15: "The Burning Mill" (S2E3)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, I'm Wendy. I'm Rene. And I'm Veronica. And this is Dragon Cast, a podcast dedicated to House of the Dragon. This week we're discussing the House of the Dragon season 2, episode 3, The Burning Mill. Didn't know that until late that night. No, when I started

[00:00:47] watching the episode, it still didn't have the title. Yeah. It's all secret. I love it. The very brief synopsis of the episode from IMDB reads, Damon flies to Heron Hall to begin arranging an

[00:01:04] army while Rene meets an old friend to try stopping the war from cascading. Yep, that's it. That's all that happened. Yeah, totally. What are your first impressions? I loved this episode. I feel like

[00:01:25] it was not as much action, but the tension that it is building for me of what's about to happen. I don't think I've had a show do this from this early in a season consistently build

[00:01:40] this level of tension for me before I'm loving it. I think even more than Game of Thrones, you're worried about what's around every corner. Yeah. Well, and the first two episodes had two real significant deaths. And this episode, well, thousands of people died, but nobody we know,

[00:02:09] right? So it wasn't the same kind of thing as in the first two episodes. But so I have to say, as a book reader, this episode diverged the farthest from the book of anything

[00:02:26] so far. And I am 100% fine with what they did in this episode. That's very interesting. It sort of brought me back to one of the first battle scenes that we saw in Game of Thrones, where

[00:02:42] we're prepping for the battle and then Tyrion gets knocked out. And then we wake up to the battle being finished. It was a little bit like that. I'm sure it was for budgeting purposes.

[00:02:55] Because we have had a lot of action so far. So yes, also though, in that battle, there's no one who we know who's been a point of view character yet. So following that battle, we wouldn't

[00:03:10] really have anybody who we were attached to in the battle. So cutting away from it and cutting back to it, I thought was extremely effective. Alarming like such a contradiction. Yeah. But I liked the episode. I did feel I was telling Renny before you came on Veronica that

[00:03:32] unlike the other episodes, I don't really have a lot of big points, but I have a lot of notes and a lot of little points. I was struggling with that too. So I'm glad I think I'm on the same page

[00:03:45] as you. It was hard. I feel like we once again did so much build up for what I think is going to happen in the next definitely. I think the next episode, but could be another one. You

[00:03:59] don't know. Yeah. And I think one of the big things that I said I wanted was for the world to widen. And I think we really got that here. I mean, there were multiple settings, right? We were in

[00:04:15] King's Landing and Dragonstone, but we were also in the Riverlands and we saw, you know, wherever Sir Kristen was camping out out in the countryside. Yeah. And Harren Hall and so we got

[00:04:30] to see a lot. So I liked that. I think we also had a little where Coralus was right? He's not in King's Landing. No, no. He's on Driftmark, which is an island very close to Dragonstone.

[00:04:46] So Renny's just flies or drag just flies on over for lunch. The Bringer husband lunch. Veronica, you want to go first? Yeah, I think I'll just go ahead and touch on that opening scene

[00:05:00] because I thought it was like you said so well done. And so the two, I don't know if this is, I don't think this is spoiler-y, but it's something that's pointed out in the book that

[00:05:14] I don't know if it's really drawn out in the show. But these are two young men that fought over Raniera a long time ago. Is that right, Renny? No, only one of them is because remember

[00:05:28] the two who fought, one of them died. Right. Okay. But that was these two houses, correct? That's correct. And so one thing I really liked about this seeding is sort of,

[00:05:39] and I think they did this in a couple places in this episode, but giving us the viewpoint of the lesser lords and the small folk sort of around stuff. Yes. And I thought it was cool how not only

[00:05:53] did they show us this sort of old feud between these two houses, but also the way that they were renewing that feud by spouting like, you know, they immediately were taking Agon's or Raniera's side and calling them kin killers and baby killers. I just thought that was a

[00:06:12] cool look, something that Renny and I touched on in book talk previously was some of these smaller battles where we don't know anyone. How are they going to portray that? Like how is that going

[00:06:23] to be impactful? Why are we going to care? And so it was neat to see this episode them starting to do that and show us a way of how they can do that. And still like they still got some impact,

[00:06:36] I think just because of the striking difference of this small argument in a field and then suddenly dead bodies in the burning mill, right? And they still got shock value and emotional response

[00:06:47] from us, even though we didn't have an emotional tie into these characters. And so I thought that was really pretty neat. And again, I mean, I think they're just going to keep hammering us over

[00:06:59] the head with the symbolism of just everyone is going to be destroyed by this war, you know, because right after showing us that shot of the battlefield, it immediately flipped over to Eric

[00:07:14] and Ark together in their grave. Just tying in like this is brother versus brother. This is you know, everyone fighting the people that they're close with and no one's winning, right? Like no one's winning. Everyone's dying. And so I just that whole intro was really well done

[00:07:35] and made me excited for when we actually get to see a big battle that ends, you know, in all this destruction. And they're fighting over nothing. They're fighting over rocks in a field. And some,

[00:07:51] you know, they're fighting over this war of the Targaryen family that they've probably never even met any of them or know any of them. It's just another reason to pick sides against something

[00:08:06] so they can fight each other. How I mean, just hearing you say that, I know we've touched on it in past episodes, but what a good parallel to what we're experiencing right now in the United States where there's so much sort of loyalty and divisiveness

[00:08:27] around political parties and often, you know, sort of almost blind support of these politicians that we really know nothing about, right? Or people voting against their own interests. Like I'm in healthcare and healthcare is on fire if anybody wanted to know. And I see so many people

[00:08:48] talking about like how there's no support for caregiving. There's no resources in the home to take care of your loved ones, things like that. But then I'm like, you know, it's really important we need to vote in November for people that will support the disabled and the elderly.

[00:09:03] And then they're like, wait a minute, are you talking about universal healthcare? Because that's socialism. Yeah, you're voting against yourself. Absolutely. I can tell you moment early in my life when I realized the importance of voting and it was around healthcare.

[00:09:22] I was a caregiver to child that a lot of really medically complex issues and man, that once you live it, that's when you have to suddenly realize the importance of it. And I wish

[00:09:35] people would step outside themselves for a minute and hear that when we're getting really political. But I think what this does tie into though as I was saying, I was thinking it made me think of exactly what, Missyria? Missyria? Missyria. Missyria was saying to Renea though

[00:09:56] of how she's in touch with the small folk and those are the people that are getting reamed in all of this war. I mean, these, the Brackens and Blackwoods aren't even the small folk. They're the lesser lords, right? But they also just like you said,

[00:10:13] they're fighting for something that, yeah. It's just all those bodies on the field. Those are the small folk who are the feudal vassals of the Brackens and the Blackwoods. Yeah. And they're all fighting, yeah, for things that their lords are telling them they should believe in. It's

[00:10:33] just upsetting. I'll just add on to in that scene, they said that, I guess they were arguing over the rocks and where they should be, where the border should be. And they referenced the

[00:10:50] size of Riverrun. So I didn't know what that meant. So I had to look that up. And it's a real word. It's a court which formerly sat at intervals in each county of England and Wales to administer

[00:11:04] the civil and criminal law. In 1972, the civil jurisdiction of Assizes, and I'm going to assume this is in England, was transferred to the High Court and the criminal jurisdiction to the Crown Court. So I thought that was really interesting. Obviously, Riverrun has probably had a real

[00:11:26] issue with keeping these two houses in line. They've been to court to figure out their issues a few times would be my guess. I wonder how long ago that was, the Assize. I do like, I mean, look how much they sort of slipped into one small opening scene

[00:11:48] to give us all that context and background. I think that's really cool. And I personally thought it was really visually impactful with the beautiful meadow and the picturesque mill. The soldiers looked really clean and gorgeous. And then we

[00:12:12] cut away immediately to the bracken soldier lying in mud and dirt and blood with the sword through his neck and the mills burning and the meadow is littered with dead soldiers cut down in battle. And I thought that was really impactful. And everything was gray and bleached out.

[00:12:31] All right. Ready? Well, speaking of getting political, my first point is all hail Queen Rhaenys the Good. Yes. I think everything they're doing with Rhaenys shows us that if the Great Council of 101 had chosen her to be queen rather than chosen Viserys, things would have been

[00:12:57] so much better for the whole realm. That's true. She says that she doesn't think that Otto Hightower was behind the infiltration of Arric because he would not have permitted it. She says, young men have taken the bit in their teeth. They want to punish, they want to avenge

[00:13:25] and the desire to kill and burn takes hold and the reason is forgotten. And that really echoes what we were just talking about about the bracken and blackwood conflict because when Daemon asks what's the reason for their feuds, Sir Simon Strong says

[00:13:47] that it's the reason's long since been forgotten. It's sin after sin after sin. So and then when the Black Council are practically committing treason wanting to carry on the war without Rhaenys direction, after Rhaenys has left the room, Rhaenys starts to walk out

[00:14:16] and then she pauses and just very cool says, she reminds them that the crown that Rhaenir wears was worn by her grandfather, Jhaerys the conciliator and that he ruled longer than any other Targaryen, just very subtly and irrefutably making the point that following the path of peace

[00:14:50] keeps someone in power rather than losing power. And you know she just whacks them all off at the knees with that comment. It was beautiful. They needed it. Yeah. They did. They did. Rhaenir needed it.

[00:15:06] Yes. And it's Rhaenys who really puts the idea of having a conversation with Allicent into Rhaenir's head. So I say let's depose both Aegon and Rhaenir and put Rhaenys on the throne and Bela can be Rhaenys' heir. I wouldn't even add that. Me neither. I wouldn't follow that.

[00:15:36] That party. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like she's sort of the only one who's really taking that like what is it, a thousand-yard view of really stepping back and thinking things through. And I don't think

[00:15:52] she's delusional. Like I think she knows that it may and most likely we will come to these battles but she's like let's try everything we can first. And you referenced her calling out that it was an auto high tower. I thought in that conversation

[00:16:10] with Rhaenir, also the way she said like Rhaenir was going after Allicent for allowing Luke's death and she says as you permitted the murder of a little boy in his bed. Yeah. And it's the truth. It's whether Rhaenir did it or not it was done in her name.

[00:16:29] And if her Prince Consult or whatever he wants to be called is flying off the handle, it doesn't matter if it's his actions. Right. She's the figurehead of this and she has to own it.

[00:16:46] And I think it was reasonable that she told Allicent that she wasn't the one behind it but she still does have to own it. And I thought it was wise of Rhaenir to call her out on that and I felt like she really heard it.

[00:17:02] Yes. Yes. Rhaenir listens to Rhaenir. Oh, I think she depends on Rhaenir. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When all those men are blowharding off, it's Rhaenir's eyes that she's trying to capture what she means, what she says. And that was one of my points.

[00:17:26] Is she the hand of the Queen? So technically at the moment Rhaenir doesn't have a hand of the Queen but Rhaenir is very much filling that role. Yeah. That's what I thought it was and I didn't know if one of the other men were officially

[00:17:42] the hand of the Queen but she's keeping it Rhaenir because she certainly seems to rely on her. And I do just to piggyback off what you both said, I do feel like that really wraps up the whole episode.

[00:17:57] Like Rhaenir talks about Misty leading to Misty until we're at all out war and she says that soon no one will even remember what it was that began the war in the first place and we're teetering now at that point where none of it matters anymore.

[00:18:17] Allison and Rhaenir both don't want war, they don't want war. It could be the end of their houses, their children, their loved ones. They don't want that. But they're also unwilling to bend. Right.

[00:18:33] They both now understand that it was really a mistake, they kind of instigated all of it, although I think if that mistake hadn't happened something else probably would have. Well there was already a coup plot in effect that Allison wasn't aware of.

[00:18:50] Right and so I think even with that acknowledged it's too late to go back for them. Oh yeah, oh yeah it's been too late for a while. And then Sir Simon Strong has the same sentiment when Damon asks him why the Brackens in the Blackwoods

[00:19:10] hate each other, sin begets sin begets sin. It's the same thing really. It's like once you're on a path you can't erase it and go back to the beginning. In the behind the scenes David Hancock who's an executive producer and writer on the series said

[00:19:30] that one of the big ideas of the series, the whole series not just this season, was generational conflict. And I think that we see that where the Bracken in Blackwood feud is a microcosm of the Targaryen civil wars. The Gen Z is taken over. That's right.

[00:19:55] And you know, spoiler alert although this is I'm satirically saying spoiler alert, the Targaryens are going to continue to have internacing family civil wars all the way down the timeline to Game of Thrones. Back to Veronica. I don't know who I want to talk about more.

[00:20:21] We started talking about Allison so I'll just go with that and I titled this, This Girl is a Bugly Slut because if you've seen Mean Girls, that is my, I was like

[00:20:34] in a little bit of a rage as the episode ended with her final line of just sort of like too bad so sad it's already started. I'm going out here. I was just like, curious. I am so glad that this conversation happened. I really am. Me too.

[00:20:52] I think it was really important to fully, it puts Allison fully in a certain column, right? Because before you could at least maybe defend that she legitimately misunderstood Viserys and even though she on some level had to know she was hearing what she wanted to hear

[00:21:16] and that even if he really did say that he was drugged up and dying in the moment and he had for every other minute of his life for the last two decades defended Rhaenyra's claim. But now we got it clear, right?

[00:21:33] Like she knows she was wrong and she's still choosing this path. And so for me, I don't know. It was just helpful for me to be like, all right, like I'm really on the right side not looking out.

[00:21:49] It was just maddening even just the beginning of the conversation of her accusatory approach to Rhaenyra having been responsible for Jaehaerys' death, which like she's fully justified in calling her out. But no acknowledgement in return of like you also like your son murdered her son.

[00:22:14] Like that started this. And I think that just frustrates me so much with her just the ready to judge everyone else but will not judge herself. Wendy, you look like maybe you're going to defend it. I'm here for her. In defense of Allison, what are Allison's options?

[00:22:35] You know, like you take Rhaenyra's hand, walk in and say, hey guys, you just don't understand. Like she would be locked up in a very nice cell for the rest of her life, right? I mean, she's a woman. She is not.

[00:22:55] I mean we know she is a power player but she's having, she has to use those covert methods of retaining that power because she's a woman. She's not the queen. Yes. She's the queen mother.

[00:23:12] If they sniffed that out as much as Aegon and Cole care, I say that in quotation marks, about her, even Otto, same thing. I think she would be in a cell. You're right. I want to hate her. Dang it, Wendy. How dare you?

[00:23:30] Well, I'm kind of in between there because I think that she could try to exert an influence over Aegon without coming right out and doing something that would get herself

[00:23:44] thrown in a cell or at least she could say, I will try to do what I can however small to avert this war but she does. That's true. She doubles down. She could have like cried and grabbed her in her hand and apologized for all the things

[00:23:57] that have been like, I know we're fucked now and I'm about to like really screw you over and walk out of this room but like at least I'm saying I'm sorry. I don't know. I feel like her eyes said that. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough.

[00:24:12] Her face was amazing. It said a lot. Both of them. Oh, for me, her eyes, her face said, oh shit, it turns out that I got it all wrong and so I better try to cover up my wrongness. Yeah. Kudos to the actress. I do not know.

[00:24:30] Oh, look at them. She did. That was an amazing scene. Fantastic. Like I said, I love that they got this conversation but what I will say that I did not love is the ease with which the blacks keep infiltrating not only King's Landing but like getting to the

[00:24:48] people they want to get to so easily. Like for me, that was hard to stomach. I think that it was so easy and so because I loved the outcome of it, I could sort of excuse it but it did, it itched me a lot in the moment.

[00:25:05] I didn't. Yeah. The mechanism of it was pretty dumb and unbelievable but I didn't care because the scene was so vital. And I think that part of what it showed is that the writers were planning ahead to

[00:25:22] that moment when they put in that dumb terrible scene in season one of the misunderstanding. I really did not like that. What was that you said, Viserys? You want your son A gone to be king? I hated that scene.

[00:25:39] I thought that whole thing was just really wrong-headed and unnecessary but now that I've seen this scene, I know that they had this scene planned when they wrote that scene and it just makes Allison's character in her situation so much more twisted and complex

[00:25:57] and in the book, Allison is really an unsympathetic character. And how are they going to move her in that direction? Well, they found the way to do it and this is the way. I love that as soon as they build up the greens to be the big bads,

[00:26:15] then they twist everything around and now they're going to test your allegiance. Oh yeah. I love that part and I do have a lot of empathy for Allison. I do too. I think I have a weird mix of empathy but also, and this is my own personal, probably

[00:26:37] biases sipping in but I would imagine there's a lot of other women that agree with me. I feel so bad for Allison's situation and everything she's been through and in another world, I would love to just be so happy for her with Kristen Cole.

[00:26:52] But it is the highest judgment and the, yeah, I'm angry at my situation and I'm pissed that I have to follow these rules. And so not only am I not going to do anything to try to better my situation in this scenario

[00:27:11] but I'm also going to begrudge another woman who's trying to break free of those chains. And that's exactly what it boils down to. That is the moment that her caring and love of Renea broke was when she saw Renea doing

[00:27:27] the things she wished that she could do ultimately. And that's where my sympathy for her is, it's very hard for me to feel sympathy for her because I've just seen that too often in my own life. Well, Renea said to her last season,

[00:27:45] you're not trying to free yourself, you're just cutting a window in the wall of your prison. And that's exactly how I see Allison. Yeah. You know, so one of my points for the first episode when it was revealed that she was having

[00:28:04] sex with Kristen Cole was where's your self-righteousness now Allison, high tower. And I practically shouted at the TV when I saw this scene, where's your self-righteousness now Allison high tower because she was told that she was wrong

[00:28:24] in what she believed the Saras had said to her but she doubles down on it. I think that's worth exploring a little bit. Why is Allison going against everything that she either thought or said she believed in?

[00:28:42] I mean, we assume that she was faithful to Viserys their entire marriage and I think that's true. And so I wonder like, is she now doing this with Cole because she's no longer married and

[00:28:59] she's released from those bonds or is she doing this with Cole because she's lost? She, you know, this whole war is happening. She's losing control over children. Her father's, well I mean her father is her father and I believe she genuinely grieves for Viserys

[00:29:21] because that was her life for 20 years we assume. Yes. She lit a candle for him. Yeah. She didn't have to do that. Right. That's what I wonder is like, is she just doing this because she's lost and then hating

[00:29:34] herself for doing it? I sort of feel like that's where Cole is as well. Oh yes. Yes. Because she keeps saying we can't do it again. I think it's that. I think it's absolutely that because her initial anger with Renea happened

[00:29:48] after she found out just that she slept with Kristen Cole. Renea was not married at the time. Like if it's just a matter of like sex outside marriage not being like being okay for her that makes no, that's still not congruent with her judgment of Renea.

[00:30:05] Right. And also with a man who has an oath to celibacy which seems to be pretty loose these days. Pretty loose. Well you know that scene with Aegon teasing his cronies who are now

[00:30:19] Kingsguard about their vow of celibacy and they get all serious like oh he means it and then it's like no just kidding guys. Right. I don't understand how like Kristen Cole sucks. Like why did he let those guys be named white

[00:30:36] coats? Like it seems like it seems like there's several of them that have Aegon's number and can sort of like manipulate him. Yeah. That seems like an important place to manipulate and actually make sure he's safe. Right. Why is he letting those doofuses guard the king?

[00:30:54] That's what happens when you have absolute power. Aegon can do whatever he wants. Whatever he wants. Yeah. And you can see they have zero respect for Cole. Oh yeah. Like they won't even get out of his way. Yeah. But also I think everybody probably

[00:31:12] knows Cole's story so they probably don't respect him. You know he doesn't come from a high prestige family. That's right. He killed a man at Ranae's wedding festivities. I don't know for me like that would make me respect the dude and not want to get on his

[00:31:35] bass. I feel like it's like a fashion-wide birth. And then obviously the people in power let him remain in a place of power himself. Right. Yeah. I mean I guess people probably don't know like what

[00:31:50] he did in the council with killing that guy. Yeah right. They probably hid that. Yeah nobody outside the council. Right. Yeah. The one nice thing I will say about Allison this episode was

[00:32:04] I thought we got to see this moment of Helena being very wise and sort of realizing well these small folk like they probably are like losing their babies all the time. And so why would they even

[00:32:16] think I'm allowed to be upset which I thought was really just perceptive of her sort of seeing that but I did really appreciate that Allison affirmed that she's also allowed to grieve

[00:32:28] her child and feel some of that. I thought that was at least a redeeming mothering moment for Allison who I think struggles to mother difficult children. It seemed like Helena was doing okay.

[00:32:44] Yeah. Yeah. And she seems like an honestly kind person. Yeah. I guess we'll see what happens with that but I hope they do more with her character. I would like to see that.

[00:32:59] And she has a dragon right. She does have a dragon and I think they are going to do more with her character. One of the things that we've just seen snippets of is that she's made drawings everywhere

[00:33:11] and they're drawings of her prophetic dreams and some of them are clearly prophecies about the Game of Thrones era. Oh that's so cool. Yeah. She has stags and wolves and you know things that clearly represent the Baratheons and the Starks and yeah. That's really neat. All right.

[00:33:38] Run? Okay. Yeah. So my next point is dragons. Yeah. Dragons. So good. I went to bed last night thinking I really, really, really want a dragon. Yes. I'll take just a little one. I'd be satisfied.

[00:33:58] We got something that I don't think that we've gotten before in this episode which was the dragon riding perspective from the writer's perspective. So we're seeing the camera is the writer and we got that with both Caraxes and with Moondancer. And there's a whole genre of still

[00:34:22] photographs and videos among people who ride horses. They're called through the ears because you're looking through the horse's ears and it's from the writer's perspective. And this was through the horns, through the dragon's horn shot. So that was so cool. Also I love Moondancers

[00:34:42] markings. This is the first time we've seen Moondancer and those, the markings on Moondancers wings are amazing. In the behind the scenes, Ryan Condall said that when he told the designers what he wanted for Moondancer he said, think David Bowie. Wow. Yeah. Okay. David Bowie and the dragon.

[00:35:06] Yeah. But oh wow, what amazing eyesight Bayla has to have seen those little riders on horses from all the way up at Cloud Heights. There was a shot looking down before she descended and I didn't

[00:35:24] see a thing. So I don't know how she managed to see them. I couldn't see it any time that I rewatched. Like where is she seeing? Yeah. I loved those scenes. I wanted her to just set the entire

[00:35:38] forest on fire. Yeah. Just burn it all. Same. I also like, I love her confidence. Like we really are seeing her grow up. Yes. And I liked her conversation with Ranae too where she was like

[00:35:55] all the way, you saw them all the way from there and she was like, I was a little closer. A little closer. Yeah. And then she said, but you didn't engage? Not really. Well, no. Maybe.

[00:36:09] But never forget Bayla is Damon's daughter. Yeah. So Bayla has her father in her. And I think that Lena, their mother, I think had a similar wild spirit too. I think she, if she was alive, she would have been out there chasing them basically. Absolutely.

[00:36:36] Yes. Renea sends Rana, Bayla's sister and her two younger sons to the Vale with two dragons who are small and in cages. You don't really see, you see the dragon cages, you don't really get a good shot of the dragons. And those are her baby's dragons, right?

[00:36:58] Yes. Joffrey is her third son with Lenor also known as Harwin Strong. Yeah. He's Jason Luke's youngest brother, Joffrey. And the larger dragon is his, that dragon's name is Tyraxies. And then Baby Aegon, Renea's son with Damon,

[00:37:24] the smaller dragon is Storm Cloud. That's Aegon's dragon. And so Baby Viserys didn't have a dragon? Baby Viserys has an egg. So it hasn't hatched yet. It hasn't hatched yet. I see. And so you see four eggs also being taken. And one of those eggs is Viserys's egg.

[00:37:47] And the other three are the ones that Damon found that Cyrax had laid on the mountain at Dragonstone in season one. And here's the big question. Are those Danny's eggs? Well, Gita Patel, the director of the episode,

[00:38:10] said today that yes, they meant for those to be Daenerys' eggs. There's a black one, a cream colored one and a green one. And they're headed to Pentos. Well, they're headed to the Vale right now. Right. But there was talk of Pentos. Oh, I love that.

[00:38:27] I know. I thought about it immediately. I was like, yes. This is something that has to be show only, which I'll explain in the book talk section. And as show only, sure, why not? I love it. Yeah.

[00:38:41] Yeah, that's really, I think that's, I think it's cool how they're trying to get these little tie-ins. Yeah. Literal Easter eggs. Yeah. Yeah. And they made it subtle. Yeah. Right. Because there's four. Yeah. There's four. And so you wouldn't immediately think I didn't at all.

[00:38:59] Yeah. Then we see sea smoke flying around while Reneer is talking with Masariah. And Reneerah says that, or Masariah asks, is that drag? I'd always like that. And Reneerah says he's become restless recently. Who knows why? Well, one of the lower things that

[00:39:24] book readers have really been obsessing about is the fact that since Lenor's not dead, no one else would be able to claim and ride sea smoke. Well, maybe sea smoke is restless because Lenor died.

[00:39:41] Because he was going off to Essos, right? And he was probably going to be a sword for hire. And I don't know. They could do that. So he might have got killed. And it would be closure, you know? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:39:59] I'm surprised that Reneer never attempted to bond with sea smoke. I was waiting for her to do that this episode. Yeah. I was thinking that would be... Because they were obviously spending time with her. Yeah. Yeah. And I was expecting something. I don't know what.

[00:40:23] Yeah. Just surprised that's never really been talked about. Yeah. And then my last point about dragons is have you noticed that Reneerah is becoming a dragon? All the clothes she's wearing now or more and more of them have scales.

[00:40:42] They have dragon scales. And Daemon, of course, is already a dragon. We see him again in his armor and he's got the dragon helmet and his armor has scales built into it. So Reneerah is becoming

[00:40:58] more like Daemon, becoming more like a dragon. I like it. Me too. Yeah. So that was my points about dragons in this episode. I'm going to talk about the sets. I just think

[00:41:15] the sets and the scenery are just incredible. We have the before and after shots of the mill that we talked about. We have Heron Hall in all its cursed wet glory. Like they really

[00:41:29] made that place into a haunted house. It's creepy. It's dark. It's dank. I really liked that. We get this long, lovely shot of a festive night in King's Landing with all the small folk. They had several people selling things and people sitting around a table, eating, drinking.

[00:41:51] I really like this insider point of view. Lots of crowded streets, teaming with the small folk. And then I just can't get enough of the sets of Dragonstone. I think it's just incredible that

[00:42:03] library, the throne room. I just love it. I'm going to have to go look for some still photos and things like that of it because I just think they've done an amazing job with those sets.

[00:42:17] And we've seen Dragonstone before, but it's so much better this time around. I really love that. And even the scenes with Bela chasing Kristen. That was great. Loved it. Wonderful. Back to you, Veronica.

[00:42:35] I'll just do, I have a few notes about Krispy Kohl. I'm just going to keep calling him that in hopes that he's going to get Krispy. I am trying to will that into existence. Well, first of all, we got the answer to how he's going to wear the

[00:42:55] hand. He's going to wear a chain. So that was cool. And I think that, Renée, did you say that that's actually more historically accurate to what hands would have been wearing chains? Yeah, in the book they wear chains. You know, maesters wear chains and hands

[00:43:15] wear a hand of the King chain. There's no pin in the books. It's always a chain. I felt like we saw him started to really crumble even more so this episode, like that opening with him in the mirror. You could see the fear and the I don't really

[00:43:37] know what I'm doing and I have all this responsibility and what am I supposed to do here. And also, I'm, you know, screwing around with the Queen Regent. And there's just a lot of things

[00:43:49] that he has. He's dug himself quite the hole. And I really loved getting to meet Alison's brother Sir Gwane. And I loved the dynamic between the two of them because

[00:44:04] like first you see Sir Gwane really looking down his nose at Kristen. And I, you even see him clock Kristen and Alison's interactions. Yeah. What's going on there? And then, you know, the next scene

[00:44:19] you get them Kristen charging after him in that field and him sort of like, dude, chill. Dude, chill. We're going to the end. You do you. We're doing us. We'll meet back up. And I loved that.

[00:44:34] I loved seeing Kristen get judged that way just because I hate him so much. Like normally I would not be for, you know, one of the high towers looking down their nose at somebody but because

[00:44:47] I can't stand him so much it was sort of satisfying to watch that. But then it was also nice to see Gwane get subsequently put in his place by realizing, hey, when you act like an idiot

[00:45:01] you get all of us in trouble. But you know, when the when Bayla came down chasing them. So I just sort of enjoyed all of that. Let's not forget he is Otto's son. Yeah. I mean it makes total

[00:45:15] sense. Yeah. You see that that high tower sort of haughtiness. Better than yeah. High tower haughtiness. I like it. I just find it so weird that Kristen would be the hand of the king

[00:45:30] and the Lord Commander of the Gold Cloaks. Of the Kingsguard. Yeah. I mean to me it just shows how things are really deteriorating for the Greens and how Aegon is recognizing that he has

[00:45:47] the power but he does not have the temperament or experience to handle it and so it's just showing how things are crumbling because of that. We've actually seen this happen in another circumstance though remember Barristan Selmy was Lord Commander of Daenerys' Queensguard and

[00:46:10] he was also her hand in the Queen. Yeah, I probably just wasn't aware of it. The roles as much as I am now. I thought like was the honeymoon over for those two? Like they seemed

[00:46:23] a little pretty, they had a lot going on this episode. Like I couldn't tell are they mad at each other or are they not mad at each other? Maybe they're always mad at each other.

[00:46:32] I mean I think they're always mad at each other. Yeah they're both guilty and so like while they do want to be with one another they also resent each other probably because they're the temptation that's led them down this path. That's how what I would imagine

[00:46:50] part of the dynamic going into that is- It doesn't seem like Allison is happy with his new role. No. Yeah. Because he doesn't necessarily have her back in it. No. So even though she feels like,

[00:47:05] hey like you know in the bedroom she was sort of dominating him. Yeah. In the small council she does not and he's arguing against her and I think that's upsetting you know. Yeah.

[00:47:17] That's what I saw too. Him and Amund and Aegon they are just ready for all out war like they won't even wait a couple weeks. Back to you, Ren. So last week I said I thought the title of this episode

[00:47:34] would be Ghosts of Harrenhal and I maintained that the title could have been Ghosts of Harrenhal because we got some spooky stuff in Harrenhal. Yeah. Damon it's not clear how much of the sequence

[00:47:52] where something strange is going on is a dream. The whole thing might be a dream because Damon's in his chamber and he's got the sword as a door holder. There's somebody

[00:48:04] rattling it and he opens it and nobody there and he walks out into the castle and at this point it's clearly a dream because he encounters young Rhaenyra and we see Millie Alcock.

[00:48:20] That was so great. Yeah. I didn't know what we were going to see but I didn't expect that. Yeah well and then what Damon sees is young Rhaenyra the Rhaenyra who he loved stitching Jaehaerys' head back on and I think that this is Damon feeling guilt and remorse

[00:48:45] in so far as it's possible for him to feel guilt and remorse. And guilt and remorse for what he did to Rhaenyra by doing that. Exactly so even while he's challenging her publicly

[00:48:59] because he's demanding to be called your grace instead of my prince his subconscious is telling him he's got feelings that he's not processing consciously so he's processing them subconsciously and then he's out in outside the castle and there's a werewood tree and werewood trees oh by the way

[00:49:23] there's something that I didn't catch visually. I think I need to turn the light up on my TV set more because there was weird stuff in the walls of Heron Hall and I

[00:49:34] didn't catch what it was but in the behind the scenes they explained it those are werewood roots growing through the walls of the castle. I could not clock what that was in the aftershoots.

[00:49:46] I did get that it was trees, tree roots. Yeah specifically werewood trees yeah and werewood trees are known to give people wild dreams so maybe that Damon was out under that werewood

[00:50:04] tree this whole time but you know suddenly he's in the yard and he sees this mysterious woman who doesn't have a name. We're not given her name in the episode and I watched the second time I

[00:50:19] watched the episode I watched it with the closed captions on and it didn't give her name. So this woman says to him you'll die here and this you know could be Damon his own you know fears expressing themselves. She could be a figment of his imagination.

[00:50:51] She could really be standing there talking to him that yeah the episode does not give us the answer and she didn't say when and she did not say when that's right. It wasn't like you're never going

[00:51:02] to leave here. You will die here in 56 years. Yeah okay fine I got no problem with that right. I mean that's what I'm hoping for don't take Damon from me. I have a question I'll just go

[00:51:18] into this for my next point. Harron Hall we've heard so much we've seen it in Game of Thrones. It's dank. It's damp. It's dark. It's moist. It's wet. We get it. We get it. I'm guessing the

[00:51:31] Strongs had it for a bit but it still barely looks habitable. Oh yeah it's 129 years old at this point and it's been in this condition the whole time because when it was finished that's

[00:51:45] one Aegon the Conqueror came to take Westeros and he was riding Beleriand the Black Dread, the largest and fiercest dragon who ever lived larger and fiercer than Begar even and he melted it. He melted the towers of Harron Hall. Beleriand's fire burned so hot that

[00:52:09] it actually melted the stone and nobody's restored it since then. And Damon talks about repairing it and I'm like wait that seems like a monumental undertaking that you wouldn't do when

[00:52:21] you're trying to gear up for war. Yeah so even the banners that we see outside for the Strongs I'm assuming are all tattered and the whole place just looks disheveled and certainly not a good

[00:52:38] representation of a strong family. And so I was thinking like what are we meant to think? Are we meant to think that Laris has abandoned that place and that's also why they don't like him

[00:52:55] you know because it obviously seems unkept so is that that Laris is neglecting his I mean that's the seat of his house. Yes well remember Harron Hall is cursed and everybody who takes over Harron Hall it comes to a bad end. Remember who was named Lord of

[00:53:18] Harron Hall in Game of Thrones? Littlefinger. Littlefinger that's right and he never even went there. Right and he did come to a bad end but it was quite after that. Well deserved,

[00:53:31] but it was years later so I mean I feel like everybody comes to a bad end in Westeros eventually. No that's not true. You know, Jaehaerys the conciliator he ruled longer than anybody and died

[00:53:46] peacefully. And the Targaryen that was at the wall who died of old age. Aamon. Yes. Maester Aamon. So there you go. Yeah. Nice stuff. So I thought that that was probably why he just like immediately gave up their entire house to the other side.

[00:54:10] Or also because they state that they know or they highly suspect that Laris killed his father and brother. I think the main reason though is that Daemon came on Caraxes. That's what

[00:54:25] I was going to say. And Harron Hall has been attacked by a dragon before. Right. And it didn't go so well. Right. I thought that team was a little disjointed with the

[00:54:37] Strongs. Yeah. Yeah. If there was any part of the episode that really didn't work for me it was it was Daemon's interactions at at Harron Hall. Yeah. Especially one line just really

[00:54:53] graded on me and if I could go re-edit the episode I'd take it out. It's when he says you know we're going to march on King's Landing and take the throne and Sir Simon says the throne and Daemon says

[00:55:06] it's a chair made of swords. That just seemed like so out of place that line was it was too contemporary. Yeah. Yeah. Although one of our listeners loved it

[00:55:21] and posted about it Renee. She calls in as well so we'll see what she has to say. I thought that scene was a little like there's just a couple scenes they put in that just don't seem to match everything

[00:55:34] else and that was one and the other one was Renera getting into King's Landing. Like I'm so glad we got there because that conversation was amazing and those two are amazing and I get it. It's

[00:55:49] a plot vehicle. Totally yeah. Yeah. But it did take you out of things a little bit because it seems so unrealistic that anyone would let her go that anyone would get away with it. Yeah. I'm so head

[00:56:03] over heels for Daemon that I didn't like now that you pointed out like I agree with you but I just don't even care because he was getting screen time. It's really bad. Yeah. Wait me he's

[00:56:16] so good like with anything and that's the thing is I think he's been humbled and I think all of this is humbling him. Oh I don't know maybe. I think he came in there expecting a fight and he was ready

[00:56:30] for a fight and then it's just no fight. Yeah. He's like six guys in this decrepit castle. He needed that fight right? Like how he stormed away from Renera and he was like

[00:56:44] you know he needed that and he didn't get it. He did not get it. He's ready. Veronica I'm with you. I also really, really love Daemon and I have in fact cosplayed Daemon Targaryen. You're going to have to share those photos. You have some pictures of that.

[00:57:06] It's amazing that I might have to consider that for Halloween this year because I don't know like I cannot get enough of that character. Yeah I've got the blonde. I might be

[00:57:17] able to do something. Actually it was really sad though because one of the times that I cosplayed Daemon I was totally, totally being Daemon but I'd had eye surgery and I had to wear an eye patch

[00:57:30] so I looked like I was Daemon rather than Daemon. I was literally just getting ready to say but Daemon just given Daemon a run for his money for my affections. So perfect.

[00:57:45] Back to Veronica I only have notes left. I think that's a perfect segue into me talking about Daemon and how much we got of Daemon this episode. Yes I was wondering how long we would go.

[00:58:00] Yeah. So, so much more than I bargained for. I just continued to really love that character. I loved the way he manipulated his brother during the small council so quickly, you know, quickly talking him down from running out on his dragon himself to war.

[00:58:23] I just love his cool confidence. We got a full frontal scene but it was so impactful to the story, right? It wasn't just nudity for nudity. It was he's in this moment of Aegon coming in and

[00:58:40] belittling him and if you think of the history of Aemon he has been harassed by his family his whole life. It makes me I know this is so hypocritical because I do not give Allysa enough

[00:58:55] empathy but I just I think seeing him as a child being bullied in that way maybe particularly have a soft spot for him and then when you see him curled up in this woman's arms just seeking

[00:59:10] motherly love and affection like it's hard for me not to feel a lot of empathy for him and then you know he's being bullied again and instead of lashing out or crying he just stands

[00:59:23] up in absolute cool confidence. You know he cares about this woman that he is curled up against and you know you see her care for him in return it's not purely a transactional relationship

[00:59:36] there is some affection there and it's just so powerful how he stands up. He's able to walk away as if he does not care at all and flippantly say she's yours and just confidently stride across

[00:59:50] the room completely naked. It was just such a appropriate response to what he'd gone through and I don't think a lot of people would be able to respond in that way of just standing up and

[01:00:04] walking away you know. If someone did that to me I would have been in absolute tears or would have yelled back at them right like I loved his his strong walk away.

[01:00:17] And can we just point out how stupid it is to bully Amond now as opposed to when he was a child because Amond has vagar and yes Aegon has a dragon but vagar is like three times the size of Aegon's

[01:00:35] dragon so yes Amond's dragon is bigger than Aegon's dragon. Right and you don't want him against you and you don't want him working for your enemies. Right it's not only that Aegon is stupid to do

[01:00:51] that though but it also underlines what he said last episode which is that he has complete trust in Amond's loyalty. He said that when he was sitting there on the throne drinking with his

[01:01:02] friends and I think he is grossly underestimating Amond. Oh yeah. There seems I can't quite put my finger on Amond but he has some sort of internal rule book that he's following that keeps him

[01:01:24] continuing to sort of respect that even though he knows he would be the better king even though he knows he is stronger and wiser he respects that that's his brother's seat and I feel like it's a

[01:01:38] there are so many parallels with he and Daemon but it's a different approach because Daemon did love and respect Viserys but he resented him hotly and Amond does it coolly. Yeah yes

[01:01:55] Amond's cooler. Yes he is and I don't think he loves Aegon. No the way that Daemon loved Viserys. Yeah. He just respects the rule. Yeah yeah but that doesn't mean he's not waiting for a shot. Oh definitely. But you know Viserys in his youth was very lovable.

[01:02:15] Aegon was not. Aegon's never been lovable. No and it must have been so frustrating to grow up in his shadow knowing he has at least some level I guess he didn't know he would definitely be king

[01:02:31] but he knew he was ahead of him in the line for any sort of lordship or anything and to see all of that loss like I know it was hard for Daemon because he saw Viserys as weak

[01:02:44] but it must have been so much more difficult for Amond seeing Aegon just be a you know he was constantly drunk and raping women and cared nothing for responsibility and so it almost seems like that

[01:02:59] would be a more frustrating situation and more likely that you would be fiery about it the way Daemon is but he's just I love it. I love his character. And it seemed like Aegon was reverting

[01:03:12] back to his behavior. Yes absolutely yes I think he pulled it together for a little bit to try to do things and then his son being killed that way was like what's the point you know. Yeah

[01:03:28] send him back into that spiral. Rony? I also am down to just notes. Okay one note I have is about Ulf the dragon seed who seems to earn drinks. He gets people to buy him drinks by talking about his

[01:03:46] Targaryen lineage. Right. You know it's nice work if you can get it. Right. They really set that scene up I thought something worse was going to happen. I thought Aegon was going to have overheard the

[01:04:02] discussion that was happening and that there was going to be a bigger fallout from that but yeah there's your other nephew. Yeah I'm really liking Miseria more and more each episode and I'm wondering do you think she will become

[01:04:19] Renera's mistress of whispers? She's already fulfilling that role even if she doesn't technically have the title. The life with Rhaenys who's fulfilling the role of Hand of the Queen even though she doesn't technically have the title. Renera is setting up this

[01:04:37] shadow cabinet. All female alliance and I am really digging it and like she's two for two she saved Renera's life and she got her in to see Allicent safely. Yeah. So that's pretty powerful. Yeah. Her allegiance to Renera reminded me a lot of some of people's allegiance to

[01:04:59] Daenerys where they are just motivated to serve like Grey Worm. Yep. And even Tyrion in the later parks you know where he was so lost and broken and had nothing to live for and then he made

[01:05:14] Dany what he was living for that kind of reminded me of that in some ways. And Missandei too. Yeah yeah yes. All right back to you Veronica. This is not book spoilery this is just me

[01:05:28] legitimately curious because I know the show's changing quite a few things. Something about the way that Misserio was looking out at Seasmoak and noticing him I just wondered if she has aspirations of trying to mount a dragon. Oh interesting. I don't know if that will happen but

[01:05:50] that's my that's going to be my prediction that she's at least going to attempt it. For the first time I'm actually looking forward to her story so well done to whatever they did

[01:06:01] to fix it because I think it wasn't good last season and it's much better. I'm going to submit a quick rewrite that I hope they will be able to do reshoots before next week's episode and

[01:06:14] have you know an all female air wing of dragon. Oh wouldn't that be a myth. We'll get Reina on a dragon and Missaria and Rainies and get to Renea on Cyrax and we'll just go to town.

[01:06:29] Anymore notes. Larry's what a masterful job he does of manipulating Aegon by talking about the rumors that are afoot which I'm sure he made those rumors up right there. Absolutely right.

[01:06:45] Such a slimy gum bucket. Yeah but so effective and Aegon had no idea that he was being manipulated none and that's totally what was happening and what was so great about the scene was it was

[01:07:02] very clear to us the audience that Larry's was just saying what he needed to say to manipulate Aegon but it was absolutely not clear to Aegon that that's what was happening. Right and it's just

[01:07:14] forming a divide between him and his mother. Yes exactly I just have one last little snippet note a bit of trivia which is that one of the three buddies that Aegon has who are now Kingsguard

[01:07:32] is Martin Rain and that is Rain as in the Reigns of Castamere the song that sung about the Lannisters so Martin Rain is from the family that Tywin Lannister is going to wipe out later in the timeline.

[01:07:58] So one of my notes was the last few scenes between Renea and Corlys have just been like an injection of lightness and sweetness. That never means anything good. It's a decent relationship between two people. Yeah I knew that was possible in this universe. Well they've lost so much

[01:08:19] that what they have is each other. Yes. Yeah both of them just light up the scenes when they come on. Any other notes for Onika? I just noticed one thing that I thought

[01:08:32] was cool that they included and it was the shot of the Ratcatcher still hanging there with his eyes being pecked out. I just thought that was cool that they still showed it and it also sort of

[01:08:46] helped you realize again like a marker of time that it really hasn't been very long because besides his eyes he's still fairly intact. And it was in the introduction as well the hanging

[01:08:57] of the Ratcatchers right? Yeah I thought that was pretty cool. Yes they oh I forgot to make a note of that there are changes to the tapestry in this week's opening. We see Jaehaerys, we see the hung

[01:09:12] Ratcatchers and we see Eric and Arik. Yep so those things will continue to be added I'm sure. I think that's cool. I think it's definitely an improvement. Yeah yeah it's neat. All right we'll just move into our news section. Renny you want to read that first article?

[01:09:30] Yes this is from Forbes it's titled How That Surprise House of the Dragon Five Second Cameo Happened by Paul Tassie. Millie Alcock who stunned in her half season turn as young Reneara Targaryen in season one and just returned for a haunting moment as Daemon stalks around

[01:09:54] Harrenhal. It's a real cameo not some weird digital thing even if her face is only on screen for about five seconds out of the entire 40 second scene. She also only has two lines as she sews the

[01:10:09] head back onto Jaehaerys the boy Daemon had somewhat accidentally killed. Quote it was very easy in terms of will we were excited about the prospect. Millie was eager to come back and everybody was excited to have her back Ryan Condell says. Condell goes on to say that she's

[01:10:29] incredibly busy after her star making turn on the show but she was able to come for a few days when production on season two started. He said it was really hard keeping it all a secret

[01:10:41] though I think it leaked before this a bit even if I didn't personally see the details. The cameo certainly didn't need to happen in the sense that it could easily have been adult

[01:10:52] Reneara there but it was very cool that it did and I think it was probably good that it was just a fleeting moment. Shortly after Daemon has an also spooky encounter with Alice Rivers who predicts

[01:11:04] his death inside Harrenhal. She's a major character with a larger role to come so neat cameo was very fun to see looking forward to Alcock as Supergirl next year certainly it's a hugely high profile role for Alcock as it will not just be a guest part in Superman

[01:11:26] but there are concrete plans for her own movie based on a Tom King run of the character that will be out further in the new gun DCU. That sounds really cool yeah I didn't know that I love her

[01:11:41] I didn't know that either but I kind of wonder how that conversation went like hey Millie we really want you to come back and this is the scene you're gonna be sticking a toddler's head back on like

[01:11:54] and she said cool yeah I mean what do you expect? Sign me up House of the Dragon all right Veronica you want to take the next article yeah this next article is from Vulture

[01:12:07] and it's titled House of the Dragons Ewan Mitchell wanted his nude scene to shock you and uh written an interview by Shanti Collins so it starts out Ewan Mitchell who played Amond says of his nude scene the dragonriders display a topic of much discussion between himself

[01:12:26] and the creative team prior to filming was a move encoded in Amond's DNA a shock tactic designed to demonstrate that this once bullied boy will never allow himself to be chastened again Ewan also says between episodes seven and eight of season one he's manufactured himself into a weapon

[01:12:46] he possesses this code that stops him from ever being hurt again like he was as a kid he has to be seen as this bulletproof untouchable ethereal presence no one can grasp

[01:12:58] I think he's doing a good job of all that yeah yes he continues Agon catches Amond in a vulnerable spot picking up the script for the first time and seeing those brothel scenes in episode two and three

[01:13:13] I saw a brilliant opportunity to offer a rare glimpse of his vulnerability you only ever see him in his Targaryen blacks so to see him in that world not only that but then humiliated

[01:13:24] by his brother is quite shocking he's humiliated by his brother and all his crew and it's like the switch flips the madame is no more all of these people in front of him they mean nothing

[01:13:36] he stands up he owns it yeah I'm bulletproof anything you say it will not work like you say it's scary the interviewer also asked it's also a nude scene and I have a feeling you're about

[01:13:50] to get a reaction out of volume few people on this show have seen before did you have that in mind while shooting it and then Ewan replies scenes like this start with a conversation about how far

[01:14:01] you're prepared to go it wasn't a choice we made lightly but it's true to Amond that he shocks the audience weakness is not part of Amond's vocabulary I thought that was great but yeah I really like

[01:14:13] that yeah a big can of Amond and um I just like that actor is doing such a fantastic job and you know I think it would take a lot of bravery to do yeah a new scene and like to do it so confidently

[01:14:28] and yeah just letting it all hang out like impactually I thought it was great so all right and we can start with some of our listener feedback this is from Lindsay Schlick she wrote

[01:14:44] interesting episode what's up with sea smoke is he sensing a new rider for him I wish it could be rena I feel so bad for her I hope at least one of the eggs becomes hers the Heron Hall scenes

[01:14:58] were strange is Damon dreaming dreaming or seeing things now is it prophecy that he will die there it was fun to see Millie again I wish we could have read Allison's letter that's true they didn't

[01:15:11] show that yeah no you could just see a couple of words one of the words was a mother that's the only word I could really make out not sure what to think of the end sequence it was

[01:15:24] thrilling to see Rinnara and Allison reunited and speaking but Rinnara dressing up as a nun to sneak into the castle was his three stoogey as last week's parent trap scheme it's true I want an

[01:15:39] expense I love that she's a parent trap that's great Lindsay I'm sorry I'm gonna start over now I want and expect much trickier scheming from Game of Thrones this felt kind of goofy even though

[01:15:56] I'm glad we got to see them speak nervous about next week the only defense I have of that is I remember we had similar scenes like when Bronn sneaks Tyrion in to see Jamie in the same keep

[01:16:16] so yeah we've definitely seen that happening before all right and we have a call from Steve Brown hello dragoncast this is Steve and this is going to be for uh season two well house the dragon

[01:16:30] season two episode three okay who are these two families the brackers and the blackwoods what's oh well I guess he dared and uh they fought wow and this is quite the aftermath of quite a battle

[01:16:42] that we haven't seen they even destroyed the effing windmill okay so Cristian Cole is taking upon himself to fire the first shots in this war and go gather up a big force to go against the

[01:16:54] dragon stone right this is the woman now that's talking to Renette the queen of dragon stone she's the one that recognized sir Eric Erick are in warned him right about the okay I look forward

[01:17:07] to hearing the podcast on this one because this seems like it's gonna be a dragon heavy episode and I'm clueless okay so this is Damon right who's come to here and all writing his I don't

[01:17:17] know his dragon's name is wait a minute what is Damon's title because he just told this guy to call him your grace the throne it's a big chair made of swords he said the burning mill or the battle

[01:17:30] of the burning mill which the burning less title the episode according to max mitra so renera is refusing to use the dragons because dragons are like the nuclear option right you don't want to

[01:17:40] do that unless it's the last resort okay so they're sending the kids from driftmark away with a couple of dragons young dragons and the dragon's eggs to hide out right okay so this guy

[01:17:51] lyrus talking to agon trying to convince agon not to fly into battle lord larris right he's the foot guy right the foot finish guy oh and agon just made him master of whispers whatever that means

[01:18:02] okay who is this that agon has brought to the brothel now I guess okay so was agon just trying to embarrass amon or does amon not care that he doesn't have his eye patch on or a stitch

[01:18:13] of clothing oh close one coal and guine baila might have fried y'all what what is this vision that daemon seems to be seeing that looked like the young renera right with the child that was killed

[01:18:25] and now renera wants to meet with alicent you can't imagine this is gonna go well okay well they haven't killed each other yet I don't remember what the truth is here about the king whether he

[01:18:34] did call for renera to be on the phone or he changed his mind at the last minute I don't remember or if it is a lie has alicent so convinced herself of the truth oh so alicent mistook

[01:18:42] the song of ice and fire for a story about her son not about agon the conqueror all right can we do you break this one down I think we should have just played that as our episode description

[01:18:53] at the top it would be better than IMDB all right and then we have a voicemail from tige hello podcastika friends this is tige from Wisconsin I think it's my first time calling

[01:19:12] into this podcast and I have two things first I just want to thank you for doing it it helps make sense of the storylines so much more than you know um in second I was just thinking about this

[01:19:22] the moment when Helena ran into alicent after jaharis had been killed and we were you know in on your podcast you were talking about auto calling jaharis like grandchild and it got me

[01:19:34] thinking about the incest in the Targaryens is so confusing and here's my questions for you first um how do you raise your children differently if you plan to marry them to each other right like

[01:19:50] it just feels like the parenting dynamics have to be so different if you're planning to wed these two to each other as opposed to just raising two siblings and then second when um ranira and daemon were arguing about the saris it kept confusing me the way

[01:20:08] ranira was talking about her father but daemon was talking about his brother and he was the same person and I just realized like these these folks they don't they don't have in-laws in the

[01:20:19] same way right like when Helena ran into alicent I kept thinking that she would like you know I guess I think of alicent as a han's mother sorry about that tige but I know where you were going

[01:20:33] but she's yeah she's her mother and mother-in-law right yes that's that's so awesome I never thought of that before that your mother and your mother-in-law are the same person and alicent was so offended that ranira may have got it on with daemon and she even said you

[01:20:54] Targaryens have such queer customs and then she marries her children together yeah uh that's yeah great great um question how do you raise your children when you plan to marry

[01:21:09] them to each other yeah all right I think our next one is from alicia ran yes alicia stout says so I felt of all three episodes so far this one was the weakest until the end it was great however

[01:21:26] to see millie alcock again even if only for a second and while she's sewing on a head no less lol miss her what a great hallucination scene with daemon and a small glimpse of alice rivers those last 10 minutes with ranira disguised and entering king's landing were absolutely fantastic

[01:21:45] intense and a huge change from the book I absolutely loved it finally she got confirmation that the series was speaking of Aegon the conqueror and not his son Aegon yes I love where they are

[01:22:01] taking us with this storyline tragic all I can say now is hold on to your dragons folks because next week will be epic and alicia added I also can't believe I failed to mention that one scene

[01:22:16] and she included a gif of a man holding a sausage that just brings up something that never occurred to me until now is that how vindicated ranira must feel because she probably did have doubts about

[01:22:35] did viscera say something or and you know I think she felt doubts the whole time about does he real did he really want me to be the heir so I mean I think that's a real gift for

[01:22:49] ranira yes to know that her father was talking about her in his very last breaths yeah I didn't think about it that way but that's great okay from that sublime thought back to alicia included

[01:23:06] a gif of a man holding a sausage all right um and then um madeline joe responded to that with alicia were slowly chipping away at the male female nudity nudity ratio one sausage at a time one sausage at a time

[01:23:31] so this is a call from red leader understudy hi this is red leader understudy and I'm here to take heran hall it's yours you can have it uh this episode we have alison at her council meeting

[01:23:48] realizing she's surrounded by idiots and looking at her idiot son that she didn't teach anything and my inner the hound is going well of course he's a cunt and then you have sir christin the

[01:23:58] sanctum onus prick whoever one hates I definitely don't like him but I don't hate him as much as I hated sir c and joffrey and I think the reason is sir christin is an asshole but he doesn't do

[01:24:12] this like I'm a nobel in everyone's beneath me thing and if he did like if he acted like that guy sir gwayne he just met he would be 10 times more obnoxious I also think and I could be wrong

[01:24:23] about this that if someone came to alison or sir christin and said there is a massive existential threat that's basically going to extinguish all of humanity if we don't fight against it I think

[01:24:34] they would actually listen as opposed to sir c who said oh just sit here and smell my own farts while all of you die because she's an irredeemable little piece of shit anyway this week's episode

[01:24:47] felt like a lot of table settings so I'm really nervous about what might happen next week and also see smoke aw thank you all right and now we have a call from renae murray I feel like I need to

[01:25:02] buckle in for this one because you know she's gonna comment on some of these good scenes we got we're ready hi guys this is renae calling in about the house of dragon first first off I want

[01:25:16] to say to you renae I am so happy that you um said they um when you was speaking about Emma because that is what she that that is what they choose to go by see how correct to myself that is

[01:25:29] simple respect how a person feels whether you agree with them or not respect how they feel and if they prefer to be called they then say they so I'm happy you guys are my tribe definitely

[01:25:44] anyway anything that jason is the part of is my tribe anyway because I know he's gonna always make sure the right thing is done you know he believes in doing the right thing he has a lot of respect

[01:25:55] for people which is why I like podcastica because I mean I see it you know because we're all the same so and also I wanted to say to um you guys I enjoy the book show I enjoy the after

[01:26:13] show I am I'm sorry I love I love the book talk and I like the spoiler section and I also enjoy the youtube after show I mean it is to me I am I'm happy that I have a tribe I have a

[01:26:27] I'm happy that I have I'm part of a pandemic that loves the same type of shows that I love because Alex the guy that does it with you guys on Sunday I listen to him because I love

[01:26:38] from and he does an awesome job um on the front from podcast so I just enjoy you guys I really do and when and definitely when once Renny said they is like yeah this is where I'm supposed to be

[01:26:53] and this this is my tribe and I also love um the fact that Veronica you said that you would have been on the back of carrex is correct so however you pronounce that drag his name

[01:27:05] I would have been on the back of that dragon with Damon as well I would have definitely been on the back of that dragon because this is awful like because of a misunderstanding this

[01:27:14] is awful right you're going to kill people and you're going to kill these beautiful dragons all because of a misunderstanding but it's really sad and I'm happy that renera and allison was able to talk I had a lot of sympathy and empathy for allison in this

[01:27:32] episode because of the fact that she did misunderstand even though she realized that veneras was not in his right to make right state of mind she heard agon she heard conqueror

[01:27:45] as well but she did not know and also I'm glad that renera got some closure she realized that her daddy did not turn on her and definitely after she just saw him earlier and what he did you

[01:27:57] know he was sick dying that man made his way to the throne to make sure his child was taken care of so I'm happy that she got that closure and she and she needs to know that war is inevitable

[01:28:08] because of the men like allison said there's nothing I can do it's out of my hands it's a wrap now it's over with it's done it's it's a done deal because their hell bent on war that's

[01:28:18] what they want that's you how can allison go to agon with his little brady ass and tell him you know it was a mistake he's not gonna listen it's no way basically that's what his granddad

[01:28:29] had told him last week that really you really thought that vassir is wanted you to be king he does not care he has power he's power hungry now he reminds me of someone else that I know

[01:28:40] he has the power that just is what it is so it's not he's not going to change it right wrong indifferent whatever he's not going to change it and he's a brat who the hell would want

[01:28:48] him to be king anyway you took the night's guard who took a oath of chastity to a brothel like come on no one wants you to be the king so that allows me to sageway into the lollipop

[01:29:02] it's like what in the hell like what in the hell man let me tell you that was mind boggling that was I listen I can use so many superlatures right now but I'm gonna stick to mind boggling

[01:29:15] okay because that blew me away I have seen some things on game of thrones but that right there and especially when aiming turnaround full frontal and showed it all it's like what oh my gosh what in

[01:29:29] the hell and the lady when she was looking a lot of pop I mean oh man I'm telling you I'm just I'm telling you I'm flabbergasted it's just I just I'm listening it's rare that I'm a loss for words

[01:29:42] but I was a loss for words I'm telling you I'm like this is amazing this is freaking amazing that they're showing this right here but I'm glad to aim and turn around and walked off like he did

[01:29:54] because he's sick of him he's sick of his little brother he knows that his little brother is a brat he's a damn brat and the little king's guard that he has added to his king's guard because

[01:30:05] they're his friends they're all gonna die and I want all of them to die I want them to die a slow damn death that's what I want all of them to die aiming I feel sorry for him again because he's

[01:30:15] the monk like he's the monk so and Damon I don't know what he got going on because Damon why the hell you want to be called your grace when clearly you're the prince court sort what like what the man

[01:30:27] was getting ready to say and that man didn't want no smoke like that man bent the knee so quick I would have did the same damn thing about what Damon coming in on the dragon I would have bent it

[01:30:36] but it's like Damon I didn't like that so I don't know I don't think he's going to turn on or Renee or bite talk to you guys later because I don't want too long okay peace and love bye

[01:30:46] thank you Renee that was amazing thank you and a comment from Rima Joe Rima all right bloody Ben she starts out and then quickly comes in with an edit my bad they fooled me

[01:31:03] Twas not bloody Ben Blackwood but they sure channeled him though Alice Rivers Ulf the White Harrenhal what's not to love in episode three it was bad enough that Aegon got the Conqueror's crown

[01:31:16] and season one but now he gets his Valyrian steel armor too yeah he's so not worthy and he knows it and you can tell on his reflection he sees himself as a phony and is it meant to be king

[01:31:29] Tom Glenn Carney is killing it though and then she adds she loved the detail in Renea's braids very much like Visenya's I did notice that they had her hair styled differently this episode oh

[01:31:43] there's more yeah sorry so the dragon eggs are they leading us down the path that in 172 years Caesar Danny's dragon eggs is Cyrax the mother to Drogon Rago and Viserion that isn't the popular

[01:31:59] theory see Alyssa Farman if this is the road they take I'm not mad about it it's a connection between Renea and Danny and their beloved dragons my thoughts haven't settled on the scene between

[01:32:11] Allison and Renea seemed reckless of Renea and it's not in her character but the one good thing that came of it was for Allison to realize she royally effed up but instead of owning it she doubled

[01:32:23] down and knows she'll be complicit in what's to come the point of view of dragonback riding was amazing made you feel like you were the dragon rider more of that please yes yes yeah more please

[01:32:36] all right and our last call is from Sam Lowe Sam has been on our last couple lives on YouTube right after the episode for our instant reaction hi Sam well most of our

[01:32:51] feedback was in the live reactions which is so awesome you guys do such a great job and thank you so much for letting me be a part of it you all are just amazing and I had also taken

[01:33:04] some notes on Sir Gwane high tower it was like oh Sir Yeras wasn't as the rest of the greens although he was making fun of Kristen at that time and I appreciated it he seems very interesting

[01:33:19] like there's that typical high tower arrogance and elitism that I think a lot of them have and at the same time there seems to be some sort of I don't know like sense of honor

[01:33:32] that I was surprised at seeing with him so I'm definitely interested to see where on a high tower son goes I noticed that the actor adopted some of the mannerisms that

[01:33:43] Reese if I'm Taz I just sort of noticed it like oh I can definitely buy you as a son and do you think he knows that Allison and Kristen are boning I don't know I kind of caught that he was picking up on what they were putting down

[01:34:02] at least knows they want to where he says like this poetic like may I have your blessings your queen or whatever she's like yes here's my snot rag and also oddly connect to Allison because when I don't have pockets I too put my stuff in my bra

[01:34:28] so I was like oh I don't like that I can connect to her on a human level she's complicated person and uh off the he was saying like apparently he's a illegitimate child

[01:34:42] of the Targaryens I liked him when he came in I was like who is this charming mayor of downtown Kingsland I think he's been very charming and a big blow hard so I get a feeling

[01:34:56] I will enjoy seeing him in the time to come too I want to learn more and renece VIP our queen that never was our queen that should have been let's let's be clear her character arc is so beautiful

[01:35:11] like there I love that we're seeing more of her and that makes me a little nervous because those of us who are also fans of the walking dead we know what happened to those types

[01:35:20] of characters and I'm still haunted by that thanks walking dead our character is just so incredible what do you guys think how do you think it would play out if renece had been queen of the

[01:35:32] seven kingdoms rather than the saras how do you think her rule would have gone that's it thank you Sam yes and we did talk about yeah about how her rule would have been good I was trying to

[01:35:46] think how they would have handled the succession like would they still have married Lenore to Rhaenyra and would we still have had a fallout over if she had bastard children like would that

[01:35:57] still have right have played we would have just delayed things for a generation I'm not sure Lenor was meant to be king I think definitely I mean he would have done a better job than

[01:36:10] Aegon yeah and yes that's not a high bar yeah all right I just want to thank Sam and Alex for doing the live every week I know that can be stressful coming on right afterwards and you know doing the instant reaction so thank you to both of them

[01:36:31] all right so what we have upcoming is after you hear the dragon roar in this episode when we end everything if you stay tuned you will hear book talk with arch myster rene from the citadel and

[01:36:48] Veronica I guess you have to come up with a name for you Veronica no Veronica like ready you dubbed me Veronica the hood um no I don't know yeah yeah I have to think about you yes I did the acolyte

[01:37:07] Veronica okay arch master rene and acolyte Ronnie there we go there we go and then um they will have two sections the first section is the differences um comparing and contrasting to the book for this

[01:37:24] episode only and then spoiler book talk so make sure you're prepared for that and stay on next week on the house of the dragon we will be covering season two episode four which remains untitled

[01:37:40] and probably will until 20 minutes after the episode now it has a title really yes please tell me because I looked at it's the it's the only episode that has a title and the title is a

[01:37:54] dance of dragons oh okay so we're definitely getting some some dragon fire might have some dragon fire yeah I feel like my stomach just fell I know me too because that's like I was thinking

[01:38:10] we might have one more moderate episode but no they're going right into it I mean I'm excited for it but yeah yeah yeah you can leave feedback at our podcast to the Facebook page where we post

[01:38:25] weekly feedback threads or you could leave feedback by email at dragon castica at gmail.com and you can find dragon cast and a bunch of other great podcasts at podcast to com I just today

[01:38:41] listened to the second episode of let it rip which is Lucy and Peter covering the bear nice and not only is it delightful because the bear is such a good show and who wouldn't love to listen to

[01:38:53] Lucy and Peter talk about anything but they're doing these little cooking segments and I didn't know how that would play on a podcast so it is just absolutely delightful it is a show as

[01:39:04] stressful as the bear to have this like light happy piece talking about it is fantastic so I highly recommend it I haven't seen the first episode of season three but I did listen to the first episode

[01:39:18] of the pod um so and I definitely recommend but I'm I'm living and eating breathing and sleeping house of the dragon right now so it's taking over everything else but I am listening watch it

[01:39:33] I'm listening to the vampire cast about interview with the the vampire and the whole show it was posted but I've been watching it in sequence with the podcast which has been going week by week and

[01:39:47] it's yeah I think that's great um that series is on my list but I have it's really good I have a large list he's same yeah yeah all right well that's our show so thanks for listening

[01:40:01] everyone until next time I'm Renny I'm Veronica and I'm Wendy so here we are in the first part of book talk where we will only talk about events up to the end of this episode and not spoil anything

[01:40:36] that comes later so the interesting thing about this episode is that the vast majority of it is show only and for the parts that do come from the books the timeline is very very different than that

[01:40:53] in the books right so to start with Damon takes heron hall in this episode but in the book Damon takes heron hall right after Aegon and Rhaenyra are crowned so that happens much earlier Luke

[01:41:12] even dies right yes before Luke dies yes yes it is Damon taking heron hall is the very first thing that the blacks do and the castle does fall as easily as it does in the show the castellan is

[01:41:27] Sir Simon Strong and he said he it said that having no wish to suffer the fate of black heron black heron was yeah one who built heron hall he struck his banners as soon as Caraxies landed

[01:41:45] and so Damon actually takes Sir Simon and his grandsons and the castle small folk hostage and among those hostages is Alice Rivers but we don't hear much more about Alice Rivers

[01:42:02] at at this point other than that she was maybe a woods witch or maybe an enchantress who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth that's what mushroom says she has a bastard named

[01:42:17] rivers that's what bastards in the riverlands are called but no one knows her parentage although some people think that Lord Lionel Strong was her father which would make her a half sister

[01:42:29] to Harwin and Laris but mushroom says she was much older than that and was actually a wet nurse to Harwin and Laris and maybe even a wet nurse to their father interesting that that story always

[01:42:46] makes me think of I am missing everyone's name yes thank you Melisandre and sort of obviously because she was able to cloak her yeah age for so long it did also like because of that because we have

[01:43:01] some references of some characters that are mysterious in that way yes has made me wonder like would they try to hint that one of these people became Melisandre like I feel like that's a pretty

[01:43:16] big stretch there's a totally kind of cool or is there are like we know her history totally tin foil tin foil fan theory that Alice Rivers is Melisandre but it's totally tin foil well I thought like I was

[01:43:32] like a total doofy but coming up with this so at least other people have come up with it other people have also come up with it but there's absolutely no evidence for it but the narrative

[01:43:42] says whatever her powers it would seem Damon Targaryen was immune to them for little is heard of her while he's at Harrenhal clearly in the show he's not immune to her powers because there is the

[01:43:57] suggestion there that she may be somehow giving him this dream yeah interesting so the taking of Harrenhal was counted as a great victory for Rhaenyra and it served as a reminder of

[01:44:11] the martial prowess of Prince Daemon and the power of Caraxes the blood worm as he's known because he's read um and so at that time then Damon sent forth his call to arms and knights and men at arms and

[01:44:28] humble peasants who remembered Rhaenyra as the realm's delight who had charmed them in her youth made their way to Harrenhal to quote fight for Viserys' little girl oh I love it I would fight for

[01:44:43] her too yes um so you know that happened long long time ago in the in the events of the book and it's just just happening now um so there's a mention in the episode of Lord Grover Tully

[01:45:07] who is the ancestor of Caitlyn Tully right so in in the episode Damon tells Sir Simon to summon the Lord Paramount of the Trident Lord Grover Tully well in the book Grover is very old he was at

[01:45:24] the Great Council of 101 oh wow yeah and he voted for Viserys for the male heir and now he wants to go again with the male heir and he wants to declare for Aegon but his own heir points out that River

[01:45:43] Run has no defenses against dragons and so while Lord Grover is on his deathbed River Run bars its gates and holds its silence now Lord Grover's heir is his grandson Elmo and Elmo has two sons who are

[01:46:02] named Kermit and Oscar no yes they are the Muppets yes George RR Martin loves to to work in these little plays with names that is hilarious and I mean it's not once you know it you know it's there but

[01:46:25] you never hear all four of them mentioned at the same time in the book you have to put it together okay well then that's fun um the battle of the burning mill also happened earlier it happened

[01:46:38] before the Eric and Arik incident and in the show it's the Brackens who started by moving the boundary stones but in the book it's the Blackwoods who started they start raiding Bracken lands

[01:46:58] and they start despoiling seps seps that's hard to say you know churches of the seven seps because they are one of the last Riverlands houses that follows the old gods the worship of the old gods is largely confined to the north at this point but the Blackwoods

[01:47:21] still worship the old gods um it's so interesting to me that there's still so many werewood trees everywhere yes despite like I know like in Game of Thrones we did see some of them

[01:47:35] had been cut down over the years I'm just surprised more of them hadn't been taken down because so few people were still following that yeah uh so the Brackens they muster are forced to fight

[01:47:49] back and the battle of the burning mill is the result and that's where we've mentioned this before Black Alley Blackwood fires the arrow that kills Saramus Bracken um but that did not happen

[01:48:06] in the show um and when the Brackens retreat after the battle to their holdfast stone hedge they find that it's been taken by a force of dairies pipers and frays who were led by Daemon

[01:48:24] and Caraxes who came up from Heron Hall uh uh you know yeah where he's been holding out um the Brackens were the last of Aegon supporters in the Riverlands uh so Rhaenyra now controls that important section of Westeros yeah so at this point in the book

[01:48:47] she's in a stronger strategic position than she is in the show yeah I thought it was interesting that that was sort of underlined by in the show by her conversation with Allicent where Allicent

[01:49:00] is like what are you talking about like you don't have the forces people are abandoning you but in the book at this point she was in that very strong position already and I think the

[01:49:14] greens were starting to swell a little bit yes yes so the defeats at the battle of the burning mill and its stone hedge shake Aegon up um and he is further dismayed when more southern lords

[01:49:33] declare for Rhaenyra lords Custaine, Mullendore, Tarly, Rowan and Grimm all declare for Rhaenyra and more names though right too sorry and doesn't Doran just fully turn them down yes Doran just yeah no more dragons press um so there's two homages among those names of the lords

[01:49:57] one is Lord Custaine who is named after Thomas Custaine who is a historical novelist who George R. R. Martin admires and the other Lord Grimm is an homage to the brother's Grimm of the fairy tale

[01:50:12] fame that's cool yeah um and that's also when the Tyrells declare neutrality because of the outcry by their bannerman the beesberries which we talked about last week um and at this point

[01:50:28] Aegon begins to drown his fears in strong wine he's really drinking a lot in the book which we're now seeing him back to starting to go back to the show but not I feel like he's going to

[01:50:43] continue to come more and more unhinged yes um I think the other thing I had noted sort of in this time yeah we're talking about is just that in the book they note that Damon was

[01:50:59] actually supporting Rhaenyra and sort of withholding the dragons for as long as possible so it wasn't just Rhaeny and Rhaenyra who were saying like hold on because once we who said it as the nuclear

[01:51:12] option someone called in I felt like that was a good parallel but um I thought that was just interesting to see Damon having some restraint which I don't think would have been congruent with

[01:51:26] his character we've seen in the show at all no they make sense that they didn't carry that over and he's always called Prince Damon there's none of this demanding to be called your grace

[01:51:37] that's a show only thing but that also feels again congruent with his character in the show totally um another thing that we mentioned before but that's important that has not happened in the

[01:51:53] show is that Otto tells Aegon that he has a plan to break the Valyrian blockade that he's asked the triarchy which is Tyrosh, Lys and Mir to intervene with their fleets since Damon fought

[01:52:10] them in the step zones, stepstones Otto assumes that they'll be willing to take Aegon's side and I like this part Otto promises to give the stepstones back to them even though the iron throne

[01:52:23] has never claimed the stepstones um but the triarchy takes a long time to make decisions so nothing comes of it while Otto is still hand he hasn't been replaced as hand yet at this point

[01:52:38] great then blood and cheese happens in the book chronology which is just sort of wild I honestly feel like it makes more sense to have happened in that order though because everyone was sort of like

[01:52:54] can we do this without it actually being full blown war yeah it sort of makes sense that these two horrific murders of suns leads to that chaos as opposed to it sort of starting ahead of time

[01:53:09] I like that re I don't have any trouble with the timeline changes I don't think that they damage anything I think as you point out it makes for some stronger storytelling because

[01:53:22] you've got the the sun for the sun yeah so larry says already master of whispers he was viscerus's master of whispers and Aegon just inherited him as a master of whispers

[01:53:39] but that was not the case um in the show so seeing Aegon appoint him formally appointed master of whispers made sense yeah but what larry's does at this point in the book is he makes a list of all

[01:53:54] the lords who attended reigning sorry renairah's coronation and the lords who are on her black council and christin cole marches out to capture their lands and there is no notion that there's

[01:54:11] any disagreement about this course of action on the green council and this is a spot where I think there's an interesting interplay between the show and the book uh the books a history that is told by

[01:54:28] unreliable narrators who unabashedly play christin cole as competent and heroic the show throws shade on that portrayal of christin cole um and I you know I like that I think that

[01:54:51] that you know shawn t colin's who is the uh tv critic who did that interview with you and michael that you read um he said that he could see house of the dragon as the tv show that is made about

[01:55:10] westeros history way down hundreds and hundreds of years later in the westeros timeline after they've you know developed technology like we have that it's like the tv shows that we make about real

[01:55:25] history and I loved that perspective on it I thought that that made a lot of sense yeah no that's a cool that's a cool way I continue to love that storytelling device of it being a a history where

[01:55:42] you don't really know the true pieces of things and yes within the book and then how that's being portrayed on the scene and how on the scene on the screen and how that allows us as the fandom to

[01:55:56] postulate and and yeah I just I haven't really seen a fiction do it like yeah take this approach I just find it fascinating yes absolutely it lets us more crazy fun theories which crazy fun

[01:56:12] theories awesome so christin cole marches out and the first thing he does is is capture the town of dusk and nail and then um he moves on to rooks rest and uh the rest of the events that happen

[01:56:33] in this episode in the books they either take place after the battle of rooks rest or they don't happen at all so again the timeline it was you know stretched backwards and it stretched forward

[01:56:46] too yeah so I made a list of the things that are that happen only in the show and it's pretty much the whole episode daemon's conversations and hallucinations at heron hall show only

[01:57:00] all fusing his ancestry to get people to buy him drinks I liked that I feel like maybe that's only in this show but feels congruent with who I imagined off being from the totally totally um a gone and

[01:57:19] amen that the brothel totally does not happen in the book bala chasing christin and guain um that doesn't happen for a couple of reasons one is that um moon dancer isn't writable right bala's yeah not writing a moon dancer yet

[01:57:41] because moon dancers not big enough to be written at this point um and guain is completely different in the book he is the second in command of the gold cloaks he didn't just come up from high

[01:57:55] tower he from the old town he's been in kings landing all along and he's the second in command of the gold cloaks so because they kind of put like a thug-ish guy yeah head of the gold cloaks

[01:58:06] and so they were like let's bring in one of our own just to like keep an eye on this guy luther largent who that's I'm guessing I'm curious if I keeping so curious what they will bring in

[01:58:19] into the show likes and safe sense or guain off will they drop that storyline of him with the gold cloaks or will he eventually come back from war and take that up yes I'm hard to foresee that one

[01:58:36] um and then Renea is sneaking into kings landing to talk to allicent totally show only does not happen in the book and misarian does indeed become Renea's mistress of whispers but

[01:58:50] that happens much later in the book so that's the that's the things that are that are show only then just a couple of other things um in the show and in the book reina doesn't have a dragon

[01:59:08] and she doesn't have a dragon in the book because her hatchling died and um she does take three dragon eggs to the veil but there are only three that go yeah to the veil not four um so they've aged

[01:59:30] joffrey down quite a bit he's 11 at this point in the book and he is already writing tyraxies who's also 11 he's like angry that he's not getting to go off and fight that's right um

[01:59:45] and he is sent to the veil but by jace not by renaira jace starts to take on more and more of a command at this point in the book because in the book and i commented on this last week

[01:59:58] they have renaira in just like extreme mourning and not even really running anything well according to mushroom i guess what you take with a grain of salt but there are things that that seem to

[02:00:10] confirm that she was not really leading stuff right like there were some actions that made us think yes that's not taking his active role so i far prefer what they're doing in the show yeah same

[02:00:25] um but yes as you say joffrey wanted to prove himself in battle and only when he was told that he was being sent to defend the veil did he agree to go and rena who's she's been aged up

[02:00:39] in the show she's 13 in the book um is chosen to accompany him and in the veil she prays nightly for the dragon eggs to hatch yeah uh poor rena and in the show renaira tells rena to contact the

[02:00:58] prince of pentose but in the book it's jace who contacts the prince of pentose and um the younger boys agon and the boys are aged down in the show as well they're older in the book agon who is nine

[02:01:13] and visceris who's seven they do not go to the veil with rena and joffrey they wait until they can go to pentose right yeah um the reason that they're taking four dragon eggs in the show

[02:01:28] is that one of those has got to be visceris's dragon egg which he keeps with him in in the book so one thing that i think is weird and more to say about that in the spoiler section but let's

[02:01:43] wait on that yeah um one thing that i think is weird is that they've they've given all the white ordinary hair his hair is not targaryen white they even make a joke of it in in the show

[02:01:57] you know oh if you're a targaryen why is your hair that color um so in the book he's called Ulf the white because of his hair or Ulf the sot because of his drinking yeah

[02:02:13] and again more about more about Ulf later i did kind of like it though that his hair is not strikingly silver just because it leads that is he is he not a bastard of targaryen descent i kind

[02:02:29] of like the like if he was too strikingly silver-haired i think it would be like oh well he's definitely a targaryen but i kind of like yeah a little bit of questioning around it okay so that's um all i

[02:02:45] have for the non spoilers ahead section do you have anything else before we move on to spoilers i just have spoilers left all right okay warning warning warning we are going to move into

[02:03:02] the extreme spoiler section here's your dragon war dragon roar warning say that three times fast all right we're gonna be hearing that a lot next week i think i think so um okay start yeah start crying now i know um so there's no mention yet of the

[02:03:41] triarchy coming to break the blockade of king's landing um and ranira sent egg on the younger adversaries to the veil with reyna so i don't know if they're gonna try to get them to pentos later

[02:03:55] it's all what happens in the book is all gonna play out very differently in the show yeah because the kids are different ages and they don't have a they don't have a dragon with

[02:04:05] they don't have a ride a ride a ride a bull dragon yeah um but about that egg um visceris keeps it with him all throughout his years of exile and after he returns um egg on the third has declared that

[02:04:22] there can be no dragon eggs in the red keep and he makes visceris send the egg to dragon stone which the series is not happy about um but we don't know um what happened to it after that and there is

[02:04:39] a fabled horde of dragon eggs on dragon stone so there's a lot of unaccounted four eggs and that's that's one of them i would love if we got a game of thrones in the future and they find a the

[02:04:53] cat like an eggs and we get you know yeah um so another thing that they've done very differently is misaria she's just kind of off off page at this point um so the way her story played out is that

[02:05:14] in the book she really was pregnant when she was with daemon on dragon stone in the show it's a lie that daemon tells but she really is pregnant um and uh he sends her back to lees which is where

[02:05:29] she's from in the in the book um and she loses the baby in a storm during the crossing of the narrow sea and at some point she has to have come back to king's landing because when blood

[02:05:43] is tortured he confesses that it was her who hired him so at some point she came back to king's landing and she and daemon were back in contact but we don't get an explanation for that um and

[02:05:57] then we don't hear anything about her again until she emerges from the shadows in king's landing after raniera and daemon take the city and at that point she becomes mistress of whispers but

[02:06:09] she's definitely not active in the story in this time frame my guess with her is still that i have this feeling she might take on the role of nettles and especially because nettles was

[02:06:25] close with daemon yeah and she already has a relationship with daemon i could sort of see that oh that's why you think that she might that's why i think dragon rider and because i don't think

[02:06:36] she's going to mount a sea smoke i don't see a reason for that i think the show's established are going in a different direction or the same direction as the bus can be at dragon yeah um but

[02:06:48] i do wonder because she was so perseverant on them and she already has a relationship with daemon it just seemed like since they're not casting nettles interesting it could be her but maybe i know

[02:07:02] i hope that's the case because i'm really not happy that there is no nettles because nettles is the woods with with a dragon that starts the tradition of the burned men in

[02:07:18] the hills around the veil right so but yes you think it's gonna be her you oh that i that is so smart well we'll see we'll see how i like it i like it i that's my i just don't see another reason

[02:07:33] that they would have had her so like why else have that moment with her being the one to like be in tune with sea smoke acting that way yeah yeah now they've made another change which i thought was

[02:07:48] just because they were trying to cast a wider variety of actors that misaria in the book is from ye tea rather than from lees if she was just from lees you'd have to find a way for her to have Targaryen

[02:08:04] brought blood for her to be a dragon rider but they could they could make up something about dragon riding history in ye tea that would not mess with the lore too much yeah oh i'm

[02:08:19] i am down with that that is good i hope that's what it is um has the show remained like is it a rule in the show that you have to be of Targaryen blood

[02:08:36] to ride a dragon have that has that ever been really strongly established like i know we had john and yeah many times because he was but do you think in the show there's room that you wouldn't

[02:08:49] even have to prove that she has Targaryen or valerian ancestry like do you think they could do you think the fan base would be too angry if they did that because

[02:09:04] i i am a huge fan of game of thrones i've read the books i'm now reading this book i watch the show and i wasn't even closely in tune with what a rule that is oh interesting okay well so there is

[02:09:23] a question that is brought up about adam and allen's parentage because corey says they're lanors right and if they're lanors then they could easily be dragon riders because um reynice is their grandmother so they have Targaryen blood if their core leases which

[02:09:43] is the far more likely scenario then do they have Targaryen blood and but there's still of old valeria and yeah but but it's not valerians are not dragon riders i think they're gonna bend it then

[02:09:58] well but wait so there's a lot of you know fan outcry about if their core leases how could they be dragon riders i think there's a super easy explanation for it which is um that their mother

[02:10:11] marilda of hull she could be a dragon seat yeah so they could actually have gotten their Targaryen heritage from their mother because the Targaryens were still doing honoring first night for a very

[02:10:24] long time on dragon stone yeah and it was not a it was actually like an honor if you became impregnated with a Targaryen Targaryen because as your first child because Targaryen's are closer to gods than

[02:10:37] men that's yes and let me tell you daemon is serving that up so oh yeah well okay so speaking of dragon scenes uh i think what they're doing with hu and olf is really weird because they're in kings

[02:10:52] landing instead of on dragon stone how how are they gonna go ride dragons for the blacks have they established have they mentioned in show about the three riderless dragons because i still wonder if there won't be a scene of dragons that are in kings landing in the dragon

[02:11:15] pit that they could steal have they mentioned in the show the other two dragons what is it she well sheep stealer and then so we've seen vermouth or okay so we have because daemon

[02:11:29] saying to vermouth or right yeah um and we've seen sea smoke i don't think that we've heard anything about sheep stealer or the cannibal or the great ghost yet they may not even do the cannibal in the great

[02:11:44] ghost they may just do sheep stealer would they move the timeline enough would it make any sense out all for the them to become dragon riders post daemon and ranira taking kings landing

[02:12:03] i don't see it i don't think that would be weird but that would be weird but so the only thing that i've been able to to think to figure out is that that line that misaria has about only

[02:12:18] ranira having any mercy for the common folk is that that was what that's somehow what will draw hue and alph to dragon stone to become dragon riders for her and we heard alph already saying

[02:12:32] that too he has a yes ranira the one true queen yeah and her air just sari's falarian and i thought it made a lot of sense to have alph talking about his ancestry and his relationship to the living targaryens because that helps explain the idea of the dragon

[02:12:51] seeds yeah yeah oh and you know what misari has already been on a dragon yeah she rode with because daemon flew her to dragon stone that's right wow i'm liking that idea more and more

[02:13:08] i think that's gotta be what it is yeah um but will that drive a bigger wedge between ranira and daemon and ranira and her master of whispers yes i think you will yeah um

[02:13:30] so another thing that i thought was interesting is that they have alice rivers say to daemon you will die here yeah yep that was i thought that was that was too on the nose and

[02:13:45] yes the camera's pointed at alice and she says you will die here and then the camera points back to daemon and the shot shows the god's eye lake oh i did miss out behind him behind

[02:14:02] the wearwood tree and that's his grave i hate it there's so much tragedy about the there is there really is um so go ahead no i was gonna say um yeah they're really playing with a book readers too

[02:14:24] they're deliberately playing with with book readers the trailers that they released with the scene of bala chasing christin kohl that really made us think that bala was gonna be at

[02:14:35] rook's rest yep but it turned out no that was she was just spying in a scene that doesn't happen in the books yeah yeah yeah i really thought we were gonna have um bait i mean it would have made

[02:14:49] sense right ranius and bala to ride out together um yeah yeah and this episode i mean they will did so many amazing scenes of ranius and then her saying her discussing that discussion with

[02:15:07] corey so they were saying goodbye what and she's she says what if there is no time and she's worried but she's worried that something's gonna happen to corey's i know but it's her i know uh there is

[02:15:24] she's gonna be glorious so i can't wait to see her in her armor and yeah going after uh it's gonna be terribly sad and also i know it's gonna be amazing and i think non-book readers are gonna

[02:15:39] be completely shocked correct completely shocked and you know i'm curious to see this episode we had agon talk down twice from taking his dragon out yes um and so i i i still have the you know i expect

[02:16:00] them to follow this battle as it plays out in the book me too but then is there any chance yeah i guess i want to hear your predictions for how you where you think they'll get to

[02:16:14] this season yeah i'm having a hard time and part of it is that i've did the audio book and now i'm really digging into the book and so starting to understand how the seasons might be structured

[02:16:25] but i just have a hard time it feels like we're gonna get all the big bangs now and no i don't think so and then what's left for season four besides like a boring wrap up

[02:16:39] so tell me what you think season four is the hardest one so i think season two ends when raniera and daemon take king's landing i think it ends on a triumph for raniera i think season three

[02:16:52] ends with daemon and aamon killing each other yeah that's sort of what i would guess too i didn't know where the takeover of king's landing would land but i actually think that it makes a lot of

[02:17:05] sense we'll get that big battle on episode four we'll have the aftermath of that episode five in an episode wait no there's eight episodes there's eight how are they gonna i'm just trying to understand how they're gonna stretch it all out well i think that they're they're putting

[02:17:20] things in the show that aren't in the book and they're pulling things back and forward in the timeline so that's sure that's how i think it's gonna it's gonna work but then what does

[02:17:31] that leave there can be a hard time for season four like where's the climax of season four oh okay well i they could very well do daemon and aamon in the second to last episode because

[02:17:48] remembering game of thrones always did the big shocking thing in the second to last episode yeah and where season four ends is the is the harder thing to predict but i think i think it ends when visceris is brought back by alan valerian um and agon the third

[02:18:07] and visceris reunite and so our climax of season four is it's happy ending is that oh no when do you think that happens i think that that happens second to last episode or third to last episode of season four of season four but i still it's

[02:18:29] not the end like i know that's a big you can't end there right i know i'm talking about like the climax of the season yes yes is that like that's not a battle though really i guess it is but

[02:18:43] well it's not a battle but it's the most time it's the most shocking thing that will happen in game of thrones in house of the dragon in duncan egg in every show ever made uh in this

[02:18:56] universe it's going to be really sad ending season three with daemon and aamon i know the show i feel like they are the charisma they are a whole show yeah it almost makes me wonder if they won't try to

[02:19:16] but i can't imagine what else season three would be built around if not that but it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be tempting to draw that out into season four and sort of condense some of

[02:19:28] those things all together yeah yeah i'm excited to see i i mean as of now they're just knocking out the park so i have faith in however they play it out but yeah that's all i've got same i think we've

[02:19:49] touched on everything i had right down i think i'm gonna need a glass of wine with the show next week absolutely yes well and it'll be well we've seen a dragon kill a dragon because we saw vagar kill

[02:20:10] but we haven't seen a real fight yet you know that was so fast we haven't seen a dragon fight and and reynice isn't the only casualty of rook's rest right agon agon gets seriously messed up and nobody's gonna see that coming right i think that's gonna be

[02:20:31] i i think that'll be a lot you know we don't really get to see much of the aftermath of that in the book like it gets mentioned but yeah i think that's gonna be amazing to see on the screen

[02:20:42] i mean obviously probably graphic and terrible but i think we'll do it well yeah and i can't wait to see aamon step up yeah and i'm my great my prediction is that it'll be the same as in the

[02:20:59] book he won't hear your serp i don't think so either i think he's shown like i said he has that it's not maybe the ethical standards i would go by but he has some internal like ethics his own

[02:21:12] warped ethics but like i think it's he's like too proud to be in the right i think to take it over yeah and i think that he will be more interesting to watch than agon because agon's just a buffoon

[02:21:28] and you could only watch so much of a buffoon being a buffoon but i think aamon will be far more interesting because same he's a dragon yeah okay all right that's it for this week uh book readers you know what's coming non-book

[02:21:55] readers who are listening you shouldn't have been listening because we just spoiled it for you yeah all right dracarys