House of the Dragon - S02E04 - The Red Dragon and the Gold

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life! So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our Black Queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[00:00:42] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our Dragonfire Hot, but probably positive, takes.

[00:01:00] The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.

[00:01:11] House of the Dragon! Welcome to the House of the Hounds. We're the Lorehounds, your guides to the Dance of the Dragons. I'm John.

[00:01:40] And I'm David, and this is our coverage of HBO's original series, House of the Dragon, season two, episode four, titled The Red Dragon and the Gold. They lied to us, by the way. They did.

[00:01:53] There was a Forbes article that said it was a Dance of Dragons, which would have been a great episode title, but they named it this stupid title.

[00:02:03] It is not as good a title as Dan. If they had named it this one and then gave us Dance of the Dragons, I think it would have been a better.

[00:02:10] Yeah. Well, at the same time, I think probably the reason it's not named the Dance of Dragons is that they're reserving that for a later time in the season or the series. Wafo?

[00:02:20] No, just that's the name of the war we're fighting, right? So they're probably going to want to do that towards the end. Okay. That's what I'm thinking. That's my head canon here. All right. Let's keep going.

[00:02:29] We are going to start off with our hot takes for the episode before we get into a scene by scene breakdown. We won't be answering listener feedback this episode because we are officially a two podcast a week of main covers.

[00:02:40] We're three podcasts a week if you count our hot takes. We will be doing our feedback later in the week. I think we're going to record on Thursday this week, David. Yeah, I think that's a plan. Thursday, Eastern Time of the US and in the evening.

[00:02:56] So get your feedback to Nancy M, our hand of the master of the whispers of the dragons. The paw of the ravens. Nancy, get them to her. If you do want to send us feedback, send it to hotd at the lorehounds dot com.

[00:03:14] And yeah, like we said, Nancy's going to be over there. She's organizing and categorizing and putting all that stuff into shape, ship shape for us. So it's great. You can also leave us a voicemail just like Darker than Ninjas did today.

[00:03:26] And we can play that and put that right in the pod. If you want to leave a voicemail or just use the contact form, if you don't want to mess around with email, go to our website, the lorehounds dot com slash contact. And it's all there.

[00:03:38] And then I think that stuff is all in the link tree in the show notes as well. Right? Absolutely. It is. We got plenty of links in there. I feel like I have to hold my bat myself back from putting in more links, but that's all right.

[00:03:50] You can find the links for the supercast and patron also in the show notes. You can join the conversation on the discord and you can take a listen to our affiliate podcast. Everything's over there. And David, I know you love to gush about the season pass.

[00:04:04] It was your brilliant idea at the beginning. I think people are flocking to it like a gaggle of dragons. Is it a gaggle? I don't think so. Is it a hatch of dry, a hatchling of dragons? It could be any hatch of dragons.

[00:04:16] It's not a real animal, so we don't know. There's got to be somebody out there. Is it flock? I guess it is. We did say flock flocking. That feels wrong. Yeah, it does. That feels wrong. All right. Tell me about the benefits before I get deeper into it.

[00:04:30] Get into trouble at him. Everyone at him. The show pass and the season guide. The show passes are, or the season passes are a way to make it easy for people to support the podcast and support the community without having to do a recurring subscription.

[00:04:47] So for 10 bucks, one-time fee, you get all of our season one recap episodes. You get our season two episodes, all of them, including our hot takes, which we record immediately after the episode airs on Sunday night. This podcast, ad-free. The feedback podcast, ad-free.

[00:05:06] We release those early as well. And that's it. 10 bucks, you get all the benefits and you're done. It's a really simple, great way to be able to support all the work that we put into it and to get access, especially to the show guide.

[00:05:22] Because the show guide is an amazing, amazing product. I can't believe how... We kind of stumbled into the whole thing and now it's just taken off. And John, you've done an exceptional job. You've even got GIFs in there. Oh yeah. That really emphasizes the... they do.

[00:05:37] I quoted a different Rebecca from Ted Lasso quote to my wife about them today. I said, it's like a GIF. It just goes on and on. Nice. Why don't you tell us about the show guide?

[00:05:49] The show guide is a fabulous piece of technology if I've ever made it myself. It's got a whole character guide where you can sort by factions or house. It's got a location guide where we give you pictures of all the places that we've been, like Rook's Rest.

[00:06:04] Very important location this episode, Duskendale. It can also lead you to who's related to who. It can give you clues. Like I did a whole comp between the season two dragon figurine that Alison's holding and the season one version of that same figurine.

[00:06:21] It's a lot of great resources. There's a full episode recap every week that is visual. It's got pictures. It's got GIFs. It's got all text. It's accessible AF kids. I think the biggest thing is that you can use it mobile.

[00:06:38] So the other day, when I was watching the episode, I could be like, wait, who is that person? I could look it up on my phone. It scales perfectly for your phone. And you scroll through the headshots of all the people and you go, oh, that's that person.

[00:06:52] They're related to that person. So high utility value. And you don't get spoiled. I think that's another big thing. You can actually search for something that's in season one and season two and not get spoiled by other things. I was trying to look up Darkling's father.

[00:07:10] Oh, yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. And I was like, ooh, yeah, there's a Gunther. There was a whole bunch of stuff. I was like, ah. But I was trying to fill out one of the entries because we also generate the content as we're going.

[00:07:21] So if there's stuff that's added in the show and that's new, we get it added in usually within a day of the episode going live. Right. Always within a day. We never miss it. Nope. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[00:07:35] I had a lot of fun making it. I mean, this episode actually was a little easier to do a show guide for because there are so many fewer scenes.

[00:07:44] However, I did get a little nuts on the gifts because I'm going through this and I'm going to kind of parlay this into hot takes. Perfect. I'm going through this episode. I'm watching this episode.

[00:07:57] I'm like, I can't do this justice with just still images because the motion of these dragons. Yeah. Is incredible. They've really upped their game on making these dragons feel real, making them feel like they have personalities, making them feel like they grieve.

[00:08:13] And like they just like the way that may lease looks back at Rena. Oh, my God. I'm going to say the wrong name again. Rain is so like, Mom, why would you do this to me? It was such a look of betrayal in my opinion.

[00:08:29] My wife disagrees with me. She thinks that it was a look of sorry, I couldn't save you. And I don't know. Maybe it's a mix of both. Right. You know, dragons are complex beings.

[00:08:38] We've learned something that has been pointed out online is that Vigar and may lease used to belong to a husband and wife, which were the parents of the Seris and and Damon. And they would ride together all the time. So Vigar has to kill basically its bestie.

[00:08:59] And yeah, they know. Well, that that will we got to save it for when we get to that section. That's it. It's heartbreaking. It is. And all the more reason why this show is exceptional. It's just some exceptional television. Right.

[00:09:14] It's hard to believe that we're at the halfway point. Episode four out of eight. I think it's a great halfway point to be at.

[00:09:22] Yeah, I think it's built the tension really nicely and it's built all of the emotional stakes step by step so that when we do have a big dramatic moment like we had at the end of this episode, the payoff is just. Quality. It's not forced. It's not second.

[00:09:43] You know, you don't feel the hand of the writer. You're like, oh yeah, they really had to stretch to get it. It's all very natural within the story. Right.

[00:09:52] There was a lot of great show and tell in this episode to sometimes you do have to tell right there's sort of no way around it. So there was a great conversation with Laris and the way that Amon breaks down Harrenhal and the strategic quagmire that is.

[00:10:07] That was all really good tell because it was in situ. It was consistent with the character and what that character would say. Right. It was sort of like an account for yourself and then he does, right? He explains to Aegon because and which just works for the audience.

[00:10:23] It happens to it feels very natural. Perfectly. Yeah.

[00:10:27] The even though we have this spectacle of dragons and Rhaenyra's death that in if that wasn't the big scene, there are several other scenes in this episode that really would gather some attention when Corlisson and Rhaenys are talking after, you know, the whole thing with Alan.

[00:10:54] When Laris and Alicent are talking when Alicent and Aegon are talking. These are exceptional scenes and exceptional acting that is being delivered. The writing is so good. The manipulations are subtle. The emotional tensions are there.

[00:11:11] It's just a well put together package and the including all the way down to the CGI like doing smoke and fire is really hard. And there was just no one canny valley in this. No. Yeah, this all looked real and it looked horrifying, right?

[00:11:26] Even like the boiling blood. Yeah. Yeah. On to the soldiers was horrifying. I can't imagine the amount of work that it takes to block and stage these things for the CGI and this is a television show. This isn't, you know, a movie where they've got a different scale.

[00:11:42] This is this is well so just everything. And then yeah, I just just to reiterate the emotional stakes. They built the emotional stakes so well and you could see Raniere's demise coming. And you could, you know, you could sort of guess maybe what was going to happen.

[00:12:01] But the the result that the release was so dramatic and so potent and so powerful it didn't matter that you knew what was coming. Right.

[00:12:12] You know, one of the things that people were afraid of when we heard that Miguel Sapochnik was leaving right after season one was that he was the one who directed so many of the wonderful battles in Game of Thrones and some of the most some of the best action sequences.

[00:12:29] And people said, well, maybe Ryan Condal has a hand on the story. Do we know if he has because he's a he's a newer showrunner. Do we know if he has the wherewithal to at least hire the right people to do to execute these battles?

[00:12:41] Well, because we know in Westworld a budget an HBO budget doesn't necessarily mean a good battle. Right. Like some of them are just going to be sloppy. There was terrible battles in Westworld. I don't I don't think that we could possibly doubt Ryan Condal at this point.

[00:12:57] I mean, he has not given us any reason to doubt him. And I want to say that's not to say he's a jack of all trades. It's not to say he's doing everything for the show.

[00:13:06] That's to say he seems like someone who is open to input and able to pick the right people to make the right decisions. And that is that is what you need in a showrunner.

[00:13:17] You don't need somebody who's great at all the things you need somebody who recognizes greatness in others. That's a really good point that leadership in that high level of leadership that brings out the best in people. Right. And then you get out of their way.

[00:13:29] You set them up for we sound like one of those finance bro podcasts, you know, setting them up for a thing. But you do you got to set people up for success. Exactly.

[00:13:38] You got to set people up for success and then given the materials and the tools to be able to deliver why you hired them. Yeah. You know, showrunner I think it's a really good point because a showrunner isn't the end all be all of of the story.

[00:13:52] They're the ones that are trying to draw everyone out, draw the directors out, draw the sound designers out, draw the set designers out. So yeah. Any other hot takes? I mean, well, there's a lot of details we haven't gone through. We mostly talked about the battles, right?

[00:14:07] Because that's that's something that the season has done that I've noticed as a pattern now is that it will give you a big showpiece at the end of the episode. And then that's what people talk about. Right. For most of the week after.

[00:14:18] Whereas if you took out that battle, that's still a banger episode of TV with a ton of good stuff. So maybe let's give our hot takes of the rest of the episode before we go. And why don't you start?

[00:14:29] Well, I think that was I think I kind of touched on it. That conversation with Laris and Allison. Yep. Brilliant. Laris was so on point and he was picking it all up. He was putting it all together.

[00:14:41] And when we get to the scene, I'll talk about a couple of things that really grabbed me. But the subtlety that was going on between them, their little dancing and their little fencing was so good. And then Allison and Aegon. Oh, my dear Lord.

[00:14:57] This mother and her child. It's just so painful to watch. Yeah. It's just stressful. Yeah. And then I think that scene, the heartbreak that we do get with Renise and knowing that the last moment that she had with Corliss.

[00:15:19] They had a moment at the council, but they didn't give us a moment on screen, right? Right. They were presenting a unified front in front of a not great council. But the time that they have together is this heartbreaking moment.

[00:15:35] And these two actors, that scene so could have easily been overacted and kind of had some sour notes to it. And it was just so deft and beautifully done.

[00:15:47] The conveyance of emotion, Eve Best, and just the way that she could have that hurt look in her eye without showing anything else. Just communicated so much. Yeah, I just really applaud all the actors in this show. She was getting too likable and they killed her off.

[00:16:07] That's what happens in Game of Thrones, folks. If you haven't been around too long in this universe, you start to, oh, that Robb Stark guy seems pretty cool. We like Catelyn. She seems pretty wise. Boom, you're done. Yeah, you're out of here. What about you?

[00:16:24] What else have you got for your hot takes? Most of my thoughts, I think, are pretty specific to each scene. But I want to ask you one more thing about these other parts. Sure. Have you deciphered yet my cryptic statements about something boiling?

[00:16:40] Do you get the theme that's kind of building as we go through? Okay, so something kind of clicked for me today and this may or may not be.

[00:16:51] I don't know if you're going to blink your eyes three times to let me know I'm right on the right track or not, or give me a wafo or put a pin in it.

[00:16:58] But there was a really great scene that I didn't really pick up on the first one. I got more of it on my second watch. And that's when Rhaenyra is talking with Jace and telling him about the Song of Ice and Fire.

[00:17:13] And there is a dragon skull in the background. That is very reminiscent of the vibe of what's the big one I got? Balerion. Yeah, Balerion in the basement of the Red Keep. And it kind of clicked on me today.

[00:17:28] Intellectually, it's like one of those things you're like, oh, of course. I mean, it's all very obvious. But there are no dragons in Game of Thrones. So this is the one thing that clicked for me today so far. There are no dragons in Game of Thrones.

[00:17:45] But there's a lot of dragons here. That's a lot of dragons to be gone in 100 something years. What's the time frame? Yeah, it's over 100 years. I cannot remember off the top of my head the number of years. But yeah, there's...

[00:17:59] Seems like the impact of this war is going to be a lot. That's not what I'm going for. And I'm glad that it's still under the surface. It's a mystery anyway. But they did... They're growing more. They're really marketing it, right? They're getting more explicit every episode. Wow.

[00:18:14] On what's going on. And I think people can start to decipher the thread that's boiling at this point. Okay. The clues are there. Okay. Start pulling... Getting our balls of red yarn out and a jar of thumbtacks. I am clueless as to what this is.

[00:18:32] And so it's going to be very cool to see at the end here. I'm not going to put too much effort into trying to decode it and solve it. I'm definitely not going on the Reddits or anything like that. Oh, yeah.

[00:18:43] Because what happens is on Reddit is somebody's like, I have a theory and they just read the book. Right. Yeah. Right. So I think I'm going to enjoy watching this build so that when that... What is it they say? As the penny drops or the final puzzle piece,

[00:18:59] as a certain puzzle pieces go in and you can start to see the pattern. But I don't see the pattern yet, which is good. And I'm not going to say, oh, I'm the best TV detective in the world. By far means. I've watched a lot of television.

[00:19:12] I have a good sense of television. I'm not ignorant of how plots are constructed. So if they're keeping this at bay, this is really good. Like for the average viewer, this is a really good television. So when it clicks, it's going to be hopefully awesome. Double fingers crossed.

[00:19:33] I think we're on step two of the Martin three-step reveal. Okay. I think that's where we're at. I don't think we get through this season without step three. Okay. All right. I am excited to see what unfolds.

[00:19:46] I can't wait for you to be like wildly disappointed by it because I've overhyped it too much. That's going to be really fun. Well, I'll keep a foot on the brake. Keep a foot on the brake. All right, let's get into the episode.

[00:19:58] We've got a decent amount of scenes. Not so many as last episode. My table of contents was like a full page itself. It was massive. But here we go.

[00:20:06] Damon walks through his dreams and finds himself in King's Landing in the throne room where a distant young Raniera taunts him. When he snaps and decapitates her, Raniera's disembodied head continues to speak to him. Did you see that there was a translation of what she, okay.

[00:20:28] Should we talk about that? I don't know if you have it saved because I did not save it. Okay, yeah, then go ahead. I posted it in our full spoiler channel for episode four on our Discord for House of the Dragon.

[00:20:42] And yeah, I stumbled across this on Twitter this afternoon when I had a few moments and I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. Very nice. I appreciate you finding this. I appreciate the internet, the gods of the internet. I made my weekly sacrifices this week.

[00:20:59] I gave my blood and time. I gave my attention. I squeezed my attention into the algorithm. The old gods are the new. Yes. Or are you a lord of lighter? Twitter's an old god, isn't it? Oh, I don't know. Or would Myspace be the old gods?

[00:21:14] Myspace is definitely. I mean, Tom, he's basically just a white walker. But Jack's been around, right? Twitter, you know. But he's still too active. You know what I mean? He's still a figure. I mean, Tom disappeared. He's like a legend now.

[00:21:29] I feel like that's more of the vibe of the old gods. That's true. Yeah, right. They're just gone. Like, where are they? Yeah, that's a really good point. I like that characterization. Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to read the I'm not going to even attempt to the Valerian.

[00:21:44] Yeah. Oh, man. Did you hear my last Shireside Chats where I had to speak Elvish for like four lines? No, I have to go and listen. Oh, it was it was I did a few takes. I don't think it was good anyway. All right. All right, go ahead.

[00:21:56] Well, where are emails on fire? It's been said that the Targaryens are closer to gods than to men. In my eyes, you are a god. Daemon Targaryen, the prince of the city, the lord of Flea Bottom. I was an innocent. You exploited me and abandoned me.

[00:22:13] You sullied my name at court. You empowered my rivals. You tried to make my ruin. You put me on the throne. You put me on that throne and you love me and you hate me for it. You created me, Daemon.

[00:22:28] Yet you are now set on destroying me all because your brother loved me more than he did you. Yeah, they only gave you the last two lines right in the show. In English. In yeah. In English. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:48] There's certainly the yeah I think it's the last one definitely. Yeah. Mm. I really like this just Daemon being put on trial for his sins against his wife. I didn't think about it as a trial. That's I like that. That's good.

[00:22:59] And then and then of course his second wife because this remember this is a third wife. I when I was making the recap I was going to write his first wife Lena and then I was like oh wait no he murdered his first wife. Mm hmm.

[00:23:09] I wonder if they're going to bring her back. Brutally. Yeah, I liked her. I was very upset about that. Maybe maybe they'll let her haunt a little bit you know. Yeah, we need to go. I could haunt. I could haunt. Yeah, you got it.

[00:23:21] You got to catch up with you got to catch up with the bear. All right. There's some haunting going on in that episode. All right. Fair enough.

[00:23:29] I really did like the staging of this as the callback to season one where we really first meet Rhaenyra and Daemon and he gives her I forget the name of the necklace but he's talking about it's like being you know related to Dark Sister and the Valyrian steel and stuff.

[00:23:47] And being in that same space and that whole intimacy that they have and that she's that his subconscious is guilt talking him here I think is all a great construction is fascinating. Yeah, and I really love that he beheads her and she keeps going. That was really good.

[00:24:05] I got an aerial shot of it in the show guide. Oh nice. It's such a cool shot where her she's in thirds right her crowns in the middle. Yeah, I see it there. Her head's on one side her body's on the other.

[00:24:15] Yeah, with the throne and all the swords there. Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff. The thing that tripped me out too was when he wakes up he has blood on his hand and then he looks again and it's gone.

[00:24:27] And so that whole idea of him having this waking dream. Yeah. Which is interesting because isn't that how Oscar describes his grandfather? No, I don't remember that. What was that? He said something like he basically lives in a waking dream at this point. Oh, that's good. That's good.

[00:24:45] Yeah, I miss that. And all the while Damon's barely awake. Like you could see he's so distracted throughout this whole episode. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, not getting good sleep will do that to you. Right. What's with the black goat?

[00:24:59] Because they lingered on that and I was like that had very vivage, you know, which what was that? It was the witch but it's style the other. Yeah, I like saying it that way. I think you convinced me to watch it last year. Oh, it's really good.

[00:25:13] It's really good. It was so. I wish you do it for spooktope. And I was like, what is going on with that? And there was a couple of things where there was a cut to a scene to a couple of hounds and some other stuff. I was there.

[00:25:28] They're setting up some weird stuff in here and all they're making it very spooky and creepy. So there's there's a deity by HP Lovecraft that I'm not going to try to pronounce, but it's basically often associated with the word.

[00:25:42] The phrase the black goat of the woods with a thousand young. And this whole this whole thing is about the black goat representing Satan half man, half goat. Right. A state here which symbolized a man with excessive sexual show. Nigger off. Yeah, I don't. I yeah. Tough.

[00:26:06] The black goat may otherwise is from Wikipedia, by the way, be a male earthly form of shove whatever an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshippers. So this maybe it's like this, like demonic thing, this over sexualized thing because Damon has this weird thing with sex. Right.

[00:26:28] I don't know. I don't know what. What are we doing with it? I don't know. Weirdness, which I think is kind of fun. What did she say? She was turned into a barn owl, a barn owl. So we already have suggestion that people are being turned into humans.

[00:26:44] So this Tully who who what do we know about this guy? Was he because didn't he say what did he say? Well, he comes. I'll read the scene quick. He meets with Oscar Tully, the heir apparent to River Run. That's it.

[00:27:03] When Oscar hesitates to take action while his grandson Grover Tully is alive, Damon suggests speeding along the succession with a pillow. Right. Right. Yeah, I mean, I mean, so we don't know a lot about this.

[00:27:17] Tully, we know that Grover is an aging ruler who is struggling to keep, you know, he says, I can't remember the exact wording, but like he's in a waking dream. Right. He's barely alive, basically. His mind is not there. And so he won't act.

[00:27:34] He can't act because he's he's not with it. And Oscar is like, well, I'm not going to do anything without my grandfather's blessing and my grandfather can't give it. So here we are. We're stuck. Right. So Damon's like, well, then what use are you?

[00:27:47] Which I kind of understand what he's saying. Like, why did you even come to treat with me just to stop from getting attacked? I don't know.

[00:27:54] So I think Damon's the kind of guy, even if you brought him exactly what he requested, he's still going to insult you and demean you. He's still going to neg you in some way and put you in your place.

[00:28:07] And it's such a frustrating, I had a boss like that once and it's just such a frustrating experience. Right. Because there's nothing you can do and you're just living for their praise. Yeah. It's basically just the bear. Right.

[00:28:21] So my question though too about this Tully is, and this was just sort of a general curiosity and I was very afraid to go Googling on the internet. Oh yeah. Is how far up the line from Catelyn Stark is this? Oh, I don't even know.

[00:28:39] Maybe like great grandfather? I can find out for you. Oscar Tully. I'll go in and I'll. You're sullied. I can't be spoiled. So here we go. You're of the sullied. Right, exactly. Exactly. I can't tell based on a bit. I'll get back to you on it.

[00:28:54] I don't want to waste too much time. Maybe some enterprising young Raven writer will send in a missive. There you go. Yeah, I got us some family trees going on. That's right. The princess and the bastard. That's where I'm going next.

[00:29:01] Rhaenys meets Alan of Hull and gently acknowledges her awareness that he is likely Corlys' uncle. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[00:29:11] I don't know. Rhaenys suggests Corlys bring Alan into the open and tells her husband that she must go to calm the Black Council at the request of Bela. The obviousness of this setup is so there, but they just, they put it right out in plain sight.

[00:29:41] And if they're doing that, then like, yeah, what's the bigger plot that you're sort of hinting at that they're setting for us? Because I thought, I was like, what is she doing? Why is she touching this man's face? And then it was like, oh, it took a moment.

[00:30:02] It took her, it took it for her to have that conversation with Corlys for me to actually clue in and what the heck was going on. Yeah. And then they put them, I got the screenshot where they, you know, they're right next to

[00:30:15] each other and they angle their faces in a way that it really emphasizes the similarities of their features. I was like, yeah, that's what they're going for. They're gonna, they're gonna hint right there. So we've got the second bastard claim in two episodes. Right, right. Interesting.

[00:30:30] As far as Valyrian bastards, I would say. So I really, and, oh my God. Okay. So now it's clicking a little bit too. He has been bugging him about naming the heir to Driftmark. And both of, oh, because you can name whoever you want to be your heir.

[00:30:53] You know, when you're the king. When you're. And people will make a big fuss if you're not in your line, but yeah. But a bastard can be named an heir, right? Well, kind of. No. Kind of. If you're polite enough with your regent, with your king or queen.

[00:31:11] Then you can get a special legitimization. Right, right. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So I think that's interesting because they made a point, Corliss made a point of saying that the other two potentials are too young and don't know anything of the sea. Right. But Al is us.

[00:31:31] Here's this guy, a literal shipwright. Who's tried in battle and has seen a lot of stuff and even tells his brother, man, dude, you don't want to. You don't want to know the things that I saw.

[00:31:43] I just need to eat some stew and hang out and heal my mind because what I saw out there in the world was terrible. That's all good fodder for making a wise and steady hand of a ruler.

[00:31:57] So another thing is, I don't think it's an accident that he's bald, that he has a shaved head. Mm hmm. I don't think he's trying to hide that he's a Larian bastard. Oh, geez.

[00:32:08] Like all of these things are right in front of me and I'm not even picking these things up. That's perfect. That is really great. And the shot that the screenshot you have is like, we've got Raineese's hair, we've got Corliss's hair. Right.

[00:32:21] And we've got Alan who's just bald. I was just accepting his, his baldness. As a nearly bald man myself, I was not making any assumptions about it. You're working it just like Alan. But I do think there's a strategy behind his baldness.

[00:32:33] I don't think that he's bald by genes. I like it. I like it a lot. And one of these episodes we're going to see him with a nice wig on. So what does she say? I know who he is, Corliss. Alan's past is no fault of his.

[00:32:49] He saved his Lord's life. He should be raised up and honored and not hidden beneath the tides. I love the double speak here saying, well, you owe him a life debt. He saved you, he saved his Lord.

[00:33:02] Anybody who saved their Lord in such a way should be raised up and honored. At the same time, she's like, don't be mean to your bastards. Like bring them in, like love them, make them part of your family. They are part of your family.

[00:33:17] Like acknowledge it and be whole in that. Don't. Wow. That's a great scene. It's blowing my mind. I really like it. It's good stuff. It's, it's a scene that seems really benign totally at first.

[00:33:33] And then you're like, oh, that's actually a deep thing is she's like, go get your bastard legitimized. We're literally on the queen's council. She knew it for you. Like you could ask for anything at this point within reason, right?

[00:33:45] Like any, anything beyond give me your crown and I think he gets it. Yeah. Like don't make it a quid pro quo thing that like later on that happens with Damon, like, you know, rid me of my enemies and I'll give you my army.

[00:33:57] He could just say, Hey, I need to make sure that our drift mark is safe. And well, and I just need to make sure that this, you know, and he's my bat. And I think, I think Raniera would appreciate that. Yeah.

[00:34:10] I think she'd be, I think she has a pretty good reason to appreciate that because she's not far off the mark there herself. Right. Right. And she only has, well, I shouldn't say she only has two sons. She only has two sons by quote unquote lane or right.

[00:34:26] I was going to say, you know, Joffrey doesn't need drift market, get out dragon zone. But then what happens to Agon and Viserys? Hmm. They're back. I don't know. Yeah. They're gonna, they're gonna become maesters probably go to the wall, go to the wall. You could do that.

[00:34:42] You could do that. My next step. Next question is called Alison's piping hot tea. Alison holds the dragon figurine she had repaired for Viserys during their courtship in season one. When grand maester Orwyle arrives, she drops the figurine breaking it again.

[00:35:02] He gives her moon tea for an unknown recipient though both know is for Alison herself. She seeks affirmation that Viserys may have plausibly changed his mind about the succession, but he dodges the question. Drinks the moon tea holding her belly.

[00:35:16] So I didn't realize that this was the same dragon figurine. I just thought it was nice foreshadowing. Yeah, no, I'm doing double. I'm almost 99% sure. I think you're right that this is the same one and if not, it's still symbolic, right? Completely.

[00:35:34] And you know, she's going through his things and this thing that she tried to repair to earn his love. She breaks again. So this is the thing that started their courtship, right? This was the first like meaningful act that she did for him.

[00:35:47] And now in the same episode where she's trying to let go of the importance of his intentions, she breaks it. That's really interesting. That's damn this show. I just thought the show is, oh, this, this episode is pretty good with a great battle

[00:36:03] scene, but there's, they are really deep cutting, aren't they? They are. I really do think there's some symbolize, some symbolism here of this is the end of Alison's loyalty to Viserys at all. And she's, she tells Laris as much, right? We know that his intentions died with him.

[00:36:20] We're going in that later in that later conversation. Right. Ooh, that's good. I want to ask you a question here. Is Alison pregnant here? Is she having a miscarriage for the rest of the episode? Because I think they're telegraphing that.

[00:36:37] The prominence of her belly and the way she held it really indicated to me that the child, yeah, that there was already develop fetal development happening. Yeah. And that she was very early stage pregnant.

[00:36:56] My wife pointed out to me first, she goes, John, she has a heating pad. Like she is having a miscarriage. Right. And you know, it's, I do think that they are telegraphing that and she's so cold to her son in this episode.

[00:37:12] Well she is aborting another child, right? Like she is just having all this loss this episode and it's, it's fascinating because she's losing a child, but she's also pushing another one away and that's so sad.

[00:37:28] And then she delivers that line to Aegon, you don't understand the sacrifices that have been made to put you on that throne. So all of this is in that line delivery, all of that. Orwyle, go ahead, go ahead. Are you, are you keeping going on this?

[00:37:44] You want to go to Orwyle? Yeah, yeah, no, I've got it. We definitely went, I had a note about Orwyle, but definitely one of the visually, I loved the shot of her moving the T across the table.

[00:37:56] It was almost like when they move a marker on a battle map of like, okay, this army is moving from this position to this position. And it really called to me of that sort of early line in season one where, you know, a woman's battlefield is the womb.

[00:38:12] And so she slides that cup in front of her belly and then of course she's got her little seven rings, gods of the seven rings on there. And so she's drinking and I was just thinking, oh, oh, the hypocrisy. Right.

[00:38:24] And then she says, hey, both her and Raniera had to drink some tea. Thanks to our pal, Crispy Cole. And both received it directly from the grand maester. Yes. Who's like, I prepared it myself.

[00:38:41] And both were given sort of a polite but fake out like, oh, I know this isn't really for you. Yeah. I, uh, and, and the, and the original grand maester, I want to say Milos was his name. He seems right. I'm sure he's in the deceased column, right?

[00:39:00] He is. Yeah. He's, he's gone. He's long gone or well replaced him a while ago. And then Gerardus is the one on Dragonstone because he was the maester of Dragonstone. And then when Raniera took over, he just got promoted. Right. Yeah.

[00:39:13] Milos is the, it was the previous grand maester at red at the red keep. So yeah, he's, he's like, oh, well, you know, this is just a tea to help prevent unwanted consequences of things.

[00:39:23] Uh, and so both of them are given from the same person, by the way, like, like given by the same function office, but also based on the same sex partner. Exactly. They were both after exactly. And so I just, it's so hypocritical. It's incredible.

[00:39:45] You know, I, I've seen some people saying like, oh, well they're making Alison too sympathetic in the show. I was like, I don't know what show you're watching. I don't think she's very, like, I can feel badly for her as like a parent sometimes.

[00:39:57] Or as a child, sorry to interrupt you, but or as a child who was, uh, neglected in a lot of ways, didn't get the love that she wanted. Right, right. But I don't see how you root for Alison at this point.

[00:40:09] The other thing is I'll say is I just, I don't think it would be interesting if she were just one dimensional villain. Right. I think that she should be a complicated person who makes a lot of mistakes and doubles down

[00:40:23] on them based on pride, based on, you know, we, we see all these people. It's really hard when you develop a complex of like, I need to follow the tenets of this religion so closely. Otherwise the gods will punish me.

[00:40:39] And then she breaks off from it and immediately her grandson dies. You could imagine how traumatic that is and how extra traumatic it is because she now feels guilty even though it was not directly her fault. And yet she carries on and she powers through all of that.

[00:40:55] Right. But I'm just saying, I think religious trauma is a strong theme with her character arc. Okay. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. And they make a point of it in this because as she's drinking the tea, we see her little

[00:41:08] ring of, you know, her gods of the seven ring on her finger. Yeah. And Maester Orwyle, the thing I was going to say about him is just, he's got some good comedic timing this episode. His facial expressions are cracking me up, especially do you see that, that screenshot

[00:41:24] I got later in the tense council section where he and the other, and the two, two other members of the council are just side-eyeing Aegon? There's a, and when they, when Aemon finishes his Valerian and there's this, they all kind

[00:41:39] of one by one start and they all look kind of side-eye over it. Oh, it's so good. So good. I was really taken aback that Orwyle is, we don't really, we know who he is, he's done some stuff.

[00:41:54] And for Alicent to then question him about, you know, did Viserys ever talk to you about this thing? That really, I think, signaled an interesting thing about what Alicent is dealing with. She's trying to find, at what point does it matter?

[00:42:11] And I think maybe the conversation with Laris later solidifies it in her mind, but she's struggling to find answers by reading books and asking the maester and all of these sort of things to somehow like, was I crazy?

[00:42:27] Did I really, you know, what, how culpable am I in this thing? Because I'd- Very. I said what I believed, but how did I make myself believe that? Right. Yeah. And to ask Orwyle, you know, or Orwyle, you know, that I thought that was interesting

[00:42:49] because we don't have much of a relationship with him. Yeah. You're going to name him George by the end of the episode. Yeah, sorry. Orwyle. No, I'm just making a joke here. I think Orwyle just wants to do his job.

[00:43:00] I think he really is just like, I want to put my head down, you know, maybe they'll reassign I mean, it's a good point. I can go back to the Citadel. This is a hot mess over here. I don't even know what the fuck is going on. Yeah.

[00:43:09] I don't think he's happy with this. It's a good point. Yeah. All right. Let's go on to Duskendale. Duskendale. So Kristen Cole successfully takes control of Duskendale. Amnesty is offered to those who pledge allegiance to Aegon, but Lord Gunther Darklyn refuses. He taunts Cole.

[00:43:18] I had a typo here. Good thing I read it. He taunts Cole. I'm not sure if that's what he's saying. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

[00:43:27] I really liked the shot as they come up the beach here and we've got all the bodies in the sand. Not only did it call back to the crab eater stuff.

[00:43:58] But it also really spoke to me of the battle of the burning mill and the, you know, the aftermath of that. Yeah. And I think you could be one could be, I don't want to say cynical, but we could go, oh,

[00:44:11] well the show is saving money so that their CGI and the dragons will good. Right. Cause we want, you know, good dragon action, but they're not wasting our time with just more shields and swords bashing each other. You want to see that?

[00:44:25] Go watch the battle of the bastards. It's available on streaming. Right. Go see Braveheart, right? There's a zillion movies out that, you know what was the one with that guy and that thing, you know, anyway, nevermind.

[00:44:35] I don't know, but yeah, I'm thinking of maybe is it Henry, Henry the fifth with Kenneth Branaugh. There was some great battle, you know, some stuff in there. I don't know there's much battle in there, but you know, you get a lot of, you know, right.

[00:44:49] Browsing speeches and whatnot. So yeah, I just really liked the way that they pushed up and they use it. They've established a nice visual language with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is a. It's a bloody affair. Gawain was looking pretty bloody as well. He's tired.

[00:45:07] Dude needs a nap. He needs a nice in cozy, dry, some, some delicious food and get a little sleep. He needs a glass of a Homelander special. I have not watched that. Oh, just a what? That's a milkshake. Is that a special thing? Okay.

[00:45:26] I'm just, I'm just, I'm just joking or, or we can say the Amon special. I feel like he's, he's got the hot milk. So I thought it was summer for Amond. Sorry. I have my daughter really likes hot, that hot milk.

[00:45:40] She likes to go to the coffee shop and hot vanilla, little steamer, a little steamed with a little bit. I used to work at Starbucks. I used to be the kids. We have a button for it. They have a button. Oh really? There's a button for kids.

[00:45:51] Oh funny. Yeah. So she loves to go to the downtown coffee shop. She loves to go there, has her little card, you know, a little punch card. So nice. I thought it was interesting that Cole was executing Gunther and I kind of had to work

[00:46:05] through the logic of it. And obviously there's a logic there in terms of motivating the remainder of his forces to bend the knee and to save their lives. But you know, oftentimes a Lord of that level and of that stature, you'd hold them for hostage, right?

[00:46:23] And you'd have to be a little bit more lenient on them. But then technically he's a traitor. So that's as Christian Cole says, that's a penalty, you know, you're getting off easy because you know, we're going to just kill you simply.

[00:46:34] So I thought that that whole sort of dynamic was interesting to think a little bit more about why was he executing him? Of course, I think he was on the black council and left, right? He said, Oh, I got to get back at one stage.

[00:46:48] I think you're right. Yeah. Well, Darklyn, his son is one of the Queens guards. Yep. Exactly. One of the white cloaks and it's a heartbreak later when he's like, well, is my dad? My daddy, my daddy. So there was an interesting thing later.

[00:47:04] I did a very shallow dive on the term cannon fodder because they're going to use the Darkling forces as cannon fodder. Obviously no cannons, but arrow fodder for later. And I guess the first time that that phrase was used was in or it was printed anyway,

[00:47:22] but the only other phrase that they can find is an 1814 in a pamphlet, an anti-Napoleonic pamphlet that said the contempt for the lives of men and for France herself has come to the point of calling the conscripts, the raw material and the cannon fodder.

[00:47:39] So you know, feeding fodder being what you would feed to, you know, ducks and geese, fowl and stuff like that. So you're feeding it to the, feeding these men to the cannon or to the arrows. And they are very, um, what's the way I want to say this?

[00:47:56] They're pretty not nonchalant. This is a very specific stratagem that they're using to put those guys out into the open to attract the dragon. It's not great. It's not great. And I mean it honestly though, it's cruel. It's evil. It's a genius plan by Cole, right?

[00:48:14] Like just preserve the people who you know are loyal. Sure. I'll give you amnesty if you pledge and then I'll use you as basically, you know, fertilizer. But Gunther certainly not only spits at his feet, but then, you know, I love the line

[00:48:30] that you're not fit to wear the white cloak. Because he knew it was true. Like Cole knew it was true in his heart of hearts. And that's why he's so brutal with the, you know, the pow. Yeah. Right down. Yep.

[00:48:44] I'm trying to be, do you know if notion like tries to detect gore and violence and stuff like that on images? Because I'm so like, I don't want to just get him chopping the head off. No, I think it's fine because these are private pages.

[00:48:59] You know, I think it's fine. I don't know. I don't know how it is. I try. I'm trying to get, this is my goal. This is my goal this summer is I want to be annoying enough on Twitter where notion retweets my plug for the show guide. Nice.

[00:49:12] I'm going to be attacking them every time I mentioned it on Twitter. Yeah. Get a little notice. Like, look how we're using your product. Yeah. I feel like this is a good use of notion.

[00:49:20] In fact, let me tell you something that my babysitter was over and she'd been watching house of the dragon and I said, Hey, you know what? Benefit of working for me. You can have access to the show guide.

[00:49:29] I gave her the show guide and she opens it and she goes, damn, you got notion skills. She apparently uses it for her like personal like recipes and stuff like that. I didn't realize this was a more common thing.

[00:49:41] And she's like, I didn't know you could do all those things in notion. That's awesome. That's a good demo. Yeah. A lot of people use it for, you know, if you're in college and tracking homework or

[00:49:51] a lot of companies use it, you know, because you can build these on the fly databases and use one click publishing web publishing. It's great. So I've been quietly looking into how to integrate it to our website a little better, but that's we'll talk about that later.

[00:50:07] The thing that I was trying to do is figure out how to integrate into our notion because I want the tracker, the show tracker to be, you know, like in a channel somehow, but I couldn't, I'm not enough of a hack. Oh, into the discord you're saying? Sorry.

[00:50:19] Yeah, into the discord. Did I say that? You said into the notion. I was like, oh, sorry. I think it is in notion. I'm pretty sure. Notion into notion. Whoa, mind blowing. No, I really wanted to be able to display more dynamic information in the discord.

[00:50:30] Did you look up the bots? Let's talk off air. Let's figure this out later. I, you know, I get to a point of after conceptualization that implementation, yeah, it goes out of my head. I'll check it out. I've been, I've been researching donation thermometers too.

[00:50:44] So we got a lot of things cooking. I like it. You got a lot of things cooking and not for donations by the way, folks. Right. Anyway, another purpose. The point is we are talking about house of the dragon.

[00:50:56] Are there any more thoughts you have on this scene? No, I'm good. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be back with more. We'll be back with more house of the dragon. And we're back for more house of the dragon.

[00:51:17] David, it's a tense day in the green council and Agon, the second Targaryen, you know, Agon, the second of his name, he expresses his desire to retake Heron hall after Damon's successful landing. Laris reassures Agon that Damon will gain no advantage from it.

[00:51:36] And it's likely going to drive him mad. Aemond, however, challenges his brother in High Valyrian only for Agon to lack the skill to communicate in their language. This successfully shuts down his input on the war plan. Your Tik Tok with the duolingo thing was perfect.

[00:51:55] I was going for a I can has cheeseburger sort of meme, but you know, that's I'm old school. I'm the old grandpa here with the memes. So I thought your duolingo, cause I did duolingo for a little while.

[00:52:07] And so that I'm traumatized by that little stupid bird and it's a little, yeah. That sound my lord. So yeah, that was really good. If you're not following us on Tik Tok, you're missing out on the memes. I got plenty of hat D memes over there.

[00:52:21] They're pretty hilarious. The whole thing of Aemond pride. There's such a level going on here of he's saying this stuff publicly knowing that nobody else can understand it. Well I think, I think grand maester Orwell probably understands it. A word or two. Yeah. Or something.

[00:52:45] Well they study High Valyrian. It's like Latin. Okay. So they would study High Valyrian at the Citadel. Right. So maybe his side high is even more intense. Like he's like, Whoa. But everybody else.

[00:52:53] Because the maesters, sorry, I just want to say the maesters teach it to the kids. Okay. Oh right. Of course. Duh. Right. Obviously that makes sense. But I'm publicly humiliating you. And at some point when he finishes a statement and the energy shifts, like, okay, I'm putting

[00:53:14] a table on, I'm putting a question on the table to you. They all pick up on it and then they turn over and look without really looking. It is such a baller move. It is such a power move. To dominate his brother.

[00:53:28] And so it's humiliating as much as it is, I don't know, just like, just effing with him and you know, like as brothers might do. Right. It's a really intense scene. And I brought this up on our hot takes, but contrast this with Jace trying his hardest

[00:53:48] to learn High Valyrian and his brother saying, it's okay, we'll get it in time. You know, keep practicing. Don't beat yourself up over it. The difference between a reassuring mother and Aegon's mother. Tiger mother. Yeah. Tiger mom thing. Yeah.

[00:54:06] Well, you know, her mother, Alison is even pushing him. He's doing it. No, yeah. He wants to, yeah, he's tired of being the kid that everybody makes fun of. So. Yeah, Aemond is just, I think he always knew he would be a better king than Aegon because

[00:54:20] he just takes him more seriously. Right. Yep. And he's so pissed off that Aegon is king. He's just like so done with it. And Aegon is, but please pass me over for succession. I just want to be a party boy, you know, give it to him.

[00:54:35] I'd be fine with that. You know, I don't know. He's going to be doing much partying for at least a few weeks depending on his condition. Yeah, exactly. I will say that this whole, so Aemond and Crispin Cole were plotting this back in episode one, if I'm correct.

[00:54:59] Or no, no, sorry. What's the chalk and blood episode? Blood and cheese? Blood and cheese, chalk and blood. Yeah, that was episode one. Yeah. So when Cole and Aemond were sitting talking, Aemond says, you know, the way we have to

[00:55:15] do this is that dragons have to fly behind armies of men. Yeah. And they plan out the whole little campaign. That was their strategy session that comes into play in this episode, which is brilliant. Right? It's so subtle and so in the background.

[00:55:30] But if I went back and actually watched that scene, they mentioned the castles that they go to take. Yeah. And Aemond talks specifically about this strategy of dragons flying behind the armies. Right. And this is, yes, they name check Stoke Worth and Rosby.

[00:55:49] I've got to hear my notes. And I just think this is so, it's just such good show writing to set that up in episode one and then have it play out in episode four. Right.

[00:56:01] And it just seemed like they were just, oh, you know, we're shooting the shit. We're going to, you know, think of some ideas. We've got, you know, we're kind of like minded. Let's talk through some stuff.

[00:56:08] No, this was a specific thing and we get to see it play out here. And it is, it's a really good strategy. Yeah. And had Aegon not completely screwed it up, I think this would have been a resounding victory for the greens.

[00:56:23] I mean, there's no way Meleys could have taken Vhagar one-on-one. No. I mean, couldn't take her two-on-one either. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And Aemond later, he makes a couple decisions where he's like, I don't care if my brother

[00:56:40] dies because guess who's heir apparent to the Iron Throne right now? Right. Aemond. Right. And this is the closest of a throne he's been since his brother had a son. And he's got a voice at council.

[00:56:55] He's respected, I think more by the rest of the small council at this point. And he's employing good strategy and he's using people like Cole very effectively. Yeah. He understands who Cole is and knows how to use him.

[00:57:09] I don't know that he knows everything about Cole, especially with his mother. Yep. But it's, anyway, I did love the line that he drops on him, such as holding court, choosing your sobriquet and naming imbecilic lickspittles to your Kingsguard. Yeah. I mean, he's right.

[00:57:33] I mean, look at the way that they carry themselves. It is not fitting of the white cloak, one might say. Well, as Lord Darklyn would say. Yeah. And choosing your sobriquet, right? Your name, that's your title, your fanciful titles and his lickspittles, as he calls them,

[00:57:52] or making up silly names about how fierce and tough Aegon is. Right. Whereas, Aemond is actually doing the work. Yeah. He's put in the work to be able to do it. Right. All right, let's move on. Laris forgoes his toe toll. A toll, T-O-L-L.

[00:58:11] I was going to do it like that and I was like, nobody's going to get it if I do it like that. So I separated it. Alicent reacts to the Moontees strongly, possibly the result of a miscarriage.

[00:58:23] Just in time for Laris to arrive and start talking politics, Alicent says the importance of the intentions of Viserys died with him, to which Laris agrees. Such a powerful scene. This is really, I think, has going to have more impact on the way both Rhaenyra and Alicent

[00:58:46] have come to a realization. It doesn't matter what anybody believes, it doesn't matter what anybody said, we are here now. The past has died with Viserys and this is where it's at. And I think for Alicent to come to that realization is really powerful.

[00:59:01] She can still go hunting, she still does. Right. Hunting the histories, but she knows in her heart of hearts that there's no way out of this now. Yeah. So we had an interesting conversation last night that I want to bring back to into the public.

[00:59:15] What do you think she's looking for in the histories? I think she's looking for the prince who promised, she's looking for clues of the song of the ice and fire. Which she's not going to find. Right, because it's only kept in a verbal. Right.

[00:59:29] It's an oral tradition passed from heir to heir. I feel like nobody's treating this prophecy responsibly, right? I mean, man, Rhaenyra should have done this, like she says, I should have done this a while ago.

[00:59:45] And now when they're all fighting, shouldn't Jace now be like, shouldn't you just share this with the whole family at this point? Because this is something where. Yeah. I also don't understand really like the need for secrecy around this.

[00:59:59] Like what's going to happen if people find out that you believe that you need to be on the Iron Throne? Like, oh, the royal family thinks that they need to be on the Iron Throne. What a shock. I right. Oh, you know, gee, it's a nice, nice justification.

[01:00:12] I know it's a fine mandate. I haven't heard that one before. I think, you know, having, you know, the history of Game of Thrones with us and what it all means, I'm all for having the Song of Ice and Fire be a thread in this story.

[01:00:30] And I think they're employing it well. I think they're stitching it rather well. Nice tapestries that they've got going on. I think what is also interesting is that when we look back at Rhaenyra's behavior and

[01:00:44] actions about going to war, and she says as much in this episode, you know, my father, I inherited 80 years of peace from my father. That's not to be thrown away lightly.

[01:00:56] It is as much as like, hey, you know, we probably don't want a bunch of death and destruction and a lot of small folk getting killed and all that kind of stuff. It's messy, right? That's not good.

[01:01:05] The other thing that she's trying to protect is this legacy of the Song of Ice and Fire to make sure that it can be passed down, that the Targaryens can be at the center of the action so that the prophecy can be carried out as told.

[01:01:21] So there's like a double import. It's not just the peace of the kingdom. It's not just the king's peace that we're talking about. It's this bigger, more important thing and to ensure that we need a stable realm. Right.

[01:01:33] So I'm going to push back on our own discussion here. Okay. I'm bringing a new element that I just remembered. Rhaegar, back in, you know, the son of the Mad King who eventually married Lyanna and

[01:01:46] father Jon Snow, he specifically found, he was known to have supposedly found the Song of Ice and Fire, reference to it in the histories. And that's why he decided to have a child with Lyanna. Okay. So there must be, whether before or after this, something written down. Right.

[01:02:11] That's what I'm going to say there. Okay. Far be it for me because I have not read the books and I'm not in the history. So I certainly don't want to make any claims about, you know, or suppositions about this because that's far outside of my knowledge.

[01:02:24] And Rhaegar was heir to the throne. So he should have known about it early if that tradition had continued. So somehow that got lost in the oral tradition and he rediscovered it in the writings. Interesting. Okay. So, you know, maybe, yeah, maybe there is something there.

[01:02:41] Maybe we need, we need Samwell or what was his name? It was Samwell. Yeah. It was Samwell. Yeah. And I wonder, I believe, and somebody could write in, somebody who's a maester write in

[01:02:53] and tell me where Rhaegar was supposed to have found out about the Song of Ice and Fire because I don't think it was King's Landing. So I'm wondering if Alison does find reference to a Song of Ice and Fire and says, hey, Crispy,

[01:03:07] take this with you somewhere and leave it there. Interesting. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to destroy it, but let's make sure that while Aegon's king, we don't question his, his claim or anything. That's interesting. Okay. I like it.

[01:03:24] I like it. We'll see. Fair enough. I did really like this, this is another tell, right? There's a, you know, there's, you know, Laris says, oh, you know, the whole thing about Harrenhal and everything like that. So that, that was a good exposition, Dom.

[01:03:42] The, but then when he is, you know, he deduces the whole tea thing, right? You know, very quickly, but he seems very uncaring about the tea. He's like, ah, whatever, you know, you engaged in your passions. You should, you should do that.

[01:03:59] We're better if we're, if we don't deny ourselves some of the, you know, some of this stuff. He basically is like, got to rub wine out every now and then. Hey, Alison, you know all about that with our feet arrangement. And he's uninterested.

[01:04:13] And then he sees the books and suddenly he's very interested. Why are you reading this stuff? What are you up to? What is it? Really zeros in on it very quickly. Right. And, you know, they come to a conclusion about, you know, I want to say Veris, God.

[01:04:32] Viseris. Viseris, our brains are mush about Viseris' intentions and that's any literally closes the book on that conversation. What is that book? Can I ask you what is that book? That little book? Yeah. Was that, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that had more.

[01:04:48] Like recipes? Yeah. I don't know. So I just thought it was such a well blocked and written scene and it just great all the way down to the detail that Alison doesn't have any handmaids helping her.

[01:05:03] She's warming up the stones by herself because she doesn't want Laris' people to know what's going on. Right. But he figures out in a flash and he could care less. Right. Right. Or Carol, he would, he'll bank that information, no doubt. Yeah. He's going straight to the bank.

[01:05:20] I mean, I know he's got a sponsorship from Famous Footwear and you too could get that code with it. You can get a discount with Code Strong. With Code Clubfoot. Joe, stop yourself. Well, not really though because it's very funny. I'll be here all night. All night.

[01:05:42] Any other thoughts on this scene? No. Just really amazing. I'm just loving Matthew Needham. He's grown into this role really well. I think his haircut is much better. It makes him more sinister in a lot of ways. He's just really good. I'm really enjoying him.

[01:06:02] Everybody's gotten new hair this season. Yeah. It's only supposed to be like a couple of weeks have passed. Hey, war does that to people. It does it? I'm not aware of that side effect. All right. All right. Damon's hallucinations continue.

[01:06:16] He has trouble sleeping and walks the halls of Harrenhal. That's a tongue twister over there. He finds a version of himself dressed as Amond and follows the hybrid only to find Alice Rivers cooking up a potion.

[01:06:29] She speaks cryptically, eventually convincing him to drink the potion to get a good night's sleep. The setup of him in bed, just this slow camera moves and then jumps. Whoever they've got setting the scenes for Harrenhal understands the visual language of horror films and suspense films.

[01:06:55] They've really grafted in a whole bunch of stuff to make it feel really spooky and stuff like that. This whole thing of him following Amond, but then it really is him. I didn't even notice that the first time. I was like, wait, was that Amond?

[01:07:09] Then when I was doing the rewatch, I was like, wait, that was him. That was him. And of course, it gave me big Luke on Dagobah vibes. Right. Oh, that's nice. That's real. That's a good pull. Thank you. It was. Yeah, it was really great stuff.

[01:07:26] Just just super. What do you think of Alice Rivers? The bar, our barn, our barn owl in residence. Big Yennefer vibes. If you're a Witcher fan, do you have you done any witchering?

[01:07:36] I witchered the first season of the television show, and that is the extent of my witchering. OK. I played the Witcher three, which is the big video game. Was that the one that everybody extols? It's really good. It's really a great game.

[01:07:50] I was not a fan of the show. I watched the show. I was like, this is just. Can't be. I'm going to be honest. Season one was kind of fun. It's a little lazy in my opinion. I think it's a bit. Yeah, it's a bit sloppy.

[01:08:01] But anyway, my point is, I think she has big Yennefer vibes in a good way. I think she has a lot of those good qualities. Can I tell you the fact that I tried to go specific on her accent last night has gotten us trouble.

[01:08:13] Three pieces of feedback already. And all I have to say is, y'all don't know cannon fodder when it comes at you, because as long as I'm confidently wrong about something specific, that's the cannon fire. That's the cannon fodder to lure in your dragons. That's how we got you.

[01:08:32] That's how we get you. There is there was. Yeah, there I saw some comments in the in the in the discard. Yeah, pretty good. There was definitely some funny ADR going on there. Automatic dialogue replacement. That's where they sync up a recording to the playback.

[01:08:49] And there was something there was some funny audio stuff going on there. So I don't wonder if that also had a little something to do with it. But I don't know. I'm not going to get your accents absurd.

[01:08:58] Come back to the studio before we have to air this episode next week. Yeah, come back normal. So who knows? Who knows? I the code. They're coding her so witchy. Her, you know, her, her, you know, workshop, laboratory, library, you know, maesters chambers,

[01:09:16] what have you is just so coded as like village witch stuff. Of course, we've been reading Ersi trilogy or Ersi series with Ursula K. Le Guin. And so in the latter books, there's a lot of witch related conversations.

[01:09:29] So I love seeing this that visual coding right up in front and center. Nope, this is a witch, you know? And she's powerful and smart. And I have no idea what she put in Damon's drink.

[01:09:45] But when she licked her fingers off, I was like, I hope that's fruit. I really hope that's not. I just didn't think that we were going to get the hangover for, but we did. I feel like he's going to call Raniere and be like, Raniere, we fucked up.

[01:10:00] Yeah, right. Exactly. The whole like, uh, uh, uh, we telling on you. Yeah. You're telling one on yourself anyway. The, um, and then of course in this episode, we both Damon and Alison have something to drink from a maester. So I didn't think about that. Can I ask?

[01:10:20] Well, maester quote unquote. Yes. Can I ask you, do you, first of all, why do you think he took it when he's worried about being poisonous entire time felt completely out of character. She which wild him, right? She beguiled. I think she just seduced him.

[01:10:35] I mean, she does really like seductive in the way she approached him there. And there was a moment when she said to him like, Oh, are you here to start your own

[01:10:43] line and, and uh, you know, have an air and she puts her hand on her belly just like Alison did, you know, in the, in that sort of womb area. And so it's like, you know, what are you here for?

[01:10:54] You know, you're here for this, you're here for that. No pregnant woman has ever put her hand on her belly as much as a pregnant woman in one episode of a TV show. Oh, you think it's a visual motif that is completely unrealistic.

[01:11:07] That's just not how people who are pregnant, I've been around one, you know, my wife has, I've seen her pregnant twice. I've just never seen this. And, and this is something I think I've seen women make fun of this too. This trope of like, Oh, she's pregnant.

[01:11:19] So she must be holding her belly all the time. Right. My precious. So I'm, I'm loving Alice rivers and I hope we get a lot more of what she's got. And I really want to know what's, yeah, what's going on here.

[01:11:34] I love the whole lore dump to another great tell. Yeah. You know, so-and-so cut down all of these trees, you're staring in the black hair and the black, you're sleeping on the wood of one of those trees, you know, that's maybe the issue. Right.

[01:11:49] So he's like, fuck this. I'm sleeping on the floor. Like I'd rather sleep on the cold floor than sleep on that bed again. Oh, what's it, what does he say to her too? Or he says something about, Oh, another bastard.

[01:12:02] And she says, well, once you get to know me, you'll, you'll find them not so bad. This line, this dialogue, she's just treating him just, you know, like whatever, dude. I know it's, it's, it's charming though. Right?

[01:12:14] Like the way that she's like, sure, you're going to get a, your grace from everybody else, but not me. You know, heron hall, you know, come for the, for the food and stay for the, uh, the mild manners. Stay for the bastards. Yes. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:29] And they're all cursed to live in human form. A lot of bastards around. Um, it's one more question on Alice rivers is do you think she is responsible for Damon's visions or do you think she's just explaining it? That's a good question.

[01:12:50] She you have to decide and you have to decide correctly now. No, she's changing your answer. She's the, um, she's channeling, she's tapped into the energy, but she's not causing it. This is Damon's guilt and it's, um, his subconscious and it's being activated by, you know, the,

[01:13:08] the heron halls power, you know, it's on lay lines and all this stuff. Right. Uh, it's being activated. Um, his guilt and his subconscious is being spoken through. She's observing him saying, Oh yeah, I, I see restless, you know, people with restless

[01:13:23] sleep, uh, you know, I getting these vibes from you. So she's just interpreting what she's seeing with him. She's not the cause of it. So are we, um, in a Poe novel you think? Yeah, it's very Poe, right? It's very, very Raven knock, knock, knocking. Yep. Yep.

[01:13:39] I, you know, I think Mike Flanagan should direct an episode of this show. Did you, did you enjoy, I can't remember if you enjoyed that, uh, season. Fall of the House of Us. I loved it. Yeah. We did a one shot. You could listen to it now.

[01:13:50] I remember I, I did. I was like halfway and it didn't, I was like, Oh, I loved it. I thought it was great. Okay. That's my jam. Right? Perfect. Good stuff. A new Lord Blackwood arises.

[01:14:03] Damon sips Alice's potion and finds himself dazed at a meeting with Benjikot Blackwood. Benjikot offers troops to the cause, but Damon questions his motivations. Damon hallucinates the cup bearer to be his deceased second wife, Lena Valerian. That was a powerful drought that he drank. Yeah.

[01:14:24] And I love the visual jump from, from one spot to the next, like just zero. Yeah. Hangover four. Seriously. Like nothing. Zero memory of, of between then and now. Yeah. Did a really great job with that. Uh, the, uh, the visuals in the show are always great. Right.

[01:14:41] And even the way that you have Lord, you know, I'm looking at this screenshot I took where you have Lord, um, or I guess not Lord, but Castellan. Yes. Strong. Simon Strong sitting next to Damon and they're nice and close and then at a distance and

[01:14:58] with the light shining only on him, you have Benjikot Blackwood. And I wonder what that's about. Right. See, I've stopped doing a lot of my visual analysis cause I thought I was getting over and repetitive, but that is really, that's a really good call.

[01:15:13] He's got the light on him. Uh, unlike Simon and, and Damon. I like doing the visual analysis when it, and I feel like doing the show guide has made me is like, totally. But uh, you know, I like doing it when there's some kind of meaning behind it.

[01:15:29] You know what I mean? Like I think that they're, they're telling us this is an outsider to Heron Hall bringing in some light from the outside. Whereas these two are trapped within the fog of Heron Hall.

[01:15:39] I think it makes it more fun too when we have an output for it. So when we're, when we can do something with it, uh, when we can take a screenshot and actually do something with it, that I think it makes it more interesting for sure.

[01:15:49] Now was this guy, cause he said he courted Raniere once. Was this the guy that got in the sword fight during the, um, in season one where one guy was making fun of the other guy and he pulls out a knife and they get into a fight and

[01:16:08] it was in the Red Keep in the Great Hall, wasn't it? It was not. It was in Storm's End. Oh, it was in Storm's End. Yeah. But I, so I'm wondering, I think those were Storm Lords.

[01:16:18] I don't think that that was, yeah, I don't, I don't think that that was the Riverlands, but maybe I'm wrong. Because he says something about he courted her once. And so I was like, yeah, sort of a little bit more grown up now. And I didn't remember. Yeah.

[01:16:32] Well she was on a tour, remember? She was on a world tour. So maybe she stopped in the Riverlands at some point before she cut her tour short. So what do you make of Lena there being a.

[01:16:44] I do really love when she changes to her real face and she's like, fuck you looking at man. Like what is going on? And everybody's looking at him like, dude, what are you? Yeah.

[01:16:55] I think part of it is in this world, the servants are supposed to be invisible. You're not supposed to eat. You're barely supposed to acknowledge that they exist if you're a noble. And he's just like staring at her directly. Like he's someone that he likes.

[01:17:08] She's someone that he misses. I'm respected. And she's like, I, this is not in my vocabulary. I don't know how to respond to this. Yeah. This is weird, dude. I'm not, I'm not. Yeah. No, I'm not for your attention. Right. I did love seeing Lena again.

[01:17:24] I think it's really fun that we're bringing back people who were only in season one. All of a sudden I'm wondering, I really hope we get a scene with Bray or Royce just telling them off. I think that'd be really fun.

[01:17:34] But they're not doing it in a gratuitous way. No, they're using it really, really well. It's a very clever device and in it, it grinding at Damon's, you know, guilty consciousness. It's perfect. Right. Right. Really good stuff. Really good stuff. The boar hounds hold council.

[01:17:55] Not the lore hounds. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I got it. I was reading. I was trying to read for him. I had to think about it. Agon's council discusses resource management and property RPG style. Agon becomes bored, leaving them to discuss these matters without him.

[01:18:14] Well played. Not a lot to say about this, but I did get a really fun shot of Agon. Did you see the face he made where he's like, yeah, what's going on? We need a gif of his fidget spinner though, because that's a pretty clever use of the

[01:18:28] little ball and cup thing that they've got there. Yeah. I've learned how to make gifts now with Canva and it's been a very exciting experience. Oh, Canva does that? Oh, okay. I was using the Adobe free one, but it's kind of a, I don't know.

[01:18:42] It's more Adobe stuff. Canva does it pretty well. I got to say, it does a pretty good job with it. The issue of dragon appetites, I believe is going to be an issue at some point.

[01:18:56] There's going to be some resource constraint because they've made several points of, oh, you know my goats, oh we need them for the dragons. If they're going to fight, they need even more food than they normally would.

[01:19:08] They talk about it very specifically in the council here about that it's problematic. I think it's going to be more of a problem, especially if winter is coming where it wasn't snow starting to fall. Winter is coming, yeah.

[01:19:23] That's going to be an issue and if the dragons don't have enough energy for their aerial combat maneuvers, it takes a lot of resources, it's going to be a problem. That's how modern warfare from post-Napoleonic era is all about resource management.

[01:19:41] Making sure that your front lines have the supplies that they need and that your combat units can be effective. Yep, yep, yep. Trust me, I play Magic the Gathering, I know all about resource management.

[01:19:53] But I think it's going to be a little bit less of a problem after this episode. One less dragon to feed. We're down at least one dragon. Yeah, two. Well, I think those are some pretty mortal wounds. Those are mortal wounds. We'll see. Waffo. Waffo, waffo, waffo. Wow.

[01:20:11] Stick a pin in that waffo. I do love some ill-fitting armor on a Lickspittle F-boy on the Brosguard there. He's like trying to like... Yeah, it's a lot of fun. The next scene I titled a mother and child reunion and Paul Simon isn't writing any songs

[01:20:31] about this one. You're having too much fun. Between Aegon and his mother, Alicent. Aegon laments the lack of influence he has over his council. Alicent tells him he lacks wisdom and did not get it by putting on a crown.

[01:20:46] He threatens her and she dares him to go through with it. This was just a brutal scene. It's so important. It's so impactful. It is such a coming to head of these two characters.

[01:20:58] Last time they see each other at all, ever, even if he does survive, is he's going to be in pretty bad state for a while. Beautifully shot, this scene, this screenshot that you have of them in front of the window and just beautifully balanced.

[01:21:16] And she just like, what are you going to do? You're going to hang me? You're going to hang me like blood and cheese? Right. You know, you're like, you're rat catchers? Please, little boy. You're going to banish me like your grandpa? Yeah, come on. You have no idea.

[01:21:29] And she doesn't have to raise her voice. The character of Alicent is such an interesting character, like you said, you know, it's hard to, I wouldn't, we wouldn't want simplified one dimensional, two dimensional characters. Right. We want this complexity is amazing.

[01:21:51] And when she delivers that line of, you know, you've got no idea the stakes and the gravity that Olivia Cooke hits that line with, with, and it's not raising your voice. It's not, I'm not over, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, you know, overpower you

[01:22:13] in some way, but I'm just trying to give you the gravity of this. She delivers it perfectly. You know, as a parent watching this scene, and I'm not going to be like a lecture thing here.

[01:22:24] I'm just saying you sometimes have a bad day as a parent just because your day was hard and you just have to be able to still be the person that your kids need you to be. Right?

[01:22:37] Not that you're going to be perfect every time, but you at least need to make yourself a little bit emotionally available even when you don't really feel up to it. Right. So Alison has never, first of all, Alison's been having a rough day for the last 7,000 days.

[01:22:52] But the other thing is she just never really grew up and never really got past the girl who was picking her nails because she was nervous about how people thought about her.

[01:23:02] And so she, she never really became a mother because she was able to just pass a turn off. And once he sought her out, she didn't have that. She didn't have that skill, which is a practice skill of I'm not feeling up to talking today,

[01:23:18] but I'm going to anyway because you hate me. That's an interesting point. That's an interesting point. And she's trying to have an emotional relationship with Helena, but Helena's just in what Helena land. Helena is, is cooked as the kids say. It's an enduring mystery.

[01:23:37] And yeah, she, she has no relationship with her children. Yeah. It's very sad. And look at the blocking in this scene too. And now I'm talking about blocking really well. John, what's happened to you? But look at the blocking you have, Alison was already sitting at her table.

[01:23:52] She's ready to receive company and Agon doesn't sit at the table. He sits behind the chair as if he's kind of too cool for raising. Well, no, I think what he's, he's doing is he's trying to broach this barrier that his mother has put up around herself.

[01:24:13] And instead of being, instead of inviting himself to the table, instead of joining her fully, he sort of tests the waters and he's rejected. So of course he's not going to sit with her. That's a really, it's very interesting. That's very interesting.

[01:24:27] It cause when you've been, um, you really, he really needs her affection and attention and her understanding. And he hasn't got in the past. And so he's not trusting that he's going to get it in the future, but he's willing to try again.

[01:24:43] So he's going to do a little half measure. That's a really interesting thing. He's like, he's reaching out, but knowing that I'm probably not going to get what I want out of this situation. Right.

[01:24:52] I just think that this show is, is smart telling us something on a visual level about the relationship between these two characters. These are master craftsmen and women at work. And Ryan Condal, you're leading them to glory.

[01:25:08] Raniera returns as the black council argues, Raniera and Stefan Darklin returned to Dragonstone. Jacaerys challenges his mother's absence and Raniera insists that she needed to confirm there was no chance for peace as she determined she's ready for war.

[01:25:27] The council learns that Kristen Cole has arrived at Rook's rest while Raniera and Jace both want to go. Raniera insists she must be the one to attack on Malice. And she has the right of it.

[01:25:40] And there was no arguing that when she said, not only would you, I mean, are you kind of hard to argue with her in general because she's, she's always right about stuff. And in this point she was absolutely right.

[01:25:53] She was the only logical choice to go forward if you're going to send a dragon. But the thing that's driving me crazy is dragons, dragons, dragons, everybody, you know, send a dragon, send a dragon. Aemon has the right of it. It's combined arms.

[01:26:07] It's having, you know, men and dragons together. That's what makes a powerful enemy. Right. Just sending a dragon by itself. And as we learned, you know, especially a dragon rider without a wingman, that is a really dangerous proposition.

[01:26:19] That's, that's what bugs me the most about this scene is that, okay, I understand you may not want to put Jace on the line because he's the heir and, you know, their heir is

[01:26:28] six, but you know, at the same time you need at least do what they're doing with Aemon and have him hang back. And then if help is needed, he can hop in as a surprise attack. Right? Exactly. Bayless was right there too. And I understand.

[01:26:46] At least fly high cover, right? You know, at least, you know, you know, provide some, you stay back, but you know, keep a, keep an eye on my six. Right. And, and if something happens, then, you know, come in and help break it up so we can escape.

[01:26:58] But yeah. I bet you these dragons have a seaplane mode, right? She could, she could dock a little bit off the coast. I wonder how do dragons have like elephants have ultrasonic vibration communication or like whale song?

[01:27:11] How do they, they don't seem to be aware of each other's presence unless there's some visual or auditory signal. Yeah. Malise didn't seem to be aware of Vigar's presence until Vigar came out of the sky. Yeah. Visually not at all. Yeah. So yeah.

[01:27:27] That's by the way, the way that Raniera lights up the minute that Jay says, go send a dragon. Mm. Lights up. Meaning she, she, she had her head down and Jace goes, let's send a dragon. And she goes, Oh, she perks up all of a sudden. Yeah.

[01:27:43] I guess I didn't really make anything of it though. Well, you, you think back to season one where the Sarah's is determining what to do in the stepstones. She's like, Oh, you have dragons. That's a good point. You have dragons. Go send a dragon. Yeah. Nice. Yeah.

[01:27:58] So she's always been super into the dragon warfare and well, she's an adult now and she doesn't want to go to war now that there is where she's like, no, I'm going to fucking use my dragons. Let's go. Let's go. Right.

[01:28:12] Even though, and I just circle back, I know I mentioned this before, 80 years of peace is not thrown away lightly. And you know, she, she now feels that she has the moral standing to go to war. Right. That it's inevitable.

[01:28:26] And the only, and the way that we have to do this is we've got to get it done and quickly and, and with a minimal collateral damage as possible and get through the other side. But through war is the only path I am committed to that now. Right.

[01:28:40] But I guess the reason that they needed to go immediately defend, defend Brooks rest is not just because they have a council member on it, but because that is their pathway to get onto the land with the armies. You know, we talk about, we need armies and dragons.

[01:28:54] Well, that's where the armies get on. Right. Is Brooks rest at the same time. Why are we not using the fleets at this point? Yeah, I don't know what the, I mean, they're the blockade. Yeah.

[01:29:05] We've got a blockade and they don't really have cannon in the same way. So they can't bombard, you know, coastal castles. Um, and that is a place right there to have an enemy garrison right there. You know, keeping an eye on you if you've got another, yeah.

[01:29:21] If you've got forces there, you can sort of, yeah, you don't want an enemy that close to you, especially to your headquarters. So. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm just like, I feel like we could have the Allen ferry service

[01:29:32] going and it would be really good for the army. Well, they need, yeah. They need people. They, they, they don't have the bodies. So. That's true. That's true. And you don't want to waste them all on one attack. Right. And we're not talking about, uh, a few units.

[01:29:47] We're talking about tens of thousands of, of men at arms that you need, uh, to prosecute this war. Yep. What, uh, did you make of Masaria in the shadows? I thought she was going to come in and like, Oh, pop off and be like, Oh, well,

[01:30:04] blah, blah, blah. It does blah, blah, blah. Every day at four o'clock and blah, blah, blah. And then you can kill, you know, but no, she just, they showed her in the shadows for a hot second. And then that was it.

[01:30:13] And, um, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that's, how that's going to play out in the next or future episodes. Yeah. I just made a point of her there. Yeah. Yeah. I just took it as, this is not her area of expertise, right?

[01:30:28] She's, she's more of the subterfuge. Right. She's, she's more of trying to figure out how you could stab somebody in the back, not how you could face them in head on head combat. Right. Ellison does that to sip to this, the great septet, you know, every day at

[01:30:42] four o'clock or whatever. Right. I think if Raniera said, how do I get Eamon Targaryen murdered? Okay. Here's my ideas, you know, but, and honestly, not that bad of a plan. If you're trying to just like get rid of their tactical advantage, get Vhagar away from the greens.

[01:30:59] Right. But anyway, I just think that she just didn't really have much to offer here because they're not going into King's landing. She doesn't know what they're doing at Rook's rest, right? Why would she know what's going on at Rook's rest?

[01:31:13] I think we're going to have to wait and see. I think they're there. They, they set something up. It definitely was a setup. Yeah. Okay. David, let's take a quick break before we head into the real dance of dragons.

[01:31:28] We'll be right back with more house of the dragon. And we're back with more house of the dragon. A song of ice and fire. Hey, that's the name of the show, right? That's the name.

[01:31:46] If you don't know, if you look, if you're, if you're a casual, we sometimes assume people know everything we're talking about. If you are a casual viewer of the show and you have not gone into the books at

[01:31:56] all, that is the name of the series that this is based on. This is the world of a song of ice and fire. Uh, as the, Oh, I clicked something else in the show guide. It's too clickable. Uh, as the dragons are ready for the battle.

[01:32:10] Raniera takes it upon herself to finally do something she's been putting off and, uh, tell, tell just Sarah's about a song of ice and fire. The whole prophecy that was her guiding motivation for seizing the crown.

[01:32:23] This whole construction of Raniera narrating the song of the ice and fire with the dragons and their troops on the march was so good. It was a really good show. It was a really good show.

[01:32:36] It was a really great use of voiceover and mirroring just, and it really ramped up the emotional tension because you could see what's coming, right? You could see that stuff was going to happen. And then of course we get the twist with Vagar, but nonetheless, you're like, Oh,

[01:32:56] A-gun's going to do some stupid shit. Oh, Raniera is gonna, you know, or Renise is going to go up and fight him and stuff is going to happen. It was all great on top of, Hey, there's this thing son called the song of ice and fire.

[01:33:09] It's really important that you understand it and why you need to stay alive. Right. You know? Right. And, and like go protect your life because we have to protect the world. I think that's a good way to build the stakes for him.

[01:33:21] And then all set with the background, the background of this dragon skull in her library, right? And it's sort of looming between the two of them. I don't know what dragon that is, but it's again, another beautifully silhouetted

[01:33:37] shot where you've got this nice balance and blocking that's going on. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous scene. Yep. I totally agree. I think that this is one of the most beautiful episodes they've had in a while. I think that they were really doing their job on the wide shots.

[01:33:54] Yeah, for sure. So it was almost Wes Anderson-y, right? The symmetry and everything. Mm. A lot of symmetry. Yeah, there was a lot of symmetry in all of the shots. So. Well, so starting with that shot that I just said, this is basically a whole

[01:34:07] montage scene, so I just tried to organize it as best as I could. Right. The dragon's ready for battle. Rhaenys readies Maelys for battle as Aegon drinks one more cup of wine, knocks it over and drunkenly greets Sunfire in the Conqueror's Valyrian steel armor, which again fits horribly.

[01:34:24] Horribly. I liked Alicia's comment that Aegon's a cat because he's knocking stuff off the side of the table. Our cat does that. She's like, oh, what is this pencil? Oh, tap, tap, tap, boop. But great, great foreshadowing again, because I think there was a dragon on the

[01:34:43] edge of that glass that he knocks over. So also good foreshadowing for things to come. So just yeah, very, very cool. I loved Sunfire. Aegon was like really happy to see Sunfire and Sunfire was really happy to see him and Sunfire's like, hey bro, good to see you.

[01:35:03] I know it was actually really moving to you. This is the strength of the show is that Aegon is a vile human being. Yeah. But then you see him as a kid with his pet and you're like, oh, you know, it's

[01:35:14] really great when the show can make you feel different ways about the same person. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And same with Maelys and Rhaenyra. It's perfect mirroring, you know, between these two characters that are about to come into conflict. Yep. Yep.

[01:35:29] I really loved, you know, oh, let's go fly girl. You know, the way that Maelys bonds with her dragon is beautiful. Yeah. And then of course you get, you were saying you got motion sickness from the shot of Aegon.

[01:35:40] I actually, I thought of making a GIF and I was like, no, I'm going to make too many people sick. Right. Cause you know, he's been drinking and you're thinking, wow, this guy's a little tipsy. What would it be like to fly intoxicated? Exactly. Not good. Not good.

[01:35:53] And of course this, when's the last time we saw a dragon flying over the red keep? You know, Danny and uh, you know that it sort of gave me that they had a couple of overhead shots.

[01:36:03] And we did lead into this entire series with a shot of a dragon flying over the red keep. That was a Rhaenyra flying in Kings Landing. But yeah, this, this, these closeups of the city definitely feel closer to Game of Thrones at the end.

[01:36:17] What do you make of all of the, are you good with all of that? Like Danny's eggs and the song of ice and fire and the cat's paw and the. I'm fine with it. Yeah. I think that's what makes perfect sense because it was a dagger of Aegon

[01:36:30] Targaryen, right? Like that was the whole point. Anyway. Yeah. I think they're using it judiciously. They're not giving us member berries just because for, for like, Hey, remember this kids, isn't this fun? Right. It's, it makes sense within the story.

[01:36:44] And I think that's the important thing is that none of it is egregious, right? Maybe the eggs were mildly egregious, but you know, it, it still works. So I think you look, I understand that people would like it to be a little tighter with like these

[01:36:56] things should look like this and these things should look like that. At the same time, I'm just like, eh, it's cool. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, you still have your books guys. There, nobody's taken away the books. Fair enough.

[01:37:07] Just let's have the member berries in the show so that people keep watching it so that we can keep having these shows. Right. We need a, we need a balance of member berries. We need a, we need a certain amount. Yeah.

[01:37:17] I am very excited for what is almost certainly going to be a very cutesy show with a night of the seven kingdoms. I really wonder how they're going to pull that together and how that's,

[01:37:27] is it going to be like, what was the Tia Leone show the other year? Um, where she's the. Oh, Natasha Leone you said? Yeah. Did I see Tia? I'm sorry. Natasha Leone. The poker face you're talking about? Yeah. Poker face. That was it.

[01:37:40] I wonder if it's going to be something like that where there's an overarching story, but each episode is a bit standalone. I really have no idea how they're going to construct this. There's really three novellas that are the main story for Duncan egg and they're really fun.

[01:37:54] And there's a really great audio book that is narrated by the actor who I can't remember his name, but he played the game of Thrones of his errors. Daenerys his older brother who gets killed. Oh right. Yeah. And he reads the audio books. He's really great.

[01:38:05] I wish he would do all of the game of Thrones books, but really charming story. Really fun. It's really, it is a buddy cop comedy, right? This is like, there's a lot of heart to it, but it is very much more lighthearted than game of Thrones. Okay.

[01:38:21] That'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. We'll be here for it. That's for sure. Day one. Yep. And George recently said he wants to write more stories for it after he finishes winds of winter and everyone's like, uh, when what also we're never going to get

[01:38:36] a dream of spring like that. Let's say we somehow get winds of winter that we're not getting book seven. Yeah, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know how it's going to happen. All right. Let me ask you anyway, let's get finished.

[01:38:50] A song of ice and fire. If George dies and so there's no way I can answer that question. I don't know enough about the, you know, modern day authors and who's writing what, there's no way I could give a credible Brian Sanderson. No, I wouldn't. Sorry.

[01:39:04] I would never. He actually, somebody asked him about that because he, he did finish a wheel of time obviously. Right. That's why I bet the Joe. Right. And so people ask him like, would you consider doing that?

[01:39:12] He goes, I don't think I could because it's just so different of a writing style and I appreciate that he's self aware enough with that. Yeah. And he, the way he said it was, I think I write in a fundamentally optimistic

[01:39:25] world and so did Robert Jordan with the wheel of time. I think that, you know, he, in his words, he goes, I think that George RR Martin, excellent writer, but he does write in a pessimistic world.

[01:39:35] Like his world is full of pain and really does not end up in a positive way. Hard truth. It's not for the greater good. Right? Yeah. That's interesting. I wonder that gets sort of gives me a different perspective on wheel of time

[01:39:46] of what wheel of time, the wheel of time fandom is so passionate and so locked in and it's, it's interesting. It's, it's almost like a, it makes me think of the star Trek world where people are just so locked into this optimistic view in a good way. Right?

[01:40:02] Like we want this, we want to promote this. We need good things in our lives. We need to be, uh, we need to strive higher than what we are. And if that's what Robert Jordan is doing, that gives me an appreciation of,

[01:40:13] of what wheel of time is about and why the fandom is passionate. Yeah. And I think that Robert Jordan continues the Tolkien tradition of, okay, well, you know, this might be hard now, but it is going somewhere and it will work out.

[01:40:28] And so, and we need to fight through. Right. Right. And it's important like right there, there's meaning because we give it meaning. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. Anyway. Okay. Anyway, that's a, that's enough wheel of timing for tonight. We're here for all the lore. All the lore.

[01:40:44] We did get, somebody wrote in and said, you can just say the wheel we use. We can mix fandoms. Yeah. I like it. Stick a pin in that wheel. That's weaving waffle off. Oh yeah. Stick a waffle pin in that wheel. That's weaving. All right. All right.

[01:40:56] The battle of Brooks rest begins. Oh my God. Oh my God. Stop yourself. I did. I did an awful tick tock. I did something, you know, when, when you have the Grinch and they're like the Grinch did an awful thing, an awful, no good, terrible vile thing.

[01:41:13] I made a tick tock that was just all the Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang in one where Alison's talking about misunderstanding. But Sarah's go on our tech doc. That's very funny. Anyway. The point is the battle of Brooks rest begins Lord Simon Staunton watches as the

[01:41:27] battle for his seat of power begins. Kristen Cole brings an army sacrificing the newly pledged Darklands to the initial waves of arrows and bait a dragon. Yes. Bait for the dragon. I think this one thing I liked as well about this battle was that it was very

[01:41:47] simple in its staging, like, okay, sort of friendly assault. We've got a clear shot. You know, the castles, you know, back here, you can't get around it. The bowmen are going to fire in ranks and rotate through. It all felt very clean and historically accurate.

[01:42:04] The armor feels right. The bow tactics, everything just feels good. So I really like this. My one little caveat, and this is mild nerd alert for military nerd stuff. I don't know why Maylis and Rene and Rene's on her first pass.

[01:42:21] She didn't inflate her fire along the longitudinal line of, of the soldiers. Instead she kind of went through them anyway. Other than that, I think all really good, clean setup. Fair enough. Fair enough. I agree with you.

[01:42:38] I don't think that we got a lot of like battle tactics again. We had the battle of Brooks. We had the battle of the Darklands. We got a lot of like battle tactics again. We had the battle of the bastards, so we don't need it again.

[01:42:49] Let's focus on the dragon fighting. That's the promise of this show, right? And yeah, we heard a lot of I mean, I don't think this happened on our discord because I feel like our discord is pretty balanced, but I see a lot of

[01:42:59] complaints online like, oh, they're not getting to the point. Where's all the action for me? I would say the action is in the conversations. You know, that's, that's the interesting part. But man, were these some cool dragons just. Cool dragon action. Right.

[01:43:14] And this show, this episode had it all. It had the conversations and it had the dragon, it had, you know, people fighting and dragons fighting. Right. It was a perfect episode in that regard. Right. Yeah. And it's wonderful that we have this.

[01:43:28] And I'm just so glad that we finally got to the action because now I don't have to listen to those people complain anymore. Yeah. But they're just going to complain about something else. Ah, you're probably right. But you know what? Let me, let me have this.

[01:43:39] Let me have this. When, when the, the troops start to run, it was like dragon, oh crap. And everybody starts booking it and you really get the sense of, and then when, when May Lee slays her first barrage down, you're like, oh yeah, this is bad.

[01:43:55] This, this is why ground troops are so terrified. Why you need combined arms, like why you need another dragon to fight a dragon coming at you because there's just nothing, there's no defense. Fine. You can have a bunch of scorpions, but those are huge, heavy things.

[01:44:09] You need infrastructure to be able to use them and you're going to get what one in five shots is going to maybe, you know, graze a wing or something like that. Yeah. So yeah, when you, when you see these dudes running, they're running. They sure are.

[01:44:23] They love it. And, uh, Reneese loves it too. Cause she strikes first. She uses May Lee's to decimate the green troops unknowingly killing mostly dark lens likely harbored loyalty to Raniera. Yeah. That's a unfortunate thing that she can't see their sigils or know what they are,

[01:44:42] but they bent the knee. So, you know, this is a fight. He did a well, you know, they would have died one way or the other. Would you rather die from execution or from dragon fire? What do you probably, Oh boy.

[01:44:55] If it was a direct dragon fire shot, I don't know. And depends on the, on the, on how good a, an executioner it is. I'll take the dragon fire. It's cooler. Okay. All right. I just don't want to survive the dragon fire.

[01:45:05] That's what I don't want because they don't have any burn care units in this world. No, you have these third degree burns. You are, man, that's it. That is a bad place to be. Yeah. Yeah. That's no good. So it's really devastating.

[01:45:22] Let's let's just keep going though, because again, I split these up because they're really distinct visual elements, but there's not a lot of plot here. We've kind of done the whole plot of the episode already. Right. Agon arrives and to do battle with Rhaenys.

[01:45:35] He has sunfire breathe fire at Malice, but Rhaenys flies through the flames and attacks sunfire from below causing boiling blood to drip from the wounded dragon onto the green armies. I'd loved seeing these dragons fight and the kind of the clawing at the chest of sunfire.

[01:45:53] And like we get, we really understand why people don't want dragons to fight because the collateral damage is terrible. And these are huge resources. You've put so much time and effort into training and working with this dragon,

[01:46:08] feeding it and to get it like torn up like that in such a quick little, you know, fight man, that's just brutal. And that's gotta hurt. Can your chest ripped open? Look how much they're like loyal pets.

[01:46:21] I mean, I'm sorry, but all you people thirsting for dragon dragon fighting, are you also into dog fighting? Are you into dog fighting in the real world? No. I'm just kidding. It's a fantasy world. We can have fun. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. It's, it's really brutal.

[01:46:37] Something that my wife brought up, which I wanted to talk about on the podcast is do dragons get hurt? And I hope a maestro will write in if they know, do dragons get hurt by the fire of other dragons?

[01:46:48] Doesn't seem like it does it because they've flown through it. I mean later when Vagar torches them both, I think it's Sunfire who's flapping its wings trying to kind of put the flames out, but that's like, it was wounded. Right?

[01:47:04] I think it was the wounds were kind of bleeding. I think the outer protection is probably fireproof. I would guess that the outer protection is fireproof fire resistant. You know, let's say like a sustained burn on an area may, you know, boil skin on the inside.

[01:47:20] But yeah, you know, I'm sure there's some ablative properties of their, of their outer dermis. Well, it's not dermis. What is it? It's denticles. Is it denticles? I don't know what, what does it drag? No denticles.

[01:47:32] I don't believe you were, I don't believe you and I won't accept it. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's pretty horrifying to watch, but I think we also see how much better Rhaenys is at dragon fighting than Aegon because Aegon goes right for

[01:47:49] Dracarys. Dracarys. Melis doesn't even shoot any fire at all. She just goes, okay, what I need to do is put some holes in that dragon. And that's exactly what she does. She faints and she comes back up and put some holes in the dragon.

[01:48:04] And uses the word attack. Right. And there's a lot of people, probably doesn't even know. Right. There's a lot of people, a lot. She, no, she says attack in English in what, in what Westerosi or whatever. Okay. Yeah. In common tongue. In common tongue.

[01:48:17] And a lot of people are making that because both Aemond and Aegon use the word, Oh, Dracarys, ah, burn the fire where Melis, where Rhaenys says attack, giving her dragon in that critical moment of, okay, we need to,

[01:48:34] you know, I need you to twist your body and do this or that. No, I don't need you just to breathe fire. I need you to engage in some aerial combat maneuvers that you as a dragon

[01:48:45] instinctively know how to do. Right. And I just got to hold on and, and, and, and do my best to stay strapped in. And so she says she gives her dragon the agency to do what it knows how to do. Right.

[01:48:58] And you notice that Aegon doesn't even really know enough High Valyrian to talk to his dragon. Very good point. I don't know. Fly go forward. Yeah. Hyken has war. Hyken has flame. Oh, it's so bad. It's so bad where yeah,

[01:49:16] at least Amon knows how to soothe his dragon and talk to his dragon in, um, in, in Valerian. Right. Right. A lot of fun stuff here. I mean, fun, tragic, brutal, whatever you want to call it. So I thought that when Aegon does show up and

[01:49:35] Cole has to go, Oh crap, this is not the plan. He does in a really brilliant way. Turn, he knows what he has to think about it for a second. He's a very good tactical thinker and strategic thinker,

[01:49:48] and he's able to figure out, Oh, what do I need to do? Oh, Oh, Hey, Hey, everybody, your King's here. Whoa. Let's go. And that was a really smart move because while the dragons are up there fighting,

[01:49:58] he can get his forces, you know, up and in stage and the closer, cause he's got a lot of ground to cover from the tree line to the castle. And so if he can get his forces as close as to the castle as possible,

[01:50:11] while the dragons are fighting, but how's he going to do that? Oh, everybody's freaked out. He's like, Oh, your King is here to protect you. It's divine glory. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But then we have the signal go up and

[01:50:25] Eamon ignores it. Yeah. He straight up like, like Vagor sees it and he goes, all right, well, I'm waking up from my nap and, and we go to go back to sleep, you know, get a few more extra, extra moments of shut eye.

[01:50:39] He sees his brother in need and he's like, I'm going to wait until they're distracted and then really exactly. So that's, when they've done each other some harm, right? That's attempt one on his life is to just not help. Right.

[01:50:52] Is is to step aside and hope that he dies from Rainey's step two is what happens next. And much like the empire Vagor strikes back, Eamon finally responding to the repeated signals from Kristen Cole arrives on Vagor seeing Malice and Sunfire locked in a melee.

[01:51:10] Eamon sends fire at the pair of dragons only hitting Sunfire directly as a gone screams. Sunfire goes crashing into the ground, burning and bleeding and lands in the forest in a ball of flame and smoke. So just going back a little bit to Vagor in the forest and

[01:51:32] seeing through the trees and the camouflage and then starting to see the forest floor move, that was so cool. That was just such a great shot. And then when we see, uh, like, like a jaws like moment where we just see the tips of Vagor's wings flying at

[01:51:50] treetop there, it was like, you know, it was, it was beautiful, beautifully set up visually. Yeah. And yeah. You know, the, if he launched at that moment, they would have chased off, right? The, uh, Rainey's would have been like,

[01:52:06] Oh shit, two dragons. And it's Vagor is number two. Like I'm tactically, I'm stuffed. I'm out of here. Right. Wait until she was really trapped in a melee fully engaged. So good, good, really smart play by Eamon's part all around.

[01:52:24] Do you think if May lease had gone V Vagar, then based on speed, she could have taken her down if it was just alone and she hadn't had to fight Sunfire first. It's a good question. Uh, because you've got, as we see,

[01:52:40] once Vagor has you in its grips, you're probably not going to get away again. Um, and so you've got to use your speed and maneuverability and she is a tact. She is a smart enough tactician and, and, and experienced enough writer that I think, I think her,

[01:52:59] I think her tactical skill, her, her ability to fight on dragon back would have won out in the, at the end of the day. You think so? You think Rainey's could have been Eamon? Yeah, I think so. All right. All right.

[01:53:11] Cause she understands how to use her dragon and she got complacent in a moment when she didn't look around and she was like, Ooh, I'm out of here. Yeah. And, um, and, and on, well, I don't know. We're not really there yet. There was a,

[01:53:22] there's a couple of more scenes to talk about, I guess. Um, I do think I'm going to push back a little bit. I think that, well, Eamon doesn't necessarily have the expertise and Sunfire. No, I'm saying, I'm saying, well,

[01:53:37] Eamon may not have as much expertise as Rainey's although I think he has quite a lot. Uh, I think Vagor is one of the most bad, like she helped in the conquest. She's one of the most capable. She lived in old Valyria for a while.

[01:53:53] She is one of the most capable dragons around when it comes to fighting dragons. Yeah. It's a question of, of, uh, power and versus speed, right? Cause Maylis has speed and Vagor has power. So that's, that's a tough one. Right. Um, there's, I've got another, oh yeah. Oh,

[01:54:13] we mentioned this before just to reiterate it. The importance of having a wingman in aerial, you know, aerial combat of any kind to help keep you out of these situations. If, if Rainey's gets caught with Vagor around the neck of Maylis,

[01:54:30] have Bela come in with Moondancer and just bump into, yeah, yeah. Just distract Vagor long enough to team up. I mean, a million things. And I, I'm really wondering how the rest of the black council, particularly the newly widowed Corliss will react to the decision to not send

[01:54:51] more people. Going to have consequences, right? Consequences, consequences. What's the, what's the meme, right? They're coming. The consequence consequence consequence. It's gonna, there's going to be a lot of a blow back here for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And,

[01:55:07] but they did make very clear at this council meeting that Rainey's wanted to do this. She specifically volunteered. She said, I need to go. I'm going to go on Maylis. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Yeah. Yep. And,

[01:55:19] and I think there's some discussion too about was Rainey's and this goes into the, her final scene here. You know, she's, I don't know if you want to read the, the. Yeah. Let's see. Let's move on.

[01:55:32] I really believe Rainey's chooses violence with a gun and Sunfire wounded and possibly dead. Rainey's looks toward Dragonstone and considers making an escape. Instead, she tells me at least to continue fighting and starts towards Vagar. And boy,

[01:55:47] this shot where you can see the difference in size between the two dragons as they're flying up is insane. You think three times, four times the size Vagar is? I, some, something like that. Yeah. It's, it's an, it's an insane difference.

[01:56:03] And for Vagar to be able to turn, that's the thing, you know, Maylis has the maneuverability where it's going to be harder for, for Vagar to, to, um, to have a tighter radius, I would guess. So, but yeah, Vagar's just fucking monster. Well, again,

[01:56:19] like flying across the treetops, you're just like, Oh my God, that is a, that's a castle flying at you. Right. Oh. Right. And, but Rainey's has this moment of, of clarity and total commitment where she straps herself in and tightens up her

[01:56:35] belt and says, you know, we, this is it. Right. All, all my chips on the table. And it's for all the slights and bullshit that she's had to deal with, the, the, the work that she's done to put, to help, uh,

[01:56:54] Raniera, uh, all the bickering of the count, small council, all of this stuff. And then finally to have, you know, Corliss break her heart because, you know, he had an affair a long time ago,

[01:57:07] you know, if you're going to, if you're going to say, you know, Alan's age and she's done, right. She's like, I got, I'm all in. And if I come out, I come out. And if I don't, I don't. I am committed.

[01:57:18] I think she's just like, this is what I'm doing now. This is, this is who I am. I am a dragon rider. That's when I'm my, I think that's when she feels the most free. Right. And so she,

[01:57:27] she puts all her pushes all our chips in and calls. Yeah, she does. Boy. Yeah. And cause if she had just flown off, she would have had a clear tactical victory, right? Taking out the King and one dragon and burned up a bunch of dark forces,

[01:57:44] whatever. Right. Uh, but it's still, it would have been a, it would have been a successful engagement. Right. I mean, I do think that Cole would have had the nominal victory of taking Rook's rep.

[01:57:57] Rook's rest, but losing the King. I mean, you see cold reaction at the end. It's huge. I mean, we'll, we'll see. We'll see if Agon's really dead. You have not seen a dead body until they start, you know,

[01:58:10] in the board with him until the silent sisters take him. I'm not going to say he's dead. And no show runner explanations after the fact. I don't want any Twitters or Instagram posts about, no, he's really dead.

[01:58:22] You know, like let's, if you wanted us to show and to know he's dead, show it on screen. If not, just shut up about it and let us have fun speculating. Yep. The something else I wanted to, to,

[01:58:35] to comment here too is they foreshadow the Vagar hit on Malice coming up from the backside of the castle because when she turns and she's coming in low across the water, she flies right up to the base of the castle and then launches vertically up its

[01:58:54] side face, which is exactly what Vagar does to her. So it was just a nice little visual foreshadowings, you know, uh, seeding our mind that, you know, this, this is a potential for, yeah, this could happen.

[01:59:07] Right. So Vagar does of course slay Malice as Rhaenys tries to fly away. Vagar catches Malice by the neck and strangles her to death. Rhaenys falls to the ground with her dragon and look at the way that Rhaenys

[01:59:23] lets go of the reins and it's just like, that's it for me, dog. Yep. So just that moment of freedom. Yep. Man, that's all. I thought you'd be sad for a minute. Seriously. Just like moment of silence. Yep. When,

[01:59:40] when Malice looks back at her and that look of in Malice's eye, like I'm being strangled, I'm dying here, you know, and I'm sad, I'm upset. I'm sorry. Yeah. Like it's all there. I guess you could read into it because it's a dragon.

[01:59:57] We don't really know what its emotional internal state is. Um, but it was touching. It was super touching. Yeah. One more scene. Kristen Cole avoids getting crispy. He regains consciousness to see a battlefield of dead men and Gwaine Hightower taking the glory of the conquest.

[02:00:16] He makes his way through the forest to find Aemond holding Aegon's sword. Aegon lays unconscious with his incapacitated dragon sunfire. Kristen Cole kneels in defeat. Beautiful scene of coal there and the flames and the smoking ruins of the body. Yeah. And even right before that,

[02:00:38] Aemond with the light shining on his, his silver hair, right? Yeah. Very, very cool. Very cool. You know, sheathing the sword and looking at Kristen's like, I feel like he was almost daring him. Like you want to say what you think I was

[02:00:51] going to do? Yeah, exactly. Uh, I guess we should kind of talk about that. What was Aemond doing? I don't think that he was going to administer a coup de grace. I think he, no, I don't think so either. Yeah. I think his sword was,

[02:01:03] cause when he goes, Oh, you think I'm, you think I'm doing it? No, I'm just seething my sword. Cause I'm going down and pick up this dagger. Well, and was it his sword or was he taking Aegon's sword? I couldn't tell.

[02:01:14] I thought it was his sword. Oh, that's a good point. No, because why would you sheath somebody else's sword in your sheet? That's true. That's true. I don't know why I'm writing this in the show guide. But you've captured both of these screenshots too,

[02:01:27] of the light streaming down on Cole and the light streaming down on, on Aemond. So yeah, absolutely beautiful. There were two moments where there was like a cut to black, like when I think when Cole blacks out and then later,

[02:01:44] I think right after Malise and, and Rainier crash or Rainey's crash, and I thought, Oh my God, cliffhanger. Like don't end a cliffhanger on me like that. That's like really cruel. And neither were, they were like fake out black, you know, uh, cut the blacks.

[02:02:01] So I'm glad that they, they didn't go that route and that they ended the whole battle on a very, um, very clear. Like we're not, yeah, we're not going to screw with you and do this. Like will they, won't they? Kind of, you know, situation. Right.

[02:02:19] Hmm. Did you also like Chris in grabbing the shoulder of that one? So if you're like, Hey, let's go find the King. And I got a nice gift of him just crumbling. Crumbling. That's a,

[02:02:29] that's kind of a trope that you see in a lot of war movies of, of, uh, like there's a private, save a private Ryan moment where Tom Hanks keeps reaching over to a radio man.

[02:02:38] And the third time he does it, the guy's dead because he got shot in the head. So yeah, it's a, it's a, but they, they staged it perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. But what I really liked about that scene and the whole Christian is a POV here

[02:02:51] is that I think he really realizes how badly he fucked up. Yeah. Not, not just in this battle, but what I'm like, cause I think, you know, his plan was solid, but I think he realizes like I started a war where dragon will fight dragon

[02:03:07] and two dragons are now dead to be yet. Well, not, I don't think he cares about the dragons as much as he cares about. Like look at all those people around him, just burnt to a crisp and look at all the destruction.

[02:03:18] Look at a forest burning. Look at the, the people boiling blood falling on them. Like I don't, I think he, he was cocky and he thought, well, we have the biggest dragon, so we'll win without any trouble.

[02:03:29] You might win, like you might win, but at what cost? Yeah. And we're, will there be a kingdom to rule over at the end of it? I think you, I think you said the right word. Cocky. He's so sure.

[02:03:41] He's so cock sure and sure of himself that he's not taking into account all. Yeah, he's got a brilliant stratagem, but you're not taking into the ramifications. You're not thinking in three dimensional chess things. You're thinking in very one dimensional. How do I fight this one foe?

[02:03:57] How do I trick this one foe? And I think it all comes down. Yeah. Don't get cocky kid. Yeah. Right. You have a note here that I'm seeing as your last line in the outline.

[02:04:08] And I want you to state this point and tell me your thesis because I'm curious. The, if Amon is king, then the greens are in trouble. Yeah. What's going on with that? Well, I think if Agon's, everybody's going to do a lot of work to keep Agon contained.

[02:04:28] And there's a lot of appeasing and sort of working around him and having to be subtle about, Oh yeah. Well, Oh, you're conspiring without my permission, you know? And so we have to keep this sort of secret.

[02:04:40] Whereas if Amon's just straight up king and he has the power to do what he needs to do and be out in the open and command his counsel and his forces the way that he wants to with all the secret stratagems all baked in as well.

[02:04:56] He's a much more formidable foe as the, as the actual king than as the brother to the king because he's going to be able to flex his, his, um, his muscle without any restraint. Whereas with Agon, everybody's got to, they gotta kind of, you know,

[02:05:13] work around it and we got to deal with the, Oh, we had a great thing with Helena and the baby and the public, uh, mourning, but then it got all fucked up because he wouldn't hung the rat catchers, right? There's a lot of effort into containing,

[02:05:26] uh, a gun. Did I say containing a gun? Yeah. Where I think Amon will have a cleaner utilization of the resources that he has available to him. But do you think that's trouble for the greens? I guess that's where I'm confused. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:05:39] Because he's, he's a hell of a lot smarter than Agon is. And, Oh, you're saying because, because Alison will have zero influence, right? And, and auto's gone, right? So, all right. I'm picking up what you're putting down there. I think, yeah,

[02:05:52] I think actually a man would probably be a better King. Yeah. Right. I think he's going to be a rational ruler. Amon will be ruthless about destroying his enemies and then people understand that you don't, you know, you might win the throne with fire and blood,

[02:06:08] but you don't keep it with fire and blood. And I really do think, you know, I don't, I'm not defending him as a good person. I don't think he's a really great guy, but I do think he's a really good guy.

[02:06:18] But I do think that he understands that you need to play ball a little bit with the common folk. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. That's why he's, he's a more formidable foe all around. He's much more studied and learned it.

[02:06:29] Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see if he's the, uh, the new King next episode. I like it. I like the ambiguity. I like that. We've got a whole long week of, you know, like will he won't he kind of thing? Cause they,

[02:06:40] they really didn't even big to us. Imagine this was a binge show. Come on. Uh, I don't know. I don't know. I was listening to a gaming podcast one day and they were like, Oh,

[02:06:48] I hate the weekly. I want the binge. I was like, get out of here. I can't, I can't click on your podcast again. Not for us. Not for us. All right, John. Good episode. Good episode. Um,

[02:07:01] I did not write a weekly schedule yet this week because I've been so busy, but I do have a lot in my head. I know. Um, as far as us going, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

[02:07:12] I do have a lot in my head. I know. Um, as far as us, house of the dragon, Alicia did an interview with a vampire episode. Yeah. Check that out. Uh, and cross pod action. Yup. Yup. And we are also doing the acolyte weekly. So check that out.

[02:07:28] And don't forget there will be a feedback episode later in the week. We didn't forget about your emails. Be patient with us and send in more emails if you have them. Hotd at the lorehounds.com and our master of whispering Ravens is,

[02:07:44] uh, that the hand of the mastering of the pods of the Ravens. Uh, Nancy M is going to be there organizing all of your feedback. So send it in. Yeah. Let us know. What do you think is, uh, is Agon dead? Uh, is Sunfire dead?

[02:08:00] You did not move Sunfire into the deceased category. I noticed on the show. I did not move either of them in the deceased category. We just don't know. We just don't know. Those are some pretty bad wounds though.

[02:08:09] And it did fall quite a long ways. Yep. Yep. All right. Yeah. Quickly on affiliates. Yes. That too. Quickly on affiliates, uh, radioactive ramblings. I spoke with Aaron. He's needs a little bit of time to catch up. So I,

[02:08:22] I'm not sure if there's going to be an episode this week, but just be patient with him on that feed. They're covering the boys season four and I look forward to hearing what they think of it next, even though I'm not super positive on the show this season.

[02:08:35] Uh, and, uh, both wool shift dust and properly Howard are not doing anything this week. They are on a break, but I'm sure they'll be back soon with more lovely things for your, your holes. Yeah. Alicia has been pretty busy with acolytes and her star wars,

[02:08:50] canon podcast. And then of course the interview, I, she is singing the praises of interview with the vampire. I know it makes me want to watch it. Yeah. I just don't have time. What are we missing here though? I know. Yeah. Alicia, Alicia is such a good salesperson.

[02:09:05] Like I feel like she could sell me like a clunker car and be like, this is the greatest car I have ever seen. And I'd be like, you're right. You're right. Alicia. That's hilarious. I do know that Anthony is busy with his house of the dragon coverage.

[02:09:19] They're doing, um, uh, shorter reaction pods to the episode without going into detail. And then him and Steve, because they have this whole, uh, uh, league, uh, what do you call those? Uh, fantasy league, uh, thing for it. And then after the season is over,

[02:09:37] if you're like hungry for to watch the season again, they're going to do their reaction episode, episode, episode, episode reaction after the season is over. So if you want to rewatch it, they're kind of trying to draft in and behind it.

[02:09:51] Oh, and one more, one more affiliate note before I forget. Rings and rituals. Rings and rituals. I'm on it this week. Hey, what an exciting time. I'm going to be talking about the music of rings of power with Marilyn R Pequila, our favorite Tolkien scholar.

[02:10:05] And that is going to wrap her coverage, I believe. So no, they have a feedback episode. Oh, they have a feedback. Okay. That's great. They do. They do. And then we're going to, we're going to restart the airing cause we want to lead it into rings of power.

[02:10:16] And, uh, we're going to have her on, uh, when we do rings of power. So it's going to be three of us. Yeah. So that'll be fun. I'm looking forward to that. Alicia has not bailed on raise a power yet either. So we'll see.

[02:10:27] We'll see if we have a four person bod for the first time. We'll see. Well, yeah, cause we're going to have one for severance when that comes around. That's true. That's true. I'll mention the bear. We've got some things we're cooking. The kitchen's cooking. Uh,

[02:10:40] kitchen is open and cooking and we've got some aliens coverage as well coming up for Laura hounds. Uh, cause we've got alien Romulus coming out. Very nice. In the theaters. So I think I'm gonna go see it.

[02:10:51] I think I'm gonna go see it in theaters. We'll see. I'm excited. I hope so. I'll let you know. I'll let you know how busy I am when I get to that point. Sounds good. Sounds good. Uh, I am. I was looking at the calendar. I was like,

[02:11:01] okay, well at least acolyte is over next week. How are we doing another month of hassle? The dragon. So I don't know. I don't know how free I'm really going to be. All right. Should we get out of here? Let's get out of here. Give us, Oh,

[02:11:14] I didn't load up my smooth jazz. You want me to give you, gotta get some jazz, get it in real quick. All right here. I'm going to pause and nobody's going to even know. All right, David. Well, I forgot to load up the right jazz sound.

[02:11:27] So you get the rag time jazz. Oh no. Here you go. Oh, it's rather jaunty. To our discord server boosters. I feel like you should hold on. Hold on. I feel like you should be doing this in like an old time radio voice.

[02:11:40] Like I do our discord server boosters. You hear all I can't do that. I think you can do it. I think it would, it would sound terrible. All right. We'll do whatever you want to do it. Aaron K.

[02:11:50] Tiller, the thriller, dork of the ninjas. Now I'm, I'm way off on the tempo here. Do 71 captain G G 56 Athena Agilea. This is really weird. This is really hard to do it. Yeah. Anything else? All right. All right.

[02:12:03] I'll get you something else. Let's see what else I got here. We've got love dance. That's what I got guys while I'm loading this up. I bought a, I bought a music pack off of humble bundle for $20 with all this light, you know, licensed royalty free music.

[02:12:20] And now we have all these fun things we can put under here. We go. Ready? If you're sticking around for this, don't know how we ended up here. It's the end of the pod.

[02:12:30] We can do whatever we want. All right, here we go. I'm just going to do it. Some Martian are, these are our lore masters, our top tier subscribers. Thank you all so very much. Some Martian, Michael G Michelle E David W Brian P

[02:12:42] S C Peter O H Patina W Adam S Nancy M Doob 71 Brian 80 63 Frederick H Sarah L Gareth C Eric F Matthew M Sarah M DJ Miwa Andra B Kwong Yoo Jedi Jedi Bob Nathan

[02:12:59] T Alex V Aaron T Sub Zero Aaron K Dali V Mothership 61 Narls Kathy W Stuart B And forever last but never least, Adrian. Thank you all so very much. Thank you to everyone who listens. Thank you. If you're on the public feed,

[02:13:14] thank you. If you're a discord supporter or on our discord and thank you to those of you who are able to subscribe. It means a lot to us and we're having a lot of fun obviously because we can buy silly music packs.

[02:13:28] Oh, we have fun. We have fun. All right, everyone. We'll see you next week or later in the week for the feedback. Come back. Thanks for listening. Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black. John, my soul is as black as night.

[02:14:17] Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting. I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod,

[02:14:30] but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the lore hounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the

[02:14:44] dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast listeners can get early ad free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive. Plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the lore hounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot,

[02:15:00] but probably positive takes. The lore hounds house of the dragon coverage is also safer team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heart and conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire

[02:15:10] and blood by George RR Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.