House of the Dragon - S01E05-06 - We Light the Way & The Princess and the Queen

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[00:01:17] Welcome to the House of the Hounds. We're The Lorehounds, your guides to the dance of the dragons.

[00:01:23] I'm Jon. And I'm David. And this is our coverage of season one, episodes five and six titled,

[00:01:29] We Light the Way and The Princess and the Queen of the HBO Max original series, House of the Dragon.

[00:01:36] Today we'll be giving our hot takes before diving into a deeper discussion of the episodes.

[00:01:40] Then we'll answer some ravens from listeners. Please do send us feedback because we'd love to hear

[00:01:45] your thoughts and reactions. You can send those emails, those ravens to hotd, hotd at the lorehounds.com

[00:01:54] or head over to the contact page of our website. And there there's a contact form, or you can use

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[00:02:07] like Abby did today. You can support the community on Supercast or Patreon, join the conversation on

[00:02:13] our Discord server or take a listen to our affiliate podcasts. You can get links for everything

[00:02:18] in the link tree in the show notes. Right. The show notes have got lots of stuff. You've got a

[00:02:25] new fancy link tree going on in there to make things easier. We've got so many affiliates now

[00:02:30] and so many show got out all kinds of stuff that we actually had to get one of those link tree

[00:02:35] things to. Yeah, I was looking at our show notes and I said, this is unreadable. I need to fix this.

[00:02:41] And so I made us a link tree. Yes. Thank you for doing that. And thank you for making a show guide

[00:02:46] too. I was using it the other night when I was watching episode six, I think it was. And there

[00:02:52] was one of the dragons craxies and I was like, wait, which dragon was that? And wait, who's she's

[00:02:56] supposed to be? You know, who's supposed to be the writer? And, and the show guide on the phone

[00:03:02] works really nicely. It auto formats, the notion system auto form that's it whether you're on your

[00:03:09] laptop or mobile phone. And it was just really convenient. And then of course you've gone to

[00:03:14] town with rings of power and you've fired up a whole other one. Oh yeah. The one guy to rule

[00:03:21] them all is really starting to shape up. That is very cool. And those are subscriber exclusive

[00:03:26] benefits. So if you're interested in getting access to those, sorry for the soft shoe here

[00:03:32] of the salesmanship, but it's a lot of work and we would love you to have access to it. You can,

[00:03:38] I mean three bucks a month and you get access to it. It's crazy. Or we have a season pass. John,

[00:03:45] do you want to mention the season pass? The season passes a new thing we're doing. We said,

[00:03:49] Hey, some people hate monthly subscriptions, but they want the premium benefits like the show

[00:03:53] guides, like the ad free podcasts, like the early access. So they have the option to pay us 10

[00:03:59] bucks, get unlimited full access to everything house of the dragon that we do for seasons one

[00:04:04] and two forever. There is no recurring charge. It is a one time fee and they get this little

[00:04:10] badge of honor that they are a season pass holder and they get all that content. I saw somebody

[00:04:14] signed up today, so yeah, it's appealing to somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I figured, you know,

[00:04:20] a while back I was talking to some, um, some of our Patrion subscribers who had unsubscribed,

[00:04:24] you know, and people, lots of people have stuff going on in their lives. And one person I talked

[00:04:28] to, they're just like, I just cleaned house on Patreon because I had like 20, 20 accounts,

[00:04:33] you know, 20 subscriptions. I wasn't using half of them. I was just like, I don't care blanket,

[00:04:38] jupe, you know, it's nothing against you guys. And I was like, yeah, I totally get that. And

[00:04:43] there's other people whose finances are fluctuating or they're just all kinds of reasons.

[00:04:51] And we, at the same time, we know that people are interested in supporting the community and

[00:04:56] supporting us and putting on a quality podcast takes a lot of resources. And so they want to

[00:05:02] offer that support. And so I was like, oh, how do we do that in a way, you know, that solves that?

[00:05:07] And we're like, oh, okay. Big shows like this. I don't know where we're going to talk about other

[00:05:12] shows we're going to do this year because it's the first one we've done, but we just offer a power

[00:05:15] for sure. For sure. Uh, we'll talk about other stuff, but exactly. But it just, it's easy. It's

[00:05:20] just a flat rate and you get the ad free access and any other, the bonus stuff. So yeah. All right.

[00:05:27] So salesmanship aside, please, we are going to talk about content now. Yes. Uh, you know,

[00:05:34] Bo Burnham, the content song. Cause look, I made you some content. Daddy made you your favorite

[00:05:42] open wide. All right. So that's us today. That's us today. We've been on the content machine too,

[00:05:49] ever since you, uh, since both of us are back and our affiliates are firing on all cylinders.

[00:05:55] I know there were like four podcasts released today or something, three or four.

[00:05:58] I guess. I, I, so I've been doing this podcast schedule on the discord server. So if you want

[00:06:05] to see everything coming out for a week and you can now see it in one place and boy, does it get

[00:06:10] busy quickly, especially right now. All right. Content, content, content, content, uh, hot D

[00:06:17] what did you, what's your hot D take on hot D this round?

[00:06:21] If, if episode four was the source of all of the friction and drama and hurt feelings and

[00:06:34] indiscretions, this, um, pair of episodes was the stupid people doing stupid shit episodes.

[00:06:44] Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and you get, you end up with more consequences and the thing is just

[00:06:51] spiraling out of control. What did, um, what, what did the succession dad say? You know, I love you,

[00:06:57] but you, you just aren't serious people. Yep. Yep. I love you, but you're not serious people.

[00:07:02] Very true. And, and so when you get stuff like, um, um, I don't even remember his name off top

[00:07:09] my head right now. I should get the show guide open the, um, the lover to lay nor. Oh yeah. That's

[00:07:14] Joffrey. Yes. Uh, and he goes and he whispers in Kristen Cole's ear and you're just like, dude,

[00:07:24] this is a night scar like night of the night. What are you doing? Yep. What are you doing?

[00:07:31] It's telling these secrets like, okay, yeah, you're clever enough and you've sussed out

[00:07:36] the relationship. Good on you. Watch it a little bit more, understand the nature of fit a little

[00:07:43] bit more. So it's just, and don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining because this is the drama

[00:07:49] that we come for, right? This is the stuff, but I just shake my head and I'm just like, oh my gosh,

[00:07:55] just silly people doing silly stuff. And, and it's been interesting coming off of Shogun where

[00:08:02] we were comparing Shogun to a house of the dragon. And now we're doing house of the dragon

[00:08:07] back to Shogun, just the Austin tatiousness and the lavishness and the obtuseness of people with

[00:08:18] they're just splashing their feelings out and they're just big and loud and doing all this

[00:08:23] crazy stuff. Whereas in Shogun people were tight and controlled and subtle and thoughtful. And

[00:08:34] they were thinking, even if they weren't as smart as Toronaga, they were still trying to think two

[00:08:38] or three moves down the road. Right.

[00:08:40] Right.

[00:08:41] And it's in this world, whereas as violent as that era of Japan was, this is also just a

[00:08:51] brutally violent society. And you know, and the fact that a Kingsgarn can just

[00:09:00] straight up murder somebody and face no consequences for it. You know, it's, it's

[00:09:06] bonkers. It's, it's absolutely bonkers. And I'm loving it.

[00:09:09] I think it's a really interesting choice to have, and we're going to talk full spoilers here.

[00:09:14] I think it's a really interesting choice to have, you know, Kristen almost take his life at the end

[00:09:20] of the episode and get

[00:09:21] stopped by Allison.

[00:09:23] It was so great, right? Like it was like, oh, Shogun!

[00:09:25] Yeah. Yeah. But, but the most important thing here is that they don't ever show the direct

[00:09:30] aftermath of that. We immediately jumped 10 years from there. You never see,

[00:09:36] uh, Oh, now I have to go back to my thing. Okay, sir. Harold Westerling, the head of the Kingsgarn,

[00:09:41] you never see him have a moment of like, son, you did a bad thing. We're putting you on,

[00:09:47] you know, administrative paid leave for now. Uh, whatever it is, you know, we, we never see any

[00:09:53] consequences and I'm sure there was some level of it, but I guess when the queen says no, he's under

[00:09:58] my protection, then that's that. Right. And we don't even see the change of going from, uh, being

[00:10:04] Rainier is sworn protector to Allison's right. Worn protector. Right. How did that change happen?

[00:10:09] Right. But, but I also really liked that. And they just, they just moved us along. They were like,

[00:10:13] okay, here's the new state of play. And so we're actually focused in on what's important and just

[00:10:19] bypassing all the non-important stuff. So now we get to this next inflection point, which is,

[00:10:24] which is 10 years on. Yep. Yep. I do. I do like the time jump. It disoriented me the first time

[00:10:30] I watched it, but watching it now, I really liked the way that they cut this because the,

[00:10:36] the, we got all of the character motivations we needed out of the prequel era, I guess.

[00:10:42] Agreed. And now we've, we've moved on to the consequences. Right. We've done the F around,

[00:10:48] we're finding out and it's taken 10 years. Here we are. Yep. Yep. Yep. And I, and I really like,

[00:10:55] and I want to talk more about this while we, uh, when we get to the Lionel Strong,

[00:10:59] Viserys conversation, but this idea of was he tested? Uh, the idea of has Viserys been tested

[00:11:07] as King? Oh, okay. Right. And, and what will his legacy be? Right. Right. And you have this King

[00:11:14] who never ever lights the match, but is piling up this powder keg because he'll never address

[00:11:23] something head on. He's always like, think of the consequences of addressing that. It's like,

[00:11:27] yeah, one day there are going to be consequences and you can't stop that. So you could either

[00:11:31] put an end to it now or you can deal with them. Right. Yeah. And he's, and this goes into the,

[00:11:42] the quality of his leadership. And in some ways he's strategically minded and he can see through

[00:11:51] certain things and in other ways he's very congenital and he wants people to get along

[00:11:58] and he wants to have this, this big family and look at these boys playing and whacking each other

[00:12:03] with wooden swords. Isn't that great? Yeah. Lionel Strong, that's the hope. And then all the while

[00:12:09] he's deluding himself and he is blinding himself to what the realities are that are facing him.

[00:12:17] I mean, he absolutely knows. Right. He just doesn't want to publicly acknowledge it because

[00:12:22] like he said, think of the consequences. And when he is directed to see and to open his eyes.

[00:12:31] So when Raniera says, well, what are you going to do? What does she say? What's the line? Something

[00:12:35] about like, what are you going to do with the viper in your den or something like that? When

[00:12:40] her and he or wouldn't be her and Viserys are talking. About Otto. Yeah. About Otto. And

[00:12:48] he's like, you're going to marry, you know, you're going to marry. And then she's like,

[00:12:52] okay, what are you going to do about your hand? And then when he confronts Otto,

[00:12:59] it's, he has all the evidence. He understands the implications. He can see the manipulations.

[00:13:05] He can see the gaslighting without any like scales falling from my eyes. No, he knows in an instant.

[00:13:11] He's like, oh yeah, that's a play. And you've been playing me all along. So it's, it is a willful

[00:13:17] blindness, isn't it? Yeah. Well, let's get into the main episodes. I've broken it down by it's,

[00:13:24] it's almost a scene by scene. I'm going to be honest with you. It's pretty detailed, but,

[00:13:28] but it's not quite seen by scene. I did, I did, you know, consolidate a little bit. So

[00:13:33] sure. First off, let's just pour one out for Ray Royce as, as Damon would call her the bronze

[00:13:40] bitch. That's what he likes to call her. I, I forgot about this. Damon stopped calling her

[00:13:47] that also stop murdering her. Stop murdering people. I had forgotten about this and I had

[00:13:53] forgotten how sad I was as she's writing up. I was like, oh, who's, who's this? I don't remember

[00:14:00] who this is. Oh wow. She looks bad-ass. I love her armor. She's a, she's clearly a great horse,

[00:14:07] horseman and you know, cool. And then it was, then when he shows up again, I was like, oh yeah,

[00:14:13] now I remember. And I was, it's such a great scene. It's such a great character. The character,

[00:14:21] the actor is, is does such a great job. And then I'm like, oh, but I wanted more of her. I wanted

[00:14:28] to know more of this character. It was really, it was really frustrating in a good way, in a good

[00:14:33] way. Now I wonder, you know, as we go into the dance of the dragons, I wonder how this will

[00:14:38] affect the allegiances of the veil. Right. You know? Right. So this is one of those things where

[00:14:45] they may not be so excited by backing the green, but. Backing the black. Oh yeah, yeah. I see what

[00:14:52] you're saying. Backing the green, but then. They would rather back the black, but you know, you

[00:14:57] can't support Damon. Exactly. Well, the hurt is so deep there that they don't really have much of

[00:15:04] a choice. So they may be unwilling allies to the green. Right. But we don't know, right? Well,

[00:15:10] I mean, the books know, but we don't know as show viewers. Right. So Otto tries to convince Allison

[00:15:16] it's necessary to supplant Rhaenyra. And then we get an introduction to Lara Strong, who tells

[00:15:21] Allison about the moon tea and begins to work his way into her trust. This, man, it's not like

[00:15:32] Otto's telling any porcupines, right? It's true. Her, Allison's legacy is in jeopardy the moment

[00:15:41] Rhaenyra steps the throne. So it's not wrong, but it is so, it's all just wrapped up in this slime

[00:15:51] of this whole manipulation that you're just like, damn, what do you do? And later Rhaenyra has a

[00:15:58] great solution for it. But, you know, right now Otto's not wrong, but damn it. I hate to

[00:16:07] admit that he's right. Well, the problem is he's right because he makes himself right. Because

[00:16:15] if you didn't have schemers like this, it might be true that you could sort of just massage

[00:16:21] Rhaenyra into the throne. But also, he caused a little bit of the problem with Laenor. I don't

[00:16:30] think Rhaenyra has to marry Laenor unless Otto opens his mouth to Viserys about seeing Daemon in her.

[00:16:36] Right. Right. Right. And he was so gleeful at that opportunity to bounce Rhaenyra

[00:16:42] and to be able to find, you know, to get into that final position of being the household of the

[00:16:49] regent. Right? Right. Right. Yeah. I just think Otto is one of the people sewing discord about

[00:16:57] this. Yeah, for sure. And he's ready to swoop in later. So. Right. It's like, it's like that meme

[00:17:04] where you're shooting at the couch and you're like, who would do this? Should I get the person

[00:17:09] with, you know what I'm talking about? No, I know the one where you stick the bike spoke, the stick

[00:17:14] in your own bike spoke. I'm talking about the guy shooting someone on the couch and then he goes,

[00:17:18] who would do this? I've seen that one. That's Otto. Okay. Yeah. Right. Isn't that there's

[00:17:25] another one? Yeah, no. Well, yeah, that's the, that's the same, the same with putting the stick

[00:17:29] in your, your bike spoke and then you blame the stick. Yep. It's like, no, you, you idiot. You're

[00:17:35] the one who did it. So Viserys and his entourage. Well, we were going to, we didn't really talk

[00:17:40] about Larys really quick. Oh, that's true. That's true. Let's talk about Larys. Creepy,

[00:17:44] creepy old Larys who, who again is fronting like, Oh, you know, I'm just this guy. Cause I can't be

[00:17:51] a guy with the guys. So I'm sweet and observant, but damn, he's creepy as hell.

[00:17:57] Have you seen the deleted scene between Paisel and Tywin in Game of Thrones? No, it's amazing.

[00:18:06] I got to find it for you. I saw it on Tik TOK one day and in it, you know, Paisel is trying to get

[00:18:13] back on the small council after Tyrion booted him off when he was hand and Tywin's like, why would I

[00:18:18] do that? And he's doing the like, Oh, please, please master Tywin. Can I please end up? And

[00:18:25] he's like, can you drop the act? And he goes, I know you're discerning Tywin. And he's just like,

[00:18:29] all of a sudden really articulate and not stuttering at all. And, and he's like, why do

[00:18:34] you do that? He's like, because if you start to seem like a threat, they'll treat you like a threat.

[00:18:39] Right. You know, and I do think that that's the same thing as Larris. I was going somewhere with

[00:18:43] it. I promise. I got it. Laris sense. Yeah. Laris is the same way. He's like, I'm just this poor,

[00:18:50] you know, disabled second son, right? The second sons are a big theme of this whole

[00:18:56] series and what the second sons will do to claim power. The Valerians as a house, Damon as a person

[00:19:04] and, uh, Amen even we see with the, with the whole dragon thing. Uh, but then we see

[00:19:11] Laris is another second son. And he is, he's, he's very cunning and patient in that whole,

[00:19:23] that this, he really uses the second son status very well until he's able to make his move.

[00:19:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:31] And, um, yeah, so that, that just marks him really dangerous and it's nice in the sense that,

[00:19:37] um, we don't have Varys anymore, right? With little Bert, we're like, we need that.

[00:19:43] I serve the realm.

[00:19:46] But we want that spy cloak and dagger, right? You know, you've got your dashing man at arms,

[00:19:52] you know, swoop in, but having the person in the shadows is always a great compliment to the,

[00:19:58] the, this, this kind of story, uh, set up. And so he really fits that super well. And then it was

[00:20:04] his little, what is it? A B his little B symbol that comes up later. So it's good.

[00:20:09] I also want to say what's scary about him is that he's as smart as a Varys, but is

[00:20:16] morally depraved as little finger, right?

[00:20:19] More so more morally depraved.

[00:20:21] Yeah. I'd say so. I think little finger has sort of an angle. Like, I don't even know what the

[00:20:26] end goal is for Laris. I couldn't tell you like he, of course he, he wanted to inherit Harrenhal,

[00:20:33] but what else? Like, what does he want beyond that?

[00:20:37] Open a podiatry practice? I don't know.

[00:20:39] Oh my God. Oh my God. A massage parlor.

[00:20:43] Yes, exactly.

[00:20:44] Yeah. A nail salon. Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. He's a puzzling character. I,

[00:20:49] I hope to see more from him because as disturbing as the foot scene is in the later episodes,

[00:20:54] I, uh, I do love him as a character. I think he's a cool, a cool addition to the cast.

[00:20:59] And Matthew Needham plays him really well. He's got that sort of furrowed brow, like kind of

[00:21:06] pained look and, and just the physic, his physicality, his hair, the way that they've

[00:21:11] costumed him and done his makeup for his hair. It's kind of greasy and it just, it's a perfect

[00:21:17] look all around.

[00:21:19] Yep. The hunched over kind of thing. Yeah. Love it.

[00:21:23] Viserys then takes his entourage to Driftmark and Viserys proposes a marriage between Rhaenyra

[00:21:32] and Laenor, which Corlys accepts only after Viserys agrees to give their children the

[00:21:38] Valyrian name. However, the monarch will bear the Targaryen name.

[00:21:43] So this was all great stuff, but I'm going to lead off with like a little nitpick. And it's

[00:21:50] just a little one, but if you put the King and his heir on a ship, you're putting the

[00:21:58] realm in mortal danger because. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:02] Seafaring accidents happen all the time. Piracy, Krakens, you know, stealth dragons. I don't

[00:22:09] know. You name it. Like you have both people, you know, that are supposed to protect the

[00:22:15] realm afterwards in, in one position. It's like putting the president and the vice president

[00:22:18] both on the same. Yeah. You know, in defense of that, in defense of this decision, they're

[00:22:23] literally going across the lake. They're going across Blackwater Bay. Driftmark.

[00:22:28] Oh, it's not that far. Oh, well, maybe I should check the geography before I pop off of my bag.

[00:22:32] Before Driftmark, King's Landing and Dragonstone are all within this same little bay.

[00:22:37] Okay. So they're really close.

[00:22:40] Well, that just showed my ignorance of how well I know the geography.

[00:22:44] But that's why Stannis was able to attack King's Landing via Blackwater Bay, because he was a

[00:22:49] Dragonstone. Got it. Well, yeah, I know Dragonstone was very close. I just didn't realize that

[00:22:54] Driftmark was so, was so close. I figured it was a little bit further away.

[00:23:00] And he gets, Varys gets pretty sick, which is a great little character

[00:23:04] beat for him as well, that he's, you know, very prone to motion sickness, which would make

[00:23:09] riding a dragon also very difficult, I would imagine.

[00:23:12] Well, meanwhile, this guy rode the biggest dragon of all time.

[00:23:16] Actually, I think the second biggest, I think Vhagar is bigger than Balerion.

[00:23:20] But he just rode him once, right?

[00:23:22] No, just towards the end of his life. But, but I do think he rode him pretty regularly.

[00:23:27] Okay.

[00:23:27] At first. He was the last rider of him though.

[00:23:30] And it's interesting that they go to

[00:23:36] Corlys instead of calling Corlys to them, to him.

[00:23:41] Well, because.

[00:23:43] Yeah, exactly.

[00:23:44] He's, he's in low standing right now.

[00:23:45] Exactly. Exactly.

[00:23:47] He's going, asking for a favor.

[00:23:50] Hat in hand, as they say. And, and it would be, it's, it's very telling in terms of the

[00:23:58] power dynamics that the king has to go to, you know, his cousin, I guess. Yeah, cousins,

[00:24:04] a cousin's a cousin. Doesn't matter whether they're married or not, right? They're just

[00:24:07] cousins. So, you know, to go to his cousin. So that's, that's, uh, uh, and, and the importance,

[00:24:14] it also, I think signifies the importance of the proposal that, you know, we're, we're out

[00:24:20] of options here and, and you and I are both in this position where the realm is watching and

[00:24:27] Rhaenyra is, you know, hasn't, hasn't done a great job in, in finding her own match.

[00:24:33] So let's, you want this and it strengthens your position. You can't say no. You, you couldn't

[00:24:40] say no, not because you're, because I'm your king and I'm telling you to do something,

[00:24:45] but just in terms of the power dynamics of a second son always moving up the ranks, right?

[00:24:51] He definitely offers Corlys something that Corlys has coveted, which is rising the,

[00:24:56] the status of the Valyrian name. Like maybe the king will still be a Targaryen, but

[00:25:02] all of the king's sons and daughters will be Valyrians. We would want, but yet somehow it

[00:25:09] doesn't work out in blood terms. You know what I mean? Yes. And well, I don't know if you remember,

[00:25:18] but in a later episode that we're going to talk about, not this episode, he does say, you know,

[00:25:22] it's the name that matters. It's true. That's right. That's right. Very focused on. He's like

[00:25:27] history doesn't remember blood. It remembers the names.

[00:25:30] That is a very good point. That is a very good point.

[00:25:34] An interesting outlook. Uh, so Rhaenyra has her own proposal, which is an open marriage with

[00:25:41] Laenor. Laenor's lover Joffrey is all in, but Rhaenyra's lover, Criston Cole is not. He wants

[00:25:49] to run away to Essos. Crispin then confesses his sins to Alicent. I don't know, John. I just

[00:25:57] sometimes feel that you just want me to be your podcasting whore. Sorry, I did almost didn't want

[00:26:02] me to be your whore. He's so, he's so mopey. He is so mopey. But it's interesting here that

[00:26:11] Crispin, I'm going to call him Crispin now because I've seen him act terribly this episode.

[00:26:17] He proposes going to Essos, which is exactly what Laenor gets to do later.

[00:26:23] Right. That's a good point. He's like, why don't we leave all this responsibility away

[00:26:27] and go to Essos? And Laenor's like, I, that's a great idea. We should do that.

[00:26:34] I don't know what, well, obviously it just goes to the naivete of, of Cristin Cole

[00:26:40] that he thinks that they could escape. Um, and that there aren't, uh, there are, they wouldn't

[00:26:47] be found out and then, and it wouldn't come up and they wouldn't be, you know, um, chased in some

[00:26:52] way. You know, the thing that. This blonde haired woman with a dragon that follows her around.

[00:26:55] Yeah, exactly. And this, you know, beefcake, uh, dude. And what are they gonna do for money? I

[00:27:01] don't know. It's just such a, it's such a boyish silly thing to even think. But it is the moment

[00:27:08] where Rhaenyra recognizes the gravity of her role and her position and where she does step into it.

[00:27:18] And she's like, dude, I'm, I am the crown. I, I got, I can't, I can't run away. I mean,

[00:27:23] I can be silly and flip and do all kinds of silly stuff, but I am the embodiment of our

[00:27:30] nation state. So, so she steps, she affirmatively steps into it in that scene.

[00:27:36] And you also have in an earlier episode, Damon's the one who puts this into her head,

[00:27:41] this whole idea of, okay, marry for duty, but then you can do whatever you want.

[00:27:45] Oh, that's a very good point.

[00:27:46] And that's not like, that's not the way that most people live in this world. It's just the way that

[00:27:52] Damon lives.

[00:27:53] Right. And, and, uh, it is a way that Alicent positively does not live.

[00:28:01] Yep.

[00:28:03] And is offended by the notion that one would live that way.

[00:28:08] Yeah. I want to, I want to get to the, to a line later that's in the end,

[00:28:11] honor and decency will prevail. And I just think that's such a character statement for,

[00:28:17] for like a, like a mission statement for Alicent.

[00:28:21] And I love this too. And I think I mentioned this early on in our season one coverage

[00:28:28] that Alicent reminds me a little bit of Sansa in that there is this idealism.

[00:28:35] There is this sense of, um, there is a right way the world should be this right way.

[00:28:41] And then when we see the world and we go out into the world and we get out of the bubble of

[00:28:46] the red keep, the world is definitely not the idealistic picture that we've painted for things.

[00:28:52] Right.

[00:28:52] And so Alicent's indignation at that, that this, that people would do these kinds of things,

[00:28:59] you know, uh, uh, really, uh, it goes to where Sansa steps into it and embraces it and goes,

[00:29:09] oh, this is the reality. Okay. Now I'm going to start to play games then. Okay.

[00:29:14] And she gets it and she starts to, to, to use the system as opposed to Alicent,

[00:29:20] who's sort of trying to ice break through the system, right. Just sort of brute force through

[00:29:24] it. But she ends up there in the same place though, because she's as damn manipulative

[00:29:28] as any of them. Well, is she, because she does push back against a lot of it and she,

[00:29:36] she honestly to defend Alison, which is a hard thing to do because they don't make it easy.

[00:29:41] She's very naive and she makes a lot of dumb decisions, but to defend her,

[00:29:46] all she ever advocates for is bringing the truth to light. True. That's true. He just says,

[00:29:52] look, your daughter has illegitimate children here. And I would not use that term in real life.

[00:29:57] Don't have me just, this is, you know, they're called bastards in this world and they don't

[00:30:02] have a claim to succession. And that matters for our family because Viserys one day you're going

[00:30:08] to be gone and we're going to have to deal with the aftermath. And it's going to be really bad.

[00:30:12] If the line of succession includes obvious bastards. And this is Otto's agenda, right?

[00:30:18] He's installed in Alison and again, not a wrong agenda. Yeah, but she has a point, right? Like

[00:30:23] there is a point to this. Like people, somebody says this episode, people have eyes for the next

[00:30:28] episode. Like people have eyes, people see what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. And the realm wants

[00:30:35] something and expects certain forms to be followed. And if you, if you tack against those,

[00:30:43] it's going to be rough sailing. Right? Right. And also, I don't know, there, there is something to

[00:30:50] like the deception behind it. Right? Like I get, I get where Alison's coming from. I do think she's

[00:30:56] too much of a whole monitor and she's, she really just, I don't care for her very much. Like I

[00:31:02] wouldn't want to be friends with her, but she's a really interesting character because I think you

[00:31:06] can see her mission statement and it's, and it's a clear, the clear motivation for her.

[00:31:12] Yeah. Yeah. Her character is very clear and that's great because it creates a lot of drama,

[00:31:17] space for a lot of drama. Especially a lot of our bad decisions are informed by our,

[00:31:22] you know, the negative things that hurt us in childhood. And look at this where she finds out

[00:31:29] that her best friend in the world, the only one she thought she could relate to at court

[00:31:33] was lying to her. And she also vouched. Particularly discussed. Right. Yeah.

[00:31:39] And she vouched for her so many times. Yeah. Yeah. Not great. So this, this gets to breathe

[00:31:47] a little bit now, this episode and Viserys is getting treatment with leeches and whatever else.

[00:31:54] He's very ill and he doubts his legacy to Lionel strong.

[00:31:59] Yeah. So you, you've got this note here that you want to talk about his, his, his legacy.

[00:32:05] Yeah. So this whole idea of how will I be remembered? Well, you continued

[00:32:10] J. Harris is good stuff, right? It's just, you know, more is better. More is always better.

[00:32:17] And then, but he's letting this powder keg build up and he's, he's losing every battle

[00:32:23] that he fights. He's just not fighting physical battles. He's fighting political battles that he

[00:32:30] just cannot win. And I, and I just think, has he been tested and failed? Because that's kind of

[00:32:38] how I feel. And well, I think the question is, is what are his tests? And it feels like the tests

[00:32:47] aren't great battles and conquering other nations and things like that, but is it is to manage

[00:32:56] the realm, right? He, his job is to manage, manage the steady state. And there's a, there's a

[00:33:05] constant level of dysfunction because human beings are going to be human beings, I guess,

[00:33:10] right? We're just going to be messy like that. And his job is to manage that and he's terrible

[00:33:17] at it. I think he's got the skills, but yeah. What is it that he shies away from,

[00:33:24] from, you know, knocking heads and shaking people out of their stupidity and, and trying to keep

[00:33:33] things and, and maybe it's a constant level of work and grooming. I mean, Torin Naga worked

[00:33:40] tirelessly to do that, right? He had a, had a framework at which to view people.

[00:33:46] He listened and he was patient and he was controlled. So, so interesting comparison Torin Naga

[00:33:55] versus. Yeah. Well, even the Tycho, right? Even the Tycho prior to Torin Naga, let's not go too

[00:34:01] deep into Shogun, but the previous ruler had left what would become a powder keg and Torin Naga was

[00:34:07] smart enough to see that powder keg and make sure somebody else lit the match. And he, he set the

[00:34:15] charges in the right, he kind of moved the charges into the right place and then let somebody else.

[00:34:20] Yeah. Whereas this is just like, Viserys is just like, I don't know, make sure nobody says anything

[00:34:25] mean to each other in the moment. And that way we never talk about our feelings and it's all going

[00:34:30] to come out violently one day. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is the, he is the poster child for why you

[00:34:36] should get therapy, why we should all have the opportunity to talk about our feelings and unpack

[00:34:42] these complexities because when not dealt with they lead to big messes. At the welcome feast of

[00:34:52] Rhaenyra and the Laenor's wedding, Alicent shows up late in Hightower Green during the king's speech

[00:34:57] nonetheless. Man. Gerald Royce accuses Daemon of killing Rhea, but Daemon rebuts him and requests

[00:35:04] his inheritance. Daemon takes a dance with Rhaenyra and Kristen goes berserk on Joffrey,

[00:35:11] mistaking him to be a blackmailer. So, um, what did, didn't we say this? Like feasts and festivals

[00:35:23] are always these great crux, you know, crucibles in stories and here we go. Right. Everybody's

[00:35:31] out on display. This is, this is the episode of stupid people doing stupid stuff. Yep. Yep.

[00:35:36] And, and it's just happening all over the place. But I, I love the staging of all this, right?

[00:35:43] Viserys is finally like going pretty smooth on his speech. It seems like it's off to a good start.

[00:35:49] Alicent comes in late wearing Hightower Green. Then you have Laris who we've just been shown

[00:35:54] who knows a lot of stuff and is very clever saying to his brother, what color is a beacon

[00:36:00] in Old Town when the, when the Hightowers go to war? Green. So it's not just the color. I wrote

[00:36:08] it wrong in, in the, in the recap because really it's not just the color of House Hightower,

[00:36:14] it's the color of war for House Hightower. Right. Yeah. Of when the, when the beacon is lit.

[00:36:23] This is like, I am going to battle. And then later, of course you have Hobart Hightower,

[00:36:28] her uncle who's passed by the time of the time jump. He's going like, yeah, we're all with you

[00:36:36] and you're standing strong and, and you know, wearing Hightower Green. And so this, she,

[00:36:41] she finds new allies when she feels alone. She's felt alone after Rhaenyra deceived her. So she's

[00:36:48] like, I'm going to find the allies I can. Right. And, and by, yeah, in a, in a way that is staged

[00:36:57] so brilliantly, not only from a show production way, but also in an in universe way, I'm going to

[00:37:04] make an entrance and I'm going to wear just a very simple color and it's going to send shockwaves.

[00:37:10] Do you think she had a handmaid and she's like, tell me when the King starts a speech?

[00:37:15] I'm sure. I'm sure. Give me my cue. It's like a wedding, right? Give me my cue.

[00:37:20] Right. I see. I need, you know, three and a half minutes to walk from the staircase into the room.

[00:37:26] Okay. Oh my God. So this whole thing with Damon too is absurd. The, the inheritance. Oh yeah. So

[00:37:36] don't, don't fuck with me in my own house first of all, and I'll be taking your house. Thank you

[00:37:43] very much. It is wild. It's just absolutely wild. And it is just such a Damon. I don't know. He's

[00:37:53] just, he's such a great character. He's such a great character and it is just so messy.

[00:37:59] Yep. He is messy. That's a great word to describe him. And of course even messier when he's,

[00:38:06] I said dancing, but it's more like foreplay with, with Raniera and they're like, I feel like wrong

[00:38:15] watching this. Like, this is, this is like so dirty. He's like, you know, he's lame husband.

[00:38:23] And she goes, well then why don't you cut through all these people and steal me to Dragonstone?

[00:38:28] I was like, wow, that's, that's ballsy at your own wedding.

[00:38:32] And that they do it in Valerian and in, uh, you know, in their sort of secret little coded

[00:38:39] language is so weird. So they're there, they are in for everybody is around them and they're just

[00:38:45] having this intense conversation and nobody can understand them. I mean, you also can see

[00:38:53] him like almost kissing her there too. Yeah. Like he, I think he would have kissed her. I had

[00:38:57] the fight not broken out. Right. That's a good point. Um, and that would have been interesting

[00:39:02] because, uh, the Saris was getting edgier and edgier. He's like trying to figure out what's

[00:39:06] going on. He's like, look at what the, what the F is was as happening here. And boy, he would just

[00:39:12] be, Oh, he would lose it. He would flip his wig because Corliss is right there and Oh man, it

[00:39:19] would be such a mess. It would be such a mess. Yeah. But also you have this really interesting

[00:39:27] thing that they do by subverting our expectations, which I, I hate using that word, but that's exactly

[00:39:33] what they're doing here. But, but what they're doing here is they're saying, okay, let's let all

[00:39:38] this tension build up over here on the dance floor. And then a noise happens on that part of

[00:39:43] the dance floor and we're going to break the tension with something even worse. Yeah. Amazing,

[00:39:48] amazing structure of the, uh, the episode. This was, I think the episode where I was like, this is

[00:39:54] a, like a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10 show. Like this is, this is a plus plus

[00:40:00] And, and that they are, that they keep the action hidden by the group. And then, you know,

[00:40:06] the crowd and we're in that position of like, wait, what's going on? What's going on? Yeah.

[00:40:11] Like it's definitely a really great construction and that they have plotted all of these things

[00:40:16] out ahead of time and then done the writing and moved the characters. So I never feel the hand

[00:40:25] of the writer in any of this stuff. This all feels like it's turning on the characters,

[00:40:32] you know, and what they would do and their motivations. Well, this is what happens when

[00:40:35] you have a beginning, middle and end to the story and you have a set number of seasons,

[00:40:40] right? Right. You, yes, you're, you, you're clear about what your job is, right? That was

[00:40:46] the problem with the end of game of thrones. They didn't know where they were going. And then when

[00:40:50] they finally had to get there, they had to jet pack everybody around, make sloppy choices. This

[00:40:55] is very thought out. This is extremely well plotted and I love that. Yeah, for sure. And it shows,

[00:41:02] it definitely shows poor Joffrey. Dude's just trying to, dude's just trying to kind of flirt

[00:41:10] with Kristen, with Crispin. He's, he's gross. He was gross. He, he really, he really bothered me.

[00:41:17] And so does Laris in the, and again, it's stupid people doing stupid stuff. It's, I mean,

[00:41:21] Joffrey's icky, but like not icky enough to beat to death. No, you agreed. Not, not in that way.

[00:41:28] I think Kristen is a lot more toxic. I think actually toxic Joffrey, if I'm going to defend

[00:41:34] Joffrey, which I think he deserves to defense. He doesn't have a mouth to speak with anymore.

[00:41:37] I think, I think Joffrey is just trying to protect his lover. Yeah. And Joffrey says,

[00:41:45] you know what? Well, and protect his own secret. Right. She knows your secret. You know, hers now,

[00:41:51] and that will protect you. And all he was doing was saying to him like, Hey, just making sure

[00:41:56] we're level here. You know, we, we see eye to eye here and they did not see eye to high. They,

[00:42:02] they saw eye to fist. I don't disagree with the play in as much as you know, leveraging a secret

[00:42:13] for a secret that, that makes sense. What he didn't do was size up Kristen Cole. He didn't

[00:42:18] actually learn who the man was before making this and just making this really gross, you know,

[00:42:25] thing. And if, if he had just cozied up and just said, Oh, Hey, I'm, I'm Larissa's man at arms.

[00:42:30] You know, we're, we're, we're buddies. And, and, uh, I know you're the queen's protector or the

[00:42:35] princess's protector. And so I just want to make sure we're good, you know? And if you need me,

[00:42:40] I'm there for you and you can be there for me. Like if he'd played it straight,

[00:42:44] you know, that might've, but he, he, he played it. He overplayed it, not realizing who he was

[00:42:49] talking to. And that's that, that was that ended his life. Right. You know, he thought he was more

[00:42:55] clever than, than he was, than he was. Yeah. Pour one out. Joffrey is in the deceased category

[00:43:01] in the show guide. Raniera and Lenore then married a private ceremony.

[00:43:07] Immediately after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And Alison stops Kristen from committing suicide,

[00:43:14] man. Wow. What a, just a, what a way to end an episode. You could have ended the season on this.

[00:43:22] I know. And the lesser show would have, it would have right. The, the fact that they're standing

[00:43:27] there, everybody's disheveled the banquet hall. The great hall there is just all, you know,

[00:43:33] there's blood on the floor, food and drink everywhere. The place probably stinks to high

[00:43:37] heaven and they're just all disheveled. And, and it's, it bodes, it does not bode well for their,

[00:43:45] their coming betrothal. Agreeing. And then to see Cole in the garden there. And I was like,

[00:43:54] Sepuku, but no, don't, don't say that too loud because somebody is going to add us and be like,

[00:44:00] that's not Sepuku. Not all suicide is Sepuku and we're going to get a whole thing. All right. And

[00:44:06] I'm avoiding that. Anyway, it was the, you know, the Shogun is the Shogun of it all. I get what

[00:44:11] you're saying, but I, I don't think this is, I don't even think it's comparable to Sepuku because

[00:44:17] it's basically just, I'm an idiot. I should kill myself. It's true. It's a, it's a good point.

[00:44:22] It's, and it's not ritualized. It's just like, Oh, boohoo, you know, for me,

[00:44:28] Sepuku is like an honor thing. I think, right, exactly. You know, I do think there's a component

[00:44:33] of that, but I think it's more shame based than honor based with Kristen.

[00:44:37] Yeah. No, this is, this is definitely shame, shame driven behavior. But I'll tell you, Olivia

[00:44:44] Cook, when she walks in and she just gives him that, she doesn't even have to move her head.

[00:44:48] Doesn't even have to shake her head or anything. Should I tell you that it's not Olivia Cook yet?

[00:44:53] Oh, sorry. Emily Cary. Emily Cary. They, I think cast these two pretty well.

[00:45:00] Yeah. They look much more similar than the Raniers.

[00:45:02] Happen. Yeah. The Raniers are very different where, where Emily and Olivia look very well. But anyway,

[00:45:07] Emily Cary nails this by just sort of, and she doesn't even have to move her body all that much.

[00:45:14] Just her emoting and her face stops him cold. And it's so good. It's just such a powerful way to

[00:45:22] end the episode. Yep. Yep. By the way, if you go to our show guide, you can click in to the

[00:45:28] characters and you'll see actor and young actor slots because we have the time shift in this.

[00:45:32] And at least on that entry, the two actors are IMDB linked. So you can click on them and get IMDB.

[00:45:38] Oh, and I, you know, I'm taking lessons learned. I don't want to do the show guide talk too much,

[00:45:42] but I am taking lessons learned from the hot D show guide. So every actor I do on the rings of

[00:45:46] power show guide is automatically I'm IMDB being nice. So we're, we're learning a lot of stuff.

[00:45:52] I also learned this is my new superpower. I learned how to make the backgrounds of

[00:45:57] sigils transparent so that they look all pretty when they are. Check you out. I know. I know.

[00:46:04] All right. Enough blathering about my show guides.

[00:46:07] We are going to take a quick break. When we get back, we'll get into episode six.

[00:46:12] We'll be right back with more house of the dragon.

[00:46:22] And we're back with more house of the dragon.

[00:46:27] Okay. So it's 10 years later, we've gone 10 years in the future and we are on episode six

[00:46:33] and older Raniera gives birth to her third son. The queen demands to see it. And Raniera walks

[00:46:39] up the steps of the red keep while discovering while recovering from labor.

[00:46:44] And discovering how hard it is to walk after labor.

[00:46:47] Yeah. Viserys of course is in even worse shape.

[00:46:52] This was, Alison's I was just flat regasted by this. But it's a great opener. It's just a perfect

[00:47:02] way to set the stage between these these two characters. The enmity that is existing between

[00:47:09] them, the friction, the tension and the fact that Raniera is like, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll call your,

[00:47:17] your, uh, your, I want to see the kid and I'll raise you the fact that you're going to be,

[00:47:22] you know, everybody's going to see me dribbling blood through the halls

[00:47:26] and, and know the depths of your cruelty. Yeah. And, and I think that when I,

[00:47:31] when you look at these two people, you see two ideas, two competing visions of good

[00:47:37] and one sees compliance with the rules as good. The other sees ends and means as good. Right?

[00:47:47] And so you, you have Raniera saying like, okay, you know what? I produce children who can inherit

[00:47:52] the throne and it's all good guys. You know, they're good kids. They have Targaryen blood.

[00:47:57] They have dragons. We're all fine. And Alison's like, that might be well and good, but it's a lie

[00:48:05] and it's better to fight a war over a lie than it is to accept that lie.

[00:48:11] Is this like the person who comes to a complete stop at an intersection at early in the morning

[00:48:19] where it's visible that there's nobody around and you, but yet you, you make the complete stop,

[00:48:25] or is this the, you know, versus the person who kind of rolls up? Yeah,

[00:48:28] it looks clear and just keeps rolling through like the letter of the law.

[00:48:32] I don't want to talk about it. Okay. Cause you're one of the other, right? Well, look, I,

[00:48:39] I actually do come to a full stop for those situations because I think driving is something

[00:48:42] where you're just like, I'm scared of hitting somebody with my metal block. So anyway, but,

[00:48:49] but my point is this is, this is something where there's like real people at stake,

[00:48:54] right? And real people are going to get hurt if you insist on this rigid compliance to the rules.

[00:49:01] Agreed. And to the, to, you know, your vision of the truth of,

[00:49:04] of just everyone needs to know everybody's business all the time.

[00:49:09] Right. Right. And yeah, it's, um, it's clear. It's a great setup to the fact that

[00:49:19] Lenore is not the sire of these, of these children's cause then you're like, Oh,

[00:49:25] what is going on? Cause we did jump the 10 years and then boom, we're just starting

[00:49:30] in media res, I guess as the, as the case may be right. We're just in the action.

[00:49:35] Right. Which I think is cool. It's a really cool way to do it. I think it's very cool.

[00:49:38] And I want to point out, you know, you said, Oh, well she's dripping blood through this whole

[00:49:43] place. She's looking really bad and making everyone feel bad for her. Lord Caswell is

[00:49:48] the one who says, Hey, if there's anything I can do, please let me know there. There may come a

[00:49:53] time Lord Cas, Caswell, Lord Caswell later is the one who doesn't bow right away for Agon when they

[00:50:03] make the Lord's re-swear their oaths and then eventually gets hanged for his loyalty to Runeera.

[00:50:07] Oh, nice. So this moment worked on him and we have consequences later.

[00:50:12] Right. That's cool. Again, um, really good job with the plotting, you know, breaking,

[00:50:17] breaking the story down and, and getting the big board with the red string, you know,

[00:50:22] all the plots. Yep. So yeah, it's really cool to rewatch this because you see them

[00:50:27] sort of putting it, putting these little things in it. Right.

[00:50:31] We of course see Runeera's family with her two older sons that look a lot like the omnipresent

[00:50:37] Harwin Strong, Jace and Luke Valerian go to play with their uncles, Agon and Amond. Amond is

[00:50:45] taunted about not having a dragon. Helena Targaryen, the youngest of Alicent and Viserys

[00:50:52] or the, the actually she's not the youngest. I said that wrong. Helena Valerian, the daughter

[00:50:57] of Alicent and Viserys prophecies about Amond giving an eye for a dragon. He'll have to give

[00:51:06] an eye. Right. Yeah. And she's, she's got a touch of the green site, right? Playing with bugs and

[00:51:12] insects. Now, now, now it's not the green site in the Targaryens. They have,

[00:51:16] they have their own little prophecies thing with the Valerian blood and whatnot.

[00:51:20] Right. Right. And she's going to be an interesting character I think coming up. I hope we see her a

[00:51:26] little bit more in this season because she's got just a cool, creepy vibe. Yeah. I do know some

[00:51:33] spoilers about her from reading online and you know, I, I sacrificed myself for the show guide

[00:51:41] because I, there were some times where some spoilers arose, but now you guys can read the

[00:51:47] show guide without spoilers because I removed them before I posted it. Huzzah. Uh, we haven't

[00:51:54] talked much about the dragon CGI, um, in the last couple of episodes and I have to say they're

[00:52:00] pretty on their game until, until, until what I'm going to say later is that boy,

[00:52:08] that CGI for Damon and Lena was horrendous. Let's see which part where Damon and Lena are riding

[00:52:16] dragons together above Pentos. Oh, right. Right. Oh, I thought that looked horrible. Okay. Huh?

[00:52:22] I didn't, it didn't catch me. And I'm not usually the guy to complain about it. That's usually you.

[00:52:26] Yes, exactly. I'm usually pretty forgiving. And I was watching this and I was like,

[00:52:30] this look is horrible. I'm trying to think maybe I was, where was I? Was I watching it on my laptop?

[00:52:36] That's interesting that I didn't pick up on it. So, okay. Well, so for, I mean this stuff in the,

[00:52:42] um, what do you call the big dragon pit? The dragon pit. Yeah. Um, seemed pretty cool to me.

[00:52:47] I was pretty happy with that. Yeah, that was cool. That was cool. And I did like the pig dragon.

[00:52:51] That was funny. We got you a dragon as kids are going to do. Right. Yeah. They're, they're in,

[00:52:58] they're just, there's no trauma like sibling trauma, right? Like familial trauma. Uh,

[00:53:05] uh, they're, they're pretty harsh on each other. Uh, you know, going forward in all of these little

[00:53:12] situations. And do you know, tween Agon is played by tie tenant, David Tennant's son?

[00:53:17] Oh no, I did not know that. And he looks pretty much like him. He's his adopted son.

[00:53:23] Oh wow. His, it was a child of his wife's first, I don't think it was a marriage. It was just a

[00:53:29] child from his wife. Okay. And he had adopted a tie. And if you look up, you can see David

[00:53:35] tenant holding a piece of paper behind tie at a convention where he's signing for house of the

[00:53:40] dragon that says he's not that special. But the funniest part about this is that David tenants

[00:53:48] father-in-law played the doctor in like a non-canon spinoff. And when David tenant was

[00:53:54] signing autographs as the doctor, his father-in-law did the same thing to him and said,

[00:54:00] he's not that special. So this is now a family tradition that you have to say he's not that

[00:54:05] special when somebody new in the family gets famous. Funny. Yep. A demon and his, Oh no,

[00:54:11] I skipped it. Alison implies Raniera's children are bastards with Viserys who tells her to never

[00:54:17] speak of it again because of the consequences. Alison then vents to Kristen Cole. She tells

[00:54:23] Aegon that one day he will be King. This is where we get this intensity from Alison as well,

[00:54:32] where she grabs him and is like, you know, like she she's yeah, there's a, there's a fire in her.

[00:54:41] There's a steel in her. Um, and it's ugly. It's kind of ugly in a way. Yep. Yeah. And,

[00:54:48] and I do think that her childhood shaped her. She might not have become this home monitor,

[00:54:53] but because of the deception, I think here's the thing. She had no compassion to hold onto

[00:54:59] every relationship she had was political and fabricated between her marriage and gas lit.

[00:55:05] And yeah. And so what do you do when you don't have relationship, you find something

[00:55:12] to believe in. And that for her was the rules. Interesting. Was the employee handbook.

[00:55:21] Right. We've all had that coworker who's like, you know, on page 62 of the employee handbook.

[00:55:26] That's right. All right. Uh, and, and this whole Viserys with consequences thing, he's like,

[00:55:33] there will be consequences, but that's going to be after I'm dead. So it's fine. So just keep

[00:55:37] it, keep it to yourselves. You can handle that later. And this toxicity with Kristen Cole,

[00:55:43] this, you know, this brewing, this brewing tea between, Oh, they're mean girls. Oh man. It's,

[00:55:48] it's ugly and it's gross. And again, definitely has a burn book. I, I, I love the fact that the

[00:55:56] way that we get introduced to the fact that he's now her protector by when they show up at the

[00:56:03] door with the baby and it's like, Oh wait, Christian Cole's way. Oh, Oh, Oh. Like it's,

[00:56:09] you're also like, why is he alive? Right. Well, you got a lot of questions here. Why is Kristen

[00:56:14] Cole alive or not at the wall? Yeah. Because Alison said, great. I can use it. So she's being,

[00:56:21] she's learning the game of manipulation and deception.

[00:56:24] Mm hmm. So back to my bad CGI, Damon and Lena ride dragons together in Pentos Reggio,

[00:56:34] the Prince of Pentos offers them a permanent residence in exchange for defending Pentos with

[00:56:39] dragons. Lena is not happy about it. We never really talked about

[00:56:45] Damon and Lena's courtship during the big ball scene. It was like a one line flirt,

[00:56:53] but it was effective. And so, and it was oftentimes we complain in other shows about,

[00:56:59] Oh, this plot point or why I don't, you know, this character or whatever,

[00:57:03] because they didn't give us that one line or that one scene. And so they set this relationship up

[00:57:09] perfectly. I think it's a couple of scenes. There's a couple of looks and then there's a,

[00:57:13] there's an interaction and it's just enough so that we, it signals us this is going to happen.

[00:57:19] And so when it does happen, it's clear and it makes sense. And it's like, Oh, okay, this is all

[00:57:23] good. Yeah. And you're almost as pretty as your brother is a hilarious pickup line. It is hilarious.

[00:57:31] And, and Lena, um, you know, you know, uh, she turned, she would have been,

[00:57:37] been an awesome queen. I think she would have, she would have locked it.

[00:57:41] Yeah. I mean, as much as you can, when you're married to Viserys, the king,

[00:57:46] but yeah, I, she just has a poise and, uh, uh, uh, I don't know. Yeah. She,

[00:57:53] I think she would have made a good queen. She's a good mother. You know,

[00:57:56] she's given a pep talk to that's right. Our later we'll talk about that in a second.

[00:58:00] And what is it? Nana Blondel is the actor. She's yeah. I'm anyway, sorry.

[00:58:08] Can you check the deceased section? Yes. I know. That's why I'm looking at,

[00:58:12] yeah, I know. Cause you have a lot of people who have very similar names, Lena, Bela, Lena,

[00:58:21] Lenore. Yeah. And she goes out and again, it's this, this theme of, um, uh, childbirth is not

[00:58:31] an easy thing, uh, in these days. No, no, but well, let's get to that in a minute. I don't want

[00:58:37] that coming up yet. Yeah. Yeah. Harwin strong and Kristen Cole have a proxy fight about the

[00:58:42] Targaryen and Valerian kids training. Kristen goads Harwin into attacking him.

[00:58:48] Lionel scolds his son for giving truth to rumors. Ranira stops Lena or from going off to war

[00:58:55] when he has a newborn. Yes. Again, more than this. This is less stupid people doing stupid stuff. I

[00:59:05] actually really, they made Harwin strong, very likable. Like I like his character and, and he

[00:59:13] seems like he's a good dad and he gives a shit and he's there. Unlike Lena or who's just getting

[00:59:21] drunk with his, uh, his buddies, his buddy. Um, it really paints a, a stark, uh, picture between

[00:59:30] the two. And yeah, I don't know. I, I, I kind of dig Harwin and I'm sad to lose him. Yeah. I mean,

[00:59:38] Kristen Cole is such a mean girl. He's so petty God. And you just love to hate him, which is

[00:59:44] amazing because you know, this show does a great job of making you love people you used to hate.

[00:59:49] Yep. This is one of the first instances where I hate someone I used to love.

[00:59:54] Yeah. Cause he was, he was kind of cool when she plucked him out of sort of obscurity and

[00:59:59] yeah, he seemed like he was all right. It's like, cool. You know, you,

[01:00:01] you gave me a whole place in the Royal household and yeah, that's over. Yeah. That's over.

[01:00:11] Uh, and the proxy fight was just sad, right? Like, Oh beat him up, beat him up. It's like,

[01:00:15] stop using the children to get back at your ex. And meanwhile, um, Lionel strong and the Sarah's

[01:00:24] are watching from the balcony. And I think Lionel strong, I don't know. I don't know what he was

[01:00:30] thinking about the kids. He's certainly horrified by his son's actions, uh, and his grandsons by,

[01:00:38] you know, his, his blood grandsons. But just Harris is like, Oh, boys will be boys. You know,

[01:00:44] isn't this sweet? This is how you make memories and all that stuff. And it's like, no, they're

[01:00:49] actually inflicting very deep trauma on each other that is never going to go away. Yeah.

[01:00:55] They're, they're doing lifelong grudge kind of stuff. Yeah. And, and then we have Raniera of

[01:00:59] course, putting her foot down with lane or like, no, you know what? I've let you drink and bang

[01:01:06] whoever you want. You are staying here while you have a newborn or we are going to have problems

[01:01:12] with image here. Yeah. It's a PR game lane or, and he's just, he's a dandy, right? He just wants

[01:01:18] to have fun. He doesn't have re he's not yoked with any responsibility. Um, and he has this,

[01:01:24] well, he has these memories of, of war and high adventure and yeah, it's just, uh, being a,

[01:01:32] a, a consort to the, to the Prince S is just boring for him. It makes me think, did you ever

[01:01:40] watch the crown? Uh, I did not. I think I was like the first couple episodes of it. And then I was

[01:01:45] like, I am bored. I just, I'm not, I'm really not that into the Royal stuff. I think that they are

[01:01:53] just kind of, well, if you separating it from the, the, the documentary aspect of it, but if

[01:02:01] then you look at this relationship that's under these, these series of relationships that are

[01:02:08] under this pressure of being Royals and all of what that means, there's some great stuff where,

[01:02:15] um, uh, they have to deal with these same questions where the woman, you know, the,

[01:02:20] that you have the one person who is the, the ruler and then the one person who's the consort

[01:02:25] and the consort has a lot of power and a lot of resource, but a lot of time to get up to no good.

[01:02:33] And, um, it's a, it's a very similar situation. You can see this very much in real life. So

[01:02:38] it, the whole thing plays true, right? It rings true. Um, uh, lean ors sort of playboy ways that

[01:02:46] it just, Oh yeah, you could totally see that. Right. Yeah. I, I like the whole characterization,

[01:02:53] although they kind of painted lane or in a mixed light here. Like he's, he seems like a really good

[01:02:59] husband at first, at least in a friendly way. Right? Like they're, they're best friends. I think

[01:03:04] that that's, that's sort of the relationship that Raniera has formed with Layner. They're like

[01:03:08] besties. Right. And you know, I, I, you know, at first he's like walking up the stairs, please just

[01:03:14] hold on to me at least. But, but then you have this weird thing. So I think they have a mixed bag.

[01:03:20] This one, I think over the next few episodes, we're going to get to like lean or more. I remember

[01:03:24] liking him more by the end of his run. Okay. So Raina tries to hatch a dragon egg and gets a pep

[01:03:31] talk from her mom, Lena about not having a drag until she was 15. We know she got Vagar.

[01:03:37] Lena then gives a pep talk to Damon noting his secret desire for the Targaryen legacy.

[01:03:43] See, Lena is just good. She's just a good person. She she's very perceptive. Yeah. Perceptive

[01:03:52] thinking of the best for, for her people trying to, you know, buoy buoy them in their, you know,

[01:03:59] in their blue States. Yeah. It's just such a shame. They we're stuck with all the,

[01:04:05] the rotten mean nasty people and all the good people end up getting burned. So I don't know.

[01:04:13] Yeah. And, uh, you know, there's this whole thing of like, how are dragon eggs hatched?

[01:04:20] Fire and blood seems to be the formula. So I don't recall if this happened here, but shouldn't

[01:04:31] Lena's death have something to do with the dragon egg hatching? Maybe, maybe they have to be the

[01:04:39] same flame. I don't know. I don't know the rules of these magic eggs, but, uh, it seems like

[01:04:45] I definitely life endings. Yeah. A life ending plus fire on the egg makes dragon. Interesting.

[01:04:54] Yeah. I don't know. I'm not enough in the world to, to, to know the mechanics of this. Maybe we

[01:04:58] could ask Mr. Anthony when he comes out. That'd be a good question. Yeah. For when we talk to him,

[01:05:02] because I think we're planning to talk to him. Um, something we didn't talk about or just,

[01:05:08] just really quickly. It's not that we didn't talk about it, but it was something I wanted to

[01:05:10] mention. I remember in game of Thrones when, you know, they went over to, uh, the other continent

[01:05:18] and all the other stuff over there. And it felt very like remote and discovered and history's

[01:05:24] lost, but yet there's still plenty of things going on. And here it's like, Oh no, we're just,

[01:05:28] you know, the stuff there's trade, there's political infighting, there's people coming

[01:05:34] and going. It's a very active, uh, place yet, yet when we come out of game of Thrones, it's like,

[01:05:40] Oh, this exotic East and you know, all these forgotten things. It just seemed for me, it just,

[01:05:47] there was a, it, this time period, it just seems like a regularity that we're doing all this trade

[01:05:53] in commerce and people are coming and going. Well, I think that's actually a, a geography

[01:06:00] issue because this is Pentos, which is still built up in the game of Thrones era. You'll recall

[01:06:05] in the beginning of game of Thrones, Daenerys and Viserys, the other Viserys, right? With a

[01:06:11] different kind of gold crown, but they are staying with, uh, Illyrio Mopatis. Oh, that's right.

[01:06:17] In this like mansion basically. Right. And that's Pentos. So Pentos is pretty built up and modern

[01:06:24] and whatnot. It's just that near the doomed Valeria, there was a lot of collapse of society.

[01:06:32] So those are where it's a little bit more iffy. Right. Right. So, and it's the same thing as

[01:06:39] everywhere, right? Like some places are better to live on each continent than others.

[01:06:46] You wouldn't want to live with the wildlings in Game of Thrones, right? In Westeros.

[01:06:52] Yeah. It just feels more lived in the world seems more connected.

[01:06:56] Yeah. And there's still the same political structure too, in Game of Thrones,

[01:07:00] the Prince is the leader of the city and whatnot. So yeah. Yep. Um, war has broken up,

[01:07:09] broken out in the step stones again. And the triarchy has allied with Dorne and interesting

[01:07:14] detail. Alicent and Rhaenyra argue about the course of action. Rhaenyra tries to make peace

[01:07:21] with Alicent by offering a marriage between Jace and Helene and a dragon egg for Aemond.

[01:07:26] Viserys is into it, but Alicent is not. Viserys is like great idea. This is the best thing I've

[01:07:32] ever heard. Oh, happy day. My family is together. Exactly. It's exactly what he would want it. And

[01:07:38] it's a great decision by Rhaenyra, right? And he would be very proud of her. I think it's a,

[01:07:44] it's a smart play. Oh, splendid day. It really is, uh, um, in so many ways, the, the answer to

[01:07:55] the conundrum of when Rhaenyra takes the throne, what happens to Alicent?

[01:08:01] And it completely solves the question. Um, and I just, and Alicent is just so indignant and,

[01:08:08] uh, what's the word? There's a word I was thinking of her for her the other day. And

[01:08:11] I forget what it is. Just this kind of arrogance and she just can't, she just can't abide.

[01:08:18] She's snooty. Yeah. She's snooty. She's like, I'm above your bastards.

[01:08:25] So is this, uh, the step stones with the Dorne and the triarchy, that's going to be a bit of a

[01:08:32] thorn in everybody's, uh, sides coming in the next season, you think?

[01:08:37] No, I think that's pretty much resolved. That resolves later this season.

[01:08:41] Does it? Okay. Well, there you go. I don't remember the season all that well.

[01:08:44] So there's a whole plot line with Corliss. You can check if you want to read ahead,

[01:08:48] you can check our show guide. This is my last pitch for the show. I promise you can check

[01:08:52] our show guide for a season one summary where you'll see how that plotline resolved.

[01:08:55] That's right. Uh, Lionel resigns as hand of the king due to Harwin's actions and shadow over his

[01:09:03] house. Viserys declines to accept the resignation. Lionel gets leave to set up Harwin at Harrenhal.

[01:09:13] This was really sad because I re it seemed like Lionel Strong was a really good hand.

[01:09:18] You know, he's got, he's got some values. He's got some sense of morality. You know, he,

[01:09:23] he can play dirty, but for the right reasons and yeah, he just seemed like a really good guy.

[01:09:29] We lose a lot of people. When does he play dirty? Well, you have to play dirty if you're the hand

[01:09:35] it's implied. Like the hand has to do a lot of dirty work. Not if you're Ned Stark,

[01:09:40] but then you, then you lose your head. Right, right, right. So we see how that works out.

[01:09:45] Well, I think what's, what's really sad about it is you look at the difference between him and

[01:09:50] Otto. Otto has to be told you're compromised and you can't be the hand anymore. Right.

[01:09:56] Lionel and, and he's resisting that. Lionel says I'm compromised. I can't be the hand anymore.

[01:10:03] And he's just like too bad. Yeah. Too bad. It's a very, you know, to come back to, to Shogun,

[01:10:11] it's a, you know, it's an honorable thing. He's thinking of the honor of his Lord and,

[01:10:15] and thinking of the bigger picture and not just of himself, which is what his son doesn't

[01:10:20] understand. But then we get his son's motivations, even though he's, you know, siring a bunch of

[01:10:27] bastard children, um, he's there for them, you know, he cares and he's trying to, you know,

[01:10:33] stand up for him. So like I get the motivation of this, you know, uh, manly man father figure,

[01:10:40] you know, with Harwin, but Lionel's sense of duty and honor and, and, and the perceptions of power

[01:10:47] is so spot on and yet he, he can't see the danger that is, you know, in his own house with his own

[01:10:55] family. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, he does see the danger, right? Like that's why he tries to resign.

[01:11:02] No, I see. Oh, with Larry. Yeah. I see what you're saying. I'm picking up what you're putting down.

[01:11:06] Yeah. And so Lionel is just, um, he's so unaware of the danger of Laris in his own,

[01:11:13] you know, the, the, the danger that's in his own house, you know, and, you know, partly Laris is

[01:11:19] able to disguise that, but at the same time, you're the hand to man. If you, if, if you're

[01:11:24] not keeping an eye on everybody, you're, you're, you're falling down on the job a little bit. So

[01:11:29] yeah, he's just ignorant to the whole, his whole creepy son doing creepy stuff, which ends his life.

[01:11:37] Yeah. I mean, Laris puts on a good show. That's what I'll say. He puts on a good show. Very,

[01:11:42] just a very harmless second son with a cane who just stumbles in and out,

[01:11:48] make some comments about high tower green and then walks away.

[01:11:54] Alison has dinner with Laris speaking of speaking of she laments the absence of her father.

[01:12:00] Laris then removes the tongues of prisoners awaiting execution

[01:12:04] and offers them pardons in exchange for a price. Really? I liked the acceleration.

[01:12:14] That we go from Laris is like, Oh, okay. You know, he's, he's got the ear of the queen and

[01:12:19] he's playing some power plays and then boom, evil guy, right? Yeah. Thrilling his mustachio

[01:12:25] and doing, doing dark deeds. But that's also the genius of skipping 10 years, which is

[01:12:32] we get the seeds of it before the time skip. And then after the time skip, we can just comfortably

[01:12:38] say, okay, some events happened that time that made it so that they regularly have dinner together.

[01:12:43] Right. And she confides in him. And then he's got access to the jails and, um, is able to,

[01:12:52] you know, round up, uh, uh, some unsavory characters. Yeah. So I want to point out

[01:13:00] kind of an out of character statement for Alison, but is, I think I, he's kind of in character too.

[01:13:08] So against the whole like rule follower thing is this statement where Laris says your father could

[01:13:13] hardly be impartial either. And she said he would be partial to me because she's like, well,

[01:13:19] then he would be on my side, even if he couldn't be impartial. And that's not really a rule

[01:13:24] following thing, right? That's saying I want favorable treatment, but it is in line with

[01:13:29] the abandonment. She felt as a child, her mother dies, her father is banished after a time and

[01:13:34] her father's manipulating her. Her best friend betrays her. Her husband is dying constantly.

[01:13:40] And, uh, she just has nobody. And so I think she had her father by default and she wants somebody

[01:13:49] back. And he was a bit of a cold man with his affections and he's, he was always on the job,

[01:13:56] right? Which is weird for someone with such a thick and ungroomed beard, you would think he'd

[01:14:02] be warmer. Sadly, no, it's all an illusion. Even by friction. I mean, come on. And so

[01:14:10] Laris is in a perfect position to capitalize on her needing an ally. And so she starts to pull

[01:14:18] allies to her, Kristen Cole, Laris, and yet they're the worst of the worst in their own ways.

[01:14:24] Yep. Yep. Anyone on Alison's side, she desperately clings to and she presents them with her

[01:14:33] treasures, which are her stompers. All right. Moving on. All right. Lena is having a bad

[01:14:40] childbirth and the attending offers Damon a C-section just like Viserys. Instead,

[01:14:46] Lena begs her dragon, Vhagar, to burn her, which Vhagar reluctantly does.

[01:14:53] So another tough childbirth situation. Um, they are the, and then we started this episode with

[01:15:01] Rhaenyra, right? With her, her, uh, close up of her face. Right. And we start the season with

[01:15:09] Aima and Aima saying, this is our battlefield. Yeah. So they're, they're constantly working

[01:15:14] this theme and she, at least Lena in this moment has agency. It's, it's a terrible,

[01:15:25] it's tragic, right? It just, it's what it is is it's tragic, but at least she had agency to make

[01:15:31] her own choices as opposed to, um, uh, Oh, let me use the show guide and find, uh, where's the

[01:15:38] deceased column? Uh, Viserys' first wife. Oh, Viserys, Aima. Yeah. Sorry? Aima. Aima. Okay.

[01:15:49] Aima Arryn, although, you know, nay Arryn, but it's Targaryen. Right. We need to,

[01:15:56] we need a deceased view. A deceased view. Yeah, I know the list keeps getting longer and it's only

[01:16:01] going to keep growing. View name deceased. Okay. Okay. So very sad. Vhagar, such a cool dragon.

[01:16:14] And I love that they show this, you know, that she needs to plead for Vhagar. Right. To do it.

[01:16:22] And the whole thing is just so interesting with agency, right? She's like, if I'm going to die,

[01:16:28] she, cause she says earlier in the episode, I want to die a dragon rider's death. I don't

[01:16:31] want to die, you know, fat and plump. I, and she does, she dies a dragon rider's death.

[01:16:38] And it's, um, God, that dragon is huge. It's just so massive. Um, yeah. And it's just tragic. I

[01:16:47] don't know. That's the, that's the only thing I'm left with it is just the tragedy of it. And that's

[01:16:53] what, what does Damon take away from it? You know, and, and would Damon have authorized a C-section

[01:17:00] cause he didn't get a chance to answer. He didn't. Okay. No, Lena runs away before he even really

[01:17:06] gets a chance to answer. I suppose that's true. Yeah. I suppose that's true. Well,

[01:17:14] that's the end of Lena story, unfortunately, but not the end of Vigars. We'll see.

[01:17:20] Harwin says goodbye to his secret family and returns to Harrenhal with his father,

[01:17:25] where they are burned to death by Laris' henchmen. Rhaenyra and Lenore flee to Dragonstone,

[01:17:32] but she allows him to bring his lover, Karl Kori. Alicent learns what Laris did and is horrified.

[01:17:38] Yeah. I love the, the whole thing with Laris. Like, well, you know, it, um, you, you said you

[01:17:49] had a little problem. So I dealt with it, which, you know, goes back to the, uh, will, will no one

[01:17:54] rid me of this meddlesome priest? Well that, and it incriminates her, right? Like she's like,

[01:18:00] even though it's not her fault, he's making her feel like it's her fault. And so now he has her,

[01:18:06] no matter what he does, he has her. Uh, it's a very good point. Yeah. He's, he's locked her in.

[01:18:12] He's, he's boxed her in and she's, she's now tainted. He wanted her to, to have the blood

[01:18:17] on her hands. Go ahead. Right, right. Yeah. He had to, to implicate her so that she's, she's locked

[01:18:22] in. Um, sorry. It's will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, I believe is the correct one.

[01:18:28] So not meddlesome. Yep. Uh, but yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. The, the, um,

[01:18:36] the fact that she's compromised and she, she goes with it, right. She doesn't, she doesn't, um,

[01:18:46] you know, she starts to, to, to use these tools that she has at her disposal. Right. And, and

[01:18:54] you know, between Otto and, and Laris and Kristen Cole, that's a, that's a pretty murder. That's an

[01:19:01] ugly murderer's row right there. That's another triarchy for you. Yeah, for sure.

[01:19:07] Well, this has been a lovely two traumatic episodes. David, the season's getting darker

[01:19:13] by the minute and next episode will be the darkest episode yet because for some reason

[01:19:18] they forgot to turn on the lights on set that day. Oh, is this one of the dark episodes? It's

[01:19:23] drift mark. Next episode is drift mark where we're going to have the funeral of Lena, right? And it's

[01:19:30] going to be extremely dark the whole time. I remember watching it the first time and being like,

[01:19:35] is the brightness off on my TV? Like what is wrong here? I wonder if they fixed it in this,

[01:19:40] the episode. Have you already watched ahead? I have not watched ahead, but I doubt it. I'm going

[01:19:46] to, I was going to say, I think HBO just loves their dark game of Thrones. Yeah. All right. Shall

[01:19:53] we move to listener feedback? Let's do it. So if you want to send listener feedback, you can send

[01:19:58] it to hotd at the lower hounds.com that's hot d at the lower hounds.com. You can go to the contact

[01:20:04] on our website, the lower hounds.com. You can also send us a voicemail there. You could also

[01:20:10] just tag us on discord and say, Hey David, John, we really want to chat with you about hot D

[01:20:15] Marilyn R. Paquila again, not watching the show has continued to write in and I love it.

[01:20:21] I love getting this like completely out of context. Uh, Maryland feedback,

[01:20:27] Maryland says, Hey, lore hounds, here's a few bits and pieces. I thought of during the second

[01:20:32] episode, uh, our second episode. So episodes three and four we covered the white heart has

[01:20:38] long been a symbol of British royalty going back to Richard the second in the 1300s. Also in Celtic

[01:20:44] tradition to encounter a white heart in a forest means a message of some kind. The meeting also

[01:20:50] delineates the boundary between the everyday world and the Faye world. It is usually pretty evocative

[01:20:56] for any viewers slash readers. And the bore was a personal symbol of Richard Duke of,

[01:21:02] Oh man, can you say it? Uh, I don't have it open. Gloucester. It's like Gloucester, right? Oh,

[01:21:08] Gloucester. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Who became Richard the third. So if you have also

[01:21:14] Brits fix your cities, they've spelled stupidly. So if you have a character associated with the

[01:21:20] bore, you might think of him as a fierce warrior and yet a conniving and untrustworthy person.

[01:21:27] If you go by the more historical and nuanced version, the board may some symbolize someone

[01:21:33] who is incredibly loyal, skillful, and just you pay your money and you take, you pays your money

[01:21:39] and you takes your choice. I think this is a stylized thing for Maryland. Uh, I heard you

[01:21:45] repeat some characters line. I only ever lived to serve you. And suddenly I was hearing echoes

[01:21:49] of Grima worm tongue speaking to Theoden Tolkien influence much. Yeah. George is ripping from

[01:21:56] Tolkien all over the place. Sure. But it's hard not to write when it's, it's so definitive in

[01:22:02] the, in the genre. And then I'm going to skim over Maryland's compliments to my song. Thank you,

[01:22:07] Marilyn. I don't want to say that many nice things about myself in a row. Uh, I like this background

[01:22:13] on the white heart. I didn't know this was a real world thing. Hmm. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:22:18] And the, in this connection to the Fae world and to, you know, to, uh, powers, greater powers that

[01:22:26] didn't, that we can perceive, um, that, you know, me gains or sort of indicates the way that the

[01:22:34] universe would like things to go or, you know, or, you know, sub signs and portents kind of stuff.

[01:22:40] So yeah, it's a very cool, uh, insight. Thanks Marilyn. Again, very cool stuff. I hope you'll

[01:22:46] keep writing in, even if you're not going to want us to show how he's happy to have you. And if you

[01:22:50] want to hear more from Maryland, check out our brings a power teaser breakdown. It was a lot of

[01:22:56] fun with that. Yep. We have also got a voicemail from Abby who is not going to tell us about our

[01:23:04] Shogun poor pronunciation this time, but instead going to talk about high Valerian. Here we go.

[01:23:10] Hello friends. My name is Abby. You know, me as the one with the B in her bonnet about the

[01:23:20] Japanese name pronunciations during Shogun show times. I am back for house of the dragon

[01:23:27] with less than bees in my bonnet and another nerdy language input. I have less complaints about

[01:23:35] the way names are said differently, even if you heard them on screen, because it's a made up

[01:23:40] language and a lot of people's first encounter with it was by reading it. So you make you up your

[01:23:48] own mind how something might be pronounced when you read it. And it is hard to unlearn later,

[01:23:54] but not impossible. If you have curiosity, I went into studying high Valerian Valeri Jo Loran. I am

[01:24:01] studying Valerian because I wanted to know how some stuff is supposed to sound and seemed like

[01:24:07] a fun nerdy thing to do. Mental massage of sorts. Also, some people's derision of the accent of

[01:24:16] a certain actress in the first season of Hot Tea didn't sit well with me. And, you know,

[01:24:22] the foreigner had an accent when talking the common tongue. Shocker, right? And thank you

[01:24:27] for getting her name right, Misaria. The very people who made fun of her were pronouncing her

[01:24:33] name as My-sair-ia. My God. OK, as for my own accent, yeah, you know, another foreigner using

[01:24:42] the common tongue yet again. Ui, usoven. I am sorry. OK, what I found out that Valerian is

[01:24:53] very different from English and has some kind of Latin flavours to it. Also that the family

[01:25:00] relations as expected and the words related to them are a big old mess. It took me quite a while

[01:25:07] and a chart to get past that unit, but I digress. Let me dive in on the most confusing debate of all,

[01:25:16] the Valerian-Velarion one. So the country, the place is Valeria, the house is Velarion.

[01:25:26] OK, another one I heard pronounced in different ways is Rhaenyra's dragon.

[01:25:33] They say a lot of people they call her Cy-rex like T-rex and it's actually Cyrax.

[01:25:42] Cyrax. A fun tidbit about Rhaenyra and Rhaenys also, their names may be derived or I don't know

[01:25:51] reverse engineered from the word Rhaenagon which means finding. Rhaenys' dragon, that one is called

[01:25:59] Melis or the red one it can be translated as Mele, it means red. Anyway, if anyone has some questions

[01:26:07] about fun words and expressions, add me on the Discord and I will try to find them. It's not that

[01:26:14] I have a dictionary, just some notes and I still haven't finished the course so well, that's it.

[01:26:20] Anyway, I want to add that Nikela Avipa-san, I believe in you and Aohiboti Rakan,

[01:26:29] I appreciate your work. Thank you, Kirinbose, for listening.

[01:26:36] Wow. Is she a philologist? Could be a philolologist.

[01:26:43] Our very own language expert. I think it's great that we have a Valerian language expert in our

[01:26:50] midst as well as, I mean, Abby was instrumental during our Shogun coverage, Shogun, and just so

[01:26:57] appreciative of our listeners. It's a really fun group to have and so I'll be looking forward to

[01:27:06] hearing some more. Interestingly, I love this idea of these words, breaking them down and sort of the

[01:27:14] hidden meanings and some of the names and the allusions that they might have to other forces

[01:27:20] or themes. I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, that is very cool. And I like that you say

[01:27:27] Valerian has parallels to Latin because that seems to be what George did in sort of the breakdown of

[01:27:33] Essos too, because the different cities in Essos have their own dialects of Valerian, but they,

[01:27:41] rather than Latin breaking down into Spanish and Italian, blah, blah, blah. Now they have

[01:27:47] Muranese Valerian and this and that. They just call it variations of Valerian. And that's why

[01:27:53] you get that cool scene with Daenerys in Game of Thrones where she's like, I know how to speak

[01:28:00] High Valerian. It's my mother tongue and I'm going to burn you up. Remember that whole thing? Anyway,

[01:28:08] that's a cool thing. I really appreciate you writing in with that, Abby, and I appreciate

[01:28:13] your belief in us. I studied Latin for one year, my freshman year of high school. It was a foolish

[01:28:22] decision. In Portland, we had a magnet high school program where you could go here for theater and

[01:28:31] you could go there for shop and you could go here for language and there's all these different sort

[01:28:37] of options. And a bunch of my friends were going to this one high school and I thought, oh, well,

[01:28:43] I got to just sort of go with the crowd. It was across town and I was like, I'm going to study

[01:28:48] Latin. Yeah, what the hell? It was the biggest mistake, man. Just a waste of my time because I

[01:28:54] was just in no way had the brain space at that age of my life. I was interested in a lot of other

[01:29:00] things, not learning, you know, conjugating verbs. Oh man. So yeah, I regret my attempting to learn

[01:29:09] Latin. I appreciate the fact that I have an appreciation of it, but that's all I really got

[01:29:14] out of it. And it made the Monty Python life of Brian scene where the Romans make Brian conjugate

[01:29:21] the verbs on the wall. Very funny. That was pretty funny too. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks again,

[01:29:28] Abby. I hope you'll keep calling in writing and whatever you want to do. Always happy to hear your

[01:29:32] voice. Yes. Let's do an outro, David. Let's wrap it up for today. I think we've talked enough about

[01:29:41] the Patreon and supercast. Yeah, we've been plugging that the whole time. Yeah. The other

[01:29:46] thing you want it, the discord, we've got a whole group of channels set up for all the different

[01:29:51] projects that we've got going on and we'll have a whole set up for season two of house of the

[01:29:58] dragon and all of the different episode discussion areas will be siloed. So you won't get spoilers

[01:30:04] if you don't want to be in there. We've got a great moderator team. Thank you to all of them.

[01:30:09] We just did a big server reorganization to try to make it a little bit more cohesive. It was just

[01:30:14] sort of growing. We kind of threw it together at the beginning and we ended up having to need a

[01:30:19] mod team. And we have a great group of volunteers who help us with that. And thank you to all of

[01:30:24] them for the hard work that they did and thinking through and then implementing the new server

[01:30:31] scheme. So hopefully everybody is very happy with that. And yeah, join us there. It's a good place

[01:30:37] to nerd out with all of your fellow nerds. We're not nerds. I don't know. Are we nerds? I don't

[01:30:42] know. We're fans. Sure. We are sure. We're it as a badge of honor, David, I'm going to limit us to

[01:30:47] programming notes about the coming week because we have so much coming good. And I'm not going

[01:30:51] to start listing our random product because we're going to be here for another 20 minutes and we

[01:30:54] both want to get home. Exactly. You're already here for house of the dragon, but there is plenty

[01:31:00] more on the feed. We've got doctor who season one, episode one through three. That's the soft

[01:31:04] reboot on Disney plus Alicia and I already talked about that. That's up on the feed. So is

[01:31:09] the rings of power season two teaser reaction. We broke it down with Marilyn Arbukula, our favorite

[01:31:15] Tolkien scholar, and there's even a visual guide. So check out the show notes of that so that you

[01:31:21] get the visual breakdown to X-Men 97. I'm going to be talking about with Alicia. It might get pushed

[01:31:28] to next week because my kids are sick and I might get sick, but we'll see how I feel tomorrow. I

[01:31:35] think I'm going to be okay, but you never know. But yeah, I loved it. I couldn't believe how good

[01:31:40] it was. Amazing. Yeah. Star Wars. We're coming back again. Very low chance, but it might get

[01:31:47] pushed to next week is episode four, a new hope episode for a new hope. I know we've been pushing

[01:31:54] this for like two months, but we're going to do it. I promise we're going to get it out before we

[01:31:59] get into hot D territory, season two territory rings and rituals are one affiliate. I'm going

[01:32:06] down the affiliates now. Rings and rituals just put out a new episode today. The day we're recording

[01:32:11] on episode five partings from the rings of power season one. So you can stay on the T-Rop train,

[01:32:17] look at it through the lens of ritual with Dr. Sarah Brown and librarian emerita,

[01:32:23] Marilyn Arpaquilla. The star Wars cannon timeline podcast is going strong. At least she's already

[01:32:29] through the dawn of the Jedi, the old Republic and the KOTOR games, the Knights of the Old Republic

[01:32:36] games. Next, she's going to be doing the higher Republic. And that way you can catch that feed

[01:32:42] with the acolyte once she gets there with me, you know, I need some I need some gardening or

[01:32:50] house projects because that's the perfect kind of podcast that I just sort of, I got this, you

[01:32:55] know, task to do. So I've been saving up all those episodes cause I've got a couple of things around

[01:33:00] the house this weekend and I'm like, okay, that's going to be my listening is even though you have

[01:33:06] abandoned us on the star Wars feed for the acolyte. I haven't abandoned you. I've made space.

[01:33:11] I'm all alone. There's no one here besides far more qualified than I am. All right.

[01:33:20] Radioactive ramblings. You know, David, I finished fallout. I finally did. You did. Okay. It was very,

[01:33:26] very good. So I've been listening back to the radioactive ramblings podcast and I encourage

[01:33:30] everyone to do so because Aaron and chase do a great job breaking it down and they're going to

[01:33:34] continue doing a great job breaking it down for invincible season two. They've got I think it's

[01:33:40] live now episodes five through eight of invincible season two and they're staying in the fallout

[01:33:46] universe by going through fallout lore. Aaron's got a new cohost and they are going to be going

[01:33:51] through the lure of the origins of the brotherhood of steel that's already live on the feed. So

[01:33:56] subscribe to radioactive ramblings. You can find of course all our affiliates in the show notes in

[01:34:01] that link tree. A couple more affiliates properly Howard movie review, uh, Anthony and Steve released

[01:34:08] a new dune two review, which I learned was a new review after it came out, not a re-release

[01:34:15] less. I've been advertising on every podcast, so go check that out for their new thoughts on it.

[01:34:20] And then there'll be back with more felonies and food gazes will shift us is still covering beacon

[01:34:26] 23 three episodes at a time. This week we're having an episode on episodes four through six

[01:34:32] of beacon 23 Alicia just posted in a, in our chat that they had a monster record. Her and Luke had a

[01:34:40] monster recording session today. So that good, good tidings. I have not been catching up on

[01:34:45] beacon 23. I am a little bit, uh, a miss on that, but I've never watched an episode. Okay. And I'm

[01:34:51] going to be honest. I have too much of my plate to start at this point, but I know a lot of people

[01:34:55] on the discord are loving it. That that channel is always popping off. It is as the kids say

[01:34:59] that you covered scabby. All right. That's all I got for show notes. We've just got to do our

[01:35:06] thank yous. Yes. Let's move through them. Um, let's thank our discord server boosters,

[01:35:13] narls, Aaron K Taylor, the thriller, dark of the ninjas and do 71. Thank you for boosting

[01:35:19] the server and making a more cooler place for us to all hang out to our lore masters,

[01:35:24] our top tier subscribers who, uh, that without your all's support, we couldn't, uh, do all the

[01:35:31] different things that we're doing. So thank you. And here's your shout out. So Martian,

[01:35:35] Michael G Michelle E David W Brian P Nick W S C Peter O H Bettina W Adam S Nancy M do 71 Brian,

[01:35:45] 80 63 Frederick H Sarah L Gareth C Eric F Matthew M Sarah M DJ Miwa Andre B Kwang Yu Jedi Jedi Bob

[01:35:55] Nathan T Alex V Aaron T sub zero Aaron K Dali V 21 mothership 61 narls and, uh, good things always

[01:36:07] come to those who are last. Adrianne, thank you all so very much. Thank you to everyone who is a

[01:36:12] subscriber. Remember it's a little three buck as little as $3 a month and you get it all and you

[01:36:18] can support the community if that's not your bag and you just want to hang on the public feeds.

[01:36:22] We're glad you're here. Uh, and we just thank everyone for all the continued support.

[01:36:29] Thanks everyone. We will see you next week for more house of the dragon.

[01:36:34] The lore hounds podcast is produced and published by the lore hounds. You can send questions and

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[01:36:50] and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening.

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