‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 Deep Dive

! Greetings and welcome to House of R, a ringer vs podcast on the ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin joining me today. She knows a witch who pays copper for teeth. I do. I know you do. Never has there been an easier choice for what to say at the top of the pod today. It's Joanna Robinson. Mallory, yes. What a joy to see you. Thrilled. Thrilled to be here to dive deep into episode five already, somehow episode five, the panel ultimate episode of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which we will do right after this. All right, Joe. We're going to be back for the finale because it's already finale time somehow on Sunday night. Immediately after episode six, we will be here with CR for Talk to Thrones. Correct. Next Tuesday evening, we will be back with the deep dive into the finale. But before then, later this week, we're going to have our buffy season three part two pod. We made it this time. It's going to happen. Thrilled can't wait. Spoiler warning for today's pod. Case anybody doesn't know it by now. How do we handle the spoilers? Oh, listen, the most of this episode is spoiler safe. That's right. Spoiler free. That's right. The very end. Carlos will spike your heart rate and your blood pressure by blaring some sirens that will let you know that it is spoiler time. Yes. And then additionally today, we've got a spoiler section within a spoiler section because one of the actions of the show dropped a pretty heavy revelation. Yes. That maybe Mallory wishes she didn't know. I would prefer not to know. You're welcome to leave the pod at that point. It would be the very last thing we talked about. We talked about this spoiler section. So the spoiler section will have a spoiler section. This information's out there. So we just want to talk about its implications or I wanted to talk about its implications a little at least. Mallory's like, please protect me. Protect me at all costs. How can everybody follow along? Oh my gosh. Thanks for asking. Why don't you subscribe to the pod where we listen to podcasts? Want to watch us on Spotify or on YouTube? That's a great thing to do. Why don't you follow us on social? Do it. And you can always email us. Hobbits of Dragon's at Gmail. That's cam. Send the buffy emails. Please start sending your project Hail Mary emails. Yes. What else is happening in spring? Daredevil? A Nolan movie? A Nolan movie is coming. Yeah. If you were able to figure it out from our very subtle, just really, really delicate. Actually, someone was like, I hope they do inception. I was like, good news. Yeah. We already did it. We already did it. It's not inception. Okay. It's time for the opening snapshot. Joanna Mallory, if anybody didn't watch Talk to Throne, so they did, but they just want to have the table set for them again. Another removes bush and order of of takes. Give us your quick opening snapshot thoughts, feelings about episode five in the name of the mother. I guess I just want to track my like very flimsy episode title tracking that I've been doing this season and just say, so in the name of the mother, as we talk about on Talk to Throne's, you know, defending the young and the innocent, right? I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. And that's of course what it's a role and says, you know, in the name of the mother. Yes. Leave that boy alone or on hand him or whatever he says. You have to now you have to vomit. Get your damn hands off of her. Whatever it is he says, right? But weren't innocence, innocence killed in this episode? Sure. Baylor and most crucially of all, my guy Beesbury. Most crucially of all. Our dad in the end of this episode. Indeed. So in the name of the mother, the innocence were not defended in this episode. The mother is very present across this episode, either in their in the pledge of hours. We've also died since freefalls and died on free arting. A lot of death. We did say spoiler warning at the top of the pod today. Yeah, Arlen Shoud obviously, but also Dunk really longing for his mother. Sure. I mean, there's mommy issues across the board, you know, we, we, you know, Dunk haunted by the dead fray. The dead fray. Croaking for his mother. Croaking for his mother. Lionel saying like, you know, did your mother love you best? Too bad. No man fights so fiercely. Right. Right. Aeg as well. Such a vibe. Such a vibe for the wall. As far as we know, Gwen, whose birthday it is does not have a mother or George forgot to come up with one. I don't know. How do you think Gwen is going to look back on this particular birthday? She's like crushed. No one will ever forget my birthday. Yeah. So what she'll say. I won't necessarily remember it was your birthday, but don't remember what happened. Don't forget the turning of the Ashford Meadow. Will they remember your name? George didn't. Oh, man, I love this episode. I thought it was obviously thrilling and devastating, you know, Baylor real fave. So it's a it's a heartbreaking time here at the House of R. But like really this episode, I thought it did a great job of simultaneously joining, you know, taking its place in this proud game of Thorn's tradition. The Elite Penal to Mid-episode, the Elite Battle episode, the Elite episode with a shocking subversive death while also doing so in a way that felt utterly specific to what this show is, to its vibe, to its scale and scope, to its essence and sensibility. And that's just a hard thing to do. Obviously, this episode includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile, a surr-arland dick size to mile. My favorite unit of measurement. I I'm still not really entirely sold on the fact that of whether or not we needed this flashback. I'm not like mad about it, but I don't know that we needed it or I don't know that we needed all of it, perhaps we could have had some of it, but I don't I don't know that we needed this much of it. 20 minutes is no joke. No joke at all. In a little bite size episode, it says these are, you know? I definitely have a couple notes on it still, but a lot of things inside of it worked for me. What is your despair level as we pre-grieve heading into the finale? Knowing we just have one left. I know the pre-grieving is a state that you live in. I'm inspired by Roman Roy. I'm in a like, he's really emotionally healthy. I'm in a really high celebratory mood because I feel like the prophecy has come true, which is that people are really getting into and catching on in the show. No question. I feel like people we we heard from a bunch of bad babies anecdotally about how people in their lives are catching up. Sarah who's in the studio with us, they just told me you know, so like people are catching up with the show because the word of mouth is so good. This is what we were hoping. And we're hoping like the moment we thought it could have. Well, we thought like maybe like after the egg reveal or whatever. I feel like there was a little bit of an off-camera now. It's just been like, yeah, you know, and then the bailer entrance last week, I think really got people talking a lot. And then of course what happens in this episode. So I really feel like what we were hoping has come true. It started as like a modest audience. I'm not sure that it is like the biggest audience that Thorn's has ever had. But as we said before, the budget on the show is so low that it doesn't need to find that high and people might catch up in the off season and all the sort of stuff like that. But this is just such a good show and it deserves so many eyeballs on it. So I'm just like really happy that I feel like I've been like sending you tweets constantly because every time I open Twitter now, Twitter's like, do you want to see more of this than I do? So you know, I'll go, it's got you. I feel like in addition to just kind of the uptick overall and volume and conversation and that sense of something shared, the other thing inside of that that I have really felt the last two weeks in particular and this week most of all was conversation on Sunday night. Yes. People are like, I want to live in real time. And there's just kind of nothing like that. When people are watching a game at Thorn Show together in real time, it's the fucking I really best. And guess what? They're not going to have to wait two, two and a half, three years for season two because we're going to get it next year. What a time to be us. Here's my mental state between episodes, well, being a few hours away from being between episodes five and six. You know, when Raymond and Goodman paid, I had a dunk against the wall and there's certain two assesses injuries and he's like through his swollen Sean oozing or offices. He's like, yeah, he's like one moment I felt drunk the next like I'm dying. That's how I feel right now. Yes. Anticipating the end of the show. Healthy. Emotionally healthy. One moment of driving drunk and the next like I'm dying. As soon as this is over, where I'm progetele Mary month. So this is like that's exciting. You and I got I don't think we can share but we got like a behind the scenes release date information. And what did you say to me? He said this could not be more our year. It's true. So there are things kind of weird. It's us. It's us. It's us a clock. I'm really excited. Can we talk really quickly about the AMA the Reddit AMA that I redid? Please. Yeah. Absolutely. After we were lamenting. Yeah. The absence of the Steely Pay line a night who remembered his vows and we're like, maybe it'll be in next week's episode. I feel like mere hours later, Iro Parker gave a reddit AMA where he was like. Danny kind of forgot about the iron fleet and I kind of forgot to include this very important line and I'm sorry. He said it was an earlier drafts of the episode but that it didn't make the final cut and he's like, big bummer on my part. I'll remember that going forward. So on the one hand, I like that from him on the other hand that that smacks to me as someone who hasn't been like quite mediatorane because like if you start like bowing and scraping and apologizing for things you left out now, like it's only going to grow and grow and grow from there. So like stay humble but also just know that people are going to be mad about all sorts of things going forward. But I on the internet will never what? So you get people being mad about things. I'm mad because someone asked him what his favorite house was and he said, house Beesbury and I said, how dare you sir when you mostly cut Beesbury from this season? This pot today is to honor. I'm fierce. That was like, how do you in my eye? Like I... That sounds kind of nice. No, it doesn't stingy. I don't know. Stinging. Maybe it could be like sexy. Verbs is that? Nothing for a minute. It's fun for a minute. Just like the one glimpse of Beesbury's yellow mustache that is dickily unbeen unable. Anyway, I guess that very quickly gets you to the stretch of the pit where that one patient had glued her eye together. Oh, I thought you were talking about the gonerie and the eye. That also happened on the pit this season. Yeah, that was also early season. I'm doing fine. And then another thing I want to mention before we get to a couple emails is we've been tracking this like the presence of the seven, the seven gods at the turni ground. And something we left out of the non-spoiler section in previous episodes was this idea is like is dunk himself the stranger in terms of someone who brings death to and now we can say that he's a fellow breaks bearer and more importantly like Humphrey I keep calling him live in Beesbury because dear me, God be good. He's always on my mind. Humphrey Beesbury died. Very important. Dunk brings this death. It's not his fault. You could say that maker brought his death thing or whatever you decide. But like this is sort of the theory is like that dunk himself is the stranger. Yes, I think Dunk's guilt and these questions that he will ask himself moving forward a big big part of the character. Before I forget on the Beesfront hilarious that I think it's possible I might forget this because we're going to talk about these like 300 more times today. I see deserves for you and for him. I just want to say of honeyholds. There's been you know some feedback from the listeners. Yes, of honeyholds. It's a great it's great. Honeyholds is wonderful. Sider Hall is fine, but honeyholds. You know, it's really good. You know, as always the V day quickie had had people talk him. And I just want to shout out the one commenter on the Spotify post. Get in the Spotify comments if you're not in there. You know, have a conversation with your fellow bad babies. Give us the five stars while you're at it. Maybe it's a nice place. So don't go there. If you want to be nice. You want to be me. Shout out to bad baby who was like and I'm paraphrasing. Wonderful pod. I'll never recover. I'm assigning you each 10. God's be good. It's like these berries with us always. You know, it's true. Even when the yellow mustache himself only got one line. The legacy of the the the beesberry clan and fam lives on always. Can I hit a couple emails before we get into the deep dive? So our listener Rachel did confirm that over in the UK. Tales from the seven seas, the piracy. The piracy of this show has gone through the roof in the UK apparently. So just data point about how popular it is. We suggest you watch things legally, but you know, there are constantly articles about how Game of Thrones is like the most pirated show of all time. So I'm just saying it's a it's a metric. And then our listener, Mikhail wrote in to say, and of course, I was going to include this because I get thrilled anytime someone reads a book I mentioned on a podcast, but she wrote to say that she just started the bright sword by love Grossman and said it's so interesting how similar the opening is to the head tonight. So we had mentioned our previous pod that love Grossman was created as a consultant on the first episode this season. And we mentioned that he had written this book, the bright sword, which is an Arthurian legends book, right? And Mikhail says it makes a lot of sense as both main characters are young men embarking on a chivalric buildings room and whereupon the scales of story will fall from their eyes. But it's fun to see how many parallels there were just within the first two chapters, destitute protagonist with secrets, hoping for imminent glory, but risking ruin, competing among the great and good, well, berries and old knight and then stops at an end where his journey takes a turn, etc. So shallows the grave. It's a great question. Pick up the bright sword by love Grossman to find out. Also, she says the narration mentions that column kept his hair shoulder length in order to where it flipped under his helm, quote, for extra padding at which point I mentally looked extremely pointedly at Baylor Targaryen and his faithfully stylishly cropped haircut. Could hair have saved. Listen, it's it's it's when I was trying to rob us and TM you're the hair expert. I'm not added to the list of of things I'm not a doctor, a scientist, a hair stylist. I do not believe that having extra hair keeps your brain intact. But what if Baylor had put, you know, the targ say, look, shiny, how much are you familiar with it with the halo cap, the guardian cap and football? Yeah, it looks dumb. But it keeps it keeps fans on head and trees. You're the problem. No, I said people looking dumb in order to protect their heads. Just because I said it looked dumb, doesn't mean I think they shouldn't wear it. So it does growing your hair a little longer, save your brain. I don't know. But what if Baylor had worn a guardian cap over the large helm? Something to think about. I was looking to see if there was any more information on why love Grossman was credit as a consultant in the first episode. And I couldn't find anything. But I did find this like 2005 review of Feast for Crows that he wrote in Time Magazine where he called George R. Martin the American Tolkien. It's sort of like he coined it. But it's really, I just want to read the first graph or so because it's really fun to read now in 2026. This was written 2005 before Game of Thrones. The TV show was a thing, right? So Love Grossman wrote, George R. Martin is fond of sudden reversals. The Tasty but Poisoned dish, the false god who abruptly proves too real, the unsalvageable rogue who strikes a hidden vein of decency when we and he least expected. Martin is also partial to sack castles, bare pits, disastrous battles, cynical betrayals, public executions, assassinations, ill luck, duels to the death, ambushes in forests and corpses left rotting in Green Headros. The world Martin writes about Maybearer passing Rosemblin to Old England, but it is not a Mary one. Martin isn't best known of America's straight up fantasy writers true at the time. That honor would probably go to upstart Christopher Paulini, Eric. What a time capsule. Robert Jordan, the late Robert Jordan, the endlessly turning wheel of time series or better yet to Ageless Grand Mistress Ursula K. LaGuene, the Wizard of Ursel. But of those who work in the grand epic fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, A Feast for Crows, Curly and Descending on Bookstores and Ascending Best Seller List, this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien. But I just love that he's like, and Love Grossman has talked about this review how he was like so upset that no one was like covering George R. Martin stuff, and he was like, time magazine didn't care about fantasy literature and I had to like fight for this review. So, you know, love, love gets points for being ahead of his time, I guess. Great stuff. Last but not least, Alex Rodin about quote, what has been by far the most of the best adaptive change from book to show? It came in episode three when Raymond invites dunk to the Fossilay tent for a pint of cider. We press it ourselves. I just really listened to the Hege night audiobook and at this point in the story, Raymond invites dunk for a quote, a fine arbor red end quote, really George, you've already put so much stock into the Fossilay's being apples personified. Why would they be drinking anything other than cider? Kudist Iroparker and co for posting this layup. So I'm pivoting the other way on this. Are you? Yeah. Is it like cannibalism to drink cider when you are an apple yourself? No, I maybe it's something that's interesting, wrinkle. I love a I love a cider as we've previously discussed. I think that because as we have chronicled across the journey of covering this season, Raymond, Stefan, Stefan, and presumably all of their Fossilay kin can't get through more than half a sentence without incorporating some sort of apple pun at some point is a hat on a hat. It's too much. And so the cider while I love a cider and while I think, you know, look, cider hall, new barrel, etc. They're leaning into the branding. They're smart about merchandising their identity and their image great. It reminds me of, let me ask you this, are you familiar with if I say this to you, just an image come to mind. The Maryland Terrapins, right? My hometown. The university where my parents met, okay? Fall in love shortly before getting divorced. You can see the Maryland save flag. You know what that looks like, okay? In your mind. No, okay. Google it. This is important. Quickly Google it. Carlos, maybe you'll put an image of the Maryland flag on the screen. So it's a great flag. It's very cool. Okay. Great color scheme, the Terpsies, this color scheme, red, yellow, black, white. Okay. At a certain point, they decided what if instead of just incorporating the flag into the logo, etc. We make the entire uniform, the Maryland flag. Carlos, perhaps we can also now put a picture. I know you know what I'm talking about. When the Maryland Google Maryland Terrapins football flag helmet, the entire thing was just the flag. And it's too much. At a certain point, it's like why not just wear a crab cake on your head. But don't think you would. And I say this is someone who fucking why he's Maryland would definitely. Someone made you like a fancy fascinator for a wedding, but it looks like a crab cake. You would wear it. Yeah, I think you know the truth, but not honey. If you went to honey hold and they didn't have honey, would you not be disappointed? Sure, but like they're they can't have an arbor wine. There's one else. When Dunkin' this region of Westroos. When Dunkin' Raymond Fossaway. Empty their stomachs before they go on the turniphyl. Yeah. Raymond's is a bright red. So I think he was consuming some some arbor red. Your ability to track colors through that foggy mist is uh I mean it's one of the reasons you're you. And you know it. You know like when you eat beets. Sure. And then the next thing you're like, ah, eight beets. You know what I'm saying? I feel like room's on. I'm so into it podcast already. That's just a human condition. Yeah. I had to be salad with the friend the other day and he's like I'm he's like I'm scheduling a text for you tomorrow that just said you ate beets just to like you know set your mind at ease. There's a great beets salad at John and Vinnie's No Free Ads. I've had it. It's wonderful. To do the device. A little crunch. It's great. Let's do it. Deep dive. We're going in order as we always do and we're starting with pre-game warm-ups. First shot. Yeah. Overhead shot of the seven on Dunk's team. Um and our listener who signs their emails lady O'Lena even though I know that's not their name. You don't think so. So speaking of the ongoing seven gods at Ashford theory, did you notice the overhead shot right at the beginning of the episode that showed Dunk's team assembled like a seven-point star? Now I love to chase them all of them as much as an ex person but I'm not sure that seven people in a circle. I answered that is no. I thought they were in a circle. You have to do a lot of lines to make it a seven-point star but I respect the commitment to the bit. Same. We love commitment to the bit here at the house of our uh dunk side armored sweet little egg. He looks so small holding the gigantic lance. Dunk. Casey forgotten who the seven are. Bayella of the O'Lenaub's Raymond, Lionel, the Humps, Harding and Bees and of course Robin, Reesling and I'm just fine saying it that way now. Robin Reesling who goes into battle without putting a helmet on. I think everyone has made some very interesting choices about how they've chosen to protect themselves heading into this battle. Everybody was very relieved to see that Raymond had some some some some some some light ring mail on and a helm. Speaking of Helm's Bayella, he's in coach Taylor mode. No. Time for like a pregame locker room pep talk. You got to get the squad ready. Clear eyes full hearts. We're gonna cheat. Clear eyes full hearts. There's no shame in having a tactical game plan. Sure. His helmet's off. It's just nice to take a moment to look at a still intact head. I just enjoy a while again. I can't. I can't. I can't. I'm just enjoying a while weekend. Yeah. Uh no minst wards here. No minst wards about the peril that awaits. They all know that this could be deadly. Bayella is like Dolpanic, uh, stand formation. Try to remain on your mounts. That's less about, you know, 12 seconds for all parties. Oh, and keep this one thing in mind. These men mean to kill you. They will fight savagely and Robbins like Sam bro. Sam. He's like, that's that's my life. There have been so many questions. So so we read the rules of the trial of seven last week and, uh, they're the say it's all the information we have about the trial seven, which is that I, everyone dies or one of the main, uh, you know, combatants yields. Like that's that's sort of what happens here or dies, etc. Right. Um, I would say that there are some like, there's some fine print that George never clarified that would be quite useful. And I think especially in this version of the trial where they draw out the action to the point where it's like, okay, it starts the Kingsguard kill beesbury and hunting right away. So there's no question of like, are people trying to kill is everyone trying to kill each other? No, I don't think make our Bayella are trying to kill each other. Right. But some people the Kingsguard are just killing people out here. Okay. But what is the Kingsguard's like, their job is to protect the Targaryens that are out here. Right. So take a couple of the other team off the board. Sure. That's doing your job. Yeah. And then they just kind of ride around in the background for the rest of the tourney. And I'm like, doesn't know one like, make our and Raymond once each get involved in this area and dunk, uh, fight. Yeah, the right best. But none of the Kingsguard get involved, even though they've like, you know, the Fossilies are fighting each other. Darren's down in the mud. Right. Just where he's setting me. Bayella and Lionel are holding make our back. Is Robin Rysling just taking on three of the king, like keeping all three of the Kingsguard busy? If not, why would they not get involved with Aryan and dunk? Because there's no rule that like, that, you know, the main, uh, combatants have to do all each other. Sure. Yeah. And Aryan demanding a trial of seven and then just fighting dunk one on one anyway. He's not a leave it to me guy. Right. The whole game. He's don't leave it to me. Where are my bodyguards? Right. And Darren's like, I'm taking us news in the mud. So, um, I think while I like, there's many reasons why I like the protracted nature of, of the way they did the tourney in this episode versus how it is in the book where it's like, dunk, take some hits and then he gets the upper hand and then it's kind of curtains for Aryan. Like that's it. It's over much faster. Yeah. I like it. And we'll talk about all the reasons why I like it. But it does reveal some sort of like flaws. And also, Iroparker's like, we didn't have much budget. So we kind of tried to make it work as we could. But just like, every so often a king's guard just sort of gallows behind the action. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? Yeah. I think there's like, it's one of those things where the cut and some level of the answer. Certainly in the show adaptation is like, if the king's guard were constantly trying to just like, in case Aryan, it's not as interesting to watch as this death struggle that we get. No, there's the drama. I'm not saying it would have been better. No, yeah, of course. I'm just saying maybe keep Beesbury and Harding alive a little longer so that we have a reason for the king's guard or like our occupy. I think there's like a just a touch. Obviously, there's the explanation we got last episode, the Andals and the tradition. Oh, the gods will be more likely to chime in, share their verdict in their opinion. You know, there's just like a touch and it gives the opportunity for people to declare and try to be either bold or brave or force the passive glory or do the right thing. Like a little like a touch of the like, wait, this niche is worth how much? Like, it's like a touch and that happens sometimes. They've got four Targaryens to protect on the field there. I do think Aryan is their lowest priority in all of this, but he's still a prince of the blood. Prince of the blood. So, prince of the blood, what are we doing? His armor sick. His armor sick. I, as you know, would have loved to thought this the stretches of the trial of seven we got were great. Would I have felt sorry to see more of Sir Rowan? No. Hot Rolly? Hot Rolly? Would have loved it. Would have been thrilled. I mean, well, wild needs to be like basically incapacitated very quickly, but I think if if we got into see the king's guard with our helmets off a bit more in this episode, and great. Well, for your purposes, great, but also a reminder to audience who are not quite as sort of tuned in that like we've met two of these guys before. We've talked to them. Yeah. This is who one of them wanted to know where to take a shit and the other one's a fishing neighbor, baby. So, quick vibe check on everybody who just heard this rousing pregame, pep talk from Baylor. How's everybody doing? Oh, profusely vomiting. Raymond and dunk, Pukin. I call this the Josh Allen pregame ritual. Josh Allen. I do know who Josh Allen is. I know you're getting lots of them, but I know who Josh Allen is. Pukes before every football game. Happy to always talk about it and share these details. He pukes before every game. So here you go. That sounds kind of cleansing to me, honestly. Raymond and dunk part of Bill's mafia. I guess that's the takeaway here. Home farting. Yeah. Could not have found this more hysterical. I'm just glad that he got to laugh once more before the end. Do you think as he laughed, he jostled his shattered leg a bit and it sort of shattered like a baking dish. I got real, and this makes sense to me because his horse fell on his leg. Milk of the poppy. I think this guy's loaded on milk of the poppy. I did not think he should be allowed to participate in the trial of seven. I did not do it. I'm sorry. I'm farting. He's down right away. Listen, if you've listened to the House of R, if you watch the House of R, you know that every now and then we sprinkle in a clip. Often it is because the performance is so memorable or the Atlantic language is gorgeous or yes, the theme is so astonishing that we need to cement it and codify it in the visual record before we talk about it. And this is all of those things. And this is every single one of those things. Sometimes it's just a ghost and a producer giving a gift to another ghost. So let's see Humphrey Beesbury's one line of the season Carlos if you'd please. What of the King's God take heart Beesbury. That was it. I caught it. I caught it. I caught it. Oh my god. Take heart Beesbury. Baylor, air the iron thrown hand of the King. No, your name. Baylor breaks bearing using Beesbury's name. Obviously later he'll call Raymond Surreymen. You know, it's just really wonderful to get to hear him acknowledge Bees. He knows who Sar Island of the Pentatrias and he knows who Humphrey Beesbury is. A lot of feedback online about not just obviously we've been discussing the yellow mustache, but just in general how Beesbury is styled. Very hip. People are loving it. Fresh cut. I would like to now read to you a comment. We mentioned the comments that you can comment on our episodes on the Spotify app. I would like to share one with you. It's your nice. The guy with the yellow mustache through me. Who? Why? Care to comment. Listen, Jay Matthew Johnson, you seem to have a really great beard in your profile photo. So I support you in that. But get on board. Get on board with House Beesbury. Oh my god. Listen, can't blame some members of the viewing public if they still know who this guy is, but if you're a bad baby you know that Humphrey's means something to Joe and that should be enough. Beware our sting. That's their house where it's not as good. Did it bear out? He took the beesbury to the groin to the groin. An economically in the book. Yeah, it's tough. He dies by growing wood. He does. Yeah. And by Beware our sting did he mean his lands and did it help him? Does not seem so. Dead in the first pass is what we find out. The fact that we do you think that Kingsguard feels good about himself? Donald. Probably. Honestly. I think that's a baby. A life of delicious succulent crab meat and riches and things guard doors. I'd say you don't allow any single drop of honey for the rest of his life. As long as he has some old Bay, he'll be fine. Honestly, he'll be fine. When honey, big ham out, meat out. Oh, that's sad. Yeah. You need to be able to have meat in the center. Honey sticks out. That is tough. I don't think you can really make it through restaurants without meat. Drink your tea bitter. My friend. No more honey. Do you have any in your tea? No, I have seen you have many of the cup of and never would I hate honey. I think it's disgusting. What a journey this has been. It's sticky and sweet and it gets everywhere. You sound like Anakin Skywalker described that was sand. That's what I just want to know when you're fall to the dark side will be. How many are the young ones in the studio? Any furry and find out. Everybody's doing great. Everybody's doing great today. When Aryan took the the groin slash later, I did think of you and I thought bees couldn't even get his own groin slash the groin death. Even the groin slash went to someone else. The groin death is not among the deaths. I'm ranked for no. It's low. Death by groin wound. I mean, he was dead on the first pass. Home of Harding. That's an update. You know, in the text, he's like, he dies. Diane and Diane and Diane and Diane. A few days later. I'd like to thank him for having such a visually distinct shield with that, that hardening schedule. It was very easy to spot his unmoving corpse in the month. He's a media fall. Okay, let's discuss for a couple minutes here. Baylor's Kingsguard Gambit and the group's response to it. I have no tell me. I let's see. Here's what he says. He says, I will handle the Kingsguard. Their oaths forbid them to harm a prince of the blood. Robin says, is that honorable your grace and Baylor says the gods will let us know. Here's how the passage goes in the novella. Baylor took that calmly. My brother aired when he demanded that the Kingsguard fight for his son. Their oath forbids them to harm a prince of the blood. Fortunately, I am such. He gave them a faint smile. Keep the others off me long enough and I shall deal with the Kingsguard. My prince is that chivalrous, as Ser Lionel Baratheon, as the septin was finishing his invocation. The gods will let us know, said Baylor Brakes Bear. Lionel gets a different retort here. He says, Mother loved you best. The earring is just so showcased. The dangle of a sad. It's wonderful. Shame. No man fights so fierce as one neglected by his mother. Just ask the motherless donk of flea bottom. I'll say this. Tell me. As a fan of a dangly earring, I'm taking the earrings off if I'm going on to attorney fields. I'm sure the ideas to keep the helm on. Yeah, sure. And listen, the antlers are already like a liability because he loses some of those ant like they get, he could get pulled by the antler at any given moment. Listen, imagine if you got pulled by the earring at some point. One more victory for Stili Pitt. Saul I'm saying. Simple armor. Oh, simple armor. Stili Pitt who reinforced that shield that didn't last its first hit. You know, maybe I should shout her right away. I went tongue picks up. It did. I forgot that's some. It's a very well-stimulated. But I was like that thing cracked right away. Much as we're about to discuss here, this is the world of Westrop. She's spent a lot of time girding yourself and bracing him for pairing. And then it's all ripped away from you. And you're like and you brag about how you reinforce the shield with like, sturdy iron. And then it just sort of like in the text they just that when donk picks up errands, she'll describe this like, you know, it's like twice as thick like Starland's cock and I was looking at it reminded me of remember all the moments of battle the bastards will come up a few times today, you know, John pulling you can like kind of see the rubber swallowing. There's definitely a little bit of that with the shield, which is fine. A little wobble to it. It's fine. So tell me Joe, what do you make of kind of a couple voices on this side on bail or side, just lightly questioning and introducing this kind of tone setter of like pre-judging approach. What do you make of this? Okay, listen, here in and George's world more broadly. As you, I think you noted on Talk the Thrones, you were like a little bit of princely hubris. Sure. I'll handle this. When he says, I will handle the Kingsguard to Humphrey, Beesbury, Humphrey Harding who get immediately killed by the Kingsguard. Sure. I have some notes for bail or strategy. It'll be fine. I'll handle the Kingsguard. Don't worry. As far as I know, he doesn't grapple with them at all. He's on make-art the whole time. So like, what is this prompt? Empty promises from royalty once again. This is fate. Honeyhole. This is the honeyhole. That's what we saw. Honeyhole blinders. The honeyhole lens. The thick amber. They died in the thru. I wish you're seeing this. As by the Kingsguard. Absolute bullshit that Bill are spending here. I did miss from the book. We get, he has this whole strategy of like, we'll use turnielands. Yes. They're longer than warlands. Warlands are sturdier. So like, all of those turnielands is that we saw splinter into smithereens on the various turnipasses into like balsa wood. That's not what a warlance is. When don't get a warlance to the side and has to like, like, you know, pull it out, that's some serious business. But a turnielands is longer. And so bail or school strategy in the book is like, we'll use turninglances. We'll keep on top of our horses. We'll keep them at a distance. We'll be able to enforce them. It's very smart. Didn't help beesburied harding at the end of the day, but they just cut the whole lance thing. I'm glad they didn't want to describe. Yeah. This is the difference between a turnielands and a warlance. Let's pause to talk about it. Perhaps in the television adaptation, that would have been a touch, dramatically inert. I personally am glad that that did not make the cut, even though we can still see the very tall, tall, tall lances. Because that actually struck me always as the one where I'm like, no, I love a game plan. That's just strategy. But it's like the like, the idea that touched me. That's that's altering the rules again. But it's strategy for one pass. True. Switch. Because egg only has to hand up one lance. And then he's like, BRB got to make a quick change. And then I'll be in the stands. I think that we will certainly we will talk about this more in the season finale, just these questions. Even if you watch the tease for the finale that they put like a one minute teaser of what's to come, we can hear and see in that preview the characters are processing what has happened, right? And anytime something like this happens in a George R. Martin story, it's a little bit of a litmus test for each character, maybe for the viewer or the reader of like how you see the world. I think that the the princess hubris the idea like, well, maybe you know, the hammer always finds the amville or the spear always breaks is I actually like giving bailer a little bit of that to our discussion from earlier in the season. Like it's not as interesting if he is literally perfect. Oh yeah. Do you think make ours like who's the hammer now, bitch? After he bashes for I mean that I I hope he has a touch more. Jesus of the finale. I hope Mr. has a touch more fucking. I don't think he's above thinking it. I think it's what I hope he doesn't say it. Yeah. I think that using tactics to pursue justice in the face of injustice is great. And certainly not mutually exclusive from being honorable and doing the right thing. Tywin Lannister once taught me and the grandson that he was actively manipulating. Yeah. That wisdom makes a good king. And so I look at all of this from bailer and I'm like, this is a strategist and a good man. This is a bold leader. To me, it just makes him so much more interesting. I think this question of judgment though. Yeah. Is fascinating in a George story. And I think if you looked through every death that we would point to as shocking, subversive, a character we've root for in a door cut down in their prime and maybe even in the peak of their pursuit of something virtuous, there will always be either in the fandom. People reading it, watching it, whatever the case would be, however, you're consuming it for the first time. Characters in the world, most crucially, who are like, yeah, but you did this thing, right? That's like part of what makes it interesting. It's never simple. It's never clean. It's never easy. Like we love to talk about Ned's madness of mercy and this idea that like he warned Cersei. He went to Cersei because he wanted the kids to be okay. And like, you sound like Bill Simmons texting us from the sauna. Where Bill is like simple Ned didn't deserve to live. Eddie, Eddie. The next time Bill text us Ned will be the first time. Sorry, Eddie. Eddie Stark. Eddie Stark. Eddie Stark. But like, you know, did Rob break his promise to the phrase, yeah, does that mean that we're not like with Arya every second all the way to fucking Freypie? Does it mean Rob deserved to die? Like, no, of course not. Open wanted his vengeance and he got a little cute. And that's true, but does it mean he wasn't in the right? He was cute the whole time. Let's be real. Yeah, he was. Wow. He was just so fair for you. Like, there are members of the Night's Watch who genuinely believe with every fiber of their being that what John did letting the wildlings through was wrong. And then for me, for many people, it's like this is part of what makes John a character worth loving and worth rooting for. So it's real like Jamie and Kat talking in season two. You know, if your gods are real and if they're just why is the world so full of injustice and cats saying because of men like you, it's like, you know, we shared the quote from the novella last last week. This isn't in the show, but Leo Longthorne, whenever once like, yeah, you know, all trial of seven, like the gods might be more likely to get involved. And he's like, or may have say simply had a taste for sort play. The role of the gods, the role of fate is an interesting one to think about in this story. But does the judge is there judge is bail or judged wrong by the outcome here? That is not my read. I think that there will be some characters in the story who think that though. And that's a thing. Failure made some choices. Yeah, Humphrey Beesbury just showed up. I think that we know what the Beesbury's will say. Listen, I like my thing about the that Leo Longthorne quote is a really good one to bring up because in the very, very young except in who gives the sort of blessing before the journey talks about what a bloody offering, bloody offering. Yeah, that's just such a pagan idea of like, it's not the god, the sort of like virtuous god sitting on high will bless the innocent. It's like, here's we're offering up the blood of House Beesbury, the most valuable blood there is to offer to feed them. I'm almost over this. I'm on the runny now. You keep the Beesbury, you keep Beesbury's memory at life because you don't know anybody. Well, speaking of Ira, here's what he said on the inside the episode, a little mini feature. I bail her chooses to do the right thing. And like many people on Game of Thrones who choose to do the right thing, life, intervenes as it will. So this is just to me like vintage thrones, vintage Georgia or Martin, Miller smart, billers good, billers brave. He's imperfect. He's tactical. But the fact that he is actually doing the honorable thing is not like rendered moot or untrue, it just doesn't matter. It's not enough to keep him alive and that is the harsh reality that we're watching here. The other try it off. Duncan, I share a moment. Duncan calls him squire. I love this little touch because it's like for just a beat here. It's all business, right? Duncan is trying to maintain a grip on himself and his emotions. He's also trying to remind egg of his duties as responsibility as much like in episode two after what they witnessed with Aryan and Humph Harding. There might be a day where a mishap defaults me and you have to be ready. But it's only a beat because then they share their little inside joke. If you rob me, I'll come after you with dogs. Wolf and it's just this lovely little brief moment that they share that reminds us of what they've built over just a handful of days. I really love this moment so much because we've been talking all season, inspired by a listener email about what people look at Duncan, when Duncan's not looking at them. We get to observe that the books being so strictly from Duncan's point of view can't give us. So egg smiling at him as they share this inside joke that's a show invented callback which I really love. The original joke was show invented. This is a callback. This is like the opposite of in the final seasons of Thrones, when characters would just say lines that other characters had said, who like remember when Thrones was good. But yeah, remember when this line really hit, we just had another character say it even though they don't know that other character and have no reason to say things the exact same way. Copy paste from a previous season. Really bad. This is like a really cute inside joke between these people, right? But then the way that that egg's face falls when dunk turns around and the serious, you know, the whole, I mean, egg is just us, the whole, the whole episode and like the come on, get up, you know, all this sort of stuff. The weight, everything, like that's on Dex inside of this episode to perform and he's so good. He was really, really good. But it's also this moment for egg who like, this is his dream. This is what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a squire. He trained to like, here, here's her Duncan. Here's the lens, you know, my tiny hands can do this. But like, like so many characters on Game of Thrones, like like Sansa when she gets to Mary Joffrey, like when these sort of like childish ideals, these dreams come true and then the reality is such a nightmare. This is an absolute nightmare. This is a missed, re-ad Absolute, more ass of mud nightmare. And this is what egg has been like one, careful what you wish for. Totally. Which George is constantly sort of throwing in people's faces. The blood seeping into the armor and the ideal. It's a great shout. The music here sort of achieves that effect as well. The scoring, we've been talking about it all season. Your guy, fucking killing it, Dan Romer. This, I thought that this, what he did with the score in this episode was astonishing. You know, we have moments where it is like appropriate to give us a little bit more of the return to the jauntie adventure tune. But there are a couple times later after the, in a minute, actually after like the first charge one, Arian stabs stabs Dunk. Yeah. Puts the three feet of the, the tip of the lantern through his side. And then he's kind of tosses it down to hear my elbow crack. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it can't be good. It's just can't be good. The like it sounded like a horn out of hell. The musical accompaniment when he did that. And then fear as this, as as as Dunk rides away from Ag and they part of Ag looks at him as you're describing. And the reality of the world kind of washes in. It felt like a pre-futural, funeral durs here. Like that was what the music sounded like. I just thought it was really masterful, a compositional accompaniment on the musical. I really agree. The trial of seven begins. You mentioned the Ashford septin set in the mood. It's not quite time and recusing himself in season four. If found guilty, made the gods punish the accused, which always gives me like a chill every time I hear it, especially of course, because of the familial ties and the bastardization, quite literally in that case, of those ties. But we get this little, this mood setter for the crowd. And Dunk puts his helmet on. What do you think of the septin being so young? I've mostly seen aged septin. So like I think I got thinking about what we've learned across the season, mostly from Plummer about Lord Ashford kind of overstretching. I got he had to tap into the faith of the seven internship program. Five years. I think I could not hire a real septin. That was the sense I got. I was thinking about Amon. Like Amon is like, you know, young and at the citadel and sort of, you know, learning he's not a septin. But like, you know, like about the age of this. I mean, Amon always on our minds. Never a bad time to mention him. Or be his two of the greats. Two of the greats. The two most important characters. I love this the cut between the two Helms and just the style of their armor, this like style versus substance jump cut from Duncan and Aryan prepping here. If you could pick one set of armor from any of the characters on either side to make your own forever to have either to wear to hang on your wall to look at who's would you pick? I mean, let's just put aside Bspray because obviously that's the answer. But like, I think my favorite shot of like in the lineup and he's he's at the edge of frame. The camera wants us to see him as Darren, right? With the he's got this in the book. It describes a green silk plume trailed from Darren's helmet. We get the green silk plume as he puts his his helmet on. But like, just like his armor, he looks so ill. Like, I'm surprised he didn't vomit. We get four vomits in this episode. There's no question Darren vomited. We just were not sure it's seeing it. In the books as we discussed, he's like fighting the DTs as he's like getting on his horse gear. Like, he's not doing well. But I thought his armor was so good. But like, if honestly, if I have to pick one, it's make our sick dragon tooth armor. That's pretty good. That's amazing. It's really good. I think that how about you? Yeah. Darren's Darren's little green bubble. It gives me real like cat toy. Little feathered Monster. You were texting me. When I said you a screenshot of Darren in the mud, you texted me like the little like detective emoji. And then the little like green potential. What a little green sprout emoji. You're great. You're great. I make our armor so pretty good choice. I do. I'm ashamed by how much I like Aryan's armor. But I really, it's fantastic. All of us are carrying armor is great. Valar's is really good. But I wouldn't want an old fitting. I would want it in my own after what happened. Prinsley brain matter in it. I would probably take a linel's armor. But can you in terms of like scavenging and like selling things? Can you imagine if someone does it? If you found that? No, the antler prongs, but like the crunchy bloody healthy that kills Prince Baylor. How many coppers could he get for that? Just a question. I'm just asking questions. I mean, I don't think that egg, Raymond or good man, Pete will be doing that. So who's in there next? That's the question. There are staple boys about, you know, maybe that guy who was like, are you Bella talking about? I'm going to just scoop up the brain matter. Had to eBay, had to hash for eBay. Probably right. In this stretch where we're glimpsing everybody kind of lining up, readying for that. I think there's remnants of the other side of the Black Fire rebellion who would want the scooped up brain matter of Prince Baylor. I mean, no question. Yeah, no question. Since you were in salient, bitter steals, like here's my PO box in S's. Oh my god, he's going to be tracking that package for months. You mentioned early in the season, drew our attention to the statues that are all over the turni grounds. And there were some really, especially at the beginning, but throughout, it just really great, like a Jason C shots of the flesh and blood nights and horses rearing up in front of the statues and this idea that we've been talking about all seasons. It was a really meta encapsulation of the tall tale that became legend, like this melding of myth in real life and the way that something happens in front of you that is rendered in stone one day. I thought that that was like, she's a great use of the set of the setting and the set. And one of the many things that they did inside of this episode. And this season so far to give a real sense of scale and specificity and something so memorable. Like now it's indelible with this little budget. It's like, I know. And it's so menacing, like those statues look so menacing in the mist. And like compared to like when Duncan saw them in the gold and torch light of earlier in the week, you know. And I love, you know, we remarked upon the shots in the rain in last week's episode, but it's really important that the turni field be an absolute mud pit. It does look fun. Did you like a slip inside when you were a kid? I mean, the mace and the head are more fun, but morning stars and maces and flails three different things. Okay. Let's just get this out of the way now. Thank you to the, I almost brought the light for us. The dozens maybe hundreds possibly thousand some of you. You know, you'll be able to email us. I just assume it's an order of magnitude in the inbox beyond what was in all the comments. To let us know because we had this discussion on talk to Throwswoods, what's the difference between a mace and a morning star. Many people have chimed in to say, Hey, dipshit. That's a flail. I believe it was dumb fuck. Adults. And so to that, I say thank you for informing us. And I blame George because he says that a morning star. He called it a morning star in the text and there's like an illustration. And he talks about it on the end of its chain and stuff like that. Here's the deal. Yeah. There's a way which George can be right. And there's a way which unfortunately Chris Ryan is right, right? We'll never tell him. You guys don't tell him. Okay. There's the mace. We all know what that is. The spiky ball in the end of a stick. Just gonna add one not our first blacksmiths or wetland doctors to the long list. Yeah. I'm with you so far. Steely paint. Not a doctor. Okay. No. No. A morning star. And again, I was gonna bring the whiteboard for this. A morning star is that but the things are spikier. There are longer spikier prongs. Okay. But the important part is the longer. I'm sorry. When you do this and then say longer spikier prongs, I do find myself once again thinking about a sorely. But I'm unlocked back in. Yeah. How can I make it less? It's cocky. We're you. If I had the whiteboard. Okay. So, yeah. A mace but makes some of the prongs longer, that's a morning star. Okay. Uh-huh. But the point is the long prong. So I think you can have that sort of mace with the longer prongs on the end of a shorter chain. That's still a morning star. Okay. But the long chain, that's what makes it a flail. I see. I think. And what's really devastating for me personally, everyone's gonna tell you. It's really devastating for me personally is the reason I was so quick. We were both so quick to correct the R is that literally before talk thrones, I had Googled morning star versus mace versus flail. I had Googled all three and I still someone got it wrong. So she talked out here for gay and thrones experts, I guess. But George does call it a morning star. It's actually important that he calls it a morning star because he uses language that like compares it to the falling star. Yes. That dunk sees, right? He talks about seeing the star sort of come across. And you see it, there's a great shot of it in this episode, but the star sort of like, uh, coming across the visor. The spike ball world around and around this guy and fell towards his head as fast as a shooting star, right? So like this falling star imagery that we've been using for Dunkle season. Oh, data right now with flailing, which seems it works as well. The spike fall world round and around this guy and fell towards his head as fast as shooting flail. It flailed. Oh, it's done. I do, it is the descriptions of what Dunkin glimps through that little slit, like the way that he's like, the dragon was smiling. Yeah, because he can all the, and the way the camera does that, like when they, when they, when they eventually do do the charge, we'll talk about thunder saving the day. You know, I get thunder saving the day, but that camera move of like in the visor in, you know, like, it's so good, so good. We had really gushed over seeing that in the trailer and just kind of the, the hype that was building the sound of the breathing. Yeah. And then here we are, the horn sounds. Yeah. We're off and we are in that helmet cam. And this just fucking rolled, Dunk's POV litteralized and crystallized for us that way. I can't wait to see the behind the scenes because you think they just put like a home on there like, we just feel like a little like one of those cameras you fish under a door of your spy. This is like through this little, um, I can hear the director here. So I just want to see shots of Owen or, or Owen's DP out on the bud field with just like a little biser, like, just a little helmet over the camera. Yeah. That's great. I love this. Are you familiar with you know what F1 is, Formula 1, you're familiar against my watch. So skysports. Yeah. They broadcast the, the Grand Prix, they broadcast the races and you can choose, you can opt in to a onboard driver feed for your favorite drivers. You can watch if you want. How many times the entire rate you can, you can move around and do it everyone. So if you're like, I only want to watch this race through the perspective of Landon, Norris. Little Landon. It was not. It's all too much. It was not all too much for a little Landon, Norris. We're a fucking champion. But by a high F1 is almost upon us again. I can't wait. Uh, if you could have opted out of dunks, helmet cam and opted into another onboard driver visor cam for another participant in the trial of seven, who would you pick? Are you riding with bees and then your feed cuts out after points really? If you're done for the day, if you're Darren and you're just like a camera that's been dipped over into the bush, um, I think I would either, in honestly, I would either pick Lennel Brassian so you could get like the booming laughter of the laughing storm or, and he's really in the thick of it. Yeah, or Raymond Fossoway. That's a good one. Yeah. But then you're staring at your like loody's favorite character. Everyone. He charges down and challenges him. Oh man, my favorite little Darren detail, by the way, is, um, at the end when they're going kind of going over the body count, reading the injury report. Yeah, like, um, might have a broken fun. His own horse kind of just like freaked out and started running around and stepped on. Steped on by his own horse. Okay, okay. Okay. Rake the embarrassment. Frootl, that's the tough one. Death by groin wound. I put that under step to love of the game. Like it might have your own or that is just, that's just sloppy work by Darren. Steped on by your, if your plan is one gallon charge and then I'm going to fall over the mud, you've got to prep your mount to, yeah, where is egg to be like put like a carrot? Yeah. Or an apple or sugar cube. Oh, you understand? So the horse goes there as Darren falls pair links to care exactly. So, exactly. Get a plant with, yeah, some sugar cubes. I dreamed of it. You found the sugar cube and left my foot intact. There was a giant carrot. So wings. You can't get anyone to get it on the walls. All right. Lonely life for Darren, the drunken. All right, dunks panting. His eyes are wide and tear. I love when we cut to the flashback and we see young dunk with the cloth over his nose to block the, yeah, the COVID mask to block the stench of the corpses on the road. Or really, don't COVID when I was just like, if I just put this piece of cloth cloth here, it'll be fine. The spandana. I won't get the vid. A Game of Thrones. One of our favorite quotes we talk about it a lot. Can a man be brave if he's afraid? And that is the only time a man can be brave. His father told him this is Brandon Ed. And so that is just so on our minds here as we watch this terror grip dunk because of course it would. How could it not? I was also thinking of, I was in a little bit of, I'm very Tolkienian. You've already mentioned him episode in general. And I was really thinking here like courage, Mary, courage for our friends as well. That was very on my mind. The dunk is frozen until thunder spurden part by egg that episode three egg in thunder show early training really paying off because thunder hears egg pulls dunk forward. I would say this is the most important passage in the history of literature. What do you think? Read it to me. A stab of panic went through him. I have forgotten. He thought wildly. I have forgotten all. I will shame myself. I will lose everything. Thunder saved him. The big brown stallion knew what to do even if his rider did not. Okay. So are you upset that Ayur Parker has stolen some of the credit from thunder and given it to egg? Yeah. Fuck egg. Clip it. Put it everywhere. This is thunder's moment. God damn it. No, I really like the egg thunderboss. I love the two and I love the little family. I love since we're in Dunk Piov. Dunk's POV. Dunk wouldn't be able to know like because he can't hear anything except his own free to catch breathing. But like he wouldn't know that egg a like trained with thunder because he wasn't there for that. He just thought egg had fucked off and B like that egg was responsible. So he's like, wow, my horse knew what to do. Which really wasn't the child screaming him from the stands. Here's something that Peter Klafi said in the after the episode. Yes. He said, Dunk had never been to war before. Which surprised me because there's the shot of him tending to Sir Arlin. When Sir Arlin fought the Vulture King. Right. So I have a fix for this though. Okay. Is it just that he said the wrong thing? Which I think is probably what happened. Probably that's true. But come with me on the journey. Okay. As we see in this episode, Sir Arlin lost his beloved square Roger. It's about the Red Grass Field. So which we will talk about at length obviously when we get there at Sir Arlin's length when we get there, right? But he takes on Dunk sort of begrudgingly in the context of this flashback. And I mean, it's possible that when he went to war later, he's like, you wait in the tent. I don't want to happen to you. I don't want anything to happen to you. But he wouldn't say it that way. He would say it gruffer and he'd be like, you're not worthy sitting the tents when really he met. I'm trying some dirty puddle water. Really what he meant is my heart is too tender. I can't break a gun. I'm too bound to have dirt I had to dig with my own hands as I mourn my charge. Let's say in a dothraki. When we get there, I want you to prepare to sing dothraki. I want you. No, I'm like Chris. I have no parents to do any singing on this by guess. We can't let him forget. We can't let let's see our forget. He's gonna tell us to say remember you wait beats and remember you promised us that you would sing on talk to Thorens this week. Oh God. Just immediately just right away. Thorens lands explode into dunkside. Just right away. And the shield fucking shatters. Like Thanos is there. She's been away. I kept it up there. Okay, so to recap. Steely paid shield shatters. Yeah. You did this best. And the ringmail gets embedded in dunks flesh. That to me that just honestly, if I were managing steely paid business, I would say, all that means is the chain mail help. I would say it helps next time plate armor. Maybe it held next time some plate armor. The mail can only go into your wound. If it doesn't break on the tip of the land, it's been tacked and being driven through. You missed your carlo marketing. It's possible. All right, I'm gonna give down a little bit of a pep talk here. Green fucking noise. That war. Maybe this is what he needs to hear. And the hour of wolves and shattered shields with the age of man comes crashing down. But it is not this day. I mean, sure, does he look at the shield in the texting. And shooting star gave him hard and then does it immediately shatter? Yeah. It's tough. Oken iron, Garmy, well, or else I'm dead and doomed to hell. I mean, I think you were right to note last last time we talked about that. That it's maybe not the headspace that you want a court on the press of this battle. That's that's all valid. I think that seeing this symbol of hope, not only symbol of hope, but as we've been talking about, you know, this is on my mind actually with the moment with egg and thunder and dunk and Arlen all kind of being involved in the little like search forward, pulling dunk forward into battle when he freezes. It's like those strands, all of the people who are part of his life. Yeah. And so like, we've obviously been talking about that all season with the shield, all of the different people as you were talking about earlier in the season who helps dunk get to dunk sir dunk in the toss to forge his name and then all of the different influences on what that shield is. It's like to have that rupture on the first charge to have that idea, the idea of it, the representation and symbolic rendering of the notion that you can decide who you want to be like split in half in front of you when at the end of the trial when Raymond came in and they're taking him off, it's just like there and the mud on the side. Without any mud on top of it sort of pristine on top of the mud. Conveniently exactly. And for warning, and peace for peace. Yeah, so I'll give this for Julie Pateswork. It fell in a very artistic way and a very important place on the field so that it could symbolically be there when dunk was dragged on. Remember when Celi Pate was like, listen, I'm going to just give you a helm. It's going to be rounded on the edges for the knife, the blade edge doesn't bite in that worked and also like no fancy shit. It's just going to, if you take a glance to the face, it'll serve you better. When that, it was like the pommel, the thrust of the sword. Like the dunk is alive. It was like the, it was the spiky pomm, like the crossbar of not the tip. But like I think he used the pommel of his sword to try to get in the visor. I thought that was Aaron had some great moves. I gotta say it's Aaron has no good points but great moves sometimes throwing the sword. That was sick. Extremely cool. I love how thin Benet was like dunk is big and tall and strong and I needed area to be fast and quick and like see me and me and all stuff like that. I think the fighting style contrast was awesome. The throwing of the sword into the thigh was really, really good. Fantastic. Here's another quote. Okay. On the morning star beat. Yeah. Through his fingers, he glimpsed a dragon flying and a spiked morning star rolled on the end of a chain. Then his head seemed to burst to pieces. Blame George. Send your letters to George. He's reading all of your letters. Every single letter you write that say say where is Winter? He reads all of them diligently and if you want to say, well, actually George, it's a flail. Don't send them to George. Send them to us. We will happily take this burden on for him so that he can write the next Dunkin Egg novella. That's our offer. Did you see that Ira Parker said that he had 13 novellas on top of the three? I thought it was like 13 total. It's 13 on top. Let's do this for the next decade and a half and a half seasons. Great. Let's make this longer than the fucking Infinity saga. Two seasons a year. I mean, don't get greedy. But yeah, that would be great. What about January? Well, how would we space on January and like August 10th? For some like that. Yeah. I mean, that would be wonderful. Where will Hot Dego? In the spring. Well, there's only two more seasons of Hot D. And then all the other shows they're going to do. Agon's Conquist, which might be a film. A movie. Yeah. Yeah. Jon Snow. The Black Fire Rebellion. I mean, I'm just starting to wonder what's West of West Rose. Black Fire is all going to happen inside of the show. And completely in Flashback. It's possible. You think we're going to get Damon Black Fire in Flashback? I don't think that old really this show. Yes, I do think that. I do think that. I don't think I still think they will, at some point, want to and should do the Black Fire, the first Black Fire Rebellion in full as a stand one. And that's got to be a big budget story. It just kind of has to be. But what if that's a movie is like a companion to this experience? Keep watching. We can only hope that the new overlords at WB want to keep on keep it on. Exactly. Keep watching. Keep talking on Sunday nights about this show. You can keep watching, but don't can't because you can't see anything because he's concussed. He can't even pull his sword before Aryan is on him again, swinging. And Dunk is just so we're going to get after the flashback to this mud-wrestling match, this like animalistic carnage here in the opening before the flashback. Dunk is so overmatched by design, right? A prince who is trained in all of these different modes of combat. And we talked about the Sun Talk, the Throne's with like a line that we love. Dunk the Lunk. This is his internal monologue in the novella. Thought he could be a knight. That is what is going through his head as he just falls down, beaten in the mud. And then I love this other passage which comes shortly after that. Thinking about everything happening, not just to him, but around him. What was worse was the others who would die with him. Raymond and Prince Bailer on the rest. I failed them. I am no champion. I'm not even a hedge knight. I am nothing. He remembered Prince Daren boasting that no one could lie insensible in the mud as well as he did. He never saw Dunk the Lunk though. Did he? The shame was worse than the pain. Oh, the shame was worse than the pain. Like gives me a chill. And then Viser cam mud just pours on in. It's great. Takes us right into a flashback. Yeah. Do you wish? Do you want to hear the lost sort of like wish into the flashback moment? I heard it in my head. Sort of just kind of pevlovian. Yeah, I think at this point. Yeah. Anything just in the big picture sense before we go through what we actually see with Rafe with Arlin, et cetera, in this 20-minute flashback to Dunk's youth in Flea Bottom. Before we get into the particulars, anything that we didn't hit the opening snapshot that you want to say in kind of like a big picture way about this adaptive choice or you want to just hit it as we go. No, I think we can hit it as we go. Fantastic. That's right. We've mentioned just one beat of context as we dive in. We've mentioned this before, but Dunk has been aged up. So keep that in mind as we go through this. And the text, he is a younger boy. Can I do some more? Please. Yeah. 13 years before the show. I would say matched only by the number of emails we got about a flail versus a morning star versus a maze. It's people really pissed that I called Dunk 30 years old and last week's deep dive. Okay. Yeah. So let's do some math. Okay. Bamber Todd was like 15. The actor who plays him was like 15 when they filmed this episode. But let's say Dunk is younger than that. Okay. What do you want to say? 14 13? He's not 12. I thought he looks like he was maybe like, yeah, 14. 14. 14. Yeah. 13 years later. I think the math checks out. So he's 27. So excuse me. He's not 30, but he's 27. And I'm sorry, I think I'm just like, I think people who are like much younger than I am and who are in their 20s are like, dear God, he's not 30. And I'm like 27 30 is really not that much of a difference. When you're 27, 30 sounds fucking washed far away. Anyway, I apologize. Let's go back in time and amend every time I said he's 32 in his late 20s, which is different than in the book where he's a teenager. He doesn't even know where you'll be like four years old when the battle of the Red Grassfield happened. Right. So which like I will say when you get to some of the descriptions in the later novella, some of which will repassage us off shortly because raf is named. Yeah. A couple times. Like fair and pudding. Wonderful stuff. Some of the things they're describing, I'm like four or five, that would be like maybe it feels like a little young to be running around with a severed head. Stealing severed heads. I think I grew up fast and flea bottom. I was listening to the folks in history of West Russia talk about this. And I think they're right that like George just would often make so many of his characters kind of younger than it makes sense for them. Yes. And then the shows always age them up. Yeah. Yeah. So. So and it does make sense then that there's like more just in terms of the adaptive choice. More um crucial elements of dunks life to tell us about than if you were only a handful of years old. Right. If he's 14 stuff would happen that we imagine our land picks up a four year old as his squired is like 10 to the wall. That male. Your little shit. A four year old dunk dying in dysentery. And I was like, get up. So today you're going to have peteolite. Not water. You're four. Speaking of gross things and death. Where the fucking red grass field did. This is so cool. This I have no objection to seeing the red grass field. I have no objection to like being in it's mostly like the rave stuff that I feel like. Yeah. It's not my favorite. But do you know what fun facts tell me tell me the first time we've seen the the house blackfire heraldry on screen. Yeah. Oh yeah. And that and that the blacksmith pawn shop guy didn't give a shit. He's like, they felt leather elsewhere. He's like, you might be the first time but he killed. No, no, no. We've talked a lot throughout the season about the first blackfire rebellion. The way that the show has found many opportunities to sprinkle in a mention or reference that this hangs over this period of West Roshi history in a way that was inescapable. So Joe, if anyone maybe is joining us today for the first time because this was such an amazing episode of a night in the seven kingdoms. They're like, now to start listening to podcasts. Blackfire rebellion, red grass field, what do we need to know about where we are and what we're seeing? This is the end of the first blackfire rebellion, right? So Damon blackfire who is leading the charge on this dies of the red grass field as do his two sons. And so this effectively ends, at least for now, the blackfire rebellion. Um, his eldest twin. If you want to like go through the hole who did what where you can watch talk the thrones, I did do a whole sort of like battle map thing. That's not important. I just wanted to do it. But what matters is that the, you know, as as Dunk says naively, it's over. We did it, right? And so it's important to know how many people died. Yes, there. Yes. 10,000. I think what's incredible about what we see in the aftermath. Let me talk about a little bit more. But like what we see the wound in the streets of a flea bottom. Yeah. Like veterans like veterans of like and this just happened. Right. And so Arland's squire Roger died at the red grass field. So like freshly dug grave like this just happened. There's a guy still alive under his horse. Yeah. Dunkin Ray for out there. They're like entrepreneurs. Listen. But like it can't have been more than like two to like how long can one survive under a horse? I don't know. I'm not a veterinarian. But like, add to the list. But this is just like this just happened. This is a historical battle. Right. And Dunk was there like four scum. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. I don't quite what do you, what do you think he'd do out on a football field? He'd be great. I mean, he's a rugby player, obviously, as we know. I was running. Man, as we, as we chatted about on Talk the Thrones, hammer in the Anvil, which we described earlier in the season, that's part of Baylor, made so. Yeah. Blood Raven, his Ravens teeth raining down the arrows. So there's all this kind of like legendary fabled stuff that happens at the battle that becomes the stuff of as in the case of the hammer and the Anvil legend and song, right. So it's fabled in that way. But the fact that 10,000 people died and that it was so bloody and so costly, the toll of the carnage. And the fact that so many of the people who sided with Damon Blackfire, who sided with the rebellion, didn't stop thinking that was the right choice just because their side lost. It is a wound, not only on that field, but in the history of Westroast. It's very awkward. The main houses did all support the Targaryens. We should say like the Lannisters and the Tyrells and the, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But some of the other houses did not. And they still have to like be at the parties and be like, hey, shout out Houseball. Fireball, one of the best monocurs of sick. Awesome. Fireball incredibly good. Fireball, I think George blew through a lot of so his best names. I know. So many of them are in these nobles. In the Duncan Egg. Not going to say which character is saying these things because you'll find that out in future seasons. But some passages from Sworn Sword and Mystery Night, The Second and Third Novelis, people thinking back on this battlefield in this moment. Many good men fell that day on both sides. The grass was not red before the battle. Did your sir Arlin tell you that? So that's something that a character who was redacted for the purposes of this conversation says to Dunk in a Sworn Sword. And then the Mystery Night, one of the things that Dunk is thinking to himself is just, he's like thinking about that grass was not red when the sun came up like that idea. Lingers, now of course, knowing that Dunk had this like first-hand experience with it at age where he would have remembered adds like a little bit of a different element there. Sworn Sword. A great battle is a terrible thing. The old knight said. But in the midst of blood and carnage, there are sometimes also beauty. Beauty that could break your heart. I will never forget the way the sun looked when it set upon the red grass field. 10,000 men had died and the air was thick with moans and lamentations. But above us, the sky turned gold and red and orange. So beautiful and made me weep to know that my sons would never see it. First of all, bars from George's always. But this idea of like the beauty and the carnage. What we're seeing there is just death and rotting, festering ruin. And like no grass at all actually. I know. I like that choice. Yeah. I like that choice that like the red is just in these pools of blood kind of muddy to match what we see in the the turni field at Ashford. But so yeah, this is what we're seeing and it really was. I mean, it's horrible. And it's pretty crushing to think of of of Duncan and Rafe, not only the the poverty and the the crawl space that they're living in and having to contend with the corrupt city watch and people like Alistair, but just like to grow up in the wake of this, right? For a year during this rebellion to be surrounded by this level of like horror and for the threat to be that close. It's such a heavy, heavy thing. And then to think about the characters who would look at that and be like, wow, that like Sunset that day. It's just a wild like insight into kind of the psychology of Westro, so land that is played constantly by these kinds of wars. The body under the horsemoans dunks looking down and we get to see the sigil. It's house free. What did you make of this choice? I am. So it's so interesting because I've heard like some people say that it's house high tower, but it's definitely not. It's the twins. Like it's the there's two towers. Very like for a second when I first watch was like, Oh, interesting, which also would have been fascinating. Right. It's over here in a way that means there's two. Yeah, there's two towers in the bridge. It's the twin. The house, the phrase, it's such a weird choice because there's like no evidence that the phrase are really involved in the black fire rebellion. Right. That being said, my only guess is to why it's here is house freight does have a role to play in up and up coming novella. Yeah. So maybe like it felt important for them to plant that seed here. I don't know well, the stokeworths also have a role to play. So perhaps that's why the stokeworths are on the road at King's Landing. Yeah. Do you think the green banner is supposed to be the Tyrell banner? Because Leo Longthorn did not get his troops to the Redgrass Field in time. So I thought that green banner was really weird. Because you see that you see the black fire banner, the red field, the black dragon, but you also see a green banner. Like what else, what, what could that be? I don't know. I thought that's a good question. I tire. I don't know. Because here's a, Lord Leo also won distinction during the first black fire rebellion, winning notable victories against Damon Flockfires adherence in the reach. Though his forces were enabled to gather quickly enough to arrive in time for the battle of the Redgrass Field. So like he did not get his ass there in time. Do you think he got there late and then just put his flag there? I was like, I was there. Check the tape. You can't. My flax. I feel like the choice to put the phrase there. Yeah. Prepping like you said, but I think I guess it could also just end this as this was connected to that, but it feels just like another moment where the show is kind of like we are going to the black fire history is a part of the fabric of this show. And so we have an opportunity to tell you more things that are established in the textual canon at this point. Like the list of known houses on either side is like pretty small. Right. Also to have like a riverlands house there, I think is just to emphasize that this was a continent-wide sort of struggle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Don't gently whisper, I'm sorry to this to this man. We're here again. We're here to Rafe to bail or to bail or sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It covers this guy's mouth too. Do you think so? I've seen some interpretations of this is like he's so quick. I think maybe you said this on talk to Thorens that he's so or maybe it was someone else. Anyway, he's so quick to sort of like go to a mercy killing. That means he's so used to death. But I was wondering if like is this the first time he tries to take a life? Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took more of my interpretation. Yeah, I think because you know, and when he when he and Rafe are talking on the walk back, she's like, is that the first time that you like saw a body? He's like, no, but clearly in this circumstance and in this way. But as an active sort of like. Yeah, I because I think there's when it when he first does that there's kind of a little bit of a whoa, like what is don't come out to do moment, but I read it as yeah, he's trying to like use this mercy. Yeah, use this. I can't move this horse. And then Rafe's like, let's move this horse, and then they can't move that horse. Yeah, Rafe's like, and then the guy does anyway, I'm essential. We can ransom him. So they would have saved themselves. They would have saved him, like, I don't know, a minute of agony if he had been able to stuff him out. If he's been there for two days, his your math indicates then I'm not sure what that minute would have done. Did I say two days? Again, I am not a veterinarian. I don't know how long you can survive at a horse. Rafe is here. Yeah. Did this take you right away to fund memories of doing prophecy? Listen, sister Lila. Chloe Leah was really good at doing prophecy. It's great. And she's great here. That show sucked. And she was really good in it. And I think she, yeah, I think she's good in this episode. And I also think she just has like an incredibly interesting face. Just like a really distinctive face. And then I think it's really, you know, she's quite young. And I think it's really cool that she's been in like doing prophecy and out of the seven kingdoms, like keep casting her HBO. She's fantastic. Well, take a stack cent corner. I refuse. You know what it, sorry, off brand for me. They're children and they're being asked to match. Basically, they're trying to match Peter Klaafi's natural. Like they're like, let's not make Peter Klaafi do an accent. Yes. So we'll just have him be Irish. Right. Davos was kind of Irish. So that's going to be the flea bottom accent, I guess. Yes. And so these kids have to match that in their kids and they don't, they're fine. I didn't mean make fun of the children. I just meant the low class flea bottom accent. Mercerly, mercilessly mock child actors. Yeah. They're trying to do Irish ish ish ish. What they're aiming for. Great stuff. So Reif is mentioning the novellas as we noted earlier. Yeah. But this is totally new. What we get here. Yeah. They're older like we noted. But this idea of Reif is this like the central figure in dunks life, the love story, the kind of like original wound of this loss and the loss of this love. This is all new. Uh, can read these mystery night packages to share what we do know about Reif from the text. Sure. Mystery night quote. They chase them through the alleys and make them give the head. Okay, this is when they're running around with a severed head, by the way. Yeah. You know, kids stuff for your old kids stuff. Yeah. The pictures of what you doing at some spots not right around with severed head. They chase them through the alleys and girls essentially. They chase girls through the alleys and make them give the head a kiss before they let them go. That head got kissed a lot as he recalled. There wasn't a girl in King's Landing who could run as fast as Reif, Farrett, Reif and putting little monster those three and me the worst of all. None of this other quote. Better a bigger than a thief. He had been both in flea bottom when he ran Farrett, Reif and putting but the old men had saved him from that life. It's interesting because so the line there wasn't a girl in King's Landing could run as fast as Reif. Some people are taking that to mean that Reif was a girl and tell people it's possible. It's possible. It's possible. But like it's not necessary because the point is these little monsters Farrett, Reif and putting were running around the severed head chasing girls and the point was the girls could not outrun Reif. And does that mean that Reif's a girl? No. Reif is a girl here. Great. Who cares? And so from that, and then when they do it, that severed head when they're done chasing the girls of it, they dump it into a, and winds up in the bowl of brown. Very tough. This is why you never trust a bowl of brown. Absolutely. Never trust a bowl of brown. That's the best thing you can find in a bowl of brown. That's a definitely an ideal outcome. Or at for sure. Reif, clearly the brains of this business operation. Right. Once you're in the fray, soldier, the dice, as they're pulling them out so they can't and then immediately goes to the teeth for copper place. And does have a moment though to say to dunk. Do you know any words? Do you know any words? Is it a dead body in front of us? Do you know any words? So this is something we've been tracking all season because we open with dunk bearing Arlen in the first episode. I don't know the right words ought to be a septum here. In episode four, he says the old man was never much for praying. So dunk is like why words? Why? So they don't end up in no hell with the rest of us, Reif says and dunk replies, I don't know any words. So very like Melisandre to Shireem. There's only one hell princess. The one we live in now. Right. And he got another hell versus this one. But I like this idea that like dunk doesn't know the words here. And then he has this formative experience to come with Arlen where he learns all of these different things. I think Arlen for this. He's in Arlen town of Dothraki. I think that dunk probably just absorbed some of it's in your worm. It's in your worm. It's a breakaway puppet. Yeah. So some of it out via his most sister in the nighttime campfire dances. But yeah, it's like Arlen never taught him prayer or what to say when you were mourning or religion, which especially given when dunk comes into his life in the place where Arlen is just a fascinating thing. It's this idea that he grew up without religion. Yeah. Fine. Same. Hard same. But like then is now at this turn at the mercy of this like very religious, you know, tribunal. Yeah. It's like the sword is my prayer. Right. That's my religion. So the dangers on the road. We're heading back to free flu bottom on paths that we are very familiar with. We're like, I know that dirt. I know those trees. This is just a wonderful thing for Throne's fans. Such an evocative nostalgic visual. Have you been to the Giants Causeway? So it's in Ireland. This row, the Giants Causeway. And it's one of those like, you know, as well as like Dubrovnik and all it's like one of these like places that Throne's fans like to go to walk the Giants Causeway, which is the Kings Road, which we saw Arya depart on in season two, which we saw Brianna and pod on, you know, and like the fact that it's Arya and Brianna and pod, we talked about the Suntok and Throne's like these three characters. We brought up several times the season talking about these cops of these characters like a coincidence, but also just like really fun. And also to see Rafe here, like she's got a Helm on, like very Arya code. So yeah, I love that they use the Giants Causeway for this. It just gives you that feeling. Yeah, pulls you back into a certain headspace and the Arya connection. It's an extra delightful little touch. Arya would probably ask like, what's she going to do? Lift the fucking horse off his legs? Don't gasht Arya. This guy is just calling for his mother. Donk is, Reef is in a chipper mood, right? Oh, she's high. Donk is shrieking by what they have just done. She's like his witness. I think because the exchange rate is very confusing in Westro's, we get two silver stags for this. Well, it's up being right. Not enough. Burdle. Enough for one. Indeed. Did you think for a second? This is my real-time math that I was doing when I was like, please don't kill this girl to invent a backstory. And I was like, maybe she'll just take the two silver stags and go to the free cities without him. Yeah, because there was a moment where after she dies after she, Alice, her kills her. I was like, okay, well, I guess as soon as the this flashback unfolded in this way, there was only one outcome because this donk is not leaving this person. And then that was the other thought that I had is like, well, I guess they could have just parted ways if she had this. This is him because he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to go. Skip ahead if you don't want spoilers for Better Call Saul. But there's a character on Better Call Saul, Kim Wexler, who was like not ever mentioned in Breaking Bad. And so like as that show progressed, we were like, oh God, how are they going to kill Kim Wexler? Spoilers for Better Call Saul, Ben Skilligan's like, I don't need to kill a girl to get a backstory. I can find another inventive way to take her off the table. You know, it's like you don't always have to kill her to get her out of the way. Right. She could have just gotten on that ship without them. Exactly. What if you woke up and the silver was gone and she was gone? I think that's like a similar sort of like, oh God, what am I going to do? I'm all alone. Yeah. For after the world, here's Sir Arlin, you know, he could have been upset, got picked a fight with Alistair because he was so upset or something like that. And then Arlin comes out and saves him anyway. There you go. Maybe he's trapped in the pig pen. She's like, I got a bounce man. I got a bounce. I can't say here anymore. And maybe she could have told him what Robert said. You know, they never tell you how they all shit themselves. They don't put that part in the songs. But if they had put that part in the songs, don't quite have been more prepared for what he found on the Red Grass field. So something to think about for everyone. The worst over, don't say yes. The Black Dragon's dead. And Raph thinks he's foolish. Nothing's over. She says she reminds him of what happened with Cedric and putting no one forgets shit. You heard someone they hurt you back. Now obviously, Raph stands here. What she's saying to Dunk is not born out of. She's not a political science student, right? This isn't necessarily about like, oh, I heard that bitter, bitter steel escaped to SOS and like, there are still Black fire pretenders out there. And this is a, no, this is a common human nature, right? The way that the need for vengeance like works its way into your heart. Love them respect to Raph. Yeah. She is not very good at applying those own lessons to what happens immediately thereafter, right? You take the dagger. Take the wine skin, take the dagger. Like but what does she say? Okay, first of all, fun fact that I learned. Tell me. The name Cedric, which is not among the Ferret Putting Raph lore. This is a show edition. Cedric is a name that was invented for the book Ivanhoe. It was first found in the book Ivanhoe. What? So I don't know if that's an Ivanhoe Easter egg, but I think that's really fun. But also, when she talks about Cedric and putting etc. She talks about coming back and like burning half of Flea Bottom down to like, yeah. I was thinking about Daenerys. Burning King's Landing for Vengeance. I try not to think about the bells. I said, all possible. There were. That's always. Try the lore. Or not to think about, I guess, if we're here. I was thinking about, you know, there's no justice in the world, not unless we make it. Certainly. Just thinking of Yoran and his need to kill Willum who had killed his brother to the point where he just gets on his horse and rides and all the way to the wall and how that story is what sparks Arya's decision to start making her list, which she will keep and knock names off of on her quest of vengeance. And Brienne and Stanis and Oberyn and Sansa and little finger on and on the list goes to the characters who have proven the truth of rafes words. Can I quote from everyone's favorite storyline that was adapted perfectly into the TV show? We're talking Sansnakes. This is what Alaria Sansa is. Right? Yeah. Oberyn wanted, I'm not going to do the accent. Oberyn wanted vengeance for him. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. If you should die, must, you know, these other girls seek vengeance for you and then others vengeance for them. Is that how it goes round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end? I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh? Write me songs? Care for me when I'm old and sick? And there's also like, I don't need to read the whole thing, but Davos gives like an absolute banter speech on vengeance that I would have loved to have seen on screen. But this is a preoccupation of George's that comes as you as you mentioned comes up again and again and again. You know, it's one might say it's like a wheel. One house is on top and then another, you know, and on and on it goes. Someone just sees him along and break the wheels. And then everything will be fine. It's fine from there. It went really well. Just don't just make sure that the next bullet point on your dock isn't something about the Tinder waiting to catch. Bernie's down on all the King's landing. But we do see how true this is, right? The state that Floyd Biden has then united the survivors of the battle, the injured. They're rats. We love a rat in terms of their crawling over everyone. We get to see the pig pen, the corrupt city watch, nothing new. But as you know, it on Talk to Throne, it's kind of like not the vibe that we're expecting or that they're in the good, they're in the second would be expecting right now. The reforms certainly have not worked. Quote, it was a year more before the city watch was similarly repaired for King. Aegon had often used promotion to the watch as a way to shower large s on those he most favored. And they interred made sure that the brothels and even the decent women of the city were available for Aegon's lust. So according to the historical rest record, it took the good King Darren a bit over a year to clean up the city watch. Looks like he did a great job. This was many years ago. So it's not working. Also on that idea, there's a lot pecked into here about this idea of like what the nobles think they're accomplishing versus what is actually finished because the battle of the Red Grass field happens. And I'm envisioning like the the flashback scene of Fermi and Boramir, like we did it, right? Make our embaylor like we did it. We finished the wars over. Yeah, but like they're all like celebrating. I'm sure they're just like really happy with themselves, right? And then meanwhile down in Flea Bottom, like what does it have to do with the price of eggs? Right. It's always the innocence to suffer when you high lords play your game of thrones. You know what I mean? Like this is this is the reality of the aftermath of the battle the Red Grass field. And similarly, like the aftermath of war and the aftermath of the turni, right? Like Dunk wins the turni at what cost? Right. You know, there isn't there isn't a jubilation at the end of a war. There's just the body count. And who who is telling it up and who is really reckoning with what the cost of these games are? Are you in plays a game? Oh yeah. And Bailor pays the price right at the end of the day. I think that is I would not say that this is the moment where hot D has the firmest footing in the public consciousness, but I think House the Dragon does a good job of exploring that idea. Well, that's a whole prize of fire blood. Yeah. And showing us in that adaptation, showing us the resentment that you can either completely fail to account for potentially exploit exploit leverage weaponize if you're paying attention to what is actually happening among the people who you claim to rule. Uh, Alicir comes in. And the fact that his name is so close to Alicir Thorne just can't be I just can't be an accident. Just like a classic thrones piece of shit name here. Uh, he's missing his hand. He's missing his moral compass. He's like really intentionally being like, I'm going to spell a little different. Alistar, Alistar, Alice, Alice. Like I know how you spell Alice in Westros. That's not how I simply will not do it. I will. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. Uh, this is where rafeswipes the ale skin because he sees their bounty. And this is going to be a pattern of their interactions. I will say one thing on the like, what did we gain in maybe risk with the flashback and doing it in this way front? I think that something that should have been pulled out of the show if they were going to do this flashback is the moment in episode one where Dunk is talking to the horses and is like, we're talking about creeping Kings landing city watch. Like it's not on Dunk's list after but like what maybe he could be a better better than the Alicir I think. Sure. But like, he would be, but I don't think this is a I don't know. I kind of agree. And on the other hand, I'm kind of like dunk dreaming of Dunk is always sort of dreaming of being better than the thing. Dunk the reformer. Yeah. I feel like I'm signing up to where a gold cloak. I just think that a gold cloak killed the person who mattered most to him in the world. He's not putting that on. Can I ask you a follow question in place? This is not about that. Raf says that the uh, the booze here is yeah, sour is the Queen's own brew. Yeah. Right. Which, okay. I've seen some interpretations that it's like she means piss, right? By the Queen's own brew, she means the Queen's piss. Yeah. Or is it like an anti-dorn sentiment because the Queen is dornish and this is like dornish people like sour ails you love a sour ails. I love a sour ails. Yeah. I don't know. I was just I was confused. I was intrigued by that line. I did take it to be like night soil or okay, something of the sort. Okay. Yeah. But who knows? It's a mostly just because it's night as a seven-year-old. She's doing it. So I just assumed someone's always talking about piss or shit. And they often are. They often are. Now I'm thinking of Kristen Cole. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you for that. Raf and Dunk take their their spoils to the blacksmith pawn shop guy and he gives over the two silver stags but refuses to take the black fire leathers as we mentioned. Damien's rebellion is overtake your black fire leather elsewhere. So this just clits quick little way to show us the risk that you wouldn't curve. This will come up again in the novellas. Yes. This idea of like something that is marked by the black fire sigil and how poisonous that might be. Yes. The crawl space that seems to be their home. Very effective visual. Not only show us just the space that they share but the circumstances that they're like just some sad little homey like notes to it. This little sort of I'm like imagine that night all hold like probably huddled together. Very sad. I like it's a little candle stick. It was very sweet. Rafa on the on the on the sweetness front says like we're going to be sailing off into all kinds of adventures. This is very sad because adventures as we know do they must be shared. Oriya on my mind here too like what's west of westros now they're talking about going east to across narrow sea to to ask those to the free cities not west of westros but just this ability to try to think about a different life anywhere but here. That's the headspace rafes in. It's not the headspace. Dunk is in as we'll see. She's ready to break out until like a classic Disney I want more song. Yeah. And he didn't get to do that with her and that's sad but he did get to do it. Have an adventure. Share an adventure with Arlan and he's getting to do it now with A. Oh I know. Sorry for your dreams Rafa don't worry he gets to have them. Um our listener Dave wrote in. Yeah and this is for you. Please tell me I'm not the only one who couldn't help fixating on how eerily similar the flashback scene had dunked back in flea bottom and episode five was the opening act of solo with Han and Kira conspiring to get their way off of Corelia. Hashtag makes solo two happen. Didn't occur to me but I loved it. It occurred to Dave. Hashtag makes solo two happen. Great. Never the wrong time to mention that and put that out into the world. What did you make Joe? I give for me to you. Thank you. And to Ben Lumberg if he's listening you gave me B.S. Very I gave you this. Um what did you think of of the way that Dunk talks about his mother here? That was interesting because we also got him talking about his father in a previous episode with egg and in canonically in the book Dunk doesn't know anything about his parents. This is show edition. Yeah. Abandoned by his mother. A criminal father. I don't know. It's interesting. To your point it's like we're meeting Dunk. He's lived so much more life before he meets her Arlen than the Dunk in the book so it makes sense that he needs more life to be accounted for. Yeah more life to miss more life to long life to long for probably also life given. You know. Oh, they're on them. No question. They're writing with them. Um I feel like when they go to sleep at night you can just see their hair move because there's just like lace everywhere. Bracelling. Harifying. Hopefully they can't see it because they just had the one candle and they snuffed it out so that they could sleep. Yeah. Um this is where Dunk is like well what if every other place is is actually worse. And I thought this was such an interesting little detail because the idea that Dunk did not you know we talk a lot about his ideals the way that he thinks I do is him. Yeah. Yeah. How how good and honorable somebody can be the lament that he issues to the crowd during his big rousing speech right like you can't believe that all of the noble houses of Westrous have lost sight of this thing the way that he thinks about the Kingsguard and the recent nights etc. That like that was not a part of his worldview here. It was all just bad which is horrible. And then I think especially because we're about to see a you know a complex portrait of Saurarland as we have seen a complex portrait of Saurarland across the entire show. Yeah. This idea that that was that the that just a notion that something could be better and that the your ability to like protect and preserve that was something in your hands that that was part of his life with Arlen and not part of his life before. I really like that. I think that feels like a nice part of his ongoing origin here. Um they love each other you know you want to make a family go out there get a family because you love me yeah. Yeah. I know. So this is sad. So this idea of not just like a losing someone but this formative love you know this this person who don't want it to be you as all he has in the world. All he has in the world. I mean tough tough luck for Ferret and putting they mean nothing to him but absolutely nothing to him. But like what does it mean that if you lose that one person to you that that was a part of dunks experience here the despair that we find him in when Arlen is gone the what it would mean to be faced with egg who he grew attached to so quickly maybe not being a part of his life when he finds out who he is etc all uh all here and then and then rafes like dude the city. So you fucking small for us. Be tall. A little bit of the early line up for at the end of their be tall. He's way too tall to live in that little crawl space that's for sure. That's true. They have to book passage though and dunks like I got to just pet this goat for a while here. So I thought this was so cute. So good. He just loves an animal this guy. I mean this is an update from dunking the book whose job it is to find animals to put in the bullet brown and here he's just an he's a vegan basically. I mean he's not we saw me that pressure breakfast sandwich and that like leg of mutton and legs whatever. So the hard saw beef but it's all made of salt made of soy protein. He loves a soy risotto. He does. He does. Joe it's game of throwing so nothing simple nothing's clean nothing good ever happens it's tragedy and despair all the time. The fares of spiked they can't book passage and then Alster who's tracking them pins them very like deadwood setting with this pig pen. Oh sure. I love this exchange. He's lecturing them on stealing and then dunks like well what's stealing from us and Alster says that's life. So like when we're talking about bailer and the trial and this idea and this question of what's just and what's honorable and what might the gods judge. It's like this is not a world. Yeah you're like Alessar had some good points where there's no why there's a variety of that. You're like the gods are protecting. Yeah. Dunk Alster he knows what's up. He nods to let them go and does this really sickening horrifying little twirl of rafes hair and that's when she steals the dagger. I was really worried we were going to get me too. Sexual assault. Dunks face when he sees the dagger when he sees that rafes taking it and then it's like instant. Yeah. Alster comes after her reaches takes the dagger slits her throat and Dunk is just bathed in her blood. It is horrifying. She falls into his arms and dies. Very similar imagery obviously to what we will get with bailer later. We talked about the I'm sorry parallel language. She's telling rafes. I'm sorry just as he will tell bailer. So it's very sad for people who are like this is the cozy comforting show and she's just like gurgling blood. It's just yeah. I mean it's it's keeping. Yeah. Real gross. Pretty sad. I'm not the pit. Still don't think that this is like a perfect choice. How are you feeling about it a couple days later? I don't like it. Yeah. Yeah. Because we introduced a female character and then killed her because we don't think we need this extra call of a tensile. Like both of it. I don't feel like we need him to have. I think it people are fooling themselves if they don't think the show is trying to draw a cop between like two young women who don't look entirely dissimilar and like you know this great loss of of dunks like the love of his life and sort of this girlity as a crush on being seeing her threat and again going into a berserker rage the way that he did in the past. Like but I don't need dunk two have had that origin story to believe what he did in the puppet tent. And I also just thinking about puppets again. Sorry. So I always suspect to be very or puppets honestly. Sometimes apples. I'd also in a in a in a show in a novella that has so few parts for women. Like the fridging thing is just dice year than ever. Do you know what I mean? And so like we're we're expanding some roles where we give red a line in this episode. You know like we're doing our best. Gwen got some lines in a name. What an upgrade. You know but like it's it's a really sparse out there inside of this story. And so to introduce a character who's like cool and interesting and smart and then it's just like the point is her death is I don't like it. I don't love it. No don't love it. I agree and agree on the tensile comp too. I just I think that character learning more about characters origin stories and motivations is something we appreciate. So I don't want to like say something kind of critical about that especially as we're about to like draw a lot of parallels with what happens with Arlen. But I really think when Dunk does everybody have something that happens to them to lead some to where they are of course and learning about that is interesting. Part of the point of what happens with dunk in that puppet tent is that he's like now you're saying about the right thing to do always thinking about puppets always I still can't get over you calling that that was a puppet head in a trailer breakdown just all time all time ship from you all time ship you mentioned the berserk array so dunk basically hurls himself onto Alistair like bites a chunk his neck off this is the dunk yeah I love that godland the dunk of flea bottom who we will see rise when we go back to the trials. This is a column a classic column move by the way it absolutely is it absolutely is I mean smegel column who are we with at any given moment part of the don't dunk it dunk him dunk in the tall dunk of flea bottom it all tracks it's it all tracks he takes a spear through the like here Ned Stark also with us always much like golem two of the characters who were always with us on every podcast Ned Stark and golem a stark big Eddie Stark and golem uh but sir Arlen is here and he's doing great he's doing great he is coming out of a nearby pub brothel you're you're my very both I said you're my all but I meant my Lidge anyway uh he is so drunk that he immediately pukes after saying and voking the name of the episode and this nightly val Carlos can we see this both what Arlen says and also what he's be is what he's he's a night of the seven kingdoms in miniature honestly it is every episode they found a way here's what I love following okay as as you mentioned on talk thrones in the name of the mother I charge you to defend the young and the innocent as we discuss at the top and set so like so that's yeah that's what he's thinking about now you remember his vows yeah hot yeah hot I see that and I think hot okay I think it was hot um so he sees a boy being knocked around by the city watch and he immediately takes the boys side and that makes me think of this passage which you quoted a bunch of times a hedge knight is a true is kind of night dunk the old man and told him a long time ago other knights serve the lords who keep them or from whom they hold their lands but we serve where we will for men whose causes we believe in every night swear to protect the weak and innocent but we keep the val Best I think so this idea of like he Arlen's staggering into action driven by a conviction of what is right in the scenario he sees I mean yes the gold clokes apparently in this time period are very corrupt so there's no reason to like you know he's a real a cab attitude right now right but like but he's like I'm not signing with the authority I'm not signing with like the law I'm signing with this boy because that seems to be that seems to be the weak in the innocent that needs protecting yes and to see Arlen like I wouldn't mind seeing Arlen do that and that be an inspiration for for dunk when he goes into the puppet tent right because it talks perfectly it's so great it's like to fit this idea of defending the innocent which Arlen does for dunk and then dunk can do with ten cell that brian spirit in both of them because Arlen is doing this protecting this young boy right after losing Roger so you have this like no chance no choice maybe things more hateful you know than failing to protect the one you love idea that could be fueling him almost like on instinct and that nightly vow a knight who remembered his vows yeah that would have been just this great Arlen here he is he kills both of these gold clokes I thought it was wonderful I mean I hope put put an unfair or nearby to pick up that severed head and running around the street they need to be quick because the pigs we're running right away rolling it around and gnashing on it according to dunk in the book right so Arlen met him chasing pigs yes do you feel like this is a cop joke or do you feel like interestingly this is in reference to the pig pen that they're nearby white apple this sword we've been talking a lot about Arlen sword which dunk inherits all season and I love this new additional detail and wrinkle in like the reverence with which dunk treats that blade like this was the blade used to avenge rafes yeah coded in the blood of our favorite character race oh man uh of the sad things that we've seen this season sweet little donk huddled holding his knees alone in his crawl space crying I mean brutal made me cry made me think of seeing dunk alone in the in the prison cell did you cry harder did you cry harder for that for Humphrey beesbury when he died more for the apples that tumble to the ground here now give you your answer you didn't cry for those apples because they were golden delicious and you and I do not I think that's a plural of delicious and you and I do not uh care for golden delish I apples we don't but we love and apple is a central plot device and so the fact that dunk sees Arlen again why don't we like united in our hatred of red and golden delicious apples the worst apples okay great of course I was also thinking of dunk in his prison cell because we get this POV shot of him through the bars looking out you know through the visor slit through the bars like looking out at sir Arlen out there and I was thinking of him when he let me like it brings you context to him wanting backup in that prison cell and it's just sort of like here I am back where I started behind bars through bars yeah only a rat for a friend you know Preston why isn't that gonna vegan must just be really hard on my true sure honestly I mean I mean like I've got a couple of things you know the free cities get some say 10 10 probably um the apple merchant whose bat who's barrel Arlen knocks over which draws dunk's attention so that he can follow him much like egg chose to follow don't go wonderful little parallel there she calls Arlen an old fool later when Arlen wakes and stabs himself Joe would you say if you were podcasting or putting on a puppet show that yeah all nights sir I would say all night and all nights are fools when it comes to apples you solved it thanks you solved it so dunk follows Arlen for days and nights uh some highlights do you think Arlen saw dunk I think he for some time knows he's there I agree that's my take and I think that's actually kind of important that he's like choosing to yeah it's a little bit of like uh almost like he's in like initiation even if it's not like conscious or willful right like let's see if you want it yeah but it's also just I think a way to show us the state that he's in right um I mean obviously there's like the he can hear him puked up his guts for sure at a certain point it's undeniable that he knows he's there but I kind of I think he knows the whole time I think he knows the entire time I think so they're like alone on the road on the way out of Kingslanding there's no one else there if Arlen doesn't know that dunk is he's a he's an even you've been even more shit night than we then we thought uh some of the highlights from the stretch we get some like formative tree canopy as my pavilion stars in the sky stuff for dunk here and he has his like stolen moments with the blade much is like egg will sneak away with thunder and with the helmet him looking at the hell yeah the thinking back to just even after Arlen's death dunk pit picking up the sword and episode one and like fits my grip as well as it ever fits his seeing him pick it up for the first time that was all really cool I liked to when he was like whittling the stick thinking of egg with those of the spear I don't mind it's a kind of parallelism I don't mind great stuff uh Roger here's why I don't mind it yeah because like some in some ways is a little cute we saw egg whittling we saw him whittling okay kids do that guess what else to do there I did not have I've had what are you gonna do you got a whittle you gotta pass the time somehow the tablet had not yet emerged as the villain of toy story five on my winning I do you know villain of toy story the story story prequel the west west west is whittling entirely possible just taking up all their time and all their attention it's probably somebody who picks up a head off a spike in contacts it tracks some sort of disease possibly um speaking of dead kids Roger of pinney's tough transition see your best time yet here we are sometimes some material demands would advance Joe we heard Roger invading his bid yeah okay episode two when donk is going around and like reminding everybody of trying to get somebody to remember Arlen and he mentions Arlen's nephew and Squire killed at the red grass field so we talked about Roger a little bit already when we were covering episode two but what do we what else do we need to know about Roger if anything that he was Arlen Squire anything else his nephew that's really it he died a threat gas field we'll talk about some us he was a squire he was Arlen he died at the red grass field I think the thing that we had a little help he did tiny help so those are the things we knew before this and here's what we what we learn here is just that the shattered Arlen like he's in a he's on a bender he's in a drunken super because he's grieving the loss of his nephew and his squire uh and so he sings and I would like you to tell us about what he sings um okay so David Peterson who does all of the Valerian and Dothraki language stuff on um the shows the various shows does this thing sometimes when his languages use on the show is that instead of I don't know putting it anywhere else he puts it on AO3 he did this with House of the Dragon and he has done this here but per David Peterson this is Dothraki yes and the English translation is the ropes of death and wrapped me on godly men have made me afraid the ropes of hell abound me the sorrows of death prevented me in my distress I called upon you the great stallion who is worthy to be praised so shall I be saved from my strong enemy beat them small as the dust before the wind I will cast the evil out as the dirt in the streets courage is my salvation mercy is my light something I think is interesting so the opening line the ropes of death and wrapped me yeah this is from have you heard of it the bible so saw 18 yeah the chords of death entangled me in my distress I called to the Lord I cried to my god for help so I don't know the order of operations in terms of like a iroparker writing some lyrics and asking them to be translated or any of the other people were credit on this episode or was Dan Romer involved I don't know like who was involved in in composing the lyrics I've seen a lot of people curious why so Arlene would know death rocky and like I mean I think a great theory is like you know there are death rocky cell swords do exist and so he might have served with some death rocky fighters in the various wars that he fought in and perhaps they taught him this song this morning song like after the loss of a battle or something like that that is a reasonable theory I like that very well traveled very well traveled and I think it feels like fitting that Arlene for him specifically but also like this idea of the way he thinks about the life of a hedge night like life on the road he's a nomad and the fact that he you know like one of the we've talked about the cell sword this season but don't say shit like what if they ask me like about where he's from and I don't know and I've never been there and I haven't seen it and like you know the idea that the road was their home and so every person who Arlene interacted with it was something that he absorbed that became much as we're watching with Dunk part of the fabric of his sense of self and sense of place and so it feels right to me that he would be singing a song from another culture because he doesn't have necessarily like a strong rooting in any in anything here he's like a student in the world he is he's like a white guy who is like a Buddhist tattoo in his garden exactly yeah and you know he's like Duncan Adam Oliver what a thrill not only to see sweet folk but to see Arlene talk to the horses just as Dunk will always be talking to the horses we just need a Raymond here to be like he talking to the horses what does she think overall of the portrait that we get of Arlene here doing this really heroic a knight who remembered his vows thing for Dunk yeah but then and ignoring him forcing him to trek after him allowing him to drink the dirty puddle water etc etc we heard from a lot of the bad babies about this complicated yeah portrait of this man how did it how did it strike you um yeah like one listener me house me Kyle said like sorry about him officially on team hashtag not my sir Arlene quote a hedgehog is the truth night all like all of these quotes that we've been saying right um she wrote there's just no way this free fisted sought ever said or thought anything like that even if he did save Dunk's life at the moment of grief struck in pure heartedness um and then Chris sends a really good email that I'll get to in a second but I want to take us now just like very briefly to Shakespeare corner right because so you mentioned the double full reference right and the way in which Shakespeare uses his full characters like um fest day and twelfth night or the the full and lear like these full characters often are the source of the most piercing observation and wisdom right inside of these plays but the character that he most resembles um is Sir John fall stuff and we talked about Henry the fifth last we were talking about sir uh St. Christmas Day but in Henry the fourth the prequel to Henry the fifth right um prince prince howl who is like fucked off because he doesn't want to be king and he doesn't want to be around his rich family he's gonna go slum it starts hanging around with Sir John fall staff a night who is a drunkard and a fool in many ways but also capable of incredible wisdom and he's just like one of the most revered creations that Shakespeare ever created George R. Martin when talking about his favorite characters and literature said boormeers my favorite member of the fellowship the tragic hero classic Shakespeare's brutal speaks to me as well more so than the real one the noblest Roman of them all whose nobility and gullibility led him to commit a vile crime captain a-hab blah blah gatsby fall staff and hot spur and prince howl those plays are full of flawed characters each with his own failings sir lance lot and sir gau on going how you ever refer but not sir galle haad so perfect so empty and one of your and Arthur and even more dread that little shit although the list is long and when my reading turns to history biography memoirs my response is much the same so he's a big fall staff fan among boormeer and other things great taste and like love Grossman in that feast for crows uh review that i read in time called Tyrion martin's fall staff right a bitter cynical highborn dwarf he's he's martin's fall staff that's what love Grossman said but i think that like this portrayal of sir arley which is different yeah then don't sort of honeyed uh perception of him that we get in in the novellas is much more in that vein there's this great there's this um her bloom who's a very complicated figure but taught me a lot of what i know about Shakespeare fall staff was his favorite character and there's this you wrote this great book about fall staff um and jenette winterson and a great author in her own right wrote in her review of that book uh had this description of him not that there's anything ethereal about fat jack this whiskery swag bellied omnivorous hornacopia of appetites red-eyed unbuttoned sherry soaked this night walker and whore monger a muddy conjure swinging his old mistress doll tear sheet a life affirming liar whose truth is never to be a counterfeit fall staff is ancient energy thumping at volume through a temporary poundage of flesh he is part pagan the lord of misrule and as such his time is short we meet him first in Henry the fourth part one already old lusting at life drinking pal of of young prince howl who is swelming it blah blah blah um or some wells who plays fall staff in chimes at midnight which is this incredible movie that sort of takes pieces of fall staff from all the plays and put some together his description of fall staff is quote the greatest conception of a good man the most completely good man in all drama his faults are so small and he makes tremendous joke jokes out of his little faults i disagree his some of his faults are larger quite large but the whole the reason that her bloom a reason that her bloom loves fall staff so much is that like we've been hearing again and again about sir arland in the text is that he operates outside of the rules of society quote um praises fall staffs wit and intellect and excuses his vices as a display of his quote freedom from society right so this idea of this like drunken old washed whore monger like all these things are true of sir arland and yet there is an inherent nobility to him and inherent truth to him and that is like exactly the sort of fall staffian model that shakes were was chasing all these other people were chasing there's also i love that you brought up honor because fault like falsess was famous speech is about honor right and he's like i'm not going to meet you a whole speech but basically he's like what the fuck is honor ever done for me right you know um like we'll can honor set a leg no or an arm no or take away the grief of a wound no honor half no skillence honor like us is not a doctor is essentially his point and so arland lives lives by a code and he has honor but it's sort of like it's not the honor of the nights it's not shivalry that is not what arland lives by he lives by it in inherent truth that sends him staggering vomiting out of a brothel or a pub or a combo if you prefer probably to save to save dunk and the echoes that go down history because of that like dunk is on it's in the start of a story right that people who love George R. Martin's work know like you know has a long road were it not for what sir arland does here which is incredibly honorable while vomiting yes all those things together yeah you know are incredibly important so i just i kind of love me to depiction of star island me too big fan of it yeah that was awesome um thank you to you and thank you to Willie shakes the bar is always welcome i agree i think that the first of all it feels like the kind of thing that we talk about more broadly with adaptation where like when something is uh teased out or altered or amended in any way it's like does it feel like it's honoring something true about the spirit of the character yeah it's different and new to us but it connects to something that is like the germ and heart of the thing it can be a gift and that's how that's how this felt to me for the reason it's a gift um i think like i agree it just feels so true to the kind of character who George loves to not only write but like center a tale around and i think like we've been talking about this with dunk but just everybody you know bailer even the most heroic you know quote unquote characters they're not interesting to us if they're not flawed if they're not complex if they're not human beings because then all they are is the myth or the legend or an idea instead of a flesh and blood beating body that can stumble out into the mud and try to do the right thing sir gal head so empty i do wonder if this this email from christian gets to connect sort of like conflict i believe the subject of her email was conflict inside the human heart so it's the only thing that's right about can't help but thinking of the conflicting near contradictory nature of this poor boy dunk one steeped in tragedy and trauma like seeing who i am assuming was his first crush brutally cut down by crep city watch patrol and die in his arms and yet he believes in the best of people and the very institutions that held him in poverty in flea bottom he's still that same boy in the battle seeing the corruptions of some royals the noble houses who failed to remember sir arland a penning tree even the bad apple who betrayed him and yet still having hope that someone anyone would do the right thing then again when you think of the times the right thing was model for him whether that be by sir arland or prince bail or maybe isn't naive or thick as a castle wall but instead brave enough to believe that there's right in the world and there are people who keep their vows perhaps that belief in behavior is what truly makes someone a night long before the sword taps their shoulder or they swear and swear would you and samwai say that there's some good in the world and for fighting for it's worth fighting for i would i would i love that fantastic email for all the reasons that you just described how perfect that arland that this sequence this flashback ends with arland going over to disenter a dunk and putting his hand out and saying get up and that that is what polls not sir dunking of tall the tall but dunk of flea bottle he's like i'm in the mud i know what i know what it's like to win him fight down there i know what to do and like do you think they thought calling this episode get up at one point it's entirely possible it's entirely possible broadly this stretch of the battle yeah i thought this was just epic and and riveting fantastic savage violent it's cramped it's suffocating but there's all this chaos around uh uh uh what if any prior thrones uh uh more intimate conflicts or sweeping battles did this most remind you of does it feel like entirely its own thing a blend you mentioned hard home which had not really been on my mind i think i was stuck in like john drowning in the mud and battle of the bastards yes that that was like really cheap to me or or john dodging horses inside of the mud and battle of the bastards yes i think for hard home for me it's literally just how hard it is to see yeah the battle like kind of um i think i'm i'm just going off the dome here but Owen Harris was on the official pod and he described the fog as i think sinister and just and the way that it was another layer like between dunk and understanding what was happening around him so that element of it was was hard to mention several times in the novel the miss the river miss right the yeah the tendrils but yes no question battle the bastards was most top of mind for me as well and i think like a little bit of the mountain and the viper but with that crush a suffocating crush of bodies and mud and also just the kind of john you know the the cam that we get the perspective and point of view of the sweeping nature of how that battle is filmed that's i think very top of mind watching this sequence here even though it is smaller and in scale i think also there's like you know john's like kind of big damn hero moment like standing solo to face the charge and so when dunk when the crowd leader is like up up and and dunk kind of gets that moment when you have those moments where it's just like the solitary figure who is about to do some of this seems impossible very battle of the bastard z um ira parker on inside the episode said i wanted to have that like old western feel when the two gunslingers were going to finally do it and they choose pistols at dawn that was awesome very good um before we talk about dunk and arian and their uh the savage death match here um yield match let's hit just some of the other surrounding highlights what were some of the other favorite things that you witnessed okay on the field we're not going to talk about this in depth because it might just like be detailed more in depth than the finale but since we get to see it in this episode i'm considering a fair game to let you all know that raiman fossaway has painted his shield with a green fucking apple and that is why raiman fossaway belongs to my team and not your team uh it's green is my favorite color i think i think i think green apple's like shit preposterous bullshit this is bullshit as you know character very brave yeah brave he did wonderfully the green apple fossaway raiman fossaway i'm happy for you why i get to see his shield is very exciting um we thought that they hadn't done this because it's kind of silly in the book that raiman's like by the way i took the time between when i was knighted to when i went out of the field to get my shield painted with a green apple again we'll talk about this more but like i i love that we got to see it because it meant that i got to finally say it raiman fossaway green apple i'm thrilled for you unfortunately you lost bs bro but you got the green apple so you win some you know the lord give it the lord take it away you know come look in the human heart uh maker and mika and balear this is awesome the yeah moment where maker is screaming arian's name my boy my boy and trying to reach his wailing crying out in pain and at this point very imperiled son and kind of frosting his mace like kind of here uh that's a very key moment this is actually a moment they don't i think it's like that's where he cracks the front the visor yeah kind of is like there jeopardizing the integrity of something that already didn't fit because balear was wearing his sons too small and his never meant to fight and his hair was too short and his hair was too short i'm gonna stop everything when he said my boy my boy is real godfather look how they massacred my boy which coincidentally is what i said when mom for eight but he's my boy god boy one line in the dark massacred my boy death by lance to groin it's tough went away to go uh the swings to the back of balear's head we get to witness a couple those two after after dunk has gotten arian to say that he will yield before the sound horn so in that terrifying moment for dunk where he's like okay i've got to get them to stop this because all around me still that's a terrible things could happen to people and we we see a couple real big bashes to the back of balear's head who's the hammer now bitch is probably what maker said again i hope he's i have internal okay some things to keep to yourself uh we got an email about a favor climps yeah in the battle gave i want to mention this this goes to the point i already made kind of about what what the fuck is the king's guard doing yeah but i i want to read this out because we got an email from subrina and then like a few hours later we got an email from her husband game who's like my wife wrote in so i wanted to write in two and i just like we'll get to separate his email in a second but i just like the couples that write into him podcast together stay together i guess but i will read this part why wouldn't willian roles i think it's fantastic intercede in form a wall around his air does like pale moth's dancing around a bright flame this seemed like the obvious move given their battling against dunk and in service of the targ's curious to hear your thoughts and whether i'm missing something again i think this is a downside of so pale moth stand i don't have really good stuff very job game we'll get to separate his email but like um again dunking takes so many more hits wild in this version that he takes uh in the book it's crazy the dagger through the hand the sword and the thigh the multiple dagger stab and the thigh like it's not i don't know how he's alive uh frankly he shouldn't be yeah it can i reach just read this list of injuries that he incurs here and this is like i i'm just not sure how he's standing kicked in the head this is after the initial he's been stabbed by a lance which has a bedded chainmail into him and he's been knocked into concussion protocol and uh yeah uh directly into a flashback directly into a flashback then we rise and he is kicked in the head bashed in the head multiple times by the morning star or flail or flail or whatever the fuck you want to call it and by we get it that ride by it from from make ours mace hitting the torso hit with the shield stabbed in the side twice stabbed through the hand stabbed in the back stabbed kind of like i thought it was maybe like the trap kind of there um stabbed in the torso stabbed in the leg by the sick and throwing sword move that we love slammed in the head with the shield nearly eyeball gouged and he's fine that really paints armor and the plot armor uh are doing well before after the lance and before the final little wrestling matchup and in the book boy basically when he gets the upper hand he doesn't lose any just like bashes the shit out of area and it's it's over much faster yeah and so again by dragging it out you make it a little bit more confusing what the fuck the king's guard were up to and right you know fair point i thought the action was incredible i thought it was really good it is our job to overanalyze and ask some questions so and but what i did think about actually is is the point you made in your rapturous ode to our sir Arlen's dick you pointed out all these like scars on his body and i was thinking here's dunk yeah starting his collection and like later in life when he hits his surely giant dick out to do whatever it is he wants to do like there will be a map everywhere yeah we're gonna get that there will be a map of and he's like got this at at the ashrametto got this at ashrametto got that at ashrametto got that at ashrametto this bruising this scarring around my eye ashrametto you know like well the so yeah but the scars as as a map your experience is like a great little touch in in restress um i was thinking of red saying last one you're like to have of like take your body there's a lot of damage for one go it is it's a lot of damage for one go even for dunk of flea bottom in terms of the aforementioned i mean do you want to do you want to met list arren's injuries you know he takes some he takes some damage as well obviously uh just in this little stretch here dunk gets the the head bash is he bangs his head into the ground you know it's soft mud but still can't feel good reaming gets his ride by in which was huge obviously there's the like twisted shoulder he's bearing down on him with the sword blows the epic groin slash which really it was just harrowing to be stolen to be free um but he and then obviously everything later at the end but just in this little stretch he's he's encouraging to the point where they're both like they can't really move right before dunk flops over i mean they're rolling around the mud they can barely stand and lance just like breaks on top of them at one point um the aforementioned subrina yes writes in to say this i know the dunk uh i know the dunk isn't typically the ventral type but during the the trial of the seven i noticed dunk stabbed arren right between the legs could this be a reference to the horrific story egg told him about how arren with threatened him at night similarly back in flea bottom after rafes throat is slit dunk reacts by biting the man who killed her specifically in the neck could this eye for an eye throat for throat manhood for a manhood be a quality of dunk of flea bottom's fighting style um i love that observation i thought that was really good and also i think this idea of like body parts for body parts is something we will talk about in the finale as well certainly i don't think that dunk is capable of conscious thought in these stretches i think he has gone to a different plane of i agree he's doing his best but it's uh i i i i i i i like the observation uh it's like poetry at rhymes indeed indeed um arren's like bro's dead bro's yield dead okay so he says yield yeah and um but he doesn't say yield he's like you know it's like eroing right um ashay on his her frustarose was like said it sounded like the benedgeser voice oh but to me because when i'm not thinking about beesbury i'm thinking about the scarecrow it's to me it's very scarecrow fear talks and that man begins like don't that that like dunk and seize arean like transform into a dragon at that point he's just like roaring at him so good that's awesome did arean have a briefcase um you know um a morning star is a briefcase of sorts i agree also dunk looks up in his like haze he looks up at the stands and i'm like is he looking for egg i'm sorry sad egg is ready to support him he shouts get up just as arland had right egg adds a sir dunkin here which is something that arland could not have done for him right and so that is a bit of progress in dunk slife here and just the the melding of the different people in dunk slife who have helped to pull him off out of some terrible circumstance raf encouraging him to leave arland egg etc uh arlissar useiff said as we've tracking these like many nightings right yes uh says what is get up if not arise arise or dunkin love it yeah all egg needs to see is a blink yeah dunk is eggs got great eyesight and can project very well he doesn't have purple eyes but he still has great eyesight and he's like the only person who would have the carrots the deer probably to this great for you great for your vision and he screams he shrieks out wait just as the horn is about to blow like we're down to milliseconds before dunk has it's four five I feel like that guy was like like it started you know like half know yeah little kazoo and dunk rises and he has finally we talked about this adaptive change that the crowd isn't with him yet like they were in the novella initially it's who it builds toward this crescendo up up up up and then Aryan has to lower his helm as defeated and exhausted as a character has ever thin benon did such a good job with this the idea that like all the adrenaline is gone and he's just like oh my god here we go and they just like kind of like fall toward each other because they have not a shag right of where she loved it was so great and dunk like dunk again that that again that like brand no chance no choice like just bring the sword up yes but I also love that like um um that uh shadow is still he paid Aryan gets a hit on the like gorge at right like that like that that deflects the blow or whatever but like pretty quickly like dunks not trying to sword fight right he's trying to get in close so he can dunk a flea bottom fight in the mud so and it works it's great takes that shield I got a couple texture people who are like how did it dunks really strong in that shield should be made of but shouldn't he have just basically like the capitated Aryan there and like he's chipping off parts of his taking all his teeth out like he was a friend with bachinum with his male fists in the face very violent very good and Aryan yields and dunks looks around and he's disbelieving and he knows he's got a dragonover and this is a great line from the book as he is just humiliating and by the time he reached the viewing stand where Lord Ashford sat the bright prince was brown as a privy delightful stuff Aryan withdraws his accusation the horn sounds and it is over and dunk wonders to himself I am a knight now in truth he remembered wondering am I a champion champion of asher meadow just never in the way that he thought he'd be and certainly not with the consequences that we are about to witness because egg steley paid and helped dunk leave the turn you field the shattered shield and view and they take him to the blue medical tent where he asks the most important question what's up with home for these stories I was not in the books this is where he also asks about Darren which he doesn't do here right but he asks about Darren and prince Darren dunk blurted did he survive days and confused as he was great movie dunk felt a huge sense of relief what his dream was wrong then the dead dragon unless Aryan died he didn't though did he knows a dig you spared him do you remember I suppose already his memories of the fight were becoming confused and vague so this idea of like oh the prophecy we escaped it Aryan didn't die Darren got stepped on by his horse but didn't die you know I saw make our he's fine baler baler's here yeah he's here to tell us not to pour boil into a wound steley pay my use wine instead yeah I love that moment too and that brief beat of relief he's like oh washing go we did him also like before the horror that when you keep referencing cushion concussion protocol when you're inside dunes head in this part of the book like he is so out of it he's just sort of like half talking half thinking the whole time and eggs like you don't remember I know you don't remember that's worrying almost as worrying as Darren not remembering that he already told you we dreamed of you baler is here with the wine info he's gonna send the maestro over and dunk is ready to make a pledge he sees baler breaks beer and he despite the extent of his injuries and the state that he is in saying that he feels like he's about to die he forces himself to move over to baler right he brings himself to many kneels in front of him Carlos can we see this you brace i am your man please your man and he's good man so Duncan the realm oh I have chills um we talked about this on talk the throes but the slight adaptive change in the book he's basically just like gripping Raymond to try to like stand up but to have dunk kneel in front of him and to have baler put his hand on dunk shoulder where the sword would be another one of these mini nightings along the way and another reminder that whatever our land did or didn't do doesn't talk in matter matters dunk but the choices dunk makes are what matters and the people who recognize the impact of the way that dunk has chosen to live his life that is the lesson and so they make this mutual pledge here and there's like absolutely agonizing literal seconds before the helm comes off glimpse into this like possible future that they're not going to get to have that baler is a man who dunk things worthy of standing by and that baler's like you're the kind of guy I want in the kingdom I'm gonna rule but not just that it's like not just like I need good men the realm the realm needs good man you will make this realm worthy right and it's like baler walking in and saving dunks life again as he does so right don't poor boiling oil that's not the move right boiling wine also sounds not fun but I'm not a maester I don't tell that to kyber I don't use maggots so I don't know um but um I think that him him coming in saving dunks life and then thinking about the realm and thinking about his brother you know like he's thinking about I love that detail you know strong brother strong the realm needs good men like the game about all these other people not himself and he's dying I know I love that little the way that he's smiling when he's because they're like oh boy it's just a smashed in back here yeah that smile as he said my brother's most like you strong like that pride that he feels and may a card despite how I mean we have seen that relationship is a complicated one but that that love is there all of this everything that you're saying it just heightens the tragedy to like an almost unbearable but very thrown sea and degree uh they pulled the helm off and the back of his skulls miss it and it's gone it falls off to the floor I will say great recap I will say that's what happened let's hand it to ira parker we're having the restraint of not doing like a gloopy we don't see like yeah no it's kind of a missing part of that it's missing it's gone it's kind of still in the helm because we don't see or hear anything like go up onto the floor but he's gone it's gone it's not there a queer troubled look at her stealing cross he's like a collector that's true it's canon that's canon a queer troubled look passed across Baylor break spears face like a cloud passing before a sun I love that description just thinking of him as a son like this this bright force in this very dark world and that that is then uh shrouded and and and blighted out it's all really sad and Baylor falls into dunk sarms and dunk is repeating the get up refrain that we heard from Arlen and we heard from agonet doesn't work because Baylor's brain is not in this head anymore and it's a little bit of you know dunk is like oh one need not intend to harm to do it I didn't think that any of this was going to happen and so to get back to the dream yeah Darren's dream you have that moment of relief and then the horror of recognition watching watching over him I dreamed of you Darren had said in episode four I have seen you sir in a fire in a dead dragon a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow it had fallen on top of you but you were alive and the dragon was dead did I kill it that I could not say and so it's like in a way tragic vintage shocking thrones death but then this question of guilt and I saw some people uh who were unspoiled guess that Baylor was going to die based on just like the math of thrones but also like this prophecy and it's like yeah oh would be the most interesting Targaryen to die here and who's like the great beast yeah the wings so large they could cover the meadow we had mentioned earlier in the season we had read this passage talking about where we are in the Targaryen line here quote king Darren the good had four grown sons three with sons of their own the line of the dragon kings had almost died out during his father's day but it was commonly said that Darren the second and his sons had left it secure for all time uh the heir to the iron thorn in hand to the king Baylor break spears brain falling out at ashford meadow is good news how things start to change a son valar yes and three brothers that's right we're fine book spoilers this again as we said it's going to be like a Russian natural matrocha levels of spoilers inside of this section but this is we're about to do traditional spoilers before we get to the very end oops don't give a secrecy to a small child spoilers correct have you left are you gone if you don't want book spoilers this is your time to leave us okay Darren's dream so we've seen it it's happened and yet in case anybody didn't listen to the pod after episode four we talked about this in the book section that fire line which is a show still feels like this is also going to apply I've seen you sir and a fire and so like it could be the funeral pyre that we're going to get in the next week's episode which they've like shown in photos and so like that we are going to burn him in the next week's episode but summer hall the tragedy of summer hall which is this thing that egg on king egg on because spoiler alert it does not go fine with all the brothers and the sons that are in his way for son of a four son he becomes the king and he crates this big conflagration at summer hall our list are so if you wrote in this as you both discussed on the pod despite dunks and bumbling inefficiencies with formal religion formal religion the faith of the seven is heavily present here in the story the trial of the seven specifically invokes the gods favors the gods presence in the nanny the words blah blah constant mentioning blah blah this could be connected to your disgust theory of the seven gods being present here at ashford in some form there is evidence in both the game of thrones show and a song of ice and fire books that divine intervention is possible john resurrection in game of thrones again that's in the show but barrack dandarians' resurrections in a song of ice and fire the many face god etc so my question for you to is this could divine intervention be happening here at the trial seven sparing dunks foot at the expense of bailer's life perhaps knowing that that very foot will bring the birth of denarius targaryen and thus if you believe this fulfill the prince that was promised or is this just a series of human tragedies cabiling as coincidences or accidents and then lead to the circumstances of the mother of dragons i mean we've been saying in all season he's got to keep the foot to punter egg are out of out of summer hall john can't be born otherwise just yeah i mean i think it's like it it reminds me of um you know everything that happens in book one and season one with danie and and the decision she makes with drogo and mary and then right if that that's a horrible mistake and something that's real a mempid if that doesn't happen then does the funeral pyre happen and are the dragons born in that exact way and the dreams and the prophecy that are yeah i think the the role of prophecy in the story fate it's kind of i think that one of the many things that makes George genuinely such a master is his ability to navigate and threaten and twine choice in consequence with the idea of fate and prophecy it's it's god dare we've been talking about this idea all season it and it's constantly been reminding me of the like for want of a nail verse right for want of the for want of a nail the shoe was lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost for want to be horse the rider was lost being overtaken and slammed by the enemy all for want of care about a horse shoe nail or like there are other versions where it's like the kingdom was lost so like for want of a nail the kingdom was lost in the sort of like what are the cascading effects of sir dunk in the tall or dunk of flea bottom showing up to ashered metal meadow and all of the ripples down history that come from there does somebody rebel against the chargaryans eventually yeah is it roberts rebellion is it regar is it leana is it the mad king if this exact thing doesn't happen here i mean no right not in that exact fashion right so yeah it's so fascinating stuff and uh i wish bailar had lived but you know brain had to fall out tough um the on the blackfire front the set up for sworn sword and mr night interested in general beyond because we have many a blackfire rebellion in our future i think that dunks swearing his sword to suruse this to a black fire uh the pretender to a black dragon supporter in the second season in the second novella is gonna feel a little bit different now like i think him is kind of been at the redgrass yeah and just the level of awareness because a lot of it in the novella is like he's recalling things that arland has told him but like he was around for this and right and wasn't four years old it wasn't four years old um so i just think in put in a way that ultimately i think will will heighten the second season in some ways i think i'm really excited for all the blackfire stuff that we get in the future in the future um and certainly he'll have more motivation at white walls in the third season and mr night i saw a great that happens that's a great tweet where in the trailer for next episode we get line up arathi and saying like yeah you know the he risked nothing you know what i mean like talking about bailar he's like he was a prince like you know etc etc and i saw someone on twitter was like i reparkers very certain he's getting thirteen seasons of this show right because lino berat the more eventually rebel against the throne but it's just sort of like so they're planting that seed there in the finale with like we're actually like a pretty weird energy from lino if they're not like we're definitely i don't want to judge it as much i think we'll have to see it in context if it makes sense um we also got this email from Clint i put it here because talking about the future seasons and the blackfire rebellions Clint says do you have any worries for season two it doesn't have any major reveals like egg being a Targaryen or the crown prince dying unexpectedly it's a pretty small scale story over disputed territory well the show need to expand blood raven or larger political tension to raise the impact is it all down to like one extremely hot ginger and her braid to like yeah that braid yeah that braid i mean there are like there's a lot of i think we both are incredibly fond of of sworn sword i think it is definitely a subtler story no question i mean the one with the least worries is like by by season three by mystery and i just like you're doing a blackfire rebellion yeah like season three oh we did a blackfire rebellion inside yeah i was like i can't probably like i can't believe in a year a year or from now i got to do the second blackfire rebellion yeah that's actually nuts that's awesome um you know their blood raven is so so yeah we're sick um it wouldn't hurt my feelings to have blood raven show up i just think expanding a lot of blackfire stuff either yeah incorporating blood raven sooner or doing the first rebellion flashbacks i think is probably yeah a way to do it but there is a lot of action in in the second novella and i think there's just a lot of rich theme you know and a lot of sexiness and you're hoping and Dennis and Dennis and david tented his penis of brown shield yeah why not why not dare dream roger um speaking of mystery night you know everything that happened gourmet pico killed roger who who bash just fucking face in with the you know he's gonna he's a character he's coming to us in season three in the third novella so that's it feels very intentional that we've gotten a couple roger mentions here kind of don't get like i can avenge roger of penni tree yeah whoa and you know specifically the billed the story and i'll be just fucking great wouldn't that be great is like you see this is a penny tree and he's so guilty like about taking roger's place you know that's like on his mind in the in the third novella so i think that'll be very rich and rewarding and i'm glad we got a couple roger moments here um arian's groin we couldn't outright say this was the cock the thrones curse was like so i know it's dick off it's like he's got to have a kid you did a great job hedging that you're like oh no they changed the kid canon in the show sometimes sometimes we think we're getting kids and then we don't this has happened in house of the dragon already i it's hard to make egg king and a great council if certain key participants and other contenders are not there so like arian it was it was very like like you know they were the cruel like kind of has to happen yeah they have to dismiss him because he's arian's kid and they think he's gonna be a monster right up or enter that yeah yeah i mean i'm sure kept the dick really hurt but dick is still dick is still there he can fuck his way through uh least good for him great job we got a few versions of this okay uh this one this particular one comes from jc uh who wrote i also believe that dunk has not having been properly knighted is brilliant because what this allows for is for dung's first true knighting to be when he becomes a member of the king's guard a moment i truly hope we get to witness i or parkers like yes please you're gonna have to cradle man your arms i'll be sobbing like a fucking baby okay the right for making a new member the white swords can vary it can be a solemn and formal event in which the knight kneels as he makes his vows before the king so if egg gets to be the one tonight officially knights are dunking the talls well the best will be messes pause i would love to see it i we we will get to see this because we fucking deserve to see it okay this the show is great and they're gonna keep making it here's the deeper darker level of the spoil i'm sorry i just wish i did not know this and i don't blame a small child on a press tour for saying i think he shouldn't have said did i wish this were not out in the world no i'd seen this in the internet okay you would already seen it okay great here comes if you don't want to know about this thing this is not a spoiler from the book it's something that someone said here comes the story leave the deck spoiler so to actually my pal meganokif who you cited earlier in here it was megan a decider was interviewing uh back in october um at nirah kamikhan essentially was interviewing uh but but as she put it on twitter this week it broke containment yes was interviewing peter clafi and uh dexter and they were making puppets yeah so it's always comes back to public always saying to have puppets and basically as peter is trying to get decks to shut up he reveals that george armarton told them and listen george changes his mind if you don't want to hear the time leave if you don't want to hear this george armarton told them that dunk survives summer hall not only that man he's like but we're not sure about egg so not only are we saying dunk definitely survives which there's a new new lord commander the king's guard a year later right so like history books believe dunk died at summer hall that's like sort of been the common perception yes and that king egg on egg also died at summer hall but maybe but what if he didn't right so here's the moment we got from maybe it's just gotten a boat like leanor yeah he's just being gay somewhere else right texan so we think leanor is dead because of seaswoke okay uh being gay for a while and then dying anyway okay texas at first i was a wild about dunk surviving summer hall it felt like it spoiled the whole star cross tragedy of dunk and egg dying together like if eggs coin had started flipping mad aside up there's a certain romanticist quality to dunk saving his best run by killing killing with him killing him or dying with him and then dying with him a loyalty so absolute in a friendship so deep that you can't separate the night from his choir but after last night's episode had been reflecting back on that idea and it's changed my mind i think it was seeing how they mirrored dunk following arlin with egg following dunk because history believes dunk did die at summer hall for him to survive that night it can only mean one thing after summer hall after possibly killing his closest and oldest friend the closest thing dunk ever had to a brother dunk goes back to being a hedge knight it makes for such a beautiful bittersweet bookend to the beginning of the story how he first met him bearings her arlin house her arlin told him that a hedge knight is the truce kind of night like arlin dunks eventual death is anonymous and unremarked so do great nights sleep in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road i think yes the greatest of all nights does so i do love this idea of dunk going on the road and like the closing shot of the last season of the show perfect being dunk under a tree under a tree or on the horse riding down the road just like you know i'll let them think i died and i'm a hedge knight now imagine how beautiful it would be if it came to you via novella or surprise sensational television show and not a reasonable time with a child's interview because i don't blame him he was George told it why is George's well remember comic con George is like i do I do hang on for this stage was like oh boy um okay so dunk survives becomes a hedge knight yeah anonymously right let's everyone thinks he's dead and he's like i'm just gonna hedge night around until i die canonically egg was 59 when he died as i'm wrong is there any version of the story that makes any kind of sense that egg is with him they're like let's go back on the road together i think it's irresponsible for king egg on to be to be uh responsible for the death of some of people and to be like off to have an adventure by but if dunk heroically puns bring her out of some roll and like you know kills his best friend now he doesn't need to punch or whatever he's not gonna die in the fight he just can use his feet that's why i asked the feed i guess to walk out i don't know if it's a hurt doesn't even have to fun don't and then be claimed by the plane i'm sorry i can't do it this is but i don't like you know yeah dex is like we don't know if egg survived i don't think egg on should survive the treasure is somehow strikes me as a maybe George hasn't decided oh i also think George hasn't decided whether i don't survive to be honest with you and he's just saying shit because that's what George does sometimes that's all great moment of history the internet spoilers of there's another i won't i don't want to give it do i want to give it to you i think this isn't a spoiler tell me in an interview with tans and kraftford who plays tensel and peter krafty a uh placed dunk as we all know uh they were sort of like asked about because tensel is off to dorm we don't we won't see her again this season right and so and there's line in the novella about like the last line going going off to dorm or whatever and so peter krafty his was sort of intimidating like i believe like George has kind of told him like tensel will be in the like i always assumes that was the case yeah but like that George told him so like that tans in might come back for another season we get to see dunk and tensel together um and and think of all the possibilities like think about like if in season five Raymond bossaway crops up i mean i hope that happens and um with definitely line all brathan you know any mean like these characters that we're meeting now you know seeing red and raiman again like i would just like i don't want make art i mean line all of course but i don't want make art to be the only guy who exactly isn't our life that would be insane um see arian again if we want to do i know it did on the because they we know from the beginning of sworn sword that they do in fact go to doren and spend time there and we get some very sad horse stuff um i had a moment before they officially did announce like we're adapting sworn sword for season two where i was like i wonder if they'll do it doren story for season two because since they don't have more novellas yet do you think then is that the answer to this is the sworn sword is a little uninteresting this episode one big dunk loosen his v card and dorn to tensile the dunk that we met in this episode i their teenagers living together they haven't fucked they haven't no dunk is canonically a virgin don't don't get me with your sea Roger shit anyway and yet um oh and then yeah the henry cable thing i'll just say um there was like an ambiguous like back and forth confusing cut out of context sort of interview where it seemed like if you wanted to interpret it this way dex was implying that henry cable because the henry cable has long been a dream cast for damon blackfire so like it seemed that dex was sort of intimating that henry cable was going to show up in a later season peter's like don't say that we shouldn't say that right and then peter clavpy came out and like clarified that that's not what he was talking about which i actually kind of believe like i actually don't think henry cable is going to show up as damon blackfire like i don't i that would be kind of weird silent or right now he's got things to do and heads to chop but like um but the fact that peter clarified that and not the summer hall thing very tough means the summer hall thing is definitely true very very very tough so George that has been the more even more spoilers spoilers section of this podcast all time we did it we did great stuff i can't live we only have one episode of a night of the seven years left i'm despondent i can't believe this podcast was in four hours you're welcome i knew we'd come in right at three today all right thank you thank you to carlos as always thank you to arjuna as always jomi as always and sarah who not only is with us today to help but as you already mentioned binge the entire season so far and then had to sit through the spoilers section that ideal that ideal sorry about that uh join us on sunday for talk the thrones on the finale right after the finale and then we will be with you on Tuesday night next week Tuesday evening for our deep dive into episode six of a night of the seven kingdoms we will be with you in the meantime for buffy season three part two that's it get up bye