7: "The Princess and the Queen" (S1E6)

[00:00:00] This week we are covering season 1, episode 6, The Princess and the Queen. And we just want to welcome David. David, thank you so much for coming on the show. We have been talking about having you on. So it's

[00:00:38] really nice to have you for the second half premiere of season 1. It is a blast to be here. Thanks for inviting me. It's kind of a blast from the past for me back to the original House podcastica. So I'm really excited.

[00:00:54] Yes. Yes. Anyone who's been a fan of podcastica and been a longtime listener, you were of course a part of the original recordings for Game of Thrones back when it started on podcastica. And you've been a part of many podcasts since then as well.

[00:01:16] Well, we had fun together of course with Better Call Saul. I think Game of Thrones actually, I really respect the both of you for this podcast because I think this is a lot harder than Game

[00:01:26] of Thrones. Game of Thrones was a sort of a normal novel where you could read it and keep track of it. And then this one's complicated, man. There's 20 people running around with the same name. It's really hard. It's hard. It is challenging that it's a labor of love.

[00:01:49] I've been typing my notes this season because I seem to type a lot faster while I'm doing my second watch. And almost all my words have red squiggle lines underneath it. And I'm just like, this is

[00:02:04] correct. I just go back and do a spell check later. I just let it fly and fix it later. I'm with you. But yeah, this is great. I'm so happy you were available, David, because you

[00:02:18] are just a wealth of knowledge and I'm really interested to get your input on this week's episode and thrilled that you've been able to join us. And you're our first dude. So it'll be really nice to get a male perspective on the show for the first time

[00:02:35] this season. Agreed. Agreed. We are equal opportunity here. So we definitely want to hear from a male perspective on the show. I like it. I like it. So thank you. Okay, so a brief synopsis of the episode from HBO is 10 years later,

[00:02:53] Raniera navigates Allison's continued speculation about her children while Damon and Lena weigh in offer in pentos. It's a very vanilla description of what we saw. Yes? I also love 10 years later just tossing that into a one-sense synopsis. 10 years later. Meanwhile in the West Coast. Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:19] So David, as our guest, I would love for you to open us up with one of your top three highlights of the episode. Sure. Well, I think the only place to start is right there

[00:03:33] with the jump forward in time, which is not a heard of but very unusual for any show to jump that far forward in one leap and still be with the same characters and storylines. Basically,

[00:03:48] I mean, one other that did it for those who are fans is the crown did that pretty recently, where they did the first two seasons, I want to say with one cast and then changed cast

[00:04:02] and they just changed again. But it is pretty unusual. So I think that was a bold move by for the show runners to start and in one place where they felt it was some necessary context

[00:04:17] and then jump the story along that far, even though, you know, it does match essentially what happened in the book as far as what they're doing in the story. It's still a big jump. How do you feel about the jump? The jump, not the jump.

[00:04:36] So I had mixed feelings about it, to be honest. So I thought the story, they did pretty well. Like I thought they pretty seamlessly picked up the story and were able to with context and

[00:04:51] through the dialogue, you know, fill in whatever we missed. Yes, they made some changes from the books. But I didn't think it was hard to follow in the jump forward and we jumped

[00:05:03] into a pretty dramatic point in the story where a bunch of stuff is about to happen. So that I enjoyed. I didn't love the change of actors, to be honest. Not because I don't like the new actors I do. I think Emma Darcy and Olivia Cook are great.

[00:05:23] But it is a big jar to the watcher to have and it wasn't even really between seasons, the way the crown did it. So in real time, a year or two went by and then the crown came back

[00:05:37] with new actors. This is like one week to the next. And I thought that was tough. Like I've sort of come to care about these characters as they are. And now they've changed. And what I would quibble with in the show is how inconsistent it was. So,

[00:05:55] you know, a couple of the young, several of the younger key characters changed actors. At least one very critical character, the king changed appearance. You know, they made him look a lot older. Pretty gross way.

[00:06:12] Yeah. And he doesn't look 43 or whatever he is in the book. He looks like 80. And then another key character, in my opinion, Damon didn't change at all. Right. Like he looked almost exactly the same. Yeah, his hair got longer and it's... He's living a stress-free life.

[00:06:31] Time has passed. Yeah. Yeah. But he didn't really look different. So, I think all that'll wear off as it goes on by couple of episodes. You'll probably forget about it. But in this transition, I found that a little off-putting, the inconsistency of the changes in the characters.

[00:06:52] Yeah. You know, I agree with you. And this was actually one of my three points as well. If you don't mind, I'll piggyback on you a little bit. Sure. I felt personally that I would have liked to have seen Reneira and Harwen's relationship

[00:07:13] develop and evolve. I feel like I would have liked to have seen Allison and Reneira's relationship devolve. I wanted to see Lena and Damon's relationship. I feel like this episode should have been season two, episode one.

[00:07:30] I think it would have been a fantastic season two premiere. And we could have gotten an entire season with the younger actors who were healing it in their roles. They were fantastic. And knowing that Millie Alcock was 22 years old put my mind at ease that it wasn't gross,

[00:07:57] if that makes any sense. I was like, they're all of age. It's fine. And as I say, I think the new actors are good too. But yeah, the original two I felt were

[00:08:09] very compelling. And it just makes me wonder, could they have done it with makeup? Let them be a little younger at the beginning and jump them forward because maybe I'll grow to feel

[00:08:22] the same about the new two. But I felt like they weren't quite as compelling as the original two. Right. And I read somewhere that Emma Darcy was cast first and Millie Alcock was cast after Interesting.

[00:08:38] After Emma Darcy. And so it gives me hope. And I think that she had an excellent first episode. I thought she was extremely compelling. Actually, I just wanted more of the last 10 years.

[00:08:55] And I felt like the show, I feel like HBO didn't trust that the viewers would come back and watch it. So they probably wanted to just jam everything that they could into this first season.

[00:09:08] And maybe that'll be to our detriment as a viewer in the long run. So hopefully we'll see some flashbacks next season. I don't know. Yeah. And I think this is part of the challenge

[00:09:18] of this adaptation. This is a difficult adaptation. It's not a traditional novel. It's written like a history. And I think the reason they jumped forward so quickly is, yeah, there's HBO factors at work. They want to get into some action and some battles and some dragons flying

[00:09:35] around. And I'm not sure what they could have filled the rest of the 10 years up with that they felt would be exciting. Lena, claiming Vagar would have been fun. Yes. Yeah. You're right about that. Yeah. I do miss seeing that. I really wish we could have gotten

[00:09:56] that and seeing how it like how did she find Vagar? Show them bonding. That would have been great. I feel like that was missing. And I will tell you that we were visiting our

[00:10:11] dear friends right now. We were born at last week. I was in Pennsylvania this week. I'm in Rhode Island. And they're both non-book readers. And I don't know if you've watched the show with any non-book

[00:10:25] readers, but this was a really interesting episode to watch with non-book readers because I had to stop and press pause and just kind of fill in a few blanks just because they were

[00:10:35] confused. And I think that was probably a lot of viewers this week that were just like, what is happening right now? Like, how did we jump to this and who is this curly-haired dark guy?

[00:10:48] And why is he all of a sudden birthing babies? And what happened to make Chris and Cole say the things that he did to Allison? And then so there's a lot of unanswered questions in the

[00:11:03] time jump from last week to this week. And I think that the three of us who have read the book, it wasn't as confusing. But I think for non-book readers, it was a difficult episode to get into. Yeah, agreed. So, Rima, how about you?

[00:11:26] Well, I'm just going to start off with team Raniera. That's where my loyalty lies. I don't care what happens from here on. Yeah, forever since I said it in the beginning. Team Black. I'm team Raniera.

[00:11:39] I was just going to ask so before we go any further, who's the princess and who's the queen on the show? Or who's green and who's black would be probably a nice one. Oh yeah. We are team Black all the way. Oh, both of you. Yes, and Rennie.

[00:11:58] Team Black here. How about you? Rennie is too. How about you, David? Where do you and Karen? Yeah, I always... Well, I'm not sure she's chosen a side yet because she did not read the book. That sounds like Karen. Okay.

[00:12:11] I always like an underdog and the Blacks are definitely underdogs in this coming war. I'll go with that. Yeah, so team Raniera here and definitely one of the reasons

[00:12:25] that we see in this episode as to why I am team Raniera is Raniera showing up to the queen to present her son just moments after having given birth. She is showing her strength,

[00:12:44] her tenacity. It really just shows her character and who she is. Even while she's standing there getting dressed, she then has to pass the afterbirth as well. The reason the queen wants to see the child, well there's an elephant in the throne room and

[00:13:03] this is very obvious fact that Lane Orvillellarian is not the father of her sons. It becomes clear as day as the episode passes who is the father of these boys. It's pretty easy to deduce and I know if anyone listens to book talk, there was some

[00:13:23] interesting conversations about genetics. Genetics can be, I think as Viserys says in this episode, it's a mystery. Nature can be a mystery and while that's true, for all three boys for none of them to look like Lane Orvillellarian isn't probably going to

[00:13:46] be as common. The queen has a bone to pick and it's unfortunate that Raniera I think has caused herself another issue when it comes to her succession. She already has lords of the realm

[00:14:01] that really do not want her to sit the throne simply because she is a woman. The question of the parentage of her boys, that there's these rumors swirling about, even the queen is questioning Viserys is bearing his head in the sand.

[00:14:21] These rumors are already going around and the realm is already not really willing to accept Raniera but they're definitely, if anything comes up about her boys, if it becomes known that they're bastards, that's going to put Allison's children then in the spotlight

[00:14:41] and put them in succession and that could put Raniera and her boys into danger. While I'm all about Raniera getting hers, because we know that her and Lenore had an arrangement, I'm just curious what y'all think about Raniera's decision

[00:15:02] and if you think it was maybe the best course of action and what she's decided to do as far as producing heirs. Yeah, I mean you look at Viserys and Allison and Allison doesn't have

[00:15:22] white hair last time I checked but nobody's questioning her parentage. I know that the babies came out of her but it's still, there's three children and none of them have dark hair.

[00:15:36] We've mentioned it in book talk and I don't think that it's a spoiler for the book but Ranys who is Lenore's mother is half Baratheon and in the book has dark hair

[00:15:52] and so if they had left that card in the show, that could be an argument I guess. Viserys' conversation about the chestnut baby horse with the silver and the black two horses and obviously they're Harwen's children, we all know that but to me it's

[00:16:20] that far of a leap to suggest that she did the best that she could. Lenore was never going to give her a child. Lenore is arguably one of the more selfish characters on the show

[00:16:35] and I don't think that he was meeting her even halfway on the arrangement that they had made on that beach 10 years ago. Yeah, I wonder if they ever tried to produce an heir. It would have been nice to get some of that. I know that's, it's definitely

[00:16:56] one of the issues that I have and we were talking about the time jump and I'm conflicted. There are things I wish that we had gotten to see. I felt some things were rushed but

[00:17:12] all in all I didn't have too much of a problem with it. I was like okay, I feel like I know where we're at and I'm okay with it but I think it would have been nice to at least see like

[00:17:20] did they try? Did things just not work? I mean we know Lenore prefers men so is he just not able to perform if he's with a woman or did they attempt to, I'm not sure. I don't know, could

[00:17:35] Renea maybe not have at least found a lover that had blonde hair and try to play at it. Or you know, who was sitting next to Lina at the wedding feast last week?

[00:17:56] He could have jumped in. He could have helped. Oh, he's, wasn't he Corlease's nephew? I believe he's a Vellarian as well. Right. I cannot think of his name, I don't have it from me but yeah,

[00:18:07] surely just a stand-in. I mean look, I am not, look let the girl get hers and Owen Strong is not a bad specimen. He's very handsome. Very handsome guy. I don't at all question the fact of why she

[00:18:25] chose him as a lover but and look like I said I am team Renea and I support her wrongs as much as I support her rights. So I'm not like, I'm just thinking she really put herself in a, in a

[00:18:40] worse position. She's already fighting for her right for herself to be the heir, to have the realm accept her and then to throw in you know, you know, she has these children that she knows who

[00:18:55] the father is, she knows they're not legitimate and then you've got Allison questioning him and Allison makes no secret, you know that like she's talking to Kristen Cole about it, you know, and, and,

[00:19:10] and then he's causing a stir out in the practice yard and trying to get a confession out of Harwen and then Allison is trying to get a confession out of Renea when she presents

[00:19:21] the baby after she gives birth, you know, it's like they're not trying to keep this hush hush, they're not trying to like squash the rumors at all. And I'm just thinking gosh, Renea is not

[00:19:36] helping herself at all. Yeah, it's an open secret and I think we've it's very clear at this point that Renea is a she's openly rebellious. She's going to do what she wants,

[00:19:47] not whatever the thing is that she is supposed to do to her own detriment often. But that is her character. Yeah, well it's like when she tells Harwen, she's like, well, there's a certain

[00:20:00] insolence that runs in the family. I just I giggled because I do so much relate to Renea and I thought, yep, that's I should have mentioned this during book talk. But this is not a

[00:20:13] spoiler of the story. It's just something they did a little differently from the book. But Harwen in the novel is his nickname is break bones. And it actually goes a little differently

[00:20:25] in the book story gets beat up by his rival in a tournament rather than beating him up in the yard. And so then Mushroom starts calling him broken bones. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:39] But you get the idea that he is not maybe the sharpest tool in the shed. And I thought they almost played him too smart in the TV show. I can see that. I can absolutely see that.

[00:20:53] Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I struggle with this and I see what you're saying, Rima, I just, you know, the double standard that's also set with, you know, how kings and princes can create as many bastards as they want. But Renea has to be this chaste woman

[00:21:12] that is only with her husband, even if he won't give her heirs. You know, I hate that double standard. And you know, if we're supposed to be in like a cruel area or a cruel, you know, time of the world,

[00:21:26] I remember, you know, Henry VIII killed all of his wives that wouldn't produce an heir. So, you know, let's start chopping heads off or something. Yeah, I mean, and I know the argument is often given, hey, this is fantasy,

[00:21:40] it's fiction, it's not real. That may be true, but it is this particular story is based on the real world, the time of the war, the roses. And it's pretty open that that is the basis for a lot

[00:21:55] of the culture with maybe some magic added on top. And that's really I think the central point in this story. It is a world that is very unfair to women. And she is not going to get that

[00:22:10] throne except by taking. And if you fast forward the 200 years to what happened in that story and how they ended up with the queen, I mean, she had to take the throne. Nobody is going to give it

[00:22:23] to her because that man's world is not going to accept her. You're exactly right, Renea. Yeah. Yeah, I just feel like she's she definitely wasn't doing herself any favors. Not that I blame

[00:22:34] her at all for choosing Harwen and she's in a you know, a relationship with Lenore that's, you know, isn't based in love and he their tastes differ and they're not going to produce

[00:22:46] heirs and she has to produce heirs, you know, as the as the heir herself. And so I get it. And it is a double standard. It makes me crazy. And she got forced into that relationship.

[00:22:57] Yeah, yes. That wasn't her choice. Right. Right. She didn't even want to get married and really have children but being the heir that put you in a certain position where you're expected right to fulfill your duty to the realm and to the throne. And she realizes that

[00:23:14] it's bigger than her and bigger than everyone. So she she did it. But I'm like, oh boy, this is not helping your position at all. And we know how precarious that is. I mean,

[00:23:25] if you jump forward in time, you know, when Ned discovered the truth about Cersei's children, you know, that we've seen this before and how it causes chaos. So anyway, my girl Renea

[00:23:42] and her boys and her decisions. And and yeah, it does show a side of her where she, you know, does still just kind of do what she wants. And I think that still definitely plays a part in

[00:23:54] Allison's, you know, why she has such a bone to pick with her. That's just one of the many reasons I think that she just gets to flaunt, you know, her privilege with no consequence. So anyway, that's all I have to say about that. That's awesome.

[00:24:12] Christian. Oh, well, my number one was the time jump or my my I kind of piggybacked on David's time jump because that was totally like my first thing that I really wanted to talk about. So we're actually back to David.

[00:24:29] So I think something you have to talk about in this show because it's really what it's all about besides the machinations of the court is the dragons. So we've gotten to enjoy some good dragon

[00:24:44] shots and a little bit of action so far. But now we're really moving into the the dragon-y part of the story, which I am very excited about. I think it is a little hard to keep

[00:24:57] track of all the dragons and all the kids. They can be hard to tell apart visually and some of them have a lot of them have similar names. So I'm actually really excited about the

[00:25:12] dragons sort of becoming characters in the story more so than just it is a dragon. And even in Game of Thrones, yes, the dragons had three different individual characters, but they weren't really differentiated that much. So I think that's going to be

[00:25:31] really great in the story as the dragons come into their own. And I love the way they're portrayed and the look and sound of them. And as I say, the differences I think are going to be exciting. So

[00:25:51] Seraxes and I'll use some descriptions here that were in the books but without any spoilers, these are dragons already in the show. Seraxes, female with gold scales. Daemon's Dragon, Kuraxie's nickname blood worm, a giant red beast.

[00:26:12] Laren Valerian's dragon Seasmoke is gray and white and sort of fits what their family is all about. Vhagar, who was Lena's dragon and helps her end her life. A bronze beast that goes all the way back to the beginning in the Senya Targaryen,

[00:26:36] the original Aegon the Conqueror's wife. And then Princess Rhaenys Dragon, Melias is described as the red queen, old and lazy but cunning and dangerous. I just love that they're all different and they all have their own characters.

[00:26:59] Yeah, they're going to interplay just like the people are going to. So I think it's great. And some other dragons are going to come into it to, I don't know, tame and untame is one way to say it.

[00:27:15] But I think we have a lot of dragon fun coming up. That's very exciting. I guess I had some stupid grin on my face because I was being left at last insane when we were watching the episode when Vhagar showed up and Vhagar and Seraxes were flying

[00:27:34] together and Lena and Daemon looked happy as they were flying. And apparently I just looked like some dumb idiot with a big grin on my face. No such thing, not at all. No. Well, we were

[00:27:48] both doing that then because I think I was too. It's no secret. I'm a huge nerd for the dragons and nothing excites me more. So I'm definitely on board with everything that you said

[00:28:00] there, David. Every time a dragon, especially when we get a new dragon in an episode, I just get a big old grin and I just immediately get to tears. I know I did the same thing when we got to see

[00:28:11] Vhagar. I thought of you when Vhagar showed up. Oh, she's glorious. I mean, we got some pretty good detail too. You could just see the age to her. She is ancient. Like David said, she was Queen Visenya's dragon back during the conquest, nearly 200 years before

[00:28:37] or was it 100? I'm off 100 and 150 years. So she's an old dragon. And so you can tell, I think she had a few scars. She had a few tears in her wings or something. You could tell that

[00:28:50] she has seen a lot of battles. She was beautiful. Yeah, and you can think, go ahead. I'm sorry. I have a question for both of you because I couldn't figure it out. It looked like there was

[00:29:01] like netting on her. Did you notice that when Lena was asking Vhagar to kill her at the very end, it looked like over the side of her there was some kind of like netting on her, stringed material or something like that. Almost like, you know, dragon macrame.

[00:29:22] I couldn't figure it out. So I was just wondering if- I can tell if it was part of her skin as they were flying or if that was a part of like how they have to fashion her saddle because she is so

[00:29:35] large, maybe. Maybe that's it. I don't know. It wasn't clear and it was hard to tell for me anyway while they were flying and it was dark whenever we got the scene with Lena and Vhagar. Game of Thrones was dark? What? Yeah. I'll say it ain't so.

[00:29:56] And I was thinking about how dangerous she would be because, you know, as the dragons get older, they get bigger. So she's huge and experienced in battle. So maybe not as young

[00:30:10] an athletic as she once was but yeah, she's gonna be a handful in any battle. So two other details about the dragons. I like that they cook their food. That seems healthy. So nobody likes

[00:30:27] to see anything happen to a goat but it was all over very quickly. Real Jurassic Park vibes on that one, right? Yeah. With the goat and the T-Rex. Yeah, probably a little call out there to Jurassic Park

[00:30:41] and also that they're- they double as a handy cremation service. You don't have to call in the funeral home. It was all done right there by Vhagar. But I love it. Yeah. Who needs a funeral home when you have Vhagar? When you have any dragon? Absolutely. That's awesome.

[00:31:12] Rima, how about you? So my next point- that was great, David. Thank you. I'm so glad you brought up the dragons. I'm glad I'm not the only one that brings up the dragons

[00:31:21] because gotta love them. I want to talk about Laina. We talked about the time jump and this is one of the reasons I am sad about the time jump is I really wish we had gotten more of Laina.

[00:31:36] I've loved all the actresses even though we've gotten each of them for a very short time. I've loved all the actresses that have played her and I wish we had gotten more

[00:31:48] from her because I think Laina is a bit of a badass and I think we really got to see that displayed in this episode. Her relationship with Damon, we didn't get to see that flushed out and

[00:32:01] I think that's unfortunate because I think it would have really been great to at least see a little bit of development in their relationship, maybe them getting married, maybe a little bit of their adventures and how they got there. I know

[00:32:14] that we missed a little bit there but we get to that point where she's in childbirth because we see her pregnant and she's trying to birth her child and something is going wrong

[00:32:30] and it gets to a decision that Damon has to make similar to what we saw with Viserys and Emma in the first episode and she said, hell no. That's not going to be me. I don't know if she

[00:32:47] just decided not to go that route and have Damon even make the decision for her because it looked like she slipped out even before they got that far when Damon was having that conversation

[00:32:59] but she had mentioned earlier to him that she wasn't happy being in Pintos. She wanted to go home. She didn't want to die like a fat lord. I want to die a dragonrider's death

[00:33:11] and that's the decision that she's made for herself here and I thought that this was interesting because we've never seen this. This is like new lore, new canon. We've never seen it in the show. We've never seen it in text where a dragonrider asks their dragon to

[00:33:31] unalive them. She tells her dragon vagar, Jacharis. This was interesting and it's the first time I think that we've seen a dragon knowingly bestow mercy on its rider in this way. In this case,

[00:33:50] to put Laina I guess out of her misery, knowing what was probably going to happen to her, going into maybe a septic shock and dying. It made me really sad for vagar. We saw as Laina sits herself in front of vagar and she's begging her, Jacharis, Jacharis,

[00:34:17] and poor vagar is like, excuse me what? You want me, Jacharis you? I don't see a goat. She's like, what? It was really sad to see vagar. She's hesitating, is confused I think by Laina's request and it really made me sad for vagar.

[00:34:42] I think I mentioned this in book talk as well but I think it was a third episode when Laina was talking to Viserys because she mentioned vagar and she said when the sailors would spot

[00:34:59] vagar they would tell of the vagar's sad and lonely soul. It would make sense that after vagar forms a bond with Laina that maybe she felt like she had new life because vagar is very old.

[00:35:12] We just talked about that. Vagar has been around for a very, very long time and it sounds like she's led a very lonely isolated life. I can just only imagine that when Laina finds vagar and we missed

[00:35:25] that. That's another part that makes me really sad in this time jump that we didn't get to see that when Laina discovers her, finds her, bonds with her, that it gives vagar a new

[00:35:36] vigor maybe to life and she's got a new writer and she's excited about that new writer that she's bonded with. Now what will happen to her now that she's writerless? It makes me really

[00:35:47] sad to think about that that now vagar knows what she's done to her writer and now she's lonely again. I think they did a good job of at least trying to portray the last 10 years

[00:36:01] of the bond that they've had but well, I guess it was about she said she found her when she was 15. I don't know how old she was here but we know there was a 10 year time jump.

[00:36:10] But I think that they tried to show in these few short moments that we had that the deep bond between Laina and vagar that there was an understanding between them

[00:36:20] and why vagar was so confused and why she hesitated because she didn't really want to do it and she was confused by it. I'm sad that we didn't get more of a vagar and really wish we'd gotten to see

[00:36:32] more in those 10 years. Then I know my daughter as a non-book reader had also questioned because and I keep seeing it on question online like, oh, I thought Targaryen's were fireproof. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that George R. R. Martin had cleared that up

[00:36:53] and in reference to Dany, we all know Dany in Game of Thrones was unburnt with the birth of her dragons when she came out of that pyre for Cal Drogo. He said that the birth of

[00:37:07] Dany's dragons was unique, magical, wondrous and a miracle. She is called the unburnt because she walked into the flames and lived but as we also remember, Viserys was not immune to the golden

[00:37:16] helmet. Oh man. That's for George. So for anyone who's maybe questioning that and didn't quite understand that, hopefully that kind of clears it up. I think sometimes George R. Martin just writes stuff and then afterwards he's like, oh, shit, that's contradict something else that I wrote and

[00:37:33] then he has to make up an explanation for it. Yeah, you know what? I'd buy that for it all. I would totally buy that. I think maybe one reason we've, again, just speculation because

[00:37:45] I don't know but maybe why we haven't gotten the rest of the books is maybe he's written himself into a little bit of a corner and he's trying to figure out. It's called the Mirni's Knot.

[00:37:57] I don't know if anybody's heard that term but I think that there's no way George doesn't know how to get Daenerys out of Essos. But on that same read that you were just talking about,

[00:38:12] I feel that if it was a normal thing for a Targaryen to be unburnt, to be flame proof or what have you, it wouldn't have been added to Daenerys' list of titles in Game of Thrones.

[00:38:29] They always remarked that she was the unburnt and you haven't heard that from when they announced the series and they gave almost the exact same list of titles that Daenerys had

[00:38:43] except it did not say that he was unburnt. And if that was a common trait for Targaryens then I feel it would have been added in there just like it was added into Daenerys' list of titles when they introduced her to cities, towns. Right.

[00:39:03] So I don't know take that with whatever. Right. Yeah but just had to mention Laina, I just really respected her and her choice to make her own fate and to go down like a dragonrider. Wish we'd gotten to know her a little better. I agree.

[00:39:26] I always feel kind of bad for the actor too, like oh she's out of it already. Yeah. She was good. She was excellent. She had a great episode. That's a rough business. Yeah totally. Okay so my turn. So I used to do this thing in

[00:39:50] the Game of Thrones rewatch podcast where I normally had one of my points be titled The Women of Westeros and I'm going to bring it back. So I have really, so to start off

[00:40:05] I've been really enjoying seeing Westeros from a mainly female perspective. I think that we haven't had that in Game of Thrones. I think that we see some of it from a female perspective but

[00:40:21] not in a way that they are doing it on House of the Dragon right now. We see the inner operations of them skulking around and trying to figure out how they lead. We're seeing motherhood take a center stage to this world. We're seeing female leadership take center stage.

[00:40:47] The conversation that Laina had with her younger daughter in the episode by the fire where she said if you want a dragon go and claim it, you need to take what is yours, what is rightfully yours. You cannot sit back and wait for it to be

[00:41:02] given to you. And I think that that's a big theme of what's been happening especially over the last couple of episodes as we see Allison and Reneara start making really big moves.

[00:41:16] One of the things that I've really enjoyed and I'm going to admit we had a piece of feedback that as I was putting it into our agenda, it helped me form some of this comment. Her name that did it because I don't want to steal anybody's idea.

[00:41:39] But oh wait, this is my hang on. I got to find my agenda real quick so I could be nice. I think it was, I'm going to say that it was was it Karen? Well we'll see it later later.

[00:41:57] But they really they emphasized on how the birthing bed has become a woman's battlefield in Westeros. And I love that they've highlighted this so far in the season. I mean we started off the season with a birthing scene with Emma that was

[00:42:22] godawful, very graphic. It killed Emma. And then you see in this episode, you see Reneara is having a similar birthing experience, a very difficult birthing experience. However, it's successful. But then the episode ends with another dramatic birthing experience where

[00:42:42] Lena ultimately takes her or has her dragon kill her because it's either that or die in childbirth and she decides to go out on her own. And I think that that really shows kind of the

[00:42:55] difference in generations of the women. Emma, in the beginning she makes a comment about how this is you know the birthing bed is our war zone. This is where we fight. This is

[00:43:11] where we make our mark. And you know Lena is kind of saying in this new generation, this is not who I am. I am not just this woman who's going to die in childbirth. I am a dragon

[00:43:25] rider. I am more than just a vessel for you know human beings coming out of me. And I think that with all of the forward thinking and the progressive thinking of Reneara and Lena

[00:43:37] that I really love that shift in perspective. And I'm really hoping that that kind of attitude kind of goes forward even without Lena. I think that we have elements of that with Reneara.

[00:43:50] Reneara is getting set for battle finally. You know she says bring Carl at the end because we're going to need all the swords that we can get. She understands that Allicent is now

[00:44:02] just not going to play ball with her at all. And she senses that people are going to start drawing lines in the sand. You know with the loss of Harwin, I'm sure she feels very vulnerable in

[00:44:20] Westeros and she needs to go somewhere where she feels stronger. And I think that that's a really good move. So it's nice to see the dynamics of that progressive female leadership in Westeros.

[00:44:37] But at the same time you have Allicent. And I think Allicent is a really interesting character especially as a woman in Westeros because she seems to only want to be independent when it

[00:44:48] suits her. She talks about you know she wears her green dresses but she wants to but she claims to also have you know her children have the rightful Targaryen hold of succession and leadership.

[00:45:08] He wants to undermine this first queen of Westeros which is a really big deal in my opinion and probably everybody's opinion which she once supported but now she wants that to shift over to

[00:45:23] her son who wants nothing to do with the crown. He doesn't want to challenge it, he doesn't care, he just wants to masturbate off the tower and everybody to leave him alone. And she's very domineering. Now I also see, I'm sorry I keep going off into little tangents,

[00:45:47] but I also see that Allicent and Renera are two very different mothers. Renera didn't want to be a mom. We've talked about this already. She just wanted to eat cake and fly her dragon and you know that's her life. She took that responsibility on because she knew

[00:46:06] it was the right thing to do but I don't think that she even knew how good of a mother she was going to be. You see the scenes with her and her boys and it's a very loving and close

[00:46:19] kind of an intimate scene with her and the boys, even Léonore and Harwen, everybody's in there, they're all happy. She holds them, she kisses them, she's doting to the newborn whereas

[00:46:31] we've seen Allicent this entire season, she holds a crying baby. She shakes no one tries to get it to stop for like a few seconds and she gives it over to a nurse and walks away. She has no

[00:46:44] interest in being a mother and you can see that in her adult children they're all a bunch of the boys are terrible and you know, Helena is withdrawn whether it's because she's a seeer

[00:47:03] or she's a dreamer or she has mild autism. We don't know right? We've only been introduced to her character really this week but she has no love for her mother because her mother touched

[00:47:16] her at the end of their conversation and she recoiled. So there's something that is obviously a broken link between her and her children and I don't know if it's because you know,

[00:47:28] she was raised by Otto or she just was married to Young or she's never really had time to figure out the mother that she wants to be but I found it so interesting that

[00:47:43] Raniera really embraced the role of being a mother just like she's embracing the role of being queen. She's embracing her responsibilities to the realm and I respect that and I love that. I love seeing

[00:47:55] that and I think Lena plays a really big part into this in this episode because I think that the things that she's saying to her husband and her children and the way that she chose to

[00:48:06] die speaks a lot about kind of the fierceness of her character and the way that she lived her life with a lot of strong resolve and she lived the way that she wanted to live.

[00:48:18] So I'm really loving just seeing so much female perspective in this show so far and I don't know, I mean I know that we got a lot of that with Game of Thrones with Cersei and

[00:48:34] Arya and Sansa but I feel like it wasn't brought to the center like it's being brought to the center here in House of the Dragon. What do you guys think?

[00:48:46] Well no, I think you make a really great and perceptive point which is that Game of Thrones had no shortage of strong female characters which was also great to see on TV but if you look at this

[00:49:05] you know essentially world based on medievalism from the War of the Roses put the fantasy aspects aside and say we're looking at that time period in human history it steered around a lot of what it is to be a woman in that culture because the main

[00:49:25] characters in that show transcended the society. You know, Arya becomes this semi-magical assassin and Daenerys is this one in a million conqueror with some magical powers of her own and Cersei basically has to kill everything in her path to get to being the leader of her society so

[00:49:49] they don't really grapple with the actual issues of what it is like for most women in that society and I think to your point this show is putting that front and center. They are working through

[00:50:05] the system with the tools that are available to them to protect their families maybe play the political game that they have to in their station life without some magical solution that transcends the whole society. Yeah, you said that a lot better than I did.

[00:50:23] I like that. Yeah, well I love talking about strong female characters and the show definitely does not lack in it for good and for bad. No, not at all and I have a little more sympathy for

[00:50:40] Allison even though she's not a sympathetic character per se in all the ways I think you correctly describe but I think she's also making the best of her situation. I mean

[00:50:52] she basically was her dad said, hey go comfort the king. You know that wasn't her choice. She didn't want to be married to this you know guy that's 20 years older than her and all that stuff and

[00:51:08] she isn't a warm character maybe she's not the greatest mom in that sense but I think she's making the best of the situation that she's placed in. Maybe I think that she's terrible. She's not a warm character. Yeah, hey good job. That's a nice way to put it.

[00:51:32] She's not but yeah she and I don't want to sympathize with Allison but when you get the first like five episodes of her and Otto and how he was manipulating her and driving her to do those

[00:51:49] things and now that she's alone and that's kind of what she's been left with when you remember how he left her as far as well your children are going to be in danger and if for narrow sense the

[00:52:02] throne she's going to eliminate your children you need to prepare your son and then she's just left alone to have to deal with that and try to maneuver without him. I feel like that's kind of

[00:52:13] all she knew was her father being there and she's just trying to figure out the best path to protect I guess her children. I don't know I've got more to say about Allison so I won't go too far but

[00:52:27] you know they I'll just say they did a really good job at least in the first half of the season to really make her a more like sympathetic character and kind of understand her

[00:52:36] motivations and where she's coming from a little bit so they were smart in that I think. Yeah and I think for us who have grown up in more peaceful times than are is historically normal

[00:52:49] and more a more democratic society than is historically normal for all its flaws and problems we don't tend to always look at politics as life and death but these politics are life

[00:53:02] and death so the consequence of losing this fight for one of the two of them and they both know it is going to be the death of their whole family including their children and probably themselves

[00:53:13] so I think there is some justification there for any of them sort of using whatever means is at their disposal to try to win. Agreed, yeah. That's a really good point. Okay well David what is your third and last point?

[00:53:33] So we touched on this a little bit in the book talk but I'm going to bring it back up which is Laris the clubfoot and the Harrenhal plot. Yes. So really for I would say the first

[00:53:47] time in this show we get a cunning and evil move on the scope of something that might have happened in Game of Thrones so Laris has a talk with Ellison you know about her situation she

[00:54:04] laments that sort of no one's on my side and here are my problems you know that maybe you can take with a great assault but anyway that's what she says I'm looking for allies so Laris

[00:54:17] goes out find some condemned criminals has their tongues removed so they can't tell any tales and you know we are given to understand then has them burn his father and brother to death at Harrenhal. I actually have a question for you both something I wasn't sure about

[00:54:39] about. They show one of the people I believe who was involved in the plot and he has a B sigil. Yes. Bubble B so did that signify a Beesbury man and that somebody from Beesbury is involved

[00:54:59] I didn't quite understand that. I took that I saw that and I believe Laris has taken that on Laris wears one and I think well he had a beetle yeah I thought that was a beetle

[00:55:17] right well isn't that what they were wearing as well was were they I thought it was a bumblebee but maybe I could be wrong. I'd have to go back and look because again I feel like my screen was

[00:55:28] a little dark but I thought it was that same beetle that Laris was wearing. I got you you're probably right so what they were showing us there is that this is Laris's one of Laris's guys.

[00:55:42] I think that they're all wearing yeah they're all the beetle boys. The beetle boys the beetles. Origin story. We'll see if there's four of them next time. I think they should be forever

[00:55:56] known on this show as the beets. Perfect. All right so the beetles go to Heron Hall they do the crime and there's a few things that work with Laris here. One he becomes the Lord of

[00:56:12] Heron Hall which is a pretty good prize although that often ends poorly for whoever it is. Evil never dies. Yeah but so he gets Heron Hall. I'm speculating that he gets some revenge on a

[00:56:29] father and brother who probably didn't treat him very well. That's just my guess it's not spelled out and he earns the loyalty or so he hopes of Queen Allison and the Greens as he's now playing

[00:56:41] for their team and she makes a big show of being repulsed by his patricide and fratricide but I don't think that's gonna last. Stuff's about to go down and she needs fighters on her side

[00:56:59] and so Laris is neither athletic nor warrior like and he's a second son who always gets passed over so he has to be cunning and Machiavellian uses brain. I think he's sort of this shows a

[00:57:15] combination of little finger and Tyrion maybe without Tyrion's charm but I was really excited that we're now getting a character like this and sort of excited to see how he's gonna figure

[00:57:26] in type thing that goes for it. I just wish that there was a little bit of ambiguity to his character just a little bit because I think that um well you know what I don't ever since he's

[00:57:40] been introduced I don't think that he's ever really looked like anything other than a sociopath maybe even a psychopath because he looked positively gleeful watching those tongues get cut out. Yeah I'm with you he's a little bit cartoonish in that way. He's a mustache to twirl.

[00:58:01] Yeah so maybe a little too simple and evil but I still thought it was at least entertaining sort of character coming. Yeah I mean he's a good villain whatever happens from here on

[00:58:15] I mean he killed his father and brother you know anytime you're a kin slayer you know right in this universe that equates you to a monster it's one thing to just there's always a lot

[00:58:29] of murder there's you know always some underhanded things going on but to kill your own kin you know that's definitely they've labeled him very quickly I think. No one is more cursed than the kin slayer

[00:58:45] the same good. Well and I don't think anybody will really know unless Allison ever sells him out you know and. Well I mean he played it really well didn't he because you know as we've talked

[00:58:59] about Heron Hall's considered cursed since Aegon and Belerion you know destroyed it the day it was finished and laid it and to waste and burned it from then on no family has prospered at Heron

[00:59:13] Hall so he played it very well that he could you know who would really suspect I mean yeah I mean you could right because he does gain from this he's now the Lord of Heron Hall so sure he could be

[00:59:26] named a suspect but also having to be named as a kin slayer who's gonna call him that really so he he definitely took advantage of the fact that Heron Hall is cursed you know and that there was

[00:59:38] a fire that broke out and killed his family so. Yeah and you make a good point Kristen which is that he by doing what he did and revealing it he has declared a side so we know what Littlefinger

[00:59:53] would be doing in this whole situation he'd be playing both sides. Yes chaos is a letter. Yes Laris has chosen a side or. You know unless he unless something happens next episode I mean

[01:00:07] who knows if he's gonna play the other side because I mean honestly the only person that knows about this is Allison and Laris has played it in a way that he said well you told me to do it

[01:00:22] you know and she's horrified by that because she's like I didn't tell you to do it and he's like no you made a wish and I you know I made it happen so I mean he could eventually maybe play you

[01:00:33] know both sides I doubt it'll happen but you know. I mean yeah he could take her down with him blaming on her as being a co-conspirator and you're totally right he could be in a position

[01:00:43] to betray her as well. He's definitely made her complicit. Absolutely. You know it was you know Allison's like I kind of miss my dad and what Laris heard burn your family alive.

[01:01:00] It went through the sociopath filter that's what came out the other side. He'd be on like the you know forensic files if he lived in this area in this time. Yeah. How about you Rima what's your third ah what's your third sorry I

[01:01:17] hope window just jumped up and bit me. What is your final point? So we've talked about Allison I'll just go into her a little more and you know she's she's I think they've tried in the attempt in this episode because we had this big time jump

[01:01:38] and I know you mentioned it early on David when we started talking was about how it was kind of jarring and you know it just didn't quite fit. And I agree with that but I do I do see where

[01:01:51] they were trying to go and seeing this change in the characters from what we saw with the younger characters and where they were at that point in time and then where we have those same characters with new actors older actors playing them and the differences in those

[01:02:04] characters I think we're supposed to get how much and specifically about Allison how she is over time just grown more and more paranoid over the possibility of Reneira someday murdering her children and what baffles me is if she's so worried about her uh Reneira doing something

[01:02:23] to her children why would she continue to antagonize her at every turn right and then and then groom her children to be bitter enemies with her 100% with her children. So I'm like wouldn't the

[01:02:37] smarter thing to do is to become closer to Reneira and encourage the children to be close as can instead of trying to put that wall up between them where she's like you know telling

[01:02:49] her son Aegon you know which I mean she should I mean because you should stick up for your brother but you know um you know she's like well you've got to you know take up for your brother and

[01:03:00] she grabs Aegon by the face very reminiscent of what Otto did to her in the last episode remember when he fiercely grabbed her face aggressively like that she did the exact same thing to

[01:03:11] Aegon and said the same thing to him if she takes the throne that's a threat to you and your brothers and I'm totally paraphrasing I know that's not a quote that's essentially what

[01:03:20] she's telling him which is exactly what Otto said to her so that's just grown over these 10 years and I'm like well if you're worried about it why wouldn't you keep Reneira on your good side

[01:03:31] why wouldn't you try to keep her close to you like why wouldn't you take the deal right and why would you why would you not take that offer when she's proposing marriage between

[01:03:43] just Saris and her daughter Helena um and and I kind of agreed with what Alison was saying like well she's desperate you know she knows the wolves are at her door you know and because everybody's

[01:03:54] questioning you know the parents of different children and such um because she's probably onto something there well because Alison has made her desperate Alison has been you know giving all the rumors exactly it well exactly so why if you're so worried about Reneira why

[01:04:11] wouldn't you keep her closer so I just you know and it's like she tells Alison tells herself that everything that she does is for the safety of her children but her actions don't support it

[01:04:20] you know her her motivation seems to me to be you know she's envious she's full of spite and it seems to be clear as day so I I keep finding myself in that Alison

[01:04:31] apologist role I'm not sure why because I don't she needs someone on her side David it's okay this is why we have you here yeah but speaking in in from that perspective again I don't think

[01:04:47] she's a warm person but I can see I feel like what her perspective is and I think from her perspective um she was kind of a good girl um who you know at the bidding of her family for the good of her family

[01:05:10] um cozied up to the king and married this unattractive 20 years older guy for the good of the family um and I think as she sees it she's kind of played by the rules and she looks at Reynira and I think she genuinely thinks poorly of her that like

[01:05:34] um you know she went to the pillow house and had sex with her brother and then she had an affair with her bodyguard and now she's giving birth to bastard children and in in that world I

[01:05:48] actually thinks that yes she thinks there's a threat to us and that's part of her behavior but I think she genuinely dislikes her and feels like her behavior is not okay um and that is not

[01:06:03] that's a more um traditional maybe religious less progressive point of view but I think it is actually a point of view and I see that I do but at the same time she didn't tell her best friend

[01:06:16] at the time that she was marrying her dad you know like she just was at the small council meetings she's just at the small council meeting and he announces to everybody before before viscera

[01:06:32] s even has a chance to tell Reynira oh I'm gonna marry alicent and I mean that to me if like if my father had told me he was going to marry my best friend when I was a teenager I

[01:06:46] I don't know that I could forgive that either you know and being a teenager you would of course rebel against that and you would just be like well nothing matters everything is nothing and

[01:06:58] nothing is everything and who cares and let's just all you know guy having sex with each other I don't know uh you know it's just um it's a weird situation for both of them to be in

[01:07:10] they're set up structurally to be enemies and there's almost no way they couldn't be but I think there is also a personal dislike between them because they have two very different

[01:07:23] worldviews as people I agree with you I think Alison is we don't see it too too much we did see it early when she took Reynira to the septum and she's like come on you know we'll

[01:07:37] we'll come here and like she was wanting to like pray and Reynira like really was not into it or anything but alicent seemed to be more so so maybe it kind of comes from that perspective like you

[01:07:48] were saying Dave she's more of a good girl she's more traditional she's a little bit more maybe religious and she you know sticks to that side of things where Reynira is more of

[01:07:57] the rebel the rule breaker placed by her own rules and she doesn't like that and therefore doesn't really care much for Reynira I think anymore because of that behavior I guess yeah I mean even

[01:08:08] a judgmental I think even at the beginning the original accusation against Reynira of being with Damon um Alison wasn't like you're my friend no matter what she was she took her side by

[01:08:22] saying I don't believe it it's not true and um it's much easier to sympathize with the rebel and I do more as well but but I think um Alison does have a perspective that's consistent

[01:08:37] at least from her side yeah I I'll go with that I can see what both of you are talking about she did do everything she did do everything that she was told to do so and yeah Reynira

[01:08:53] said no I'm not gonna play that game but that's also different in status too like someone's a princess and the other one is um you know a lady in waiting or well she's you know lady

[01:09:04] lady Alison of Old Town wow that took a while um yeah so I don't know I just don't want to be sympathetic to Alison I just don't want to be I and you don't have to no one's making

[01:09:21] no I'm just trying to see all sides I want to be I want to be you know nice but I just don't want to like her well and I don't want to you know be like mean girl and bash a woman uh it but it's hard

[01:09:38] knowing just knowing things and I don't want to say anything because we could get into book talk but you know it's just knowing what I know and and it's hard to erase that and and maybe it's

[01:09:51] because of you know I am so much more team Reynira it's I'm harder on Alison but you know I I do get that perspective I still don't like her though but anyway that's that's my good for you stick to

[01:10:06] your guns yep that's awesome I bet you Kristen um so I just want to uh talk about we have a lot of children in this episode um we have a whole new generation of children and we had some kids

[01:10:23] so far but they were babies so now we're really seeing uh Aegon, Amond, Aegon and Amond and Helena who are uh Alison and Viserys' children we have um Gissaris uh Luke I know him as Luke is it Luceris

[01:10:44] Luceris yes we're gonna say yes because yeah Luc is good we have Jason Luke and um and then the new baby Joffrey um and those are Reynira's uh Reynira's son's hashtag boy mom

[01:11:02] um and these six boys well let's just talk about no these six kids five boys but there's the four boys that I think are going to really be kind of the centerpiece of what we're talking

[01:11:18] about for the next couple of weeks at least in Aegon, Amond, Jace and Luke um you know you see a little bit of the playfulness that they have together when they pulled the pig prank on Amond

[01:11:34] in the beginning it looked like it looked like Aegon got along with uh Jace and Luke and maybe Amond was being picked on but then later in the yard you saw a lot of shoulder

[01:11:46] shoulder what is that what is it that boys do with their shoulders when they walk by each other and they like bump into each other in like a weird macho way like is there a term for that?

[01:11:59] I don't know that's a great question I don't know if there is I know exactly what you're talking about but I don't yeah there was a lot of fighting and um you know then then there's later you see

[01:12:10] uh you see a very familiar scene of a boy uh in a window sill and I think we all thought of Tommen and then all of a sudden she replies this is a little different yeah um and you kind of see

[01:12:30] that it's even more disturbing than it was I mean I didn't think we could get anything more disturbing well there were a lot of um there were a lot of memes that got sent around

[01:12:40] especially in my little realm of group chats where uh people were saying that Aegon looks a lot like Mike from Stranger Things with a blonde wig yeah and I really feel that hard well did you know

[01:12:55] that the actor playing uh Aegon is the son of David Tennant? I found that out like a couple hours ago yeah yep um but you're seeing kind of the beginnings of Aegon and the kind of person he is

[01:13:12] the kind of person he's going to be um if he stays on this you know bitch trail um you know he seems to just want to um kind of for lack of a better term wank off uh and um you know

[01:13:31] play pranks and he says he doesn't want the crown he doesn't even want to challenge it um you know he has he has no real desire to do anything except probably be a night and

[01:13:43] have sex with ladies and then you have Aamond who is very upset that he doesn't have a dragon he gets kicked he gets uh picked on about that but he has an interest in getting a dragon and he

[01:13:55] keeps going back to the dragon pit which you know could have some uh foreshadowing into his character and kind of who he's going to turn into and then you have Jace who

[01:14:09] he seems to be a really capable kid and the problem is is that I don't think he really knows where he belongs yet um at the end of the episode you saw him being very upset about the

[01:14:24] fact that he might be a bastard and that Harwin Strong might be his father um and then I don't know I didn't get a real feel for Luke um you know Joffrey's a new baby and Helena we've we've touched on

[01:14:40] a little bit but there's this whole new crop of of fresh young children and actors that will probably be very important to the show as time goes on we'll probably get different actors for them as time goes

[01:14:56] on but um it was a nice introduction to all of these new characters and I look forward to seeing kind of the development of them as they evolve me too they're they've got a big part to play

[01:15:14] this next generation in yeah and as much as we've talked about motherhood and its centrality in this show these are kids basically that don't have a father like all of them for various

[01:15:26] reasons oh yeah and and if you think about um a bunch of royal kids running around with no father figure that that can't turn out well yeah you're totally right and you can really

[01:15:39] vary different mother figures too yep they're very different from each other I mean the king is basically no father to his children and then on the other side you have the father that can't be

[01:15:53] acknowledged and the father in name who isn't and either of them are around or interested really I mean really the father that isn't as seems more interested than the other one was interested

[01:16:05] but he's gone no yeah he's well went to a barbecue yeah oh I'm sorry it's your heroine I'm still that's too soon I'm very much mourning sir Harwin uh that makes me incredibly sad sorry

[01:16:22] it's okay it's okay well I you know we were talking about you know the women and the mothers but you know just talking in general about the children and the families and the mothers you know uh

[01:16:35] I think it was interesting seeing some of the the fathers at least that we got whether they're present or not I think sir Harwin even though he's not acknowledged as the father of Reneir's children we know that he is um he definitely did play a part

[01:16:53] in their lives he was very present stood up for them when they were uh sparring and practicing their sword play and I loved seeing them after Joffrey had been born and they were

[01:17:07] all in the room together he had the young boys of sir Harwin and then here comes uh Reneir and Joffrey and and Lenore and they all just look like a happy blended family it was so progressive you know I love

[01:17:18] seeing it you know Lenor knows that Harwin is the father of those children he there were some knowing glances between the two as he you know as Harwin was holding the baby and he kind of

[01:17:29] gave him a nod on the way out you know like I'll let you guys have your moment you know your new son was just born I'm gonna let you have a moment I'm gonna take the kids back

[01:17:36] to the dragon pit and um you know he's and it didn't get much of a sense of what Lenor was like as a parent he seemed to have a rapport with the boys he he's their known father um supposed to be

[01:17:51] their father anyway um and then we got Damon in his girl dad era you know he we didn't get a lot of light into what his relationship is with his girls other than you know he seemed to be close

[01:18:05] with one and the other felt she was somewhat ignored by him but um you know that was an interesting dynamic seeing Damon in that and that new light uh and then you have a series just looks like a typical

[01:18:17] king father he's kind of got a little bit of a distance like he's happy he did seem happy to see his grand new grandchild born uh but he asked him to keep you know his distance leaving

[01:18:26] the business of child rearing to either the wife or to the nannies or whatever um but you know thought I'd give a little shout out and call out some attention to the dads

[01:18:38] there as well at least from what we've seen there's a lot we didn't see there's 10 years we didn't see right right right right unfortunately it's not an not an impressive collection of dads no no

[01:18:48] no no and and it's and it really says a lot about uh this series and uh Lenor when Damon's coming out as the winner here yeah but there's not a Ned Stark in this bunch oh there isn't

[01:19:05] and I miss that I miss that Ned Stark there wasn't Eddard in this episode though so that was nice yeah there was Eddard I was like oh yay it's like dude what's your last name just just say it say it

[01:19:18] a little bit what else are you from yeah so I just wanted to give a little shout out to the children of Westeros um or the red not red landing kings landing I still have these word problems

[01:19:35] there's so many red keep kings landing yeah meanwhile the children of Westeros yeah we'll just start everything with meanwhile now meanwhile so let's go to notes I know we've got them

[01:19:54] mm-hmm uh David um I think I've used up just about all of my notes in the course of our discussions um see is there anything left um I didn't talk about um the one thing I didn't mention

[01:20:19] when we were talking about the dragons um is just that they are a game changer in war and we got to see a bit of this in Game of Thrones like very late in the show just with Daenerys's dragons

[01:20:32] when they got big enough to participate but in this show no one even wants to go up against the Targaryens and the Vlaarians due to the just the existence of their air power chills anyone

[01:20:46] like going to war against them except each other so like this preemptive threat of total destruction um which is this visible rem reminder of yeah but the triarchy is kind of picking off this

[01:21:00] little area of the kingdom that they're not really interested in and I think that it's sort of stated that you know if they really wanted to care about the stepstones or whatever it is right yeah that

[01:21:12] sort of backwater that that battle would be over pretty quickly yeah well um anyway that was my one note the power of dragons yeah well Aegon's conquest still lives large it you know it might

[01:21:25] have been some time has passed but I feel like people still remember you know the conquest and the three dragons from that time so there's a lot more than three dragons now yeah so good notes

[01:21:41] how about you Rima I think I have a few uh I mentioned Daemon but I'm I'm interested to see what happens to him now we got a different side of Daemon you know I've said many times you

[01:21:54] know as much as I love Daemon and he's an agent of chaos and I'm here for it I'm living for it and I know he can never be fixed but I do think Laina was able to kind of soften the edges a little

[01:22:07] bit to him yes I don't think that she changed him by any means I do think he's still Daemon at heart but we did see a softer side of Daemon with his girls and with Laina I do think he

[01:22:18] cared for Laina I think he respected her and I think whatever's going on with him he seemed to be a little bit depressed you know Laina's like this is not you know you're not the same man I'm married

[01:22:31] this is not you you know so I'm not quite sure what was going on with Daemon I'm curious now that he's lost Laina what's gonna happen is this going to you know reignite that

[01:22:43] inner chaotic man inside of him you know where he's vengeful for what happened to Laina even though it was like no one's fault but it just you know maybe reignite something in him and will he

[01:22:57] want more like Laina was wanting more will he now want more and will it knock him out of his depression while he was in Pentos so curious to see what happens with Daemon we didn't talk

[01:23:09] too much about him but we talked about dragons there was an unknown dragon when Aemond went down to the dragon pit I don't know who this dragon was I wondered though if it was maybe Vermitha Vermithor I'm saying these all wrong these pronounce these names I'm telling you

[01:23:29] so I'm wondering if that was him he was ridden by Jaehaerys um I do have let's see sorry I'm scrolling my notes are kind of all over the place there I don't know if you guys have read this before or kind of gotten in on the joke for

[01:23:56] the Tullys that are named after Muppets what they mentioned it during the council meeting the Tullys right now I heard Grover Grover Tully Kermit Tully Oscar Tully and uh Elmo Tully they stopped short of saying Kermit

[01:24:25] so apparently that is a thing oh my gosh the Tullys during this time are named after Muppets and I really hope that they keep it um so I was hilarious yeah when they were talking about the dispute in the Riverlands during the the council so that's hilarious

[01:24:50] I loved when Harwen Strong punches Kristen Cole out and out on the courtyard thought it was glorious also damning at the same time because it caused the need for him to have to leave and

[01:25:04] definitely causing more strife um but I think we all kind of felt that a little bit I think we all kind of wanted to be Harwen Strong in that moment um Viserys the dude's falling apart

[01:25:19] literally did you see he didn't have his arm anymore yeah and we saw it in the last episode they had it kind of bare um and you could see his I think they mentioned he's got a form of

[01:25:34] like leprosy so you can see that that was definitely affecting him in the last episode and then in this episode it looks like they just made the decision to cut it off I mean the freaking leeches aren't working anymore can we do something? Karen called him the uh

[01:25:51] the Cripkeeper yeah so he totally looks like that yeah well I know that there were comments about the the time jump and the series and how much older he looks and such and you know I

[01:26:02] it makes me think a little bit about you know how we see when a person gets elected president day one of when they're elected and then when they leave office let's say it's even just four years

[01:26:12] after they leave office how much they've aged and how much gray hair they have yes I feel like that's a little bit what's happened to Viserys just the the stress of running the kingdom I mean

[01:26:23] having Reneara having Allison and he just he's just a weak king and it's like he would rather just be building his lego you know valerian set in his room like lego valeria

[01:26:41] special set it's a collector's item y'all and he's dedicated his time but he just wants to build his his set lego set in his room and he's having to deal with stresses of running the kingdom

[01:26:58] and I feel like that's and that on top of his illness I think they're really trying to demonstrate also how much his illness has aged him as well is a factor yeah yeah the man's not long for this

[01:27:09] world um he's just not in good shape so um sorry going again through my notes oh I'm still stuck on the muppets yeah right I didn't notice that hey Bert what do you think of the new dragon

[01:27:30] I don't know tell you the the things the things we get it there's no shortage of entertainment and then just again Kristen Cole you know there's um I'm just I'm so done with him

[01:27:45] and this episode solidified it for me you know when he picks on those children Reneir's children you know it's one thing if you've got a grudge which again I think is stupid dude it was 10 years ago

[01:27:57] get over it um but he's carrying the grudge against Reneirah but he's taking it out on innocent children really just pisses me off those children it's not their fault who they were born to

[01:28:08] in the circumstances of their birth and it really pisses me off so I think that he is in like this deep deep state of self-hate I think that he just like everything that he has done since that

[01:28:25] first night that him and Reneirah slept together I think his life has just gone completely off the rails and he is just he he cleaves to Allison so dearly because she saved his life I guess

[01:28:42] maybe but also um he just hates himself and I think that when people have that that feeling towards themselves and they're that low um you know with with self loathing that they want to make

[01:28:59] everybody around them miserable and they want to make sure that everybody around them feels just as bad um and I mean I I just I ever since he you know tried to propose to Reneirah about

[01:29:12] marrying for love and then just like stalked away like a petulant child when she tried to tell him about her responsibilities as future quaint queen you know he's just been this very small very petty

[01:29:26] man since then and it's only it's only intensified in this time jump yeah that is true that is true I think that's a really good point um he's still an asshole I agree no I totally agree um

[01:29:47] and then my last little note was just I think wanting to acknowledge the significant power shift between Allison and Viserys and how she really seems to be running a lot of things she

[01:29:58] she cuts him off when he's speaking uh she cuts the council meetings short you know I think that she's definitely taken advantage of how he's weak um so I thought that was kind of interesting

[01:30:11] you know she's like well you can do as you please when I'm you know dead cold in the ground or in my grave yeah yeah cold in my grave so I'm just thinking damn you know you

[01:30:21] you're the queen consort he's the king you know he is supposed to have more power than you but she's there's definitely been a shift there in in the power dynamic and I just think that was interesting

[01:30:31] so I think it just you know kind of sets things up you know to come but yeah definitely that's all my notes um I only yeah we've talked about most most of what um I've wanted to talk

[01:30:45] about I think um I really loved that small council meeting because I think that there was um you know this the conversation was really between Allison and Reneira even though you know it was

[01:31:00] everybody that was at the table um I really loved the the point that Reneira tried to kind of mend fences to get ahead of whatever was happening um I thought it was very interesting

[01:31:15] that Allison when they went back to the Lego room um that Allison was trying to like put Viserys in his chair and put a blanket over him and she had all of the softness of like the way she is with

[01:31:29] her children like she just doesn't know how to be this nurturing person um at all which is so interesting because she was a very nurturing friend to Reneira in the very beginning and she has

[01:31:44] lost all of that um she can't be she doesn't know how to be a mom she doesn't know how to be a wife she doesn't know how to talk to people with any sort of like respect or or equality she's just

[01:31:55] this she's just like Kristen Cole I mean they're both these people that just are miserable and just want to spread their misery everywhere so um you know as she even goes so far as to

[01:32:11] embarrass um Reneira with her milk leakage when Reneira is already in a vulnerable state trying to mend fences with her with her stepmother and um you know the milk leakage ends the meeting

[01:32:27] which I I hated that that made that made me very uncomfortable and sad um and then you know we said goodbye to the strong the Strong's um that was a really tough part I I really really really

[01:32:47] wish we could have seen Reneira and Harwin Strong's relationship evolve me too it's just it to me it's just a huge huge uh gaping hole in caring about the fact that Harwin is even dead

[01:33:08] that would have been a much more impactful death um during that fire if we had cared more about Harwin um I don't know yeah I I agree again that was another one of my issues with with the time

[01:33:23] jump that we didn't get to see a little bit more of the development of the relationship between Harwin and Reneira I'm really sad we didn't get at least one spicy scene with Harwin and Reneira

[01:33:35] right but I do think they did a really fabulous job since they did do this time jump and we didn't get that development I think the scenes that they did have in this episode were fantastic

[01:33:46] because just the looks between them like yes you know when she would she glanced at him as he's holding his new son and the look he gave her and then when he had to leave when he's telling them goodbye

[01:34:00] and you know he's telling his son's goodbye and he comes over and he kisses baby Joffrey on the forehead Reneira can't even look at him and I mean I was in tears in that moment because

[01:34:12] like she it's because it's like if she looks at him she's gonna break down and she can't break down because her sons are in front of her and she's you know well her son's already raising doubt

[01:34:23] right about like hey is he my dad you know so she's got to pretend like this isn't your father saying goodbye this is just you know a commander of nice watch who who kind of mentors you

[01:34:33] who's saying goodbye and he's a friend um but just the the the restraint on her face um how she couldn't even look at him and when he looked at her that was like I'll I'll do anything for you

[01:34:46] I'll kill for you right what I got from that look that he gave her and she couldn't even look at him because she was gonna I think break down agreed agreed there was so they at least got lots of

[01:34:57] non-verbal um relationship yumminess yeah I at least got it in this episode that much but it is a shame you're right that we didn't get more I was sad about that yeah okay so that was

[01:35:14] a really good discussion by the way I was like really nervous going into this because I wasn't really sure about this episode um I just wasn't sure about this episode so I I had very mixed

[01:35:27] feelings after watching it twice so um I definitely feel a little bit better about the episode talking to the two of you so um you know that's always nice that is nice yeah

[01:35:42] when we can kind of turn it around a little bit yeah a little bit so we're gonna go into some listener feedback we got a ton of feedback as usual thank you everybody uh please keep it coming

[01:35:55] so Karen Stolmaderos says while I thought this episode was amazing probably the best of the season so far and I'm loving the new actors I'm so disappointed we didn't get to see some of the relationships developed specifically Reneara and Sir Harwin of course but also Damon

[01:36:12] and Lena and Reneara and Lena so many great scenes and lines in this episode I greatly enjoyed Harwin beating the crap out of Kristen Damon actually being a good husband and father well kind of

[01:36:25] Lena and Damon riding their dragons and seeing the other young dragons the birthing scenes were incredible they're definitely committed to the theme that the birthing bed is the battlefield for these women the women are so amazing love Damon's my brave girl line and Lena's scene with

[01:36:41] Vagar was heartbreaking 100% yeah she's the one that I got from the birthing scene the birthing is the battlefield for for the women I was like oh my gosh she's still right yeah great feedback

[01:36:55] thank you Karen okay Wendy Ott Eppers hey Wendy says it seems like an odd jump to make in the middle of the first season not only did we have a set of new actresses and actors but some of the characters

[01:37:08] Cole Alice and Damon have done 180 degree personality changes with very little context felt like a whole different show I hope they build the same rapport with these new characterizations Jill Moro hello Jill I'm actually pretty disappointed that we got such a gap where clearly so much has

[01:37:27] happened with practically no discussion as to the changes these characters have gone through over the past decade it's unfortunate that it's so rushed and I really hope that we get some sort of

[01:37:37] flashback type scenes or more cons ton context that may make their current situations a bit more understandable and I think that seems like we go ahead go ahead I know I was just gonna say

[01:37:49] seems like a lot of people agree on this point yeah and I know that Jill is somebody um and that's who we were what we're staying at their house right now well parked in their driveway um

[01:38:01] but um they're not book readers and I know that that's one of those examples of non-book readers that are probably just like uh what would just happen you know yeah makes sense Cheryl low writes Allison and Viserys are terrible parents

[01:38:22] cutting right to the chase you can tell the boys are spoiled breaths and the conversation with her and Aegon really gave me surcy vibes oh and not to mention the little finger vibes given by Sir Laris uh Allison is a terrible mother she lost all nurturing abilities and

[01:38:39] has consumed both the advancement of her sons her poor daughter was showing her math skills and slightly creepy bug obsession Allison looked so bored and not even trying to be supportive the dysfunction is rampant as welcome to westeros child rearing is very different

[01:38:57] westeros or at least a month they're like royal families and high-born families usually Sophia Smith says my husband didn't care for the episode he claims it was slow and he didn't

[01:39:10] care for the new actress that played Reneira I on the other hand felt like this was a setup episode I found it interesting like a chess all the key players and moving pieces I can't believe

[01:39:21] that Laris killed his father and brother Queen made a friend with a psycho oh yes yes ma'am and I you know what I was going to say this at the beginning of the episode and we even made a

[01:39:34] point to try and make a point at the beginning of the episode that the actor that plays Reneira is Emma Darcy Emma Darcy does is non-binary she does go by they them so when I just saw a new

[01:39:47] actress I know that it would probably be a new actor that played Reneira so not to like call you out Sophia or anything I'm sorry it just made me see it and remember that I didn't say that at the

[01:40:00] top of the episode and we're trying to be we're trying to be cognizant of that as we talk about talk about them as an actor yes great he who put the a says I just got to say I am team

[01:40:19] Allison to all the way sorry I let me start that over I just got to say that I am team Allison to all the way Reneira is so morally corrupt and I have lost a lot of respect for her

[01:40:33] what is happening Allison has followed Allison has followed all the rules and deserves to win not likely in a Game of Thrones universe she deserves to prevail team Allison what is happening I'm curious if you are a book reader uh yeah I need more on that

[01:40:58] green is black up is down cats and dogs living together like best friends Steve Barthes you shook us up you and so the father's hair color wins every time is that more GR than real genetics it's a good point talk about that Lindsay Schlich says

[01:41:23] ugh these time gems I know we have a lot of story to get to but it's so challenging to connect these aged up actors to their roles not only do we have to contend with different faces

[01:41:33] we have to try and make sense of how their personalities have changed Reneira feels familiar but Allison Sir Kristen have fully leapt off the asshole bridge let's see boys I'm sorry it'd be nice to know why it would also be not be nice to feel more

[01:41:54] of an emotional connection and knowledge of all these kids into seemingly major characters sir break bones and lana that we've already lost it just feels so incredibly rushed all the dragon action helped me like this episode much more baby dragon training the dragon in the dungeon

[01:42:09] which dragon was that getting to see the wonderful old vagar flying with craxies easily the best parts of the series so far yeah do we know which dragon that was in the dungeon with amon we don't I I speculated again speculation only that it was vermouth or

[01:42:28] uh which was king jaharis's dragon I don't know that and it wasn't called out specifically it was just a guess we don't know yet alisha stout hello alisha says this episode had so much going on

[01:42:44] and so much drama it could be its own episode of moray started with bloody birth and ended with a fiery death it was interesting to see lana go through a similar birth to Emma and

[01:42:57] even though it was the same outcome their experience was very different lana had a choice versus Emma who was tortured and pretty much murdered sat on all counts but of course a dragon writer's death is far more honorable great episode overall and I liked the transition

[01:43:14] maybe now the show can get on an even pace yep hopefully the setup is over uh megan o'connell says lairis killed his own father and brother for allicent uh Larry's his team allicent may almer dini says I have mixed feelings about the episode

[01:43:36] although it was good I felt like I was watching a different show because so many of the actors were different I think it's gonna take some getting used to so I'd have to say this

[01:43:44] wasn't my favorite episode watching the behind the scenes they said this was almost like a second pilot and it felt like it for sure for sure amacontreras says oh we this was great this one was great

[01:43:58] and so full I love how laner was right there with ronira knowing full well the baby is not from his loins going to see the queen and I just want to say I hate christin coal I knew that the

[01:44:11] strongs would burn at heron hall but I was not ready to see it go down this episode and I wondered when I read the book who would be behind it uh clubfoot how's a gil yeah christin coal

[01:44:26] he's kind of a pretty warrior guy like derio narras but he's not lovable like derio narras yes like derio who under he was perfectly happy being dany's play thing and understood his role of

[01:44:40] like I know I can't marry you but doesn't mean we can't still have fun on the side christin was like oh how dare you the only thing I have is this cloak that's it

[01:44:53] this is very dramatic uh typhane tibos says that walk up the stairs just after childbirth made my insides twinge I could barely sit up without pain when I gave birth anyone else notice the very explicit paintings in viscera's and allicent quarters every time I can't help

[01:45:12] noticing and it's distracting from the scene uh and yes we definitely noticed those and we commented that it was sort of a colegula vibe in there a little bit um yeah and you know what's

[01:45:26] that walk up the stairs that whole opening scene worth her leaving blood you know behind her in a trail and you know getting dressed while after birth is coming out of her and I mean it's

[01:45:38] just the whole thing shows the strength of rinera in such a way that I don't think any other woman character in westeros comes close that's what I'm saying she's tough yes she is I love her so

[01:45:54] much I hope she bled all over Allison's um shin chair too yeah me too yeah it is a painful scene to watch and not short and yeah the blood the blood leaving um when we saw the bloody trail from

[01:46:12] christen kohl to you know lanor at after the the scene with the queen it was just wow that left a mark on my brain gabby jade says great episode I feel like allison has really held that grudge

[01:46:29] about rinera lying to her and her dad being fired seems like now she is adamant to make her send the next air to the throne I find it weird that allison visari's children have the bright hair even

[01:46:40] though allison has dark hair yet rinera's children with harwin have dark hair and didn't get the light hair from her no jennax is a tricky thing in westeros jemma hall says the the changes

[01:46:55] in time jump felt a bit jarring but I got it quite quickly very disappointed by ser christin kohl I think he's still in love with rinera but he is bitter and jealous it's not an excuse to color a

[01:47:07] sea word though or be mean to her kids allison's kids seem a bit all seem a bit unstable and strange in contrast to rinera's I was sad to see lana die and go the way that she did I'm glad that

[01:47:20] we didn't get another horrible c-section and she chose to go out on her terms this show is really showing all aspects of childbirth from the opening scene to lana I think daemon did actually like

[01:47:32] this wife and obviously was able to sexually be with her but I think this heart I think his heart is still with rinera I can't believe seri's is still alive and larry's is a slimy rat

[01:47:46] and maybe he's a rat who knows maybe literally true okay so we have one call this week it is our weekly live steving low dragon cast this is steve and this is for episode six the house of the dragon is this

[01:48:05] rinera that we've had a time jump sometimes just confirmed it so this is rinera and the king is still alive oh so she's had two other children already are they all lana's or is it I know he's

[01:48:16] gay but what's the I don't know who is this guy this is her new protector night he's in the room with boys is that a baby dragon too white-haired boys are those uh allison's sons this kid have a dragon

[01:48:31] okay so all the children are being children I mean mean children but still so none of the children are lana's got it oh so christian tell us how you really feel about the princess

[01:48:41] all right who does this kid think he is homelander okay queen allison I think uh you revealed how you really feel and no chastising of your son for masturbating out the window and you walked in

[01:48:53] the room what kind of cool she blows blows out the fire and he flies through it unscathed well daemon and his current wife are having their difficulties he wants to live in this country and

[01:49:06] she wants to go back home oh that's one way to train them there chris christen what's his name colton them fight you the difference between real battle and exercise or training battle it's not always fair oh what's this guy's name the the one who's just punching christen christen

[01:49:24] would christen it basically charged him with being the father of these boys well these are the strongs okay oh lena what what is this guy's name renaris husband any carl with a q is his friend

[01:49:37] a half of the dragon eggs don't hatch now I understand why the one kid doesn't have a dragon see that story the 15 year old girl going out and finding the largest dragon would renaris

[01:49:47] son and alison's daughter be cousins right alison ain't having it I guess that means they need a new commander of the city watch right if the guy harwick strong is in expelled this other

[01:50:02] guy the strong brother he keeps he's gonna have a crick in his neck the way he's holding his head right oh this tongue cutting ew is she going to do oh she gonna oh she's gonna have the dragon

[01:50:13] oh oh heartbreaking she from her own dragon will the daughter now ride vagar oh so renara is gonna go to dragon stone and she's gonna start against the queen I had his own father and brother killed no it just stopped okay

[01:50:35] oh my it was a journey that it's always a journey with steve always a journey with steve I love it so much really if you don't have time to watch the episode you just listen to steve's

[01:50:48] I think so I think it's great I like it where he's like summation okay so not laner's kids got it oh that was great thank you everyone so much for the feedback we appreciate it we really

[01:51:04] appreciate it it's good to hear everybody's thoughts and opinions and I love it when you guys just don't agree with us at all because it gives us you know different perspectives and even though you're wrong yeah even though you're wrong I appreciate you feeling safe to give us

[01:51:23] our your opinion you're you have a right to your opinion even if it is wrong I'm sorry team green then you can have that and be wrong and it's okay yes ma'am

[01:51:33] okay so now we're going to go into our book talk section which is arguably our favorite section of this podcast and with us today we are going to have who we've had so far me and rima and david

[01:51:50] and of course our arch master reny coming straight from the citadel of old town with those nasty high towers welcome reny thanks it's a relief to be away from the high towers for a little

[01:52:03] while I'm saying so before we get started how did you enjoy the episode oh I I still loved it I loved it for the first time I have a little I have two specific things that I wish they had

[01:52:27] done differently in the adaptation this first time I've had any quibbles but I still loved it loved it loved it awesome well let's start off with um so just so everybody knows we are going to do

[01:52:42] this book talk in two different parts first part that we're going to do is how the book relates to this specific episode episode six the princess and the queen then we're going to give you a little

[01:52:54] countdown or a little warning before we delve into the all-encompassing book spoilers so just be aware that there is going to be a point in this book talk that we do transfer into our whole book

[01:53:10] spoiler um edition okay so with that I'm going to turn this over to reny and where would you like to start um with the title as we often do um so the title of this episode is the princess and the

[01:53:26] queen which is the title of the novella version that was originally published in the anthology dangerous women one of my favorite anthology titles uh that was co-edited by georgia r martin and

[01:53:41] his friend gardener doce waw and that was then uh transplanted into uh fire and blood but that is the the second piece that of the story that was published after the rogue prince um so that's

[01:54:00] that is the origin of the title of this episode um yeah yeah no I I'm just excited that they did do another book title or novella title so that was really exciting to see and speaking of spoilers

[01:54:17] if anybody has read the book but doesn't want uh to know what's coming in each episode don't look ahead at the titles of the episodes because there's at least one episode title which is super

[01:54:30] spoilery so based based on how the title was taken from the books yeah I was considering not having any more titles next we're going to talk about this one because it's they get very spoilery

[01:54:49] yeah um so like I said for the first time I am not entirely pleased uh with what the show's done with the source material in two cases one thing that they skipped over that I wish they hadn't and

[01:55:04] another where there are multiple possible versions in the book and the one that they chose for the show is not the one that I would have chosen so we'll get to those okay so um in uh in the book

[01:55:20] the time period that most of the events of this episode take place it is called the red spring because of all of the dire events that took place in in this year which was 120 after Aegon's

[01:55:37] con conquest in the book although it we're not sure exactly what year it might be in the show because of the way that they've moved the timing of some events around and changed the ages of

[01:55:48] some of the characters um so in the last episode we ended the last episode with Lainor and Reneara's wedding um and then jumped 10 years so some of the things that we jumped over in the book

[01:56:10] are done differently in the show which is totally fine so in the book Reneara stays in King's Landing at court and um Lainor who prefers the comforts of high tide spends most of his time on

[01:56:26] drift mark which is where he finds his new favorite Carl Corey who we see in this episode but Lainor would come over to King's Landing and join Reneara for court events whenever his presence was expected although they spent most of their time apart um Septimustus says

[01:56:46] that they shared a bed no more than a dozen times and Mushroom agrees that it was no more than a dozen times but he adds that Carl Corey often shared their bed as well although Mushroom seems to

[01:56:59] contradict himself because he also says that on those nights that um Lainor and Carl Corey were together that Reneara went to take comfort with Harwen Strong uh at any rate uh Reneara had

[01:57:16] her first son the that first year of her marriage uh and he did not look like Lainor uh Lainor wanted to name him Joffrey but it was Corleith who overruled that and would not allow him to

[01:57:31] name the child Joffrey he wanted to name Joffrey after Joffrey Lammuth who was his lover who was killed in the show by Kristen Cole uh in the book too but at a different time period um and uh

[01:57:46] so uh the child was given a traditional Valerian name which is Jacarys or just Saras I think they say it just Saras in the show and that is one of the you know one of the

[01:57:57] always one of the questions is how to pronounce the names and George R R Martin says he doesn't care how you pronounce them he's like just read the book yeah but what did not we did not see um

[01:58:09] in this time period that was skipped over is that um Allison had her last child the same time that Reneara had her first child and that boy is the youngest son his name is Daron and uh

[01:58:22] uh King Viserys decreed that they should have the same wet nurse the the two boys so that um they would grow up without any enmity between them because they would have been raised as

[01:58:38] milk brothers and now we Daron was not mentioned in in the show at all um he he he may be he may exist uh he may be a page in Old Town I might have seen him just the other day uh so he may show

[01:58:55] up he may show up in the show still or he may not we don't know what they're going to do um about that character and it's after these births in the book timeline that Damon's wife dies

[01:59:11] and then he goes um to the stepstones and meets Lena and marries her we talked about that in in the last book talk the last episode um and after they got married they flew off on their dragons

[01:59:25] some said they flew to Valyria in defiance of the curse that hung over that smoking wasteland in order to learn the secrets of the dragon lords of old but that's very unlikely since nobody

[01:59:37] goes to Valyria um it's a smoking ruin it sounds like it's I get the vision that it's like Chernobyl yeah that's a very good analogy yes the only person that we know of who's been to Valyria uh that happened um quite a while before this

[02:00:02] uh show to takes place uh and she rode Bilarion off to Valyria before Bilarion died and she came back full of some sort of horrific parasites uh and Bilarion yummy oh yeah yummy

[02:00:21] Bilarion himself had huge wounds in his in his side and one wonders what could have done that to Bilarion so yeah nobody has really gone to Valyria and come back unscathed so but we know that they

[02:00:39] did go to Pentos like we see in the show but they didn't stay there they went on to Volantis and Cohor and Norvos which are some of the other cities in Essos and everywhere they went crowds

[02:00:52] turned out for a glimpse of Vagar that's Lena's dragon and Caraxes um and they went back to Pentos and Lena found out in Pentos that she was pregnant so they stayed there long enough for her to give

[02:01:05] birth to the twins Bela and Reina who we see in the show when they were born they were sickly and weak and so six months later they went back to Driftmark so they didn't stay in Pentos like they seem

[02:01:19] to have done in in the show and this is something that I I wonder how this worked um so Lena took the girls back by ship and Damon flew ahead with both dragons so I guess he just flew Caraxes and Vagar

[02:01:36] followed because Lena told Vagar to follow I'm not I'm not sure how you get a dragon to follow you can't exactly use a lead rope like you could do with a horse right and it's interesting just because

[02:01:49] you saw earlier in the episode that um the the dragon um keepers were teaching um Jusserys how to like do commands with his dragons so you know it lends to wonder if maybe that's like a connection or something that you can teach them something other than Dracar is

[02:02:10] there's a lot of mystery still about exactly how the bond between dragons and writers works there seems to be some sort of psychic bond between them so that you can give directions commands some sort of something but it's not really spelled out very clearly in any of the

[02:02:37] published materials so far um so it's only then that Damon was able to go back to King's Landing and he and Viserys um reunited uh he asked to be able to bring his daughters to court to present

[02:02:56] them and uh Lionel Strong and the small council argued against allowing him to come but Viserys said since Damon is a father now he will have changed and welcomed him back and so quote meanwhile back in in Westeros end of quote and yes that is a real line

[02:03:22] in the book there's actually the line meanwhile back in Westeros um Reneira had her second son and that's Lucerys um known as Luke and Septinus just tells us that both Lenore her husband and

[02:03:38] Harwen Strong were at Reneira's bedside for that verse and I'm very glad that we didn't see that scene because that would have just been so awkward do you think so yeah um it's well it's

[02:03:54] weird it's it's weird in world because as we see in the show men unless they're maesters are kept away from birth events so it's just it's just weird it's kind of incongruously contemporary to have had

[02:04:13] them present and to have them both present yeah I know I can see what you're saying there but on the other hand you know Reneira has been this forward thinking woman from the very beginning

[02:04:27] and so it would seem to me that you know showing that Harwen and Lenore were there at her bedside shows that she hasn't changed or really altered from that mindset since she made that deal with

[02:04:39] Lenore and that's something I actually really missed um from this particular episode well it wasn't Luke being born it would have been nice if one of them if not both of them could have been

[02:04:51] there for that birth um so that was something that I was actually missing out on this episode I really wanted to see that co-parenting kind of feel that they obviously have had to have for the past decade right because Lenore is very much claiming these children as his

[02:05:09] yes which is crucial yeah um so um that it was at Lucerius's birth the second child that Allison says to Lenore do keep trying sooner or late you may get one who looks like you and they

[02:05:28] took that line verbatim from the book and put it in the show but made it for the third son's birth instead of the second what an ice cold line I know it's a bouncy thing to say

[02:05:44] and you know this is this is where what's sometimes called Martin genetics comes into play uh because uh Martin tends to use heredity that whenever he wants to signal that a child is or isn't somebody's

[02:06:05] child then they turn out not looking the way that you would expect but if you think about it in terms of real world world genetics it doesn't really work that way because you have Allison and Viserys

[02:06:18] and Allison is not a Targaryen she has dark hair and her sons look 100% Targaryen and then you have Rhaenyra and let's just say okay Harwen Strong's their their father he's he's no darker hair than Allison and yet their kids all have dark hair rather than Targaryen hair uh

[02:06:46] and it's not that far of a reach you know as far as the Martin genetics go or regular genetics go it's not that far of a reach to think that they would have dark hair because uh Rhaenys is half

[02:06:57] Baratheon correct so to me it it's not that far of a leap if they would have kept Rhaenys's hair dark that's right it was supposed to be that's right yes um in the books Rhaenys

[02:07:14] does not have Targaryen hair she has dark hair although she is half Targaryen um so but no but there was never any doubt about her parentage and so Martin's just really inconsistent

[02:07:29] about how he makes people look and he just kind of uses that to throw suspicion where he wants to what if Jon Snow had been born with Targaryen hair an excellent point he couldn't have been right I think that um

[02:07:48] I think that it's fair to accept also that he puts some mythology and mystic into these families so there definitely is a genetic component as we would understand it and people assuming what human beings assume about others genetics rightly or wrongly yeah

[02:08:05] but there also I think is an element of destiny with the Targaryens and sometimes the world does not operate in the most practical of ways and what I think made this episode so interesting and this part of the book

[02:08:20] is that um Allison also has an axe to grind she's not just drawing a factual conclusion she is she is imputing something she believes to be true because it's to her advantage that's right yeah exactly that's a great point yes and David I think you're you're really right

[02:08:42] about the kind of mystical magic um aspect of the Targaryens as well uh which I'm gonna come back to when I talk about Lena in in a minute um they are they are not uh regular humans in some ways yeah Karen asked me during the episode last night

[02:09:07] aren't they fireproof and I was like wait a minute are they I mean we know one of them was and I wasn't really sure and then I was like wait a minute that's not a Targaryen anyway so um

[02:09:21] but well Viserys was definitely not fireproof when he was uh got his golden crown that's right right for sure yeah you're absolutely right yeah that is that's right um the only refined scene the only known fireproof Targaryen uh is Daenerys much more in the show

[02:09:44] than in the book um agreed because she's she should have been burned a number of times in the show it wasn't and it's just the one time in the funeral pyre and it's easy to see how that could

[02:09:59] could work and she does get burned in that funeral pyre in the book she doesn't get hurt but all her hair is singed off and in the show she walks out with her her hair isn't even burned so um

[02:10:12] it's too pretty for to be bald yeah like you know she could look she might have really look great bald could have looked great bald that's right yeah but George R R Martin has

[02:10:23] said in interviews that Targaryens are not fireproof that that was a special magical happening when Daenerys hatched her eggs um and we can talk a little bit more about that in the spoiler section

[02:10:35] but we won't say anything more in this non-spoiler section about that yes um so um each of Runeira's sons got a dragon egg and it was visceris who decreed that they would each get

[02:10:54] a dragon egg and it was uh you know in part to help prove that they are um uh the sons of a Targaryen right so um those who doubted the paternity of Runeira's sons whispered that the eggs would

[02:11:18] never hatch but the birth in turn of three young dragons gave the lie to their words so we see Vermax um who is Jace the oldest son we see his dragon uh Luke's dragon is Arrax and

[02:11:34] Joffrey will ultimately also have a dragon named Tyraxies uh also according to Septimiusus this visceris set Jace upon his knee atop the iron throne as he was holding court and was heard to say

[02:11:52] one day this will be your seat lad um so visceris is uh very accepting that uh Jace is Runeira's heir who will succeed Runeira and he doesn't want to engage with any of Allicent's insistence that there's a problem with the parentage of those boys

[02:12:19] mm-hmm um and yeah go ahead yeah and i mean even if there was i i don't really think that he'd care because you know everybody kind of knows Lainer's secret anyways and you gotta make air somehow

[02:12:36] you know um it's not like you know i mean Harwen Strong was you know not some random dude he was a he was a really um you know he was future lord of Harrenhal you know he could have been

[02:12:50] a probable match for her if they had just met earlier in fact in the book he was one of her suitors it says that he paid court to her when everybody you know was uh right paying court

[02:13:04] to her so yes he in a way that Kristen Cole never could have been because he was born a commoner even if he weren't in the king's garden's horned celibacy he could never have been a potential

[02:13:16] match whereas Harwen Strong could have been right which i think you know is is important in this in this context only because it kind of is an easier pill to swallow probably for visceris

[02:13:31] as king that it's not you know a commoner or somebody from like fully bottom or something like that it's just you know if it has to be somebody else at least it's somebody you know who

[02:13:43] is in held in high regard especially you know the Strongs of Harrenhal and Lainal and kind of the the integrity that he has just being him yeah but the interesting point and the point that

[02:13:59] causes all the trouble is that he does have another alternative his alternative is his own sense that's right so the fact that he stays loyal to his daughter even at the cost of knowing that

[02:14:13] the sons are not true born which he pretty clearly knows yeah is interesting in his loyalty to her i agree and that's it that that's a really good point um i i i don't think he much cares for his

[02:14:27] sons well his oldest son is a wanker i'll just go ahead and say that i think they're uh they're a bit spoiled indulged little brats a little bit which they are you know i mean we know that to be true

[02:14:42] so they're doing a great job at acting like it yeah and i think he loved his he loved his first wife and the son that was meant to be for for him is the one who died with her and he's never

[02:14:53] gotten over that that's right and all the he all he has left of Emma Aaron his first wife is Reneira her daughter right right and so he's going to hang on to that as much as he can

[02:15:08] um that's right yeah and and that's very evident in in the story both in the book and in the show i think that they've stayed pretty true to that which is lovely yes so i forgot to say that

[02:15:23] because of the tension between allison and reneira um reneira went to live on dragonstone before joffrey her youngest son was born and so she was already on dragonstone at this point this is

[02:15:36] a change i think is really great in the book i loved the opening of this um episode with the with joffrey's birth scene and then the walk to see allison all of that is show only that's

[02:15:47] not in the book but i think it works brilliantly um but she was already on dragonstone at that point and here is the piece that they skipped over that i really wish that we could have seen

[02:15:59] and that is that lana and daemon were living on driftmark driftmark and dragonstone are islands that are very close together and reneira and lana lana and daemon and hung out together with their dragons yes reneira and lana became close friends

[02:16:21] and uh they visited each other back and forth on the islands flying to the islands on their dragons and they flew together uh quite a bit and i wish we could have seen some of that i think that

[02:16:35] would have been awesome i completely agree yeah yeah that would have been better than spending the time in pentos which really didn't lead anywhere yeah yes yes i'm i'm bummed that we

[02:16:52] didn't get more of lana to be honest lana yes yeah um and that's something that i talk about in the actual episode but yeah it's a big i have a big problem with that yeah um and i i really liked

[02:17:09] all three of the actors who played lana i thought all three of them were great so i would have been happy to spend more time with any one of the three of them as long as they

[02:17:18] fit the youngest ones wig yeah well the rest of the wigs were really nice the rest of the wigs were so nice they just could not make it work on that poor tiny little child yeah

[02:17:30] um david or rima or renny are we still we're still in episode specific spoilers correct okay yes all right um one of the differences that they have made is that uh the idea of which children will be betrothed to which children because in the book with visceris's blessing

[02:17:56] renira uh betrothed her two oldest sons to lana's daughters who are twins right so when when jace was four luke was three and baila and reina the twins were two their betrothal was announced so in the show she proposes marrying jace to allison's daughter helena but she'd already

[02:18:24] made a different alliance um in in the book um and i thought it was interesting to have instead the idea of a possible betrothal between jace and helena which could have been a brilliant way to avoid

[02:18:41] civil war because then um allison's descendants would presumably have you know been the heirs to jace after he inherited the throne from renira then allison's grandchildren through helena would inherit the throne and she might have settled for that maybe that would be good it'd be nice

[02:19:10] um so lana's death is is very different in the book um she was in on driftmark when she had her third baby and renira was there with her as she was giving birth um so the baby was born

[02:19:32] um and it was a boy but it was born twisted and malformed and it died within the hour and there is uh it's not common but it's not unknown that targaryen babies are born with deformities that are specifically dragonlike like um denaris's

[02:19:56] son baby yeah um uh he he is described by mary mesdor as um you know being a monstrosity and he had scales and and so forth that's not unknown there have been other targaryen bursts and lana's um

[02:20:18] son is not described specifically as having dragonlike features but he's twisted and malformed when he dies and then um lana dies not long after afterward of childbed fever

[02:20:33] but in her now this is where i think they took the inspiration for the way they did it in the show in her final hour she rose from her bed left her room intent on reaching vagar and flying one last

[02:20:45] time but her strength failed her on the lower steps and she collapsed and died damon carried her back to her bed and ranira kept vigil with him and comforted him in his grief

[02:20:58] what i what i really like um uh about the way that they did in the show is that lana got to make her choice yes i agree with that which is very different from how emma died exactly you

[02:21:19] know episode one and i liked it that it showed kind of the differences between viscera's and emma's marriage and um lana and damon's marriage yeah yeah with the little time that we got with them yeah um so now we come to the thing that where there's multiple possible

[02:21:43] versions in the book and they've chosen one and that is the deaths of linol and harwin strung at heron hall and who was responsible so this happens a little bit later in in the book um in and it happens after a different event

[02:22:00] that i won't say anything more about but it the fact that harwin goes to heron hall basically is sent away from court and linol goes with him that's the same and a fire breaks out

[02:22:18] while they're asleep and they are killed along with three of their retainers and a dozen of their servants and um fire and blood says the cause was never determined some thought it was simple miss chance others believed that heron hall was cursed many believed the fire was set

[02:22:42] intentionally mushroom thinks that coreleys valerian was behind it because harwin had cuckolded his son septin uses says it was damon uh removing a rival for renera others unnamed others said it was laris since he became lord of heron hall as a result

[02:23:07] quote the most disturbing possibility was advanced by grand maester mellows who muses that the king himself might have given the command in order to remove the man who had dishonored his daughter

[02:23:19] lest he somehow reveal the bastardy of their sons um and if it was visceris who did it linol's death was an accident because it was unforeseen that he would accompany harwin to haron hall

[02:23:33] so it remains completely unknown in the book who did it there's never a confirmation of any of these theories that'd be a fun version of clue my preferred explanation is either a visceris did it

[02:23:47] and you can really see the book version of visceris doing it because he's still pretty much in control at this point but not show visceris because he's he's kind of been superseded

[02:24:01] or b haron hall is just plain cursed uh in anybody who holds it yeah the reason i don't like it being laris is because it makes him a less ambiguous character in the book he is a completely ambiguous

[02:24:15] character nobody can figure out whose side he's really on or why he's doing what he's doing and i liked him that way um the show by making him responsible for um his father and brother's

[02:24:29] death i think makes him a straight up monster um and i think the show did the same thing by making damon responsible for the murder of his wife which was not the case in the book so i think

[02:24:42] but i am glad that they didn't pin this murder on damon as well because that would just be piling too much on damon and remove any ambiguity at all that he has remaining so

[02:24:55] that was the that was the choice that they made the first choice that they've made that i really wish they hadn't made so you prefer the blood was mixed into the mortar yeah yeah that was um i thought very interesting that there were five possible explanations

[02:25:14] given in the book and as you say they chose one i didn't mind it the way you did but you know accepting that's true it does make him a less ambiguous and in some ways less interesting character

[02:25:29] but i also think of the potential explanations given in the book he actually has the strongest motive opportunity and means all combined i mean is a very clear motive um and one can guess that as a you know somewhat um crippled second son he probably

[02:25:49] wasn't very well treated by his father and brother growing up so there may be some resentment there he has a very clear motive to become the lord of heron hall and you would have to think if

[02:26:00] it is a murder he has the best opportunity and means because it is his his home like how the other ones would have even carried out such a murder is unclear um so i kind of liked it for

[02:26:13] those reasons it also gives us a villain um where in this show so far there's a lot of characters who you're sort of for and sort of against so this at least gives us a a clear villain in the

[02:26:25] sort of little finger clever not strong mode but i get where you're coming from rena your point of view certainly makes sense too well and i see your point of view as well yeah definitely it's a good point about the opportunity that he he knows the secret passages

[02:26:46] of the heron hall and he also knows the secret passages of the red keep in things landing and maybe could could sneak those guys in smuggle his um tongue less criminals in yeah

[02:26:58] yeah okay that was gross oh the that was a little little intense yeah i didn't need to see the whole thing like you know yeah could have just left it like on their backs and had the other guy

[02:27:10] being like oh no like his face you know that would have been okay yeah yeah it was a little graphic well the show is definitely not scared to be graphic no oh no kidding yeah it's been

[02:27:24] a very graphic season so far yeah um and speaking of graphic the last thing i want to talk about in the non-spoiler section is visceria's illness um so at this point in the book visceria's is 43

[02:27:42] and no longer had a young man's vigor vigor and was afflicted by gout aching joints back pain and a tightness in the chest that came and went and oft left him red faced and short of breath

[02:27:58] he's only lost two fingers to infection at this point um it not a whole arm like he's lost in the show right and he did not have any kind of leprosy you know patty consedine has said

[02:28:13] that visceria's is suffering from some form of leprosy um so some in world say that Targaryens are immune to disease um and this seems to be somewhat true in the books for regular diseases but Targaryens

[02:28:39] are subject to magical diseases like grayscale grayscale in fact was created when the Roynar that's the people of the roine river in esos uh went to war against valeria and prince garen the great

[02:28:59] of the roynar roynar was captured and hung in a cage in the festival city of croyane which is actually where um at tyrian encounters the stone men in in the books

[02:29:15] in the show they said it was valeria but i couldn't really have been valeria um and so he was hung in a cage to watch his people enslaved he called down a curse on his valerian conquerors and that

[02:29:28] night the royn river flooded and the next day there was a thick fog on the river and the valerians started to die of grayscale um so um we know of one Targaryen in you know recent times

[02:29:45] in the books who died of grayscale and that's magelle who was the daughter of jaharis and al- hussain um an aunt of king visceres uh she was a septa and she took care of grayscale patients

[02:29:59] and she contracted it herself and died of it um visceres also had a daughter named denaris who died at six of the shivers um which is an illness that was brought to estros from an unknown source through

[02:30:15] its through its ports and could possibly be a magical disease um and uh what may be the case is that Targaryens who do not have dragons are more subject to disease um king deron the second

[02:30:37] and two of his sons died of a great spring sickness and that happened at the time of dunking egg and uh they did not have dragons because there are no dragons by the time of dunking egg

[02:30:51] um and so none of these characters that i've talked about dying of diseases had dragons so but on the other hand lana died of child bed fever which is an infection uh and she did have a dragon so it is an entirely consistent but there is something

[02:31:12] going on with Targaryens and some disease resistance and visceres doesn't have a dragon right because right never has had a dragon no he did he wrote he wrote bolarian one just before he died yeah right before blarion which was probably like you know an

[02:31:34] up and a down and that was it so i guess that i i don't know if to me i don't know if that's enough to say that he had a dragon i think that he like wrote a dragon to be a Targaryen and

[02:31:46] then was like okay well i didn't really enjoy that and that was the end yeah well whether he ever was truly bonded with a dragon he has not had one for a very long time mm-hmm yeah right um does anybody else have any spoiler uh episode specific

[02:32:07] things to talk about before we move on to spoilers for the whole thing um just a couple of observations and because i'm new to your book talk maybe things that you have already talked about but new from my perspective one thing is just the

[02:32:27] nature of this book being so different from the game of their own series so like this episode when i went back to like check it against the book it only took up nine

[02:32:39] pages and even in the nine pages there were huge events that either haven't happened in the show yet or that they left out so this tiny little slice of the book is one episode of the show which is

[02:32:53] very different from the game of thrones would be multiple chapters of the book yeah um runny has been tracking how many pages every episode it uh it takes and it's been five so the fact that this episode was nine pages yeah we like doubled the amount

[02:33:11] yes but but it probably was five because i would say half of that nine page span was about stuff that hasn't happened yet right because it's you know a little bit out of order are they

[02:33:21] that's right they haven't gotten there yeah and then it also occurred to me that this year of 120ac is was like the year of 2020 ad catastrophe years of catastrophe they probably were like is this 120

[02:33:39] ever gonna be over yeah um hey i'm still saying that about 2020 yeah me too and then i mean the other part we've just already talked about today and i'm sure you've talked about it before but um

[02:33:55] the fact that we have to sort through the multiple explanations and the show runners have to chart a path through that that both makes the choice they think is most dramatic but also

[02:34:07] they're gonna have to hold it together like so it makes sense as they continue on through i think that is quite a challenge for them it really is interesting to me it's interesting to me how

[02:34:17] they take the two stories and they kind of find like enough the writers seem to find enough similarities in both of the stories to make it like okay so this is probably the truth you know so

[02:34:30] we're going to we're going to make both stories true but we're also gonna make both stories false yes and i think that they've walked a really nice line of that um because as you said david that

[02:34:43] can't be easy to do to figure out what to write and where to write it and where to put it so yeah and i agree with you i think even reading this novel or these novels you can you can often triangulate

[02:34:57] what he's trying to get you to think actually happens by sort of putting the three stories together on what's the most plausible so maybe that's really what they're doing well you know they always say there's just a little bit of truth in every lie

[02:35:12] maybe a lot of it a little yeah best lies have a little bit of truth sprinkled in them yes very good that's good that's what it is good job rima rima brought it home rima do you want to add anything for before we get into the next part

[02:35:32] no i i think i'm ready for war the full on spoilers okay so we are moving into the next phase warning please turn it off if you don't want to go any further this is your warning right now

[02:35:48] five four three two one all right anything goes guys fire breathing dragons ahead turn abandon hope all you who enter here exactly run away run away okay we'll build a giant eva um all right so who wants to go first helena is a dragon dreamer yes yeah

[02:36:18] um man isn't she a dreamer i mean she's just her little comments that she keeps making you know you're just like wow you're prophesizing everything she has a you know she says something

[02:36:32] really prophetic she says aamond will have to close his eye before he gets a dragon oh man that was of course that owing yeah this is the event that they skipped over um because that

[02:36:48] that whole thing where um aamond claims vagar uh and the uh valerian boys confront him they have a fight and um luke uh takes out aamond's eye uh that you know that and then aamond says uh

[02:37:15] he lost an eye and gained a dragon and he counted that a good trade i'm assuming this is coming in the next episode of the show because they spent a lot of this episode

[02:37:26] for definitely with the kids fighting and the aamond wanting a dragon right and then and then the trailer for next week they said vagars somebody's taken vagar so yeah i don't know to me i was like

[02:37:40] oh okay well i know what's gonna happen yeah um and there's no there's no suggestion so there are a lot of targaryens who have what are generally called dragon dreams right that they have prophetic

[02:37:56] dreams um there's no suggestion in the books that she is one but they're clearly making her one in the show which is very interesting because poor helena of all the characters who have all the

[02:38:08] really horrible things happen to them helena has my vote as me the worst i'd agree that she it's definitely up there uh with with the amount of bad things it's terrible but i i still feel renera goes through

[02:38:26] probably well in my opinion a good point um but yeah the things helena endures in in the in the near future yeah you know she and she always seemed to be somewhat more innocent than a lot of the other

[02:38:41] yes characters as well um yeah you know she's she's described in in the book as a pleasant happy girl plumber and less striking than most targaryens but the show is doing something interesting with her

[02:38:57] i don't know what was up with the bugs um it almost seems like she's they're presenting her as maybe on the autism spectrum i i wondered that too and i know since they're kind of playing with her

[02:39:15] maybe being a dreamer um is it part of the lore and and again freaking me because i feel like i'm still catching up on a lot of things and the and the lore uh that many dreamers are um

[02:39:26] oh i don't know if you'd want to say introverted but very you know quiet and yeah drawn and kind of like luna lovegood yeah for harry hotter fans right you know luna lovegood was she was very aware

[02:39:42] of everybody's aura and of you know things that were happening but she was out to lunt if you had actual conversation with her um you know i and i have seen in some comments um both on reddit and

[02:39:56] in some of the facebook feedback and whatnot that there is a thought that helena may be displaying autism traits which would you know which would be you know kind of a new thing to display

[02:40:11] something like that in westeros but um you know it could be a fine line between uh something like autism and being a dreamer and which way you're gonna play it i also don't think that um any of

[02:40:25] the targaryen children are loved by their mother or you know paid attention to by their father so you know a lot of kids have different coping mechanisms for the boys it's it's being little jerks and for her it's probably withdrawing within herself and playing with bugs which is

[02:40:45] interesting because larry's has you know that bug or beetle on his cane yes very weird you know it's very interesting how bugs i saw it called a firefront is that what it i'm not sure beetle

[02:41:00] it looked like a beetle to me but i other people have identified it as a firefly any entomologists here on our call today nobody weird um so one of the things that they don't bring up is that uh helena has a dragon

[02:41:25] and her dragon is dreamfire and it's dream fires egg that daemon stole to try to give to mysaria um several episodes ago um dreamfire is an older dragon unlike her brothers who have young new

[02:41:43] hatchlings dream fires an older dragon um who was previously written by the princess reina who was the daughter of king anise the first who is um the son of agon the conqueror and

[02:42:02] uh his uh wife uh reine was she reneera when she had reines she had one of those rhaen names um not the senya the other one so um the previous the previous writer of dreamfire was

[02:42:27] um you know a member of a generation not that far removed from agon the conqueror so dreamfire is a pretty formidable dragon and that's helena's dragon so she's got a better dragon than her brothers have in some way yeah and that was dreamfire although you

[02:42:52] wouldn't necessarily know that from anything that was said in the show that aamond went and tried to claim who chased him away who breathed fire at him and we had seen that shot in the um

[02:43:06] in the trailers and i think a lot of people thought that was daemon just because all you saw really from behind was the hare um trying to steal the egg but it turned out to be aamond

[02:43:18] going after dreamfire in that sequence um another uh mention that i noted was ricalio rindun who i had talked about before as you know the the new commander in the stepstones after cragis the

[02:43:38] crav feeder was killed and i don't know if since they brought him up that will get him in a future season or if that was just a tease for book readers yeah i wondered if some of the

[02:43:53] occurings in stepstones was going to come back since it was mentioned here yeah hard to know where they're where they're going to go with that and part of that depends on when they end

[02:44:08] and you know there's so many different points at which they could end they could end with the end of the civil war but that's such a downer of the of an ending i don't know if they can actually do

[02:44:19] that or they could go through the reign of agon the second or they could go all the way to the end of the book fire and blood i would have i which is what i hope they do i told uh dav the other day

[02:44:32] that i want the last shot of the whole series to be jayme killing the mad king you think it'll go that far you know well that would be great except that hasn't been written yet well i still think

[02:44:47] it'll be amazing in the source material yet it would be amazing yeah it would be i would be um the other person that we see on the small council is tyland lannister who is jason landish

[02:45:01] sir's smarter brother um and he is going to be on that small council for quite a while and he's going to be playing a very important role going forward and he is one of the characters

[02:45:16] who actually manages to redeem himself eventually so because he he comes back as egg on the third's hand for a while after he's been tortured and had his nose cut off and

[02:45:32] his ears cut off and what have you and um so he wears a veil and a lot of people think that he's wicked and scary because he's wearing a veil to cover over the horror that is it's his face

[02:45:42] but he's actually very good at being handed very loyal to egg on the third so um he's a he's a character that we haven't seen much of yet but could be much more important going forward

[02:45:57] i hope we never see jason lander store again but i i mean tyland is interesting yeah i wouldn't be mad about that i kind of like seeing him scowl yeah like all shucks i didn't get it yeah um it's funny uh la la la anything else

[02:46:21] those were the ones that i that i had for the spoiler section okay how about you david um i'm good covered okay rinny was covered this very thoroughly yeah uh rima

[02:46:37] i have a few things uh just mostly observations or just quick notes really uh you know in this episode we got to see cracksies and vagar together and yeah what makes me really sad is the next time

[02:46:53] like these two dragons see each other i'm really dreading that moment i think everyone who's read the books knows what i'm talking about it breaks my heart yep yep so they almost looking forward to

[02:47:08] that they teased us with that because they were they kind of did this like fake fight where lana asked vagar to dracaris and then damon flew through the fire so it was almost kind of like

[02:47:22] staging a fake fight yeah too much foreshadowing there i know it was it was just too much because they it just looks so happy the dragons looked in sync you know because you can just kind of

[02:47:34] because we we skipped so much you know because you know as you were talking earlier um you know lana and rinnear's friendship and how damon rinnear and lana would all go dragon

[02:47:47] riding together and and you get just a small glimpse of the two dragons kind of in sync and in harmony with their dragon riders and then i thought oh my gosh the next time these two

[02:47:58] see each other it's going to be absolute destruction it's going to break my heart yeah um yeah so that that that was sad for me there's going to be a lot of sadness coming up i know um yes

[02:48:13] well and then speaking of vagar sorry just going through my notes um and then speaking of vagar you know knowing what what vagar did to lana what lana asked a vagar to do and the confusion

[02:48:24] that she felt and and what it did to vagar to to actually go through with that and knowing that vagar was a lonely i feel a lonely dragon that she kind of mentioned um little lana when we first met her

[02:48:39] when she was only what 12 years old in that little talk that she was having with visceris when he was considering becoming engaged and making her a wife um she's like oh the sailors

[02:48:51] mentioned you know that when they catch glimpses of of vagar that she's sad and she's lonely and then i think of the happiness that must have been for the both of them for lana and for vagar

[02:49:01] to find each other and that vagar is no longer a lonely dragon and and you could kind of see that bond between them that confusion for vagar um for what she had done and that she was probably

[02:49:14] sad from that and then knowing that that rat bastard amon's going to claim her and the damage that indistruction that he's going to do after he claims her rip that rips my heart out um to have

[02:49:25] to see that um so i'm not looking forward to that i why am i watching this show it's just gonna all break my heart and make me sad um yeah okay let's all just quit watching it at this

[02:49:36] point we don't need to see anymore this is gonna just get worse as we go well i mean you read the book and it just gets worse and worse and worse like every time you turn the page or like we're

[02:49:45] we're gonna i don't want to do this what we're gonna do this i know i know i can't believe i'm gonna watch this like play out on screen it's so terrible to read it but now i have to watch it

[02:49:57] on screen and it's gonna be visual but uh yeah there's no happy endings in this thing we've all been at this one long enough i know no i know better i know better um i really feel like they're

[02:50:10] trying to make us feel a little bad for amon here which i thought was interesting because yeah i don't showing how he was getting bullied well i i don't but i think that's maybe what they're trying to

[02:50:20] do maybe is trying to make us feel a little bad for him that he's getting picked on and he's kind of getting bullied by the rest of the kids and stuff um another foreshadowing moment um

[02:50:30] um the cut from lana's last moments when she was burned by vagar they cut to renera another moment where they're kind of foreshadowed yes yes oh oh yes and back to targaryen's not

[02:50:45] being immune to fire um so lana is half targaryen her mother is targaryen and she was not immune to fire and um agon is going to be very very badly burned by a dragon uh he's not immune to fire either

[02:51:02] right yeah i think george rar martin kind of settled that he said targaryen's are not immune it was a denaris in her being unburnt as he called her uh was a miracle in a magical moment so

[02:51:18] right uh and and like you said earlier christin um viscari certainly was not immune to that golden crown right and then helena we were talking about helena being a dreamer and you know the

[02:51:30] comment that she made about uh amond or well the comment she made about the eye closing the eye and in reference to amond uh that we know but she also said the last ring has no legs at all

[02:51:42] and that was as she was playing with the bug and i wondered if that had to maybe a little to do in reference to agon the older agon agon II when he later ends up being disabled and impotent from

[02:51:53] his battle with baila where he's pretty much not walking oh a hundred percent yeah because because he breaks both his legs yeah very good catch very good catch uh and then harwin strong

[02:52:07] oh god he can't talk about harwin today uh but when he was saying goodbye to runeira and the boys he says the next time that we meet i'll be a stranger and then we all know in the religion

[02:52:20] of the seven the stranger represents death oh very good yeah very good that's very good that was amazing it gave me chills i was like no don't say that they got me a stranger that means

[02:52:35] um and then runeira used the secret tunnels again when she went to go spy on harwin and his father and you know they keep showing us those tunnels i think again letting us know they're there

[02:52:50] i mean if if we're going to see events play out that we've talked about a couple of times if they're actually going to show us that yeah tunnels and rats tunnels rats and bugs well i i wondered about the rats and i saw rats again

[02:53:06] twice we heard them once and we saw them in viscerus's chambers yep well i didn't know if this would be a spoiler or not so maybe it's a good place to talk about this

[02:53:15] and not in the main part of the pod podcast but there's a theory that laris is a warg and that he because we keep seeing the rat is he warging into the rat and spying so yeah this theory was

[02:53:30] originated by joe magician who has a youtube channel who thinks that larry strong is a a green seer and potentially a skin changer this is a fairly new theory okay now aren't skin

[02:53:49] changers and wargs only from the north well laris the in this the strong family have um the the blood of oh shoot um they're a first man they're a first man family like the soul

[02:54:03] blood of the first man okay yep yeah okay well then that i mean it's that's a theory i mean i don't know that's just i feel like they keep throwing that out there we

[02:54:14] keep seeing the darn rats i know in these moments and and you know i think the rats also indicate just the decay of the royal family the decay of the ceris the corruption in the realm

[02:54:29] but i think that they're also just really pointing towards blood and cheese yeah i feel like yes that's probably it um but i i feel like there's so many different ways to take it too i guess it's just

[02:54:41] you know perspective and and who's you know yeah however you however you interpret it right but i wondered about that i was like well that would be a really interesting they keep focusing on it and drawing our attention to it um often my really dumb thought my really

[02:54:57] dumb thought during all this lairis stuff was how did i never notice before that lairis rhymes with verus yeah i think you know i think george r martin had to have done that on purpose

[02:55:10] and starts with an l like little finger so his little finger varies yeah yeah oh man good pickup wow um but that's that's all i had was just a couple of those foreshadowing moments and just

[02:55:24] a few observations outside of what we already talked about okay well this was this was a good talk i really i really liked this uh this talk so um if that's it for everybody we're gonna end

[02:55:41] book talk here and thank you to archmeister renny for your unending wisdom and um stories we really appreciate it when you can come on every week and give us your um give us your knowledge

[02:55:57] for the week well thank you and i will head back to the citadel and i will try my best to stay out of the way of the high towers well if you run into auto just you know throw them in a pit

[02:56:08] yeah i'll do that thank you thanks renny okay bye everyone bye bye well next week we will be covering season one episode seven of house of the dragon titled drift mark um can't wait for that one can't wait to see what happens next and

[02:56:32] David thank you so much for being a part of the show this week you were fantastic my pleasure you too what a joy to be uh to do this with you so this was really fun i i remember the last time

[02:56:45] that we podcasted together was on the rewatch for game of thrones so it's good to it's good to be back uh in the microphone land with you likewise yep um so if you uh want to leave

[02:57:00] feedback for next week you can leave feedback at our podcastica facebook page we post weekly feedback threads or you can leave feedback by email at dragoncastica at gmail gmail.com go out and leave a review and please subscribe to dragon cast on apple podcast

[02:57:23] you can find dragon cast and a bunch of other great podcasts at podcastica.com yeah and we really appreciate um everybody that has given their rating so far and has subscribed um in doing so you've really brought the attention of our podcast up

[02:57:45] quite significantly and that's because of you guys and we really thank you for listening we thank you for being a part of the conversation for giving us a rating um it's all for the good

[02:57:58] and we just appreciate you so much so thank you yes all right that's our show thanks for listening everyone until next time i'm rima i'm christin and i'm david jacarice