"Regent" (House of the Dragon S2E5)

[00:00:29] Hey, everybody. I'm Wendy. I'm Kristen. And I'm Sam. And this is Dragoncast, a podcast dedicated to House of the Dragon. And this week we are discussing the House of the Dragon, Season 2, Episode 5, Regent. And Kristen, I'm so excited that you came back. We're so excited to have you.

[00:00:52] Thank you for having me. Tell us. I know you've been binging, been busy this week. I have seen every episode. I watched five episodes in 24 hours. Oh, wow. So I'm coming off of a major binge. You know, I told myself I wasn't going to watch this season.

[00:01:15] I really did. I was like, I'm not going to do it. Not going to do it. And then I did it. So I really like this season a lot. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Yeah. I don't know what you guys have been discussing, but I kind

[00:01:34] of love Aegon. Is that like is that OK to say? Yes. I feel like that's where we are. OK. Actually, one of my points. I have a massive crush on the child. Like, I just like love him. I'm just when is he coming back?

[00:01:52] I hate it that he burned half to hell. Like I need him to come back in his ill fitting King armor and drinking his flag in the wine as he takes. He's a cat this episode. If you notice, he's a cat. He just like pushes off the picture.

[00:02:09] That was last week. That was last week because he's burned this week. Not much. I'm sorry. Week. No, that's OK. But I'm loving Aegon big time. But I totally agree with you. I think they have upped our empathy for Aegon this season.

[00:02:27] You know, you really see that he is a king that is is a product of his environment. Yes. You know, he wanted to be good. That's what I saw in the beginning of of the season is I saw. And again, I binged this in 24 hours.

[00:02:43] So I've watched Aegon descend into madness over the over the last 24 hours until he ultimately met a fiery pit. I mean, it's been a really wild ride watching him in these first five episodes. The actor who plays him is phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yeah. Tom Glen Carney. Yeah.

[00:03:04] Thank God he's 30. I heard he's 30. So yeah, he's of age. You're OK. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was like, he's around 30. Yeah. Because I love him. Yeah. And that's very unexpected from where we came off of last season. Right. Yes, absolutely.

[00:03:23] Not so from the the kid who was wanking out the window of the Red Keep. Oh, that's right. That was our introduction to him. Yeah, he's come a long way. Yeah. And assaulting Diana. Yeah. My gosh. He is one of my one of my points in there, too,

[00:03:43] of how they're fostering empathy for the Greens this season, which I actually enjoy. Yeah, I've been enjoying it. I just want to say welcome to Sam. Sam's been on a couple of our lives, and I'm really glad you got to come and do a full episode with us.

[00:03:59] Oh, thank you so much for having me. Oh, is this your first time, Sam? Yep. On the Dragon Podcast. Yay! You guys are amazing. And how have you been enjoying this season? Oh, I love it. I'm obsessed. I am in my House of the Dragon time frame.

[00:04:20] This is who I am. Just like so into this universe. And that's odd, considering I've never read the books and the book, I should say, or the Game of Thrones books. So I'm really just enjoying each and every episode, even the boring parts. I'm just riveted.

[00:04:35] I have a root beer float and turn off the lights, turn off my phone and watch the episode. Great. Try to go to sleep. All right. Well, Sam, do you want to give us your first point? Sure. I mean, I think we started a little bit on Egon.

[00:04:53] Yeah, sorry about that. No, no, no. I think that totally works. So thinking about Egon, actually, I really love Tom Glyn Carney as well. Kristen of how that actor brings so much humanity to Egon the second. And it makes me forget at times about his brutality,

[00:05:13] even in this episode where there was just really disgusting parts of this from the subtitles putting puss squelching, which made me a little sick when they were taking off his armor to the slowest ambulance in all of Westerosi history.

[00:05:33] They were just I thought he was dead in that. And that was like a coffin. Like a funeral procession. Yeah. The only reason why I knew that he wasn't dead was because I knew he wasn't dead. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:05:47] And I can only imagine that anybody that has not read the books and again, I don't know how you're doing it this season, but I'm not going to to say anything ever. But I can imagine that the last week has been a little nerve

[00:06:00] wracking for anybody that maybe has is trying to stay spoiler free. Yeah, it definitely is. I know. Veronica's helped. I mean, did you did you guys know that that he was going to live or did you think he was dead?

[00:06:16] I figured based on the last scene that we had where it seemed like Eamon was going to finish him off and then didn't. I just felt like. Yeah, I just felt like what was the purpose of that scene if he doesn't live?

[00:06:33] So so I expected him to live. And they also pointedly showed Sunfire breathing. So I felt like Sunfire was going to live too. OK, I was so wrapped up in trying to find the mess

[00:06:48] that was Aegon in there that I forgot to check for life for the dragon. I know they said that is Sunfire dead? I can't figure it out because they said that we left. I think it was Crispy Kristen. I guess we can't call him the crispy one anymore.

[00:07:06] But he said that we left the dragon at Rook's rest and the dragon was not long for living. And I'm like, wait a minute, is Sunfire still alive? So Sunfire is alive. I think I think she is. He is. I don't know.

[00:07:24] But I thought so, but I could be wrong. Earlier in the episode, they said that it Vagar is completely depleted right now. And so my guess that is that even if Sunfire is alive because off the top of my head, I can't remember.

[00:07:41] I think that they said that Sunfire is alive, just hurt. And so that was like a really big battle for a smaller dragon, just as much it was for Vagar, who's the biggest dragon. So my guess is, is that all the dragons need a nap right now.

[00:07:57] So this is a really good time to talk to each other. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And they said that I can't remember which of the aftershows, but they said that they'd been transporting Egon for like 10 days or more.

[00:08:16] And that's why it was all like the way he must have stunk. And now I'm just, oh, we're on fire. So like this episode, I think this whole season, at least for me, has been fostering such empathy for the Greens.

[00:08:31] And then I liked how the writers brought in Diana at the end of the episode of like, just in case you're starting to feel too bad for Egon because the actor is so talented and funny and charismatic and just charming.

[00:08:45] Remember someone that he essayed last season who's still here. It's like, oh yeah, that's right. Thank you for bringing me back. Because well, I was certain that in the last scene that we saw Diana, that she was being poisoned. So I guess that wasn't true. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:03] When she showed up at the tavern, because I had I guess she was she was really giving her moon tea. I had thought she was actually poisoning her. Yeah, I did, too. Yeah. Oh, and oh, yeah. Like last season. Yeah.

[00:09:21] Yeah. I think we did know that that was moon tea. I think we did know. That because it comes in this special jar. Mm hmm. I just thought pretty sure. I just always thought the worst. I thought they were poisoning her.

[00:09:36] Well, because because Alison and her father are evil. Yeah, they definitely were last last season. There's no good people in the show. Let's just go. Yeah. Just go. Yeah. Except for maybe Helena Targaryen. A little Helena. Like a little clairvoyant seer. Wendy, in your medical professional opinion,

[00:09:59] 10 days in a wooden litter crate with severe burns would invite what kind of infection? I mean, like why didn't they bring him back via Aemon's dragon? Does Aemon try to kill him? Yeah. I mean, I mean, and and so you stopped to cut off the head of Maelise

[00:10:21] before trying to get him to help like and then and then you carded his body through the city and thought what that was going to reassure people. I like that they kept him hidden. So I didn't catch it on the first watch.

[00:10:38] They kept his litter like significantly hidden. Like when they took the bag out, I was like, oh, he's dead. And they didn't even take his armor off. The poor kid. Like I don't think that they could get his armor off.

[00:10:52] Like when you saw the grandmaster, when he came in and he was like he was cutting him out of that. Like that was just that was muscle. And you it really reminded me of Anakin Skywalker. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, very. Correct.

[00:11:11] I mean, that's really any any kind of had that sort of presence to begin with. So I definitely was seeing the ties there. Oh, it's interesting. I didn't even put that together. That's awesome. I think it's because that Aegon is playing a much better spoiled brat

[00:11:31] than Aidan Christensen. And Anakin was in here. Yeah, thank you. And Hayden Christensen. Yeah, did so. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yes. I like how they it's very Hollywood. They left half of his face still looking handsome. Of course. Of course. It's HBO. He's beautiful.

[00:11:48] He's a beautiful man. Let's just. Very much is. Yes. I don't know if I've talked about this enough yet. I'm sure you are not alone even more than those of us on this call. Wowza. How about for you, Wendy? How about your first point? I guess the patriarchy.

[00:12:10] Mm hmm. Karma. Burn it. So it it seems like both the blacks and the greens are having some issues fighting the patriarchy. Both Allison and Ranera are basically told that in peace, people might be accepting of a woman having some power.

[00:12:32] But in wartime, what would the gentler sex know about war? I hated that line. Yeah. But I thought that Ranera's response was spot on. Yeah. Yeah. I know just as much as you do. Yeah. That was like, oh, there's more than one way a Targaryen can burn you.

[00:12:51] Yeah. Ranera's council wants to keep her in Dragonstone. They want to make decisions for her. They really would like her to just leave it all to them. She she's alone. Damon is acting against her interests. Corliss is off grieving.

[00:13:10] Jace is chomping at the bit, flying off without her permission. It feels like she's really barely holding it all together. And then Allison. Little by little, losing all of her power. She immediately steps up to run the council and is rejected by almost everybody in the room.

[00:13:32] I think the grand meister, is it Orliss? I think he was the only one who sort of agreed with her that that would be good, who he seems like he's probably the stablest guy in the room. But everybody else, including Crispi, betrays her and gives the power away.

[00:13:55] And definitely seems like Aemond is making a power move. He couldn't wait. He said almost nothing, just waited for it all to land in his favor and then went and grabbed that stone orb. He was just waiting for his chance to take over. I love it.

[00:14:16] I mean, as much as I related to Alicent in that scene where she I mean, it was just beautiful filming of the men talking around her and her. I mean, Olivia Cook just did a brilliant job of just her expressions and you could see her just becoming furious.

[00:14:33] And it's like, oh, I think a lot of us women have been there in that position. And really, Alicent, this is fucking karma. Like, what did you think? You were backing these men because a woman shouldn't be in the throne

[00:14:49] and you think they were going to back you being in a position of power? I mean, Lara says it as much. And we're sort of seeing just with Alicent's decision how much things have gone downhill in a matter of weeks or months.

[00:15:02] I mean, Rhaenyra says she inherited 80 years of peace from her father. And now there's bodies of rat catchers hanging, rotting from the castle. I think that seems very purposeful. And two Targaryen princes and one Targaryen princess have been murdered, let alone a dragon has been slain, possibly two.

[00:15:20] It's absolute madness in that they've been trying to usurp the throne. And now she's seeing even she is not exempt from this. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, this is exactly what you get.

[00:15:32] Even the two guys who saw you as a sex object aren't going to side with you because that's how the patriarchy works. Yeah. And it's like she's like, my, you know, I did it before. Yeah. You and your father did it before. Not just you.

[00:15:47] So, yeah, it's like this infuriating. I definitely agree with big parts of what you're saying. I do know that Alicent was never about Rhaenyra being a woman and being queen. She was the like, like Rhaenyra said, the last time that they saw each other before

[00:16:09] Viserys died, she told Rhaenyra, I think you'll make a wonderful queen. They were all united on it. She was under the impression that Viserys changed his mind when she found out that she had. And I and I don't I don't know how you guys interpreted

[00:16:29] the episode, but to me, Alicent 100 percent knows that she made a mistake in the interpretation of her husband's final words. Now she does. I agree. And yeah. And so when she walks into that small council and you see this rage within her

[00:16:49] as everybody starts talking around her and faded echoes after Aemond has taken control and taken his ball. And what I see is is a woman who has created this mess and she has lost control of the mess that she has created.

[00:17:07] And the biggest mess that she has created is her son, Aemond, who is now in charge of everything. Yeah. And I agree that that 100 percent is karma and she deserves every last bit of it. But at the same time, in this moment,

[00:17:24] the weight of what she's done and the weight of the fact that she cannot unring this bell has fallen on her in this moment. And I think it's a very important moment for Alicent and for us to see Alicent kind of breathing through that moment and figuring out,

[00:17:47] holy shit, what do I do next? Because it's all over. We know it. It's all over. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For most of Alicent's life, especially in the beginning, she was just living at the whims of what the men around her told her what to do.

[00:18:05] And for a brief moment in time, she felt like she had some control over things. And it seems like that's all over now. Oh, yeah. Men around her again, controlling her fate, her destiny. And they don't trust the fact that she she did grow up.

[00:18:23] She grew up this way. She grew up as the king's wife. She ruled instead of him when he was ill. Granted, she was poisoning him. OK. But she was still ruling. She knows how to rule. And yes, it was in peace. But just like Rhaenyra said in Dragonstone,

[00:18:45] them know anything about war? None of them. Right. Everyone is spinning their wheels right now. And to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. And that's a great point, Kristen, of Rhaenyra pushed back. Alicent didn't. While Rhaenyra's queen, I mean, she's Rhaenyra's always pushed back.

[00:19:04] And and so the idea of like Alicent's falling back into what she has and it's what she's been brainwashed into thinking and doing and knowing. And the fact that she jumped so quickly when Viserys was dying and these random words

[00:19:24] that get spouted out on his deathbed without, you know, double checking it, it fulfilled her cognitive bias. So then she went with it and altered all these changes, even though his entire life, I should say their entire marriage, Viserys had always championed Rhaenyra up until his

[00:19:44] I mean, his dying act was to champion her. So like she didn't seem to pause and be like, wait, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. And yeah, I'm totally with you. Like she's realizing she jumped to the wrong conclusion.

[00:19:58] Yeah. Of a man who was high and dying. And it is I mean, for me, it's frustrating because I can empathize with her. And I'm also seeing it as like, yeah, that's karma. Absolutely. How about you, Kristen? Well, I talked about Aegon, obviously. Beautiful Aegon. Beautiful.

[00:20:21] So one thing that I really loved seeing, and a lot of this has to do with a lot of this has to do with the fact that I just binged all these episodes.

[00:20:32] But I feel like it has kind of come to a climax here in this episode is we are getting this really unique character perspective of the small folk, of the people of King's Landing. And you feel their tension and you feel their hunger and you feel their desperation.

[00:20:52] And when Rhaenyra was talking to Nisande, Nisande? Missande. Missari. Sorry. Oh, no, that's the other Targaryen handmaid. Yeah. Missaria is the lady of whispers that she has. Yeah. Got it. OK, so when she's talking to her lady of whispers,

[00:21:15] she gives her the opportunity to say there are more than one. There's more than one way to skin a cat, right? Like you can let the men and this is building on on the patriarchy theme that we had going on.

[00:21:30] You can let the men play at their war and play at their fighting and all pretend that they know what they're talking about while you get the people on your side. And I can't wait to see how that's going to eventually play out.

[00:21:45] You know, I think that food would go a really long way with loyalty right now. Yeah. Just like dropping. It's really cool to me to see that that the people in general are their own character. They have their own storyline this season.

[00:22:07] So I've I've really enjoyed also watching how today's society is kind of woven into this pattern a little bit about false information and the rural areas being really steadfast and staunch in their beliefs, where in the cities where it's more packed and they have more information.

[00:22:26] They're a little bit more upset about what's going on. And it like the way that that is very subtly. Written in to this war effort that's going on, this civil war that is happening in Westeros, it the parallels are are a lot for me, personally, which is difficult

[00:22:50] to be quite honest. But I thought about that this week that we really get this week. Right. You really see this week. Just coming off of an assassination attempt of the head of the house, you could say. The head of the house.

[00:23:06] All I could think of is art imitating life or life imitating art. Propaganda. Yeah. You think this world is so fictional and farfetched and then things like that happen and you're like, it's just people. Right. Exactly. And they have, you know, they have the whispers and the drama.

[00:23:25] Like they go, hey, we just need to make sure that the people know this. That the people know that. And and and there's this whole back scenes that we know about. Right. Because we're the we're the viewer and we know the whole story.

[00:23:39] Right. But you see at the end of this episode that the people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean the Prince Regent Aemond? Hang on. Time out. They had no idea that Aegon is at the picture right now. So it's that they're so far removed

[00:23:57] from what is actually going on. And there's an official, quote unquote, message that's going out from the palace right now from from the crown. Right. And you've got all these people that want the crown. And now you've got Damon, who has some drug fueled

[00:24:15] madness happening to him over in Harrenhal. And then you've got who is it? Do you got Rhaenyra and Aegon? And now Aemond's like me too. And so he throws his eye patch into the ring. I mean, everybody's like vying for power right now. It's crazy. It's crazy.

[00:24:34] And then you turn on the news and everybody's vying for power right now. Yeah. I'm so sorry. A little. No, no. I'm on a rant. No, no, no. It's so true. Yeah. It resonates with me because like this episode really hammered home exactly what you're describing, Chris.

[00:24:52] I think you did a wonderful job describing it. Like no one really won the battle at Rook's Rest in the show. Everyone, people sure did. Team Black, Team Green, the realm in general. And it's like textbook one on one in psychology.

[00:25:06] Don't mess with people's like sense of security. Like it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They need to have shelter, food and water. If they don't have that, you're fucked. You're in some really bad ways here. And on top of that, a lack of transparency.

[00:25:24] Leaders mistakenly think that that's a good way to hold on to power and secrecy. What it does is it makes the small folk like I am a small folk in our country. Sorry for the non-American listeners, but I'm sure you guys can have an idea

[00:25:37] of what we're going through here. Yeah. Parallel processing here. Our country is the world's tiger king. We're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Our planet, the aliens are like on this season of Earth. They pass over us. Yeah. They're like, what is going on?

[00:25:52] But it's the withholding of information and the lack of transparency leads people to make up their own stories. And I think that's where a lot of leadership really also falls short. And that's like as a psychologist versus medical teams, be honest.

[00:26:06] Are they going to make up their own opinions? And you want to control that, right? But they're not. They're messing with it. And it's all like I'm with you, Chris. Now I want to see how this is going to implode from in there

[00:26:17] and how Raniera can absolutely come on top in there. Yes, I totally agree. I love getting a peek into the people in King's Landing. And I can't remember if he has a name yet, but he's the one that's like,

[00:26:32] I'm the best. I'm the bastard brother of the king. Oh, oh, oh, I don't know. Like Alf, but was it you? Yes, because I was like, oh, it's all the mayor of Southern King's Landing. I don't know. I made it up my head, but I remember Alf.

[00:26:52] So I would love to see this guy ride a dragon like he was my first thought at the end when they started talking about in Targaryen getting dragon riders. I was like, somebody needs to get the guy in King's Landing.

[00:27:10] I'm pretty sure he's got a claim to a dragon. Yes. Yes. I'm so excited. We're about to get a Targaryen 23 and me next week. I'm just like, like trial by fire. Literally, because it doesn't seem like the dragons take to it very kindly

[00:27:25] if people try to mount them. I think we heard like Rhaena almost lost her life trying to do it. I had a question about that. That's the first time we've heard about that, right? I know we didn't see it. So they said that

[00:27:39] Rhaenera mentions that Rhaena nearly lost her life while trying to bond with a dragon, which I assumed was probably Vhagar. But maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I do too. Vhagar was her mother's dragon and traveled with her from Pentos to back to Driftmark to bury Rhaena.

[00:28:01] Yeah. And I figured she would have tried to take that, take Vhagar. But I didn't know. Like, I think that's the first we've ever heard of that. Yeah. On the show that she tried to bond with the dragon.

[00:28:15] There is a story about that in the book if it wasn't on the show, because I know that there is a story about that. Yeah, I can look at some point. Yeah. I'm sure Rennie can help us and talk about it next week too.

[00:28:31] She's wonderful and I miss her. Yeah. Oh, so good. And then the focus on Hugh Hammer makes me very curious on his purpose. And I laugh every time I hear his name because it sounds like such a porn star name. It really does. Like Hugh Hammer.

[00:28:47] It's like, OK, but I don't know that they keep bringing him in. And I'm like to what? Like, is he going to build like a dragon killing arrow for Rhaenera? I'm not sure because they were trying to leave the city.

[00:29:00] So I know that they keep bringing in these characters. I'm not sure what they're trying to do with them. Like Diana's going to factor in next week, but I don't know how yet. What do you guys?

[00:29:08] I didn't know if they're just doing that to do exactly what Kristen was talking about, to give us this slice of the small folks life, which I have liked. I just feel like sometimes I need more context about why we're doing this.

[00:29:23] Yeah. But I mean, this is the second or third time we've seen him. So I'm going to say yes, they're doing something with him. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Sam, I think we're back to you. One of the first things that came to mind for me of this episode

[00:29:40] is the tragedy of Corlys Velaryon. How Steve Toussaint is so brilliant in this role. I mean, that opening scene of him walking around his empty palace and Bela, I think later on talks about the 180 that it's been

[00:29:59] when we saw it in season one, even that was full of life and full of people. And now it's like its own haunted house. I mean, it could give Harrenhal a run for its money.

[00:30:08] Like he even says he's like it's a house full of ghosts at this point. And I mean, he believes both of his children have died. His brother, Veymond, his heir, Lucerys, and now his wife. And he sort of left there by himself.

[00:30:24] And his speech that the speech that Bela has with him is just one of the most powerful scenes this season for me. I think both of them did a fantastic job. And she brings up that he gathered great riches and influence. And it was all for Rhaenys.

[00:30:41] And he wanted his bloodline in the history books. And now his bloodlines almost completely gone. I have this quote that I actually screenshot from their conversation. If it's all right for me to go through it really quickly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:00] Bela, Rhaenys was not only your wife, not a thing to be taken from you. She was a Targaryen princess, the queen who never was. And she flew to Rook's Rest of her own will in defense of her kin. Corlys. And she died.

[00:31:17] Bela. She died as she would have wished to die with honor in dragonfire. The way my mother chose and the way I myself wish to meet my end. I grieve my grandmother who loved me, but I carry her on with me.

[00:31:33] I will see Rhaenyra ascend the Iron Throne as Rhaenys wished. As Rhaenys herself should have. You yourself may do as you see fit. Corlys. I wish to make you my heir. Bela. I am blood and fire. Driftmark must pass to salt and sea.

[00:31:52] I mean, Bela Targaryen, the queen to be. Yeah, she's amazing. To follow in her grandmother's legacy. Oh, I cannot wait for her and Jace as rulers. I mean, I don't want to think that Rhaenyra. She's had such incredible like she's the biological child of Laena and Daemon.

[00:32:15] There's a power duo. Right. And she's had all these incredible female influences in her life. Rhaenyra, Rhaenys. Like she's just shaping up to be amazing. She's 75% blood of the dragon, too. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yes. I remember online someone did the calculations on it and Punnett squares.

[00:32:39] I know. Let's bring in the modern day science. Like she is Corlys' legacy, what he's always wanted. And he couldn't be more distant from her because of grief, because of loss. And she gives him the ability to come back to have purpose.

[00:32:57] And that speech is sort of her way of saying, like, I'm blood and fire. So is Rhaenys. This is Rhaenyra bringing you to the table again. And it's an honor. I just think that was such a beautiful scene.

[00:33:08] I mean, that scene where Steve Toussaint let that one single tear go down. I. Mm hmm. So good. So, yeah, I was just struck by where he was in season one to where he is now is just a tragedy.

[00:33:26] Do you think he's going to accept being her hand? I think so. I mean, he made it seem like. I thought I know the answer, so I'm just going to stay silent. No, no, no, that's OK.

[00:33:37] If you were wondering why I was silent, because I know the answer. OK, I think him looking at it made me and that speech by Vaela. I think like this is his. I thought so. Yeah, and I think he'll make a great hand to.

[00:33:53] I think he's just has to come to some realities that are hard to come to and he's grieving. So I think it's reasonable for him to take some time. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was such an interesting character because he's so he was so

[00:34:08] caught up in his legacy that he forgot about his life. It's a great way of putting it. Mm hmm. And now he's paying the price. So, you know, he's got some red in his ledger, I think. Yes. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I'll just continue.

[00:34:31] I had a little bit more about Vaela. I thought the conversation between Bela and Ranera was really sweet. You can see why people love Ranera and why she fosters so much loyalty. She's really sincere and kind and truthful. She's trying so hard to be just and kind

[00:34:52] to all of those who have rallied around her, even some of our council members, like she's very. Even keeled, she listens to what they have to say, she accepts when some of their words are truthful, but also fights to make sure they understand that she's the queen.

[00:35:13] Yes. And I think that's a hard balance to find. And she does a really good job of it, whereas the Greens are just not doing a good job of that. They're really crawling all over each other to get that power.

[00:35:25] And Ranera is trying to wield it so balanced. It kind of puts it back into perspective about why we are team black. Yes. Yes. I love that. I love the way you were. We're pulling together how she presents herself

[00:35:41] to the different people of her kingdom and with Jace doing his own things and coming back, it just reminded me so much of Ranera and how Ranera would handle things. And even when they were going, that's true. Like he's totally his mother's son. I never thought about that.

[00:35:59] She kind of did the same thing, and that's probably why she forgave it and just understood. Yeah. And she goes, well, the history books say that only dragon writers can can claim a dragon. He's like, well, the history books meant to gild us as gods.

[00:36:14] I'm like, that's something Ranera would say. Yeah. Little Ranera. So her leadership really reminds us of the fact that she grew up on the small council. Her father taught her how to lead. Her father taught her how to be a queen. So we're seeing that difference.

[00:36:37] We're seeing that juxtaposition, right? You've got in King's Landing. You've got this petulant child who was never meant to lead. He was never meant to be king, so nobody taught him how to do it. And then you see Ranera on the other side, who is against all odds,

[00:37:00] somehow staying calm. I mean, she just lost her father, her son. Her husband flew off and cut a kid's head off for all she knows. She doesn't know what's going on with him. Rhaenys. Rhaenys is gone. She she is alone right now, and she is somehow still

[00:37:21] keeping her cool. And if that isn't a woman, I don't know what is. And then you've got, you know, whatever is had like the frat house that's happening over at King's Landing. Oh, my gosh. Even the Kingsguard, the King's Landing bros, the Kingsguard,

[00:37:42] they're like, you know, they're uncomfortable in their in their armor. And why is Kristen Cole still wearing armor? Can we talk about that? He's the hand of the king. Does he have a magnet? Like, does it just go on top of his armor?

[00:37:56] Like, he's got to do one or the other, right? I mean, he's doing both. I feel like he's just the bro. He's not doing either of them very good. Very well. No. He's not. So it happens when you fail up. That's what Ron Swanson once said.

[00:38:11] Never hold never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing. So that means it's my turn, right? Yep. I want to turn to Jace for a few minutes. He may be the best of all of them. I know. Yeah. When I see him, you know, in the beginning,

[00:38:35] you see him and we're with him in Winterfell and we're seeing how diplomatic he is and how smart he is. He's walking the wall. He's learning. He is taking what the series and Raniera take so seriously. And that's learning about your realm. Learn about your people.

[00:38:55] Find out what they need. How can you help them? How can they help you? These are tenants of leadership that you don't see in a game such as this. Yes. So it's really it's really fun

[00:39:12] to watch him kind of start to spin out of control a little bit in this episode, because he's so young and he's so like, just get me in there. I just want to stab something. I'm going to get it. I want to do something. Come on.

[00:39:24] Let me go, you know. But he's like on the outside, you know, he's still like he's cool. He's like, OK, well, let's have some wine. Let's talk here at the at the twins in the middle of the bridge,

[00:39:36] which was a fantastic meeting spot, if we could just say that real quick. Yeah, he was so good at negotiation. He's so diplomatic and he was so endearing and he he knew when to be quiet. He knew when to talk.

[00:39:54] I think I think he might be the best of all of them. He definitely has a mind for strategy. When at the end, that final scene with him and Raniera talking about. How do they turn this war around? How do they start getting some wins? Right.

[00:40:15] Jace thinks, let's go. Let's go to that knowledge that you have that they don't seem to think that they have no respect for. I mean, we just learned a couple episodes ago that beautiful Agon decided he didn't want all of all of the history books.

[00:40:32] You know I'm saying? Right. Raniera, when we are looking at her, she's reading. She is in a book. She is finding that strength from the history of her family as she has been taught. And you can see that that's happening with Jace as well.

[00:40:47] Jace says, you know what? We can use all of this to our advantage. But we need we have dragons that need riders. Guess what? Targaryens like to fuck a lot. So let's go find a Targaryen. They're also very pretty.

[00:41:01] And get them on a dragon and see what works. I mean, it's brilliant. It is. And they're also very pretty. And I also love with Jace. I mean, I love seeing the psychic bond between the dragons and the dragon rider with Vermax. He's such a cutie pie.

[00:41:18] He was just looking over at the twins and he was restless because Jace was nervous with the phrase. I don't know. I just thought that was such a cute little add on justice for ground puppies and air puppies. And it's interesting to me that you say that because

[00:41:37] Alison also was reading the books and the histories and had them spread out all over her room. But no one's listening to no one is listening to Alison. Alison's dad is gone, and I think that she has realized that her dad. Had a lot to do with.

[00:42:00] Her place. Oh, and now without her father, she really is powerless and she's made these monster children and her best friend is gone and she's betrayed her best friend and her husband is dead and now her dad's gone. So and her boyfriend's rejecting her. Boyfriend's a dick.

[00:42:24] And her stalker's also rejecting her. It was like, yeah, it was like. And do you guys think so? I had this little thought when Alison was going through all the history books and everything. I'm like, is she trying to do like what people will do nowadays

[00:42:39] of like fact check of like, no, no, no, I know I'm right. Let me look at the history books or we would Google to be like, I know I'm right. And then finding out that, no, you're still wrong. Like she was trying to prove herself right.

[00:42:50] He was talking about egg on the second. I also think she misses Viserys in some ways. It was it was her stability and it probably comforts her to read the books that he loved so much and do the activities

[00:43:05] that she probably saw him do that for so long. Oh, that's a good point. I miss Viserys too. And Luke. Back to Sam. So make a little bit of a left turn here talking about the idiocy of Kristen Cole parading a dragon's head through the city.

[00:43:27] He is terrible at PR like that is the symbol of Targaryen power and influence. And he just like it was destroyed and he was like, I don't get it. Why? Why don't they like this? We won. And Gwaine Hightower of all people is like, did we?

[00:43:45] Which made me wonder, I'm like, Gwaine just like that for the entire 10 days of like, oh, you're an idiot. And it was just stability is shattered because of this cognitive dissonance abounds because the dragons made Targaryens closer to gods.

[00:44:02] It made them the small folk like you were talking about, Kristen. It made them feel safe. And now that they know that the very symbol of stability can be taken away, terror filters into the city and the way they filmed it was so brilliant.

[00:44:16] It was this slow roll of tension that built up like shock and denial and then fear and anger of like, this can't stand. Rhaenyra will will lash out. Rhaenyra will get revenge. And yeah, it was just such a massively terrible move.

[00:44:34] And I think we'll see the repercussions of that. It's funny that you say that, too, because the people calling out about what Rhaenyra was going to do in retaliation really says that King's Landing is probably pretty sharply divided on who their ruler is as well. Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:44:59] So and that tension was built very beautifully with with the people of King's Landing, shutting them in that fear element, the sick kids. You know, you really got a sense of how this highborne war is really affecting the people of that. They're that they're trying to rule. Right.

[00:45:23] It's not about the people. We all know this. We're all living. It's not about us. It's just not. Yeah. And it's it's dumb. What do you think locking them in is going to do? It's only going to add disconnect content. Yeah. It's not going to stop information.

[00:45:43] No, no. It's yeah, it's like one on one. It's like lock lock them in. That'll make them trust you. Was that the intention? I thought that was the intention was so nobody would go out to the rural areas and talk about how bad things are.

[00:45:58] Rural areas where you really have your biggest supporters just to let you know. Right. Yeah. It's like that's a great way to get their support. Lock them in. Like it was so interesting. And it reminds me of season one

[00:46:13] where Damon took teen Ranera around to the small folk. And she was like, I don't care what they have to say. And Damon's like, you should. And this is like sort of revisiting that. And I wish our current Damon was as wise. Yeah. You know, he's an idiot.

[00:46:32] He's another pretty idiot. He's not a gun. Do you think that maybe a reason for keeping the people in is also so that they couldn't sell what they had out and maybe get money and food a different way? So no commerce? I don't know. Yeah.

[00:46:54] To make them more reliant and dependent on the crown. I don't know. I'm struggling like you are with. Why would we share? Why would we shut the gates? So I think from us. So I'm just going to my nerdy psychological brain

[00:47:08] from what I understand from moves like this in the past is that if people start fleeing King's Landing, it will give the impression that they're losing the war, they're losing power. So like why are your people, your supporters fleeing? You've lost control.

[00:47:26] You like that's going to ripple throughout all the kingdoms of people are fleeing King's Landing because. Thank you so much. That makes so much more sense. Yeah, that does. That makes. Yeah, that's a lot better than what Wendy and I had prepared.

[00:47:41] Yeah, I'm just I'm just throwing it out of like, I think that's what they're trying to do. It's like impression control. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to explode on them because it looks bad when people are fleeing a place.

[00:47:54] So I think that's kind of pulling it out into the light for everyone. Yeah, I had a little bit on that. I was just thinking that the modern day people have never seen a dragon war. Yeah. And they've come to know the dragons

[00:48:09] really as a symbol of peace as their protectors. And here you are. Right. And here you are marching. And, you know, like any common sense person would be like, well, the dragon didn't start the war. Why is the dragon responsible for this? Like, that's just silly.

[00:48:29] So I can't imagine. Carding May-Lise's steaming head through the streets is going to win anyone anything. No. Sten is also just really stupid. Yes. Yes. Yes. Made me upset to see it. And he's fatalistic. Like, he almost just doesn't care. He doesn't care about his own life.

[00:48:54] He doesn't care about anybody else. So like he's not somebody good to put in charge because he's like, he's just see the nihilist. He's ready. He's a nihilist. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Just wants to watch the world burn.

[00:49:10] Yeah. And then when he sees it, he's like, oh, no, it was a bad thing. I was like, what did you expect was going to happen? Like, at least Kristen Cole's been to war and I get it. It wasn't a dragon war.

[00:49:21] But like, I mean, there was a reason the women were vying very loudly to not bring the dragons in because this is what happened, sir. And now they're like, whoops, we've gone too far. Well, I guess this is Raniere and Allison's. I told you so.

[00:49:41] Yeah. And we see Misseria sending one of Raniere's handmaidens to seed this the discontent in the small folk. So I thought that was really interesting. I am liking Misseria a lot better this season. They smoothed her accent out. Yes, they they did something with it.

[00:49:59] It was it was atrocious. Like they were trying to I think they were really trying hard to make it a combination of things that doesn't exist. Yes. You know, to make it novel or something. But it just didn't work, I think, because she had

[00:50:15] it seemed like the actress was trying to do something that shouldn't be done. And then and then it was causing a lot of pausing and lilting. And it just didn't seem natural. I would agree with that. And so this season has been much better.

[00:50:30] And plus, they've just made her more human. Yes, I love her. Like last season, I felt like she was very stiff and woody. And she was also going to like she was going to marry Damon at one point. And she was pretending to be pregnant.

[00:50:43] I mean, like they did not know what to do with her character. I think that you're completely right. Yes. Her paired with Raniera makes a very formidable team. I know that I'm hoping we get to see that explored a little bit in the weeks to come.

[00:50:59] All of Damon's ex-girlfriends in the same room. Who knew the bestie team up would be these two? You know what? And then put him in the center of it with a baseball bat and see what happens. Yeah, it's like the besties team up.

[00:51:17] I mean, what can I say? Damon Targaryen has good taste in women. What can we say? Yeah. All right, Kristen. So I already talked about Aegon a lot. So we haven't really talked about Damon. Now, I'd like to just touch on him a little bit.

[00:51:35] It's one of my points. Yeah. The first question that I have before we actually discuss Damon, has he slept? It's hard to know what's hallucinations, what's dreaming, what's sleeping, what's awake. Like, I don't know. Because there is some kind of magical hold on him right now.

[00:51:54] He is hallucinating. He is having some weird experience at Harrenhal right now. And Harrenhal is a weird place. We know this. I mean, even in its best of days, I'm pretty sure it was always dripping from the ceiling.

[00:52:10] You know, I mean, Harrenhal has just never been a great place. And there's a lot of bad omens and bad thoughts and bad stories when it comes to this place. And now it's almost like Damon went there to chase ghosts.

[00:52:28] Like he just went to the creepiest place that he could find that nobody wants, where nobody would bug him and where everybody would just call him king for a couple of weeks. And he decided to do some peyote. I don't know like what happened.

[00:52:46] Yeah, I like that description of it better than anything. He's gone to find himself with peyote and a haunted house. I really believe that that is what's happening, because at the very end of his arc in this specific episode, he seems to snap out of it.

[00:53:06] Wait a minute. Like, Raineys is dead. Wait a minute. Like, Aegon might be dead. You know, he he seems to have missed a couple of things. Him and Aemon, I think, are the real problems in this war.

[00:53:23] I think if we were to just take them both out, lift them both out, we would be in a we wouldn't be fixed, but we would at least be in a better spot because these two have such hatred for each other

[00:53:38] that they're ready to burn Westeros down over it. And just for the just for the fight, like they're not thinking of anything beyond I think both of them want to be the king and they're both the brother of the king. Yes. The second born.

[00:53:54] And they would both be terrible. They would both be terrible kings. It's like the second born sons trying to find their way in the world. And they both like chaos. And I'm with you of like, I think maybe early on

[00:54:06] if the two of them had just gone out, it would fix things. I think that's progressed too much in the realm. And I think the Battle of the Windmill kind of kind of showed like this has triggered a cascade of effects.

[00:54:21] I don't know with Aegon, especially after his son being killed. I don't know if there's a way to go back now, even even if Aemond and Daemon were out with with Daemon. I always find him so entertaining.

[00:54:36] I find Matt Smith very attractive and I find this character very entertaining. Yeah, I will say when when Daemon is talking to Sir Sir Willem, he says like after that great scene of like Caraxes coming down

[00:54:53] and like I thought he was going to Drakkar as the people and he didn't. And Daemon's just sitting there looking all defeated. I do think he made the right move. Like he's like, these are good fighting men. I need them. It's so funny.

[00:55:06] It's like I didn't think that they wanted to that they were not big of a hurry to die. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, these are the people I need. I'm like, good call, sir. This is what we're looking for.

[00:55:17] And then Daemon says to Sir Willem, Daemon said less fighting, more persuading. And then he made the Daemon eyes at him. And I thought he meant to seduce them or something, because he says like they're unyielding in battle and every man has a weakness

[00:55:35] like, like, I don't know. Like I didn't think that he was going to say like, Sir Willem, go and do this. But I thought he said less fighting, more persuading. And then I was like, this is weird. Why is he making this face?

[00:55:49] And then we go on to find that the Blackwoods continue to fight. Wouldn't they murder or take children and women hostage? Like Daemon just said less fighting, more persuading. So I'm like, wait, what happened here? Sir, you need to be way more explicit.

[00:56:05] I took it to mean that Daemon was telling them to go rape and pillage. Really? Yeah. That's how I took it. Oh, my gosh. That's not less fighting. He said the crown can't be seen doing unseemly things like that.

[00:56:20] So what he meant by less fighting was less fighting on the battlefield and more killing their hearts and minds. Gosh, Daemon, that's awful. Oh, my. It's typical Daemon, like, yeah, putting something into action that he hasn't thought through.

[00:56:38] And then he's going to claim that he didn't say that. And then he looks horrible. But of course he did. Yeah, then he's like, oh, what? It's like, yeah, they flew your flag, sir. Like, oh, my God, I did not pick up on that.

[00:56:51] Yeah. No, I took it as that right away. That's what he meant. Daemon, stop killing children. He was basically giving them license to loot and burn and rape and pillage. Everything that Rhaenyra stands against, he just gave them permission to do. And that they just fought over.

[00:57:08] That's the problem. See, like this is like I think there's a part of Daemon who knows he can't be king. I'm not really a big fan of this arc where suddenly he wants to be king.

[00:57:19] And I don't know, this is just my perspective, at least in season one. I think he wants the opportunity to be king. But what he really wanted was Viserys' love. Like he had Viserys' love. He had Viserys' love.

[00:57:37] He didn't have a spot high enough on his small council. I think he wanted to be hand and he didn't get to be hand. He wanted to be hand. And then he saw when his brother took away him as heir.

[00:57:50] And I know hallucinogenic Rhaena has talked to him about it. Like he doesn't, he saw it as a rejection, at least from my point of view. And like all and when she says like, you're mad that my father loved me

[00:58:03] more than he loved you, and he places her head off. And it's like, yep, that's the wound right there. Of like both him and Aemon just want to be loved. And they're going through these really destructive ways to try and get it.

[00:58:15] And like he's like saying, call me king. I was like, I don't know, dude. You've never seen like you really wanted the throne and you're not very good at this. So like I find it hard that he's like that he would even think Rhaenara would accept it.

[00:58:30] And that suddenly he's gone from crowning her on Drowning Stone, on Dragonstone to being like, no, I want to be king and she'll just be my wife. It's like, wait, what's happening here? Mm-Hmm. It's not clear. And I think they want us to question

[00:58:49] whether or not Daemon is with her or he's splintering off completely in a power grab of his own. And I can only think that and this is me not having read the books. I can I can only think that either they're heading

[00:59:07] to get them back together at the end and have a united force or they're going to splinter off and it's not going to go well. And knowing this story, it could be either. It could be both. They could be both.

[00:59:23] And I will say, I think we have to label it because it's one of the things that everyone's talking about. Daemon having sex with his mom. What? I don't think he ever had sex with his mom. No, no, no. I mean, like in his head.

[00:59:35] I mean, I think pretty sure she died when he was young. Oh, yeah. That was the hallucination was earlier in the episode, the sex scene. Yeah. Oh, I did not get that at all. That was his mother. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was his mom. It was his mom.

[00:59:53] And she because like it was I watched it twice with captions on. Because I was like into it. I'm like, OK, OK. Oh, no. Well, because she goes, oh, OK, now I get what you're saying. You look so confused, Wendy. Yeah, because I know when she goes.

[01:00:10] I just thought it was like a random Targaryen. No, I you know what? You know who I thought it was for a split second. I thought it was didn't I thought it was Daenerys. I thought it was Emma.

[01:00:21] I was like, oh, I don't know what this angle is, but I'm here for it. Like, I was really excited to see what would happen if they had. OK, I probably heard that and just thought that was some weird kinky stuff.

[01:00:34] I didn't I didn't take it as his mother. Yeah, I guess I kind of is. But like I was watching it going, oh my goodness, I found my fictional incest limit on the show. And it's Damon eating out his mom. Oh, my whole new term to mother.

[01:00:50] Yeah, I'm going to have to watch it with new eyes. Yeah, that's I mean, that's the whole Oedipus complex anyways of the Targaryen family and know how well he knew his mother. I think she died because I have to remember that.

[01:01:04] I think she died when he was very young because the woman in the castle, Alice, Alice goes, it's a shame you didn't get to know your mom, your mother. So I think she must have died when he was young. Gosh, I hope it's not a memory.

[01:01:18] I hope it's fictional. The show you can never know on that note. Right. All right. Where are we, Sam? Is it back to you? I just had to to quick like things like not even like full. Full points. Sir Simon Strong. I love you, Diva. You are wonderful.

[01:01:41] I love that line where, you know, Damon's trying to get him to call my king. He goes, King Regent. Like, I don't know. I think he's fantastic and such a delight. I enjoy every time he's on screen.

[01:01:53] I find him very entertaining and makes me wish we would have gotten to know the other Strongs. I feel like he assumes he's going to die soon and he's just going to he's just trying to eat as much as he can before that happens.

[01:02:07] He remind you of, though, does he remind you of Samwell Tarly? A little. Yeah. With the humor like a more a more jaded Samwell. Samwell Tarly, like we saw him at the end of his life. It's like him and all of his, you know, crafter kids.

[01:02:23] Yeah. He's just like, yeah, more jaded. Like I'm just here. I thought I fought with John Stark. You want to hear about that? Yeah. This guy's figures like whatever happens, happens. I'm just going along with it. Yeah, I loved it. And then also the hour of the wolf.

[01:02:40] I looked that up because I was very confused. So the Brackens, you know, came in upset. Obviously. So I'm hearing and they came in between three to four a.m., according to Russian times and three to five a.m. in Swedish times is the hour of the wolf.

[01:03:00] And it was thought that this was the time when people would give birth or die very frequently, which I thought was an interesting time to. I think that's accurate, by the way. Oh, thank you. I was like, I just Googled it because I was like, this is fascinating.

[01:03:14] Well, I'm a hospice nurse. And when I first moved into hospice, I started obsessing over the statistics of it. Oh, oh, oh. And like the time of day where most people die. And it's so accurate. Like, I don't know what it is, but but that is really.

[01:03:33] I have chills because that and that and that also lines up with Harrenhal being haunted. And he heard the Brackens being murdered, too. We heard those crying and screaming when he was being Bob the Builder on the show. That's not my joke.

[01:03:49] I saw it online, but I thought it was very funny of like screaming coming from. And Alice said she heard it in the wind, but that sort of adds up with them coming in the hour of the wolf. So I just thought that was really cool.

[01:04:01] And my last point is someone get that that puppy an owner. He needs a hug. The rat catcher's dog, they keep showing us this. Yes. And it breaks my heart every time. Someone's gotten dirtier. Adopt him. I know. I know. Like someone not in the green.

[01:04:22] They just keep keep nailing it into our hearts. Right. Just like they keep doing it on purpose. I feel like it's every time. Justice for ground puppies and air puppies. I just had a little bit about Kristen and Allison because I'm obsessed.

[01:04:37] And I think Kristen really was not meeting eye contact with her. He really was ignoring her as much as possible. And she confronts him. And she seems to be like asking, where do we stand? Like that's how I took it.

[01:04:53] She asked him if she still has his loyalty. He seems to have been traumatized and impacted by the war that he the battle that he just fought through and seeing the carnage that the dragons can create. But he just seems so broken. He can't stop anything.

[01:05:14] He's just plodding forward in his villain arc. He says the war is given over to the dragons. So a dragon rider should lead us. He talks to Allison and at one point he says, is this who you are, Allison?

[01:05:31] I was trying to figure out, is he really trying to spare her? Because he seems to have put her on this pedestal. And that's probably before they started having sex. He seems to have put her on this pedestal and really elevated her

[01:05:47] to something worth living for to protect her. I think her grasping at power is disappointing to him in some way. So is he really trying to spare her from doing evil or doing bad deeds and taking it on for her?

[01:06:06] Or is he is he just trying to hurt her? I think the latter. I don't think he knows what he's doing. I don't think he knows what he's doing. I think right now, because you talked earlier about how he seems shaken up, right? He seems broken.

[01:06:25] I don't think he has seen what a dragon can do. No one has. Right. For a while. I think he's he's been to battle. Right. He's been to battle and he knew what he was doing on that battlefield. He knew what he was doing.

[01:06:38] What he didn't understand was what he was inviting. Oh, that's a good point. And when you see all three of those dragons tangled up the way that they were, you realize in one horrifying moment, you let this get away from you.

[01:06:57] Right. And and we've all been there in our lives. Right. We have all been there with our small little lives that we have. We have had the triple dragon. Holy shit moment in our life where we've said, OK, so I've let this go too far.

[01:07:11] And now he doesn't know how to reel it back. Now, we've got to understand that because this scene, the scene with that you're talking about, Wendy, it really stuck with me as well.

[01:07:23] And I think a lot of what this scene is also is that we know that Allison. Is still trying to kill your baby, man. So she has drank the moon tea herself because she's pregnant with his child. And yeah, so as she's trying to get past this

[01:07:44] event in her life. And now the man that impregnated her has basically to her eyes, given her, given her oldest son a death sentence, has shaken the entire realm because he is the king and her oldest son and her son's a monster. And Kristen is on his side.

[01:08:05] So it's all kind of piling up for her. And I think that she wants to fight really bad. And nobody is fighting with her. And she has she needs like one of those break rooms, those destructive rooms, you know, like smash rooms. I don't know what they're called.

[01:08:25] It's an interesting dynamic between these two right now because they have both come back after the small council meeting and they're and they're having this very open conversation around other people. And she. Yeah. Is miscarrying. And he just watched what he just what we just watched last week.

[01:08:49] And they're both so mad and so mad at themselves and mad at each other, and everything's out of control. I don't think that they even know how to look at each other, Wendy. I really don't. I just think that it's you know, Kristen doesn't know

[01:09:04] how to be handed the king. No. This was going to be my last point, so I'll just say it now. When you look at Cole, he is trying to make decisions. He's trying to repeat past decisions of Otto Hightower. Otto Hightower said, we have an heir

[01:09:25] to the Iron Throne with his head chopped off. So it back on. Put the moms behind the kid and parade that shit through the town. You will have the town eating out of your hand. So Kristen Cole said, oh, they like parades.

[01:09:43] That's great, because I have this severed dragon head that I want to parade through his hand of the king to show you that I could do this, too. But what he doesn't understand is he doesn't understand the role that he's in.

[01:09:56] He doesn't understand the history of the role that he's in. He doesn't he he comes from very modest backgrounds. He had a fast track to where he is now because of Raniere and because of Alicent. And now the kid is going to ruin everything.

[01:10:15] I really feel that way. And so but you see, Kristen, and to me, he is just he's just like a gun, beautiful a gun. He beautiful a gun is trying to be a gun. The conqueror.

[01:10:31] Well, because we have a gun, the conqueror, and then we have a beautiful a gun. Right. A gun, the beautiful. That's his name. Well, I guess not anymore. It should be. But you see that a gun doesn't know how to lead because nobody taught him

[01:10:46] how to lead. So what does he do? He goes and he puts on a gun, the conqueror's armor, armor to to feel like a king. Right. Kristen Cole, nobody taught him how to lead. And now he's handed the king.

[01:10:59] So he's decided that he's going to do the last successful thing that Otto did. Hope it sticks to the wall. And it turns out he doesn't know how to do anything, really. Now, I think what we have in King's Landing is all these people that are spinning out

[01:11:18] and everybody has backstabbed each other so much that even the people you trust, you don't trust anymore. And Allison and Kristen, I think, had that in each other for a small amount of time. And that's gone. And both of them don't have anybody anymore. Yeah.

[01:11:40] I love that the way like you phrased it, for me, it would it would settle better if it wasn't for beautiful a gun. You'd crispy cold and Allison's hubris like so much of of this.

[01:11:58] I go back to the end of season one and the hubris that they had. And that they were doing the right thing despite taking a step back and looking at this. And what we're seeing now is they are finally getting the consequences

[01:12:15] of their actions dating back to season one. And it's like, yeah, no one taught you how to do this because you guys thought you could do this all by yourself. You heard one loose rambling after decades of him backing Raniera of this stoned half dead man

[01:12:32] whispered once and it didn't even make any sense. And you all and they were even conspiring to put a gun on the throne before Allison said that. So it's like this is their hubris. This is what they're finally getting is karma. And it's like Kristen Cole is traumatized.

[01:12:50] Poor, beautiful a gun is crispy himself. And it's like, yeah, but you guys did this to yourselves. And Raniera is just trying to fix it. And as she said, this last episode, this can't just be for a throne

[01:13:06] because she knows there's deeper reasonings here for the song of ice and fire. And I guess I just like what the writers are doing is exactly what you're describing, Kristen. And I have maybe fleeting seconds of empathy, especially for Allison, because like you said, we've all been there.

[01:13:24] And then I go back to what you all did this and like you set this in motion. I mean, even beautiful a gun did not want to be king. So so like all of. No, he didn't. He didn't want to be king. And he wasn't trained for it.

[01:13:40] And it's like you're going to put someone on there that hasn't been trained. Well, he'll listen to his advisors. Oh, did he? Because you don't control them once they're in the throne. So we're sort of seeing this.

[01:13:49] So like finally, team green is getting some consequences because, oh, my God, it has team blacks been getting consequences since last year or last season. I should say. Yeah. Yeah. I need them to have a few wins in the next couple of episodes.

[01:14:03] I really need them to have some wins in the next couple of episodes. I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah, I'm ready for that. I'm ready. I'm right. I'm tired of seeing. Vernier is back against the wall. Team black beat up. Yeah.

[01:14:20] I don't want a one dimensional bad guy either, but it's like, OK, enough. They started this. Well, I think also Emma Darcy is just doing an incredible job as Raniera. Yeah, they really know what they're doing with the subtle nuances and just the way that they carry themselves.

[01:14:39] It's so Targaryen. And I would imagine that it's very, very fun to play a Targaryen. Yes. Yes. Yes. It seems like it. Like I think the actor who plays Eamon, you and Mitchell, he he said in one of the the behind the scenes

[01:15:00] that he plays Eamon as a very silent type so that he takes up a lot of room in these scenes without saying much. And I'm like, oh, sir, you were doing a great job. Like all these actors are truly amazing at what they do,

[01:15:15] especially Emma Darcy and Olivia Cook are just phenomenal. They're really just wonderful actors. All right. So I'll just go with my first note. I loved our last ending scene of Jace and Raniera hatching the plan to get more dragon riders for the large riderless dragons that they have.

[01:15:38] I think there is a dragon. I love their relationship. You know, besides her little kids, her and Jace are really her her Jason Bela are really standing alone. And she's she's slowly accepting Jace, not just as her son and heir, but also her ally,

[01:16:01] her dragon rider, her strategist. So I really liked seeing that come to fruition in their blossoming adult relationship. I really that's a hard that's a hard evolution to make, too, with that parent child relationship. Well, I just I'm sure you're navigating that on your end as the mom.

[01:16:24] And I'm I just navigated that myself as a daughter, you know, trying to tell my mom, OK, I'm 43. Shh. I mean, it never ends. I mean, my dad is 85 and still like, you know, we try to help him. And he's like, Wendy, put that down.

[01:16:47] That's really how you sit down before you break a hip. I know. I know. No, no. It's like one day I said, do you think you're stronger than me? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I will prove it otherwise. It's just funny.

[01:17:09] So I think that we're constantly navigating that. I'm sure my kids would say the same. Laney like yelled at me for a half hour after the last podcast. It's great that my kids are listening to the podcast.

[01:17:22] Now they can call me for a half hour and yell at me because they disagree. And she called me an Allison apologist. Oh, you know what? Has she listened? Has she listened to you talk about Circe? Because that's yeah, I know nothing. Oh, hi, Laney.

[01:17:44] If you're listening, come on the show. Cassie, yeah, amazing. I think. Yeah, it was great. It was a lot of fun. Cassie and Laney. Oh, oh, I don't know if the world's ready for that. All right. How about other notes? I really enjoyed seeing the Eerie this week.

[01:18:06] That was wonderful. And seeing the Aaron House. I like seeing these frustrated, smart, intelligent women who just want to be a part of things and they're being shoved to the side. And you see that there's this underlying conversation that Lady Aaron and Raina, Raina, Raina, thank you,

[01:18:33] that Raina and Lady Aaron were having. They're both trying to act like they've got all this power and that they have all this, you know, wit and cleverness and strength. And then really at the end, Raina is just like, I just want to do something, you know?

[01:18:51] And and they had this mutual respect for each other in that moment. And I think that we see those moments all throughout the season so far with Raniera and Allison when they were in the Sept. They had that moment where they looked at each other

[01:19:05] and they're like, we have let this get away from us. And we're women and we can't we can't pull this back. We've seen Rainies have to struggle with this throughout the season. And it's so interesting. That these huge subjects

[01:19:22] are being addressed in such beautiful, nuanced ways on the show. And one of that is the struggle of women trying to have their voice in the room to to matter and and to be a part of a solution and not push to the side as an added problem.

[01:19:44] So I'm really, really, really excited about what I've seen as far as that underlying theme of feminism in this show that we knew they were coming out of the gates with anyways from the get go and season one, episode one.

[01:20:03] We knew it was going to be a female forward show and they've stuck to that largely. And I really appreciate that. Yeah. And I love the way it's evolved because it started out with these two little girls who really didn't have any power in the world.

[01:20:19] And now look at them. I know. But you know what? At the same time, they still don't have any power at the same time. But look at the but like they they're in these positions of great power. They have nothing.

[01:20:37] Yeah, I'd like to see like the progression of it in the generations where Raineys was a queen who never was and she should have been. I mean, I think that's like one of the biggest lessons

[01:20:49] I take away from the House of the Dragon is make the most qualified person your leader and and not fall back on biases. And Raineys would have made an incredible leader. And that could be a great what if series is if Raineys had been leader

[01:21:03] had been queen, how would the realm have looked? And so we go from Raineys, the queen who never was to Rhaenyra, who's fighting for her crown right now and to to Bela, who is very self-assured and speaking her mind to her grandfather, to everyone around her.

[01:21:25] And we sort of see this progression in women who are teaching other women to stand up and be in their voice and in their power and in their expertise. And of course, we're also seeing that the society of Westeros has not changed. There's going to be there's pushback.

[01:21:42] Yeah. Yeah. I think when you look at the Targaryen history and I'm not I don't think this is a spoiler, because if you watch Game of Thrones, you know this from the show. Other than Rhaenyra, and this is if Rhaenyra becomes queen or not, but other than Rhaenyra.

[01:22:04] The only other queen I can think of is Cersei. Yeah. And then Sansa became queen of the north. But it was just Cersei, right? Yeah, I don't think they've ever had a queen other than than that. Yeah. Not that we've heard anything about.

[01:22:20] I mean, I've looked at that family tree and I've looked at those. Yeah. And I don't I don't know. It's so frustrating. Yeah. That's all the notes I have, though. What else do you have, Wendy? I found it interesting that the the information

[01:22:37] that the team green released to the small folk was that Aegon slayed Maglise and Rhaenys. And of course, we know that wasn't true. Yeah. And I was wondering how Aemond felt about not getting credit for it. I don't know.

[01:22:53] Well, I mean, he's a pretty level headed guy, so I think probably OK. Yeah, he's probably seeing it as a tactic. Yeah. And I thought it I really thought one funny piece was that when they lock the gates and they show the scene with the small folk,

[01:23:14] they said something like Aemond is the reason. Do they mean the king? Like, they're also confused, which is funny because Veronica confused Aemond and Aegon like six times last episode. I just thought that was kind of funny. Yeah.

[01:23:29] All the names sound the same and everyone is named Aegon. Everyone is named Aegon. They can't keep it straight either. Was that a Targaryen? What's their name? It's Aegon. Yeah. The fact that I could keep the name straight is just a part of my font of useless information.

[01:23:45] Like it, it behooves me in no other areas in my life. I'm like Rhaenys, Rhaenyra and Rhaena. And then poor Aegon the Beautiful. It just never gets better for him. Alicent comes to his bedside to see him for a moment.

[01:24:03] And as he's walking, as she's walking just out of earshot, you can hear him say, Mommy, Mommy, he says, Mommy. And just classic Alicent, just like not there when her kids need mommy. Yeah. Oh, he has never been there for that poor kid.

[01:24:23] No, no, any of them really. I think she's tried the hardest with Helene, who doesn't want to have anything to do with her, because I think Helene can sense that her mom didn't want to be a mom. Yeah, she's never been there for any of her kids.

[01:24:35] Like I think the closest she's been to is for Helene and Helene wants almost nothing to do with her. I think it's because Helene as a dragon dreamer can sense that her mom never wanted to be a mother. Yeah. Really like Helene.

[01:24:49] Yeah. Yeah, we saw a little bit from her, but not much in this episode. I really hope they do more with her character. So interesting. I agree. Do you guys think she knew that Aemond did it on purpose? Because it seemed like he seemed like it.

[01:25:08] Yeah. Because she said, was it worth it? I think that Helene knows everything. Do you think there's something going on with Helene and Aemond? I have always thought that. And I'm really glad that you said that, because I am under the impression

[01:25:23] that maybe one of her kids is even Aegon's. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Same, same, same. Yeah. I mean, just little tiny hints. And then I noticed in the introduction with the tapestries that they haven't gone past the rat catchers.

[01:25:42] Yeah. So I didn't know what I expected to see something with Rhaenys and the battle. That was something I did want to talk about was that intro. Holy cow. The fact that it's being the story is being woven in blood is so freaking beautiful. I just can't.

[01:26:04] I just I sat there the first time I and I was just captivated by it. I thought it was fantastic, but I didn't know that they keep going, that they're going to keep going with the story. So now I need to watch it every week.

[01:26:16] Right. They have they have added things, I don't think for every episode, but most of the episodes. But they didn't seem to add anything from this one. I think at first I wasn't sure what I thought of it. But as as I've watched it more,

[01:26:33] I definitely like it better than what they have. It was too confusing last season. Yeah, it wasn't good. It's just pretty universally. Yeah. But this one, I love the map. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, I liked it.

[01:26:50] I liked I liked all the little details that we got in this episode. We saw a lot of like everyday life, you know, like we saw Cole cleaning his sword. I thought that was really just just a really great attention to detail scene.

[01:27:08] We saw a lot of Harrenhal and everything that's happening there. I didn't dig the daemon scenes, and I picked an article that we can read later about the daemon scenes because I felt like I needed that. You need some context. Yeah. Yes.

[01:27:27] But I'm just kind of and I think other people I've read in the feedback, a little snippets, other people feel the same way, like it feels like it's not part of the episode. Yeah, it feels like I mean, I've seen other people make this comment online

[01:27:40] is that it seems like there's a Dance of the Dragons going on everywhere else. And Damon is in an A24 horror movie. And that's exactly what it feels like. It this would have been a good storyline maybe for the first season.

[01:27:55] But it seems out of pace with everything else that's happening in the series. It throws me quite a bit. And it's been going on too long. I don't know what they're trying to do with it, but it's been going on for like four episodes. Yeah, I agree.

[01:28:08] It's it's time for it to stop. But I do think that it is going to stop because I feel that he was snapped out of something at the end of the episode today. I could totally be wrong, but. I really need it to be over as well.

[01:28:26] I agree because I don't I don't it's not enriching the story for me. So. Well, it just doesn't make sense like you have. Damon overseeing these construction crews when his family is being killed, like it makes no sense. He would not do that normally.

[01:28:50] I think it was seeing Lena saying, have you checked on our children? It's like, you know, in the 80s when it's like it's 10 p.m., do you know where your children are? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like somebody had to tell Damon, hello, you were a single dad,

[01:29:07] you know, yes, you're a single dad. Come on now. She's died for one of our children. Can you make sure the others are alive, please? Yeah. I think that that is snapping him out of it. We'll see. We'll see, you know, but he's he's too good

[01:29:25] of a character to sit on the sidelines for one more minute. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah, I agree. All right. Anybody have any other notes? I think the only last thing I have is a little bit, I guess, of a spoiler for next week.

[01:29:41] They they had it on on the next coming up. I'm excited to meet Vermith or I. My toxic trait is thinking I could hug Vermith or and he would let me and not put me up in the cinders.

[01:29:53] He is. Well, if you bonded with him, you could like. See? Never say never. That is that would be how I would go. Listen, have you done ancestry.com or me in 23? You never know. You could have some Targaryen in you next week. One lining up.

[01:30:12] See if we're near a place you write. I will go to Dragonstone as fast as I can. I'll have a dragon. I guess I'll just have to sail there. I mean, he just like he was like jamming out to the song Damon sang for him.

[01:30:26] And I don't know. He seems adorable, although I'm sure he's vicious. But I don't know. I just see him as a very fun older gentleman. Very cool. So I'm excited to see him. All right. Well, we can go into our news segment.

[01:30:44] Last week, we promised that we would do some research about how they make the dragon sounds. Special thanks to Megan Dively-Layman for sending me some links to get me started. I definitely went down a serious rabbit hole. I found out information about Paula Fairfield.

[01:31:05] She is a Canadian-American sound designer and sound artist, and she has done amazing sound creations for Game of Thrones, Rings of Power, Lost, and now House of the Dragon. So I did pull an interesting article about this.

[01:31:23] This is about Game of Thrones, but I just really liked it. It's from the website Wildlife Acoustics. It says, What does a dragon sound like? And this is talking about the Game of Thrones finale In the Game of Thrones finale, Drogon makes a number of sounds,

[01:31:40] including sniffs, shakes and whimpers. That high pitched whimper was actually sound designer Paula Fairfield's dog, though her goal is often to combine multiple animal sounds in a way that is indistinguishable to the human ear. She wanted this one to be familiar enough

[01:31:58] that viewers could immediately recognize the emotions behind it. As for the dragon sniffs and shakes, those were recorded with the song meter SM4 that has been residing inside a hibernating bear's den. I'd like to have that for you. Go, go mic up this bear's den.

[01:32:20] I'm good. That's that's what you're doing. It's a job you only do once. Yeah. Paula had placed the SM4 in the den with two orphaned grizzly bear cubs. This allowed her to closely capture even the slightest noises

[01:32:34] they made in the den, a number of which have been used to craft the dragon sounds on the show. Loved that. It's so great. Also, listen to the official House of the Dragon podcast after you have listened to ours, of course, and season two, episode two,

[01:32:53] the host talk with sound designer Paula Fairfield, who creates the dragons voices using the sounds of dolphins, bison, birds and whales. Very cool. Our second article is from Time magazine. It is entitled Unpacking Damon's Very Weird Dream from House of the Dragon by Megan McCluskey.

[01:33:16] While the rest of Team Black was reeling from the deaths of Raineys and her dragon mailes in the fifth episode of House of the Dragon season two, Damon, who is played by the effervescent Matt Smith,

[01:33:29] was busy starting a DIY renovation on Harrenhal and turning all of the river lords against him by once again encouraging violence against women and children. But for all of his bluster and talk about deserving to be king, it's clear Damon is going through it.

[01:33:47] After chopping off young Rhaenrya's head during one of his Harrenhal induced visions in episode four, Sunday's installment saw him fantasizing about sleeping with his own mother. Obviously, incest among the Targaryens is nothing new in this show, but we've never seen them cross that taboo parent-child line before yet.

[01:34:09] That would... That is an icklefactor. That's too much. Too much. Like, fresher. Odd. Plus, the late reveal of the mysterious blonde woman's identity purposefully designed to generate maximum ickfactor. Quote, You were always the strong one, the finest swordman, fearless dragon rider. End quote.

[01:34:32] He imagines his mom telling him during this twisted encounter, quote, Your brother had great love in his heart, but he lacked your constitution. Viserys was unsuited for the crown, but you, Damon, you were made to wear it. If only you'd been born first, my favorite son. End quote.

[01:34:53] Whether it's due to the curse of Harrenhal, the witchy powers of Alys Rivers, or a combination of both, all the important women in Damon's life seem to be taking turns popping up to haunt him. And suffice it to say that Damon doesn't seem to be handling

[01:35:09] these frequent reminders of his greatest transgressions very well. Thanks to George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood, the Song of Ice and Fire companion novel on which House of the Dragon is based, we know that Damon's mom was Alyssa Targaryen,

[01:35:23] the sister wife of Baelin Targaryen and a former rider of Meleys, a fact that feels significant given the timing of her appearance in the show. When Viserys was six and Damon was two, Alyssa gave birth to a third son, Aegon, following a long and difficult labor.

[01:35:41] However, she and the baby both died within the year from complications resulting from the birth. Baelin never remarried after her death, but we learn in episode three that he may have gone on to father some illegitimate children with the peasants of King's Landing. Ulf. Has, yes, Ulf.

[01:35:59] It's clear that Damon has some pretty insignificant mommy issues, which seem to only be exasperated by Alys taunting him about never knowing Alyssa. This conversation held in Harrenhal's courtyard ties into the episode's insistence on the idea that, as Time TV critic Judy Berman put it,

[01:36:21] you wouldn't want to be a woman in Westeros. That's true. Damon maintains that Rhaenyra cannot succeed. The people who support her will not be led by her. They look to a man for strength. However, later that night, he's awoken by Sir Sir Simon,

[01:36:37] played by a man named Simon for a surprise audience for a surprise audience at the Riverlords, who inform him in no uncertain terms that the barbaric tactics he used to bring House Bracken to heel, the exact types of things that Rhaenyra would surely forbid,

[01:36:53] have only served to ensure their houses will never ally with him. Awesome. If Damon wants to avoid the fate Alys predicted for him from the start, you will die in this place. It seems he may have some important lessons to learn from the women

[01:37:09] he has spent his life looking down on. I liked that article. That was great. That's a great article. Very good. All right. Well, it's time for listener feedback. From Penny Lennox, I feel like I can give you my feedback before the episode airs. I'm devastated.

[01:37:38] Rhaenys was the best character and everyone is rightly torn up by her loss. The egg on is a tool. Beautiful tool. Alyssa is wrong. Aemon is way too pleased with himself, but he makes it look good. Fair. Damon is so self-centered. It's ridiculous.

[01:38:00] Wow. Spellcheck cannot handle the Targaryens. No, it really can't. I have to do a lot of ad dictionary. Maria Lawson says watching a gun have his injuries tended to was really intense. Agreed. Was that not the slowest ambulance ride in the world for him?

[01:38:22] Like, couldn't they have gotten him back just a little faster or maybe not slow walk through the castle? Jason Bela are my favorite power couple, and I hope they end up on the throne one day. I'm kind of tired of the Damon fever dream stuff.

[01:38:36] I feel like way too much time is being devoted to it unless it leads up to some huge payoff later. I know these phrase aren't Walter, but I'm still traumatized from the red wedding, so I don't trust them at all. I think that that's okay.

[01:38:51] That just always feel that way. You'll be fine. Yeah. Never trust a fray. Allison's face when she realized she was getting sidelined, just like Rhaenyra was priceless. Why she thought that they would let her lead when they wouldn't even let have let the king's

[01:39:06] chosen heir have the throne shows how delusional she is. I think she was sitting there thinking, Oh, snap. We're all fucked now. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yes. Good job. Yes. Plus, she has to reckon with the suspicion that a man probably had a hand in a gun injuries.

[01:39:25] Right? My absolute out of left field prediction is that she is going to turn on her own kids and support Rhaenyra in the end. Wow. Wouldn't that be great? Oh, that would be so cool.

[01:39:37] It would be, but I don't think it's gonna happen, but I don't think she's done. Yeah. I don't think she's hung up her crown yet. Oh, that would be a cool outcome. I'd be for that. That'd be amazing. Need some Allison power.

[01:39:51] Even just to hate her a little bit. I'm tired of feeling sorry for her. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'd like to see what she's got left in her. Yeah. Lindsay Schlicht says, least favorite episode of the season. I think so tired of the haunted daemon storyline.

[01:40:10] Matt Smith is being wasted this season. The dirty mommy dream didn't help me like him more either. Gross. Malise's head being dragged in was almost too much. I was glad the normally bloodthirsty King's Landing crown didn't even seem to approve.

[01:40:31] The scene with Bela and Corlys was a standout. Now that we've lost Rhaenys, I'm glad we have another bad bitch in Bela around. Happy the possible dragon seed storyline is finally happening. I need more dragons. Yes. This is great. More dragons. More dragons, but no more dragon deaths.

[01:40:53] From Erica N. Furter, holy Oedipus complex Batman. That scene may be so uncomfortable in the first place, but once she revealed she was daemon's mother. Also, I'm loving Gale Rankin's portrayal of Alice Rivers. Loved her on GLOW. RIP.

[01:41:16] Yeah, Gale Rankin is doing a wonderful job as Alice Rivers. Yeah, she's creepy as fuck. Yes. Yeah. Alicia Stout. Hey, Alicia. Hi, Wendy, Sam, and Kristen. Hey, girl. Hey, hey, girl. Hey. I love Alicia. Sorry to miss you, Rennie. Yes, me too.

[01:41:37] So I felt this episode was a little bit of a slog and almost everyone seems to have big time other issues. Nothing new here though, right? Crispy Critter or Kristen Cole has his head so far up his ass that he could see out the other end.

[01:41:53] How could he possibly think that parading a dragon head, RIP Millies, through King's Landing is a smart thing to do? I think we, as in the audience, were just as horrified watching that as the small folk in King's Landing. I know I gasped. I was not expecting that.

[01:42:12] I mean, how horrible and terrifying all those people are interested in is surviving and eating and taking care of their family. Now they have to stress out about a possible retaliation. Even Gwaine didn't think it was cool.

[01:42:27] Crispy was so smug and proud of himself, much like a house cat who catches prey and brings it home to his owner as a gift. That's so true. He is such an ass, but in a different way. Not a Joffrey way or a Ramsay way.

[01:42:43] In the words of Hermione Granger, what an idiot. Can we talk about the CGI for a minute on that dragon head? I thought it was pretty good even adding flies to it to show that it was rotting and must have stunk, but eh, it's only meat.

[01:43:02] You know, and it was steamy too. I wish that they didn't show Melly's head in the trailer for the next week. Because it wasn't shocking for me because I didn't turn it off like I usually do.

[01:43:23] And so when they had that in the next week on House of the Dragon, I'm like, oh, okay, well, there you go. That should have been saved for a shocking moment. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, totally. It would have been much more of a powerful hit.

[01:43:41] Oh, oops, sorry, there's more. And can we please go back to Harrenhal? I'm so sorry. Harrenhal visiting... That's why I started talking. Harrenhal's visiting Damon's weird dreams again. I'd like to move on from this. Can we please?

[01:43:54] Speaking of weird dreams, when Damon was having that wild sex vision that Emma, Viserys' wife, or supposed to be a vision of himself as a woman or his mother, it was his mommy, Alicia, gross.

[01:44:08] It looked like the same actress that played Emma and it was a little confusing, but either way... Yeah, I thought it was Emma too. Alicent. Yeah, a little part of me kind of feel sorry for her, but not.

[01:44:22] I think she's realizing now that she's being cast aside and that things have gotten a bit out of hand. Now with Aemond ruling, it's only going to get worse. When she stands over Aegon's bed staring at him, she seems to be more worried about herself

[01:44:35] and how she plays a role in all of this. She doesn't even touch or really acknowledge Aegon and then walks away. Mommy. Oh, that was sad. Much more to discuss, but I know you guys will talk about it all during your coverage. So heartbreaking. Really? I know.

[01:44:54] Good point about Alicent too. I know Veronica just sent me a little blurb that her feedback was that she still loves Aemond way more than is healthy. I get that. Doesn't matter what he does. I'm with you.

[01:45:10] The only time I ever sort of really pull back on him is when he's nasty to Rhaenyra. But even then, I'm with you, Veronica. We have one call and it's from Mae Almerdini. Hello, this is Mae calling from the north with feedback for House of the Dragon.

[01:45:29] Um, episode five. I'm going to have to say this was not my favorite episode. It was extremely slow and I was so disappointed. We had a big event last week that was heartbreaking for everyone, but it seemed like nobody cared except for Corlys who was weeping around.

[01:45:47] Um, yeah, I don't know. I think it's going too slow. I know we needed a break, but I guess more could have happened. It was just strange because last season so much happened every episode and we were just jumping around in time.

[01:46:02] And this season, we just seem to be waiting around and the whole Daemon storyline is kind of annoying. It was interesting to see, though, how Alicent was just getting screwed over by all the men around her.

[01:46:18] Um, and I do think that, um, Rhaenyra's character in the book was kind of annoying. She is definitely a better character, I think, on the show than she was in the book. Although I read the books two years ago.

[01:46:32] I listened to the books two years ago, so I don't remember all the details. I just remember her not being so great in the books. But she does have a lot more support and she's getting pumped up by people except for the council.

[01:46:46] I don't know all their names, but now she's sending them away, which is kind of smart. But at least her son and her stepdaughter are great and hopefully Corlys will come to the rescue. And she has a great master of whispers.

[01:47:00] I think it's going to be the, uh, Laerys versus, um, Sande? I can't remember her name, actually. War, which is going to be interesting to see as well. Anyway, you ladies are doing a fantastic job on this podcast. I am really enjoying listening to you.

[01:47:16] And, um, yeah, have a great one, everybody. Oh, thank you, Mae. That was some great feedback. Um, I do have a thought about, um, R'nere in the books versus R'nere in the show. If I may for just one second. It's not a spoiler.

[01:47:37] I thought about this while I was watching on my latest binge. Um, and I think because history is written by the victors that we are going to have a different book, R'nere.

[01:47:52] I think that because she was a woman who dared go for the throne, the men who wrote the history of the book were not kind to her because the way that they even describe her physically,

[01:48:07] they call her fat and lazy and mean, and her skin was gross and stuff like that. So my guess is, and I'd be interested to know if this is a direction that the writers are taking is that R'nere was actually not any of those things.

[01:48:23] And she was written that way. But we're going to see a different R'nere as a result. Ooh, I love that. And they were probably motivated to make sure no women tried to do that. Right.

[01:48:35] And so to me, I'm wondering if we're going to see a little bit of differences there. It would be really exciting to me to do something like that and to break from the book a little

[01:48:48] bit to do a story like that just to kind of emphasize the fact that women in history have been omitted. Yeah, it would just be very cool. All right. And we also have a call from Greg Schwamm.

[01:49:07] And Greg has done pretty similar to what you just did, Kristen. I know he's binged it recently because he just told me he was caught up and we haven't heard from him this season yet. He's so busy. So here you go. Hello, Dragoncast. This is Greg.

[01:49:22] I'm glad to finally be caught up and able to leave feedback. I'm sure you guys are going to cover a ton of stuff about this, but something in particular that I wanted to address was when they were when Kristen Cole and the King's body were

[01:49:37] being pulled through King's Landing and they brought Melissa's head through and Hugh looked at the head. And, you know, I understand it'll Omen and dragons are closer to gods than men. And my question is Hugh said something. He said, it's just meat.

[01:50:02] And that made me wonder if he was referring to the fact that a dragon was not in fact a god, they weren't invincible and it was almost like the death of a deity.

[01:50:13] Or if it was a concept of its meat, we could eat the meat because we don't have any meat. The would really kind of affected me throughout this whole thing. I think there's some really cool stuff in the big picture, but what really kind of affected

[01:50:31] me was the aspect of the small folk and the impact of the blockade. And, you know, you're talking, I think they said around a million people, a thousand thousand people who live in King's Landing.

[01:50:44] So it's a lot of people to have to try to eat and over a period of time. And I don't know how long this has been now, but I imagine food will get more and more scarce.

[01:50:58] They've definitely, I felt they've done a really good job in showing the scarcity of that food and how it's really affecting the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many people in King's Landing. Anyway, looking forward to the podcast. See you later. Bye. Thank you, Greg. Interesting.

[01:51:16] Gosh, I hope they didn't eat Millie's. Poor dragon. He doesn't eat. I wouldn't think so. It has been rotting. So I don't think that would be a good idea. And I just wanted to say we're not going to have book talk tonight, but Archmeister Renny

[01:51:33] and Acolyte Ronnie will be back next week with Reema Jo to discuss all things book related. I'm going to be at the beach for a week, so they're stepping in and I'm really excited. Oh, it's gonna be amazing. I'll be the listener. Yes.

[01:51:49] Are you gonna be down by my part's beach? No, we're going to Delaware this year. Very nice. Very nice. All right. Next week, we will be covering season two, episode six. I can't believe we're this far along already of House of the Dragon.

[01:52:10] Of course, the episode remains untitled. 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.com. You can find Dragon Cast and a bunch of other great podcasts at podcastica.com.

[01:52:33] I've been listening to a bunch, obviously still slaying. Karen Penny, you're doing a truly wonderful job with that. The cast of the Rings has also done a season two preview. I believe season two comes out the end of next month.

[01:52:49] And those have been the ones that are just off the top of my head. What about you guys? I'm watching the rewatch, which is with Jason and Lucy. I mean, I'm listening to the rewatch podcast and watching the episodes,

[01:53:03] although I feel like I've seen them so many times at this point, I don't even have to do that. Jill and I did a binge of the episodes. And then we listened to the feedback episodes. And it's been really, yeah, that was really fun.

[01:53:19] Yeah, that's been that's been fun. Interesting second time around, like how different you see things. I really liked Laurie and I liked Andrea on the second on this rewatch. I really did like those characters, you know, probably because we know, you know, what we know.

[01:53:42] I have a podcast that I do on. I share it with Podcastica and Ben Beck's network. But we are finishing up our Ted Lasso rewatch. And we are about to move into the good place. So that'll be fun. Very cool.

[01:54:03] And they did a whole lost rewatch as well. Yeah, yeah, every episode. Yeah. I listened to a bunch of that. I was I swore I was going to keep up with you guys. You know, we haven't gotten past the first date on schedule, which is very unlike us.

[01:54:23] So I think I think quite a few people are like, wait a minute, you're finishing? Yeah, man. We actually did. Because it's so enjoyable, you know, like lost is lost is great. But lost is a lot to dig in. Well, so yeah, we just actually finished.

[01:54:41] I did an immediate rewatch after we finished our last rewatch because I did it with the kids. And so I experienced lost for the very first time through my kids eyes. And that was so cool. So yeah. All right. Well, that is our show. Thanks for listening, everyone.

[01:55:04] Until next time, I'm Kristen. I'm Sam. And I'm Wendy. Drakkaraz. Rawr.