14: "Rhaenyra the Cruel" (S2E2)

[00:00:00] This week we're discussing the House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2, Raniera the Cruel. So HBO doesn't have any synopsis, they haven't updated their website which I found really odd that there's no mention of season 2 except for the trailers.

[00:00:46] But I did get this very brief synopsis from IMDb it says both Allison and Raniera are facing the consequences of the murder of King Aegon's heir. That's true. That's totally true, yes. Veronica, you want to go first? Sure.

[00:01:07] So I sort of have three points that I broke out. You know, I'm really tired because I just got off of a work trip and I felt like with the way my brain is working right now it just sort of is summarized as like green's

[00:01:21] sad, green's bad, green's mad which is just basically that we got some sadness and empathy for House Green. We saw some guilt in House Green and then we saw vengeance from House Green.

[00:01:37] So I think I'll just start out with the empathy that they played up for House Green. And I mean this both in the realm but also with the viewers because I certainly felt more empathy for many of the members of the House Green even those that I don't

[00:01:56] really like very much week to week. I agree. And so obviously, you know, they're all in mourning or most of them I think are in, you know, legitimate mourning not just at the offense of the attack but, you know,

[00:02:14] true sadness at the loss of this child that many of them very much did care about. And I think they set that up really nicely last week and sort of showing us a whole another side to Aegon so that we could believe that he was legitimately mourning

[00:02:31] his son. And so it's pretty, it's pretty sad for me as a viewer to have had to watch Alison and Helena, you know, ride in that procession behind the prince. And I think Otto was correct in sort of his approach to that.

[00:02:54] I do think it was smart and I do also think his argument that it helped the senseless death mean something was also valid. Even if it was a play, I think it did also sort of honor and show the horror of what happened to this poor child.

[00:03:12] And so I just felt, yeah, I felt heartbroken watching them have to have to go through that procession. Helena herself is just a complete victim in all of this, you know, I think if there's anyone who's innocent and house green, it's her.

[00:03:31] And after all the trauma she'd been through to have her have to sit there and, you know, see her son with his little head sewn back on. So I watched that. It was just terrible. And so I felt, you know, sad for her.

[00:03:49] And I felt sad for Alison, you know? I mean, even though Alison has sewn a lot of the seeds of the treachery that's happening, I don't think anyone deserved this level of trauma. And then, you know, we saw multiple scenes of Aegon outside of his raging and ranting.

[00:04:12] We saw true sadness. You know, I think that moment that he and Helena passed one another on the stairs. Nothing was said, but you really saw the pain that they were both feeling. I wasn't completely sure how to read that scene at first.

[00:04:28] But then I watched the after show and it sort of confirmed that what they were going for was them both recognizing that they were both the only ones who truly understood the pain they were going through.

[00:04:39] And so just, I guess, I'm not going to go deeper into any of those scenes in case someone wants that to be one of their points. But just in general, thinking through all these moments that really, to me, made me feel empathy for the Greens

[00:04:53] that in past episodes, I've struggled to really find that empathy for them. I agree. We have a lot of teen black cheers and I feel like they're really testing our convictions with these first two episodes. Yeah. Ready? You want to go next? Yeah.

[00:05:15] So my first point is brothers, but not the main brothers. So on the after show, Alex had put the title of the episode as I love you, brother and Wendy, you and I both believe that was really the title.

[00:05:30] And I think that would have been a great title for the episode. Although I will say Raniera the Cruel, which is the actual title of the episode, is a reference to Maygor the Cruel, who was the third Targaryen king son of Aegon the Conqueror

[00:05:47] and his sister wife Vesena. And he's the one who built all the secret passageways in the Red Keep. And one of the many reasons that he's known as Maygor the Cruel is that he had he put all the builders to death

[00:06:00] so that nobody would know about the tunnels, not that it did any good because it seems like everybody knows about that. Right. But anyway, so Eric and Arik are, you know, the primary brothers in this episode.

[00:06:15] But there's many brother things going on beyond that in this in this episode. Daemon and Raniera in their conversation, they talk about Daemon's relationship with Viserys and Daemon thinks that Viserys feared him and Raniera says, no, he didn't fear you. He couldn't trust you.

[00:06:41] And that difficult relationship between those two brothers is a big part of what has brought us to this civil war. Now, did you start say something? No, but I think you're right. I think it doesn't seem like Daemon has evolved

[00:07:01] past those issues that he had so long ago. No, not at all. Then we see another pair of brothers because we're introduced to Adam, who is Alan's brother. We met Alan in episode one and now we've met his brother, Adam. And they're clearly very affectionate brothers.

[00:07:22] They're very close. They seem to have a really good relationship. Wow, how does that happen? A good relationship between family members and now the dragon. So that's a very different pair of brothers. And did you notice when Adam is out on the beach digging clams and crabs?

[00:07:44] He sees sea smoke, which was Lenors. Correct. That was Lenors Dragon. Yes, I didn't know which dragon it was, but I'm glad. Yeah. Yes. So he needs a rider. Sea smoke does not have a rider currently, yes. Yeah. Another thing about brothers is that Jace,

[00:08:06] when he's talking with Bela, he talks about missing his brother, Luceris. So sweet. Yeah. Aegon and Amond are a pair of brothers who in this episode, they are never in the same room with each other. We never see them together. So.

[00:08:27] Amond, as Aegon's brother, could be a potential source of comfort solace to his brother, but he's never, he's never present. And then a really interesting thing happens. Otto mentions their younger brother, Daron, for the first time. And in effect, he's threatening both of them

[00:08:52] with that reference to their younger and more cooperative brother. It's like he's saying to Allison, you know, well, we could do away with both Aegon and Amond if they don't serve our purposes and replace them with Daron who would be next in line for the throne.

[00:09:11] So those were those were the brother pairings that I observed in this episode that I thought all of which were interesting. I did think it was interesting that they mentioned, is it Daron? I mean, obviously setting that up for something. But he would be quite young.

[00:09:35] He would be younger than Amond, so at least 14 or 15, I guess. I think he's 15. And he has a dragon named to Cereon. I'll just kind of piggyback on what Veronica was talking about. I couldn't help but notice the Greens are so disconnected from each other.

[00:09:59] And I thought about the differences in Rhaenara and Allison and their children. And just in general, the Greens versus the blacks. In the Greens, no one consoles anyone. No one hugs anyone. Allison has multiple opportunities to console Aegon and she lacks instead

[00:10:21] to go get it on with Kristen. And, you know, in the end, poor Aegon is just left weeping alone. And it was really sad. And I did see someone kind of defending that and that she didn't want

[00:10:39] to make him weak or something, but I just didn't buy that. You would hug your child, you would grab them and hug them. And she doesn't even hug Helena when they're in the process. She doesn't touch any of them.

[00:10:51] I mean, I think she kind of puts her hands on Helena's back for a minute and Helena pushes her away. Yeah. But when they're in the procession, Allison is grasping Helena's leg like she's holding her in place rather than comforting her in any way. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:09] No one acknowledges the personal loss for that Aegon and Helena have gone through. And Allison is just, you know, coming to her and telling her what she has to do after this terrible loss doesn't touch her. She's just there to make her get in line.

[00:11:30] And I saw the scene with Aegon passing Helena on the stairs. And yes, I think it was a testament to both of their griefs. But also I think it's a testament to how disconnected they actually are from each other

[00:11:44] and how they can't console each other because they don't have that relationship. I agree. And it just made me sad. Or the emotional skills probably, like they haven't seen that mirrored in their family at all.

[00:11:57] I didn't buy what they said in the behind the scenes about that that was a moment of connection because it's not staged that way. They're ones coming downstairs, ones going upstairs and they meet on this wide landing.

[00:12:09] So there's constantly distance between them and they're literally going two different directions. So that visual language says they're disconnected. And I thought Helena was looking for something from him that he's not capable of giving her. Yeah. I had read it very differently as well.

[00:12:29] And so I'm kind of glad that you disagreed because I was like, maybe I'm just not getting what they were going for. But to me, it almost looked like surprise on Helena's face to see that he was actually possibly

[00:12:43] legitimately grieving and that she was like, oh, and he just seemed like I have no idea what I could possibly say to you in this moment. Like I don't know how to deal with that and moved on.

[00:12:55] And so it sounds like probably most of us were reading something different than what they said. They're all so alone. Yes. It's so sad. Did you think, I mean, I think we have the pattern of Alison not being able to,

[00:13:14] for probably a multitude of reasons, maintain a close emotional relationship with her children. But I also wondered if another part of her turning away from Aegon in that moment had to do with the immense guilt she seems to be carrying at this being in some way her fault.

[00:13:34] Right. And so like, how can I even comfort him when I feel like I need to confess to someone that this happened because of me? Definitely. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I agree. And we see Aamond naked curled up on an older sex worker's lap getting comfort.

[00:13:55] The only way he seems to know how confiding in her, I mean they are just so detached from each other. Yes. And what Aamond is telling her is that he's figured out that he was the target. Yeah. And his reaction to that is, oh, Damon must fear me.

[00:14:16] He's kind of proud of having been the target. And he's not really interested in sex. He just seems to be getting some kind of comfort from her. Maybe she's safe for him. And contrasting that is Team Black, we see Renea playing with her small children

[00:14:41] even in her, I mean she's had a tough couple weeks. We see Bayla and Jay super cute together. I really like their chemistry and I don't think they've developed that enough. I think I'd like to see more of that affectionate caring.

[00:15:00] We hear of what growing up was like for Jayce. He had two fathers who really cared about him. Lainer taught them to fish and sing sailor songs. Harwin made them feel loved. And you can just see the difference in the way they grew up.

[00:15:16] Even the exchanges between Renea and her servants, you can tell they really love her and that she is kind and familiar to them. And I just thought it was a big contrast. Now, Renea and Damon is a whole other story, but I think with her children.

[00:15:36] And that's why they're loving, kind, loyal, honorable for the most part people. Even we got Horliss and Renea. It's like a loving scene for them too. So yeah, I love that scene. That was like my favorite scene in the entire show. You needed that.

[00:15:55] You need those little snippets of joy and happiness. All right, Veronica. I think I'll just keep continuing on the theme of house green and talk about the guilt of house green, which I've already alluded to some in Alice really blaming herself.

[00:16:17] I was just sort of like, okay, if you're going to blame the god or universal karma for what has happened here, it's probably not that you suddenly slept with Kristen Cole. It's like maybe that you've been sowing the seeds of war for decades and

[00:16:35] they killed a son in your family because your family killed a son in theirs. And to me, it was just like sort of ridiculous, but also makes sense in her warped view of reality, I think. And I don't even think it's her fault, right?

[00:16:51] Like she is, as we've seen all throughout her character, she's following rules that are set down in front of her and not necessarily thinking through the choices. She's making her choices based often on those rules. And I thought it was interesting, this guilt is also leading to them

[00:17:13] not only avoiding each other, Wendy, but blaming each other. Like many of them lashed out and questioned other people not because they legitimately believe that because they're feeling guilty and they're fearful and it's causing distrust. And so we saw Alice in question Cole if he had told anyone.

[00:17:33] We saw Aegon immediately question Cole in the small council room. Why didn't you stop this? Why weren't you there? We see also the whole plan that gets set into place with Sir Eric, I think immediately stemmed from Cole's guilt at not really doing his duty. Definitely. Yes.

[00:17:56] What a slimy thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing for him to have hatched that plan and it still would have been crappy because he's asking a white cloak to sort of choose between honor and duty essentially or almost honor and honor.

[00:18:15] Like he's sort of damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. And so it would have been crappy no matter how we asked him to do it but to do it the way he did where he was very accusatory

[00:18:24] and like you need to fix this because it's somehow your fault was just so icky to me and it was because Cole was just trying to make it be anyone else's fault but his own because he was feeling guilty.

[00:18:36] See, I'm not sure if I thought that at first but like on second watch I just thought it was all orchestrated and he doesn't he doesn't seem I know he says like he can't attend for anything

[00:18:52] but I feel like at this point he's like I'm gone so nothing else that I do matters and I had a question about that. Do you think Aegon asked him to do those things or do you think he did those things and then told Aegon he did it?

[00:19:14] I think he did it and then told Aegon. I agree and the weird thing is I think he had just told Aegon about it when Otto comes in and and Aegon tells Otto. The weird thing about it is that Kristen actually has no authority to do that. Right.

[00:19:31] He's just the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and he has given an order for someone to go assassinate Rhaenyra without the permission of the king or the hand of the king he's just gone rogue there.

[00:19:46] And do you think he did it because I know in the last episode they talked about maybe we'll go talk to the king and press our ideas and I was thinking maybe that's why he did it but what a risk.

[00:20:02] I mean what a risk to take if you know if it went a different way Otto probably would have had his head. No if it went a different way. Yeah.

[00:20:15] Yeah I agree it was a risk but I do think if anyone could impact Aegon or Aemond it's Kristen Cole. I mean if anyone was closer to a father figure and I'm not saying he was a good or a close or

[00:20:32] emotional father figure but if there was anyone in their lives that filled that sort of you know role for them I think it would be him and so I think he has more ability to sway them.

[00:20:46] Certainly more than Otto I think even more so than Allison although I think she has a little bit that she's grasping at still but. Yeah I think Otto is just the asshole that yelled at them constantly. Yeah.

[00:21:00] Yeah I agreed I think that's a really good observation that Kristen is their surrogate father figure and at least Aegon will still listen to him. I don't think Aemond is listening to anyone at this point except his own self. And his big dragon. And his big dragon. Yeah.

[00:21:23] All right Renny. Okay so I think I said last week I thought the acting was superlative last week's episode I think it's even superlative in this week's episode and no that is not a word but. But I wanted to just point out some particularly spectacular face acting

[00:21:49] that happened in this episode there were a few scenes where I thought one look conveyed pages worth of dialogue. The first one is Allison's face when Otto says some good may come of this shows exactly what she thinks of him.

[00:22:14] I mean what a what a horrifying thing to say. And then she does it again when he lays out his plan to blame it on Renera and you know use the propaganda value in the council chamber she gives him that look again it was amazing.

[00:22:33] So oh yeah and then Renys and Damon look in each other while Renera is saying she didn't order the murder and you know there's a whole conversation in those looks Renny says you did it didn't you Damon and Damon says I might have done it.

[00:22:50] Exactly that exactly it was amazing. And they never say a word to each other they just do that with yeah expressions on their faces and then the best one for me was Renera's face when she looks at Damon and realizes Damon did it.

[00:23:13] The other one that I thought was really good was Kristen Cole's face when he comes to the twins room and they're taking down their dismantling Jaehaerys bed and he sees the blood on the mattress and all of his guilt and fear and self loathing is all right there

[00:23:38] on his face. I thought I thought all of those were just amazing ability on the part of the actors to carry the story forward without saying word. I think one other example of that

[00:23:56] as you were talking through those that I was thinking of too is I'm forgetting her name but the white worm. Misaria. I feel like misaria doesn't have to say much either to communicate quite

[00:24:09] a bit but yeah. Yeah I like her a lot better this season. Same. Yeah. Yes and I suspect like based on the events that happened she might be sticking around for a while.

[00:24:24] Seems like they gave her like enough scream time that I can't imagine she's gone off to myrrh and is never coming back. Well I think it's pretty clear that the reason that Eric comes bursting into Renea's bedroom is that Misaria recognized Eric heading up there and she went

[00:24:44] up and warned him so I don't think that she got on that ship at all. I think she ran back to the castle to warn them. See I read it that Eric sensed his brother and so that's why he came

[00:25:00] into the room but the other gentleman I'm going to say it wrong was Sir Loris. Loris the other guard in the room. Oh Lauren. Lauren Sir Lauren. Lauren yeah. I think that's

[00:25:13] who she tipped off. Oh that's possible but I think she tipped somebody off right. Yeah. So she's back in the castle. Right because she just left the one twin. Yeah and then she's walking down the

[00:25:26] hill and sees the other twin passers going the other way. And earlier in the episode when Renea brings Eric into Misaria's cell she says last time I saw you there were two of you. Yeah well I think Renea's

[00:25:43] maid went to go get Lauren and that's how he came so quickly because he was sleeping nearby. That's right. So I didn't think about how Eric found out and I was sort of wondering if she stayed

[00:25:55] and if maybe she's going to become Renea as like master whispers or something you know like elevated up. I mean she did savor for all intents you know. I'm not sure the outcome would have

[00:26:10] been different but she did attempt to savor and I think you could see there was a good long pause where I think she was thinking about just shutting her mouth and keep walking but then

[00:26:21] she kind of changed her mind. Yes. Yeah you're right and again she did a lot of that with her face yes. Yes very much so great scene this show does that so well. So well yeah. Emmy's all around

[00:26:36] please. Yes well my next one is everyone hates Otto Hightower. Yes I have a similar one. Well please jump in truly. I never thought I would gloriously cheer on Aegon and Kristen but I found myself I was literally screaming during that scene it's exactly what happened.

[00:27:03] He just couldn't be any worse in this episode. I mean he just immediately goes into strategy mode after finding out the death of his grandchild you know his grandchild was butchered before his granddaughter's eyes he makes no attempt to see how everybody's doing no consolation immediately

[00:27:27] he tries to minimize it and he tries to strategize it and he basically forbids them to react and grieve and it was just terrible within moments he's actually saying some good may come of this

[00:27:48] which is just heinous what a heinous thing to say. Even if you think it or even if you're strategizing toward it to say it out loud is just awful and I feel like this is him

[00:28:03] this is the same way he reacted when Aamon lost an eye he didn't give a shit about Aamon he was just like yeah we just got the biggest dragon in the world yeah and so this is so him and he defies

[00:28:19] Aegon at every turn he tells Aegon he's weak he comes up with the awful idea of parading Helena and Allison around with the dead infant and he says in the chamber and we're assuming this is like

[00:28:34] within hours of the death he says Jaehaerys will do more for us now than a thousand nights in battle like to his father I know that was horrible he screams at Aegon calls him an idiot continues

[00:28:49] to just lay into him spewing insult after insult he's mad that Aegon has hung the rat catchers but just a few weeks ago he hung heads of houses and publicly displayed them that's right like

[00:29:06] what do you think this kid has learned it was so satisfying to see him have to take that badge off and get humbled a little bit although I don't think he's humbled at all but it was so so satisfying I

[00:29:22] never would have thought that I would be cheering Aegon and Christen on but that's that's where we were I mean I think it just exemplifies to me that as we all knew Otto's like despicable and I don't

[00:29:35] think that's smart but he got away with it because Viserys was kind of a weak king you know like Viserys could be controlled by Otto's little plots but I think he has grossly overestimated

[00:29:53] himself he's smart when it comes to strategy but what he doesn't take into account is people yeah he's not good with people no not at all and so that's you know if all his little ducks

[00:30:10] lined up in a roll row the way he wants them to sure but people don't do that I mean you give an 18 year old kid absolute power and then you think you can control him I mean we we see this you know

[00:30:24] happen throughout the series so and then he just turns and runs like he strove for years to get Aegon on the throne and then within like a minute he's like I'm just gonna go to do something else

[00:30:40] it was so bizarre to me like this is the thing he's worked his entire you know Allison's entire life for is to advance and and you know it just mesmerized me how he could think

[00:30:56] he was gonna get away with that I mean one thing he has been dismissed as hand before so he probably one doesn't see this as the end of things yeah um he knows he probably in his

[00:31:10] head knows I'll be back you know whatever and I think he thinks he still has Allison under his thumb absolutely right he did do that Mike drop us he left the room though and you find out that

[00:31:23] Aegon truly believed that his father said what what Allison said he said like he truly thought Viserys did change his mind and want him to be king and Otto sort of laughed at him and and dropped

[00:31:38] that little veil that was awful yeah that was just like awful and he just chuckled about it and if if he really wants him to not be an unhinged king that's probably not what you walk away

[00:31:53] with no and I believe that Aegon believed his mother was telling him the truth which of course she was in her what she knew to believe yeah it was just awful I I totally had empathy and sympathy

[00:32:09] for Aegon in this episode um and when um Allison says I have sinned and she wants to confess and Otto says I do not wish to know he's not protecting her no he doesn't want to know

[00:32:28] because he doesn't want her to be in a compromised situation where she'll lose power so he's not being empathetic or kind he's still power brokering mm-hmm no if he was empathetic he'd actually

[00:32:43] talk to his daughter but I don't think he's done that in a long time no if ever yeah you know who's playing the real game of thrones though but we're not seeing that much is Laris yeah he orchestrated

[00:32:58] this I think it would have the frustration would have been there but would Aegon have really recognize that he had the power to just remove the hand to put another in like do you think he

[00:33:10] would have gotten there as quickly on his own I don't think so without that little seed his words are exactly what Laris said you're not my hand you're my father's hand yeah exactly what

[00:33:22] Laris said so clearly that's where the idea came from do you think that surprised Kristen yes yeah he looked I was I was wondering if like it it was a manipulation all along but I thought

[00:33:39] he seemed surprised and would have been surprised yeah and do you think Laris thought it would be Kristen or that it would be him then it would be him that's what I yeah yes

[00:33:53] that's gonna be quite the surprise for him I think because I don't think he's got a lot of control over Kristen yes he does because he knows what Allison and Kristen are up to well

[00:34:03] definitely knows I mean we don't hope for sure he knows but like there's no way he doesn't know well and now Helena knows too although she doesn't seem interested in acknowledging that she knows

[00:34:16] no not at all when Allison says something to her what you saw she hands them oh close to Allison says this is for my boy to wear this session yeah just completely shuts off

[00:34:35] any discussion of what you saw all right we're back to Veronica I had a few I think we touched on some of us already with the points we've covered but I'll just go ahead and finish out my

[00:34:49] the feelings of House Green and go on to vengeance so this is green bad so you know Aegon is raving and ranting and ready to burn it all down it has instilled fear and paranoia and rage within him and I'm excited to see the action that

[00:35:17] that leads to in the rest of the season and you know there was also Aegon got to directly get his vengeance against blood through the help of Laris and I you know again I continue to be

[00:35:32] surprised at sort of being team Aegon this episode but I felt satisfied that he was getting that vengeance against blood I was surprised it was over so quickly like saying yeah I expected

[00:35:45] to be more drawn out I'm glad I didn't really need to see more but I was just glad he got that yeah he hung all the rat catchers yep he had some pretty epic quotes that I think we were expecting

[00:36:00] to see this season and we got them all like in one episode we got I wish to spill blood not ink which is also I believe a direct quote direct quote as well yes I love that that's great fuck dignity

[00:36:12] I want revenge which we saw he's very clear in his articulation he says exactly what he wants and then the last one I had down was my new hand will be a steel fist which I thought was pretty

[00:36:25] awesome also a direct quote from the bottom oh I missed that that was a direct quote yes so um you know we didn't I don't think we saw we saw a quietness from Aamon to this episode

[00:36:38] and so most of the rage came from Aegon but I uh it was an enjoyable watch for me to see him rage and I'm excited to see where it leads even though I'm still team black I'm just excited

[00:36:54] for the fights that are to come did you see that among the hung rat rat catchers they got cheese I saw yeah and the dog what are they doing to us last week he kicks the dog and it hurts us

[00:37:07] and this week we have to watch the dog be sad while he looks up at like yes they're doing to us yes that is them trolling us it really yeah yes I my dog was sitting beside me as I watched

[00:37:22] I cuddled him kindly yes that's a scruffy looking dog too I'm sure he's he's been made up yeah all right ready uh so we are seeing quite a lot of the small folk perspective

[00:37:43] much more than we usually see in the came thrones universe so we see um a lot of the the small folk in the in the funeral procession and various you know things that that they're expressing

[00:38:04] in the behind the scenes uh the writer or the direct I guess was the director said that um she was thinking of princess Diana's funeral procession and how slowly it went and you know what people were doing and that that was part of the inspiration for staging

[00:38:23] that but we saw a lot really yeah we saw a lot of ordinary people there in the streets and then we see Aamond with oh wow she has a name and I can't that character the sex worker

[00:38:43] and I can't remember what her name is but with her um and she says that line that you know when princes fight it's the small foe who suffer which is really true and um you know whatever the

[00:39:01] royals do it's going to affect her and people like her um she's the same sex worker yes that was his first yes that's right we saw in episode nine yes I think it was um when they're looking for

[00:39:18] Aegon and here's a really cool uh fun behind the scenes fact you and Mitchell um who's the actor who plays Aamond that the woman playing that role was his drama teacher oh wow yeah now he's curled up naked in her lap

[00:39:43] and then we saw um Hugh the blacksmith's family his wife and his sickly child um and his wife gets quite a bit to say about how she had to walk two miles to find a chicken and then she paid three times what

[00:40:02] she should have paid for it because goods are becoming scarce and so you're really seeing the effect of the um maneuverings of the Targaryen family and the Pythor family before yeah he was

[00:40:18] the one last week who asked Aamond for money yeah okay because iron had become more expensive and Aegon promised him money and then his wife says do you have any idea when the king might actually

[00:40:30] give you the money that he promised so clearly Aegon promised him money but hasn't given it to him yeah I feel like and I wonder Wendy if this is also what you were I think commenting on is that

[00:40:44] some of the scenes that felt like I know this is a setup but it's almost too preliminary it took you out of it yeah like that scene there's no context giving yeah I agree and then

[00:40:56] also with Adam and Alan I felt similarly I'm like okay obviously this is they wouldn't be showing us all this if there wasn't something right but you don't know you don't get anything out of the scene

[00:41:07] yet yeah and it almost doesn't stick with you um yeah so I'm hoping they sort of pick those up and make them a little more meaningful going yeah I convinced myself that he was hung the the guy

[00:41:24] and that's what they were doing so like when on second watch I like slowed down that scene to look for him and I'm like well I don't see him so I don't think that's what it is so it did it was just

[00:41:37] it was a little it took you out of things I think and then the other perspective on the small folk was Miss Aria because she was talking about the reason that she had to run away was because Otto or people hired by Otto had burned her house down

[00:42:00] because she had showed them her teeth and and she says that no highborn will ever accept her because she was lowborn and true and they have something in common her and

[00:42:15] and Reneara yeah they do it's Damon and they they both seem to kind of know his ways yes yeah yeah yeah because Reneara recognizes her as as the woman who was on the bridge in that episode where Damon says he's gonna marry her and she's pregnant and that's

[00:42:40] right was all it's just stuff he made up to piss off his brother yeah and I think that's the thing like Damon seems to be a liar oh yeah and I I feel like it's still open whether or not he ordered

[00:42:57] the death of Jaehaerys it's still like he denies it multiple times but it's still like open like you don't know and Reneara says I don't believe you right and I think she's right to not

[00:43:14] believe him because here's why I think so because blood and cheese blood says you know that's the queen that's that's not his son um and if yeah he blood wouldn't have made that up that had

[00:43:33] to have come from Damon maybe I mean they seem to be not the sharpest tools no not the sharpest not at all but but I do think there's a reason why they didn't show it like they still want you to have

[00:43:47] that nagging doubt of Diddy or didn't he so we can have this fun conversation right now and talk about this well you know in the original uh place that Damon appears is the rogue prince and he's

[00:44:03] described as uh the most charming and the most I can't remember what the other word is but he's the most charming and he's the most dastardly Targaryen ever that he's both at the same time

[00:44:16] and so you have to preserve that ambiguity about him that's why I was so surprised that they had him murder his first wife because yes that's unambiguous that's very unambiguous yeah yeah I agree just to be free of her I guess like that's some cold yeah

[00:44:43] yeah and yet when he suited up in that armor and took off on that dragon I would have that was right behind an amazing scene yes great dragon scene yes so good uh yeah well

[00:45:00] he's charming and horrible in equal measure so yes the charm is real and you know Reneara said this episode she's was up to the challenge she thought she could fix him and I think she's

[00:45:15] finally accepted she can't fix them right yeah there's a Taylor I don't think she had many yeah I don't think she had many options at the time no she needed the strength of that

[00:45:29] union yeah and it seemed to work for a while definitely yeah I mean he's still a strength like at least even if he's not supporting her the way she wants him to he's still the strength to

[00:45:44] have on team black right oh yeah I mean I don't I don't see him going and completely undermining the cause of the blacks right and so no you know he'll still a strength even if he's not

[00:45:57] a strength in the way she wanted and he's a bit of a wild card and he has the second most important weapon which is Caraxies after Vagar right so just in terms of the amount of force that

[00:46:10] can be deployed by both sides he's essential I have a question so they're saying that they're having Vagar fly over king's landing for defense but Aiman's not flying him oh yeah

[00:46:25] oh yeah he is oh he is yeah okay but we haven't seen that well I think when um when they were getting the scorpion bolt ready to shoot in case it was an enemy dragon in episode one and they think that was

[00:46:38] Aiman oh it's okay it's Vagar Aiman is riding Vagar I just don't think we got a close up enough shot to really see that right I think Aiman would have been much better off just

[00:46:50] doing what he said he was going to do drive you know fly to king's landing and try to kill him well better than what he did he would have died Vagar is much bigger he was right that he and Rainey's

[00:47:03] together could probably right killed Aiman and Vagar but one on one Vagar would kill any other living dragon because I don't know I don't know how clear they've been about this in the show

[00:47:17] but dragons never stop growing the whole time they're alive which is why Vagar is the largest dragon because she's the oldest dragon right I mean I don't think they've been clear I think

[00:47:27] it's just what we've picked up but we're super fans so I mostly just have notes left me too um I would say it made me really sad to see the opening of the episode with Aegon destroying

[00:47:45] the stone replica of Valeria which he spent his entire life creating I really liked that stone replica I thought that was super cool I actually wished they had done something with

[00:48:01] that in the intro instead of the things that they've done but it was really sad to see it being destroyed and then at the end just carted out yeah yeah yeah it was representative well representative

[00:48:17] of what they're doing right yeah doing everything that Viserys had put in place with his role yeah so heavily symbolic almost too much so a little under those and it obviously meant nothing to Aegon right yeah which is really sad yeah how about you Veronica note

[00:48:39] um I wanted to talk a little bit about the actual battle of the twins yes at the end oh yeah we haven't talked about that yeah let's talk about that and so I mean we talked a little bit about you know

[00:48:57] Arric arriving in Miseria seeing him and um and sort of really what this meant what was being asked of him which was um he has to follow what Kristen Cole has told him because that's his duty to follow

[00:49:16] what is sort of handed down to him but it was also dishonorable for him to sneak in in a way that you know as a spy and also he's you know it was just I think that's it I was gonna say

[00:49:30] being asked to kill his brother but I guess he wasn't asked to do that that happened yeah um it was a risk yes I really liked the tension of how that scene played out the

[00:49:42] sort of sneaking through the halls and um seeing people and just narrowly missing each other peeking in at Rainier I thought it was um sort of fun the way that they framed all of that

[00:49:57] and I was certainly starting to lose track of which brother was which brother yeah yeah and they about the episode they said that's what they wanted to have happen they didn't want the

[00:50:08] audience to be able to figure out which one was which so they actually gave them matching wounds each one was wounded in the leg and in the arm so that you couldn't recognize which brother was

[00:50:18] which by the wound so they really wanted us to be confused I saw a lot of debate online right after because right after the episode I usually go to twitter and just look at the top

[00:50:32] posts and there was a lot of people saying no that's not who who died first this one died first and and it went on and on for a while yeah I mean I'm not even sure like it seemed to me

[00:50:45] my interpretation was that that was Eric Hergard who shoved shoved the sword to his it had to have said my queen yes exactly and the other one I could have seen him saying like

[00:50:59] this is not what I wanted to happen and slaying himself because he's dying and he's just murdered his brother yeah um but no I think they very deliberately have him uh doesn't he say your

[00:51:11] grace or does he say my queen I'm not he might have said you're great I think he would recognize he says he addresses her the way that her own queensguard would do so it's

[00:51:24] it's Eric who killed Arik and then Eric killed himself yeah I sobbed at the end like I I legitimately had like a sob escape my throat it was really sad to me and again another really

[00:51:39] strong symbolism of what basically this whole show is civil war brother killing brother dragging killing dragon to the destruction of everyone you know they both it was just a complete tragedy they both slew each other realized in the end that what they had done

[00:51:58] professed their love for one another and both died and and now all the non-book readers know why they cast actual twins in those roles you know there's there's two sets of twins in the show there's tyland and jason lanister lanister also but they're played by a single actor

[00:52:19] there's just one actor who plays both of those brothers but they're probably not going to kill each other in a well not eating up close in personal fight like that anyway I thought not being a book reader was really advantageous because the tension was amazing

[00:52:37] and I had no idea like I knew renara wasn't gonna die but other than that that was a pretty good guess right yeah I had I had no idea what was gonna happen and I certainly would never have

[00:52:50] thought it would have went that way so I thought the scene was spectacular yeah I thought they pulled it off really really well and they made some what I think are really good changes from

[00:53:01] the book to to really up the tension of it even more than in the book yeah the only thing I didn't love was how absolutely helpless renara was and I didn't expect her to like jump into the sword

[00:53:16] fight or anything but this is not the girl that held off a wild warthog or a wild pig and then stabbed it to death with the help of christinakolik I'm not saying she should have been a great warrior

[00:53:30] but I wanted her to be a little bit braver I wanted her to try to escape the room or not just cower that was hard for me and didn't feel it didn't feel right but she is many years older

[00:53:45] and has children it is now the queen and I'm assuming that changes things but I I agree with you Veronica the thing that saved it for me was that I heard is someone saying that it's not so much that she's cowering is that she's overwhelmed by horror at

[00:54:06] what's happening seeing the two brothers both of whom she's known most of her life fighting with each other so she's kind of frozen by the the horrific nature of what's happening not just cowering

[00:54:27] and so then I felt better about it because I had my first reaction was the same as yours I think it took her a while to catch up because there's no way she thought that was

[00:54:38] Arik walking through her door right right yeah that's right and she did tell her like get her made out of there right so she just think to do something she was right completely but

[00:54:52] I like that reframe I still wish I don't know I wanted her to be like a tiny minuscule amount braver I think I'd have a dagger under my pillow at all times

[00:55:03] yeah and I feel like she would like I feel like she would especially after everything that's just happened well I think she may from now on yeah definitely Ren any notes yeah um so last week

[00:55:21] I said I didn't like the new opening sequence but but I've learned something about it that made me like it a lot better for for one thing I now know what it all is it's the entire

[00:55:33] history of the Targaryen dynasty but I heard an interview with Ryan Condell the showrunner who said they're going to be showing it to you from different angles in different subsequent episodes so you're

[00:55:47] gonna see things all along that history storyline that don't show up yet and that they are maybe new things in the Targaryen lore because they worked with George R. R. Martin on what they were

[00:56:05] going to put into this so I'm hoping for some cool revelations out of that tapestry so I'm I'm happier about it now that was one of the questions I had for you was was it different

[00:56:19] this week it was and it was last week I felt like it was slower and more close up on certain things so I did I did notice that but I didn't like you know go into the details of it but

[00:56:33] I did think it was slower yeah I do think it's beautiful yeah yeah I think I think last week I was annoyed that I couldn't tell what the scenes were similar to to what you had sort of said

[00:56:45] Renny last week and this week I let go of that and thought I don't care I'm just gonna appreciate like you said Wendy that it's pretty and it's displaying that the Targaryens have a rich

[00:56:55] and bloody history yes and I'm just gonna be fine with that and I don't have to know what every picture is until Renny figures it out and tells us well they added um Jaehaerys dead at the at the end of the sequence this time

[00:57:14] oh now I gotta go back again next week I expect we're gonna see Eric and oh wow yeah oh okay so that is cool I like that yeah yeah um Renera asks Miseria how she got her scar

[00:57:32] does that mean anything does are we supposed to know anything about that no I don't I don't I got nothing I assumed it was from Daemon I assume so because remember last season Daemon

[00:57:44] choked Renera yeah and so I think we're supposed to assume that that he choked or did something with Miseria as well because usually when you choke somebody with your hands it doesn't leave a scar

[00:57:56] right it's a little bit mysterious yeah I was wondering if if we should have known something about that um I do feel like Daemon and Renera have so much heat with each other even when

[00:58:09] they're angry with each other the heat is still there and it's it's great it's really good they have they have a made in chemistry and maybe this is unpopular but I also think Allison and Cole

[00:58:21] have a lot of heat too oh yeah yes they do yeah um and I thought the scenes with Allison and Cole like he was much more of the aggressor like she comes in and he's already in her chambers and

[00:58:43] like half undressed and I was it seemed like she was surprised by that and I'm guessing that's not hasn't been their normal like she's been the initiator yeah he's the hand now though that

[00:58:56] that's what I was gonna ask like do you think that's why do you think like I've got some power here I don't know but I liked it because I didn't want this if there wasn't the whole hypocrisy of

[00:59:10] it all I like this for them because they both have not had any real joy in their lives right like if I didn't hate them I'd be happy for this for them and I like to see that it's not just

[00:59:23] Allison wields that power over him then he does want it as well um well I but sexually I think Allison's still in charge absolutely she's dominant and you think she's mad at him but no this is foreplay

[00:59:40] yeah and and then he you know he turns her around and her back is up against that cabinet but she makes you know she makes the first move then um she kisses him not he kisses her

[00:59:59] and I think that's a really important detail they're very interesting to watch yeah yeah all right more notes um so Eric and aric is a legendary story in world it's the first time that anybody ever hears

[01:00:25] about it is in uh brand's second chapter in the novel a game of thrones um so there are there are a number of things that um uh are famous legendary stories like the story of florian and jonquil

[01:00:45] for example and eric anaric is one of those in world so but that wasn't mentioned in the show game of thrones show it actually it actually there's actually in the game of thrones show there's

[01:00:57] actually quite a bit about the dance of the dragons and if you go back to some episodes there are serious spoilers okay so this is not a good moment to do a game of thrones rewatch

[01:01:09] yeah that means the game of thrones rewatch will be really fun after half of the dragon is over that's true reflect on it with new that's right perspective it would only take what 83 weeks

[01:01:21] yeah no big deal um there are some odd errors in this episode that evidently nobody caught otto calls jaharis his grandson but jaharis is his great grandson i think they were just

[01:01:41] leaving off that piece but later he calls agon his grandson and you know agon son can't be his grandson so that that just struck me as odd the other thing that's odd is that christin call says

[01:01:57] the king's guard shouldn't sully quote our ancient honor but the king's guard started with agon the conqueror which is only 129 years ago so it's not ancient right it was kind of weird did they have

[01:02:12] it in valeria nope nope not at all they didn't have a king in valeria valeria was called a freehold and there wasn't a monarchy ronica i think i hesitate to come on it because i don't really

[01:02:33] like to comment on the appearance of characters especially a the character that's played as a female um but renara looks different to me this season than she did last adult renara for some reason

[01:02:48] she looks more similar to the younger iteration the younger actor and i was just trying to understand if they were styling it's emma correct the yeah who portrays renara and or maybe a filter or

[01:03:03] something and then i mean i know last season was much more about childbirth and multiple scenes she was pregnant and multiple scenes she was going through a lot of distress and her face was red

[01:03:18] and she was crying um but renara just looks different to me this season i just was curious if anyone else noticed that yeah i thought that in the first episode i just wondered if it had to

[01:03:30] do with the fan backlash of feeling uncomfortably jarred when they changed um when they aged up the the character um i think a lot of it filter i think a lot of it is the wig i thought too they

[01:03:44] changed their hairstyle they've changed out the wigs sleeker bat which is something that they struggled with all through game of thrones and i think they're struggling with it in this show as well as you know targaryens are supposed to have silver hair and the problem with that is

[01:04:01] the wigs read like gray hair um i think a gons looks spectacular yes this is really fitting to him yes it's so weird to see them without all their makeup and wigs it's really uh interesting to see

[01:04:20] the the actors do interviews and see what they really look like but i think renaris wig is very different and i think it makes a huge difference makes a huge difference in the way emma darcy

[01:04:31] looks if you if you just look up emma darcy right who is dark haired um yes she's almost unre they are almost unrecognizable uh without the wig in fact i read an interview

[01:04:49] in which they said that uh they were very grateful for the wig because they could still bop around london and not be recognized but i think i i've noticed also that they look a little bit

[01:05:06] different this year and i do think it's the wigs part of that i also think that they may be doing renirah's makeup differently because her cheekbones seem more prominent and i think yeah that perhaps

[01:05:22] that they're doing the makeup that way in order to make her look more sad uh grieving right like like renira hasn't been getting a lot of sleep and yeah you know yeah so i don't know maybe her

[01:05:40] face looks a bit slimmer and so she's looking more drawn yeah i just noticed i was curious when the funeral procession becomes stuck you know and they spend a decent amount of time on that

[01:05:56] i feel like they were just trolling us to make us feel like something was gonna happen i was certain something awful was gonna happen or um you know the jaharis was fairly precariously placed

[01:06:11] on top of that wagon and i thought for certain the body was gonna roll off and the head was gonna become dislodged game of thrones you know i'm so glad they did it though me too but i feel

[01:06:24] like they just scared us into that without actually having to go there yeah you know what else i thought was gonna happen right there like right before it got stuck and helena's looking up and the

[01:06:36] petals are all coming out i thought she was gonna have some sort of vision or start you know predicting i didn't think we were gonna see her have a vision but i thought she would start saying

[01:06:46] one of her cryptic predictive messages to allison i thought something was happening that didn't happen yeah what i thought was that the petals looked like they might have been falling

[01:06:56] ash yes and again a reason that i thought she might say you know like petals turn to ash that would have been too obvious but it would have been something more cryptic but i thought the sets at

[01:07:11] dragonstone were just amazing um the library we get really good visions of that i loved it and also the vistas of the red keep i'm sure most of that is CGI but i appreciate it i loved it

[01:07:27] i thought that was beautiful i mean that's you know what we've just come to expect of this franchise yeah ronara asks daemon point blank do you accept me as your queen and ruler and he never answers

[01:07:41] that question he does not i wrote in my notes about that wendy um well you know it probably would be hard to see your niece that you watched girl up become queen and then i said so that's probably

[01:07:57] a reason you don't marry her in addition to this already complicated relationship but Targaryen's do as they will yeah yes Targaryen's are closer to gods than to men i think he just wants to war

[01:08:15] i mean it's very obvious he would not make a good ruler new so he just wants to war you know he just wants to you know he seems to thrive on that yeah um i have two more brief notes yeah one is that

[01:08:33] this um episode was written by a woman sarah hess and directed by a woman claire killner and uh i think that's cool um and in the after uh the behind the scenes video emma darsie said that

[01:08:53] emma and the director uh talked about women's rage and what happens when ronara takes the lid off of her rage and i think we we really see that in the scene between her and daemon

[01:09:12] i thought that was pretty cool and then one just really sly thing that they do otto says that they'll know who did this and agon shouts who did this who did this this and larry's walks through the door now larry's didn't do it but was he involved

[01:09:34] at all did he make sure that there were no guards around so that blood and cheese could get through you know it's i think that's possible because he thrives on the chaos did he maybe even know

[01:09:51] about it so there's a very cool tinfoil theory that a um a youtuber who's very into the game of thrown stuff has made which is that larry says a green seer and that he can see through the eyes

[01:10:07] of the rats remember how in season one we saw rats in everywhere in the red sheep and it seemed like a little bit much to just be leading up to bro to blood and cheese so maybe something

[01:10:20] else was going on so and you see lots of rats as blood and cheese are going through the secret passageways and so you know if if larry's is a skin changer and he can see through rat the through

[01:10:33] the eyes of the rats then um perhaps he knew what was happening and and didn't prevent it i took it as agon's asking a question and their larry's is giving him the answer

[01:10:47] oh yeah oh yeah that's how i took it yeah that too was like you're asking this big thing and like here i've solved all your problems here yeah you know just keeping larry's relevant and important

[01:11:00] yeah and yeah that's how i took it but i definitely see that point of view as well i think that made me realize i mean just last episode larry said he replaced all of the house

[01:11:11] servants with people that he trusts i know rat catchers are a little outside house servants but do you really think larry's has people like that coming in to the keep that he doesn't feel like he

[01:11:26] has eyes on so i feel like that's a really good point that's it that's all my notes okay okay i did pull one news article about this episode yeah so from cosmopolitan there's this interesting article about the ages of our characters it's titled house of the dragon

[01:11:48] how old are the characters in season two so i think this was written like just before um the season premiered so it says house of the dragon season two is finally

[01:11:59] nearly here you may be a little bit surprised to learn some of the ages of the characters agon is meant to be just 18 years old while he sat on the iron throne and princess rey nace is supposedly

[01:12:12] heading into her 70s that doesn't feel right read on to the surprising ages of the house of the dragon characters so renira targaryen 32 and daemon is 48 alice is 37 christin coal is 39 uh orleese valarian 75 those two are some fine-looking couple yeah 70 yes yeah i mean yeah i would love

[01:12:46] to look like that when i'm 70 yeah no kidding i'd like to look like that now yes the next one is really surprising in comparison to those two mm-hmm auto high tower 55 that's crazy and then we talked about

[01:13:04] agon being uh 18 and then the the kids are i guess agon's the oldest 18 then holena 17 and then aamon 16 alice was busy those couple years yeah dang yeah and then jace is also 16 as is bala

[01:13:26] yep they're so cute together i know all right we're gonna get started with some listener feedback i'm going to play our first call which is from renae murray hi guys this is renae calling in my

[01:13:45] house i'm dragons i'm gonna start out with syarik and syarik and listen i am geetji i'm from savannah and of course it's the south so this geetji country girl is gonna mix up and mess up some names okay

[01:14:01] so y'all bear with me sir eric i know for sure because renae right before he killed himself renae was like uh sir eric so syarik syarik is like christin coe how dare you project on to sir

[01:14:21] eric that is his fault for jahari when something can i tell you these names the baby being killed because your ass was supposed to be watching the queen instead you was in there with the queen's

[01:14:40] mother bumping and grinding you're her little side piece you said that you did not want to be anyone's who works or your whore your hoe okay not a whore your hoe that's what you are hoe from the

[01:14:51] three oh four okay three oh oh not four but the three oh how which you said you did not want to be and y'all must be into some type of s and m she because she in there slapping you and doing all

[01:15:03] of that and you just standing there like what in the world like you guys are so weird but how dare you project on to sir eric and have him to go and you know that he's going to die

[01:15:17] you're sending him to his death like arto said you guys are clueless your trifling it's like that's my favorite word it's like arto that's one of the trifling is one of my favorite words i

[01:15:28] don't use it all the time you'd write they're definitely damn trifling but it's like first thing oh i cannot wait till you die and allison like girl how dare you not console your children

[01:15:41] like i there's no way that i could have walked in on my son and my son was sitting there crying like that and i just walked out because at that point he wouldn't be the king anymore to me i

[01:15:52] wouldn't even see the king anymore all i would see was my little baby and and a mon he in a damn whorehouse a whole house laying up with a woman that's opened up to be his damn great grandma

[01:16:04] balled up in the fetal position and helena clearly got some type of issues it's like girl what type type of mother are you like you're the worst and it's no excuse it's no excuse that

[01:16:19] her father did this and made her marry an old man and you know did all this to her controlled because this girl here just lady here this allison she's clearly in control clearly i mean she's bumping

[01:16:35] and grinding with the damn the king's guard the head of the king's guard she's clearly in control she she was younger i could see her daddy controlled her but now no no no no no no

[01:16:48] no no no she she she she just do not care her whole thing is she's jealous of rennera she's helped in on rennera not sitting on that throne she reminds me of freaking shame

[01:17:01] in the walk and dead how he was jealous of rick and the whole time he pretended to be his friend pretended to care until you know something happened but he can get his wife and his kids to

[01:17:14] himself and this is her this is allison in the nutshell to me she does not want rennera sitting on that throne the whole time when they were kids she pretended to be her friend she was never that

[01:17:24] girl's friend and she's just an awful person so christians is an awful person because i mean like i said he sent sararek to his dad and they are they know when i say some cute twins they

[01:17:39] cute cute they remind me of dright on the walk and dead if dright face was a little fuller right needed right needed to meet on his bones because i would always say i think dright hand right is

[01:17:50] handsome but i think he need a little bit more weight on him and i kept looking i'm like they remind me of someone and it's right from the walk and dead with some meat on his bones i need to

[01:17:59] be specific but and then damon he pissed me off as well i like damon but i'm kind of not like and damian damon and i realized um i made made made sir renny i just told y'all i messed up names

[01:18:13] down legit you southern girl um this is what you mean by patriotic patriotic possess a patriotic because i had to google that i mean i knew the definition of patriotic and possessive but i

[01:18:26] never heard of those two together so this is what you mean by that i see that i definitely can see that on this show but i didn't see that were it but i definitely see yeah this definitely

[01:18:37] exists in this era of course but and damon he has some issues because when he walked past his daughter and she called his name he just kept walking like what the hell like the whole family

[01:18:50] is dysfunctional the pigerians is dysfunctional like they said flip a coin well and you well we know they dysfunctional because they sleep together it's in says so just just just whatever all righty piece of lovely all right thank you rene peace and love yes incest is best

[01:19:14] all right um i'll just go ahead and read the first feedback that we got this is from lindsay schlicht she said eh not my favorite episode so much talking so much setup i know

[01:19:29] it's needed so i'll forgive just wish we'd had a bit more action same shit different episode damon is a dick auto is pathetic crispy coal makes me miss child free on to next week

[01:19:44] more dragons please yeah we didn't get a whole lot of dragon action i think that's probably why they had that scene where damon came out because that was an amazing scene like you got the best

[01:19:57] close up of um is it coraxis coraxies yes coraxies yeah it was pretty impressive but i want more all right i am gonna go ahead and play our second call this is from our friend steve brown

[01:20:14] hello dragoncast this is steve and this is going to be poor house the dragons season two episode two it's like we have no title except just episode two which house is this with the the guy who they're

[01:20:25] calling the king who's just now declared war and this is a man the guy with the one eye is a man tergarian right okay that's pretty telling if you've got the child's head in a sack that you

[01:20:35] probably the one who did it these are the greens right allison auto hire terror larris and uh this king of the and the west dress right yeah so right away this guy doesn't need to get

[01:20:47] tortured he's just gonna tell him right away david tergarian hired him oh no they're gonna rock this wagon that that pop is gonna come off there isn't it but they won't show us what happened and now we

[01:20:56] go to an eras notice that renara brought damon into a private chamber to have this conversation with him um which is interesting uh the dragon riding of damon in coraxis wow that's a great scene right

[01:21:09] here okay so these are the eric and eric you were talking about last night one of the a wombs of the e and one serves the black one serves the green and now christian coal is talking to

[01:21:18] one of them about what his part was in jaharis's killing oh and christian coal is gonna send him to kill renara okay who is this family with the sick child father is huge somebody and

[01:21:31] yeah forget who is this married to lord corlis the sea snake um wasn't she supposed to be queen at 1.2 okay so one of the twins is there with renara is it eric or eric eric i think i missed

[01:21:43] something somewhere but i'm sure you guys will have already explained it once no she's seeing the other twins so this is the one who's loyal to renara but now this woman who gave damon the

[01:21:54] name of the assassins hmm yeah the ending is about sure is sir eric eric arc oh how did he figure out that his brother was there and now are we gonna see brother fight brother oh and so

[01:22:05] eric killed his brother and then he just killed himself all right well i may have to watch episode one again or i can't wait to hear the podcast we'll help you steve love a good life steve

[01:22:17] all right veronica you want to read our next one yeah we have um from lanie brunk allison's parenting of agon have a dragon renara is going to kill you also her children are bastards be sure to bring it up you are such a disappointment you're marrying your sister

[01:22:37] i don't care if you like it lots of examples of a compassionate compassionate approach to agon all right and then i have one more call and this is from samantha harfinest

[01:22:55] hi it's sam we're back house of the dragon season two i'm so excited this episode was everything i didn't want but did want and definitely wanted so it's a weird mixed feeling in me a little

[01:23:13] summer child that i am i did hear about spoilers about it last year of what blood and cheese were all about and so i was like are they are they are they and it was all so awful and amazing

[01:23:27] just you know the cycles of violence that happened with war it just reminds me of the cost of war that we forget that it's not just you all going to war it's that there's gonna be collateral

[01:23:39] and the people that you care about are likely going to die and the funeral for luke i cried i full on cried when joffrey put that little like figure in the fire that i'm pretty sure that was

[01:23:53] the one that luke was playing with in season one when he was joffrey's age i full on cried it was so sad and then the blood and cheese was so dense i thought the actress did a great job and sir

[01:24:07] if you pick that dog one more time and then you know even he went on to do the bigger crime obviously and i thought they did such a great job and it was such an eye opener i hope people of future tv

[01:24:20] shows and movies learn this you want to show us the actual violence thank god they didn't the sounds were bad enough they really focused in on helenus face during all these interactions

[01:24:32] and i thought that was so powerful this is the female gaze this is what we're talking about impact on the characters rather than the bloody gory thing that's there and it was a sickening

[01:24:41] and heart wrenching just really tragic all around and on the polar opposite side of that spectrum i really appreciate the humor that was in this episode i didn't i didn't expect to laugh

[01:24:54] and i appreciated it with um reynise sassy telling off of of daemon i mean talk about a leader she is queen reynise in my mind and she's like oh it's a better not a king and i know they

[01:25:09] said like tom clarni i forgot his full name uh just was bringing humor to the role where they didn't necessarily think that there was going to be i it's just like with joffrey from game of thrones

[01:25:19] nice person talented actor horrendous character and that that throne scene where auto high tower backs down that is like physical comedy to me i cackled in my living room i wasn't expecting that

[01:25:33] i just i like how they're making these characters more nuanced and there's different sides of them and um i think that was one of the downfalls with joffrey as he was such a one-dimensional

[01:25:42] character we are seeing an evil character that is more nuanced and i think we're going to continue to see that when he deals with the death of his son and i i really really liked the whole

[01:25:54] scene with holey on how it was filmed like if you were going to do this for me this was the best way i wonder because she pointed out her son right away is because she's a seer did she see that her son

[01:26:05] was destined to become as bad as her husband i know that doesn't excuse it i know she would still say her son in a heartbeat i'm wondering if that's why she ultimately chose her son and

[01:26:15] being like well he's already on a bad path and i have to lose one of them i'll ruin this decision for a mother and i can imagine this going to change her forever um did not expect

[01:26:25] allison and ser christin scene whoa that was intense um and then just bringing it all around the kregan stark hilarious amazing i love this character and i found him funny because he was so

[01:26:39] a little bit wooden but that was his character like he wasn't used to interacting with people his age and especially because his brother had died and so like it kind of came off at times that

[01:26:49] he was flirting with jayce like staring at him and then he's like i'll send you 200 gray beers they're hard like a star like oh so i i really don't think that that's how it was meant i just made me laugh

[01:27:05] a little bit i would love to hear more about his character and see him interact with jay smart i thought they had a good friendship i like that in comparison to the frat party on the iron throne

[01:27:15] that agon the second had and i liked jumping back again to the star character he copied the accent that shan bean had because he sounds exactly like shan bean's character and kitharing

[01:27:26] tit from game of thrones so i like that that's the northern era site that's great sam that's from last week you sweet sweet summer child yeah and i just want to say we're recording this pretty

[01:27:39] quickly we're recording on monday nights to get it out to get the episode out to you as soon as possible but if you want to leave feedback you know and you're late just just leave it and we're

[01:27:50] going to read other episode feedback that's fine and we have one last bit of feedback from kassie hadter auto puts his psycho grandchild on the throne also auto shocked pikachu face when he acts psycho

[01:28:09] also auto complaining that agon doesn't have any of visceres's great traits yeah it's almost like you should have put the kid he actually raised on the throne yeah when viscerus starts talking about

[01:28:23] i mean when auto starts talking about viscerus i was like you've got to be kidding me like then maybe you should have raised these kids to be more like him instead of just letting them

[01:28:39] fend for themselves yep yep thank you to everyone who left feedback we really appreciate it and i also want to thank sam was on our live as well as well dafney and alex really helps orchestrate the whole

[01:28:56] thing and he creates the graphics so huge thank you to all three of them and again alex has a great podcast on the tv show from and he's also doing another podcast that isn't part of podcastica

[01:29:13] but it's just adorable where him and his daughter who i i believe like i i think she might be seven now and they review children's books together and it is the cutest thing ever like it would be great

[01:29:27] for another child to listen to yeah it's daddy daughter bookworms yeah yeah thank you and dafney does a bunch of podcasts for podcastica she does run for your lives and she's doing an ice skating

[01:29:42] podcast so we have incredibly talented people in this group that are doing amazing things all right we are going to have book talk right after this so it will be spoilery we'll do it in two sections the first section will be differences on book versus

[01:30:03] this episode only and the second section will be book spoilers so if you don't want any spoilers at all just stop when we end this part of the podcast but please um i think book talk is a real favorite

[01:30:19] for a lot of people so next week we will be covering season two episode three of house of the dragon which remains untitled so far what's your guess i'm going to say um daemon burns a lot of

[01:30:33] shit my my guess is ghosts of heron hall i like yeah yeah because in the trailers we saw daemon having weird woo woo experiences in heron hall so that's my guess it's great you can leave feedback

[01:30:52] at our podcastica facebook page we post weekly feedback threads or you can leave feedback by email at talk at podcastica.com you can find dragoncast and a bunch of other great podcasts at podcastica.com wendy i need your help on remembering the name but lucy and peter just

[01:31:15] started a podcast covering the bear they just put their first episode out i'm so excited because i'm gonna listen to it on a plane tomorrow and i think they're sort of recapping their thoughts

[01:31:25] and feelings about the first two seasons prepping for season three to start soon i'm sure it'll probably go on to the main podcastica feed but i know it's a standalone podcast as well

[01:31:40] do you remember the name it's called let it rip the bear cast nice thanks for looking that up i have binged the bear like in less than a week the first whole two seasons are you okay i am

[01:31:57] is your is your blood pressure okay and it's so weird because i had heard everybody talking about it and i was like i just don't get how that would be good like what and cooking and i just

[01:32:10] and i'm a foodie you know i love like the great british bakeoff and things like that and i just couldn't get it and and then you i think you just have to watch three episodes and if it doesn't

[01:32:22] catch you it's probably not going to but it grabbed me it's so good yeah and i i think i i made a comment like i grew up in a family very much like that like blue collar we always had relatives living

[01:32:38] with us um where i lived in in i lived in downtown baltimore city and you know i lived with him walking distance of my huge extended family and it was quite something like it took me a while to realize

[01:32:58] that's not how most people live but um it reminded me of that both both the good and the bad yeah i feel like a lot of us had points like i'm not saying my family was you know quite to the

[01:33:12] extremes of some of them but my dad's family every time we're all together it's four brothers and there's just always yelling even if no one's upset it's just yelling like yes how the communication

[01:33:24] happens and yes and then when there is disagreement like the tension that they're able to build in that show it's uncomfortable but it's also familiar in a way like yeah it's very interesting yeah um

[01:33:42] it's great though so i i definitely recommend that one all right that is our show thanks for listening everyone until next time i'm rinny i'm still veronica and i'm wendy dracarys all right so first

[01:34:06] we will have our uh section one of book talk where we only talk about um what's happened up to this episode and there are no future spoilers so i want to start off ronica by um saying that last week

[01:34:26] i didn't like the changes that they'd made to blood and cheese but i've completely changed my mind about that what i didn't like was that they'd eliminated um the younger son maylor mm-hmm and so that prevented that from helena being asked to choose between her two sons

[01:34:47] but i realized something when watching episode two that has made me change my mind and i actually like that they eliminated maylor because since agon and helena only have the two children the

[01:35:00] twins agon now only has a daughter so he has a choice between his daughter and his brother to be his heir which is exactly the same situation that his father visceri's had right and so that really reinforces the parallels between amond and daemon because

[01:35:23] both the brothers yes who could be heir yeah who both think they're superior to their brothers yeah well and that's well right like there's just yeah parallels i'm more to say about that but

[01:35:38] i'm saving it for the spoiler section because it looks ahead i also noticed that um as we said in the um in the main podcast they do catch blood with jahari's head in a sack same as in the book

[01:35:55] but in the book he's tortured for 13 days uh before uh he's allowed to die and here agon himself kills blood right away um and uh in the book they never find cheese but i think it makes sense

[01:36:15] that he might have been one of the rat catchers who was hanged so that makes sense yeah i thought it made sense too and i think because they have tried to make agon a

[01:36:31] not just a clearly despicable character they've tried to make him more dynamic i think than that he's not a jahari he he has some emotion i think for me it was actually important that it was

[01:36:45] i'm going to get revenge i'm going to kill you but it was not a i think it helped that it was not a 13 day long torture right i think because they're trying to keep him more of a full character

[01:36:59] i think that for me i agree yeah he's not sadistic he's got a lot of flaws but he isn't sadistic so that's yeah makes sense he's selfish and he was angry but yeah he's not yeah um

[01:37:15] while blood is being tortured he identifies mysaria as the person who hired them and they search for her but they never find her uh in in they have no idea that she was involved in the

[01:37:30] in the show version um one thing that they lost is that auto brings 100 cats into the red keep to replace the rat catchers but but he doesn't have time in the show to do that before agon

[01:37:46] replaces him as hand um and so there's no mention of the cats being brought in and the cats are important later on because the descendants of one of those cats is the cat that aria follows

[01:38:01] right yeah right that's very cute i'm excited to rewatch game of thrones at the end of house of the dragon just for things like that um in the book there is no funeral procession

[01:38:15] but i think that is a great addition it made so much sense yes for a lot of reasons yes um i thought uh because auto says he should be taken to the dragon pit and burned like a

[01:38:28] Targaryen prince i thought maybe we're gonna get to see sunfire burn him the way that we saw um rene as mother's funeral in the first episode um but maybe that would have been too

[01:38:40] much i just wanted to see a good shot of sunfire who is supposed to be the most beautiful dragon whoever lived yeah i think we're i think we'll get it but i would have liked it i would have

[01:38:51] liked more dragons in general this episode i know i we didn't get any until the end when we got that awesome shot of coraxies swooping down um at dragonstone so the writer of the episode sarah

[01:39:05] has and the actor plays auto reese e funds they both talked in the behind the scenes about using the fake news that reneera did this um for propaganda and i think that was a brilliant

[01:39:22] addition um for the show that isn't part of the book i mean it made such good sense with auto's character it helped put him further at odds with the rest of the greens yes it also

[01:39:37] showed his political prowess and made sense that this is what they would have done it almost surprises me that it's not in the book like of course they would have used this to decry what a monster team

[01:39:51] black was yeah so yes great addition i think yeah so after this helena basically becomes catatonic and clearly they're not doing that in the show i think show helena is a more interesting

[01:40:10] character than book helena uh she is not a dragon dreamer she doesn't have prophetic dreams in in the book and she does in the show uh and i think that she's a more engaging character as

[01:40:26] she's presented in the show so i like that change from the book very much you know i have this one small fear for her and i hope they don't do this but because we're missing a son i just have

[01:40:39] this fear that there's going to be a push for them to have another heir and that she's going to have to experience more trauma of everything she's already experienced it i don't know if they'll

[01:40:53] do that because they're trying to soften agon but we're also seeing this episode was let's see his pain and now he has transitioned into blood and fire and so very much and if you look in the

[01:41:09] book the line about him is that he devolves into drink and violence and more drink and violence and so i i do wonder if i hope not but i wonder if he's going to inflict

[01:41:21] yeah violence also on those in the house around him including helena i think that's very possible yeah the line in the book is he raged drank and raged yes and that was one of my observations

[01:41:34] is that show agon doesn't seem to drink quite as much uh he did as a younger teen but this bit we get of him like he seems to you know party on the weekend with the boys but then

[01:41:47] he shows up to small council yeah at least seemingly sober yeah correct yeah yeah but you're right um somebody could convince him or he could just take it into his own head that

[01:42:02] he needs another son yeah um i hope that does not happen i do too but i just yeah i don't i don't need to see her experience anymore pain but i don't it's game of thrones i can't be expecting too much

[01:42:20] um so in the book damon is already at heron hall so the conversation between he and reneera never takes place but again i think this is a really good change because that conversation

[01:42:35] just sheds so much light on the both of them and how the each of them views the situation absolutely um and i think they're still getting we're still getting essentially the same i think we're gonna get a very similar story to play out with yes small flip yes

[01:42:57] i thought it was interesting how many and part of this probably clicked because i was listening to the audiobook this afternoon right before i did my next watch of the episode so i just noticed how

[01:43:09] many of the lines that felt and we don't get that many true dialogue lines in the book because the history and it seems like the ones that were there they really used them um it felt

[01:43:22] like we had a lot of nearly you know word for word quotes from the book which i thought was kind of cool yes so the way the plan for arach to impersonate eric comes about is very different in the book

[01:43:40] a lot more time passes between jahera's murder and arach going to dragonstown there are some small battles that are fought and the greens lose those battles and auto spends his time sending lots of messages both by raven and by horseback so you know it takes a while

[01:44:00] to try to attract more allies and he has no success so things are looking bad looking really down for the greens at that point um the whole propaganda campaign blaming ranira doesn't happen uh making people turn against her quite the opposite more lords declare for

[01:44:19] ranira she's gaining allies and the greens are not gaining allies and agon is getting worried um so remember um lineman beesberry the master of coin who was a member of the small council

[01:44:37] who christin col killed because he shoved his head down on the on the table and the the those little marbles that they use yes yeah bashed his head in um so his family um believe don't know

[01:44:52] that he's dead they believe that he's being held in a dungeon and they start clamoring for his release and the beesberries are bannerman to the tyrells of high garden so the tyrells are worried about their bannerman um getting anxious and they withdraw their support for agon and they

[01:45:11] declare neutrality yes um they took the high road yeah so speak there's a little bit of a nod to that in the show when alison tells auto that he should go to high garden to deal with the

[01:45:26] tyrells rather than returning to old town at the very end after he's been sacked as hand um it was a similar sacking i felt there were a few differences yeah i felt like that was pretty

[01:45:39] similar it's it's not similar at all no it's very different it was similar i mean important way i think um but uh uh so um auto then tries to get the the cities and esos of tyrosh, lice and mir

[01:45:59] who are enemies of daemon from um the war in the stepstones to break the velaryan fleets blockade of king's landing but in the free cities they take a long time to decide anything so nothing has

[01:46:14] happened and that's when agon says his lines spill blood not ink right and he keeps telling auto and finally loses his patience and so it's a chain the hand this badge of office is a chain

[01:46:30] rather than a pin in the book and he tears the chain off of auto's neck but it doesn't happen in private apartments it happens in the throne room so it happens publicly i didn't realize

[01:46:41] i thought it was in the small council yeah that part happens in the throne room but you know the main difference is it's public it's not private right and then he says my new hand is a

[01:46:55] steel fist exactly as in the show i did wonder i mean in the show they don't reference him sending off the letters to the free cities and so i am curious if he said that in motion before he

[01:47:13] left or not um because let's talk about that in the spoiler section right yeah it's a it's a good question every everybody not listening to the spoiler section should wonder whether that happened or not um then the first thing that christin kohl does when he

[01:47:33] becomes hand is that they have taken a bunch of the lords who swore to renera and kept them captive all this time in the book and christin uh executes all the ones who won't change their

[01:47:48] allegiance and there's the three lord butterwell lord stokeworth and lady lady rosby were the only three who changed and swore to agon but that happened in season one way early right we saw

[01:48:03] that happen but that's the first thing that christin actually does when he's hand uh in the book um agon meanwhile is raging mad and he wants to attack dragon stone on dragonback

[01:48:19] and the whole green council has to talk him out of it i think there may be a small reference to that in the show because one of the things that agon says is fire from the sky right right but it's

[01:48:33] when um the green council is trying to talk agon out of attacking dragon stone on dragonback that christin pitches the arach impersonates eric plan right so it's in front of the whole council it's not again it's not a private one-to-one conversation right and christin doesn't do it

[01:48:57] and then tell everyone correct proposes it and they agree everybody but it does still say that except for arach who goes but it says in the book that he does not go i guess like happily right

[01:49:14] forget what phrase they use happily it's not what they use but you know what i mean he goes to the sept to pray several times before he leaves yes and as with so many things in the

[01:49:27] book there are competing accounts of how the actual fight went down uh grand maester munkin says that rinneara was the target of the assassination mushroom says the target was rinneara's two um remaining sons with harwin strong jace and joffrey um

[01:49:48] in both accounts eric and arach just run into each other by accident in um the palace at dragon stone and there's a there's a song about the encounter and the singers say that eric said i love you brother

[01:50:05] and unsheathed his sword and arach replied an i you brother and he drew his sword and they went after each other um grand maester munkin says they battled for an hour and the sound of the

[01:50:17] battle drew many onlookers but nobody intervened because no one could tell them apart um and they killed each other and died in one another's arms with tears upon their cheeks mushroom says the fight lasted only moments there were no declarations of blood brotherly love they denounced each other

[01:50:35] as traitors eric deals arach a mortal blow but as he falls as arach falls he manages to drive a dagger into eric's belly and it takes eric four days to die and he curses his traitor

[01:50:49] brother the whole time and as usual the truth is probably somewhere in between and that's what the show does the way they did it i mean and that made sense too right that they would start out

[01:51:02] calling one another traitors and then as they're dying remember that they're i mean i think they remember they were brothers the whole time but the pain of that hit them the finality of

[01:51:13] what had just happened but yeah in in the show they say both things they say you know you turned and you turn traitor and i love you brother so yeah i think it's great the other thing is they're

[01:51:27] just battling on the stairs and they're not in rinneara's bedroom i think putting it rinneara into direct danger was a really smart thing as well yes absolutely it happened even though

[01:51:42] like wendy said none of us were really worried that this was how she died it definitely made that scene much more intense and to have an in broom viewer also experiencing the tragedy of the moment

[01:51:59] i think also upped all the emotions of that yeah i agree do you have anything else before we move to spoilers i have a question yeah um and we can just get into where we're at and then

[01:52:17] if we need to go into spoilers to talk more but remind me miss iria miss iria miss iria miss iria miss iria yeah what is her story in the book it ends right no she's in the book no remind me

[01:52:34] where we're at with her in the book because i'm just blanking on this well she um she's the one who actually was the go between who hired blood and cheese and then blood identifies her and they

[01:52:47] search for her but they never find her and that's what we know okay in the book we don't at this point in the book we don't know anything beyond that in spoiler section i want to expand

[01:52:59] yeah we can talk more about it in spoiler section like i said i'm a new book reader and so i'm still definitely missing things yes okay that's all i had then oh no i had one other thing as i was

[01:53:11] re-listening today it's already come up in the book but i'm so so curious if we have a spy on the green council because in the book daemon says or it says daemon declares that he even has a spy

[01:53:26] within the greens correct am i remembering he does say that yes and so who is it you know i know we mentioned today is laris playing both sides is he you know a p-tire manipulating everything

[01:53:42] probably but i still don't expect he would be it would be hard for me to imagine even if daemon had some collaborative work with him for him to think he was his man

[01:53:55] i don't think daemon would be quite that stupid i think daemon would know he's playing for himself yeah who knows i'm curious yeah all right we don't know at this point yeah we don't know okay

[01:54:08] that was it all right that was it for the where we're where we have come so far we're now going to give you the spoiler warning and we're gonna talk about future events so here is your spoiler warning that was my dragon giving you the warning

[01:54:39] oh i wish i had a dragon oh well i didn't know you had a dragon if only i did so shall we pick up on the question about mesaria yes yeah she's eventually going to become

[01:54:56] renair is mistress of whispers okay so if i ever say things in the main show one sometimes i'm postulating what would i think would happen if the show doesn't find the book and other times i've just legitimately not remembered where we're going so i'm never trying

[01:55:12] to like pretend i don't know but i really legitimately couldn't remember and so when i guessed that it was not my book knowledge it was my my ignorance and guessing it yeah she she is going to team up with

[01:55:29] renair and become her mistress of whispers so i love that that's that's worse yeah we're not done with her yet there's more um so uh you know i mentioned that not having malore not having the

[01:55:49] second son reinforces the amen daemon parallel because it puts egg on the second in the same position in terms of errors um but the surprising thing about what amen does in the book is that

[01:56:05] amen remains loyal to agon even after agon is injured um amen takes the crown but he doesn't call himself king he calls himself prince regent and protector of the realm so he does not usurp

[01:56:23] when he has the opportunity and the show is really teasing the possibility that daemon might usurp renera and they will probably do the same with teasing the possibility that amond might usurp agon and that makes sense because it ups the dramatic tension yeah i'm curious i don't

[01:56:49] i feel like amond has skewed morals but a certain set of rules he seems to live by like obviously he was okay chasing down and murdering luke um but i could see him in the show how they've

[01:57:11] portrayed him so far i could still see him taking the prince regent name and sort of following the rules in that way because of his sort of self ego that he yeah i did that make

[01:57:26] sense i don't know i'm using my words very well but i can see him saying he's the prince regent not because he thinks highly of his brother but because he thinks highly of himself and that he's

[01:57:38] it's his weird moral code i almost feel like i agree i think he will be protector of the realm in prince regent and not usurp but but i think well and you know in the book daemon never

[01:57:54] usurps he always supports rinera so i think that it'll just be the same thing that they'll they'll make us think that amon's thinking about it like we're thinking that daemon's thinking about it but neither one of them actually ever will take that step yeah

[01:58:12] oh oh my my next one is so painful the show is making us love reynice so much right before they kill her off oh i know i know i know i'm not ready and i i feel as though it must

[01:58:29] become in quite soon because of the introduction of alan and adam yeah unless they are going to change that timeline no i think i have to be going to be quite soon episode four season

[01:58:43] yeah because episode four is the only episode that has a title and the title is a dance of dragons oh yeah and so that's gotta be rook's rest so excited for the dragon fight because i think

[01:58:57] it's going to be amazing but i my heart is not ready for it i think that's why we haven't seen very many dragons yet is because they saved their CGI budget for that and i'm glad

[01:59:10] i'm okay with it because if i think it's going to be the payoff i mean yeah i'm very excited to see the sky light up with those it'll be three three just three okay well

[01:59:25] or does it maybe four because the trailers make it look like bella is there with moon dancer and that feels right they have aged up moon dancer because in the book moon dancer is too young for

[01:59:40] bella to ride but she's riding you know we clearly riding moon dancer because ranira sent her to keep an eye on king's landing do you think we could lose i mean i know we shouldn't

[02:00:02] lose her we can't think there's any chance of a re i agree with she still has a rule to play in the book but yeah how do you think they'll change anything big just to really shake up the

[02:00:16] book readers like do you think they'll swap any big deaths well so far no i don't think so you know i think the preview shows bella chasing christin coal into the forest

[02:00:31] and the setup to the trap yes but i think that maybe bella will be far away from the other three dragons and just witness it yeah oh i'm not ready no i know i'm poor bella i know because

[02:00:52] she's gonna see her grandmother go down yeah i was one thing i was disappointed in the episode when bella went to ranira and i know ranira was reeling in that moment from her conversation

[02:01:07] with daemon but i just wanted her to comfort poor bella because i don't know she's just had enough loss i know yeah uh i think that you know in the book ranis goes to rest alone and um it's because

[02:01:30] jason joffrey both wanted to go with her with their dragons but ranira forbid it and so i think the idea of her sending bella to spy on king's landing instead of jace yeah is is kind of a

[02:01:46] lead up to that where ranira is going to say no jace and joffrey can't go but maybe bella goes even without permission or maybe ranira allows her to go as well so that will be interesting to see what

[02:02:00] they do with that i did notice um that alan and adam have that kind of cryptic conversation where they don't quite say that corelease is their father um they cut from that conversation

[02:02:16] to ranis and corelease in bed so that was pretty obvious i thought it was interesting that wendy didn't i know we didn't talk much about alan and adam but i was wondering if she would say

[02:02:28] something because to me even if i wasn't a book reader the fact that they yeah said he owed me and i guess you could sort of think like you rescued him but adam said us yes he owes us and so i just

[02:02:43] i would imagine that people that were paying attention that that would be your natural assumption and yeah um that you know a a royal or a lord owing something to two small folk who might slightly

[02:03:00] resemble him as a common common story thread in these types of stories so i would imagine people would guess that and then the flying over of lanor's dragon i think was also another

[02:03:14] hint that yes are part of the family yes but i you know in the book corelease does not acknowledge them until ranis is gone that's right and so that's why i was like well we've got to be close to that

[02:03:30] or they wouldn't be showing us they can only do these cryptic snippets for so long until i get to the point so and the same i'm so curious where they're going with sur hugh's story

[02:03:43] again as a without no without knowing that he's important i'm like i would be like why why why are you showing this yeah like i guess to get the the viewpoint of how difficult things are going

[02:03:56] to be for the small folk and like you said that we are getting that perspective in the show more but it just feels very random and out of place and i think for the book readers and not

[02:04:08] book readers alike again i feel like they need to get some momentum or like save those save that introduction till you're closer to the point maybe but what is his character arc going to be

[02:04:21] yeah because he seems like a decent guy yeah how is he gonna become a trader who wants to be king himself i sort of wondered like will he instead try is there a dragon in the dragon pit

[02:04:41] that he could end up with instead of since he's obviously there in the like could that be what happens and he he betrays them by stealing a dragon and going off because he's angry that they're

[02:04:53] not taking care of people in king's landing interesting but then after fighting for the blacks maybe then he gets a little frustrated i'm having a hard time imagining him as

[02:05:04] the betrayer that he is in the book i know of the power going to his head but maybe he becomes disenchanted then with the blacks and turns back to greens not because he wants to power

[02:05:15] himself but because or maybe he just thinks all these people are terrible i should be in control let's burn it all down they're doing something different but i'm so curious yeah well and it's interesting we've already said seen vermouth or last season when damon went and sang to

[02:05:33] vermouth or and vermouth or is the dragon that he right um bonds with so yeah it's that's the biggest wild card for me so far of the changes that they've made because who else would ride

[02:05:47] vermouth or besides him so i just don't know how he's going to get to him now wait is vermouth or a male dragon or female vermouth or is male vermouth or and silver wing

[02:06:02] were the dragons of king jahari's and queen alicein and vermouth or well dragons are neither male nor female they change sex like frogs but um vermouth or is thought of as a male dragon and

[02:06:18] silver wing is thought of as a female dragon um here's another question that i have uh they have really aged down damon and rinnear is two sons agon the younger and viscari's

[02:06:35] um they're nine years old and seven years old in the book but they look like they're just toddlers in the show so how is agon the younger gonna fly off on his dragon if he's that young to escape

[02:06:51] from the pirates so something different's gonna happen there maybe maybe we get lay nor back oh i don't know i just don't like that he wrote off and that we're never going to get

[02:07:12] hide or hair of what happened to him we're never gonna know it's more realistic if we don't hear from him again i think but i would love a um a hero moment for him yeah no i don't

[02:07:25] know how that i mean someone obviously is going to have to save him it was very unlikely it would be him himself yeah yeah mysterious um so after the you know luke's death and then blood and cheese

[02:07:49] the dance the dragons the civil war enters a new stage and uh this is a quote from the book all across the realm lords called their banners and armies gathered and began to march so you've got

[02:08:01] a lot of battles and skirmishes and stuff um going on and i don't know whether we'll see much or any of them i think it's gonna get quite streamlined i think so many characters

[02:08:17] otherwise exactly so there's a battle called the battle of the burning mill and that's mostly the blackwoods versus the brackens which is you know this hat fields and mccoy long-standing feud between

[02:08:30] these two families um and i think we'll get black alice well and that's the question is will we maybe she'll be maybe or yeah black alia maybe she'll be maybe it will be combined into another

[02:08:45] battle that's possible but i checked in and there's no credit for her so there's no news that she's been cast this season we're in spoiler section i wonder if they won't rewrite it that

[02:09:00] she's who takes down christin kohl oh that would be interesting and that would be a way to introduce her have it actually be someone's significant that does it i the only reason i hope

[02:09:12] that's not is what it is because i just want him to burn well as a little iron suit i don't think he'll die until season three and so that would make sense that she could be cast in season three yeah yeah maybe yeah

[02:09:32] daemon brings an army from heron hall and deals a final defeat to the brackens so all the resistance in the riverland to reniera is finished and auto at that point is still hand and he's sending out

[02:09:47] ravens to try to enlist everyone including trying to get winterfell i yes but like not buddy give up and dorne which is not yet part of the seven kingdoms it's still independent and the answer

[02:10:00] he gets back from prince corrin martel the ruler of dorne is dorne has danced with dragons before i would sooner sleep with scorpions i mean smart right i wouldn't want to join that mess after

[02:10:16] what they've already dealt with um what were you gonna say i just i had a little note on this episode set the stage for aamond preferring an older woman yes alice rivers alice rivers was younger but hypothesized to be actually ancient

[02:10:42] yes somewhat like a melisandre right like being able to appear very young for a very long time and if that's true then i could imagine her being a much more mothering character which is obviously

[02:10:56] what he is um preferring and so i just thought this set up a bit more about his character and to me foreshadowed what that relationship with alice rivers might be or like do you think we'll still

[02:11:13] have alice rivers or do you think he'll just bring this woman along with him no alice rivers it's important to have her correct alice rivers has been cast okay so um we'll get her i always forget

[02:11:27] that i can look that kind of stuff up i'm always just like will we get him will we not and forget you can look up to see if they've been cast okay so that's interesting yeah the actor's name is

[02:11:39] gail ranken who's been cast as alice rivers and she's only 34 how old is the actor that plays aamond do you know um because he definitely looks you know young 20s yeah uh pass for that i think um he's 27 okay so she's just seven years older than him

[02:12:08] he's got a good baby face he does have a baby young 20s yeah i you know i am so excited to watch him stand up and be protector of the realm um he for me is a very close to daemon as far as a character

[02:12:26] i just love to watch i mean totally yeah they are so well matched and the show keeps evening their playing field even more as you pointed out i think it's really cool and also like

[02:12:40] man in another universe you would have been daemon's favorite nephew and you too would have just torn the world to pieces absolutely together um anything else well i'm speculating about episode three so each of the first two episodes turned on a major event right um first blood and

[02:13:04] cheese then eric and aric and what event is episode three gonna give us there isn't an obvious one in the book because the next big one is rook's rest and i'm pretty sure that's

[02:13:17] got to be episode four i mean it's gonna be heron hall but heron hall but nothing really big happens there i mean it could end on the setup if if episode four is where we end with renease maybe

[02:13:35] it's all of that going into action maybe because bayla is watching king's landing she sees their armies moving out and she returns to i don't know go tell them what's happening and we maybe i have

[02:13:54] no idea yeah i don't know i mean that none of that seems dramatic enough i know that there's they've added they've introduced a lot of stuff that doesn't happen in the book with

[02:14:06] daemon having weird visions at heron hall so i think that may be the center of this coming episode we'll see that's why i think it might be called ghosts of heron hall i think yeah i'm excited i

[02:14:24] always like when we're at heron hall i think i would love to go visit heron hall i know that seems like a great ghost tour yes um so i'm just excited to be back at heron hall and see

[02:14:39] and see i'm excited i hope this is a very daemon centric episode like it probably will be will be yeah all right all right i think that wraps it up awesome