Then later, remember, he says, I
trust they will not be found dead.
And Makar is just like what? What?
Yeah, she. Put that in his head.
Yeah, she did. But then also like, and then you
have the scene where he's talking to Egg and he says
people always, everyone calls me stupid.
He literally just got called stupid by her.
It's like very fresh in his mind.
Even a little girl is calling him stupid.
So let's talk Black Fire stuff here.
We'll do a Black Fire intermission.
One of the many things that make Baylor so confident in who he is
and in everything is that he's a war hero.
He's very skilled at arms. This is the thing that brings
confidence in a world like this is being good at fighting,
especially someone that has a very loud resume.
He fought against the Blackfyres.
He won a battle. He was the the hammer to make
ours anvil at the Battle of the red grass Field.
And he even beat Damon Blackfyre in a famous tournament in the
finals when they were both late in their teens.
So this guy's resume is impressive and it doesn't
require any juking like they're doing with Valar.
Now Makar's resume is quite strong too.
It's just that he's outshine by Baylor.
So there's there's that. Now this is not directly
mentioned that Baylor is a war here.
I imagine they'll come up later but we were hoping for Slash
expecting some black fire mentions and we got 2.
I believe there might have been another one but I only caught 2.
The there wasn't any in episode 1 and the ones here are both
very straightforward. Egg reveals that in the book
that he and Amon Maestro Amon would re enact the Black Fire
rebellion with figurines when they were kids.
They would just play with them and do stuff like that.
So when he's playing with a stick sword here and yelling
take that you black fire, do you yield?
You black fire bastards. That was so cute.
Yeah, it was really cute. It's it's really in line with
what we know about it. He played the Black Fire
Rebellion, so he's playing them here, You know, he's.
Really good acting beat for him, too, because the way he, like,
straightens up and tries to, you know, be proper and like a
little adult, you know, And he sees that Dunk is not kind of
mirroring his excitement. It's just really good, too.
Yeah, it's a good beat because it shows that he's just a kid,
but he's trying and. The other one is Dunk telling
the story of Sir Ireland as he does several times to different
Lords to try to get them to vouch for him.
One time he mentions that Sir Arlen lost his previous Squire
Roger on the red grass field. And that means that Dunk or that
Sir Arlen, you know, has fought for the loyalists.
And of course Roger was his nephew.
So it's it wasn't just his Squire, but it was his blood.
And he was killed by Lord Gorman Peak, who of course is one of
the antagonists in the mystery night.
And I think Lord Gorman Peak is going to appear in the Hedge
night as one of the jousters. I don't think he's going to have
a big role, but he is going to pop up.
With a helm so they don't have to recast.
Yeah, you're right. That's the good, good trick they
can use. It's they don't wear Helms when
they should because they really want you to see who the actor
is. And when they don't want you to
see who the actor is, they're like, oh, he's going to have a
helm on all the time. So that actual anecdote about
Rodger of Penny Tree, Sir Ireland's first choir is
revealed in The Sworn Sword. So all they did was just move it
up a book, move it from. So that's a great way to do it.
They didn't really change anything except when the
anecdote appears. So that's a really good low
impact way to do it without changing much.
We we talked a little bit about Sweet Foot and how sad that was.
I don't know if I have much to add.
We predicted it would be sad. We predicted he would talk to
his horse and it would be an opportunity for some character
work, some nice acting by Peter Claphy and yeah.
That's a way for them to capture the audience for for Dunk,
right? Like you want Dunk to be a
character that the audience just loves, they root for.
And the best way to do that is to have someone be an animal
lover and to really care for their animals from a pet to, you
know, workhorse, to treat them like a pet like that.
And I, you know, I think important in that way to just
really make us love him. Yeah, I totally agree.
The only real big change to the scene was they took out the
haggling, which is not much of A change.
Like he haggles over the price and the guy's like, oh, well,
the the saddle was included. And that's just, yeah, we we
don't really need that. It's that's a fine thing to just
imply. We, we don't, we don't have to
see that, you know. I I do remember in the haggling
in a book, by the way, that one when he first appears, the guy
has high praise for the horse. Then when Dunk says he wants to
sell it, the guy's like, Oh, well, look at all these flaws
the horse has. And Dunk is sure that when he
comes back to buy the horse, to rebuy the horse once he wins and
has a ransom, that all those falls will disappear and it
would be a great horse worth more money.
So yeah, I do think it's something that, if they had
tried to include, would take away from the sentimental moment
of him parting with his friend. Right.
And what? So I think that that I
understand multiple reasons why they might have taken it out the
joust. Begins AKA nights at night or
night night. This is a wild five on five.
It's a bit hard to tell what's going on, but it mostly matches
the novella, the big changes that this happens the next
morning in the novel rather than at night the night before.
So there's the timing is only slightly different, but it
provides them with the ability to punctuate the action with
Dunk having some character moment, thinking about what he's
seen, how it reflects with this theme of of Sir Arlen and legacy
and all that. And then the action continues
presumably in the next episode, but we'll see.
Here is a quote that really helps describe what's going on
and helps us figure out 'cause I had to, you know, we do some
freeze framing and some slowing things down and then referring
to the novel to to for clarification.
So it's the same 10 challengers. That's pretty cool.
And here is how it's quoted in the novel.
The Gray Lion of Casterly Rock struck the shield of Lord Tyrell
while his golden haired heir, SER Tybalt Lannister challenged
Lord Ashford's eldest son. Lord Tully of River Run tapped
the diamond patterned shield of SER Humphrey Harding.
SER Abalar Hightower knocked upon Velars and the younger
Ashford was called out by SER Lionel Baratheon the night they
called the Laughing Storm. So just like they didn't bother
showing the bartering, they didn't bother showing the
challenging. No need for that.
You can see who challenged to just based on who's lined up for
who. They did, however, show Lord
Tully biting the head off of fish as if he were some sort of
a Westerosi Ozzy Osbourne. And since there's a House Wild
Kingsguard, remember Willem Wild is one of the three Kingsguard
remember? We're halfway to one of the
latter incarnations of Black Sabbath because Zack Wylde was
the guitarist of of one of the later incarnations along with
Ozzy Osbourne. And he uses spirals on his
guitars. That's like his thing spirals
and house white. Yellow, just like House Wild.
Yeah, and house wild sigils or whirlpools, which is basically a
spiral, so say. About this, I don't know, fish
eating fish head scene. Us Tully's do not claim Medgar.
I will say as as Oscar Tully, we we don't claim him.
He's not of us. But look Egg later says the fish
biting was really disgusting. Look at his during it when it's
happening, he is cheering. He's caught up in the moment for
all he says it was disgusting later he seems very into it.
And look at Dunk's faces is not into it from there.
Yeah, but Egg is is well caught up in the theater of it all.
I agree I. Haven't thought on that by the
way. Really.
Go for it. It's connected to another
thought. Is this battle, you know, joust
starts to unfold. I, I didn't catch it.
I, I can't believe I didn't catch it the first time I
watched it. But you know, the night they
kind of charged across and a couple get knocked down and they
come to the other side and they turn to come again.
And by the way, that's where the name tournament comes from that
that turn around moment when after they go past and turn and
come back to feature, that's where the word tournament came
from. But in that moment, you know,
Lance's have been shattered and horses are rearing up and
there's a little bit of a urgency to turn back and ride
down the lane again. And the Squires, you're like
dodging huge ton, tons of tons of human and equine flesh to
like get the Lance back into the hand of the knight that they
charged back down and it was very chaotic and dangerous and
and those were sturdy men as the Squires there.
And Egg starts to look kind of drained, disheartened, even
looks down at his own hands and he wants Dunk to set him down.
And I didn't realize what was going on there first, but I did
eventually. I did.
He's like, I can't do that. I can't do that.
I'll get knocked down. I can't reach the the Lance.
I'll try to hand it some horse or some of the Squires going to
bump into me. Like I just don't, I can't be a
Squire, not at this type in this moment, in this scene.
Like I don't think I can do it. I think he's like seeing the
reality of it just like Dunk. And I think that might even be
later on while he is like, God, the fishing was disgusting
because in that moment he's all excited.
But then when reality starts to sink in, he's like, I don't know
if I like this reality after all that fishing was kind of gross,
actually. And Dunks going through the same
thing is like, geez, this is they're not messing around.
These guys are experts. They know what they're doing and
it's dangerous and I don't think I can win, you know, maybe I
won't die, but I don't think I can win.
And I think Egg is. I don't think I could Squire for
dunk in this kind of environment, you know?
I think both of them, it's a reality check, you know?
Absolutely. That's, and that's some of the
confidence I was talking about. Egg is very confident in
general, but he's, but the thing about his size and not being big
enough and you look like you don't eat enough, you know,
comes even in the book when Egg is sitting on Dunk's shoulders.
Dunk thinks of Eggs, pipe stem, arms, you know, like that's the
description pipe stem, which is that's very skinny.
So that was very good character work.
I agree. That was something that's really
important that they brought out. That's something that Egg has to
reckon with, and Dunk has to reckon with he and and neither
of them necessarily has fully grasp what the other is going
through yet. Maybe Egg does a little more,
because Egg knows what Dunk is facing.
He's like, those guys are really good.
He knew that already. But Dunk doesn't necessarily
realize what Egg is feeling about not being large enough.
So regarding all of the armor and Helms and whatnot, we're
hopeful that they'll release the making of which they haven't
done. For episode 2, they actually had
a tour of Ashford Meadow, of Ashford Meadow by Dexter, Sol
and Cell that was posted and deleted within about 10 minutes
after the episode. And so I think they posted the
wrong BTS and didn't replace it with the right BTSI assumed
there would be 1. But I would like you to know
that the visuals here, there's a lot of really beautiful,
beautiful details on the horses, on the armor, on their Helms,
like from the beautiful blue scales on the Tullys to the lion
helm on the Lannisters. You know, there's just obviously
we've seen Lionel Baratheon's antler helm a bunch.
We've now get a closer look at Valor's kind of Ridge armor,
which is really straight from the graphic novel, the comic,
right? I think very, very similar to
the comic. And we see like House Tyrell has
like a flower on their helm, you know, like just speaking to what
steely paint was talking about, that all of these guys have the
most ridiculous Helms. Look at Medgar Tulley's fish
head on his helm. And like the it's just
craziness. It's just utter craziness to me.
And I, I just love seeing it. And hopefully next week we're
able to have some real good concepts, art, sketches, all of
that for you guys from the BTS. It would be a real, real shame
if we didn't because, yeah, that's a lot of cool work.
Like, we love to get good looks at the armor and heraldry.
It's really fun and a lot of work goes into it.
So, you know, I want to, I want to show respect for all that
effort. So here's the challengers and
champions and a little bit of a breakdown of what happens both
in book and show. We have the challengers who are
the Gray Lion, his son and heir, Sir Tybalt Lannister.
We have Lord Tully, Ozzy Tully as I'll call him, get Elmo,
Oscar, Grover and Kermit. Why not Ozzy?
And then Sir Abelar Hightower, who is the heir to the
Hightower? And look at.
His Hightower helm here. Yeah, he's that tall, actually.
Got the Hightower which seems crazy again, so dangerous.
Which maybe, maybe Sir Lionel, who's the last challenger in
the, in the novel, he specifically knocks a lot of
those off. He, he aims for the heraldry,
the, the sigil on top of the helmet and he's very good at it.
And then he throws them to the Commons.
So then as far as the Champions, the Champions are Leo
Longthorne, the 2 Ashford sons, Andrew and Robert, Prince Valar,
and then Humphrey Harding. So what you have is in total you
have two Lannisters, 2 Ashfords, five members of a great house,
three of whom are Lords and the other two who are heirs to
lordships and a Prince. And the non great house is
Hightower which is almost a great house.
And then the Ashford's aren't a great house, but it's their
tournament and the only guy who isn't in a famous house or part
of the family hosting the tournament is Sir Humphrey
Harding. And that is because he's just
that good. And the novella says he won a
great melee at Maidenpool last year, Sir, and overthrew Sir
Donald of Duskindale and the Lords Aaron and Royce in the
list. So he, yeah, he's just a badass.
And that is implied by the fact that he is way lower ranked than
the rest. He's not even from the same
region. He's from the Vale.
And all these pretty much the rest of these houses are either
reach West or, well, Tully of course is from the Riverlands.
So that's notable. So of the five challengers,
you've got a high tower and four great houses, which is very much
reflected by how Dunk said he's like, yeah, the all the the
fancy people get to go 1st and these are pretty much the
fanciest people there. You got the three champions who
are Lord Leo and a Prince and then this bad ass Veilman and
then the two, you know, home team guys.
So here is the book version of how it begins.
Another great quote that I think is very well reflected in the
action we see. So it's worth mentioning here
quote. As the Champions trotted into
position, Ashford Meadow grew almost still.
Then a horn sounded, and stillness turned to tumult in
half a heartbeat. 10 pairs of gilded spurs drove into the
flanks of 10 Great War horses. 1000 voices began to scream and
shout. 40 Iron shot Hooves pounded and tore the grass. 10
lances dipped and steadied. The field seemed almost to
shake, and champions and challengers came together in a
rending crash of wood and steel. In an instant the riders were
beyond each other, Wheeling about for another pass.
Lord Tully reeled in his saddle, but managed to keep his seat.
When the Commons realized that all 10 of the lances had broken,
a great roar of approval went up.
It was a splendid omen for the success of the tourney and a
testament to the skill of the competitors.
You can even see Lord Tully reeling and barely keeping his
seat, and I'm pretty sure all 10 lances broke.
It's not as apparent they don't show it that way, but I'm pretty
sure that's what happens. And then just like in the book,
it says Squires handed fresh lances to the jousters.
And this is when we see the point Sean made, which I think
is a great point. I noticed that, too.
He's, you know, feeling unconfident and whether he can
is capable of doing this. Valar does defeat Sir Abelar, as
he as he does in the novella. It's the start of him facing a
lot of easy foes. In the show, we get a version of
that. Dunk assumes that the Prince is
the favorite, and Egg says, I'll take that bet, Sir.
In the book, the way it goes is he found himself wondering if
Valar had indeed inherited a measure of his father's prowess,
or whether it had only been that he had drawn the weakest
opponent. So he doesn't have the same
assumption in the book, but he does make a different assumption
about Aryan later. He's like, I can't believe Aryan
would do that on purpose. So he does have, Dunk does have
that thing that he has to unlearn, which is that just
because someone's higher ranked doesn't mean they're a better
person. And that's another part of that
theme that we'll continue to see play out presumably in the next
episode, because I think that's when Aryan will do that to Sir
Humphrey, Sir Lionel. This is where I think I can
understand where they get some of the idea that he's a little
unhinged. This is I'll read this quote.
It's really brief. In the book.
It says against lesser foes, he would often break into booming
laughter the moment they touched his shield and laugh all the
time. He was mounting and charging and
knocking them from their stirrups the whole time, from
the moment they tap on his shield, from the moment he
knocks them off their horse. That's like 10 minutes.
Is he lit really laughing for 10 minutes straight?
OK, that's a good thing. Humor.
He's. Got a great sense of humor.
Either way, this is one of those rare like the show is doing a
better job with the character and it's not like George did a
bad job, he just didn't develop this character very much.
You could even remember from that quote the moment of
silence. There's a moment of silence
before the horn. The difference in the show was
that guy yelling Lord Ashford fucks his sheep so.
And can I say when he says that, which is like, well, if there's
a moment of silence, someone might take the opportunity to,
you know, say their snarky remark, you know?
But if you look at the dais, Makar here is is amused.
Baylor is amused. They both have a sense of humor.
Ashford is uncomfortable. Aryan just doesn't even really
seem to care. And the ladies that are behind
Ashford are laughing too. Like whatever his his mother.
I don't know who that is, but like it seems like everyone is
is pretty amusing by it to me. Even Baylor has a smile on his
face. Yeah, that's a good catch.
I didn't notice those reactions. That's really funny.
I didn't. I didn't at first, but I did,
you know, probably my third watch.
I did particularly took note of how Aryan is.
I don't know, I can't read his reaction there.
It's like. He doesn't have much reactions
at all. I don't think.
Aryan wants to see nobility made fun of by a commoner.
I don't think he finds that funny.
I think if someone else roasted Ashford maybe he would laugh.
But he doesn't show emotions I think.
Yeah, I don't, Yeah. I don't think he shows his
emotions and I don't think, yeah, I don't think he respected
that particular joke. I think he has enough of a
sense. I I hesitate to call it a sense
of humor, but a cruel humor. I think he would laugh at
something. Yeah.
You know he's not humorless is my point.
Yeah, he would laugh at someone falling on their face, maybe.
Or he would. Someone get hurt.
He would laugh at that guy getting getting hit by his
horse. And he had seen it, Yeah.
Some lower born person being made fun of he might laugh at,
but he doesn't like the idea that a lower born person would
make fun of a higher born. Person yeah, he only likes to
punch down. He does he he believes in the
opposite of what what most of us believe how comedy should work.
He he likes punching down where everybody else is like, no, you
should punch up. So as I mentioned briefly, this
scene in the novel happens in the morning.
It's it's the beginning of the next day of the jousting to
start. So they just did it this way
because it would look cool in the night.
It would look it's different and it allows them to punctuate it
with Dunk and AG having some reflection time on what they've
just seen, allowing some more character moments these which
character moments in the novel happen in Dunk's head.
So this is another example of how an adaptation just has to
work. Sometimes it's not just adding
dialogue. So sometimes it is.
Sometimes you also have to create a scene for that dialogue
to fit in because you can't just have Dunk all of a sudden start
talking during this tournament, right?
When everybody's yelling and shouting and the action is just
too much to keep up with. You can't also have him talking.
You know, that's other than to like interject something here
and there to go, whoa, you know, things like that.
So they have to create a scenario for this dialogue to
make sense. And that's what they did here by
putting this moment between the tournament and the next day's
action. It's not like you can't have
dunk or some character speak at all during the tournament, But
it's difficult to have a reflective moment, which is what
we have like witness the tournament.
Then they go back to go to, to sleep and they reflect on the
day. And that that would be harder to
do if this tournament happened first thing in the morning.
So I it's it's a a minor change I think works really well for
multiple reasons. Totally agree.
Did you talk about Leo Tyrell here?
No, I was about to though, so here, here's something that's
really hard to follow, but we pieced it together by Zoom and
Enhance and slowing things down so the action happens like this.
Valar goes against Sir Abelar, Hightower knocks him down,
Abelar's horse crashes through the barrier, he falls down, and
that's him looking up right here.
Leo Tyrell's coming right at him, and he's like, uh oh.
So Tyrell tosses his Lance aside so that he can pull the reins
and try to stop. He's still he's unable to stop
completely, so he falls off. He drops his shield as well.
Then as his opponent is coming the other way, which is a
Lannister, you can see the horse.
He grabs his Lannister, the Lannister horse, which is no
longer has a rider on it, and gets back on and then goes down
the lane with it and scoops up Harold Harding's shield.
So you have Leo Tyrell on Damon Lannister's horse holding
Harding's shield. I'm sorry, I do that all the
time. Humphrey Harding's shield.
Yeah, that's like the 20th time I've said Harold instead of
Humphrey anyway, so he it's very confusing.
It's already kind of chaotic in the 1st place, but you end up
with Leo Tyrell. To repeat, Leo Tyrell is halting
is sitting on the Gray lion's horse while holding Humphrey
Harding's shield. Yeah, you can.
Yeah, you can see the flower helm here for when it makes it
confusing. The Helms are so ornate that it
helps you figure out who's who. Yeah, yeah.
I'm glad you're. The color's out, too, because I
was having a hard time piercing together.
I was like, who was that that jumped back up on the horse?
I had a hard time. Figuring out.
So this guy was Mr. Sour Leaf himself, Leo Longthorne Tyrell.
That's right. We thought it was Humphrey
Harding, which would have made sense because he's such a bad
ass. Yes, but no it it is not.
So is Longthorne. So yeah, I mean, that's how he
Longthorne got his name, by being such an amazing jouster.
That's Longthorne is refers to Lance's.
So just to be clear, the matchups are Gray Lion versus
Longthorne, his heir versus Andrew Oshford.
All right? He said these Tully versus
Harding, Tablar versus Valar and Lionel versus the other Ashford.
So that's pretty much it for the action.
I'm sure we'll have more action to talk about next time because
there's a lot more jousting action to come.
The other trailer scenes we've seen are during the day, so I
don't think there's any more night jousting.
I think they just do the initial part in the at night, which is
it's a fine way to do it as you said and as I said.
So let's all talk about our last bit here.
But regarding that, a lot of people have asked about why egg,
why no one in the dais recognizes egg, Seize egg.
Right, that's pretty far away. I that's what I'm saying is it's
very far away and two eggs. Head was wasn't shaved at that
point. They're not looking for a bald
boy. Holy Daron knows Holy Daron.
He's not there, so that's your answer, but it's also just very
far. I don't think they can really
see faces like that at all from that distance.
It's also the concept that we see in a Catelyn chapter when
she is on the road in disguise and Jason Mallister passes right
by, looks right at her and doesn't recognize her.
And he and Jason Alfred knows what she looks like.
And it's because he just is not expecting a person who looks
like a commoner to be Lady Tully.
Like he just doesn't occur to him at all.
And this is the same thing here is they they just would not
expect egg to be there. So they're not.
This not doesn't occur to them to even look, they just see a
bald kid from far away, if they even see him at all.
By the way, it really sucks to be behind Duncan Egg at that
tourney. Like you like made your way to
the front and then this giant of a man gets in front of you and
puts an even talk. It's a kid on top of you, Yeah.
As someone who goes to concerts a lot, I would not be having
that. If I could say one other thing,
by the way, I think it's worth clarifying, especially because I
was thinking about all this sort of chaos as the first pass goes
and the riders turn and the Squires give them Lance as they
go again. Did that might have been an
extra surprise to egg the nature of how that went, because this
isn't a standard tournament, right?
Tournaments can be run in a lot of different ways, and this one
seems to be particularly unique where you have a set of five
champions and five people challenge each of them and then
they all ride together. Like usually you would just have
one rider versus one rider and you wouldn't have quite the
tumult and chaos at either end that you have here it.
Wouldn't be at night either. Yeah, you're totally right.
Yeah. Yeah, so that might have taken
Egga back seeing how this goes, even though he should have a
certain and and dunk too, I guess have a certain amount of
experience witnessing tournaments.
This one's going a little different than normal, a little
extra chaos and maybe a little extra prowess on display at
once, which maybe also it would help to explain in addition to
the distance and Egg not fitting the profile they're looking for.
And they're not really looking for Egg at this moment.
Like no one expects him to be just over there in the crowd.
They're not. Really looking at the commoners.
Right, exactly. There's more to look at.
There's more to look at at this tournament than most.
There's a lot happening all at. Once and it's dark.
That's true, yeah. Like there's lighting on these
people. It's not, they wouldn't really
look that light. There's there's artificial
lighting on them so we can see their faces, but it's not really
that well lit that. Would be right.
The torches that would be lighting the way for the crowd
to see into the jousting lanes would be blinding to the people
on the days, right. They if they looked up into the
crowd on the other side, they'd be looking up in that torch
light which blind them. So they don't do that.
They look down at what everyone is looking at is the jousters.
So yeah. So this last part is called
Dunk's Determination. He gets pretty serious seeing
what he sees in the joust. He sees, like you said, Sean,
what he's up against. It's a lot more intense than
maybe what he was expecting. Even though he's seen it before,
he's never really pictured himself doing it.
Certainly not against people of this status, because it isn't
just their equipment and their training.
It's just who they are that's intimidating.
Now he works his way through that a bit.
And as he's thinking about it during this last scene, we get
that moment where AG is playing out the black fire stuff and he
catches on the Dunk is is lost in thought and he says, is
everything OK, Sir? And Dunk is just thinking about
this. He's like, yes, Sir, Arley.
That's when he brings up the point about do great nights die
on the side of the road in the mud?
And it's like he's reached a decision.
He's like, yeah, I admit it. He he was a hard man to know,
you know, he wasn't such a great guy, but he had some good
qualities. I'm his only legacy.
I got to do it. You know, this is what I'm
doing. I'm his legacy, whether or not
he was a great night or not, I'm his legacy period.
And I'm and I, even though I see what I'm up against, that's what
I got to do. No chance, no choice.
You know, it kind of comes down to that.
And I love how he it resolves with him taking a rough bite off
the hard salt beef at the end as he's as he's framing his
determination to do what he has to do here.
Again, mirroring the scene where he feeds it to Sir Arlen and
obviously a food that he probably thinks even in that
moment of like of of that scene, right?
It's it's, yeah, it is. It's it's symbol, symbolic of
their lifestyle. The hard salt beef is the meal
of the hedge night, perhaps more than anything else.
And then Arlen had his heart salt beef.
Sorry, sorry. Soft salt beef, yeah.
I also think that Dunk is on on some level he thinks or has
thought right, Arlen is great. I will be great too.
Now he's starting to think, was Arlen great?
Am I great? Can I be great?
If he was great and I think there's at least an amount of he
was he was great, doggone it, and I'll be great also.
And I think part of that comes through it, it it's it's so well
presented. When he asks, I'm not going to
quote it correctly, but he says something to the effect of, you
know, or it might have even been Egg that said it.
But all these noble Lords don't even remember him.
Like, yeah, like in Dunk's mind, he's a great man.
But all these nobles, all these great Knights and all these
Lords of the Lamb, they don't remember him.
And I think the question is, there's two questions.
One is, was Arlen really that great?
The other is, are these Lords really that noble?
Shouldn't they remember a great man?
What you know, and Dunk, Dunk is maybe waffling between these.
It seems like right now that the main feed that we're getting as
the audience is like, I don't know, maybe Arlen wasn't that
great, but I think that, you know, whatever the intention is,
right from the books we learn the nobles are not that great.
Or maybe, maybe not, but the nobles are not that great.
Like, not like none of them, no matter what.
Baylor seems to be fine. Maybe Lionel, but a lot of these
guys are not that great. And it's not a knock on Owen
that they don't remember him. Yeah, I agree.
It's not a knock on them, you know.
I don't think we mentioned this when talking about Baylor.
I want to throw it out there. We all and many other people
separately are like Baylor gives sober and Martel vibes.
You have to think that Bernie Carville had took some
inspiration or that the costuming did or something.
But there there's definitely a commonality between them that I
think lots of people are seeing. Yeah, I can see that too.
I hadn't really thought about it, but I did see a few people
talking about it that way. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I can see
that. So I say that my predictions for
the end of episodes three to six are looking strong.
So to follow along with that discussion, check out our
preview episodes on Fridays at 5:30.
Very short, 20 to 30 minutes. And just to see what's coming
up, we talk about the trailer and other predictions like that
place for some more spoilers in terms of what's coming on the TV
show. Obviously, I'm now we're
operating as if you have read the novel or don't mind novel
spoilers. So that's how we're going to
operate the rest of the season. Trivia are the question was
which night of the Kingsguard dueled Damon Blackfyre during
the Battle of Red Brass Field? The answer, Sir Gwain Corbrae
and he was wielding Lady Forlorn, which means it was
Valyrian steel versus Valyrian steel.
Sir Eustace Ozgre describes the sound of those two blades
hitting each other as something special.
And we can maybe even get some of that.
We might even get flashbacks of that exact duel or snippets of
it when in season 2. I really hope so.
So cross your fingers. Now begin your prayers to the
Seven and whoever else you pray to for good results on
television. Our poll was favorite
performance by a non Duncan Egg character.
The results were 12% Tanzel, 13% Steely Pate, 14% make our 61%
Baylor. So Baylor not quite as dominant
as Lionel Storm was in week 1, but another dominant choice.
So it seems like we have a scene stealer, a clear scene stealer
each of the 1st 2 episodes. If you want to follow along some
of this lore in the book version, we of course have our
Hedge Night reviews and The Sworn Sword and the Mystery
Night. We did 5 episodes on each, four
to go through the text and one to wrap it up.
We have that now. The Hedge Night episodes are re
hitting our feed every Thursday during the season.
We also have a two-part episode on Baylor Break Spear, his full
Life and Times, legacy and everything.
And we have one on the death of Makar, which is pretty far in
the future, but it is Makar content and Targaryens of this
era content. We also have a episode on Blood
Raven, who hasn't really come up yet, but he's certainly around
in this era and that's pretty fun.
So definitely check out those if you want to stay locked in to
this time frame in the world of Westeros.
Thanks to everybody for being here today.
If you joined us live, we certainly appreciate that.
It's a lot of fun to have people here with us when we're
recording. Thanks to those of you who
support us on Patreon. It's great to have you all
members behind us and making sure we can do this every week.
Thanks to Bran the Builder for our lovely new intro.
We're very happy with it. Lots of people have.
I've been praising it and I can see why I've been praising it
too. So we are excited to continue
playing that all season long. On behalf of Sean and Ishaya,
thanks everybody. You know what to do.
Till next time, Valerie Ritas.