House of the Dragon - S02E03 - The Burning Mill

[00:00:00] This summer, we enter a new era of Star Wars. You mean the dawn of the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast? Yeah, yeah sure, that too. But I was obviously talking about the Acolyte. We've got to cover that on the Lorehounds.

[00:00:18] Oh, but the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline, the end of the High Republic 100 years before the prequel trilogy. We've got to cover it there. Why not both? Okay, deal. It's the first live-action Star Wars outside the Skywalker Saga.

[00:00:37] Nobody can miss this. Listeners, kick off your Hot Lore Summer weekends with scene-by-scene breakdowns of the Acolyte, found in both the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast and the Lorehounds' Mother Feed. And the Lorehounds' Star Wars Feed.

[00:00:52] Wherever you like to listen, a couple of days after each new episode is released. Welcome to the House of the Hounds. We are the Lorehounds, your guides to the Dance of the Dragons. I'm John. And I'm David.

[00:01:34] And this is our coverage of the HBO original series, House of the Dragon. This is our coverage for Season 2, Episode 3, titled The Burning Mill. We're going to start off with our hot takes for the episode before we get into a scene-by-scene breakdown.

[00:01:49] After that, we'll answer some listener feedback. Nope, that is wrong. No, we won't. Change the script. We're changing the script right now because guess what, folks? You all have been great about sending in feedback. And Nancy M has been great about gathering it.

[00:02:03] So we're going to split off this podcast into two podcasts. One we're going to do the recap and discussion. The other one later in the week, we're going to do our feedback. So you have a little extra time to get in feedback, Abby. Name dropped.

[00:02:19] I think there was even an email. Somebody said, yes, please do it just for the sake of having a little space to breathe and consider it. Our non-Western hemisphere listeners. It's a very good point. Are really hurting to get their feedback in time.

[00:02:35] So this will help them give a few more days, probably a couple more days. I think we'll record it Wednesday or Thursday. Even for us, like watching the episode one night, trying to get in a second watch and

[00:02:46] do our notes and the show guide updates and all that kind of stuff. And then get in a recording that is a beefy one because it's two plus hours. It's a lot. So yeah, I think it makes sense all around. Yeah.

[00:02:59] So now we'll have a 90 minute to two hour podcast covering the episode. And then probably another hour podcast covering the feedback. Right. So send your emails to hotd at the lorehounds.com.

[00:03:12] He will be glad to get them and put them into our Google Doc for us as well. We have the discord and folks are having a good time chatting there and we can scrape up some messages from that. Support the community on Supercast or Patreon.

[00:03:28] Join the conversation on discord and take a listen to our affiliate podcast. You can get links to all of that in the show notes. Of course, we've talked enough about our show guide, but I want to plug it again because

[00:03:38] we're doing a great we're doing great work here. We're doing the sevens work. I'm doing the old gods work. You can go be with the sevens. We're doing the mother's work and Amy is doing the mommy's work. That's true. That'd be a good band name, right?

[00:03:55] The Old Gods and New. Mmm. Betcha it's something. Betcha there's something similar. Season pass. Season pass for those folks who are just cruising through, stopping by for a little bit of House of the Dragon and then you'll come back around again for another show somewhere down the road.

[00:04:14] But you're welcome to stay overnight. You are. And if you want to just jump in and support all the work that we're doing, the season pass is for you. It's 10 bucks flat.

[00:04:25] Season one, our season one recap and all of our ad free season two week to week early access plus the show guide, plus a set of steak knives and the potato peeler. Come all ye consumers spurned by Netflix and cranky of recurring subscriptions. We will take you gladly.

[00:04:48] Did you watch Hacks at all? No. Oh, it's very good. Anyway, she's on what is that QVC? It's funny to see some live time QVC stuff. I don't know about you, but my mom is all over QVC. She sees something on QVC, she'll text me.

[00:05:02] She'll be like, do the kids need this? And I'm like, not from there. It's three times the price of anywhere else. Hilarious show guide, show guide. The amazing amount of work that you and Aaron and Brian are putting into the show guide continues to sound me out.

[00:05:18] When I was doing my notes for on my second watch, man, I was just all in the show guide. Who's this guy? Who's that person? What's going on here? Who's the dragon writer for that one? And man, it is such a helpful resource.

[00:05:30] Even during the show, I was looking up like, who's that blowhard? Oh, that's Broom. Oh, okay. Yeah, that guy. So, subscribers get access to it, season pass or regular subscribers. It's really a phenomenal resource. And you've got the visual show guide, including alt text and everything in there.

[00:05:50] It's amazing. Oh yeah. It's accessible AF as the kids say. Bet. Bet. Skibity. All right. Okay. You're just throwing words around. I'm tossing the words in. I've got that word riz and here we go. Hot takes, David hit me with them.

[00:06:09] You know, my hot take for this episode is that this was just a really good episode of television. It was just really good. Like you know, nothing, nothing crazy happened. Nothing crazy, crazy happened. Right? No, no, nobody got their head cut off or anything like that. Uh, the.

[00:06:25] Well, somebody did just off camera. I think they got their head sewed back on, but anyway. Oh no, I was talking about the battle in the beginning. Yeah, that's true. I was talking about the, uh, the baby, the baby and the dream sequence and the haunting.

[00:06:39] Um, the, um, the show has a nice sense of humor around it. Remember season one, we, uh, when the, when it was on the air contemporaneously, I just remember everybody was just like, oh my God, this is just so heavy. There's no humor in it.

[00:06:54] And there's a lot of little funny moments in it, especially with, uh, Agon's F boys, uh, new Kings guard. There's some really good stuff there. The show is looking really good. Some people on the live chat of the discord last night when the episode was airing, they

[00:07:09] were like, oh, I, it's dark, but I can see. Right, right. They finally figured it out. They did figure it out, man. Some of those shots like, like that, that I got a lot of them for the show guide because I was so like impressed with them.

[00:07:21] The symmetry of the Eric, Eric grave, the shot of Miss Aria and I'm in your head with the camera angle stuff. Yeah. Well, let's shot of Miss Aria and, and Runeera talking with the dragon in the background with smoke in the background.

[00:07:37] The uh, the framing of Alison talking to Helena, her standing up next to the window, the light coming in and the dust being illuminated. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Amen walking down the hall, the closeup on Alison's letter to make it intimate.

[00:07:54] All of these things are just so good at framing the, what we're trying to feel here. Yeah, exactly. And you know, this, this episode was not like I said that, you know, there wasn't big plot

[00:08:10] explosions, but it was super impactful, but it was really straightforward at the same time. There were some complex things happening, but it all played out very simply and understandably. I think there was a little bit of confusion around how the kids were going to get moved

[00:08:24] around from the veil to Pento's, but I think we got that all worked out eventually. Oh, I understand what, I understood the first time what they said. I think that it's just, here's the problem is that they, you know, I've, I've read the

[00:08:36] books, although I don't think the specific plan was necessarily note for note from the book. I'd have to go back and reread, but I just think they throw around a lot of names in

[00:08:46] a lot of places and if you're not super into this, then yes, it is hard to follow. However, you have this podcast and we're going to hold your hand through it and it's going to be okay. And this discord and the show guide.

[00:08:56] It's going to be all okay folks. You have all the things. Anyway, the point being, this is just a really nice show. I'm really enjoying the crap out of it. And this episode was just great. It just moved us along.

[00:09:07] It had a great high stakes moment at the end and I just feel really, really good about it. And in what you were saying the other day in our hot take, our subscriber hot take right after the episode aired that they're cooking something.

[00:09:22] But me as the casual fan, right? As the non-book reader, I can't tell the shape of it. Yeah, we're headed towards war, but I couldn't see a blood and cheese. I couldn't see the parent trap fight. I couldn't see the meeting of these two Queens.

[00:09:43] However they're rolling out the plot, it's just nice. And it doesn't feel forced, right? You don't feel the hand of the writer. Not at all. Yeah, exactly. And they're not dropping the obvious breadcrumbs or having the exposition, well, you know, blah, blah, blah exposition.

[00:10:02] It's just a really well put together story that is nicely told with a visual language and excellent camera work and CGI work. This is just a... It's going to be hard to beat this as a number one show.

[00:10:18] I mean, it's going to have to be on feels because technically, there's not a false note yet in the season. Yeah, yeah. I will say this probably has already surpassed Shogun for me. It's just another level of storytelling that I can't...

[00:10:34] I just think it's a different thing that they're doing here. And this is my preferred type of media, the fantasy sci-fi side of things. And so I think I got to give... Even if it's a tie, I got to give it to this one.

[00:10:46] Well, that's what I'm saying. It's coming down to feels, right? It's going to come down to your personal preferences. Yeah, anyway, so what did you think? Where are you at? I like you said, I think that I'm very excited at being a book reader because, you know, in

[00:11:02] The Bear when... I didn't watch the new episodes yet, by the way. But you know, in The Bear season two during the Christmas special when all the timers are going off in the kitchen? That's like... We're like 10 seconds away from that. I really feel it.

[00:11:16] It feels like the lids on the pots are just jittering. Yeah, they're doing that little jitter thing where the steam is just starting to lift them. And Jamie Lee Curtis is about to scream and drive her car through the wall.

[00:11:30] About three packs of cigarettes into a five-pack night. Yep. And yeah, I'm just really excited for where we're going here. I think that they even used words that I didn't think they'd use yet. Okay. Like terms, things that will become defined terms have been used.

[00:11:49] And I'm really excited for that. This is great because I have no concept of any of the stuff they're cooking. It's so good. You know, just that we're barreling towards war. That's it. Yeah. That's the only thing that I can detect.

[00:12:01] And like you said, the humor of Damon going to Heron Hall is fantastic. Fantastic. I mean, the way that they just immediately drop the whole, the whole my king thing. Amazing. Amazing. I mean, Damon, he'd be, he, you know, RIP Damon, you would have loved the Supreme Court,

[00:12:18] but I'll cut it out. I'll cut it out. No, you can leave it. It's good. It's a harmless aside. Anyway. The point is really amazing stuff. I really love Alice Rivers, this new character.

[00:12:34] We I'm, I've decided that because she is named in the production notes, I'm going to name her here. Okay. I'm going to name her, I'm going to name her, I'm going to name her, I'm going to name her Alice Rivers. I doubt her.

[00:12:47] Well, the last name tells you a little bit, but Alice Rivers is the name of the mysterious character being ominous. Damon. Okay. All right. And she's super cool. Really gets the vibes from the books. I'm excited. And we got a little Millie Alcock in there too.

[00:12:59] Yeah, it was just a little fun. Yep. Just a little treat with a creepy baby head. Yeah. Really really thrilled with this episode. I enjoyed, I made, I literally made two memes of just Britain era going through King's Landing.

[00:13:15] So I hope everyone will follow us on tick tock if you want to follow us on tick tock, I'm going to promote here. Yeah. You are the king of warhounds at the lore hounds. I'm making lots of house of the dragon memes.

[00:13:24] I even for more substantive people with more of a substantive heart. I made a a spoiler talk about a book spoiler, how they foreshadowed something that's coming in episode two. So I did that.

[00:13:38] I did a tick tock on that so you can catch that on our tick tock profile. Anyway, let's get into this full episode, shall we? Let's do it. All right. So we start with the battle of the burning mill.

[00:13:49] Davos Blackwood sworn to Raniera successfully goes the green sworn Aaron Bracken into striking the first combat blow in the dance of the dragons. Both sides take heavy losses and both men die in battle. This felt really Capulet in Montague to me. The young guys take it back, sir.

[00:14:09] No, I will not take it back. Right, right. It was then, you know, until somebody gives you a push into a shove into a sword swing. So they really made Davos Blackwood into a real shit starter.

[00:14:22] Yes, he was very even the idea that like move the stones back. It's like, dude, like that's a big cairn, right? You know, I don't know. It just seemed very like he was very aggrieved and he had he was wearing his grievance on his sleeve.

[00:14:39] He was let everybody know he was upset. Yep, yep. And it's been mentioned several times on the show that the river lords are just constantly feuding. They just hate each other. They want any excuse for war.

[00:14:52] They also did a great job laying this out in season one when you have Rainey's basically saying, look, these lords have never fought a battle and they are so hungry for more because they don't understand the horror of it. Right, right. And there is a so sad.

[00:15:09] There's a horrible scene at the end of this. It's a great setup for this episode to I really like the construction of setting this up right at the front and giving us this bloody battlefield and then giving us the name of the episode,

[00:15:23] I guess by the by the time we recorded our hot take, the name was out already. So the burning. Yeah. And it just played thematically so well into the tension that they're working with, with

[00:15:36] Rainey's backing Raniera who's trying to find a middle ground with Alicent and you know, then the idea that they finally get together. Like it really framed the issue at hand that full scale war just between armies of humans is bad. And small armies. Yeah.

[00:15:59] And then you're talking about a whole country at war and then you're talking about dragons thrown in like this is bad and this is a tenth of about of what's going to happen. And it just really perfectly set the stage for the rest of the season.

[00:16:18] It was it was so nice. And look at the way a gone. I'm going to jump ahead a little bit, but a gone reacts later. He goes, Oh, well the Brackens, you know, nominally won. They nominally won.

[00:16:31] So I think that that's a victory and everyone else is like, is that a victory? Because they all died. Yeah. Like this, but, but that's the point, right? Is that exactly the point?

[00:16:39] The young men see the nominal victories as victories and that's going to be a huge problem in this war is that they would rather sacrifice everyone and have the title than just have peace. Whereas Raniera, a little older, a little wiser would rather have peace than the title.

[00:16:56] Right? I think Bracken was even, I looked at the scene again a little closer today. I'm pretty sure that the face that were zoomed in on at the end there is Bracken and he's

[00:17:08] stabbed in the neck with his own sword because they showed they were showing the pommel of his and the hilt and the pommel of his sword at the very beginning of that scene. And it very distinctive sort of round thing with a little jewel.

[00:17:22] And as we pan up and we pan up the sword, there's that pommel and I'm pretty sure that's hit, that's his face in the mud. And so this whole idea that, yeah, here you are, you know, you know, young guy, big swagger,

[00:17:35] big sword until it gets stuck in your own neck. Right. And that's the whole thing between all of these, like you were saying that everybody's excited for war until you realize that the true cost. Yeah.

[00:17:48] And Aaron, of course, is a knight technically, but as we know, any night can make a night. And often lords will just night younger men who aren't Lords in their, in their house because they want them to have a title and to have some glory.

[00:18:05] And so Aaron is just sitting here and just hungry for glory, hungry to prove that he is a real night. All I have to say is Millie Bobby Brown has come light years from Stranger Things. Really, really great work here. Is that who this is?

[00:18:21] No, I just I'm joking. He looks like Millie Bobby Brown. Yeah, he does. The features are very similar. He's got a he had a really I was like, should I know this kid? He looked familiar.

[00:18:32] I thought I thought he was about to stick his hand out and just banish Blackwood back to the upside down. Nice one. So the brothers rest is my next scene. Eric and Aaron are buried together under the orders of Raniera despite the protests of Jacaerys.

[00:18:51] Rani's, by the way, hold on, Jacaerys. That is how it's been said before. I think in the show, and that's how everybody's been saying it. And then and now we have leader. Jacaerys is how Ulf says it later. Oh, my God. So I don't know.

[00:19:08] Somebody write in if you know the answer. What is the correct one? Jace. Let's go with Jace for now. Yeah, we like Jace. Jace works. But I know we have some excellent maesters in our company and we'd love a pronunciation. Cyrus, where you at? Yeah. All right.

[00:19:22] Come on. All right. Help a brother out. So Jace didn't like that they were buried together. That's my point. Yeah. Rani's counsels Raniera to reach out to Alison to avoid further bloodshed and says that there are many moments that could be considered the start of the war.

[00:19:39] The idea that Raniera recognizes, what did she say? She says, I cannot fault him for keeping his oath. And it really struck me because Jaime could never live down the oath breaker side eye that people gave him. It's one thing to be a sister.

[00:20:07] Sorry, I didn't want to say it like that. But to be- We're in Game of Thrones universe. You can say whatever you want at this point. Yeah, I know. I just try to be a little bit clean.

[00:20:17] One of these days we're going to fire up our rated G pod for the family movie thing. You proposed that the other week. It's still a good idea. It's still kicking around. I think it's worth while.

[00:20:25] I think we got to do it, but not until after Hot Lord Summer, I think. Not until after Hot Lord Summer. I'm a little tired already. I hear you. He did all this other stuff, but he could never get away from the oath breaker thing.

[00:20:38] It was even to the fact that he basically saved the realm from a madman and nobody would honor or recognize that part of his action. It was oath breaker, oath breaker, oath breaker.

[00:20:54] For Rhaenyra to recognize that Eric kept his oath, at least it was an oath to whatever. It was an oath. I just thought that was really interesting and kind of cool. It shows again her grace and her mercy, which Miss Arya recognizes and calls out later. Yeah.

[00:21:15] Eric and Eric is a really tragic story, but I think between them and the Blackwood Bracken thing you're getting this consistent message that when these houses go to war, everyone will suffer underneath. Nobody will be the victor. Everyone will just suffer. Well, Rhaenys says it too, right?

[00:21:37] She says there's no war is so hateful than between kin. Right. Then of course we get some nice kin slaying cross reference there if one wants to reach out to the Tolkien side of the past year. But kin slaying is bad. Civil war is bad.

[00:21:56] There is nothing more hateful and violent and depraved than family fighting family. And speaking of, Rhaenys really gives Rhaenyra a new perspective. Oh man. She gets through to Rhaenyra by, Rhaenyra goes, oh, well they had my son killed. So good.

[00:22:15] And she goes, just as you had Jaehaerys killed. Obviously people have lost control of the men underneath them and they're being goaded into wars. Yeah. And it's really, I mean, literally the men underneath them with Alison and I just can't,

[00:22:32] I can't believe how good the writing is in this dialogue here where they like, she really made me see it differently. Right. Is yeah. Oh, well maybe I'm on team black cause I just agree with Rhaenyra more and I think she's

[00:22:44] a better ruler than Aegon is, but that's a good point. That's a good point that Rhaenyra has a blind spot for and who wouldn't write that's her son who was killed. Yep. Child beheaded, Aemon killed Luke, Luke took Aemon's eye.

[00:22:56] I mean, how far do you want to go back? You want to go back to, you know, yeah, brother kills brother, right. Yeah. Over something silly. And I love her wisdom too. Rhaenys' wisdom here like that, you know, she's right about Otto.

[00:23:11] Like this wasn't, this wasn't the, you know, Otto. Otto knows he's chill, right? This is, this is next level, you know, stupid kid stuff. And right. Yeah. And, and I, it makes me think back to the statement that she made to Corlys when we

[00:23:30] had that nice scene with them in the last episode where she says, we will not let her falter. And here she is right at her shoulder providing that wisdom and that counsel to see through

[00:23:44] the, you know, the little hurts and slights that are building up here, but see the bigger, bigger picture. And that is so important for a ruler, any ruler, right? Anybody in leadership position is to be able to have wise counsel like that.

[00:23:59] What a loss to the realm that Rhaenys was never queen. Right. Well, you know, she, yeah. I mean, that's an interesting question because like at her nature versus this wisdom that

[00:24:09] she has now, and it goes back to what you were saying in episode one where a lot of this is all about episode one and two, uh, about young and old, about wisdom and countenance,

[00:24:22] you know, think of your father and his countenance, you know, versus like, I want to spill blood, not ink and, and the hastiness of youth. But then at the same time, you know, uh, I can dither, I'm, I'm an older father, I can

[00:24:38] dither and I can think and ponder to the point of, of inaction. Uh, so it's this great, the tension. And so anyway, Rhaenys is a, the wisdom that she's displaying now, would she have had that and that forbearance and that countenance back then? I don't know.

[00:24:54] She would have been fighting a lot of headwinds. I don't think she could have done worse than Viserys in keeping this house together. Sure. I'm willing to give her a shot. That's all I'm saying. I'm, I'm all there. I'm all there right now. So anyway.

[00:25:07] I see what you're saying though is some of these are learned things, but yeah, yeah. I think, I think just she has always been a smarter person than Viserys and she's always been. It seems like she's always been a results based person rather than a, rather than focusing

[00:25:21] on who's responsible, but instead focusing on how can we fix this now? Yeah, for sure. And that's, it's the difference between, I think Rhaenys at her heart is more of a, a rehabilitator than a retributivist. Okay. She's not focused on retribution.

[00:25:42] She's not focused on enacting a sentence on somebody. She's focused on, okay, we're here now. Here are the, here are the realities of our current situation. Right. What do we do to make sure that the next thing isn't worse? Right.

[00:25:57] And that's so important in any, any age, any age of, because humans are going to bump into each other. We're gonna, we're gonna get frustrated with each other. We're gonna feel panicked over resources. You know, all kinds of things are going to happen no matter what.

[00:26:16] And if you don't have that viewpoint somewhere around in your conversational space as a person, yeah, I really think you're right. That the ability to seek balance in the force is really important. Don't bring the Jedi into this. We're not happy with them right now.

[00:26:36] But you're happy with the acolyte. We're not happy with them in the acolyte. No, we are. We're happy with the acolyte. We're not happy with the Jedi in the acolyte. That's right. All right.

[00:26:44] The last thing I want to do, just really call out on this scene, Emma Darcy, their face as they're working out the quote unquote math in their head about, you know, well, you know,

[00:26:55] you permitted the murder of a little boy, just the acting on that facial level of just the eyes and the brow furrowing. It was so good. It was just so good.

[00:27:05] And Rhaenyra as a character, I think one of the points of and the reason that I side with team black if there have to be teams is that Rhaenyra's temperament is already to accept and consider counsel and to try to approach things with a level head.

[00:27:21] And she just needs a nudge from her advisors who she listens to to do an even better job. Whereas you have Aegon just dismissing a lot of his advisors and just really being just an ego trip. Right. We need the nominal victory.

[00:27:37] We just need, oh, good to war. It's just not the same thing. And it's and the greens are insane. They are absolutely insane putting him on the throne. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's move on to a very short scene. Kristen catches the new guys slacking.

[00:27:51] Aegon has promoted two of his pals to the Kingsguard, and they're already sitting down on the job. Kristen stares them down and goes to his first day as Hand of the King. At the beginning of the sequence, I really liked how they gave us the necklace of the

[00:28:09] Hand of the King because, you know, you were like, well, how are we? What is he going to wear? How is he going to wear the little thing and stuff? And it's like, oh, great. The necklace didn't I was didn't. Who wore that?

[00:28:20] Didn't I know we've seen that necklace before, and I'm just trying to remember who wore it. Who wore it better? Anyway, it was very, very cool to see the hand in his armor and his Hand of the King necklace. He loves it.

[00:28:36] You know, if I were one of Aegon's F-boys, there's no way in hell I would want to wear Kingsguard armor. I just wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want the look, the constraint, nothing. I would want nothing to do with that.

[00:28:51] Just let me be loose and free and ramble around and drink and have some fun. I got to stand guard like it really. It also really makes their syphilis symptoms flare up. So I don't think that they want that. No, they don't.

[00:29:08] So the next one I have is greens in disarray. I laughed when I opened up the line. The Green Council cannot agree on their next course of action, leading Allison to order them to behave themselves.

[00:29:22] Tristan decides to take a small army north to the Riverlands and eventually take Harrenhal. Aegon blesses the plan and insists on joining on Sunfire. Aemond will defend King's Landing on Vhagar. I love this quote from Tom Gloden Carney as Aegon. I'm as fearsome as any of them.

[00:29:45] It's he, his delivery there was really great. Yes, it was great. And then when he says that line, Jasper Wild just kind of looks down and reaches out for his wine glass. It was so funny. He's just like, oh man, that one.

[00:30:03] The humor, there's such good little moments of humor in this. It's really great. Yeah. Tom Carney's just the acting. Yeah. I'm going to gush too much if we focus on that. I thought Kristen Cole looked really silly in his army.

[00:30:19] It almost just like, I wonder if they upsized it a little bit to make him look a little bit smaller in it. Make him look like he's lost control a little bit, right? Like he's wearing shoes that are too big for him.

[00:30:30] And then they give him that little boy haircut too later. Oh my God. They gave him the bowl cut. Yeah. Somebody said everyone's packing to go to war. Kristen puts a bowl on his head and is like, let me make sure that I'm ready for my haircut.

[00:30:44] So bad. He's not wrong in his strategy though. This whole speeding straight to the riverlands and pick up support as you go and go without big air cover. It's not wrong. It's actually a sound stratagem. Yeah. It's just, can he pull it off?

[00:31:03] And is he the guy to pull it off? Because you need somebody who can be kind of a charismatic leader in that. You need to, you know, it's for one thing for Kristen Cole to be the bass player or the drummer or something, right?

[00:31:14] And keeping the beat and keeping focused on what's going on. But you really need somebody out front and who's talking to these Lords and rallying these troops and bringing people to the cause. And Kristen Cole is just not that front guy. You know what I mean?

[00:31:27] So they roll up on some keep or some village or whatever in somebody else's land, some other Lord, minor Lord, and that person's wavering and you need to bring them over. You really need a charismatic person to be able to do that.

[00:31:44] You need a bard of some kind in your party. Yeah. You know, Alison may be sticking out her gyat for Kristen, but he is not the Rizzler as the kids would say. You're speaking English, but.

[00:31:59] Listen, now that I'm on the Tik Toks, I have to make sure that I'm serving the Gen Z audience that we're pulling in. And Alison is straight up serving face in this scene because look at the way that she stares in the show.

[00:32:15] You can see she stares at Kristen with disgust. I love the photo that you got for this. It's totally. Absolute disgust. Totally. In shock, she's like, oh my God. Yeah. Really good. I did think that Amon was looking a little like licking his chops ever so slightly at

[00:32:31] the thought of his brother flying out. He's like, no brother, we cannot lose you. You know? Like, yeah, he would love to be able to become king, I think. Yeah. He's so ready to become king. Yeah. Yeah. And he's on the council now, right? He's not coming late.

[00:32:49] He's showing up on time. Yeah. He's bringing an apple for the teacher because he's like, I want to stay in the good graces. I don't want to be disinherited. So they. In favor of Kristen Cole. Exactly. They name dropped two names, Tully and Darren. I think so.

[00:33:02] So is it, was it Darren? I can't remember, but they totally was named dropped twice. Once in Heron Hall and once here. Yeah. So Tully is the Lord of the Riverlands. Right. Is that the two towers? The bridges or is that the bridges, the twins?

[00:33:16] No, it's the twins. Yeah. Those are Walter Frey. That is in the Riverlands, but that is not. It's the North end of the Riverlands. Right. That's what you have to cross to get from. To the North. To the North into the South. Yeah.

[00:33:30] That was that whole thing with the war of the five Kings. We don't need to relitigate it. We don't need to, but I'm just trying to remember. Yeah. So the Tully's, you remember that's Catlin Stark's family. Right. And they rule the Riverlands.

[00:33:41] They are the leaders of the Riverlands. Darren is Alison's youngest son. Okay. And he has been living in Old Town and I think that the showrunners were not, were possibly not going to put him in the show. And then they decided this season, yeah, he's in the show.

[00:33:59] But doesn't Alison or so, so Rhaenyra's who, wait, wait, wait, I'm confused now. Who has, who has brothers in Old Town? Both of them or just one of them? Rhaenyra does not have, but while she has a half brother in Old Town, which is Darren,

[00:34:14] because Alison's kids are Rhaenyra's half brothers. Right. Okay. So that's how it works. But he's got a dragon. He does have a dragon because he's a Targaryen. Right, right, right, right. So they're both targeting him. Oh, I get it now. They're both.

[00:34:28] I don't think Rhaenyra is going for Darren. Didn't they say, I thought they, they, he was named dropped last episode. Like he was, he was named dropped last episode because Otto said, I'm going to go to Old Town. You have a son there.

[00:34:41] Oh, he was talking to Alison. Okay, sorry. I was just getting all the names in places. That's all right. That's all right. So Darren is firmly team green. His mom, his mom is a Hightower. His grandpa's a Hightower. He's living in Old Town. Firmly team green. Got it.

[00:34:54] Don't at me. We have not seen him in the show. So if you look in the show guide, he is still a fan art. Right. Cool. Okay. So yeah, so that, that seems like some shapes of some things that they're because if they're

[00:35:05] both reaching for Tully, that feels like something. Yeah. But they also mentioned that, that the current head of the Tully's, I forgot the name that they said it was, but the current head of the Tully's has a lot of trouble controlling the river Lords.

[00:35:21] Like he doesn't currently have, and we get a sense that that's a common thing in the Riverlands. You have Heron Hall, which is, is also in the Riverlands by the way. Yep. Yep. Where, where the strong Lord, what's his name? Simon, Simon strong.

[00:35:36] He basically says, yeah, nobody's listening to anybody. Yeah. He's cast a line. Yeah. But, but Damon's like, no, people should obey their Lee's Lord and this is. We're going to get to it. We'll get to it. So anyway, my point is, this is a common thing, right?

[00:35:49] Is that people aren't actually following chain of command here. Right. And it makes for gettable allies. Right. Right. If you can move them enough. The one thing I really liked in this scene too, lastly, at least for me is Agon playing

[00:36:04] with the cat's paw and having no idea what that thing is. And he's just like, Oh look, I'm the guy from aliens doing the stabby finger thing. You know, it's just it's really funny to see him.

[00:36:20] And then of course we get later the eggs where we get these really, really important things and people are just kind of like, ho hum here's, I got this cool dagger that you know, I got from my dad.

[00:36:31] You know, the egg thing is a controversy that we have to get to. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. People are not. Some people are not happy about it. Some people are thrilled about it. All right. All right. All right. Let's go to Masaria joining the fight.

[00:36:42] I feel I like to think that, you know, these team green team black things are like a classic Mortal Kombat game where you have like a new fighter unlocked and they're coming in. You know, you know what I'm saying? Yes, I know you're saying. All right. All right.

[00:36:56] You were in you were in the arcade generation. I was. I did a lot of Street Fighter. Chun-Li was my character. But I always got beat because the Ken and the Ryu guys were just like invincible.

[00:37:07] I was a Mortal Kombat guy, but my my top arcade game was the X-Men arcade game of the 90s. Oh, I didn't play that one. Yeah. Anyway, Masaria joins the fight. Masaria claims her reward for saving Raniera, which is a place in her court.

[00:37:24] She states her reason is that she was surprised by Raniera's mercy in contrast to Agon. She also wants revenge, of course, on the high towers. Yeah, there you go. Revenge and small folk. Right. So really great.

[00:37:36] The whole small folk thing in the camera angles, the people, the you know, remember when you when princes fight, it's the small folk who die. We got that at the end of episode 10 of was it nine or ten when it was said when when

[00:37:53] Raniera came out of the dragon. That was nine. Because that happened in King's Landing. That's right. That's right. So just just really great. Always bringing that theme back into the into the conversation. And I love Masaria.

[00:38:07] She's such a great character, great negotiator, really understands the value of information and how that's more important than gold and as important as gold. So it fills that very Varys like niche of you really need somebody who is thinking through these things.

[00:38:26] Sorry, I saw a tick tock the other day of somebody pretending to be Varys and just having the sleeves put sort of the hands like over each other and going, the real me is important for everything. You know, anyway. But but seriously, I'm sorry.

[00:38:40] I think what I was most impressed with in the scene was your flexibility. Right. Is oh, yeah, I was going to leave, but you did something interesting and I want to know how this plays out. That is such a cool character moment. She's like, I'm not often surprised.

[00:38:56] I've seen a lot. I've seen the range of human experience in my line of work. And you surprised me. And that is something. Yeah, I totally agree. Right. Next scene, Reyna is sent to dot dot war.

[00:39:16] Raniera asks Reyna to bring Joffrey to ward with Lady Jane Arryn of the Vale and then to take Aegon and Viserys, her sons. And then Aegon, remember, to Pentos to be under the protection of Reggio Harratus. She asks Reyna to be as a mother to her young children.

[00:39:34] Reyna expresses her displeasure at being sent away. This really had that sort of Battle of Britain vibes for me, you know, sending the kids away, you know, lying in the wardrobe, all that kind of stuff.

[00:39:47] And but then when it this scene really hit home for me later, when another scene triggered or sort of unlocked something, which is when Rhaenys and Corlys are talking and he refuses to name a successor.

[00:40:00] And of course we had earlier with Aegon losing his son and he's, you know, screaming mad that you know, that his son is his line of succession. That's his legacy. This whole thing is about legacy.

[00:40:11] You know, the whole war, Dance of the Dragons stuff is all because of the question of legacy. And it's, it just really puts together the point that without a clear line of succession, then power becomes unstable and people, you know, don't know how to fit themselves into

[00:40:28] position or other people are going to use that and take advantage of it. Well the other thing here is that the way that Corlys reacts to the suggestion of Rhaena being named his heir. Yes, that too.

[00:40:43] Is icky and really honestly shows how Corlys' acceptance of women as rulers is very much tied to his wife and his proximity to power. He doesn't want to give any of his power to a woman.

[00:41:00] He just wants to ride on the coattails of women who already have power. This is an interesting insight. Okay. Yeah. It is interesting. I have a whole podcast on this. Keep going. Oh, that's all I have for this. Really? I mean, we have Reggio.

[00:41:16] He's going to come back. He's in the show guide from last season and I thought he was going to be a one-off. I was like, oh wait, we even need to put him in. He's not coming back and I'm glad I put him in because he's mentioned.

[00:41:26] So, so let me just break down here. Let me emphasize. It sounds like this is my understanding of the scene. They are going north to the Vale. And yeah, is it just context because there, there were people who were confused about

[00:41:39] all of this movements and wrote in and on the discord people were trying to unwind it, but carry on. Right? Yeah. So they are going to the Vale. They are going to remind Lady Aaron of her, of her pledge and give them a dragon, which

[00:41:53] is not even a fighting dragon, but they're going to leave Joffrey and his dragon there. Right. Then they're going to take a boat over to Pentos and live there for the duration of the war. So it's a sort of reach of, of direct harms way other than assassins.

[00:42:11] Right. And does it sound to you like they're bringing a dragon keeper, like a dragon master? Yeah. They're going to tend these eggs, right? That's what I was picking up from the, from all of this. Right. Right. And there's four eggs there. Yep.

[00:42:33] Let's talk about the eggs later actually. Because we've got to see. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go over to Damon. He takes a willing Harrenhal. He arrives at Harrenhal to find it nearly unguarded. He finds a chamber in which the Castellan of Harrenhal, Sir Simon Strong, waits to immediately

[00:42:52] pledge fealty to Rhaenyra. When Damon is suspicious, Simon insinuates that he knows Lara Strong had Lionel Strong and Harwin Strong killed. He has no loyalty to his lord. No, his lord is in fact a scourge on the family. He has no love for that young man.

[00:43:13] I thought this whole thing was hilarious. It was great. I loved Damon skulking around and then when he finally finds one guard, he just punches the crap out of him. He just wanted some fight, you know? Exactly. I feel like that guard wasn't even going to attack him.

[00:43:31] I feel like that guard's instructions were, whoever gets here first, we are pledging to them. Yeah. So funny. And yeah, just Simon and his love of dinner, the venison, black cabbage peas, sorry about the red currant. It was so lovely. I really liked this guy.

[00:43:54] I hope we get to more of him. Yeah. And I do love his logic too, right? He's smart too. He understands the calculations. He immediately pledges loyalty to Damon knowing he'll just be immediately killed if he doesn't.

[00:44:06] He then, you know, says, I know you think that you're being poisoned, but you know what? I have no reason to. Here's why. He explains that you can't light a fire there if you tried. Yeah. Yeah. It's so great.

[00:44:18] It's the first, I love the way he says it. It's the first fire since your ancestor burned it with a dragon. That was so good. Yeah. Yeah. The perilous, the perilousness of assumptions and the whole it's, it's hard when you're talking to a very thin skinned Royal, right?

[00:44:39] You know, one little slight could get your head. And then like his, I guess it's his children, the three boys that are the three young men that are sitting there. They all like are, when he says, you know, when he accidentally says my Prince instead of your grace.

[00:44:54] Yeah. And they're like, oh. Your grace, your grace. Your grace, your grace. He comes back. He comes back from it. So good. I love this whole thing. This line that he has to sin begets sin, right?

[00:45:07] That just plays perfectly into the whole theme of this episode with the, you know, the burning mill, right? That it's, it's one slight after another, after another. And before you know it, you know, we've. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

[00:45:25] And then here again, they talk about Grover Tully, right? So his description is of him not being able to seal his bowels. Oh man. So good. So good. Oh man, they are not the River Lords really just are mean girls, aren't they? They have a burn book.

[00:45:46] They have a burn book that you can't light on fire in Harrenhal. Harrenhal's looking pretty spooky in this whole scene with the bats and everything and the weird sounds and the weird camera angles.

[00:45:57] They really use some horror, you know, camera techniques to give us this, these up, you know, up, up from down kind of looks and weird long perspectives. Harrenhal has always been known as being cursed. Right? Because, you know, right, right.

[00:46:14] As it was finished being built, the legend is I'm sure it's not actually this, but the legend is that Harren the Black, you know, puts the final brick into Harrenhal the day

[00:46:24] that a guy on the conqueror lands in King's Landing, a guy comes and goes, do you want to surrender? And he's like, I have this big strong castle. A guy goes with his dragon machine gun and just guns down that entire castle. Harren the Black dies.

[00:46:40] They're embarrassed and everything. And yeah, it's not great. It's not great for them. And so nobody's really been able to successfully hold Harrenhal very well. We do see Harrenhal quite a bit in the books of Game of Thrones because in contrast to

[00:46:55] the show you have, you know, in the show you have Arya serving Tywin. In the books they have her serving Roose Bolton in Harrenhal. Oh, that's right. It's a big change. Big change. I think the show does it better actually.

[00:47:12] That's one of the few changes that I think were better in the show. Okay. Well, then it took somebody like Tywin to be able to hold it. So that says something. I think that says something interesting about Tywin's character as well. Yeah, yeah.

[00:47:24] And this place is just absolutely decrepit and not Harwin. Simon asks a good question like why do you want this? Because it's a really decrepit castle. It's like, well, it's central, it's big, it's what Daemon is, right? He doesn't care about anything except image.

[00:47:44] I have the biggest castle in the Riverlands. Not I have the most allies, but I have the biggest castle. Strategically, everybody I think is very clear too on its strategic importance. And that's the thing is at that time you needed to be able to garrison your troops behind

[00:48:00] walls so that they could rest and I mean wearing armor and just doing that kind of combat. Okay, but what troops? Well, any troops. That's for Daemon, yeah, no troops. Literally no troops, right? He's just going on a camping trip over in Harrenhal.

[00:48:19] I mean, look, he's literally having a big castle contest with Aemond over there and it's so stupid. It's so stupid. Well, this goes back to something else that we'll have some notes on later with Rhaenyra's

[00:48:34] council is this whole idea just, you know, oh, just start using your dragons. And so Daemon's out there with his dragon saying, hey, I'll just, you know, mutually well, it's not even mutually just destruction.

[00:48:45] It's just like, I will nuke you from the face of the earth unless you bend the knee. And okay, they can bend the knee in that moment, but the moment you fly away, right?

[00:48:55] You know, you can't, a dragon alone is not going to secure, it may get you part of the way, but you need to do a lot more to keep people in line and the system secure and working. A dragon alone isn't sufficient. Is it necessary or not sufficient?

[00:49:15] I don't know. Anyway, I'm. Who knows? You can't. It's like a tank. You have a tank. You can take it into battle, but it can be taken down by a whole bunch of guys. And so you need an integrated thing.

[00:49:27] And so the dragon is just one puzzle piece of having a strategy for ruling the kingdoms. So. Right. And thankfully, Rhaenyra does have another big advantage of her side, which is the only Navy it seems like. Yes, that's true. She has the whole Navy.

[00:49:42] And that's a point pointed out to Viserys in season one. Like if you lose the loyalty of the Valerians, you are so screwed. Yeah, right. Especially if you have superior air power over the water, you really are screwed. All right. Well, let's move on to bowl cut.

[00:50:00] Kristen rides for war. I should change. I'm going to change it right now on the show. God bowl cut. Kristen. Oh, cut. All right. So, after Kristen Cole prepares to ride out to battle with a fresh haircut, Alicent arrives

[00:50:17] to introduce her brother, Gwaine, and add him to Kristen's forces. Much to his dismay. Before he departs, Kristen requests and receives Alicent's boob favor. Did you say boob favor? I did. Can I just say like, does everyone just have sweaty boob favors right before a battle?

[00:50:37] Do they just carry them? Like what? I guess. Do you have a separate compartment in your bra to hold the favor? I don't know. I just, I feel like these aren't moisture wicking favors. Things in bygone eras.

[00:50:52] I did love the whole, just them sitting next to each other in the small council and her looking at him and they're just their tension. And then in this scene, and he's doing it very publicly, like, oh, you know, for the

[00:51:05] favor of the queen so that I can carry it next to my heart. And I'm like, what is going on here? This is just some weird, gross stuff going on between these two people. King or queen Kings guard, a hand of the king lovers. It's just so messy.

[00:51:25] It's great. He's going to be sniffing that while he's using his hand of the king. That's all I'm going to tell you. I could not make that joke. Have I gone too far? No, but you could not make that joke, right? It was there. It was just there.

[00:51:40] It's right there. It's right there. Um, Gwaine Gwaine does D did Gwaine suss it out? Does he suspect his sister and a bowl cut crispy? I think he's too far into his own hair gel to understand what's going on in front of him.

[00:51:58] I mean, the guy is clearly so into his ego, right? He comes in, he doesn't try to bond with Kristen right away. He's like, Oh, you are lowly. A lowly Donald Schmidt is going. Yeah. Yeah. Serious classism.

[00:52:12] And he even says like, oh, and says for such a, what did he say? Like mundane birth or something to that effect? Yeah. Yeah. Look, how dare he make me root for Kristen in one interaction? How dare he? I thought he was going to be a bit tougher.

[00:52:30] And even though he could be a pompous ass and, you know, society muckety muck kind of thing, you know, he just rode a long way and he's been out and I just figured out,

[00:52:38] well maybe he's actually, he's not only got the attitude and the arrogance, but he actually can back it up. And I think he's still, I think he's a little bit more of a dandy than, than I was thinking

[00:52:50] at first because later on with the whole, you know, uh, flight into the forest, he seems a little bit shook by that. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's totally scared. Uh, there was a, you know that, you know, that meme that's like, Oh my God, oh my God,

[00:53:05] I almost died. And they're holding him. I don't know. I made a tick tock meme of that with Gwaine in the background because he was so, he was freaked out. Yeah. He was so freaked out. He was, he could not handle that situation, but we're not there yet.

[00:53:21] We're not there yet. We're, we're here stuck on the boob favors and, and the interactions leaving. Did you like the jaunty music that followed the host as it left the keep? It had a little bit more of a boopity, boopity, boop, uh, sort of tune to it.

[00:53:39] I didn't notice. Was this in universe music? No, no, no. It was not diet. It was, it was a background music and it's, um, it was very different from what I'm used to. There's two pieces of music that caught my attention in this episode.

[00:53:54] That one and then one at the end where there's actually like a vocalization happening. But this was very sort of Fife and drum kind of upbeat. And I thought maybe you might catch that given you, you have a musical ear. I did not catch it.

[00:54:09] I was too focused on the beautiful scenery. All right. Quite honestly. Or, or, or, or, or a Raven, a Raven eating some cheese. Delicious cheese, aged cheese. Yeah. There are some people in the live chat that were not happy about that scene.

[00:54:29] You know, my, my son recently learned a word. He's one and a half. He recently learned the word icky and I should have him on the pod just go icky. Yeah. All right. All right. Raniera's council grows anxious.

[00:54:41] Raniera's council suggests that they run the war while she's kept safely hidden away. Alfred, Alfred Brun spearheads this effort. Raniera tells them that would be treason. So good thing they didn't take it any further and leaves the meeting.

[00:54:56] Raniese essentially tears them a new one and compares her to Jaharis the first, the Jaharis the conciliator. That's a big compliment from Raniese. Yeah. I was really struck by that. I mean, obviously I don't know that much about Jaharis the conciliator, but she took these

[00:55:12] boys out to the woodshed and gave him a spanking. Jaharis came to power after the realm was traumatized by Magor's cruelty. Okay. And he, he repaired the broken bridges of the kingdom after a lot of skirmishes, after a lot of pain and bloodshed.

[00:55:32] And he ruled like she said, longer than any other Targaryen ruler. He was named the old king in the end, the conciliator, but also the old king largely because he was so good at diplomacy and didn't fight wars. He solved problems before they arose to war.

[00:55:48] The only mistake he made was naming Viserys's heir. And in that case, wasn't really him. He said, let's call a vote. Let's have somebody decide. Oh, it was that dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the dude. We've seen him on screen.

[00:56:03] That's why you click on him and show guys you could see his old face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Click, click. I just a little light bulb moment there. Totally. Yep. I love it when that happens. Okay. Very cool. I like that. And I love Rhaenys just being so cold.

[00:56:17] She was just like, y'all, you just you don't know you're going to get into some serious trouble here if you don't button it down. Oh yeah, he was he was sorry. She was pissed at them. She was really like, y'all got to behave. Yeah.

[00:56:32] And she can say, y'all got to behave. And they actually shut up and listen. Whereas Alison can say, y'all got to behave. And they all just continue. Right. They kind of like they keep whispering behind her back. I mean, Broom is a tosser, but he's not wrong also.

[00:56:47] He's a power grabber. Like I said, he's an absolute tosser, but he isn't. Some of his advice is on point in terms of, but you know, matched to what goal? You know, she's trying to avert war and he's saying, commit to war.

[00:57:09] And if you're going to commit to war, this is when you do it and how you do it. He's not serving her. He's seeing her as an obstacle and that's. Perfect, perfect, perfect way to explain it. Absolutely. That's that's I think dead on, dead on.

[00:57:22] Well, Renis isn't done. She and Corliss rendezvous and discuss the dangers of their situation. Renis urges Corliss to name Raina his heir instead of leaving Driftmark to six year old Geoffrey. What do you think of this? I love these scenes between Renis and Corliss.

[00:57:43] I love the whole coupledom like thing, the the I'm not saying old in a pejorative way, just, you know, a couple that's been married a long time, an old couple. And you have these very husband and wife moments. And I just really find them.

[00:57:59] And when when he pulls away and she's like left sort of grasping his hand, it really I don't know. It was just full of a lot of complex emotions and and in her, her she's like, dude, we are at war. Stuff happens. Unpredictable things happen. This. Yeah.

[00:58:18] You're you're you're being stubborn and I'm trying to make you see reason here. And I don't care who you name, just name somebody so that it's not it won't turn into a shit show when something weird happens and you don't come home.

[00:58:31] Don't you think it's interesting that she has dropped the bastard thing? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely dropped it. Hasn't mentioned that she doesn't say don't leave it to Joffrey because he's a bastard just because he's not part of our line. Don't leave it to him because he's six.

[00:58:45] Yeah. That's a good argument. That's a, that's a good argument aside from any, you know, problematic conceptions of lineage. Yeah. He it's there. Well, you know, I pointed this out. I think it was an episode two was where she says, you know,

[00:59:00] we will not let our queen falter. Right. So they are firmly in and they have gotten over their hurts over their daughter and their son, you know, and they, they do not want to see Alison to an A-gon in position. So yeah, they're, they're able to buy bracket,

[00:59:20] box it up, put it aside and focus on what needs to be focused on. And which is, you made that point earlier that she's outcome focused, right? Right. She's like, Hey, Raina is at least competent enough to not completely box the operation. Yeah. All right, David,

[00:59:36] let's take a quick break. When we get back, we will talk about dragon eggs. We'll be right back with more house of the dragon or house of the dragon. All right. So let's get to the dragon eggs of it all. People are upset. Okay. I,

[01:00:03] let me read the scene and then we'll talk about why they're upset. All right. Raina complains to Bela about her being sent away, but Bela assures her that her path will be easier. Raniera shows the party for dragon eggs that will be sent with the group dependos.

[01:00:18] She tells Raina to remind lady Aaron of her pledge. She also sends storm cloud and Tyraxes, which are so storm cloud, by the way, I had to look this up because I couldn't remember whose was whose, but storm cloud belongs to a Joffrey. Sorry.

[01:00:34] I got that opposite already. Storm cloud belongs to Aegon. I'm looking at the guide right now. It's right here. We don't have a picture of storm cloud, unfortunately. Well, cause they haven't been in the show. Yeah. It has been shown.

[01:00:45] And Joffrey rides Tyraxes or will ride Tyraxes when Tyraxes is big enough. So, so those are the two dragons. They're not big enough to fight yet, but they are at least existing. Yeah. So these, these eggs,

[01:01:00] they look an awfully lot about a trio of eggs that we see at the beginning of Game of Thrones. Don't they? And I believe I saw some social media somewhere. I don't know if it was on the discord or on,

[01:01:12] on one of those sites that was formally called something else or something that it's like, it's confirmed the director, the show runner actually said. I don't know who exactly confirmed it, but it sounds like the production is going all in on these are Daenerys's eggs. Yeah.

[01:01:25] Are you three of them are, but there's a fourth egg that we don't have a bluish one. Yeah. That we don't know what happened to that. So maybe that becomes Reyna's dragon. I don't even remember. So I, I I'll have to reread that passage, but yeah.

[01:01:38] So here's why it's controversial is that one, I know Cyrus was big in our discord saying like Cyrax looks absolutely nothing like Danny's dragons. So if these are supposed to be just Cyraxes eggs, then, then it, it's a little sloppy on the visual design. Okay.

[01:01:54] The other thing is that there are multiple explanations of how the, the eggs got to SOS in fire and blood and other writings. This is, this is one possibility suggested, not necessarily one. So this sounds like they're just making a big stance here.

[01:02:09] They're making a big affirmative decision that in the visual show universe, this is what happened. That's how I'm viewing it is that this is what happened in the show universe. It does not affect what happens in the books, whatever you want.

[01:02:21] That's how I've trained myself to think about things since ring power, but sure. For all in a mountain anyway, got it. Yeah. And we talk about that with the shippy test, right? Inspiration or you know, what do you,

[01:02:34] what do you have to change to still hit the right notes from the original intention? Look, let's just be honest. These are straight up member berries, right? Like these are totally, totally, Hey, Hey, you show watcher who didn't watch anything and didn't read anything,

[01:02:48] didn't do any game of thrones since game of thrones ended. Remember these, remember these eggs? Remember that? Remember the, remember the good times with Tenaris? Remember when you liked her? These are for people like me, right? The, the casual fan who was like, Hey, cool. That's awesome.

[01:03:05] Like nice little thing. And they don't make a big deal of it and it's just there and it's good. So I'm fine with it. I thought it was, I had the same thought too. I was like, Oh,

[01:03:14] I wonder if those that are the ones that ended up over there naturally, you know, like, okay, cool. I don't think we're going to think about these eggs again for a while. I think you're right. I think this is just, Hey, look,

[01:03:25] these look awfully similar to those eggs. Little less dusty. Let's move on. Would you ever buy like one of these egg replicas for, you know, like your, your office or your desk or anything like that? They're kind of cool. I don't know. They are. They're just,

[01:03:39] they're just not that interesting to me though. For me, I, if I was going to get replicas of stuff, I'd probably go with star Wars stuff. I think that stuff's so much cooler. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Like a lightsaber or something in here. Oh yeah. I,

[01:03:52] I would love a lightsaber help. I think that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. I guess there's some companies that make some really cool lightsaber things too, as well. Oh yeah. So you can spend lots of money. You sure can. And I'm not going to do it.

[01:04:04] So anyway, anyway, I also, here's another question I have to raise to those who are deffo. Did they ever say that these were all Cyrax's eggs? Did Raniere say that? I can't recall. I don't, I don't think so. Yeah, it didn't.

[01:04:16] I don't know that I would have picked up on that detail necessarily, but I did. Doesn't seem like they're just like, here's some eggs go. Right. Like I see a lot of people saying these are all Cyrax's eggs, but couldn't they just be multiple dragons?

[01:04:27] Like they are on Dragonstone. There is a cave of dragons. Yes. There's a mountain filled with dragons. Damon crawled in there and was like digging around in there. So, you know, there's a mountain of gender nonconforming dragons that could possibly all lay eggs. Right. I do like that,

[01:04:42] that there's a, um, uh, that, that you can be any gender to be a dragon master. Cause we've got a woman dragon master in the picture here. Well, well the dragons themselves could seemingly be any gender. I love it. So,

[01:04:55] so the point is I do think it's very possible that each egg belongs to a different dragon or two belong to one. One belongs to another. We just don't, I'm not sold on this. These all being Cyrax's eggs at this point. If someone else heard differently,

[01:05:08] right in we've learned that when we get stuff wrong, people actually write in. Enragement equals engagement. Speaking of Miss Aria, somebody wrote in, I got to credit them. I'll credit them in the feedback episode. Right. But somebody wrote in Miss Aria.

[01:05:21] I keep saying that she's not a book character and she absolutely is. And as soon as he said that, I was like, Oh yeah, that absolutely is a book character. Why am I saying it's not a book character? So thank you.

[01:05:33] Pretty emphatic that it was not a book character. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, anyway, back to the scene at hand, I, the sister drama was really interesting. The, and I love this because we're getting this a lot in the acolyte as well,

[01:05:45] where you have two people from the same family. They are just different people. And they're bound together. And these two sisters are like, you know, there's a little, little tension there. You get to stay and have war.

[01:05:58] And I got to go off and be a mommy to these little kids and do this kind of stuff. And you know what? It's probably one of the most important jobs in the war. And I get it when you're that young. Keeping the heirs safe. Well,

[01:06:11] it's not the heir right now, but if anything happens to Jason Joffrey, those are the remaining heirs. You need. And frankly, those are the only true born heirs. Right? Exactly. So yeah, it's just, it's tough. I get it. Right. You're young.

[01:06:26] You want to be out flying and doing stuff. She doesn't have a dragon though. Right? So. Not have a dragon. That's the whole reason she's being sent instead of Bela. Right. Right. Oh yeah. And she says that actually in the conversation. And you remember she had that tender,

[01:06:38] I believe it was her who had that tender conversation right in. If it's not, if it was Bela, I think it was her though, had that tender conversation with Lena saying, you know, I wish I had a dragon. Mm. And then she wanted Vigar. Yes. Oh, right. Yeah.

[01:06:52] And then that's when, um, when. That's when Amon was like, no. Nope. Finders keepers. I don't know if I'd want a Vigar. This is so huge. Like moon dancers. Pretty cool. I'd want a fast cruise around dragon, not like a big tank dragon. So. Well, that,

[01:07:07] that's something emphasized in the book is that, you know, Vigar is strong. She. Vigar is not very fast. Right? Yeah. Speed versus size. Right. Power. So. All right. Alison gets absolution, something that she craved last episode. Yeah, that's true. Alison visits Helena,

[01:07:29] who says she is sad about your Harris, but knows logically she shouldn't be weird. Alison describes pain as a necessary part of motherhood and Helena forgives Alison for what happened. Uh, Abby brought this up. Mr. Abby, I'm calling Abby a Meester now because she. Oh, promoted. Yeah. Now,

[01:07:49] which chain on the link. For her to know, I'm sick. I'm making fun of that scene earlier where we're. Oh, right. Yeah. I live in the council. Oh, remind me which chain has battle tactics. He has a piggy up in the air. He's snooty.

[01:08:06] His nose is to the sky. I really like. Uh, yeah, I like these characters. Um, I had posted something in the discord. I had a question because there was a banner in Heron hall that I didn't recognize. And Abby was just like, boom right there.

[01:08:19] It's the strong sigil, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, Meester Abby on the spot with her knowledge. So. Very nice. Very nice. Yes. Uh, she said that is, uh, Helena forgiving her for the past. I'm, I'm paraphrasing. I'm summarizing what she said. Uh, uh,

[01:08:42] giving her, uh, absolution for something in the past or something in the future that hasn't happened yet. I know. That's good. That's really good because we don't know where Helena lives, right? She's, she's this quantum dot that is, you know, neither here nor there she's,

[01:09:01] she's in the future and in the past all at the same time. And, uh, I think that was a really great comment. That is a great comment. And, and I love the idea that she's forgiving Alison for something in the future,

[01:09:12] but Alison reads it as something in the past, totally in the past because that's exactly what she wanted. Right? Yeah. Alison, as we've learned is great at hearing what she wants to hear. Oh, really good. That's also a really good point. That's true.

[01:09:24] Context clues are not her strongest point. She's up in her head. She's a really lost in her head. Um, sadness is a condition of motherhood. It was sadness. Oh, I have to write that in there. I couldn't remember at the point. Uh,

[01:09:40] and I meant to correct it later when I was rewatching sadness is a condition of motherhood. That's a good line. It really is. And this whole question, and we've talked about this before in other shows and in other contexts about who has a right to their feelings. Oh,

[01:09:57] my pain is greater than your pain. And therefore I have some other greater dispensation or whatever. And I really love Helene is like, well, yeah, they probably lose more babies than a highborn lady does. Right. So why should I feel bad for, I mean,

[01:10:12] you should still feel your pain, but it's also great to have empathy for other people who may have a more predilection because they don't have healthcare. They don't have the support that they need to make, you know, but it's also not the pain Olympics, right?

[01:10:26] It's not the pain Olympic. It's okay to grieve your own experiences while also showing kindness to others and having empathy can inform your empathy towards others rather than compete with it. God, exactly. And wise, I should be a master. Um, you are Mr. John. I'm not a master.

[01:10:45] I barely, I barely made, I, I, I could be a pangolod who, which is a master of lore in Elvish, uh, of, of Tolkien stuff. I could be a pangolod. I don't think I qualify as a master. I'm,

[01:10:58] I'm a low level lore person in the house of the dragon stuff. People like Cyrus, people like Abby really and master Anthony, of course, obviously blow me out of the water with this lore stuff. And that's great because I can go call them and be like, Hey,

[01:11:12] what does this mean? Oh, we are lucky to have such a lovely community of people who are willing to share their knowledge. Exactly. Exactly. So let's move on. Laris convinces Agon to remain in King's landing. Why don't we just have a reprise of this lovely clip?

[01:11:29] I'm as fearsome as any of them. So good. The humor, the humor. And he just looks so ill in his, in that armor and just, it just felt heavy on him and weird looking. Yeah. It was a great, great discomforting scene.

[01:11:48] It's not a good look to like be looking up to the clubfoot. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. You know what I mean? Like the fact that like Laris has always been, you know, depicted as this weak person who is always like hunched over.

[01:12:07] And yet when he talks to Agon, he's always talking to him framed as being above him. He's so good though. It coming in smooth like that and just saying, Oh, well before you fly off, might I have a quick word with you? You know, he's just, he,

[01:12:23] he does this, the really big platitudes like, Oh, you reminded me of your father. And so other people can hear it, that he's being obsequious and you know, deferential and all that. And then the real flattery comes in and he doesn't assume, he doesn't try to dissuade him.

[01:12:39] He doesn't cut challenge him head on. He just says, you know, people are saying, this is what I'm hearing. I'm just doing you, you know, I'm just trying to try to be your ally here. And he's so good. He's so good at what he does. He sure is.

[01:12:53] He sure is. And he gets, I do love the ill fitting egg on the conqueror armor though. Yeah. It's great. Great visual metaphor. Anyway, go on. Oh no, I was just going to, did he get, is this official? He's now the, the master of whispers,

[01:13:07] like official for the King, right? He was made Lord confessor last season. No Lord confessor, but now he's the master of whispers. Oh, that's a good point. I think he got a promotion. Is that a promotion? Like does that come with a pay raise? That's the question.

[01:13:19] Or is this, is this a promotion in title only? I, a, a, a, and job responsibility. Right? Certainly. He's, he's like, I'm in need of, of your whisper. You know, I need a spy master. Oh, he was already doing that. But in a different, yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:33] I don't know. I don't think he's doing anything extra. I think he's just, he's just recognized more. Okay. This is a longterm plot here, right? This is like a 10 year plot to become more powerful in this kingdom. So we were, I was wondering in the,

[01:13:47] in the live chat during the episode, what is his game? And I think we've, we've asked that question before. Is it just to be a powerful in the shadows? Like, like he is right now, just to, no, it's, we don't know what he's doing.

[01:14:01] No one can deprive him of his feet, right? He walks into a brothel and says, all of you take off your socks. And they listen. And they listen. And they do. And I would love to see him take a Laris's or Agon's new Kingsguard down to the

[01:14:26] basement for a little bit of foot tickling, because he would take these boys apart. They would fold faster than blood fell, you know, folded these guys. It would be hilarious. I would love to, I would love to see that. Yeah. And he's just really,

[01:14:43] really having a great time here. I didn't even read the whole thing here. Laris manipulates Agon into remaining in King's Landing by suggesting he's being baited into battle by a power hungry Alicent and Amon. Agon's newly white cloaked friends invite him to bring a squire to get it

[01:15:00] wet. Agon reminds them of their owes of chastity, which they laugh off until he stares them down. The reason I said quote, get it wet was because that was the line that Amon said that Agon said to him

[01:15:16] last season when he took him to lose his virginity at that, at that a brothel. Yep. And it's pretty funny to me that like, they all have the same brothel. Like there's, there's not enough brothels in King's Landing to host all of the, all of the royal family.

[01:15:32] Agon, Agon's like, I know a place. This is where I take everybody. Yeah. I think, I think Laris got a haircut too. If, and it looks pretty good actually. His haircut looks pretty good. Oh, they redid all the hair with this whole season, right?

[01:15:47] Like Agon has longer hair now. Most people got a hair growth. The Targaryen hair growth genes are really out of control because in like a week, yeah, Agon, Agon got much bigger hair. So did Jace. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're right in this,

[01:16:03] I'm looking at one of the pictures in the, in the episode breakdown and Agon is looking up at Laris like for real. Yeah. You know, a good half a face height. He's, he's gotta look up to him. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:16:19] I don't know if this is a perspective shot or if the actor for Laris, is actually taller than Tom Glynn Carney. But I don't know. But still the power relationship is clear. It's, it's good visual storytelling. Yep. And I, and I also love when, when he goes, well,

[01:16:36] you two swore oaths of chastity and then they burst out into laughter, but he just glares at them, right? He just glares at them and they go, Oh, Oh no, he's our boss now. Never work with your friends, right? No, never, never, never work with your friends.

[01:16:50] And like. Yeah. Having an entourage would be weird because you're what you're, you're paying them to be, to laugh at your jokes. Right, right, right. So the next scene, the dragon seed regales a man named Oath, by the way he was named in the show.

[01:17:03] We missed it when we did our hot take. Okay. A man named Oath regales a table with his story in exchange for free drinks. By the way, very slick the way that he got that free drink, right? Oh, I might know. Yeah. I had a long day,

[01:17:17] but I might be willing to talk with some. Elves in my tongue. Yeah. He claims to be the son of Balin Targaryen and the grandson of Jahaerys Targaryen. Oath calls himself a dragon seed when he loudly calls just Saris, as he says,

[01:17:34] the true heir to the iron throne, Aegon that walks in seemingly not having heard. I love that guy looked like he shit his pants. Absolutely. Do you look like he pooped his pants? Yeah, absolutely. Well, he's talking treason and whoops. The King walks in. He's like just service.

[01:17:55] Woo. And then he goes, shows up. Didn't even notice. Didn't even notice. And he's the first one to call out hail to the King. Right. So, you know, to try to, you know, make sure that it's clear. Yeah, you're right. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Good for him.

[01:18:10] So Oath is the guy from episode two who is our POV. Yeah. I went and double checked for myself as well. So what is up with this whole scene? There's some weird, they like, um, um, what's his name? Hugh with the beautiful beard and, uh,

[01:18:32] this guy and it's, there's, there's some bit pieces, Alan. Um, there's just some pieces or Adam, I'm sorry, not Alan, uh, Adam, where what is going like, well, there's no, there's no other, there's no other connective tissue that I can see.

[01:18:49] That's going to make something happen with these characters, but obviously something's going to happen because we're spending significant time with them. So I'm, I'm baffled at what we're going to get out of this. First thing out the seams, isn't it? Are you, um, I think so. I like,

[01:19:05] I like the wheel weaves is our, uh, can't say anything sort of expression for someone. Someone actually suggested another one, which was what Robert Jordan author of the wheel of time used to say to people,

[01:19:15] I have to find who actually suggested it to me so I can give them credit. So basically Robert Jordan used to say, read and find out or Rafa. And I'm suggesting Wafo watch and find out. All right. Wafo. Wafo. That's where I'm at. It rolls off. Okay. Fred,

[01:19:33] Fred on the discord, who is a lore master actually. All right. So Wafo on those. If it sticks, you get credit in it. All right. So yeah, is this, why is all Wafo? Absolutely. All of his Wafo, all of those things you mentioned are Wafo. Okay, good.

[01:19:51] Cause obviously, obviously it has to be that we're spending all this time with them. Right. And I couldn't tell, you know, in the, in the scheme of things, when you're trying to, uh, take down a foreign power,

[01:20:06] fake news is often a very functional and effective way to destabilize the things. And I couldn't tell if Ulf was trying to stir sentiment or smoke out traders or just get a free drink because it just seemed very weird. Does he believe that he is a dragon seed?

[01:20:23] Good point. He is the bastard of one of the Targaryens. Yeah, I have no idea. Oh, and by the way, where are the real guards for he doesn't have them. He doesn't look. The Kings guard are supposed to be the most elite. Warriors. Right. And, and they are,

[01:20:39] there's two of them there. So theoretically three of them, that should be plenty. Yeah, no, three of them, three or four of them. Okay. Okay. No, the three of them plus the squire, the look, Eric and Eric were pledged at what nine and 10. These guys, I'm sorry.

[01:20:54] This is just bad news. I mean, if you want to send an assassin now is a great time to send an assassin. I know. I know he really has absolutely no protections. If he's not, he's not going to be able to do it.

[01:21:03] He's not going to be able to do it. I know he really has absolutely no protections. If Miss Aria's friends wanted him dead, it would be done immediately. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yep. I thought it was interesting that this is the second time that Dornish men were

[01:21:17] mentioned in this episode. So that was interesting. Yeah. They're mentioned in door in a bit. We don't know what's going on down there right now. No. See, I guess. Yeah. Wafo. Agon then discovers Amon's private doings. Agon and his friends bring their young initiate to,

[01:21:36] to Agon's favorite house of pleasures. I I'm not sure what notions are going to flag as inappropriate. So I was like, can I write brothel in this? Yeah, that's a dictionary word, right? Okay. That's fair. They discover Amon being cradled by his matron and try to embarrass him.

[01:21:53] But Amon offers her to the initiate. Such an embarrassing scene, such an embarrassing scene. In, in, in Amon is just trying to, I'm sorry. Um, um, what's his brother's name? Come on brain work. Uh, yeah, it was Amon. I was right.

[01:22:09] Amon is just trying to maintain his dignity as he, as he walks out. Um, and it's just, it was, it was wild. That was just a wild scene. Uh, you get the sense that he's still the boy who was shown the pig. Mm. Exactly. He's still that kid.

[01:22:25] He's just put on this tough front to try to run away from it. And he's got a bad-ass scar and a bad-ass, a fake eyeball. And, but he, but he runs back to mommy at night. Yeah. It's fake mommy. Uh,

[01:22:38] and Agon is just show cool in that way of, of being a jockey, you know, young sort of jocular boy. Yeah. I mean, do you see the photo I got of him with his tongue sticking out? Yeah, yeah. Uh, exactly. He, you could hear him going, what's up?

[01:22:53] It was in the early 2000s. I love that. My son has started going half for high five and I'm trying to get him to say what's up because I think it would be really funny. I love that. We'll see. We'll see. I'll report back.

[01:23:08] That is the same madam from season one, episode nine when crispy Cole and Eamon were out on the search. Okay. So I went back, her name's Sylvie and uh, we don't have a, I don't know what the name, I think there's the establishment was named,

[01:23:24] but I couldn't find the name quickly. Um, if you go to IMD, what I find is if you go to IMDB and you go to the episode cast, yes, we'll give you the smaller characters. Yes. And she's there. She's okay. Sylvie is there. There you go. All right,

[01:23:38] let's move on. Yeah. And I was just going to say that some serious full frontal nudity in this episode. Oh yeah. I seen, oh, I struggled. I struggled to find a clean shot for the. There was one when the first curtain they pulled back. It was like, well,

[01:23:53] Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I think I succeeded. I don't think there's any boobs in this. No, no, it's a great, great shot of, uh, of, uh, Eamon though. Yeah. You got one guy buttoning up his pants, but you can't see anything. So we're okay. Right. All right.

[01:24:08] Moving on. Moving. All right. So Raniera breaks the seal. I don't, there's not a lot to say about the scene, but no, but I did get a shot of the actual seal and the note. The seal is beautiful. You can only see. Yeah,

[01:24:19] it is a really great design, but the, the note, it says something about battling all the blank, you know, might also wish to, and to the mother. And it seems like mother is like capitalized as in the, the deity as part of the seven. Yep. Right.

[01:24:36] So you can't see exactly what she's saying, but clearly this is a plea for, you know, amnesty. I know you can get them the, the wax seal kit things, but I don't know, it'd be kind of fun to, to bring back that tradition. They're so cool.

[01:24:52] They're so neat. I'll tell you what, if we ever do Christmas cards, let's do that. Ooh. So you'll wax seal, Lorehound wax seal. I like that. Oh damn. That may actually be kind of cool. That was just like, we need one more project.

[01:25:04] Like we need one more project here, Lord. All right, moving on. All right. Let's see. You know, there's not really anything to say about that except she read the note and she's looked emotional afterward. Yeah. Sir. Gwaine gets the greens into a bind. Mm hmm.

[01:25:19] He runs ahead of Kristen Cole's army to find an in and avoid camping, but Kristen insists he returned to camp while they argue. Bela finds them on moon dancer and chases them into the forest. This was a cool scene.

[01:25:32] I did not honestly know what was going to happen. And I was so surprised when Bela just didn't light their asses up. I was, I was shocked. I was like, wait, what is, is moon dancers flame range too short? Does it not? You know,

[01:25:45] I just couldn't understand what was going on until later. When she says I didn't engage under your orders when she tells Raniera that. So I think that was just an excuse though of why she didn't kill. Kroll. No, no. I think that was, she was straight up.

[01:25:59] I think she was straight. I think Bela was straight up. All right. Yeah. I also think she didn't want to burn down the whole forest doing it. Why? It's just a few trees. All right. Mr. Environmentalist over here. Yeah. Even more on the environmentalists.

[01:26:12] I was getting a serious Jimmy Carter over here. Put on a sweater, turn the heat down. Eat some brown rice. I got some real apocalypse now vibes. I thought Kilgore and, you know, napalming the trees that was thing was going to happen.

[01:26:29] And I was shocked that it didn't. So yeah. Yeah. But running full speed into the forest on horseback that that's just as scary as being chased by a dragon. Cause if you one branch and you're hosed.

[01:26:41] Would have been kind of fun to see Gwaine go flying off his horse. I would have. Well, rather. And it would have made total sense too. If he died doing that. Right. But what I did really enjoy was Gwaine like looks down at himself afterwards.

[01:26:58] I'm pretty sure he wet his pants and I'm not just saying that as a joke. I think he wet his pants. Oh, he was so scared. Yeah. I wouldn't put it past the, yeah. He like, he held his arms open and he looked down in a way that,

[01:27:13] that the language, the body language of it told me, I just pissed myself. Interesting. Anyway, good scene overall. The horse armor looks great. Do you know the video game joke about horse armor? No, it destroyed the whole industry because the first micro transaction that ever

[01:27:30] happened in video games was Bethesda in there. At least the first popular one was Bethesda in oblivion and elder Scrolls game where they said, you can get this horse armor and everyone, and a lot of people bought it cause they thought it actually buffed the horse.

[01:27:43] It did not. It was just a cosmetic armor and that was the first cosmetic sold like that. And now every single game has like, here's a $10 skin. Here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another one. And so people blame it.

[01:27:57] They call it the horse armor that ruined gaming. Oh, that's funny. I didn't realize that. That's great. There is a, you're right here. There's some, there's a scene where the dragon is flying overhead and they're looking up. Uh, Cole is looking very steely,

[01:28:12] but Gawain is absolutely shivering and, uh, completely freaked out. So yeah, I wouldn't put it past the character, the story to have that have happened. Look, he wet his pants. It's Canon. Okay. Canon, it's Canon now it's official.

[01:28:30] Baila then reports back and reports are setting up a prison cold to the black council leading the council members to urge Ranira to go to war. She agrees to take their advice into consideration. And what a beautiful shot of,

[01:28:43] I love when they get to light up the map, the table map. Right. And, and you have the maester there. Oh, what's his name? Look at that. Ready? You ready? We're going to go to the guide.

[01:28:54] We're going to go to the blacks and we are going to find maester Gerardus. He stirred Gerardus. And he is leaning over trying to point to something. But yeah, the black council is so hungry for war. Yeah. And it's an interesting notion to think

[01:29:15] about in this war where you've had a couple of tit for tats, but the, and really the Riverlands Lords fighting is just a continuation of their, their animosity towards each other. But no one's really struck a first blow because once that first punch lands, uh, you know,

[01:29:37] where it's, it's actual war, war stuff going on, not, um, a little skirmishes or even family stuff that's accidentally out of control. I accidentally made a small mistake. Is that what your little gift says? I've made a huge, tiny mistake. That's what it was.

[01:29:52] It's Will Arnett and Arrested Development, which by the way is the best comedy ever made. Okay. That's my opinion. Got it. It's, it's the correct opinion. Is when the first strike that anybody uses with a dragon to actually Dracarys,

[01:30:09] a whole army or a portion of an army that's going to change the, um, the, the game, it's going to change the stakes of the game. And, uh, and, and all of Raniera's advisors are pushing us to do that land the first real blow.

[01:30:26] And she has a different goal, right? Which is to avoid that. And so her counsel in her are out of sorts of each other. And it's going to keep getting awkward and weird until they get on the same page. To just push back a little bit, please.

[01:30:42] I do think that if you see the other armies going out and trying to take lands and trying to recruit people against you, the time for diplomacy has ended. I agree. I'm that's why I said, you know, broom may be an absolute tool, but he is not wrong.

[01:30:58] Well, I think he was wrong earlier. I think there was still a chance of diplomacy earlier. Now that you see the armies are actually writing out, that's just it. Right? That's it. You have to, you have to develop. I'm not saying you need to go strike a blow,

[01:31:10] but you need to go out and physically gather forces. You can't send Ravens. You have to do something. You have to do something like what Damon's doing, right? He's actually the only one who's done something productive for the black so far is he just took a castle.

[01:31:25] Oddly enough. Yeah. Yeah. Out of all the people, you see my will Farrell meme of him now. I did. A there's, I didn't even know what I did. I can't, I don't know what this clip is from,

[01:31:36] but it's will Farrell singing a sing along to I don't care. I love it. And while driving and I put that as a way. Yeah, I did see that one. Damon right after his wife's sister calls him pathetic.

[01:31:49] And so he ran off angrily blasting his breakup playlist and he took Karen hall for her anyway. Yeah. But for himself really, because of course he goes, your grace, I want to be addressed as your grace. Well, and, and Renise calls it early in the last episode.

[01:32:07] She says, wherever he goes, he needs to be, you know he's got to be the big man. He's got, he really needs an ankle monitor, right? RIP Damon. You would have loved angle monitors. All right. Speaking of Damon. Yes.

[01:32:24] Damon's door begins rattling as if someone's trying to break into his quarters. He seeks whoever did this only to find a young Ranira stitching to Harris's head back on. He shows remorse and drops his sword only to find himself in the God's wood of herring hall there.

[01:32:42] Alice rivers tells Damon he will die in this place. Interesting, right? This whole thing like the, the door shaking, uh, the camera angles on this were great too. Like being up with the drips, dripping down the whole hair and halls, the spooky haunted house thing.

[01:33:02] The whole vibe is great. And then to see Millie, that was like so cool. I was like, Oh yeah. I was like, yeah. And then I was pointing at the screen. I was doing the Leo meme. Yes. Millie. Yeah. Baby head. It's so weird. For a second.

[01:33:16] I was like, did they film this during season one? But I thought about it and I was like, nah, cause the kid wouldn't have been old enough to be cast then. Like that probably is a doll, but still you wouldn't have had the,

[01:33:26] you wouldn't have had the mold of the kid. Right. Because yeah. So a kid wouldn't have been old enough for it. So yeah, I think they just brought her back for a day. So, um, uh, what's her name here? Um, Alice river rivers, Alice rivers. Here it is.

[01:33:43] I see it. Of course it's a L Y S anyway. Um, George, the what's well, yeah, it's, what is it? Wiffo. What's the word now? Waffle waffle. Well, this is just a giant waffle stamp, right? Boom. We can't. I, yeah. Come on. Like I need more.

[01:34:00] Like don't really witchy. She's very mysterious. I think I said in, in our hot take, uh, right after the episode came out was the moment she, I saw her on screen when she walked into the side there. When, after Damon burst in the room, I,

[01:34:15] the first thing I tried to do was like, does she have red hair? Cause I thought she looked like a Melisandre. I thought she had very witchy vibes. Yeah. And it's not, not her, not her. No, no, no. Clearly not. But it was just like, boom,

[01:34:26] that was like, Oh, you know, uh, this is that kind of character. Yeah. She's doing some sort of magic. It seems like at least prophesying, right? Yeah. Yeah. Some sort of site thing. The, I grabbed a screenshot of the, the wide shot, uh,

[01:34:43] at the end of this little scene. And you failed to put all texts on it. I see. Oh yeah. Sorry. That's all right. I'll do it. Thank you. You're better at that than me. Um, I just was putting it in there before. Anyway, I'm no, that's okay.

[01:34:55] I'm just, I'm messing with you. Yes. The, that tree over the edge of the lake. That's just so cool. That is just such a cool ass, creepy spot, weird tree for sure. God, you know, God's would, whatever you would, however you want to describe this.

[01:35:12] It's a perfect place for Damon to end up with his whole vision thing. And she says, you're going to die in this place. But what does that mean? When he's an old man tomorrow in five minutes, part of the war, right? You know,

[01:35:25] is he going to be visiting his grandson? Who's now Elise Lord of right of there, you know, you know what I was young, I fought for your grandmother, sister, uncle, wife, niece, cousin, all good stuff. I'm excited to see the resolution. Yeah. We don't,

[01:35:41] we don't know what's going to happen. It's interesting that he doesn't chase after her either. Right. No, right. Yeah. He's totally still freaked out. He doesn't know he's done, but he also doesn't know if she's the one who did that to him and he doesn't know

[01:35:52] if she could do it again. Did she do it to him? That's the question. Did she, yeah. Did she did Harrenhal do it? Did the gods would do it, you know? Love it. Yeah. By the way, you, you, you were going back and forth with the terms.

[01:36:05] I just want to make clear that God's wood would be the place where the where tree live, right. Where the where would rather where the right would lived. Right. Many. So yeah, there's a weird wood tree here. Is this a God's wood?

[01:36:20] Because I think that's what the visual language says. Yeah, I think so. We need a master to write in, but it's pretty decrepit, isn't it? Completely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Alice rivers, very cool character. Can't wait. Wafo. Wafo. And,

[01:36:37] and I also want to talk about Damon's guilt here. You know, he looks really, really remorseful in a way that we've never seen him. Right. I am always cleaning up after you. And here he is staring at this. Yeah. Beheaded baby. The mockery Millie really sold it.

[01:36:53] Always coming and going. And here I am always cleaning up after you. And into to have it be the young Raniera, right? Not the contemporary one is even more, I don't know, just more spookiness. I think that's how he sees her. I think. Oh, there's a good point.

[01:37:10] That's a really good point. Yeah. Which is even creepier. He really groomed her. He really did like, right. He, he. Oh, from the first scene. And he purposely made her. Honor. Well, you know, I'm speaking in show terms. This is not how it works in the real world,

[01:37:26] but deliberately put her, you know, integrity in question so that he would be given. Oh, didn't work. But yeah, he's always been working to groom her. Yep. And she sees that last episode for the first time. Yes. Yeah.

[01:37:43] Like the full extent of it and the truth of it rather than the exoticness or the fun or whatever, the, the allure of it, the young allure of it. She really sees it for what it really is. You know, I'm just realizing something about Raniera and Ms.

[01:37:56] Aria and it's, it's not that Raniera had pity for Ms. Aria at just as one person to another, I think Raniera after her last conversation with Damon, sees herself and Ms. Aria as two of Damon's victims. Totally. Two people who are victims of Damon's conduct.

[01:38:14] When Raniera gives her that long look and Ms. Aria says, Oh, you remember me now. And it was on that balance point of them, you know, trading stories about Damon, you know, sort of little, um, uh, intimacies that they know. Oh yeah. He's like that. Isn't he?

[01:38:36] He's always running off, you know, do, do, do, and she's like, yeah, oh yeah. And now I remember you. That was that pivotal moment where they were able to, um, where, where at least, uh, Raniera was able to see in that new light of, oh yeah,

[01:38:52] this is just one of Damon's victims. Right. As am I. And they're finally starting to find their flow and, and you see in the next scene on her first day on the job, it's a lot of people's first day on the job. This episode, isn't it? You got,

[01:39:06] you got Damon, sorry, Agon's Kings Bros. That's what I'm going to call them. The Kings Bros. That's good. I like it better than the Kings guard. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the Kings Bros. I like it. He's got, he's got, he's got a mom, a Agen's Kings.

[01:39:22] I know it is getting late. Amen. Eight. I'm leaving this, leaving it in, leave it in Agon's Kings Bros alongside Crispin Cole being the hand of the King alongside Gwaine, right? Gwaine is joining the front and now Miss Aria.

[01:39:40] So Raniera has Miss Aria to get her a meeting with Alison. Miss Aria expresses that it will be difficult, but she knows one place. Alison goes alone the minute she says that, of course we know what's going to happen because you know, that's, that's what Miss Aria,

[01:39:57] that's right. That's where Raniera used to hang out with her before they had their falling out. I love the fact that it's also where they drug Agon out from underneath of, right? So remember that? Yeah. Yeah. She sent him there. That's Eric and Eric. Uh, the, um,

[01:40:17] I just, I just like Miss Aria. I'm just so glad she's, she's joined the team and I love her. I love this new robe that she's got. That's a dope ass robe. I want one of those. I don't know. I'd wear it well,

[01:40:28] but I just love the styling of it. I'm just chuffed to see her there. So I'm happy. I'm just really happy with this episode. Me too. It's a, it's a really good episode. It's a lot of good character development.

[01:40:39] I know some people are frustrated that there's not a lot of action yet, but the game with the runs have a lot of action. I mean, there is action, right? The action is the conversations and the tension and the tension of this next scene, right?

[01:40:52] You know that it's so good. Yep. All right. Speaking of which let's get into the meat of it. Raniera visits Alison Raniera sneaks into King's landing as a septa. She makes her way to the grand sept. I had to correct myself. This is the grand set.

[01:41:10] There will be a great sept later. Okay. To speak to Alison about preventing the war. When Alison insists, Viserys changed his mind about her succession. Raniera asks, what exactly did he say? Alison mentions the Prince that was promised and Raniera tells her it was a prophecy involving Agon,

[01:41:30] the conqueror and not her son, Agon the second Alison realizes she misunderstood Viserys, but doubles down on there being no mistake. She makes clear that without Otto, she has lost control of the situation. So this whole thing in a weird way reminds me of the same situation with,

[01:41:52] um, strong sons instead of, you know, the, the whole bastard child thing. Everybody knows it's a, it's what the situation is, but there's, there's a physical reality, but the social reality, the social construct has to be something else. So she says, there's no mistake. We can't meaning. Yeah,

[01:42:14] we can't, I can't hit undo buddy. Yeah. There's, there's no control Z here, right? This is, this is where we're at. So, and the idea that both of these women now have to sort of watch in horror as

[01:42:28] these two giant war machines start to grind together and there's nothing they can do or say to change it. Um, they can deflect it slightly maybe, but, or end it shorter. Maybe a kind of pull a Harry Seldon, right? Short in the darkness. Right.

[01:42:44] But it's going to happen no matter what. There's nothing to be done. Right. And, and it's really tragic. I mean, I think Alison realizes that she completely botched this whole thing. She's about, absolutely. She realizes it. Yeah. But what is she going to do at this point? Yeah.

[01:43:05] She's just completely, she's completely lost the whole plot. And that's so sad. Yeah. I mean, both of them had great facial acting this up, this scene. So good. I think Emma Darcy overdid it a little bit at some points.

[01:43:19] The shock on Raniera's face really was a little overdone to me. Like, Oh my God. He said the Prince of was promised little, a little too much. But overall I thought the scene was really great. You know, Kate got emotional at the right times, you know,

[01:43:33] reacted appropriately every other time. So just nitpicks, Olivia cook, no notes. I mean, the look of, I totally botched this whole thing was, it was just amazing. Or, or if I could go to rest of development, I made a huge tiny mistake. Okay.

[01:43:51] There's another great scene or clip of her face when we don't see Raniera's face. We just see the hand come into grab a tallow and then to light a candle off of it. And, uh, Alison looks up like completely annoyed. Like who's this scepter that's sitting this,

[01:44:12] I want to pray by myself. Like, Ooh, it's like I'm on the train. I'm on this. Brother. I'm on the train all by myself. And then you come and sit down next to me and there's no, you know,

[01:44:24] there's tons of other seating available and you come sit next to me. Like what's up. All right. Should we talk about the urinal rule that every man knows and a woman has ever been told about? Oh, right. Where you, you have to leave space between yourself.

[01:44:37] You do every other buddies. It's every other, unless it's full. If it's full, you're permitted to take an extra one. You don't, you don't see a line of 10 urinals and go to two when somebody's on one. Uh, or the, um, made famous in, um,

[01:44:52] in a fight club where you, when you're passing somebody in tight quarters, which way you, you know, orient your body. I don't know. There's not one. Maybe it's automatic. Yeah. See, that's what I mean. That's it is. If you're, you're a, you go butt to butt, right?

[01:45:07] So you don't go genital. Sorry. We're getting weird. It's time to go to bed. It is time to go to bed. Good thing we're not doing feedback tonight. I know. Yeah. Could you imagine? I think that this was a great idea that, that, uh,

[01:45:21] we had to just split it off and thank, thankfully we have Nancy so that neither of us have to be like, did you gather feedback? No. Did you do the fact that we have somebody wrangling feedback is a huge boon for us, uh,

[01:45:35] with all the other things that we've got going on. So. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, this was awesome. This was an awesome scene. I feel for Lord, um, Darkland, a Sarah Darkland, the Kings guard that's sitting outside having to wait for all this to unfold. The dude looks.

[01:45:52] Totally normal. He's not the guy looks like, like, Oh look, if we were doing D and D he's not a cleric class, right? Like you look at his face, he's not a cleric. No, he's a cleric with a knife of his sleeve. Right? Exactly. Exactly.

[01:46:07] If he's a paladin, he's definitely an oath breaker paladin for sure. Right? Sure. Right. All right. Let's talk about what we're doing next, right? Oh, by the way, if you want to get in feedback before our feedback episode,

[01:46:19] you can send it to HOTD at the lorehounds.com or you can go to the contact form on our website, the lorehounds.com. You can also go on the discord and at us and Nancy, which is two kids, two dogs, two kids, two dogs over on the discord.

[01:46:35] Many ways to get us feedback. Choose one voicemail, send in voicemails. No, voicemails. Oh yeah. Very exciting stuff. All right. Let's talk about what's going on on the lorehounds network this week. I've been doing a weekly schedule,

[01:46:46] which has been really helpful to remember what is actually happening because we have so much going on. We do here on the lorehounds public feed. We've got house of the dragon, regular coverage, feedback coverage and the hot takes every Sunday. So,

[01:47:00] and the hot takes are only for subscribers on Patreon or super. Yeah. So they're like 15 ish minutes we get on right after the episode, just sort of talk about our thoughts and our feelings of the episode. And then I get that out as soon as possible. Right.

[01:47:14] All right. We've also got second breakfast coming out this week on hotel breakfasts. And then the fifth element will be our 11 Z's movies. I watched that before we recorded tonight. Bruce Willis is a problem and we need to talk about it anyway. I have. Yeah. I, anyway,

[01:47:33] I'm not saying nothing. Let's save it for a second. But I'm going to let these rather save it for the pod. Yep. Rings and rituals. We'll be back next week with an interview with me.

[01:47:43] I'm going to be on there talking about the music of season one of the rings of power. Very cool. Very exciting stuff. We recorded that like four months ago, so I don't remember what I said. It's going to be surprised when they're in tune. Yep. All right.

[01:47:54] The star Wars complete Canon timeline podcast is of course doing the acolyte with me again, but also the Canon ancient myths of Batu. I don't know what that means and I'm excited for it. I heard words, but I don't know what they mean. Right, right, right.

[01:48:10] You are speaking a language. All right. And radioactive ramblings is continuing with the boys this week, but there'll be doing season four episode five. Beware of the jabberwock. My son. I got to catch up. I'm so far behind on that. Yeah.

[01:48:27] Probably Howard movie review just wrapped up at season. So there'll be back sometime soon, but we'll shift us is also on a break while Alicia focuses on some star Wars stuff. So plenty of stuff going on. Lots of hot D this is hot. D summer.

[01:48:40] Can I plug my alien projects too? Oh yeah. I didn't know when that was coming out. So I didn't. Yeah. It's going to be all just so new alien movie called alien Romulus. It's dropping. It's going wide August 16th. So the week after that,

[01:48:56] we're going to have a typical, you know, we're gonna have a one shot and we're going to break down the movie like normal. Start with spoiler free hot takes and then get into the movie. So that's the week after August 16th,

[01:49:06] the week before August 16th I just recorded today with Aisha from every single sci-fi film ever that podcast, we do a trailer breakdown and talk about aliens in the franchise in general and our personal histories with the franchise and stuff. We had a really great conversation.

[01:49:24] And prior to that, we have two podcasts that are going to get, we're still one's in the can and one is yet to be scheduled where first Ron, and this is all very complex, isn't it?

[01:49:36] Part one is Ron and I talking about the 1979 film because it's the 45th anniversary of that film being released. And then part two, Aisha and I from every single sci-fi film are going to interview two academics to talk about AI issues,

[01:49:50] about AI and about labor relationships and all of the social history and construct stuff that goes on to the making of alien. Then we'll have the trailer breakdown and then we'll have the one shot for the new alien movie.

[01:50:05] So we've got basically a four part podcast coming out around alien. So I'm really excited for all of that. It's been a lot of fun putting it together. Very cool. Very cool. So subscribe to the firehose feed if you're listening to us here on the hot D

[01:50:19] feed where you are always welcome to listen to all the crazy stuff we have coming out. You're always welcome to come for early and add free access to all our podcasts on Patreon or supercast. Get the show guide, the season pass. Yep. 10 bucks. Uh, yeah, the,

[01:50:33] the show guy, you get the show guide with the seasons past the season, but passes 10 bucks. It's easy. If you subscribe in any of these ways, you get the show guide. Let's just say that. Yeah. We'll put it that way. All right. All right.

[01:50:44] Now I'm going to hijack the shout outs even though I did the show notes because David, I have a surprise for you that you requested. Let's do our quick Patreon shout outs, patron supercast shout outs. First our discord server boosters, narls Aaron K tiller,

[01:51:00] the thriller dork of the ninjas do 71 captain Jinji 56 and Athena a Samartian Michael G Michelle E David W Brian P's SC Peter O H Bettina W Adam S Nancy M do 71 Brian 80 63 Frederick H Sarah L Gareth C Eric F Matthew M Sarah M DJ

[01:51:22] Miwa Andra B Kwang you dead eye Jedi Bob Nathan T Alex V Aaron T subzero Aaron K Dali V mothership 61 narls and Kathy W Stuart B and Adrian who still hasn't written in telling me how to say his name. Thank you everyone.

[01:51:44] Did you enjoy the new jazz soundtrack for all? I think it's great. I think it's great. I think it was a little loud, but I mean you can adjust that in post. Oh yeah. That'll be, that's easy. But I think it's,

[01:51:54] did you make that or did you get that? Oh no, I, I actually, I was on humble bundle. You ever get a bundle? Yes, yes. I know. Yeah. Humble bun. Lots of RPG humble bundles for $20. They had like a thousand sounds basically. And I was like, okay,

[01:52:08] I could always use sound for the pot or something like that. And so this is, I own it. I licensed it. So excellent. We are, are paying the creators. Don't worry. And yeah, so I figured I would look for a little soft jazz kind of thing.

[01:52:24] I got a real smile on my face. I think it's great. I wonder what people think. What do you think? What do you think? He's good. And somebody should be like, I hate this jazz is I was traumatized by jazz when I was 10.

[01:52:35] And if you ever play that again, I'm unsubscribing. I don't know. I think it's just kind of an, it's, I don't know. Just nice little energy, little energy as we go out the door, you know? There you go. All right, everyone. We'll see you soon. Thanks everyone.

[01:52:49] The lore hounds podcast is produced and published by the lore hounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and add free access to all the workouts, podcasts at patrion.com slash the lower house.

[01:53:03] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. This summer we enter a new era of star Wars. You mean the dawn of the star Wars, Canon timeline podcast? Yeah. Yeah, sure. That too.

[01:53:24] But I was obviously talking about the accolade. We've got to cover that on the lore hounds. Oh, but the star Wars, Canon timeline podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline, the end of the high Republic 100 years before the prequel trilogy. We've got to cover it there.

[01:53:39] Why not both? Okay. Deal. It's the first live action star War outside the Skywalker saga. Nobody can miss this. Listeners kick off. Your hot lore summer weekends with seam by seam breakdowns of the acolyte found in both the star Wars,

[01:53:56] Canon timeline podcast and the lower hounds mother feed and the lower hound star Wars feed wherever you like to listen a couple of days after each new episode is released.