House of the Dragon S3E1 "Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood"

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[00:01:00] Hmm. Hmm. Podcast begin! Hey everybody, I'm Wendy. I'm Renny. And I'm Veronica. And this is Dragon Cast, a podcast dedicated to House of the Dragon.

[00:01:31] This week we're discussing the premiere episode of season three of House of the Dragon, Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood. And that title pretty much sums up the episode. Yep. Yeah. So Wendy, I want to know how surprised you were that we lost a major character this episode. I did not know. And I was very surprised and heartbroken.

[00:01:59] And at the end I was like, why am I watching this now? Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, it was so hard to watch the dragons get hurt. Yes. Yes. And then when Jace like swam up to the water, I'm like, well, at least Jace is okay. And then no. And then not so much. Jace is not okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:28] No, I was pretty shocked. Yep. Yeah. So I rewatched the last episode of season two. And that montage at the end that was such a frustrating season ending last season. It really does lead right into the first episode. Yeah. Of this season.

[00:02:55] So in that montage, we saw the new dragon dragon riders being armored. Raina finding sheep stealer. The high tower on the army on the march with Darren on to Sarian flying with them. The winter wolves crossing the river at the twins. Jason Lannister's army marching east. Damon leaving Harrenhal with his army. Thailand Lannister with Sirocco Lohar's fleet.

[00:03:22] Corlys and Alan taking ship. Larry Senegon escaping the King's Landing and Otto Hightower in a prison cell. So this episode. It picks up right on all those storylines, except for Otto to Hightower. And we still don't know where he is. Yeah. Did we see Darian? Um, we saw him, but we didn't really meet him.

[00:03:52] Okay. Like he almost stayed out of focus. Yeah. Okay. The majority of the time. The redhead behind Ormond Hightower. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. He does. Unlike his brothers. He does not have Targaryen hair. He has Hightower hair. Mm hmm. I can definitely see like it felt like a season finale. But also. What a miserable place that would have left us for so long.

[00:04:20] At least we get to move on next week with new things, you know? Yes. And that would have left season one and season two ending with the loss of one of Rhaenyra's children. That's true. Yeah. That's hard. Hey, we can have three more seasons because she's got three more children. She's got to age them up a little so it means more, right? Oh, God.

[00:04:48] Um, what were yours overall thoughts? I liked it a lot. Um, it was a lot. I really was expecting the battle of the gullet to take up the majority. And I feel like we had a whole episode before we got to the actual battle. Yeah. It really felt like two episodes in one. Um, so I felt sort of pleasantly surprised at how much we really caught up with all those characters.

[00:05:17] Like you said, except for Otto. Um, yeah, I'm devastated obviously at how it ended even knowing from the book, but I thought it was a great show. And really just the scale of the episode was really impressive. It, I said it felt like two episodes, but it really felt like a movie, right? Like, yeah, that much production going into it. And the battle was just wild.

[00:05:45] I've watched the battle scene three times now, and I still feel like I could go back and watch it five times more. I feel like it's so fast and there's so much to pick up on it. Yeah. I really, truly loved, um, A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, but, you know, dragons. Yeah. And so many dragons. So many dragons. We saw almost all of them this episode? I think, I think I read it.

[00:06:15] There was eight. Yes. We didn't see Helena's dragon Dreamfire. Or Rhaenyra's dragon. Or Cyrax. I don't think we've ever seen Dreamfire, have we? No, we, I don't think we have seen Dreamfire. Okay. Because Helena doesn't ride. It's interesting that they say that Helena doesn't ride, but she would have had to claim that dragon. Yes. That wasn't her birth dragon. It was, it was an egg that was in her cradle. Oh, it was? Yes. Okay.

[00:06:44] But she has ridden, she just chooses not to. Okay. I thought they said, born when Aegon was still the conqueror, Dreamfire. Oh, that's right. Oh, that's right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, so she did, that's right. She did claim an adult dragon. Yeah. You're right. Yeah, so I was having a little trouble putting that together. Yeah, that's right.

[00:07:08] Because I was like, well, if she doesn't like to ride, you'd think the dragon would notice. Yes. Well, just, if you don't ride the bond doesn't end. Right. Right. How about you? Run. I, I thought it was a great episode. I loved it. Um, they have diverged significantly from the book.

[00:07:37] But for the most part, I'm totally okay with that. Um, and I think, uh, this whole season is going to be pretty fabulous. Yeah. All right, who wants to go first? I feel like my notes are a bit discombobulated. I have a lot of little things. Same. Yeah, so do I. Yeah.

[00:08:06] I have, I might start because I have one. Okay. Go. Pretty coherent, um, point to start with, which is fighting the patriarchy. Ha ha.

[00:08:18] Um, uh, Rhaenyra says, um, uh, when she's locked in the, in her room on Dragonstone with Miss Arya, um, she says something that is actually a quote from Queen Elizabeth the first. Uh, Elizabeth the first said, I may have the body of a weak, feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

[00:08:46] Rhaenyra says heart and spirit, but evidently Elizabeth said heart and stomach, although the historical accuracy of speeches by monarchs in that time period before recording was, you know, a little bit shaky. Um, so Elizabeth first said this to her troops in a speech at Tilbury, T I L L B U R Y Tilbury. That's a place in England when they were anticipating an invasion by the Spanish Armada. Okay.

[00:09:16] And when she gave that speech, it was, it was a classic, you know, Aragon whipping up the troops before the battle kind of speech. She was on a horse. She was dressed in armor. Um, and she was holding some kind of a baton or something, uh, in her hand.

[00:09:37] Uh, and, uh, so she was very much trying to portray herself as a queen who could be a wartime leader. And, um, that's very much the dilemma that Rhaenyra finds herself in.

[00:09:55] Uh, Emma Darcy said in an interview that Rhaenyra has tried to model what it is to be a ruling queen, but from here on her actions are more like a king. And, uh, you know, her own son has taken her agency away from his point of view.

[00:10:20] He's trying to protect her, but you can't imagine that he would do that to his father the way he did it to his mother. Nor would the Kingsguard have listened. No, the Kingsguard wouldn't have chosen the prince over the ruling queen.

[00:10:40] So I thought that was a really, so that's a different, that thing is a diversion from the book, but I thought it was really playing on the orientation that this show has. That the book doesn't really have, which is the, the patriarchy and the way that women are disempowered.

[00:11:02] And, uh, there's really no way that Rhaenyra can do anything that her advisors and her enemies will see as the right thing. Because if she tries to make peace, they say it's because she's weak as a woman. If she tries to make war, then they'll say that she can't carry out the war herself and, and they have to carry out it out and plan it for her.

[00:11:30] And, uh, they'll say that she's, um, carrying out the war because she's hysterical over the death of her son and not for political reasons. And so it's that no win situation that patriarchy puts women into. I'm going to say that's still going on. Oh yeah.

[00:11:53] I mean, like, you know, Hillary Clinton, like if she's firm, she's a bitch. Mm hmm. If she's soft, she's weak. Right. There is no win. Exactly. Right. I saw, you know, some staunch Trump supporters on some of my social media people.

[00:12:19] I know personally that when Kamala was running, were posting things about her initial relationship with her now husband who was still married, but there was no scandal. Right. They were posting things about how she's not a good role model for our daughters.

[00:12:36] I mean, while the person that you like the irony that you don't see that in the mail you're voting for, but you pick out this thing for, um, a female leader is just, it was gross. Right. And Rhaenyra's been experiencing that since she was young.

[00:12:56] And when she was young, remember when Damon takes her to the back alleys of King's Landing and Otto Hightower tells Viserys about it later. Um, Viserys says, you know, I, Damon and I went through all of those street, the street of silk when we were young men. Right. And Otto says, but you were young men, so you could do it. And that's what he tells Rhaenyra. Yeah.

[00:13:24] He said, Rhaenyra says, would I a man, I could have 10 mistresses and bastards and no one would blink an eye. And he's like, if you were a man, you're not. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I also think it was a little unreal. I didn't believe that her queen's guard would do that. And I was angry for her and I hope she hangs them.

[00:13:54] Oh yeah. I hope so too. Especially like, there was no reason for it. And you're giving power to this impulsive kid. You know, he's not been tested. He's not a warrior. He, he's, you know, I mean, he's young. So. And then he takes Bela with him. I know. I got a great idea.

[00:14:24] I was mad at her too. You come with me. Yeah. I was like. I'm mad at all of them. And Bela actually does, does better than Jace does in the battle. She saves him the first time. Um, that. Yeah. Yeah. Gets hooked. Yep. Yeah. And then at the end, the very last shot is her alone flying over the burning ships. That is a haunting image. I thought that was her.

[00:14:53] I figured that was her. Yeah. Yeah. Cause Raina finally got Sheepstealer to fly back to Dragonstone. So she was the only one left at the battle scene. Bela was the only one left at the battle scene. Poor Bela. Mm. Poor everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have to say, um, if you thought this was going to have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention. Yeah. So now what are we?

[00:15:23] So now Joffrey is the heir. Joffrey's the heir. That's right. And then one of the twins will be the heir to Driftmark. Uh, they're not twins, but they're only a year, a year, a part in age. Oh, I thought they were twins. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joffrey is now the heir to the Iron Throne. He's in the veil. Um, yes. Unprotected.

[00:15:52] He has a dragon, but it's too young to ride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Veronica? Um, I think maybe I'll just sort of piggyback and add a few additional points I had around that, around Rhaenyra and sort of not just, um, fighting the patriarchy, but I think due

[00:16:16] to all of those themes you just mentioned, you're really starting to see what I called cracks in team black. Mm hmm. Um, I think, you know, most notably what we just talked about her own son and her King's guard, some of the people she should be able to trust the most are sort of constantly opposing her. We saw with the little couple of scenes we saw of the dragon seeds.

[00:16:43] We saw Ulf sort of showing a lot of dissent and frustration at his newly appointed position and kind of already not wanting to follow the orders Rhaenyra had left and go off and do their own thing. Um, we saw everyone, you know, I kept going back and forth. I think everyone's right to question Rhaenyra's trust of Alicent. I agree.

[00:17:12] But I also think, so I don't think it's unreasonable that they all sort of were like, wait, one, what? She was here. And two, like, you're just going to blindly trust her. But on the flip side, I don't think it's crazy recognizing that Aemond and Vhagar are the only dragon they have to go up against. And if she just went in with her entire fleet of dragons, there could be losses.

[00:17:40] But wouldn't that be less than this, like, giant war that keeps spiraling out? And so even with how things played out, like if Alicent couldn't do what she said, and if Aemond did not want to leave King's Landing, they still have a pretty gross advantage, it feels like, to sort of flip things. And so I think it's still dangerous, though, to attack King's Landing if Vhagar is there.

[00:18:08] But it would be easy to confirm that Vhagar had flown away from King's Landing. And as soon as they know that, then they can just go in and it's theirs. Yeah. Because if they take on Vhagar, it's almost impossible for them to win without at least one dragon and rider going down. Yeah.

[00:18:35] But are you willing to risk that probability versus this long played out war where so many are dying and you've now lost two sons at this point? Well, obviously, when she was having that discussion, it was only one. But yeah. But taking King's Landing doesn't necessarily end the war because there's still a lot of armies in a lot of places that would keep on fighting.

[00:19:03] But if you did lose one or two dragons and took down Vhagar, then you'd still have such a gross advantage. Because all there is after that is Tesarian, right? Yes. So I don't know. I was trying to decide if I felt like Rhaenyra was being dumb or not. And I kind of went back and forth. But sort of regardless, she's supposed to be the ruler. They're her advisors.

[00:19:31] But if she lays it down, they should be falling in line. And no one is. Right. Yeah, I thought she was. She seemed quite desperate to avoid bloodshed as much as possible. And so I think she wants this to work so badly because it gives her everything she wants. It gives her she wins.

[00:19:58] She's able to take, you know, Aegon and Aemond, but leave some of who she loves intact. Allison, obviously, Helena's her sister. And, you know, she knows that she's an innocent. You know, so I think like it like hands her the solution. And so she's a little clouded about the details. Like, I think she's definitely overestimating Allison's influence. Oh, yeah. You know, but she doesn't know.

[00:20:27] She hasn't been there. But I think everything's going to change now that Jace is dead. Yeah. I don't think she's going to care so much about trying to preserve the peace. Yeah. No. She's got far less to lose. I've wondered going back to that point about sort of the patriarchy and Rhaenyra really feeling frustrated at gender roles.

[00:20:55] And I think it's pretty, or I wonder, I would imagine it's pretty profound that Emma Darcy as a non-binary person portraying this role, a lot of that has to resonate pretty deeply, right? And I thought, who better to be talking about wrestling with these boxes that societies put us in around gender than someone I think who's obviously lived that probably more really in their life. Yes. Yes.

[00:21:25] I think that was my last sort of point around that. I'll just piggyback off of what Ren had talked about. I just think we saw in this episode more of how the dragons kind of relate to each other and to their bonded partners, I guess. And I really love that.

[00:21:52] I loved all the dragons, although every time they're on the scene, I like, you know, brace myself for death and mayhem. And we see them save each other, you know, render aid to another one, which I don't think we've seen before. That was really cool. Let's see. That was Vermax that was stuck on a harpoon and Moondancer saved them. Yep.

[00:22:18] We finally see Reyna bond with Sheepstealer. I didn't think this could be any more drawn out than it was, but she seems to bond with Sheepstealer, but Sheepstealer doesn't seem to be real happy about that situation. So it's questionable. Like, Sheepstealer, you know, wasn't obeying.

[00:22:46] But also, does Reyna know how to instill that in a brand new dragon? This isn't a dragon that was raised with her from a baby. That's right. This is a wild dragon. I don't know the history of Sheepstealer. It's an outside cat. Yeah, he's just a, he's a wild dragon. Yeah. And bring an outside cat in.

[00:23:08] So the, the other three dragons that the dragon seeds claim all had riders previously. Sea Smoke, Vermithor and Silverwing. They all had previous riders. And Sheepstealer hasn't. Sheepstealer never had a rider before. He was just wild. So, right. So you have this wild dragon who's, you know, first of all, has this bonding experience, which is brand new to, to them.

[00:23:33] And then they're flown into the middle of this giant war with other dragons. How does Sheepstealer know who's the enemy and who's not the enemy? Like, I just, and I guess, you know, part of that could be Reyna's desperation and the fact that she's not an experienced dragon rider. Mm-hmm. And it all just made for chaos. Yes.

[00:24:01] And that's, I guess, what you would expect in that situation. Yes. Well, and remember, back in season one, Viserys said, it's an illusion that we control the dragons. Yeah. Yeah. And Reyna's experience with Sheepstealer really, really illustrates that. Yes. I think that's true.

[00:24:25] Even shown in season one was that Eamon didn't seem to have full control of Vhagar as well. No. No. So, I think, you know, I'm a big giant dragon and I like you, but I might not do everything you say. Yeah. I might go, you know, that little dragon over there is annoying me. I might just get rid of that. I thought watching the dragons fight was really harrowing. I wanted to hide behind something.

[00:24:55] Mm-hmm. I did not like, I wrote that down in my notes, do not like. Well, I also, when we see Caraxes walking across the battlefield, all he's doing is walking across the battlefield, but you think, what would it be like to be anywhere in his vicinity with those big old feet coming down? Yeah. Yeah. Terrifying. Yeah.

[00:25:19] And I thought, you know, it's kind of, to me, demonstrates the hubris of humans that we think we could control these magnificent beasts. Mm-hmm. And again, especially the dragons that they haven't been raised with somebody. Mm-hmm.

[00:25:42] And that very last scene of the dragon flying over the devastation and the death and the fire below. And that was Bela and Moondancer. I just couldn't help but think back on something that I believe Rhaenyra said in season two, and I think she credited it to her father, Viserys. When dragons went to war, everything burned. Yes. And that's, that's what this was. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:11] Like, she's been, this is exactly what she's been trying to avoid. Mm-hmm. And she's a good person to try to avoid that. She's a, she's the right person to rule because she doesn't want this. But everybody else seems to want it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:04] Hi, I'm LaKendra Tux and this is Tux Takes. If you love Bravo, real housewives, reality TV, TLC Hot Takes and real conversations that actually say something, this podcast is for you. I give my unfiltered opinions, share personal growth moments and break down reality TV with honesty, humor and a whole lot of heart. I always say exactly what I think, and I never hold back. New episodes of Tux Takes are out right now.

[00:27:33] Listen wherever you get your podcasts. All right. That was it for me. Cool. Back to you. All right. Well, I am going to shout out the new characters this season. Um, so, uh, first and foremost, the winter wolves, the Starks who have come down. Um, and, uh, I think a lot of book readers were really waiting for this one line.

[00:28:03] I know I was, uh, we have come to die for the dragon queen. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's, uh, Roddy the ruin. Um, he's, um, the leader of the winter wolves and he's called Roddy the ruin cause he's, he's quite old.

[00:28:24] He's a veteran of, uh, many battles and he's, um, uh, you know, pretty worn out, but still tough enough to, to fight on. Um, and, uh, these are all of the, uh, older men who leave the North when winter is coming, uh, or they don't necessarily leave the North.

[00:28:48] They just, they go out into the North or they leave the North, uh, specifically to die so that there'll be fewer mouths to feed as, as winter comes along, which is why he says, we have come to die for the dragon queen. Not we have come to fight for the, for the dragon queen. Now he wasn't a Stark, right? No, he's a Dustin. Okay. Cause he had the axe. Yeah. Emblem. The axe.

[00:29:15] Um, but he, um, these are the forces that Cregan Stark of winter fell sent down South when remember the season one Jace flies up to winter fell and, and they, and they, he and Cregan go up to the wall. And, um, um, Cregan says, I've got, I can't remember what the number is 2000.

[00:29:39] I think, um, old men that I can send you for your forces and Jake's Jace says, we'll take them. Um, so even though he himself is not a Stark, it's the, the official forces of the North. So they march under the banner of winter fell. Yep. Yeah. Roderick Dustin. It felt good to see that wolf flying though. Yeah. Yes. Especially with what they were carrying. Mm hmm. Yes. Jason Lannister's head. Yeah.

[00:30:09] It's interesting. We, uh, when we first, uh, go to that battlefield, we see the Lannister lion's head being cut off. Yeah. And then we see Jason Lannister's own head. So his lion got beheaded and so did he. That's the first thing I saw was the lion. And I was like, is that a lion? It's a lion. Yeah. The Lannisters haul their lions around with them. Seems a silly thing to do. Yeah.

[00:30:35] Um, so the winter wolves and Roddy, Roddy the ruin are amongst the new characters. And then we have Ormond Hightower, um, who, who evidently has a very delicate sense of smell. He didn't like the smell of the messenger who had ridden day and night to, to reach him in a timely manner.

[00:31:00] Um, and so he, he has his little vial of, I don't know, some kind of perfume that he holds up to his nose. Yeah. And then he, he commands that the messenger be taken out for a bath. Yeah. Like I, I thought I hated some high towers, but they just keep taking it to new heights. Yeah. At first I thought he was doing drugs or something. I'm like, what does he do it? And then it got, then I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wrote in my notes cause I don't even think I understood what was going on.

[00:31:30] Like I thought he was trying to like decide if the seal was real. I didn't realize like, yeah, what, I didn't know why he smelled that. And I just wrote in my notes, Ormond Hightower is a weird fuck. Like, I was just like, I don't know what to make of this scene, but I don't think I like him and he's weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:51] Um, and, uh, as we already said, the auburn haired guy with him, that's Daron, um, who is Alicent's youngest son, um, brother of Aemond, Aegon Aemond and Helena, but with Hightower hair rather than Targaryen hair.

[00:32:17] And he's the writer of Tissarion, who is the blue dragon, who we saw in a cage that I guarantee you would not hold a dragon. Yeah. That cage was just a suggestion. Um, and then we also, um, saw in the background, a character who we weren't introduced to, but, but we will be black alley Blackwood.

[00:32:43] Um, you just see her in the background there. She's the woman who has the black rings around her eyes with, you know, the kind of stuff that football players put on to reduce the glare, I guess. Um, yeah, she's a member of the, of the Blackwood family. And so she'll be, um, she'll have more to do during this season, I'm sure.

[00:33:12] Uh, so those are our new characters. And we said goodbye to Shirako Lohar. Yes. Who didn't make it out of the battle. Yeah. What a character. And we said goodbye to Jace. Yeah. And then like some questionable one, uh, once. Right. Uh, well, I was going to say, and lots and lots of extras. Yeah. Well, Jason, uh, uh, Thailand Lannister, he got thrown overboard in armor.

[00:33:42] Right. But like, we didn't see him die, but they sort of did like the, what's it called? Chekhov's gun or whatever, where they like commented on the armor earlier and then he's off. So I was like, that feels too, like he can't die here. Right. I don't think so. Both of them are going to die. Which means that actor got to like almost die twice in the same episode. Um, and Corleus went overboard, but we know that Corleus isn't dead because he's prominent in the trailer.

[00:34:11] For next week, you mean? No, well in the, in the trailer for the season. We see him in scenes that were not in this episode in, in the, in the trailer. So he can't be dead. Plus it's a flashback. I don't think it is, but no, I don't think so. All right. Yeah.

[00:34:36] Um, I'll just talk a little bit then about Alan and the sea snake. Mm hmm. What I wrote down that sort of unintentional alliteration, cause we have Alan, but then we got an apology, admiration and acceptance. I feel like between the, the two of them, this episode. So I think. I was like, surely they're both going to die now, but. Right. Yeah.

[00:35:05] Um, so, I mean, just a very sincere, not only apology from the sea snake, but real ownership of what, you know, his lack of, um, claiming his sons or acknowledging his sons really did. And that he can't erase that. Um, and he has to own it. Um, and they did that over a drink, which I don't think seemed very enjoyable. No. For Alan. Dragon water. Yeah.

[00:35:34] No, thank you. And then we got to see Alan really admiring the sea snake. I think truly, I think he always has, but because there's been that frustration with him. I mean, obviously he's continued to follow him as a leader, um, all these years and even like rescued him from the water once previously.

[00:35:58] But I think for the first time he admired him without like that real hardened heart against him. And as he saw the sea snake sort of guiding the ships through the teeth. And I think even before that, like, I think that was a real proud moment for him, but I sort of felt like the look he gave him when they were discussing sort of what Rhaenyra's plans were.

[00:36:22] And I feel like you could tell the sea snake maybe didn't fully agree with what Rhaenyra was doing, but he knows to follow leadership. Right. And so I think he very subtly acknowledged by saying like things are about to get crazy and sort of acknowledging that Alan wasn't wrong about what he said about Aemond not letting King's Landing go without burning it down. But he didn't bad mouth Rhaenyra.

[00:36:50] He didn't even really put voice to anything himself about what he really thought of the decision. And I think that was probably a moment of admiration from Alan, but then really just the way he watched him navigate through, um, is it the teeth? Mm-hmm. Basically, that last part that they went through, um, was pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah.

[00:37:12] And then I think like we saw the full acceptance of the sea snake when he yells out father as he watches him be thrown off, um, into the water. Um, possibly in that moment, I'm sure he thought he was dead. We don't know if he is or not.

[00:37:28] Um, but then he went and avenged his father by killing Lohar, which then I think at the end, um, you know, he's looking around himself and seeing, I think what we already commented on at the beginning of this of like, this is just all death and destruction. And even when you win, you know, he won, he killed Lohar, but there's no victory, right? Like there's no winners in this game. Um, not on that day.

[00:37:57] They lost the ship, the queen that never was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I didn't even think about that. That underwater shot looking up when it splits in half, that was amazing. Yes. Yeah. All of it was just magnificent. I can't imagine how long that took to film. I know. Didn't they say like 45 days or something for the water battle? I don't know. I watched it after.

[00:38:27] For a 26 minute scene. But it was like, at least like a month or so. Just to do that battle. And they had a dry tank and a wet tank. Yeah. They had to drain the tank and, and refill it to keep the water clean because there were so many actors in it all the time. Ugh. All right.

[00:38:46] I wanted to, um, just kind of review what happened in the battle of the gullet because I found it a lot to keep track of. So please add to this. Um, I did get a lot of this from the wiki to help me. Yeah. Okay.

[00:39:25] Yeah. Um, so that is because it has that prominent ram. Yeah. That slams into other ships like a fist and doesn't seem to break it. Mm hmm. Um, I mean, it was still intact at the very end of the battle. Mm hmm.

[00:39:44] Um, the Triarchy fleet went further north to then loop around from the east to attack out of the rising sun so that the Valerians would have very little warning of their approach. Um, and then the Triarchy fleet splits into two pincers bypassing Dragonstone because of its rocky coast. And it's very well fortified. Um. Um, and it has dragons. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:15] So that their focus was on Driftmark. Yeah. Um, most of the Triarchy fleet is in the southern pincer to stay as far away from the dragons as they can. But a small detachment is sent as a northern pincer to sneak around and burn high tide to distract and demoralize the Valerian fleet when they see smoke rising from their burning homes. Very, it's exactly what it did.

[00:40:40] Um, the commanders on both sides of the battle send signals warning the ships in their fleets not to bunch up for fear of fire attack. On the Triarchy side, Thailand says they need to spread out and stagger their ships so the dragons can't make strafing runs. On the Valerian side, Corliss explicitly sends warnings that his other ships shouldn't group too closely so they aren't susceptible to, uh, balistars and fire ships.

[00:41:14] Corliss tries to use his better knowledge of his home waters to lure Scirocco's ships over shallows in order to beat her flagship. Scirocco and the Triarchy fleet counter Jace and the other dragon riders by calmly setting up large scorpion launchers that fire grappling hooks attached to heavy weights at the other end of their ropes. That was so harrowing. Yes.

[00:41:40] And they also developed counter tactics such as using the grappling hooks. Um, Vermax's wounds were not actually fatal but the direct cause, um, was of his death was that he became so entangled in the grappling hook ropes and the rigging of crashed ships that he was dragged under the water and drowned. Has the, had this happened over land, he might have lived.

[00:42:07] Um, Jace manages to unbuckle himself from the sinking dragon only to rise above the water facing a ship filled with Triarchy crossbow men who shoot him to death. Mm-hmm. I'm sure I'm missing it but I think those were the main. Yeah. Strategy. It was an amazing battle. I mean, it just the look of it could be a movie in itself. Yes. Yeah.

[00:42:35] Well, and the Triarchy, they had experience with dragons because in the Stepstones War, um, Caraxes and Sea Smoke were both there. So they had experience with dragons before. Yeah. That's why they were prepared with the balestra to fire the grappling hook. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, that was a great summary of the battle.

[00:43:03] And, um, I would like to make my next point just following up about the Battle of the Gullet. Um. Yeah. Yeah. And we have Jace's death and what that's going to do to Rhaenyra, um, that she's gonna, you know, wanna be out for revenge now.

[00:43:29] Um, because the second of her sons has been killed, um, by the allies of the Greens, not directly by the Greens, but by the allies of the Greens. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, the shock of Jace's death. Wendy, you said you did not see it coming. And I imagine that very few non-book readers who would, who would see it coming. Yeah.

[00:43:55] I feel like it was a classic misdirection when they showed him at the end coming. Yeah. Um, I feel really sorry for Harry Collette, the actor who plays that role, because in interviews, he's been asked what this season's going to be like for Jace.

[00:44:16] And so, you know, what can he say? I die at the end of the first episode. What, what I've heard him say is that, uh, this season, Jace is very determined and very wet. Which I thought was a brilliant answer. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and this was probably filmed, this is probably one of the first things they filmed. So he's probably been done for a long time. Yeah. He's probably on to his next project. Yeah.

[00:44:45] Um, so on the official broadcast, Ryan Condal said that he thought of the, and he's the one who wrote this episode. Uh, he thought, uh, of the battle of the gullet as being like the wrath of Khan, the Star Trek movie, wrath of Khan. And Shirok Olohar is Khan. Wow.

[00:45:05] But in, unlike in, uh, Star Trek where Khan and Captain Kirk didn't get to fight it out hand to hand in the battle of the gullet. Uh, and Corlys get to fight it out. Yeah. And, uh, uh, hand to hand. Yeah. So, uh, that was, I love that reference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of his inspirations for this. And, um, another inspiration that he had for it was, um, mastering commander.

[00:45:36] And, uh, uh, I think, um, it is a, a really well filmed naval battle. Naval battles are not easy to portray. And I thought that they did, uh, a great job with this one.

[00:45:58] And it was, um, you know, a great way to start this season would have been a better way to end last season. Although, as you pointed out, then every season would end with whatever near us. It's dying.

[00:46:14] Um, one of the other things Ryan Condal said on the official podcast was, is there going to be a victor in the dance of the dragons writ large because of the high cost of this battle? Which I think is an excellent question. Is anybody going to win?

[00:46:34] Because no matter who wins in the, in a civil war, it's always families against each other, friends against each other. And the, the costs probably outweigh any possible victory. I mean, like if we look at the U S civil war, I mean, the South definitely paid a much higher price than the North did.

[00:47:01] You know, the South came out much more devastated, you know, and. Well, don't get me started on the U S civil war. I know. The South was sufficiently subjugated. Well, I'm, I'm not either, but, but I know like, especially towards the end of the war, you know, a lot of the North was fought by immigrants that were coming over.

[00:47:30] That's how I ended up in the U S. My ancestor fought for citizenship for the North, you know, up in the North, their cities weren't burned. Right. As much as like the South was surely in a much worse place. Yes. But both were definitely changed forever. You just can't, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. No.

[00:47:57] I literally wrote in my notes, there aren't any winners in house of the dragon. Yeah. And then I reflected, were there any in game of Thrones? And again, I think it's kind of a no, right? No. When you have this level of war and destruction and dragons that can be like nuclear bombs. I think I've got Padraic. I think I've got Padraic. Padraic was the way. Padraic one big time. Yeah.

[00:48:23] And I would say the winners in game of Thrones were, you know, the big battle was the living versus the dead. Yeah. Yeah. So. The living overall. Yeah. You know. But even the living, I mean, just the atrocities and the amount of loss that occurred is, it's hard to, it's hard to look at war of magnitude and feel like someone won. Yeah.

[00:48:53] Yeah. Yeah. I think Padraic won game of Thrones. Yeah. You know, there'll probably be some. Missaria will win House of the Dragon. Maybe. Maybe that would be good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, I'll just continue to talk about my favorite people to hate. We can talk about Gwaine and Sir Crispy. I don't, this is just a small point.

[00:49:20] I don't have a lot to say, but as I was watching this scene unfold, I wrote not sure who I dislike more. And then I went on to decide definitely Sir Crispy. Mm-hmm. Because he goes so quickly from Mr. Holier Than Thou to I don't care and all is lost and this war that I'm basically, like if it weren't for him, you could argue that this series of events would never have unfolded. Absolutely.

[00:49:49] And so to be so, woe is me. So I don't even care that my men are raping women. When you were so on your high horse about certain ideals is just infuriating to me. Um, and so, yeah, I just, we only got like a few minutes of them talking, but it just renewed my absolute disdain for him.

[00:50:17] Um, what was he painting on his shield? I don't know. I wrote that he was channeling Bob Ross. He's painting his own house shield or his own house, um, colors, uh, house coal. And, you know, he became a king's card and when you become a king's card, you kind of give up your family affiliations.

[00:50:42] But by painting his original device back on his shield, he's kind of going back to his roots. Was, was he a knight before he was? He was. So he was always a knight. Well, he was a knight when we met him. Yes. And Rhaenyra appointed him to the bigs card. Yeah. And he had fought in a war previously as a young man.

[00:51:12] And is that how he became a knight? Probably. By fighting in that war. And so I don't think he was like of an important house. No, he was the son of a steward. Yeah. So that's literally all I had written down about those two, but I just will never miss my chance to complain about him because he's just the worst. He is. Yeah. He is.

[00:51:39] Did you think that Allison was concerned about him and, and Gawain? Like, she seemed to be, that's what they were trying to tell us is that. Yes, I think so. Well, I think she was more concerned about Gawain because he's her brother. Right. But how does she think this is all going to end though for them?

[00:52:02] They're just like, I was, it was a little hard for me to figure out everything that was going on between that conversation with Amon and Allison. Well, and so Veronica, Kristen Cole is your worstest. Amon's my worstest. I like Amon too much. Like he's a real creep and I hate him. He's such a creep. But I love to watch him. Yeah.

[00:52:31] I mean, I mean, Damon is awful and he's like one of my favorites. Yeah. I'll fully admit, like, I'm a total hypocrite how hard I go after Allison and Crispy Cole and that I don't rail against the atrocities that Damon commits. It's like, I'll acknowledge it. But I don't know. I just don't enjoy any, there's nothing redeeming about Sir Crispy. At least Amon has some like interesting weird swagger, I guess. Yeah.

[00:53:00] I do think Allison and him together are never boring. Fair. Fair. You know, like I like to watch them two together, whatever they're doing. Whatever they're doing. Are you sure about that? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I really just have mostly small things.

[00:53:24] I do want to talk about Amon and Allison, but I've got a feeling that's your point, Renny. Oh, no, it's not. And we do have something in the news about it, but. Okay. I don't have a point about it. Helena, the last like three episodes, I have really just found Helena very interesting. I hope we see more from her.

[00:53:47] And I, you know, I mean like there's so much unsaid that we can see that she is a dreamer and a reader. And she seems to be locked on to Amon and to Aegon as well. I mean, those are her brothers. And I just really wonder what we're going to see from her because for the most part, she seems to just go along with whatever Allison says.

[00:54:14] And I do think there's a genuine mother daughter bond there. But also, I think she's going to keep surprising people. And I want to, I want to see more of Helena. Yeah. I wouldn't make you smart assessments right now. It feels like. Yeah. I mean, she has an advantage, I suppose, that she could see things. Yeah. And she thought it was. She wants to be a good person. Mm hmm.

[00:54:40] I thought it was very interesting that she said that when Amon claimed Vhagar, he forgot fear. Mm hmm. But now he's remembered it. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Because he just thought, I'm on the biggest dragon. And that's it. I'm the best. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I thought it was interesting how she avoided answering Allison's question about if she knew that Aegon was leaving.

[00:55:09] And instead redirected and fed Allison some of that important information about Aemond feeling fear because Allison hadn't even, I think, been able to step back and recognize that in her son. Mm hmm. Yeah, I get the feeling Helena kind of knows everything that's going on. Yeah. And yet everyone ignores her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:37] And is tortured by it, probably. Yeah. Uh, speaking of Aegon, what the heck, Lary's? I could not figure out what's happening there. What strategy are you employing here? Yeah. Oh, by the way, that is Aegon. That's why he won't swear fealty to Rhaenyra. What? What? That I totally did not see that coming.

[00:56:04] I don't know what his plan is to get out of this predicament, but I'm sure he's got one. I think it saved Aegon from being killed there in the moment. I don't think it was what he wanted to do, but because Aegon was too stupid to play along and swear fealty to Rhaenyra, which the irony of them asking him to do that. Like I did giggle at that moment. Well, and that's what I thought that scene was about originally. I thought that they were going to put a laugh into this episode by playing this for laughs.

[00:56:33] Uh, Lary's and Aegon swear and fealty to Rhaenyra, but that isn't the direction it went at all. So that was. Yeah, I, I had trouble figuring out what was happening or why anybody would just assume or take Aemon's word that, oh, he abdicated. Oh, okay. And they just continue on. Like. I think everyone's scared of Aemon. Cause yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:01] You know, there's, there's one man who has a super weapon and it's him. And so no one can stand up to him cause he'll just make Vigar eat them if they do. Yeah. But yeah, I, yeah. Uh, King Aemond. Mm. I don't think so Aemond. So in that scene between Alison and Aemond, I have always thought Aemond was sort of a little

[00:57:29] smarter than most of them. You know, like when Laris tries to do his manipulations, Aemond's like, no, you might've got my brother on this crap, but you're not getting me. But like in that conversation between Alison and Aemond, I couldn't figure out, like, does he believe Alison? It wasn't. I think he does. I think he has a weakness. Yeah. And that is, he's a mommy boy. Yeah, he really is.

[00:58:00] I mean, I think he's been dying for her affection his whole life. That's why we had the scenes of him with the woman in the, like the sex worker who he really just wanted to provide comfort and care. Right. Yeah.

[00:58:18] And I think, I think this, that's the only reason he's blinded here is because, I mean, she said all the things that he's waited his whole life for her to recognize in him. Yeah. And it's too close, I think. Yeah. And I think that's the only reason she was able to manipulate him. I don't think anybody else would have been able to. Yeah.

[00:58:41] And it's so interesting that Alison came from, you know, you Targaryens are queer, you know, when, when, when the rumor about Rhaenyra and Daemon happened. And now she's married two of her children to each other and she's out here with Aemon. Like. Mm-hmm.

[00:59:09] It did make me wonder because we have Aemon about to possibly go to Harrenhal and last season when Daemon was at Harrenhal, he was given visions with his mother. Yeah. And I was like, oh, we are going to get more uncomfortable scenes of Aemon and Alison together, although maybe not actually together is what I am highly anticipating.

[00:59:35] Well, you know how Ryan Condal has said that episode three is a, is a concept episode that features, focuses on one character. My money is that it's Aemon at Harrenhal. Mm-hmm. Hmm. I agree. All right. Where are Aegon and Viserys right now? That is such a good question. Last we saw. Right. We saw them.

[01:00:04] Raina was supposed to be going with them to Pentos. They were leaving the Vale and then she split off from that and went off to look for Sheepstealer. But they were going to get on a ship called the Gay Abandon, which was going to take them to Pentos because the Prince of Pentos, who previously had been host to Daemon and Lena, was going to take them in. Yeah. So who knows where they are? If they made it to Pentos or what?

[01:00:35] Just the future of the realm. That's all. Yeah. I was curious if they would change the introduction sequence again. Yeah. And they didn't. They kept the tapestry, which I really like the tapestry. Yeah. The tapestry is much better than the first season. Yeah. Did they add things to the tapestry? Okay. That's really cool. So it's basically up to date. Everything that had happened. Yeah.

[01:01:04] You know, the claiming of the dragons and everything. It was in there. Yeah. It's really cool. I like that a lot. I thought the Valerian armor was just spectacular. Mm-hmm. Loved it. I'm an armor girl. I like armor. I loved his armor, but why? Why was Lohar not wearing a helmet? I mean, I know the reason why, but it was killing me. It's because it's TV.

[01:01:33] Doesn't want to hide that spectacular hair. Yeah. Well, and likewise, Damon on the battlefield. Yeah. That's true. So annoying. Oh, right. I didn't mention that battle. I was going to mention that battle. They've taken, remember I said there were all these battles in this section of the book and that they'd probably combine them. They've taken two battles and put them together in that one. The battle of the Red Fork is where Jason Lannister died.

[01:02:03] And then the battle of the fish feed is the second battle that's put together into one battle there. Yeah. And it's also known as the battle by the lake shore because it's by the God's Eye Lake. The God's Eye where Helena predicted that Aemond would die. Just saying. That's right. Just saying.

[01:02:33] That is exactly where Helena predicted that Aemond would die. That is true. True, true, true. Yeah. That's where they are indeed. So, and also they put all the money into the Battle of the Gullet because we didn't actually see that battle. Oh, we just see the aftermath of the battle. Yeah. Which I thought was fine. It was pretty cool though. Yeah. It was fine. We didn't need a big land battle to go with our big sea battle. I just needed a Lannister head. That's all I needed. Yeah.

[01:03:03] What else I loved from that scene was not only did we get the really excellent, like you mentioned, the Winter Wolves, but we also got, it's Oscar Tully, right? Oscar Tully, yeah. Once again, like standing up to Daemon and being like, no, no, no, we do this my way. Yeah. If you want us to keep fighting for you, we're going to honor our fault the way you do here in the Riverlands. And so I thought that was great to still get more of him.

[01:03:29] Speaking of Oscar Tully, and stop me if we've talked about this before, but I saw a little tidbit that those are all named after Muppets. The Muppet Tullys, yes. Yeah, there's Grover, there's Oscar, and his older brother Kermit. Kermit. Is there Elmo? And Elmo. Yeah. Those are the four Muppet Tullys, yep.

[01:03:55] Oscar's father who died years ago in the TV was named Elmo Tully. Yep. I love how they say years ago, like, it's only season three. Yeah. Um, the theme song has been updated for season three. I noticed that. They said an alternate variant of, um, they added war drums to emphasize that the Civil War is now fully underway. I didn't notice it. Yeah. But now I'm going to go back and listen to it.

[01:04:27] I remember it sounding more profound, but I didn't notice it was different enough. Yeah. I did my rewatch like in the summer of last year. It's in the, it's in the beginning that it sounds different. Yeah. Um, I really liked the dragon seeds, particularly Ulf being scared the crap out of by Alice Rivers.

[01:04:53] Actually, also, of course, we did have someone episode one taking a dump, um, Ulf when he got scared by her in very. Yeah, that was like the, the influence of night of the seventh kingdom. Yeah. House of the dragon. I didn't wonder how the heck Alice Rivers got there. You can't get to the God's eye if you don't have a dragon. Cause if you try to get there on a boat, the boat just will never arrive. Cause it's. Maybe she wasn't really there. I think that's what I think. She was not really there. That it was a projection.

[01:05:23] I thought it was that she was never really at Harrenhal. The island. She was always where she was. Oh no, I think she was really at Harrenhal. Okay. I thought. At the end of season two. The man, the, um, who's the, who's the main guy? Lord strong. Um, yes. Steven. Yeah. Stefan. No. Um, I love him though. He's great. Oh yeah. He is great.

[01:05:54] But strong. I thought he said, Oh, Alice is somewhere else. When we had just seen her in a vision. So that's why I didn't think she was at Harrenhal really. She was supposed to be like, Oh, help someone heal. Yeah. She went to, to heal Grover Tully. And the implication is that she killed him. Okay. Okay. All right. But we don't know how much time is passing. Yeah. Cause Damon is so out of it. So I didn't, I didn't take it that she wasn't really there.

[01:06:24] Okay. Yeah. That's sort of how I took it. I still don't know who, like, who's she pulling for? Like, she seemed to both like help and hurt Damon. Yeah. And, but then she's done things. And then like actually going to warn the dragon seeds today was maybe good. Mm-hmm. But then also maybe bad because if Aemond really is about to head up that way, maybe they should be there. I don't know.

[01:06:53] So I can't quite figure what her role truly is. So the actor who plays the Lannister twins is Jefferson Hall. Mm-hmm. And this was his second onscreen death in the world of Westeros because he previously appeared in Game of Thrones season one as Hugh of the Vale, the newly promoted knight who was lanced through the throat by Gregor Clegane during the joust.

[01:07:23] So if he is indeed dead, I don't think he is. But if he is like if both the Lannister twins are dead, he's died three times. Yeah. Huh. I mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I do love his character though. I have, I didn't, but I have come to really love him, especially, um, Ty, Tylin. Yeah. Yeah. Same. I liked his, uh, discovering the complexity of swords for hire this episode and why.

[01:07:51] It's not like signing a contract doesn't mean anything. Right. Sir Simon Strong, who's the Castellan at the parent home right now. Yeah. Um, I also just wanted to say, I know we talked a little bit about dragons, but I know we have a lot of pretty dragons, but I think like, despite his bad actions this episode, like sheep stealer has really like endeared himself to my heart with his snaggled tooth face.

[01:08:21] Yeah. Oh my God. Like, I don't know. I mean, maybe that says something like, I don't know. I've had a few like bedraggled looking pets in the past that I just can't help but want to love and take care of. And I think sheep stealer a little bit has stolen my heart and I really hope that things get straightened out for Raina to be able to ride him effectively. She seems like a, like a, yeah, a dog or a cat that just needs some love and coaxing. Mm hmm.

[01:08:52] Mm hmm. Well, it seems like Rhaenyra might need her if, if she can get her dragon under control. Yeah. Small note is just, I touched on it, but I didn't actually talk about Ulf getting upset about the specifics of realizing that because you're a knight, you don't get a castle. Yeah.

[01:09:20] Um, and how frustrated he was and like, I don't need a horse. I've got a dragon. I've got a dragon. Um, but it seems so like, I mean, he came from nothing and you think he would be a little bit grateful or, you know, but he is not like he wants it all. He's just a jerk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:50] I, I kind of got impatient with that. Mm hmm. I think it makes sense though. Like if you came from nothing and suddenly you have one of the most powerful weapons sort of beholden to you to be frustrated that the literal like king and queen are king and queen theoretically because they have those same weapons, especially for someone like Ulf who's come from small folk.

[01:10:16] Like that's why Targaryens conquered, um, Westeros to begin with is their dragons. And so I don't think it's a, I think it seems very natural that you would very quickly have that frustration of like, well, why can't I have a big castle? Like I'm just as good as them. So yeah, I'm frustrated with him. I don't like it because I think he should be sort of like grateful and excited at this opportunity.

[01:10:43] And I do think it like, it makes sense that you would kind of go down that path. I think Rhaenyra should just cut his head off now. Well, probably. Yep. I mean, you know, this guy's going to the highest bidder. He has zero loyalty in him. If you're, if you're going to go take on Vhagar, you send Ulf and Silverwing first. Yes. Yes. Which often soften the crowd, right? Yeah.

[01:11:13] He also seemed to believe that he could go take on, uh, Aemond and Vhagar. So yeah, it may not be a bad plan. Yeah. Just send him first. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go. Well, he's a big talker and then he chickens out. Right. Cause yeah. You know, always talking about his Targaryen connections, but then when the chance comes to go claim a dragon, he says, Oh, I can't go. I'm not going. Right. And his friends sort of make him go. Yep.

[01:11:44] That was all I had. Okay. I've officially highlighted all my notes. So I think I got through all of them. All right. Let's go ahead and move to news. All right. Um, house of the dragon season three, episode one sets an IMDB score record. So, um, as it stands, this is from Forbes magazine by Paul Tassie.

[01:12:11] As it stands house of the dragon season three, episode one, salt and sea fire and blood has a 9.4 out of 10 on IMDB. That's a record that ties just one other episode in the series season two, episode four, the red dragon and the gold that featured an epic dragon battle that ended with the deaths of Rhaenys and her dragon Melyse and the burning of Aegon and sunfire by Aemond beginning his rise to power, which sees him acting as king in season three.

[01:12:39] That was certainly a fantastic episode as well. As for this score, the 9.4 out of 10 may be a tie for the house of the dragon record, but it's still not an all time thrones in the all time thrones pantheon. There are a full 17 episodes of game of thrones with a 9.4 or above, including the double 9.9s of battles, the battle of the bastards and the winds of winter at the end of season six.

[01:13:07] Those are actually two of the highest scored episodes in IMDB history. Wow. The very short six episode first season of a night of the seven kingdoms already has two episodes at 9.5, though one at one point was a perfect 10 before breaking breaking bad and seven kingdoms fans started a ratings war. Yes, seriously. House of the dragon season three has already set the overall rotten tomatoes record for seasons of the show.

[01:13:36] Now at 95% future episodes are said to potentially be even better. So we'll see what those individual nightly scores do. Nice. Wow. I'm glad people really liked it. Me too. Yeah, me too. And I'm excited to think about that the rest of the season may have even better. Yeah, that's awesome. All right.

[01:14:04] So next up we have house of the dragon season three premiere sparks sparks meme meltdown. And this is from Mamta wrote from Mashable. And I can already just from the title tell you like this is very true. I've had friends blowing up my phone with with memes of house of the dragon already. It's really sick. The dragons returned the chaos followed and within minutes the internet collectively screamed. What did we just watch?

[01:14:34] Because house of the dragon season three didn't just drop a shocking moment. It unleashed a full blown meme apocalypse after Aemon Targaryen kissed his mother, Alysyn Hightower. Yes, that scene and fans are absolutely spiraling. The emotional whiplash was instant. One viral post perfectly captured the mood shift. I'm so glad house of the dragon is back.

[01:14:56] 60 minutes later, cue a dramatic reaction clip that basically sums up the fandom's mental state regret shock and a touch of existential dread. That's the power of one scene and house of the dragon knew exactly what it was doing. If confusion had a voice, it would sound like this. Why Aemon just kissed his mother on the mouth? No analysis, no deep dive, just pure unfiltered disbelief. And honestly, fair.

[01:15:24] Because even in a universe where family trees loop back on themselves, this moment hit differently. Fans who thought they were desensitized to Targaryen traditions suddenly found their limits fast. Within minutes timelines were flooded. One user joked, alternate title for house of the dragon season three episode one. How not to train your dragon. There's a lot of rain on sheep stealer like that. Another summed up the emotional toll.

[01:15:50] We're one episode into the new season of house of the dragon and it has already ruined my mental health. Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. All right. Ewan Mitchell and Olivia Cooke discuss the disturbing kiss scene in house of the dragon premiere. This is from Grace leader from parade.

[01:16:09] While incest stories are nothing new in the game of thrones universe, the kiss between Allison Hightower and her son, Aemon Targaryen in the house of the dragon season three premiere feels like something different altogether. And in exclusive interviews with parade. And in exclusive interviews with parade, Olivia Cooke and Ewan Mitchell opened up about filming the disturbing scene, what the kiss means for their characters and why Allison may be too afraid to reject her son.

[01:16:36] Mitchell for one had a visceral reaction when he watched the finished episode. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit when I watched it for the first time the other day. It was just so horrible and creepy in the way that he slowly leans in to do it. The actor notes the suspense comes from giving the audience just enough time to understand what Aemon is about to do while still hoping he will stop himself. I feel like they gave more time than we needed. Yeah.

[01:17:06] There's a moment where you're like, no, he's not going to do it. Is he going to do it? And then he does it. Cooke initially tried to sum up the scene in three words. It was hot. She initially jokes. No, it was weird. She goes on to say, I think both Ewan and I felt a little bit like, oh, God.

[01:17:27] Although Cook and Mitchell are close in age, she has spent years approaching their scenes through the perspective of a mother concerned about her increasingly dangerous son. Even though we're practically the same age, I have been imbuing my relationship with him with nurturing care and with caution as well because he's very unpredictable person. That established dynamic made the kiss feel like a devastating shift for Allison.

[01:17:52] For this relationship to take that left turn is something that is at once just devastating, Cook says. I think for a parent, I couldn't really draw upon anything in my own personal life, so I just had to imagine. Footnote, Olivia Cook is 33 and Ewan Mitchell is 29. He's actually like five years older than the actor who plays Agon. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That was good. That was good.

[01:18:20] Like, I didn't think, like, I didn't think Allison was a willing participant in that. I think she was just doing it to continue. She needed him. Yeah. To believe her. Yeah. And do what she wanted him to do. And she was not going to stop at anything to get that. I mean, she has to. So, and after he walks away, you can see the expressions that go over her face that yeah, she was not into that at all. No. Wow.

[01:18:49] Uh, my friend, Sam, who many of us here know, sent me a few memes and I think related to these last two. I'll just read two of them that I think are pretty good. Um, someone named Caspian had posted. I saw someone say the ship name between Alyssa and Aemond is Almond. I said, I bet it is. I'm allergic to that shit because it's nuts. So how about. Nice. The internet is so good.

[01:19:17] And then someone else was like, somebody just referred to House of Dragon as keeping up with the Targaryens and I'm not okay. I thought that was really good too. Yeah. All right. Um, how the House of the Dragon erases an important book character in the season three premiere by Megan McCluskey from Time magazine.

[01:19:38] When we lost saw Raina in season two, she was scurrying around the valleys of the veil in hopes of finding sheep stealer and making good on what seemed like her last plausible shot at securing her own dragon. In Sunday's premiere, we saw her mount sheep stealer for the first time and prove herself to be a worthy enough rider for him to hunt and barbecue a meal for her.

[01:20:00] This moment seemed to confirm fan speculation that Raina is taking over the role of Nettles, an important character from George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood. The A Song of Ice and Fire companion book on which House of the Dragon is based in the show's version of the Dance of the Dragons. In Fire and Blood, Nettles is a lowborn teenager who is described as foul mouthed, filthy and fearless and is considered a dragon seed.

[01:20:27] However, unlike Adam, Hugh and Ulf, it's unclear whether she actually has any true Valyrian dragon lord heritage. Instead of claiming sheep stealer by traditional means, she instead befriends the wild dragon by bringing him a freshly slaughtered sheep to eat every day until he gets comfortable around her. She's also the only female dragon seed and in the book, the only canonically black character.

[01:20:54] Since it seems like Nettles' duties will now pass to Raina, we won't get into the specifics of everything the fan favorite character does to assist Team Black throughout the Dance of the Dragons. But the switch up implies there's one important Nettles storyline that likely won't play out with Raina in the same way it did in the book. Gotta read the book for that. Yep. I wouldn't completely rule that out.

[01:21:23] That's all I'll say about that. Yep. You should talk about it in book talk though. Yeah. All right. We have some listener feedback. All right. First from Megan Dively Layman. My jaw was on my lap when the one-eyed creeper kissed his mom and it was on the ground when Jace was shot. Oh, wow. What did I watch? The sea battle felt like an instant masterpiece.

[01:21:53] I need to watch just that part twice more. RIP to the crazy naval lady, an unforgettable character. Allyson is so clucking done with Targaryens, even her own. She's got the ick. And that actress who bugged her eyes out and scream cried the whole episode trying to deal with sheep stealer did a great job. She really did. Like, pure terror. Not everyone can be stoic and brave.

[01:22:22] Sometimes you're brave even when you're scared out of your tree. I like that. I liked it when he brought her dinner and barbecued it to order. She ate that sheep like the yellow jackets ate Jackie. Ooh. Holy shit. Wow. School alert. I'm going to bed. Then she came back and said, okay, it's the morning and I've calmed down a little bit. First of all, I don't think Corleus is dead because we didn't get that much payoff from his disappearance into the water.

[01:22:50] Although it did allow his bald bastard son to have a hero moment that was quite touching. Second, sheep stealer has the largest underbite I've ever seen in my life. Even more impressive and underbite than the guy once briefly dated from Louisiana. This is great. Third, if Allison's daughter has divine sight, will she turn against her brothers too and work with her mom to put Rainier on the throne as well?

[01:23:15] Because she would have some understanding of the prophecy and how this is also supposed to turn out, right? Fourth, Allison can apparently get away with any shenanigans if she just tells the men that she's having her woman's period and hiding in the godswood. I respect that. Thanks, Megan. That was great, Megan. All right.

[01:23:40] Alicia Stout says, well, what's the number one takeaway I got from watching this episode? That dragons are a lot like kids. They just don't listen. Raina really said, forget the babies and the eggs. I've got a dragon to catch. She's about to catch some serious shit from Rhaenyra for abandoning her assignment and hopping on a wild dragon with an underbite the size of Dragonstone.

[01:24:09] Clearly, she missed Westerosi Dragon Training 101. R.I.P. Jace. Also, that was a lot. Phew. It was a lot. Alma Contreras says, what a crazy, violent, and utterly tragic episode. I knew this was coming, but I still was not ready to lose Jace. From CS. Well, that's a way to start the season.

[01:24:35] Poor Rhaenyra gets locked away, loses her second son, and doesn't get to make out with her favorite foreign phenomenon. Now I know I knew this, and I forgot, but Alan of Hull also voiced Bayek in Assassin's Creed Origins, has his own video game studio, and has the best battle cry this side of Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

[01:24:58] Corleese can't be dead if we're playing with AMC rules, but HBO has a knack for killing and keeping dead the ones we love, Rip Caitlin Stark, aka Lady Stoneheart. I had to remind myself that Joffrey has told us this story loosely as a horror story in Game of Thrones, how Rhaenyra's spoiler, and how Daemon and Aemon's spoiler, and how Aegon's spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, I'm not even going to read the in-between things that they wrote.

[01:25:26] Hopefully the show continues to that point. White girl squeal. Anyways, what a great start to a great show. I know Ryan Condal won't disappoint. Peace. Kat says, there was so much action, I was rooting for everyone. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of understand that. All right, and then we have a call from Steve Brown.

[01:25:58] Hello, Dragoncast. This is Steve, and this is going to be for House of the Dragon, Season 3, Episode 1. I'm not sure I can do a live, Steve, because I didn't see it previously on, and I haven't watched a recap, so I'm really unsure of where I'm at. I started watching a few minutes. The little girl at the beginning and that dragon, who is that? That's the girl that doesn't have a dragon. And then we see Matt Smith. I can't remember his character's name with the eyepatch. He's going to kill some guy, and then Aegon and his counselor are now captured by somebody, and I'm going to be taken to Reyna.

[01:26:28] I don't know. So it's the greens and the reds, right? I guess I don't know that much, maybe. It's the greens and the blacks, right? Yeah. That's right. Matt Smith is Damon, and this guy with the eyepatch is Amond. These names, wow. Because there's Matt Smith fighting on the battlefield right now. Okay, so now Damon has his dragon, and he's got another army to add to his current army. So Ulf wants to be a lord and have a castle, but he's got a dragon. He doesn't need a horse. Oh, and we're going to get a sea battle, too. Oh, who's the triarchy? Oh, how sweet.

[01:26:56] The dragon came back for her, then cooked her some food. Oh, so they don't want the queen to go fight with her dragon, even. This is Rhaenyra's right, the Targaryen. Whoa. Ship's on fire. This battle of the sea is big. Oh, and now this woman on the ship wants the sea snake for herself. Oh, and now the dragons have arrived at the sea battle. Oh, and they're loading up the dragon killer weapon. I missed something. I guess they're going through this narrow pass, and they're trying to get somewhere, right? But the other ship said he's going back to the fight.

[01:27:26] But now they're going to try to board the other ship. Oh, and now he sees that his palace has been attacked. Oh, they're going to ram him. Sure enough, that's what they did. That was the little girl from the beginning with that dragon attacking these other ships now? Or is this another girl with a dragon? Is her dragon a sheepstealer? Is that what she called him? Wow, this is an epic dragon-on-dragon battle. And wow, these fights are great. It's a little hard to read the dragon, the subtitles when they're speaking the dragon speak, though. And he just stabbed her in the neck. No, and this dragon can't get out of the water.

[01:27:55] And that's one dragon down, and Dragon Rider now full of holes with arrows. Ooh, quite a premiere episode. Okay, I can't wait to hear you guys talk about it and probably watch it again. Well, Steve cleared it up for all of us, so we don't even need to. We'll just play that. That's right. We don't like the podcast. All right, thanks, everybody, for leaving your feedback. I know we have a pretty quick turnaround, but if you leave comments about this episode, we will read them next week as well.

[01:28:24] All right, next week on House of the Dragon, we will be covering Season 3, Episode 2, as of yet unnamed. You can leave feedback at our Podcastica Facebook group, where we post weekly feedback threads. Or you can leave feedback or voicemails by email at dragons at podcastica.com.

[01:28:48] And you can find all of our contact information and info about all of the shows at podcastica.com. What's anybody watching? I'm trying to think. I feel like work has been really busy, and I'm behind on some things. So House of the Dragon is my current focus. I watched half of the Severance Season 2 finale. It was long. So I still got to watch half of that.

[01:29:18] It's pretty good. Pretty good. I did watch The Testaments and finally caught up to the podcast coverage. Like, by the time the season finale went and won your all's coverage, made that so great. So Wendy is one of the hosts on The Testaments. I really loved Season 1. Just loved it. I liked it so much more than I was expecting to.

[01:29:43] I really didn't know if I wanted to go back to Gilead and to this world. I just didn't emotionally. Like, I love The Handmaid's Tale. And I just didn't know if I could bring myself. But it feels like a really fresh take on a world we already know. And I've heard you guys talk about it on the podcast. But there is something more hopeful in this series, I think, than in The Handmaid's Tale.

[01:30:09] Although it's still very dark and difficult, there seems to be more hopefulness. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, that is our show. We are going to have book talk after this. So stay tuned if you love all the spoilers or you have read the book. Thanks for listening, everybody. Until next time, I'm Rennie. I'm still Veronica. And I'm Wendy. Dracarys.

[01:30:56] Okay. I don't know how good I'm going to be at avoiding spoilers. Because it is just... Well, yeah. So we... I think we can. Generally do this in two sections where we talk first about the differences between the book and the show. And then we go into spoilers. And it is indeed getting increasingly difficult. I have some points that I think are non-spoilery.

[01:31:25] That is so hard to say. Non-spoilery enough to go through. Before we get to the big spoiler section. I think I do too. But I'm just going to be careful. All right. Yeah. My first thing is the difference in what makes the Battle of the Gallet happen in the show and in the book. So the two...

[01:31:52] Rhaenyra's two youngest sons, Aegon the Younger and Viserys, in the show, they're said to be going off on a ship called the Gay Abandon. Well, that's the same as in the book. But the Triarchy forces are coming and the Gay Abandon runs into them. And Aegon escapes by flying his young dragon, Stormcloud, for the first time.

[01:32:21] The show has aged those boys down. In the book, at that point, Aegon the Younger is nine. And Stormcloud is just big enough to ride. And Aegon hops on him and rides off to Dragonstone. But Stormcloud dies of his wounds. And that's how Dragonstone is alerted that the Triarchy fleet is coming.

[01:32:47] And they don't know what happened to Viserys because he was still on the Gay Abandon when Aegon took off. But we know, the narrative tells us, that Scirocco Lohar has taken him captive. Right. And it's a different cast of dragons who participate in the Battle of the Gullet.

[01:33:12] In the book, the dragons who participate are Vermax with Jace, Silverwing with Ulf, Vermithor with Hugh, Seasmoke with Adam, and Sheepstealer. But Sheepstealer is written by Nettles. And he's under her control, so he's not burning friendly ships. And neither Bela nor Reyna are at the Battle of the Gullet in the book.

[01:33:40] Replacing Nettles with Reyna is really one of the larger changes that the show has made. And we'll say more about that in the spoiler section. Yeah. In the book, Vermax's death is a bit more dramatic. I don't think they could have done it visually. The special effects would have been too hard. But what happens in the book is that he is caught by a grapple, and he goes down, and he tries to rise up out of the water.

[01:34:10] But he crashes into a burning ship and gets caught up in the rigging of that ship. And that sinking ship takes him down. So he goes down entangled with a ship. And Jace's death is the same. He gets free of Vermax, but he gets shot with arrows.

[01:34:36] I did expect that to be more drawn out than it was in the episode. Like, in the book, I feel like he gets hit by a couple arrows before the one goes through his neck. And I just expected them to play with our emotions slightly more and have, like, this hope that he's, like, you know, gonna make it or something. I wondered if they would have Bayless, like, on her way to fly back down trying to get him. Like, I just expected them to hurt us even worse than they did.

[01:35:05] But I was, I don't know if glad's the right word, but I am glad that it was still a surprise to viewers. My wife was expecting it, but also, like, she's probably seen me bracing since last season for it. So I don't know how much of that, like, I influence, like, I don't say spoilers, but I think maybe she picked up on it because I kept being like, oh, Jace. Yeah.

[01:35:32] And in the book, Shirako Lohar, who's a man in the book, doesn't die. He goes back to the Triarchy. But the cities of Myr and Tyrosh accuse him of sending their ships to destruction while holding back his own. And that ultimately leads to a civil war that ends the Triarchy. But that story is not told in Fire and Blood. Yeah.

[01:36:00] Which makes sense to kind of narrow it down. I did, I mean, we definitely talked about this last year, but one of the notable things in looking at the book after watching this episode was just remembering that Jace was making all these decisions. He was not railing against Rhaenyra. That's right. Like, it started with the dragon seeds.

[01:36:22] That was Jace's idea and what he helped pursue, not him being worried about the threat to his own position. Right. And he was also planning for them to go fly against King's Landing. He had even planned the date they were going to go when this attack, you know, happened at sea. And then he did not fly out against Rhaenyra's wishes. No. He went with that crew.

[01:36:51] And I think it's been an interesting change. And I think it, like what we were talking about during the episode of how I think that further hammers home this feeling of Rhaenyra, one being sort of betrayed at every turn. Yeah. To the patriarchal themes.

[01:37:10] I also think it introduces a much more complex thing that we will see play out when Rhaenyra gets this news because their last interaction was a betrayal. It was also Jace trying to go and save his mother and kind of die in her place. Yeah. I don't know if she'll see it that way, but I'm sure there'll be some layer of guilt for her there on both those things as well as hurt that that was their parting.

[01:37:39] And then also complications with Bela and Rhaenyra and sort of their role in all of it too, which I'm sure it will be difficult. Like she'll want to blame the Greens, but will she also be interested in blaming the Blacks for all this as well? And so I think it was sad to have like that strife between them, but I do think it makes for a more interesting like story playing out on screen. Yes.

[01:38:09] Yes. I, yes, I agree with you. So, um, as I said before, they've combined the Battle of the Red Fork and the Battle by the Lakeshore, also known as the Fish Feed. And, uh, Damon wasn't at either of those battles in the book. Yeah. But. I couldn't figure out. I was really excited to hear you tell us which battles these were because I was trying to go through it. I was like, I'm just not completely sure because so many things are shifted. Yes. Yes.

[01:38:39] Um, so, uh, that battle comes after the Gullet, not before in the book. Um, and, uh, Jason Lannister is killed by not, not a character that we know. So I'm sure that that's why they changed that. So, and that's fine. I don't think we lost anything.

[01:39:05] Um, and, uh, so the Fish Feed was the bloodiest battle of the war and Damon was not there. Um, by that point, um, Damon had already flown to Harrenhal and the, um, uh, the Greens at the Fish Feed, they try to send Ravens to Harrenhal to get Damon to come with Vhagar.

[01:39:29] But there is an archer, Red Rob Rivers, who, uh, shoots down a dozen Ravens on the wing so that they never get the message. Which is, that would have been a cool thing to see. But, you know, understand why they left all that out. And they might, I mean, they may still do something like that at another. At another battle. They're obviously really shifting and condensing. And so I'm wondering if that might happen at a later date.

[01:39:59] It's possible. And the Winter Wolves were the largest force in that battle. They didn't arrive after the battle. They, they were the, the, the biggest part of the Blacks army there. Um, and they, they lost two thirds of their number in that battle. Because they actually like led in and pushed the other army back into the water, right? Yes. That's why it's called the fish feed. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get, like, there was obviously a lot of destruction.

[01:40:27] But I wanted to see more scale of how, like, this sounds really, like, morbid. But how many people died if that was representative of the fish feed? Yeah. I just felt like I wanted that. Yeah. I don't know. But maybe we'll still get some iteration of that sequence at a future battle of, like, the idea of the wolves pushing people back in water or something. Entirely possible.

[01:40:55] Um, but I, I really didn't begrudge that change because the Winter Wolves arrival with Jason Lannister's head was fabulous. Right. I was perfectly happy with that. It was really, really good. Yeah. And the line, the delivering the line of not, we came to fight for the Dragon Queen, but we came to die for the Dragon Queen. Yes. It was really, it's so fun to see things like that pop on the screen.

[01:41:19] Um, and it is Aemon's idea to go do battle with Daemon's army. And when he, when Aemon flies out of King's Landing, it's Goldcloak still loyal to Daemon who sent him word that Aemon is coming. So, and Aemon does not declare himself king. He only acts as regent. And, and Daemon would still have been at Harren Hall in the book, correct?

[01:41:50] Right now? No, he left because he, he didn't want to be caught in a siege. Right. But like when this battle that he's fighting in and when the, um, battle of the Gola is happening, he would technically have still in the book. No, he'd already left. He'd already left? He'd already left. Yeah. It's so, um, okay. I'm ready to move on to the spoiler section if you are. I am. Okay. Here is the, the big spoiler warning.

[01:42:30] That is your dragon war roar warning that spoilers are coming. I don't think I heard it on my end. Oh, really? Huh? I heard like a subtle. Oh, I bet. I don't like a part. Yeah. I bet zoom has, I bet it has that noise reduction thing going on. Um, we could just say roar. Roar. Okay. So now we know for sure that Nettles is cut.

[01:42:57] Um, and that really affects the story of, so the reason that Damon is appearing in battles, the fish feed and so forth is because really he's off page for much of what happens next. Because he's out flying around looking for Aemond and Vhagar with Nettles and sheep stealer.

[01:43:18] And the, it's possible that nobody knows, uh, what the real relationship between Nettles and Damon was. Some people think that Nettles was his daughter. And some people think Nettles was his lover. So. Well, we're getting the daughter storyline. I know. I know. But what I was alluding to was like with Targaryens, that still does not 100%. I know. I don't see that playing out. I hope they don't.

[01:43:47] I really hope they don't. They do not. But I was just like, I don't know if we can like fully take that off the table. Yeah. I do love this for Raina. And I think it just builds really nicely upon seeing young Raina and like wanting, um, Damon to notice her.

[01:44:07] And this, it makes sense why she was so, so desperate in this family to have a dragon, but particularly with that early scene, I think, isn't she even talking to her mother at the time about Damon? And so I think, I am hoping to see this relationship between them play out in a hopefully a positive way. Although with Damon, like you just never know. You never know.

[01:44:36] But way down the timeline after the war is over, Nettles goes to the Vale with Sheepstealer and becomes known as the witch with the dragon. And that's the origin of the burned men. Oh, right, right. And so it's very doubtful that Raina would do that. So that is one of the things that George R.R. Martin doesn't like is it messes up the continuity of his story.

[01:45:04] But I think, couldn't there still be an end storyline where Sheepstealer returns without Raina? Because really, Sheepstealer, maybe he's never fully domesticated, right? And like maybe we get to see Raina flying all over with him during the battle, but maybe he's not a dragon that she gets to keep in that way long term unless she goes to seek him out. In the book, Raina does ultimately get a dragon.

[01:45:35] She's able to hatch an egg. I don't remember that. Yeah. After the war is over. That dragon never participates in the war because it's too late. So little Aegon and little Viserys, where the heck are they? Did the gay abandoned make it to Pentos? Are they there? There's big future storyline stuff that depends on that as well. Yeah.

[01:46:02] Remind me how Viserys, when he is, what happens? He comes back, right? He is. I was trying to scan through and just like could not find it. No, he disappears. And Raina never knows what happened to him. And Aegon feels guilty for having escaped without him.

[01:46:23] And Alan Valerion, when he kind of becomes the next iteration of the sea snake and goes off on his own voyages of exploration and discovery, is told that Viserys is in Pentos and he brings him back to Aegon. Okay.

[01:46:48] I thought that's what happened, but I think I just didn't keep paging far enough to the aftermath of things. I was just trying to like scan the pages for Viserys' name. I was like, what? I can't remember. And so little Aegon becomes Aegon III. Right. And Viserys becomes Viserys II. So those two little boys both become king in their turn. Anything else about those two? No.

[01:47:19] The other thing I was going to bring up, because I really enjoyed Hugh and Ulf and their conversation this episode. I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but I'm just... I do think they're both interesting characters to watch and enjoyable on screen. But the conversation they had there at the God's Eye actually in the books comes after the Battle of the Gullet. They seem to be the only two that are like drinking and merrymaking.

[01:47:48] Everyone else is pretty like devastated at what's happened. And that's when they talk about, well, hold on a second. What do you mean we don't like when Ulf is in disbelief finding out he doesn't get a castle and they start talking about, well, we could do anything we wanted with these dragons. Yeah. And then the other thing that I'm really curious about what they're doing is in the book Sunfire is not dead. Right.

[01:48:17] Sunfire is still wounded at Rook's Rest, recuperating. And they've left guards there to feed him and take care of him while he's recuperating. But the Blacks actually take Rook's Rest back. And when they take it back, they try to kill Sunfire, but they don't succeed. He gets away. And then he disappears for quite a while. But then he comes back and plays a very important part in the end.

[01:48:47] So I don't think he can be dead. What I'm expecting that they're going to do is that Aegon believes that he's dead, but that he'll show up by surprise and surprise Aegon by being alive. Yeah, I think you're right. I bet he shows up and gets him out of some sort of scenario. Yeah.

[01:49:11] I'm really dreading the beginning of the Targaryen downfall of Rhaenyra. That feels like we're about to watch what Dany went through in the final season of Game of Thrones. Yes. And when Wendy today was like, should I just read it? I wanted to be like, just read it.

[01:49:33] Because I think even though it's very clear that this is not a happy ending story, I think it's just impossible not to vote for Rhaenyra. Especially if you were a fan of Dany. I know. And I'm just worried that we're going to have a similar level of frustration and disbelief at some of the decisions that are coming. Yep. I agree.

[01:50:02] I'm even having read it. I'm dreading it. I'm scared of how it's going to play out on screen. I don't want it to happen. I love her so dearly. And so I'm really worried about how that goes with the fan base. Yeah.

[01:50:21] And it'll be very interesting to see how they play it and how they manage the changes that she's going to go through to become a much darker character. I'm curious how dark they will go with her. I mean, some things have to happen, but, you know, for example, Otto Hightower is notoriously missing right now.

[01:50:48] I think we've eliminated the Nettles and Daemon-like breach that can push her further. Yeah. I'm just curious if we might end up with a softer Rhaenyra or if they will go full in. And is the Iron Throne going to reject her? Yes. That's what I can't wait. Like, I think that's going to hurt people to see that. Yes.

[01:51:17] Is she going to bleed when she sits on the throne? Yeah. I don't know. I'm very, my stomach's uneasy about it all already. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, I guess we will. That's all I've got. Me too. All right. On that very happy note. Yeah, very happy note. Yeah.

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