‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 1 Deep Dive

Summary

House of R – ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 1 Deep Dive

Podcast: House of R, The Ringer
Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson
Episode Date: January 22, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson return to Westeros with a signature scene-by-scene deep dive into the Series Premiere of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’. Adapting George R.R. Martin’s beloved ‘Dunk & Egg’ novellas, the show shifts the tone and scale of ‘Game of Thrones’ media, focusing on intimacy, humility, and the meaning of knighthood against a backdrop of legendary myth and hard-hitting reality. The hosts examine the show’s faithfulness, tone, characters, and the adaptation’s surprising choices, while constantly drawing throughlines to the broader world of Westeros and the legacy of the source material.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Podcast Structure & Spoiler Policy

• Spoiler safe and accessible for non-book readers until a clearly marked section at the end.
• Scene-by-scene deep dive (“beat by beat, each individual loogie the plumber hawked will get its individual analysis” — Mallory, 34:09).

2. Personal Context – Grief and Fandom

• [05:14-10:06] Mallory shares heartfelt words on losing her cat, Halo, who has long been a part of her Thrones experience.
• She underscores the community’s power to provide comfort in grief, relating pet loss, fandom, and comfort watching:
  “I just feel, like, so heartbroken, and my home and life, like, just feel empty without him, honestly.” — Mallory [06:20]
  “Thrones is… the world I visited the most with him.” [08:30]

3. Source Material & Adaptational Context

• [11:17-15:04]
  The series adapts the “Dunk & Egg” tales:
  • Season 1 adapts “The Hedge Knight” (1998)
  • Season 2 (now filming) will adapt “The Sworn Sword” (2003)
  • Hopes for “The Mystery Knight” (2010) in Season 3 and beyond
• Novellas focus on Dunk’s POV, providing a tighter, more personal narrative than sprawling ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.
• George R.R. Martin’s involvement: Notably more enthusiastic with this adaptation, aiming for faithfulness, and sharing new Dunk & Egg stories are ‘in his fucking head’.

  “The bulk of this pod is a spoiler free spoiler safe experience... We are providing context and insights.” — Mallory [02:25]

4. Martin and Showrunners — Cycles of Approval and Frustration

• [15:04-18:04]
• Joanna breaks down Martin’s repeated pattern: initial support, eventual frustration as adaptation realities conflict with George’s vision (e.g., with House of the Dragon’s Ryan Condal).

  "Martin wants [his stories] adapted as faithfully as possible… not everything in George’s imagination can be adapted 1:1.” — Joanna [16:11]

• Hope for a harmonious, small-scale adaptation this time: “Ira [Parker] has shown he wants to adapt this story very faithfully.” — Joanna, [17:16]

5. Why Adapt Novellas?

• [21:17-22:33]
• Both find that novellas are uniquely good for adaptation: fleshed out, but tight enough to be adapted largely intact, with dialogue often lifted right to screen.

  "Novellas and short stories... have always been a really interesting place to go. So here we are." — Joanna [21:33]

6. Initial Reactions: Reception, Tone & Stakes

• [22:33-33:57]
• Both hosts loved the premiere. They praise the show's assured sense of self, charm, and the balance between hope and Thrones darkness.
• Mallory: “The show knows what it is and what it wants to be. How meta!”
• Critics are high on the premiere, audience reception more mixed (based on imperfect metrics), but both think it’ll catch on as the season builds.
• The scale: “It's a tidy, tight little tale... a bite-sized, zippy experience.” — Mallory [26:23]
• The tone is humble, grounded, and self-aware, subverting typical Game of Thrones expectations (see: poop joke/tourneys).

7. Thematic Focus: What Does It Mean to Be a Knight?

• [29:07-31:41]
• Central question: “What makes a knight a knight?”
• Joanna compares Dunk to Samwise Gamgee: “There was this Samwise energy to him. I just love that.”
• Ties to hero myths, truth versus legend (Harrenhal, Ashford Meadow, etc.).

8. Historic & Worldbuilding Context

• [33:57-39:01]
• Timeline: 209 AC — ~80 years after House of the Dragon, almost 100 years before Game of Thrones.
• No dragons remain, but their absence is still new in living memory.
• Reach tourneys are significant for bringing together many houses in one place and for myth-making.

  “What a time to be a sigil spotter!” — Mallory [27:22]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

Joanna on the show’s tone and approach

"The fact that this is built on [the] DNA [of Brienne and Jaime] and there are so many allusions and references... there was no way I wasn’t gonna love this." — [24:41]

On Adaptation Choices

"The departures from the very faithful adaptation are adding, pulling up, expanding... What if we took somebody like Lionel Baratheon... and gave you one of the most memorable scenes?" — Mallory [21:46]

On Dunk’s Humility

"A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword." — Mallory quotes from the novella [59:07]

On the Show’s Fresh POV

"What Dunk says here for all the threats to beat Egg… is, 'Be glad Thunder didn’t kick you in that fool head of yours. He’s a war horse, not a boy’s pony.' Not 'I’ll hurt you,' but 'You could have gotten hurt.'" — Joanna [74:11]

On What a Hedge Knight Is

"A hedge knight is the truest kind of knight." — from Ser Arlan via Dunk; see also:
"It's like a knight but sadder." — Red (the sex worker) [97:14-97:16]

On Lionel Baratheon's Impact

"He wants to regale his assembled guests with a tale, but they won’t stay quiet… so he calls them all cunts. Again, Thrones." — Mallory [124:31]

On the Focal Partnership

"So the luck is ours alone." (as Dunk and Egg see the falling star) — Egg [145:18]

On Worldbuilding Fun

“What a time to be a sigil spotter!” — Mallory [79:19]

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Scene-by-Scene Breakdown — Major Segments & Timestamps

1. Opening: Loss, Grief, and the Hedge Knight’s First Steps

• [44:12] Dunk buries Ser Arlan — a moment blending tenderness, insecurity (“He doesn’t know the right words”), and humor (the too-shallow grave).
• [48:53] Early flashbacks establish Dunk’s doubt and desire to do right, while highlighting the show’s playful use of memory.

2. The Road to Ashford – Building the “Everyman” Fantasy

• [64:02] Mallory notes how Dan Romer’s music evokes humble, brawling, “middle-class music” — the Westerosi road trip, chicken in hand, mead in horn, hopeful heart swelling.

3. The Inn at the Crossroads & Meeting Egg

• [68:39] Chance encounters and playful dialogue (“I could if I wanted”), paired with discussion of class, power, and smallfolk perspectives.
• [72:36] Introduction of a mysterious, sandy-blond drunk (Darren) foreshadows “dreaming” and Targaryen prophecy.

4. The Tourney at Ashford Meadow – World of Sigils & Banners

• [78:19] (sigil-spotting and house-spotting)
• [81:22] Noting the change in setting from council halls to the open, populist tourney world.

5. Lionel Baratheon & The Marvelous Pavilion

• [115:08] The Laughing Storm’s early introduction “adds energy and charisma… just breathtaking” (Mallory).
• Daniel Ings’s performance likened to “Jack Sparrow mixed with Ernest Hemingway.”
• [120:28] Examination of Baratheon history, antler décor, and crown symbolism; the role of myth and history in Westeros.

6. Dunk’s Humility and Aspirations Examined

• [127:48] Dunk's posture — “Where I grew up, you learned to go unnoticed is all. The seven above gave you tallness. So be tall.”
• [130:28] “Within every man there are many men.” — Lionel Baratheon.
  • “Gorgeous. It’s original to the show. It’s so good.” — Joanna

7. Companionship Forged — The Squire, the Star, and Names

• [136:27] Egg’s persistent return, the naming scene (“Short for Duncan? … Sir Duncan the Tall.”)
• [140:19] Discussion of Dunk’s unknown lineage, choosing his own name and identity — thematically linking to Brienne and her family sigil.

8. Endnote: Stars, Luck, and Shared Destiny

• [144:49] “The luck is ours alone” — a powerful reworking of Dunk’s inner monologue from the novella, now a mutual affirmation as his life with Egg begins.

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Notable Running Gags, Tangents, and “Signature” House of R Moments

• The “will there be boobs?” running joke [124:24, 137:21]
• Sigil-spotting and house history tangents: loving shoutouts to the Reach, House Beesbury, and the orange Ashford banners [78:19-79:07; 81:39]
• Joanna’s personal medieval re-enactment stories, providing quirky, nerd-cred context for the tourney scenes [65:52]
• Multiple Padraic/Brienne callbacks, always “knitted together, inextricable, always there” [133:48]

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Book Spoiler Look-Ahead (from [146:23]):

[SKIP this for show-only viewers!]

• Dunk’s true knighthood status is left ambiguous — likely not truly knighted by Ser Arlan.
• Egg’s identity as Aegon Targaryen (future King Aegon V) — still a ‘mystery’ in the show, but crystal clear in all related lore.
• Darren the Drunkard — explicitly a Targaryen and a dragon dreamer; his prophetic dream foreshadows coming tragedy.
• Lionel Baratheon’s expanded role sets up parallels with Dunk’s legend and future events, eventually becoming his father-in-law.
• Brienne’s sigil traced back to Dunk (“elm and shooting star”), further cementing the Brienne/Dunk connection.
• Long-term hope/plan: if the show continues, it could eventually lead to the Summerhall tragedy — a holy grail for book fans.

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Final Thoughts

• Both hosts are “thrilled” and “excited” by the adaptation’s heart, faithfulness, tone, and focus on character-driven myth.
• Hopes are high the wider Thrones fandom will embrace this vibrant, gentler, and more contained Westerosi story as it unfolds.
• “So the luck is ours alone” — a phrase tying together hope, companionship, and resilience: “Find your edge in the thing you lack. Classic wear it like armor idea.” — Mallory [145:49]

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Navigation Guide

Mallory’s heartfelt loss & fandom context: [05:14–10:06]
Source Materials and Spoiler Policy: [11:17–14:01]
Show Reactions, Novella Discussion: [22:33–33:57]
Tourney/Sigil Spotting, Worldbuilding: [78:19–81:39]
Lionel Baratheon introduction: [115:08–120:28]
Profound quotes on identity, knighthood, and luck: [130:28, 136:27, 144:49]
Book Spoilers Section: [146:23-end]

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For First-Timers:

• This episode offers an engaging guide to the heart of both the new show and the Dunk & Egg novellas.
• Fans of Brienne, Padraic, and the more “everyday hero” side of Westeros will especially enjoy these threads.
• Essential listening for catching references, symbolism, and larger connections in the Thrones universe.

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Memorable Closing Lines:

“Will there be boobs? Will we see boobs?” — (Mallory & Joanna, various times)
“So the luck is ours alone.” — Egg [145:18]
“Within every man there are many men.” — Lionel Baratheon [130:28]
“The women at the Ringer are tall.” — Joanna, tying fandom and story together [139:04, 128:01]

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome to House of R, a ringer verse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin joining me today now that she's had a profound thought. If anyone would care to listen, it's the biggest Lionel Baratheon fan we know. Joanna Robinson.

[B]

That's me.

[A]

It is. Had to start with a Lionel reference for you. Thank you. It was the only way. We are here to dive deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep into the season premiere of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. And we will do that right after this. This episode is brought to you by Walt Disney World Resort, the most magical place on earth where you can go into hyperspace in the Millennium Falcon, ride past hitchhiking ghosts in the Haunted Mansion, and shrink to the size of Andy's toys in Toy Story Land. There are infinite worlds that you can experience and it's all all in one place. Walt Disney world Resort. Visit disneyworld.com to learn more and discover a world of magic this summer across all four theme parks.

[C]

This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Without Internet, you wouldn't be able to hear my beautiful voice right now. And businesses wouldn't be able to stay connected the way they need. What if I told you that business owners can get free business Internet advantage forever? When you add four or more mobile lines, Spectrum Business keeps you connected seamlessly with Internet, advanced WI fi, phone, TV and mobile services, all in packages tailored to your business budget. No contracts, no added fees. All you have to do to find out how you can get free Spectrum business Internet [e-mail] freeforlife. That's where you go. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

[A]

Okay, we're here. We're back in Westeros. Before we get to it, let's quickly refresh on how we do this. How do we cover a Game of Thrones? Television shows?

[B]

The cornucopia of content that we have available.

[A]

Sunday night. Yes, Talk the Thrones.

[B]

Wow. With candles.

[A]

There are candles.

[B]

Tapestries, like mini crowns. Love that for us.

[A]

Some dragon eggs. And of course, most importantly of all, Chris Ryan.

[B]

The best set deck of all, Chris R. It's true.

[A]

It's true. Talk to Thrones will be available immediately after every episode of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. And then we will be here in the house of R for our deep dives, typically end of the night on Tuesdays. Those will be available for you to begin consuming in full. We were a little delayed this week. Appreciate everybody's patience. The watch. Checking in on Mondays. The midnight boys. Pew, pew. Checking in on Mondays. Check out what Riley McAtee is writing on theringer.com, what a great website. As always, we are all thrilled to be back in a land of ice and fire. Spoiler warning. Let's refresh on how we handle that as well. Yeah, the bulk of this pod is a spoiler free spoiler safe experience. We of course incorporate book quotes and book materials and we will shortly refresh everybody on what we are adapting here what Ira Parker and co are adapting here as we go because we're providing context and insights. But anything that happens in the future of the novella, we're not going to be talking about it until the end of the podcast in a book spoiler look ahead section and there will be a warning. I don't know what Carlos has in mind this time.

[B]

Will it be flashy?

[A]

Loud sirens? Something that terrifies people as they're driving?

[B]

Drop a sponge while you're doing your dishes sort of moment?

[A]

Probably. Perhaps you will be warned before we get into the book spoiler section. Everything until then is safe, hospitable, hopefully entertaining and informative space.

[B]

Yeah, bread and salt for everyone.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That always goes fine. Joanna.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

How can everybody follow along?

[B]

What a great question. So glad you asked me. Listen, why don't you just subscribe to the podcast?

[A]

It's a great idea.

[B]

What does that mean? You can listen to it. That's something that people still do with podcasts sometimes. Or you can watch it. We're on YouTube. We're on Spotify. There's a number of places where you can listen to us. Subscribe to our social channels. There'll be breakouts from Talk the Thrones from House of R throughout the season for you to check out on TikTok or Instagram or wherever you get your social media. We are not in charge of you. You can do what you want and then email us.

[A]

Yes, the inbox is open.

[B]

Hobbits and even though there are none in this show dragonsmail.com hobbitsanddragonsmail.com so you're not updating the inbox to hobbits and puppet gmail.com no. As much as I love a puppet, that's just a little it doesn't really roll trippingly off the tongue the way that hobbits and dragons do.

[A]

Okay, the inbox is the same. The inbox is open. Thank you for your emails for this pod and we look forward to hearing from everybody throughout the entire we love the Bhad Babies season. We do. We love the Bhad Bhabies Anything else on the programming reminders front, spoiler warning front. How to follow, how to email. Anything else?

[B]

I don't think so. You know, our release cadence will be what it is around it.

[A]

Yeah, we're figuring some things out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, we're figuring some things out. I guess I'll explain why. Yeah, I'll try. Forgive me. Be patient with me. We lost our cat Halo, a few days ago. And, you know, anybody who knows us, but also anybody who knows us through the pods, who has listened over the years knows that Halo was the most important thing in my life and the most important thing in our family and in our lives for me and for Adam. And, you know, we are honestly just, like, shattered and devastated and really, like, struggling. We're having a really hard time, and we're struggling to cope, and I needed a little more time before coming in to do this today. And I appreciate everybody's patience, and, like, I wanted to try to come do the POD today because, like, for a few reasons, I just don't, like, anticipate a day anytime soon where I feel fine and good. You know, I just feel, like, so heartbroken, and my home and life, like, just feel empty without him, honestly.

[B]

And.

[A]

You know, we've heard one of the things we really have talked about a lot with each other and have found, like, such gratitude for is the people we've heard from over the years who have reached out to us.

[B]

To.

[A]

Tell us that, like, when they're going through something hard or painful in their lives, the pod has given them some joy and, like, a brief little reprieve from the grief. And, you know, I thought maybe I'll try that. Like, maybe I'll try to pull myself out of my despair for even just a couple hours. And, you know, I just ask everybody's, like, forgiveness. I don't think I'm at my best today. This is not gonna be my best podcast. But, you know, I wanted to try. And, like, I also just, you know, I posted about Hale on Instagram, and, like, I was just so touched to hear from so many of the bad babies and the Bingeheads about how, like, they loved him from afar and they felt like they knew him from, you know, hearing me talk about him so much over the years. And so I wanted to, like, be here to share in all of this with you and with everybody, like, because of that. And, you know, Thrones is, like, we talk a lot about how, like, we love sharing this world together. We love sharing these stories together and with other people who love them. Too. And like, you know, Halo was 16 and a half years old and Adam and I had him for 13 years. And the fictional universe that I visited with him in my life the most often, without question, was Game of Thrones. I rewatched the show and seasons and seasons and seasons and seasons of the show so many times with him curled up in my arm nook or on my lap, cuddled up on the couch with him under a blanket. I reread the book so many times with him cuddled up, cozied up with me and, you know, talking about Thrones over the years, I would talk about him all the time. Like, when I would talk about Jon and Ghost and that relationship, I would always bring up Halo, something that I used to love to do. Even like going back to the Grantland days when we would do the weekly, like Game of Thrones pre caps, pick a little thing to highlight. Like, I would just love taking pictures of him with my favorite Game of Thrones merch. And I have so many pictures of him with like my direwolf pups or a little ghost Funko pop or, you know, I would have a full size sword and we would get, we would get him. He's like a little letter of a mini sword. And, you know, I just, I just loved sharing this world with him as I loved sharing everything with him. And this is Night of the Seven Kingdoms is the last show I watched with him. You know, it's the last show I watched with him. And the novella, the Hedge Knight novella is the last thing I reread with him still with me. And so, like, it just felt important to. Even though I am just a complete wreck and just like a hollow husk, it felt important to me to like, try to be here today and to thank everybody for their kindness and for loving him and recognizing what a beautiful, special soul he was. And, you know, I could like, talk about him until the breath left my body and never find a way to like, fully articulate what he meant to me. So, yeah, just thank you to everybody and I miss him terribly.

[B]

So I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad I got to meet Halo.

[A]

Same.

[B]

It's very, very special. And something that our listeners talk about all the time when they write in is how much they relate to how much you. How deeply you care and how passionate you are about things. And this is just a perfect manifestation of how open your heart is.

[A]

Thank you, pal.

[B]

And we love you. We're so glad you're here. But also, I know that Everyone is very understanding for whatever time you need to.

[A]

So I appreciate it. Just like, yeah, we'll get to the hype draft eventually. I needed a beat before we did that, and I absolutely.

[B]

Buffy will be here when we get to her, but. Yeah. I love you.

[A]

I love you, too. All right, I'm gonna go wipe my eyes, and then we'll resume. Okay, we're back.

[B]

We're back.

[A]

And we're gonna try to make a podcast. And we're gonna start.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With the opening snapshot. Joanna Mallory. If anybody did not watch Talk the Thrones.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

If anybody did not consume our. If memory serves, 5 total hours of trailer breakdown podcasting.

[B]

Normal. Fine. Very normal.

[A]

For us. It's normal. What is the television series A Night of a Seven Kingdoms based on?

[B]

These are the Tales of Duncan Egg, as. As they're more, you know, colloquially referred to. Three novellas.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So far.

[A]

So far.

[B]

Asterisk the Hedge Knight came out in 1998, and that's what this season of television is. Is the adaptation of the first novella, the Hedge Knight. Yes. Sworn Sword, which they are currently filming. Season two is gonna be the Sworn Sword that came out in 2003. And then the Mystery Knight is the third novella, hopefully the third season, if all goes well, which was published in 2010. So three novellas, at least three seasons. Knock on this particle board. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[A]

Knock on this wood.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

This appeared to be wood. Yeah. Every day I check on the Internet and I wait for casting news for season two. Sword and Sword. Like, who will be playing Bennis of the Brown Shield? I stand by my. My suggestion from years ago.

[B]

David Tennant.

[A]

Let's get David Tennant in there to play Bennis. Why not?

[B]

You know, increasingly, I'm. I'm of your. Of your mindset. You're a very convincing and influential person.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you. The novellas, like the show, rooted in Dunk's point of view.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We're not moving as we are in the A Song of Ice and Fire primary book series through dozens and dozens.

[B]

Of narrators and increasingly sprawling and unwieldy points of view.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We are rooted.

[A]

We are rooted in this relationship between Dunk and Agan and Dunk's perspective on the world. George says as recently as the Hollywood Reporter cover story that came out last week, that he's writing more.

[B]

He's working on it.

[A]

Here is what George told James Hubbard. The big issue is that I have only written three novellas and I have a lot more stories about Dunk and Egg in my fucking head. Martin says, looking a bit shame faced. That actually made me really sad. George, we believe in you. I've got to get them down on paper. I began writing two at various points of the past year. One is set in Winterfell and one set in the Riverlands. Well, that's thrilling.

[B]

That's so exciting.

[A]

He's talked over the years about like, I've got 12 at least Dunkin Egg tales that I wanna tell.

[B]

And we know, at least historically, sort of like, how far in the future this could go. We won't be talking about specifics until the book spoiler section, but, like, we know a logical endpoint to these stories and it would be so cool if the TV show could get there. It would be really, really cool.

[A]

Thrilling.

[B]

I've been saying for years, george, put down Winds of Winter. It's not working for you. Why don't you just, like, loosen the jar with some Dunkin Egg, get those juices flowing and then maybe you come back to Winds of Winter. But probably he won't. But, like, why not all?

[A]

Why not all of it? I'm with you. I would love to just get some new Dunkin Egg tales, especially now that we've seen how faithful this adaptation is in a really wonderful way. To have more canonical source material for Ira Parker and co to adapt and develop, I think would just be, like, wonderful. And one of my hopes. We're gonna talk shortly here about our initial opinions of the show, the overall kind of reception to the show so far. My hope is that because I think we both agreed on that and we've said it over the years and there's a little bit of a. Like, maybe this is a strawman point. I don't know, but there's like a little bit of a. How dare you even put that out into the world. Wins. Wins, Wins. My hope is that once everybody sees how wonderful Undy of the Seven Kingdoms is and more people fall in love with Dunk and Egg, maybe there would be like a wider embr. That said, book readers have loved Dunk and Egg since minute one.

[B]

These are hugely popular.

[A]

These novellas are adored.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So I think everybody who has read the stories would be thrilled to get more and maybe the wider Thrones fandom will invest in and embrace this show and then just be excited to have more of it. Anything else on that Hollywood Reporter piece that you want to hit before we move on?

[B]

I just want to talk quickly about this sort of cycle that George seems to be going through with his relationship to the people adapting his work because though he was not quite as vocal with it, things got a little chilly with Weiss and Benioff and co at the end of Game of Thrones. Between George and the folks behind that show, he has gotten quite frank and public about his parting of the ways with Ryan Condal. But if you'll remember, when House of the Dragon started, he was like, now.

[A]

Ryan gets it and is like, my chosen guy.

[B]

Ryan is my guy, and this is it. And now he's like, Ryan out. Ira Parker in Right. So this just seems to be sort of like a cyclical thing where and. And it's the same issue seems to be coming up again and again. This is a quote from the same piece George said, then we got into season two about working with Ryan on House of the Dragon. He says, then we got into season two and he basically stopped listening to me. I would give notes. Nothing would happen. Sometimes he would explain why he wasn't doing it. Other times he would tell me, oh, okay, yeah, I'll think about that. It got worse and worse, and I began to get more and more annoyed. Finally, it got to a point where I was told by HBO that I should submit all my notes to them and they would give Ryan our combined notes. So George has a very specific POV of how he wants his books to be adapted, and he wants them to be adapted as faithfully as possible. What Weiss and Benioff and Ryan Condal are struggling with is that not everything that exists in the imagination of George R.R. martin will be legible in a TV show. It's just like, you cannot adapt it one to one. George, rightly so, is, like, very married to his own vision. And so then there becomes this parting of the ways of, like, what is functional, what is within the concept of, like, a budget. Have you heard of it? You know, like, what can we do? And what is part of George's imagination? What I'm really hopeful for for this project is that the scope is so small for at least these three novellas. Like, these are very contained stories. We are telling about the tourney at Ashford Meadow, right? And Ira Parker has talked about already about season two and how he's like, we don't have a bigger budget for season two. We're just making do with what we have. And that's first of all, like, necessity being the mother invention when it comes to sort of film and television is always really exciting for me. When you have constraints on your budget, people get really creative, which is very exciting. And then also, I don't think there will be as much of an opportunity for George to be like. But I have this huge thing envisioned in my mind because these are very like, small, humble stories. That's the nature of them. And so I'm hopeful that Ira, who clearly has shown that he wants to adapt this story very faithfully and it's not the kind of story that will be impossible to adapt very faithfully, that we will have a copacetic relationship between George and the show going forward. That's what everyone. Everyone wants George to be happy.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Everyone wants us to have a good time at home. And everyone wants these showrunners to not feel like they have impossible tasks. So I'm really hopeful for this project. Me too. I also still really supportive of Ryan Condal in House of the Dragon. Like, I'm really excited for House of the Dragon season three.

[A]

I think House of the Dragon season three is gonna be a banger. You know, House of the Dragon, I mean, even compared obviously with Thrones, we went off book at some point and that was a quagmire of historic proportions. And, you know, I think there were some post book moments like Winds of Winter, the season six finale is like my favorite episode of television ever. It was possible to achieve something great. Obviously, A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, the second episode of the final season, is an episode that both cherish and adore inside of a season of television and a conclusion of a series that is still one of the great wounds in our collective hearts and psyches, which is the end of Thrones is a genuine shame. Still, adapting Fire and Blood, it's a challenge even compared to the other challenges. This idea of the competing narrators, we're not going to spend long on this because that's not what we're here to talk about today. But it is an. It's an enviable task because getting to make a Thrones show seems fucking cool. But it's an unenviable task because, like, there's not such a clear roadmap. And this idea of like, well, part of the mission of the television show is to say here's actually the thing. Yeah, it feels in hindsight maybe inevitable that we got to this point, but I agree, it's really a shame. And you know, like, one of my favorite T shirts is in the Thrones font. Like, that wasn't in the books. You know, I'm obviously like, my, my, yeah. Instinct is like, the source material is precious for a reason and let's adapt it faithfully. I think we both agree that faithful is still a pretty big word. And it doesn't necessarily mean letter to letter, word to word. It's about the spirit of it and understanding the heart of it.

[B]

I think what's also true is that it's so interesting when George R.R. martin is self aware and when he's not. Yeah, but. And there are many ways in which he is, like, self aware of his own foibles, and we all have foibles, whatever. But, like, the fact that he can't connect. The fact that, uh, oh, this story has gotten so sprawling that I'm having a hard time writing Winds of Winter and Weiss and Benioff saying, hey, man, you've done this whole side plot with, like, Lady Stoneheart or Fake Aegon or whatever the case may be, and we can't go down that path because we need to keep it focused. And it's like, actually, George probably should have kept his story a bit more focused. And if he had, maybe Winds of Winter wouldn't be such a big lift for him. You know what I mean? And I'm sorry for the Lady Stoneheart. I mean, I wanted Lady Stoneheart. I wanted Lady Stoneheart.

[A]

Sorry for Lady Stoneheart. I sat on pot after pot, and I was like, give me young Griff. But yes, there is a reality to making a show. And it's tough because my heart, I feel such empathy and tenderness toward George, especially because of the way Thrones ended, which I think obviously is like a source of ptsd. Then for all adaptations that follow, undeniably, absolutely not to. It just seems impossible that the reaction to what's happening with Hot D isn't informed by the end of Thrones. I mean, he's saying as much. Right. So to continue to have the work adapted invites the continuation of this feeling, and that's, like, a pretty thorny thing. I'm thrilled that we continue to get Game of Thrones adaptations, and I want us to, you know, with intention and methodically continue to expand and build in the world.

[B]

I'm. I'm just really excited for novellas as a source material because I've said for years and years and years that novellas are some of the best things to adapt because they're flesh. You know, there's great dialogue that's just airlifted directly from the page into the show.

[A]

Yes, quite a bit.

[B]

There's a little room to play and expand, but you're not massively cutting things in order to make it work on the screen. So, like, novellas and short stories, I think, have always been like, A really interesting place to go. And so here we are.

[A]

Yeah, this first episode is such an interesting little microcosm of that, where the departures from the very faithful adaptation are adding, pulling up, expanding, rather than saying we needed to call, we needed to clip, we needed to cheat. We don't have room for this big moment or this relationship. It's, well, what if we took somebody like Lyonel Baratheon, who is a figure of consequence in the story and gave you one of the most memorable scenes in Game of Thrones history? Episodes before book, readers would have expected to spend time with that character. So let's get into just the. The table setting. Like a little amuse bouche again, if anybody didn't hear us talk about this already on Talk of the Thrones, or they did and they're back for more. Sickos, we love you. What did you think of this first episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? As a lover of the novellas and a lover of the story, I loved it.

[B]

I absolutely loved it. I'm so excited for this season of television. It's been interesting to me to hear. I expected that everyone who watched it would love it, and that hasn't been the case necessarily. The critics are all really high on it. The general audience is a little bit more mixed, and that's fine. People are allowed to have their opinions. But I actually, like. I was like, if people give it a chance.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I think this is so winning, so charming, and maybe it'll just take a couple more episodes for it to get there for people. Or maybe it won't get there for people, but I just. I loved it. The Hedge Night, written by Ira Parker, directed by Owen Harris. Owen Harris directed your favorite episode of Black Mirror, San Junipero. San Junipero. He also directed Holy Flying Circus, which is a Monty Python documentary. And you can just like, really feel the Monty Python influence inside of this. Like, a lot of the stuff that's additive is, like, quite silly. And. And I, I enjoyed that.

[A]

Like, Ashford chair hive. Rise.

[B]

I often.

[A]

Yeah, rise lower.

[B]

Rise to be lowered off that spike. I often have a bit of an allergic reaction to stuff that's too doofy. And I just thought this really walked the line. I really, really loved it. I think also that idea of to do more with less budgetarily is really important to find your tone. Yes, we talked about this a bit in the trailer. Sandwiched between these two giants of House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, what is the tone for this more humble show? Is it dramatically shitting, literally on the Game of Thrones theme, perhaps, but just sort of like, it feels so consistent and assured in what it's doing, despite the fact that Ira Parker is, you know, quite new to this role inside of this world. Yeah. And we can get into this a little bit more. But, like, I'm so excited in terms of, like, what's here at the beginning and what we'll be tracking throughout. I really am excited to talk about the brand of Tarth thread. This is something that readers have been well aware of for a very long time. But Bran and. And actually, it's not just Bran Brienne and Jamie, for sure.

[A]

Both of them.

[B]

Yeah. And Podrick are so present inside of this episode and so present inside of this story. And. And I mean, I don't know about you, that's my favorite. Yeah. It's the best part of Game of Thrones is Jamie and Bran. And so the fact that this is, like, built on that DNA and there are so many allusions and references and moments to it is just absolutely. There was no way I wasn't gonna love this. And also, one last thing I wanna say then, back to you in the studio, but, like, back to you.

[A]

It's fun to say back to you in the studio.

[B]

And we're just in the studio. But, like, I have there. There are sometimes when I feel, like, positively high when I hear a creator talk about something and I'm like, that's exactly what I got. When I heard Ira Parker say his inspiration for the dance scene in this episode was. Was Fiddler on the Roof, I like, levitated because I was like, that's. That's what it was. It was like. It was l'. Chaim. It was the Bottle dance. Like, it was just like. Like, he just tapped into one of the, like, best movie musical moments that has ever existed and just, like, gave that emotion to me. And I felt like on cloud nine. So I said Fiddler before he said Fiddler, but when he said it, I felt seen and heard, known and understood.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. I'm with you, man. I thought that this first episode was wonderful. I, like you, adore these novellas. They're among my favorite things that George has written. They're among my favorite aspects of life in Westeros. Duncan Egg are characters I adore. Some of the other characters who we will be meeting in this season of television and in subsequent seasons of television are, I think, among the most indelible creations of George's. And I'm excited to share that with more people. I think that the Tone, like you said, just like nailing.

[B]

I love that you use the word.

[A]

Assured because that feels really not just right, but crucial. Like the show knows what it not only is, but what it wants to be. First of all, how meta. There's this aspect of like, well, what is my place in the world for Dunk and for a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? Like, what is my place in this larger Thrones tapestry? And I think that my hope is that more people over the coming weeks. I mean it's only six weeks. This episode was in the 42 minute range. Most of them are going to be half hour shorter. You know, it's a bite sized, zippy experience. If you load up the audiobook or you load the novella on your Kindle or you buy, or you buy a.

[B]

Book from the store, it's going to.

[A]

Take you three hours. Like, this is a tidy, tight little tale and it is wonderful. And so the scale, not only in terms of scale and scope of the text that is being adapted, but like of the setting. You know, we talked on Talk to Thrones with Kris about like what tourneys represent in Westeros and it's a chance to prove yourself right and work your name into song and earn some coin or maybe risk some coin. But also like the fact that we have the hands tourney early in season one of Game of Thrones. We have Viserys tourney for his heir at the beginning of House of the Dragon. We have the great tourney at Harrenhal as this like fabled elemental event that sparks with Rhaegar and Lyanna, sparks Robert's Rebellion. Like these are meaningful places for characters to gather and they're huge in our consciousness when we think about Thrones. But it's also a way to shrink and say we are in one place and we are focused around one throne. And it is a tidy, handy way to get a bunch of people sigil spotting. What a time to be a sigil spotter. Right? Just right here as Dunk is scanning the banners out in the tourney field in the pavilions. It is a way to bring so many people into the fold while still anchoring us and rooting us in Ashford Meadow. Here we are, this moment, this place. So I love that, that tone of the hopeful nature of the story while still being quite intense because it's a Game of Thrones story, right? But this idea of like what is on offer to us through a relationship like the one that we're starting to see forge here between Dunk and Egg, you know, this odd couple pairing. One of the things that I've really liked hearing Ira Parker talk about, about, like, his draw, not only to making this show, to adapting this story, but, like, what he's loved most about Thrones, you know, he will often cite in his interviews or, like, the Comic Con panel and stuff like that. Aryan the Hound or Pottery. Like, he loves these duos, these surprising relationships that forge. Right. We love. We're talking heads. We love to talk about, like, a chance meeting, right, at an inn at the Crown Church. I mean, talk about extremely our shit. So all of that is here, this idea of, like, looking at something like a key question inside of this first episode, surely in this season, in the novella, as we know, what makes a knight a knight? Like, what is a knight? What does it mean to be a knight? You know, what does it mean to be a true knight? What does it mean to be a hedge knight? Where are the parallels? Where are the diversions? It's just such a thematically rich story. And to pair that then with the charm and the heart and the humor that was imbued in this first episode, I think was such, like, a smashing start to a world that I was really eager to see brought to the screen. And I hope that as if there are people out there who are like, maybe this is a little, like, smaller than I want out of Thrones or goofier than I want out of Thrones, that as, like, word of mouth continues to spread and build and episode after episodes comes out and, like, we just move through the plot of this first tale that by the end, more people are like, I could catch up in this in a hurry. And I'm back and it becomes like.

[B]

A. I think this will have, like, a mid season, like, and I think that, like, so without spoiling anything, a tagline for the show is a tall tale that became a legend, right? And so, like. And inside of this episode, we watch Dunk go from Dunk to Duncan the Tall, get his name from Lyonel or from Aegon. How else will his sort of, like, identity be formed by his experience here? And there's attorney at Ashford Meadow. Like, what will the tourney of Ashford Meadow become?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When we think about when we hear the stories of the tourney at Harrenhal, like, they're. They're mythic, they're fabled. There are mystery nights. There's just, like, all this sort of stuff going on. But what was the truth? What was the humble truth of what happened there? And that's sort of like what House the dragon has tried to, like, get to is like, what is the truth behind the mythos?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so, like, what. Who is Dunk actually? Who becomes Duncan the Tall, who becomes whatever. Right. Like, who was he? He was a. We got a ton of emails from listeners, like, many emails from them comparing him to Samwise Gamgee, which from the Bhad babies. I think there's, like, no higher compliments, but there was this, like, Samwise energy to him, and I just love that. This idea that, like, Duncan the Tall and Samwise Gamgee and like, that those realities can coexist inside of the story is just very exciting.

[A]

Peter Klaffey bringing Dunk to life in so good, such an instantly memorable way. The cast is electric.

[B]

Really, really good.

[A]

Dexter is a just sensational egg. It's just fun to see these characters brought to life. You mentioned that the larger reception, critically, quite positive so far. Little bit of a dip in the reception among the audience, at least based on the very imperfect metrics out there on rotten tomatoes or IMDb or whatever the case may be to hit at the ringer.

[B]

We love it. That's fun.

[A]

It's always fun when the ringer hive is.

[B]

I love this thing inside of my bubble. Before this episode you aired, I was.

[A]

Like, this is most adored show, most.

[B]

Adored show that ever existed.

[A]

That was my experience.

[B]

Every critic I talked to, like, especially people who, like, didn't care that much about Game of Thrones or didn't or really don't care for House of the Dragon or whatever the case may be, were like, oh, this is amazing. I love this. And so I got very excited and like, people like it, but they don't love it yet.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting because I had a. I had not encountered anybody who did not think this was dynamite. And I looked at, again, deeply, deeply flawed and perfect.

[B]

Yeah, the.

[A]

The old popcorn meter did like, the real in person thinking face emoji, like, huh? You know, because the. The critic score is like 94% and keeps rising and the audience score every time I look is like a little. A little lower. And, you know, there are various things that can contribute to that. It is what it is at the time of our recording, which again is a little bit later than we will be typically recording these in a given week. It's Wednesday morning here. Carlos is going to do the Lord's work from the old gods and the new to try to get this up by the end of the day on Wednesday. At the time of the recording, we have not seen any viewership Data yet.

[B]

Which is not a great sign because if it were like a huge hit, ATO would be crowing about it. But HBO has a lot going on right now. There's the pit and industry. So there's a lot competing for attention. Right.

[A]

Boy, are there?

[B]

Yeah. So, you know, Kit Harrington's doing a lot of work over on industry this week.

[A]

Henry Mo.

[B]

So. But yeah, if it had been a huge premiere, HBO would have told us and they're not telling us. I miss more transparent ratings. I really do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now we have to wait for the streamers or the networks to tell us. And are they telling the truth? We never know. So.

[A]

Well, here's what we do know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We know where we are in time in the history of Westeros. So we will. This will be our last bit of kind of like opening context here before we divide, dive into. And we are going, of course, chronologically through the episode in the deep dive, as we, as we love to do here.

[B]

Beat by very.

[A]

Beat by fucking beat, folks. Beat by beat. Each individual loogie the plumber hawked will get its individual analysis. Here's where we are in time. We're in 209ac. If you at home are like, I don't know what that means, why are you telling me a year? Why are we doing the BBYs? We will contextualize it further. This is in essence between the two prior television shows. We are like 80ish years after Dance of the Dragons, aka the House of the Dragons story. And we are 100 years before game of Thrones. And that is the timeline, the hundred years before Game of Thrones that the novella really hammers. As you're picking it up and you're like, well, where are we in time? And there are a couple key bits of historical context that we want to make sure people are aware of in terms of just the same state of the realm. Right. The state of the world. The first one is no dragons.

[B]

Puppets.

[A]

Plenty of puppets. That dragon puppet. I know we said this when we talked about the trailer, but my God, that dragon puppet looks great.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Looks great. I double down on our trailer take of like cgi. Seems like it takes a lot of time. Let's just. Let's just do it.

[B]

Have you considered a puppet?

[A]

Think about it. We're just offering up ideas.

[B]

Just consider puppets.

[A]

I'm just throwing it out there. No dragons, AKA the heart of the Targaryen power is absent from the realm at this point in history. But crucially, dragons existed within living memory, which is different. When we Start Game of Thrones. There are no dragons, so that part's the same, but they're like, out of memory. I mean, they're legend.

[B]

They're the stuff of legend.

[A]

The stuff of legend. But nobody alive at the beginning of Game of Thrones has seen one. Not so at the time of the Hedge Knight in season one of the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Here's a passage from the past. We'll note if it's a, well note, if a quote we read today comes from a different text. If we don't specify, assume it is from the Hedge Knight, the first novella. Not that Dunk had ever seen a dragon. The old man had, though. So this is Ser Arlan of Pennytree, the knight for whom Dunk squired. Dunk had heard the story half a hundred times. How Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King's Landing, and how they'd seen the last dragon there the year before died. There's another quote early in the novella. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winter's longer and crueler. People are measuring the changing nature of time and that feeling, you know. And one of the things we're trained to understand early in our Thrones experience is the association between dragons and magic in the realm, et cetera. Right. They're gone. And some people, Sir Arlen among them, can remember what it was like when they weren't.

[B]

And I don't know if folks remember this tremendously good bit of marketing from hbo, but as they told us, spring is coming this winter. And as they said on Industry this week, spring is coming. So, like, it's. It's raining when Saraland dies. Yes. But spring, the long winter's over and spring is around the corner.

[A]

That rain looked nice. So did the, like, beautiful morning the following morning. But the rain, the rain looked nice. That's. This is just a beautiful show.

[B]

It's beautiful.

[A]

Love an outdoor expanse in the Reach.

[B]

You love the Reach, looking at the outdoors on your tv.

[A]

I love communing with nature. You know this about me because you once saw me on the streets of Chicago. Look at a pigeon passing us on the pavement.

[B]

And silver, filthy city pigeon.

[A]

Nature.

[B]

You're like, oh, nature.

[A]

I love nature.

[B]

It's the same.

[A]

King Daeron ii, AKA Darren the Good, sits the Iron Throne right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there are a couple things that are important to know about that one. This guy brought Dorne into the fold, fully into the fold. Not everyone's hyped about that.

[B]

Into the fold.

[A]

He married a Martell into her fold. Quite, quite right into her folds. Don't say that in front of Dunk. He's going to blush. He's going to blush.

[B]

His ears are going to get pink.

[A]

We're going to talk more about that next episode when we meet the Targs, who are going to be in this season of television, and we talk about the family tree and the Martell blood, et cetera.

[B]

The good thing is you don't need to know that much about what's going on politically with Targaryens. That they don't have dragons is important to know that they, the ruling Targaryens, just successfully, like, won a civil war. Is important to know. Yes. But like, George gives a lot of rich detail about what's going on on the street level here, you know, in. In the tourney at Ashford Meadow. But it's. He's not as concerned with the larger geopolitical state of the world, mostly because he hadn't written it yet. When he wrote this story, he hadn't figured out what was going on with the Targaryens. Really.

[A]

Yeah. That's a. So this first novella came out between the first and second the Song of Ice and Fire books. It came out shortly before Clash of Kings. And you had noted this on our trailer pods, our preview pods. It is interesting to revisit the first novella and not confront constant allusions to and reminders of the Blackfyre rebellion, the first Blackfyre rebellion. Because when you get to the subsequent.

[B]

Novellas, it's all anyone's talking about.

[A]

The story in a really inescapable and seismic way. This was 13 years ago, and most.

[B]

Of the people at this tourney would have fought on one side or another inside of that rebellion. So they should be talking about it, but so far they're not really, because George hadn't written it yet. And that's okay.

[A]

You, team Red Dragon. You, team Black Dragon, you're not prepared to say Red Dragon. Darren the second and the loyalist Black Dragon, Damon Black Fire, you just leave love. I mean, they get you with the monikers. Damon Blackfyre is just. It's. Damon Blackfyre is a sick name. We're gonna. When we get to this on the moniker front, when we get to the Laughing Storm, I mean, how are you not in right away? There's another great moniker coming this season as well. We'll get to that when we meet some more characters soon. Just a great time. Great time to have a cool name in Westeros on That point that you made about just like, what you need to know, though, I thought I liked the way that Ira Parker put this on the official pod. Shout out, Jason. Shout out, Greta now and always.

[B]

Yeah, dang. He was.

[A]

Ira was talking about just kind of the circumstances of what Dunk is embarking on here. You know, you've lost the one person in the world who knew you.

[B]

Where are you?

[A]

What does that mean? What are you seeking? And he said, there's not a lot of information you need to have in order to understand that very simple problem. Right. And I think that's a great way to. To build off what you're saying and to sum up that aspect of how accessible this story can be. If you're interested in learning more about the Blackfyre rebellion. You like the lore. Sweet. That's probably, like, why you're listening to this podcast, right? We're definitely going to talk about all of that stuff and how all of these aspects of the world connect to each other, but there is something that is so core about Dunk's journey.

[B]

Yeah. Are we going to write the lyrics of the Hammer and Anvil song, do you think?

[A]

You've been kind of, I would say, like, promising it might be a little strong, but you've been on song corner for a minute here, so.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That said, you refused to recreate the Laughingstorms episode one dance refused so far.

[B]

I mean, no enticement dear enough yet. But I think that, like, Dan Roemer, who I like, as have mentioned, I don't know, but I know someone who knows him, and I'm like, dan, do you have lyrics to the Hammer and Anvil in your back pocket? I would like to hear them.

[A]

The score on the Dan Roamer front. The score is so good in this show. It is so good and so specific to the sensibility and ethos of this show. I really, really, really love the score.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

Great stuff. Anything else on the Kind of like opening snapshot, table setting, big picture front. Before we dive into the scene by.

[B]

Scene, before we start our podcast, 45.

[A]

Minutes or whatever, we like to set the table.

[B]

Well, table is set. Bring on the meats. Let's eat.

[C]

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Learn [e-mail] 100kk that's clinic with a K. Clinic Kids is registered 5001 nonprofit. It's time to do the deep dive. Yeah, we're going scene by scene. And we will begin where the episode begins, which is Sweet Dunk burying Ser Arlan of Penny Tree. And we are like in the novella as we start Thunder, Sweetfoot, Chestnut, our beautiful horses. They're on the hillside. They're looking down at Dunk as he digs a. You're really fixing.

[B]

It's a very shallow grave. I am.

[A]

I really. There's so much like heart to lean into here. We can do that in a second. Dunk is very tall and very strong and this grave is too shallow. I'm sorry.

[B]

This is. How does he mound the dirt over on top?

[A]

He kind of does that, but I just think he should have dug a little.

[B]

He doesn't know the right words.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

And he doesn't know how to dig a deep hole.

[A]

Well. Well, He has a lot to learn in many respects.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

In many respects. You said he doesn't know the right words. That is what we hear from Dunk, and I love this as an opening note. Obviously, this is a crucial pivot point in Dunk's life. Squire to Ser Arlan. He has lost Ser Arlan. But the fact that we open on this note of doubt, we see that Dunk is not sure that he's gonna have to feel his way through all of it. That everything that's about to happen to him, the glory, the grief, all of it, the decisions, it's all new.

[B]

And the person who used to answer those questions for him is gone. And the horses are beautiful, but they cannot answer his questions for him.

[A]

You say that. And yet later in the episode when he's like, you know, I'm not sad and talking to Sweetfoot. And then later, you know, he's talking about dare I hope, you know, And Sweetfoot gives a little response, I think, and Dunk feels a little wicked, a little compelled to reply to that response. So I think they're having a pretty active conversation. It's a dialogue.

[B]

I also will say that in my notes. I noted. And I don't know who cuts the horse's hairs, but they all have bangs, and it all seems like they're all matching Dunk's bangs.

[A]

Is this your way of formally announcing that Wigwatch TM with Joanna Robinson TM will be about the Horsemanes this season?

[B]

It might be. Are those real bangs? I don't know.

[A]

What do you think of Dunk's hair in season one?

[B]

I think he looks great.

[A]

It's great. Yeah, it's great.

[B]

But I'm excited that he's growing it out for season two.

[A]

The season two hair, based on what we've seen from the, you know, the premiere and press store, is going to be spectacular.

[B]

Dunk having basically one person he knows in the world, and then all he knows is horses, you know, for a while, until he meets egg, et cetera, et cetera. But, like, talking to horses. We talked about this on Talk of Thrones. It's such a good device to get us inside of, like, all these things that Dunk says inside of his own head.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

He now says some of it to horses.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Great stuff.

[A]

It's fantastic.

[B]

And as I mentioned in the trailer, I think. I think I said this in the trailer. One of the trailer breakdowns, the fact that, like, Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty, who's one of my favorite Disney princes of all time, has this, like, great. Just talks to his horse all the time. And I'm a big fan of it. So, like, we're immediately endeared to him. He talks to horses, but it also just like reveals that he doesn't know anybody. He had one person and that person's gone. And now he has horses.

[A]

He's alone. We talk a lot when we cover Thrones about the idea of a Targaryen alone in the world. It's a terrible thing. What about a Hetch Knight alone in the world?

[B]

You know, Dunk. Alone in the world.

[A]

Sweet little Dunk. Alone in the world, Crucially, not alone. Obviously, the horses are here. I think the word you used, endearing, is so perfect. It is such a warm and welcoming initial bit of exposure to Dunk. Obviously, the fact that he's weeping as he tells Ser Aryn that he wishes he didn't die. And you just feel not only that lack of clarity about how to navigate life, but the fact that he's sad and he's lonely and then genuine, like the sweetness of the way he's engaging with the animals. Will he, momentarily, the next momentarily in the show and the next morning in his life, say to the horses, like, can you Like a king of I sold you? He will. But we know that he cares about them and that Ser Arlan cared about them and taught Dunk to care about them. And that's good, genuinely good shorthand for a readership or a viewership to show you what kind of a heart a person has. You know, something that we learn about Ser Arlan through Dunks in her monologue as he's saying goodbye and reflecting on him and their life together is he'd always been generous in his praise. It was all he had to give. So it's been one of my favorite lines in the novella because it tells you so much. Now we'll get in a second to these, like, flashbacks that are intercut into the episode and don't seem full of praise to me. It's honestly, it's a different tone.

[B]

Seems like a backhand is what he had to give.

[A]

The clout in the ear is very present, very present. But in other passages, the old man always said that a knight should never love a horse, since more than a few were like to die under him. But he never heeded his own counsel either. Dunk had often seen him spend his last copper on an apple for Old Chestnut or some oats for Sweet Foot and Thunder. And this idea of whether it is taking on a squire like Dunk, a lost boy who needed to find a place in the world, or caring for these animals and giving them sustenance or whatever the case may be, if you don't have a lot in life, the thing you have is the choice you make.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And that's true for everybody, but the choice to give another person a place by your side. You have your ey, you have your decency. Right. You have your capacity for goodness and care. And so what we learn in the novella about how Dunk views that aspect of Ser Arlan and what we can see on the Dunk front there is lovely. And like, you know what he says to him, you were a true knight. The cut to the flashback, that kind of humorous now, is it humorous that he is hitting Dunk? No, of course. But the tone inside of the. The flashbacks and the way that the editing is functioning here is undeniably. The intent is to, like, disarm us. And there is something there. There is an irreverent spirit to the way that the flashbacks are deployed. This idea that's central of, like, you were a true knight and what that means and then what we are seeing. I also thought, just like we had talked about whether we would see flashbacks, the fact that Ser Arnlan was, like, listed among the primary cast, right. Was interesting to us. We figured that meant we were not just going to see, as we had in the trailer, Dunk carrying this light little body to his needlessly shallow grave. I think just in this first episode, the way that these flashbacks are deployed is really smart and deaf.

[B]

Yeah. And it's really funny compared to all the agitation that both Thrones and Hot D had around the concept of a flashback. And here they're just used fast and loose and irreverently. And that's really funny.

[A]

Show you something quick. Root you in some truth or some bit of dissonance quickly. And it's also a smart way to still honor that core principle of we are in Dunk's point of view, those memories are his as well, while introducing just a touch of variance into literally where we are or what we are seeing the next morning. It's a beautiful day. No more rain.

[B]

Spring is coming this winter Spring is.

[A]

Coming this winter I have heard it before.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I will hear it again, because we're never going to let anybody forget.

[B]

Somebody put that on a lot of posters.

[A]

Oh, man. That comment that he makes to the horses about, you know, I could eat like a king, it is an interesting early way to, I think, establish this core aspect of Dunk's life, which is like the. The. The hedge knight's calculus. Right. You don't have a place in a household all the time. Consistently, it's called a hedge night because.

[B]

You sleep under a hedge, sometimes under a tree canopy.

[A]

It leaks in the hedges. You move from spot to spot, job to job, but you don't have a permanent place. Right. And so this idea that we glimpse a little bit in this episode, and it is very kind of prominent throughout this first novella of, like, how do people in the realm think of hedge knights and see hedge knights? We got a couple good scenes and exchanges in, you know, Ser Stefan's very dismissive. Like, matters of the hedge, I'm sure. Right. You know, the scenes with Red and Banny, et cetera. Well, for Dunk, or for a hedge knight, like, you know, there's this idea of, well, many hedge knights turn robber or outlaw or beggar. Right. And, like, that's a path that Dunk is always actively thinking about how to avoid. Right. A risk he is conscious of and aware of, and does a path he does not want to go down. So then he has to navigate what is a present desire. I want to improve my circumstance. Right. With I want to do the honorable thing. You were a true knight. You taught me, like I swore that I would. The way he says that to Plummer with his chest later, to quote Chase Serrano, say it with your chest, like, I swore that I would. That's the calculus for Dunk. The push and pull of how to stay true while also seeking to better his life. We get a little taste of that right away. Where should he go, he wonders. The city.

[B]

Stop raping.

[A]

Wild scene, wild moment. A little bit of swordplay there. Lannisport.

[B]

There's a lot of Lannisters there. I wouldn't want to go there.

[A]

King's Landing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

City watch.

[B]

Yeah. When he's deciding. This is one of my favorite lines. Right. Okay. When he is holding Sir Arland's sword.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which is castleforged steel. It's not. It's not a ancestral Valyrian. It doesn't have a name. It's not a big, fancy sword. This is just like, it's got the penny on the pommel, but he says it fits my grip as well as it ever fit his. And there's attorney in Ashford Meadow. There's a trick my brain plays on me every time I read this line, that there's something about the way this is written. And I think it's just the starting the sentence with the word and that it takes on this tone of the, like, poetic device, the like anaphora, the poetic device of repeat, you know, and miles to go before I Sleep. Like, it tricks me into thinking that. He says, and there's attorney at Ashford Meadow. A bunch of times he doesn't. It only comes up once, but it just sounds like this repeated sort of like. And there's attorney at Ashford Meadow, and I could do this or I could do that. And there's attorney at Ashford Meadow. And I just like. And then it has this, like, ring of destiny. Destiny to me, because it's, like, pronounced that way. The other thing he says in the book about the. About the sword, quote, Dunk knew how sharp it was, having worked it with whetstone and oil cloth many a night before they went to sleep. And I just love this idea that, again, this is a castle, forged steel. This isn't, you know, this isn't ice. This isn't long claw. Right? But he has carefully and methodically over the years, honed it to a shot sharp, sharp point. And this idea of, like, Dunk as the sword, like, what has he been honed into by Arlen or by his own practices and beliefs? But this idea of that just sort of like carefully, patiently, humbly, by the fire, before we sleep, I have honed this blade and it is all that I have. Later he will say, it is mine by right. What a weird thing to say.

[A]

Sir Steffen. Not a great guy, but accurate. A steel.

[B]

Whatever you're mean to say.

[A]

That was a really weird thing to say.

[B]

But this is what he has, the battered shield and this sword. And these are the two, like, very tenuous claims he has to Ser Arlan's legacy and to knighthood. And so I just, like, love that idea of, like, you know, the shield hasn't seen a lot of upkeep, but the sword has been kept sharp. Yeah. Over a long period of time.

[A]

You know, I love that. That just gave me a chill. I like, you know, there's the kind of, like, literal aspect for. We get a little bit of this in the scene with Plummer where Plummer sort of says to Dunk, like, hey, you know how this works, right? Like, what you will forfeit if you lose. And this idea that every possession, everything that Dunk has to his name, like, what is a. What is a Hegenite worth? The horses, the armor, the weaponry. Right. That is all at risk here. But that symbolic representation of what those things mean to Dunk, beyond the little literal, like, coin and currency it takes to acquire them or lose them and ransom them back. And that like, kind of, again, literal aspect of, like, could you function as a knight without those things? Like, no. It would be hard, as Lionel says to him later in the game, being like, can't be a knight without a horse. Right. You know, there's something tangible on the line there. But there is something, to your beautiful point, bigger on the line there. And then to think about what that sword represents then as an inheritance and like a graduation, you know, there is the mantle that is passed down from knight to squire. But also, I also love. I love what you said about the end. And I love both parts of that.

[B]

The end.

[A]

There's Attorney at Astrometa, but I also.

[B]

Fits my grip as well as it ever did.

[A]

I've always loved so much. I love that we got it, you know, basically beat for beat in the show because, like, this idea that you've waited and you've trained and you've glimpsed and tasted, and when you get to the moment of taking that next step, it's scary, but it's thrilling. How could it not be? Even in his grief and the idea that maybe Dunk is better equipped for the thing that he helped care for for someone else, especially as he is about to, by the end of this episode, take on a squire.

[B]

And we've noted it. You've noted it several times. And Egg notes it. The fact that he can't put on the scabbard. The pommel fits his hand, right? Yes. But he can't put on the. The belt.

[A]

He's too big.

[B]

He's too big. So he needs rope. He has to, like, attach the scabbard to rope. Hempen, rope. And he's too big physically. But also, like, is he destined for bigger things than Saralyn was ever destined for? I just, like, love that idea. Ugh.

[A]

Ugh. It gives me a chill. And again, it's like, I think the fact that Dunk, like any interesting character, is in some ways, Dunk is, like, simple, but in other ways, like anyone, he's complex, Right. And he contains multitudes. And so he has this nobility inside of him and this quest for something pure. Right. And this draw to something pure. But he also is driven by desire and ambition.

[B]

Yeah, he has ambition, but I feel like it's more like a Disney princess kind. It's like Ariel. I want more. It's like Pocahontas just around the riverbend. Like, basically, he needs an I want song right here. Right. I can go the distance, like Hercules, like this. This moment of, like, what is bigger out there for me, what adventure awaits for me. But it's not Orphan from Fleabo. It's not like what can I grasp? What can I hold over other people? It's just sort of like, how can I make the world even bigger than it already is?

[A]

Yeah. And for like, a little boy who grew up in Flea Bottom as an orphan and is able to think about the desire that drives him while also holding on to something a little bit like that has. There's, like, a sanctity to it. I love about Dunk, and I think that it feels to me like, I love the Disney comp. Like, I don't know, it feels honest and true and human that he's not just like, he takes the idea of what's a true knight seriously, but he's also like, I was a kid and I dreamed about what it would be like to, you know, when he walks past the whitewashed thatch roofed in the novella, like, the town of Asher, and he's like, you know, I used to wonder when I was a kid what it would be like to be there. When we get to the scene at the inn, one of the things that in the novella he thinks to himself is like, this is what it means to be a knight, he told himself as he sucked the last bit of meat off the bone. Good food and ale whenever I want it. And no entree, dude. Lamb and the duck, God damn it. And, like, I love those little details because it's okay to want those things, you know? And the fact that Dunk is able to pair that with these ideals that he holds true is part of what makes him so memorable and, I think, so real and relatable. A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword. I must earn my place in that company, he thinks in the novella. If I fight well, some lord may take me into his household. I will ride in noble company then and eat fresh mead every night in a castle hall, raise my own pavilion at tourneys. But first I must do well. Inside of this very episode, the fact that he doesn't have a pavilion will be actively embraced, Right? And we will get one of the best moments in the episode in the novella, as a result of that. With the falling star, trees leak. Trees leak. But first I must do well. It's that word again. Humble. There is something so humble about that idea of the next step, even though the task is so big and so.

[B]

Daunting when you compare it to, like, the ambition of the Lannisters or something like that, which is just sort of like, like us above everyone else, there's. Everyone else is an enemy and it is only legacy. That's like, we are the only ones can. Who can succeed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and that's. Dunk is never. I'm putting myself, you know, he's physically above everyone else, but he's like, I'm not putting myself above everyone else. It's not about oppressing anyone around me. It's just like, what can I. What doors can I open for myself?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And bring in people behind me.

[A]

And if not, hit my head.

[B]

You probably will.

[A]

As we get that. And there's a tourney at Ashford Meadow.

[B]

Line tourney at Ashford Meadow.

[A]

We get something else. We get a musical accompaniment in a couple forms. We get the Game of Thrones theme. The classic theme kicks in. And then we just hard cut to Dunk having explosive diarrhea by a tree. Kris and I on Talk of Thrones both picked this as our favorite moment of the episode. I was dying when I saw that George, who largely has been just full of praise for this season and again, how faithfully adapted it is that this was something he cited as, like, I left a note on that. I was like, do we. Should we? Do we need it? That killed me. I thought this was so perfect as a way to, as you alluded to earlier, shit on our expectations of what a classic Game of Thrones experience is going to be and going to bring and to do it with humor and to do it with love and like a deft hand and deft care. This idea that we're back in Westeros but it's gonna be different. And I thought Chris's point on. On Sunday night's show was. Was exactly right. Like, if you fuck that up, you really maybe lose people and almost insult them with it.

[B]

And some people didn't like it.

[A]

I thought it was dynamite. Yeah, dynamite. I think Dunk, it's a stressful time. And maybe, you know, some. Some stuff in the diet that we could look at. It's the. The hard salt beef. It's. It's. Well, clearly. So I feel for him in that respect.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I just thought this was genius. And then he looks up and sees the chirping robin that he will later.

[B]

Claim looked over his knighting. That's my favorite part. The fact that the robin's there. And then later he's like, yeah, when I was knighted, there was just a robin there. And it saw me. That juxtaposition of the shitting. The knighting is very good.

[A]

Incredible stuff. This is also just a great. We like, you know, we like a closed caption. We Like a subtitle here on House of Our what are we here? This was like.

[B]

What was.

[A]

Was like liquid splattering. It was just wild stuff.

[B]

Wild stuff.

[A]

Really great. So it's time. It's time to set off you mount. Sweetfoot swings Sir Arlen's winged chalice shield over his back and sets off the score here from Dan Roemer. I mean the whistling throughout, that is just dynamite. But this bit of scoring here, there's like a sweet swinging call to adventure aspect of it. In this moment that I just was like, let's go.

[B]

I want to take this moment to shout out. So Dan Romer, who I mentioned, did the music for Station 11.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And there's this song in Station 11, like a campfire song they sing called Wandering under the Moon, which I absolutely like was one of my most. I think it was the same year as Wandering Day and they were both on my like spotified. Most play like I just played them over and over again and I will not bore everyone with like the entire thing. But like the. I was looking back at the lyrics and the way that it links to Dunkin Egg under the tree is so good, right, like. Cause this is station 11. If you have not seen what are you doing?

[A]

Finish the pod then immediately, immediately go watch it.

[B]

But it's about a sort of a post pandemic though. The technology of the world has been ravaged and people are in these like wandering bands, this wandering troupe of players, right? So some of the lyrics are phones and tablets. They won't be back soon. So we can go wandering under the moon There ain't no movies on a silver screen Ain't no television playing scene after scene There ain't no metro with a rock and roll band but come on darling, grab my hand we can go wandering under the moon the stars are brighter now after the doom and I just like love that they're just sort of like, what do we have? We have the stars, we have the moon, we've got each other. And I just thought that was such like a Dunkin Egg under the tree sentiment that I just thought was so beautiful.

[A]

The luck is ours alone.

[B]

Dan Roemer.

[A]

Damn, I love that. Yeah, I really loved he. Jason and Greta had him on the official pod as well after the IRA interview. And I loved hearing him talk about how he thought about crafting this score and like he described it as brawler, middle class music. He said, how do we make this sort of feel like a western, but not sound like a western? I think in this part of the episode you really feel that. But then to connecting to what you're saying. I wanted most of the music to sort of feel like people could be making it on the side of the road as dunks walking by. And that is like. Like, that's different than Light of the Seven.

[B]

Oh, yeah. You know, have I told you. Did I, in any of our trailer breakdowns, talk to you about my time in the. The sea? Have I talked about this? I don't think so. Maybe I've never admitted on a pod. So SEA is the Society for Creative Anachronisms. And it is basically like Ren fair camping. And this is something that I would do in my, like, 20s and early 30s, where you would, like, go with your friends and, like, put up. People put up, like, canvas tents, and then they dress in garb for, like, the weekend. I love this. And we did it before Game of Thrones. Like, I'm sure it's much bigger post Game of Thrones, but we would do it, like, pre Thrones and then through Thrones as well. But. And people, they have, like, battles and jousts and, like, all. Less jousting, more brawling.

[A]

But, like, what do you think swelled the ranks? More thrones or the larping aspect of Hawkeye?

[B]

Oh, tied.

[A]

Toss up.

[B]

Total tie for cultural influence. But the music and, like, especially him wandering into camp, like, it's such sea feelings that I just, like, not just. I mean, like, a lot of people are in the sea, and so. And that's just like. Because I think the way they talk. Ira and George talked about it was like, we wanted to feel like Burning man or whatever. And I think that was just because they were too chicka chit to say. We wanted it to feel like the sea. They wanted to feel like war, which is what these events are called. So they crushed it. I think they really crushed the assignment. But the music especially is, like, giving it.

[A]

I love knowing this. I love that you shared this.

[B]

There are photos that exist if you ever want to see them. If.

[A]

If I ever want to see them, you know, I want to see them.

[B]

I owned many bodices.

[A]

Oh, my God. I'm expecting a text right after the pod.

[B]

You got it. I had a horn that I drank out of, like, a long. Like.

[A]

What'd you drink out of? Ale.

[B]

Mead.

[A]

Mead, of course. I mean, I should have known. Why did I even ask?

[B]

And then, like, also Rockstar and vodka. Because I was 20. Whatever. So, you know. Was that the.

[A]

Go to Rockstar and vodka.

[B]

I hate to say it, but it was. Don't do that at home, kids. I have a lot of regrets.

[A]

You're the best Rockstar.

[B]

And vodka. You could pour a whole bottle of wine in the drinking horn that I had.

[A]

Oh, damn. Yeah, you were on like a handle at Captain Morgan's or like a Malibu.

[B]

Malibu is for like college. We should get back on track. I could talk about this for a really long time about my Malibu choices.

[A]

Great stuff that I actually think we.

[B]

Might have talked about before. That's Malibu memories for sure.

[A]

Okay. Dunk has contemplated his future. He's decided to set off. And he has made his way to a charming little inn.

[B]

And at the crossroads, baby, not the inn at the crossroads, but.

[A]

But an inn.

[B]

And in.

[A]

At a crossroads, he sees a bald little youngster he takes for the stable boy and says, will you tend these horses? I could if I wanted.

[B]

I could if I wanted to. And he says. He says the same thing later. It's just like such a good egg. I could if I wanted.

[A]

Just pitch perfect egg right away. Giving us that insolence is the word that is like most often used to describe egg. And it is right here immediately. We already mentioned this idea of like a chance meeting. This is something that we love. It is a very Tolkienian idea. You happen upon somebody and then your circumstances are entwined. And what a cool and interesting and wonderful to think about how these chance meetings can shape your life. There is a meal to have first.

[B]

Though, the lamb and the duck.

[A]

The inn is empty, save for Dunk, who has entered with an appetite. The inn keep daughter sitting on the stairs watching. And one very drunk man. The innkeep, I just feel compelled to observe, takes a sip from Dunk's cup.

[B]

Yeah, this is fine.

[A]

Westeros susceptible to a Cathy sweeping plague.

[B]

Every so often alcohol perhaps burns off the germs.

[A]

This is not a practice that I endorse. Okay, just gonna throw that out there.

[B]

Mallory doesn't wear her outside pants inside. Doesn't improve. I can whatever thought.

[A]

Would you let this in?

[B]

Keep.

[A]

Take a sip from your horn of mead while filling it for you.

[B]

Depends how much meat I've had.

[A]

Okay, fair enough. I mean, fair enough. Dunk does, you know, we get. We get a lot of like, oh, that thick nutty brown ale. He likes the feel of it on his tongue. He's just. Dunk enjoys a adult beverage. Sure he does.

[B]

He's very tall. It takes a lot to fill him up.

[A]

I would say aged up in the show we should say Dunk. But even in the novella when he's like don't really know my own name and don't know how old I was, like, you know, likes an adult beverage, this guy.

[B]

All of this is important. I think the most important thing that the innkeeper says, right? When she's like, it's mostly empty here. I'll tell you why. And there's attorney at Ashford Meadow, right? She says, I swear I couldn't tell you why. Knights are built the same as other men. And I never knew a joust to change the price of eggs. And when we covered this in the trailer, we talked about this Jorah line that we absolutely love. Quote, the common people pray for rain, health and a summer that never ends. They don't care what games the high lords play. The game of thrones, right? So, like, what does this have to. What does this have to do with the price of eggs, right? Like, what are we talking about here? And that's like the POV of this story is from Dunk's point of view. When we get to Ashford Meadow, in the book, Dunk is describing, like, the. The various sigils that he's spotting, the various pavilions that he see. What the show shows us is the butchers and the fishmongers and the milkmaids and the, you know, all of the. All of the small folk, George's word, not mine, you know, who are busy making this thing happen. That's the point of view that we're in. So what does this have to do with the price of eggs, right? What does that have to do with me? You know, they don't care what games.

[A]

The high lords play. I love that. I love that. That desire to be among the small folk is something that George really wanted to explore in these stories and that Ira is on, obviously, very focused on as well. And that Dunk is a character who has access to that experience and that reality as he sets off on this new adventure. The innkeep's not the only one who has something to say, though. This drunk man lifts his head and he tells Dunk, unprompted, I dreamed of you. Stay the fuck away from me. Dagger in hand.

[B]

First, inauspicious, Secondly, Mm. Jamie and Bran, I dreamed of you. Here they are and here they will stay.

[A]

They are everywhere. They are everywhere. This man's name is not given here.

[B]

He.

[A]

We can observe. You know, he's got, again, the dagger in his hand. He's talking of dreams. He's got sandy blonde hair, you know, he's got some nice clothes on, bedecked.

[B]

In finery, mud spattered it needs to.

[A]

Do some laundry, for sure. Puts down a dragon. You know, he's got some coin, got some money to his name.

[B]

Gold dragon, silver stags, copper pennies.

[A]

So this is, you know, he's got coin to his name, a full coin purse. Dunk is, of course, like, what, What? Right.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

Sips his ale, eats his lamb, eats his duck. Sounds like it was delicious when it's described the cherries, et cetera. Then he heads back to the stables, and he hears, then sees Egg atop Thunder, this war horse wearing the mail and the helm and the armor. And I love, like, not only are so many of these lines just pulled right from page to screen, but the visuals. Because, I mean, there are full graphic novels as well, and those are super fun, but the novellas have illustrations in them. And, like, this is just a visual that is pulled right from the page. That was, like, really, really fun to see.

[B]

What I love is that what Duncan says here for all the. That he threatened to beat Egg. I will, you know, clout in the ear. Same as was done to me.

[A]

Right.

[B]

What he says to Egg here is, take that armor off you now and be glad Thunder didn't kick you in that full head of yours. He's a war horse, not a boy's pony.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Be glad Thunder didn't kick you in that. Like, you could have gotten.

[A]

Take care of yourself, kiddo. Yeah.

[B]

Not I'll hurt you, but you could have gotten hurt. I was thinking a lot about Joel and Ellie as we do, and this idea of, like, doing a bit better than what was done to you. I love that. Yeah.

[A]

Is Dunk wearing a watch?

[B]

And he talks about what Arlen did for him and what he can do for Egg, but, like, is he gonna do it the same way that Arlen did it? I don't think so. Based on what we've learned about Dunk in this episode, I agree.

[A]

I like that we can see Eggs. Spirit of play.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Young kiddo, right? Thirst for adventure. He gives some lip as he. As he tends to do. And Dunk's like, hey, you little shit, I'm a knight. I'm a knight. You don't look to be a knight. Egg says, what? All knights look the same.

[B]

Do they know?

[A]

But they don't look like you either. Your belt's made of rope. There it is, the hempen rope. So long as it holds my scabbard, Dunk says, it serves. So this is just a great little exchange and moment because, you know, on the Egg side, we can see right away not only Is he, like, a match for Dunk? He's more than a match for Dunk and how their exchanges are gonna go. There's that just, like, spark and spunk. But Dunk's humility, you know, sure. With the like. So long as it hurts. Holds my scabbard. It serves. There's a element there of justifying what he doesn't have. Yeah. Justifying what he lacks. But, like, he's. There's. There's grace. There's grace in that humble state. And it's not just about the coin or the glitz and the glam, but about purpose. And Dunk is learning things about Egg, too, right? Like, he thinks that the innkeep is Egg's mom. And Egg says, my mother's dead. And you can see just right away, instantly hearing this orphan, how it softens Dunk, right? And Egg asks, take me. Take me with you. You're going to Ashford. Take me. I could squire for you, sir. Every knight needs a squire. And you look like you need one more than most. And you look like you need a good clout in the air. So Dunk says, no, here. Now, this will change over the course of just this premiere, right? But we get in this inner monologue in the novella, a little more insight, right? He's like. He's got a good life here. He almost thinks it wouldn't be fair.

[B]

To take someone like me.

[A]

Yeah. Into his service and into this life, this life of unpredictability in the unknown circumstances. And so he tosses him a copper on the ground and says, I know.

[B]

You'Ll pick it up.

[A]

I know you'll pick it up when I'm gone. Dunk sets off to Ashford Meadow to seek to join the lists. And this tourney town, it's just robust, right? It's bustling.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. The statues of the knights, I thought was, like, a really interesting shot, this idea. So, like, George has talked about the, quote, conflict between ideal and realism, right? That this is at the core of what this show is about.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I thought it was really interesting. Formerly of this parish, Alison Herman, currently of Variety, made this great comp between Dunk and Sansa, right? Like, as two characters who were, like, brought up on the, like, the stories of chivalry and stuff like that, or you think about Bran, like these sweet summer children who are brought up on these dramatically emotionally romantic tales of chivalry and et cetera, et cetera, only to come face to face with the likes of Manfred Dondarrion and the reality, the fossil ways, et cetera et cetera. And so looking up at these like these stone knights, these like this like static ideal of like what a knight is right as he's about to confront some some hard truths about what knighthood is. I thought was really cool. Can we sigil spot really quickly?

[A]

Let's do it. Love to sigil spot. Boy is this a rich text here.

[B]

Okay. The Dundarrians are here, right?

[A]

They sure are.

[B]

How's Beesbury's here?

[A]

I mean what a time to be. You shout out what a time to.

[B]

Be this podcast the Lannisters are here but we didn't meet one in this episode but the Lannisters are here. House Baratheon obviously here making quite an insane rush for day. We see the House Hightower.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Hotto Hightower not with us. But House Hightower is here. House Fossoway of course the Apples Tyrell's of course. This is the Reach. So we see the Tyrell Rose and House Ashford, which is the sun. I just want to shout out House Ashford's dumb dumb house words. Which is our sun shines bright.

[A]

Yeah, it's not the best.

[B]

Not growing strong.

[A]

It's not growing strong. I do like you know as an Oriole Syracuse McLaren fan I like the orange.

[B]

The creamsicle orange.

[A]

Yeah, I like the orange. You know when Dunk is heading up to seek out steward and master of the game's plumber and we get the dropping of the banners over the Nothing gets you in the throne's mood quite like that now is it? Dropping the Stark direwolf back over the walls of Winterfell after the Battle of the Bastards. No it's not.

[B]

But our sun shines bright.

[A]

It's more like when yeah spring is.

[B]

Coming this year our sun shines bright stars going.

[A]

The fact that we have so the Ashfords they serve the Tyrells in the Reach. But this is like not a house of severe consequence. Right?

[B]

There's a reason why you've never heard of House Ashford's our sunshine.

[A]

There's a reason that Plummer is kind of like mocking his own Lord Duncan.

[B]

He fancies himself.

[A]

Thinks he's like hot shit. You know this is attorney for his daughter's 13th name day. And what a great excuse to feel important and have all of those sigils flocking to your yard. It seemed as though every lordly house of the west and south had sent a knight or three to Ashford to see the fair maid and brave the lists in her honor.

[B]

Everyone is here and George calls her the Fair Maid because he forgot to give her a name.

[A]

It happens. It happens. And a lot of the Curry's name.

[B]

Cover and George did not give her a name. We do get several named female characters in this episode, and that is more than the novella really does.

[A]

Many introduced to the television adaptation and that was welcome. But yeah, it's fun for Thrones fans to see so many familiar sigils and family names while. And we have spent time in the reach before, but Ashford, you know, Ashford Meadow, it's a new place. And just the idea, too, of like a tourney field, this particular setting. We're not in the small council chambers. We're not in the throne room. Like, we're not in these halls of power where we are more accustomed to spending our time on the television program. And so there's something really refreshing about.

[B]

That'S Attorney at Ashford Meadow.

[A]

There's Attorney at Ashford Meadow. Familiar sigils, new spot. Fun mix Beesbury. I carve out as much time as you want for your Beesbury dancing commentary when we get to Lionel's pavilion later because, my God, what an impression. And the mustache, too.

[B]

Oh, holy shit.

[A]

My God, Dean Beesbury's living. So we talked about this on Talk of the Thrones, but the way that, you know, Dunk, when he enters to speak to Plumber, hits his head. Anything else you want to say here about the way that the physical, the sets, the filming angles, the size of other members of the cast, like Lionel being sized down, et cetera, help us feel Dunk's heft perfectly.

[B]

We talked about it on top of.

[A]

Not 6, 11 given.

[B]

Yeah. Peter Claffey is not as tall as. Not. Not as tall and not as young as Dunk is in the book. But they did a lot of work around him. I think you see it as most especially, I think in the puppet scene when he's surrounded by. Everyone's just like a head shorter than him and the. And the tent is like bumping against the top of his head as he's watching Tancel too tall. Tall. Tall enough for some things, but like Tancel too tall and her puppets, you know. But yeah, they've done a really good job sort of making him look like. And everyone's constantly commenting on his half man, half giant sort of commenting on his size.

[A]

So I loved when Raymond did the half giant thing. Any excuse to think of the ooh, that's a big man. Giant's blood or I'm the queen.

[B]

That's what I was thinking of. I was thinking of our guy Tyrion, of course, fat Man.

[A]

No question. And then Tyrion makes us think of Pod and Raymond makes us think of Pod. It's all connected. Wonderful stuff. Plumber wants Dunk to know this is attorney for knights.

[B]

Do you care to retract any of your Ebony Ma takes over the years given how great Tom Von Lawler is?

[A]

No.

[B]

In fact, not only Tom Von Lawler plays Ebony Ma in Avengers and is the best.

[A]

Not only do I not character track the opposite.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Further proof that that fucker Ebony Maw is a blight on our shared Marvel Cinematic experience.

[B]

Is the best. Plummer.

[A]

Meanwhile Stealth MVP of this episode. Obviously. Lionel. The actual mvp.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But Plummer made a run for it.

[B]

He did a great job.

[A]

Ashford chair.

[B]

Really good.

[A]

Sargonic. Unbelievable. Dunk. Sir Dunk. I was squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree since I was a boy. He knighted me before he passed with his own sword. Let's hear and see. Carlos, if we can something else that Dunk says that we then get a quick flash to the past paired with.

[B]

He always meant for me to be.

[A]

A knight one day.

[B]

As he was.

[A]

Am I to be a knight one day? Sir as you are. That was an incredible use of the flashback. Incredible stuff. Were there witnesses? This is where Dunk mentions the Poop Robin.

[B]

I think the Poop Robin needs a publicist because you called him the Poop Robin several times in our notes. And I think he deserves a better name than Poop Robin.

[A]

You want to workshop it in real time? What do you want to go with?

[B]

Not poop Robin. Hobbitsanddragons gmail.com if you would like to reclaim the legacy of this poor bird who was just sitting in a tree. Not pooping.

[A]

I'm sure that Robin pooped at some point while sitting in the tree.

[B]

Never.

[A]

Lots of stuff of note here. Of course. This is on the Brienne and Jamie front. One of the most wonderful moments. To call upon our time with them and think about them. Plumbers. Any night can make a night.

[B]

Any night can make a night.

[A]

Obviously is going to make us think of our beloved Jaime and Brienne. As is of course Dunk talking here about the vow. The pledge right charged me to be a knight. He says some of the words that we are now familiar with from watching the knightings. And I swore that I would. That language, that moment, that idea. Any knight can make a knight.

[B]

Make you swear and swear. Would you say they make you swear and swear?

[A]

So many vows.

[B]

I have a task for the bad babies. I fell down a pod prep rabbit hole for an Hour. And then I had to stop because. So George has these great inconsistent words that he uses for various knighting oaths. And there's like, the Chevalier Co. I just like, went down the history of like, what we know about, like, where did he get this language? Like, perhaps he just made it up whole cloth. George does that, but oftentimes he's pulling from historical, like, sources. I could not find any historical language. Cause there are. There are full codexes and books about chivalric oaths throughout history. But I could not find one where the language mirrors what George has used here or what he will. What, you know, Dunk will later say to Egg. And so I'm curious if any of the Bhad Bhabies are better versed in knightly history than I am. Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com if you know sort of like some of the origin.

[A]

What would you like the Bhad Bhabies to spend more time on that or renaming the. Or rebranding the food Robin? Or do you want them to try to make time for both?

[B]

Why not both?

[A]

Okay, try to make time for both.

[B]

You go high and low.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it's fitting. It's fitting for this episode of tv. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, that beautiful episode featuring that scene that is one of our shared favorite moments in the history of story.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

It's named for these tales.

[B]

Any knight can make a knight a.

[A]

Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. So what a beautiful tie and what a way to inject such heart and such a rich emotional connection for us in a scene that is full of a lot of, like, ribald blue humor and embarrassment and other stuff. It's a great scene for, like, the totality of what this show is trying to do. Tonally, this question of Dunk's knightly status. You know, this is something that fans have talked about for eons and years. And we will talk about, of course, over the entire season as people ask Dunk questions like, I've not heard of you.

[B]

Who are you?

[A]

Sir who? Sir Arlen. Does anyone know him, etc. You're going to have to go find somebody who knows who this is. You're going to have to find a lord or a knight to come vouch for you if you want to enter the lists. The genius of this story, this key element, is that characters like Plummer might be asking Dunk these things. We are thinking we are also asking these things, but we are pairing that with a bigger question, which is why should it matter? Right? Why does it need to Matter. Because the heart of this tale is this question of what is truly knightly. And that also, of course, is an association we have with Brienne. Now Brienne will literally be knighted and become sir before that on the road. Exactly.

[B]

Swearing fealty to Cat, swearing fealty to Renly, swearing fealty to Sansa.

[A]

Like, truest night we could go sitting.

[B]

For a season looking for a candle in a window. You know what I mean? Like, just faithful, loyal honor. True.

[A]

And shouldn't that matter?

[B]

Go on, do your duty. You know what I mean?

[A]

Matter more.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ashford chair thought this was incredible. Genuinely great stuff. I appreciated the mocking Dunk for showing up looking like a farmer, telling Dunk he smells. I think of all, you know, Dunk will take a bath shortly. I think of all of the adaptive changes. The fact that Dunk is, like, pretty stinky is. Is up there. You know, Arlen was really like, you.

[B]

Gotta bathe, man, once a month.

[A]

And he's like, gotta bathe.

[B]

And Dunk's like, too often.

[A]

Great stuff.

[B]

Yeah. So Plumber says they're princess, about which we talked about. We'll talk about Targaryens more when they actually show up here. But I think that, you know, instructions that he gives to Dunk, as he's walking out, he turns around, we see the back of the shield, and, you know, Plummer gives him instructions of, like, what to do. Dunk says, you know, this chance will never come again, and I must risk. All right. But what I love about this. And this is an email we got from our listener Jean Michael. But, like, this idea of, like, in the book, we are so firmly in Dunk's pov, and Ira Parker has really stayed true to that. Yes. But it's still a visual medium. And so we can see how people look at Dunk when his back is turned, when he's not looking, et cetera. And we get a number of instances inside of this episode. Plummer being one of them, of someone whose face reflects sort of something that they've seen in this person. And there's an opportunity for Dunk here that doesn't exist for Brienne, because for Dunk, he's tall, and there's something just sort of humble and odd and charming about him. And for Brienne, her tallness and her oddness makes her an outsider. But for Dunk, it makes him kind of endearing to people. And so when we see Plumber or later Red, one of one of the sex workers or whatever, like, look at him and just be like, there's Something to you. This is something that, like, we're getting to see that Dunk isn't even necessarily seeing. And so we got this great email. The books and the shows, clearly from Dunk's pov. What he isn't noticing that we viewers get to see are the ordinary people that take notice of him. Even though Dunk the lunk, as he's.

[A]

Called, is as thick as a castle.

[B]

Wall, may be an unreliable narrator and a bit oblivious or naive, we as viewers are seeing people like the innkeeper, the games master, the whore, and even Raymond quietly take note of Duncan's. Of Dunk's true spirit, in contrast to the usual gilded. I love this phrase, gilded disappointments and deplorable wastrols they are all subjected to on a daily basis. The thing that we know for certain is that Dunk is not writing his story or singing his own. So we get to watch the people in these little unassuming moments. A very nice touch that only TV or film could give us. I loved that observation. And so it's gonna be a fun thing for us to watch, like, as much as we are. We're never in a room without Dunk. Yeah. Who's looking at him when his back is turned? Right.

[A]

And what are they seeing?

[B]

And what are they seeing? I love that.

[A]

I think that's a really brilliant observation and a great way to think about what TV can do. I think it's also fair to say that it's not just that people are seeing. Right. Like Plummer is maybe seeing, oh, well, what could you do? But he's making fun of Dong. He's mocking him. There's a distance.

[B]

No, but it always starts there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then there's like a turn where like, Red and are, like, making fun of him and he's like, you don't have to make fun of me. And then they just sort of like, ease off.

[A]

And then there's the pity. So there's this evolution, like the innkeep. I was interested that actually, like the. You know, there is the moment in the show that's in the book where she observes his shield and is like, oh, so you're going to the tourney too?

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the way that it's described in the book is more like, you think.

[B]

Yeah, I'm like, really?

[A]

You're really like, you're going to the tourney? Yeah. And so to work through that into a different level of consideration. That's a great observation. Great email. Not somebody who's ready to give Dunk any observation. Sir. Manfred Dundarium Dunk is seeking him out because Ser Arlan fought for Ser Manfred, Dondarrion's father in Dorne. And he is sure that he will remember him now as Thrones fans were like, great. Dondarrion's Beric Dondarrion, the Lightning Lord.

[B]

We love Dondarrion.

[A]

Wonderful.

[B]

This is a failed Dondarrion.

[A]

This guy sucks.

[B]

This guy sucks. Really quickly, I want to shout out friends of the Pod, the folks at the History of Westeros Pod. Because they are always keeping their eye on the larger family tree. And something that they pointed out is that Manfred Dondarrion has close ties with Targaryens because Baelor Breakspear, who is a Targaryen who we will meet in the show. His wife is Jenna Dondarrion. So this might be the brother in law to one of the main Targaryens. So this idea of. And he sucks, but does he suck because he has even higher opinion of himself because he's like so closely associated with the Targaryens, or is he a good person to have vouch for you because he's so closely tied to the Targaryens, but just that, that, like, close family association I thought was really interesting to think about.

[A]

You think that has anything to do with his gouty toes?

[B]

Further royal who didn't flirt with gout, I should say. I also think this idea that, like, one of his defining characteristics is that he likes to fuck other people's wives.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Makes us think of one of the, like, most famous chivalric knights of all times, which is Lancelot. Lancelot, like Lancelot, so noble, so pure, so honorable. Fucked Guinevere the queen. You know what I mean? And it's just like this is, you know, this is a thing that knights do.

[A]

Needed to sheath that sword somehow.

[B]

You know, there are so many, like, Guinevere and Lancelot tales, but one of my favorite ones that I've read, I forget I took an Arthurian legends class and I forget who wrote this particular one, but there's one where they're sleeping in different beds and he's like wounded and they've put like flour on the floor as a sort of like chastity belt of like, there's flour on the floor. So, like, if they see footprints in the flower, they will know that Lancelot went over to her bed. But don't worry, they're so chaste. But then he is so horny for her that he leaps from his bed to her, like, bypassing the flower. But he drips blood on the Floor. Cause he's, like, wounded and bleeding, and that's how people know that he fucked her. So I'm just saying Tales of Nights are just great and really fun. People should read them more often.

[A]

Incredible stuff. Seems like if you left some footprints in the flower, you could just, like, you know, the way you hide footprints in the snow kind of flowers.

[B]

This is Trixie, though. Trixie, you gotta pack more flour. Just, like, extra flour to sprinkle on top of your footprints, you know, to.

[A]

Mix with the blood. Yeah.

[B]

Back up to make a paste to.

[A]

Change the consistency a bit. Speaking of red things, we've got some blood in that tail. We have red hair here on. When I use the word whores, I use it because it is true to the canon. Yep. Very much from the RA's school here of introducing new whores to the tale who are not in the text but are gonna be here to really do a lot of wonderful work.

[B]

Give us characters with names.

[A]

Characters with names. That's great. Characters with names. Humor, charm, actual information and insights through conversation into certain key happenings, including that Sir Manfred has gouty toes and is napping. The fact that they're referring to Dunk as it is, very tough. Very tough indeed. I.

[B]

What I love about the it, though. Yeah, we talked about the it a bit on Talk the Throne. So it's, like, dehumanizing on the one hand, but on the other hand, it's like he hasn't named himself yet.

[A]

That's right. Dunk. Dunk. Dunk.

[B]

Dunk. Plumber's, like, dunking his, like, bread doughnut, whatever it is, like, into his ale, whatever it is.

[A]

Do you think he ever mixes up.

[B]

The phlegm cup with the Alex? It's a risk. I hope not.

[A]

But, like, it's a risk.

[B]

He's still Dunk. It's an it. He's not Ser Duncan the Tall yet. He will be by the end of the episode.

[A]

I love when he actually makes himself taller. Just wonderful stuff. So what is a hedge knight? We have a couple different definitions that we can share, and everybody's free to pick from there. Sure. So something that we learn. Sir Arlem. This is what we learn from Dunk. In the text, a hedge knight is the truest kind of knight. Dunk. The old man had 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 knight swears to protect the weak and innocent, but we keep the vow Best, I think. And we will get the show's version of that shortly. When Dunk is consulting with Sweetfoot after leaving their company and says. Says something else we'll get to in a second. But he says, Harlan always said that a hedge knight was the true kind of knight. This other side of the robber knight risk. Right. You're a champion who's free to fight for what you believe in.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You're not working for someone else's agenda. So that is like a beloved and crucial passage and a key idea. Gonna offer you up another definition though. And it is provided to us in this scene by Red.

[B]

You have to do the accent, though.

[A]

I don't think I can.

[B]

It's like a night but set up.

[A]

Which are you going with? Which of these definitions are you going with?

[B]

Kind of both.

[A]

You know, Kind of both. Dunk's blushing in this scene. The nervousness, it's so precious. He can't even figure out which way to turn, which way to look. Dunk had never been with a girl, we learn in the novella. And they made him nervous. And you can tell. And it is really sweet we should.

[B]

Say that like there, there are no named prostitutes in this tale. There is one red haired woman that he's like, love to look at the way her breasts bounce under her tunic. So like he's noticing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So.

[A]

Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's also like, they could steal my coin.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, great stuff. Tanto.

[B]

Too tall. Tall enough for some things.

[A]

Certainly. The other thing that Dunk says to Sweetfoot as they're heading off is we're not sad. Certainly not rising to the level of a comment sad, which I thought was one of the lines of the episode. Really funny.

[B]

Really funny.

[A]

That's so funny. Certainly not rising to the level of a comment sad. We're about to meet some other characters though.

[B]

Two apples.

[A]

The Fossois have entered the chat.

[B]

Two apples fighting the apple wars, would you say? What could be more possibly us?

[A]

Sir Stefan Fosay and his cousin Squire Raymond are sparring house. Fossoway of Cider hall, another house of the Reach, who again served the Tyrells. We get some Fosseway action throughout A Song of Ice and Fire. But this is like the most fossoway centric television time that we have spent so far. Ser Stefan, just an instant, clear, undeniable dick. Right? He calls Raymond a useless rat. He calls Dunk a blue eyed cunt. He again dismisses, as mentioned earlier, the matters of the hedge. Oh yes, Dunk. I have Matters to attend to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Matters of the hedge. He is not a chill, nice dude, but he is looking to spar. And as we will learn later from Raymond, he wants to study but also batter and diminish his potential tourney foes so that he can gain an edge. Not very honorable.

[B]

No. Not very sportsmanlike.

[A]

Not very sporting.

[B]

They're housewords. A taste of glory.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

It's pretty good.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

They love an apple pun and they put one in their housewords.

[A]

All right, so let me, on the apple pun front, ask you to power rank some of what we get in this episode here.

[B]

All of which we should say are right for the book.

[A]

Ripped.

[B]

Plucked like an apple from the tree.

[A]

Plucked from the tree. Not ripe yet. Rotten to the core. Knock the seeds out of him. Senior branch of the apple tree, I think. Is this too much on the apple pun front? Are you loving every second of it?

[B]

For me, it's clearly knocked the seeds out of him.

[A]

It's good.

[B]

Here's what I love. They're almost like Alice in Wonderland characters. It's almost like meeting Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Like the way in which they're talking in these, like, dumb, dumb. But I love apple terms about each other. And if you think about like all, you know, this wide eyed, like, he's dressed in light blue, like wide eyed adventure that he's having. He's meeting someone called the Laughing Storm and these like apple cousins who are basically twins and stuff like that. And this is just like very Alice down the rabbit hole with, with our guy Dunk being the act, the Alice, the like. I don't understand the way this world works. Everyone's talking in riddles and I have only my horse to talk to, really.

[A]

So if I had an apple, I would give it to my horse because that's what Sir Arlen taught me.

[B]

He really would.

[A]

He definitely would. I agree. Knock the seeds out of him. Probably the best one. Oh, the fossils. What would you like to say about the padra coating of Raymond? We tried to go down to the outfit. I mean, by God, we talked about.

[B]

This a lot in the trailer breakdowns. But if you spared yourself those, like five hours, we should just say, like, from the jump, we've been like this. This guy looks so much like Daniel Portman, the actor who played. And like, actually, if you look at this actor outside, so Sean Thomas is the actor who's playing. If you look at him, like just his headshot, he doesn't look that much like Daniel Portman.

[A]

So they just potted him up.

[B]

They combed the hair forward. They, like, ruddied his cheeks. They just like. And then the. Like, of course, the maroon, like, sort of outfit.

[A]

They just wearing pods closed.

[B]

Yes. It's pretty amazing. But that makes us think about Brienne and that makes us happy.

[A]

It sure does. This is where the. That's an odd thing to say. Sword moment is. And Dunk is just. The imposter syndrome is very palpable.

[B]

It's like a knight, but sadder. But sadder.

[A]

Again, we talked about this on Talk of the Thrones, but, you know, when Dunk is making his way through the field and the grounds in the novella, he's like, this isn't where I'm gonna. I'm gonna stay. Right. Either people would be right.

[B]

They'll make fun of me.

[A]

Yeah. They'll be openly, like, hostile. Or they'll be kind and that'll be worse. Which is a really heartbreaking idea, which.

[B]

We don't see anyone do. But the fact that they gave us Stefan here. And also it's like a night. But Sada, all of that is like showing us what Duncan tells us in.

[A]

The novella, which is there are so many little deft ways that they take a bit of internal thought and either through dialogue or actions presented to us in the show.

[B]

Say it to a horse. When in doubt, please say it to a horse.

[A]

We'll take it. So he sets off here for quieter accommodations.

[B]

Sure. Trees.

[A]

And we make our way to the iconic elm. Dunk's elm. This private, beautiful, albeit buggy, albeit buggy spot.

[B]

But missing the dragonflies.

[A]

I know. I was really on the lookout when he was hoping for it by his neck. I'm like, that's not a dragonfly.

[B]

I was hoping for, like, one little dragonfly. Fly to land.

[A]

I know. What did you think of this bathing technique?

[B]

It's not the bathing technique. It's the laundry technique that you have notes on. Right.

[A]

If you're beating the.

[B]

The.

[A]

The garb, the clothing, and then sniffing and recoiling in horror.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At the stench in the seat of your pants after we have witnessed your explosive, unceasing diarrhea. I would spend a little more time.

[B]

There's. Is there. Is there a.

[A]

Get really submerged.

[B]

The fabric soap.

[A]

It needs egg.

[B]

Does he say, this is why he needs a squire? Does he. He says, like, what the fuck? I forget what he said. Yeah. I said, oh, fuck, yeah. But earlier, when he hits his head on the doorway, he says, seven fucks. And it cuts away. It's just like, seven and it like cuts away. It was really, really funny. Not seven hells, Seven fucks. Really good.

[A]

Great stuff. Dunk would like seven fucks.

[B]

He'd like just the one.

[A]

Just the one. That's a place to start. Yeah.

[B]

Canonically virginal.

[A]

Speaking of, it's time to go seek out Sir Manfred at Evenfall as instructed. This fucker. Sir Manfred Evenfall still asleep. Evenfall.

[B]

Yeah. The name of Bran's home.

[A]

It sure is. It sure is one of the first.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Our favorite.

[B]

Even follows the name of the hall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The tarths are fun.

[A]

Ms. Bran really do remember when Thrones was great. I do, man.

[B]

That was the best. I would like. There's a few spin offs I would like. None of which they're floating currently in.

[A]

Hbo, John sends ghost off one of my least favorite sentences I have ever read. Let me tell you that right now.

[B]

Kit Harrington's like, I'm really going through it. Should we put that on the screen? And the interview industry guys are like, yes. And HBO's like, it's working there. Game of Thrones, like maybe not.

[A]

Sir Henry. Henry Moxley.

[B]

Riveted going through it. Anyway, a spin. A Brienne spin off.

[A]

Oh my God, that would be incredible.

[B]

Yeah. She has to leave the castle and the.

[A]

That's the thing in the White Book.

[B]

And stuff like that.

[A]

Like they don't want to. They don't have to do anything that tells us that cements anything about the other characters future. No, thank you. Sir Manfred's still asleep. So Dunk follows Red into a tent where a nude woman is lying prone on a slab, stones over her eyes. So we've seen this visual, this death ritual.

[B]

She also has a name.

[A]

Daisy does also have a name. Daisy Van Erend. They've all got names. Great work guys. Great work, team. So this idea with the stones, right, you close your eyes in this life and you open them in the next, you open them in another. Applicable to Dunk in a few different ways. How he feels looking at naked breasts, certainly. But also this next phase of his life, this journey. However it turns out this woman is not actually dead. She is just preparing for a very specific taste that they are prepared to cater to. Great Game of Thrones folks.

[B]

And I regret to inform you, and I don't know if this says something about me, when three women are in a room together, I have to think about Macbeth. Like this is giving very like weird sisters the three fates to me. There's like a element of prophecy here right when they're talking about definitely be careful about Your body, man. From one whore to another. Yeah.

[A]

It's the only one you're, like, to have for one whore to another. The way that that starts as an implication and then just becomes overt text one whore to another. And how Dunk is so wounded by that. And then the moment where they are, like, chastised and soften and basically explain to him, like, we've seen a lot of boys who have. They have a lot of hope in their hand, but, like, not a lot of tangible achievement to show for it at the end and protect yourself, choose a safer course. I really loved that as well. And then the way that Dunk says, perhaps I will be different. And they looked at him with, I just thought such pity. And, like, that really captures a lot of this Dunk experience. But, like, tenderness.

[B]

I really do think the last shot we get of Red later, when Manfred is, like, showing his, like, absolute pinnacle of dickishness, and she looks back, like, sort of over her shoulder at him as sort of like a softness and a warmness. There's something to you. Definitely.

[A]

Definitely, definitely. Speaking of something to you, hands out.

[B]

Too tall.

[A]

Woo.

[B]

Not too tall for me. Boy, we love a tall woman.

[A]

We love a tall woman.

[B]

Okay, so when I did rewatchables last week and Kyle Bram met me for the first time in real life, and he's like, wow, you're tall. You know? And Craig was like, the women at the ringer are tall. And he said it with pride. And he was like, liz is tall. Craig's wife is very tall. He's like, liz is tall. He's like, like, Mallory's tall. I was like, Mallory's.

[A]

I'm not genuinely average height. 5 seconds.

[B]

And he was like, yeah, when she's standing next to you. I was like, yes. Anyway, the pride, he said when he's like, the women at the ringer are tall. I loved it.

[A]

There's a lot of tall people here at the Ringer. We've talked about this before. Yeah, great stuff. Sir Joe the tall.

[B]

I love it. Not too tall.

[A]

Not too tall for me. Not too tall for me. Dunk has wandered. He's wandering through the market, and he happens upon Tanzania puppet show. You could just see the look on his face. He's got a crush and he got it quickly.

[B]

Heart.

[A]

Eyes. Yes. Real like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is she performing? We are actually going to hear and see a little clip of this, Carlos, if you. If you will. Our brave hero forges on, leaving all he knows behind. A father and a friend may seem the world Unkind fate has set his lonely path through corridors of chance A boy from nothing risks it all Ignoring looks askance and then here's the rest yeah, yeah Perhaps he's only stupid holding fast his mirror shield Great honor, his ambition must keep a truth concealed for if his humble shape is bared of foul and fiery demise should the dragon discover none But a man in great disguise now, this is dope.

[B]

First of all, it's a little on the nose.

[A]

I would say it's too on the nose. It's like a little. We love in Thrones when we get, like, a mummer show, a public show.

[B]

We love the theater. We're connoisseurs of the theater.

[A]

Love the theater. When Aria is in Braavos and sees Lady Crane and that troupe performing. And now, that's obviously very painful, what they are performing. But this idea of, like, how is history conveyed in the world in real time? Right. In Thrones or in House of the Dragon. And hotd we get to see Rhaenyra confronting the way the people of King's Landing are talking about her through these shows. So this story here, Cerwyn of the Mirror Shield, that language, as you noted it, maps on quite clearly to dunk and is chosen deliberately here for a reason. We're gonna be talking about Serwyn of the Mirror Shield when we cover House of the Dragon again. But who is this person? And what is this legend? So this Age of Heroes. An Age of Heroes myth, right? Not the last time. The Age of Heroes is alluded to in this episode.

[B]

To be really clear, it's. Serwyn is like. That's his name. Yes, like, his name was Erwin. But it's Serwyn. Yes, but it's not Sir Win. Right. Sir Win.

[A]

Should the Poop Robin be named Sir Space Win? Since it's available, yeah.

[B]

He stays winning. Sir Win of the Poop Robin, a.

[A]

Knight of the Reach, House Gardner, who slew the dragon.

[B]

Go. No, I just love that, like, Tanzel and the troupe are like, we're going to the Reach. You know what they're gonna want to see?

[A]

They're gonna want to see sir give.

[B]

Them the mirror shield. They love that shit.

[A]

Hide behind the shield. It's polished so that the dragon can only see its own reflection.

[B]

Dragon's a little dumb. Dumb.

[A]

And then this allows Cerwyn to trick, deceive, and slay the dragon.

[B]

Right. And so he's disguising himself in order to win the day.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And could anyone else here be disguising themselves in order to win the day? We'll see.

[A]

This is a tale beloved by the small folk that. That like many myths in this world, a tall tale that became legend grows and evolves and changes over time. Aspects of how people talk about Serwyn and what they associate with him cannot canonically all be true and match based on timing and stuff like that. So it's an interesting glimpse into the way a myth unfolds.

[B]

Can I add, like, another layer that Tenzel does not make literal text here, but I'll just say. And this is. I don't think it's a spoiler, but if you didn't watch any of the trailers, you can just hop ahead a few seconds. This isn't a spoiler, but I would say in the trailer, sort of quite notably, Dunk says, are there no true knights among you? Right. Like, this is a thing. So, like, there's an aspect in which Dunk is here to hold up a mirror to, like, the entire knight class of Westeros. Who is noble here? Who has. Is there honor among you? What will this mirror reveal about yourself? And will that help him or hurt him at the end of the day, you know?

[A]

And do the people care to look into it at all?

[B]

They don't.

[A]

Great question. The role of the myth and the idea of the myth in the wider realm and the world, but also in Dunk's life, you know, the way he thinks about these great stories and the aspirational nature of them. This is a passage we both love. He thought back on all the songs he had heard. Songs of blind Simeon Star Eyes and noble Serwyn of the Mirror Shield of Prince Aemond the Dragonknight, Sir Ryam Red Wine and. And Florian the Fool, your guy. They had all won victories against foes far more terrible than any he would face. But they were great heroes, brave men of noble birth. Except for Florian. And what am I? Dunk of Flea Bottom or Ser Duncan the Tall? He supposed he would learn the truth of that soon enough. And so this idea, which is going to be very present in the Lyonel Baratheon scene that we talk about, and I love that that's like a shared. There are many differences between them, as Dunk will observe, but that this is kind of a shared aspect of their characters, like how they think about history and how they think about myth as something to aspire to. Fascinating as a measuring stick.

[B]

But again, like, invoking Florian here has to make you think about Sansa.

[A]

Absolutely. If only we had a lemon cake. You were talking about lemon cakes before lemon cakes.

[B]

You love lemon cakes.

[A]

Raymond Dunk exits the puppet show. And Raymond's like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have encouraged you to spar against Stefan. He just wanted to you up so that he could have an easier time beating you. My bad. When Dunk asks Raymond, are you gonna. Are you entering the list? What do you. What are you up to? What are you thinking? And he's like, no, I'm just a squire. I can't. Dunk does it, like, full on hectic look. What? You're a squire.

[B]

You fight so well, though if he.

[A]

Is only a squire, the passage goes, what business do I have being a knight? One of us is a fool.

[B]

Florian.

[A]

I love the part where there's the, like, you know, well, who are you? Who do you plan to challenge? You know? And Dunk's like, well, matters not, you know? And they're like, well, that's what you're supposed to say.

[B]

Which is right out of the book. But, like, interior monologue that they just gave to Raymond, which I love.

[A]

Great stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It makes all the difference in the world. And then Raymond's like, I'd like to lead you somewhere. Are you hungry?

[B]

I'd like to lead you into a scene that's not in the books.

[A]

And I would like to say thank you to Raymond for this.

[B]

It's the best.

[A]

The Laughingstorm is dancing his way into the story way sooner than we had any reason to expect. Except for the fact that the Laughingstorm was basically the star of the first trailer.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that led to some wonderful house of art theorizing from you about what role Lionel might play in the story. That is like, well, well. But, you know, he's here trying to share history with his assembled guests.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And that is a version of what you were saying.

[B]

No, let's be honest. My theory was that Dunk would, like, tell him the story of Arlen and that's how he would get flashbacks. That's not what happens here. But that's okay. I don't mind, because we hold our theories loosely. A and B, this scene is a banger to me. Would you like to hear? Or perhaps you already know because you watch all the behind the scenes like I do. The description of Lyonel Baratheon that Daniel Ings who like people are loving.

[A]

I thought this was great. Yeah.

[B]

Jack Sparrow mixed with Ernest Hemingway is what he got. And like, he's like, when he's on the dance floor, he's like basically doing Orlando Bloom doing Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. Like, I was like, I wrote Jack Sparrow in my notes at some point. So I was like, you crushed it. My God.

[A]

How much of that is about the eye makeup specifically?

[B]

Or, like, the forelock? I don't know. But dangling earring, great stuff. My. My really good friend Katie Rich texted me and she's like, what can you tell me about this salt and pepper Oscar Isaac looking motherfucker?

[A]

I mean, yeah.

[B]

And I was like, love sick. Watch it immediately. And I tweeted about this. But, like, and. And I. And I mentioned on. On Talk Thrones, Chris mentioned Daniel Ings, who plays Lionel Brath in here, that he was, like, really good on the Gentleman, which came out what is time? Last year, two years ago, whatever. On Netflix. He was. He's in the first season of the Crown. He plays one of Philip's, like, ne' er do well friends. Right? He's, like, often a corrupting influence when he, like, shows up and things. But he's so good on Lovesick because he is like caddish, but with this, like, deep soul. And I just. I love that show. I will, like, stump for it forever. You should watch Lovesick. But I'm. I'm, like, really excited. Like, a lot of people loved him here as Lana Baratheon, and that just, like, thrills me. I'm just so excited. Also, I saw some people note that and we mentioned this Tyrion comp in on Talk of Thrones because he's, like, poetic in his cups, right? He's drunk, but he's got this lyricism to him and this soulfulness to him. But a lot of people are pointing out that between the curly wig and the way his beard is shaped, that he's styled to look like Tyrion as much as Raymond Fossoway is styled to look like podcast.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which I love.

[A]

I enjoyed what he said on the inside the episode. A little feature right at the. At the end of the. The premiere. I'm not afraid of looking like an idiot. This was about the dancing and just in general how he's carrying himself in this scene. And it's a good opportunity to show just what a wild man this guy is. He wants to elevate things into a storm. Now he understands the assignment playing the Laughing Storm, and it's incorporating that language right into the description. Broadly here we'll go through the scene and how wonderful it was. But broadly, what are we gaining by moving the Laughing Storm's introduction up? It's hard to talk about increasing his scope.

[B]

It's hard to talk about it too much without spoiling anything. But I will Just say that. It's like, he's a dynamic figure in as much as, like, a Wikipedia entry can ever be dynamic inside of a story. Like, he's called the Laughing Storm. Incredible scene. We get a couple, like, sentences about, like, why he has that moniker and stuff like that. Like, all of that is fun, but he's not a fully fleshed character. And, like, without saying anything specific, like, he has a role to play in this story that, like, it will just benefit us to have an emotional, like, investment in the choices that he makes. And it will benefit the story for him to have some sort of relationship of any kind with Duncan, you know?

[A]

Yeah. And I think just in general, obviously, just tonally and in terms of.

[B]

I mean, we get more Raymond, too, in this sense.

[A]

I was gonna say, I think the energy and the charisma that Lionel brings is distinct and just kind of breathtaking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think expanding those scenes for Lionel and Dunk and Raymond and Dunk in this process. The tales of Dunk and Egg, like, we know, are core pairing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that relationship is elemental. But I like that we are expanding time with Dunk and other people, too. That just feels beneficial for, like, fleshing out the totality of who Dunk is.

[B]

Right. Because there's a difference, and there is just such a clear difference between the way that Dunk conducts himself when he's talking to Egg. He's, yes. Trying to model himself on Arlen, and he's, like, saying, like, boy, and, like, certain things. I'll give you a cloud around the ear, but who is he when he's on the back foot around Lionel and is like, you're chaotic and scary and hot and fun and, you know, and.

[A]

Like, all of the above.

[B]

And, like, he. With Raymond, who feels like a little bit more of an equal to him, you know, like, where. Where is he in all of this? So I love it.

[A]

I love it, I love it. Laughing Storm, just. Just sick, sick name. The costuming here. Incredible. We'll talk about the crown in a second. The dagger, all of it is fantastic. The pavilion, I mean, this is basically a manse, this pavilion. I like when he's at the very end of the scene, tells Dunk, you know, I don't know. I'm drunk. And he kind of moseys off and Crown points to God in the chandelier.

[B]

And he apologizes to the chandelier.

[A]

This is pavilion, of course, as a.

[B]

Chandelier with anglers on it. I toss this, not to keep coming back to Disney, but I tossed this like Gaston line I use it antlers and all of my decorating on Talk the Thrones. But I just want to say that like I use antlers and all of my decorating inside Beauty and the Beast and they like cut to something and you're like, those are some antlers. Lyle Baratheon really understands the assignment of like there are so like I everywhere. I don't think the. The production design people talked about the way in which we saw like some concept design work and stuff like that in the. In the sort of making of that they put up on YouTube. But like, like I just am envisioning the production design team with like a hot glue gun and a mountain of antlers and they're just like glue it to every glue an antler. Like put a bird on it, put an antler on it, on every surface. It's great. I love it.

[A]

An inspiring bit of direction and I think. I think it's working. You mentioned the notes in the book about like where this name comes from, this idea that he just laughs at the people he's besting.

[B]

He knocks off their like fancy helms, tosses it to the small folk and laughs at them when he beats them.

[A]

Incredible stuff.

[B]

He's a very important person.

[A]

It is just the best. The full crown here. The full crown. Baratheons love their crown stags as we know and you know, the storm kings of old, the future rulers, of course in our game of Thrones primary timeline of the Seven Kingdoms. Shout out, Bobby B. Always shout out Renly. Shout out Stannis. Is that a ham? Love to think of our faves. A reminder for the Bhad Bhabies that Aegon the Conqueror's best pal. Best pal. Best pal firsthand. Brother, bastard brother. Orys Baratheon, the founder of House Baratheon, who slew the Storm King Argilac the arrogant. Talk about a sick moniker. It's incredible. George is really good at this, honestly. And the to the bastard brother point, many, many, many people believed.

[B]

Many people are saying.

[A]

Many people are saying that Orys was Aegon the Conqueror's bastard brother, Aerion's bastard son, meaning Baratheon's threw a dragon seed, little drop of targ blood.

[B]

And guess what? They've never forgotten that I said I was using sort of shorthand on Talk of Thrones because I didn't think it was like worth getting into all when I said they were like one the of the oldest great houses like I.

[A]

On Talk to the thrones. We have 50 minutes here.

[B]

I knew all of that history, but like, it's true that, like, when you talk about the great houses of Westeros, like the Baratheons, even though they stole the sigil and everything else from a different house that was at Storm's End before them, like, they are one of the oldest great houses, and because they have this association with the Targaryens, they have heirs that they put on that other people don't. I mean, the Starks kind of do, right? Because, you know, they're the Starks. But, you know, the fact that Lyonel Baratheon, who's not even head of his house, is wearing a crown, it's incredible.

[A]

It's not. It definitely helps.

[B]

Do you think he wears it once the Targaryens get there? Or does he, like, put it away in a box?

[A]

That's a good question.

[B]

He should be.

[A]

He should not when they're around. But then if you don't, you risk the whispers of, oh, you know what you do. You know what he does when you're not around? He wears a fucking antler crown that is so tall and hits the chandelier that he insists on putting in his pavilion. Just an incredible character. Really good. He wants to regale all of his assembled guests with a tail, but they won't stay quiet long enough for him to talk, so he calls them all cunts again. Thrones. Remember when we. On the. One of the trailer pods, we were like, you know, will we see boobs? How Thronesy. Will it be sad?

[B]

Did we sit there saying, will we see boobs?

[A]

Will we see boobs? Will there be boobs? First episode. Asher, Chair. We're gonna lower you down.

[B]

Great.

[A]

Here we are. And he speaks of the first joust. The first joust 4,000 years ago. A field right outside. And he's talking about this idea that men could not have devised. Wait.

[B]

But of such a thing. I have a really. I've heard a really fun theory about this.

[A]

Tell me. Drop it.

[B]

That he's alluding to the way in which stags joust with each other. You know, because, like, I thought, like, oh, he means, you know, the gods. Or he means, you know, like the Andals or. Or whatever the case may.

[A]

But he's like, no, my cr.

[B]

That invented jousting.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Isn't that awesome?

[A]

Great. Shit. Again. Lyonel fucking rules. We believe that this is a reference to Marys the maid, Garth Greenhand's daughter. This tourney.

[B]

The first tourney was in the Reach.

[A]

Yes, the first tourney. This is where it was located. This battle for her hand. And it'll shock everyone to hear that in classic Westerosi fashion, it didn't go.

[B]

Exactly the way that everybody attorney went wrong.

[A]

I know, I know. But more.

[B]

Will there be boobs?

[A]

Will there be boobs? Yes.

[B]

There will be always.

[A]

More Age of Heroes stuff.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

You know, again, this idea of, like, what is a hero? What is a knight?

[B]

What is a legend?

[A]

What takes on the status of myth and heft. Very present throughout. And how do different characters dunk, Lionel, whomever talk and think about and invoke those ideas? And I like establishing Lionel not only as a character with, you know, certainly a flair for the dramatic, a desire to have fun, a command of the room. He's not uncomfortable.

[B]

Gay time.

[A]

Gay time. He doesn't have imposter syndrome. He's like, this is who I was born to be in every respect. But he's a philosopher, too, and he's existential. And he's thinking about how to prove that to himself as we're about to hear. And he's got a feel for history. And so there is. Even though he and Dunk are so different, there are these common strands at sort of like a cellular level that I thought were very effectively conveyed here earlier.

[B]

You think Dunk is existential and philosophical.

[A]

Dunk belongs to Castle Wall. I think Dunk is like, what does it mean to be a knight? What does it mean?

[B]

Okay, that's existential. To be.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think in a much. Maybe more distilled and contained fashion than Lionel. Certainly just everything about the scene. So the call for feasting and dancing and then the call for Dunk to come to Lionel. Dunk's like me. Half eaten, pastry in hand. We get a little glimpse of Beesbury dancing in the mustache. Anything you'd like to say about that?

[B]

What a legend.

[A]

Just iconic.

[B]

What an iconic.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

House Beesbury is here. Get used to it.

[A]

We always like when House Beesbury is here. Dear me godsby. Goats here are boobs. There will. Debbie booze, There will. Here are some of the things that Lionel asked. Dunk, have you ever been punched in the face? Why do you slouch? What gift have you brought me? Are you here for my help or my head? What's your name? And if he likes to dance, which of those, if any, would you like to talk about more? Why does he slouch?

[B]

Where I grew up, you learned to go unnoticed is all. The seven above gave you tallness. So be tall. I'm gonna take that advice. I'm gonna try to, like, work on my posture. And just like the women of the ringer are tall, be tall.

[A]

So, Craig. So what you're saying is Craig Horlebeck is your Lionel Baratheon?

[B]

Kind of. Do you disagree, spot the lie.

[A]

Do you disagree, spot the lie?

[B]

I've never seen him dance, though. That's interesting.

[A]

I could see him wearing that. This crown, though.

[B]

I absolutely could.

[A]

Dunks or dunk. That's ridiculous.

[B]

Right? This is so like, be tall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Giving him part of his name. And also sort of like the second response to like, dunk, Are you sure, buddy? You know, workshop that. Like, poop robin.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So like the third go round when Egg's like, short for Duncan, maybe. He's like, yeah, that's it. Duncan. Duncan the tall. Be tall. Be Duncan. I got it.

[A]

I got a name. It's like Lionel is so sure in his skin and Dunk just, you know, isn't. And having different people help him navigate that. So it's great. They have electric chemistry, these two.

[B]

They're so good. You know who else loves a gay Baratheon? Brienne of Tarth.

[A]

With a deep and abiding commitment, Brandon Dunk, once again.

[B]

See, they see a gay Baratheon, they're like, let me add it. Let me add him.

[A]

They sit and speak after the dancing.

[B]

By the way, I just want to say. Yeah, I understand that not everyone who. Who listens to watches House of R is a musicals fan. And that's okay. Ira Parker is a huge musicals fan. But even if you're not and you've never seen Fiddler on the Roof, listen, you should watch Fiddler on the Roof. It's incredible. But if you don't have time to do that, then you can go to YouTube.com and you can look.

[A]

Thanks for saying dot com.

[B]

You're welcome. And you can look up L' Chaim or the bottle Dance. Like, those are part of the same sequence. And just, like, really enjoy some of the coolest shit you've ever seen. It's just like, really, really good shit. And they just, like, really captured it here. I was, like, so surprised and delighted.

[A]

The swinging and circling from Lionel.

[B]

The, like, shoulder shimmying, like, all of it. It's really good.

[A]

Fantastic stuff. The little. The toe stomp contest. Just remarkable bit of television here. Truly great. And then we kind of shift to, like, a quieter moment of conversation and reflection. And Lionel is telling this story about driving into the storm to test his mettle, to forge his legacy, to measure himself against the past. And Dunk asks if he was afraid. Carlos, can we hear Hear what Lionel says in response.

[B]

Within every man there are many men.

[A]

That I had to do Storm Land, as had always done.

[B]

If they had done it, I could do it too.

[A]

There are some really great lines in this episode. We're going to talk about another one that we love. That concludes the episode. Within every man there are many men. As the line of the.

[B]

And I went on a wild Google chase.

[A]

Well, a little Kindle searching to try.

[B]

To find, like, where in George R.R. martin's Texas is. It isn't anywhere. There are other things that Lionel says. Like, he says the thing about a night without a horse is no night at all. That's from the Sworn Sword. Like, that's from a later novella. Like, they lifted some lines and gave them to him. But like, within every man There are Many men.

[A]

Gorgeous.

[B]

Is original to the show.

[A]

Yeah. Incredible.

[B]

It's so good.

[A]

It's perfect. I mean, it's a perfect encapsulation of Dunk's conflict. This idea of embracing all of the aspects of what a hedge knight's noble pursuits can be and what he's learned from Ser Arlan and the truth that he still holds in that respect, but also the desire for forging his own path and making decisions for the first time. I got such a kick out of George being on the official pod, the preview episode that they did. And he talked about, you were alluding earlier to the what is the ideal and what is the reality and the conflict. And then he literally did invoke the Faulkner quote that we always reference as a core Georgism.

[B]

What is the Faulkner quote we always reference just in case people are new.

[A]

To the pod Conflict in the human heart.

[B]

It's the only thing.

[A]

The human heart and conflict, it's the only thing worth writing about. And this is like, I hope people.

[B]

Who are listening heard you thumping on your chest for a few seconds before you started talking.

[A]

It's basically like George's North Star and just how he. He thinks about.

[B]

Interesting. That and what Aragorn's Tax was one of the little.

[A]

Even the little orcs in their little cradles. So this captures something that is just kind of like essential to how George thinks about story in general and interesting character in general. But certainly Duncan and a lot of the characters in this story in particular. And I thought this was really, really great. And also this idea of finding inspiration and courage through those measuring sticks of history, that tall tale that became legend idea again, hearing it from Lionel right before Dunk gives him the like, yeah, that's easy for you to Say, to put us in a common space before the circumstances and realities of their existences peel them apart again in the next exchange. Just thought it was, like, really smart. So this was a great bit of acting, great bit of writing, and thematically, very, very rich. The thing that's most top of mind for Dunk here, though, is like, what chance do I have, right? What chance do I have, truly? And Lionel says, real talk. Oh, you have no chance. Oh, you have no chance. But it's a great honor to test oneself against a worthy foe in A Feast for Crows.

[B]

Here's the passage. 7 Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against 7 she knew no chance and no choice. She stepped out into the rain, oathkeeper in hand. So the Brienne and Dunk stuff is just like, constantly knitted together. Inextricable, always there.

[A]

Yeah, I fucking loved it. I love it. The scene was great. The scene was great.

[B]

Genuinely. No nos.

[A]

Oh, man. Dunk was strong and quick and his weight and reach were in his favor. But he did not believe for a moment that his skills were the equal of these others. Sir Arlen had taught him as best he could, but the old man had never been the greatest of knights, even when young. Great knights. This always makes me sad. Great knights did not live their lives in the hedges, nor die by the side of a muddy road. That will not happen to me, Dunk vowed. I will show them that I can be more than a hedge knight. Pair that with. What chance do I have? What a special character. What a special character.

[B]

No chance at all.

[A]

He sees Sir Manfred, who I think should not be allowed to kiss people in public or frankly, in private. This was revolting. This was revolting. I thought you were a Dornish man. I thought you said you were hung like a Dornishman. No, I said I've hung Dornishman.

[B]

Oh, what a piece of shit.

[A]

But eating their faces.

[B]

I really hope that actor was given a note to kiss badly or else you just crushed his spirit. He was like, I was doing my best. It's the best I've got.

[A]

I think the direction was definitely repel everybody here.

[B]

So you're saying I think it's the ick.

[A]

Okay, yeah, I got exactly. I got the ick for sure. I got the ick. Sir Manfred does not Joanna, remember Sir Arlan of Pennytree who took a wound in his service? Nor does he give a shit.

[B]

And he doesn't even try to pretend that he remembers. Could not. Why should I fucking remember Ser Arlan of the Penny Tree.

[A]

This is Dunk's entire future hangs on this exchange. And Sir.

[B]

And not only that, just like Dunk's entire identity of, like, I was in service to a knight. And that. That matters.

[A]

It mattered.

[B]

And Manfred's like, it doesn't matter.

[A]

And give something of yourself, your blood, your time, your service matters. How could you have forgotten him, right?

[B]

And Red earlier saying, like, protect your body. Right?

[A]

Only got the one.

[B]

Right? And. And Arlen, like, watching that flashback of, like, ripping that giant bolt out of his abdomen. And all the blood.

[A]

That's a lot of blood. Yeah, I would say freely bleeding.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

Sir Manfred. Not a fan.

[B]

What a hot take.

[A]

I'm just gonna be brave enough to say it. Not a fan of Sir Manfred Dondarrion. So Dunk, defeated, heads back to his peaceful elm, his little pool. Someone's there.

[B]

Little pool.

[A]

There's a roaring fire. Nice and cool.

[B]

He's caught some fish. His only wish.

[A]

Gollum would not want the fish to be baked.

[B]

No wriggling.

[A]

Egg is here. He has arrived in a lamb cart.

[B]

In a lamb cart.

[A]

An enterprising youngster, we'll say that. And he found Dunk here in this spot. And he has tended the camp. He has done all the work. The only thing he couldn't do, he says, is put up the pavilion because he couldn't find one.

[B]

Pavilion answer. But I couldn't find one.

[A]

Trees leak. Trees leak. Will there be boobs? Will there be boobs? It's a reasonable question. I mean, we shouldn't have ever doubted. A lot of people wanted to know, will there be boobs?

[B]

Many people were asking, will there be boobs?

[A]

Dunk threatens to, like, take a home. Right, I should just put you over horse, take you home. And Egg's like, you got it.

[B]

You. Were you worried that there would be no boobs? Because Ian McShane once said game of Thrones was tits and dragons and there are no dragons. So you're like, what if there are no tits?

[A]

I was like, maybe we'll get puppet. Puppet boobs.

[B]

Well, B, puppet bow.

[A]

How realistic are those bumpets?

[B]

Just curious.

[A]

Egg is like, you'd have to take me back to King's Landing, man. And just like the well, she's dead comment that Egg made about his mother earlier. At the end, you can see how this changes something in Dunk about how he is looking at Egg and what he is thinking because it makes him think of himself. He's from Fleasborne, another wretch from Flea Bottom. Like is not. And who can blame him? For wanting out of that place. Now in the show, he's like, are you from Flea Bottom? And Egg's like, no. But that association, right, that tenderness, that sense of seeing himself here in Egg leads to a change from Dunk's earlier position. And they exchanged names. Joanna and I just was like, kind of a mess watching this scene and then the subsequent Falling Star scene. It made me so emotional to see this pairing that is so beloved to us come together in this fashion. What's your name? Dunk. Sedunk. That's no name for a knight, is it? Short for Duncan? Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

The women at the Ringer are tall.

[A]

So, Duncan the Tall, would you care to read this passage that we both love from the novella about Dunk not knowing his own name?

[B]

Dunk, he says, said Sir Dunk. That's no name for a knight, is it? Short for Duncan, was it? The old man had just called him Dunk for as long as he could recall, and he did not remember much of his life before Duncan. Yes, he said. Sir Duncan of Dunk had no other name nor any house. Sir Arlan had found him living wild in the stews and alleys of Fleas Bottom. He had never known his father or mother. What was he to say? Sir Duncan of Flea Bottom did not sound very knightly. He could take Penny Tree. What if they asked him where it was? Duncan never been to Penny Tree, nor had the old man talked much about it. He frowned for a moment, then blurted out, sir Duncan the Tall. He was tall, no one could dispute that. And it sounded pissant. I love that, how he pronounced that word. He says puissant a lot and I'm just like, that's an awfully big word.

[A]

I think that on the audiobook Harry Lloyd says, puissant.

[B]

Puissant.

[A]

But who knows?

[B]

Anyway, love this.

[A]

So good.

[B]

You know who has been to Petitree? Jaime Folk and Lannister in A Dance of Dragons.

[A]

Jaime Folk and Lannister.

[B]

It's in the Riverlands, Dunk. If you want to know, if you want a more convincing lie, it's in the Riverlands. Jaime Lannister has been there. In A Dance With Dragons. Just thinking about Jaime and Brienne.

[A]

Always now and always. Never heard of them.

[B]

Yeah. Do you know every knight in the Seven Kingdoms, then? The good ones.

[A]

Have you got a name, thief?

[B]

Egg.

[A]

Egg from the book. Egg, he said. Dunk did not laugh. His head does look like an egg. Small boys can be cruel. And grown men as well. It's just so. It's just so sweet, Dunk is just so sweet. He's wondering, will there be boobs? But he's also so sweet. And so Doug decides to make Egg his squire, to take him on, to accept this offer and to accept Egg into his life, to accept this companionship and to do for Egg, to try to do for Egg what Arlen did for him. And he makes this pledge to Egg. And Egg's eyes go wide and his smile is wide and there's hope and there's glee and there's excitement and there's anticipation. And I was just really moved by this. And like, I love that the. What Dunk says here, the sweetness of the pledge, that there's nothing in it. To your point earlier about how Dunk thinks how his own desire manifests. This isn't about, like, great heights and glory and what they'll. The people they'll walk over to get where they're going. It's about care, right?

[B]

Food. Salt beef and salt fish.

[A]

A place to belong. What Arlen gave to him, we passing that on to you and I both.

[B]

Wrote this in our notes and we had a listener write into it. But I think it's worth, like contrasting the actual language, right?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

So what Dunk says here and our listener cosmic wrote in with this sort of. Of compare contrast. Dunk says, I don't have much, but if you prove you're worth your keep, you'll have clothes on your back and food in your belly. The clothes might be rough spun and the food, salt beef or salt fish, but you won't go hungry. I promise not to beat you except when you deserve it. And this is what Sansa and Catelyn Starks said to Bran. Both. I mean, Catelyn to Bran in the book and then both Cat and Sansa to Bran in the show. I vow that you should always have a place by my hearth and meat and meat at my table. I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear by the old gods and the new. So this idea of, like, place by my hearth and meat and meat and my table and like the food, salt beef and the salt fish, but you won't go hungry. Like, there is this sort of like it's the same. They're saying the same thing, the same oath. So Bran once again is here with us. Catelyn and Sansa are here with us. How lovely. You know, and there are many vows that have been sworn inside of thrones. What are some of your favorites?

[A]

I think Brienne is obviously most top of mind for Me here as well. And I love with Brienne thinking about both sides of it. Like when Brienne is taken on by Cat and Sansa, but then when Brienne takes on Pod as her squire, you know, and the way that that relationship are you serving and helping, are you taking somebody into your service? Dunk is on his version of that journey. But like even something like Jon and Sam taking their Night's Watch vow by the Heart Tree. Like just the way that whether it's a lady and a knight or a knight and a squire or two sworn brothers, the way that that pledge and who you share it with becomes this turning point in your life is just such a kind of core aspect of Thrones to me. And so I love thinking about that.

[B]

For so many those vows are broken.

[A]

And for Bran they make you swear and swear.

[B]

Bran, however, is an oath keeper, right? And what I love when Catelyn says this to Brienne in the book, like, this ends with arise, which is what you say when you knight someone. So like Catelyn, like, you know, know, brings her. Brings Brienne into her service and she. Catelyn can't. A knight can make a knight. Catelyn can't make a knight. But she says arise. She doesn't say arise, Sir Brienne, because she can't make her a knight. But like, but like arise, you know, you are. You know.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I bequeath this honor and duty to you. It's beautiful shit.

[A]

It's really good. Beautiful shit. Also beautiful is sitting under the elm at night when the ship shooting star streaks above them. And Egg says a falling star brings luck to those who see it. But everyone else, they're in their fucking fancy pavilions. Silk. They've got chandeliers, man.

[B]

The stars are brighter after the doom man.

[A]

Dunk threatens another clout in the air. But then he takes a moment and he thinks. He kind of looks to the side at Egg and says, so the luck is ours alone. An egg has curled up and he smiles and it is just perfect. And so this idea, we talked about this a lot on Talk to Thorns because we both were very moved by this not just moment and idea, but slight adaptive tweak that is bigger in impact than in exact execution. Here it's a very tiny tweak that really carries a lot of weight. This idea in the novella Take the thing you lack, this fancy pavilion shelter, the money to have acquired it in the first place, the confidence to put it up in the field with everybody else. All those other things, right? Find your edge in the Thing that you lack this classic wear it like armor idea. But they do something else here, which is they take an internal monologue line from Dunk. In the book, a falling star brings luck to him who sees it, Dunk thought. But the rest of them are still in their pavilions by now, staring up at silk instead of sky. So the luck is mine alone. And they have Egg say this to him instead.

[B]

Cause Egg isn't there yet when this happens in the book.

[A]

So he's learning from Egg already. But what else is he doing, Jo?

[B]

He's sharing a destiny. It's ours. The luck is ours alone. It's not will I see boobs. It's will we. Will we see boobs?

[A]

Will there be boobs?

[B]

Will we see boobs?

[A]

Perfect endnote for the episode, but it's not the end note for the podcast because it is now time for the book. Look ahead.

[B]

Rapid fire.

[A]

We have a few things to hit today. We'll do this every week. Spoiler. Look ahead. If you do not want to hear about things that are going to happen later in the novella, later in other texts as well, later in the story.

[B]

We'll see ya.

[A]

This is your time to go. We look forward to seeing you for.

[B]

Talking Thrones on Sunday. For Chris will be here.

[A]

He will. He will.

[B]

Will there be boobs?

[A]

Probably.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Probably. All right. Sirens have gone here sounds. You've been warned. Did you go? If you want to go, go. Okay, book spoilers. Egg's identity.

[B]

Do we want to start with Dunk?

[A]

Dunk, sure.

[B]

Okay. Dunk as a knight. So we're kind of alluding to it because the show is kind of alluding to it and like everyone who's covering it is kind of alluding to it. So it's hard to not to talk about it. But like, though it's never confirmed. Confirmed, confirmed. In the book, there are enough context clues to make us, the reader, believe that. That Sir Arlen never kned Duncan and that even though he is a very honorable, forthright, upright young man, he is lying about this particular thing. He is not a knight.

[A]

Yes. Seems clear from the textual.

[B]

It really does. So him saying like, you're a squire. Oh, oh man. Like, what the do I do?

[A]

Burning red ears. The monstrous lie quote on and on Liskos.

[B]

Also on the poop Robin front. I just love that juxtaposition. Like, if he's full of shit when he's talking about the knighting, the fact that he actually saw that Robin when he was taking this massive dump is like pretty funny. To me, that juxtaposition of, like, what. What was the Robin looking at? You getting knighted or are you taking a massive D? Actually, it was the massive dump. Also, would you care to engage with the theory that the Poop Robin is actually Blood Raven?

[A]

Thousand eyes and one. If you have a thousand eyes and one, you're going to see a lot, including some diarrhea. It's going to happen.

[B]

Okay, so the Poop Robin is like. Actually call me Blood Raven, please. It's a cooler name then Poop Ramen. Blood Raven.

[A]

Oh, man. Thousand eyes and one. Great stuff.

[B]

All right. Egg's identity, you were saying?

[A]

I just. So. Okay. We talked at length across the trailer pods about how mystified we were by this decision to keep this mystery. That is what it is at this point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I will say I am newly baffled, though, after watching the this season on trailer, which we had not seen when we did talk to Thrones.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

This season on trailer at the end of this episode, I would say, reveals almost everything about the events to come, including. I wouldn't watch it personally, what Arian does.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The fact that they're gonna be facing off, they've got Baylor saying trial by combat. Some of the particulars of what unfold from there are not obviously revealed. But, like, a lot of the stuff that they were holding back in the preseason trailers was revealed in the season on. And yet Egg's identity remains a mystery, despite the first sentence of the Wikipedia entries about the show, about the novellas, about Egg, about anything. People are so close to having this spoiled for them no matter what they do.

[B]

And also, people are making the point that, like, when you're reading the novella, as you said, you can read it three hours. So even if you're, like, confused when he meets a young stranger with purple eyes, which is a dead giveaway in the book. But, like, whatever. Even if you're like, oh, a young boy who got lice and had his head shaved or whatever, you're only. You're just reading the book for three hours and then you get the reveal, like, halfway through this with, like, all of the Internet talking about it. It's very tough. Anyway, strange.

[A]

I did appreciate, though, first of all, just broadly the way that Egg is speaking. The accent, the Polish.

[B]

Yeah, the.

[A]

Like, I love.

[B]

I could if I wanted. So good, you know, which is such a, like, Egg never lies. Right. Like, you have to take me back to Kingsland, please. Body. Nope.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Are you an orphan? Are you an orphan? Right. Like, he's just sort of like, dodging questions. Right. And so. But, like, you know, I could if I wanted. But she says a couple times just sort of like, yeah, I do what I want. I'm a princeling. And also I do what I want.

[A]

And I did want to be a squire and my fucking drunk brother Darren, now I can't be. So I'd like to be yours. But his, like, polished speech is such a contrast to Dunk's that it's interesting that Dunk even, like, misses that basically.

[B]

Come to accent. Watch with me. It does.

[A]

You've got some stuff to learn from Joe. But Egg does. And I'm sure many. Obviously everybody who knows who Egg is probably clocked this. But I suspect that people who don't know who Egg is possibly also clock this.

[B]

You don't think so? I don't think. I don't. I don't. I think anyone who doesn't know that who Egg is will not remember that.

[A]

Tywin. The Tywin.

[B]

Arya.

[A]

My lord. My lord. And Egg's like, my lord.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Proper princeling.

[B]

Yeah. No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't think they're like, oh, in season three of Game of Thrones, I.

[A]

Guess I am always thinking about daimon and Arya.

[B]

Sorry. Yes. But I think anyone who has watched Game of Thrones that closely knows who the fuck Egg is. That's what I think. A couple other things I want to say. How does Egg know where Duncan's tree is when he doesn't even have a pavilion to guide him? Like, how does he find the tree? And is there some sort of, like, targ magic to him that he found it also. And this really got me once again, shout out again to the history of Westeros, folks. Once again remembering the family tree. Egg's dead mother, Diana. Dayne, House Dayne, the falling star.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

And the first Dayne is said to have raised Starfall on an island at the mouth of the Torrentine. Having tracked a falling star there and found a stone of magical powers, his descendants became kings of the Torrentine and Lords of Starfall. So this idea that Egg, whose mother was House Dayne, is talking about the luck that the falling star brings is, like, so extra incredible. You know, Meaningful. Meaningful.

[A]

Shout out Dawn. Shout out Sword of the Morning.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Talk about some good names.

[B]

Evenfall. Starfall.

[A]

Obviously the many men idea applies to Egg as well.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Good stuff. I liked too.

[B]

The also a lot of the Sword in the Mirror show.

[A]

Yes. Should the dragon discover one. But a man in great disguise. Good stuff there on the Laughing Storm front. I loved a Few bits of foreshadowing that were incorporated here. Some of which applies to the events of the Hedge Night in this season of tv. But in a bigger sense, more so. What awaits in the future of the canon?

[B]

One of the novellas that George hasn't written yet.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Just like, you know, a sentence here, a sentence there. And the history tomes. Certainly Lionel's draw to history and the way that he is engaging with history in this pavilion scene. Good setup for the fact that he's going to be like. Like, I'm not missing the first trial of seven.

[B]

Also, let me at the Kingsguard. Worthy foe. Let me fight those white cloaks.

[A]

Absolutely. On the crown front. And also the Toe Smash dance contest in particular. Just. And again, don't listen to this part of the Pod if you don't want to hear this stuff.

[B]

We already spoiled egg.

[A]

We did already spoil Egg. But this is. This is spoilers within spoiler tag. You know, Egg becomes king, right? He's not just Aegon Targaryen. He becomes Aegon the Fifth Targaryen. Egg becomes king. Fourth son of a fourth son. Never should have happened.

[B]

But it did.

[A]

And Egg.

[B]

A dream to was old egg.

[A]

I can't wait to be able to freely on the Pod, say egg. Egg as a Maester Aemond. Nod. Dreamed I was old. Kills me every time. Lionel's gonna rebel against.

[B]

Yeah, that crown sits pretty. Pretty solidly on his head. Right?

[A]

Egg Sun Duncan. You love it, folks. Wonderful. Betrothed to Lionel's daughter.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And Duncan's like, actually, I'm in love with Jenny of Old Stones. Talking about Padraic and Brienne and a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and singing about Jenny. My God, it really is old stuff. This is really just for us.

[B]

Goodness, baby.

[A]

And the.

[B]

The. The.

[A]

The trial that. That Lionel and Dunk have.

[B]

Guess who wins Dunk. The Toe Smasher himself. Yeah.

[A]

So I just thought this was great setup for that.

[B]

Also, I. I was wondering if the toe smashing and. And Manfred's gouty toes were like. We're thinking a lot about foot stuff, right? I know you're always thinking about foot stuff. You and Tarantino. But also.

[A]

Famously, will there be boobs? Is the question I ask. Will there be toes? Not really. Of course. Will there be shoes?

[B]

Will there be shoes?

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

And Tarantino's like, no. Anyway, Dunk's foot.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

So toe smashing, gouty toes.

[A]

How can a prince's life be worth a foot? Maybe the realm will have need of that foot one day.

[B]

Jo Mayhap, Mayhap.

[A]

Speaking of Darren.

[B]

Okay, yeah.

[A]

So the.

[B]

The muddy lordling at the inn who's got conveniently sandy blonde hair, not ice blonde hair, is a Targaryen.

[A]

It does allow for TV viewers to mistake him, I think, as a Lannister for a bit, especially as, like, the.

[B]

Red and the Black. Sure, sure, sure. Darren the drunken Darren the dreamer. I dreamed of you. I.

[A]

You talked me off the edge of a cliff with this one in our first trailer pod because Darren was nowhere to be seen. And ultimately, in either trailer, you're like.

[B]

What if there are no boobs? But more importantly, what if there's no dragons?

[A]

If there are no dragon dreams?

[B]

Darren the Daring.

[A]

Because there was also at the same time, that Iraq Parker comment during New York Comic Con about, like, there's no magic in this show. And I was panicking because obviously, not just in this story with Darren's dream and what he will tell Dunk later in the novella. This is just a setup and a taste. He will reveal the dream in full to Dunk later in the novella, and it is a very important part of this story, but also of subsequent stories for Dunk. Daemon ii, our guy, the fiddler, Jon the fiddler and the mystery knight is also like, I dreamed of you. And Dunk is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Deja vu.

[B]

The targs love to dream of Duncan.

[A]

The targs in general love to dream of Duncan. These brothers, these targs, these. This slice of Targaryen history, this slice of the timeline. We both love that Maester Aemon quote to Sam in A Feast for Crows. My brothers dreamed of dragons, too, and their dreams killed them every. Obviously, that's very much about Summerhole.

[B]

Yeah. But let's also be clear. Darren died of venereal disease, not of dreaming.

[A]

I think they're just maybe one. One and the same. Because look what his dreams have driven him to. Look what his dreams have driven him to.

[B]

One of our listeners wrote in about this, like, in a way that little bit confused me because Amanda wrote in, it was very clear that she knows the plot of this show, but was, like, confused about the dreaming. And so the dreaming, the dream that Darren had is that a dream dragon fell on you dead and fell on you, but you got up and the dragon didn't. Right? And so Baelor breaks spear, et cetera.

[A]

Like, this is.

[B]

These are the events of the show that we will be watching.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But. Yeah. In which the dragon stands for Targaryen, right? Et cetera, et cetera. But Darren's like, I Was worried. It was. I was the dragon, you know, could have been. You want to kill me?

[A]

Yeah. Often the case with a great targ dragon dream and a prophecy of any sort, the misinterpretation, the interpretation.

[B]

A little loosey goosey.

[A]

What do you fear? Do you then bring it about. What applies in this moment in time? What applies in a larger sense moving forward?

[B]

We talked about Darren the dreamer. When we talked about House of The Dragon Season 1, we talked about Viserys drunk by the fire and talking about his dragon dreams. And so this like this idea of like the weight of it drinking yourself through your dreaming. Yeah, I like in and then fucking and then getting a venereal disease and then dying.

[A]

Bring the maggots in. I was really thinking of you covering hot tea. When I saw that. When I caught up on the pit and saw the maggots, boy, that was gross. Boy, that was gross. You know, Egg telling Dunk because obviously in the mystery night, the, the. The John the Fiddler dream conversation with Dunk is really central. But Eggs talks about, you know, the dreams to. To Duncan the mystery knight too. Right. That he believes dragons will come back one day because his brother Darren dreamed it. And there's just a lot of. We're just. We are marching towards Summerhall everywhere.

[B]

And how sick would it be if season 12 of Night of the Seven Kingdoms was Summerhall? We deserve this. Tell all of your friends to watch this show. We need, we need, we need it.

[A]

I actually had a sad moment this morning thinking I think Peter Claffey could play Dunk till the end. Does have to rec. I know it has to get. Are way older.

[B]

I know they can string it along for a while because they're filming in rapid succession. So they're trying to like, you know, outrun the. The.

[A]

But he's gonna have to be recast at a certain point.

[B]

At some point. I know. I was thinking about that too this morning. Wow. Okay.

[A]

Puppets.

[B]

Puppets.

[A]

I wish they hadn't shown this in this. In the. This season on.

[B]

I know. It would have been like. I know.

[A]

That bummed me out. That said, it's fun to set up Aryan as a cool villain. The dragon must never lose.

[B]

Yeah. And okay. Anyway.

[A]

Yeah, that's it. We get the dragon slaying set up and the fact that we're going to see that happen in the puppet show and Arian's going to freak. Lovestruck. Dunk certainly set up here.

[B]

Heart Eyes. Tanzel. Too tall.

[A]

Not too tall for me.

[B]

Just the right height.

[A]

Not too tall for me.

[B]

For puppets. All right. Dunks do sigil, right? So the elm and the shooting star we get in this episode the Sunset, which is why he buries Ser Arlan on the side of the hill because Arlen liked to watch the sunset. So the sunset field, the tree, the star. Here's a quote. Brienne in her father's armory running her fingers over the green leaves of the tree and along the path of the falling star. End quote. So though it is never explicitly said, it is implied that Bran finds Ser Duncan's shield with this new sigil with the elm tree and the shooting star and the sunset field in Evenfall, her family home. Which then, yes, makes people believe that Brienne of Tarth is directly descended from.

[A]

That and the fact that she's very tall. You know, excited to find out women.

[B]

At the ringer of tall. And are we all descendants of Ser.

[A]

Duncan the Tall who did Dunk procreate with?

[B]

According to some theories, everyone.

[A]

I can't wait to see it all.

[B]

According to some theories. Like is that why, you know, there are tall. Various tall figures around Westeros? Did he make the seven? Is the question.

[A]

Oh my God, I love it. I thought that the. Speaking of fucking, I thought that that line from Red about his body and taking care of it and the last one you're like to have was just the sheer volume of titanic bodily harm that Dunk incurs not only in the first novella, but across, across these stories, like routinely we are amazed that he is alive and he is amazed that he is alive. So you know, we're gonna, we're gonna see this guy go through it for sure.

[B]

I had one more thing I want while we're here with the, with the new sigil. Right. So Dunk gets a name, he gets a sigil, he gets a sort of like legendary origin. Right? Like, but what's. What are the other trappings of the night? Like a legendary sword? Duncan doesn't have a legendary sword. He does not have a Valyrian steel sword. He does not have a named sword. There's isn't like a famous Duncan the Tall sword. We don't know necessarily that he hangs on to Arlen of Pennytree's sword for all of his life. Right, but he could have. Entirely possible because there's no famous sword associated with Duncan the Tall. So this, this hilt that we see with the penny in it, like could be his sword through all of the seasons up through Summer hall if they decide to do that because he doesn't have another sword.

[A]

That would be really cool if like all the deeds that made their way into the book of Brothers. It's like with that sword in hand.

[B]

That humble castle forged steel that he carefully honed by the fireside. Should we end with fucking Manfred Dondarrion?

[A]

Probably feels appropriate.

[B]

Manfred does not remember who Arlen of Penny Tree was. Yeah, but Baelor Targaryen will. Or. Yeah, and that's so important. Baelor, who has even less of a reason to remember Arlen of Penny Tree, remembers him. And that speaks so much to Baelor's quality.

[A]

It's just part of why, as you know, one of my favorite characters and part of why, just instantly, right away, just like this guy. This guy. I can't wait to spend time with him in the show.

[B]

We did it.

[A]

Love it. We did it. Thank you to the squad today. Carlos Chiraboga, as always. Arjuna Ramga Powell, Jomia Denaron. What a crew. Everybody else who helped us out in studio set up the lighting, the lighting sets. The whole squad was here today to help us out. We will be back Sunday night. Sunday talk to Thrones right after episode two. So however long episode two is, couple minutes later, head to YouTube, you can watch it and in real time on YouTube and then it'll be up for you everywhere. You can watch it on Spotify, listen to it wherever you get your podcast.

[B]

Thank you so much. Thank you, my darling, for joining us.

[A]

Thank you for being here with us, Mallory.

[B]

I know, letting me laugh. We love you very much.

[A]

I love you too. It was wonderful to be here with you and with Duncan with egg by. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless.

[B]

So here's the idea.

[A]

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