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1:07

Radio Westeros, How to the

1:09

dragon season one episode six,

1:11

the princess and the queen.

1:30

Hello, and welcome to radio Westeros. I'm

1:32

Yig Boy, and it's great to be here to talk about

1:34

the sixth episode of House of the

1:36

Dragon called the Princess and

1:38

the Queen. Today, we'll be reacting

1:41

to and evaluating this episode as

1:43

well as making plenty of book comparisons

1:45

because we are fans of the books. But we'll

1:48

avoid spoiling the

1:50

future plot of House of the Dragon,

1:52

although we're gonna have a spoiler section

1:54

at the end and we'll give you a giant heads up

1:56

for that. So whatever you're a song

1:58

of ice and fire Game of Thrones background,

2:00

I think we have a lot to offer. This

2:02

episode had huge time

2:05

jump. From the last episode,

2:07

we went forward around ten years.

2:09

While some characters were aged up,

2:12

Several were recast. We said goodbye

2:14

to cast members, Millie O'Cochen, Emily

2:16

Carey, and who who were

2:18

replaced by Emidazi and

2:21

Olivia Cook, as well

2:23

as the O'Nate and Savannah Stein

2:25

as Leonor and Lana Vollarian who

2:27

were replaced by John McMillan and

2:29

Nana Blondell. Last week,

2:31

we were concerned with how smooth

2:34

the jump would be and how viewers

2:36

would react to the re

2:38

casting. The writers were

2:40

faced with a difficult task But

2:42

personally, I think that they nailed

2:44

it. So much story had

2:46

happened in the in between yet somehow

2:49

everything came out quite balanced

2:51

New characters were introduced efficiently and

2:53

the prior themes were maintained

2:56

and built upon, so we didn't

2:58

feel the story was a complete

3:00

reset. that writers of

3:02

House of the Dragon have earned a lot of trust,

3:04

and I think they're making this difficult

3:06

to adapt generational story work

3:09

for the screen in style. This

3:12

episode gave us a close look

3:14

at a new generation of characters, and

3:16

of course, these are the ones who will grow up to exist

3:18

within the bitter environment fermented

3:21

by the adults in the story. The

3:23

action is now moving very quickly

3:25

along. Relationships are forming and

3:27

dissolving before you know it. People are

3:29

dying just as you get to know them, but

3:31

I still didn't get the sensation

3:34

that things are being too rushed even

3:36

with these huge skips and

3:38

the change in focus. With

3:40

the shocks and tragedies of this episode,

3:43

the two surprising deaths by fire

3:45

working in parallel here House of

3:47

the dragon is getting wilder every

3:49

week, and we can sense in the pit

3:51

of our stomachs that this chaos

3:53

is only just beginning. We

3:55

have so much to say about this episode and

3:57

we can't wait to go into more depth.

3:59

So without further ado, let's say hello to

4:01

my radio westeros Lady Quinn.

4:04

Hello. Hi. And welcome,

4:06

everyone. And I realized

4:08

last week that I've been neglecting to say hello

4:11

to the future. So, hi,

4:13

everyone. In the future, who's watching

4:15

us prerecorded, thank

4:17

you all for being here. This

4:19

is the longest episode of the

4:21

season so far, sixty seven minutes

4:23

that is actually tied with the upcoming

4:26

episode eight. It's the two longest

4:28

episodes of the season, so we have lots

4:30

to say today, including

4:32

welcome back, Emily. Thank

4:34

you. Glad to be back. Before

4:36

we begin, we do want to mention

4:38

that radioistosis is supported by patrons.

4:41

And patrons get lots

4:43

of fun perks like

4:46

early release and exclusive

4:48

content and membership in

4:50

our patron Discord. So

4:52

if you want to be a patron of the show,

4:55

you can find the details on patreon

4:57

at patreon

4:57

dot com slash radio Westeros

4:59

And we're gonna start with a

5:01

quick shout out to

5:04

our flaming light bringer page, Rantige

5:06

Harrington, our Dragon sail patron.

5:08

Peter. And our Payless Milk Class patrons,

5:11

Alex Daniel Crispy, the song of

5:13

Ice, Seth, Kelly, Laura,

5:15

Sister Winter in the chat. Hello. Maltu,

5:18

John Hargarian, and MT Wall's

5:20

first of his name as well as B

5:22

WORD and Mr. j, the Baird, the Maiden

5:24

Fair, Ands or Tim of House,

5:25

Jib Jag, Hot Dog Shop, House Motto,

5:28

we forge the chains

5:28

we wear in life, also in the chat.

5:31

Hello, and welcome to

5:33

all of you. And thank you. So

5:36

as I

5:36

said, without further ado, we'll

5:38

dive right into this episode. It begins

5:40

with Rainier out of giving birth. This is

5:42

her third

5:43

child. since her marriage

5:45

to Lane or Valerian ten years ago.

5:47

We do have a strong

5:50

contrast here

5:50

with her mother, Emma's birth scene

5:53

from episode

5:53

one. Renewera

5:55

seems to be going very smoothly. She's

5:57

surrounded by women. There's

5:59

not a

5:59

maester in sight. Nor is she

6:01

positioned on her back as her

6:03

mother was, but in a much more sensible,

6:06

upright position, which

6:08

leads to this joyous moment

6:09

of the baby being

6:12

placed in her arms just

6:14

moments into the scene. This

6:17

actually is particularly noteworthy

6:19

seeing this baby on screen.

6:23

Since even though Alison,

6:24

the queen has had three children of

6:27

her own and this is actually Reneira's

6:29

third child, All those

6:31

births have taken place off screen.

6:33

And this is the first

6:35

birth scene.

6:37

since that dramatic one in the

6:39

first episode. We

6:41

did have in episode two an awkward moment

6:43

where Alison mentioned how easy her own

6:46

delivery of Aegon was. But

6:49

I also in

6:51

in terms of making drawing

6:53

contrast, I wanna make note of this passage

6:55

from fire and blood, which makes

6:57

a distinction between the princess and the queen

6:59

with

7:01

regard to their childbirths.

7:02

child birth exacted a toll

7:04

on the princess, the weight that Reneer had

7:06

gained during her pregnancies, never entirely

7:09

left her. And by the time her youngest

7:11

boy was born, she had grown stout

7:13

and thick of waste, the beauty of her girlhood

7:15

of fading memory, though she was but

7:17

twenty years of age. According

7:19

to mushroom, this only served to deepen

7:21

her resentment over stepmother queen Alison,

7:23

who remained slender and graceful at

7:25

half again her age. So

7:28

a few differences. They're obviously not

7:30

leaning into the physical description there

7:32

and both Reneera

7:35

and Alison are, I think,

7:37

around twenty eight in this

7:38

episode here. So slight

7:41

change from the source materials there,

7:44

but definitely a contrast

7:45

between the Princess of the Queen and

7:47

the way these things are presented.

7:49

And

7:51

in spite of things going smoothly for Reneera,

7:54

it has comes very clear

7:55

that there is this contrast

7:57

with Allison because no matter

7:59

how easy Alison's births were, the

8:02

queen surely has to know what

8:04

it means to send word that

8:06

she wishes to see the newborn

8:08

baby, the minute it

8:10

is born.

8:12

Reneera

8:13

is disheveled and one looking exactly

8:15

like you might expect. and she's still

8:17

being attended by her midwives. She hasn't

8:19

even delivered the afterbirth yet. The baby's

8:21

literally still attached to her and

8:23

the queen is calling for it. when

8:26

word arrives, Reneera immediately makes

8:28

ready to bring the child to her stepmother.

8:31

And that

8:33

walk from her own chambers

8:35

to the king and queens is

8:37

arduous. It involves

8:39

passing many courtiers and

8:41

climbing in immense flight of stairs,

8:43

things that I would never even have

8:45

contemplated doing moments

8:47

after given birth to my

8:49

children. In spite of

8:51

Alison's protests that Renee

8:53

really should rest it, she shouldn't

8:55

have made this trip herself we

8:57

know that the

8:57

alternative was for Reneera to allow the

8:59

baby to get be taken from her.

9:02

And she

9:03

clearly wasn't about to

9:04

allow that. This is a power

9:07

play pure and simple. And

9:09

in the first several

9:10

minutes of the episode, we see how the

9:13

dynamic between this these two

9:15

women

9:15

has changed dramatically, leaning

9:17

into the theme suggested by the title of

9:19

the episode. And before

9:22

we leave this scene, I wanna shout out the obvious care

9:24

that the production team is taking with

9:26

this subject matter, which

9:28

we will revisit once again in

9:30

this episode. once again, the presence of female

9:32

writers with Sarah Hess taking the

9:34

lead on this one, and

9:36

their team of midwifery consultants is

9:38

obvious. I personally don't think I've ever

9:40

seen afterbirth mentioned in a

9:42

TV show or movie, let

9:44

alone the discomfort of suppressing

9:47

lactation or the embarrassment of

9:49

breast milk

9:52

leaking in public,

9:54

which is

9:55

thing which are things that are shown in succeeding

9:57

scenes. So

9:58

These things might go over a lot of

9:59

people's heads, but they're not lost on

10:02

many of us,

10:02

and I think it's a real testament to

10:04

thoughtfulness that's going into the

10:06

show. the real

10:07

they really want to show reality,

10:08

and that's a great thing. But Rainier was

10:11

not alone when she made that trek to up to

10:13

the royal apartment. So let's

10:15

talk about her husband, Leonor Valerian. Yeah.

10:18

You know, I love talking about Valerian.

10:21

So Leonor, you know, comes in to

10:23

congratulate Renira. He's in a

10:25

good mood on the delivery of

10:27

their third son and is instantly

10:29

kind of brought down and horrified to

10:31

find her that she's about to drag her self

10:34

and the babe up to see the queen, so he

10:36

affixes himself, you know, right to her

10:38

side. I think this is a nice kind of nod

10:40

to something that they do in the books, which is to note that

10:42

Leonor was on hand nearby for the birth

10:44

of his sons despite possibly

10:46

not biologically being their

10:48

father. I for one was relieved to see him

10:50

there, can considering how easily

10:52

he could have formed resentment towards

10:54

Reneera following the death of Joffrey

10:56

Lonmouth at the wedding feast last

10:58

episode. ten years ago, but

11:00

I mean, that seed could have spreaded

11:02

quite a bit of distance or discontent

11:04

between them. You know, certainly,

11:06

Lanier didn't condone Chris and Cole's

11:08

actions, but the optics weren't really great

11:10

for her either. You know, her once lover

11:12

killing Leonor's sworn sword

11:14

at their wedding welcome

11:16

feast. you know, like I said, ten years on

11:18

the surface, they seem to have made their

11:20

marriage of duty and responsibility work

11:22

the best they can for for them and

11:24

for their son's sake as well. Speaking of

11:26

sons, speaking of joffrey, this is the name

11:28

that Leonor chooses for the new

11:30

baby, immediately reminding the

11:32

viewers of the sacrifice that Lignora is

11:34

making in this arrangement, in this

11:36

marriage. Reneira isn't really thrilled by

11:38

him blirting out this name without a discussion, but

11:40

she waits until they're in private again

11:42

to say so, you know, continue to present

11:44

that United front when the queen and her father

11:46

are around. Leonor is

11:48

not the perfect spouse, obviously, you

11:51

know, cluelessly likening child

11:53

birth taking a glance through the shoulder. He

11:55

cannot relate to her at all, but he's

11:57

trying. And I think that, you

11:59

know, the continued theme in a song of ice and

12:01

fire of a woman's battle being a

12:03

birthing bed. It seems like all

12:05

Westerosi men have been kind of given the

12:07

same sex ed talk at some

12:09

point. I don't know. Yeah. It's

12:12

true. So you get

12:14

right at the end of this interview

12:16

with the king and queen, Alison,

12:18

makes a snide remark to Lane or

12:21

that

12:21

only he hears, she says, do keep

12:23

trying. Someday you may get one that looks

12:25

like you, which is taken right

12:27

from the Texas Fire and Blood. And,

12:29

you know, following her obvious

12:31

inspection of the child's hair,

12:34

this is the first tint, if you haven't read

12:36

fire and blood, that there's anything

12:39

unusual

12:39

about

12:39

Rainier's family. And prior to the

12:42

time jump, between these two

12:44

last two episodes.

12:44

the Any

12:46

relationship with Harwin Strong was

12:48

only sort

12:49

of hinted

12:50

at being

12:52

something that might happen. It hadn't yet

12:54

to occur and has since

12:56

clearly taken place entirely off

12:58

screen. Even in

13:00

this episode, we're limited really to

13:02

two on screen interactions

13:03

between Harlan and Minerva, including

13:07

this next scene where

13:09

they come back to her chambers and

13:11

there's Harlan playing with the two older

13:13

boys. He's escorted them back to the

13:15

apartments after they selected

13:17

a new an

13:17

egg for their new baby brother, which is

13:19

very sweet. And Harwin

13:22

gets to meet the new baby. It's really

13:24

touching moments. full of significant glances

13:26

and tenderness. Nothing's

13:28

really said, but all

13:30

those glances say a lot.

13:32

The second scene with Reneera and Harwin

13:34

is a much

13:35

another emotionally charged

13:37

one that we're gonna be discussing later.

13:40

the

13:40

knowledge, I think, that sir Harwin,

13:42

son of the hand, and new lord

13:44

commander of the city watch, is

13:46

Probably

13:46

the father of Reneer's children is

13:49

teased out gradually via these sort

13:51

of hints, rumors, innuendo,

13:53

much the way it might have been, you know, in real

13:55

time or as as it was playing

13:57

out here in their lives,

14:00

showing that you know,

14:02

he basically accepts his situation

14:04

for what it is. Leonor takes

14:06

the the two older kids and

14:08

leaves his wife in Harlan

14:09

alone with the new baby. get to

14:11

know each other, I guess. The two

14:14

older boys are

14:16

brought

14:16

back to visit their dragons in

14:18

the dragon yep,

14:19

boy. Yeah.

14:21

So here we got our first look

14:24

inside the dragon pit. It's a

14:26

huge oval building with high stone

14:28

walls and a domed roof. enough

14:30

room for dragons to live and

14:32

perhaps fly around together in the

14:34

darkness intended to

14:36

buy The dragon keepers, I did just

14:38

see a question come in from

14:40

Monckizmo about the intelligence

14:42

of dragons, and George has

14:44

said they're in the ballpark of

14:46

dogs. So I like to think of them as

14:48

giant dogs, which makes

14:50

me love them even more flying

14:52

dogs there. And the the

14:54

Dragon pit is a very important building

14:57

because so much Targaryen power

14:59

comes from these dragons, and they're also in a

15:01

city. So it would be real carnage

15:03

if they were kept outside.

15:06

This scene is also the first time we

15:08

get to see Rainier and Alison's

15:10

kids. although they will be pitted

15:12

against each other later on, which is

15:14

obviously where the greatest story is

15:16

going. Here we see Aegon sort of

15:18

teaming up with to Seres and

15:20

Luceres to play a prank on

15:22

Eimand. The former three all have

15:24

dragons now, Aegon with sun fire,

15:26

Jayce with Varmax and Luke with

15:28

Arax. So Aymond is the only

15:30

one without a dragon there, which

15:32

leads to him being the butt of

15:34

their jokes. Aegon is

15:36

immediately character characterizes

15:39

nonchalant. He's the oldest and

15:41

has already had experience with

15:43

sunfire, I think that's obvious. He's

15:45

practically yawning when Chase

15:47

is excitedly about to

15:49

feed Varmax a goat. Seeing

15:51

a dragon keeper teaching the kids about

15:53

a young dragon, I thought was very

15:56

interesting since in the main

15:58

series, we see Daenerys and

16:00

her dragons, but she

16:02

teaches them more instinctively. She

16:04

doesn't really have the

16:06

key information that that

16:08

that was lost a time there.

16:10

So it's great to get

16:12

some background exposition when

16:14

the keep was explaining about dragon

16:16

bonding and so on. The

16:18

relationship between Valyrians and Dragons

16:20

is ancient and it's evidently

16:22

very difficult to house and train

16:24

them as the burns on the keepers

16:26

face demonstrate. Jay

16:29

says, the magic word Dick Jocaris

16:31

and Vertex scorches a terrified

16:33

goat, and then the kids

16:35

play their prank. They bring

16:37

in a dragon for Eimand, but

16:39

the dragon is a pig and they

16:41

call it the pink thread, which is

16:43

a humus reference to Aegon the Conqueror's

16:45

Gigantic Dragon, which was also written

16:47

by Vocera's before its death,

16:49

Belarion the Black Dead. The

16:51

boys have a sort

16:53

of schoolboy peer

16:55

group dynamic going on and hear

16:57

the humiliation of being given a pig

17:00

instead of a dragon spurs Aymond to

17:02

venture into Sirek's lair by himself.

17:05

Although he nearly gets roasted for his

17:07

effort, the takeaway should be that

17:09

Eamon is desperate to have his

17:11

own dragon and that for a young small boy,

17:13

he does have some fearlessness

17:15

and boldness about

17:17

him. So

17:20

Yeah. There was an

17:22

introduction to Eamon there.

17:24

And why don't we continue talking

17:26

about Alison's kids? There

17:30

were

17:30

subsequent

17:31

scenes with Helena

17:33

and Aegon. So following the

17:35

Dragon pit scene, was one with

17:37

Alison and her second child, Elena, given

17:40

she was just a babe before

17:42

the time jumped, this was our first

17:44

proper look at Helena who is immediately

17:47

introduced as having an obsession

17:49

with insects. And she has a

17:51

collection of scorpions and

17:53

beetles, and knows much more about

17:55

the anatomy of a millipede.

17:58

Although it's clear she's highly intelligent, she

18:00

does seem withdrawn.

18:02

And all of this serves to put us in

18:04

mind of her father, viserys, despite

18:06

being a king who needs to continually

18:08

make crucial decisions and deal with

18:10

courts, and counts, and so on. We've seen

18:12

enough of Vocera's to know that left to

18:14

his own devices. He would be hiding in

18:16

his room with his model of valeria.

18:20

Perhaps, insects are to Elena, what

18:22

models are to vysaris. Given

18:24

that the other kids are all males vying

18:26

for each other's attention at every

18:28

moment, and they're going for

18:30

respect in the training yard. It was

18:32

nice to contrast that with a gentler

18:34

scene here even if Alison seemed at

18:36

the edge of a patient talking

18:40

insects with a daughter who visibly

18:42

flinched when she was touched. The

18:44

scene then shifts when a member of the

18:46

King's god drags Ellison's third child,

18:49

Eamon, who had seen in the dragon pit,

18:51

into the room, after his escapades,

18:53

into cyrax' lair, And

18:55

when Helena says he did it again,

18:57

we understand that the boy has

19:00

even more desire to mount a dragon

19:02

than we thought or knew about,

19:04

indeed, Allison mentions his obsession with

19:06

those beasts and then promises him

19:08

that he'll have a dragon one day.

19:11

When Helena responds that you'll have to close an

19:13

eye, we're not sure if she's talking

19:15

about Eamon or the millipede, and

19:17

we're gonna go into further detail about

19:19

this in the segment at the

19:22

end. Altogether, by

19:24

focusing on one quirky and

19:26

memorable aspect of these

19:28

children, For Eamon, his desire to

19:30

ride a dragon, for Helena, her

19:32

insect revelry, the writers managed

19:34

to make us feel that we understand

19:37

these characters. pretty well within

19:39

limited screen time one or two

19:41

scenes in this case. And I think this

19:43

is one of the tricks of the time jump

19:45

that the writers employed land

19:47

us in the current story smoothly

19:49

and effectively. Yeah.

19:51

Yeah. quirks like you say.

19:54

I think they do a nice job setting with

19:56

all the kids, eldest son, Aegon's quirk

19:58

is a little different than his

19:59

siblings. I have to say, this lad

20:02

seems to have a bit of a

20:04

penchant for sexual deviance. you know, when we

20:06

see him alone for the first time, he's standing

20:08

in a familiar looking window

20:11

in the red keep that some might recognize

20:13

King Tomin's window from Game of Thrones.

20:16

He's rubbing one out as he looks

20:18

out at king's landing. you

20:20

know, between this and his antics with his nephews and the

20:23

dragon pit, it really creates this immediate

20:25

characterization of a teenage

20:27

boy who must

20:29

feel pretty untouchable and who does not

20:31

seem to take things nearly as seriously as

20:33

he should. I mean, you know, did he

20:35

think about what would happen if he fell or what the

20:37

small folk who are just trying to go about their

20:39

business in the streets below might have

20:42

thought. Hopefully, it's kind of, you know, not

20:44

a public facing window. I don't

20:46

know. You know, The

20:47

young prince does get his comeuppance pretty quickly

20:49

when his mother walks in and he kind

20:51

of dives or I guess flops back into

20:54

his bed. Honestly,

20:56

I just laughed out loud, but that was

20:58

some good comedic physical acting

21:01

there. Both mother and son

21:03

are, you know, more than glad to just freeze right past the

21:05

awkwardness of what just happened as Alison

21:07

instead focuses on grilling him

21:09

for his treatment of Eamon. you

21:12

know, I have to say, Aegon is a bit of

21:14

a piss poor liar, but

21:16

Allison seems to care more about being able to

21:18

blame her vile grandsons than,

21:20

you know, who actually did it or how involved

21:22

Aegon was. This reminded

21:24

me of Queen

21:25

Cersei being so

21:27

unconcerned with Joffrey's part in

21:30

the incident Micah, The Butcher's Boy in Game of

21:32

Thrones. However, for

21:33

Alison's part, in private, she does at

21:36

least acknowledge and Aegon's

21:38

fault here and demands that he,

21:40

you know, keep it to within

21:42

the family, the

21:43

immediate nuclear family. you

21:46

know, and to also wake up. She tells

21:48

him that even just by existing, it

21:50

makes him a threat to Eunira and her

21:52

sons and thus puts a target

21:54

on his back. we see

21:56

Elsa has chosen the

21:58

prepare egg on for rule option

21:59

that her father gave her in the previous episode

22:02

rather than cleaving to Reneera and relying

22:04

on her mercy. But how much of that

22:06

prep that, you know, she's been

22:08

doing and, you know, prepping Aegon as

22:10

well has actually sunk in for her

22:12

son at this point. so

22:14

far, what they've chosen to show us about

22:16

him, shows that not

22:18

much. You know, he seems pretty

22:20

indifferent to the idea of kinship, currently more

22:22

interested in the typical teenage

22:24

boy activities of pranks and

22:25

winks. So good

22:27

luck to him. Well

22:30

sad.

22:30

it

22:31

So

22:33

after we see

22:35

Alison with her three children, she

22:37

goes to visit her husband.

22:40

the king. So

22:42

in keeping with the title of this episode

22:44

being a strong theme

22:45

throughout most of Alison's dialogue

22:48

with other people,

22:51

really,

22:51

in this entire episode, centers

22:53

around her obsession with

22:55

Reneers in discretions. So in

22:57

the first of several conversations she

23:00

has with the king. She begins by

23:02

complaining about the prank played on

23:05

Eamon, And Vesiras,

23:07

you know, seems pretty realistic.

23:09

It seems to realize that Aegon,

23:11

who's the eldest, was probably the

23:14

instigator, but Allison only wants to blame Reneer as

23:16

boys. And as they the

23:18

discussion turns to dragons, Allison

23:20

reveals her

23:20

true thoughts when she proclaims

23:23

it's a

23:23

wonder that Jason Luke's eggs

23:25

ever hatched, which I think is

23:27

really a curious tack to take

23:30

since, you know, even

23:31

if Lainor

23:32

isn't the boy's father,

23:35

Jason Luke kept just as

23:37

much Targaryen blood as her

23:39

own sons. So

23:40

I'm not really sure where she's going with that,

23:42

but obviously, it's something that's weighing on

23:44

her mind.

23:45

That typical,

23:47

you know, she thinks Bouygues

23:49

and we all know what Westerosies think

23:51

about Bouyguesbirds. The series tells

23:54

a strange story about a black

23:56

mayor and a silver stallion having

23:58

just not full. It's supposed to be a

23:59

metaphor for the mysteries of genetics,

24:02

but Alison doesn't

24:04

want to buy

24:05

it. She just demands to

24:07

know if he witnessed the act

24:10

himself,

24:10

which again,

24:12

you know, implying that

24:13

perhaps the silver wasn't the real father,

24:16

but this this is really a

24:18

tortured metaphor. But

24:20

again, it ends with

24:23

a nonsensical complaint from the Queen

24:26

since presumably she hasn't

24:27

personally witnessed

24:29

who Renera is sleeping with.

24:32

So

24:32

I don't know, you know, if that's the bar

24:34

you're setting, well, I guess, then you

24:36

have no proof about Reneera and we should just

24:38

move on, which is what Viceris

24:40

would like to do. Viceris, did

24:43

I mention he's the king? flat

24:45

out commands her, do not speak of this

24:48

again. Yet in

24:49

the very next scene, she's not only

24:51

speaking

24:51

of it, but she's speaking

24:53

about her husband, the king behind his back,

24:56

and she appears to be actively

24:58

plotting with a member of the

25:00

king's guard

25:00

to expose her

25:02

stepdaughter.

25:03

In the inside the episode feature at

25:06

Miguel Supposnik, who's the episodes

25:08

director, referred to Alison as

25:11

Kristen Kohl's new views.

25:14

Elsewhere, he stated that he described Cole

25:16

as a thug to

25:18

Fabian Frankl, early in the

25:20

production who, for his own

25:22

part, has admitted that his character is not

25:24

the Noble White Knight. He appears to be in

25:26

episodes two, three, and four. pointing

25:28

out how he struck Damon in the back during

25:30

their attorney duel in episode one as a

25:32

good example of Cole showing

25:34

his true

25:35

colors. So these traits are

25:37

important because Allison began

25:39

her association with sir Kristen

25:41

under false pretenses. Believing

25:44

that he was a noble and decent man

25:46

who had been wronged by Reneera.

25:49

This misconception colors her opinion

25:51

of her stepdaughter And

25:53

in this episode, we're treated to the

25:56

supposedly noble Knight, calling

25:58

Princess, who's the heir to the

26:00

throne, he's sworn to protect, a

26:02

brazen and relentlessly evil woman. He

26:04

likens her to a spider sucking

26:06

her prey dry, and he

26:08

boldly names her a spoiled cut.

26:11

which might have been a bridge too far if

26:13

we remember that Alison was or

26:15

is at heart. Quite conservative, and

26:18

she appears pretty shocked by

26:20

this. you know, her conservative

26:22

nature is actually what's driving

26:24

her disgust with her free spirited

26:27

former friend. So

26:29

Cole

26:30

perceives his overstepping

26:32

and

26:32

apologizes and is admonished by the

26:34

queen that they must you to honor a

26:37

decency and to each other. I

26:39

think implying that, you

26:42

know, the queen has few

26:44

enough allies and we're supposed

26:46

to, you know, understand that Cole is one of her

26:48

principal allies, if not her principal ally.

26:50

Given her apparent disrespect for her

26:52

husband and her husband's wishes,

26:56

born from

26:56

his refusal to see

26:58

Reneera as she does, but also

27:00

perhaps from his lengthy illness

27:02

and perceived weakness, you know, we

27:04

saw her being sort of

27:06

unhappy with their intimacy in previous episode,

27:09

not to mention her

27:12

own resentment for her lack

27:14

of personal agency. I think it's interesting to see Allison

27:17

attempting to see his political agency

27:19

by aligning herself with a series

27:21

of men whose

27:23

main interest in her is

27:25

purely selfish. And that actually begins

27:27

with her father who's

27:29

pressing Aegon's claim was

27:32

due to pressure from his own family

27:34

to advance their interests.

27:36

And he actually manufactured this

27:38

sort of crisis where Reneera was a threat

27:40

to Alison's children in

27:42

order to manipulate

27:44

Alison's cooperation

27:45

against her former friend. But that's

27:48

continued with Kristen Cole who's still

27:50

angry at Reneera for wounding his

27:52

pride ten years ago. It's

27:54

not clear what Ellison gets

27:56

from her association with Cole other

27:58

than an ally. which

27:59

she obviously needed in her

28:01

father's absence. But he

28:03

this allies loyalty was bought by an act

28:05

of kindness that he's probably

28:08

incapable of repaying and might

28:10

not have deserved anyways. As

28:12

we'll see shortly, there is

28:15

another cordier. whose relationship with the queen is

28:17

even more puzzling than Kristen Kohl's.

28:19

But first, let's head across the

28:21

narrow sea to pentos.

28:24

Yeah.

28:25

Yeah. So we

28:27

open on pentos, where we're first

28:29

introduced to Daenerys and the Seres Targaryen

28:32

at Alera Alera Milapatas'

28:34

man. in Game of Thrones. So

28:36

we've been there before. After spending

28:38

so much time in Kings Landing this season,

28:40

we finally get to see Esos again by

28:42

Dragon back actually at Unlike

28:44

little baby dragon

28:47

Varmax, this time we see Caraxi soaring through

28:49

the skies with the largest and

28:51

oldest Dragon Living. That's

28:53

right. I am talking about Vanguard legendary mount of

28:56

Layman Valerian, as well as the Senhia

28:58

and Balan Targaryen before

29:00

her. I had personally been wanting

29:02

to see Lana about VAGR since the

29:04

much younger version of Lana spoke with spoke

29:07

about VAGR to the series in

29:09

episode two. So you best believe I

29:11

was out of my sea when this

29:13

happened. You know, they soar through the skies together, and

29:15

it's the first glimpse that we see of

29:17

Lena and Damon's marriage. full of

29:19

exploration, daring, travel,

29:21

and yeah, fire. Vega,

29:23

let's go of this huge burst

29:25

of flame in Caraxi's flies through

29:27

the fireball with Damon on his back. You know,

29:29

both dragon and rider come out

29:31

unscathed much to the awe of the crowd of

29:34

Pintoshi that are looking on from

29:36

the walls. not a physicist or

29:38

anything, but I have to say that it was probably some

29:40

combination of aerodynamics and maybe

29:42

some special valyrian blood that Damon

29:44

came away without even like a synd

29:46

or a hair out of place. It's

29:48

a nice nod to the off discerted claim that

29:50

fire cannot hurt a dragon, though

29:52

it may be a bit more nuanced than that

29:54

considering we see Another character with

29:56

Valerian blood faces the

29:58

flames later that episode. We

30:00

then move indoors and we meet the

30:02

rest of the family. You know, it's been ten

30:04

years. And, yeah, they've got a family now.

30:06

The twins, Bayla, and Reina are now eight

30:08

years old, meaning that Damon and Lina have been

30:10

together since shortly after their

30:12

first dance that royal wedding.

30:14

Bayla has already bonded with her dragon,

30:16

moon dancer, who we do not see this episode,

30:19

while Reina's egg remains unhatched.

30:21

We also see that Elena is heavily pregnant with

30:24

another child. And on the surface, they look

30:26

like a pretty happy family. They're

30:28

arranged at dinner with a

30:30

diplomatic and flattering Prince of Pentos.

30:32

Prince Regio opens the dinner

30:34

that they're having with a reminder of the

30:36

ties that house Targaryen and Pentos have

30:38

had in the He credits the

30:41

city's safety and success to aid that they

30:43

received from Damon's ancestor, aid

30:45

on the conqueror. They they make

30:47

reference to the century of blood,

30:49

a period following the fall of

30:51

Valyria that led to a ton of chaos

30:53

and war in essos as kind of

30:55

the various remnants and cities

30:57

of the Valyrian Empire kind

30:59

of collapsed and reformed into

31:01

new new governments and

31:02

alliances and things like that. This

31:04

exposition

31:05

is mostly meant for the audience

31:08

since David and Lena, you know, have been abroad for a long

31:10

time, you know, surely they know their histories and

31:12

have been flattered by the Prince before.

31:14

But it also serves a setup for

31:16

the Prince's request. call

31:18

pentos

31:18

your permanent home and help

31:20

us to find it from our

31:21

enemies, and you can keep this man, speak

31:24

grant granted lands and

31:26

incomes. and finally have a new place to

31:28

really call home. You know,

31:30

these enemies that we hear of

31:32

that they need to defend,

31:35

sent us from are not new to Damon. You

31:37

know, we know that this is the hierarchy

31:39

again. They they were

31:41

funding Craig us Dreyhart, the crab feeder, and the

31:43

war of the stepping stones. and

31:45

are also a problem for pentos now. You know,

31:47

this offer has received a little awkwardly

31:49

with Damon seemingly ready to accept

31:51

on the spot while Laina looks

31:54

a bit more hesitant. You know,

31:56

no decision is really made at this point

31:59

and, you know, kinda continue

32:00

with that later. we

32:03

will continue with that. But why

32:05

don't we go

32:08

back to the Red Keep with

32:11

this trading yard scene. As I

32:13

said earlier, in the Dragon pit

32:15

Aegon teamed up with Jason

32:17

Luke to humiliate Eimand,

32:19

But by now, from other context, we

32:21

can tell that the real rivalry is

32:24

going to be between

32:26

Rainer's kids and Alison's

32:29

The training you had seen did a lot to

32:31

cement those dynamics and outline

32:34

how rivalry and even

32:36

pettiness between the adults and

32:38

the stories permeating through and

32:40

affecting the kids. Whereas

32:42

the training yard seen early in a

32:44

Game of Thrones with the Lannisters versus

32:47

the Stark Children's against

32:49

each other that highlighted

32:51

the greater rivalry of

32:53

the two houses via children

32:56

Here, the adults actively using children

32:58

to channel their own rivalries. This

33:00

is a generational story

33:03

And as Ryan Condell said in the inside

33:05

the episode segment, we can now

33:07

sense it's becoming increasingly

33:09

focused on this new generation.

33:11

and how in this long setup, the

33:14

politics of the parents has laid the

33:16

groundwork for these deep rooted problems

33:18

between the kids that we just know

33:21

is going to slip over

33:23

into great conflict at some

33:25

point. We get a taste of

33:27

this conflict in a controlled environment in the training

33:29

yard as Christian Cole teaches the kids

33:31

how to fight king Vouseris is

33:33

watching on remarking to his hand

33:36

that the lads playing

33:38

swords together is going to bring

33:40

them close as close

33:42

knit family. Yeah. Right. we

33:44

see the writers immediate answer to that

33:46

sentiment when Cole

33:48

clearly favors Alison's kids with his

33:50

attention. When Cole's methods

33:52

and loyalties are challenged, by the

33:54

captain of the city watch, Jason

33:56

Luke's Biological Father

33:59

Harwin. We know that whatever

34:01

bonds the boys may form will

34:03

be broken by adults seeking to

34:06

interfere and exert their influence.

34:08

In response

34:10

to Darwin's Intervention, Christian pits Aegon against

34:12

Chase. We already know

34:14

that one day these two might be

34:16

rival claimants to

34:18

the throne. But rather than

34:20

a a team building exercise to

34:22

nurture a friendship, Cole encourages

34:24

the four to five year

34:26

older and stronger Aegon to

34:28

attack Chase with whatever he has much to Darwin's

34:30

frustration. After Chase bravely

34:32

fights back, the two men whisper words

34:34

of advice to the boys, and it's

34:37

like two box and coaches in opposing corners.

34:39

Cole encourages Aegon to fight on the front

34:42

foot and he powers through

34:44

Jason's defenses and he knocks

34:46

into the dirt. Instead of

34:48

attempting to instill any degree of

34:50

chivalry into

34:52

the teaching, Cole takes the Alissa Thorne approach to

34:54

mentoring and tells Aegon

34:56

basically to take no mercy, show

34:58

no mercy. The

35:00

scene is obviously not about tutoring anymore.

35:03

It's about Kohl's allegiance

35:05

to Alison, pitting the

35:07

kids against each other and

35:10

aggravating heart when as fully as

35:12

possible. Yeah. I

35:13

completely agree. And and

35:15

eventually that bait that he's setting

35:17

becomes too tempting for to resist. As Cole urges Aegon

35:20

to continue viciously humiliating

35:22

his much younger opponent, Harwin

35:25

decides he's had enough of this

35:27

slanted tootlage here and pulls

35:29

Aegon away from Jay's

35:32

aggressively. This seems to give Cole what he's for emotional

35:34

reaction that he can use as a reason to

35:36

question Harwin's investment in

35:38

Reneer's children. The

35:40

way that he draws out the accusation is meant to gather the

35:42

attention of those in the yard and

35:45

provoke Darwin even further. So

35:47

Harwin then knocks Kristen down

35:50

and delivers many satisfying at

35:52

least to me and maybe the chat

35:54

too, punches right to

35:56

the face but, you know, Cole is no stranger to a fight and seems

35:58

frustratingly un bothered. He's smurking like we just

35:59

saw with us. That's what

36:02

I thought. as the King's

36:04

Guard, you know, his King's Guard brothers

36:06

pull Harwin off of him. This is

36:07

the second instance of Cole

36:10

behaving badly in public and getting away

36:12

Scott free. The first being, of

36:14

course, ten years prior when he beat

36:16

Joffrey Long month to death at a wedding, and

36:18

apparently still got to keep his

36:20

white cloak. This is a little bit of

36:22

a shift from the initial framing of coal coming from nothing and having no

36:24

privilege or protection. He seems to

36:26

be enjoying plenty of privilege here now

36:30

that and others continue to free him from the consequences of his

36:32

violent tendencies. Yeah.

36:34

It's true

36:34

in Harwin. Although it's

36:38

satisfying to to watch Christian Gold get beaten up. You

36:40

know that that really he

36:42

had provoked that

36:44

situation. Yeah. Show it again. Yeah. I

36:46

mean, when he's

36:46

smiling, it's not as satisfying. No.

36:50

Yeah. He knew

36:51

what he

36:51

was doing. So

36:54

let's look at the consequences

36:56

of that violence.

36:58

With Reneera trying to

37:00

focus on baby Joffrey, the last

37:02

thing she wanted to hear was that there's been an incident on the training yard,

37:04

but news of the fight between her not

37:07

so secret lover and Kristen Cole

37:10

makes its way very quickly to her. From

37:12

the secret passage Damon once

37:14

revealed to her, she overhears

37:17

Lionel's strong giving

37:20

Haurin, a good dressing down, telling his son how ashamed

37:22

he is, although he's trying his

37:24

best to act for the good viserys

37:26

and the realm by being a

37:29

loyal an upstanding hand, he's still a

37:32

man with a family

37:34

that wants to be proud of his

37:36

house. He tells Harwin that in no

37:38

uncertain terms, He's ashamed of

37:40

his behavior, and Harwin defends

37:42

himself by calling Christian Cole

37:44

insufferable. Lionel counters with

37:47

a line about laying his hands hands on Prince

37:50

Aegon, which he did, and that's a very

37:52

serious offense before lurching

37:54

into the topic of

37:56

Reneer's three brown haired

37:58

children. Here alludes

38:00

to these accusations as this

38:02

treachery and your intimacy with

38:05

the princess and spells out that if it

38:07

could be proven, Harwin Runeera

38:10

and their children could potentially

38:12

be executed.

38:14

If there were no other rivalling

38:16

factions, then this situation might

38:18

not be such a problem. Viseries

38:21

seems happy enough to be

38:24

willfully blind and anyone

38:26

outside of royalty court

38:28

making an insinuation would

38:30

likely have their tongue

38:32

ripped out. But here we know there is a rival faction and

38:34

Lionel knows that Alison could

38:36

one day use the issue of the

38:38

children's paternity

38:40

against Reneera and Harwin,

38:42

and therefore how strong

38:44

would figure in this negative

38:46

equation. Although he's trying

38:48

to act selflessly, Lional wants how

38:50

strong to proudly be

38:52

remembered as an instrumental part

38:55

of a successful reign And

38:57

so Darwin is putting all of his good

38:59

work in jeopardy and risks,

39:02

potentially bringing the house

39:04

to ruin. Even in his wrath, Lionel still can't

39:06

say exactly what he means. He

39:08

continues to use illusions but

39:10

can't say

39:12

the words. that the royal children are howling's biological

39:14

children. In Lionel's mind,

39:16

if the words are spoken aloud, it

39:18

would only bring

39:20

more credence to the

39:22

rumors, so he bites his tongue,

39:24

and he continues to use

39:26

illusions in the scene later

39:28

with vissaries.

39:30

And I I think this scene outlines

39:32

the royal family invariably

39:34

has, upon political decisions,

39:38

even the truest, noblest heart can be swayed by matters

39:40

of the blood. And so

39:42

we see lionel's heart in conflict

39:44

with itself.

39:46

To his credit, Lionel is painfully aware that Darwin's situation

39:50

damages his integrity as the king's

39:52

hand. And, yeah, it's great

39:54

to see

39:56

someone who is so self aware and honest. And

39:58

as we'll see later, he

40:00

feels so uncomfortable that

40:03

he feels compelled to

40:05

con confess this inner

40:08

conflict to the king in

40:10

person. Yeah. So

40:11

fresh off of witnessing all of

40:13

this, Reneera, you know, turns to

40:15

her chambers and

40:17

is is there when in Gallavance

40:20

her husband, Leonor and his very good

40:22

friend, Carl Corrie, They're a

40:24

Westerosi favorite, the body song, the

40:26

bear, and the Maiden Fair. Always excited to

40:28

hear that. And Lena is clearly

40:30

well into

40:32

his cups. he's living a very different life from Reneer as we can kinda

40:34

see here. As her husband and future king

40:36

consort, there's less pressure

40:38

on lane more than there is on Reneer.

40:41

as she points out, he's been able to enjoy somewhat

40:44

of a rich and easy life,

40:46

but Lena doesn't appear satisfied

40:48

by this. You know, a

40:50

warrior and a dragon rider himself

40:52

being kept in court apparently has bored

40:54

him. Leonard's feeling the need for

40:56

adventure and mentions that there's fighting

40:58

in the stepping stone.

40:59

Carl has been there, filling his head with

41:02

tales of conquest and adventure

41:04

and sapphires, and later he wants a taste of

41:06

all of that, along with perhaps a taste of freedom

41:08

to live more openly with his current

41:10

boyfriend. We also get a mention

41:12

of this new power in the stepping stones as

41:14

the hierarchy has made an alliance with

41:17

Dorne, the southern region of Westeros, that

41:19

is not yet part of the Seven

41:21

kingdoms. Dorne is

41:22

actually a familiar enemy of the Targaryens

41:24

of point who spent a good deal of

41:26

the previous century trying to bring them into the realm unsuccessfully.

41:28

Now remember Aegon's prophecy

41:30

was interpreted to mean that

41:33

all of Westeros needed to unite under one

41:35

banner to, you know, fight the long

41:37

night. So there's an

41:39

even

41:39

more vested interest now in dealing

41:41

with now Dorne is involved, and they're more

41:44

dangerous. Leonor speaks of

41:46

a flamboyant tyrosia captain

41:48

general described as wearing women's frock

41:51

and dying his beard purple, talking

41:53

about Rikaleo Rindoon here.

41:56

We know that in Tyrosch where he's from,

41:58

unusual hair ties are pretty

41:59

typical, you know, fun fact, Darion and

42:02

Harris from the main series

42:04

was meant to have blue hair and beard with

42:06

a golden

42:08

mustache. So It's nice to see that this series is being a little bit more true to the source

42:10

material in terms of, like, the cultural

42:12

differences of

42:14

planetos. We we can remember

42:16

that a younger Reneer was actually

42:18

very proactive in terms of her her

42:20

approach or her desired approach to dealing

42:22

with the stepping stones being one of the ones who

42:24

thought they should send dragons and be very

42:26

aggressive with it. But here we see her

42:28

actively forbid Leonor from involving

42:30

himself in the

42:32

new conflict. to her the danger to herself and her

42:34

immediate family has shifted. With

42:36

the renewed rumors about her children's

42:38

true father, she feels that she

42:40

needs Lainar present to continue to show

42:42

a united front against their

42:44

detractors. Lainar pushes back,

42:46

mocking the idea that these

42:48

are merely accusations about her sons or their

42:50

sons. And she says that they must weather the

42:52

storm and king's landing together. But Lennar,

42:54

an actual

42:56

experienced sailor, pushes back

42:58

with the idea that the wise

43:00

sailor flees the storm as it

43:02

gathers. Unable to see eye to

43:04

eye here Renira chooses

43:06

to exert the power of her station over

43:08

her husband commanding him to stay in king's

43:10

landing and at her side.

43:12

with Harwin preparing to leave, the princess needs an ally,

43:14

need for an ally actually

43:16

outweighs whatever Lanyor's desire is for

43:19

adventure on the narrow sea. speaking

43:22

of the narrow sea, let's now

43:24

turn our focus to

43:26

Pentos again and the drama

43:28

that's playing out there with Damon

43:30

Elena and their children. Emily, why don't you continue and

43:33

take us through this very

43:35

domestic scene? Sure.

43:38

sure Yeah. We

43:39

returned to Ponto, so we see

43:41

Lena checking in on her

43:43

daughter, Reina. As I mentioned earlier, she's the only

43:45

one in their little family unit who

43:47

isn't a dragon her. So it's really heartbreaking to see her, you

43:49

know, heating her egg under the fire. Her mother

43:52

Elena enters and,

43:52

you know, tries to gently encourage

43:55

her daughter, you know, Even

43:57

if your egg doesn't hatch, it's not the

43:59

only way that you could become a

44:01

dragon rider. Lena says, if you wish to be

44:03

a rider, you must claim that right. And

44:06

she's right, even if the egg

44:08

their hatches, one still must

44:10

bond themselves to their dragon in the way

44:12

that we saw with Jace trying to do earlier

44:14

with Varmax. So,

44:16

you know, I had really hoped to see

44:18

Lena claim Vanguard, you know,

44:20

on screen. I think everyone did. But It's

44:22

nice to at least hear about that experience and to get little insight into it.

44:25

Not does not only does this give her

44:27

daughter some hope, but it also,

44:29

you know, frames sets up the

44:32

possibility of more characters claiming dragons

44:34

down the road. Reina

44:36

expresses some hurt during this scene

44:38

regarding a perceived rejection from her father,

44:40

you know, something maybe many a lot of people can relate to.

44:43

She thinks that he only pays attention to

44:45

her twin because Bayla's a

44:47

dragon rider, and she yearns for the closeness

44:50

that, you know, her

44:51

twin house

44:52

with her dad. You know, there may be some

44:54

truth to that. considering

44:56

that we saw Damon teaching only

44:58

Bayla, High Valerian earlier. You

45:00

know, Elena does her best to continue

45:02

to reassure Reina here, but, man, do I

45:05

really feel that little girl, you know, there's definitely some

45:07

parallels between her and Eamon,

45:09

both somewhat outcasts in their own families

45:11

for not yet claiming

45:14

a dragon. you know, and

45:14

then finally, we we have another scene in pentos following this

45:16

where we see Lena, you know, join Damon

45:18

on the battlements of their pentache keep, you

45:20

know, kind of a familiar scene of

45:23

got the kids tucked into bed and regroup as as

45:26

parents. She tells him that her

45:28

brother wrote and they acknowledged the birth

45:30

of Prince

45:32

Damon jokes about a remarkable, but entirely

45:34

coincidental resemblance to Darwin.

45:36

You know, a seemingly funny line, but

45:38

it underlines how obvious the truth

45:41

of the princess true parentage is to

45:43

others. Lena says, you know,

45:45

she misses her family and missus

45:47

Westeros, but Damon only misses the

45:49

strong line, he he

45:51

claims. just like Laina, the audience isn't really meant

45:53

to believe him. Damon is

45:56

restless and pentos and spends his days immersed

45:58

in valyrian histories reading about

46:00

dragons, practice thing high

46:02

valeria and literally still very

46:04

invested in his Targaryen

46:06

identity.

46:06

She acknowledges that

46:09

even if she was not his first choice, I

46:11

was wife and, you know, he kinda cuts her off

46:13

there, but she she this is hinting

46:15

that she knows of his

46:17

true feelings for Reneera. But it also seems like

46:20

many who marry for

46:22

political reasons that

46:24

she's accepted that and the pair, you know, have come to really love each other.

46:26

The dialogue sets up Damon

46:28

for a potential return to Westeros

46:31

in the future. spurred by Lena's encouragement here and

46:33

her desire to return home and and be close to

46:35

her family. Whether or not that comes to

46:38

pass, we'll have to wait and see on the

46:40

coming Sunday. Yes,

46:42

we

46:42

will. And from pentos, why

46:45

don't we come back to

46:47

Kings Landing and discuss

46:49

the small council and

46:51

the and the scene with lionel

46:54

that followed. So we

46:56

returned to the small council chamber just

46:58

once in this episode There's a

47:00

couple of new counselors.

47:02

Most notably, the queen is

47:04

now taking part in his meetings,

47:06

and we also meet Lord

47:08

Jasper Wilde known as

47:10

Ironrod, who is the

47:12

master of laws. Maesda all

47:14

while, who he met in episode five,

47:16

is sitting in the Grand Mesa seat.

47:20

Meaning Melos has apparently

47:22

died off screen and I think we could

47:24

all agree. Good riddance on that

47:26

one. He was not treating

47:28

the king very well. Thailand, Lannister, and

47:30

Lord, Biesbury, are still there

47:32

too, but Biesbury is

47:34

now quite ancient and he's

47:38

struggling to follow the conversation when the topic changes.

47:40

They begin with a discussion

47:42

of the ongoing feuds between

47:46

brackens and backwards, and move on to the topic

47:48

of the stepstones. In spite

47:50

of Alison attempting to control the

47:53

situation by dismissing both

47:56

such subjects as of no concern to the crown,

47:58

Reneera intervened and makes

48:01

thoughtful points in

48:04

both cases illustrating once again the power struggle

48:06

between the princess and the

48:08

queen with Reneer seeming to

48:10

come out

48:12

ahead in those matters of policy. Yeah.

48:14

I really thought she

48:15

did, you know, if it was

48:17

about scoring points, I think

48:19

she scored a couple there.

48:22

Really each interaction between

48:24

the two women in this meeting

48:26

exemplifies their

48:28

entrenched rivalry. But Reneera

48:30

ends the meeting by offering an

48:32

olive branch. She stands

48:34

up. She apologizes for

48:36

the offenses of her sons.

48:38

She says that she wishes their house

48:40

to be united as it should be

48:42

suggesting a marriage between

48:45

Jaceris, her heir, and

48:48

Elena, she also offers Eamon the pick of

48:50

Siroxx's next clutch of eggs.

48:54

And Viceris' actually

48:56

seems like he's beside himself. He's

48:58

so happy. And honestly,

49:00

while we could argue all

49:02

day whether Veneer was being sincere

49:04

or cynical, sure

49:06

people have different takes

49:08

on that point. I really

49:10

think she's presenting the correct political

49:14

approach. like her father and unlike the queen, Reneera

49:16

has this implicit understanding that the

49:18

unity of the royal house is essential

49:22

politically.

49:22

for them to succeed.

49:26

And this probably

49:27

in large part gets back to the

49:29

fact that this Sayers and Reneera are the only

49:31

two people who know about Aegon's prophecy and the burden

49:34

that it places upon

49:36

his Progyny. So but

49:38

instead of contemplating the olive

49:40

branch, Alison chooses to

49:42

humiliate her stepdaughter by pointing

49:45

out that her milk is let down and her breasts are leaking

49:47

through her dress. This

49:49

ah is an

49:50

interesting plot point to pursue

49:52

in light of the setting.

49:55

earlier, there had been some discussion

49:57

in Reneera's private chamber about

49:59

the baby's new

50:00

wet nurse and the process

50:02

of Reneera allowing her own milk supply to

50:05

dry up, but that was and

50:07

that's not something that's easy and

50:09

it's not without complications, but this

50:11

was all handled privately. Now

50:14

we see that her

50:16

stepmother humiliates her in

50:18

front of a group of men who will

50:20

one day have to look to Lanier at

50:22

Esther sovereign. It's subtle. It's purely

50:25

vindictive on Alison's

50:28

part. And She's

50:30

highlighting Reneera's femininity and the implied weakness

50:33

that goes along with it. Putting

50:35

her on her back foot just

50:38

as Reneera has asserted herself in the

50:40

council and made a number of very

50:42

good points. This is a move

50:44

taken right from the pages of

50:46

Patriarchy one hundred

50:48

and one confirming the dynamic of Allison

50:50

being so lost in

50:52

the machinations of male

50:54

power that she is willing to

50:56

sacrifice herself

50:58

and her female allies to support

51:00

the institutional status quo.

51:05

And following this, after

51:08

the small council meeting

51:10

ends, you get the scene

51:12

of everybody

51:13

leaving, Allison and

51:15

Viceras are talking She makes

51:18

her refusal of

51:19

Reneer's proposal

51:20

very plain to the king, she says

51:22

to him. You may do as you please

51:24

when I am cold in my grave. think

51:26

that really speaks volumes about the power the

51:28

queen now has over her aging and

51:31

ailing husband. It's almost

51:33

impossible to imagine

51:36

Lady Allison. As

51:38

she drew the

51:39

distinction a few episodes back between

51:41

Lady Allison and the

51:44

Queen, I

51:45

can't see her behaving in this manner. So clearly,

51:47

the shift that began in episode five

51:49

has led to a huge

51:51

change in dynamics as

51:53

Lady Allison now fully commands the role

51:56

of Queen Allison

51:58

even to

51:58

the extent that she is now

52:01

dominates the king.

52:02

So

52:04

as we

52:05

see these moments

52:06

of her domineering her husband,

52:08

she's

52:10

treating him

52:10

like an invalid. This is these are really all things

52:13

that are done in order

52:14

to disempower him, making him feel that

52:17

he relies on her, making

52:19

him feel weak, you know, these

52:21

are these are classic power moves. So in

52:24

walks, line all

52:26

strong, visiting

52:29

the king in his chamber because he

52:30

would like to resign his post

52:33

due to his son's transgression.

52:36

The king absolutely

52:37

will not hear of it. He cites their

52:39

long and successful relationship. Their friendship.

52:41

He even makes a dig at Alison

52:43

and her father. by remarking on Lionel's unique lack of

52:45

self interest over the years.

52:48

Viceroy's refusal to accept the

52:50

resignation of

52:52

his honest honorable and steadfast hand has such strong

52:54

vibes of Robert Batheon

52:56

refusing to let Ned resign in a game

53:00

of Thrones. when he said to him, like it or not, you are my damn

53:02

you. I forbid you to leave.

53:06

Pesserus didn't use such

53:07

colorful language, but

53:10

basically, he refuses to

53:11

take the resignation. With Alison

53:14

listening

53:14

to every word,

53:16

I kind of felt like she was

53:18

just a

53:18

raptor ready to pounce on

53:22

on a

53:23

stray word by

53:25

Lord Lionel. and she grew more exasperated by the

53:28

minute when she fails to get what

53:30

she was hoping for because

53:32

Lionel refuses to

53:34

specify what his son's transgression was knowing full well that it could

53:37

lead to his son's death and possibly

53:39

his grandson's death. and

53:42

definitely to Alison's victory over

53:44

Reneera. Instead, Lord

53:46

Lionel asks for and is granted

53:48

leave to escort Harwin to Harrahnholl

53:51

there to take up his duties

53:53

as air and Alison storms

53:55

out. She's no longer so

53:57

worried about the king's

53:59

welfare. She just

53:59

leaves him. And next time we

54:02

see her, she's with Lord

54:04

Linle's

54:04

second son,

54:06

larry strong Lara Strong.

54:08

Brian Condell described

54:10

Bladder Strong as one of our

54:13

villains in the inside

54:15

the episode feature.

54:17

this episode really cements

54:19

that characterization. His relationship

54:22

with the

54:22

queen began in the last episode when

54:25

he also offered her friendship

54:27

of sorts. Allison was lonely

54:30

and isolated, confused by Reneer's

54:32

behavior. She felt her and

54:36

betrayal as her stepdaughter acted with

54:38

disregard for what Alison saw as

54:40

her duty and rules

54:42

of propriety. In contrast with Kristen Cole, who's

54:44

shown to defer to the queen in all

54:46

things, though, we will see that

54:48

Larry seems to have an upper

54:50

hand in

54:52

their interactions, probably due to the nature of him being the

54:54

bearer of intelligence. When

54:56

Alison storms out of Asterias' chambers,

54:59

the with Lord Vinyl, she arrives in her own private

55:02

chamber to join Larson

55:04

for an intimate dinner already

55:06

in progress. and they're sort

55:08

of comfort together and Larry's

55:10

comments about his role as

55:12

information gatherer indicating

55:14

this isn't the first time that they've

55:16

shared this experience together. Considering

55:19

that Allison dismisses her maid,

55:21

I think that this act

55:23

alone, entertaining a single man in

55:25

her chamber alone, could be enough

55:27

to raise eyebrows and start rumors,

55:30

but she seems blind to the

55:32

impropriety of

55:33

it. Said

55:34

she's really just obsessed with, you

55:36

know, this sort of information gathering about

55:40

Reneera and Harwin. So here

55:42

she is once again discussing Reneera and

55:44

Harwin.

55:45

Although her husband has asked her to

55:47

drop this

55:48

subject three times so

55:50

far in the episode. And I

55:53

think that his exasperation leads

55:56

to the impression that her talking about Reneera

55:59

and Harwin

55:59

is probably a daily

56:02

occurrence. He's just like a hearing

56:04

it, really. So

56:07

we get

56:08

her also talking about her

56:10

husband's distressing unwillingness to

56:13

acknowledge his daughter's transgressions.

56:15

Allison seems really blind

56:17

to the weakness that

56:20

doing

56:20

so, acknowledging

56:23

what's

56:23

going on publicly

56:25

would place house Targaryen

56:27

in. The series is wise enough

56:29

to at least to realize that unity of the royal

56:31

house is of the utmost importance. As I was

56:34

saying earlier, as

56:36

is Reneira, citing it

56:38

as one of the reasons for the

56:40

olive branch that she offered in that small

56:42

council meeting. Allison is

56:44

instead bent on destroying

56:46

her stepdaughter And

56:48

in Larry Strong, she's found a willing

56:50

ally, though, as we'll see,

56:52

his motivations are even more

56:55

freshly self interested than sir

56:57

Christians are. It's during this dinner

56:59

that Alison makes the

57:02

following exclamation, In all of Kings Landing,

57:04

is there no one to take my side? She's bemoaning the fact that

57:06

no one wants to entertain her accusations

57:10

against Reneera without ever

57:12

asking the critical question

57:14

of why. And she's

57:16

just wishing that her father was back

57:18

in the capital because obviously

57:20

her father would listen to her and support her.Wire strong

57:23

is all ears

57:24

here and we'll have more on this

57:26

in a little bit.

57:28

Yeah. Last week,

57:30

I think I said that I really like

57:33

Larry's, but

57:34

it's

57:36

not I think I

57:37

might have changed my mind because

57:40

immediately after Alison and

57:43

Larry's candlelit conversation, he's

57:45

shown making his way into the dark dungeons of the

57:48

Red Keep. We see a

57:50

shot of Larry's walking

57:52

stick, which has a

57:54

firefly embedded into the

57:56

hand built. There's

57:58

a cell of prisoners and lourists

58:00

caused them a collection of heroes, a murderer, a deviant, and

58:02

a traitor to the crown, have all

58:04

been sentenced to death by hanging.

58:08

when he offers them freedom and mercy, he

58:10

obviously wants something in return. And

58:12

one of the things he wants in

58:14

return is their tongues and he

58:17

has them cut out. This is to prevent them

58:19

from divulging things that Lara says

58:21

said to them and does remind

58:23

us of ill in

58:25

pain and the little birds from the main

58:27

series. Jamie Lannister felt comfortable

58:30

enough around

58:32

Ellen two say things he wouldn't say to

58:34

others. And even more

58:36

importantly, the master of

58:38

whisperers varys had the tons

58:40

removed from his flock of little

58:42

birds, impoverished child spies

58:44

to prevent them from gossiping.

58:47

as we witness the graphic, tongue

58:50

cutting scene. We know Laris

58:52

must have a really serious plan on

58:54

the foot to employ

58:56

these criminals mutulate them

58:58

like this. We'll see

59:01

that plot plot unfolding later,

59:03

but for now, I'll just say that

59:05

the next time we see these three men,

59:07

they're wearing Clarus' Firefly symbol. Clarus

59:10

Strong is not messing around.

59:12

And if he seemed like a

59:14

little finger

59:16

esque higher level gameplay with his manipulation of Alison

59:18

in the previous episode. Now

59:20

things have gone up several notches and

59:22

he does seem more like a Lara

59:25

little finger, various crossover.

59:28

So

59:29

so stay tuned,

59:30

and we're gonna discuss what happens

59:34

next it's one of the it's

59:36

one of the central moments

59:38

of the episode that comes at the end.

59:41

But for now, why don't we head back

59:43

to Esos and go to

59:46

the free city of pentos to catch

59:48

up what's been going on over

59:50

there, Emily? Yeah. Yeah. I think I've spent most

59:51

of this episode in Pentos. It feels like, you

59:54

know, so we arrive back for

59:56

the second birth of

59:58

the episode. Lana Valerian

59:59

is laboring for her third

1:00:02

child. Despite her

1:00:03

wish for her child to be born

1:00:05

on driftmark like she was, the baby has come

1:00:07

well. They're still in pentos. this

1:00:09

makes sense because she was pretty darn pregnant when we

1:00:11

when she first made that statement. Crossing the

1:00:14

Nanaer, see you buy dragon back or buy

1:00:16

ship was you know, not

1:00:18

really very possible. So I think she was probably

1:00:20

referring to future children that she and Damon

1:00:22

could have. But that day to that

1:00:24

detail makes the events to come even more

1:00:26

tragic, I think. and

1:00:28

could provide some motivation for the family's

1:00:30

eventual return to Westeros in a future

1:00:32

episode. Again, this birthing scene

1:00:34

is presented in contrast with Emma's labor in episode one. Lena

1:00:36

is standing like Wynn mentioned that

1:00:38

Rain Rainera was before.

1:00:41

This is a better delivery

1:00:43

position that we saw of Emma in. Her team

1:00:46

includes both male and female midwives

1:00:48

rather than a single maester and a

1:00:50

bunch of kind of silent, you know, handmaids like Emma

1:00:52

had or the all female midwives

1:00:54

like Reneera. You know, maesters

1:00:56

are specific to Westeros, so

1:00:58

it's un clear, you

1:01:00

know, what titles her delivery team

1:01:02

had, but it was a notably different

1:01:04

atmosphere than Emma in a couple

1:01:06

of ways. you know,

1:01:06

who was at the mercy of what I would like to call perpetual chump who

1:01:09

I think has now deceased

1:01:11

archmaster pillows. Nevertheless, things are not

1:01:13

going well for Lima

1:01:16

here. Yeah.

1:01:16

They're going so bad. Well, we know what happens next. With

1:01:18

the baby stock and the Pentoshi doctor

1:01:21

admitting to being at the

1:01:23

edge of his art, and

1:01:25

in contrast to Emma Aaron in the

1:01:27

first episode, Lena has the

1:01:30

agency, at least, to make a

1:01:32

decision of her own in

1:01:34

immense pain She drags herself outside to the spot where

1:01:36

they have Vega chained

1:01:38

up. Earlier in

1:01:40

the episode, The dragon

1:01:42

team is in the pit informed the kids

1:01:44

just how strong the bond

1:01:46

between dragon and rider could be

1:01:48

that once bonded a dragon wouldn't listen to

1:01:50

anyone else. Here we have

1:01:52

this heart wrenching scene where Laina

1:01:54

is asking her dragon

1:01:56

to imolate her. This is

1:01:58

in keeping with Lana's Lana's

1:02:00

adventurous spirit and wish to

1:02:02

live and die like a dragon rider. And

1:02:04

so some of the earlier character

1:02:06

work did pay off there. So

1:02:09

we get a close look at Vega,

1:02:11

the largest and oldest dragon in

1:02:13

the story, who looks full

1:02:16

on. She almost looked like Foul core from the

1:02:18

never ending story for a

1:02:20

moment. And then, of course, she

1:02:22

bathed Lana in flame as

1:02:24

Damon arrived to the scene too

1:02:26

late to do anything but watch.

1:02:28

Although there are some similarities

1:02:30

in the books, things happened a little

1:02:32

differently. So

1:02:35

What happened was that she

1:02:37

died of childhood fever,

1:02:40

but she did make an attempt

1:02:42

to go out to Vega, although

1:02:44

she collapsed on the way out to Vega and she died there.

1:02:46

Here in the show, Lena

1:02:48

died the way she wanted

1:02:50

to. And overall, we got strong

1:02:54

impression of her spirit and bold

1:02:56

nature. Another example of the

1:02:58

writers doing a lot of work with limited

1:03:00

screen time. But of

1:03:02

course, Lena would not be the

1:03:04

only tragedy of this episode, Lady

1:03:08

Quinn.

1:03:08

Well, no. But she

1:03:10

is not. I I wanna say one thing before we we

1:03:12

move on to the next unfortunately,

1:03:14

the

1:03:14

next tragedy. I wanna add

1:03:18

that Lena really

1:03:20

chose her death with agency that was

1:03:22

gifted to her by her husband. This

1:03:24

is a very unusual situation for this

1:03:26

time when men seemed to hold all the power in these situations. Although

1:03:29

that male attendant wasn't a

1:03:31

maser, he definitely did

1:03:32

defer to Damon on the

1:03:36

question of whether to use the

1:03:37

knife. And I found it

1:03:38

found it interesting that as I suggested

1:03:41

in our episode, one reviewed Damon

1:03:43

did not Neon make the same choice that his

1:03:45

brother did, and so Laina's death would be

1:03:47

very different from that of her

1:03:49

cousin

1:03:49

Emma, or that

1:03:51

of another relative who

1:03:52

I thought about over

1:03:54

the last couple weeks, as

1:03:56

described in fire and

1:03:58

blood, Lana's great grandmother, Alyssa Valerian,

1:04:00

whose husband, ROGAR Baratheon,

1:04:02

was forced to make a

1:04:06

similar choice during the birth of Elena's grandmother,

1:04:08

Jocelyn Baratheon. In that situation,

1:04:10

you had Johannes and Alessanne

1:04:14

on hand to force a drug,

1:04:16

Kroger, Baratheon,

1:04:16

to make the heartbreaking choice, to

1:04:18

let the maesters operate on their

1:04:20

mother in order to save the

1:04:23

baby jostling. But every

1:04:26

time this topic comes up, it's made clear

1:04:28

that the husbands are who hold the

1:04:30

power

1:04:30

to decide And here,

1:04:32

Damon Targaryen wouldn't or

1:04:34

couldn't make the decision. So

1:04:37

whatever his intentions were, The result

1:04:39

was Lena, like you said, Yo!boy dying on

1:04:40

her own terms. And

1:04:43

I think

1:04:43

that we have to applaud

1:04:45

that in in some way.

1:04:48

So let

1:04:48

us now head back to Kings Landing for

1:04:51

this parallel scene and the

1:04:53

conclusion of the episode. Yeah.

1:04:56

So the the appearance of a third plain featured

1:04:59

sun for Rainira, coupled

1:05:02

by Harwin's actions in the

1:05:04

training yard, essentially

1:05:06

make it necessary for him to remove himself from court before

1:05:08

things escalate further or he puts

1:05:10

his lover and their sons in any further

1:05:12

danger. You know, it's a short

1:05:15

seen

1:05:15

with him, you know, stepping into, say,

1:05:18

farewells to his little secret

1:05:20

family. On its face, it seems like

1:05:22

Harwin has resigned to stepping

1:05:24

into his the role of air of hair and haul, though he, you

1:05:26

know, ruse having to leave them. I

1:05:28

wonder how much he would have liked for

1:05:30

his own father to be a little bit

1:05:32

more self serving a bit

1:05:34

more auto high tower when it came to

1:05:36

advising the king on the Royal

1:05:38

Patrol

1:05:38

many years

1:05:40

ago. The scene has huge parallels to the main series

1:05:42

and with Stephen plenty of foreshadowing

1:05:44

for being one of the shorter scenes.

1:05:47

Much like Ned promising to see John

1:05:49

Snow again or, you know, Davos

1:05:52

and his last conversations with his sons

1:05:54

before the Blackwater. Harvin

1:05:56

promises his boys that he'll see them

1:05:58

again. In the world of ice and fire, we

1:05:59

know that these types of promises rarely

1:06:02

come true. When Harwin

1:06:03

moves to Reneera and baby Joffrey, he tells

1:06:06

them I'll be a stranger when we next

1:06:08

meet, which I immediately connected with a

1:06:10

stranger and

1:06:12

aspect of a god that represents death in the faith of the

1:06:14

seven. Harwin certainly meant it another way that

1:06:16

their newborn son would not

1:06:18

recognize him and that this distance would be

1:06:20

putting an end

1:06:22

to his relationship with Reneera, but, man, that line absolutely crushed

1:06:24

me. I got chills when I

1:06:25

first heard him say it. As he walks

1:06:27

away, we

1:06:27

see Jayce follow Harwin into the hallway and

1:06:30

then Reneera

1:06:32

follows them with Joffrey. He asks his mother if

1:06:34

Harwin is his father if he's a

1:06:36

bastard. This likely was something he

1:06:38

picked up from that training yard scene earlier

1:06:41

and I think it will likely be something reinforced by

1:06:43

Prince Aegon moving forward. There's

1:06:46

there's book

1:06:46

evidence for that anyway. Renewer

1:06:49

rebuffs him saying you are a Targaryen. Considering that all

1:06:52

the that the kids are all meant to be

1:06:54

called Valerians

1:06:56

and till one of the sons they

1:06:58

aren't thrown, this could be seen almost

1:07:00

as tasset confirmation of Jason's

1:07:02

fears. But it also strikes

1:07:04

at something core to Aniras character. She

1:07:06

believes that being Targaryen is enough, but it's part of their destiny

1:07:09

to rule. It smacks a bit of

1:07:11

vesareus if, you know, if I say

1:07:13

it, it must be true. which

1:07:15

we know only goes so

1:07:17

far. This statement may not have the

1:07:19

sway over the common folks or the Greens that

1:07:21

she hopes it does. So

1:07:26

onto

1:07:26

the most tragic

1:07:28

event

1:07:28

involving Darwin. Yeah. Damon

1:07:31

lost his partner in the

1:07:34

episode. Reneira is gonna

1:07:36

lose her lover too. As I

1:07:38

said earlier, the next time we see Lara's three

1:07:41

tongueless criminals, they're wearing

1:07:43

his firefly symbol, clearly

1:07:46

marking them as his

1:07:48

servants. Given that he'd have them

1:07:50

mutilated, he must have

1:07:52

offered them benefits

1:07:54

other than their freedom to make them

1:07:56

remain disloyal to him.

1:07:58

But yet, now, Larry's has a

1:08:00

little band of men to do his dirty work. They're

1:08:03

seen at Haran Hall waiting

1:08:05

in the shadows, looking on

1:08:07

on on onminously, as Lionel

1:08:09

and Howings entourage past them on the

1:08:12

approach to their family seat.

1:08:14

We know that there's a plot on

1:08:16

the foot And at this moment, book

1:08:18

readers realized what that plot was going to be as the strongest

1:08:20

attempts to get some

1:08:22

rest after a long journey

1:08:25

they smell smoke. Someone, I wonder who has barricaded them

1:08:27

in in their rooms and set fire to

1:08:29

the building. Harwin is separated

1:08:31

from his father and

1:08:35

is screaming that he's going to burn alive. Lionel

1:08:37

tries to free his son, but

1:08:39

there was plenty of

1:08:41

smoke in his room too. Lady Quinn is gonna

1:08:43

do a line by line analysis of Larry's poetic

1:08:46

voiceover in a moment

1:08:50

but let's quickly talk about book canon.

1:08:52

In Fire and Blood, there's a

1:08:54

similar blazer at Haran Hall. The

1:08:57

main difference is being told via

1:08:59

a historical tone. We don't know

1:09:01

for sure who started it. It's

1:09:03

an enduring mystery

1:09:06

built up around several different

1:09:08

rumors, so let me read

1:09:10

the passage. Lionel stronger companies

1:09:12

are how in on his return

1:09:14

to the great half ruined castle on the lakeshore.

1:09:16

Shortly after there were arrival, a fire broke out in the

1:09:18

tower where they were sleeping and both Father

1:09:23

and son were killed. The cause of the

1:09:25

fire was never determined. Some put it

1:09:27

down to simple

1:09:29

mischance. while others muttered that

1:09:32

Black Heron's seat was

1:09:34

cursed. Many suspected the

1:09:36

blaze was set intentionally. mushrooms

1:09:38

suggest that the sea snake was behind it as an act of vengeance against the man who had in

1:09:43

his son. So Secton used

1:09:45

to suspect prince Damon removing a rival for prince princess

1:09:47

Reneer's affections. Others have put

1:09:50

forth the notion that Laris'

1:09:54

club foot might have been responsible. With his

1:09:57

father and elder brother dead,

1:09:59

Laris Strong became

1:10:01

the lord of Harenhall. The most

1:10:03

disturbing possibility was advanced by

1:10:06

Grand Mesa Melos who

1:10:08

muses that the king

1:10:10

himself might have given the

1:10:12

command. If Vocera has come to

1:10:14

accept that the rumors about the parentage of Reneera's children were true, he might well

1:10:16

have wished to remove the man

1:10:19

who had dishonored his daughter Leslie

1:10:22

somehow revealed the bastardity of

1:10:25

her sons. So that's

1:10:28

four different rumors circulating

1:10:30

in fire and blood. Although show Canon is not equal to

1:10:32

book Canon, they're

1:10:35

two separate things. It

1:10:38

was interesting to see the show

1:10:40

name Larry as the chief architect

1:10:42

to his father and brother's

1:10:45

doom. Here, nobody beside Laris Alison and the

1:10:47

three Tungus assassins know the

1:10:50

truth of the situation

1:10:53

different characters in human universe

1:10:55

might reach different conclusions. And given we, the

1:10:57

audience know who's

1:11:00

behind it, it's gonna be

1:11:02

really interesting going forward to see how it's discussed and viewed in universe.

1:11:07

Yeah. I think You're right. And, you know,

1:11:09

that's the nature of history, to be honest, as George tries to show us

1:11:11

with all those multiple point of

1:11:14

views in fire and blood.

1:11:17

But speaking of history, before we move on to that final sequence, I

1:11:19

may ask you to indulge me for

1:11:21

a moment of

1:11:23

real life history. because

1:11:26

there's a famous incident from English history, which is the clear inspiration for the strong deaths as

1:11:28

they were presented

1:11:31

in the show. In

1:11:33

the twelfth century, King Henry II was engaged in conflict with

1:11:35

his archbishop of Canterbury,

1:11:37

a man

1:11:40

named Thomas abeket over

1:11:42

the rights of the church versus the crown. The church had long contented that a secular

1:11:44

ruler had no

1:11:47

jurisdiction over its institutions and

1:11:50

the individuals within it, which thus existed

1:11:53

more or less outside of

1:11:55

whatever particular kingdom they

1:11:57

physically resided in. This is a

1:11:59

concept that has

1:12:01

huge legal implications that affect our

1:12:03

laws to this very

1:12:06

day. looking at all the churches in the

1:12:09

world

1:12:10

that are, you know,

1:12:12

don't

1:12:13

pay taxes and many other things. We don't have to get into that. We'll we'll leave that in-depth

1:12:15

discussion to our friends over at

1:12:18

Learn at Hands podcast.

1:12:20

But in a nutshell, among

1:12:23

other things, Thomas Beckett, infuriated his king by refusing to grant the crown jurisdiction

1:12:25

over criminal cases

1:12:28

regarding clerics. He

1:12:30

went as far as to use his position as the

1:12:33

archbishop

1:12:33

of Canterbury to excommunicate bishops

1:12:35

who were more amenable

1:12:37

to the

1:12:38

king's position. and when news of that arrived

1:12:40

at Henry's court, history's written

1:12:42

long after the fact attributed

1:12:44

the following line to the king.

1:12:47

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

1:12:49

And so taking that

1:12:52

exclamation as an order four

1:12:54

night of the court swiftly traveled to Canterbury,

1:12:56

entered the cathedral with swords

1:12:58

drawn and killed the archbishop

1:13:01

right inside the church. which is a

1:13:03

huge no no in medieval christendom, probably

1:13:05

in the modern world

1:13:08

too, but it was

1:13:09

really like you you're

1:13:12

excommunicated for for bringing

1:13:14

violence

1:13:14

into the church. So

1:13:16

ultimately, Henry

1:13:18

himself was held

1:13:19

responsible for this, and he was forced to do penance and make loads of concessions while

1:13:21

Thomas Abeket

1:13:22

was made a saint.

1:13:26

the patron saint of my childhood,

1:13:28

Paris fun fact.

1:13:31

This relevance, of

1:13:33

course, is

1:13:34

that as soon as I heard

1:13:36

Alison say in the show, in all

1:13:38

of Kings Landing, is there no one

1:13:41

to cake my side? I thought

1:13:43

of Henry II, and of Thomas Ebeckett, and I knew that

1:13:45

the show was gonna take the position

1:13:47

that Lara Strong was responsible

1:13:49

for his father in

1:13:52

brother's deaths.

1:13:52

that he and his trio of silent

1:13:54

assassins would stand in for Henry's four nights. Alison for

1:13:56

King Henry caught in a trap

1:13:59

of his own

1:13:59

words and

1:14:01

Lila and Harwin sharing the

1:14:03

role of Beckett murdered in

1:14:05

the sanctuary of their

1:14:07

home.

1:14:07

So we all know that

1:14:09

George loves

1:14:10

his medieval history, but this wasn't presented

1:14:12

as a given in fire and blood. As

1:14:14

Yolked Boy said, I think that here we have to give huge amount of credit to the

1:14:16

writing team for

1:14:18

including this cultural reference absolutely

1:14:21

in keeping with

1:14:22

the source material and George's methods. So once again kudos

1:14:24

to the writers for this

1:14:26

little piece of the episode. Yes.

1:14:31

So the

1:14:31

conclusion of this episode features

1:14:34

a voice over of a

1:14:36

monologue by Lara

1:14:38

Strong on the subject of children and

1:14:40

legacy, not only something we've already

1:14:42

seen as a major theme of

1:14:44

importance to vysaries, but one that

1:14:46

will become highly prevalent as more and more of the

1:14:49

next generation take center stage

1:14:51

going forward according to

1:14:53

the writers and show runners. in light

1:14:55

of which, Lara's cynical take as

1:14:57

it pairs with individual scenes

1:15:00

can be viewed as

1:15:02

a collection of predictive snapshots

1:15:04

of our cast. So now let's

1:15:06

get to that line by nine

1:15:09

analysis that we mentioned of the final

1:15:11

few minutes of this episode. Why didn't you

1:15:13

take it away, Lady Gwen? So

1:15:16

it begins.

1:15:16

What are

1:15:18

children but a weakness?

1:15:20

a folly of utility. This overlays Reneera

1:15:22

and her family arriving on Dragonstone fleeing

1:15:24

the

1:15:25

gathering storm

1:15:28

in Kingslanding. and it was

1:15:30

the issue of her children that drove her away from the capital and led to Harwin's banishment death.

1:15:35

Rainier has retreated specifically to

1:15:37

protect her family, but her retreat could be viewed as a weakness or

1:15:40

admission

1:15:42

of guilt by

1:15:44

her enemies at court,

1:15:46

so Folly, weakness, perhaps, utility,

1:15:48

all right

1:15:51

there. through them, you imagine you cheat the great darkness

1:15:53

of its victory. You will

1:15:55

persist forever in

1:15:58

some form or another. This is paired with

1:15:59

PERSERIS sitting by his model

1:16:02

city looking sad. I remember

1:16:04

his concern for his legacy that

1:16:06

we discussed in the last episode

1:16:09

and the foreshadowing rat makes his weekly

1:16:11

appearance here symbolizing among other things that rot in viserys'

1:16:16

reign The

1:16:18

rat gets bolder with each appearance, I think. Note in this episode, stops

1:16:20

and stares at

1:16:21

it for a

1:16:24

long second.

1:16:25

then lares

1:16:28

continues as if they will keep

1:16:30

you from the dust. But for

1:16:32

them,

1:16:32

you surrender what you should

1:16:34

not. AND WE MOVED FROM VASSERIS' CONCERN

1:16:36

FOR HIS OWN LEGACY TO SCENES

1:16:38

FROM HARRENHAL WHERE

1:16:39

ALARIS HAS INSURED THAT

1:16:41

HIS OWN FATHER'S LEGACY

1:16:43

HAS TURNED TO ASH. You may know

1:16:45

what is the right thing to be done, but love

1:16:47

stays the hand. Still at Harold, we see

1:16:49

the bodies being brought out and the

1:16:52

three assassins wearing

1:16:55

Larry's symbol, this particular line

1:16:57

is a message to Alison. I've

1:16:59

done what you could not, but

1:17:01

I've

1:17:01

done it for you. and he

1:17:03

ends with love is a downfall. Best

1:17:06

make your way through

1:17:07

life unencumbered.

1:17:08

So we leave Harold

1:17:10

for a

1:17:11

final glimpse of Pantas,

1:17:13

Damon, and his grieving daughters looking lost and alone. Presumably, Laina's

1:17:16

death will lead the remnants

1:17:18

of her family back to Westeros.

1:17:22

And Damon, who has been unencumbered for most of

1:17:25

the story, now has something to care

1:17:27

about. And presumably, the suggestion

1:17:30

here is that things are going to get complicated for

1:17:32

the rogue prints.

1:17:33

And obviously, less of

1:17:36

a suggestion,

1:17:38

but you know,

1:17:39

more of an overt statement that Larry

1:17:41

views himself as making

1:17:43

his way through

1:17:44

life unencumbered, especially now that

1:17:46

he's rid himself of his

1:17:49

father

1:17:49

and brother.

1:17:50

And his monologue ends with him in Alison's chambers telling

1:17:53

her about the deaths

1:17:55

at Haran Hall off

1:17:59

handedly mentioning Aaron's curse as

1:18:01

some sort of justification, Alison

1:18:03

knows this was no accident

1:18:06

and seems horrified by what's happened. Lara's just

1:18:09

smiles and mentions the

1:18:11

queen making a wish

1:18:13

and they hopes she'll write

1:18:15

to her father. He also

1:18:17

says I feel certain you

1:18:20

will reward me in time

1:18:22

and pointedly picks one of those red flowers he compared

1:18:24

her to in episode five out

1:18:26

of an arrangement on the

1:18:29

table. According to episode

1:18:31

writer, Sarah Hess, This was

1:18:33

the equivalent of netting her. He lets her know what's been

1:18:35

done, implies that it's been

1:18:37

done in her name and

1:18:40

the x specs

1:18:42

a reward for her service. Alison is

1:18:44

trapped. She's placed a trust in the

1:18:46

wrong man. Her jealousy and frustration

1:18:48

with a friend leaving her

1:18:50

to make alliances with Manu's friendship appeared

1:18:53

to offer her the agencies she craved,

1:18:55

but who in reality represent

1:18:58

the patriarchy using her

1:19:01

to its own ends. Okay. So that

1:19:03

is our that is our walk through analysis

1:19:05

of the episode so

1:19:08

far, but the

1:19:10

end of the episode, we're gonna have a

1:19:12

spoiler section, so stay for that. And now

1:19:15

we're gonna have light in the mood with

1:19:17

a couple of feature sets that we do

1:19:19

every week. got got chomp or chomp. Lady

1:19:21

Wynn, why don't we start with

1:19:23

Dragon Watch? Okay.

1:19:26

This week on Dragon Watch, we had a

1:19:28

virtual band of dragons and

1:19:30

eggs. Starting with baby Joffrey's

1:19:33

cradle egg, eventually

1:19:36

to be the dragon, Tyraxis, and

1:19:38

Jaceris' Varmax. And no, that was not a pink dragon,

1:19:41

but, yes, it

1:19:44

was Cyrax. And of course, the

1:19:46

ever amazing Caraxes and our first glimpse of the awe inspiring Vaguar,

1:19:48

as well as

1:19:51

Rayna Taqiri's egg. Additionally, a

1:19:53

number of other dragons are mentioned, Aegon's sun fire and alluded to, but not

1:19:55

mentioned by name

1:19:59

are Luceris' Eurex and Baylor

1:20:01

Targaryen's moon dancer. So what do you guys think of the dramatic

1:20:04

increase in

1:20:08

Dragony presence?

1:20:08

then Oh my gosh. I

1:20:10

was I was very excited to see so many

1:20:11

dragons. We got little baby

1:20:15

dragons. We got big giant dragons. I bet you

1:20:17

know, I've been talking about how how much I've been waiting to see Vanguard for a long time and it was it was

1:20:19

really glorious. She

1:20:23

was, like, kinda you know, definitely old. Definitely, like, I think

1:20:25

the show runners said she was, like, literally falling apart a little bit.

1:20:28

And you could see some of

1:20:30

that. I think the detail they did

1:20:32

was was really amazing, you

1:20:34

know, contrasting to a little tiny, you know, cow sized dragon. The

1:20:39

the right is said that

1:20:41

when they think about Vega, they think of a b

1:20:43

fifty two bomber, something which is is really

1:20:45

difficult to get off the

1:20:48

ground, but once

1:20:50

in the air can just sort of, you know, take this vantage point and do huge amounts of

1:20:53

damage from the

1:20:56

air. But landing it

1:20:58

and taking off is very difficult. So they really thought it thought it out. That's a good comparison made.

1:21:00

Okay. Why don't we do

1:21:02

champ or jump? I think this

1:21:07

week, Emily, would you name

1:21:09

the champ of the week?

1:21:12

I would.

1:21:13

I think we've got to

1:21:15

give it to her Reneera this week. Anyone that

1:21:17

fresh room delivering a baby should not

1:21:19

be dragging themselves up the

1:21:21

stairs, but She does it anyway because she needs to

1:21:23

show strike to Alison, and she also

1:21:25

doesn't probably want Alison alone with her

1:21:28

newborn. Considering what Alison said

1:21:30

to Leonor, you can kinda

1:21:32

see why. Yeah. What

1:21:33

about Aegon? His

1:21:36

window hobbies.

1:21:39

You've you've gotta give him credit because you could see it was a nice sunny

1:21:41

day. So he's just trying to get an even

1:21:43

tan, I think. Oh, El. Is

1:21:45

that what he

1:21:47

was doing? Okay. Yeah. an interesting interpretation.

1:21:49

Okay. Why don't we move on to the jump of

1:21:51

the

1:21:51

week? Lady Quinn. As

1:21:55

tempting as it is to give Kristen Cole this award

1:21:56

in perpetuity. Well, maybe you'd have

1:21:58

to share it

1:21:59

with with

1:22:01

Grand Mesa or Melos. but

1:22:04

especially in light of his sort of

1:22:06

overwrought defamation of a woman that he

1:22:08

spent one night

1:22:10

with ten

1:22:10

years ago, I had to defer to

1:22:12

kinslagging. That wins

1:22:13

the day, so this week's

1:22:15

jump is lara

1:22:18

strong. I

1:22:19

I love it. It's like I had to

1:22:21

defer to Kingsley. It

1:22:24

Kingsley. Wow. Well, these

1:22:26

horrible things happen. We're gonna we're gonna go with kinslaying as the

1:22:28

worst this time.

1:22:29

This game is gonna get really, really

1:22:31

difficult and interesting. Alright.

1:22:34

Yeah. Because every

1:22:35

week so many people get chomped for, you know.

1:22:36

It would just be chomp of the

1:22:38

week. There'll be no chomp. It's

1:22:41

just gonna be chomp. Okay. So,

1:22:44

yeah, I hope you enjoyed

1:22:46

those little sections. Now, let's

1:22:48

round things up

1:22:50

with spoilery section to say things

1:22:52

that we couldn't say in the spoiler free

1:22:54

episode. Now we're gonna let it

1:22:57

all out. Things moments we bit

1:22:59

our tongue So, Lady Gwen, take away. Where is all

1:23:01

books?

1:23:02

I am going to start

1:23:04

by

1:23:04

going back to the

1:23:07

beginning of the episode some

1:23:09

symbolism. When Reneira brought baby Joffrey to see Alison

1:23:11

in that first scene, we see that

1:23:13

she leaves a trail of

1:23:15

blood in her wake. And

1:23:18

I thought that was very interesting. I think it

1:23:20

speaks volumes about Lanier's determination,

1:23:23

but

1:23:23

it says a whole

1:23:25

lot about Alison's

1:23:27

manipulation of the duation. Given that

1:23:30

Alison's actions in the aftermath of the Cerus'

1:23:32

death seizing the

1:23:34

crown for her son, will

1:23:37

occur as Reneera is having a much less easy birth, which is

1:23:39

going to result in a stillborn daughter

1:23:43

named Visenia, who's death Reneera

1:23:45

will blame upon the queen and her allies, not to mention

1:23:47

the wider trail of

1:23:50

the blood of this

1:23:52

next generation

1:23:54

of children, which will follow

1:23:56

the conflict between the two

1:23:59

women who gave this episode

1:24:01

its name, I have to wonder at the implied

1:24:04

symbolism. I mean,

1:24:06

Allison caused this to

1:24:08

happen. I mean, I read

1:24:11

this basically as Reneer's determination

1:24:13

and stubbornness is a large

1:24:15

part of the conflict as

1:24:17

it was as it was

1:24:18

what was driving her to make

1:24:20

that walk up the stairs. But also

1:24:22

that Allison is the primary

1:24:24

instigator as

1:24:26

she was in that scene. could have restrained

1:24:28

from making that demand, avoiding the

1:24:30

trail of blood, so to speak,

1:24:33

as she

1:24:36

could

1:24:36

also refrain from opposing

1:24:38

her husband, the

1:24:38

king's wishes, regarding this succession, thus

1:24:44

avoiding another trail of blood, including

1:24:46

that of her own children. So powerful stuff

1:24:48

at the very beginning of the

1:24:51

episode, very subtle, but I do

1:24:54

not think it was unintentional. Another

1:24:58

small moment in

1:25:00

that beginning

1:25:02

sequence whose definition or whose explanation is

1:25:05

definitely

1:25:05

spoiler y. You might have

1:25:08

noticed on her way up

1:25:10

the stairs to Alison's Chamber, Granira, passes

1:25:12

by a Lord Caswell who congratulates her and

1:25:14

follows up with an offer to be of

1:25:15

service to

1:25:19

its sincere reply. The

1:25:20

day may yet come my lord, and she just seems

1:25:22

to have a little bit tired and exasperated, and she keeps going. But keep an eye on

1:25:25

lord cast well

1:25:27

because he will soon

1:25:29

be among those who pay

1:25:31

the ultimate price for their loyalty to Reneira following death

1:25:32

when I expect

1:25:35

we will be seeing his

1:25:39

head on his bike outside

1:25:39

the Red Keep. So yep.

1:25:42

Just

1:25:43

a little little Easter

1:25:45

egg of something yet to come.

1:25:47

And one more small thing that I noticed was very

1:25:49

small, but I thought

1:25:52

it

1:25:52

was cute. During the scene in

1:25:54

the dragon pit, you had jace being

1:25:56

in structured in Valyrian. And

1:25:58

later on in pentos, we saw Damon teaching Bay La Valyrian. The obvious

1:25:59

reason is that,

1:26:03

you know, these kids are both young

1:26:05

dragon riders and

1:26:06

Valyrian is the magical language that's used to control the beasts. But on

1:26:08

another level, we've seen Valyrian used

1:26:11

as Damon and Reneer as love

1:26:14

language. That was a description I

1:26:17

believe by Emma Darcy.

1:26:20

And here's a spoiler

1:26:22

y bit. Gesareus and Bayla will be betrothed

1:26:24

eventually. And though they won't

1:26:26

ever actually have the chance to marry

1:26:29

in fire and blood, it's implied

1:26:31

that they did become quite close. So I do

1:26:33

like to think that we'll get to

1:26:35

see these two older conversing in

1:26:37

Valerian as

1:26:38

a way of showing emotional

1:26:41

closeness just as we've seen with their parents. And even if not, even if

1:26:43

that's not the way they

1:26:44

play it,

1:26:45

the pairing of

1:26:48

those two two

1:26:50

via those two scenes, just me somehow definite

1:26:52

there's a definite parallel

1:26:55

pairing. So Yeah. peril

1:26:57

no pairing so

1:26:59

keep an eye on that. It's nice to see younger generations passing down, like,

1:27:01

something good, instead of just solving their,

1:27:03

like, trauma and

1:27:06

problems. I

1:27:08

don't So we've we've covered Harwin in great

1:27:10

detail already in the pre spoiler section.

1:27:13

So I won't retread that

1:27:15

ground, but I did wanna talk about some the changes that were made to this character between

1:27:17

book and show. Now that our time

1:27:19

with them has

1:27:20

unfortunately come

1:27:23

to an end. Harlan's strong known as Brake Bones was considered the

1:27:25

strongest man in the realm during his

1:27:27

day. You could kind of see that

1:27:29

when he was just absolutely, like, bodying

1:27:31

people to get Ronera at the

1:27:34

wedding. One thing that the show changed is that heroin was an actual suitor

1:27:36

vying for Ronera who paid court

1:27:38

to her in one hundred and twelve

1:27:40

AC. Whereas

1:27:43

while he did kind of give her the

1:27:45

eyes at the hunt, we saw Lord strong

1:27:47

his father firmly reject his

1:27:49

chance to put forth Darwin. Instead, the wise

1:27:51

hand suggested Leonor for political reasons,

1:27:53

setting him apart from the

1:27:55

self serving former hand auto

1:27:58

high tower. talk about a big what if

1:27:59

moment. According to the

1:28:01

dubious tales of mushroom,

1:28:04

Harwin and Reneer's relationship

1:28:06

began directly after Kristen Cole rejected the princess.

1:28:08

Though it seems that the affair

1:28:10

probably started after Reneer's marriage to

1:28:13

Lanier based on

1:28:15

show canon. There were changes to the wedding festivities

1:28:17

as well, which we didn't we talked a little bit about last week with with Joffrey

1:28:19

Lana's death happening at

1:28:22

Ternie rather than welcome

1:28:24

feast. But Kristen wasn't done

1:28:26

at the attorney. He also shattered Harwin's elbow and collarbone and the attorney

1:28:28

fighting in a black

1:28:31

rage for queen elephant. Hireland

1:28:34

was

1:28:34

later mocked with a new nickname

1:28:36

by the Greens Broken Bones

1:28:38

due to that fight. In the intervening

1:28:41

years, Hireland served as served as

1:28:43

Reneera's sworn shield, that post gave Harwin

1:28:45

ample reasons to stay close to the

1:28:47

princess rather than in the

1:28:49

show position of city watch commander.

1:28:51

Part of why this was likely changed that Reneera, you know, spent a little

1:28:53

bit more time going back and forth between

1:28:56

Dragonstone than I think the show

1:28:58

really had to cover with the time

1:29:00

gap. He was eventually dismissed not

1:29:02

by his father, but by a king vissiris himself following a fight involving Allison

1:29:07

and Reneer's children. and accusations about the latter's

1:29:09

parentage. This dismissal likely gave rise to the rumors that it was

1:29:12

veserius, not Larry Strong who ordered

1:29:14

the fire at hair and haul,

1:29:16

but killed sir

1:29:18

Harwin and his father. Other culprits because this was, you know, hot gosh back in the day,

1:29:20

included Lord Corless

1:29:23

Volarian, angry that Harwin

1:29:26

cuckold at his son. Prince

1:29:29

Damon potentially eliminating a

1:29:31

competitor for Reneer's affections and

1:29:34

Sir Otto, who wanted his handshipped back. Interesting, given the trope of that

1:29:40

grasping young son

1:29:42

offing his elders for a lordship that very few in the consider

1:29:44

Lara's a potential subject

1:29:46

kind of goes and speaks

1:29:51

to his skittle and prowess in terms

1:29:53

of, you know, manipulating public opinion

1:29:55

and spreading rumor and gossip. So hopefully,

1:29:57

we see a little bit of that

1:29:59

next episode. Okay. So for

1:30:01

my spoiler y talk, earlier in this episode, I analyzed

1:30:04

the scene

1:30:08

with where she's discussing insects with Alison. And

1:30:10

then a King's Guard drags Eamon into the room, recall

1:30:14

that Elena is talking about a millipede crow crawling

1:30:16

over her fingers and comments that

1:30:18

while it has eyes, it can't see.

1:30:22

When Eamon derives, Alice's Alison

1:30:24

promises that one day he'll have

1:30:26

a dragon. And at that exact

1:30:29

moment, Elaina murmurs, that one day he'll that

1:30:31

when that happens, he'll have to

1:30:35

close an eye. given that she she just

1:30:37

been talking about the millipede's eyes and the fact that the heading editing

1:30:40

cuts are

1:30:42

really rapid The audience can be forgiven for thinking that

1:30:45

her comment was aimed at

1:30:47

the insect, but this

1:30:50

could be clever misdirection writers

1:30:52