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

Summary

House of R: ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 Deep Dive – Detailed Summary

Podcast: House of R
Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson
Date: February 18, 2026
Episode: ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Ep. 5 Deep Dive

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Main Theme

This episode is a spoiler-friendly, deeply analytical, and conversational deep dive into Episode 5 ("In the Name of the Mother") of HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Mallory and Joanna break down the momentous penultimate episode, exploring character deaths, a pivotal flashback sequence, and the infamous Trial of the Seven, while tracing thematic resonance within George R.R. Martin’s work and its TV adaptations. The duo also interweaves fandom feedback, notable literary influences, and speculation for upcoming episodes.

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Episode Structure & Key Timestamps

• [04:00] – Opening snapshot: Initial impressions and title/theme analysis
• [23:45] – Transition into detailed, scene-by-scene deep dive
• [36:00] – Discussion of Baelor Breakspear's tactical gambit and themes of honor
• [73:20] – In-depth analysis of the flashback sequence (Dunk’s origin in Flea Bottom)
• [132:30] – Shakespeare & literature corner: Archetype deep dives
• [154:40] – Book/speculation spoiler segment (with in-podcast spoiler warnings)
• [164:35] – Final “super-spoiler” on possible future story (cast interview reveal)

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Opening Reflections: "In the Name of the Mother"

• Episode title meaning ([04:24])

  • Joanna tracks the season’s episode titles, noting the thematic importance of "defending the young and the innocent"—the central charge given in the name of “the Mother.”
    • "Weren't innocents killed in this episode? Sure, Baelor. And most crucially of all, my guy Beesbury." —Joanna ([05:03])
  • Touches on rampant “mommy issues” among the cast, Dunk’s longing for his mother, and the broader presence (or absence) of maternal figures throughout the episode.

• Penultimate episode tradition ([06:03])

  • Mallory celebrates Episode 5’s alignment with Game of Thrones historic penultimate episodes—major battles, shocking deaths, and thematic specificity.
    • “This episode includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile. A Ser Arlan Dick-sized mile.” —Mallory ([06:52])

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Viewership & Show Momentum

• Series word-of-mouth growth ([07:47])

  • Joanna and Mallory discuss the swelling late-season audience, real-time viewership, and low-budget appeal of the show.
    • “There’s just kind of nothing like that. When people are watching a Game of Thrones show together in real time, it’s the fucking best.” —Mallory ([09:02])

• Podcast and community notes ([13:10])

  • Shout-outs to listeners, Spotify commenters, and various inside jokes—especially those involving House Beesbury and the recurring “sticky yellow mustache” imagery.

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Emails & Fandom Observations

• Piracy as popularity metric ([14:03])

• Lev Grossman / Arthurian influence ([15:03–15:51])

  • Listeners note the parallel between The Hedge Knight and other tales of destitute, idealistic knights.
  • Joanna: “It’s so interesting how similar the opening of the Bright Sword is to The Hedge Knight.”
  • Quotes a 2005 review where Martin is dubbed "the American Tolkien."

• Adaptive 'cider' change debate ([18:25–21:16])

  • Joanna and Mallory humorously dissect the merits of cider vs. arbor red as a Fossoway signature.

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Deep Dive: The Trial of the Seven and Baelor’s Gambit ([23:45–46:51])

Setup and Battle Readiness

• Symbolism in blocking, costuming, and pre-battle routine

  • Analysis of opening shots (the seven-point star/Circle), anxiety-vomiting knights (the “Josh Allen ritual”), and the emotional/psychological state of each champion.

• Baelor's leadership and strategy ([36:07])

  • Baelor proposes to handle the Kingsguard, leveraging the “oath not to harm a prince of the blood,” drawing scrutiny from Lionel and Robin Riesling.
  • Both hosts probe the morality, hubris, and tactical intellect at play, seeing shades of earlier Game of Thrones heroes (Ned, Robb, Oberyn, Jon, Jaime) and their fateful, often doomed choices.
    • “Using tactics to pursue justice in the face of injustice is great...To me, it just makes him so much more interesting.” —Mallory ([41:40])
    • “Baylor made some choices. Humphrey Beesbury just showed up.” —Joanna ([44:46])

• Rules & chaos of the Trial ([25:18, 26:00])

  • Questions swirl regarding the Kingsguard’s actual role/protocols and on-screen violence, with authorship “fine print” notably lacking.

• Beesbury Moment ([32:05, 32:44])

  • The “Take heart, Beesbury” moment—Baelor’s sole direct address to Beesbury—inducted as instant fan-favorite.
    • Humorous listener comment: “The guy with the yellow mustache threw me. Who? Why?”

• Iconic weaponry & gear nerdery ([57:05, 59:00])

  • Lengthy, light-hearted discourse (fueled by listener emails) on the technical distinctions between maces, morningstars, and flails, with meta-commentary on George R.R. Martin’s (and show’s) own fuzzy terminology.

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The Helm-Cam and Battle Sequence ([59:18–73:12])

• ‘Helmet-cam’ POV ([59:18])

  • Praise for director Owen Harris’s visceral, immersive perspective; comparisons to F1 races (“onboard driver feed”) and Battle of the Bastards, Hardhome, and the Mountain vs. the Viper duel for their suffocating chaos and visual style.

• Dunk’s vulnerability ([48:43–71:00])

  • Dunk’s frozen fear and subsequent flashback; the character’s deep emotional wounds and self-doubt crowd out confidence (“Dunk the lunk. Thought he could be a knight.”).
  • Thunder the horse and Egg’s offscreen encouragement contribute to Dunk’s surge—Mallory’s favorite passage: "The big brown stallion knew what to do, even if his rider did not."

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The Flashback: Dunk's Flea Bottom Origin ([73:20–131:30])

• Purpose & execution

  • Lengthy, mixed assessment of the 20-minute origin story inserted via flashback. (Debated necessity vs. character depth).

• Dunk & Rafe’s relationship ([88:10–108:13])

  • Rafe—the newly fleshed-out canonical (possibly romantic?) figure in Dunk’s past. Their struggle for survival, plans to flee to the Free Cities, and the raw, immediate brutality of losing Rafe to City Watch violence.
  • “They love each other, you know, want to make a family. All he has in the world.” —Mallory ([107:23])
  • Script and listeners draw parallels to Arya Stark, the desire for escape, and recurring motifs of vengeance/cycle of violence (with explicit quotes from Sand Snakes lines and Dany’s storyline).

• Arlen of Pennytree’s Introduction ([113:01])

  • Ser Arlen—simultaneously a noble, vow-keeping knight and a drunken, flawed, Falstaffian figure whose defense of Dunk cements notions of honor and mentorship outside the formal chivalric order.
  • Shakespeare/Falstaff literary parallel ([125:30–131:32]):
    • “Sir John Falstaff...capable of incredible wisdom...And yet there is an inherent nobility to him, an inherent truth.” —Joanna ([130:00])
  • The hand-up, “Get up” motif (from Arlen to Dunk, echoed later by Egg and Dunk himself).

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Baelor's Tragic Death ([150:19–154:40])

• Pledge scene

  • Dunk kneels before Baelor and pledges himself:
    • “Your Grace, I am your man. Please.” —Dunk ([150:19])
    • “Good men. The realm needs good men.” —Baelor ([150:33])
  • Brief, poignant hope for a future together dashed by a freak injury: Baelor’s helmet is pulled off, revealing the back of his skull is gone.
  • Hosts laud the restraint shown by the show in not rendering the gore explicit.

• Thematic links: prophecy, fate, and the cycle of violence

  • The literalization of Darren’s dragon dream (“a great beast with wings...it had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead.”)
  • “This...includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile.” —Mallory ([06:52])

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Book & Meta Spoiler Section ([154:40–173:11])

Warninged in-show. Last several minutes are especially heavy with future knowledge and speculation.

• Baelor’s death & Targaryen succession ([154:40])

  • Lays out the Targaryen tree and how Baelor’s loss sets up future instability, Blackfyre threats, and grounds for future novella adaptations.

• Darren’s dragon/fire dream—Summerhall speculation ([156:16])

  • Suggests Baelor’s death sets off the dominoes leading to the Summerhall tragedy (and, via Dunk’s preserved foot, the survival and birthlines of key Targaryen characters).
  • “...it reminds me of everything that happens in book one and season one with Dany and the decision she makes with Drogo and Mirri, and then if that’s a horrible mistake and something that she’ll lament. But if that doesn’t happen, then are the dragons born?” —Mallory ([157:48])

• Future novellas and show plans ([159:50–162:46])

  • Discussion of how Dunk’s new backstory will likely impact his willingness to serve Blackfyre supporters in future adaptations.
  • Joanna: “We’re going to get Daemon Blackfyre...that’s got to be a big budget story.”

• Super-spoiler segment: Actor interview leak ([164:35])

  • Reference to cast member interview leak: George R.R. Martin indicated to the main actors that Dunk survives Summerhall, running contrary to accepted fandom wisdom.
    • “It makes for such a beautiful, bittersweet bookend to the beginning of the story...Like Arlen, Dunk’s eventual death is anonymous and unremarked—so do great knights sleep in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road?” —Listener Tex, read by Joanna ([167:52])
  • Additional interviews hint at Tanzel’s possible future role in the TV project.

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Quotable Moments

Mallory:

• “This episode, I thought, did a great job of taking its place in this proud Game of Thrones tradition of the elite penultimate episode...while also doing so in a way that felt utterly specific to what this show is, to its vibe, scope, essence, and sensibility. That's just a hard thing to do.” ([06:06])

Joanna:

• “I think people are fooling themselves if they don't think the show is trying to draw a comp between, like, two young women who don't look entirely dissimilar and, like, you know, this great loss of Dunk’s...but I don't need Dunk to have had that origin story to believe what he did in the puppet tent.” ([110:17])

On Baelor & Honor:

• “The fact that he is actually doing the honorable thing is not...rendered moot or untrue, it just doesn't matter. It's not enough to keep him alive. And that is the harsh reality we’re watching here.” —Mallory ([45:54])

On Sir Arlen:

• “There’s no reason to, like, you know, he’s a real ACAB attitude right now, right?...He’s like, I’m not siding with the authority. I’m not siding with, like, the law. I’m siding with this boy because that seems to be the weak and the innocent that needs protecting.” —Joanna ([115:19])

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Closing

• Hype for finale & future coverage ([172:45–173:11])
  • Sunday night instant reaction on Talk the Thrones, followed by a final deep dive on episode 6
  • Buffy Season 3, Part 2 deep dive also on the horizon

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Summary Table of Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | Key Focus | |------------------------------------------|-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Opening Impressions & Theme | 04:00–14:00 | Title analysis, traditions, tone set for the episode | | Deep Dive: Trial of the Seven | 23:45–46:51 | Pre-battle, combat rules, Baelor's tactics, character symbolism | | Battle Sequence & Heml-Cam | 59:18–73:12 | Visual style, Dunk's POV, thematic resonance | | Flashback: Dunk’s Flea Bottom Origin | 73:20–131:30| Dunk's childhood, Rafe, Arlen, cycle of violence, mentor archetype | | Shakespeare & Archetype Exploration | 132:30–132:49| Sir Arlen as Falstaff, flawed mentors in literature | | Baelor’s Death & Prophecy | 150:19–154:40| Mutual pledge, tragic loss, prophecy and consequence | | Book Spoilers / Future Outlook | 154:40–173:11| Summerhall, Targaryen line, adaptation speculation, actor interview leak |

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This deep dive offers an essential companion for both book fans and TV-only viewers, framing every scene, motif, and adaptation choice within a broader literary, fan, and thematic context—with plenty of levity, nerdy references, and sharp insight throughout.

Transcript

[Mallory Rubin]

Foreign. And welcome to House of Our A Ringer Verse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today. She knows a witch who pays copper for teeth.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know you do. Never has there been an easier choice for what to say at the top of the pod today. It's Joanna Robinson.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

What a joy to see you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thrilled. Thrilled to be here to dive deep into episode five already somehow Episode five, the panel ultimate episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which we will do right after this.

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[Mallory Rubin]

All right, Joe, we're going to be back for the finale because it's already finale time. Somehow on Sunday night, Immediately after episode 6, we will be here with CR for talk to Thrones.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Mallory Rubin]

Next Tuesday evening we will be back with a deep dive into the finale. But before then, later this week, we're going to have our Buffy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't want to jinx it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Season three, Part two Pod.

[Joanna Robinson]

We made it. This time it's going to happen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thrilled. Can't wait. Spoiler warning for today's pod. In case anybody doesn't know by now, how do we handle the spoilers?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, listen, the most of this episode is spoiler safe.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Spoiler free. That's right, the very end. Carlos will spike your heart rate and your blood pressure by blaring some sirens that will let you know that it is spoiler time.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then additionally today we've got a spoiler section within a spoiler section because one of the actors in the show dropped. A pretty heavy revelation. Yes, that maybe Mallory wishes she didn't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I would prefer not to know. You're welcome to leave the pot at that point. It would be the very last thing we talk about.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thing we talk about in the spoiler section. So the spoiler section will have a spoiler section. This information's out there. So we just want to talk about his implications. Or I wanted to talk about its implications a little bit, at least. Mallor's like, please, pretty much protect me.

[Mallory Rubin]

Protect me at all costs. How can everybody follow along?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, my gosh. Thanks for asking. Why don't you subscribe to the Pod wherever you listen to podcasts? Why don't you watch us on Spotify or on YouTube? That's a. That's a great thing to do. Why don't you follow us on social?

[Mallory Rubin]

Do it.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you can always email us HobbitsAndDragons. Gmail. That cam.

[Mallory Rubin]

Send the buff emails. Please start sending your project Hail Mary emails. Yes. What else is happening in spring? Daredevil.

[Joanna Robinson]

A Nolan movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

A Nolan movie is coming.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you were able to figure it out from our very subtle. Just clues.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really, really delicate. Actually, someone was like, I hope they do Inception. I was like, good news.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

We already did it. We already did it. It's not Inception.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, it's time for the opening snapshot. Joanna, Mallory, if anybody didn't watch Talk to Thrones, or they did, but they just want to have the table set for them again. Another amuse bouche. An hors d' oeuvre of takes. Give us your quick opening snapshot. Thoughts? Feelings about episode five, in the Name of the Mother.

[Joanna Robinson]

I guess I just want to track my, like, very flimsy episode title tracking that I've been doing this season and just say so. In the name of the Mother. As we talked about on Talk of the Thrones, you know, defending the young and the innocent. Right. I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. And that's, of course, what Ser Arlan says, you know. In the name of the Mother.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Leave that boy alone or unhand him or whatever he says.

[Mallory Rubin]

Now you have to vomit.

[Joanna Robinson]

Get your damn hands off of her. Whatever it is he says. Right? But weren't innocents innocents killed in this episode? Sure, baelor. And most crucially of all, my Guy Beesbury.

[Mallory Rubin]

Most crucially of all, huh?

[Joanna Robinson]

Are dead at the end of this episode.

[Mallory Rubin]

Indeed.

[Joanna Robinson]

So in the name of the Mother. The innocents were not defended in this episode.

[Mallory Rubin]

The mother's very present across this episode either in their in the pledge of hours of absence free falls and died Humphrey Arding a lot of death. We did say spoiler warning at the top of the pod today.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Arlen shout, obviously. But also Dunk really longing for his mother.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, sure. I mean, there's mommy issues across the board.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, we, you know, Dunk haunted by the dead Frey, the dying Frey croaking for his mother.

[Joanna Robinson]

Croaking's for his mother. Lionel saying like, you know, did your mother love you best? Too bad no man fights so fierce. Right. Neglected by his mother. Such a vibe, you know. As far as we know, Gwyn, whose birthday it is, does not have a mother. Or George forgot to come up with one. I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

How do you think Gwyn is gonna look back on this particular birthday celebration?

[Joanna Robinson]

No one will ever forget my birthday. That's what she'll see.

[Mallory Rubin]

They won't necessarily remember it was your birthday, but they'll remember what would happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't forget the tourney of the Ashford Meadow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Will they remember your name?

[Joanna Robinson]

George did it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, man, I loved this episode. I thought it was obviously thrilling and devastating. You know, Balor real fave. So it's a heartbreaking time here at the house of R. But like really this episode, I thought did a great job of simultaneously joining, you know, taking its place in this proud Game of Thrones traditional the elite penultimate episode, the Elite battle episode, the Elite episode with a shocking subversive death, while also doing so in a way that felt utterly specific to what this show is, to its vibe, to its scale and scope, to its essence and sensibility. And that's just a hard thing to do. Obviously. This episode includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile. A Sir Arland Dick sized mile.

[Joanna Robinson]

My favorite unit of measurement. I agree. I, I'm still not really entirely sold on the fact of whether or not we needed this flashback. I'm not like mad about it, but I don't know that we needed it or I don't know that we needed all of it. Perhaps we could have had some of it, but I don't, I don't know that we needed this much of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

20 minutes is no joke, no joke.

[Joanna Robinson]

At all in a, in a little bite sized episodes as these are.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, I, I definitely have a couple notes on it still, but a lot of things inside of it worked for me. What is your despair level as we pre grieve heading into the finale knowing we just have one left?

[Joanna Robinson]

I know that pre grieving Is a state that you live in.

[Mallory Rubin]

Inspired by Roman Roy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm in a.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, he's really emotionally healthy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm in a really high celebratory mood because I feel like the prophecy has come true, which is that people are really getting into and catching on in the show.

[Mallory Rubin]

No question.

[Joanna Robinson]

I feel like people. We heard from a bunch of bad babies anecdotally about how people in their lives are catching up. Sarah, who's in the studio with us today, just told me that she binge last night. You know, so, like, people are catching up with the show because the word of mouth is so good. This is what we were hoping, and.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly the moment we thought it could happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, we felt like maybe, like, after the egg reveal or whatever, there was.

[Mallory Rubin]

A little bit of an uptick.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's just been like, yeah, you know, and then the Baylor entrance last week, I think really got people talking a lot. And then, of course, what happens in this episode. So I really feel like what we were hoping has come true. It started as, like, a modest audience. I'm not sure that it is, like, the biggest audience that Thrones has ever had, but as we said before, the budget on the show is so low that it doesn't need to climb that high, and people might catch up in the off season and all sort of stuff like that, but this is just such a good show, and it deserves so many eyeballs on it. So I'm just, like, really happy that I feel like I've been, like, sending you tweets constantly, because every time I open Twitter now, Twitter's like, do you want to see more of this? And I do.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, you know, dialgo, it's got you. I feel like in addition to just kind of the uptick overall in volume and conversation and that sense of something shared, the other thing inside of that that I have really felt the last two weeks in particular and this week most of all, was conversation on Sunday night.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

People are like, I watch in real time. And there's just kind of nothing like that. When people are watching a Game of Thrones show together in real time, it's the fucking.

[Joanna Robinson]

I really agree.

[Mallory Rubin]

Best. And guess what? They're not gonna have to wait two, two and a half, three years for season two, because we're gonna get it next year. What a time to be us. Here's my mental state between episodes. Well, being a few hours away from being between episodes five and six. You know, when Raymond and Goodman pate dunk against the wall and they're starting to assess his injuries. And he's like. Through his swollen jaw and oozing orifices, he's like, yeah, he's like, One moment I felt drunk, the next like, I'm dying. That's how I feel right now. Anticipating the end of Emotionally healthy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Emotionally healthy.

[Mallory Rubin]

One moment of fear. You're drunk. And the next, like, I'm dying.

[Joanna Robinson]

As soon as this is over, we're in Project Hail Mary month.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I know that's exciting.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a like.

[Mallory Rubin]

And that's exciting.

[Joanna Robinson]

You and I got. I don't think we can share, but we got, like, a behind the scenes release date information. And what did you say to me? You said, this could not be more our year.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's true.

[Joanna Robinson]

So there are things coming this year. It's us. It's us o'. Clock. I'm really excited. Can we talk really quickly about the ama, The Reddit AMA that Ira did?

[Mallory Rubin]

Please? Yeah, absolutely.

[Joanna Robinson]

After we were lamenting the absence of the steely pate line, a knight who remembered his vows, and we're like, maybe it'll be in next week's episode. I feel like mere hours later, Ira Parker gave a Reddit AMA where he was like, danny kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet, and I kind of forgot to include this very important line. And I'm sorry. He said it was in earlier drafts of the episode, but that it didn't make the final cut. And he's like, big bummer on my part. I'll remember that going forward. So on the one hand, I like that from him. On the other hand, that. That smacks me as someone who hasn't been, like, quite media trained, because, like, if you start, like, bowing and scraping and apologizing for things you left out now, like, it's only going to grow and grow and grow from there. So, like, stay humble, but also just know that people are gonna be mad about all sorts of things going forward. But I, on the Internet, will never.

[Mallory Rubin]

What?

[Joanna Robinson]

Speaking of people being mad about things, I'm mad because someone asked him what his favorite house was, and he said, house Beesbury. And I said, how dare you, sir, when you mostly cut Beesbury from this season.

[Mallory Rubin]

This pot today is gauze to honor.

[Joanna Robinson]

That was like honey in my eye. Like, I.

[Mallory Rubin]

That sounds kind of nice.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, it does. Sticky. I don't know. Stinging, maybe.

[Mallory Rubin]

It could be, like, sexy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Nothing for a minute.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fun for a minute. Just like, the one glimpse of Beesbury's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yellow mustache that is stickly and being unable.

[Mallory Rubin]

Anyway, I guess that very quickly gets you to the stretch of the pit where that one patient had glued her.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the gonorrhea in the eye. That also happened on the pit this season.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, that was also early season.

[Joanna Robinson]

Plenty of a different kind. And then another thing I want to mention before we get to a couple emails is we've been talking, we've been tracking this like the presence of the seven, the seven gods at the tourney ground. And something we left out of the non spoiler section in previous episodes was this idea is like is Dunk himself the stranger in terms of someone who brings death to. And now we can say Baelor Breakspear. And more importantly, like Humphrey. I keep calling Lyman Beesbury because dear me, gods, be good. He's always on my mind. Humphrey Beesbury died. Very important. Dunk brings this death. It's not his fault. You could say that Maekar brought his death. You know, whatever you decide. But like this is sort of the theory is like that Dunk himself is the stranger.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. I think Dunk's guilt and these questions that he will ask himself moving forward a big, big part of the character. I before I forget, on the bees front. Hilarious that I think it's possible I might forget this because we're going to talk about bees like 300 more times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Today for you, as he deserves, for.

[Mallory Rubin]

You and for him. I just want to say of Honey Holt, there's been, you know, some feedback from the listeners. Yes. Of Honey Holt. It's a great, it's a. It's great. Honey Holt is wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cider hall is fine, but Honey Holt's really good.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, as always, the V day quickie, it had people talk him and I just want to shout out the one commenter on the Spotify post. Get in the Spotify comments if you're not in there. You know, have a conversation with your fellow Bhad Bhabies. Give us the five stars while you're at it. We have an ass.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't go there.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, only go there if you're nice.

[Joanna Robinson]

You want to be mean, shout out.

[Mallory Rubin]

To Bhad Bhabie who is like. And I'm paraphrasing. Wonderful pod. I'll never recover. I. I'm assigning you each 10 gods be goods. And dear me, it's like Beesbury is with us always. You know it's true. Even when the yellow mustache himself only got one line. The legacy of the the Beesbury clan and fam lives on always.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I hit a couple emails before we get into the deep dive? So our listener, Rachel did confirm that over in the uk Tales from the Seven Seas the piracy the piracy of this show has gone through the roof in the UK Apparen. So just data point about how popular this is. We suggest you watch things legally, but you know, there were constantly articles about how Game of Thrones was like the most pirated show of all time. So I'm just saying it's a. It's a metric. And then our listener Mikael wrote in to say and of course I was going to include this because I get thrilled anytime someone reads a book I mentioned on a podcast. But she wrote to say that she just started the Bright Sword by Lev Grossman and said, it's so interesting how similar the opening is to the Hedge Night. So we had mentioned on our previous pod that Lev Grossman was credited as a consultant on the first episode this season and we mentioned that he had written this book, the Brightsword, which is an Arthurian legends book. Right. And Mikhail says it makes a lot of sense as both main characters are young men embarking on a chivalric buildings Roman whereupon the scales of story will fall from their eyes. But it's fun to see how many parallels there were just within the first two chapters. Destitute protagonists with secrets hoping for imminent glory but risking ruining competing among the great and good, who buries an old knight and then stops at an inn where his journey takes a turn, et cetera.

[Mallory Rubin]

So how shallow is the grave?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a great question. Pick up the Bright Sword by Lev Grossman to find out. Also, she says the narration mentions that Colum kept his hair shoulder length in order to wear it flipped under his helm quote for extra padding. At which point I mentally looked extremely pointedly at Baelor Targaryen and his fatefully stylishly cropped haircut. Could hair have saved?

[Mallory Rubin]

Listen, it's. It's weird with Joanna Robinson. Tm. You're the hair expert. I'm not added to the list of things I'm not. A doctor, a scientist, a hairstylist. I do not believe that having extra hair keeps your brain intact. But what if Baylor had put, you know, the targets. They look shiny.

[Joanna Robinson]

How much hair?

[Mallory Rubin]

Are you familiar with the halo cap? The Guardian cap in football?

[Joanna Robinson]

I am.

[Mallory Rubin]

It looks dumb, but it keeps.

[Joanna Robinson]

It keeps.

[Mallory Rubin]

It fends off head injuries. You're the problem.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I support people looking dumb in order to protect their heads. Just because I said it looked dumb doesn't mean I think they shouldn't wear it.

[Mallory Rubin]

So does growing your hair a little longer save your brain I don't know, but what if Baylor had worn a Guardian cap over Volar's helm? Something to think about.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was looking to see if there was any more information on why Love Grossman was credited as a consultant in the first episode and I couldn't find anything. But I did Find this Like 2005 review of Feast for Crows that he wrote in Time magazine where he called George R.R. martin the American Tolkien. It's sort of like he coined it, but it's really. I just want to read the first graph or so because it's really fun to read now in 2026. This was written 2005 before Game of Thrones, a TV show was a thing, right? So Lev grossman wrote, George R.R. martin is fond of sudden reversals. The tasty but poison dish, the false God who abruptly proves too real. The the unsalvageable rogue who strikes a hidden vein of decency when we and he least expect it. Martin is also partial to sacked castles, bear pits, disastrous battles, cynical betrayals, public executions, assassinations, ill luck, duels to the death, ambushes in forests, and corpses left rotting in green hedgerows. The world Martin writes about may bear passing resemblance to old England, but it is not a merry one. Martin isn't best known of America's straight up fantasy writers. True at the time, that honor would probably go to upstart Christopher Paolini Aragon.

[Mallory Rubin]

What a time capsule.

[Joanna Robinson]

Robert Jordan, the late Robert Jordan, the endlessly turning wheel of Time series. Or better yet, to ageless grand mistress Ursula K. Le Guin, the Wizard of Earth.

[Mallory Rubin]

Still valid? Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But of those who work in the grand epic fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, A Feast for Crows, currently descending on bookstores and ascending bestseller list, this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien. But I just love that he's like and and L. Grossman has talked about this review, how he was like so upset that no one was like covering George R.R.

[Mallory Rubin]

Martin stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he was like Time magazine didn't care about fantasy literature and I had to like fight for this review. So you know Lev. Lev gets points for being ahead of his time, I guess.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

Last but not least, Alex wrote in about quote, what has been by far the best adaptive change from book to show? It came in episode three when Raymond invites Dunk to the fossoid tent for a pint of cider. We press it ourselves. I just relistened to the Hedge Knight audiobook. And at this point in the story Raymond invites dunk for, quote, a fine arbor red. End quote. Really, George, You've already put so much stock into the Foss ways being apples personified, why would they be drinking anything other than cider Kudas to ira Parker Co. For posting this layup.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I'm pivoting the other way on this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are you? Yeah. Is it like cannibalism to drink cider when you are an apple yourself?

[Mallory Rubin]

No. Maybe. That's an interesting wrinkle. I love a cider. As we've previously discussed, I think that because as we have chronicled across the journey of covering this season, Raymond, Stefan Stevran and presumably all of their fast awakening, can't get through more than half a sentence without incorporating some sort of apple pun at some point. It's a hat on a hat. It's too much. And so the cider, while I love a cider and while I think, you know, look, cider hall, new barrel, et cetera, you're. They're leaning into the branding. They're smart about merchandising, their identity and their. Their image. Great. It reminds me of. Let me ask you this. Are you familiar with. If I say this to you, does an image come to mind? The Marilyn Terrapins. Right. My hometown, the university where my parents met, fell in love shortly before getting divorced. You can see the Maryland state flag. You know what that looks like? Okay. In your mind? No. Okay. Google it. This is important. Quickly Google it. Carlos, maybe you'll put an image of the Maryland flag on the screen. So it's a great flag. It's very cool. Okay. Great color scheme. The Terps use this color scheme. Red, yellow, black, white. Okay. At a certain point, uh huh. They decided what if instead of just incorporating the flag, you know, into the logo, et cetera, we make the entire uniform the Maryland flag. Carlos, perhaps we can also now put a picture. I know you know what I'm talking about. Of when the Maryland. Google Maryland Terrapin football flag helmet. The entire thing was just the flag and it's too much. At a certain point it's like, why not just wear a crab cake on your head?

[Joanna Robinson]

But don't you think you would.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I say this as somebody who fucking loves Maryland would definitely.

[Joanna Robinson]

If someone made you like a fancy fascinator for a wedding, but it looked like a crab cake, you would wear it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Mm, yep.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think you know the truth.

[Mallory Rubin]

But not honey.

[Joanna Robinson]

If you went to Honey Holt and they didn't have honey, would you not be disappointed?

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure. But like there. They can't have an Arbor wine. There's what I'll say when Dunk in this region of Westeros.

[Joanna Robinson]

When Dunk and Raymond Fossoway empty their stomachs before they go on the tourney field. Yeah, Raymond's is a bright red, so I think he was consuming some. Some arbor red.

[Mallory Rubin]

Your ability to track colors through that foggy mist is. I mean, it's one of the reasons you're you.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, like when you eat beets.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then the next day you're like, ah, I hate beets. You know, it's like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure. I feel like Rim Foster Intimate podcast already.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's just a human condition.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I had a beet salad with a friend the other day and he's like, he's like, I'm scheduling a text for you tomorrow that just said you ate beets just to like, you know, set your mind at ease.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's a great beet salad at John and Vinnie's. No free ads.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've had it.

[Mallory Rubin]

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[Mallory Rubin]

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[Mallory Rubin]

Deep dive. We're going in order, as we always do, and we're starting with pretty game warmups.

[Joanna Robinson]

First shot.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Overhead shot of the 7 on Dunk's.

[Mallory Rubin]

Team.

[Joanna Robinson]

And our listener who signs their emails, Lady Olena. Even though I know that's not their name.

[Mallory Rubin]

You don't think. No.

[Joanna Robinson]

So, speaking of the ongoing seven gods at Ashford theory, did you notice the overhead shot right at the beginning of the episode that showed Dunk's team assembled like a seven point star? Now, I love to chase symbolism as much as the next person, but I'm not sure that seven people in a circle.

[Mallory Rubin]

My answer to that is no. I thought they were in a circle.

[Joanna Robinson]

You have to draw the lines to make it a seven point star. But I. I respect the commitment to the bit.

[Mallory Rubin]

Same we. We love commitment to the pit here at the house of R. Dunk's side. Armored, sweet little leg. He looks so small holding the gigantic lance. Dunk. In case you've forgotten who the seven are. Balor. Have you heard of them, lads? Raymond, Lionel, the Humphs, Harding and Bees. And of course, Robin Riesling. And I'm just fine saying it that way now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Robin Reisling, who goes into battle without putting a helmet on.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think everyone has made some very interesting choices about how they've chosen to protect themselves heading into this battle. Everybody was very relieved to see that Raymond had some chainmail on, light ringmail on, and a helm. Speaking of helms, Balor, he's in coach Taylor mode. No time for, like, a pregame locker room pep talk. You got to get the squad ready.

[Joanna Robinson]

Clear eyes, full hearts. We're going to cheat.

[Mallory Rubin]

Clear eyes, full hearts. There's no shame in having a tactical game plan. Sure, his helm is off. It's just nice to take a moment to look at a still intact head. We'll just enjoy it while we can. Just enjoy it while we can. Yeah. No minced words here. No minced words about the peril that awaits. They all know that this could be deadly. Baylor's like, don't panic. Stand formation. Try to remain on your mounts. That's lasts about, you know, 12 seconds for all parties. Oh, and keep this one thing in mind. These men mean to kill you. They will fight savagely. And Robin's like, same, bro. Same.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like, that's. That's my life. There have been so many questions. So. So we read the rules of the trial of seven last week, and they're the same. It's all the information we have about the trial of seven, which is that either everyone dies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or one of the main, you know, combatants yields. Like, that's. That's sort of what happens here. Or dies. Etc.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say that there are some, like. There's some fine print that George never clarified that would be quite useful. And I think especially in this version of the trial where they draw out the action to the point where it's like, okay, it starts. The Kingsguard kill Beesbury and Harding right away. So there's no question of, like, are people trying to kill. Is everyone trying to kill each other? No, I don't think Maekar and Baelor are trying to kill each other. Right. But some people. The Kingsguard are just killing people out here. Okay, but what is the Kingsguard's like, their job is to protect the Targaryens that are out here.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

So take a couple of the other team off the board.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's doing her job. Yeah. And then they just kind of ride around in the background for the rest of the tourney. And I'm like, does no one like Makar and Raymond once each get involved in this Aryan and Dunk fight?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. The ride.

[Joanna Robinson]

None of the Kings guard get involved, even though they've, like, you know, the fossils are fighting each other. Darren's down in the mud. Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just where he said he'd be.

[Joanna Robinson]

B are holding Maekar back.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is Robin Risling just taking on three of the King, like, keeping all three of the Kingsguard busy? If not, why would they not get involved with Aaron and Dunk? Because there's no rule that, like, you know, the main combatants have to duel each other.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Aryan demanding a trial of seven, and then just fighting Dunk one on one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Anyway, she's not a leave it to me guy. The whole. The whole gambit here. Don't leave it to me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Where are my bodyguards? Right. And Darren's like, I'm taking this news in the mud. So I think while I like. There's many reasons why I like the protracted nature of the way they did the tourney in this episode versus how it is in the book, where it's like, Dunk takes some hits and then he gets the upper hand, and then it's kind of curtains for Aryan, like, that's it. It's over much faster. I like it. And we'll talk about all the reasons why I like it, but it does reveal some sort of flaws. And also, Ira Parker's like, We didn't have much budget, so we kind of tried to make it work as we could, but just like every so often, a kingsguard just sort of gallops behind the action, and I'm like, what are you guys doing?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think there's, like. It's one of those things where the. On some level, the answer certainly in the show adaptation is, like, if the Kingsguard were constantly trying to just, like, encase Aryan, it's not as interesting to watch as this death struggle that we get. No, no. There's the drama.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm not saying it would have been better.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, yeah, of course.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm just saying maybe keep Beesbury and Harding alive a little longer so that we have a reason why the kingsguard are, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Are occupied. I think there's like, a. Just a touch. Obviously, there's the. You know, the explanation we got last episode. The Andals and the tradition. Oh, the. The gods will be more likely to chime in, share their verdict in their opinion. You know, there's just, like, a touch, and it gives the opportunity for people to. To declare and try to be either bold or brave or forge the path of glory or do the right thing. It's like a little, like, a touch of the. Like, Wait, the snitch is worth how much? Like, a touch. And that happens sometimes.

[Joanna Robinson]

They've got four Targaryens to protect on the field there. I do think Aryan is their lowest priority in all of this, but. But he's still a Prince of the Blood. Prince of the Blood. So, Prince of the Blood, what are we doing?

[Mallory Rubin]

His armor's sick. His armor's sick. I, as you know, would have loved to thought this. This.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The stretches of the Trial of Seven.

[Joanna Robinson]

We got were great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Would I have felt sorry to see more of Ser Rowan? No. Hot rolly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hot rolly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Would have loved it. Would have been thrilled. I mean, Will Wyld needs to be, like, basically incapacitated very quickly, but I think if.

[Joanna Robinson]

If we'd gotten to see the Kingsguard with their helmets off a bit more in this episode. Well, for your purposes, great. But also a reminder to audience who are not quite as sort of tuned in that, like, we've met two of these guys before, we've talked to them. Yeah, this is who.

[Mallory Rubin]

One of them wanted to know where to take a shit, and the other one's a fish. And crab. Baby. Crabber.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, baby.

[Mallory Rubin]

So quick vibe check on everybody who just heard this rousing pregame pep talk from Baylor. How's everybody doing? Oh, profusely vomiting Raymond and dunk Pukin. I call this the Josh Allen pregame ritual. Josh Allen.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do know who Josh Allen is. I know you're getting lost with them, but I know who Josh Allen is.

[Mallory Rubin]

Pukes before every football game. Happy to always talk about it and share these details. He pukes before every game. So here you go.

[Joanna Robinson]

That sounds kind of cleansing to me, honestly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Uh, Raymond and dunk. Part of Bill's mafia. I guess that's the takeaway here. Humph Harding.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Could not have found this Morris. Derrick.

[Joanna Robinson]

Boys.

[Mallory Rubin]

I am just glad that he got to laugh once more before the end.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think as he laughed he jostled his shattered leg a bit and it sort of shattered like a baking dish.

[Mallory Rubin]

I got real and this makes sense to me because his horse fell on his leg.

[Joanna Robinson]

Milk of the poppy.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think this guy is loaded on milk of the poppy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Loaded on milk of the poppy.

[Mallory Rubin]

I do not think he should be allowed to participate in the trial of seven. They did not do a.

[Joanna Robinson]

The gods didn't think so either.

[Mallory Rubin]

Drug test on hum farting.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's down right away.

[Mallory Rubin]

Listen, if you've listened to the House of R, if you watch the House of R, you know that every now and then we sprinkle in a clip. Often it is because the performance is so memorable or the language is gorgeous or yes, the theme is so astonishing that we need to cement it and codify it in the visual record before we talk about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

And this is all of those things. And this is every single one of those things.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sometimes it's just a co host and a producer given a gift to another co host. So much. Let's see. Humphrey Beesbury's one line of the season. Carlos, if you please.

[Joanna Robinson]

What of the Kingsguard?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Take heart Beesbury.

[Joanna Robinson]

That was it Hot. I call instant icon.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh my God. Take heart Beesbury. Baylor heir the iron throne. Hand of the king. Taylor breakspear using Beesbury's name obviously. Later he'll call Raymond Sir Raymond. You know, it's. It's just really wonderful to get to hear him acknowledge bees.

[Joanna Robinson]

He knows who Sir Arlan of the penny tree is and he knows who Humphrey Beesbury is.

[Mallory Rubin]

A lot of feedback online about not just obviously we've been discussing the yellow mustache, but just in general how Beesbury is styled. Very hip. People are loving it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Fresh cut.

[Mallory Rubin]

I would like to now read to you a comment. We mentioned the comments that you can comment on our episodes on the Spotify app. I would like to share one with you.

[Joanna Robinson]

They sure nice.

[Mallory Rubin]

The guy with the yellow mustache threw me. Who? Why? Care to comment?

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen, J. Matthew Johnson, you seem to have a really great beard in your profile photo, and so I support you in that. But get on board. Get on board with house visery. Oh, my God.

[Mallory Rubin]

Listen, can't blame some members of the viewing public if they still don't know who this guy is. But if you're a bad baby, you know that. Humph bees means something to Jo. And that should be enough.

[Joanna Robinson]

You wear our sting. That's their housewares.

[Mallory Rubin]

That is good. Did it bear out? He took Easebury to the groin Canonically.

[Joanna Robinson]

In the book, yeah, it's tough. He dies by groin wound.

[Mallory Rubin]

He does. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And by beware sting, did he mean his lance? And did it help him? Does not seem so dead in the first pass is what we find out.

[Mallory Rubin]

The fact that we do you think.

[Joanna Robinson]

That Kingsguard feel good? Feels good about himself, Donal?

[Mallory Rubin]

Probably. Honestly, I think a life of delicious, succulent crab meat and riches and then Kingsguard gore.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's what you say. He's not allowed any a single drop of honey for the rest of his life.

[Mallory Rubin]

As long as he has some old bay, he'll be fine. Honestly, he'll be fine.

[Joanna Robinson]

When honey bake ham out. Mead out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that's sad. Yeah, you need to be able to have mead in the 70s.

[Joanna Robinson]

Those little honey sticks out.

[Mallory Rubin]

That is tough. I don't think you can really make it through Westeros without mead.

[Joanna Robinson]

Drink your tea bitter, my friend. No more honey.

[Mallory Rubin]

You put honey in your tea?

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I hate honey.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can I say that? I've seen you have many of a clubh and never with honey.

[Joanna Robinson]

I hate honey. I think it's disgusting.

[Mallory Rubin]

What a journey this has been.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's sticky and sweet and it gets everywhere.

[Mallory Rubin]

You sound like Anakin Skywalker describing sand. That's what I was saying. I just want to know when your fall to the dark side will be. How many are the younglings in the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kill another sneezebury and find out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, everybody's doing great. Everybody's doing great today. When Arian took the groin slash later, I did think of you. And I thought bees couldn't even get.

[Joanna Robinson]

His own groin slash.

[Mallory Rubin]

The groin. The groin death. Like even the groin slash went.

[Joanna Robinson]

They gave him his dignity. Groin death is not among the deaths. I'd rank it pretty low.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's low.

[Joanna Robinson]

Death by groin wound.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, he was dead on the first pass. Humph, Harding. That's an update. You know, in the text, he's like he does dying and dying and Dying.

[Joanna Robinson]

And dying a few days later.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I'd like to thank him for having such a visually distinct shield with that that Harding sigil. It was very easy to spot his unmoving corpse in the mud, his immediate fall. Okay, let's discuss for a couple minutes here Balor's Kingsguard gambit and the group's response to it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have notes.

[Mallory Rubin]

Tell me I I. So here's what he says. He says, I will handle the Kingsguard. Their oaths forbid them to harm a prince of the blood. Robin says, is that honorable, your grace? And Balor says the gods will let us know. Here's how the passage goes in the novella. Balor took that calmly. My brother erred when he demanded that the Kingsguard fight for his son. Their oath forbids them to harm a prince of the blood. Fortunately, I am such. He gave them a faint smile. Keep the others off me long enough and I shall deal with the Kingsguard, my prince. Is that chivalrous? Asked Sir Lionel Baratheon as the septon was finishing his invocation. The gods will let us know, said Baelor Breakspear. Lionel gets a different retort here. He says, mother loved you best. Huh? The earring is just so showcased to the the angle of his head. It's wonderful. Shame no man fights so fierce as one neglected by his mother. Just ask the Motherless Dunk of Flea Bottom. I'll say this, tell me as a.

[Joanna Robinson]

Fan of a dangly earring. I'm taking the earrings off if I'm going onto Attorney Fields. I understand the idea is to keep the helm on.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, sure, of course.

[Joanna Robinson]

And listen, the antlers are already like a liability because he loses some of those an like they get he could get pulled by the antler at any given moment. Listen, imagine if he got pulled by the earring at some point.

[Mallory Rubin]

One more victory for Steely Pate. That's all I'm saying. Simple armor. Oh, simple armor.

[Joanna Robinson]

Steely Pate. Who reinforced that shield that didn't last its first hit?

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, maybe that shield shattered right away. I went dunk picks up it did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a it's a powerful I watched.

[Joanna Robinson]

The tape and I was like that thing cracked right away.

[Mallory Rubin]

Much as we're about to discuss here, this is the world of Westeros. You spent a lot of time girding yourself, embracing and preparing and then it's all ripped away from you in just.

[Joanna Robinson]

A second and you're like and you brag about how you reinforce the shield with like sturdy iron and then it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just sort of like, you know, dissolves in the text. They just. When Dunk picks up Arian's shield and it's described as like, you know, it's like twice as thick like Sir Arlin's cock. And I was looking at it, it reminded me of. Remember all the moments of battle of the bastards will come up a few times today. You know, Jon pulling. You can like kind of see the rubber sw. There's definitely a little bit of that with the shield, which is fine.

[Joanna Robinson]

Little wobble to it.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's fine. So tell me, Jo, what do you make of kind of a couple voices on this side, on Baylor's side, just lightly questioning and introducing this kind of tone setter of like prejudging the approach. What do you. What do you make of this?

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, listen here.

[Mallory Rubin]

And in George's world more broadly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Baylor, as. As you, I think you noted on Talk of the Thrones, you were like a little bit of princely hubris. Sure, I'll handle this. When he says I will handle the kingsguard to Humphrey Beesbury and Humphrey Harding, who get immediately killed by the kingsguard.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I have some notes for Baylor's strategy. It'll be fine. I'll handle the kingsguard. Don't worry. As far as I know, he doesn't grapple with them at all. He's on Maekar the whole time. So like, what. What is this Prom Empty promises from royalty. Once again, a new phase. Honey holt.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is the honey holt. The honey holt blinders. The honey holt lens. The thick, amber, thick diamond through which.

[Joanna Robinson]

You'Re seeing this by the kingsguard. Absolute bullshit that Baylor's spinning here. I did miss from the book we get. He has this whole strategy of like, we'll use tourney lances.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're longer than warlances. Warlances are sturdier. So like all of those turning lances that we saw splinter into smithereens on the very various tourney passes into like balsa wood.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's not what a war lance is. When Dunk gets a war lance to the side and has to like, like, you know, pull it out, that's. That's some serious business. But attorney lance is longer. And so Baylor's whole strategy. Yeah. In the book is like, we'll use turning lances. We'll keep on top of our horses. We'll keep them at a distance. Yeah. We're be able to unhorse them. It's very smart. Didn't help Beesbury and Harding at the end of the day, but they Just cut the whole Lance thing.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm glad.

[Joanna Robinson]

I feel like they didn't want to describe this is the difference between attorney Lance and a war Lance. Let's pause to talk about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Perhaps in the television adaptation that would have been a touch dramatically inert. I personally am glad that that did not make the cut. Even though we can still see the very tall Lances. Um, because that actually struck me always as the one where I'm like, no, I love a game plan that's just strategy.

[Joanna Robinson]

But it's like, like the Kaiser can't touch me. That's, that's altering the rules.

[Mallory Rubin]

Strategy for one pass.

[Joanna Robinson]

True. Because Egg only has to hand up one lance and then he's like, brb, got to make a quick change. And then I'll be in the stands.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that we will certainly we will talk about this more in the season finale. Just these questions. Even if you watch the tease for the finale that they put like a one minute teaser of what's to come, we can, you know, we can hear and see in that preview the characters are processing what has happened. Right. And anytime something like this happens in a George R.R. martin story, it's a little bit of a litmus test for each character, maybe for the viewer or the reader of like how you see the world. I think that the, the princess hubris. The idea like, well, maybe, you know, the hammer always finds the anvil or the spear always breaks is I actually like giving Baylor a little bit of that to our discussion from earlier in the season. Like, it's not as interesting if he is literally perfect.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you think Makar is like, who's the hammer now, bitch? After he bashes brother's head.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean that I, I, I hope he has a ton. I hope he has a touch more tactic.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think he says that, Alex?

[Mallory Rubin]

I hope Mr. Has a touch more fucking tact than that. I don't think he's above thinking it, I think, but I hope he doesn't say it. I think that using tactics to pursue justice in the face of injustice is great and certainly not mutually exclusive from being honorable and doing the right thing. Tywin Lannister once taught me and the grandson that he was actively manipulating. Yeah, that wisdom makes a good king. And so I look at all of this from Baylor and I'm like, this is a strategist and a good man. This is a bold leader. To me, it just makes him so much more interesting. I think this question of judgment though is fascinating in a George story. And I think if you looked through every death that we would point to as shocking, subversive, a character we root for and adore, cut down in their prime, and maybe even in the peak of their pursuit of something virtuous. There will always be either in the fandom, people reading it, watching it, whatever the case may be, however you're consuming it for the first time, characters in the world, most crucially, who are like, yeah, but you did this thing right. That's, like, part of what makes it interesting. It's never simple, it's never clean, it's never easy. Like, we love to talk about Ned's madness of mercy and this idea that, like, he warned Cersei, he went to Cersei because he wanted the kids to be okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

And, like, you sound like Bill Simmons texting us from the sauna, where Bill is like, simple Ned didn't deserve to live.

[Mallory Rubin]

Eddie. Eddie. The next time Bill texts us, Ned will be the first time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sorry, Eddie Stark. Eddie Stark too dumb to live.

[Mallory Rubin]

Eddie Stark. But, like, you know, did Rob break his promise to the phrase, yeah. Does that mean that we're not, like, with Arya every second all the way to fucking fray pie? Does it mean Rob deserved to die? Like, no, of course not. Oberyn wanted his vengeance, and he got a little cute, and that's true, but does it mean he wasn't in the right.

[Joanna Robinson]

He was cute the whole time. Let's be real.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, he was. Wow. He was you. Like. There are members of the Night's Watch who genuinely believe with every fiber of their being that what Jon did, letting the wildlings through, was wrong. And then for me, for many people, it's like, this is part of what makes John a character worth loving and worth rooting for. So it's real. Like, Jamie and Kat talking in season two. You know, if your gods are real and if they're just, why is the world so full of injustice? And Kat saying, because of men like you. It's like, you know, we shared the quote from the novella last. Last week. This isn't in the show, but Leo Longthorne, when everyone's like, yeah, you know, Trial of Seven. Like, the gods might be more likely to get involved. And he's like, or mayhaps they simply had a taste for swordplay. The role of the gods, the role of fate, is an interesting one to think about in this story, but does the judgment is there? Is Balor judged wrong by the outcome here? That is not my read. I think that there will be some characters in the story who think that, though, and that's interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Baylor made some choices.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Humphrey Beesbury just showed up.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that we know what the Beesburys will say.

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen, I like what you're thinking about the. That Leo Longthorne quote is a really good one to bring up, because in the very, very young septon who gives the sort of blessing before the attorney talks about what a bloody offering.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bloody offering.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And that's just such a pagan idea of, like, it's not the God. The sort of, like, virtuous God sitting on high will bless the innocent. It's like, here's. We're offering up the blood of House Beesbury, the most valuable blood there is to offer to feed them. I'm almost done with this.

[Mallory Rubin]

To nourish them on their honey. No, you keep the bees, Berry. You keep Beesberry's memory alive. Because here's the thing. Parker would want. Here's the thing. If you don't, nobody will. Since absolutely nobody will. Speaking of Ira, here's what he said on the inside the episode little mini feature at Baylor chapter chooses to do the right thing. And like many people on Game of Thrones who choose to do the right thing, life intervenes as it will. So this is just, to me, like vintage thrones, vintage George R.R.

[Joanna Robinson]

Martin.

[Mallory Rubin]

Baylor's smart, Baylor's good, Baylor's brave. He's imperfect, he's tactical. But the fact that he is actually doing the honorable thing is not like, rendered mood or untrue. It just doesn't matter. It's not enough to keep him alive. And that is the harsh reality that we're watching here. The other side off. Dunk and Egg share a moment. Dunk calls him squire. I love this little touch because it's like, for just a beat here, it's all business, right? Dunk is trying to maintain a grip on him, himself and his emotions. He's also trying to remind Egg of his duties, his responsibilities. Much like in episode two, after what they witnessed with Aryan and Humph Harding, it's like there might be a day where a mishap befalls me and you have to be ready. But it's only a beat, because then they share their little inside joke. If you rob me, I'll come after you with dogs.

[Joanna Robinson]

Woof.

[Mallory Rubin]

And it's just this lovely little brief moment that they share that reminds us of what they've built over just a handful of days.

[Joanna Robinson]

I really love this moment so much because there's, you know, we've been talking all season, inspired by a listener email about, like, what people? How people look at Dunk when Dunk's not looking at them. Right. That we get to observe that. That the book being so strictly from Dunk's point of view, can't give us. Right. And so Egg kind of smiling at him as they share this, like, inside joke. That's a callback that the show invented. Callback, which I really love. Right. The original joke was show invented. This is a callback. This is like the opposite of. In the final seasons of Thrones, when characters would just say lines that other characters had said. Who.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, remember when Thrones was good?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Remember when this line really hit, we just had another character say it, even though they don't know that other character and have no reason to say things the exact same way. Copy paste from a previous season. Really bad. This is like a really cute inside joke between these people. Right? And so. But then the way that that Egg's face falls when Dunk turns around and the serious. You know, the whole. I mean, Egg is just us. The whole. Yeah, the whole episode. And like the. Come on, get up. You know, all this sort of stuff, the weight, everything like that's on Dex inside of this episode to perform. And he's so good. Like, he was really, really good. But it's also this moment for Egg, who, like, this is his dream. This is what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a squire. He trained to, like, here, here's Ser Duncan. Here's the lance. You know, my tiny hands can do this. But like. Like so many characters on Game of Thrones, like, like Sansa, when she gets to marry Joffrey, like when. When these sort of, like, child childish ideals, these dreams come true. And then the reality is such a nightmare. This is an absolute nightmare. This is a mist wreathed, absolute morass of mud nightmare. And this is what Egg has been like, want and careful what you wish for, which George is constantly sort of throwing in people's faces.

[Mallory Rubin]

The blood seeping into the armor and the ideal. It's a great shout. The music here sort of achieves that effect as well. The scoring, we've been talking about it all season. Your guy fucking killing it. Dan Roemer, this. I thought that what he did with the score in this episode was astonishing. You know, we have moments where it is, like, appropriate to give us a little bit more of the return to the jaunty adventure tune. But there are a couple times later, after the. In a minute, actually, after, like, the first charge, when Arion stabs. Stabs Dunk.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Puts the the three feet of the. The tip of the lance through his side and then he kind of tosses it down. Did you hear my elbow crack?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yep.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, it's not. It can't be good.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're getting ready again.

[Mallory Rubin]

It can't be good. It just can't be good. The, like, it sounded like a horn out of hell. The musical accompaniment when he did that. And then here as this as Dunk rides away from Egg and they part and Egg looks at him as you're describing and the reality of the world kind of washes in. It felt like a pre funeral dirge here. Like that was what the music sounded like. I just thought it was really masterful compositional accompaniment on the musical front.

[Joanna Robinson]

I really agree.

[Mallory Rubin]

The trial of Seven begins. You mentioned the Ashford septon set in the mood. It's not quite Tommen recusing himself in season four if found guilty made the gods punish the accused, which always gives me like a chill every time I hear it. Especially, of course, because of the familial ties and the bastardization quite literally in that case of those ties. But we get this little. This mood setter for the crowd and Dunk puts his helm on and what.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you make of the septon being so young? We've mostly seen aged septons.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, like, I think I got thinking about what we've learned across the season, mostly from Plummer about Lord Ashford kind of overstretching. I got. He had to tap into the faith of the seven internship program vibes.

[Joanna Robinson]

He could not hire a real septon.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was the sense I got.

[Joanna Robinson]

How about you? I was also thinking about Aemond. Like, Aemond is like, you know, young and at the Citadel and sort of, you know, learning he's not a septon, but like, you know, like about the age of this kid, you know?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I mean, Aemond always on our minds. Never a bad time to mention him. Or Bees. Two of the greats. Two of the greats.

[Joanna Robinson]

The two most important characters.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love this. The cut between the. The two helms and just the style of their armor. This like, style versus substance. Jump cut from Duncan and Arian prepping here. If you could pick one set of armor from any of the characters on either side to make your own. Forever to have either to wear to hang on your wall to look at. Who. Whose would you pick?

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, let's just put aside Beast Break because obviously that's the answer. But like, I think my favorite shot of like in the lineup and he's. He's at the edge of the frame. The camera wants us to see him. Is Darren right with the. He's got this in the book. It describes the green silk plume trailed from Darren's helm. And we get the green silk plume as he puts his. His helm on. But, like, just like his armor. He looks so ill. Like, I'm surprised he didn't vomit. We get four vomits in this episode.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's no question Darren vomited. We just were not interested in seeing it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, in the books, as we discussed, he's, like, fighting the DTS as he's, like, getting on his horse here. Like, he's not doing well. But I thought his arm was so good. But, like, if. Honestly, if I have to pick one. It's Makar's sick dragon tooth armor.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's pretty good.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's amazing. It's really good.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that.

[Joanna Robinson]

How about you?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Darren's. Darren's little green bauble. It gives me real, like, cat toy, like, little feather dusty vibes.

[Joanna Robinson]

You were texting me when I sent you a screenshot of Darren in the mud. You texted me, like, the little, like, detective emoji and then the little, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Green tentril or whatever green sprout emoji for Darion.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're great. You're great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maekar's armor is a pretty good choice. I do. I'm ashamed by how much I like Arion's armor, but I really. It's fantastic. All of this Targaryen armor is great. Valar's is really good, but I wouldn't want it in my home.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ill fitting.

[Mallory Rubin]

I wouldn't want it in my home.

[Joanna Robinson]

After whatever princely brain matter in it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I would probably take Lionel's armor.

[Joanna Robinson]

But can you, in terms of, like, scavenging and, like, selling things, can you imagine if someone. If you found that. No. The antler prongs, but like the crunchy, bloody helm that killed Prince Baylor. How many coppers could you get for that? Just a question. I'm just asking questions.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I don't think that Egg Raymond or Goodman Pate will be doing that. So who's in there next? That's the question.

[Joanna Robinson]

There are stable boys abound.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, maybe that guy who was like, are you Bella talker? He's gonna just scoop up some of the brain matter. Head to ebay, head to Ashford.

[Joanna Robinson]

EBay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Probably right in this stretch where we're glimpsing, everybody kind of lining up, readying for.

[Joanna Robinson]

I feel like there's, like, remnants of the other side of the. Of the Blackfyre rebellion. Who would like, want the. The scooped up brain matter of. Of Prince Balor?

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, no question. Yeah, no question. Bittersteel's like, here's my P.O. box in Essos.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh my God. He's gonna be tracking that package for months.

[Mallory Rubin]

You mentioned early in the season drew our attention to the statues that are all over the tourney grounds. And there were some really, especially at the beginning, but throughout, just really great, like adjacency shots of the flesh and blood knights and horses rearing up in front of the statues. And this idea that we've been talking about all season, it's like, was a really meta encapsulation of the tall tale that became legend. Like this melding of myth in real life and the way that something happens in front of you that is rendered in stone one day. I thought that that was like just a great use of the set of the setting and the set and one of the many things that they did inside of this episode and the season so far to give a real sense of like, scale and specificity and something so memorable like now to us. Indelible with this low budget. It's like.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know. And it's so menacing. Like, those statues look so menacing in the mist and like, compared to like when Duncan saw them in the golden torchlight of earlier in the week, you know, and I love, you know, we remarked upon the shots in the rain in last week's episode, but it's really important that the tourney field be an absolute mud pit.

[Mallory Rubin]

It does look fun. Did you like a slip and slide when you were a kid? Yeah, I mean the mace today, but they're fun.

[Joanna Robinson]

But Morningstars and maces and flails, three different things.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, let's just get this out of the way now. Thank you to the.

[Joanna Robinson]

I almost brought the whiteboards.

[Mallory Rubin]

The dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of you.

[Joanna Robinson]

You didn't see all the emails we got.

[Mallory Rubin]

I just assume it's an order of magnitude in the inbox beyond what was in all the comments to let us know because we had this discussion on Talk the Thrones. What's the difference between a mace and a Morningstar? Many people have chimed in to say, hey, dipshits, that's a flail.

[Joanna Robinson]

I believe it was dumb fuck. I think that's the terminus adults.

[Mallory Rubin]

And to that I say thank you for informing us. And I blame George because he calls.

[Joanna Robinson]

It a morning star. He calls it a morning star in the text and there's like an illustration and he talks about it on the end of a chain and stuff like that. Here's the deal.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's a way in which George can be right and there's a way in which, unfortunately, Chris Ryan is right. Right. We'll never tell him, you guys. Don't tell him. Okay. There's the mace. We all know what that is. A spiky ball on the end of a stick.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yep.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's amazing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just gonna add we're not armors, blacksmiths, or weapons experts in the long list. Y.

[Joanna Robinson]

Uh huh.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm with you so far, Steely Pate.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not a doctor.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, a Morningstar. And again, I was gonna bring the whiteboard for this. A Morningstar is that. But the. The things are spikier. There are longer spikier prongs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

But the important part is the long.

[Mallory Rubin]

When you do this and then say longer spikier prongs, I do find myself once again thinking about Sir Arla. But I'm. I'm locked in. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

How can I make it less cocky? Were you. If I had the whiteboard. Okay. So yeah, a mace, but make some of the prongs longer. That's a morning star.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Uh huh.

[Joanna Robinson]

But the point is the long prong. So I think you can have that sort of Mace with the longer prongs on the end of a shorter chain. And that's still a morning star. But the long chain, that's what makes it a flail.

[Mallory Rubin]

I see.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think. And what's really devastating for me personally.

[Mallory Rubin]

Everyone'S gonna tell ya what's really devastating.

[Joanna Robinson]

For me personally is the reason I was so quick. We were both so quick. Correct. Cr. Is that literally before talking Thrones, I had googled Morningstar versus Mace versus Flail. I had googled all three and I still somewhat got it wrong. So tough out here for Game of Thrones experts, I guess. But George does call it a morning star and it's actually important that he calls it a morning star because he uses language that compares it to the falling star that Dunk sees. Right. He talks about seeing the star sort of come across and you see it. There's a great shot of it in this episode, but the star sort of like coming across the visor. The spike ball whirled around and around the sky and fell towards his head as fast as a shooting star. Right. So like this falling star imagery that we've been using for Dunk all season.

[Mallory Rubin]

Update it right now with flail language. See if it works as well.

[Joanna Robinson]

The spike fall whirled round and round the sky and fell towards his head as fast as a shooting Flail.

[Mallory Rubin]

It flails into the. I do. It is the descriptions of what Duncan glimpsed through that little slit. Like, the way that he's. Like the dragon was smiling.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because he can only the.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the way the camera does that. Like when the. When they.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

When they eventually do do the charge, we'll talk about thunder saving the day and thunder saving the day. But that camera move of, like, in the visor into, you know, like, it.

[Mallory Rubin]

So good.

[Joanna Robinson]

So good.

[Mallory Rubin]

We had really gushed over seeing that in the trailer and just kind of the hype that was building, really.

[Joanna Robinson]

The sound of the breathing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And then here we are. The horn sounds.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, we're off.

[Mallory Rubin]

And we are in that helmet cam. And this just fucking ruled. Dunk's pov literalized and crystallized for us that way.

[Joanna Robinson]

I can't wait to see the behind the scenes because do you think they just put, like, a helm on their.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like a little like one of those cameras you fish under a door if you're a spy.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's like, through his.

[Mallory Rubin]

Little.

[Joanna Robinson]

Owen Harris is the director here, so I just want to see shots of Owen or. Or Owen's DP out on the mud field with just like, a little visor.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like a little helm over the. Over the camera.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's great. I love this. Are you familiar with. You know what F1 is? Formula 1. You're familiar against my. So Sky Sports.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

They broadcast the. The Grand Prix. They broadcast the races. And you can choose. You can opt in to a onboard driver feed for your favorite driver so you can watch if you want.

[Joanna Robinson]

How many times do you flip around?

[Mallory Rubin]

You can. You can move around and do whatever you want. So if you're like, I only want to watch this race through the perspective.

[Joanna Robinson]

Of Lando Norris, little Lando Norris.

[Mallory Rubin]

It was not.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's all too much for little Lando Norris.

[Mallory Rubin]

Too much for little Lando Norris. World champion papaya hive. F1 is almost upon us again. I can't wait. If you could have opted out of Dunk's helmet cam and opted into another onboard driver visor cam for another participant in the trial of seven, who would you pick? Are you riding with bees and then your feed cuts out after pointing?

[Joanna Robinson]

Really funny.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you're done for the day, if.

[Joanna Robinson]

You'Re Darren and you're just like a camera that's been tipped over into the mud, I think I would either. In honesty, I would either pick Lionel Baratheon so you could get, like, the booming laughter of the laughing storm, or.

[Mallory Rubin]

And he's really in the thick of it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Or Raymond Fossil way.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a good one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But then you're staring at your, like, least favorite character, Severance. He charges down and challenges him. Oh, man. My favorite little Darren detail, by the way, is at the end when they're kind of going over the body count, reading the injury report. Yeah. Like, might have a broken foot. His own horse kind of just, like, freaked out and started running around and stepped on him.

[Joanna Robinson]

Stepped on by his own horse. Okay. Okay. Rank the embarrassment. Brutal.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's the tough one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Death by groin wound.

[Mallory Rubin]

I. I put that under. Stepped on the love of the game. Like it might happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

Stepped on by your own horse.

[Mallory Rubin]

That is just. That's just sloppy work by Darren. Stepped on by your. If your plan is one gallon charge and then I'm gonna fall over in the mud. You've gotta prep your mount to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Whereas egg to be like, put, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

A carrot or an apple or a sugar cube over a daring stand. So the horse goes there as Darren falls. Prepare.

[Joanna Robinson]

Flings a carrot. Exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Get a plant with. Yeah. Some sugar cubes. I dreamed of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

You found the sugar cube and left my foot intact.

[Joanna Robinson]

There was a giant carrot wing.

[Mallory Rubin]

He can't get anyone. Shadow on the field.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Lonely life for Darren the drunken.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dunk's panting. His eyes are wide in terror. I love when we cut to the flashback and we see young Dunk with the. The cloth over his nose to block the. Yeah. The COVID mask to block the stench of the corpses and the red.

[Joanna Robinson]

The early day of COVID when I was just like, if I just put.

[Mallory Rubin]

This piece of cloth.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cloth here, it'll be fine.

[Mallory Rubin]

This bandana.

[Joanna Robinson]

I won't get the vid.

[Mallory Rubin]

A Game of Thrones. One of our favorite quotes. We talk about it a lot. Can a man be brave if he's afraid? That is the only time a man can be brave. His father told him, this is Branon Ned. And so that is just so on our minds here as we watch this terror grip Dunk. Because of course it would. How could it not? I was also thinking of. I was in a little bit of very Tolkienian. You've already mentioned him. Episode in general. And I was really thinking here, like, courage, marry courage for our friends as well. That was very on my mind. Dunk is frozen until thunder, spurred in part by egg. That episode three Egg and thunder show early training really paying off because thunder hears. Egg pulls Dunk forward. I would say this is the most important passage in the history of Literature. What do you think? Read it to me. A stab of panic went through him. I have forgotten, he thought wildly. I have forgotten all. I will shame myself. I will lose everything. Thunder saved him. The big brown stallion knew what to do, even if his rider did not.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, so are you upset that Ira Parker has stolen some of the credit from. From Thunder and given it to Egg?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, fuck Egg.

[Joanna Robinson]

Clip it, put it everywhere.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is Thunder's moment. God damn it. No, I really like the egg. Thunderbot. I like it, too. And I love love.

[Joanna Robinson]

Since we're in Dunk, Dunk's pov Dunk wouldn't be able to know, like, because he can't hear anything except his own frat breathing. But, like, he wouldn't know that Egg, A, like, trained with Thunder because he wasn't there for that. He just thought Egg had fucked off. And, B, like, that Egg was responsible. So he's like, wow, my horse knew what to do. Which surely wasn't the child screaming at him from the stands. Here's something that Peter Claffy said in the. After the episode.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

He said Dunk had never been to war before, which surprised me because there's the shot of him tending to Ser Arlan when Ser Arlan fought the Vulture King. Right. So I have a fix for this, though.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Is it just that he said the wrong thing? Which I think is probably what happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

Probably that's true. But come with me on this journey, as we see in this episode, Ser Arlan lost his beloved squire Roger at the Battle of the Red Grass Field. So which we will talk about at length, obviously, when we get there. At certain length. When we get there. Right. But he takes on Dunk sort of begrudgingly in. In the context of this flashback. And, I mean, it's possible that when he went to war later, he's like, you wait in the tent.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't want anything to happen to you.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't want anything to happen to you. Yeah, but he wouldn't say it that way. He would say it gruffer, and he'd be like, you're not worthy. Sit in the tent. When really he meant, I'm gonna drink.

[Mallory Rubin]

Some dirty puddle water.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really, what he meant is, my heart is too tender.

[Mallory Rubin]

I can't break again onto a mound of dirt I had to dig with my own hands as I mourn my charge.

[Joanna Robinson]

But say it in a Dothraki.

[Mallory Rubin]

When we get there, I want you to prepare to sing Dothraki. I want you.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I'm like, chris, I have not promised to do any singing on this podcast.

[Mallory Rubin]

We can't let him forget. We can't let CR forgets.

[Joanna Robinson]

Remember you ate beats and remember you promised us that you would sing on Talk to Thrones this week.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, God. Just immediately, just right away, Arian's lance explodes into dunkside. Just right away.

[Joanna Robinson]

And.

[Mallory Rubin]

And the shield fucking shatters like Thanos is there. Chip him away at Captain America's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, so to recap.

[Mallory Rubin]

Damn it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Steely Pate's shield shatters.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, he did his best.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the ring mail gets embedded in Dunk's flesh. That.

[Mallory Rubin]

To me, that just. Honestly, if I were managing Steely Pate's business. You're leaving a Yelp review. I would say all that means is the chainmail helped. I would say it helped.

[Joanna Robinson]

Next time, plate armor. Maybe it held. Next time, some plate armor.

[Mallory Rubin]

The mail can only go into your wound if it doesn't break on the tip of the lance. It's the tact and being driven through.

[Joanna Robinson]

You missed your call on marketing.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's possible. All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna give Dunk a little bit of. Of a pep talk here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Green fucking moment.

[Mallory Rubin]

That. Or maybe this is what he needs to hear. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down. But it is not this day. Can't let the. I mean, sure, does he look at the shield in the text and oak and iron, his elm tree and shooting star gave him heart, and then does it immediately shatter? Yeah, it's tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oak and iron guard me well, or else I'm dead and doomed to hell.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I think you were right to note last time we talked about that, that it's maybe not the headspace that you want to court on the precipice of battle. That's all valid. I think that seeing this symbol of hope, not only symbol of hope, but as we've been talking about, you know, this was on my mind, actually, with the moment with Egg and Thunder and Dunk and Arlen all kind of being involved in the little, like, surge forward, pulling Dunk forward into battle. When he freezes, it's like those strands. All of the people who are part of his life who helped create it. And so, like, you know, we've obviously been talking about that all season with the shield, all of the different people, as you were talking about earlier in the season, who helped Dunk get to Dunk, Sir Dunk in the tall to forge his name, and then all of the different influences on what that shield Is it's like to have that rupture on the first charge. To have that idea. The idea of it, the representation and symbolic rendering of the. The notion that you can decide who you want to be like, split in half in front of you. When at the end of the trial when Raymond and Peyton come in and they're taking him off, it's just like there.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's there without any mud on top of it. Sort of pristine on top of the mud. Conveniently unlike Taryn Humphrey Harding. Peas.

[Mallory Rubin]

Free peas.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. So I'll give this for Steely Pate's work. It fell in a very artistic way and a very important place on the field so that it could symbolically be there when Dunk was dragged on the ground.

[Mallory Rubin]

Remember when Steely Pate was like, listen, I'm going to just give you a helm. It's going to be rounded on the edges so the knife. The blade edge doesn't bite in. That worked. And also, like, no fancy shit. It's just gonna. If you take a lance to the face, it'll serve you better. When that. It was like the pommel, the thrust of the sword. Guess what? Dunk is alive.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was like the. It was the spiky palm, like the crossbar of. Not the tip, but like. I think he used the pommel of his sword to try to get in the visor. I thought that was. Aaron had some great moves.

[Mallory Rubin]

I gotta say. It's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Aaron has no good points, but great moves sometimes throwing the sword. That was sick. Extremely cool. I love how Finn Bennett was like, yeah. Dunk is big and tall and strong. And I needed area to be fast and quick and, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Describe the fighting style. Contrast was awesome.

[Joanna Robinson]

The throwing of the sword into the thigh was really, really good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fantastic.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's another quote, okay. On the Morning Star beat.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Through his fingers he glimpsed a dragon flying and a spiked morning star rolled on the end of a chain. Then his head seemed to burst to pieces. Blame George. Send your letters to George. He's reading all of your letters. Every single letter you write that say, where is Wind of Winter? He reads all of them diligently. And if you want to say, well, actually, George, it's a flail.

[Mallory Rubin]

Don't send them to George. Send them to us. We will happily take this burden on for him so that he can write the next Duncan Egg novella. That's our offer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did you see that Ira Parker said that he had 13 novellas on top of the three. I thought it was like 13 total. It's 13 on top. So I think it's, let's do this.

[Mallory Rubin]

For the next decade and 16 seasons. Great. Let's make this longer than the fucking Infinity Saga.

[Joanna Robinson]

Two seasons a year.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, don't get greedy. But, yeah, that would be great. What about, like, January? Well, how would we space them?

[Joanna Robinson]

January and, like, August, September, something like that?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I mean, that would be wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Where will Hot D go in the spring? Well, there's only two more seasons of.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hot D. And then all the other.

[Joanna Robinson]

Shows, they're gonna do Aegon's Conquest, which might be a film, a movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Jon Snow, the Blackfyre Rebellion.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I'm just starting to wonder.

[Joanna Robinson]

What'S west of Westeros.

[Mallory Rubin]

Blackfyre is all gonna happen inside of.

[Joanna Robinson]

The show and completely in flashback.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's possible.

[Joanna Robinson]

You think we're gonna get Daemon Blackfire?

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't think that. Ultimately, this show. Yes, I do think that. I do think that. I still think they will, at some point want to and should do the Blackfyre, the first Blackfyre Rebellion, in full as a standalone. And that's gotta be a big budget story. It just kind of has to be. But what if that's a movie as, like, a companion to this experience?

[Joanna Robinson]

Keep watching. We can only hope that the new overlords at WB want to keep on. Keep it on.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. Keep watching. Keep talking on Sunday nights about this show. You can keep watching, but Dunk can't because he can't see anything because he's concussed. He can't even pull his sword before Arian is on him again, swinging. And Dunk is just. So we're gonna get after the flashback to this mud wrestling match, this, like, animalistic carnage here in the opening before the flashback. Dunk is so overmatched by design, right? A prince who is trained in all of these different modes of combat. And we talked about this on Talk of the Thrones. But like a line that we love, Dunk the lunk. This is his internal monologue in the novella. Thought he could be a knight. That is what is going through his head as he just falls down beaten in the mud. And then I love this other passage which comes shortly after that, thinking about everything happening, not just to him, but around him. What was worse was the others who would die with him. Raymond and Prince Balor and the rest. I failed them. I am no champion. I'm not even a hedge knight. I am nothing. He remembered Prince Darren boasting that no one could lie insensible in the mud as well as he did he never saw Dunk the lunk though, did he? The shame was worse than the pain. Oh, the shame was worse than the pain. Like, gives me a chill.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then visor cam mud just pours on in. It's great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Takes us right into a flashback.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Do you wish. Did you want to hear the lost sort of like whoosh into the flashback moment?

[Mallory Rubin]

I heard it in my head.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sort of. Just kind of Pavlovian, I think at this point, anything just in the big picture sense before we go through what we actually see with Rafe, with Arlen, et cetera, in this 20 minute flashback to Dunk's youth in Flea Bottom. Before we get into the particulars, anything that we didn't hit in the opening snapshot that you want to say in kind of like a big picture way about this adaptive choice or you want to just hit it as we go?

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I think we can hit it as we go.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fantastic.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thanks for asking.

[Mallory Rubin]

We've mentioned just one beat of context as we dive in. We've mentioned this before, but Dunk has been aged up, so keep that in mind as we go through this. In the text, he is a younger boy. Can I do something here, please? Yeah. This is 13 years before the show.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say matched only by the number of emails we got about a flail versus a morning star versus a mace. Is people really pissed that I called Dunk 30 years old in last week's deep dive?

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

So let's do some math.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bamber Todd was like 15. The actor who plays young Dunk was like 15 when they filmed this episode. But let's say Dunk is younger than that. Okay, what do you want to say? 14? 13. He's not 12.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought he looked like he was maybe like. Yeah, 14. 14, something like that.

[Joanna Robinson]

14.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. 13 years later, I think the math checks out.

[Joanna Robinson]

So he's 27. So. Excuse me, he's not 30, but he's 27. And I'm sorry, I think I'm just like. I think people who are, like, much younger than I am and who are in their 20s are like, Dear God, he's not 30. And I'm like 27. 30 is really not that much of.

[Mallory Rubin]

A difference when you're 27. Yeah, 30 sounds washed far away.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anyway, I apologize. Let's go back in time and amend every time I said he's 32, in his late 20s, which is different than in the book where he's a teenager and he would be like. He would be like 4 years old when the battle of the Redgrass field happened.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which, like I will say when you get to some of the descriptions in the later novellas, some of which we'll read passages of shortly because Rafe is named a couple times, like Farron and Pudding. Wonderful stuff. Some of the things they're describing. I'm like four or five. That would be like maybe it feels like a little young to be doing this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Running around with a severed head.

[Mallory Rubin]

Running around, stealing severed heads, spikes. I mean, I don't know. You grow up fast in Flea Bottom.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was listening to the folks on History of Westeros talk about this and I think they were right that like, George just would often make so many of his characters kind of younger than it makes sense for them to be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. And then the shows always, always age them up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

So.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, so. And it does make sense then that there's like more just in terms of the adaptive choice, more crucial elements of Dunk's life to tell us about than if you were only a handful of years old. Right. If he's 14, stuff would happen that we would imagine.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sir Arlen picks up a four year old as his squire and is like ten to the horses.

[Mallory Rubin]

Get over that male, you little.

[Joanna Robinson]

A four year old Dunk dying of dysentery. And Arlen's like, get up to their story today.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're gonna have Pedialyte, not bottled water.

[Joanna Robinson]

4.

[Mallory Rubin]

Speaking of gross things and death, we're at the red grass field.

[Joanna Robinson]

Dude, this is so cool. This. I have, I have no objection to seeing the red grass field. I have no objection to like being in. It's mostly like the race stuff that I feel like is not my fave. But do you know what fun fact.

[Mallory Rubin]

Tell me, tell me this is the.

[Joanna Robinson]

First time we've seen the. The house Blackfire heraldry on screen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And that.

[Mallory Rubin]

And that the blacksmith pawn shop guy didn't give a. He's like, take that leather elsewhere. He's like, you might be the first time, but killed. No, no, no. We've talked a lot throughout the season about the first Blackfyre rebellion. The way that the show has found many opportunities to sprinkle in a mention a reference that this hangs over this period of Westerosi history in a way that was inescapable. So Joe, if anyone maybe is joining us today for the first time because this was such an amazing episode of Night of the Seven Kingdoms, they're like, now to start listening to podcasts. Blackfyre rebellion, red grass field. What do we need to know about where we are and what we're seeing.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is the end of the first Blackfyre Rebellion. Right. So Daemon Blackfyre, who is leading the charge on this, dies at the Red grass field, as do his two sons. And so this effectively ends, at least for now, the Blackfyre Rebellion.

[Mallory Rubin]

His eldest twins.

[Joanna Robinson]

If you want to, like, go through the whole who did what where, you can watch Talk of the Thrones. I did do a whole sort of like. Like, battle map thing. That's not important. I just wanted to do it. But what matters is that the, you know, as. As Dunk says naively, it's over. We did it. Right. And so it's important to note how many people died there.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. 10,000.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think what's incredible about what we see in the aftermath, we can talk about a little bit more, but, like, what we see. The. The wounded in the streets of a Flea Bottom.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Veterans. Veterans of, like. And this just happened.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Sir Arlen's squire, Roger died at the red grass field. So, like, freshly dug grave. Like, this just happened. There's a guy still alive under his horse.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Duncan Rafer out there. They're, like, entrepreneurs.

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, like, it can't have been more than, like, two days. Like, how long can one survive under a horse? I don't know. I'm not a veterinarian, but, like, add.

[Mallory Rubin]

It to the list.

[Joanna Robinson]

But this is just like this just happened. This is a historical battle.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Dunk was there, like Forrest Gump.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, exactly. Just so. Exactly. Dunk would. What do you think he'd do out on a football field? He'd be great. I mean, he's a rugby player, obviously, as we know.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was running.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, man. As we chatted about on Talk of the Thrones, the Hammer and the Anvil, which we described earlier in the season.

[Joanna Robinson]

That'S part of Baelor and Mace.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Bloodraven. His raven's teeth raining down the arrows. So there's all this kind of like, legendary, fabled stuff that happens at the battle that becomes the stuff of. As in the case of the Hammer and the Anvil. Legend and song. Right. So it's fabled in that way, but the fact that 10,000 people died and that it was so bloody and so costly, the.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The toll of the carnage and the fact that so many of the people who sided with Damon Blackfyre, who sided with the rebellion, didn't stop thinking that was the right choice just because their side lost it is a wound not only on that field. But in the history of Westeros, that really lingers.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're very awkward. The main houses did all support the Targaryens, we should say, like the Lannisters and the Tyrells and the, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But some of the other houses did not. And they still have to like be at the parties and be like, hey.

[Mallory Rubin]

Shout Out House Ball. Fireball. One of the best monikers. Sick. Awesome.

[Joanna Robinson]

Fireball. Incredibly good Fireball. I think George blew through a lot of some of his best names.

[Mallory Rubin]

So many of them are in these.

[Joanna Robinson]

Novels in the Dunk and Egg books.

[Mallory Rubin]

Not gonna say which character is saying these things because you'll find that out in future seasons. But some passages from SW Sworn Sword and Mystery Knight, the second and third novellas. Just people thinking back on this battlefield in this moment. Many good men fell that day on both sides. The grass was not red before the battle. Did your Sir Arlen tell you that? So that's something that a character who is redacted for the purposes of this conversation says to Dunk in a sworn sword. And then the Mystery night. One of the things that Dunk is thinking to himself is just he's like thinking about that the grass was not red when the sun came up. Like, that idea lingers now of course, knowing that Dunk had this like, like firsthand experience with it at an age where he would have remembered adds like a little bit of a different element there. Sworn sword, a great battle is a terrible thing, the old knight said. But in the midst of blood and carnage, there is some, sometimes also beauty. Beauty that could break your heart. I will never forget the way the sun looked when it set upon the red grass field. 10,000 men had died and the air was thick with moans and lamentations. But above us the sky turned gold and red and orange. So beautiful it made me weep to knoll that my sons would never see it. First of all, bars from George as always. But this idea of like the beauty and the carnage, what we're seeing there is just death and rotting, festering ruin.

[Joanna Robinson]

And like no grass at all, actually.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know, I like that choice. Yeah, I, I like that choice that like the red is just in these pools of blood kind of muddy to, to match what we see in the the tourney field at Ashford. But so yeah, this is what we're seeing. And it really was. I mean it's horrible and it's pretty crushing to think of Duncan and Rafe, not only the poverty and the crawl space that they're living in and having to contend with the corrupt City Watch and people like Alistair, but just to grow up in the wake of this, right. For a year during this rebellion, to be surrounded by this level of horror and for the threat to be that close, it's a heavy, heavy thing. And then to think about the characters who would look at that and be like, wow, that, like, sunset that day. It's just a wild, like, insight into kind of the psychology of Westeros. Land that is plagued constantly by these kinds of wars. The body under the horse moans, dunks looking down. And we get to see the sigil. It's House Frey. What did you make of this choice?

[Joanna Robinson]

I am so. It's so interesting because I've heard, like, some people say that it's House Hightower, but it's definitely not. It's the Twins. Like, it's the. There's two towers.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, for a second when I first watched, I was like, oh, interesting. Which also would have been fascinating. But it's over here in a way that it's clear.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, there's two towers in the bridge. It's the Twins, the House Frey sigil. It's such a weird choice because there's, like, no evidence that the Freys are really involved in the Blackfyre rebellion.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

That being said, my only guess as to why it's here is House Frey does have a role to play in an upcoming novella, so maybe, like. Like, it felt important for them to plant that seed here. I don't know. Well, the Stokeworths also have a role to play, so perhaps that's why the Stokeworths are on the road at King's Landing. Do you think the green banner is supposed to be the Tyrell banner? Because Leo Longthorn did not get his troops to the red grass field in time. So I thought that green banner was really weird there. Cause you see that, you see the Blackfyre banner, the red field, the black dragon, but you also see Lannister. You see a green banner. Like, what else? What. What could that be?

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't know. I thought. That's a good question. I tyra that I don't.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know, because here's a. Lord Leo also won distinction during the first Blackfyre, rebelling, winning notable victories against Damon Blackfire's adherence in the Reach, though his forces forces were unable to gather quickly enough to arrive in time for the Battle of the Red Grass Field. Yeah, so, like, he did not get his ass there in time. Do you think he got there late and then just put his flag There and was like, I was there.

[Mallory Rubin]

I was there. Check the tape. You can't.

[Joanna Robinson]

My flag's there.

[Mallory Rubin]

I feel like the choice to put the phrase there, prepping, like you said. But I guess it could also just. And this is connected to that, but feels just like another moment where the show is kind of like, we are going to the Blackfyre. History is a part of the fabric of this show. And so we have an opportunity to tell you more things than are established in the textual canon at this point. The list of known houses on either side is like, like pretty small.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right. Also, to have like a Riverlands house there, I think is just to emphasize that this was a continent wide sort of struggle.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Dunk gently whispers, I'm sorry. To this.

[Joanna Robinson]

To this. Which we'll hear again.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hear it. To Rafe.

[Joanna Robinson]

To Balor.

[Mallory Rubin]

To Balor.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Mallory Rubin]

Covers this guy's mouth too. Do you think so?

[Joanna Robinson]

I've seen some interpretations of this as like, he's so quick. I think maybe you said this on Talk of Thrones that he's so. Or maybe it was someone else. Anyway, he's so quick to sort of like go to a mercy killing. That means he's so used to death. But I was wondering if, like, is this the first time he tries to take a life?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's more my interpretation too.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think. Cause, you know, and when he, when he and Rafe are talking on the walk back and she's like, is that the first time that you're like, saw a body? He's like, no, but clearly in this circumstance and in this.

[Joanna Robinson]

But as an active sort of like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I, I. Because I think there's a, when it, when he first does it, there's kind of a little bit of a whoa, like, what is Dunk about to do? Moment. But I read it as, yeah, he's trying to, like, ease this mercy. Yeah. Ease this man.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, I can't move this horse. And then Rafe's like, let's move this horse. And then they can't move that horse.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. It's like.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the guy dies anyway.

[Mallory Rubin]

We can ransom him.

[Joanna Robinson]

So they would have saved themselves. They would have saved him, like, I don't know, a minute of agony. If he had been able to snuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

Him out, if he's been there for two days, as your math indicates, then I'm not sure what that minute would have done.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did I say two days? Again, I am not a veterinarian. I don't know how long you can survive under a horse.

[Mallory Rubin]

Rafe is here.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Did this take you right away to fond memories of Dune Prophecy?

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen, Sister Lila, Chloe, Leah was really good in Dune Prophecy.

[Mallory Rubin]

She's great and she's great here.

[Joanna Robinson]

That show sucked and she was really good in it. And I think she. Yeah, I think she's good in this episode. And I also think she just has like an incredibly interesting face. Just like a really distinctive face. And then I, I think it's really, you know, she's quite young. I think it's really cool that she's been in like Doom prophecy and Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Like keep casting her hbo. She's fantastic.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, take us to accent corner, the two of them.

[Joanna Robinson]

I refuse. You know what? It Sorry, off brand for me. Wow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Shocked.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're children and they're being asked to match. Basically they're trying to match Peter Claffey's natural. Like, they're like, let's not make Peter Claffey do an accent.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

So we'll just have him be Irish.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Davos was kind of Irish. So that's gonna be the flea bottom accent, I guess.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so these kids have to match that. And they're kids and they don't. They're fine.

[Mallory Rubin]

I didn't mean make fun of the children. I just meant the low class flea.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bottom accent mercilessly mock child actors. Yeah, they're trying to do Irish ish is what they're aiming for.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great stuff. So Rafe is mentioned in the novellas, as we noted earlier, but this is totally new, what we get here. They're older, like we noted, but this idea of Rafe as this like the central figure in Dunk's life, the love story, the kind of like original wound of this loss and the loss of this love, this is all new. Care to read these Mystery Night packages to share what we do know about Rafe from the text?

[Joanna Robinson]

Sure. Mystery Night quote, they chase them through the alleys and make them give the head. Okay. This is when they're running around with a severed head, by the way. Yeah, you know, kid stuff. Four year old kid stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, the picture.

[Joanna Robinson]

Some like you doing it for tots. Not running around with severed head. They chase them through the alleys and girls, essentially. They chase girls through the alleys and make them give the head a kiss before they'd let them go. That head got kissed a lot. As he recalled, there wasn't a girl in King's Landing who could run as fast as Rafe Ferret. Rafe and Pudding, little monsters, those three. And me, the worst of all. And then this other quote, better a beggar than a thief. He had been both in Flea Bottom when he ran with Ferret Rafe and Pudding. But the old man had saved him from that life. It's interesting because. So the line, there wasn't a girl in Kingsland. He could run as fast as Rafe. Some people are taking that to mean that Rafe was a girl.

[Mallory Rubin]

And some people are like, it's possible.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's possible. But like, it's not necessary. Because the point is, these little monsters, Ferret Rafe and Pudding, were running around with the severed head chasing girls. And the point was, the girls could not outrun Rafe. And does that mean that Raf' girl. No, Rafe is a girl here. Great. Who cares?

[Mallory Rubin]

And so from that.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then. What do you got to do with that? When they're done chasing the girls of it, they dump it into a. It winds up in the bowl of brown.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very tough. This is why you never trust a bowl of brown.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely.

[Mallory Rubin]

Never trust.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rats are the best thing you can find in a bowl of brown.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's definitely an ideal outcome. A rat for sure. Rafe, clearly the brains of this business operation. Right? Right. Wants to ransom the Fray soldier. He dies as they're pulling him out so they can't. And then immediately goes to the Teeth for Copper Place. And does have a moment, though, to say to Dunk, do you know any words? Do you know any words? There's a dead body in front of us. Do you know any words? So this is something we've been tracking all season because we open with Dunk bearing Arlen in the first episode. I don't know the right words. Ought to be a sept in here. In episode four, he says the old man was never much for praying. So Dunk is like, why words? Why? So they don't end up in no hell with the rest of us. Rafe says. And Dunk replies, I don't know any words. So very like Melisandre to Shireem. There's only one Hell, Princess, the one we live in now. Right. Thinking about another Hell versus this one. But I like this idea that, like, Dunk doesn't know the words here. And then he has this formative experience to come with Arlen where he learns all of these different things. Arlen taught him this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Arlen taught him Dothraki.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that Dunk probably just absorbed some of it. It's an earworm. It's an earworm.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a breakaway poppet. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Soaked some of it up via osmosis during the nighttime campfire dances. But, yeah, it's like Arlen never taught him prayer or what to say when you were mourning or grieving, which especially given when Dunk comes into his life and the place where Arlen is just a fascinating thing, this idea that he.

[Joanna Robinson]

Grew up without religion. Fine, same. Hard same. But, like, then is now at this tourney at the mercy of this, like, very religious, you know, tribunal.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And it's like the sword is my. My prayer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's my religion. So dangers on the road. We're heading back to Flea Bottom on paths that we are very familiar with. We're like, I know that dirt. I know those trees. This is just a wonderful thing for Thrones fans. Such an evocative, nostalgic visual.

[Joanna Robinson]

Have you been to the Giants Causeway? So it's in Ireland, this road, the Giants Causeway. And it's one of those, like, you know as well as, like, Dubrovnik and all. It's like one of these, like, places that Thrones fans like to go to walk the Giants Causeway, which is the King's Road, which we saw Arya depart on in season two, which we saw Brienne and Pod on, you know, and, like, the fact that it's Arya and Brienne and Pod, we talked about this on Talk of Thrones. Like, these three characters we brought up several times this season talking about these comps of these characters is like, a coincidence, but also just, like, really fun. And also to see Rafe here, like, she's got a helm on, like, very aria coded. So, yeah, I love that they used the giant giant device for me too.

[Mallory Rubin]

It just gives you that feeling. It pulls you back into a certain headspace. And the Aria connection is an extra delightful little touch. Arya would probably ask, like, what's she gonna do? Lift the fucking horse off his legs? Had Dunk asked Arya, this is like, oh, my God, this guy. This guy's calling for his mother. Dunk is. Rafa's in a chipper mood, right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, she's high.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dunk is shaken by what they have just done. And she's like his witness, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because the exchange rate is very confusing in Westeros. We get two silver stags for this.

[Mallory Rubin]

All ends up being right. Not enough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Brutal enough for one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Indeed.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did you think for a second this is my real time math that I was doing when I was like, please don't kill this girl to invent a backstory? And I was like, maybe she'll just take the two silver stags and go to the Free Cities. Without him?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Cause there was a moment where after she dies, after Aliser kills her, where I was like, okay, Well, I guess as soon as this flashback unfolded in this way, there was only one outcome, because this Dunk is not leaving this person. And then that was the other thing. Thought that I had is like, well, I guess they could have just parted ways if she had him. Because he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to go.

[Joanna Robinson]

Skip ahead if you don't want. Spoilers for Better Call Saul. But there's a character on Better Call Saul, Kim Wexler, who is, like, not ever mentioned in Breaking Bad. And so, like, as that show progressed, we were like, oh, God, how are they going to kill Kim Wexler? Spoilers for Better Call Saul. Vince Gilligan's like, like, I don't need to kill a girl to get a backstory. I can find another inventive way to take her off the table. You know, it's like, you don't always have to kill her to get her out of the way.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. She could have just gotten on that ship without Dunk.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly. What if you woke up and the silver was gone and she was gone? I think that's like a similar sort of like, oh, God, what am I going to do? I'm all alone, bereft in the world. Here's Sir Arlen. You know, he could have been upset. Got. Picked a fight with Alistair because he was so upset or something like that. And then Arlen comes out and saves him. Anyway, there you go.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maybe he's trapped in the pig pen and she's like, I got it back. Bounce, man. I gotta bounce. I can't stay here anymore. And maybe she could have told him what Robert said. You know, they never tell you how they all themselves. They don't put that part in the songs. But if they had put that part in the songs, Dunk would have been more prepared for what he found on the red grass field. So something to think about for everyone. The war's over. Dunk says the Black Dragon's dead. And Rafe thinks he's foolish. Nothing's over. She says. She reminds him of what happened with Cedric and Pudding. No one forgets. Shit. You hurt someone, they hurt you back. Now, obviously, Rafe's stance here, what she's saying to Dunk is not born out of. She's not a political science student, right? This isn't necessarily about, like, oh, I heard that Bittersteel escaped to Essos. And, like, there are still Blackfire pretenders out there. And this Is a no. This is a comment on human nature. Right. The way that the need for vengeance, like, works its way into your heart.

[Joanna Robinson]

With love and respect to Rafe.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She is not very good at applying those own lessons to what happens immediately thereafter. Right. You take the dagger, Take the wineskin, take the dagger, like. But what does she say? Okay, first of all, fun fact that I learned. Tell me the name Cedric, which is not among the ferret pudding Rafe lore. This is a show edition. Cedric is a name that was invented for the book Ivanhoe. It was first found in the book Ivanhoe. So I don't know if that's an Ivanhoe Easter egg, but I think that's really fun. Wow. But also, when she talks about Cedric and pudding, et cetera, she talks about coming back and, like, burning half of Flea bottom down to, like. Yeah. I don't know. I was thinking about Daenerys burning King's Landing for vengeance.

[Mallory Rubin]

I try not to think about the bells, if at all possible.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're with us always. This is so true.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hard not to think about, I guess, if we're here. I was thinking about, you know, there's no justice in the world. Not unless we make it, certainly. I was thinking of Yoren and his need to kill Willem, who had killed his brother to the point where he just gets on his horse and rides him all the way to the wall. And how that story is what sparks Arya's decision to start making her list, which she will keep and knock names off of on her quest of vengeance. And Brienne and Stannis and Oberyn and Sansa and Littlefinger. And on and on the list goes are the characters who have proven the truth of Rafe's war.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I quote from everyone's favorite storyline that was adapted perfectly into the TV show? We're talking sand snakes. This is what Ellaria sand says, right? Incredible.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oberyn wanted. I'm not gonna do the accent. Oberyn wanted vengeance for Ilia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. If you should die, must you know these other girls seek vengeance for you and then other vengeance for them? Is that how it goes? Round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end? I saw your f. Father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh? Write me songs? Care for me when I'm old and sick? And there's also, like, I don't need to read the whole thing, but Davos gives, like, an absolute banger speak speech on vengeance that I would have loved to have seen on screen. But this is a preoccupation of George's that comes, as you, as you mentioned, comes up again and again and again. You know, it's. One might say it's like a wheel. One house is on top and then another, you know, and on and on it goes. Someone just needs to come along and break the wheel and then everything will be fine. It's fine.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's fine.

[Joanna Robinson]

From there, it went really well.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just don't. Just make sure that the next bullet point on your doc isn't something about the tinder waiting to catch, burning down.

[Joanna Robinson]

Almost all of King's Landing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, boy. We do see how true this is, right? The state that phlebotomists in. You noted the survivors of the battle, the injured. There are rats. We love a rat in thorns, but they're crawling over everyone. We get to see the Pig Pen, the corrupt City Watch. Nothing new. But as you noted on Talk to the Thrones, kind of like not the vibe that we're expecting or that Darren the good Daeron II would be expecting right now. The reforms certainly have not worked.

[Joanna Robinson]

Quote, it was a year or more before the City Watch was similarly repaired for King Aegon. Aegon had often used promotion to the Watch as a way to shower largesse on those he most favored. And they in turn made sure that the brothels and even the decent women of the city were available for Aegon's lust. So according to the historical record, it took the good King Daeron a bit over a year to clean up the City Watch.

[Mallory Rubin]

Looks like he did a great job.

[Joanna Robinson]

This was many years ago, so it's not working. Also, on that idea, there's a lot packed into here about this idea of, like, what the nobles think they're accomplishing with much versus what is actually future accomplished. Because the Battle of the Red Grass Field happens. And I'm envisioning like the. The flashback scene of Faramir and Boromir, like, we did it, right? Maekar and Baelor are like, we did it. We finished. The war is over. Maekar's like, yeah, but like, they're all, like, celebrating. I'm sure they're just like, really happy with themselves, right? And then meanwhile, down in Flea Bottom, like, what does that have to do with the price of a right? It's always the innocents who suffer when you Highlords play your Game of Thrones. You know what I mean? Like, this is. This is the reality of. Of the aftermath of the Battle of the Red Grass Field and similarly, like the aftermath of. Of war and the aftermath of the tourney.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like Dunk wins the tourney at what cost? You know, there isn't. There isn't a jubilation at the end of a war. There's just the body count and. And who. Who is tallying it up and who is really reckoning with what the cost of these games are? Arian plays a game.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Baelor pays the price.

[Mallory Rubin]

At the end of the day, I think that is. I would not say that this is the moment where Hot D has the firmest footing in the public consciousness, but I think House of the Dragon does a good job of exploring that idea.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, that's a whole premise of Fire and Blood.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And showing us in that adaptation, showing us the resentment that you can either completely fail to account for or potentially exploit. Exploit, leverage, weaponize. If you're paying attention to what is actually happening among the people who you claim to rule. Alistair comes in and the fact that his name is so close to Aliser Thorne just can't be. I just think. Can't be an accident. Just like a classic Thrones piece of shit name here. He's missing his hand. He's missing his moral compass.

[Joanna Robinson]

You think Art Parker is like really intentionally being like, I'm gonna spell it a little different. Alistair Aliser. Alice. Alice. Like I know how you spell Alice in Westeros. That's not how I'm looking at it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I simply will not do it. Al West. I won't.

[Joanna Robinson]

I won't do it.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's a matter of principles. I won't do it. This is where Rafe swipes the ale skin because he sees their bounty. And this is gonna be a pattern of their interactions. I will say one thing on the like, what did we gain? And maybe risk with the flashback and doing it in this way front. I think that something that should have been pulled out of the show if they were gonna do this flashback is the moment in episode one where Dunk is talking to the horses and is like, where should we go raping King's Landing City Watch. Like it's not on Dunk's list after.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like maybe he could be a better. Better than the Alistair.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think far as hell.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like would be.

[Mallory Rubin]

But I don't think this is.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I kind of agree.

[Joanna Robinson]

And on the other hand, I'm kind of like Dunk dreaming of Dunk is always sort of dreaming of being better than Dunk the reformer. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

I feel like I'm signing up to wear a gold cloak. I just think that a gold cloak killed the person who mattered most to him in the world. He's not putting that on.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I ask you a follow up question?

[Mallory Rubin]

Please.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is not about that. Rafe says that the. The booze hears.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sauro's the Queen's own brew, right? Which, okay, I've seen some interpretations that it's like she means piss, right? By the Queen's own brew. She means the Queen's piss.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or is it like an anti Dorne sentiment? Because the Queen is Dornish and this is like Dornish. People like sour ale. You love a sour ale.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love of a sour ale.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. I don't know. I was just. I was confused. I was intrigued by that line.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did take it to be like night soil or.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Something of the sort.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. But who knows? It's mostly just because it's Night of the Seven Kingdoms, so I just assume. Someone's always talking about piss or shit. And they often are. They often are. Now I'm thinking of Criston Cole.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank you for that. You're welcome.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you for that. Rafe and Dong take their spoils to the blacksmith pawn shop guy and he gives over the two silver stags but refuses to take the Blackfyre. As we mentioned, Daemon's rebellion is over. Take your Blackfyre leather elsewhere. So this just quick little way to show us the risk that you would incur.

[Joanna Robinson]

This will come up again in the novellas. Yes. This idea of something that is marked by the Blackfyre sigil and how poisonous that might be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, the crawl space that seems to be their home. Very effective visual. Not only show us just the space that they share, but the circumstances that they're.

[Joanna Robinson]

They are like just some sad little homey like notes to it. This little like sort of. And like imagine them at night, all cold like probably huddled together. Very sad.

[Mallory Rubin]

I liked the little candlestick. It was. It was very sweet. Rafa on the. On the. On the sweetness front says, look, we're going to be sailing off into all kinds of adventures. This is very sad because adventures as we know, Joe, they must be shared. Arya, on my mind here too. Like, what's west of Westeros? Now they're talking about going east to. Across the Narrow Sea to Ethos to the Free Cities. Not west of Westeros, but just this ability to try to think about a different life anywhere but here. That's the headspace Rafe is in. It's not the headspace Dunk is in.

[Joanna Robinson]

As we'll see she's ready to break out into, like, a classic Disney. I want more song. Yeah, and he didn't get to do.

[Mallory Rubin]

That with her, and that's sad. But he did get to do it. Have an adventure. Share an adventure with Arlen. And he's getting to do it now with Egg.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, and know, sorry for your dreams, Rafe, but don't worry, he gets to have them. Our listener, Dave Wroten. Yeah. And this one's for you. Please tell me I'm not the only one who couldn't help fixating on how eerily similar the flashback scene of Dunk back and Flea Bottom in episode five was to the opening act of Solo, with Han and Kira conspiring to get their way off of Corellia. Hashtag makes Solo2 happen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Didn't occur to me, but I love that it occurred to Dave. Hashtag, make Solo 2 happen. Never the wrong time to mention that and put that out into the world. What did you make, Joe?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's my gift from me to you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you. And to Ben Lindberg, if he's listening.

[Joanna Robinson]

You gave me Beesbury. I gave you this.

[Mallory Rubin]

What did you think of the way that Dunk talks about his mother here?

[Joanna Robinson]

I thought it was interesting because we also got him talking about his father in a previous episode with Egg. And canonically, in the book, Dunk doesn't know anything about his parents. So this is show addition. Abandoned by his mother, a criminal father. I don't know. It's. It's interesting to your point. It's like we're meeting Dunk. He's lived so much more life before he meets Sir Arlen than the Dunk in the book. So it makes sense that he needs more life to be accounted for.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. More life to miss. More life to long for. Probably also lice given. You know, no question.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're writhing with them. I feel like when they go to sleep at night, you can just see their hair move because there's just, like, lace everywhere.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bristling, horrifying. Hopefully they can't see it because they just had the one candle and they snuffed it out so that they could sleep. Yeah. This is where Dunk is like, well, what if every other place is actually worse? And I thought this was such an interesting little detail because the idea that Dunk did not. You know, we talk a lot about his ideals and the way that he thinks about idealism. Yeah. How. How good and honorable somebody can be. The lament that he issues to the crowd during his big rouse to, like, he can't believe that all of the noble houses of Westeros have lost sight of this thing. The way that he thinks about the Kingsguard and the Puissant Knights, et cetera, that, like, that was not a part of his worldview here. It was all just bad, which is horrible. And then I think, especially because we're about to see a, you know, a complex portrait of Ser Arlan, as we have seen a complex portrait of Ser Arlan across the entire show. Yeah, this idea that. That was.

[Joanna Robinson]

That the.

[Mallory Rubin]

That just the notion that something could be better and that the. The. Your ability to, like, protect and preserve, that was something in your hands. That that was part of his life with Arlen and not part of his life before. I. I really like that. I think that feels like a nice part of his ongoing origin here. They love each other, you know, you want to make a family, go out there, get a family. Because you love me. Yeah. Yeah, I do. This is sad. So this idea of not just like a losing someone, but this formative love, you know, this person who Dunk wanted.

[Joanna Robinson]

To be with, that's all he has in the world.

[Mallory Rubin]

All he has in the world.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, tough luck for ferret and pudding.

[Mallory Rubin]

They mean nothing to him, but absolutely nothing to him. But, like, what does it mean then if you lose that one person to you? That. That was a part of Dunk's experience here. The despair that we find him in when Arlen is gone, the what it would mean to be faced with Egg, who he grew attached to so quickly, maybe not being a part of his life when he finds out who he is, et cetera.

[Joanna Robinson]

All. All here. And then.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then Rafe's like, dude, the city, it's too fucking small for us. Be tall. A little bit of the early Lionel Baratheon smuggler.

[Joanna Robinson]

Be doll. He's way too tall to live in that little crawl space, that's for sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's true. They have to book Passage, though. And Dunk is like, I gotta just pet this girl goat for a while here. I thought this was so cute.

[Joanna Robinson]

So good.

[Mallory Rubin]

He just loves an animal, this guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, this is an update from Duncan, the book whose job it is to find animals to put in the bowl of brown. And here he's just. He's a vegan, basically. I mean, he's not. We saw him eat that breakfast sandwich and that, like, leg of mutton and legs, whatever.

[Mallory Rubin]

And the hard salt beef, but it's. It's all made of soy. It's all made of soy protein.

[Joanna Robinson]

He loves a soyrizo he does.

[Mallory Rubin]

He does, Joe. It's Game of Thrones. So nothing's simple, nothing's clean, nothing good ever happens. It's tragedy and despair all the time. The fares have spiked, they can't book passage. And then Alistair, who's tracking them, pins them. Very like deadwood setting with this pig Pem. Oh, sure, I loved this exchange. He's lecturing them on stealing and then Dunk's like, well, what's stealing from us? And Alistair says, goes, that's life. So, like, when we're talking about Balor and the trial and this idea and this question of what's just and what's honorable and what might the gods judge, it's like, this is not a world.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You're like, Alistair had some good points where there's no.

[Mallory Rubin]

Where there's room for any of that.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're like, the gods aren't protecting Dunk. Alistair, he knows what's up.

[Mallory Rubin]

He nods to let them go and does this really sickening, horrifying little twirl of Rafe's hair. And that's when she steals the dark.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was really worried we were going to get.

[Mallory Rubin]

Me too.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sexual assault on Thrones.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dunk's face when he sees the dagger, when he sees that Rafe has taken it. And then it's like instant Alliser comes after her, reaches, takes the dagger, slits her throat and Dunk is just bathed in her blood. It is horrifying. She falls into his arms and dies. Very similar imagery, obviously, to what we will get with Baelor later. We talked about the I'm sorry parallel language. He's telling Rafe I'm sorry, just as he will tell Baelor. So it's very sad for people who.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are like, this is the cozy, comforting show. And she's just like, gurgling blood.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's just. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's gaping. Yeah, Real gross. Pretty sad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Up into the pit.

[Mallory Rubin]

Still don't think that this is, like, a perfect choice.

[Joanna Robinson]

Nope.

[Mallory Rubin]

How are you feeling about it? A couple days later?

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't like it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, man. Because we introduced a female character and then killed her. Because we don't think we need this extra, extra compel, both of it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't feel like we need him to have. I think people are fooling themselves if they don't think the show is trying to draw a comp between, like, two young women who don't look entirely dissimilar and, like, you know, this great loss of. Of Dunks, like, the love of his life and sort of this Girl that he has a crush on being seeing or threatened again, going into a berserker rage the way that he did in the past, like. But I don't need Dunk to have had that origin story to believe what he did in the puppet tent. And I also just thinking about puppets again, sorry to be as berry or.

[Mallory Rubin]

Puppets, honestly, sometimes apples.

[Joanna Robinson]

And also in a, in a, in a show, in a novella that has so few parts for women, like the fridging thing is just dicier than ever. Do you know what I mean? And so like we're expanding some roles. We give Red a line in this episode, you know, like we're doing our best. Gwen got some lines and a name. What an upgrade, you know, but like it's, it's a really sparse out there inside of this story and so to introduce a character who's like cool and interesting and smart and then it's just like. The point is her death is. I don't like it. Don't love it.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, don't love it. I, I agree and agree on the, the tensile comp too. I just, I think that character learning more about characters, origin stories and motivations is something we appreciate it. So I don't want to like say something hypocritical about that, especially as we're about to like draw a lot of parallels with what happens with Arlen. But I, I really think with Dunk, does everybody have something that happens to them that leads them to where they are? Of course. And learning about that is interesting. Part of the point of what happens with Dunk in that puppet tent is that he's like, like now you're thinking about the right thing to do. Always thinking about puppets. Always. I still can't get over you calling that. That was a puppet head in a trailer breakdown. Just all time, all time ship from you. All time. You mentioned the berserker rage. So Dunk basically hurls himself onto Alistair, like bites a chunk of his neck off this goblin mode Dunk. Yeah, I love that Goblin mode. Dunk of Flea Bottom, who we will see rise when we go back to the trials.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a Gollum. A classic Gollum move, by the way.

[Mallory Rubin]

It absolutely is. It absolutely is. I mean, Smeagol Gollum. Who are we with at any given moment? It's part of the journey.

[Joanna Robinson]

Duncan, Duncan, Duncan.

[Mallory Rubin]

The tall Duncan. Flea Bottom. It all tracks. It all tracks. He takes a spear through the leg here. Ned Stark also with us always. Much like Gollum, two of the characters who are always with us on Every podcast. Ned Stark and Gollum, Eddie Stark, Big Eddie Stark and Gollum. But Sir Arlen is here and he's doing great. He's doing great. He is coming out of a nearby pub brothel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Your mild may vary.

[Mallory Rubin]

Both your mom may.

[Joanna Robinson]

I said you're mild, but I meant mileage.

[Mallory Rubin]

Anyway, he is so drunk that he immediately pukes after saying, invoking the name of the episode and this nightly vow. Carlos, can we see this? Both what Arlen says and also what he spears. Leave that boy me.

[Joanna Robinson]

A Knight of.

[Mallory Rubin]

The Seven Kingdoms in miniature.

[Joanna Robinson]

Honestly, very chunky.

[Mallory Rubin]

It is. Every episode. They found a way.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's what I love. Tell me.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, as.

[Joanna Robinson]

As you mentioned on Talk of Thrones, in the name of the mother, I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. As. As we discussed at the top of this episode, like, so that's, you know, that's what he's thinking about a knight.

[Mallory Rubin]

Who remembers his vows. Just like that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wonderful. Yeah, Hot.

[Mallory Rubin]

I see that.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I think, hot. Chunky. I bet it was hot. So he sees a boy being knocked around by the City Watch, and he immediately takes the boy's side. And that makes me think of this passage, which you've quoted a bunch of times. 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. So this idea of, like, he. Arlen's staggering into action, driven by a conviction of what is right in this scenario he sees. I mean, yes, the gold cloaks, apparently in this time period, are very corrupt. So there's no reason to, like, you know, he's a real ACAB attitude right now. Right. But like. But he's like, I'm not siding with the authority. I'm not siding with, like, the law. I'm siding with this boy because that feels so. That seems to be the weak and the innocent that needs protecting.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And to see Arlen, like, I wouldn't mind seeing Arlen do that. And that be an inspiration for. For Dunk when he goes into the puppet tent.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because it tracks perfectly.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's so good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right? It's like this idea of defending the innocent, which Arlen does for Dunk, and then Dunk can do with Tanzel, that Brienne spirit in both of them. Because Arlen is doing this, protecting this young boy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

After losing Roger.

[Joanna Robinson]

So you have this, like, no chance, no choice, baby.

[Mallory Rubin]

Nothing's more hateful, you know, than failing to protect the one you love idea. That could be fueling him almost, like, on instinct. And that nightly vow, A knight who remembered his vows. Yeah, that would have been just great. Arlen. Here he is. He kills both of these gold cloaks. Thought it was wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, I hope Puddin and Ferret were nearby to pick up that severed head and run it around the stage.

[Mallory Rubin]

They needed to be quick because the pigs were on it right away, rolling it around and noshing on it.

[Joanna Robinson]

According to Dunk in the book, right? Sir Arlen met him chasing pigs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you feel like this is a cop joke, or do you feel like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is in reference to those. The pig pen. That they're nearby. Why not both?

[Mallory Rubin]

This sword. We've been talking a lot about Arlen's sword, which Dunk inherits all season, and I love this new additional detail and wrinkle in, like, the reverence with which Dunk treats that blade like this was the blade used to avenge Wraith.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Coated in the blood of our killers.

[Joanna Robinson]

Everyone's favorite character, Rafe.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, man of the sad things that we've seen this season. Sweet little Dunk huddled, holding his knees, alone in his crawl space, crying. I mean, brutal. Made me cry. Made me think of seeing Dunk alone in the. In the prison cell.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did you cry harder for. Did you cry harder for that? For Humphrey Beesbury when he died, or for the apples that tumbled to the ground? He was. I'll give you your answer. You didn't cry for those apples because they were golden deliciouses. And you and I do not. I think that's a plural of delicious. And you and I do not care for golden delici apples.

[Mallory Rubin]

We don't. But we love an apple as a central plot device. And so the fact that Dunk sees Arlen again.

[Joanna Robinson]

But aren't we, like, united in our hatred of red and golden delicious apples? The worst apples. Okay, great. Of course, I was also thinking of Dunk in his prison cell because we get this POV shot of him through the bar looking at. You know, through the visor slit through the bars, like, looking out at Ser Arlan out there. And I was thinking of him when he. Like, it brings you context to him wanting back up in that prison cell, and it's just sort of like, here I am, back where I started, behind.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bars, looking through bars. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

With only a rat for a friend. You know, Preston, why isn't Duncan a.

[Mallory Rubin]

Vegan must just be really hard in Westeros, honestly. I mean, like, I've got a couple.

[Joanna Robinson]

You have to go to the Free Cities, get some se. Sit down.

[Mallory Rubin]

Probably the apple merchant who's bar whose barrel Arlen knocks over, which draws Dunk's attention so that he can follow him, much like Egg chose to follow Dunk. A wonderful little parallel there. She calls Arlen an old fool. Later, when Arlen wakes and stabs himself. Joe, would you say every day if you were podcasting or putting on a puppet show that. Yeah, all nights are.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say. And all nights are fools when it comes to apples.

[Mallory Rubin]

You saw it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thanks.

[Mallory Rubin]

You solved it. So Dunk follows Arlen for days and nights. Some highlights.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think Arlen saw Dunk?

[Mallory Rubin]

I think he for some time knows he's there.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree. That's my take is that.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I think that's actually kind of important that he's like choosing to. Yeah, it's a little bit of like a. Almost like hazing, like initiation, even if it's not like conscious or willful. Right. Like, let's see if you want it. But it's also just, I think, a way to show the state that he's in. Right. I mean, obviously there's like the. He can hear him puking up his guts for sure. At a certain point. It's undeniable that he knows he's there. But I kind of. I think he knows the whole time.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think he knows the entire time, I think so. They're like alone on the road on the way out of King's Landing. There's no one else there.

[Mallory Rubin]

If Arlen doesn't know that Dunk is father, he's an even. Even more of a shit night than we. Than we thought. Some of the highlights from this stretch, we get some, like, formative tree canopy as my pavilion. Stars in the sky stuff for Dunk here. And he has his, like, stolen moments with the blade, much as like Egg will sneak away with thunder.

[Joanna Robinson]

And with the helm and him looking at the helm. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

The thinking back to just. Even after Arlen's death. Dunk picking up the sword in episode one and, like, fits my grip as well as it ever fits his. Seeing him pick it up for the first time, that was all really cool. I liked too, when he was like, whittling the stick. Thinking of Egg whittles the stick spear.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't mind. It's a kind of parallel. I don't mind.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's great stuff, Roger.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's why I don't mind it. Yeah, because like, some, in some ways, it's a little cute. We saw Egg whittling. We saw him whittling.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, kids do that. There's nothing else to do. There's nothing. IPads.

[Joanna Robinson]

They did not have iPads. What are you gonna do? You gotta whittle. Gotta pass the time sometime.

[Mallory Rubin]

The tablet had not yet emerged as the villain of Toy Story 5 on my winning iPad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Villain of Toy Story, the Toy Story prequel the Westeros is whittling entirely possible, just taking up all their time and all their attention.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's probably somebody who picks up a head off a spike and contacts, tracks some sort of disease. Possibly. Speaking of dead kids, Roger of Pennytree, tough transition.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's your best ever.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yet here we are. Sometimes the material demands what it demands. Jo, we heard Roger and votes went into madness.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bid. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

In episode two, when Dunk is going around and, like, reminding everybody of trying to get somebody to remember Arlen, and he mentions Arlen's nephew and squire killed at the red grass field. So we talked about Roger a little bit already when we were covering episode two.

[Joanna Robinson]

But what do we.

[Mallory Rubin]

What else do we need to know about Roger?

[Joanna Robinson]

If anything, that he was Arland Squire. Anything else you want to add?

[Mallory Rubin]

His nephew.

[Joanna Robinson]

His nephew.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's really it.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he's dead. He's dead.

[Mallory Rubin]

He died at the red grass field.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's everything I know about Roger.

[Mallory Rubin]

We'll talk about some squires.

[Joanna Robinson]

When he died at the Red Cross.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think the thing that we.

[Joanna Robinson]

He had a little helmet.

[Mallory Rubin]

He did. Tiny helmet. So those are the things we knew before this. And here's what we. What we learn here is just that this shattered Arlen, like, he's in a. He's on a bender. He's in a drunken stupor because he's grieving the loss of his nephew and his squire. And so he sings. And I would like you to tell us about what he sings.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. So David Peterson, who does all of the Valyrian and Dothraki language stuff on the shows, the various shows, does this thing sometimes when his language is used on the show, is that instead of, I don't know, putting it anywhere else, he puts it on AO3. He did this with House of the Dragon, and he has done this here. But per David Peterson, this is Dothraki.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the English translation is the ropes of death enwrapped me. Ungodly men have made me afraid. The ropes of hell abound me. The sorrows of death. Death prevented me in my distress I called upon you, the great stallion, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my strong enemy. Beat them small as the dust before the wind. I will cast the evil out as the dirt in the streets. Courage is my salvation. Mercy is my light. Something I think is interesting. So the opening line, the ropes of death enwrapped me. Yeah. This is from. Have you heard of it? The Bible, Psalm 18. The cords of death entangled me in my distress. I called to the Lord. I cried to my God for help. So I don't know the order of operations in terms of, like, Ira Parker writing some lyrics and asking them to be translated or any of the other people who are credited on this episode or was Dan Romer involved? I don't know, like, who all was involved in composing the lyrics. Lyrics. I've seen a lot of people curious why Sir Arlen would know Dothraki. And like. I mean, I think a great theory is, like, you know, there are Dothraki sellswords do exist. And so he might have served with some Dothraki fighters in the various wars that he fought in. And perhaps they taught him this song this morning. Song, like, after the loss of a battle or something like that. That is a reasonable theory. He's also very, very well traveled.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I think it feels like fitting that Arlen, for him specifically, but also, like, this idea of the way he thinks about the life of a hedge knight, like, life on the road. He's a nomad. And the fact that he, you know, like one of the. We've talked about this elsewhere in the season, but Dunk's like, shit. Like, what if they asked me, like, about where he's from and I don't know and I've never been there and I haven't seen it. And, like, you know, the idea that the road was their home. And so every person who Arlen interacted with, it was something that he absorbed that became, much as we're watching with Dunk, part of the fabric of his sense of self and sense of place. And so it feels right to me that he would be singing a song from another culture because he doesn't have necessarily, like, a strong rooting in any. In anything here. He's like a student of the world. He is.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like a white guy who has, like, a Buddha statue in his garden. Exactly. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And, you know, he's like, Duncan, animal lover. What a thrill, not only to see Sweetfoot, but to see Arlen talk to the horses, just as Dunk will always be talking to the horses. We Just needed Raymond here to be like you, talking to the horses. What did you think overall of the portrait that we get of Arlen here doing this really heroic a knight who remembered his vows thing for Dunk?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But then ignoring him, forcing him to trek after him, allowing him to drink the dirty puddle water, et cetera, et cetera. We heard from a lot of the BHAD babies about this complicated portrait of this man. How did it, how did it strike you?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, like one listener, Mikhail said, like, sorry, but I'm officially on Team Hashtag. Not my Sir Arlen quote. A hedgehog is the truest night. Like all of these quotes that we've been saying. Right, Right. She wrote. There's just no way this free fisted SOT ever said or thought anything like that. Even if he did save Dunk's life at the moment of grief stricken pure heartedness. And then Chris has a really good email that I'll get to in a second, but I want to take us now, just like very briefly to Shakespeare Corner. Right. Because. So you mentioned the double full reference. Right. And the way in which Shakespeare uses his fool characters like Feste and Twelfth Night or the fool and Lyre. Like these fool characters often are the source of the most piercing observation and wisdom inside of these plays. But the character that he most resembles is Sir John Falstaff. And we talked about Henry V last week. We were talking about Saint Christmas Day, but in Henry iv, the prequel to Henry V. Right, right. Prince Hal, who is like fucked off because he doesn't want to be king and he doesn't want to be around his rich family and he's going to go slum. It starts hanging around with Sir John Falstaff, a knight who is a drunkard and a fool in many ways, but also capable of incredible wisdom. And he's just like one of the most revered creations that Shakespeare ever created. George R.R. martin, when talking about his favorite characters in literature, said, boromir is my favorite member of the fellowship. The tragic hero, Shakespeare's Brutus speaks to me as well, more so than the real one, the noblest Roman of them all, whose nobility and gullibility led him to commit a vile crime. Captain Ahab, blah, blah, blah. Gatsby, Falstaff and Hotspur and Prince Hal. Those plays are full of flawed characters, each with his own failings. Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain, Gawain, however you prefer, but not Sir Galahad. So perfect, so empty. And Guinevere and Arthur and even Mordred, that little shit. Oh, the list is long and when my reading turns to history, biography, memoirs, my response is much the same. So he's a big Falstaff fan. Among Boromir and other things. Great taste. And like Lev Grossman in that Feast for Crows review that I read in Time, called Tyrion Martin's Falstaff, right, a bitter, cynical, highborn dwarf. He's Martin's Falstaff. That's what Lev Grossman said. But I think that this portrayal of Ser Arlyn, which is different than Dunk's sort of honeyed perception of him that we get in the novellas, is much more in that vein. There's this Harold Bloom, who is a very complicated figure, but taught me a lot of what I know about Shakespeare. Falstaff was his favorite character. And there's, there's this. He wrote this great book about Falstaff and Jeanette Winterson, a great author in her own right, wrote in her review of that book, had this description of him. Not that there's anything ethereal about Fat Jack, this whiskery swag bellied, omnivorous cornucopia of appetites, red eyed, unbuttoned sherry soaked, this night walker and whoremonger, a muddy conjure, swinging his old mistake Mistress Doll Tearsheet, a life affirming liar whose truth is never to be a counterfeit. Falstaff is ancient energy thumping at volume through a temporary poundage of flesh. He is part pagan, the lord of misrule, and as such his time is short. We meet him first in Henry iv, Part one. Already old, lusting at life, drinking pal of young, of young Prince Hal, who is swumming it, blah, blah, blah. Orson Welles, who plays Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, which is this incredible movie that sort of takes pieces of Falstaff from all the plays and puts them together. His description of Falstaff is, quote, the greatest conception of a good man, the most completely good man in all drama. His faults are so small and he makes tremendous jokes out of his little faults. I disagree. Some of his faults are larger, quite large. But the whole. The reason that Harold Bloom, A reason that Harold Bloom loves Falstaff so much is that like we've been hearing again and again about Sir Arlen in the text, is that he operates outside of the rules of society. Quote, he praises Falstaff's wit and intellect and excuses his vices as a display of his, quote, freedom from society, right? So this idea of this like, drunken, old washed whoremonger, like all these things are true of Sir Arlen, and yet there is an inherent nobility to it. Him, an inherent truth to him. And that is like, exactly the sort of Falstaffian model that Shakespeare was chasing, all these other people were chasing. There's also. I love that you brought up honor because, like, Falstaff was famous. Speech is about honor. And he's like, I'm not going to read you a whole speech. But basically he's like, what the fuck is honor ever done for me? Right. You know, like, will can honor set a leg. No. Or an arm. No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in honor like us is not a doctor. Is essentially his point. And so Arlen lives. Lives by a code, and he has honor, but it's sort of like it's not the honor of the knights. It's not chivalry. That is not what Arlen lives by. He lives by an inherent truth that sends him staggering, vomiting out of a brothel or a pub or a combo, if you prefer, probably to save. To save Dunk and the echoes that go down history because of that. Like, Dunk is in the start of a story that people who love George R.R. martin's work know, like, you know, has a long road were it not for what Sir Arlen does here, which is incredibly honorable while vomiting. And all those things together, you know, are incredibly important. I love that. So I just. I. I kind of love this depiction of Sir Arlen. I'm a big fan of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. That was awesome. Thank you to you and thank you to Willie Shakes the Bard is always welcome. I agree. I think that the first of all, it feels like the kind of thing that we talk about more broadly with adaptation, where, like, when something is teased out or altered or amended in any way, it's like, does it feel like it's honoring something true? That's the spirit of the character. If it's different and new to us, but it connects to something that is like the germ and heart of the thing. It can be a gift. And that's how this felt to me, for the reasons, is a gift. I think, like, I agree. It just feels so true to the kind of character who George loves, loves to not only write, but, like, center a tale around. And I think, like, we've been talking about this with Dunk, but just everybody, you know, Balor, even the most heroic, you know, quote unquote characters, they're not interesting to us if they're not flawed, if they're not complex, if they're not human beings, because then all they are is the Myth or the legend or an idea instead of a flesh and blood beating body that can stumble out into the mud and try to do the right thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sir Galahad. So empty. I do want to read this this email from Kristen because she connects sort of like conflict. I believe the subject of her email was conflict inside the human heart.

[Mallory Rubin]

So it's the only thing worth writing about.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can't help but thinking of the conflicting, near contradictory nature of this poor boy. Dunk. One steeped in tragedy and trauma. Like seeing who I am assuming was his first crush, brutally cut down by corrupt City Watch patrol and die in his arms. And yet he believes in the best of people and the very institutions that held him in poverty. And Flea Bottom, he's still that same boy in the battle. Seeing the corruptions of some royals, the noble houses who fail to remember Sir Arlan of Penningtree, even the bad apple who betrayed him. And yet still having hope that someone, anyone, would do the right thing. Then again, when you think of the times the right thing was modeled for him, whether that be by Ser Arlan or Prince Baelor. Maybe isn't naive or thick as a castle wall, but instead brave enough to believe that there is right in the world and there are people who keep their vows. Perhaps that belief and behavior is what truly makes someone a knight. Long before the sword taps their shoulder or they swear and swear.

[Mallory Rubin]

Would you and Samwise say that there's some good in the world?

[Joanna Robinson]

Mr. Frodo? It's worth fighting for.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's worth fighting for.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would. I would.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that fantastic email for all the reasons that you just described. How perfect that Arlen, that this sequence, this flashback ends with Arlen going over to Dysentery Dunk and putting his hand up and saying get up. And that. That is what pulls not Ser Duncan of the Tall, but Dunk of Flea Bottom.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like, I'm in the mud back in Tully. I know what. I know what it's like to win a fight tomorrow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, I know what to do here. And like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think they thought of calling this episode get up at one point? Point.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's entirely possible. It's entirely possible. It's supposed not to broadly this stretch of the battle.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought this was just epic and riveting.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's fantastic.

[Mallory Rubin]

Savage, violent. It's cramped, it's suffocating. But there's all this chaos around. What if any prior Thrones more intimate conflicts or sweeping battles did this most remind you of? Does it feel like entirely its own thing?

[Joanna Robinson]

A Blend. You mentioned Hardhome, which had not really been on my mind. I think I was stuck in, like Jon drowning in the mud in Battle of the Bastards.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

That. That was, like, really cheap to me. Or Jon dodging horses inside of the mud in Battle of the Bastards. Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think for hearthome for me, it's literally just how hard it is to see that, like, kind of. I think I'm. I'm just going off the dome here. But Owen Harris was on the official pod and he described the fog as, I think, sinister and the way that was another layer, like, between Dunk and understanding what was happening around him. So that element of it was hard on me.

[Joanna Robinson]

But it's mentioned several times in the novel. The river mist. Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

The tendrils. But yes, no question. Battle of the Bastards was most top of mind for me as well. And I think a little bit of the mountain and the viper, but with that crush, a suffocating crush of bodies and mud. And also just the kind of Jon, you know, the cam that we get the perspective and point of view of the sweeping nature of how that battle. That's, I think, very top of mind watching this sequence here, even though it is smaller in scale. I think also there's like, you know, Jon's like kind of big damn hero moment, like standing solo to face the charge. And so when Dunk, when the crowd leader is like, up, up, up. And Dunk kind of gets that moment when you have those moments where it's just like this solitary figure who is about to do something that seems impossible. Very Battle of the Bastards. Y Ira Parker on Inside the Episode said, I wanted it to have that like Old west, when the two gunslingers were going to finally do it and they choose pistols at dawn.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was awesome.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Before we talk about Duncan Aryan and their savage deathmatch here. Yield match. Let's hit just some of the other surrounding highlights. What were some of the other favorite things that you witnessed out on the field?

[Joanna Robinson]

We're not going to talk about this in depth because it might. Might like, be detailed more in depth in the finale. But since we get to see it in this episode, I'm considering it fair game to let you all know that Raymond Fossoway has painted his shield with a green fucking apple. And that is why Raymond Fossoway belongs to my team and not your team.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's. Green is my favorite color, I think. I think green. I think green apples taste like shit. Preposterous. I think green apples taste like Shit.

[Joanna Robinson]

But green is my favorite color. Green is a great character. Very brave. Yeah, brave.

[Mallory Rubin]

He did wonderfully.

[Joanna Robinson]

The green apple. Fossil. Raymond Fossil.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm happy for you. I am.

[Joanna Robinson]

We get to see his shield. It's very exciting. Um, we thought that they hadn't done this because it's kind of silly in the book that Raymond's like, by the way, I took the time between when I was knighted to when I went out on the field to get my shield painted with a green apple again. We'll talk about this more. But like, I. I love that we got to see it because it meant that I got to finally say it. Rainbow, green apple.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm thrilled for you. Unfortunately, you lost Beesbury, but you got the green apple. So you win some, you lose it.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, the Lord giveth and Lord.

[Mallory Rubin]

Taketh away, you know, conflict in the human heart. Maekar and Micah and Baelor. This is awesome. The moment where Maekar is screaming Aerion's name. My boy. My boy. And trying to reach his wailing, crying out in pain. And at this point, very imperiled son and king. Kind of thrusting his mace like, kind of here. That's a very key moment. This is actually a moment that I.

[Joanna Robinson]

Think it's like that's where he cracks the front. The visor is like there jeopardizing the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Integrity of something that already didn't fit because Balor was wearing his son's too small armor. Cuz he never meant to fight.

[Joanna Robinson]

And his hair was too short.

[Mallory Rubin]

And his hair was too short. And that could have solved everything.

[Joanna Robinson]

When he said, my boy. My boy is real godfather. Look how they massacred my boy. Which coincidentally is what I said when Humphrey Beesbury died.

[Mallory Rubin]

My boy. One line and then died.

[Joanna Robinson]

They massacred my boy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Death by lance de groin. It's tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

What a way to go.

[Mallory Rubin]

The swings to the back of Baylor's head. We get to witness a couple of those too. After. After Dunk has gotten Aryan to say that he will use yield. But before the sound horn. So in that terrifying moment for Dunk where he's like, okay, I've got to get them to stop this because all around me still terrible things could happen to people. And we. We see a couple real big bashes to the back of Baylor.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who's the hammer now? Is probably what Baker said.

[Mallory Rubin]

Again, I. I hope he's I internal.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Some things to keep to yourself. We got an email about a favorite glimpse.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

In the battle.

[Joanna Robinson]

Gabe, I want to mention this. This goes to the point I already made kind of about what? What the fuck is the Kingsguard doing? But I, I want to read this out because we got an email from Sabrina and then like a few hours later, we got an email from her husband Gabe, who's like, my wife wrote in, so I wanted to write in too. And I just like, we'll get to Sabrina's email in a second. But I just like the couples that write into podcasts together. Stay together, I guess. But I will read this part. Why wouldn't Willy and Rolls.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is fantastic.

[Joanna Robinson]

Intercede and form a wall around his heiress like pale moths dancing around a bright flame. This seemed like the obvious move, given they are battling against Duncan in service of the targs. Curious to hear your thoughts and whether I'm missing something. Again, I think this is a downside of so I know really good stuff. Great job. We'll get to Sabrina's email. But, like, again, Duncan takes so many more hits in this version than he takes in the book. It's crazy. The dagger through the hand, the sword and the thigh. The multiple dagger stab in the thigh. Like, it's nuts.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't know how he's alive.

[Joanna Robinson]

Frankly, he shouldn't be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Can I just read this list of injuries that he incurs here? And this is like, I, I, I'm just not sure how he's standing. Kicked in the head. Head. This is after the initial. He's been stabbed by a lance which has embedded chainmail into him. And he's been knocked into concussion protocol and directly into a flashback. Directly into a flashback. Then we rise and he is kicked in the head, bashed in the head multiple times by the Morning Star or flail. Or flail or whatever the fuck you want to call it. And by, we get that ride by from. From Maekar's mace. Hit in the torso, hit with the shield, stabbed in the side twice. Stabbed through the hand, stabbed in the back, stabbed. Kind of like I thought it was maybe like the trap kind of there. Stabbed in the torso. Stabbed in the leg by the sick thrown sword move that we love. Slammed in the head with the shield, nearly eyeball gouged.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he's fine. Steely Pate's armor and the plot armor are doing well.

[Mallory Rubin]

Before, after the lancet, before the final little wrestling matchup.

[Joanna Robinson]

And in the book, boy, basically when he gets the upper hand, he doesn't lose it and he just, like bashes the shit out of Arian. It's over much faster. And so again, by dragging it out, you make it a bit more confusing. What the Fuck. The Kingsguard were up to. And, you know, fair point. I thought the action was incredible. I thought it was really good. It is our job to overanalyze and ask some questions. But what I did think about, actually, is the point you made in your rapturous ode to Sir Arlan's dick. You pointed out all these scars on his body, and I was thinking, here's Dunk starting his collection. And later in life, when he gets his surely giant dick out to do whatever it is he wants to do, there will be a map.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's all everywhere. Yeah, we're gonna get that one.

[Joanna Robinson]

There will be a map of. And he's like, got this at. At Ashrameadow. Got this at Ashford Meadow. Got that at Ashford Meadow. Got that at Ashford Meadow. This bruising, the scarring around my eye. Ashrameadow, you know, like, blah, blah.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, yeah. But the scars as a map year experience is a great little touch in Westeros. I was thinking of Red saying, last one you like to have of, like, take care of your body. This is a lot of damage for One Go. It is. It's a lot of damage for One Go. Even for Dunk of Flea Bottom.

[Joanna Robinson]

In terms of the aforementioned, I mean, do you want to. Do you want to list Aryan's injuries?

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, he takes some. He takes some damage as well. Obviously, just in this little stretch here, Dunk gets the. The head bashes. He bangs his head into the ground. You know, it's soft mud, but still can't feel good. Raymond gets his ride by in, which was huge. Obviously, there's the, like, twisted shoulder. He's bearing down on him with the sword blows, the epic groin slash, which really, it was just harrowing to be stolen from Beesbury and then obviously everything later at the end. But just in this little stretch, he's encouraged to the point where they're both like. They can't really move. Right before Dunk flops over, they're like.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're both rolling around the mud. They can barely stand this lance just like, breaks on top of them. At one point, the aforementioned Sabrina writes in to say this. I know the Dunk. I know the Dunk. Dunk isn't typically the vengeful type, but during the. The trial of the Seven, I noticed Dunk stabbed Aryan right between the legs. Could this be a reference to the horrific story Egg told him about how Aryan would threaten him at night? Similarly, back in Flea Bottom, after Rafe's throat is slit, Dunk reacts by biting the man who killed her. Specifically in the neck. Could this eye for an eye, throat for a throat, manhood for a manhood be a quality of Dunk, of Flea Bottom's fighting style? I love that observation. I thought that was really good. And also, I think this idea of, like, body parts for body parts is something we will talk about in the finale as well.

[Mallory Rubin]

Certainly. I don't think that Dunk is capable of conscious thought in these stretches. I think he has gone to a different plane of.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree he's doing his best, but.

[Mallory Rubin]

It'S a. I, I, I like the observation.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's like poetry. It rhymes. Indeed. Indeed.

[Mallory Rubin]

Aryan's like, bro's dead.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bro, yield. Dead. Okay. So he says yield.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And D. But he doesn't say yield. He's like, you know, it's like a roaring. Right. Ashay on History of Restros was like, said. It sounded to her like the Bene Gesserit voice.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh.

[Joanna Robinson]

But to me, because when I'm not thinking about Beesbury, I'm thinking about the Scarecrow. It's to me, it's very Scarecrow Fear toxin. Batman begins like that. That like, like Duncan sees Aryan, like, transform into a dragon at that point. He's just, like, roaring at him. So good.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's awesome. Did Aran have a briefcase?

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, a morning star is a briefcase of sorts.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree.

[Joanna Robinson]

Also, Dunk looks up in his, like, haze. He looks up at the stands, and I'm like, is he looking for Egg? It's very sad.

[Mallory Rubin]

Egg is ready to support him. He shouts, get up. Just as Arlen had. Right. Egg adds a Sir Duncan here, which is something that Arlen could not have done for him. And so that is a bit of progress in Dunk's life here. And just the melding of the different people in Dunk's life who have helped to pull him up out of some terrible circumstance. Rafe encouraging him to leave, Arlen, Egg, etc.

[Joanna Robinson]

Our listener Yousef said, as we've tracking these, like, mini nightings, right?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Says, what is get up if not arise? Arise, Sir Duncan.

[Mallory Rubin]

Love it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

All Egg needs to see is a blink.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dunk is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Egg's got great eyesight and can project very well.

[Mallory Rubin]

He does not have purple eyes, but he still has great eyesight. And he's like, the only person.

[Joanna Robinson]

He was the carrots that Derek threw into the stand.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great for your. Great for your vision. And he screams. He shrieks out weight just as the horn is about to blow. Like, we're down to milliseconds before dunk has it's 4, 5.

[Joanna Robinson]

I feel like the guy was like. It started. You know what I mean? It's like a half a note. Yeah. Like a little kazoo.

[Mallory Rubin]

And Dunk rises and he has finally. We talked about this adaptive change that the crowd isn't with him yet. Like they were in the novella initially. And so it builds toward this crescendo of up, up, up, up. And then Arian has to lower his helm. As defeated and exhausted as a character has ever been.

[Joanna Robinson]

Finn Bennett did such a good job with this. The idea that, like, all the adrenaline is gone and he's just like, oh, my God, go.

[Mallory Rubin]

And they just, like, kind of, like fall toward each other because they have not a red of energy left.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was so. And dunk, like, dunk again. That. That again that, like, brand. No chance, no choice. Like, just bring the sword up.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I also love that, like that shout out to Steely Pate Aryan gets a hit off the, like, gorget, right? Like that, like that. That deflects the blow or whatever. But, like. Like, pretty quickly, like, Dunk's not trying to sword fight, right. He's trying to get in close so he can dunk a flea bottom. Fight him in the mud. So.

[Mallory Rubin]

And it works.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Takes that shield. I got a couple texts from people who are like, how did. Dunk's really strong and that shield should be made of. But shouldn't he have just basically, like, decapitated Ar in there? And like, well, he's chipping off parts of his.

[Joanna Robinson]

Taking all his teeth out. Like, threaten with bashing him with his.

[Mallory Rubin]

Man nailed fists in the face. Very violent, very good. And. And Arian yields, and Dunk looks around and he's disbelieving and he knows he's got to drag him over. And this is a great line from the book, as he is just humiliating him. By the time he reached the viewing stand where Lord Ashford sat, the bright prince was brown as a privy. Delightful stuff. Arian withdraws his accusation. The horn sounds, and it is over. And Dunk wonders to himself, I am a knight now. In truth, he remembered wondering, am I a champion? Champion of Ashram Meadow? Just never in the way that he thought he'd be, and certainly not with the consequences that we are about to witness. Because Egg, Steelypate and Raymond help Dunk leave the tourney field, his shattered shield in view, and they take him to.

[Joanna Robinson]

The blue medical tent where he asks the most important question.

[Mallory Rubin]

What's up with Humphrey? Is Humphrey Peasberry okay? Turns out he's not in the books.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is where he also asks about Darren, which he doesn't do here. Right, but he asks about Darren and Prince Darren. Doug blurted. Did he survive? Dazed and confused as he was. Great movie. Dung felt a huge sense of relief. Quote, his dream was wrong. Then the dead dragon. Unless Aryan died. He didn't though, did he? No, said Egg. You spared him. Do you remember? I suppose. Already his memories of the fight were becoming confused and vague. So this idea of like, ah, the prophecy. We escaped it. Aryon didn't die, you know, Darren got stepped on by his horse but didn't die. You know, I saw Maekar. He's fine. Baelor. Baelor's here.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, he's here to tell us not to pour oil into a wound.

[Joanna Robinson]

Stealy paint.

[Mallory Rubin]

Use wine instead. Yeah, I love that moment, too. And that brief beat of relief. He's like, oh, wash and go. He did them also, like before the horror.

[Joanna Robinson]

That when you keep referencing concussion protocols when you're inside Dung's head in this part of the book, like, he is so out of it and he's just sort of like half talking, half thinking the whole time. And Egg's like, you don't remember. I know.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's like, wait, you don't remember? That's worrying. Almost as worrying as Darren not remembering that he already told you he dreamed of you. Balor is here with the wine info. He's going to send the maester over and Dunk is ready to make a plan. Pledge. He sees Balor Breakspeare and he. Despite the. The extent of his injuries and the state that he is in, saying that he feels like he's about to die, he forces himself to. To move over to Baylor, right? He brings himself to him and he kneels in front of him. Carlos, can we see this?

[Joanna Robinson]

Your Grace, I am your man. Please. Your man. I need good men.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sir Duncan.

[Joanna Robinson]

The realm.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, I have chills. We talked about this on Talk the Thrones. But this slight adaptive change in the book, he's basically just like, gripping Raymond to try to, like, stand up, but to have Dunk kneel in front of him and to have Balor put his hand on Dunk's shoulder where the sword would be. Another one of these mini nightings along the way. And another reminder that whatever Arlen did or didn't do doesn't fucking matter. Matter to Dunk, but the choices Dunk makes are what matters. And the people who recognize the impact of the way that Dunk has chosen to live his life. That is the lesson. And so they make this mutual pledge here and this, like, absolutely agonizing, literal. Seconds before the helm comes off, glimpse into this, like, possible future that they're not gonna get to have. That Balor is a man who Dunk thinks worthy of standing by. And that Balor's like, you're the kind of guy I want in the kingdom I'm gonna rule.

[Joanna Robinson]

But not just that. It's like. Not just like, I need good men. The realm needs good men.

[Mallory Rubin]

You will make this realm worthy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right. And it's like Baelor walking in and saving Dunk's life again as he does so.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't pour boiling oil on it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Not oil.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's not the move. Right. Boiling wine also sounds not fun. But I'm not a maester.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't tell that to Kyburn.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't use maggots. I don't know, but I think that him. Him coming in, saving Dunk's life and then thinking about the realm and thinking about his brother, you know, like he's thinking about. I love that detail, you know, Strong, strong. The realm needs good men. Like, thinking about all these other people, not himself. And he's dying.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know. I love that little. The way that he's smiling when he's. Because they're like, oh, boy, this is smashed in back here. Yeah, that smile. As he said, my brother's mace. Most like, he's strong like that pride that he feels in Maekar, despite how. I mean, we have seen their relationship is a complicated one. But that. That love is there. All of this, everything that you're saying, it just heightens the tragedy to, like, an almost unbearable but very Thronesian degree. They pull the helm up and the back of his skull's missing. It's gone and falls off to the floor.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say, great recap. I will say that's what happened. Let's hand it to Ira Parker for having the restraint of not doing, like, a gloopy. We don't see, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, no, it's kind of a missing part. It's missing, gone.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's kind of still in the helm because we don't see or hear anything like, glop onto the floor, but it's gone.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's gone. Brain's not there. A queer troubled across.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, God.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, he's a collector. That's true. It's canon.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's canon.

[Mallory Rubin]

A queer, troubled look passed across Baelor Breakspear's face like a cloud passing before a sun. I love that description. Just thinking of him as a Sun like this, this bright force in this very dark world and that that is then and shrouded and blighted out. It's just all really sad. And Balor falls into Dunk's arms. And Dunk is repeating the get up refrain that we heard from Arlen and we heard from Ag. And it doesn't work because Balor's brain is not in his head anymore. And it's a little bit of, you know, Dunk is like, one need not intend harm to do it. I didn't think that any of this was going to happen. And so to get back to the dream. Yeah, Darren's dream. You have that moment of relief and then the horror of recognition washing over him. I dreamed of you, Darren had said in episode four. I have seen you, sir, in a fire and a dead dragon, a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow. It had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead. Did I kill it? That I could not say. In a way, it's like in a way, tragic, vintage shocking Thrones death. But then this question of guilt and why and how and who.

[Joanna Robinson]

I saw some people who were unspoiled. Yes. That Baylor was going to die based on just like the math of Thrones, but also like this prophecy. And it's like, yeah. Oh, who would be the most interesting Targaryen to die here?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And who's a great beast?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. The wings so large they could cover the meadow.

[Mallory Rubin]

We had mentioned earlier in the season, we had read this passage talking about where we are in the Targaryen line. Here, here, quote, King Daeron the Good had four grown sons, three with sons of their own. The line of the dragon kings had almost died out during his father's day. But it was commonly said that Darren II and his sons had left it secure for all time. The heir to the Iron Throne and hand of the king. Baelor break spears. Brain falling out at Ashford Meadow is good news. How things start to change. A son.

[Joanna Robinson]

Valar.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And three brothers.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're fine.

[Mallory Rubin]

Book spoilers.

[Joanna Robinson]

This again, as we said, is going.

[Mallory Rubin]

To be like a Russian nesting doll.

[Joanna Robinson]

Matryoshka. Levels of spoilers inside of this section. But this is. We're about to do traditional spoilers before we get to the very end. Oops. Don't give secrec to a small child. Spoilers correct.

[Mallory Rubin]

Have you left? Are you gone? If you don't want book spoilers, this is your time to leave us. Okay. Darren's dream. So We've seen it. It's happened. And yet, in case anybody didn't listen to the pod after episode four where we talked about this in the book section, that fire line, which is a show ad, still feels like this is also going to apply.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've seen you, sir, and a fire. And so, like, it could be the funeral pyre that we're gonna get in the next week's episode, which they've, like, shown in photos and stuff like that. We are gonna burn him in the next week's episode. But Summerhall, the tragedy of Summerhall, which is this thing that Aegon, King Aegon, because, spoiler alert, it does not go fine with all the brothers and the sons that are in his way. Fourth son of a fourth son, he becomes the king and he creates this big conflagration at Summerhall. Our listener Sophie wrote in this, as you both discussed on the Pod, despite Dunk's bumbling inefficiencies with formal religion, formal religion, the faith of the Seven is heavily present here in the story. The trial of the Seven specifically invokes the God's favors, the God's presence in the netting of the words, blah, blah, constant mentioning, blah, blah. This could be connected to your discussed theory of the seven gods being present here at Ashford in some form. There is evidence in both the Game of Thrones show and A Song of Ice and Fire books that divine intervention is possible. Jon resurrection in Game of Thrones, again, that's in the show. But Beric Dondarrion's resurrection's in A Song of Ice and Fire, the many face God, etc. So my question for you two is this. Could divine intervention be happening here at the trial of Seven? Sparing Dung's foot at the expense of Baelor's life, perhaps knowing that that very foot will bring the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, and thus, if you believe this, fulfill the prince that was promised? Or is this just a series of human tribes compiling as coincidences or accidents and then lead to the circumstances of the Mother of Dragons?

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, we've been saying it all season. He's got to keep the foot to punt Rhaegar out of Summerhall. Jon can't be born otherwise. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, it reminds me of, you know, everything that happens in book one and season one with Dany and the decision she makes with Drogo and Mirri, and then if that's a horrible mistake and something that she'll lament. But if that doesn't happen, then does the funeral pyre happen and are the dragons born in that exact way? And the dreams and the prophecy that are. Yeah, I think the role of prophecy in the story. Fate, it's kind of. I think that one of the many things that makes George genuinely such a master is his ability to navigate and thread and entwine choice and consequence with the idea of fate and prophecy. It's God Tier.

[Joanna Robinson]

We've been talking about this idea all season, and it's constantly been reminding me of the like for want of a nail verse. Right. For want of a nail, the shoe was, like, lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy. All for want of care about a horse, shoe, nail. Or like, there are other versions where it's like, the kingdom was lost. So, like, for. For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. And this sort of like, what are the cascading effects of Sir Duncan the Tall or Dunk of Flea Bottom showing up to Ashford Meadow and all of the ripples down history that come from there.

[Mallory Rubin]

Does somebody rebel against the Targaryens? Eventually, yeah. Is it Robert's Rebellion? Is it Rhaegar? Is it Lyanna? Is it the Mad King? If this exact thing doesn't happen here, I mean.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. Not in that exact fashion.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, it's fascinating stuff. And I wish Baelor had lived, but, you know, Brain had to fall out tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

On the Blackfyre front, the setup for Sworn Sword and Mystery Knight and just in general beyond, because we have many a Blackfyre rebellion in our future. I think that Dunk's swearing his sword to Ser Eustace, to a Blackfyre pretender, to a Black Dragon supporter. In the second season, in the second novella is gonna feel a little bit different now. Like, I think him kind of.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's been at the Redgrass. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And just the level of awareness. Cause a lot of it in the novella is like, he's recalling things that Arlen has told him. But, like, he was around for this and. Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And wasn't four years old.

[Mallory Rubin]

And wasn't four years old. So I just think. But in a way that ultimately I think will heighten the second season in some ways.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think I'm really excited for all the Blackfyre stuff that we get in the future.

[Mallory Rubin]

And certainly he'll have more motivation at White Walls. In the third season, in Mystery Night.

[Joanna Robinson]

I saw a great. I saw a great tweet where in the trailer for Next Week's episode, we get Lyonel Baratheon saying, like, you know, he risked nothing. You know what I mean? Like, talking about Baelor, he's like, he was a prince, like, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I saw someone on Twitter was like, ira Parker's very certain he's getting 13 seasons of this show. Right. Because Lionel Baratheon will eventually rebel against the throne. But it's just sort of like. So they're planting that seed there in the finale with like, it's actually like.

[Mallory Rubin]

A pretty weird energy from Lionel. If they're not like, we're definitely. Well, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, I think we'll have to. I don't want to judge it based on the trailer. I think we'll have to see it in context if it makes sense. We also got this email from Clint. I put it here because talking about the future seasons and the Blackfyre rebellions, Clint says, do you have any worries for season two? It doesn't have any major reveals like Egg being a Targaryen or the Crown Prince dying unexpectedly. It's a pretty small scale story over disputed territory. Will the show need to expand Blood Raven or larger political tension to raise the impact? Any thoughts about that? Is it all down to like one extremely hot ginger in her braid to like, like that braid?

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, there are like, there's a lot of. I think we both are incredibly fond of. Of Sworn Sword. I think it is definitely a subtler story, no question. I mean, the one with the least worries is like by. By Season 3 by Mystery Knight. It's just like you're doing a blackfire rebellion. Like season three, Oops, we did a blackfire rebellion inside. I was like, I can't probably like, I can't believe in a year, a year from now, I guess do the second Black Friday rebellion. That's actually nuts. That's awesome.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, Blood Raven is so, so incredibly sick. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to have Blood Raven girl show up.

[Mallory Rubin]

I just think expanding a lot of Blackfire stuff either. Yeah. Incorporating Blood Raven sooner or doing the first rebellion flashbacks I think is probably a way to do it. But there is a lot of action in, in the second Nolla and I think there's just a lot of rich themes, you know, and a lot of sexiness. And you're hoping David Dennis and Bennis and David Tennant as Bennis of Brown Shield. Yeah, why not? Why not?

[Joanna Robinson]

Dare to dream, Roger.

[Mallory Rubin]

Speaking of Mystery Night, you know, everything that happened, Gorman Peake, who killed Roger, who Bashed his fucking face in with the. You know, he's gonna. He's a character. He's coming to us in season three in the third novella.

[Joanna Robinson]

So that's.

[Mallory Rubin]

It feels very intentional that we've gotten a couple Roger mentions here because Duncan is like, I can avenge Roger of Penny tree.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Whoa. And, you know, specifically sword. I mean, that would be just great. Wouldn't that be great?

[Joanna Robinson]

He's like, you see, this is a penny tree.

[Mallory Rubin]

And he's so guilty, like, about taking Roger's place. You know, that's like, on his mind in the. In the third novella. So I think that'll be very rich and rewarding. And I'm glad we got a couple Roger moments here. Arian's groin. We couldn't outright say this on Talk of Thrones. Chris was, like, searching his dick off. It's like, he's gotta have a kid.

[Joanna Robinson]

You did a great job hedging that. You're like, I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't know. They change the kid canon in the show sometimes. Sometimes we think we're getting kids and then we don't. This has happened in House of the Dragon already. It's hard to make Egg king at a great council if certain key participants and other contenders are not there. So, like Aryan, it was very like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Being like being Maegor.

[Mallory Rubin]

The cruel kind of has to happen. They have to dismiss him because he's Arian's kid and they think he's going to be a monster.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right upper inner thigh.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure kept the dick really hurt. But Dick is still. Dick is still there. He can his way through lease. Good for him.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great job. We got a few versions of this. Okay, this one. This particular One comes from J.C. who wrote. I also believe that Dunk has not having been properly kn. Is brilliant. Because what this allows for is for Dunk's first true knighting to be when he becomes a member of the Kings Guard. A moment I truly hope we get to witness. Ira Parker's latest. Yes, please. Job security.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're gonna have to cradle me in your arms. I'll be sobbing like a fucking baby.

[Joanna Robinson]

The rite for making a new member of the White Swords can vary. It can be a solemn, informal event in which the knight kneels as he makes his vows before the king. So if Egg gets to be the one to knight officially Knight Ser Duncan the Tall, the best will be messes. Pause. I would love to see it.

[Mallory Rubin]

We will get to see this because we fucking deserve to see it. Because the show Is great. And they're to keep making it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's the deeper, darker level of the spoiler.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm sorry, I just wish I did not know this. And I don't blame a small child on a press tour for saying a thing he shouldn't have said. I wish this were not out in the world. No, I'd seen this on the Internet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. You had already seen it. Okay, great. Here comes.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you don't want to know about this thing, this is not a spoiler from the book. It's something that someone said about the future of the story. Leave the deck.

[Joanna Robinson]

Spoiler. So. So actually my pal Megan o', Keefe, who you cited earlier in here, it was Megan Decider was interviewing back in October at New York Comic Con, essentially was interviewing. But. But as she put it on Twitter this week, it broke containment.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Was interviewing Peter Claffy and Dexter and they were making puppets.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

So?

[Mallory Rubin]

And it always comes back to puppets. Always comes back to puppets.

[Joanna Robinson]

And basically, as Peter is trying to get Dex to shut up, he reveals that George R.R. martin told them. And listen, George changes his mind.

[Mallory Rubin]

Leave if you don't want to hear this. Leave if you don't want to hear this.

[Joanna Robinson]

George R. Martin told them that Dunk survives Summerhall. Not only that. Yeah, he's like. But we're not sure about Egg. So not only are we saying Dunk definitely survives, we. Which there's a new new Lord Commander, Commander of the Kingsguard a year later. Right. So like the history books believe Dunk died at Summerhall. That's like sort of been the common perception. And that King Aegon Egg also died at Summerhall. But maybe. But what if he didn't? Right, so here's the email we got from.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maybe I just got in a boat. Like Laenor.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. He's just being gay somewhere else. Right. Texan. So we think Lenar is dead because of sea smoke. Okay. Being gay for a while and then dying anyway. Okay. Tex says, at first I wasn't wild about Dunk surviving Summerhall. It felt like it spoiled the whole star crossed tragedy of Dunk and Egg dying together. Like if Egg's coin had started flipping madness side up. There's a certain romanticist quality to Dunk saving his best friend. Friend by killing. Killing with him. Killing him or dying with him and then dying with him. A loyalty so absolute and a friendship so deep that you can't separate the knight from his squire. But after last night's episode, I've been reflecting back on that idea and it's changed my mind. I think it was seeing how they mirrored Dunk following Arlen with Egg following Dunk because history believes Dunk did die at Summerhall. For him to survive that night, it can only mean one thing. After Summerhall, after possibly killing his closest and oldest friend, the closest thing Dunk ever had to a brother, Dunk goes back to being a hedge knight. It makes for such a beautiful, bittersweet book to the beginning of the story. How he first met him bearing Sir Arlen, how Ser Arland told him that a hedgehog is the truest kind of knight. Like Arlen, Dunk's eventual death is anonymous and unremarked. So do great knights sleep in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road? I think yes. The greatest of all knights does. So I do love this idea of Dunk going on the road and like, the closing shot of the last season of the show being Dunk under a tree. Under a tree or on the horse riding down the road, just like, you know, I'll let them think I died and I'm a hedge knight now.

[Mallory Rubin]

Imagine how beautiful it would be if it came to you via novella or surprise sensational television show and not a resurface with a child's interview. Because I don't blame him.

[Joanna Robinson]

He was.

[Mallory Rubin]

George told him. Why is George. Why did George tell it?

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, remember at Comic Con, George is like, I do remember King Aegon. Everyone on stage was like, ooh, boy. Okay, so Dunk survives, becomes a hedge knight.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anonymously. Right. Lets everyone thinks he's dead. And then he's like, I'm just gonna hedge knight around until I die.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Canonically, Egg was 59 when he died at Summerholt. Is there any version of the story that makes any kind of sense? That Egg is with him, that they're like, let's go back on the road together. I think it's irresponsible for King Aegon to be. To be responsible for the death of so many people and be like, off to have an adventure. Bye. But if done, Punk heroically punts Rhaegar out of Summer hall and, like, you know, kills his best friend.

[Mallory Rubin]

Now, he doesn't need to punt him.

[Joanna Robinson]

Whatever.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's not gonna die in the fight. He can use those feet. That's why he has the feet, I guess, to walk out to Radar doesn't even have to punt him and then be claimed by the flame.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm sorry, you know, this.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I don't like, you know, yeah. Dex is like, we don't know if Egg survived. I don't think Aegon should survive the tragedy.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree. Strikes me as a maybe George hasn't decided.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, I also think George hasn't decided whether or not Dunk survives, to be honest with you. And he's just saying because that's what George does sometimes. That's all.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great moment in the history of the Internet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Spoilers of there's another I won't. I don't want to give it. Do I want to give it to you? I think this isn't a spoiler. Tell me an interview with Tanzan Crawford, who plays Tanzel, and Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk. As we all know, they were sort of like, asked about because Tanzel is off to Dorne, we won't see her again this season. And so. And there's line in the novella about, like the last line going, going off to Dorne or whatever. And so Peter Calaffey was sort of intimating, like, I believe, like, George has kind of told him, like, Tenzel will be in the. Like, I always assumed that was the case. But like, that George told him so like, that Tanzan might come back for another season. And we get to see Duncan Tenzel together and think of all the possibilities. Like, think about, like, if in season five, Raymond Fossoway crops up.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what I mean?

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, and definitely Lionel Baratheon. You know what I mean? Characters that we're meeting now, you know, seeing Red and Raymond again, like, we see them all.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't want Makear and I mean Lionel, of course, but I don't want Makar to be the only guy who exactly is in our lives. That would be insane.

[Joanna Robinson]

See Aryan again if we want to. I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

It did on the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because they.

[Mallory Rubin]

We know from the beginning of Sworn Sword that they do in fact go to Doran and spend time there and we get some very sad horse stuff. I had a moment before they officially did announce, like, we're adapting Sworn Sword for season two, where I was like, I wonder if they'll do a Doran's story for season two. Because since they don't have more novellas yet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think then is that the answer to this? The Sworn Sword is a little uninteresting. Is episode one could be Dunk losing his V card and Dorne to Tan Cell.

[Mallory Rubin]

The Dunk that we met in this episode. I.

[Joanna Robinson]

They.

[Mallory Rubin]

They're teenagers living together. They haven't.

[Joanna Robinson]

They haven't. No. Dunk is canonically a virgin. Don't don't get me with your C. Rogers.

[Mallory Rubin]

Anyway, and yet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, and then, yeah, the Henry Caval thing, I will just say there was like an ambiguous, like, back and forth, confusing, cut out of context sort of interview where it seemed like, if you wanted to interpret it this way, Dex was implying that Henry Cavill. Because Henry Cavill has long been a dream cast for Damon Blackfyre. So, like, it seemed that Dex was sort of intimating that Henry Cavill was going to show up in a later season. Peter's like, don't say that. We shouldn't say that. Right? And then Peter Claffy came out and like, clarified that that's not what he was talking about, which I actually kind of believe. Like, I actually don't think Henry Cavill is going to show up as Damon Blackfyre. Like, I don't. I thought would be kind of weird Highlander right now. He's got things to do and heads to Chop. But, like, but the fact that Peter clarified that and not the Summer hall thing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Means the Summer Hole thing is definitely true.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very, very, very tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

So, George, that has been the more. Even more spoiler spoiler section of this podcast.

[Mallory Rubin]

All timer. We did it. We did. Great stuff. I can't believe we only have one episode of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms left. I'm despondent.

[Joanna Robinson]

I can't believe this podcast wasn't for hours.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're welcome. I knew we'd come in right at three today. All right, thank you. Thank you to Carlos, as always. Thank you to Arjuna, as always, Jomi, as always. And Sarah, who not only is with us today to help, but as you already mentioned, binge the entire season so.

[Joanna Robinson]

Far had to sit through the spoiler section. Not ideal.

[Mallory Rubin]

Not ideal. Sorry about that. Join us on Sunday for Talk the Thrones on the finale right after the finale, and then we will be with you on Tuesday night next week. Tuesday evening for our deep dive into episode six of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. We will be with you in the meantime for Buffy Season three, Part two. That's it. Get up. Bye.