‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 Reactions | Talk the Thrones

Hello and welcome to Talk The Thrones. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theRinger.com and joining me in the studio is Joanna Robinson and her helmet is keeping it all together. Now we're moving. We are going to jump into the extraordinary fifth episode of a night of the Seven Kingdoms right after this. All right guys we are back the penultimate episode of this season. I know where's the time gone. I'm sad. And this is an episode about time and about what makes us if we go back to our youth you know and what shapes our kind of our worldviews. We're going to get into all of that. When are we getting the Chris Ryan Philly origin? I know where's the where's the where's the every episode of the watch? Every podcast is essentially building that origin story. Why don't we do the recap? Okay so after some forced trades and free agent signings the deadline has passed and we're ready to rock here at Ashford Baylor offers to take on the King's Guard the logic being that they are bound by duty not to harm him. I know. I'm a strategist. I'm a scientist. I'm a scientist. I'm a observation about how on loved sons make good fighters and dunking eggshare laugh and tear. We are off to the trial. After the first quarter it's not going very well for our band of brothers. Different dudes are wearing different armor but safe to say dunk catches a lance in the chest all abdominal front body section and then frost the cupcake with the mace to the face. Oh my god. What will happen next to that flashback time? Well are you already well actually leading your weapon? Is it a morning star? It's a morning star. Morning star. Make ours using a mace area in a morning star. But the maker later they share. Make our later also use the morning star. Is it like a tissue and a Kleenex thing where like a morning star is also a mace but a mace is a mace. No mace is a mace. Morning star is on the chain and then the mace is just like the stick with the ball at the end. Oh yeah. Okay my bad. No no no. Should I see myself out? No. Please continue. Because I just heard her mumble morning star under her breath and I had to talk about the great crutch of prestige television flashback in the throes of the season climactic battle. We are taken back to yesterday or outside of Kings where a battle is taken place. I believe this is the Black Fire Rebellion. You had grass field. I'm actually so much and a night is lying on death's door and a young dunk with his friend raffer looking to make a little money. Yeah. You're never going to believe this but the flea bottom neighborhood of Kings Landing is a little bit of a doggy dog vibe. Yeah. And it's presided over by a city watch asshole named Alistair who likes to shake people down like dunk and raffes. So they've gone. They've gone to this battlefield. Yeah. I got some leather. They got some horseshoes. Whatever. Other coin they can find. You ever taken the horseshoe off of a dead horse? We know how you feel about dead horses or injured horses or the copper from the tooth of a corpse. You ever rated a battle. I wouldn't put it past myself. I was a war general. And it just don't be in post apocalyptic society. You're ready to do anything for a diet. You don't take a molar if there's gold around it. If somebody had like a half-smoked camel weight. No regrets. R&D, Ray from Dunk. They tried to pawn some of the horseshoes and the leather and the sundry battlefield souvenirs. All to fund Ray's Bruce Springsteen-esque dream of living this one horse town where they probably also eat horses. Second Bruce Springsteen mentioned before. I did. Are you prepared to sing some lyrics this time? I should. How about this? I promise you. I promise you. For the finale episode. We're going to sing to us. I will write a Bruce Springsteen song about Dunkin' Egg. We got to remind him next week. Yeah. When I walk in it, my guys have to prepare it all. Schedule the tags for Thursday. On the press Christmas of this journey they find out about a little something called dynamic pricing. Very tough. They can throw a tantrum. Allister shows up and takes their coins and grapples and ensues. Allister cuts rapes throughout. Dunk attacks Allister. Who should come to us to ask you about a younger version of the Well-Hung Hedge Knight, Sir Arlin? This starts their beautiful journey together of Proje and apprentice or apprentice and master or whatever you want to call it. We see a bit of dunks hazing and apprenticeship under Arlin before we were shot back into the present moment. Shits are really going to shit here. Honestly, if you're watching on the first pass, I'm so glad to be talking about this with you because even before we started this pod, I realized I was a bit confused about what was going on. Largely shot from Dunk's perspective. We have the battle to the death going on here. I thought the trial by seven was supposed to be a little bit more ceremonial than this, but Dunk's getting stabbed a lot. Yeah. You can fully honest. I didn't really anticipate this a lot. They're leaving everything out on the field, including Aryan's dick because that gets sliced off or at least slashed. I said some high thigh. Growing, you're worried about some arterial bleed. Which happens first. Jason Tainem back on the quarter, Aryan back in the bedroom. I knew you'd like that. That's Bill. Let's have we'll know if he's watching. This is a classic heavyweight fight where Aryan thinks he's one right before he actually loses. He withdraws his accusation towards Dunk and the crowd goes wild. But we haven't counted up the bodies yet. What are the casualties? Beesbury and Harding dead. He's far behind. He got a line to get a line. And I'm so happy for you. Thank you. Thank God the most beloved character on this show is still with us. Still alive. And still, Baylor is still just kicking out like mad knowledge and beautiful. In Berlin. Why not boiling oil? Yeah. Yeah. Really helpful. Don't kill him. And Baylor right after saying something truly idealistic and tender. His brains fall out. Yeah. Right on to the floor. Because he has gotten beaten up. I guess by his own brother brother by maker. He does. He does. Game of Thrones. Game of fucking thrones. Fuck. Unbelievable. It's interesting because we've been hearing from a lot of listeners that they had not watched other Game of Thrones shows because it was too brutal. But they were like, this one seems they were like, but this one seems kind of nice. I've been worried about this. And we were like, oh, someone's brains are going to fall out. Also, ratehouse of our listeners who were like, I like listening to you talk about X, Y or Z, that friends. Yeah. But we haven't watched thrones, but we're watching by the 17 kingdoms because it seems a bit nicer. And I mean, in the grand scheme of thing, it's it is nicer. But when we see Rafe like gurgling on her blood in this episode, I head like rolling around the pigs. And then Baylor's brain falls out. It's just, it's a lot. It's Game of Thrones. George is going to George. What's your favorite moment of this episode? I mean, it feels weird to say my favorite moment is seeing Baylor's back half of his head fall off. I'm curious for you to take his big hat enthusiast, you know, on your structural integrity at the school. People that get there, it's actually just keeping it all together. Much more significant brain injury. You know, I think that is certainly the most significant and one of the most monumental butterfly dragonfly flaps its wings moment in the entire canon. I thought the entire battle was like revelatory. And I can't wait to talk about all of it. I would say I mixed, albeit mixed positive on the flashback stuff, which I'm excited to get into and was a big adaptive change. Overall, my heart was going to like explode out of my chest watching this. And I just thought that the energy and like the visceral nature of being in the mud was so gripping and mesmerizing and like tonally astonishing. Finn Bennett in the Hall of Fame for just the like most crestfallen and depleted anybody has ever looked in West roast when he had when he realized it was not over yet. There's overbrew. So Mallorca moment was the whole thing. Yes. It was great to me. Yeah. It was great. I mean, everything with Baylor is just on all time. Yeah. All time. My guy, Beesbury did get a line and he got name dropped by Prince Baylor before he died. So that was very important to me. There's a small moment in the melee as Mallorca and I were like pouring over the tape and rewinding and trying to follow people where Aryan's on top of our guy dunk in the mud and he's got a dagger and who comes along but Raymond Fossil with a like a key hit to Aryan to like save the day. So my guy Raymond Fossil, way really showing up. I thought was my favorite moment. So first time through. Yeah. I was frustrated by the flashback because I didn't need an explanation for why I dunk might risk everything for 10's out in the in his adulthood. I didn't need to know that it also was originated with a love that he had when he was a kid and that that person was also stomped out by the ruling class in some way. So I felt it unnecessary. But then rewatching the episode, I thought a sustained 30 minutes of that kind of fighting. Yeah. Would be almost almost too much. Look, I'll fucking watch the first 30 minutes of the private ride. Just for fun. But over your mind, like they are so dedicated to keeping things in Baylor and dunks perspective. Yeah. That you really are having a hard time or I had a hard time understanding who's who who's getting hit. Yeah. And so I think that having this weird 15, 20 minute break in between the opening five minutes and the last 10, 10, 15 minutes was was pretty cool. I liked it better on rewatching it was less of the episode than it than I thought it was the first time I watched it through. Yeah. My mind was like it was the whole episode. Yeah. And then we have like the Baylor goes out. But what you're saying is that it has to be either or it has to be either the flashback or the entire thing is the melee. And it doesn't that it didn't have to be that way. But of course, how can you resist ending with Baylor breaks free as brain falling out? So, you know, they had a couple of options on how to cut this season up. Like we could have done more tie with my guy at Beesbury at the beginning of this episode instead of a lengthy flashback. I don't know. It seems of equal value. That's ultimately then adhering to we see Beesbury as much as Dunk does or do you think that was true of like Lionel and all of them and they and they found room for those guys, but not my guy Beesbury. Anyway, I will let the Beesbury thing go probably. But there is a certainly like your life. Yeah. I feel really chill about it. But in like rereading this section, there's just like one line that jumped out to me is like maybe could be the reason for the flashback to be here. And it's when Dunk is wailing on Aryan with his shield. Right. And he says he inside Dunk's head, he's thinking he could vanquish Sir Dunk in the tall, but not Dunk of Flea Bottom. Like that he has to fight dirty street fight in order to win this fight. And that's why I feel like when they're reading through, they're like this is our end to a flashback. Okay. But is Alistair, Reif, Flea Bottom? Is it in the books? Reif, putting, Ferret, these are mentions across the novellas later as like figures and Dunk's youth. But this Reif in this form and this relationship is this formative love is all new. Okay. Yeah. We're at like 30 minutes left in the book, basically, at the end of episode four. So this is a real expansion to flesh out the fact that we have two episodes of the show of the series remaining. I, that line stood out to me as well as like a good reason to show us what was going to rise inside of Dunk just like when he goes to Tansel's defense, something just innate, right? Intrinsic rises inside of him. I think that the like the other thing that makes it useful to I think the the Arland Dunkin and egg dunk comps are my favorite part of it, the Reif, Tansel element that you guys are identifying my least favorite part as well. I agree. I don't think we needed the fact that Dunk would help anybody is like the point to me. So I found that kind of positive. I also just like I've never a fan of killer girl to get a backstory. Sure. Of course. It's like very lazy. Great point. I think that just the agent up like which is a very normal thing in the adaptations. More time in Dunk's life, it would be harder to explain us knowing basically nothing about those years and like your seminal things happening to him. So I think giving us some glimpse into that time broadly makes sense. But I think that the like Arland the name of the episode in the name of the mother, Arland coming out as Dunk's savior and shouting in the name of the mother leave that boy be. So what's the nighting thou in the name of the mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. The fact that Arland also was a knight like Dunk who remembered his vow is like such a cool and lovely parallel to show us between them as like across the season. We've really and Dunk had kind of reconciled all of the different unsavory and pure aspects of Arland many of which we see in this origin story. He's like very content while in his drunk and grieving stupid to let Dunk get his latest bout of like a dysentery from all he can always count on it from Dunk from the stream. But I just think that's a lovely comp. The fact that there's an innocent there who needs help. It's very Brienne coded for both of them. Nothing's more hateful than failing to protect the one you love. Arland's grieving Roger. Dunk holding in front of that grave holding that little helm. That's his prior squire dead killed at the Redgrass field. The way that Dunk slides in there for Roger and Arland's life and then egg slides in to Dunk's life. The way that that Dunk slid into Arland's egg following Dunk we see Dunk following Arland. There's parallels like I thought were just really lovely to better understand. I thought they were lovely. Some occasionally a little too cute like a little too cute with the parallels but very good. I like connecting it to the battle the Redgrass field. This like that moment that Arland the reason that Arland is in such a drunken tear is because his nephew just died who was his squire. Roger. Okay so I want to ask a little bit about that battle field but I'll just to put a cap on the flashback and should they shouldn't they. Yeah. I can make the argument that okay so not if you had he's going to compare something to Andor at home you can check that off the finger card. But there are a bad time. Andor uses flashbacks to Cassian's youth to set up the Fiona Shaw character and explain the significance not only of her but also why he is ultimately going to arrive at this anti-imperial rebellion in the first place. I outside of this sort of not declared internal monologue about I'm doing this for Dunk of Flea Bottom. It's just like with did he really think of this entire story in the five seconds that between he got knocked off his horse and got back up like it's a little bit of a break from the temporal reality of the show. That's definitely true. And I also think from like a TV watching point of view the fact that all three of us bumped a little harder in the flashback the first time and then not the second is that it's become it's like one of those the reason we don't like an entire flashback episode as a penultimate of a season is usually it holds the action right and you're like I was watching that episode before the penultimate episode ends on some sort of cliffhank. Right and then we actually somehow have to wait two weeks to get to this. And that's not quite what happens here and then also like because we you know because we had already seen to the end of this episode to then go back and watch like we had already we didn't feel like it was disrupting something because we knew we would come back to the mail-in. Yeah you're coming you're heading into this like astonishing final 10-12-13 whatever it was minutes. That like to kensy in quality of their use you know the crawl space that that they tucked down into I did like seeing that as well I mean like you said King's Landing okay it's always fun to see the wreck keep in the distance flea bottom always fucked up in some capacity no matter where we are in time when dunk in the novella he's taking the initial blows you know the lands the blow to the head and one of the things he thinks is dunk the long thought he could be a knight which like always gives me a shell it's such a sad moment he's worried about I'm gonna die out here well I know just like the shame of it like what I think I can do this why did I think this could be my life and then the fact that he emerges at the end that he wins but what is the cost and like the internal monologue of the shame he's feeling not only about himself but like what might happen the worry for other people around him that's the one thing of just like I think the idea of he had rafe then he had Arlen then he had egg this one person who means so much to him and like to your ream and point you know coming in to help or seeing a line on the background like fleshing out the characters in dunks world who he would be devastated to in some way be culpable or feel culpable to carry that guilt of something happening to them I like that that was nice I like that you say to Kenzie and because I think this is a bit in the weeds but I think another thing that the flashback really gives us is if you think back to the beginning of the season we've got the inkeeper character who's like what does attorney have to do with the price of it right yeah right and the king right now dare in the second is is a good king and he's supposed to have according to the lore completely revamped the city watch in a year but it's been several years since and the city watches the corruption of yeah he's supposed to have like cleaned up the streets of king's landing he's the good king he's fixed everything when you get into the reality of it absolutely not it's still as corrupt as ever so I love that we run into this a lot with house the dragon but that contrast between what the history books have told us this king did he fixed everything in the streets of kings landing and the reality of what the fuck Alistair is doing to these kids in the street yeah I mean it's also just a great testament to the economy of the show which we've heralded for like making the exactly right choice and not wasting money and time doing other things you don't have some expense of tracking shot all through king's landing you don't have you know massive fake version of it it's like this is the most important five by nine frame yeah exactly yeah this is everything you need to know is that people are living on top of each other that even when a city watch person is shaking someone down they get bumped into another person who's like black out drunk or running from another crime or the pigs are right here I really agree and I loved it just makes it all feel so much like harder and costar phobics and like in comparison to with lovers at perhaps the dragon like some of the some of the flea bottom stuff we've gotten house the dragon like this looks more like yeah you know it's like when you see like you're watching a show and it's like unnecessary drone shots yeah great so you're driving on a highway like I you know it's like I don't need that and what we get is what what matters I think like the the often we would critique the opposite of that the show the show don't tell we would long to see it and not just your characters like talk about what they're thinking and feeling but I think this was really an effective example of how sometimes tell don't don't show or the melding of telling and showing like hearing dunk saying Dorae if like well what if it's all shit every place right because he doesn't want to go what if this is the best place there is and then what we have seen just this little glimpse of it and it's like what a devastating insight into his circumstances and experiences so far because the only thing as he voices that matters is the person right across from him but like I loved that little bit of clarity into his psyche too the fact that he was not sitting there as a young boy in the showverse at least and saying everywhere is amazing and all of these idealistic views I have about honor it wasn't like no I want to I want to I want to he's like everywhere's probably horrible because every lived day of my life has taught it it's probably also like an indication to the extent that they're doing this of like a class fatigue critique where somebody born like him is probably like this is probably all I deserve and all I'm ever gonna get yeah and I'm not like a boat ride to Dorae or wherever they were gonna try and go to is not gonna change my free cities yeah I also love I love exactly your point about how narrow and confined what we got of of flea bottom was but we also get to see rave and dunk on the king's road which they shot at the giants causeway which they used in game of thrones you know so like we get to like be back on the king's road where we saw aria leave kings landing for the first time dressed as a boy or where we saw brie Ann say goodbye to jamey when she and potter setting out like we've seen that location we've seen aria and brie Ann and pod who are these characters we've been comparing them to and here's dunk and rave just walking down the road and they're not on the horses or in the wagons they have to duck like they're the hobbits and fellowships and nestle on a tide type of storm is so much great little details like that and then we see the battle we do see the battlefield yeah so what do the battle field and then we'll get into the melee we'll get to the trial and i'll ask you the questions i think a lot of people who are not book readers or just one time viewers of this episode are probably like i don't understand like how did bail or we'll get to that yeah they're on this battlefield i think almost crucially like the more significant scene to me was uh the pawn shop and the guy being like this should be leather that in here yeah because it's targaryen so like is that no damon blackfire black okay so just black fire pretender yeah i mean if you guys want to tag team it's fine like whatever like but like what is what's that battlefield and what what are we what witnessing the end over the post game so the battle the red grass field which we've mentioned a couple times because it's where bailor and make our really made their reputations as the hammer and the handvill that's pincere attacked that we talk about so kings kings landings here red grass field is about here right right there's a ridge right here that's important and make ours coming down this way bailor comes up this way and the forces get trapped in the middle aren't you and Ken Burns is american but why but more crucially up on the ridge here is a character called brin and rivers blood raven blood raven one of the sickest names yes with his archers who are called the ravens teeth also extremely sick so when we see the field just littered with all these arrows it's because of this crucial moment in the battle where he got the high ground and just reigned arrows and killed Damon black fire and killed his son and so I got an amen shout out if you've heard those names before any other rivers thing is he's not stay tuned stay tuned he'll be a character but like glimpsed him in a hallucinatory vision in hot D but seeing the tattered black fire banners seeing the arrows everywhere that is telling us this is the battle of the red grass field and suppress it well it's it is a civil war so Damon black fire is one of the great bastards of the prior king egg on the four so he is challenging his his brother there and the good and the joe mentioned kingdom gets divided in the various houses I was really surprised to see the phrase there that was I was I was not with Riley about that that's a huge thing of all the sigils he could have put on that guy that's a very honest one very honest so another civil war like we've been talking about I think another thing that's just worth noting like not only was this the decisive final battle because of the death's joe mention 10,000 people died here so this is like one of the most fabled battles in westerosie history not only because you have like songs that come out of it like the hammer in the end of the bill or the story of the Ravens teeth or Alice of three fingers priming that's where she lost her other day but not fighting actually some other stuff yeah born brief to thumb but what happened with the other one yeah a flowering equipment sure you know you have a Damon and sir going in Corbets you have two valerians sale swords lady for Lauren and Black Farts like fabled for all these reasons but it's also fabled infamous because so many people died right so the fact that it's the decisive battle a thing has ended our characters don't rave they are proximate to this carnage and historical and yes and like when the the fact that they're picking copper and horseshoes off the dead it's like think about what it would be like for people that young for that to be the thing they had to do to try and get silver stacks to leave town what's really fun about the terny dash for meadow and and all of the sort of stories that we will get going on duck and egg is that you will have houses here who are on the wrong side of this battle we just have to be like um hello we're here right forget that we support the Black Fires it's fine everything's fine the flipping of the the sigil so like the normal you know the normal targaryen sits your black field the red dragon so what Damon Black Fired did was just reverse the arms there all these like fun little details I assume at some point we'll get the entire first black fiber belly and as a show or a movie one of the key parts about this was just the conversation that rave and don't have after when he's like the words over the words over and she says no one forget shit you hurt someone they hurt you back we could name a million game of thrones characters that that made us think of it's very little finger and then eventually sons of course in a great fateful moment there's no justice in the world nonetheless we make it but the thing it made me think of most was urine will um will um will um and then birthing arias list like the way that you carry that need for vengeance inside of you and where it leads you and sometimes characters do things for pure reasons and sometimes they don't and this idea of the ripples being present there and of course then present in the current storyline the contemporary trial of seven it's just like a I think a smart way to remind us that no matter where you are in time people are doing things that we will feel the effects of yeah it's really cool and I think the black fire rebellion is is one of those stories that has been it's cropped up in the footnotes of things is cropped up in world of ice and fire but it hasn't been fully written by George so to see the battle to see I know like it's happened great point but to see to see the battle of the redgrass even the aftermath of battle of the redgrass field where we didn't even know exactly where the redgrass field was and now we can slightly manipulate from kingsland and I can say that was amazing um that's you know there's like the leo pointy that was like philadelphia jersey so I'm really impressed that you were able to do that uh okay yeah I just thought that moment in the pawn shop where he was like this isn't worth anything get this shit out of here really an interesting commentary on the relationship between life goes on and like there are markets and I also like you can sand the sigil off that yeah I mean like we're getting more like I would be it's a risk for me to have this yeah this is from the pretender so then you think about what does it mean this like where it is at when you're fully it's exactly exactly the same as that but like you know people they declared an allegiance in ashford right so again it's a little bit of a parallel on a comp there what does it mean to say I am on this side especially if the person on the other side of you is like your brother or your cousin those things have real ramifications which we're about to talk about brother rest was brother let's go to ashford the spout of sick man you obviously both knew that this was coming I think for some reason when I was watching this sort of obviously this is something that you know he's hiding behind thousands of years of andals bullshit like area and pulls out of somewhere and is like we're gonna do try by seven yeah it seems kind of ceremonial it's really about two guys but we're gonna have 14 um you thought it was gonna be a puppet show I didn't think it was gonna be a puppet show but I thought especially look at bailor and him being just like they're not gonna touch me like they can't touch me because they're they're duty to me supersedes this principle blood yeah and then when you get out there and people start swinging things around stuff just goes bad well the Kingsguard didn't touch him but the only person who would really be brave enough to swing on bailor is make our and the only reason he swung on his brother is because Aryan was under attack and that's why we get the line of my boy and my boy Aryan to give make our justification for this sort of berserker flailing that he's doing right in terms of tracking who is where you've got your three white and animal Kingsguard just sort of riding on the back of the like a lot of shots so I see them you've got the bright rose gold of Stefan Foss away you see a couple of times Lionel's antlers is easiest to spot by far he's he's worse get stabbed and he falls off for his antlers break off and so it's just like one sad little anger when he's holding me make our back Raymond comes through you can see the red of his of his sort of like jorken whatever that is as he as he comes through but harding and beesbury are out right away okay you don't have to worry about tracking them at all they're the it's for a second I was like confused about who I mean I knew who you would eventually fight but I wasn't sure that dunk was fighting Aryan the entire time he was I mean it's definitely the most distinct hell one other person it might have been make our knocks gets it down but mostly it's Aryan crazy thing is like these guys are fighting in meanwhile there are still horses doing passes like taking shots at the right I loved that it's much more chaotic and Darren though we do see him in the lineup and he his green silk plume that it's in the book is on his helmet he's down in the mud well it's also kind of like out of the commission ironic because he's like I'll take a hit in the helmet and then I'll just sit this one out and so yeah were you able to spot first pass you saw make our hit bearer or can I give you one hit one hint for people who are rewatching the tape I'm just going to describe make our armor because it is extremely metal right it was their father who made the most fearsome appearance however black curved dragon teeth ran across his shoulders along the crest of his helm and down his back and the huge spike mace strapped his saddle was a deadly looking a weapon is dunk had ever seen so anytime you see someone with ridged to teethy texture on them yeah that's make our bailar has that sort of like credit it's our full is metal and then Lionel with the antlers so you see right make our knock bailar off his horse right and then you see them fighting or is it vice versus bailar's bailar knocked make our off the I'm one of them knocks the other of the horse you see make our take a swing a bailar but I actually thought that was like the front of his helm it was yeah that was an interesting one because I and that was that specifically was the and and Aryan is the easiest target to spot because of the the red spikes and he's basically always with junk yeah but the that moment where they are on foot so close and Aryan is in peril and as you said make our screaming Aryan my boy my boy and trying so hard to get through him and he thrust up with the mace like up under I had always thought that the hit would be the back of the head and there is one later that could just as easily the morning two more years of flails later yeah but like the idea that you know pushing that mace up who knows he again he's wearing his sons are bailar is wearing his son velars armor which is too tight on he never intended to fight he's not wearing a helm fitted for his head armor made for him he's wearing his kids armor seems like it probably would have happened anyway anyway can I tell you why I kind of hope that it's not hope but I hope it's the later ones is because it was over that's the area had already conceded and then you see bailar and Lionel holding make our back and make our flails just like and that is in the back and so I kind of like it better it's like this was all like after the whistle all over either I love kind of any of it like they're both so fucked up in tragic and George R. Martin and Thronsey and and the best both like kind of sick and disturbing way either it's a humanizing thing for make our because he's trying to go reach and help his kid even though that kid is a piece of shit that's like something that could soften you just a touch if it's after Aryan has yielded then it's like oh my god a matter of seconds just like egg egg stops that horn from blowing by a milis eye don't if that doesn't happen it's done I think they're cool thing about the like the reason why I was like I was anticipating this being a little bit more ceremonial or a little bit more manored is that like I almost like the idea of like quite literally and then you know as a storytelling device fog of war and that this got too real too fast for everyone involved and they were all like oh shit like I kind of thought Aryan was going to take this guy out in a second and he didn't and now we're all flailing at each other right and that it just gets kind of chaotic and yeah nobody can control it I mean Baylor does say to his side at the start like they're going to try to kill you yeah right and that yeah that warning is like issued and understood just like last episode when they learned it was a trial of seven Raymond was like dunk like that means Lance is a war morning starts like this is not a turning joss this is the real shit so everybody who's a part of this knows what could happen but I think you're definitely right that the physical setting the misty quality of the air which weirdly even though hard home could not be more distinct from this and like every respect the two things I the two battle comps I thought of most here were battle the bastards because of kind of like the way the cameras used it used but also yeah like suffocating oppressive when the mind goes into his house yeah yeah and then hard home just because of the obviously that supernatural that's very distinct but the pairing of like close combat between a couple figures were focused on and then utter chaos around including the fact that you can't see in that case through the snow and the ice and the clouds and here there's like obviously in a different form a similar quality where it's just impossible for anybody to know if anyone else is okay so you have their anxiety in addition to the real terror of what they're fending off in front of that but to your point Chris I think there's an inherent truth to what you're saying because really if they had their wits about them make our would have never swung that way on bail the night but he like he snipes in him a little bit but they love each other because I kind of thought it was going to be like a hockey fight where like two guys are going on it but the rest of them are just pulling at each other's jerseys and are just like all right like but the last time this happened 13 out of the 14 guys died yeah there's the hubris of that also let's also talk about the significance of what bailar says to dunk before he dies so bailar comes into the 10 he's got some medical advice for how to yeah very important don't do it de-metalize dunk skin that sounds unpleasant all the injuries seem bad and they all look like they are but the real last time pushing your ring your your chain mail into your flesh it's just really that's an infection it's a no for me yeah it's for sure not if you put boiling wine on it you're gonna be trying it and you know dolly Arlid had had some boiling wine he would have been done fence need a bailar and is just like I'm your man like I want to basically be you know you're your bodyguard or whatever I want to be in your coterie of of nights and bailar grants him that is through like the pulp of his face yes he is fucked up yes and uh you know I thought that was significant because like look like regardless of what happens next episode and what happens in the future yeah it's just maimed to prince you know like he gets his Aryan's uncle basically co-signs him after yeah of course there's been like a trial and he wins the trial and like as the accusations are dropped yeah but bailar is like you're a real one and I wanted to know if there was you're the best any significance in the same way that dunk is like you guys weren't there but Arlin made me a night would would there be a ripple effect of there's only a couple of witnesses to bailar saying what he said to dunk it well I think what's really helpful here is that egg is there uh and I mean I don't know how much I'm Raymond sir Raymond Foster way is there still a eight I don't know how much good man paints uh where he's gonna do in in the court but paint by me need some therapy after being the one to pull the elbow we'll see what the we will see what the fall out is so it's so great sure it's like phosphates like like this and then the camera comes around and you guys have had a lot of squalching in your in your lives because you're covering industry you got some squalching you love to work industry into seven a great time of the season can can I I actually think they were quite restrained can I read this passage to the book to you okay dunk saw something red and wet fall out of the helmet someone was screaming high and terrible against the bleak grays guys swayed a tall tall prince and black armor with only half a skull okay that all sounds right he could see blood and pale bone beneath and something else something blue gray and pulpy a queer troubled look passed across bailar breakster's face like a cloud passing before a sun so we got dr Garcia down here we need an adult in the room he raises hand touch the back of his head with two fingers oh so lightly and then he fell uh gray and pulpy how many of these good bailar have gone if they kept the helmet on I mean you I don't know how brains work because I'm not a doctor or a scientist but like could he have gone forever if they don't see the paint also not an actor where they're like you can't injure your hamstring anymore so you can keep playing I don't expect that's not how like synapses and neurons firing the brain actually work but again I don't know he was already he's learning his fingers my fingers feel like wood like I don't think I don't think that helmet was gonna help me with a morning starting to see how many pods I could do okay do you want to die in a philly sat we know I think the answer you can you can uh you could swap lids between between takes here I think Chris to go back to what you're saying about the nighting thing a second ago it reminds me of like Joe on the what episode is this five so on the on the episode four deep dive did this really lovely job um sketching out and talking about these mini nightings along the way right because we've been talking about was done really nighted by Sarlan does it matter etc and these moments where things happen that even though thematically part of the point is the nighting that really matters is the choice that don't makes to do the right thing right to to behave with honor but not the way this was framed inside of this show directed and see it was so to the kneeling but also bailer and this is not how it's described in the novella puts his hand right where a sword would be on dunk shoulder so it just felt like a visual rendering of bailer to your point saying and like the fact that there's basically this kinship of honor between them that they're both making that pledge to each other it is so lovely and beautiful and obviously heightens the tragedy of this already yeah very classic subversive death and and difficult thing and a thrown story this is just an all-timer there's a line when dunk is with ring male embedded in his flesh is unsure if anyone held to mothafield or if you roll themselves off the field or whatever says in his own head uh i am a night now in truth right he remembered wondering am i a champion like did this process make me a night even if sir arland didn't literally yeah right is this one of those moments and then to your point like about where you go from here and what people make of this like i think to your arian point about he fucked up a prince like this is this is sanctioned everything that happened on that field is valid sure but people will feel a certain way about it right so like the other thing that's going through dunk's mind that this idea of like okay well i'm a champion but was this the way he would have wanted it to be of course not like this thing that happened this when baler falls on him you asked last week about darren's dream right you're like well well we come back to that so here it is the dragon because what what darren said to dunk in episode four i dreamed of you a little exchange about how darren doesn't remember that he's already told dunk that i have seen you sir in a fire and a dead dragon a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow it had fallen on top of you be you were alive and the dragon was dead did i kill it that i could not say so does that dream also apply to other events in in the canon like that's always one of the fun things about dreams and prophecy but undeniably even if the answer is yes it fits other things it fits this and baler not only falling on dunk literalizing that moment but the idea of the shadow of the wings the idea of baler as a figure of such half yeah and consequence and that the shadow of his luck his death will be as big as the shadow of his life right like we've read the world of ice and fire quote before the first part of it if you could doubt the baler break spirit be a great king for he was the heart of chivalry and the soul of wisdom and came to serve his father most ably as hand part we hadn't read yet was but no man can know the will of the gods baler break spirit was cut down in his prime i like this is the best thing about author i have not read a word of george our marina so you've been in the wikis man you know i know i get i get it i get it i get it i'm gay mithroens is both a myth and then also a story of like happenstance and luck and and people accidentally walking in on a brother and sister humpen you know that's how happens to the best of us that's how fucking brain gets his third eye man you know that was real longing in your voice no i'm just saying that like you love the stuff about all the little things that happen to get dunk who is a squire for a hedge night to be the best friend of the pr of a prince and to be a night fighting against arian in a tournament with baler on his team think about all the little things that had to happen for that to happen but it was always gonna happen and it had to happen you know because he was gonna this is the ch1 true night i love that i also am so like as we talk about the way in which the story was rolled out which is a question you asked at the end of episode three like the aegon reveal you know we were talking about how you could sit down and read this novella in one sitting if you wanted to or when all of these episodes are available someone can just binge it but what's true for the people who are coming to the story for the first time watching it we for a week this is why i will always advocate for week to week is there's the ecstatic high that so many people felt at the end of last week's episode of like here comes mother fucking baler break spirit this guy i love this guy he's my new favorite eleventh so much way the hand of the king of the king he's gonna be fine and then one week later but they had a whole week of that and then one week later his brain falls out you know but that's like a candle open it looks right and wonderful from the top and you pick it up and you're like rotten oh no um you know i i need some tips i think on selecting fresh fruit from both of you two people who spend more time out in the world i i think that the ability that georgia our martin has and the throwing adaptations have to continue to give us this feeling even though we have now seen this type of thing a number of times you know the upper martell couldn't it's like i just one of the master strokes in the history of story and television this novella as we've mentioned a couple times was written in 98 so it came between the first a song of ice and fire novel and game of thrones and the second of clash kings which means that for george and just the the the great tapestry of his tailtelling baler is just after net in terms of the shock deaths like robin and cad and obran and johns spoilers um they're all later in terms of things that george will come up with baler's death is like an o g just as his declaration last week was like an o g kind of coaching treatment for george that influences a lot of what is to come for the people receiving it at home now you could be like immune to this having the kind of effect on you that i just thought that's why the show is good yeah because they played the orchestra right and he was yes he was for his limit amount of time on screen you were just like this is the guy this is the guy this is the one good guy and now this is this when we're in these meetings and and make cars like what the fuck are we talking about and like everybody else is being sort of rude he's nice and when when this guy is going to lose on a technicality he puts on his kids armor to step in and do something about it exactly and that kind of selflessness gets punished for the most part in and that's another thing george does george is what did you guys think to that point because we got a couple very deliberate and interesting lines from people on baler and dunk side kind of putting a little bit of a little bit of like a question out in the ether right the the king's guard gambit now we love is that so we love a gm we love a coach we love a player coach we love a five star recruit who will inse up on signing day but that question like is it honorable and then everything from the mad night everything lino says of like mother loved you best mother love you best oh this is also to this goes to the larger like the targarians the people can people feel like they can talk shit people feel like they can say something a little bit out of pocket about the targarians at this point no dragons be vigilant don't die that's what he said um she said it to himself in the mirror um can i know can i call out one thing uh we've been we've been noting like as we consider this show in the sort of game of thrones holo fame and we've talked about how this is like a smaller show and a smaller budget i want to shout out in this episode the clarity of the act like despite you know us having to rewind the tape a few times like you know what's happening with like arian and don't get you can see what's happening so like yeah i didn't have a doubt about like the main story of what's happening on the melee and the field as i was watching it that's important game of thrones hasn't always gotten that right for actually and then also want to shout out the sound design in this episode because there's this line in this section um where dunks says because we're only in dunks point of view and it's like he's got his helmet on there's mud in it whatever and it says the noise of the crowd was no more than the crash of distant waves and there's just these moments when you know dunks had his bell rung so many times and then arian's talking it almost sounds like a monster is talking his voice is all distorted um when the sound of the crowd comes in when the the whole crowd is shouting up up up you're rudy rudy like it's just it's great sound design stuff in this episode oh man excellent episode i'm very interested to see the aftermath of it because obviously we have a full episode of okay so that happened yeah um and also obviously like this is this episode sidelines dunk and eggs relationship into some extent it's been sideline for two episodes ever since the big reveal because egg is now a child again in in the sort of world traveling that shot when because everybody is like preparing for the trial and egg is standing there because he is his squad his dunk squire and he's holding the lands and he could not possibly look smaller than he looks at a moment a rapid quick change into the velvets and he's in the stand and he's a real look on really fast but I want to say that the brawn like yeah exactly and then he runs back but duster soul and cell like who's like pro and red who are like the only people in the team that just spoil something about a book that hasn't even been and we will talk about that in the spoiler section of our podcast i promise you but it was a big deal uh we will talk about that but he did like he so dope i mean that happens i don't did you see the books bro did you see the video of it that because like i didn't i didn't see the video but i heard that peter claffly was like try to jump on a grid i will just say that they were on a talk show and whatever they were doing on the talk show they were making puppets so they're sitting there making puppets peter has like a puppet on his hand as he's going like this it's like one of the best it's got a big spoiler at it but it's one of the best videos i've ever seen he don't mind there hasn't even been like written yet right right but it's a future of these characters okay so if you don't want to know what happens to these characters don't watch maybe watch it with the sound off yeah just see peter do this with a hand puppet it's great um man oh you know on the they they were kind of separated they they are yes but i like that we still got little moments like the the exchange about you know if you try to rob me and like i'll hunt you down with dogs like they have inside jokes now you know great chemistry it's the the shared language of a relationship formed in terms of relationships formed to another it's literally a sentence but bailer saying about his like my brother's mace mo most like and smiling in everybody right before he's about to drop dead with his brain sloshing to the floor saying of his brother he's strong like he's proud there you go i'm sure my girl be psyched about that we died complimenting me so obviously make her probably wouldn't be psyched about that okay so next week the finale same time same place and though come back next year all right fine yeah great you solved it that's on tv works now sometimes now thank you to Joanna thank you to Mallory please listen to how i've already go much more in depth about the books about places to the watch watch yeah we do our we do our homework on that show right before the show starts um and we'll be back with you next week for the finale of season 1 of dide of santa kingdoms