0:08

Regular Westeros. House of

0:10

the Dragon season one episode

0:12

seven.

0:12

Driftmark.

0:31

Hello,

0:32

and welcome to Radio Westeros. I'm Yolk

0:34

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

0:36

the seventh episode of House of

0:38

the Dragon called Driftmark. Today,

0:41

we'll be reacting to and evaluating

0:43

this episode as well as making plenty

0:45

of book comparisons because we are fans of

0:47

the books. we will avoid spoiling

0:50

the future plot of House of the Dragon,

0:53

but we will have a spoiler

0:55

section at the end and we'll give you a

0:57

giant heads up for that. So whatever

0:59

you want, song of ice and fire, Game of Thrones background,

1:02

we've got a lot to offer tonight. In

1:05

this episode, there was not

1:07

much of a time jump from last time. We're

1:09

talking weeks, not months or years.

1:11

We began with a funeral and ended

1:13

with a wedding things that unfolding pretty

1:16

quickly these days on House of the Dragon.

1:18

Last week, we had a close look at a

1:20

new generation of characters who will

1:23

inherit some of the political problems

1:25

being created by their parents and elders.

1:28

This week, we got to see how

1:30

the fault lines of these conflicts are manifesting

1:33

in the behaviors of those children.

1:36

Clearly, tensions are mounting week after

1:38

week and here the gloves came off and

1:41

their rivalry between the two factions began

1:43

to spill over into open violence. The

1:46

writers saw exceeded in conveying this

1:48

escalating tension while simultaneously

1:51

maneuvering characters into position to

1:54

solidify the factions and pave the

1:56

way for further conflict. The

1:58

key maneuver in this regard was Damon

1:59

marrying his niece Reneera to

2:02

form a Targaryen power couple

2:04

that will surely be a force to be reckoned

2:06

with. But that wasn't the only power

2:08

move in the episode, given Eamon's

2:10

desire to bond with the most

2:13

formidable weapon in Westeros.

2:15

Both factions steal themselves

2:17

today. So we have so much

2:19

to to talk about today and we

2:21

can't wait to get more depth.

2:23

So why don't I say hello to my RadioRestros

2:26

Co host, Lady Quinn.

2:28

Hello. Hi, everybody. Welcome

2:30

to everyone who's joining

2:32

us and hello to those of you who

2:35

joined us in the future.

2:36

Yeah. Driftmark, my

2:38

favorite location, and we have so

2:40

much to say about this episode. Lots

2:43

of power moves like you said, and

2:45

really

2:46

looking forward to digging in. And we

2:48

have our recurrent guest,

2:51

Emily,

2:52

back again tonight. Welcome.

2:54

Yeah.

2:55

Hello. Glad to be back.

2:58

Well,

2:58

lots and lots

2:59

say and do. So let's get

3:02

things started before we begin our analysis.

3:05

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well.

4:00

So back over

4:01

to you, Yolk boy. Get us started.

4:03

Okay. We'll start with the funeral.

4:06

We've talked before about how House of Dragon

4:08

often centers its episodes around

4:11

one particular event. We've had attorney,

4:13

a hunter In this episode, we

4:15

begin with a funeral, a high tide

4:17

on drift mark. the seat of house

4:19

Valerian. Westerosi, royalty,

4:22

gathered to mark the passing of

4:24

Lena who saw a die by Dragon

4:26

Fire last week. whereas Targaryens

4:29

chromate their dead in keeping with their

4:31

fiery theme of their house. And in

4:33

Fire and Blood, it does seem house

4:35

valerian follows suit. In the show,

4:37

apparently, the Valerians prefer

4:39

maritime funerals given they

4:41

have a history of seafaring. While

4:44

Lena's tomb is lowered into the

4:46

sea, Vaiman Vilerion delivers

4:50

the funeral rights. Vamend

4:52

is Cordis' younger brother in the show. He's

4:54

actually his nephew in the books. But anyway,

4:56

his speech spoken in high valyrian

4:59

begins like this.

5:02

We joined today at the seat

5:04

of the seat to commit the lady liner

5:06

of House Valyrian to the Eternal

5:08

Waters the dominion of the Merlin

5:10

king where he will guide her

5:12

for all the days to come. So

5:15

the Merlin king is a god associated

5:17

with the narrow sea He's

5:19

worshiped by sailors and the Valerens

5:22

believe this god bestowed the driftwood

5:24

throne upon them. So

5:26

this is some deep lore and although

5:28

the Merlin King is a lesser known god

5:30

compared to the seven and so on, there

5:32

is a statue of this deity in the

5:34

house of black and white as well as a ship

5:36

and a rock formation named

5:38

after him. And although

5:41

this is a serious and somber occasion,

5:44

Vamend can't help himself when

5:46

he mentions that Lena's children

5:48

were true born and that Valerian

5:51

blood runs true and must never

5:53

thin. with Raymond glancing at

5:55

Reneer and Leinor. We know

5:57

this was meant as a subtle slight against

5:59

the children. A fact which causes a

6:01

moment of discomfort for the king, the

6:03

princess, her husband, and the kids.

6:06

One person who seemed to enjoy the

6:08

subtext though, was Damon who

6:10

audibly sniggers. A

6:12

lot of this episode will be about

6:14

factions and factions within factions,

6:16

And this brief scene with Raymond conveys

6:19

the house valyrian have mixed feelings

6:21

about Luke and Jace looking a lot

6:23

more like Harwin Strong than their valyrian

6:26

father. On one hand with Chase

6:28

Bing in line to one day inherit the

6:30

iron throne, the Valerin name

6:32

has pride of position next to house

6:34

Targaryen, On the other, this

6:36

might be a superficial boast given

6:38

it seems to be common knowledge

6:40

that Reneer's kids do not have

6:42

valyrian blood. proud

6:44

Vaiman, clearly falls on

6:46

the side of blood first, but

6:49

the theme of blood versus name

6:51

will be revisited later, Lady

6:53

Quinn.

6:54

Yes, it will. One thing that

6:56

occurred to me during this scene is that with

6:58

these funeral rights being delivered

7:00

in high valyrian, A

7:02

lot of people present might

7:04

not have actually understood what

7:06

he was saying. So Vamens'

7:08

dig about the blood running

7:10

true probably had a very specific

7:12

and very small audience,

7:13

namely Lord

7:15

and Lady Valerian, the king

7:17

and his brother Damon, Reneera

7:19

and Leonor, And,

7:22

you know, the kids maybe,

7:24

but assuming

7:24

that they're still learning, not

7:27

all of them. probably

7:28

are fluent enough in

7:31

Hivirian to follow this entire speech.

7:33

So one one person I do think

7:36

was aware is Chase.

7:37

He seems very tuned into these

7:39

slides and these rumors as

7:42

we'll see later in the episode. So

7:43

I did assume that

7:45

it went over most of the guests' heads,

7:47

including Alison and autos,

7:49

and speaking of auto, While

7:52

there probably hasn't been a huge passage

7:54

of time, as you said, it's clearly been

7:56

enough for Alison to convince Pacerias

7:58

to summon her father.

7:59

Notably, in fire and

8:02

blood, the deaths of Harwin

8:04

and Lionel Strong take place after

8:06

the deaths

8:06

of Lena and Lena

8:09

Valerian. And it's actually Leonor's

8:11

funeral that the extended

8:13

family assembles for with

8:15

the strong still alive. clearly

8:17

this change was made to sort of streamline the

8:19

reintroduction of sir Otto

8:21

as hand. And sure enough,

8:23

they're in that funeral

8:24

sequence. We get a close-up of him.

8:26

looking particularly proud

8:28

of his little hand of the kingpin.

8:31

Just sort of

8:32

like, oh, look at me, hand again.

8:35

whether Vocera's considered other

8:36

options to replace Lord

8:39

Lionel, such as Reneer or

8:41

Damon, as fire and blood

8:43

reports, there were a number of other

8:45

people

8:45

under consideration. He

8:47

did obviously end up in the same place.

8:50

choosing familiarity over

8:53

wisdom that

8:55

sounds like this heiress all the way,

8:57

giving his wife an enormous measure of

8:59

power, with her father back at her side.

9:01

While still maintaining his supportive

9:03

Renira as her heir, I mean, this is something

9:05

that seems fairly shortsighted

9:07

to say the very least. So

9:10

we also see lots of

9:12

dragons fueling in the sky

9:14

above high tide. In Fire and

9:16

Blood regarding Lainer's funeral,

9:18

it says, so many dragons were

9:19

present that septon Eustace wrote

9:22

that Driftmark had become the

9:24

new Valyria. But let's not

9:26

forget that dragon is also

9:28

shorthand for the human members of House Targaryen,

9:30

and they're

9:31

all present. This is the first time

9:33

we've seen the entire house assembled now

9:36

enlarged by the births of a number of new

9:38

children,

9:38

like you said. Really, I think since

9:40

Brineura

9:40

and Lanyor's wedding, I mean, obviously,

9:42

the first time we've seen them on screen,

9:44

but I don't think there would have been any

9:46

occasion

9:47

in the decade

9:49

that's passed

9:49

where they might have gotten together

9:51

off screen.

9:53

So considering how

9:55

smoothly

9:56

Reneera and Lainer's wedding went.

9:58

What could possibly go wrong here?

9:59

In the inside the

10:01

episode feature the showrunner's actually

10:05

noted that the

10:08

wake on the patio at high tide was

10:10

the first scene that

10:13

they filmed with the full cast. I

10:15

thought this was very interesting because

10:17

they commented that the actors really

10:19

had yet to get to know each

10:21

other, and they're all still a bit unsure

10:23

and awkward. And the

10:25

showrunner is

10:25

intentionally capitalized on that to

10:28

portray this awkward family get

10:30

together. Death

10:32

always makes people uncomfortable. Even

10:34

in

10:34

a close family, people might struggle

10:37

to know what is the right thing

10:38

to say, but this family is

10:40

the opposite of close, dysfunctional with

10:42

a capital d, and so

10:44

we get peak awkwardness. Much

10:47

of the scene is framed from

10:49

Rivera's perspective as she sort of moves

10:51

around through the group. family

10:54

and assorted well wishers,

10:56

presumably, Valerian family

10:58

and retainers. She's in

11:00

constant motion, not stock being

11:02

really to talk to anybody except for her

11:04

boys. But her constant frame

11:06

of reference is her

11:08

widowed uncle Damon. who

11:10

is a static and solitary figure

11:13

leaning on the wall very much apart from

11:15

the gathering. The contrast

11:18

between

11:18

his immobility, and

11:20

Reneer is almost nervous circuit

11:22

of the crowd. I felt

11:24

really connected them. There's almost like

11:26

a line drawn between them where she's

11:28

just sort of orbiting him.

11:31

They don't speak a word to each other

11:33

though. Exchange a few looks. There

11:36

are others in the crowd who were

11:37

virtually silent too. Allicent

11:39

and Vocera appear extremely

11:41

illities. And throughout the length

11:43

you've seen, the camerawork finds

11:45

all of those uncomfortable silent

11:48

spots and contrast

11:50

them with a series of interactions

11:52

between

11:53

pairs of characters. So it's another one of

11:56

those episodes where a lot of the interactions

11:58

are just with a

11:59

couple or

12:00

two characters on screen.

12:04

And we're gonna go through that now,

12:06

that sequence starting with

12:08

Reneera and her eldest

12:10

son, Jaceris.

12:12

Yeah.

12:12

So, like Lady Quinn said,

12:14

we do see Lanier drifting kinda through

12:16

the gathered family and assorted nobles.

12:19

Not really having a clear place like you

12:21

know, it almost feels a little awkward

12:23

at times where she could make make

12:25

contact but does it. The one conversation

12:27

that Reneera actually seeks out is with her

12:29

eldest son, Jacarry, or

12:31

adjacent. The two of them now share

12:33

a secret pain silently

12:35

grieving Harwin while at the

12:37

funeral of a more distant family member by

12:39

comparison. Jay doesn't understand

12:41

why they can't be at Heron Hall, and

12:43

Reneer has to remind him. The

12:45

scene is brief, but touching is see

12:47

Reneera instinctively comfort her children and

12:49

fall back on her role as a mother when

12:51

feeling a bit out of place with the wake.

12:54

As Jaywalk Jay walks away,

12:56

Renira notices Allison and Kristen

12:58

kinda giving her the stink eye, and she

13:00

appears awkward and uncomfortable here. III

13:02

really feel for Reneera, you know,

13:04

who's been consultatory in the

13:06

past to no avail. In interviews

13:08

with Olivia Cook, she stated that even

13:11

seeing Reneera be a good mother,

13:13

only sours Alison towards the princess

13:15

further. There's so much like envy and

13:17

jealousy that Alison,

13:19

you know, can't be glad that her wants friend

13:21

is a good mother. Instead, she assumes

13:23

Reneera is just naturally good at something

13:25

that Alison's not only

13:27

struggles with more, but that Reneera is in

13:29

her mind taking it for granted.

13:31

It's a really toxic dynamic that I think the

13:33

actors are doing an incredible job of

13:35

portraying even nonverbally.

13:37

agreed. And

13:39

next up, we get a brief

13:42

scene with Helena, so let's talk

13:44

about that. Last week, we were

13:46

introduced to Elena, the

13:48

series and Alison's second child after

13:50

Aegon. That was a brief scene

13:52

too, but it was a memorable one given that she

13:54

was immediately characterized as

13:56

being obsessed with insects. She

13:59

was closely analyzing a millipede

14:01

while her mother told Eamon that one day he'll

14:04

write a dragon. And when Elena

14:06

muttered that he'll need to lose an

14:08

eye, show watchers weren't sure

14:10

if she was talking about the millipede or her

14:13

brother. Knowing what happens

14:15

next though, book readers knew that

14:17

Helena was making an offhand prophecy

14:19

there that Eamon would ride

14:21

a dragon and lose an eye in quick

14:23

succession. We'll talk about

14:25

Eamon mounting Vega later

14:27

on, But for now, let's acknowledge that Helena's

14:29

rambling prediction came true,

14:31

confirming I think that she is a

14:33

dragon dreamer. The brief

14:35

scene with Elena here in this

14:37

episode builds upon both her love of

14:39

bugs and these prophetic abilities.

14:42

While the rest of the attendants are busy

14:44

mingling and having those awkward conversations,

14:46

she remains antisocial and

14:49

favors spending time with a spider All

14:51

the while, she mutters the lines,

14:54

hand turns the loom, spool of

14:56

green, spool of black, dragons

14:58

of flesh, weaving, dragons of

15:00

thread. She says this phrase

15:02

on repeat, and it's clear that

15:04

she lives in a world of her own.

15:06

Given we now know her rambling

15:08

are prophetic, we can look at her

15:10

lines hear and wonder what they predict

15:13

without going into spoiler territory given

15:15

she's talking about weaving with

15:17

green thread We know

15:19

she's talking about Alison and her faction

15:22

and that green dress obviously.

15:25

And I think in this episode, characters

15:27

have begun to call this

15:30

group the Greens. Although,

15:32

I understand that the show is dealing with a

15:34

sprawling story that needs to skirt through some

15:36

of the dynamics I do think it's a

15:38

huge shame that we don't know

15:40

Vocera's opinion on

15:42

Helena. While it's becoming

15:44

increasingly obvious to the viewer, that she

15:46

has this prophetic gift,

15:48

nobody in story has mentioned it.

15:50

Viceroy's especially would surely

15:52

be an awe of her if you realized

15:54

that she's whispering glimpses of the

15:57

future

15:57

under her breath. I would just love

15:59

to know what Vocera's makes of her

16:02

and I'd love to know if he's even

16:04

realized that she has these abilities.

16:07

So Eamon Aegon and

16:09

Eamon watch Helena and find

16:11

it quite peculiar. And then Eamon

16:14

mentions that apparently their mother has told

16:16

Aegon he will have to marry the sister in

16:18

accordance with Targaryen traditions

16:20

based on what George r Martin has

16:22

said, are about keeping the

16:24

bloodlines pure and better

16:26

controlling the dragons. Anyway,

16:29

although Eamon seems more

16:31

willing to hypothetically do his

16:33

duty than party boy Aegon It

16:35

seems like that Aegon Helena match is

16:37

a done deal, and Eamon's comments

16:39

that his sister is

16:41

Aegon's future queen also reveals that

16:43

Alison has been anything but

16:45

discreet in her insistent that

16:48

Aegon is Vocera's rightful

16:50

heir. Definitely.

16:51

So despite the

16:54

dysfunction on display between Allison's

16:56

children, we do get a tender moment

16:58

of bonding between Lena

17:00

and Damon's children, Reena and Beyla, and their cousin

17:02

Jason. All three kids are struggling

17:04

with extreme pain and loss of a

17:06

parental figure, now both

17:08

kind of facing life without

17:11

someone who cared very deeply for

17:13

them. It's a tender moment

17:15

particularly when juxtaposed with what we just

17:17

saw, which was Aegon's disdain for

17:19

Helena. considering that these kids haven't

17:21

grown up together and and really are just getting

17:23

to know each other for the first time. It's it's incredibly sweet

17:25

that they can find comfort

17:27

in each other so naturally

17:30

here. I

17:30

definitely agree with that. I love

17:33

that scene. Then

17:35

into that scene moves Rainy's

17:37

breathed mother lady

17:39

of the house who doesn't really seem

17:41

all that interested in talking to her

17:44

guests. I can't

17:44

really blame her. She's not the ones

17:46

she's related to anyways. We

17:49

get virtually

17:50

no shots of her interaction with Damon

17:52

Vocera's Allison to her children

17:55

or even Reneera and her children. In

17:57

fact, she and Reneera

17:59

are both similarly awkward,

18:02

meets near the drinks table and appeared to sort

18:04

of ignore each other. I mean, you've all

18:06

been there in a social gathering, you run

18:08

into someone, you'd rather not talk

18:10

to, and you suddenly become blind.

18:12

Totally didn't see them. You

18:13

just turn away. We pretend you were

18:16

doing something else. So that was

18:18

that scene. relatively awkward. I

18:20

think in the moment, it contributes to the

18:22

overall tone that's being portrayed.

18:24

But later when we see Rainey's talking

18:26

with Corollus,

18:27

we'll get an idea of exactly why the princess

18:29

didn't have much to say to her cousins, two

18:31

of whom are also her children

18:33

in law. So I

18:36

did notice that when she

18:38

went

18:38

over to embrace her granddaughters, which

18:40

was very

18:41

sweet, except for the fact

18:43

that in doing so, She not only

18:45

broke up that tender

18:47

moment between Jaceris and

18:49

and Bayla, but

18:51

she appeared to utterly ignore Jaceris.

18:54

Who is nominally

18:55

at least also her grandchild.

18:59

Again, peak awkwardness

19:00

on all parts, a

19:02

little bit of unpleasantness from the

19:04

queen who never was, but

19:06

apparently she

19:07

can't resist the old Westerosi prejudice

19:10

against bastards. And that's

19:12

something I do hope that she overcomes

19:13

given how really

19:15

sweet and kind Jacero seems

19:18

to be. speaking of

19:19

sweet and kind children. Meanwhile, Luceris,

19:22

you know, back kinda on the other side of the the

19:24

Courtyard patio. And is approached

19:26

by his grandfather, Corus, who tells him that

19:28

one day he'll be lord of the tides when his

19:31

brother, Chase, is king. Luke

19:33

bulks at this and Kourless doesn't immediately understand.

19:36

Most second sons would be absolutely thrilled to

19:38

have such a bright future ahead of their own

19:40

house without the need for bloodshed.

19:43

Entire character arcs in the main series are focused

19:45

around who will inherit a lordship. It

19:47

casts a shadow over house lammister, house

19:50

martell, house greyjoy, house

19:52

hunter, and so many more throughout the first

19:54

existing five books. But Luke

19:56

clouded in grief and so young can only

19:58

focus on one terrifying thought. that in

20:00

order to become lord of the tides, most of the

20:02

people he loves will have to die, both his

20:04

grandfathers and his parents

20:06

for a start. Perhaps again

20:07

to Steve Tussant here who doesn't even

20:09

offer an her a verbal reply. Just add

20:11

a loss for words in this face is such a

20:13

sad revelation from his grandson.

20:15

In this

20:17

moment and others in the episode, we can see that

20:19

he truly is yet another strong

20:21

role model for these

20:23

boys. Yeah.

20:23

I left that scene. Then

20:26

Following

20:26

that, we get this extremely brief

20:29

moment that I hope

20:30

everyone caught. It was actually so brief that,

20:33

you know, it might have gone past

20:35

some viewers had Eamon and

20:37

Chase meet across the

20:39

Fraser, and both are looking

20:41

extremely miserable. This is not a

20:43

happy gathering. And no one,

20:45

even the adults, really knows how to

20:47

act. And kids at

20:49

a

20:49

funeral, I mean, that's just

20:50

it's just like torture. Plus

20:52

all the family

20:53

tension is just making everything more

20:56

awkward. And so they kind of

20:58

exchange glances and

21:00

shadow of a smile starts to cross Eamon's

21:03

face. And Chase appears to be on the

21:05

verge of kinda shyly responding.

21:07

But then it's like a door

21:09

closes or, you know, shade comes

21:11

down and they both

21:13

remember what they've been

21:15

taught. that their enemies

21:17

who must hate each other

21:19

was so swift, so well done, just

21:21

a couple of facial expressions from a

21:23

pair of small boys, eloquently speaking

21:26

volumes about opportunities missed

21:28

and what's to come, and

21:30

then the sea moves on. to another

21:32

pair

21:32

of brothers. Yeah. So, you

21:34

know, as we mentioned earlier, you know,

21:36

we've seen Vocera's. We've seen Damon

21:39

throughout the seen quite a bit, but, you know, no words really

21:41

spoken. But eventually, viserys does

21:43

rise from his seat and kind of

21:45

shufflingly, painfully, makes his way

21:47

over to his younger brother Damon.

21:49

The last time we saw them together was at Reneer's wedding before

21:51

all hell broke loose. And while it's

21:53

possible that there's been contact since then,

21:56

it seems unlikely based on the tone that

21:58

they take

21:59

and other context clues. Vassaras

22:02

tries to relate to his brother

22:04

saying the gods can be cruel and can't

22:06

help himself here saying especially

22:08

cruel to you. This dynamic

22:10

of Damon telling him how it is,

22:12

you know, to Vesserus isn't new and Vesserus

22:14

seems to forgive any potential offense

22:17

agreeing with Damon here. Despite

22:19

how Damon handled things when Vesserus

22:21

lost Emma, the elder brother is trying to be the bigger

22:23

person here. He offers Damon the

22:25

opportunity to return to king's landing, offering

22:28

him a place in court again if

22:30

that's what he needs. Damon,

22:32

who's always resented his position as

22:34

second son, someone who needs to

22:36

be granted power by his elder brother,

22:38

says, I need nothing. But

22:41

the careful viewer might notice that he

22:43

begins mouthing something that looks

22:45

specifically like Renira before he bites it

22:47

off saying nothing instead. Veserus

22:49

King of the Seven kingdoms can really offer

22:51

Damon anything, but what Damon really

22:53

wants and needs is understanding and love,

22:55

things that Veserus has always

22:58

struggled to

22:58

give him. As Damon

23:00

walks away from this exchange, auto

23:02

high tower steps in to, you know,

23:04

give condolences to the widowed Damon.

23:07

However, the rogue prince is always quick with a

23:09

quip, snap, spitting back. No

23:11

matter how fat the leech grows, it is

23:13

always wants for another meal.

23:16

This entire exchange took me back to Damon's moment in

23:18

the throne room with the series following Emma's

23:20

death again. Damon sees Otto

23:22

for who he is, but the

23:25

function in his relationship with the series

23:27

allows Otto to keep cozying up to the king in

23:29

dangerous ways. We ask a

23:31

lot of what ifs during the series, but one

23:33

has to wonder what would have happened if a

23:35

series had trusted Damon about Otto and

23:37

not let him return to court.

23:38

Okay. Let's move on to visceris and

23:41

Alison now. Visibly

23:43

exhausted, visceris decides to

23:45

call it a night. He's had enough

23:48

Lord commander Harold Wesseling

23:50

escorts it from the escorts him from the

23:52

scene, and viserus says

23:54

good night to his wife, which is

23:56

all well and good. However, he

23:58

calls her Emma the name of

24:00

his first wife obviously.

24:03

He'd just been commiserating

24:06

with Damon about the death of his wife,

24:08

so we can understand his train of

24:10

thought. But the mistake serves to

24:12

show us that it's not only vocerious'

24:15

physical health that's failing. He might

24:17

just be beginning to lose his

24:19

faculties. Given the command the

24:21

demands of kingship, there is a

24:23

significant this is a significant

24:25

moment in his decline, I think.

24:27

Harold makes sure to subtly

24:29

correct his king And

24:32

as he leaves with the valkyries,

24:34

he gives the King's Guard night

24:36

watch to Christian Cole, and

24:38

here is another important detail because

24:41

it means whatever happens

24:43

between the royal children and the dead of

24:45

night happens on Christian

24:47

Cole's watch. So we'll talk about this

24:49

later, but for now I can tell you I'm happy we

24:51

can all blame Kristen Cole.

24:53

Yep. I gotta agree with that before

24:56

I move on. So after a long day

24:58

of laying Lana to rest and grieving with

25:00

most of the court, we finally see Lana's

25:02

parents, chlorless and rainy's get a

25:04

moment alone together in the hall

25:06

of nine. The loss of a

25:08

child is one of the hardest tragedies one

25:10

can face. In the real world, it's known to

25:12

tear marriages apart as each party

25:14

searches for meaning or someone to

25:16

blame and, you know, kind of

25:18

something that doesn't always have meaning or

25:20

blame. And the scene opens like that

25:22

with rainy's casting around for someone to, you

25:24

know, pin the son, Damon, or wanting

25:26

to stay in pentos, the lack of maesters

25:28

there in pentos to help her.

25:30

Corollis, who's been shown to be a very

25:32

pragmatic person, pushes back on these

25:35

surgeons gently. He can more readily

25:37

accept what happened at this stage as an act of

25:39

the gods. Rainey says the gods

25:41

perhaps scorned them for their

25:43

insatiable pride. This isn't the first time that the

25:45

couple has danced around this old

25:47

grudge of Rainey's claim or or that

25:49

Corley's has been characterized as the one who really

25:51

won't move on from it. In

25:53

the of tragedy, Rainey's cuts past even that

25:55

old argument is something that she got over a

25:58

generation ago, while Corley's whoa.

26:00

Now in her grief for Lena, Rainy's

26:02

was focused on a new goal, honoring

26:04

her daughter in a way that

26:06

the realm would not honor her.

26:09

She proposes naming Beyla and Reina as heir

26:11

as to driftmark. With Leinor taken care

26:13

of his king consort, he doesn't need

26:16

a lordship. She thinks Driftmark should

26:18

pass through the Valerian bloodline,

26:20

Lino's girls, as Lino's sons are

26:22

not of his blood, Valerian

26:24

blood. Even amongst Reneer's assumed

26:26

allies, Reney's wants to acknowledge the

26:28

reality of things and not let the big lie

26:30

about Reneer's sons to pryvelina's daughters

26:32

of their home. she urges Corollis to

26:35

speak plainly here. It's only the two of

26:37

them. Yeah.

26:38

But Corollis doesn't really

26:40

seem moved

26:41

by or shocked by

26:44

Reneith's revelation. I think this

26:46

speaks volumes about him while

26:48

Reneith's understandably up set

26:51

about the continued quest to write

26:53

old wrongs and how it affects her

26:55

children's lives. Corollis

26:57

seems much more willing than she is to

26:59

accept his grandsons or as

27:01

his grandsons, the boys that Leonor

27:04

has claimed as his own

27:06

knowing full well that they aren't his

27:09

blood. History remembers names, not blood

27:11

Corley says, which is a very

27:13

pragmatic point of view in

27:15

an era where DNA tests

27:17

simply don't exist. And legally, these

27:19

matters hinge entirely upon a man's

27:22

acceptance of children as his own.

27:24

So I view Jeserus

27:27

and Luserus and Joffrey,

27:29

you know, along the lines of adopted

27:31

sons, you know, Lainor has accepted

27:33

them. He calls them his sons. They call them

27:36

father. And, you

27:38

know, that that should

27:39

should be the end of

27:41

it. especially even in

27:41

this era because there's really no way to prove

27:44

it other than looks,

27:45

which isn't exactly scientific.

27:47

So here, no matter what they look

27:49

like, as long as Lanyor claims them

27:51

is his, that should be

27:54

the position that the entire family

27:56

takes, and that is the position

27:58

that Corley's take. and

28:00

while that might be part of

28:02

his relentless pursuit of

28:04

legacy as Rainy's implies, I'm

28:06

not sure it's holy cynic I do think

28:08

there's room to see Corleus as a very compassionate

28:10

and loving man who's trying to do his

28:12

best by these children during a very

28:14

difficult time. So

28:18

moving on from

28:20

the scenes inside of

28:23

high tide, we

28:26

next move out to the beach. Kids

28:28

get sent to bed,

28:30

Rainier and Damon. Go

28:32

for a walk

28:33

on the beach. They

28:35

have a very frank conversation about

28:37

Lainor and Darwin and

28:38

Laina and how their lives have gone

28:41

since they presumably last saw each

28:43

other ten years ago. Raneera

28:45

manages to be vulnerable and yet

28:47

strong at the same time. She reminds her

28:49

on goal that she was a child

28:53

last time they met that she felt

28:55

abandoned by him back then, and that

28:57

she really needed him. And she's

28:59

making it clear that in her

29:01

opinion, She still means him that they belong together,

29:03

which is they're definitely very

29:05

much setting up what happens in the rest of

29:08

the episode. Like, much of the

29:10

episode, this scene is very dark

29:12

and moody and there's very little

29:14

dialogue. Reneera has a lot to say to

29:16

Damon, but he responds

29:18

cautiously almost, you know, monosyllabic

29:21

in that talking, such as

29:23

it is, is front loaded in the scene because

29:25

the scene ends with the back half of

29:27

the scene is a

29:29

a love scene with the pair consummating

29:31

this kind of long simmering tension

29:34

between them. after

29:36

Reneera pointedly notes that she's no longer

29:38

a child. We get a

29:41

sense in this scene that these

29:43

two are very much destined

29:45

to beat together, to work as

29:47

a team, but

29:49

they're

29:50

still in moments together.

29:52

do come to an end when Damon

29:55

becomes aware that Vakar

29:57

is flying overhead. As an

29:59

experienced dragon rider, I

30:01

think he surely knows something

30:04

is happening. So, Yolked,

30:06

why don't you walk us through what

30:08

was going on in that parallel

30:10

scene which played out, you know,

30:12

as this one

30:13

was playing out there and just burst.

30:16

Yeah. So

30:17

last week, we saw

30:19

Eamon taking a ton of flack in

30:21

the dragon pit because the other kids

30:24

had dragons and he

30:26

didn't. Even his big brother picked on him,

30:28

teaming up with Jason Luke

30:30

to bring forth a

30:32

pig for Eamon to ride. In

30:34

that sequence, we learned how deeply

30:37

Eamon's desire to ride a

30:39

dragon runs. As after

30:41

being humiliated, he

30:43

crept down to the dragon's lair

30:45

by himself. The takeaway

30:47

was that while he didn't have a

30:49

dragon of his own, he was

30:51

certainly not short of the courage required

30:53

to mount one. Well, this week,

30:55

Eamon outdid himself. He went

30:57

and claimed Vega, the oldest and

30:59

largest dragon in the known world.

31:02

Vega is a legendary she dragon who

31:04

was instrumental in Aegon's conquest

31:06

of Westeros when Queen Vicenia

31:09

wrote her The last living

31:11

remnant of that era, Vega was

31:13

more recently well, very

31:15

recently, in fact, ridden

31:17

by Lana Valerian,

31:19

whose death was supposed to be mourned

31:22

today. Not want to miss an

31:24

opportunity, Eamon crept out on his own at

31:26

night and found Vega sleeping

31:28

in the sand dunes under the moonlight.

31:30

Well, young Aiman is

31:32

a small lad, Vega. It was absolutely

31:36

ginormous. We saw Vega last week. But

31:38

here we not only had the closest

31:40

look at Vega, but the most

31:42

detailed and extended Dragon

31:45

sequence in this show so

31:47

far. It begins with

31:49

Eamon trying to sneak

31:51

close to her and mount her while she's

31:53

asleep, but she's having none of it. Her

31:55

eye flicks open. But

31:58

Eamon is brave enough to

32:00

persist in his quest and uses the

32:02

lessons the valyrian Dragon Tamer

32:04

is in the Dragon pit. No

32:06

doubt taught him. He says Doheris

32:08

and then Lakeiri,

32:11

meaning serve and calm down in

32:13

high valerian. When he

32:15

climbs up to the saddle, he

32:17

shouts severez, which

32:19

means fly and Here

32:21

he's trying to cement the sacred

32:23

bond between them.

32:25

Given we've learned the bond between

32:28

Dragon and rider is for life.

32:30

Now that Laina is dead and Vega

32:32

is accepting another rider, we can

32:35

say with some of confidence that a

32:38

dragon must know instinctively when

32:40

its riders died and

32:42

then will perhaps

32:44

accept other claim claimants.

32:47

Speaking about the actual

32:50

sequence, the flight itself, I thought was breath

32:53

breathtaking. I found some of the Dragon

32:55

CGI in the show a bit hit

32:57

or miss, but here the digital

32:59

artists excelled and no expense

33:01

was spared in making the sequence

33:04

as thrilling as possible. Vega's

33:06

so large, Ryan Condell has

33:08

likened her to a b fifty two bomber

33:10

that hard to get off the ground, but once

33:13

up becomes unstoppable, Eamon

33:15

was hanging on for his dear life and

33:17

after a bumpy beginning, he

33:19

successfully navigates the dragon to complete the

33:22

bond. Eimand now

33:24

has control of the deadliest

33:26

dragon in Westeros a

33:29

move that it upsets his

33:31

rivals in more ways than

33:33

one.

33:33

Yeah. You know, it's a big deal anytime

33:36

Vanguard takes to the skies as Yolked just

33:38

told us. so it's not surprising that we

33:40

see several characters react

33:42

to her being in the air. Bayla

33:44

and Reina in particular, notice

33:46

and rush to wake their cousins children

33:48

to investigate who stole they are.

33:51

They find their quarry in the landing

33:53

of a staircase. This

33:55

is a change from Fire and Blood where it was

33:57

Reneer of three boys against

33:59

Eamon.

33:59

But as Joffrey was

34:02

is a baby right now and the girls have a vested interest in their

34:05

mother's dragon. This change works. I know

34:07

yoke, you'll walk us through a little bit more of the

34:09

book stuff in a second.

34:12

Immediately from that first line of

34:14

dialogue, it's me. We sense this

34:16

change in Eamon. He's blunt and

34:18

cruel to the girls when they

34:20

confront telling Reina that she should have claimed Vaguar before he

34:22

did. Maybe your cousins can find

34:24

you a pig to ride, he jeers,

34:26

showing how deeply the earlier

34:28

insult and bullying have

34:30

impacted him. Rainer rushes him and he

34:32

throws her to the ground before Bayla

34:34

jumps in punching him in the face and taking a much harder punch return.

34:36

In this society, even at their age,

34:38

getting physical with the girls would be a

34:40

big no no, unshivalrous and unbecoming of

34:44

the Prince for sure. Damon Escalade is threatening to feed

34:46

Bayla to his dragon, who's been his dragon

34:48

for about ten minutes. You

34:50

know, he's already unlocked some new

34:52

sadistic tendencies

34:54

that really should alarm anyone. Jason Luke leap to

34:56

defend their cousins and the fight becomes

34:58

four against one. Eamon is the eldest and

35:00

strongest, and just like in the book

35:03

version of event. That's also true.

35:05

The preferential treatment that he received in the

35:07

training yard from Kristen Cole comes to his aid

35:09

as he kicks himself free of

35:12

the onslaught. of frankly

35:14

somewhat weak and childish attacks by

35:16

comparison. Even then comes

35:18

out with the bastard accusation. confusing little

35:20

Luke as he raises a rock to use as a weapon against

35:22

the seven year old. Jace presumably

35:24

terrified for his brother and provoked

35:27

by being called Lord's strong

35:29

pulls a small and further.

35:30

Ultimately, Reneer's boys use a

35:33

combo

35:33

of sand to the eyes,

35:35

not quite pocket sand, but sand

35:37

to the eyes and a knife, Luke

35:40

slashing Eamon's face just in time for the

35:42

King's Guard to finally show up. All

35:44

in all, The scene had the key elements

35:46

of the book story despite the changes. The in fighting and backstabbing of the adults

35:48

has definitely come to have a

35:50

serious impact on their children.

35:53

and we'll see the fallout of that in the next scene starting

35:55

with Asterias wanting to know where the fuck the King's

35:57

Guard were

35:58

during that

35:59

fiasco. Yes. they were a wall because of Christian Cole.

36:02

Before we get to that, I want to

36:03

compare this fight with the

36:05

parallels seen from fire

36:08

and blood And I wanted to read the passage because it's such an

36:10

important moment. Joffrey had

36:12

run to get his brothers when Eamon

36:14

took to the sky and

36:17

they had come to his call.

36:19

The Valerian princelings were younger than

36:21

Eamon. Chase was six, Luke five,

36:23

Joff only three, but there were

36:25

three of them. and they'd arm themselves with wooden swords

36:27

from the training yard. Now they fell on

36:30

him with a fury.

36:32

Eamon fought back breaking Luke's

36:34

nose with

36:36

a punch then wrenching the sword from Joff's hand and cracking

36:38

it across the back of Jason's

36:40

head. As the younger boy scrambled back

36:42

away from him, the Prince

36:44

began to mock them laughing and calling

36:46

them the Straumann's. Chase, at

36:48

least, was old enough to

36:50

grasp the insult. He flew at

36:52

Eamon once but the older

36:54

boy began pummeling him

36:56

savagely until Luke came

36:58

to the rescue of

37:01

his brother he drew his dagger and

37:03

slashed amen across the face taking out his

37:05

right eye. By the time the stable

37:07

boys finally arrived to pull

37:10

him apart, the prince was writhing on the ground, howling and

37:12

pain, and Vega was

37:14

roaring as well. So there you

37:16

go, that's what we were saying about the the bond

37:20

between between Vega in the books. Vega could feel

37:22

Eamon's pain. So while I enjoyed

37:24

both the books on the show, I did

37:27

think it was pretty neat to include Baylor and Rayna

37:29

in the fight. It worked so well

37:32

given that they knew

37:34

Vega as their mother's

37:36

dragon and so had an emotional

37:38

attachment to it. And as

37:40

we've said, Aymond Mountain Vega is

37:42

a potential

37:44

game changer in the long term, but also in the short

37:46

term, there's more immediate

37:48

consequences. Lady Gwen, before

37:50

I move on,

37:51

I just wanna point

37:52

out that they did change the eye. It's his left

37:55

eye in the show that they

37:57

swapped the hounds the hands

37:59

burn from one side of face together. They always have reasons

38:02

why they do this. We have to do with the

38:04

actor or camera angles or something,

38:06

but I always love to pick up on stuff

38:08

like that. So

38:10

we move on to Harold

38:12

Westerling and the King's Guard arrive,

38:14

pull the kids apart. This is

38:17

quite a shocking moment considering image

38:20

is bleeding profusely from his

38:22

eyeball. So the children are

38:24

taken to the king and queen

38:26

in the hall of

38:27

nine to really just

38:29

get to the bottom of things. The series is furious

38:31

and he's asking

38:32

many questions,

38:35

namely how, Kristen Cole,

38:37

an

38:37

adult, tries to defect the blame

38:40

onto the children, Jocera's

38:43

and Loseris. nine

38:45

and seven. Completely avoiding the king's question about

38:46

who had the watch? It

38:49

was him because you

38:52

know, why wouldn't you just try to blame

38:55

little kids when you

38:57

screwed up? So is

39:00

a this is a very strong

39:02

vibe of a situation at

39:04

Dairi with Aria and Joffrey in a

39:06

game with Thrones. you got an

39:08

impotent king kind of

39:10

raging in a borrowed hall, a

39:12

mother howling for

39:13

vengeance, scared children

39:15

who had as So often

39:18

happens

39:18

when kids are left to their own devices,

39:19

just caught up in events that

39:22

spiral out of control, even down

39:24

to the fact that the Greens are the first

39:26

ones on the scene along with king in

39:28

the king's car just like you had with

39:30

Aria and the lannisters and her

39:32

father, you know, only arrived

39:34

later to find her sort of standing there petrified

39:36

as everybody screams at

39:38

her. So definitely huge

39:42

parallel there. clearly

39:44

some

39:44

rainness to eventually arrive, demand to know what is

39:46

going on, and Rainira, closely followed

39:49

by Damon, is not

39:50

far

39:52

behind add in Aegon and Helen of various kings guard,

39:54

a maaster, and a bunch of

39:56

just vassals and attendants

39:58

who

39:58

were milling about,

39:59

and this

40:02

scene is really a weird mirror for

40:04

the funeral scene on the terrace

40:06

earlier. Only instead

40:08

of awkward roaming

40:10

about in light conversation. Everyone's

40:12

sort

40:13

of standing stiffly

40:15

around anger and emotions are boiling

40:17

over. People are shouting.

40:20

at one point after the kids are asked what happened,

40:22

all of them begin to speak at

40:26

once. And throwing

40:28

accusations left and right in the king. He's still

40:30

trying to figure out what on earth has

40:32

happened has to shout

40:34

for silence. Yeah.

40:36

I really appreciated how Vocera's commanded

40:38

the room, though he's old

40:40

frail and visibly handicapped. he maintained

40:42

enough authority that everyone in the room was under his power up

40:45

until elephant breaks with him. Patty

40:47

Considine has brought an incredible depth to

40:49

the role of Asterias Even

40:51

George says he likes this version of Acerus

40:54

better than the Fire and Blood version. You

40:56

know, he's a weak king trying his best

40:58

to hold everything together

41:00

that seems to desperately constantly wanna break free from his

41:02

control. You can feel the pleading in

41:04

his command that everyone apologized and

41:06

get along. The wish of an old man who's come

41:08

to value

41:10

family more than anything else despite his choice of life, his biases,

41:13

and general weakness, playing a role in

41:15

so much of their strife. Much

41:17

like we felt for Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon

41:20

when they had to hand out judgment to their children,

41:22

we we feel herbocaries here trying to bring

41:24

justice to children all of his

41:26

own blood. Yep. It's

41:27

definitely a difficult

41:29

situation. And certainly,

41:30

when the scope of Eamon's injury

41:33

becomes obvious, Alison's anger

41:35

knows no bounds, She immediately slapped

41:38

Aegon, blaming him for his younger brother's

41:40

mishap. We actually

41:42

saw Eamon

41:44

sneak away earlier in the evening when Otto came across

41:46

Aegon, passed out on the terror

41:48

steps, kicked him awake and

41:50

hauled him off to bed. So

41:53

I mean, technically

41:53

Aegon could have noticed his brother

41:55

lurking there, but I mean, so could the hand

41:57

of the king. Aegon takes

41:59

the blame again when viserus

42:01

demands to know where he

42:03

heard the rumors about Rainier's son's parentage.

42:08

Actually speaking

42:10

to Eamon, where did

42:11

you hear the rumors? Ahaman sort of has

42:13

his moment where

42:14

he looks at his mother. It's

42:16

almost like he's gonna say, Bob

42:19

told me, then he blames

42:21

his brother. So, Vocera's confronts a

42:22

God in the scene plays out just as

42:25

it did in fire

42:25

and blood. there's

42:28

a quote from the book. When pressed by the king, Prince Eamon said

42:30

it was his brother, Aegon, who had told him they

42:32

were strong, and Prince Aegon said

42:36

only Everyone knows, just look at them. So

42:38

in spite of

42:39

Acerus commanding everyone to get

42:42

along,

42:42

saying we are family,

42:45

It's obvious that

42:47

that's wishful thinking. A line has

42:49

been crossed here that bodes

42:51

very

42:51

poorly for the future of

42:53

this family unit. Damon

42:55

and Otto throughout

42:58

all of these proceedings, kinda

43:00

keep to the periphery

43:03

observing everything, like, generals marshaling their troops and evaluating

43:05

the enemy. I see them

43:08

each kind of making

43:09

note and not

43:11

a couple of times so,

43:13

you know, rather than a happy

43:16

supportive unit that Vocera

43:19

so clearly craves, We are shown

43:21

almost literal battle lines being drawn here.

43:24

Yeah. The tension is so high at

43:26

this

43:28

point. And so when Vocera refuses Alison's

43:32

suggestion to take an

43:34

eye and even the scores,

43:36

she says If the king

43:38

will not seek justice, the

43:40

queen will, so she's

43:42

effectively trying to overrule the

43:44

king while he stood

43:46

beside her. in a room full of witnesses. It's quite amazing.

43:48

In Valera's words, she's

43:50

letting her temper guide

43:52

a judgment And in doing

43:54

so, she's directly challenging the

43:56

king's authority. She then

43:58

orders Kristen Cole to bring her

44:00

the eye of

44:02

Luceris Valerion This is a

44:04

serious maneuver and one

44:06

that puts all the eyes in the

44:08

room on

44:10

Kristen Cole. as we know from the main

44:12

series with King's Guard characters such as Barriston Selmy and Jamie Lannister,

44:14

there can be some

44:18

uncomfort to all gray areas around honor and duty and vows

44:20

that the King's Guard has to face

44:22

when the king or queen asks

44:24

something awful of them. Jamie

44:28

Lannister, for example, found himself in

44:30

an extremely difficult position

44:32

when he realized the king he

44:34

was bound to serve was going

44:36

to decimate Kings Landing and so decided to break his sacred vow

44:38

and actually kill him. So this is

44:40

a well worn theme in a song of

44:42

ice and

44:44

fire. Here, Alison is ordering a night of the kings guard to

44:46

defy the kings' wishes and cut out the

44:48

the eye of a royal child in

44:50

front of the king himself.

44:53

Like I said, Cole is in a terrible

44:56

position and we see the look of

44:58

pure discomfort on his face. His

45:00

lord commander,

45:02

Harold Westerling, is also gravely concerned in the

45:04

situation and how Cole

45:06

is gonna choose to answer.

45:08

But fortunately, for

45:10

everyone involved, There is a get

45:12

out in Kohl's valves and

45:14

station. He replies that he

45:16

sworn to protect the

45:18

queen, obviously

45:20

protecting does not entail

45:22

half blinding royal children.

45:24

Whom he is technically

45:26

also sworn to protect by

45:29

the way, in the pursuit of literal eye

45:31

for eye justice. And so

45:33

Christian refuses the order.

45:35

By now, Westerling

45:37

is sweating, and his relief is

45:40

palpable. Can anyone imagine the scene if

45:42

Christian had agreed? And do we

45:44

think Christian would have been

45:46

more willing to comply to order wasn't king's

45:48

presence, interesting questions. Although

45:51

this is ultimately a

45:54

seen a violence, things could have been so much worse here.

45:56

The writers managed to articulate

45:58

just how perilously close

46:01

the two sides are to bloody conflict that

46:04

would split not only the

46:06

noble families of Westeros, but even

46:08

the treasured and sacred

46:10

institutions like kingsguard.

46:12

As it goes, there was some

46:14

relatively minor bloodshed. After

46:18

Vysaris shows his soft swap for his daughter

46:20

and orders an end, to the rumors of

46:22

her children being illegitimate,

46:24

Alison snaps, granted

46:26

she's very upset about

46:29

Eamon's eye, But this move is

46:31

unprecedented. She grabs Vocera's

46:33

valyrian steel knife and

46:35

rushes to take Lucera's

46:37

eye out herself Renewera, of course, puts herself

46:39

in the way, but then Alison refuses to put down

46:42

the knife. It now

46:44

seems long ago when these two

46:46

were BFF's sitting

46:49

beside the Weirwood, writing,

46:52

reading books and listening to

46:56

songs, Damon, body

46:58

checks Christian Cole here, and

47:00

that might be a sign that

47:03

he believed Christian might be willing

47:06

to hurt Reneera and her

47:08

children. If there was a way to

47:10

justify it in the middle of

47:12

a scramble, and so westerling is quick to

47:14

tell cold to stay his

47:16

hand. So altogether, it's a

47:18

scene of chaos

47:20

lady going. It

47:21

sure is. One person who managed to more or less keep

47:23

her cool as Reneera, she's she's

47:26

defending her

47:28

sons. She's fairly

47:29

calm. She's obviously

47:31

extremely unhappy. Alison

47:34

is basically losing her

47:36

shit. She's Aiming

47:38

Aegon the Conqueror's Valyrian Steel dagger

47:40

at which holds so

47:42

much meaning for House Targaryen and

47:45

its

47:45

destiny at Reneer's

47:47

face she's sobbing and ranting

47:49

to Reneera

47:49

about duty and sacrifice.

47:52

These are

47:52

things that have been demanded from her.

47:55

And from her perspective, Reneera

47:57

has had none of those

47:59

things asked of her. Although,

48:02

we know that based on Lanier's earlier conversation with

48:04

Damon on the beach, that

48:06

she would disagree. She feels

48:08

very much that she

48:10

has had

48:12

duty and sacrifice as, you know, major themes

48:14

in her life since she was named heir

48:16

to her father. Reneira turns

48:19

a mirror on Allison calling out her sort of

48:22

self righteous

48:23

behavior and telling her

48:25

old friend now they see

48:27

you as you are. the gloves are finally

48:29

off between these two and Alison, probably feeling

48:31

that she's revealed too

48:33

much of herself. slashes

48:36

at Reneera

48:37

in frustration. And with a

48:39

deep

48:39

slice in her left forearm,

48:42

Reneera

48:42

is left fairly horrified

48:44

by this act of violence. So

48:46

we know from

48:47

other transgressions that

48:50

we've we've

48:50

see throughout the series and

48:52

the canon that it's death to

48:55

strike at a

48:56

at a royal

48:58

prince. but

49:00

what to do when the aggressors are other

49:02

princes or the queen.

49:04

This

49:04

is a conundrum. And

49:08

chooses to focus on stemming the immediate argument

49:10

and threatening that anyone.

49:12

And from fire and

49:13

blood, he means anyone.

49:15

A man, woman, or child,

49:18

noble, or common, or

49:20

royal. I think emphasis on

49:22

royal. Anyone spreading rumors about Reneer's sons would

49:24

have their tongues removed. and that's all he's

49:26

gonna focus on. So he

49:28

he orders

49:29

an end of the proceedings,

49:31

basically glitching

49:32

over this

49:34

break that his

49:35

wife has had. And then Eamon tells his mother

49:37

not to mourn him,

49:40

saying I may have lost an eye, but I

49:42

gained a

49:44

dragon. Fire and blood reports that he lost

49:46

an eye and gained a dragon that day

49:48

and counted a fair exchange.

49:51

And with his missing eye being equated with

49:54

a gift or sacrifice,

49:56

Eamon takes on strong

49:58

vibes of odin

49:59

the alfalfa the Norse god who sacrificed his own eye in

50:02

exchange for

50:02

gaining divine wisdom and

50:05

becoming omniscient. While we can't

50:07

really attribute omniscience, to

50:10

Aymond. Having Vanguard on Team Green certainly

50:13

contributes a sense of omnipotence

50:15

for who could stand against the oldest

50:17

and mightiest dragon of

50:20

them all. There are two people

50:22

present in the hall who seem to

50:24

fully appreciate this fact, and those are

50:25

the two

50:28

generals. As I mentioned,

50:29

Ayman Targaryen and Otto Tower, taking it all

50:32

in and both very

50:33

conscious of

50:36

what Ayman

50:36

and vaguar

50:38

means for the green

50:40

camp.

50:40

Then in the next scene,

50:43

we actually get to hear from

50:45

Otto. How he feels about the

50:47

whole situation? You know,

50:49

Alison got her wish last episode

50:51

as she now has her father back. He

50:53

and who is sympathetic to her. And

50:55

yet, when Otto comes to

50:57

these chambers she's staying in, she's immediately

50:59

kinda cowed by his presence, reflecting

51:01

on every action that she took

51:03

with intense scrutiny predicting her father's

51:06

scorn. Considering the boldness

51:08

she displayed in the previous episode, it's almost jarring to

51:10

see her kind of fall back in this

51:12

role, but this control daughter

51:14

and how the auto is back. But there

51:16

is a little different feel to it and

51:18

how she structures it. first we've

51:21

really seen, you know, Olivia

51:23

Cook get any opportunity to

51:25

interact with her on

51:28

screen father. So, you know, those interactions between Alison, the

51:30

younger Alison and Ada

51:32

were one of the cornerstones of of

51:34

her performance. So

51:36

again, yet, Allison's expectations and

51:38

ours are subverted here. Otto chooses

51:40

not to reprimand her as she expects.

51:43

He agrees with her analysis, but there's

51:45

not the score in there that

51:47

she expected. Instead, we get the line that we saw

51:49

in some of the earliest released footage.

51:51

We play an ugly game. And now for the first

51:53

time, I see that you have the determination to

51:55

win it. My sister and I were actually discussing

51:57

this episode and she said that it felt like this a

51:59

new phase in their father daughter

52:02

relationship where Otto sees her as an

52:04

adult and a player for the first

52:06

time. Rather than Otto maneuvering

52:08

her in using his position authority as her

52:10

father and as a hand, they're now

52:12

working together as a team with a common

52:14

cause to secure their alliance ascension

52:16

to the iron throne. The

52:18

focus is no longer on if Reneera is the

52:20

enemy, but how to stop her and her

52:22

son's at all costs.

52:24

Alison has made do with tenuous

52:26

allies in the explosive Kristen

52:28

Cole and the very creepy, Lara's

52:30

strong. But now with her intelligent

52:32

calculating father, her brave,

52:35

rogueish, and his newly claimed Vega, who again is the

52:37

largest and most formidable of all living

52:40

dragons, the Greens have

52:42

assembled a much more formidable challenge to

52:44

Reneera and

52:46

Speaking of Reneera, her side seems to

52:48

lack advantages right now. So

52:50

let's circle back on that, Quinn.

52:53

Following

52:53

that confrontation in the

52:56

hall, Reneera is having her

52:58

wound tended to by the Maister,

53:00

and by the way, I am very

53:02

impressed with the not only

53:04

the maesters' stitches and the

53:06

speed with which they apply them, but

53:08

also with both Veneira and Eamon for

53:10

sorta sitting there and taking it

53:12

without any kind of painkillers.

53:14

So that's this is an

53:16

interesting scene, both

53:18

of them. Lana

53:20

comes back. They'd been looking for him before. No one really

53:22

quite knew where he was. He's been out all

53:25

night. Probably dealing with his sorrow over

53:27

his sister's death, and he

53:30

he's clearly struggling as well with his inadequacies

53:32

as a husband and

53:34

father. It's a we

53:36

need to talk moment. where

53:39

Reneera once again being extremely frank with one of the

53:41

men in her life just

53:43

lays everything bare. Lanor

53:46

seems full of self loathing, but Rayner responds with

53:48

responds with kindness, and it's really

53:50

refreshing to see the obvious affection that

53:52

these two have for each other. possibly

53:56

another thing for Alison to be

53:58

jealous of her former friend for, as

54:00

Reneera seems to possess a

54:03

gift for personal relationships. said

54:05

her stepmother lacks whatever else her faults

54:07

may be. And,

54:08

you know, she's she's got

54:12

whatever

54:12

they think of her her marriage and, you know,

54:15

the heritage of her children,

54:17

it's obvious that Leonor and

54:19

Reneera really

54:19

do care for

54:22

each other. Lainor

54:22

describes that,

54:24

you know, their decade long

54:28

attempt to find

54:30

happiness with others as they as

54:32

they did their duty together.

54:34

It was doomed, and he tells

54:36

his wife that he plans to let return

54:40

to the stepping stones without him while he stays behind

54:42

to be a husband and father. When

54:44

he tells Reneera, you deserve

54:47

a husband. We can see on her face

54:49

that the talk she had in mind was something other

54:52

than encouraging Leonor to

54:54

be better. I think the

54:56

plan we see unfold throughout

54:58

the next several scenes

55:00

has to be formed or at least forming

55:02

in Lanier's mind at this point.

55:04

she had already decided that as things stood,

55:06

the husband she deserved and needed is

55:10

Damon Targaryen. become

55:12

clear that the conclusion of this conversation

55:14

which takes place off

55:16

screen involved

55:17

some very serious

55:20

decision making and we'll have more on

55:22

that shortly. Following

55:24

the

55:24

funeral and the violent aftermath,

55:26

Vasaras and his court depart We've

55:30

seen a lot of the king's travels in this series, which is

55:32

a nice nod to the Targaryen tradition of

55:34

royal progresses. It's enjoyable to

55:37

see them on screen as we only really saw one such journey

55:39

in Game of Thrones when King Robert

55:42

comes to winterfell to offer Ned the

55:44

handshipped. But

55:46

Continuing the travel like that during wartime was

55:48

of course not feasible. I've enjoyed the

55:50

use of the royal wheelhouse as a

55:53

backdrop her little character moments like the one that we get here

55:55

with the series and Allison. Her

55:57

father instructed her to be penitent

55:59

and play

55:59

her role saying the

56:02

king would have no choice but to forgive

56:04

her. And of course, Otto is right in

56:06

this. Vesserus is just

56:08

tired here. And before

56:10

Alison can even, you know, formulate any

56:12

kind of apology, he tells her to

56:14

speak of it no more. The king

56:16

is a patient and forgiving man who

56:18

in his failing health only seeks for his family to be

56:20

whole. This, as Larry Strong might

56:22

say, is a weakness in him as

56:24

wishing this

56:26

to be true does not actually heal any of the wounds between the

56:28

blacks or the greens.

56:30

Getting to see this moment unfold sets the

56:32

dynamic for the coming period going into

56:34

another time

56:36

jump. between episodes seven and eight, as does the rest

56:38

of the royal departure. We see the Targaryen

56:40

ship setting sail back to Kings

56:42

Landing with viserys, Allison, three

56:46

children, the King's Guard, auto the

56:48

reinstated hand and Lara's strong. In

56:50

the skies above, we see the

56:52

current dragons allied with the green.

56:55

it's all written by vaseres and

56:57

Allison's children. We've got

56:59

Aegon's golden sun fire.

57:01

We've got Helena's dream fire and

57:03

of course Vaguar. newly claimed by Eamon. We'll cover that a

57:05

little bit more in dragon watch though, a powerful finish for the

57:08

greens.

57:10

Yeah. And

57:10

I was gonna add on to that. At

57:13

this point, it is worth reflecting

57:15

on Vocera's and thinking

57:18

about thing about his mortality his

57:20

mortality Having seen him so eaten up and exhausted

57:22

in this scene, he's falling

57:24

apart piece by piece due to

57:27

kind disease akin to leprosy. We've been

57:30

told he had his fingers

57:32

removed and an arm and now

57:34

he's laboring around and

57:36

he looks you know, as pale as a

57:38

ghost. What struck me about this episode

57:40

is how angry we

57:42

saw viserys earlier. It

57:44

seemed like

57:46

he's on death's door, yet no nobody around him

57:48

is making his life any easier.

57:50

Should they be creating situations

57:54

where he's you know,

57:56

fuming mad in his state. I think

57:58

that Vocera's ailing health

58:00

is a potent metaphor to represent

58:02

how life sapping being ruler has been for

58:05

him. And on another level, how

58:07

the health of Westeros is

58:09

linked to his. like

58:11

Emily said, he wants peace between

58:14

his family and he's a reasonable well

58:16

intentioned man. But some of

58:18

the decision decisions

58:20

he's made like choosing to marry Alison or as

58:22

jynx in the chat was saying his

58:24

general inaction

58:26

to two give consequences

58:28

to the bad behavior of his

58:30

family and those people around him

58:32

have really laid the groundwork for

58:36

massive conflict. Now he's

58:38

trying to hold something together that

58:40

is inherently going to fall apart.

58:42

He's spending a lot of his

58:44

remaining life force attempting to

58:46

contain the swaddling around him.

58:48

He he looks so

58:50

exhausted and soon he's not gonna

58:52

have energy

58:54

left. As a king who inherited a peaceful realm, he's

58:56

desperate to ensure his

58:58

legacy is peace too, but

59:00

I think He knows that

59:02

he'll be leaving Westeros on a ice

59:04

edge when he finally passes, and

59:06

I expect that to be pretty soon.

59:08

There are no cures or

59:10

band aids to the dynamics we saw unfolding in front of the

59:12

series today and so its

59:14

efforts and

59:16

this energy

59:18

sapping anger or more or less in vain.

59:21

Couldn't agree more

59:22

with

59:24

that.

59:25

after her father

59:27

departs. Reneira speaks with

59:29

Damon again on the

59:31

Castle Grand Parts. They watch the

59:34

by three dragons, talks

59:36

about fire, how it's affected

59:40

their lives. so that it's a prison. Damon

59:42

Riley notes that perhaps the valerians are

59:44

right and the sea is a better ally and

59:46

Reneer says pointedly, the

59:48

sea offers

59:50

and escape. Interesting. Don't think much

59:52

about that in the moment, but

59:54

certainly on a rewatch that jumps

59:56

out as very significant.

59:59

She

59:59

continues by saying, I

1:00:02

need you uncle and then switches to

1:00:04

Valerian, telling him I cannot face the

1:00:06

Greens alone.

1:00:07

Once again, she has a lot to say

1:00:09

while Damon listens and offers not

1:00:11

much in the way of replies,

1:00:13

she tells him that they're

1:00:15

made of fire. that they're meant for

1:00:17

each other and that her claim would be so much stronger if she had him

1:00:19

at her side. She's offering

1:00:22

Damon his heart's desire basically or

1:00:24

very nearly

1:00:26

so but he sees the hitch.

1:00:28

In order for them to marry, Leonor would have

1:00:30

to be dead. So the scene ends

1:00:32

with Buneera saying, I know,

1:00:36

and

1:00:36

then we cut to Damon in

1:00:38

Spice Town talking

1:00:39

to Karl Corrie. There are

1:00:42

I

1:00:42

says they were places across

1:00:45

the narrow sea where a man's name doesn't matter only how

1:00:47

much gold he has. It appears

1:00:49

like Damon is offering Karl

1:00:51

a pile of

1:00:53

gold to kill Leonor,

1:00:54

especially when he says, he wants

1:00:56

a clean death with witnesses. And

1:00:58

this is followed by a quick succession

1:01:00

of scenes where the voice over

1:01:03

from Reneera and Damon's

1:01:06

continued conversation as they lay

1:01:08

their plan. Reneera has no desire to

1:01:09

be a tyrant Though Damon

1:01:12

cautions her that it's

1:01:12

all well and good to want love

1:01:15

and respect, but that a strong king must

1:01:17

be feared. This is an old

1:01:19

dichotomy in westerosi politics.

1:01:20

In spite of everything

1:01:23

though, Reneera loves Lanyor, and

1:01:25

she might just be a

1:01:27

bit conflicted

1:01:27

about this plan. But Damon insists that

1:01:29

setting him free will be a kindness.

1:01:32

And Rainier's other concern is

1:01:34

for Corley's

1:01:36

and Rainy's. This will cost them

1:01:38

their only remaining child. And as a mother, she definitely knows the pain

1:01:40

that this is gonna inflict on her kid's

1:01:42

woman and is probably her biggest

1:01:46

roadblock. She knows that the realm will whisper

1:01:48

about her, but the truth

1:01:50

will be known

1:01:50

to her and Damon. Their enemies

1:01:53

on the other hand

1:01:54

won't

1:01:56

know what they're capable of, and that will make

1:01:59

them think

1:01:59

twice. While this

1:02:02

dialogue is

1:02:04

happening, We

1:02:04

see Damon kill a serving man in the castle

1:02:07

followed by Leonor entering his

1:02:09

father's hall to find Karl in front of the

1:02:11

fire where his parents

1:02:14

had discussed his son's parentage not long before. In

1:02:16

front of a servant, he makes a very

1:02:18

good show of being angry at Karl's presumption.

1:02:20

and

1:02:22

they begin to fight. The

1:02:23

youngster flees to get the guard, and when they

1:02:25

return, Karl is gone and there's a burned and

1:02:28

disfigured body dressed in

1:02:30

later's clothes

1:02:31

in the massive fireplace. Rainyce's

1:02:34

grief paired with Coelis' anger are

1:02:36

absolutely heartbreaking, and at this point

1:02:38

many

1:02:38

viewers, especially those of us who've read

1:02:40

fire and

1:02:41

blood. likely still think that this was

1:02:43

a plot by Damon and Ronera to kill

1:02:45

Lane or and make way for their

1:02:47

own marriage, especially when

1:02:49

the next scene turns out to be a

1:02:51

wedding.

1:02:51

So we'll come back to lane or shortly. Yeah.

1:02:54

So let's talk

1:02:54

about the wedding. Following The

1:02:58

discovery of Leinor's burnt

1:03:00

body, Damon and Reneira

1:03:02

prepared to tie the knot.

1:03:04

There's been a

1:03:06

skip forward and presumably we're now on

1:03:08

Dragonstone. They are being married in the

1:03:10

Targaryen tradition. And after

1:03:12

her marriage to Lain or Valerin, which

1:03:16

followed the traditional Westerosiformer. This is a a

1:03:18

real Targaryen power couple

1:03:20

match up. They're going to

1:03:24

align themselves with every

1:03:26

taggearing custom and ritual

1:03:28

and symbol that they can think

1:03:30

of as a struggle against

1:03:32

a high tower begins to heat

1:03:35

up. So it's no wonder that they're going for an

1:03:37

old school Targaryen wedding. Even if

1:03:39

it's been conducted in

1:03:42

perhaps semi secret with only their children, a Maister

1:03:44

and a Valyrium priest present.

1:03:46

This ceremony begins with

1:03:50

a pair cutting their own lips with obsidian,

1:03:52

also known as dragonglass,

1:03:54

and using the blood to smear a

1:03:56

symbol on each

1:03:58

other's heads. Fantasy linguist,

1:04:00

David j Peterson, who

1:04:02

designed the valiri language, has said

1:04:04

that the symbol on Reneer's head was

1:04:08

high valyrian glyph, meaning

1:04:10

fire, and the one on Damon's

1:04:13

head was a glyph meaning blood, which together, of

1:04:16

course, form the Targaryen

1:04:19

House words. The pair

1:04:21

then cut their hands with

1:04:23

the dragon blast. The dragon blast

1:04:26

and the hands are bound together.

1:04:28

This puts us in mind of blood

1:04:30

lines, keeping them pure,

1:04:32

and of course, the bloodline

1:04:34

graphics of the intro

1:04:36

sequence. So it's obviously an

1:04:38

important theme to this

1:04:40

story. Earlier

1:04:42

callous valyrian, weighed up what was more valuable in matters of

1:04:44

legacy, blood or name.

1:04:46

Well, I guess as a couple,

1:04:48

Damon and Reneer, and now have both.

1:04:51

Their legitimacy the legitimacy of

1:04:54

Reneer's children may have been called into

1:04:56

question, and those slides are

1:04:58

bound to continue, but now

1:05:00

the king's brother and daughter stand as one.

1:05:02

Given what we've seen, both of

1:05:04

them, there will surely be a force to

1:05:06

be reckoned with. Looking back

1:05:08

in hindsight,

1:05:10

at season one so far and the groundwork had certainly

1:05:13

been done from day one

1:05:15

to establish this partnership

1:05:18

in marriage As early as the

1:05:20

first episode, intimate

1:05:22

framing was used. Can you remember this when

1:05:24

Damon put a necklace on Reneer's neck

1:05:26

and there was just something about it,

1:05:29

The pair were always speaking in high

1:05:31

valyrian together, and there was the

1:05:34

faithful night, of course, when he took it to that

1:05:36

pillow house. Now years

1:05:38

later, they are together and it's needless to

1:05:40

say this union is going to have a

1:05:42

huge impact on the plot with

1:05:44

the way the timeline skips and

1:05:47

jumps will likely miss the reactions

1:05:49

of viserys, Alisonotto, Cordless and

1:05:52

other pertinent characters to this

1:05:54

major development which I think

1:05:56

is a shame because all of these would

1:05:58

have been priceless. Damon

1:05:59

and Reneera are together,

1:06:02

and we know with Damon's

1:06:04

rogue character, that they will

1:06:06

not be messing around when

1:06:08

the inevitable tensions with

1:06:10

Alison reach further

1:06:13

boiling points But while this felt

1:06:15

like a conclusion, there was

1:06:18

actually one scene left in the

1:06:20

episode that was wholly

1:06:22

unexpected by book readers. Lady

1:06:24

Quinn? As I

1:06:25

mentioned, the sequence as

1:06:28

the sequence of events with

1:06:29

Carlin Leonor plays out, fire

1:06:31

and blood readers, More than likely remembered

1:06:33

the various reports about the death of

1:06:35

Lainer Valerian. Gildane states plainly

1:06:38

that Lainer was killed by

1:06:40

Karl Currie who then fled to

1:06:42

awaiting ship to vanish from

1:06:44

history. He adds the

1:06:46

fairly mundane perspectives of Melos

1:06:48

and septon Eustace who more or less

1:06:50

agree with what he's saying before

1:06:52

offering mushrooms version

1:06:54

that, quote, Prince Damon paid

1:06:57

Karl Corrie to dispose of Princess Reneer

1:06:59

his husband, arranged worship to carry him away,

1:07:01

then cut his throat and fed him

1:07:03

to the sea. a household night of relatively

1:07:05

low birth, Corey was known to have a lord's tastes and a

1:07:08

peasants purse and was given to

1:07:10

extravagant wagering besides

1:07:11

which lends a

1:07:14

certain credence to the fool's version of events.

1:07:16

So Damon's

1:07:17

use of that exact phrasing when

1:07:19

he's speaking with Karl

1:07:20

in this episode about

1:07:24

a Lord's taste in a

1:07:25

peasant's purse. And his subsequent offer of gold, no

1:07:26

doubt convinced many of us,

1:07:29

that mushroom had it right.

1:07:31

And I don't think that

1:07:33

non book readers fared any

1:07:35

differently since this was

1:07:37

heroously set up misdirection.

1:07:40

In spite of that fact, you know, on a

1:07:42

rewatch, it's obvious that Lanor was in on

1:07:44

the plan, but I do wonder how

1:07:46

many viewers saw this final twist

1:07:48

coming. I

1:07:48

certainly did not. Cirrell Cirrell

1:07:51

Cory bringing a robo into shore in a

1:07:53

hooded figure running through the waves

1:07:55

to join him was

1:07:58

not an

1:07:59

accomplice

1:07:59

or a cutthroat come to finish

1:08:02

off, sir Carl on Damon's orders, which

1:08:04

I'll be honest, is one hundred

1:08:06

percent what I expected to

1:08:08

happen.

1:08:08

Nope. It was it

1:08:11

was liner Valerian. There

1:08:14

he is. head shaved to disguise his identity, something we've

1:08:16

seen before in

1:08:17

song of ice and

1:08:19

fire or related cannon,

1:08:23

spoiler, if you don't

1:08:25

already know, that the Squire

1:08:27

egg is a secret Targaryen.

1:08:29

who shaves his head to hide

1:08:31

his identity in the Dunkin' egg stories. And many theorized, you've got

1:08:34

Veris, the spider, shaving his

1:08:36

head, to

1:08:39

conceal his own possible secret valirium

1:08:41

heritage, lest inconvenient questions

1:08:43

be asked. Anyways,

1:08:45

I I thought of

1:08:47

those bald guys with silver hair when I saw Lanor

1:08:49

because, of course, it wasn't a

1:08:52

perfect solution. You

1:08:54

know, this plot had

1:08:56

victims Lainor's parents, his sons who had

1:08:58

only just suffered the death of sir Harwin. Most of all, the name

1:09:00

was serving man whose

1:09:02

corpse stood in for Lainor's

1:09:06

burned body against all

1:09:08

of which, I suppose one could argue that

1:09:10

Reneera

1:09:11

was focused on her own

1:09:13

duty

1:09:13

as viserys' heir and as the next

1:09:15

in line to carry the knowledge

1:09:17

of Vegon's prophetic

1:09:18

dream for the future of

1:09:22

Westeros. to paraphrase Reneera and Damon's

1:09:24

descendants, Dennis Baratheon. What is

1:09:26

the life of

1:09:27

one man against the fate

1:09:29

of

1:09:29

the kingdom? Davos Seabarth

1:09:31

obviously begs to differ, and I

1:09:33

think that is probably one of the central

1:09:35

tensions of the larger

1:09:37

story of Westeros. over many generations.

1:09:39

It's one we are not gonna solve

1:09:41

tonight. So let's pour one out

1:09:43

for the anonymous

1:09:45

serving man and

1:09:47

leave it there for now. Yo boy.

1:09:49

Okay. So I think it's time

1:09:50

after we've walked through the episode. We

1:09:52

still got plenty of things to

1:09:55

talk about. I want to lighten

1:09:58

the mood and do dragon watcher and chomp or chomp are two featureettes. So, Lady Quinn,

1:10:01

how is

1:10:04

Dragon Watch? on this

1:10:06

episode. This week on Dragon mod, your boy, Driftmark became

1:10:07

a new valeria with seven

1:10:10

dragons seen in the skies

1:10:12

above. We

1:10:15

had Vega, coaxies, cyrax, malaise, sea smokes

1:10:17

on fire, and dream fire.

1:10:19

Helena's dream fire hasn't been

1:10:21

seen up close yet, so

1:10:24

we don't really know exactly what she looks

1:10:26

like. She was shown only as a as part of that trio of departing dragons.

1:10:28

We just saw

1:10:31

her vague shape. across Blackwater Bay. But we

1:10:33

did get our first glimpse of sun fire on the

1:10:36

ground. Yes.

1:10:40

sunfire. And we have to assume that Varmax, a

1:10:42

moon dancer, may have also been there. As part of that

1:10:44

old new Vele

1:10:47

area thing, they weren't seen,

1:10:49

not that I saw or

1:10:51

noticed or talked to anyone about. So believe, yes, seven

1:10:54

dragons with the potential other

1:10:59

two dragons that we know

1:11:01

about in this season so far, maybe

1:11:03

hiding in the background. They

1:11:05

are didn't they say that there would

1:11:07

be nine dragons this season? Yes. They they did.

1:11:09

And if we go to the HBO website where

1:11:11

they have their their

1:11:14

dragon guide. They actually list ten dragons.

1:11:16

They include Balerion

1:11:17

because his skull is seen repeatedly

1:11:19

in that temple area inside the

1:11:21

Red Keep. So Yeah. So I think we've

1:11:24

pretty much seen all

1:11:26

the dragons that we

1:11:28

expect to see. Although, like

1:11:30

I said we have yet to see

1:11:32

moon

1:11:33

to answer and

1:11:36

Dreamfire sort of

1:11:37

up close. So

1:11:39

Okay. So

1:11:39

let's move on from dragons as exciting as it

1:11:41

was. We could talk about that

1:11:43

all night. Why

1:11:46

don't we do our Chump

1:11:48

or Chump, we talk about

1:11:50

the very best and very worst characters of

1:11:55

the week. in a lighthearted way. Why

1:11:57

don't we start with

1:12:00

the champ of the

1:12:02

week? Lady Quinn, who's your

1:12:04

champ? This week,

1:12:05

for the first time, we have

1:12:07

co champs. It's Leonor and Karl. The seizing

1:12:09

opportunity to

1:12:12

sail off into the sunset

1:12:14

together, literally, I believe, you know, with apologies to the the anonymous

1:12:20

serving paid with

1:12:20

his life for their opportunity.

1:12:22

I do I do just

1:12:25

love the fact that

1:12:27

those two get to just get to

1:12:29

go away together and live their best life, presumably. You didn't

1:12:31

fancy aim and

1:12:31

for his No. I

1:12:35

would

1:12:35

have picked Aiman, so maybe it's good that you yeah. I got cut

1:12:37

off. They were like, you did it last week. You don't

1:12:39

get to Wait. I'm

1:12:41

not sure. Yep. Something

1:12:44

about Aiman slugging his little girl

1:12:46

cousins. Yep. You know, you can do. I we talked about that. It

1:12:48

was such it was such a

1:12:50

chappy behavior, and then he was like,

1:12:54

I'm gonna make you hate me so fast.

1:12:56

Okay.

1:13:00

So a very controversial

1:13:02

week and chump of the week. That's how we like it. So

1:13:04

why don't

1:13:05

we go to the chump?

1:13:07

Is there gonna be similar

1:13:11

divisions. Emily, who's the champ?

1:13:13

For

1:13:13

me this week, it's going to

1:13:15

be Aegon, mostly for

1:13:18

lighthearted reasons. look, obviously, there are, like, you know, crystal

1:13:20

ball, eternal chump, you know, there are

1:13:22

other characters who fit that. But for

1:13:24

me, you know, egg on,

1:13:26

despite Alison's warning in previous episode. It

1:13:29

seems like he has not bought into the idea that he

1:13:31

will be king, should be king, needs to act

1:13:34

like a potential he's seen

1:13:36

just getting drunk and harassing certain women and his

1:13:38

later kicked around by Grandpa Auto who was no

1:13:40

doubt disappointed and channeling a

1:13:42

little bit of that, like, tie

1:13:45

one to Joffrey

1:13:47

vibe there. So yeah. Mhmm. Okay.

1:13:50

okay

1:13:51

So Now we've done

1:13:54

those feature edits. Why don't we look

1:13:55

into spoiler territory where

1:13:57

we can talk about

1:13:59

whatever we want as

1:14:02

book readers, things that we were biting our

1:14:05

tongue about in the spoiler free

1:14:07

analysis, and we we gotta

1:14:09

let some of

1:14:11

this out. Spoilers? Oh, Books. Okay. Spoilers

1:14:13

all books. Why don't you take it away, lady, when? Yeah.

1:14:15

So I do have a

1:14:17

couple

1:14:19

of Dragini spoilers. First of all, it

1:14:21

appears like we're not going to get Alison and Vocera's youngest

1:14:24

son, Darren

1:14:27

the Daring. unless they bring him out of the woodwork in the

1:14:29

next episode, maybe two.

1:14:32

I

1:14:32

so maybe two

1:14:34

think that's we're gonna be left one fan favorite dragon

1:14:36

or at least dragon rider

1:14:38

short in season two. Tysariat

1:14:41

and the Blue Queen will either

1:14:43

be passed over or maybe given another rider, perhaps,

1:14:45

you know, one of the

1:14:47

seeds might get

1:14:51

to Ceragon. talking about how nice it

1:14:53

would be to have blue dragons to distinguish them, so we certainly would like to

1:14:55

see that. And speaking

1:14:58

of dragons and riders, one

1:15:02

lane or left, he

1:15:04

had abandoned, presumably, his

1:15:06

Dragon Sea smoke. It's heart

1:15:08

breaking outcome, I'm sure, for the

1:15:11

rider and presumably the dragon as well. And in spite of,

1:15:13

in spite of you

1:15:16

know, what

1:15:16

we think we know about dragon bonds, bonding for

1:15:18

life and all this, we we don't really know what happens when

1:15:20

a dragon is abandoned by

1:15:23

its writer. If the bond

1:15:25

continues to work if it's

1:15:27

broken by time or distance? Or what have you? But

1:15:32

we do have strong hints that Adam and

1:15:34

Alan of Hall will be in season two. So hopefully, we will still

1:15:36

get to see

1:15:39

Adam claiming sea smoke. And

1:15:41

I think there's another interesting thing that's hinted at in this episode,

1:15:43

which we were just talking about when Reina

1:15:45

tells Eamon that Vanguard was

1:15:47

hers to claim, I

1:15:50

personally took that to mean that there's some

1:15:52

preference given either by

1:15:53

custom or by the dragons themselves

1:15:55

to the children of their

1:15:57

previous writer. And

1:15:58

regarding time

1:15:59

elapsed, I would just suggest that out

1:16:02

of decency, it would it

1:16:04

could if

1:16:05

this is a custom, that

1:16:08

perhaps the

1:16:08

custom is that you hold off

1:16:10

until the previous writer is

1:16:13

actually buried. or burned or

1:16:15

what have you. So that's my

1:16:17

take on that. If you

1:16:19

consider that Adam and Alan

1:16:21

are layner's sons as I I

1:16:23

do and hit me up outside of the stream

1:16:26

if you

1:16:26

wanna know my reasoning for that because

1:16:29

I I don't wanna go into a

1:16:31

big

1:16:31

lung. essay on that at the moment. I

1:16:33

think that the potential dragon and

1:16:35

rider pairing becomes so

1:16:39

much more

1:16:39

poignant for Sea Smoke. I really hope

1:16:41

we do get to see it

1:16:43

for his sake.

1:16:45

This week,

1:16:46

I wanna talk a little bit more about Damon and Lena's daughters,

1:16:48

Bala and Rina. Twins in the books,

1:16:50

although I think it's a little unclear

1:16:53

in the show. These two are bored and pentos,

1:16:55

but didn't stay there nearly as long as

1:16:57

the show portrayed. Lena and her family did

1:17:00

indeed return to Driftmark via ship

1:17:02

with when the girls were only half a year

1:17:04

old with Damon following overhead with

1:17:06

the dragons. In fire and blood, we

1:17:08

learned that the twins are patrolled to

1:17:10

their cousins Carrie some Luceris Valerian at the age of two. Someone

1:17:12

in the chat actually earlier was asking why

1:17:14

wasn't one of them maybe betrothed to

1:17:16

Eamon to try to heal

1:17:18

the wounds and I think

1:17:21

the show's got some things that they're

1:17:23

gonna do, I think next episode. But in the books, that wasn't really possible because they were betrothed

1:17:26

literally as toddlers. There's

1:17:29

no hint of that, you know, the betrivals having already occurred

1:17:31

in the show yet. But with recent marriage of Rainier

1:17:33

and Damon, it's likely that

1:17:36

they'll make the

1:17:39

betrivals into something in the remaining episodes in season one.

1:17:41

One thing that I really enjoyed

1:17:43

this episode was seeing

1:17:45

that this sweet bond begin to form between

1:17:48

Jason Bayla, who were holding hands

1:17:50

after the funeral. Jason Luke were

1:17:52

also quick to jump to Bayla

1:17:54

and Raina's aid when Vaguar was spotted being

1:17:56

written around driftmark. As we learned in the previous

1:17:58

episode, Bayla has already bonded a dragon, the

1:18:03

hatchling moon dancer. It's possible that they

1:18:05

chose to give Bayla Herr Dragon first to distinguish her as the

1:18:07

more adventurous or bold sister or something

1:18:09

that is definitely true later as she

1:18:12

hits adult Reina

1:18:14

also becomes a dragon rider, but much

1:18:17

like the show portrays her struggles to claim

1:18:19

a dragon is more complicated. Her

1:18:22

initial dragon egg did hatch, but the young dragon died pretty immediately infancy. she's

1:18:24

given an egg from one

1:18:26

of Syrax, his clutches, that's Ramirez

1:18:31

Dragon, who eventually hatched into the Dragon Morning,

1:18:33

born too late to be at any use

1:18:35

during the impending war. There's

1:18:38

much more to be said about these amazing girls, but

1:18:40

I think I've covered what will be relevant this

1:18:42

season, so I look forward to talking about

1:18:45

them more in the future. I have

1:18:46

another thing that has to do

1:18:48

with a concept that was

1:18:50

introduced in this episode by Alison, the

1:18:53

idea of an eye for

1:18:54

an eye. I mean, she didn't make it

1:18:56

up. herself, but it was introduced

1:18:58

into this storyline by her. Assuming the show

1:18:59

follows Fire Blood as close as

1:19:02

it has, Eamon will still

1:19:04

be viewing this line

1:19:06

when he and Luke meet at Storm's end, which we do expect will happen in this season.

1:19:08

Echoing the words we heard

1:19:10

from Alison in this episode about

1:19:15

a death, amen will demand of Luke according to

1:19:17

fire

1:19:17

and blood. Pay the debt you owe

1:19:19

me,

1:19:19

you have a knife just as you

1:19:21

did then. Put out your eye and I

1:19:23

will let you bleed. Though lord

1:19:25

Baratheon will make them take it outside, like a

1:19:27

good bouncer. We all

1:19:30

know what happens next. in

1:19:32

the death of Luceris Baratheon will lead to

1:19:34

the blood and cheese incident, and so on and

1:19:38

so on. And to say this could have been avoided if Alison

1:19:41

had not insisted on the literal

1:19:43

eye for an eye mentality, might

1:19:46

be oversimplifying a complicated situation, but

1:19:49

it certainly seems like Alison as

1:19:51

a mother had the opportunity to set

1:19:53

something in motion that didn't lead to

1:19:55

death and destruction and that she failed,

1:19:57

choosing to set a very different

1:19:59

example instead, all of which puts

1:20:02

me in mind of the words of another mother,

1:20:04

Alarius Sand, who had seen enough

1:20:06

of vengeance to last a lifetime

1:20:08

and said, is that how

1:20:10

it goes round and round forever?

1:20:12

I ask again, where does

1:20:15

it end? I think I'm

1:20:15

gonna talk about the

1:20:18

blacks and the

1:20:20

greens. because

1:20:22

I talked about Helena's dreamer rumblings earlier

1:20:28

and

1:20:28

the fact that what

1:20:30

she says about this the loom is probably prophecy. Hand turns loom, spool of

1:20:34

green, spool of black,

1:20:37

dragons of the flesh weaving, dragons of thread. I

1:20:39

was able to point out that the spool of green is no doubt a reference to

1:20:44

Alison's dress But spoilers

1:20:46

prevented me from elaborating that one day Reneira will have a memorable dress of her own, a

1:20:52

black one, and the two rival

1:20:54

fractions in his story will then be universally known

1:20:56

as the blacks

1:20:59

and the greens So I think it's quite

1:21:01

clear that this is what Helena is alluding to.

1:21:04

prophetic dreams and visions, as

1:21:06

we know from the main series,

1:21:09

had delivered in abstract symbols, so the idea

1:21:11

that Helena is perceiving a loom in her dreams, representing

1:21:16

Alice and and co versus

1:21:18

Ronero and co, I think it's very fitting with the style that George uses,

1:21:21

so I appreciate the

1:21:23

way they're handling prophecies

1:21:27

here. And so you have

1:21:29

the blacks and the greens. The other

1:21:31

part of the prophecy, dragons of

1:21:33

the flesh, weaving, dragons of

1:21:35

threads, That's open to interpretations. I'd love to hear

1:21:37

other people's theories on this. Are

1:21:40

dragons of the

1:21:43

flesh? Real dragons? or a dragon

1:21:45

of the flesh referring to Targaryen characters who are often

1:21:48

represented by

1:21:52

dragons in prophetic dreams as we saw

1:21:54

in the mystery night when the dragon's egg hatching up white walls turned out to

1:21:59

be egg. And weaving dragons

1:22:00

of thread

1:22:01

is another tricky one.

1:22:03

My first thought with the

1:22:05

mention of woven threads is

1:22:08

house banners So possibly

1:22:10

it could be describing the rival, Targaryen claimants, calling

1:22:12

their banners to

1:22:15

begin the civil war, This

1:22:18

is the center of the story. Of course, there

1:22:20

are likely many other fan

1:22:22

interpretations about this short phrase

1:22:25

out there And I think it's really

1:22:27

fun to speculate and theorize over a morsel of prophecy book readers love

1:22:29

to with a song of

1:22:31

ice and fire. So

1:22:34

in conclusion, I guess Helena

1:22:37

is our touch

1:22:39

base here. Absolutely.

1:22:40

We all know

1:22:42

we love we love our patch face. So

1:22:45

finally, one more spoiler thing briefly, if I could.

1:22:46

Sir Harold Westerling's continued presence on show

1:22:51

has puzzled some book readers since in

1:22:52

Fire and Blood, he died

1:22:54

of an unspecified cause. Nearly ten

1:22:57

years prior to the events we

1:22:59

saw in this episode, his his

1:23:01

role in

1:23:02

fire blood is really quite minuscule. He's probably mentioned a couple times, and then he's he's

1:23:04

coming on. In the book,

1:23:06

he was replaced by As Lord

1:23:09

this replaced by as lord commander of the King's

1:23:11

Guard by Sir Kristin Cole in one twelve AC.

1:23:13

And so a lot of us have probably

1:23:15

been wondering

1:23:16

when this is gonna

1:23:19

happen. based on stills from upcoming episodes, I think

1:23:21

we can now accurately predict that

1:23:23

sir Harold will still be

1:23:25

lord commander when Vocera dies. and that he might actually stand in

1:23:27

for Sir Stefan Darklin who stole

1:23:30

Acerus' crown and defected to

1:23:34

Reneera on Dragonstone. Sir Stefan has been cast, but,

1:23:36

you know, it's generally much easier to give

1:23:38

these scenes to a known character rather

1:23:42

than

1:23:42

try to introduce or explain someone else

1:23:44

who's basically just been a silent

1:23:46

bystander for the entire season. Plus,

1:23:48

sir Kristen has hardly been

1:23:51

acting like someone who's worthy of

1:23:53

being named lord commander by Vocerais. I think it'll make a lot more

1:23:55

sense in the show if he's named to

1:23:57

that post to

1:23:58

fill a sudden vacancy

1:23:59

in a clear

1:24:03

show of favoritism by his patron elephant.

1:24:05

So something to look forward

1:24:07

to, I guess.

1:24:10

And a

1:24:11

big thank you to our guest,

1:24:13

Emily. Have you got anything lined up,

1:24:15

Emily? Or any shouts you wanna

1:24:17

give? No.

1:24:17

Not right now. Thanks for asking though. Just hanging

1:24:19

out with you guys. me Follow Emily on Twitter

1:24:22

at

1:24:23

Emily of the Eyrie. If

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1:24:40

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