2: "The Heirs of the Dragon" (S1E1)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, I'm Kristen. And I'm Reema. And this is Dragon Cast, a podcast dedicated to House of the Dragon. Today we will be covering the first episode of House of the Dragon titled

[00:00:31] The Heirs of the Dragon. Yes, it has started. I am so excited. I'm sure everyone if everyone listened to our intro trailer that we released last week could tell our excitement. But it's

[00:00:49] in full swing for me. I'm so excited to be podcasting on this show and to be podcasting with you, of all people. I'm so thrilled. Me too. Me too. I'm very excited about all of

[00:01:02] it. So a brief synopsis of this episode. This is just, it's not from HBO. It was I just typed it up and now I'm saying it. So in this episode we actually meet our characters

[00:01:17] and we set the stage for the upcoming season. The episode was directed by Miguel Sipocnik who, if you are a fan of the good episodes of Game of Thrones, you know that this guy

[00:01:31] was the director. This was the guy that was just amazing at making Game of Thrones into the epic iconic series that it really was at its best. How's that? True. So yeah, yeah, I know. Like for me personally, it's very hard for me to speak about Game

[00:01:53] of Thrones without a bitter taste in my mouth. So going into this, I actually, my husband and I have had very mixed feelings about going on the show. And so we sat down on Sunday and we were very excited about having our Sundays weirdly back to Sundays.

[00:02:10] Yes. It was so good. Good feeling. And we both said, you know what? We're gonna go into this without tying it to the original show. Like we'll go in with the knowledge of the books because we love the books and

[00:02:27] the Song of Ice and Fire books especially are fantastic books. They're fantastic. And we don't know the end of that story yet. Exactly. So in my opinion, you know, yes there was a show, there was an ending, it's not canon.

[00:02:40] That's not the ending. So I am going into this show with fresh eyes. Trying to go in with fresh eyes. How's that? How about you? I think that's totally fair and I totally understand your thoughts. I have tried to temper

[00:03:02] my expectations because, you know, Game of Thrones, obviously the show is gonna have comparisons for anyone that's watched the show. Not just the books but watched the show and had that experience that we all shared during that time. And whatever your

[00:03:18] thoughts are about the show. I know I was just excited to, because regardless of what you liked or what you didn't like, that show, the books, I realized the books came first

[00:03:32] but the show gave us that visual to the world of Westeros and to all of these families and to all the workings of this universe. And so I was just very anxious to revisit

[00:03:47] it again and I identify as a Targaryen. So I was super thrilled for this to focus on the Targaryen family. I was super interested. That was one thing that I wish and I know that that isn't what the books were focused on. We got sprinkles of some Targaryen

[00:04:04] history in the show. I wanted to see more of that. We always heard sprinkles of, you know, the history of the Targaryens and their conquest and coming from Ovalaria and the family to me is so interesting. So I just went in with probably higher than what

[00:04:27] I should have expectations but I think it paid off for me because I was pleased. I enjoyed this first episode. There were some things. I won't say I loved every single choice and scene but I think for the most part I was absolutely thrilled. And honestly,

[00:04:44] if I think the human touches, this is probably what did it for me. I have read, I've almost finished the book of where they based this show, Fire and Blood. So I've got a good start to it

[00:05:01] and I know where we're at. And I think we talked about during our intro episode for anyone, maybe who is not familiar with the book, it's a historical retelling. And what I love is that

[00:05:12] they were really able to add some human touches to this story. It was just a historical retelling. We don't get a whole lot of like what the characters are about. We just get like this, from other, this unreliable narrator's viewpoint. And I thought it was great.

[00:05:30] And I think if they keep up with adding these human touches to this story, it's going to be a great success. I completely agree with you, absolutely agree with you. And I did notice when

[00:05:46] I flipped through Fire and Blood, it's a bit of a read. And so I have to go in and out of it just because I've got a million things happening at once at all times. But I sat down, I read

[00:06:02] the rogue prince, which you and I talked about briefly before recording, which is, as we talked about, it's an overview of this story, of this specific story that we are about to see, that we

[00:06:14] are currently starting to see. And they say at the very beginning of that story that they talk about whether you believe this archmaster or you believe the king's fool, right? Because

[00:06:29] they each have their own pieces of the story. So that's really fun to see kind of like how that goes. So when you have the unreliable narrator, you have a little bit more freedom with the story,

[00:06:44] I think, which I feel that the previous show did not have their freedom, especially by us, the fan base that has read every single word, dissected every single word. And we're now going

[00:07:01] to punch you in the face for not getting those words right. So, you know, but overall, yes, overall, I was very pleased with the first episode. And I'm really, really looking forward to seeing what the remaining nine episodes of this season look like. Me too. Well, I think

[00:07:22] with that, we should talk about our favorite moments of the episode. What do you think? I am dying to chomping at the bits talking about this show. Yeah, I'm very, very excited about this because there's a lot to unpack, I think.

[00:07:39] Yeah, I think we're going to be here a while just so everyone knows. And I think I'm gonna go get a go get a little drink. It'll be fun. Yeah, we're gonna take some bathroom breaks. We're gonna need some drink breaks.

[00:07:49] We're gonna need all of those things. And I think it's, yes, I think it is a good time to start our top five. And I do want to just say, you know, we are going to be talking about the

[00:08:00] show. But I think it's also fair to say there's probably going to be sprinklings of references to Game of Thrones, either the books or the shows. Is that fair to say? Do we want to give a

[00:08:10] little? I think that's very fair to say because there are some comparisons that I think need to be made. And there's also that last scene of the entire episode that I'm sure that we're

[00:08:22] both going to have some strong things to say about. So, you know, and give us your feedback if you want less or more of those comparisons, you know, that's fine. But I do think that there's no way

[00:08:38] to talk about this show without also talking about the mother ship show. Yeah, I think they're they've started off the tone with clear references either to the books or to the show. There's probably opinions on either or, but they started that whenever they mentioned 107, 172, 173 years

[00:09:01] before Daenerys. And we've had seasons of the show. So, well, that won't be my primary focus, but I think there are going to be maybe some references to that. So, I just wanted to say

[00:09:14] that because I feel there might be people that may not have watched Game of Thrones. I don't know if there are, but I know we just covered Better Call Solve, which is a prequel to Breaking Bad. We

[00:09:25] actually had a few listeners that had never seen Breaking Bad. So, I think it's just fair to say we're probably going to be talking about either the events, either of the books or at least of

[00:09:34] the show. So, just to kind of put that out there, I think is a fair warning to anyone who maybe is not familiar. And all the content is out there for anybody that wants it?

[00:09:44] If you want to be spoiled, go get it. Go get it all. It's all out there. And like I said, we do have a book talk. So, at least for this first episode, I really want to talk about how

[00:10:00] this episode is presenting these characters and these stories kind of as a jumping off point because I think that there's a lot to talk about there. Totally. So, for your number or you know, it's top five, right? So, it doesn't really need to be in order

[00:10:20] if you don't want it to be. So, where do you want to start with your top five? Yeah, handing it to you, lady. Thanks! And mine are in no particular order by importance or anything like that. I have so many things and I am all over the place.

[00:10:35] So, with that being said, I wanted to start off because I think it's kind of important, in my opinion anyway, to give a little bit of history on Targaryens because we got some name

[00:10:47] dropped. Names dropped in this episode that maybe not everyone is as familiar with because we didn't hear because if you come from the show, not a lot of the names were mentioned always or

[00:10:57] you don't have that history. So, I was super thrilled to hear some of these names. I thought it would be fun to kind of revisit that and also just a little bit about

[00:11:05] a little Targaryen history. And I'll keep this kind of short because there's a lot of it. But we got to hear what I was super thrilled. We got to hear some High Valyrian in the last episode. Yes! That was awesome.

[00:11:18] Super excited. Wasn't it great? It was really great to hear that between Renera and her uncle Daemon. And I think that that, you know, how easily they slide into that it's kind of their thing. You know, so... Yeah, it felt like a secret code. Yeah! Yeah.

[00:11:35] Even though you know other Targaryens speak it, they were the only ones that were speaking it. So, it really showed a comfort with each other I think. I agree. It's definitely, I think sets a tone for their relationship in the show, I think.

[00:11:49] So, High Valyrian is a dying out language. It's mostly used in like religious ceremonies. It might be what we consider our Latin, if you will. High Valyrian was language of old Valyria on the city on the continent of Essos. And if you know you watched Game of Thrones,

[00:12:08] you'll know that Daenerys did speak that language as well, which was super cool. I wish... Or is there like an app or something? You can learn that because I think I might sign up for something.

[00:12:22] I think you can actually learn High Valyrian. Yes, I think that that's a language you can learn. I'm signing up. I'm going to figure it out. So, we got to hear High Valyrian. I thought that was

[00:12:32] amazing. I love to hear it. I thought it was also interesting in the scene with Pate Considine. This is another piece of history in the scene where he is in his room. This is

[00:12:46] after he's lost his wife in a sense. This is just before Allyson enters his bed chamber. He's actually building a model of old Valyria. I didn't know that until I read it later, so I

[00:12:58] had to find that out because I was like, what is he building? It doesn't look like King's Landing. It ends up its old Valyria. He has these old historical plans to recreate it before it was destroyed. So, I thought that was super cool. Apparently, Viserys is a historian.

[00:13:14] He loves the history of the Old World. So, he has the plans of old Valyria that he is actually carving out. So, I love that if you want to take a quick peek at that,

[00:13:25] freeze the screen. I thought that was interesting. So, one of the names that was dropped was Aegon. Aegon, the first Targaryen, also known as Aegon the Conqueror, Aegon the Dragon. He was the first Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and King of the Iron Throne,

[00:13:45] having conquered six of the Seven Kingdoms during the conquest. He was a great warrior who he was also the Dragon Rider of Belerion, which I'm going to probably be talking a lot about.

[00:14:00] So, that's who Aegon was. We heard that name dropped. So, a little bit of history on him. I really wanted to see Belerion. Oh my gosh. You know what? Even if we can get it in a flashback,

[00:14:11] I mean please, please. I'm really hoping and for anyone who wasn't sure, didn't know, when the scene between Rhaenyra and her father Viserys, that took place in front of the skull of Belerion, the Black Dread. He died when Viserys was 16 or 17 I believe and he was the

[00:14:35] last Targaryen to ride Belerion. And Viserys never took on another dragon. Once Belerion died, he did not take on another dragon. Oh my gosh. How do you go from Belerion to another dragon? I have no idea. But... Danny, yeah, no. So, Belerion was a badass of the dragons.

[00:14:54] I'm really hoping, I know that in this time that we're in right now, he is gone. But I'm really hoping maybe for a flashback or maybe a dragon dream. We know Viserys has dragon dreams. So,

[00:15:09] I would love to see that. I'm going to keep, maybe I shouldn't, but keep my fingers crossed. Keep them crossed. What's the harm? I mean, you're giving me so many things, guys. Can

[00:15:21] you please give me Belerion too? Is it too much to ask for? I'm going to manifest it. We also got a sprinkling of Lady, is it Dainis? Denise? Dainis Targaryen. She was also called

[00:15:37] Dainis. Probably. Dainis the Dreamer. She was a noble woman of House Targaryen and she was the daughter of Aenar Targaryen who was a nobleman from the Belerion Freehold in Lord of Dragonstone. Now, this is interesting because when Dainis was a maiden, she had a powerful prophetic dream

[00:15:56] that showed the destruction of Valyria by fire. She told her father about that dream. He heeded that dream. He sold everything in Valyria and he moved his entire family and all of their belongings to Dragonstone. And with them they took five dragons and then the doom of Valyria

[00:16:15] came 12 years later and House Targaryen was the only family of dragon riders which survived. Can you imagine for those 12 years people just saying like, really? What are we still doing here? We're here for a dream of some girl. Come on, let's go back. This is ridiculous.

[00:16:36] I think it sets a little precedent here because of what Viserys had told Renea later and I know we're going to talk about it but there's a history to that here and it started there.

[00:16:51] So I think it's important to mention her. And then the last name, I'm sure there's probably going to be a lot more but I wanted to start out here. Another name that was dropped and this was

[00:17:01] during the council meeting where they're very upset at Daemon and he's listening in. You hear Megar Targaryen just quickly dropped. Oh, he's going to be another Megar and some people might be like,

[00:17:17] who the hell is Megar? Because we're getting a lot of names and a lot of facts, a lot of history. So Megar Targaryen, he was also known as Megar the Cruel. He was the third Targaryen king to

[00:17:28] sit the Iron Throne. He was the son of King Aegon Targaryen and his elder sister wife, Queen Visenya Targaryen. So Aegon the Conqueror and one of his sister wives, Visenya, their son. So he was a born warrior. He was very skilled with weapons and he was completely unmatched.

[00:17:46] He lived for war, turnies and battle. He was a hard- Sounds familiar. Yes, yep. Oh, yeah, sure it is. So he was brutal. He craved violence, death. He was just a savage essentially. I won't go into his entire history. It is all out there

[00:18:05] like Kristen was telling you. There's so many books that you can read. It's all on the internet. If you want to read more about Megar, but as his moniker suggests, Megar the Cruel,

[00:18:16] as I mentioned, he is known as one of the most tyrannical kings to ever rule the Seven Kingdoms. So a little bit of history there. So that's not a name. Yeah, that's not a name that you just

[00:18:25] drop. No. That's like saying, oh, he's another Hitler. Yeah, exactly. That's really going to a bad dark place, I think, comparing Damon to him. I have some thoughts about Damon, which we'll talk about. But yeah, I thought that was, I was like, wow, you went there.

[00:18:49] But it's fun to hear the names. It's fun to hear some of the history and the names. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there to start it out since this is the first episode.

[00:18:58] And I'm really anxious to kind of hear more. I hope we get a little bit more of the name dropping. We're talking a little bit more about the Targaryen history as it, as the show continues.

[00:19:07] So that's my number five. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with you. That's a great number five. I really like the way that they weaved it in naturally also with the dialogue. It wasn't something that they were reading off to you, you know, considering the source material,

[00:19:26] they made it more natural, which is wonderful. So I agree. That's a great number five. I love that. Thank you. So my number, my number five, the way where I kind of wanted to start off

[00:19:36] with was I just loved being back. Like it just, it was like putting on the most comfortable clothing that you have and stepping back into a world that I once loved so deeply. And all those

[00:19:54] wonderful feels came back. You know, the Great Council meeting, the, you know, when they just had the clouds and I'm like, oh, I'm going to see it here. You know what's coming. And what comes

[00:20:10] is this beautiful dragon just breaks through the clouds and, you know, soars over King's Landing and King's Landing doesn't burn to the ground. And, you know, it's just so wonderful.

[00:20:23] You know, you see all of the, at the tourney, all of the houses were all lined up and you saw the flags. You saw Baratheon and Hightower. You saw the flayed man. You saw

[00:20:39] obviously the Targaryens. We saw Rickon Stark at the end of the episode. I mean, just it was so relaxing almost just being back in this world and being just taken on this wonderful

[00:20:55] journey of a first episode. I just could not have asked for a better introduction into this series, especially with kind of the caution that I sat down with. Like I took a deep breath

[00:21:10] and pressed play, you know. That was a really big deal for me guys. I'm not kidding. Actually sit down and do this. I was really thinking of you, you know, when the episode

[00:21:24] was starting, when I knew you were getting ready to watch. I know that this was not, you know, so easy for you. So it was not, it was not, but all the feelings came back,

[00:21:34] all the wonderful came back and I just, it felt good. And then on my second watch, and I had my spiral notebook in my hand and I was like, oh, we're back. Like it just felt, all of it felt good.

[00:21:48] So my top five is basically just like, just kind of being back in it and kind of experiencing a new Westeros, right? A new old Westeros, a different, totally different story that we can really lose ourselves in. And I don't know, so that's my number five.

[00:22:11] Short to the point. I love it. I love it. And I'm right there with you. It felt like home getting this, you know, being back in the world. I just am obsessed with this. I'm just like

[00:22:24] completely absorbed and engrossed in reading everything that I can about the history. I've got the big history book of Westeros and I'm reading all the things and I'm finishing up the

[00:22:37] big one. The big one. And yeah, the big one is a beautiful book. Absolutely beautiful. So I'm just nose deep into the world of ice and fire. Thank you. Yep. And then also reading Fire and Blood.

[00:22:50] I was reading the rogue prints. I'm trying to read all the things online, doing as much as possible. But anyway, it was like being, being back home. And I'm not too proud to say that I got so emotional with just in the beginning. And I was completely

[00:23:05] just loving the narration, getting that little introduction, setting the tone, seeing Heron Hall was amazing. Yes. It intact. Yeah. Semi intact. It was still after a real post-Ballarian after he had, you know, met Heron Hall. But then yes. And then seeing,

[00:23:29] you know, Syrax, you know, and flying over King's Landing. I mean, they gave me, I think that well, me and everyone else who was waiting for a dragon, right? We're all, we know that this is the time in history where the Targaryens had the most dragons. So

[00:23:46] duh, we got to have some dragons. And that's what I was waiting for too. So it gave us all the things. It was, I think it was a nice little callback to Game of Thrones when Dany was flying over

[00:23:59] King's Landing with her dragon because that was, you know, that's the only time we've seen a dragon in King's Landing was in the finale or during that finale time. So now we're getting it where, you know, we see Syrax flying over King's Landing and everyone's just like, oh,

[00:24:13] yeah, it's just dragon. That's that's just an everyday thing here. Totally unbothered by it. Yeah, exactly. That's just the thing. Dragons just fly. I would just die just seeing a dragon.

[00:24:23] I would just put me on that thing please is what I'd be doing. What was really great was, what was really great was how it was so normal. It was almost like when Rhaenyra's,

[00:24:37] you know, jumped off, you know, she handed them over to the handlers and, you know, she's biting off her riding gloves and everybody's just kind of waiting like had a very like I'm

[00:24:48] putting my horse in the corral. Yeah, like she's got her horse. In the stables and right. And just that normalcy, yeah, it was it was kind of fun to watch what almost the dragons are

[00:24:59] almost boring to these people, right? Not to us, but yeah, they're just like, yeah, okay, oh look, there's a Targaryen obviously. You know, so that's kind of cool. You know, it's kind of like when I whenever I visit DC and I see any flying object within the district,

[00:25:19] you know, it's the president because it's restricted airspace. It's airspace. Right. And so you see like a helicopter go by and you're like, hey, that's that's POTUS up there, you know. But people that live in DC, they don't care. Yeah, it's their everyday life.

[00:25:37] Yeah. Right. Right. So that's yeah, that's very cool. I really loved just talking about what you were just talking about with like the opening those drums. The in the very beginning, the

[00:25:51] opening music was just so drum heavy and it was just this like, like you could feel it inside of you like moving your blood and I just really, really enjoyed that music. I thought it was really

[00:26:02] great and it really speaks to kind of the tone like you said the tone and the family and the blood of the dragon and it's just a great job. Great job. Ramin Duwadi. Chef's kiss. Yes, of course. We expect nothing less from the master. He's so brilliant.

[00:26:21] So yeah, I totally agree with you that opening. I definitely had some tears. Tears were shed at just being back in this world just feeling like I'm home and it was just wonderful. So

[00:26:36] I'm on board with all of that. We were together for the finale and now we're together for this part too. So yes, nice little bookend, right? This time I don't have my nails clenched

[00:26:48] into your arm like I did. Right. And my shirt's not wet from all the tears. Right, and all the tears. Oh, the days. So what do you, back in the day. So what's your number four?

[00:27:03] So I want to talk about, now this was a hard scene and this is when I think if I have a complaint about the show, it's the scene with Emma during her childbirth in the Caesarean.

[00:27:23] That was my next one too. So let's just let's unpack it. Let's do it. Let's just talk about it. I really have conflicting thoughts because I see, I think I understand their choice

[00:27:38] with showing it and for how far they went with it because I, again, what we're dealing with in this world when we're talking about women being stripped of a choice and having no choice

[00:27:53] and how she was treated where she isn't even told what is going to be happening to her. I think it was important to keep telling us this story, keep telling us this fact,

[00:28:07] but man was it brutal. I don't know that I needed, I think if that was what they were wanting to tell us, I don't know that they needed to show as much as what they did with the brutality of it.

[00:28:21] That was a really, really hard watch. I read some things that there were some people that made the decision to not even continue watching, not just the episode they had to turn off, but maybe even not even continue watching the show period. I hate that. I understand and

[00:28:41] I feel like everyone has to make a choice, but I hate that because I feel like missing out on what can be a really fantastic show, but it was absolutely horrifying to have to watch. But it definitely, I think when Emma tells Raniera, the birth is our battlefield.

[00:29:07] Men play out here at war. This is our battlefield. That's what happened when they intersected the birthing scene with the tournament. The men are out there playing at war while Emma is fighting for her life. I like how they cut it back and forth because I think it

[00:29:29] really played well into the story. I think that it's an interesting twist also to Viserys' character with the birth scene. It is a bit of a change from the books, and I won't talk about

[00:29:42] the books. I'm not going to go into any detail. You can look that up and we can talk about it more in book talk sometime, but I think it makes him a tragic figure even more so.

[00:29:54] I think so. It was a lot and it was hard. I'll be honest with you, the second time I watched, I skipped forward just a little bit to get past that part because it was just a little too much

[00:30:05] to watch. You said this was also your number four. I'm dying to hear what you think about it. No, yeah. I think a lot of what you're saying, I completely see what you're saying.

[00:30:19] I think I looked at it almost the same, but with very few changes. I was absolutely fascinated by the juxtaposition between the birthing and death scene and the tournament scene. What I really loved, what I really thought kind of tied the two together was actually Rainie's conversation with

[00:30:43] her husband. I'm going to get this wrong. Coralus. Coralus. Oh yeah, yeah. It's the wise. And talking about right when they go from the decision that Viserys has to make

[00:31:00] on whether to let them both die or to try and save the child. And then it goes right to the tournament where I believe someone's face is getting axed into. Rainie's just says, and the day grows ugly.

[00:31:18] I think that's what she said. I have it written down. Let me make sure I have that. And the day grows ugly. And I just thought that that was really interesting because it was at that moment

[00:31:31] where the day really did get ugly on so many different fronts. And it goes back to the very beginning of this episode when Renera comes in to visit Emma, her mother, who is sick and everybody's tending to her, but they're not tending to her. And Renera knows they're

[00:31:50] not tending to you. They're tending to the baby. And Emma is very, very careful to point out to her daughter that they have royal wombs and that carries a responsibility. And she carries it as this responsibility that should be honored and loved and cherished. And Renera absolutely

[00:32:13] doesn't see it that way probably because she's too young, right? But it was this foreshadowing that happened at the very beginning because she talks about, oops, wrong page. I'm so sorry. Totally. I know. Yeah. And while this is happening, who else is in the room listening?

[00:32:41] The maester. Allicent. Oh, yes. Allicent is there too. Allicent is listening intently. And that can be a little bit of foreshadowing, I think as well into this season that we will see.

[00:32:54] But you go from, so there's a lot that's going on because I'm trying to piece this all together because I have it all in my jotted down notes. So right after this, you cut to a scene where

[00:33:07] Viserys has a wound on his back and they're talking about how it's not getting better. What are we going to do? They're scraping off the pus. To me, that was the disgusting part of

[00:33:18] the entire episode. I actually handled the rest of it just fine. It was the pus scraping that really got me. It was, yes, very nasty. But the maester comes up to him to Otto and they're

[00:33:33] having a talk about the king, you know, because of course, why shouldn't we talk to someone else about the health of the king? And the maester suggests cauterization. We need to cauterize

[00:33:50] the wound and he says, I think cauterization is the best plan of action, your grace. It will be painful. And Viserys says, fine, fine, whatever. And he walks away. And I think that that's a foreshadowing of what's going to come into this episode as well because

[00:34:09] seeing as what the decision that he made later in the day about how to bring out the baby almost like a cauterization of this wound, he has to just make the decision and that's the decision.

[00:34:24] And it's killing him. It's killing him to watch his wife die in such a terrible and cruel way. And then you get that cauterization with the funeral pyre at the end. And this tiny little wound

[00:34:43] that you're not even thinking about, it's over here somewhere, right? My wife is pregnant. She's had five miscarriages. She's tired. She doesn't feel well. Finally, it becomes bigger and bigger

[00:34:56] and it festers and it gets infected until finally you have to face it head on. And I think that that was kind of what kind of happened with that scenario. But when you really look at the two,

[00:35:11] going back to looking at the two scenes put together, it does show just how dismissive women are in this world. Right? Rainies is talking about kind of, she's talking very wisely

[00:35:27] about all of these men that are showing up to the tournament full of seed and never been to war. And now they want to just join in the melee. They just want to like chop each other's heads

[00:35:39] off and get out that aggression. Because it's peacetime. Right. And Corleys is just like, this seems like a really weird way to bring in the birth of our new heir. I'm just going to say

[00:35:53] that right now. And she's just like, ugh, it is what it is. But the things that she's saying is very smart, is very poignant and it's very true yet she knows that nobody's going to

[00:36:05] listen to her. And then you're coupled with that to the other scene where they're about to cut open a woman to get a male baby out. Yeah. And they've just, she's going to die, whatever.

[00:36:17] Even the women that are tending to her, the way that they pull her down on the bed, the way that they hold her down, it's, she's not a person anymore. She's a vessel. She's a vessel. Yeah. Like she was cattle or something.

[00:36:31] Right. And she's screaming and she's scared and she's trying to tell somebody that she's scared and no one's listening to her. And so to me, that was, I was able to look past the whole

[00:36:47] cutting open ripping out the baby kind of thing to really see what the message behind that scene was and the terribleness that was behind that scene. And there are these really poignant, you know, messages through both of these scenes that are being pieced together

[00:37:05] on top of the, you know, very obvious war on one side and terribleness on the other, both bloody, both terrible. And it's all for what? Nothing. Everybody's going to be dead

[00:37:18] at the end. The baby's dead, the mother's dead. There was no point to any of it, you know? And that really is war. At the end, it doesn't matter. There was no point to any of it.

[00:37:35] So yeah, I really, I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? I feel like I've been rambling. No, I don't think you were rambling at all. I've been listening very intently.

[00:37:48] No, I think that makes total sense. And I agree with you. It was heart-wrenching because, you know, I think had they at least told her what was going to happen, you know, I think that was,

[00:38:04] you know, it wasn't just the gore of them ripping this baby from her and that was all that was important to almost everyone in the room. The series, you could tell he struggled with that

[00:38:18] decision. You know, they essentially told him, look, she's going to die no matter what. Like, she's not going to be able to birth this baby because the baby was breached. You know, and because if she can't birth the baby, the baby is also going to die.

[00:38:35] This is your only shot. I understand that. I think have had they told her, this is what we're facing. She would have said, okay, do what you need to do. And she, you know, maybe would have made some peace with that. But, you know, the series couldn't

[00:38:55] even tell her. No one could tell her and for her to have to go into that situation so scared was just so, so hard for me to watch. They weren't, yeah, they weren't, she wasn't considered.

[00:39:06] Her life wasn't considered. That's the hardest pill to swallow, I think, is that in the end, her life just was not considered. And you know, this was filmed a while ago and there are certain

[00:39:21] social issues that have happened since the filming of this. It was probably not on purpose. It was probably completely coincidental that this happened around the same time. Because who would have ever thought that Roe would have ever been overturned? Let's just say that.

[00:39:40] So, you know, you think about, I don't think that this is a political statement being made is my point. I think and maybe that's why people were upset, right? Right. Well, it's so close to home. It does. Yeah, we're just gonna.

[00:40:03] I do think, tell me what you think about this. Do you think because of Jaehaerys was a peaceful king for 60 years? Viserys inherited a peaceful kingdom. Not a lot has happened. Nobody's gone to war as Rhaenys said in her conversation with her husband during the scene.

[00:40:25] Do you think that this was Viserys' first test on making a difficult decision? His first test as a ruler and a king? You know, I think that's a really good point. And I think good possibility.

[00:40:42] We saw Otto very much handling things. He, Viserys was a king and they demonstrated in the show as well. He definitely depended on his council, his high council to make those decisions. Damon talked about that as well. Like, hey, your council knows that you're of a weak character.

[00:41:06] Like you're just a go with the flow kind of guy and you just want to kind of sit back and have a peaceful kingdom. You don't want to be in and make those hard decisions or,

[00:41:15] you know, whatever. It seems like everybody just kind of looks at, you know, makes the decisions and they just, and the king's just kind of like, yep, that's how it goes. Like whenever, and even the, even someone else on the council, like when Otto Hightower totally just kind

[00:41:31] of dismissed Coralus when he's talking about, you know, the stepstones, which pay attention to people if you haven't read the book is all I'll say. Dismisses him. It's like, we've heard your concerns. We'll take it under advisement and looks at the king and he's like,

[00:41:48] you know, well, you heard the man, you know, so he just kind of just goes along with everyone else. And I think you're right. It seems like when he was faced with this, this was like the

[00:41:57] first test as king and I mean, maybe even as a husband, I don't know, but, you know, I think it's definitely going to set the tone for the rest of, you know, the season for sure. This decision that he's made. One is very interesting to me because after,

[00:42:17] after this scene, after his wife and, you know, son die, we see a very different visceres in the next small council meeting. He ends the meeting and walks out and he, he basically tells everybody, you know, you guys are idiots. Like,

[00:42:35] like the embers aren't even died down on my family. Like shut up. Yeah. And then, and then in the very, and then, you know, shortly after that, you see that final of the episode. It's not final,

[00:42:49] but that confrontation between visceres and Damon and Damon sees that visceres may not be as weak as he thinks that he is or that he really honestly has been. He just lost what he perceives

[00:43:03] to be everything and he makes a very, very quick and I'm sorry, my cat is tearing something up. So if you hear something in the background, that's my cat. But you see a visceres just saying,

[00:43:21] you know what? You got to go and I'm sending you away and that's final. And he didn't have Otto with him. He didn't have anybody with him. This was, this was all visceres and to me that,

[00:43:34] that says that he has just in one episode, he's gone through a full arc himself and we are seeing a different visceres. Now, will we continue to see that in the coming weeks? You know,

[00:43:48] we'll see. Or is he going to go back to relying on Otto? Grief is a weird thing. So I'm interested to know if the concept of grief is actually going to be explored a little bit more.

[00:44:02] And then that blood of the dragon, that's also, that's a fierce thing too if you're a Targaryen. Targaryens stay loyal to their family, period. So I'm interested to see what goes from here because there were some amazing scenes, amazing scenes by visceres throughout this entire episode.

[00:44:26] He's just fantastic, fantastic character. I agree. I agree. I really love the life that Petty Constantine is bringing to that character. It's hard in the source material to kind of get a read sometimes. You get a feel for it, but to actually see a living breathing

[00:44:50] person playing that character, he has really done a fantastic job. He did his research. He did. He understood the assignment. Yes, he did. I love that. You had so many great points. That's wonderful insight. Oh yeah. You know what? You too. I think that that's

[00:45:09] just one of those scenes though that it's just always going to kind of stick in your head too. It was a very powerful and emotional moment for characters that we've only known less than an hour.

[00:45:23] Yes, very much. I think it will be interesting to see moving forward not just for visceres but Rhaenyra, both of them mourning. But then she now has a new role which we'll talk about

[00:45:36] being named the heir and such. Oh really? Was that a big deal? I didn't get that. Just a small little detail in there. What? Yeah. Weird. Where would you like to go next? Well, this is probably going to be a little short and sweet too, which considering

[00:45:58] that she's one of the main characters, I want to talk a little bit about Rhaenyra. And I'm sure you have thoughts too. So I'm going to try and keep this little short. But

[00:46:08] I want to start off, and I hope this doesn't say too much, but I just want to say before I talk about Rhaenyra, I mentioned it before my thoughts on women and some of the things

[00:46:21] and decisions that they do. I support women's wrongs and I support women's rights. Maybe that's in the other order. I support women's rights and I support women's wrongs. So I'm just going to say that as I start talking about Rhaenyra.

[00:46:36] Okay. I loved it. I can't wait to see where this goes. Well, it's going to just kind of more of what will be coming. I'll say that. Not exactly something we've seen in this show. So maybe that's jumping the gun

[00:46:54] a little bit. But you know, I really love the character of Rhaenyra Targaryen. I am thrilled to see her on the screen. And I love this introduction to her character, this young Rhaenyra.

[00:47:07] I'm happy that they aged her up a little bit. So I think it makes sense for the show, for the content and things like that. But I love being introduced to Rhaenyra. She

[00:47:17] is a bright spirited young woman. At this young age, she has lost her mother and her brother. And I really got a sense from her feelings, which man, so much of it does ring true today

[00:47:35] where she feels that she's less than because she's not a male heir. She's not the boy. And she seems totally fine with it. She does. She does. But I don't know. I think that she does. I think when she was speaking

[00:47:49] with Allison and she's like, you know, I'm fine with my position. I couldn't tell how much she was joking because she really did feel very... When she says the daemon at the funeral,

[00:48:04] well, I hope that my father had a few moments of true happiness for the moments that his, her baby brother was alive and he had an actual male heir. And she's in the chambers as they're having these council meetings and talking about the heir and the baby coming

[00:48:23] and things and how everything's going to be fine because once the baby is born, everything's going to be perfect. I'm like, dude, your daughter is literally right there. So I think that she's kind of struggled with that knowing that she's not really a true heir,

[00:48:41] even though she's the firstborn and oldest child of the king. I know she's doted upon and everyone loves her, but I loved the introduction to her. I think also her character changes as well. She's bright. She's spirited. She's carefree. You see her writing on Syrax

[00:49:09] and she's just kind of loving life. And she has no interest in being, it sounds like anyway, a wife and a mother and having to go through the birthing process to produce heirs for

[00:49:21] whomever she ends up marrying later on in life. I really think we're going to see a shift now that she has the weight of being named as the heir and also now with this secret

[00:49:33] that has been revealed to her. That's a lot to put on a person and also a young person at one time. So I'm interested to see in the coming episodes how that changes her. Everything obviously that

[00:49:50] has happened in this first episode that will change her moving forward, but I love Rhaenyra Targaryen. I'm thrilled to see her on the screen. I just love my dragon queen, so Rhaenyra is right up there. I agree. I think that she's wonderful as well.

[00:50:11] And I think in hearing you just talk about all of that, it brings to mind that she probably is okay. She probably has such feelings about not wanting to get married and not wanting to have

[00:50:26] heirs and not really caring about who the heir is because it's consumed her entire life. It has kind of broken her away from a genuine relationship with her father because she knows that she's not

[00:50:45] a man, so she'll never be who her father wants her to be. And that's probably why she has no care at all about heir to the throne or who's going to do this or whatever.

[00:51:01] But yeah, I think that as she's getting dressed at the end of the episode, you can see that change that has happened to her and you can see that this is a responsibility that she is now going to

[00:51:13] embrace. She looks a little nervous. So that is sure. Yeah. As I think anybody would be, and it's funny watching all these men bending the knee very begrudgingly to her in that final scene

[00:51:28] as well, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. But yeah, Rayneera, awesome character. Totally agree. I just thought it was great. And maybe this was done on purpose. She had a little bit of Daenerys there when she got off Cyrax and was handing him over to the handlers.

[00:51:53] She jumped down and I couldn't help but think, oh my God, it's like Daenerys all over again. Her the dress that she was in, I know it was leggings in a dress. We saw Daenerys wear

[00:52:06] something very similar. She had that black, scaly material with the, it was black, but had some red there. Her hair, I just can't write a dragon in a dress. No, no. So yeah, I just, I love that and maybe it was intentional by the show runners and the

[00:52:27] writers, but I loved it. So I think as she gets her, I think as her character develops more that we're going to see less of that comparison to Daenerys. But I think that that comparison

[00:52:44] needs to be there right now so that we understand who were rooting for, right? This is the show producers are saying this is who we're rooting for guys. Right. Yeah, I want to be clear

[00:52:59] that I don't, Daenerys is not Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra is not Daenerys. They are different characters, but I do think that they gave us a little bit of a little bit of a tie-in. Like, Daenerys comes from this line of Targaryens. She is a descendant and I think they just

[00:53:20] tried to make that parallel just a little bit to kind of give us that little bit of a tie-in, but to be clear, Rhaenyra is not Daenerys and vice versa. Yeah, and I didn't think that

[00:53:29] that's what you were saying. I just think that that little connect for the first episode is probably intentional and it's important to kind of put that pin in there and just be like, okay guys, Targaryens, Daenerys, here we go. Here you go. Nice little package for you.

[00:53:49] Exactly. Well said. So kind of going off of your character kind of analysis, I did want to talk about for my next, for my number, what is this? Three? Yeah, for my number three is Viserys and Daemon. Now from the original show and from the books,

[00:54:19] we do know that when a Targaryen is born, they say that God flips a coin. And I think that we are seeing both sides of that coin in Viserys and Daemon. Oh, interesting. And

[00:54:35] I see a lot of the crazy, it's not even crazy, it's just, and it's not ruthless, it's not cruel. I think that it's just, I noticed that Daemon has this, I don't care about any of

[00:54:52] you people. I care about my family, I care about the blood of the dragon. And he's unapologetic about it. He knows who he is, he knows who he's going to be. And he's not rattled by any of it.

[00:55:08] He can completely unhinge Otto with a sentence. So good. And he doesn't care, which is great. He comes in with blood all over him and he's like, yeah, man, I just killed and

[00:55:26] punished a whole bunch of people that you haven't been paying attention to in your city. Cut off some of the penis and beheaded someone. I think we, I feel like they cut off a butthole.

[00:55:42] Well, no, I don't think so. I know that they were supposed to have cut off his testicles, right? It looked like, at first I thought it was a penis, but it looked like, nope,

[00:55:53] I think they got his testicles. I think that's what they threw. He's a unit now. Yep, that's what they threw there on that slab of wood or whatever. I'm a look like a butthole.

[00:56:05] I don't, well, if they did, I'm glad they didn't show it. That's all I'll say. I would just say go back and just look at it. Give it a hard look. Maybe watch that again. Give it a hard look. I think it might be a butthole.

[00:56:19] Um, so and then you look at Viserys and Viserys is like, Hey bro, it's cool. He's like the big Lebowski, right? He's just like, are we not cool? Like let's just how do how, let's have another party. Let's do this. He wants everything to be happy. He wants

[00:56:38] people to be happy. He wants his family to be happy. He just, he knows kind of the pleasures of the court, whereas Damon knows, you know, how the sausage is made, so to speak. Yeah, he's been to war. He's been in battle.

[00:56:53] So it's interesting to me to see two completely different characters and these two brothers and just kind of the beginnings of how their relationship works. Mm-hmm. And it seems that Viserys is really getting Otto's paranoia and he's getting paranoia from Otto,

[00:57:17] not because Otto is paranoid, because Otto wants Damon out of the picture. Yes. It's like that's very clear in this episode. Otto Hightower and Damon Targaryen are going to be fun to watch because they loathe each other and it seems like a lot of this

[00:57:38] hatred towards each other and not really hatred from Damon. Damon just does this to just get a rise out of Otto. I mean, he picked Otto's son to joust because he knew it would piss off Otto. Then after he unhorsed him, he went over and he said,

[00:57:53] hey, Allison, can I have your favor just to piss off Otto? It worked. You see it's very calculating. It's very decisive and he's so confident in it. Yeah. Whereas you see Viserys and Viserys had to make the decision about Emma and what to do with Emma

[00:58:19] you can see in his face that he's second guessing his decision the entire time. The entire time. Whereas Damon probably would have been like, yeah, cut it out. What are we going

[00:58:28] to do? Okay, let's get on with this. Let's cauterize it now. I really like the fact that I think that we're seeing both sides of that Targaryen coin in these two brothers. I love that too. They are two totally different personalities for sure. I think what Damon was

[00:58:51] saying there at the end in that confrontation in the throne room, like you said, he's very loyal to his family and I think he is looking out for his brother. I think he knows his brother is weak

[00:59:03] and being taken advantage of by the men that he chooses to surround himself with. He feels it's necessary for him to, now does he always go about it the right way, but to insert himself and do what he thinks is best for the Targaryens. Not necessarily

[00:59:21] for King's Landing and the people, but for the Targaryens, the family. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I think Viserys will come around on that, but for right now, yeah, it's great seeing the two of them so different. Yeah.

[00:59:39] Damon is actually one of my, I feel like I have so many notes and points that I'm just not going to get everything in. So I kind of put him in as a note really. And I'm really fascinated by Damon

[00:59:52] Targaryen. He is a fascinating character. I would advise anyone if you haven't read anything about Damon Targaryen, you totally should. He's really fascinating. I'm fascinated by him anyway. It's like, is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Well, we're not real sure, but we like him

[01:00:12] because he's kind of this gray character. It's not black. It's not white. And we get that so much in, we got a lot in Game of Thrones. We're getting it here in House of the Dragon

[01:00:22] where this is like real life, right? I mean, this is like real people. Nobody's all good and nobody's all bad. Exactly. This is just, you know, people make good decisions. People make bad

[01:00:32] decisions. You're not always a good guy or just a bad guy. It's not so black and white. There's a lot of gray. And Damon Targaryen definitely in my opinion falls under that. I think he's complicated. He is super fun to watch. And I really, I think Matt Smith

[01:00:47] is doing a really good job. He's having a lot of fun. He's having a lot of fun. He's having a lot better than, you know, playing, you know, the Prince of Edinburgh. Although he did do a really good job in the crown. I do.

[01:00:59] He did, but he's real different in this one. He's very different. Very different. Like I saw a lot of Matt Smith in this show versus what I saw in the crown. We almost saw all front of him too without that like robe at the

[01:01:13] very end while he was turning around. I was like, oh, are we going to see full frontal from Matt Smith? It was, it almost happened. We got a lot. So I think he's doing a really good job at

[01:01:25] bringing Damon Targaryen to life. And look, he's not wrong. He's just an asshole. Yeah. And that's all I could think of whenever I was watching that last scene between him and the series. I'm like, dude, he's not wrong. He's being a little bit of an asshole about it

[01:01:42] and the things that he's maybe doing or saying, but he's not wrong. And that to me sums up Damon Targaryen. He's not wrong. He might be an asshole, but he's not wrong about what he's saying.

[01:01:55] His speech to the City Watch, I gotta tell you, it had some real Ramsey Bolton vibes, especially when he called them the hounds and they all start howling. You know, even his tone and the way he was speaking had the same tone and tenor as Ramsey

[01:02:19] Bolton. That's very interesting to me because he seems like a character that could switch on that Ramsey Bolton button very easily. But then you see him at the funeral and he's just this

[01:02:35] really caring human being. Ramsey Bolton was none of that. No. No. No. So maybe it's a little, yeah. He has no comparison to any other characters at all, which is great. I'm excited to see

[01:02:58] how that evolves. Me too. Me too. I think it'll be exciting to watch. I'm really loving all the characters so far and the actors playing them. They're doing a great job. Yes. Number four for you? So let's talk about the secret, the big secrets that was revealed.

[01:03:21] I'll have this be my number four too because that's on my list anyways. Yeah, like I said, these are in no particular order. Sometimes I go favorite first or save

[01:03:29] the best for last. I don't know. I have so many notes and so many thoughts. I just kind of put everything. I was good just to get things down on paper if you will, digital paper. I don't know

[01:03:42] if honestly I'll have a lot of like good insight on this because there's so much I feel like I still don't know. I'm still learning and trying to really absorb the history. So I

[01:03:54] I'll just start out and say, I am not an expert. I'm trying to learn as I go and gather as much as I know. So if I don't want, please don't anyone at me or scream at me. If I'm not 100%

[01:04:07] factual and getting things right, I'm trying my best. You can scream at me. I won't care. Just direct all screams towards me. I get it. I can get annoyed sometimes with people like,

[01:04:17] oh my gosh, you got that wrong. I can't believe it. I'm doing my best. But this secret, what we learned was very interesting when the series talks to Reneira and reveals the secret about a song

[01:04:36] of ice and fire because that was not in the books. It was not in the Game of Thrones show. It was not revealed. Like we didn't know this. So he drops this nugget of information

[01:04:55] basically talking about why the Targaryen family conquered Westeros. And so finding out this little nugget was very, it was an interesting choice. It was a tone setting moment. It also came directly, if anyone's questioning it, came directly from George R. R. Martin himself. God himself.

[01:05:20] And I'm curious what this means. I know a lot of people are really picking it apart and saying, how could this be passed from this? If this has been known since Aegon the Conqueror,

[01:05:34] this is what we're talking about as an Aegon the First that I talked about earlier, Aegon the Conqueror had this dream about a song of ice and fire that we know, right? We know this.

[01:05:46] But we didn't know they knew and that this had come down from air to air in the Targaryen history. I love that little tidbit. I loved it but I'm like, okay, so what does this mean? Going forward.

[01:06:03] And why did they make the choice? Why did George R. R. Martin decide to drop this here that wasn't in the books, it wasn't in the show, it's nowhere in text. So I think this is George R. R. Martin's way of saying the show is not canon.

[01:06:25] I'm so happy you said that because that's what I was thinking too. Yeah, he was. I think that what it is is I am delivering this information through Viserys

[01:06:38] to really put a stamp on the fact that we are not taking what two sloppy people did to wrap up the world's greatest show in order to get to their Star Wars job as he's saying,

[01:06:56] that's not my story. That's not my story. He has his story and so I think that this is not only going to write the ship or this is why at the very beginning I said I had to sit down and tell myself

[01:07:11] the show is not the story. Game of Thrones is not the story. I'm going into this knowing, yeah, I'm going into this knowing what I know from the books, you know, from a Game of Thrones to A Dance of Dragons. Those five books, we don't have

[01:07:29] Winds of Winter or Dream of Spring yet. We don't have them. They may never exist, right? But we know that those five books plus all the history that he's written, a thousand years of history and the Targaryens have always been his favorites. The Targaryens have,

[01:07:45] it's always been about these Targaryens for him, right? And this is George R. R. Martin saying, please leave the show just on a shelf. Take it away. This is our story and now I'm going

[01:07:58] to write this ship. He's got his hands in it everywhere and it's great. At first I was really judgmental about that but now that I see kind of the reasoning behind why he's doing what he's

[01:08:09] doing, it's really calming me down a little bit about how this show is going to be. And I think that it's going to be fantastic. Oh good. I'm glad you said that and we don't know but I feel

[01:08:22] like that's a really good kind of theory because that's what I was thinking because I'm like, what would be the purpose? And I think that he's dropping that nugget to kind of get us

[01:08:31] kind of prepared for the books, the books that are to come that we've been so patiently waiting for. So I have the quote, I'll read the quote quickly. It starts, Viserys talking to Rhaenyra, he says, our histories. They tell us that Aegon looked across the Blackwater from Dragonstone

[01:08:52] and saw a rich land ripe for the capture but ambition alone is not what drove him to conquest. It was a dream. And just as Dany's foresaw the end of Valeria, Aegon foresaw the end

[01:09:04] of the world of men. Tis to begin with a terrible winter gusting out of the distant north, Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds and whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living. When this great winter comes, Rhaenyra, all of Westeros must stand against

[01:09:18] it. And if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen must be seated on the Iron Throne. A king or queen strong enough to unite the realm against the cold and the dark.

[01:09:31] Aegon called his dream the Song of Ice and Fire. The secret has been passed from air to air since Aegon's time. Now you must promise to carry it and protect it. Promise me this, Rhaenyra, promise me.

[01:09:44] So one- I love that speech by the way. Thank you so much for reading it because that's fantastic. It's so full of goodness. And I love the promise me part was felt like a

[01:09:58] callback to Lyanna Stark telling Ned, she's asking him to keep the secret and protect her baby who we know is Jon Snow. What a great catch. Nice. Promise me, Ned, promise me.

[01:10:16] That's all I could think of when I heard that. I was thinking of Lyanna Stark to Ned. So I thought a little great callback. But that was amazing. I didn't put that together.

[01:10:27] That's incredible. I love that. I can't wait to tell Dave as soon as we're done recording. I don't know if it was intentional, but that's what popped into my brain. That's all I could hear because that was a very impactful scene for me in Game of Thrones.

[01:10:41] And a big moment. And we all finally, yes, it's what we all thought was true. So a very interesting piece and again came from Georgia R. Martin. So who am I to question it? I'm interested to see how that plays out and what that means moving forward. But

[01:11:06] I think it might have to do also maybe a choice with the storytelling maybe for what's to come as the story continues. And I'll leave that there because if I say too much, it's going to start going into book stuff and I'm leaving that elsewhere. But

[01:11:22] I feel like it was obviously for a reason and intentional. So I'm interested to see how it plays out. Totally agreed. That's awesome. Awesome. Well, that's interesting that you had that tie in to

[01:11:36] the Promise Me, Ned, because my number four has kind of it's short and sweet. It's just a question that I want to pose to you and any other listeners out there. Otto Hightower,

[01:11:50] who does he seem like to you? Well, I feel like if he knew who he was, he would think or favor himself after Little Finger. A little bit. I saw a lot of Tywin Lannister in him.

[01:12:06] Yeah. Especially when it came time for him to talk to his daughter about going to the king. So Allison and Otto may be a new Tywin and Cersei, I think. I definitely see that. Yeah. Now the difference is that I think Cersei is,

[01:12:34] Cersei was not equipped to be a good ruler. She didn't have it in her. She was just, she was all in like self-preservation and validation mode at all times. Allison is listening. Allison is in the room listening. She's learning,

[01:12:58] she's learning all the histories with Rhaenyra and for the Scepta. She's in the room when Rhaenyra and Emma are having their royal womb conversation and the child bed is a battlefield conversation. She's obviously favored by her father because I think her father sees an opportunity in her

[01:13:22] and he obviously lays the foundation of that in this episode with Allison going to the series and saying, oh, can I read to you? I know you love history. Can I read

[01:13:38] to you? You know, so I think that I think that it's very interesting to see Otto Hightower who has been controlling the king, who has been making decisions, who has been doing very

[01:13:53] Taiwan ruling with what he thinks is a weak king and you know, so far maybe, maybe he is a bit of a weak king, right? And he sees, he probably sees an opportunity and it'll be interesting

[01:14:11] to see, you know, how much this is actually expanded on and like you said, I don't want to say too much for people that haven't read the books or read the text but Otto Hightower is a very,

[01:14:30] very interesting character. Allison is a very, very important character. So it had a, it just had Lannister ambition just all over it to me. You are so right. You're so right. So that was my number four. So we'll see what happens. How's that?

[01:14:57] I think that's fair. I think that is fair. What's your number five or number one or whatever? You know, I have so much. I'm going to land because who would I be if I didn't have my number one and end this with the dragons? Ah, yes.

[01:15:26] As I mentioned, I love the opening when we got the dragons and I'm very excited to see because look, I don't think this is too much of a, because I think we talked about it in our

[01:15:37] intro. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler. We've already talked about that there's going to be a lot of dragons in the show. We talked about during this period of time with it,

[01:15:45] when the Targaryens were ruling, there's more dragons than what have ever been. We've only seen two living dragons. So I'm really excited to see more dragons and what they choose to do because when you read the books and they're talking about the dragons, they're very descriptive

[01:16:08] about the dragons. And we come from Game of Thrones where we only had three, three wonderful beautiful dragons. We had Drogon and Viserion and Rhaegel. And they did have distinctive colors. You know, Drogon was black and had like the red, like a little bit of a red

[01:16:24] scale red kind of under his wing. Viserion was more of a yellowish kind of goldish looking and Rhaegel had more of a green, greenish kind of tint to him. So they did have their own characteristics, their own colorings. But there were sometimes you almost couldn't

[01:16:41] tell them apart. And I think they're going to make a different choice a little bit with House of the Dragon where they are going to be a little bit more distinctive with their colorings. Like you

[01:16:49] should be able to, you know, as they're showing the dragons, you should be able to pick them out. Now that's if you read up on their descriptions in their history or whatever. But as I think

[01:16:58] as they say, oh, that's Cyrax, that's Caraxes, you know, then you're going to know because they're going to be vibrant. And I think they're sticking to those book descriptions, which

[01:17:09] I love. So we got to meet Cyrax, who is Rhaenyra's dragon. And I think she's going to be a big part of the show. So watch, keep watching for Cyrax. Now she's not as large in scale as Caraxes,

[01:17:24] which is Daemon's dragon, but she's still a dragon. Seriously though, she is still, even though she's not as large and she's also not formidable in battle, you know, she's been kept with Rhaenyra and Cyrax has not had any other dragon, like Rhaenyra is the only

[01:17:44] person that's bonded and ridden Cyrax. So she is, but she is still a large dragon. Her scales are yellow and her name was given to her by Rhaenyra after a Valyrian goddess. And so, you know, that explains that, you know, Cyraxes had no other writers before Rhaenyra.

[01:18:06] Now we also was introduced to Caraxes, which was Daemon's dragon. He is a larger dragon. He's older of the Targaryen family anyway of the dragons that they do have. His scales are red colored,

[01:18:23] which gave him the nickname, the Bloodworm. And you can tell he's got a little bit of a distinctive feature where he's got that long neck, a little bit different than some of the dragons we've seen. Love it so much. Wasn't he just beautiful? I mean, gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

[01:18:40] And there's this picture. Someone took a screenshot and I'm probably going to put it as a background on my computer. I just haven't had time because I've been so busy. This wonderful

[01:18:48] screenshot of Cyrax from the show where, I mean, she just looks absolutely amazing. And I just die. But yeah, beautiful, beautiful creatures. So jealous that they're just so casually petting them. And you know, Daemon is like soothing Caraxes because we didn't get a lot of story on

[01:19:12] his, this girl that he took with him. Her name's, it's, it's Masiriya, right? I believe, I don't think we got a very good introduction to her. She's a little bit more, there's more

[01:19:24] of an introduction to her in the books into what happens with their story. But you know, dragons don't just, even with their dragon writers, you know, they're bonded with them and they have a relationship. They're still very much their own creatures. Like Dany said,

[01:19:42] dragons are not slaves. You know, they very much, they're very smart creatures. They have their own mind and it was just to see Daemon like soothing Caraxes so she could mount him and ride with Daemon

[01:19:56] was just like, you guys, you just get to do this. You just, this is just your life. I, and I get it. Yes, it's fiction, but I'm just, that's what I'm thinking is like,

[01:20:05] you just get to, I'm just going to go hang out with my dragon and hug my dragon today. Yeah. Like I do my dogs every day or something, you know, it's just amazing to me. So Caraxes,

[01:20:18] you know, is, has been in battle with Daemon just to give a little bit of history there. I don't think that's too, too spoilery to say. Daemon has definitely been around. Caraxes has seen some action. So that was his introduction, beautiful, beautiful creature. And

[01:20:34] then we did talk about Beleri and the black dread, Beleri who has an extremely long history. He came over with Targaryens from old Valeria, Aegon the Conqueror, Rode Valerian and Viserys here in the show was the last to ride Valerian the black dread. It was,

[01:20:52] he was the largest known dragon that was ever known. It was said that when he flew over a city, the city was completely in his shadow as he flew over the city. He was that large. So just,

[01:21:09] you know, and you can tell by his skull and that was just his skull, not like all the, you know, skin and scales, you know, imagine that and how large he was. We saw him in Game of

[01:21:20] Thrones as well. Cersei, you could see Beleri and skull Cersei was standing in front of his skull and what he's from Game of Thrones. So it'd be amazing to see Beleri in his full

[01:21:32] glory just once, just once. Just please. Just draw the dragon, please. Yeah, I just have to nerd out on the dragons a little bit. I just I love them so much and it was just such a thrill

[01:21:45] just for me to see those dragons. So I'll leave it there. I love it. I love it. Well, the only other note that I really wanted to talk about was just kind of like how women were

[01:21:58] expendable and I feel like we really explored that earlier and we'll explore that probably a little bit more in book talks. So I agree. Yeah. So, I mean, as far as all my notes go,

[01:22:13] I feel like there's a lot more that we could talk about absolutely. But I feel like we've done a really good job with covering the episode. Do you have anything else that you want to

[01:22:23] talk about? This has been such a fun discussion. Oh my gosh, you know, and honestly, I think we could we could keep going forever and ever. Let me look through my notes and skim through

[01:22:35] a few things. I really liked I won't go into a lot of detail because a lot of it's from the book as well. But if you're if you're a book reader, I think you would appreciate the way that they handled the air for a dayline.

[01:22:49] Oh, the oh, we didn't even talk about that. You're right air for a day. I did not know that that was going to be so joking so quick. If that makes it, that's like the worst grammar

[01:23:09] I've ever used in a sentence. I didn't know that it was going to be a joke almost overnight. Right. When it was so raw and new, and I just I can't even stomach. I can't even stomach that.

[01:23:26] Yeah, but I think I think it was different than how it was portrayed in the book. And I did I like the change in the show that they did because I think it kind of shows us how

[01:23:43] fire and blood is flawed and biased. So yes, if if that was my opinion anyway, I think it was handled differently and I liked it. I liked the change. I liked the dragon keepers. We talked about

[01:23:59] them. I did too. They all like that one of them would look like an apprentice that was like going wrapping his pants at any moment. Yeah, don't blame him at all. Many of men died handling dragons, I'm sure. Yeah. I thought the cinematography was absolutely amazing. The

[01:24:17] details with Westeros. You can tell they've got a little bit of a higher budget than what they did for Game of Thrones when it started. When you we talked about the tournament, but what we didn't

[01:24:27] talk about was how it was kind of a little bit of a throwback to Game of Thrones. Do you remember the tournament Game of Thrones and how rustic it looked compared to this?

[01:24:34] I do. I do. I also remember that they were using Ikea throw rugs to stitch together some of the costumes for the Starks. That's just not the case anymore. Even the carriages that the Targaryens

[01:24:51] were riding down and that beautiful silver ornate thing before it was like this rickety thing that they were inside. It was so funny. Yeah, there's a big budget difference. They were definitely, yeah, I mean, they started throwing money at Game of Thrones later once they realized,

[01:25:06] oh, we've got something here obviously, but you can definitely see the differences there. The costumes were absolutely beautiful and amazing and the detail just love everything that they're doing with that. Getting to see Heron Hall mentioned that. The scene at the Funeral Pire

[01:25:26] and beautifully done and the fact and very interesting that the series, you know, who to me I'm thinking, man, you were a dragon rider, Beleriand. Now considering it was one ride, but still one ride from Beleriand, I feel like that should make you such a badass. But here

[01:25:41] you are. You have to rely on your daughter to say the words of Dracarys to start the Funeral Pire. Very emotionally heartbreaking. I wanted to also mention and see if you saw this, the wirewood tree in Kings Endings. Yeah, the gods would during the lesson.

[01:26:02] That is not in the show and it's not in the books. And I feel like it was intentional that because it was very obvious when we saw it in the scene with Allison and Rhaenyra.

[01:26:21] It's not there later. So I feel like it's intentional something I think is going to happen and it's going to be meaningful for something what happens in the show next. I don't

[01:26:28] know what, but I'm like they showed it for a reason. So right, we'll see. I talked about Damon's armor, I think in book talk. Talked about the dragons, the swords, Dark Sister.

[01:26:41] Thank you. Thank you for giving us Dark Sister and thank you for giving us Black Fire. Black Fire was Aegon the Conqueror's sword that is the Kings sword. Amazing to see Black Fire.

[01:26:53] That was awesome. I agree. The Iron Throne itself looks very different than what it did in Game of Thrones. Honestly, I think it's a more accurate representation of the Iron Throne than what we

[01:27:07] saw in Game of Thrones. So I really like that. I do also like how they are keeping in, I think, the lore or the rumors of the Iron Throne that the Iron Throne determines who's an acceptable

[01:27:20] ruler. We saw Viserys, we know that the throne cuts him. There are people that would say that that's the Iron Throne's way of rejecting you. You are not acceptable. So I just... You are not worthy. Well, and he was cut right after he sent Damon away.

[01:27:45] Mm-hmm. So, oh, there was some discussion about... Because I'm asking this question, I know and other people had this question as well so I'm glad I found this answer. Did you notice the council? They had these like marble balls.

[01:28:03] Yeah. I need a marble ball table. First of all, I need a marble ball table. As we all should have one. But they did explain that a little bit anyway. I guess it was a design

[01:28:15] choice one because it was a way of like setting the table. I guess it wasn't like as ornate or it wasn't... It didn't look maybe as prestigious as like the High Council sitting there and making

[01:28:28] all these decisions. So it was kind of a way to set the table one, but it also represented, they said, the council coming in and being a part of the meeting. It was kind of like everybody showing up for work and they punch in. Like attendance?

[01:28:40] Yeah. Yeah. So everyone grabs a ball from the center and then they put it in their their little place where they sit or whatever. So I thought, okay, well, so it's more like a visualization of the formality, I guess. So if anyone else also had that same question

[01:28:54] to speak, I'm like, what the... They're leaving them. They put them there. They don't take them with them. What's going on? What's the purpose anyway? I think it's important to note, without going into a lot of detail,

[01:29:12] Bourmont Baratheon and his, would you call it hesitation at the swearing in when Reneira was... I think that there's something there. I think that the... You can see because Rene's... Did I say that right? Yep. I don't know. I don't know why I sung, I guess, myself there

[01:29:36] for a second is half Bouratheon. Yes. And I think that being her being passed over, you know, the queen that never was. And now because she was a woman and now a Bouratheon

[01:29:50] has to bend the knee to a woman who will be, who was named heir. I think that there's a reason why Robert Bouratheon really hated the Targaryens. And I think that that was a very subtle and nice

[01:30:05] way to reflect that. Yeah. Rene's is the child of Amon Targaryen and Jocelyn Bouratheon. So she is half Bouratheon. And you know, go back and look y'all. It's interesting that Robert was so hell-bent on eliminating Daenerys and her brother, you know, kill the Targaryens.

[01:30:29] I'm like, dude, you got just as much Targaryen blood in you as the rest of them. So, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, he was scared that she was going to come

[01:30:39] and usurp him just like it had been done in the past. And she had the claim. It's interesting in the books, Rene's has black hair. Yes. So it was an interesting choice that they gave her the like the whiteish blondish-silverish, however you want to call it, Targaryen hair.

[01:30:58] Yeah. But that's okay. You know, we got to make the Targaryens look Targaryen. Yeah, I'm okay with it. I'm totally fine with it. I think she looks absolutely beautiful and magnificent, whatever color of her hair. I think she's a force to be reckoned with.

[01:31:15] I can't wait to see more of Rene's. Me too. I'm very much looking forward to it. Just her small moments in this episode. I know. And the title of Queen Who Never Was, it's a little heartbreaking because damn yeah, maybe you should have been,

[01:31:29] you know, think of how things would have been a little different. For the better. Right. A little bit of a tie-in again with the show, King Viserys is wearing the same blade Arya used to kill the Night King.

[01:31:45] Oh my gosh, he is. I knew that that looked familiar too. I like that blade. Yeah. Yeah. Valyrian steel, how it got from there to when we saw it in the show, whenever because that was the blade that was meant to assassinate Bran, right?

[01:32:06] To then being given to Arya when he gives it to her but yeah, same blade. Like his little finger, little finger had it. Interesting. Oh yeah, I'll have to look into

[01:32:16] that. I didn't do as much research as I usually do for this episode so I'm going to dig in this week for sure. There's so much. Yeah, so much. I know. It can be overwhelming at times.

[01:32:29] It's a lot. There's a lot of history but it's so amazing how well it's fleshed out. Like this is almost like instead of fictional history, it's almost like real history. There's so much of

[01:32:39] it there and it's so well thought out and well fleshed out. There's so much and too much that's why we could be here all night. I agree. A few Easter eggs which I talked about, the story

[01:32:52] that Allicent was quizzing Rhaenyra over when they were having their little moment was the story of the legendary Nymeria's exodus from the banks of the Rhoyne and Esos to Dorne. Nymeria is the

[01:33:02] queen that Arya Stark named her Direwolf for. It's so funny to me that Allicent would think that Rhaenyra's would not know about Nymeria. I mean, every girl in this world knows about Nymeria. Like let's just get that straight. She doesn't need to learn about it. Allicent,

[01:33:24] maybe you need to learn about it but yeah, I'd say. Yeah, it was just very interesting to me. Just like she's like, yeah, I know all of this. This is my family history. Yep. What else

[01:33:38] do you got? But I think that's all of my notes, at least for now. Yeah, solid nine out of 10 episodes. Really, I was very pleased with it for sure. I thought it was a great introduction and definitely

[01:33:58] I feel pretty excited about the upcoming season. Me too. I can't wait to see more. Me too. So with that, we're going to turn over to news. I just got a few pieces of news.

[01:34:12] One of them is, yeah, sorry, closing my book. So this first one is from CNET in their entertainment area and it's House of the Dragon, why the Iron Throne looks different. So this is basically

[01:34:31] an article about just what Remo was talking about a few minutes ago about the fact that the Iron Throne looks real weird. So there is a quote here from the showrunner, the co-showrunner Ryan Condall,

[01:34:47] and he has a reason for why he changed it. So quote, we went into the series knowing that this was a time of high decadence. We consider this the apex of the Targaryen Empire so we

[01:34:58] really wanted to communicate this idea of wealth and prosperity in the fact that there have been six years of peace. The Targaryens, I think that was supposed to say 60 years of peace. The Targaryens really were able to develop all the nice things that happened, peacetime, statues,

[01:35:17] art, roads, fountains. So the House of the Dragon contrasts from Game of Thrones where the Targaryens are no longer around for the most part and have been replaced by Robert Baratheon who

[01:35:29] isn't known to put Coyne back into the betterment of the kingdom. Coyne Condall says he also notes that the creators of Game of Thrones had a fifth of the prequels resources, which is a very kind

[01:35:45] thing to say about the old showrunners. So what we wanted to do was honor the iconic throne, but also tell the story of a more decadent time and also communicate that 200 years has passed.

[01:36:03] So if you look very closely you'll see that the original throne is there. It's just added to an augmented which suggests that history changes things at some point in the intervening time. This is how it used to look but just like anything that's iconic and beautiful,

[01:36:21] eventually can go down into ruins for one reason or another. Tanya Well, and I love that because it makes total sense. But also you mentioned earlier as in the opening scene with Rhaenyra flying over King's Landing. It's very hard to catch,

[01:36:39] but if you catch it, you can see at the red keep, she's flying in, there's scaffolding there at the red keep. It's still under construction, which is cool to think about. Obviously it's a huge keep and castle and all of that, but it's still under construction.

[01:36:57] And then the dragon pit, when we saw the dragon pit in Game of Thrones, it was in ruins. It was still there, but it was in ruins and that is what Rhaenyra was flying to, that big

[01:37:08] dome-like structure. That was the dragon pit. So to see it in its full glory was amazing. So I think that's a really good point to kind of see the differences in the height of the Targaryen dynasty and their prosperous and peaceful times and seeing those differences.

[01:37:26] And I love that. That's a good article. Tanya Yeah, I totally agree. I did like that. So I've seen this a couple of times when I was looking for news for the next piece of news.

[01:37:44] And so it says House of the Dragon makes history as HBO's biggest series premiere. So House of the Dragon actually drew in 9.986 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max streaming service. That doesn't take into account leaks. It doesn't take into account people who

[01:38:06] found a free way to watch it, torrents, anything like that. But 10 million people or households watched this first episode and only half of them were really angry. Tanya Something that I have seen in regards to this specific story is that actually HBO crashed

[01:38:35] because of how many people tuned in to watch this series premiere. So not only did, and I mean we all knew that HBO crashed in the final season of Game of Thrones pretty

[01:38:50] much every single week, but three years later after a very controversial ending and three years of just bitterness and hate and disgust towards this entire world. And they still set a record three years later for House of the Dragon. So I think that that goes to show that

[01:39:13] hearts are not completely closed. Tanya Exactly. Very well said. Tanya Thank you. Thank you. There's a ton of news out there. That's just a couple of things. There was another piece

[01:39:26] of news that I was going to read. I just don't want to read it because it's terrible, but it's somebody that is very upset with the fact that there are too many Targaryens. It's all a bunch of white people with blonde hair and they can't handle it.

[01:39:49] And I don't know why I can't find it because it was right here in my email and I can't find it now, but I'll find it later. And I'll post it up on or I'll give you the link to post it up on the

[01:40:00] podcast group. Tanya Sure, I can share it. Tanya It's very interesting to me that people don't understand that, yes there's a lot of Targaryens. There's a lot of Targaryens and no you're not going to know all their names and

[01:40:11] there's a thousand years of history. Tanya I mean in kudos to anyone that does know all the Targaryen names. My eyes start to cross when you start going through the Targaryen family tree, but I mean this is what the show is. It's about the Targaryen history. There's more

[01:40:27] Targaryens right now in this time of history than what there have been and that's kind of... And it was a lot at once. It was like a big information dump. It was a little fast for

[01:40:38] me and I've read and have a little bit of an understanding and so I get it. I was like, oh yeah they're really kind of moving here. But it was an information dump. I have faith that

[01:40:47] they're going to kind of maybe slow down a little bit and allow us to absorb and have some breathing room, but I don't know. Maybe give it a couple more episodes dude. That's all I'm going to say.

[01:40:57] Give it some time. Tanya Yeah, give it some time. Look we didn't know all of the Lannisters and the Starks and the Baratheons and this and that. We didn't know any of that

[01:41:07] in the very beginning. We do now because we put in the work. Now it's time to put in the work again. If you put in the work before, you can do it again. Tanya I love the work. Tanya The work is the best part.

[01:41:18] Tanya I'm having the best time nerding out. I feel like a kid when I see my grandmother since I go PD is just for fun. I'm just having the best time reading all of everything that I can. So yeah let's do the work. Tanya Yes, for sure.

[01:41:35] Okay so I think that that takes us to some listener feedback and we got a bunch of it. So thank you for all of your feedback and you know bring it in please. Bring it all in. We want to hear what you have to say.

[01:41:47] Tanya All opinions are welcome. Tanya Yup. Tanya Yes. So Rima you want to start us off? Rima I would love to. Alma Contreras says, Woohoo! Yes I'm so happy to be back in Westeros.

[01:41:59] First off I love the whole vibe of this world. It felt larger than life which is perfect for the Targaryen dynasty. It's funny while I watched it felt a little strange seeing so many Targaryens with their white hair LOL. I'm so used to it only being Dany.

[01:42:14] Definitely got to re-wash so I can catch names, relations and positions. Kudos to the casting because they have started it off really good. Matt Damon LOL was awesomely vile. What did you guys think?

[01:42:27] And Alice at Hightower seems like she will be a formidable adversary in the future of this story. How about that tournament? It was bloody and brutal. OMG there's so much I loved about this first episode. Can't wait to hear the podcast. Rene Me too.

[01:42:46] Agreed. Rene Murray says it was so good I'm so happy to be back in Westeros. I'm looking forward to the long night again. The dragons were a bit blasé but I expected that on the first episode. Dracarys.

[01:43:01] Rene Murray says I am fully back in. The show can be so great when it has books to follow. Yes it can can't it? Sorry that snorted right through the microphone. Appropriate. Thanks Evan. I appreciate that. Alicia Stout. Hi Alicia.

[01:43:22] Says oh my goodness anyone else crying once the episode ended? I'm so stoked. This show will be incredible. So of course being the horse person I am she is a horse person.

[01:43:33] I was fixated on Damon's jousting armor. It was unreal. I loved how his horse looked like a dragon. The scales and all. And the winged helmet it was beautiful. Agreed Alicia. So many references to Good Game of Thrones. The names of the houses and families seeing

[01:43:50] Kings Landing even in the same window that Tom and jumped off. The dagger, the mention of the song and ice and fire I loved it all. Oh and to hear the music again topped it all off for me.

[01:44:01] Amazing. So Viserys was working on what looked like a model in his room. Is that what the opening map sequence is based off of in Game of Thrones? Well I think we've already answered that so we got the answer. I think we did.

[01:44:14] Oh that's so good. Thanks Alicia. Yeah thanks Alicia. Lindsay Schlick says I'm going to try and stay calm during this nerd fest as Game of Thrones is my jam and I am beyond excited. So many things. What I'm enjoying most so far is the little nods to

[01:44:31] our flagship show. The mention of Daenerys, the recognizable music, all of the familiar names, the mention of a song of ice and fire. The show is its own thing for sure but the little tidbits

[01:44:42] are a fun touch. It's also fun to wonder about each character and who they will become to us. This universe does such a good job of showing people as they truly are. Rarely clear villains

[01:44:53] or heroes but often a mix of both. Daemon seems like a clear villain but will he become our hero? Allison seems like a friend but I can see her ending up a villain. The dragons were awesome as

[01:45:05] predicted. I already love Sirex, she seems to have a gentleness to her. My one and only complain at this point is the creepy vibe between Daemon and Rhaenyra. It's hard enough to overcome the incest, storylines and niche shows but seeing an older uncle and his young

[01:45:21] niece in an entirely different level of uncomfortable. At least Jaime and Cersei were the same age slash power level and Jon and Dany didn't know. If Daemon and Rhaenyra end up together it's going

[01:45:32] to be very hard to stomach. Another kind of bummer thought is that at some point I assume we're going to lose the young version actress of Rhaenyra unless the show is heavy with flashbacks.

[01:45:42] I wish we could just age her along, I really like her. It's been a real bummer of a year for me so having my favorite show back and being covered by my two favorite podcasters is seriously

[01:45:53] a light. Thank you both for deciding to cover it. Kristen I'm so glad you're back and Reema I know you'll be awesome as always. Oh my gosh Lindsay. Good day, that's so sweet. I didn't read this

[01:46:05] before so reading that in real time that thank you that's so so nice. I'm sorry it's been a bummer of a year for you. I hope things are looking better and get better for you.

[01:46:17] Thank you so much for your kind words. Yeah thank you very much that touched me as well. Kelly Burgess says, I was late to watching Game of Thrones so it's really exciting to be jumping

[01:46:28] into this show from the beginning. I wasn't sure how into it I would be from the beginning because I wasn't a big Dany fan but I'm definitely in after this episode. I'm looking forward to

[01:46:38] hearing what you ladies have to say about it and hoping that you'll help keep me keep everything straight. Struggling to keep everything straight for sure. I know. Gijo Puthea says, amazing. I watched it twice back to back so much happened. This is actually

[01:46:57] very empowering to women. The fact that the king is backing a future female heir. I love that. I know it's too early to say this but I really hope they stick the landing at the end of the

[01:47:06] series. Don't do me wrong like Game of Thrones. Yes thank you I agree. My Amorundini, did I say that right? Oh we're gonna say yes. So sorry if I got that wrong. Really I am. So excited about this

[01:47:26] show. I love that they ended with the Game of Thrones theme. I can't wait to hear your thoughts and get more in depth especially since I didn't read the books. It took me a while not

[01:47:34] to see Prince Philip's from the crown and get on board with Daemon but I'm there. There was a lot of blood and sex in true Game of Thrones fashion. I suspect this will eventually get toned down.

[01:47:45] I had a hard time watching the birth scene especially since I just gave birth eight weeks ago. It reminded me of a similar storyline in Bridgerton which ended very differently lol. Oh well you know what congratulations on your new baby. Yes congratulations. And I'm glad

[01:48:00] you're still with us. Yes. Ginger Martinez says wow I'm totally 100% back in they've got me. I wasn't sure how I felt about another Game of Thrones series but here I am sucking up bits of info I can find

[01:48:16] about the show and re-listening to the book. It's fantastic to see the dry textbook style words come to life on screen. Top moments for me are the joust and birth scenes. Gory and hard to watch but tantalizing at the same time. Love the actors playing the young

[01:48:31] princess and Matt Smith. Kudos to him. He's truly become that character. Looking forward to your thoughts and can't wait for the next episode. There's definitely a tone with everyone like they just sucked me right back in. All I kept thinking to myself was

[01:48:47] I'm ready to be heard again. Let's do this. I'm all. Yeah let's do this. I'm ready. Open up the veins. We have two voicemails we have two yeah we have two voice messages so the first one is from Greg. Okay this is Greg and watching the show was

[01:49:11] was basically like slipping on an old comfortable jacket and just like slipping into that world again it was so cool to see all of the sigils and hearing the names and and all that I

[01:49:26] you know kind of have a couple of notes but I'm sure you guys will talk about a bunch of it but long story short I feel like Damon is going to basically take the city watch right because

[01:49:38] he's going to effectively take the city watch and he's got an army of his own inside the city to revolt I guess. I really didn't need to see the C-section like I'm not a medical professional

[01:49:54] I uh I it was you know super uncomfortable to watch. I understand that's a reality of it but you know reality I'm also in watching a show with fucking dragons so reality doesn't necessarily

[01:50:07] need to be that visceral for me. So I thought it was actually pretty impressive so like when they called for silence and Damon was like announcing in the brothel like the stamina of the guide it just basically just paused mid-coitus and listened for however long

[01:50:32] Damon was going to talk that was actually really impressive I was I was pretty impressed viscerus actually really seemed to love his wife and love his family and I don't you know like the

[01:50:46] whole flip of a coin when a Targaryen's born it didn't really come off that any of them were kind of unhinged or great or whatever you know Damon didn't seem like a madman maybe it's

[01:51:01] just a matter of going you know going too far or whatever the case but anyway I'm really looking forward to uh to uh to oh yeah by the way Beleriens head holy shit that thing was huge okay anyway

[01:51:16] um I look forward to hearing you guys talk about it and uh can't wait for next week bye aww that was hilarious thanks craig thank you Craig that that tickled me uh the next one

[01:51:31] that we have is from Steve Brown hello house podcastica this is Steve and uh this is gonna be for episode one of house of the dragon welcome back Rima and Kristen uh this is now not a rewatch

[01:51:45] for you guys we're all going to be experiencing this week to week can't believe it uh welcome back to game of thrones universe oh 10 dragons can't believe we're gonna see 10 dragons she just said house of the dragon the name of the series mic drop

[01:52:01] okay so that just grabbed that graphic just told us that this is 172 years before the birth of Daenerys so that tells us the timeframe we're in which I don't know anyway so oh I like this little girl

[01:52:12] even though her mom just told her she stinks of dragon oh wow this is David Tennant looking very different from the doctor hmm what is this joy that he's giving her he's talking to the

[01:52:24] pregnant woman and he says his baby's gonna be born with a crown she's like oh it's unpleasant enough how just offering to bring somebody in to have sex with him who's got silver hair man now we're

[01:52:34] out the day of the tournament and the queen is in labor to have her baby all these names are the lords the Baratheon the Targaryens the girl says the one who's already pregnant I hope you can

[01:52:46] explain some of this oh this is very different than the anice tail jousting that was David Tennant did he just joust that guy's horse with his lance it's a lance right okay so a

[01:53:00] brish baby that means it's coming out backwards right oh so this jousting competition just turned into a melee oh man man what an impossible choice for a husband to make choose between

[01:53:12] his child and his wife oh oh so this is a medieval c-section oh okay wow David Tennant's character Prince D whatever lost oh oh the baby was a boy but he died oh oh Rhaenyris okay that's the sassy girl

[01:53:32] so Prince Daemon that's David Tennant he's the brother of the king he's now the heir but this Allison girl is gonna seduce the king oh and the king is not happy with you Prince

[01:53:45] Daemon this means he's naming his daughter as the heir to become a queen right wow okay so not Allison but oh all these other guys are pledging their fealty to her wow he's basically telling her

[01:53:59] the whole plot of Game of Thrones right here at the end with the whole winter and then Westros gotta come together all right there we go first episode wow you guys are gonna help me

[01:54:10] understand all of this but thank you so much Rue Minn-Kristen talk to you later I love it when he live when he live records this live steving is the best and live steving I love it

[01:54:25] yeah he's the best I love it um he said something though what did he say and I wanted to touch on it for a second um the jousting yes that was something that I did take note of that we didn't

[01:54:41] talk about it was so fast yeah it was like they were at the end and they're like give me another lance and they just like I mean they just turn that horse right around and and every other jousting

[01:54:51] thing I've ever seen it's always been like you know you set up and you go to your corners and then you let go so I thought that was very interesting too it was very different it was

[01:54:59] it was very interesting I haven't I don't know a lot of history of jousting and if that's kind of um truth to to that um or not but I thought it was interesting it was kind of like when NASCAR

[01:55:12] racers go into the pit and they get those jub jub tires switched out and then they're back out again it was kind of like oh grab another lance and back at it again um I thought it was fun though

[01:55:21] it kept the pace pace going and definitely added I think an element of danger for sure like hey we're not done just because mine it's broken I got a fresh one it's on you know yeah

[01:55:33] or if you're unhorsed that doesn't mean that it's done it means that you can just grab a sword and just keep going like that just it totally different very frenetic energy for sure for sure but fun

[01:55:49] so this is where we're gonna drop in book talk okay do we want to do like an introduction to it or just yeah if you want to go ahead I because I don't know that we did one when Renny started

[01:56:02] so if you want to give a and maybe like a warning you know but introduction and then that warning yeah so this is the segment now that we're going to go into our book talk um so if you are have

[01:56:17] finished listening and you feel satisfied uh you know you can either skip over book talk and listen to us and the show or you can just exit the show and we'll you know catch up with

[01:56:28] you next week but for this next segment we are going to be joined by archmester Renny from straight from the citadel patching in so we're gonna go over to that right now

[01:56:41] this week we are going to do our book talk with not only with Rima and I but we are joined by the wonderful all-knowing all-powerful archmester Renny thank you so much for being here for

[01:56:56] book talk this week oh thank you Kristen and thank you Rima I'm delighted to be joining you from the citadel thank you so much yes of course thank you I should have remembered to say that

[01:57:11] this is such a treat yeah I'm so excited about this so Renny um let's start off with this what how did you enjoy the episode loved it loved it it was great uh was so happy dragons

[01:57:31] dark sister oh yes I've been waiting for dark sister and I'm really hoping now that valerian steel will make a replica of it they just put out um black fire so I'm hoping dark sister

[01:57:44] is next oh boy there goes all my money yeah well you have some wall space behind behind you well um where do you want to start Renny um well I thought we might start just talking a little bit

[01:58:05] about what fire and blood is because it's a very different kind of book than the novels that the Game of Thrones series was based on go for it that sound I think that yeah I think that that's a really

[01:58:19] good place to start so um fire and blood is a fictional history and it's not written with character development and scenes and dialogue the way that the novels that Game of Thrones was

[01:58:33] based on is written uh it's written like it's a history text and it is supposedly written by archmaster gill dain uh who is basing his account on other sources and uh he the archmaster gill dain

[01:58:51] the fictional writer of fire and blood says that he draws on accounts written decades later by the children and grandchildren of those caught up in the events of these times and that those

[01:59:05] sources don't always agree he says much of what happened in the years that followed happened behind closed doors in the privacy of stairwells council rooms and bed chambers and the full truth of it

[01:59:19] will likely never be known uh but of course what's happening is that the showrunners are having to decide what the truth of it is because oftentimes gill dain will give us possible different versions of what actually happened based on his different sources but the show is not doing

[01:59:39] that the show is deciding which version to show us so for those of us who are intense book readers we are very much looking forward to seeing how what direction the show goes in with that

[01:59:52] there are two main sources that archmaster gildain is using one of them um is an account by septum eustis and the other is by mushroom the court fool and uh so um i've heard the show i like

[02:00:08] mushrooms account better for everything for everything yeah this is always a little more salacious holy mushrooms mushrooms account for everything is just i think that's that's the decision that we should absolutely and i've heard that the show the showrunners say that

[02:00:23] mushroom may actually appear in the show so that's cool i was hoping i'm hoping very much for a mushroom appearance somewhere that would be great mushroom is ad war that would be so he would be the taryon

[02:00:36] lannister character of the of this show right then it can't be it would be fun if they could make him look like conlath hill you know wouldn't that be great it would be wonderful

[02:00:49] um so you know georgia r martin is very much a student of history he loves history and the novels that game of thrones was based on are loosely inspired by the wars of the roses

[02:01:06] in england well the account of the dance of the dragons which is the events that are recounted in fire and blood is very loosely inspired by an earlier period in english history that's called

[02:01:21] the anarchy that was a 12th century war of civil war over succession um in which uh king henry the first his only son died and he had one living child who was a daughter his name her name was

[02:01:41] matilda and he named her his heir um so the dance of the dragons isn't an exact parallel to the anarchy and renera is not exactly matilda but if you don't want any spoilers don't look up the anarchy

[02:02:01] because you'll you'll you'll know you'll know more than maybe you want to if you don't want any spoilers right right okay that's i think that that's a really good intro to kind of where

[02:02:16] we're coming from with the books and with how it ties into history um i do think it's important to note that um with this series georgia r r martin is very much involved in the story

[02:02:28] yeah and so i like the fact that the author and creator of this world is going to ultimately make the decisions um of which narrator to follow um and which yes which piece of the puzzle to put

[02:02:42] into place visually so um you know while we have all these different accounts we do have the actual you know god god of westeros yes you know the lord of the lord of light from new mexico um will be

[02:02:56] you know playing the puppeteer and um for me all of my favorite episodes of the original game of thrones series they were written by georgia r r martin you know when he had his hand in that show

[02:03:09] there wasn't a better show ever yes so um so i'm i i am very excited about how he's going to take his story and his words and his writings and really funnel it into something so um but i know

[02:03:25] that you guys yeah i was gonna say the other really good thing is that fire and blood is finished the whole story that's going to be yes we have complete material in house of the dragon

[02:03:36] is already published so uh yes the show runners won't run out of material thank god yes thank god thank god for that there might be a fire and blood volume too but none of that matters if that's

[02:03:49] right right at least for this right right that does not matter house of the dragons yes house of the dragons is focusing on um house of the dragon is focusing on the dance of the dragons that's a

[02:04:02] mouthful and the dance of the dragon her whole story of the dance of the dragons is already there in fire and blood and part two will take on you know the story uh as it happens years later so

[02:04:14] we'll get all of that wonderfulness yeah yeah hopefully maybe later um so let's kind of change gears here a little bit and let's actually i know both of you are very um very much wanting to talk about

[02:04:29] dark sister and dark sister's appearance so um go for it please well how do you how do you guys feel about the way that dark sister was actually brought into light so to speak i was a little

[02:04:45] disappointed when we first found damon sitting on the iron throne i was looking for the scabbard and you know you couldn't really see anything so you didn't get a good look at dark

[02:04:54] sister there and when dark sister is first drawn from her sheaf the use that she has put to is beheading a criminal which i thought was a little bit ignominious as the debut of this

[02:05:08] fabled sword yeah it was a it was a bit of a bummer for me too i've i've i've greatly admired queen visenya and dark sister and i was like well that's that would not have been

[02:05:25] my choice um but you know yeah i am not the showrunner i didn't make that choice um but i was very excited to see at least the appearance and i hope we get a really good look at her i feel

[02:05:36] like we kind of saw her in some shadows and in some very quick movements um when we're later at the at the at the tournament um so i would love to get a really good look at her and i have a

[02:05:49] question about that why was he using dark sister in the tournament they usually use turny swords which are blunted and turny lances which are more likely to break and that is discussed those things are discussed in detail in other places in georgia martin's work in the

[02:06:09] dunk and egg novellas for example so i was really shocked to see daemon using dark sister in the turny so the only thing that i can really think of on why oh go ahead rima i'm sorry no no i'm sorry

[02:06:22] i'm starting i'm just gonna talk like i just it's like i'm got the floor or something i'm sorry um i i don't know the explanation as far as like the the um the jousts that they were using

[02:06:37] um but i'm i'm thinking i mean because daemon was there in his full spectacular armor which was amazing but and yeah it was emphasis on spectacular yes it was it was

[02:06:50] fantastic to see it's just as i pictured it like from the book so i really love the attention to detail so i don't know if he's just you know hey he's the prince of the city and

[02:07:01] he's he's just there in all of his gear and he's the prince and he can get away with it i i don't know but i but i don't think that explains why they weren't you know why it was more for show and for

[02:07:10] sport versus like a full-on you know there were men that died there were some that was a high stakes well and daemon cheated when he deliberately tripped the horse that's cheating yeah and he

[02:07:25] got away with it well look at he's the prince he is and i think that there's i think that there's i think that that whole turny was there was a lot of layers to that whole turny right

[02:07:34] and i think one of i think but in regards to what you were talking about with um daemon having dark sister and using the such a sharp and magnificent blade i think that it was for those the viewers

[02:07:50] that don't really understand the world in which they are kind of walking into and we needed to really like the targaryens are this force to be reckoned with you know they're and this tournament

[02:08:07] you know in um in the rogue prince when they talk about this specific tournament they talk about how when the melee had ended when the melee had died down and i think that that that one little

[02:08:20] quote right there is really a huge moment of you know when you think of melee you think of people that are you know just just like what we saw you know you have the axes and you know it's a

[02:08:32] fight to the death it's you know for honor and glory and and and it's something that we either forgotten the last three years or the casual viewer really doesn't understand i think you make

[02:08:44] an excellent point yes i agree yeah i agree well and you know any chance to bring out the sword i think i feel like anytime there's a you know a good time to see a sword or a dragon i don't

[02:09:01] care if it's gratuitous i just do it i'm fine with it um as if anybody needs my permission but uh you know absolutely it was thrilling uh to see her there's one one thing i wanted to bring up

[02:09:13] about book to show changes which i please that was my next question okay great which is about which are things that i appreciate so uh you know in game of thrones they aged up some of the child

[02:09:26] characters and in this show they've aged some people up and some people down and they've just really changed the ages that that people are uh and and i think some of that is is very

[02:09:38] effective and some of that is um all to the good um so reines and allicent are not the same age in the books allicent is nine years older than reines but i think it's very effective to make them um the

[02:09:59] same age and childhood friends but reinears what a reinear sorry sorry sorry reinear you know those target names we just we have to i know right yes i'm gonna get them wrong every time yes i

[02:10:13] meant reineara yes um i spent i phonetically spelled them out like at the top of my page yes thank you so yeah reinear and allicent but in the at toward the end of the episode when

[02:10:31] auto high tower sends his daughter allicent to read to the series it's that's even creepier in the books because in the books it is not the series that that happens with um allicent is 15

[02:10:48] and the old king jahari is the one who was presiding over the great council at the very beginning of the show in his old age when he was 67 or 68 years old and declining into death

[02:11:02] auto high tower was jaharis's hand so the series inherited auto high tower as hand auto high tower sent 15 year old allicent to old king jaharis to read to him and bathe him and dress him and so that's just disgusting and creepy so i'm i was really glad to

[02:11:27] see that they just switched that to doing that with the series it was a little bit younger at least it's still creepy on audio auto high tower's part it's doesn't matter how you

[02:11:38] had doesn't matter how you do it still yucky yeah it's still it's still icky regardless of her age to essentially prostitute his daughter out um but yeah i am i am glad that they seem to have

[02:11:50] aged her up just a little bit i think from uh from the books and also i think with rinera because rinera was what eight or nine when she was named as as air and she's obviously a little older here

[02:12:02] in the show as well so i think that was an interesting choice but i think it's a good choice when she met christin coal she was seven that's when he um was nine and joined the kings

[02:12:13] guard and became her sworn shield so it wasn't you know basically adults meeting it was rinera was a child yeah and i think it's just good i mean i and maybe maybe there's some story

[02:12:29] choices as to why they decide to age it but also it maybe for the content i i would not feel good about seeing an actual seven eight nine year old in no so i i think maybe there's some creative

[02:12:44] choices there i think that are in just in better taste i agree i would be like seeing season one aria with jamey lannister exactly yeah right you just don't want to see that nobody yeah exactly

[02:12:59] wants to see that very well said so yeah i i think that there's some good choice there and millie alcock who plays the younger rinera that we that we met here in this episode she's actually i

[02:13:10] think which surprised me she looks so young but i think she's 22 i mean 22 is extremely young especially from my perspective but um i thought maybe she was maybe 18 or something so um

[02:13:22] bitch so she pulls off a younger version of rinera very well so i'm glad that they you know yes it's just a good choice to have someone in an adult yes it is still the world of

[02:13:34] westeros so it's also really interesting to me that they kind of left time ambiguous from the time of that um high council meeting or i'm sorry am i saying that right it was a high

[02:13:48] council meeting at the prologue to the cold open great council yeah great cancel i knew i was saying it wrong great council um so when they announced that the series would be the air

[02:14:01] and then the next thing said it was nine years into visceris's reign so and um and emma was very obviously pregnant at the time so what's nice is is that we can be a little ambiguous with the time

[02:14:16] on the show with the fact that well we don't know how long it was before you know he actually started to reign we just know that this is nine years into his reign right so it's nice

[02:14:27] to have that comfy feeling of okay there's no there's nothing yucky going on that's fine exactly yes what else uh book to show stuff did you or um changes did you appreciate any others

[02:14:43] or were there any book to show changes that you were not so appreciative of you know there was nothing that i was not appreciative of appreciative of there wasn't anything that they did that um

[02:14:56] i found bothersome in any way which i was happy about oh that yeah that is thrilling i feel like it gets your blessing that's all i need to hear um that's so good it makes me feel a lot better

[02:15:09] they uh you know they simplified the great council a lot but they had to do that you know in the book there were 14 potential claimants and some of them were quite exotic

[02:15:20] which is fun um jeharys had a younger daughter named sarah who was living in exile in volantis and she had three bastard children who came as claimants and one of them brought an elephant with

[02:15:33] him and you know that's fun um that would have been fun um but the actual two finalists weren't um uh reynies and um vis aries it was reynies was passed over so there were five finalists and two of them were eliminated

[02:15:56] immediately reynies and her daughter uh lana because they were women and uh uh jeharys's other son because he was an archmaester at the citadel and that left lain or valerian whose reynies is and corvus valerian's son who was far from not even being

[02:16:16] you know he wasn't born yet obviously in the show version um at the time of the great council because he's just a younger kid in the present day of the of the show um and then um vis aries

[02:16:32] and the two of them were the two finalists and um vis aries was chosen because he was a grandson of jeharys and lain or was a great grandson so the the principle of proximity favored

[02:16:50] vis aries where the whereas the principle of primogeniture favored lain or because he was the grandson of jeharys's older son the oldest right but that also um the choice of vis aries in some people's minds uh established a precedent not only that a woman couldn't inherit the throne

[02:17:13] but that a man could not inherit the throne through a woman right that was another sticking that's yep just a patriarchy that you're still not good enough because it's your your um an air

[02:17:27] through your mother like yeah just an automatic mark against you yeah yeah yeah yeah so it is interesting go ahead i'm sorry no i was just gonna say it's the establishment of the patriarchy

[02:17:39] yeah right the continuance yeah um so i and while you're saying that i'm coming to the realization that with with those you know changes that they made it really sets the show on the mark

[02:17:54] on kind of like from the get-go that we are dealing with a patriarchy issue right instead of having it be this young boy and the and the older man and having it be great grandfather

[02:18:06] versus grandfather we are really putting up kind of what the problem is this is a woman and this is a man right and we're just going to go with the man instead of the woman and you can see

[02:18:20] that you know reines is just not having it you know uh and but she's quiet in it just like we all are when we all get passed over or um not passed over what is it dismissed right as lesser

[02:18:39] that you know it's just kind of like oh okay yep that's how it goes oh well you know and so it is interesting to see that it's right in the prologue right in the cold open this is what we're starting

[02:18:50] with this is the problem that we are going to really explore and get into depth here so yeah that's nice and it's very subtle it wasn't in your face um right so i yeah i agree it was a

[02:19:02] very good decision yes and it really sets the story for where we go from here you know it does and and and the the events of dance of the dragons that's the foundation of it right here so that's

[02:19:15] right and i loved the acting in that scene where um this series you can tell from the look on his face he's afraid to look at reines and then he turns his head and looks at her and she just

[02:19:28] gives him this completely this look of you know disgust and uh and just uh everything is there in her face and you don't need any dialogue you don't need words just those two actor spaces said it all

[02:19:47] oh so good the acting was great i almost seemed i completely agree completely agree a really good casting choices uh visceris almost seems um kind of like oh shucks it was me like

[02:20:02] it was beautiful well i didn't know it's unfortunate because you know i think you know i'm really enjoying show version visceris versus book version yes so nothing against the character but

[02:20:18] uh i i do think reines would have been a better queen than visceris may as a king so and it's unfortunate that that's not what some of that is based on not just like what's your um like

[02:20:32] where do you fall in line as far as being an heir to the throne but also who's better qualified it's like well we're just gonna throw a male up there because of his sex doesn't matter if he's

[02:20:44] gonna make a good king or not you know or a good ruler i wouldn't even say king versus queen but just a good ruler good leader what does rest westeros need um and that's also very frustrating because i

[02:20:55] think she would have been a magnificent queen yes and one thing is for sure is auto would never have made it as hand of the king no she would have fired him immediately buddy bye to the dragons

[02:21:07] bye yeah the book visceris is more of a good time boy he's uh he likes to throw feasts and turnies and entertain people and he's a people pleaser and he doesn't want to make anybody unhappy

[02:21:22] and so he's perceived as being very weak and uh he's a more interesting and nuanced and layered character the way that patty conceding plays him and the way that the show is portraying him

[02:21:36] they're definitely adding some some layers and some complexity there and yeah i think he's just trying to keep keep letting the good times roll they're they were in a very great time within targaryen history

[02:21:48] with king jahehras and his and his and the way that he ruled you're very prosperous and he just wanted to kind of keep that going and you're totally right um but yeah i'd love that complexity

[02:21:59] that patty conceding is bringing to it yeah and one thing that people should remember is that what we're seeing in this time period during visceris's reign is the absolute height of the type

[02:22:11] targaryens uh there were more targaryens alive and there were more dragons alive than at any other time and that's one of the things that's so much fun about this show compared to gavith ron's because at the beginning of game of thrones you thought there was only one targaryen

[02:22:25] and then gradually found out there were a couple more uh when mace or aimin was revealed as a targaryen and then john snow right but you can't throw a rocking king's landing without hitting

[02:22:36] a targaryen in this time here there's a targaryen in the desert let's just not forget about the targaryen that's right um well i'm i'm curious a little bit about some because i know we have to

[02:22:55] kind of keep things going a little bit oh gosh this is so good but i'm curious um speaking in this particular episode and going back to the tournament for a second i want to get y'all's thoughts on

[02:23:08] this and maybe i'm reading too much into it because i do that overthink things way too much um but that part at the tournament when daemon is dragged along that barrier um he was like tied

[02:23:21] to his saddle and dragged and did not look it was not a good look for him but i wonder do you think this is a foreshadowing moment for a future event in the books um where i know you know what

[02:23:37] i'm talking about totally do yeah where he does not tie himself where maybe he chooses not to do that in the future and i feel like we're just gonna um

[02:23:49] because like this is book talk so i think it's a safe place to talk about the book or the story of this in its entirety so we'll just throw that out there now because i don't know if

[02:23:57] we really you know um said that when we started but clearly the entire book is up for grabs but um you know not to spoil future events but you know i was curious what y'all thought about that i saw

[02:24:09] that and i was like hmm did he learn a lesson here this may happen again sometime like this well expand on that because i don't think that i've gotten to that part of the book so i'd

[02:24:21] love for you to expand on that well and and i feel like reny here's gonna be a way better expert than than me but in um a future battle over god's eye where daemon is battling in a dragon duel

[02:24:39] with his nephew amont um he does not secure his saddle and he's able to move more freely in the air so he as they are or as they ascend in the air and they are dueling with their dragons

[02:24:52] uh daemon is able to leap from craxus onto amon's dragon oh gosh is he on sunfire is that it i think so yeah i'm i'm rusty and i'm learning so if i get something wrong i apologize in advance

[02:25:07] i'm still trying to make the connections um he is able to um slay amont um and they both end up um falling and and dying they all die daemon essentially sacrifices himself to kill amont but

[02:25:26] um yeah he he he jumps from a saddle he doesn't secure himself but you can chain yourself to your saddle when you're dragon riding um and daemon chooses not to do that right it's the bad

[02:25:36] assest move in any dragon fight ever i am so excited to see it on the show that daemon is deliberately sacrificing himself when he does that i think he has the idea that he that he could

[02:25:47] survive it that he can kill amon and ride his dragon to the ground and survive you know i didn't think about that i just i think i just thought oh he he's kind of taken one for the team but

[02:26:00] you know what i think i like that better you know because he is daemon terrigary and he wants to live right but they they all three um amond daemon and amond and the dragon they all

[02:26:11] crash to the bottom of the god's eye and dark sister is impaled in amond and is there for many years before she's recovered from the skeletons at the bottom of the god's eye yep i'm i'm i'm so excited

[02:26:30] to see that i know we're not gonna get it this season but um yeah well i hope because i'm really enjoying matt smith so yeah no that's uh near the end so yeah many many many things happened before then

[02:26:45] yep oh yeah there are a lot i'm enjoying there's enough no go ahead no i was just gonna say there's enough source material for this to go on and on seasons and that's right yeah absolutely i hope so

[02:26:57] i think this episode was only maybe six pages or so of the story i think so that's right well i'm curious also i'm so sorry i'm just i have so many questions and i know i've got the expert here

[02:27:08] so i can't help myself um what do you think i'm curious to get your opinion reny on what did you think of the pacing i've heard some comments that the pacing was very fast even for book readers

[02:27:20] who thought oh wow this is kind of fast and and and the non-book readers are really kind of struggling with how quickly everyone and all the events were introduced what's your thoughts on

[02:27:32] that i agree the pacing was very fast uh when i watched it a second time especially uh the scene between renyra and allicent where they're doing their history lesson about nimeria and the 10 000 ships

[02:27:48] after i'd watched it the first time in my memory that scene lasted longer and when i watched it the second time i thought that was like 90 seconds it just went by really fast and i i think

[02:27:58] this is in effect a pilot you know even though they didn't have to do a pilot they got the order for the entire season it's made kind of like a pilot they're trying to introduce everything

[02:28:09] to the audience and i think they packed a whole lot in and my hope is that they will slow it down a little bit going forward i completely agree with what you're saying i mean just can you

[02:28:21] imagine having the responsibility of trying to introduce this world to a casual viewer to somebody who does not understand any of what we're talking about i mean you know there's it's in our news article it's in our new section which um by this time we would

[02:28:39] have already um covered but there there was a review um by some idiot who um excuse me uh who basically was like that it's too many targaryens it's too many white-haired people like how

[02:28:55] was anybody supposed to understand what's going on here well maybe this isn't the show for you darling exactly maybe you should just you know go back and watch ncis or something you know like you'll

[02:29:05] be fine so you know but really if you don't understand this if you come from only having watched game of thrones and then you come in here and you're like holy shit there's a lot of

[02:29:18] targaryens um that's a very difficult concept to kind of put forth and and to and to begin so i found that my second watch was much richer um when i because the first time i watched it

[02:29:34] i was just like oh like you know i'm trying to catch every frame in my in my brain but knowing that i just there's no way and i remember early in the episode i'm like

[02:29:46] i'm just gonna have to watch this like two or three more times and that's just gonna have to be how it goes um but there's not there is just not going to be people that watch it two or three

[02:29:54] times they're gonna watch it the first time and then the second time you watch it they're gonna say i don't know what's going on and people might get frustrated and i think that that

[02:30:02] goes to probably the pacing for the casual viewer yeah i think that's right and you know there was an original pilot for game of thrones which never aired and they had to go back

[02:30:13] into a lot of reshoots and change things and part of what we've learned since then is that nobody could figure out what was going on for real in that in that pilot people didn't get

[02:30:24] that jamie and cersei were brother and sister for example and uh so i think that they're trying hard to introduce everything very clearly and to um really spell out who's who in what relation

[02:30:39] to each other and they packed a whole lot of that in but i totally agree with you christin if you can't figure out who's who then this isn't the kind of show for you this is this is an intellectually

[02:30:54] engaging show that you have to actually watch and pay attention to and not be on your phone while you're watching it 100% agreed agreed and i think that we've gotten away from that since game

[02:31:05] of thrones ended i think that we have gotten away from um those higher intelligent shows you know and those the shows where it is dialogue heavy and there is new there is our nuanced

[02:31:20] characters and good isn't good and bad isn't bad and you really have to pay attention to find out what is going on um and so i hope that this inspires people to read i hope it inspires

[02:31:32] people to as you said put down their phones and pay attention um you know maybe maybe hopefully we can go into some kind of new uh new old way of watching television of consuming content so

[02:31:47] hopefully hopefully that that positivity comes comes forth so exactly yeah is there anything else that you wanted to add runny no i think um i've said everything that i had to say i've gone

[02:32:02] through my entire 20 pages of note oh wow that's awesome perfect i love well we don't even have to do the rest of the episode let's just have it be just this i think it's it's perfect as is yep

[02:32:18] well thank you so much for pausing your day three hours earlier and joining us and speaking with us and hopefully we can kind of make this a regular thing that would be really great if

[02:32:31] if you're open to that definitely i think it would be great looking forward to it awesome awesome well thank you so much runny and we will talk to you next week well thank you

[02:32:41] and thank you for doing this podcast it's gonna be great oh oh thank you very much pleasure is all mine thank you ready bye bye well that was interesting well

[02:32:56] oh my gosh i i can tell we're gonna have so much fun not just with the podcast but all the sections book talk was so great with runny it was i'm so so thrilled that she agreed to

[02:33:09] come on for that and contribute um i can't wait to hear her thoughts as she totally agrees yes she's just like just opening up her brains like an encyclopedia and getting all of that

[02:33:22] information that she shares and she's such a joy to talk to for real yeah i mean she's so knowledgeable but she's also just so relaxing to talk to you and i just i very much appreciate you runny

[02:33:36] thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come in and break down book talk with us so next week on the house of the dragon we have season one episode two

[02:33:51] we believe it's called the rogue prince um this is the spot where i tell you that if you don't want to read any of the books but you want to get a flavor of what this story really is about

[02:34:03] read the book the rogue prince it's a short story it's in a book with a lot of other short stories but you can find it on its own took me not a lot of time to read it but if you want to know maybe

[02:34:18] what everybody's talking about or you want to listen to book talk um and you just want a little taster that's definitely a good idea to maybe jump into um if you're not ready for the

[02:34:28] full fire and blood you know thousand page tome um so i think that next week we're going to get a little little uh daemon heavy episode what do you think i yep i if that is the title which i

[02:34:44] think it is then it's going to be uh daemon centric i have to guess yeah i'm excited i'm excited well we got such amazing feedback we want to hear more of it so you can leave us that feedback

[02:34:59] on our facebook page on the it's on the podcastica facebook page we're just going to keep it nice and simple um we'll have our weekly thread there that you can leave your comments on that thread

[02:35:10] or you can leave us some feedback by email at dragoncastica at gmail.com uh and because in your voice messages there too we'd love to hear more voice messages as well yes

[02:35:24] and dragon castica is a very uh new gmail account so feel free to send in all your stuff and load up our inbox um yes i think that would be fun feed feed the dragon inbox yes feed the dragon it

[02:35:38] should have been called feed the dragon at gmail what was i thinking i love it oh that's wonderful well rima this was so fun and i know that this was really long my kids have been

[02:35:52] outside the rv for over an hour and it's pitch black outside i so i think i think this has been long enough i hope everybody here enjoyed listening to us drone on for as long as we have but

[02:36:08] um this was a joy and i just love recording with you i love podcasting with you and thanks for a really really amazing conversation thank you with that i'm christin and i'm rima see you next week bye