0:00

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variety of options to celebrate traditions old

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and new. You could

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do a classic herb roasted turkey or spice it

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up and make turkey tacos. Serve

0:11

up a go-to shrimp cocktail or

0:13

use Simple Truth Wild Caught Shrimp

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for your first Cajun risotto. Make

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creamy mac and cheese or a spinach

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artichoke fondue from our selection of Murray's

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cheese. No matter how you shop, Kroger

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has all the freshest ingredients to embrace

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all your holiday traditions. Kroger.

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Fresh for everyone. Here

0:34

are the highlights coming up this week on Bald Move.

0:37

We're on our Christmas break, but we still got

0:39

stuff for you to listen to. Maester Anthony is

0:41

dropping two more podcasts down the chimney this year.

0:44

You can find Maester Class and Electric Boogaloo

0:46

in your Hot D feeds this Monday and

0:48

Thursday. And our last

0:50

podcast for 2023 will be for All Mankind

0:52

Season 4 Episode 8. We'll

0:54

be back in the new year to continue for All

0:57

Mankind and pick back up with Fargo Season 5. You

1:00

can find these and many other great podcasts by searching

1:02

for Bald Move Pulp or Bald Move Prestige in your

1:04

favorite podcast app. Here

1:14

are the highlights coming up this week on Bald Move. There

1:17

are no highlights. Oh, that's not exactly

1:19

true. We've got a regular slate of

1:21

Fargo for All Mankind, Boogaloo, movies, etc.

1:25

It's the Christmas season, which means the real action is

1:28

happening over at the club. Our

1:30

Baw Humbug Christmas is in full

1:32

swing over at support.baldmove.com with weekly

1:34

Humbug movie coverage such as Love

1:36

Actually, Scrooge, You've Got Mail and

1:38

more. Wednesday night live streams

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and boozy Christmas lunches. So

1:42

if you want your fill of Bald Move this month,

1:45

head over to the club at support.baldmove.com and find

1:47

out how to make it happen. Welcome

2:16

back to Game of

2:18

Thrones to electric. Who.

2:21

Column is Anthony Week as

2:23

a hearse for Electric Boogaloo.

2:25

My guest M. L. Cavanaugh

2:27

is an honest to goodness

2:29

military strategist. Matt. Is

2:31

a retired Us Army Lieutenant Colonel.

2:33

He's also got a Phd and

2:35

Political Science. He was a fellow

2:38

at the Modern War Institute at

2:40

West Point and now he is

2:42

professor of practice at Arizona State

2:44

University. His book is Winning West

2:46

Rose How Game of Thrones explains

2:48

modern military conflict. Of course you

2:50

can pick up this book on

2:52

Amazon or you can search for

2:55

Winning West Rose Potomac Books without

2:57

further ado. Here is Lieutenant Colonel

2:59

M. L. Cabinet. Matt

3:02

I'm just curious to

3:04

know. Your. Overall

3:07

relationship with. This.

3:09

Particular Book Yeah Arms. Unfortunately we

3:11

have to say the road. The

3:13

road begins a little bit further

3:15

back on. you know, I I

3:17

taught for several years at West

3:19

Point and it you know when

3:21

you're in a classroom and standing

3:23

up in front of a group

3:25

of college students are cadets. You

3:27

know there's an age gap there.

3:30

There's a time difference where some

3:32

of your jokes don't land. They're

3:34

not as funny as you thought.

3:36

Yeah, I'm fine, but also like

3:38

you're trying to relate. This

3:40

material. To. A group

3:42

of younger people and eat. You

3:44

don't necessarily have common ground on

3:47

which to hold a conversation and

3:49

sorry to interrupt, but what are

3:51

you teaching what subjects? So he

3:53

was a military strategy course. I

3:56

did this. You know this was

3:58

cheesy was or twenty. 12 to 2015 and

4:01

then I also teach a course

4:03

occasionally with Arizona State University

4:06

on the same subject. And

4:09

when you're trying to relate these

4:11

sorts of subjects to younger people, what you

4:13

realize is that you lack a common frame

4:15

of reference. And

4:17

we found that Star

4:20

Wars was an incredibly powerful

4:23

way of connecting with younger people, but not

4:25

just that. Right after leaving teaching

4:28

at West Point, I had an

4:30

assignment where I was working in Korea

4:33

with Korean military officers.

4:35

And it was the same sort

4:38

of thing that could cross not

4:40

just age gaps, but cultural gaps.

4:44

And so I pulled

4:46

together a book project that we

4:48

later titled Strategy Strikes Back, and

4:51

where we wrangled together a couple of

4:54

dozen writers from all

4:56

across the spectrum when

4:58

it comes to modern conflict. And

5:02

our foreword was written by General Stan

5:05

McChrystal, for example, who commanded all forces

5:07

in Afghanistan. And what was really striking

5:09

to me about that was General

5:13

McChrystal is 30 some years older than

5:16

I am. And when

5:18

we first talked about his participation in

5:20

the project, he said, you know, I'm

5:22

not like a huge Star Wars

5:24

fan, you know, but

5:28

the very first movie

5:30

he went to after

5:32

he finished Ranger School, which

5:34

is kind of it's a military school that

5:38

you often do when you're a second

5:40

lieutenant or before you're about to lead

5:42

a number of troops. So he's walked

5:44

out of this really tough military school,

5:47

and he walked into a movie theater to take

5:49

his mind off the world for a couple of

5:51

hours. And he walked into the very first Star

5:53

Wars film. And

5:55

you know, to me, that was a moment where

5:57

I realized how powerful pop culture can be.

6:00

in connecting people

6:02

across decades, across cultures.

6:05

And so that

6:08

book project was successful enough

6:11

that we looked

6:13

for a sequel and our sequel

6:15

was- Wait, before you go to

6:18

the sequel, let's talk about, it's

6:20

called Strategy Strikes Back. Strategy Strikes

6:22

Back. How Star Wars Explains Modern

6:24

Military Conflict. Yep. And then

6:26

the book that you're about to talk

6:29

to, I hope,

6:31

I mean, it's called Winning Westeros.

6:33

How Game of Thrones Explains Modern

6:36

Military Conflict. And

6:41

by the way, we had some amazing writers. Max

6:43

Brooks, who wrote World War Z, was

6:46

one of our headline writers. Yeah, I

6:48

noticed that. His chapters

6:51

are fantastic and he's

6:53

a great guy to work with. Admiral

6:55

James Stavridis, who is the Supreme

6:57

Allied Commander of Europe, the

6:59

Commander of NATO Forces, General

7:05

McMaster, who served as

7:07

the National Security Advisor. We

7:10

had some amazing writers and it's

7:14

all based on a simple premise and

7:16

a premise that we're gonna put into play here while

7:18

we're talking, is that you can use

7:22

pop culture as a jumping off

7:24

point to talk about

7:26

much larger, much bigger, much

7:29

more important issues. And that sort

7:31

of thing matters because whether we like

7:33

it or not, whether

7:36

we acknowledge it or not, we're

7:39

all participating in national security every

7:41

day with our tax dollars and

7:44

with our votes. So yeah,

7:47

so it can be a lot of fun, but it is

7:49

touching on some really important subjects. So

7:52

I'm really excited about this. I have not,

7:54

my book has not arrived yet. And

7:57

once I get it, I'm sure I'll have

7:59

tons more. questions than I do today. Ho

8:09

ho ho! It's Christmas time again! Time

8:11

to hang out with friends and family,

8:13

listen to the Christmas classics, and binge

8:15

some of your favorite Christmas films. And

8:18

here at Bald Move we have you covered.

8:20

This year the theme is Baa Humbug, where

8:22

we're poking some fun at a few all

8:25

time greats. Scrooge, Love Actually, You've Got Mail,

8:27

and More. And that's just this

8:29

year, you should see our whole Christmas catalog.

8:31

We've got Home Alone 1 and 2, The

8:33

Muppet Christmas Carol, A Christmas

8:36

Story, A Christmas Story Christmas, Elf,

8:39

and we have a healthy dose of

8:41

Badass 2, Die Hard, Die Hard 2,

8:43

Lethal Weapon, Rocky 4. And if

8:45

you really want to suffer, we have full

8:47

coverage of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

8:50

Ugh. Plus extra cozy Christmas lunches,

8:52

live streams, and much more. This

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is truly the most wonderful time to be a Club

8:57

Bald Move member. Join today to get

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access to all this plus ad free feeds. Wish

9:02

them a Merry Christmas Jim. Merry

9:04

Christmas to all, and to all

9:06

a support.baldmove.com. Close enough. Today

9:20

Halloween's over, which means move over

9:23

Thanksgiving, it's Christmas time. Sure, some

9:26

people might say we're a little early, but I

9:28

can't help it, we're just that excited to

9:31

celebrate the season once again. And there's also some

9:33

important deadlines, that's the other reason we're jumping the

9:35

gun here, we don't want anyone to miss out.

9:37

First, every active club member gets a

9:40

Christmas card from me and Aaron. All

9:42

international folks will receive this card in digital form,

9:44

but people in the states will receive theirs in

9:47

the mail. So make sure you get

9:49

one, you just gotta be signed up and current on

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your club membership by Thanksgiving. Second, some

9:53

would say the highlight of our celebrations are

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our, shall we say cozy Christmas podcasts and

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live streams for Jim and I dreamt. our

10:00

way through an advent calendar of premium

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us? Head to Christmas.BaldMove.com before the calendars sell

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we've got the Bald Move Secret Santa. Pair

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There are two lists our Secret Santa is keeping,

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during our evening Christmas streams in December. Registration

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for the online exchange closes extra early

10:28

November 20th. Once again,

10:30

Christmas.BaldMove.com is where you want to go to sign

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up for the Secret Santa. Enjoy

10:34

the holidays with us this year. Our

10:36

holiday festivities are exclusively for club members

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and you can sign up today at

10:40

Christmas.BaldMove.com. We're

10:50

covering Cat 6 POV chapter

10:52

in Clash. Uh-huh. And

10:55

I'm just curious, like when I reached out

10:57

to you, you said you're actually rereading Clash

10:59

at the moment. I'm wondering where you are.

11:02

Yeah, so when you asked,

11:04

I was just behind the chapter

11:06

in question. Oh

11:09

my God. You know, and so

11:12

I have read through the chapter and

11:14

what strikes me is just how many

11:17

different moments there are in that chapter.

11:19

Yeah. Generally speaking, you have a

11:21

character who's observing

11:25

the world around her, experiencing

11:29

war as a participant,

11:34

and there's at least six different moments

11:36

that I can identify

11:39

that pull threads on

11:41

much larger tapestries related to

11:43

modern war. Yeah, this chapter

11:45

has its tendrils all over

11:47

the place. I

11:50

did want to ask you before I do my synopsis, I

11:53

wanted to ask you about something

11:55

that maybe you're uniquely qualified to

11:58

talk about, and that is… Cat.

12:02

Talks about her duty in this

12:05

chapter. And.

12:07

She talks about how she's always done your

12:09

duty. In fact, she like recounts. Almost.

12:12

Every moment of her life when she

12:14

did her duty and now she finds

12:16

herself. In a very strange

12:18

position. Now she's sort of the

12:21

hell of a castle at me

12:23

as gone. Season. Charge.

12:27

And. So then the quest since

12:29

yes, ask yourself is how do I

12:31

know what my duty is Now that

12:33

all these people who. Are

12:35

used to server dead or gone deaf?

12:38

The As and so I guess I

12:40

think there would be sort of a

12:42

larger question that is. If

12:44

someone lives their life as

12:46

a soldier and measures success

12:49

or measures in the feeling

12:51

of success, With. How

12:53

well they met expectations. How

12:56

does that person transition to then

12:58

been the top dog? Yeah.

13:00

How does that person? Go

13:02

from someone who. Was. Always do

13:05

to for to someone who now

13:07

has a much different rank and

13:09

role in the entire efforts. Yeah.

13:12

And it is so I. I.

13:14

I can actually say that

13:17

I've I've studied it quite

13:19

closely in that my phd

13:21

dissertation who was on that

13:23

the the qualities and characteristics

13:25

that differentiates successful. Of.

13:28

Military supreme commanders from on

13:30

successful ones and it's a

13:33

really tough. Question.

13:35

To answer in the sense that. On.

13:39

The. i mean let's start with your

13:41

ear acknowledgement of of duty or

13:43

catalysts yeah acknowledgement of duty duty

13:45

is often just simply ah a

13:47

stand in for setting decisions aside

13:49

you know like i i i

13:51

did what i was told to

13:53

do rom you know and the

13:55

and there's there's more to it

13:57

than that and you know it's

14:00

It's almost like a rule of

14:02

thumb that you live by. But

14:05

when you go up the ladder, step

14:08

by step by step by step,

14:12

there are some problems

14:15

or scenarios or challenges

14:17

or conflicts where there

14:20

isn't, you cannot

14:22

rely on a rule of thumb anymore. Right?

14:26

And like the scenarios

14:28

that I was describing, or that I

14:31

mentioned, with respect to my

14:33

dissertation, studying

14:36

General George Washington in

14:38

the early stages of the war in 1776

14:40

into early 1777, when

14:43

he's being beaten by

14:45

the British all the way

14:47

across New York State and into New Jersey, General

14:54

Grant, General Ulysses

14:56

S. Grant, when the

14:58

war is in the latter part of the

15:04

war in 1864 and into 1865. And

15:06

then General Eisenhower in 1944, in

15:08

the six months preceding D-Day,

15:18

from this side of history, from the

15:20

other side of the timeline, it

15:23

looks like all three of those were cinches,

15:27

like the decisions were inevitably

15:30

to lead to success. And

15:32

that was never the case.

15:36

There's a moment about

15:39

a week before the D-Day

15:42

landings where General

15:44

Eisenhower's Air Chief of

15:47

Staff, so it's a British air

15:49

vice-martial who comes to him and says, I

15:52

believe that the airborne drops will

15:56

be combat ineffective

15:58

on D-Day. They

16:00

intended to drop two divisions of

16:02

airborne troops behind the German lines

16:04

at the beach. The

16:09

belief was that so many of them

16:11

would be killed or wounded

16:14

or injured in the landing in the

16:16

drop, that they

16:19

would be combat ineffective, that they wouldn't

16:21

have an impact on the

16:24

German defenses. And that therefore,

16:26

we shouldn't

16:28

undertake the airborne drops. Eisenhower

16:34

asked that that particular officer put

16:36

his views in writing

16:40

because he knew how high the

16:42

stakes were and whether

16:46

he was right or wrong, he wanted all

16:48

of them to have their votes, so to

16:50

speak, recorded in history. And

16:52

there's a moment in the days leading up

16:55

the Normandy landings where Eisenhower goes back

16:58

to his room. And

17:00

I don't have it verbatim,

17:02

but it's something to the effect of, you

17:06

could not devise a more

17:08

soul-wracking problem. Because

17:10

if I let the airborne drops happen

17:15

and as this officer has described,

17:20

if they are combat ineffective, not

17:23

only will I have been wrong and

17:26

it will jeopardize the entire landings,

17:29

but I'll

17:31

have been warned not to do this and

17:34

we will have lost so many young people.

17:39

In the end, he overruled

17:41

the air commander and

17:45

let the drops go as they

17:48

went. And they were not combat

17:50

ineffective, of course, they were combat

17:52

effective. And those

17:55

are the sorts, that

17:57

is the characteristic. That

18:00

is the difference between successful

18:02

and unsuccessful Supreme

18:05

Commanders, by and large. I'm simplifying here,

18:07

of course. It's

18:10

good judgment. And not just

18:12

good judgment as in objectively

18:15

good or bad. There is no such

18:18

thing as good or bad at war

18:20

in the sense that all war is

18:22

relative to the adversary. There

18:25

is only superior or inferior

18:28

judgment. And that's

18:31

the sort of advice that I would

18:33

put a hand on Catlin's shoulder. And

18:35

I would say, do your best.

18:37

But no matter what you do,

18:40

do better than your adversary. Make

18:42

better decisions than your adversary. You

18:47

could make relatively poor decisions, but as

18:49

long as they were better than who

18:51

you're trying to beat, then you're still

18:53

in good stead. She's

18:55

in an interesting position because

18:58

there are certain elements

19:01

of her story that are

19:03

very much just about, you know, set aside

19:05

your own desires,

19:08

set aside your own will. Just

19:11

do what's asked for you because that is

19:14

your duty. And then there are other aspects

19:16

of her duty where

19:18

it's more like a social pressure. And

19:23

now she's got to navigate this

19:25

weird position where she

19:28

does not fully trust her

19:30

younger brother's strategic

19:32

mind. She

19:35

would be happier if Ned was still

19:37

alive or her father was a bit younger or

19:39

something like that. Edmure

19:41

doesn't really impress her in terms

19:44

of a military strategist. And

19:46

yet she kind of has this social pressure

19:49

where it's like, well, I

19:51

can't really undermine him in a

19:54

way that cuts out his

19:56

authority. It

19:58

could be that her duty in this case

20:00

is to hold her tongue, wait

20:03

and see what happens. And

20:07

that's kind of where she's sitting in this chapter.

20:10

So she's right to second guess him.

20:16

We lead the chapter with him

20:19

expressing, quote, tell father I

20:21

have gone to make him proud. And

20:24

what that naturally leads me to is,

20:26

you know, why we fight

20:28

or the reasons that put someone on

20:30

the battlefield. And I like to think

20:32

of it as almost like

20:34

the war of the knife and

20:37

the war of the map. So

20:39

you have, well, I mean, you have sort of the

20:42

passions, the

20:44

need for killing. And

20:48

then at the same token, you

20:50

know, to kill someone, you need the blood to do

20:52

it. And

20:55

then by that, you have to be able

20:57

to set that aside equally and be cold

20:59

and hard and rational. You

21:02

know, in any strategic engagement, there's

21:05

two wars that are happening simultaneously. Like I

21:07

mentioned that war of the map and the

21:09

war of the knife, you

21:12

know, and the map war is

21:14

brick by brick, block by block.

21:16

It's a logical contest where two

21:19

parties are engaging for

21:21

some interest using their

21:23

best logic. And,

21:26

you know, the knife war is,

21:29

you know, two animals attempting to tear one

21:31

another apart with all the power that their

21:33

selves can muster. The challenge

21:35

with this is that you need both to

21:37

succeed. Yeah, both are

21:39

valuable. You know, one points the

21:41

way and the other fuels the

21:44

journey. And with

21:46

Edmure, you get the sense that he's sort

21:50

of his coming from one

21:52

side of that coin. And

21:55

you need some of that in appropriate doses,

21:57

but you also need to mind the map.

22:01

You know, and you need to have a wider

22:03

gaze in order to be successful. Yeah,

22:05

that's so interesting. I'm going

22:07

to read a synopsis of this chapter and we

22:09

can talk more about it. After

22:15

sending off Edmure to defend the

22:17

river against Taiwan's men, Kat is

22:19

left with her doubt and fear.

22:22

She receives no comfort from the Sept and

22:25

offers no comfort to Brienne about the duties

22:27

of women. She

22:29

receives news from storms and wonders

22:31

about Jon Snow's mother and reflects

22:33

on Roose Bolton's odd description of

22:36

his bastard. As

22:38

Taiwan's men attempt to cross the river in

22:40

small groups, Edmure's host

22:42

sends them away with caltroops,

22:45

arrows, and the natural defenses

22:47

of the river, as Kat looks

22:50

on from the watchtower. After

22:52

day and night of intermittent

22:54

attacks, Kat visits

22:56

Cleo's fray and learns

22:58

that Tyrion's peace terms are worthless

23:01

and that only Sansa has been seen at court.

23:05

Days pass, then Kat learns

23:07

that Taiwan's most robust attack

23:10

has been thrown back. Katlyn

23:12

still feels sullen and afraid,

23:15

but the most recent battle is over. While

23:18

the others feast in celebration, Kat

23:20

studies maps by candlelight.

23:24

So Matt, I was

23:26

thinking that there's a number of directions we can go

23:28

with this. There's a lot, yeah. I

23:32

kind of would like to key in on

23:34

something you said before, my synopsis, and that

23:36

is sort of the reason to fight. Yeah.

23:40

I want to tweak this just

23:44

slightly and ask you about the reason

23:46

to die. And

23:48

I think in this book

23:51

in particular, one of the things that

23:53

I've noticed this read through is that

23:55

we have several different ideas

23:57

about what we're going to do. this

24:00

idea of a good death. And

24:04

I'll just read a few of these that

24:06

I've noticed. In this chapter, you know, Ed

24:08

Nier is talking about, I'm going to make

24:11

Father proud, and, you

24:13

know, he's doing this for his father, who's kind of

24:15

a daughter. I don't know if his father

24:17

will really know what Ed Nier has

24:19

accomplished, but there's something

24:21

about earning

24:24

your father's approval or something. That would

24:26

be a good reason to die. And

24:29

then, you know, maybe Rob is in it

24:32

for revenge. We met

24:34

Corin Halfhand recently, and really the cause

24:36

of the night's watch, he think is

24:39

worth dying for. Stannis,

24:41

maybe he would think that death, a

24:44

good death would be about duty. Mel

24:46

would be like, a good death involves

24:49

doing God's will. And

24:52

Brienne would love to live on in

24:54

song. So these are all

24:56

kind of ideas of what a good death

24:59

looks like. And

25:01

so here's what I was going to ask you. Do

25:03

you believe that there's such a thing as a good

25:05

death? I do. I

25:08

mean, absolutely. And,

25:10

you know, the one thing that makes

25:12

it really hard to answer the question

25:15

in a general sense is that we

25:19

each get to spend our own, you know.

25:22

And so it really is

25:24

in the eye of the beholder. I've

25:26

always been in love with G.K.

25:29

Chesterton's phrase that

25:31

a true soldier fights not because he hates

25:33

what's in front of him, but because he

25:35

loves what's behind him. And

25:38

that's my sort of starter's pistol for

25:41

it. It's

25:45

the judgment that

25:48

the value of

25:50

the object that you

25:53

seek is worth the potential

25:56

price that it might cost. I,

26:00

you know, when before we came on,

26:03

I mentioned that two years ago, I donated a

26:05

kidney. There's a

26:07

vanishingly small chance that that that

26:11

sort of operation or

26:13

procedure would cost my life,

26:16

roughly one in 10,000, but

26:19

valued against the upside for

26:21

someone else. It

26:23

was an easy decision for me to make. So

26:25

it's actually something that I've wrestled

26:28

with. This isn't sort of an esoteric academic

26:30

question for me. I think it's a very

26:32

important one. We

26:34

talked about duty earlier. I

26:37

went to college at West Point,

26:39

and there are a number of

26:41

years there when you're a cadet,

26:44

and soon thereafter, where

26:47

there are a number of expectations that

26:49

come with your duty as

26:52

an officer in the United States Army. And

26:55

at first, you

26:58

sort of just follow that as a

27:00

general prescription. But somewhere along

27:02

the line, and obviously I can't pinpoint it

27:04

on a timeline, you know, you

27:08

say the words long enough, you start to believe

27:10

them. You start to, you

27:13

actually start to, I think, live

27:15

through them a little bit. And

27:18

so I absolutely do believe that there

27:20

are some causes

27:22

and risks worth taking. There

27:25

are some deaths that I would absolutely

27:27

say are good deaths.

27:31

You know, whether or not that, I'd

27:33

be perfectly happy, you know,

27:36

expiring in my sleep as an

27:38

old man, I guess, at this

27:40

point. But yeah, yeah, yeah, with

27:43

a little bit of what I

27:45

think they call it dream wind

27:47

in them, in a gun. But,

27:50

you know, whether your life is long

27:53

or short, I do think that it's

27:56

possible to have a good

27:59

one. have a good

28:01

go of it. You know, so

28:03

that's sort of on the individual sense.

28:07

But it raises another larger

28:09

issue, which is, you

28:11

know, what will we fight for collectively,

28:13

and how hard will we fight?

28:16

And in the chapter, Catlin

28:19

makes a comment, you know, that Ed

28:21

Meir had taken, quote, every able-bodied man

28:24

for the Fords and left only a

28:26

garrison made up of the wounded, the

28:28

old, and the sick. You

28:31

know, which is indicative that

28:33

they are fighting with as

28:37

much means as

28:39

they can muster. And, you

28:41

know, when I would stand in front of

28:43

cadets, one of the questions, you know, I

28:46

would ask them is that

28:48

if someone unannounced knocked on your door, and

28:50

they point the gun in your face, and

28:52

they say, give me your wallet, you're

28:55

probably going to give him your wallet.

28:58

But if someone knocks on your door,

29:01

points a gun in your face, and says,

29:03

give me your daughter, or give me your

29:05

son, you know, if you

29:07

see no other alternative, even

29:10

you might be willing to fight. And

29:14

so we start to see the big,

29:17

you know, the beginnings of the motivation,

29:20

the motivations for fighting. You know,

29:22

what interests are motivating

29:25

you to fight? For

29:27

some people, absolutely, it's a

29:29

good death. You know, like

29:32

Ed Meir says, he's looking to fight

29:34

to make his father proud. But,

29:37

you know, when you get

29:40

enough of those individuals that are interested

29:42

in fighting, banded together,

29:45

sooner or later you have a war. And

29:48

that's sort of that that war

29:50

that fighting really animates

29:52

this entire chapter, because

29:54

we're looking at it through the lens

29:56

of a participant, you know, someone who's

29:59

thinking through how it might turn out and

30:01

how she ought to act within it. You

30:05

know, Brianne is one

30:08

of these people that is probably

30:10

not going to be content with

30:12

a host or Tully, you know, going

30:14

out as a old

30:16

woman in a bed. I think her

30:18

idea of a good death would

30:21

be the kind of thing that would

30:24

bring glory and maybe someone like,

30:26

you know, Ryman the Rimer would

30:28

sing about after the fact. And

30:31

Kat is thinking, I think Kat when looks

30:34

on this and she's thinking that's kind of

30:36

a youthful, foolish point

30:38

of view. But,

30:41

and you can maybe correct me if I'm wrong

30:43

here, but I kind of feel like if

30:45

you're going to raise a host, you

30:48

kind of need people with that youthful

30:50

naivete. The idea, I

30:52

think for someone like Brianne

30:55

who longs to be a soldier, you

30:58

kind of need someone who

31:00

views the glorious death as

31:03

something that would be a good death.

31:06

And so I'm wondering what you would say to that. I

31:09

mean, on some level,

31:13

it's better than an army

31:15

of criminals that are just, or

31:18

psychopaths that are just out for blood to

31:22

hurt and harm other human

31:25

beings. So I

31:27

like the mountain would

31:29

be a good example of that, right?

31:31

Absolutely. Yes. I mean,

31:34

there's, you

31:36

can imagine a hierarchy of virtues

31:42

that animate someone to

31:44

go to war. What,

31:49

you know, the

31:53

instinct for glory

31:55

has been embedded in people

31:59

since as long as the war. as we've

32:01

been writing. It's the part of the earliest

32:03

stories of war.

32:09

It may not be the most

32:12

noble, but

32:14

it's certainly not the least, certainly

32:16

not the worst. And

32:19

I, you know, there's an

32:22

expression, it's attributed to Napoleon that,

32:24

you know, that men,

32:27

men fight for little ribbons,

32:29

you know, they do anything

32:31

to obtain or win

32:35

a little ribbon or a medal. And

32:39

I actually think that he's not

32:41

necessarily talking about the ribbon or the

32:43

medal itself, but

32:45

the esteem of

32:48

others. We're social

32:52

creatures, we're social animals,

32:54

we're, you

32:57

know, we're well, you know,

33:02

being selfish has

33:04

been identified as a

33:06

trait that moves

33:08

you up the, you know, that

33:11

preserves your gene pool, so to

33:13

speak. You

33:15

know, humans

33:18

are wired to cooperate in

33:20

large numbers. And

33:22

there's, you know,

33:24

something built into all of

33:26

us to want that kind

33:29

of recognition and, you know,

33:32

common fellow feeling from, you know,

33:34

the others that we spend time

33:36

with. So you mentioned

33:39

that, you know, Ed Muir has made

33:41

this decision to really

33:43

take every able-bodied warrior

33:47

out to defend the river, leaving

33:49

the castle, I wouldn't

33:51

say undefended, but

33:53

because there are now a number of

33:55

troops, at least within close range, that

33:58

if there was a retreat, That would be

34:00

needed. But what I was thinking when that happened was,

34:03

Oh, this is, this is

34:06

foreshadowing. What's going to happen

34:09

next chapter. And that is

34:11

Winterfell is totally undefended. Yes.

34:14

And so here we have cat kind of thinking,

34:16

you know, even though, even

34:18

a wall as strong as riverrun

34:21

or even a Fort as, as

34:23

strong as riverrun, you need

34:25

someone to defend it. Yes. And

34:27

it, um, this is

34:29

where I get down to sort of the,

34:32

uh, imagine for a moment that I'm like

34:34

a pro football NFL analyst that's breaking down

34:36

game film. Um, so Karl

34:38

von Clausewitz, uh, wrote about

34:40

the concept of unlimited warfare, which

34:43

is to say, it's, it's

34:45

almost like idealized, not

34:47

ideal, but idealized warfare, which is

34:49

to say, absolute. Uh,

34:53

one immense knockout

34:55

blow with all the power

34:57

that you have. Um,

35:00

like a haymaker. It, uh,

35:02

yes, it's the, it's the, it's the haymaker

35:05

view of, of warfare. However,

35:09

we recognize that in the real

35:11

world, that's almost never possible. Uh,

35:14

so what we're looking at the

35:16

chapter is zooming in on fighting

35:18

between Lannister forces and Northern forces.

35:21

So we're going to stick to that for a moment.

35:23

We're not going to look or think about the wider,

35:25

wider conflict. Both of them are

35:27

fighting for limited ends. You

35:30

know, we're not at that single haymaker theory. So

35:32

they're, they're fighting to preserve their, their

35:35

own kingdom as they defined it, they're

35:38

fighting to retrieve the hostages that they want

35:40

back. And they're both fighting

35:42

with limited means.

35:44

Now, Rob's army

35:48

is closer to

35:51

maximal means than the

35:53

Lannister armies, as far as we can tell,

35:55

uh, because, you know,

35:57

they're, they're, they're really running. They

36:00

have no spares, no reserves, so to speak.

36:04

Both sides strategic objective is to

36:06

inflict enough pain and damage on

36:08

the adversary to force them to

36:11

sue for peace. Or this is

36:14

say uncle warfare, you know,

36:16

we are slicing the salami

36:18

bit by bit until the

36:20

other side says uncle. And,

36:22

you know, it's

36:25

a choice of objectives.

36:28

In the television show, season

36:30

three, episode three, it's called walk

36:32

of punishment is the episode. It's

36:36

a little bit differently characterized. But

36:39

Ed Meir takes a mill.

36:41

Yeah, and the mountain escapes.

36:44

And the thing that's worth I think raising

36:46

here because we're talking about the book, but

36:48

I think sometimes the show can shed

36:50

light. You know, Rob indicates

36:54

that he wanted to take the mountain

36:57

and has a great concern for

36:59

the troops that were lost in

37:01

taking that mill. But what the

37:03

show is highlighting here is what

37:05

is the more valuable target? And

37:09

so, in certain

37:11

circumstances, it might be the mountain. In

37:14

certain circumstances, it might be Winterfell,

37:17

it might be River Run. You

37:20

know, it's hard to say.

37:24

And the thing that's toughest about

37:26

it is you never know what

37:28

straw will break the

37:31

donkey's back. You never know what straw is going

37:33

to be the last straw for the episode.

37:35

Yeah, in the show, I think it was

37:37

something like along the lines of it

37:40

almost showed Rob is a more strategic.

37:43

Well, you can see Rob's in

37:45

sort of strategic interior. He's sort

37:47

of look, the mill

37:50

wasn't important to me. I wanted to

37:52

drive Tywin in a particular direction. Correct.

37:54

Yeah. And you were so

37:57

fixated on this little, you know,

38:00

know, piece of the, the chess board, this one

38:02

little square that you didn't

38:04

have the larger war

38:07

in mind. And

38:09

so the show really kind of gives

38:11

you something of an insight into

38:13

Rob's strategy.

38:16

The books don't really do this,

38:19

but in this

38:21

chapter, it seems like

38:24

Taiwan is doing one

38:26

of two things. And maybe I'm not seeing that

38:28

the whole picture here either, but either

38:31

he's doing what Brienne thinks. And that is

38:34

I'm going to test different parts

38:36

of the river to see where I can truck,

38:38

where I can push my host

38:40

over the river. And

38:42

I'm going to, I might have to lose

38:44

a dozen men here or there to find

38:46

the weak spot, but it's worth it if

38:48

I can find out that information. Or

38:51

another possibility is he

38:54

doesn't care at all about Riverrun

38:56

and he's trying to play some

38:58

kind of psychological game with Rob.

39:01

Like I can get close to your mother, something,

39:03

something along those lines. And I'm not

39:05

sure what Taiwan's ultimate

39:08

strategy here is because we don't

39:10

really have Taiwan POVs either. Um,

39:13

but at the end of the day,

39:15

in this chapter, Edmure is not a fool like

39:17

the show, uh,

39:19

portrays, he defended, he,

39:23

it was his job to defend this

39:25

particular castle and he did it. All

39:27

this relates back to sort

39:30

of the central theme that's emerging from our

39:32

conversation, which is, uh, war

39:36

has no price list. You,

39:40

you determine what is

39:42

the objective worth to you? What

39:46

is worth spending human lives to

39:48

achieve? And sometimes

39:51

that is a psychological

39:53

victory. Sometimes

39:56

that is, um, frightening. your

40:00

adversaries, sometimes it's taking

40:03

a key location

40:05

or place like Winterfell.

40:09

And sometimes it's something else

40:11

entirely. Yeah. You know,

40:14

and I would say, you know,

40:17

Ed Meer does, of course, come across

40:19

as more, you know,

40:24

he's not comedic relief in the book,

40:26

whereas he almost did. Oh, yeah. He's

40:28

totally comic relief. My lords and ladies,

40:34

I suppose this is the most important moment

40:37

of our lives. What

40:39

we decide today reverberates with the annals

40:41

of history. I

40:44

stand before you as one

40:46

of the senior lords in the country, a

40:49

veteran of two wars. And

40:52

I like to think my experience has led

40:54

to some small skill in

40:56

statecraft and underst... Is

41:01

it? In one of his messages

41:04

to Catelyn in the chapter, he

41:08

writes, they

41:11

shall not cross with

41:13

respect to permitting the Lannister forces

41:16

to cross the river. You

41:19

know, there's a message,

41:22

a transmission that comes through that Tywin

41:25

tries to force a crossing at a

41:27

dozen different Fords, but

41:29

every thrust had been thrown back at

41:31

grievous cost to our foes. You

41:35

know, that highlights the

41:37

importance of geography. Almost,

41:40

you know, if we start with the

41:44

proposition that the Earth's surface

41:47

is necessarily complex, then

41:50

we can use it in uncountable

41:52

ways for protection and cover

41:54

and concealment. You

41:57

know, tunnels are a great example. is

42:00

paying witness to in Gaza

42:02

right now. Successful

42:05

modern warfare is built on that principle

42:08

that you have small units in

42:10

tight coordination and cooperation moving

42:12

independently and interdependently to

42:14

take advantage. The

42:17

problem is that rivers remove all

42:19

cover and concealment. So

42:22

you are, you know,

42:24

you are a

42:26

target every moment that you're

42:28

crossing. Even if you hold

42:31

your breath really really well and

42:33

you go, you know, you dive into

42:35

the water and you swim underneath the

42:37

water, you still have to surface to

42:40

crawl out of the water and you are still

42:42

at target because there are not, there

42:45

is not a huge amount of tree cover at

42:48

a riverbank. And so the,

42:52

you know, Ed Meer and his

42:54

teams, his platoons,

42:57

his fighting men are

43:00

in a really wonderful position because

43:03

they are using cover and concealment

43:06

and they are engaging targets that

43:08

are not covered and not concealed.

43:11

They also have the high ground in a sense

43:13

that the banks are uneven.

43:15

That's right. And they've

43:17

got some good, you know, good tree

43:20

coverage. They can, they can shoot their

43:22

arrows farther. They've got, they've got a

43:24

better line of sight. You

43:26

know, Taiwan's trying to send people a day

43:29

and night and different, different spots along

43:31

the river. And, and

43:35

Kat gets to see some of this and

43:37

which is kind of an interesting moment

43:39

in the book because Martin does

43:42

not tend to write battle scenes

43:44

very often. Yeah. Like even

43:46

when Tyrion's in battle, he kind of gets conked

43:48

out and wakes up later and finds out what's

43:50

going on. But

43:54

it is from Kat's view and she is in

43:56

a watchtower, but she does get to see a

43:58

little bit of the battle unfold. And I was

44:00

wondering if there was anything about this battle that struck

44:03

you as interesting or remarkable I

44:06

mean a couple things first you've mentioned

44:08

this a couple of times Uh

44:10

martin doesn't write that many battle

44:12

scenes. Um, you know if You're

44:15

you may be familiar or maybe not. Um,

44:18

you know in interviews he said he's

44:20

always been fascinated by war um,

44:23

but what's really interesting to me is that

44:25

uh, He he

44:27

while he was not and never was

44:30

a pacifist As he's

44:32

put it sometimes war is necessary He

44:34

asked for and was awarded conscientious

44:36

objective status during the vietnam

44:39

war and chose alternate public

44:42

service in chicago uh

44:44

during vietnam and so

44:47

to me that actually rings true in that

44:49

you could imagine that if if he had

44:52

Uh served overseas in vietnam

44:54

Uh, he might be inclined to write more

44:57

battle scenes as a result of his um

45:01

experiences but you

45:03

know the defining war of his generation

45:05

he Sort

45:07

of uh viewed from afar And

45:10

uh, so there's a little bit of

45:12

a distance when you see him writing about um,

45:14

these scenes and and by the way I

45:17

don't take that at all as a strike. In

45:19

fact, actually in the book that we talked about

45:21

the winning westeros book um, I

45:24

Concluded the book, uh by thanking

45:27

Martin for the gift that

45:30

he's given by bringing major

45:32

concepts in in war Uh

45:35

to a far larger audience um

45:39

the The thing

45:41

that stood out for me about

45:45

the riverine fighting Is

45:48

that? if

45:50

we rewind To

45:52

the beginning of our discussion. I

45:55

mentioned that war of the knife versus the war of

45:57

the map and it

45:59

may have come off that I was denigrating

46:02

Ed Meer and sort

46:04

of praising Katlyn in that

46:06

one was sort of identified with one side of

46:09

the coin and the other the other. If

46:13

you are to engage in intimate

46:16

combat in such

46:18

a, you know, like I

46:20

mentioned, this is within, you know, this

46:27

is, there's no cover, there's

46:29

no concealment on the river, and they

46:31

are within miles

46:33

or kilometers of

46:35

their home. We

46:38

get Ed Meer saying

46:42

defiantly, they shall not

46:44

cross. You

46:47

have to have the stomach in

46:50

order to stand and

46:52

continue to fight no

46:54

matter what. Because at

46:57

least the way that this

46:59

chapter has revealed itself or unfolded, Ed

47:02

Meer has made that commitment that

47:05

he's either going to

47:07

defend successfully defend his

47:10

home, or he's not going to live

47:12

to tell about it. And

47:15

that's, you

47:18

know, like, you know, at least to him, clearly,

47:26

that's a good death. You

47:28

know, that's worth dying for. And

47:30

I think

47:33

that's part of why so

47:36

many people find

47:39

it interesting

47:41

to get involved and in the

47:43

headspace of a story like Clash

47:47

of Kings. Because there

47:49

are so many characters

47:53

that are literally gambling with the highest

47:55

stakes. Right.

47:58

Now I study ancient

48:01

Near Eastern history and texts,

48:05

and the ancients have a much

48:07

different view of what would

48:09

make a war just. I

48:12

think for us, something

48:14

along the lines of a holy war or

48:16

God told me to go fight, or my

48:19

God's bigger than your God, I think

48:22

it's repugnant to most people. And I

48:25

would tend to agree with that assessment.

48:28

But in the ancient world, it

48:31

was the only reason to fight. You've

48:33

got to prove this. Is

48:35

this something that God wills? And

48:38

I thought it was interesting that Cat goes

48:40

into the Sept, prays

48:43

for victory for her son

48:46

and her brother, so she

48:48

lights a candle for Edmure and Robb.

48:52

But in the previous chapter, it's a chapter

48:54

that's really close to this anyway, Tyrion

48:57

is lighting a candle to the warrior

48:59

for his brother. So it's almost like

49:01

they're praying to the same God for

49:04

victory. And

49:06

I think, I mean, there's no doubt that

49:08

that is an intentional commentary

49:10

from Martin who's... I'm

49:13

pretty sure he's making some kind

49:15

of commentary on holy war. But

49:19

I just noted that because in

49:22

the ancient world, yeah, absolutely. That

49:24

was the only kind of war that was legitimate.

49:28

I mean, not just ancient. You get the same

49:31

comments out of Abraham Lincoln about the

49:33

American Civil War. Oh, interesting. Oh,

49:35

absolutely. We're all appealing to God. We

49:38

all think that we're fighting in God's name, and

49:41

none of us know for certain. Because

49:44

if we did know for certain, then it could

49:46

be proven conclusively, then we wouldn't have

49:50

to even assemble on the battlefield. Like,

49:56

I understand why it is... because

50:00

the stakes are as high as they are, it

50:03

naturally lends people to start thinking of

50:06

higher powers. There's

50:09

a very concluding sentiment to the chapter,

50:11

is Catlin appealing

50:15

to the gods or thinking about the

50:17

gods as the chapter ends,

50:19

the gods had granted them victory after

50:22

victory at Stone Mill, Ox

50:24

Cross, in the Battle of the Camps,

50:26

at the Whispering Wood. But

50:28

if we're winning, why am I

50:30

so afraid? And it's

50:34

because war

50:37

is where one plus one equals

50:39

apple. It

50:43

is as difficult

50:45

to tease out cause and

50:47

effect as

50:49

anything. For

50:52

example, General George Washington is

50:54

America's, probably, and

50:57

I'm fairly certain that this is true, America's

51:00

losingest battlefield commander.

51:04

But he won the war that mattered the most,

51:06

without which there would be no United States of

51:08

America. General Ulysses

51:11

Grant lost more men, and

51:13

it was men then, in the Overland Virginia

51:16

campaign in 1864, than any other campaign

51:18

to date. In fact, Arlington

51:25

National Cemetery is filled.

51:27

It was that

51:30

campaign alone that got Arlington

51:33

National Cemetery its first plots

51:37

of dirt, first bodies into the

51:39

ground. But,

51:41

of course, General Grant ground

51:45

Robert E. Lee down until

51:47

his Confederate forces, his Army of

51:49

Virginia, was too weak to continue.

51:52

You know, again, it's

51:54

that same idea. It's incredibly difficult, darn

51:57

right impossible, to know which straw will

51:59

break the the donkey's

52:02

back or whether

52:05

the actions you are undertaking

52:08

now will

52:10

in fact lead to the

52:12

objective you seek to achieve.

52:17

That's a tough thing for us to

52:19

take. We're

52:21

used to baking

52:26

bread with a

52:28

step-by-step, paint-by-numbers approach where

52:31

if you do A, B, and C, then you get

52:33

D for sure. That's

52:36

not how it works on the battlefield. That's

52:39

what Katlyn is appealing

52:42

to here. She's

52:44

got this sense that little

52:48

victory, little victory, little victory, little

52:50

victory isn't really going to

52:52

lead to what they

52:54

want. Of course, she

52:56

doesn't know it yet, but she's right. Well,

52:59

and she's an interesting character in this

53:01

book because she's been all over the

53:03

place. Ed

53:06

Meares' whole world is Riverrun.

53:10

He's got news. He's

53:12

got ravens coming to and fro. He understands

53:15

the larger politics of the realm I

53:17

would imagine. His

53:20

whole success and failure, in fact, I would

53:22

almost say his whole life hinges on this

53:25

one battle. Whereas Kat doesn't

53:28

really have the luxury to just think in

53:30

terms of small battles. Her

53:33

sons are up north and cast to the wind.

53:38

Her daughters are hostages, or so she thinks.

53:41

Her whole life and her whole heart

53:43

is spread all over this kingdom. She

53:47

does not have the luxury to really

53:50

celebrate any one battle. No,

53:52

that's right. You raise the hostages

53:54

issue. As

53:57

distant and cold and rational as she is.

56:00

Similarly, the taking

56:03

of hostages that's almost,

56:05

I would say, a theme in Martin's

56:07

book. Oh

56:11

yeah, absolutely. It's as

56:13

old as it gets in warfare

56:15

and it's

56:17

still happening because it still works. It's

56:21

not like I say that with a – I'm not

56:23

smiling while I'm saying that. I

56:25

hate thinking that way, but that's part of

56:27

this competition. Yeah,

56:32

it's amazing how ancient

56:34

a practice that is and that it

56:37

is still used in modern warfare. Oh,

56:40

it's as old as tunnels.

56:44

Yeah. And we

56:46

have all these modern

56:48

gizmos and widgets and we think AI

56:50

is about to change the world. But

56:54

both in Gaza and in North Korea,

56:57

those people are Olympic gold

56:59

medalists in digging holes in

57:01

the ground. And those holes

57:03

that they dig in the ground are

57:06

very protective. They are the ultimate

57:08

in cover and concealment, and

57:11

they do protect them against all these

57:13

modern bells and whistles that we think

57:15

are so important. Was there anything

57:18

else that struck you about this chapter that

57:20

you thought was interesting because

57:22

it connects to a larger theme of

57:24

a book or runs throughout the

57:27

larger story that Martin's put together? So

57:31

there's a – at

57:34

a moment, Katlyn

57:37

mentioned the Lannisters are liars,

57:40

everyone. And I do

57:42

want to highlight that as a theme, and

57:44

something that I picked up on. The Lannisters

57:46

do – they are

57:48

successful, but they seek cheap victories, and

57:50

the Red Wedding that's coming is a

57:53

classic example. Short-term

57:55

gains with long-term consequences, and

57:57

the problem with those long-term

57:59

consequences. But

1:00:00

she's right in

1:00:03

the sense that Tyrion's peace terms

1:00:06

cannot be trusted. They

1:00:09

are lying in the sense that they don't

1:00:11

have Arya, or they are lying

1:00:13

in sort of presenting

1:00:15

these peace terms as if this is something that

1:00:17

we could all agree on. Tyrion

1:00:19

knows that that's not the case. So

1:00:22

she comes to the right conclusion based

1:00:24

on the wrong evidence, I suppose. Yeah,

1:00:27

absolutely. I

1:00:31

think that as

1:00:35

naive as it comes off, Ned

1:00:38

Stark's actions and

1:00:41

later Jon Snow's actions

1:00:45

really reverberate well

1:00:48

beyond themselves. You

1:00:50

find that more and more

1:00:52

people are attracted to their cause

1:00:54

and are desiring to ally with them

1:01:03

whereas the Lannisters, their

1:01:05

list of allies is only

1:01:08

as long as their

1:01:10

pocket is large enough to pay them.

1:01:14

Notable introductions in the chapter. We

1:01:16

hear about Septon

1:01:18

Osman from Kat's

1:01:20

childhood. We do not

1:01:22

meet him, but she remembers him. Also Maester Kim.

1:01:27

Lord Deremond is mentioned and I met

1:01:29

for the very first time the word

1:01:31

Ryl, R-I-L-L. Are

1:01:35

you familiar with that word? I am not.

1:01:37

Okay. This

1:01:39

was in the little song that Ryman the

1:01:41

Rimer was singing. A Ryl

1:01:43

is a small stream or a groove

1:01:46

created by a small stream and

1:01:48

I always love it when Martin

1:01:51

brings in that kind of archaic

1:01:54

vocabulary. So Ryl

1:01:56

was a new word for me. Notable

1:02:00

departures Lord leopard

1:02:03

banner man of Tywin We

1:02:06

hear tell of his death And

1:02:08

then I was gonna say in terms of

1:02:11

the differences between the show and the book

1:02:14

Well kind of none of this is in

1:02:16

the show except we

1:02:20

see the Strategy of

1:02:22

the the stone mill kind

1:02:24

of repurposed. Uh-huh for the

1:02:26

show which we talked about a bit Situation

1:02:28

with one of my lieutenants at the stone

1:02:31

mill which may have some bearing Don't

1:02:36

call him nephew he's your king Rob

1:02:38

knows I meant him no do you're

1:02:40

lucky. I'm not your kid. I

1:02:44

Wouldn't let you wave your blunders around like a

1:02:46

big tree for a high blunder Tywin's

1:02:49

mad dog scurrying back to cast me rock with

1:02:51

his tail between his legs I think King Rob

1:02:53

understands we're not gonna win this war if he's

1:02:55

the only one winning any battles There's

1:02:57

glory enough to go around it's not about glory

1:03:02

Your instructions were to wait for him to come to you Seized

1:03:05

an opportunity what value was the mill? The

1:03:09

mountain was garrisoned across the river for me. Is he there

1:03:11

now? Of course not we

1:03:13

took the fight to him. He could not withstand us. I

1:03:16

wanted to draw the mountain into the West Into

1:03:19

our country where we could surround him and kill him.

1:03:21

I Wanted

1:03:23

him to chase us She

1:03:25

would have done because he is a mad

1:03:28

dog without a strategic thought in his head

1:03:30

I could have that head of a spike

1:03:32

by now Instead

1:03:36

I have a middle. Thank you Matt No,

1:03:39

it's super. I usually talk with professional medievalists

1:03:42

But this is the kind of conversation that

1:03:44

I just haven't had on this

1:03:46

podcast yet. So I super Yeah,

1:03:50

I love knocking around the subject I mean

1:03:52

honestly like I do I mean I recognize

1:03:54

that a lot of the stuff

1:03:56

that Martin raises You

1:03:59

know not Not everybody wants to go down

1:04:01

those rabbit holes, but to the extent

1:04:03

that they're interested, I can, you know,

1:04:05

I really appreciate the opportunity to do

1:04:07

it. Well, fantastic. And maybe I'll knock

1:04:09

on your door again sometime. Thank

1:04:12

you so much. And thank you. Have a

1:04:14

great day.